Chapter Text
The file opens under Harry’s fingers with ease, displaying pictures of his next mark along with the necessary information.
It’s a routine mission, if what they do could ever really be considered routine.
The name on the file reads Gary Baker: step-son of one of London’s biggest drug dealers (though rumor has it he’s into more than just drugs these days), dropped out of the marines (dishonorable discharge though the exact details are undisclosed), genius IQ with test scores through the roof (as well as near olympic level athletic abilities) but held back by an extensive arrest record (multiple counts of robbery, particularly grand theft auto).
“Forty Thousand Euros,” Merlin stresses, “that’s how much they’re offering for this kid.”
Kid – because that’s what he is, barely into his twenties and grinning in vast majority of the photographs. He had to be into some serious crime for somebody to put such an expensive bounty out on him while he was still so young.
“That’s quite a large sum of money,” Harry muses, aiming for casual, though they both know better.
“It’s a large sum of money that we desperately need.”
“Alive or dead?”
“Does it matter?”
“Call it curiosity.”
He can’t see the other man, but the voice in his ear heaves out a slightly annoyed sigh, and Harry can very much imagine the expression that must have settled onto the familiar face.
“Your mission is to terminate the mark as cleanly as possible, in and out without anybody seeing anything, that’s the deal we made.”
“With who?”
“That’s classified.”
“And any further information-“
“Is also classified.”
“Last time I checked we weren’t hired assassins,” Harry’s voice holds a note that’s clearly more than minor annoyance. It gets ignored, as expected.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
There’s a bitterness there that wouldn’t have been there years before, Harry chooses not to comment on that, and instead turns his eyes back to the file.
“I’m assuming you’ve already calculated the best way for me to execute this job?”
“Every Wednesday at eighteen hundred hours young Mr. Baker picks up his sister from daycare-“
He tries not to cringe at the image of that. The young drug dealer who won’t be making it in time to meet his sibling, bleeding out in some dark alley instead. Certainly, it was all just business, and he’s killed plenty of people before, but as he stared down at the file, catching sight of the young man in the photo, a boyish grin on his face, there was a second where he felt something that was almost like guilt.
Really it was such a shame to see a pretty face going to waste.
“-you alright there Galahad,” Merlin’s voice comes in to focus again, cutting off his train of thought.
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine, as you were saying?”
---
He had expected to run into his target in approximately ten minutes, according to the carefully scheduled assassination plans that Merlin had wired to him.
Those plans, went to shit fast, as Harry rounding a corner ended up face to face with his target.
Or more like the mark’s face to Harry’s chest, then the mark’s bottom onto the hard ground with a noise of surprise followed by a string of very colorful profanity.
“Sorry about that, bruv,” the mark – Gary - says, his eyes darting up wide as they meet Harry’s, “in a bit of a rush, wasn’t looking, and all.”
“That’s quite alright,” Harry replies with all the smoothness of a professional, “you’re running from someone?”
“Eh, it’s complicated,” he says, scrambling up now, without bothering to dust off his clothing. Though his hands do quickly go to his pockets, checking for something that Harry cannot see, and relaxing ever so slightly as he seems to find whatever he was looking for.
That relaxation is gone a second later, when the mark turns back to look at Harry, and notices the pistol which had been drawn while he looked away.
Harry’s prepared for the panic, the begging for his life, or even the kid trying to make a run for it – what he is not prepared for is the slightly dismayed but accepting look on Gary’s face before the words, “not you too,” roll off his tongue.
“Too?”
“You with them, yeah,” he explains, nodding his head backwards, or upwards, since that had been the direction that the young man had been coming from when he descending quite literally into his space, “trying to kill me? I ain’t sure what the fuck I did to deserve this, but honestly I’m a bit sick of having you blokes shooting at me, can tell when a fight’s been lost. I’m not even fucking armed.”
Of course there are others that are after him, if Merlin’s associates had been able to find out about the bounty then there was no doubt other groups were interested as well.
He just hadn’t thought that he would run into anybody else quite so soon, this was supposed to be an easy in and out sort of job.
Though it was far too late for that.
“I have to admit, you’re a bit more posh than that lot,” Gary continues, this time Harry notices as the younger man’s eyes sweep over him, in a sort of appraising motion, “at least I get a nice view, before I kick the bucket. Just make it quick, yeah?”
The voice in his ear is stern, saying “take the shot.”
He’s spent a lot of his life following orders, always doing what he was told, never questioning the motives of his superiors.
Until that moment, the one where the kid rocks forward on his toes, before slipping his eyes shut. There’s something about the way he accepts it all, so open and trusting of somebody he’s just met - somebody who is very clearly intending to end his life, that stops Harry in his tracks.
He’s not sure to somebody who doesn’t fight back.
It makes him wonder what sort of life one would have to come from, in order to just stand there and accept their final call, without any sort of hesitation.
And rationally he knows that this is the part where he’s supposed to say yes, take the shot and honor the kids final request, but instead he finds himself saying the words, “I’m not going to kill you?”
That gets his attention, Gary’s eyes flashing open at once, looking way too hopeful for any of this to be fair, “you’re not?”
The voice that he had been ignoring in his ear mutters a similar statement in a slightly pissed Scottish brogue, that Harry continues to ignore, this time reaching up to turn off the recording function and silence his handler.
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure that out,” Harry replies, “now Mr. Baker why don’t we get out of here, and-“
“Unwin.”
“Pardon?”
“My last name, yeah, it’s Unwin,” he explains, stressing the word, “Eggsy Unwin, that’s what I go by, not you know, that other stuff.”
Well, this situation just got more and more interesting, didn’t it?
“Right well, Mr. Unwin,” Harry says, his eyes fixing on a point just past the mark’s shoulder, where two men (dressed in the sort of clothing that Harry would have jokingly labelled as goon-wear years before when he had been new to all of this) finally made it back down to where their target was, “if you wouldn’t mind getting behind me while I take these two out we can be on our way.”
“Yeah, on it.”