Chapter Text
Being out at Kingsman didn’t feel at all as being out at Cambridge. There were very few people at Cambridge who ever got to know him as anything other than a gay man. It had been an active choice he had made to take the opportunity to present himself as who he was to everyone right away. He had known it was a risk, but one he had been willing to take.
Stepping back into the closet had also been an active choice. He hadn’t thought so at the time, but in retrospect he knew it had been.
Coming out at Kingsman was an accident, not an unfortunate one, it turned out, but an accident all the same. At least that’s how it felt right now. The other agents changed around him, keeping a distance, very clearly avoiding certain topics. Not to mention the ones who outright ignored him or just pretended what had happened never had.
At Cambridge, he would never have let people who treated him like this into his life. Now he didn’t have much of a choice. “The next battle” as Lancelot had called it, was in so many ways harder than the first.
It really hit home how different things were now the first time he was on a joint mission. He and Gawain were in Johannesburg and Harry managed to get himself nicked by a knife. It was a scratch, doing more harm to his shirt than his skin, but it drew blood.
He saw Gawain’s look and his hesitation to even help him off the ground. It stung worse than the blade.
“I don’t have AIDS,” muttered Harry when the job was done and they got back to their hotel room. He shut himself in the bathroom, closing the door in Gawain’s face as he tried to apologise. He didn’t want to hear it.
The fabric had stuck in the wound and trying to get it loose to be able to patch it up hurt like Hell. He had to stop on multiple occasions just to breathe through it. That was the reason his eyes teared up.
Or so he kept telling himself.
Being out also didn’t seem to stop some of his fellow agents from keeping on talking as if there were only heterosexuals in the room. Perhaps Kay thought about the words he used more, but he was also the only one.
Nor did it stop Lancelot from biting every time someone did say something homophobic. And for some reason that felt more humiliating than anything Bedivier or Tristan or any of them said. As if he needed her protection, as if he couldn’t stand up for himself. The little poof needed a woman to defend him.
After a meeting, where a fairly innocent comment from Bedivier about how Gawain’s candidate was clearly a sissy from the way he’d screamed when he got hit with the rubber bullets had escalated to a verbal sparring session between him and Lancelot, Harry’d had enough.
“Jenny, can I have a word?” he asked as they all started to scatter in the hallway.
“Sure, luv,” said Lancelot. She gave Gawain a pat on the upper arm. “See you down there, don’t start without me.”
Gawain laughed and made no promises, but for some reason he winked at Harry. Harry had no idea why and it made him even more annoyed.
“This seems serious,” Lancelot said, only half-joking, when Harry opened the door to the cigar lounge on the other side of the hallway. “What’s wrong?”
Harry carefully closed the door behind them, taking an extra, deep breath through his nose before turning around. Lancelot leaned against the back of one of the leather chairs, puzzled and concerned.
“You have to let me take these fights now,” said Harry.
Lancelot frowned. “Which ones?”
“The… queer ones.”
“But you don’t.”
“They are my fights to take, now it just looks like I’m hiding behind you.”
“Today wasn’t about you.”
“Yes, it was.”
“No, it wasn’t. I’ve told you, it’s not personal, it's systematic.”
“But it’s my problem! It’s my choice. I’m fine with it.”
Lancelot straightened up a little, looking at him as if he was mad. “You’re fine with it?”
“Yes.”
“Why? And more importantly, how?”
“You don’t get it.”
“Clearly not.”
“Sometimes you just have to… not make a big deal out of it. Every time you open your mouth you remind them about it. Every time! I’m never going to be one of them again if you keep reminding them that I’m not.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, her voice condescending. “You can’t even begin to imagine the amount of shit I’ve taken in that room. How much I’ve had to swallow to just be at that table. And yet not a single one of you fuckers treats me like an equal. They won’t forget that you’re bent just because I shut up.”
“Then why can’t you just shut up for both our sakes? Why can’t you—”
“Hamish is in the room too.”
Harry stopped.
“Hamish is in the room too,” Lancelot said again, calmer, quieter. “And he’s still voiceless. If you want me to take a step back, I will, but then you have to remember that he’s there too with no way to push back against any of it. And if you’re not going to do it, then I am. Because we can’t let them get away with it, even if it’s ‘just’ calling Clemens—”
“I think it’s Clark?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Even if it’s ‘just’ calling whatshisface a sissy, we can’t let them get away with it.”
“Why not?”
“Because who we are cannot be an insult!” Lancelot took a deep breath through her nose. “If they insult you I don’t give a fuck, you’re a vain, naive idiot, but if they use what you are as an insult I’m not going to let it slide. Do you understand the difference?”
Harry nodded, he understood but he didn’t agree.
“Good,” she said. “Anything else you want to be a man about and tell me what I can or cannot do, or am I allowed to go get my arse kicked by Thomas?”
“No.”
“Lovely.”
With that she left, closing the door just a little too hard. Harry exhaled through his nose. He really was a naive idiot for thinking that he could talk the stubborn woman out of anything.
William, one of the younger tailors, stopped Harry as he was about to climb the stairs at the back of the shop. Harry, one foot already on the lowest step, turned around, racking his brain as to what he had forgotten to do this time.
“I’m running late to the Table,” said Harry. “Is it important?”
“No, I just, I never catch you alone and I wanted to tell you that I think that was awfully brave what you did.”
He extended his hand. Harry looked at it, frowning, before taking his foot off the step and reaching out to shake William’s hand. It took another moment before the situation clicked and a soft warmth spread through Harry.
“It was that or exploding,” he said as he let go.
“Still. Awfully brave.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
Harry smiled. He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t known, hadn’t even considered…
“I need to go upstairs,” he said.
“Of course. Didn’t mean to keep you.”
They both nodded and Harry headed up the stairs. He had to put a lot of energy into not accidentally smiling during the meeting, as Hamish gave them all updates on what a terrible state the world was currently in and how awful the recruits had performed on the parachute test.
Mr Pickle went absolutely crazy when he saw Lancelot standing outside the door. Or perhaps it was because of the bag she was carrying which clearly contained food.
“Young Merlin said chips were a good way to get in the door,” she said, holding up the bag.
Harry frowned as he opened the door properly to let her in while keeping Mr Pickle from the door with his foot. “What are you on about? Haven’t you made yourself nine copies of my key?”
“They are just for emergencies, luv,” she told him. “I’m not in the habit of breaking into my colleagues' homes.”
“Mhm…” Harry muttered and took the bag from her. “I still don’t get why you’d need to bring chips.”
“I’m leaving for Moscow tomorrow,” she said. “Should be just in and out, but you never know with that place.”
Harry nodded.
Lancelot cleared her throat. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. In case I…”
“Sorry for what?”
“Honestly, why do I bother?” Lancelot sighed and took off her jacket. “Let’s eat the chips before they are completely cold and soggy.”
Harry couldn’t argue with that and soon they sat on his sofa with the chips between them, still in the newspaper. Harry had even brought out some lukewarm beer.
“I suppose I’m getting old,” Lancelot said after a swing of the beer. “Aware of my own mortality or some shit but I didn’t want to go into the field with the last thing I said to you is that you’re a misogynistic arse just because you happen to have an opinion of how I do things.”
“Is that what you called me? I thought you said I was a naive idiot.”
“That part’s true, so I won’t apologise for it.”
“You don’t have to apologise for the other part either.”
Lancelot raised her eyebrows. “Telling me what I can and cannot do again, are we, Galahad?”
Harry rolled his eyes. She held out her bottle to lightly clink it with his, and he complied.
“I just don’t want to leave it like that,” Lancelot said. “You tried to stand up for yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with that, even if I don’t agree with how you do it.”
“You really are sentimental tonight.”
“I blame Martin,” Lancelot muttered. “That fucker haunts me.”
Harry took a couple of chips to stop himself from saying something stupid, but he was fairly sure that Lancelot would haunt him until his dying days. For better, for worse.
“Apology accepted,” he said once he had swallowed the chips.
Lancelot smiled at him.
“Don't take that as permission to die, though. Because I'm not going to forgive you for that.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Lancelot said, giving him a mocking salute. “Now go make me a martini, can't meet the comrades completely sober or they'll be suspicious.”
Harry didn't even bother rolling his eyes again. He just obeyed. He might have stood up to her once, but when it came to Lancelot, he was still very much a well trained puppy.
And if Moscow would turn out to not be just a quick in and out, he didn't want to pass on the opportunity to drink with her one last time.