AN: Let's play a game called 'everyone spot the horse trainer.' Good job - it's me! Hope you enjoy.

Listening/Soundtrack inspiration for the piece: "What Makes a Man" ~ City and Colour

'I can hear my train comin'
Now I'm runnin' for my life
What makes a man walk
Away from his mind?'

"What Makes a Man" ~ City and Colour

The two cafes were less than ten feet away across the Paris cobblestone la route de marche.

One cafe sold the best espresso mousse cakes in the city and the other specialized in banana eclairs—the only banana eclairs this side of the Seine. Awnings rustled in the late September breeze. Tiny white cups were sipped at dainty tables. Newspapers read. None of the morning patrons seemed in a hurry.

One man, sitting alone, took off his sunglasses. They matched his dark shock of hair. He downed his coffee and waved to the waiter for another.

"No better than muddy water," said a voice in the dark haired man's ear.

The man's chin tipped to his chest in a futile effort to hide the tiniest of grins.

"I suppose you'd prefer vodka," he softly replied. His lips hardly moved. His earpiece crackled with a laugh.

The dark haired man suddenly frowned. "I don't like that I cannot see you."

A pause. Hesitant and wobbling. The dark haired man stiffened, preparing to rise to his feet. Something warning, dangerous flashed in his eyes.

"Then you shouldn't have put in coffee breaks as part of the plan, Yankee."

Napoleon rolled his eyes. "We are in France, you ungrateful Slav. We can't not try the cafes."

After a tense minute, a dazzle of honey brown hair caught Napoleon's eyes through the weave of people. His shoulders—at last—dipped away from his ears. He exhaled a long breath.

Some desperate Parisian waved for a taxi. Illya tracked her with his eyes before sitting. Napoleon didn't see his partner's lips move but his voice filtered into Napoleon's left ear.

"Is waste of time. I told you. Our councilman could get his coffee anywhere."

"Yet only your cafe sells banana eclairs, like the ones in Faivre's note," said Napoleon, languid.

"It could have been code."

Napoleon quirked a brow. Even across the route, Illya saw it and frowned. Their radio silence continued, broken only by the occasional sip of coffee. Or, in Illya's case, hot cocoa.

When Napoleon had first discovered this treasured indulgence of the tacit Russian, he thought it a ruse, a "pull of the leg" as Kuryakin called it. Only a tight flush all the way up to Illya's ears convinced a truly speechless Napoleon. That blush was better than a CIA polygraph.

Fondness made Napoleon smile, watching Illya use his spoon to scoop cane sugar cocoa grinds at the bottom of the cup.

People didn't understand that those who faced the worst of life's boundaries needed the most child-like relief. Sure, people at the office thought he and Illya were strange. That was okay. Life was strange. It was the only way either man enjoyed it.

Leaning back to soak the sun, Napoleon's eyes wandered over female patrons. Their bronzy skin was only complimented by autumn dresses. Thankfully short hemlines were in this year. Perhaps later, once the crooked councilman Faivre and his pocket full of nuclear bribes was caught, he could…

The sharp clatter of a spoon startled Napoleon. He physically jolted. His eyes scanned the opposite café. So close. Only ten feet away.

Completely void of a lanky Russian.

Napoleon fought the urge to jump into action. Instead, he rose at a sedate pace and unbuttoned the navy blazer at his waist. His other hand placed a few coins on the table. The revolver pressed against his ribs—a beacon of strength.

With a saunter, he ambled down the cobbles.

"Illya?"

Silence.

"Kuryakin, you know we've talked about this dashing off thing. Remember I threatened you with a leash...Illya?"

Silence would have been welcome compared to the sudden, choked gasp in Napoleon's ear. His heart skipped like a rock on an ice pond.

"Illya? Illya!"

A muffled man's voice, unfamiliar and faint in reply to Kuryakin's gasp, locked Napoleon's joints. Spine rigid, he jogged into Paris' back alleys. The Russian couldn't have gone far. Less than three minutes had passed.

"Illya? Answer me."

At first Napoleon thought the sudden harsh breathing was just in his ear.

Then he turned a corner.

"Kuryakin." Napoleon sagged. His hair and tie sat askew, but he only had eyes for Illya. "What in the Queen's name were you thinking? No contact, no explanation. You just go running off on your own like a love addled rookie! Come on, the food wasn't that bad."

Napoleon waved his hands at Illya's back during this debacle. He took solace—hidden under a flare of irritation—in the fact Kuryakin was unharmed. No blood stains. The man stood by his own willpower. No inconvenient passing out.

Only Illya's hands shook.

Napoleon sobered immediately. He rounded his partner's shoulders.

"Illya?"

A cursory scan of the alley revealed nothing. Certainly nothing to warrant anger. In fact, Illya's whole body trembled. Napoleon wondered if he should brace himself for a punch.

"Was Faivre at the café? You spotted him and gave chase?"

Grey faced, eyes ahead, Illya nodded once. A jerky motion. Sweat beaded on the man's upper lip. He had the luster of ice freshly heated, waxy and unmoving.

Napoleon bit his lip.

It was unheard of for Kuryakin to allow a suspect to escape by so narrow a margin. This was their final lead. This stake out wouldn't work twice. Illya shivered as if he'd heard Napoleon's thought.

Illya's limbs remained taut, a marble statue in an earthquake. Solo's eyes narrowed, then widened.

"Oh." Napoleon blinked very fast. He sucked in a rushed breath. "Oh. Oh, I..."

It was only now, a full two hundred seconds after he'd found his partner, that he recognized the emotion on Illya's face. It was staggering. The first time Napoleon had ever truly seen this one.

"Oh," said Napoleon in a gentle tone, because that's the only word his brain delivered at first. "It's alright, Illya. There's nothing to fear."

He hoped the empty words masked how floored he was by the outright, blank terror on Illya's features. The Russian looked gaunt. Tremors continued to assault his limbs. Napoleon's mind raced.

What would have caused this but not injure?

He dared to place a warm hand on Illya's shoulder, almost at the nape of his neck.

Illya jerked as if slapped. He darted quickly away. His eyes burned at Napoleon with some emotion the man couldn't name. Illya's eyebrows lowered, one after the other, and his skin bulged with an effort to wrestle back the emotion into something neutral. It was messy and ill executed and Napoleon couldn't help but stare.

"Sorry," said Illya, "for losing Faivre."

"It's fine," said Napoleon. And under different circumstances he would have laughed at such a bald faced lie.

Both now wore terribly casual expressions, so laissez faire it felt worse than a funeral. Napoleon's chest squeezed.

"Come on," Illya mumbled. "We go home now."

They made it back to their fifth floor apartment before the rain hit. It darkened the sky earlier than normal. The pair shuffled about in a choreographed ritual, born of endless assignments together.

They ignored a beep on the radio—UNCLE looking for a report of the day's stake. Neither bothered with the lights. They ate cold ham in silence and cleaned up in silence. Napoleon kept a sharp eye on his friend.

At last he couldn't stand it any longer.

"Dear Peril, are you quite yourself? What happened back there?"

Illya stopped putting away the dishes with his back to Solo. A mirror of only hours before in the alley. Something about the curl of his shoulder looked small, reminding Napoleon that Illya's anger fooled people—including Solo—into thinking him bigger than he was.

A disturbing revelation yawned open in Napoleon's mind, the seed of a thought…that maybe all of Illya's anger wasn't anger at all—

A robotic voice filled the stale air. "Go to sleep, Cowboy."

But Solo couldn't, no matter how hard he tried to later that night. Neither could Illya. Napoleon listened to his partner across the hall, how he muttered in dialects even Napoleon didn't know.

His own words echoed back to him:

"I don't like that I cannot see you."

"Dang it, Solo!"

Napoleon snuck a look back at his partner and grinned. Sweat dripped off Illya's brow. Sweat teased from his body too.

Sweat and pearls.

The agents sprinted for their lives past fluffy mattresses and women clutching handbags to their chests. Mirrors where Solo drank in every inch of his ruby lips and smoky eyes. And emerald cocktail dress.

"You couldn't have picked a better cover?" Kuryakin continued to rant.

Napoleon blinked. "No, I couldn't."

"Solo!"

A freight train slammed Napoleon's ribs in time to blast him away from a bullet's trajectory.

"Stupid cowboy," said Illya. But his eyes seeped worry. Worry and that terrified something that haunted Napoleon's dreams. That element of wounded fear that hadn't fully left his face since the alley in France.

The Russian suddenly tripped over his pooling gown hemline. Napoleon grabbed him on the descent.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," said Napoleon.

"Though this wouldn't have happened if we'd posed as tailors like I proposed."

Napoleon rolled his eyes. "Don't mention that either."

The pair darted across scent filled perfume aisles, through racks of sweaters. Solo flung off heavy layers of pearls and withdrew a hand gun from his purse. He threw the clutch away. Turning back, Napoleon fired off two rounds. One of Faivre's men jolted backwards.

"Come on! The stairs!"

Napoleon obeyed Illya's lead instantly. They took the stairs nearly three at a time. A miraculous feat in dresses and drag heels. Napoleon was almost sorry nobody was around to see it.

Framed by Manhattan streets, the department store's giant "M" loomed through the front windows.

Solo only noticed this fact because a sniper sat on it. The rifle's barrel narrowed on Kuryakin's golden head. Illya didn't even notice.

Napoleon's eyes widened. There was nothing for it—

He jumped the last five stairs.

Instead of the dress, like Napoleon aimed for, he got a fistful of Illya's hair. They'd ditched the ladies' wigs minutes earlier so the Russian's caramel locks were soft and frazzled to the touch.

Napoleon yanked it with all his might. Onto a display of stuffed animals. The sniper's round whistled, a lover's whisper, along Illya's ear. The Russian cried out. Napoleon's heart seized.

They landed in a heap of plush jungle animals.

Napoleon's hands scrabbled all over the Russian and his bleeding ear. He trembled violently.

Illya shot up immediately. "You saved me. You…you didn't let me get shot!"

Napoleon froze. His chest constricted for an entirely different reason. There wasn't even a sarcastic retort ready on his lips for such a declaration. The surprise in Illya's voice…the confusion.

And even in the chaos, both men stopped, kneeling in fleece lions and monkeys.

For once, Napoleon studied his friend's face and couldn't even begin to read it. He felt he'd misplaced a keystone and now the tower of their bond crumbled around him. Kuryakin gazed back, winded, spiced with something vulnerable.

What did I miss?

Napoleon's mouth opened but no sound came out. Illya barely breathed.

"Let's go, Peril," Napoleon finally said. He swallowed the questions and ignored when Illya skittered away from his touch. "You'll never win Macy's pageant with a bleeding ear."

Only then, at the poor attempt at humour, did sound return. Napoleon was slow to move. He still reeled. Dizzy from Illya's words. From the injured tone that should never come out of the Russian's mouth.

Kuryakin hauled Napoleon the rest of the way to the front doors.

"Did you get Mrs. Faivre's address?" Napoleon finally thought to ask.

Illya grunted.

"Good," said Napoleon. "Then dressing up like a woman wasn't a total waste."

Cops raced onto the scene—arresting the sniper—just as the two agents slipped into a pub across the street. Faivre's men were soon cuffed, guns taken, and complaining. New Yorkers paid no attention to the two men in drag.

Napoleon and Illya ducked into the pub bathroom to remove their makeup. Their street clothes were still there, tucked behind the broken toilet. They cleaned and changed in strange quiet.

"Faivre's men will be released. Diplomatic ties and all that," said Illya, eyes on the floor.

Napoleon cleared his throat. "By then we'll have enough to take Faivre down. We stopped the nuclear assault on Paris, but there's no proof he was behind it. This is our last lead."

Illya didn't answer. He buttoned his shirt, then his wool blazer. Napoleon looped his own pristine tie around itself.

When he glanced up, Illya held a wad of crimson paper towel to his right ear. He muttered in his mother tongue.

"We don't have bandages," Napoleon answered back in Russian.

Illya's eyes snapped to Napoleon's in the mirror.

Two days, Solo thought. This is the first real eye contact in two days. Certainly since Faivre chased us all the way to New York.

Illya winced and the moment broke.

"Here." Napoleon tutted, in English this time. "Let me keep the compress on—"

"Don't!" Illya jumped away from Napoleon's touch. His eyes wide.

Not a hint of anger on his face.

Napoleon desperately searched for it. Tried to find relief in the familiarity of Kuryakin's temper. Shaking fists, red cheeks, anything.

Only mistrust shone back at Napoleon.

Napoleon had entertained a lot of possibilities about what Faivre did to Illya, many of them unsavory and most of them centering around some sort of bodily harassment. This, though…this blew all of it out of the water.

He's not afraid of men or touch.

He's afraid of me.

"What did Faivre do to you?" Solo whispered. "That day in the alley?"

Illya's eyes flickered.

"You knew," Napoleon said in an awed tone. "You knew there was a sniper in the window and you didn't do a thing about it. What has he done to you, Illya?"

The Russian's nose wrinkled in frustration. "Time is short, Cowboy. We must move."

Still—he didn't budge, a caged animal against the sink, until Napoleon stepped out of arm's reach of the door.

Napoleon covered his shaking lips with a shaking hand.