Notes: After another two years...
I think this is getting embarrasing, but at least we're going somehow *cries*
Thank you so much for the kudos and comments and all the support despite all this time.
I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 7
"Something came up."
Harry looked up at Valentina, a look of mere polite interest on his face. "Something?"
"I have a contact; Tony Bristol." She informed him.
"You know him?" Harry asked, clearly interested.
"Yes." Valentina explained. "He has information, but he'll only share it with me, so the MI-6 told me to go meet him."
"What's it about?" Harry wanted to know.
"I wasn't informed."
That was odd. Why would they send her in with so little to go by? "What do you need?"
"My alias is a high roller that goes by the name of Angelica Murs, and she loves young men. I need you to allow Richard to come with me, since he's your recruit."
Harry hummed. "He's a recruit, he can't go on missions."
Valentina sighed, as if she was waiting for it. "In that case…"
"Galahad could do it, right?" Harry continued. "He's young and pretty enough, I guess."
Valentina laughed. "You used to prefer them a bit on the scruffy side, Harry." She spoke without thinking, spoke about things they'd discussed a long time ago in confidence.
Harry was startled, looking at her as if she were a completely different person who'd come in and slapped his face.
The smile vanished from Valentina's face. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate." She hurried to say. "But yes, Galahad will do."
"When do you have to go?" Harry asked, his face stone cold.
"As soon as possible. We have just enough time to debrief him while you get the jet ready to take us to Monaco."
Roxy watched the meeting with a certain curiosity. Valentina needed to go on an assignment and Eggsy was going to accompany her.
The mission itself seemed pretty straight forward: she had a contact that would only talk to her, Eggsy would be there as a support -apparently many people wanted her dead, and Eggsy would keep an eye out while she talked to Bristol.
She'd share the information given to her with the Kingsman, and Eggsy seemed pretty interested in going -way too interested for him not to be up to something.
Merlin was strangely quiet during the whole conversation, but it wasn't him that Roxy was looking at.
Melissa and Simon were by far the most interesting people right now.
Roxy couldn't get a read on them since they arrived. Simon seemed to be the type to hide behind easy smiles and jokes, but he couldn't be an agent if he wasn't smart and lethal. He probably liked to show this easy-going side so people would underestimate him. Melissa, on the other hand, seemed a bit more easy to read in a way. She was serious, focused, clearly the type of woman that could kill someone with a spoon or something. She didn't seem interested in creating a different impression on people.
From what Roxy had observed since they arrived, Simon and Melissa were loyal to Valentina, but she couldn't grasp their relationship. Melissa seemed to be annoyed by Simon most of the time, but they were always together.
They were really different from each other, but now they had the same expression on their faces: they were both furious. It was quite clear once she was looking at them. Simon was obviously fumming and Melissa looked the same as usual, but she had murder in her eyes.
They weren't happy about this.
However, Roxy had the impression that they weren't angry at the Kingsman or Valentina. It was something else.
"When do we leave?" Eggsy asked.
"As soon as you get ready." Valentina told him. "We'll likely stay for two nights, no more than that. Pack a suit."
"Will do." Eggsy got up and practically skipped out of the room.
Yup, definitely up to something.
"So this Bristol fellow knows who you are?" Eggsy asked as he watched Valentina unpacking her suitcase.
They'd gotten on the jet and arrived in Monaco in time to order dinner in their very fancy room.
"Yes, he knows I'm a MI-6 agent." Valentina confirmed. "The alias isn't to fool him. There are other people here that don't know my real name and profession."
"I see…" He commented, sitting on the bed. "So I should keep an eye out for other people."
"Yes. You play the cute, dumb sugar baby and watch my back." She had her back to him, as she was hanging her dress.
"Sure thing…" Eggsy replied as he put his glasses on the side table and turned the camera on.
"Do you get a feeling that something isn't right here?" Bors asked Harry.
"Nothing's been right lately, Bors, so you'll have to be more specific." Harry grumbled as he drank his whiskey.
"There's something wrong about those MI-6 agents, and I don't mean what we previously thought." Bors clarified.
"What can you possibly mean by that?" Gareth asked, twirling his glass.
Before Bors could explain himself better, the screen on Merlin's monitor came to life, showing Valentina's back through Eggy's glasses.
"Can I ask you a question, Agent Rizzo?" Eggsy was talking, somewhere out of frame.
"You can call me Valentina, Galahad." She replied, without turning.
"Thanks. I don't mean to be rude, but… How come you're still an active agent?"
"I'm going to kill Eggsy." Merlin growled.
Valentina threw a look at Eggsy over her shoulder. "Are you suggesting I'm old?" She grinned at him.
"For a field agent at MI-6, yes you are." Eggsy pressed without any shame. "I mean, you're what? 49?"
Valentina chuckled. "Charming of you, darling. I'm 54."
"Shut up."
She laughed at that. "Thank you, I guess."
"But that's my point." Eggsy insisted. "You shouldn't be an active agent. I mean, with your time at the agency, you should be in a different position, team leader or something."
Valentina was quiet for a minute, her back firmly turned to Eggsy, before she started fiddling with the clothes on the closet again. "I'll never get this kind of position in MI-6 for the same reason I'm still an active agent at my age."
"And that is?"
"They don't trust me." She told him simply.
Eggsy snorted. "You're taking the piss. After all you did for them? I mean, you spied on the Kingsman for them."
She turned to look at him at last. "Why do you think they don't trust me? It was because of that. They thought I was 'turned' while I was there. I got blamed for the failure of that mission and my career on the MI-6 died before it could even really start."
"You don't seem all that broken up about it." Eggsy pointed out.
Valentina shrugged as she sat down on the bed too. "I've had many years to come to terms with what happened. I'm too old to be bitter about it."
Eggsy narrowed his eyes. He wasn't doing this to hear her sob story about the MI-6. There was only one thing he wanted to know, and he wanted the others to hear as well.
He was going to make sure they never trusted her again. "How could you betray them like that?" He didn't need to say who 'they' were. She knew. "Was it easy?"
Valentina sighed, something in her expression clearly telling him that now she was a grownup humouring a child. "In this world we live in, Galahad, we can't see things as black and white. It's all shades of grey. Everything." She was looking directly at him as she said that, and Eggsy refused to be intimidated by her. "What I do, what you do, it's not good or evil; it's necessary, mostly damage control. If you insist on seeing things only as black and white, you won't survive long in this world."
Before Eggsy could ask what was her point, she continued. "When I went to the Kingsman, I went to spy on them. You already know that. I had every intention of doing so, because I believed it was the right thing to do. I completely agreed that they were dangerous and should be monitored."
"Black and white." Eggsy murmured.
"Yes, exactly." She nodded. "Then I got there, I met them and it all changed. Not all, mind you. You met Chester and he was always an arsehole." Valentina scoffed. "But Galahad, Lancelot, the Bors of that time, and even Merlin, they were the shades of grey. Brave, amazing men that were there fighting for a safer world and I couldn't believe that they were the bad people I was led to believe they were." She sighed again. "But I still had a job to do, and that's what I did. I spied, I lied and I took advantage of all of them."
It was a curious thing seeing her talking about it. Valentina was likely a great asset; it was really hard to guess what she was actually feeling, but there was something in her voice when she mentioned the Kingsman.
Eggsy didn't want to sympathise with her, he didn't want to see her side of the story. He wanted her to be bad. "Even Merlin." He spoke, just to see what her reaction would be.
The corner of her mouth tipped up. "Merlin." His name was a soft whisper on her lips. "Merlin wasn't part of the plan." She confessed. "He was… Sweet."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Eggsy wanted to know.
Valentina shook her head, as if she'd just come back from a dream. She smirked at him. "Now, I can't tell you all my secrets, can I?"
Merlin turned off the feed and there was a really awkward silence between the four men.
Gareth let out a low whistle. "Naughty Galahad."
"But that was my point." Bors cut back.
"What? Merlin sweetness?" Gareth asked, ignoring the technician's glare.
"No." Bors rolled his eyes. "There's no lost love between Valentina and her agency. They don't trust her and she isn't too fond of them. Her daughter is here just because her mother is and the other agents mostly seem to be going through the motions. If they wanted to control us…"
"They wouldn't send them." Merlin finally understood.
"Exactly. So what the hell is actually going on?" Bors wanted to know.
Eggsy narrowed his eyes. "I don't think you've told me any secrets."
Valentina chuckled. "A woman has to keep a certain mystery to herself." She said, clearly teasing him.
"You have enough mystery around you." Eggsy grumbled.
"I'm sorry I'm not helping you dislike me even more." She offered as she got up from the bed.
"What?"
"You don't like me on principle, because I'm the evil bitch that betrayed the Kingsman." She said simply as she took off her shoes. "It's fine. But I won't cackle like the Wicked Witch and tell you about my imaginary bad deeds." She walked to the bathroom. "Sorry about that." She closed the door after herself.
Eggsy was glad she did, because he was probably pouting.
Harry really just wanted to go home and pretend -for a few blissful hours -that this wasn't happening to him.
This was a mess of epic proportions and he didn't want to be the one handling it. He didn't know if he could do it.
That one moment in his office, when Valentina had laughed and teased him about his taste in men, Harry had been catapulted back to the past. He saw flashes of forgotten nights, when they'd eat take out and bitch about Chester being a pig, Harry would tease her about Merlin and she'd ask him about his love life. Those days when he'd believed he could trust her with his life.
Remembering that had been more painful than Harry wanted to admit. How dare she act like not a single day had passed? How dare she remind him of all that had passed?
He couldn't handle Valentina being there. It was the sad truth.
Therefore, Harry was going to grab his computer and go home, and just…
"We need to talk."
Simon Fucking Landen was waiting for him on his office.
Great.
Eggsy was laying in bed when Valentina came out of the bathroom wearing pyjamas. She pulled the covers and laid down beside him.
"I'm a cuddler." Eggsy informed her.
She snorted, then grabbed the bolster from the floor and gave it to him. "You can cuddle this."
Eggsy grinned and did exactly that, throwing his arm over the bolster.
"Hey." He called once she turned off the lights. "Have you and Merlin ever…"
"What?" She dared him.
"You know." He pressed. "Done the deed."
She snorted "No. It wouldn't have been right."
"It'd be like a honey pot." Eggsy pointed out.
"You're not supposed to like your targets in honey pots."
That gave Eggsy pause. "And you liked him?"
She was silent for a minute. "Goodnight, Galahad."
"Can I help you, Agent Landen?" Arthur -what a silly name -asked.
He was pissed at Simon for being there.
Tough luck.
"We need to talk about Valentina." Simon told him.
Harry groaned. "I feel that's all I ever do these days."
"Oh poor you." Simon cooed, making Harry throw him a glare. "I don't particularly care about your comfort."
"I wouldn't have guessed." Harry said dryly. "Fine. What do you want?"
"I'll assume you're smart, since you're the leader of this little cult." Simon started, as Harry took a seat behind his desk. "So you can probably see there's something really wrong going on here."
"It has come up in conversation." Harry replied carefully.
"We both know this isn't what MI-6 claims it is." Simon leaned forward. "They don't trust Valentina, there's no reason for her to be here."
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
"What do you think, little prince?" Simon scoffed. "Valentina is sent here, with the only two agents she actually trusts and her daughter."
"You think this is some kind of set up."
"I know it is." Simon leaned back against the chair. "They've been trying to get rid of her for years. I think now they figured out how."
"What does that have to do with us?"
"Not sure yet." Simon admitted. "But she wasn't sent here by chance."
Harry pressed his lips together. "Do you think… They thought we would kill her?"
"No." Simon dismissed it immediately. "If they'd thought of that, there'd be no reason to send all of us. It'd be easier to send her in alone. This is something else."
"So you have no answers."
Simon narrowed his eyes at Harry, then got up. "Listen, dear." He put his hands on the table. "I might not have answers -yet-, but I'm not here to help you. I'm here to warn you."
Harry snickered. "Charming."
"If you do anything to Valentina, I'll burn this little house of yours to the ground. Capisce?"
Harry arched an eyebrow at him. "You can try."
Harry watched Simon leave without another word. When the door closed behind the agent, Harry threw his head back and sighed.
"Great."
"Now, be a good boy, and wait for me here." Valentina patted Eggsy on the cheek.
He snorted. "Easy there, lady."
She smirked at him. "Play cute and dumb, but keep an eye out."
"Sure thing." He winked at her.
Valentina left Eggsy by the bar. She could see Bristol sitting alone on a corner table, so he could watch the whole place.
He saw her entering and he was keeping his eyes on her, even while she talked to Eggsy.
"Darling." He got up, a charming smile on his face. "It's been so long."
Valentina offered her hand, because she knew he liked this type of silliness, and Bristol kissed her knuckles exuberantly. "Bristol." She smiled at him. "How are you?"
"Fine, fine." He waved his hand dismissively. "Take a seat."
Valentina sat down. "I was told you were looking for me."
Bristol smirked at her, clearly smug that he knew something she didn't. "I was."
"So?" She arched an eyebrow. "How much?"
"Oh no. I won't charge you for this one."
That was suspicious. "Why?" She wanted to know.
"Do you know why I like you?" He asked.
"Because I'm charming?" She offered dryly.
"That too." He chuckled. "But also because you are one of the only people in this business who keeps her word."
"Thank you."
"So what I have to tell you is a courtesy for all the times you helped me."
Valentina was getting worried now. "I appreciate it. So what is it?"
"MI-6 is going to get rid of you." He informed her.
Valentina kept her expression blank. "They've been trying for a while."
"Yes, but this time they have a plan. A good one, actually." Bristol seemed a bit too happy about this. "If all works well, in a week you'll be a traitor to your country."
Notes: Let me know your feelings!
