Their first mission without him is a disaster.
Not that agents Kuryakin and Teller haven't gone on missions, just the two of them. They've done it plenty of times. But he was always there, helping with intel and prep, making snide remarks during the briefs and debriefs...
Waverly had always known that his three agents were close, but he could never have predicted the utter chaos that ensued after Agent Solo's death.
His desk phone rings and he picks it up immediately. "Yes?"
"They've been released from the infirmary, sir."
"Have them sent in." He hangs the phone up, and a few minutes later Kuryakin and Gaby enter his office.
The Russian's arm is in a sling and there's a cut on his nose and bruising across the bridge under his eyes that suggests it had been broken. Gaby doesn't look much better, with a split lip and a bruise on her cheekbone, along with a bandage over her collarbone that Waverly knows is covering stitches. Both of them look stubborn and angry, and Waverly sighs internally.
This is going to be more difficult than he thought.
"Sit," he says, folding his hands in front of him on his desk.
They do so, reluctantly. Their arms bump into each other as they do, and they shoot poisonous looks at one another.
"What happened?" It's less of a question and more of a demand.
"I thought Enzo told you," Illya says shortly, glowering at Waverly from under the bill of his cap, and it takes some effort on Waverly's part to keep his face neutral.
"He told me the gist of it, yes. But he wasn't there. I would like to know, from the two agents that were, just what the hell went wrong!"
Gaby blinks pointedly and cocks her head to one side. "It probably has something to do with the fact that Red Buffoon over here has the critical thinking skills of a banana!"
Illya's frown deepens and he turns to the other agent. "You would be wise to mind your tongue. Especially since I am the one who had to save you from fight you pick with a man twice your size, like some brat in schoolyard!"
"You saved me?!" Her voice takes on a shrillness that Waverly knows is reserved for her angriest moments.
And then they're both talking at once, voices getting louder as they compete to be heard. Waverly watches them for a moment before barking, "Enough!"
They both stop immediately. Waverly looks at Gaby. "Step into the hall."
"But-"
"Agent Teller," he interrupts. "I'll hear from you in a moment. Now step outside. And close the door behind you, please."
She stares at him with a look of incredulity before thrusting herself from the chair and storming out of the office, slamming the door behind her. Illya flinches as she does and sinks down in his chair, looking miserable.
"Agent?" Waverly says.
"Was not my fault," he murmurs, leg bouncing, and Waverly can see the bruised knuckles of his good hand turning white as he grips the arm of his chair.
"I'm not looking for someone to blame, Kuryakin. I just want to piece together what happened."
Illya's mouth goes crooked as he chews the inside of his lip, avoiding eye contact with Waverly. His knee shakes. It's a long moment before he lifts his eyes and speaks.
"I stood out from beginning. Even with Daisy-"
"Diane," Waverly corrects before he can stop himself, getting him a well-deserved look of irritation from the Russian. "Right. It doesn't matter. Carry on."
"Even with her on my arm, security was breathing down neck the moment I walked in. I thought when we danced they would stop watching me, but…Gaby was waiting, so I had to move."
"Even though they were watching you."
Illya's expression darkens and his voice takes on a sharpness that hadn't been there before. "I knew if I did not get there that she would not wait. I had to risk it. Diane told me on the way she wants to be actress, and she was happy to provide distraction so I could slip out. I met Gaby and we made it to office without being followed. She kept watch and I opened door, no problem. Except that intel was shit."
Waverly frowns. Enzo hadn't told him that part. "What do you mean?"
"Floor plan was backwards. Cowboy would have-" He stops abruptly, mouth snapping shut, and Waverly knows what he was going to say.
Cowboy would have never let that happen.
And it's true. He wouldn't have.
"The floor plan was backwards. What happened next?" Waverly says, in part because he needs to hear the rest of the story but mostly because he doesn't want to think about the fallen agent.
"Three men came. They had guns and we had no choice but to dispatch them."
"You killed them?"
Illya shrugs. "They were breathing when we left them. We went back in main hallway to get to other side of house. A guest came out of the ballroom. Big man. Drunk. He said something vulgar to Gaby as we passed and instead of doing job and ignoring him, she decide to break his fingers. As you can imagine, he make a lot of noise. Sure to draw attention. So, we run. Make it to the correct office. I tried to pick lock but I can hear men coming. I ask Gaby to do it-"
"Since when does Gaby know how to pick a lock?" Waverly interjects, and Illya looks startled.
"Since American taught her."
"Of course he did," Waverly mutters. "Go on."
"I ask her, she refuse. Says she thinks there could be trap, that since our cover is blown anyway we should find Lefevre and force him to open safe. I told her there was no time and that intel would have shown trap, but she would not listen. Guards were closing in. I make call. Kick door down. And..."
"And?"
Illya eyes him. "You're going to make me say it?"
"You haven't finished yet," Waverly says.
Illya huffs out a breath, glaring at Waverly. "And there was a fu-" He starts to swear, then sees Waverly's expression and thinks better of it, his frown lessening slightly. "There was a trap. I heard mechanism and dove out of way just in time. I don't remember much of extraction. There. Now I am finished."
Waverly studies him for a long moment. Beneath the anger and frustration is that same emotion that he'd seen the day they'd found out about Agent Solo: pain. He takes a deep breath.
"Thank you. Send Gaby in, please, and wait in the hall for a moment."
Illya pushes himself up from the chair as aggressively as he can manage, battered as he is, and yanks the door open, stepping into the hall. Gaby storms in a second later, slamming the door behind her. She throws herself onto a chair and crosses her arms over her chest with a scowl.
"I suppose he told you it was all my fault?"
Waverly sighs internally. This is already off to a smashing start. "I'll tell you the same thing I told him," he says. "I'm not looking to place blame. I just want to understand what went wrong."
"What didn't go wrong? It was wrong from the beginning. Illya should never have been there as a guest."
"It was the only way we could get both of you in. Two unfamiliar waitstaff would have drawn Lefevre's attention and-"
"And you needed someone with household access so we couldn't go as a couple, and there was no one in your pocket with a son going to the party. Only a daughter. I know all of that. I'm just saying, the mission was doomed from the start. I did my part, then I stayed near the ballroom and waited for Illya to arrive. The moment he walked in with that girl on his arm, all eyes were on him."
"Surely there were other tall guests?"
Gaby lets out a mirthless chuckle. "Oh, yes. But none of them walked like a giant Russian robot with a stick up his behind and a look on his face like he would rather be anywhere else in the world! Oh, and you should have seen him dance. The man was trained in ballroom, you know, but you never would have guessed it seeing him on that floor. It was like she was dancing with a tree. The only reason we made it to the office without being followed is that the girl pretended to faint as we left, caused a scene. Who would have guessed that a civilian girl in a pretty dress would be more useful than a highly trained KGB agent?"
"Gaby," Waverly warns. "Stick with the facts please."
"Mm." She raises her eyebrows. "The facts. The facts! The fact is that your new American-" (she spits those last two words out with venom) "-Hunter, got the intel wrong. We made it to the office and it wasn't even locked! By the time we were done making sure it really was the wrong room, security showed up. Luckily for us, Lefevre is a cheapskate and didn't spend money on well-trained guards. It was easy to dispatch them. And then we crossed to the other office."
"You made it to the other side of the house with no incident?"
Gaby's eyes narrow and she opens her mouth, then closes it.
"Illya told me a man...spoke inappropriately to you and you broke his fingers?" Waverly continues.
Gaby straightens in her chair and leans forward. "Is that what he told you? Yes, a man spoke inappropriately to me!" Her voice gets louder, almost to a shout, as she continues. "And I would have ignored him, except that as I passed he grabbed my ass! And I removed his hand from it. If a few of his fingers broke then that is his own fault for touching me. Can I continue? I have other things to do today, you know!"
"Go on, then," Waverly says, deciding that now isn't the time to pick a fight over disrespect or the importance of keeping one's cool no matter the circumstance (something both his agents have been struggling with as of late).
"We made it to the other side of the house and something didn't feel right. It seemed to me that if the information was so important to Lefevre that he would have better security than a bunch of half-cocked imbeciles. So I thought there might be some sort of extra measure at the office. But Illya wouldn't listen to me! He tried to pick the lock with one of those silly Russian gadgets of his but it wasn't working and we could hear more men coming. And I wouldn't pick the lock-I could have!-but I didn't because I thought it might be rigged. I told him as much, and what does he do? He kicks the fucking door in and I have to tackle him out of the way of an explosion that blasts a hole right out to the street! Solo would have listened to me!"
Her breath catches in her throat then and her mouth snaps shut and she blinks a few times.
"That'll do," Waverly says softly. "Thank you, Agent."
"Can I go now?" Gaby's voice is tight.
"In a moment." It's obvious what the problem is, what had caused such a collapse in his little team.
Agent Solo's absence has left a vacuum in UNCLE that he suspects won't be easily filled. In the meantime, there's nothing to do but patch it and hope that operations can resume without what happened last night becoming a pattern.
He raises his voice. "Agent Kuryakin, come back in, please?"
The door opens and Illya comes in, his demeanor markedly changed, and sits next to Gaby. He looks down at his hands.
"I didn't know he touched you," he whispers out of the corner of his mouth. Gaby doesn't look at him.
"Please, can we get this over with?" she says, picking at the corner of her bandage.
"What happened wasn't your fault," Waverly announces. "Either of you. It was mine."
Both agents look up in surprise. Waverly sighs and opens his drawer, pulling out his new tin of tobacco and a rolling paper in an attempt to soothe his heightening emotions.
"I shouldn't have sent you out there. You're both suspended from the field until further notice."
"What?!" the agents cry in unison.
"It's clear that neither of you are ready. You're both shaken from what happened to Agent Solo, and I don't blame you. I really don't. I-I'm still processing it as well. I thought that sending you on a mission would help get things back to normal-or as close to normal as we could get. But I see now that what you need is time to grieve." He puts his rolled cigarette down.
"He was a good agent. And there is no denying that his loss has been a blow to us all. But you've got to take some time to recover. And I don't mean drowning your sorrows in alcohol." He looks pointedly at Gaby. "Talk to each other. Or don't. But you won't resume regular duties until you've found a way to be professionals again. Understood?"
Both of them murmur an affirmative and Waverly nods.
"Good. Dismissed."
He waits until his office door is closed before he swivels in his chair and opens the cabinet behind him. There's an empty space where a bottle of gin used to be; he suspects Gaby swiped it. And there's a bottle of very expensive single malt from Agent Solo, and Waverly's mind wanders before he has a chance to stop it.
When he'd talked to the CIA about taking Solo on, Sanders had scoffed, warning him of the agent's relentless selfishness and complete inability to work with others, and that Waverly had better watch out: Napoleon Solo was like a wild animal, backed into the corner. The instant he saw a moment's weakness, he would go for the jugular and make a run for it.
The whiskey was a birthday gift from early in the partnership. Only Waverly's birthday is classified. He still hasn't the faintest idea how the American found out, and he knows Solo only gave Waverly the whiskey as a way to brag. Look what I can do. But it was nothing more than that. Not a warning, or a threat. Waverly had known by the warm, sly half-smile on the agent's face as he set the bottle on his desk, a red ribbon tied neatly around the neck.
He'd proven his CIA handler wrong that day. And had continued to prove him wrong every day after.
When Waverly had notified Sanders about his death, the response was cold and indifferent. It was no wonder that Napoleon had disliked the weasely man as much as he did.
Waverly sighs and pulls out a bottle of cognac.
He thinks he's earned a bit of hypocrisy.
xxx