Work Text:
1993
The hacker was good. An inept hacker was a frustration for Merlin. He had been surrounded by Britain's best and brightest for so long that the idea of someone inept enough to get caught in his traps and not realize they were bested was supremely annoying. This one instead saw the traps and backed away from them and had an amazing memory for pathways that unfortunately made them easy to trap. Upon trying a door and finding it locked, they always went back to the last branch and tried the other option. It meant that Merlin could go ahead and drop a note. A single unlocked entry leading to an unencrypted text file. “If I promise not to put you away, will you come in? I’d like to meet you.”
These weren’t even Merlin’s servers. He’d come in as a favor to a friend at the Met to find whoever had been opening old arrest records and poking their nose into investigations. The hacker acquiesced, walking into the trap and letting Merlin trace him back to an internet cafe in Soho. “Excellent,” the detective on the case said. “I’ll send Taylor and Baker to get him.”
“No, don’t. He’ll spook. I’ll go down and meet him.” He gathered his bag and his coat.
Detective Ashe stopped him. “You weren’t serious, were you? About not arresting him? I thank you for coming down here, but he broke several laws and knows more than we’re really comfortable with a civilian knowing.”
Merlin lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve seen what he can do when he’s bored and trying to help. What do you think he’ll do when he’s mad at you?” Ashe grimaced and put his hand down. “I’ll have a talk with him. If I think he’s a danger, I’ll bring him to your lads, all right?”
Ashe nodded and stepped out of the doorway. Merlin went out and hopped in a cab.
He’d known exactly what to expect. It would be a kid for sure, bored and trying to prove themselves, playing cat-and-mouse for fun. He walked into the cafe and immediately knew which of the patrons were his hacker. Lanky, fidgeting around a cup of tea, absolutely dwarfed in a secondhand coat, more hair than boy. They locked eyes and Merlin smiled, then went to the counter to order his own cup.
The boy had settled a little by the time Merlin came to join him at his table. “Good afternoon. My name is Merlin.”
He peered up through the mop of hair and stuck his hand out to shake. “I’m Andrew.”
Merlin shook his hand and sat. “Extremely impressive work this afternoon,” Merlin said.
“You were testing me, weren’t you?”
“A little. I admit to being curious. I’ve never been called in by Scotland Yard before, so I figured you had to be something special.”
“Are you going to offer me a job?”
Merlin paused and tilted his head. “How old are you, Andrew? And please don’t lie.”
Andrew fidgeted a little, then stuck his chin up defiantly. “Sixteen.”
“Are you still in school?” Andrew just scoffed. “Where are you living?” From the coat and the fact that no one was making this brilliant child go to school, Merlin could assume that the parents were no longer in the picture.
“With friends.” There was something in his tone that Merlin didn’t like. These weren’t real friends. They were contacts or acquaintances, but they were definitely not letting the kid stay for free.
“Would you like to come and stay with me?”
Andrew looked surprised and understandably wary. “You want to trade my knowledge for room and board?”
“No. I just want to help you. You seem brilliant and I think you could be amazing, but that is going to take a little more education. You can come and stay with me, learn from me, and finish college. We’ll get you to university in the next few years.”
Andrew crossed his arms and looked Merlin down. “Why?”
Merlin shrugged. “Because I remember being sixteen and bored. Because I can’t convince anyone at my organization that these skills are valuable, but I know they will be vital. Because I really am impressed?” He took his wallet from his pocket and put a card on the table. “If you change your mind, call me. I promise there are no strings.” It was his real card, an actual landline and the Kingsman logo, enough for Andrew to do his own investigation and understand what Merlin represented.
He finished his tea, then stood. “I have to be going, but I hope to see you soon.”
It wasn’t that hard for Merlin to find the boy’s record. There weren’t that many sixteen-year-old Englishmen in the cybercrimes database. Andrew Morris. Mother passed away, father locked up. Glowing reports from teachers shocked when the police showed up at his secondary school, fretting from psychologists about how his father’s criminal activity may have put the child on the wrong path. Merlin rolled his eyes at that.
It took two days to get an unauthorized connection to the Kingsman database. The IP address wasn’t masked at all. It was coming from the same cafe in Soho, so Merlin let him have a snoop around the lower levels, enough to verify that they were good guys. He’d probably already pressed other hackers for information about Merlin and was hopefully suitably impressed with Merlin’s credentials.
Andrew showed up at his door the next evening, carrying a backpack and nothing else. Merlin let him in and showed him to the spare room.
“So... you went down to London on Wednesday and now you have a ward,” Harry said.
“Basically. His name is Andrew. You should meet him.”
“I clearly have to. You let a criminal live in your house.”
“As though anyone in this room doesn’t have a juvenile record.”
“Point.” After a few seconds of silence, Harry said, “I always worry that your soft heart presents an easy target.”
And what could Merlin say to that?
Two months later, Merlin had a routine. At half past ten, he shut down his computer and turned off the radio, then checked the alarm system and shut off the downstairs lights. He went upstairs and stuck his head into Andrew’s room. “All right. School in the morning.”
“I know,” Andrew said, hunched over his notebooks or his keyboard or some other project.
“Need anything?”
“No. I’m fine.” He always paused then and actually looked up at Merlin, gave him a warm smile. “Goodnight.”
Merlin winked and went to bed.
1995
“You’re the Child Genius Whisperer,” DCI Ashe said when he called. “And honestly, none of them have the faintest idea what to do with this one.”
Merlin let Andrew know he wouldn’t be home until late and drove up to Baskerville.
Merlin probably should have asked for more information. When Ashe said, “Child Genius,” he figured he was walking into another Andrew situation. When he saw instead through the two-way glass was an actual child, eating biscuits at the interrogation table. “How old is he?”
“Eight,” the MI5 agent leading the investigation told him. “His name is Leopold Fitz. Lives at the orphanage up the road from the research center. They found him in a room looking at airplane schematics in the middle of the night. So he walked two-and-a-half miles, evaded security, and got through two layers of secure, keyless doors.”
Merlin looked at him, all blonde curls and big smile, talking to the sergeant in the room. “So you want to stop him from doing this again.”
“Can we? Can’t imagine they’ve built an orphanage yet that can hold this kid, but we can’t send him to juvenile without telling everyone that an eight-year-old broke into one of the nation’s most secure facilities.”
“There’s an easy way to keep geniuses out of trouble. You keep them busy.” Merlin opened the door and walked in, and Leopold looked up at him, lip wobbling. “Hello, Leopold. My name is Merlin.”
The boy brightened instantly. “Like the wizard?”
“Exactly like the wizard.” He sat down in the chair next to Leopold and turned to face him.
“That’s so cool,” he said. “Do you want a biscuit?” He offered Merlin one from his stack and Merlin accepted.
“So...” Andrew said, leaning against the bannister as Merlin came in. “England just hands you any child with a certain IQ and an interest in computers?”
“This one’s Scottish,” Merlin said. Leo was passed out cold on his shoulder. By the time they’d made arrangements with Child Welfare, gone to the orphanage for his things, and driven back to London, it was after 2. “And why aren’t you asleep? You’ve got school in the morning.”
“It is customary to greet new siblings. Also, I made his bed."
“Thank you,” Merlin said. Andrew gave him a little smile and then went back to his bedroom. There was no way this transition was going to be completely smooth, but Merlin needed at least six hours of sleep before he could deal with it.
Leo finally woke when Merlin set him down on the bed and took off his shoes. “Where are we?”
“We’re at our house. This is your room.”
“My room?” Leo said, and he screwed up his face all confused.
“Yes. Let’s get your pajamas on and we can talk about it in the morning.” Merlin found Leo’s spaceship pajamas in his bag and Leo put them on and crawled into the giant bed.
“Goodnight, Merlin,” he said, yawning.
“Goodnight, Leo."
The routine changed a little. At nine, Merlin put Leo to bed. Then, at ten, he shut off his computer and checked the alarm system, turned off the lights, and then went upstairs to check on Leo, who was, almost inevitably, still awake, reading. “Leo...”
“I know, I know,” he said, putting his bookmark in and setting his book on the windowsill. Merlin went in and pulled the covers up over Leo’s shoulders. “Good night, Leo. For real this time."
“Night, Da,” he said, closing his eyes as Merlin turned off his lamp.
Merlin shut the door and went down to Andrew’s room at the end of the hall.
“All right?” he asked. Andrew was still the same, hunched over his books and his keyboard.
“All right.”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.” Then Andrew looked up and said, “Goodnight.” And Merlin winked and went to bed.
1997
“Leopold!” Merlin said, catching the soldering iron before it hit the table.
“Sorry!” he said, taking his soldering iron back and putting it in the cradle. He’d been keyed up all day, ever since Andrew had called to say he was leaving his dormitory to catch his train. Having something to do with his hands usually helped, but Merlin was starting to contemplate sending the kid out to run laps around the garden.
Thankfully, the Kingsman cab he’d sent to the train station pulled up outside just then and Leo ran for the front door. Merlin put away the pieces of the PC they were building and then followed behind.
He wished he had his camera when he got to the front door. Andrew had crouched down to hug Leo tight and they were both grinning. Andrew looked so much healthier than when they’d first met. He’d never be broad or muscular, but he no longer looked like he might faint. He gave Leo one of his bags to carry in and Leo ran through the front door and up the stairs to Andrew’s room.
“Andrew,” Merlin said, stepping close for a hug.
Andrew submitted. He was still prickly about contact, but he made exceptions for Merlin and Leo. “Hello, Merlin. I don’t want to go to university anymore.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just exhausted from exams.”
“I’m exhausted from Literature and Philosophy. They’re both inane and I don’t see why I should have to take them.” He and Merlin went inside and right to the kettle.
“Because no one’s going to hire a Chief Intelligence Officer without a university degree.”
Andrew dropped the rest of his things in the corner and slid up onto a stool at the counter. “About that. Do you know a Nathaniel Jones?”
Merlin’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I do. He leads the honestly pitiful computer section up at MI6. Why?”
Leo came running back downstairs and Andrew reached out to steady the stool beside him as Leo climbed up. “He approached me in the computer lab. I think he knows one of my professors.”
“And just what did he say?”
Andrew took on a haughty tone. “‘How would you like to defend your country?’ Then slid me his card and buggered off.”
Merlin rolled his eyes. “He’s insufferable, but I suppose he’s not wrong. Digital attacks are increasing and it’s a goddamned miracle MI6 has stayed as clean as it has so far. No one in command really understands the situation.” He poured three cups of tea, extra sugar for Leo, extra milk for Andrew, and his own black.
He was getting a box of biscuits down and listening to the boys stir their tea when Andrew said, “I always thought I’d come work with you.”
“We’d be glad to have you,” Merlin said, opening the box and returning to the counter. “But if you wanted to spread your wings someplace else, I wouldn’t be offended. We should probably spread the knowledge around. Protect as many organizations as possible."
“Then where will I go?” Leo asked.
“Maybe you won’t do computers at all,” Andrew said, ruffling Leo’s curls. “Maybe you’ll be an architect or a pilot.”
“That sounds boring. Do you want to see the computer I’m making?”
“Of course I would.”
2009
“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Merlin told Harry. They were sitting side-by-side, halfway through a run. Merlin ran when he was trying to work out a problem and he’d put in a dozen miles around the track this week alone.
“Leo’s finished his PhD, and now he wants to try something new.”
“But SHIELD does dangerous things, Harry. Leo’s an engineer.”
“We do dangerous things, and we leave our engineers at home.” Harry slung an arm around Merlin’s shoulders just to annoy him. “It’s always hard when the little ones leave the nest, but we must let them fly.”
“To America?”
“Says the man with access to a fleet of private planes. You won’t have your boys in London anymore and that will take some adjustment, but if Leo wants to do this, then he should.”
“He’ll have to ship out on Wednesday.” Merlin knew he was being sentimental, but Leo had been with him for fourteen years, doing Science Fair projects and theses at the same desk.
“Then I’ll definitely be there this Sunday. Couldn’t miss the last Sunday lunch at Merlin’s Home for Wayward Boys.”
2014
“Leo, I’m not yelling.”
“You are! We...” The pauses were excruciating. Merlin knew that the anger and the stress were making the stuttering worse, but it was his duty to push this. “We’re doing ... important work here!”
“I know,” Merlin said. “But I just want to take a look at you. You could stay until you feel better and then go back to your team.”
“Merlin,” he said, and he never once stuttered over Merlin’s name. “I can handle myself.” And then he hung up.
Merlin pushed himself away from his desk to breathe and not throw another mug. He should have insisted that the boys stay at Kingsman where he could keep an eye on them. First Andrew’s office had been bombed and then Leo had been nearly drowned. In both cases, turned on by one of their own. Now Andrew was the Quartermaster, working 15 hour days, and Leo was in a bunker somewhere in the States, without even Jemma, who Merlin at least trusted.
He dialed Andrew and waited until his face popped up in the chat screen. “He said no,” Andrew said. It wasn’t a question.
“He said no.”
“You knew he would. These are dangerous jobs, but they’re necessary. You’re the one that taught us that.”
“That was stupid,” Merlin said, taking off his glasses to rub at his temples. “I should have taken away your computers and made you go into something safe, like accounting or bomb building.”
“He is getting better,” Andrew said seriously. “The tremors are not as frequent and he’s getting better with his words. It’s just hard because his brain moves so fast.”
“I mostly don’t like that he’s in an unsafe place,” Merlin said.
“Well, how many psychotic co-workers can one family have?”
2015
Merlin sat at his desk and stared into space. Harry and Arthur were dead, but Andrew was accounted for and Leo was on his way home. Roxy and Eggsy were asleep downstairs. He had seven agents alive and limping home, one dead in a riot in Macau, and two with their heads exploded.
“Sir,” Nynaeve said, sticking her head in the door. “Hoult is here.”
“Ah, yes.” He slid his glasses back on and turned around. The kid was somewhat of a legend around Kingsman. He’d been barely eighteen, working on cars at a luxury garage in Oxford when Gawain ran across him on a mission. He was brilliant and, in exchange for a little help, Gawain had recommended him to the technical service. Merlin had never met him, as Hoult worked out of the testing facility outside Reykjavik, but he admired Hoult's work. He didn’t have a university degree, but he authored almost every plane and car enhancement for all Kingsman offices worldwide. Andrew had even stolen an idea or two for the modified cars at MI6.
He really didn’t think Hoult would be younger than Leo. When he came in, still bundled up, glasses and mop of dark hair and looking shaken, Merlin could think of nothing but the day he met Andrew. “Hoult, come in. Sit down.” Merlin poured him a fresh cup of tea.
“Thank you, sir. Please, call me Nicholas. Everyone does... did?”
“Nicholas,” Merlin said, sitting in the other guest chair so the desk wasn’t between them. “What happened?”
“I think the phone was Gregor’s. He’d picked it up to call his girlfriend back home. I was working on the new Gulfstream when I heard the fight start. I went to see what was going on, but the other side of that door ... the hall leads to the armory, and I heard gunshots. So I ran. I locked myself in the jet. I was still there when the call to report in came. Nyn told me to take the jet and come here.” He looked up at Merlin then, unsure.
“That was the right thing to do. Was there anyone left?” Merlin asked Nyn, standing in the doorway.
She shook her head. “Security system picked up no life signs. CCTV confirmed. Everyone’s accounted for.”
"Well, lad. If you'd like to stay with the organization, there's lots to be done and your work is invaluable. But if you'd rather leave, we can get you anywhere, back to your family, if you give us some time."
Nicholas sniffled and somehow made himself even smaller. "No, sir. Don’t have any family anyway. I'd like to stay. I want to help." Merlin caught Nyn's eye and she knew exactly what he was thinking.
Merlin stood on the landing above the basement lab at his house in London. The boys were home, Andrew and Leo bent over the code for the security drone they were modifying, Nicholas with the thing itself broken into parts on the workbench he'd taken over. Nicholas and Leo had been practically inseparable since Leo's return to the UK. Andrew and Leo had been such lost boys, trusting that Merlin would keep them safe. And he'd failed. He'd failed over and over again. A whole life dedicated to keeping the world safe and he couldn't even keep his boys safe. And now there was a new one. Leo reported that, when Nicholas slept on the sofa, he sometimes spent the whole night awake and shaking. Merlin was doing his best to keep Nicholas busy. He'd even resurrected a project to rebuild a set of Jaguars for undercover use.
All Merlin wanted was to be able to look Nicholas in the eye and say that he was safe, that no one would dare harm any of his boys. And if, after a lifetime at the world's finest intelligence organization, he still couldn't say that, then what was he even doing?
Merlin sat on the top step and sighed.
2016
“You’re leaving? Kingsman?” Andrew asked. He was curled in his favorite armchair in the basement with a cup of tea. He’d basically been there since the failed Nine Eyes launch, since he’d peeled back the layers on C’s terrifying global surveillance network and realized how much of the code was his own. He was losing weight he didn’t have to spare. Leo and Nicholas tiptoed around him. The house was falling apart.
“I am,” Merlin said. “I want to keep you all safe, and Kingsman isn’t the best way to do that anymore.”
“What is?”
Merlin tapped his thumbnail against his own mug. “I tried to keep my family safe by keeping the world safe. But it turned out there weren’t many trustworthy people in that market. I think I have another idea.” Andrew looked up at him. “Make it clear that we’re not to be fucked with.”
2019
The routine had changed again. Merlin worked more nights now, since that’s when their new associates tended to operate, but he always made his rounds when he came home.
Merlin came down the stairs into the first subterranean level, Andrew’s domain. When he’d bought the new house, formerly owned by a shady financier who’d had his head exploded on V-Day, he’d found it falling into disrepair, covered in dust, and absolutely perfect for his needs. The renovation gave them a family project to work on and (hopefully) ensured that his boys would stay at home this time. As much as they loved each other, the four of them tended to need their own space, and the house had room for that. Instead of sharing a cramped townhouse basement with his younger brother, Andrew had a beautiful, minimalist lab to himself. He’d designed everything from the height of the desks to the positioning of the lights to be perfectly comfortable for just himself. And when it was done, he’d resigned from MI:6 and sold his apartment in London.
“How was your dinner with Mr. Baryenko?” he asked without looking up from his screen.
“Fine. Boring, but I think he understands me now.” Merlin stepped up beside him to look at the readouts. “What are you working on?”
“Bug in the new operating system for the Jaguar. It’s not taking remote waypoint input. Nicholas needed another pair of eyes.”
“I thought you were working on the Wyckham project.”
“I passed it off to Leo. There’s something strange about the way his house is wired. If we can figure it out, the redundancies in the firewall should make more sense. So Leo’s drones are going to do a little surveillance tomorrow.”
Merlin stole a glance at Andrew. He looked healthy again, color returned to his cheeks, shine returned to his hair. His clothes didn’t hang off him quite so badly. Leo’s stutter only cropped up once in a blue moon and Nicholas was sleeping through the night. Merlin had hope again. “Shall I offer to give him a ride?”
Andrew laughed. “Oh please do. I can’t imagine anything that will annoy him more than his dad driving him to a job like it’s an after-school activity.” Merlin rolled his eyes and headed for the stairs up to Leo’s ground floor workshop. “Oh, Merlin?” Andrew said, and Merlin stopped on the stairs to look back at him. “Goodnight.” Merlin winked and went back upstairs.
Leo had taken over the sunroom. After the time in SHIELD’s bunkers and then in the basement back in London, he’d taken one look at the empty, sunlit space and immediately claimed it. (And Merlin had been fine with that, after he’d replaced the windows with bulletproof glass.) Leo was usually in there until late, and this night, Merlin found him checking over his drones before the next night’s operation. “Leo,” he said, coming in with a soft knock. “I hear you’re doing some surveillance tomorrow.”
Leo looked up at him with a smile. “Should be pretty easy. I’m not worried.”
“Do you want me to drive you? Might be nice to have backup.”
Leo rolled his eyes, sighing. “No, Da. It’s fine. Nyn’s going along.”
“All right, well, I’ll be here tomorrow night. In case you need anything. Goodnight, Leo.”
Leo was already spinning rotors again. “Night!”
The garage that had come with the house was lovely, just the right size for four cars. It had taken months to dig a sublevel with space for the rest of the fleet and Nicholas’ workspace. Unlike Leo and Andrew, Nicholas was an early riser but, like Leo and Andrew, he was a workaholic. Merlin almost always did his evening rounds and found Nicholas already asleep in his workshop, usually on the little sofa, sometimes in one of the cars. On one very memorable occasion, under an E-type Jaguar. Tonight, Nicholas was asleep at his desk, stylus still poised on his tablet, glasses still on. Merlin shook his shoulder very gently. “Nicholas?”
Nicholas opened his eyes and yawned. “Bedtime, I’m guessing.”
“Clearly past bedtime.” Nicholas got up and shut down his computer and shut off the lights. Merlin waited by the door and then walked Nicholas back to the house. It was a good chance to get updated on what Nicholas was working on, assuming Nicholas was coherent enough to make sense. Tonight, he was tired enough that all he really managed was mumbling.
Merlin pushed Nicholas toward bed, then went off to his own. When he was in bed, he got his tablet and did one last sweep of the cameras. Andrew was still in his lab, Leo was heading to his room, the doors and windows were locked and the alarms were on. After all that, Merlin let himself sleep.