She's a good shot. She's a good soldier. She follows orders, she knows how to prioritize the mission. She's efficient, you know. One of the best there is, especially as a marksman.

They call her Morton in some circles, Roxanne in others. When Percival recruits her, he uses both.

She says, "Call me Roxy," in this one, and Eggsy is the first one to oblige.

"That's my girl," Eggsy says, for the first time. Happens in the middle of a training exercise where they're competing for the fastest times in an obstacle course. Dive - duck - weave - sprint - leap - light on feet - lower centre of gravity.

They're running on adrenaline, lungs ready to burst, sweating like mad.

"I could do better," she says, and he grins lopsidedly at her. It's an open expression unlike anything else she's ever seen. "What're you so happy about?"

"You," he says. It's cheesy and he must know it.

She elbows him. Chalks up his words to just the moment and doesn't think twice about it.

"And your thoughts on him?" Percival asks, nursing the same cup of tea as he has been for the past twenty minutes. He'd declined eating, which is completely against the point of a Kingsman mentor-recruit session that takes place off HQ. Brought his own tea bag, too.

She purses her lips, even as she chews on the greens of her salad-after lunch is a marathon run, and she won't be able to hold down anything rich. It takes a bit to get used to something that's not field rations.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say." How did they get at this point, from how she's been doing, to talking about Eggsy? It feels manipulative, somewhat invasive. "He's a good person. I think it'll be between me and him. He's obviously got training."

Roxy doesn't mention how Eggsy's eye for sniping is almost deadly, or how his skills seem more than just military sharp.

Percival looks thoughtful, and then hands over two bags of green fruit about as big as her hand from out of nowhere.

"Cherimoya," he says. "From Colombia. Give one to Merlin."

The day after is one particularly trying and emotionally draining briefing session. Twelve hours. Who are you, was the point of it. Rip yourself apart. Study the pieces. Put yourself back together. How will you fit, Merlin asked them, as a Kingsman agent?

Nobody talks when they settle back into the bunker, and Roxy's thoughts now are too entirely filled up with all the things she lacks. The things she has failed to do. The things she wants to do but will not be able to achieve until she overcomes.

Beside her, Eggsy mechanically shucks off his shoes.

They clamber into their beds, clothes changed.

She thinks about heights-how something so far away can come up so fast. The jump her mother took with one hand curled around Roxy's wrist. The falls she sees in her dreams where she doesn't stumble, goes down with her.

Roxy has seen too many people die. It shouldn't make a difference why this particular way frightens her, or why it still continues to after all these years. She should be stronger. Stronger means Lancelot, and Lancelot means there's something at the end.

She's barely dozed off when she hears, "Rox? You awake?"

"I'm awake," Roxy says, drowsily, and she hears him sit up. She snaps out of it quickly. "Is everything all right?"

"It's fine. Merlin's psychological thing's just keeping me up."

Roxy blinks up into the darkness, processing it.

"It bothers you?" she asks, at last.

"It's..." Eggsy hesitates. "How do you feel about it?"

"I'm used to reprogramming," she tells him. "I'm not used to this."

She's used to military simplicity. They don't care about who you are. They don't care about what you like. What hurts you. What scares you. What could be used against you as an individual. You function as one unit and you do it by instinct. Complete the objective. No one is more important. It's odd to suddenly think about yourself, make everything about you.

In the dark, she can almost imagine the expression on Eggsy's face.

"What did you expect, when you came here?" Roxy asks, rolling onto her side.

"For Kingsman?"

"I mean outside of that. The training."

"I don't know." He shifts on his bed, likely to make himself more comfortable. "Being a spy. Something posh like how to eat properly. I like the dogs, though. You?"

"I expected all the things they'd teach if you were the Royal Marines," Roxy says truthfully. She's well aware that Merlin has the place bugged back and forth, and he might take it as a suggestion.

Eggsy, to her surprise, laughs. "It's definitely the same," he says, and because her eyes have adjusted, she can see his smile. "You're not wrong."

"You're with the Marines?"

His smile drops from his lips. She gets the feeling she wasn't supposed to ask. "Was for a bit, yeah."

There's a tense moment where she knows for sure he's preparing himself for the inevitable question.

Roxy just rolls back onto her back, drumming her fingers on her stomach. "I haven't been a civilian for a long time," she says, staring up at the ceiling of the bunker.

He doesn't answer.

"I thought Kingsman would give us a harder time becoming agents."

"Must be the donations," Eggsy says conversationally, after a moment. There's a bite under there, one she reads as a rather heated opinion on privilege and opportunity. Or not. Recently she's begun questioning her instinct to psychoanalyze everyone and everything.

She turns her head and watches Eggsy rearrange the blankets around what is likely his sleeping pug. He's gentle with him, and has been more and more careful ever since Charlie threw ice water into his bed.

She doesn't come up with anything in the end.

"How has training been?" Percival asks, idly stirring his tea with the spoon. They're in one of the HQ drawing rooms, because after this, Roxy has a test that she could be revising for. She irritated, for lack of a better word, and she knows Percival can read this.

"You put Merlin up to the anti-reprogramming," she says, for lack of anything other to say. "It's manageable."

Percival doesn't smile. He doesn't say yes or no. He doesn't say anything, actually, instead of: "And the cherimoya?"

"They were fine," she acknowledges, recalling the taste of custard on her tongue. Eggsy liked them, so she let him bring the rest back home when he went to visit. It'd been an entire bag, after all. She wasn't even sure how Merlin had finished his.

Percival gives her another two bags of green fruit. They're soft to the touch, and they look like little egg-shaped kiwis that just happen to have a cut off stem at the end.

"Feijoas," he tells her. "From New Zealand. They're ripe."

She wonders if this is a hobby of his after missions to go to farmer's markets. Somehow, the thought of needing to buy groceries in order to keep sane seems ridiculous until she remembers this is Kingsman.

Roxy accepts them, curling her hands over the straps to test out their weight. "And one bag to Merlin?"

Percival takes a sip of his tea, crossing his legs. "One bag to Eggsy," he corrects. "Now go off to your test."

One way or another, as the days pass by, Roxy and Eggsy share a talk about the people in their lives, and about where they fit in.

He tells her about his mom and his sister, and she tells him about her father. Safe topics. Good topics about people they love. In the cover of the night when everyone else is asleep in the bunker, and Roxy can pretend it's fine.

He shares, Eggsy does, like he trusts her.

It just takes a while for Roxy to realize she trusts him too, but once she does, she doesn't question it. Military life teaches you to stop caring about things that were said or used to be said, about not saying anything at all. You have only a certain time until deployment again. Of course, it's not the case in Kingsman, but sometimes it feels like it for her. She doesn't know what happened for him to leave the Marines, but she really doesn't think her knowing why matters.

"Rox," Eggsy says one night, a few hours after lights out when she can't sleep.

Roxy waits, but he doesn't say a word. "Yes?"

"I'm glad you're here." It takes her aback how he says it-he doesn't blurt it out. It's quieter than that, almost a murmur. "Dunno what I'd do if you weren't here to keep me from going mad. Or to talk to."

"Likewise," she replies, but it's not enough to answer him. It doesn't feel like enough.

He tells her about Dean, a few weeks later. He's got a black eye and she's got a matching one, and they're trying not to laugh at how badly Charlie's two looks. Eggsy says it so casually that she almost doesn't take it in at first, before she stops smiling abruptly.

Roxy looks at him, but he's not looking at her, scratching behind JB's ear like he was just talking about the weather.

She doesn't know what to say, and he seems to get it.

"He's gone now," he says, tone purposefully light, like growing up in an abusive home with an abusive step-parent is something normal, something he doesn't want to really inconvenience on someone else. "Harry promised they'll make sure he keeps to the restraining order."

Her mouth is dry, and she's reminded of the conversation in the bunker. The Not Enough part of her own reply.

"Eggsy," she says, and it's only then that he turns to look at her. Roxy doesn't know the right thing to say or the right way to respond. She doesn't know if what she's feeling now is empathy or something else.

"Yeah, Rox?" he asks, at last.

"Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's not...that was a heavy topic to share," she tells him. "I'm worried that you might not be."

He doesn't laugh. "It's okay," he says, quietly. "Just thought you should know it, maybe." He changes the conversation after that, as though it doesn't matter.

Roxy tells him about her mother, eventually, as an even trade.

She says, "Have you got a minute, Eggsy?" and he says, "'Course, yeah," because he's Eggsy. After nights out, they slip out of the bunker, and climb up into the Kingsman building. The upper rooms of HQ are always open for anyone to use, but she ignores that and brings them outside. Merlin probably has this place bugged there and back, but she wants at least some illusion of the privacy.

Eggsy, to his credit, hasn't said anything. He just follows as she starts speaking as she walks.

There's no real destination. There's just Roxy who paces.

The words are heavy at first, because this is the first time she's not just tried to push them down, stop thinking it because she's jeopardize the mission otherwise. The sentences gum up in her throat, and at some points they filter over into rambling she doesn't even realize she's doing until she does.

In the darkness, his knuckles brush the back of her hand.

"Rox," Eggsy says quietly, and she sucks in a breath of air before she lets it out. His fingers curl so that his hand holds her. It should feel comforting, but all it does is feel grounding.

"You've got my secret now too," Roxy says, and she squeezes it, for something to do, to give herself courage.

He squeezes back, and somehow that says everything.

They partner up on making psych profiles for their mentors. Eggsy's is a good paragraph in from what she can see when she hears the scratch of his pencil stop and she looks up.

"What's wrong?" she asks, as she watches the spread of his smile.

"Nothing," he says, and he sounds so happy. "Be right back." He doesn't even stop for her to answer, getting up and going to the doorway with the happiest look on his face to the man in the Kingsman suit and glasses, umbrella hooked over his arm.

Charlie in the group beside them mutters something unsightly under his breath.

Roxy makes sure to accidentally miss and hit him in the arse the next time they're having tranquilizer dart training.

It's no secret out there that Galahad's a bit...unusual, even among the Kingsman agents. When you're in a line of work like international espionage and intelligence on this scale, of course your psych evals differ from the average military officer. But rumours fly easily with Eggsy's mentor, and it's easy to tell when things start to upset him. Roxy starts shooting them down the instant she can, and Eggsy's surprised but happy expression always gets to her.

It's more than obvious that Galahad is Eggsy's favourite person—he falls over himself in puppyish eagerness to please and goes out of his way to do impressive things specifically when the agent shows up. On more than one occasion, Roxy is stuck with her best friend being a show off. She doesn't mind it, but eventually, she does come to wonder.

So next time her Kingsman mentor visits her, she asks Percival, "Does Galahad know Eggsy likes him?"

"Good tea," Percival compliments, sipping from the offered cup. He always needs one if you want to get him to talk, and the only thing he'll drink outside of his own things is something personally approved for by Merlin himself—which is a story Roxy intends to find out another time.

"It should be," she says. "Merlin gave it to me when I said you were coming. So, does he?"

He takes another slow sip, perhaps sensing her personal investment in her question. "Galahad knows everyone who likes him," he says carefully, but she doesn't miss the look in his eyes.

Precision, Roxy reminds herself, of Merlin's lessons. Ask specific questions.

But honestly, being sneaky with a Kingsman agent?

"I mean," Roxy clarifies bluntly, "does he know that Eggsy fancies him?"

Percival considers this. "Galahad has been alone for a very long time, in one form of the answer."

It's vague and it's typical of him. "So he knows?" And he's stringing Eggsy along? Trying to be polite?

He just stares at her, and promptly puts his cup down. Irritably, he says, "I can't keep spelling this out for you," and leaves behind his latest souvenir—a bunch of mandarins from mainland China, one bag this time.

Why on earth he's the one frustrated, she'll never know. Roxy stews on the subject as she unpeels them, even when Eggsy swings on over out of nowhere and gleefully nips the slice out of her hand. They're in one of the many drawing rooms; he must've been looking everywhere for her.

"You're in a good mood," she notes after his habitual greeting hug. This time it's one-armed, a fact she's only sour about until she sees his face.

"Guess what I got," he says, eagerly, kind of smugly, all cheeky—and then he's shoving his present at her like he's not over twenty.

Roxy shoves it back from her face to get a proper look at it. "A mug?" It's a gaudy thing; all bumpy ceramic and painted in the neon splashes of paint.

"Lookit the name."

" 'EGGSy'," Roxy reads. "Did Daisy make this?"

He beams. It makes him look younger than they both are, too young for the secrets they're taught. "Ain't it something? She made one for you too, but you're going to have to come over to dinner so she can give it to you all good and proper. Pretend to be surprised when you get it, yeah? It's supposed to be a secret."

She inspects it. "How'd you get to knowing about something like this? We don't usually have much free time."

"Harry said there was an empty spot and offered it."

"Harry?"

"Sorry—Galahad," Eggsy says, raising his voice on the second word. "Merlin read me the riot act on spilling confidential information, but we made a deal. I can call Harry his name in private."

"Sounds intimate," Roxy says slyly. She's only slightly disappointed when he doesn't elaborate. "So tell me about how Daisy's doing in class?"

The end of year recruit-mentor joint-mission for the second year goes as well as she thinks it'll go. Percival's a sharpshooter in specialty if it isn't infiltration or distance, and his style of mentoring is a reflection of that: he supervises, observes, and takes a few shots of his own with more cool-hearted almost elegant accuracy if he finds her sniperwork amiss, but only when he needs to and without telling her.

Roxy's done tours, but there's something different between being on a battlefield and being an agent of an independent international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion. Something dangerous that sets her blood pumping. With a partner like Percival, it's actually quite a thrill.

The only terrible part of it is that his mood gets fouler the more the mission parameters get more and more pronounced. "The mountains," he mutters to himself as he's going through the information in his Kingsman glasses when they're in their hotel room in Grenoble. "Should have known."

Roxy's preparing her handgun; the next round will have Percival spotting her, and while she knows she won't misfire, there's always a worry something might jam inside. Eggsy has light fingers, but Roxy's never been able to grasp it, so if she gets caught, she'll have no choice but to either run and let Percival do it for her, or waste time darting the witnesses and possibly fail.

It's odd he hates the place. The Rhône-Alpes region of France is nice, and the tram comes less than every five minutes on the weekdays. "Something wrong with the mountains?"

Percival ignores her, and goes through the settings of his watch. "There's been a change of plans, Morton," he tells her, before he remembers to turn off the information feed. It's the only hint that he's even close to frazzled. "I'll have to take care of something that'll be getting in your way. You'll be without a sniper at your back."

Roxy starts to take apart the gun. It's a good thing she still brought her own, still tucked away in the guitar case. "Then I might as well be my own."

He pauses. For a moment, she sees his approving smile before it vanishes like it was never there. "I'll leave it to your discretion. Consider it as a test of your skills in the field without me."

It goes well, all things considered. Sniping is Roxy's natural inclination, and she's done it more than enough times in the field and in training for a change of plans to even remotely affect her negatively.

Percival shows up when she's finished. She offers him her sniper rifle so he can look through the scope.

"Well done," he murmurs, and while she's never sought for the approval like Eggsy obviously does from his own mentor, she finds herself smiling either way.

Merlin assigns them something simple when they come back. They're meant to snipe-tag passerbyers in the London core with prototype tracking chips. They're small little microscopic beads that will collect information and dissolve under the soles of shoes like dust once they're done. Shoot miniature magnets onto them, and then Merlin's handlers will take care of the rest. In other words, perfect for precision target practice. It's nice of Merlin to be considerate.

Eggsy is missing all of his shots.

Roxy's trainee glasses catch sight the red mini-chips bouncing off the brick concrete walls, off the cobblestone streets. She glances at him.

He has a clench in his jaw.

"Bugger." Eggsy fumbles with the magnets, before he catches a hold of himself, and draws in a sharp breath. He scrubs a heavy hand over his face. "Sorry, Rox, I'm almost done."

Eggsy's gift is his coordination; he aims true and it shoots true, and he's best with distance shots that nobody else can make, even if Roxy is better at precision.

She stares at his face for a moment as he's lining up his next shot, and makes a decision.

He jolts when she flips on the safety. "Rox, what-" Eggsy shuts himself down fast when she pries the rifle from his hands.

She starts to take it apart. "Merlin?" She doesn't bother waiting, for either his confirmation or Eggsy's reaction-which is shamed silence, him staring darkly at the box with the target magnet bullets. With every piece she disassembles, Eggsy's flinches. "Requesting an alternate time to finish this assignment without penalty."

They get one second-chance and a reasonable favour granted with Merlin; that's the unspoken rule. "Confirmed. Pack up and return the kit, and report to me Monday at 800 hours."

She turns off the display on her glasses, Roxy breathes, trying to reign in her thoughts. Eggsy, in the meantime, settles next to the edge. His body language is closed off.

"Eggsy?" He's not looking up at her, and she's worried. Wondering. She settles down beside him, their thighs pressed together. "Eggsy." She leans into him. "Talk to me."

It occurs to her that she doesn't know how to do this. She's never really known.

She thinks about all those other times she never knew. She thinks about how he hugs, how tactile he is. She thinks about how much he cares, much more than anyone else she's ever known.

Roxy slides a hand over the back of his neck. Eggsy starts, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't push her away.

"Eggsy," she murmurs, "are you okay?"

He stares down. "I'm not feeling so good today," he admits, and she has to look away.

It'd be redundant to ask him if he wanted to talk about it. "We did get a pass from Merlin," she tells him, feeling helpless. "D'you just want to kip out and go for some lollies?" She doesn't turn her head, doesn't stare, but she only stills in surprise when he leans back against her.

Eggsy puts his head on her shoulder and doesn't move.

"Eggsy?" she hedges.

"In a bit," he says, and his voice breaks slightly. "I'm sorry, Rox."

It should be her to him.

Roxy grew up too fast. Eggsy doesn't need to, she thinks. Of course, what does she know? He probably already did, long before anyone ever even thought about it in the first place.

"Eggsy," she says, "I love you, you know."

Eggsy says, "I love you too, Rox."

The sun's setting, and they haven't even put the rifle away.

"I'm worried about you," she says.

"I want to help," she says.

"I want to do things that will help," she says.

"But I don't know how," Roxy admits, "and that's what kills me. You don't have to tell me. You don't need to. You don't have to tell me anything."

"Rox," Eggsy says, and she shuts up. "It's just. Just leave it, please?"

She hugs him, after a while, and his shoulders slump as if in quiet relief.

In some sense of the thing, perhaps they understand each other better than most.

They're returning back to base to drop off the supplies and there's Agent Galahad, who's there with Merlin discussing something. Merlin wordlessly collects the kit and returns to his station, but Galahad remains.

"Eggsy," Galahad says. He acknowledges Roxy with a nod and she nods back, before his eyes slide back to Eggsy and they soften. "I'd like to take you somewhere, if you're free after this."

She looks at Eggsy, expecting to see that eagerness spread on his face; Roxy's surprised to see something akin to embarrassment. "Yeah? Yeah. I'm free," Eggsy says, and it's like today never happened. None of the frustration. None of the anger. Just embarrassment. Shame? Or is she over-analyzing this?"Just let me-let me go get my stuff."

"There's no rush," Galahad reassures him, but Eggsy's already racing off, Merlin division doors closing behind him. The handlers are at their stations and talking into their mikes efficiently. Galahad leans back casually on one of the desks and looks all the contented to wait.

She hasn't any reason to stay. They're strangers, no need to be acquainted, but there's an aura about him. Roxy has no doubt he'll entertain her just to be polite; but small talk feels odd at this point. They're not colleagues. Not friends.

Roxy says, "He had a bad day," because she knows he should at least know.

Something flickers in Galahad's eyes. "I see."

Does he, she wonders. Does he really?

Blokes tend to get into moods that are more obvious; stemmed silence—but Eggsy's are unique to him, just like everyone else's are. The thing is he hasn't got a temper that builds up. Roxy's not even sure if he knows what that is on an emotional scale: Eggsy's just got empathy, a bucket load of it, and the heart to stretch out until it snaps like a rubber band and welts up raw. If he was furious, it would latch onto everything else-it wouldn't be just dry anger.

And the thing is, has Galahad ever seen Eggsy angry or distressed or upset? Roxy wonders if Galahad knows exactly what he's doing, or if he's unaware just how deep Eggsy's loyalty and trust can run, how much Eggsy looks at him.

But she doesn't know them. She doesn't even know all of Eggsy, and she hardly knows Eggsy's Harry over Kingsman's Galahad.

It can't be that Galahad doesn't know, because Eggsy isn't exact subtle. And it takes no rocket scientist to understand that the connection Eggsy's current mood is and something that's happened during his mentor-candidate mission.

There's nothing more to be said, so she excuses herself and leaves.

Eggsy is sitting on his bed, arms folded around JB as the pug licks at his face. Roxy takes that in for a moment: his body language, the way his expression seems stilted, how he's still dressed in his training uniform and boots instead of trackies and trainers.

She sits on the edge of his bed. Eggsy doesn't move.

"Do you want me to tell him you're unwell?" Galahad will take the hint, then, if he hasn't already.

He doesn't make any indication he's listening, but Roxy knows him.

"Eggsy," she says.

Eggsy shrugs, and that's what sets her off. She's never been particularly delicate at dealing with her own feelings when she's been bothered; but she tries her best.

Roxy takes in a breath, feeling her hands clench. "I don't like it," she tells him, "what this is doing to you." It's not anger, but her voice is tight nevertheless. It was all fun and games when it was Eggsy looking at Harry, but now it's not anymore. Something happened. Something flipped the switch.

"I'm all right, Rox," Eggsy says, after some time. He passes JB onto her, as he goes to reach for his things under the bed. "Just an off day."

No, Roxy thinks, it isn't.

Out loud, she says, "Okay."

She's a good shot. She's a good soldier. She follows orders, she knows how to prioritize the mission. She's efficient, you know. One of the best there is, especially as a marksman.

But she's also Eggsy's friend too, now.

And she doesn't like this situation one bit.