Title: A Family Affair
Rating: PG
Chapter
summary: Napoleon’s parents reveal their past connections with the mission’s target as Napoleon and Illya attempt to figure out the next phase of their plan.
If you prefer reading on FFN, you can read it here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12950926/3/
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Act III: Family History
After a bit more trickery and subterfuge involving slipped
keys, Illya and the three Solos had successfully snuck to the room that he and
Napoleon had booked for themselves—under Illya’s favorite alias, Dr.
Mallard. The four of them breathed a
sigh of relief upon successfully making it here unobserved.
“Well, we can relax—for a little while,” Napoleon
said. “Once Rex realizes that he’s lost
you, he’ll start turning this place upside-down to try to find you.” He paused.
“Was he always this obnoxious, Ma?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
“Ever since he found out I was a woman.”
Napoleon stared at his mother with an unreadable expression
as Leopold just sighed and shook his head.
“I think more explanation is required, Mother,” Illya said,
taking note of the look on his partner’s face.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Cora said. “Napoleon, Illya… I don’t want you to think I
kept this from you on purpose. It was so
long ago, and I never expected to see Rex ever again. If we’d only known that he owned this place,
Leopold and I would not have come here; I had no desire to see him again.”
“It’s alright…” Napoleon said, though he still seemed
stunned by everything. “But I’m still
confused as to how he had to figure out you were a woman…”
“Well, that’s easy—I was disguised as a man,” Cora
said. “I did the underground gambling
circuit in disguise as ‘Corrin Stroller.’
It was difficult enough being taken seriously as someone as young as I
was; they would never have let a woman in there.”
“…So when Father said that you took him for a ride when you
first met…” Illya began. “You did so as
a man?”
“Did I forget to mention that part?” Leopold asked.
“Yes,” Napoleon
and Illya echoed.
“I only took him for a ride to stop him from being taken
for a ride by others who would not have been as nice about it as I was,” Cora
said. “I had every intention of
returning the money to him, and I did…”
She shrugged. “…Eventually…”
“To her credit, she did give the money back after a
while—and that was before I found out she was a woman,” Leopold said.
“I finally told him who I really was after I’d known him
for several months,” Cora said. “He kept
my secret. And, eventually, we started a
relationship—by day. By night, we hit
the casinos together. Leopold came
across as an easy mark; he’d rope people into a poker game, and I’d clean them
out.”
Napoleon blinked.
“Huh…” he mused.
“Now there’s an idea…”
“Don’t even think about it,” Illya deadpanned.
Napoleon shrugged and continued.
“And how does Rex fit into all of this?”
“Well, he owned a few underground casinos here in Las
Vegas; Leopold and I must have caught his attention from all of our winnings,”
Cora said.
“He must have seen me with Cora out in a restaurant or
something one day and saw me with ‘Corrin’ that following night,” Leopold
sighed. “Whatever it was, he put two and
two together and realized she was a woman.”
“Getting kicked out of the casino circuit would have been a
preferable fate as opposed to what happened,” Cora sighed.
“What happened?” Napoleon asked.
“Rex kept trying to get me to marry him,” Cora
muttered. “Didn’t matter where I went in
Las Vegas, even if it was a different casino that he didn’t own, he kept after
me, proposing like he had every right to demand it. After turning him down for the umpteenth
time, he started threatening me—threatened to let everyone know I was a woman,
which would ensure that I would be kicked out of most casinos, if not all of
them—this was after gambling was legalized in Las Vegas, but they still
wouldn’t have been welcoming to a woman.
Even so, that didn’t bother me; I figured he would have too much trouble
trying to prove it, in any case. And
after a few more months of this, he changed his tactics…” Her expression went cold. “He threatened Leopold. I told you that most of the casino owners
were affiliated with the Mob; I assumed Rex was, too. Now you’re telling me it’s THRUSH, who
probably weren’t much better…”
Napoleon muttered something under his breath.
“They are, indeed, much worse. I told you, Mother,” Illya added, casting a
glance at Napoleon to make sure he was alright.
“The Mob didn’t even want anything to do with THRUSH. If Rex had been threatening to use them, he
would have most certainly delivered on that threat.”
“I didn’t want to call his bluff,” Cora admitted. “I couldn’t take a chance that they’d kill
Leopold. I agreed to marry Rex.” She shuddered, and Leopold placed a hand on
her shoulder, which she gently touched with her own hand. “I don’t think you boys could ever understand
what it’s like to be held at gunpoint, facing the prospect of being eternally
bound to someone you don’t love…”
“…Actually, Ma, I can…” Napoleon said. He made a face. “…Twice…”
“…What.”
“I got him out of it,” Illya assured her. “But, please, continue. How did you manage to escape Rex?”
“Well, Rex insisted we get married that evening—had his
flunkies go with me everywhere to get a dress and then go to a wedding
chapel. I didn’t even have a chance to
find Leopold, let alone talk to him. So,
I dropped the Queen of Hearts from the deck I always carried with me.”
“Cora always told me that the Queen of Hearts represented
who she truly was,” Leopold said. “The
hearts represented the love she had—love for life, love of adventure… and, of
course, her love for me. And I also knew
that Cora cared about her cards—they were everything to her. And when I saw the Queen of Hearts on the
floor, from her deck… I knew she was in trouble.”
“It was the biggest gamble of my life,” Cora said. “I quite literally waged my very life on that
card. But it paid off.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the
old Queen of Hearts card. “I kept it
with me all these years. Leopold
followed my trail downtown and saw me with the wedding dress and followed me to
the chapel. I was in the wedding dress,
Rex’s goons guarding the door outside the changing room… And then I heard Leopold’s voice outside the
room, saying that he was a photographer’s assistant, and that Rex had hired a
photographer to take pictures of me in my wedding dress. And in he comes with the photographer.”
“I had to bribe him with a considerable amount of cash, but
it was worth it,” Leopold said, kissing the back of Cora’s hand.
“Naturally, I explained what was going on,” Cora said. “And Leopold offered to help me escape—not
just the wedding, but Las Vegas and Rex—no strings attached. We had a storage locker at the train station
with things we would need for a quick getaway, in case we ever made any enemies
with our casino escapades. The
Depression had hit the country and the money wasn’t going to go as far as it
would have, so Leopold offered me the entire thing if it meant I could escape
Rex and be happy. And then I told him
that there was one more thing I’d need to take with me in order to be truly
happy—him.”
Napoleon and Illya both stared in interest.
“Ma, you mean you
proposed to Dad?”
“My philosophy in life was that if there was something I
wanted, I would attempt to pursue it,” Cora shrugged. “This was no different.”
“Of course, I said, yes,” Leopold said. “And, after bribing the photographer some
more, we convinced Rex’s goons that Rex wanted some photos of Cora in her dress
outside. And we ran the first chance we
got—only to run into the priest who was supposed to have wedded Cora and Rex.”
“…And I had the idea to have the priest marry the two of us
right then and there,” Cora said. “It
was a two-minute ceremony, with the photographer as the witness. …And then he went and published the wedding
photo in the paper the next day, but we were already on the train to Chicago by
then.”
“We had another, more official ceremony performed there,”
Leopold said. “We thought about staying
in Chicago after we’d been there a few months.”
“Yes, the gambling circuit there was interesting, and I
certainly would have loved to have played my way around it,” Cora mused. “But two things derailed that plan; first of
all, we caught wind that Rex was coming to Chicago from Vegas. Secondly, what I thought was nausea brought
about by the news of Rex’s arrival ended up being morning sickness.” She stared pointedly at Napoleon, who went
slightly red. “At that point, we had
done well for ourselves in spite of the Depression, and so, we decided it
wasn’t worth the risk of Rex finding us.
We slipped away to New York and decided to give up the gambling circuit
and prepare for our new addition.”
Napoleon looked away.
“You gave up doing something you loved because of me?”
“It wasn’t like that at all,” Leopold insisted. “We had our thrills of youth, and we always
knew that we would have to eventually turn to something steady and
practical. I’d always intended to get
into journalism; I was pleased to get the chance to do so. And your mother has enjoyed raising corgis…”
“We could have easily gone back on the circuit after you
were born—Atlantic City wasn’t that far away,” Cora reminded him. “But after all of those crazy adventures, it
was nice to relax and pursue other endeavors.
I was very happy with my life, and you were a great part of that happiness,
Napoleon—another heart for the Queen of Hearts.”
Napoleon managed a smile.
“I guess that makes me the King of Hearts now, huh?”
“Well…” Cora mused, taking a new, complete deck of cards
from her purse. “Maybe I never went back
on the circuit, but I would say that my consort and I did not formally abdicate
yet…”
Napoleon gave his mother a long look.
“…I’m still the Jack, aren’t I?”
“Uh-huh.”
Leopold chuckled at them, but then noticed that Illya was
deep in thought.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing wrong,” Illya assured him. “I am just marveling at all of the
happenstance that filled your lives over one playing card—it was by sheer
chance that you found the card she dropped and knew what she was trying to
convey, then being able to save Mother from marrying Rex, and then you two
having Napoleon—and then him getting drafted at 18 and meeting Mark Slate after
getting appendicitis in Korea, which would inspire him to join U.N.C.L.E. and
lead to my eventually getting transferred to New York to work with him…. All
four of us are together in this room now because of that card.” He indicated the Queen of Hearts still in
Cora’s other hand. “Perhaps together, we
can find a way out of this place and succeed in the mission Waverly assigned
Napoleon and me.”
“Well, I have
been thinking,” Cora said, her brown eyes deep in thought. “If you need proof that Rex is working with
THRUSH… I’m sure I could set up a
trap—pretend to agree to speak with him and get him to confess anything and
everything to me with a bit of feminine wiles–”
“No!” all three
men said at once.
“…Well it was just a thought…”
“It’s far too risky, Ma,” Napoleon said. “You tricked him once before by pretending to
go along with him and then slipping out from under his nose. But maybe we can get evidence another way…”
“What are you thinking?” Illya asked.
“What Ma said about a trap has me thinking…. I’ll bet money
that Rex booby-trapped their suite the moment he found out that Ma was coming
here. If I can sweep the room and find
any THRUSH devices in those traps, that will be the proof we need. Illya, can you watch over Ma and Dad while
I’m up there?”
“Of course. But take
care that you don’t end up tripping any of the traps yourself,” Illya warned.
“Naturally,” Napoleon said.
Knowing that his parents were as safe with Illya as they
would have been with him, Napoleon borrowed their key and headed to their
suite, beginning to look around. To his
relief, there didn’t seem to be anything in the way of deadly traps—he hadn’t
put anything past Rex where his father was concerned. But, after a thorough search, he uncovered
several small jets of sleeping gas.
Napoleon removed two of the jets, picketing the cartridges
of sleeping gas; if it matched the kind of gas that THRUSH was known to use,
then that would be the proof that THRUSH supplied Rex with these. The remainder of the sweep uncovered a few
listening devices, but nothing much else.
Still, the sleeping gas was more than enough cause for
concern, but it was their first possible bit of condemning evidence. Napoleon now moved to leave the room, but
paused as he heard footsteps from the corridor, rapidly approaching the room.
“You’re sure you saw someone go into Cora’s suite?” he
heard Rex ask. “Did you see who it was?”
“No, Sir,” a guard was saying. “We saw someone go in, but it all happened so
quickly; I assume it is either Ms. Stroller or her husband….”
Rex’s tone darkened at the mention of Leopold.
And Napoleon froze, wondering what to do. Left with no other options, he ducked into
the washroom, hoping that he would be able to snag a chance to sneak out while
Rex was occupied in searching the room.
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