Work Text:
i keep a close watch on this heart of mine,
i keep my eyes wide open all the time,
i keep the ends out for the tie that binds,
because you’re mine, i walk the line
//
Istanbul is a blur of hotels and champagne, long, narrow alleys with heat pressing down on them, flickering shadows against the Hagia Sophia rearing up majestically behind them. Gaby and Illya pose as a married couple this time (she suspects Solo and Waverly of conspiring against them, but they’re a sneaky pair of bastards), but the cover settles better this time, she wears her legend more easily. For the sake of their cover, Waverly insists, he booked them a hotel room with only…one bed. Illya, because he is an idiot, tries to sleep on the floor the first night, but gets a peculiar look from the maid the next morning, so he and Gaby share the bed.
Which is fine. Just fine. Gaby knows it’s fine because she keeps saying it is.
She doesn’t think about waking up with Illya’s face pressed against the back of her neck, or her leg thrown over his hip. Or awaking to the sight of his still sleeping face, usually stern lines relaxed until he looks almost–boyish. His lashes are ridiculously long, Gaby notes, she can’t imagine how they don’t get tangled when he blinks. She’s not sure yet if he’s a light sleeper or he can just come out of a deep sleep at the slightest disturbance–she’s seen him do both. Illya is not a slow waker. There are some mornings though–some mornings he blinks into wakefulness, hair mussed from sleeping and eyes unfocused. She can see the young man he might’ve been then, the young man he was before he became KGB’s finest. It’s then and only then something in his face softens like honey in the sun, the smallest of sleepy smiles settles on his face when he sees her next to him. It flickers out like a blown match when he becomes fully alert, but the memory of it stays with Gaby for the rest of the day.
//
It’s in a dark alley with the angry voices of drug dealers not that far away that the memory of the morning comes to Illya, Gaby’s soft body pressed against his back, her hair tickling his face. He’s woken up more than once to one of Gaby’s limbs flung carelessly across his person, or her curled into the curve of his back. He can get along without it, he tells himself, tries not to think about how his own bed back in Russia will seem so lonely and narrow after this.
Sentimental nonsense, he tells himself. Damnable softness.
Gaby’s back is pressed against the wall, and the alley is so narrow and he is broad, she has nowhere to go. If Solo were here, he would make a joke about being between a Russian (a rock) and a wall (hard place) but Illya has no time to spare to think about making smart remarks. He can feel Gaby’s heartbeat between them, pounding like a trapped bird’s wings, and if it wouldn’t completely give away their position, he would tell her it would be alright, he would make it right if he had to–
Another spate of angry yelling in what he’s moderately certain is Turkish and Gaby stiffens at how close it is. He places his hands on either side of her, trying not to think about how small Gaby is, compared to him, she is small but never dwarfed, never diminished, and in this small space, heat pours off her like a lamp.
He catches her eyes in the dim light and nods once, a silent question, Are you ready? She nods back, delicate chin lifting in acknowledgement.
Another beat, another moment and then when the voices move away, a little further, Gaby slides out soundless, already sprinting towards where Solo should be with the car and Illya follows after her (like he always will, like she’s the only thing worth chasing), and the cold after she’d gone should not trouble him.