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By the age of eleven, Illya’s entire life had become a quest for his father’s penance in the face of his crimes. Like his mother, but so very different, he did what he could to provide for them, to prove to his father’s former colleagues that he was loyal to his country. His father’s betrayals and his family’s shame still hang like a heavy noose around his neck, are still used as a tight reign by his handlers at the KGB. The falls from grace of his phantom parents.
His father died first, of course, bloody and tortured and barely a shell of a man. They sent pieces of him back, fingers and an ear, some teeth, all wrapped in bloodstained paper and delivered to his family like a fine package on the doorstep from time to time. A gruesome warning to mother and son. Then they probably worked him to death.
Illya’s mother had died years later—used, desperate, and hungry-eyed.
Somehow, her death had hurt far more.
“Illya.” She was sick, and this time they knew she would die. Her cool hand had trembled against his cheek, and he was crying softly where he kneeled beside her bed. Her smile had been brittle. “Your father would be so proud of you.”
He stared at the hollow carvings of her face and the shadows at her eyes, tried to remember what she looked like when he was very young and they did not want for a meal. She had been beautiful. Pale and cold and tall.
“You will be a good man,” she told him. Continued, whispering like a prayer, fingers moving to stroke at his hair. “But you must not let them ruin you.”
She had been stern and unmoving, once; a stone against the waves, solid and steady, until the hard current cracked at her slowly and deliberately.
“Do not listen to the poison they say.”
He lifted his hand, took hers from his face. Cradled it, an injured fledging.
“Da,” he said, hoarse and choked.
She smiled again, touched the watch on his wrist, and let her hand fall.
“Good boy,” she said, and her eyes slipped closed.
Illya had never been quite as angry as he was that night. But in those first moments, he had felt nothing.
Now, he still feels a hollow hole in his chest when he thinks of his mother, of what she endured for him, because of his father. The hole is cold at the edges and often spreads to the rest of his body when others throw her pain at him like an insult. His mother is the strongest person he has ever known, stronger than his father and his superiors and any agents or spies he has met. Stronger than himself.
———
Napoleon makes a bitter joke about Illya’s mother after Rome, after many more missions, something offhand about favors to politicians and an easy reputation.They are all waiting out the night in one of the hotel rooms, killing time before extraction in the morning. Illya’s response, after a moment, is to stand up and punch the common room mirror as hard as he can. He watches the many reflections of Gaby’s startled, doe-eyed expression in the cracked shards of cool glass, and he feels blood run in tiny rivers down his knuckles and between his clenched fingers where they tremble.
When he stalks over to Napoleon, still leaning against the doorway to the hotel room’s entrance with a shadow of a smile frozen on his face, he uses his height to tower over him. He slowly lifts his bloodied hand and fists it around the starched collar of the American’s expensive shirt.
Napoleon glances down at the hand, the shirt, over towards the mirror with its network of spiderweb cracks.
“I don’t know that U.N.C.L.E. can afford—“
Illya tightens his hold to choke off the rest of the sentence, ignores Gaby’s indignant call of his name. He stares into the cool blue of Napoleon’s eyes, feels the red misting at the corner of his own vision, cold and furious, hears nothing but the loud echo of his heartbeat in his ears, the swimming staccato of his pulse, a rhythm he follows with the clench and tap of his fingers. His mind feels too vast and too dark and far too silent.
(Do not listen to the poison they say.)
“You know nothing,” Illya finally hisses, drops Solo’s collar as the red spell breaks and the cold recedes.
Napoleon coughs a little, adjusts his stained and wrinkled shirt, pretends he is unruffled. A good actor.
Illya pushes past him, exits the room, hears Gaby, in her quiet rage, “Was that really necessary, Napoleon?”
The door shuts, ironic in the softness of its click, and cuts off any more conversation.
The ringing in Illya’s ears has not stopped, and his finger taps out a rapid beat on his thigh as he breathes out slowly.
(You must not let them ruin you.)
———
Illya is on the roof, leaning over the raised edge of the concrete building to gaze out at the city sightlessly. There are many lights, and many small people and vehicles moving and making noise, and a wide sprawl of other ugly stone structures, laced with metal and covered with glinting windows. The air smells like gasoline and the fragrant breeze ruffles the hair that fell across his forehead during his brief outburst in the hotel room.
His hand is covered in dried blood and pulses in gentle pain, but he managed to pick any large shards of mirrored glass out of the skin with his fingers. Did it quickly, efficiently. One jagged piece had been particularly large, and he keeps it cradled in his his bloodstained hand now, occasionally glances down at it and sees small pieces of himself between the dots of scarlet—his eyes, narrow and steeled; his mouth, tense and flat and humorless; his skin, pale and colorless. He looks like his mother—shares her appearance and her stern, unforgiving mannerisms (the ones that cracked and broke open raw for him in sorrow, in glee, in shame, from time to time).
He drops the piece of glass to the ground and crushes it into fine, sparkling dust with his boot heel. Stares at the blood on his hand instead, the crimson roadmap of lines wrapping around his skin, the coppery flakes and the small cuts that will scar and heal into barely-there white lines. His skin is familiar with the timeline of fading scars.
When Gaby arrives, she makes enough noise to alert him and then closes the door to the roof with a rough slam. He almost smiles.
She sidles up next to him, rests her elbows on the lip of the ledge he leans on, and stares out at the messy, cluttered veins of the city they are in. She sighs a little, likely finding beauty somewhere that Illya cannot. She is not idealistic, he knows, but her soul is not quite as bruised as his, so she can still look past some tarnish to find the shine in things.
“How is your hand?” she asks after a few minutes.
He glances at her from the corner of his eyes, sees she is surveying him the same way.
“Fine,” he murmurs, gruff and short.
She eyes him a moment longer, hums a bit.
“Solo is an idiot.”
Illya makes a soft noise, looks back down at the oil stained roads stories below.
“You are not wrong there,” he allows.
A smile flits and then fades across her face, he thinks, and she shifts a bit beside him. He knows what she will say next.
“What he said—“
“Is fine.”
She eyes his hand dubiously, the tiny shards of glass at their feet.
He tries not to swallow, not to sigh, not to do anything but stare anywhere that is not this rooftop on this night in this place with this person.
“Cowboy,” he begins, stops. “He does not mean to be cruel. I know this.”
“Yes, well. Intentions don’t always excuse actions, if you ask me.”
Illya allows himself a small quirk of his lips, feels the measured gaze of his teammate at the side of his face. She sounds angry on behalf of him, and it is nice. Having someone care, foreign and unfamiliar though it is after so many years, is nice.
“He is rude American,” he reminds her, lighter, lifts his eyebrows a little as he turns to face her again. “In Russia, we are much more blunt. Do not wrap opinions in crude humor.”
She turns away from the city, her back against the stone and her eyes lost somewhere in the dark of the roof they stand on. She does not take the bait, does not follow the turn he trying to make the conversation take. He suddenly feels itchy, uncomfortable with even this much intimacy in a conversation. The missions are easy, really, with all of the talk revolving around jokes and plans and shallow words. It is these in-between times that tilt on the edge of dangerous, private and shadowed by the night. Illya has caught himself already sharing too much with her and Solo. Little things, but very important little things, things he prefers to keep close to himself rather than allow them to unfurl, naked raw and pink, for strangers to prod and examine and file away for later use.
This night alone is a strange backwards dance in characterization, Gaby now serious and stern while Illya pokes at her in hopes of a laugh or a smile. He watches her as she gazes out at the night. The shine to her hair, the stubborn set of her lips, the delicate curve of false eyelashes as they brush her tanned cheeks in fluttering blinks. Her eyes are dark and deep and lovely. He has searched their depths in Rome, in Istanbul, across most of Europe and the vast expanse of the Earth. And now here.
She turns those eyes to him and he does not move away, spellbound.
“What was she like?” Gaby asks, uncharacteristically soft.
Illya blinks heavily, feels a fissure crack coldly in his heart.
“What?”
She hesitates, then elaborates, “Your mother. What was she like?”
The hole in his chest makes its presence known and he backs away a bit.
“Why?”
“You don’t have to tell me about what she did,” Gaby explains, gaining ground. “I just, I want to know what she was like.”
Illya does swallow now, swallows the cold creeping into the broken parts of him and threatening to cloud his vision red. He breathes, one beat, two, and isn’t it sad that even this could upset him? Gaby has not uttered even a syllable of disrespect. He breathes again, thinks.
It feels like an eternity passes in a single second.
“She was good woman,” he finally says, pushes the trite words through the vice around his throat. “Strong woman. Did what she had to, and more. She sacrificed… She sacrificed very much to keep us safe. Too much.”
Gaby touches his arm lightly, at the inner bend of his elbow, and he does not even feel the urge to flinch away. But he does not look at her.
“Tell me more,” she says, and he does.
He tells her about how she could not cook anything to save her life, but tried anyway, how she would spin stories for him in his boyhood, awful in plot but grandiose in detail and embellishment. He speaks of her sternness, her secret sweetness, reserved for only him. He explains that her hands were always cold, that Illya has inherited this curse of cool pale skin from her, that she used to tell him they had Russian winter in their bones and blood. She would cook awful stew for them to warm them and calm their hungry bellies. She sang Russian lullabies when she cooked or cut up the bread so that it would last the week, sang the same songs that carried him to sleep when he was very young.
And he knows that he has idealized and built upon his memories until they are as grand and embellished as his mother’s bad stories. He has certainly glossed over the nightmarish details of her life and death. But it feels good to share even these variations of memory with Gaby. There is something close to awe in her eyes, warm and moist and dark as she stares at him, enraptured. This is the most he’s spoken in a single sitting in quite some time. His voice is hoarse by the time he finishes telling her about the books his mother gifted to him like precious jewels, his consequent love for the classic authors of his homeland. Dostoevsky in particular.
When he finishes, the silence is weighty but not unpleasant, the soundlessness of two people comfortable and contemplative in each other’s company. Gaby has not spoken in some time, has only nodded and smiled and stared at Illya with more wonder than with which she had stared out at the wide city. The cold has left his body now, has left him trembling, but more with excess adrenaline than any kind of anger, not too different than after any of his red-tinged attacks. But this time, somehow, he feels more cleansed than dirty.
He wonders if he has ever spoken to anyone about his past without the weight of shame hanging around his neck. He knows the answer immediately.
Gaby finally breaks the stillness, grips his elbow, runs her small, strong hand down his arm. Gently touches his bloodied shaky fingers, grasps them firm but kind. Beautiful and biting, the same little chop shop girl he wrestled with in Rome, but different. Her stubborn mouth is a grim, pleased line.
“She sounds like a strong woman,” Gaby says, soft as the breeze curling around them. “I think I would have liked her.”
Illya stares at their hands, at this big bloodied thing in her grasp, brutish and undeserving. Thinks of two of the most important women in his life, beautiful and terrifying and pigheaded.
“You would have hated each other,” he says with sudden certainty.
Gaby barks out a laugh, loud and genuine, grips his fingers tight and then lets go.
“Come,” she says, an impish expression on her face. She steps away from the roof’s ledge, towards the door. “Let’s go take care of that hand.”
———
Solo is not in the room when they return, but the mirror debris have been swept into a neat pile on the floor. Gaby cleans Illya’s hand in the small cramped space of the bathroom, uses tweezers to remove the smallest pieces of glass that he could not grasp with his fingers earlier. She cleans his skin with a warm wash cloth and soap, and rolls her eyes when Illya hisses at the excessive amount of antiseptic that she pours on the cuts. The pain is sharp and minimal, but sudden.
“Don’t be a child,” comes her admonishment, and he presses his lips together in irritated protest.
When she is done bandaging his hand, she stares at it for longer than is necessary. Before Illya can ask her what is wrong, she is pressing a very soft, very warm kiss to his knuckles. He feels his face heat.
She drops his hand in his lap and stares him deep in the eyes before spinning away with a curt and sudden call of “Good night.”
“Night,” he says, after she has already left.
Her bedroom door clicks closed in the distance. Illya stares at the bandages on his hand in wonder.
———
In the light of morning, Gaby leaves early to shop and find breakfast for them, and Napoleon knocks on the hotel room door.
“Morning, Peril.”
Illya is sure to look as unimpressed as possible when he lets his teammate in, crosses his arms when Napoleon takes a seat on the nearest couch. He feels residual irritation from the night before, extra ire at his own inability to let things go, and further annoyance that he is allowing this tension to cloud the good things that happened in the dead of night, not even seven hours ago. He had felt the ghost of Gaby’s lips at his hurting hand all morning, aching and cold.
It is only this feeling that keeps his bandaged finger from tapping against his arm now.
Solo is staring contemplatively at the shards of glass in their neat pile on the floor.
“I apologize,” he says smoothly, but with obvious herculean effort, “For anything I said to upset you last night.”
Illya moves away, perches on the edge of the couch across from where the American sits. He lets his elbows rest on his knees, furrows his brow.
“Your mother is alive in America, yes?” he asks after a prolonged silence.
Napoleon looks a little lost. Good. He nods slowly.
“Hm.” Illya sits back. “Do you care about her?”
Solo seems to barely resist the urge to roll his eyes.
“Are you going somewhere with this? I was trying to properly apologize—“
“Shut up and answer question, Cowboy.”
He lets out a frustrated puff of air. “Yes, Peril, of course I care about my own mother.”
“Good.” Illya nods, satisfied about something.
“Is there a point to this inquiry, or…?”
The Russian tenses his hands a bit, watches Napoleon with steel in his eyes.
“I want you to picture your mother,” he says, voice deep and dangerous. “I want you to picture her, and yourself. Young.”
Napoleon is silent, and Illya knows he understands the point but not deeply enough.
“I want you to picture just the two of you. No father. Traitor father even, died horrible, disgraceful death. Whole country hates you, knows your names. There is no money or work. No food. Very bad shelter. You are both cold and hungry.”
Illya sits forward again.
“I want you to picture people who come to this empty home to hurt you and your mother. Big men, important men. Men who mock you and make you watch when they hurt her. Picture the anger that fills you.”
Napoleon closes his eyes slowly, says, “Illya—“
“No.” Illya holds up a hand. “Picture these men hurting you both, then dragging your mother into other room. Listen to her screams every night while these men hurt her in new ways. You fight them, but you cannot stop them because you are young and insignificant. Picture suddenly having little money, finally having some food, all because they pay your mother when they do these things to her. But not enough, never enough.”
There are footsteps in the hall, but neither he nor Solo move. They recognize Gaby’s gait, the sound of her boots on carpet in the distance.
“Picture the bruises on your mother’s face and arms. Cleaning her, being doctor for her when she is hurt so no one knows her shame. The whispers of people in the street. Crude people spitting poison at you for your parent’s disgrace. Picture it. The shame in your own belly for your family and yourself. How weak you feel against the monsters that used to be your father’s friends.”
The door swings open, and Gaby makes a soft sound of curious surprise but stops when she feels the deep tension in the room.
“Can you picture it, Cowboy?” Illya lessons his vice grip at his knee, swallows a bit. Napoleon’s face is unreadable as ever.
“Now, picture years of this. You work bad jobs, dangerous jobs, the only ones you find. Not enough money still, but enough because your mother is being hurt by these men for money to take care of you both. Yes? Then your mother gets sick. She has been hurt too many times. She is still being hurt, even though she is sick. She dies slow and with much pain. You are alone now.”
“I understand.” Napoleon’s voice is tight. Gaby lingers in the background, immovable, brown paper bag and cardboard tray full of coffees still in her steady hands, a plastic shopping bag swinging in the crook of her elbow. Her sunglasses block her eyes, reflect the width of the room on their lenses, the silhouettes of each still figure.
Illya pushes on.
“And picture, years later, after proving worth and loyalty to these men and your country over and over again, having this shame thrown at you still. By the bad men, by strangers, by colleagues. Picture your mother’s sacrifice as punchline to joke, as cattle prod for you. People using your shames to manipulate you. That part you are already familiar with, I think.”
Napoleon draws in a breath, brow furrowed in contemplation. Gaby moves slowly, awkwardly, places the breakfast she retrieved on the small table by the door.
Illya does not wait for either of them to respond. He uses the hands at his knees to leverage himself up off the couch and grabs his hat and coat, brushes past Gaby to do it.
Lips pursed and sunglasses lifted, she stares at him heavily as he shrugs into his jacket.
“Waverly called. Flight leaves in two hours.”
Illya nods, doesn’t meet her gaze.
“I will be there,” he says, and leaves.
This time there is only silence before the door clicks closed behind him.
———
Later, on the jet, Gaby throws her feet into Illya’s lap and falls asleep with a book in her slack hands. Her sunglasses are on crooked and she snores, soft and endearing. Solo catches Illya’s fond stare and grins cheekily at it, and Illya scoffs as he usually would, fighting the heat on his cheeks and ears.
A few minutes later, Napoleon is reading a book of his own, and Illya stares out the window as they pass over soft cotton clouds, categorizes the small pockets and curved hills of snowy nebula while his bandaged hand rests gently on Gaby’s left ankle.
“Say, Peril.”
Illya leans his head against the cool glass, does not break his gaze on the piece of sky in his vision.
“What.”
Napoleon clears his throat, and Illya tries not to grin at the frustrated discomfort the other man exudes at the moment.
“I…” And the Russian’s amusement fades at the genuine sincerity in the other man’s faltering speech. “I really am apologetic, you know.”
“I know.”
“And, in the future, I’ll avoid certain topics when trying to rile you up.”
“… Thank you.” Illya lifts his head, faces Napoleon’s gaze, tries not to appear too grateful. There is no embarrassment in his stomach for his dramatic speech earlier, and he did not say what he did to extract an apology from the man, but he does appreciate it.
Solo sighs, seems relieved. There is even quiet for a minute, a look of understanding passing between the two men, different but the same. Gaby breaks the peace with a sudden shift in her sleep, mumbling lowly and knocking her very thick book to the floor of the jet with a dull thud. After Illya bends to pick up the book and softly closes Gaby’s hands over it in her lap, Napoleon’s eyes have their usual mysterious and aggravating twinkle in them again.
“Of course,” Solo says, thumbing his own novel back open, “Other topics are still perfectly acceptable canon fodder.”
Illya sniffs derisively and tries not to wonder too hard where Gaby had found a beaten copy of The Brothers Karamazov to entertain herself with.
———