I.
The first thing Napoleon ever stole was a kit of soft pastels.
Just a dozen of them laid out neat in a small, rectangular box. He's not sure how the colors were chosen to be in a kit, or what colors are preferable to a given artist, but, well, any color was enough at the time.
The kit had primary colors, of course – red, green, blue – and the rest to fill in the gaps: yellow, gray, black, orange, purple, pink, aqua, maroon and that odd shade that is neither green nor yellow. They were all kept safe in a flimsy wooden box – balsa, probably – painted black, and Napoleon had simply slipped it into his jacket, tucked it up against his ribs and strolled out of the shop, pausing to run a finger along the edge of a blank canvas as he went.
Later, he would marvel at how easy it had been. No one had been the wiser. Though he did feel a touch of guilt – there was a war on and the shop owner needed the money without a doubt – but, well.
There were only three colors at war: the drab army green, the brown of the dirt and mud and, of course, the red of blood from bullet holes.
He didn't feel so guilty taking something hopeful back to the front lines with him.
XxX
The thing was, Napoleon knew right away how well they would work together. The way each of them had something to offer that was invaluable in their line of work, and that first chase through the streets of East Berlin had only gone to show how evenly matched they were with one another. In fact, Napoleon's not sure if it hadn't been for Gaby turning out to be so sharp that they would've bested the Russian.
That's the way it was between the three of them, each of them gifted in a way the other was not.
Gaby so quick on the uptake, good behind the wheel in a way Napoleon never was, and able to command a room in a very different way than he would, but with just as much effect. Sharp as a whip and always a step ahead of their mark.
And Illya.
Illya was a bottle of barely controlled anger laced with explosives, but even that served a purpose on more than one occasion. He was much smarter than he let on and practically a force of nature in a fight. But he could also be gentle – the way he called a frightened old woman darling, or helped Gaby to bed with a twisted ankle, or winced in sympathy the moment before popping Napoleon's dislocated shoulder back in place. He was far more complex than Napoleon had initially given him credit for.
It didn't take long, after being partnered together, that the three of them found easy rhythm with each other, learned each other's cues and moods and worked through missions with a level of efficiency that Napoleon wouldn't have believed possible had he not been there to witness it first hand. It was like they'd all found a single axis to spin of off, and together, they kept each other balanced.
Which is precisely why it didn't take him long at all to realize something was wrong - fifteen minutes, maybe, for the feeling to unfurl in his chest.
He was watching the foot traffic on the road below the balcony of their hotel in Paris, looking down at a narrow street, waiting for Illya to get back from a liquor store he'd insisted on visiting since they had the "right" kind of vodka (Napoleon had rolled his eyes at this because in his mind, all vodka was vodka but he knew better than to say that a Russian). They were going to toast another successful mission (Napoleon had learned that Illya rarely drank, and when he did, it was only at the end of a mission), but Napoleon knew Paris like a second home, knew the part of town they were holed up in. He'd let his internal compass map out the roads around them, the handful of routes back to their rooms from the store, the time of day and how the traffic would factor and came up fifteen minutes late. And Illya was never the type to meander, to get sidetracked by things like flowers or bookstores or pretty girls in delicate skirts so…
Napoleon has Gaby on the line in two minutes. She'd been down in the hotel bar making friends with a handsome, British businessman, but politely excused herself when the bartender handed her the phone. And, while Gaby did have a playful side about her, she was never one to humor unfounded fears and was up in Napoleon and Illya's rooms in five minutes.
The Red Peril was now twenty-two minutes late.
Napoleon can't tear his eyes off the road below.
"We don't have any known enemies in Paris right now," Gaby says, trying for comforting.
"It's not like him," Napoleon says, one hand on his gut and trying to keep himself collected. "I think something's wrong. I can feel it," he says, aware of how crazy he sounds, sparing a glance at Gaby. The look in her eye is soft but not pitying. She's not humoring. Which is good, in that it means she believes him, trusts him, but is also bad, because that means something probably did happen to Illya.
"I'll call Waverly," Gaby says diplomatically and retreats to the living room.
XxX
The first time Napoleon thought about kissing Illya was at the tiny, waterside café in Berlin.
It had been just a tiny flash of a thing; a momentary intrusive thought while their respective handlers were explaining the sudden American/Russian team up. Their tussle in the bathroom had made Napoleon itch to know who would win in a fight. And by how much. That thought had somehow bleed over into the image of one of the Russian's large hands cupping his face, working his jaw up with his fingertips by pressing them into the hinge and kissing him filthy.
The thought had left Napoleon internally a bit ruffled, but that was the thing about being the CIA's greatest spy – even when he was ruffled, it never showed on the surface.
Instead, he was game to show he'd win the fight in a battle of wits and went about insulting Illya's parents.
Later, after they'd been working together and for UNCLE for a month, he would remember that day and sit up one long night sick with himself for the things he'd said.
XxX
The first thing Napoleon ever stole was a set of soft pastels from an art supply store in a town outside of Paris. They were on the move. Advancing the line towards Germany and Napoleon barely had time to swipe it.
You can't afford this, he'd said when Napoleon had handed it over to him that night.
Napoleon had simply shrugged.
He'd turned it over in his hands, looked at Napoleon with one eyebrow slightly raised—
You didn't afford this.
Napoleon leaned back, lit a cigarette. There's a war on, Napoleon said by way of explanation and divergence.
XxX
Every time Napoleon finds himself back in Paris, he can't help thinking about it, about the war, about that man. Relieving all those memories he wishes would be quiet, once and for all.
Sometimes it feels so long ago. Like it's an immeasurable distance, like he's drifted out to sea and the shore it long gone.
Sometimes it feels too close- a single pane of glass away. Like if he's not careful, it'll shatter and he'll be right back there.
(Sometimes he wishes it would shatter because there were things worth being back there for-)
Thirty-five minutes Illya's been past due as Gaby hangs up the phone. She stands dead silent and stock-still in the middle of the sitting room and that is an even worse sign than Illya's tardiness that something has gone terribly awry.
"Gaby?" Napoleon asks, gently trying to shake her from her stupor.
"Waverly had no intel," she says. "He had to call in a favor."
Napoleon's hands go tight on the wrought iron railing he's leaning against.
"Apparently the KGB had a mole. One of their own selling secrets to other government agencies."
The back of Napoleon's neck goes cold with sweat.
"They're trying to suss out who the mole is," she says and Napoleon hears the things she's not saying.
"They think it's Illya," he says what she won't.
Gaby – normally not the one to beat around the bush – doesn't meet his eye as she nods.
XxX
The thing is, Napoleon has had lots of marks back to his room. He has wooed men and women alike and treated each of them – no matter how unpleasant they were – like he genuinely wanted to be with them, there in the moment.
He's had many marks back to his room and not a one of them ever found a piece of his secret life, his ties to the CIA or UNCLE.
But, naturally, it was Victoria Vinciguerra who uncovered a part of him he never meant to share. An aching, broken part of him that does not belong to the CIA or UNCLE or anyone but himself for that matter.
He'd excused himself to the restroom and returned to find Victoria lounging on the bed in nothing but one of his shirts.
One of his shirts that had been inside his suitcase.
Victoria was not be the first mark to go through Napoleon's suitcase (he's not an idiot, he knows villains and civilians alike will snoop given the opportunity) but she is the first to be blatant about it and to question him about her discovery.
"You're an artist?" she had asked, flipping through the notebook that had been tucked away inside one of his silk shirts.
Napoleon had to stop himself from the sudden angry outburst inside of him: the desire to go across the room and snatch the notebook away from her and chastise her for going through someone else's belongings.
This reaction, he realized just as suddenly as the feeling washed through him, would not assist in the mission, so instead, he smiled salaciously and crossed the room with a bit of swagger in his step.
"I dabble a bit, from time to time," he said, "Man's got to have his hobbies."
"Well," Victoria appraised, "Rather good for just a hobby."
Napoleon gave a self-deprecating shrug. "The life of a starving artist was never really my goal, so I kept it a hobby."
He'd then managed to distract her with lingering kisses and delicate touches and after that, he kept the notebook hidden safely in the false bottom of his case, alongside his extra gun and the passports of his aliases.
XxX
When Illya found one of the notebooks, it was a different matter entirely.
He'd left it out. Carelessly. Like a fool. On an end table in their shared apartment in Lisbon. They were on a case that was taking them damn near two months, long and tedious and Napoleon was uncharacteristically tired and he'd left it on the end table by the couch in their living room while he went to take a shower.
When he came out, Illya was standing over it, cup of steaming tea in one hand, the other hand gently folded the cover back on the notebook, flipped through several of the pages without picking it up from where it lay. He looked so thoughtful, his shoulders slightly slumped, his brow furrowed, that Napoleon wasn't mad. No, it was his mistake this time and not some inherent need to snoop – Illya never went into Napoleon's room without permission when they had separate rooms and he never touched Napoleon's belongings unless he'd been asked too.
"Sorry," Illya said when he caught Napoleon staring at him. "Just curious."
"It's all right," Napoleon replied, voice level.
"Who'd you steal it from?" Illya asked. It wasn't an accusatory statement, merely curiosity. But it bothered Napoleon nevertheless – that Illya bypassed all other options for Napoleon to have come into possession of such a book and went right for the obvious one.
"Are you saying you don't believe I did those drawings?"
"I've read your handwriting, Cowboy, you can barely form letters, yet flawlessly recreate multiple works of art."
"I suppose you have a point there," Napoleon said, crossing the room to pick the book up. "It was a gift," he said, giving Illya a slightly hard look before tucking it under his arm and returning to his room.
Illya asked no more questions about the notebook.
XxX
"Waverly wants us to come in," Gaby says.
Napoleon had gone down to the liquor store, described Illya to the attendant and asked if he'd seen the Russian. He hadn't. Which meant that Illya was taken on the way to the shop.
Napoleon adds half an hour to the expansive of time the Russian's been gone.
"Come in?" Napoleon asks in disbelief.
"Back to London," she says and Napoleon can hear she doesn't like it. "He wants us to go back to London. To wait it out."
"Wait it out?"
"Waverly is…," Gaby swallows so hard she makes a little motion with her head, like she's trying to choke down the information still. "Trusting the KGB to clear Illya of all charges."
"And Waverly also trusts them to keep Illya in one piece while they decide if he's a traitor or not? Trusts they'll lend him back to UNCLE after they clear his name?"
"Solo," Gaby says, her voice low and there is the tiniest quiver in her lip.
That's one thing he's always respected about Gaby – she's got one of the best poker face's he's ever seen, but he's been learning to read her and can tell that she's as mad as he is, as scared as he is.
Napoleon takes a breath. "So, I hope I'm not going out on a limb with this, but we are ignoring Waverly, yes?"
Gaby glances to the phone, the clock on the wall, the painting over the fireplace.
"This room is not bugged," Napoleon assures her. "I've swept it every day myself, twice, and Illya, well," he shrugs, "I don't know how many times Illya swept it a day."
Gaby still takes a minute, rolling her tongue over her bottom lip and nodding to herself, building up the gusto before she says, "Yes," with resignation. "We're ignoring Waverly."
XxX
I always knew I'd come to Paris, he had said. They were walking the war torn streets of the City of Lights. Napoleon was sharing his cigarette ration in exchange for company. The fullness of his feelings for the other man had not set in just yet.
Is that so? Napoleon had asked.
Yeah, always knew I'd be here one day, he said with a discouraged sigh, I assumed it would be to study.
Study what? Napoleon asked. Any conversation that wasn't about whether or not they'd make it out of this alive was one to be harbored for that sake alone.
And that boy, that man, that beautiful, stupid man, turned to Napoleon with such a glimmer in his eye that Napoleon would never forget it (as one never should forget the moment their fate is sealed) and said, Art. I thought I'd come here and study art.
XxX
The first time Napoleon knew he wanted to kiss Illya was after the fiasco with Uncle Rudi.
Napoleon had never been tortured before. Drugged, yes; captured, hell yes; shot at, threatened, had his cover blown: check, check, check.
Tortured?
Not so much. It was really just pure luck mixed with a dash of charm that had managed to get Napoleon through all of his missions unmolested in that particular fashion. Sheer, stupid luck.
But everyone's luck runs dry eventually and Uncle Rudi did not fall for Napoleon's charm, neither did Victoria.
"Shame, to lose an artist such as yourself," she had said. "You would've been a great forger to have on staff." And then she left Napoleon to his impending doom.
Uncle Rudi was a sort of textbook definition of terrible. Smarmy and pleased with himself for it. Napoleon was really a bit stuck on how he was going to get himself out of it – not to mention the fact that being electrocuted was really the least fun way to spend an afternoon.
He was unspeakably relieved, the sort of relieved he could remember seeing on the faces of liberated war prisoners, when his Russian counterpart quietly slipped into the room.
Illya knocked Rudi out with efficiency, but there was something in the way his hands momentarily curled along the collar of the man's shirt as he laid him down that spoke to a barely contained violence inside of Illya. That he not only could, but wanted, to crush this man's throat and was only holding back for Napoleon's sake. To give Napoleon a say in the man's fate.
It's an entirely different sort of electricity that surged, wild and unbidden, through Napoleon's body at the first touch of Illya's hands on him. One mixed with relief and disbelief in equal parts that the Russian had come to save him from Gaby's sadistic uncle.
There was a gentleness to the way Illya handled him that startled Napoleon: firstly in its appearance at all; and secondly in its intensity. The way Illya had knelt down beside him so not to loom as he undid the straps first on Napoleon's right hand, his dominate hand, of course, to make him feel slightly more secure as he moved to undo the left hand. He was exceedingly careful not to put any pressure on Napoleon, just folded back the straps on Napoleon's body, freeing him as quickly as he could.
But before Napoleon could jump (or perhaps struggle) to his feet, Illya touched the inside of his wrist with two fingers, looked up at him with a strange softness in his eyes and asked, "Are you all right?"
Napoleon's mouth was completely dry – being drugged and than tortured will do that to a man – and it took him a moment to come up with the words, "I'll probably live."
"Well then," Illya said, finally standing up himself and offering Napoleon a hand out of the chair.
As soon as he took it, there it was again – the sudden rush of something through him. Something hungry and wanting and awakened by Illya's touch, Illya's presence. He wanted Illya to tug a little harder, pull him into the shelter of his large body, place his hands around Napoleon's back and cradle him close.
The image struck through Napoleon's mind and he felt his cheeks rise with color for half a moment before he managed to tamper the whole thing down.
He told himself that wasn't proper, that wasn't all right, and that he was just confusing the relief of having been saved with desire.
It was a good lie, but even Napoleon knew it was a lie.
XxX
"They'll take him back to Russia," Gaby says.
Napoleon nods, just once. It's been two hours since Illya's gone missing. Napoleon can't stop keeping track in his head. Every moment that Illya is gone means he'll be just that much harder to find.
"If you think someone is a traitor, might as well take them somewhere you have complete jurisdiction over them," he says.
"Our best course is to get him while they're moving him. Once they get him into Russia," she says and shrugs, her body easily conveying all the words she doesn't want to say, like he'll be a lost cause on Soviet soil.
"You're right. So, we'll have to think about what would be the best way to get him out of Paris, out of France. The fastest way probably. Shit," Napoleon says and leaps to his feet. "He's probably on a plane by now."
"You think he went quietly?" Gaby asks.
"He would be a fool not to," Napoleon says. "It would just confirm their suspicions if he kicked up a fuss."
Gaby's quiet for a moment and than gets up and goes to her room, comes back with the smaller of her suitcases. "I still have contacts in Germany," she says.
Napoleon raises an eyebrow at her.
She gives a tiny shrug, like she wants to say I'm more complicated than you know before she explains herself. "Contacts with Russian connections. You don't have to know everyone as long as you know enough someones," she says and Napoleon gives her a small, brief smile.
He regrets any time he ever doubted her.
XxX
My dad told me this story once about his father, he had said. They were stretched out on their backs on the first real grass Napoleon could remember seeing for months – not decimated in tank tracks or turned to mud by the seemingly endless rain of Europe (which had, for this one, rare moment, ceased and allowed them to lay down and stare at a sky a shade of blue Napoleon would've forgotten it had it not been the same shade of blue as the other man's eyes-) .
Napoleon had given a hum of agreement to let him know he was listening.
His grandfather was a boxer. Back in Scotland, before he immigrated over. Not a very good boxer, mind you, but a boxer. He taught my dad some stuff and when he did, he used to—well, let's just say he'd go hard on my father. Knock him around a bit. Knock him to the ground. But anytime my father went to the ground, my grandfather would tell him that he had to keep fighting, that it was important that if you were gonna lose the match, lose it on your feet. He said, if you're gonna die, die standing up. But to drive that point home, my grandfather used to yell, 'Stand back up, because somebody loves you.'
He said, the man continued. Napoleon turned to look from the sky to him, to the sharp point of his chin, the lovely line of his jaw, the languidness of his limbs that Napoleon never got to see (cause, after all, there was a war on), and listened to him continue his tale. My father said that that stayed with him, helped him during the Great War. Became a sort of mantra for him. Reminded him to survive so he could go home to the people who loved him. Whenever it got tough, he'd remember that – stand up, because someone loves you. Die on your feet. He said it was what got him through.
Napoleon let him finish, let the silence wind its way between them like a cat before asking, Do you ever rely on that? Use it as your mantra?
Sometimes, the man replied.
Does it help?
Sometimes, he said and then he turned to look back at Napoleon, like there was something he wanted to say and couldn't.
Napoleon felt it then, heart in his throat and a sudden, tight feeling in his chest as he laid his hand down in the grass, brushed it subtly – so no one else would see – along the other man's side. He'd smiled, gently, before carefully taking Napoleon's hand in his own. And they lay like that, awaiting orders to move out, with their hands clasped between them, in the gap between their bodies to save their affection from wandering eyes.
Later, much later, in a drunken stupor on the bathroom floor of a shitty hotel in Naples, Napoleon would remember that conversation and think to himself, well, at least he did die on his feet.
It wasn't as comforting as he'd wished it could've been.
(Because no matter how the man you love dies, he is still, in fact, dead.)
XxX
He wasn't sure if it wasn't just an eye for an eye sort of situation that caused Illya to save him.
Being that Napoleon had pulled him from the water when he was motionless – only the night before. But, then again, it was more or less Napoleon's fault Illya had gone into the water to begin with (but for arguments' sake, it was Illya's father's watch's fault that they had found the safe and consequently set off the alarm).
But he knew when he was told he might have to kill the Russian that he wouldn't be able to.
It was the first time he felt truly compromised on a mission. Not like having his cover blown, but realizing there was a reason good enough to die in the field.
It'd been a long time since he felt that way – not since the war, not since the muddy fields of Germany – and it was a sinking, terrible realization.
Because he knew better than to fall in love. Had known, for years now, the consequences of falling in love.
Still. He saved Peril from the water and tried (and failed) to turn his heart to stone.
XxX
One of Gaby's contacts in Berlin gives her the address to a house out in the German countryside and no other information.
At first, Napoleon doesn't trust it. Something about it stinks but he doesn't have enough pieces to put it together and, besides, he knows he's compromised so he lets Gaby make the call.
The address is in West Germany, so they won't have to cross the wall (at least, not yet) and it's out in a farming village.
Illya has been gone almost thirty-two hours. (A fact that Napoleon is not handling well. He didn't sleep while they waited for Gaby's contact to get back to her, paced the hotel room and sipped a single glass of scotch – an attempt to calm his nerves without actually impairing himself. It didn't work and Gaby eventually made him go to bed, if only to keep him from wearing a hole in the floor with his tracks.)
Gaby trusts her contact and asks Napoleon if he has any contacts or better plans for rescuing Illya and when it's clear he doesn't, they're on the next train out of Paris and into Germany.
XxX
No, no, he had said around the cigarette in his mouth. That's not da Vinci. Here, let me show you. He slipped a notebook across to Napoleon, pencil lines scattering across the pages, revealing his own artwork intermingled with recreation of famous artists, dead artists. Important artists.
You see? He asked.
Napoleon couldn't stop flipping through the pages, the intricacy, the emotion of it. The things he was saying without speaking.
Teach me.
Teach you what? To draw?
No, Napoleon said, shaking his head. I would be terrible at that. No, teach me about art.
Why?
Because you love it, because it's beautiful, because I know nothing about it and because war is hell. Distract me from our impending doom.
There was a pause in which the other man just looked at him, soaking in Napoleon's presence, getting drunk off him. Then he scratched a hand through his hair. All right. I'll teach you about art.
Napoleon beamed at him.
XxX
The worst part in all this was that Illya felt the same. Napoleon knew it. That electricity at Illya's touch when he pulled him out of Rudi's chair flowed both ways.
Meeting his eye across the aisle when they both were ordered to kill the other and both knew it was an impossibility. Realizing that they had, however begrudgingly, earned each other's trust and that was not something cast away lightly.
How far they'd both fallen. And Illya would prove himself as incapable of killing Napoleon as Napoleon was of killing him.
Napoleon knew he was lying to himself when he told himself the reasons he couldn't kill Illya was mere camaraderie. You don't save someone's life, have your life saved by them, and then turn around a sink a bullet into the back of their skull. You just don't. Honor among thieves and spies and all that.
It wouldn't be till later, till they were alone that he would put a name on it. Several missions down the line, half a dozen hotels in half a dozen cities scattered across Europe. Two months and two days after meeting the Russian, they'd be holed up in an attic apartment in Spain, Napoleon lying on the couch, nursing a sprained wrist and several bruised ribs when he would finally put a name to it. When he would finally look up at Illya – silhouetted against the windows, which were all aglow in the setting sun – and think I love him.
Followed as quickly by as many curse words as he could come up with because he promised – promised – himself after last time, after the last man he loved had died that he would never love again. That he would just collect art and sleep with beautiful women and never look back.
But it felt as unstoppable as bullets, as unsinkable as the moon. Illya cut off a phone call he was having in very poor Spanish with one of their local contacts and turned around to look at Napoleon, resting his hands on the windowsill and taking him in like a cool drink on a summer day.
Napoleon was pinned under his gaze and waited for it – for Illya to lose his temper. He'd been working with the man long enough that he could feel it coming like a disturbance in the ether.
"You must stop doing stupid things," Illya said. "You will get yourself killed."
Napoleon shrugged. "I don't see how that would be terribly detrimental to you," he replied.
Illya made a wounded sound in the back of his throat. "It would be detrimental because you are my partner. You are my… friend," he said, and then looked puzzled like he didn't know he knew that word.
Napoleon wished he could just stop existing for a moment. Wished he could shake Illya's gaze off of him, wished he could halt the conversation – suspend it forever – but he couldn't, and he was just a little too banged up to get up and leave the room without it being an event.
"Friend," he echoed Illya.
Illya swallowed and then nodded.
"Not many friends in this line of work," Napoleon commented.
"No," Illya agreed. "Not many."
XxX
The man who greets them in the Germany countryside only has three fingers on his right hand, the wound still fresh enough to be scabbed over. He's clearly only a few years older than Napoleon but gives off an air of being much older due to his thinning hair and the limp he walks with.
Napoleon soon puts together that the man is ex-KGB. One of Gaby's Berlin contacts smuggled him over the wall three weeks ago.
Very recently ex-KGB.
"Well," the man says in heavily accented German. "They cleared my name. I was not the mole."
He's shaking a bit as he speaks, unable to help himself, a constant tremor that thrums through his arms. Napoleon doesn't want to think about what they did to him to make his body behave like that.
"They've granted me… My life, I suppose, after accusing me of being unfaithful and discovering that I was never unfaithful to my country. But by the time they determined that, I was too damaged to be of any use to them anymore. So they cut me loose."
Napoleon doesn't say anything, lets Gaby do the talking on this one.
"Do you know where they took you?" she asks.
The man nods, looking down at his hand on the table, the missing fingers.
"Can you show me? On a map?"
The man nods again.
Gaby rubs his arm consolingly. "Do you want to show us where they took you?" she asks, finally, her voice soft, knowing asking a man to betray his country – even if his country did take two of his fingers and heaven knows what else – is still a huge thing to ask of someone.
That's when he meets Gaby's eye and there's something cold and fierce in him. It's the look of someone whose seen combat, whose put their life on the line and lived to tell about it.
"I'll tell you where they took me and you liberate your friend. Even if he's not the mole, they will still hurt him," he says in no uncertain terms. "But promise me this," he says.
Gaby squeezes his wrist gently. "Anything," she assures him.
"When you liberate him, do as much damage as you can to those bastards. They killed my zhena. Make them pay."
Gaby's face goes stony. "We will tear them apart," she promises.
XxX
These are my favorites, he had said and then passed Napoleon a notebook full to the brim of recreates he'd methodically put together over the past several weeks. Napoleon had seen him drawing, but he had staunchly refused to let Napoleon see what he was drawing. Every time Napoleon had snuck up behind him to peek over his shoulder, he'd lay the notebook down on his chest, say nah, ah ah, not yet, and then distract Napoleon with a kiss (as long as no one was watching, or, at least, as long as no one who cared was watching).
He labeled each one with the original artist and him and Napoleon stretched out on their stomachs in the grass to go through them. Each page, he explained why that piece of art was one of his favorites. What the artist had done, why he had done it, what it meant to him personally.
Napoleon didn't know he could feel that way, about anyone, but every piece of art made him love the man beside him just that much more and he promised himself – that later, when the war was over and the world was right again – they would go to Paris, or wherever else they needed to go, to see each and every one of those works of art.
XxX
Illya kissed him in Amsterdam.
Napoleon – no stranger to flirting with whoever will get him what he wants – had spent all night tucked into a corner booth of a fairly liberal nightclub necking with the playboy son of a powerful arms dealer. He was too young for Napoleon's taste – barely into his twenties – and his frame was too narrow for Napoleon's liking (he wouldn't have been a challenge for Napoleon to hold down at all). But, he was going to get Napoleon access to his father's house (and consequently his father's office, where Napoleon could then track who he was selling to).
Afterwards, in the safe house Waverly had set up for them overlooking one of Amsterdam's many canals, Illya had entered Napoleon's room without knocking and waited for him to come out of the bathroom.
This behavior wasn't a wholly uncommon occurrence but not a particularly common one either, that gray area of neither alarming nor ordinary.
Napoleon exited the bathroom with his hair still dripping and rubbing idly at the start of a hickey on his neck. "I'm going to have to borrow Gaby's foundation – that kid left a mark," he said with disgust.
Illya said nothing, quietly watching Napoleon from the sofa.
"You all right there, Peril?" Napoleon asked, running his hand over the bruise again, fixating on it in the decorative mirror hung on the wall.
"Yes, fine," Illya clipped off.
Napoleon turned around. "Don't sound fine."
"I did not know you would be so bold," Illya said.
"Bold?"
"You kissed man, went back to his house."
"All part of the mission, Peril."
"Is that all?" Illya asked, inexplicably furious. "You only kiss men on missions?"
"Does it matter? I know it's… looked down on in Russia. Illegal."
"Illegal in America too," Illya spat back.
Napoleon shrugged. "Yes. I did not deny that, but I've also never been exactly law-abiding."
"So you don't kiss men only on missions?" Illya asked, his voice lacking its earlier bite but still guarding something.
Napoleon sighed, longsuffering, closed his eyes briefly and asked, "What does it matter?" Opened them again and pinned Illya with a stare. "Are you going to request a transfer if I say no? If I tell you sometimes I kiss men because I like to kiss men? Go to Waverly and demand to be partnered with someone who's not a queer?"
When Illya got to his feet, Napoleon was sure he was going to get punched. Right in the face too, the way the Russian advanced on him, sharp strides across the room.
Napoleon didn't shrink from him, but he did back up.
Till his back hit the wall with a muted thump and Illya loomed larger than life over him, breathing deeply, erratically.
"No," Illya said.
Napoleon will deny to his dying day that he winced when Illya leaned in – but he knows the truth, he was certain the Russian would hurt him. One of Illya's hands fisted in the robe Napoleon was wearing, tugging him off balance and away from the wall, while his other hand curved – gentle, so gentle – around the back of Napoleon's neck and then Illya kissed him.
A short, sweet thing. Just a press of his lips, warm and coaxing and than gone again after a moment. But he didn't let go, just held the American, a few inches away, breathing the same air, caught there like time stood still.
"Peril," Napoleon said after a beat. His heart – his fucking heart was thundering in his chest, hard and hurting. He felt bruised from the inside out. A graveyard inside of him that Illya was trying to breathe life back into, stir up the flowers of the cruelest month.
"You are captivating, Napoleon," Illya said, starry-eyed, eclipsing the light of the room.
And for a moment – Napoleon teetered on the edge of being two people at once: Illya's cowboy, Illya's friend who would die for him, who loves him more than he knows how to vs. the army boy he was, barely seventeen and covered in blood of the man he was going to love till the rivers ran dry and the mountains crumbled to dust. And the two of them at war with one another. The things he knew competing with space for the dozens of might-have-beens, all of them tearing holes inside of him.
He could've had that. Had Illya.
But he could still hear the gunshot – sharp and clear and world ending – ringing out from the second story window of a building in a nothingness town in Germany, a lone sniper not letting the war be won even though it was already over – and watching him crumble to his knees and watching him fall face-first into the cobble stone.
Time split, folded back on itself and in his mind's eye, it was suddenly Illya.
Illya's face against the road and Illya's hands pressing lifelessly against the wound and Illya's blood forming rivulets in the cracks between stones.
Just like that, the world righted itself again and Napoleon was back in the safe house in Amsterdam, pushing Illya away, keeping him at bay with the palm of one hand.
"I thought?" Illya started. His face, his voice, impeccably hurt. An invisible gunshot wound. His hands full of blood.
Napoleon almost took it back. Almost.
Then Illya stepped back, gave Napoleon space and wouldn't meet his eye as his fists balled up and his face turned red and he apologized. (Napoleon knew they would be paying for another wrecked hotel room that night but there was nothing he could say to calm him after rejecting him.)
"I read wrong," Illya said. "I'm sorry. I thought you might want… me," he said it like the idea was so far-fetched that he was ashamed to have thought it.
Napoleon has been responsibly for many people's pain throughout the years. Fortunately, in his line of work, most of them had deserved it.
Illya, however, does not, and Napoleon can't keep them straight – the dead boy in Germany and his handsome, Russian partner with his plush, sweet mouth.
Napoleon took a moment to decide on a course of action – didn't like any of the one's available to him and so picked the one of least resistance.
When he finally replied, his voice wasn't its usual smoothness, usual bravado, usual command. Instead, it was small and breathy, ghost-like as he admitted, "I do."
Illya had some impossible way of looking small that made Napoleon continue, "I do want you."
Illya twitched a little, caught on the edge of being angry still. "Then why?" he asked and when Napoleon didn't reply, his face fell as he realized, "There's someone else."
It wasn't a question. It was the definite answer of a man who had been there before. Napoleon could hear it in his voice and hated himself for doing that to Illya, for being the one to inflict him pain.
"Who?" Illya asked. "I never see you with anyone more than once. You never speak of anyone-? You're always bedding women…," Then something clicks. "You're lover is man. The women, they are a cover?"
Napoleon couldn't speak, only nodded. It was easier to let Illya put it together than to tear open that part of his heart and show off the wounds that always seemed as fresh as the day he got them.
Illya accepted this. "I'm sorry, I didn't not know or I would not have," he said with a vague gesture at Napoleon and then turned to go.
But there was a moment in which Napoleon felt helpless – to the loss of his last love, to the feelings he had for Illya, to the world at large, constantly making life choices for him, so, without thinking, he blurt out – "He's dead."
Illya paused in the doorway and for a moment, Napoleon wanted to scrap everything, put away his notions of not letting himself get hurt again and take a chance with Illya. Wanted the Russian – the Red Peril – with a vibrant intensity, even though he knew he couldn't have him, couldn't keep him. Knew if he did, it would just end bloody like last time because that's the way the world works.
But he'd never told a soul before. It'd been his life's biggest secret and Illya was his friend, his partner. Illya cared about him more than anyone had in a long time and if anyone would listen, would be gentle and understanding about what had happened, about how it had hurt, it would be Illya—
Illya stayed frozen in the doorway, motionless for a long moment, face strangely blank and body sniper-still as he took stock of Napoleon.
He said nothing. Didn't even twitch and after several minutes of that tense silence, Napoleon snapped.
Up and cracked under the weight of it. Of saying his secret out loud and having it meet with nothing. It felt worse than revulsion, than rejection. It felt like he had been gutted, hollowed out and told to keep living with nothing inside to keep him standing. He didn't know what the point was anymore. Thought maybe there wasn't one. The CIA owned him and the man he loved was dead and Illya just stood there looking at him like he was nothing.
Napoleon leaned back into the wall again, slid down it to rest with his face in his knees.
"I'm sorry," he said into the fabric of his robe. "I'm sorry," he said to Illya. "I'm sorry," he said to the man shot dead in Germany half a lifetime ago.
"Cowboy," Illya said after a long, silent moment in which Napoleon did not get up off the floor.
A large, warm palm landed on his shoulder and slipped across to the back of his neck. "You're all right," Illya said. "Breathe."
Napoleon didn't realize that he hadn't been. His chest burned with the absence of it and he struggled for another moment, suddenly gasping, almost choking. But then Illya rubbed his fingers along the nob at the top of his spine and he worked through it.
"Up," Illya ordered and hauled Napoleon bodily to his feet before he could follow the command. "You need sleep," Illya said and marched him over to his bed, dropped him onto it.
Illya helped him get under the blankets, tucked him in like some little kid and Napoleon was too hollowed out to feel embarrassed about it.
"Sleep," Illya ordered. "You will feel better," he said, rubbing Napoleon's shoulder warmly before crossing the room and turning off the light.
But just before he left, Napoleon broke the silence.
"Thomas," he said. "His name was Thomas."
Illya had paused in the doorway, looking back at Napoleon – illuminated by the light falling through the open door – and repeated it. "Thomas." Like he was checking the merits of it, feeling the weight of it. Sizing it up as a single word that contained an entire life. Then he nodded to himself. "That's a good name," he appraised solidly, something warm in his otherwise cold voice before saying again, "Go to sleep, Cowboy," and closing the door behind him.
XxX
You're a reckless man, Solo, Thomas said, breathless into Napoleon's neck. They'd snuck away, found a dense outcropping of trees on the edge of camp and fooled around to completion.
The war made him feel dead – like he'd descended into the first layer of Hell and the only way out was to cross further into the pit.
But Thomas made him feel alive. Warm, like his bones were thawing and there was some hope to be had for after – after he climbed past the Devil and through to the other side. After the war was over.
Here, he whispered when they got back into camp, climbing into their respective sleeping bags.
He pushed a leather bound journal into Napoleon's hands.
It's all filled up. You hang onto it.
Napoleon pressed the book to his chest for a moment, looking over at Thomas in the dark, memorizing the outline of his face, his tiny smile, the sharp jut of his chin and cheekbones.
XxX
"Waverly's agreed to help," Gaby says, coming back into the room. They're in Berlin, checked into a tiny, chic hotel – like the one Napoleon promised to take Gaby to the night they met and never did.
She flops down beside him, obviously tired. Illya's been gone three days now and they've been constantly on the move and putting feelers out into various channels for almost the entirety of those three days.
"He's not happy about us ignoring him," she goes on, "But he has agreed to help. Not much though. Just an extraction team."
"What's the catch?" Napoleon asks.
"They won't help us till we hit Germany. We get caught and Waverly knows nothing and you get charged with treason and I go back to East Berlin."
Napoleon nods, standing with his hands behind his back. "Are those terms acceptable to you?"
"I would've gone after him with nothing."
XxX
Thomas gave him another notebook – this one had drawings of Napoleon scattered through recreations of famous art, original pieces, portraits of fellow soldiers and a few depictions of some of the things they saw at war.
They liberated a concentration camp a day earlier and an eerie silence had settled over the unit ever since. They'd all seen horrible things in Europe, but this was the worst horror of them all.
But, part of it, Napoleon suspected, was that it also proved they were doing something, their presence wasn't just sacrificial. The war was just about over and now they had some solid proof to believe it.
In their tent, Thomas rolled closer to Napoleon, pulled their blankets around them and sank his nose into the hollow of Napoleon's throat.
If we'd been here, they would've locked us up with them, he said into Napoleon's skin.
Napoleon cradled the back of his head with one, warm hand and tried not to think too hard about it. But every time he closed his eyes he saw their faces, their dirty clothes, yellow stars and pink triangles.
But what he had – Thomas – was some strange blessing of war. That no one blinks twice when you curl up with another man to keep warm on a cold European night.
XxX
Illya waited one week after the failed kiss in Amsterdam to talk to Napoleon about it.
Well, not about the kiss. That never gets mentioned again.
No, instead he asked Napoleon about Thomas.
They were lying flat on their backs in the crawlspace under an ancient house in rural Italy, waiting for extraction from a sticky situation when Illya cleared his throat and asked, "Thomas – did he have family?"
They were packed so close together that Illya was blurry when Napoleon turned his head to look at him.
At first, he wanted to tell Illya to shut up. To never mention Thomas to him again, to forget that night in Amsterdam and, hell, maybe even forget him the process.
But he remembered why he told Illya – that Illya was his friend and a little bent like him and Thomas was something beautiful that he had never gotten to share with anyone, never told a soul about before.
So he answered Illya.
"He was a middle child. Widowed mother, younger brother, younger sister, older brother who served too. He survived the war," Napoleon said and didn't mean for his voice to drop on the last sentence, but, well, Napoleon never got over resenting the cruelty of fate.
Illya made a humming noise in acknowledgement before asking, "Did they have a funeral? For him?"
It was a bit like being punched in the gut, dragging this stuff to the surface again after so long. "Yes, there was a funeral, back in New York, where he was from, where we were both from," Napoleon said, facing the dusty floorboards above them again.
He listened to Illya shift a little, no doubt getting all kinds of dirt in his hair as he cranes his neck to look at Napoleon.
"Did you go?"
Napoleon shook his head. "I was still at war, and then after the war… well, lets just say it was a few years before I made it Stateside again, if you know what I mean."
Illya almost let it go there, but after several minutes of silence – just their breath disturbing the cobwebs – he asked, "Did you visit grave?"
Napoleon closed his eyes.
"No."
Illya never asked why not.
XxX
The closer to the wall they get, the more apprehensive Gaby looks. The more apprehensive she looks, the more uneasy Napoleon grows.
He grabs her hand between them, squeezing it gently till she looks at him and says, "No matter what happens, I promise, I'll get you back out again."
She gives him a forced, watery smile, saying, "You better, Cowboy."
As soon as she says it, she realizes it's the wrong thing to say and apologizes immediately.
Napoleon ignores her apology but promises her, "We're gonna get him out."
XxX
They were on a stake out, three weeks after the incident in Amsterdam, laying low in a shoddy hotel in Belfast after a mission went a tiny bit awry in Scotland. Waverly wanted to keep them close in case the situation could be rectified, but not so close they would get caught.
They'd been there two days and Napoleon was getting ready to start climbing the walls when Illya – without looking up from the chess match he was playing against himself –said, "Tell me about Thomas."
At first, Napoleon thinks that he's misheard. "Sorry, your accent got the better of me for a moment there, Peril. What did you say?"
Illya looked up then, held Napoleon's gaze steady and made no mistakes as he said, "Thomas. Tell me about him."
Napoleon's kneejerk reaction was to accuse Illya of playing a sick joke on him, but in all the time he'd known the Russian, he had never played a joke on anyone. Which could only mean that he was being sincere and Napoleon wanted, in part, to tell him to go to hell, but, also, part of him fell a little more in love with the Red Peril for it.
Napoleon dropped, defeated, into the chair cattycorner to Illya and said, "He was young, like me. From New York City, like me. An art student."
"Like you?" Illya asked, without taking his eyes off the chessboard, his careful hands moving pieces slowly and deliberately.
"No. I was no one and I knew nothing about art before Thomas."
"So you were stationed together?"
Napoleon nodded. "His unit got mostly decimated somewhere in France. He'd been in the war a good six months longer than me. My unit was sent out and picked up the stragglers from his. I guess he took me under his wing, sort of speak, showed me how to survive a warzone without dying."
"Sounds like a valuable friend," Illya said.
Napoleon stared at Illya, at the furrow of his brow over his game, the natural curve of his lip, the smoothness of his skin, his long, delicate fingers and felt time slip a little. Felt his heart give out a little.
"He was," Napoleon agreed, reminding himself that love is a deadly, dangerous thing and he won't do it to himself again.
He won't.
XxX
Do you not know how to use them? Napoleon had asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious, watching Thomas turn the pastels over one at a time.
Thomas stubbed out his cigarette, exhaled the last of the smoke and said, Naw, it's pretty intuitive, just never used them before.
Well, I figured your art lessons would be easier if everything wasn't in gray scale.
Thomas laughed. You're probably right. Besides, rumor is the Nazis are destroying all the art they can find, he says, smacking his notebook. These might be the only copies left in existence after the war.
He knows Thomas was trying to be lighthearted, but, like most things in war, it's hard, and Napoleon couldn't even muster a sympathy chuckle.
Thomas just looked out across the field before them, eyes distant and stormy-blue.
XxX
Illya has been missing for four days by the time they reach the farmhouse in the Russian countryside the ex-KGB agent with only eight fingers gave them directions to.
It's definitely the place. Gaby and Napoleon have been lying in the grass, counting the guards coming and going for nearly four hours.
"What if he's not in there?" Gaby asks the question Napoleon hasn't been letting himself ask.
Then he'll be in a shallow grave out back if we're really lucky, Napoleon thinks but does not say.
Instead, he checks his gun again and says, "Then we go to Moscow." I'll burn this country to the ground for Illya, he thinks.
"With the KGB on our tail?" she asks but she doesn't sound terribly worried about it.
Napoleon lets the slide click home on his pistol. "I'm sure we can handle it," he assures her with a bravado smile. "Ready?"
Gaby shakes her head at him but says, "I'm ready." It feels like they've made a suicide pact.
XxX
It became a habit. Anytime there was a quiet moment between Napoleon and Illya and they're lives weren't at stake, he would ask about Thomas.
At first, it felt like pulling himself apart. Tearing his skin off and inviting the starving to look at the wound.
But, somewhere along the way, it became therapeutic. Healing. It wasn't opening old wounds for the sake of opening them, but to validate them. To know that they were real, that he was real, that what they were to each other was real.
It doesn't hurt again until the day Illya puts two and two together and the whole of Napoleon's life feels like a farce.
They were waiting to tail Gaby (who had been on a date with their mark and spent the night at his spacious home) through the streets of Vaduz, Illya behind the driver seat and Napoleon spread out on the backseat, lying prone and out of sight.
"Your private collection," Illya said, a sudden burst of sound in the car.
Napoleon craned his neck a little to see the Russian but didn't say anything.
Around them, dawn was cracking along the edges of the world, like cracks in an eggshell, spilling out bright yellow. (Napoleon had always hated eggs.)
"There are pieces you stole, never sold. You have private collection," Illya said.
Napoleon hummed. "I am neither going to confirm nor deny that. Wouldn't put it past the CIA to tack a few more years onto my sentence over hearsay."
Illya did not rise to that bait. Instead, he continued with his original thought. "The commission that brought you down thought you were saving them till price went up."
Napoleon turned his gaze from Illya's profile to out the window again. The sky was turning a lovely shade of lilac. He remembered waking up to that color at dawn back during the war; remembered feeling so gracious for it – aside from the stolen pastels packed in Thomas's things, there was so little color at war and Napoleon was so hungry for it.
"The price was not why you did not sell those pieces," Illya said.
Napoleon squeezed his eyes shut. Illya had him all figured out.
The CIA might have caught him, but they never understood him. No one had, not since Thomas died in a little town in Germany, but, then, that event had turned him into the man he was, a man Thomas never knew.
"You didn't sell them because," Illya started and stopped. At first, Napoleon thought he was waiting for Napoleon to fill in the blank – to own up to the reason – but then he realized it was because Illya was afraid to say it. Like if he didn't say it, it wouldn't be true. Not because it was horrific, but because it was painful. So they sat there, for several heartbeats, with the matter hovering in a state between fact and falsehood. He was leaving an opening for Napoleon to deny it, to decide which way to turn the conversation, to twist the truth to make himself feel better.
But Napoleon didn't pick up the reigns, didn't sway the conversation another way. Just lay still and quiet in the back seat of the car and watched the sky change hues with the rising sun.
"The art you stole and sold," Illya finally went on. "Maybe for money, yes, but also distraction. The ones that never reappeared – your private collection."
Napoleon sighed his defeat, looked at Illya again – he was still facing forward, watching the garage door of the house Gaby was in.
"Something like that," Napoleon confirmed.
"Thomas's favorites," Illya said.
It wasn't a question. He didn't need confirmation.
No one knew Napoleon Solo like Illya Kuryakin did.
In the backseat, Napoleon swallowed, felt his face burn hot and looked down at his hands till the sudden urge to cry passed.
XxX
You should join me, Thomas had said. They were making headway across Germany. The war was all but over, they could see the end and they were hopeful.
Join you? Napoleon asked.
When this is all over, come back to New York with me. We'll get a little apartment together. We'll both get jobs, I'll work my way through school. He turned and smiled at Napoleon, wide and bright and said, You'll become the live in lover of one of the twentieth centuries most influential artists.
Oh? I'll be your kept man? You think you'll be able to afford me? Napoleon asked.
Judging by the way you dress and eat these days, I should be able to keep you with my pocket change.
Napoleon shoved him. I'll have you know, when this is all over, I'm wearing nothing but designer suits and eat in the finest restaurants.
I didn't know you were so fussy. Maybe I'll have to find someone else, someone less high maintenance.
You mean cheaper, Napoleon said. And you wouldn't dare. There's no one like me. You would go mad from missing me.
Don't flatter yourself, Napoleon.
XxX
Gaby's using Illya's gun with the silencer on it, takes out the two guards at the front door while Napoleon picks the lock on the back door.
She's going to be a distraction so he can find Illya. Gaby's contact wasn't as much use about the interior of the house – said he knew he was in a basement, damp and windowless. Knew there were at least a half a dozen men inside, but unable to tell if it was more or not, the same half dozen the whole time or not.
The backdoor opens quietly into a kitchen, where a very fresh-faced KGB agent looks terribly surprised when Napoleon slinks through and gracefully sinks his knife into the boy's heart with one hand, the other cupped over his mouth to muffle the sound.
He's never been one to delight in killing – always been too close to the dying to appreciate it as anything more than an act he's been forced to do – but this time, for a flash of a second, he sees a young, German sniper's face from a second story window in the face of the young KGB agent as he lays him out on the floor without a sound.
No, there's no delight in the killing, but there is relief in taking back what's his.
XxX
He had to turn Illya down again.
They were in New York – Napoleon's hometown – nearly ten months after the Amsterdam incident.
Christmas time in New York, nevertheless. It was snowing, picture-perfect and their mission had gone off without a hitch, so Waverly had given them time off through the New Year.
Napoleon asked Illya to stay with him through the holidays. Decided to stay in New York – something he hadn't done for any length of time since before the war – and give Illya a native's guide to the city, and maybe see what had or hadn't changed for himself.
In retrospect, he could see why Illya had taken it as a perfect segue into asking Napoleon to be his lover a second time.
They'd gone to dinner and then spent hours walking the city, taking in the sights at night, until the chill started to get to them and they retired to the spacious suite Napoleon had checked them into (the first time he's gotten to choose his own hotel in years).
Napoleon fixed them coffee – Irish – and stood by the window, soaking in the lights of the city while he and Illya talked lightheartedly about their family's holiday traditions as children. The shots taken at each other in the café in Berlin were long forgotten and they spoke to each other like they both didn't have private worlds of hurt inside them, stemmed from old wounds that never fully healed.
Napoleon remembers thinking that was what made a good friend – the kind of person who knows when to ignore when you're hurt and when not to.
But somewhere in the conversation, his second cup of coffee grew cold and Illya joined him at the window and he couldn't say when Illya's hand came to rest at the small of his back – but he suddenly realized they were standing so close together. Illya's face soft in the light of the city, his gaze following the snow that had, of course, just begun to fall.
So, yes, in retrospect, Napoleon could see his mistake but in the moment, he found himself rather blindsided.
Illya squeezed his hip, gently, where his hand was splayed – huge and warm – tipped his head in until his nose brushed tantalizingly along Napoleon's jaw and asked, "Would you come to bed with me tonight, Cowboy?"
It was like a frozen stone fell through Napoleon's body – cold and hard and settled in his stomach as the easy grin slipped from his face and he stepped backwards out of Illya's grasp. Such a fool he had been, letting his guard down like he wasn't a trained spy, the CIA's best nonetheless and Illya could just sidle up to him like that.
He shook his head before he could get his voice to work and he looked down at his cold cup of coffee and Irish cream and back to the Russian with his wide, imploring blue eyes. "No, Peril," he said, his voice feeling distant and removed from him.
Illya set his lips together tight, nodded without looking at Napoleon.
"We've been here before, the answer is still no. The answer is always going to be no."
"Why?" Illya asked.
Napoleon tried not to see the Russian's hands shaking – the nervous tick before he wrecks something. He remembered fearing that it would come to blows – that they wouldn't even be able to be partners anymore, yet alone friends.
"You know why," Napoleon said, setting his cup down on the table by the window in case he needed to ward Illya off.
"Because of Thomas?" Illya bit the words off, they sounded so harsh coming from him, an attack on Napoleon's person, on his life and all it's choices.
For a moment, Napoleon regretted everything – regretted confining in Illya, regretted not killing him in Naples instead of giving him back his father's watch, regretted not taking a shot at him when he was a nameless giant trying to stop Gaby's car with strength alone.
Of course, that gave him a case of severe emotional whiplash, because, all things considered, he was regularly, near-nauseatingly glad he hadn't killed Illya when he had the chance.
"Because of Thomas," Napoleon replied, his voice full of resignation.
Illya's jaw tensed as he swallowed, his hands curled into fists and Napoleon wasn't sure which way it would go down.
"It's been almost twenty years since he died," Illya said.
Napoleon hadn't been expecting that, felt the blow rock against him but recovered rather quickly, working a crick out of his neck as he said, "Loss hurts no matter how much time has passed."
"Would he want this for you?" Illya asked, all hellfire and anger. "For you to deny yourself your wants because he's dead?"
"I don't deny myself wants," Napoleon argued. "I have the finest clothes, a collection of art and the oldest scotch I can find. You are just taking cheap shots because you can't handle that fact that maybe you're not one of my wants, Peril. But, I shouldn't be surprised that bowing out with grace was not something the KGB would be able to teach a lug like you."
He was certain Illya would hit him that time – or flip another table or something – but refused to let it show. He kept his immaculate posture, his chin held high as he met Illya's furious eyes.
When Illya stepped in on him, he did not flinch, did not lose ground as the Russian bent slightly to put his lips near Napoleon's ear again.
"Lie to yourself all you want, Napoleon," he said, "But I've seen the way you look at me."
He backed off then, retreating to his room – where Napoleon expected him to spend the night – instead he emerged moments later, his bag in one hand, his other hand straightening his cap.
Before he left, he turned to Napoleon and said, "If this is what Thomas would want for you, Thomas wasn't good man."
He closed the door quietly behind him and Napoleon couldn't move from where he'd rooted himself for the longest time.
It was the worst Christmas he'd ever had.
XxX
What will you tell your family?
Thomas had scratched his head. His back was to Napoleon, the sun setting in front of him and he looked like he was consumed in holy fire.
What will you tell yours? He asked over his shoulder, his smile so small and sweet.
Napoleon shook his head. I asked you first. Besides, didn't you know, they're all dead?
Thomas turned all the way around then. All of them?
Napoleon nodded. My father in an accident in the factory he worked in; my mother not long after, influenza.
I'm sorry, Thomas said. No siblings? Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?
No siblings. Grandparents deceased. Aunts and Uncles? If I had any, they were never introduced to me.
Thomas grabbed his hand then, like he was overwhelmed with how solitary Napoleon Solo was in the world, a testimony to loneliness in all its many forms.
I promise, you won't have to be alone anymore, Napoleon. When this is all over, we'll have a life together. No matter what.
Napoleon had given him a brief, solemn smile, cupped his cheek and said, Don't make promises we both know you can't keep.
But Thomas had kissed his hand and said, I'll keep it. I swear, on my life, I swear.
XxX
Illya had spent months helping Gaby become a better shot and if the ruckus Napoleon could hear happening in the front room was any indication – his work was paying off.
From the kitchen, there is a small hallway that leads to two bedrooms, a bathroom and a closet at the end of the hall.
Gaby meets him there, a knick on her cheek and someone else's blood on her wrist. Her hair is a total mess, like someone got a hand in it at one point and Napoleon raises an eyebrow to her.
"What?" she says. He shakes his head and motions to the hall.
She nods and the two fall in step together. The first bedroom is clear, the second has two men lying in wait.
Napoleon almost eats a shot to the chest, barely managing to swing sideways so it grazes his arm instead, tearing his sleeve apart and leaving a bloody gash in it's wake. It slows him down, but doesn't stop him from drawing a bead on the assailant and downing the man with a shot to the throat.
He makes a terrible gargling noise as he crumples and then Napoleon and Gaby both have the second one fixed in their sights.
He's a coward, or, perhaps, simply not a fool. Holds his hands up, gun pointed to the ceiling and finger off the trigger. "Basement," he says in very rough English. "Kuryakin, basement," and he motions towards the carpet covering the center of the room.
Napoleon nods, not quite taking his eyes off the man as he flips back the rug and reveals a trap door.
"Go," Gaby says, keeping her gun trained on the man and nodding to Napoleon. They're not going to kill the man after he gave up, but they're not going trust him either.
Napoleon flung back the door and stared down into the dark for a moment before descending.
He should've known it was a trap.
XxX
The first piece of art Napoleon stole was a complete impulse.
Thomas had been dead two months, his body shipped back to the states. Napoleon kept his notebooks – both because he knew he'd never have anything else of Thomas again and because there were some rather scandalous drawings of himself in them that he would rather no one else see.
The war was over but that didn't mean that things snapped back to picture perfect right away. Far from it.
Napoleon drifted aimlessly from place to place, wherever the army sent him. He was so grief stricken that later, he wouldn't be able to pin down exactly how he became attached to the unit he found himself in, just that when he finally started to get pieces of himself back from the overwhelming blankness of loss, he was one of a handful of young men helping return stolen and hidden art to it's rightful places.
Well. That was what they were supposed to be doing – but any art that no one could identify, establish where it had come from or where it should go, sort of became up for grabs. Anything that wasn't so famous it's absence would be harshly noted, sort of vanished, got written off as another causality of the war.
Napoleon got to see a new, despicable side of people. Far from the cruelty of the war itself but still lacking a proper sense of compassion or righteousness. That was about the time he started to believe that there was no real goodness in humanity – just the dream of it.
Thomas had talked about art like it was the way to heaven – the only redeemable thing about man. He thoroughly believed it should be shared, should be taught, should be allowed to enrich people's lives. Not squandered away for the few who could afford it.
That spark of hope and wonder and beauty inside of him was half the reason Napoleon loved him – that in the middle of all that blood and cold, he still found something redeemable in humanity. It wasn't all some terrible power struggle played out on the backs and in the blood of young men for the glory of the old and the rich – there was more to man than violence for violence's sake.
Napoleon had believed him, believed that ideological reality Thomas clung to. Maybe, because it gave him hope for them, hope for humanity, hope for a life after the war. Maybe, just because he loved Thomas so much he fell to the other man's whimsy. Whatever it was, shortly after the war, it felt like the world set out specifically to prove Thomas wrong.
People were terrible. People were sharks. And there were countless of them willing to pay out the nose for pieces of art that had gone "missing" during the war and there were just as many men – men Napoleon would have previously considered good – willing to procure those pieces, willing to trade those bits of history, those pieces of people's lives, people's cultures, for the right price.
So, it was a small piece. One he'd never seen before. It was by an artist he remembered Thomas mentioning, but not for this piece.
But, it didn't matter. No one would be the wiser. One more missing piece. Something beautiful that reminded him of Thomas – of his storm-blue eyes and his soft smile. Something he could keep safe from being pilfered like all the rest.
He wrapped it in an old fatigue shirt and kept it near the bottom of his bag with Thomas's notebooks.
After that, stealing art slowly became easier.
XxX
Napoleon was sure they were going to die.
For real. They were actually going to die and no one would ever find their bodies and fine—
He was being a little bit dramatic but only a little. They were holed down under enemy fire and he was out of ammunition and Illya only had four rounds left.
It was not going well.
And he couldn't stop thinking about all those what ifs, about Illya's smile and Illya's lips the few times they'd kissed. Illya's words before he closed the door on Napoleon at Christmas.
He'd been such a fool, he realized there, trapped in the cobblestone streets, feeling helpless for the first time in ages, watching Illya's eyes in the glow of the street lights, the set of his jaw. Taking him in, in case it was the last time he'd get to (wishing he'd had such an opportunity with Thomas).
They were saved shortly thereafter, embarrassingly enough, by a rather disgruntled MI6 agent. She had been working the case far longer than they had and was very displeased to have to blow her cover to pull the American and Russian out of danger.
She dumped them at a safe house – cursing up a storm half in English, half in Irish – before leaving them alone to go call her handler.
"Well," Napoleon said, perusing her meager stash of alcohol – all of it cheap and off brand. The kind of stuff one drinks to get drunk, not for the appreciation of the liquor itself. He settles for a simple glass of red table wine. "That could have gone better," he said.
Across from him, Illya grunted in assent and declined an offered glass with a shake of his head.
Napoleon sat down and took a long drink. Realized only then that his hands were shaking. He set his glass down, hoping to keep the Red Peril from noticing but Illya's eyes were already fixated on his mutinous hands.
"Okay, Cowboy?" Illya asked.
Napoleon ran one hand across his thigh, like he could brush the jitters off but failed. "No, I suppose I'm not," Napoleon admitted, amazed at how level his voice came out.
"Mission didn't go well but wasn't the worst," Illya said dismissively.
"I thought I was going to have to watch you die," Napoleon said. "And then die right beside you."
Illya didn't say anything for a moment. "We were both soldiers, Solo. It wouldn't have been the first time you've watched someone die, thought you would die."
It wasn't a good argument, but Napoleon didn't point that out.
"Unfortunately, it also wouldn't be the first time I've watched a man I love die."
"Solo," Illya cut him off, giving Napoleon a hard look. "Don't."
"No, Illya, listen to me-," Napoleon started.
"No," Illya cut him off again. "There is nothing for you to say."
"That's not true, Illya," Napoleon cajoled, trying to get control over the conversation again.
But Illya wasn't having it. He got to his feet and loomed over Napoleon, his jaw set, eyes full of angry fire. "Shut up, Napoleon. I am tired of you. You say you want me but will not have me. You reject me, humiliate me, lead me on only to reject me again," Illya hissed. "Now you say this, tell me you love me. I won't play your game anymore, Solo. You don't mean it. Even if we did, tonight, you would just sleep off the adrenaline and in the morning go back to grieving your precious Thomas. And leave me where?"
They never did get to finish that argument, because at that moment, the MI6 agent rushed into the room and informed them that her safe house had been blown. They needed to leave now if they didn't want to end up in another disastrous firefight.
The next time he would be alone with Illya, it would be in a hotel room in Paris, and as soon as he opened his mouth to talk to the Russian, Illya would announce he was going out for vodka – some specific brand – and leave Napoleon standing bereft and foolish in the center of the room.
XxX
When Napoleon comes to, he's tied to a chair. The lights are too bright for him to make anything out, at least, not with his head aching the way it is.
And for a moment, he fears the worse – that Illya is dead and buried out back and now he and Gaby are prisoners of the KGB.
But slowly the pain in his head recedes to a dull throb and the room starts to gradually slip into focus.
Gaby is not in the room, which is disconcerting on a variety of levels – one of which includes false hope – but Illya… Illya is.
Equally bound to a chair across from him, a bruised mirror image of Napoleon's position.
He looks terrible – split lip and black eye that's swelled completely shut and several of his fingers are clearly broken. There are bruises around his neck like someone's been choking him and Napoleon doesn't want to think about the things he can't see – what wounds are festering under his clothes.
"I was wondering when you would join us, Mr. Solo," a large, black-haired man says from where he's sitting on a table to Napoleon's right. He reminds Napoleon of a younger, colder version of Illya's handler Oleg and he hates himself for not getting to Illya sooner.
"You see, the problem with torturing a KGB agent is that they've been taught how to resist," the man says, sliding off the table and prowling over to Illya.
Illya looks up at him with the tinniest snarl on his face but doesn't say anything, even when he grabs Illya by the cheeks with one hand, fingers digging into his face.
"Which is why we typically introduce loved ones to the process," he continues. "Of course, that sometimes leads to dead civilians but it's easier to have a few dead then a lot dead, as would happen if, say, one of our agents was selling state secrets," he says, shaking Illya's head before letting it go.
Illya slumps and Napoleon has to clamp down the dozen panicked feelings surging through him. He thinks briefly about Gaby's contact; his missing fingers and dead wife.
"Of course, Illya here has no family, just ties to British and American spies, which does make him the obvious mole. And it certainly will make this next part more interesting – mostly housewives have sat in that chair before, Mr. Solo. I am excited to see how the CIA's training holds up."
He's crossed back over to the table where Napoleon doesn't have to look to know he's got toolkit designed for nothing but eliciting pain spread out.
Napoleon tries to catch Illya's eye, but he's not having it for some reason.
"Normally, I would start with the girl. She would be the obvious one to break over – she's small, delicate, less trained than you, Solo, but," he turns around with a terrible grin on his face. "The last few days I've spent getting to know Illya better, it has come to light that his true affections lie with you. Did you know that, Mr. Solo?"
Illya looks up then, helpless and wounded in a way that goes beyond the physical, his mouth hung slightly open and Napoleon can see his teeth and tongue are stained in red and hates himself for not going with him to the store, for not kissing him on Christmas, for letting him spend one second out of his sight.
"Yes, I knew very well about Illya's affections, as you so nicely put it. And I returned them, wholeheartedly."
The man smiles, a dark, insidious thing that makes Napoleon's gut churn. But he doesn't show it, just holds his signature smirk and wishes what he'd said was true.
"Well then, if it turns out we're wrong about Kuryakin, I'm sure the CIA won't mind me having removed a homosexual from their ranks."
Across from him, Illya pulls at his restraints for what Napoleon can only imagine must be the millionth time. The skin around his wrists are bruised, abraded and caked in dried blood.
"Leave him out of this," Illya says in Russian, voice raw but still deep.
"No, that's the exact reason he is a part of this," the man says.
XxX
It had just been a flesh wound. A graze. Nothing major. He didn't even have the medic look at it.
Still. Napoleon couldn't stop shaking.
Thomas pulled him in close, the cold and the darkness a good enough cover for them to huddle like that.
You promise me, right now, Napoleon, that if I die, you keep going.
What? You're not going to—
There's a war on, he said, voice so sharp Napoleon snapped his mouth shut. There's a war on. I very well could. And you promise me that you will keep living. You will go Stateside and have a life. Find a job and a gal and live your life.
Thomas—
Promise me. Promise me.
XxX
Illya begs and cries and assures the man in both Russian and English that he is not the mole, that he has been nothing but faithful to his country.
Napoleon agrees with his statements after he spits out a mouthful of blood. He doesn't think anything is broken yet, but it's definitely heading that way.
The man will ask Illya what information he sold, to what entity or country he sold it, how much selling out his fellow countrymen bought him.
Illya will tell him that he didn't, that he wouldn't, that he was faithful, to which the man will turn and strike Napoleon – ribs or arms or face, sometimes a nasty kick to the shin with a steel-toed boot.
Napoleon will grunt, roll with the hit as much as he can, regain his breathing and come back smiling, say something sarcastic or witty like, you hit like my sister or I can do this all day.
It's a farce for Illya, a worthless one since Illya is not buying it because Illya is not stupid.
It goes on for sometime, until the man sighs and then leaves the room for a smoke.
"Illya," Napoleon says the moment he hears the door close. "Are you all right?"
"I went quietly," Illya says. "I went quietly because I thought would help, would show I'm not traitor. I would never, Napoleon, never."
"I know," Napoleon says, as soothingly as he could. "I know."
"If I thought they would do this—I would not have gone quietly."
"Don't say things like that. We have to focus. We have to get out of here."
"How?" Illya asks, and he sounds well and truly broken. It's disconcerting.
But before Napoleon can come up with an answer, the house above them rocks with a nasty blast that tips his chair over and showers them both with debris.
XxX
Thomas reached across the space between them and brushed an errant hair out of Napoleon's face.
Your eyes, he said. I'll never get tired of them. That splash of brown – I've never seen anything like it. I swear, you're my muse. There will be paintings of you in every museum in every country till the end of time.