Work Text:
1981
Somewhere off the coast of Monaco...
“You said ‘a light breeze’, Cowboy. This is not light breeze. This is no breeze!”
Solo’s smirk is visible from where he has his arm draped over his face. It peers out from under the shadow like a lizard from a crack in the rock- slow and lazy. He’s resplendent in worn slacks and a baby-blue button up that’s open almost to his navel, lying stretched out on his back by the gunnel-railing. “We got out here, didn’t we?”
Illya glares, trying not to let the irritation get the better of him. “Da, but we still need to get back.”
“The wind’s not gonna stay gone forever, Peril, relax.” Solo waves his other hand in a flippant gesture. All the movement does is help draw attention to the distant cliffs and sand of the beach, crowned by a smudge of green shrubbery. “Besides, the boat has an engine.”
The boat.
A rather quaint and far-fetched way to describe a sixty-two foot yacht, both sails reeled in, rocking gently in the water like a baby in a cradle. Illya’s not afraid of boats. He’s been a motor-boating champion for god’s sake.
Except that was a small craft for one man. This is quite a different ballgame.
And then there’s the...teenager to consider.
Eva Alexandria Kuryakin.
Sometimes, Illya wonders if the world didn’t just copy and paste Gaby’s sheer personality into their daughter. She has the same slim form, though at sixteen she is an inch or two taller than her mother. She’s delicate, fine, something precious that Illya wants to spend his life trying to protect.
Eva has icy blue eyes, startling when framed by her flaxen hair- looks she gets from him; and Solo’s mischievous attitude.
Which Illya blames on the fact that the American has looked after her since she was six- playing nanny while Illya and Gaby were off on globe-trotting missions, Solo having retired due to an injury he’d sustained from a mission in Switzerland- his leg never had healed properly.
Besides, he’s as much her father as Illya is.
“I’m infertile,” Solo had said one night long ago, back when they were different people and the world seemed so much simpler.
He couldn’t quite meet Illya’s eyes, just swirled the merlót around his glass, uncharacteristically subdued. Outside, hung the threat of an imminent mission, cold on the greek air.
“Not sure why, but yeah. ‘Nother gift from life’s roulette chamber really: give the man who wants a family no chance at getting one.”
Illya had had no words of comfort, just held the man as the stars glittered coldly outside.
Gaby had joined them eventually, and the three of them had fallen asleep together, like always, tangled in one another’s arms.
Warm.
Safe.
They had proven him wrong.
Eva is as much his as she is theirs, biological or not, and Illya sometimes finds himself falling in love with Solo all over again as he watches his partner with her. The care, how Solo still can’t quite believe the family he has ended up with is real.
It makes Illya’s heart ache. So he tells Solo every day, tells him how much he loves him.
And how that is never going to change.
Now, Gaby’s reading, curled on the deckchair in a yellow sundress, Eva drying off on a towel nearby. She’d jumped into the water at a dare from Solo and stayed in far longer than planned. The water was like a cool breeze, she’d said, with that slight drawl she’s picked up from the American.
It only annoys Illya a little.
“How long’s the lease this time?” Solo’s sitting up now, shading his eyes with a hand. He’s teasing, but Illya can see the crow’s feet creasing into folds of concern at the corners of his eyes.
His velvety black curls are shot through with a premature silver, despite only being a few days shy of fifty-two. They suit him, shining like secrets to match his eyes, though Illya would never tell him- he doesn’t need an even bigger head.
As it is, the russian rolls his eyes. Their lease, meaning their upcoming mission, is a cloud on the horizon a mere three weeks away. “Waverly says it should not take longer than a month.”
“Where?”
And now Illya’s heart smarts at him, as he has to force himself to bite the words back. “I...” he says at last, almost apologetic, “I cannot tell you, Cowboy.”
A shadow passes over Solo’s face, but then he sighs. Nods. “Yeah, I get it. Once you get out, you stay out.”
Illya sits down beside him, sliding an arm around his waist. The American lets out a little laugh, leaning against him, solid and warm. “Well...” he says, dry. “Don’t expect me to come rescue you again.”
Illya remembers that mission in Switzerland like the moment right after a nightmare.
The mercenaries guarding the warehouse, their black gear, making them look alien in the dim light. The slopes of the mountains, rising like spears around them, snow a white so bright that it hurt his eyes.
Gaby, her hands shaking on the receiver, voice urgent as the building went up in a plume of foul-smelling smoke behind them, the explosion ragged like the roar of a lame beast.
And Solo’s blood, vivid in the glow of the rising sun. His chest heaving as he fought to regain his breath- the terrible slice down his thigh, laying open the bone within. His shattered knee.
His voice, weak but firm, urging Gaby and Illya to leave him and run.
That was 1965.
Two weeks later, Gaby found out she was pregnant.
“Dad,” says Eva, glancing up. “Do you get sharks in Monaco?”
“Isn’t that the kind of question you ask before you get in the water?” asks Gaby from behind her book, amused.
“It’s the ocean, sweetheart,” says Solo, grinning. “They kind of come with the package.”
“She was talking to me,” says Illya, glaring at him. There’s no real heat in it.
Eva rolls her eyes, settling down again. “If he answered me first, it’s just because you’re too slow, dad.”
“That’s my girl,” says Solo, with a smug look of triumph.
Illya pushes him overboard.
He remembers the fear that had coiled in his gut when he and Gaby had arrived back from their first mission without Solo.
She’s been shaking, loitering on the stairs, terrified that their daughter would not recognise them anymore. After all, they had been in Spain for near on four months.
Illya didn’t want to admit to the same concern, but the knock he’d placed on the flat’s door had sounded hesitant, even to his own ears.
The seconds crept on, time feeling like eternity. Gaby was trembling like a live wire. He remembers thinking it must have been worse for her- being the mother. Having carried Eva for so long inside her.
And then Solo had opened the door, knit sweater a faded blue, and their daughter hanging onto his leg, and Eva- five at the time, had jumped for them, squealing.
And all Illya had been able to do was fall into Solo’s arms and choke a sob, while the American rubbed soothing circles up his spine, murmuring in his ear.
“Man overboard,” says Gaby, standing beside Illya and watching as Solo bobs below, a shit-eating grin on her face.
“Ha ha,” says Solo, striking out for the stern of the yacht, where the ladder hangs in the water. “Need I remind you that I can’t swim very well with this leg?”
“Gött,” snorts Gaby. “Give you an injury and you’ll take a mile.”
Eva offers Solo a hand to help him up the rest of the way, and he makes sure to shake his hair out within range of Illya, who growls at him.
Solo smiles, all in innocent and knowing, and Illya has to hold back a laugh when he says, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Peril. Remember who made lunch.”
“Fine.” Illya rolls his eyes, but inside he feels warm. Here, with his family. His home. “I am sorry I pushed you.”
Solo steals a quick kiss, chilled and salty from the sea, and then pats him on the shoulder.
“Apology accepted.”