A/N: Whoops, sorry about that guys, let's try that again.
Chapter 4:
Eggsy ended up sitting with Daisy in the park until the sun went down. He ignored the looks that passers-by gave him, he was sure he looked a right mess, all covered in blood from a nosebleed, bruises, and snot from where Daisy had bawled against his shoulder until he managed to get her settled down.
They watched the ducks together. And the people feeding the ducks. Mostly happy families- mothers and fathers out with their children, couples young and old. It was a heartwarming scene, and it made Daisy giggle to see the greedy birds snap up the offerings of the various smiling people.
Eggsy ignored how the two of them were given a wide berth, breached only by judgemental or cautiously concerned glances. There may have been a time or two where he encouraged it with a glare. He and Daisy neither needed nor wanted anyone's pity, no matter how well-meaning.
Those who weren't well-meaning could go fuck themselves.
Just as the sky was starting to darken and the streetlights began to flicker on, Eggsy's mobile rang. He picked up, and it was his mother, frantic with worry, because apparently there was blood on the floor and no-one home.
At least her first question when she called him was asking if he had Daisy with him. Eggsy thought it was nice to see that she had some of her priorities straight, low self-esteem/preservation/standards-in-men aside.
Eggsy didn't tell her about Roe (or Merlin, or whatever it was that the odd gent wanted to be known as- frankly, if he was serious about the job, Eggsy would call him Harry Fucking Potter if he asked). For one thing, as much as the man had done him a solid twice today, in ensuring that a) Eggsy wasn't locked up, and b) Eggsy wasn't getting the shit kicked out of him by his scum-sucking step-dad, Eggsy had a pretty strong impression that the man didn't like being talked about.
The death-threats weren't exactly a subtle clue.
And more than that, his Mum always fucking went mental whenever it sounded like Eggsy might be following in his Dad's footsteps. Well, at least as far as the whole doing something "dangerous" (exciting) and far away went.
(Eggsy tried not to be too hurt at the fact that she never went mental over her shitty husband beating him up, but on the other hand, she was the one who had taught him how to be all light-fingered when the unemployment cheques just weren't cutting it that one month before she met Dean, and she was the one who had taught him everything he knew about reading people, and acting and lying under pressure, so it wasn't like he could say she'd never cared about his survival. She just went about it in a different kind of way to the mums on TV.)
By the time he made it back with Daisy to the shitty flat they had, his mother had given up trying to scrub the blood out of the carpet, and had gotten a call from Dean, explaining that he was in lock-up.
"He wouldn't tell me what he was in for, just kept saying that he had to, that it was the bald guy who made him go in and confess. You know anything about this?" she asked Eggsy.
Eggsy, freshly showered and playing "this little piggie" with Daisy's toes to make her giggle just shrugged. "Don't look at me, I'm just lookin' forward to not bein' a punchin' bag for a while," he said more bluntly than he usually would. (His ribs were killing him.)
He almost immediately regretted his candour when his Mum started crying, but he felt that it needed to be said.
(Maybe, just maybe, this would finally be enough for his Mum to drag herself out of this toxic relationship.
But Eggsy knew better than to hold his breath.)
…
It takes Eggsy almost a whole two days before his curiosity gets to him and he goes to check out the tailor shop on Saville Row.
When he gets there, he stands outside for a moment, surveying the front display.
If he didn't know any better, Kingsman would have blended in all too well with the other shops on Saville row- that kind of understated elegance hidden behind slightly grimy windows that spoke of effortless class and more money than Eggsy was likely to see in his entire life if he lived it over ten times.
If this was a movie, this would be the part where Eggsy paused, and hesitated, wondering whether entering was the right choice to make. Maybe there would be a dramatic voiceover or monologue, where he wondered if this was the right decision to make.
But since this was real life, once Eggsy had cased the place like he was about to rob it, he walked straight inside.
"Can I help you?" a smartly dressed shop assistant in a tweed waistcoat stepped forward.
Eggsy nodded, and pulled out the business card Roe had left him with.
"A bald gent in a jumper gave me this, said if I wanted to come and learn a trade that I should come here, and ask for…" he felt slightly ridiculous saying this, "Merlin."
The shop assistant looked him up and down, and a thin line appeared between her eyes.
"Is that so," she said, sounding… not sceptical per se, but more thoughtful, as she tilted her head, looking Eggsy up and down, a lock of mousy brown hair escaping her carefully pinned bun.
Eggsy nodded, trying to ignore how it felt like her eyes were x-rays that could see every scar and fading bruise around his bright clothes. (It wasn't just personal aesthetic that made him dress like that. It was interesting how easy it was to distract people with bright colours and "obnoxious" style. It tended to make their eyes skate over the parts you didn't want them to focus on.)
After a moment, she nodded firmly. "Alright then. Follow me."
She led him into a dressing room, and Eggsy startled when she put her hand against the glass, and then suddenly the floor started to drop away.
Establishing quickly that they seemed to be on some sort of strange lift, Eggsy relaxed very slightly, and nodded to the shop assistant. "I'm Eggsy," he introduced himself.
"Yes, I surmised," the shop assistant nodded. "You can call me Igraine."
Eggsy's brow crinkled. "I'm startin' to detect a theme here," he muttered. It had been a while since he read the dog-eared old paperback that had a compilation of King Arthur stories, but when he'd had it, he had read it over and over.
(The book had been stolen along with the rest of the contents of his bag when he had gone and got high in the wrong place. He had missed the book more than the ten quid that had been in his wallet at the time.)
"Who'm I goin' ta meet next, Lancelot?" he wondered, only half-facetiously.
"Unlikely," replied Igraine, not batting an eyelid. "He's currently out on assignment."
"Ah," responded Eggsy. "Well I'm glad we cleared that up," he added sarcastically.
Igraine merely smiled at him mysteriously, in a way that caused the hairs on Eggsy's arms to stand on end.
"No offence," he muttered, scuffing his feet a little and looking down.
He was mostly pleasantly surprised when Igraine laughed at him.
"I can see why Merlin likes you," she responded.
"His real name's not Richard, is it," Eggsy stated, no question in his tone.
"No," Igraine replied, smiling in a way that reminded Eggsy of one of his primary school teachers whenever he got the answers right in class. "It isn't."
She didn't expand, and Eggsy didn't ask. He had more important things to worry about, like if he was inadvertently joining some kind of odd Arthurian-themed cult.
Eggsy blinked as he realised that they were still descending.
"How far down does this thing go?" he wondered aloud.
Igraine laughed at him.