Merlin Headcanons

Avengers: Rescue

A/N: Post WS, pre AoU. Same continuity as "Prisoners", separate from "Vacation". Avengers is not mine.

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 has long since run out of liquid for such luxuries.

He has run out of everything, really. Everything but the magic that keeps him alive against all sanity or desire. It would 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-is-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 by bringing 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 rebels. 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.