Archive of Our Own

In the service of gathering data on the woman with the pink glasses, Illya casually craned his neck to the side. His fingertips rested softly on the outside of his glass, condensation beading as the ice melted and settled. Something about the back of his neck always put a lump in Napoleon’s throat; he couldn’t help but picture his own fingertips brushing that fine blonde hair at his nape, his mouth just above that well-formed collar bone. Deeply unproductive thinking. He sipped his gin and swallowed hard.

UNCLE forgave a lot of sexual transgressions— Napoleon certainly wasn’t the only agent who had slept with a handful of THRUSH operatives, for one— but somehow, lusting over one’s partner, male and from the other side of the Iron Curtain, seemed like something they might bristle at. Another UNCLE agent, a cute secretary or an agent who didn't work in the field—  that they would forgive, and had forgiven, repeatedly. Even a casual tryst with a civilian man, if you were very cautious. But there really was no coming back from even the most minor dalliance with your partner— what if you grew tired of one another? Hell— what if you didn’t ? 

He was usually more careful about the amorous glances he cast at his partner, but hours after preventing the assassination of an East German diplomat, they had been thrown unceromoniously on a red-eye to Paris to track down a smuggling ring. They had spent their first day there chasing a man who turned out not to exist, and their first night on a series of Parisian rooftops, attempting to avoid being ventilated. The following day had included a run-in with the French authorities, necessitating a bail out and a stern call from Mr. Waverly. When they had finally gotten to an actual hotel that night, they had both collapsed without doing their regular due diligence. An hour later they were awakened by fire alarms. Their hotel didn’t burn down, exactly, but the arsonist had certainly immolated any hopes the pair of agents had of getting a good night’s sleep. Today had been no more restful, and only a hair more productive. Now it was past 8:30 and Napoleon suspected madness might set in at any moment.  

Illya turned back around and cocked an eyebrow at a tall man who had come to sit down with the woman with the pink glasses. The woman with the pink glasses, a cog in a European smuggling operation, was known as Nancy Trinket. It was not her real name. Her associates had been eluding them for days, but they had at least finally caught up with her. She dressed like a deranged school marm, and fit in at this hole-in-the-wall bar like a kitten at a shark convention. The man who had just sidled up to her was tall and relatively plain looking. Napoleon pursed his lips just a little and drummed the table with his fingers, glancing a moment too long at Illya’s adam’s apple. This tall fellow was not the man they had thought would be coming.

Napoleon pried his eyes and mind from Illya’s neck. He tried to think about what the appearance of this strange man meant— was he part of the jewel smuggling cabal, or just a suitor?— but instead found himself ruminating on sexual politics.

He rarely let himself get too carried away with men; he would flirt occasionally, and on rarer occasions still allow himself a too-lingering touch with a potentially interested party. Very, very rarely, he just might find himself say, opening up the adjoining door to a friendly traveler’s hotel room, or spending a little too much time in a train bathroom with a fellow passenger, or walking home from a bar and taking a quick pit stop somewhere private with a new acquaintance. He did technically prefer women, if he was counting percentages, but the margin was thinner than anyone might guess. Society being what it was, though, women were his bread and butter; whistling at a passing woman in a tight dress got you, at worst, threats from an angry husband or a slap in the face; whistling at a passing man in a tight suit got you beat up or thrown in jail. 

As if mirroring his thoughts, the mysterious man was slapped in the face. He had leaned in very close to the woman with the pink glasses, but he was apparently not a friend of their intrepid lady smuggler. Illya made that charming face he made when something mildly entertaining occurred; one eyebrow just a little higher than the other, a hint of a smile behind his eyes but miles from his mouth. 

The man wandered away clutching his cheek and Napoleon whispered, “I guess that one’s more rough than diamond.”

Illya’s buried smile trickled down to his lips, just a little.

The whole thing, Napoleon felt, was really rather stupid— sex with one human being was, ultimately, much like sex with another, and that so many people seemed to think a wider range of options was somehow a bad thing was an endless source of bafflement. Even so, his desire for variety was trumped by his desire to not end up in the back of a paddy wagon, so he kept his hands off most of the well-suited male posteriors he encountered.

“Perhaps there’s a facet of his personality she finds abhorrent,” Illya quipped, playing along with Napoleon’s bad joke. He didn’t always indulge in the kind of coarse punnery that was frequently Napoleon’s modus operandi, but they hadn’t slept a combined eight hours in three days, and they had been at this bar for an eternity. He was bored and exhausted. They both were.

“He must not have a particularly sparkling personality."

"Even so, she could have led with the karat rather than the stick."

Napoleon kicked him, lightly, under the table. "Stop one-upping me, here. English is my native language."

Illya flattened his mouth and shrugged, his eyes fluttering shut. "Linguistic flexibility is merely a hallmark of any good Soviet."

Napoleon was neither sure exactly what that meant nor whether Illya was joking. 

He sighed, quieter, fingering the condensation on his glass. He gulped down the rest of his drink. "He's not our man."

Wanting banter more than shop talk, Napoleon lifted his eyebrows and "He's not hers, either."

A rumble issued from Illya's face, less enthusiastic than a snort of laughter, but less dismissive than a grunt. Making Illya audibly laugh was damn near impossible, but every once and a while, when he was just a little sleep deprived or drunk, Napoleon got him.

His ability to make people laugh had long been one of his greatest assets. In third grade, an older boy had knocked out one of his baby teeth and told him that's what he deserved for being a sissy. Other boys in his primary school quickly took this up as their righteous crusade as well: Napoleon liked hanging out with the girls, Napoleon was scrawny and didn't like roughhousing, Napoleon never wanted pelt the neighborhood cats with rocks— he was obviously failing to live up to any and all third grade standards of masculinity, and therefore required beating. So he learned to throw a punch, and leaned into a kind of clownish showmanship that wasn’t quite the tough-guy posturing of the other boys, but still self-assured enough to avoid their ire. No one was going to pick on the guy who made Mrs. Bartosiak’s life a living hell, after all. So, the girls liked him because he smiled and listened and didn’t chase them or pull their hair, and the boys liked him because he was deadeye with a spitball, and had a surprisingly mean left hook for a runt. He made them laugh--it wasn't always with him, but at least he didn't get anymore playground dental extractions. 

Shockingly, making his melancholy blonde partner laugh was significantly harder than making a pack of nine year old cretins laugh. Initially he had pegged him as pretentious. Then, he had shifted his opinion to merely "too Russian." But at some point, he had realized that Illya was a legitimate eccentric, with a skewed sense of humor to match. His manner was just so understated that most people didn't notice.

"Look at what the man at that table is doing," Illya whispered, snapping Napoleon from his reminiscence. He tilted his head very slightly in the direction of a man with a large moustache and an ugly tie. 

Napoleon groaned, audibly enough that a canoodling couple behind them gave him a dirty look. Although the man with the ugly tie appeared to be reading, just beside his book he wag lightly tapping on the pitted tabletop. 

"Morse code," both agents muttered simultaneously, feeling rather hoodwinked.

"How long has he been there?"

"I don't know," Illya sighed. "Almost as long as we have, I think."

"Goddamit. Are we sure it's a message? Maybe he's just fidgety."

"Well…" Illya's mouth turned to one's side slightly, as if he were sucking on something sour. "I won't dismiss the possibility that he merely has an excess of nervous energy. His hand is partially obscured. And…" He swallowed, eyebrows furrowing. "Maybe it's the sleep deprivation, but if I am making something out, it seems like he keeps saying… ‘G.I. Joe?’”

“Well that’s got to be a code,” Napoleon grumbled, trying not to make his anxious ire clear to their targets. “Someone in the U.S. Army must be involved. Can you see if she’s responding?”

Illya lightly shook his head. “Hands are under the table.”

Napoleon guzzled the last few draughts of his gin, and seriously contemplated ordering another.

“That’s number three,” Illya warned, presciently. Napoleon seriously hoped he couldn’t read his thoughts, but sometimes it definitely seemed like he could.

“What, did you want me to drive home?”

“I don’t want to have to carry you home.”

“Our hotel’s not that far.”

“Would you be quiet and watch the suspect?”

“I can’t see what either of them are saying. Tapping.”

Illya sighed and scratched just below his left eyebrow. When he opened his eyes again he gave Napoleon the freezing stare of a man entirely depleted of patience. Napoleon cleared his throat and watched the suspects.

Another hour passed. The man with the moustache crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, pulling his book open with both hands. The woman with the pink glasses pulled equally pink stationary from her purse and began composing a letter. Illya got up and stretched his arms and, obnoxiously, got them both Shirley Temples. Napoleon drank his anyway, and tied the stem of the cherry in a knot with his tongue. He stuck it out at Illya. Illya rolled his eyes.

Eventually, the man with the moustache got up and left. Illya rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and stood up. He pretended to drunkenly stumble into Napoleon and whispered, very close to his ear, “I’ll follow the man. You keep an eye on her.” 

He slapped Napoleon on the back and grinned, all Cheshire cat, blustering, “See you when I see you, you old so-and-so. Don’t break too many hearts.” 

He ducked out after the man with the moustache.

It was a cliche, but Napoleon sure didn’t hate watching him leave.

He tipped back in his chair and glanced at “Nancy.” 

Sleep-addled, a little bit drunk, Napoleon couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was meaningful that Illya had chosen to follow the man and leave the woman to him. He had absolutely no idea whether Illya was interested in women, and even less of an idea as to whether he might have any inclinations towards men. They were together for the majority of their waking hours, and while Illya could probably rattle off the names of the last dozen women Napoleon had bedded, Napoleon couldn’t so much as guess a single human being Illya might have slept with. Women liked him, of that there was no doubt, and he seemed more than capable of taking advantage of that fact when a mission called for it. But Illya’s personal interest in other people’s genitals seemed fairly limited.  

 Napoleon couldn’t imagine such an ascetic lifestyle. He had quit celibacy before most of his peers had even noticed that girls existed. When puberty had hit, and the other boys were suddenly realizing that “soft” and “smells nice” might actually be desirable things and not character flaws, his friendship with the class’s female contingent made him the envy and awe of all the drooling pimple-faced adolescent boys. That he happened to be blessed with a cute smile and nice hair meant the girls were plenty pleased by his company as well. He was easily the first of his class to successfully woo a lovely lass, and everyone knew he had kissed his fair share of pretty lips by the time they moved on to the regional high school. Whether anything more than kissing had gone on he had refused, adamantly, to share; his reputation as a gentleman in both deed and word only increased his possible pool of beaus.

It was only near the end of high school, when some of the slavering teen boys had started to grow into themselves and, for example, bathe more regularly, that Napoleon started to notice that there was a certain charm to a well-dressed… or entirely underdressed, man. He found his eyes roving from girl to boy and back again, the pleasure of a well-filled-out sweater measured against the pleasure of last season’s trousers, a little too tight in the back. He wanted to touch just about all of his friends all of the time. He only dared touch the girls. 

Then the war started not long after he turned eighteen, and he shipped out halfway across the world to spend a lot of time in single-sex company. Sure, there were women on the base occasionally, but his Korean was notably terrible and the entire concept of wooing someone over whom you had so much power… well, it rankled. He saw other men taking advantage of this and decided he didn’t have the stomach for it. It was impossible to know whether a ‘yes’ was a real yes when the person asking was an occupying power with a machine gun. 

But on the other hand, a ‘yes’ was definitely a yes when it was coming from another man in uniform, one who had just as much to lose from getting caught, and everything to gain from exposing a homosexual in the ranks. After all, everyone knew that perverts were in league with the communists, and that it was an American’s duty to report any moral dereliction in order to stop the Red Tide. Or, so he and another similarly inclined soldier might joke, sharing a cigarette in a rumpled hotel bed. If they were caught, they would be immediately dishonorably discharged, of course, but it wasn’t that hard to avoid detection. Straight soldiers didn’t even know what to look for— if you and a buddy said you were heading into town to pick up some pretty locals— well, of course you’d be gone all night and come back in a way better mood than when you left. That you might have forgone the pretty locals entirely wouldn’t even have occurred to most people.

Sailing in college provided a similar outlet, and there were ample opportunities to spend time with cute co-eds on land. He knew other men felt guilty about their tendencies , as it was occasionally whispered, but he never did. He loved loving people. And who was he hurting? He was usually upfront with both men and women that his affections were likely to be intense but short lived, and he parted amicably with the majority of his conquests.

But then, thinking about Illya made him wonder, wryly, if maybe old McCarthy had been right. He certainly did want to get in bed with a Russian, these days.

He jerked forwards in his chair, subconsciously countering an increasing tilt backwards. He looked around wide-eyed, disoriented. Had he fallen asleep?

The woman in the pink glasses was no longer at her table. 

Shit .

He stood up, wobbly, and slapped his own cheeks. He tottered over the bartender and, with his best aww-shucks expression, pleaded, stumblingly, “Bonsoir sir, uh, monsieur, um— you didn’t happen to see my-my sister leave, did you? Mother has asked me to keep an eye on her on our, uh, European tour, but— she is a slippery one.” He laughed, his face more a grimace than a grin.

“Ouais, d’accord.” The bartender crossed his arms. “Elle n’est pas ta soeur.”

Napoleon’s mouth lilted to one side, half smirk, half pain. “Comment-dit-on, ‘We have different fathers?’” 

“Fous le camp.” He pushed his sleeves up.

“Um, merci then, I guess.” He slapped a handful of American dollar bills on the counter and dashed out, looking across the darkened street, down the nearest alley, in the windows of other buildings for any sign of Ms. Trinket. 

Shit shit shit.

He ducked into the closest and darkest ruelle and pulled out his communicator.

“Channel D. Contacting Kuryakin.” He waited. “Illya.”

“Yes?”

“I… uh. I may have lost her.”

“You didn’t order another gin, did you?”

“No, I—” Napoleon barked defensively before realizing that falling asleep might actually be worse than getting another drink. “She got ahead of me,” he finished, vaguely. 

“Ah, well, you know how much easier it is to walk on cobblestones in the dark in heels and a skirt suit than loafers and trousers. I can see how she might have eluded you.” Napoleon could hear the sound of Illya sighing on the other end. “No matter. Our friend with the poor sartorial choices led me to the hotel they’re staying at.”

“They’re staying together?”

“What?—No. Different rooms, same hotel. They’re pretending not to know each other, same as the bar.” 

Napoleon scrunched his eyes shut. Obviously. 

“Do you think she was headed back to the hotel?” 

“Hard to say.” 

“How long ago did you lose her?”

“I, uh, spent some time trying to find the trail again before I checked my watch. Not sure.”

“Well, I would rather prefer not to be caught rifling through her things, and even if she doesn’t recognize me from the bar, I’m not quite as good at the lovesick stalker act as you are.” 

Napoleon realized too late he probably should have chuckled at that, but his head was still elsewhere. 

“Anyway, could you perhaps come to 156 Rue Avignon, and keep an eye on the lobby for me?”

“Uh. Sure.” 

“Otherwise I’m going to have to quickly lay myself out on her bed with a rose in my teeth when I hear a key in the door, and I’m short on roses.”

Another joke passed between Napoleon’s ears without recognition. Usually he would have a slew of witty responses, aptly carrying his half of the banter, but the past few days had caught up to him, and all he could do was picture Illya prone, as described. 

His neck grew warm, despite the cold fall air. He blurted, “Who was the last person you slept with?”

There was silence on the other end, and briefly Napoleon thought Illya had turned off his communicator. 

“...Napoleon, if this is a coded message, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.” He cleared his throat. “If it isn’t a coded message…”

“Sorry.” He forced a smile in his voice, dialing the swagger up to obnoxiousness. “I was just thinking about you trying to seduce Ms. Trinket, and realized I have a lot less blackmail on you than you have on me.” 

“Well, that’s probably because unlike you, I value propriety.” 

Napoleon could practically hear him rolling his eyes, which meant he had bought it.

“I don’t know that word. Is it Russian?”

“Funny. Lobby?”

“Be there in a jiffy.” 

Napoleon jammed his communicator back in his pocket and started jogging in a randomly-chosen direction. He probably should have asked where Rue Avignon was. He turned himself towards the nearest major intersection and tried to recall where he had last seen a map. By the time he got himself pointed in the direction of the hotel, he was already feeling winded. A four-day all-nighter might have been tenable when he was twenty-one, but not anymore. 

Illya seemed considerably less worse for wear, but Illya bore most things with that classical Russian stoicism. Somehow that made him even more desirable. Maybe it was schadenfreude— he wasn’t above wanting to know what that facade looked like when it was broken.

He hadn’t even been attracted to him, initially. 

Pretty boys had never really been his type, and as the women at headquarters liked to dreamily remind him in those early days, Illya sure was pretty . It was difficult to feel anything but contempt for him back then. He was an interloper, a communist, a know-it-all, and women loved him. Napoleon was brusque with him at best, and borderline insubordinate at worst. When Waverely assigned them to work together on a case for the first time, Napoleon had balked and bristled and threatened to defect to THRUSH. Waverely had glared and told him to do his job. 

But Illya had quickly proven himself capable, and Napoleon had realized, begrudgingly, that his standoffishness stemmed not from cruelty or superiority but professionalism and a quiet personality. And it turned out he wasn’t a know-it-all, either; he was just blunt and awkward. Furthermore, he didn’t seem to return any of the affections of the women of UNCLE, which meant he wasn’t actually a threat. So Napoleon tried to be a little nicer to him after that. 

And then at some point, he had come to the realization that Illya was really an oddball, and that, actually, he legitimately liked him. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when they became friends, but it had dawned on him one evening as he paid for their dinner that he and Illya spent a lot of their off-the-clock hours together.

And then one day, they had both fallen into the Tiber in pursuit of a band of criminal circus performers, and when they had come up for air, Illya had been completely and totally unable to stop laughing. He nearly drowned, accidentally gulping down river water as he sputtered hysterically. Napoleon had grabbed him around the middle, trying to prevent him from going under, and had ended up instead bobbing above and beneath the surface, wracked with laughter himself. 

And Illya had grinned at him, clutching at each other under the water as they kicked and spit river water and flailed and tried not to sink, and his stomach had dropped to the riverbed. Illya was fucking adorable . He almost kissed him then and there.

But instead, they had dragged themselves out of the river and wrung out their suits, still laughing, Illya now hiccuping as well. Napoleon had convinced himself he was suffering from a momentary madness, and that like all his infatuations, this one would end shortly. 

It did not. 

When he finally made it to the lobby of the hotel, his stomach rolled the same way it did back in the Tiber. Illya waved drowsily at him from a table at the back. He was still adorable, and Napoleon was still infatuated.

“Thanks for your help,” Illya smirked, the dark bags under his eyes mitigating the obnoxiousness a little bit.

Napoleon sat down beside him. They shouldn’t stay here, but he was tired. “Did you have to seduce her?”

“Violently.” He blinked, slowly. “We’re getting married in the spring.”

“Congrats. Your children will be… very blonde.”

Illya blinked again. He looked a bit like a tired cat. “We should get out of here before someone sees us.”

“I just sat down.”

“Wouldn’t have been an issue if you’d arrived sooner.” Illya stood up and offered his hand. Napoleon pulled himself up.

They started back to their own hotel— the second one, the one that hadn’t been on fire. As they walked, Illya quietly explained what he had learned. 

“I found Ms. Trinket’s passport— the name on it was different, but the picture was the same. I sent the information to headquarters and they’re working out who the woman really is. Her room had a number of suspicious missives, but I gather that she’s not as high-ranking as we might have hoped.”

“No big bags of diamonds, I take it?”

“Alas, nothing so incriminating. However, there was a jewelry box with some too-fine pieces in it. She doesn’t dress well enough to be as wealthy as her jewels imply.” 

“Connections to the U.S. Army?”

“Waiting on headquarters.” He tilted his head to the side, squinting slightly. “Also, I’m still not certain the man was actually signalling ‘G.I. Joe.’ I don’t know about you, but I’m a little sleepy.”

“If there’s another suspicious fire at our hotel tonight, I’m going to write a very bad review and submit it to all the papers.” 

“I’m sure that will convince the local hoteliers to avoid renting to arsonists.”

They arrived at the second hotel, a tiny bed and breakfast with limited amenities and an elderly staff. That had decided this morning that a lower-profile choice would keep them out of harm’s way, and opted to pretend they were cousins, staying a night or two at cheaper lodgings before meeting up with the rest of their family for a grand Parisien reunion. The woman who had signed them in hadn’t even glanced at them, so it mattered little that they looked nothing alike. The could probably have told her they were there to rob her and she would have muttered ‘ouai, ouai,’ and slowly walked them up the stairs to their room.

Accustomed at this point to sharing sleeping space, and too tired to argue over who would get the tiny overstuffed couch even if they weren’t, Napoleon started throwing his clothes and shoes off the moment they stepped inside.

Illya gave him a dirty look. 

“If you try to get in that bed without showering, I will throw you onto the balcony and make you sleep out in the damp. You smell like a house fire. One that was started with gin as the propellant.” 

“I wonder why that is,” Napoleon whined, rolling his eyes. “You’re no rose yourself.”

“Yes, but I’m not so uncivilized to rub my stench all over a clean bed. Go shower.”

“Fine, but if you fall asleep at the table while I’m in there, I’m leaving you where you lie.”

“I’m waiting for HQ to call back. I won’t fall asleep.”

Napoleon stepped into the tiny bathroom, and then turned around and stuck just his head out the door. “No peeking!”

Illya ignored him.

When he got out of the shower a few minutes later, feeling surprisingly refreshed, Illya was signing off a call with Waverley. 

“Good news?”

Illya scrunched up his face, just a little bit. “Well. Ms. Trinket’s real name is Joann Elliot, but she is actually a school teacher. Tenth grade history. She’s Canadian— lives and works in a factory town outside Toronto.”

“Wait. Really?” He sat down on the corner of the bed, towel around his midsection. “Is that a common side job these days? Geography by day, jewel smuggling by night?”

“I don’t know,” Illya sighed. “But if she’s a school teacher, she definitely can’t afford that jewelry.”

“No rich husband? Doting grandfather? Mysterious daddy-long-legs benefactor?” 

“Not as far as we can tell.” Illya leaned back in his chair. “The other fellow— ugly tie— his real name is Salvador Quiñones.” He tripped just a little bit over the tilde, apparently too tired for communicating in a third language. Napoleon suppressed a smile. “He is actually a travel agent, but he does have a prior for fraud. The conviction was overturned, however--I guess the condemning bit of evidence turned out to be obtained illegally."

"Hmm." Napoleon wanted to lie back on the bed, but he also didn't particularly want to expose himself in his towel, especially after that foolish 'peeking' crack. "And any connections to the military?"

"Not certain yet. Waverley wants us to tread carefully if the armed services are involved." He sighed. "Not that we have any concrete reason to believe the army is behind this. Maybe they were talking about the Christmas presents they would buy with their share of the profits."

"Or maybe he was telling her what he dressed up as at the THRUSH Halloween party."

"I have heard it is a hot ticket event." Illya nodded sleepily, and then suddenly shook his head. "But that's the strangest thing," he interrupted himself, "Waverley said they didn't appear to be with THRUSH at all."

"Then who the hell tried to burn our hotel down last night? And who was shooting at us the night before that?"

Letting his eyes fall shut, Illya stood up. He brushed his pants off and shrugged. "I have no idea. THRUSH isn’t the only criminal organization in the world." He crossed to the bathroom. "Get some sleep, Napoleon. Waverley has us meeting some French agent tomorrow at the break of dawn." 

"Wake me up if anything is on fire," Napoleon purred, raising his brows at Illya.  Illya nodded, and closed the bathroom door. 

Napoleon grabbed a clean pair of boxers, hung his damp towel on the back of the least easily water-damaged chair, close to the radiator, and crawled under the covers. He couldn't remember falling asleep.

Some time later Illya joined him. Usually when they shared a bed they would sleep back to back, but Napoleon had fallen asleep too quickly to adjust. He felt Illya's eyes on his face, and for a split second his heart rate rocketed, thinking maybe he was about to discover his partner's proclivities . 

And then Illya snorted with laughter, gasping through a closed hand as he tried to stifle it.

Napoleon opened his eyes, irked. "Hello to you too. Do I have something in my teeth?"

"It's you," Illya stated matter of factly, laughing quietly out his nose.

"Just, what, the entirety of me? My very existence is hilarious?"

"No, you—" He audibly hee -ed. Whatever this was, it was really not how Napoleon had wanted to make him laugh. “ You’re the last person I slept with.”

Napoleon choked on his own spit. Illya continued trying to stifle his laughter.

“You—” He tried to think of any response that wouldn’t make him sound like a pervert or a blithering idiot. He sharpened his tone. “Well huh. You’d think I’d have remembered that.”

Illya rubbed both his eyes, squeaking and shaking. He really was sleep deprived.

“And your English is usually so good.” Napoleon couldn’t stop blinking. “You know that phrase has, uh, another meaning, right?”

“Of course,” Illya huffed, still giggly. “But I never stay the night, so—” He covered one eye with his hand, slim chest shaking slightly. “So the only person I ever do any actual sleeping with is you.”

“This really isn’t as funny as you seem to think it is,” Napoleon groaned, rolling onto his back. 

Illya continued vibrating with silent laughter.

Napoleon crossed his arms. 

He raised an eyebrow. “You really never stick around for breakfast?”

“I don’t,” he wheezed.

Napoleon clucked his tongue. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the fly-by-night type.”

“I’m not much for pillow talk.”

“Is that why none of the women at HQ ever want a second date with you?”

 Illya’s eyes closed and he smiled, drifting off into sleep. 

“I… don’t think that’s the reason,” he chuckled, teeth exposed just a little before his face grew slack. Slurred, he muttered, “G’night. Go back t’sleep.”

Napoleon’s heart hammered in his chest. What the hell did that mean? He puzzled through the possibilities. It seemed unlikely that Illya was cheerfully implying he was a sub-par lover. But his ‘ don't’ had been just a little too final, a little too certain for it to have been something minor—bad taste in wine or being a poor tipper, or something. The alternative that Napoleon jumped to— that his dalliances with women were short lived because he was secretly a homosexual— seemed too much like wishful thinking to seriously contemplate. 

He rolled back onto his side, face to face with Illya, and wondered just how many teeth he’d get knocked out if he touched his face or put his arm around him.

For the third time that night, Napoleon didn’t remember falling asleep. 

When he woke up, it was to Illya’s voice, and his hand on his shoulder. It was still dark.

“Napoleon.” He gently shook him, sitting on the edge of the bed. He was in pants and a half-buttoned shirt. “Napoleon.”

He blinked, and rolled onto his back, bonking into Illya’s legs. 

“We’re meeting the French agent in half an hour.”

Napoleon blinked again, nodding muzzily. He glanced out the window and muttered, “Why is it still nighttime?”

“It’s 4:30. We need to get there before the priests.”

“...priests?” Napoleon rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Yes.” Illya raised his eyebrows and smiled disconcertingly. “We’re going somewhere very cheery.” 

Napoleon wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when twenty five minutes later, they stepped down into a burial chamber on the grounds of an old gothic church. The stairs, ancient, unevenly-worn cobbles, led into a hallway lined with stone cubbies filled with… well, dusty bits of dead people.

“I’ll take it,” Napoleon exclaimed, putting his hand out to shake Illya’s. “It has everything the missus and I were looking for.”

Illya shook his hand as they walked, gesturing with the other. “All the rage with young families, I hear.”

“Very bohemian.”

“And yet timeless,” Illya sighed, putting his arm in front of his face as they walked past an exceptionally large spiderweb. 

The catacombs were, blessedly, fitted with flickering electrical lights every few feet, but it seemed to have done little to dispel the spiders and mice. They were going to need to shower again if they spent much more time picking their way through dust and bones and arachnids. Napoleon stepped on something that went crunch and decided he wasn’t going to look to see what it was.  

“So… why did the French agent want to meet here?”

“Not certain. Waverley implied secrecy, but… perhaps he’s just going for atmosphere.” 

“Well, you know what they say about the French, Illya…” 

A musical chuckle echoed from around the next corner. “I’d love to hear what they say about the French.”

Napoleon mugged being the cat caught with the canary. They rounded the corner.

“I was obviously going to say that the French are a wonderful people with an illustrious history, and truly excellent food.”

“I should hope so,” the French agent murmured, all velvet menace, “Considering you’re named after one of our great men.” 

The French agent was quite handsome, with dark skin and black hair in a slicked back wave. He reminded Napoleon of a young Cab Calloway, moustache and all. He took a leisurely half-bow and raised his eyebrows at Napoleon, long lashes heavy over his eyes, rosewood brown in the dim yellow light.

"You'll pardon my American friend," Illya apologized. "You know how they think the world revolves around Yankee Stadium."

“You must be Kuryakin,” the French agent surmised. “I’m Flavien Saint-Géaud. Enchanté, gentlemen.” He held his cigarette in his teeth to shake both their hands, then leaned back against the wall of human remains again. 

Frenchmen , Napoleon thought, trying to keep his eyes off the man’s rather perfect lips. 

“I’m glad you two could join me.” He blew smoke out his nose and took a slow, deep breath in before beginning. “My superiors have informed me that you’re having difficulty with jewel smugglers.”

Illya nodded. “That’s correct.” 

Only an occasional smoker, Flavien’s mouth and hands made Napoleon itch for a cigarette himself. He wasn’t going to ask if he wasn’t offered, however. And besides, it did seem a little disrespectful to be smoking in a tomb. 

He channeled his nervous energy into an explanation. “We came here following an American we thought was involved, but he seems to have disappeared entirely. To the point where we’re not sure this man ever existed at all. And then we ended up in a shootout with a bunch of people in balaclavas, all of whom got away.” 

Flavien made quiet noises of agreement as he listened. However, his eyes were on Illya.

Napoleon continued, watching the Frenchman’s response. “We followed one of the men almost accidentally— we recognized him by a limp when we were all fleeing the scene. He met up with a woman, and then he also disappeared, but we’ve been trailing her ever since.”

“Well,” Illya glanced at Napoleon conspiratorially. “Until last night, when she also disappeared.”

Napoleon felt his face grow slightly warm. That one was very much his fault. He pressed forward, regardless. “The night before that, though,” he cleared his throat, “someone also nearly burned down our hotel, so I have to assume someone followed us.” 

“The woman?” Flavien asked, glancing briefly back at Napoleon. He wondered if Illya realized that this man was staring at him. Napoleon checked quickly for the reassuring heft of his gun; if Flavien wasn’t who he claimed to be, and this was a ruse to lure them into a place where a few more dead bodies wouldn’t mean that much, he would be ready. 

“Unlikely,” Illya interjected, looking Flavien squarely in the eye. He must have noticed, because now he seemed to be almost challenging him. “She’s rather… conspicuous.” 

“Picture Shirley Temple, but a spinster who decided to go into teaching.”

“That’s a little uncharitable, Napoleon,” Illya smirked. He looked up at Flavien from his slightly downturned face. “Let’s say bachelorette instead of spinster. Not quite old enough for that label.”

“Anyway,” Napoleon continued, watching Flavien smile and lick his lips. He was torn between wanting to sock him one or asking if he was free for a drink later. “We trailed her all day yesterday, and at the end of the night, she met up with a man who works as a travel agent in Spain—”

“Sort of met up. Sat on opposite sides of a bar tapping morse code to one another, we think.” 

“—and Illya followed him back to his hotel, and I followed our woman.” 

“Sort of followed.” Illya and Flavien shared a smirk that tipped Napoleon more heavily into the “sock him one” category. The past two or three months, he had found himself in a frothing jealous rage every time a beautiful woman tried to take Illya home. It was blitheringly stupid, but at least those women had the distinct intention to have sex with Illya. (And besides, if he couldn't have Illya, he should at least be able to get the girl. That was only fair.) This baseless jealousy was a bridge too far— this man wasn’t flirting with Illya, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to fuck him in a crypt. Napoleon swallowed his jealousy and took a deep breath.

“They’re definitely involved in some fashion,” he continued, relaying the rest of what they had found the previous night. Flavien nodded throughout, finishing his cigarette and stomping it out with the heel of his shoe.

When Napoleon finished and the Frenchman moved to speak, he started with, “They men who shot at you. Was it eight? One very tall, and the others of average to below-average height?”

Illya looked to Napoleon for confirmation. They both blinked, thinking through the shoot-out. That sounded right. They both nodded. 

“I’d need to confirm something, but I think we might know of them,” he grumbled. “I’m a bit surprised to hear they may be jewel thieves.” He pulled out another cigarette and went to light it, but his lighter appeared to be out of fluid. He looked to Illya. “D’you have a light?”

“Don’t smoke,” Illya shrugged. 

Flavien cocked an eyebrow at Napoleon, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips. Napoleon rolled his eyes and pulled his lighter— his actual lighter, not the one that would dispense plastic explosives— and moved to hand it to him. Flavien instead moved his mouth, cigarette dangling between his fingers and lips, to the lighter, and waited for Napoleon to light it. A tightness in Napoleon’s stomach indicated his opinion of the Frenchman had shifted back from a desire for violence to just plain old desire. Flavien maintained eye contact as his cigarette glowed to life.

Oh god.

Maybe he was flirting with Illya.

“Merci.” He took a drag, thinking through the facts of the case. 

“De nada,” Napoleon replied, trying to channel the nervous cocktail of jealousy and attraction he was feeling into obnoxiousness.

Flavien looked at Illya from the corner of his eyes as if to say, ‘you hear this guy?’

Illya grinned. “Ignore him. The first month we worked together he said ‘dostoevsky’ to me every time we parted.”

“A real polyglot, then,” Flavien snickered, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the right half of his moustache. He continued his questions. “You have reason to suspect the American army is involved?”

“Well…” Napoleon looked at Illya.

“I might have seen Quiñones tapping something about ‘meeting up with the G.I. Joe’ to Elliot.” He shrugged. “It could be a code, or I could have misread him.”

Flavien looked at the floor, one hand slipping into his pocket. “This is… troubling and confusing information.” He pursed his lips and blinked, and then looked between Napoleon and Illya. “The men in the masks, we have… reason to believe they’re some kind of, uh…” He groped for a word, his cigarette hand waving in lazy circles. “It’s paramilitaire en Francais. I’m forgetting if it’s one of those words that’s just the same in English.” 

“Yes. Paramilitary,” Illya offered. 

“A paramilitary group. Dressing up to hide their activities. Causing political trouble.” He straightened his back against the catacomb walls. “If they’re smuggling jewels, I have to wonder if it’s a way to fund themselves.” Smoke curled around his fingers as he thought. “I’ll give you what we know on the masked men, and see if we can dig anything up on your two mystery persons. I hate to ask, but can you wait an hour or two?”

“Do we have to wait down here?” Napoleon joked.

“This is more of an eternal waiting place,” Flavien returned, laughing smoke out his nose. “And besides, I have another appointment here that, unfortunately, I can’t have your company for.” 

“Pity,” Illya quipped, quirking his mouth to one side. “It was good meeting you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Monsieur Kuryakin.” Flavien offered his hand once again. Illya paused, just momentarily, before taking it, and then they shook on it. “ Monsieur Solo.” He nodded to Napoleon. “You two do me a favor, yes? Stay out of sight until we give you the word. Go to a museum, or something.”

Napoleon lifted one eyebrow. “May I ask why?”

“Call it a hunch,” Flavien shrugged. “And get out of here before Père Bisset sees you. He hates it when I bring friends to the crypts.”

“We’ll do our best.” Illya turned to leave, nodding at Flavien. “Let us know what you hear.”

As they walked back up the worn stairs, into the dim morning light, Napoleon sighed.

Illya turned around to cast him a curious glance. 

Napoleon shook his head. “It’s nothing.” 

“Ah, well, you are known for your bouts of melancholy sighing. I should expect such things by now.” He leaned on the railing at the top of the stairs, waiting for Napoleon to tell him what was wrong before he let him pass. 

“I don’t know, that just… seemed like kind of a waste of time, didn’t it?” 

Illya’s head tipped to one side, and he raised his eyebrows in thought. “It was not entirely illuminating.” He turned around to keep walking. “But we do know now that something very strange is going on. He’s treading very carefully on this, and didn’t mention THRUSH at all.”

Something clicked as they headed towards the church gates. 

“That paramilitary comment— and G.I. Joe— he’s wondering if this is Americans.”

“Exactly.”

“And not just Americans who happen to be operating in France— he’s worried it’s some kind of semi-sanctioned military action. That’s why he’s being so cautious.”

“That is my fear.”

Napoleon’s brows came together. “Do we think this is Americans?”

“Hard to say. We have so little concrete information.” 

Napoleon crossed his arms as they walked. He was no ingenue. He knew that Americans did terrible things. UNCLE might be dedicated to the preservation of peace and safety worldwide, but that didn’t mean the American government was. But even so, he couldn’t imagine why any American would want to destabilize France of all places, their ally since the goddamn revolution. 

Illya would probably call that eurocentric of him. 

He reached out and tugged, very softly, just once, on Illya’s sleeve.

“Hmm?”

“Did I really dostoevsky you for a month?”

Illya snorted. “It was longer than that, but I wanted to make you sound like less of an ass.”

Napoleon felt his face grow warm. “I’m—”

He jumped back, instinctively pulling Illya with him, as a gunshot rang out from across the churchyard. A bullet lodged itself in the ground near their feet. He scrambled to the ground and ducked himself behind a planter. Illya looked up, an eye to the bullet’s trajectory, and then pressed himself close to Napoleon, sharing the small amount of cover.

“Up in the tree,” he whispered. 

“Doesn’t he know this is supposed to be hallowed ground?” Napoleon complained, shaken.

“She,” Illya corrected, squinting up at the tree. 

Napoleon peeked around the planter. There was indeed a woman in the tree, a redhead with close-shorn hair, a black blouse, and black trousers. She fired another shot, not at them, but at the plant on the next column over. The pot shattered, dumping dirt and leaves all over the ground.

“Those were warning shots,” she yelled, her voice clear and stern. An American accent? It certainly wasn’t French. “You’d both be dead if I wanted you to be.”

Illya grimaced at Napoleon. She wasn’t lying.

“Why don’t you come down here and we can talk it out,” Napoleon suggested, blithely. “Have a civilized discussion!”

“What in the hell is wrong with you,” Illya hissed through his teeth. “Hoping she’s farsighted!?”

“Hoping I don’t have to shoot a woman!”

“Oh yes, this is the time for chivalry.”

While they were arguing, she took another shot, this one a few inches from Napoleon’s feet, yelling, “Like hell I will!”

“Jesus!” He tucked as much of himself behind the planter as possible. 

“I can’t get her from this angle,” Illya spit, trying to line up return fire.

“I don’t think she’s actually trying to kill us,” Napoleon hazarded. “She could have blown one of my legs off there.” 

He made a decision and tossed his gun out from behind the planter.

Illya watched this with his mouth open, and then turned to Napoleon with an expression of abject psychological pain. As Napoleon stood up from behind the planter, hands over his head, he looked like he might kill him himself. 

“Why do—” He sputtered, “Why do women make you so stupid !?”

Napoleon ignored him and stepped towards the gunwoman. “I’ve disarmed myself. Just tell us what you want!”

She crouched in the tree, gun still aimed at Napoleon’s chest. He began to slightly regret his decision.

“ Stay the hell out of this ,” she roared.

“I’m sorry, miss, but we can hardly—”

She pointed the gun towards Illya. 

Napoleon stepped quickly to the left, placing the line of sight from the muzzle back on himself. “You can’t expect us to just leave all this be, can you?” He smiled what he hoped was his most dazzling smile. “If you agree to help us, I’m sure—”

She slumped, rolling her eyes. 

“Will you stop trying to recruit me, please?” She leapt from the tree and sprinted the distance to Napoleon. Grabbing him by his collar, she brought her face, and her gun, very close to his face and growled, “I know you don’t think you’re being a chauvinist, but you’re being a chauvinist.” 

Her eyes were very green.

She untwisted his neckband hard enough to send him stumbling back a step, gun still trained on him, and in the second she was apart from Napoleon, Illya fired a shot at her feet. She jumped back, gun now pointed at Illya.

“Just leave it alone, alright!?” She aimed once more at Napoleon, and then ran in the opposite direction. “You need to back off .” She vaulted over the church wall and disappeared. 

Napoleon brought his hand to his rumpled tie, and thought about her freckles.

Illya rushed to his side. 

“You’re an idiot,” he assessed. 

“Fair.” Napoleon swallowed.

“You’re lucky you don’t have a hole in your head,” he added.

“Probably.” He adjusted his tie. He was completely smitten. 

Illya grabbed him by the arm and marched him out of the churchyard. 

“How the hell did she know where we were?” Illya shook his head, dragging Napoleon with him. “We weren’t being followed on the way here— unless—” He turned back towards the catacombs, scowling. 

“She didn’t mean us any harm, Illya,” he suggested, knowing that Illya’s concern was that somehow she had tailed Flavien, or that Flavien had revealed their location. 

Illya blinked rapidly, still unbelieving. “Yes, I’m sure she’s a very lovely assassin.”

“I wonder how she’s involved in all this,” Napoleon sighed, hoping the answer was something that might lead to her falling into his arms. Maybe she was being compelled to do this by an abusive boyfriend, or she needed money for her dear mother’s eye surgery, or— 

Illya’s blinking ceased, and he pressed his lips together in a flat line. “Napoleon.” He looked at him, askew. “You didn’t happen to hit your head before we flew to France, did you? Because— and not to put this too indelicately— your behavior has been inexplicably dumb since we arrived here.” 

Napoleon felt himself growing warm again. He could blame sleeplessness all he wanted, but… a lot of his dumb behavior had simply stemmed from excessive amourousness. 

“That was Ms. Elliot.” Illya rubbed his forehead. “Apparently the Shirley Temple hair is a wig.”

Napoleon pictured Joann Elliot like a paper doll, trying to divest her of the pink tweed nightmare she had been wearing at the bar, but couldn’t picture the stripped down Joann looking anything like their charming new friend. On the other hand, trying to do the same with their new friend— picturing her without her accoutrements— now that was a thought exercise he could get behind.

Illya shot him a look of disgust. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to sleep with her.”

Napoleon shrugged. “If the opportunity presents itself, who am I to say no?”

“She tried to shoot you.”

“She wouldn’t be the first.”

Illya rolled his eyes. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

“You think we should actually do what Flavien said? Lay low for a bit?”

“No,” Illya shrugged. “But I’m very hungry and want pain au chocolat.”

After bread and coffee were obtained, they spent the next few hours investigating. The agents checked in with the local police about incidents involving a band of masked men, and were given the run-around. No one had any information about strange men in masks, even though Flavien had implied as much. So they asked about recent Canadian arrivals, and red-headed gunwomen. The few officers they spoke to seemed more than happy to talk to them about the situation, but when they went to get files pertaining to their questions, neither incident reports nor immigration documents revealed absolutely anything. No one had seen anything, anywhere, about anyone. Joann may has well have been a ghost. 

That option exhausted, they attempted to book a vacation through Quiñones’ agency. Calling his office in Spain was non-productive, as his secretary merely told them that he was on location in France, testing out hotels and trying new activities to suggest to his clients. She offered to help them anyway, but then subsequently hung up on them when Napoleon cheerfully mentioned that he, an American, and his partner, a Soviet, were actually calling her from France. They then tried the regional Paris office of the same company, only to discover that each branch may have shared a name, but no operating procedures or employee information. They were totally independent franchises. They were given, Napoleon felt, a surprisingly good offer for a three week tour of Lebanon, Marrakesh, and Casablanca, but Illya declined for the both of them, stating his very serious intentions to go to Disneyland this year instead.

Eventually they collapsed over a bottle of wine at a cafe just off of the Champs-Elysée. It was starting to get dark already, and all they had learned was that either no one knew anything, or no one wanted them to know anything. Flavien had never called back, and they hadn’t seen even a glimpse of Joann or Salvador all day.

“That stupid American holiday,” Illya moaned, gulping down half his glass. “The one where people throw plastic spiders at one another and pretend they’re pregnant. That’s this, isn’t it?”

“Yes. We decided to move it to November this year. Also,” Napoleon narrowed his eyes at Illya. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t do April Fools in Russia. Last year you nearly convinced me you were a descendant of Ghengis Khan before I realized what day it was.” He swirled his wine in his glass. “You had a fake family tree and everything.”

Illya’s weariness dissolved briefly as he broke into a mischievous grin.

They both sighed and sipped their drinks.

“We should get some cheese with this,” Napoleon decided. “Or cornichons, or something.”

Illya leaned back in his chair. “We may as well order actual dinner, soon enough.”

“You can read the menu better than I can,” Napoleon shrugged. “Pick something.”

Illya stared up at the chalkboard above the counter where items of interest were scrawled in hasty French cursive, but he didn’t really seem to be reading it. A moment or two later, his eyes swung back to the tabletop, counting the checks on the cloth. 

In the midst of his reverie, the pen in his pocket made its telltale alarm. He pulled it out and hurriedly made his way out the door and around a corner where he wasn’t likely to be seen talking into a writing implement. Napoleon crossed his arms and waited, trying to puzzle out the menu himself.

Illya came back a moment later, looking rushed. “Finish your drink. Flavien wants us outside Montmartre cemetery by six.”

“What is with this man and burial grounds? Is he auditioning for Dracula?”

Illya shrugged. “The French are a moody people. I think if it weren’t for the whole incident with the man you share your name with, they would fall quite naturally to friendship with we Russians.”

As usual when Illya waxed Soviet, Napoleon couldn’t quite tell what part was a joke.

“You seem to be confusing moody with morbid ,” Napoleon suggested, draining the last of his glass. 

“It’s all about having a poet’s soul, Napoleon.” Illya took a gulp from his own glass. “And a healthy taste for fine spirits.”

“Alright there, Lermontov,” Napoleon rejoined.

Illya smiled, looking almost like he was going to wink. Of course, he didn’t. Napoleon wanted to grab him across the table and taste the wine on his lips. Of course, he didn’t, either.

They finished their wine and headed off to Montmartre. 

Smoking again, Flavien waited for them against an old tree. He waved as they traipsed to the edge of the graveyard. 

"Forgive the late hour," he apologized, "but the business with the priest ended up taking all day. However, it also led me here. Père Bisset told me he's seen fresh dirt turned up in the burial ground here." 

He looked at the pair of agents as if this was important information. They both looked back at him in anticipation.

“No one has been buried in this section since 1870,” he explained, shaking his head at their ignorance. “I confirmed with him something I thought was rather odd— he told me there was a group of nuns here about three weeks ago, and that at the time he thought they might be doing grave maintenance. Since then, he has seen the same group of nuns doing ‘maintenance’ two or three more times.” 

“Nuns?” Illya asked. “Your friend’s situation does sound suspicious, but…”

“But we’re not looking for a bunch of old ladies,” Napoleon shrugged.

“So you are not. However, this group of nuns was eight people— one very much taller than the others.” He raised his eyebrows. “And he never saw their faces well— he admitted they could have been in disguise.”

“You think it’s a bunch of gunmen pretending to be nuns?”

“I do, Monsieur Solo.” Flavien shrugged, a quick upward flip of his palms. “But I believe there’s one easy way to find out— Père Bisset says he first saw the group on a Wednesday, and it is Wednesday today.” 

“So we’re staking out a graveyard in the hopes of catching jewel-smuggling nuns,” Illya sighed. He immediately sat down on the ground against a square-based monument. “You didn’t happen to bring a picnic, did you, Flavien?” He looked up at him from the ground, one leg crossed over the other, arms resting on his raised knee. 

“Désolé, mon chère,” Flavien returned, not deigning to join him on the ground. “It’s forbidden to bring food into the cemetery. And besides, dinner isn’t for another few hours.” One side of his mouth twisted up into a smile. “Unless you follow the American’s schedule?”

Illya returned, “When I eat dinner at the civilized time none of my fellow agents will join me.” 

“What a pity!” Flavien shook his head. “What do Americans even do with their evenings when their dinner is finished at five o’clock?” He shot a glance at Napoleon before turning back to Illya. “Do they all go to bed at six like children?”

“No, they mostly watch television about cowboys and sheepdogs and little boys named after aquatic rodents.”

Napoleon plopped himself on the ground beside Illya, between him and Flavien. “Monsieur, don’t let that skinny midsection fool you. The man just eats dinner twice.” 

Flavien laughed explosively. “I’d like to see this. I’ll bring you both to dinner after this.”

Finding himself torn between jealousy and attraction once again, Napoleon was at a loss for a response. He had to admit, the idea of a dinner with this eyelash-batting handsome rogue sounded like something he would enjoy, under the correct circumstances. On the other hand, the likelihood of ending up in bed with either of his future dinner partners seemed exceptionally low, at best, meaning dinner might just end up being hours of Flavien and Illya poking fun at Americans while Napoleon felt like a third wheel. 

Illya responded for him, before he had a chance to come up with a witty response. “We would love to. Especially if you’re paying for both of my dinners.” He smiled conspiratorially at Flavien.

Flavien grinned, his fingers hovering just below his lips as he went to take another drag off his cigarette. He watched Illya under half-lidded eyes.

Napoleon contemplated putting his arm around Illya, as if to say, ‘I know what that look means, and the answer is no,’ but he couldn’t figure out how he would explain his behavior to Illya. He could pretend he saw Flavien as a predator, but then he would seem like a bigot. On the other hand, he could hardly out himself by explaining that he had given that same look to many men and was, as a result, feeling rather jealous. 

So instead, he comforted himself with the knowledge that Flavien was probably barking up the wrong tree, and that even if he wasn’t, Illya was probably too emotionally withdrawn to notice, anyway. 

Which was really not a comfort at all, because it meant all the same was true about his own prospects with Illya. 

He sighed audibly, and wondered if maybe they’d see Joann again.

For the next few hours, increasingly cold and hungry, they watched the graveyard, trading friendly barbs about one anothers’ cultures. The cemetery closed, but they persisted. 

And then at some point, they heard someone singing couronnée d’étoiles , growing louder with proximity. The group was terrible.

“Get down,” Napoleon and Illya whispered at the same time, both gesturing to Flavien.

He joined them on the ground, blotting out his cigarette and ducking low to the earth. Napoleon and Illya shifted quickly and quietly from sitting to lying, using the dark to disguise their presence. Flavien laid beside Napoleon, just a little too close. He smelled spectacular, like cedar and tobacco and neroli. 

The terrible singing brought him out of a hastily constructed fantasy about getting that smell on his skin. A group of eight nuns, one very tall, came in with shovels and boxes, and proceeded to spend the next hour digging up the first two feet of earth in four different graves. They traded boxes in two, and put new boxes in the others. They continued butchering hymns throughout.

As the group of so-called ‘women of the cloth’ began packing up their tools, Napoleon leaned close to Illya and whispered, “I have an idea, but you’re going to have to play along.”

Illya raised one eyebrow with weary suspicion, but voiced no protest.

Napoleon pulled a device disguised as a tin of mints from his pocket. Inside were capsules that, when crushed, released a sleeping toxin. He palmed one and, with a silken quiet incongruous to his personality, slipped behind the line of nuns. The one at the end, trailing behind slightly with her shovels, fell in an instant as he came upon her with one of the mints. He caught the shovels before they hit the ground, and pulled her behind a grave, waiting for the others to be enough distant to miss him dragging her body across the ground.

However, they were so wrapped up in their shovel-rattling and singing they probably wouldn’t have noticed him dragging an elephant through the cemetery. 

He half-carried, half-dangled her back to Illya and Flavien.

“Quickly. One of us needs to put this on and follow them.”

Illya’s face dropped from pleasantly surprised to deeply disappointed. 

“That is a terrible plan,” Flavien voiced. “They’re going to notice very quickly that one of them is suddenly a man.”

“They’re also going to notice very quickly that one of them is gone, so we need to make this decision quickly,” Napoleon hissed. “One of us will join the procession, and the other two will follow behind at a safe distance.”

Illya sighed raggedly. “I hope you two know I’m very unfamiliar with most Roman Catholic hymns,” he complained, realizing what Napoleon had intended when he told him he would have to play along. “And let’s hope she’s wearing something underneath the robe.” 

He pulled the cowl off the nun. A curly yellow tumbleweed came off with it and landed in the dirt. The nun was Joann. 

Napoleon and Illya looked at each other.

“Well,” Illya exhaled, “At least it’s not an actual nun that you assaulted.”

Napoleon suddenly felt very bad about knocking out this particular nun, but they had no time to spare. He pulled off her habit over her head, and made a calculation.

“Illya. You follow the nuns,” he looked at Flavien, partially regretful about what he was about to say. “Flavien, you follow him. Call for backup if anything looks hairy.”

Illya already had the habit up around his waist, over his trousers. If anyone looked at his shoes, men’s patent leather with a slight heel, they would be very quickly made aware that he was not a nun. He glanced at Napoleon with a mixture of distress and aspersion. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to wait with our friend here, and interrogate her when she wakes up.”

Illya’s eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. “Make sure you tie the knots tightly.” He threw the cowl on his head and dashed off, looking every bit like a holy sister. 

Except for his shoes.

Flavien raised an eyebrow at Napoleon. “You make him do this a lot?”

“What?”

“Well, he agreed before you even asked.” Flavien shrugged. “Like he was used to this sort of nonsense.”

Napoleon sighed. “I have never made my partner dress up as a nun in order to infiltrate an order of jewel thieves, no.” He stood up and helped Flavien with him. “Keep him safe, please. I don’t know how long they’re going to buy a Russian man being a French nun. They’re not very big on religion where he’s from.” 

Flavien nodded, and dashed off behind the nuns.

Napoleon carefully tied Joann’s wrists behind her back, feeling very guilty. He usually preferred to avoid tying women up (unless that’s what they were into, and even then it wasn’t really what he was into) but Joann had proven herself dangerous. He propped her up against the cemetery fence, settled back against a tree, and waited for her to wake up.

A short while later, she stirred to life, immediately panicked and pushing against her restraints. 

“Good morning, Ms. Elliot,” Napoleon greeted her, smiling reassuringly. 

She snapped to attention, looking like she would bite him to death if she could. 

“You—” She spit. “You absolute—” She tipped up onto her knees, apparently ready to stand up and kick whatever part of Napoleon she could access. “You total—”

“Now now, Ms. Elliot, let’s not say anything we can’t take back on a first date.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, his head at a boyish angle. 

She yelled, unintelligibly, and sprang to her feet. “You have got to be the stupidest secret agent anyone has ever employed!” She kicked the ground, practically frothing. “A mule! A buffoon! A total incompetent!” Looking down, she must have noticed her lack of holy vestments. “Did you take my clothes off !?”

“You were dressed underneath the habit,” Napoleon defended himself.

She stomped around, tugging her wrists apart and looking for an exit as she berated him further. “You’re not only incompetent, you’re a goddamn pervert! You think you’re smarter than everyone in the room, and that every woman on this blue earth is just going to tumble into your arms if you smile enough, and you can’t see the goddamn forest for the goddamn trees, you— ”

Napoleon waited for her to finish, hoping in her anger she might reveal something pertinent. 

“I told you to stay out of this!” 

Instead of incriminating herself, she straightened up and immediately calmed down. 

“Ms. Elliot, you are an alarmingly attractive woman, but if I stopped investigating a case every time a cute thief told me to give it a rest, I’d have been fired a long time ago.” 

She took a deep breath, gritting her teeth. 

“Now how about you and I talk all of this over, and we figure out if there’s a way we can get you out of this?” 

Closing her eyes, she took another, even deeper breath in. 

“I suspect that if you’re helpful, you might even—”

There was a popping sound, and she was out of her restraints. She would have been halfway up the cemetery fence and out of range before Napoleon noticed, but the sleep toxin hadn’t entirely worn off, and she stumbled on the way up.

Napoleon grabbed at her foot, still in a nun’s clog, but she made it over the top. She tumbled down the other side and hit the ground with a sickening thump , but quickly got back up and made her way toward the road as Napoleon followed. His legs were numb from sitting around on the cold ground all night, or he’d have had her already. 

She sure could run. 

She made her way not back towards Montmartre proper, but west, into a neighborhood Napoleon had no familiarity with. He wasn’t going to lose this woman again. 

Down one street, taking a quick turn onto another, scrambling now between cars and bushes, she continued to gain inches and then feet on Napoleon until a delivery van backed abruptly down a one-way road in front of her, crashing them both to a sudden halt. Pressed against Joann, Joann against the delivery van, Napoleon quickly grabbed her around the middle and into a nearby alley. 

She fought back, elbowing and kicking at his shins. Napoleon didn’t want to fight dirty, but she wasn’t making it easy. He placed one leg between hers and pinned her against a wall, hands pulled away from her body. 

She pulled back and Napoleon swung out of the way just in time to avoid being kneed in the crotch. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she menaced, picking up a discarded bottle with the hand Napoleon thought she had dislocated, “but you’re not giving me a lot of options!” She swung at him and he ducked. The bottle broke on a drain pipe behind him, suddenly becoming a far more dangerous weapon. “I have to get back to them— if they realize I’m gone, they’re going to—” She made another swipe at him, and he grabbed her wrist. She screamed, and then stifled it by biting her lip. It was, in fact, dislocated. 

“They’ll what, Ms. Elliot?” Napoleon threw the bottle onto the ground. If anyone had walked by the alley, alerted by the screaming and shattering glass, they would have absolutely assumed he was an abusive husband or prowler or both. He looked around, trying to find a way he could bring them somewhere a bit more appropriate for a conversation and a little less inviting for a brawl. 

She grabbed her own arm and snapped her wrist back into its correct place, grimacing but making no noise. Then she dropped her entire weight, pulling Napoleon down with her, trying to use the momentum to send him against the wall. He held on tight, likely prevented from a serious blow to the head only because he weighed that much more than she did. 

This was just about the toughest woman Napoleon had ever met.

He really, really wanted to stop fighting and skip to the part where they had a lot of very athletic sex.

Noticing his brief lapse in concentration, she used her free hand to pull off one of her clogs and bash Napoleon’s fingers with it, repeatedly. 

He let go involuntarily, grasping at his fingers with his other hand. She pushed him against the wall, smacking his head against the brick, and slipped her shoe back on, and then crouched to run.

Napoleon grabbed her with his unabraised hand, his head pounding. 

She keened, desperate, “I have to get back! ”

“It won’t matter even if you do! My partner has your robes— either they’re going to do a head count and no one will notice you’re gone, or they’re going to expect everyone takes their nun costumes off when they get back to whatever warehouse you’re hiding the jewels in, and they’re going to notice that a very pretty young redheaded woman has apparently transformed into a rather irritable blonde man.” 

She clenched her jaw and ran the fingers of her free hand violently through her short hair, her eyes wild with adrenaline. She swallowed, and relaxed her posture. Napoleon softened his stance a little as well, hoping that maybe she had finally given up.

“I really, truly want to knock your teeth out, Mr. Solo.” She pulled her wrist back from him and shoved her hands in her pockets, but made no effort to run. “And your partner’s teeth, and your boss’s teeth, and the teeth of all the other rhinoceros-brained UNCLE agents who can’t manage to finish their research or think critically for more than thirty seconds at a time.” 

She glared at him, and he thought very seriously about risking having his teeth knocked out for the purpose of kissing that wonderfully sharp freckled face. 

“Will you stop trying to arrest me and just follow me back to my hotel, please?”

Napoleon was hardly going to say no to that suggestion.

“Since you’ve already botched everything up to the point of no return, I may as well use you.”

“Everything you’re suggesting sounds great to me,” he grinned, ready to be used. 

When they arrived at her hotel— a different hotel than the one her blonde-wigged passport was in— in Saint-Ouen rather than Paris proper, the concierge gave them no second thought, even though they were both filthy and a bit bloodied. Napoleon wondered if she would let him use her shower. 

She opened the lock to her room and flicked the lights on, her face still hard. She gave Napoleon a withering look and crossed over to the bedside table, where she began to rummage in a drawer. Napoleon briefly thought she might pull out a gun and shoot him, but instead she pulled out a few guns and tossed them on the bed.

She flashed a badge at him.

He puffed his cheeks out in surprise and embarrassment. “...you’re Interpol.”

“I’m Interpol.”

“Oh gosh.”

“My name is Edith Desjardins. Joann Elliot is a cover I’ve been working for the past two years .”

“Wait. What about Nancy Trinket?”

She tossed her clogs against the wall and grabbed a handful of clothing from a half-open suitcase. “Nancy is a cover for Joann.” She went into the bathroom and slammed the door, explaining herself loudly through the wall.

“We’ve been trying to catch this group for years— it started with very small scale operations, and we’d never been able to figure out how they were getting the jewels across the ocean. So,” she paused, grunting, “When we saw how many of the jewels seemed to be showing up in Canada, they had me— I’m Canadian— take a job as a teacher in a town where we kept tracking diamonds back to. I cozied up to the local children’s parents,” she sighed, “kept dropping hints that I was bored and dissatisfied, proved I was a hard worker and could keep my mouth shut, and eventually one of the factory foremen offered me a ‘European job.’” 

Napoleon heard the water running, but it sounded like the sink.

“So I’m given a new identity as Nancy Trinket, and I come here and pretend to be some idiot tourist who’s ready and willing to get wrapped up in an international crime syndicate,” a clunk and a splashing noise interrupted her, “And then I start working for the group that’s dressing up as nuns and shooting at you on the rooftops.” She laughed, bitterly. “Why do you think you didn’t die in an eight-on-two gunfight where we had the advantage of both surprise and location? Because I hamstringed my stupid criminal coworkers so you wouldn’t .” 

“I’d like to think at least part of it was Illya and my skills with a gun—”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she sighed. 

“I don’t understand—”

“Of course you don’t.”

“ Thank you — why when we researched Nancy Trinket, why did we only find Joann Elliot?”

“Because I was under deep cover.” She opened the bathroom door, looking refreshed, but still angry. She had changed into another set of all-black, functional garments, but this time had affixed a holster as well. “Which you’ve now ruined.”

“I just don’t follow why Interpol didn’t share this information with us—”

“Does your boss call Interpol every time you investigate a schoolteacher?”

“Well,” Napoleon began, not sure whether she’d be angrier about a yes or a no.

“Do you need to get washed up? Your hand is all bloody.”

“Well, I got in a fight with a very beautiful woman earlier—” 

She stared at him the same way Illya did sometimes when he was fed up with his nonsense, a frigid knife of a gaze, leveled from a tilted head and half-closed lids.

He silently went into the bathroom to wash his bloodied hand and check the lump on the back of his head. He wondered how Illya was doing with Flavien, and wished he could call him to let him know what he had just learned. He also wondered what he would need to do to convince Ms. Desjardins he was not a nincompoop and was, in fact, someone she might like to get to know better. He fixed his hair in the mirror.

“I didn’t concuss you, did I?” She asked as he came out, not even looking at him.

“Don’t think so,” he shrugged, rubbing the welt on his skull. He sat down on the bed and looked up at her, smiling his best ‘I am unbearably charming’ smile. 

“Good. We need to get to the warehouse and I need to pretend you’ve kidnapped me.” She put a saccharine-looking hot pink jacket on, concealing both of the guns, and then slid a carnation pink chiffon skirt, clearly made for a gigantic toddler, over her pants.

“How is that going to help us…?”

“I’m going to throw you and your partner under the bus so I don’t lose my standing with the group.”

“Why in the world would I agree with that?” 

Napoleon watched as she flattened her hair with a wig cap and hid every speck of red with another terrible Shirley Temple wig. 

“Because you’re going to call for backup, and as soon as you get yourself captured and I get back in their good graces, your backup will come and raid the building. Then I go off with the smugglers and they bring me to their next operation, meaning I haven’t just wasted the last two years of my life.”

“How do you know they won’t assume you’re lying and just shoot you?”

“They might. But I’m a better shot than they are.” She put on her horrible pink glasses, and smeared herself with lipstick. “And you claim to be as well, so I would hope you’ve got my back.” She pointed at him with the tube of lipstick, smacking her lips together. “Since this is your fault.”

“I would hardly say it’s my fault that Interpol…”

“That Interpol what?”

He realized that he was about to say something very stupid about Interpol not releasing information on its deep cover officers and stopped himself.

“That… they put you in such a difficult position to begin with.” He looked at her from below his eyelashes, smiling sweetly. 

“You are exhausting.” She grabbed a purse and threw the third gun in it. 

A quip about ‘getting into bed, then,’ seemed like a misstep. He held his tongue. 

“If we just take down their operation, isn’t that going to solve your problem, anyway?”

“No. This is only one of the places they’re shipping the jewels out from— that’s part of why we’ve had so much trouble tracking them down. It’s a lot of cells operating almost entirely independently, except for one man at the top. The leader of my group reports to this guy, but I’ve only seen him once.” She offered out her hand to pull him up from the bed. “We only stop this permanently if we stop it from the top.”

He took her hand. “We’ll do whatever we can, Edith. And I’m sorry we bungled things so badly for you.”

She paused for a moment, looking almost surprised, and then turned to the door.

“By the way, if you see Sal—the man I was in the bar with?”

“Moustache?”

“Yes. Don’t shoot him. He’s Interpol, too.” She smiled, almost genuinely, at Napoleon. They left the hotel and started the journey back to Paris in her car.

On the way, Napoleon called Illya, but received no response. He called Waverley and asked if he had heard anything, either from Illya or the French contingent. No one had heard anything about anyone. The phrase of the day. 

“How likely is it that your nun friends are going to shoot my partner if they discover him?” He tried to cover the waver in his voice with a laugh. “I mean, assuming they don’t all decide to give up their vows and start fighting over him.”

Edith’s eyebrows sank for a second, but she didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Very? Also… you don’t actually think the rest of them are women, do you?” 

He hadn’t really thought about it, but he had kind of just assumed that other than maybe the very tall one, it would make most sense to dress women up as nuns. 

“Because there’s only two other women in the group, and one is a professional smuggler, and the other… is unlikely to be won over by your friend’s charms.”

Napoleon quietly assured himself that Flavien would have tried to contact him if something had happened. 

It’s not like Illya had never found himself stranded behind enemy lines before, and both of them had gone out of communication with one another many times before. Sometimes for days, even. It didn’t mean he was dead, or captured, or hurt. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier. And it seemed even harder to convince himself of, recently.

He fidgeted in his seat. He wished he was the one driving, at least. 

Edith looked over at him for a moment, blonde wig bouncing gently in the street light.

“You worried?”

“No,” Napoleon lied. “No. Just looking to let him know not to do anything rash, what with you being an officer and all.”

He caught the gleam off her eyes as they darted, just for a moment, to his face.

“Tell me about him. Obviously he’s a better shot than you.” 

“Hey, I was offering an olive branch at the churchyard. You can’t compare that to him trying to shoot you.” 

She shrugged. “Uh-huh. He’s Russian?”

“Yes. Likes sweets a little too much to be a real Soviet, though, if you know what I mean.”

Edith tried to suppress a smile, but Napoleon saw the upward twitch. 

“His dossier says he’s 5’10”, but that’s a lie.”

“So yours must say you’re six feet then, right?”

Napoleon pulled his hand back as if he had touched a hot stove, mouthing, ‘yowch.’ “You’re a real live wire, you know that?” 

“And you’re the grown up version of all the little boys I teach who think they’re the next great casanova.” 

 “You ever read any of his writing?”

There was a pause. Napoleon hadn’t been asking as a trap, but she responded with a neutral answer as if he had been. “Not part of our curriculum, I’m afraid.”

“You should if you get the chance. Surprisingly depressing stuff— spent a lot of his life on the run, many of his friends deserted him, he ended his life plagued by disease.” He shrugged. “I’ve always found it a little sad that we use his name as a shorthand for ‘lover.’ Not sure what that says about we modern-day casanovas.”

She gave him another inscrutable look. “I take it back. You’re more introspective than my students.”

He perked up, preening inwardly.

“But you’re also twice as insufferable.”

“Well,” Napoleon countered, his pride just the teensiest bit bruised, “I would like to hope that most of my skills are more advanced than those of a fifteen year old boy.” 

Edith groaned. 

“Is every conversation with you like this? Does your poor partner just have to put up with… endless double-entendres and ribaldry?” 

Napoleon deflated slightly. Even the women who weren’t interested in him didn’t usually call him out so directly. He thought about Illya, responding to his jokes. He never quite knew what to expect; some days Illya was all sighs and eye-rolling, but other days he’d make a dirty joke and Illya would whisper something marginally worse in response, and they’d share a conspiratorial smile. His tolerance for Napoleon’s debauchery was a minute-by-minute sort of assessment.

“It’s… a little complicated,” Napoleon summarized, then shrugged. “He puts up with me.” Realizing how harsh that sounded, and how unlike the truth of their relationship, he added, “We mentioned already that he’s Russian, right?”

Edith snorted. 

Then she sighed, turning down a dark alley. “Well. Let’s go figure out if he’s alright.”

Very quickly, as they got out of the car, it became audibly apparent that things were not alright. Gunshots rang out from the warehouse and immediately Napoleon’s adrenaline spiked. He widened and lowered his stance automatically, his ears pricking with the sound of bullets on metal. He wanted to run in and start shooting, but he conceded to Edith.

Even so, he unholstered his gun. “What’s the plan?”

"Call for backup."

Napoleon nodded and immediately signaled Waverley, who agreed to have the French UNCLE branch chief send agents. Napoleon signed off and looked to Edith for further instructions.

She grabbed his arm and wrapped it around her neck, positioning the gun against her head. “And then we go in screaming?” 

“Fine with me,” he shrugged. He took a step forward, and then stopped. “Hey, the U.S. army isn’t involved with this, are they?”

Edith gave him a look of utter bafflement. “Why in the world would the U.S. army be involved?”

“No reason,” Napoleon muttered. “Sorry in advance, by the way.”

“It’s fine. I’m good at playing along.”

So he dragged her through the outside loading dock, trying to muster as much menace as he could. Men, dressed mostly in black, were crouched or running around the warehouse. They all had guns or heavy tools in their hands, and everyone was yelling. It was a hell of a lot more than eight people; the ersatz nuns were apparently only a small part of the operation. There were a few people up on a catwalk at the top of the room, shooting into the side of a shipping crate near the river entrance. Despite the chaos, his heart rate dropped precipitously. If they were still shooting, Illya was still alive.

He yelled loudly and fired a volley of warning shots against a nearby wall of corrugated metal, trying to draw as much attention as possible. Most of the warehouse workers turned and looked at him, although a few continued their exchange with the shipping crate.

“Well if it isn’t the Holy Order of Jewel Thieves,” he bellowed, pressing the muzzle of the gun into Edith’s temple. “I’m starting to get the feeling you lot aren’t nuns at all!” 

Edith wailed, struggling weakly against his arms. 

“This little minx was awfully pliable once we dosed her with truth serum,” he spat, realizing as he spoke that most of the people here probably only spoke French. “She cried and cried , ‘please don’t hurt them, they’re my friends!’” 

He shook her, gently, but she played along, wobbling violently like he had shaken a ragdoll.

“But that’s what you get when you choose to make friends of thieves!” He waved his gun at the nearest smuggler. “Now we’re here to shut this operation down. Nothing bad will happen to your little lady friend here if you all just do as you’re—” 

The warehouse guard in front of him collapsed, shot. Another fell over the railing with a grunt and a splat. 

Illya and Flavien must have taken the moment’s distraction to launch another offensive. Napoleon threw Edith to the ground with a whispered sorry and joined the fray. He grabbed the gun off the dead warehouse worker and ducked behind a corner, firing at one of the other men up on the catwalk. The man ducked in time to avoid the shot, but Napoleon had been intending to delay more than kill him anyway. He ran the length of the warehouse, ducking and scrambling behind containers, firing off rounds of varying effectiveness. Finally, he skidded to a stop behind the shipping container near the river entrance. 

Illya ducked low, pointed his gun at Napoleon, and then froze. He smiled, sly and painfully warm.

Napoleon grinned in return. He whirled around and smashed a pursuing warehouse worker on the top of the head with the butt of his gun, and then pushed the man out into the line of fire, whereupon one of his compatriots finished the job. 

“I see you changed out of your habit,” Napoleon smirked, taking the comment as an excuse to let his eyes linger on Illya. 

“And I see your habits are much unchanged,” Illya retorted. The way his eyes reflected Napoleon’s made him think, just for a moment, he might be referencing the once-over— but that would imply he was aware of Napoleon’s lascivious glances, of which he obviously was not. 

His mouth moved without his permission. "Oh, don't pretend you don't find me unbearably charming."

"Unbearably something," Illya challenged, still smirking. 

Flavien interrupted them, firing over Napoleon’s head at another man on the catwalk.

“Not to interrupt, but where is your captured nun?” 

The three of them got into formation, Illya and Napoleon on the right and Flavien on the left. Illya took the lower position, Napoleon peering over his head.

“I just threw her on the ground on the way in here,” Napoleon shrugged. 

Illya and Flavien both paused for a moment, turning to look at him with surprise.

“Oh, yeah,” he clarified, “Turns out she’s Interpol, and we may have botched a two year cover operation.” He ducked back behind the container before sending off return fire. “So I pretended she was a hostage, and hopefully her smuggler friends will welcome her back with open arms.”

“That seems rather a moot point if we kill them all,” Illya countered, reloading. 

“We need to avoid that if we can— she’s hoping she can follow this group up the supply chain.” 

“Too bad you’ve dropped four of them at least since coming in here,” Flavien offered, laughing darkly.

Napoleon suddenly remembered the other thing he was supposed to tell them. “Oh! Don’t kill Salvador, if you see him. He’s also Interpol.”

“Salvador?” Flavien questioned.

“Bigger fellow, with a moustache. Illya will know him.” 

“That helps me a lot,” he groused. 

“Well, Napoleon, I’m sure you have an excellent and well-thought-out plan as always,” Illya ribbed, “But what exactly do you expect us to do instead of shoot our way out of this?” He tossed his head a little to the side, smiling disingenuously. “We tried talking, but that lead to the shooting.”

“They didn’t believe you wanted to join the sisterhood?”

“Not once they heard the accent. Religious bigotry.”

“Well, no worries. We called for backup, so we just have to wait it out.” 

“That seems like something you should have told us right when you arrived, Monsieur Solo,” Flavien glared, clearly more annoyed than actually angry. He put his hand out behind him, peering around the corner of the shipping container. Without so much as a second glance, Illya grabbed one of the dropped weapons in front of him and tossed it to Flavien. Flavien immediately knocked a man in the shoulder, perfectly incapacitating him.

They made a good team.

Napoleon tried not to feel jealous of the man who had had his partner’s back these last few hours. 

“So we just wait here, bonking thieves over the head until the calvary arrives?” Illya peeked up at Napoleon, sliding back into position. 

“More or le—” 

Napoleon was interrupted by a piercing siren. Someone had pulled the fire alarm. 

“And I was so looking forward to another arson scare,” Illya sighed. “Flavien, is Paris shoddily wired, or are Napoleon and I just cursed?”

Flavien weighed his options. “I think you two are cursed.” 

In an attempt to get a better grasp on what had happened, Napoleon stepped briefly out from the safety of the shipping crate. The majority of the smugglers seemed about as baffled as they were, looking around for a source of the fire or the sound or both. 

“Now where the hell is Edith,” he wondered aloud, scanning the black-clad criminals for a glimpse of hot pink. He looked upward, searching the top of the shipping crates and trailing the catwalk. 

Illya fired a warning shot at one of the smugglers and pulled Napoleon back to cover. “ Who the hell is Edith?”

“Edith is Joann.” Napoleon shook his head. He continued his search for her, but this time kept his gun out in front of him. “Or rather, Joann is Edith. She—” He squinted. “She’s right there!” He pointed with a tilt of his head. She was fighting with a man in a suit, up on the balcony that led to the catwalk, just outside the door to the control room. 

He aimed his gun at the man, and the lights went out.

The fire alarm continued to echo through the warehouse, now punctuated by the sounds of people dropping things and bumping into shipping crates and yelling inanity in French. 

Illya hadn’t let go of Napoleon’s jacket when he pulled him behind the crate, and now he used the point of contact to steady himself in the dark. He rested his hand on the small of Napoleon’s back.

“How atmospheric,” he griped. “There’s nothing better than a shootout where you can’t hear or see.” 

“What, you never learned to aim by sense of smell?” 

Illya’s eyes glinted, just a little bit, with the reflected light of the river as he looked at Napoleon. “Well, you know how my hayfever’s been acting up.”

Flavien stumbled over, hands out in front of him. He placed one hand on Napoleon’s shoulder and another on Illya’s arm. “I hope this is you two and not a nun with an automatic weapon,” he snarked. “It seems like everyone has stopped shooting, at least.”

“I mean, they are all wearing all black, and I don’t think you get workman’s comp when you’ve been caught in friendly fire.” Napoleon hoped the backup would get there soon so they could be done with this whole farce. 

Illya shushed both of them.

“I’m not… hearing much of anything at all. It sounds like they left.”

Napoleon grimaced. “You don’t think there’s really a fi—”

A loud whirring noise echoed from above. 

“What the hell is that, and why does this damn warehouse keep interrupting me?”

Flavien tapped him on the chest and pointed up to something very large, moving ponderously in the dark. “I think someone activated the conveyor system.” 

“Why would someone do that in the dark?” Illya dug around in his pockets, and produced a tiny flashlight. He shone it up at the conveyor system, which was moving a small shipping crate from one end of the warehouse to the other. “Even if they wanted to drop it on someone, it’s not like they could see their target.”

With a mechanical crunch, the box lurched to a stop, and then reversed course.

The three agents stood, open-mouthed, as the box then repeated this motion two more times, swinging dangerously each time it stopped.

“This doesn’t seem purposeful,” Flavien hazarded. “Is there someone in the control room?” 

“I think Edith might be,” Napoleon suggested, pulling Illya’s flashlight from his fingers. He shined it up at the window of the control room.

As if due to thermal shock, the glass of the window shattered as Napoleon shined the light on it. He almost dropped the flashlight before realizing someone had shot through the glass. In fact, it seemed likely that he had blinded someone into shooting the glass. 

Two more shots rang out. 

“I think I might need to go help her. Cover me,” Napoleon warned, and then ran apart from his group. 

No more than ten paces across the warehouse floor, the lights flickered on, then back off. Napoleon shielded his eyes. The mechanical whirring from the conveyor system grew louder, and then Illya and Flavien were screaming at him, shouting for him to move. 

He moved without thinking, a few steps back in their direction. 

With an almost cartoonish woosh and a deeply terrifying, bowel-gelatinizing thud, the shipping crate from the conveyor landed not four feet away from him. His knees locked and his mind turned to jello salad. He had just nearly been flattened like that goddamn cartoon coyote, and it probably hadn’t even been purposeful. 

When his senses returned to him, a split second later, he continued his sprint to the stairs. Illya and Flavien darted behind him.

In the dark, he tripped over something he suspected was a dead body. He stepped a bit more gingerly as he groped for the railing of the stairs. Picking his way up, trying to catch the gleam of each metal step as he climbed, he heard the sounds of struggle growing louder above him, and then grow faint. 

Just as he made it to the control room, the lights came on. Edith was bent over the man in the suit, his face smushed against the control panel, his nose bleeding profusely. She wrenched his arms behind him and cuffed him.

“Napoleon,” she recited cheerfully, as if he had just walked in on her making dinner and not straddling a stunned criminal. She smiled a closed-mouth, vaguely condemnatory smile. “Late to the party, I see.” 

He couldn’t help himself. He gestured at the man in the suit with his eyebrows. “That how you like to handle your men, huh?”

Her smile hovered between venom and legitimate amusement, but she declined to answer. “This is the guy,” she explained, grabbing the back of his collar and less-than-gently hoisting him to full height. “The top man.”

Napoleon bit an inappropriate joke down and listened.

“As unbelievably as you botched this operation, somehow,” she sighed, exhausted and exasperated, “You also happened to accidentally have us raid the warehouse the night he was here.” 

The man spat blood on the ground. “So this little bitch belongs to you, then?”

The corners of Napoleon’s mouth turned up, and he looked the man in the eye, sweet and docile. “You know, that bloody nose looks pretty bad, bud. Looks like your, uh, your left,” he gestured at his own eye, and then swung and punched the man square on the other cheek. Now he was going to have two black eyes. “Oh, gosh. Sorry. I slipped.”

He shook his fist and grinned at Edith, who was less impressed than he hoped she would be. The distinct sound of sirens was mingling with the sound of the fire alarm, and it was clear she was more than ready to be done with this whole charade. 

“Hey,” she asked, dragging the Top Man out to the catwalk. She looked down at the crushed shipping container and then at Napoleon. “Your partner okay?”

Napoleon nodded, leaning against the railing with her. He assumed Illya had gone out with Flavien to meet the French agents and whatever other law enforcement bureau had shown up. 

Looking at the shipping container, he squinted.

“Edith.”

“Napoleon.” 

“What is in those shipping boxes?”

“Doll clothes.”

Napoleon nodded very slowly, realization dawning. 

“And the jewels are…”

“Sewn into the lining.”

“And then they’re shipped to…”

“The factory town I taught in. Where the doll bodies are machined.” She shrugged. “The jewels are removed before they’re shipped out to toy stores.”

“Mm...hmm.” 

Illya ran back through the open door into the center of the room, instantly recognizable by the shock of blonde. He cupped his hand and yelled up the stairs. “Napoleon!” He gestured hurry . “Get down here. They want to speak to Joann.” 

Napoleon nodded and helped Edith bring the Top Man down the stairs safely.

“And who is this rather gorey fellow?”

“He’s going to jail,” Edith grinned. “For a long time.” She left with him, pushing him in front of her by the handcuffs. 

“She says he’s the Top Man,” Napoleon repeated, hoping to bait Illya into the joke he whiffed on earlier. 

He didn’t take it. “Wait. He’s not that shipping magnate— the one based out of Greece, the one who was on the television a few weeks ago, is he?”

Well, maybe the joke didn’t make sense without the context of Edith’s capture, anyway.

“Hard to tell through all the blood.”

Illya leaned back on his heels, jamming his hands in his pockets, then suddenly stopped short. “Oh!” 

His eyes lit up, and the glance he flashed at Napoleon was utterly devilish. “I guess our G.I. Joe was a diminutive sort of fellow, wasn’t he?”

He pulled a tiny army jacket from his pocket and tucked it into Napoleon’s hand, gesture and expression like he was offering him a precious keepsake.

Napoleon sighed, bereft of comebacks.

They stood side by side in comfortable silence, letting the others take care of the cleanup. Napoleon let his eyes wander to Illya’s face, such a wonderful and contradictory mixture of steely sharpness and cotton-soft neoteny. He ached to smooth his hair and kiss his forehead, or even just drape his arm around those slim shoulders. He settled for a friendly bonk of his arm against Illya’s. Illya rocked to the side, bonking him back. They both watched the door. 

Eventually, Flavien came back in, followed by other French agents. He spoke to them briefly in rapid French, and then turned to Napoleon. 

“Monsieur Solo, we need to borrow Illya for a bit longer.” He gestured to the other French agents, then looked to Illya. “My chief is asking for another witness to the scene. It’ll only be about an hour.”

Illya nodded.

“The woman with the awful wig asked after you,” the Frenchman added, addressing Napoleon again. “Sounds like Interpol needs to speak with you.”

Napoleon nodded as well.

He rapped Illya’s shoulder with his knuckles. “See you when I see you?”  

“Don’t stay out all night,” he cautioned, eyebrows raised in amusement. 

And so they went their separate ways again.

He caught up with Edith outside the warehouse. 

“Can you come back to headquarters with me for a while?” 

“Mmhmm. Flavien— uh, one of the French UNCLE agents— just told me you wanted me.”  

“Great.” She signed a document and handed it to a police officer. She spoke to another man in heavily Canadian-accented French. 

Napoleon waited uselessly until she summoned him into her car a few minutes later.

He spent the next few hours talking to, presumably, every Interpol agent in Paris. He repeated what had happened— UNCLE’s involvement, why he had knocked out and kidnapped an Interpol agent, the brawl at the warehouse— at least thirty times. His stomach grumbled, loudly, during one meeting, and he was brought a plate of lukewarm steak-frites and an ancient, dusty bottle of American catsup. He picked at it as he reiterated his story, hoping Illya had also gotten dinner.

At the end, innocence or whatever it was they were looking for apparently acceptably established, he was released. Edith escorted him to the exit.

He figured he might as well try.

“You want to go get a drink?” 

She rolled her eyes. “I still have work to do. Need me to bring you back to the hotel?”

He shook his head. He wasn’t exactly a helpless young lady in need of an escort. 

“Goodnight kiss?” He hazarded, already knowing the answer.

“Hell no.” She shook his hand, firmly. She smiled, a little edge of unkindness in the set of her teeth, but with a core of warmth. “This wasn’t as terrible as it could be.”

Napoleon snorted with laughter. “I hope we cross paths again, Ms. Desjardin.”

“I hope we don’t,” she waved, now grinning. 

Napoleon walked back to the hotel, looking forward to sleeping until noon. If Waverely tried to get them to come back on an early flight, he was quitting and taking a job at a boulangerie. He thought about Illya, probably asleep already, and opened the door as quietly as he could when he arrived.

He slid his shoes off and tiptoed through the darkened room. He went to go brush his teeth, but realized as he walked to the bathroom that the bed was still made. The French UNCLE agents must be giving Illya the same runaround Interpol gave him. The two agencies usually tried not to step on each other’s toes, and it was fairly clear that they had created a bit of an incident these past few days. 

He washed his face, brushed his teeth, threw his clothes in a rumpled pile on the floor, and slid into the cold covers. He fell asleep instantaneously. 

It was after three in the morning when he was roused by rustling and a slight movement of the mattress. His eyes half open, he rolled over, drowsily glancing at Illya.

Napoleon laughed, a soft, abortive snort. “You decided not to stay the night?”

His own words woke him halfway to alertness, but the way Illya flinched in response brought him the rest of the way from sleep. Illya’s shock was palpable enough that the motion had passed through the mattress. Had he just been surprised Napoleon was awake at all?

Or— 

Napoleon clarified, realizing what it sounded like he had been implying. “At UNCLE headquarters. I sort of thought that they might be keeping you overnight.”

Illya’s shoulders relaxed. “Well,” he chuckled, “They offered me a reclining chair in the conference room, but I declined.” 

Something in his voice still sounded a little strange. And he smelled like smoke.

Napoleon’s mind was playing tricks on him. Illya wasn’t a smoker. Without thought, he announced his observations. “You smell like smoke.”

Illya unbuttoned his shirt. “All the French agents were smoking,” he answered a little too quickly.

He also smelled, just a little bit, like cedar and neroli.

Napoleon wanted to ask him, flat-out, no innuendo or irony— were you and— did you and — but a traitorous tangle of illogical feelings below his solar plexus stopped the words from coming out.

If he had been— well, then that meant— 

He reached out to touch Illya’s back, and then thought better of it.

Illya stood up and dug in the drawer beside the bed for his pajamas. He solved Napoleon’s dilemma by changing the subject. “You know, I wouldn’t have expected you to be back. No luck with Joann?”

“Edith,” Napoleon sighed. “Maybe if I had another two or three years to wear her down.”

Illya snorted as he slid on his pajama pants.

“You ever think, maybe, there are some women who are just immune to your charms?”

There was a tenderness in his voice at odds with his words. Napoleon wanted to ask him if he was immune to his charms. 

Because if he wasn’t imagining the scent of another man all over his partner, it meant maybe he had a chance. 

 He decided to try something oblique. “Well, of course,” he grunted, crossing his arms. “I hope you don’t think I’m so old-fashioned I don’t know what a lesbian is.” The vaguest of signals, but it was all he could muster.

Illya hesitated just a moment after buttoning his pants button. And then he sat  on the bed, tucking his legs under the covers.

Napoleon wanted to gather him up in his arms and give him a lot more than a vague signal.

He gave Napoleon a shockingly icy look as he laid down. “Are you implying the only reason a woman might not be attracted to you is because she’s only attracted to women?” 

He seemed honestly angry. 

His desperation to test the waters warred with his fear of exposing himself. “What, are you the defender of lesbians, now?” Napoleon pressed a little further, even though he knew he was about to say something less than kind. He had to see how Illya would react. “You know they won’t sleep with you even if—”

“I don’t want to—” Illya snapped. “I just think that—” His mouth opened as if to speak, and then his eyebrows sank down over his eyes. He glared at Napoleon.

He was taking this personally.  

He grunted. He rolled onto his left side, away from Napoleon. 

“Good night, Napoleon.” His tone was frigid. 

The tangle in Napoleon’s chest grew tighter, a mixture of guilt and distress and just the tiniest bit of raw excitement. Had he actually hit a nerve? Was there some non-trivial possibility that Illya might have some kind of feelings on the topic of homosexuality?

He wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t make the words unsentimental enough to speak aloud. He had no way of knowing if he was right, and if he apologized, he might have to explain himself, and if he explained himself… 

“Good night, Illya,” he whispered instead, trying to sound remorseful.

He could hear Illya breathing, too regular and shallow to be sleeping. His shoulders were stiff.

Maybe he did need to apologize.

Napoleon swallowed. “I was joking, Illya.” 

His partner didn’t respond.

“I know there are women who aren’t interested in me,” he began, swallowing again, terrified that his traitorous tongue was going to say something that would make it worse. “And I know you’re not the kind of man who would think you could convince a disinterested party to sleep with you by sheer force of will.”

Napoleon waded out into dangerous territory. Letting it be known that he had a non-negative opinion on homosexuality was tantamount to admitting he had tendencies himself, and doing so while in bed beside another man could very easily be seen as a come-on. Nonetheless, he hazarded, “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to… defend a group of people that doesn’t have a lot of defenders.” 

If he was right, maybe Illya would be inclined to forgive him. If he wasn’t, Illya might be more inclined to report him to Waverly as a pervert.

Illya’s shoulders softened a little. He heard him take a less shallow breath. He still made no verbal response, but Napoleon knew him well enough to know that he had said the right thing.

Napoleon relaxed as well. 

A moment later, Illya chuckled, “I’m going to tell Doris in accounting that you’ve pledged yourself to her defense, by the way.” 

“Wait. Doris is a lesbian?”

Illya sputtered. “She brought her girlfriend to the last office picnic.”

“That was—” Napoleon grimaced. He had hit on both of them. “I thought they were old sorority sisters.”

“Well I suppose that’s probably how they met,” Illya laughed. “Your obliviousness would almost be charming if it weren’t so embarrassing.” He sighed, contentedly, with just a hint of derision. “Good night, Napoleon.” 

“Night,” Napoleon muttered, a little stung by the crack about his obliviousness. He watched Illya’s back rise and fall, and thought once again about how much he wanted to kiss that spot between his shoulder blades.

He mustered all his courage and traced a tiny, teasing line down the back of Illya’s neck with his fingertip. 

Illya sprang up, reached around, and half-smothered Napoleon with his pillow, and then immediately rolled back on his side.

“Good night , Napoleon.” He was biting back suppressed laughter. Napoleon could see a dimple in one of his cheeks. 

Napoleon didn’t kiss him, and he didn’t wrap his arms around him. He also didn’t roll over like he was supposed to when they shared a bed. Instead, he laid very still, smiling to himself, watching Illya’s breathing grow slow and calm, watching the dimple in his cheek fade to sleepy softness.

Once again, he didn’t remember falling asleep. 

But this time, he slept incredibly soundly.