Chapter Text
When it’s all over, they shed tears.
Harry knows that they’ve saved the world, that millions of people are going to be saved, including Eggsy’s girlfriend. But knowing that Merlin, his oldest friend, is dead sink in is a crushing blow. As a Kingsman, he had been prepared for his own death well enough, yet the thought of losing Merlin had rarely occurred to him. Merlin was his anchor--Kingsman’s anchor--he was Kingsman.
Beside him, Eggsy turns, clenching and unclenching his fists on his lap. “We have to--we have to--” He can’t say it, but Harry knows what he means. They have to go home, report to Statesman, and figure out what to do next. But first, they have to find Merlin’s body, likely scattered across the jungle.
The thought turns his stomach. “We don’t have to,” Harry says, even though the agent in him tells him that they have to move on. But how can they? Not since he’s heard about Poppy’s missiles has he fully realized the life he once knew was gone. “Not just yet.”
Eggsy’s shoulders shake with another sob. “ God , Harry, I…,” and they’re holding each other, the crash of adrenaline gone, leaving only sorrow behind.
“What the fuck are you two crying about?” a voice, tight with pain, suddenly asks. “I’m the one who’s lost my legs.”
Merlin is just inside the diner, the bloody stumps at odds with the still-gleaming tile floors. It looks as if he's dragged himself through the dust and gore; every visible bit of his exposed skin and clothes are smeared in sickening colours. Through his suit, strips of bright blue show. The only thing that seems to be intact are his glasses, albeit crooked on his nose.
“ Fuck —” Eggsy breathes, just as Harry exclaims, “ Hamish— ”
“No time,” Merlin says, then surveys the scene in one glance: Harry and Eggsy still locked in an embrace, the message of DRONES ACTIVATED across the screen, the gruesome remains of Whiskey on the steel table. “Help me.”
Eggsy glances at a cart, pots and pans piled on top. “The land mines,” he says, face pinched.
Harry inwardly curses. He’d forgotten about the hidden traps near the plane. They can’t wheel Merlin out with such a clumsy contraption; even without the land mines, the uneven terrain would pose a problem. Merlin can’t use them as human crutches or be dragged, not with his injured legs and possible spinal injuries. Looking around, he sees no materials for a stretcher.
“We’ll have to carry you,” Harry says. He doesn’t want to cause Merlin any more pain, but they have to get out of here quickly. “Eggsy—”
Understanding, Eggsy rushes over and squats at Merlin’s left side, as Harry repositions himself at Merlin’s right. Merlin’s arms go around their shoulders, fingers clinging weakly. Their arms slide underneath Merlin’s knees, bracing him, careful not to jostle the tourniquet.
“One, two three,” Eggsy slowly counts, and together, they lift.
It’s one of the longest walks in his life. Every step is hurried but careful, carrying Merlin in a chair made out of their linked arms. Sweat trickles down their foreheads, running into dust and dried blood, but they don’t stop to wipe it off. Muffled groans and occasional hissed curses escape Merlin’s lips.
“Almost there,” Eggsy says, ignoring the sweat trickling from his forehead, “almost there.”
They go slower when they reach the jungle with its tall grass and twisted foliage, keeping an eye out for the deadly mines. It’s growing harder and harder to carry Merlin, especially with the battle adrenaline wearing off, injuries beginning to flare, but Harry forces himself to take a step, another step, another one. His temple, where the frying pan had hit its mark, throbs, along with the bruises on his knees and ribs, courtesy of Poppy’s robotic dogs and Whiskey. Eggsy, beside him, is limping slightly, but no complaint escapes his lips.
Finally, finally, they reach the plane, and Eggsy gives Harry a brief, desperate look. “I have to open it. Can you hold him?”
“Yes,” Harry says, “but be quick.”
In another count of three, Merlin’s transferred onto Harry’s back, Harry gripping Merlin’s wrists to help him stay put. With a hand on the biometric pad, Eggsy gets the door open, and together, they manage to deposit Merlin safely on the bed in the middle of the room.
“We have to replace the tourniquets,” Eggsy hurriedly says, “or at least add proper ones, but we can’t leave them on that long, not for the ride home. Your legs—”
“There’s no use in saving them,” Merlin interrupts. His voice is clipped, urgent and painful. “Just do what you need to do.”
“You’ve lost blood, too,” Harry says, looking around the plane, trying to recall Ginger’s hurried instructions before the flight to Italy kicked off, his own observations on their ride over.
“I’m O-negative,” Eggsy offers. “Let me—”
“That’s not necessary,” Harry says, though he admires Eggsy’s immediacy, his willingness to draw blood from his own veins to save Merlin; he’d do the same. Just as he thought, though, Statesman had been prepared. Inside a small refrigerator are neatly labeled bags of blood, IV line attached and ready to use. “Eggsy, the tourniquets.”
Eggsy scrambles over to the medical cabinet and gets to work, as Harry does the same. In practiced movements, he secures the IV and inserts the needle neatly just underneath the skin, taping it tightly. Dark red blood begins to flow through the clear tube. Beneath him, Merlin’s fingers clench and unclench on the blankets, spit forming on his lips.
“Drugs?” Harry offers, gesturing to the still-open cabinet.
“The maximum legal amount,” Merlin says, then closes his eyes, refusing to say more.
It doesn’t take long for Merlin to drift into hopefully-painless unconsciousness. When they’ve done everything they could, Harry turns to Eggsy, who’s still lingering by Merlin’s side. “I’ll close the door,” he says, “and you radio Statesman. Can you activate the autopilot, too?”
“Yes,” Eggsy says. With one last glance at Merlin, he heads over the cockpit, while Harry moves to the door. Just as he’s pulling it closed, he remembers Elton John.
Shit . They can’t leave him in Cambodia, not like this, and they’ll have to devise some sort of cover story, which would be difficult with the Statesman logo fucking everywhere , not to mention the elaborate opulence, the weapons in plain sight, the conversations they’ll have to have with Ginger—
But then, Harry hears the sound of a plane taking off. It’s not theirs. From the still-cracked open door, he sees a shiny metal plane, built to carry one person, shoot off into the sky.
Soon, he and Eggsy install a schedule of shifts around Merlin’s bed, and Eggsy manages to convince Harry that he’ll take the first watch. Harry collapses on the nearest chair, telling himself he’ll get up in a moment to wash up and check his injuries, but ends up falling asleep right away.
He wakes up in his childhood home, watching his mother pace around the kitchen, a paper in her hand. His hands are folded neatly on his lap, but he’s slouching in his seat, looking down at his shoes. They’re not shiny, black oxfords with neat bows; instead, they’re boots, worn since his first year of secondary.
“You can’t do this, Harry,” she says, finally coming to a stop, pushing a brown lock of hair behind her ear. “What about your scholarship? What about studying butterflies?”
“Just yesterday, you told me to do something practical with my life,” Harry snaps. He remembers this age—fidgety, energy thrumming in his veins, looking for his place in this world. “Teach, be a barrister, work in government—something that pays the bills, since being a lepidopterist doesn’t exactly pay well.”
“I’d rather that,” his mother fiercely says, “than you getting shot at. Dying .”
Her words are sharp, desperate, but Harry brushes that off easily, confident in his youth, his invincibility. “I need to be doing something , Mother,” Harry says, trying to make her understand. “In these times, I can’t just be some…some academic, losing myself in butterflies and ignoring what’s going on. I have to—”
You have to go, Chester’s voice says, and Harry stares blankly into white space, the room falling away. He feels the weight of his glasses on his nose, pressing behind his ears. You are meant to be a Kingsman—meant to—
The white space shifts into something softer, inked butterflies decorating the surface. He looks down, no longer in his seat, holding a puppy in his arms. Eggsy’s gun is trained on him, resolute and sure. Kingsman needs you, the world needs you, I need you—
There are more voices, some familiar and some not, ghostly hands clutching at his shoulders and arms, phantom pain in his back and his legs and his head— need you, need you, need you! —pleading, snarling, screaming, begging in time to a blaring siren.
There’s the deafening sound of a gunshot, and Harry feels himself falling, hands empty, looking at a blood-splattered sky, then—
His eye—the working one—is sticky with sleep, and for a moment, he startles, looking around, having forgotten where he is.
He then sees Eggsy, still in his vigil over Merlin, and does his best to straighten up in his seat. “Need me to take over?”
“I’ve got time left,” Eggsy says, then softer, “you okay? I was thinking I’d have to wake you up.”
Harry shakes his head. “I’m all right.” Well, as much as he can be. “How are you?”
Eggsy shrugs. “Fine,” he mutters, barely audible.
But Harry had seen the tight wince across his face, teeth gritted in pain. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m okay,” Eggsy says. “Just some bruises. Charlie got in a few good hits.” He offers a sardonic smile. “Haven’t punctured a lung. Just ribs cracked.”
Whether Eggsy knows this from past experience of his home life or missions, Harry doesn’t know, but it troubles him all the same. “Did you take anything?”
Eggsy shakes his head. “They make me tired.”
“What you need is rest,” Harry says, “and drugs.”
That coaxes a startled laugh out of Eggsy. “It’s really not that bad. I can handle it.”
“Let me check, though,” Harry says. “Just as a second opinion?”
Eggsy looks surprised. “If you want.”
Harry moves closer, and without thinking, lifts the hem of Eggsy’s shirt up. Across the pale skin is a myriad of dark, blotchy bruises, along with a few red marks. Harry thinks of Charlie’s metal arm and shudders, thinking how forceful the blows must have been, surely twice as strong--if not more--than the average human hand. Eggsy’s stomach, he notices, has quite a lot of faded scars, jagged slashes and neat holes and chaotic bursts, some trailing into the waistband of his trousers, and Harry resolutely turns his gaze away.
Harry’s fingers press very carefully, very gently along the ribs, and Eggsy hisses, quickly covering it with a too-bright smile. “See? Not bad.”
“All the same, I suggest you stay as still as you can. You’ll need x-rays.” His hands linger a little too long on the exposed skin before brushing back. Eggsy’s shirt falls back over the wounds. “In the meantime, you need paracetamol.”
Without waiting for a reply, Harry forces himself up and towards the medicinal cabinet, bringing back two bottles with familiar-looking pills and a bottle of water. “Here,” he says, handing one to Eggsy.
Eggsy hesitates for a moment before taking it. He looks at the label, then pops open the cap, swallowing the pill in one gulp. Although his fingers close around the other bottle, they only deposit it onto the nearest surface without so much as a twist on the cap.
“What about the other one?”
Eggsy shakes his head. “No. I’ll be fine until Ginger looks at me,” he says. His face darkens. “Merlin is the first priority when we get back to Kentucky.”
There’s guilt clear on his face. He’ll blame himself, Harry knows, for this for the years to come, perhaps until the rest of his life, and the silence sits heavily between them.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” he says at last. “I don’t think I could have…lost you and Merlin on the same day.”
“Same here,” Eggsy says, with a shudder of relief. He then looks at Harry, focusing on the red marks where Whiskey’s lasso had tugged, threatening to kill him where he stood. “Shit, Harry, you were right about Whiskey,” Eggsy suddenly says. “I never should have trusted him. He could have—and I thought—” He cuts himself off, eyes now firmly fixed on the floor.
Harry’s now curious. He hadn’t seen much to like about Whiskey, and even Eggsy’s trust in the man did little to change that. “Thought what?”
“It was…after a mission,” Eggsy says, still averting his gaze. “I still thought Roxy was dead, that you weren’t…coming back, and Whiskey sat me down, poured me a drink, the whole thing. Seemed to understand what I was going through, told me that making Poppy and Charlie pay would help. Guess I should’ve spotted something in that.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
Eggsy’s head comes up, looking Harry with fierce remorse in his eyes. “But you did.”
“Look at Chester,” Harry says gently. He can’t have Eggsy beating himself over this. “You only knew him from a handful of times, and you were the one to figure out he was betraying us all.”
Ducking his head, Eggsy mutters, “Just had a feeling.”
“And when did you have that realization?” Harry asks. He knows the story from Merlin and Eggsy, abbreviated for time, but wants to walk Eggsy through the process, show him the similarities of their thinking patterns and instinct.
“When he poured me a glass to toast you, even though I wasn’t a Kingsman,” Eggsy says, looking down at his own drink again. “I remembered what you said about him, how he treated me during the dog test, didn’t add up. And then—the scar behind his ear. That confirmed it.” He then narrows his eyes at Harry, likely suspecting what he’s been up to. “Guessing you had the same thing with Whiskey?”
“It was at the table, when Whiskey expressed little concern about Tequila,” Harry says. “I figured a man who doesn’t care for his colleagues couldn’t care for the rest of the world. It rattled me, but it was only a suspicion. It wasn’t until he broke the vial that I knew for sure.” Eggsy’s silent, watching him, and Harry continues, “I was a field agent for twenty years, but I have still been fooled. You’ve been one for a little over a year, and look what you’ve accomplished. A true Kingsman.”
“Yeah?” Eggsy asks doubtfully.
Harry takes a deep breath. He knows what he has to do. “Eggsy,” he begins, “I apologize for hurting you that day.”
“It's been a year.”
“I know.” But still, it never went away, did it?
Eggsy's quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” he says softly but with ironclad dignity. “I'm sorry, too. I said some shitty things myself, and when I saw you get shot, I thought...” His voice trembles a modicum. “I thought those would be the last things you'd remember about me.”
“No,” Harry leans forward. “Eggsy, when I remembered you, I thought...” He pauses, stopping himself before he can lay it bare. Eggsy is empathetic, Eggsy is still partly unknown to him, Eggsy is changed. Why would he want the sentimental affections of damaged goods?
“I thought of you fondly,” he ends up saying, as close to the truth as he dares.
Eggsy's face has gone softer. “Same here.” He clears his throat. “I...when I first saw you in that cell, I thought someone was playing a joke. But you were there...you are here. And I want...” His words rush out in one breath: “I want you to come back with me.”
“Of course I will,” Harry says, bemused. “I didn't plan on staying in Kentucky.”
Eggsy flushes. “No,” he stutters. “I...I...” He seems to steel himself, Harry waiting, chest tight with anticipation. “You know Poppy blew up your house.”
Your house , Harry wants to correct, but only says, “Yes, I recall.”
“Well, since you don't have a place to stay, I was thinking...” Eggsy pauses for so long that Harry almost breaks in. “You know, you can stay with me.”
Harry’s shocked into silence. Finally, he manages, “Are you sure?”
Eggsy nods, resolute. “I am. Please.” His tone is more vulnerable now. “I need this. Need you.”
I need you, too, Harry thinks, before saying softly, “I will. Now, get some rest. I’ll watch over him.”
With one last glance at Merlin, Eggsy nods, then slumps into the nearest chair, curling up into a ball, and for the next few hours, Harry watches two chests rise and fall, rise and fall--alive, alive, alive.