Chapter Text
Bors’ defection sent Kingsman into a tailspin. While Guinevere, Merlin and Harry recovered in Medical, all active agents were recalled to headquarters for the first time since World War 2. Missions were abandoned, long-term covers were burned, and everyone was being re-evaluated. Every inch of headquarters was scoured, once, twice, then three times more, until everyone was reasonably sure that all the explosives were accounted for.
Merlin would have liked to aid in that, but it was well and done with by the time Nimue was willing to let him out of her tender clutches. Two days after the showdown and he still felt like there was an elephant sitting on his chest, and his back--Christ, his back.
He got off light with some deep bruising, but Merlin didn’t feel particularly lucky.
“Stop scowling, lad, and remember how blessed you are to have an excuse to miss the endless meetings this mess has caused,” Mordred drawled as he watched Merlin shrug on the dressing gown that he’d provided.
“And why aren’t you in one of those meetings?” Merlin drawled right back at him.
Mordred smiled at him. “Because I’m here to make sure my favorite subordinate makes it back to his rooms, and doesn’t get lost on the way.”
“You’re using me as an excuse.”
“I’m using you as an excuse.”
Merlin tied the belt tight around his waist. “At least we can be honest with each other.” He coughed to clear his throat.
“C’mon son. The quicker we get you back to quarters, the quicker we can get you back in bed, and I can get back to my endless bevy of meetings.” Mordred swept up the list of instructions that Nimue left him, then ushered Merlin towards the door.
Merlin clenched the way he always did when Mordred called him son, but didn’t make an issue of it. Mordred, looked tired, well, he always looked tired, it was a hazard of the job, but everytime he checked in on the invalids, his eyes looked a little duller and his shoulders slumped a little more. If the only thing that Merlin could do to take a little of his burden was not protest, then he would do it.
Mordred wasn’t about to let him do anything else.
What should have been a busy hallway was deserted. “Have they gotten anything out of Bors?”
“Same answer as before. Your only concern now is to rest and get back to full health so you can start doing your job again. Let the rest of us do ours.”
Merlin bit his tongue. It had been Mordred’s job to find out who the leak was. They’d been searching for months, but Bors had still covered headquarters in explosives and tried to blow them all to hell.
“I’m fine,” he insisted instead, the effect ruined by a short round of huffing coughs that had Merlin putting a hand on the wall for support. Mordred put an arm on his shoulder and held him up until the fit passed.
“I thought we were being truthful with each other.” Mordred gave him a knowing look as they started down the hallway again. “You and Galahad are just peas in a pod. I believe you about as much as I believed him.”
Harry.
He’d been as pensive as the older agents while in the bed next to Merlin-- the oxygen masks and constant flow of people in and out made it impossible to have a conversation, until he got released, before Merlin, and left with a smile and a wink.
The cheeky bugger.
He hadn’t returned, and Merlin tried not to read too much into that. The last time they’d been alone together well.
“The door is open, Merlin.”
He startled at the order, and realized that he was standing in front of his own door. He stepped through the threshold and turned to look back at Mordred.
Mordred handed him is keycard, and looked like he wanted to say something, but shook his head instead. “Straight to bed with you. I’m of half a mind to take you back to Medical, the way you zombie walked the rest of trip.”
“I just need sleep, in my own bed,” Merlin insisted, though the bed in his quarters still didn’t really feel like his yet. It was too comfortable for one. “Thank you,” he added, for lack of anything else to say. He felt fuzzy and left-footed, but knew that Mordred had gone above and beyond, by essentially walking him home.
“Nonsense,” Mordred assured him. “You bought me twelve whole minutes of silence. It was refreshing.” He made a shooing motion into the room, and flashed a soft smile that was a little closer to his normal self. “Now, into bed. I’ll have someone around to check on you in a few hours. You will answer the door. Do you understand?”
Merlin sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue at the order or the way he was being babied. “Yessir.”
“Good man. Get some rest, I need you back in Central to help sort through all this shit.” Mordred waggled his finger at him, then pulled the door closed between them.
A quick glance at his clock showed that it was two in the afternoon, but there was no way that Merlin wasn’t going back to bed. He toed off the slippers and didn’t bother with the robe, before he eased himself down on the mattress, mindful of all his bruises.
Merlin closed his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, if he was insane for taking this job, but then he thought of Harry, the tired thrill of victory, and the feel of hands against his skin, and decided that there was nowhere else he would rather be.
-------------------
Harry knocked on the door to Merlin’s quarters, and when there was no answer, wondered if he should check back in medical first. They’d kept the handler a full day longer, after all, citing concerns about pneumonia, and Harry had meant to visit, but he’d all but fallen into a coma after his own release. How, embarrassing.
He turned to leave, when a thump on the other side of the door gave him pause. The door creaked open, revealing a bleary-eyed Merlin. He looked Harry up and down, then glared. “Were you sent to check up on me?”
Harry blinked. “No?”
Merlin blinked back at him. “You can come in, then.” He backed away from the door then, and shuffled back towards the bed. Harry, feeling judged, followed.
The room was dark, and Merlin had clearly been sleeping, but Harry couldn’t feel too bad about having woke him. It was just about supper time, and he’d need to eat just as much as he needed the rest. “I’d ask how you’re feeling, but I can see that it’s barely human.”
That got a laugh. Merlin cocked a brow at him as he shuffled towards his sink to fill a glass of water. “If you’re not here to check up on me, then why are you here?”
Ah. That. In the three days post-Bors, Harry had very little to do with his time other than think. While that tended to be a dangerous thing for him, this time, he found that he welcome it. There was just so much to try and sort; so much, even that once he returned to his rooms, he’d written it all down. Journaling was something he’d done in his youth, though he’d gotten out of the habit in recent years. There was just something about seeing it all written out in front of him that helped to put his thoughts in order.
His feelings about Bors were just as complicated as ever, and so were his feelings about Merlin. There was nothing to be done about Bors. He was in custody, and wouldn’t be escaping any time soon, and Merlin, was something that he could hopefully would be able to do something about right now.
“I realize that this isn’t the best time, but we’re bound to get very busy once we’re done convalescing, and this isn’t a conversation that I felt could wait.”
Merlin sat up straighter at that, with a frown marring his features, and no, that was the last thing Harry wanted-- for him to go on the defensive before at least hearing Harry out. Harry held up his hand and shook his head. “No, please. At least listen before you start talking. Here, sit. Please.”
Harry sat down at Merlin’s desk, and motioned for Merlin to do the same. He sat down on the edge of his bed. The Handler’s quarters weren’t like the Agents. They were smaller, more like a single dorm room, than a flat, and Merlin’s space was cluttered. There wasn’t a lot of space to move, and that meant that sitting as they were, their legs were pressed together.
Merlin was still sleep-warm, and the line of heat against his leg was hard to ignore, but Harry took a deep breath and did so. “The other night, before the mess with Bors, you ran me a bath, and I asked you to stay.” There. He’d gotten started. The rest would come out easy.
--It didn’t.
“You left, which, was the proper thing to do, I know, but still, I felt disappointed.”
Merlin opened his mouth to interrupt again, and Harry cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. “Please just listen.”
After a moment of silence, Harry continued. “It wasn’t even about the sex. I know I was too knackered to be having any. I just,” Harry paused. “Wanted your company.” Full of restless energy, Harry stood and disentangled himself from Merlin to pace. “We’ve been having these last times of ours for months and it’s clear that the sex isn’t going to stop just because we say it is, but the sex isn’t all I want.”
He ran out of steam then, clenching his fists at his sides, before forcing them to relax, in an attempt to appear less invested than he was. Harry wasn’t an emotional man by nature, and as much as he wanted to have this conversation, to have resolution, it was taxing.
“What do you want?” Merlin asked him, when it was clear that Harry wouldn’t continue on his own. Harry turned back to look at him. His brows were furrowed, but he didn’t seem upset. His tone was curious, cautious perhaps, but not the anger Harry prepared himself for.
“What I want is you,” Harry got out. “To be my friend. I want to see if we can come to an arrangement between us, one that is perhaps more discreet than the one we’ve been sharing, but I also want us to go out for drinks. Or play cards. Or do whatever it is that normal people do when they’re not saving the world and having sex. I’m afraid I don’t have much basis for comparison.”
“I know it’s not ideal. If we were anyone else, I might be proposing a relationship, something real, and perhaps even romantic. But that’s not who I am, and I don’t believe that it’s not who you are either. Not now, at least. Even if you decide the sex isn’t worth it, which it most definitely is, I still would like your friendship.”
Harry stopped then, and swallowed around his dry throat. Merlin was inscrutable. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking as he blinked in Harry’s direction, but otherwise remained silent. Enough time passed for Harry to begin to wonder if he hadn’t misstepped grossly, and was about to be thrown out with nothing.
“Somewhere in all those words, I think you proposed a what, friends with benefits scenario? We drink, we fuck, no strings no promises if we meet someone new?” He tilted his head up in Harry’s direction as he turned on the bed to face him easier.
Harry flushed, damn his genes. “I believe I did, yes. I know I--”
“Yes”
“--don’t have any right to--”
Merlin stood as Harry continued speaking, and covered Harry’s mouth with his hand. “I said yes, Harry. Stop getting yourself worked up over nothing. It’s not like you’re asking for my hand in marriage.”
Harry’s stomach clenched at the thought of that, and he couldn’t tell if the feeling was a good one or bad. He shook it off in favor of relief, and happiness. “Oh, yes, well. Thank you.”
Merlin’s frown faded to wry amusement as Harry continued to make an arse out of himself like a lovesick teenager, there was still something in his gaze though, that Harry couldn’t quite place. The emotion there was gone in a flash, as Merlin opened his mouth to say something, then broke down into a fit of coughs.
Alarmed, Harry moved to the bed, and splayed a hand flat on his back until the coughing subsided. “Are you al--”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll kick you out, friends with benefits or no,” Merlin growled, before throwing himself back on the mattress with a groan.
Harry hovered, unsure what to do now that his piece had been said. How did people even deal with relationships? Should he stay? Should he go?
Merlin cracked an eye open. “I can hear you dithering from here. I’m not up for the benefits part of our new arrangement at present, but if you’d like to hang about a while, we might as well get started on that friendship thing. Lord knows I’m not going to be able to get back to sleep with you hovering like I’m about to keel over if I breathe wrong, and I’ll go mad from the boredom if I sit here in silence.”
Harry startled and broke into a genuine smile, before sitting next to Merlin on the edge of his bed. “Alright then. Where do we start?”
Hours later Harry woke up from where he’d dozed off next to Merlin to the sound of laughter. Beside him, Merlin was still flat on his back, eyes open as he stared up at the ceiling, chuckling quietly to himself. “What’s gotten into you, you madman,” Harry whispered, despite it being just the two of them in the room.
“Bors,” Merlin whispered in return. “His whole plan with attacking Central was about taking the weapons plans.”
He broke into another fit of giggles that had Harry rolling onto his side to face him. “Yes?”
“It was pointless! All of it.” He replied between chuckles. “The weapons plans weren’t stored on Central’s servers. They never have been. Engineering has its own set of servers down in the basement.”
Harry blinked, incredulous. “You mean?”
“Aye.”
Merlin broke into another fit of giggles, and now that Harry was in on the joke, the laughter was infectious. He
loved
the sound of it, their joined voices in laughter, and could do very well with hearing it for the rest of his life.