Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s always a moment, somewhere, somehow, when something bad happens. There’s a moment where you can taste regret like bitter soap behind your teeth. Something like needles prickling your skin because surely surely it has to be nothing save a bad dream- and pinching yourself hard enough will wake you up.

It’s been almost three years. Almost three years since Rome, since Illya realised that he had finally found the family he’d been doing without his whole life. Almost three years since he crawled out from under the wreck of that motorcycle, ribs aching, to save the agents who would eventually become his home.

It’s been almost two years since he realised that he wants to kiss Napoleon Solo more than almost anything. Almost two years of not having the nerve to do or say anything about it.

And it’s been ten minutes since the explosion rocked the world around him and blocked him off from the way out. So now he’s here, breathing dust and ancient plaster, and Solo’s bleeding out in his shaking arms.

There’s not much left, save for the bottomless pit opening in Illya’s gut and the hoarse, painful wheezing that’s issuing from Solo’s parted lips. He’d passed beyond consciousness, before Illya even managed to find him in the dim murk of the rubble-filled room.

Illya’s no fool. He knows. He knows that Gaby will have called for help the minute the building blew, and he knows that they’ll be in time to save him… but Solo’s already gone. He’s been gone since that fucking rebar punched in through his lung and out his back.

And Illya doesn’t… doesn’t know what he’s going to do now. Maybe he will drown in the regret. Maybe he’ll find a wall and bang his head against it until the snide little voices stop pressing judgement in his brain. There’s no guarantee that Solo would have stayed- if he’d told the man how he felt about him. Maybe there’s no world where they would have worked out. Maybe Solo knew how he felt but didn’t dare say anything?

Maybe-

No. No more maybes. He waited too long, and now he’ll bear the weight of his cowardice. Because that’s what it is- cowardice.

“I love you,” he murmurs, hoarse from the chalky air. It grates in his lungs, and Illya feels his heart break when Solo shudders under his hand. There’s a soft rasp, and then he’s eerily still. Illya feels his throat burning, feels his eyes well with hot tears of anger.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“I loved you,” he says, and then he bows his head and sobs. “Before I could say it.”

Chapter Text

“You know,” says Gaby, voice pitched low over the rumble of ambient noise around them, “if you could just keep your fingers to yourself then this wouldn’t have happened.”

It’s a tavern, somewhere on the Freevale Road, a little beat down, and a lot busy, and blending in with the assortment of folks is easier here because no one knows what they look like.

Solo grins, lazy, and his pointed ears perk up the way they usually do when he hears an opening for a bad joke. He’s always been a strange fit for a half-elf, too muscular and far too mischievous instead of slender and aloof. “You say that now,” he drawls, sharp cuspids flashing. “But the minute we get in bed-“

“You’re awful,” says Gaby, flat.

Illya hides a smile. The little wood-nymph has that scowl on her face again; the one that means she knows Solo’s right and she’s not happy about it.

“Is too late for regret now,” he points out, the lamplight turning his hair gold as he sits back. The amber swirls along his cheekbones shimmer like secrets, and he can sense Mishka’s contented snoring coming from their room upstairs. The dragonling had been hard pressed to keep up with them. It’s lucky that Illya’s not like most warlocks, he has never seen familiars as expendable. And he has no time for those that do.

Solo hums in agreement, notched ear twitching as Gaby flicks it. “Fair enough,” he quips, smirking. “We can’t exactly go put the treasure back.”

“When I agreed to join you two, I didn’t know we’d be stealing,” grumbles Gaby.

Solo toes Illya’s foot under the table and the warlock offers him an affectionate smile. The half-elf’s eyes crinkle in a rare moment of true emotion, before he’s saying, wickedly, “No, you said ‘i don’t care what shit you’re up to, i’m broke’.”

Gaby punches his arm.

Illya smiles- his lovers are more alike than they realise. He tells them as much, and Gaby gasps in horror.

“We are not alike! Take that back!”

“Aww,” says Solo with a pout. “I was willing to take one for the team.”

“Fuck you,” says Gaby.

“Later, dear,” chides Solo, and his tone is sly.

Illya leans over and pulls his ear. “OW!”

“Is it possible for you to behave when not in bedsheets?” the warlock demands, trying in vain to quell his grin.

Solo shrugs.

It’s been a long day. Illya would be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forwards to getting to rest, the three of them tangled up in each other. They’ve become his home, he knows that, however hard the road can be, it will always lead them back to each other.

Chapter Text

“This certainly isn’t how i expected the evening to go.”

Waverly’s inclined to agree. But sometimes things happen and Illya’s leg still isn’t healed enough to support his weight and Gaby’s taken up the task of watching him so that he doesn’t try to make it.

It’s a last minute thing, really- a lead that’s finally panned out, and he’s not going to send Solo in alone without backup. It hasn’t been that long since Waverly’s last mission, and old dogs don’t need new tricks to spy on a body who wants to shoot up a few people.

Which is why he’s here, why Solo’s here, in the smoky interior of the hidden gay bar in London’s back streets.

It’s quite close to home. And maybe Waverly’s been here before a few times, not that that’s knowledge he’s going to offer up, but…

“If this makes you uncomfortable, Mr Solo, then I won’t blame you for leaving,” says the englishman.

Solo takes a sip of his whiskey, leans sideways to settle better against the director’s side. He’s smiling, but it’s for the audience around their booth when he says, quietly, “It takes a lot for a place like this to disturb me. And you might want to stop calling me Mr. We’re supposed to be dating.”

Waverly’s know, for a while, about Solo’s tastes. It’s hard not to when Illya and him exchange those looks when they think no one else is watching. It’s quite sweet- their devotion.

“Napoleon,” Waverly allows, and Solo hums in agreement.

They’ve been keeping an eye on the target for well over twenty minutes by now, ever since he walked in and deposited himself at a bar. He’s older, grey-streaked hair, and a decidedly mean-looking face.

“It’s refreshing,” Solo murmurs, and in the dim golden lights his eyes look like secrets. “How no one knows who you are when you’re here. Just another face in the crowd.”

Waverly knows exactly what he means. “Do you two come here often then?”

Solo smirks, angling his head to catch Waverly’s gaze. The englishman’s arm is around his waist and their target is none the wiser. “Kinda’ rude to ask after another man, sir.” But then his face softens in that way that means he’s thinking about Illya and he adds, “Sometimes. When we can.”

A love the world will judge. Waverly remembers his father saying something to him in their old hunting lodge all those years ago. Something about what a hard love it would be. He remembers standing there in a hunting jacket with a brace of conies in his hand and uncertainty in his veins until his father added, find the right people, son, and you’ll do alright.

“He’s turning,” Solo mutters, sharp, and it’s true. The target is getting off his barstool, moving. Waverly does the only possible thing that will hide their faces and tugs Solo into a chaste kiss.

It’s warm, gentle, somehow, and the taste is of whiskey and something sweeter that he can’t place. Solo shifts closer, deepens the kiss and moves ever so slightly that Waverly can continue to track their target with one half-lidded eye. He’s gunning for the door.

They break apart as his hand touches the doorhandle.

“Shall we?” asks Waverly. Maybe tonight’s the night they finally catch the man. Pit an end to his criminal activities. That would be a relief.

Solo sweeps out a hand, cheeky. “Age before beauty, sir.”