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Merlin had been good friends with Agent Carter.
He would like to say that they became acquainted in the fight against tyranny, but no. They had met in her childhood home. Her parents, stuck in the ignorance of their time, had believed her brother's lie about Merlin having accidentally fallen asleep the night before. Peggy had taken one look at their still swollen lips and said "Michael, you buttoned your shirt wrong."
So it did not surprise Merlin in the slightest that the brilliant agent had put together his secret. However, he was a bit offended that she wrote it down.
Because that was definitely her handwriting in the file Director Fury had handed him.
"I was a bit surprised to see Agent Carter believed you could be magical. But now, you sit in front of me, looking exactly like you did in 1943."
Merlin frowned. He wasn't mad at Fury - okay, maybe he was - but he was more mad at Peggy, who had broken his nearly 1500 year streak of not appearing in official documents.
"Why are you here now?"
"This file," he pointed at the name Merlin Hunithson , "is highly classified. So classified, in fact, that only the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is allowed to access it."
"And you're the director."
"I became director a few weeks ago. And then I stumbled upon this file. I want to know what you're capable of."
Merlin glared and let his eyes flash gold. "Trust me. You don't."
"So you're powerful?"
"I've been called the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the Earth." Merlin tried to make his voice as malicious as possible.
Fury chuckled. "Agent Carter described you as 'sweet' and 'helpful'."
"Maybe she didn't know me that well."
Actually, he liked that Peggy had described him that way, because he tried his best to be kind and helpful and to stay true to who he was. He hid behind wide smiles and humour, had gone by Merlin for over three centuries, enjoying the inevitable question of "like the magician?" only to answer "like the bird."
But he discovered that people who knew the truth would never be silent because he asked nicely. Merlin had always had a problem with authority, he was not going to be cowed by a man like Fury.
"There are more people like you?"
"Not anymore. At least not here."
"No?"
"Magic has been disappearing for centuries." He threw a meaningful glance out the café window at the cars on the street.
"And yet I get calls about sorcerers every other week."
Merlin couldn't help but roll his eyes. "It's so typical of humans. You discover new things and think it's all the same."
"Enlighten me then."
Merlin could go into detail about how only a few indigenous peoples still carry inherent magic, how there are forms of magic that aren't elemental and can be studied, how there are more and more people born with a mutation that gives them something resembling a magical ability.
Instead he smiled. "My knowledge is precious and not to be shared with corrupt institutions."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't corrupt."
"Every organisation your size is. And if it isn't now, then it will be. Maybe it will take another twenty years, maybe only twenty hours. But what happens to the knowledge I share when it inevitably ends up in the wrong hands? I'm not naïve."
Fury regarded him for a moment. It looked like he was trying to suppress a smile.
"I'm putting together a group of people. People with extraordinary powers to defend the Earth in case of a threat too big for ordinary people like me and my agents."
"I'm not a weapon."
"No, of course not. But you could be an Avenger."