A/N: Post WS, pre AoU. Same continuity as "Prisoners", separate from "Vacation".
It seemed to me in AoU that this wasn't the first time the Avengers had attacked a HYDRA base. Thus, this:
. . . . .
The light is blinding. It's just a glimmer from a door suddenly cracked open, but to eyes left in darkness for decades, it's like looking straight into the sun.
With it comes air.
Air. He gulps it in greedily, chokes on it, coughs it up, lets it scrape against his parched throat. Grand, glorious air. His lungs hardly know what to do with it.
Someone is shouting. The sound hurts his ears, but he clings to it anyway. He hasn't heard anything in so long. Not since Lt. Barnes had finally broken.
The old failure makes him want to cry, but his body had long since run out of liquid for such luxuries.
He had run out of everything, really. Everything but the magic that kept him alive against all sanity or desire. It would have run out too if it didn't replenish so quickly. HYDRA had certainly tried to pump it out of him.
New pain flares along his arms as the tubes used for that purpose are ripped out. The magic starts pooling up in him again. The sudden rush of healing golden power leaves him gasping in relief.
The magic helps his eyes along too, clearing up his vision far sooner than should have been possible. There are far more important things for it to be fixing, but he needs to see who his rescuer is. Needs to because he has no idea how long he has been in there -
He cuts the thought off automatically, desperately squinting through the light. Please let it be him, please -
But the man is dark haired and wearing unfamiliar red armor that seems to be missing its helmet. He allows himself one last delusional hope that it might be Gwaine, or perhaps Lancelot, but he can't maintain the illusion for long. The man's brash voice, meant to be conveying reassurances, is most definitely not familiar.
Merlin shatters. He has been a prisoner for a very long time. Decades, even.
So what if Arthur had already returned? What if he had already died, come and gone and never realizing his friend languished in the dark?
How can he know? How can he be sure he hadn't missed him? It would fit with the joke destiny seems determined to make of his life.
He is shaking, he realizes distantly.
The dark-haired-man-who-was-not-a-knight is panicking. Someone else comes, a blonde man with broad shoulders who is nonetheless not Arthur. He makes up for this deficiency with a bottle of water he raises to Merlin's mouth.
Water. He wants to guzzle it, but the man is carefully regulating it to mere sips.
Even that is too much. The water hits his stomach, and it instantly rebells. The precious liquid comes straight back up, and Merlin starts sinking back into the dark. He panics, flailing with his magic, but the gold light is too weak, and his eyes shut.
He wakes up to beeping and tubes that make him think of HYDRA. He tries to rip them out.
The world goes black again.
There are people in his room whenever he wakes up. They talk to him, which is nice. Anything is better than the quiet that makes him think of loneliness and the dark. They tell him things are alright now.
He could have told them things hadn't been alright for over a thousand years.
He doesn't bother. Talking seems like too much work.
Still. Tony is funny, and so much like Gwaine that Merlin can pretend, sometimes, that they are one and the same. He is uncomfortable and angry, but he babbles out questions about Merlin's magic that though he doesn't answer, make him smile.
Thor is loud. He is loud, and he is bigger than Percival, and he knows a bit about magic, and he looks at Merlin strangely sometimes, as though he has forgotten that he is Merlin and not someone else who is scrawny and has dark hair, bright eyes, and more magic than is good for him.
Natasha sings to him in Russian, and the sound is so beautiful that he sends her a memory of a merry fire, singing, and snow from his trip there. It is not quite words, but it seems to please her despite this.
Clint is cheerful. He swings in from the ceiling vents at midnight when the nightmares have him gasping for air. He brings candy and snacks for himself, and when Merlin can eat and drink properly again, he shares, even smuggling in a thermos of hot chocolate. He regales him with tales of life in the tower most of the time, but once he quietly confesses that the reason that he's up is because he has nightmares too.
He likes the man's archaic weapon. It reminds him of home.
Bruce does not visit often which is a shame because Merlin likes the quiet, unassuming man. He worries a bit when he overhears two of the Avengers talking outside his room and learns that visiting him apparently makes the doctor angry.
Steve, always quick to realize when one of his men was troubled, guesses the problem soon enough and quickly explains the matter better. It isn't him, his weakness and poor company that makes the doctor angry; it is the scars from the experiments, the entrapment and exploiting by HYDRA that enrage him. It is not, Steve tells him, that Bruce is alone in this, only that things are a bit more dangerous when the good doctor loses his temper. He tells him of the Battle of New York, and Merlin nearly breaks his silence to ask if there have been any similar happenings in London. He wonders too if perhaps, when he is better, he could help Dr. Banner somehow.
He likes Steve. The soldier, like him, is a man still in his prime long after those he loves have turned grey and been buried. The captain understands what few can, though even he has his limits. He has found a new family in this new time, and he will grow old with them, most of them, at least, a luxury Merlin will not have. But Steve listens well, as odd as that thought seems to a warlock who will not - can not? - talk. Steve sees well might be a better phrase. He sees the pain and sees where he is and is not welcome. He does not press or demand. He just is.
Yes, Merlin likes Steve. But Steve is not the first one he talks to.
That honor goes to Lt. James Buchanan Barnes.
Barnes had talked about a Steve, Merlin knew, but there are a lot of Steves. He didn't make the connection until the night Clint was on a mission and Barnes appeared in his room.
You're alive! he calls, delighted, mind to mind.
Barnes clutches his head like he's trying to shake the voices out, and Merlin cringes. That had been stupid of him.
"I'm sorry," he apologizes, voice straining over even this brief speech.
"You're real," Barnes says. He sounds surprised.
"Unfortunately."
Barnes nods in grim agreement and disappears.
He asks Steve about him in the morning, exercising his vocal cords once more. He assumes the soldier had found and started to help his old friend.
He sets off a new search. Merlin is not yet well enough to come, but he helps track him down. Steve leaves at once.
Merlin misses him, worries for him, but he wouldn't have dreamed of asking him not to go. He knows that look in Steve's eyes all too well.
He spends a lot of time on the iPad Tony gave him, studying the news he had missed. He is relieved by what he doesn't find. There has been nothing to summon Arthur yet. He has not missed his king's return.
He heals. That is what he says at least, and he can eat, walk, and talk, so they can't argue. Tony thinks it's a miracle he's still sane after all that time in the box.
Merlin thinks it's funny that they're assuming he was sane when he went in.
That thought is interrupted by someone who calls herself an enchantress breaking into the tower. She seems to know Thor.
Merlin presumes she's no one too powerful though, because it takes him about two seconds to demolish her.
They let him come with them to fights after that. He stays in the background as he once did in Camelot because he is afraid.
He is still afraid. Not of execution or rejection, but of friendships that will end too soon and leave him alone. He is afraid to care.
The others understand that feeling all too well. Natasha felt it. Bruce felt it. Thor felt it. Steve felt it. Clint felt it. Tony felt it. All for different reasons, but all feared.
They didn't let that stand in the way.
They don't normally fight in Europe, but needs must. They're in London now, and it's the worst fight Merlin has ever been in, and that's impressive in and of itself. Blood runs through the gutters like water after a heavy rain. The creatures are everywhere, clawing, biting, and dragging victims away.
Merlin can't see the others. He can't see anything except the foul bodies throwing themselves at him, biting into his face. His spells bounce off them, and for the first time since HYDRA captured him, Merlin fears the outcome of a battle. He can't die, but he can suffer. He knows that all too well, just like he knows how very, very vulnerable his companions - friends? - are.
He can't see anything but gold, useless, magic, red, sheeting blood, and grey, gnashing teeth.
Then he sees silver, a wide arc of it, as a sword slices through the beasts on top of him. He wipes his face so he can see what hero has chosen the weapon or what civilian has pulled out an old family relic.
He sees blonde. He sees blue. He sees broad shoulders and a bright red shirt.
He sees Arthur.
"Merlin! Merlin, are you all right?"
His arm is broken and his face is clawed half to shreds.
"I'm fine."
And he grins a big, dopey grin because he's telling the truth.