Chapter Text
childhood dotted with bodies.
let them go. let them
be ghosts.
no, i said,
make them stay, make them stone.
"origin of the marble forest," gregory orr
make them stay, make them stone
In his defense, it’s not his fault. Napoleon’s been known to dip his fingers into married pies before, of course, and anyway Gaby and Illya aren’t married, but he’s not a complete asshole who goes around breaking up happy relationships and besides. It’s been a long, long time since he’s liked anyone as much as he likes them. Affection is not something that comes easily to him—it left him some time back in 1820, he thinks, along with his caution and his sense of shame—and he doesn’t want to spoil it. He caught Gaby and Illya together once and promised himself he’d never get between them. It was very noble of him, he thinks.
Of course, nobility is one of those complex, abstract things that leeched out of him centuries ago, and Gaby and Illya asked. It’s not his fault if they approached him.
Settled in bed with them, one leg tangled with Illya’s and Gaby pressed flush against his chest, Napoleon can’t bring himself to much regret saying yes. He’s never been good at impulse control.
It’s what got him here in the first place.
He’s sure that he’s cold and not especially comfortable to curl up with, but neither of his partners are complaining. His ability to sense temperature is another one of those things that’s long gone—he’s only got so many sluggish neurons to spare, unfortunately—but he’s sure Gaby and Illya are wonderfully warm, nubile young things that they are, and he hums appreciatively when Illya curls a hand around his back.
“Cowboy?” he says, sleepy-thick. “You good?”
Napoleon grins lazily and tries not to look too much like the proverbial cat that ate the canary. “I am,” he purrs, stretching into Illya’s hand. “You?” He can’t make out the exact shade of Illya’s eyes in the dark, and for a second he’s afraid. (Not surprising; that’s an old, old emotion, fear. Napoleon’s been losing things by degrees for a long, long time, but fear, he thinks, will stay with him until his blood ossifies and his clever hands turn to stone.)
He doesn’t know, now, if he could survive going back to being just… coworkers. He’s got a grip on Gaby and Illya now, he’s afraid. Getting attached is such a long and slow-moving process that letting go is nearly impossible. His fingers lock up. His legs refuse to run. It's his downfall, he supposes.
But then Illya’s eyes shine possessively and his hand curls around Napoleon’s hip, and he says, “Yes, very good.”
Between them Gaby stirs, shifting her weight until she’s pressed firmly between them. “Hush,” she mumbles. Her hair smells like wildflowers and Parisian nights, wine and coffee and motor oil. Rain on stones, he thinks. Something wakes up in Napoleon’s chest and twists, a sharp, near pain.
“Go back to sleep,” she says, and tucks her nose under Illya’s collarbone. “Smug assholes.”
Illya huffs a fond laugh and curls around them both a little tighter. The thing in Napoleon’s mausoleum of a chest twists again.
Well, he thinks, this is new.
It would probably be better if they didn’t work as well together as they do. Gaby’s heard of people forming arrangements like this one, but she’s never heard of one that lasts for more than a few nights, let alone weeks and months. Two women sharing a man tend to get competitive, she’s heard, and two men sharing a woman tend to get jealous.
But Napoleon and Illya complement each other well, and neither seems to mind sharing her with the other. (Or, for that matter, each other without her.) They all seem to fit. Gaby and Illya just—work. She annoys Illya, sometimes, and sometimes he drives her up the wall, but he’s sweet, she thinks, and loyal, far smarter than anyone gives him credit for, and rather good with his mouth. It’s easy to be with Illya.
It’s also easier to be with Napoleon than she would have thought. He is not Illya, not even close, but he fits with Gaby just as well. He’s clever and funny and worldly. He likes to take Gaby places, likes to show her things. It’s nice. Good. She is beyond lucky to have found not one man who understands her but two, and for those men to enjoy each other as much as they enjoy her. She has no reason to be distrustful, or worried.
But honestly, it’s a little weird. A good weird, but weird. Gaby can’t put her finger on it. She hasn’t had much experience with this sort of thing, and not a lot of time to think on it anyway. She and Illya invited Napoleon into their bed in Prague, and since then they’ve been to Shanghai, to Brussels, to Rio de Janeiro and now to Barcelona all within a few months chasing down the last of the Vinciguerras' people. Gaby’s barely had time to sleep, let alone nitpick her new lover’s quirks.
“Thinking again?” Illya looks up from his chessboard to shoot Gaby a curious glance. A frankly adorable crease appears between his eyebrows.
Gaby only shrugs. In Rio she found a set of schematics for the newest cutting-edge racecar engine that she’s been meaning to read, but she can’t focus.
“Have you noticed how cold he is?” she finally says. It’s been bothering her all day. She'd buried Napoleon under every blanket she could find at the hotel and he had still felt like he was carved from stone all night, cool to the touch and utterly unable to warm up. It didn’t bother him at all, of course—Gaby is starting to think that nothing can bother Napoleon—but sleeping with an icicle is not fun.
Illya laughs. “I think you are thinking too much,” he says. “Cowboy is warm enough for me.”
Gaby raises an eyebrow, and sure enough Illya reddens. He’s cute that way. “Are you suggesting that I’m not trying hard enough?” she says sweetly, and Illya turns even redder. By now he’s gotten pretty good at telling when she’s teasing him, though, so his face clears after a minute.
“Do not worry,” he says. “Solo is fine. Perhaps strange, but he is soldier, and spy. All the good ones go strange after a while.”
“That’s reassuring,” Gaby mutters. She wants to believe Illya. She should believe Illya. He would know more about the strangeness of spies than she. And Napoleon’s not that weird. He’s just.
Very old, it seems. Gaby only sees it rarely, because on the job Napoleon is alive, a dancing, thieving hurricane of quick fingers and a honey tongue, weaving his way in and out of trouble with an energy Gaby could probably kill him for.
And in bed he laughs often. He smiles. He hums and even sings, sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly charitable and brings Gaby and Illya dinner in bed.
But in the mornings, or in between missions, everything about him is slow-moving and careful, like he is fragile, like all of his blood has slowed to a crawl and his thoughts, his clever hands, have slowed along with it.
Gaby’s never seen anything like it before. And god help her, she’s curious. It’s a flaw, really. She gets it from her father. Always poking her nose into everything. It’s a good trait for a spy, she thinks. Maybe not the best trait for a lover, but, well.
Illya studies her face and sighs. “This is really bothering you,” he says. “You are worried.”
She shrugs with one shoulder. It’s a shameful thing to admit—Napoleon’s a grown man, they’re not married, this is silly and childish—but Gaby doesn’t care. She’s curious. She’s worried. It is what it is.
Illya, to his credit, doesn’t ask if she’s worried Napoleon is hiding something from them. He trusts the American more than Gaby trusts anyone. (Old habits.)
“I will look into it,” he says gruffly. “I know man, a doctor. He treated many in my unit. Is good man, very discreet. Could tell us something about Cowboy’s, how you say, quirks.”
Gaby grins. “Thank you,” she says, relieved. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“When Cowboy finds out, lie. I have feeling he will not be happy,” Illya says, but he’s smiling. God, Gaby loves him. “I think it is your turn to have your identity stolen, no?”
“You think Napoleon could be me convincingly?” Gaby asks, mischievous now, setting her schematics aside. The last time Illya fucked her over a coffee table, he'd lost half of his favorite chess set under various bits of furniture. Illya told her later, crawling around on the floor, that he didn’t mind.
“No one could even come close,” Illya says, opening his hands so Gaby can sit in his lap, throw her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and grind down into him. Illya hardens against her thighs, sending a warm jolt of pleasure and pride up her spine.
“No,” she agrees, nipping at Illya’s throat. He slides a hand under her skirt and up her thigh, teasing her clit for a moment before sliding a finger into her cunt, still wet and open from this morning, easily. She gasps appreciatively, rolling her hips. “I think he’s got the better ass, though.”
Illya laughs and it sounds like a growl. He pulls his finger out of her and sweeps an arm across the table, sending board and pieces scattering. “I don’t think so,” he says, and bears her down.
The older he gets, the less complex his emotions become. This is probably for the best, especially given his current situation. A hundred years ago, he would have been obligated to challenge Sanders to a duel and kill him to preserve his own honor, but after that thing in '69 with the Spanish princess, Napoleon Solo doesn't really have the capacity to feel humiliation anymore.
Anger, sure. Happiness. Pleasure. Grief, still, he thinks, but anything more
complex is fading away. He's never jealous anymore, never ashamed, never guilty or remorseful or awestruck or pensive.
It's a weird side effect of not dying. (He doesn’t like the world immortal--it has too much mystery and awe around it, and there's nothing particularly mysterious about his situation. He just doesn't die.) If he knew anyone else his age, he'd ask, but the oldest person beside himself that he's ever known was one hundred and twenty-nine years old, and he's four times that age by now.
Whatever the case, his lack of emotional complexity makes his job easier, and his uncanny ability to survive bullet wounds and stabbings and, once, a small-scale nuclear explosion, means that he's going to survive the CIA and Sanders and the whole damn Cold War. Maybe he'll outlast America, Russia, modern society as the world knows it. He'd miss fine art and fine women and fine crepes, but worry is beyond him now, too. He doesn't care about the future.
Or, at least, he didn’t.
Napoleon’s been in love before. Of course he has been—he’s pushing five hundred and fifty, and he’s never been in the habit of denying himself pleasure, or companionship, or happiness.
It’s just been a long time, is all. And he’s out of practice, and unsure if he’s feeling what he’s feeling. It’s distracting. He should be working.
Napoleon Solo takes pride in his work. It’s about the only thing he’s got left that can stave off the creeping boredom—and god, he can’t wait to stop feeling boredom—and he does like being a spy, even if Sanders gets on his nerves. He’s never been a spy before. A soldier, sure. A doctor, a lawyer, a merchant of several trades. A painter once, a thief always. But never a spy. He’s got at it, too. Illya likes to tell him that he’s a terrible spy, but he’s just jealous. Napoleon’s not subtle, sure, but he’s a good agent. He’s observant. He’s good at reading people. He knows when he’s being lied to or when something is off.
Like now.
The mortals are up to something. Both of them are excellent spies and very, very good at sneaking around, but they're children, really, and the last time Napoleon Solo turned his back on his partner, he ended up in a CIA holding cell, so he's been paying extra attention to his new friends.
And they're most definitely up to something.
He wouldn't care, usually. Life is complex and people are complex and it is perfectly possible to multitask. He does it all the time. He's inclined to let Gaby and Illya continue sneaking around, so long as it doesn't blow up in his face—while Napoleon's ability to heal from injuries is unprecedented, it's never fun to get shot or stabbed or blown up—but something about the looks they give him when they think he's not looking sets his teeth on edge.
He thinks it’s because he’s in love with them.
The last time he was in love with somebody, it was 1722 and he caught a cannonball to the chest over it. By the time he dragged himself up from the seafloor a week later, still missing three ribs and half a lung, he wasn’t in love anymore and assumed that he’d lost it like he loses everything else. He’s been fond of people since then, sure. Affectionate, even. But not in love, and it’s messing him up now.
Focus, Napoleon tells himself, blinking away the film of memories. You’re working. Marco Batista, one of the Vinciguerras’ last enforcers, takes another sip of café across the street. He’d given UNCLE the slip in his native Cuba, slid past Napoleon and his partners in Rio, and has a clear exit route from here to somewhere in Eastern Europe should he spook and make a break for it. A nasty character, all things considered, but Napoleon can’t really bring himself to pay attention to the task at hand.
What are they up to? Napoleon’s not the type of man to insist that his lovers suspend all their other activities when they’re with him. He doesn’t really care that they have more in their lives. But he dislikes secrets. It’s hypocritical of him, he knows. (Though, really, what’s he supposed to say? “Darlings, when I was born Henry the Sixth was the King of England and dying like a normal human keeps slipping my mind?”)
He’s inclined to give Gaby and Illya the benefit of the doubt. He trusts them. He doesn’t want to look too closely at why, but he trusts them. He does.
All the sneaking around is driving him crazy, though. Napoleon knows when he’s being lied to, when he’s being tricked. The fact that it’s Gaby and Illya trying to trick him makes him—hurt, somewhere deep down below his ribs.
Napoleon shakes himself, irritated, like the movement will scatter his feelings into the warm Barcelona air and give him his focus back. It doesn’t.
Getting attached was such a bad idea. He should know better. He does know better. He has hundreds of years of reasons to know better. Attachment leads to pain every time, and pain is something he doesn’t think his tired network of nerves and blood vessels will give up until the very end.
(Whatever that ending is, he doesn’t know. He can’t die, but his body gets colder every decade, slower, more like a stone. Perhaps one day in another handful of centuries, he’ll have moss between his fingers and marble for eyes. The wind will wear him down to nothing and that will be the end of Napoleon Solo.
He wouldn’t mind.)
So, really, whatever happens next is his own fault. He’s the one who let himself get attached, get fond, get—well. Whatever. And if Gaby and Illya are suspicious of him, it’s not his problem. Either they’ll find out or they won’t. He can’t change that. It’s out of his hands. In the wind.
“Who are you kidding?” he mutters to himself, annoyed. Like he’s going to be able to just sit back and let his partners run around, sticking their noses into things they don’t understand. At this point, it’s just a matter of how much he’s going to interfere. They can’t find out about his… condition, that much is obvious, and he won’t have them running around half-cocked into fae lands. If there are any. He should check. It’s been a while.
If Napoleon can convince Gaby and Illya that there’s nothing strange about him, then he can keep them for longer, and—
He happens to look down across the street after his target, and finds that Mr. Batista is gone.
Fuck. He springs up and heads after him, buttoning his suit jacket and sweeping his hair back up off his face. You’re getting slow, old man. That’s not going to help anyone, now is it?
“How did Batista get all the way to the port?” Illya asks, confused. He can’t hear Cowboy shrug over the phone, but he can feel it. The last time Illya was on surveillance, Batista stayed in the Gothic Quarter among ancient churches and tiny restaurants. He didn’t go anywhere near the sea.
“No idea,” Solo says blithely. “He doesn’t look like he’s trying to make his getaway, though. I think he’s collecting protection money.”
“Protection money?” Illya frowns. Either Batista controlled more of the Vinciguerras’ empire than their intel led them to believe, or Batista is expanding. Illya doesn’t like either option much.
“I’m going to stay on him,” Solo says. “Catch up with you and Gabs later?”
“We will be here,” Illya says. “Be careful, yes?” In Rio, Solo got himself caught and tortured again. Gaby and Illya got to him before the worst could begin, but still. (Illya despairs. The man has scotch where his caution should be.)
“I’ve got the tracker if I’m not,” Solo says, laughing, and hangs up.
Illya puts the phone down and breathes through his nose. “Reckless bastard,” he mutters, then shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and trudges back up the street to their hotel.
He likes Barcelona. It’s a warm, colorful place, and while the bustle and pulse of cities usually makes Illya feel like his bones are bursting out of his skin, Barcelona’s crooked buildings and bright colors make the closeness bearable.
Their hotel is not far from the famous Parque de Guell, with its storybook towers and mosaic beasts, its stones sun-warm and well-trod. Gaby has spent the last several days reading in the sun when she’s not on Batista, but today she’s chosen to stay inside.
Illya sighs. She’s still reading the psychology book, then.
A few days ago, Gaby had managed to procure several texts, among them the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which she has been pouring over ever since, trying to explain away Cowboy’s oddities.
Personally, Illya is concerned too—after Gaby had pointed out some of Solo’s more unusual behaviors, such as his utter lack of caution, his periods of black mood, his vices, his sometimes-slow way of moving and speaking, he couldn’t help but worry.
Theirs is not an easy job. They live in constant danger, always moving, always fighting, always lying. Illya has seen the stress of the job break more than one man, and Cowboy is not a spy by choice. He is vulnerable.
Despite this, Illya is wary of prying. Even lovers should have some secrets. If Solo has not told them by now, after a few months of sharing their bed, he has a good reason. Illya has his own share of secrets that he will not part with; he thinks that perhaps they should let Solo keep his.
But Gaby will not be deterred, and Illya loves her, so he’s not going to let her walk into a minefield all on her own.
He nods politely to the desk clerk and makes his way upstairs. He and Gaby are once again playing married, and she’s sprawled across her bed wearing nothing but a pair of panties and one of Cowboy’s dress shirts, which makes lust flare up in Illya’s belly and his cock harden in his pants.
She’s got her nose buried in that damned book, though, which turns Illya’s thoughts aside rather effectively.
“Do you think he’s got shell shock?” Gaby says without preamble, not even bothering to look up.
Illya toes off his shoes and frowns. “Could be,” he says slowly, thinking hard. He had been a boy when the Second World War broke out, too young and too scrawny to enlist convincingly, but in his father’s apartment building there had been dozens of young men who could and did go to war.
Some of those men returned perfectly sane. Others did not return at all. And some had returned in body but not in mind, their thoughts still trapped on the battlefield, their eyes unseeing, their hearts lost to their friends and families.
Solo is not like that. He is distant sometimes, perhaps, but he does not have nightmares, does not mistake Gaby’s perfume for a grenade or Illya’s size for a threat.
“Symptoms,” Gaby reads. “Paranoia, excessive fatigue of thought and body, hypervigilance, insomnia, depression. In some cases, patient may have difficulty recognizing people or places. Patients are often prone to mood swings.”
“That is not Cowboy,” Illya says, shaking his head. “The insomnia, perhaps, or the fatigue, but Cowboy knows us. He does not forget when and where he is.”
“You’re right,” Gaby agrees, closing the book in frustration and tossing it onto the coffee table, where half a dozen similar books sit. “Nothing fits. He has some symptoms of things, but none of the others. It doesn’t make sense.”
Illya shrugs. “People are complicated,” he says dryly, and joins her on the bed. “They are not machines, Chop Shop. You cannot fix them.” Plenty of people have tried to fix Illya and none of them have been successful. He is what he is.
Gaby snorts. “You think I don’t know that?” she says. “I just—I just want to know.”
Illya makes a non-committal noise and lets Gaby curl up against his side.
“I want him to know that whatever it is, it’s okay. We don’t—I don’t—care. Whatever it is he’s hiding from us, I don’t care.” Gaby pauses. “Well, so long as he’s not a Nazi. Then I’d have to shoot him.”
“Waverly would be devastated,” Illya murmurs.
“Why would I be devastated, Agent Kuryakin?”
Gaby yelps and dives of the edge of the bed, pulling Cowboy’s shirt lower to cover herself. Illya leaps to his feet and draws his gun, leveling at the intruder before he realizes what’s happening.
Alexander Waverly, room key in hand, raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. “You’re slipping,” he chides. “You didn’t hear me come in?”
“A more polite person would knock,” Gaby says, emerging from the floor with a pair of Illya’s trousers hitched up around her waist.
Waverly, the picture of politeness, smiles. “My apologies. Though, really, you two. I know you’re in Spain, but is a siesta really appropriate? Where’s Batista?”
“Agent Solo is on him,” Illya says, holstering his weapon and spreading his stance, falling in to give his report. “Batista is at the harbor. Agent Solo believes he is collecting protection money.”
“Really? That’s troubling,” Waverly says, not looking particularly troubled. “Well, it’s Section Three’s problem now anyway. You’re being reassigned.”
“What?” Gaby says, with her usual lack of subordination. “Why? We’ve been after Batista for almost two months.”
“A threat has been made against your lives,” Waverly says. “Against Agent Solo in particular, though you two were mentioned. It’s serious enough that we’re moving you out of the country.”
“Who made this threat?” Illya growls. “We will find them.”
“Unclear, though my Circus contacts suggest it’s a Vinciguerra sympathizer, perhaps even Batista himself, looking to carry out Victoria’s last promise.”
“How do people even know about that?” Gaby demands, at the same time as Illya says, “What about Solo’s family?”
“Word travels fast in Nazi circles, apparently.” Waverly looks at Illya. “Agent Solo has no living family, Agent Kuryakin. You two are, as far as we can tell, the only two living people whose deaths would cause him pain. So, as a precaution, we’re moving all of you.”
“Where?” Illya asks, before Gaby can start interrogating their handler about Cowboy’s family. (Waverly would probably tell her, too. Gaby is his favorite agent. They all know that he’s grooming her to be his replacement.)
“Paris, for now,” says Waverly. “We’ll hash out the rest later. Pack your things. I’ve sent Simmons out after Solo. You leave in an hour.”
“Sir,” Illya says, mind whirling. He has contacts in Paris. He could find out who would dare threaten his lovers, and then—
“Oh, and one more thing.” Waverly crosses the room to examine Gaby’s stack of dubiously-obtained books; the DSM, a book on shell shock, several pamphlets. He picks up an old book with Encylopedia of European Folklore stamped across the cover in peeling silver leaf. “Do try and focus on the task at hand. Inattention gets agents killed, and I despise the paperwork involved.”
Properly chastised, Illya ducks his head. “Sir,” he says. Even Gaby looks away, embarrassed to be caught.
“Leave Agent Solo alone,” Waverly instructs. It’s no use asking him how he knows what they’re doing; Waverly knows everything. “He’s a good agent. I’d hate to see him run, or to have to separate the three of you. Agents.”
“Sir,” Illya and Gaby says.
“Good afternoon,” Waverly says, and leaves them.
“You’ve never been to Paris?” Napoleon is looking at Gaby like she’s grown a second head.
“I’ve never had the opportunity,” she says, a little dryly. Illya mutters something into his coffee cup. Napoleon had almost missed their plane. Gaby had been worried that the Vinciguerras had caught up with him. But he’d turned up alive and well, more cheerful than Gaby remembers ever seeing him, and chattered about Paris until the plane took off.
“You’re going to love it,” Solo promises, eyes shining. “Best city in the world. I’ll take you around, show you all the best places.”
“Is not a vacation,” Illya grumbles. He’s upset because Waverly scolded them, and they lost the Batista case. Gaby’s already elected to ignore Waverly’s “advice”—if they push and Napoleon bites, she’ll back off, but the way she sees it, she’s not hurting anyone. It’s a private affair anyway, not a professional one. She’s trying to find something out about her lover, not her teammate.
(It’s a blurry distinction, she knows, but she’s sticking to it.)
Napoleon waves Illya’s concern away. “It’s Paris,” he says. “I know the city better than I know my own mother. We’ll be fine. There’s boltholes all over the place.”
“Weren’t you caught in Paris?” Illya asks pointedly.
Napoleon rolls his eyes, letting the slight slide off his back. “Irrelevant. As I haven’t just swiped a Monet, I think we’re safe.”
“Damn,” Gaby says, “there goes my retirement plan.” Napoleon grins at her, wide and delighted, and even Illya laughs. Easy affection wells up in her chest.
“So,” she says, “tour first, or are there some other activities on our agenda?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Napoleon says. They’re on an airplane, for god’s sake. But there’s hunger in his eyes, and he doesn’t stop Gaby when she reaches for him, cups him through his slacks. Illya makes a low, wanting sound in his throat.
“Are you going to stop me?” Gaby asks, coy. Napoleon spreads his legs for her, throws his head back to expose the perfect column of his throat.
“Of course not,” he says.
Paris is everything Napoleon promised. They clean themselves up once they land—and after Illya fucks Napoleon in the shower while Gaby watches—and Napoleon takes them out to eat at a charming little café where Illya pulls Gaby into his lap and Napoleon feeds them both bits of food, sips of wine, his cold fingers tracing playfully around their lips.
“What if someone sees?” Gaby says, a little breathless.
Napoleon’s eyes glitter affectionately. “It’s Paris,” he says. “No one cares here, ma cher.”
“Western decadence,” Illya purrs, amusement making him smug. Gaby grinds down in his lap, making him groan.
“Don’t tease,” she says, through gritted teeth.
The three of them don’t get thrown out of the restaurant even when Illya slips his hand up under Gaby's skirt and teases her until she comes with a shuddering gasp, and after Napoleon takes them around, arm in arm, to his favorite places.
He shows them statues and fountains, hidden nooks and crannies, ugly gargoyles, fantastic cathedrals; he has something to say about all of it, and chatters about each feature of Paris like he knows it intimately, like he carved the statues and built the cathedrals himself.
He’s more alive than Gaby remembers ever seeing him. Wine and passion put color in his face and Gaby warms his fingertips with her own.
It’s like he’s a different person, she mouths to Illya, fascinated.
They are in Paris uninterrupted for two weeks. Every day they sleep late in their hotel room, kissing and having languid, lazy sex, and at night they go out to explore the city.
Gaby picks up some French. Illya smiles more often. And Napoleon seems—younger. Not nearly as slow and tired.
They still work, of course. Both Illya and Napoleon have contacts in the city who might know which of the Vinciguerras’ last friends called for their deaths. Gaby sorts through UNCLE’s files tracking Nazis and sympathizers and the flow of money around the world. Illya quietly reaches out to his doctor contact. Waverly checks in every few days.
They never go anywhere unarmed and always sit facing the street, exit points mapped out between them.
“If we stay here any longer, I’m going to get tragically fat,” Gaby announces on a Thursday, stuffed full of pêche Melba and wine. “You’ll have to roll me over our enemies.”
“Napoleon will still buy you dresses,” Illya promises, kissing her hand.
“I have the perfect Patou in mind,” Napoleon says, and he and Illya grin at each other in a way that usually ends with one of them sucking the other off in an alley.
Gaby rolls her eyes. “Where are we going tonight?” she asks.
“Only one place left,” Napoleon says, with a sly, secret smile. “The Arc du Triomphe looks especially beautiful in the moonlight.”
“Where is that?” Illya asks, curious.
“He means he doesn’t want to walk there,” Gaby says. Illya hums.
“Not far,” Napoleon promises, excitement shining in his face. Gaby can tell that he loves this place, this Arc. He’s fond of art, their Napoleon, but there are a few pieces that he loves.
“Let’s go, then,” Gaby says, “because if I stay here I’m going to drink another glass of wine, and if I do that I am not going anywhere.”
Illya offers Gaby his elbow. Napoleon goes ahead of them, nearly dancing.
The Arc comes up over the city, lit from below. All around it is empty space, a circle of roads and paths that turns around the Arc before taking pedestrians and cars back to the city after they’ve beheld the Arc from every angle.
“—commissioned by Napoleon,” Napoleon is saying, waving his hands. “But it took nearly forty years to finish.”
“Are you named after Napoleon?” Gaby asks. “The famous one, I mean.”
Gaby and Illya’s Napoleon shakes his head. “Solo is an Italian name,” he says. “From Naples, I think. My mother liked the way Napoleon sounded.”
Illya snorts quietly. He thinks that ‘Napoleon Solo’ isn’t their partner’s real name; his KGB contacts weren’t able to turn up anything about him outside of the CIA file. “It’s like he came from nowhere,” Illya had complained the other day.
Gaby swats him.
Napoleon takes them right up to the Arc, as close as they can get, pointing out the carvings on the pillars. “Le Depart de 1792,” he says. “And Le Triumphe de 1810.” The carved figures are stunning, proud; the angels radiant; the details breathtaking.
“That man looks like you,” Illya says, pointing to the leftmost carving. “Doesn’t he?”
Gaby follows where Illya’s pointing. One of the figures in Le Depart de 1792 does look like Napoleon; the carving has longer hair, a hat on his head, but the nose is the same, the jawline. The statue’s eyes are marble, but Gaby can see Napoleon in them.
“Oh my god,” she says.
“I’ve never noticed,” Napoleon says easily. “Come on, there’s more on the other side.”
But Gaby keeps looking up at the statue. She doesn’t understand how it can look exactly like Napoleon. It’s a hundred and fifty years old. Napoleon Solo is thirty-four. “It looks just like you,” she says. “How—”
“Le fusil!” someone in the streets shouts. “Le fusil!”
All three of them spin around, alarmed, and Gaby sees Marco Batista coming across the street, a Kalashnikov leveled at them and a grim expression on his face.
“Get down!” Illya thunders, but it’s too late. The muzzle flashes—
Napoleon fastens a hand around the back of Gaby’s dress, tosses her aside into Illya’s arms, and steps forward. Gaby fumbles for her own gun. Bullets strafe the street and the sides of the Arc. Napoleon jerks, makes a surprised sound, and Batista keeps firing—
Illya clears his gun first and shoots Batista twice, once in the shoulder and once in the head. He drops. People are running in every direction, screaming.
Napoleon looks down at his chest. Brilliant spots of red are growing, stark against his white shirt, his gray jacket. “Ah,” he says, and falls.
In 1792, when his name was Edgar Treville, Napoleon was shot six times and stabbed another fifteen. He didn’t die, of course, but he wanted to. He remembers pulling himself into a filthy alley, one arm nearly torn off by the force of a bullet, his guts dragging behind him in the dirt and the blood and the fetid pools of spilled wine left behind by rioting revolutionaries, remembers screaming, remembers praying for la guillotine to separate his head from his shoulders and be done with it.
It was a long time before he could set foot in Paris again. He’d had to clean each inch of his intestines off by hand, because first his wounds healed with all of the dirt and straw and broken bone still stuck to them, and the pain had been unbearable. He’d cut open his own belly, pulled his guts through his own hands. He’d passed out twice. Three days of lying in his own blood and filth later, he’d healed enough to stagger out of the city and haul himself to London, where he took a new name and stayed far, far away from any revolutions for as long as he was reasonably able.
This is probably not nearly as bad as that. Napoleon’s having a difficult time gauging the severity of his injuries because he can’t seem to stay conscious for longer than thirty seconds, but he’s pretty sure that all of his limbs are attached and all of his organs are inside his body, so. Look at the bright side. It could be worse.
He’s moving. There’s fire in his chest, his belly, one shoulder and his upper thigh—Shit, he thinks, that’s going to get everywhere, femoral bleeding is always fun—but he can ignore it. He’s not sure why he’s moving.
Gaby, his brain tells him. Gaby’s driving. They’re taking you somewhere.
“Don’t move, Cowboy,” says a deep voice, and Napoleon feels pressure on his chest, his gut. He knows that voice. It takes him a minute to string the voice together with some splintered memories—long-fingered hands, a chessboard, a silver watch, a mouthful of scotch—and get Illya.
“Peril?” he rasps. Fuck, does he sound awful. He clears his throat and manages to turn his head enough to spit. He can’t see. That’s not unusual. It’s a relief, actually—he doesn’t have to see what a mess he is.
“I’m here, быть любимой,” Illya says. Panic flavors his voice. “Shh, just hold on. We are going to hospital, you have been shot—”
Napoleon blacks out for a moment. (That would be the catastrophic blood loss.) When he comes to he can see, just a little; Illya is above him, white-faced, splattered with blood. Car horns wail. Gaby’s perfect bun has come loose; her eyes are fixed on the road.
“No,” Napoleon says. He coughs deeply. There’s a bullet in his lung; his body is trying to heal over it, but can’t. “No hospital.”
“You’ve been shot,” Illya says. “You’re dying.”
Napoleon would laugh, but his lungs are full of blood. He’s going to drown. Joy.
“No,” he says, a near-growl, “hospitals. Too—” he pauses to hack. “Dangerous.”
“You’re dying,” Illya repeats. Gaby lurches the car, shouting in German. The movement dislodges Illya’s hands. Blood bubbles up, wet and reeking.
“Illya,” Napoleon tries, “please.”
Illya hesitates. “You want us to let you die?”
If only.
“No. I need—” another cough “—you to trust me. Pull the bullets out.”
“Я не буду,” Illya snaps. “I will not.”
“Please. Or move. Let me do it myself.”
His vision gutters out again. He can’t see Illya, but he can hear him, smell him; he can feel the moment Illya gives up.
“It will hurt,” he warns.
“Worse?”
Nobody laughs.
His hearing grays out too, blood loss pulling at him. Gaby says something to Illya, high and panicked. Napoleon breathes and focuses. He’d rather be blind than deaf. After a moment his hearing returns.
“All I have is pocketknife,” Illya says, pained. “Cowboy? Can you hear me?”
Napoleon manages to nod. If he opens his mouth again he’s going to scream. He’s lost probably as much blood as he has; he doesn’t need to make it worse.
Illya, bless his Russian sensibilities, doesn’t say anything else, just starts cutting.
Needless to say, it hurts. Napoleon bites down on his tongue—what’s one more injury—and tries to stay still. Illya starts with one of the bullets in his chest. He’s quick about it, digging the bullet out, dropping it to the floor, and starting in on the other.
So it goes. The gut bullet is the worst; Illya has to cut through the majority of Napoleon’s internal organs to get at it where it’s lodged in a kidney, nearly a through and through, and Napoleon blacks out three more times. The leg bullet bleeds like a motherfucker as it goes, but the one in his shoulder leaves rather easily.
After, Napoleon realizes that they’ve stopped moving. He can feel his wounds starting to mend, the blood slowing, his cells knitting themselves back together one at a time. Gaby is craned around, staring at him, her face white, her eyes horrified. Illya has blood up to his elbows, across his chest, splattered on his cheeks and in his hair. Napoleon knows that he himself looks like corpse. The stink of blood is making him lightheaded.
Napoleon struggles to sit up and manages it. There’s a hole ripped out of his chest the size of his closed fist. His clothes are black with blood.
“You should be dead,” Illya finally says, slowly. “How—”
Napoleon grimaces. His wounds ache, fire swimming up to rest at the base of his skull. The healing is the worst part. The next twenty-four hours are going to be uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” he manages, “I don’t really do that.”