Fic: 10,000 Nights of Thunder
Title: 10,000 Nights of Thunder
Author: hariboo_smirks
Movie Prompt: Ironman. *eg*
Pairings: Multiship/gen: hints towards Merlin/Morgana, Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/Morgana if you want them.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~7,300
Spoilers/Warnings: many, many spoilers for the film, none for the show expect general knowledge of characters. Also in the comics Happy, the driver, has a much larger role and in the older versions Jarvis was Tony’s human butler, so I kinda smushed the roles together for Merlin in this verse, just in case there are questions about character placements.
Author’s Notes: This fic could be SO MUCH longer than it is, but I had to stop myself from re-telling the flim or else it would have never ended and I just didn't have the time to write it all. Maybe I’ll go back to this verse one day.
Summary: The call comes around noon and changes all their lives.
10,000 Nights of Thunder
It's a foggy morning, grey clouds blotting out the spring sun, and the day begins in the large house at the edge of Albion like all of the other days in which Arthur is out of the country and they are left to the house. Morgana brings the coffee and pain au chocolats, one of hers and Merlin's shared vices, from the gourmet shop just in town, and takes them to Merlin downstairs where she reminds him to head upstairs for lunch and their daily organising of Arthur’s schedule. Normally if Merlin isn’t up yet she asks DRAGON to remind him when he does -- this can, and does, involve her having DRAGON play the pop station at full volume if Merlin hasn't woken up by noon, which he rarely does when Arthur isn't around to kick him awake, because it is a common misconception that Merlin is the morning person in the house -- and she settles in for the day.
Today Merlin is downstairs in the workshop (no Womanizer today, she inwardly muses), working on some new upgrade for the DRAGON system that runs the house or he’s replacing the fuel injection system Arthur put on the Rolls yesterday. The indie rock he can’t listen to when Arthur is around because the other man mocks it mercilessly is probably vibrating throughout the workshop. But Arthur is away in Pakistan demonstrating the new Gryphon missile system that he and Merlin had spent all last summer building after a session with Mordred and fireworks, and Morgana doesn’t mind it. Which really means she just doesn’t care what Merlin listens to as long as he remembers to go over the tech aspects for the new budget with her later. The days in the house without Arthur tend to run quietly with only Morgana and Merlin filtering through the house, sharing space normally around lunch and dinner when Morgana drags Merlin home with her. They both know he'll forget about food and lock himself away in the workshop trying to keep busy, in a very Arthur-like move. Merlin’s the only other person Arthur allows in shop when he's away on business and probably because Merlin can override the security system anyway. He helped build it after all.
Merlin is unofficially Arthur’s second personal secretary- “assistant, I’m not your bloody manservant, you twat!”- to give him a title better than partner in the lab and crime, Morgana on the other hand is Arthur’s right hand woman. She runs everything Arthur can’t be bothered to run and that Merlin has no patience for. Normally she’s found in the kitchen or in the upstairs office going over Arthur’s expenses and schedule, and that’s where she is when her Blackberry rings.
“Le Fey.” Professional as always, her voice is cool and collected. She’s not called Arthur Pendragon’s personal Wall of Jericho for nothing.
“Morgana!” The voice on the line sounds far away and static-filled, but Morgana can recognise Guinevere’s voice anyway.
“Gwen!” She greets warmly, “How did it go? Arthur was sober when he presented it, wasn’t he?”
Gwen doesn’t seem to hear her because she only repeats Morgana’s name again, and this time Morgana hears the worry. “Something happened, Morgana!” Behind Gwen’s voice Morgana can recognise the sounds of helicopters and military and feels her heart seize up.
“Gwen, is Arthur okay? Gwen!” The reception is horrible, but she hears Gwen’s answer. Only to wish she hadn’t a second later.
“It’s Arthur. He... he was taken hostage.” Gwen voice suddenly drowns out everything. “We were ambushed right after the demo. We’re not sure who took him, but I swear Morgana I’m going to do everything I can to find him. I promise you...”
Gwen explains everything in perfect military detail, but Morgana can hear how truly worried her friend is. As they speak Gwen agrees to call Nimueh with the news at Morgana’s request and when they hang up Morgana’s notepad is filled with a to do list, people to call, and people to avoid. Placing her Blackberry down on the desk she looks at her hands and wills them to stop shaking, not even sure when that started. When she looks up, hands still once again, her eyes fall to the picture Arthur has on the corner of his desk: it’s a picture of him, Merlin, herself and Mordred, at her son’s birthday last year. Unbidden, her finger trails the edge of the silver frame, the antique frame's pattern smooth under her finger. She knows Arthur didn’t put the picture there, just like she knows that Merlin asked her for two copies and this is the second copy because they both knew Arthur would never ask. She also knows that the fact Arthur keeps it on this desk, his father’s desk, means something. She knows it means he thinks of them as family even if he never says it. With that thought in her head she snaps her eyes away from the smiling faces and pushes herself up from the desk.
Her feet wobble under her when she stands, her hands curling on the desk’s edge, knuckles white, and she takes a breath. Once her feet are again steady in her Jimmy Choos - sex heels, Arthur called them, calls Morgana, she thinks, no past tense - she moves swiftly down to the workshop.
**
The music is blaring, but that’s no surprise. Merlin is hunched over the Rolls Royce he and Arthur are rebuilding, messy dark hair sticking up like he was running his hands through it, but that’s normal too. Everything is normal as Morgana looks at him through the glass panes separating her and Merlin. One thin sheet of glass between them and the knowledge she has makes it feels like a mile. She punches in the code to the shop and automatically turns the music down with a press of her finger.
Merlin’s head snaps up, smiling, “Morgana, I thought we came up with a compromise for when his highness isn’t around. I get to play my music as loud as I wish.”
She can’t even smile. “Merlin.”
He’s up in a spilt second and in front of her. “What’s happened?”
She should be grateful for the shorthand they’ve adopted over the years, built over breakfasts and lunches where they make sure Arthur keeps to his schedule without being aware he’s keeping to his schedule, afternoons on the sofa over pizza where they discuss projections and spreadsheets and Mordred’s school projects. For almost seven years now she and Merlin have made sure Arthur’s life runs as smoothly as Arthur’s life can. They know each other’s every eyeroll and smirk, and right now her face is telling Merlin everything she hasn’t said.
She takes his hands, long fingers covered in grease, in hers but doesn’t make him sit. “Gwen called.”
That’s all he needs.
“Is he alive?” Merlin’s voice has never sounded so empty to Morgana, it’s heartbreaking. Her heart is breaking.
“They-we don’t know.” Her voice is cracking, splintering like glass. She sees Merlin’s eyes darken as she speaks.
“He’s alive.” If her voice was glass, cracking into sharp fragments that pierce her, then Merlin’s is fire, burning and painful. He wraps his wiry arms around her and pulls her into a hug. Morgana clings back, her forehead pressed to his neck, nodding. Arthur’s alive. He has to be.
Neither can remember when the tears started or when they stopped.
**
They fall into a routine in the following months. The first weeks being the hardest, especially when the news agencies got a hold of the story and it was on every BBC and Sky channel, then showing up on CNN and even MTV. Morgana and Merlin barely get a wink of sleep that week, fielding calls, interviews, paparazzi.
She and Mordred spend most of that time living out of the house, not only because the paparazzi have taken a sudden interest in everyone in Arthur's life, but because she knows better than to leave Merlin alone. And in all honesty, being at the house makes her feel better, closer to Arthur.
When the Daily Mail comes up with the headline: Pendragon Dead? Morgana crumples the paper in a tight fist and throws every lawyer she can at them, even manages to get the ass who wrote the story fired. Merlin calls the move ruthless, but she can tell he’s proud because it’s the first smile he cracks open since the news. Arthur isn’t dead, and they won’t let anyone voice the thought. Not around them.
**
She starts having dreams.
She dreams of Arthur yelling in anguished pain and of knives cutting into him, his blue eyes unfocused and scared.
She wakes up drenched in sweat and tears.
**
Gwen calls every day and every day Merlin and Morgana are beyond grateful to her. Gwen, who hasn’t given up, who’s using every bit of clout she has to keep searching. They both know they owe her so much because Gwen can do what they can’t.
All they can do is wait.
And neither of them is a particularly patient person.
**
She dreams of a blue light, bright and powerful. It halos Arthur from the inside out. When she wakes she hopes it means that he is safe and protected. Not, you know, going into the light.
Merlin agrees with her when she tells him.
**
When Mordred asks where Uncle Arthur is she tells him the truth. There’s no point to a lie, he’s as addicted to the BBC as Arthur is. After, she holds her son as he cries for his uncle, promising that him that Arthur be back soon and fine. She hopes she’s not lying.
That night, after Merlin helps her put Mordred to bed, he stays over and they finish a bottle of vodka. Arthur hates vodka, hates it more when they both drink it to spite him. That night they hate it too.
Merlin makes sure not to skip out on Sunday lunches, but it’s different now. It’s not the same reprimanding just the two of them without Arthur looking as innocently guilty at whatever engineering experiment has gone awry.
They still manage to blow up Mordred's race car in an explosion his godfather would be proud of.
**
Metal and guns and Arthur surrounded by light and death. Sometimes he is smirking at her, as if telling her he’s okay. Sometimes he looks so broken though. A crack down the middle of his chest.
These dreams don’t stop for a long time.
**
Nimueh continues running the company like she had before Arthur took back the position on his twenty-first birthday. She offers her love and care, but Morgana and Merlin have never felt particularly close to the woman and Merlin keeps mentioning that he doesn’t trust her. Morgana does trust Merlin, so she makes sure that they keep receiving every memo, project blueprints, budget plans like before even when Nimueh sweetly mentions that they don’t need to burden themselves with it.
Until Arthur’s body shows up they won’t stop taking care of the company he pretends not to love. The company she and Merlin love because of him.
**
She dreams of the desert; grains of sand slipping into the cracks of skin, of wanting, wanting, wanting water. Of the sun, heavy in the sky and leather cover her face.
She dreams. She dreams. She dreams.
Arthur, come home.
**
It’s a Wednesday when morning Morgana arrives at the house, as usual, because she hasn’t worked out of the Pendragon Industries offices since she was officially hired at Arthur’s personal secretary/assistant. She does her normal check of the house’s systems when the DRAGON system lets her know that there is a drunk in the workshop. Not for the first time she rolls her eyes at the fact that Arthur and Merlin programmed DRAGON with a personality, and a decidedly snobbish one, but for brief second she thinks it’s Arthur, drunk and probably half-dressed when she remembers that Arthur isn’t here and it shocks her. It’s been a long time since the knowledge that Arthur isn’t home and hasn’t been for months has shaken her this hard, but normally she tries to keep her mind busy with every thought except that. Collecting herself she remembers the only other person that has constant access to the house, the workshop, and who she’s found drunk in both.
Her heels click sharply down the steps and through the glass she sees his lanky body passed out on the sofa Arthur keeps down there.
Sighing, she makes her way over to Merlin, quietly, like she does with Mordred when he’s sick and sits by where his head is pressed into the leather cushion. The bottle of Jack Daniel’s is limp by his fingers and she gingerly plucks it out, setting it down away from her sleeping friend.
“Merlin,” she glides a hand over his forehead, pushing messy ink-coloured hair out of his eyes. He hasn’t had a trim in ages, she notices with a frown, he’s also paler than usual and the dark circles under his eyes stand out like bruises.
He moans in his sleep and turns his face into her thigh.
“Merlin,” she repeats a bit louder this time. He blinks. Twice and then groans, nose pressed against her black skirt.
“Morgana?”
“Yes, it’s me, love.” She smiles sadly, and keeps her hand by his hair.
Merlin slowly takes notes of where he is, what state he is in and sighs. “It was three months yesterday.” His whisper pulls tightly on the strings that Morgana’s been trying to forget are there and she nods.
“Yes, it was.” It’s an impulse to kiss Merlin’s forehead, but she doesn't stop herself. He blinks owlishly at her after and she stands. “Come on then, let’s get you upstairs and into the bath, then you can clean up the mess you made down here. He’d be livid to see the room in such a state.”
Merlin sits up, his body moving slowly, and nods. His eyes trail over the mess he’s made and Morgana thinks this is what their insides have looked like for months, Merlin was just tired of keeping it all in.
Four hours later Merlin’s dressed in some of Arthur’s sweats and a t-shirt fixing up the workshop. Morgana has put his clothes to wash and is sitting on the couch, hands cradling her head, her eyes tight and trying to keep the tears from spilling out.
Her Blackberry rings again.
**
“Morgana, we found him.”
**
“MERLIN!” She screams as she hangs up, and before she even really finishes saying his name she hears heavy footfalls rushing up the stairs.
When Merlin rounds the corner into the living room, Morgana knows he’s seeing tear tracks darken by mascara streaming down her cheeks and a smile that threatens to fall into a laugh. It’s probably the least put together he’s ever seen her, but she doesn’t think he cares as she rushes to him and gathers him up in tight hug.
“Arthur’s coming home.”
“This better not be a joke, because it’s in bad taste.” His voice is raw, arms are hanging limply at his side.
“It isn’t.” She pulls away to meet his blue eyes with her own and wipes the inky tears from her cheeks. Merlin’s laugh is as teary as hers when he sees the truth in her eyes and he swings her around in joy. She lets him.
“Ms. Le Fey?” DRAGON asks from above them.
“Yes, DRAGON?” Morgana blinks up, because it’s only now she notices that DRAGON has been so very quiet these last few months.
“Does this mean I shall be needing to reset the TiVo again?”
“To say the least,” Merlin grins, releasing Morgana from the hug and she’s already making mental lists of everything Arthur might need or not need. “Morgana, when’s he arriving?”
She turns back to Merlin, “They’re landing in eight hours at Camelot Air Force base.” Smirking, she nods to the stairs, “Might want to finish up downstairs.”
Merlin’s eyes go wide, “Bugger!”
**
It’s sunny when the carrier lands and next to her Merlin can’t seem to keep still. She has a hand around his arm, trying to steady him. Gwen had mentioned something about Arthur, about what had been done to him, about this thing in his chest and she knows that Merlin is just as worried as she is.
As the back of the carrier opens and the ramp lowers, Morgana can see two figures carefully stepping down the ramp. She notices Arthur’s limp and the way he waves away the gurney; her eyes narrow. She tightens her grip on Merlin’s arm as he steps up to them. And god-
It’s Arthur.
Blonde, arrogant, childish Arthur with his arm in a sling and his lips smirking at Merlin and herself, like he hadn’t gone missing for months, but it’s in his eyes that she can the difference. Something happened in that desert, something has changed in him. She tries to hold back the sniffle, really she does.
“Those wouldn’t be tears of joy I see there, Morgana?” He smirks and she rolls her eyes. He’s still Arthur.
And next to her Merlin chuckles, taking one step forward clasping Arthur gently on the shoulder. “You prat, never do that to us again.” Morgana can tell that like her that he wants to move into a hug, but he holds back, same as she. It's not that time.
Instead, Arthur smiles at the softness in Merlin’s voice and without prompting she and Merlin detach and flank him. Morgana turns and gives a smile of gratitude to Gwen, nodding when the other woman smiles and nods back. They'll talk later. Then quietly she and Merlin lead Arthur to the car. Merlin takes his place behind the wheel and Morgana slides in on Arthur’s right.
“Merlin, hospital please.”
“On it.” He replies at the same time Arthur does.
“No. I don’t need a hospital.” He orders and Morgana eyes him and the way his hand lingers by his lapel.
Even after three months of being apart nothing seems to have changed when Merlin challenges back, “Are you an complete idiot? You need to get checked out!”
Arthur snaps back something about a pint and chips and then turns to Morgana, “And I want to call a press conference. Right now.”
Between giving Arthur a look but nodding, pulling out her Blackberry, and half listening to Arthur and Merlin argue about his well-being and just why he’s limping Morgana can’t help but stare at her long time employer, friend.
If she wasn’t sure before, she’s positive now. There’s something different about him, something she can see simmering beneath his eyes and the way he subconsciously rubs his chest. Looking up she meets Merlin’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
He's seen it too and nods covertly at her. In that split second they also agree: whatever happened in Pakistan, it doesn’t matter, they’re going to be there for him, like always.
“Arthur?” She turns to him just as she hangs up the phone.
“What, Morgana?” He snaps, then cringes, as if he just realised he’s not among enemies anymore.
She gently takes his hand, making sure he can see every inch of her movement as not to spook him further into himself. “We’re glad you're home. We shockingly did miss you.”
Arthur looks over to her then to Merlin at the wheel, the two of them sharing a long look, and nods, his hand tightening in hers for a minute before he lets go.
“Believe it or not, me too.” He doesn’t smile, but Morgana didn’t expect him to.
**
The press conference, in short, is a disaster. It takes her, Merlin, and Gwen to pull Arthur away from the horde of reporters that start following Arthur out the minute he stands and walks away after dropping the bombshell that Pendragon Industries is closing down its weapons division. Next to her she hears Merlin and Gwen's gasps of shock and disbelief, respectively.
Her first thought is that the stock is going to drop significantly, a reflex from spending years looking at spreadsheets and accounting figures, the thought is followed immediately by, oh, Lord, Arthur, what happened to you over there? As he moves towards them, she reaches out, leveling him with a look as Merlin already begins steering them towards the car. Arthur promptly ignores the look, as usual. In front of her Gwen is creating an opening as they make it back to the car. Merlin all but pushes Arthur in with an are you insane look that Arthur also ignores, Morgana follows Arthur in wondering how long Merlin will keep quiet even as he rushes to the driver's side, Gwen climbing in on the passenger's side.
The doors are barely closed when Merlin speeds away and glares at Arthur, "What the hell were you thinking doing that?" His blue eyes are flashing and worried in the rear-view mirror. Morgana gives Gwen a look. Please.
"Merlin," Gwen reaches over, a hand gentle on his shoulder.
Merlin sighs, settles.
"Arthur, what brought this on?" Morgana takes the opportunity to ask the question Merlin was trying for, if not for his anxiousness and worry for Arthur. She sighs, realising that Merlin running on low blood sugar and rumages through her bag for the Mars Bars she keeps in there for just this reason. She leans forward and drops into his lap, giving him the breathe, he's here and alive look.
"Can't I just want to make the world better?" Arthur scoffs, sliding down in his seat, head falling to rest against the window.
"No, not without a reason." Merlin half looks over his shoulder, looking at Arthur. Morgana bites her lips, it's the truth, but it's a truth that Arthur never wanted to face before.
"Maybe I have a reason now." Arthur doesn't look back to Merlin, his blue eyes staring out the window. "Guinevere, do you need to be somewhere?"
"What? Um, no, if you need... No, I don't need to be anywhere." Gwen looks over to Morgana, who shrugs unsure.
"Good. We're making a detour. Merlin, I want to go to the factory. I need to see something. Then we'll drop you off at the base."
At that Morgana sees Gwen stiffen and wonders what that's all about. It's not like them to have secrets from each other, but they're all also loyal to a fault, and if Arthur asked her to, Gwen would keep whatever he wanted secret.
"Arthur?" Comes from Merlin at the front, worried probably for the same reasons Morgana is.
Arthur sighs. "Didn't you two hear yet? Arthur has a new heart. He's a real boy now." His fingers are fiddling with his shirt buttons.
**
They wait in the car after Arthur steps out and walks into the factory. For the first fifteen minutes they just sit, Merlin finishing his chocolate bar and Morgana quietly organising the calls they're already getting from everyone. They all know better to rush Arthur. Twenty minutes waiting Gwen turns in her seat, fiddling with the clasp of her seatbelt and frowns, "Guys, I hate to do this, especially now, but I have to head back to the base soon."
Morgana looks up from where she's making sure that they get everything transfered to the house for the next, oh, forever. "Oh, Gwen, I'm sorry if we've kept you." She looks over towards she can barely see Arthur staring at the Tor Device, "I didn't think he'd stay this long."
Gwen shakes her head, smiling gently. "It's okay, he's had a hard time lately, I didn't mind. But I... I need to go. Not that I want to, I mean, I don't want to, but I should. Go, that is."
Morgana nods, "Merlin, I'm going to take Gwen to the front gate and call a car. I'll meet you two at the house."
"Are you sure you don't want me to take you?" His eyes flit to where Arthur hasn't moved, "I don't think he'd notice anyway."
"I'm sure. Plus, I'd rather know he's not alone."
The step out of the car and Merlin wraps Gwen in a tight hug. "Thank you for bringing him back, Gwen." Both their eyes are more than a little moist, but Morgana blinks and looks away. She motions to one of the guards for a golf cart to drive her and Gwen to the entrance and turns to Merlin as Gwen goes to sit.
Her thumb sweeps the line of his cheekbones, drying the moisture with her skin. "He's going to be okay, you know that?"
"He's not going to make it easy." Merlin scoffs, but his eyes drift to the factory entrance.
"He never does."
**
On the way out they pass by Nimueh, whose dark blue eyes Morgana meets, receiving a slow ruby smile that sends shivers down investment bankers' backs. She is obviously going to see Arthur. Morgana almost wants to turn back, but she reassures herslef that Merlin is there and Arthur is still Arthur.
Gwen sees her look and bites her lips. "Morgana, Nimueh called me after we found him."
"Not surprising, she does care about Arthur in her own way," Morgana reasons, but she feels something too much like dread crawl up her neck.
"She asked about Arthur, about how we found him. I told her about the thing in his chest-- she caught me off guard and I think I told her too much. Arthur doesn’t really seem keen on speaking about it."
Gwen looks wretched, guilt marring her face and Morgana reaches over, covering her friend's hand. "Don't worry about it. Nimueh we can handle. It's Arthur I'm more worried about. Now, tell me, just what is it that is in his chest?"
Looking much less guilty, but still worried, Gwen begins explaining what she understood from Arthur's explanations.
Morgana nods, filing the information in her brain. When Arthur had said he had a new heart, Morgana didn't believe him. She knows him too well. Arthur's heart is the same, what's powering it might be new, but his heart is the same. She's just afraid it's broken.
**
It doesn’t take long for Morgana to get a real look at the thing in Arthur’s chest. She’s in the middle of putting the kettle on while simultaneously reading over the budget outlines for the next month. She really feels like burning half the memos she’s received in the past day, along with the mountains of cards and flower arrangements they’ve received from Arthur’s “friends”. She’s already dealt with the flowers- mulch is a very important fertilisation technique, and honestly people must be blind, because more than half of those arrangements were ghastly. The memos though, well she still needs to share them with Merlin and Arthur.
Just as she’s about make that note, she hears:
“MORGANA!”
She rolls her eyes, really, this is why they have an intercom system run by very sophisticated AI. “DRAGON, the workshop, please.”
“As you wish, Ms. Le Fey, and thank you for not yelling.” The obvious disdain is obvious in the AI’s automated voice.
Morgana chuckles, “No problem. Merlin, Arthur, you called?”
She hears a scuffle, a hushed argument and, “Morgana, can you please come down stairs and save me from this fool?- Stop touching it, Merlin! You’ll drop it!”
“I will not! And it’s not my fault that your design is absolute shite. Morgana, please, before I kill his highness.” She can almost picture them pouting and glaring at each other and her first thought is, it feels like before, “I’ll be right down.”
With an amused smiles she checks on the kettle. It’s done, thankfully, and she quickly makes three cups before heading downstairs to the workshop. As soon as she punches in the code Arthur orders from where he’s laid up on one of his chairs, “Show me your hands!”
Morgana blinks, “What are you on?”
“Just show me your hands!” He waves his hands at her just as Merlin moves towards her, taking the tea tray from her, freeing her apparently very important hands. “Hands!” Arthur repeats, growing even more impatient.
“Right, fine!” Morgana lifts her hands and waves them round like a hand model would. “Happy?”
“Oh, they are better.” Merlin breathes, setting the tray down and pulling Morgan forward to where Arthur is, and that’s when she realises Arthur is shirtless and there's a light glow emitting from his chest.
“I told you, you idiot.” Arthur snaps back at Merlin but Morgana is to focused on the glow coming from Arthur’s chest.
Her voice cracks like it hasn’t since her water broke. “Is that the thing keeping you alive?” She wants to reach out and touch it, but curls her hands at her side, holding back. Merlin moves towards the workbench double checking something on the laptop, but she can tell from the tight line in his back that he hasn’t been dealing with it all that smoothly either.
Arthur looks at her and something too close to fear and grief flashes in his eyes, before he smirks and taps the thing. “Not this antique.” He picks up another device near where Merlin is standing, “this is what will be keeping me alive from now on. But I need your help. Merlin was utterly useless with his freakishly large hands.”
“They are not freakish!” Merlin pouts, “The opening it is too tight!”
Arthur eyes him and Morgana holds back the laugh at Merlin’s reddening ears. She clears her throat instead, “And how exactly am I supposed to help?”
Arthur grabs her right hand, “Dainty hands.”
“Oh, no. You don’t think I’m going to stick my hand in your chest.” Morgana likes to think after ten years with Arthur she’s developed a tough skin for most things, but she draws the line at her hand poking around anyone’s chest. Even Arthur’s.
“Please Morgana, thanks to Merlin’s spectacular ability of failure even at a genetic level,-” “Prat!” “you’re the only other person I have.” With the hand still holding hers Arthur gives her small tug and looks over to where Merlin is standing nervously by the laptop, which Morgana has just noticed looks as if there’s a heart monitor on it’s screen. Oh, god, no. They’re both giving her those damnable smiles that are supposed to exude innocence, if only she didn’t know better.
But. Bollocks, she knows she’s going to be sticking her hand in Arthur’s chest.
Taking a steadying breath she closes her eyes, “Fine. Tell me what to do.”
“Brilliant!” Merlin’s grin is too relieved to calm Morgana and she sighs. Arthur’s fingers tighten around hers and she turns to him. She’s known him since they were seventeen, they’ve worked together since she turned twenty-one, they’ve stuck together through his parents' death, her impromptu pregnancy, men, women, and most recently him being missing for three months. Morgana knows him better than herself, and she knows he’s scared but trying not to show it.
“I’m going to need that hand if you want to me to do this.” She grips his fingers tightly, trying to reassure him with her eyes and smiles.
Arthur drops her hand, suddenly looking very young. Morgana turns to Merlin, “Okay, what do I do?”
“Alright, first, we need to take the old device out.” His (long and too large) hands move nimbly over Arthur’s chest and disconnects the glowing device. It pops with a hiss and Morgana follows Merlin’s hands as he moves it aside. Turning back towards to her and Arthur, he takes a deep breath, “now the tricky part. You have to reach inside and pluck out a loose wire.”
“It’s why we called you down, Merlin can’t reach it, his hands are too big.” Arthur comments from the seat where he’s resting and Morgana wonders if she should mention that he’s currently holding one of those hands in a tight grip. She decides to let it go, because at the moment she’s reaching inside the hole in Arthur’s chest. If that doesn’t merit some hand holding, nothing does.
Merlin ignores the insult and focuses on guiding Morgana. “The wire should be poking out right near the bottom.”
Morgana nods, with a cringe. “Oh, there’s some sort of pus-”
“It’s not me! It’s the elctromagnetic residue.”
Merlin scoffs, “Actually that’s just all the ego that can’t fit into his body anymore. You have to be careful of-”
“Don’t make me kill-Fuck!” Arthur starts, causing Merlin to jump, which results in Morgana freezing on the spot.
“Merlin?”
He waves her to continue, ignoring the glare Arthur is sending them. “That was what I was going to warn you about, you have to make sure that the wire doesn’t touch the edges.”
“-Couldn’t mention it before, could you?” Arthur grits out.
Merlin rolls his eyes, “Maybe if someone wasn’t interrupting every two seconds.”
Morgana only rolls her eyes, because she thinks it’s quite impossible for these two to stop arguing. Ever. She just continues to carefully pull the wire out. When:
“You have to be careful not to remove the magnet at the bottom.” And just as Merlin says that Morgana pulls the wire completely out, on it’s end the coiled copper magnet and the heart monitor goes mad.
“Morgana! Merlin!” Arthur shouts over the monitor.
“What’s going on!” She drops the copper wire with shaky hands on the table behind her, quickly moving to face Merlin again.
Merlin appears calm and that’s the only reason that Morgana isn’t freaking out (more). “He’s just going into cardiac arrest.”
“Oh, just cardiac arrest!” The fact that Arthur is yelling during his heart attack Morgana thinks should qualify him for some sort of record, or an award in the Melodrama category.
“If you two could stop sniping for one minute then maybe these things wouldn’t happen!” She snaps. They go quiet- not for the first time Morgana is fed up with their cavalier attitude about their health. She’s used to it, of course, and it’s the unspoken rule that they’re allow to be absolute idiots in regards to drinking and overall well-being because she’s there making sure they eat during their bouts of brilliance, but sometimes she just wants to throttle them. Of course, they only stay quiet for about a second before Merlin hands over the new device.
“Here, you need to re-attach this to the chest plate.” He’s subdued, his guilt blooming in red spots on his cheeks. Morgana takes the device and just like she did before she moves to Arthur’s chest. Before she starts to attach the device, she lays one hand on Arthur’s shoulder and smiles gently at him where he’s breathing slowly.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Arthur rolls his eyes, a small curl to his lips. “I know.”
She adjusts the long metal attachment and reaches into his chest. The second she attaches the device the reaction is instantaneous and Arthur jumps in his seat.
She and Merlin jump too.
“Woo!” Arthur shakes himself and grins wide, “Better than caffeine!”
“Blasphemy.” Merlin comments, smiling.
“I am never doing anything of the sort ever again.” She looks between the two men with what she hopes is a suitable I hate you both look, even as shakes her head in disbelief, realising, my hands are covered in electromagnetic pus.
“You did great, love.” Merlin laughs and reaches over planting a wet kiss to her cheek, before continuing to check over Arthur, gently removing the wires connecting Arthur to the heart monitor from the man’s chest.
“My heroes.” Arthur bats Merlin’s hands away finishing for himself and tosses a rag to her. Gratefully she takes it and wipes her hands off. He’s smiling like he hasn’t since told him he was to be Mordred’s godfather, and she can’t help but reach over and brush his damp hair from his forehead.
“It’s about time you admitted you can’t live without us.”
Arthur drops back on his chair, clearly exhausted, “I could, I'd just rather not. Too much work otherwise.” He tacks on, complete with a roll of his eyes and huff.
Over him Merlin and Morgana share smile, knowing exactly what that means.
“God, could you two be more girly? Morgana, really, I’m disappointed.”
“Hey!” Comes from Merlin, realising he’s just been insulted and Morgana laughs, turning towards the stairs.
Her eyes fall on the old chest device and she picks it up, setting it on the tray, leaving their two cups and calls over her shoulder. “We have memos to go over later.” Merlin looks back, nodding, before turning to Arthur who has just poked him in the shoulder demanding attention again. His chest is glowing, and not even the black t-shirt that he slips on diminishes the glow. Wow.
On her way up the stairs she fingers the cool metal of the device. She can hear Merlin and Arthur arguing as usual behind her and can’t help but think it’s always the least expected things that change lives. This small thing in her hands has changed them all. Small changes, ones nobody but them would notice but they’re not the same anyone. Not Arthur, who is now more careful, more tactile, but quieter. Not Merlin, whose protective streak is growing to rival her own, now never more than a few steps away. Not her, with dreams that worry her, because she keeps seeing Arthur surrounded by fire and light.
She pauses, the last thought driving her to look back one last time before leaving the workshop. They’re still arguing, Merlin says something that makes Arthur scoff and he’s home. She does something that she hasn’t been able to do in months.
She breathes.
epilogue
Three hours ago, she and Merlin found him barely sitting on the sofa, the arid air from the Indian Ocean filtering through the open window. Now they’re all in the Dubai’s house workshop, Arthur lying down, bruised and exhausted on the chaise she bought at an auction for him during his Roman furniture phase.
Pressing the cotton-swab into Merlin’s hand, Morgana glares at Arthur, shaking her head.
“What?” He pouts and Merlin ignores the yelp he gives when the alcohol meets the cut on Arthur’s cheek.
“I know you think you have to do this,” she waves her hand to where the Excalibur armour is littering the worktable, “but you don’t get to die on us.”
“You both would rather I just turn a blind eye and allow people to continue being killed with the weapons I made to protect them.”
“We made them together,” Merlin adds miserably.
Morgana brushes her fingers over Merlin’s tense shoulders, softly, reassuringly, trying to tell him it’s not your fault. Not that, not what-not how Arthur has chosen to fight back, before turning to Arthur. She thinks Merlin gets it. She hopes.
“You know I don’t think that, but I am not about to bury you. I’ll plan the parties which you won’t attend, charity events that you don’t remember the names off, a wedding you’ll cancel at the last minute,” - “Sophia was bitch and you didn’t even like her!” - “BUT. Arthur, I will not plan your funeral. I’ll quit before I do that and take Merlin with me. You may not like it Arthur, but you don’t get to let us find out how to live without you, again.”
Merlin nods furiously, tossing the bloody rag into the waste basket, “And I will go with her, don’t think I won’t.”
Arthur stares.
“I just can’t do nothing.”
Morgana sighs, she knows this, she understands this, it’s why Arthur is Arthur. But.
“Don’t die on us.”
“We’ll raise you back up and kill you.” Merlin adds. “We have the power.”
This time Arthur smiles, it’s almost like before. “I know better than to cross you two.”
Reaching over, she smooths the bandage over the cut on his temple, her fingers resting on it for a couple seconds. She knew coming into this ten years ago that life with Arthur would never be easy, but the man really didn’t have to go and find new ways into forcing her into early grave - she’d really have to kill him then - still, she had known what she was signing up for back then. She doesn't regret it.
**
No, she doesn't regret it. Most days, except the days Arthur, pulls shit like this.
On the screen Morgana watches as Arthur, the complete moron, reveals just who was in the Excalibur suit, and honestly, why couldn’t he just stick to the plan for once in his life. Oh, that’s right: he’s Arthur. She can already the headache coming.
Next to her Merlin is gaping in amazement at the clusterfuck Arthur just made of their lives. She’s pretty sure he's dislocated his jaw and that if he could he’d be turning Arthur into a toad or something he would be, though, that might just be her wishful thinking.
Honestly, Arthur, you had note cards, she thinks.
Nudging Merlin with her shoulder, she shakes him from his stupor at Arthur’s idiocy.
“He did not just do that, the prat. Right?” Merlin looks at her, shock in his eyes.
Morgana just pulls out her Blackberry and calls the house, “DRAGON,” she leaves on the machine knowing the AI screens all of the calls, “we’ll be needing to filter all the calls from the media outlets to the second line. Only transfer Gwen and Mr. Lance Du Lac, from SWORD, to my phone and main house line. Arthur is not allowed to change this. Thank you, DRAGON.” She hangs up and turns to Merlin who is still staring at Arthur on the screen as Gwen tries to hurry him out of the camera flashes and reporter's calls.
“He really did not just do that.” Merlin repeats, an edge of panic rising in his voice.
Morgana takes a deep breath and pulls out the Snickers bar and hands it over. He takes it gratefully, ripping into the wrapper and stuffing it in his mouth. “Come now, Merlin, time to strengthen our forces. It’s not the time to panic.”
Merlin nods and pulls out his own PDA, “You know some days I really don’t know why we put up with him.”
Morgana smiles but doesn’t get to answer as the door opens and Gwen pushes Arthur in, who is smiling ridiculously widely.
“So… what did you two think?”
“You’re an idiot.”
FIN.
or is it?
Author: hariboo_smirks
Movie Prompt: Ironman. *eg*
Pairings: Multiship/gen: hints towards Merlin/Morgana, Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/Morgana if you want them.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~7,300
Spoilers/Warnings: many, many spoilers for the film, none for the show expect general knowledge of characters. Also in the comics Happy, the driver, has a much larger role and in the older versions Jarvis was Tony’s human butler, so I kinda smushed the roles together for Merlin in this verse, just in case there are questions about character placements.
Author’s Notes: This fic could be SO MUCH longer than it is, but I had to stop myself from re-telling the flim or else it would have never ended and I just didn't have the time to write it all. Maybe I’ll go back to this verse one day.
Summary: The call comes around noon and changes all their lives.
10,000 Nights of Thunder
It's a foggy morning, grey clouds blotting out the spring sun, and the day begins in the large house at the edge of Albion like all of the other days in which Arthur is out of the country and they are left to the house. Morgana brings the coffee and pain au chocolats, one of hers and Merlin's shared vices, from the gourmet shop just in town, and takes them to Merlin downstairs where she reminds him to head upstairs for lunch and their daily organising of Arthur’s schedule. Normally if Merlin isn’t up yet she asks DRAGON to remind him when he does -- this can, and does, involve her having DRAGON play the pop station at full volume if Merlin hasn't woken up by noon, which he rarely does when Arthur isn't around to kick him awake, because it is a common misconception that Merlin is the morning person in the house -- and she settles in for the day.
Today Merlin is downstairs in the workshop (no Womanizer today, she inwardly muses), working on some new upgrade for the DRAGON system that runs the house or he’s replacing the fuel injection system Arthur put on the Rolls yesterday. The indie rock he can’t listen to when Arthur is around because the other man mocks it mercilessly is probably vibrating throughout the workshop. But Arthur is away in Pakistan demonstrating the new Gryphon missile system that he and Merlin had spent all last summer building after a session with Mordred and fireworks, and Morgana doesn’t mind it. Which really means she just doesn’t care what Merlin listens to as long as he remembers to go over the tech aspects for the new budget with her later. The days in the house without Arthur tend to run quietly with only Morgana and Merlin filtering through the house, sharing space normally around lunch and dinner when Morgana drags Merlin home with her. They both know he'll forget about food and lock himself away in the workshop trying to keep busy, in a very Arthur-like move. Merlin’s the only other person Arthur allows in shop when he's away on business and probably because Merlin can override the security system anyway. He helped build it after all.
Merlin is unofficially Arthur’s second personal secretary- “assistant, I’m not your bloody manservant, you twat!”- to give him a title better than partner in the lab and crime, Morgana on the other hand is Arthur’s right hand woman. She runs everything Arthur can’t be bothered to run and that Merlin has no patience for. Normally she’s found in the kitchen or in the upstairs office going over Arthur’s expenses and schedule, and that’s where she is when her Blackberry rings.
“Le Fey.” Professional as always, her voice is cool and collected. She’s not called Arthur Pendragon’s personal Wall of Jericho for nothing.
“Morgana!” The voice on the line sounds far away and static-filled, but Morgana can recognise Guinevere’s voice anyway.
“Gwen!” She greets warmly, “How did it go? Arthur was sober when he presented it, wasn’t he?”
Gwen doesn’t seem to hear her because she only repeats Morgana’s name again, and this time Morgana hears the worry. “Something happened, Morgana!” Behind Gwen’s voice Morgana can recognise the sounds of helicopters and military and feels her heart seize up.
“Gwen, is Arthur okay? Gwen!” The reception is horrible, but she hears Gwen’s answer. Only to wish she hadn’t a second later.
“It’s Arthur. He... he was taken hostage.” Gwen voice suddenly drowns out everything. “We were ambushed right after the demo. We’re not sure who took him, but I swear Morgana I’m going to do everything I can to find him. I promise you...”
Gwen explains everything in perfect military detail, but Morgana can hear how truly worried her friend is. As they speak Gwen agrees to call Nimueh with the news at Morgana’s request and when they hang up Morgana’s notepad is filled with a to do list, people to call, and people to avoid. Placing her Blackberry down on the desk she looks at her hands and wills them to stop shaking, not even sure when that started. When she looks up, hands still once again, her eyes fall to the picture Arthur has on the corner of his desk: it’s a picture of him, Merlin, herself and Mordred, at her son’s birthday last year. Unbidden, her finger trails the edge of the silver frame, the antique frame's pattern smooth under her finger. She knows Arthur didn’t put the picture there, just like she knows that Merlin asked her for two copies and this is the second copy because they both knew Arthur would never ask. She also knows that the fact Arthur keeps it on this desk, his father’s desk, means something. She knows it means he thinks of them as family even if he never says it. With that thought in her head she snaps her eyes away from the smiling faces and pushes herself up from the desk.
Her feet wobble under her when she stands, her hands curling on the desk’s edge, knuckles white, and she takes a breath. Once her feet are again steady in her Jimmy Choos - sex heels, Arthur called them, calls Morgana, she thinks, no past tense - she moves swiftly down to the workshop.
**
The music is blaring, but that’s no surprise. Merlin is hunched over the Rolls Royce he and Arthur are rebuilding, messy dark hair sticking up like he was running his hands through it, but that’s normal too. Everything is normal as Morgana looks at him through the glass panes separating her and Merlin. One thin sheet of glass between them and the knowledge she has makes it feels like a mile. She punches in the code to the shop and automatically turns the music down with a press of her finger.
Merlin’s head snaps up, smiling, “Morgana, I thought we came up with a compromise for when his highness isn’t around. I get to play my music as loud as I wish.”
She can’t even smile. “Merlin.”
He’s up in a spilt second and in front of her. “What’s happened?”
She should be grateful for the shorthand they’ve adopted over the years, built over breakfasts and lunches where they make sure Arthur keeps to his schedule without being aware he’s keeping to his schedule, afternoons on the sofa over pizza where they discuss projections and spreadsheets and Mordred’s school projects. For almost seven years now she and Merlin have made sure Arthur’s life runs as smoothly as Arthur’s life can. They know each other’s every eyeroll and smirk, and right now her face is telling Merlin everything she hasn’t said.
She takes his hands, long fingers covered in grease, in hers but doesn’t make him sit. “Gwen called.”
That’s all he needs.
“Is he alive?” Merlin’s voice has never sounded so empty to Morgana, it’s heartbreaking. Her heart is breaking.
“They-we don’t know.” Her voice is cracking, splintering like glass. She sees Merlin’s eyes darken as she speaks.
“He’s alive.” If her voice was glass, cracking into sharp fragments that pierce her, then Merlin’s is fire, burning and painful. He wraps his wiry arms around her and pulls her into a hug. Morgana clings back, her forehead pressed to his neck, nodding. Arthur’s alive. He has to be.
Neither can remember when the tears started or when they stopped.
**
They fall into a routine in the following months. The first weeks being the hardest, especially when the news agencies got a hold of the story and it was on every BBC and Sky channel, then showing up on CNN and even MTV. Morgana and Merlin barely get a wink of sleep that week, fielding calls, interviews, paparazzi.
She and Mordred spend most of that time living out of the house, not only because the paparazzi have taken a sudden interest in everyone in Arthur's life, but because she knows better than to leave Merlin alone. And in all honesty, being at the house makes her feel better, closer to Arthur.
When the Daily Mail comes up with the headline: Pendragon Dead? Morgana crumples the paper in a tight fist and throws every lawyer she can at them, even manages to get the ass who wrote the story fired. Merlin calls the move ruthless, but she can tell he’s proud because it’s the first smile he cracks open since the news. Arthur isn’t dead, and they won’t let anyone voice the thought. Not around them.
**
She starts having dreams.
She dreams of Arthur yelling in anguished pain and of knives cutting into him, his blue eyes unfocused and scared.
She wakes up drenched in sweat and tears.
**
Gwen calls every day and every day Merlin and Morgana are beyond grateful to her. Gwen, who hasn’t given up, who’s using every bit of clout she has to keep searching. They both know they owe her so much because Gwen can do what they can’t.
All they can do is wait.
And neither of them is a particularly patient person.
**
She dreams of a blue light, bright and powerful. It halos Arthur from the inside out. When she wakes she hopes it means that he is safe and protected. Not, you know, going into the light.
Merlin agrees with her when she tells him.
**
When Mordred asks where Uncle Arthur is she tells him the truth. There’s no point to a lie, he’s as addicted to the BBC as Arthur is. After, she holds her son as he cries for his uncle, promising that him that Arthur be back soon and fine. She hopes she’s not lying.
That night, after Merlin helps her put Mordred to bed, he stays over and they finish a bottle of vodka. Arthur hates vodka, hates it more when they both drink it to spite him. That night they hate it too.
Merlin makes sure not to skip out on Sunday lunches, but it’s different now. It’s not the same reprimanding just the two of them without Arthur looking as innocently guilty at whatever engineering experiment has gone awry.
They still manage to blow up Mordred's race car in an explosion his godfather would be proud of.
**
Metal and guns and Arthur surrounded by light and death. Sometimes he is smirking at her, as if telling her he’s okay. Sometimes he looks so broken though. A crack down the middle of his chest.
These dreams don’t stop for a long time.
**
Nimueh continues running the company like she had before Arthur took back the position on his twenty-first birthday. She offers her love and care, but Morgana and Merlin have never felt particularly close to the woman and Merlin keeps mentioning that he doesn’t trust her. Morgana does trust Merlin, so she makes sure that they keep receiving every memo, project blueprints, budget plans like before even when Nimueh sweetly mentions that they don’t need to burden themselves with it.
Until Arthur’s body shows up they won’t stop taking care of the company he pretends not to love. The company she and Merlin love because of him.
**
She dreams of the desert; grains of sand slipping into the cracks of skin, of wanting, wanting, wanting water. Of the sun, heavy in the sky and leather cover her face.
She dreams. She dreams. She dreams.
Arthur, come home.
**
It’s a Wednesday when morning Morgana arrives at the house, as usual, because she hasn’t worked out of the Pendragon Industries offices since she was officially hired at Arthur’s personal secretary/assistant. She does her normal check of the house’s systems when the DRAGON system lets her know that there is a drunk in the workshop. Not for the first time she rolls her eyes at the fact that Arthur and Merlin programmed DRAGON with a personality, and a decidedly snobbish one, but for brief second she thinks it’s Arthur, drunk and probably half-dressed when she remembers that Arthur isn’t here and it shocks her. It’s been a long time since the knowledge that Arthur isn’t home and hasn’t been for months has shaken her this hard, but normally she tries to keep her mind busy with every thought except that. Collecting herself she remembers the only other person that has constant access to the house, the workshop, and who she’s found drunk in both.
Her heels click sharply down the steps and through the glass she sees his lanky body passed out on the sofa Arthur keeps down there.
Sighing, she makes her way over to Merlin, quietly, like she does with Mordred when he’s sick and sits by where his head is pressed into the leather cushion. The bottle of Jack Daniel’s is limp by his fingers and she gingerly plucks it out, setting it down away from her sleeping friend.
“Merlin,” she glides a hand over his forehead, pushing messy ink-coloured hair out of his eyes. He hasn’t had a trim in ages, she notices with a frown, he’s also paler than usual and the dark circles under his eyes stand out like bruises.
He moans in his sleep and turns his face into her thigh.
“Merlin,” she repeats a bit louder this time. He blinks. Twice and then groans, nose pressed against her black skirt.
“Morgana?”
“Yes, it’s me, love.” She smiles sadly, and keeps her hand by his hair.
Merlin slowly takes notes of where he is, what state he is in and sighs. “It was three months yesterday.” His whisper pulls tightly on the strings that Morgana’s been trying to forget are there and she nods.
“Yes, it was.” It’s an impulse to kiss Merlin’s forehead, but she doesn't stop herself. He blinks owlishly at her after and she stands. “Come on then, let’s get you upstairs and into the bath, then you can clean up the mess you made down here. He’d be livid to see the room in such a state.”
Merlin sits up, his body moving slowly, and nods. His eyes trail over the mess he’s made and Morgana thinks this is what their insides have looked like for months, Merlin was just tired of keeping it all in.
Four hours later Merlin’s dressed in some of Arthur’s sweats and a t-shirt fixing up the workshop. Morgana has put his clothes to wash and is sitting on the couch, hands cradling her head, her eyes tight and trying to keep the tears from spilling out.
Her Blackberry rings again.
**
“Morgana, we found him.”
**
“MERLIN!” She screams as she hangs up, and before she even really finishes saying his name she hears heavy footfalls rushing up the stairs.
When Merlin rounds the corner into the living room, Morgana knows he’s seeing tear tracks darken by mascara streaming down her cheeks and a smile that threatens to fall into a laugh. It’s probably the least put together he’s ever seen her, but she doesn’t think he cares as she rushes to him and gathers him up in tight hug.
“Arthur’s coming home.”
“This better not be a joke, because it’s in bad taste.” His voice is raw, arms are hanging limply at his side.
“It isn’t.” She pulls away to meet his blue eyes with her own and wipes the inky tears from her cheeks. Merlin’s laugh is as teary as hers when he sees the truth in her eyes and he swings her around in joy. She lets him.
“Ms. Le Fey?” DRAGON asks from above them.
“Yes, DRAGON?” Morgana blinks up, because it’s only now she notices that DRAGON has been so very quiet these last few months.
“Does this mean I shall be needing to reset the TiVo again?”
“To say the least,” Merlin grins, releasing Morgana from the hug and she’s already making mental lists of everything Arthur might need or not need. “Morgana, when’s he arriving?”
She turns back to Merlin, “They’re landing in eight hours at Camelot Air Force base.” Smirking, she nods to the stairs, “Might want to finish up downstairs.”
Merlin’s eyes go wide, “Bugger!”
**
It’s sunny when the carrier lands and next to her Merlin can’t seem to keep still. She has a hand around his arm, trying to steady him. Gwen had mentioned something about Arthur, about what had been done to him, about this thing in his chest and she knows that Merlin is just as worried as she is.
As the back of the carrier opens and the ramp lowers, Morgana can see two figures carefully stepping down the ramp. She notices Arthur’s limp and the way he waves away the gurney; her eyes narrow. She tightens her grip on Merlin’s arm as he steps up to them. And god-
It’s Arthur.
Blonde, arrogant, childish Arthur with his arm in a sling and his lips smirking at Merlin and herself, like he hadn’t gone missing for months, but it’s in his eyes that she can the difference. Something happened in that desert, something has changed in him. She tries to hold back the sniffle, really she does.
“Those wouldn’t be tears of joy I see there, Morgana?” He smirks and she rolls her eyes. He’s still Arthur.
And next to her Merlin chuckles, taking one step forward clasping Arthur gently on the shoulder. “You prat, never do that to us again.” Morgana can tell that like her that he wants to move into a hug, but he holds back, same as she. It's not that time.
Instead, Arthur smiles at the softness in Merlin’s voice and without prompting she and Merlin detach and flank him. Morgana turns and gives a smile of gratitude to Gwen, nodding when the other woman smiles and nods back. They'll talk later. Then quietly she and Merlin lead Arthur to the car. Merlin takes his place behind the wheel and Morgana slides in on Arthur’s right.
“Merlin, hospital please.”
“On it.” He replies at the same time Arthur does.
“No. I don’t need a hospital.” He orders and Morgana eyes him and the way his hand lingers by his lapel.
Even after three months of being apart nothing seems to have changed when Merlin challenges back, “Are you an complete idiot? You need to get checked out!”
Arthur snaps back something about a pint and chips and then turns to Morgana, “And I want to call a press conference. Right now.”
Between giving Arthur a look but nodding, pulling out her Blackberry, and half listening to Arthur and Merlin argue about his well-being and just why he’s limping Morgana can’t help but stare at her long time employer, friend.
If she wasn’t sure before, she’s positive now. There’s something different about him, something she can see simmering beneath his eyes and the way he subconsciously rubs his chest. Looking up she meets Merlin’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
He's seen it too and nods covertly at her. In that split second they also agree: whatever happened in Pakistan, it doesn’t matter, they’re going to be there for him, like always.
“Arthur?” She turns to him just as she hangs up the phone.
“What, Morgana?” He snaps, then cringes, as if he just realised he’s not among enemies anymore.
She gently takes his hand, making sure he can see every inch of her movement as not to spook him further into himself. “We’re glad you're home. We shockingly did miss you.”
Arthur looks over to her then to Merlin at the wheel, the two of them sharing a long look, and nods, his hand tightening in hers for a minute before he lets go.
“Believe it or not, me too.” He doesn’t smile, but Morgana didn’t expect him to.
**
The press conference, in short, is a disaster. It takes her, Merlin, and Gwen to pull Arthur away from the horde of reporters that start following Arthur out the minute he stands and walks away after dropping the bombshell that Pendragon Industries is closing down its weapons division. Next to her she hears Merlin and Gwen's gasps of shock and disbelief, respectively.
Her first thought is that the stock is going to drop significantly, a reflex from spending years looking at spreadsheets and accounting figures, the thought is followed immediately by, oh, Lord, Arthur, what happened to you over there? As he moves towards them, she reaches out, leveling him with a look as Merlin already begins steering them towards the car. Arthur promptly ignores the look, as usual. In front of her Gwen is creating an opening as they make it back to the car. Merlin all but pushes Arthur in with an are you insane look that Arthur also ignores, Morgana follows Arthur in wondering how long Merlin will keep quiet even as he rushes to the driver's side, Gwen climbing in on the passenger's side.
The doors are barely closed when Merlin speeds away and glares at Arthur, "What the hell were you thinking doing that?" His blue eyes are flashing and worried in the rear-view mirror. Morgana gives Gwen a look. Please.
"Merlin," Gwen reaches over, a hand gentle on his shoulder.
Merlin sighs, settles.
"Arthur, what brought this on?" Morgana takes the opportunity to ask the question Merlin was trying for, if not for his anxiousness and worry for Arthur. She sighs, realising that Merlin running on low blood sugar and rumages through her bag for the Mars Bars she keeps in there for just this reason. She leans forward and drops into his lap, giving him the breathe, he's here and alive look.
"Can't I just want to make the world better?" Arthur scoffs, sliding down in his seat, head falling to rest against the window.
"No, not without a reason." Merlin half looks over his shoulder, looking at Arthur. Morgana bites her lips, it's the truth, but it's a truth that Arthur never wanted to face before.
"Maybe I have a reason now." Arthur doesn't look back to Merlin, his blue eyes staring out the window. "Guinevere, do you need to be somewhere?"
"What? Um, no, if you need... No, I don't need to be anywhere." Gwen looks over to Morgana, who shrugs unsure.
"Good. We're making a detour. Merlin, I want to go to the factory. I need to see something. Then we'll drop you off at the base."
At that Morgana sees Gwen stiffen and wonders what that's all about. It's not like them to have secrets from each other, but they're all also loyal to a fault, and if Arthur asked her to, Gwen would keep whatever he wanted secret.
"Arthur?" Comes from Merlin at the front, worried probably for the same reasons Morgana is.
Arthur sighs. "Didn't you two hear yet? Arthur has a new heart. He's a real boy now." His fingers are fiddling with his shirt buttons.
**
They wait in the car after Arthur steps out and walks into the factory. For the first fifteen minutes they just sit, Merlin finishing his chocolate bar and Morgana quietly organising the calls they're already getting from everyone. They all know better to rush Arthur. Twenty minutes waiting Gwen turns in her seat, fiddling with the clasp of her seatbelt and frowns, "Guys, I hate to do this, especially now, but I have to head back to the base soon."
Morgana looks up from where she's making sure that they get everything transfered to the house for the next, oh, forever. "Oh, Gwen, I'm sorry if we've kept you." She looks over towards she can barely see Arthur staring at the Tor Device, "I didn't think he'd stay this long."
Gwen shakes her head, smiling gently. "It's okay, he's had a hard time lately, I didn't mind. But I... I need to go. Not that I want to, I mean, I don't want to, but I should. Go, that is."
Morgana nods, "Merlin, I'm going to take Gwen to the front gate and call a car. I'll meet you two at the house."
"Are you sure you don't want me to take you?" His eyes flit to where Arthur hasn't moved, "I don't think he'd notice anyway."
"I'm sure. Plus, I'd rather know he's not alone."
The step out of the car and Merlin wraps Gwen in a tight hug. "Thank you for bringing him back, Gwen." Both their eyes are more than a little moist, but Morgana blinks and looks away. She motions to one of the guards for a golf cart to drive her and Gwen to the entrance and turns to Merlin as Gwen goes to sit.
Her thumb sweeps the line of his cheekbones, drying the moisture with her skin. "He's going to be okay, you know that?"
"He's not going to make it easy." Merlin scoffs, but his eyes drift to the factory entrance.
"He never does."
**
On the way out they pass by Nimueh, whose dark blue eyes Morgana meets, receiving a slow ruby smile that sends shivers down investment bankers' backs. She is obviously going to see Arthur. Morgana almost wants to turn back, but she reassures herslef that Merlin is there and Arthur is still Arthur.
Gwen sees her look and bites her lips. "Morgana, Nimueh called me after we found him."
"Not surprising, she does care about Arthur in her own way," Morgana reasons, but she feels something too much like dread crawl up her neck.
"She asked about Arthur, about how we found him. I told her about the thing in his chest-- she caught me off guard and I think I told her too much. Arthur doesn’t really seem keen on speaking about it."
Gwen looks wretched, guilt marring her face and Morgana reaches over, covering her friend's hand. "Don't worry about it. Nimueh we can handle. It's Arthur I'm more worried about. Now, tell me, just what is it that is in his chest?"
Looking much less guilty, but still worried, Gwen begins explaining what she understood from Arthur's explanations.
Morgana nods, filing the information in her brain. When Arthur had said he had a new heart, Morgana didn't believe him. She knows him too well. Arthur's heart is the same, what's powering it might be new, but his heart is the same. She's just afraid it's broken.
**
It doesn’t take long for Morgana to get a real look at the thing in Arthur’s chest. She’s in the middle of putting the kettle on while simultaneously reading over the budget outlines for the next month. She really feels like burning half the memos she’s received in the past day, along with the mountains of cards and flower arrangements they’ve received from Arthur’s “friends”. She’s already dealt with the flowers- mulch is a very important fertilisation technique, and honestly people must be blind, because more than half of those arrangements were ghastly. The memos though, well she still needs to share them with Merlin and Arthur.
Just as she’s about make that note, she hears:
“MORGANA!”
She rolls her eyes, really, this is why they have an intercom system run by very sophisticated AI. “DRAGON, the workshop, please.”
“As you wish, Ms. Le Fey, and thank you for not yelling.” The obvious disdain is obvious in the AI’s automated voice.
Morgana chuckles, “No problem. Merlin, Arthur, you called?”
She hears a scuffle, a hushed argument and, “Morgana, can you please come down stairs and save me from this fool?- Stop touching it, Merlin! You’ll drop it!”
“I will not! And it’s not my fault that your design is absolute shite. Morgana, please, before I kill his highness.” She can almost picture them pouting and glaring at each other and her first thought is, it feels like before, “I’ll be right down.”
With an amused smiles she checks on the kettle. It’s done, thankfully, and she quickly makes three cups before heading downstairs to the workshop. As soon as she punches in the code Arthur orders from where he’s laid up on one of his chairs, “Show me your hands!”
Morgana blinks, “What are you on?”
“Just show me your hands!” He waves his hands at her just as Merlin moves towards her, taking the tea tray from her, freeing her apparently very important hands. “Hands!” Arthur repeats, growing even more impatient.
“Right, fine!” Morgana lifts her hands and waves them round like a hand model would. “Happy?”
“Oh, they are better.” Merlin breathes, setting the tray down and pulling Morgan forward to where Arthur is, and that’s when she realises Arthur is shirtless and there's a light glow emitting from his chest.
“I told you, you idiot.” Arthur snaps back at Merlin but Morgana is to focused on the glow coming from Arthur’s chest.
Her voice cracks like it hasn’t since her water broke. “Is that the thing keeping you alive?” She wants to reach out and touch it, but curls her hands at her side, holding back. Merlin moves towards the workbench double checking something on the laptop, but she can tell from the tight line in his back that he hasn’t been dealing with it all that smoothly either.
Arthur looks at her and something too close to fear and grief flashes in his eyes, before he smirks and taps the thing. “Not this antique.” He picks up another device near where Merlin is standing, “this is what will be keeping me alive from now on. But I need your help. Merlin was utterly useless with his freakishly large hands.”
“They are not freakish!” Merlin pouts, “The opening it is too tight!”
Arthur eyes him and Morgana holds back the laugh at Merlin’s reddening ears. She clears her throat instead, “And how exactly am I supposed to help?”
Arthur grabs her right hand, “Dainty hands.”
“Oh, no. You don’t think I’m going to stick my hand in your chest.” Morgana likes to think after ten years with Arthur she’s developed a tough skin for most things, but she draws the line at her hand poking around anyone’s chest. Even Arthur’s.
“Please Morgana, thanks to Merlin’s spectacular ability of failure even at a genetic level,-” “Prat!” “you’re the only other person I have.” With the hand still holding hers Arthur gives her small tug and looks over to where Merlin is standing nervously by the laptop, which Morgana has just noticed looks as if there’s a heart monitor on it’s screen. Oh, god, no. They’re both giving her those damnable smiles that are supposed to exude innocence, if only she didn’t know better.
But. Bollocks, she knows she’s going to be sticking her hand in Arthur’s chest.
Taking a steadying breath she closes her eyes, “Fine. Tell me what to do.”
“Brilliant!” Merlin’s grin is too relieved to calm Morgana and she sighs. Arthur’s fingers tighten around hers and she turns to him. She’s known him since they were seventeen, they’ve worked together since she turned twenty-one, they’ve stuck together through his parents' death, her impromptu pregnancy, men, women, and most recently him being missing for three months. Morgana knows him better than herself, and she knows he’s scared but trying not to show it.
“I’m going to need that hand if you want to me to do this.” She grips his fingers tightly, trying to reassure him with her eyes and smiles.
Arthur drops her hand, suddenly looking very young. Morgana turns to Merlin, “Okay, what do I do?”
“Alright, first, we need to take the old device out.” His (long and too large) hands move nimbly over Arthur’s chest and disconnects the glowing device. It pops with a hiss and Morgana follows Merlin’s hands as he moves it aside. Turning back towards to her and Arthur, he takes a deep breath, “now the tricky part. You have to reach inside and pluck out a loose wire.”
“It’s why we called you down, Merlin can’t reach it, his hands are too big.” Arthur comments from the seat where he’s resting and Morgana wonders if she should mention that he’s currently holding one of those hands in a tight grip. She decides to let it go, because at the moment she’s reaching inside the hole in Arthur’s chest. If that doesn’t merit some hand holding, nothing does.
Merlin ignores the insult and focuses on guiding Morgana. “The wire should be poking out right near the bottom.”
Morgana nods, with a cringe. “Oh, there’s some sort of pus-”
“It’s not me! It’s the elctromagnetic residue.”
Merlin scoffs, “Actually that’s just all the ego that can’t fit into his body anymore. You have to be careful of-”
“Don’t make me kill-Fuck!” Arthur starts, causing Merlin to jump, which results in Morgana freezing on the spot.
“Merlin?”
He waves her to continue, ignoring the glare Arthur is sending them. “That was what I was going to warn you about, you have to make sure that the wire doesn’t touch the edges.”
“-Couldn’t mention it before, could you?” Arthur grits out.
Merlin rolls his eyes, “Maybe if someone wasn’t interrupting every two seconds.”
Morgana only rolls her eyes, because she thinks it’s quite impossible for these two to stop arguing. Ever. She just continues to carefully pull the wire out. When:
“You have to be careful not to remove the magnet at the bottom.” And just as Merlin says that Morgana pulls the wire completely out, on it’s end the coiled copper magnet and the heart monitor goes mad.
“Morgana! Merlin!” Arthur shouts over the monitor.
“What’s going on!” She drops the copper wire with shaky hands on the table behind her, quickly moving to face Merlin again.
Merlin appears calm and that’s the only reason that Morgana isn’t freaking out (more). “He’s just going into cardiac arrest.”
“Oh, just cardiac arrest!” The fact that Arthur is yelling during his heart attack Morgana thinks should qualify him for some sort of record, or an award in the Melodrama category.
“If you two could stop sniping for one minute then maybe these things wouldn’t happen!” She snaps. They go quiet- not for the first time Morgana is fed up with their cavalier attitude about their health. She’s used to it, of course, and it’s the unspoken rule that they’re allow to be absolute idiots in regards to drinking and overall well-being because she’s there making sure they eat during their bouts of brilliance, but sometimes she just wants to throttle them. Of course, they only stay quiet for about a second before Merlin hands over the new device.
“Here, you need to re-attach this to the chest plate.” He’s subdued, his guilt blooming in red spots on his cheeks. Morgana takes the device and just like she did before she moves to Arthur’s chest. Before she starts to attach the device, she lays one hand on Arthur’s shoulder and smiles gently at him where he’s breathing slowly.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Arthur rolls his eyes, a small curl to his lips. “I know.”
She adjusts the long metal attachment and reaches into his chest. The second she attaches the device the reaction is instantaneous and Arthur jumps in his seat.
She and Merlin jump too.
“Woo!” Arthur shakes himself and grins wide, “Better than caffeine!”
“Blasphemy.” Merlin comments, smiling.
“I am never doing anything of the sort ever again.” She looks between the two men with what she hopes is a suitable I hate you both look, even as shakes her head in disbelief, realising, my hands are covered in electromagnetic pus.
“You did great, love.” Merlin laughs and reaches over planting a wet kiss to her cheek, before continuing to check over Arthur, gently removing the wires connecting Arthur to the heart monitor from the man’s chest.
“My heroes.” Arthur bats Merlin’s hands away finishing for himself and tosses a rag to her. Gratefully she takes it and wipes her hands off. He’s smiling like he hasn’t since told him he was to be Mordred’s godfather, and she can’t help but reach over and brush his damp hair from his forehead.
“It’s about time you admitted you can’t live without us.”
Arthur drops back on his chair, clearly exhausted, “I could, I'd just rather not. Too much work otherwise.” He tacks on, complete with a roll of his eyes and huff.
Over him Merlin and Morgana share smile, knowing exactly what that means.
“God, could you two be more girly? Morgana, really, I’m disappointed.”
“Hey!” Comes from Merlin, realising he’s just been insulted and Morgana laughs, turning towards the stairs.
Her eyes fall on the old chest device and she picks it up, setting it on the tray, leaving their two cups and calls over her shoulder. “We have memos to go over later.” Merlin looks back, nodding, before turning to Arthur who has just poked him in the shoulder demanding attention again. His chest is glowing, and not even the black t-shirt that he slips on diminishes the glow. Wow.
On her way up the stairs she fingers the cool metal of the device. She can hear Merlin and Arthur arguing as usual behind her and can’t help but think it’s always the least expected things that change lives. This small thing in her hands has changed them all. Small changes, ones nobody but them would notice but they’re not the same anyone. Not Arthur, who is now more careful, more tactile, but quieter. Not Merlin, whose protective streak is growing to rival her own, now never more than a few steps away. Not her, with dreams that worry her, because she keeps seeing Arthur surrounded by fire and light.
She pauses, the last thought driving her to look back one last time before leaving the workshop. They’re still arguing, Merlin says something that makes Arthur scoff and he’s home. She does something that she hasn’t been able to do in months.
She breathes.
epilogue
Three hours ago, she and Merlin found him barely sitting on the sofa, the arid air from the Indian Ocean filtering through the open window. Now they’re all in the Dubai’s house workshop, Arthur lying down, bruised and exhausted on the chaise she bought at an auction for him during his Roman furniture phase.
Pressing the cotton-swab into Merlin’s hand, Morgana glares at Arthur, shaking her head.
“What?” He pouts and Merlin ignores the yelp he gives when the alcohol meets the cut on Arthur’s cheek.
“I know you think you have to do this,” she waves her hand to where the Excalibur armour is littering the worktable, “but you don’t get to die on us.”
“You both would rather I just turn a blind eye and allow people to continue being killed with the weapons I made to protect them.”
“We made them together,” Merlin adds miserably.
Morgana brushes her fingers over Merlin’s tense shoulders, softly, reassuringly, trying to tell him it’s not your fault. Not that, not what-not how Arthur has chosen to fight back, before turning to Arthur. She thinks Merlin gets it. She hopes.
“You know I don’t think that, but I am not about to bury you. I’ll plan the parties which you won’t attend, charity events that you don’t remember the names off, a wedding you’ll cancel at the last minute,” - “Sophia was bitch and you didn’t even like her!” - “BUT. Arthur, I will not plan your funeral. I’ll quit before I do that and take Merlin with me. You may not like it Arthur, but you don’t get to let us find out how to live without you, again.”
Merlin nods furiously, tossing the bloody rag into the waste basket, “And I will go with her, don’t think I won’t.”
Arthur stares.
“I just can’t do nothing.”
Morgana sighs, she knows this, she understands this, it’s why Arthur is Arthur. But.
“Don’t die on us.”
“We’ll raise you back up and kill you.” Merlin adds. “We have the power.”
This time Arthur smiles, it’s almost like before. “I know better than to cross you two.”
Reaching over, she smooths the bandage over the cut on his temple, her fingers resting on it for a couple seconds. She knew coming into this ten years ago that life with Arthur would never be easy, but the man really didn’t have to go and find new ways into forcing her into early grave - she’d really have to kill him then - still, she had known what she was signing up for back then. She doesn't regret it.
**
No, she doesn't regret it. Most days, except the days Arthur, pulls shit like this.
On the screen Morgana watches as Arthur, the complete moron, reveals just who was in the Excalibur suit, and honestly, why couldn’t he just stick to the plan for once in his life. Oh, that’s right: he’s Arthur. She can already the headache coming.
Next to her Merlin is gaping in amazement at the clusterfuck Arthur just made of their lives. She’s pretty sure he's dislocated his jaw and that if he could he’d be turning Arthur into a toad or something he would be, though, that might just be her wishful thinking.
Honestly, Arthur, you had note cards, she thinks.
Nudging Merlin with her shoulder, she shakes him from his stupor at Arthur’s idiocy.
“He did not just do that, the prat. Right?” Merlin looks at her, shock in his eyes.
Morgana just pulls out her Blackberry and calls the house, “DRAGON,” she leaves on the machine knowing the AI screens all of the calls, “we’ll be needing to filter all the calls from the media outlets to the second line. Only transfer Gwen and Mr. Lance Du Lac, from SWORD, to my phone and main house line. Arthur is not allowed to change this. Thank you, DRAGON.” She hangs up and turns to Merlin who is still staring at Arthur on the screen as Gwen tries to hurry him out of the camera flashes and reporter's calls.
“He really did not just do that.” Merlin repeats, an edge of panic rising in his voice.
Morgana takes a deep breath and pulls out the Snickers bar and hands it over. He takes it gratefully, ripping into the wrapper and stuffing it in his mouth. “Come now, Merlin, time to strengthen our forces. It’s not the time to panic.”
Merlin nods and pulls out his own PDA, “You know some days I really don’t know why we put up with him.”
Morgana smiles but doesn’t get to answer as the door opens and Gwen pushes Arthur in, who is smiling ridiculously widely.
“So… what did you two think?”
“You’re an idiot.”
FIN.
or is it?