Sacrifices for the Greater Good
Grief VII
With his ties to the CIA finally severed, Napoleon suddenly experienced an excess of freedom that he didn't really know what to do with. For the past five years he had existed in a perpetual cycle of mission, downtime and mission again. Now that the structure was gone in his life he felt strangely purposeless. Before Rome, he had made grand plans for when he would escape the CIA's employ- places he would visit, items he would steal. It all seemed very hollow now. The thought reminded him uncomfortably that he had been given a chance Illya and Gaby would have never received. The intervening years had done wonders to help him move on from his grief, time really being the best healer for these kind of things, but he still remembered them with some sadness rather than with only happy memories.
He spent some months travelling around the USA, trying to reconnect with his roots. He returned to his home town and found it much changed from his childhood. He drank too much, slept with married women and stole as much and as often as he dared. He found these activities, that had been such a great part of his life before, no longer held the same thrills as they had previously. He travelled listlessly around, trying to find something to occupy him for more than a few days and found nothing. With nothing to do anymore, he found himself feeling a rather foreign emotion of loneliness. It did not matter how many women he found to distract himself with, the feeling would not leave him and he felt hollow with each empty night spent in the arms of yet another stranger.
Eventually, Napoleon decided that the problem was that he had been in the USA too long, a change of scenery might help. He stole enough to buy himself a plane ticket to Europe, and unbidden his thoughts turned to Waverly. Perhaps he could go to London and pay him a visit, if anyone could sympathise with how he was feeling it would be him. With his course of action decided, Napoleon booked a flight to London and spent the journey nursing a large glass of scotch and flirting with the stewardess.
When he arrived he was tempted to head straight to the flat he knew Waverly used while working in the city, but found himself hesitating. While he did want to see Waverly again, he didn't know if he wanted to do it immediately. Would it be seen as too desperate and pathetic? The thought that he might appear so made him shudder, and he resolved to spend a few days travelling around London and enjoying the sights before he approached his former boss.
The bars he used to frequent remembered him, which was a pleasant surprise. What was slightly less pleasant was that they also remembered the couple he was usually joined by, and remembering that he had spent many hours drinking with Gaby and discussing politics with Illya in these pubs and bars was bittersweet. He did enjoy seeing the sites, it was something he had not really done before in the city of London or any city during his time as a spy for that matter. There was never enough time in all the exotic locations they visited to spend any time playing tourist. Now he was officially 'retired' he found he had plenty of time to spare for such frivolous activities. He wasted whole days in the various museums, drinking in the history he had never cared about enough to learn.
Eventually Napoleon could not put off his visit any longer, and he made his way to to the flat, hoping that Waverly would be home that evening and had not moved somewhere else. The familiar face that appeared at the door assuaged his fears and Napoleon felt a genuine smile come to his face.
"Napoleon, what a pleasant surprise!" Waverly greeted with infectious enthusiasm. He was invited in, and as it was the first time Napoleon had ever been inside he examined the surroundings with some curiosity. It wasn't quite what he had expected, he had thought Waverly would have lived somewhere very similar to Illya's flat- utilitarian with very little room for luxuries or needless decoration. Instead it was much more somewhere where Napoleon himself might have lived without any complaint- original artwork on the walls, antique furniture, plush armchairs which were a pleasure to sit on. Without bothering to ask since he already knew the answer, Waverly poured him a generous glass of whisky.
"I've been waiting for an occasion to open this bottle. I picked a few up last time I was in Scotland from my friend's whisky distillery, the others have all been drunk so I'm down to this final bottle."
Napoleon took a sip from the glass and nearly groaned in enjoyment, it was truly excellent. He would have to remember to get the name of the place so he could pick up a few. He was in the UK anyway, why not make a trip further north? It wasn't as if he had better things to do.
"I understand your time with the CIA came to an end." Waverly commented, sipping from his own glass.
"Have you been keeping an eye on me?" Napoleon asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I keep an eye on all ex-UNCLE agents." He paused sombrely. "There seem to be so few left now." Waverly brightened slightly. "Have you considered what you will do now?"
"Not really. Travel around perhaps." Napoleon replied with a shrug.
"If you ever need some work I can find you a position." Waverly suggested.
"With MI6?" His scepticism was not subtle.
"Not quite. The department I run now has international interests, and where relevant we hand over intelligence to other governments. It is considerably safer than UNCLE, and our funding isn't quite so volatile." Napoleon was almost tempted, it would be something to occupy his time and working for Waverly had always been preferable than working for his old handler. Still, he wasn't sure he wanted to get back in this line of work.
"No guarantees, but I will think about it." He promised, and his answer seemed to delight Waverly more than a vague 'maybe' should have done.
"Excellent, well enough business talk for now. Have you enjoyed your time in London so far?" Napoleon guessed he shouldn't have been surprised that Waverly already knew he had arrived in the country, but he put it out of mind and started relating his tourist stories.
Napoleon and Waverly spoke for at least an hour or two on various topics- UNCLE members that were still alive, memories of old missions, nostalgic stories about the UNCLE top team that Waverly had not heard before. When it became late Napoleon had made his excuses to return back to his hotel, wary that he might be outstaying his welcome, Waverly making him promise to give some more thought to his job offer before he left. He still did not know entirely whether he wanted to take him up on it, he had a mix of good and bad memories of working with Waverly and knew that those memories would be unavoidable if he returned to working for him.
Waverly had reassured him that he was not planning on moving flat anytime soon, and that he would be home most evenings if Napoleon wanted to talk or further discuss his offer. He returned to his hotel room and raided the mini bar until he was too drunk to think it over any further and stress himself out about it. He woke up the next morning with a raging hangover and spent most of the day in bed trying to recover.
When he felt human again, he returned to his previous occupation of visiting all the various landmarks in London and drinking slightly more than reasonable amounts. He brushed up on his pickpocketing skills to fund his ventures in some of the more expensive bars, charming some women just long enough to slip off diamond rings or gold necklaces that they wouldn't miss. He had been admiring a particularly bright looking sapphire pendent when his victim let an interesting tidbit slip.
"A party you say?" Napoleon asked, interest piqued.
"Oh yes." The woman, a slightly older lady who concealed her years with more than her fair share of makeup, gushed. "It should be wonderful, I can't make it myself which will be such a shame. Lord Barrow is so very wealthy, and I imagine that all manner of great people will be attending." That seemed very promising to Napoleon, it had been a long time since he had done something as brazen as rob someone during a party, and if the host was as wealthy as the woman claimed then it was likely there would be a free bar with good quality alcohol available. That by itself would have been enough of an incentive to attend.
"Invitation only?" Napoleon enquired.
"Yes, have you not received one?" A slight frown marred her features as she reconsidered his importance.
"Probably, I have not been home in a while so it is likely it arrived while I was away." Napoleon bluffed. "I'll make sure to pick it up before I head over." He neatly divested her of her necklace while her attention was elsewhere and made a quick escape, confident she would not miss it among the piles of other jewellery she was also adorned with.
Napoleon researched the party a little more, visiting a few more expensive bars and mentioning it offhand to see if he could gather any more information without drawing too much attention to himself. Through that he learnt the location, date and time the event was supposed to start. That should be enough, and he could steal an invitation when he arrived. He wondered whether he should warn Waverly about what he was planning to do, it would not go well if he stole from a friend of his. But if it was a friend he could always return anything, Waverly would be sure to speak to him if someone he knew was robbed. Napoleon's personal motto did tend to be 'it's better to ask forgiveness than permission'.
Decision made, he prepared himself for a more dangerous evening than usual, and the prospect excited him more than it probably should. He dressed in his best suit, concealing lock picks all about his person. Stealing effectively was mostly about presence. If you looked and sounded like you belonged, people would be less suspicious that you would rob them blind. There was a reason that the help were always blamed if the silverware went missing and not the well-dressed and charming visitor with quick hands.
Suitably attired, he hired a car from several roads away from his hotel to drive him to the venue, aiming to arrive late but not late enough that he would be the only person arriving at that time. No one ever arrived early to these kind of events. When he arrived he congratulated himself on having picked the time perfectly, it seemed to be the point when everyone was making their way to the estate and he had an easy time bumping into a suited man and relieving him of his invitation. Men were the easiest to steal such items from, they always kept them in the same place.
Napoleon strolled up to the entrance, exuding a well-practiced aura of wealth and charm. He handed over the stolen invitation with a smile to the man checking tickets and was admitted without even an ounce of suspicion. He eyed the décor with a proprietary gaze, already seeing several items that would be small enough to conceal and expensive enough to be worth the risk. Still that could wait, he would prefer to enjoy the free bar for some time before he focussed on his main reason for being there.
The ballroom where everyone had assembled was pretty full of the usual crowd that would attend events like these, he could probably live comfortably for a year if he robbed just one heavily laden woman. That kind of thing would get a thief noticed, so he tried to avoid taking too much from a single target. There was a band playing soft music to accompany the general chatter of people talking, and he paused a moment to enjoy the atmosphere before promptly heading over to the bar. As predicted, several of his favourite drinks were available and he made a fair dent in a bottle of something fairly pricey in a very short amount of time. He leaned back against the counter as he sipped, watching the crowd idly. He was acutely aware of another man approaching the bar to order two glasses of scotch, and readied himself for conversation should the man speak to him.
"Enjoying the party?" The man asked, his upper class English accent matching nicely with the plain but exquisitely tailored suit he wore.
"Extremely." Napoleon commented drolly.
"I could tell. You've singlehandedly nearly emptied that bottle. Should you not perhaps restrain yourself a little?" The sarcasm was unexpected but it immediately rubbed Napoleon up the wrong way.
"It's a free bar. And your concern for my health is unwanted. So if you would kindly fuck off, that would be greatly appreciated." Napoleon drawled, trying to sound as patronising as possible. The man raised an eyebrow, seemingly greatly amused by something he had said and for a moment Napoleon stilled in worry as he wondered whether he had inadvertently let something slip.
"This is my house and my party. I cannot exactly 'fuck off' as you so delicately phased it." Napoleon nearly swore loudly at that, of all the people he could have bumped into at the party and insulted it had to be the host. There was little way he could steal anything now and get away with it, although with the man's attitude the temptation was stronger than ever. Luckily for him a curvy and attractive blonde woman appeared at that point, pressing her lips lightly to the man's bearded cheek.
"Did you get my drink, darling?" She asked before she turned her attention to Napoleon. The first thing he noticed about her was the extremely flattering dress she wore which drew ample attention to her full cleavage, the second thing he noticed was the diamond on her finger. Not as large as he would expect for the wife of the owner of such a lavish house but certainly worth his attention. The man, Lord Barrow if he was correct, handed over the second glass. "Hello!" She greeted Napoleon cheerily. "Have I interrupted something?"
"Nothing of consequence, Madame." Napoleon reassured politely. "I was merely making my compliments on the party to Lord Barrow." The lack of correction on the name assured Napoleon he had been correct.
"It is a wonderful party isn't it?" She replied, heavily made up eyes wide with enthusiasm. "You'll have to forgive me, we have so many guests and I am terrible with names Mr…?"
"Howard." Napoleon supplied taking her hand to press a chivalrous kiss on the back of it, using the opportunity to slip the ring off her finger. It was a well-practiced manoeuvre and with some sleight of hand he pocketed the expensive trinket.
"Well Mr Howard, please enjoy the rest of the party. Unfortunately I need to retrieve my husband so as much as this has been a pleasure it will have to continue at some other time." She turned her attention back towards her husband. "The Kingstons have arrived, we should go speak to them."
"Of course." Lord Barrow agreed, and after a final nod to Napoleon he linked arms with his wife and marched off to speak to some other couple.
Napoleon watched the back of them as they left, quickly draining his drink. He had hoped to avoid his hosts where possible, but now he knew he needed to make a quick getaway, he had probably brought too much suspicion on himself by acting recklessly, Lord Barrow would likely check the guestlist at some point for the fake name he had used and realise there had been a gatecrasher. He would also soon discover that his wife had lost her wedding ring, and he would have to be a moron not to put two and two together. Taking the ring had been an impulsive move, one that he may come to regret. He made his way out of the house, picking up a few other pieces on the way. Some of the artwork looked like it may have been worth a pretty penny, but he simply did not have the time or patience to think about removing any.
Returning to his hotel room, he took stock of what he had managed to retrieve from the house. It was a pretty decent haul overall, but he wouldn't be able to sell it until he knew for sure that Waverly was not friendly with Lord Barrow, especially now that his victim would be able to give a pretty decent description of his appearance. He stashed it all away with the rest of his loot, underneath a floorboard he had loosened for that exact reason.
Thankfully, he heard nothing from Waverly over the next few days and nearly allowed himself to relax. He kept an eye on the newspapers, looking out for any notifications about his escapades and was pleased but a little surprised to find nothing. Perhaps they were too embarrassed about being so easily duped? It was not uncommon, he had stolen more expensive things and earned the same quiet response. Those that were wealthy enough usually just replaced the stolen item, and perhaps this time Lord Barrow might find a bigger diamond for his wife.
Author's Note: Sorry about the delay guys, I've honestly been so busy I've just not had the time. Hope you enjoyed Napoleon's most recent escapade, I really want to write a heist. It's not something I've had the chance to write before and I probably got a bit too excited with Napoleon and his stealing ways.