Chapter Text
Napoleon officially meets Red Peril for the first time in Venice.
He suspected that the ludicrously brawny superhero had been tailing him for some time, but Napoleon had always been elusive. He had made a name for himself through his ability to soar over rooftops and scale walls with ease. When he put his mind to it, Napoleon could be as intangible as smoke or as slippery as a shadow. That was his trademark, after all.
At the strike of midnight, Napoleon donned his customary outfit. He affixed his eye mask and draped his ink dark cape over his shoulders before lowering himself from the window of his hotel room.
In theory, the heist should be a simple extraction. In and out in less than thirty minutes.
Illya and Gaby were under the impression that Napoleon was entertaining the exquisite blonde he had spent the whole evening flirting with at the opera, a fortuitous misapprehension that meant they would not bother knocking on his door until at least midday.
Silvery tendrils of mist wrapped around lampposts and slithered along the canals as Napoleon used his rope gun to gracefully glide over the tightly packed buildings. Exhilaration and a fierce rush of joy pumped through Napoleon’s body as he sailed through the night, the cold air stinging his cheeks as he traversed the city using its rooftops. He could feel his pulse pounding in his fingertips and adrenaline firing through his veins.
Unlike others, Napoleon had not been born with the gift of flight, but he still felt at home suspended in the sky. For a wildly ecstatic moment he felt like Icarus but devoid of the ill-fated downfall.
His target for tonight was the private collection of Umberto Barbarigo, a member of a wealthy family who tenaciously clung to their once aristocratic roots. At the opera earlier in the night, Barbarigo had stupidly boasted of an art hoard to rival any other in Italy.
Like his French namesake, Napoleon had already planned to pillage the artistic delights of Venice, but he now considered it his duty as a devotee of all things cultural once he overheard Barbarigo refer to his priceless da Vinci sketches as “nice, but would look better with a splash of yellow.”
Everything was going to plan during the first ten minutes of the operation—Napoleon had detonated a smoke bomb in the stairwell to distract the guards, and he had emerged undetected in Barbarigo’s private gallery, ready to pilfer its offerings— until a bloodcurdling scream punctured the night.
With a weary sigh, Napoleon gently placed the Rembrandt back on its hanger and leaned out of the window. Napoleon had to peer through the mist, aided only by a flickering street light. He could dimly distinguish the figures of two burly men wrestling with a woman who was futilely trying to free herself from their grip.
Why did this happen every time?
In Istanbul his heist had been interrupted by an unfolding bomb threat. If he hadn’t dismantled the bomb and incapacitated the perpetrators on the spot then Napoleon, alongside many of the inhabitants of Istanbul, would have been killed.
Napoleon had been forced into action out of pure self-interest.
Napoleon had not planned to end up in the tabloids, but his fame blossomed almost overnight. Once he saw the photographs he had to admit that he looked very striking in black and white. And he was pleased to see that his cape certainly added an air of theatricality to an otherwise plain costume.
Napoleon had written off the entire event as an unfortunate hitch in an otherwise fool proof heist.
But then it kept happening.
In Venezuela there had been the kidnapping outside the Galería de Arte Nacional. The child’s shrieking was drawing too much attention and Napoleon had intervened as a matter of pragmatism, of course.
In Florence, Napoleon unsuspectingly found himself demolishing the efforts of an international drug syndicate when a drop was organised outside the Uffizi Gallery in the dead of the night.
Then while on a mission in the Loire Valley, Napoleon somehow thwarted a plot to assassinate a visiting Spanish diplomat when raiding the would-be perpetrator’s chateau.
The past five months had forced Napoleon into unwittingly performing a stream of good deeds that would utterly devastate his reputation as an egotistic rake were anyone to learn of them. Thank God he always wore a mask.
The press could not get enough of him. Countless grainy photographs of Napoleon gliding across the skyline with his cape unfurling behind him had appeared in international newspapers. Radio programs ran regular segments analysing his deeds. He had graced the cover of more than one women’s tabloid and he was a regular feature on the televised nightly news. And perhaps most extraordinary of all, Napoleon had recently learned that he had a cult of fans in Idaho who made replicas of the costume that he always wore on heists.
The whole charade was simultaneously the best and the worst thing that could have ever happened to his ego.
Napoleon had read dozens of articles speculating as to his true identity. The fascination surrounding his secret persona did not appear as if it was likely to abate any time soon. Somehow, without any conscious effort on Napoleon’s part, he had become branded as a superhero.
Napoleon couldn’t deny that he found the notion amusing but for the most part he was simply irritated that his unintentional foray in heroism had been preventing him from successfully completing a heist for the past five months.
He was becoming thoroughly frustrated.
Napoleon was a thief at heart. He derived pleasure from laying claim to beautiful things. He had never indulged in delusions of valour, aside from a brief moment of lunacy when he enlisted in the army at seventeen, nor did he have any interest in saving those who were too foolish to help themselves.
The only advantage to the disastrous affair was that the CIA would never trace Napoleon back to the strange, cloaked figure responsible for performing numerous acts of salvation across the globe. After all, nobody had ever accused Napoleon of possessing an altruistic nature.
With another histrionic sigh that was entirely for his own benefit, Napoleon lowered himself from the window, scaled the wall, and darted down the cobbled alleyway to rescue the still screaming woman. With a series of unnerving cracks, Napoleon dislocated the shoulder of one of the attackers and swiftly broke the wrist of the other. He didn’t possess Illya’s frankly disconcerting brute strength but Napoleon was strong and graceful. He was adept at fighting when the occasion called for it.
As the two men fled into the shadows, emitting muffled groans of agony, Napoleon helped the quivering woman to her feet.
‘Is it you?’ she asked in Italian, clutching at Napoleon’s cape with quivering hands, ‘Ombra?’
Napoleon repressed the urge to sigh at the use of the moniker and smiled charmingly instead.
‘The very same,’ Napoleon replied lowly as Barbarigo’s guards stumbled out onto the street, coughing as dark wisps of smoke curled behind them. One of them spied Napoleon and appeared to reach inside his jacket for a gun.
‘I believe that is my cue to leave,’ Napoleon said smoothly.
The woman’s eyes were wide as Napoleon delivered a gallant kiss to the back of her hand.
Napoleon turned on his heel and pulled his rope gun from his belt and fired a copper-bright line of cable at the closest building while he ran. Within moments he was gliding over the skyline of Venice with its network of narrow, gondola-strewn canals and tethered piazzas, everything gleaming wetly in the new light. The pale clouds of mist clinging to Napoleon’s feet slowly started to dissipate.
Napoleon stood on a rooftop overlooking the domes of St Mark’s Basilica as weak winter sunlight started to bleach the sky of its colour. The electric delight that he always felt after swinging through the air, held aloft by a taut stretch of cable alone, was considerably diminished by the reality of yet another botched heist.
He had held the Rembrandt in his hands, for Christ’s sake. He had been so close to pulling it off.
As he gazed morosely at the crucifixes adorning the church, Napoleon momentarily considered that he might be cursed with a saint-like character. But this thought quickly evaporated when he recalled the decidedly lecherous fantasy featuring Illya that Napoleon had entertained while in the shower the previous morning.
Napoleon was startled from his thoughts when Red Peril landed on the roof beside him soundlessly.
Even when presented with a demonstration of the superhero’s powers of flight, Napoleon made a point to appear disinterested. Under the surface, envy twisted his stomach into knots.
‘I was wondering when you were going to show up,’ Napoleon said casually as he turned to face Red Peril.
Red Peril’s true name was unknown to the general public, but the escalating tensions of the Cold War had branded the superhero with a title that stuck. Although he wore an eye mask similar to Napoleon’s, Red Peril’s disgruntlement was evident in the disdainful twist of his lips and the scrunching of his fair eyebrows.
‘You knew I was following you?’
There it was—the cool, clipped tones that Napoleon had heard numerous times on the television and the radio over the years: the voice that was the pride and joy of the Soviet Union.
Napoleon made a point of slowly trailing his gaze along Red Peril’s body, lingering on his muscular thighs and the broad expanse of his shoulders. True to his nickname, Red Peril was clad in head-to-toe crimson fabric. Napoleon had never thought that there would be a day when he would be grateful for the creation of spandex but these were strange times.
‘I presume you wear that colour in a ludicrous display of patriotism rather than any attempt to actually camouflage yourself,’ Napoleon replied with an insolent grin.
Red Peril clenched his jaw.
‘I hate to tell you but you are about as difficult to miss as the midday sun.’
‘Who are you? What do they call you?’ Red Peril demanded irritably.
Napoleon bit his lip and sauntered towards Red Peril. They were standing so close that Napoleon could feel the warmth seeping from the superhero’s body and could sense the tension coiled in his shoulders. Napoleon’s eyes lingered brazenly on Red Peril’s impossibly powerful arms, which were famed for dismantling buildings, stretching steel, and prying lives from the jaws of death.
Napoleon felt desire alight molten hot in his stomach. He allowed his gaze to snag on the superhero’s parted lips before making eye contact. Red Peril’s fists were curled but he remained immobile.
‘They call me many things,’ Napoleon replied in a practiced flirtatious tone that had granted him the reputation for being able to entice even the most virtuous mark. ‘The terms handsome, brilliant, and extremely well-endowed have all been applied but you can call me Shadow.’
Red Peril rolled his eyes, evidently deeply unimpressed by Napoleon’s bravado.
‘You are clearly very new to this,’ Red Peril articulated in a bored tone.
‘If by “this” you mean being accosted by strange men on rooftops, I can assure you this isn’t my first time.’
‘What I meant,’ Red Peril responded icily, ‘is that you are a terrible superhero with a terrible costume to match.’ He eyed Napoleon up and down with a gaze that felt decidedly critical rather than appreciative. Red Peril’s lips twitched upwards in a condescending smile. ‘Also, your cape is ridiculous,’ he concluded bluntly.
Napoleon found himself curling his fingers into his cape defensively.
‘A lot of people like my cape,’ Napoleon objected. ‘In fact, I’ve been told it makes me look rather dashing.’
Napoleon thought that Red Peril’s expression was insultingly dubious.
‘Besides, when else would I have the chance to wear a cape in everyday life? I would be a fool not to seize the opportunity.’
Napoleon gestured towards Red Peril’s costume, ‘And I must say you’re being unfairly judgmental for someone dressed like a giant tomato so forgive me if I don’t take your sartorial advice to heart.’
Red Peril scoffed. The tips of his ears had turned pink.
‘You should know that you are not as sneaky as you like to think you are, Shadow,’ Red Peril retorted mockingly, ‘and your cape makes you look like a giant moth flapping around as if trying to escape from bath.’
Napoleon raised his eyebrows incredulously. He had never been so insulted. He thought he might be in love.
‘Are you always this rude to people you’ve just met? Or am I special?’
Red Peril levelled Napoleon with a glacial glare. He walked to the edge of the rooftop and propped his foot on the ledge.
‘Watch your back, Shadow,’ Red Peril barked before plummeting from the roof, only to wheel through the air and glide over St Mark’s Basilica, his golden hair glinting in the fledgling light.
‘Well damn,’ Napoleon muttered to himself, undeniably impressed by the dramatic exit and the delightfully prickly superhero.
He was obviously developing a predilection for short-tempered Russian giants.