Abril: I would just like to type this down, cause I feel it needs to be said. But this story really doesn't focus much on Hydra and what they want with Merlin, all that is really background noise for the relationships in the story and the complicated issues between Merlin and Aithusa so… yeah. Please don't be disappointed if/when the whole thing about Hydra doesn't get expanded upon.

"A cat?" Aithusa asked with a teeth-bared sneer that Merlin barely saw these days.

"Yes, a cat," the warlock said calmly, willing the conversation not to derail as soon as it had started.

"I'm already human, how much more hidden do you want me to be?"

"It would just be for emergencies, Thusa," Merlin pleaded, taking a step closer to the other, trying to reason with the dragon. "So you can get a quick out in situations where being a human might not be as helpful."

"I do not like it. You make me any smaller and I'll disappear completely," Aithusa insisted, a little distressed.

"You just say that because you are used to being so big. A cat is not all that small," Merlin pointed out.

"To you maybe," Aithusa bristled and then turned his face away, sighing loudly.

"Think about it this way, you used to carry me around everywhere, now I can be the one carrying you." Merlin smiled sunnily, trying to appeal to the part of Aithusa that enjoyed seeing him happy. But the white haired man side eyed him, not buying a word out of his mouth.

"Yeah, whatever. Go ahead," Aithusa mumbled after a while, knowing full well even if Merlin didn't insist on going through with this, that he would say yes in the end. There wasn't much Aithusa would deny his dragonlord after all. And he could agree if only a little. Merlin had been trapped as a human before, unable to utter a spell that would get him out of trouble and back when he had yet to learn to transform into other forms without words. If he'd been smaller, escaping would've definitely been easier. Great pain could've been avoided, of that the dragon was sure.

Merlin grinned, taking the other's white face in his hands, gently turning it so gray blue eyes would look at him.

"You won't regret this Aithusa, you'll see. Being a cat is so much fun!" He said with the enthusiasm his own experience had given him.

"Hm, if you say so," Aithusa conceded with little joy, letting the weight of his head fall into the other's hands. If he was going through with this he might as well make a problem of himself. Merlin huffed at the action but kept smiling. He patted softly at his kin's cheek before he let go.

"Anyway, dragons are already so much like cats."

"We are not!" Aithusa gasped, offended, though he had nothing to back this up with. He had only briefly gotten to know Kilgharrah, and in theory, Merlin had known dragons longer than him. But as a dragon he felt like he needed to push on this point.

"Yes you are, in personality if in nothing else. Had I been blind when I met Kilgahara, I would've thought him one too. A very big, mean, bossy one."

Aithusa growled at him, it came out a little pathetic without the capacity of his draconic body but the idea was still clear. He could smell a little smoke in the air too, coming from the small fire this human form allowed him to keep. Small blessings. Still not enough to actually breathe fire. At least Merlin had the decency of covering the smile that spread on his lips at the other's indignation.

"Let's get this over with." Aithusa rolled his eyes, long suffering.

"I'll make it so you can turn in and out of the form whenever you like too," the raven haired said as he prepared to cast the enchantment.

"You… you will?" The small, not really angry snarl but rather defensive, fell from his face, unsure for a moment. Merlin had not allowed him that after his last incident as a dragon. The last time he had been a dragon. He'd thought… he'd thought the warlock might just want to keep him in a smaller form from now on.

Merlin seemed to catch on to his train of thought and his smile fell as well, arms dropping to his sides.

"I don't… I don't actually want to take you from yourself, Aithusa. Or your freedom. I just…" Merlin swallowed, a dark, despairing glance coming over his eyes. "I just don't want to lose you," he croaked. "I want you to be safe wherever we go."

The albino's heart softened, he understood too much what his kin meant. With every year that passed, it seemed there were less and less magical creatures and things in the world. Like the earth just couldn't sustain them anymore and they had all vanished. And it was not only that. He knew what people would do for discovery, and magic was such a discovery to be had. To possess. And their friends, other magical beings, all faded away like a forgotten dream. Merlin and him, they were the dregs of an old world that was dying and survival was equal to how well you could keep hidden.

"I know, I understand," Aithusa told him, squeezing his hand. "Come on, let's do this." He smiled, hoping to lift Merlin's mood again. The dark haired man seemed to lose his happy disposition but returned the gesture anyway.

He stepped back from his dragon and raised his arms again. Aithusa openly observed Merlin as the sorcerer's eyes turned golden. When he was like this, doing magic openly and without restraint, he always seemed so much more than his human body. Fuller somehow, more… real. Merlin chanted a complex spell, so well versed in the magical arts it seemed like a song now. At least to Aithusa. The albino let himself be taken by it, offering no resistance at all to the influence of magic and change.

On his next breath Aithusa was small, and round, and soft. When he'd turned into a human for the first time, he thought there was no way he could get any softer. Apparently, he'd been quite wrong. He lifted up his eyes to his dragonlord, the world was different. He opened his mouth to tell his rushing thoughts to Merlin, but instead, all that came out was a soft meow. 'Oh, dear,' he thought. The hairs on his back stood up at the strangeness of it all, like a full-body wave of goosebumps.

"Oh, look at you, you are so gorgeous my friend," Merlin said, passing a gentle hand over Aithusa's white fur. "Now, come here. Just like I promised."

Crouching down, Merlin took hold of the big white cat and lifted him up. Aithusa startled as the floor disappeared from underneath him, his claws digging into the soft of Merlin's shoulder on instinct.

"Ah," the warlock gasped, "careful there," he asked gently.

The dragon relaxed, trying his best to control his new body and get a feeling of himself. He brightened then, when he felt a tail swishing back and forth and back and forth. His tail. Merlin laughed when he began to purr.

"That's right, look who's got a tail again," he complimented and wrapped his arms more securely around the cat's round, large body.

Aithusa hesitated a moment, before snuggling his head against his kin's neck.

"Isn't this nice, Thusa, my little sun?" Merlin asked, the cat could hear the smile in his voice. And yes, it actually was very nice to be carried and held. He let the strange purring of his body do as it pleased and it became louder. It felt almost like something his dragon body would do, but he never would've called it purring before.

If he could cry as a cat, maybe, he would've done so. He felt more at home in this body than he had ever felt as a human before, despite feeling so small and vulnerable, the world was so big. He hid his face against the sorcerer's neck and avoided looking at the tall trees.

"Goddess, you're heavy," Merlin huffed a laugh but didn't put him down. "I hope I was never this heavy to either you or Gara," he mused.

The cat let the words wash over him, vibrating from Merlin's chest into his own. As close as they currently were, he could feel their souls almost mingling with one another. Merlin began walking down the autumn forest, humming a quiet tune for Aithusa until slowly the dragon turned cat gathered enough courage to look at things again. Merlin was si-

Aithusa startled awake in the dark of his borrowed room. The dream was still clear in his mind's eye. He shuddered though he wasn't cold as tears spilled down his face.

He searched for the place in his heart that tied him to his dragonlord and comforted himself in the feeling and the knowledge that he could tell the general direction where Merlin was. He'd always loved it, but now, he was monumentally thankful for it. It had helped the Avengers to get an approximation of where the warlock was being kept. The rest of the work they would have to do themselves, but it was a start. More than a start actually.

He prayed to the triple goddess that she would keep her most precious vessel safe. He lay his head down against the pillow and allowed a few more tears to spill. Sleep would not come to him again.

~.~.~.~

Merlin woke with a start. The dregs of a dream were fading from his mind. Vaguely he remembered Aithusa's sunny face and bright presence. Sound and safe in a random river they had found in a forest; one of the thousand interchangeable times they had done the same. Water over his skin. Grass under his feet. The dream had changed though, for a moment, he'd felt the cool touch of scales beneath his hand and seen a big gray blue eye peering at him, instead of freckled pink flesh. Aithusa's presence had been just as bright though.

With foggy awareness coming back to him, he felt a powerful wave of relief run through him despite the immense pain under his skin. Aithusa was not here. Aithusa was safe, somewhere out there, hopefully far away from here. Merlin would have rather died a hundred times than let anything happen to his kin. Again. Or maybe, this time, he would kill the people responsible for hurting his sun for a change. No more gentle, forgiving Merlin.

'Have you ever been?' Whispered his mind in a distinctly feminine voice.

It'd been a long time since he had wreaked mayhem in the world. If push came to shove, and Aithusa were in danger, perhaps he would…But he was here now, trapped by mere mortals. Helpless. Greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth, sure thing.

He twitched again, a pulse of electricity cursing between the layers of his muscles. He spasmed for a moment, his back arching with the painful stiffening of his tendons. Once the currents stopped he flopped down against the metal, breathless.

It took a while to get his breathing under control and get a semblance of order to his addled mind under the influence of who knows what drugs. And then he prepared himself for the next wave.

What these men were doing, these strange void people, Merlin could not say. They knew he had a great measure of power but wasn't completely certain they understood who he was. At least not the people working on him. Perhaps, someone beyond, someone atop the ladder, knew and just kept that information to themselves. But he was frog to these scientists, a shiny, rare, and revolutionary kind of frog that needed to be carefully studied to the brink of death. And then after that some more of course. All for the greater good of science. Or more accurately, the science of getting the upper hand over other people. He knew whatever facade these people were telling themselves, it was nothing more than what men had been doing for millennia.

He dreaded to think what they would do when they discovered what happened to him after he died.

His body arched up, spine curling up while restraints pulled him down against the table. He gasped, as something within him shifted just a tad. Then he flopped down again after some seconds, or a minute, or an hour. He felt the shifting cells between the layers of his skin and muscles, buzzing with the leftovers of electricity. Buzzing with change.

He shuddered, nauseated, this time it was not because of the eclectic pulses.

Merlin closed his eyes. He thought of Aithusa, for sure to be beside himself now, and probably terribly angry and hurt. But it was for the best. So long as it was him on the slab and not his brother, everything would be alright. So long as it was him.

With Aithusa on his mind, he let the memory of rainy days hiding in a cave against a giant scaled body fill the dizzy space inside his head. If he tried hard enough, the shocks of electricity were nothing more than distant thunder through the night. And his body was warm, not because of exertion or being scorched, but because a great body that hid secret fire inside rested beside him.

~.~.~.~

"You look like shit," Tony commented as he entered the penthouse kitchen.

Aithusa was already awake and had been for some hours. The albino stared out at the sky through the huge windows. He sat on the floor before them. He longed to go out there and feel the breeze, but every time he thought of doing that his heart ached with the memory of Merlin, laughing with him at the edge of some big great building as they peered down recklessly.

"Well, the most important person in my life is either being experimented on or being inflicted a great amount of pain as we speak, probably both if I'm to be completely honest. I think looking like shit seems appropriate enough," the albino replied with a monotone voice.

Tony was quiet, for a moment at a loss of words before such raw honesty. He walked closer to the other and stood by him.

"Come on, there must be someone else out there that you care about. That cares about you," the mechanic prompted.

"There really isn't."

"Everyone has someone, even the people who think they're alone. There are always people who care about you." Passion bleed through Tony's words and that managed to break somewhat through Aithusa's dower mood. As the mechanic sat down beside the albino, Aithusa turned to look at him.

"You speak as if from experience," he said quietly, eyes curious.

"Yeah, well, I used to think only one person cared about me. Which turned out to be a lie and exactly the opposite. But… that helped me discover those who really were there for me; no strings attached." Tony let the silence between them be and extend as long as it needed to. After a long moment of Aithusa looking at the sky and the mechanic at his phone, the albino turned to his host.

"There was a third one of us… a long time ago. He was our older brother, of a sort... He died though," his words were quiet, almost reverent in their sadness. The pain there was not fresh, but it lingered inside his gray eyes. "There is no one in the world like us anymore. Stark… He's all I have left." His strangely accented voice cracked a little. "And I'm all he has left, and one day he won't even have me and he'll have to go on until the breaking of the world. Or if that never comes… I suppose he'll go on forever."

Tony really, really didn't like this guy. He'd rather Ambrose rot in whatever hell he was trapped in than help him. But listening to Aithusa talk with such rawness touched a fiver in him, a place inside his chest that, just like Natasha had said, wanted to help people to the best of his ability.

He wondered what it would be like to be so attached to one person. So devoted. It probably was super unhealthy, but it still gave him pause. He sighed mentally; Ambrose had this poor guy right under his thumb.

"We'll get him back, Aithusa, don't worry," he finally said and surprised himself when he realized he meant his words wholeheartedly.

"He's not a monster you know," the white haired said after a while. Tony didn't comment but his face said enough. "He's not. Really. He's as… He's as fairytales say: pure of heart."

"What he's doing to you… that doesn't sound like something a pure hearted person would do, much less a good one. And- life isn't a fairy tale man," Tony said frustrated, almost desperate to make the other see what was really going on.

Aithusa smiled ruefully to himself at the mechanic's words.

"If I told you the reasons, maybe you would understand," he told Tony with a sad, understanding smile. As if it was he who pitied Stark. The Avenge frowned.

"Sometimes, people aren't who we think they are, they can deceive us, kid. Some people can even lie to themsel-" They looked at each other, stilled. "I… don't know why I said that," Tony laughed awkwardly through the tension.

"Ambrose says it's my natural charm, don't worry. People just tell me things sometimes," the albino soothed him. "But I am older than you so I should be the one calling you kid."

"Now wait a second, that's a little too much of an exaggeration, don't you think? You're what? Thirty-ish? Late thirties if we're really pushing it. You're not older than me, no way."

"I am," he said with a cheeky, earnest smile.

"You're so full of crap. Come on, out with it, how old are you?" But Tony got no answer, he narrowed his eyes at the other.

"I couldn't say… but I am old." A strange shiver ran down the mechanics' back as he realized this was something Aithusa was forbidden from speaking about as well. Maybe, it wasn't so outlandish to think he was older than Tony himself.

Stark sighed and stood up.

"Come on, let's go get some breakfast."

~.~.~.~

Natasha observed Aithusa, the man was quietly and unenthusiastically nibbling at his spoonfuls of cereal. If she had to bet, she'd put her money on the albino not particularly liking cereal, despite Tony insisting he could have whatever he liked from the kitchen. She suspected it was because Clint and her had immediately gone for the cereal cupboard and Aithusa just didn't want to impose. That, and the situation, of course.

Natasha also strongly suspected the man was aware of her subtle inspection. It was in the nonchalant way he was behaving. Purposefully unaware.

Since yesterday's quarry she had been wondering about Aithusa, well, more than she already had anyway. She'd wondered if there was a way to tell, just from looking at him, if his otherness would become evident if she scrutinized him long enough. She wasn't sure, but… she did find something odd from her inspection. Aithusa's age. There was a definite youthness to him though he was most definitely a man. But the more she looked, if she tilted her head just a fraction, the more she thought he seemed older. Much, much older. Then she'd blink and he seemed like any regular young man again.

"I think I figured it out," Natasha said suddenly.

"What? Clint asked with a mouthful of cereal.

"What goes poorly with technology," she clarified.

The group turned to her in attention. Aithusa's stare seemed specifically poignant. Natasha was thinking of the albino's whispered word as he'd woken up the day before. Her guess seemed quite the long shot, but in some strange way, it also made sense.

"It's magic, isn't it? Magic and technology don't agree with each other." Gray blue eyes lifted at the corners as a big grin covered Aithusa's face. He said no words to her though, returning to his breakfast.

"That's a yes!" Tony pointed at him victoriously. But his face fell a second afterward. "That sounds like bullshit though. You have to be some sort of mutant."

Both spies groaned in unison.

"Not this again," Clint mumbled.

"Magic isn't real. That's just a fact. It's just a different sort of science that hasn't been completely figured out yet."

"Yeah, and I'm sure Thor calls down lightning with a hidden button in his harmer," the archer snickered.

"I am a man of science if nothing else," Tony then turned to Aithusa. "Not that I don't believe you, I just think we have very different views on the world.

The albino didn't seem angry or offended at the implications, instead, he looked at the Avenger with a kind smile, indulgent even. Like an adult letting a kid have the final say on a topic they knew nothing about. Tony frowned, but before he could protest, Aithusa's face froze.

"Hey, man, are you ok-"

A full body shudder ran through Aithusa then. His long limbs flayed for a moment and smacked against the counter, toppling his bowl of serial and Clint's glass in the process.

"Wow, buddy, take it easy." The archer stood up quickly, thinking Aithusa was about to have an epileptic attack and ready to catch the albino if he fell. He was already planning to tell the others to move any furniture Aithusa might hit himself with but…

Nothing happened.

"Aithusa are you okay?" Natasha walked over to them, concern painting her serious voice.

Aithusa did not look okay. There was a contorted grimace on his face, held there for a moment, then gone. The man was pressing his hands against his chest, several emotions passed through his face, revulsion, confusion, and other things not so easily discernible.

Aithusa looked like he was going into shock.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. The albino's face contorted again, this time though, it was as if his face couldn't quite decide what it wanted to feel. Then… then Aithusa began sobbing.

"Shit," Tony shot from behind the counter and reached the white haired man just as he was letting himself down onto the floor. "He, come on, Garett, let us help you. What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Aithusa sobbed. "I fe- fe- I feel- I don't know- They are- They- They're doing something to Ambrose," he wailed.

Tony tried to hold him up but Aithusa just curled further toward the ground. The engineer looked up at his teammates, eyes screaming for help. He held his arms out unsurely, wanting to reach but too awkward to offer comfort himself.

Clint did not hesitate to act and kneeled beside the grieving man. Carefully, he placed a hand on the albino's shuddering shoulder, first checking if the man was receptive to physical contact and then proceeding when the only thing he got was more body shudders. Aithusa couldn't seem to stop crying. Clint lifted the white haired so he could lie on the archer's lap a little more comfortably.

"There we go, it's okay now," he said quietly, hoping sweet platitudes would calm the other down. He was banking on what he'd observed of Aithusa, he seemed like a sweet-natured man and not really like a person who would scoff at receiving comfort when he needed it, no macho man who would try to shrug it off.

"Aithusa, where does it hurt?" Natasha asked, kneeling beside them.

"My b-body. Doesn't. Hurt," he said through gritted teeth and between sobs. He cried harder, succumbing to the offered comfort and burning his face against Clint's stomach. "I don't know how they did it, they… they touched something they should not have," he said in a quiet whisper.

Natasha looked up just in time to see horror pass through Tony's face. She suspected he was thinking the same as her.

'Think of a nuclear bomb, it has a complicated working system that no one quite knows how it works… Now think of that same bomb, being poked and prodded by people who don't understand even a small fraction of its workings.'

She raised a hand towards Tony and gestured for him to breathe, mimicking the action. He nodded at her, shaken, trying to follow her silent instructions.

"What did they touch Aithusa," Clint asked, brushing his fingers through the long white hair.

Dizzyingly, almost like a separate thought from himself all together, Tony noted how Clint seemed quite proficient doing this 'comforting bit'.

"I don't understand how they did it," the albino muttered instead, still shaking.

"What did they do?" The archer pressed on kindly.

"They did something- They touched that… the place inside of me… That- that which connects me to him." Aithusa shook his head over and over. "It didn't hurt. It felt wrong."

What little he had managed to calm went away with that statement. He sobbed again. It… it sounded like he was in pain. And the way he'd said that. Wrong. Like it was a violent act. Not only that but something violating.

"It feels wrong. It's wrong. It's wrongwrongwrongworngwron-"

"It's going to be okay buddy," Clint tried. Above the grieving Aithusa, the Avengers shared a look. Worried, yes, in part for their guest, but more so for this dangerous power that people who did not understand it were tampering with.

~.~.~.~

"How is he?" Natasha asked once Clint came out of Aithusa's guest room.

"Tapped out for sure. Exhausted. And he's been stressed for days now so that doesn't help either." Natasha nodded at that as they began walking down the corridor. "Tough to be honest, I don't think he's going to sleep for very long, no matter how tired he is, his worry's not going to let his body shut down."

"I'm guessing we're moving the timeline up?" It was not really a question. Still, Clint nodded.

"What a fucking situation," he sighed just as they entered the common area of the penthouse. Tony was putting an empty tumbler down. "Great, just what we needed," the archer muttered and closed his eyes at the sight of their probably drunk teammate.

"Don't worry, I'll cut him off," Natasha told him self assuredly and he nodded.

Clint took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He was calm now. After all, he'd been trained for this. He could handle a stressful situation.

~.~.~.~

"Are you seeing this?" The blond doctor asked with transfixed excitement. "Are you seeing this?"

His partner couldn't answer, too stunned to reply, he was grinning like a lunatic though. Through the examination glass, they could see the body of subject "Gold" as he'd been so lovingly christened. The pale, flustered skin was rippling with tiny waves of scales of all things. Appearing and disappearing in rows up and down his body. His eyes had been stuck into blazing gold of his namesake for a couple of minutes now. They've had him for so little yet the possibilities he was presenting them with were already astounding. At the moment they had barely poked and prodded at the subject, just to see what would happen. But everything they did, when it got them a reaction, made something different happen.

The possibilities where endless.

"We'll… we'll never have enough time to study him in a lifetime. Generations will go on and still study him and never get their fill," the second doctor predicted, finally gathering himself, immeasurably in awe of this magnificent creature.

It was such a wonder to behold. And it was all theirs.

Abril: I feel like I could've worked on this chapter more buuuuuut truth be told, I really wanted to post on Friday again. I know it's Saturday now, shhh.