#it's nearly midnight and my essay isn't finished but if i promise you a chapter on a sunday then you're getting a chapter on a sunday

[almostafantasia]

Lancelot (3/14)

Lexa Woods, an impeccably dressed British secret agent for the covert Kingsman organisation, whose latest mission sees her sneaking through the corridors of the White House in the middle of the night, finds herself having to seduce the daughter of the newly elected President of the United States in a bid to save the world. It’s a surprise to Lexa when she ends up falling for her target as fast as she does, meanwhile Clarke doesn’t expect her gorgeous date for an international political gala dinner to drag her into a world of thrill and danger where one wrong move could cause a global disaster.

a clexa kingsman au | chapter 3/14 read on ao3

“So what’s the plan?”

Having finally made it to their hotel room in Washington D.C., Lexa asks the question as she unpacks her suitcase, so casually that she might as well be asking what their lunch plans are, not how they’re intending to break into the White House.

“Well I thought I’d send you in and I’ll provide support from the outside,” replies Anya, who sits cross-legged on Lexa’s bed.

“Wait, what?” asks Lexa.

It’s not the answer she’s expecting to receive, and Lexa’s head snaps up, momentarily distracted from hanging up her clothes. At first she thinks that it must be a joke, that this is just another one of Anya’s ways of playfully keeping Lexa on her toes, but Anya’s expression betrays no sign of teasing. She appears to be deadly serious.

“You go in and I’ll provide supp-”

“I heard you,” Lexa says with a frown, turning her attention back to the wardrobe as she hangs up one of her shirts next to the suit that she’s already put onto clothes hangers. The shirt will need ironing before she’s able to wear it, having been folded up inside her suitcase, but she’d rather hang it up with a small crease than to leave it to become a crumpled mess in the bottom of her case. “Why am I the one going in?”

“Well if two of us go in we’re more likely to get caught,” shrugs Anya, who has decided to take a less urgent approach to unpacking her own suitcase - meaning that she dumped her case in the adjacent room before following Lexa into this one and taking up residence on Lexa’s bed.

“So I’m risking my life by breaking into the White House while you sit right outside and provide ‘moral support’?” asks Lexa, arching an eyebrow in Anya’s direction and using two fingers on each hand to make air quotes as she says the last two words.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” says Anya, rolling her eyes in response. “At worst you’ll get imprisoned and tried for treason. Wait, does D.C. still have the death penalty?”

Anya takes a moment to search up the answer on her phone, a moment in which Lexa actually panics that failing this mission could cost her her life in the most undignified way imaginable.

“Nope, you’re good,” Anya eventually tells her. “Just imprisonment.” She glances up at Lexa, then asks, “But you’re not planning to get caught, are you?”

There’s a hint of a challenge in her voice, like she’s taunting Lexa, and it wouldn’t be quite so bad if it hadn’t been only a couple of days since Anya beat Lexa in a training exercise that involved breaking into a building and remaining undetected - the exact thing that Anya is asking her to do again now, only for real this time.

“Nope,” answers Lexa, trying to come across as cool and unaffected. “Just another day at work.”

“You sure you can handle breaking into the White House?” smirks Anya.

“Of course I can,” answers Lexa, pretending that the very thought of what she has to do doesn’t set her heart racing with trepidation. “I’m Kingsman’s best agent for a reason.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” grins Anya. “You’re not Kingsman’s best agent but it’s adorable you think that.”

“Do you want to break into the White House?” Lexa challenges Anya.

Anya’s eyebrows furrow into a little frown, before she shakes her head and replies, “I think I’m okay.”

Lexa finishes hanging up the last of her shirts, then takes the much smaller pile of neatly folded casualwear and splits it between two drawers in the dresser opposite the bed. When all of her clothes have been put away, she closes the lid of her now empty suitcase and then takes a seat on the very end of her bed.

“So, the plan,” she says again.

Anya leans down off the side of Lexa’s bed and reaches for her carry-on bag from their flight, pulling out her laptop. She opens up the lid and taps away at the keyboard, and then turns it around to show Lexa the annotated floor plan of the White House on the screen.

“You want to make it to here,” says Anya, pointing at one of the rooms. “That’s the main security office. I don’t think it’s always manned but if there’s somebody in there I’m sure you can come up with a distraction. You know, as Kingsman’s best agent.”

Anya’s dark eyes flick up to look at Lexa’s face, with the hint of a mocking smile gracing the curve of her lips.

“So I’m bugging their security office?” Lexa asks for clarification, ignoring the bait that Anya is giving her. “Do you want me to hack their systems too?”

“Just don’t risk getting caught,” Anya tells her, the amusement dropping off her face and replaced by a serious frown. “We can always hack into their security externally. It’s a little less subtle, but…”

“Less subtle than breaking into the White House?” interrupts Lexa, both eyebrows raised in incredulity.

“Okay, point taken,” agrees Anya with a tiny shrug. “Just plant a couple of bugs and get the hell out of there.”

They might tease each other and joke around about which of them is the better agent, a silly sibling-like rivalry that brings out the competitive edge in them both, but at the end of the day they’re always going to be on the same side. Anya might take an inordinate amount of pleasure in beating Lexa in training exercises, but when it comes down to missions in the field, Lexa knows that Anya doesn’t want her to be caught any more than Lexa does.

“How am I going to get in?” asks Lexa, because they can discuss the fine details of what she needs to do once inside for hours but it will mean nothing if she can’t actually make it inside the White House in the first place. “Security has to be tight. Like, snipers on the roof, patrols in the garden tight.”

“I … I don’t know,” admits Anya, appearing unsure for the first time since they started planning the heist. “I hadn’t thought about that yet.”

Lexa gets up off the bed and walks over to the recently organised wardrobe. She slides open the door and rummages around inside, looking through the clothes that she’s brought with her to the States, and slowly but surely a plan starts to form in her mind.

“I have an idea,” Lexa says to Anya, even as the cogs continue to turn inside her brain. “It’s crazy, but it might just work.”

“Crazy but it might just work?” repeats Anya. A slow smile passes across her lips and she says, “Damn, I love this job.”

“Can you hear me?” asks Anya.

Lexa reaches up to the small earpiece and adjusts its position in her ear so that it’s more comfortable, before she answers, “Loud and clear.”

As she walks along the sidewalk outside the tall fence that surrounds the White House, Lexa tries to act like she belongs - her disguise won’t work if her shifty behaviour gives her away and makes it obvious that she’s an intruder.

“I’m having second thoughts,” she murmurs aloud for Anya’s benefit. “This is never going to work.”

“Not with that attitude,” Anya chides her, the voice in her ear sounding a lot like a tiny conscience in her brain rather than that of a remote colleague. “Remember, the hardest part will be getting over the fence. Once you’re inside the grounds, just act like you belong.”

Lexa pulls her jacket a little tighter around her, attempting to ward off the cool night air, though she isn’t entirely certain that the chill that has every hair on her body standing to attention isn’t a result of nerves and not the cold March night.

Exactly where Anya managed to acquire a black windbreaker emblazoned with the words Secret Service, Lexa isn’t entirely sure she wants to know. But whether the jacket is genuine or just a good replica, it does the job of letting her blend in. Paired with Lexa’s own black slacks, a white shirt, and a plain black tie, Lexa looks like she could be one of the many guards that stand on watch outside the White House. Though her costume probably won’t stand up to close scrutiny, at a glance she looks like a member of the Secret Service and that’s what matters.

Lexa just has to hope that the disguise is good enough to get her inside the White House.

Lexa has only ever seen the building in pictures before but now that she’s close enough to see it in person, it’s a lot more overbearing than she might have expected - or perhaps that’s just the knowledge of what she’s about to do that makes the White House seem like an impenetrable fortress.

Lexa lurks just outside the railing that protects the grounds from the public area beyond. Her disguise won’t hold up if anybody inside sees her vault the fence and she has to wait for the right moment. She spent part of her afternoon memorising patrol routes and they are burned into the front of her mind, and with the lenses of her glasses currently working as infrared cameras, she can see the outlines of two snipers on the roof in the distance, as well as two pairs of patrolling guards in the grounds.

“It’s your call, Lexa,” Anya’s voice comes through the earpiece. “I can tell you when to go but only you can see if it’s actually safe.”

Lexa remains silent, watching as the sniper nearest to her turns his back to look the other way. This could be her chance, and she feels her heart beat ever more rapidly in her chest as she waits for the patrols to move far enough away from her position to allow her time for a clean jump over the fence. With each second that passes, with each erratic thump of Lexa’s heart against her ribcage, the window of opportunity gets smaller and Lexa knows that the sniper could turn back this way at any moment and spot her vaulting the fence.

“I’m doing it,” Lexa says to warn Anya of her actions, doing a quick double-check of her surroundings on this side of the fence before she reaches up and wraps her fingers around the cold metal railings.

Hoisting herself up is easy, a brief strain on her biceps as she pulls her weight up and clambers onto the top of the fence, avoiding the spikes spaced out at regular intervals. Lexa glances up once more at the roof before she jumps, checking the sniper’s position, then drops down onto the soft grass with a gentle thud.

“I’m over,” says Lexa.

“Good girl,” comes Anya’s response. “Now you just need to act like you’re supposed to be there.”

Lexa straightens up, brushing down her clothes so that her trousers hang smoothly, then adjusts the knot of her tie so that it sits perfectly at her collar. Even in an extremely pressurised situation, she’s still a stickler for looking the part. In fact, the very act of straightening out her clothing soothes Lexa, and she feels slightly less like she’s about to have a panic attack less than a hundred feet from where the President of the United States sleeps soundly in her bed.

Lexa tries to follow Anya’s instructions and strolls through the garden like she’s patrolling it. The sniper on the roof looks back in Lexa’s direction and she turns her head away from him, an extra precaution in case he looks closely and realises that he doesn’t recognise her.

“There are guards outside the front door,” Lexa tells Anya. “I expect it’ll be the same around the back.”

“And the ground floor windows?” comes Anya’s response.

Lexa risks the sniper seeing her face by turning back to the house, scanning the windows along the wall of the house facing her.

“I can’t see any that are open.”

“You need to find a way inside, Lexa,” Anya tells her, a sense of urgency to her voice. “You’ve already made it this far.”

Lexa squints at the two guards standing at the front doors, then reaches a hand into the zipped pocket in the lining, fingers closing around a slender object. She takes it out of the pocket and slides it up her sleeve, a plan formulating in her mind. A plan so crazy that it will either work spectacularly or get her caught.

“I have an idea,” Lexa tells Anya, as she starts striding purposefully towards the front door.

Her heart is racing, but Lexa ignores it and remains focused, knowing that her plan is so bold that it will only work if she oozes confidence. Even an inkling of nerves could betray her and Lexa is nothing if not determined to tackle every mission to her very best.

Predictably, the guards on the door notice Lexa as she approaches, and Lexa makes to walk straight past them, like she has the authority to enter through the front door of the White House without being questioned.

Of course, it doesn’t quite work that simply, but Lexa thinks that her confidence has given her the upper hand as the two guards stop her outside the front door.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Bathroom,” answers Lexa.

Lexa puts on an American accent and limits her answer to one word so as to not give herself away, but the result comes across like her answer should be obvious, which perhaps works even better because Lexa can see the doubt in the guard’s eyes as he considers her answer.

“You’re on duty,” he reminds her.

Well at least Lexa knows that her costume passes off as authentic.

“Sorry, dude,” says Lexa. “When a girl needs to go, you don’t ask questions.”

And then, in a move that she tries to pass off as an accident but is actually very deliberate, Lexa lets the tampon she removed from the pocket of her jacket earlier drop from her sleeve and onto the floor.

“Shit,” mumbles Lexa, bending down quickly to pick up the tampon, pretending that she doesn’t want either of the guards to see it but knowing full well that they both know exactly what has just fallen from her sleeve.

And, just as Lexa expected, when she stands up straight and looks at them with a pleading expression, they’ve both turned beet red and can barely make eye contact with her.

“Oh,” says the one on the left. “My bad. Of course.”

They step aside to let her through, too flustered to consider doing otherwise, and Lexa nods a thanks that masks the exhilaration that courses through her veins as she walks through the front door and enters the White House.

“Did you just walk through the front door?” asks Anya, her voice full of a mixture of awe and incredulity.

“Men are weak,” answers Lexa, rolling her eyes despite the fact that Anya can’t see her, though she’s pretty sure that the sentiment gets across through her words. “One flash of a tampon and they can’t even look you in the eye.”

“I never would have thought of that,” says Anya, and the hint of pride that Lexa hears in Anya’s voice makes Lexa’s chest swell with delight.

“Kingsman’s best agent,” she quips, ignoring the snort that Anya gives her in response.

“You can brag all you like, but only after you’ve planted those bugs,” Anya reminds her.

Lexa tucks the tampon back into the pocket of her jacket, leaving it there for easy access in case she needs to deceive more security guards.

“Right,” says Lexa. “Security office. I want to go upstairs, don’t I?”

“Yes,” answers Anya. “But I wouldn’t suggest taking the main stairs. There’s a smaller staircase off to the side that you can use. You’re less likely to meet somebody.”

Lexa tries to recall the floor plan that she studied in the hotel room earlier while Anya was sourcing the jacket for Lexa’s disguise, closing her eyes for a few seconds. The image swims to the front of her mind like it’s been branded there with a hot iron, and Lexa’s eyes snap open again. She knows where she has to go.

Once up the stairs, Lexa knows that the danger may only just be beginning. It’s a straightforward plan on paper - plant a couple of bugs in the main security office so that Kingsman will know as much as the Secret Service do about any breaches past or future, and maybe even try to hack into the security itself, remotely cloning the entire system onto Anya’s laptop so that they can comb through it later - but the risk of getting caught is probably at its highest. The office is likely to be manned, and Lexa doesn’t know if her disguise will be good enough to waltz straight in like she did with the guards at the front door.

“Excuse me?”

Lexa is so caught up in her own mind as she silently stalks down the upper hallway of the White House, the cogs inside her brain whirring and formulating an infinite number of possible plans depending on the situation, that when a voice speaks up behind her, she startles and almost trips over her own feet.

This is it, she thinks to herself. This is the moment that she gets caught.

Lexa tries to keep her cool, reminding herself that she’s dressed the part and that she might still be able to bluff her way through another encounter. But when Lexa turns on the spot to face the other person, every inch of her training flies straight from the bank of resourcefulness in her mind when she sees the owner of the voice.

Wearing a navy dressing gown over plaid pyjama pants, the girl’s blonde hair is tousled and sticks out at weird angles like she’s just woken up, but she’s still extraordinarily beautiful. She pads barefoot towards Lexa and her face comes into the light, questioning blue eyes watching Lexa from beneath a slightly furrowed brow.

Lexa recognises her immediately, but even if she didn’t, the facial recognition software in the lenses of her glasses does a quick scan and a name pops up for Lexa to read.

Clarke Griffin. First daughter of the United States.