Chapter Text
James is quite accustomed to dramatic entrances. He’s a spy, so he’s pretty sure dramatic entrances are about as common as rainy days. Gawain once touched down to HQ just to begin frothing violently at the mouth because of a delayed reaction to a poison he unknowingly ingested on his mission. Harry once got his cover blown so bad, he cut off all communication and clawed his way back to Europe by the sheer force of his will, showing up at HQ like a half dead burglar. James jumped out of a helicopter one time, just for funsies. Percy threw a right fit over that.
Percy didn’t really like any of that shit. He entered just like how he did everything else in his life; deliberately. Quietly. Nothing with much flare.
But despite this, James really thinks there is something silently dramatic with how Percy stepped off a plane with a little girl glued to his side.
With that said, James is pretty fucking pissed at Percy right now. The bastard had adopted a child, and James figured it out through Merlin, when he passed him by the hallways and Merlin had clapped him on the shoulder along with a solemn, “He adopted the small assassin.”
His thoughts then jumped from And he didn’t even ask me? to Holy shit. Transitively, this makes me a father. Holy shit. in roughly three seconds.
James was quite ready to engage Percy in a conversation with panicked yelling the moment he got off the plane, but then he actually saw him. He saw Percy next to a young girl staring death into anybody looking at her.
James felt the words dry up in his mouth.
He delays the inevitable by hiding in Merlin’s office and watching Percy’s feed with him. The two get ushered into the medical bay, and barely minutes in, the girl nicks a scalpel from a nearby tray and tries to stab a nurse for trying to take Percy’s jacket off of her.
The feed focuses on the girl, and James figures Percy is fixing her with quite the look when he says “Roxy,” in a stern tone.
She sighs, quite exaggeratedly if you ask James, local exaggeration specialist, and places the scalpel into Percy’s waiting hand.
That’s what gets James. She gives the scalpel to Percy, instead of returning it to the tray or to the nurse. She gives it to Percy.
“Christ,” He tells Merlin. “She’s imprinted on him like a duckling.”
“Duckling trained for murder,” Merlin nods. “She can’t be with Percival when we debrief.”
“Obviously.”
“So you’ll have to watch over her.”
“What!?”
“You’re James,” Roxy Morton says, and does not ask, a few terrible moments later. Percy is getting debriefed in the next room and she’s lounging on an arm chair, tossing a lone grape up in the air before catching it. Looking at her, James realizes he feels inexplicably out of place.
“Yes I am,” James says carefully instead of asking where the grape came from. It probably isn’t important to the conversation at hand. “And you’re Roxy. It’s nice to meet you.”
James extends his hand for a shake, but Roxy just looks at his hand like she’s thinking about breaking his fingers. He tries not to feel too offended. She also rejected Percy’s handshake.
“Do you hate kids?” She asks, directing her finger-breaking glare up to James’ face.
“What, no!” James says, taking his hand back. It’s one hell of a glare. “No, I don’t hate kids. I just don’t really know what to do with you.”
“What to do with me,” Roxy repeats, her look turning particularly sharp. “I’m not an appliance.”
“Shit, that came out wrong.” James says because, right. Unwillingly trained to become a weapon. She’s been treated as an object for too long. “I just meant, I don’t really know how to...kids.”
“That’s not a verb,” Roxy raises an eyebrow.
“That came out wrong too.” By this point, James is pretty sure he could get an Olympic medal for outstanding backpedaling. “I just never spent any time with kids except for when I was one myself. After that I—”
“Became a spy?”
“Yes,” James sighs. “It’s not exactly a line of work where you see children often.”
“Fair enough,” She says. “When is Percy going to be done?”
“In a few minutes.”
“Okay,” And then Roxy starts staring at a part of the room where James is nowhere in her view. Basically, that’s the end of the conversation. Incredible.
James did not sign up for this.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” James says the second Percy is through the door.
“I know,” Percy says. “We should probably talk.”
“Yes, we should probably fucking do that.”
“Not here, though.” Percy glances at Roxy.
“Oh, don’t mind me.” She says. “I’m alright with watching your lover’s quarrel.”
“Outside. Definitely outside,” James agrees while Percy herds him out of the room.
“Okay,” Percy closed the door. He turns to James and says “You can start now.”
“Are you out of your goddamned mind?” James starts.
“Probably,” He at least admits. Percy looks like shit, James realizes. He’s all bandaged and medically well, but he looks tired. Resigned. James takes a deep breath, tries to calm himself down.
“Okay, I’ll start again, but this time with less yelling.” James says. “Percy, what the hell were you thinking?”
“In all honesty, I wasn’t.” Percy takes off his glasses. Runs a hand over his face. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just doing.” And James knows how it is. On a mission, nothing exists outside of the moment. But the moment is over and James and Percy have a kid“I’m sorry.” Percy says. “Not for doing it, but for not telling you or getting your side at all.”
“This all a bit of a disaster in the making, you realize.” James sighs and leans against the wall. “This is a lot. This is a kid.” And there’s so much more James wants to say (We’re agents, we can’t take care of her. I’m shit with kids. She could kill us in our sleep. This could destroy us.), but he can’t get the words out. If there’s one person James can always bet on rendering him speechless time and time again, it’d Percy.
“Do you want this?” Percy asks, stepping closer. “I didn’t get to ask you before, so I’ll ask now. Everything else aside, do you want this?”
The thing is, James would be a madman to say no. Yes, he’s never imagined it. Yes, he’s never given it any prior thought because the concept of children was terrifying. But if nothing went wrong, hell, even if everything went wrong, he’d be fucking daft to not want a family with the man he loves.
“For reasons beyond my explaining capability, I do. I do want this.” James says, and it sounds like a promise. He’s never been the type to break promises, after all. “Despite how this will surely blow up in our faces eventually, I want this. More importantly, I want this with you.”
Percy, in a word, looks stunned. As if he thought this couldn’t happen. As if he thought, fuck, that this would end them.
“Hey,” James says, reaching for Percy’s hand. He let’s a smirk tug on his lips. “If you think a highly trained ten year old assassin is enough to get rid of me, you’ll have to try harder, dear. Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Percy tells him, fingers lacing between James’. “I just didn’t think we would ever get this.”
“Why would you ever think that?”
Percy pulls back and raises an eyebrow. “We’re two homosexuals with a high mortality rate, and the last time you saw me with a child, you looked like you wanted to throw her out the window.”
“Well, fuck off, because you got it, love.” James ignores the subtle baby panic jab. “You got it the moment Roxy shot you in the gut. You got it the moment you didn’t deck me the first time I kissed you.”
Percy pulls him in for a kiss then. He clutches James’ lapels and pulls him in. James never gets tired of this. He never thinks he will.
“Now,” James says when Percy rests his head on his shoulder, content and quiet, just like everything else he does. “How sure are you Roxy totally pressed her ear against the door the entire time and listened to everything.”
“Completely sure,” Percy says. There’s a faint sound of some quick shuffling past the door. James can’t help but laugh.
---
Here is a handful of things Percy is: Intelligent. Taciturn at first, but is actually a sarcastic twat under all the reserve. The best sniper Kingsman has to offer. A secret Jane Austen lover. A romantic.
On paper, he and James shouldn’t have worked out all that well. Here is a handful of things James is: A talkative bastard who doesn’t know when to quit sometimes. A stress baker. An ex-theater kid. A specialist in undercover operations.
Working out together wonderfully was their big ‘fuck you’ to the universe, James figures. But he should have expected the universe to retaliate somehow, because now they have Roxy, and they need to work this out.
In a word, Roxy is something.
She’s in love with the dogs. When they first brought Roxy to their home, two large dogs bounded through the hallways to go and greet the new resident. James saw his dog’s life flash before his eyes when Roxy tensed up, worried she was going to karate chop Jan and Evangeline to an early doom. But then Jan licked Roxy’s face, and Roxy just melted. Roxy was then left there, standing by the door, running her fingers through the fur of two very happy dogs. She’s won their hearts over ever since, what with how the dogs follow her around the house wherever she goes.
(“If you’re agents, why do you both have dogs?” Roxy asked once, fingers scritching at Jan’s head. Evangeline draped her long self over Roxy, decorative couch potato she is, Roxy shifted her attention to Evangeline’s fur.
“We get them during the recruitment process.” James said, deciding to leave out the part where you totally have to shoot them at the end. “We choose them as puppies and train them. Responsibility and discipline and all that jazz.”
“Huh,” She said. “I want one.”
“No,” Percy said from where he was utterly failing at slicing tomatoes. The only reason James let Percy do it is because he’d get bitchy if he made a single comment about his abysmal kitchen skills. “Definitely not.”
“But I’m responsible and disciplined,” Roxy reasoned.
Percy gave James a look. A now look what you’ve done look. James replied with a I didn’t do anything look.
“Hey, you two.” Roxy snapped her fingers. “Don’t do that thing where you have conversations without talking. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“I was just telling James that he was a bad influence.”
“I was just telling Percy that I’m innocent.”
“So can I get a dog?”
“No.” Percy said while James said, just to piss Percy off a bit, “Yes.”
“Two dogs is enough,” Percy slaughtered a tomato beyond all recognition. “If you haven’t noticed, I also have two kids to take care of.”
“I can take care of myself,” James and Roxy said at the same time, both equally indignant.
“I’ve made my point,” Percy told them. “No dogs.”)
Roxy is an insatiable reader. James and Percy have quite the collection of bookshelves, showing their myriad of interests through each cracked spine. Roxy goes through them all. She’ll pick up a book in the morning and return it in the night, starting up all over again the next day. Roxy doesn’t seem to be picky. She reads Percy’s mushy romance novels, to James’ encyclopedias, to that one book about fly fishing that neither Percy nor James bought, but ended up in their home anyways. She’s commandeered ownership of James’ pair of glasses, which he never uses anyways, to research anything and everything she can’t read on paper.
(“Which one of you made the first move?” Roxy asked once during breakfast, halfway through a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice.
Percy choked on his juice while James rushed to say “Me, obviously.”
“That’s a lie. He’s lying,” Percy said after he recovered. “I asked him out first.”
“I courted you for months.”
“That was hardly courting—”
“I took you ballroom dancing.”
“On a mission.”
“I gave you flowers—”
“You gave me an aloe vera plant.”
“Well I couldn’t get you anything with pollen, could I?” James huffed, taking a bite of toast. “Your allergies would have been dreadful.”
Roxy had her head buried in the book by then, but her shoulders shook slightly, a smile on her face.)
Roxy is a snoop. She spent her first few days knocking on the walls, searching for hidden compartments, only to be disgruntled when most compartments were password protected. Roxy has got an unhealthy amount of paranoia for somebody so young. She uses the zoom function on her glasses to ‘keep watch’ on the neighbors, as if she’s ready for them to turn into terrorists. On a more worrying note, Roxy is a food hoarder. Though, if they’re being specific, she’s a fruit hoarder.
(“You know,” James said when he caught Roxy taking a few oranges up to her room. Whenever Percy caught her, he would just pause for a while, and then go about with whatever he was doing. “The oranges will still be there even if you don’t hide them away in your room.”
“I know,” Roxy clutched her oranges. “I’m still taking ‘em.” And James doesn’t know if it’s possible to argue with logic like that.)
It isn’t perfect, obviously. If Roxy is something, and Roxy-and-Percy are oddly complimentary, then Roxy-and-James are just awkward. It’s both of their faults, really. They’re both in situations they have no experience in. They both need to make some attitude adjustments. They both suck at communicating, wherein James doesn’t know how to talk to Roxy, and he’s pretty sure Roxy has the same problem vice versa. When Roxy does speak, it’s in statements and questions that come and go too quick, and before you know it, the fruit basket is missing two apples and a door upstairs just shut closed.
James never thought parenting could be this stilted, but then again, he never thought about parenting at all. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s that they’re at least making progress. It’s slow going and awkward as hell, but it’s happening. Roxy spends less time cooped up in her room. She shows some of the ease she has with Percy to James. She doesn’t freeze in her tracks when one of them catches her jumping around with the dogs.
It’s slow going, but it’s going. And frankly, James thinks it’s worth the little light that flashes in Roxy’s eyes when she thinks nobody can see her smile.
So obviously, it all gets mucked up when Percy leaves.
---
(“Human trafficking ring,” Merlin says. “Intel says they’re connected to the organization that had Roxy. A supplier of sorts.”
“Undercover?” Percival skims through the files. “Won’t they recognize me?”
“There was no surveillance in Kópavogur. No survivors too,” Merlin tells him. He levels a look at Percival. “I can’t not put you on this mission. You know that. You could back out, but then Arthur would ask questions. As much as I hate the man, he’s smart enough to know where to look, and he’ll find somebody you shouldn’t have.”
“How long?” Percival asks.
“A month, probably. Shorter if you can get enough evidence and intel.”
“I’d better get it over with quickly, then. I’ve got two children waiting for me at home.”)
---
“Roxy,” James says to Roxy’s door. He’s given up on knocking, and has just settled for speaking to the door. “Roxy, come on. You can’t just hole yourself up in there forever.”
“Yes, I can.” Is Roxy’s muffled reply. “See? I’m doing it right now.”
“At least let the dogs out.” James sighs, deciding to try knocking again, but with his forehead.
“No. Jan and Evangeline like me more than they like you.”
This is getting ridiculous. “You know, I could just pick the lock or come in through the window.”
“I’d shoot you,” Roxy says.
“You wouldn’t kill me. You’d break Percy’s heart.”
“Not with a gun,” And James can’t see her, but he’s pretty damn sure Roxy is rolling her eyes. The kid has a sarcastic streak in her a mile wide. “I have one of your watches.”
“How did you get that?” James asks, half in horror, half in vague admiration. “How did you know about that?”
“I’m not going out.”
James slides down to sit at the foot of the door, sighs, and hopes he isn’t messing this up beyond all repair. Percy is going to be so pissed when he gets back, but until then, James is here, sitting on the floor, being a sad excuse of a parent in every way.
“Listen, Roxy.” James says, but he isn’t sure if Roxy’s still listening or not. “I’m sorry Percy’s going to be gone for a while, but he warned you about this, and shutting yourself away won’t help. I know you don’t like me as much, but—” And he stops right there, because he can’t think of any of his many redeeming factors right now. At least not any that would actually matter to Roxy.
“Just, go away for a bit, okay?” Roxy says after a while. “I’m fine. I’m overreacting. I’ll get over it. But right now, just leave me alone.”
James might know fuck all about fatherhood, but he knows a damn dismissal when he hears one.
“Fine, just.” James stands up. “Just be down for dinner later.”
---
James has been exposed to the entire spectrum of parents.
On missions, James had seen the shittiest kinds of parents. Neglectful bastards, abusive bastards, manipulative bastards, etc.
James’ own parents were the best. He and his sister were doted on, really. He wouldn’t call himself a spoiled kid, but they were certainly happy and posh. He felt bad for the other kids with parents who just didn’t give a flying fuck and threw money in their direction to make up for it.
Then there was Lee Unwin, the ray of sunshine who’s bunk was right next to James’ during his recruitment. Lee was a damn riot. He was the only recruit without a stick up his arse. The only one who could keep up with James’ pace. He was humble, happy, and so in love with his family, James was tempted to barf.
“He’s a little devil, he is.” Lee said as he showed James a picture of his son for the nth time. It was after the dog test. Jan was sleeping at the foot of James’ bed, while Lee’s bulldog, Rico, a big, slobbery thing, snored away on Lee’s lap.
“I mean, whatever happens, I’m just so fuckin’ excited to get home.” Lee told him. “Eggsy’s always wanted a dog, y’know? He’ll love Rico so much, isn’t that right boy?” Rico just snored in reply. James didn’t like to think of Lee after that point.
He doesn’t know how Percy’s parents were like. Distant, probably. Percy never talks about his life before Kingsman, and James is perfectly fine with that. Everybody has their right to a few skeletons in the closet. All he knows is that Percy’s mother died a few months after they started dating. Percy had left for a week to settle ‘family things’, going completely off the grid. He came back, looking tired and hollow.
“Are you okay?” James asked him when James returned from the store, groceries in hand, shocked but definitely not displeased with how Percy was back. Percy stood, back against James.
“No,” Percy said.
“What can I do to help, darling?” James set the groceries down, careful not to jostle the eggs. He figured he could make a nice omelette later. Spoil Percy rotten tonight.
“Nothing,” He told James, leaned into James’ touch when he had come closer, hands unsure where to go, unsure how to make this better. “Just don’t—” Percy stopped. His face was closed off.
“Don’t what?” James asked.
“Don’t leave,” He said quietly. “Just be here.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Percy. Never.”
James is pretty sure he’s on the part of the spectrum where he has good intentions, but he doesn’t really know how to get it through. This doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person; it just makes him a stupid one.
Three days after Percy left, the days that passed were strained. Roxy would come down for meals, pilfer a book or two, then retire to her room until the next time she had to leave. The dogs follow her around with unerring loyalty. James glared at Jan with as much betrayal he could possibly muster while Jan didn’t look all that affected.
While James is a stupid parent, he does know this has to stop soon, unless he wants Roxy to retreat so far back into her shell, it’d be too late for anybody to get her to come out.
But here’s another two things James knows: he’s a damn good baker, and Roxy seems to really like fruit.
“Alright,” James says to the kitchen, ready to wage war with the rift that’s inching its way into this house. “Let’s fucking do this.”
---
“What,” Roxy says when she comes down for lunch, stopping short of entering the kitchen, and instead just looking at the scene before her. “What?” She asks this time.
“Good afternoon, Roxy.” James says over his shoulder as he readies his pastry dough, folding it into a neat-ish rectangle. The sides are a bit slanted, but James was never good at keeping things straight.
“What is all this?” She asks, still not entering. The dogs on the other hand, have left her side in favor of sniffing around. That’s one point for James’ side. The crowd goes wild.
“I’m making danishes,” James sprinkles some cinnamon sugar over his rectangle. From the corner of his eye, he can see Roxy make her way over to the counter, tip toeing to look at what he’s doing.
“Why?” Roxy pokes his dough rectangle and makes a face.
“Because I like baking,” Roxy fetches a chair to stand on, looking over James as he starts slicing his rectangle into wobbly strips. “It’s calming. Stress relieving.”
“And something’s stressing you out now, huh?” Roxy asks, and James knows he’s getting better at reading her because he hears the real questions. Am I stressing you out?
“Not really,” He says. “I’ve just gotten quite bored. Usually, when I have this much downtime, Merlin makes sure to give Percy some days off too, just so that I don’t set the house on fire. But he’s not here, so I’ve been...idle.”
“I’m here,” Roxy pouts.
“Yes, but you barely come out of your room.” James counters. Roxy seems to be slightly acquiesced. “And you also kidnapped the dogs.”
The ding of the oven and his quick reflexes save him from the kick Roxy was about to deliver to his leg. He grabs his oven mitts, takes the tray from the oven, and lays it on a rack to cool. Roxy has her eyes trained on the rack. Hook, line, and sinker.
“What’re those?” Roxy asks, hand creeping up at the same time.
“Oi,” He smacks her hand away with an oven mitt. Roxy takes her hand back and looks at James with an incredible amount of pure disdain. “They’re apple danishes and you can get them once they’re cool.”
Disdain turns to wonder the moment James says ‘apple danish’. “When can I get one?”
“A few minutes,” James goes back to his rectangle. He starts twisting the strips into wonky looking flowers. “Be patient.”
“And what’ll those be?” She looks over James’ shoulder.
“Also danishes. Blueberry.” James thinks he heard Roxy make a vague sound of distress.
“I know what you’re doing,” Roxy tells him. “You’re luring me out with food so we can have a direct confrontation.”
“Why did you let yourself get lured, then?”
“Well, I knew. So I did it out of my own choice. Obviously.” She huffs. “So, what is it?”
“What is what?” James spares a glance to Roxy, who’s looking less at the danishes and more at him.
“What’s the reason? Why do you want me out here?” Roxy crosses her arms.
“Why in the world wouldn’t I want you out here?” James asks as he arranges his danishes on a tray.
“Because I annoy you.”
James stops, jam jar in hand, and looks at Roxy, who so obviously believes that statement with all her heart. Jesus christ.
“Do you ever bother to check if your assumptions are right?” James tries to open the jar, sighing when his hands are too clammy to get a good grip. “Or do you just stick to whatever conclusions you jump to?”
“I stick to my conclusions when they’re right,” Roxy leans over and grabs the jar from his hands.
“Well, you’re not right.” James says, slightly affronted with how the jar is no longer in his hands. “You’re wrong.”
“Right,” She rolls her eyes. Puts the hem of her shirt over the rim of the jar’s lid. “Because you absolutely do not act weird around me. You don’t get all awkwardly quiet when I walk into a room. You don’t just put up with me because Percy likes me. You don’t just look at me like I’m some—some fucking inconvenience.” Roxy says, and with a vicious twist, the lid comes off.
She hands him the jar, sits on the counter, stays silent, and waits. James gets it. She’s said her part, and now it’s his turn.
But what is he supposed to say to that?
James never wanted any of his behaviour to come off like that. He looks back, and he wants to brain himself with the jam jar. He’s been so fucking stupid. James can see it now, how he struggles through speaking when he’s talking to Roxy. How he’s smiling and laughing with Percy one moment, and then going silent when Roxy walks into the room. How he looks at Roxy sometimes, not knowing what to do, realizing how that look could have looked like something else. How he’s been messing this up monumentally in ways he didn’t even realize.
“I’ve been a bit stupid lately,” James finds himself saying. If Percy were here, he’d either lay a solemn hand against James shoulder and slowly shake his head, or just give in and facepalm.
“Yes, we’ve established that.” Roxy says. “I’m taking a danish now.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” James leans against the counter. “I’m a bit terrible at the whole parenting thing.”
“No shit,” Roxy says, eyes lighting up as she takes a bite of her danish. She seems to put a lot of effort not showing her joy, though.
“Hey, language. You’re only allowed to swear once you’re fourteen. If you start any earlier, Percy will blame it on me.” James reprimands. Roxy sighs. “And I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Not being good at this,” He tells her.
“Not your fault. I’m not an easy person.” Roxy shrugs, as if placing the blame elsewhere, placing the blame on herself, is just simpler.
“Roxy, I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” James says. “And I’ve been failing spectacularly at it. It’s my fault and I’m trying to make it better right now. I swear, I’m not annoyed with you. You aren’t a burden, or anything. I don’t just ‘put up with you’. While Percy started this, I’m not doing this for him.” He faces Roxy. She’s finishing her danish, eyes sharp and unforgiving. “I’m doing this for you, because you’re an entirely different, individual person whom I chose to be responsible for. It just so happens that I’m terrible at that.”
“It’s good,” Roxy says. “The danish, I mean. Not you. You’re really shi—bad. You’re really bad at this.”
“I know,” He sighs. Acceptance then improvement.
“I don’t get why, though. I mean, I watched some of your mission footage.
“Wait, what?” Roxy looks quite smug with herself. “How?”
Then she raises an eyebrow, disbelief apparent. “Your password is password.”
“Merlin said to make it something easy to remember.”
“Wow,” She says. “Anyways, you’re really good at undercover stuff. You slip into character really, really easily.”
“Such praise,” James says flatly instead of reprimanding her again. It’d be no use anyways. “Which ones did you watch.”
“A bunch. Madrid ‘93 was really impressive.”
“That mission was not PG-13.” Percy is going to kill him.
“What I’m trying to say is,” Roxy pops the last bit of her danish into her mouth. “Can’t you just do the same with me? If you’re so bad with me, just be somebody else. Treat it like a mission. Things will be easier if you just play the part.”
This, James thinks, is what makes Roxy so painfully different from other kids her age. Her mind is ruthlessly pragmatic. It’s the mindset drilled into new recruits during training. The mindset of an agent in fight or flight mode. Do whatever it takes to get the job done. But Roxy is not a job. Roxy is not an agent about to die. Roxy is a kid.
“Sorry, but that’s not an option.” James takes a danish and bites into it. “What I do on missions is fake. It’s a front. It gets the job done, but the cover is gone once I’m home because I can be me.” He’s looking at Roxy, but Roxy is looking at the floor. “If I’m going to be a good...father, I’ll do it by being me, however difficult the process will be.”
“I’m sorry too, I guess.” Roxy mumbles, uncharacteristically timid. Then she steals James’ danish. There we are. “For being difficult.”
“You don’t have to be sorry for reacting. Just, I dunno, work with me.” James smiles. “We’ll freak the shit out of Percy when he gets back to see us being all buddy buddy.”
Roxy smiles at that. “I miss Percy.” Then she turns her face away. “It’s dumb.”
“Oh, no. Definitely not. I miss him too. It doesn’t matter how often we’re away from each other, I always miss him.” And James means every word. “I’m always missing him.”
“Isn’t that unhealthy?” Roxy smirks, looking at James now.
“No. I think it’s called love.” James says, face completely serious.
“Ew,” Roxy scrunches her nose. “You two are so disgusting.” She says, but she’s smiling.
Things aren’t magically perfect after that, but they’re taking the steps they were afraid to take before. James knows this because later that evening when James is reading on the couch, he hears Roxy’s come down the stairs.
“Hey,” She says, book of the day in hand, James’ glasses on her face. “Scoot.”
“I realize we’re going to need a bigger couch when Percy gets back,” James says as Roxy settles her feet near James’.
Roxy kicks him, grinning. “Is that your way of calling me fat?”
“Oh, please. You’re skin on bones.”
“Whatever,” Roxy settles into the couch. Peaceful. Content. And James knows they can do this.
Then Roxy’s glasses start blinking.
“Uh,” Roxy says. “Somebody is calling me, or, uh, you. It’s Merlin.”
She hands James the glasses. James slips them on, wondering why Merlin is calling him on his glasses. He knows James barely uses the thing, so it has to be an emergency.
“Lancelot speaking,” James says, glasses awkward on his face. “Merlin, what’s up?
“Percival’s cover has been blown,” Merlin says. “I need you to come in.”
