Last chapter! This one kind of got away from me and took a dark turn. I've got a whole headcanon going here, though, so if you would like to see where this is ultimately going, stay tuned. I've already got another U.N.C.L.E. fic in the works.

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy.

Partnership is complicated.

"As much as I hate to admit it, you saved me again, Peril."

Illya shrugged. "Just repaying my debt."

Solo barked a laugh. "By that logic I now owe you. You clever bastard."

Seeing the Russian tense at the jab at his father, Solo raised his hands placatingly. "Only an expression, Kuryakin."

Any further conversation was cut off as a medic stepped between the two agents to dab antiseptic cream on the freshly stitched and newly bleeding divot in Solo's side. The wound had been discovered when the medics removed Solo's shirt to hook him up to a heart monitor. The original stitches had been ripped out and could be seen poking out of the angry and puckered skin, though Illya was pretty sure the American hadn't seen any medical attention until now.

The Russian's look had been thunderous. "What this that?"

Solo had barely spared the wound a glance. "This? It's just a graze, Peril."

While the medics had re cleaned and stitched the American, Illya had stewed in his growing frustration. Unless Solo had been involved in activities completely outside of Illya's knowledge, the American could only have sustained a near bullet wound was during the pair's visit to the Vincigeurra factory. Illya inwardly cursed at himself for not noticing a wound that, just a graze or not, had been bad enough that Solo had felt the need to stitch it up himself.

"Why did you not tell me?"

"I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself." Solo answered simply, though he took on a confused look when Illya's frown did not let up. "You're definitely going soft, Peril."

"Not soft!" Illya growled at him over the head of the medic. "If we work together, I need to know if you are compromised. You become liability."

Illya immediately knew that hadn't come out quite right.

"Then I'm glad we're through working together." Solo responded, his face hardening and shutting down. He glanced at the medic who had moved on to prod at the gash in his hair line. "Can we wrap this up?"

"Not so fast," the medic responded, forcing Solo to sit back on the cot. "Just half half an hour ago your heart was in extreme tachycardia on the verge of cardiac arrest. You've got a bullet wound and I need to make sure your skull hasn't been cracked open. What were you hit with?"

When Napoleon showed no sign of responding, Illya offered up the information instead. "A tire iron. Repeatedly."

"If you insist on keeping me here," Solo broke in, his voice firm as he gestured to the infirmary bed with distaste, "then you should at least take a look at that one's ribs. Wouldn't want our best Russian puncturing a lung after he was stupid enough to let his motorcycle ride him."

Illya was somewhat shocked at the restrained emotion in Solo's voice. But the Russian was nowhere near as frustrating a patient. Instead, he submitted quietly, sitting on a neighboring cot and removing his shirt so another medic could feel along his rib cage for any breaks.

Sure enough, the medics were able to locate the cracked rib that Illya had been doing his best to ignore since he first came to, motorcycle crushing the breath from his lungs. They wrapped his whole torso tightly with a length of bandage before turning to his head wound. It was a bleeder, but thankfully shallow and relatively nonthreatening.

Throughout his examination, Illya sat quietly, preferring instead to eye Solo on the cot opposite him. He knew from experience that Solo didn't do well with silence, preferring the sound of his own voice, and was confident the American wouldn't sulk for long.

Solo, on the other hand, didn't seem to appreciate the scrutiny. He abandoned trying to escape - the medic had called Waverly and returned with a very stern order for the American to stay put - but Solo was clearly uncomfortable under Illya's gaze. He fidgeted even as the medic cleaned and stitched his head and refused to make eye contact. When the medic finally moved away Solo flopped back down on the cot in what Illya thought was a rather dramatic action, only to immediately roll onto his side so that his back was facing the Russian.

Stubborn American.

Unfortunately for Solo, the change in position did little to quell the intensity of Illya's gaze. Instead, Illya found himself staring at Solo's broad, bare back and the scarring he found there. The right side of Napoleon's back was littered with old burns and pitted skin from what Illya could only imagine came from some serious shrapnel. Which meant, of course, that at some point in his life Solo had been close enough to an explosive that pieces of it had impaled themselves in his flesh when it detonated.

Illya couldn't quite put his finger on why the thought bothered him so much. Illya himself had several scars; you couldn't have their lifestyle and avoid them. Perhaps it was because the Napoleon Solo he knew was suave, slick, and immaculate. Illya didn't want to think of Solo trudging across country borders, falling face first into the mud in a desperate attempt to keep his head from being blown off by enemy soldiers.

"You were a soldier," Illya murmured, voicing his thoughts aloud.

Solo's shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly, but he didn't turn around. "What was that, Peril?"

"I said," Illya cleared his throat, pitching his voice a little louder. "You were a soldier."

That had Solo up and swinging back around to face Illya, dropping his legs to the floor over the side of his cot. His eyes were burning with something Illya had never seen from the American before, but Illya was too busy scanning the rest of the man's torso for other scars he'd never had opportunity to see before. A slanted line of a scar running over the top of one hip bone. Shrapnel burns running along his ribs on the right, no doubt meeting up with the other scars covering his back. A little circular scar just under his collarbone on the left hand side, a bullet wound.

"You're damn right, I was a soldier." Solo growls, his tone bringing Illya's eyes back up to meet his own. "I've seen war and I know damn well that the two of us, on the same side, doesn't mean anything in the long run. So save some energy and stop pretending you care because, like I said, I can take care of myself."

As Solo flopped back down on the cot to glare up at the ceiling, Illya could think of nothing to say. If he was completely honest, Illya didn't quite understand this strange feeling in his chest himself.