It wasn't unusual for a team member to put one or both of the others in danger. On their very first mission, Gaby betrayed them to Nazis. About a day later, Solo rammed the car she was in off the road. Sometimes circumstances were not easy.
But Illya did not play around with the safety of his comrades – though he had been told not to call them that again – and he tried to avoid putting them in harm's way.
More Gaby than Solo, of course. Because Solo was infuriating and immature, for all his suave talk, and Gaby – well, Gaby….
Gaby was gone. And it was Illya's fault.
He was supposed to have her back, to keep her safe – but then a second person of interest had slipped down an alley, and he'd thought, really truly thought, that she would be safe with just Napoleon's bird's eye view.
The disadvantage of a bird's eye view: you are powerless to stop a masked man from exiting a car, pressing a gun to your partner's back, and taking her away in the space of a heartbeat without so much as a whimper. Napoleon shouted then, abandoning his usual subtlety in fear, but it was no good. Illya was too far away, after all, and the car was out of sight by the time he came sprinting around the corner.
The most important girl in the world, gone in half a minute. And whatever had happened to her since then – all his fault.
It made Illya deeply ashamed.
And being ashamed made Illya angry.
If there was anything on the walls or any surfaces between the door and the singular cell, it was sent crashing to the ground, probably in pieces. He might have missed a few things – he didn't stop to go back. He just ran through the small house, a furious bull in a broken-down, dirty china shop, desperately getting closer to his chop shop girl, his missing partner.
He found the door to the basement and crashed through it, leaving Solo to pick through the wreckage at a slightly slower pace.
Illya was getting close now, he could feel it. Could practically taste her perfume in the air.
"Gaby!"
"You see her?" Solo immediately asked, before shutting up and listening for a response. He took the stairs two at a time, unlike his gargantuan Russian friend, who went down by multiples of four.
"Gaby!" Illya called again as he turned around the wall to face her cell, his heart swelling because she was right there, and soon she'd be close enough to touch—
He stopped.
Solo caught up about a second later, and looked around. "She's not here."
Staggering slightly, Illya pulled back the barred door and stepped inside. It had the faintest smell of her, and several hairpins scattered the unmade cot.
"But she was here," Solo noted from the doorway.
Illya took another stride towards the cot, looking it over. He grabbed a sheet of paper that peeked out from under the covers and held it close to his face, trying to read in the dim light.
It said, in English, Better luck next time, fellas! Gaby says hello. At the bottom was a crude stick figure with a skirt.
"They knew we were coming," Solo said in a lower voice, and forgot himself so far as to actually reach up and muss his perfectly arranged hair.
Illya's fists clenched so fast that he heard his knuckles crack. Dark blood was dribbled across the page, onto the bedsheet, and even on the pillow.
"And they hurt her," he managed to growl as the edges of the paper crumpled in his hand.