Work Text:
Once upon a time, Illya Kuryakin had believed in love.
Now, looking back on what he'd once believed to be true, he found himself thinking that belief belonged beside the fairy tales his mother had told him when he couldn't sleep. Maybe there was such a thing as love, but maybe he'd also be able to look out of the window and see Baba Yaga fly past in her mortar and pestle?
Life, Illya would say if asked - but who would ask him, who would even care enought about what he thought to enquire about his thoughts on the subject? - had taught him many things about the reality of human nature. And about love, good and bad.
He'd thought, after all, that his father loved him and his mother. But now, considering the repercussions of his father's actions, Illya wondered if that could ever have been the case. After all, wouldn't his father have realised the risks he was taking, not just for himself but for his family? Or had he, as the prosecutors alleged, been blinded by bourgeois greed as he lined his own pockets at the expense of the State?
His mother had loved him, Illya was certain of that, but he also had more than a suspicion that she'd loved his father more. She had certainly done her best, in the years between Nicolai Kuryakin's arrest and Illya leaving for the navy, to provide her son with as much stability as she could manage even though he hadn't appreciated it at the time. But wasn't that always the way of children, to have no idea of the sacrifices made on their behalf by their parents, always certain that everything would work out for them with no consideration of the possible cost?
And now he found himself in a whole new world. Not just working for Waverly but working with other agents. Of course, Illya had worked with other members of the KGB, but those partnerships had always been uneasy ones, with the possibility of betrayal always waiting round the next corner. There was the old joke, of course - like many jokes it had an element of truth: the one about why KGB agents went around in threes - he wasn't quite sure which role he played. Illya was no intellectual, his schooling had never prepared him for such an unobtainable role, but he also didn't like the dea of being the perpetual watchman, always ready to inform on his comrades.
Now, of course, he was part of another set of three - him, a light-fingered American and a German girl who drove like a maniac. Most of the time, Illya didn't know where he stood and he didn't like it much. Take this latest ploy of Solo's for example, trying to get them all to move into the same building when they got back to New York. He could imagine it, somewhere far too fancy for a son of the Soviet Union, all the luxuries he'd never had and Solo believed were necessities. As if Solo could figure out what anyone else needed, when all he thought about was himself.
Except he'd gone out of his way, on that last mission with the Vinciguerras, to plant a seed of doubt in Illya's mind over his motives. They had a stalemate, there in Solo's hotel room, and Illya wasn't vain enough to think that would have ended easily, for either of them. They could have both been bleeding out on the carpet by the time anyone would think to look for them, victims of their respective masters' bidding. Instead Solo had made a gesture, given him back his father's watch - the one thing that he still had of the man, though he wasn't sure why he should treasure it, all things considered - a definite peace overture in a time of war. And so, Illya had to accept, Solo had saved both their lives.
llya thought about this unexpected development as they ate dinner together. This was a common occurrence on a mission - except of course when one or other of them was undercover - and Solo seemed to like the routine somehow. He also seemed to have a knack for finding good food, even in places he'd never been before, and in sufficient quantities to almost pacify even Illya's appetite. They were on dessert now, a rich buttery cake of some kind topped with fruit Illya wasn't sure he could identify; Solo was waving his fork around to make some kind of point with Gaby rather than eating it. As usual, he had no sense of proper priorities - if there was anything Illya had learned from the KGB it was that you never knew where your next meal might come from, so you should always eat when you got the chance.
Without looking his way, Solo pushed his untouched plate of dessert over in Illya's direction, and Illya watched him for a moment before scraping it onto his own plate and digging in. There was an expression about gift horses too and who was he to turn down free food?
Later, when even he was full, Illya watched Solo and Gaby as they talked, happy to just drink his coffee and watch the two of them and speculate. Solo was talking about New York, painting a picture with his words that was clearly having an effect on Gaby - she'd hidden it well in Rome but her first taste of a city this side of the Iron Curtain had been almost intoxicating. It was only, Illya suspected, that she'd been playing a cat and mouse game with both of them that she hadn't allowed that whole experience to sweep her away completely. That and the fact that she was one of the most down to earth individuals Illya had ever met, which had surprised him a little.
And which made the whole thing, whatever it was, between Solo and her so puzzling. Solo was all surface and nothing beneath, a pretty picture for sure but no substance. Yet she was hanging on Solo's every word as he talked about Fifth Avenue, Central Park and a dozen other places that made Illya's head spin a little to think of. He had lived in New York himself, not so many years ago, but he had been there for the KGB and so any exploration of the finer side of living in that city had been curtailed by his duties to the State.
Illya wondered what had happened to his things when he'd been called back to Moscow. His colleagues would have emptied his apartment, of course, but his possessions couldn't have been that closely scrutinised or there would have been consequences.
"And what about you, Peril?" Solo's question drew Illya back from thoughts of where his small collection of books had ended up - in the trash or, more likely, some secondhand bookshop and on to someone who'd appreciate them? "Any plans for when we get back to New York?"
"Find apartment," Illya said, as casually as he could, relishing the momentary expression of annoyance that crossed Solo's face at his words. "Then whatever Waverly wants." Anything else he might care to do was none of Solo's business - they weren't friends, just colleagues, and that was the way he planned to keep it.
After all, if Gaby was foolish enough to go along with what Solo wanted and move into the same building as him, the next thing would be her falling into bed with him. There was no way that wouldn't be a disaster for their working relationships - it wasn't as if Illya felt somehow excluded by the thought of the two of them as a couple, that would be ridiculous. They could do what they wanted, tell themselves they were in love for all Illya cared.
It wasn't as if he believed in it himself, after all.