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The moment you cease to be useful, there will be a prison cell waiting for you.
You’ve been operating with that knowledge for years, and by now you barely reflect on it. There is, after all, a reason for why you became the best. As long as they need you, they can’t lock you up.
After the Vinciguerra affair, however, the situation becomes a little more delicate. The CIA are more than unhappy with you for failing to produce that damn disc, and you’re hanging loose as it is. If this thing with U.N.C.L.E. doesn’t work out, you could be in for an uncomfortable future. You were recruited on merit, and if you don’t live up to expectations, Waverly might change his mind.
The only thing you can do is go on as usual. Do your job. Be the best. Never show weakness. It’s not that much of a change. You thrive on adrenaline, always have. Your ability to keep cool under pressure is what has kept you alive so far, and it’s no different now.
What comes after is worse, when the high of excitement fades and leaves you empty and strangely fragile. As long as it’s just a little nausea and trembling hands, you can hide it. Put your mask on, smile and joke, wait for it to pass. Other times, after particularly close calls, it gets worse. Full body shakes, vomiting, the works. When that happens, all you can do is find somewhere quiet and ride it out.
It was never a problem when you worked alone. Now you have partners, and while you don’t mind them as such, it sometimes feels like you’re all living in each other’s pockets. You have a certain image that you like to present to the world, and it’s getting exhausting, having to keep it up all the time.
So far, you’ve managed to keep your little breakdowns to yourself. You’re fairly certain that Gaby and Illya don’t know, and you’re not about to tell them.
That changes in Holland, after four days running around at breakneck speeds, attempting to thwart a terrorist plot, stopping the release of a nasty poison gas in central Amsterdam, and ending up more or less in the middle of a rather sizeable explosion.
The explosion itself isn’t the problem. You have been in enough of them by now. However, you had to practically sit on top of the damn bomb while Gaby worked to disarm it, and just as you thought it was over and were walking away, the cleverly hidden second trigger kicked in and the thing blew anyway. Thankfully, no-one was hurt too badly. No civilians got in the way, and the worst injuries are simple bruises and scrapes. Gaby lost a layer of skin on her knees. Illya has a sprained wrist and is pretending that it doesn’t hurt. You tore the jacket of your favourite suit.
But all in all, the past few days days have been one long reminder of your own mortality, and you’re feeling it more and more acutely for every step.
Gaby has a contact who has a cousin who has a friend who has a weekend apartment in Amsterdam, not far from the Spui. It can’t be connected to any clandestine agency, which is ideal to the situation at hand. It’s less ideal to your current predicament.
You won’t be able to dodge this one. The sour taste of bile is already strong at the back of your throat and you’re clenching your fists hard to keep them from shaking too noticeably. What you need is somewhere private, out of sight, where you can let it run its course and pull yourself together. If you had a choice, you’d go and find a hotel. It doesn’t even have to be anywhere fancy. A bathroom and a bed and a door that locks, that’s all you require right now. Hell, at this point, you’re prepared to skip on the bed.
But if you try to take off on your own, Gaby and Illya will know something is wrong, and they’ll probably hunt you down because they’re both horrible, nosy people who don’t know when to stop.
All right. It’s supposed to be a two bedroom apartment. With a little luck, you will be able to claim one of them for yourself and hide a way for a couple of hours. You can tell them that you’re tired. It’s the truth, more or less. Maybe they’ll leave you alone.
There are several beautiful buildings around the Spui square. Any other day, you would have loved to stop to admire them, but today you just want to get away from the street. Illya gets stuck in front of a bookshop window and you grit your teeth and resist leaning against the nearest wall for support. You’re feeling a little weak at the knees and you know that you need to find somewhere to sit down soon. Just not yet. Not where people can see.
The apartment, when you finally get there, is probably very nice. You can’t find it in yourself to care. You’ve been swallowing back bile for the past five minutes and at this point you just need to get away from your partners before you fall apart completely. The tremors are moving from your hands to your entire body and there are dark spots in your vision that won’t go away no matter how much you blink.
“Excuse me for a moment,” you hear yourself mutter once you’re inside. You let your bag drop to the floor by the door and walk as fast as your trembling legs can carry you toward the bathroom you can spot at the end of the hallway.
You barely have time to close and lock the door behind you before you’re on your knees in front of the toilet, being violently sick.
It goes on forever, and by the time you’re finally done, you simply can’t get up. Instead, you slump back against the wall, panting. Well, there’s no stopping it now. You run a shaking hand through your hair, try to get back enough control to at least breathe normally.
You’re not sure how much time has passed when there’s a knock on the door.
“Are you okay?”
It’s Gaby. You sigh. There goes your hope of getting through this without calling too much attention to yourself.
“Fine,” you answer. Your voice is hoarse. “Give me a minute.”
All right. You can do this. Get up, get out of here, act normal. You’ll tell them you’re not feeling well, something you ate maybe. You use the towel rack to climb to your feet, and then have to cling to the sink while you run the water, rinse your mouth, wash your face. You can barely bear to see your own reflection in the mirror, pale and wild-eyed, nothing like your usual self.
It takes a lot of effort to push away from the sink and go to the door and the dread is churning in your stomach. They’re going to see. You won’t be able to hide this weakness. You swallow, straighten your back and unlock the door, desperately trying to make your legs steady.
Only, it’s a lot harder than it should be. The world is spinning in lazy circles around you and you know that you should have just stayed down. It’s okay. You just need to make it into one of the bedrooms, get horizontal for a little bit. You just need to…
You know you’re going down even before it happens, can tell from the way your knees are going wobbly and your vision is going gray. Damn it, this almost never happens, so why now all of times?
But before you collide with the floor, Illya is there holding you up, his presence a steady mix of wool, sweat, tightly restrained violence, concern. It’s strangely reassuring.
You blink, blink again, and find yourself on your back on the couch in the living room with no memory of getting there. Your feet are propped up on a bunch of pillows and you’re starting to feel vaguely sick again, flashing between burning hot and freezing cold. Illya is hunched down on the floor by your side and Gaby is leaning over the back of the couch, peering down at you.
“What’s wrong?” Gaby asks, her voice heavy with worry. “Is it the toxin…”
“No, no, never got near it,” you hurry to say. Your tongue is thick and clumsy in your mouth. “It’s nothing, just… adrenaline crash. I’m sorry, it’s not usually this…” You can’t bring yourself to utter the word ‘bad’. That would be admitting defeat. You’ve already made enough of a fool out of yourself for one day.
“Ah. Not to worry then.” Illya pats your shoulder and stands. “Get some rest, Cowboy, you will be okay.”
Gaby smiles in obvious relief. “All right. Let us know if you need anything.”
You had expected disapproval, mockery, anything but this unconcerned acceptance. You’re just about to apologize again, to try to convince them that this is not normal for you, you’re not a liability. That’s when the shakes hit for real and all you can do is curl up, press your face into the couch cushions, and try to ride them out. You’re shattering, falling into a million pieces, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
It might be hours or it might be minutes, you’re not sure, and you hate it, hate losing control like this, hate opening yourself up to whatever criticism will surely follow. When the shaking finally dies down, you’re exhausted. You know you need to get up, need to explain that there’s no need to worry, no need to report this to Waverly. But every muscle is aching like you’ve run a marathon and you can feel yourself sinking deeper into the couch with every breath.
Sleep, when it takes you, is deep, dark and absolute.
Time passes. You blink your eyes open, roused by a presence in the room, a clink of a glass against the table. You’re groggy, disoriented, and deeply embarrassed on top of everything else. Someone seems to have covered you with a blanket. Through the fog of sleep, you look up and discover Gaby standing over you, one hand still on the glass of water she just put down beside you.
“Feeling better?” she asks.
Words are difficult right now so you just grunt something affirmative.
“Good. There’s dinner if you want it.”
She leaves you alone after that and you’re irrationally grateful. At least it gives you a chance to collect yourself, figure out what kind of damage control you need to do.
You feel clammy and your shirt is damp with sweat. You’ll need a shower before you can begin to feel anywhere close to human again, but for the moment, you just don’t have the energy.
Illya has made soup. It’s nothing fancy, simple leek and potato, but hot and filling. You walk into the kitchen and sit down at the table, and he fills a bowl for you from a giant pot. You’ll probably be eating that soup for the foreseeable future. Illya hates wasting food.
It’s not bad though, maybe a little too bland for your tastes, but having something warm in your stomach makes you feel at least a little better. Illya goes for seconds and Gaby sits and plays with her spoon. The silence is suffocating, like a heavy blanket.
You manage to eat half of your soup before you can’t stay quiet anymore. Might as well get it over with. You push your bowl aside,
“I should probably explain this little… weakness of mine,” you say. Maybe if you can convince the, that this extreme crash was a one time thing, they won’t think any less of you.
But before you have time to say anything more, Illya speaks.
“I had comrade in Spetsnaz. He was strong, brave man, and before every operation, he was sick, and also afterwards. Was no big deal. We just kept our boots out of his trajectory.” He shrugs. “Is no weakness, only reaction of the body.”
Gaby puts her spoon down and spreads her hands. “I’m not judging. This was an awful week and I was actually planning to get drunk and go cry in the shower.”
For a moment, you feel like the bottom just dropped out of the world, like you’re falling free, tumbling through a hole of disbelief. You’d expected contempt, maybe even blackmail. Instead, Illya reaches out and pushes your half-finished food back in front of you and say, “Eat up, Cowboy. I cook so you do the dishes.”
So you dare a smile, and start eating again, and realize that maybe, just maybe, you can wait a little while before you have to put your mask back on.