MARVEL & DC IMAGINES

] what we find in the water [

[arthur curry x reader]

author's note: was on the fence about writing for arthur cuz i wasn't sure if i could do it justice (ha) but i dunno, i kinda like how this one came out, especially for how unsure i was when i started it. i think that's the way it always tends to go. shaky starts, and then you settle into it

word count: 1,783

-

His image is painted on the far wall of the tiny hall. At every town meeting, you're in the back, standing right next to it, tracing the lines with your finger. You never pay much attention to what goes on, for you don't have anything to contribute. So your mind wanders: somewhere far away, settling upon thoughts of the water crashing against the rocks, upon thoughts of the man who emerges from the sea every winter. Like clockwork.

He's done so for as long as you can remember. Without him, winters would be a lot worse. The nets wouldn't catch much, and it would be a struggle getting through the colder months. As such, you're all grateful to him for providing food because he never asks anything in return. But what could you pay him back with? What could possibly be good enough for the protector of the oceans? A remote village such as yours doesn't have much to offer to begin with. The least that could be done was making sure he knew he was always welcome here, and he did. But he still kept his visits to the winter. You wish he visited more often than that.

People stand on the shore to greet him when he comes, you among them. But much like during town meetings, you stick to the back of the crowd, peeking over the shoulders of others. It was tougher to do so when you were younger and shorter, and instead of seeing him make that same walk up onto land, you merely heard it instead: the way the water shifted gently as he broke the surface, the way it lapped against his heels as he reached shallower depths, until finally he was on level ground like all the rest of you. He always went to the pub and spent most of his time there. He still does.

Your body seems to know winter is just around the bend before your mind even processes the fact, for it's buzzing, your whole body warm all over and you're practically sweating in the thick coat you wear to fend off the increasingly chilly air. It's anticipation, you realize. It's been conditioned in you to expect the man in the water. You wonder if anyone else has such a reaction to the impending season, to the annual visitor. At first you didn't quite know why it happened. You'd hold your hand up and watch the way your fingers twitched like you had too much caffeine. Were you nervous? But there was nothing to be afraid of. It was clear as day he has never, nor will he ever, mean any harm. Besides, you doubt he knows you exist. You've always kept to the back and out of sight, watching him from a distance but never actively searching the town for him. If you saw him, you saw him. Simple as that.

So perhaps it's because you realize the gravity of him being here at all. You're no stranger to the forces at work throughout the rest of the world. There was Batman. There was Wonder Woman. There was Superman. And many still unknown, harnessing their powers, figuring out what it means to have them, what to do with them. Then there was the savior of your little village, whose actions spoke much louder than his words (which were precisely zero, or at least very close to that). You're in the middle of practically nowhere, hours from the nearest town inland, and he'd found you all, set you in his sights. A reminder that people with extraordinary abilities don't just work in big cities with buildings you can't even begin to imagine the heights of. Maybe that's why when winter approaches and his visit draws near, you feel like you can't breathe and you're shaking but not from the cold. Because when you look at him, you see your own superhero.

You've never spoken to him before. Admittedly, the nerves always eat away at you and you can't. Your brother does though. Mostly because he's one of the people in charge of reeling in the nets full of fish and the man from the water will go up to them and make sure it's enough. And it's always enough. Always more than enough.