She hopes Hayato-kun didn’t have high expectations of her somehow charming the Kingsman, because that is just not happening. From the moment she steps off the Vongola private jet, she knows that she is not matching their imqge of her from the first meeting, much less the appearance of a prestigious Vongola guardian. She knows that she looks more like a trendy, spoiled college student than the strongest mafia famiglia’s top assassin.
She’s wearing her casual, comfortable clothes–cotton shirt, skirt, and thin jacket–which matches her preference of pastel colors and muted, but cheerful patterns. Of course, she’s also wearing her armor–she doesn’t travel anywhere without it–but it looks enough like a really shiny unitard that it really does need to be covered with other clothes.
Arthur and Galahad meet her with a taxi cab which is definitely not standard fair. She supposes she should feel honored–that the head of the Kingsman personally came to pick her up and that they respect her lethality by sending another agent along with him–but she just feels awkward. They are both wearing extensively fancy, tailored suits; she feels distinctly underdressed. The small talk peters out when she refuses the offer of alcohol (she was never much of a fan of the taste, and Shamal “infected” all of them with an anti-poison “disease” which basically made them immune to the effects) and when she struggles with the small talk (she loathes it, and she’s not very good at English anyway).
They sit in silence. She hopes Kyoko is not watching the video feed–she would be greatly disappointed.
She fiddles with the hem of her skirt. Twists her hideous Vongola ring around her finger. Softly taps the toes of her fashionable (according to Haru), practical (according to Shouichi-kun) boots. Almost reaches for the necklace which contains Yuzuru, falters when she remembers that spilling the secret of Flames out of boredom would definitely piss off Hayato-kun, then put her hands back in her lap.
“The test ain’t nothing to worry about,” Galahad breaks the silence, a friendly smile on his face.
It must signal something to his partner, because Arthur’s stoic face softens into one of almost paternal kindness, “Indeed, Ms. Fulmine, while the Kingsman trials are indeed fraught with danger, we are not in the business of killing our allies. We appreciate this show of good will from Vongola, and your own personal sacrifice in this. We are not ungracious.”
She realizes, then, what she must look like to them. She thought they perceived her as a disrespectful, informal, unprofessional mafiosa. Dangerous and high in the Vongola hierarchy, but a poor diplomat for a rather precarious alliance. But they looked at her–saw her youth, her nationality, her unsophisticated clothes, her refusal of a drink, her fidgeting. They thought she was nervous.
She could use that.
So she responds with a shaky smile, stops her tapping feet but keeps twisting her ring. It’s enough to make it seem like she’s relieved by the words, but not too much so as to be suspicious. She is, after all, a stranger in a strange land.
“Do you have a preference for your name?” Arthur asks, pulling an iPad out from a panel in the door. On the screen is what appears to be her Kingsman file (likely they have more on her than that) which includes basic information –sex, estimation of her age, eye color (which she smugly notices they’ve incorrectly listed as brown)–and a list of dates for when she was on mission within the United Kingdom. Oddly enough, however, where should be a name is instead a blank.
“What do you mean?” She says in honest confusion.
“To put it mildly, you don’t match our usual demographic of recruit–”
At this, Galahad snorts, but says nothing.
“–and while we know you as Vongola’s Fulmine, we thought you might want to keep that part of your identity private from the other recruits. It is, of course, your choice,” Arthur says mildly before handing the iPad over to her.
It is an obvious ploy to get her to provide her real name, but the overtness takes the malice out of it. If she does so, and they already have it, then it is just a minor show of trust on her part. If she does so, and they don’t already know it, then she provides them not only her history but every Namimori-born member of Vongola. In the upper echelons alone that is four Guardians, three department heads, one deputy department head, and her boss. That’s not just her–that’s Ryohei, Kyouya-senpai, Takeshi-kun, Haru, Shouichi-kun, Hana-chan, Kyoko, and Tsunayoshi-kun. That’s her family.
Not giving her real name is the obvious choice. While it might be slightly insulting and a sign of distrust, if anything it could just be passed off as part of her trepidation.
“Azuma Shu,” she says while typing. She’s pleasantly surprised that the romaji she enters offers a menu of matching kanji to choose from. It’s the name on her passport, on the rare occasions when Vongola bothers with identification. Perhaps the pseudonym is a little bit too on the nose, but it’s technically true. It is very short, only two characters long: the kanji for lightning as a given name then protector for a surname.
“It’s nice to meet you, Azuma-san,” Galahad says with a wink, not at all displeased by her noncooperation.
Slightly flustered, she does not reprimand him for the cultural impropriety of using her supposed personal name.
~
A/N: Do not worry! There is no romance. I just imagine that anyone, especially ones even vaguely attracted to people of the masculine persuasion, would be taken by Taron Egerton’s winking.
AAAAAAND still not at the actual trials yet.
Continuation of this post. I should probably come up with a title for this crossover for tracking purposes…
Edit: Just follow “The Green Knight” for the rest of the series… though for some reason, this post doesn’t show up as tagged with it even though… it obviously is. (Edit2: fixed the not-showing-up-thing by removing the names of characters mentioned but not actually present in this drabble)
JackSGreyson Says 