Merlin Headcanons

Real

A/N: Yes, both of these are sort of Avengers crossovers. I claim no credit for the Tesseract.

. . . . .

He wondered, sometimes, if any of it was real. If he flung a goblet one day and hit Merlin on the head with it, would any of his loyalty, his friendship, his steadiness remain?

He needed something real. He'd thought he wanted respect, but that thought went out the window when he caught himself missing Merlin's old cries of dollophead and prat. He ordered Merlin never to call him 'my lord' again, but the boy just replaced it with other titles of honor without a single trace of sarcasm on his lips. In desperation, once, he'd ordered Merlin to insult him.

He had done so reluctantly, with horrified eyes.

Eyes like his mother's when she'd asked her son what was wrong. Eyes like when she had gone first to Gaius, then to Arthur, asking why her child's eye color, of all things, had changed. Had he been hit with some enemy sorcerer's spell? she asked Arthur.

(Had a spell gone wrong? she asked Gaius.)

It was better, Arthur said steadily, than the pyre.

(Wasn't it? he asked himself desperately. Wasn't it?)

Hunith had begged him to take it back, saying she'd take her son away, they'd never bother Camelot -

Arthur needed Merlin. Needed someone he could trust, absolutely. Needed a friend. Needed - something. Anything. Anything but a father that was never satisfied and always demanded more blood. Anything but a Court Physician too scared to put a toe out of line. Anything but Morgana, fake as glass jewels after her return. (Or had she already been lost? Lost when her maidservant screamed in the pyre? Lost when she stormed into Arthur's rooms, dragging a manservant with bright blue eyes who had told Arthur her secret the night he had spilled all of his own onto the floor of Arthur's room, who had no time to bring her flowers anymore. I won't tell, he promised her. You've killed him, she screeched back.) Something real.

Merlin had been real.

Once.

(Merlin was knocked into a wall. Arthur killed the last enemy and rushed over to him. His eyes were blue. Deep blue. Dangerous. Please, he begs. Please. And then his eyes lighten to the other blue, and he asks Arthur why he's crying, how can he help, how can he serve, and Arthur hates himself more than he's ever hated anything before.)

Morgana released the dragon. They set out to find Balinor. He turns out to be in Ealdor. Hunith's village.

My son, he whispers, pulling Merlin close.

He is weeping as he does so. Arthur doesn't realize why until he sees what is sticking out of Merlin's back.

Balinor doesn't let go. He's singing something softly, some old dragonlord lullaby, and Merlin's eyes are every color at once, but it doesn't matter, couldn't possibly matter, not when there's so much red.

Why? he asks desperately.

Because I owed him this much at least.

Father? Merlin asks weakly. And then, Arthur?

And then nothing at all.

Arthur used to wonder sometimes, if he stripped away the blue, if any of it would be real.