all aboard [whether you like it or not]

[Backdated to before Cap recruiting Avengers/Defenders.]

Sam wasn’t the only one eyeing the top of the train. Eggsy had three sets of clothes. Two tailored suits, and a set of street clothes. He took as meticulous care of all his clothing as he could. Whether they were oxfords he kept polished, or the kicks that were pristinely white, a suit jacket or a hoodie, Eggsy took care of what little he had.

In his baggy jeans, baseball cap and casual clothing he was barely recognizable as the dapper gentlemen in glasses. He’d favored his street clothes to, without the safety of a flight suit, hop up on top of the train while between cars. It was patently stupid, and while Eggsy could be accused of being fiercely brave and loyal, he could also be just as impetuous.

It was a better view, though, and much less claustrophobic.

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Lady Emma Pole was sick to death of dancing, and she had been sitting in her chair fighting drowsiness all day. She had been sick of it, it seemed, forever now; once she had loved it, but she could not imagine again ever dancing, even with her husband, and experiencing anything other than horror. She had wanted to dance with him once -- perhaps in those days she had loved him, too, and he had seemed genuinely fond of her, and not only of her money. But since Lost Hope, it had been nothing but dances, endless dances, with Stephen if she was lucky, or without him, if she was not, and she was so tired, of dances, of dresses, of music--

But it was curiously quiet. Not the echoing empty quiet of Starecross Hall, but a soft quiet repetitive noise she did not know. Emma got out of her chair and went to the window. The view out was water -- endless rolling ocean waves, deep at sea. She couldn’t recall ever seeing water like it. Dreaming then -- for once, blissfully, dreaming of something other than Lost Hope. When she turned around, the sad bleak rooms of Starecross were gone. She was standing in a narrow concourse, a hallway of some sort, in a room full of doors. Lost Hope looked nothing like this -- everything was bright and clean and in good order. She had never experienced anything like it; Emma could only stand stock still. She strained, for the ringing of bells. But she did not hear music.

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