Steve Rogers ( One-shots and short stories)

Arctic

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: none :)

A/N: This is a submission for a Mermaid challenge! My prompt was Arctic !

Word Count: 1.2k

Deep blue water surrounded you, the temperature of the water not bothering you one bit, your body was made to survive in this climate. When people picture mermaids usually they are pretty with long flowing hair and coconut shells, you wouldn't ever find a coconut shell where you lived. The arctic was home to some amazing creatures, you being one and humans of a very low percentage, they never stayed too long here.

You didn't have seashells in your hair or sunny rocks to lie on, you lived in the cold Arctic waters. Your hair filled with icicles the second it touched air, your skin was deep blue for camouflage for predators. Your nails and teeth sharp like weapons for hunting, and defending yourself from any poachers who got too close to you or an Arctic Seal.

You couldn't stand most humans that came here, being able to read auras among other things you could sense their greed and violent thoughts from a mile away. On the particular day you were sat on the edge of a piece of floating ice, enjoying the crisp air on your skin as you were coated in a layer of ice, twirling your hair as it froze quickly. You looked up to the clouds, noticing nothing unusual except a plane in the distance, this one looked like an army type plane, you didn't see many planes fly over the Arctic, usually just the small ones with research teams or poachers. As much as you loved when you sensed the research teams, their auras filled with curiosity, excitement and usually a general tiredness from their endeavours. You always wanted to go up to them, give them something interesting to write about but you could never risk it, humanity finding out about your kind was a death sentence, a one way trip to a lab in Washington or a zoo in New York.

You were distracted by your thoughts when you noticed the planes nose had turned down and was heading straight for the oceans frozen waters you called home, it looked as though it would land right near you, just close enough to the ice that it wouldn't sink to far down so you did the only thing you could think. You sawm down deep and waited for the impact, hoping it would stay close to the surface and not hit you. As the plane got closer you couldn't hear the noise from underwater but you sensed the aura of the man on the plane, just one man on that whole plane. You could sense a fear but also a certain type of peace, like he was satisfied that he was crashing. You felt loss like he was losing someone he loved as he fell, you sensed his desperation like he was tired and out of options, you also felt one of the purest auras you had ever encountered.

Moments later you saw the impact before you heard it, saw the bubbles form at the surface like it was slow motion. Then you heard the crash, the waves and currents of water coming towards you. Next you felt it, felt the waters force push you deeper into the water. You were drawn to the man inside, so you pushed against the current, swimming to the plane rapidly filling with water. It filled halfway and seemed to have stopped when you made your way inside.

He would be frozen forever but at least he wouldn't drown. You swam through the water making your way around the strange machine. You finally found the man, bruised and bloodied from the crash but still half conscious, slowly freezing to his chair. You swam up and used your arms to sort of perch yourself on his lap. You grabbed his face enrapturing his cheeks as his lidded eyes looked at you, no fear or judgment, he just seemed happy not be dying alone, no matter if you were a figment of his imagination or not. Then he smiled and you copied his facial expression, sat there just taking in his aura, the man in front of you was freezing to death but somehow he still emitted this warmth, this good feeling and you couldn't get enough of it but it broke your heart to feel it slowly fading. You tried to comfort him, rubbing a thumb across his cheek without cutting him, and although you were cold blooded you wanted to keep him warm but you couldn't. You were helpless and hopeless.

His skin was paling and turning a light shade of blue but his heart still thumped lightly, he was dying you thought, you knew he was. "Thank you." He muttered quietly but you couldn't reply, couldn't speak his language so you just mimicked his words, screwing them up a bit. You knew a lot about humans, you could read their auras and minds but you had never spoken out the words you heard or knowledge you learned, most other mermaids had no interest in humans.

"Thank you."

His eyes closed, he was no longer conscious but you could still feel his aura, still feel his heart beating oh so lightly. Who was this mysterious frozen man who fell from the sky?

For the next seventy years you would check on him regularly, really there wasn't much else to do. The water inside had long frozen so unless it was safe enough to leave the water you could only swim to the underneath and get as close as you could to feel his faint aura. You stopped any hostile animals which could harm him from getting in, you checking his heartbeat which never stopped lightly thrumming as the years went on.

70 years later, after that fateful day when you watched him fall from the sky you noticed another plane land and before you knew it there were so many soldiers walking around a short distance from the plane. Swimming from one open spot of water to another, watching them work and search. You wanted to get out of the water, jump out and yell at them to find the man and help him but you couldn't resort to that just yet. It was snowy, the blizzard making it impossible to see. There was a wing of the plane exposed but it was too covered in snow for them to notice. Later that night you took it upon yourself to remove the snow, crawling out of the water until your fin turned to legs the bottom of your feet giving you little traction on the snow, it wasn't often you left the water. Then you lifted yourself onto the wing using your hands to brush off the heavy layers of snow and using your sharp nails to chip large chunks of ice off, by the time you were done you knew they would spot it.

You went back the water, watching from a distance through the blurry snow storm. You watched them make a light path to the wing, watched them break their way into the frozen doors, something even you couldn't manage recently. The you fatefully waited until they pulled his body out of the plane and to safety, to warmth. You felt both happy and saddened as you could slowly feel his aura getting too far from you to read, too far that you couldn't feel the heartbeat you had felt for the last 70 years. Maybe he would remember you, maybe he would come back one day, but you figured this man that survived being frozen for 70 years was probably an important person, the humans would probably need him.