Work Text:
Illya pressed light kisses along Napoleon’s bare arm, following the line of an old scar. With a smile, Napoleon leaned in to brush a strand of the Russian’s sweaty hair out of his face.
“Sometimes, Cowboy,” Illya said, stopping his kisses for a moment, “I wish we could be married,”
Napoleon suddenly sat up a little, jostling the man curled into his side. Illya glared at him for a second, then adjusted his position and continued his trail of kisses, following a scar along his shoulder this time.
“Why?” Napoleon asked, a new uncertain edge in his voice.
Illya stopped again, this time propping himself up on an elbow and looking Napoleon in the face.
“Because I love you,”
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like he always said everything. It still sent chills down Napoleon’s spine.
“…and,” Illya continued, carefully placing a hand on Napoleon’s cheek so he couldn’t turn away, “I very much want to spend my life with you,”
Napoleon thought for a moment of him and the Red Peril growing old together and couldn’t help but chuckle. “Sure,” he conceded, “but marriage is just a piece of paper that we couldn’t get even if we wanted to,”
Illya pouted at him, and Napoleon had to hold himself back from kissing him again just for being so impossibly adorable.
“It is promise,” Illya said seriously, “a commitment to…” He paused to gather his words for a moment, “to be there no matter what,”
Napoleon raised an eyebrow and looked at him skeptically, “You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this,”
Illya sighed, putting his head down on Napoleon’s shoulder and forcefully wrapping his arms around him.
“It is impossible. Forget I said anything,” Illya said tensely, shutting his eyes and settling down without another word.
Napoleon just sat there for a moment, totally thrown for a spin by one of the shortest conversations of his life. He normally wasn’t one for paying attention to his emotions, but there was something about how disappointed Illya had looked that really affected him.
I must be getting soft, he thought, carefully placing a hand on Illya’s warm shoulder.
He’d never liked the idea of getting married; it always left a sour taste in his mouth. His parents certainty weren’t very nice to each other, or him, and everyone else he ever met seemed to do nothing but complain about their significant other. The only people he’d ever met who were actually happy with the arrangement were the damn Vinciguerras.
It all just seemed like another prison, hidden behind a thinly veiled contract that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with social conformity.
But that’s not how Illya seemed to see it; to him it was “a commitment.” Napoleon smiled softly. At this point that seemed almost redundant. They’d already saved each other from bullets, torture, drowning, and on one very significant occasion, alcohol poisoning.
After Illya had forced Napoleon to puke out the contents of his stomach, the Russian had led him back from the bathroom and laid him down, quietly helping him take off his ruined suit.
“Do not scare me like this again Cowboy,” He had whispered through gritted teeth as he pulled off Napoleon’s shirt.
“It’s my birthday,” Napoleon had slurred out, grabbing Illya’s attention as if he had fired a gun.
“What?”
“No one ever remembers…” he said, curling up on his side.
Illya stood there for a moment silently; then leaned down to tuck the blankets around him. After a moment of hesitation, he pressed a soft kiss to his temple.
They still argued about whether it counted as their first kiss, with Illya always saying that the heated moments they shared months later in a rundown safe-house in the Alps was when things actually changed.
But to Napoleon, nothing affected him more than that cherished kiss. After years of nameless women and cold stares, he had finally found someone who had seen him at his worst but still cared enough to stick around and make such an intimate gesture.
And apparently that same, infuriating, deadly, passionate, person always wanted to be with him.
Napoleon looked down at the man lying on his chest and smiled.
“Peril,”
Illya opened his eyes and looked up blearily at him.
“Didn’t you say one time that you know how to tattoo?”
Illya squinted at him, “Da…?” he replied, his words and accent thick with fatigue, “Why?”
“Well...” Napoleon looked away for a moment, drawing the moment out like he knew Illya hated, “I was just thinking that if we were married, we should at least have something to show for it, and I feel like rings are a little too obvious…”
Illya’s eyes widened in surprise and he pulled himself to a sitting position. “What are you saying Cowboy?” he asked, as one of his rare, beaming smiles spread across his face.
“Illyusha,” he took Illya’s face in his hands, “Would you do me the honor-”
Illya cut him off by closing the distance between them with a rush and pressing their lips together into an emotionally charged kiss. His hands came up to Napoleon’s face, and they were soon tangled together again.
When they finally parted, Illya rested his forehead against Napoleon’s and sighed happily. “You are smiling,” he said softly.
“Of course I’m smiling,”
“No,” Illya murmured into his lips, “You are really smiling, like you never do,” Illya ran his fingers through Napoleon’s hair, “It makes you beautiful,”
Napoleon couldn’t think of anything snappy to say to that, so he just pulling Illya into another kiss.
It wasn’t until the next morning that any of it actually sank in for him. He was engaged. It didn’t matter how “legal” it all was, he was still sitting across from the man he was going to marry.
Illya, as if he felt Napoleon’s stare, glance at him over his newspaper before folding it neatly on the table and saying, “Stop thinking so much Cowboy, you will strain yourself,” His lips twitched towards a smile by the end of his sentence, but it didn’t stop him from stealing a piece of toast off of Napoleon’s plate.
Napoleon looked down at his eggs and blinked. He could still remember a time when most of his breakfasts were a too-hot cup of coffee in whatever new hotel room the CIA had shuffled him. Yet here he was, sharing a quiet domestic moment with his fiancé in the apartment they shared.
Somehow Illya had managed to break into the cold walls he had taken such care to build, to the point where stealing his toast was a normal and happy affair.
Illya made a surprised noise as Napoleon suddenly grabbed his shirt from across the table and pulled him into a deep kiss. It was sloppy but full of all the feeling building in his chest. “Thank you,” he mumbled into Illya’s lips before finally letting go, allowing the mussed up Russian to fall back into his chair.
Illya stared at him for a moment while his brain caught up. “For what?” he finally asked, squinting across the table and looking adorably bewildered.
“For existing,” Napoleon said, even if it didn’t capture the scope of his gratitude.
They planned everything out for a night next week, with Illya buying the necessary ink and things that Napoleon didn’t know where to start with.
Gabby was invited, but quietly declined, saying that she didn’t want to intrude on their moment. Napoleon silently thanked her yet again for knowing exactly what he was feeling without having to say a word.
As much as he loved her, he could already feel his nerves building inside of him. The idea of her, the steadiest person he knew, seeing him that vulnerable still turned his stomach no matter how far he had come in the last few years.
Before he was really able to register the passing of the week, he was standing outside of his apartment, keeping his hands from shaking by sheer force of will and training.
He turned the key and stepped in, startled for a moment by what he saw.
“Where did you get all the candles Peril?” he asked, glancing around, “I do believe this is what you’d call a fire hazard,”
Illya shot him a look from across the room. “It is romantic,” he said, then continued to light the nearest candle.
Napoleon softened and walked over to wrap his arms around Illya from behind. He whispered an apology into the back of Illya’s neck, and then proceeded to lay soft kisses between his shoulder blades.
The Russian hummed contentedly and asked, “What is for dinner?”
“You’ll love it,” Napoleon replied. He reluctantly pulled himself away and started for the kitchen.
Illya insisted on helping of course, and soon he had flour in their hair and was frowning at what was supposed to be a pie. “I do not think we will have desert tonight,” he said.
“It’s fine, trust me,” Napoleon said, whisking the offending pastry away while distracting Illya with a kiss.
After eating, they continued to drink away an expensive bottle of wine while curled around each other on the balcony couch. “Wait,” Napoleon said, pleasantly warm from Illya’s breath on his face and the alcohol in his system, “I don’t know if I want you stabbing me when you’re drunk,”
Illya snorted, taking the bottle and placing on the floor, “You delay because you are scared,”
Now it was Napoleon’s turn to snort, “Of you? Please,”
After a moment of looking at him, Illya brought his hand to Napoleon’s face. “Are you sure?”
Napoleon nodded for a moment; then unable to resist the caring look in Illya’s eyes and the soft touch of his worn fingers, he looked down, embarrassed, and said, “Will it really hurt?”
There was a soft breath then Illya pulled Napoleon’s face up so that he was looking him in the eyes. “Yes, it will hurt,” He said without hesitation, “And if you do not want that, I don’t need it,”
Napoleon started to speak, but Illya continued, with a new conviction and seriousness in his voice, “I will never hurt you Napoleon,” his accent stumbled over the Western name slightly, but he continued without pause, “The idea of making you unhappy is unbearable to me, and I will do anything to protect you. That is my vow,”
He pulled a sheet a paper from his pocket and showed it to Napoleon, whose hands trembled as he took it and saw the neatly written page that had obviously been painstakingly copied from an earlier draft.
Napoleon had barely read the first line before Illya started to recite it anyway, his voice rough with emotion. “When I first met you, I tried to kill you,”
“Twice,” Napoleon murmured on instinct, too distracted to really make the jab mean anything.
“This was because I thought you were my enemy,” Illya continued, “I was very wrong. I have learned since then that you are so much more,” Here he brought his hand to Napoleon’s chest, “You have saved me in so many ways and have brightened my life with a joy I did not think possible. I have seen much pain, but I would go through it again just to meet you one more time,”
Napoleon could feel his eyes begin to water as his chest tightened with emotion.
“You are one of the purest souls I have ever met. You hide it, because the world has been cruel to you, but I never want you to have to hide around me. I promise to protect you and take care of you…”
He paused, a smile gracing his lips, “even if you are still a terrible spy, Cowboy,”
Napoleon had to choke back a laugh, his face breaking into a blinding, open smile anyway. He pulled Illya down to him again, resting their foreheads together.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he said, his voice thick.
“I would only say the same,” Illya smiled back and closed the distance, pulling him into a deep kiss. When they parted, Napoleon was still grinning. He buried his face in Illya’s neck too overwhelmed by the speech to react. After a moment of pause, he finally said, “I didn’t prepare anything,”
Illya rubbed circles into Napoleon’s back, his warm hands covering the smaller man’s shoulders. “I know,”
Napoleon snorted into his shoulder, reveling in the warm embrace. “Of course,” After another pause, he sat up so that he could look Illya in the face. “I love you,”
“я тоже тебя люблю,” Illya murmured back softly.
“That’s it,” Napoleon said, sitting up more and starting Illya.
“What?”
“That’s what I want as a tattoo: возлюбленный”
Illya looked at him for a second, then nodded and smiled. “Okay,”
Soon they were back inside, still surrounded by candlelight; Napoleon was sitting on the table sipping at another bottle of wine as Illya finished laying out his materials next to him.
“Are you sure?” he asked yet again, looking at Napoleon with great concern.
“Yes,” Napoleon said, taking Illya’s hand in his, “I trust you,” he didn’t miss Illya’s gentle smile at the words.
Illya nodded, and started to draw out the design on Napoleon’s chest, right over his heart. The marker tickled Napoleon’s skin, and he felt goosebumps rising on his bare back, even with Illya so close.
It hurt, but Illya kept looking at him with those big, caring eyes, murmuring “sorry” every time he stuck the needle into his skin. Napoleon tried to tell him that it really wasn’t that bad, that he was happy, which seemed to help, but it wasn’t until Illya was sitting back and cleaning the needle that the tension in his wide shoulders melted away.
Napoleon leaned forward and kissed him, thanking him again, then sat back and began to admire his new tattoo. Unexpectedly, the scabbing word, written out in his favorite cramped handwriting, filled him with pride.
“I love it,” He said, looking up at Illya, “It’s a work of art, Peril”
He smiled at Illya’s skeptical look. “Be glad I did not make a mistake,” the Russian said, before carefully dabbing some Vaseline on the wound. With a chuckle Napoleon picked up the pen and looked expectantly at Illya.
“What about you?”
Illya blushed slightly and looked down at the floor. “I was thinking of the day we met…and maybe ковбой”
“That sounds perfect,” Napoleon leaned down and started writing out the date in roman numerals over Illya’s heart, careful to hide his amused smile so that the Russian wouldn’t feel even more embarrassed.
After showing him how to use the needle, Illya switched places with him. Napoleon moved in so that he was settled between Illya’s legs, and finished marking out the text. He had never been an artist, always preferring to admire something beautiful from a distance, but with Illya’s warmth surrounding him and his chest full of emotion, he found the process just as calming as a stroll through the Louvre.
When it was done, Napoleon carefully dabbed away the blood and kissed Illya’s collarbone just above the design.
“I never thought I would be happy to see a new scar,” Illya said, running his hands through Napoleon’s hair, “But I also never knew I could feel like this,”
Napoleon looked up at him, “Are we married now?” he asked.
“Almost,”
Illya took both of Napoleon’s hands in his and gave him a mock serious look. “We must say ‘I do’”
“I do,” Napoleon said, his every emotion playing out on his face.
“I do,” Illya said, his hands steady and sure.
They came together as if pulled by an unseen force, with Illya leaning his forehead against Napoleon’s.
“You may now…” Napoleon lost his train of thought as he stared into Illya’s eyes, and before he could even registered it, their lips met.
If anyone had told him ten years ago that he would be standing in his own kitchen, kissing his big, gorgeous husband, he probably would have laughed in their face.
Yet here he was.
With the word scarred on his chest still sore and his lips swollen from kisses, Napoleon stared up into Illya’s face and saw the same star struck love that was filling his heart.
He’d never met anyone who actually wanted to stay by him, to love him. It only made sense that the person who finally accepted him needed this just as much as he did.
Between soft spoken words of love and appreciation, their kiss deepened, and they soon lost themselves in the candlelit moment.