For prettyballsy

[fucking_gentleman]

The alarm was sounded at eleven in the morning, the day after Eggsy visited.

The alarms should have gone off before then, but Harry had hacked the machines, pulling and stripping wires and looping the feedback back into itself so there was no sign that he was no longer connected.

He had borrowed clothes by picking his way through the hospital, acquiring one item after another, cards and pass codes and by the time he left, he was dressed and had loose cash, a pilfered phone from a wanker who refused to turn it off and said wanker's credit card, which he used to withdraw the maximum he could and then tossed.

With more CCTV than any other city in the world, he then vanished off the grid.

By the time Eggsy was brought in by Merlin at quarter past midday, Merlin was waiting for another ping from a new internet cafe, the various footage of Harry's escape running behind him, being analysed by technicians for any hints.

"He realised he'd been made and vanished from the last internet cafe in under two minutes. He was off the cameras again within five. You're being authorised to locate and bring in Galahad, before he becomes a target or, worse, gives himself a stroke."

Comments

[fucking_gentleman]

Harry manages not to fire when the door opens, because he knows it's Eggsy, not a threat.

He wearing entirely stolen clothes that don't fit brilliantly. He's lost weight being in hospital, lost condition, and he's ditched the bandaging for an eye patch the shows the scarring around the socket and temple from the bullet and surgeries. His hair is loose, curling across his forehead.

"I was rather relying on the fact you would find me." He lowered the gun, letting out the tension and breath and finding himself buckling as he did so. "I needed to get out from under Merlin's observation. He'd trap me."

[prettyballsy]

If he'd gotten shot, so be it. He was worried sick, scared, and seeing Harry like this, seeing him start to go down, that was all that he had been afraid of.

"Oh bloody hell," he said, rushing in to try and lend Harry a hand. "Who the hell do you think sent me to bring you back?"

Which Harry had to have known as well. And yet...

"No glasses. No phone. Nicked the car I came here in. This is the suit you had tailored for me. I never mentioned I had it when they fitted me for the Kingsman suit to go after Valentine. It's as clean as I can be Harry, but I don't know if it's clean enough."

He sighed, shaking his head. "He's not leaving an agent with your skills and with your memory loss on the street, Harry. I don't report back, and Lancelot is on her way."

[fucking_gentleman]

"Help me to my bed." His right hand had caught Eggsy's shoulder, holding on for balance and support.

"I knew he'd send you after me. But I had to get information. Information without him watching, listening. To find here. Be here without him here." He sank onto his mattress leaning back and looking at Eggsy. "You look magnificent. I could not be prouder of you."

He had been running on pure adrenaline.

"I'm not going back to hospital. I won't be sheltered from my own life like some simpering damsel in distress, and most certainly not by a man who-"

Who what, Harry?

He trailed off, unsure.

His head hurt. A lot.

"Can you close the curtains, please?"

[prettyballsy]

"Course," he said, wrapping his arm around the boy, holding him close as he moved him to the bed.

"I could have brought you things, or helped you. What if you had..." He was hurting so bad, angry because of how scared he was. "Do you know what I would have done if I found you..." He sighed, helping him settle down.

Which was when the words hit him. "Now you're not even playing fair, Harry Hart, and you know it." He was pretty sure he knew it too.

"You're not being sheltered. The first day I came, I thought you were going to die and..."

Oh no. He doesn't get to leave that like that.

Staring down at him a moment, he went over and pulled the curtains closed. "A man who tells me he's your best friend, and you're his only confidante." He turned to face him, standing before the curtain.

"So why don't you trust Merlin?"

[fucking_gentleman]

Harry toed off his stolen sneakers and sank back into the bed. It felt familiar, comfortable, safe in a way the hospital never did.

"I was being sheltered. Not by you. By him. The staff. You were told not to come back and see me, weren't you? 'Leave him alone to recover' or some nonsense." With the pillows piled under him and the curtains closed, he closed his eye and let himself just enjoy for a moment.

"Because he left me there. He didn't give me a choice to know, to remember, he left me. I don't know why I said that, I really wasn't going to. That's probably the frontal lobe damage."

[prettyballsy]

Sighing, he moved over to pick up a blanket folded at the foot of the bed, shaking it out to at least lay over Harry's legs.

"Harry, I caused you to have a break down. You could have bloody well died and it would have been my fault," he said, definitely having taken that away from being lectured after what happened. "So yeah, he told me to stay away to protect you."

He was torn. His loyalties lay first and foremost with Harry. Yet he had been answering to Merlin, as a Kingsman.

"What if you had a break down like that with him and he was scared for you too?"

[fucking_gentleman]

"No, I had a minor set back, which has happened before, and it is the fault of whatever arsehole decided to shoot me in the head during V-Day."

He patted the bed next to him, not looking. He trusted Eggsy would sit down next to him.

"Then I still have the right to make a decision with the available information. He's not my keeper, even if he is often my handler. As a handler, he should know that. I need information to make the best call."

[prettyballsy]

Eggsy didn't say a word, not agreeing with him as he came over to sit down on the edge of the bed. As a Kingsman he should have contacted Merlin immediately. As Eggsy Unwin, he answered to Harry Hart. Plain and simple.

"Merlin is pretty much our Arthur," he pointed out. "We haven't really had time to put Kingsman entirely back together since Valentine happened. So... He kind of is my handler."

Yet he'd made it clear he hadn't told him anything. Not yet. "He thinks he's protecting you, Harry. Which none of us did. I know how often I've replayed that moment in my head. I can't imagine how often Merlin has watched the tape."

[fucking_gentleman]

"A handler is not a keeper."

He stayed where he was, relaxed in the bed and letting his sense tell him that he was home, even if he didn't consciously remember it.

"It wasn't his right to decide to keep my life from me. Or to tell you to help him keep it from me. I don't know what tape you mean, but I am still an adult and he didn't have the right to take that from me. To leave me completely alone."

He had spent over a month awake, alone.

[prettyballsy]

"Then let me take you back to Kingsman and tell him that," he said, meaning it. At least then he'd know where Harry was.

But then he mentioned the tape and he was quiet for a long time, shifting, shoulders curling in slightly.

"We were watching," he said, fighting to keep his voice even, normal, not cracking as much as his throat felt tight and his eyes were stinging. "When Valentine shot you, I was watching."

[fucking_gentleman]

Harry took a moment to analyse the different angles of that statement.

• Richmond Valentine, the man responsible for the violent chaos of V-Day.
• He was shot before the signal that sent the world mad.
• He had been trying to stop it somehow, with Kingsman.
• He'd been wearing his glasses.
• Merlin and Eggsy had watched him be shot in the face, on the other side of the world.

"Fuck."

He opened his eye and looked up at Eggsy, even though it hurt. "I am so sorry you had to see that."

[prettyballsy]

He was talking about things that weren't going to help. He was saying things that wouldn't do anything for Harry. He just hadn't been able to help himself because it was what he saw over and over again, day and night.

Eggsy was fighting not to hunch over, not to wrinkle his suit, not to be an embarassment to Kingsman, to Harry.

"It's part of being a Kingsman, right?" He shifted, looking over his shoulder at Harry. "You end up seeing those you care about die. How we first met." But he'd gotten Harry back even if he hadn't gotten his dad.

[fucking_gentleman]

"I don't know. I can't remember."

James should've been wearing his glasses.

Whoever James was.

He closed his eye again. "If you bring me a phone, I'll call in to Merlin. But I'm not going back to the hospital."

[prettyballsy]

"Good. I hope you never remember it," he said, meaning it. "Hope you don't remember the fight we had either," he added in a low voice.

"Aw come on. Let me bring you in for the bonus points of pretending I'm doing what I was told," he teased, even as he rose, considering. "If I was a mobile in Harry's place, where would I be?" He hadn't thought about that when he left his behind.

[fucking_gentleman]

"I hope I do. So I can apologise for what I said and you know I mean it." He knew he meant it, but Eggsy wouldn't believe it until he knew Harry remembered.

"You won't find one. There's a land line in my study, use that." Apparently, he has a study. And a landline in it. "You can bring me in, but I still refuse to go back to the hospital and if he tries, I will let myself out and actually go to ground."

[prettyballsy]

Eggsy didn't say a word, because he wasn't sure Harry would. He knew he had fucked up bad, and remembering that meant he went on every mission looking to make Harry proud.

"I'll find that then, and ..." And he nearly choked. If Merlin wouldn't listen, he was going to lose Harry and he wasn't sure he could handle that a second time. "Then I hope he listens to the kid he stares at like he's an idiot some days," he muttered under his breath.

He hadn't before, but then this all started and that changed. But he headed to the study, dialing the number he knew by heart. He spoke before the operator could.

"Oxfords not brogues, tell Merlin to send a car to Harry Hart's place. We're coming in."

[fucking_gentleman]

"He stares at everyone like that," Harry murmured.

In the silence, surrounded by familiar scents and sounds, Harry promptly went to sleep, hands folded across his stomach, still holding onto the handgun firmly.

[prettyballsy]

But everyone wasn't trying to prove themselves to a man they thought dead and expecting Merlin to judge him for it.

Coming back, he stood over Harry, listening for the car. His hands were clenched at his side, terrified they could get back and he'd wake one day and Harry would be gone. For good.

"I'd beg you not to leave me if I thought it would work," he whispered, turning away as he rubbed the side of his hands at his eyes. Taking a breath, he waited until he heard the car, coming to Harry's side.

"Harry," He whispered, putting his hand over the hand holding the gun and not on his shoulder, just to buy himself time. "We... It's time to go."

[fucking_gentleman]

Harry slept. He never slept well in the hospital; he wasn't sleeping well now, but he was asleep and relaxed.

With someone else, he might have come awake fighting, but he had learned Eggsy's voice already so he just opened his eye, peering up blearily. "Don't want to."

[prettyballsy]

Tenderly he brushed his fingers along the back of Harry's hand. "I know. I know you don't. I don't want to take you back either but we have to handle this like agents to get what we want. We report, we make our case to bring you back here, with an agent assigned to watch you and a nurse that comes in. I've been thinking about this," He said, speaking so softly. "But we can't make our case from here. And if we stay the night, you can have my bed and I'll sleep on the floor. Okay?"

Whatever it took to make sure Harry was okay and not taken away.

[fucking_gentleman]

Harry, in typical Harry fashion and with a complete disregard for deadlines, sits up slowly and looks at the wardrobe. "I want my own clothes. It's been two months since I got to wear my own clothes. I don't think you're going to let me shower, so we're taking clothes with us."

[prettyballsy]

"You could have mentioned a shower before the nap," he pointed out, lifting his hand and holding it out. "Give me the gun and go shower. You got ten minutes and I'll pack for you. If you end up in sweats and my jackets, that's your own fault," he said, trying to sound like himself, like a Kingsman, and not like the panicked kid he was.

[fucking_gentleman]

"Good lad." The gun was handed over and Harry used Eggsy to pull himself upright again. "The nap wasn;t planned, I assure you."

Harry shuffled his way to the ensuite, taking a few moments to work everything out and then getting into the shower.

It took a while. Certainly more than five minutes, because he decided to sit down and have a break half way through, having not managed to get to washing his hair or shaving yet, but he was exhausted and sore and nowhere near well enough to be having the day he'd had.

[prettyballsy]

He didn't just pack sweats. Suits he liked went in the garment bag. Jeans, casual clothes, PJs and under things went into the gym bag he found. After about eight minutes, he went to the bathroom door, tapping on it. "I need to know you're conscious, Harry."

Because if he didn't get an answer, he was opening that door, even if it was locked.

[fucking_gentleman]

"Yes, yes, I'm conscious." The shower was off, at least. He just wasn't getting up off the stall floor. "Hang on."

He stayed where he was, watching the towel rack where there were no towels.

"Would you be a good lad and fetch me a towel or two?"