Author: Regency

Title: Reverberation

Pairing: Eggsy Unwin & Harry Hart

Rating: G/Everyone

Warnings: None

Summary: Set post-Kingsman. Harry is back, but Harry is different. So is Eggsy. They make the most of it.

Prompt: Hartwin+ "You left without saying goodbye…I hate you for that."

Author's Note: Come flail with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose. (I haven't written Hartwin in ages, I apologize if it's crap.)

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from the Kingsman films. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

"You left without saying goodbye. I hate you for that." Eggsy can't take his eyes off Harry, anyway, angry as he is. Harry's a ghost he can't see through. Harry is real, not more than an arm's length away at most. Eggsy's tries putting more distance between himself and his old mentor, but Harry just closes the gap. No aggression in his body language. He's all manners, but he isn't giving up either.

"I meant to come back."

"Yeah? 'Cause last I saw, Merlin had to drag your arse home by your ear. You was coolin' your heels in the Caribbean reading Hamilton's biography on a beach somewhere." Just say you didn't miss me so I can go. Harry's a career spook; if he hadn't wanted Merlin to find him, he wouldn't have been found. Harry wanted them to know he lived and that he was choosing to stay away. And then he came home. It doesn't fit.

Harry clears his throat and lowers his eyes to examine his scuffed Oxfords. Eggsy stares at them, too. "That's not an exact picture of events, but Merlin's made his point." He frowns, then tries for a rueful grin that isn't sincere enough for Eggsy to believe. "As ever."

This is Harry trying to bridge the divide years have wedged between them. This is Harry being shit at it. Not knowing what to say. Being imperfect. Being scuffed. Being as un-Harry as Harry Hart can get, for Eggsy's sake.

"If you weren't getting a tan, what were you doing?"

Harry's features harden into an expression that's technically unchanged but angrier in way Eggsy couldn't describe to anyone else. Whatever it was he spent two years doing, it wasn't any old holiday. Holidays didn't leave shadows like that.

"Putting an end to Valentine's lieutenants. Remnants of his technological mega-alliance have been trying to duplicate the effects of his mobile chips since they made their ignominious debut. I stopped them." His voice is clipped, precise. Eggsy has met enough Kingsmen to know that degree of brutality exercised is directly proportional to the brevity used to describe it. He decimated them. "I know better than many what they're capable of and I wouldn't wish it on people I loathed, much less innocent, oblivious civilians. That put me behind in my return and I am sorry. I didn't mean to make you wait."

He clasps his hands neatly over the handle of his umbrella at the close of his monologue. His hands are almost the same as they were when Eggsy held them during his coma. They'd been cold and limp, yet it was that lifelessness that had made Eggsy hold on tighter. They bear more scars than back then. Improperly treated shrapnel wounds, chemical burns; there's a notable chunk of flesh gone from the side of his right palm and pinkie. And that's just his hands. When a man fights a war by himself, against himself, every soldier is a casualty. But not every one is lost.

Eggsy's anger fizzles as abruptly as it sparked. "I'm still pretty pissed at you."

Something complicated flashes in Harry's eyes before he manages to wrest it under his usual iron control. He bows his head, eyes roving aimlessly behind his glasses. "I understand."

Eggsy subtly inserts himself between Harry and the tailor shop's front door. He doesn't want Harry leaving till they've had this out. If he goes quiet on them they might not find him again.

"Not always gonna be mad, though."

"No?" That's the Harry he knows, too, that flicker of brows and twist of lips. Eggsy's NLP training tells him anticipation, curiosity, positive response; his gut says hope. How long you been alone out there? Harry's been out in the cold, incommunicado and flying blind for years. It's no wonder he can barely keep up his end of a conversation.

In a strange counterpoint to how Harry's dogged Eggsy's steps since he returned, he retreats from Eggsy, body tense with wariness at the younger man's approach. His facial muscles shift, twitch, relax, right about the jaw and eyes. There it is again. What's going on in there, Harry?

It dawns on Eggsy as he spies Harry surreptitiously verify the availability of exit points that he doesn't know if Eggsy's his enemy at this moment. He'd rather retreat than fight me. He's giving Eggsy ground while trying to avoid being backed into a corner. Where Eggsy has youth on his side, Harry has experience and he's voluntarily quitting the field before anything can begin.

Eggsy finally identifies Harry's conflicted body language and the look in his eyes: a struggle between softness and growing animal panic.

"Stand down, luv. 'M not tryin' to fight."

Harry doesn't freeze, exactly. He resumes more natural movement that to anybody else would signify relaxation, but Eggsy can see it for what it is–a tactic. Harry's trying to see if he's being lured into a false sense of security before being subject to attack. He thinks he's hurt Eggsy badly enough to warrant retribution. That idea strikes Eggsy in the ribs. As if he'd ever lash out at somebody he loves like that, as if Harry ever had to worry about not making the list.

Eggsy doesn't even know if Harry's got any fresh injuries that need seeing to. Merlin probably would have carried Harry to the infirmary by the scruff of his neck if he was hurt, but Eggsy wants to be sure. He saw all that blood smeared on Harry's glasses; it had to have come from somewhere. It came from Harry.

He extends a hand. Harry keeps well back. He lets it hang in the air, not meant to harm but as a peace offering

"Can I–" He corrects himself from growing habit, "May I?"

Asking for permission to touch is a fiddly custom that he's still getting his head around. He never had to worry much about it with his mates, considering it was usually him with the personal space issues, but Kingsman agents are different. They don't encroach on each other's spheres without consent. Doing it's the fastest way to earn a one-way ticket to Medical. Harry's a special case. Harry's witnessed stuff that Eggsy can imagine because he's seen some of it, too, and he's survived things that Eggsy never wants to. Unlike Eggsy, he didn't have anyone to tell him it was all right, that he'd get through. He just got through.

Nobody makes do without taking damage, not even the vainglorious Galahad.

"Harry, may I?"

Harry assesses him blatantly, in itself as much a warning as Eggsy could hope for. His war injuries are catalogued and stored: fractured and badly set collarbone from his teens, wrenched knee from Toulouse, dislocated arm from Burundi, shattered wrist from that one mission in the Maldives. If Harry targeted even one of his injuries with the intent to incapacitate he could end Eggsy's career in blink, forget making his escape.

Harry painstakingly sets aside his Rainmaker. Eggsy isn't stupid enough to mistake the act for surrender; Harry doesn't need material weaponry to fight, they're just props for his act. Harry's a showman and a soldier in a suit, but only a fool would mistake the charisma of the first for ineffectiveness in the other.

They halve the space between them. Eggsy touches Harry's arm, his shoulder, lets his fingers rest along the bobbing ridge of his Adam's apple. Harry's hands fist at his sides. Beyond that, Harry doesn't respond to the contact.

Eggsy gets it, quick as lightning. Harry's afraid, under the wary bluster, and that's the last thing Eggsy wants, for Harry to be afraid of what he might do. The worst part is that Harry doesn't even seem to notice it. He's just reacting, anticipating, and getting Eggsy wrong in the offing.

Harry wants to come back. He can't come back with he and Eggsy going three rounds every time they meet. This stops here.

Eggsy holds all the cards here. This isn't how he wants the upper hand.

He slides his hand round to cup the back of Harry's neck, then stands still as the dead while Harry adjusts. The muscles under his hand tense, as do Harry's shoulders, his legs, his hands. He's fighting down every instinct telling him Eggsy means to do him harm. Eggsy's fighting the ones telling him to retreat to a safer vantage point to observe. Two years. Their bodies have evolved into the weapons they need to fight their battles; they've diverged away from and against each other. But that's psychology. We can fight psychology.

Eggsy maintains his position, putting the ball squarely in Harry's court.

Harry's composure slips. It starts in his eyes, where acid blankness bleeds into something more human and recognizable. He looks away from Eggsy for a moment, an intuitive act of trust. Spies don't turn their backs on those they expect to do the backstabbing. Something in Eggsy's chest eases, his battle-hardened nerves stand down. They can come back from this.

"Hey," he says when he has Harry's attention again. Might as well start over.

Harry smiles one of his reserved, fond little smiles. "Hello."

Eggsy didn't realize how much he missed seeing them.

"Welcome back, Harry."

"Thank you."

It takes hugging Harry for Eggsy to realize they've never done it before. Not once in the time they knew each other. It only takes once for him to know he's been missing out. Harry hugs the way he does everything, with full investment and full marks for style.

He wraps his arms around Eggsy's shoulders and waist and tucks his face trustingly into Eggsy's neck. Eggsy's clenches his hands in the fabric of Harry's suit to keep him close when Harry starts to release him. Not yet, okay? Not yet.

Harry's head weighs heavy on his shoulder and the position he's in must be wrenching his neck something awful but Harry doesn't move again. He just holds on to Eggsy and breathes. Like he missed me, same as I missed him. Maybe Eggsy isn't the only one who's been dreaming about a second chance.

Life's a bit shit and good things don't happen half as much as they should, not in their business, but this one impossible thing? Eggsy'll take this. He'll take having Harry back again. No questions asked.

Reverberation: n. Physics. the persistence of a sound after its source has stopped, caused by multiple reflection of the sound within a closed space.