A/N: I was so unspeakably irritated at what they did to Roxy's character, that I pretty much came home from watching Golden Circle and immediately started writing this fic. Fuck fridging. This is a fix it. If Harry Hart can survive a shot to the head, and Eggsy and Whiskey the first can survive being thrown about like a couple of worrydolls in a centrifuge, then Roxy Morton can survive being in a building as a missile hits.
...
When Roxy regained consciousness, it was pitch black.
"Okay Lancelot," she said to herself, through the ringing in her ears, "remember your training."
Breathe in, breathe out.
Owwwwww breathing hurts, FUCK.
Too bad. Ignore the pain.
Need to get out of here.
First step, assess physical state.
Ribs: definitely bruised, if not cracked.
Right hand: broken.
Right collarbone: probably fractured.
Brain: almost certainly concussed.
Shit. Shit. What the fuck just happened?
A missile. Yes. A missile had hit Galahad's house (which Galahad? Irrelevant, both Galahads), killing Eggsy's friend.
On the bright side, no need to ensure that Eggsy's friend Brandon could keep his mouth shut.
On the downside… shit. Poor Eggsy. Losing his friend and his dog like that.
Double shit. Boudicca. Roxy was going to miss that poodle. The chances that she had managed to survive whatever had hit the house was minimal, at best.
No. Focus. Where are you Roxy?
Surface underneath oneself is hard. Metal.
Oh. Saferoom.
Percival had strongly suggested that she demand one be installed off her quarters, just in case. Weapons caches were all well and good, but an impenetrable centre of operations accessible only to Kingsman agents that she trusted was invaluable.
After the happenings of the Valentine's Day fracas, Roxy had decided that he had a good point. It was sheer luck that Percival had been relaxing in his own saferoom (it was soundproof, and thus an excellent environment for decompressing in post-mission), otherwise chances were that he, like Gawain, Tristan, Lamorak and Kay, would have innocent blood on his hands from any unlucky enough to have been in his way.
(Gaheris and Gareth had both been in the middle of a mission involving a rather nasty set of weapons dealers, and so had been rattled, but not necessarily upset about killing their way through the secret base they had been at. Bors and Palamedes had been found dead. Roxy refused to imagine that the same might have happened to Percival, had circumstances been different.)
To ensure that Roxy did not have to rely on luck a second time, she had sacrificed a few of her paychecks in order to requisition an upgraded saferoom from Morgan, Merlin's equivalent from Requisitions. The fact that she had been one of the two agents that Merlin had trusted to help with the Valentine fiasco had thankfully purchased her enough goodwill that the woman had done her best to ensure that her "new favourite Lancelot was taken care of".
"Should be able to withstand a nuclear strike," Morgan had bragged, slapping the side of the door panel after the discreet builders hired by Kingsman had installed her new room.
Roxy had never thought she would be testing it so soon.
Right. That was where she was.
She had seen the missile hit Galahad house, she had seen the incoming missile coming through her window.
She had had less than five seconds to move.
She had made it into the saferoom in three.
Thank god she had been working on her gymnastic speed moves.
Never had she been so glad that she trained with Eggsy as she was now.
Speaking of now.
How the bloody fuck was she going to get out of here?
Roxy felt around, until she found a cabinet. It felt like it was built into the floor.
Shitting fucksticks.
That didn't say anything good about the current structural integrity of the Kingsman mansion.
She pulled the cabinet open, and felt around.
There. An LED torch. Thank god.
She clicked it on, and surveyed her surroundings in the cold blue light.
Yes. Everything was sideways.
Literally and figuratively, hah!
Oooooh mustn't laugh. Roxy cradled her ribs with her good hand.
Right. Must see to that.
She rummaged around in the cabinet and came up with the first aid kit, stocked with everything an active Kingsman Agent might need after a messy encounter.
She strapped her ribs as best she could, splinted her right arm to herself to stabilise her collarbone, and popped some codeine in a difficult one-handed manoeuvre. Swallowed the pills, and then chased them with some of the bottled water she found in the adjoining cabinet.
Mustn't swallow pills without water. Didn't need a perforated oesophagus on top of everything else.
After a couple of minutes, Roxy felt the pain pills kick in.
Honestly they only barely took the edge off, but better than nothing.
Right. Arm strapped down to stabilise collarbone, pain temporarily abated. Ears still ringing a bit from the explosion.
Almost definite concussion still in place.
Situation Absolutely Not Normal: Everything Fucked Up.
Roxy wondered if she could get her new acronym, SANNEFU added to Kingsman Standard.
She was sure that Eggsy would be on board. He loved acronyms.
Focus Lancelot. Need to figure a way out of here. Need to check the status of the other Kingsman.
She refused to believe that she and Eggsy were the only survivors.
Surely. Surely someone else must have survived.
They had targeted her and Eggsy at their homes.
What about the Kingsmen on mission? Had they been compromised too?
What about Arthur?
What about the Kingsmen support?
The mansion had been quiet when she had been sitting in her quarters earlier, running support on Eggsy's dinner with Tilde's royal parents, but there was always some staff around. She had little hope that they were okay.
Merlin? Was Merlin alive? He hadn't been in, but how had the targets been picked? Was it only agents? Or had their foe seen the very real strategic threat Merlin posed if left alive?
How about Morgan? How about any of the others she had met since she had joined?
No way to know.
No way to check from here.
Shelve that concern for later. There was nothing she could do until she got out of this saferoom.
She looked for the door, and naturally, it was on the opposite wall to the cabinets.
So currently the ceiling.
Roxy glared up at her only exit.
This was beyond the fucking pale.
Sighing, she sat down on the cabinet. There was no point trying to get out in her current state. If nothing else, she needed to wait until her concussion went down.
So. Next question. How long would she be able to manage in here?
She fumbled around the cabinets beneath her and surveyed what had survived impact.
Thankfully, almost everything. The bottle of pear schnapps that she had stashed was broken into about a thousand pieces, but she shouldn't be drinking with painkillers anyway.
Thankfully, the plastic bottles of water, the trailmix, the energy bars and the instant noodles had all survived.
So. She had food and water for at least two weeks.
That was. Something.
Not the best, but it could be a lot worse.
There was an electric kettle, but there was no power. If there had been, the lights would have automatically come on when the saferoom door closed.
Eggsy and Merlin had better be coming to look for her.
Otherwise she was going to be having some very strong words with them.
…
With no way of measuring time in her windowless box, Roxy instead counted times that she got hungry.
The fact that she was nauseated for the first… while… didn't help much with this, but as far as she could tell, she had been locked in her saferoom with no way to get out for at least six days.
At least the concussion seemed to have cleared up. It would have been very unfortunate if she had survived the initial blast only to die from her barely treated injuries.
She was in a great deal of pain, the leftmost cabinet was now housing the chemical toilet that (thank GOD she had thought to include in the supplies,) was emanating a stench she was getting increasingly irritated by, the codeine wasn't doing shit for the continual throbbing in her collarbone, she was starting to go a little out of her mind with worry about what was happening outside…
And she had run out of chocolate.
She would say that this was the worst day of her life, but that was only because another day in her saferoom cum hellhole had yet to occur, and really, yesterday or the day before, when she had accidentally jostled her collarbone when trying to give herself a sponge bath with wetwipes might have been worse.
She would have to reserve judgement.
If she EVER got out of here, she was going to have to do something about entertainment in her next saferoom though.
For some reason she had never thought that being trapped in the small missileproof space would be so boring.
Still, she endeavoured to keep her spirits up.
Surely, surely her parents would have come back from their trip to Cádiz by now. They had been due back two days after the missile had hit.
And if they had come back, then they would be wondering where she was.
Roxy wondered what cover story Merlin was going to give to placate them.
Surely someone would be digging through the ruins by now.
Surely.
They wouldn't just leave her here to rot, would they?
No.
Banish such thoughts.
Such thoughts would do her no good.
To keep her spirits up, Roxy resorted to something that felt a little silly, but that she knew for sure would work.
Indeed, Percival had told her about the time it had worked for him when he had been trapped in a submersible off the coast of Darwin once.
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified… kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. And I spent so many nights, just feeling sorry for myself, I used to cry, but now I hold my head up high!"
It hurt how relevant the words felt. The last time Roxy had sung this song, she was out at karaoke with a couple of her university friends. Fortified with a few Old Fashioned cocktails, she had let her friends pressure her into singing on the stage.
She had ended up hooking up with Cecilia Thornbury that night, and had woken up in Ceccy's bed with her mouth tasting of grain alcohol and Ceccy's watermelon lipbalm.
Not a bad memory.
"I should have made you change that fucking lock, I should have made you leave your key, if I'd have known for just one second you'd be back to bother me!"
Fuck. She wished someone would bother her. Anyone. Please.
Somehow she was still getting oxygen in her dark box, but the food and water was going to run out eventually.
Please don't let this box become her coffin.
She had so much left that she wanted to do. She had only been on four missions. Lamorak still owed her twenty quid from betting that she couldn't make that shot in New Caledonia. Her brother's wedding was in three months. She needed to check if Boudicca had survived. Maybe she had managed to get out again, onto the grounds? Maybe her dog had survived.
"I will survive, I will survive, Yeah yeah!"
Suddenly, there was a strange hissing sound, accompanied by a bright blue light to Roxy's left.
Roxy stopped singing, and squinted in the sudden brightness.
Was that?
Yes. Yes it was! An oxyacetylene torch. Oh thank god. Someone was cutting her out of here.
Thank god.
Still, she had no idea who was on the other side trying to cut their way in.
Roxy pulled out her gun, and aimed it steadily with her left hand at the light of the flame, ignoring how looking in that direction made her eyes sting from days with only intermittent torchlight to see by.
"Who's there?" she demanded.
"Lancelot? Lancelot is that you?" came a husky woman's voice.
"Identify yourself, or I'll shoot," Roxy snarled.
"Lancelot, stand down. It's Igraine and Iseult," came a second voice, also female, speaking with the studied calm of someone trained in handling crises.
Roxy lowered her gun.
"Oh thank god." Relief was sudden and overwhelming. "Come in, ladies. I'd offer tea, but some idiot stocked this place with an electric kettle."
A sharp blow was applied to the wall, and a square large enough for a human to crawl through appeared.
"Do you need medical assistance, Agent?" Iseult asked, climbing though.
"Yes," said Roxy, listing off her injuries. "Luckily I think I'm past the concussion, but I definitely need an x-ray."
Iseult nodded professionally. "Right. Let's get you out of here then." Iseult looked over her shoulder. "Going to need the stretcher! Get your arses into gear!"
"There's nothing wrong with my legs," Roxy protested. "I can walk."
Iseult scoffed and flapped one hand at her.
"Don't be silly. You let us do the hard work, lest you aggravate that laundry list of injuries you just gave me. We'll get you up to Nimue and Viviane, and they'll get you sorted out in a jiffy," Iseult said brightly. "You're going to need all your strength to deal with the current clusterfuck, believe you me."
"What happened?" Roxy asked, as she allowed Iseult to help her onto the stretcher. "Do they know who was responsible for this?"
"Young Galahad killed her dead, you'll be happy to know," Iseult said bluntly, "so at least that threat is dealt with, rest assured. Some druglord bitch named Poppy Adams. Took the entire recreational drugtaking world hostage. You're lucky you haven't smoked a cheeky bong lately, or we would have found you blue and dead." Iseult shook her head. "I thought for sure Elyan would be fucked since I'm well aware of what he does on weekends, but as it happens, he only smokes what he grows in his bathroom. The more you know. I'm thinking more people are going to be trying that route in future."
Roxy blinked.
"Maybe I'm not as recovered from that concussion as I thought," Roxy said faintly.
"Don't you worry love," Iseult said, patting her on the cheek. "You rest now. All the bollocks will still be there for you to deal with later when you've had time to recover from your ideal."
If Roxy had at that moment had any idea of the level of chaos that Kingsman had been reduced to at that moment, then chances are she would have seriously considered climbing back into her box and refusing to come out.
But no. She had made it through her ordeal.
Roxy didn't have it in her to give up at this point.
But the second she got access to a phone, she was going to call Eggsy.
She needed to know what the fuck was going on.