#although I do like the energy of fics where nothing bad happens and Merlin and Arthur just live happily ever after as well

[excaliburswielder]

I’ve seen so many fics where, after Arthur wakes up/comes out of the lake, Merlin spends his time teaching Arthur about modern life, and just catching up on all he’s missed.

And while that’s very nice and good, I don’t think enough fic writers are taking advantage of the angst that can come about from Arthur reemerging.

Obviously Merlin’s first reaction would be joy to have Arthur back, but if I were him my second reaction would be pure terror. Imagine everything Merlin’s seen the world go through since Arthur left. Picture all the plagues, all the wars, all the moments of human history where humanity was on the brink of ending itself. None of those moments were big enough to bring Arthur back.

Now, all of a sudden, there is something big enough. No world war has ever called Arthur back, but now something is. So anyway I think we need a tad more of Merlin freaking out because he planned for Arthur’s return, but he hadn’t thought about the next step.

[supercalvin]

I see your ficlets are open and I wanted to request more superhero!merlin . i didn't know i liked that until i read yours lol. preferably hurt/comfort because i love that too. also I just wanted to say your fics are amazing

I’m going to be honest @elizabethleestorms…I have no idea which superhero AU you mean, because I think I’ve written a couple, but that doesn’t matter, I’m delighted by this prompt. Sorry this took so long, thank you for waiting.

Really tried my hand at #whump and I ended up writing a very long ficlet again.

(Not intentional, I was writing this already before I heard about Chadwick Boseman. RIP to the King.)

Prompts + Ficlets

***

It had started small.

Merlin would use his magic to save an elderly couple from a mugging. A man about to fall onto the train tracks would find himself falling back onto the concrete. He would trip a bloke who was bothering a girl in the streets.

Magic was banned in Camelot and had been for over thirty years, and Merlin had grown up learning to hide his magic. Not even his closet friends knew. But when he started university in Citadel City, Merlin had felt an overwhelming need to use his magic. There were so many problems he could fix and so many people he could help.

So it started small and soon escalated into something a bit more complicated. He started going out at night, slipping on a mask to hide his identity, and saving people from whatever he could find. Most people thanked him and quickly ran off, freaked out by the sorcerer in a mask. But then word got around, gossip and whispers about the sorcerer who would swoop in at just the right moment. People would try to ask him who he was, so Merlin had to learn to teleport so he could get away from them.

Then he started to up his game. He would listen to the police scanners and seek out places he knew criminals loitered. He was becoming a bit of a legend. People had a lot of different names for him, up until a pack of wyverns attacked the city. That was the first time he had been spotted during the day and photographed. His blurry figure was all over the news for a week. It had been a hassle, but it had earned him a proper title. Dragon Lord.

It had been years since he had first started being ‘Dragon Lord.’ He had gotten into a routine. He worked at the police station during the day, gathered intel as a lowly administrative assistant, and then went out at night as ‘Dragon Lord.’ He was exhausted most days, with little sleep to spare, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. He was exercising his magic, helping people. and he had started a rather heated debate on the magic ban in Citadel City.

All was going well for Merlin.

Until his boss, DI Arthur Pendragon found out about his magic.

It had been an accident, of course. The only other person who knew about his magic besides his family was Deputy Lance DuLac, whom Merlin had saved from a fluke griffin attack back in his university days. Merlin had saved Arthur’s ass from a few operations-gone-wrong, but Arthur still didn’t know that his assistant and Dragon Lord were one and the same.

Until the night when Merlin had been out as ‘Dragon Lord’ having heard about an arms deal planned by Cenred Cain, an infamous crime boss. But apparently Arthur and his team had also been keeping an eye on Cenred, because they had stopped the deal before Merlin could interfere.

It was all a bit of blur. The adrenaline in his veins and the magic in the air making his memories fuzzy.

Dragon Lord and Arthur had been cornered as the building was about to come down, and although he was able to create a safety-bubble around them, the backlash burned part of Merlin’s disguise from his body and face. He woke up with a horrible headache and Arthur’s face hovering over him, looking equal parts horrified and furious.

After that night, Arthur hadn’t spoken to him about it. But to be fair, Arthur had not said much to Merlin at all. Arthur had sworn that he wasn’t about to arrest Merlin, but that didn’t mean they were friends. No, Arthur made it clear hat he was done with Merlin.

Merlin figured it was a fair deal. Merlin had saved Arthur’s life and in turn Arthur wouldn’t arrest Merlin for several acts of sorcery. It didn’t mean Merlin wasn’t heartbroken. He wished Arthur would understand that magic wasn’t evil and that Merlin just wanted to do good in the world.

So over the past week Merlin had not gotten much sleep, to say the least. After Arthur had found out, Merlin had trouble sleeping, which was never good because his night-and-day schedule. Then there was the fact that his magic had been exhausted after stopping a building from collapsing on top of him and Arthur. But that had never stopped him from going out. Crime didn’t stop just because Merlin was a bit tired.

So when a bulette attacked downtown Citadel City, Merlin was already off to a bad start. Bulettes were as large as cars and built like tanks with armor plating all over their bodies. They lived underground, and although the bulette was just minding its own business, it was causing buildings to sink into the ground and minor quakes to rock the city. So when Merlin had tried to gently coax it back out of Citadel City, it had only felt the need to defend itself.

Which meant it started attacking people.

Merlin would be the first to admit that he wasn’t at his peak power either. His magic was still tired from the week previous and his fight with Arthur had mentally drained him. He had coped by going out more at night, but that meant he had only accumulated a handful of hours of sleep over the last seven days.

It barely flinched at the enchanted spears Merlin threw at it. Moving the ground beneath it did little to stop it. Burning it only made it angry. His movements were slower, barely dodging it’s attacks. He made rookie mistakes by trying to attack the bulette’s armor in the first place. Normally he would be able to evaluate its attacks and predict its next movements, but his mind was moving too slow.

He was a wreck, to say the least.

Then the bulette used its thickly armored tail to slam Merlin into a nearby lorry, which rocked with the impact. Merlin remembered hearing the crunch of metal, but nothing until he woke up to someone shaking him.

“Dragon Lord, you have to get up! Please! Sir! Please! It’s coming back!” the voice sounded young and very frightened. Merlin opened his eyes to find a young kid, eyes burning gold as the boy tried to wake Merlin’s magic with his own.

Merlin gasped, his entire body aching as soon as he was conscious again. His vision spun in and out for a moment, and he felt overwhelmingly nauseous. Concussion, he thought dimly.

“You have to get out of here,” Merlin grunted as he tried to get up. His ribs were killing him.

The boy shook his head, “You’re hurt…”

Merlin had to hold his breath as he got to hit feet, the pain almost making him black out as his ribs shifted to the new position. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep breathes, although every inhale and exhale felt like a thousand knives.

“Get to safety,” Merlin said, letting his magic wash over him. It wasn’t a spell he used often. It took too much energy and he was already tired as it was, but he was desperate. The kid scrambled back as Merlin began to glow gold, rising above the crumbled asphalt.

Merlin’s vision turned entirely gold and he spotted the bulette’s weak point, right under its front legs, where the armor didn’t cover. With his last enchanted spear, Merlin gored the beast.

Merlin dropped to the ground, his head spinning and his vision going black. He couldn’t pass out in public. It was too dangerous. One last spell, he thought. Fingers crossed that he would make it back safely.

He teleported into his flat, recognized that he had made it successfully, and then he dropped to the floor like someone had cut the strings from a marionette.

Merlin’s whole body hurt. Even when he wasn’t entirely conscious, he was aware of that. The blunt force trauma had certainly broken his ribs and given him a hell of a concussion.

He was aware of someone moving him from the floor, arranging his limbs onto his bed. Then he felt someone open his mouth slip some pills onto his tongue and guide him to drink water, then wiping up his face when he choked on the water and it spilled it over his face.

When he woke again it was to a dull feeling that he recognized as heavy painkillers. He opened his eyes to find Arthur hovering over him, checking his pupils with a flashlight.

“You’re not a doctor,” Merlin mumbled, not coherent enough to fully process what was happening.

“No, but you refused to go to A&E. So here I am.”

“I did?”

Arthur sighed, turning to Merlin’s bedside table where there was a glass of water with a straw.

“Drink. You need fluids. You’ve been out of it for a day.”

Merlin obeyed, his mind too foggy to argue.

Arthur left the room and Merlin was left to stare at the ceiling, watching his vision blur for a few seconds before he drifted off again.

He was a bit more coherent when he woke again, this time to Arthur whispering, “I know it hurts, but I need you to tell me where it hurts.” Arthur pushed down the bed sheet and prodded his ribs, watching Merlin’s reactions carefully.

“Hold still. I’m going to give you some lidocaine, okay?”

Merlin didn’t think he had much of a choice, but if it would stop his ribs from hurting, Merlin wasn’t going to complain. After Arthur injected the lidocaine, he softly ran a hand over Merlin’s numbed ribs. “Better?”

Merlin nodded, although the movement hurt his head. He realized the only light was his desk lamp, and even that minimal light caused him to flinch.

“Why are you doing this?” Merlin asked.

Arthur’s face was in shadow, but Merlin could see the pinched expression anyway.

“It was all over the news, Merlin. The live video of Dragon Lord dropping like a stone. Then you disappeared after looking like you were about to faint. I rushed over to your flat as soon as I could.”

Merlin smacked his lips which were cracked and dry. Arthur lifted the cup of water again, angling the straw to Merlin’s mouth.

Merlin took a drink and then managed to say, “But I thought…Aren’t you angry with me?”

“Of course I am, Merlin.” Arthur snapped, “I’m furious that you would keep this from me. I don’t get it, and I don’t trust you, but…”

“But?” Merlin swallowed thickly, his head pounding.

“But you’ve been saving so many people. And this…” Arthur gestured to Merlin’s body. Merlin looked down, wincing at the movement. He had gathered a fair few amount of ‘battle scars’ over the years. Burns, lacerations, and general bruising came with the job. Currently Merlin’s entire torso was a horrible splotchy mess of black and blue with tinges of green.

“You’re putting your own life on the line for people who would sentence you to a life in prison… I don’t understand it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see right from wrong.”

Merlin gave a weak smile, “I think that’s you saying I was right for once.”

Arthur shook his head, “Merlin…”

“I know,” Merlin sighed, his ribs protesting at the heavy breath despite the lidocaine injections. “I just want to help. I just…My magic has to be for something, Arthur. All this power and I can’t use it to help people?”

Arthur frowned, his hand coming up to gently push back Merlin’s hair from his brow.

“We’ll talk about this later. You’re still too tired. Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up again.”

Merlin nodded fractionally, his eyes already drifting shut, watching Arthur get up and head for the door.

“Arthur…”

Arthur turned to look at him.

“Thank you.”

Arthur gave a small smile, “You too. Get some rest.”

***

Prompts + Ficlets