"Rox, what were you thinking?"
"I saw you do it and thought how hard could it be!"
Eggsy huffed and shifted her higher on his back. She looked over his shoulder and stared fixedly ahead.
"I was a proper gymnast! I can actually do that shit."
"So can I." She said mulishly, "Just need a bit of practice."
"I was trained and everything. You can't just expect to land something like that."
"I was trained too!" She said indignantly.
"Lessons for four months when you were seven do not count as trained, Roxanne."
Oh, he full named her. Someone was pissed. Also, fuck having best friends who knew all your ammunition.
"It wasn't that bad." She maintained.
He jostled her on purpose and pain flared in her ankle. She set her jaw and refused to admit anything. Even if it really fucking hurt.
"That's the last time I practice a routine in front of you- Oh hi, Harry!"
Roxy tried not to smirk at how his voice went at the end and even maybe managed it, because she was a fucking stellar friend.
Harry Hart stopped from where he had been walking past them in the corridor. "Eggsy." He said slowly, looking them both over, "Roxy."
Fuck it, Roxy could be professional too. "Agent Galahad." She said with a pleasant smile. She could see the question hovering but Eggsy's babbling beat her to her answer.
"Roxy rolled her ankle in the gym, well on the mats but she was doing gymnastics so I guess that still technically makes it the gym? We were just off to medical. Well she is. I'm fine. But she can't walk."
A truly stunning display thought Roxy as Harry took in Eggsy's rambling. Roxy could see the flush rise on Eggsy's neck from her vantage piggy back.
Harry still looked a little perplexed but cleared his throat. "Right. Carry on."
Eggsy stared after him for a moment before seeming to realise Roxy was still on his back.
"How about," Roxy said conversationally, "if you drop the lecture I forget I ever saw that."
She saw his jaw work for a second before he sighed.
"Deal."
Roxy could remember the exact moment when she had decided that this friendship she had with the only other person in training she could stand was for keeps. Three months into their basic training and Eggsy had been called away from the group by Merlin. She watched carefully as he jogged over. She wondered briefly if this was it, he'd committed some quiet misdemeanour that meant he was going to get sent away and she'd be left with the same old wankers that she'd been dealing with her whole life.
But Merlin had shocked her then. Whatever it was he said to Eggsy, and it didn't look good, afterwards he reached out a hand and laid it on his shoulder, a firm and comforting grasp. Eggsy looked shell shocked but walked away with Merlin without protest.
"Good fucking riddance."
Roxy turned. She wasn't the only one to notice Eggsy being called away. Charlie had stopped beside her and looked after Eggsy with a smug little curl of his lips that she wanted to scratch off his face.
"Glad to see the chaff finally being sorted from the grain."
He was gone before she could react, but she stood for a few seconds longer. Eggsy didn't come back.
In fact she didn't see him again until dinner that night. They always ate together, the same room as the others but out of ear shot. When she walked into the room that night he was already there. He had a plate of untouched food on the table before him. His eyes were glassy. She said nothing but approached cautiously. She sat and after a moment of hesitation began to eat. The silence grew between them but she had nothing to say to break it, she wondered if he was waiting for her to say something comforting, oh god what even counted as comforting when she didn't know-
"I got some bad news." Roxy looked up by Eggsy was still looking at his plate, "I know we're not mean to talk about it, the agents that proposed us but…" He scrubbed a hand across his face. "Mine just got a bit blown up and now he's in a fucking coma and they don't know if he's gonna to wake up and-" He took a shuddering breath and seemed to compose himself. "It's a bit shit is all." He said and his voice was brittle, so brittle that Roxy wondered how long ago that it had completely shattered.
Roxy had been proposed by Percival, her godfather, and someone she had known her entire life. Looking back he had helped shape her into what she was today: language lessons, martial arts, a covert application for the Navy. She had been under the impression that Eggsy hadn't known his agent for as long as she had known hers but he looked like he was barely keeping it together. She thought how she would feel if Percival was the one in a coma and she couldn't tell anyone.
She reached out and took Eggsy's hand across the table. After a moment he turned it over and squeezed her palm.
Just in time for Charlie fucking Hesketh to saunter past.
"Slumming are we, Roxanne? No need to go quite so extreme- oh my god, have you been crying? Homesick are we? I'm sure we can find some service quarters round here somewhere, should put you back to rights." He laughed as he looked at Eggsy, whose face was twitching with the effort of not biting back a response. His grip was iron on Roxy's hand.
She didn't say anything and when he made to get up she squeezed his hand back. He looked at her and she held his gaze. Eggsy deflated a little and sat back down. Charlie had already moved on, calling out to the group that Roxy had mentally dubbed "elitist fuckwads".
Eggsy turned his face away and Roxy didn't push him. Just held his hand and plotted.
Three days later Charlie Hesketh turned up at the infirmary with a black eye, three loose teeth and a face that could curdle milk. He was surly and snappish when asked what happened but he (very reluctantly) kept quiet. When the tapes were reviewed it seemed like the incident had happened in one of the very few blind spots of the internal security. After a day the matter was dropped.
Eggsy winked at her next day and nodded at Charlie's shiner with a barely concealed smirk. She gave him her most prim face in return.
"No idea what you're talking about." She said with a smile of her own.
Eggsy laughed and when Charlie looked over with a scowl she felt absolutely no remorse when she flipped him off with with a hand that was still bruised from connecting rather rapidly with his face.
Roxy had always wanted a dog, especially a big one that her mother would have deemed too ungainly, too boisterous and dirty. In that respect Marple (named for her favourite TV detective which was perfectly respectable thankyouverymuch) was perfect. She rather liked that aspect of training. In fact, on some nights where her body ached and her mind wouldn't be quiet the solid weight of Marple curled across her feet was more comforting than she would have believed possible.
And yet.
When Merlin handed her the gun she didn't put it together for a confusing moment.
Surely they couldn't-
They didn't want her to…?
When she had first met him she had thought Merlin a singularly unexpressive man. Even now was no emotion in his face as he regarded her.
"Shoot the dog."
Marple looked up at her, tail twitching. It was almost time for their morning walk. The gun felt too big in her hand. She stopped herself from looking back at Merlin, she took a breath and-
Blanks. Fucking blanks.
She was on her knees in an instant. No blood, no matted fur, no dead dog. Just Marple trying to jump at her and lick her face. She kissed the poodle, just once, deliberately didn't wonder if she was terrible person and tried to gather her dignity about her.
There was something wrong. No gunshot from the other room.
No more Eggsy.
Somehow that seemed almost as heartbreaking as her still-trusting dog.
As suddenly as it was in danger, the world was safe.
Thousands die, millions, and Roxy couldn't help but think of all the seconds that ticked past when they could have run faster or if she'd taken the satellite out sooner or-
It was no use.
Eventually, Merlin sent someone for her. By the time she got back to the UK HQ she hadn't slept in going on two days. From the looks of him neither had Merlin. She nodded at him and somehow it was enough before she managed to drag herself out. She had planned on food, a shower and unconsciousness in that order. Her plan went to shit when she saw Eggsy.
She'd been given the footage from his glasses on her journey back to England. She'd seen the fight that ended it all, the flash of Gazelle's legs and the broken body of a maniac (she'd even seen the princess, at least more of one than she ever thought she would).
That Eggsy had been riding a high, adrenaline flushed through him, heart pumping, purpose in mind. The one she found slumped over in one of the spare rooms, sitting on the edge of the bed, forearms on thighs, was a different breed all together. She slipped into the room. He didn't look up. He'd been crying, that much she could tell, but when he looked at her all she could think was how tired he looked.
After a moment she sat down beside him, close but not touching.
"How's your family?" She asked eventually.
He shifted a little closer, so their thighs were pressed against each other. "Alive." He said.
"How're you?" She asked tentatively.
"Fuckin' aces." He took a deep breath and shook his head, "Sorry. I'm fine it's just…it's all catching up, Rox. I thought my mum was gonna die, Daisy, you…I thought the world was gonna go tits up and it would be my fault. I didn't even think I just killed all those people-"
"Bad people." Roxy said firmly.
"Bad people," he allowed, "but still people. All I could think was that he was right and I wasn't gonna be worth nothing, I wasn't gonna be good enough-" He broke off and Roxy saw that the tears were back. She was never any good in situations like this, emotions were somewhat awkward for her at the best of times, too much or too little, but she somewhat stiffly put an arm around him. He leant into her and she could feel every shake that ran through him and breath that got caught in his chest.
'I never even got to say sorry." He mumbled into her neck.
Something in the back of her mind clicked and she thought of the face she had seen once or twice around the compound. Galahad, the agent probably still laying in the Kentucky sun, half his brains still on the pavement. There was nothing she could say to make this better . No reassurances, platitudes or condolences. All she could do was hold him tightly, feel his arms around her and pray that there were strong enough to hold each other together.
We will get better. She thought fiercely, I will make sure we get better.
(They did get better, eventually. There were a few missions involved, a few nights at clubs with music pounding and ears ringing, and silent evenings of filling out paperwork at HQ with a takeaway between them. Perhaps they weren't all the way better but Roxy thought that this job meant you were never all the way better, just perhaps better than you had been.
It was enough.)
Roxy, for all her faults, was not ashamed to admit when she was wrong. She had thought herself to be very observant, had bragged about it to Eggsy, in fact. Perhaps it was the difference between Lancelot looking at a target and seeing everything about him from the obvious tells to the well hidden ticks, to Roxanne Morton meeting Michelle Unwin for the first time and not realising that they were both as nervous as each other.
In her line of work social anxieties had to be smoothed over flawlessly and so for the sake of good form (and for the sake of impressing her best friend's mum who she desperately wanted to like her) she came impeccably dressed, hair pulled back neatly and suit pressed immaculately. She tried to speak at a normal pace and not let her words run away and back her into a corner but fuck what if Michelle didn't like her? She knew how much family meant to Eggsy; the first thing he'd done in his new life was set his mum and sister up where he knew they'd be safe and comfortable before beating the shit out of the man who'd raised a hand against her. If Michelle took a dislike to Roxy, well that'd be the end of that then. So she chatted away benignly, waiting desperately for Eggsy to finish dressing upstairs and come and grab her before she ran out of things to say about the weather.
To be fair to herself, she thought later, they were easy signs to miss. How was she supposed to know the good china from the bad in a house she'd never been to before? As far as she knew Eggsy's mum happened to get dressed up everyday she knew someone was popping round for a quick cuppa ("Honestly Rox, who the fuck puts on lipstick in their own home for a cup of tea? She was tryin' to impress you, you dolt.") And as for Michelle being nervous Roxy could honestly say she hadn't noticed, too wrapped up in trying not to embarrass herself horribly. She'd nearly panicked when she realised she had finished her tea and would have to put the cup down. What the fuck did normal people do with their hands when they were casual? She put the cup down and tried to wince as it clattered on the saucer, hearing the ghosts of etiquette lessons past sniffing disdainfully in her ear.
Time for another valiant attempt, she thought, opening her mouth, "You know this cold snap is so unseasonal for this time of year."
Oh my god shut up about the fucking weather. Good to know her inner voice was still working just fine.
She was saved the indignity of Michelle trying to answer when Eggsy clattered down the stairs in his suit.
"Sorry, sorry!" He called out, "Nearly ready."
With a pained smile at his mother she went over to her partner and got a proper look at him. It was only a bi-monthly meeting but she couldn't let him turn up like that. She reached out with precise hands and smoothed his lapels.
"Honestly, Eggsy. How hard can a simple windsor knot be?" She reached out and fixed it and tried to not feel like Michelle's eyes were burning into the back of her skull. She'd met arms dealers she's been less afraid of.
He winked at her before hopping to put his shoes on. "Come on Rox, get the stick out your arse. Only half an hour in a room full of decrepit old wankers. We'll be out in no time."
Roxy was about to ask whether he wanted to include Merlin in that statement when Michelle reached out and swatted him.
"Don't go talking like that in front of a lady!"
Eggsy looked at his mum and then Roxy as if trying to work out which was supposed to be the offended lady.
"What, Rox? She's heard worse than that mum, I swear. This one was in the Navy."
Roxy thought longingly back to her short-lived naval career with exactly zero mothers to judge her. Never should have let Percival take her away with words such as "fucking cool" and "do you know how many things I've seen explode this month?"
Michelle was undeterred. "I didn't drag you up, so speak nice in front of proper ladies, yeah?"
Eggsy looked at Rox and mouthed "Proper?" She pulled the universal face of 'the fuck?' in return.
Roxy took a breath and had a crack. Never let it be said Lancelot lacked bravery. "Mrs Unwin-"
"Call me, Michelle."
"Thank you. Michelle, it's quite alright. I don't mind a bit of language-" she was pretty sure she'd even managed to teach Eggsy a thing or two- "I'm used to-"
"I know we're a little rough round the edges and your sort have- what d'ya call it?- delicate sensibilities that's it, so-"
Eggsy spluttered, "Delicate sensibilities? Mum, there's nothing delicate about her!"
Well, he wasn't the first to say it. Many a tutor and her own mother had bemoaned her social graces growing up and very few had accused her of elegance.
"She's a fucking trooper this one!"
Michelle looked scandalised, "Eggsy! She's a young woman, she's-"
"Delicate?" He asked again. "Watch this."
Only the arm hooked around her neck gave her a split second as to what his plan was. They'd done it before just to see if they could. It wasn't as easy as she tried to make it look, her best friend was on the shorter side but apparently also dense as fuck for all that he weighed. Still it had come in handy when she'd had to drag him out of a firefight in Morocco across her shoulders. She tried not to be bitter about the fact he could literally bench press her and in fact had, on several occasions much to the bemusement of Percival and Bors who had walked into the gym in time to see her being raised and dropped in time to Eggsy's terrible singing.
"See, Mum? Roxy ain't one of those posh wankers, swear."
Michelle looked pained as she looked at her son, carried seemingly at ease by a girl half a head shorter than him and about half as wide.
There was an awkward silence as Eggsy looked at his mum, Michelle looked at them both and Roxy thought about sudden adult death syndrome and the chances of such a fine thing happening to her.
"Shall we be off then?" She asked after another moment of hesitation. Carefully she began to walk to the front door, best friend in arms. She didn't put him down in case she tried to beat him to death in front of his own mother.
She only stopped when she heard a snort. She turned around to find Michelle desperately trying not to laugh. It was the least graceful thing she'd seen the woman do so far.
'Oh love, put him down. Don't put your back out for his lardy arse-"
"Mum!"
"-come on, I'll make you a proper brew in a proper mug. I'm sure your decrepit old wankers can wait ten minutes."
In a sort of dazed confusion she associated with being drugged for loyalty tests Roxy followed Michelle back through the living room and into the kitchen and saw her reach into the back of a cupboard behind the fancy bits of china and crockery for a novelty London mug. She gladly dropped Eggsy (she'd carried him this far to prove a point, alright? No her back wasn't twinging) to accept it with both hands.
"Ta." She said and chanced a real smile. Michelle smiled back.
"Yeah, we're gonna get on just fine you and me. Oh honestly, Eggs, get off the floor."
Eggsy met her parents less than three months later and left an equally lasting impression. Roxy had practically sprinted through London after her debrief, shimmied into acceptable clothes ("Honestly, Roxanne. A lady needn't wear a suit to work, however will you show off your figure in such a dowdy costume?" "Mother, I work at a tailors.") and tried to cover up a fading bruise on her cheek. People contoured with makeup right? Surely it would be indistinguishable. She sighed longingly as she remembered the truly excellent fistfight from only a couple days before. It felt like a life time ago though she'd barely stopped moving since. Her debrief was a hurried affair and she hadn't even seen Eggsy since returning, not even just to prove she was still alive.
But now was no time to think fondly of getting punched in the face. What was coming next would be much more painful.
There was a smart rapping at the door just as she finished her lipstick. She took a second to smooth her hair and set her necklace straight before turning to face the music.
She opened the door and plastered on a smile.
"Mother! Father! How wonderful to see you both!"
Her parents smiled and mother leant forward. An air kiss on both cheeks, and a lingering scent of perfume and her mother swept past her. Her father stepped forward with a more genuine smile and kissed her forehead.
"Roxy, my girl, how gorgeous you look. So grown up." He had said that every year since she turned sixteen and yet it still felt more real than the smile her mother turned around with.
"Such a lovely house." Her mother said trailing a hand across the banister, "So…quaint."
Roxy bit her cheek and forced a smile. It was the house Kingsman had given her, not overly large, modestly furnished and completely her own. It was tidy, cosy and everything in it was hers.
"It's lovely." Her father said more hurriedly as he guided his wife from the hall. "Such a fine taste you have, my girl." Her mother smile tightly but no more about it is said and so Roxy naively assumed that perhaps the rest of the evening may pass in relative peace.
How very wrong one person can be.
An hour in and Roxy stabbed a piece of steamed broccoli with particular viciousness. She remembered doing the same to a mobster in Napoli half a year ago. The memory calmed her a little.
"All I'm saying," Said her mother sipping from her wine glass, perfectly coiffed hair still piled on her head, "is that if you can cook like this and look like that," she motioned with an elegant hand to her daughter, "then I really do not understand why there is no man in the picture." Roxy couldn't even be bothered to tell her mother about the favours she'd cashed in to have one of the techies cook the meal.
Her father looked sympathetic but he had given up trying to shield her forty minutes ago. Roxy thought of the last few dates she had managed between missions (Harriet from finance, Annie from medical and then regrettably Diana from four doors down) and how many times she and her mother had had this conversation.
"Perhaps, Mother," Roxy gritted out, "there is no man because-"
The ringing of the doorbell saved her mother from the well rehearsed argument that Roxy knew from experience would get her absolutely nowhere. When no one answered immediately, the doorbell rang again. Then again. Again. Again.
"Do you think you ought to get that, dear?" Asked her mother pointedly.
Roxy had only half risen from her seat when she heard the letter box be pushed open.
"Oi! Roxy, you dead mate?" Shouted Eggsy into her home.
Roxy raced to the door and answered in record time. It swung open to reveal Eggsy in his baggiest trackies, jacket and snapback. He grinned then whistled low, "Looking fit, babe."
She beamed at him and he instinctively started back. She tried to dial it down a little.
"My knight in shining armour!" She said loud enough that her parents, still hidden could hear. Eggsy's smile dropped and he looked as serious as he had last time she had bid him farewell at HQ.
"You didn't answer your phone after the mission, yeah? Everything okay?" He said in an undertone.
She reached and grabbed him by the wrist. Tapping away she smiled again. She heard her mother's chair move back. Seconds until disaster.
Parents here. SOS.
Eggsy looked slightly relieved (he was a fool to underestimate her mother, she thought grimly) and nodded.
Her mother had just come into view and Roxy resigned herself to whatever came next.
"It's been a most diverting evening so far."
Her parents didn't notice her clunky speech but Eggsy clearly recognised one of their more obvious codewords.
Diverting.
Divert.
Distract.
Immediately his shoulders slumped and an easy grin came to his face. Roxy watched in vindictive glee as her mother's poise faltered.
"Roxanne, I do believe introductions are in order."
Her father came into view just as she opened her mouth only to have Eggsy speak over her.
"No need, luv. Me name's Eggsy." God, he was laying it on thick, his real accent was nowhere near that obnoxious. "You must be Rox's mum, yeah? See being fit as fuck runs in the family."
Roxy swore she could hear a record scratch as her mother visibly faltered and even her father looked taken aback.
"We were just eating, babe. Want to join?" Roxy asked making sure to speak in her most clipped and posh accent.
"Don't mind if I do. What's for grub?"
The next hour of her life seemed almost magical. It seemed her father cottoned on somewhere around the fifteen minute mark that Eggsy was making it up as he went along but he seemed content to see how it played out. Her mother, however, looked as if she was fast approaching a stroke.
"So what is it you do exactly?" Her mother asked.
Eggsy stopped extolling the virtues of socialism (Roxy was impressed he had managed to find all the right buttons to press in so little time, not that she would ever tell him that) to her father and illustrating his point with a steamed asparagus spear in his hand long enough to say, "I'm on the dole at the mo, but me prospects is good. Got a mate who says he can get me a job in one of them warehouses." He sounded so cheerful, even Roxy, who might be made an orphan if he carried on, couldn't help but smile. She hid it behind her wineglass. "Then again, working at the docks might be a laugh." He winked again and Roxy bit the inside of her cheek.
Other winning moments included Eggsy dumping the last of the wine into his glass and downing it in one, trying to engage her mother in a game of shag/marry/kill and stealing the last piece of steak from her father's plate.
By the end of it all Roxy was pretty sure she was going to bite through her cheek, she was trying so hard not to laugh. Her mother was apoplectic, two angry spots of red high on her cheeks and lips so thin Roxy thought she might do herself some damage. Her father looked faintly bemused but, as always, politely disengaged from what was happening around him. Roxy couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun with both her parents present.
But all good things came to an end. After her mother's third pointed comment about the lateness of the hour Eggsy scraped his chair back and yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth.
"Best be off, babes. Getting fucking late, innit?"
Roxy smiled and got up, careful to smooth down her skirt. She took his hand and led him to the door, briefly out of sight of her mother's hawklike gaze.
He squeaked when she hugged him as tightly as she could.
"Thank you." She whispered into his jacket. "Really, thank you. I was going mad. I owe you one."
When she pulled back he was smiling, a real smile that she hadn't seen since he first sat down to dinner. "I'll hold you to that you know, Lancelot."
She let go of him just as he swooped down on her. "This one's for free though."
He dipped her and instead of a showy kiss like she'd expected, licked the side of her face.
"Seeya, babes!" He said when he pulled her back up and made a swift exit before she could retaliate.
Smart boy, she thought as she turned around. Her mother was standing in the doorway, white as a sheet and fists clenched.
"Roxanne Morton, what on earth-"
The lecture would be a long one but the memory of the evening would last a lot longer.
Percival (well, his real name was Albert, but somehow that never seemed to fit him) had been a central figure in Roxy's life ever since she could remember. He was officially her godfather but throughout her entire childhood if she had ever had a problem she had gone to him before even considering asking her real father. He was the one who had picked her up for ballet lessons and then dropped her off at Krav Maga instead, the one who insisted she keep up with her languages in school, and the only one who had grinned when she told him she had enlisted in the Navy and really meant it. Looking back, Roxy wondered how long he had been grooming her for Kingsman. She was willing to bet the answer was almost as long as she was old.
However, now she was Lancelot and their organisation had been decimated their time together was limited to a greeting in the halls and a snatched tea break between reports. She could count the number of times they had been on the same continent in the past three months on her hands.
Which made this all very suspicious.
According to him it was just coincidence that he was on his way back to the UK HQ at the same time she was wrapping up her latest mission which had sent her to the underbelly of Paris. It would, of course, be such a shame to waste an opportunity to catch up over drinks, would it not?
(It was bullshit. Roxy checked later and found the flight log. Paris was four hours out of his way and he'd cut his own recon short by twelve hours to intercept her.)
But she played along and in the end Percival was right. Finishing a mission had the side effect of leaving her tightly wound, too much adrenaline in her body, and senses too sharp to just sit idly by on the way home. Getting dressed up and drinking expensive champagne in front of snooty waiters was as relaxing as any other way of spending an evening and Roxy intended to make the most of it. She met him on the Champs-Élysées and they walked arm in arm to the most expensive looking bar they could find. He handed over his Kingsman issued credit card with a wink.
She was glad to see him again, glad for the wine, and glad they were both alive to enjoy it.
Her godfather was evidently less so. For a spy, she thought, he was quite awful at hiding his discomfort. She would have broached the subject her self but- actually, no she wouldn't. She was rather enjoying watching him fidget.
He took a fortifying sip from his glass. "I've had a call from your mother."
Not one single conversation in her entire life had started thus and ended well.
He continued regardless. "She seems to think you've found a…partner. She wouldn't tell me a name but she did tell me a bit about the whole affair and, well Roxanne…this suitor sounded a little like our own Galahad."
Roxy, to her everlasting shame, actually spluttered on her wine. She heard a haughty sniff from one of the passing waiters and resisted the urge to flip him off.
Her godfather continued, obviously uncomfortable, not meeting her eyes. "It's never happened before, relationships between agents. As you well know, female agents are a new development and well- you can imagine the rest. But I just wanted to say that if you haven't mentioned anything to me because you were worried-"
"This can't be happening."
"-about your place in the field, or perhaps if you thought I wouldn't approve, then you needn't have worried." Percival ploughed on, regardless of her face, "Of course, I didn't think he was, well…your type but I've been wrong before." He looked doubtful and Roxy was reminded of all the moments Eggsy had sauntered in with his suit torn to shreds, smile too sharp and slightly too much blood on his cuffs for what was meant to be a simple watch and observe mission. "But if you truly want to…be with him-" Percival actually looked a little queasy at the thought "I would of course support you."
There were so many things wrong with what was happening that Roxy didn't know where to start. She decided to start with another glass of wine. After she finished that in one long draw she poured herself another.
Percival watched looked a little apprehensive.
"I think I'd rather take myself out with my own signet ring."
It was a little difficult, after all, to be romanced by someone who she'd shared an open plan dormitory with for six months and whose idea of romance was somewhat…skewed by former mentors.
He deflated a little in relief. "So you and he aren't…?"
Roxy shook her head a little too vigorously and slopped a little of her wine over her hand. Another superior noise from a passing waiter.
"God, no. Absolutely not. I mean, just…just no. He's great and I love him but…no."
She hadn't realised how tense her godfather had been until he fully relaxed in his chair. He tipped his head back with a groan. "Well, thank fuck for that. I couldn't believe it when your mother told me. I thought I was gonna have to duel the little bastard over your honour or something."
Roxy snorted and tried not to think about how much honour she had left at this point.
"I think I could manage that for myself."
"You'd be welcome too. Don't tell anyone else but I'm actually not sure I could take him in a fight."
Roxy gasped in mock horror and suddenly the whole situation was absurdly hilarious. Percival held out for an admirable few second before joining her laughing.
"If you breathe a word of this…" He managed to gasp out.
Roxy was shaking with the effort of not pissing off the snotty waiters even further with a proper belly laugh. "I'm already repressing this entire evening. I don't want to even remember this tomorrow."
Percival filled up his own glass and chinked it against hers. "I think I might know how to go about that." He said before throwing it back.
At some point they finished the bottle and then another one and by the time they managed to stumble back to their transport Roxy was loose and relaxed and everything she usually wasn't after a mission.
(The next morning was hell but at least Arthur was too busy tearing Percival a new one over his deviated flight plan to notice that she fell asleep twice in the debriefing.)
The best part of revenge, Roxy had always thought, was the waiting. Letting someone live in fear before finally letting themself believe they were safe before the pulling the rug out from under them.
Roxy never forgot a slight and she only forgave them when they were returned.
It was two months after what had been affectionately named "The Dubai Incident" (it had involved a golf club, a set of twins and what in hindsight was enough vodka to kill a small elephant) and one month since Eggsy had "accidentally" leaked the video from her glasses to all main Kingsman servers. It had been days before people stopped practicing their golf swings in front of her.
Roxy had laughed, Roxy had smiled and Roxy had plotted.
A week or two after Eggsy had stopped tiptoeing around her and things went back to normal. Poor, sweet, unsuspecting Eggsy.
She'd lain in wait until the opportunity presented itself. Eggsy had been sent on a honeypot mission, relatively simple as things go. Seduce a socialite heiress and loot her room when she was sleeping. Roxy grinned when she saw that the heiress slim, blonde and conventionally attractive. Even better.
She'd slipped into the room where Merlin was supervising the mission. Eggsy's mission feed was still going and objectively Roxy thought that if the whole international man of mystery thing didn't work out then Eggsy might have a potential job in the adult film sector.
Merlin raised an eyebrow as she crept in but she held a finger to her lips. Silently, she held a bottle of scotch up as an offering. There was a tense moment as he eyed it speculatively and graciously accepted. He scooted his chair over and let her creep forward. On the monitor Eggsy carried on, presumably for Queen and country while the blonde writhed beneath him. God, he hadn't even taken the glasses off the overconfident little fucker.
This was it. The moment she had been waiting for, what all those hours practicing had been for.
She hovered over the keyboard and pressed the button to unmute. She didn't clear her throat for dramatic effect, the moment had to be perfect. On the screen in front, Eggsy redoubled his efforts.
Roxy waited until she sensed the perfect moment approach and said, in what even she would admit was a killer Swedish accent,
"If you save the world, we do it in the asshole?"
Years later Roxy would back on that moment fondly; the strangled choke, the roll off the bed and resounding smack of a smug head hitting the bedside table on the way down. The dulcet tones of a confused socialite asking if he often had nervous twitches mid-coitus.
Roxy sighed happily. Now, finally, all was forgiven.
Roxy had never been particularly gifted around children, the smaller they are the worse she handled them. Therefore it came as a bit of a shock when Daisy latched on to her so insistently, following her around when she visited Eggsy's family and clambering all over her. Roxy had no idea how she was meant to talk to a four year old girl and so settled for treating her as a very small and quite drunk adult. It seemed to work well and as Eggsy would say: if it ain't broke don't fix it.
"Roxy." Said Daisy stretching her name over several syllables, "What's a tailor do?"
Ah, lying to a child about her job as a murder-spy. Just how she hoped this day would go. She could hear Eggsy and Michelle talking in the kitchen and she longingly thought of one of them rescuing her. No such luck.
"A tailor is a person who makes clothes. You've seen the shop where your brother works, right?" Daisy nodded. "Well, people come in there and we measure them and then we make clothes that fit them just right."
"Like these?" Daisy asked prodding her tights covered legs.
Roxy hummed, "More like these." She said pulling at the hem of her own suit. Daisy reached out to feel the fabric and Roxy counted as personal growth that she didn't even flinch from what were probably sticky, jam covered fingers. Daisy pulled at her sleeve and hummed. She could hear the kettle boiling from the kitchen.
Roxy acted on impulse and tugged off her tie. "Here." She said putting it loosely around Daisy's neck. 'Now you're all smart."
"Like Eggsy." Daisy said with a grin, tugging the tie. Briefly, Roxy wondered if it was against the rules to let children wear things around their necks but decided as long as she didn't let Daisy hang herself by accident then she was probably in the clear.
With a theatrical groan Roxy got up from the floor where they had been sitting and offered an arm to the little girl. Daisy grabbed it with two hands and Roxy pulled her into the air before putting her back on her feet.
Tie momentarily forgotten Daisy looked at her with saucer eyes, "Wow, you're really strong. Eggsy says I'm almost too big to carry." Daisy looked quite proud of this and so Roxy bit her tongue about how small the girl was.
Instead she leant down to Daisy's level, "Do you want to know a secret? I'm waaaay stronger than Eggsy."
Daisy looked skeptical.
"It's true." Roxy insisted. "Watch this." She gave Daisy her arm again, holding it parallel to the floor. Daisy looked at her way more shrewdly than Roxy thought kids even could and grabbed it with both arms, taking her feet off the floor. She hung there for a second and then dropped again, smiling so widely her cheeks dimpled.
"It's true!" She squealed.
Roxy nodded gravely.
Daisy reached up to her again and so she leant down. Daisy looked at her very seriously and reached out to squish Roxy's face between two small hands. Roxy was right. They were slightly jam sticky. "When I grow up I'm going to be you." Daisy declared.
"Oh no," Roxy laughed, "you're much too clever to grow up and be me."
"I will." Daisy insisted.
Eggsy's head popped round the corner, 'Tea, Rox?" He asked.
"Green, if you've got it please."
"Green for me too!"
Eggsy smiled at his sister, "You don't like green tea, Dais."
His sister rolled her eyes, "I'm gonna be Roxy when I'm grown up, Egg. Duh."
He took in the tie on his sister and the jam on his best friend's face. There was that soft smile again, the one that Roxy couldn't believe she could see on a man's face when she has personally witnessed him disarm a dirty bomb that very morning.
"Two green teas coming up."
Daisy beamed and Roxy smiled back, surreptitiously trying to wipe the jam from her face.
Roxy watched her cell door idly as she heard the twin marches of boots go past. It would be the guards completing their rounds but she had no idea what rotation they were on, whether it be the morning shift or night. She felt vaguely as if she should feel slightly more alarmed that the passing of time was beginning to mean very little to her but with the events of the past three days worry had been draining out of her. Along with any hope of escape.
Her capture had been planned. Like all Kingsman agents she had been put through torture resistance and this was meant to be one of the more simple missions. Get caught asking the wrong questions, get knocked around a bit, extract the confession and signal for extraction. Getting caught had been easy, getting knocked around had been bearable but from there everything had devolved.
The organisation, Roxy couldn't remember who they were of what they called themselves (should that worry her more? She felt like it should) that had taken her turned out to be significantly better informed than she had expected. They'd taken her glasses, her lighter, even the signet ring off her finger. They'd even found the tracking beacon sewn into the lining of her blazer. They'd moved her after that. Even if she did escape (unlikely, if she wasn't tied to her chair she was reasonably sure she'd slide off it) she had no idea where she was an no way to signal anyone to find her.
She tried not to wonder if they assumed her dead already. She knew Kingsman had no protocol of retrieving the body of fallen agents. She tried not to think of them drinking to her demise while she sat in a small and fetid room, bruised, drugged and shaken.
Still, there was a sense of anticipation around whatever bunker she was being held in, one which seeped even into her cell. Her tormenters, though they were never shy with open handed slaps and questions crooned into her ear (who are you? who do you work for? tell us and we'll untie you), nor with the horrid drug they kept her dosed up on which made her lose time and her mind wander (no one, I don't work for anyone, I don't believe you) were careful with her. She was left in her suit though her brogues (fuck off Eggsy, the decoration adds to the effect) and their concealed blade had been taken on her first attempt to fight her way out. There had been a second attempt, and a third but there would be no fourth, not in her current state.
"Can't have you out cold when the boss gets here can we?"
"Nothing that leaves a mark. He'll want her pretty still."
"Doesn't matter if she won't talk now. He'll get her to sing."
In her training they'd told her to try and drive inwards, into her own mind, find a place where the pain couldn't reach. The drugs helped with this but in truth it was worryingly easy to simply slide into her own mind and relive entire days. She thought about her childhood (a little lonely, but never boring), her parents (they loved her in a general sense as their daughter but never specifically as Roxy), Percival (the first person to see not only what she was capable of at the time but her potential) and her training (when she thinks of her training she sees Eggsy, over and over again). She doesn't say anything, doesn't give anything away, but equally she knows that they're not really trying at the moment. They're stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for the man who will come in and pry her open looking for secrets. He won't find any, Roxy knows she won't break. Doesn't mean she doesn't fear the day he tries.
On the third evening the trooping of boots didn't go past. Roxy thought nothing of it. Her timekeeping was less than accurate, she was't even sure if it was the third day since her capture, or simply the third day of it that she'd been conscious for.
On the third evening there was a distant rattle. A chatter of gunfire that fell silent after a short burst. Now that did catch her attention.
There was nothing she could do but wait.
Six minutes (seven? Eight? Definitely less than twelve) later there was a banging at the door, someone trying to get in, perhaps.
For a second Roxy wondered if this was the shadowy man who the guards talked about as they hit her, stamped on her, kicked her.
But why the gunfire?
The door eventually gave out under the assault and though the shadow of a man stood in the doorway Roxy slumped in relief, for this body she knew on sight.
"Alright there, Lancelot? How we doing?" Eggsy asked as he stumbled over. He made quick work of her restraints but Roxy could feel the tremor in his hands. When she managed to lift her head and look at him she thought that he looks almost as bad as she must have. She decided not to mention it, probably bad etiquette when one was being rescued.
"Egg…sy." She managed and Jesus, is that what she sounded like? Sort of like if a seventy year old chain smoker had taken up heavy metal.
"Don't worry, Rox. Gonna get you out of here." The words and tone were reassuring but he was covered in an awful lot of blood to look truly comforting. A quick look told her it probably wasn't his which was likely a good sign.
He handed her a gun, a comforting weight, and together than followed the trail of carnage that he had left back to what Eggsy had assured her was an extraction point. It was slow going, Roxy was beginning to feel the full extent of her condition but Eggsy clearly wasn't on top form either. No wonder, she thought as they followed the trail he had torn through the base. Bodies littered their path, most with perfect head shots, and bullet holes sprayed up the wall. Roxy thought that later she might have it in her to be disturbed but for now it was all she could do to listen and follow.
"How did you know I was here?" She asked eventually, "They took the…the…the tracker. Moved me. How did you know?"
Eggsy swung around a corner and then motioned her to follow. She stepped through the carnage he had left behind in her bare feet but carried on.
Eggsy looked back at her as they entered a long corridor, leading even further from where Roxy had been kept. The air was beginning to feel less thick in her lungs.
"Rox, I'm gonna level with you here. This is not the first base I've gone through looking for you."
She frowned at him, her mind turning over slowly. At her questioning look he grimaced, "This is more like the the fifth."
"I've only been gone three days! How did you get though five bases?"
Eggsy reached the end of the corridor first and wrenched the door. It swung open. Behind it was another room, another door, but Roxy could smell the freedom. Fresh air from a window perhaps, they were close.
"Well, I had the motivation didn't I? Come on, it's this way."
They carried on together, slowly creeping, when Roxy managed to speak again. "They wouldn't authorise that many missions. Not for one agent and not that quickly."
Eggsy wouldn't meet her eyes when he answered, "Well, technically they didn't. The first one they did, the second one's a bit iffy but the others I'm definitely gonna get shit for. But I wasn't gonna leave you, alright? I'm not drinking that shit brandy on your account."
After that things got a little messy. Stragglers attacked and were gunned down, Eggsy managed to take the wrong turning and Roxy was shot. The suit held but the impact knocked her back and by the time they got to the helicopter waiting (and thank fuck for that) she and Eggsy were holding each other up. She collapsed into one of the chairs and immediately started to slide off. Only Eggsy holding her there while he shouted to the pilot to go and tried to fit the ear protectors over her head, kept her seated.
He loves me, She thought to herself, and I love him. I'm no good at loving people, but for him I'll learn.
She didn't say thank you for all the times he saved her life, just like he didn't for hers. Bit of a waste of breath at this point. Instead, at the next bi-monthly meeting she brought (in secret, because although times are changing Kingsman is slow to weather and a breeding ground for posh twats with superiority complexes. Looking at you Bors.) a couple of bottles. She sat next to Eggsy and tried to surreptitiously pass him one under the table. No one noticed except Merlin (really? a table of honest-to-god spies and no one noticed her shady as fuck literal under the table dealings? Disappointing.) who only raised an eyebrow.
Eggsy looked down and pressed his lips together the way he did when he was trying hard not to smile or laugh.
The meeting was, as they always were, boring as hell. The other knights, including Eggsy who seemed to be significantly better than her at not appearing bored out of his skull (she wondered if he was still trying to impress some of the other agents, still trying to make sure no one questioned his place), looked focused and attentive. Roxy managed for five minutes before her mind wandered again. They were in the main meeting hall around the table (wasn't it meant to be round? That seemed like a pretty important aspect in the legends.) which hadn't been changed at all since the last Arthur had died at the head of it.
There was actually a line of portraits, previous Arthurs apparently, along one wall. Chester King was at the end of it because, as Merlin had explained to them the first time Eggsy had tried to take it down and the second time Roxy had tried to burn it, Chester King had been Arthur for twenty five years and while he was a total and utter elitist dickhead (Merlin hadn't used those terms exactly, she was paraphrasing) it wouldn't do to airbrush their history and risk making the same mistakes again.
And so Chester King, wanker extraordinaire, got to stare down at them all in judgement at every meeting. Roxy got a lot of joy flipping him off when no one else was looking.
Nothing more was said until the end of the meeting which finished with a traditional toast as they all prepared to go their separate ways. They all stood but instead of the truly awful port which was passed around (Roxy's seen the accounts they can definitely afford something better than whatever the fuck they pass around in the decanter) Eggsy and Roxy each had a bottle already in hand. The alcopops were the cheapest and most off brand thing in the off-licence that Roxy had been able to find. They were lurid blue and probably full of enough sugar and shit to make her mother weep. They tasted only marginally better when drunk from the crystal tumblers laid out.
Eggsy was still trying not to laugh when she tipped hers back and inclined her head to him.
"A fine vintage."
He held his to her in a toast. "A well balanced bouquet." He said in return.
One of the agents along the table snorted but there was no telling which. Merlin looked like he might have been about to crack a smile which rumour had it hadn't happened since '05.
Opposite them, the wall lined portraits of previous Arthurs looked on.
Roxy wished that Chester King had lived long enough to see her, a female Lancelot, salute him at the famed round (rectangular?) table. Maybe the shock of it it would have been enough to kill him all over again.
She still flipped him off when she left.
A year and a half into Kingsman (she felt so much older and yet she could remember the water rising around her bed as if it were last week) Roxy realised a truth that she wished she had not noticed.
Eggsy was the best friend she was ever going to have.
The thought flashed across her mind on a Friday, down the pub with Eggsy and his friends. She was three sheets to the wind, his friends had stopped looking at her as if she was going to rap them across the knuckles with a ruler and she was laughing so hard she thought she might be sick. Jamal had made some joke about her size saying she wouldn't be able to keep up and Eggsy the little shit had just smirked. It seemed like the natural progression to drink him under the table.
God, she was going to regret that tomorrow.
She watched as Eggsy finished his pint, still one behind her, and slammed it down on the table. He was relaxed in a way she never saw him around the other Kingsman, shoulders loose and consonants slurred. She wondered if he still thought he had something to prove to the other knights, worth or value, or if it was just the nature of their jobs.
"Up for another round, Eggs?" She asked trying not to sway in her chair.
She took his groan as a yes and went to get the next round.
Right, left. Right left. Don't stumble, don't teeter. Try and look as sober as possible. Roxy knew from experience that out drinking someone, much like torture or psychological warfare, was at least half posturing and misdirection.
She made it back from the bar with no incidents. She slid into her seat, pushed Eggsy's glass in front of him and with no hesitation picked hers up and downed it.
Urgh, she felt like shit. Still, it was a matter of pride now.
Eggsy made a brave attempt but only made it a quarter of the way though his before she slammed hers down. He gave up after that and simply laid his head in his hands on the table, groaning.
Ryan wasn't even pretending not to stare at her now. "How the hell d'you do tha'?"
Roxy turned her head to him and waited for her vision to catch up. "He was in the Marines. They haven't got shit on the Navy."
Roxy knew she'd be seeing some of that again later but in the Navy they hadn't been fucking around with drinking pints on shore leave. She's not proud to say that she'd lost entire days (alright not proud but not exactly ashamed either) during her all to brief career.
She wanted to carry on gloating but she could feel a hiccup in her chest and one that she wasn't too confident on. She excused herself to the bathroom but not without a parting shot:
"Eggsy, do you want a bottle of water from the bar? They're probably used to lightweights round here."
He flipped her off without taking his head off the table and that was when she knew. This pasty, wasted, likely-going-to-throw-up-on-her man was (and probably would be forever) the best friend she would ever have. It hit her so suddenly she almost blurted it out (so much for her career in espionage) but she managed to bite it back and make a hasty retreat.
She had known that he was her best friend but to know that there would never be another as good as him? It was sad in a way, knowing that she found him so early. Knowing that if something were to happen to him she'd never have anything that was ever vaguely close again. They'd only known each other a year and a half, a measly eighteen months and half of those spent in direct competition, and yet he knew her better than people she'd grown up with, who she'd seen everyday for twelve years in boarding school.
She pictured telling him. He was so friendly and easy with everyone that it hurts to think of him smiling at her and saying "me too" with a wink. It hurt, knowing that she'd found one friend in seven billion and yet she thought it would hurt more to find out she was just another of his friends. Good, but on the same level as Jamal, Ryan or (god forbid) Merlin. She wasn't insecure enough to think he didn't love her but the fact of it was (and she suddenly and fervently hoped that this was just the beer and those three sambuca shots talking) she felt him in her bones now. She loved him with the marrow and guts and blood in her body and they were so much more than a simple heart.
She caught sight of herself in the dingy pub bathroom mirror. Pale as hell, hair a rat's nest and eyes fever bright. No use telling him tonight, she was far too gone for that.
No use telling him ever, perhaps. Not if it changes anything.
Three days after the Revelation at the Black Prince (it sounds suitably dramatic in her head) she was curled up in her bed helping him win over the Swedish royal family. She split her time between him and a underground criminal organisation and managed both. She smiled as she heard him bullshit through another random question (and honestly, Tilde's dad? Douchebag.) She fielded another awkward question and her glasses pinged with a new message.
Ur Da Best
She snorts as she reads it but replies anyway.
— Best friend or best agent?
The reply is quick in coming.
Both ;)
For a second she remembered the Revelation and for a fleeting moment regretted not just saying it there and then when she was drunk and he probably wouldn't have remembered.
Then came the warning, flashing red on her computer.
The scramble off the bed.
The flash of light and mortar and bricks (her life) all crumbling-
She didn't have time to regret it long.