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Ideally, it would be Gaby doing this. Even Solo; as aggravating as the man can be, he’s shown himself to be surprisingly adept at managing his Russian counterpart’s turbulent moods. Alas, the pair of them are currently sedated upstairs in the makeshift infirmary, and that leaves only poor old Alex Waverly to do the job.
Ah, well. The downsides of being in charge, he supposes.
“What happened?” he asks the guard at the door, handing over his gun and both of his boot knives. The notion of facing down the disoriented and clearly unhinged agent unarmed is more than a little disconcerting, but not nearly as frightening as the idea of inadvertently letting him get his hands on a weapon. He’s no slouch at fisticuffs, but he has no illusions about his chances against Illya Kuryakin, armed or not.
No, there’ll be no fighting this one out. This calls for the gift of gab.
“No idea,” the guard says, looking disturbed. The sound of crashing from inside the exam room has finally stopped, leaving an ominous silence in its wake. “‘E was out cold when they brought ‘im in. Dunno what set ‘im off like this— whatever he was yellin’, it weren’t English.”
Better and better. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anyone on hand who can speak Russian? Mine’s a bit rusty.”
The guard shakes his head. “This is just a field office, sir. We got nobody like that, unless you want to call down to London.”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” English it is. Although really, that might be just as well. If his suspicions are correct, an authority figure speaking his mother tongue might be the worst way to confront Kuryakin just now. He shrugs out of his jacket, removes his tie, and piles both into the arms of the baffled-looking guard.
“...Sir?”
“The idea,” Alexander explains, removing his watch as well, “is to present an air of approachability, not authority.”
The guard blinks. “As you say, sir.”
“Very good.” He squares his shoulders, breathes out, steadying himself, and says, “Go on, then, open the door.”
The situation inside is as bad as he expected but not quite as bad as he feared; the medic is still alive, at least, cowering in the corner and tracking Kuryakin with frightened eyes. The room is in shambles, every item of furniture that can be destroyed—and a few that Alexander would have sworn couldn’t be—in pieces on the floor. Kuryakin is pacing back and forth through the mess, barefoot and shirtless, seemingly oblivious to the distorted angle of his broken arm and the bloody footprints he’s leaving on the concrete floor. He doesn’t look up when the door opens, but the medic does, his mouth opening.
Alexander cuts him off with a sharp gesture, closing the door behind him. So far, Kuryakin has vented himself on the inanimate objects in the room, but that may very well change if the medic is foolish enough to draw his attention.
“Hello, Illya,” he says evenly.
Kuryakin doesn’t even glance at him. “Otvali.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Alexander says. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
In response, Kuryakin hooks his good arm under the mostly-intact exam table and hurls it into the far wall with a resounding crash. He spins as he does so, and Alexander can see his left trouser leg flapping, soaked through with blood and cut open up the seam nearly to his hip. The medic is still clutching a pair of trauma shears in one shaking hand.
Ah. Suddenly, it all makes a bit more sense. They really are quite fortunate that Kuryakin didn’t actually break the man’s neck when he woke up and realized what was happening.
“Your leg was injured,” Alexander says, taking a step forward, both hands up, palms out. “You were grazed in the shootout. Do you remember? George here was just trying to get you all fixed—”
That was a tactical error, he realizes almost immediately. Kuryakin’s wild blue eyes flicker toward him, then toward the medic, and then he crosses the room in two long strides to haul the man up to his feet. “Yesli ti podoidyosh blizhe, ya yego ub'yu..”
Alexander stops short. “There’s no need for any of that. I’ll stay right here, all right?”
“Vernis' k dveri!”
Obediently, he takes a step back, then another, until his spine hits the door frame. The guard is— fortunately— out of sight. Kuryakin is still staring at him without recognition, one big hand spanning the nape of the medic’s neck. Alexander isn’t sure whether or not he can snap a man’s neck one-handed, but he isn’t particularly eager to find out. Neither, he suspects, is the medic. Poor bastard. They really need to start giving out hazard pay.
“All right,” he says. “We seem to have reached an impasse. The ball is—so to speak—in your court. What do you want? You can walk out of here, if you like. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I won’t stop you.”
Ah, that did the trick. Kuryakin stares at him for a long moment, brow furrowed, and then he says, slowly, “Waverly. What is happening?”
His accent is thicker than usual, but at least now they are— quite literally— speaking the same language. “Well, currently you’re in an MI6 field office clinic, threatening to kill your medic. I think we’d all appreciate it if you didn’t.”
He looks down at the medic, still dangling from his hand with the limp, terrified manner of a cornered rabbit, then lets him go with a rough shove. The man scrambles across the room so quickly that he nearly falls over; Kuryakin stares at him for a moment, then reaches down to touch the bloody graze just above his knee, his bare thigh, the flapping fabric that’s left of his trousers.
“I thought he was— I thought—” He shakes his head abruptly. “Never mind. The others?”
“Mr. Solo and Miss Teller are currently sleeping the sleep of the blissfully sedated upstairs. They should both make a full recovery. As should you, if you’ll let this good man continue treating you.” Kuryakin gives him a long, narrow-eyed look, and he sighs. “At least let him set the arm.”
Kuryakin glances down at his broken arm as though he’s just noticed it, then nods with visible reluctance. “Fine. But no drugs.”
“As you like.” Alexander looks over at the medic. “George, is it? Are you feeling up to it, or shall I send the guard to fetch one of your colleagues?”
The little man blinks at him owlishly for a moment, then straightens, steeling himself with a visible effort. “It’s Charles, actually. And I’d be— I’d be very pleased to finish treating Agent Kuryakin. If he’s willing.”
Scowling, Kuryakin flips over the one mostly-intact chair in the room and sits down. Charles the medic approaches him cautiously, like a man approaching a feral dog that might snap at any moment. It’s an impression, Alexander thinks, that he can be forgiven for; he’s actually quite impressed that the man didn’t run screaming out of the room the first opportunity he got. He’ll have to commend the section chief on his hiring practices.
“This is going to hurt a great deal,” Charles says, after prodding gingerly at the break for a moment. “The bones will have to be re-aligned. I can give you a muscle relaxant if…” He quails at the glare Kuryakin turns on him. “Very well. Just… just try to hold still. Relax your muscles as much as you can.”
Alexander doesn’t miss the way Kuryakin’s mouth twists at that, but he doesn’t move. “Fine. Get on with it.”
The medic puts his hands on Kuryakin’s arm, above the break, and Alexander looks away hastily. He’s seen his share of field treatment— during the war, and since— and it’s not something he has any desire to watch again. Some instinct warns him against ducking out of the room as he’d like to do, though; Kuryakin hasn’t looked at him directly since he first came out of the fugue state, but still, under the circumstances, a familiar presence is probably beneficial. For the medic’s continued good health, if nothing else.
He can hear the medic muttering to himself, the clanging as he digs through the mess of his kit for splints; Kuryakin doesn’t make a noise the entire time.
When it’s done, Charles steps back, hesitates, and says, “The leg wound really ought to be bandaged. I’ve cleaned it, but—”
“Give me the bandages. I’ll do it.”
When the medic hesitates fractionally, Alexander steps forward. “Charles, you’ve been marvellously helpful, thanks ever so much. Would you perhaps be able to find some clean clothes for our Russian friend here? It looks like his are a bit of a loss.”
“Of— of course,” Charles stutters, and all but flees. Alexander watches in silence as Kuryakin bandages his leg one-handed, with the sure confidence of a man who’s done this very thing many times before, considers offering his assistance, and decides against it. The Russian seems to have the matter well in hand, anyway. By the time Charles returns with a pile of freshly laundered clothes, he’s nearly finished.
“If you’d like a new shirt and some trousers that aren’t flapping about your legs, I’ve got them here,” Alexander calls from the doorway. “I’m afraid I can’t offer a bath, but…”
Kuryakin unfolds out of his chair and crosses the room. He’s limping slightly now, but the bleeding seems to have stopped; there’s a spectacular bruise purpling the side of his face. He glowers down at Alexander for a long moment, then holds out his hand. “Give them to me. And then leave.”
This doesn’t seem like quite the moment to insist on respect for the chain of command (and Kuryakin is not, normally, the agent who needs that sort of reminder), so Alexander nods, hands the clothes over, and backs out of the room without a word.
The medic has already fled, but the guard is still there, and he looks Alexander up and down with an air of startled respect. “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so, sir, you’ve got balls of steel. Couldn’t have paid me to walk into that room.”
“Thanks very much,” Alexander says, and rubs at his forehead, where a nascent headache is forming. “I’d like my jacket and tie back now, if you don’t mind. And then you can go.”
“Are you sure, sir?” The guard’s voice is dubious.
“Quite sure, thank you. I can take it from here.”
The guard still looks doubtful, but he’s too well-trained to argue. He hands over Alexander’s effects and makes himself scarce. Alexander gets himself squared away, waits a few minutes, then knocks on the door. “Are you decent?”
There’s a grunt from inside, but no sounds of shattering glass or Russian profanity, so he pushes open the door. Kuryakin is half-dressed, wearing trousers and one shoe, standing in the middle of the room on his shod foot and carefully mopping the blood off of his other foot with what looks like a length of bandage. He glances up when Alexander comes in, but doesn’t otherwise acknowledge his presence. When his foot is more or less clean, he rolls on a sock and slides his other shoe on.
“Would you like to tell me what that was about?” Alexander asks, at length.
Kuryakin doesn’t even glance at him this time. “No.”
“Because if you’re going to make a habit of attacking medical personnel, I’d like to know so I can at least give them a warning beforehand.”
“It will not be habit. I was… disoriented. I thought I was somewhere else.”
“Yes, I did manage to work out that much. Where? Back in Russia?”
Kuryakin scowls and doesn’t answer, which is answer enough. That’s useful to know, and it rather bears out what Alexander has been thinking. It was the treatment that set him off, not the injury itself. Not the broken arm or the bullet wound, but the medic’s scissors cutting his clothes away.
The world has done a lot of damage to his agents before they fell into his lap, he knows that. It’s not often that he has his face shoved in the evidence of that quite so firmly, though. He sighs. “I’m sorry.”
“Is not your fault.”
“I know. I was expressing my sympathy.”
“I do not need sympathy,” Kuryakin snaps, pulling the sleeve of his shirt up over his splinted arm without dislodging the sling. It’s a tricky maneuver that he executes the the deftness of long practice. “I am KGB agent, not little child.”
“No, I suppose you never really were a child, were you, Agent Kuryakin?”
That isn’t strictly true. Kuryakin’s file includes a photo of a little blond boy standing between his parents outside of Neskuchny Garden and wearing a gap-tooth smile— but that was a childhood that ended in banishment and ostracism. There’s no innocence to be had in the shadow of a traitor in Russia. That little boy with his engaging smile might as well be dead; certainly Alexander can see no sign of him in the hulking, taciturn agent before him. If Kuryakin has a softer side, it’s not something he’s willing to display in front of his superior officers. Which is only to be expected, really. The KGB does not reward softness.
“What do you want?” Kuryakin asks, and yanks the shirt over his head. It’s slightly too small, straining against the breadth of his shoulders, and the trousers show a full two inches of bare ankle. In other circumstances, Alexander would find the figure he cuts quite comical.
“I thought you might like to see your partners. And I know you need to sleep; there’s a free bed in the infirmary…” he trails off when Kuryakin tenses visibly. “Or there’s the sofa in my office, if you can promise not to bleed all over it.”
Kuryakin gives him a long, cool stare— he knows he’s being managed, of course; whatever else he may be, the man is far from stupid— then finally nods. “Fine.”
“Excellent,” Alexander says, with a bright cheeriness he doesn’t feel. “Follow me.”
The infirmary is dimly lit, Solo and Gaby the only two patients. They’re both asleep, both looking rather worse for the wear.
“I’m told they’ll both make a full recovery,” Alexander says softly, when Kuryakin pauses in the doorway. “They should be on their feet within the week.”
“Of course they will,” Kuryakin says, and crosses over to the two beds.
A more demonstrative man might squeeze limp fingers, might include a few whispered declarations of affection, but of course Kuryakin does neither. He brushes a curl of dark hair out of Gaby’s eyes, then settles the pads of his fingers briefly against the side of her throat; it’s only when he repeats the gesture on Solo that Alexander realizes he’s checking for a pulse.
Apparently satisfied that both his partners are still alive, he steps back, stands still in the space between their beds for a long moment, his head bent— from this angle, Alexander can’t see his expression— then spins on his heel and walks out of the room. Alexander stares after him for a moment, shakes his head, and follows.
As far as he’s aware— which is to say, he’s quite certain— Kuryakin has never been inside of this particular facility, but he makes his way unerringly through the maze of hallways to Alexander’s office.
“How did you know where it was?” Alexander asks, curious, when they stop in front of the unmarked door.
“MI6 facilities all have similar layout. Easy to determine.” Kuryakin gives him a look that on another man would be smug. “Easy to infiltrate.”
“Ta very much,” Alexander mutters, and unlocks the door. “Do try to remember that we’re on the same side now.”
“I would not forget,” Kuryakin says flatly, the hint of momentary humor vanishing. He hesitates in the hallway instead of following Alexander into the room, and it takes Alexander several long moments to figure out why. It’s been a very long few days, what with one thing or another, and he’s not as young as he once was; the sleep deprivation is making his head fuzzy.
“I was quite serious about the sofa, you know,” he says, jerking his chin toward the aforementioned piece of furniture. It’s olive green and offensively ugly; if Kuryakin does bleed all over it, that might actually be an improvement. “I’ll even get you a blanket, if you’d like.”
Kuryakin stares at him for a long moment. “You are not my mother, Waverly.”
“No, I’m not, and thank God for that. I haven’t the legs for silk stockings.”
“Silk stockings are capitalist decadence,” Kuryakin says, edging into the room. His eyes flick over the Spartan appointments— the heavy wooden desk, the iron coat stand, the single narrow window— and then he sits down on the sofa with a studied caution that makes Alexander suspect he’s in a great deal more pain than he’s letting on. “A good Soviet woman would never wear them.”
Perhaps he should have tried harder to convince the man to take a morphine pill, although it likely would have been a lost cause in any case. “And your mother was a good Soviet woman, was she?”
Kuryakin glances up at him, eyes hooded. “Of course not.”
There’s a deep well of unpleasantness there that Alexander doesn’t have the fortitude to begin plumbing tonight. Instead, he scoops the mission file off of the top of the teetering pile on his desk and passes it over. “If you’re not going to sleep, you can make yourself useful. This is Solo’s account of the rescue mission; if you could make any necessary additions or corrections, that would be rather helpful. He was entirely out of his head from the morphine when he dictated it to my secretary. I’m going to go fetch a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
“English tea tastes like dishwater,” Kuryakin says absently, flipping the file open. He doesn’t look up when Alexander rolls his eyes and leaves the room.
He takes his time about fixing two cups of tea, and when he gets back, Kuryakin is slumped over on the sofa in what looks like a profoundly uncomfortable position, long legs stretched out, head pillowed on the file folder, snoring faintly.
Alexander considers trying to arrange him into a more comfortable position, then considers the likelihood of getting punched into the far wall should Kuryakin wake up and take the intrusion amiss, and goes to sit behind his desk. After everything else he’s survived, the man can probably live with a crick in his neck.
It’s late, and it’s been a long few days, and if his secretary was still here, she would certainly nag him to go home and sleep. That would be the sensible thing to do. It’s not as though Kuryakin particularly needs a nursemaid, or would appreciate the gesture.
Alexander reaches for his teacup instead. He can catch up on sleep tomorrow; for now, there’s paperwork that could use his attention.