He and Illya are playing a half-hearted game of chess when the door to their apartment rattles for a moment, then opens with a shove as Gaby puts her shoulder to it. The lock sticks, and the hinges stick worse, but they've all gotten used to it.
"Solo," she calls from the entryway. "Groceries."
"Duty calls," he tells Illya, and happily abandons their game to head to the kitchen. He hadn't quite started to lose yet, so it's as good a note as any to end on. There are two paper bags set on the table, filled to the brim with what he hopes is at least some of what he'd put on the list and not just a bunch of random purchases she'd made while wandering the shops, disguising her contact with Waverly. He goes to work on them, putting some of what he finds away for later use and setting other things aside for their dinner. In his peripheral vision, Gaby pauses in setting the thin file folder from Waverly on the coffee table in the living room to peer down at the blueprints, now arrayed with different markers to indicate their new route.
"Change of plans?" she asks Illya.
"Cowboy is paranoid again," Illya explains, and she snorts. "Exiting past the loading bay poses unnecessary risk," Illya elaborates. "Too many variables, too much chance for complications."
"But this way's less efficient," Gaby points out, just as Illya had. "Doesn't the shorter route balance out the other risks?"
"We decided it doesn't."
"Who decided – you, or Solo's paranoia?"
"Let's not bad-mouth my paranoia," Solo cuts in before Illya can reply. "It's been right before."
Gaby looks over at him thoughtfully, tapping the corner of the folder against the table. He wonders if she's remembering the times he was right, when he was quick enough and careful enough to stop something horrible from happening, or the times he wasn't. What they call his paranoia isn't anything like foresight, or even that much like experience. It just wells up in the cracks of his shell, threatening to break him apart and wash him away if he ignores it for too long. They've almost made it a year. He can't afford to ignore it right now.
"Okay," Gaby says at last, and for the moment, that's enough. He usually gets a hell of a lot more push-back when he's like this. He can't blame them for it, given that he can't usually pin his dread on anything concrete, but he appreciates that there isn't going to be a fight about it tonight. Or at least not until they've eaten.
He puts the last of the groceries away and starts pulling bowls and pans and cutting boards for dinner.
Gaby goes into her room and comes back out a short while later in sweatpants and her favorite cardigan, a hand-me-down from Illya after she got thick black grease on the cuffs and he decided it wasn't worth keeping. Solo got him a new one, Gaby got the old one, and everyone was happy.
"What did Waverly have to say?" he asks as she wanders back towards the kitchen.
"Not much," she says, and drops down backwards into one of the wooden chairs, arms folded on top of the high back, to watch him work. "I haven't looked at the papers he gave me, but he said they're for the next mission."
"Already?" To his knowledge, at least, there hadn't been anything coming down the line directly after this one.
She shrugs. "Apparently." She seems awfully uninterested.
"Aren't you curious?"
"I'm tired," she admits bluntly. "I was hoping we'd have a break after this."
He hums, commiserating. The last few weeks had been pretty break-neck, even if they're in a lull right now, and he's noticed her sleep suffering for it. "You wanna take tonight off?" he offers. "We're in a good spot, still on schedule. Peril and I can handle things." They're waiting for a contact to arrange a meeting, so they always have someone ready and waiting by the phone, prepared to head out at a moment's notice if the call comes in and the meeting is immediate. They've been taking shifts overnight, just in case, but it's never been all that likely that their contact would reach out then. Even without asking Illya, he knows that the two of them would happily extend their shifts by a few hours if it meant she'd be sharper when the time came for their main event.
But Gaby shakes her head. "I'm not asking for anything, I'm just saying." Almost a year ago, it would have been angry, bristling and defensive. A few months ago, it might have been annoyed. Tonight, it's just a reminder. She knows what she's doing, and what she can handle. They all need that reminder, sometimes.
"I know you're not," he says easily. "I'm offering anyway. We're partners, remember? We look out for each other."
She gives him a pointed look and an even more pointed silence. He shrugs and starts peeling back the papery skin of an onion.
She watches him a bit longer, perhaps waiting for him to say something else; when he doesn't, she unthreads herself from the chair and goes back into the living room where Illya is probably playing both sides of their game and ensuring that Solo's loses. The low sounds of quiet conversation start up, but he doesn't bother trying to catch the drift. He can guess it easily enough.
Strangely, Illya's concession about the route and Gaby's acceptance of the change haven't done much to alleviate his growing anxiety. The thing is, he knows that the similarities could easily be coincidence. That the setting is not a guarantee of the outcome. He's also perfectly aware that somewhere along the line he'd built up this stupid superstition in his head, that if they can make it a year then maybe they'll be okay. But if that's all it were, he'd be able talk himself down. He's never been immune to anxiety, but he's gotten pretty damn good at setting aside the irrational in favor of focusing on the real and present dangers of his work, so the fact that he's increasingly unable to do that now only feeds back into the loop and ratchets his worry up another notch.
There's something else. That, or he's finally just losing it for good, and if so, then, well. Unfortunate, but it was probably going to happen eventually. But if it's not, and there really is something that's off – something he'd heard or seen without really thinking about it, or some twinge of memory he hasn't quite recalled – then he'd prefer to pin it down before they're in the thick of it.
They still have time. He still has time. They'll be okay.
Napoleon Solo is a hypocrite, because just two short weeks after accusing Gaby of being bored in Barcelona, he finds himself bored in London.
There's plenty he could do, of course, but there's nothing he wants to do – because what he wants to do is go somewhere far away so he won't ever have to watch someone else pull a knife on Gaby or find Illya hanging by his wrists in another dark room. The comfort of knowing that he'd blocked that knife and removed Illya from that room is so fucking paltry in comparison. He's not always going to be able to get between them and whatever is coming, and every success just stacks the odds higher against him.
He doesn't care for odds he can't manipulate, so being stuck with them here, with nothing to get him safely out of their way, is a strange sort of hell.
Three days in, Gaby stands outside his door and pounds on it until he opens it, then demands that he take over her training while Illya's out of commission. He ushers her inside before she can cause more of a commotion in the hallway than she already has, only realizing that that was her goal all along when she glares up at him triumphantly on the right side of the locked door.
"Could you repeat that without shouting?" he asks, miffed.
"I said, I want you to teach me." She looks like she's daring him, rather than asking him.
"Why? Doesn't Waverly have anyone better?" He'd been counting on that, actually. Hopefully another small, furious woman who could teach Gaby all of her secrets, but barring that, an instructor with experience teaching someone like that. Illya's right, that her body will move differently than theirs, that she'll have to think in ways that wouldn't occur to them. The very least Gaby deserves is a teacher who can understand her.
It's a fair question, but it just seems to make her more determined. She sets her jaw and stares him down. He looks back, honestly just confused. Why does she keep seeking him out? Why does she keep trusting him?
"Illya's teaching me the rules of fighting," she finally says. "What to do, and when. How to use force and balance and timing."
"Great. That's impor—"
"He says you would know how to break them."
Confused becomes something dangerously close to gob-smacked. What the hell is that supposed to mean? He has a terrible feeling he knows, and an even worse feeling that it's right. An awful, awful feeling that Illya had looked at Gaby in the midst of teaching her the building blocks of violence and told her that he, Solo, would know how to get around them. And he'd been right. And Gaby had trusted him, and walked right up to Solo to deliver Illya's pronouncement.
"Illya can mind his own business," he manages after far too long a silence.
"He's not very good at that," Gaby reminds him. She looks pleased, like she's succeeded in some self-set challenge.
"I'm not agreeing," he says, because she definitely thinks he's agreed. "Frankly, I prefer to avoid a fight whenever I can, so..."
If anything, she looks even more pleased. Triumphant again. A victrix. "Yes," she says firmly. "That. Teach me that."
Their first lesson is unintentional. He goes into his bedroom, locks the door, and climbs out of the window and down to the street outside. Suddenly London is full of tempting diversions, after all.
Gaby catches up to him five minutes later and glues herself to his side, taking his arm and beaming like any bright young thing. "That was fun!" she says cheerfully. "I don't think you're trying very hard, though. Didn't you evade Interpol for years?"
"Clearly not well enough," he mutters. If he'd done a better job of that, he wouldn't be here, now, in this very specific hell.
"So show me how you did it,"she pushes on, her question apparently rhetorical.
God, if only he could. If she asked him to disappear, she'd never see him again, and so much the better for her. He sighs. "Gaby—"
"Solo." She stops, forcing him to stop, as well, and looks up at him with none of the false cheerfulness of a second ago. "If I'd had Illya's skills," she says very deliberately, "you wouldn't have had to step in front of that knife for me. If Illya had yours, maybe he wouldn't have been taken, or maybe he could have rescued himself. I know I don't have much to offer in return, but I won't be useless. Illya can teach me how to survive a fight. He can't teach me how to avoid one. You can. So teach me, so that I can look after myself."
It shouldn't be a relief, to learn that he's nothing more than a resource to her. It shouldn't feel like the lifting of a weight, to hear that she doesn't want to rely on him. But it is, and it does. (Doesn't it?) He likes her. Now that she has her freedom, he wants her to be safe in it. He can't give her that safety; it's not his to give. But he can pass on his own skills, at least, and hope that they serve her better than they served him.
"I've never tried to teach anyone," he admits. No one has ever wanted him to. "Give me some time to figure out how."
"How much time?" She really doesn't let up, does she.
He sighs again. "We can start tomorrow. I'll get some supplies." Lock-picking is a simple enough introduction, and it won't be hard to find what he needs. London is familiar to him.
"Good." She starts walking again, taking him with her. They walk in silence for a little while, aside from Gaby's quiet humming – he almost recognizes the tune, but not enough to make a guess – and to the rest of the people around them they must look like an ordinary couple, out for a stroll in the sunshine. Napoleon Solo isn't ordinary, but neither is Gaby Teller. Even if her trust in him is just a means to an end, even if he's still just the best out of a bunch of bad options, as he had been in Berlin, she is no less remarkable for reaching out to him. He is no less duplicitous for letting her.
He could help her keep herself safe. He could put the tools in her clever, quick-learning hands and trust that she can disarm him before he destroys her. Or he could leave: set it up like an exercise, tell her that her goal is to give him a head start and then find him, and vanish for real before anyone else realizes that it wasn't a game.
He knows he should leave, but Napoleon Solo is a hypocrite.
.
The next day, they're sitting at his cramped kitchen table with an array of locks, picks, and scavenged makeshift tools – a hair pin, a paperclip, and a few different gauges of wire – spread out on between them. Gaby's prodding at one of the easier locks, trying to replicate his demonstration with the picks, and doesn't look up from her task when she says, "Illya doesn't blame you, you know."
"Excuse me?"
"For Madrid," she clarifies, leaning forward even further to try to peer into the depths of the tiny aperture she's probing. "If that's why you've been avoiding him this time."
"I'm not. And that isn't going to help; you won't be able to see anything, so you just have to feel what you're doing."
"I'm calibrating myself," she tells him primly. "How am I supposed to know what I'm feeling if I never see it? And you are – you haven't gone to see him once since we got here, so either you feel guilty or you just don't like him very much, but if you didn't like him very much then you wouldn't have gone to all that trouble to trick me and go off on your own to get him back. Which I'm still annoyed about, by the way. Waverly told me," she adds, looking up to pin him with the same focus she'd been giving the lock. "What you did to get him out. I still think I could have helped."
And here's the thing he's starting to learn about Gaby: she's not a voluble person. She doesn't talk for the sake of talking. But she's not shy, just strategic. Once she has you where she wants you, she'll lay it all out – all the things you didn't think she'd noticed, all the conclusions she'd drawn when you weren't paying the same attention to her that she's been paying to everything else. And damn can she get you where she wants you, and damn if you ever see it coming.
All at once he feels hemmed in, surrounded on all sides and forced to surrender. Worse than cornered, he feels seen. He knows better than to assume he's been made, though, not when half the trick of hiding is refusing to admit when you've been found. So he lets the feeling pass without freezing, without tensing, and soon enough decides that her sweeping flashlight hasn't caught him, after all. It never occurred to him that Illya would blame him for not getting him out sooner, and besides, he's not avoiding him. He's just trying to keep a little distance between them, that's all. Illya doesn't chase him down the way Gaby does, so of course Gaby sees more of him, which aside from the risk is fine by him because she doesn't put her hands on his scars and declare this is deadly shot in that horrified voice, didn't spend all of Istanbul watching him like he'd pulled some grotesque party trick that she's half-afraid he'll try again. Gaby chases him down because she wants something from him; he still can't figure out why Illya came back for him, why he seems to care.
"You couldn't have," he decides to say, after only slightly too long a pause. "Not that time. I don't want there to be a next time, of course, but if there is a next time, you probably could. As for Illya, I'm used to working alone, and so is he. I figure he wants some space every now and then. I'd give you space, too, if you'd let me," he adds meaningfully, but she ignores it.
"Being used to being alone isn't—" She stops, and makes a face. "Is that right?" she demands. "'Being used to being?'" Then, when he nods, "Ugh, that's horrible. What's wrong with your language?" He shrugs. "I hate it. Anyway." She returns her attention to the lock in her hands, and he tries not to show his relief. "Illya is used to working alone. That's not the same as wanting to be alone."
"Maybe, but there's still a certain amount of overlap. There's comfort in the familiar."
The lock springs open. Even in someone else's hands, it's familiar enough to be comfortable. He smiles, pleased, and hands her the bent paperclip. "Good. Now try it with this."
The paperclip takes longer, and the wires longer still – they're too malleable, and they have to be reshaped every few attempts – but she manages. The hair pin is the sticking point: after an hour of effort and three additional demonstrations from him, she declares that she's had enough for the day and wants to go for a walk.
"You want company?"
"No," she says, somewhere between flippant and caustic. "You can have your space."
Gaby, he decides, is like a fire in the dark. A little welcoming, more than a little dangerous, and guaranteed to ruin his night vision. He always feels strangely unbalanced in the wake of her departure, fumbling around in the blackness and trying to regain his sense of direction.
He gathers up the mess on the table and, without really thinking about it, goes to see Illya. A little bit of dexterity work would be good for his hands.
Illya looks surprised to see him but lets him in, and before he knows it he's pouring them tea and agreeing to a game of chess. "My hands are still not good," Illya admits when Solo produces the kit. There's no permanent damage, but they'll be stiff and clumsy until the swelling goes down some more. "So no lock-picking today, I think. But later... Later, you will show me how to pick handcuffs." Like Gaby, Illya tends to phrase his requests as demands, dares of defiance. They're suited to each other, both determined to seize what they want and expecting it to be withheld.
They also both have a tendency to spring traps on him while he's trying to be nice to them. He gives them an inch – lock-picking lessons, or tea and a chess match – and they come at him with their teeth out to grapple him into conversations he doesn't want to have.
"Thank you," Illya says, right after stealing his bishop.
Solo snorts. "I live to serve." He'd thought that was a good move, but apparently not.
"For Madrid," Illya says, meeting his gaze, and Solo curses internally. There's not even a window in here. "I haven't had a chance to say this, since you have not been around, but I want you to know it was... appreciated. What you did. Gaby and Waverly were not pleased about it, but I am grateful. I did not expect anyone to come for me."
First of all, do Gaby and Illya seriously not have anything better to do than gossip about him? What good is he doing in staying away from them if they're just going to talk about him when he's not there? Napoleon Solo made himself to be forgettable, to charm and impress in the moment and then fade into hazy memory the moment after. It worked on the CIA, and it works on his marks, so why doesn't it work on them? Why won't they just let him disappear?
Second of all, well, "I thought it'd be nice to return the favor," he says lightly. "You know, since you didn't leave me to Von Trusch's tender mercies." If Illya wanted a thank-you card for that, too bad. Getting Gaby out of there alive was the best thanks he had to offer, and they did, so that's squared.
"Yes," Illya says. He still hasn't looked away, and now his eyes narrow. "You did not expect it, either. You have survived a lot, I think, and most of it alone, yes?"
"Same as you, I imagine."
"So we understand each other."
That makes something squirm around under his skin, something raw and dangerous and deeply unpleasant. What would be worse: if Illya never really understands him, or if somehow, in spite of everything, he already does?
"Some of each other," he hedges, but Illya shrugs the distinction away.
"We understand survival. And what survival requires of us, sometimes, is not easy or kind. But you do not let it twist you. You took a knife for Gaby even after she betrayed you, and you came for me even though it meant disobeying orders and putting yourself at risk."
"Disobeying orders isn't really a hang-up for me," he says dryly. "I generally prefer thinking for myself."
"Yes, and this makes you a terrible spy. But you are a good partner, and I trust you. Check." Illya moves a piece almost as an afterthought, and when Solo glances down at the board he sees that his king is, indeed, in serious danger.
Well, shit.
For several reasons, but he'd really thought he was better at chess than this.
.
Their next mission is in Córdoba, Argentina, and he fucking hates it.
He hates Argentine Spanish, he hates that he's back to brown-nosing with Nazis, trying to figure out if any of them had links to the Vinciguerra project, and he hates knowing that when they're done here they'll walk away and nothing will have changed. Waverly's made it very clear that they're only here to gather information and identify anyone who could plausibly pose a nuclear threat, and if they turn anything up, they'll hand it over to be dealt with by the local authorities rather than taking care of it themselves.
So he doesn't even have the comfort of his usual assurance that he can take out some trash along the way.
He tries to keep his distaste for their orders under wraps, mostly because he doesn't like who he is when he lets himself get bloodthirsty, but also because he can't risk making himself into someone that Gaby and Illya won't trust to watch their backs. They all have to be going into this with the same goal, or it'll get messy. He must not be trying as hard as he should, though, because on their second day there he lets slip a remark about how the bastards down here are probably breeding unchecked like sun-loving cockroaches and Gaby rounds on him.
"Would you stop that?" she demands. "I'm sorry we don't get to execute people, Solo, but that's not our job."
He snorts. "Have you met the CIA? They execute people all the time, just never the ones who actually deserve it."
"You don't get to decide who deserves it!"
"They killed millions of people," he finally snaps. "Millions. Like a fucking factory. And the ones who weren't running the operation damn well sat back and let it happen because they profited from it, so I don't have to decide, because it's pretty goddamn obvious that the world would be better off without them."
"Impressive moral high ground from a war profiteer," Illya sneers, no longer content to watch them argue from the sidelines. "And where was this attitude when you had Victoria in your bed, hm? You did not sound nearly so disgusted then."
Solo whips around to stare at Illya; at the edge of his vision, he sees Gaby do the same. Illya looks angry, then wrong-footed, then angry again, and that's all Solo sees before he storms past him out the door.
He doesn't stop until he's a block away from their hotel, slouched against a wall and sucking down a lifted cigarette. He doesn't smoke much anymore, but that— How dare he. Does Illya think he enjoyed that? That he would have chosen it? Does he even realize that he hadn't?
That's a stupid fucking question. Of course Illya believes every unflattering thing he's heard about him. Of course Illya thinks he got rich selling the contents of raided museums and melting down looted Judaica. Of course Illya thinks he'll fuck anything that holds still long enough. Of course Illya bugged him and listened to him saving both their covers after he'd already saved Illya's life and decided it was different, somehow, than if it had been Alexander showing up outside Gaby's door and demanding—
Well. It was different, because it wasn't Gaby, and he'd have had a better time in a fight with Victoria than she would've with Alexander, and he's done that kind of thing before, and she hopefully hasn't. Not under those conditions. Not with someone so utterly loathsome.
Fuck. Fuck, he'd mostly managed to forget about it, but now it's all coming back.
When someone comes up beside him, he expects it to be Gaby chasing him down yet again. It's not.
"Fuck off," he tells Illya around the cigarette.
"You don't smoke," Illya says, like saying it will make it true.
"You don't know a damn thing about me," Solo grits out, "so fuck. Off." He goes to take another pull, but Illya plucks the cigarette from his fingers and leans across Solo to stub it out against the wall before he can react. "You asshole," Solo hisses. "What the hell is your problem?"
"You're shaking," Illya notes.
He is, damn it. He folds his arms to hide it. "Congratulations on your first correct observation today," he snaps. "You want a prize, or what?"
"You're upset."
"I fucking wonder why—"
"I have never seen you upset before."
That actually does draw him up short, because he's definitely been in worse spots than this and kept his head a hell of a lot better than he's doing now. He needs to get a handle on himself, needs to seal up the shell and fix his façade, but somehow being accused of enjoying his own— isn't sitting well with him. And it didn't even matter, because the next day Gaby had seen her opening and taken it, and Illya'd pretty much already blown the whole 'Russian architect' thing at the race track. Even if Victoria hadn't known for sure who he was when she showed up at his room, she'd definitely suspected something, and so the entire ordeal had been pointless. A joke. A joke with a punchline he doesn't find funny at all. Followed by some more, even worse jokes, all leading up to a goddamn electric chair.
What would it take to forget it again? A head injury? Surely he could arrange something. Hell, Illya would probably help. He wouldn't even have to ask, just push the buttons he's been leaving untouched and voilà, no more memories.
"Solo, look at me."
"No."
Illya touches his arm, and Solo turns reflexively to snap at him but is stopped by the look on his face. "I'm sorry," Illya says. The scornful anger is gone from his expression, a strange solemnity in its place. It's startling, how different the reality is from the expectation. "I do not like it when you speak to Gaby that way, but I was wrong, to say what I did. I can see that I was wrong."
Solo looks away again, back to the cobblestones and butter-yellow stucco of the street and its buildings, the small gardens behind wrought-iron fences spilling yucca leaves and trailing flowers out between the bars.
"We did not listen," Illya goes on. "At the hotel. I turned on receiver to check, see if she was confronting you, questioning you, but when she was not, I turned it off."
"We," Solo says flatly. Of course.
"Gaby was in the room when I came in," Illya admits. "She heard as much as I did. We decided not to tell you, in case it brought...shame." Solo snorts. Nice to know how long that resolution had lasted. "I knew it was just distraction, just the job. But I didn't know how much you did not want it, until it made you angry."
He doesn't feel angry anymore. He just feels tired. And still badly in need of a smoke. "I do what I have to do," he says at last, casting a sidelong glance at Illya. "I don't need you to like it. And I guess I can't expect you to think me any better than my file says I am. But I'm not—" He exhales, and wonders where he's going with this. Whatever he's about to claim he's not, he probably is, at least sometimes. He knows himself too well to be forgiving.
But Illya surprises him again. "I understand," he says softly. "We are not...good people. We can't be, with what we do. But we can be more than we do. I understand this. Is why I wanted to apologize. Did..." Another glance shows Illya looking uncomfortable. "Did she hurt you?"
Not then. Nothing most other people would recognize as hurt. "Well, I didn't love the chair."
"Cowboy." Despite it all, Illya's exasperation almost makes him smile.
"I survived," is all he says. It's all he needs to. He's had worse before, and he'll have worse again. Not exactly comforting, but at least it's reliable.
"Yes," Illya says. "You did." And then he pulls a lighter and pack of Filter 57s from his jacket pocket and offers them out. "Buy me another if you finish the box," he says, then turns and heads back the way he'd come.
Solo cracks the box – three left. He smokes two, and returns the box to Illya's pocket, unnoticed, an hour later.
.
Under better circumstances, he'd probably enjoy his time here. It's Argentina's springtime, and as much as he resents what it represents he can admit the country has its charms. As does the weather. If Waverly's trying to lull them with perpetual warmth and sunshine, it might be working. When they inevitably get sent to Greenland or Yakutsk for some stupid reason it's going to feel like a personal affront.
He and Illya have tacitly agreed to leave their confrontation unmentioned, and whatever Illya's said about it to Gaby has her blithely ignoring it, too. It feels like they're doing him a favor. Like they're looking out for him, somehow. He can't say he cares for it. If they scorned him after his outburst, or conspired to keep him out of their planning, that would at least make sense. But Gaby's still pestering him for not-fighting lessons and Illya's still talking to him about which venues to investigate – they're just not talking about Rome, or about how much he hates what they're doing here, or about how poor his self-control has gotten in just a couple of months.
Shit, has it really been that long?
He tallies the weeks in his head, and yeah. In just six more days they'll have lasted longer than his first team.
He buys himself a pack of horrible filtered Glosters and since he still can't get a moment alone he spins it as an affectation, part of his cover. When in Argentina, and all that. He hates them as much as he hates everything else here, but they settle him in a way he hasn't needed in years.
It'll be fine. They'll be all right. They'll make it to two months, and once Solo leaves they'll be fine.
They just have to finish this damn mission, and for that he needs to get his head on straight. Needs to blend in while he gets his listening skills up to snuff, needs to smile at Gaby and pass as just another harmless tourist, needs to stop choking himself on the limits of his role here.
Napoleon Solo doesn't tug on his chain all that often anymore – he can so easily slip the collar, after all – but ever since they got their orders he can't seem to stop himself from yanking until he feels the pressure around his throat.
It would be so simple—but he can't. It would be better in the long run—but they won't let him. He could do it quietly, no one would ever know it was him—but Illya and Gaby would know, and he'd lose their trust.
(Shouldn't he want that? Doesn't he want to disentangle himself from them? Isn't that the goal? Wouldn't this be a way—but he'd be putting them in danger, if it was enough to break their trust but not enough to have him removed. Could he make it enough to get himself removed? Does he want to?)
(Which chain is he pulling against, again?)
They whittle down their list of targets one painstaking day at a time, all casual strolling and eavesdropping, no overt surveillance or relevant questions, and by the time they've planned out their first two attempts the box of Glosters has already been emptied and replaced. He's pretty sure it's his only tell, and he's equally sure that no one else will recognize it as one. Gaby and Illya excluded, of course, but they're not saying a damn thing about it so they're probably assuming it's about Rome. Not the five bodies splatter-painted across a cargo bay in Dublin, or the twenty-three others across seventeen more cities.
Four more days. They wrapped up the Vinciguerra matter in less time than that. They can make it.
They'll be fine.
.
Their first target, one of the city's new nightclubs, is a bust. Not for lack of effort on their part – he and Gaby make the perfect scene, and by the time they stagger out around three in the morning they've made a dozen new friends apiece, unloaded a biblical swarm of Illya's smallest bugs, spread around their cover story in artfully tantalizing snippets, and gotten thoroughly, heinously trashed.
Illya's waiting with a car, which he ladles them into and drives back to their hotel at a sedate pace. Gaby sits in front, though whether by her choice or Illya's he can't begin to guess, mostly because... Wait, what was the question again?
"I'm too old for this," he mutters, keeled over on the bench seat after the car took the first corner and his balance along with it.
Up front, Illya and Gaby snort in unison. "Clearly," Gaby says, turning around to look at him scathingly, but Illya just glances at him in the mirror and says, flatly, "You're thirty-four."
"Thirty-two," Solo corrects him without thinking, then realizes what he just said. Damn. He's really messed up, huh? He hasn't been this drunk since...whatever that one place was. Two years ago? No, closer to three. Wow, he's going to hate himself in the morning. For different reasons, anyway.
"Ah, you see?" Illya says lightly. "Not too old, after all." It could just be him, but he thinks Illya drives faster, after that. Even on the turns. Asshole.
.
He manages to drag himself out of bed in the morning, which is frankly award-worthy, but then Illya has to come and peel him off the bathroom floor half an hour later. He does so without taunt or complaint, just sets him on his feet and steers him back to bed before patiently feeding him painkillers and toast. Solo swears at him, a bit weakly, but he doesn't really protest, and he doesn't really mean it. As expected, the only person he hates right now his himself. He can just lump this on top, that he's pathetic enough to make Illya want to be nice to him, and pathetic enough to be grateful for it.
"It's only ten," Illya tells him when he's done. "You can sleep some more, or you can have coffee in fifteen minutes."
"Coffee," Solo mutters, but he doesn't open his eyes and falls asleep again almost immediately, still sitting up.
Illya's true to his word, and then some. He shakes Solo awake at 10:15 on the dot, and doesn't just bring a cup; he brings the whole pot.
.
They eat a late lunch at some hole-in-the-wall café with a pergola-shaded patio, all three in their sunglasses even under the twining, leafy vines, and pool their findings from the night before. It really doesn't come to much: a couple of people who spoke stilted, halting German when Gaby pretended to be too drunk to remember her English, and a few Italian-sounding names dropped into the Spanish conversations Solo was able to overhear, but nothing that gave them any solid leads. Their real purpose, however, was to meet as many people as possible in the part of town they'd identified as the Nazi territory, populated by fleeing officers and wealthy sympathizers, and in that they'd been soundly victorious. Gaby pulled fourteen invitations to later parties, Solo ten. She only lords it over him a little.
Collated, their even two dozen amount to only eight separate events. Two more at clubs, three at bars, and three at private residences, one of which will be hosted by one of their German-speakers. The earliest is tomorrow, the latest the following weekend. Hopefully they'll be long gone then, having already found what they came looking for and made their exit no worse for wear.
First, though, is their dinner tonight. Illya and Gaby have reservations at one of the old-money restaurants in a heavily Germanic neighborhood, and it's Solo's turn to be the driver, hanging back and listening in through Gaby's ring. It would be more fun if there were a way for him to talk back, but he's glad of a little time on his own. He's parked a few blocks away with a notebook and a couple of sandwiches, listening to Gaby's tinny voice coming through the headset and jotting down any points she mentions to him. They've learned he can't always make out Illya's voice through the background noise if he's more than a couple feet away from the receiver, so Gaby's passing on his observations whenever he can't contrive to get closer to the ring.
It's rote to the point of boredom until Gaby excuses herself from the table and leaves the ring behind; when she comes back, she has news. "I ran into Mirta," she says cheerfully, and Solo flips through the notebook to check their calendar. "From the club last night? She's here with her uncle Werner. They must be very close – the party she invited me to is at his house." There: Mirta, German, Villa Allende, Saturday.
That's their in.
"Sounds fun," Illya says, audible this time and very nearly matching Gaby's level of unconcerned good humor. "You should go."
"I think I will," Gaby agrees, and the conversation moves on.
A few more pieces of information drift over the line in the next hour, but nothing rivaling their newest lead. Mirta and Werner come over at one point to introduce themselves to Illya, who's playing the role of Gaby's friend from university. Mirta asks after Solo; Gaby informs her that he doesn't appreciate good food. (Solo seethes.) Mirta extends the invitation to Illya, and Werner agrees. They leave. Waiters appear a couple of times, marked by the clatter of plates and silverware. (Solo eats his second sandwich and finds it unsatisfactory.) Illya thinks some men speaking German two tables over mentioned something about Rome, but didn't catch anything else. They order dessert, but not before Gaby reads the list of options out loud, presumably just to be cruel and heartless. (Solo recognizes half of them and pines.)
When Gaby and Illya come back to the car, Gaby kicks him out of the driver's seat then thrusts a small cardboard box at him. "Trust me," she says, "you'll want someone else to be driving while you eat those."
Solo spends the whole drive back making indecent noises around the cañoncitos. It's only partially on purpose. It only partially distracts him. They still have two more days.
.
The get-together on Friday is considerably less raucous than their first outing to the club, but it does little more than intensify his feeling that Mirta's house party will be the one that matters. Still only mentions, still only hints, still that extra edge of caution in public spaces: if these are the people they're meant to be investigating, they won't have anything confirmed until they can meet them where they feel untouchable. And they are the right people, he's sure of it. He can just fucking tell.
He doesn't drink much at the bar, partly because he's learned his lesson and partly because that's not what the atmosphere calls for. He's friendly, he's social, he has a couple of drinks. Normally even just playing that role is enough to relax him, well-worn as it is, but not tonight.
Solo hasn't slept well since London, and that night he can't seem to manage to get to sleep at all. He gives up some time around three in the morning, gets up as quietly as he can and lets himself into an empty room across the hall. Away from his sleeping partners, it's easier to pretend that this is just another mission. Just another job. He's done this dozens of times, often in worse circumstances. He's worked with assets before, too, people he'd recruited and used as cover or assistance. As far as he knows, none of them has ever ended up on his list.
Unfortunately, no amount of lying to himself can recast Gaby and Illya. They're his partners, no two ways about it. They're his partners, and he's going to get them killed.
If distance is the only thing that will save them from him, he should give them all he can spare.
He stretches out on a cold bed and runs through their plans until he's too tired to focus and his mind is wandering further and further afield with each attempt to rein it in. He doesn't mean to sleep, doesn't think he can, but he...
—wakes up to watery light coming in through the open curtains of a room that isn't his, and manages to wonder what the hell? before remembering. Right. Not one of his finer moments, admittedly, but those have been in painfully short supply lately. With any luck, the others will still be sleeping and he'll be able to slip back in unnoticed, maybe catch another hour before they have to be up.
It turns out that luck also seems to be in short supply, because Illya is waiting for him, sitting on the edge of his twin bed when Solo slinks back into their shared room. "Solo," he starts, with something of that creeping understanding in his voice, and Solo decides he doesn't want to hear whatever comes next.
"Kuryakin," Solo replies, mocking, but Illya just purses his lips.
"If you can't do this—"
Solo almost laughs out loud. "Don't say 'can't' like that's a thing that matters," he scoffs. "I will. That's all you need to know."
"Something's wrong," Illya persists, still quietly. Still like he cares. "If it's personal, fine, I can look the other way. But if it will affect mission, I need to know."
Solo fixes him with a lifeless stare; one of the masks he doesn't wear while working. "It's personal," he says coldly. "Look the other way."
.
He steals a whole two hours of sleep before Gaby comes in to bully him out of bed and into the kitchen to make breakfast. "You could stand to learn to cook for yourself, you know," he tells her, only half as annoyed as he's pretending to be. She just gives him a condescending smile.
"Why would I, when I have you?"
He rolls his eyes to hide how much that comment turns his stomach and sets about cooking up an obscene amount of scrambled eggs.
Gaby's eaten most of them by the time Illya comes back from his morning whatever, carrying a little parcel and radiating obnoxious good cheer. The package lands on the table in front of him with a strange clank, and Solo narrows his eyes. "No," he says. "Whatever you're so chipper about, no. I'm not playing along."
Illya ignores him. "Party is not until eight tonight," he says, "so we have all day to prepare, and there is something I've been meaning to do." Solo pushes the package away from himself with one finger. Illya pushes it right back. "Something you promised," Illya adds, and Solo sighs.
Inside the envelope is a pair of handcuffs. He sighs again when he sees. "Do I even want to know where you got these?"
"I do," Gaby says, pulling them out and dangling them from a fingertip to examine them. They certainly seem real, although imitation ones would almost be worse. "And why."
"I want to learn to pick them," Illya answers easily. "I asked, after Madrid. Solo agreed. I think now is a good time, yes?"
Solo gives in to the urge to rub his eyes, still grainy from sleep and now with a headache threatening behind them. "Fine," he says. "But coffee first."
Gaby makes the coffee, Solo gets his kit, and Illya sits at the table like a dog waiting for a walk. But when Solo sits down next to him and proffers the cuffs with a raised eyebrow, Illya shakes his head. "You first," he says. "Test drive."
Solo eyes him. "This is beginning to feel like an elaborate set-up." He hasn't forgotten this morning, and as much as Illya's pretending to, he knows that he hasn't, either.
Gaby sighs loudly and reaches down to snag the cuffs out of Solo's grasp. Before he can stop her, she's fixed them around her own wrists and ratcheted them tightly. "There," she says. "If this was a trap for you, now Illya looks stupid. Does he?"
Despite himself, Solo glances back over to Illya, who's not trying very hard to hide a smile. "No more than usual," he says pleasantly, but Illya just huffs and shakes his head.
"Good," Gaby says. "Now take them off so we can get on with things." She holds out her hands imperiously, a queen presenting her rings to be kissed, and for one wild moment Solo wonders what she'd do if he did it. She's wearing another one of Illya's tracking rings, only slightly smaller than the first, plus a gaudy plastic number she'd found in a streetside stall. Punch him in the face, probably, and the metal setting on the tracker could do some damage. Maybe not the best look for their evening plans.
Solo hooks another chair with his foot and pulls it over. "Sit," he tells her. "You can be the demonstration round, since you volunteered."
Even so, he gets them off quickly. He doesn't like the look of the metal on her, reminded of mud and rain and the clammy coldness of her skin. She's quiet as he works, and tilts her wrists to show off this angle or that maneuver when Solo asks, but he can see the beat of her pulse beneath the skin when her hands are turned palm-up, and he wonders if she's remembering as well. When the cuffs click open and he looks at her face instead of his task, he finds her looking pensive. Taking mental notes, no doubt, preparing for her test. They haven't done cuffs before, but she's been working up the ranks of his sample locks. She'll probably demand to do cuffs after this, knowing Illya's reasoning and the plain good sense of the skill.
"Okay?" he asks as he slips the metal off. She hums an affirmative.
"Doesn't seem so hard," she says.
"It's not," Solo agrees with a quick smile. "Not if you're me."
She kicks his chair. "Okay, show-off. You next, then."
He shrugs and fastens the cuff around his left wrist, then—all at once, in excruciating synchronicity, he thinks this should kill me and this is killing me and why hasn't this killed me and god I wish this would just kill me already—
"Solo?"
—die die die let me die let me die—breathes, slowly, and puts the other one around his right wrist. His vision is a little hazy, what with memory trying to overwrite the room around him, but he doesn't need vision for this. Someone leans around to put the pick he'd used into his hand (Gaby, it's Gaby, not Victoria, not Rudi, he can turn his head to smile at her in thanks and hope it moves his face the way it should) and he makes short work of the mechanism.
"See?" he says. His voice is oddly hollow in his ears. "Easy."
"Show me again," Illya tells him, sounding far away. "Was too fast, I could not see."
Solo cuffs himself again, then frees himself – trying, half-heartedly, to take his time.
But Illya just says, "Again," and Solo does.
And again.
"Really, Peril?" Solo snaps after the fourth request. "If you don't actually want to learn, just tell me so I can stop wasting my time." His voice is back to normal, he notices, and Illya is crisp and clear in the cross-hairs of his glare. He's lost track of Gaby, though. He glances over at the door to her room, finds it closed.
"Okay," Illya says. "I don't want to learn. Not now."
It takes everything Solo has not to throw the cuffs at Illya's stupid, earnest face. He throws them onto the table instead. "Then what the hell was this all about?"
"You needed to remember."
Remember what, Rome? What happens when he lets his guard down? That Illya had needed to unstrap him from the chair, even once his hands were free, because he couldn't feel his fingers? That Illya has the power to make him do stupid things, like drive a truck into the ocean or crawl through a building's steam tunnels or handcuff himself over and over again for no fucking reason? Whatever the case, this whole charade had been utterly unnecessary, because he's not likely to forget any of those things any time soon.
"That you can get away," Illya finishes. It takes him out at the knees right as he's about to stand, and his anger fizzles into exhaustion just like it did the other day. He's so fucking tired and he hasn't gotten all the memories of Rudi's lair shoved back into their box, which is great because he's going to have to go out and party with another bunch of Nazis tonight, and Illya keeps fucking seeing him instead of just fighting him or letting him leave.
"Not always," he says heavily. Handcuffs are easy. Other ties, not so much. He's still here, isn't he? He should have cut himself free of them a long time ago, but here they all are.
"And when you can't, we will come for you. Just like you will come for us."
That one lands hard enough to make him flinch. "Don't promise that. Don't pretend you can."
Illya leans forward, slowly, carefully, and touches the back of his hand, dropped limply in his lap. "Solo," he says seriously. "I promise."
And Solo's not enough of an idiot to believe him, but maybe he's foolish enough to wish he could.
Gaby comes out of her room dressed for a day on the town, and Illya goes with her to do some last-minute shopping in preparation for tonight. Solo stands at the open window, sun warm on his face, and smokes entirely too many cigarettes.
By the time they return, he's himself again.
.
As it always is, the worst part of a mission is the lead-up to the end, when they know what they have to do and when but can't break character before. Even with a late start to the morning, there's still the better part of a day to fill up. If not for the timing, he might be able to set it aside and act the part of the unbothered tourist well enough to get some enjoyment out of it, but, well, the timing. And the final hurdle. God. He can do it, but he really doesn't want to.
He's covering so badly that he's not surprised in the slightest when Gaby calls him on it that afternoon. "Is it Rome?" she asks bluntly, dropping onto a park bench next to him. He breathes out another cloud of smoke before turning to look at her in confusion. She steals the cigarette from him easily. "Is it Rome that's making you...like this?" She gestures tightly at him.
"Like what?" he asks, just to be obtuse, and she rolls her eyes in disgust before taking a drag on the cigarette – which she promptly chokes on and sputters, coughing.
"This is awful," she finally manages, and crushes it beneath a vindictive heel. "How can you stand them?"
"Desperation," he tries to joke. It falls flat.
"So is it Rome?" she presses. "You're even twitchier than Illya, and apparently you only smoke if you're 'desperate.' No one ever told me exactly what happened with my uncle, but I'm not stupid. I know it wasn't good."
"That wasn't your fault," he starts, but she cuts him off.
"That's not what I'm asking," she says sharply. "I'm asking if that's why you're such a mess right now."
He can't even pretend to contest that. The mess part. As for the rest, well. "It's part of why," he admits. It's not untrue. "I have...history, that's all. More than just Rome."
She nods, but she still looks tense. Like she still hasn't gotten what she came looking for. "Are you," she starts after a bit, searching, then stops. He's pathetically grateful for it. He really doesn't like lying to them; if she'd asked outright if he was okay, he doesn't know how he could have answered. "Don't you trust us?" she asks instead, and that's actually worse.
"Of course I trust you," he says at once. "Gaby. Of course I trust you." She's holding his gaze, but there's something shuttered behind it now. Something locked.
She doesn't believe him.
She doesn't believe him and he can't even blame her because he knows exactly how hard he's been trying to keep them at arm's length. The only difference is that he also knows why.
And he wants to tell her. More than he's ever wanted to tell anyone anything, he wants to tell her why. But he can't because it's insane and they need to get through tonight and if she thinks he's lost his mind they won't be able to do what they have to do. He won't be able to. "I trust you with my life," he says, because that much is true. It's the opposite that isn't.
Her glare goes even icier. "No, you don't," she says. "And I get it, okay? I get it. But don't lie to me."
The irony is quite literally stunning – in the critical moment when he should be saying something, anything, he can't even manage to take a breath. Then the moment is past and Gaby is pushing herself up with a huff.
"Fine," is all she says, and then she's storming away and something in his shell snaps open with a quiet, ominous crack.
Fine, he thinks as well. Fine. Well, isn't this what he wanted? Isn't this what he's always wanted? To be himself, as he was meant to be?
As he was meant to be, he reminds himself as he stands. A conqueror, alone.
.
He ignores Illya's half-hurt apprehension when he returns to their hotel to get ready. He ignores Gaby's hard-edged diamond unconcern. He dresses himself and puts himself on like a show, wears Napoleon Solo all the way to Werner's villa like he hasn't a care in the world. As soon as he sets foot inside the house, though, a timer clicks on counting down in his head. One hour. He charms. He mingles. Forty-five minutes. He watches Gaby and Illya in conversation with Mirta, Werner hovering over like a vulture. Charm. Mingle. Thirty minutes. He eats canapés and idles at the drinks table. Mingle, charm. Fifteen minutes. Gaby and Illya setting up a distraction. Charm. He wanders through the halls, admiring the architecture, the decor. Ten minutes. He has three exit routes mapped out. Mingle. Five minutes and he can't wait any longer. He slips into Werner's office, locks the door behind him, and gets to work.
Seconds tick by as he searches, meticulous as always, never rushing, never sloppy. Books, letters, bills, blackmail – everything in its place, every rich and arrogant man always equally assured of his own power, his own security, his own sanctity. Six minutes. Seven. In minute eight, he finds it: a solid connection to the Vinciguerras. No direct dealings with them, but knowledge of their plans and support for their aims. He folds the papers and slides them into a pocket, knowing even as he does so that while it may warrant an investigation, there will be no sanctions. No meaningful consequences. Not from this government. He's hit a point where this is of less importance to him than is the knowledge that they're finally done here, but it still rankles a bit, just beneath the surface. He forces it down further, tells himself that this is a success, and opens the office door. And freezes.
Across the hall, against another door, Werner has an overly familiar hand on Gaby's shoulder, an overly familiar cant to his body. Gaby's looking up at him with a smile, and he knows it's a distraction, knows it's the job and he doesn't like who he is when he lets himself get bloodthirsty but absolutely not.
Werner screams when his wrist breaks. Solo feels the crunch of several small bones against his palm and squeezes once more, hard, before letting go. Werner stumbles back into the opposite wall, shocked and crumpled. Footsteps come running at the sound, and Solo catches Gaby's iron-hard arm in a much gentler grip to steer her away. She shakes him off and makes a short, sharp move that he only identifies as a quickly aborted strike when it doesn't land. He flinches back anyway, and she takes the space she's made to shoulder him aside and stalk off down the hall. He follows, leaving Werner sniveling on the floor.
The first person down the hall towards them is Mirta. "Your uncle's a creep," Gaby says in German before she can say anything to the two of them. "I bet he'll think twice about where he puts his hands now." Mirta doesn't get to do more than gape before Gaby is past. She turns her astonished look to Solo, who simply shrugs.
"Picked the wrong one," he says. Looks like they're letting Gaby take the credit for this one, and he can't say he minds. It's a good cover for their abrupt exit, and if word gets around about a young woman crushing a man's hand for landing on her, that'll do more for this place than the rest of their work here.
Other curious spectators rush in as they leave the hall and re-enter the ballroom but Solo pays them no mind. He's looking out for Illya in the crowd, and just as surely, Illya is looking out for them. Their eyes meet, Solo tips his head toward the exit. Illya looks concerned, but cuts away in that direction as voices rise behind them.
They make it out without incident, back to the car they'd left a street away. No one follows. No one speaks. Gaby yanks open the driver's side door so hard Solo half expects it rip off like the trunk did, but it's clearly still on well enough to slam. Illya gingerly takes the front passenger seat. Solo sits behind Illya, blatantly in eyeshot of the rear-view mirror. Gaby doesn't glance at him once on the whole silent drive back.
At the hotel, Solo calls Waverly to schedule the drop, then starts packing.
He can't wait to be out of this fucking place.
. . .
sorry to leave this at a tense spot, but no worries, 'tis on purpose. nothing against argentina, solo is just projecting heavily (altho argentine spanish is notoriously difficult for spanish-learners coming in from other regional dialects).