Chapter Text
A hard punch lands on Napoleon’s face before he has time to process what’s happening. The inside of his cheek cuts against his teeth and he can immediately feel the taste of copper in his mouth. The knock causes him to stagger back against the wall behind him. He steadies one hand against the rough, hard surface and groans as he rubs at his hurting jaw. The pain smarts across his face but the ache in his chest is a thousand times more than the actual physical hurt he’s feeling at the moment. He spits some of the blood out and straightens himself as he stares at Illya who is incensed, furiously wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, a look of pure disgust etched on his face.
“You don’t do that again, Cowboy, you hear me?” Illya warns, his voice full of venom, his eyes wild and angry.
As they stood their with their bodies trembling with anger and confusion, they could hear sounds of their assailants’ footsteps hurrying past them. Clearly they are hidden enough from their enemies’ view in the darkened alleyway.
Moments before, in their hurry to escape from trouble, Illya had pulled Napoleon into one of the narrow alleyways of Frankfurt. He had pressed his body up against him in order to hide from their approaching enemies. In the process, his face had come up too close to his partner’s and in a moment of sheer weakness, Napoleon had succumbed to temptation, had done the unthinkable by kissing Illya. At first the Russian didn’t understand what was happening when Napoleon had cupped his face in one hand, the other curling around his neck, puling him close. When their lips met, Illya had gasped and moaned, and Napoleon wasn’t sure whether it had been out of sheer surprise or pleasure. But he was certain Illya had reciprocated the kiss, he’d let his tongue in, had let him taste him. But then just as quickly, he was shoved back and the punch had landed square on his face.
Napoleon takes in a deep breath as he tries to gather his thoughts, wipes the blood that still dribbles at the corner of his lips. He then tries to slowly reason with the Russian.
“It’s called an act, Peril. The kiss wasn’t intentional. I’d done it to distract their attention.”
But of course that’s an outright lie. Because Napoleon had dreamed of kissing Illya ever since Rome, ever since Illya had saved him from Rudi’s clutches, ever since their secret pact when they’d burned the disc together. Napoleon had wanted Illya for a long time but he’s been good at keeping his emotions in check. He’d kept his feelings buried deep inside his heart because he didn't know how Illya would react, how he'd take the knowledge of Napoleon's feelings for him. And tonight, his questions were answered in the worst possible way. Tonight, a moment of vulnerability had caused him to slip and the outcome on Illya’s part is total revulsion and his reaction just leaves Napoleon reeling.
“Intentional or not, it is still disgusting. I’m not one of your honeypot marks whom you can simply kiss and seduce,” Illya growls, looks almost murderous.
“Fuck it, will you just get over it? I told you it was merely an act!” Napoleon retorts, his own anger rising. Illya’s words sting every time he opens his mouth and Napoleon isn’t sure whether he’d be able to take another blow.
“No matter. Just don’t let it happen again,” Illya hisses.
“Don’t worry about it. There won’t be another again.”
Without saying anything else, Napoleon leaves Illya at once in that darkened alley, all angry and humiliated. He leaves him with his chest heaving and hands trembling in fists. Napoleon knows from then on that it’s going to be extremely difficult to work with the Russian, not with the scathing words Illya had uttered imprinted firmly now in his mind. And he knows exactly what he has to do next.
Once they’re back at UNCLE’s headquarters, Napoleon goes to Waverly and immediately requests for a transfer, citing personal reasons. He tells Waverly he can’t continue working with Gaby and Illya, warns him that if he does will only cause UNCLE problems in the future, something in which he has no control over. Waverly is a bit surprised at Napoleon’s sudden strange disposition and is inclined to probe further but when he sees how adamant his agent is, he agrees to help him out.
“I can’t promise you anything, Solo, but I will try to work something for you.”
At that moment, feeling completely bereft, Napoleon knows he will not hesitate taking anything Waverly has to offer.
***
“Mr. Solo, there’s something you might want to take a look at, if you’re game for this.”
Napoleon is summoned to Waverly’s office about a week after he had requested the transfer and his eyes grow wide reading the documents in his hand. He then looks up at Waverly, feeling a little sceptical at what his superior is suggesting.
“This isn’t some kind of move back to the CIA, is it?”
Waverly smiles.
“No, don’t be daft, I’m not going to let my best agent go back to the CIA. This is merely a program that the CIA has been working with MI6. I think that this could help you with the problem you’re dealing with, whatever that might be, Solo. You could consider this as an option. This way, perhaps, you don’t need to push for a transfer. You work around the problems you’re currently having.
Napoleon leans back in his chair and stares at the word printed in bold.
Selective Memory Suppression Program
Is he crazy enough to want to do this? Is he that desperate to rid Illya off his mind? Does Waverly even know what he’s offering Napoleon?
“What do I have to do to get into this program?” he asks after a while despite himself.
“I’ll let the team from MI6 know that I’ll be sending an agent for the program and you’ll go to their London headquarters for two weeks where it’s being conducted. Although this is a collaboration between the CIA and the British Intelligence, I’ll make sure your participation will remain anonymous from the CIA.”
Napoleon raises an eyebrow at Waverly. “You’re powerful enough to do that?”
“Well, I do have my ways, Solo,” Waverly replies authoritatively, a little annoyed when Napoleon seems to underestimate him.
Napoleon reads on through the file. What strikes his interest the most are the methods being used for the program and Waverly, somehow, seems to be channeling his thoughts.
“It’s the technique they use that’s really fascinating. A person can consciously block any unwanted memory that he or she may have, teaches a person’s brain ways to suppress these memories. The positive part of this procedure is it is not permanently erased,” Waverly explains as he sizes Napoleon’s reaction after he finishes reading the document.
“But why have this program in the first place?” Napoleon asks next. He knows deep in his gut he wants this but needs further information to convince himself that he’s making the right decision, if he accepts the offer.
“It’s a new technology from the Americans, basically to help people cope with PTSD, people who’ve been through war, people who would like to be rid of those awful memories.”
“With positive results?”
Waverly nods. “So far the program have yielded very positive results indeed.”
Napoleon takes in a deep breath, tries to put whatever doubts left in his mind at ease.
“This may or may not work on me,” he mutters, tries to see if Waverly might want to convince him out of doing this. But then what Waverly says next seals the deal for Napoleon.
“That is true, there is always a possibility of it not working on you. Depending on what kind of memory you want to suppress. But you had come to me for help, and I’m giving you an option. I hate to break you, Kuryakin and Teller apart because together as a team, you’re the best I’ve ever assembled. So this is my work around method.”
“And if this fails?”
Waverly shrugs. “I'll give you your transfer.”
Napoleon takes in a deep breath.
“The ball is in your court, Solo.”
“I’m going to be a lab rat,” Napoleon says in resignation then adds, “But then, what else do I have to lose?”
In the end, knowing he’ll be solely accountable for the decision he’s about to make, he nods and mutters, “I’ll do it.”
***
“Solo, have you gone out of your mind?”
The next day, Gaby barges straight into Napoleon’s office, not even bothering to knock. She stands before him and leans down, placing both her hands on his desk, staring daggers into his eyes. “Are you going to explain this to me?”
She throws the documents, the one Waverly had shown to Napoleon before, on his desk. He grunts, irritated that she has disturbed him at work. He knows dealing with an angry Gaby is not easy, sometimes the task is even more difficult than dealing with an angry Illya.
“What questions do you have for me, Teller? I’m sure Waverly has told you everything you need to know?” he says, grabs the papers, waves it in front of Gaby’s face before throwing it down once again.
“But why?” Gaby asks, her brows furrowed together in concern. “It’s crazy!”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he calmly says, returns his attention on the stack of paperwork he needs to clear before leaving for the program at the end of the week.
“Of course you do because I don’t approve of it!” Gaby exclaims at Napoleon. He doesn’t look up at her as she continues to make her worries known. “Please, Solo. It’s dangerous.”
“Relax, it’s standard op procedure for agents to go for training like this,” he mutters, winces a little at the lie that comes out of his mouth. He wonders if Gaby had noticed it. When he looks up, the scowl on her face tells him she’d cottoned on his lie.
“You think I’m some kind of rookie agent to believe your bullshit?”
“Language, young lady,” Napoleon smirks but Gaby only continues to glare, her eyes almost bugging out much to his amusement. He leans back in his chair and wonders how Gaby could be so small yet so frightening when she’s angry.
“Does Illya know about this?” she asks, gesturing at the document on Napoleon’s desk. Her gaze this time is firm and resolute.
“No,” he replies curtly.
“You are planning on telling him, right?”
“Of course,” he lies. Because he’s planned on leaving without telling Illya. It’ll be much easier that way. He’ll let him find out from Gaby or perhaps Waverly will let him on the details.
When Gaby continues to scowl, Napoleon gets up from his chair and walks over to her before pulling her into his arms.
“Look, don’t worry, okay? It’s just some program. I’ll be fine, trust me,” he tries to convince her.
Gaby fidgets a little, knowing she’s about to lose her argument but before she could agree with him on this, she needs to know his real reason for wanting to do such a crazy thing.
“Alright, but I just need to ask you one more question, Solo.”
He huffs out an exasperated sigh at her stubbornness. Knowing she wouldn't give up until he answers her questions, Napoleon releases her from his hold and throws both his hands up in defeat.
“Okay, shoot.”
“What sort of memory do you want to suppress?”
Napoleon stiffens at her question, tries to think of an answer but his wit suddenly has deserted him.
“Is it me? Or is it Illya? Is it something that we’ve done?” she asks.
There is a softness in the way she’s looking at him at that moment, wanting to really understand Napoleon’s true intention, perhaps wanting to help. And Napoleon, not knowing how to deflect Gaby’s scrutiny, answers her the only way he can.
“I want to forget the painful ones,” he murmurs and Gaby gasps hearing that.
“Is it Uncle Rudi?”
Napoleon doesn’t even think of Rudi when Gaby had asked him the question. All he wants is to forget his hideous feelings for Illya, the feeling of wanting him everyday and the knowledge those feelings could never be returned. Napoleon only wants to be rid of that.
Not Rudi, not of his war memories. Yes, he has nightmares of them, but those are tolerable, those he can handle. And those aren’t painful enough compared to Illya’s rejection.
“Yes, it’s Rudi,” Napoleon in the end lies and then there are tears in Gaby’s eyes as she goes to envelope him in a strong hug.
•••
The last time Illya is faced with such a situation, where he’s staring at Napoleon’s back while he’s packing his belongings into his suitcase had been in Rome after they’d taken care of the Vinciguerra affair. That had been the start of them, the beginning of Napoleon and Illya. A partnership he never imagined could escalate into anything more than what it had intended to be. Fast forward a year later and Napoleon has become more than a mere partner. He’s Illya’s friend and confidante, someone Illya trusts with his life and he cannot imagine his life without Napoleon in it. But lately, fate is putting their friendship to a test so severe, Illya fears he might lose him in the end.
“Why are you doing this?” Illya asks, tries his best to control his escalating temper.
He is still staring at Napoleon’s back, watches him being as meticulous as he could ever be, taking his time packing while still ignoring Illya who is leaning against the wall behind Napoleon. He had found out from Gaby of Napoleon’s participation in the program and had gone straight to his apartment to confront him. The American had let him in, but he’s built this distance around him for the past week or so and it has driven Illya mad.
If Illya could have his way, he would take the suitcase off Napoleon’s bed and flung it over, throw his clothes out of it, to make his feelings known about what he actually thinks of Napoleon’s stupid decision.
“Solo, you cannot ignore me forever.”
Napoleon wants to say 'watch me' but he bites his lips, refrains himself from saying anything. But when he finally does face his partner, he finds Illya has moved to the foot of the bed, not a feet away from him. Illya’s almost glowering, his shoulders a hard line of tension and his hands, which Napoleon is certain are trembling hard, clenched into fists at his sides. For a moment, Napoleon wants to put his arms around Illya. He wants to tell him that everything will be alright and that he’s doing this for his sake. But his pride prevents him from doing so. He lowers his gaze and stares at his feet as if it's the most interesting thing in the room.
“Cowboy,” Illya calls him again, uses that affectionate nickname to good effect. Napoleon responds by looking up but his stone cold heart will not relent easily.
“I’ve explained to Gaby my reasons for doing this, perhaps you can get my answers from her.”
Illya shakes his head. “Whatever your reasons, I think this is completely unnecessary. Why you volunteer for such a program?”
“Why are you making this difficult?” Napoleon says in exasperation, returning Illya’s question with one of his own, as if not understanding Illya’s behaviour towards him. “It’s just a fucking program. Agents go through various programs, various training. And this is just one of it.”
“I am not being difficult. You just cannot go through with this,” Illya replies, and then repeats himself almost like a command. "You can't do this."
“Why?” Napoleon asks as he steps a few inches closer towards Illya.
"Because I don't want you to."
"But why?" Napoleon has moved right into Illya's personal space. Almost on eye level, he challenges Illya again. "Why?"
“It’s unethical," Illya mutters. He doesn't even realise he's holding his breath.
Hearing that, Napoleon lets out a cynical laugh and goads him. “Unethical? Oh come on, Peril, you know me! I’m a thief, a liar! Technically it’s not entirely wrong to bracket me in that ‘unethical’ category. And you know what I can do. You’ve seen me in action, experienced it up close and personal. So in that context, I am exactly the right person to be signing up for this program, don't you think?”
Losing it at once, Illya grabs hold of Napoleon by his shirt collar, pulls him close until their noses almost touched. “Don’t be an idiot. This is clearly dangerous. Call Waverly now, tell him you are not going, tell him you changed your mind,” he growls.
“Aww, Peril. You sound like you actually care about me,” Napoleon mutters before twisting free from Illya’s hold. He straightens his shirt and smirks at Illya. However, there is defiance in his eyes and Illya’s chest tightens when he sees it. He knows exactly why Napoleon’s doing this and he has to try his best in order to stop him from going through with his decision.
“You do this because of what I’d said to you, you do this because I hurt you.”
His voice is softer than before, but the seriousness still apparent. He stretches out a hand to grab hold of Napoleon once again but Napoleon quickly steps away from Illya’s reach.
“I feel a lot of things, Illya,” he murmurs, the hurt in his voice unmistakable, “But not everything I feel is about you. Not everything I do is about you.”
“You lie.”
Illya’s voice shakes with anger, with fear, with uncertainty at what he’s feeling at the moment but Napoleon isn’t going to back down from his decision, no matter what Illya does.
“If you think I’m lying then so be it but I’m not going to change my mind about this. So please, if you don’t have anything else to say, just leave.”
There is a quick exchange of angry and hurtful words between both men before Illya leaves, bangs the apartment door in fury. He knows he’s hurt Napoleon but wonders who’s suffering the repercussions of his actions more at the moment.
***
With no new missions expected for the next few days, Gaby has decided to just relax and stay in all weekend, listen to some music, while catching up on some reading. The relatively quiet afternoon is a welcomed break instead of her normal hectic schedule and she’s certainly relishing it. But it cruelly comes to an abrupt halt when Illya comes storming into her apartment minutes later like a hurricane. For a moment she regrets giving her apartment’s spare key to the Russian.
“Illya? What’s the matter?” she asks him at once.
He paces up and down the middle of her apartment muttering Russian curses along the way and looks so troubled, Gaby doesn’t even know how to approach him at first. When Illya suddenly groans and reaches out for a decorative antique chair Gaby had placed just underneath her living room window, her eyes widen in horror. It is an expensive one in which Napoleon had ‘exclusively’ helped her procure and knowing what Illya’s intention is when he sees his hands on it, Gaby screams her head off.
“Illya Kuryakin I swear if you break that I’ll get Waverly to send you back to wintery Russia, you won’t know what hit you until you can’t come back to UNCLE ever again, I swear to God!”
Illya stops, grits his teeth in protest and reaches for a nearby vase instead. “Da, how about I break this instead?”
Before Gaby could say anything, he throws the vase and it shatters, breaks into pieces as it hits against the wall just behind Gaby, leaving her utterly shocked.
“Illya are you crazy?! If you came here intent on destroying my apartment then you should just get out!”
She then runs up to him, almost wanting to slap him but realises an act of violence to counteract one will not do the trick. She grabs his arms instead to try and calm him down.
“Illya, please,” she tries in the softest voice she could muster. Illya heaves and leans his head down. He falls to the couch and Gaby quickly takes her place beside him. She runs a comforting hand on his arm, tries to sooth his anguish away.
“Tell me what the matter is,” she almost pleads, stills his hands in a firm grip. “Tell me, is it Solo?”
He turns to face her with a look of remorse at what he’s done. “It is Solo,” he confirms.
“You went to see him.”
“Yes,” Illya nods, then grimaces. “He volunteers for that stupid thing because of me.”
Illya’s lost Gaby with that little revelation. “What do you mean it’s because of you? I don’t understand? He told me it’s because he wants to forget Rudi, and the nightmares.”
Illya is clearly distressed. He’s fighting an internal battle, hesitating whether he should let her know what had actually happened between Napoleon and him.
“Illya, I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
“Cowboy, during our last mission in Frankfurt, when we were escaping bad guys, he—he kissed me, and I hit him in return,” Illya finally admits, and he can’t help the regret that slips into his voice thinking about the incident again. What he’d done had been a natural reaction on Illya’s part, he’d hit him because he was shocked at Napoleon’s blatant daringness, but the words he’d uttered, Illya hadn’t meant it to come out as harsh as it had. Ever since then, he knows Napoleon had outrightly avoided him, had only spoken to him when spoken to and Illya feels terrified at how badly the entire thing has affected him. And when he’d found Napoleon had offered himself for the ridiculous memory suppressing test, he’d gone berserk.
The anger he had lashed out at Gaby earlier is mainly directed at himself and he feels sorry that he’d dragged her into this but he badly needs someone to talk to, badly needs her at this moment.
Gaby on the other hand, starts to rationalise the entire thing as soon as Illya had told her the truth. Everything starts to make sense as she now understands why Napoleon had signed up for the program.
“What did you say to him, Illya?” she asks. Unfortunately, Illya’s answer is as devastating as she had feared.
“You said the kiss disgusts you?”
The horror etched on Gaby’s face isn’t helping Illya at all.
“I was shocked! The kiss came out of nowhere,” Illya says defensively.
He’s certainly not proud of what he’d said but it can’t be undone and now he’s to deal with the fact that he’s ruined their friendship forever.
“Cowboy’s gone to do something really stupid and I know he’s doing this because of what I had said. He wants to forget what had happened. But I worry, Chop Shop girl, I worry it’ll be much worse than that.”
“Why didn’t you just apologise? Say you’re sorry, say you didn’t mean those things you’d said?” Gaby asks. Illya knows she’s right, because that’s what he should have done. But he suspects it wouldn’t be as easy as that to make Napoleon change his mind.
“Why didn’t you tell him that?”
Illya groans at Gaby. “I can’t.”
“But why?”
“I just can’t!” Illya shouts and Gaby grumbles beneath her breath. “Men!”
She’s angry at him, angry because he’s too proud to admit the mistakes he’s made and now everything is just a jumbled mess. With one partner gone and another in hysterics, Gaby can’t afford to lose her grasp on the situation at hand. She quickly kneels in front of Illya and tries to reason with him once again.
“Illya, listen to me,” Gaby begins, grabs his hands in hers, “Napoleon’s gonna be gone for about two weeks. This thing he’s going up for might not even work on him, Waverly says this to me. So let’s not fret, okay? This is Napoleon we’re talking about. His pigheaded, stubborn American mind is not the same like anyone else’s. And if he’s doing this in order to forget you, or whatever feelings he’s keeping inside from you, I don’t think it’ll work that easily. I mean it’s you. He can’t forget you that easily, Illya. Believe me.”
Illya nods, albeit a little unsure at what Gaby is implying. And even though he’s not quite as optimistic as she is, they will just have to wait for Napoleon to return before Gaby could prove her theory right.