I. Keep Your Camera to Yourself, Cowboy

Napoleon Solo grinned at his partner. "Well done, Peril. You managed to get the job done admirably, even with the girl's hands, uuummm—where they didn't belong."

Illya Kuryakin growled menacingly. "It was precisely because her hands were where they did not belong that I was able to steal the disk, Cowboy!"

Solo knew this, but still loved to tease the quiet Russian whenever he had opportunity, and this one was a beaut. "True, but I wonder what Gaby will think when she gets a look at the surveillance photos."

Kuryakin inhaled slowly, knowing his irritating partner was only trying to bait him into an argument.

"There were no photos taken of that part of the mission, Cowboy, and you know it—unless you—"

Illya broke off and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Were you filming the whole time, instead of just observing, as instructed?"

Solo grinned devilishly. "Maybe, but trust me Peril. None of those lovely shots got turned in with the report…"

Napoleon never saw the left that dropped him. He woke up two hours later, stripped to his underwear and tied upside down against the wall of their now thoroughly tossed hotel room. His eyes widened as he recognized his captor.

Illya was watching him impassively from a chair in the center of the room. His voice was a menacing hiss.

"You will tell me now where photos and negatives are! I have searched flat and luggage for them."

"Geez, Peril! Can't you take a joke?"

Ever literal-minded, Illya replied, "No, is not Russian way."

Napoleon whined, "For God's sake, Illya, there are no photos! There never were!"

Illya studied him closely for about five minutes in total silence; before shrugging nonchalantly.

"Okay, if you lie, I kill you later."

With that, he released his partner, dumping him unceremoniously to the floor.

Napoleon glowered at Illya and headed grumpily into the bathroom.

Once there, he had to laugh at his normally stoic partner's antics.

"Oh, Peril," he said to himself, "just wait till I teach you all about April Fool's Day!"*

~TMFU~

II. Boredom Makes Cowboy Psychotic…Moonshine Makes Him Stupid

When most people are bored, they find something to do…like read a book, or knit, or even go for a walk. Most reasonable people, that is. Napoleon Solo, in his partners' estimations, was not a reasonable person. Not even close. Even when he wasn't bored out of his skull, he could be a pain in the ass. Now, he was bordering on psychotic, and his partners were bordering on homicidal.

They were staying at a safehouse in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. Because of the abrupt nature of the ending of their last mission, they had been unable even to grab their suitcases when they fled. Consequently, at least for the next week or so, they had absolutely nothing to do. There were rations, blankets, wood and water in the house and not much else. No old newspapers or books, no electricity, nothing.

Because the house was under constant enemy observation, they couldn't even set foot outside the house. Because it was basically just a large one-room structure, there was no privacy (although it did have running [cold] water and an indoor toilet with a curtain around it.) This automatically cut back on several interesting diversions Gaby and Illya could have engaged in, much to Napoleon's amusement. Eventually, however, they all began to drive each other up the wall.

Until the night some poking around in the basement produced several long-forgotten bottles of some kind of home-brewed liquor. Gaby and Napoleon decided to teach a reluctant Illya, normally not a drinker, how to play "Spin the Bottle," after all three of our heroes finished off the first bottle of very potent moonshine.

Well into the second bottle, when the bottle landed on Gaby, on Napoleon's spin; a thoroughly soused Napoleon pushed his famous luck just a bit too far. He insisted on finding out what was underneath Gaby's lovely blouse.

Illya was not too far gone to take extreme offense, and Napoleon abruptly dropped out—for the count.

However, the game went on, and Illya and Gaby had all the privacy they wanted, for the rest of the night…

~TMFU~

III. Next Time, Just Take Him With You…

"You're just mad because Gaby was paired up with me for the new assignment, and she enjoyed herself, Peril." Napoleon couldn't hide the slight gloat in his tone.

"It was a Greek Island, Cowboy. Any woman would enjoy a tour of Greece. Even with a toad like you." Napoleon grinned at the sneer of jealousy in his partner's voice. He loved it when he could get under his stolid partner's skin. One would think he would know by now to let sleeping giants lie…

"It wasn't exactly a tour; you know…we were working, after all. We had to get the secret file, she drove the getaway car, I kept us from getting killed, y' know, the usual."

Illya's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'You kept her from getting killed?' In the report, you told Waverly she kept you from getting killed! So what exactly happened in Greece, huh?! Partner?!"

By this time, Illya's infamous temper was getting away from him, and Napoleon was in his direct path. He had grabbed Solo by his shirt front and had lifted him two feet off the ground before he had finished speaking.

"Why didn't Gaby come back here with you?!"

At that point, Napoleon Solo realized his mistake, in spades. Another hotel room was about to get trashed, and him along with it. He tried to protest, to no avail.

He really would have told his partner she had elected to stay behind to do some shopping, if he could have…and he would. That is, when he could…

Ahhhh, damn…He really should have known better—"Peril!"

And Napoleon Solo's lights faded to blessed black…

~TMFU~

IV. "Oops, Wrong Turn!"

That Napoleon Solo ended up with a concussion on this mission really wasn't his fault. Exactly. That Illya Kuryakin kicked him in the head and gave him said concussion really wasn't his fault either…sort of. Well. It was one of those missions. Y'know the type. One that you just should have stayed in bed and told Waverly to give to some other poor fool. One of those. But nope. "No problem!" Cowboy said. "Problem!" Peril said. And as usual, Cowboy won. And as usual, Peril was right.

For one thing, Gaby wasn't with them, so they ended up without a getaway driver. Oh, they had a getaway driver, but the kid ended up being away from the car taking a leak when they got there…with the keys in his pocket. And that was after everything had already gone to hell anyway, with Peril half-carrying Cowboy, who was suffering from the concussion…

It was enough to make an agent go civilian…or shoot the getaway driver…who finally showed up, zipping his pants, cheerfully asking if they were ready to go. Peril came that close!

One Hour Earlier

Cowboy had gotten into the safe with no problem, and had retrieved the documents so easily that Peril was immediately suspicious. Nothing ever went this smoothly. Ever. But he went along with Cowboy's smug assumptions; and they raced for the manhole cover in the back of the driveway, where they had been assured their escape would go without a hitch. Wrong! As they blew the final door that would lead to the area where the car was hidden, they were confronted with—a brick wall. Dead end.

Solo said with a nervous chuckle, "Oops, wrong turn!" and Illya Kuryakin rolled his eyes and turned back to run the way they had come. They took the other tunnel, which was, unfortunately, now crawling with guards intent on catching the two spies, so things got very lively for the next few minutes. They did quite well, actually, until they both ran out of ammunition at the same time. Then, they had to rely on Illya's brute strength, as for some odd reason, none of the guards appeared to be armed at this point. They soon discovered why…as they heard vicious barking coming from straight ahead of them…a lot of it!

If there was one thing in the world Illya hated, it was dogs. He had a deep fear of them stemming from his childhood; which he never had told his partners about, but it dictated his actions now. He spied a manhole cover ahead of them, and pushed it quickly out of the way. He grabbed the sides of the cover just as the dogs reached them, and pulled himself through and out into the night air.

Illya reached down to help Cowboy up through the manhole, but a large, furious dog had other ideas. Illya kicked the dog in the head, and it retreated, yowling in pain. So far, Cowboy seemed to be holding his own against the dogs, and Illya tried again. He reached down for his partner. This time, one of the dogs latched onto his bicep, and Illya swung his arm hard against the side of the manhole, breaking the beast's neck. He had to pry the mighty jaws loose before he was able to finally set about trying to reach Napoleon.

Illya was seated on the edge of the manhole. Napoleon finally got a hold on the other side of the manhole and heaved himself up. The last dog also managed to leap up, trying to get a grip on Napoleon. Illya kicked the dog in the head, dropping it back into the tunnel. At the same time, he also accidently kicked Napoleon in the head…dropping him unconscious back into the tunnel on top of the dead dogs.

Illya looked down from his perch. After his monumental blunder in the tunnel, and getting Illya dog-bitten, he was only sort of sorry…"Oops, sorry, Cowboy. Wrong target."

~TMFU~

"Fooled You…or Maybe Not…!"

V. Why he did it, Napoleon would never know, but he agreed to Gaby's insane plan. She felt that Illya was taking her for granted on their missions. He was so consumed with keeping her safe; she felt he wasn't focusing on keeping himself out of trouble. So she wanted to teach him a lesson. And God help him, Solo agreed with her. So did Waverly, actually. He sanctioned the idea.

So they were; on a mission fraught with dangerous situations, specifically putting Gaby into danger at every turn, which she deftly and promptly handled quite well, thank you very much. Trying to prove to Peril she could handle whatever came her way. Solo mused about the current state of the mission. He was rather proud of himself. These were all good guys, although they were playing their bad guy roles to the hilt. God help him if Peril ever figured out it was essentially one large April Fool's joke. The mission had been designed by Solo, and of course, Waverly was nowhere around to take the hit if Peril did happen to—oh crap!

A string of Russian expletives suddenly exploded through the night air, as Solo exited the tunnel and ran for his life. Peril might be big, but nobody ever said he was slow…

~TMFU~

I. "Can't Leave You Alone for a Minute, Can We?

At first, it seemed as if nothing was wrong, as if perhaps Peril might only be sleeping. Except. Unless he had been injured on a mission, or much more rarely, was ill; he never slept during the day. He considered sleeping a waste of time. So. Why was he in bed, sleeping? He had been fine earlier, when Gaby and Solo had left on their mission.

Now, all the drapes and blinds were drawn, and the room was completely dark and very quiet. This was definitely wrong. Illya did usually keep it quiet in the room, but did not like it totally dark if he had a choice, one of the few secrets from his childhood both his partners knew about him.

Instinctively, both Solo and Gaby pulled out their weapons as they carefully entered the room. They split up and did a quick but thorough search for bad guys or any sign of danger. There was none, and no sign of forcible entry, or trouble of any kind. They both released their held breaths, sighed in relief, and Gaby went to wake the sleeping Illya.

Except he wasn't sleeping. He was lying on his back, his eyes the only part of him moving. And they were wide with terror. He had been laying this way for several hours, totally paralyzed, unable to communicate, unable to move any part of his body, and unable to do anything to help himself. And he had no idea how it had happened. His brain was functioning perfectly well. It just seemed there was some sort of disconnect with his body. And he was terrified.

He knew someone had been in the room; because he had left the bedside lamp on when he had lain down to think over the next part of their mission. He had drawn the shades, but not the drapes. The journal he had been idling through was on the nightstand next to the lamp. But the lamp was now off, and the drapes were drawn. And he remembered nothing after that until he woke up several hours ago, in a body that was completely betraying him.

He had heard the door open, and the familiar footsteps. He was vastly relieved, because, even if they couldn't help him, at least he wouldn't be alone in his terror anymore. And after the search he knew they would make, after they apparently found nothing, they came to him, their shock and concern obvious when they realized what was happening.

Gaby began to cry, Cowboy trying to process what had happened. He started to ask questions, and then stopped, frustrated as he realized that of course, Peril couldn't answer him. Gaby lay next to him, snuggling her small frame up to his large one, desperate to feel his strong arms holding her once again. Solo left the two of them, and went to call Waverly, who arranged for immediate transport to the newly established UNCLE Medical Facility at HQ in New York, where hopefully, they would be able to figure out what exactly had happened to Illya. Hopefully, this was not a permanent situation. Hopefully…

Two Weeks Later

The combination of toxins and the hypnotic which had robbed him of the memory that had been injected into Illya was finally beginning to wear off. He was able to move his hands and feet, and the doctors were telling him there was every reason to hope for a full recovery, but that it was going to take time. They refused to give him an exact timetable, which frustrated the Russian, until Solo pointed out that maybe this meant he could set his own timetable. Gaby could have cheerfully shot her American partner for that, since now her lover became insufferably impatient with the entire hospital staff. His improvement was rapid after that, but could not come soon enough for the staff in UNCLE Medical.

Six Months Later

Napoleon Solo looked over at his partners with satisfaction. Peril had fully recovered and been back on the job for nearly a month, and Gaby couldn't be happier. The man who had slipped into their hotel room was a stooge who was being used to help test the paralytic for a particularly nasty underworld figure. UNCLE had eventually caught the man on the other side of world, when he went to use the drug on some rivals in Venice. They had found the stooge's body in an alley in New York two days after Illya had been admitted to the hospital.

Admittedly, Peril wasn't quite at the top of his game yet, but Solo had no doubt it wouldn't be long. He glanced over at his partners, and threw an experimentally flirtatious wink at Gaby, who ignored him as usual. Peril's eyes narrowed dangerously, and Solo grinned. Everything was getting back to normal, and Cowboy, well, he was quite…content.

~The End~

A/N: *I have borrowed a little bit from the TV show's fandom for Napoleon's love of pranks, but it does fit in with his character, as does Illya's dislike for them. The movie Illya would just have a bit…stronger reaction, lol! ;-)