Work Text:
Napoleon discovered he had a soulmate at a shipping facility outside of Rome.
He never expected it—most people don’t have one, or if they do, they never find them. Billions of people in the world makes bumping into the one that’s made just for you astronomically unlikely. And even if you happen to meet your soulmate, you might not ever find out who it was. Whose pain you were now suddenly sharing. It was a rotten deal, if you asked Napoleon, so he hadn’t been disappointed with his lot.
Then he’d sat in the truck by the harbor and felt his lungs burning like they’d never burned before. Just an echo of feeling at first, nearly ignorable, but getting stronger as his soulmate drowned.
Napoleon likes to think he’d have rescued Illya Kuryakin even if he wasn’t his soulmate, but he’ll never know for sure. What he knows is that after he dragged Illya out of the harbor, he vowed never to let it show again. Having a soulmate was a serious liability, and even moreso in this business. That vow was only solidified when it became clear that he wasn’t Illya’s soulmate—the bastard hadn’t flinched when Rudi had been lighting up Napoleon like a Christmas tree. So obviously, Napoleon was taking this little secret to the grave.
It hasn’t been as bad as all that. Yes, Illya gets hurt not infrequently, but Napoleon’s gotten used to it. Most of the time it’s hardly distinguishable from his own aches and pains after a rough mission. There are even unexpected benefits, like how he knows if Illya is hiding an injury and they need to slow down. That pesky little soulmate connection has saved Illya’s life more than once, so Napoleon can’t be too upset about it if it’s letting him know when his partner is in trouble.
And right now, Illya is in quite a lot of trouble.
Twelve Hours Earlier
The lavish party is a symbol of everything Illya despises. Excessively wealthy people parading around in outrageous displays of wealth, dripping with jewels and scarfing down caviar—it makes his blood boil. Attending events like this is one of Illya’s least favorite parts of his job, although knowing that the information they glean here will be used to dismantle some extremely unsavory organizations helps. As does knowing that his partner is out there liberating a number of the aforementioned jewels from their unsuspecting owners—though he’ll only admit that one to himself.
After two years, it’s difficult to pretend that he’s not hopelessly charmed by all of the little things about Napoleon Solo that he used to find so irritating at first. The fussy clothes. The sticky fingers. The showboating. How stubborn he is sometimes—nearly as stubborn as Illya. In many ways, their partnership should be a recipe for disaster, but instead, their jagged edges fit together.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise, given…
But, no. That has nothing to do with it. Illya doesn’t put any stock in that kind of thing and, as far as he knows, neither does Napoleon. They’re just very good at working together. That’s all.
Illya checks his watch, then scans the rooftop patio that has been transformed into a glittering venue, taking note of the locations of their various targets. It’s not a complicated mission. Several attendees at the party are working on different aspects of design and manufacture of a new weapons system, though the project is so secret that none of them know that the others are involved. UNCLE, however, knows about all of them. What they don’t know—what Napoleon and Illya have been sent to find out—is exactly what each of them are doing. That involves wheedling out just enough details from liquor-loosened lips at the party to lead them to plans and facilities. This kind of espionage was never Illya’s forte, but luckily, Napoleon is out there working his magic.
Illya’s eyes snag on his partner, lingering longer than they should. He’s in a tux, as Illya is, but he wears it with none of the unease that Illya can never seem to fully shake. His bowtie is crisp and straight, his hair slicked perfectly into position. Later, in the safe house, Illya will get to witness what few others do: Napoleon Solo undone, tux wrinkled, the ends of his tie loose, curls escaping pomade. As beautiful as he is now, all put together, nothing compares to that.
“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” a voice says from behind Illya’s left elbow, as if summoned by those most secret thoughts. Illya allows himself half a second of hope that the voice’s owner isn’t talking about Napoleon, but when he turns, the woman who has somehow managed to sneak up on him is still looking at his partner. At Illya’s movement, her green eyes flicker back to his, and she smiles in a way that sends ice through his veins. “You’re a lucky man.”
Illya keeps his face completely blank despite the fact that about a thousand alarm bells are ringing in his head right now. He doesn’t recognize this woman—medium height, with a muscular build not hidden by the sleek red evening gown she’s wearing, her dark hair twisted up off her neck—but the way she holds herself, the way her eyes flick around the room, screams military training. More distressingly, apparently she recognizes Illya and Napoleon, and knows they’re connected in some way.
“I do not know what you mean,” Illya responds flatly. “Who?”
She laughs with a cruel kind of mirth that makes his skin crawl. “There’s no need to play dumb with me, comrade. I know who you are. What you are. So I know you will do whatever I ask.”
“You do not know me if you believe that,” Illya returns. He glances over her form again, wracking his memory for any sign that he’s encountered her before. He doesn’t find any, but he does come up with some clues. “You are KGB,” he finally says, not bothering to make it into a question. Her eyebrows lift infinitesimally, as good as a confirmation. “I am on special assignment. And I do not take orders from you.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she says, her smile sharp. “No, I am like you. Former.”
Illya doesn’t bother to correct her misconception of his own position. “Defected?”
“Independent.”
This seems extremely unlikely to Illya. Almost no one is former KGB, unless they are in a gulag or being protected by a foreign government. Illya himself has not technically been discharged—he is officially on loan to UNCLE. But if she deserted and they have not caught her, it means she’s very good. And likely very dangerous.
“Whatever you want, I cannot help you,” Illya grunts. Maybe she’s looking for assistance, or intel, but whatever it is, Illya isn’t interested.
She leans in close, her heels giving her enough reach to whisper close to his ear. “I disagree. You’re coming with me, comrade. Because if you don’t, he dies.”
Illya cannot stop his eyes from immediately seeking out Napoleon again, reassuring himself that yes, he’s still there chattering with a mark, no obvious threats to his safety in view. He pulls back from the woman, delivering a skeptical look.
“You will forgive me if I do not believe you.”
She shrugs, apparently unperturbed. “I could be bluffing. Or, I have a sniper trained on him now.” With a barely-perceptible nod, she indicates a building to the left. No one is visible in the dim light, of course, but that’s to be expected. Then she flashes a small device in her palm, like ones designed to send encrypted messages in pulses of radio static. “My man shoots unless I send the correct signal.”
Illya looks from the device, to her face, to the purported sniper’s nest and back again, trying to calculate how likely it is that she’s telling the truth. It probably is a bluff—what are the odds that she could know the sniper would have a clean shot at any given point? But if she is former KGB, then Illya should not underestimate her. Perhaps that’s a good reason he shouldn’t go with her.
“Tick tock,” she says when he stands there for too long without speaking. “Which will it be? His life or your liberty?”
Maybe two years ago, his answer to that question would have been different. Or maybe not. He’s known—and kept secret—the terrible truth of what Napoleon is to him since that bathroom in West Berlin. He’d tried to pretend it changed nothing, but two years later, it’s hard to argue, even with himself.
“Whatever plan you have… it will not go well for you,” Illya says, knowing even as he says it that it’s as much a signal of his surrender as if he’d held out his wrists.
“I guess we’ll see,” she says with a triumphant smile, then gestures toward the door.
As he turns to follow, Illya glances at Napoleon and finds his partner staring back. For one moment, Napoleon’s careful mask cracks and a tiny furrow appears between his brows.
Illya gives an infinitesimal shake of his head. Don’t follow. Continue the mission.
Don’t come after me.
“So he went with this mystery woman,” Gaby says over the secure line, even though they’ve already been through this once.
Napoleon paces the narrow living room of the safehouse, tethered by the stretchy phone cord, digging his hands into his already wrecked hair. It’s been almost a full day since Illya went dark. Just walked away from the mission and disappeared without a trace. Napoleon should have listened to his gut and gone after him immediately, despite Illya’s signal to the contrary.
At first, he’d been forced to wait for some kind of signal. Then he’d gotten one, though maybe not one Illya intended to send.
“Yes,” Napoleon confirms, not bothering to hide his beleaguered tone.
“Freely?”
“Well he wasn’t being dragged out, if that’s what you mean.”
There’s a pause and Napoleon can almost hear her rolling her eyes. She clearly doesn’t understand his urgency. This was supposed to be a duo mission—she’d been assigned a different, related objective in a nearby city—but perhaps that’d been a mistake. As good as Napoleon and Illya are together, they always worked best as a team of three.
“I just mean, how do we know he’s actually in trouble?” she asks, playing the voice of reason to his meltdown.
“You know he wouldn’t just walk away from this. From us,” he insists. “He’s loyal, Gabs. Most loyal sonofabitch I’ve ever known.”
“He’s also still a KGB agent,” she points out. “What if they pulled him in on something?”
Napoleon shakes his head vehemently, even though she can't see him. “No, you don’t understand. He’s not off working some other mission, or on holiday, or even just sitting around. He’s in real trouble.”
“I just don’t see how you can draw that conclusion—”
“Because he’s being tortured,” he blurts, the words bubbling up before he can stop them.
No one knows about their connection. No one. Not even Gaby. She’d probably have opinions, and Napoleon didn’t want anyone’s input. It’s been difficult, hiding it from her—there have been some close calls, times when Illya was injured badly enough that it was hard to hold in his own reaction—but the dead silence on the line now tells him he’s been successful.
“How could you possibly know that?” she asks.
Napoleon doesn’t have to answer, because as luck would have it, at that moment something happens to Illya’s left knee that makes his vision white out. A raw cry of pain is ripped from his throat, and he collapses onto the ground. Static takes over his hearing, so it takes a moment to realize that Gaby is calling his name frantically.
“I’m here, I’m here, it’s fine,” he hisses between gritted teeth.
“Well it doesn’t sound fucking fine,” she snaps. “What happened? Are you injured?”
“It’s… not me. It’s not my pain.”
There’s another beat of silence, and then she says, “No. It can’t be.”
Napoleon nearly laughs. He’d had the same reaction once. “I hate to break it to you, but it can.”
“You’re soulmates? But— but you two get injured constantly! And what, you were just hiding it? All this time?” she demands.
“Can you blame me?” he says wearily. “But you’re wrong about one thing. He’s my soulmate, yeah. But I’m not his.”
Gaby makes a sound that might be a scoff. “How do you know?”
“Because I know,” Napoleon huffs. “He never reacts when I get injured.”
“Solo,” she says flatly, “we just established you’ve been hiding it. Rather successfully. Who’s to say he isn’t, too?”
“I’d know.” One time, he’d gotten shot and Illya hadn’t so much as winced. “It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that whoever has him isn’t being friendly.”
“Could still be the KGB,” she reasons, and ok, she’s not wrong. If they suspected Illya of being a traitor, he could be halfway to a gulag already, no matter what deal he had that allowed him to work for UNCLE.
“Does that make a difference?” he asks, blowing out a deep breath. The pain in his knee is receding to a deep throb. Soon it will be no more than a twinge for him, at least until Illya’s captors inflict more damage. “We have to find him, no matter who it is.”
“Makes a difference of how much shit we’re wading into,” she mutters. She takes a deep breath. “Of course we’re going to find him. Now—do you know anything about this woman?”
“Not yet,” Napoleon is forced to admit. “But I might know someone who does.”
The thing about being tortured by a former KGB agent is that she knows exactly how they were trained. The kinds of interrogations they were made to be able to resist. Because of that, Illya would have expected certain strategies, counters to the countermeasures, not to mention some of the KGB’s own techniques for breaking a prisoner.
Instead, the torture is erratic, and the interrogation haphazard. Which is not to say it’s not exceedingly painful. Illya himself has never been tortured (outside the controlled conditions of his training), though he’d felt the effects of Napoleon’s electrocution enough to leave him struggling to breathe, no matter how he’d tried to suppress his reaction. This is something else altogether.
Still, there’s no chance that he’ll break and give away the vital secrets about UNCLE and his colleagues there that his captors are demanding of him. Sometimes he’s convinced that they know he won’t give in, and they’re just causing him pain for the sake of it. Not impossible, of course. Perhaps they’re sadists. But something tells Illya that’s not it, either.
He learns things about his captors, more than they probably realize. The leader—the woman who approached him—goes by Katya, at least to her subordinates, and spends most of her time in men’s trousers and button-down shirts with a cigarette clutched in one hand. The rest of the men seem to be mercenaries, though how she’s paying them, Illya can’t tell. He knows little about her business other than she’s very fixated on UNCLE for reasons he can’t figure out. Perhaps they crossed her at some point; they’ve tangled with so many small-time criminals and other intelligence organizations over the years that it’s impossible to say. What’s clear is that she’s been watching them closely for some time, because she knows all kinds of things she really, really shouldn’t.
“You know, I really thought he’d be here by now,” Katya says, conversationally, some unknown amount of time later. “Your partner,” she adds when he stubbornly refuses to engage. “Three days? Tsk, tsk. If I didn’t know better, I would think he didn’t care.”
Illya has refused to talk to anyone since they brought him here, and he’s certainly not interested in playing her games. But it’s been three days—apparently—of pain and sleep deprivation, and if she’s waiting for Napoleon, she will be waiting for a while.
“I told him… do not come after me,” Illya rasps, the words grinding in his parched throat.
Her eyes light up at his reply. Triumph at getting him talking. “Honestly, Mr. Kuryakin. Do you think that would stop him if he knew you were in trouble?”
Well, no. Probably not. But that assumes a key point. “How would he know? Maybe I… defect.”
She meanders slowly across the room, until she’s right next to where he’s hanging by his arms, bound over his head. Almost close enough for him to lash out. And maybe he should have, even if it wouldn’t get him much, because she brings her own knee up and forces it against his ruined one. He grinds his teeth together as fresh agony lances through him, twisting in his bindings reflexively, which only causes his shoulders and wrists to scream.
“I imagine he knows because he’s in quite a bit of pain right now,” she murmurs, only just audible over the blood rushing in his ears.
He forces his eyes open, more shocked by this statement than the torture. “What?”
“He’ll know,” she continues, strolling casually away toward a table containing various instruments of torture, “because he feels all of it.”
“But I am not…” Illya begins before he realizes he shouldn’t be saying anything.
Katya looks up at him. “His soulmate?” she finishes, her eyebrows arching toward the ceiling. “But of course you are. Just as he is yours.” Then she frowns. “Did you honestly not know?”
“This is lie,” Illya spits.
“It’s obvious, if you’re looking for it,” she says, trailing a finger over a long pair of pliers. “What he shows when he thinks no one is watching. It’s not much, I’ll grant him that. Easy to miss. But… I was looking for it. I’ve been looking for it for quite a long time, in fact.”
Illya thinks there’s no way he would have missed something of this magnitude. That Napoleon couldn’t have hid it from him for years. Impossible. She’s fishing, or lying outright.
Whatever her game, he’s done playing it. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, forcing his mind away from the throbbing pain.
“You don’t believe me,” she says, sounding not at all surprised or put out by this fact. He hears footsteps, but they’re receding. Then she pauses again. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Napoleon knows going in that it’s a trap. It was too easy to track the mystery woman down, once he put his mind to it. He didn’t even need Gaby’s help, if he’s honest, but he’s glad he had it. His days of working better alone are long behind him.
He’s alone now, though.
A contact at the party identified her as Katya Novikova, former KGB, now the head of an independent intelligence organization. Something of a shadowy version of UNCLE, in a way, with far less scruples and no aim to make the world a better place. They’d run up against Novikova early on after Waverly had drafted them from their respective agencies, though they never interacted with her directly. Figuring out where she was holding Illya locally took a bit longer, but even then, there’d been breadcrumbs. Hints that seemed almost designed for Napoleon to find them.
Hence: the trap that he was about to walk into. But sometimes avoiding the trap wasn’t the best move. Sometimes, you had to play right into their hands, because people like this were at their weakest when they were sure they’d already won.
Which is not to say that Napoleon has simply walked up to the front door and turned himself in. The facility is well-guarded, and he and Gaby spent hours planning the approach, arguing the whole time. Tensions are high. They both want Illya back in one piece, but they often disagree on the best way to accomplish that.
So far, it’s been going off smoothly. Napoleon has made his way into the facility without triggering alarms or allowing the guards to alert anyone. He’s gotten to the location where they’re holding Illya off one of them, and is approaching unnoticed—as far as he can tell. Perhaps this, too, is part of the trap, but if it is, Novikova is willing to sacrifice a good number of her men for it. Napoleon wouldn’t put it past her, based on what he knows.
When he arrives and finds Novikova herself in the concrete room where they’re holding Illya with a pair of goons at her side, that suspicion is confirmed. Three is probably too many to take out without getting shot himself. Even if Novikova herself doesn’t appear to be armed.
“So good of you to finally join us, Mr. Solo,” she purrs when he appears in the doorway. So, perhaps not quite unnoticed. She puts on an exaggerated pout. “Though a bit slow, no?”
“Had to make sure we’d have a way out,” Napoleon says past the rifle in his hands, never letting the barrel waver from her chest. His eyes flit around the room, lingering on Illya long enough to take in the bandaged wounds and bruises covering his exposed skin where he hangs by his bound wrists, his feet just dangling into a large basin of water. No wonder Napoleon’s shoulders have been killing him, to say nothing of the rest of it.
He catches Illya’s eyes no longer than a second, but long enough to see that he’s alert, which is a relief. Still, his condition is enough to make Napoleon’s finger tighten around the trigger, and he has to grit his teeth to keep from shooting her out of pure anger. That’s not the plan. Not yet, anyway.
“And yet, you still came in alone,” she replies smugly. She waves a hand towards his gun. “You might as well put that down. It won’t do any good here.”
“What if I just kill you right now? Do you think your mercenaries will be loyal?”
She smiles, unbothered. “Well, you’ll be depriving them of their paycheck, so they might just be mad enough to shoot you dead in retribution for that.”
Napoleon allows a split second to glance at the two men, whose expressions suggest her assessment of the situation is correct.
“There’s only one way out of this for you,” she continues.
“Which is?”
“It’s very simple. You give me the information I need to take Alexander Waverly down for good, and you come work for me.”
Napoleon can’t help it—he laughs. “Is that all? I’m afraid I have to decline that offer.”
For the first time, Novikova’s placid expression sours. “I don’t see why you’re so loyal to him, of all people. He sacrificed you to a Nazi the first mission you worked together.”
She’s not wrong, and that certainly hadn’t helped their early relationship, but they’ve moved past it. Now that Illya and Napoleon are actually his agents and not just annoying complications in an existing operation? There’s very little he wouldn’t do for them, as he’s proved more than once.
“And you’ve been torturing my partner for three days,” Napoleon counters. “So why would I ever work for you?”
“That’s the difference between him and me. I’m not asking,” she says. She gestures toward one of her goons, who moves toward a box with wires trailing out of it. In doing so, he has to lower his weapon, but before Napoleon can move to take out the other guard, Novikova pulls out a pistol and points it at Illya’s head. “Ah ah ah, no sudden moves from you,” she warns as the man behind her works on the machine, unwinding two lead lines with long metal rods on the end of them, one of which he drops into the basin of water at Illya’s feet. “You may ask, why us? I will grant you, your organization is quite an annoyance to my business. But when I started looking into you all, I discovered the most amazing thing.” She pauses, apparently for dramatic effect, and smiles broadly. It makes her look even more insane. “Agents who are soulmates.”
The blood in Napoleon’s veins turns to ice. There’s no way she could know. No one knows, except for Gaby, but that was a recent development. Novikova is just fishing. She has to be. His eyes flick over to Illya again, but his partner’s eyes are closed and his mouth pressed into a hard line.
“I mean, it’s no wonder you’re so effective,” she continues, punctuating it with a laugh. “Having that kind of connection? Knowing when your partner is in trouble? What could I accomplish if I had agents like that working for me?” She sighs, almost wistfully, then smiles at Napoleon again. “The possibilities are almost limitless.”
“There’s one problem with this plan,” Napoleon says, keeping his tone light.
She cocks an eyebrow at him. “Oh? Indulge me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lies. “Soulmates? Please. It’s ridiculous.”
“You’re usually a better liar than that, Mr. Solo,” she says. Then she flicks her wrist, and the goon with the machine presses one of the metal rods to Illya’s bare arm.
Illya convulses as electric current courses through him, but Napoleon is hardly aware of what’s going on across the room. The blinding sensation that explodes within him is as familiar as it is terrible. It’s not as intense as Rudi’s chair, but it’s close—enough to knock all the air from his lungs, enough to bring him to his knees. The metallic taste of blood blooms in his mouth, though whether he’s bitten his tongue or it’s some weird side effect, he doesn’t know. And just like when he was in the chair, almost when he’s sure his heart is going to stop, it lets up.
For a long moment he sits there, crumpled on the ground, listening to his own ragged breathing.
“Fascinating,” Novikova says, with clinical detachment. That, too, reminds him of Rudi in a way that makes his whole body shudder. “You were saying?”
With great effort and no shortage of dread, Napoleon raises his head. He ignores Novikova, though, and looks right at Illya, whose mouth is hanging open in an almost comical expression of shock. This is news to him, as well, that he is Napoleon’s soulmate. And probably not particularly welcome news.
Napoleon grits teeth and tears his eyes away to glare at Novikova instead. “Go fuck yourself.”
She raises her hand, and the goon electrocutes Illya again. Predictable, but Napoleon couldn’t help himself. At least, this time it doesn’t last as long. When it finally lets up, he raises his rifle again with great effort, though he’s still kneeling on the floor.
“You can make this stop any time,” Novikova reminds him. “End the pain for him and yourself at the same time. Or you,” she says to Illya. “You may think you can tough through your own pain, but look at what it’s doing to him. What you’re doing to him.”
Napoleon very nearly laughs. It’s not that he doesn’t think Illya cares for him. He knows he does, actually. Perhaps not in the way Napoleon wishes he did, but he has seen Illya take risks and make calls that he shouldn’t have for the express purpose of keeping both of his partners safe. But this—Illya would never make such a trade, and neither would Napoleon.
And yet, he still thinks he sees indecision flicker in Illya’s eyes.
“We’ll never work for you,” Napoleon growls, punctuating it by spitting blood onto the bare concrete floor. “Never.”
Novikova’s face scrunches up in irritation, and she moves to signal the goon again, but he never gets there. A flash-bang grenade comes rolling into the room, and Napoleon covers his ears as he summons all his meager strength to dive to the side. When he raises his head again, the room is full of UNCLE operatives dressed in combat gear, the goon with the gun is dead, and Novikova has dropped her pistol.
“Get him down,” Gaby barks, standing in the midst of it all. “Carefully! Watch his knee!”
Napoleon’s nerves are frayed enough that he can’t hold back the wince when they finally release Illya’s arms from their bindings, though everyone is so focused on his wounded partner that they don’t notice. Everyone but Gaby, who is watching him like a hawk.
“Alright there, Solo?”
He nods as he struggles to his feet, waving her off, and half-stumbles over to where an agent is getting ready to arrest Novikova. Normally, this would be a good thing. They’d see what they could get from her, then throw her in prison, or perhaps send her back to the Soviets, if they were feeling vindictive. But this isn’t a normal situation.
Napoleon dismisses the agent as he grabs Novikova’s pistol off the ground, then points it at her forehead. “Who else knows about us?” he asks, his voice low to avoid being overheard.
“Why should I tell you?” she hisses. “You’re just going to kill me anyway.”
“Yes,” he admits. That knowledge—that Illya is his soulmate—is too dangerous to risk getting out. Napoleon doesn’t particularly enjoy killing people. Even truly evil ones. But sometimes, needs must. “But it will make a difference how long it takes.”
Novikova glares up at him, and for a moment he thinks she’s still going to refuse. But then she says, “Just the people in this room.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks,” he says. Then he puts a single bullet in her brain, turns, and shoots the remaining goon—already bound and awaiting extraction—in the head.
Everyone in the room freezes apart from Illya, who is still trying to tell the agents who were trying to assist him not to fuss over him. Napoleon can see the questions on their faces, the desire to know the reason for his departure from protocol, but they won’t ask. He’s a senior agent, as are Gaby and Illya, and their decisions in the field are final.
“Bring the rest in. They’re guns for hire, but they may be useful,” he says, then turns and walks to the door.
If anyone notices his limp, they say nothing.
Illya has always been a terrible patient, and nothing has changed this time despite the severity of his injuries. He chafes at being bed-bound, can’t stand that he needs assistance to move around, that it will be months before he’s anything like normal.
Then again, things will never be normal. Not after Napoleon showed up to rescue him, demonstrated his soulmate link to Illya in quite dramatic fashion, then disappeared completely.
Perhaps not completely. Illya wouldn’t have put it past him, but Gaby claims he’s still around UNCLE HQ. He’s just not anywhere around Illya, neither in the hospital, nor after Illya had been released to his home. Gaby also says he just needs some time, and that she’s not getting into the middle of it. Whatever “it” is supposed to be. Illya is not quite sure. All he knows is that he’s spent two years thinking he’d been cursed with an unrequited soulmate—two years falling in love with a man who would never be his—and then, when he finally finds out it isn’t true, that they’re both bound together, his soulmate won’t even be in the same room as him.
Also, Illya’s chest hurts for no obvious physical reason. He’s pretty sure it’s not a coincidence.
Perhaps Napoleon hopes that if he ignores this, Illya will simply forget it happened. Perhaps he sees their connection as a weakness. Illya has to admit, it’s tricky and, as they’ve found out, exploitable in a way that could cause trouble. But Illya is pragmatic about it. He is sure that if they work together, they can find a way to manage it. Even make it into an advantage.
And so, as soon as he is able to move around on his own, Illya makes his way over to Napoleon’s apartment. Napoleon lives in a third-floor walk up, and though Illya is confident at the start, the last flight is perhaps more than he should have tried to handle. By the time he gets to the right floor, pain is spiking down his leg from his knee, and he feels winded in a way that’s extremely annoying. He’s in far from a good mood when he knocks heavily on Napoleon’s door, and that does not improve with the time it takes Napoleon to answer it.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake— Is this why I can suddenly barely walk?” he huffs when he sees Illya half-collapsed in his doorway. “What the hell are you doing climbing three flights of stairs?”
“I would not have to,” Illya growls in between breaths, “if someone was not avoiding me.”
At least Napoleon looks sheepish about that. He opens his mouth and closes it again, then sighs. “Well come in and sit down already before you re-injure yourself,” he says, like Illya is being the unreasonable one.
He moves to offer Illya some support, but Illya shakes him off, partly because he’s annoyed and stubbornly doesn’t want his help, and partly because Napoleon is also limping. Illya hobbles across the room with his cane and drops himself gracelessly onto Napoleon’s couch, then glares up at Napoleon where he’s hovering uncertainly nearby.
“Can I get you anything?” he asks, wringing his hand like Illya is a guest. “Maybe an ice pack for your knee?”
“Come here,” Illya grunts.
Napoleon hesitates, then creeps closer, but not close enough. It’s not until Illya looks pointedly at the couch next to him that Napoleon lets out a huff of frustration and sits down.
“Why are you hiding from me,” Illya asks bluntly. He doesn’t talk around things like Napoleon, could never really get the hang of the subtler arts of insinuation and suggestion. He says what he means to say, or he says nothing at all. He’s done the latter for quite some time now in the interest of keeping the whole soulmate thing a secret, but given everything that’s happened… he’s done staying quiet.
“I wasn’t hiding—” Napoleon starts to protest, but Illya cuts him off.
“You are. Why.”
Napoleon sighs heavily and looks away. “Why do you think, Peril?”
“I am your soulmate,” Illya says quietly. It still feels odd to say the words. He should have known—should have noticed Napoleon’s aches and pains mirroring his own, should have recognized the way Napoleon always seemed to have a sixth sense when Illya was injured. But he was too sure that it couldn’t be possible, and too busy worrying Napoleon would discover his secret.
For some reason, Napoleon winces at this statement. “I know it’s probably not entirely welcome information. But—it doesn’t have to mean anything. We work well together. We’re… friends. That doesn’t have to change. Soulmates doesn’t mean it has to be…” He takes a deep breath, like it’s costing him something to continue. “Anything more.”
Illya had been, quite honestly, expecting this. Two men, being soulmates—well, it wasn’t unheard of, but it certainly wasn’t usual. There’d been times, moments when Napoleon had been in a particularly flirtatious mood, that he’d wondered… but no. That was Illya reading too much into things. Hoping for more than was reasonable.
Still, he makes himself ask, “And this is… what you want?”
Napoleon, who had been studiously inspecting an imaginary spot on the couch upholstery, looks up at him sharply. “I don’t— I’m not—”
Illya waits, filling in the words left unsaid. I don’t want you. I’m not like that. Something fractures inside Illya’s chest. To come so close—soulmates—and still have his affections turned aside…
Napoleon takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I suppose you might as well know all of it. No, it’s not entirely… platonic for me.” Then his face screws up, and he huffs, “Oh, fuck it. I’m pretty well in love with you, Peril. But I don’t want you to feel obligated because of the whole soulmate thing, especially since I know it’s not reciprocal—”
“What?” Illya interrupts. He’d been sure that Napoleon knew now. Sure that he’d have figured it out after everything that happened. But then again, why would he? The entire demonstration in Novikova’s compound only established a link in one particular direction.
“It doesn’t have to be the same for you,” Napoleon says, looking powerfully unhappy about all of this. Meanwhile, Illya is having a supremely difficult time keeping a smile from growing on his face. “Which, obviously, you’d have known in Rome, what with the whole electric chair business.”
Illya is losing his battle. He wipes a hand across his mouth to try to hide it. “Yes, Cowboy. I would know. But you are wrong about something.”
“What’s that?”
As an answer, Illya curls his fingers in the front of Napoleon’s shirt and drags him into a kiss. It’s not a particularly good kiss, given the awkward angle, and the fact that Napoleon is so shocked he doesn’t respond for a good fifteen seconds, but then, finally, he makes a little sound low in his throat and kisses Illya back. And as good as it always feels when they work flawlessly together—that perfect snap of two puzzle pieces, the smooth meshing of gears—this is a thousand times better. It feels like that they are not merely two halves of the same whole, but that together they are more than the sum of their individual parts.
Then Illya bites down on Napoleon’s lower lip, hard, and the resulting sting in his own lip is the most delicious pain he’s ever felt in his life.
Napoleon yelps, frowning and rubbing at his slightly swollen lip as he pulls away. “What the fuck was that for?!”
Illya reaches up and presses his fingers to his own lip, wincing a little at the lingering throb. “It was West Berlin that I knew,” he says finally. “My own arm around your throat, and I could not breathe. I told myself it could not be. But I knew, then.”
“You…” Napoleon breathes, his eyes wide.
Illya nods and pulls him forward again, though this time he settles for pressing his forehead to Napoleon’s. “Your pain is mine, Napoleon. It has always been so,” he murmurs into the small gap between them. “But I am good at hiding, as you were.”
“She was right, then,” Napoleon says, pulling back a little to look him in the eye. “Novikova. She knew, even when we didn’t.”
“She had the benefit of watching when no one was supposed to be able,” Illya points out. “But yes. We are both terrible spies this time, Cowboy.”
Napoleon sighs. “I suppose we had better tell Waverly.”
“Probably.”
A little furrow forms between Napoleon’s brows as he chews on his lower lip, and Illya feels the tingle of it in his own. “Do you suppose this will change anything?”
“I hope so,” Illya says, and pulls him into another kiss.