Ever since his fourteenth birthday, Tony had swam up to breach the sea’s surface out of sheer curiosity. Sure, it was frowned upon, and he would have faced his own father’s wrath if he ever got caught. But technically, it hadn’t been forbidden since Aunt Peggy lifted that ban a year into her queenship, over twenty-five years ago.
He would only visit during the day, often to peek above the tides for a glimpse of life above water. Rarely, he found nearby land to lay beyond the crashing waves, and feel the warmth of the sun on his scales.
Now, just past the cusp of twenty-three, all he needed was a moment to get away; away from Aunt Peggy’s understanding, from the Jarvises’ willingness to comfort, and from Obie’s constant pushing Tony to be more. Tony was exhausted of being the child who lost his parents to poachers, which is why he impulsively decided to swim during the dark hours; the period of time when you absolutely, did not leave the comforts of the pod.
Tony knew that as much as he loved the stars, a lone mer was easy pickings for the monsters that came alive in the night.
He was careful. Well, as careful as he could be while racing away from any reasonable civilization.
Tony was chancing the journey to swim farther than he usual went, to his favorite stretch of water. It was in the middle of the sea, where two currents collided and the flavors and temperatures clashed together.
Once there, Tony laid back and let himself float in the wakes. The above air always cut right past his scales, leaving a chill in his bones. For some reason he always tasted more salt outside of the water than in it. Even this far away, there was forever an unfortunate undercurrent of Walker pollution that over time, felt like it clogged Tony’s pores.
Sometimes, Tony gave his gills a break and let the water wash over his face so he could breathe through his mouth or nose and rehydrate them both. Air, he found, dried his mouth horribly, but he wouldn’t be Tony Stark if he didn’t test his limits by trying. Or at least pretending he could.
There were a few of the far off twinkles dusted across the sky, almost like they were blinking their hellos to him. He had read about them in some older library scrolls that Aunt Peggy showed him, one of the perks of having a queen as his godmother. She had said that their people use to visit the surface world a millennium ago, to learn about both their own zlar and the trillions spread through the universe. She had shown him the corner that was dusted over, filled with scriptures from both merfolk and the Walkers, who called them stars.
He felt a ship through the change in the wakes it made before he saw it or heard it. Sinking back into the water, he tested his luck and decided to explore.
The ship’s hull was held together by different materials, which was Tony’s first clue this was not the usual passing voyagers. The second was the damage that had been done; Tony had seen such damage in lone ships, or pirate ships, but never had he seen the damage allowed to fester. The wood around the biggest cut was green with rot, and both wood and metal planks looked to be carelessly hammered on top of the ship. Whoever these Walkers were, they either did not care for the ship, or they were dangerous enough that no port would allow them entry.
Loud cheering or screams vibrated through the water, and Tony could taste the oil being released from the monstrosity.
The chill that went through Tony had nothing to do with the air whipping against his face, or the storm that had begun to hatch in the sky. There was something in his gut that told him these Walkers were tied to his parents and several other mer disappearances.
Even if not, he reasoned that this information might be worth the tongue lashing from both the Jarvises and Aunt Peggy to warn the pod of potential harm.
Tony took two broad strokes, slipping through the water, until he was a only several strokes away, just out of sight but close enough so that he get a sense of who these Walkers were.
Tony caught a few words between the piercing screams, a booming voice declaring “burn wench” and a round of cruel laughter. There was an orange glow that Tony couldn’t see the source of from his position in the water, that began as a soft light but, Tony realized quickly, was growing at a rapid rate.
Between one moment and the next, several bodies were flung off the ship past his position in the water.
Tony, dazed and ears ringing, was almost too caught up with the ginormous hole where half the vessel had been when it suddenly verged towards him.
He managed to dodge a killing blow but got a splitting headache for his troubles when the underwater shockwave of the ship made him slam against a piece of debris.
It was only then that Tony realized there had been a massive explosion, causing a chain of smaller ones.
Beyond the bitter tang of sea salt on blackened metal, Tony’s senses screamed blood.
It was horrible and tragic; the Walkers he passed were either blackened husks or an array of pieces missing drifting in the water.
Tony did his best not to stare into their glazed over eye, has he fought not to throw up his last meal.
However, he couldn’t help admiring the juxtaposition of the continuing explosions above the surface coating the wreckage with what looked like violently orange bursts of moonlight.
Tony swerved past another chunk of ship, his fins whipping through the water as fast as he could to get out of the area before the sharks descended for a feast. It was then he spotted metal attached as a limb to one of the Walkers giving him a moment of hesitation, and honestly, curiosity about the metal appendage.
The Walker struggled in vain, continuing to sink deeper into the water, the metal arm and clothing obviously weighing them down.
Tony blinked and then found his body moving towards the man without his brain’s permission.
The bubbles that escaped the Walker thinned out and by the time Tony grabbed his metal arm, his eyes already closing at the lack of air. Tony didn’t stop though and yanked them both to the surface where his rescue immediately threw up water he had inhaled, but remained deadweight in Tony’s arms.
They couldn’t stay above for long. Tony was getting tired of awkwardly dunking himself to breathe while also making sure he didn’t accidentally drown his new Walker buddy, and wasn’t that just the pearl in an oyster. How in the seven seas is he gonna explain this to anyone back at the pod without being flayed like a fish?
And it turns out that they really needed to go. Some of the Walkers still on the, very much sinking, ship had noticed them and were somehow shooting tiny explosion at them both.
By their curses though, it was Tony’s new buddy that had apparently been the culprit to sinking the ship and none of their attention was on Tony, beyond who he had in his arms. Although, Tony wasn't planning on staying around for them to find out he was a mer.
Luckily for the two of them, Tony knew there was a formation of rocks within thirty broad strokes of Tony’s tail, and land just further.
The journey only took about ten minutes before they were far away from the danger of getting shot at. Getting there however definitely required some maneuvering and cooperation from both parties involved.
Tony had to pop in and out of the water, so they both had a chance to breathe, but of course there was no way to discuss this plan with Tony’s shiny pal, so for the first chunk of it, the Walker was thrashing in blind panic against Tony’s hold. After that first bit, his brain seemed to reboot long enough to recognize the rhythm Tony was swimming to —four breaths of air, four breaths of water, and so on.
All in all, Tony got them both to land eventually, stopping every twenty strokes or so to give deadweight leg-boy a break from choking on some good old water and with the bonus of not running into any sharp teeth and hungry stomachs. There was likely feasting being done to the where the ship sunk, but obviously the fortunate ones were those dead before the monsters got there.
It became obviously clear that Tony had not thought this through when he struggled to get the Walker out of the water, and onto the land portion of the beach.
Flopping them both on the sand took more time than it might have taken Tony to return home, and definitely way more effort on his part.
They both end up covered in sand, but by small miracles, they made it completely out of the water where the Walker could dry and Tony could start rolling back into the sea—
Tony stared in confused horror as the Walker’s body began violently spazzing in small quakes. He poked the chest and felt the dampness of the outerwear as the body continued its small tremors. The guy’s mouth was faintly blue and the color was spreading very slowly, spreading across his face.
A horrible thought dawned on him that no, Walkers do not automatically start drying when exposed to air, apparently that was only mers. Now Tony needed to figure out how to dry and warm this guy?
Morgana of the arctic depths, kill him now.
Okay, first things first, Tony needed to get some fresh sea water into his body to come up with a rational plan. He could hear Ana Jarvis’ voice informing him that herbal training was an important lesson to pay attention to and he would need the knowledge for the future.
Well, Tony hoped Ana was quite pleased with themself, because Tony was currently scrambling his brain for anything to assist his Walker—the Walker, Tony happened to pick up because he had a really cool arm, no big deal.
Tony got back into the water, and searched the nearby kelp beds and a few small caves, luckily managing to scrounge up some ingredients to serve his purpose. Not the best shopping grounds for the task, but Tony both had little time and little choice.
He did, however, happen upon a bundle of gloeweed, which was really a miracle in itself. Well, the fact Tony not only remembered what gloeweed looked like, but remembered it was good for promoting immune systems, and remembered that it is found within warmer shallow waters, was in fact a full blown phenomenon.
Tony sent a mental blessing to Ana for never giving up on him despite his brattiness.
With his ingredients in hand, Tony hurried back to the Walker and was pleasantly surprised the the tide was higher, making his journey onto the sand much quicker, smoother, and resulted in only a little amount of sand in the ingredients.
The Walker had curled in on himself, and was unfortunately still twitching all over, but the blueness in his features hadn’t progressed much.
Tony had to roll the Walker back onto his back to squeeze the gloeweed’s liqud into his mouth, and then force his jaw closed to make sure he drank as much of it as possible.
Next, came mixing seaweed with sea grass and an unlucky mussel to create a crude version of suss nest salve, to clean and protect all of the cuts the Walker had on his body.
The Walker stirred when Tony wiped a chunk of the salve onto the gash in his forehead, but besides that, he was relatively calm.
Tony had enough seagrass and gloeweed to crush up with some wet sand and create a, likely, badly made version of kal mer to pack on his head and help with any concussion the Walker might have gotten.
His breathing calmed down a lot, but there was still the matter of his soaked clothes.
Another quick trip back to water to rest his aching lungs gave Tony the brain power for the bright idea to strip the Walker of the outer layers —which had other perks including, but not limited to, ogling the Walker’s body, which of course was not the purpose but an added benefit— and started digging a hole to half-bury the Walker in the protection of the sand.
Tony struggled past the straps, only to be deterred by flippin’ buttons and zippers and material that was resisting cooperation. Tony cussed, muttering about Walkers and their stupid need for clothes. In fact, when Tony finally tore the stupid material from the man’s body, he let out a stuttering breath and coughed up two mouthfuls of water.
Somehow, Tony doesn’t think the average Walker normally has such restricting clothing.
Then again, Tony was positive that the average Walker did not have a metal appendage fused into the side of their body.
The man’s flesh part of his left shoulder,where it met the metal, was red with irritation, from the sand or seawater, Tony didn’t have a clue. What really caught his eye, was the suspicious red mark on the outside of the metal arm that glowed similar to a mer’s spellwork. When Tony brushed his hand just above the plates to poke the spell with his own electric blue magic, three different things happened.
Red spell work rippled throughout the arm activating several spells that not only defended against the intrusion of Tony’s magic, but actively tried to attack it.
The arm itself moved to swat at Tony, causing him to squawk and dodge.
The man let out a guttural groan of “-lease don’t-” and curled into himself once more.
Tony was flabbergasted on who the hell this Walker was. Why any mer would go through painstakingly carving into the arm layers and layers of spellmanship into it? Whoever infused the spells on the arm was extremely skilled. This amount of work would take Tony his whole life, even with his knack for technology, to produce.
The surprise had cut Tony’s breath supply short, and he had a thousand more questions for this man, and none of them were going to get answered. After another, even quicker dip, he figured he could stay until morning to make sure the Walker didn’t die from a rising tide, choking on sand, or even freezing, but not even Tony was willing to risk exposing himself.
Deciding to at least continue his plan of burying everything but the man’s head and neck in sand, Tony also began formulating a plan to search the sea wreckage for clues about his parents’ location.
By Neptune's triton, Tony Stark had swore that he would do anything if given the chance to find what he was looking for. Hopefully he just proved his determination to the spirits of the sea.
Who would’ve known that his impulsive decision to save a Walker might have given him the key to rescuing his parents?