Everything’s better down where it’s wetter! Below are my Top 5 Favorite stories:
"where can i put it down?” (T, 6k) by layersofsilence
The beach is deserted, and the waves loud. Today the very sea chatters, buzzing with the news: there’s going to be a mating. There are only four days between the announcements and the ceremony - and then Steve sees his mate's face, and his heart sinks. He knows that face. He loves - he’d loved that face. Right up until he’d seen it again, and wasn’t that a laugh?
+ Fantasy AU. Arranged marriage with Mer Steve and Selkie Bucky. Ex-lovers, both thought the other was human
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“Yours is the Only Ocean” (E, 6k) by seapigeon
"Sirens aren’t monogamous. She’s free to mate with whoever she wants.” Steve turns his head, and for the first time, he looks tentative. “So am I.”
It takes Bucky almost a full minute to understand.
“Oh,” he says, going warm down to his tailfin.
+ Fantasy AU. Siren Steve only eats invasive species and Mer Bucky thinks he's neat
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“Even Underneath the Waves” (E, 20k) by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)
When the siren came to the merfolk clan in search of a temporary mate she knew she'd bear a daughter, a full-blooded siren, powerful and deadly. Instead she bore a son.
It was hard to be the son of a siren, a creature of suspicion in the eyes of his father's people, and Steve soon left his father's clan to wander the oceans alone. Alone, that is, until he found a human like he'd never seen. A human dressed all in black, surrounded by blood and death. A human whose heart's desire, buried deep beneath an inhuman shell, was crying out not to kill.
+ Shrinkyclinks. Mer Steve saves the Winter Soldier and keeps him away from Hydra
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“Eleven-Foot-Six” (T, 13k) by dappledplatypus (shut_the_jongup)
The world doesn't know much about the merpeople, other than the fact that they exist. So, when Steve and the other staff at the New England Aquarium's rehabilitation center find themselves with a badly injured mer on their hands, they aren't sure what to do.
+ Modern AU. Injured thresher shark Buck ends up at Steve’s rehab center and forms a crush
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“Blue Scales” (E, 52k) by chaya
Bucky and merSteve met as kids in Brooklyn. When Bucky goes off to war, Steve gets the help of Merskine to get some human legs and extra muscle to go save his POW boyfriend. Together they form the Howling Commandos and fight the good fight before going down in a plane together and getting frozen for decades. When they wake up, canon is more or less restored, minus the part where Bucky was never kidnapped a second time and Steve shapeshifts back and forth from scaley to fleshy. (All very minor details.)
+ Pre-War to Post Defrosting. Mermaid Steve and human Bucky with the Avengers. The one where the Avengers babysit merchildren
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*More Merman fics in the Wing Fic, Historical AU, Werewolf Bucky, Werewolf Steve, Leveragehunters, and Monster AU lists