"I've never been to America before," Gaby says as she pushes her nose up against the airplane window.
Her comment would go without saying; before U.N.C.L.E. she had never left Germany. Every place they go is new to her, and she has quietly enjoyed all of them. The stately architecture of Rome, the pristine beaches in Turkey, the dense bustle of London. But there's something uniquely enticing about America, and she can't help but drum her fingertips against the windowpane in anticipation. Their flight will bring them into New York at quarter past eleven, and she can just see lights glinting down the coast as they prepare to land.
Napoleon leans in over her shoulder, peering out the window. "New York's a good place to start," he says.
"Oh?" She turns to look at him, fiddling with one of the heavy silver earrings he gave her just for this trip.
"It's my hometown," he says, sitting back in his seat as the plane begins to descend. "I can show you around."
The conversation has piqued Illya's interest; he leans towards them from where he is seated across the aisle. "I have lived here also," he says.
"You have?" Napoleon asks, incredulous. "When?"
Illya, as usual, is reticent to respond, and the short remainder of the flight is devoted to their quiet arguing about New York City and who is more intimately acquainted with it. Gaby tunes out their one-upmanship and leans her head back against the seat, gaze still cast out the window as she watches the citylights grow brighter beneath her.
During their stay, their home will be a Brownstone that Waverly has owned since he was Gaby's age. The style the house is decorated in is a little more personal than what she's used to from the accommodations Waverly provides them. On the mantelpiece there is a photograph of him and his brothers from decades ago, standing in a line on a tennis court as they glint into the sun behind the camera. It's strange to see him that young; it's strange for him to allow himself the vulnerability of letting them into his home.
"Your room's upstairs, Gaby," Waverly says, catching her by the small of the back and ushering her along before she can examine the picture too closely.
"You get a room with a view and I have to sleep in the basement," Napoleon says, picking up her suitcases as he follows them up the stairs to her room. "That figures."
"Try following my orders for once and you might make your way back into my good graces," Waverly suggests, the sentiment punctuated by a scoff from Napoleon. After letting them into Gaby's room, Waverly moves on to his own room the floor above. Napoleon follows her, and after dropping her bags on her bed proceeds to check the size of her closet.
"Come in," she says tartly, handing him a few of her coats to hang up.
"We should go out," he says. She catches a glimpse of Illya's dark sweater as he slips into his room across the hall, closing the door behind him.
"It's nearly one in the morning," she says.
"The night's young," he says, as if she were only affirming him.
She's been traveling all day and hasn't gotten a wink of sleep, but the city is just down there, waiting for them, and she can't quite pass the opportunity up.
Somehow, miraculously, Napoleon convinces Illya to come with them. They end up sitting in the main concourse of Grand Central Station, Gaby wedged between the two of them, neck craning so she can look up at the high sloping ceiling.
"What are we doing here?" Illya asks eventually.
"What we do best," Napoleon replies, gesturing at the people wandering by them. "Observing."
They sit there, listening to Napoleon's commentary on the passersby (a lot of catty remarks about ugly shoes and ill-fitting suits). While he's off on a particularly long tangent about one woman's season-inappropriate mink coat, she takes the opportunity to lean into Illya's shoulder.
"This is fun," she whispers out the side of her mouth, and she's rewarded with a single short laugh, promptly muffled as he draws his hand to his face.
"Time to go," Napoleon says quite suddenly, picking her up by the elbow. She drags Illya with her, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket sleeve.
Because this excursion is of Napoleon's design, they follow him without question or complaint. He runs into a young woman on their way out of the concourse, hands straying to places they shouldn't. Gaby apologizes quite contritely for him and explains he's had too much to drink.
When they're down the street, he produces a woman's clutch from his suit jacket.
"Et voila," he announces, fishing a substantial amount of cash from the bag before handing it to Gaby and tucking the money back into his suit. She realizes that people-watching was more about casing targets than idle entertainment.
"Oh, Napoleon," she sighs.
"What?" he asks, fiddling with his cuff links.
"You don't have your own money?" Illya asks, glancing over his shoulder like he's concerned the woman might pursue them (as if she'd pose them any sort of threat even if she did).
"I do," Napoleon says. "But I wouldn't, if I paid my own tab every time I went out. Besides, did you see her engagement ring? The groom-to-be won't miss a few twenties."
Gaby makes a show of being offended by his petty theft, but lets him buy her a drink or two over the course of the evening. To not would just be wasteful.
They don't make it to Times Square until the early hours of the morning, after the bars close and she's had a little too much to drink. Still, despite the late hour, the place hums with life. The lights of neon signs and passing cars illuminate the sidewalk, but Gaby's attention is elsewhere.
She's seen impressive buildings before, but there's something about these Manhattan skyscrapers that demands attention. Her head tilts back as she walks, one hand pinning her hat down. Up above, moonlight glints off a thousand windows, mesmerizing her. She's not really paying attention to where they're going, just following where Napoleon leads her. She's not even really paying attention to where her feet go, which is probably why her ankle rolls and she stumbles.
Illya catches her by the elbow before she falls, but her hat catches a gust of wind and escapes her. Napoleon (who has had enough to drink himself) sets off after the wayward garment with some determination, leaving them alone on the sidewalk.
She stares at him for a moment, his hand still cradling her arm. The air here is warm and heavy, and she imagines this to be because it spends all its time trapped deep between the tall buildings, like still water. They're on the Square proper now, and she glances over at Times Tower itself, uncomfortable under Illya's intense gaze.
Her mouth begins to form a word, but it dies before it reaches her lips and she just laughs at herself instead.
"What?" Illya asks, looking in the same direction even though she's looking at him again.
"I was going to ask you a question about architecture," she admits, tucking her hands into her coat pockets.
His cheeks are flushed (never the wasteful one, he's been drinking too) and she's sure the shade deepens as he picks his next words. "Maybe I have answer for you," he says, voice low like it usually is when they find themselves alone. And, as she always seems to, she finds herself magnetically drawn towards him with a half-step, a sway of her hips, an incline of her chin.
But no, she thinks. No going backwards. They're not in Rome anymore. He's not an architect and she's definitely not his fiancée.
The alcohol has her working at half-speed, and she doesn't have time to articulate everything that's brewing in her mind before Napoleon reappears and deposits her hat directly onto her head.
"There you go, Miss Teller," he says briskly, smile so wide and fancy-free that she can't help but laugh.
"Thank you, Mister Solo," she replies. He offers her his arm and she takes it, and together they blunder down the sidewalk. It's easy to forge forward like this; sometimes she thinks Napoleon isn't afraid of anything, and certainly not what's ahead of him.
Gaby, though, can't stop sparing glances over her shoulder, where Illya follows them close as their shadows.
The next morning she's a little ashamed to find how hard American liquor hits her. She has to drag herself out of bed almost the minute she crawls into it, and it's a Herculean task. But in the short time they've been a team, they've already formed some rituals, and briefings over breakfast happen at 7 sharp.
She runs into Illya in the hall, and although he's already up and dressed she's pleased to see that he also looks a little worse for wear.
"Excuse me," he mumbles as she meets him in the bathroom doorway. They have to share one, while Napoleon gets his own, which makes her wonder if he wasn't the lucky one after all.
She manages to get herself washed and presentable, even if she forgoes styling her hair and instead just ties it up haphazardly. Still, not bad, she thinks as she turns her head from side to side to inspect herself in the mirror. The dark circles under her eyes are fairly noticeable and the light from the window is stingingly white, so she dons a pair of bug-eyed sunglasses, a trick she's fallen back on during previous hangovers.
And she's not even the last one down to the dining room, she finds as she opens the door. Illya and Napoleon are already there, and they seem to stop talking as she enters the room, which is mercifully quite dimly lit.
"Good morning," she says, and they return her sentiments. She wonders if she's imagining their sheepishness or if they actually were talking about her before she came in.
She sits down and sets to the painstaking task of spreading marmalade onto her toast, but the boys don't resume their conversation before Waverly comes through the door.
"All three of you at once," Waverly comments as he immediately notes their bad hangovers. "A truly singular circumstance. Whatever are we going to do?"
"Prairie oysters," Napoleon suggests.
"Konterbier," Gaby grumbles, stabbing her toast.
"I'm fine," Illya insists even though his voice is gravelly.
"That's the spirit, Kuryakin," Waverly says, dropping the pile of documents in front of Illya first, the heavy stack making a loud noise. Gaby sees the way Illya's eyes close, how his jaw ticks, how his fingers bite into the sleeves of his sweater – she doesn't know what has irritated him precisely, but the signs are clear. Under the table, she bumps her knee against his, and he opens his eyes again, looking at the dossiers instead of at her.
She pushes her sunglasses down as she leans over to get a glimpse of the photographs attached to the dossier.
"I know this man," Illya says, pushing the first dossier towards Napoleon.
"Most people do," Waverly says, and Napoleon hums in agreement as he reads the name. Gaby resists the urge to roll her eyes.
"Who is he?" she asks, unwilling to feel shame for not being as well-informed about the movements of important men in the world as they are.
"George Gatlin, of Gatlin-Browning fame," Waverly tells her, and that name does ring a bell. "He's an industrialist of some clout, but he's got more explosive ambitions. On top of that, word's that he's been orchestrating assassinations for several of his potential competitors, which has in turn made him the target of several assassination plots."
"I've so missed American politics," Napoleon drawls.
"It would be bad were he successful in taking out any of these other men," he says, pointing to the rest of the thick stack of files. "But it also wouldn't necessarily be in our best interest were he to die before we can figure out exactly what sort of technology he's sitting on."
"So keep him safe, but make his life hard," Napoleon says, passing the dossier to Gaby.
"This is an area in which I think you all excel," Waverly says.
"As long as I don't have to seduce him," Gaby gripes, holding up the picture on file. Gatlin is a stout, greying man who looks severe even in still life. She looks to Waverly, shaking the photograph in front of his face. "Hmm?"
(In London, she was used more-or-less as bait, to disastrous effect. Nobody's eager for a repeat performance.)
"No, no," Waverly agrees. "I've gotten you a job looking after his children."
A low whine escapes her throat. "These two get to be jewel thieves and corporate executives and architects," she complains. "Why am I always the fiancée or the depraved housewife or the nanny?"
"Best to be underestimated, dear," Waverly tells her, and she sneers at him before returning her attention to her marmalade-covered butter knife, licking it clean with little grace or regard for appearances as he finishes dispatching their orders.
As she's getting ready to head to the Gatlin household, someone knocks on her bedroom door. That rules out Napoleon, whom she suspects has never knocked in his life. It's also probably not Waverly, since someone is puttering around in his office, which is directly above her room. Counting the odds, she takes a calculated chance and pulls the zipper of her dress down to her lower back deftly.
"Come in," she says, turning back to the vanity mirror as she picks up her other earring. She fiddles with the backing as she listens to the door open. Illya hesitates at the threshold before clearing his throat.
She turns to look at him. He's leaning in the doorway, over-casual, with a few of the dossiers from breakfast tucked under one arm. His gaze is pointedly trained somewhere above her left shoulder.
"Make yourself useful," she says, gesturing to her back. To his credit he only hesitates a second before crossing the room, setting the dossiers down on her vanity.
He seems less willing to touch her now than he was when they first met (she still remembers that first day in the boutique, when he had placed his hand on her abdomen to turn her in a circle, and how her muscles had all tensed in such a different way than they would now under the same circumstances). She's not sure why – nothing of particular note has happened recently, but still he hangs back a little further than he used to.
After he's zipped her dress, he does linger for a moment, thumb running along her collar. She shivers under his touch and he quickly retreats, stepping back before she can even turn around.
"Did you bring me something?" she asks, indicating the dossiers.
"Yes," he says. "Jon Overcroft and Stanford Gaines."
"What about them?" She pushes the top dossier off the bottom one with her pinky finger, glancing at the names and photographs.
"If you are with Gatlin's children, you are target also," he says, and she makes eye contact with his reflection as she affixes her earring. His face is serious, solemn. The concern would look professional to any outside observer. "These men have been involved in kidnappings before."
"Lovely," she sighs, drumming her fingers on the edge of her jewelry box (that she even has enough jewels and finery to warrant a box for it all is still a novel thing, but Napoleon seems to produce another piece for her at every occasion). Something – not glimmering like the gemstones or bright like the fashionable resin pieces – catches her eye. Illya's ring. She picks it up, twisting it around her finger as she turns to face him.
"You're wearing that?" he asks.
She slips the ring onto her finger, holds up her hand, hums in thought. "Yes," she says. "Rich old men will flirt with anything and they can't take no for an answer. Now I can say, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm engaged." She wiggles her fingers at him as she says it.
"I thought you like the attention," he says. Idiot, she thinks.
"Not just any attention," she says curtly.
He is quiet for a very long time and eventually she turns back to the mirror to begin pinning her hair out of her face.
"It won't transmit anymore," he says at length. "Tracker would be better, anyway. If something happened."
"Get me a new one, then," she says. She doesn't look at him. It takes some restraint.
He leaves without saying anything else.
When she gets to the Gatlin house, a sweet and spindly little thing with well-kept grounds on the North Shore, the children are nowhere in sight. And Mr. Gatlin, whom she was not expecting to speak with personally at all, calls her into his study immediately.
She didn't get this far in her life without being able to keep her head under pressure, though, and all her nervous movements are an act, for his benefit. Gaby Kline, hired help, wilts away under his pervasive gaze and will not meet his eyes. Gaby Teller, secret agent, is more curious as to why the large pastoral painting behind him doesn't sit flush with the wall.
"Miss Kline, is it?" he asks.
"Yes, sir," she says, twisting her ring around her finger with her thumb.
"You're engaged," he says with half the cadence of a question, labored small talk.
"Yes, sir," she says again, stilling her hands.
"What's his name?"
One of many things she probably should have figured out before turning up. "Timothy," she says, picking the first name that comes to her mind.
"And where's he from?" Gatlin asks. Gaby tries and fails to think of an American state other than New York.
"Here," she says. He looks up at her.
"Probably not here," he remarks, tilting his head towards the window. She can see down the sloping green lawn to the Sound, where little white boats fleck the bright water.
"No," she says. "Another neighborhood."
"That's fine," he says, apparently taking this as an admission of some kind of poverty or otherwise undesirable quality. "You come very highly recommended. But, honestly, I'm not sure the kids need someone else looking after them," he says. Gaby bites the inside of her cheek and blinks hard a few times so her eyes are damp. "Why should I keep you on?"
"I can do other things," she says.
"Like what?"
"I clean. I cook a little," she says.
"That's what I pay my wife for."
Asshole, she thinks. "I drive," she says.
That gets his attention. "Professionally?" he asks.
"Yes," she says before she can think about it. Really, any use he has for her beyond eye candy is one she wants to pin down.
"That's unusual," he says.
"Not in Europe," she fibs. He seems to consider it.
"I do need a chauffeur more than a nanny," he says, tapping his pen on the desk. "Let's see how you do today and go from there, why don't we?"
She agrees easily – after all, if there's one thing she's sure she can do well, it's drive.
When she gets back to the Brownstone that night, she attempts to enter quietly in the hopes that she might sneak up to her room.
Of course, she's not that lucky, and it's not just one but all three of her teammates waiting for her in the sitting room.
"How was your first day on the job?" Waverly asks in a way that makes her think he probably already knows what happened.
"I got promoted," she says, folding her arms over her chest defensively.
"Aren't you enterprising?" he asks, but says nothing else. She wonders for a moment if he expects her to ask to be excused before she leaves, but then he goes on. "Solo and Kuryakin have actually managed to complete their tasks for the day as I assigned them," he remarks. They both toss her their variations on the apologetic glance.
"He was going to fire me before I'd even started," Gaby says. "I did what I could. Besides, this is better."
"How do you figure?" Waverly asks, looking back to his newspaper.
"I'll still have access to the house, but I'll be with Gatlin the rest of the day. I can listen, gather information. Drivers are practically invisible."
"And who will look after the children? Kuryakin as the arms dealer, or Solo as the upstart rival executive?" Illya and Napoleon have become very interested in their own shoes, she notes.
"Maybe you should do it," Gaby spits at Waverly. Before he has a chance to reprimand her (or worse yet, grant her permission to go), she turns on her heel to retreats up the stairs, shutting herself into her room for the rest of the night.
Being Gatlin's chauffeur (and quickly his most preferred one) turns out to be tedious work. His day-to-day life is fairly standard for an American industrialist; business meetings, lunch meetings, meeting other important men for drinks after all that's done.
Napoleon and Illya are still setting up their cover, and it takes them the better half of the week. She's working day in and day out, and they have one thing to do a day apiece, if it's a busy day.
Remarkably, she finds that the more days pass, the more she misses them. She'd never put that word to it so plainly if asked aloud; maybe she would say she was bored, something to that effect. But there's an edge of jealousy there, too, that they get to spend their time leisurely exploring the city when she's the one who's never been there before.
Even though her schedule requires her to rise early and she can't go out at night, she does usually end up staying up later than she should if only to spend a little extra time in their company. For their parts, they seem to miss her too. And as with everything else, they're not good at equitably dividing her free time between the two of them. Right now she's both carrying on a halting conversation with Illya about her day, po-rússki, and picking a series of padlocks Napoleon procured just for her to practice on.
"You're actually really good at that," Napoleon comments in English as she finishes with the last lock.
"Huh?" she asks, in no particular language, because her brain has stalled out in regards to words, a frustrating thing that they both assure her happens frequently as one learns a third vocabulary.
"The locks," he says, pointing at where she has discarded them in a pile on the carpet in front of her. "That was twice as fast as Peril here could've done it. At least."
Illya grunts, but does not disagree with the statement.
"What did you do?" Napoleon asks, coming over and stooping next to where she is sprawled out on the ground to examine the locks, as if she might have used some kind of trickery to accomplish the feat.
"What you told me to do," she says, handing the lock picking tools back to him. "I wasn't really thinking about it much." As easily as she'd been able to pick up English, Russian is another beast entirely, and even these sorry excuses for conversations she has with Illya every night take all of her attention.
Napoleon turns the lock over in his hand, contemplative. "You," he says, pointing at her with one long finger. "Just might be a natural-born safecracker."
"Huh," she says again, for an entirely different reason.
"Could be worth looking into," Napoleon says, and she does have to admit she's a little bit curious.
The next day, the Gatlins leave Gaby and the rest of the staff alone in the house as they go for a family drive to the beach (they have a perfectly good one in their back yard, so Gaby's not sure why they have to drive to another one, but that's neither here nor there). While the cooks and gardeners are busy doing their usual work, Gaby sneaks into Gatlin's office.
Behind that big and heavy pastoral landscape she noticed on her first day here, there is indeed a rather sizeable safe.
She knows she won't be able to open it without Napoleon's help. It might not be in their best interest to do so anyway. But the possibility is there now, where it wasn't before, and she can't help but feel she works better in a team than she does alone.
The week wears on in a similar tedious fashion. One day, Gatlin has her drive him to a meeting he has with Illya (Mr. Ivchenko, as he's known: a Soviet expatriate, purveyor of dubiously legal weaponry, and all-around dangerous man) and she catches his eye through the car window. That's the most excitement she manages for days. A glimpse of Illya in a gaudy suit he wouldn't be caught dead wearing in his actual life.
During her free evenings, she spends more and more time with Napoleon, working on refining her lock picking skills. One day she gets home unusually late and finds that nobody's in the den. She wanders up to Illya's door, hesitating a moment before she knocks.
"Where's Napoleon?" she asks when he answers.
"He went to bed," Illya says, eyes narrowed for no good reason. She narrows hers back in a confrontational fashion and he shuts his door without saying goodnight.
Down in the basement (where she doesn't go if she can't help it; the atmosphere is dank and depressing) she knocks on Napoleon's door and receives no reply.
Well, she thinks. He comes into my room without knocking often enough. The door isn't even locked, so he's nearly asking for it.
But Napoleon is not asleep in his room. He's not there at all, and he seems to have lied about his whereabouts, which is reason enough to get her invested in obtaining an answer.
"You're home late," she comments as Napoleon opens the door to his room, and seeing his face blanche in surprise is so worth the hours of sleep she missed out on to wait up for him.
He recoups quickly, glancing around the room to make sure Illya and Waverly aren't lurking in the wings for him (she wishes momentarily she'd enlisted at least one of them). Then he shucks his jacket. "Long day at work," he says, clearly using that charming persona of his that he likes to play to the girls. "Care to join me in the shower?"
She pulls a face; she can't help it. But he raises his eyebrows, candid, and taps his ear. Someone's listening.
"I think I can help you unwind," she agrees, and stands from where she was sitting on his desk. He makes a show of dropping his suit jacket and his belt noisily. She does the same with her shoes as she follows him into the bathroom, giving a coquettish giggle that makes him pull a face back at her.
The shower gets turned all the way on high; they stand, fully-clothed, right on the other side of the curtain.
"I didn't know you could make that noise," he whispers once he decides it's safe. His voice is so low she can barely hear him over the sound of water hitting tile, and she matches that fractional volume.
"Why are we in your bathroom?" she asks, deadpan.
"I've just been talking to my friends at the CIA," he says.
"Oh?" she asks, swallowing the lump in her throat.
"They want me to inform on U.N.C.L.E., which is – honestly – not surprising. Only a little shocking that it took them this long to ask."
"Why are you telling me?" she asks.
"That is the million-dollar question," he responds, loosening his tie. The water's running hot and the bathroom is getting uncomfortably humid. "Although I suppose the answer must be at least a little obvious."
"You don't want to," she says. He just hums.
"Jingoism aside, I'm all for undermining potential nuclear advancement," he says. Ever the rational one. "The boys back at the office are on board with keeping bombs and technology out of this Nazi cell's reach. And they love the idea that I might be keeping something out of the Russians' hands."
"But we'll be keeping it out of their hands too," she says.
"That part they're not so keen on," he says.
"So what are you going to do?" she asks.
"Haven't decided yet," he says, a little too briskly. She's too lost in her own thoughts to acknowledge it, though.
"Do you think Illya's informing on us?" she asks.
"Hard to say," Napoleon says, when what he clearly means is I wish I could tell you he isn't. He moves on before she can reply. "Anyway, I guess I told you because I trust you… after a fashion."
"Aww," she coos, and he rolls his eyes.
"You don't have a horse in the race, do you? No loyalties."
His words cut her deep for some reason she can't quite put a pin in. She looks down at her feet, bare against the pale blue tile of the bathroom. "Sure I have loyalty," she says.
He scoffs, a funny little sound given how quiet they're being. "To who? Waverly?"
"To all of you," she says. "To this."
For a second he just regards her silently, then he shakes his head. "Not the same thing, exactly," he says in a tone that brooks no argument. "Now, if you don't mind, I've spent the better part of my evening insisting quite vehemently that Illya's no threat to our national security, something I never thought I'd have to spend my free time doing, so I'd love to take this shower. Alone," he adds needlessly. "Try to sound satisfied on your way out."
She smacks him across the cheek. "For effect," she insists before she leaves.
What would a woman who's just been satisfactorily fucked in the shower sound like, anyway? She wonders as she gathers her shoes from the floor on her way out. She certainly wouldn't know, and she tries not to think too hard about that (or questions of loyalty, complex and frightening as they are) while she's falling asleep.
The next morning at breakfast she can't quite make herself look either of them in the eye. She eats her eggs with an undivided focus. But she's not so busy staring down her nose that she doesn't notice when Waverly breezes in, looking like he always does right before he says something that pisses her off.
"Did the two of you enjoy your shower?" Waverly asks as he puts his kettle on for tea. The long-suffering sigh Napoleon heaves might be funny in another circumstance. But Gaby looks immediately to Illya, whose gaze has snapped to her, his lips pressed into a thin line. He looks more angry than hurt, but for him that might all be one in the same.
She just shakes her head no, trying to dispel Waverly's comment for the ridiculous thing it is. He pushes his chair back from the table forcefully, the legs screeching against the floor, and disappears up the staircase.
"We'll talk later, Solo," Waverly says, archly amused by the whole scene. Gaby sits back in her seat, staring at her food, but her appetite is suddenly gone.
When she knocks on Illya's door, she only hears him shuffle around inside. She's about to knock a second time, knuckles hovering right above the door, when it finally opens.
"What do you want?" he asks, face half-obscured by the barely open door. Not so much that Gaby can't see the expression he wears, though – practiced disinterest, a look she has also mastered.
"Let me in," she says, thrusting her chin up in an attempt to match his height, hopeless as that may be. He considers her for a moment before the door swings open as he steps aside to allow her entrance.
To his credit, nothing in the room is destroyed (part of her is unjustly wounded that she doesn't even rate a little rage – is indifference worse? Isn't that the saying? She can't remember). His room is always made up the same, no matter where they are in the world. Things put away tidily, suitcases and bags tucked under the bed or into the closet. Chessboard set out, partway through a game he could just as easily play in his head. No other personal effects. He lives a Spartan kind of life. No indulgences. No distractions.
She reaches the middle of the room, just by the foot of his bed, and turns to face him, not sure how to begin. He's still hovering by the doorway. The room is small enough that there isn't anywhere else for him to go besides towards her, a step he seems unwilling to take.
"Yes?" he says after a moment.
"I'm not sleeping with him," she says.
He stares at her for a disconcerting second before looking away. "This is not my business," he says.
"I know it's not," she says. "I'm telling you anyway."
"Why?" he asks.
"I just…" she falters. "I didn't want you to think I was," she manages to get out. It's true for a dozen reasons, but she's already moving to leave before she finishes talking. This was a bad idea, as her ideas so frequently are when it comes to Illya. This balancing act between them is getting out of hand, she tries to convince herself. It's not worth the effort – because – they're spies, and what good is honesty between them in the first place? He's probably reporting everything she says to him back to his higher-ups in Russia.
He catches her by the elbow, and then they're standing face-to-face in his doorway as he looks at her, brows knit together, mouth open slightly as if he's about to speak. He doesn't get the chance, though; they're interrupted by the sound of a door closing upstairs.
As Napoleon comes down the stairs and passes them, Illya drops her arm and steps out of the doorframe, putting a bit of much-needed space between them. Gaby runs a hand through her hair and shakes her head to clear some of these senseless thoughts out of it. Napoleon spares them a bemused glance as he heads on his way, mercifully not saying anything to make the situation any more awkward than it already is.
Once he's gone, Gaby begins to retreat to her own room.
"Wait," Illya says, stopping her dead in her tracks. She turns back as he joins her in the hallway, hands closed into tight fists at her side. She doesn't need him to be rocking the boat right now. They never talk about these moments that keep slipping away from them after they're gone; they move on and pretend it didn't happen until it's happening again.
"What?" she asks, glancing up at him through her eyelashes.
In response, he holds something up. A ring. "Tracker," he says.
"Right," she says, taking the ring from him. It's heavier than it looks, set with dark gems and made of gold. She turns it over in her hand, but spies no imperfection or indiscreet detail in it. "It's pretty," she says (It's practical is what it is, and she should have said that, if she'd wanted to be professional about it. But it can be both at once, and she doesn't have to be just one thing either). Illya makes no response beyond a modest inclination of his head. "Thank you," Gaby says.
"You're welcome," he says as she closes her hand around the ring.
After that he goes back to his room and she goes back to hers, but she puts the ring on before she gets ready for the day, and she likes the weight of it on her finger.
"Trouble in paradise?" Gatlin asks when he meets her in the garage that afternoon. He's running late, and she's been waiting for him in the sweltering heat for what feels like hours, so long that she'd shed parts of her uniform and gotten out of the car in favor of leaning up against the hood.
"Hmm?" she asks through a mouthful of driver's gloves as she puts her hat back on ("This is adorable," Napoleon had commented the first time she'd come home in the uniform hat before pilfering it for himself for the rest of the evening).
"The ring," Gatlin comments, not waiting for her to open the door for him before he gets into the back of the car. She pulls her glove on and gets in too.
"What about it?" she asks.
"It's better-looking than the other one," he says. "Probably more expensive too. An apology present?" Mr. Gatlin is, in Gaby's professional opinion, much too interested in her fictional fiancé, and she wonders sometimes if she would have been better off going without the ring to avoid his attentions.
"No," she says. "He just came into some money recently."
"What is it you said he does?" Gatlin asks once they're on the road.
"He wants to be a stock trader," she says, a lie born several days ago after she'd spent the prior evening listening to Waverly and Napoleon bicker about stocks and futures. Gatlin makes an indiscriminate noise in response and spends much of the rest of the drive in silence.
"I'm giving you tomorrow off," he says as they arrive at his office building.
"Oh?" she asks.
"I've got an important meeting outside of the city. It's several hours round trip and I don't want to put you out too much so I'll be driving myself," he says with the clear cadence of an excuse. "Enjoy your time off."
"Yes, sir," she says.
"And Kline?" he asks as he's getting out of the car. "You're a nice girl and you don't deserve to be getting yourself into unnecessary trouble. If I can offer a little unsolicited wisdom, it's that boys from the wrong side of town don't make their fortunes trading stock. His business is something else."
Unbidden, she imagines Illya in his arms dealer guise. She manages to keep her lips pressed into a thin, emotionless line until the car door swings closed, and then she loses herself laughing. She couldn't say why she thought of it or why she thinks it's so funny, and she definitely couldn't share the joke with anyone else. It'll have to be for her amusement and hers alone.
"Does one of you have a meeting with Gatlin tomorrow?" she asks that evening as she tosses her coat onto the kitchen table. Napoleon and Illya exchange a glance between themselves.
"No," Napoleon says, drawn out with the inflection of a question.
"He gave me the day off," she says, drawing Waverly's full attention away from his newspaper for once.
"Why?" Waverly asks.
"He said it was because he's got a meeting out of town but I think he just doesn't want me around," she says.
"Sounds like trouble," Napoleon says. "We could tail him."
"I'll do it," Waverly says, sounding simultaneously exhausted and accusatory, like it's their fault he's going to have to spend a day in the field again. "It wouldn't do to have one of you spotted somewhere you shouldn't be."
"I wouldn't be spotted," Napoleon mutters under his breath, a shade of offense in his voice.
Still, Waverly insists on taking the burden on himself, leaving her with a truly delectable prospect: a day off both her jobs.
Habit forces her out of bed early the next morning; she finds Napoleon already poaching eggs in the kitchen.
"Good, you're up," he says as she sits down at the table. She gives him a once over (he's looking very much like he did the night she met him: dressed in a three piece suit despite the hour, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, jacket traded for an apron) and narrows her eyes.
"I don't like that look on your face," she says as he sets a plate of toast and eggs down in front of her.
"What look?" he asks. "I don't have a look."
"Yes you do," she says. "It's the one that means you're up to no good."
"This is the thanks I get for making you breakfast," he says, cracking another egg into the pot. She rarely has an appetite the morning after she's had a bad night's sleep, which is most mornings. Today is no exception, but she stabs the poached egg with her fork and watches as it bleeds yolk onto the plate anyway.
Illya enters the room a minute later, and like clockwork:
"Good, you're up." Napoleon offers him a plate, having just finished cooking the second egg. Gaby wonders at his impeccable timing.
"What do you want?" Illya asks, suspicious as all get out.
"See?" Napoleon says to her. "Thankless work."
"So you don't want anything from us?" Gaby asks as she licks yolk off the tines of her fork.
"On the contrary, I have something for you," Napoleon says. "A proposition."
"I'll hear it," Gaby says after a moment of unfeigned consideration in which Illya holds his plate of eggs in front of him in irritated silence.
"There's a little house out in the Hamptons that I happen to know is unoccupied for the next few months," Napoleon begins.
"He wants us to help him steal something," Illya interrupts, setting the plate down in staunch refusal. He'll get up to no trouble and have no toast today, Gaby thinks with a half-smirk.
"What is it?" she asks.
"A vase," Napoleon says.
"Just a vase?"
"Well, an expensive vase. And I've got a buyer lined up already, so it's easy money. And that's not even the best part."
"What's the best part?" Gaby asks.
"It's a great beginner safe," he says.
"He wants you to steal something for him," Illya grumbles from somewhere she can't see him, as he's retreated to the dining room.
"Sounds like fun," she says, mostly because she suspects it will annoy Illya (she's rewarded with a scoff, sotto voce, from the next room). "I'll drive."
She's honestly not even surprised that Illya is waiting in the garage after she gets ready, looming around the passenger side door of the car like a ghost.
"Glad you decided to join us," she quips as she leans on the top of the car. Waverly has two cars and he's taken the more discreet of the two for his own today, leaving them with the robin's egg blue convertible. She sets about putting the top down. It's a beautiful day, after all, and her companions could use the extra headroom.
"I will not help," Illya declares as he helps her with the top.
"Then why are you coming?" Napoleon asks as he enters the room.
"In case of trouble," Illya replies.
"I think we're more likely to attract trouble with you along for the ride," Napoleon says dryly, and Illya only glowers in response.
"Come, boys," Gaby says, sliding into the driver's seat. "We don't have time for this bickering."
Neither of them like that very much (they've never liked it when she points out how petty their arguments are – she supposes it all seems much more serious to them than it does to anyone else), but begrudgingly they get in the car.
Napoleon ends up in the back seat and he complains all the way there. She suspects that Illya has not yet forgiven them for the caper they have planned. But there are worse things, she thinks, than driving fast in a pretty car, the promise of mischief on the horizon, heart pounding much too loudly in her chest.
By the end of the two-hour drive out to the Hamptons, Illya has cooled off a little and doesn't seem so reticent to be around anymore. This changes promptly as they pull up to the house (larger and more stately than Gatlin's, even) and get out of the car.
"How will we get inside?" Gaby asks, smoothing her wild hair back and taking off her sunglasses.
"The front door," Napoleon says, like this should be obvious.
"You're sure the house is empty?" Illya asks, his gaze wandering to one of the neighboring houses down the street.
"Most of them are," Napoleon says, waving them along down the flagstone driveway. "Summer's over and the rich are like migratory birds."
"And if someone sees us?"
"Let's get inside and make sure nobody does," Napoleon says, stooping slightly so he can see the locks on the front door at level. "Gaby?" he asks, straightening up.
"Me?" she says, pointing at herself with her folded sunglasses.
"The best way to learn is to do," he says. Illya mutters something in Russian that she doesn't catch, but she takes the lock picking tools from Napoleon anyway and sets to work on the door.
All in all, they're only on the porch for about five minutes before Gaby gets the door open, but it's still five times as long as they would've been out there if Napoleon had just done it himself. He still seems suitably impressed with her progress.
"The safe's this way," Napoleon says, gesturing down a hallway.
"You know your way around," Gaby remarks, running a finger along a sideboard to check for dust. The place seems impeccable, though.
"I may have been a guest here once or twice before," he admits.
They follow him to the back of the house, where there is a sprawling master bedroom that has more open floor space than every room in the Brownstone put together and the biggest four-poster bed Gaby's ever seen in her life. Napoleon is not distracted by any of the opulence (she's sure he's been a guest in this bedroom before as well). Instead he heads to the walk-in closet on the other side of the room and pulls a false back out of one of the shelves.
"Huh," he says as he looks at the safe, still holding the wooden panel.
"What's wrong?" Gaby asks, crowding into the closet to peer at the safe.
"Looks like they upgraded their security," he says.
"Can we get it open?" she asks.
"I can," he responds, setting the panel down at the other side of the closet. "But it's going to take me longer than I thought it would and you'll only slow me down."
"Hmph," Gaby says, even though this is fair of him.
"Just… give me an hour," he says.
"One hour," Illya agrees from where he's leaning against the doorframe.
Gaby pushes past him to escape the closet and looks around the bedroom again for something to distract her. Finding nothing suitable, she wanders off down the hallway again and into the kitchen.
Illya, of course, follows her.
"Make yourself useful," she says, pointing to a high shelf in the kitchen that houses a few bottles of liquor. Illya sighs, but doesn't question it. He hands her a bottle of clear alcohol and leans against the counter as she fixes herself a drink.
"This is not a good idea," he says as she downs it.
"Why not?" she asks. "We're already stealing their valuables, why would they miss a few drinks?" She pours a second a drink and offers him the glass, knowing full well that he won't take it. He never drinks while they're working and rarely does in his recreational time, either.
"No thank you," he says. Always the same polite response.
"We aren't working, technically," she reasons, pushing the glass towards him again.
"Someone has to keep their head," he says. She shrugs and prepares to down the second glass before he interrupts her. "It's a very expensive bottle."
She rolls her eyes at him, taking a dainty sip of the drink for effect. She doesn't drink for the experience of it, though.
Bored with the conversation, she sets off again, roving around the house poking and prodding at whatever catches her attention. Illya follows her a few paces away, and she can feel his presence there behind her.
"I need music," she announces as they enter the living room. She sets her glass down and starts to check for a radio or record player, but he catches her wrists to still her.
"Not today," he says, and she pulls her hands back from his roughly. "Someone might hear."
"Napoleon said nobody was around," she reminds him.
"He was wrong about the safe," he says. "He could be wrong about that, too."
"You're no fun," she says.
"I know," he says.
She is silent for a moment and then turns around and looks for her glass. She can't remember where she set it down – and whatever she's been drinking was strong. Her vision spins slowly in front of her. She sighs and kicks her shoes off.
"Fine, no music," she says, turning back to him. "I don't need music to dance."
He raises his eyebrows, amused or incredulous, she can never tell.
"I wouldn't expect you to dance with me, of course," she says, moving past him. She braces her weight on the back of an intricately wrought wooden sofa.
"You remember London," he says.
(She does remember London – the entire mission had been a series of small disasters, and the party where she and Illya had danced together hadn't been the least of them. But it wasn't the dancing that had turned the event so sour. He's good on his feet for somebody his size, and she remembers – more than anything else – the feeling of his fingers curling into the soft fabric of her dress at the small of her back – that hadn't been a disaster, had it?)
She doesn't say anything back. She just slides out from behind the sofa and approaches him with real purpose in her step. He must see it in her eyes, because he doesn't back away when she comes up to stand in front of him, toe to toe.
"I can dance by myself," she says at length, turning away from him again.
He laughs, low and under his breath, and for a second before she glances over her shoulder she thinks she imagined it.
"What?" she asks.
"You're determined," he says, a sorry excuse for an explanation in her opinion.
"I love to dance," she says.
Her head's swimming. She's not even sure what they're talking about anymore, because she feels like it's not dancing. He's staring at her. He always does – focus that unwavering attention on her when they're alone together, and it's always been too much.
"Where's my drink?" she asks, turning around too quickly. Her balance is off and she stumbles to the side. He catches her by the shoulder.
"Gaby," he says under his breath, and she's sure whatever he's going to say next isn't something she wants to hear. Not right here, not right now. Maybe not ever – because – what good is honesty coming from a spy, anyway? No good.
"Ne khorosho," she says aloud without really meaning to.
"What?" he asks, genuinely confused.
"Are you informing on us?" she asks in a sloppy mix of German and Russian.
"What?" he repeats, tone icy enough now that she thinks he probably understood her.
"Are you reporting back to the KGB?" she repeats herself in English and watches how his shoulders set forward like he's getting ready for a fight (still, somehow, she's not scared of him, even if she should be). His brow is creased in concentration and he lets out an irritated puff of air through his teeth.
"Did one of them tell you I was?"
"Solo," she admits. He shakes his head. "But are you?"
There's a pause. "Yes," he says. She lets out a sound of frustration and begins to leave the room. She sees her glass set on a side table and picks it up as she goes, drinking the rest of it in one gulp. He follows, always at her heels, and she returns to the master bedroom.
"Wait," he says, trying to catch her shoulder. She pulls away from him. "Let me explain at least."
"I don't care," Gaby spits, tossing the glass to the floor where it shatters at Illya's feet. "I don't care about either of you." At this, Napoleon sticks his head out of the closet.
"Could the two of you keep it down?" he asks. She wishes she had another glass to toss at his head.
"This is your fault," Illya says to Napoleon, gesturing at Gaby.
"I doubt that," Napoleon replies, disappearing into the closet again.
"Listen," Illya starts again, but Gaby doesn't want to. She goes at him, shoving him in the chest. He stumbles slightly, broken glass crunching beneath his shoes. It's that little sound and not the stinging pain in her foot that makes her realize she's stepped on the shards, barefoot. She hisses, lifting her foot off the ground.
Before she really has a chance to process what is happening, he picks her up.
"Hold still," he says when she tries to twist out of his grasp. He only carries her a few feet before depositing her on the bed. "You're bleeding."
"Everything all right out there?" Napoleon calls from the closet.
"Fine," Gaby bites back.
"Let me see," Illya says, kneeling in front of her, one hand curling around her bare calf. She reminds herself idly that she's still mad at him as he sets about the task of pulling the shards of glass out of her heel. "Listen," he tries once more as he's finishing, his thumb running against the skin just below the back of her knee (unfair, she thinks).
"What?" she asks.
"Waverly knows," he says, and though the thought should placate her she just feels all the more betrayed. "If I send nothing back they would not let me stay."
Napoleon, who is now hovering in the closet doorway, takes the time to chime in. "Still, your betters at the KGB won't be happy when their best agent starts shirking his orders," he says, arms folded.
"I am already in contempt," he says under his breath, drawing Napoleon's genuine interest. Gaby doesn't really want to hear. She's heard enough for today and his hand's still on her leg. "After Rome they wanted you," he says to her, and it takes her a few long seconds to realize what he means.
"Why?" Napoleon asks.
"They thought she might know something about her father's research and told me to bring her in," he says.
"Oh," she says. That would have been – bad. She's heard plenty of horror stories about the various methods of information extraction in her time, and since she honestly doesn't know anything about her father's work – it would have been bad.
"And you convinced them she didn't and you'd be more use here gathering information," Napoleon finishes for him. "Owing the KGB a favor isn't a good way to be in."
"No," Illya agrees quietly.
"What about you, Napoleon?" Gaby asks, his own situation an errant afterthought to her.
"Well, I talked to Waverly," he says from the closet, the sentence punctuated by a loud metallic clank. "I think I'll be alright – but we're both giving up an unfortunate amount of intelligence to placate all our far-flung friends, so we'll have to be a little more careful from now on."
He comes out of the closet holding what Gaby presumes is the vase they came for. It's smaller than she imagined, small enough that he can toss it up in the air and catch in one hand – which he does, making her cringe in anticipation. He doesn't drop it, though.
"And what happens if someone decides they're unhappy with you being here?" she asks to neither one of them in particular, or maybe both of them.
"We'll have a very exciting day," Napoleon says.
Gaby sniffs, unsatisfied. She pushes Illya aside and puts experimental weight on her injured foot. It feels fine, so she stands. He clears his throat and stands after her.
"We should get back as quickly as possible," he reminds them, and leaves them alone in the bedroom.
"Are you alright?" Napoleon asks her.
"I only cut my foot," she says, dodging his real question, because if she's being truthful, she doesn't know how she feels about any of this at all.
The drive back is quiet and they manage to make it home before Waverly does. Napoleon goes to fence the vase straightaway, leaving Gaby and Illya alone in the house.
She tries to retire to her room for the evening, even though it's only about two in the afternoon, but Illya insists on looking at her cuts again. So instead of being alone in her room with a book and a drink like she wants to be, she's sitting on the bathroom counter as Illya bandages her foot for her.
Somehow she feels flushed and clammy at the same time, and her mouth is dry. She's got a pounding headache that makes her teeth hurt. Worst of all, Illya's hand is on her leg again, a particular and peculiar kind of torture that she isn't sure she'll be able to endure much longer.
Her throat is scratchy, so she clears it, and when Illya looks up at her she feels like she should say something. "So, mister doctor…" she begins, and he has to look away from her. "Will I keep the foot?"
"Yes," he responds, humorless, as he finishes with the bandages. She wiggles her toes and he releases his grip on her leg and stands.
Now is the time that he should leave and give her room to hop down off the counter. But he doesn't move, leaving her trapped. They are both silent (she wonders if as many words are brewing on his tongue as on hers) and she can't read his expression. There is something fervent in his gaze, but she can't name it.
"Thank you," she says finally.
"It is nothing," he says, clearly thinking she means to thank him for bandaging her foot. She grabs his wrist as he seems to start to move. At the touch of her fingers, he freezes in place.
"No," she says, sliding off the counter even though there isn't really enough room for the both of them on the ground. "For… for not turning me over."
"I'd never do that," he says without hesitation. His surety is funny, she thinks, given that she gave him up on orders without a second thought. That was only months ago, but it feels like so much longer. In some ways she's lived a whole lifetime between that day and this one.
"I know," she says, because she's sure of it too, somehow. "But still, it could – put you in trouble," she settles on.
"I'll be fine," he assures her. And then he adds in a low tone: "I knew the risk."
She knows that tone, and knows the look on his face. He's going to try to kiss her. It was the same in Rome, when they suffered all the interruptions, and that one time in Turkey when they'd stolen a moment alone on the beach, and the time in London when she'd balked and run away from him. That's her instinct now, too, even though another part of her really, really wants him to…
His fingertips brush her jawline, and she thinks – it's probably inevitable, isn't it? With this magnetic pull between the two of them, it's bound to happen. Every time they get this close, she thinks it. Might as well be now. Even when she'd been about to give him up and Solo had been standing on the balcony five feet away. Even when she thought she'd never see him again. Might as well happen.
She grabs a fistful of his shirt to pull herself closer to him, standing on her tiptoes as he lowers his head.
They're alone in the house, she thinks as her hips knock against him. He wants to kiss her, she thinks as she feels his warm breath on her already parted lips. It was inevitable, she thinks as he closes the distance.
It's not like she was expecting it to be. He's gentle with her, which isn't all that much of a surprise, given how careful he always is with his touches. But he is not reserved, or rigid, like she's come to think of him. He's tall enough that she has to stretch to reach him, every line of her body pressed against his, supple and pliant and they fit together so well when he pulls her closer. With one of his hand tangled in her hair and the other firmly on her waist, she feels that she could happily stay like this forever.
Downstairs, the front door slams shut, and they jump apart like startled animals. Though they don't run much risk of being discovered hidden away here in their bathroom, Illya's detached demeanor returns instantly and he makes a dash for his room, leaving her alone. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, looking wanton and disheveled with her red lips and wild hair. She's quite the sight.
She doesn't see Illya for the rest of the day; she spends it hiding in her room with that drink she so wanted before.
She has to go back to work at the Gatlins' the next day. It feels like she's been gone for years, not just a day, and she has a hard time settling back into the routine. Sensing that she's not in top form, Mr. Gatlin tells her to pick the kids up from school that afternoon and then leaves her alone in the house.
She spends the time snooping around his office, but finds nothing incriminating or useful. The safe remains unopened behind that ugly painting.
When she goes to pick up the children, the last thing she's expecting is danger or excitement. Her complacency almost costs her a grave price.
"Walt and I are going to Darrell's house," Gatlin's oldest son George Junior tells her, indicating another car idling in front of the school. His brother Walter, she assumes, is already in that car – the driver, a dark-haired man with heavy eyelids, lurks by the passenger side door. She nearly just tells him to go ahead, because controlling Gatlin's ill-behaved horde of children is not among her considerable talents, but then she remembers—
"Darrell Gaines?"
"Yes," the Gatlin boy says, sounding irritated with her.
Darrell is the son of Stanford Gaines, one of the men Illya had warned her about those few weeks ago. She makes a point of keeping an eye on the enemy children, as it were, and he was picked up twenty minutes ago while she was waiting for the Gatlin kids to show up.
The boy is not in the other car, she's quite certain.
"Get in the car," she says to George. There must be something in her tone that demands fear, because he doesn't so much as question her. She gets out of the car and sets off towards the man she can only presume is Gaines' hired help.
He's bigger than she is, but not as big as Illya or even Napoleon, and she can handle them just fine – besides, she has the element of surprise on her side. She sees Walter in the car by himself, and needing to be decisive, she goes in hot.
The man sees her too late to draw his gun on her, and she takes the opportunity to grab him by the hair and slam his face into the top of his car.
He reels for a second, and she kicks him in the back of the knee, sending him neatly to the ground. She kicks him in the face once more for good measure before opening the car door and hoisting Walter out by the back of his jacket. He complains only for a second, because by the time she's retreating back to her own car, the man has recovered and drawn his gun on her.
She helps Walter into the car with as much patience as she can muster when she's about to be shot at. The man wouldn't shoot at her when she was holding the boy, but he is willing to take a shot at her car, and he fires twice. Both bullets glance off the metal siding, and she peels away before he can follow them.
The Gatlin children are still sobbing and frightened when she gets them back to their house, so she has to explain what happened to their mother almost immediately. Soon the woman is also hysterical and she calls her husband home from work early. When he gets back, he tells Gaby to wait in his office while he calms his family down.
She stands uncomfortably in the center of the room, fairly certain she's about to be fired (or worse) until the man himself comes in.
He just claps her on the shoulder and pours her a drink.
"How'd you know?" he asks.
She grapples with the truth, unsure how much she can say without exposing herself. "I'd seen the Gaines boy already picked up," she says. "And drivers don't usually carry handguns," she adds for good measure.
"No," Gatlin agrees. "But I might have to get one for you, if today's any indication."
"I hope it isn't," Gaby says, and he laughs.
"I owe you a debt, Kline," he says as he sends her on her way, a promise in his voice. She doesn't know what he might be promising her, but she does know she's already been rewarded handsomely with his trust.
By the time she explains what happened to the rest of the team that evening, she's tired of the story and just wants to go to bed.
Still, this retelling isn't without its rewards. After prodding her for details on how she took the Gaines goon down, Napoleon lets out a low whistle. "Wish I could've seen that," he says fondly, and it makes her smile. Waverly even offers her a few kind words after telling her that she needs to be more discreet than to get in gunfights in public.
Illya doesn't say anything. He'll barely look her in the eye. (She doesn't know why she thought actually making contact would shift the dynamic of their relationship any; he was content to never speak of what was obviously there before, and he's the same now.)
That night as she's trying to fall asleep, she can't get his face out of her head. She considers several times getting up to cross the hall, slip into his room, slip into his bed. Her head is so full of thoughts that she isn't sure how she manages to fall asleep at all.
A few days later, Gatlin pulls her aside in the middle of the work day and tells her that he'll need her to drive him to a meeting that evening. She had her suspicions he'd ask her; she's his new confidant, after rescuing his children, and she knows that he has a meeting with Napoleon and Illya tonight. She doesn't have time to let them know that she'll be there, so she has to trust their ability to play it cool.
When she pulls up to the old warehouse that night to let Gatlin off, she catches Illya's eye through the windshield. His leer had been bad enough the last time they'd crossed paths undercover; now that he wasn't expecting her to be around in what might be a dangerous situation, it is so intense she half expects the car windows to shatter.
Thankfully, Gatlin doesn't seem to notice, just leans back into the car to give her instructions before telling her to wait across the way.
She hasn't been parked for twenty minutes when she first spots a retinue of vehicles pulling up around the warehouse. Trouble, for sure. Quickly she assesses her options. There's no way she'd be able to make it into the warehouse on foot in time to warn them and get everyone out again, and there's no way she can sneak in a car. The cars are parked around the main garage entrance, which means she can't drive in that way – leaving her with only one point of entry.
The wall of windows on the south side of the warehouse.
Instinct has never served her poorly yet, so she turns the car on and guns it. Only the second before she hits the windows does she spare a hope that they aren't standing anywhere too close to them on the inside.
Lucky they are on the other side, and as she peels up to them she hears a commotion outside – her grand entrance has drawn attention.
"Time to go," she shouts at them. Gatlin seems flabberghasted, but Napoleon and Illya only look a little resigned and irritated. Illya pushes Gatlin into the passenger seat, and as soon as everyone's in she takes off again.
"I hope you have a plan," Napoleon says as she turns away from the broken windows suddenly – they've moved their cars to block her exit.
"I'm working on it," she spits.
"Whose men are these?" Illya asks just as a bullet hits the car.
"Gaines's," Gatlin says immediately, sounding like he's about to pass out. Gaby takes another sharp turn as another exit becomes unavailable to her, and the car nearly careens into the warehouse wall when Illya pulls her head down just as a bullet cuts through the windshield and embeds in the back seat between him and Napoleon.
"Careful," Napoleon shouts, but she ignores him. Last option – the loading docks. It'll be a rough landing without a ramp, but better that than a bullet in the head.
"Kline, don't," Gatlin says as he realizes the direction she's driving in.
No way to turn back with so many guns behind them, though. Loading docks it is.
Her heart stops in her chest as they go off the side and they're airborne for an awful second, but even though the car lands hard enough that Gatlin is knocked out in the landing, it still runs, and that's all that's important to her. She makes a sharp turn that puts them on the road and they're off and away, a good head start between them and Gaines's men.
Napoleon directs them to a safehouse of his that he almost certainly hadn't wanted to tell them about – the apartment is bare except for some plain wooden furniture and single expensive-looking painting propped up against one wall.
Gatlin is mercifully still unconscious when they arrive; Napoleon and Illya hold his limp body between them like an old rug while they bicker for a few moments over where they should put him down. Eventually they tie him to a chair in a precautionary way.
"Waverly's not going to be happy with us," Gaby tells them as she finishes securing one of Gatlin's ankles.
"He asked us to keep him alive," Napoleon says. "We did that, and it was no easy swing."
"You said yourself we've got to be more careful," Gaby says. "And you know Waverly hates this."
This being the undeniable fact that their team is always at its most functional when they're gracefully escaping a pile-up of crises (usually ones of their own design). Cover identities never seem to last long in their hands.
"He's the one that put the team together," Napoleon says.
"What now?" Illya presses, tightening a rope to punctuate the urgent sentiment.
"Two objectives," Napoleon reminds them. "Keep him alive. You're welcome."
"I'm welcome?" Gaby comments aside. He keeps talking over her.
"Second, find out what kind of technology he's working with."
"I doubt he'll tell us once he realizes we're spies," Gaby says.
"He doesn't have to know," Illya says. "You are his driver. You drove. Don't be here when he wakes up."
"That's good," Napoleon says. "Where can we go?"
"There's a safe in his office," Gaby says. "I can take you there."
"Excellent," Napoleon says, picking up his suit jacket. "We'll do that and Peril will try to scare something interesting out of him. Let's hit the road, Bonnie." Gaby doesn't know the reference, but his nicknames are generally a thing bestowed of affection, so she doesn't worry over it.
On her way out, she catches Illya by the elbow. He's got a dark look in his eye, one of hard work yet to be done, and she doesn't like it any more than she likes what she's about to say. "I saved his children," she tells him. "He owes me a debt. You can use that."
Illya stares for a moment before nodding; he knows what she's insinuating he should say. She doesn't like putting such thoughts into his head, but work is work, and it has to be done.
Gaby is expecting chaos at the Gatlin household, but of course news of George's illicit activities doesn't travel to the suburbs that quickly, and it's all quiet when she parks the car down the road.
"I'm supposed to be with him," she says, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.
"Mrs. Gatlin will recognize me, too," Napoleon says, peering out the window. "Best not to be seen."
"Do I have to go in with you?" she asks. Playing getaway driver is so much more her style.
He just nods. "To show me where it is. And the extra set of hands helps keeps things quiet."
She heaves a sigh, but doesn't complain. The faster they're done here, the better.
Gatlin's office has a set of French doors that lead out to the lawns, and in the interest of time and discretion Napoleon makes quick work of the locks without making Gaby try them first. Once they're inside the office, lit only by the low light of the moon through the windowpanes, she feels she can hardly breathe. Napoleon crosses to the portrait and begins to take it down off the wall; only when he pauses does she realize that he intends for her to help him take it down.
She gathers her wits about her and joins him on the far side of the room, removing the painting and lowering it down. Her hands shake; she nearly drops it, but she manages not to fumble it so badly as to make a sound. Once they have it down, Napoleon hands her his tools and sets to work on the safe.
It shouldn't be so terrifying a prospect, being caught. After all, the Gatlins know and like her; she might be able to talk her way out of any situation she found herself in. Even if she couldn't, it's not like George Junior or Mrs. Gatlin would be able to take both her and Napoleon in a fight. Still, she is wracked by nerves.
"No pacing," Napoleon whispers, and she stops dead in her tracks. "You've got to calm down. You can talk to me, if it helps. Just be quiet about it."
"Like you're so quiet," she whispers back.
"I am when I'm breaking and entering."
"As long as you don't set off any alarms," she says.
His silence reads irritated, and it's short-lived. "Did Illya tell you about that?" he asks.
"Oh, immediately. The night it happened," she replies. It had been a very strange night; Napoleon had been tied up with Victoria Vinciguerra, and Illya hadn't left her alone the entire time. She hadn't been in the mood for teasing or wrestling. Having received her orders from Waverly to give the both of them up, all she'd wanted to do was pull her covers over her head and sleep forever.
But he couldn't stay silent, the first and only time he'd pushed her to converse with him at length. She'd only stolen a few seconds alone while he'd changed out of his soaked clothes. He hadn't even showered until after he was sure Victoria was gone. He'd been chilled to the bone, nearly shaking as he spoke.
They'd talked for hours and hours, rehashing what had already happened to them, planning what should ideally happen the next day. Mostly inconsequential things. Small talk, in retrospect. At the time she'd felt certain he knew she was a double agent and was trying to get her to betray herself. She'd almost caved and told him a few times before they'd finally fallen asleep in the small hours of the morning.
She's been quiet for a few minutes now, just lost in thought. "He kissed me," she says, drawing Napoleon's attention for a half-second as he raises his eyebrows at her.
"That same night?" he asks, turning his attention back to the safe.
"No," Gaby says, rolling her eyes for the ridiculousness of the thought. "After we got back from the Hamptons."
"I wasn't sure he'd ever work up the nerve," Napoleon says, pulling the safe open. He peers inside and fishes out two briefcases.
"Also locked?" she asks.
"We can take care of that later," he says, setting them on the desk. Together they set the room back to rights and make their escape out the doors, gone like they'd never been there.
Napoleon fidgets with the locks on the briefcases on the drive back, so he doesn't have a chance to interrogate her about her personal life, which is a relief. She wonders a few times why she even told him in the first place.
She can't come up with a better explanation than that she trusts him (after a fashion).
By the time they get back to Napoleon's safe house, all the adrenaline has burned out in her veins. They have whatever was hidden in Gatlin's suitcases, and Illya's been alone with him for hours; surely one thing or the other will yield satisfactory results and their assignment here will finally be over.
But just when she's started congratulating herself for yet another mission somehow accomplished, Napoleon catches her by the shoulder in the hallway and hands her the other briefcase.
"Wait here," he says, producing a sleek handgun from his suit jacket. She stays rooted in place for a moment and then takes a few steps towards the threshold when no sounds of struggle come from inside. Napoleon meets her back at the door.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"They're gone," he says.
"What?" Gaby drops the briefcases as she pushes past him into the room. There are signs of struggle in the room. The chair Gatlin had been tied to is in pieces on the floor, Illya's handgun abandoned among the wreckage. The window at the far side of the kitchen is wide open. Only the stolen painting seems untouched.
"Gaines's men must have caught up with them," Napoleon says.
"Where are they?" Gaby asks. "Where's—"
"He might have gotten away," Napoleon replies. Might have is not satisfactory in Gaby's opinion. "Look," he says, retrieving the briefcases from the hallway. "You go back to the Brownstone."
She doesn't like the plan. She's not being pushed to the side. Not right now, not for this. "And you?" she asks.
"I'm going to follow a hunch."
"I want to go with you," she asserts, not giving him time even to draw breath.
"Gaby," he says in a way that makes her regret ever confiding her personal endeavours in him. "I'll be fine on my own. Someone's got to take the briefcases to Waverly and tell him what happened."
She hates it when he's right.
The next few hours are hell to endure.
She makes it back to the Brownstone, where Waverly is waiting for her – he's caught wind already of some of their less discreet movements. He doesn't, however, have any idea where Illya is or where Napoleon might have gone, leaving her stranded and useless.
She manages to get the briefcases open without Napoleon's help. One is full of American currency, and the other an extensive set of mechanical blueprints. Waverly puts her to work trying to make heads or tails of them while he disappears off to God-knows-where. He won't tell her what he's planning on doing.
The thought of sleep doesn't even occur to her in the hours that she's alone. She paces the length of the house over and over again after she becomes frustrated with the blueprints (she's no rocket scientist, for all her brains). Some time after that, she remembers the ring on her finger, the tracker that was supposed to keep her safe if Gaines's men snatched her, and in a fit of pique pulls it off and tosses it across the room. By the time dawn breaks, she's nearly jumping out of her skin.
Napoleon arrives back first, looking a little tired but full of momentum nonetheless.
"What's this?" he asks, looking at one of the blueprints.
"I don't know," Gaby says, a little more bite in her tone than he rightly deserves. He raises an eyebrow at her and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in. "It's not a bomb, though," she says.
"How can you tell?" he asks.
"It's only supposed to be this big," she says, demonstrating with her fingers. The thing's small enough to tuck into a pant pocket.
"That doesn't mean it's not a weapon," he says.
"True enough," she says, drifting off towards the kitchen. He sets down the papers and follows her.
"I didn't find anything," Napoleon says. "But Waverly's cashing in a favor right now."
"How many favors do you think he has left?" Gaby asks, getting herself a glass of water. Napoleon doesn't say anything. "What's going to happen when he runs out of them?"
"A very exciting day?" Napoleon offers.
"I'm not sure I like your idea of excitement," Gaby says.
"It's an acquired taste," he acquiesces. The span of silence that follows is interrupted by the shrill ring of the wall phone. He answers it before she can get it to it.
After a short conversation comprised of one-word answers on his end, he hangs the phone up.
"Well?" she asks.
"Waverly's got a location," Napoleon says.
"I'm driving," she says, and God bless him, he doesn't protest.
The address Waverly gave them belongs to a defunct elementary school, and from the outside it looks nothing more than the abandoned building that it's supposed to be. When they pull up, there's no one around and no cars parked nearby.
"Wait here," Napoleon starts to say.
"No," she says.
He looks at her for a long moment as if he's taking stock of the determined expression on her face, the set of her jaw, her hands closing into fists.
"All right," he says, pulling a spare gun out of the glove compartment and holding it out to her. "This is worthless for defense if you're not willing to shoot to kill," he warns her.
"Fine," she says, voice tight.
"It's not easy," he says.
"Growing up in East Berlin wasn't easy," she says. "Here I am."
He hands her the gun.
"Stay behind me," he says before they go in, his last word of caution to her.
The precaution lasts all of ten minutes before they're separated. In her defense, she left his side only for her own preservation; he was getting shot at and she wasn't particularly fond of the idea of catching a bullet that had missed him.
She ends up in the upper levels of the building, largely abandoned as the scuffle with Napoleon downstairs draws the attention of whoever is supposed to be minding the doors. The long hallway is lined with sickly green linoleum, and though the light from the high noon sun outside leaves it well-lit there's still an air of discomfort around the whole place. She's considering going back downstairs when she hears someone move in one of the rooms.
Gun drawn, she enters ready to fire – and thank God for her good instincts, because she drops her aim as soon as she sees who it is.
"Mr. Gatlin," she says, and his head swings to her though he's blindfolded and bound.
"Kline?" he asks as she sets about freeing him.
"Listen," she says as she pulls his blindfold off. "It's important. Did they take Ivchenko?"
Gatlin takes her in, with her dark sleek clothes and her handgun, looking very decidedly not like the girl he's come to know. She doesn't have time for his confusion, however justified it might be.
"The Russian," she prompts. "Is he here?"
"Yes," he says. "They have him nearby. I heard them…"
"Let's go," she says, pulling him to his feet. He doesn't ask questions as she checks one adjacent room, then the next, gun out all the while.
In the third room – the relief hits her in the chest like a physical thing – Illya is handcuffed to a section of exposed pipe along the wall, his height combined with the low position of the handcuffs forcing him to stoop at an uncomfortable angle.
She surges forward, abandoning the gun to take his face in her hands. She kisses him full on the mouth even though she doesn't mean to (Gatlin is still watching, and it's sentimental besides).
"Are you alright?" she asks after taking a rasping breath.
"Annoyed," he grunts in response, although to her eye he looks like he's taken at least a little damage. "You have Gatlin," Illya continues, always on task. "Good."
"Hold on," she says, fishing a lock pick out of her coat pocket. She makes quick work of the handcuffs (ignoring where the skin of his wrists is rubbed red from trying to force his way free) and helps him to his feet.
"Solo?" he asks.
"Downstairs with Gaines's men," she says.
He crosses the room and peers out the window. "You take Gatlin down the fire escape. Radio Waverly," he says. "I'll go rescue the cowboy."
"His knight in shining armor," Gaby says, passing the handgun off to him.
Before he can duck out the door, she grasps the lapel of his jacket in her fist for a moment, holding him in place, looking him in the eye. She wills a request into the silence between them, but doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything either and she releases her prising grip. He goes, she tries not to let herself hope he'll be okay.
Gatlin, she's surprised to find, is fairly spry. He doesn't complain at all as they scale the fire escapes and she helps him climb a dusty embankment on the way back to the car. It's not until they're sitting in the car after she's radioed Waverly for backup that he speaks to her at all.
"So…" he begins, and she turns her gaze back towards him and away from the double wide front doors of the school. The boys haven't shown yet, but by her count it's only been a bare few minutes since she parted ways with Illya. "I take it you're not actually a nanny."
"No," she half-says, half-laughs. The mirth dies quickly on her tongue. "If it makes you feel any better, he's not actually an arms dealer, either."
Gatlin nods and is quiet for a moment. She can see gears turning in his mind. "I don't care what you are," he says at length. "After what you've done for me and my family, I'm in your debt. I mean that."
She opens her mouth to demure, to let him off the hook – she's not sure he knows what he's volunteering for, even though he heard her talking to Waverly and must have a vague idea – but she presses her lips together without saying anything and just nods.
Waverly cashed in a favor or ten. She's gained one. That's the way of the job, she's coming to learn. And even though she feels a little bad – she thinks of Gatlin's briefcases on the kitchen table at the Brownstone and wonders if he will suspect her when she finds them missing – if taking this debt means a quiet day down the line, she'll take it.
They make it back to the Brownstone (sans Gatlin) just after the sun goes down.
She's had a long day and she's hungry and tired and could badly use a shower, but she can't bring herself to do much besides sit at the kitchen table, head resting on her hands, and listen to the quiet din of the others go about their evening. She knows this burnout relief all too well; it's the same after every mission. Maybe one day they'll have a mission that doesn't end in a close call with death, but she hasn't lived that day yet.
Waverly gives her a cup of tea. Napoleon makes her something to eat. Illya doesn't put up a fight when she insists on cleaning his cuts and scrapes. She's grateful for all of them, in their own ways.
As she's finishing with playing nursemaid, Waverly comes back into the room after several minutes spent in his office upstairs.
"The CIA will be looking after the Gatlin family from now on," he informs them. "I'll have your new marching orders in the morning."
Gaby's still got her hand on Illya's shoulder, and she more feels than hears him heave a little sigh. Whether it's relief or irritation she can't be sure. She's not even a hundred percent on how she feels about it – their globetrotting was fun and glamorous the first few weeks, but now she'd like to stay in one place for a bit. She'd like to live for a few days before diving headfirst into another bout of survival.
But that's the job.
She knows she should sleep. She hasn't gotten any in days and tomorrow will be another long one.
But it's one in the morning and she's been staring at her ceiling for hours. This insomnia isn't something she can fight with her fists. Sometimes it's best to just accept her wakefulness and get something useful done.
There's nothing to do downstairs.
She makes her decision quickly and slips out of bed, sneaking across her room in stocking feet. She means to move silently as not to wake anyone, but as she pulls the door open she finds that she's not the only person who couldn't sleep. Illya's standing just outside her doorframe, looking like he might have been considering knocking on her door but hadn't yet plucked up the courage.
Silently, she moves aside and allows him entrance to her bedroom.
He sits on her bed and she goes to her dresser, where she has stowed a handful of bottles of alcohol. She pours two drinks; as she suspects, Illya takes one without complaint. Dutch courage, as they say. She wonders if he ever envies Napoleon for his bravado, but the idea is slightly unfathomable to her.
She stands in front of him, downs her drink in one gulp. He sips at his. Cautious, always.
"Kto ty?" she asks in Russian. The question is simple enough (Who are you?) but it gives him pause. She sits down next to him on the bed, doesn't wait for clarification. "Tell me something true," she says.
He turns his glass idly in his hands, but hesitates only a second before responding. "When I was ten, my father was arrested," he begins.
They talk all night.
She wakes the next morning unfortunately alone – even though she's curled toward the empty side of the bed, she remembers Illya returning to his own room in the small hours, remembers how he pulled her close to him and chastely kissed the top of her head. For how innocent a kiss it was, just the memory of it warms her body through and through.
Napoleon strolls into her room thirty minutes later while she's in the middle of curling her hair and drops a roll of American bills on her vanity.
"What's this?" she asks, setting her curling iron down to investigate the money.
"Your cut," he says. "From the vase."
"I didn't do anything," she protests.
"You opened the front door," he says. "You should take the money. We've got the day off. I'll take you to Fifth Avenue."
She finishes counting the bills as he finishes speaking. "More clothes?" she asks, tucking the large sum into one of her handbags like it's petty change. "I'd rather buy myself a car."
"You can have both," he says.
"If you teach me to pick pockets," she quips.
"I've got time," he responds.
She laughs, but their afternoon is misspent on committing petty theft outside of Saks nonetheless. It's a skill, she tells herself as she watches him lift not one but both of a young lady's jeweled earrings with impressive ease. It's an investment for the job, not an indulgence.
The next day when Waverly has them pile into his convertible, he doesn't take them to the airport. Instead, he takes them downtown, and pulls into a private garage. The elevator isn't nearly big enough for all four of them, but they take it up together anyway. Napoleon leans against the back railing. Gaby feels Illya's hand ghosting at the small of her back.
"What are we doing here?" Napoleon finally asks. Waverly isn't forthcoming with answers, especially when it's his agents asking the questions. He never has been, and Gaby's long since learned her lesson trying to get information out of him. Illya has always been stoic by nature, so the pestering is usually left to Napoleon. They all have their roles to play.
"This," Waverly says just as the elevator dings. "Is our new headquarters."
The lobby they've been let out into has all the splendor of one of those upper crust hotels they'd stayed at during their time in Europe and the functionality of an American office building. Gaby wanders a few paces into the room ahead of the rest of them, poking her head down one of the off-shooting hallways. From the outside it looked like a block of apartments, but inside it's one continuous structure.
"This whole building?" she asks.
"It's a loan," he says. "But it's ours, for the time being."
"How long is that?" Napoleon asks.
"Indefinitely, I imagine," Waverly says. "As long as we're being useful to somebody."
That's the way of everything, it seems. But at least they've proven themselves good at it, thus far.
"Boardroom's third door on the left," Waverly says, gesturing down one of the hallways. "I'll leave you all to get acquainted with the facilities for now, but I expect you there at half past six for your briefing."
He sets off in a direction, but pauses in the doorway for a second, like he's getting ready to voice an afterthought. "There's two master bedrooms," he says. "One of them is mine, but the other is up for grabs." With that he's gone.
"First one there," Napoleon suggests post-haste, taking off down a hallway at random. Illya hangs back for a second, as if he's not sure Napoleon is being serious or not, and then follows him with a surprising measure of conviction.
Gaby doesn't follow them; she stays in the lobby, running her hands along the smooth dark surface of the stone counter in the lobby. The receptionist's station sits unoccupied, but she can imagine this place, fully-staffed. The bustle of it. The industry.
Someday, someone is going to be called home to their mother agency. Someday, this burgeoning family she's made for herself is going to fall apart. She's lost everything in her life; she knows she'll lose this too. It feels so certain in that moment, but she pushes the fear away. She can't worry about that now.
After all, they still have a lot of work to do.