Chapter Text
II.
Illya, in his life as both a naval officer and professional spy, has known a lot of men—some, thanks to various remits for covert surveillance, in shockingly intimate detail. There are few variants on human sexual preference that could surprise him nowadays, no matter how broad or narrow, eager or restrained. Whenever he hears someone expounding some gem of folk wisdom on 'the normal sexual appetite of the healthy, young man' he rolls his eyes.
Illya has never in his life known any man so enthusiastically heterosexual as Napoleon. He's not entirely sure he believes that a man so heterosexual as Napoleon could exist at all.
That Napoleon likes women is one of the first things Illya learns about him in the early days of their partnership. Napoleon likes experienced society women, perhaps with a string of lovers or a high-profile divorce behind them, who know exactly what they want and aren't afraid to ask for it. He likes timid ingénues, making their debut on his arm in couture gowns he'd picked out for them specially, or designer jewellery that sparkles in perfect complement to the stars in their eyes as they float through the evening on a cloud. Napoleon is easily won by women who are sultry and suggestive or flirty and forward, who have their eyes on him from the moment he walks through the door; and he'll spend whole evenings charming women who are standoffish and smart-mouthed, who accept his invitation to join him later at some other venue with a quirked eyebrow and a grudging 'perhaps', who may let him dance for their entertainment all night before deciding if they find themselves suitably charmed in return. He has an open partiality to blondes—unless the woman who's caught his eye tonight happens to be a brunette (or a redhead, or perhaps even a silver vixen), in which case he will readily compose poetry to their raven locks and the dark beauty of their eyes. Napoleon likes women. Everything else seems to be a matter of flavour.
He doesn't take all of them to bed by any means, no matter what the office rumour mill may suggest. With many of his more reticent dates he doesn't even seem particularly inclined to try his luck. But as the man unfortunate enough to be left holding the other end of the wire on a great many of Napoleon's more memorable infiltration jobs, Illya is left in no doubt that Napoleon takes to bedding those who seem amenable with as much enthusiasm as he brings to every prior part of the process. No other agent works nearly so hard to ensure the good men from UNCLE will be remembered in the best possible light by all, wherever the job may take them.
(Napoleon does, at least, usually have the decency to look faintly sheepish the morning after Illya's been left on the wrong end of the wire on those sorts of missions, though not even that puts much of a dent in the natural smugness he radiates every morning after he's gone to bed with some beauty—something which already happens too often for comfort.)
Napoleon's type, in summary, seems to be women who may be convinced to find him charming, and for a professional as skilled as Napoleon, those are never in short supply.
What Napoleon likes is attention, Illya decides, about a week and a half into their partnership—then spends the next three stewing in rising frustration as it becomes apparent that, between Napoleon's professional pride, sizable ego, and tolerable sense of humour, there doesn't appear to have been the space left anywhere in his psyche to house a single real insecurity. He thrives on female attention, but he doesn't crave it like an addict. He admires it like a connoisseur, savours it like a gourmand, and then disengages and with the grace of a gentleman from some era past, leaving naught but a trail of sighs and girlish giggles in his wake. It would all be intolerable if he wasn't also such an unmistakably good agent, and that he manages to be both may be the single most intolerable thing about him. By all rights, Napoleon's weakness for the fairer sex ought to have brought his career crashing down around him years ago, and yet even Illya can't deny that Napoleon's instinct for the precise moment at which to transform from a lover to a man of action rarely leads him wrong. And Napoleon's charm and confidence don't work only with the ladies. All manner of people they meet, both on the job and off, prove highly susceptible. And UNCLE, both on and off the books, almost can't reward him for it fast enough.
By the end of his first month of being unimpressed, then grudgingly impressed, then unimpressed all over again with his new partner's propensity for charming everything in sight, Illya gives in and admits he rather likes Napoleon Solo. Not only do they work together surprisingly well together, now they've found one another's speed, but in all that time not one of his cutting remarks has gone over Napoleon's head. Once their initial mutual wariness wears off, he's both pleased and unnerved to discover that Napoleon Solo not only keeps up but sees right through him with uncanny regularity, and by all indications, has found nothing not to like in what he sees.
By the conclusion of their third mission together, Illya has begun to feel that he might come to find even Napoleon's most ridiculous excess quite tolerable. So when Napoleon crawls into the tent Colonel Skalicky has been so good as to provide them with for the night, Illya finds himself quite charitably disposed towards his company—even before his partner produces the bottle of champagne he'd appropriated from somewhere around the THRUSH laboratory complex over the hill, which the Colonel's men are even now dismantling.
"I couldn't find any glasses, but it seemed a shame to let this go to waste," Napoleon declares, popping the cork neatly off into the fading dusk outside their tent before proposing a toast. "To the caging of a great many little birds at the hands of UNCLE's most promising young partnership." He swigs from the bottle and offers it to Illya.
On another day, Illya may have taken this as ordinary self-congratulation. This last job had seen both their diplomacy and their ingenuity exhaustively tested against the obstructive might of the Colonel, who'd proved himself stolidly uninterested in any amount of evidence of serious human rights violations going on at that new laboratory complex over the hill, which his superiors had received such very nice bribes in exchange for approving. The Colonel was nonetheless considerably more moved by the evidence that their generous guests might be plotting a coup, which Illya and Napoleon had been excellently placed to bring to his attention, having planted the greater part of it themselves. They have, in short, plenty to celebrate. But in the last two nights of feverish activity, their partnership has passed its second month and now seen the conclusion of their third successful affair, and tonight marks a milestone of sorts. Section I likes to see stability in its enforcement teams; it makes the rostering process that much simpler, but no partnership will bear much fruit if its component parties aren't well on board. If either of them remains in any doubt about the wisdom of continuing this partnership, the time has come to speak, or forever hold his peace.
Illya raises an eyebrow, raises the bottle back to Napoleon, and decides he can let his membership of the brotherhood of cynicism lapse just this once. "And to many more successful missions to follow," he toasts, and tips the neck of the bottle up against his lips.
In the wavering glow of the small oil lamp sitting between them on the floor, Napoleon beams at him as he accepts the bottle back for another drink.
Though the encroaching night is cool and their allowance of military-issue blankets are worn and thin, two warm bodies flushed with half a bottle of champagne prove ample to heat the confines of their little tent comfortably. As the bottle drains, Illya wonders what might happen were he to lean across, perhaps reel Napoleon in by the tie, and kiss the champagne off his lips. His gut says the bold approach might not be ill-received, and—UNCLE regulations and all prior evidence of Napoleon's preferences aside—his gut rarely leads him wrong.
But he isn't sure he likes the thought Napoleon has charmed him too so quickly as all that, and if there's anything to it, the moment will surely come again. If this partnership continues as it's begun, they'll have all the time in the world.
It's not a moment he's dwelt on since, though in his more morose moments, he does occasionally regret not having gone for it back when their relationship had been new enough for experimentation to be more permissible. Even had Napoleon turned him down, at least Illya would have his answer.
The fundamental problem with Napoleon—or more particularly, with any theory he might form in hope of explaining Napoleon to his own satisfaction—is that Illya never can make up his mind just who is taking advantage of whom. That Napoleon's social life has blossomed under the strictures of the quota is indisputable, but to what degree the quota is the reason, and to what degree the quota is merely the excuse, remains frustratingly opaque, even to him.
In Illya's experience, there are only two types of men so flamboyantly and resolutely heterosexual as Napoleon appears to be: those enslaved to their own libidinous obsession with the opposite sex, and those who believe they have something to prove—whose fragile egos may come crashing down the moment some woman rejects them. Whatever Illya may think of his partner's libido, Napoleon is self-evidently more a willing servant than a slave, so the first option fits him poorly at best. But the existence of the quota ensures Napoleon has both nothing and everything to prove: nothing, because no-one long acquainted with the man could doubt either his appreciation for or his own appeal to the feminine sex; and everything, because UNCLE policy treats him and every other man present for the fiasco of '62 as an addict perpetually on the verge of relapse. What that means, no matter how farcical UNCLE's corporate cult of masculinity may be, is the tantalising possibility they might just be right in Napoleon's case is very hard for Illya to forget.
As Number 1, Section II of one of the top five offices in the world, Napoleon is under more scrutiny than anyone. Does he, on some subconscious level, feel that pressure more keenly than he might willingly admit? A lot could be explained about his behaviour if there was some part of him, however buried it might be, working very hard to sublimate the occasional attraction to something else...
And there the problem that is Napoleon Solo only complicates tenfold, because Illya is far too well-educated not to recognise his own wishful thinking for what it is. No matter how satisfying it might be to diagnose the pathology behind Napoleon Solo as repressed homosexual desire, he'd be a poor scientist indeed not to recognise his own bias. The idea is simply too attractive to take at face value. (The dangling question of why Illya finds it so very attractive is a minefield all its own.)
Unfortunately for Napoleon, the alternative conclusion, that he's exactly the hedonist he appears, set loose by accident of policy—isn't that much more complimentary. Sublimation may be a largely discredited mechanism for sexual repression, but there are certainly a great many men who would be having a great deal more sex without the strictures of society to limit them. And yet...
Even years into their partnership, Illya feels no closer to an answer.
The other half of the trouble with Napoleon is that no matter how many women Illya may have had to watch him woo, there are still those moments that make him... wonder. For a man so incurably fond of flirting with each and every member of the opposite sex to cross his path, Napoleon sometimes seems to forget to stop flirting when there isn't a woman in sight.
"I am afraid," Napoleon announces, buttoning his cuffs in front of the mirror, "that I will have to deprive you of my fine company for a few hours. Do you have everything you need?"
Illya frowns, upsetting the balance of the ice-pack resting on his brow, and forcing him to shove it back up out of his eyes. The only woman he can clearly remember meeting today had been a THRUSH medical technician holding the syringe. He tries to recall whether there'd been any attractive nurses back at the hospital earlier in the afternoon, but his head swims with the effort. "When did you manage to line up a date in all the excitement?" he asks, suspicious.
Napoleon's smile is rueful. "The only date I have lined up for this evening is with the town mayor. I'm told he wants to know on whose authority people have been detonating explosives within reverberation distance of his constituency. UNCLE has deputised me to smooth things over."
"Ah." Now that Illya looks again, Napoleon isn't dressed for an evening out. He needs that second look—everything in his field of view is still fuzzy around the edges, thanks to whatever they'd given him in the hospital to help bring him down. "How lucky they had someone so uniquely qualified to explain how that came about."
Napoleon catches his eye in the mirror. "He may have some questions about reports of a nearly-naked man attempting to make a getaway over a rooftop too, of course," he adds, which Illya supposes is much the retort he's been subconsciously waiting for for some time. But if Napoleon wants to laugh at him, he's probably earned it.
"Then you can tell him his nearly-naked man has been reunited with his pants and is recovering comfortably in your hotel room," Illya suggests. Not the same pair he'd been wearing this morning, admittedly, wherever those might be now. Lost in the blur that is nearly everything after his THRUSH captors had wheeled him into the boardroom on a gurney is the key detail that would explain why he'd been down to his underwear when Napoleon finally got to him out on the roof. Perhaps the lab techs had wanted him to look vulnerable? It's certainly possible. Illya thinks he'd rather prefer that to be the case, when the alternative is that he'd rid himself of his pants later, on his own initiative—for reasons he has little hope of reconstructing now, and even less desire to try.
A captured UNCLE agent must have seemed the ideal subject for a live demonstration of their new fear toxin: after all, if the drug could reduce a professional enemy spy to a paranoid wreck, it could surely do the same for anyone. Having experienced first hand the devastating effects of Gervaise Ravel's own fear agent, Illya would hardly have been inclined to argue the point, and had resigned himself to the inevitability of another such experience—at least up to the point where his adrenaline-fuelled thrashing had overcome the restraints holding him to the gurney, leading to an altercation in which he had apparently wrestled a gun away from a guard and wounded at least three people before climbing out a window. It was probably for the best he was out of bullets by the time Napoleon got to him with a syringe full of the antidote—by then camped out under the overhang of an access stairwell on the roof, glaring blearily out into a world that was bright and sharp and over-full, and he himself distinctly under-dressed.
Here in the present, Napoleon raises his eyebrows in amusement, and it's only when Illya sees his expression that it occurs to him that the part about 'recovering in Napoleon's hotel room' probably came out sounding more suggestive aloud than it had in his head.
"You'll understand if I might word that one a little differently in case there are any little birdies still hovering in our vicinity." Napoleon's eyes faintly glitter with amusement. "I should probably check in with the clean-up crew while I'm out."
"Let me know if they've found my dignity in the rubble," says Illya, who is too mature to attempt to hide under his pillow from the train-wreck that has become of his day, but only just. "I suspect it will be right at the bottom, probably in several pieces."
Napoleon winces, and has the decency to look fuzzily sympathetic. "You know I would have offered you my coat for the way down..."
"If you wanted to complete my image of the neighbourhood flasher lurking in the bushes behind the playground, certainly."
"I don't know that it's so bad as all that," Napoleon tries, his wince settling into something more in the vicinity of a pout.
"I'd argue with you, but I honestly don't remember much of it," Illya admits. "I'm going to have to read your report just to find out what I've been up to all day, which I can't say I'm looking forward to."
"I don't know what you mean," says Napoleon, straightening his tie. "Agent Kuryakin performed an admirable diversionary service, shaking off the effects of the latest THRUSH paranoia toxin to disable at least three guards before making his escape, leading them all on a merry chase across the rooftops and providing Agent Solo with ample time set the charges and plan their exit strategy."
Illya shoots another look at the mirror, though it's far too high up to reflect his own face from where he sits on the bed. He must look truly dire if Napoleon is working so hard to lift his spirits. Perhaps for once, defensive pessimism has done its job. "So. No date then?"
"None lined up at this time." Finished with his tie, Napoleon pats him on the ankle as he passes the bed. "But you never do know how the evening may turn out."
Illya feels uncomfortably certain he can see the shape of his own already. "If the mayor has a beautiful daughter, I'd advise you to leave her alone."
"And risk having to admit such poor behaviour to our superiors, after? Illya, you wound me."
Napoleon, Illya decides, is far too chipper for a man whose own partner had very nearly taken him as an enemy plant earlier that day. "One would almost think you'd spent enough time wrestling nearly naked people to the ground for one day."
"Or vice-versa," Napoleon comments, or mumbles, in an off-hand sort of way that Illya is less than sure he was supposed to have heard at all. From the depths of the crowded fog of his recollections, a memory stirs. Illya experiences a sudden and vivid flashback to what may have been his first moment of clarity in what had felt like countless hours of being hunted across the rooftops of the compound by a seemingly infinite army of armed THRUSH enforcers, dogging his footsteps and imitating the voices of his friends. Then, in the midst of all that fury, the terrible realisation that what he'd taken as an enemy impostor posing as Napoleon was no enemy at all but the real thing, in incalculable danger from an untold number of THRUSH snipers peering from shadowy stealth helicopters over their heads, if Illya couldn't get to him right now...
"Please tell me I didn't." Sense memory is a vicious thing, and Illya fervently hates it. Why the thought of Napoleon having to tackle him in order to stab him with the syringe of the counter-agent should be the less mortifying option is beyond him to justify; all Illya knows is the very organic fear this could be one he'll never manage to live down.
Stopped in the doorway, Napoleon looks back over his shoulder with a playful smile. "Illya," he says, tapping the side of his nose, voice pitched low as if sharing some particular secret, "a gentleman never tells," and leaves Illya alone in their hotel room with a bag of ice on his head and a warm, fluttery feeling in his gut he'll later try to blame on the cocktail of drugs working their way through his system, or perhaps indigestion—anything, really, except the sinfully low pitch of Napoleon's voice as he flirted shamelessly to reassure his convalescing partner.
For Illya, who has always been far too sensible to waste his energy pining over someone without the least interest in his own sex, Napoleon is an education in more ways than one. There's only so long a man can spend agonising over the minutiae of another man's sexual habits before he has to admit he's invested, and Illya knows perfectly well he'd passed the point of 'so long' long ago.
At some point, self-awareness becomes its own punishment. There's nothing scientific or objective about his need to prove that Napoleon Solo was never so wholly heterosexual as he seems, and the moments when Illya is drunk or maudlin enough to admit that to himself are no fun at all.
The new measures enacted under the quota system aren't limited to regulations changes. In the immediate wake of the incident, a number of non-essential male staff and communications personnel from Section III and below are discretely pensioned off or made excellent offers elsewhere, and swiftly replaced with a new wave of young women recruited straight out of college, their impeccable qualifications matched only by their curvaceous bodies, perfect hair and sultry glances. Someone actually installs a sun lamp in the staff lounge. The communications staff object, and move it to operations, where they can use it in between important calls. UNCLE wants to make very sure that no man still working in headquarters lacks for suitable inspiration.
That work still gets done in the communications division is something of a minor miracle.
Here, once again, Napoleon excels. No other man in UNCLE can be so regularly counted upon to flirt enthusiastically with every communications girl he gets on the line, at any time where there's the least chance that THRUSH may be listening in. Napoleon will even flirt in locked bunkers sunk beneath state-of-the-art safe houses on the most secure lines UNCLE has to offer, because you never know, or at least Illya presumes that must be the reason, in his more sardonic phases. Even if THRUSH doesn't appreciate it, the communications staff clearly do. Many of the communications girls like flirting with Napoleon Solo so much they've begun to turn up their noses when other agents try their luck, which Illya would have thought was rather defeating the whole point. Napoleon Solo can hardly be heterosexual enough to personally cover for the entire section, no matter how hard he works at it, but the occasional reproachful look from Mr. Waverly or carefully coded memo from Public Relations don't much seem to curb his enthusiasm.
"Could we aim to have this report finalised by 6:30?" Napoleon asks him one evening. "I have a date with Wanda at 8, and I'd like to give myself time to freshen up before I go to pick her up."
For mundane security reasons, every woman whose voice will ordinarily be transmitted across UNCLE's secure frequencies is to be referred to as 'Wanda'. To avoid accidental slip-ups, agents are encouraged to get used to calling them all 'Wanda' around the office and in person too. There used to be a number of Waldos working for Section IV as well, but none survived the great purge of '62. Illya has never been entirely sure how many Wandas there are working at the New York office at any given time, but he's uncomfortably certain Napoleon has slept with every last one.
On this occasion, something more than déjà vu clicks for him. "Is that the same Wanda who broke her date with Mark this morning?"
"Mark?" says Napoleon, confused.
"Yes, Napoleon, Mark. As in Mark Slate, the awfully skinny British agent who has been sulking very obviously all day," says Illya, meaning quite specifically 'not the Mark Slate who mentored you, who has been telling everyone he is 39 for the last four years, and whose absence from our roster we are all working very hard to keep under wraps while he and that very pretty young partner of his are busy working undercover in the Chicago mob. That Mark Slate.'
"Oh," says Napoleon, guiltily. "Mark. Of course. Though I'm sure it's no business of mine if she did." He winks. For whose benefit, Illya can hardly guess. In the privacy of his own head, he sullenly formulates the theory that Napoleon dates so many Wandas because it mitigates the risk of saying the wrong name in bed. The idea is viscerally satisfying for almost two minutes before he realises how horribly petty that is, and goes back to focusing on the report they have to have done by 6:30 if Napoleon is to have proper time to change his suit and refresh his cologne before meeting the latest in the apparently infinite line of Wandas queuing for his attention.
He wonders if Mark would like to go out for a drink after work, so they can commiserate silently about the trial that is life in the same department as Napoleon Solo. Mark turns out to be willing, even if he seems a little unclear on exactly why.
"How's April doing?" Illya asks in passing, some increasingly less certain number of rounds into the evening.
"Which one?" says Mark, out loud and in public, which is Illya's cue to find him the one taxi in all New York not being driven by a THRUSH plant and get his colleague safely home. A taxi he doesn't get to share in order to save half the fare, just in case someone sees and imagines they're going home together.
That last part technically isn't Napoleon Solo's fault in any way, but Illya is almost grumpy enough to blame it on him just on principle.
It would probably be unfair to attribute Napoleon's meteoritic rise through the ranks of Section II entirely to his dedication to fulfilling his quota at every opportunity, but it certainly can't have hurt. If Napoleon is not in fact god's gift to women, he might still be god's gift to UNCLE's Propaganda and Public Relations Department (the only division below Section II granted full understanding of the nature of the quota, and whose name doesn't explicitly include and counter-intelligence because they're better at their job than that—much too good to allow even themselves to be consistently listed in the office directory. Younger agents looking for Propaganda and Public Relations occasionally find themselves at the finance department, or a dead end instead). Napoleon has taken to heart the notion that any civilian granted a glimpse behind the curtain of their establishment should leave with favourable impressions. If that means taking some young lady to dinner, then perhaps home for drinks to show her how deeply UNCLE appreciates her generous contribution to the cause of world peace, then Napoleon will gladly find time in his busy schedule. If the young lady is spoken for, or is perhaps not a lady but a young man, then finding it in UNCLE's budget surplus to fund an expensive international honeymoon—or perhaps pay off a few debts or a small mortgage or two—is simply Napoleon's way of saying 'thank you'. And if the young lady isn't too polite to refuse the chance to keep that lovely couture gown that fitted her so well and brought out her eyes so wonderfully, she may well get to do just that. If Napoleon has any say.
This goes on until sometime in the second year of their partnership, when an over-zealous accountant from the actual finance department discovers just how much of their budget has been going into 'community outreach', and takes a long, hard look at what Napoleon (followed in his example by a number of junior agents) has been writing into the expense sheets. The accountant promptly files a scathing report suggesting that he can see no reason why UNCLE oughtn't be capable of saving the world on their almost weekly basis for a fraction of the current costs. The report circulates widely and is quickly taken to heart both at and above Waverly's own level of authority, and what had once seemed a nigh-infinite supply of blank cheques available to the agents of Section II all but dries up overnight. For any other agent it might have been the black mark that ended his career, but the scandal rolls off Napoleon's record without hardly leaving a mark at all. How could anyone hold such a minor issue as frivolous spending against a man so indefatigably suave, so laudably heterosexual as Napoleon Solo?
Even Illya struggles to hold his partner's love for casually throwing around vast sums of money against him. Though Illya has qualifications of in spades, there is probably nothing he needs from a partner so much as he needs Napoleon's flair for donning a tuxedo and a winning smile, and going to schmooze with society folks at expensive parties like he was born to it. Frankly, if there is anything he needs more, presumably Napoleon must have that too, because by the time he's settling into the role of Number 1 of Section II, Illya has matched him promotion for promotion, settling comfortably beside him at the rank of Number 2.
Word of that last so-important rank-shuffle reaches them Rome in late '63. New York's previous Number 1, Sam Marlin, who's weathered the stress and the scrutiny of that rank through some very trying years, has announced his intention to retire early from the field at the ripe young age of 38. One of the last of an older generation of agents who truly did prefer to work alone, Marlin has elected to prove his heterosexuality once and for all by marrying his sweetheart from Research and Documents, before accepting a comfortable desk-job down the hall. By the usual standards of unplanned UNCLE promotions, this is all very anti-climactic, but Waverly still wants his new Number 1 presumptive back stateside post-haste, on the first flight available.
The first flight available is tomorrow morning. Gemma Lusso meets them with the news at reception, barely ahead of the office gossip mill, which is always keen to share anything more than moderately interesting and not actually classified. The timetable doesn't give them much downtime to recover at the end of the drawn-out affair that brought them to Rome. Still less for Napoleon to make good on a number of half-formed engagements with various pretty young things from around the local office (all of whom have admittedly been remarkably helpful over the last couple of weeks). If he and Illya aren't too tired, however, Gemma informs them that 'a few of the girls' have thrown together an impromptu party to congratulate them before they go.
Napoleon was hardly going to be too tired for that.
Illya has not had occasion to visit UNCLE Rome before this trip, and has found much in the atmosphere both familiar and not. Lacking the status of UNCLE's five head offices, Rome has neither the prestige nor (in those days) the budget of New York. Instead, it has Carlo Venerdi, who runs his operation without pretension, preferring to lean back and delegate freely, making sure to always provide his trusted lieutenants enough rope to work with, and the less-trusted enough to hang themselves by.
But perhaps what distinguishes Rome is also Gemma Lusso—on paper, Venerdi's personal assistant—in practice, a woman more years of fieldwork and experience concealed beneath her simple office uniform than much of Rome's Section II. Gemma is stunning, shrewd, professional, and holds court over the office in either Venerdi's presence or absence with equal aplomb. She and Napoleon seem to have some history, or perhaps she merely knows his reputation—to his frustration, Illya cannot make up his mind which it is. Gemma is not one to show her cards without meaning to, but she handles Napoleon like an old pro. She's far too wise a woman to be easily charmed by his ilk—though she may, Illya later amends, be also too wise to turn up her nose at the a little honest fun, should the opportunity come knocking.
It's possible she organised that party. Illya doubts she's attending as a chaperone to the other girls. More of a mentor, perhaps.
Illya himself bows out early, pleading exhaustion, and retreats to the adjoining hotel room. Sleep, however, stubbornly avoids him. The dividing wall is far too thin to properly muffle the chorus of girlish giggles and moans (regularly interspersed by a more familiar voice of masculine persuasion) that comes trickling through to Illya's ears. Little doubt as to what sort of party it's become in his absence.
How appropriate, Illya thinks, glumly, that he should find himself celebrating his promotion to Number 2 of Section II to the tune of his partner busily proving his heterosexuality to a brand new audience. In the midst of a country as Catholic as the day is long, and yet still far more lenient toward persons of less-than-heterosexual proclivities than anywhere Illya has been in recent memory. And for that, in further irony, Rome can thank the legacy of the Napoleonic Code, from the days when that statement referred to rule of law, and not a dubious personal stance against ever leaving a lady unsatisfied.
The muffled noise of the party is not, however, enough to wholly drown out the soft click of a key turning in the lock to the outer door.
Illya has his Special pointed at the door by the time it opens. The man standing there is quite the last person he'd expected to see, though he does at least have the decency to look sheepish. "I would have knocked; I wasn't sure if you were asleep."
"Napoleon?" He's wearing his pants, belt and shoes, but his shirt is unbuttoned, his jacket and tie carried over an arm, and there's a mussed quality to his usually impeccable grooming that makes it very clear this is the same Napoleon Illya just heard enjoying himself next door. A rather enthusiastic squeak from the adjoining room saves Illya the trouble of completing the obvious question.
"Ah. Well, lovely party, but it's been a long day. I decided you had the right idea in retiring early." Napoleon grins. "The girls were very understanding; some of them opted to carry on the fun without me."
Illya knows perfectly well he and Napoleon were the only men present. All voices remaining are very female. "But you..." A breathy moan from the other room cuts off his statement. "Was that Gemma?"
"It's not against the law in this country, you know," says Napoleon, conversationally, with a smile that wants the whole world to know there is no facet of female sexuality he doesn't know and approve of. "Actually, there's a rather interesting history behind that..."
"And you walked out?"
Napoleon shrugs and makes his way across the room. "Call me old-fashioned, but I've always felt I make a better showing when I don't have to divide my attention." Illya watches him unbuckle his belt and toe off his shoes. "Rest easy, my friend: UNCLE Rome has the situation well in hand."
"And where are you planning to sleep, while they're using your room?" Illya asks, suspicious. Though this hotel room is luxurious compared to many they've inhabited in the last year, there's only one bed—the double Illya already occupies.
Napoleon looks at him pointedly. "There's plenty of room. Move over."
Illya grumbles but acquiesces. "I should've known the promotion would go straight to your head."
Behind him, the covers shift as Napoleon makes himself comfortable. Illya peeks back over his shoulder. "Has it occurred to you to worry that Section I may learn you eschewed the company of several eager young women to spend the night in bed with another man?"
Napoleon pats him lightly on the shoulder. "It's alright," he breathes in Illya's ear. "I trust his discretion implicitly."
Illya mutters to himself, pulls the covers up to his ears, and finally drifts off to sleep not much later, to the familiar sound of Napoleon's snores.
Adding insult to injury, the worst thing about spending one's career stewing in intermittent frustration over the most highly classified of all top-secret directives is that opportunities to vent his frustrations are few and far between. By the time they happen Illya is usually getting dangerously close to boiling point. Napoleon, by dint of having both the requisite clearance and being the single person Illya spends more time with than anyone else, is usually the unfortunate recipient. Considering his role in magnifying Illya's frustrations with the subject, this seems only fair.
"One might suppose an operation as sophisticated and well-informed as the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement would be capable of reacting to an assault on its agents' masculinity with more maturity than a schoolboy who's been accused of punching like a girl, yet here we are: wasting our efforts on a directed campaign of misinformation, desperate to establish our unanimous heterosexuality in the eyes of an enemy who very likely have no surviving record of the operation that first exposed us at all!"
"It was a serious security breach..." Napoleon tries, in that faintly baffled manner he adopts at each new reminder that his partner insists on being so invested in this.
"But hardly our first, and it will not be the last. This very year our entire Geneva office was annihilated when THRUSH gained access to their air vents, and yet no-one seems to have proposed we commit to some ridiculous charade that those men are still alive. Don't let us pretend Section I's reaction is anything less than Freudian levels of overcompensation, for what more than likely amounts to some very modest fraction of our staff having moved all of a point or two up the Kinsey scale from where they began! But now the measure is in place we are stuck with it, because any man who moves to rescind it will as good as have declared himself a queer by association!"
"Well, be that as it may, Illya, we both know the difference between martyrdom and humiliation on a lasting reputation," says Napoleon, who insists on being infuriatingly calm and reasonable about the whole thing, "A scandal like our whole head office allowing itself to be doused with fairy dust could haunt us for years. UNCLE can't operate if we're the punch-line to a joke in the international intelligence community. And for another thing, all I asked you was: how sure are you that the room isn't bugged?"
Illya sighs. "Sure enough to stake my professional reputation on it, apparently."
"That's good enough for me," says Napoleon, clapping him on the back in a conciliatory sort of fashion. "Come on Illya, we've still got THRUSH to deal with today. We can tackle the childish masculine anxieties of the establishment tomorrow."
"Why don't we plan our weekend too, while we're at it?" Illya grumbles, but says no more on the subject.
All in all though, Illya thinks he might just have managed to deal with the long parade of civilians, with the Wandas and the Sarahs and even the incessant flirting over the radio, if only he didn't also have to deal with Napoleon's very literal predilection for sleeping with the enemy. One is never short of honey traps in this business, and Napoleon seeks them out with the single-mindedness of a swarm of suicidal flies. THRUSH is old-fashioned enough to believe that no evil league is complete without a full and seductive complement of the traditional femme fatale—and while Napoleon is neither old-fashioned nor foolish enough to rule out ever raising a hand to a lady, it's plain that given the option, he'll always choose to make love rather than war. Not even if the lady in question snuck a deadly spider onto his suit that very day. Keeping Napoleon in one piece is next to being a full time job even when he doesn't make a habit of walking into vipers nests with a bouquet of roses and no backup, and Illya is very nearly convinced that death at the hands of some gorgeous woman of ill intent really is exactly how he wants to go.
"You must tell me sometime what it's like, romancing a woman who would kill you without a qualm, if THRUSH ordered it," he asks Napoleon once in a fit of pique, having long since given up on getting him to see sense on the matter.
"It adds spice, Illya," Napoleon tells him, "And besides, I flatter myself that she might have a few qualms," which is exactly the attitude that makes Illya want to wring the man's neck himself and save his paramours the trouble.
Actually, Illya sometimes imagines he might even be able to deal with the femme fatales if it wasn't for Angelique, whom Illya hates with a fervour that startles even himself. He hates the way Napoleon's whole body goes loose and inviting at the sight of her, throwing years of trained professional caution to the wind in a stroke. He hates the way she wraps him around her little finger with hardly a whispered word. He hates her perfectly coifed hair and her deep, husky voice. But most of all, he hates knowing that Napoleon has disappeared in her company for days at a time after no less than three different affairs—and that even with all that time at her disposal, not once has he been stabbed, poisoned, shot, replaced with a robot double, drugged and shipped to South America, infected with some nasty venereal disease, or even more than lightly bruised in her care, making all Illya's otherwise excellent arguments about the insanity of leaving Napoleon along with her look petty and ridiculous.
"She likes to think she's seducing me over to her side," he tells Illya once, with a wink that ends up being rather more theatrical than conspiratal.
"Leading a woman on, Napoleon?" Illya grumps. "Isn't that beneath you?"
Napoleon waves a finger. "I never said that was the only reason. But it's a nice excuse, when she feels the need to make one."
Illya rolls his eyes skywards, though as Napoleon is looking elsewhere the effect is largely wasted. "Is that what she tells her superiors she's doing, wasting time with you?"
"Perhaps. But then again, what her superiors don't know won't hurt them."
Illya frowns. "Doesn't that defeat the point of the exercise?"
"Exercise?" says Napoleon, who looks blank.
"Convincing THRUSH of what an upstanding and heterosexual operation the good men of UNCLE represent," Illya reminds him, dryly.
"Oh, broadly, perhaps," Napoleon agrees, with not a hint of remorse. "Mind you, I'm not sure it proves anything that a man falls for Angelique."
I beg to differ, thinks Illya. He spends the afternoon concocting an elaborate theory whereby the women of THRUSH are themselves a band of raging lesbians, all busily staging the reverse of the very same scheme UNCLE has inflicted upon its men, leaving both caught up in synchronised efforts to fox their counterparts into believing they are something they're not. A shame some of Napoleon's stories make that seem so unlikely.
Unfortunately for Illya, here UNCLE policy is explicitly on Napoleon's side. There is no audience for their masquerade so important as the men and women of THRUSH, and there is no better way to convince the agents of THRUSH of UNCLE's firm commitment to the way of heterosexuality than to provide as much direct evidence as they could ask for. If that means their best agent has such a reputation for womanising that THRUSH's own honey trap division barely need to bat their eyelashes at Napoleon to get him to follow them anywhere they like, then that's just so much more evidence the system is working. As the man more often than not responsible for getting Napoleon out of those sorts of messes once he's in them, it's enough to drive Illya to distraction.
Then again, perhaps there's something to be said for Napoleon's system. The only women of THRUSH ever to take a personal interest in Illya seem to prefer whips and cattle prods to champagne and intimate massages. Illya takes very little pride in his practiced ability to maintain a studiously bored expression through an extended session with one of THRUSH's most especially fatal femmes, and though Illya may have no particular desire to sleep with any of them, he enjoys whips and cattle prods about as much as he enjoys watching Napoleon disappear down the road in the passenger seat of Angelique's corvette. Occasionally, he wonders how they'd respond to the suggestion they might achieve roughly the same effect making him sit through an extended recording of Napoleon having sex with one of their number.
Probably best not to give them ideas.
He's always assumed Angelique's not into whips and cattle prods herself. Napoleon's never said anything to suggest as much, and he's dropped enough hints in Illya's presence about Angelique's particular appeal, preferences, and even stamina, that Illya would like to think no real secrets remain. He certainly hopes this isn't the day he learns otherwise—particularly given that Angelique had been the one who'd caught him sneaking out of her facility after slipping his bonds, even after every other man he'd passed had taken his stolen guard uniform at face value.
He doesn't think he'll be slipping out of this set of bonds, and certainly not while Angelique is watching, which she has been ever since she tied them in the first place.
"Does Napoleon know you're moonlighting as one of our guards?" she asks, smirking as she circles his chair on her stiletto heels, an infuriating half an inch outside the range where Illya might have been able to kick her hard enough to make it worth the trouble. "I dread to think what UNCLE must be paying you boys nowadays."
Illya gives her a very long, cold look. "Does he know you're the one behind THRUSH's latest recruitment drive?"
The curve of Angelique's lips suggests she shares Napoleon's belief in the tenet of 'what they don't know won't hurt them'—but Illya doesn't get to any more hear what she might think about the matter, because Napoleon gets there first.
"Well, he didn't know," Napoleon announces, arriving to Illya's rescue just when he'd been in very real danger of being bored to death, "but he has just made a most intriguing discovery."
Napoleon is dressed in black fatigues. There's a smear of dirt on his cheek and he looks every inch a man who's spent the last hour crawling through a pipe, or perhaps an air duct—and here he is, flirting with Angelique as though they've just met at a party. It's almost enough to make a man wish he wasn't being rescued at all.
"Darling!" croons Angelique. "What a treat! We weren't expecting you nearly so soon." She points Illya's gun pointedly at Illya's head. "Would you be so good as to drop your weapon, dear?"
Napoleon does not drop his gun. "I'm afraid it's not going to be as simple as that, my dear Angelique. You see, we have quite the force waiting outside to overrun this compound at our signal."
Illya makes a careful study of Napoleon's countenance, and is relieved to conclude that for once, he doesn't seem to be bluffing.
"I've only come in ahead," Napoleon continues, "to see if I couldn't secure a civilian hostage or two before the excitement begins."
"You can forget Doctor Johansson and his assistant," Illya tells him, before Angelique can stop him. "They've been working for THRUSH from the start."
"Have they?" Napoleon looks at Angelique, who only looks smug. "Well then. I suppose it's just me and Illya here who'll be leaving the party early."
"Aren't you forgetting one thing, darling?" says Angelique, pressing the gun barrel deeper into Illya's hair. "We do have our little impasse to resolve."
"Well, let's think that one through, shall we?" Napoleon smarms. "I drop my gun, you... tie me up, on my own chair, and you've got yourself two hostages to show off when our UNCLE friends arrive—but neither of us are civilians, and Mr. Waverly is so very fond of reminding us we're all expendable. That's not a risk I'd be keen to take. Or perhaps... we could negotiate."
"A truce, darling?" Angelique proposes. "I let your friend free, and we all sneak out of the party together? How does that sound?"
Napoleon smiles and steps towards her, letting his gun droop to a very unprofessional angle. "Leaving all the other little birds in the fire, Angelique?"
Angelique gives him a lascivious smile of her own. "Only if you give me my guarantee there won't be a cage waiting for me on the outside."
"Then I think we may be able to do business." Napoleon is now almost close enough to reach out and touch her. "Though you'll have to give my friend back his gun—and I will have to ask the right to search you first, just to make sure you're not carrying any other... surprises."
Illya can hardly see for rolling his eyes. The worst part of being an atheist, he decides, is having not even the very limited comfort of being able to wonder what he could possibly have done to deserve this sort of indignity. He doesn't check back in again until Napoleon (finally) arrives to untie him.
"Long day?" Napoleon inquires, lifting the outermost layer of Illya's stolen uniform so he can slide his Special deftly back into his holster.
"I don't know what you mean," says Illya. "THRUSH prisoner accommodations are all but comfortable these days. I've had my weight off my feet all afternoon—even if the company leaves something to be desired."
Hands emptied, Napoleon moves behind the chair to wrestle with the knots. "Illya, my friend, sometimes I feel you enjoy getting yourself tied up a little too much."
"How else am I supposed to get them to show me the location of their secret bases?" Illya grumbles, rubbing his wrists. There's no point checking the tracking device on his tie-pin, sitting secreted away in a pocket. Obviously it's working, or Napoleon wouldn't be here. He frowns at Angelique and turns back to Napoleon. "You know, no jury on earth would convict you for turning her in the moment we get out of here."
Napoleon pouts a little, but recovers quickly. "We all have our weaknesses."
Illya is hardly in any position to argue. He's about to let Napoleon get away with this, isn't he?
Counting everyone from Mr. Waverly himself to the janitors and cafeteria staff, there are just over three hundred people employed at the New York division at any one time. Within a few years of The Incident, probably less than forty remain who've been with UNCLE long enough to be party to the quota system. The stresses of life in the Enforcement divisions ensure that relatively few manage to stick it out for more than a handful of years at most, and a healthy exchange rate of inter-office transfers has steadily chipped away the numbers of even those in sections below. The average staff member has probably read enough of the employee conduct handbook to have noted that the wording of the directive about homosexual behaviour is unusually strict, and doubtless the occasional newly hired accountant has some surprises in store as he or she learns just how many perks of the job UNCLE is willing to fund for its agents. Hardly any of them would ever give much thought as to why.
After all, it's hardly as though draconian rules about sexual conformity are unusual in this business. Agents may be regularly expected to seduce whosoever their superiors have decided needs seducing, but what they do on their own time is scarcely less regulated.
It's some small comfort to Illya that Mr. Waverly seems to agree with him on at least some of his frustrations with the quota, if only because the time Napoleon spends flirting with the secretarial pool has left its mark on his productivity. The minds that dreamed up that particular regulation may recognise his authority, but Waverly does not run Section I single-handedly, nor does he try to. Most of his section spend far too much time cloistered away in their offices, where they sit surrounded by enough intelligence on all the very worst things going on all around the world to kill almost any desire for fresh air. Still, Waverly's hands-on approach to managing Section II does give him a unique perspective on how regulation translates into practice, distinct from the rest of his branch.
"Do you ever wonder, Mr. Kuryakin, whether in granting our agents carte blanche to establish their credentials on company time, that we've created a system ripe for abuse?" Waverly asks him one afternoon, Illya having the pleasure of being assigned to assisting him with paperwork while a minor sprained ankle sets itself to rights. "Oh, the work gets done, for the most part, but the number of hours some of them attribute to the cause in their reports—the delayed flights, the extended hotel stays—it defies all belief."
Illya rejects at least a dozen possible replies before saying, "The thought has crossed my mind, sir."
"Things were different in the forties, you know," says Mr. Waverly, a wistful look in his eye. "We weren't above sending our men into the arms of the enemy back then, oh no—the job had to be done, whatever it took. Some of the stories I could tell of the old Baker Street Irregulars would be all but unprintable to this day, you know..." He seems to shake himself here. "But any man in the service who spent his evenings so engaged would at least be expected to bring back a full report of provocative subjects broached during pillow talk, not simply patted on the back and congratulated on a good job." He sighs, tapping his pipe out into the ash tray. "But perhaps I'm showing my age."
"Or perhaps that item of policy has served its purpose and is due for a review," suggests Illya, in a carefully neutral voice.
Waverly gives him a shrewd look. "Has Mr. Solo given you some particular reason for concern of late?"
He left me fighting off a furious THRUSH lieutenant in the rain in order to prove his heterosexuality to that dippy blonde in the car who was starting to get suspicious about his lack of interest, thinks Illya, with some vehemence. Not that he hadn't won the fight, or that Napoleon hadn't known perfectly well it was within his means, but it was the principle of the thing that hurt. "Not more so than usual, sir."
Waverly 'hrms' at some length. "Well, absent any pressing reason for concern, I suspect it's going to be rather late to get it onto the agenda this quarter. Given that it's scheduled to come up for review anyway at the end of the year, I doubt the rest of Section I will be keen to hasten the matter by a few months between now and then."
But virtually no policy ever gets revised on its scheduled review, thinks Illya, helplessly. The entire branch only shows up to check it off the agenda so they can get back to debating funding breakdowns and internal politics! Privately, he's not sure he trusts Napoleon to last another year, what with the rate he goes all but literally courting his own death. He's not sure he trusts himself not to strangle his partner out of pure frustration first.
But outright protest runs too much risk of being taken as signs of jealousy—or at worst, grounds for reassignment—so Illya holds his tongue.
But for better or worse, both he and Napoleon are still there, still partnered, and still very much living under the shadow of the quota when that review meeting rolls around. As a privilege of their rank as Numbers 1 and 2 of Section II, they are in fact the very first in line to learn its outcome. Within hours of that happy anniversary, they find themselves walking out of Waverly's office laden with paperwork covering the key policy decisions reached during the latest meeting, and their ears still ringing with the promise that Section I had resolved to spend yet another year officially subsidising Napoleon's womanising habit, which is of course far too important to trust to paper.
Illya makes it all the way back to their shared office before he explodes, a fact of which he is privately quite proud.
"Do you realise," he tells Napoleon, "that we have now been maintaining our ridiculous quota system more than four times longer than the maximum estimated period of dose efficacy recorded in Dr. Newgate's own notes?"
"Have we?" Napoleon looks briefly up from the drawer he'd been hunting through for his last notes on Section II schedules. "You can never be too sure, I suppose."
"The good doctor would surely be thrilled to know how much we have done to prolong his legacy," Illya grumbles, slumping into the nearest chair. "Especially given that we never had any compelling reason to believe the mechanism of his drug was more than purely psychosomatic."
"Psychosom...?" Napoleon echoes, with a certain amount of disbelief. "You think THRUSH found a way to realign a man's orientation purely by the power of suggestion?" To his credit, he doesn't sound insulted by the notion—if anything, he seems more than a little intrigued.
"Why not?" This is not, in fact, a line of reason Illya has given any particular thought to in the past, but there's nothing like a good burst of righteous anger to fire up the imagination—almost nothing could stop him following this through now he's begun. "The change is wholly psychological and necessarily subjective. If the experts are to be believed, as many as one man in three may be convinced to admit he has experimented with his own sex. There is every reason to suppose a great many more have repressed such urges so effectively they are themselves unaware. Why shouldn't the news we have all been exposed to a chemical designed to produce homosexual tendencies be sufficient to bring it to the fore?"
Napoleon's eyebrows do an odd sort of dance. "But... we caught those agents in the storeroom before we got hold of the THRUSH report? Didn't we? They can't have been influenced by a report they hadn't seen."
"Remarkable how hard it is to keep track of that sort of chronology when no-one is allowed to keep notes," says Illya, icily. "But even if the report came after, is it so unbelievable that UNCLE might already have had two agents under its auspices so inclined?"
Napoleon's face takes that faraway look again. "Two? I thought there were supposed to have been at least three of them when they opened that cupboard...?"
"The point," says Illya, "is that without the report, no-one would have thought anything sinister was afoot. One way or another, the possibility the effects never existed outside our own heads is very hard to conclusively disprove."
Napoleon shrugs. "That may be true, Illya," he says, in his Reasonable voice, "but it's also true that if THRUSH had caught wind of our storeroom orgy mere days after their little science experiment, they're likely to have taken the 'maybe they were that way to begin with' defence as a little overly convenient." He gives Illya a conciliatory sort of look. "They're not much more likely to take 'but your own documents say it should have worn off months ago' as a defence either."
Illya sighs and rubs his eyes. "So ultimately, we are suppressing not the evidence that it worked, but anything that might lead the enemy to think it worked."
"Tends to be about the size of it in this business." Napoleon agrees. "You know, speaking of durations of efficacy and all that... didn't we have some sort of follow-up therapy program for those affected? Very discreet, of course—even I don't know who was in it."
Illya recalls something of the sort having being mentioned at the time. He remembers making a point of not putting his name down, even with the vague promise of provision for 'appropriate sexual outlet' if symptoms persisted. "I think so. Presumably that would have provided us a wealth of useful information on the true duration of effects, were anyone involved allowed to write anything down."
"Well don't look at me," says Napoleon. "You're the one with the PhD in cognitive psychology."
"It was in electromagnetic field theory," says Illya, more or less by automatic, though he's really not in the mood.
"Close enough," says Napoleon with a wink, then he pauses, as if struck by a thought. "You know, now that I think of it, I never did ask you if you yourself..."
"I cannot say I noticed any change to my own preferences post-exposure," snaps Illya, before Napoleon can so much as complete the question. This is true, and exactly what he'd told any UNCLE staff member who'd had reason to ask him. Which doesn't make it any less of a coward's answer, or a fairly significant lie-of-omission.
Napoleon seems a little taken aback, and the jaunty smile he turns Illya's way doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Well, I suppose that makes two of us." He hesitates. "You do know that if-" he begins, only to trail off in the face of Illya's glare. He coughs slightly and turns his attention back to the schedule he's managed to find somewhere in the midst of all Illya's griping. "Does tomorrow after lunch sound like a good time to call a meeting with the rest of Section II? We can cover the basics of the latest policy review there," he says, in a fairly obvious attempt to change the subject.
Illya slumps a little further into his chair and reminds himself, not for the first time, that taking his frustrations out on Napoleon will solve nothing, especially when none of them are his fault. "It's as good a time as any. Not that we'll be able to cover the whole subject matter of the policy meeting with the newer agents present, of course."
"Probably not worth our while calling a second meeting of agents who were here in '62 just to let them know the rule hasn't changed though," says Napoleon, thoughtfully. "Most of them probably didn't even realise it was up for review. Anyone who wants to know the specifics can come talk to us in private."
Though the fight has all but gone out of Illya by now, that much needs correcting. "At least two of them have been given a warning for non-compliance with the quota in just this last year alone. I'm sure they would find the matter of some interest."
Napoleon looks at him in surprise. "Were they? I didn't realise. Has Waverly been having you help review mission reports again?"
"Nothing so official," says Illya. "I overheard a conversation in the cafeteria recently. Agent Cantrell was expressing some anxiety over the subject, and Agent Quint was quite sympathetic—so much so I would be surprised if he hadn't experienced the like." Illya might well have found it in himself to express some of his own sympathy, had they not been the same two agents who'd so bluntly rejected his partnership early in his time in New York. "Not everyone is blessed with your luck with the ladies, you know."
"Cantrell, huh?" Napoleon shifts, looking uncomfortable. "That's awkward. Maybe I should've given him a pointer or two when we were still partnered."
"You were partnered with Cantrell?" This Illya hadn't known, and it surprises him more than it should have, given that he'd known perfectly well that all three of them had been in various trial partnerships during that period.
"Oh, briefly—only for a few months, back before Waverly put you and me together. I thought we could've made a decent team, but apparently he thought otherwise." Napoleon shrugs again. "Something about finding me too distracting. Odd fellow."