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Just stop your crying, it'll be alright
They told me that the end is near
We gotta get away from here
“Take the gun,” Illya growls, a wild look in his eyes.
“No!” They’ve been trapped in this bunker for five days now, somewhere in the Scottish wilderness. We are getting the band back together, Waverly had said. One last hurrah, gentlemen. Your loans have ended, he’d explained, you’re going home.
The silence had been thick enough to be cut by knives.
But first, Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland. Chasing German extremists until they had been chasing Illya and Napoleon. Illya has been quiet. Napoleon has been trying to fill the oppressive silence with noise. It shouldn’t be surprising that they messed up.
And now here they are, trapped between the bare concrete walls of an old WW2 bunker.
“Take the gun!” Illya swipes the weapon off the stainless steel table and grabs Napoleon’s hand. His grip is strong, too tight like the desperation is leaking right out of his fingertips as he wraps Napoleon’s fingers around the cold metal of the gun.
“Peril, what are you doing?” Napoleon is trying to hold onto his composure but it’s hard when there is a loaded gun in his hand and Illya is lifting it to press the muzzle against his forehead. Napoleon inches his pointer finger away from the trigger, thumb feeling for the safety, making sure that everything is exactly where it should be.
“What do you think is going to happen when we get back?” Illya asks, blue eyes piercing into Napoleon. He’s scared, Napoleon realizes, swallows. “They are going to put us into little dark rooms and they are going to want everything we know about each other.” Illya’s voice has lost some of the frantic lick now that the gun is pressed to his head. They’ve always been walking a fine line and Napoleon is starting to think that they crossed it without him noticing.
“And after that, they are going to send us out to kill each other.” Napoleon shifts his weight back, as far as Illya’s hands still curled around his own on the gun would let him. “Because if we are emotionally compromised traitors, then we won’t be able to kill each other and they’ll kill both of us. And if we aren’t, they have to worry about one less spy from the other side.”
Illya is right, of course. Napoleon has not wanted to acknowledge it and he really doesn’t see much of a point in doing it. What exactly does Illya think he is proving with his dramatic display?
“We could be conspiring with the other side and sacrificing the other to establish a mule,” he points out, index finger still far from the trigger. He has no intention to indulge Illya’s little game.
“I think that is risk they are willing to take. Still the KGB’s best.” Normally Napoleon found it endearing when Illya’s confidence came through. Today it makes him want to strangle him.
“Stop it.” Napoleon yanks his hand with the gun out of Illya’s grip. “I’m not going to shoot you, Peril.” The nickname sits familiar on his tongue now; months have gone by since Rome.
“Don’t you get it?” The roaring anger is back in an instant. “We are not going to get a choice!”
“Peril!” Napoleon’s tone is stern, asking for a breath of rational thought. He needs to calm down. They aren’t getting anywhere. “Illya.” The first name is something they rarely trade to this day and it has an immediate effect. Just not the one that Napoleon had been hoping for.
Illya’s fingers fasten in the front of his shirt as he hauls him up and against the wall. “You’re going to have to shoot me,” he growls.
Napoleon keeps his hands down, barely holding onto the gun at this point and very intentionally not straining against the grip. He can’t beat Illya at this and he doesn’t want to. There’s nothing to do except to wait for him to come back to his senses. “Illya,” he says softly, leaning his head back against the cold wall, hoping for him to stop so they could have a conversation about this.
Illya’s eyes dart from his face to his exposed neck and he suddenly lets go of him like he burnt himself.
In that moment Napoleon realizes three things. One, Illya isn’t going to be able to kill him anymore than Napoleon would kill him. Two, there was something that flashed in Illya’s eyes that Napoleon is too familiar with reading on other people’s faces to ignore it. Three, they are a lot more fucked than he’d realized.
Three being the main take-away.
“Illya,” Napoleon says for a third time, softly this time because he can see him panting for air, can see his fingers trembling. As much as Illya was a weapon, he was crafted by trapping a lot of emotion into a sealed box and lighting a fire underneath.
He should have seen this coming, really. He’s been playing this game for too long to have stumbled blindly into this bunker, not seeing what had been right in front of him the whole time. It’s not that he hadn’t realized that Illya cared about him. He had known as much when Illya had stood in his hotel room in Rome, not able to hide his intentions in the slightest.
He had rolled the dice then in tossing Illya his watch, instead of using it to get what he needed.
Napoleon is careful when he reaches out, taking Illya’s loose hand and pushing the gun into it. He’s rolling the dice once more but feels just as certain that he doesn’t have to be scared for his life this time around either.
“What exactly are you so scared of?” He asks carefully, curling Illya’s fingers around the gun, stepping closer and lifting Illya’s hand until the muzzle is pressed underneath Napoleon’s chin, knowing that Illya is keeping his finger as far from the trigger as Napoleon had.
It’s Illya’s eyes that he pays attention to. The panicked look in them as they dart from Napoleon’s eyes down to the gun and back. “Because if I can’t do it, you’ll be able to handle this, won’t you?”
They are so close, the days of being trapped stretching out between them. Napoleon had had every intention of hating Illya when he’d met him. Not because he was Russian, God knows that wasn’t his fault, but because he was brutish and he’d messed up his mission in East Berlin and because he doesn’t enjoy the feeling of his ass being handed to him. He’d learned every one of his triggers and played him like a fiddle. That is until he saw the blatant care that Illya displayed when it came to Gaby, the way that he holds his watch dearly as a reminder of a family love that Napoleon never had. So he’d driven the truck into the water, pulling Illya out from underneath and sworn to himself to never talk about that moment of weakness.
But then Illya had pulled him, trembling, out of Rudi’s clutches and nothing had ever quite been the same after that. When they burned the tapes on the roof of the hotel in Rome, it turned out that Illya doesn’t love Russia. He was just waiting for-
Someone worth dying for.
Illya yanks his hand with the gun away, throws it onto the table, muzzle pointed away from them.
The clatter of metal on metal gets drowned out by the sound of a shot lodging itself free. Both of their breaths hitch and a blink later they see the dark smudge of a bullet hole in the cement wall.
A gruesome reminder of the game they’d had been playing with each other’s lives.
Napoleon can feel his heartbeat thudding in his chest, the adrenaline spiking after the loud gunshot in the enclosed space. When his eyes find Illya’s again, he sees his own nerves mirrored in them. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” He asks quietly.
“You have to do it, Napoleon.” The name sounds novel in Illya’s thick accent. Like he was talking about someone else. He wasn’t talking to Solo, the spy. Or even Cowboy, the obnoxious American he had started to hold dear. No, this time he is addressing Napoleon, behind the smoke and mirrors.
It undoes Napoleon who sees it all unravel in front of his eyes now. The inevitability of this exact moment that he can trace back like an invisible string to the first time he saw Illya’s eyes soften and the illusion of a human-shaped beast had disappeared. Yes, Illya had clearly come to care for Napoleon, more than the American had been aware of but- it would be foolish to deny his own affection.
He doesn’t trust easily - or at all. Not anymore. And at first he was just as perplexed as Illya to find himself caring. He plays at trust more than his Russian counterpart but it’s never real. Not until he had propositioned a betrayal of their countries to the KGB’s best.
And the KGB’s best hadn’t even hesitated before saying, “yes.”
Napoleon allows himself to recall it now. Illya’s voice when he said, “You know what my mission is.” The way Napoleon held up the tape. For once, no back-up plan protecting him from Illya’s bare hands that could easily break his neck. They’d avoided killing each other before but it had aided their mission.
That time, they’d have to choose each other instead of what they were capable of offering each other.
And the way that Illya was looking at him then, reminded Napoleon why he’d given in, against every rational thought. Illya had never been allowed to figure out who he was when his emotions weren't being weaponized for the good of Father Russia. It’s all anyone has ever done since he had been pushed into joining the service. For once, he deserved to be seen and understood for his feelings without it being used against him.
“I say we burn it.” Napoleon suggested. It was treason. There were no two ways about it. “We can say it was destroyed in a tussle between us but instead of acting it out, we have a drink instead.”
That had seemed to soothe Illya. His shoulders dropped ever so slightly and Napoleon couldn’t help the small smile on his face. “Let’s go.”
What would they have done if Waverly hadn’t shown up? It’s hard to say now. Perhaps not even worth dwelling on but Napoleon likes to think their paths would’ve crossed again. Perhaps they would’ve ended up in the same predicament they have now, with a killing order looming over their heads again.
This time, it would be harder to throw their superiors off their trails. But Napoleon definitely knows he’s not going to sacrifice Illya for it.
“I won’t kill you. Not for Sanders or anyone.”
Illya shakes his head slowly, realization dawning on his face of what Napoleon is offering. “You can’t do that to me.” The steel creeps back into his voice.
“You said it yourself. We won’t have a choice. And I’m not going back to Sanders.” It’s not just that. Napoleon is tired. He’d enjoyed the game at times but he misses being free and Sanders would keep him on a tight leash when he gets back. If he gets back.
Napoleon’s eyes flick down to Illya’s hand, the sight of them clenched in fists and trembling a well-learned sign.
“You cannot risk yourself for me,” Napoleon says slowly, taking a step forward. “The CIA is not going to stop before they have me under lock and key again and I- just can’t do it anymore.”
Illya looks up at him abruptly.
“Listen, it’s not that I want to die. But I’ve been doing this job for long enough. I’ve made peace with it,” Napoleon explains. There are worse reasons to die than keeping Illya in his more or less cozy position as the KGB’s best.
“No.” Illya’s tone is decisive, like he is not even considering the alternative.
Napoleon reaches out, hand hesitatingly landing on Illya’s chest. He can feel the warmth of his body through the turtleneck, the fast rising and falling of his chest. They rarely touch outside of what is necessary. A utilitarian nature overcasting the closeness. And maybe Napoleon could tell himself that this is just like that, the touch meant to diffuse Illya but it isn’t. It’s for himself.
Napoleon had gotten to know Illya better than anyone else in a long time. Before UNCLE, there was no one.
“You do not get to be selfish this time, Napoleon,” Illya pleads.
Napoleon drinks in his expression, the eyebrows drawn together, the eyes begging him to reconsider, the stubborn set of his mouth. He can feel a tug in his ribcage, a feeling that he’s smothered countless times when it comes to this little team. This time it’s overwhelming and he allows himself to feel it. Now that it is too late.
“I know we don’t talk about it but you know we cannot afford to care. Not in this line of work. Perhaps it’s better that we end it now, before things get messy.” Napoleon looks down at his hand.
He’s no stranger to his attraction to Illya. It’s hard to look at him, most of the time and not be overwhelmed by it. But it’s not the same as this. And anyway, he wasn’t going to compromise their relationship with something like sex when he’s not even sure that Illya is even attracted to him - or men, for that matter. Or how messy it is if he does. He would take a wild guess and say that Illya didn’t exactly have time to explore his sexuality when he was going through the rigorous training of the KGB.
It’s not a can of worms he wishes to open with his partner in the field just because he’s attracted to him.
And now?
Now, Illya’s hand trembles when he thinks about having to kill Napoleon, his sworn enemy.
“You are right. We are in trouble,” Illya says quietly, his hand coming up to cover Napoleon’s on his chest.
The threat of their mutual demise suddenly fades as Napoleon realizes that regardless of how it would end, it would end. There is always more time until there isn’t. Keeping up the masks suddenly seems unimportant in the face of the fact that he wouldn’t see Illya again when this mission is over. Illya is right; they are way past messy.
His fingers curl into Illya’s turtleneck and pull him closer because suddenly it isn’t good enough to die without knowing the taste of his lips. Napoleon tries to commit the moment to memory. Illya’s shuttered breath, the strain of his neck, the softening of Illya under his hands. It doesn’t last longer than a moment - not nearly long enough.
He watches the emotions in his partner’s eyes, at once open to him like a book. “Have you ever kissed a man before?” Napoleon asks carefully.
“No.” Illya sounds breathless but it is not the good kind.
Caringly, Napoleon’s hand goes to Illya’s waist and steadies him. “Shhh. You’re doing great.” He can see the hectic rise and fall of Illya’s chest. “It doesn’t have to be anything more than this,” he quietly assures him. He might have read him all wrong but he’s fairly confident in what he’d seen, what he sees in Illya’s eyes now. It isn’t disgust, just- uncertainty. A dash of fear perhaps.
Illya’s eyes flutter bashfully but the tension doesn’t drain out of his shoulders. “But you- you always-“
Napoleon shakes his head, dissuading him from the idea that he’d have to sleep with him to satisfy him. “It can be whatever we want it to be,” he promises. There are a lot of things he could say but he feels like Illya would want him to be honest. It’s not easy when reaching for a lie has become so natural instead of showing his feelings. Keeping what he wants behind smokescreens and mirrors has protected him well.
But this is not just anyone. This is Illya and Napoleon has a feeling any fight against how he feels for the Russian would be wasted anyway. “I just- wanted to be close to you,” he confesses quietly.
There’s a long moment of silence in which Napoleon is the one that doesn’t dare to look up at Illya’s face. Until-
“I liked it. Can we-” Napoleon can see that the struggle in Illya hadn’t fully left him.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Napoleon sways closer, Illya’s head ducking to meet this time. A breath away from his lips, Napoleon pauses. “It’s not- just- try to feel it. Enjoy it,” he suggests before he seals their lips together. It’s slow again, just a careful exploration of lips.
This time he can feel Illya relax into it bit by bit and for a moment, Napoleon lets himself float in this reality where it’s as simple as them wanting each other, where that is the only thing that matters.
Reality creeps back in slowly when they separate, foreheads leaning against each other. Somehow Illya’s hand had ended up on his back, holding him like he might break and under any other circumstances it would get Napoleon to freak out.
Instead, he reminds himself that this is the moment he needs to commit to memory. Something to go back to when the world goes dark. What makes life worth living?
Not too long ago, he would have listed alcohol, sex and anything expensive and beautiful. Now, he isn’t so sure that he hadn’t gotten it all wrong. Maybe it is about this feeling right here. He remembers this thought, a long time ago. Shortly before he got betrayed, shortly before he’d fallen into the grasp of the CIA.
He’d sworn to himself to never love something that he couldn’t steal back then. Now he fears he hadn’t even noticed himself failing.
“Napoleon,” Illya’s voice is quiet, a cocoon of safety in the small space between them. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll go back. What else is there to do?” Napoleon asks, drawing in a deep breath. This is nice. He’d treasure the memory, but they couldn’t afford to dream, to dare. Not in a world like this. He takes a step back. The air that rushes between their bodies is startlingly cold.
“But the mission-”
“Don’t worry.” Napoleon gives him an easy smile, one that he’d plastered on his face a million times. “You won’t find me.” With that, he turns and walks away. There isn’t far to go in the bunker but there are enough rooms to avoid each other for a while. He doesn’t think that Illya is going to go looking for him after everything that had just transpired.
They get picked up roughly six hours later and the tension in the helicopter is thick enough to cut with a knife. Waverly radios them and Napoleon catches Illya’s eyes when their handler breaks the news that he’d been able to negotiate another deal with their agencies and they would remain on loan for the foreseeable future.
Talk about messy.