Love Me, Little Butterfly - KINGSMAN

Absolute Beginners

A couple of hours later we were sitting in a bar, all together, like in the good old days. We drink to Harry's comeback, our friendship and the engagement, and then we tell my boyfriend everything that happened in the past year.

"Now that we finished the debrief, Harry, here are a couple of welcome back gifts." Eggsy pulls something out of his pocket. It's a brand-new Kingsman watch. "Advanced software, it can hack into anything with a microchip, it is the bollocks.", he explains proudly. "And... Merlin?" Hamish has special glasses for well, Harry's eye condition. As my fiancé takes off his eye patch, he fist seems to be afraid of our reactions and tries to look away, but I gently pull his face towards me and give him a kiss on the forehead, right above where his left eye once was. "Don't be ashamed, love. You will always be handsome to me, Harry, no matter what.", I declare and send him a reassuring smile. Harry smiles back and puts his new glasses on. "How do I look?"

The answer he gets to that question is most definitely not the one he is expecting. "Like some fagget lookin' for an eye fucking!" One of the guys who were sitting at the table next to us just got on his feet and is now moving closer to Harry. And I know damn well what is gonna happen next. "Manners Maketh Man" is gonna happen.

Half a minute later, my boyfriend is laying on the floor, unconsciously. One of the Texans punched him straight in the face. While Whiskey deals with the Texan assholes, me and Eggsy help poor Harry back to the table. "Darling, are you alright? He hit you pretty hard.", I ask, worried. With one of my sleeves, I wipe some blood off the corner of his mouth. His lower lip is burst. Harry flinches at the contact. "What's wrong with me, Merlin? I thought you fixed me." "Well, we rebuild your neuropathways. It will take time to gain your coordination back." He nods. "And the phantom butterflies?" "You will experience episodes. Lapses of clarity. You'll be back to normal soon.", Hamish declares. Eggsy pats on Harry's shoulder. Then Poppy's announcement pops up on the TV.

Eggsy, Whiskey, Harry and I leave the next day to steal one of Poppy's antidotes from a lab in Italy. Originally, I was supposed to stay in Kentucky and help Hamish and Ginger Ale with the tracking, but first of all I can't stand Ginger Ale, and I also didn't want to let Harry go alone with the other two. I do trust my brother, of course, but I'm just not too much of a fan of Agent Whiskey and my boyfriend's definitely not ready for the field yet.

That bloody laboratory of Poppy's is in the middle of the Alps, on one of the highest mountain peaks there is. I've never liked the cold, which is why I stay close to Harry during the entire way up and occasionally snuggle into his side or sneak my hands into his pockets to warm them up. Apparently very happy about these little gestures, my partner wraps his coat around me and places sweet kisses on my forehead, cheek and neck. Whiskey keeps staring at us and calls us "annoyingly unprofessional" and "inattentive love Birdies". I don't give a shit, he can say whatever he wants to me, now that I have my Harry back.

As we arrive at the lower terminus of the cable way that leads up to the peak, Eggsy and Whiskey decide that it would be better if someone stayed at the control center to secure it, and they both look at my boyfriend. It's quite clear that they think he's still too clumsy to have an actual fight and just want to get rid of him without making it too obvious. So, I declare that I will stay there with Harry. "The more people we are up there, the higher becomes the risk that they'll detect us. If something goes wrong, I can still come after you."

As soon as we are alone, Harry turns to me. "You didn't have to do that, Jane." "Do what?" "Stay here with me to make me feel better. I know I'd just be a burden up there, but you are so much better at sneaking into places than Eggsy, and I bet also miles better than Agent Whiskey. Don't put yourself down because of me, darling." Softly, I smile at him. "Oh, love. Don't you get it? I'd rather stay down here with you and eventually get bored, than to go up there on that stupid mountain, freeze my ass off and get even more annoyed by Whiskey than I already am. Now, come on." I take his hand and pull him into the control center.

We take out the guy at the switch board and turn on the speakers in the gondola. "At the controls, in position." Eggsy and Whiskey get out as soon as the door opens. "Keep this cable car here 'til we get back.", my brother orders. "Roger that, Eggsy."

While they're gone, Harry starts seeing butterflies again. As the situation on the mountain top gets dicey, I press the "speak" button on my earpiece. "Merlin, do you hear me?" "Loud and clear, Agent Percival.", comes the answer. "Well, what do I do to make Harry's butterflies go away? They are sort of not very useful at the moment." While waiting for his reply, I turn the cable car back on. Eggsy and Whiskey are in the gondola now. "Try to distract him somehow. He needs to focus on something else." I sigh, turn around and grab Harry's face. "Harry? Harry, do you hear me?" A dreamy "hm?" comes from him, nothing else. "Love, what was the first song that played that night when you danced with me? Remember? When we tried on the clothes Merlin gave us for the mission at Valentine's. For that dinner where you ended up going alone? Harry, try to remember the song." But Harry seems to be far away, in another place at another time, all on his own.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see how Charlie overwrites the system of the whole cable car. "Oh, fuck me!", I yell, let go of my boyfriend and run to the control center. All the buttons are dead. Eggsy's and Whiskey's gondola gets faster and faster. "Fuck!", I curse again. "Merlin, is there anything I can do to stop them? They'll both die if they keep speeding up!" While Hamish is trying to instruct me, Charlie decides that speed alone is not enough and starts spinning the gondola around like a bouncy ball. Just as it is right above a huge chasm, Whiskey manages to cut through the pulling ropes with his lasso and the gondola swings to the other side, slides down a hill and stops right in front of a Ski Resort. My heart, that completely stopped working a few moments ago, slowly starts to beat again. I take a deep breath and look at Harry, who is smiling. "David Bowie.", he says. "The first song we danced to was "Absolute Beginners", from your favorite Bowie record." I collapse on the chair behind me.