Napoleon had avoided the entanglements of friendship as best he could over the years. He had acquaintances of course, but none who would really fall into the category of friends.
There were plenty of women in his life, all dalliances really, they were just ships passing in the night to stay off the loneliness of missing his lost loves.
When he was young he married...they were just kids really, but she was taken from him. That was when he joined the army.
There his best friend Scotty Bob had been killed, and he was devastated by it. His other friend the hulking Billy Burke survived but he and Solo grew distant.
There were plenty of women in his life, all dalliances really, they were just ships passing in the night to stay off the loneliness of his other lost love...his Clara.
After the war the U.N.C.L.E. recruited him, and it became a new love, his life had purpose again. Yet Clara asked him to choose between her and the Command.
He chose his job, but there were times he wondered if that had been the right choice.
Napoleon worked fine on his own, until he was ordered to partner up. It seemed Mr. Waverly felt his agents would function better in teams.
That didn't sit well with Solo as he went through partner after partner, remaining a bit of a lone wolf...much to Alexander Waverly's dissatisfaction.
Illya Kuryakin had experienced much loss and death since he was but eight years of age. His family and what few friends he had were killed during the war.
He could have easily died himself in the concentration camp outside of Kyiv. Sryets it was called. It was there he sa,w his last friend...Irina,,his first love really at the age of ten, taken away to be murdered like the thousands of others.
Illya escaped, but barely survived and was rescued by the advancing Red Army. After recovering from nearly having starved to death he was sent to a hell hole of an orphanage in Moscow. There he met Natasha who taught him the meaning of love, and helped him to survive the torment of the bullies.
Life changed again when Natasha was sent away at sixteen to servitude with the family of party member.
Illya was chosen by one Viktor Karkoff, and groomed to eventually become a member of the Main Intelligence Agency known as Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, or GRU.
After finishing his education, Illya was assigned to serve on board the Naval submarine Moskva, and after that it was then his training to be a military spy began in earnest.
He made one friend during training, Valery Nemikoff, but he took was taken away from Kuryakin and sent to the blast furnaces at Serpukhov. His punishment for failing to succeed in his training. No one was allowed to simply leave GRU… the saying 'one ruble in, two rubles out' was used to illustrate that one could only leave at great cost, and that was not money but death.*
Illya vowed after that not to make friends. He deemed that he was meant to be alone, which in the scope of things made sense. He was a spy and friendships were a liability to one in the field of espionage.
Kuryakin's life took an unexpected turn, as he was offered up to an organization called the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, as Illya could only see as being a sacrificial lamb.
The Kremlin would get intelligence from UNCLE and they would get an agent. He was told at the time that he was being given a choice by his superiors, but that he knew not to be true.
When asked by Alexander Waverly what he thought, Illya said he would die either way, if he declined the position as an agent of UNCLE, GRU would kill him. If he accepted it he'd die as well as he was a green agent and therefore expendable.**
Waverly's response was "Let's prove them wrong, shall we?"
Illya went through partner after partner. There were complaints about him not being very friendly or cooperative with them. He was a lone wolf and preferred to work on his own. He knew he wasn't welcome there, as he heard the remarks of Pinko and Commie whispered behind his back.
Alexander Waverly wouldn't have it and as a court of last resort he paired his two lone wolves, Solo and Kuryakin together.
To use the trite saying, it was a marriage made in heaven. They became the Command's top team and were nearly unstoppable.
Though Waverly became concerned when he saw a obvious friendship developing between the two men. His concern grew that the friendship would take precedent over their assignments, but somehow it didn't. They managed to succeed time after time, while rescuing each other too boot.
The Old Man decided to let the 'friendship' thing slide as it was now part of the whole package that was the success story of Solo and Kuryakin.
The bomb exploded, somehow the timer went off sooner than Illya had anticipated. As he opened his eyes, after the concussion had blown him about twenty feet away, his first thought was to have a discussion with Research and Development about these shoddy timers. His second thought was his sudden realization that Napoleon wasn't by his side.
"Napoleon!" He called out amid the dust and debris. His partner had been right behind him when all hell broke loose.
Illya scrambled amidst the wreckage, searching for him when he spotted a hand wearing a blue star sapphire pinky ring protruding from the debris.
"No nooo," he moaned, hoping the hand was still attached and that Solo was still alive.
Illya tossed aside the wood and bricks like a dog digging in the dirt until he found Napoleon; he was covered in dust but there was no sign of blood.
"Please be alive my friend?" He thankfully found a pulse and raised Napoleon up to a sitting position, cradling him in his arme.
"Napoleon my friend," he whispered,"It is time to wake up...umm, your date is here and she is being impatient."
Solo's eyes popped open, meeting the baby blue eyes of his partner.
"I was having the strangest dream. You were telling me my date was waiting for me, and she was being impatient."
"Hmmm, imagine that," Illya handed him his handkerchief to clean his face. "Are you all right, no broken bones?"
"I'm okay." Napoleon looked at his jacket," Though my suit has bitten the dust."
"Sorry it was a bad timer I think."Illya gave him a hand up, and together they stood there brushing off their clothes as best they could.
"Hmm, with friends like you who needs enemies," Napoleon quipped. He retracted it immediately when he saw the pained look of his partner. "Just kidding. Tovarisch, I've never had a friend like you who would risk life and limb to save me no matter what."
"I can say the same about you, moy drug."
They made their way through the rubble in the direction of where they'd left their jeep.
As they sat in the seat, Illya pulled out a canteen for them. They drank for it before contacting headquarters to report the destruction of the satrapy.
"You know we really are lucky," Napoleon suddenly said.
"No, you are the lucky one...your Solo luck as you like to call it."
"Illya, you're my luck and I'm yours. How many times have we been there for each other and saved our lives. If we'd been alone, well I think we'd have been long dead by now. It's because we have a strong partnership,"
"Or is it because of our friendship," Illya nodded."I once vowed to never have another friend, until I met you."
"We take care of each other tovarisch," Solo smiled."that's what friends are for, right?"
"Da."
"Now I better contact Waverly to bring him up to snuff." Napoleon pulled his communicator. "Open Channel D."
"Ah Mr. Solo, good to finally hear from you. What have you to report."
"Mission accomplished sir. Mr. Kuryakin and I survived, this time without a so much as a scratch."
"Though Mr. Solo's suit did not," Illya called out.
"For once a small price to pay gentlemen, another job well done. I will see you in New York upon your return. Out."
"Wagons ho!" Napoleon waved his hand.
Illya in the driver's seat gave him one of his 'what the hell are you referring to now' looks, though a second later he laughed.
Napoleon thought he'd have to explain another idiom, but Illya cut him off at the pass.
"I finally watched that television show called 'Wagon Train." So yes, wagons ho is very appropriate. He started the jeep and hit the gas pedal; the tires sending a stream of dirt and pebbles in the air as it took off...s
* "The Aquarium: Making of a Soviet Spy"
** references to a number of my stories…"Beginnings" "The Test" "Seol Survivor," Brothers Old and New"