Chapter Text
Captured again. Napoleon sighed, found that to be singularly unsatisfying with his arms chained above his head and his feet barely touching the cold, stone floor of their cell, and —with some effort— sighed again more deeply. Getting captured hadn't been part of the plan, naturally. It almost never was, in spite of the fact that it often worked as an infallible way to get inside the enemy's facility. So here they were, chained to the wall, waiting for someone to decide they'd been 'softened up' enough to begin torturing and questioning them.
Countless opportunities for escape and mayhem generally presented themselves at that juncture, and Napoleon was prepared to act on whichever came along first. It didn't make the waiting any less tedious or uncomfortable, however. Contrary to his expectation, Kuryakin didn't seem to be reacting to the restraint and discomfort any differently from Napoleon. Glancing to his right, where his partner was chained in a similar manner, Napoleon saw that the sub seemed not the least bit aroused, and was currently scowling in the direction of the cell door.
"How long do you think they'll leave us here?" Kuryakin asked, his tone considering, rather than panicked or dismayed. He'd behaved the perfect professional up to now, giving good account of himself in the fight when they'd been spotted, but surrendering calmly when it became clear how outnumbered they were. Napoleon had worried that their THRUSH captors might treat Kuryakin differently because he was a sub, or even feel entitled to 'use' him, but while they'd searched the two UNCLE agents thoroughly, emptied their pockets and even taken their shoes, their THRUSH guards hadn't bothered to look under the high rolled collar of Kuryakin's black turtleneck, and so possibly didn't even know he was a sub.
"Depends on how impatient they are," Napoleon replied. "But trust me, as uncomfortable as this is, it's probably not as uncomfortable as what's coming next."
"I am well aware," the Russian said, reminding Napoleon that he was possibly not as inexperienced as he seemed.
Like UNCLE, THRUSH didn't appear to find subs suitable for field work, with the exception of the occasional subs they trained to work as honey traps or assassins. These, in Napoleon's experience, tended to be regarded as expendable and, if identified before they could carry their missions out, were easy to turn to UNCLE's cause. Napoleon didn't see Kuryakin as being the easily turnable type, but he'd have made a devastating honey trap, if ever the KGB had thought to use him thusly.
It was often Napoleon's practice to spend long hours of uncomfortable captivity in pleasant imaginings and recollections, but he knew better than to let himself be drawn into any imaginings of Illya Kuryakin prettied up for the seduction of some unfortunate Top. Napoleon himself might be hard pressed to say no. But he wasn't going to let himself think about such things, was he? Instead he was going to think about... what the hell was Kuryakin doing now?
He'd been restlessly shifting his grip for some minutes, but Napoleon had assumed that this was just because the cuffs were cutting into his wrists. Now, however, Napoleon saw that he'd managed to get a grip on the bracket to which his cuffs were hooked and was currently flexing his arms, supporting the weight of his whole body with his hands. Napoleon watched in astonishment as the sub lifted his knees nearly to his chest, then arched his back and thrust his hips away from the wall, catapulting his legs out and up. Following the trajectory with his eyes, Napoleon saw his goal, for the ceiling above them was crisscrossed with any number of old pipes, many of which hung low enough for Kuryakin to get his legs over.
His first attempt failed, but even Napoleon could see that it had been a mere test of the idea. Now Kuryakin gathered himself for a second, more serious attempt and Napoleon watched, breath held, as the sub thrust himself forward again. Napoleon stifled a shout of triumph when his partner got one ankle hooked over a well placed pipe, then managed to drag his other leg up and finally got both his knees over it. Now the sub was slung like a hammock between the pipe and the wall, pale hair hanging down like a silken fringe beneath him, but it was clear he had a plan.
Watching with admiration, Napoleon saw that his partner had released the bracket to which his chained cuffs were hooked and now pushed himself away from the wall, lifting the chain off the bracket so that his hands were free of it. Dropping back to hang upside down from the now sagging pipe, Kuryakin moved like a professional gymnast, swinging his arms and upper body until he had the momentum to grab hold of the pipe between his knees. From there it seemed a simple matter to unhook his knees and lower them until he hung vertically, then he released the pipe and dropped to the floor with the silent grace of a cat.
"Nicely done," said Napoleon with all sincerity. "I'd applaud, but..." He tilted his head upward to glance at his bound hands.
Kuryakin did not respond to the quip, but flexed his back and shoulders, regarding Napoleon directly. "Tell me you still have a lock pick stitched into your inseam?" he said quietly so as not to alert any guards outside.
Napoleon nodded and then held as still as possible while the sub worked the small piece of metal through the weave of Napoleon's slacks, very near his crotch. Control, he thought to himself severely, willing himself not to become aroused. That's what Tops are supposed to have better than subs. Luckily, Kuryakin had the little tool free in less than a minute, and had his cuffs open in even less time than that. Napoleon then wondered how the sub would manage his own cuffs, still hooked above his head and essentially out of Kuryakin's reach. His partner seemed to be puzzling over that question himself as he rubbed the chafed skin around his wrists.
"If I lift you," he said eventually, "do you think you can maneuver your cuffs off the hook?"
Napoleon's first impulse was to ask the sub if he actually could lift him, but when he thought back on the last few moments Napoleon knew that was a foolish question. The real question, which he knew should have been irrelevant, was whether a sub had any business lifting a Top —whether it was right that a Top should be helpless while a sub was able. If they'd both been Tops the question never would have come up, Napoleon reminded himself, and hadn't he told himself that it would be better to think of his new partner simply as another agent, and not as a sub? It seemed that Napoleon was having a harder time with that paradigm than his sub partner.
"Let's, um, give it a try," Napoleon finally said, aware that he'd hesitated longer than he ought. He braced himself as Kuryakin's strong arms wrapped around his hips and lifted, and then focused all his attention on getting his cuffed hands free. The task was, for the most part, consuming enough, but the second he got the chain unhooked and his arms dropped, he became aware of the warm, strong embrace of his partner, and felt a passing surge of mixed but definitely mission inappropriate feelings wash through him. Then the pain in his overtasked shoulders kicked in and all his focus returned to the mission once more.
Kuryakin was even faster with Napoleon's cuffs than his own and soon Napoleon was shaking the feeling back into his hands and strategizing their next move. They agreed on a tried but true approach and returned to their positions while Napoleon did a good job of sounding frightened and desperate as he called out to the guards that he was ready to talk now. The ruse worked like a charm and after a brief scuffle they had their cell door unlocked and a couple of THRUSH uniforms to disguise themselves with to boot. Their luck held as they passed the deserted guard station where they found their communicators and other various items from their pockets.
From that point, everything proceeded so typically that Napoleon essentially forgot that his partner was a sub. After a few wrong turns, they found their way to the laboratory where the the weapon was located, bluffed their way in and immobilized the couple of engineers working there. It was almost charming to see the relish with which Kuryakin fell to the task of extracting the critical unit from the larger device, but Napoleon's task must now be to stand guard at the door, which he did until the inevitable alarm sounded. Then it was a matter of keeping the THRUSHies away until his partner finished, which gradually became more and more complicated as more and more gunmen crowded into the corridor outside the lab.
"Any time now partner," Napoleon quipped, pausing to reload as the bullets flew past, chipping away at the lab bench he was taking cover behind.
"Of course," Kuryakin quipped right back. "I will just disregard a few laws of physics here, and I'll be right with you..." But he was right at Napoleon's side soon enough —the module stashed in someone's glasses case and tucked into his pocket— and with only a few half completed sentences and significant looks they'd concocted their next move. This consisted of confusing the foe with a couple of Napoleon's exploding cuff buttons (overlooked by the guards who'd strip searched them so efficiently) and then making their exit through the heating ducts.
Eventually exiting the ductwork, they dropped down into a sort of locker room where they surprised, and were surprised by, a couple of guards just coming on shift. One of them got off a lucky shot before Kuryakin plugged him, and winged Napoleon, who swore loudly but knew the wound to be superficial. Napoleon dropped the other guard, not pausing to bind his injury, and gesturing his partner forward when he looked as if he wanted to do just that.
"It'll keep," Napoleon said, "and we need to clear out now."
For the briefest of seconds Kuryakin looked unhappy about this, but then nodded curtly and made for the door. He was just in time to catch the two outer guards headed toward the locker room and eliminated both before they even raised their guns. Then the way was clear for them to dash outside, past the deserted guard post and over to where a small transport vehicle was parked.
"How fast can you hotwire a car?" Napoleon asked, testing the driver's side door and finding it unlocked.
"Faster than you," Kuryakin replied, already pushing past him to do just that. Napoleon allowed as to how he was probably right and stood guard, glancing back at the crumbling facade of the former medieval fortress and manor house which had lately become a THRUSH satrap. By the time he had completed a 360 degree reconnoiter of the surroundings Napoleon heard the olive drab Zastava cough to life and he looked down to see his partner already sliding over to the passenger seat. The Russian might be better at technical matters but they both knew that Napoleon Solo was the undisputed master of UNCLE's defensive driving course.
Even without pursuit, the ill maintained and twisting roads through the Yugoslav Alps demanded nothing less than expert driving skills. Napoleon knew he could rely on Kuryakin to attend to any gunplay, which was good, as the road demanded one hundred and ten percent of his attention, especially after their pursuers began to try running them off the road. Oh how Napoleon did not relish playing 'chicken' on such roads as this, especially not with bullets flying and his partner occasionally leaning across him to shoot out of the driver's side window.
Between his expert driving, however, and Kuryakin's expert shooting, they managed to hold the enemy at bay and eventually the Russian actually put a bullet in the driver of the pursuit car, just as they were coming around a sharp curve. Napoleon watched dispassionately through the rearview mirror as the car full of Thrushies failed to make the turn and plunged over the precipitous embankment to burst into flames far below. He did not have the luxury of relaxing for even a second following their enemy's demise, however, as Napoleon now came to notice that their own car's brakes were not responding as they should. No surprise, really, that among all the flying bullets, one had nicked something critical in the brake lines.
"Brace for impact!" he shouted as he sought to slow the car by downshifting, without skidding on the gravel road and while maneuvering them around yet another hairpin turn. There! A smaller, disused road —probably for logging— peeled off to the right and Napoleon aimed for it, as well as he could at the speeds they were going. The car barreled off the main road, careened off the rocky embankment above them to the right, ricocheted back to the left, off the road, then plunged down the steep slope, rolling over once, twice, and finally coming to a rest.
The sudden silence was almost shocking. Napoleon's head hurt. His arm hurt and his sleeve was clammy and stiff with half dried blood. Also his ribs hurt, but he was alive, and when he drew a carefully tentative breath he observed that while they ached, his ribs did not seem to be broken. His neck was not suspiciously stiff either, and so he hazarded a look around. The first thing he noticed was that the passenger side door was open —no, strike that. It was torn off, and the passenger seat was empty.
Feeling an unexpected lurch of dread, Napoleon scanned the area just beyond the missing door for any sign of his partner, but saw nothing. He cautiously extracted himself from the car, deliberately not thinking of all the terrible things that could happen to someone thrown from a car in circumstances such as this. He scanned the forest floor near the broken vehicle, then the general vicinity. Looking up along the trail of broken tree limbs and disturbed earth that marked their fall, the road seemed impossibly far above them. There was no sign of his partner anywhere along that track.
"Kuryakin!" Napoleon shouted, having come to the conclusion that no THRUSH pursuers had followed them this far. There was no answer. "Illya!" he called, louder still, without thinking. "If you can hear me, make a sound!"
Napoleon stilled, waiting in silence for any answer, and after a long moment heard a soft moan. Did it come from over there, to the right? Napoleon moved forward toward where he thought the sound had come from, scanning the ground, trees, bushes, for any sign of his partner. "Illya! Make another sound! I can't find you!"
There was another groan, a gasp and then, "Napoleon! I'm here and I am fine... in a manner of speaking."
Zeroing in on the sound, Napoleon finally spotted him, fetched up against a large stand of ferns and brush, and half covered in leaves.
"Great job of camouflage there partner," Napoleon greeted him wryly, dropping to one knee to begin brushing away the unwanted foliage.
"Yes, well, I was taught never to miss an opportunity to blend into the background," the Russian said wryly, shaking himself and then wincing. Only now did Napoleon notice that he had a long gash on his temple, blood seeping into his fair hair.
"You sure you're okay?" Napoleon asked.
"Help me up and I'll tell you," Illya said crossly, grabbing ahold of Napoleon's wrist. Napoleon stood and hauled his partner to his feet, but as Illya started to put weight on his right leg he winced and drew in a sharp breath, muttering a word which Napoleon's Russian tutor had taught him, but told him never to utter in public. Napoleon winced in sympathy.
"Is it broken?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Illya said —and how had Napoleon suddenly started thinking of him as 'Illya' instead of 'Kuryakin'? "But I'm not sure. Here, help me over to that rock."
Carefully examining Illya's ankle, once he'd gotten situated on the nearby boulder, Napoleon saw that it was swollen, but detected no grating bones or troubling discoloration. Luckily the boots they'd stolen from their THRUSH guards had been high tops, and would contain the swelling to some extent.
"Looks like you're right," Napoleon said, dusting his hands off. "Seems to be a bad sprain but nothing worse. Still, you're going to want to keep the weight off it as much as possible."
"The operating phrase being, 'as much as possible'," Illya said with a snort. "And stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?" Napoleon said, honestly mystified.
"Like a 'big concerned Top' looking at a 'helpless little sub'," the Russian replied with a deep scowl.
"I wasn't!" Napoleon objected. "I mean, I didn't mean to..."
"You never 'mean to'," Illya grumbled and Napoleon heard the collective 'you Tops' in his complaint. Napoleon knew there was nothing he could say to this, but only took Illya's proffered hand and helped him to his feet.
They rifled through the contents of the wrecked transport before they departed, finding a single canteen, a first aid kit and some blankets, before they headed back up the slope toward the road, walking arm in arm until they spotted a stick suitable for Illya to use as a crutch. Getting them both up the last stretch below the old logging road still required quite a bit of very close contact, but Napoleon did his best to keep his touches professional, remembering Illya's disapproving scowl. Once on the old road the going was easier, and they were encouraged to find that a berm of dirt and rocks had been piled across the road a few hundred feet up it, guaranteeing that no one had come this way for some time.
When the road attained a summit of sorts they tried their communicators and made a spotty but sufficient connection with UNCLE headquarters. An extraction team could come for them, but it would be a day or three, and they should find some place to lie low for the nonce. Napoleon figured they might scout the area for a cave or shelter of some sort, or failing that, make a some sort of rough bivouac. It might not be comfortable, but they'd both (apparently) had training for this sort of survival situation and shouldn't have too much trouble... unless the weather made a sudden turn for the worse.
They camped beside the old road that night, thankful for the blankets and the fact that Napoleon never went anywhere without his Zippo. The next day, sometime around mid morning, they had a real stroke of luck and spotted an old, abandoned cabin in a forested valley below the road. Approaching with caution, they quickly confirmed that it was truly abandoned, the many signs of obvious neglect reassuring both the agents.
Inside, they had to learn to navigate around the rotten spots in the floor but otherwise found the place perfectly suited to their needs. There was a rubbish filled fireplace which Illya immediately began clearing out, a rough table with two rickety chairs, and a set of pantry shelves where a handful of tins —all either ominously swollen or leaking rusty putrescence— remained. Napoleon gathered them up carefully and tossed them out into the forest and returned with an armload of firewood which the fireplace was ready for by then.
Illya had the fire blazing away cheerfully when Napoleon returned with a second armload of wood and the canteen filled with water from a nearby stream. The place was looking downright homey in the light of the fire, and now Illya insisted on cleaning and bandaging Napoleon's gunshot wound. Napoleon reciprocated with the gash on Illya's head, washing the blood out of his hair and cleaning it with antiseptic from the first aid kit. Wounds tended and absent food, the next thing Napoleon looked for was a comfortable place to sleep. There was a bed in the corner, its mattress disgusting with mildew and mouse nests and Napoleon managed to manhandle it outside on his own.
Beneath the mattress was a set of rusty but serviceable springs and once they had laid the cabin's motheaten carpet over them, it made a relatively comfortable bed —certainly a damn sight more comfortable than the roadside had been last night, or the moist and spongy floor of the cabin would be. By the time they had managed all of this a chill wind had come up and both Napoleon and Illya were tired and cold enough to just build up the fire and crawl into their jury-rigged bed. Huddling together under the four blankets they'd procured from the transport, they were both warm and comfortable enough to drop immediately to sleep, without a single thought about whether Napoleon's arm around Illya's waist, or Illya's face tucked just under Napoleon's chin, was 'appropriate' or not.
"I'm going to go look for some berries," Illya announced the next day, standing by the door, makeshift crutch in hand. It had begun raining early that morning, and no one was surprised to find that the roof leaked like a sieve. They'd moved the bed out of the way of the worst of them and then found some rusty pots and pans to catch what they could. They were both, by now, seriously missing food, but Illya didn't seem to find it necessary to fill his partner in on his plans until Napoleon asked him where he was going.
"I would not have made it past the age of ten if I didn't know how to tell good forest berries from bad," he explained further when Napoleon expressed doubts. "And now is actually one of the best times of year to find them."
Napoleon accompanied him, naturally, carrying one of the less rusty pots from the cabin, and was surprised at how quickly Illya spotted enough various forest fruits to fill the thing more than halfway. They were pretty tart, many of them, but Napoleon was hungry and grateful to have anything, even if he did end up with a mild case of what his cousin Clem had referred to as the 'green apple quick-step' a little later. Illya ate more deliberately —as someone who had experience with deprivation might, Napoleon reflected— and managed to avoid such ill effects.
After the relief of having escaped, found shelter and filled their bellies had worn off, however, boredom began to set in. They'd radioed their new location in to headquarters after their 'meal' that afternoon and been told to expect an extraction team to meet them in three days or so, if all went well. They would need to stay alert, as the smoke coming from the chimney of this long abandoned shack might well be noticed should THRUSH come looking for them here, and having some purposeful task, Napoleon knew, would help them both to stay on their toes.
Illya had gone to cut some brush from just outside their cabin and was now assembling something that looked to be a broom. Napoleon hit upon his own idea a little later and began cutting a chessboard grid into the surface of the table. When that was done he found a handful of small branches and began to carve them into some semblance of chess pieces. It was peaceful, with the sound of the rain falling on the roof and plinking into the various pots and pans inside the cabin, but Napoleon soon found himself craving conversation.
"So," he began tentatively. "Did they teach you escape artistry in the KGB?"
Illya gave a huff or dry laughter, but did not look up from his broom. "That wasn't escape artistry, you buffoon," he said. "That was gymnastics."
"Gymnastics?" Napoleon prompted. "Tell me more."
Illya made a face, as if considering whether to comply, then gave a long suffering sort of sigh and did. "I was on the Soviet Olympic gymnastics team when I was fifteen," he said at last.
"And did you get in? To the Olympics I mean," Napoleon inquired.
"No," the Russian said with a resigned sigh. "The coach was my Top at the time —he took all the subs on the team as his 'own'— and he took me off the team when I failed to please him. Overall he spent much more time and attention training the subs to do his bidding in the bedroom than becoming excellent gymnasts, and in the end the gymnastics team did not win so much as a single bronze medal that year. I understand that his next assignment was training fourth graders in a public school in Siberia, but I joined the Navy and found that career far more satisfying."
"And what was so satisfying about the Navy?" Napoleon pressed and now Illya looked up to meet his gaze.
"Because they let me study science, of course." he replied.
"Of course," Napoleon answered, feeling sure that some additional fact had been left out here, but not able to say what.
"Now you must give me a story," Illya insisted. "I think you have crashed in a plane before. Tell me about it."
"Fair enough," Napoleon said, because Illya was right, on both counts. He told his partner the story of his last mission as a pilot in the Korean War, and how he had crashed behind enemy lines and spent five days trekking across the jungle with his wounded gunner. It was a story he generally told to impress other Tops, for he found that it tended to frighten and dismay his subs. Illya, however, seemed to find it engaging and admirable, though he avoided expressing any outright admiration for Napoleon, naturally.
Illya made a sort of porridge out of the remaining berries for dinner that night, which made it into a hot meal that they both appreciated. They went to bed when it became too dark to carve more chess pieces, curling together for warmth as they had the night before without a word.
~*~