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Chapter Text

Snapchat was the unspoken favoured medium of communication used by handlers at each continental Kingsman branch to keep in touch.

There was also a Facebook group, a Skype conversation, and a touch of WhatsApp, but Snapchat was not only quicker but added an extra element of fun and amusement. Conveniently,  it also deleted the messages for them, so if any agents demanded they explain why there was a super-secret group of handlers who bitched to each other about missions and different agents' antics, then they could deny all they wanted.

Failsafe.

Merlin sighs as another Snapchat alert pings to life on his heavily encrypted, self-designed Kingsman smartphone, and drags his eyes away from the monitor. Eggsy can handle himself for a few seconds without needing his hand to be held, he tells himself, the computer monitor flashing the Kingsman glasses transmission as Eggsy makes a sharp left, the screeching of car tyres chorusing through Merlin's earpiece.

Holding the phone over his retina and hearing the automatic click of it unlocking, Merlin finds the source of the alert- a new Snapchat from Jun Ling, a fellow handler from Kingsman's Asian denomination.

"Merlin, a lil 'elp 'ere?" Eggsy's voice squeaks over the Comms, as more sounds of screeching, tires, shouts and crashes follow in his wake. The young agent is attempting to outrun some very angry arms dealers in the form of three old ladies- unexpected, but still ruthless- who pursue secret agents in missile-equipped Range Rovers with the skill their peers played bingo. That is, very well.

"Jus' a sec, Galahad, turn onto Thomas More Street, then stay straight on E Smithfield until you reach the turnoff to go left onto Tower Bridge Road," Merlin murmured, tapping the screen once more with his finger to open the Snapchat, a snort erupting from his mouth as he sees the image before him.

" Fishy business," read the caption, where the photo depicted a rather squashed Quala Lumpur fish market stall, seafood thrown everywhere, with a decidedly smelly and slimy looking Agent Baatar perched upon the broken wooden bench- with a massive dead fish for a head.

"Merlin, now would be fuckin' great!" Eggsy sounded a tad more panicky, but with a flick of his eyes towards the monitor, Merlin saw nothing truly amiss, apart from the fact they had an agent being tailed by a trio of lethal grandmothers. "Jus' head t'wards the Thames, Galahad, then backup'll meet yeh there," he replied impatiently, recalling Lancelot and Percival were atop the Tower Bridge,waiting to take out the marks with sniper rifles if needed. Holding one hand up to his earpiece, he changed channels to speak to Alice, Roxy's handler, who was several rooms away in HQ.

"Alice, let Lancelot and Percival know Galahad is headed their way in approximately 2 minutes, prepare to fire on the marks. Please relay this information to Bill as well".

"Noted, Merlin," Alice's crisp tone rung in his ear, and Merlin caught the first few bars of her conversation with Percival's handler, Bill, before he switched Comm channels back to Eggsy. The sound of an engine being floored as Eggsy sped through the busy London motorway reassured Merlin that the young agent was perfectly capable of handling himself for the time being, and so turned his attention back to the smartphone.

" I 'sea' what you did there ," Merlin returned to Jun Ling, with a snap of his half-full coffee mug. Locking his phone, he returned his full attention to the monitor and to his charge, settling back in his chair.

"Righ', Galahad-"

Gunshots filled the air, and Eggsy looked up, Merlin seeing Roxy and Alistair rappelling down the Tower Bridge, firing at the trio of Range Rovers speeding after Eggsy. It truly was a sight, watching his agents kick arse, and Merlin could safely say that he loved his job in that moment.

That was, until, the Range Rover closest to Eggsy's car, dead arms dealer fallen on the accelerator, veered to the left, ramming into a passing lorry, which, beeping wildly, swerved, and clipped the rear end of Eggsy's vehicle, sending him into pirouettes across the road lanes.

"Fuck!" Eggsy and Merlin swore in unison as a symphony of screeching tyres resounding through the Comms, drivers across the bridge, Eggsy included, attempting to stop and regain control of their vehicles.

"Galahad, remain calm, right the vehicle and-"

Righting the wheel into a straight line, Merlin could only watch in disbelief as Eggsy mounted the Kingsman- issue car - an expensive one, Merlin might add- up the back of a double flatbed truck, which just happened to have its top bed down, scream up the back of the truck like a stunt driver, off it and over the Tower Bridge traffic barriers, plummeting into the Thames, all the while screeching like a fourteen year old girl at a One Direction concert.

Surfacing in the murky river less than thirty seconds later, Eggsy gasped for air, hair plastered to his scalp, glasses dripping, and Merlin breathed a sigh of relief. At the fact Eggsy was alive, of course- and that he had had the foresight to incorporate waterproofing tech into the Kingsglasses several years beforehand.

"Well done, Galahad, but was crashing one of my favourite cars, into the River Thames no less, really necessary? And M-15 will put me in the bad books for all these civilian witnesses," he scolded, shuddering at the amount of paperwork he just knew was going to materialise on this very desk very soon, along with more than one irate phone call from Abacus West, the M-15 chief.

"Thanks for ya concern for my health, Merlin, I'm fine, really," Eggsy retorted sarcastically, swimming for the shoreline with powerful strokes. "Didn't almost die an' drink Champagne de la Thames or nuffin".

"Get back t' HQ for debriefing, and then yeh can organise t' pull my car out o' the Thames yerself," Merlin managed before muting the Comm and pulling it out of his ear, shutting off Eggsy's glasses feed from his computer. Mission 13,943 accomplished, he thought with wry satisfaction, and streaked another tally mark on his clipboard. Reaching for his coffee and meeting only air with his fingertips, Merlin looked down with a noise of dismay to see the cracked remains on the floor, cold coffee seeping slowly towards his shoe.

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to ~Jun~Ling~, 8hup1nd3er & 22 others.

*A broken coffee mug on floor, snippet of  the desk and image of the Kingsman car arcing off the Tower Bridge on computer monitor in the background*

: Galahad broke my coffee mug :(

*********

Merlin's Tower Bridge/Coffee Snapchat saw to it that Eggsy copped a great deal of flack -the good-natured kind- from his fellow agents and handlers alike. In the secret agent business, everyone knew everyone, and the legendary exploits on missions new and old were always painstaking recorded so each Kingsman division had more than a few stories to make everyone fall out of their seats wih laughter. These stories came in handy for scaring new recruits, entertainment for work pub crawls, or just a pickmeup in the daily grind of near-death experiences.

And being secret agents, there is no shortage of interesting stories a week- so all the more reason to record them, or in Merlin's case, Snapchat them.

In the space of a week, a great number of such stories pass into legend. The handlers of the European Kingsman HQ are silent for almost three days, due to a rather nasty virus on their end of the technical system which played "Fuck You" by Lily Allen on repeat whenever they tried to perform the simplest of computer tasks. This was courtesy of the Asian branch- payback for the Tokyo Kontiki Torch Crisis, which was all Agents Ridder and Rycerz's fault, apparently. Asia, of course, denied all involvement, with Jun Ling, Bhupinder and Merlin's other Kingsman Asia friends all lying through their teeth, as was expected.

The United States denomination was doing a training exercise on the Empire State Building, so Merlin received quite a few Snapchats from Darcy, Candy and the rest- mostly depicting Agents Eisenhower, Truman and co. pulling faces and doing thumbs up, with the dizzying heights visible below. Merlin's personal favourite was a Titanic reenactment between Bush I and II, captioned "I'm flying Jack!".

The African Kingsmen ended a burgeoning civil war, and the South Americans foiled a bombing during Carnival, all while wearing some truly spectacular costumes. As previously mentioned, UK's very own Agent Galahad drove a car into the Thames, and was yet to remove said car, much to Merlin's annoyance.

But the agency that took the cake this week was Australasia- after five agents went missing trying to stop a crazed billionaire from stealing The Big Banana, a crate of rabid koalas (also fearfully known as 'drop bears') were gift-wrapped and delivered to HQ, and proceeded to terrorise the entire unit and attempt to destroy the building. That is, until the five missing agents returned, and the feral marsupials were tranquilised. Quite a few Snapchats are sent during the cleanup process, including shredded files, a koala-shaped hole in a wall and a half eaten laptop screen. Merlin is increasingly glad he has no hair, and was not the Chief Handler/ Ops Coordinator/ Guy who keeps the shit together of the Australasian Branch, because if he was, his hair would be falling out quite quickly.

But all in all, just another week in the goings-on of Kingsman.

When he wasn't Snapchatting other handlers, designing new tech or keeping Kingsman UK's shit together, Merlin made it his pet project to get spy couples together- as a sort of Love Doctor, due to the limited romantic opportunities afforded to individuals of their unique profession. He consulted all manner of both local and international agents and handlers alike about their love woes, and had a rather unique method of matchmaking- by bullying the chosen two individuals so relentlessly that eventually they gave in and fell in love.

It made for excellent entertainment, and Merlin was quite proud to say he had a 99% success rate (of course bloody Lamorak had to go and snog Handler Jacqueline instead of Louise back in 2012, but considering the first were now happily married, Merlin still counted it as a success. Because technically, Lamorak's misinterpretation of Merlin's hinting had lead him to the love of his life after all).

And now, after crossing off several other would-be couples, first on his unfortunately short list of victims was a certain Harry Hart and Eggsy Unwin. Merlin was not going to let his annual average of at least 3 unions slip, thank you very much.

"They're so stupid an' oblivious," Merlin moaned down the phone to Gabriel in South America, watching through the window into the Kingsman vehicle bunker, where Eggsy and Harry were laughing together as they walked, arms brushing slightly. "I want to vomit when they gaze at each other adorin'ly".

This disgusting awkward flirting had been relentless ever since Harry had been released from the Kingsman UK medical wing a good four months prior, with a spectacular Kingsman bionic eye (which Merlin designed, thank you very much) and a lovely branched scar spanning over his right eyebrow, temple and forehead. And Merlin was also thankful he had the foresight to make Kingsglasses bulletproof several years before waterproofing them.

So Harry Hart was now Arthur, by unanimous vote of the UK round table, and Eggsy had been by his side every step of the way- when he wasn't on missions driving cars into the Thames, that is.

"If worst comes to worst, lock them in a broom closet like we did with Paola and Ernesto," Gabriel crackled down the phone line. "It's failsafe".

"But Paola and Ernesto aren't half as stubborn as these twats. They'd wear t shirts sayin''I love Harry " an' I love Eggsy" an' still deny it". Merlin ran a hand over his bald head, looking on exasperatedly as Eggsy looked at Harry like the sun shone out of his arse for the 17th time that day.

****

"Have you seen Morgana?"

Roxy's head popped around the corner of Merlin's office.

"No, an' I swear yeh named tha' dog just t' spite me," Merlin replied from his desk, not taking his eyes off his phone, from which another Snapchat alert had popped up. "She'll be wherever JB is, therefore where Eggsy is, which is wherever 'Arry is".

"Very helpful," the strawberry blonde quipped, striding over to peer over Merlin's shoulder in his chair. "Who're you Snapchatting? I didn't know you had Snapchat".

"None of yer business," Merlin replied, closing the snap of of a grinning Agent Kennedy from Candy, an explosion going off behind him in Moscow captioned " From Russia, with love".

"Give it here, I'll give you something to Snapchat". And with lightning-fast reflexes, she nicked the phone straight out of Merlin's hands, ignoring his instant protests, arranged her face into a smile, and snapped a selfie before uploading it to his story.

"Lovely," she grinned, dropping the phone back into Merlin's lap and waltzing out as he grumbled to himself, but couldn't bring himself to delete the Snapchat, despite his own grim expression. And several minutes later, he received an Add request from ~roxy_m~, which he accepted rather too quickly.

Loved your snap of Galahad's selfie with Queen Liz, Tatjana snapchatted Merlin later that day, with a shot of the view from her desk window at European HQ- a charming blizzard. That one of you and Lancelot was nice too.

That boy is the most backward agent I've ever handled , Merlin tapped back, a shot of his brand new coffee mug filling the screen. And that photo was non-consensual.

Nice coffee mug , came the reply, with an accompanying view of her computer monitor, where she was doing background research on a drug cartel in Lombok. But the chemistry in that photo certainly was consensual.

3rd mug this month, thanks to our Galahad. A photo of his latest pet project, a bracelet for Roxy with gems that contained the world's second most deadly neurotoxin. Come to think of it, he was rather fond of the agent, not that he'd admit it to anyone, least of all Tatjana. But not in the way she implied anyway. Besides, he was electing to ignore her insinuation.

I ship it. She had drawn a quick stick figure sketch, one with a ponytail, the other a potato with glasses which soon Merlin realised was him, holding hands.

Good luck with that , he returned, with an emoji depicting a rather obscene hand gesture .

****

Harry was off at the Conference of the Kings, and Merlin was having good fun snapping Eggsy moping around HQ to his handler friends. That was, until, the the moping continued for positively hours on end.

"Don' yeh have somewhere t' be, Galahad?" He inquired, as Eggsy pushed, with one final grunt, a couch over to the general area of Merlin's desk, and flopped down on it, one arm obscuring his face.

"Nup, Rox is in Mumbai, Mum n' Dais are visitin' me aunt in Yorkshire, n' Arry's away for three days on 'is conf'rence". Pathetic , Merlin captioned the photo he took of Galahad over his shoulder. It had only been three hours so far since Harry had left for the annual Kingsman Conference of the Kings, where all the Arthur equivalents met and discussed various issues and goings on within the spy organisation. However, the boy was so miserable it seemed his mentor would be away for three years.

"Surely yeh can find some form o' entertainment other than hangin' aroun' me like a bad smell?"

This truly was getting ridiculous, Merlin concluded. He believed that a quick word to Roxy when she returned to Mumbai might help a bit, if not solve the problem altogether.

"Sorry, guv, ya stuck wi' me," Eggsy returned as a tinkling collar rounded the corner, JB jumping onto his owner's lap. Merlin just shook his head as he received a flurry of replies to his Snap.

****

Valentine's Day was coming up, and Roxy and Merlin had a plan.

"Are yeh certain it's goin' to work?" Merlin queried as they set everything up, peering over his shoulder to look at Roxy.

"Well if it doesn't, it should at least improve things between them," she shrugged, adding a flourish a heart-shaped confetti to the table. All this plotting together had brought he and

Roxy closer, not that he was complaining. Harry had been giving him shit for it for weeks, and now it was payback time.

Besides, the sombre events of Valentine's Day, now a year ago, were best forgotten in the past. Or buried rather, under the pink, white and red colour scheme of one of the western world's favourite commercial exploits.

"Can't wait 'til the meeting today," Roxy giggled as she slipped put of the room, and Merlin paused to take a quick photo of their handiwork. One year on from Valentine's attempted genocide, and things were definitely looking up.

Magic_Merlin to CandyCane, Tatjaaaaana, ~Jun~Ling~ and 3 others

Operation Arthurhad is underway!

"Wot's all this?" Eggsy laughed as he sauntered into the Round Table meeting on Valentine's Day, picking at some of the pink, heart-shaped confetti on the table in front of his chair.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Roxy said in a sing song voice, giving Eggsy a friendly elbow.

As he inspected the bundle of flowers on his desk closer, a frown appeared on Eggsy's youthful face, and his knuckles whitened around the flowers. Luckily the room was almost empty, but Merlin knew he and Roxy were in for it.

"It was you two, innit? You two been in cahoots for a while now, eh?"

"Eggsy-" Roxy began but the other agent cut her off.

"No, this ain't ok, alrigh? Stop trying to make it out Harry has feelins fir me when we all know he don', this jus makes it a thousand time harder fir me, 'k?" He dumped the roses, and heart shaped envelope in the wastepaper basket, scraping the confetti off the table in front of him, but leaving Harry's Valentine's display untouched.

"You get rid of that". Eggsy pointed to it venomously. "S'just gonna cause trouble".

"Eggsy, listen here, I'm his best friend, I think I'd bloody well know if me best friend in the entire sodding world liked-"

"Everything alright in here?" Harry strode through the door midway through Merlin's argument, and Eggsy slumped down in his seat, slouching slightly. "Never better," the Galahad agent muttered as Harry spotted the Valentine's Day bundle in his place at the table.

Eggsy excused himself quietly, ignoring Roxy's protests, only returning once the other knights began to arrive, amid chuckles and wisecracks over their own Valentine's Day bundles. 'For God's sake' Merlin thought frustratedly during the meeting, whilst he rattled off new crime statistics to the knights assembled. If only Eggsy had stayed behind, so he could have seen the look on Harry's face.

Magic_Merlin to SenoritaJuanita, Tatjaaaaana, 8hup1nd3er, Dazzam8 and 16 others.

*shot of Valentine's day decorations in the wastepaper basket*

Operation Arthurhad: fail :(

****

"I'm out of ideas, Rox," Merlin complained to the other agent late one night, feet up on his handler's desk. "Maybe we should jus' give up".

"I'm going to ignore that comment," Roxy raised her eyebrows at him though the webcam on his clipboard, making him feel a tad sheepish despite her being half a world away in Auckland. "If we give up now, they'll be miserable and lovesick forever!"

"No thank yeh," Merlin agreed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He wasn't going to give up that easily, even though he said it in jest. There was only so much more lovesick pining he could take. "Any ideas then?"

"You can send them on an overnight mission in disguise as a couple, tie them both to chairs and force them to watch the footage of confessing their feelings about each other to us two-" Roxy paused for a moment, brow furrowed as she thought hard.

"Or," she grinned slyly, "We wait until Christmas, for which I have an elaborate, ingenious plan".

"Do tell".

Magic_Merlin to Gabriel_T, Tatjaaaaana, CandyCane and 9 others.

*Image of Harry and Eggsy walking together, with a doodled pink love heart around them*

Operation Arthurhad: Back on track >:)

****

" How's the plan for Arthurhad going?" Sven Whatsapped Merlin, who was currently handling for Harry on an intel gathering assignment in Bordeaux.

"Could be better, could be worse," Merlin returned, as Harry sat across from an informer in a sweet little cafe by the sea. " We've got a master plan though".

"It's 'we' now?" Came the cheeky reply, followed by another message. #LanceLinLives .

Sending back a simple but effective No , Merlin returned to focus on Harry's info collection on the organ harvesting trade in Europe. But the name kept bouncing around the edge of his mind, teasing the threads of his consciousness.

Lancelin. LanceLin. Lancelin .

Not bad, he decided before he could stop himself. Not bad at all.

Another alert came through, a Snapchat from Kingsman UK's Alice, Roxy's handler, and slightly surprised, not receiving many Snaps from his UK colleagues, Merlin tapped the screen to open it with a hint of apprehension.

But what he saw dispelled the knot that had been forming in his stomach, and Merlin actually laughed aloud, corners of his eyes crinkling up in amusement. It was a video of Roxy from Alice's computer screen on mute, obviously screeching her lungs out as she plummeted towards the sands of Qatar in a basejumping suit. But the Frank Sinatra tune playing purposefully softly in the background took the cake.

"Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away..."

Magic_Merlin to AliceinEng-er-land: lol.

****

It's the third Tuesday in June, and since that's the third Tuesday of the month, it means it's drinking night. And drinking night involves Harry Hart and Merlin meeting in Harry's townhouse and spending a great deal of the night and wee hours of the morning drinking and playing very bad poker, 90% of the time. The other 10% comprises of drunk conversations and random bumbling around Harry's house doing stupid things they'll regret the next morning. But all in all, it's quite good fun.

They've reached the point in the night where there's more of the 10, and less of the 90. The alcohol's still being poured, but in more liberal amounts with clumsy hands, and both men are slumped on Harry's comfy armchairs in his drawing room. Harry busted out some Cuban cigars they uncovered while rummaging through some drawers looking for a photo album of their time as recruits, and said photo album is now half-open on the card table, in between empty scotch glasses and the cigar package.

"We were such shits back then," Merlin giggled as he pours himself another glass of whisky that's a tad too generous, but he drinks it all the same. Harry just nods in assent, smoke curling from his lips as he exhales, cigar dangling from one hand, his own glass of whisky propped in the other.

"D'you 'member that time we parachuted onto the Eiffel Tower for our recruit exam by accident?" Harry bursts out, leaning forward in excitement as Merlin falls into fits of laughter again at the fuzzy memory.

"Arthur was in a rage....We've had good recruits for Lance, eh Harry?" Merlin slurs, sobering slightly at the memory of their dead friend. The room feels a little bit emptier now he's not here with them, the third member of Tuesday drinks, and whiskey would never taste as quite as good as it had when James was around.

"We did," Harry manages, face fallen as Merlin concludes he too is feeling the absence of the third body that usually occupied the chair to his right.

"Was gonna kiss him".

"Who? James?" Merlin cocks his head, alcohol-addled brain working to comprehend what Harry was saying. He'd never noticed Harry having any romantic inclination toward their friend, and if he had missed it, he was feeling rather put out about it, considering he thought it had been-

"Nooo, 'Ggsy." Four syllables put Merlin's fears to rest, and he subtly unlocked his phone and began recording on Snapchat as Harry continued his drunken ramble about the 'hot as fuck' Eggsy Unwin who he would never have a chance with because 'young things like that like young things, not antiques like me'.

And if anyone judged him for taping Harry's little confession, Merlin thought as he saved the video to his camera roll, they could calm their tits, because Harry would have no recollection the following morning, with the copious amount of alcohol he had consumed. He captions the clip ' The confeszsion of teh yr' ( alcohol does affect one's spelling ability) before sending it off to quite a sizeable portion of his Friends list.

"Merlin?" Harry's address startles Merlin and he looks up from his phone.

"Whadya say?"

"D'you think I'm a fucking wanker and fool for being tits over arse in love with my own proposal, who's so young I feel like a cradle-snatcher every time I look at him?"

Merlin reaches over and claps Harry on the arm, almost falling out of he chair as he does so. "S'long as yeh're 'appy, 'Arry'" he said seriously, eyes meeting Harry's concerned chestnut brown ones. "Then I don't give a flying fuck who yeh want to shag".

"But I don't want to just shag him," Harry protests, and Merlin turns his phone's voice recorder on with a sigh and a slight giggle, settling himself back in his chair for the next soliloquy. Here we go again.

****

" Kennedower is officially a thing!!!!" Read Candy's slightly overexcited Snapchat, depicting US Agents Eisenhower and Kennedy in a passionate embrace at the North American HQ. Merlin can't help but shake his head in amusement, contentedly exhaling as he abandons his Intel search on poaching in Kenya to reply. Candy and Blaine had managed to get the two agents together quite quickly, with some choice romance advice from a certain UK master at arms/tech whiz only speeding up the progress. That made a grand total of 2 couples this year that Merlin had helped to get together, he noted rather smugly on his clipboard, and it was only mid-July.

He wasn't going to ruin his annual 3 a year streak though, thank you very much. Merlin was determined to make Harry and Eggsy his 3rd success story of the year, and in total, his 19th successful would-be couple. So this was a wakeup call, to get a bloody move on. If it could be moved on at all.

"Cong-twats-ulations, and ur welcome" he fires back, the glowing of his laptop screen behind him illuminating the words. Sighing tiredly, Merlin placed his phone back on his desk and hauled himself out of his seat, seeking another cup of coffee from the machine in the lounge, where Agents and Handlers alike could gather and relax.

They were out of his favourite coffee beans, Merlin noted glumly as he stood forlornly in the deserted lounge. Checking his watch, swearing quietly when he saw it was 2:03 am and the supermarket was too far away, and would most definitely be closed, Merlin flopped down on one of the comfortable sofas, flinging a hand over his eyes. He was used to the late nights, but without coffee, he needed a few minutes of shuteye.

He'd wake up in 5 minutes, Merlin promises himself, letting his eyes drift shut. But he doesn't wake when a Kingsman jet fresh from Istanbul lands quietly in the hangar, the agent inside yawning softly as they disembark. He doesn't wake as said agent enters the lounge, and brews a cup of tea, the quiet noise of the water jug heating barely rousing him.

And he doesn't wake when a soft blanket is pulled over him, and a pair of hands ease his glasses off his face and fold them in his lap, a ponytail brushing his shoulder as a featherlight kiss is placed on his forehead.

Merlin sleeps on as Roxy clicks off the lamp in the lounge, her barely audible footsteps dissipating behind her into the hallway and the dark.

****

It's another whirlwind month, and all of a sudden summer is ending, taking ocean blue skies painted with canvas clouds and honey-warm sunshine with it. August was drawing to a close as Merlin received the first Snapchats of the season from Ike and Darren in the Australian outback, proclaiming with grim expressions that 'Magpie Season was upon them'. A short video followed afterwards, depicting Ike with a google-eyed bicycle helmet on backwards, screaming and running as fast as his legs could carry him through the Kingsman Australasia HQ grounds whilst a black and white-winged blur swooped relentlessly above him.

Merlin was in fits.

The end of August in Britain, however, remained stubbornly hot, despite the slight browning of the leaves on the trees hinting that Autumn was not so far away.

"It's fuckin' boilin', Merl, an' ya still expect me t' be run in' round like its a luv'ly 18 degrees?" Eggsy complained down the Comms, wiping his face on the sleeve of his suit as he sprinted through the sunlit Surrey fields of a place known as the Surry Hills Area of Natural Outstanding Beauty. Merlin imagined it would be a tad more beautiful, however, were a pack of hunting hounds not chasing after Galahad at that very moment, set upon him by a wealthy mobster who did not take kindly to being spied upon.

"Don' be such a baby," Merlin retorted, in his favourite sweater despite the startling heat- truth be told, he was in an air-conditioned room-, the sound of the hounds persistent baying ringing through the Comms. "Prepare for extraction in less than a minute".

"I'd try and shoot the bastards, but there's 6 and they're too far, I can't get a clear shot," Eggsy explained, panting slightly as he continued to race across the grassy fields, the dogs slowly gaining on him. Back in HQ, Merlin switched screens to the tracking signal on the Kingsman helicopter, whose whirring was beginning to become audible above the approaching dogs baying.

"Stay calm, Galahad," Merlin placated Eggsy through the Comms, sensing an unspoken reason as to why the young agent may have been unable to turn a gun to the dogs, no matter how ferocious they were- the Kingsman recruit final exam, where he had almost been forced to 'shoot' JB, his prized pug, would be weighing heavily on his mind.

"I have a visual on the aircraft, Merlin," Eggsy wheezed, and through the Kingsglasses camera on his monitor, Merlin and Eggsy saw the helicopter begin to descend towards the ground, a rope hanging from the moving aircraft for Eggsy to grab hold of. As Eggsy whipped his head over his shoulder, Merlin saw the dogs were closer than he had previously hoped, and a tiny splinter of panic lodged itself in his brain, at the thought that the young agent might not be able to outrun the hounds after all.

"Pick up the pace, Galahad, just a bit further," Merlin urged him, hand tightening around his coffee mug.

The helicopter mercifully came within Eggsy reach, and after a few more heart stopping seconds, the young agent jumped to grab a hold of the rope as the aircraft kept moving. But Merlin could only watch in horror as one of the dogs, centimetres from the agent, jumped from its pack and latched its jaws around Eggsy's leg. With a shout of pain, the agent lost one hand on the rope, wriggling his leg in an attempt to dislodge the creatures vice-like grip on his leg as the chopper continued to ascend into the sky.

"Eggsy-," was all Merlin could exclaim before Eggsy reached around behind his back, yanked his pistol free and with a sob barely audible about the deafening helicopter blades, put a bullet between the beast's eyes. The agent clung onto the rope for dear life as the canine's limp body fell through the air and to the ground below, turning his face away before impact.

"Mission accomplished," Merlin murmured, hoping it wasn't too inappropriate that he had taking a Snapchat moments earlier of Eggsy being pursued by the hounds, captioned " Dog days are over".

When Eggsy arrived back in HQ a short time later, Merlin found he wasn't the sole member of the Kingsman employ down in the hangar waiting for his arrival. A very tense looking Harry Hart was there before Merlin as the plane touched down, hair askew like he had been raking his hands through it, and without even asking, Merlin knew that Harry had been watching the mission surveillance from the computer in his Arthur office. Shit.

Eggsy barely made it down the jet's collapsible stairs and onto the tarmac before he gave everyone a watery smile, face crumpling as he made a beeline straight for Harry. Upon contact, The older agent held him closely and tightly, jaw set, glaring at anyone who dared to give him a questioning glance- namely Roxy, who had just descended into the hangar herself, and Merlin.

"You would do well to make sure Galahad did not receive any further missions of this ilk, Merlin," Harry managed, Eggsy's face still buried in his shoulder.

And for once, Merlin didn't have it in him to argue.

****

"How's the lad holding up?" Merlin asks Harry later that week when the latter strides past his desk.

"Better," came the reply, a twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth. "The therapy sessions are working quite well".

With no small effort on Harry's part, Merlin thought dryly, taking a sip if his coffee. The one good thing that had happened since the dog incident, besides his agents seeking counselling becoming compulsory (Arthur's orders) was that Harry had become overwhelmingly protective of his former protégé, and would spend any and all of his free hours with Eggsy, who was on Merlin-enforced leave for a week.

"Good t' hear," Merlin replied, eyes flicking up to look at Harry, who was smiling at something on his phone and tapping away.

"Hello? 'Arry? Arthur?" Merlin tried to catch the knight's attention exasperatedly. "What're you grinning about?"

"Nothing much," Harry remarks, tucking his phone into his bespoke suit pocket and striding off, ignoring Merlin's call of "Git!" following after him.

And whilst he was glad that Harry and Eggsy's relationship was only improving, Merlin couldn't help but take a sneaky snap of Harry's retreating back, and caption it "O ur Arthur- Utterly Insufferable".

September passed fairly quickly too, with no shortage of agent antics and hilarious Snapchats from all over the world. After receiving word that Agent Bogatyr's is personally responsible for the power outage in Japan (something about a deadly virus, three geishas and some edible underwear), Merlin receives a Snapchat of a paper Bogatyr's head being set alight by Sven and Oleg, who looked rather too enthusiastic about it. Australasia finishes it's HQ renovations, complete with a water slide and BBQ area as requested. South America foils a plot to assassinate the Argentine president, and Asia's youngest agent has far too much fun at the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix, complete with a video of said agent speeding off in one of the multi-million dollar cars.

Turning back to his work, Merlin managed to write approximately one sentence in his apologetic email to the CIA (Lamorak- don't even ask) before Bors decided now would be an opportune time to approach Merlin and give him a play by play account of his scuffle with some Chilean mercenaries. A play by play account that Merlin didn't really have need of, considering he had been watching over Derek in the Handling bunker's shoulder the entire time.

After shaking Bors off by convincing him Harry would appreciate a rather more in depth description of the fight, with an evil smirk on his face, Merlin returned to his email. But less than a sentence later, who to walk into his office but his co-conspirator?

"How is it that every plan we put into place for them to get together fails, but they still manage to grow closer and closer without jumping on each other?" Roxy complained exasperatedly, flopping down on the sofa Eggsy had yet to remove from Merlin's vicinity- much like he had yet to remove that damned car from the Thames.

"If I had the answer to tha', Rox, a great many people would be a lot happier," he supplemented, typing a few more words of apology in the email.

"It's like whatever we do, the opposite of the desired effect happens, but when we don't do anything, they just- ugh". Roxy shakes her head in defeat. "There's only so many drunken ramblings about how he wants to shag Harry, in explicit detail too, that I can take".

"Tell me about it," Merlin agreed, forsaking his email for a moment in favour of swivelling in his chair to face the sighing agent. "Yeh wouldna believe the shit I've heard from our dear Arthur".

"Well I've got a plan, a small one, that we can try before the Christmas one," Roxy confessed, leaning back in the sofa, eyes shut. "But it'd involve the misuse of Kingsman equipment, us both gritting our teeth through more drunken conversations, and a copious amount of mildly illegal recording of said conversations".

"Does the endgame look somethin' like shutting both of them in a locked room and blaring said conversations through some speakers a' them 'til they start ruttin' on the floor?" Merlin arched an eyebrow, staring intently into Roxy's now open eyes.

The other agent smirked, gaze sparkling slightly with mischief in a way that Merlin definitely did not find charming. "Something like that".

"Something like wha'?" Came a voice from the direction of the hallway, and both Roxy and Merlin, Kingsman reflexes coming into play, flicked their heads towards the source of noise- a curious Eggsy approaching the area.

"Somethin' like annoyin' li'l shits who eavesdrop on other people's conversations," Merlin retorted, cool exterior masking the chink in his armour that had been visible moments earlier.

"Good to see ya too, guv'nr," Eggsy winked in Merlin's direction making the handler snort derisively. Eggsy seemed a lot happier, he noted quietly to himself, any hidden guilt he had over the whole Hounds of Baskerville - well, really, Hounds of Surrey Hills Area Of Natural Outstanding Beauty- incident dissipating.

"Truly, we were just discussing how Gareth has an unfortunate habit of singing off-key during missions, and how the only person who sings worse than he does is you," Roxy says rather seriously, making Eggsy's eyebrows shoot skyward on his forehead.

Merlin spun back to attempt to finish the damned email as the pair continued to argue in the background. My sincerest apologies for all and any inconveniences caused by Kingsman: United Kingdom's agents-

"Hey, my rendition of 'A Team' is aces, fanks Rox -"

After backspacing and rewriting the same sentence four times, Merlin gave a frustrated sigh, before sneakily slipping his phone out of his pocket.

Video Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to 8hup1nd3er, LikeIke & 16 others.

*Merlin's computer monitor with the email on it, cursor slowly blinking, before the camera slowly pans over Merlin's shoulder where Roxy and Eggsy are arguing loudly and animatedly. A resigned sigh is heard*

Really enjoying the peace and quiet...

Chapter Text

"Alrigh', now yeh've got yer clone phish ready to go, I want yeh all to use the coding provided t' disable to firewall, plant the bug virus I gave yeh, and launch a DoS as a group ," Merlin addressed the eager young cadets before him, pacing back and forth before the row of sleek, top-of-the-range laptops and hunched over bodies.

"Is this an actual mission we're hacking for?" A pasty boy third from the left with glasses asked, adding a meek "sir," after Merlin trains his cold gaze upon him.

"D'you actually think I'd risk the lives of my agents in the hands of a group of untrained, inexperienced tech geeks fresh out of Cambridge, Dawson? Or is yer skull thicker than the lenses of yer glasses?"

An embarrassed 'no sir' was heard, and Merlin shook his head slightly, observing the 7 recruits left before him. Training new Kingsman handlers was a tedious process, taking even longer than it took to train a knight. Damned Francine and her maternity leave, Merlin exhaled through his nostrils. He wasn't sure any of the recruits here were quite up to scratch- they had a lot to learn if they wanted to even think about joining the ranks of the Kingsman handlers.

"Enjoying your reign of terror are we, Merlin?" An amused voice said behind him, and Merlin just rolled his eyes as Harry stopped shoulder to shoulder with Merlin, eyebrow quirking slightly. The potential handlers-to-be looked up with a mixture of awe and apprehension at their potential leader, whose aura of majesty and prestige was only added to by his impressive scar on the left side of his forehead.

"I'd enjoy it more if I weren't interrupted, Arthur," Merlin said respectfully but with a hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth that made Harry shake his head as he observed the recruits.

"Lancelot's assignment in Perth went swimmingly, I thought you should know," Harry supplemented, eyes remaining trained in the group of recruits at their tables, typing away. Trying to dispel the slight weight that had lifted off his shoulders at the knowledge that Roxy was safe, Merlin made no physical reaction other than to reply "By swimmingly, I assume you are referring to Lancelot's uncanny swimming abilities?"

"Watch her Kingsglasses cam, you'll see what I mean," Harry suggested, eyes twinkling with something Merlin wasn't sure he liked, before his friend opened his mouth to address the students.

"Each and every one of you has the ability to do a lot of good in this world, and therefore, this agency," Harry commented, eyes moving from face to face that stared up at him. "Make sure you turn that ability into a reality".

They sat transfixed for a moment before Merlin clapped his hands, breaking the spell with a "Get a move on, tha' firewall isn't going to disable itself!"

"My bet's on Derwent," Harry murmured in Merlin's ear, indicating the blonde hair girl with a pixie cut on the far right before he paced out of the room ask quickly as he had entered it. Derwent was a fair wager, Merlin mused, she was pulling top scores in most areas, however she wasn't really a team player as such. That being said, he noted begrudgingly, Harry's bet's were usually right, with the bastard seemingly having a sixth sense when it came to recruits- that same sixth sense had drawn him to Eggsy, Merlin realised with quiet glee. But not just for the young man's potential as an agent, if you know what I mean.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and Merlin whipped it out, a Snapchat arriving from Sharon, an Australasian handler. " Ur UK knights r fuckin berserk" the video was captioned, with a short video of Roxy splashing through the Pioneer Women's Memorial fountain, in hot pursuit of a swan, beak clamped around her Kingsman glasses.

No need to check the Kingsglasses cam then. Swallowing the chuckle that built in his throat at poor Roxy's predicament, Merlin took a covert shot of his recruit team, still tapping feverishly away at their keyboards. " She's never been able to 'hack' birds".

Consulting his trusty clipboard, Merlin checked up on Roxy's tracker, which claimed she would be due back in England within 3-4 hours (gotta love high speed spy jets). And he had no doubt anyone would be willing to let Roxy forget he escapade anytime soon.

Clutching his phone again, he fired off a text to the agent in question, trying not to smile at his exceptional pun.

Merlin: Heard your mission swanned along nicely. Hope you didn't ruffle any feathers.

He received an eloquent reply shortly after.

Rox: Fuck off.

****

" What d'you think?" Bhupinder Snapchatted Merlin, showing one of the female Kingsman Asia agents with her bulletproof sari and a simple bindi in the centre of her forehead. It was a prototype specifically designed for Eastern world operatives, he had explained earlier, acting similarly to the camera of the Kingsglasses.

" Looks great," Merlin snaps back, with a photo of the sprawling green Kingsman lawns as several agents jog across them, in the midst of their morning run. " But how will they read files, see holograms etc like they do with the glasses?"

" Working on it," came the reply, and Merlin was about to write back when raised voices sounded in the hallway further down from him.

"F'r fuck's sake-" Merlin recognised Eggsy's irate tone in a moment, slowly climbing out of his chair. "Ya can't seriously think that, 'Arry".

"Eggsy, it is of a sexual nature, many agents in our ranks have no issue with-" came Harry's controlled, even reply, but ask Merlin advanced towards the door, he could detect a strained edge to the Kingsman chief's words.

"No issue? So you think I'm easy, eh? Just cause of the shit I been tellin' ya in confidence, thinkin' ya ain't gonna grass?"

Eggsy was spitting mad, cheeks flushed, hands clenched in fists as Merlin rounded the corner, clipboard clutched in hand to use as a shield/weapon, depending on the situation. Harry looked a tad unruly himself, and it appeared this argument, however long ago it started, was bothering him greatly, from the agonised look he had trained on his protégée.

"Eggsy, I would never call you easy, you're nothing of that sort-" Harry tried to placated Eggsy as he stepped forward in the hallway, one arm outstretched in an attempt to touch the young man's arm. But Eggsy shied away wildly, eyes wide with pain and anger, like a cornered animal, and in that moment, Merlin swore he saw Harry's heart break in his chest.

"Then why the fuck would ya think I'd enjoy honeypots? That I'd get some extra kick out of gettin' my brains fucked out, jus' 'cause I used t' be a rent boy?"

Ah. The cogs clicked together in the silence, and a rush of empathy combined with a trickle of fury enveloped Merlin. He'd known Eggsy's wanker of a stepfather had been an abusive bastard, but to pimp out his wife's son for money? The poor wee lad.

"There I fucking said it," Eggsy spat dangerously, tears building in the corners of his eyes, gaze still fixed murderously on Harry. "Now everyone fucking knows, ya happy?"

He gesticulated to the various doors in the hallway which were now open, multiple knights and handlers alike peeping out from the doorways at the source of the noise.

"Gentlemen," Merlin found himself standing beside Harry, the other man's arms limp by his sides. "I suggest yeh take yer disagreement elsewhere, away from prying eyes". He shot a subzero glare over his shoulder, and the flurry of peeping heads vanished under his gaze.

"No need, Merlin". Eggsy met his eyes jaw set, eyes cold, standing up straight in an almost robot-like fashion. "There's nothing left t' say". And with that the Kingsman turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway away from them.

The soft patter of jogging feet from behind caught Merlin's attention, and Roxy barely opened her mouth before Merlin flicked his chin in the direction Eggsy had stormed off, mouthing 'that way'. She nodded, glancing knowingly at Merlin, smiling sympathetically in Harry's direction before she was off and around the corner after her best friend.

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to Candy_Cane, Tatjaaaaana, & 18 others.

*Snap of Harry from behind standing frozen in the hallway, shoulders slumped, hands hanging by his sides*

:(

*****

Eggsy moping after Harry was bad, Merlin decided definitively. But Harry moping after Eggsy was so, so much worse.

The Harry brand of moping included multiple sighs per minute, longing looks towards his office doorway in meetings, and Tuesday night drinks were becoming every night drinks. Merlin wasn't sure how many more nights of Harry rattling off all of the reasons he was an idiot for upsetting the boy, combined with every reason he loved him, that he could take. The other staff knew all about it of course, how Arthur was arguing with Galahad, and that the both of them were miserable as fuck- for Eggsy, even though he was freezing Harry out at every opportunity, was not coping, according to a well-placed, totally anonymous source named Roxanne Morton.

So far Eggsy was still spitting mad at Harry, and was refusing to speak to him, and Harry was convinced Eggsy wanted to pretend he didn't exist, so he refused to speak to him.

For fucks sake.

"Are yeh even listening, 'Arry?" Merlin exclaimed frustratedly, leaning his clipboard on his knees as Harry's vacant expression morphs to look him in the eyes.

"I do apologise, I was lost in thought. What were you saying?" The Kingsman chief enquired, shifting in his seat to give Merlin his full attention.

"I was informing yeh of the lack of kidnappings since the Pretoria mission, but I can see that yeh would much rather talk about Galahad instead," Merlin remarked dryly, noticing the momentarily stricken expression on Harry's face at the mention of the other agent.

"There is nothing to discuss," Harry replied, tone flat, no hint of emotion that had been visible moments later.

"Oh come right off it," Merlin scoffed, leaning back in his chair to survey his long time friend. "So the nightly sobbin' sessions tha've been takin' place fir the past week don't mean shit? Yer an honest-to-god wreck over the boy".

"How I deal with my personal life and its... trials is my own business, Merlin," Harry managed, "Galahad has so far expressed no desire to communicate with me, so I am left to my own devices".

"Which include moping around HQ, and getting pissed every night so yeh can give me soliloquies on how yer a massive cockup and Eggsy is too good for yeh- wonderful devices yeh have there".

"What were you saying about the decrease in kidnapping statistics, Merlin?" Harry crossed one leg over the other, eyes intent on his, and Merlin knew the discussion was over.

For now.

"Eggsy's not as livid anymore," Roxy informed him one morning as she entered his office, ponytail swishing behind her head. "He actually laughed when I made a joke about Harry last night".

Tag teaming this whole break up-what even was it?- thing was the only way Merlin was coping, he admitted, as Roxy plonked herself down on the sofa that was getting a whole lot more use in Merlin's office that it was out in the lounge. Through their combined efforts, progress, however small, was being made.

"He started crying a second after though," Roxy admitted, grimacing slightly, and for about the thousandth time that week Merlin silently cursed two agents named Harry Hart and Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin. Roxy looked about as tired as Merlin felt, with dark rings under her eyes from repeated late nights, and Merlin noted grimly that a fatigued agent could easily mean the difference between a mission succeeding or failing. Enough was enough. This ends now.

"Rox. I need yeh to go home, get some sleep. We're fixing this tonight".

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to ~Jun~Ling~, 8hup1nd3er & 8 others.

*Image of the surveillance footage of the Kingsman armoury, racks of weapons etc*

Buckle up, bitches. It's Arthurhad or bust tonight.

****

The thumping club music was giving him the beginnings of a foul headache, the smoke machines making him cough, and the lazer lights zapping around the room were sure to cause a seizure, but Merlin persevered, despite the fact he was probably losing a percentage of his hearing with every moment he spent in this ridiculous club. But if it was going to fix this godawful mess between Eggsy and Harry, so be it. Harry could pay for Merlin's hearing aids.

Looking out at the gyrating crowd from their booth in the back corner, Merlin tried his best to spot Eggsy and Roxy in the throng, but they were lost to a sea of dancing bodies. Having another sip of his drink, wincing at the sickenly sweet taste of the brightly coloured concoction, Merlin turned his attention to Harry, who was sitting across the booth from him.

He and Merlin were easily the oldest patrons in the club by at least twenty odd years -you should've seen the look the bouncer gave them when they walked up to him with two young things called Roxy and Eggsy- but in his opinion, they'd both brushed up quite nicely, considering their clubbing days were far behind them. Merlin had finally ditched the sweater, much to his chagrin, and Harry looked dapper as usual in a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the first few buttons of his collar popped open reluctantly. Merlin had to positively wrestle him away from a cardigan he'd tried to put on as they had gotten ready in his town house, resorting to hiding said cardigan. The tightish dark jeans Merlin had acquired for his best friend and the ever present oxfords- really, Harry- and a few interesting drinks only added to the look. He looked like a right hot mess. And Eggsy hadn't been able to look him in the eye at all that night, Merlin noted smugly.

"Enjoyin' yerself?" Merlin hollered over the music, leaning across the table slightly so Harry could hear him better. The air in the club was humid, the scent of sweat, heavy perfume and smoke leaving a grubby sheen upon every person's skin.

"I'll be honest, this is not at all what I expected," Harry yelled back, squinting slightly in the dim light. "This place is not exactly what I had in mind when you said we were going out". Merlin found himself on the receiving end of a reproachful look, for more reasons than one.

So maybe Merlin and Roxy had each invited Harry and Eggsy on a night out, saying it was just 'a few close friends'. And both may or may not have neglected to mention that Eggsy would be attending to Harry, or vice versa. And this lack of explanation may have caused a fairly long awkward moment when Merlin and Harry met Roxy and Eggsy at the front entrance to the club.

"You didn't tell me he would be here," Harry had hissed peevishly into Merlin's ear as they approached Roxy and Eggsy, with the younger man looking as impressed as Harry sounded.

'Fabric' as Roxy had told him excitedly that evening, was one of the most popular nightclubs of London, with a stellar reputation. Eggsy had been dying to go for ages, and the prospect of partying in such an exclusive venue had been the only thing stopping him from leaving at that very moment.

"Didn't think it was a big deal," Merlin replied breezily, greeting the other two agents whilst Harry and Eggsy stood awkwardly, trying to look at each other without meeting eyes.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and Merlin pulled the device free from the material, unlocking his phone to see yet another Snapchat. Ever since he had fired off that Snap about 'Arthurhad or bust' he'd been receiving a steady stream of Snapchats from across the globe, begging for updates on the situation.

This particular Snapchat was from Jun Ling, where she and several other handlers were posed as a group, depicting impatient and lovesick expressions. ' Waiting for Arthurhad'.

" Keep waiting, this may take a while," Merlin sent back, tucking his phone back into his pocket as Roxy and Eggsy returned to the table, flushed from dancing.

"C'mon you two, you gotta come and dance with us!" Roxy exclaimed, slightly out of breath as she squeezed into the seat next to Merlin.

"I was thinkin' we should grab some drinks though," Merlin suggested, giving Roxy a look so she got the message.

"I'll come with," Eggsy volunteered, but with a "We've got it, stay here," Merlin and Roxy were up and out of the booth, leaving Eggsy and Harry alone together accidentally- totally- on purpose.

"D'you think this'll work?" Roxy shouted into Merlin's ear as they shoved their way through the masses of people (Fabric was doing a roaring trade tonight, as always) towards the bar.

"Only one way t' find out".

Plucking the earbuds out of his pants pocket, Merlin handed one to Roxy as he nodded to the bartender, who gave them a strange look but went back to his drink-pouring. Plugging the audio jack in, Merlin pressed the play button, and received only club noise matching the ruckus around them in return. Futilely, he tried again, shaking his head in frustration, before Roxy pulled the earbuds out of both their ears.

"We can listen later!" She hollered, noting Merlin's knitted-together brows, before bursting out "They're probably still talking, let's go dance for a bit, we can get the drinks after!"

And before he could protest, Roxy had grabbed him by the hand and yanked him away from the bar and right into the very centre of the dance floor with her, surrounded by hundreds of grinding, sweaty, and mostly inebriated bodies. This hadn't ever really been his scene, and he wasn't much of a dancer, but if this was what it took to get those two twats together, Merlin would resign himself to it. And take great pleasure in listing all of the woes he'd endured to get them together when it actually bloody happened, which would hopefully be sooner rather than later. After taking a moment to get his bearings and catch the beat, Merlin found that this whole clubbing jam wasn't quite so bad, jumping up and down and grooving for the first time in years.

But really, there must have been something in the air, or rather, the club smoke. Because normally, Merlin wouldn't notice how the sparkly, tight black dress that Roxy was wearing stopped mid-thigh, and made her legs go on for days. Or how the cut of the sleeves enunciated her slim arms, or how her hips swayed so entrancingly to the beat. Normally Merlin wouldn't notice how soft Roxy's hair looked in the harsh, flashing club lasers, and wonder what it would be like to run his hands through that blondish-brown. And he wouldn't usually note how her tolerance for liquor, even after a drink or 5, left her only slightly tipsy, but in the most refined way possible, and it did absolutely nothing to tarnish how positively breath-taking she looked tonight, shot after shot after shot. Normally, Merlin wouldn't realise, in the middle of the most popular nightclub in London, waiting for the bass to drop, that everything he had ever wanted, condensed into the lithe body of Roxy Morton as she laughed, throwing her hands in the air, had been right here all along.

And as Merlin stumbled out of Fabric in the wee hours of the morning, one arm wrapped around Roxy's shoulders to support a completely smashed Eggsy while Harry hailed a cab, he wondered how long he had been so utterly fucking blind.

Chapter Text

The first thing Merlin realises when he wakes up the following morning without even having to open his eyes is that this bed isn't his. This opinion is formed firstly because Merlin usually either sleeps in the lounge at the HQ mansion, sprawled over one of the couches, gets so tired he literally falls asleep on his clipboard at his desk after pulling consecutive all-nighters, or, very rarely, he ventures back to his penthouse apartment in Mayfair, only a short drive from Savile Row. But of all three options, this bed fits in with none of the above.

The next thing Merlin registers is that he is the lucky recipient of a truly shocking headache, one so painful he almost groans out loud, and that his feet are almost just as sore as his head. It feels as though the very fibres of his brain are resorting to cannibalism, and honestly after Tuesday night drinks with Harry, Merlin should definitely know better. Fuzzy memories of the night before start to filter back into his brain as he fumbles for his glasses on the bedside table, until with a start his eyes snap open to a sleeping Roxy, whose eyes fly open and she jumps back with a jolt, reaching under her pillow for a gun until it registers that it's Merlin in her bed.

"What- how- we didn't-" Merlin tries to start awkwardly eyes wide. He's in her bloody bed, of course he's going to draw conclusions.

"No," Roxy flushes bright pink, running a hand through her tousled bed hair as she sits up."Eggsy and Harry went home together, you, um, were too tired and drunk to head home, I think, and Morgana wouldn't move off the sofa, so I said you could sleep here".

"Hmm," Merlin managed, massaging his temples. It seemed like the most feasible explanation, after all, considering they were both still fully clothed- well Merlin was, Roxy had changed into some very cute pink pyjamas, he noted.

"Wait..." Roxy's brow was furrowed as she hopped out of bed, getting two glasses of water from her ensuite and handing one to Merlin. "Did I just say Eggsy and Harry went home together?"

"The bug!" Merlin gasped, and snatched his phone off the bedside table, unlocking it and finding the recording in one of the surveillance apps as Roxy scooted across the bed to peer over his shoulder.

Crossing his fingers, Merlin tapped the play button, and Harry's voice sounded from the microphone, filling up the silent room.

"...Eggsy, I know that this is hardly the time or place, but I would like to apologise, if you are willing to listen".

There's a moment of silence, filled with club sounds as Roxy and Merlin hold their breath in anticipation. Come on come on come on-

"Yeah, I actually wanna apologise too," Eggsy mumbles "But you go first".

"Well alright then". Harry sounds a tad more relieved, but with a hint of nerves to his voice.

"Eggsy...it was never my intention to offend you when I said what I did. Many agents see honeypots as a chance to let off some steam and-"

There's a muffled interruption, and Merlin and Roxy both furrow their brows, listening hard, when around a minute later, the microphone cuts back in.

"..and for that, I'm truly sorry, my dear boy". The older agent's raw emotion and remorse is clear for all to hear, and if he wasn't so desensitized to hearing far too much information from his agents, Merlin was sure he would have been rather uncomfortable.

"S'okay, 'Arry," Eggsy replies, sounding at least a tad less mournful than before. "I'm sorry too- I overreacted, I shoulda known ya wouldn' mean it like tha' ".

There's silence for a long moment, before a slight rustling noise, and with a start, Merlin pauses the tape. "One sec," he murmurs, brow furrowed as, slowly but surely, he hacks his way into Fabric's security cameras from the night before through his phone (yes, he really is that good). Winding the tape forward and selecting the right camera, pointing down at the booth where Harry and Eggsy are sitting, enhancing the image and zooming in, Merlin can make out the two figures, but then-

"They're holding hands!" Roxy gasps, hands flying to her mouth. "They're holding hands!"

She laughs, jumping to her feet on the bed, bouncing on the mattress as a ridiculous grin splits over her face. "We did it, we did it, they're holding hands, we did it-"

And as usual, caught of guard (what is it with this woman and catching him unawares?), two hands seize his and haul him upright, so now Merlin and Roxy were jumping on the bed, laughing at their success. Holding his hand out for a high five, Merlin drops his hand under Roxy's raised eyebrow.

"Did you just try to awkwardly high-five me?"

Merlin can feel the tips of his ears reddening, but before he gets the chance, she's in his arms, and he's holding her close, feeling her hands pressed into his back and her head on his chest. They stand there embracing in the middle of the mattress for just a minute or two longer than appropriate, before pulling back, and a rather flushed Roxy mumbles something about making breakfast, hopping off the mattress and out of the bedroom doorway.

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to ~roxy_m~, Tatjaaaaaana, Dazzam8, and 23 others

*Screenshot of the surveillance camera footage of Harry and Eggsy holding hands across the table*

Operation Arthurhad: possible success >:)

***

"We're having celebratory Christmas drinks," Roxy announced suddenly at the conclusion of another Round Table meeting in early November, catching every agent's attention.

"What?" She shrugged at their bemused glances. "Arthur wouldn't let me throw a staff Christmas party".

"For good reason, I might add," Harry interjected, leaning his elbows on the table. "The last Christmas party, in '83, had a faulty explosive Christmas tree, which resulted in three agents ending up in the HQ hospital wing, and the entire bottom floor of the Tailor Shop set alight".

Shuddering at the memory, however fuzzy, Merlin did admire Roxy's bravery to organise yet another hallowed event. Well, quite frankly he was admiring everything about her, and had been doing so for some time now, but that was beside the point.

"Wha' if ya held it at a different location?" Eggsy piped up, eyes sparking with interest as he addressed both Harry and Roxy. "That way there'd be no threat o' damage to HQ or the shop, and we don' 'ave t' 'ave a Christmas tree".

"Oooh, I've got it!" Roxy exclaims, jumping out of her seat with enthusiasm.

"Why don't we hire a small cruise ship for the night?" She smiles hopefully, as Harry leans back in his palce at the head of the table, deep in thought.

"It could work," he says thoughtfully, as Roxy and Eggsy high-five. "However you will need to procure no ordinary vessel- Kingsman need to be prepped for emergency at all times. But good work, Lancelot".

Roxy smiles slightly again, obviously filled with pride at her superior's encouragement, and it's so cute on her Merlin has to bite his tongue to keep from smiling idiotically. Get a fucking grip.

"We are in need of more watercraft, Arthur," he addresses Harry. "I'll look into some appropriate naval vessels, an' consult yeh at a later date".

"That won't be necessary, Merlin. I'm sure Lancelot will be willing to provide a just as good second opinion". Is Merlin imagining things, or is there a slight mischievous twinkle in their Arthur's eye?

Harry dismisses the rest of the knights, calling the meeting to a close, and as the other gentlemen file out, the Kingsman chief walks shoulder to shoulder with Eggsy, the two murmuring quietly to each other. Merlin makes a mental note to be more observant of those two, and to hold an interrogation of a certain Harry Hart as soon as fucking possible.

He's so absorbed in contemplating the Arthurhad sitch and typing away on his clipboard to find the Kingsman catalogue (yes, it's a thing) he doesn't notice that he's not alone in the room- jolting slightly as Roxy plops down in the Round Table seat next to him.

"Assistant Sea Vessell Procurer, reporting for duty".

"Assistant Sea Vessell Procurer really should know better than t' keep sneakin' up on me," Merlin replied reproachfully, even though he quite honestly was fighting to keep a wry smile off his face.

"Well I guess it's one of the perks of the job, hmm?" Roxy replies breezily, before she pries Merlin's clipboard from his hands and begins to flick through the catalogue.

And for once, he doesn't tell her off for taking his things- he's far too preoccupied with the sight of her as she says something he's not listening to, pointing to a particularly fancy looking vessel.

Her over his clipboard, now that is a worrying choice, Merlin realises with an internal sigh. He's not one to get attached to people easily, and this is not a good sign.

Because while Harry and Eggsy might be getting back on track, Merlin is well and truly fucked.

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to ~Jun~Ling~, CandyCane, Tatjaaaaana & 18 others

*shot of Roxy with Merlin's clipboard, pointing at a boat*

Nothing like a bit of retail therapy :)

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Snapchat from Tatjaaaaana

A h, the joys of couples shopping :)

Snapchat from 8hup1nd3er

More like girlfriend therapy amirite

Snapchat from Geoff35

cc >:) Candy agrees.

Snapchat from Dazzam8

 ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  

And 5 others.

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to all.

*blank-expressioned Merlin, holding his middle finger up to the camera*

Fuck off.

****

So after selecting and procuring a rather expensive monolith of a boat with an arsenal of weapons so impressive they could take out the entirety of Tasmania, Merlin and Roxy get the go ahead from Harry to organise the Christmas party.

Which turns into a Christmas weekend cruise, because why the fuck not, the bloody vessel's got enough rooms for that. And, as suggested by Percival, everyone must bring a date.

On one hand, Merlin was rather pleased. Because the date rule meant that Harry and Eggsy, being single twats, having no relations or friends in the know (Eggsy's mother still hated everything to do with Kingsman, so she was a no), and with the other knights either taken or chaste, would have a very small and specific pool of options to choose from. A small and specific pool which consisted of two options- each other.

But on the other hand,that didn't mean the conniving pair hadn't done everything to avoid going together. Trust me, in the weeks leading up to the 22nd of December, there'd been quite the number of arguments between Eggsy and Merlin, Roxy and Harry and so forth considering the date criteria. And both Roxy and Merlin had been having a hell of a time watching it all play out.

"Eggsy got the shits with me today because I mentioned that he's already gone home with Harry, why not just go out with him?" Roxy laughed to Merlin one night down the phone, before doing her best impression of Eggsy's rough accent.

"I slept in the spare room, Rox, no' in his bed!"

"Sure he did," Merlin said sarcastically, leaning back in his chair as he skimmed over some crappy paper work he'd rather not do, to be honest, not when compared to talking to his fellow schemer. " 'Arry's been cheesed off wi' me too, as a matter o' fact. Yeh shoulda seen his face when I sent him an 'official Kingsman document' forbidding him from no' attending the Christmas party!"

The rest of the next 10 days continued in a similar manner, until, that is, things came to a blessed but abrupt triumph on the 18th, but also, for some, a significant failure.

"No Eggsy, yeh canna bring JB as yeh date".

"Why not?" The younger agent protested frustratedly, throwing his hands in the air. "I've asked Rox an' she said no, so this is my last option.The dog ain't gonna breach privacy protocol, he's a fuckin' pug!"

"No dogs on my boat," Merlin reminded him, not even looking as he tapped away on his computer, because as expensive as the ship had been, it was quite the fine specimen. The biggest ship in the Kingsman fleet, almost the size of your average warship, with enough rooms for every single knight and handler, not to mention the formidable arsenal of highly classified weapons it held. Oh yes,he intended to take very good care of the Lady of the Lake , you could be sure of that.

"Why the f-"

"-Oh for goodness sake, Lancelot, I'll ask him myself," a familiar voice came irritably from the doorway as a henpecked-looking Harry strode through the doorway. His face softens at the sight of Eggsy, eyes warming, but reverts back to annoyance at the sight of Merlin's unchanged gaze coming his way.

This was it, Merlin noted slightly evilly. The moment they'd been waiting for. Finally, the stupid twats-

"Merlin, will you go as my date to the Christmas party?" Harry sighed, as Roxy appeared behind him, face a mask of innocence that quickly turned to horror at Harry's outburst, and Eggsy's  own momentarily crushed expression. Fuck, shit, quick do something, Merlin salvage this -

"No". Ignoring Harry's outraged expression, Merlin added smoothly after a moment of quick thought "But I'm sure Galahad 'ere would be perfectly willing, since he was jus' asking if he could take his dog as his date".

"Not to mention that you two went home together the other week after Fabric," Roxy announces smugly as Eggsy and Harry stare bug-eyed at her for a moment before spluttering protestations.

"I slept in the spare room-"

"It was only gentlemanly-"

"Nuffin' 'appened, and I didnt wanna ask ya to the party in case ya said no-"

"Exactly why I didn't-"

"So ya don't wanna go with me-"

"No, that's not what I meant, of course I do, Eggsy-"

"Are you sure-"

"Who else would I want to-"

"Ya just asked Merlin-"

"Only because I thought you'd say-"

"Of course I'd bloody say yes, 'Arry-"

"Well then it's settled," Merlin interrupts smugly and relievedly, taking a satisfied sip from his coffee mug as Roxy winks at him. "Galahad, Arthur, yeh going to the Christmas party together. Excellent. I trust you don' need a chaperoned discussion to organise attire and transportation to the party?"

Both agents blushed deeply before glaring at their respective best friends for a long moment, before Eggsy made a bee-line for the door, murmuring something about 'feed the dog'. The agent paused, however, turning to face Roxy.

"Say, you ain't got a date yet, eh Rox?"

"No," she answered automatically before locking eyes awkwardly with Merlin. Shit. He'd been so caught up trying to get Harry and Eggsy together he hadn't found a date, not that he wanted to quite frankly, no one could beat Roxy, but he couldn't go with her either because if he did he'd never be able to get over these stupid unrequited fucking feelings that bubbled up at the mere sight of her, that were showing no sign of subsiding despite the fact they were totally out of order, he had trained her, he couldn't date her. But if Harry and Eggsy could why couldn't they-

"Well I didn't know if yeh had a date yet-" Eggsy and Harry were suddenly no longer in the room.

"I don't but I thought maybe you-"

"No, I don' but-"

"So are you alright if we-"

"O' course yeah tha's fine, we can just go as frien's-"

"Sure sure".

They both made more awkward eye contact, Merlin's face feeling as though it was on fire as Roxy uttered a faint "excuse me," with a nervous laugh, practically zooming out of the room. Merlin swivelled his chair back around before letting his head hit the surface of the desk with a thump.

"Bloody buggering fucking tits".

An accompanying shattering noise alerted Merlin to his coffee mug's betrayal, the offending porcelain a mess of shards and coffee on his previously clean floor.

"Ah piss".

Snapchat from Magic_Merlin to all.

S.O.S.

Chapter Text

Merlin finds himself outside Roxy's cabin on the Lady of the Lake just shy of 6pm, hesitating with his hand poised to knock on the door. After lengthy discussion with multiple colleagues from various part of the world, and more awkward moments with the poor girl in the past few days that he could count whilst managing a couple of last minute ops, and organising this bloody Christmas party on Kingsman's newest and biggest warship, Merlin had managed to corral his feelings into some semblance of order. Well, as ordered as they could be amidst all the chaos, and so far he was still right bloody confused. Everyone, literally everyone he had spoken to for advice (all his friends but Harry, because if Merlin gave Harry even the slightest indication of fancying Roxy then there'd be a full-scale operation to them together, he could just see it, Eggsy'd have a field day), had given him the go-ahead, but it was Merlin himself hitting the brakes for so many and so few reasons.

Roxy opens the door before Merlin even registers he's knocked on it, and holyfuckingshit . Holy fucking shit. If he thought she'd knocked him off his feet in that outfit she wore to Fabric, this was something fucking else entirely.

The soft, golden fabric of the dress-floor length, of course, Kingsman was anything if not formal, even for a Christmas party- seemed to glow against Roxy's skin, the combination of a sweetheart neckline and a fuck-if-Merlin-knows-what-it's-called flare at the waist accentuating her curves. A sweet, slightly messy updo and matching golden earrings...He could barely find the words as he gazed awestruck at her. She looked postively ethereal.

Fuck, he finally understood how Eggsy looked at Harry, because, rather unashamedly, Merlin realised he was at Roxanne Morton the exact same way. "You look.....beautiful?" Merlin tries weakly, moving out of the way for Roxy to step into the ship's hallway, heels making soft clicking noises on the polished floorboards.

"Thank you, so do you," Roxy teases, smiling warmly at him, and Merlin has to look down at himself to remember what he's wearing.

Ah yes, a suit. He'd debated wearing the kilt he kept for formal Kingsman occasions, but ruled it out after a second or two. He'd never hear the end of it from Eggsy is he did, the little shit.

"I half expected you to wear one of your sweaters tonight," Roxy jests, closing her door behind her and dropping her keycard into her purse. "Considering they're pretty much the only thing you wear".

"Sorry about that, my bright red woollen Rudolph Christmas sweater, covered in fluffy bobbles was in the wash," Merlin replies with a nervous laugh as Roxy throws her head back in laughter, linking her arm with his as they make their way down the hallway. So much for confessing his feelings- Merlin would be lucky to get a full sentence out with her looking like that.

The galley, or rather tonight's ballroom (yes, Merlin's new toy is bloody huge) was bright and warm, yellow-tinted lights adding to the cosy atmosphere. Tinsel hung from wall to wall, and a lovely Christmas tree stood in one corner, bedazzled with any number of ornaments. A large oak table laden with food stretched almost from one end of the room to the other, but the majority of the space was taken up by empty floor, on which agents, handlers and their dates- who Merlin had had to individually background check, it had taken him bloody hours- were happily mingling, or in a few couples' cases, jokingly dancing to the Christmas music piping from a stereo- because yes, Merlin was willing to have all his agents and handlers on one boat. But hiring in a complete band with barely any floorspace left and murky backgrounds? Not likely.

"There you are!" Upon entering the room, Merlin and Roxy are immediately greeted by Kay, who eagerly ushers them over to meet his bride of 3 months, Tahlee (there'd been a lovely wedding, but unfortunately Merlin had been unable to attend, what with the blizzard of work he'd been swamped with- he'd practically lived on coffee beans). She's a lovely woman, curly-haired and bubbly, and from the way she and Kay look at each other, it's quite obvious to see how besotted they are with one another. Merlin's heart skips a beat for a moment when he catches himself looking to Roxy mid-laugh, and wonders if he has the exact same expression on his face.

After making small talk for a while with the newlyweds before they excuse themselves, Merlin keeps his eyes peeled, swiveling his head this way and that through the throng of people, nodding at most of the familiar faces. But there's a particular two he's keeping and eye out for, and Roxy seems to catch on, scanning this way and that. Where were they? He'd seen them earlier that day on board the ship whilst everyone was embarking, being ridiculously flirty. Harry had been carrying Eggsy's bags for him, for Pete's sake, all the way up to their rooms,  because Merlin may have been a little biased when allocating quarters for each agent and handler. His hand must have slipped when he had been organising rooms, he had explained to the red-faced pair the day before whilst distributing room information to the Kingsmen staff. A complete accident that Harry and Eggsy had rooms side by side. Purely coincidental.

Similarly to the coincidence that Merlin had positioned his and a certain Roxanne Morton's rooms are remotely far away as possible. He wasn't going to tempt fate, and honestly it would have looked far too convenient. And Merlin had needed the long walk to her room anyway to pull himself together.

Ah yes, there they were, Merlin notes relievedly. Laughing by the Christmas tree, champagne flutes in hand, with one of the handlers, Audrey, and her partner Kiara. Harry's hand rests comfortably on Eggsy's waist, and the younger man stares adoringly up at his date, listening avidly to something Harry is saying. Clad in matching tuxedos, no less. They look every inch like a couple, Merlin notes smugly, and he shares a conspiratorial glance with Roxy as they approach. Disgusting.

"Well, well," Merlin interjects after a peal of laughter rings around the group, Roxy by his side. "Don' yeh all look lovely. So glad yeh could make it". He glances Harry and Eggsy's way only to see the pair have the decency to look slightly guilty and shift imperceptibly away from each other, like naughty children caught raiding the cookie jar. Oh yes, Operation Arthurhad was in full swing.

His phone pings in his trouser pocket, and Merlin pulls the screen out to see another Snapchat alert add itself to his already full notifications bar. Covertly unlocking the screen, he clicks on the snap from Juan to see the entirety of the South American Kingsman staff grinning in Santa hats, captioned 'Feliz Navidad!'. Smiling to himself, Merlin manages to sneak a photo of the two would-be lovebirds standing opposite him, and is about to caption it with something witty before a small hand whips his phone out of his grip.

"None of that now, we're here to socialise," Roxy scolds him lightly, stolen phone dangling between her fingers before she pops it in her purse with a snap, smiling at Merlin's incredulous expression. "You can have it back at the end of the night," she reassures him, eyes glinting with mischief, and Merlin just shakes his head, sighing, a smile reluctantly playing upon his lips.

"Runnin' rings around 'im already, eh Rox?" Eggsy comments cheekily, making the others standing around laugh, before Merlin good-naturedly brings up the age old threat of a deep cover mission in the Alaskan tundra, which makes him shut right up. But the glint is still in the boy's eyes when he looks back at Harry, and with the look they exchange, Merlin just wants to bang their bloody faces together already. Or by the end of the night, get them both pissed and shove them under one of the sprigs of mistletoe tacked around the edges of the room. Now that would be some quality entertainment.

The four younger members of the group are deep in conversation about some topic or another when Harry moves past Eggsy to stand by Merlin, still toting his champagne glass. "No sweater?" the Kingsman chief quips, warm brown eyes twinkling with amusment.

"Yeh not the first person to make tha' remark," Merlin answered with a raise of his eyebrows, still fixated upon the young ones' conversation. "An I honestly doubt yeh will be the last, by the time tonight is over."

"Keep a tally for me then, hmm?" Harry jests, before lowering his voice and giving Merlin a knowing look. "Roxanne looks rather enchanting tonight, wouldn't you agree?"

"Aye, as does Galahad," Merlin replies without missing a beat, meeting Harry's eyes with a victorious curl of his lip, noting the other's now guarded gaze. "I see yeh two are doing the whole matchy-matchy couple thing now, would yeh like me to organise that 2nd appearance of yeh name in the paper? 'Mister Harry Hart'd like to announce his happy engagement to-'"

"Don't be ridiculous." All the humour evaporates from Harry's tone, and he drains his champagne glass and leaves Merlin standing alone, before Roxy breaks off from her little gang to badger him into dancing with her.

Hours pass in a joyful blur of mingling, storytelling and hearty food (provided by a catering company, but with no waitstaff. It's the oldest trick in the spy book, honestly, how stupid did you think Merlin was?), and before Merlin knows whats going on it's late evening, all the guests are gathered in a semicircle by the Christmas tree, with Harry appearing to begin a speech of some sort. Their Arthur looks rather more relaxed than when he usually has to give a speech, but that being said, this one is in a much less formal setting. So as the murmurs of agents, handlers and their guests die down, Harry clears his throat.

"To begin, I would like to thank each and every one of you for your attendance tonight. I'm not sure if you're aware, dear honored guests, but the last time we had festivities of this sort, which was some years prior,  it did go... rather pear-shaped. So thank you immensely for your presence, and for trusting that, for once, things don't go entirely tits up for our organisation".

There's titters of laughter around the room as Harry smiles, before continuing with his speech.

"It's been another successful year here at the British Kingsman branch," he announces to the crowd. "With a completed missions total exceeding... Merlin, give me some figures?".

"214 completed assignments, averaging 0.58 per day," Merlin rattles off  the top of his head without missing a beat, and everyone applauds. He feels naked without his clipboard.

"Impressive," Harry declares, looking from face to face. "And in my role as Arthur, I'm privy to each and every mission report, as well as the recordings from our trusty glasses. I do hope you don't mind terribly, but since I get the pleasure of all this viewing, I'd like to share what I believe are some of the highlights of this year, for a little comic relief".

He smiles, and with an encouraging look from his audience, begins. "On the 11th of January this year, I believe..."

Harry tells story after story, sometimes pausing for effect, or to wait for the 40something attendees to stop laughing. Percival's stint as a clown, Bors' royal faux pas. Roxy and Eggsy laugh at every single tale, and Merlin manages to crack a smile when Harry regales of how Lamorak once found himself running from some pseudo-Mafia members, dressed in only a floral curtain. And he all-out laughs at the memory of April Fools Day, when handlers Richard and Felicia decided to send Lamorak a suit made of the very same curtain material, and made him wear it for his next assignment.

"I felt like bloody Austin Powers in that hideous thing," Merlin hears Lamorak telling his wife Jacqueline and surrounds with a wry smile.

"But my personal favourite memory of this year," Harry is saying, and Merlin refocuses, absently putting an arm around Roxy. "Was when our Galahad here-," he makes warm eye contact with Eggsy, "- decided, in the midst if being pursued by some geriatric arms dealers, that it would be wise to drive an expensive Kingsman-issue car into the Thames".

More robust laughter follows, before Merlin pipes up with "Haven't seen my bloody car since!", and the chuckling continues,  Eggsy waving a dismissive hand towards the Master of Arms with a non-committal reply.

"All in all, another eventful year," Harry summarises as the giggles subside, before he takes on a more serious tone. "But these jests do not take away from the seriousness of the job we undertake at Kingsman. We were lucky this year, no agent fatalities, but more than enough serious injuries".

The mood is quiet and sombre as Harry continues. "We ask a lot of our employees, here at Kingsman. To be a Kingsman, agent or handler, means to lay your life on the line every single day. To say goodbye to your families, unsure if you will return home. To risk it all for little recognition, and to sacrifice many of the comforts of a normal life for the greater good".

Though the room is silent, Merlin would bet his coffee mug that every mind had turned to the memory of V Day, which still loomed, though over a year ago, far too close for comfort.

"So I personally thank each and every one of you. For your ongoing devotion to the most dangerous job in the world, but also the most rewarding. For saving the world with no thought for your own safety. For leaving your loved ones, though here tonight, repeatedly behind for weeks, sometimes months on end, all in the name of keeping others safe. And I am so, so very proud to call myself the leader of such an upstanding group of men and women. You, my friends, deserve far more recognition than you receive, and the world will forever be indebted to you, though it may not know it".

"But truly," Harry concedes, looking out to the crowd. "This year, my first year as your Arthur, has been a gift, for so many reasons". Is it just Merlin, or are Harry and Eggsy having another vomit-inducing moment?

"And for next year, as it quickly approaches, I hope we can continue to do better, be better, and have a cracker of a year within our Kingsman family.

"So thank you, and please, ignore an old man's sobering ramblings- enjoy the rest of your night, and I do hope we'll see you all again next year for another one!"

There's a final round of applause as Harry steps away from the Christmas tree, someone switches the Christmas music back on and everyone begins to mingle once more, murmurs of conversation rising in decibels.

"Whadd'ya mean 'old man'?!" Merlin observes an incredulous Eggsy telling Harry off a short distance away.  "Haz, 'ow many times've I gotta tell ya, 54 ain't old?!"

"Quite a few more, I should imagine," Harry replies, accidentally meeting Merlin's eyes and frowning slightly at his expression before steering Eggsy away before he could see it himself. "More champagne, my dear boy?"

A hand grasps Merlin's arm, and he  turns to see Roxy smiling sweetly up at him, before returning her attention to what Audrey and Kiara are saying.

"Thank you for organising this, Merlin, it's been simply lovely," Audrey gushes, Kiara nodding along enthusiastically.

"Well I'm glad yeh're enjoying yehselves," he replies, smiling slightly, locking eyes with Roxy and feeling it deepen. She seems to be getting more and more beautiful with every hour that passes.

"And I must say, after watching you two all night, you and Lancelot do make a rather attractive couple," Audrey winks devilishly, and Merlin he hears himself say "Oh we aren't a couple," just as Roxy replies with "Thank you!".

Meeting her eyes awkwardly, Merlin can feel the tips of his ears flushing as he tries to will his tongue into saying something, anything to fix this. To smooth the momentary shock and hurt he saw in Roxy's eyes, that was hurriedly replaced by a serene mask of calm.

"We'll leave you two to, um, sort this out," Kiara decides, and Merlin mumbles something that sounds vaguley like a farewell as the two cross the room. Breaking Roxy's gaze, he takes a deep breath, summoning all his courage before taking her hand and leading her out the intricately carved wooden doors and onto the second floor deck.

It's bloody freezing on the wooden floorboards, being mid-winter, and letting go of Roxy's hand, Merlin shrugs off his suit jacket, wrapping it around her bare shoulders. "Should've brought my sweater after all," he jokes nervously, but is met with silence, apart from the quiet watery sounds of the sea.

Roxy looks out to the dark waves of the North Sea, a hand resting on the metal railing. The lights of London are distant little pinpricks, a yellow spread of fireflies on the dark landscape of Britain as the ship sails further East, towards Dover. The combination of the gorgeous late night view and the equally stunning woman in front of him almost tongue-ties Merlin again, and he finds himself trying to begin the same sentence 3 times before finally stringing the words together.

"Look, tha' came out wrong before, I panicked". He takes a step closer to her, taking her free hand in both of his. Her fingers are slightly cold, and Merlin brings her hand to his mouth, blowing warm breath over her fingers in an attempt to warm them. "S'just I was given the impression tha' we were comin' as friends".

"If  remember correctly, it was you who suggested we come as friends". Her face is still turned to the open sea, and Merlin wants to reach out and cup her chin, but he won't. Because he's a fucking coward.

"I- Rox- y'now how I feel-"

"No I bloody don't, actually". Her words pierce his chest like tiny blades as cold as the sea breeze, and it takes everything Merlin has within him not to reel as though he's been struck. Because now she's facing him, and the pure unadulterated hurt in her eyes is more than he can take.

"Quit playing games with me, Merlin, and sort yourself out before someone gets hurt," she says harshly, and with that, strides away from the railing and back inside the galley in the direction of the liquor cabinet.

And Merlin lets her.

Chapter Text

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It's in a haze of pacing, quiet swear words and teeth gritting that Merlin ends up outside Harry's door at the other end of the ship. He knows Harry probably won't be in there, last he saw before he fucked up with Roxy, Eggsy Unwin's other half and the man himself were still in the galley with the rest of the Christmas party attendees. And since he's not willing to risk a face off with Roxy in front of half his charges, not when he's still trying in vain to sort out exactly how he fucking feels, Merlin's feet have carried him here. Oh goody.

He's secretly hoping that no one will answer when he knocks on the door. This end of the Lady of the Lake is nice and quiet, good for thinking. Maybe if he slides down to the floor and thinks for a bit, he'll be able to escape this clusterfuck. Like come on, he's a Chief Handler, he should be able to make split second decisions under pressure. But there's something about Roxanne bloody Morton that does bad things for his operating system, if we're talking in terms of IT.

But to Merlin's slight dismay, Harry does open the door to his room a minute or so later, blinking owlishly. There's a dim lamplight being emitted from the crack in the door behind him, darker than the hallway light, and Harry's shunned his suit jacket, bow tie undone around the collar of his white business shirt. The ever present shoulder holsters are missing for once, and Harry's glasses are slightly askew, something Merlin would definitely have pegged as odd if he hadn't been in such a state. Harry's voice is slightly raspy as he asks "Can I help you, Merlin?"

"I bloody well hope so," Merlin manages to grit out before it all comes tumbling out of him.  "I've gone an' royally fucked it all up, 'Arry. With me an' Rox. I've been in love wi' her fer ages but I only jus' realised a few months back an' it's been tearing me up ever since, I wanted t' ell yeh bu' I knew yeh'd give me shit like everyone else does anyway, they don't even know 'alf of it, and she looked so bloody gorgeous tonight, you saw her, an' I was gonna jus' sodding tell her how I feel bu' every time there's been a moment  where I could subtly make I move I go an' cock it up because I'm not an emotional person, 'Arry, yeh know I'm not, I don' show affection easily or open up an' when the moment calls for it I jus' don' know what t' do, an' Audrey thought we were a couple but I denied it the same time Rox said yes, t'was so awkward I wanted the bloody floor t' swallow me up bu' I pulled her outside t' try an' explain meself bu' somewhere along the line it appears she thinks I've been messin' her around an' so she got the shits and went back inside, I've been pacing for about the last quarter of an hour tryin' t'work out wha' t' do, yeh my best friend an' a top bloke who seems t' 'ave a way with words, so can yeh give me some t' use t' try an' fix this 'cause I jus' don' understand how women work, Harry, y'know? And can I bloody come in an' talk this out wi' yeh?"

Merlin exhales loudly as soon as he's finished his spiel, eyes wide, and for a moment all Harry can do is blink.

"Well," he begins, leaning against the door frame, rather more composed than a moment or so prior, despite Merlin's outburst. "As it turns out, I too have minimal understanding of the feminine gender, Merlin. Despite my many dalliances with them in the past, either on honeypot or my own merit, women can be rather. confusing creatures. Which, after all, has probably played a partial role in me being as bent as a bicycle tire, as you well know."

"Aye," Merlin manages, before shifting to try and come closer to the door. "But can yeh help me out, 'Arry?"

Pausing for a moment, Harry surveys his oldest friend before murmuring "Wait one, if you don't mind," and slipping back inside the door, closing it behind him.

There's several minutes of rustling, footsteps crossing carpet, and at one stage, Merlin swears his ears pick up on a whisper-argument. But he's fairly certain Harry would be alone, considering Eggsy and Roxy were two peas in a pod, unless he was hiding both of them in his room for some unknown reason. And whilst Merlin could easily switch on the infra-red sensor in his Kingsglasses, he was fairly certain that Harry would not take it kindly to be surveyed without permission. But what the devil was Harry doing?

Finally, a familiar chestnut coloured head of hair reappears from behind the gold-plaqued door labelled 'Arthur'. "Of course I'll play ear to your troubles, Merlin," Harry concedes with a small smile, smoothing a hand through his rumpled hair, and the Scot visibly relaxes his shoulders, managing a tight smile of his own. "It seems only fair, considering you are often on the receiving end of mine."

Pausing, and then sighing deeply, Merlin's oldest friend now meets his eyes with a slightly reproachful look, also laced with what appeared to be resignation. "However, in light of that blatantly obvious revelation of your affections towards the lovely Roxanne, I have one of my own to make".

Stepping back, Harry swings the door inwards, allowing Merlin an unobstructed view of his living quarters. The room is softly lit by a bedside lamp, and there's just enough room for a pair of comfortable chairs and a small wooden table next to the doorway into the ensuite (Merlin knows this boat inside out, thank you very much, he's well acquainted with the layout of every single room). But it's the four-poster bed that is the focal point of the room. And this drawing-of-attention is only accentuated by the figure Merlin finds on it.

"Oh hey, Merlin," Eggsy fucking Unwin remarks casually from the side of the bed, where he's sprawled in Harry's red bathrobe, no less, a pleasant smile gracing his features as he turns the page of a newspaper.

Merlin's jaw has dropped open, and he's sure he looks rather gormless as he turns his head between Eggsy and Harry like a spectator of a tennis match, mouth working but very little sound coming out.

"Wha'?!...but...you...an' him?!" He vocalises with some trouble, eyes wide as Harry strides across the room planting a sweet kiss on Eggsy's forehead before steering Merlin in the direction of the table and chairs.

"I've been dyin'  t' do somefin like tha', ya've got no idea," Eggsy confesses conspiratorially, a wide grin splitting his face as all traces of the seconds-earlier pleasantness are replaced.

"You do have quite the penchant for dramatics, my dear boy," says Harry as he pours 3 tumblers of whisky from a decanter he seems to have conjured out of nowhere. Crossing the room once more, Harry places a tumbler in Merlin's rigid fingers, before sitting down in the chair opposite.

"Yeh....yeh little shits!" Merlin manages to put it, his earlier shell-shocked expression now a mixture of bemusement and irritation. "This whole time, Rox' an' I've been working our arses off t' try an' get yeh two together, an' now, as it turns out, our strenuous efforts were futile, because yeh already a bloody couple!"

"Well not entirely," Harry admits as Eggsy slides off the bed and trundles over to claim his own whisky, before settling himself comfortably in Harry's lap, draping his legs over the arm rest of the chair.

"Ya did 'elp us along a bit, I fink," the younger man meets Merlin's eyes. "We was a bit clueless, and all ya scheming simply sped up the process".

"But- but-," Merlin splutters. "Wha' about Valentines Day? Fabric?- this whole Christmas party?!"

"I must confess," Harry begins,  thumb of his free hand stroking along Eggsy's exposed knee. "Most of this so-called pining was real. Well, real up until just before the incident in Surrey, because roughly 6 days before that, midway through our 3rd martinis at my house-"

"-I decided ta just come out wi' it," Eggsy finished, taking another sip from his tumbler. "Luckily for me, 'Arry 'appens to be a fan o' tipsy confessions". He grins at his boyfriend, who shares the eye-wateringly sweet gaze unashamedly.

"I had been planning on admitting my feelings sooner or later, but since you were so forward-"

"So yeh tellin' me tha' the massive sodding argument yeh two had a while back was all fake?! Wha' the actual-" Merlin began, outraged, but Harry was quick to interject.

"Quite on the contrary, Merlin, I'm afraid," the Kingsman chief keeps his gaze low, focused on swilling the golden liquid in his glass. "That, unfortunately, was the one incident that was entirely real, and I take full responsibility for that".

"Oh come off it," Eggsy exclaims, looking at his beau with obvious irritation. "We talked about this, 'Arry- whilst you an' Rox was dancing at Fabric, we sorted it out obviously, because here we are," he directs to Merlin, meeting the handler's gaze quickly before returning his focus to Harry.

"We're, er, aware," Merlin murmurs a tad sheepishly, watching Eggsy's eyebrows skyrocket.

"You wot?"

"Surveillance footage, Eggsy," Harry reminds him, sounding less than impressed when he locks eyes with Merlin. " And quite likely a microphone as well. I'm sure our dear friend Merlin here spared no expense ensuring his little scheme paid off".

Merlin has the decency to look a tad ashamed, shrugging his shoulders slightly as Eggsy sighs resignedly, before shooting upright.

"Wait, but if ya saw footage of us in Fabric," Eggsy bursts out, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Why'd ya freak out before when ya found out we was a couple?"

"Huh?" There's several noises of confusion from all for more then a few moments, then silence for a split second. And then Harry laughs, loud and heartily.

"I take it you didn't have the pleasure of viewing Egysy's and my entire conversation then, Merlin?"

"Well the mic cut out fer a minute or two just after yeh started t' talk, an' Rox n' I listened up to tha bit where yeh two were holdin' hands," the ops coordinator admitted,  as Eggsy and Harry share an amused look.

"Well that faulty microphone of yours caused you to miss my second confession of love for Eggsy, unfortunately," Harry remarks, what appears to be a smirk settling on his lips. "And do be thankful that you chose not to watch the rest of the footage, either- thirty seconds longer, and I'm afraid the game would have been up.

"But thank you for organising Fabric," Harry's tone is much softer now, eyes fixated upon the boy in his lap,  even though his words are for Merlin. "I wouldn't have had the first clue of how to win my dear boy back if I hadn't been give that opportunity. And now I can finally thank you, without it seeming too obvious what the outcome was, because you're already quite well aware".

"Yeh welcome," Merlin says dismissally before exclaiming triumphantly, "So yeh did go home together!"

"That we did," Harry responds, looking slightly flustered, before Eggsy interjects with "We've been a thing ever since, bruv, and bloody 'ell it was 'ard keepin' it so low-key".

All those lovestruck glances suddenly make sense to Merlin, rather than making him want to bang his head against his desk. He hadn't been imagining Harry's secretive smiles down at his phone, Eggsy's tendency to deny anything to do with Harry. They'd been doing what spies do best- lying, he notes.

"Want t' tell me why yeh both made such a big deal about going together t' this sodding Christmas party then?" Merlin asks, and the two bastards have the nerve to look smug.

" Well we didn' want everyone knowing jus' yet," Eggsy replies casually, draping an arm around Harry's shoulders. "An' we figured the more trouble we gave ya, the more likely our plan'd work".

"Wha' plan, exactly?" Merlin inquires with a frown, and Harry gives him a look of genial humour.

"We were hoping that Roxanne and yourself, preoccupied with trying to make us fall in love, would eventually do the same yourselves- with each other".

Merlin snorts into his glass but makes no further comment.

"This whole setup in 'ere has been real convenient though," Eggsy remarks happily, looking to Merlin. "I 'ave t' keep sneakin' back t' my room t' grab stuff, lucky it's only next door".

"Oh yeh think that was by coincidence, eh?" Merlin responds dryly, taking a much-needed sip of whisky.

"Coincidence or not, Merlin, it has been quite convenient," Harry points out with a small smile, and the handler nods in acknowledgement.

"Now, 're you gonna tell 'im, or am I?"  says Eggsy to his lover conspiratorially, and with that, Harry addresses Merlin again.

"Oh yes, and Merlin?"

"'Arry?"

"I do suggest you go and find Roxanne. It's about bloody time you stopped gawping at her, grew some balls and kissed the living daylights out of her like she's been hoping you would- and complaining to Eggsy about at all hours of the morning for the last 4 months, might I add. Trust me, she's quite smitten, before you argue, and the only reason I'm telling you this is because I am quite keen to start taking my boyfriend to bed before 3am on a regular basis, sans lovesick phonecalls. So I beg of you, do us all a favour, stop Snapchatting your handler friends about Eggsy and I, like you've been doing for about the past year, and go make that girl happy".

Harry said this all with look of complete and utter nonchalance, inspecting his fingernails before giving a rather shell-shocked Merlin a pointed look.

"Well alright then," Merlin says faintly, after a long moment. Setting his empty glass down on the table and  making his way towards the door, he adds "I'll leave yeh two to yeh quality mentor-protegee time".

"Much appreciated," Harry replies, and Merlin's hand is about to turn the doorknob when he pauses.

"On one condition".

"Name it". Harry meets his eyes, holding Merlin's gaze despite the fact that Eggsy is leaving a trail of kisses down his neck, and the older man's hand  has moved  from his boy's bare knee and disappeared somewhere inside  the folds of the dressing gown.

Merlin sighs deeply. "Tha' yeh lovin' boyfriend finally pulls my fucking car out o' the sodding Thames".

And the last thing Merlin hears before he walks out the door, closing it with a soft click behind him, are Eggsy's vocalised protests. But they cut out rather quickly, for reasons Merlin is perfectly happy not knowing.

Roxanne Morton is out on the deck, another flute of champagne clutched in her hand again when Merlin finds her, his heart beating uncomfortably fast. Quietly approaching, footsteps sounding on the wooden boards, Merlin comes to a stop just behind Roxy, the sounds of the sea providing background noise There's no one about, and the last vestiges of conversation from inside the galley faintly trickle outside, the CD player and it's tinny Christmas tunes now mercifully silent.

She's still wearing his jacket, draped like a cape around her shoulders, he noted with a twinge of hope. But she didn't turn around at the sound of his approach, despite the fact Merlin is certain she would have heard him. So he squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath and speaks up.

"Look, Rox, I know I'm doing a right bollocking job at this-"

"No, shush," Roxy whirls around, her face a thudercloud. "You've had enough chances to talk, thank you very much, so now it's my turn".

Merlin's come head to head with some pretty scary shit in his time, what with over twenty years of Kingsman and its accompanying demons. And usually, if anyone spoke to him in that tone, especially one of lower rank, there'd be hell to pay. But this time, Merlin acknowledges he deserves it, and shuts right up so Cyclone Roxy can get on with it.

"I don't know what exactly is going on in that head of yours, Merlin, but let me tell you right now that mine's all over the place, no thanks to the mixed signals you've been giving me-"

"Wha' was I supposed t' do? Stand outside yeh bloody window with a stereo an'-"

"I've been flirting with you for months!-"

"Oh c'mon Rox, I can't tell wi' tha' sorta stuff-"

"It was pretty bloody obvious in my opinion!"

"Rox," Merlin sighs  exasperatedly as she glares at him, eyes almost as cold as the temperature outside. "M'not an emotional person, I'm no good with people, yeh know tha, computers an' gadgets make far more sense to me than the human brain does".

"Well what was I supposed to do, tell you in binary code?" she retorts. "I'm a person, not a hard disk".

"Do yeh wanna know the reasons I didn' make a move?" Merlin says sharply but painfully, to her silence. "Because it goes against everything, everything -" He gesticulates "-every moral code I uphold, personally and professionally. I'm yeh supervising officer, I trained yeh for fuck's sake, I'm much too old-"

"So what?" Roxy half-shouts frustratedly, throwing her hands up in the air. "Eggsy's young enough to be Harry's son, but I can tell you right  now he doesn't want to call Harry 'Daddy' in the fatherly sense! Age, professionalism- none of that is stopping them!"

"No...it bloody isn't," Merlin admits with a heavy sigh, all of the fight draining out of him like a flame doused with water. He's being hypocritical, and he knows it.

"What?!" Roxy's face, a flurry of extreme frustration, confusion and disbelief.

"Whilst I was M.I.A for 40 minutes or so, I was actually up in Harry's rooms asking fir advice on how t' not fuck things up with yeh, an' in the midst of that, there was a rather familiar looking lad weari'g someone else's dressing gown, who last I saw was perched on 'Arry's lap, so I'd say yes, our plan was a resounding success," Merlin explains, shoving his hands deep in his trouser pockets.

Realisation dawns upon that beautiful face, and Merlin uses her silence to muster all his remaining nerve to just come out with it.

"I'm not here t' play games Rox, I'm here to- oh fuck this, fuck me, fuck everything, I'm here t' tell yeh-"

"Zero one zero zero one zero zero one zero zero one, zero zero zero zero zero, zero one one zero one one zero zero, zero one one zero one one one one, zero one one one zero one one zero, zero one one zero zero one zero one, zero zero one zero zero zero zero zero, zero one one one one zero zero one, zero one one zero one one one one, zero one one one zero one zero one?" Roxy manages breathlessly, leaning in closer.

"Yep, something like that," Merlin mentions absently, as shouts sound, and an alarm begins to blare, and a Snapchat is sneakily recorded and sent to every single Kingsman handler not in the UK.

And the Lady of the Lake, full of Kingsman agents and armed to the teeth, changes course to set off at full speed towards Calais, France, where some motherfucking twat has decided that his terrorist attack cannot wait until Roxy and Merlin finish kissing.

****

It's a lovely sunny day at Kingsman HQ. Spring has sprung, a new year has begun, and Merlin's still just about had it with everyone's shit.

Merlin taps away on his clipboard, a symphony of shots sounding and the sweet smell of gunpowder wafting past his nose. It really was a lovely day, and it had seemed a shame to make the knights do their compulsory annual target practice at the shooting range on Level X of the bunker. Sun's out, guns out, in a rather literal sense, he mused.

The last bullet is discharged from Lancelot's firearm, and flicking the safety back on, Roxy saunters over from the targets to where Merlin is standing a short distance away, the lush grass rustling beneath her feet.

"How'd I go?" She asks cheekily, raising an eyebrow before trying to sneak a look at Merlin's clipboard.

"I'm afraid that's classified," he replies mildly, smoothly hiding the results from view. Of course Roxy had topped the charts, freak of nature that she was. "But I'm sure yeh did horribly, since yeh bored a bloody hole through the target's forehead. Looks more like a doughnut than the likeness of a head".

"Hmm yes, terribly I'm sure," Roxy murmurs, leaning in for Merlin to give her a quick but sweet peck on the lips. However, as their lips touch, a camera shutter sounds, and pulling back, Merlin looks unimpressedly at his girlfriend, who, smiling devilishly, is captioning her Snapchat of the two of them smooching.

"Yeh're a bloody menace, I swear," he shakes his head and looks down at his clipboard, unable to hid the smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Ah, but I'm your menace," Roxy replies sweetly, and Merlin still shaking his head humourously, gives her another, longer kiss.

"If it isn't the picture perfect couple," comes a voice moments later, and Roxy and Merlin separate to find Harry Hart himself strolling towards them across the sprawling lawns, a slight smirk on his face.

"Well you'd know about picture perfect wouldn't yeh," Merlin addresses their Arthur a tad reproachfully. "You're the one who decided to Snapchat us kissing on the Lady, caption it "Operation Lancelin : Success" ,   an' send it to every single bloody person in Kingsman's employ".

Thanks to Harry, Merlin had been copping shit ever since he and Roxy had sorted themselves out from friends at every single Kingsman branch. It had been positively relentless for the first month or so, and whist having died down considerably by now, Merlin still was on the receiving end of many an innuendo on the occasion that he mentioned his lover's name, or ventured so far to post a rare photo of them together on Snapchat. And not that he would ever admit it, but all the humiliation it was worth it.

"Sue me, I have many Snapchat friends," Harry shrugs, coming to a stop next to Merlin and Roxy. "Besides, if I do recall correctly, you yourself indulged in a significant amount of photographing to do with Eggsy and I".

"Aye, but that was before yeh two became even more lovey-dovey and disgusting as an official couple. I'm actually glad I stopped." Merlin counters, shuddering for effect. "Speaking of yeh worse half, he's late. And so are yeh, come t' think of it. Yeh were booked in for yeh targets five minutes ago, and Galahad for just about now".

"The last I heard of my better half, he was borrowing one of the helicopters for some endeavour of his," Harry remarks nonchalantly. "He did inform me, however, that he would be back in time for his target practice".

"Well he's late," Merlin replies flatly, before quipping "I would say it was a part of having the Galahad position, however yeh own frequent tardiness, now as Arthur, sadly proves my theory wrong".

All in all, the previous year had been rather successful, Merlin notes not for the first time with a hint of glee as pores of his list of matched couples. He had surpassed his matchmaking personal best, after all. He'd just never imagined that he himself would be one of the people on the list. However, this year he was back at it, and had his eyes on several new couples- Hadn't Gareth's Facebook relationship status changed back to 'Single'?

The whir of helicopter blades sounds in the distance, and lifting his gaze to the skies, Merlin spots a lone helicopter making a  beeline for HQ. That'll be Eggsy, the little shit, he realises, and is about to say something witty when Snapchat notifications ping simultaneously in Harry's, Roxy's and Merlin's own pockets. All three fish their phones out, and Merlin unlocks the screen to see an unopened Snapchat from eggsybruv91 sitting in his Snapchat inbox.

"How many times do I have to tell yeh boy not t' Snapchat and fly, 'Arry?" Merlin says irritably, as Roxy lets out a snort of laughter. "If he does it again, I'll revoke his pilot privileges".

"I do find he has selective hearing, and that he knows you make empty threats" Harry offers as the helicopter grows closer and much louder, and Merlin finally opens the Snapchat himself, muttering "empty threats indeed".

"Incoming..." he reads the caption aloud, watching the video from the helicopter cockpit of HQ growing ever closer, the helicopter now almost deafening

"What's that dangling from the rails?" Roxy wonders aloud, voice almost swallowed up by the noise  as the helicopter advances, lower and lower, its cargo swinging from side to side, and a hand can be seen waving madly from behind the tinted windscreen of the chopper.

"What on earth?-" Merlin manages as the chopper passes over the roof of HQ, missing it by no more than a metre, and dropping from the helicopter with a crash,  a barnacle-covered, filthy Kingsman-issue car is dumped unceremoniously upon Merlin's immaculate Kingsman lawns.

" Galahaaaaaaad!"