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It’s obvious to Napoleon that if anything is going to happen between the three of them, it’s up to him to make it. This annoys him. He doesn’t like taking responsibility for things. He likes to create the appearance of things happening to him, effortlessly, all the skillful nudges safely out of sight.
It unsettles him that he has no idea how far things have gone between Illya and Gaby. Maybe they’ve been fucking like rabbits since that first night in Rome. All he knows for certain is that they aren’t together. Napoleon is the only other person around most of the time; telling him is the only step between secret and official. So if he doesn’t know, they don’t want it to be real yet. Maybe they just aren’t ready to settle down. But he can’t shake the feeling they want to leave the door open for—well, for him. Even if actually inviting him in seems beyond them.
Napoleon knows how to deal with locked doors. Open ones…you never know what’s waiting inside.
So he digs in his heels. It becomes a game, tapping the two of them right up to the pocket and waiting for one to fall in. The game goes on so long it isn’t fun anymore, and yet he can’t give it up: on mission after mission he walks in just as his partners are about to kiss, invites them to his room for a drink (something always comes up at the last second to prevent it), makes innuendos so outrageously sexual he can’t understand how Illya doesn’t blink. Has he not noticed? Or does he have a much better poker face than Napoleon gives him credit for?
He does have a plan, for when they finally get up to his room for that drink. A loose one, with plenty of contingencies. He’ll start by making Illya jealous, he thinks. Put a hand on Gaby’s shoulder, lean in to whisper in her ear, meet Illya’s eyes across the room with just a hint of challenge. Illya will lose control eventually, and Napoleon will end up in a headlock or with Illya’s hand around his throat. Hopefully not dangling off the ground, because it’s difficult to press your hips suggestively into someone else’s while dangling.
Around this point, the plan usually turns into jerking off. But he’s confident in his ability to wing it.
***
It doesn’t turn out how he imagined it. A conversation with KGB headquarters sets Illya off (don’t they always?). He sits by the phone, tapping shaking fingers on his knee and gazing angrily off into nothingness. Napoleon claps him on the back to snap him out of it. “He’s in Russia, and you’re in...” He pretends to check his watch. “Reykjavik. Interpret your orders creatively if you don’t like them.”
“They have my mother,” Illya says, as if Napoleon is an idiot.
As a matter of fact, Napoleon knew that, just as he knows Illya’s father was probably guilty of being Jewish and a former New Oppositionist, not embezzling. He just thought a little insouciance might cheer Illya up. Evidently not. He rests his hand on Illya’s shoulder blade. Comforting in a comradely way. “If you ever want to get her out...well, I think we’ve all seen how utterly brilliant I am at that.”
Illya stares at him. His hands are still shaking. “You barely made it out of East Germany with your life.”
“I am so underappreciated,” Napoleon mutters. His plan was flawless, cleanly executed (mostly), smashingly successful, and involved not one but a series of hilarious defeats for Illya. Not to mention at least twice that Napoleon could have shot him and chose not to, purely out of a sense of sportsmanship.
He pours two tumblers of Brennivin and holds one out, even though he knows by now that Peril won’t drink when he’s upset. “We could get your father out too.”
Illya smashes the glass out of his hand. “My father is a traitor to Mother Russia and I’m ashamed to bear his name!”
Napoleon wonders how often Peril’s “comrades” have tried to trap him with the exact offer Napoleon just made. He shrugs. “Nobody’s perfect. Should I call the desk to have someone clean that up, or are you—”
Illya makes a terrifyingly Russian growling noise, the kind a cartoon bear in a Red Army cap would make, and kisses him. And grabs his crotch—also terrifyingly Russian and bearlike in its lack of finesse, but Napoleon has no complaints. Illya’s hands are enormous, and at the moment still trembling a little, which is quite pleasant. He feels behind him to set down his glass.
“Have you ever wondered how many of your fingers I could take before begging for mercy?” he asks, as if it’s just one of those casual things a philanderer wonders about and not an idée fixe.
Illya blinks, smiles smugly, and wraps the thumb and index finger of his other hand around Napoleon’s throat. Not squeezing. Just presenting the possibility of doing so.
“I meant somewhere...more sensitive.”
Illya’s smile widens and ensmuggens. “Your throat is sensitive.” His thumb strokes down and up, and then he leans in and butterflies a kiss on Napoleon’s pulse. Meanwhile Hand Number One is working away.
Which is of course when Gaby walks in. There is a moment of stunned silence all round. Illya lets go of him and looks sheepish. Napoleon moves to stand behind a chair. Mostly to hide his cock but also for protection.
“You’re joking,” she says to Illya. “I’ve been waiting all this time for you to kiss me and then I find you doing…that…with him?” The sneer on ‘him’ is quite expressive.
He doesn’t have to be gentle with me. He does with you. He doesn’t know if he can be gentle. It isn’t the kind of thing one can toss over one’s shoulder while pouring a drink, and those are the only kind of thing Napoleon says. Somehow his mouth settles on, “He still hasn’t kissed you? I assumed...well...this is awkward.”
Gaby glares. “Fine! If that’s how you want it! Take off your pants!” Napoleon reaches for his belt. “Not you. Him.” She marches up to the Red Peril and gives him a fierce shove.
“Gaby...” Illya protests.
She undoes his belt herself and yanks it out. Pushing him onto the couch, she straddles him in an exceedingly businesslike fashion.
“What about...?” Illya points at Napoleon.
She spears him with a look of disdain. “He can do whatever he wants.”
Illya puts a hand on her hip. An enormous hand on her dainty hip. He does it so carefully yet so familiarly, so assured of his place.
Napoleon doesn’t do things this way. He issues an unmistakable invitation and lets the other person come to him or not, as they choose.
He hasn’t forgotten that Illya would have shot him. He waited and waited to see if Illya would, and the answer was, Yes, eventually. And Gaby, of course, delivered him to the tender mercies of the Vinciguerras and Uncle Rudy.
They had orders. Those matter to them, unlike to him.
He could disappear out the door. They wouldn’t come after him. They’d be just fine without him, in fact. He remembers that first night in Berlin, his arm around Gaby in the truck and Illya left behind in no man’s land. Now it’s the other way round.
If she’d told him to get out, he’d be able to go over there. But she didn’t, and his feet are glued to the floor. In a minute she’ll look over at him, and then he’ll have to pretend he’s standing here on purpose—say I like to watch, maybe—and then he’ll be stuck watching them.
Not that that would be a bad thing. Illya glances at him over Gaby’s shoulder, and then his huge hand curves over her ass and presses her against him. His sigh sounds relieved. Gaby shoves him again, and then they do that thing he’s seen a dozen times now, where their mouths drift silently, slowly, inexorably closer together.
He can do whatever he wants.
He wants to see this. From closer up, for preference. He’s almost afraid to sit down on the couch, for fear it will stop them, but they don’t even open their eyes. The phone doesn’t ring, no one knocks on the door, and Napoleon doesn’t make an ill-timed remark. So he witnesses their first kiss. It’s like a circuit completing, two magnets snapping together. It makes a whump in the air. When Illya pulls her closer, she spreads her knees wider in her short little dress and kicks her high heels onto the floor. They keep kissing.
Napoleon is not feeling confident in his ability to wing it. He didn’t imagine a scenario in which no one was paying him any attention whatsoever.
Time to do something about that, then.
He gets up, stands behind Gaby and runs possessive hands down her arms. Gently lifting her ponytail over her shoulder, he kisses her bared neck. She tilts her head to let him, which is a relief.
Illya starts away from his hair. “That tickles!”
“Don’t mind Peril,” Napoleon says provocatively. “He’s used to working alone.”
Gaby snickers, and Illya turns bright red. “I know what I’m doing, cowboy!”
Gaby puts her hand in his pants. Napoleon can’t see from this angle, but he assumes it’s more or less proportional, which is confirmed when she says, “You certainly have plenty of natural talent.”
Illya looks smug, and also sweaty and desperate. Gaby’s hand is still moving around in there. She tilts her head. “Are you carrying any degenerate Western diseases?”
Napoleon expects an angry denial, but Illya appears to grasp the immediate import of the question, and gulps instead. “No.” His voice starts out quiet and then gives out entirely.
Gaby raises up on her knees, giving Napoleon an unimpeded view of Illya’s natural talent. He whistles, crouching down. “Let me give you a hand with that,” he says chivalrously, and reaches to hold it in place for Gaby. Illya leans his head back and closes his eyes, a man at the end of his rope.
“Oh, so you don’t think I’m pretty? You can’t even look at me?”
Napoleon has remarked before that Gaby, like him, favors the flirtatious equivalent of a sharp poke in the side; she just delivers hers with an angry pout instead of a debonair smile. Poor Illya’s eyes open in bewilderment. “What?”
“Good,” she says approvingly. “Here, get my dress out of the way so I can see.”
Since they’re taking the scenic route, Napoleon gives Illya’s cock a few strokes. Illya bites his lip and vibrates a little, but he doesn’t risk antagonizing Gaby by closing his eyes again. Under pressure, he’s about as good with girls’ zippers as he is with locks; Napoleon pulls it down for him with his free hand.
To his surprise, Illya nods, mouth pursing in amusement. “Loving your work, cowboy.” He pulls the dress over her head, and tosses it aside.
Underneath, she’s wearing sheer nylon peach panties and a blue lace bra. Napoleon isn’t exactly complaining, but honestly, just when he’d almost forgotten his partners are Communists. “Hmm, doesn’t match,” he says, twisting his wrist.
Illya smiles up at Gaby, his face transformed with wonder. “It doesn’t have to match,” he says tenderly.
Napoleon rolls his eyes and lets go of Illya’s cock to tug the top of her high-waisted panties down, kissing the curve of her left buttock as it’s revealed in naked glory. He hasn’t decided what to do about the fact that he can’t actually take them off in this position.
But Gaby has. She shoos him away with a hand and leaps to her feet between Illya’s spread legs. Glancing over her shoulder at Napoleon, she slides the panties down her thighs and steps gracefully out of them. She’s naked now except for her bra and enormous rhinestone earrings.
She looks like a very small goddess. Illya looks frankly ridiculous in contrast, still wearing:
1. A turtleneck (is he self-conscious about his neck, or it is a Russian fashion thing? The room isn’t cold enough to justify it)
2. An undershirt (Napoleon presumes)
3. A jacket
4. slacks, out of which his cock protrudes
5. underwear
6. socks
7. shoes
8. his watch
“Why don’t I keep Miss Teller occupied while you make yourself more comfortable?” Napoleon offers.
Gaby looks Illya over. “I think you should do as he says.”
Illya’s lips thin, but he bends over to untie his shoes.
Napoleon tilts up Gaby’s head. She glares up at him with her pointy, stubborn chin and huge false lashes, and he feels the same pang he did when he saw her for the first time, soft and pretty and tough as nails. He wishes he’d made her something more comforting than truffle risotto their first evening together. But he wanted to show off, as usual.
He tries not to show off when he leans down to kiss her. He tries to pretend he’s capable of sincerity or trust. He brushes their lips together and whispers “thank you,” hopefully quietly enough that Illya can’t hear.
She half-smiles up at him. “I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”
He slips the blue lace straps down her shoulders to uncover the slope of her breasts with their small brown nipples. “Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.” She breathes quietly and evenly, still as a doe in the woods, but her stomach muscles jump when he swipes a thumb over a nipple. Sex is like opening a safe: the important part is listening very carefully. She and Illya would think that was a joke, so he doesn’t say it. He leans down and takes the tip of one breast in his mouth, sucking gently. She breathes in deep through her nose. “Touch me,” he says, and does it again.
She puts one hand in his hair and the other on his shoulder. He closes his eyes and teases her nipple with the tip of his tongue, hands resting lightly on her hips. She pushes impatiently at his jacket, so he takes it off for her.
“Well?” Illya demands.
Napoleon peers around Gaby’s shoulder and nearly swallows his tongue. Peril is...a mountain. An Everest of bare skin and light brown fuzz. Why did you have sex with your partner, Solo? Because he was there, sir. He stifles a hysterical laugh. Illya sits with his legs spread and his arms stretched over the back of the couch, and it’s all Napoleon can do not to fall to his knees and put his mouth on that cock.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gaby’s mouth curve. “You’ll do,” she decides, and goes right back to straddling. “You. Do you have condoms?” she asks Napoleon over her shoulder.
“Yes, but I thought we already established...” His brain catches up. Illya has no degenerate Western diseases, so the condom must be for him, Napoleon. “Hey! I don’t have any diseases,” he protests mostly for show, to pretend he never doubted he was going to fuck her too. He eyes Peril, but the Russian doesn’t object. He’s busy unhooking Gaby’s bra and pressing kisses to various parts of her chest and shoulders.
Gaby rolls her eyes. “Please. It says ‘serial womanizer’ in your file.”
“The men who wrote that file don’t like me very much.”
She makes a little shooing motion. Napoleon is disappointed he doesn’t get to watch Illya try to fit that thing inside her for the first time—on second thought, he’d probably ruin the mood by laughing. “Try not to go off half-cocked,” he tells Illya. “I know it’s been a long time, but women like it when you make an effort.” He runs on the stairs anyway.
Not fast enough. By the time he remembers where he put his condoms and gets back upstairs, Illya is lying spent on the floor, Gaby sitting on his face. Napoleon notes that they’ve somehow knocked over half the furniture in the room, and that Peril appears to know what he’s doing. Yes—there Gaby goes, folding in on herself and scrunching up her face. Illya keeps going until she pushes him away. “Yes, thank you, that was enough.”
Illya sits up and pulls her into his lap, looking embarrassingly happy. She curls up there, glowing warily. They both look at Napoleon. He smiles and holds up the condom. “Rain check?”
Illya’s smile turns evil. “Gaby, would you like to make a bet?”
***
ten minutes later
“Uncle! Oh, God, uncle.”
“What about U.N.C.L.E.?” Napoleon can vaguely sense Gaby and Illya looking at each other in confusion as Illya continues to try to insert his pinky into Napoleon’s already overstretched asshole.
“Stop!”
“Oh, sorry.”
Tilting up his hips, Napoleon does his best to cooperate as Illya works his three fingertips deeper. He breathes in and out, covering his eyes with an arm. He doesn’t think Peril knows what a prostate is, other than somewhere you can get cancer, but that isn’t the point of the exercise at the moment. (Although he’s looking forward to explaining it later.) If he were a locked door, Illya would be prying him open with a crowbar. He feels about to splinter and gape open.
“I think we’ll have to work up to fist-fucking,” he says, wincing and exhilarated just at the thought.
“I win,” Illya tells Gaby triumphantly. He bet on three fingers, she bet on two.
She smacks Napoleon’s shoulder, which makes him jump, which makes Illya’s fingers press sharply against his opening. He gasps. “I told you to throw the bet,” she says. He’s happy here in the full, hot dark, but he can picture her pout.
“And I told you he wouldn’t.” Illya’s smugness communicates itself through his fingers, a force that invades Napoleon, pushes at his edges. He can’t be smug back. He can’t look at them.
Illya’s other hand wraps about him, pumping once. “It looks like your cock is wearing a turtleneck,” he says in accents of deep suspicion.
Napoleon can’t not open his eyes at that. Illya’s narrowed gaze is fixed on Napoleon’s foreskin. “What is it with you and turtlenecks?”
Illya reflects. “I suppose some wear them better than others.” His tone makes it clear that he’s the ‘some’ and Napoleon’s cock is the ‘others’.
Napoleon isn’t bothered. He knows his cock is a handsome and popular specimen. “And here I thought the East German judges were the harshest.”
Illya grins. “Not to Russians.”
Napoleon tips his head slightly sideways, looking for Gaby. She’s...stretching? Good Lord. She’s naked and doing a perfect split, her face touching her knee.
Napoleon’s mouth opens and closes. There isn’t really anything to say; he already knew she was a ballet dancer.
“I am a little sore from earlier. I’m not as limber as I used to be.” She sits up, her legs folding neatly. “If I had won the bet, Illya would have had to pretend to be my driver on our next mission.”
“You love driving,” Illya points out.
Gaby makes a discontented face and tweaks Napoleon’s nipple. Evidently that isn’t punishment enough, because she flops onto her stomach and bites it for good measure.
Napoleon lets his head fall back. Their bickering washes over him. He’s done enough nudging and maneuvering, it would seem. There’s no possible way this can go now that doesn’t end in an orgasm.
Funny: this was much more effort than usual on the front end, but right now, it’s much less. He was prepared to earn his spot on the team with a display of expertise, but apparently that’s not necessary. It’s nice to lie back and think of the good old U. S. of A. for once.
Loving your work, cowboy, he tells himself, and smiles.