Work Text:
The bar is tucked down a back alley of a back alley, nestled into the semi-subterranean basement of a building that seems to be otherwise comprised of a restaurant on the ground floor (currently closed) and rooms to rent on the other three. The basement windows are made of heavily frosted glass, and a faded advertisement painted onto one proclaims the place to be the best avant-garde jazz club in the world.
No wonder it seems dead.
The alley is totally silent, with none of the faint sounds of music typically associated with a bar - avant-garde jazz or otherwise - spilling out onto the street. The only sign of life is the faint glow emanating from behind the windows.
“Well, this is the place,” Napoleon says quietly, entirely too aware of the volume of his voice. “Shall we?”
Illya, standing slightly behind him, makes a noise that might indicate assent. At any rate, Napoleon takes it as such, and without further ado walks down the few steps to the door.
He knocks three times, and one of the panes of glass (also frosted) adorning the door swings open. An eye and part of a nose fill the empty space, scrutinizing the pair of spies. Napoleon reaches behind himself and blindly grabs for Illya’s hand, tugging him closer. He gives the eye and nose his best ‘I’m-innocent-and-want-no-trouble’ look, and after a few seconds the door opens for them.
Inside, the bar is remarkably cozy. The low, golden lights reflect softly off of the windows and the conversation hums and faintly echoes against the brick walls. There’s a small raised platform at the back of the room, currently occupied by a pianist and singer leaning against the former’s instrument and sharing a cigarette, evidently on a break from entertaining.
The place isn’t packed, but the few booths are full and many of the tables are occupied. Several seats remain at the bar itself, and it is these that Napoleon and Illya make their way towards, hanging their jackets on an already overfull coat rack on their way.
The bartender takes his time in getting to them, and Napoleon uses this opportunity to observe his fellow patrons.
There’s a lone man at the far end of the bar, staring morosely into an empty glass. Heartbreak, Napoleon wagers. Two seats down from him is a trio of young men who are all trying to no avail to attract the bartender’s attention. Beside them and separated from Napoleon by a single barstool is an older couple, perhaps in their fifties. They’re dressed nearly identically, matching bottles in their hands, laughing quietly together and oblivious to everything around them. Something in Napoleon’s chest feels a little tight looking at them, content and comfortable and so obviously, easily in love.
He looks away, to the other side of Illya, where two women, both quite butch, are playing a game involving a deck of cards and a coin. They’re laughing, too, and talking about something that Napoleon catches only bits and pieces of - it involves a workplace misunderstanding, he thinks.
The bartender finally turns his attention to them, and Napoleon orders two glasses of Scotch, neat, before Illya can get a word in elsewise.
Illya turns slightly on his stool and shoots him a look that Napoleon knows means, you know I don’t like Scotch.
Napoleon shrugs and offers up a grin. “You can order next time.”
The Scotch is decent when it arrives after another prolonged wait. Napoleon sips it slowly, listening to the music which has at last started up and continuing to take in his surroundings.
They’re here for two reasons - to establish cover and to conduct some initial recon, mainly just ‘getting a feel for the local… community,’ as Waverly had put it. They’re already well on their way to accomplishing these (admittedly quite easy) goals, and Napoleon feels rather relaxed about the whole thing. They’ve explicitly been allowed to drink for their purposes (though not to the point of extreme inebriation), and Napoleon is planning to take full advantage, hopefully bringing Illya along with him.
An hour later, he’s decidedly tipsy, bordering on outright drunk. He’s talked to several other patrons, including the three young men, two of whom had been painfully obviously interested in him, and one of the butches, who’d taught him a card trick. The lonely guy has left, and his place has been taken by the singer while the pianist plays a jaunty and lyric-free tune.
Illya, much to Napoleon’s delight, has also been drinking the Scotches that seem to miraculously appear in front of them every so often, evidently on the bartender’s whim. He’s not saying much, but Napoleon knows he’ll have memorized the building’s layout and the defining traits of every person within it by now.
More importantly, though, he’s rolled up his sleeves and undone the top button of his shirt. His cheeks are faintly pink and his foot taps the rung of his stool in time to the music. He’s relaxed - relatively speaking - and Napoleon is immeasurably relieved.
He’d been worried that Illya would be unable to let his guard down, to blend in. Even if he is the KGB’s top man. He’d confided in Napoleon before this mission that he’s never gone undercover like this until now, and Napoleon knows that it cannot be easy, no matter how much training he’s had.
So he’s glad. He touches Illya’s shoulder when they talk and enjoys the way that Illya’s knee brushes against his every so often. He could almost forget that they’re here for work like this. If he lets himself stop focusing for just a second, everything feels almost totally real.
The singer abandons his seat and rejoins the pianist, perching on the edge of his spindly-legged instrument. He taps the microphone, and the murmur of voices dies down.
“This one’s for all the couples in the crowd tonight,” he says lowly, and Napoleon doesn’t miss the way his eyes fall to the pianist for a beat too long for the glance to be accidental. The song starts, slow and romantic, and couples begin to stand and make their way to the small open space in front of the stage.
Napoleon stands, too. He can hardly just sit there and watch, not when all the other couples in the bar are already swaying to the music, not when said music is going straight to his heart and his feet, and certainly not when Illya looks the way he does now, relaxed and beautiful and like everything Napoleon so desperately wants but knows he will never actually have.
He offers Illya his hand. “Wouldn’t want to be the only ones left out, would we?”
He almost expects a refusal anyway. For Illya to not want to play this up any more than he absolutely has to.
But Illya smiles at him, finishes the last of his drink with a small grimace that Napoleon should not and definitely does not think is really cute, and takes his hand.
They make their way onto the dance floor and are quickly absorbed into the crowd, bodies pressing in on all sides but every couple existing in their own little world.
It becomes very clear very quickly that neither of them knows how to dance per se. But they’re in good company on that front, and all it really takes is a little lazy movement in this direction and that, with the music as the only necessary guide.
Napoleon is more than content to simply stand close together, hands joined by their sides, but Illya takes a look around and evidently decides that the proper thing to do is to lean his head against Napoleon’s collarbone, hands loosely pressed to his back.
It’s a little awkward, Illya being the taller of the two and Napoleon suddenly supporting a not-insignificant amount of his weight, but they manage. Napoleon leads them in a rather slow, rhythmic stepping kind of movement, doing his best to keep from running into any of the other couples. He just hopes Illya can’t feel his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest.
God, he wants this to be more than what it is. He doesn’t want them to be undercover, two straight-laced international spies putting on an act in a place they’d otherwise never be caught dead in, a place they could never belong.
He wishes that, when the night inevitably ends, they might return to the two-bedroom apartment they’re currently renting, drunk and warm in the cold night air, and fall asleep tangled together in the same bed. He wishes that Illya would raise his head and look into his eyes and kiss him. He wishes so very badly for this night to be real.
The song ends. All across the floor, couples break out of their reveries and applaud. Napoleon and Illya, too, separate and clap politely.
Nearby, the older couple Napoleon had observed earlier embrace and kiss. They’re both smiling softly, and Napoleon’s chest aches.
He tears his gaze away from them and looks at the only thing he possibly can - Illya.
Who is looking back at him with this soft, unguarded expression on his face, almost as though he has just woken up. It’s a gentle and trusting kind of look, and it knocks Napoleon for a loop.
The pianist plays a scale, disrupting the quiet atmosphere, and Napoleon feels very suddenly like he is running out of time. Any second now, a new song will begin, inevitably something upbeat and fast, and this spell will break. The silence will disappear, and Illya will stop looking at him like - well, like they do belong here.
He feels compelled to act before everything changes. This can be for the mission, he thinks. I can deny everything if I’ve got to.
He puts a hand on Illya’s warm, slightly sweaty cheek, already anticipating his partner to brush him off - dancing is far enough. No more unnecessary touch.
Illya doesn’t move. Napoleon thinks he even stops breathing. He worries for a second that he has caused his partner to tense up, to lose that relaxed air he has so adored.
But then Illya leans into the touch, just as the piano starts to pick up its pace. It’s Napoleon’s turn to freeze, something like hope or fear paralyzing him from head to foot.
Illya steps closer, pressing their bodies together, and just like that, so simple it scarcely seems real, they’re kissing, evidently by mutual decision.
Something in Napoleon’s chest stutters and then bursts into life. He threads his fingers into Illya’s hair and pulls him closer still. This is real. It must be.
When they break apart, he knows for certain that it is indeed real. The way Illya is looking at him, the soft smile, the warm flush to his cheeks - there are certain things that cannot be faked. Napoleon knows this, and he knows that he must look much the same.
This cannot be anything other than what it is. The thought is briefly terrifying, but mainly it’s absolutely wonderful. This is everything that Napoleon has ever dreamed of having, everything he’d thought was simply not possible for him to have. And it’s here, in front of him.
Illya Kuryakin, looking at him in the way he’s always wanted to be looked at, and he himself looking right back. He is in love, and he is loved back, and in this moment, nothing else matters at all.