Chapter Text
Napoleon Solo doesn’t second-guess the evidence. It’s what spies are trained to do: observe keenly, analyze available information, and quickly reach a working conclusion, from which to formulate a plan of action or escape.
There’s no question as to what’s happened. He and Illya have been captured by aliens.
One moment they’re strolling across Central Park at the end of their usual Thursday night on the town, warmed by steaks and wine at the Elm Tree Room, weapons holstered under their jackets, secure in the knowledge that the city held nothing more dangerous than U.N.C.L.E.’s Chief Enforcement Agent and his Russian partner.
The next moment there’s a blinding white light, and a deafeningly loud sucking noise that sounds like it’s coming from a massive wind tunnel, or a super-sized vacuum cleaner. And then, nothingness.
When the partners wake up, their clothes and weapons are gone. They aren’t in New York, or even on Earth.
Instead, and undeniably, they’re in a spaceship. In space. In orbit around their planet.
They can tell this because the room’s single round window displays the darkness of outer space, a view of stars that Solo recognizes as being from their galaxy, and the beautiful blue-and-green ball of the Earth.
The room has no door. Filled with a low, ambient light, it’s furnished with sink, privy, a large TV screen, and a double bed made with military precision. A sign bearing the current anti-war counterculture slogan MAKE LOVE NOT WAR hangs above the bed, the room’s only decoration.
U.N.C.L.E. spies are meticulously trained in professional analysis, and the obvious conclusion is out of this world.
It’s aliens; it could only be aliens. Somehow, they located Solo and Kuryakin in Central Park, and beamed them aboard their spaceship.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no viable plan of escape. At least one doesn’t appear at the moment. Napoleon’s pretty sure he’ll manage to formulate a plan later, once his space-scrambled brain starts working properly again. But for now, they’re stuck.
When Illya’s done throwing up in the sink - - his partner’s proclivity to seasickness clearly extending to space sickness - - he starts doing one of the things he does best; i.e., complaining.
“We were warned! The Observatory at Grace North reported an unidentified object approaching Earth; tracking stations at Glenbourne and Lemuel confirmed radar contact. Dr. Walter Lowenbrunner of the Astrophysical Institute identified the object as a space vehicle. And Dr. Cool of the Sparrow Foundation Observatory in the Caribbean…”
“I know what Dr. Cool said. He’s been saying it for months, ever since our affair with Simon Sparrow.”
Napoleon has sprawled himself on the bed, propping up his aching head with one hand. His other hand is holding the sheet around his crown jewels. It’s not for Illya’s benefit, exactly, but a gentleman doesn’t just shove his junk in another guy’s face, even if that guy is his partner and has seen him in his birthday suit more times than even his own mother.
Solo adds, “Look, as you know, Cool’s equipment was compromised. The doc means well, but he wants to believe there’s intelligent life on other planets. You know the old saying? Fool us once, shame on him; fool us twice…”
“Yes, well, it seems the fool is us! Again,” Illya snarls, stalking over to the bed to confront his partner.
Illya is usually more modest than Napoleon is, still turns around when an innocent takes off her stockings or even when he strips off in front of his partner, but he’s either too incensed or too space-sick now to bother with decorum.
Napoleon can’t help but stare in fascination at Illya’s shamelessly bared chest, the flaring muscles of his belly, the rosy member curled between his thighs. Somewhere, underneath the covering sheet, he feels an inopportune flutter of interest.
Illya grits out, clenching his fists, “The good doctor has been trying for days to warn us about our current predicament! The mysterious radio signals are still coming from outer space, he said. The space vessel is really headed our way this time, he said. And no one believed him! Not even us.”
Napoleon can’t help smiling, even though his head hurts. Illya’s grousing has always amused him, and the naked version of said grousing is unexpectedly adorable. “Well, Dr Cool’s intelligent life has obviously managed to find us… Though the jury might be still out as to how intelligent that life might be.”
Illya subsides a little and perches himself at the edge of the bed, scrupulously not touching any part of Napoleon’s naked form. “Why would aliens be interested in us?” he mutters. “It makes no sense.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Still, our captors - - even the human ones - - have never needed a reason to grab us, have they?” Illya sighs resignedly at this, and Napoleon, being who he is, adds, waggling his eyebrows at his partner: “Especially not the ones that usually tie us up.”
“We’re not tied up now,” Illya points out, stating the obvious.
Napoleon absolutely can’t help himself. He points up at the anti-war sign above him and drawls, “All the better to make love, Pussycat.”
Illya refuses to rise to the bait. “Sadly, your accent hasn’t gotten any better,” he scoffs. “And I do hope that isn’t our captors’ real reason, because I would then feel obliged to categorically refuse.”
“I can’t see why you would object,” Napoleon admonishes him. “Love is a beautiful and also beneficial thing; war obviously isn’t. In fact, it speaks well of our captors that they’re espousing the noble sentiment on this sign.”
Abruptly, the screen crackles to life, and two blurry faces swim into view.
“I believe this is our cue,” they say, in unison, in a prim, squeaky British accent.
They look like the aliens on The Outer Limits, all bulbous heads and pointed ears and six fingered hands that clasp hold of each other tightly. Napoleon doesn’t watch much TV, but he almost expects the things to burst out with There is nothing wrong with your television set; we are controlling transmission.
Illya and Napoleon exchange looks. Napoleon gets warily to his feet, wrapping the top sheet around his virtue, and faces their alien captors.
“I believe we deserve an explanation for this,” he says with as much dignity as he can muster, given his present lack of other clothing.
“And an explanation you shall have, Mr. Solo. Let us explain. We have been observing the Earth closely ever since the affair at the Sparrow Foundation Observatory. What primitive trick by that Mr. Sparrow, incidentally! Your world is better off without him.”
The aliens incline their heads soberly. “Simon Sparrow was only interested in power, in accumulating it for himself. He was wrong about us, the way he was wrong about so much. But he was right about one thing - - your systems of government are deficient, and this is indeed fact borne out by your inability to get along with each other.”
The aliens point out of the TV screen at the sign behind Napoleon’s head. “How do we encourage humans to choose to make peace and not war? Centuries of your history suggest that your instinct for peace is no match for your instinct for destruction.”
One of the aliens falls silent, and the other muses, “But over our months of observation, we’ve determined that one human instinct is as strong as that for making war. And that is the sexual instinct. It’s not just for reproduction, but for physical pleasure, for intimacy. What if we could have humans harness that instinct for good?”
Now it’s the other alien’s turn. “Take two human men, who would under ordinary conditions express sexual interest exclusively in women. Might they be somehow motivated to express a sexual interest in each other, against their own usual nature - - perhaps by love? And if so, would that mean two warlike men might be motivated by love to overcome their nature for war by copulation, and make peace instead?”
Napoleon finally finds his voice. “Humans don’t need to copulate in order to love each other. Parents and their children. Brothers. Platonic friends. Two men might well learn to love each other well enough to choose peace, without needing to have sex.”
Both alien heads look at each other. When they speak, it’s once again in unison. “Perhaps you two might, at that. We have been observing you and Mr. Kuryakin since the Sparrow affair, too. What an unlikely couple you make - - an American and a Russian, whose countries are on opposing sides of this conflict! And what an unique organization U.N.C.L.E. is, standing in the gap against warmongers who routinely turn from peace.”
One alien says, “Would any other ordinary American and Russian manage to love each other enough not to choose war?”
The other adds, “Put another way: which two men who, having made love with each other, would choose to then make war against the other?”
The first laughs. “What’s the quaint human phrase that at first confused our translators? Did the chicken come before the egg? Does the love come before the sex, or after? And can love overcome the desire to wage a war that will destroy your world?”
Napoleon has had quite enough of this ridiculous back and forth. “Are you saying that if Illya and I agree to make love, that’ll convince you that humanity can similarly overcome their instincts to choose war?”
The two aliens remark, “Perhaps. It might convince our superiors, anyway. We are a coupled people - - from our birthing tubes to our crematoria, none of us live our lives alone. Some of us feel you single-lived species are doomed to self-destruction. Professors Gwy’llum/Gryff were advocating for your race to be forcibly devolved into the Stone Age! But the others forestalled them. It’s kinder to put the unevolved out of their misery, anyway.”
Solo fights down his rising nausea, makes his voice diamond-hard. “So that’s the ultimatum? Either Illya and I have sex like lab rats, or your professors take humanity round the back and shoot it in the head?”
“Nothing as crude as that, Mr. Solo,” drawls one of the aliens. “You and Mr Kuryakin are perfectly welcome to remain here in our ship for as long as you live, as demonstrable specimens of your people: self-centered individuals, caring for no one else, seeking no one’s pleasure but your own, happy to wage war and destruction without consideration of another. We have seen how you, in particular, Mr. Solo, use sex not just as a weapon against enemy agents, but also to put distance between you and your many lovers, as well as your friends… Why, last month, you even, and extremely hurtfully, criticized Mr. Kuryakin’s soufflé-making abilities!” The alien shudders, delicately. “You are on a path that leads to destruction - - your own, your partner’s, and, if Professors Gwy’llum/Gryff have their way, your world.”
“Or you could choose love, instead,” says the other. “You have two Earth hours. Choose wisely.”
The TV set blinks off. In the silence, Napoleon finds his legs can’t hold him up. He staggers back to the bed, and Illya has to catch him before he loses his footing.
Possibly entirely coincidentally, he ends up in Illya’s very naked lap. Illya wriggles, probably accidentally, and Napoleon flings himself off Illya’s thighs, narrowly missing ending up on the floor.
“Getting a head start on the challenge, partner?” Illya asks, with the specific sort of ice-coldness that he uses when he can see Napoleon isn’t really hurt and doesn’t need him to rush to the rescue.
“It was an accident,” Napoleon mutters. He clutches the sheet around his private areas, where, thanks to the brief press of Illya’s bare, muscular body, his previous inopportune flutter of interest has fanned to a flame. The scant distance between them on the bed is too close and not nearly close enough.
Illya asks, with, what in another man, might have been gentleness, “What’s the plan, Napoleon?”
Napoleon keeps the sheet clenched around him as a barrier between him and his partner, and what these damn aliens are trying to get them to do. Outrage is a useful shield: “Contrary to popular belief, U.N.C.L.E. has actual standards! We’re not just going to put on a private peep show for these guys. The aliens can say whatever they like. We’ll just get out of here by ourselves, we always have.”
Admittedly, they haven’t escaped from a spaceship in orbit before, but there’s a first time for everything.
Illya pauses. When he speaks next his voice is filled with false cheer. “What if I think the aliens are right? It’s true that, if humans were in fact all more intimately connected to each other, there would far be more incentive for peace.”
Napoleon has to shake his head. “Illya, you’ve never been a fan of intimate human connection; you’re the most idiosyncratic person I know. You guard your freedom and your solitude like a jealous dragon with its horde. Your idea of a good time is the next chapter of Les Misérables in the original French, or an evening alone at a jazz club.”
Or, it has to be said, sparring with his partner after they’ve come off a mission, or dinner after work like tonight, just the two of them, with no girls or Innocent to distract them, or long Sunday afternoons in Napoleon’s apartment, playing chess or catching up with the New York Times crossword…
“It’s true that I enjoy my own company,” Illya muses. “And yet I am a staunch socialist. I believe in the good of the many outweighing the good of the one.”
Napoleon says, disbelievingly, “So you’d make love with me for the good of the many?”
“When the existential threat is framed as coitus or death? Even I would choose the former.” Illya pauses again, and looks meaningfully at his partner; perhaps he shifts a half-inch closer. “Also, trust me when I say it wouldn’t be much hardship, Napoleon. Even though, as the aliens have helpfully pointed out, my natural inclination is towards women, as, most indubitably, is yours.”
Napoleon deflates somewhat, in all senses of the word. “It wouldn’t be much hardship? Great pillow talk, partner, it’s really putting me in the mood. You know, I’m used to my bedmates being more enthusiastic about spending time with me.”
Illya says, between his teeth, “I am not one of your bedmates and never will be, partner, and if you try any of your customary pillow talk on me, I will have your incisors for cufflinks.”
The TV set crackles warningly at this. Napoleon shouts across the room, “Oh, come on! This is what foreplay looks like for us! Haven’t you been watching the show?”
The crackle subsides; he can almost hear the coupled aliens conferring. “Pre-coital flirtation disguised as threats of violence? What an unlikely people these humans are.”
Beside him, Illya drops his head onto Napoleon’s bare shoulder and snorts with amusement. Solo takes the opportunity to put his arm, tentatively, around his partner.
“Can I touch you without you threatening me with dental work?”
For such a hard man, Illya’s skin is very soft. When Napoleon runs a palm up his partner’s back, the softness makes a delicious contrast with the raised map of scars that only he knows how to read.
“I’ll allow it,” Ilya murmurs, committing to this endeavour, and Napoleon commits too, drawing his partner into a first kiss.