A/N: This one could also be describe as the one where Napoleon finally makes an appearance in my fic. I know next to nothing about ballet, so excuse any and all mistakes.
"When can I stop?" Gaby says breathlessly, sweat beading against her sun-kissed skin.
"When I am satisfied." Illya responds, firm and refusing to show an ounce of his own fatigue. Napoleon raises an eyebrow, a quip ever-ready on his tongue, but a sharp look from Gaby silences him. He's really starting to get annoyed with how well they are learning each other's habits, it tends to spoil a lot of his fun.
"Do it again, and concentrate. You are not trying hard enough." Napoleon has to bite his tongue to keep from broadcasting any of his thoughts. He's quite fond of it and would rather like to keep it attached to his body. But it's so difficult when they are making it so easy.
Taking a deep breath, and throwing Kuryakin one last glare, Gaby raises her arms and begins what Napoleon has recently learned is called a fouette en tournant. A rather tiring looking maneuver that he's watched her perform for at least the last hour alone. At first it was amusing to see them pretend to be world class ballet dancers, especially when he realized the Red Peril would be wearing tights. But now he was finding it a bit tiresome to watch his partners practice the same routine over and over again, tempers growing shorter and shorter.
"No. No. No." Each word is accompanied by the sound of hand clapping. "You move like wounded bear. Heavy and unbalanced. I need to feel as if you are floating on air." Illya quickly snaps, and for a moment, Napoleon has a flashback of his school boy days.
"I'll make you feel something alright." Gaby mutters under her breath, causing Napoleon to snicker from behind his newspaper.
Illya frowns at the pair of them, the glowering effect he was going for weakened by the fact he was wearing a full, rather revealing, leotard. The longer this mission goes on, Napoleon muses, the harder it's becoming to remember that he's a lethal KGB operative that could kill him with his bare hands.
"Were you always this much of a perfectionist?" Napoleon comments, thankful that his part of their cover is merely to be concerned with the business behind the scenes. It included boring lunches and tedious meetings, and the occasional schmoozing of an unhappy rich housewife; but all of these were areas in his wheelhouse and he performed them perfunctorily.
"The routine must be perfect. We will be performing in front of the most elite members of the Russian government." Illya criticizes, and Gaby makes a rude hand gesture that makes Napoleon smile fondly. It was like watching a kitten bare its teeth in anger.
"What was wrong with my fouettes? They were perfectly adequate." She's now toe to toe with Illya, and Napoleon is sure her neck must hurt from having to look up at the giant Russian. If there had been any furniture nearby, he was certain she would already be standing on it.
"Perfectly adequate is not good enough." Illya crosses his arms across his chest, a look of disgust on his face. Like the time Gaby tried walking out of their safe house in a dress from last season's de la Renta collection.
Gaby tilts her head to the side, hair falling out of the handkerchief wrapped around her head, framing her face in a way even Napoleon admits is aesthetically pleasing to him. If he were Peril, he'd tenderly brush it back behind her ear, maybe even add a tender caress down her cheek.
But he isn't Peril, or more importantly, Peril isn't him, and so let's the opportunity pass him by. Napoleon is still confused as to what their relationship is anyway, but it doesn't stop him from carefully cataloguing their interactions and wondering. How they can go from destroying enough furniture to warrant a call from the local police to suddenly staring at each other like the other hung the damn moon was beyond him. Then again, Napoleon has never been in love, which is what he's starting to suspect these two idiots were slowly approaching if they weren't careful. At any rate, it was better than television.
"Do I need to remind you that I actually studied ballet?" Napoleon watches Gaby's face grow red with indignation. "While you were learning to be infuriatingly condescending and chauvinistic," with every word, the frown on Illya's face only grew longer and longer, "I was busy practicing pirouettes and pliés much harder than this. With instructors more experienced and talented than you." The way she pokes Illya's chest with each word reminds Napoleon of going to the circus once, and watching an animal wrangler poke a bear incessantly until finally the bear snapped and mauled him.
Napoleon could see the effort it was taking Peril to keep his fingers still. After weeks together, Kuryakin's slowly learned to control his temper, or at least the appearance of it. Their assignments under U.N.C.L.E required more espionage than brute force, and they couldn't afford to have another Italian fiasco. (Napoleon guessed that their little chop shop girl probably had something to do with that success.)
"Yes, that may be true," Illya reluctantly grinds out, "but I am Russian, and as we all know, Russians excel at ballet. We are best in the world."
"You superior, elitist son of a-"
"Why don't we all take a break?" Napoleon interjects, sensing a fight brewing. He doesn't know how much Gaby knows about Illya's background, but he knows first hand that any mention of his parents was an instant press of a flaming red hot button. Illya and Gaby both ignore him, completely focused on one another, and Napoleon is starting to feel oddly neglected.
"We must be perfect." Illya glowers back, the beginning tell-tale tap of his fingers against his forearms. Normally, Napoleon would take that as a sign to back off, but apparently for Gaby, it's a signal to press on. He would wonder why she likes to push him the way she does, or why Kuryakin lets her, but Napoleon already suspects the answer to that riddle.
"And we will be."
"If there is one mistake, one wrong move, the mission will fail." Napoleon rolls his eyes. Kuryakin's penchant for the dramatic was getting old and tired.
"I understand Illya, but that doesn't make me your personal ballerina. I am an agent, just like you. So you need to start treating me like one."
Gaby brings a hand to her chest, resting above the necklace Napoleon knows she wears beneath her clothing, and Peril looks strangely human for a moment. It's unnerving. Napoleon is sure that if he were not in the room, words like trust and worry would be floating back and forth, accompanied with soft looks and even softer touches. As it is, he is in the room, so all he sees are those melting eyes and bodies leaning slightly closer.
Something unspoken passes between the pair and then the moment breaks.
Illya clears his throat, "I would like it if you would start at the beginning of act two...please."
Gaby nods, approving of his change of tone, and when Napoleon catches his eye, Peril's ears turn slightly red. To Napoleon, it looks like the rest of their practice will go on smoothly...which, or course, means it only takes Peril two minutes to ruin the peace.
"But be watchful of your arm extension, you are looking lazy on the last spin."
There might not've been any furniture in the room, but he always seems to forget that Gaby was a weapon of her own.
Napoleon snickers as she deliberately steps, en pointe, on Peril's feet.
Title comes from "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John