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i.
“You are enjoying this a little too much,” Napoleon hears Illya's accusing snarl through his earpiece.
“Peril, this may very well be the last time I get to order you around," Napoleon says. Just because he blacked out for a couple of minutes after being punched by a Serbian weapons dealer, Waverly has him on concussion watch and therefore ground duty, to the point of assigning Illya to be the honey pot on this mission. "Waverly thinks I'm dying any day. Allow a man to satisfy his last wish, won’t you?”
“Just shut up and tell me which door," Illya grumbles.
“It should be…” Napoleon trails his fingers across the blueprints. “Second door down the hall to the right.”
He traces the paper to the sound of Illya’s footfalls, noting where he slows to turn and where he comes to a stop. Through the viewfinder, he sees Illya disappear briefly behind a column of the building across the street, and Napoleon shifts his binoculars to the next window, where Illya’s frame will reappear once he enters the room.
“I am turning you off," Napoleon hears before a shuffle of what he assumes is Illya taking out his earpiece and lodging it in his breast pocket.
“Glad you’ve realized,” he says to no one in particular. Gaby gives him a weird look that he dismisses with a grin that he makes sure doesn’t reach his cheeks. There's a restaurant on the first level of the small building they're stationed in, and Napoleon can hear the waiter explain the wine list to his patrons. Another group of diners laugh, and Napoleon can smell the smoky notes of beef bourguignon lifting through the air.
Through his earpiece, Napoleon hears more shuffling, then the sound of a door being knocked.
“Monsieur? ” Napoleon can imagine Illya’s face: probing eyes, shrugged shoulders, and the charming, bashful grin Napoleon never would have thought in a million years that Illya had in him.
There’s a brief exchange, then Illya is let into the room. Napoleon peers intently through the open blinds, waiting for Illya to step into view.
“You are bigger than the usual boys,” Napoleon hears a French-accented voice remark. “Your accent...is it Russian?”
“Oui, monsieur.” The voice isn’t Illya’s and Napoleon knows it, but it doesn’t help that it’s lower and throatier and Napoleon doesn’t know if he’s angry at Waverly for putting him on medical leave for a concussion or if he’s irritated that Illya has taken his place, especially in a mission of this nature.
“Fine. Fine indeed. Would you like a drink?”
“I would love that, monsieur.” Lies, Napoleon wants to point out, you hate being offered drinks.
“What’s your name?”
“Sergei,” the name rolls off Illya’s tongue so smoothly that Napoleon can almost sees him, young and meek but so confidently so. He remembers their first mission together. Wasn’t that the name he had used then? Sergei.
“Well, Sergei, show me what you can do.”
-
When the sounds finally still, Napoleon unclasps the earpiece from the loop of his ear and sets the radio on the bed.
He hears the clinking of glasses from the restaurant downstairs, and he can almost smell the red wine being poured and the hors d'oeuvres being set on the tables from his position at the balcony. His fingers itch, and he’s not sure if he needs to take care of something in the shower or in the kitchen first.
“Solo,” Gaby calls after him, but he doesn’t turn back. The information is retrieved, Illya is safe, and Napoleon supposes that is all that matters. Illya can find his own way back.
He ignores the thrum he feels in his crotch and finds his way to the basket of ingredients he had picked out at the market this morning. He takes out a zucchini, brushes the dirt off and thrusts it under the tap as he turns on the faucet.
Cold water runs over his hands, slowly seeping between every finger, filling up the space between his fingertips and the vegetable. He shudders, which he thinks clears his head a little.
Napoleon turns the tap off, draws out a knife, and chops off the end of the zucchini in one swift movement.
The routine settles him a bit; it always has. He drizzles the olive oil and pinches the salt into the saute pan before dropping in the chopped onion. The oil begins to smoke, and the warm waxy smell fills his lungs. He feels his heartbeat slow, and imagines the soft and bitter air circulating through his bloodstream. With calmer, less frantic hands, he moves the food around the pan, adding ingredients one by one, feeling his chest settle with each addition.
Napoleon is ready to uncover the lid and plate the dish when he hears the door swing open, then slam shut.
“Where were you?” The familiar, accusing voice stomps into the kitchen, hissing. “You were supposed to guide me out of there. What were you doing?”
Napoleon turns off the stove, picking up the pan from its handle and setting it on a mat on the table. Illya looks dishevelled, and Napoleon feels his heart speed up again. Damn it.
“What is this?”
“Ratatouille. Eat.” Napoleon wipes his hands on a dishcloth, then walks away.
ii.
They’re in Poland for a recon mission, and Napoleon goes to a bar on the last night. He orders a whiskey, downs three fingers, then pats his collar flat before approaching the girl two barstools away.
Her name is Nadia, and her legs wrap around Napoleon’s torso in all the fitting angles. Her breath hits Napoleon as he rides into her, once, twice, and she moans and screams and breathes her climax. She’s everything Napoleon likes - she curves her hips to each thrust, and fakes her orgasm so well that Napoleon could have bought it if he’d just let go a little more.
Napoleon closes his eyes from the moment her lips closed around his cock, and reopens them in time to catch her fastening her bra, the metal hooks clasping to each other and sliding into place. Her body is too small, her moans too sharp, too shallow, and too distractingly not Illya, and Napoleon closes his eyes because it’s easier to imagine: Illya’s rough skin beneath his, Illya’s soft blond hair under the grip of his fingertips, Illya’s bulk lodging between them as Napoleon pushes deeper and deeper, their torsos touching, Illya’s broad frame spread out under him and-
He stands in the shower after he sees her out the door, and fucks his fist with everything leftover. Fuck, he thinks as he feels the water beat down on his back; fuck, he thinks as he pounds the base of his palm; fuck, he thinks as he comes to the thought of Illya’s tight-as-fuck asshole.
Napoleon thinks back as he wipes himself off with a clean towel - There are some things that he enjoyed, with Nadia. Polish accents are, after all, not too far from Russian ones, and it’s not too far a reach to hear Illya’s voice moaning his name instead, Solo with the rounded ‘o’ but a rougher, hushed edge at his throat.
Napoleon feels a shudder at another thought - what if Illya calls him Cowboy?
He feels a rush that shoots right to the tip of his cock, then an anxious sense of dread crawls up his throat, and Napoleon know he’s in deep.
-
“I thought I smelled borscht.”
He looks smaller in his nightwear, Napoleon thinks, standing in the shadow like he’s hiding in it rather than lurking.
“I was experimenting,” Napoleon shrugs as he scoops in a generous heap of sour cream. He’s out of dill, so he garnishes with some leftover caraway seeds instead.
“Experimenting.” Illya peers dubiously into the kitchen. “With borscht and - blini?”
Napoleon masks his anticipation by pursing his lips in a smug expression. He sets the bowl down on the table mat in front of Illya’s seat, and the spoon clatters against the side of the bowl.
“I tried to make stroganoff, but I’m not familiar with Polish mushrooms,” he explains as he watches Illya stir apart the sour cream. Napoleon curses at himself -- you're trying too hard -- but Illya just hums, and picks up the spoon.
Napoleon resists the urge to turn away. He hadn’t tried the soup before serving it - he’s not sure if he had expected Illya to even show up at the kitchen, considering it's almost two a.m.. Napoleon had cooked borscht a few times before, but never for a Russian and never for anyone that matters. He grips the hem of his apron as he waits for a verdict.
“Well?” He finally asks, in a voice that even he can hear is breathy and faint.
“Hmm.” Illya swallows before shoving another spoonful in his mouth. “Not bad,” he says between another scoop. “Can have more dill.”
I ran out, Napoleon is about to explain to him, but stops in realization that it’s a good reason to stay in the kitchen.
So Napoleon smiles and unties his apron, taking a seat across from Illya. He studies him, traces his expression: green eyes, dark brows, a permanent scowl. He thinks about Illya as a kid, sitting in the same hunched over position at the same corner of a small dining table, and Napoleon resists a sudden urge to hold him.
He watches Illya scrape his bowl clean before finally looking up, glancing at Napoleon with a pointed look.
“I am ready for blini.”
-
“It’s sad, Solo,” Gaby says as she sits down at the kitchen counter the next morning.
“Sorry?”
“You, making Russian food, then telling Illya that you’re just ‘experimenting'?"
Napoleon scoffs and shakes his head, then turns around to turn on the stove.
iii.
The car ride back is as loud as car rides after failed missions get. Which is to say, it's a miracle it's not completely silent.
Gaby juggles between steering the wheel and murmuring soft instructions to Illya, who sits in the back seat nursing his wound, and may or may not be listening to Gaby’s explicit bandaging instructions. It’s a flesh wound from a clean through-and-through shot, but Illya still hisses under his breath whenever the car jerks to sudden stops or sharp turns. The body sits half-dismembered in the trunk, thudding against the hood every time Gaby slams on the breaks.
It’s usually not him who compromises missions. Gaby, although smarter than the two of them combined, makes amateur mistakes; Illya, although the one with the most professional training, is both too keen to establish his superiority and also a ticking time bomb that explodes at the most unfortunate times, all rendering Napoleon the most reliable agent of the three, at least when it comes to missions.
But he messes up, this time. It was supposed to be a simple asset retrieval: they were assigned to retrieve a turned asset at his safehouse; Waverly explicitly gave instructions: do. not. kill, but the asset turns out to be unhinged, armed, and delirious, so it technically wasn’t all Napoleon’s fault that the asset is now sitting in a pool of blood, making a mess in the trunk of the car.
“Waverly? Alexander Waverly sent you, didn’t he? He never wanted me to leave UNCLE alive - why does he care?” the asset had shouted, waving his pistol in the air in front of him. They had gone through the routine - calm down, lower the weapon and we won’t shoot you, Napoleon and Gaby searching the drawers of his desk for sensitive intel, Illya towering over the asset, looking as amicable as Illya can muster, but still threatening enough to, well, threaten.
“Put your weapon down,” Illya said, getting closer to him with Illya’s own weapon. Napoleon held from rolling his eyes as he dumped out filing cabinets full of documents - they were spies, goddamnit, not janitors cleaning out someone’s junk mail.
“Fuck off,” the asset slurred, unhitching the safety of his gun. Napoleon was surprised that the old scientist even knew how to use a gun; he looked as if he’d spent his entire life behind textbooks. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and he bared his teeth manically. “Those fucking sons of whores, Blackmailing you with their schemes.”
“Put it down now.” Illya enunciated every consonant from the back of his throat, a low threat, a final warning.
“You don't believe me, do you? You’re being played. Remember this when they fuck you over - just like this!”
It happened in an instant. Like this! he shook his gun and fired a shot that ricocheted off the floorboard by Illya’s foot loudly. Illya leaped for the gun as the asset quickly cocked it a second time and fired a second shot that hit somewhere with a meaty thud. Napoleon drew his own gun out just as he watched Illya’s left shoulder jolt back, the first drip of blood beginning to form around his jacket sleeve.
There was no thought, no hesitation, nothing. Napoleon felt the jerk of his own gun as he pressed down on the trigger, twice in a row. The asset fell to the floor, thud, then dead weight, the insides of his skull splattered against the yellowing wallpaper.
Gaby rushed to check on Illya’s arm, but Napoleon stood, still, wondering if the shots were indeed from his gun.
-
“I didn’t expect this from you,” Gaby says as they enter their own safe house. She tosses the car keys on the shelf next to the coat rack before following Illya into the bathroom. Napoleon wonders how she manages the tone: bitter and disappointed but enough to sound like an offhand comment.
“You’re calling Waverly,” she calls out coldly from the hall.
Thing is, he didn’t expect it from himself, either. He had replayed the moment over and over during the car ride back - Illya was in a position to reach over to stop the third shot. They had let their guard down previously, but to reload a revolver a third time would have been impossible, even without Illya’s superhuman reflexes. And, even if somehow Illya couldn’t get to the gun in time, Napoleon could have shot him anywhere else to just incapacitate - arm, shoulder, any muscle supporting the gripping of the gun. Hell, even his chest would have been better than the dead center of his head.
All this time, Napoleon thought he could remain impartial and detached and loyal to his last name, but he allowed a partnership to compromise his effectiveness.
The anger at himself rises. He tries to remember the last time he had muddled his clear-headed logic with his goddamned penis that didn’t go awry, and he can’t. He can only think of the time with the prostitute, back in New York, who turned out to be a bait who fucked him over and sent the armed, uniformed task force assholes straight to his apartment at 3 a.m., the suited CIA sonofabitch slamming his head on his own bedpost and jeering into his eardrums.
He dials London’s number with shaky fingers, and bites his lips as he waits for the first ring, reciting what went wrong, what went wrong like a mantra. He presses his palm against the cold metal of the receiver.
It was an instinct, and Napoleon doesn’t know when “I want to fuck my partner” became “I’m helplessly in love with my partner.”
He thinks about Illya, and remembers how Illya hasn’t said a word to him since. Not “I could have handled him myself”, or “You did not have to shoot his brain out”, not a thing. Of course he knows. He may act cold and composed and indifferent, but Napoleon knows his front better than anyone.
Napoleon feels like he’s spiraling, and his hands are trembling when he sets the receiver down. There’s a distinct waft of caramelized onion in the air leftover from the memory of when the realization first hit him in the floaty streets of Saint-Germain. Napoleon’s half sure he’s hallucinating, and there’s only one way to find out.
-
The kettle whistles shrilly, a scream that resonates off all the wrong edges of the kitchen counters. The lid of the saucepan rattles in a cacophony with the hissing puffs of the boiling water seeping down the sides of the pot, shriveling into vapor and causing bursts of red flame on the gas stove. Napoleon rifles through the drawer for the pasta spoon but the dividers are a mess, and he’s cursing at himself as he reaches for a soup ladle instead, reaching into the pot where the pasta's now way past al dente.
“Cowboy.” Illya’s voice is buried behind the still-ever-so-persistent screeching of the kettle, and Napoleon shuts it out because it’s the last thing he needs on his mind. He is the last thing Napoleon needs on his mind, right now.
“Just - take a seat. Give me five minutes.”
“Solo -”
“The sauce is cooked, I’m waiting for the asparagus to finish steaming, the vinaigrette is in the refrigerator which, I know, unprofessional, but seeing as I only had so long to -”
“Solo!” Illya says loudly.
Napoleon looks up through the steam. Illya is standing by the door frame with one arm in a sling, and Napoleon feels like he’s back in the cramped hotel room in Poland, watching Illya take his first sip of Napoleon’s borscht. Illya’s shoulders are hunched slightly, and the only indicator Illya gives of his concern is the way his eyebrows are raised and his eyes greener than Napoleon remembers ever seeing, a color almost resembling the lake next to the cafe where they spent the first minutes of their partnership expressing how unimpressed they both were of each other.
The pot hisses loudly in the background as water boils over, and Napoleon turns the stove off, knob by knob.
He doesn’t remember ever being so in love with someone. There is something in Illya’s eyes that is so innocent and so human, and Napoleon thinks about how he destroys hotel rooms when his superior calls, how he can pull off the smoothest honeypot but can’t hide the trembling of his fingers when provoked, how he snaps at Napoleon’s fashion advice but follows it anyway, and the pureness in his voice with which he says “I am ready for blini” and Napoleon thinks, maybe, after all the stealing and cheating and betraying and blackmailing that maybe, for once, he deserves to fall for someone who insists that using cutlery for hors d'oeuvres is the civilized manner to eat.
“I think - with you, I-” He stops, because he knows it’s futile, and shuts his eyes before he closes the strides between them by leaning up to Illya’s lips with his own.
Illya's chapped lips feels cold but soft, and Napoleon tries to focus on his own breath but is distracted by the overwhelming thudding in his chest.
Napoleon pulls back after a beat, and he’s suddenly all too aware of the smell of roast quail and the sharp tinge of mussels and he looks up again because what if, what if he-
Illya pulls him in by the back of his neck, and he’s too surprised with the cold of Illya’s palm to lean in immediately. They hold the kiss for the longest second, and Napoleon only has time to breathe in the light tanginess of the gravy and the scent of Illya’s that he has longed for for far too long, before Illya’s green eyes flutter shut again. In that second, Napoleon feels like everything he has ever ached for is his.
--