A/N This was originally posted in separate parts, but I decided to mush it all together for here.

Family

Lee was supposed to have the normal life. Marriage, kids, nine to five job, mortgage, yelling at the telly when football matches were on, going to the pub with friends. The works.

Instead he did the stupid thing and followed Harry into the service.

Thank God Lancelot didn't notice the younger Unwin, and took Harry instead. He didn't know what he'd do if his brother disappeared like he did, only to show up months later with some bullshit excuse about having been reassigned.

Lee wasn't a fucking idiot, so he trusted his brother, which did make him a fucking idiot, and let the matter lie.

He started going by Hart because alliteration had a tie in with superheroes (and villains), and he damn well didn't want people sniffing around the Unwin family. His little brother was still in the service, but his work was considerably less unorthodox than what Harry was doing.

He tried keeping in touch, postcards and the works, but when neither of them were ever anywhere near the same place, or even in one place, long, it got difficult.

Harry found out Lee got married from a newspaper, and vowed to make a better job of keeping in touch. It worked, for a little while.

Michelle was lovely from what Harry understood of normality, and never asked him about what he did for a living. He never asked Lee what he told her. He managed one Christmas and half an Easter Day with them before dropping off the radar again. Undercover work was so damn time consuming.

It was Michelle who tracked him down, at the address in London he had given Lee. It was a miracle he had been home when she knocked, though later he would think of it more as fate playing a cruel joke. Her eyes were red from crying and she still had the letter clutched in her hand.

Lieutenant Lee Unwin, MIA.

They fucked on his sofa, desperate, uncoordinated, clothes still half on. Afterwards he made her a cup of tea before driving her home.

Lee showed up on her doorstep three days later.

They never talked about it, and he sure as hell never brought it up with his brother. Not when he was busy yelling at him to get out while he still could. Then Michelle and Lee had a baby, and Harry tried not to think too much about birth dates. He sent a postcard as congratulations, by then, his work was only half the strain on his relationship with his brother.

Lee did another tour, and the Kingsman finally noticed.

So Harry did the only sensible thing, and sprung the offer before any of the others could. This had to come from him, he had no interest in his brother accidentally running into him at HQ during training.

And Lee did the stupid thing once again, and followed his brother into the Kingsman agency.

Or, he tried to.

It was Harry who told Michelle, for certain this time, that Lee wasn't coming home.

They didn't fuck, but he still ended up making her tea while she cried.

The next time he spoke with Michelle, she wasn't crying, but he was on the verge. James was dead, one of the few people left aside from Merlin who had known his brother. Little pieces of Lee were still disappearing, still getting torn away from him, after all this time.

Help him, she said, the sound of a baby crying in the background. He's your son.

And with that statement went the last tangible link he thought he had left of his brother. He had robbed himself of that when he had fucked his wife. He didn't question how she knew, perhaps it was some intangible primal thing, or if she was even lying in order to motivate him.

The help would have been there even if it had just been his nephew. If Lee had only been a brother at arms, rather than his real brother, he would have helped. There was no reason for her to lie.

Maybe that was just the only time she could think to get it off her chest.

The next call he got was from Merlin, telling him a Gary Unwin had called from lock up, cashing in the favor.

The universe it seemed, was always against him. Once the Kingsman got an eye on you, it stayed there forever.

So he picked him up and drove him to the pub. The facts he spouts off about his life were committed to his memory years ago. He always checked in on Eggsy. Perhaps some part of him had- well, no, he couldn't even finish the thought, couldn't give himself even the hope of a credit of worth. He had had no fucking idea it was his son until Michelle told him. He had just wanted a chance to be close to his brother again, in some way.

Instead, he came face to face with himself.

He wants to tell him what he told his brother when he followed him into the service. Don't be a fucking idiot. But this kid was never meant to be Lee's son. He was Harry's, and nine to five never suited him.

He takes down the squad of bullies, in part for James, in part for Lee, mostly for himself.

And since he failed as a big brother (the whole protect thing never worked for him, and Lee suffered the brunt of that) he decides to keep failing as a father. Rather than save the boy, he tests him. He sends him back to the viper in his home with a microphone on his shoulder and listens to him get beat, and he doesn't step in until he was sure. Sure that Eggsy hadn't been going to crack.

Before he can step out and get to the shop, Michelle calls him and says the one damn thing she really shouldn't have.

Thank you.

Merlin always had the particularly nasty ability of knowing too much. Credit where it was due though, he always treated his gift with respect. He simply asked Harry if he planned on telling Eggsy.

He had no idea.

He didn't want the boy to think less of his mother, and it wasn't like he was even remotely aware that he could have had an uncle, so he didn't.

It was freakishly easily to stay the part of mourning mentor, because if there was one thing that he did regret, it was his brother. It was seeing him brought home, watching him grow up, and somehow not realizing the influence he had on him. The fact was his brother was dead, it was all his fault, and nothing would ever change that.

Taking on Eggsy was more for his mother's benefit, though if she knew what he was up to, she might have preferred him robbing houses and stealing cars.

It was difficult to tell what normal people found acceptable sometimes.

And Eggsy did flourish, there was something almost satisfying in seeing it. Of course his son would thrive under pressure. His son. The term didn't really hold much of a meaning to him, it had no real history in his vocabulary, but it seemed important.

Of course, Eggsy did what Lee never could with Harry, ask questions, push back. Demand more out of him.

He also did what Harry never could, and he didn't shoot his dog.

That must have been Michelle's influence.

They're standing in his bathroom and Eggsy has that look on his face again, the one he wore when Harry told him his father would be disappointed. There is no one to beat down in a quick, flashy battle in order to regain a more respectful attitude. Besides, Harry knows not to use the same trick twice.

Can't you see- and he wants something different to come out of his mouth, but all he can manage is can't you see everything I've done- before he stops.

Because he can't see it either. What he's been doing with this boy is as clear as mud to him.

So he tells him everything he hasn't, and maybe in that moment he understands, just a little bit, why Michelle told him when she did. Sometimes, in the silence, all you were left with were the omissions, the lies. And when you needed something else to say, needed one more thing to keep that silence from killing you, the truth had a way of making itself known.

I did all of this because... you're my son.

He's confused a moment before he's angry all over again. Bad jokes, bad timing, bad idea- all Eggsy's words, just trying to tell him how stupid he sounds, how ridiculous.

It is ridiculous, and the sad thing is, in his entire house, he has not one thing to back himself up. No old photos, no cut out articles tacked with precision to a wall. His history, his family, his brother, are not present in this home. They never were.

The couch is the same, though he had gotten the upholstery redone in a more modern style. That right there is where I fucked your mother, would you like to see where you were conceived? Yes, that would go over splendidly.

He grabs Eggsy before he can get to the door, holds him by the shoulders and makes him look him in the eyes.

Lee was my brother. And the words barely make it out of his mouth before his chest is tightening, his throat aches and his eyes burn. He was my brother, and you should have been his.

And Eggsy's just scared again, probably too traumatized by the tears on Harry's face. Too shocked by his world being upended and remade, all over again. He just watched him breakdown, not uttering a sound.

He should have had better than me. A real brother, who would have looked out for him.

He raised one hand from his shoulder to the side of his face. There were tears on Eggsy's cheek, and it felt like pity.

You deserved a father, and I took that away from you.

And Michelle deserved more than the hellish cycle she had been trapped in, but she had never come to Harry for help. Not after what happened the last time she went to him when desperate. The matter of Eggsy of course, was the exception.

Can't you see..

And suddenly he's sitting down, and not quite sure how he got there.

Eggsy was at his side, unsure of what to do when faced with a grown man crying, but sticking around anyway.

Harry had no idea what he had done to deserve it.

Eggsy is wary of him, but he has nothing else to spring on him. He has been wrung out of lies and revelations, and he's just exhausted now.

Harry doesn't ask him to say anything, and makes no more overtures at filling the space between them.

His son just watches him.

His son. His son! There was something to it, though he still hadn't quite figured it out. Some part pride, some part terror, some part... some part missing. And maybe his absence from the majority of the boy's life is that piece. Some intangible unknown that he missed his chance to discover.

When he has the courage to look Eggsy in the eye again, all he is is surprised. Because he doesn't look disgusted. A little unsure, a little shocked, and just a little bit relieved. As if what Harry has just spilled at his feet was a pleasurable outcome to some question that had been asked while he hadn't been paying attention.

My fucking dad.

It's the first time he's heard Eggsy say that and not mean Lee. His chest aches again, though this time he doesn't feel like crying.

He can't speak yet so he tries smiling, and it seems to be enough.

Then there's a noise, and the fragile intimacy of their moment was shattered as he pushed his glasses up his nose. Eggsy gets up and walks away from him as he asks Merlin for his report.

The test was going to happen, and soon.

He tells Merlin to prep the jet and let the pilot know that he won't be alone. The technician doesn't argue, but the noise he makes in acknowledgment wasn't particularly approving.

Eggsy's whole body was taut like a wire, expression almost disbelieving.

You'll stay on the jet of course, but for the time being, I think it's best if I keep you in my sight. No telling what you might do otherwise.

Eggsy just grins and Harry feels the corner of his lip pull up in amusement.

If time really was the missing factor in his relationship with Eggsy, in his ability to understand his son, he could have made more of it. The twenty-four hours he had been given, the months of training he silently watched, the years of the boy's life he had quietly tracked. He could have made the time. Taking him with him had been a step towards that.

A Kingsman jet didn't need to clear its flight plan and was top of line, but it still took time to get to Kentucky.

Not enough time, in the end.

Of course Eggsy had followed him to the church, as if there had ever been a question that he would. Of course Harry let him, because why else would he have brought him?

It wasn't to get called old man six times, and my fucking dad seven, that was for sure. Those phrases weren't terrible though, and in time, he could have grown used to them. Used to the young man who said them, as more than Eggsy, as his son.

If he'd just had made the god damned time to get to know his family. What could Lee have been, if he had been asked? Made to answer what he wanted, more than emulate what Harry did? What had Eggsy dreamed of with his potential, before he had heard of the Kingsmen?

Harry Unwin might have once had a chance at having a family, a brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew. That would have been as much as that man could have managed, because Harry had never been nine to five, even without the Kingsman.

Harry Hart had never had a family though, and he should have remembered that.

The first thing he did after he shot the woman was snap Eggsy's neck.

And in a blink of an eye, in less than an instant, in no time at all, he wasn't a father. Same as he wasn't a brother.

He had no family left, which was just as well.

He had no time after Valentine raised the gun.