TAKEN (What's yours is Mine) - 3/6
Part Two
Part Three
*
Waking up disorientated was not a familiar thing for Merlin, but the déjà vu he experienced as he came back to himself again left him reeling and unsettled. His shoulders ached and his head pounded and he was cold, like a permeable chill straight though his bones, and as he took stock of himself it took time to realise where he was and longer still to remember why. His fingers were stiff and sore, like they’d been out in the wind and frozen; moving left his brain sluggish and foggy and as he took in his surroundings and what bound him to the chair, the cold settled deep in his stomach.
“I must say, Merlin, that your reaction to the cuffs was most adverse and strangely interesting,” a foreign voice brokered the silence of the room, and for the first time Merlin’s awareness shifted beyond himself. His unease heightened; he wasn’t used to being unaware and the fact that there had been someone there without his knowledge unsettled him
“Who are you?” the words stuck on his tongue and Merlin groaned, unsure whether or not the woman could have understood what he had intended. Her laughter told him nothing. Her shoes on the concrete echoed in the small space as she moved into his line of sight. She was tall and willowy, blonde and beautiful. Her eyes were blue and heavily outlined. She held herself with the air of a woman who knew exactly what she was capable of and had little need to be wary of others.
A part of Merlin stretched outward, or attempted to, the natural part of him that was an extension of himself, that protected him, warned him that someone else was there before he could see them; the part of him that heightened his senses, warmed his bones, yielded to his lightest touch or whispered yearning was cold and unwilling and it was then that Merlin truly took stock of his situation. His gaze fell to his hands where cold iron wrapped around each of his wrists just beyond the ropes that bound him in place.
“You’re still not quite back with it, are you?” the woman said, mocking like his confusion was mere wallowing.
Merlin fought to swallow the flailing panic that welled up in him, terrified and anxious and with nowhere to go.
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe for the likes of you and I,” the woman said and Merlin looked back up at her.
“Who are you?” he asked again and her lips curled.
“My name is Morgause,” she said, her voice making it sound like a title.
“Why am I here?”
“Surely you remember that part, Merlin. You took Arthur’s place.”
“I - I don’t - “ Merlin replied and faltered, because he didn’t. His memory was foggy and slow and the last thing he could remember was the sheer glee he’d felt as he’d fallen backwards onto the bed in his hotel in Rome and known he could come back home to Camelot, to Arthur - the job had been done.
“It’ll come back to you,” Morgause said, her tone retaining that smugness that set Merlin quietly on edge.
He knew she was magical, her arrogance assured him nothing less, but the loss of his own, the fact he couldn’t feel her like he normally could left him unstable and quietly afraid. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“What do you want?” Merlin asked instead, keeping his gaze on her, trying to will himself back into some sort of control.
Morgause laughed again, this deep tinker that made Merlin think absently of rich, warm wine - wine laced with something. Morgause would never not be dangerous.
“We’ll come to that, Merlin, I assure you. But for now, we’re waiting on your beloved Arthur. He’s gone to fetch us something, something we’ve been after for a long time,” she said and in that moment her feral smile reminded him of someone else, someone with darker hair and that same infallible surety.
“Where is Morgana?” he asked and this time her laughter had a ring of victory to it.
“I knew you would remember sooner or later,” she said, her eyes flashing and Merlin shifted in his seat. His arms were bound tight, there was little room to shift, but he tried anyway. His mind reeled with the sudden onslaught of his own memory. As his lips had formed her name, his brain unlocked the first door and he remembered the sharp fear that he’d felt as Morgana had locked the cuffs around his wrists, the feeling of sharp icy cold as his magic had fled somewhere deep inside him he couldn’t even feel.
“Morgana has other things to attend to, Merlin. She has other places to be.”
“What about Arthur? What are you doing to him?”
“Nothing, we have no part in what Arthur does for the next couple of hours, Merlin. He simply has to get something for us. How he goes about that, is entirely up to him.”
“What is it?”
“Come now, that’s not something you need worry yourself about, Merlin. What I want to know is you. I want to know all about you.”
“I can’t say there’s much I want to tell.”
“Oh but there will be, Merlin, there will be. I have lots of questions and you’re going to answer all of them.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he replied and he watched the excited flash in her eyes. It wasn’t the burning gold of magic, but rather the brightness of confirmation, of excitement and joy - yet all it did was serve to make Merlin’s blood run cold. Colder than it already was. He had upset their plan by being at PSC instead of Arthur, but there was something about the whole operation that bespoke of further planning. That this went beyond Arthur and beyond him and the both of them were casualties of a war that had been burning for years, but he guessed was about to get nuclear. This whole thing had a dangerous edge to it, something feral about it that was unsettling and made his body tense.
“I don’t mind if I have to make you, Merlin. You’re going to serve one purpose at the end of this, and I don’t think they’ll mind whether you can stand up or not.”
“You can try but I wont give you what you want.”
“Ah, but you don’t even know what I want yet, Merlin. How very rude of you,” her voice held a mocking ring to it, similar to her sisters in a way that their appearance lacked. She leant down over him, crowding his personal space with her golden hair and wide eyes.
“It’s really very simple, Merlin, I want to know about your little trick, your little ability. I want to know why no one can sense your magic. That’s not so difficult is it?”
Merlin blanched, confused by her request.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, on principle. Morgause smiled, like she had hoped that would be his answer.
She reached down and wrapped her hands around his wrists, over the cuffs. Her touch was hot against his skin and he winced. Then she dug her nails in and he flinched again, wincing at the uncomfortable pain.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to ask you again, Merlin, I’ll play nice for a little while, after that, I wont be so giving.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh but you do. You might not be able to reach you magic, Merlin, but it’s there and I should be able to feel it. I can always feel it; everyone can always feel our kind. It’s in our blood. A part of us, a part of our gift. Bar you. No one can sense you, no one ever has. I want to know why, and you’re going to tell me.”
Her eyes flashed then and it was like Merlin’s entire body had been dunked into ice water - his whole body seized under the jarring flash of pain, sharp pins and needles all over his body that were there and gone in an instant but left him panting and choking on the air. Morgause’s lips curled.
“I want to know how you hide, Merlin, and you will tell me.”
Merlin gasped and tried to swallow more air, tried to get a hold on himself. His skin prickled with goose bumps and his lungs burned. But it didn’t impart on the thought swirling around in his head - the question Morgause wanted an answer for, the question Merlin wanted an answer for, had always quietly wondered and been left wanting.
“I can’t,” he croaked, looking up at her as she loomed over him, beautiful and menacing.
“Oh Merlin,” she said, with a false smile. “I don’t believe you.”
Her eyes flashed again and an invisible hand clenched around Merlin’s throat.
“You’re going to have to try harder to please me,” she whispered and Merlin’s lungs began to burn again.
Then, as suddenly as the pressure was there, it was gone again and as Merlin gasped for air, Morgause looked down at him, sneering like she would at a rodent.
“Now, try harder,” she said. “How does it work?”
Merlin blinked up at her through his lashes, heaving in dry breathes.
“I don’t know,” he rasped, and settled himself in for whatever she could do to him, clutching desperately to a fervent hope that somewhere, Arthur was looking for him. His Arthur.
*
It was odd, Arthur thought, joining the melee of people heading into the Compound once again. It was familiar and oddly jarring, like he could just slip straight back into the life he’d walked out of without any qualms. No one noticed he was out of place and no one would, he knew the walk, the swagger you only managed if you’d earned your place, and two and a half years ago, Arthur had. He’d worked and bled into the very being of a Knight. He had been one of them.
Then there had been Merlin and the third part of his life had started. He couldn’t help but wonder if this would spark something else, another chapter in his life. He didn’t want it to, yet he knew it was inevitable. Something of this capacity wasn’t something they were going to be able to forget. Arthur, for one thing was going to have to fight himself not to panic when Merlin was out of his sight after this. He was going to be the poster boy for a fucking nutcase possessive boyfriend. But after getting kidnapped and your whole world yanked out from under you trying to get it all back, he sort of figured it would be his due. Merlin would just have to deal with it.
Hell, Gwaine would probably have more issues with it than Merlin would.
At that moment he didn’t know what he wouldn’t give just to find out for sure.
As it was, he was dressed in a bland matching suit and dark framed glasses, holding a brief case and a coffee as he followed the line into the Compound.
It was routine, this whole process, driven by the belief that there was no one there that shouldn’t be. It was the Knight’s Compound, the headquarters for the entire country; thirty stories high and at least half a dozen below the surface. There were enough security checkpoints to keep anyone waylaid for a good twenty minutes more than it should take to get up thirty flights, but it was relatively simple to bypass if you knew the tricks. Certain personnel had clearance for certain levels and corridors. The trick was knowing the grades and how to pick them on the identification cards everyone was supposed to wear at all times. Arthur was wearing one of his own, his old card, to be precise, with the altered photograph of him with glasses and a pointier chin and nose. Enough to fool the facial recognition scanners if his own card did go through; hopefully it wouldn’t come to that - if it all went to plan, then the ID card he was wearing would just be a prop for show.
What he needed was a security pass that would get him through the gate. That part was almost easier done than said. Despite safety measures, no one took anywhere near enough care with the damn things. Clipped to the edge of their jackets or the loops on their trousers; it was only those with field experience and the talent to swipe someone else’s card who wore theirs around their neck like they were all supposed to.
All Arthur needed to do was a quick farmers pass and he’d have one. The real trick was getting one he could use. What he really needed was a card off someone who was leaving the compound. He could easily swipe one off someone in the bustle of the line, but then the last thing he needed was for that same person to cause a fuss about getting in without their ID only to find that said ID had already been used. That was a failsafe way of getting the entire Compound put into lock down. Realistically, the hardest part about the whole job was going to be getting out. That’s what Merlin had always said, anyway - anyone could steal something, it took a professional to get away with it.
This was going to be Arthur’s test.
And what a test it was going to be. He was going to have to set off alarms. He wasn’t foolish enough to think for a moment that his father wouldn’t have fail safe protection on the vaults. It had been Uther who had truly started hating magic users and everything that they stood for, and after growing up under the man, Arthur knew the lengths Uther would go to in order to keep his word as law.
Arthur watched as the second line of people exiting the building as he kept a slow pace towards the entrance. It was all about timing. The two lines converged only at the scanners; it would have to be then when he’d have his chance.
Someone somewhere must have been watching over him, because seven people shy of the scanners, Arthur watched as his luck changed and a blond young man twisted and fumbled his way through the barrier, nearly losing his arm full of folders as he fought with his bag. A smile tugged at Arthur’s lips at the sight, the man reminded him so strongly of Merlin, the idiot tripping over himself, like getting through a door was an impossible thing. When Merlin wasn’t thinking every step through, it was like half his brain was switched off, and the fool became so endearing, blinking blearily and stumbling around the house, it was impossible not to fall in love with him time and time again.
Arthur almost felt sorry for the man as he watched as he tripped over himself on the other side of the barrier and his folders went sprawling. Everyone in the line watched it happen, many of them, like Arthur, knowing it was going to happen. But Arthur made his move quickly, bending down to help gather everything together and handed them all over to the blushing kid with an easy smile.
After this, if things went south, there was a good chance this kid would lose his job. Or his clearance at least, Arthur thought wearily. Security breaches were never taken lightly. All Arthur could do was push the thought aside and focus on his goal. Smiling softly as he slipped back into the line two stops before his former space, he fingered the ID card idly.
It didn’t take much longer for the line to carry him forward. This was routine for everyone in this line. It was no different to any other day for them as it was for Arthur.
As the woman in front of him held her card up to the scanner and it beeped, Arthur watched as the attendant’s gaze slid lazily from the woman’s face down to the screen and up again. It wasn’t anything against their vigilance; it was just simple human behaviour he was exploiting, really. If you do the same thing over and over again, then you get bored and only do it half heartedly.
As the woman cleared the scanner Arthur took his step forward and fumbled the empty coffee cup he was clutching. It slid easily out of his grasp and rolled forward, through the scanner. Arthur took his moment then to swear softly and the guy behind the desk didn’t even think about it, he leant down to pick up the coffee cup and Arthur took his chance, holding the pass up and he watched as the light went from red to green and it beeped happily. The attendant didn’t even bother to look at the screen as Arthur shuffled though.
“Thanks,” he smiled, taking the cup off the grey haired man and shyly looked away as behind him the next person swiped their ID, impatient to get through the screening and into work. Arthur took his chance and left, clutching the empty cup and his briefcase and hurrying down the corridor, the poor kid’s false ID still clenched in one hand.
From there it came down to blending in.
The Knight’s Compound stretched over a couple of acres of land even before it climbed into airspace and the weaving corridors were near on impossible to handle. It took years to be able to navigate the hallways with ease, so once you were through the security checkpoint, there really was little you could do to stand out, short of using Magic right in the middle of a crowded hallway or start shouting. You could be lost to all hell or know exactly where you were going and there would be a dozen people like minded in the general vicinity.
Arthur knew exactly where he was going.
He had taken pride in generalising himself with the general layout of the entire building when he was first Graded. He hadn’t had access to the lower floors back then. He didn’t have the clearance. A lot had changed since then, including the fact he was in love with a hacker, a hacker with an eager sense of humour, a love of irony and little qualms about being petty or staying out of things that didn’t concern him. Merlin also believed in being prepared.
It had been simple for Percival to find the schematics for the Compound in Merlin’s system. Finding his father’s entire biometrics fingerprint scans and retina scan had also been blindingly simple. Finding out about Merlin’s birthday, however, was still impossible to locate - a tid bit of information even Gwaine and Percival didn’t have access to.
Merlin was strange.
And Arthur missed him.
Arthur steeled himself as he followed the pack down the first corridor and then took his leave, branching off down the corridor for the East Wing.
In the entire compound, there were twenty seven general service elevators. For the lower levels, there were another ten.
Of those ten, only two went to the sub vaults.
No hallway was completely empty, and Arthur made sure to keep his head down as often as possible, hunching his shoulders so that his bad posture reduced his general height by an inch or so. It all came down to it in the end. Arthur knew the training, after all, and he couldn’t risk running into anyone he once knew well enough to recognise.
He was well aware of what happened to those who turned and were Blacklisted.
The last one hadn’t even made it into custody. There had been an inquiry, but really, no one had been particularly fussed that a man who had sold their country’s secrets was returned to the Compound in a black plastic body bag.
Merlin had known what leaving the Knights meant to Arthur, and unless it had been imperative to their job, he had never demanded Arthur tell him something that he couldn’t’ have found out himself. It didn’t matter that as far as Arthur was aware, there wasn’t anything in the Compound Merlin couldn’t access if he tried hard enough. But it was a pride thing. He had been a serviceman to his country. A Knight of Albion, and just because he couldn’t serve, didn’t mean his principals had corroded and died. He still held them strongly and Merlin respected that.
No one in this building knew that. As far as they were aware, he had sold them all out completely, and now, now he was breaking in, in order to take more of those secrets for himself and his fugitive partner.
He got into the elevator with three others, four women in power suits already leaning against the railings talking amongst themselves. Their chatter quietened when their space was intruded upon. The elevator was going up and Arthur ignored any of the buttons in favour of keeping his head down and away from the security camera. There was little he could do overall, but it was better safe than sorry. On the seventh floor the doors opened and the women left, Arthur watching quietly as four pairs of skinny ankles in ridiculous shoes walked past and the doors closed to the sound of one of his fellow first floor-er’s whistling low and appreciative.
Arthur glanced over at him and the man, late twenties, brown haired and despairingly average blushed under the scrutiny staring at him from all angles. He remained quiet and left on the next floor. That left Arthur and two others, a pair of men in their thirties with hollow cheeks and grim lines to their lips.
Violent Crime, Arthur thought, dismally. He remembered his brief stint on the tenth floor a lot more than he’d ever hoped to. It wasn’t a pleasant place, Violent Crime. It didn’t attract many, as the name suggested, which Arthur figured was for the best. You needed a strong stomach to be able to handle what some people did to each other. White Collar Crime had let Arthur keep the lining on his stomach and a sense of human decency. It wouldn’t have lasted if he’d stayed. Homicide was at least usually family related (which in a way, was almost worse), Violent Crime was violence for violence sake. The sheer desecration of human decency.
It left a mark on the men in its division, a mark that didn’t go away.
The elevator was empty after that and Arthur didn’t waste any more time. The longer he was in the compound, the more he risked getting caught.
Crossing the elevator he pressed the last button on the display, a blank silver circle that glowed around the edge for a moment before highlighting the small screen at eyelevel. Arthur leant forward and refused to blink as his retina was scanned. It only took a moment and then, with a jerk, the elevator started moving again, going down, down, down before coming to a stop with a jerk. The doors opened and taking up his briefcase, Arthur walked out into the corridor. On either side of the elevator, two men in slick black suits stood motionless either side.
Paying them no mind, Arthur started up the corridor, mentally counting off the doors on the white corridor, matching them to the little squares on the map he’d memorised back at Gwaine’s.
Seven doors along he stopped and took a breath in. The keypad in front of him stared back at him imperiously and Arthur stared back.
He needed his father’s password to clear the first set of protocols and then the retina scan once again. A double edged knife, really. All his hopes lay on guessing whether or not his father’s sentimentality had got the better of him when he’d locked up the vault.
Arthur breathed out slowly and then entered the eight digit code.
04071962 - for a moment he held his breath, waiting for everything to fall apart and then the retina scanner opened up.
Thank fuck. Leaning forward he forced himself not to blink and then the light on the screen flashed green and with a hiss of released pressure and a loud thunk, the door unlocked. Arthur let go of his held breath and smiled, stepping over to the wheel and turning it. It shifted 60 degrees and the door gave under his pull, opening.
Arthur slipped inside and pulled the door almost shut behind him, just enough so that at first glance from the hallway it could almost be mistaken for being shut.
The room was large and continued the compounds love for sleek stainless steel walls and furnishings, veering into slick black varnished tabletops just for show. The room was lined in long cabinets and a single long desk in the middle. It was a storage room and little else. Arthur didn’t wait. There was little chance he wasn’t being filmed - it was his father’s direction that the rooms contents be down here, and Uther Constance was not a man who was stingy on protocol. The only reason the damn documents were saved from a fire was the fact that he probably had some advantage over some of the people listed in here that he might need.
Including, Arthur suspected, on Kil Gareth.
Arthur had grown up into espionage, a man who was important to one group, was, almost by default, important to everyone else as well. The others simply didn’t quite know what importance that was just yet. The fact that whoever had Merlin was willing to kidnap Arthur, just for the information he might have had on a man that he had actually never heard of, set off alarm bells he was waiting to identify. Kil Gareth was important for some reason and that reason had just become paramount to Merlin’s safety and therefore more important to Arthur than anything else he possessed.
Including his own freedom, he couldn’t help but think. Because as well as it had gone - it was going to take a miracle to get him out of the compound. He knew that and both Gwaine and Percival knew that, even if they weren’t willing to speak up and say it.
Crossing the room Arthur took in the sleek filing cabinets. They were that same impossible bleak grey that the cabinets upstairs had always been. They were flush against the wall, floor to ceiling and not one of them had any sort of identifiable marker.
Damn.
This smelt of Geoffrey Monmouth.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Arthur forced his mind blank and let himself relax.
Don’t rush this, you prat, his brain whispered to him in Merlin’s voice and unconsciously, Arthur’s lips twitched into a smile. He opened them and took a step back, looking at the wall of files. If this was Geoffrey Monmouth’s doing, then it was going to be simple - the man was a librarian at heart - it was always going to be in alphabetical order. But it was going to be in sections. Everything magical had been moved down here - the reports from Sorcerers from their field ops. Psych reports and his father’s findings, not doubt. As well as the research from MRD. But what went first?
For one, it would have to be the personal files of all sorcerers. Kil Gareth would have something in here. Arthur turned to the first row - each cabinet had three drawers, which if Monmouth was ordering the place, would be the length of a bloody bookshelf. Three across two down should be far enough for the G’s, surely. Possibly too far. But then again, Arthur had known about ten people with last names beginning with A in his year at Camelot Grammar.
The drawer was filled with K’s and J’s and L’s and Arthur slammed it shut and went to the next one back and started flicking through the lot. Kil Gareth’s was easy to find, almost too easy. Opening the manila folder Arthur took note of the older standing man, with his long face and his knowing eyes and a wide, sloping mouth before closing the drawer. The folder wasn’t big enough in his hands at all to be everything that they were after. Flicking back another page Arthur scanned down, his eyes flicking through the lines of text before he found it - MRD - Sector 6, Operation 674: Ivan Bliminse. That was the file he needed.
Stepping back Arthur stared at the wall once again. Second row, it wouldn’t hurt to try the second row. His father’s reports were in the second sector, the third as well. The fourth set of cabinets set him in Sector 4, the fifth gave him what he was looking for. Sector 6. He was dimly aware of how much time it had taken him, but he wasn’t willing to leave without getting everything he could. Not if it meant some backwards ruling that got Merlin killed.
He could practically hear Percy and Gwaine buzzing back at Gwaine’s as he searched through folders after folders and was so busy mentally berating the two he almost missed it. Luckily, Operation Ivan Bliminse was a rather large folder. Whatever the man had been doing, or what he meant to Kil Gareth and the Knights, there was a lot on him.
Which is what distracted Arthur enough he missed the sound of the door opening behind him and the entrance of someone he never thought he’d see again.
“I need you to put the files down and raise your arms above your head.”
Arthur froze, the familiar voice of an old friend shaking his resolution. Out of everyone that could have been patrolling the halls, on base and called down to a security breach in the lower levels, Leon Cameliard was not high on Arthur’s list. A part of him had been desperate to believe that nothing had changed for them after he’d left - that they would have replaced him, promoted Leon to their team leader and gone on as normal. He knew Merlin had investigated them, had kept a sharp eye. He’d told Arthur that his old team had been looking for him. That they had kept following Merlin’s trail, but if that had been true, then they should have been abroad - they should have been upstairs tracking Merlin’s trail from the last fortnight. Merlin kept disappearing for that reason, to keep them occupied, keep them away from Camelot and Arthur. Yet here he was, Arthur had come to the Knights and his team was on response.
“I said,” Leon ordered again and Arthur jolted.
“Put the files down and put your hands above your head. Turn around slowly.”
Arthur closed his eyes and listened to his old friend for a moment, his grasp clenching on the files unconsciously.
Behind him he could hear Leon moving closer towards him. He could almost picture it: his arms out, both hands bracing his loaded Winchester# 22, aimed straight and true and able to react without hesitation.
But what Arthur had over his old friend was a moment of surprise. If he turned around, the shock of seeing Arthur would give him the moment of hesitation he needed.
“Turn around!” Leon barked, close enough to act.
Arthur set the file on the top of the open cabinet and raised his arms above his head, he heard Leon let out a breath as he took another step forward and Arthur turned.
It was worse than he expected. It took a beat, indistinguishable in seconds, for Leon’s eyes to widen and his clenched expression to lift and the line of his mouth to slacken.
Arthur took his chance, his arm came down and held Leon’s wrist, knocking his second hand away. His own arm came down then, twisting Leon’s arm back and with a step backwards Leon’s balance shifted and the gun loosened in his grasp. With another blow it dropped from his grip, Arthur’s fingers clenched tight on his pressure point, Leon’s fingers slack.
Leon let out a sharp gasp and Arthur twisted his arm further back and rocking back on the balls of his feet he garnered his own balance and with one leg swept Leon’s feet out from under him. He made another gasping shout as he hit the ground. Arthur moved as quickly as he could, crossing the gap back to the cabinet and grabbing Gareth’s files.
Turning back, he was three paces short of the door before Leon grabbed him. The grasp on his shoulder was strong and forced him to turn into Leon’s fist. The blow was short and sharp and Arthur’s concentration wavered for a moment, giving Leon time enough to attempt a second blow. This time Arthur blocked it, but by then it was too late, they were back into the momentum of their old sparring, familiar in the weight and movement of each other.
Each blow Leon made against him Arthur could block, could read in his body language and he was sure Leon felt the same. In the last two and a half years he’d made sure to keep up his regimen. He hadn’t been chasing criminals, but had been one himself and while Merlin and Gwaine and Percival had continued their careers as crooks, Arthur had held back. He’d helped when Merlin had needed him, but realistically the only trying time he’d really worked his body was when they were helping smuggle families into the Underground. Merlin had made sure he had some noble cause to keep going with, and it had, if anything, been more rewarding than the Knights had been. But the beauty of it, was that they’d been cautious and safe and it had never come to blows. The only blows he’d given in the last two and a half years were in training against Gwaine, and Gwaine wasn’t against cheating.
His right blow, feint and a sweeping kick, knocking Leon’s feet out from under him was one of Gwaine’s favourites and he had a way of pulling it that Arthur never saw coming, even when he was wary against Gwaine’s tactics. Using it himself he could understand the other man’s glee at using it, the way Leon’s expression slipped into that of shock. A look that said he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened in the space of time it took for his feet to lose their place and his back to hit the ground. Arthur used that moment to reach for the files again, for whatever he could reach and make a run for it. But his moment of distraction gave Leon enough time to use a dirty move of his own and tackle him. His arms wrapped around Arthur’s waist and his weight carried them both to the ground, knocking the air straight out of Arthur. He grappled blindly for a hold on his old friend, to knock him aside and run, but Leon twisted and pushed down hard and, still gasping for breath, Arthur was pinned.
“Stop it, Arthur,” Leon panted, bearing all his weight down on Arthur’s chest. His lungs began to burn with the effort of drawing new air in and his fingers still itched to fight back, to throw Leon aside and damn well fight his way out. But he could suddenly hear the melee of sound he’d been immune to as they’d fought. In that moment he knew wasn’t getting out, his escape route was blocked; there would be no disappearing into the crowd.
“Let me go, Leon,” he asked, just once. It was as close to begging as he’d ever got and he couldn’t feel any difference in himself. He’d always assumed it would make a difference, that he would be inconsolable, begging and sobbing and using that wide manipulative eyes trick Merlin knew so well. But in reality it was so different, it was just a question, a question when he knew it was pointless.
“Please, Leon,” he said again and then there was no more time. The door burst open and Leon leant one last press down against him and then backed off as half a dozen lasers gathered in a dance on Arthur’s chest.
“Cuff him,” Leon ordered and then there were hands on him, rough hands, and Arthur lost track.
*
In the near on six years Gwaine had known Merlin, he had compiled a list of seven focussed things that he didn’t like about his friend.
Arthur Dubois had always been at the top of his list.
Before, it had been because the blond twit was a Knight; he might have been Merlin’s Knight, determined to put Merls behind bars, but then Merlin had gone and somehow, stupidly managed to get Dubois to fall in love with him and run away. After that, the Merlin Gwaine had known changed, morphed into some part of a dual being.
Gwaine had been happy helping Merlin before. Emrys had been Merlin’s alias before he’d known Gwaine, and while it had morphed into including Gwaine and Percival under the banner of its genius marks, it still was, in a way, entirely Merlin - but Pendragon; that was Merlin and Arthur combined. It was created for the pair of them and without one it didn’t exist. Gwaine couldn’t hold Merlin’s happiness against Arthur, because while Merlin’s list of jobs had more than halved year in year out, he was happier overall. He wasn’t reckless like he used to be, he was grounded and his principals were more founded. He used more of his energy helping the Underground than he did on jobs and while Gwaine wasn’t against helping the Underground, well, he was still in his prime and there wasn’t much point wasting that while it was still good. He was already sitting pretty, but he wasn’t that old yet, and he’d really rather like to retire proper like when the time came. Spend the rest of his life on some remote island he owned covered in pubs and race tracks. He needed open road and speed to get through the last years of his life, he reckoned and using all his time helping these wide eyed kids who made him uncomfortable move from city to city with these depressing backpacks full of their worldly possessions didn’t do well against his sense of self entitlement.
But Merlin was into all that stuff, he had a good heart and years of experience to drive him headfirst behind bloody Arthur Dubois’ need to do something worthwhile. The arrogant entitled prat couldn’t just accept the bed he’d made for himself, no, he’d moped and done all sorts of things that made Merlin all anxious and unsettled and that had almost wound up in a botched job the blond pretty boy didn’t know about.
Gwaine had figured that would be the pinpoint of the grudge he could hold against Arthur. He never figured Arthur would get Merlin kidnapped.
That was too far and while Dubois had run off, determined to do everything that he could to get Merlin back, the fact that this had happened at all was almost too much for Gwaine. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was all too much; Merlin getting back early, Dubois so determined to go walking right back into the Knight’s compound... Something didn’t feel right and he wasn’t just going to sit back and let it happen. He was going to give Arthur the benefit of the doubt getting the file. He, on the other hand, was going to try a different route.
“He’s doing the best he can,” Percy said quietly as they both listened to the aftermath of Arthur’s quick exit and the slamming of the door.
“He damn well better be,” Gwaine scowled, spinning back to the laptop he was in front of. The screen was still running the software Merlin had written for him and installed, the photograph of their first Tough guy from the security footage of PSC staring out at Gwaine, the other side of the screen still scrolling through Merlin’s database.
That had always been one thing about Merlin, his back catalogue. Everywhere they went Merlin had friends, people who were willing to put him up, a wanted fugitive, for the night for just a smile and ‘never you mind.’ They’d been to Prague, Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris, Melbourne, New York; all around the world Merlin had connections and the only insult to their privacy that Merlin broke was his database. Computers had become Merlin’s thing as a kid, and his collection of information was immense and profitable. The internet had its advantages, but Merlin’s database had the sort of advantage the Knight’s database must have. Merlin’s wasn’t quite so large, but it was current. Everyone who had the chance of doing something on their side of the fence was in here. If Merlin had even stumbled across someone who knew this bloke, then Merlin’s program would know. It was just a matter of finding who they bloody well were.
It was taking it’s time.
And there was nothing he could do to make it go any faster than it already was. Arthur had been gone for an hour and a half already and it was still scrolling through the possible matches, finding nothing.
Then, the counter stopped and with a small ping, a second screen popped up.
“Dammit,” Gwaine snarled, slamming his fist down on the table and spinning his chair away.
“What?” Percy asked turning away from his computer to lean over and take a look. Gwaine ignored him for a moment and closed his eyes. They had nothing. Merlin’s database had never seen this guy. The bloke had Merlin, he had an unconscious Merlin, Arthur fucking Dubois had gone off to the Compound to no doubt get himself caught and Gwaine and Percy had nothing. No idea who the bloody guy was.
“We’ve got nothing, Perce. Bloody Dubois has fucked off and Merlin’s database gives us nothing. They have Merlin and we don’t even know who they are.”
Percy’s expression was pinched, his brows furrowed and his mouth in a tight frown.
“IDing them is our best bet, Gwaine.”
“Then how, Perce? If Merlin’s system has never seen them before what makes you think that someone else has?”
“Common sense, Gwaine. Someone somewhere has to know who they are. There’s someone else running this show. There has to be, and if there is, then that means there is something to find. We don’t stop until we find it.”
Gwaine was breathing hard, his heart pounding in his chest like he’d run a mile.
“Right,” he said, offhandedly, for lack of anything else.
Percy shot him a dark look.
“Who do we know that might know who they are?”
“Tristan and Isolde are out of town. They’d be the best bet.”
“We could call them?”
“It’d be a long shot. They got spotted moving diamonds out of Escetia a couple of weeks ago. They’d have gone to ground.”
“Agravaine?”
“He’s dirty all round, he’d hand us over as soon as help us.”
“Gilli?”
Gwaine swore. Why hadn’t he thought of the little weasel?
“You know where he lives?” Percy asked and Gwaine looked at him, confused.
“Don’t you?”
“Never been,” Percy replied with a faint blush.
“I’m on it,” Gwaine said with a grin, checking his pocket for his phone.
“I’ll call when I know something,” he shouted back at Percy as he was halfway up the stairs.
*
Lance guided Arthur down into the seat with a hand on his shoulder. Arthur leant back and let the other man reach forward and take his handcuffed wrists and lock them into the ring in the middle of the table.
Only then did he step back and his eyes flicker up to Arthur’s face.
“Someone will be with you shortly,” he said, with all the polite stature Arthur had always remembered when he thought of Lance. Dignitary, honest Lance. Arthur watched as he backed up to stand guard at the door. They wouldn’t leave him alone for a moment, it hadn’t been the policy then, and it certainly wouldn’t have changed.
He should have felt more anxious about his own position as he looked around the interrogation room, but in reality, the only anxiety he felt still rolled back to Merlin - back to the nervous terror that someone still had Merlin hostage and now, now he was trapped and without the file.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been caught, caught by his own team breaking into the Knight’s Headquarters - a fact that could quite possibly put him a few steps closer to a firing squad than the life-in-prison he was in for when he’d woken up yesterday.
So much had changed in two days.
“Er, is er, Gwen... is she doing well?” Arthur asked, mindful of Lance’s silence but unable to keep quiet, not when his mind was suddenly driven to once again contemplating what would happen to Merlin if he didn’t get out.
Lance shifted his feet but stayed quiet. Arthur could hear him moving, could practically sense his unease.
Finally, just when he was sure Lance was going to keep on ignoring him, Lance finally spoke.
“She’s well. She may be better knowing you’re alive.”
“Tell her... tell her I’m sorry?”
“I doubt she will desire to hear it, Arthur. Two and a half years is a long time. You disappeared without a word. We thought you were dead.”
Dead. Right.
“I’m sorry.”
“Was it worth it?” Lance asked, an impudence to his voice that was unfamiliar. But the answer came to Arthur’s lips in an instant but he held it back, carefully studying the reflection of his friend’s expression in the mirror. He could see the heartache in the lines of Lance’s face and for the first time he really, truly regretted what he’d done.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead and he watched as Lance nodded.
“You were the best of us, Arthur. It saddens me to see what you’ve become.”
That hurt, strangely more than he thought it would. Not a sharp pain, but a bruising thump in his gut.
“It wasn’t enough.”
“And Ambrose was?”
“He is. Every day.”
The door opened then and Arthur let out a long breath and watched as Leon glared at Lance one hand on the door and watched as Lance left, closing the door behind him. Leon’s expression was grave as he walked over to the second chair and sat down. The room seemed to echo with the sound of his boots on the concrete floor and the slapping sound the file made as Leon dropped it on the table between them.
Arthur looked at the closed blue, manila folder and then up at Leon. His eyes were dark and his mouth curved in a serious frown.
“You shouldn’t have been speaking with Agent DuLac.”
“Give him some slack, Leon.”
“You know I cannot. State your name for the record, if you will.”
Arthur sighed and leant back in his chair, his unfailing tutoring coming into play without any real desire. Arrogance, calm, control, maintain eye contact - don’t falter. It was all second nature to him, grown out of years worth of practice sitting on the other side of the table, right where Leon was sitting.
“Arthur Constance Dubois.”
“Let the record show that Agent Leon Cameliard begins the interrogation at 21:17. Now, Mr Dubois, you understand that at 19:32 earlier tonight you broke into the sealed vaults of the KAC, which breaks a dozen statutes of Albion law? Is there any particular reason you did that?”
“Because I needed something from in there.”
“Needed something?”
“A file.”
“Why?”
Arthur leant forward over the table, he watched as Leon followed his movement avidly, his expression still fixed and unyielding.
“Yesterday my partner returned from abroad, while I was elsewhere our place of business was overrun by a number of armed men who proceeded to take my partner hostage. His safety is assured in return for a file on one ‘Kil Garath’. “
“So you broke in and sought to take the file yourself?”
“I’m on a time limit,” he shrugged. Three hours, forty two minutes.
“And why do these people need the file?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why do they think you would be able to get it?”
“Because they knew who I was. Merlin wasn’t meant to be home yet. They were after me. But he was there, so instead of asking me where they could find the information; they want me to get it instead.”
Leons expression gave no compassion and Arthur steeled himself. It hurt, strangely. He hadn’t expected it from any of them, but now, finding that base emotion lacking, it hurt. Merlin was innocent in this, and they didn’t even care. They couldn’t look past Merlin’s track record.
“Again, I ask: why do they think you would know about this man?” Leon asked, in that same calculated and controlled voice.
“Because they knew who I was. That I’m the son of the Director. They knew I’d been in the Knights for five years. They knew who I was. No one from my current life knows that. No one but Merlin.”
“And what assures you that this Merlin, one Merlin Ambrose, I assume, who is better known as ‘Emrys’, is not a part of it?”
Arthur growled, the sound rising up out of his throat before he could stop it and he saw the flicker of unease filter through Leon’s gaze and felt proud of it.
“I will ask you nicely, not to speak of him like that again. I hold no remorse for my actions if you disrespect him.”
Leon bristled.
“You have such faith in him; he is, after all, a criminal - his actions may not always be clear.”
“I have all the faith I need,” Arthur said resolutely.
“And you are aware that Emrys is believed to be involved in a bank heist in Roma at the beginning of the week. If he was abroad, what makes you believe that he is not involved in other things that you know nothing about?”
“What makes you think, Leon, that I am not aware of my lover’s activities? He has my full trust, and he is in danger that has nothing to do with him.”
“By right of the law, Merlin Ambrose belongs in prison,” Leon scowled.
“By right of the law, so do I. I’m not here to say the law is wrong, I am merely mindful of its restrictions.”
“And those restrictions are?”
“Keeping me here,” Arthur snarled.
Leon opened his mouth to reply but before he could answer there was a sharp knock interrupting them. They both turned to the door as it cracked open and Arthur met the gaze of Elyan Smith. Elyan’s dark eyes hovered on Arthur for a beat, but his expression didn’t waver, his eyes simply slid from Arthur to Leon and settled.
“She’s here,” Elyan said and Arthur watched as Leon’s eyes moved back to him and his shoulders tensed.
He could feel his hackles rise. Did they think he’d forgotten everything? It had been two and a half years, yes, but for five before that he’d been one of them. They had trained with him and served with him. They’d taken orders from him and served him orders in return.
“Where is she?” he asked, scowled, snarled. The pair of them jumped in surprise. The King’s Knights, Division Cappa of the Secret Service of Albion and yet Arthur was just as unnerved with himself at the sheer feeling welling up in him, knowing what was coming. Something that his fellow Knights couldn’t open up in him.
“Arthur - “ Leon started and Arthur growled.
“What? Where is she? She’s here, after all. She wouldn’t miss this, would she?”
“Calm down, Arthur,” a sharp voice announced and both Leon and Elyan looked away from the dark haired woman in the doorway.
“No, I bloody well wont calm down,” he shot back, and Mithian rolled her eyes.
“You’re acting like a child.”
“I’m acting like my partner isn’t somewhere with a bunch of bloody sorcerers and you’re holding me here.”
“What I’m doing Arthur is holding someone who broke into our headquarters with the intent on stealing something from the vault. You’re on the opposite team, Arthur. I can’t condone this.”
“Pretend I got away.”
“You know it’s not that easy. You were seen, Arthur. Caught. The footage is already being viewed elsewhere. You’re not getting away.”
“You can’t hold me.”
“I think you’ll find we can. You’re classed as a Black Knight, Arthur. You’re a wanted man, and not for anything good. If anything, your team members have helped secure a national fugitive tonight, not an old friend.”
“Please, Mithian.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Arthur.”
“There’s plenty, you’re just choosing not to,” he scowled, feeling angry and petulant and desperate. That was a new feeling.
“No, Arthur, you’re wrong,” Mithian answered, with that same stoic grace she had in anything she did. She could calm a hoarde of stampeding rhino’s with that collected air.
“A lot has changed since you decided to run off with Merlin Ambrose. And a lot happened because you decided to run off with him. You withheld information, Arthur. We know he’s magical. Hell, he’s powerful and you kept that out of the files. That in itself is a criminal offence.”
“And would you have chased us harder if you’d known?”
“It would have transferred the case to the MDD, yes, and you know that.”
“Merlin’s not dangerous. Not like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. You know it doesn’t matter. Don’t pretend for a second that you’ve forgotten a single line of the law you upheld working here. Damn it, Arthur, you could have run this place in fifteen years. It could have been yours if you’d played your cards right.”
“But I played different cards.”
“And they’ve lead you astray and there’s nothing we can do for you. There’s nothing, Arthur.”
“If you don’t let me go, he’s going to... Merlin’s going to die. They’re going to kill him.”
“I can’t help that,” she said, and there may have been a hint of remorse, Arthur couldn’t quite tell.
“Put the team on it, you have to investigate my intrusion and why I was here. I can tell you where to look, just... please. You have to do something. This had nothing to do with him.”
“That’s not our concern.”
“Please, Mithian. For me. We were friends. Please, just do this for me. Just look into why they might want that file. Please.”
He could see her expression wavering, the hesitancy.
“I wouldn’t have thrown this away if he wasn’t worth it and he is. He’s been worth it every damn day, Mithian. I wouldn’t walk in here knowing how little a chance I had of walking out after I’ve spent two and a half years running as hard as I could away from this place. Not I didn’t know that I need him. Just look into Gareth, please.”
He could feel Leon watching him by the doorway; he could feel his old friend’s distress, then, and the anger from before fell away. He had known Leon since they were children, mere boys years away from puberty, running through the corridors of the State offices, hiding from their nanny’s and causing mayhem only children could cause and getting away with it. Leon had always been loyal, to a fault. He had been Arthur’s right hand for longer than Arthur could think back on and seeing him again... after two and a half years was uncomfortable in itself. Knowing everything he had done to betray his old friend and those ideals they’d shared was painful. But it was nothing on the constant burn under his skin knowing what was happening with Merlin. Knowing that after everything Merlin had done to make sure he was safe, it was enemies he’d made here that had caught up with them. Enemies that had nothing to do with Merlin or Emrys or even Pendragon. Merlin was being held hostage because someone had figured out that Pendragon was actually Arthur, Arthur Dubois, the Albion Knight.
Mithian made a sound like a cat and for a moment it was like they were children again, squabbling at the kids table at a banquet in Escetia because they were too young to be of any use making allies.
“Lock him up,” she said instead.
Part Four
Part Three
*
Waking up disorientated was not a familiar thing for Merlin, but the déjà vu he experienced as he came back to himself again left him reeling and unsettled. His shoulders ached and his head pounded and he was cold, like a permeable chill straight though his bones, and as he took stock of himself it took time to realise where he was and longer still to remember why. His fingers were stiff and sore, like they’d been out in the wind and frozen; moving left his brain sluggish and foggy and as he took in his surroundings and what bound him to the chair, the cold settled deep in his stomach.
“I must say, Merlin, that your reaction to the cuffs was most adverse and strangely interesting,” a foreign voice brokered the silence of the room, and for the first time Merlin’s awareness shifted beyond himself. His unease heightened; he wasn’t used to being unaware and the fact that there had been someone there without his knowledge unsettled him
“Who are you?” the words stuck on his tongue and Merlin groaned, unsure whether or not the woman could have understood what he had intended. Her laughter told him nothing. Her shoes on the concrete echoed in the small space as she moved into his line of sight. She was tall and willowy, blonde and beautiful. Her eyes were blue and heavily outlined. She held herself with the air of a woman who knew exactly what she was capable of and had little need to be wary of others.
A part of Merlin stretched outward, or attempted to, the natural part of him that was an extension of himself, that protected him, warned him that someone else was there before he could see them; the part of him that heightened his senses, warmed his bones, yielded to his lightest touch or whispered yearning was cold and unwilling and it was then that Merlin truly took stock of his situation. His gaze fell to his hands where cold iron wrapped around each of his wrists just beyond the ropes that bound him in place.
“You’re still not quite back with it, are you?” the woman said, mocking like his confusion was mere wallowing.
Merlin fought to swallow the flailing panic that welled up in him, terrified and anxious and with nowhere to go.
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe for the likes of you and I,” the woman said and Merlin looked back up at her.
“Who are you?” he asked again and her lips curled.
“My name is Morgause,” she said, her voice making it sound like a title.
“Why am I here?”
“Surely you remember that part, Merlin. You took Arthur’s place.”
“I - I don’t - “ Merlin replied and faltered, because he didn’t. His memory was foggy and slow and the last thing he could remember was the sheer glee he’d felt as he’d fallen backwards onto the bed in his hotel in Rome and known he could come back home to Camelot, to Arthur - the job had been done.
“It’ll come back to you,” Morgause said, her tone retaining that smugness that set Merlin quietly on edge.
He knew she was magical, her arrogance assured him nothing less, but the loss of his own, the fact he couldn’t feel her like he normally could left him unstable and quietly afraid. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“What do you want?” Merlin asked instead, keeping his gaze on her, trying to will himself back into some sort of control.
Morgause laughed again, this deep tinker that made Merlin think absently of rich, warm wine - wine laced with something. Morgause would never not be dangerous.
“We’ll come to that, Merlin, I assure you. But for now, we’re waiting on your beloved Arthur. He’s gone to fetch us something, something we’ve been after for a long time,” she said and in that moment her feral smile reminded him of someone else, someone with darker hair and that same infallible surety.
“Where is Morgana?” he asked and this time her laughter had a ring of victory to it.
“I knew you would remember sooner or later,” she said, her eyes flashing and Merlin shifted in his seat. His arms were bound tight, there was little room to shift, but he tried anyway. His mind reeled with the sudden onslaught of his own memory. As his lips had formed her name, his brain unlocked the first door and he remembered the sharp fear that he’d felt as Morgana had locked the cuffs around his wrists, the feeling of sharp icy cold as his magic had fled somewhere deep inside him he couldn’t even feel.
“Morgana has other things to attend to, Merlin. She has other places to be.”
“What about Arthur? What are you doing to him?”
“Nothing, we have no part in what Arthur does for the next couple of hours, Merlin. He simply has to get something for us. How he goes about that, is entirely up to him.”
“What is it?”
“Come now, that’s not something you need worry yourself about, Merlin. What I want to know is you. I want to know all about you.”
“I can’t say there’s much I want to tell.”
“Oh but there will be, Merlin, there will be. I have lots of questions and you’re going to answer all of them.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he replied and he watched the excited flash in her eyes. It wasn’t the burning gold of magic, but rather the brightness of confirmation, of excitement and joy - yet all it did was serve to make Merlin’s blood run cold. Colder than it already was. He had upset their plan by being at PSC instead of Arthur, but there was something about the whole operation that bespoke of further planning. That this went beyond Arthur and beyond him and the both of them were casualties of a war that had been burning for years, but he guessed was about to get nuclear. This whole thing had a dangerous edge to it, something feral about it that was unsettling and made his body tense.
“I don’t mind if I have to make you, Merlin. You’re going to serve one purpose at the end of this, and I don’t think they’ll mind whether you can stand up or not.”
“You can try but I wont give you what you want.”
“Ah, but you don’t even know what I want yet, Merlin. How very rude of you,” her voice held a mocking ring to it, similar to her sisters in a way that their appearance lacked. She leant down over him, crowding his personal space with her golden hair and wide eyes.
“It’s really very simple, Merlin, I want to know about your little trick, your little ability. I want to know why no one can sense your magic. That’s not so difficult is it?”
Merlin blanched, confused by her request.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, on principle. Morgause smiled, like she had hoped that would be his answer.
She reached down and wrapped her hands around his wrists, over the cuffs. Her touch was hot against his skin and he winced. Then she dug her nails in and he flinched again, wincing at the uncomfortable pain.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to ask you again, Merlin, I’ll play nice for a little while, after that, I wont be so giving.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh but you do. You might not be able to reach you magic, Merlin, but it’s there and I should be able to feel it. I can always feel it; everyone can always feel our kind. It’s in our blood. A part of us, a part of our gift. Bar you. No one can sense you, no one ever has. I want to know why, and you’re going to tell me.”
Her eyes flashed then and it was like Merlin’s entire body had been dunked into ice water - his whole body seized under the jarring flash of pain, sharp pins and needles all over his body that were there and gone in an instant but left him panting and choking on the air. Morgause’s lips curled.
“I want to know how you hide, Merlin, and you will tell me.”
Merlin gasped and tried to swallow more air, tried to get a hold on himself. His skin prickled with goose bumps and his lungs burned. But it didn’t impart on the thought swirling around in his head - the question Morgause wanted an answer for, the question Merlin wanted an answer for, had always quietly wondered and been left wanting.
“I can’t,” he croaked, looking up at her as she loomed over him, beautiful and menacing.
“Oh Merlin,” she said, with a false smile. “I don’t believe you.”
Her eyes flashed again and an invisible hand clenched around Merlin’s throat.
“You’re going to have to try harder to please me,” she whispered and Merlin’s lungs began to burn again.
Then, as suddenly as the pressure was there, it was gone again and as Merlin gasped for air, Morgause looked down at him, sneering like she would at a rodent.
“Now, try harder,” she said. “How does it work?”
Merlin blinked up at her through his lashes, heaving in dry breathes.
“I don’t know,” he rasped, and settled himself in for whatever she could do to him, clutching desperately to a fervent hope that somewhere, Arthur was looking for him. His Arthur.
*
It was odd, Arthur thought, joining the melee of people heading into the Compound once again. It was familiar and oddly jarring, like he could just slip straight back into the life he’d walked out of without any qualms. No one noticed he was out of place and no one would, he knew the walk, the swagger you only managed if you’d earned your place, and two and a half years ago, Arthur had. He’d worked and bled into the very being of a Knight. He had been one of them.
Then there had been Merlin and the third part of his life had started. He couldn’t help but wonder if this would spark something else, another chapter in his life. He didn’t want it to, yet he knew it was inevitable. Something of this capacity wasn’t something they were going to be able to forget. Arthur, for one thing was going to have to fight himself not to panic when Merlin was out of his sight after this. He was going to be the poster boy for a fucking nutcase possessive boyfriend. But after getting kidnapped and your whole world yanked out from under you trying to get it all back, he sort of figured it would be his due. Merlin would just have to deal with it.
Hell, Gwaine would probably have more issues with it than Merlin would.
At that moment he didn’t know what he wouldn’t give just to find out for sure.
As it was, he was dressed in a bland matching suit and dark framed glasses, holding a brief case and a coffee as he followed the line into the Compound.
It was routine, this whole process, driven by the belief that there was no one there that shouldn’t be. It was the Knight’s Compound, the headquarters for the entire country; thirty stories high and at least half a dozen below the surface. There were enough security checkpoints to keep anyone waylaid for a good twenty minutes more than it should take to get up thirty flights, but it was relatively simple to bypass if you knew the tricks. Certain personnel had clearance for certain levels and corridors. The trick was knowing the grades and how to pick them on the identification cards everyone was supposed to wear at all times. Arthur was wearing one of his own, his old card, to be precise, with the altered photograph of him with glasses and a pointier chin and nose. Enough to fool the facial recognition scanners if his own card did go through; hopefully it wouldn’t come to that - if it all went to plan, then the ID card he was wearing would just be a prop for show.
What he needed was a security pass that would get him through the gate. That part was almost easier done than said. Despite safety measures, no one took anywhere near enough care with the damn things. Clipped to the edge of their jackets or the loops on their trousers; it was only those with field experience and the talent to swipe someone else’s card who wore theirs around their neck like they were all supposed to.
All Arthur needed to do was a quick farmers pass and he’d have one. The real trick was getting one he could use. What he really needed was a card off someone who was leaving the compound. He could easily swipe one off someone in the bustle of the line, but then the last thing he needed was for that same person to cause a fuss about getting in without their ID only to find that said ID had already been used. That was a failsafe way of getting the entire Compound put into lock down. Realistically, the hardest part about the whole job was going to be getting out. That’s what Merlin had always said, anyway - anyone could steal something, it took a professional to get away with it.
This was going to be Arthur’s test.
And what a test it was going to be. He was going to have to set off alarms. He wasn’t foolish enough to think for a moment that his father wouldn’t have fail safe protection on the vaults. It had been Uther who had truly started hating magic users and everything that they stood for, and after growing up under the man, Arthur knew the lengths Uther would go to in order to keep his word as law.
Arthur watched as the second line of people exiting the building as he kept a slow pace towards the entrance. It was all about timing. The two lines converged only at the scanners; it would have to be then when he’d have his chance.
Someone somewhere must have been watching over him, because seven people shy of the scanners, Arthur watched as his luck changed and a blond young man twisted and fumbled his way through the barrier, nearly losing his arm full of folders as he fought with his bag. A smile tugged at Arthur’s lips at the sight, the man reminded him so strongly of Merlin, the idiot tripping over himself, like getting through a door was an impossible thing. When Merlin wasn’t thinking every step through, it was like half his brain was switched off, and the fool became so endearing, blinking blearily and stumbling around the house, it was impossible not to fall in love with him time and time again.
Arthur almost felt sorry for the man as he watched as he tripped over himself on the other side of the barrier and his folders went sprawling. Everyone in the line watched it happen, many of them, like Arthur, knowing it was going to happen. But Arthur made his move quickly, bending down to help gather everything together and handed them all over to the blushing kid with an easy smile.
After this, if things went south, there was a good chance this kid would lose his job. Or his clearance at least, Arthur thought wearily. Security breaches were never taken lightly. All Arthur could do was push the thought aside and focus on his goal. Smiling softly as he slipped back into the line two stops before his former space, he fingered the ID card idly.
It didn’t take much longer for the line to carry him forward. This was routine for everyone in this line. It was no different to any other day for them as it was for Arthur.
As the woman in front of him held her card up to the scanner and it beeped, Arthur watched as the attendant’s gaze slid lazily from the woman’s face down to the screen and up again. It wasn’t anything against their vigilance; it was just simple human behaviour he was exploiting, really. If you do the same thing over and over again, then you get bored and only do it half heartedly.
As the woman cleared the scanner Arthur took his step forward and fumbled the empty coffee cup he was clutching. It slid easily out of his grasp and rolled forward, through the scanner. Arthur took his moment then to swear softly and the guy behind the desk didn’t even think about it, he leant down to pick up the coffee cup and Arthur took his chance, holding the pass up and he watched as the light went from red to green and it beeped happily. The attendant didn’t even bother to look at the screen as Arthur shuffled though.
“Thanks,” he smiled, taking the cup off the grey haired man and shyly looked away as behind him the next person swiped their ID, impatient to get through the screening and into work. Arthur took his chance and left, clutching the empty cup and his briefcase and hurrying down the corridor, the poor kid’s false ID still clenched in one hand.
From there it came down to blending in.
The Knight’s Compound stretched over a couple of acres of land even before it climbed into airspace and the weaving corridors were near on impossible to handle. It took years to be able to navigate the hallways with ease, so once you were through the security checkpoint, there really was little you could do to stand out, short of using Magic right in the middle of a crowded hallway or start shouting. You could be lost to all hell or know exactly where you were going and there would be a dozen people like minded in the general vicinity.
Arthur knew exactly where he was going.
He had taken pride in generalising himself with the general layout of the entire building when he was first Graded. He hadn’t had access to the lower floors back then. He didn’t have the clearance. A lot had changed since then, including the fact he was in love with a hacker, a hacker with an eager sense of humour, a love of irony and little qualms about being petty or staying out of things that didn’t concern him. Merlin also believed in being prepared.
It had been simple for Percival to find the schematics for the Compound in Merlin’s system. Finding his father’s entire biometrics fingerprint scans and retina scan had also been blindingly simple. Finding out about Merlin’s birthday, however, was still impossible to locate - a tid bit of information even Gwaine and Percival didn’t have access to.
Merlin was strange.
And Arthur missed him.
Arthur steeled himself as he followed the pack down the first corridor and then took his leave, branching off down the corridor for the East Wing.
In the entire compound, there were twenty seven general service elevators. For the lower levels, there were another ten.
Of those ten, only two went to the sub vaults.
No hallway was completely empty, and Arthur made sure to keep his head down as often as possible, hunching his shoulders so that his bad posture reduced his general height by an inch or so. It all came down to it in the end. Arthur knew the training, after all, and he couldn’t risk running into anyone he once knew well enough to recognise.
He was well aware of what happened to those who turned and were Blacklisted.
The last one hadn’t even made it into custody. There had been an inquiry, but really, no one had been particularly fussed that a man who had sold their country’s secrets was returned to the Compound in a black plastic body bag.
Merlin had known what leaving the Knights meant to Arthur, and unless it had been imperative to their job, he had never demanded Arthur tell him something that he couldn’t’ have found out himself. It didn’t matter that as far as Arthur was aware, there wasn’t anything in the Compound Merlin couldn’t access if he tried hard enough. But it was a pride thing. He had been a serviceman to his country. A Knight of Albion, and just because he couldn’t serve, didn’t mean his principals had corroded and died. He still held them strongly and Merlin respected that.
No one in this building knew that. As far as they were aware, he had sold them all out completely, and now, now he was breaking in, in order to take more of those secrets for himself and his fugitive partner.
He got into the elevator with three others, four women in power suits already leaning against the railings talking amongst themselves. Their chatter quietened when their space was intruded upon. The elevator was going up and Arthur ignored any of the buttons in favour of keeping his head down and away from the security camera. There was little he could do overall, but it was better safe than sorry. On the seventh floor the doors opened and the women left, Arthur watching quietly as four pairs of skinny ankles in ridiculous shoes walked past and the doors closed to the sound of one of his fellow first floor-er’s whistling low and appreciative.
Arthur glanced over at him and the man, late twenties, brown haired and despairingly average blushed under the scrutiny staring at him from all angles. He remained quiet and left on the next floor. That left Arthur and two others, a pair of men in their thirties with hollow cheeks and grim lines to their lips.
Violent Crime, Arthur thought, dismally. He remembered his brief stint on the tenth floor a lot more than he’d ever hoped to. It wasn’t a pleasant place, Violent Crime. It didn’t attract many, as the name suggested, which Arthur figured was for the best. You needed a strong stomach to be able to handle what some people did to each other. White Collar Crime had let Arthur keep the lining on his stomach and a sense of human decency. It wouldn’t have lasted if he’d stayed. Homicide was at least usually family related (which in a way, was almost worse), Violent Crime was violence for violence sake. The sheer desecration of human decency.
It left a mark on the men in its division, a mark that didn’t go away.
The elevator was empty after that and Arthur didn’t waste any more time. The longer he was in the compound, the more he risked getting caught.
Crossing the elevator he pressed the last button on the display, a blank silver circle that glowed around the edge for a moment before highlighting the small screen at eyelevel. Arthur leant forward and refused to blink as his retina was scanned. It only took a moment and then, with a jerk, the elevator started moving again, going down, down, down before coming to a stop with a jerk. The doors opened and taking up his briefcase, Arthur walked out into the corridor. On either side of the elevator, two men in slick black suits stood motionless either side.
Paying them no mind, Arthur started up the corridor, mentally counting off the doors on the white corridor, matching them to the little squares on the map he’d memorised back at Gwaine’s.
Seven doors along he stopped and took a breath in. The keypad in front of him stared back at him imperiously and Arthur stared back.
He needed his father’s password to clear the first set of protocols and then the retina scan once again. A double edged knife, really. All his hopes lay on guessing whether or not his father’s sentimentality had got the better of him when he’d locked up the vault.
Arthur breathed out slowly and then entered the eight digit code.
04071962 - for a moment he held his breath, waiting for everything to fall apart and then the retina scanner opened up.
Thank fuck. Leaning forward he forced himself not to blink and then the light on the screen flashed green and with a hiss of released pressure and a loud thunk, the door unlocked. Arthur let go of his held breath and smiled, stepping over to the wheel and turning it. It shifted 60 degrees and the door gave under his pull, opening.
Arthur slipped inside and pulled the door almost shut behind him, just enough so that at first glance from the hallway it could almost be mistaken for being shut.
The room was large and continued the compounds love for sleek stainless steel walls and furnishings, veering into slick black varnished tabletops just for show. The room was lined in long cabinets and a single long desk in the middle. It was a storage room and little else. Arthur didn’t wait. There was little chance he wasn’t being filmed - it was his father’s direction that the rooms contents be down here, and Uther Constance was not a man who was stingy on protocol. The only reason the damn documents were saved from a fire was the fact that he probably had some advantage over some of the people listed in here that he might need.
Including, Arthur suspected, on Kil Gareth.
Arthur had grown up into espionage, a man who was important to one group, was, almost by default, important to everyone else as well. The others simply didn’t quite know what importance that was just yet. The fact that whoever had Merlin was willing to kidnap Arthur, just for the information he might have had on a man that he had actually never heard of, set off alarm bells he was waiting to identify. Kil Gareth was important for some reason and that reason had just become paramount to Merlin’s safety and therefore more important to Arthur than anything else he possessed.
Including his own freedom, he couldn’t help but think. Because as well as it had gone - it was going to take a miracle to get him out of the compound. He knew that and both Gwaine and Percival knew that, even if they weren’t willing to speak up and say it.
Crossing the room Arthur took in the sleek filing cabinets. They were that same impossible bleak grey that the cabinets upstairs had always been. They were flush against the wall, floor to ceiling and not one of them had any sort of identifiable marker.
Damn.
This smelt of Geoffrey Monmouth.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Arthur forced his mind blank and let himself relax.
Don’t rush this, you prat, his brain whispered to him in Merlin’s voice and unconsciously, Arthur’s lips twitched into a smile. He opened them and took a step back, looking at the wall of files. If this was Geoffrey Monmouth’s doing, then it was going to be simple - the man was a librarian at heart - it was always going to be in alphabetical order. But it was going to be in sections. Everything magical had been moved down here - the reports from Sorcerers from their field ops. Psych reports and his father’s findings, not doubt. As well as the research from MRD. But what went first?
For one, it would have to be the personal files of all sorcerers. Kil Gareth would have something in here. Arthur turned to the first row - each cabinet had three drawers, which if Monmouth was ordering the place, would be the length of a bloody bookshelf. Three across two down should be far enough for the G’s, surely. Possibly too far. But then again, Arthur had known about ten people with last names beginning with A in his year at Camelot Grammar.
The drawer was filled with K’s and J’s and L’s and Arthur slammed it shut and went to the next one back and started flicking through the lot. Kil Gareth’s was easy to find, almost too easy. Opening the manila folder Arthur took note of the older standing man, with his long face and his knowing eyes and a wide, sloping mouth before closing the drawer. The folder wasn’t big enough in his hands at all to be everything that they were after. Flicking back another page Arthur scanned down, his eyes flicking through the lines of text before he found it - MRD - Sector 6, Operation 674: Ivan Bliminse. That was the file he needed.
Stepping back Arthur stared at the wall once again. Second row, it wouldn’t hurt to try the second row. His father’s reports were in the second sector, the third as well. The fourth set of cabinets set him in Sector 4, the fifth gave him what he was looking for. Sector 6. He was dimly aware of how much time it had taken him, but he wasn’t willing to leave without getting everything he could. Not if it meant some backwards ruling that got Merlin killed.
He could practically hear Percy and Gwaine buzzing back at Gwaine’s as he searched through folders after folders and was so busy mentally berating the two he almost missed it. Luckily, Operation Ivan Bliminse was a rather large folder. Whatever the man had been doing, or what he meant to Kil Gareth and the Knights, there was a lot on him.
Which is what distracted Arthur enough he missed the sound of the door opening behind him and the entrance of someone he never thought he’d see again.
“I need you to put the files down and raise your arms above your head.”
Arthur froze, the familiar voice of an old friend shaking his resolution. Out of everyone that could have been patrolling the halls, on base and called down to a security breach in the lower levels, Leon Cameliard was not high on Arthur’s list. A part of him had been desperate to believe that nothing had changed for them after he’d left - that they would have replaced him, promoted Leon to their team leader and gone on as normal. He knew Merlin had investigated them, had kept a sharp eye. He’d told Arthur that his old team had been looking for him. That they had kept following Merlin’s trail, but if that had been true, then they should have been abroad - they should have been upstairs tracking Merlin’s trail from the last fortnight. Merlin kept disappearing for that reason, to keep them occupied, keep them away from Camelot and Arthur. Yet here he was, Arthur had come to the Knights and his team was on response.
“I said,” Leon ordered again and Arthur jolted.
“Put the files down and put your hands above your head. Turn around slowly.”
Arthur closed his eyes and listened to his old friend for a moment, his grasp clenching on the files unconsciously.
Behind him he could hear Leon moving closer towards him. He could almost picture it: his arms out, both hands bracing his loaded Winchester# 22, aimed straight and true and able to react without hesitation.
But what Arthur had over his old friend was a moment of surprise. If he turned around, the shock of seeing Arthur would give him the moment of hesitation he needed.
“Turn around!” Leon barked, close enough to act.
Arthur set the file on the top of the open cabinet and raised his arms above his head, he heard Leon let out a breath as he took another step forward and Arthur turned.
It was worse than he expected. It took a beat, indistinguishable in seconds, for Leon’s eyes to widen and his clenched expression to lift and the line of his mouth to slacken.
Arthur took his chance, his arm came down and held Leon’s wrist, knocking his second hand away. His own arm came down then, twisting Leon’s arm back and with a step backwards Leon’s balance shifted and the gun loosened in his grasp. With another blow it dropped from his grip, Arthur’s fingers clenched tight on his pressure point, Leon’s fingers slack.
Leon let out a sharp gasp and Arthur twisted his arm further back and rocking back on the balls of his feet he garnered his own balance and with one leg swept Leon’s feet out from under him. He made another gasping shout as he hit the ground. Arthur moved as quickly as he could, crossing the gap back to the cabinet and grabbing Gareth’s files.
Turning back, he was three paces short of the door before Leon grabbed him. The grasp on his shoulder was strong and forced him to turn into Leon’s fist. The blow was short and sharp and Arthur’s concentration wavered for a moment, giving Leon time enough to attempt a second blow. This time Arthur blocked it, but by then it was too late, they were back into the momentum of their old sparring, familiar in the weight and movement of each other.
Each blow Leon made against him Arthur could block, could read in his body language and he was sure Leon felt the same. In the last two and a half years he’d made sure to keep up his regimen. He hadn’t been chasing criminals, but had been one himself and while Merlin and Gwaine and Percival had continued their careers as crooks, Arthur had held back. He’d helped when Merlin had needed him, but realistically the only trying time he’d really worked his body was when they were helping smuggle families into the Underground. Merlin had made sure he had some noble cause to keep going with, and it had, if anything, been more rewarding than the Knights had been. But the beauty of it, was that they’d been cautious and safe and it had never come to blows. The only blows he’d given in the last two and a half years were in training against Gwaine, and Gwaine wasn’t against cheating.
His right blow, feint and a sweeping kick, knocking Leon’s feet out from under him was one of Gwaine’s favourites and he had a way of pulling it that Arthur never saw coming, even when he was wary against Gwaine’s tactics. Using it himself he could understand the other man’s glee at using it, the way Leon’s expression slipped into that of shock. A look that said he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened in the space of time it took for his feet to lose their place and his back to hit the ground. Arthur used that moment to reach for the files again, for whatever he could reach and make a run for it. But his moment of distraction gave Leon enough time to use a dirty move of his own and tackle him. His arms wrapped around Arthur’s waist and his weight carried them both to the ground, knocking the air straight out of Arthur. He grappled blindly for a hold on his old friend, to knock him aside and run, but Leon twisted and pushed down hard and, still gasping for breath, Arthur was pinned.
“Stop it, Arthur,” Leon panted, bearing all his weight down on Arthur’s chest. His lungs began to burn with the effort of drawing new air in and his fingers still itched to fight back, to throw Leon aside and damn well fight his way out. But he could suddenly hear the melee of sound he’d been immune to as they’d fought. In that moment he knew wasn’t getting out, his escape route was blocked; there would be no disappearing into the crowd.
“Let me go, Leon,” he asked, just once. It was as close to begging as he’d ever got and he couldn’t feel any difference in himself. He’d always assumed it would make a difference, that he would be inconsolable, begging and sobbing and using that wide manipulative eyes trick Merlin knew so well. But in reality it was so different, it was just a question, a question when he knew it was pointless.
“Please, Leon,” he said again and then there was no more time. The door burst open and Leon leant one last press down against him and then backed off as half a dozen lasers gathered in a dance on Arthur’s chest.
“Cuff him,” Leon ordered and then there were hands on him, rough hands, and Arthur lost track.
*
In the near on six years Gwaine had known Merlin, he had compiled a list of seven focussed things that he didn’t like about his friend.
Arthur Dubois had always been at the top of his list.
Before, it had been because the blond twit was a Knight; he might have been Merlin’s Knight, determined to put Merls behind bars, but then Merlin had gone and somehow, stupidly managed to get Dubois to fall in love with him and run away. After that, the Merlin Gwaine had known changed, morphed into some part of a dual being.
Gwaine had been happy helping Merlin before. Emrys had been Merlin’s alias before he’d known Gwaine, and while it had morphed into including Gwaine and Percival under the banner of its genius marks, it still was, in a way, entirely Merlin - but Pendragon; that was Merlin and Arthur combined. It was created for the pair of them and without one it didn’t exist. Gwaine couldn’t hold Merlin’s happiness against Arthur, because while Merlin’s list of jobs had more than halved year in year out, he was happier overall. He wasn’t reckless like he used to be, he was grounded and his principals were more founded. He used more of his energy helping the Underground than he did on jobs and while Gwaine wasn’t against helping the Underground, well, he was still in his prime and there wasn’t much point wasting that while it was still good. He was already sitting pretty, but he wasn’t that old yet, and he’d really rather like to retire proper like when the time came. Spend the rest of his life on some remote island he owned covered in pubs and race tracks. He needed open road and speed to get through the last years of his life, he reckoned and using all his time helping these wide eyed kids who made him uncomfortable move from city to city with these depressing backpacks full of their worldly possessions didn’t do well against his sense of self entitlement.
But Merlin was into all that stuff, he had a good heart and years of experience to drive him headfirst behind bloody Arthur Dubois’ need to do something worthwhile. The arrogant entitled prat couldn’t just accept the bed he’d made for himself, no, he’d moped and done all sorts of things that made Merlin all anxious and unsettled and that had almost wound up in a botched job the blond pretty boy didn’t know about.
Gwaine had figured that would be the pinpoint of the grudge he could hold against Arthur. He never figured Arthur would get Merlin kidnapped.
That was too far and while Dubois had run off, determined to do everything that he could to get Merlin back, the fact that this had happened at all was almost too much for Gwaine. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was all too much; Merlin getting back early, Dubois so determined to go walking right back into the Knight’s compound... Something didn’t feel right and he wasn’t just going to sit back and let it happen. He was going to give Arthur the benefit of the doubt getting the file. He, on the other hand, was going to try a different route.
“He’s doing the best he can,” Percy said quietly as they both listened to the aftermath of Arthur’s quick exit and the slamming of the door.
“He damn well better be,” Gwaine scowled, spinning back to the laptop he was in front of. The screen was still running the software Merlin had written for him and installed, the photograph of their first Tough guy from the security footage of PSC staring out at Gwaine, the other side of the screen still scrolling through Merlin’s database.
That had always been one thing about Merlin, his back catalogue. Everywhere they went Merlin had friends, people who were willing to put him up, a wanted fugitive, for the night for just a smile and ‘never you mind.’ They’d been to Prague, Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris, Melbourne, New York; all around the world Merlin had connections and the only insult to their privacy that Merlin broke was his database. Computers had become Merlin’s thing as a kid, and his collection of information was immense and profitable. The internet had its advantages, but Merlin’s database had the sort of advantage the Knight’s database must have. Merlin’s wasn’t quite so large, but it was current. Everyone who had the chance of doing something on their side of the fence was in here. If Merlin had even stumbled across someone who knew this bloke, then Merlin’s program would know. It was just a matter of finding who they bloody well were.
It was taking it’s time.
And there was nothing he could do to make it go any faster than it already was. Arthur had been gone for an hour and a half already and it was still scrolling through the possible matches, finding nothing.
Then, the counter stopped and with a small ping, a second screen popped up.
“Dammit,” Gwaine snarled, slamming his fist down on the table and spinning his chair away.
“What?” Percy asked turning away from his computer to lean over and take a look. Gwaine ignored him for a moment and closed his eyes. They had nothing. Merlin’s database had never seen this guy. The bloke had Merlin, he had an unconscious Merlin, Arthur fucking Dubois had gone off to the Compound to no doubt get himself caught and Gwaine and Percy had nothing. No idea who the bloody guy was.
“We’ve got nothing, Perce. Bloody Dubois has fucked off and Merlin’s database gives us nothing. They have Merlin and we don’t even know who they are.”
Percy’s expression was pinched, his brows furrowed and his mouth in a tight frown.
“IDing them is our best bet, Gwaine.”
“Then how, Perce? If Merlin’s system has never seen them before what makes you think that someone else has?”
“Common sense, Gwaine. Someone somewhere has to know who they are. There’s someone else running this show. There has to be, and if there is, then that means there is something to find. We don’t stop until we find it.”
Gwaine was breathing hard, his heart pounding in his chest like he’d run a mile.
“Right,” he said, offhandedly, for lack of anything else.
Percy shot him a dark look.
“Who do we know that might know who they are?”
“Tristan and Isolde are out of town. They’d be the best bet.”
“We could call them?”
“It’d be a long shot. They got spotted moving diamonds out of Escetia a couple of weeks ago. They’d have gone to ground.”
“Agravaine?”
“He’s dirty all round, he’d hand us over as soon as help us.”
“Gilli?”
Gwaine swore. Why hadn’t he thought of the little weasel?
“You know where he lives?” Percy asked and Gwaine looked at him, confused.
“Don’t you?”
“Never been,” Percy replied with a faint blush.
“I’m on it,” Gwaine said with a grin, checking his pocket for his phone.
“I’ll call when I know something,” he shouted back at Percy as he was halfway up the stairs.
*
Lance guided Arthur down into the seat with a hand on his shoulder. Arthur leant back and let the other man reach forward and take his handcuffed wrists and lock them into the ring in the middle of the table.
Only then did he step back and his eyes flicker up to Arthur’s face.
“Someone will be with you shortly,” he said, with all the polite stature Arthur had always remembered when he thought of Lance. Dignitary, honest Lance. Arthur watched as he backed up to stand guard at the door. They wouldn’t leave him alone for a moment, it hadn’t been the policy then, and it certainly wouldn’t have changed.
He should have felt more anxious about his own position as he looked around the interrogation room, but in reality, the only anxiety he felt still rolled back to Merlin - back to the nervous terror that someone still had Merlin hostage and now, now he was trapped and without the file.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been caught, caught by his own team breaking into the Knight’s Headquarters - a fact that could quite possibly put him a few steps closer to a firing squad than the life-in-prison he was in for when he’d woken up yesterday.
So much had changed in two days.
“Er, is er, Gwen... is she doing well?” Arthur asked, mindful of Lance’s silence but unable to keep quiet, not when his mind was suddenly driven to once again contemplating what would happen to Merlin if he didn’t get out.
Lance shifted his feet but stayed quiet. Arthur could hear him moving, could practically sense his unease.
Finally, just when he was sure Lance was going to keep on ignoring him, Lance finally spoke.
“She’s well. She may be better knowing you’re alive.”
“Tell her... tell her I’m sorry?”
“I doubt she will desire to hear it, Arthur. Two and a half years is a long time. You disappeared without a word. We thought you were dead.”
Dead. Right.
“I’m sorry.”
“Was it worth it?” Lance asked, an impudence to his voice that was unfamiliar. But the answer came to Arthur’s lips in an instant but he held it back, carefully studying the reflection of his friend’s expression in the mirror. He could see the heartache in the lines of Lance’s face and for the first time he really, truly regretted what he’d done.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead and he watched as Lance nodded.
“You were the best of us, Arthur. It saddens me to see what you’ve become.”
That hurt, strangely more than he thought it would. Not a sharp pain, but a bruising thump in his gut.
“It wasn’t enough.”
“And Ambrose was?”
“He is. Every day.”
The door opened then and Arthur let out a long breath and watched as Leon glared at Lance one hand on the door and watched as Lance left, closing the door behind him. Leon’s expression was grave as he walked over to the second chair and sat down. The room seemed to echo with the sound of his boots on the concrete floor and the slapping sound the file made as Leon dropped it on the table between them.
Arthur looked at the closed blue, manila folder and then up at Leon. His eyes were dark and his mouth curved in a serious frown.
“You shouldn’t have been speaking with Agent DuLac.”
“Give him some slack, Leon.”
“You know I cannot. State your name for the record, if you will.”
Arthur sighed and leant back in his chair, his unfailing tutoring coming into play without any real desire. Arrogance, calm, control, maintain eye contact - don’t falter. It was all second nature to him, grown out of years worth of practice sitting on the other side of the table, right where Leon was sitting.
“Arthur Constance Dubois.”
“Let the record show that Agent Leon Cameliard begins the interrogation at 21:17. Now, Mr Dubois, you understand that at 19:32 earlier tonight you broke into the sealed vaults of the KAC, which breaks a dozen statutes of Albion law? Is there any particular reason you did that?”
“Because I needed something from in there.”
“Needed something?”
“A file.”
“Why?”
Arthur leant forward over the table, he watched as Leon followed his movement avidly, his expression still fixed and unyielding.
“Yesterday my partner returned from abroad, while I was elsewhere our place of business was overrun by a number of armed men who proceeded to take my partner hostage. His safety is assured in return for a file on one ‘Kil Garath’. “
“So you broke in and sought to take the file yourself?”
“I’m on a time limit,” he shrugged. Three hours, forty two minutes.
“And why do these people need the file?”
“I don’t know.”
“And why do they think you would be able to get it?”
“Because they knew who I was. Merlin wasn’t meant to be home yet. They were after me. But he was there, so instead of asking me where they could find the information; they want me to get it instead.”
Leons expression gave no compassion and Arthur steeled himself. It hurt, strangely. He hadn’t expected it from any of them, but now, finding that base emotion lacking, it hurt. Merlin was innocent in this, and they didn’t even care. They couldn’t look past Merlin’s track record.
“Again, I ask: why do they think you would know about this man?” Leon asked, in that same calculated and controlled voice.
“Because they knew who I was. That I’m the son of the Director. They knew I’d been in the Knights for five years. They knew who I was. No one from my current life knows that. No one but Merlin.”
“And what assures you that this Merlin, one Merlin Ambrose, I assume, who is better known as ‘Emrys’, is not a part of it?”
Arthur growled, the sound rising up out of his throat before he could stop it and he saw the flicker of unease filter through Leon’s gaze and felt proud of it.
“I will ask you nicely, not to speak of him like that again. I hold no remorse for my actions if you disrespect him.”
Leon bristled.
“You have such faith in him; he is, after all, a criminal - his actions may not always be clear.”
“I have all the faith I need,” Arthur said resolutely.
“And you are aware that Emrys is believed to be involved in a bank heist in Roma at the beginning of the week. If he was abroad, what makes you believe that he is not involved in other things that you know nothing about?”
“What makes you think, Leon, that I am not aware of my lover’s activities? He has my full trust, and he is in danger that has nothing to do with him.”
“By right of the law, Merlin Ambrose belongs in prison,” Leon scowled.
“By right of the law, so do I. I’m not here to say the law is wrong, I am merely mindful of its restrictions.”
“And those restrictions are?”
“Keeping me here,” Arthur snarled.
Leon opened his mouth to reply but before he could answer there was a sharp knock interrupting them. They both turned to the door as it cracked open and Arthur met the gaze of Elyan Smith. Elyan’s dark eyes hovered on Arthur for a beat, but his expression didn’t waver, his eyes simply slid from Arthur to Leon and settled.
“She’s here,” Elyan said and Arthur watched as Leon’s eyes moved back to him and his shoulders tensed.
He could feel his hackles rise. Did they think he’d forgotten everything? It had been two and a half years, yes, but for five before that he’d been one of them. They had trained with him and served with him. They’d taken orders from him and served him orders in return.
“Where is she?” he asked, scowled, snarled. The pair of them jumped in surprise. The King’s Knights, Division Cappa of the Secret Service of Albion and yet Arthur was just as unnerved with himself at the sheer feeling welling up in him, knowing what was coming. Something that his fellow Knights couldn’t open up in him.
“Arthur - “ Leon started and Arthur growled.
“What? Where is she? She’s here, after all. She wouldn’t miss this, would she?”
“Calm down, Arthur,” a sharp voice announced and both Leon and Elyan looked away from the dark haired woman in the doorway.
“No, I bloody well wont calm down,” he shot back, and Mithian rolled her eyes.
“You’re acting like a child.”
“I’m acting like my partner isn’t somewhere with a bunch of bloody sorcerers and you’re holding me here.”
“What I’m doing Arthur is holding someone who broke into our headquarters with the intent on stealing something from the vault. You’re on the opposite team, Arthur. I can’t condone this.”
“Pretend I got away.”
“You know it’s not that easy. You were seen, Arthur. Caught. The footage is already being viewed elsewhere. You’re not getting away.”
“You can’t hold me.”
“I think you’ll find we can. You’re classed as a Black Knight, Arthur. You’re a wanted man, and not for anything good. If anything, your team members have helped secure a national fugitive tonight, not an old friend.”
“Please, Mithian.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Arthur.”
“There’s plenty, you’re just choosing not to,” he scowled, feeling angry and petulant and desperate. That was a new feeling.
“No, Arthur, you’re wrong,” Mithian answered, with that same stoic grace she had in anything she did. She could calm a hoarde of stampeding rhino’s with that collected air.
“A lot has changed since you decided to run off with Merlin Ambrose. And a lot happened because you decided to run off with him. You withheld information, Arthur. We know he’s magical. Hell, he’s powerful and you kept that out of the files. That in itself is a criminal offence.”
“And would you have chased us harder if you’d known?”
“It would have transferred the case to the MDD, yes, and you know that.”
“Merlin’s not dangerous. Not like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. You know it doesn’t matter. Don’t pretend for a second that you’ve forgotten a single line of the law you upheld working here. Damn it, Arthur, you could have run this place in fifteen years. It could have been yours if you’d played your cards right.”
“But I played different cards.”
“And they’ve lead you astray and there’s nothing we can do for you. There’s nothing, Arthur.”
“If you don’t let me go, he’s going to... Merlin’s going to die. They’re going to kill him.”
“I can’t help that,” she said, and there may have been a hint of remorse, Arthur couldn’t quite tell.
“Put the team on it, you have to investigate my intrusion and why I was here. I can tell you where to look, just... please. You have to do something. This had nothing to do with him.”
“That’s not our concern.”
“Please, Mithian. For me. We were friends. Please, just do this for me. Just look into why they might want that file. Please.”
He could see her expression wavering, the hesitancy.
“I wouldn’t have thrown this away if he wasn’t worth it and he is. He’s been worth it every damn day, Mithian. I wouldn’t walk in here knowing how little a chance I had of walking out after I’ve spent two and a half years running as hard as I could away from this place. Not I didn’t know that I need him. Just look into Gareth, please.”
He could feel Leon watching him by the doorway; he could feel his old friend’s distress, then, and the anger from before fell away. He had known Leon since they were children, mere boys years away from puberty, running through the corridors of the State offices, hiding from their nanny’s and causing mayhem only children could cause and getting away with it. Leon had always been loyal, to a fault. He had been Arthur’s right hand for longer than Arthur could think back on and seeing him again... after two and a half years was uncomfortable in itself. Knowing everything he had done to betray his old friend and those ideals they’d shared was painful. But it was nothing on the constant burn under his skin knowing what was happening with Merlin. Knowing that after everything Merlin had done to make sure he was safe, it was enemies he’d made here that had caught up with them. Enemies that had nothing to do with Merlin or Emrys or even Pendragon. Merlin was being held hostage because someone had figured out that Pendragon was actually Arthur, Arthur Dubois, the Albion Knight.
Mithian made a sound like a cat and for a moment it was like they were children again, squabbling at the kids table at a banquet in Escetia because they were too young to be of any use making allies.
“Lock him up,” she said instead.
Part Four