Work Text:
Their partnership starts off… kind of rocky.
“Solo, I swear to god, if you don’t go apologize I will strangle you,” Gaby snaps, trying to press herself harder against the wall in an attempt at evading the rain. Her pants are already half-way soaked, and her efforts prove to be useless when the wind suddenly picks up and blows the rain right on their faces.
“He’s being dramatic,” Napoleon protests, which, honestly, he is! He was just poking a little fun at him, and okay, perhaps he was purposefully trying to rile him up to see if it would get him punched in the face or not, but still, there was no reason to react with a whole fucking storm.
“I don’t care. Either apologize or I’ll improve his mood myself by killing you.”
Rude.
Probably effective, though.
Napoleon huffs, squares his shoulders and prepares himself to brave the elements to go and apologize to their wayward partner.
“Fine, but when I catch my death out there I expect you to cry at my funeral.”
Most days, Napoleon is convinced that Illya is telling the truth when he says he has no control over this.
Like one time, when Gaby is sent on a solo mission for a mere three days and Illya spends the whole time moping, his attempts at not being too obvious about it rendered useless by the weather outside, consistently gloomy and cloudy even if the skies were supposed to be clear.
A thick fog starts descending upon them when Gaby doesn’t show up at home when she is supposed to, and Napoleon makes the executive decision to give Waverly a call, not so much for his own peace of mind – she’s probably fine, just a little late, no need to fuss, he knows this –, but because he’d like to avoid Illya digging a trench in their nice carpet.
The moment when he brings the news that Gaby is in Waverly’s office, alive and well, soon to be on her way home, the sky promptly starts clearing.
It’s kind of cute.
Other times, Napoleon actually does wonder if Illya can’t bend the weather to his will, when he sets his mind to it.
“Really, Peril?” he huffs, walking through the front door and shedding his drenched coat. He should have known to grab an umbrella when he had to leave the house after an argument with him. “Rain and hail? You did that on purpose, admit it.”
Illya doesn’t give him an answer, but he does look rather amused by the whole thing, the bastard.
He does, at least, have the decency to throw a towel at him.
If he wakes up to thunders in the middle of the night, it’s likely that Illya is having a nightmare. This became apparent enough before he felt comfortable doing anything about it, but by now…
Gaby is already there, when he slides in Illya’s bed, eyes still half closed and the pull of sleep nested in the back of his mind. She’s lying at Illya’s right side, propped up on her elbow and running her fingers through his hair. The storm outside is already beginning to subdue when Napoleon settles on his left side, cheek pressed against Illya’s shoulder and one arm thrown over him.
The official reasoning for this habit of theirs is that his misery is disturbing their sleep, so it’s just more efficient for them to help him calm down, instead of trying to ignore the extremely loud thunderclaps.
At this point, though, Napoleon is beginning to suspect that they all just prefer not to sleep alone.
Sometimes, the theatrics are kind of appreciated.
Like when Napoleon is lying in a pool of his own blood, trying to breathe through the pain and clinging to Illya’s voice like a lifeline, and he thinks he’s probably dying, so the rain is a nice touch. It would simply be much less artistic, to be dying on a sunny day, wouldn’t it?
Illya’s voice is strained, begging him to hold on and rattling off reassurances he doesn’t seem to believe in himself, and Napoleon thinks that the sound blends in nicely with the pouring of the rain. With the way Illya is hunched over him, he doesn’t even have to suffer through the annoyance of raindrops falling on his face—this is nice, as far as deaths go. He would give it a thumbs up if he could still feel his fingers.
He does not feel like giving him a thumbs up when he’s lying in a hospital bed, getting yelled at by Illya and Gaby for ‘scaring the shit out of them’, and the wind and rain keep rattling against the window hard, like they are trying to break it.
This is unfair, he literally just survived a near-death experience, he’s delicate. He deserves sunshine and fussing, not a third degree and a thunderstorm from hell.
Waverly shows up as his knight in shining armour, with a loud knock and a pointed: “Excuse me.” When all eyes are on him, he points to the rattling window: “I don’t mean to interrupt this nice moment, but there is a hurricane outside. So, if you could perhaps make up, I think everyone would appreciate it?”
Illya turns a little red, grumbles a ‘sorry’ and takes to studying the floor very intently, breathing in and out. Gaby turns back to him to glare, but refrains from yelling again, probably aware that it would just keep riling Illya up.
“I’m sorry and I love you too?” Napoleon tries, with his best smile.
They don’t look very amused, but there is no more yelling, and the apocalypse outside slowly dies out.
At the end of the day, he thinks he has grown pretty fond of the whole thing.
Sprawled in the middle of the couch, Gaby’s feet in his lap as she mouths the words to the book she’s reading and Illya’s knee pressed against his as he leans forward to move a rook, he casts a glance at the window and smiles at the sight of the snow lazily falling down, nevermind that it’s March.
Illya looks relaxed, content, and Napoleon has never really cared much for the snow, but—now, he seems to have developed a special fondness for it. He doesn’t think he will ever tire of it.