Many Happy Returns
A/N: Hey guys, I realise it's been an eternity since I've updated this fic but I didn't feel like my heart was really in it before. But I watched Kingsman again a few days ago and with the sequel coming out, my love for Hartwin has been renewed and I thought I'd finish this. Hope you guys enjoy xxx
Chapter 8
"You can't land on the same airstrip you did last time." Harry said, joining Merlin in the cockpit and sitting in the first officer's chair with ease.
Merlin blinked once, shocked at the sudden sense memory the action gave him. Harry would always collapse into the first officer's seat without warning, declaring his boredom on a flight to Russia or a complaint of the hangover he had from the two of them getting mortal from the night before. And now, using the same body language was a stranger. It was one of the more bizarre things Merlin had experienced in this job.
"Why not?" Merlin asked, shaking his feelings aside. "We took out a couple dozen guards the last time we were there. They should be severally understaffed, it shouldn't be a problem."
"That may be the case, but since your little impromptu visit last time, Valentine set up motion sensors placed in strategic spots in the side of the mountain. Any jet without the authorisation code gets shot down, no guards needed."
"Oh, then how do we land?" Merlin asked.
"There's a cave in the mountain, about 40 feet up. We should avoid the sensors and you'll be able to land the plane."
Merlin side-eyed him as much as possible while still maintaining his flight path.
"What?" Harry asked.
"Nothing." Merlin said after a moment, gaze returning to the front. "Nothing at all."
Merlin managed to squeeze the jet into the small but manageable cave Harry had directed him to, and allowed the former-Galahad to explain why they was avoiding the perfectly adequate landing strip below.
"How are we supposed to get down the mountain without setting the sensors off then?" Asked Eggsy.
"They'll be programmed to sense air craft," Merlin pointed out, "not people daft enough to abseil down a goddamn mountain." He finished dryly, fetching the high-tech ropes and ties from the back of the jet needed to abseil, luckily for them, Kingsman were always prepared.
"I apologise." Said Harry, "but it stops us getting shot out of the sky."
…
All five of them exited the plane one by one, precariously using pick axes to help navigate the mountainside and secure themselves to the wall as they secured their ties to the wing of the jet. Eggsy, as preoccupied with Harry as he was, noticed Roxy's heavy breathing and her painful clutch on his arm and turned to her, shivering from the snow on the mountainside.
"Hey, it's all right, it ain't that far." He said soothingly.
"Thanks." She said, smiling gratefully at him. "I'm Lancelot, I should be over this by now."
"Don't be daft, you sod." Eggsy grinned affectionately. "Don't tell no one, but I'm shit scared of spiders."
"Really?" Roxy said, laughing.
Eggsy laughed too, glad he had cheered her, and the pair, along with Merlin, Percival, and Harry, began abseiling slowly down the mountainside. It didn't take long for them to reach the landing strip they'd landed at before. The strip, luckily, was completely deserted. Apparently Valentine, having installed her swanky sensors, didn't see the need to keep any guards out there, much to the Kingsman advantage. They each unhooked themselves from their tethers and Merlin gathered them in a bundle and tied them off while Eggsy congratulated Roxy on her successful decent.
Harry turned to them all. "Wait here, try to stay out of sight while I go inside and disarm the exterior security system." Without even checking for their approval, he strode off inside the mountain, as cold and emotionless as the snow-covered stone around him.
As Eggsy adjusted his jumpsuit, Percival walked past him and joined Merlin as he tied their ropes to a jutting out piece of rock from the mountain so they could reclimb back to the jet once they were done. Percival began to speak quietly to Merlin, probably unaware that they were speaking loud enough for Eggsy to hear. The young Galahad immediately went to move away and give the two friends some privacy until he heard the subject matter and couldn't help but linger.
"…I mean, why is he even doing this, helping us?" Percival was saying in hushed tones. "What if Harry's still loyal to Valentine and this is just one big trap we've walked into, and dragged Roxy into as well. And Eggsy."
"I'm not sure." Merlin replied, sounding troubled. "It's just hard not to instinctively trust him, you know? Plus, I don't know, the only thing I can think of is that, you know, he might not care for us anymore, but he doesn't have any reason to hate us. But with his memory returned, he might be able to appreciate all that Valentine has taken from him. He might want revenge of his own."
Eggsy pondered that for a moment. It never really occurred to him why Harry was helping them take down Valentine. He'd just assumed the emotionless Harry had done it out of boredom or something akin to that, it never occurred to him that Harry might have an agenda of his own, that he might want to kill them all. Or maybe, just maybe, Merlin was right and he'd realised, when Eggsy had kissed him, that they might have had a future together and Valentine had taken that away, and he was taking revenge for the happiness they might have had.
Harry hurried out onto the airstrip not a few moments later, successfully interrupting his reverie. Eggsy found himself just staring at the man he loved instead of listening to the instructions he was giving him. He shook his head to clear it, forcing himself to remember that he was on a mission, again saving the world from Valentine, saving his mum and his sister and everyone he loved and maybe, just maybe, saving Harry.
They followed Harry into the base, passing through the rock-walled cells. At the first Y-Junction they reached in the corridors, there were two guards leant against the wall chatting idling so they stole silently down the other corridor. One of the guards, however, registered a movement in the corner of his eye. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd seen, but refused to let it go when half of his colleagues had just been butchered. He pulled his walkie talkie from his belt and radioed in.
…
It wasn't long before the Kingsmen reached a large metal corridor deep in the recesses of the base. Harry held his hand up to stop them and they all skidded to a halt.
Harry turned to them, and if he'd had any emotion in his soul, he would have looked guilty.
"I don't have security access to get through this door," he explained, emotionless as ever, "the explosives are all in there. It's a storage facility. Only Valentine has access to this room, it's a doomsday alternative should anyone discover her plans."
"Hold on." Merlin said, more to himself than to anyone else whilst fumbling in his jumpsuit. After a second he took out a 7" tablet and began tapping furiously at the touchscreen. He reached out with his unpreoccupied hand. "Give me your key card." He said authoritatively. Harry immediately reached into his pocket and handed over the key card which granted him access to Valentine's facility. He studied the numbers on the card for a moment before he was back on the tablet. After about five minutes continuous work, he spoke:
"Okay, go to the keypad. Ignore the slot, put 567476927392.99 into the keypad, with the new firewalls I've installed, it should override the system."
Harry dutifully walked over to the keypad by the metal door and typed the long number in without having to be told twice. The keypad beeped and the door slid open easily for them.
Eggsy walloped Merlin on the back for his good work before all of them walked into the room onto an elevated walkway that extended about twenty feet from the doorway, and below them was row upon row of short-range explosives. Enough to level a small country let alone a mountain base.
"Bloody hell." Roxy breathed out.
They all stared out over the explosives for the longest time, just in awe of what that kind of fire power could do. Eggsy, however, was the only one to notice the change in Harry's shoulders. The way they slumped, in exactly the way they always did when he had bad news to give. Exactly the same way they had done when he'd told Eggsy he had to go to Kentucky, and leave him…
"Harry." Eggsy said, concern obvious in his voice as all eyes were suddenly trained on the former Kingsman. Harry finally turned to them, expression hard.
"You all need to go." He said, expression hard.
"What?" Percival asked immediately.
"I needed Merlin to get into the room. That's why I didn't come alone. But you need to go now, for your own sakes."
"Not until you give us an answer why." Merlin said rather firmly, stepping forward.
Harry paused for a moment before he said: "the explosives are operated by biometrics."
Eggsy suddenly remembered the original Valentine, and them having to make sure his hand stayed off of the controls so that his psycho sim cards didn't work. What Harry was really saying was, that the behemoth of explosives beneath them were hand-operated, so the only way to set them off was too…
An alarm sounded throughout the base, almost deafening Eggsy in its intensity. Before he could adjust his ear drums, four or five of the classic guards had swarmed outside of the room. Roxy, Merlin and Percival immediately bolted from the walkway and out of the storage unit, sending punches and gunshots to the guards that dared to stand in their way.
Eggsy, however, remained on the walkway, remained staring at Harry. He couldn't look away.
"You have to go." Harry said, something close to desperation in his voice as his eyes looked at Eggsy just like they used to.
Eggsy understood immediately what Harry was suggesting. That he should die setting off the explosives, giving them the chance to escape, to live.
The memory of Percival and Merlin's earlier conversation suddenly swarmed Eggsy's mind, and he spat the question at Harry without thinking.
"Why are you doing this? Just tell me, why are you helping us, why are you killing Valentine, why are you doing this?"
"I'm doing this for you."
Eggsy almost staggered back in shock.
"But why?" He asked, mouth dry.
"Because I remember all the potential you had in you." Harry said. "I remember all I wanted for you, I remember our future, Eggsy. You can still have it, even though I can't."
"But…" Began Eggsy, gesturing vaguely to the explosives below. "You'll get caught in the blast!"
"I have no regard for my own life." Harry said simply and Eggsy felt his blood boil in his veins, no one was allowed to disregard Harry's life, let alone Harry himself.
"But I do!" He all but shouted, and then more desperately: "you can't leave me again. You can't."
Harry's eyes turned hard and he suddenly looked like a stranger. "I never came back, Eggsy."
And with that, a hand connected with Eggsy's chest and he was shoved out of the explosives room and the door was shut behind him.
Among the sirens, the fighting and his total heartbreak, Eggsy vaguely registered Roxy's voice through the darkness of his mind.
"Eggsy, please, we need to go. More guards are coming, and there's enough explosives in this building to level the mountain. Please, Eggsy, please."
Eggsy, still numb to the world around him, allowed himself to be dragged away by Roxy as he left Harry behind, as he left all of his hopes and dreams and love behind.
…
Harry readied himself for the descent from the walkway to the explosives, so ready to end this. To end Valentine but also himself, the sick, twisted version of himself that he'd become. Eggsy would have a future, that's all Harry cared about, or at least all the real Harry would have cared about.
He heard the whirring of the doorway and rolled his eyes, certain that the young Galahad was refusing to leave him behind. He remembered Eggsy's fiery nature very well, it was probably one of the reasons he'd fallen in love with him.
Still, he couldn't feel that love now and turned on his heel, ready to tell him to leave immediately but he stopped in his tracks when he saw Valerie Valentine stood in the doorway, flanked by two of her few remaining guards, both wielding AK-47s.
"Welcome back, Agent." She said.
…
Eggsy yelped in shock as a fist enclosed around his collar and yanked him back, he was ready to send a kick out to whoever had caught him until he realised that it was Percival who had grabbed him and yanked him around a corner in the corridor. Merlin and Roxy immediately followed and pressed themselves against the wall, trying to make themselves as small as possible. Once Percival had released his collar, Eggsy sent a questioning look in his direction and Percival merely replied by pressing a finger to his lips.
Quiet as a mouse, Eggsy peered around the corner and saw the back of Valentine and two guards stood in the reopened doorway of the explosives storage room.
"What do you see?" Asked Merlin in a stage whisper.
Eggsy watched in horror as Harry was escorted out of the room, a guard was holding his arm but he was otherwise co-operating calmly. Valentine followed them, she was saying something that Eggsy couldn't hear, before they were all down the corridor and out of sight.
"They've got Harry." He told them in a normal voice. "Valentine just took him away."
"Do you think he set off the explosives yet?" Roxy asked, a note of panic in her voice.
"I doubt it." Said Merlin, shaking his head. "Valentine would have noticed. How did she know we were in there?"
"What if Harry tells her we're here?"
"What if…?"
"He won't." Eggsy cut across immediately, remembering exactly what Harry had told him in the explosives storage room not five minutes before. "No, I think he's protectin' us, but now he's in trouble."
"We can't leave him." Roxy said decisively, earning a few surprised stares from the others. "He was going to die for us." She continued. "We can't leave him with Valentine."
Eggsy looked to Percival as their leader and the Senior Kingsman nodded in agreement. "Good work, Lancelot." He said. "We'll follow, regain Harry and then re-examine the plan."
The four of them stole silently through the base, guns aloft, ready and waiting for guards to jump out at them like they were in some kind of fun house at the fair. Eggsy's heart was beating so loudly in his chest he was surprised the others couldn't hear it. He'd come so close to losing Harry forever, but fate had saved him again. He wasn't sure if it was the universe's way of telling Eggsy not to give up on Harry, or whether it was just some sick joke.
They reached a more formal part of the base, the corridors became less sterile and metal and instead were carpeted and clean and light. A guard stood outside one of the doors and Merlin walked behind him, wrapping his arm around his throat and squeezing until the guard went limp in his arms, not a sound was made.
Merlin opened the door, curious as to what the guard was guarding, and was surprised to find a tech lab on the other side. He paused for a moment, aware that he still had Harry's security card in his pocket, and with the information in that micro-chip, maybe, just maybe he could access…
"Merlin!" Eggsy said, getting the Scotsman's attention. "Come on, we gotta go."
"Go on." Merlin said, more to Percival than to the rest of them. "I'll catch up."
Percival, unaware of Merlin's plan but aware of his genius, nodded mutely and instructed the other two to follow him. Eggsy did so, but sent a glance back to see the tech wizard disappearing into the room the guard had just been guarding and frowned with confusion.
They continued to navigate the surprisingly small base until they came upon the same electronics laboratory and former ballroom they had seen before, and above it was Valentine's office. Inside was Valentine, Harry and two guards. One of the guards immediately spotted them stood below and raised his AK-47. The gunshot whistled through the glass, shattering it and connecting with Percival's chest and bouncing off of his bulletproof jumpsuit. Percival staggered back from the impact and Eggsy shot off, scaling the stairs two at a time. He kicked the door down and headshotted one of the guards and punched the other directly in the face. Roxy appeared behind him and shot the remaining guard once, twice, three times in the chest until he keeled and then she turned the gun on Valentine and stilled.
Eggsy didn't bother to stick around to see Valentine's reaction, instead he strode to the shattered window and looked down, seeing Percival on the floor.
"Percival, are you all right?" He called out.
"Yes, fine. Is Valentine dead?" He called back.
Eggsy turned back to see Roxy still training her gun on the weary Valentine. Harry was uncommonly still.
"For now." He called back.
As Percival got to his feet, Eggsy turned back to the room and it was only then that he noticed the blood bubbling at Harry's lips.
"Holy shit, Harry, are you okay?" Eggsy surged forward and placed a hand on Harry's chin, forcing his face to his. He seemed otherwise unharmed, except for a bruise blossoming on his cheek under his scar from where he'd apparently been punched.
"I'm fine, Eggsy." Harry said quietly. "I didn't get to the explosives in time, I'm sorry."
Eggsy couldn't help a sad smile as he looked into those dull eyes. "No, you're not." He said honestly. "You can't be."
Eggsy moved away from Harry as Percival entered the room, winded but otherwise okay.
"So," Percival said, apprehending the unnerved Valentine with a gun aimed at her face. "What do we do with you?"
Valentine smiled. "Oh, I've got an idea."
Twenty or thirty armed guards stormed through the laboratory and paused, aiming their guns directly at the shattered window of the office.
"Oh, shit." Said Roxy, before she slowly lowered the gun from Valentine's face.
"Don't suppose you were thinkin' of lettin' us go?" Eggsy asked rather cheekily, hoping if his words didn't get them out of this then his boyish charm just might.
But, of course, Valentine didn't have a heart.
"I don't think so, Galahad. Do you?"
"Eggsy!"
Eggsy almost recoiled as Merlin's voice came through on his glasses feed.
"Ask Harry how long it takes for those explosives to detonate."
"Harry, how long does it take those bombs to detonate?"
Roxy and Percival stared at him, perturbed, but Harry merely answered.
"About thirty seconds."
"Oh fuck, Eggsy…fucking run!"
"RUN!" Eggsy screamed at the top of his lungs.
Harry immediately sent an elbow into Valentine's ribs, sending her down and then the guards outside began to fire. Percival took two out immediately, one with a headshot and one through the neck, before Eggsy grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him down the steps. The four of them ran, not bothering to fight back, just doing their best to avoid the bullets that were bouncing off of their bullet proof jumpsuits, leaving layers of damaged skin beneath. A bullet tore across Roxy's cheek and she cried out but kept running, and Eggsy felt Harry's hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward. They broke the electronics lab and ran through the carpeted corridors and down back to the rock corridors just in time to see Merlin running from the electronics room Harry had been captured in.
"Run!" He roared again, and the five of them ran and ran until they were in the rock corridors, nearing the exit, they could see the landing strip, they could see the sunlight.
A supersonic BOOM sounded and rock and shrapnel fell all around them, the walls began to crack as they broke daylight, sending them all sprawling and leaving a deep crack in the airstrip. When they glanced back inside, a raging fire was all that greeted them.
They all scrambled to their feet and pushed on, reaching the tied-off ropes and clambered up, finally stopping and collapsing onto the wing of the jet. They were unable to do anything but watch as the crashing sounds continued and the jutting-out airstrip cracked and fell from the mountain, hitting the ground far below with earth-shattering force. The four of them were breathing heavily, aware that if they'd remained on that landing strip for just five seconds more, they'd be at the bottom of the mountain, too.
They climbed into the jet and Merlin's hands were still shaking when he sat down in the pilot's seat. Harry stayed with Merlin while Percival took Roxy to the back to care for the wound on her cheek.
Eggsy glanced out of one of the windows and saw a smouldering hole in the mountain where the base used to be as it slowly receded into the distance. He sincerely hoped that he'd never have to see that mountain again.
He squeezed Roxy's shoulder affectionately before joining Merlin and Harry in the cockpit.
"Merlin," Eggsy began, breathing still ragged and voice rough. "That was a shit plan."
"Oh, that wasn't a plan." Merlin grinned. "It was just an afterthought. After I was done in the tech lab I thought, hey, let's blow the shit out of this place."
"What were you doin' in the tech lab?" Eggsy asked. "What was so damn important?"
"This." Merlin said simply, digging in his pocket and pulling out a small memory stick.
"What's on it?" Eggsy asked.
"The codes I need to hack past the defences in the inhibitor chip." His face went surprisingly serious. "I can take it out now."
"Why would you do that?" Harry asked incredulously, before Eggsy could even speak. "You risked your life, all of our lives, just for that."
"You're my best friend." Said Merlin stiffly. "And I was always going to do whatever I could to get you back. Whether you like it or not. Besides, I need you, we have plans."
"What plans?"
"When we die, I'm going to need someone to get drunk with in hell."