A/N I seriously dislike that FFnet eats dashed. Why FFnet. Why.

Your Villain

"Have you seen my glasses?"

"They're on your head."

"Very funny."

"Galahad, I'm watching your feed right now."

"Then you had better be seeing a kitchen, because I'm at home."

It was funny really, for a spy organization, they were awfully trusting. All it took was a bespoke suit and some nicked glasses, and they let him on the jet. It almost made Eggsy wonder why he had to prove anything to them, anyway. Of course, it wasn't them.

It was Harry.

Harry, in his stupid blue cardigan with his creepy, stuffed dog. Harry, who had lashed out at him with anger and disappointment.

Eggsy had never needed an old man's respect before, there were none in his life who had deserved it. Until now.

"What do you mean you didn't send anyone else?"

The thin line of Merlin's mouth told him that his upset was helping no one. Harry was not in the mood for a scolding. He needed a reason as to why Arthur had stalled on the Valentine investigation.

"It was your case, and the others have their own work."

"Surveillance?"

"With Eggsy there-"

"Have tried talking to him?" He was not going to rely on that brash boy's understanding of reconnaissance. There had been a reason Harry had not gone on this mission, and seeing Eggsy jump into the middle of it was not high on his list of things to do.

They needed to get him out of there.

Merlin stood a little straighter, and the fire in his eyes let Harry know he had finally crossed a line. His friend was through putting up with his behavior.

"Of course I tried speaking with him. He's not answering. If all you're going to do is stand around and insult me and this agency, then I suggest you go home and rest Galahad. Like you were supposed to."

Unidentifiable neurotoxins and a coma were a damned nuisance. Time's inevitable march forward also meant that his recovery between knock outs was becoming ever longer. His dinner with Valentine and subsequent run in with him at the shop had flagged the field work as more dangerous, and thus taxing, than his currently healing body could handle.

If only Merlin wasn't so damn particular about the limits he would allow agents to push.

"I'm sorry."

It wasn't quite enough, but Merlin no longer looked ready to throw him out of his office.

Listening to a bunch of punters yell about things was not very interesting. Kentucky was also freakishly hot, especially in his new clothes. Eggsy squirmed in his seat, and the woman next to him flashed him a quick, irritated glance. He scowled. People were up on their feet around them, shouting and waving their hands, and he was the distraction?

Valentine wasn't anywhere he could see, and no one in the crowd looked particularly out of place. What the hell were they testing here? Didn't you typically need someone to watch a test while it was happening? Hopefully they weren't doing it through the scope of a sniper rifle.

"Eggsy, can you hear me?"

Oh shit. He instinctively slouched in his seat, trying to keep his head low to escape. Which was ridiculous, because Harry couldn't see him.

"Look, I know you're upset, but that is no reason to do something so foolish."

"Not upset." He rolled his eyes at himself. Good job staying hidden, Unwin. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Didn't want to disappoint you."

Silence. Perhaps they hadn't been completely sure he could hear them. Merlin's brief reports when he had thought he was Harry had been easy to ignore, the then much more stern 'Eggsy I know what you've done' a little less so. He couldn't ignore Harry, though.

"You didn't."

"Don't lie to me, I'm not a child."

The woman next to him looked at him once more, this time more wary than annoyed.

"Well, you're certainly acting like one." A very distinct sigh echoed in Eggsy's ear. "Yes, I was disappointed. Perhaps more in myself than you. I put everything on you, Eggsy, when I was the one who had something to prove. I needed a way to tell myself I hadn't destroyed your family, your life, when your father died. I thought the very organization that took him could save you, but that doesn't mean it was your only chance. You could have more than this."

Eggsy chewed his lip. He was now the only person left in the church not on their feet, praising the sermon and the Lord. He barely noticed. Harry was still looking for some kind of absolution from the ghost that clung to him. Eggsy barely remembered his dad, and Harry could have only spent so many months with the man before his death. Lee Unwin still managed to haunt them both. It wasn't really about the dead though, in the end. It was about those left alive, and what they needed.

"Maybe I don't want anything more than this."

There was a sound in his ear, some kind of acceptance, and he could imagine Harry smiling when he made it.

"That is all well and good-"

Eggsy's face flushed red at the sound of Merlin's voice. Had he heard all of that?

"-but we are in the middle of an investigation. Eggsy, have you spotted anything?"

"Nah, nuffin' but the freaks who go here."

"Then I want you to get out of the church, if it is ground zero for a test, we don't want you caught in it."

"Can do."

He stood, shouldering his way through the singing masses. The woman who had been seated next to him gave him the stink eye, but none of the other congregation members paid him any mind.

Then the singing died down and a new, high pitched note took over the air.

"For God's sake Eggsy, get out of there! Eggsy!"

Merlin tightened his grip on Galahad, no longer sure if he was restraining him, or comforting him. Either way, he needed to make sure he didn't do any more damage to the equipment in his office, or himself.

The agent in his grip was shaking, breathing loud and labored, as if he had just run through the massacre they had witnessed himself. He had laid waste to the monitor and left a decent impression on the wall when he had flung the chair at it. Then he had tried to take his rage out on the desk, only hurting his hands in the process. Small drops of blood were splattered across the steel surface, as if they had leaped from the screen to decorate his office. Harry's heart was beating at such a pace that Merlin could feel it drumming against the forearm he had locked around his chest.

"I want to let you go, can I do that?"

Harry's whole body heaved as he took a deep breath, and it took several before he stopped shaking and managed to nod. When Merlin released him, he rested his palms on the desk, body slumping.

"I've destroyed two generations of that family."

"You've done no such thing. You have no say in the actions of terrorists, and Valentine is to blame for this massacre. Or would you like credit for that as well?"

Harry turned his head to look at him, seeming too out of it from his ordeal in order to understand Merlin's anger. His eyes only managed to focus on him a moment before they were lost.

"You need to keep your head in order, Galahad." Conditioning generally made it so that when a Kingsman heard their codename, it pulled them to attention. It did little to focus the man in front of him, though he did finally stand straight. "Now we know what Valentine is up to, we have to stop him. This can't be for nothing. We need to tell Arthur what's going on."

Harry nodded, hands moving up and fingers curling. His eyes went down and he seemed to finally notice the blood on his bruised knuckles.

Arthur was in the dining room. He didn't seem to be much anywhere else these days.

"Were you watching?"

The look on his face was all the answer they needed. Merlin stayed by the doors while Harry walked down the side of the table to join Arthur at the head.

"How many times Galahad, before you realize-"

"You will not put this on him."

"And you will not speak to me that way, not after this mess. How did he even get to that church? What was he doing with our equipment?"

"Surely sir, that isn't the highest priority right now." Merlin took a careful step into the room. "We have a recorded confession from Valentine, but no idea how long until he enacts his plan. We need to move fast with the information we do have."

Arthur broke his heated staring match with Harry to look down the table towards Merlin. "Quite. We'll pass it along through our regular channels, filter it into MI6. They will deal with Valentine." He turned his head, eyes narrowing at Harry, who still loomed at his side. "And you and I Galahad, can finish this conversation-"

Harry slammed Arthur's face down on to the table, cracking his left cheek against the polished wood.

"What the heck are you doing?" Merlin charged down the room, palms itching for a gun. "You're upset, but there's no need to do anything rash."

"You will release me at once!" Arthur squirmed in his chair, fingers scrabbling at the table.

"Upset, yes, well, I'll admit to that." Harry's fingers tightened on the back of the older man's head, teeth barred as he leaned down towards his ear. "But I am not the one who has done something foolish."

"Harry, just let him go, don't do anything you're going to regret." Merlin gripped the back of the closest chair, knowing it was the best defense he would have if Harry really did decide to attack. He had just been lashing out in his office, trying to subdue him when he was actually fighting back would be much harder.

"Tell me Merlin, does this scar look familiar to you?"

His breath stopped short in his chest, and a weight seemed to fall in his stomach.

"You could have done a cleaner job of cutting it out."

"I didn't damage it, did I?"

"You know that isn't what I meant."

"Are you really telling me I need to be more merciful?"

"Your judgment is clouded Harry, don't even try and pretend that it isn't. Percival and Lancelot should be doing this."

"I don't think mercy is quite what we need right now, and you agree, or you wouldn't be here yourself."

"I'm here to make sure we don't lose another agent."

"Eggsy-"

"Was every bit a Kingsman as you or I."

Harry wanted to be noticed. He wanted every eye on him. He wanted to descend from the heavens in a fire of glory, and lash out with the veritable wrath of God. He wanted Valentine to see it coming, and he wanted him to suffer through it. It was of course, the worse thing he could possibly do. He clung to the fantasy on the long plane ride, letting it keep him focused.

Merlin had broached several other plans of attack, and it had been hell trying to listen to them.

He shot down their safest bet, destroy the base from a distance; not only because of the likelihood that the various missing persons were housed there, but because he needed a plan which would let him see Valentine die.

Except Valentine knew his face, and he couldn't see him coming, not if he wanted a real chance at taking him down. He closed his eyes a moment, reluctantly dispelling his fantasy in favor of coming up with another plan.

"I don't suppose we have a way of clearing the area before we head in."

Merlin's silence was oddly encouraging.

"We might, but it would require a certain... lack of mercy. And Valentine would definitely know someone was coming."

"We'll just have to time it right."

Killing a large portion of the world's leaders did not feel half as bad as watching one young man die.

The sheer number of bodies was almost astounding, before he remembered the much larger number they had planned on slaughtering.

"I've gotten into his network, Valentine is uh, sufficiently distracted, but it won't last forever." He was currently bent over a waste basket, vomiting, while the woman he had ordered to shoot Eggsy was patting his back. "He isn't alone."

"Understood."

Merlin had been worried Harry had been heading into the situation with all the fatalism of a suicide run. It had been strange to realize the better part of the man who had been his friend for so long was already dead.

It had been shot down in Kentucky, alongside a young man in a bespoke suit and a pair of stolen glasses.

"You couldn't possibly understand what it means to me to be your villain, Mr. Valentine. However ill gained your plot, your actions and what you hoped to achieve will make you a hero compared to me. You see, I don't plan on letting you die for a very, very, long time."