Bucky's mouth was on him the second Steve slammed him against the rocks. Kissing, biting, and whispering filthy suggestions in Steve's ear.

Steve groaned as he slotted their bodies together, pushing Bucky more firmly into the rocks. He was pretty sure Bucky's back would be bruised by morning, but Bucky wasn't complaining with the way he looped his arms around Steve's neck and pulled him closer.

"So gorgeous," Steve murmured.

Bucky smirked and pressed another kiss to Steve's jaw. "Yeah, you are." He arched his back and rocked his hips forward, lightly stroking his tail over Steve's.

God, Bucky felt so good against him.

Steve's hands moved lower, tracing over the spot where skin met scales. Bucky had always been sensitive there. Just a few light touches usually left him a mewling mess.

Bucky threw his head back with a keening wail. "Stevie, please."

And then Steve started rutting against him in earnest.

Bucky's hands twitched over Steve's back and his tail thumped rhythmically against the rocks in time with Steve's hips. "God, yes. So fucking good."

It was the best sex Steve remembered having in a long time. Usually they made sure to be quiet and unobtrusive so the rest of the pod wouldn't be grossed out. And while it had started as a fun game to see how much they could get away with without anybody else noticing, after awhile, sex had gotten kind of boring. He had missed how vocal Bucky got when he was really worked up. All the sounds Bucky was making were really getting him worked up, too.

"Steve," Bucky said desperately.

That was it. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, letting Bucky's voice wash over him. He felt warm and relaxed, ready to drift off to sleep.

But then Bucky gently nipped at his earlobe. "Damn, Steve. We really went at it."

Steve pried open his eyelids and gazed at the swirling, murky water around them. "Wow," he agreed.

"And just think. All those bubbles might be babies."

"What?" Steve said. Sex usually tended to shut his brain down for a few minutes, but he was sure Bucky wasn't making sense anyway.

Bucky rested his head against Steve's chest. "Just watching you take care of that human makes me a little sad I can't make babies with you. You'd be a great father, you know."

"So would you."

Bucky snorted. "I don't have the patience for kids."

"Neither do I."

"But maybe-"

Steve silenced him with a sharp nip to his flank. "I'm not looking after that man because of some secret longing for a brood of children. I don't want children. I just want you."

Bucky shrugged. "Someone's got to start making babies or our pod's just going to die out."

"Not our problem," Steve said. "Stop worrying about it and just relax with me."

"Can't." Bucky's stomach growled and he shot Steve a sheepish smile. "All that exercise worked up my appetite."

Now that Steve thought about it, he was a little hungry, too. He reached down and plucked a piece of kelp and devoured it. "Problem solved."

He leaned in to kiss Bucky, but Bucky pulled back with a grimace. "Not kissing you right after you put that disgusting crap in your mouth. And if you even try to feed it to me, I'm smacking you over the head." With a look of great dignity, Bucky extracted himself from Steve's arms. "I'm going to catch myself a fish."

"Sure," Steve said, lounging against the rocks. "You do that. I'll be right here when you get back."

"You better be, gorgeous," Bucky said with a salacious grin. He darted off towards the reef with way too much energy after such mind-blowing sex.

Steve found a nice, flat rock and sprawled across it, falling asleep almost immediately.

It felt like only a few minutes later when a pair of hands started shaking him by the shoulders.

"Go to sleep, Buck," he grumbled. "You can't possibly be this frisky still."

"Er, no, it's me," Bruce said.

"Oh, hey, Bruce," Steve said sleepily. Belatedly, he remembered Bruce wanting to see the human."Just give me a few minutes."

"Actually, you should probably go check up on the humans right now. I think they're trying to kill each other."

Steve yawned and rolled over. "They can't be. I put them in separate spots."

"Well, Clint moved them all into the same cave to see what would happen."

Steve rocketed upwards. "You're kidding me," he growled. "Which cave?"

"The big one."

Steve swam as fast as he could toward the cave. When he surfaced, Clint and Bucky were at the water's edge, heads propped up on their arms as they watched the fight.

"Twelve clams on the crazy old guy," Clint said. "He's pretty damn vicious."

"Fuck that," Bucky said. "The other guy is younger and smarter. You just watch. He's going to fight circles around your guy."

Steve smacked them both upside the head. "You morons," he said. "You could have killed that man dragging him over here."

There was no way the angry human would have willingly allowed Bucky and Clint to take him anywhere so they probably had to knock him out to even get near him. Steve sighed unhappily. It was going to make gaining the human's trust even more difficult now.

"You worry too much, Stevie. He's fine. Just look at him." Bucky pointed to the angrily gesticulating human. "I mean, he's pissed as hell, but he's perfectly healthy."

Pissed as hell was right. The angry human's face was even redder than usual. Probably furious about being moved to a new spot and having to be stuck with a stranger. Steve would have thought they man might be happier in a bigger cave and having some company, but nothing seemed to make the man happier. And now he was probably taking out his poor attitude on the nicer human.

When Steve made for the shoreline to break up the fight, Bucky put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Steve. Just let them go at it for a little while. It's just some harmless fun."

"Bruce said they were trying to kill each other," Steve insisted. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Bruce is exaggerating," Clint said. "There isn't even any blood yet. Kind of disappointing if you ask me."

Steve cuffed him upside the head again. "If you want to see blood, goad some sharks into a fight."

"Calm down," Bucky said firmly. "Just watch with us a bit. If things get out of hand, we'll break it up. Otherwise, lighten up. You've always wanted to see how humans interact with each other, right? Here's your chance."

"Not like this," Steve said sulkily. "I don't want them getting hurt."

"Nobody's getting hurt," Bucky assured him. "It's mostly been yelling and the wild arm-waving. Right, Clint?"

Clint nodded. "Yup. Too busy yelling to care about what we're doing. Although the old guy was certainly mad at us at first. Almost threw all your guy's sticks at us before he stopped him."

It wasn't funny, but Steve couldn't help the little snort. What was with the angry guy and throwing things?

"And then the two of them started fighting over the sticks," Clint continued. "And yelling about god knows what. And after that they've pretty much been ignoring us and just fighting with each other."

Steve pursed his lips as he surveyed the scene. The angry, white-haired human was definitely in the nicer human's face, waving his arms wildly, jabbing a finger into his chest and shouting at him while his face turned purple with rage. But the nice human was holding his own, shouting right back and shoving the man away when he got too close.

"See?" Bucky said. "No more violent than when we scrap over territory."

"I suppose," Steve said, relaxing a little. He still felt sorry for the nicer human, being subjected to all that yelling. It felt a lot like one of those times Steve had done something risky and Bucky had shown up to lecture him on how he had almost been killed.

Oh, wow. That was exactly what it looked like.

"I think they're from the same pod," Steve said slowly. "A family pod."

"Aw, c'mon, Steve, you know the chances of that happening are-"

"No, just hear me out," Steve said firmly. "Don't you see how much they look alike?"

"All humans look alike to me," Clint said with a shrug.

Steve gave him an incredulous look. "They do not all look alike. Haven't you ever paid attention to all the different skin tones and hair colors and body shape? Humans are just as varied as we are. And these two are so similar. They both have the same skin tone and that little patch of facial hair above their mouths."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "A lot of humans have the facial hair."

"But not like this." Steve's eyes flicked between the two humans. "You remember when I told you this one was old enough to be our friend's father?"

"But that doesn't mean-"

"I didn't see it then," Steve said. "But it's clear to me now. They're obviously father and son. Can't you see how much they look alike?"

Clint and Bucky exchanged a look that clearly said they thought Steve was crazy.

"I gave you my word I wouldn't eat the nice one," Bucky said. "But if you're trying to guilt me out of eating the other guy by making him family to your-"

"He's his father!" Steve shouted. "Just look at him."

That was apparently the wrong thing to do because the angry human turned his attention to him, shouting and brandishing a stick while the younger human tried to hold him back.

"Now you've done it, Stevie," Bucky said with a sigh. He put some distance between him and the shoreline, moving just out of the human's throwing range.

"He's just trying to protect his son," Steve said, feeling a little of his irritation at the older human fade. "He thinks we're horrible monsters trying to eat his son and he's willing to fight us to keep him safe."

"All well and good," Clint said. "But that guy's been a jerk before he knew we had his son."

Steve shrugged. "Back then we were horrible monsters trying to eat him and he was just protecting himself."

There had to be some way Steve could prove himself to the other human, make him understand he was no threat to him or his son. Ah, maybe he could get through to him with a drawing. That had worked for the first human.

Steve picked up one of the sticks on the shoreline and the angry human immediately tensed up, moving in front of his son and bellowing at the top of his lungs.

"Steve!" Bucky shouted. "Get away from him. Can't you fucking-"

"Steve?" the younger human said loudly, an incredulous tone to his voice.

Bucky stared at him, whatever he had been about to say forgotten.

"That's right," Steve said. He put a hand to his chest. "Steve. My name is Steve."

"Steve!" the human exclaimed delightedly. He elbowed the other human and gestured to Steve.

The older man crossed his arms over his chest and muttered something under his breath while the younger human began speaking rapid-fire gibberish.

"What the hell?" Bucky swam forward cautiously. "Did that just happen?"

The younger man knelt down at the shoreline, shoving off his father's attempts to pull him back. He pointed a finger at himself. "Tony."

"Nice to meet you, Tony," Steve said with a wide grin. "This is Bucky." He clapped Bucky on the shoulder. "Bucky," he said again, slowly and carefully, so the human could hear every letter.

Tony regarded him for a long moment and then shrugged with a sheepish smile.

Steve's shoulders slumped. "Just for a minute, I thought we were communicating."

"You were," Bucky said. "Given a little time, I think you could get him speaking fluent mer."

"A little time?" Steve fought down the grin that threatened to break out. "Buck, do you mean it? He can stay awhile?"

"I said a little time," Bucky said gruffly. "Long enough for him to tell us where he lives, anyway. There's patches of land all over the place and we don't want to put him in some other human's territory."

Steve nodded solemnly. If human civilization operated at all like siren culture, the human could be attacked if he wound up in another pod's land.

"And the first moment he tells you he wants out of this place, you have to let him go. You got that, Steve?"

"Of course," Steve said. He wouldn't want the human to be miserable. As much as he would hate to see him go, he would never force him to stay.

"Good," Bucky said. "Now let's get rid of dear old dad so we can have an actual conversation with the guy."

"You can't do that," Steve protested with horror. "He's his father."

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, that came out wrong. I meant just shove him back in the other cave. Get him the hell out of here so he won't be interfering."

"And how are we going to explain that to Tony? For all he knows, you are taking his father away to eat him. And that's definitely how his dad will see it."

Bucky scowled. "Yeah, you're probably right. But there's no way we can get him talking with his dad hovering around, hating our guts." He stuck out his tongue in the older human's direction. "That's the problem, isn't it? We have to kick the dad out to teach him mer, but we can't get the dad out until he learns enough mer to understand why."

Steve slowly picked up the stick again, warily watching the older human for a reaction.

As expected, the man started ranting and raving again, but Tony shushed him, his focus on Steve's hand. He nodded his head and made a gesture for Steve to go on.

Steve first sketched out the current cave and added two human figures inside. He pointed first to Tony and then to his father.

Tony nodded slowly. "Tony," he said, pointing to himself. "Huwad," he said, pointing at his father.

"Okay, great," Steve said. "This is you and your father, Huwad. This is our cave right now." He started a sketch of the smaller cave and drew just Huwad's figure inside. "This is where we've been keeping your father."

Tony leaned forward and inspected the drawing. "Me?" he asked.

"Did you hear that, Buck?" Steve asked delightedly. "He's using actual words."

"Yeah, I heard," Bucky said. "Don't get too excited yet. It might mean something else in his language."

Steve cleared his throat. "This is your dad. Huwad."

Tony wrinkled his nose and shook his head vigorously. "Huwad."

Steve nodded. "Yes, your father." He jerked his head slightly in the scowling human's direction.

Tony shook his head again and drew the word out. "Huward."

"Oh!" Steve said. "Howard. His name's Howard."

Tony bobbed his head, face splitting into a wide grin.

"Right," Steve said. "This is Howard's cave." He carefully rubbed Howard's image out of the picture from the first cave. "And this is you, Tony."

Tony nodded. "Me."

"Yeah, that's right." Things were looking even brighter than Steve could have hoped.

Steve carefully drew a line between the two caves. "We're going to move your dad back into his old cave for, uh, safety reasons. But we'll make sure the two of you get to visit as much as you like." He drew another line back toward the big cave. "Either take you over to see him or take him here to see you." He drew a couple more lines and looked up at the human expectantly.

Tony sighed heavily and added several more lines.

"Of course," Steve said. "As often as you want." He traced over the lines again.

Tony's mouth twisted unhappily, but he nodded.

"Alright," Bucky said gleefully. "Clint, help me wrestle this guy back in the water."

"No way," Clint said. "I'm not touching that guy again. He bit me the last time."

"I can bite harder than he can," Bucky said pleasantly. "Now quit being a coward and help me out."

Clint muttered under his breath, but he slipped onto the shore behind the human, taking him by surprise. The human shouted and started struggling, but Clint quickly clapped a hand over his mouth and dove under the water.

Tony tilted his head to one side and regarded the little ripples of water for a moment and then shrugged.

"He's taking this surprisingly well," Steve said.

Bucky shrugged. "His dad's a jerk. Probably happy to get him out of his hair. You'd probably react the same way if the situations were reversed and one of us was being a pain in the tail and not letting you be friends with the awesome sirens."

Steve grinned. "Yeah, Buck. I'd have them take you away in a heartbeat if you were holding me back."

Bucky huffed and splashed water at him.

Tony cleared his throat and pointed to the drawing of the fish.

"Great idea," Bucky said. "I know Stevie's going to get carried away and want to spend hours and hours teaching you shit and we'll miss dinner. So I'm going to catch us a bunch of fish." Bucky pushed off from the shoreline and then stopped and turned back. "Stevie, tell him to get a fire started. I don't know why he doesn't have one going already. That's how he's going to be earning his keep. You tell him, Stevie, as long as he's staying with us, he's going to be making us those fire-warmed fish."

"I'll make sure to tell him," Steve said with a chuckle.

"And tell him to make one for Clint, too. He's an idiot, but I guess he deserves a little reward for putting up with the jerk. But just this once. Fuck-ups don't deserve special fish everyday."

And then, mercifully, Bucky dove under the water.

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he's a little crazy," Steve said with a chuckle. "You'll get used to him. But let's get started without him." He pointed to the drawing of the fish.`"This is a fish. Fish."

The human smiled and drew a couple weird shapes on the ground. "Fsh."

God, this was so easy. It would probably take only a day or two for Tony to start speaking fluent mer. And when the rest of the pod heard him speaking, they'd finally realize how intelligent humans were and they wouldn't want to eat people anymore. And Thor seemed like a reasonable, open-minded siren. Maybe when Thor visited the next time, Tony could have a talk with him and Thor could convince the rest of his pod that they shouldn't eat humans. And from there, spread the message through the rest of the siren world. And one day, all the sirens would be friendly with humans and-

Tony cleared his throat and impatiently tapped his stick against the ground.

"Sorry," Steve said. "Got a little carried away there." Bucky had always accused him of being a starry-eyed dreamer.

The human held out his hand.

Steve shook his head. "I don't have anything to give you. Bucky's bringing the fish."

The human wiggled his hand insistently and Steve slowly extended his own. His fingers were a lot longer than the human's, his nails were sharper, and his skin was paler. But when the human's hand closed around his, none of the differences mattered.