For the language prompt: Unheimlich—uncanny, mysterious, arousing superstitious fear or dread, uncomfortably strange.

Harry isn't prone to superstition. Not in the slightest. His mother—rest her soul—had been the old fashioned sort, clinging to superstitions and omens and the like, all passed down from generation to generation. His father had tolerated it, and may have secretly even subscribed to one or two of them, but Harry had no time for such nonsense.

Which is why it's the furthest thing from his mind as he prepares to see Merlin off on his assignment with Eggsy and Roxy. Harry had done everything in his power to see that it needn't come to this, but in the end, Merlin's task couldn't be accomplished from Central—it would need to be seen to behind enemy lines.

"You're fretting," Merlin rumbles as he finishes knotting his tie.

"I don't fret," Harry corrects him. He walks over and reaches out, needlessly straightening Merlin's knot. "It's simply that I find it an unusual change of pace—you out in the field and me here, watching."

"Just because Arthur liked to keep me homebound doesn't mean I'm incapable of handling myself in the field, if you'll recall," Merlin reminds him.

"I'm very much aware. We all remember Vienna," Harry says with a nod of his head.

Merlin sighs, resisting the urge to tease. Teasing is what they're used to doing, how they're used to handling worry and stress. It's how they've been forced to operate for so long, it's a difficult pattern to break. Relationships between Kingsman were strictly forbidden and so they'd danced around each other for decades, coming close several times but speaking aloud about what it was that they had between them. With Harry having claimed Arthur's seat, that rule has been—perhaps a bit self-indulgently—done away with and they've been working jointly to tear down the walls that so many years had built up between them. Not that it's easy going. It's strange to wake in the mornings and find Harry still in his bed—their bed—rather than hurriedly flying out the door in the middle of the night after a hurried, needy shag, afraid to be caught together for too long.

This is something else altogether, this domesticity. Which is not to say he doesn't love every moment of it, but simply that it's something he was never quite certain they'd have. How many years of their lives had been spent hanging on a 'maybe someday'? How many arguments had that brewed between them? And now he can stand here and place his hands at Harry's waist as though they ought to be there, without fear of punishment, without fear of being found out.

"We'll be back before you miss us," Merlin assures him.

"Ah. And there is your first lie of the evening," Harry says, his eyebrows lowered in a look of mock disapproval. "I already miss you."

Merlin snorts, a smile tugging at his lips. "I'll make it up to you."

"Will you, now?" Harry inquires with an intrigued purr. "And how exactly might you do that?"

Merlin's eyes travel upward, gazing at the ceiling in thought before he leans in, taking several long moments to whisper something in Harry's ear. Harry chuckles as Merlin draws back, wishing he could have had that Scottish brogue tickling his ear for a short while longer.

"Well, in that case, you should leave at once," Harry says, playfully shooing him towards the door. "So that we can get down to the business of you making this all up to me that much sooner."

There's a heavy knocking at the door, interrupting whatever retort Merlin had prepared, and from the other side comes the muffled sound of Percival's voice.

"Arthur? Merlin?"

"Come in, Percival," Harry calls.

Merlin dutifully steps to Harry's right, his hands folded behind his back as Percival opens the door. He gazes upon the two of them with a look of barely restrained amusement.

"Believe me when I say that no one is happier than I since you two have decided to shack up," Percival drawls. "But perhaps you can keep your hands off one another for longer than five minutes? Really, the children have been standing out here waiting for ten minutes now."

"Just because the rest of you are old…" Eggsy huffs, elbowing his way around Percival with Roxy close behind. "But yeah, can we…?"

"You're both prepared?" Merlin inquires.

"Have been," Eggsy says, his eyebrows rising suggestively. "For the past ten minutes. When you said to meet you."

Roxy shakes her head, a smile playing across her lips as she adds, "Yes, we're prepared, Merlin."

"Alright, then I suppose we'll be off," Merlin declares. "Arthur, you'll be minding us?"

"Every step of the way," Harry declares. He leans towards the young Kingsman conspiratorially as he says, "Try not to put the old man through too much, eh? He's not at young as he used to be."

Merlin clucks his tongue at the jab but simply ushers Eggsy and Roxy out the door, coming up close behind them. Soon enough, Harry finds himself alone in his office, smothered by silence wishing he'd been joking when he'd said he missed Merlin already.

Harry has found Merlin to be a creature of habit, sticking to routines and carving himself a nook with which to make himself comfortable from day to day. Which is how he knows exactly where to find his wizard's favorite tea cup. It's old enough, having been in Merlin's possession since Harry had brought it back to him from Japan in 1992, but it's been well cared for by its owner and has stood the test of time. Settling in to watch the monitor, Harry thinks it's permissible to temporarily use the cup himself and as he pours his tea he wonders when he'd gotten so blasted sentimental.

The mission has gone well so far and is very nearly at its end. Roxy and Eggsy had brilliantly handled themselves, allowing Merlin to get right where he needed to be. So it is that he watches as Merlin places the thumb drive in their target's computer, his long, nimble fingers gliding effortlessly over the keys as he performs the extraction.

Silence and patience are key now, and though he himself has performed similarly routine missions hundreds of times, he finds his pulse quickening all the same. Because he's not the one on this mission. Not that he believes Merlin, Eggsy and Roxy to be anything but capable, but there's something about having the situation completely out of his hands that makes it all so utterly nerve wracking.

No wonder Merlin had no hair.

He nearly leaps out of his seat at the sudden noise to his left, the sound of something shattering. He turns quickly, only to find that Merlin's teacup is the culprit—it lies in its saucer, the contents spilling over the desk and cracked nearly in two. A slow frown makes its way to his face as a childhood memory resurfaces, unbidden.

It was a bad omen, his mother had said, for one's teacup to split so. It spelled trouble for the owner. But Harry didn't believe in such nonsense, never had. So why, then, does his heart beat that much faster in his chest?

Another noise draws his attention, this time from Merlin's feed. There comes the sound of breaking glass and Merlin's head whips up to find the source of it. There is a blur of motion as soon as he lays eyes on the gun aimed at him and from there it is the sound of crashing and gunfire and shouting and Harry is out of his seat in an instant, teacup forgotten.

"Lancelot, Galahad, double back to Merlin," he barks.

How had this happened? They'd had every inch of the place covered, how had they missed this? He can hear Merlin's heavy breathing as the gunfire ceases, sees the bodies laid out before him. Then the gunfire comes again, though doesn't last as long this time, and Eggsy and Roxy appear on Merlin's feed. Eggsy gives him a hand up and Harry breathes a soft sigh of relief.

"Status," he says.

"All clear," Merlin reports. "It seems like we weren't the only ones after this prize tonight."

"Dunno who they are," Eggsy adds on. "Not MI6, it looks like."

"The thumb drive?" Harry inquires.

"Intact," Merlin affirms. "I can finish the extraction so long as I have another three minutes uninterrupted."

"Very well, then—"

"Arthur, Merlin's been shot," Roxy cuts in sharply.

"Lancelot," Merlin hisses.

"Merlin," Harry barks. "When I asked for a status report—"

"I gave it to you," Merlin butts in. "It's manageable. As I said, I can finish the extraction with three minutes uninterrupted."

Harry hesitates. He knows he hasn't got time to sit and mull it over, but there's a very good chance Merlin is making light of a serious injury. Yet they can't afford to walk away from this empty handed, especially not when it seems they aren't the only ones here tonight.

"Alright," Harry says. "Galahad, take the east corridor. Lancelot, on Merlin. Three minutes."

They all answer in the affirmative and get to work immediately. As he watches Merlin type, Harry reflects that this has to be the longest three minutes in recent memory. He switches over to Eggsy's feed, pleased to find that their young Galahad is taking care of their last minute guests satisfactorily. He switches to Roxy's feed, hoping to catch a glimpse of where Merlin had been shot, but finding her busy with her eyes on her surroundings—as she should be. She takes out the few that manage to make it to their location, before they ever even catch sight of Merlin and Harry silently praises her skill.

Merlin's breathing sounds far too loud in his ears and he eyes the clock beside him anxiously, counting the seconds. At last, after what feels closer to an hour than a handful of minutes, Merlin draws away from the keyboard and reaches to retrieve his thumb drive. It's here that Harry picks up a soft, nearly unidentifiable grunt of pain and his worry increases tenfold.

"Finished," Merlin declares.

"Make your way towards the east corridor. Galahad has carved a nice path for you," Harry instructs them. "Lancelot, keep an eye on the windows; they seem fond of making an entrance."

The remainder of them are taken care of with little trouble, but as they exit the building, Harry finds himself with an entirely new problem to deal with.

"Harry, don't be alarmed, but we're going off the feed," Merlin announces, sounding short of breath. "Galahad, Lancelot, turn them off. Now."

"What? You're doing no such thing," Harry returns, forcing every bit of authority that he can into the words.

"It's only a short while, you'll survive."

"Lancelot, Galahad, do not follow that order," Harry says angrily.

But the feed has already gone dark.

It's nearly an hour later that their trio arrives and Harry walks out to receive them, spitting mad. He has several particularly venomous comments prepared, but finds they escape him the moment he catches sight of them. Percival hurries past him, moving to help Eggsy and Roxy who are supporting Merlin between the two of them. Roxy has a cloth pressed to Merlin's hip, liberally soaked with red and Harry's feet finally seem to get the message to move.

"You terminated your feed," Harry says angrily. "You deliberately disobeyed my order."

"Lancelot and Galahad were following my instruction," Merlin says, his voice strained. "Don't take it out on them."

"Alright, we can debate the chain of command later," Percival says brusquely. "For now let's get Merlin down to Morgana before he bleeds all over the place."

"Galahad, assist Percival in transporting Merlin to the infirmary," Harry says. "Lancelot: a word."

He doesn't look as the three men hobble away like entrants in a three legged race, not wishing to see any more than he has to at the moment. He'd like very much to drop everything and be the one to see to it that Merlin got to Morgana, but duty demands that he wrap up this mission first and anger makes him stubborn. He leads Roxy to his office, shutting the door behind them with perhaps a little more force than is necessary.

"The thumbdrive?" he inquires.

"Here," Roxy declares, holding it out to him.

He takes it, studying the object briefly and noting where she had tried to clean the blood away from it. He places the drive on his desk before turning to look back to Roxy who, to her credit, does not bow under the weight of his anger.

"You disobeyed my order," he repeats. "Why?"

Roxy hesitates a fraction of a second before responding, "If I could be candid?"

Harry waves impatiently for her to continue.

"Merlin requested that we terminate our feed for your benefit," Roxy reports. "He claimed that you had done the same to him on several occasions and that the less you saw, in this case, the better."

"And if something had happened? If you had failed to effectively lose your pursuers? What then, Lancelot?" Harry asks, his tone cutting.

"I suspect we would have resumed visual," Roxy says curtly. "Sir."

Harry's jaw jumps as he bites back an angry tirade. He knows that Roxy isn't the one he's upset with. Nor Eggsy, nor Merlin, in fact. He's simply looking for a target to vent his frustrations upon, and choosing Roxy is hardly fair. To her credit, she doesn't seem to stand for it and her unwillingness to give in to his wrath allows him a moment of clarity.

"In the future," Harry says, forcing his tone to remain calm and level, "my orders supersede Merlin's, no matter the situation. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," she says. When she doesn't make a move to leave, he lifts an eyebrow questioningly, prompting her to speak. "If I had truly thought there was anything you'd needed to see, I would have left the feed running. Eggsy, too. All we wanted was to return to Central as soon as possible, with as little fuss as necessary."

"I understand," Harry says, dipping his head in a nod. "You're dismissed, Lancelot."

She hovers uncertainly for a few moments longer before taking his silence as proof that no further conversation would be had and slipping out of his office. Harry takes a heavy seat at his desk and, after requesting that Morgana keep him posted, pours himself a drink. Roxy—and by extension, Merlin—hadn't been wrong. How many times had Harry sustained an injury while on assignment, only to cut his feed to spare Merlin the sight? And how often had he returned to Merlin's frightening, though rarely witnessed temper because of this?

Perhaps he'd rushed to anger, but then, that's nothing new about him. Especially not when it came to Merlin's safety. They'll be having a long talk, he knows, but for the time being he can only wait.

"Here's the bullet I dug out of his hip," Morgana says, shaking a plastic baggy in front of his nose.

Harry tuts unhappily, taking the horrific souvenir and studying it briefly before pocketing it. "How is he?"

"Sleeping now," Morgana tells him, motioning for him to follow her. "He lost a fair amount of blood; the bullet lodged in his pelvis and caused some lovely fracturing. He'll be in some pain and it will take time to heal, but so long as he gives himself that time, he should recover well enough."

"I'll see to it that he does," Harry says.

Morgana stops him there, just short of the room where Merlin is. Harry can see him through the window on the door, but the short, matronly woman before him commands his attention.

"Don't you go exciting him now, Harry Hart," she chides him, rapping his knuckles with her clipboard. "You've no idea how many times I had to calm him down after he'd worked himself into a tizzy because you'd gone and left him in the dark again. Well, now you know just how that feels, don't you?"

"Yes, mum," Harry responds, earning himself another whack of the clipboard. He fights back a smile as he says, "I promise, I'm not setting out to start an argument. But we do need to talk."

"That you do," Morgana agrees. "I don't know how you plan to explain that you've broken his favorite cup."

"Now, wait just a moment, that was hardly my fault," Harry protests. "It broke completely of its own accord."

Morgana chortles. "You'd best come up with a better explanation than that."

Harry most certainly does not scowl at her retreating back, but instead makes his way into the room before him. He's certain to be quiet, so as not to disturb his slumbering partner, but Merlin appears to be in a deep enough sleep that Harry could slam the door should he so choose. There's no need to move a chair to sit beside the bed—there's one there already, waiting for him. A comfortable one, at that. Briefly, he wonders if they've really become that predictable, and decides it hardly matters as he settles in for what he's sure will be a very long wait.

He's nodded off several times himself by the time Merlin wakes. A faint groan rouses him from where his chin had met his chest and he blinks hurriedly to clear his vision. Reaching between the bars, he finds Merlin's hand and holds it in his own, waiting patiently. Merlin's head lolls towards him and he blinks his eyes sleepily, likely missing his glasses as he tries to focus.

"'lo," Merlin mumbles.

"Hello," Harry returns with a faint smile.

"Thumb drive?" Merlin asks, clearing his throat.

Harry almost laughs at that. Of course—business as usual.

"Safely in my possession, thank you," Harry assures him. "You needn't worry about that now."

Merlin hums, something soft and noncommittal. His eyes slide shut once more, but he blinks himself awake a minute later and begins shifting sluggishly in his bed.

"You want to talk," Merlin guesses, his voice still heavy with sleep. "About the feed."

"Merlin."

"I know you were—"

A sharp hiss of pain cuts his sentence short as his restless squirming has aggravated his injuries enough to cut through the protective fog of morphine. Harry's on his feet in an instant, one hand planted in the center of Merlin's chest, the other being crushed by Merlin's strong grip as he tries to get him to lie back and lie still.

"Easy, easy does it now," he shushes. "You're not going to want to be moving much for some time, I'd imagine."

"Imagine not," Merlin says through clenched teeth.

There are a handful of tense minutes as they wait for the pain to pass, until gradually Merlin's expression eases into something more comfortable, his grip on Harry's hand not quite so tight as it had been. Harry's thumb strokes his partner's knuckles soothingly, watching as Merlin forces himself to relax.

"I know you're expecting me to be angry. And I am," Harry tells him. "But I also understand that what you did, you did out of concern for me and to expedite the process of returning to Central. It's also been brought to my attention that I've done the very same to you quite a few times over the years. So I believe you'll understand when I say that I'm angry, and hurt, but that I fully understand and accept your decision. For now, I believe we can leave it at that."

Merlin sighs heavily at Harry's admission, that last sliver of tension leaving his body. Now is not the time to argue. Their mission hadn't gone at all the way it was supposed to, but Merlin will heal and that's all that matters to him now. Although, there is the small matter of the tea cup.

"Besides," he says quietly, "I may not be the only one with cause to be angry."

Merlin's eyes fly open at that, finding his and managing to be sharp and piercing despite the heavy blanket of medication.

"Harry," Merlin croaks. "What've you done?"

Guiltily, Harry reaches down into the bag beside him and withdraws the remains of Merlin's tea cup. The two halves sit sadly in the saucer and Merlin quietly stares at them with a more mournful look than harry can recall in recent memory.

"That's my favorite tea cup," he says.

"Yes," Harry says.

"You've broken it."

"No, actually, it broke itself."

"…Harry."

"It was an omen, Merlin. It split straight down the center just before you were shot."

"Oh, come off it, Harry you don't even believe in such things."

"Would you be less upset if I claimed that I did?"

"No," Merlin says sleepily. "And I expect a new cup."

"I'll get you a whole set," Harry informs him.

"Just one," Merlin murmurs.

"Just the one, then," Harry agrees.

Merlin fades soon after and despite his best efforts, Harry follows along shortly behind.

Morgana is right—Merlin takes time to heal. He's at least a marginally better patient than Harry, so his recovery goes fairly smoothly. There are times when Harry catches him limping, a hand pressed to his hip and a grimace on his face, but as the weeks wear on, those moments become fewer and farther between.

There is no argument, no angry words, but there is discussion. Ground rules must be laid, it seems, and they reach an agreement: the feeds stay live, no matter how bad it may be. And really, in retrospect, there were plenty of injuries Harry had sustained where he would have done well to have Merlin's level brogue in his ear.

Harry does get him that new tea cup, but the remains of the old one are stored carefully away high on a shelf in his office. The broken pieces of china bear no supernatural power, no negative aura, no ability to alter their futures, but it does have the power to serve as a reminder. Harry Hart is not a superstitious man, but that's a power he's willing to believe in.