MFU blurb

Written for today’s short affair prompt at Section VII

Summary:
In which Napoleon learns the hard way that the old “travel through the air vent” trope doesn’t always work out.  Thankfully, Illya is there to lend a hand–and snark all the while.

Not cross-posting this as I’ll be expanding this in the future.

Illya hadn’t known what to expect; Napoleon, on trail of a
way to find out how the killer had killed their informant, had suspected the
trained capuchin belonging to the victim’s son’s fiancée when he had seen the
capuchin crawl in and out of the air duct in the room where the body had been
found.

“There might have been a way to get the monkey to bring
some sort of poison through the vent,” Napoleon had said.  “It might lead to a place accessible only by
a secret passageway—where more poison is stored.  I’ll have to take a look…”

Before Illya could protest, Napoleon had squeezed into the
air duct and had begun to crawl his way through it.  Shrugging, Illya had used a combination of
Napoleon’s tracker and their communicators to try to follow him from room to
room when he suddenly heard a yelp from Napoleon, followed by a splash.

Illya took off running, following the signal to a wine
cellar beneath the mansion.  He stared
for a moment at a large wine vat that was gushing red wine all over the place,
as though something large had fallen in it.
A glance above the vat showed the open air duct, and Illya tentatively
looked into the vat in time to see his partner emerge from the wine.

“…Napoleon?  Are you alright?”

Napoleon gave him a look and gestured furiously to the air
duct.

“What were the odds, huh!?”

Well, we are in Napa Valley…” Illya said.  “And look on the bright side—there are far
less tasty things you could have fallen into.”

Napoleon gave him another look.

“This suit is a lost cause; I don’t know if even Del Floria
can revive a suit soaked in red wine!”

“So, file for a reimbursement; you’re no stranger to that,”
Illya smirked.  “And besides, this will
do wonders for your skin.  You’ve heard
of champagne baths?  You’ve got yourself
a wine bath!”

“Oh, really?  Good,
then I’ll pull you in with me!”

Illya deftly stepped back, chuckling.

“Well, your unexpected wine bath has given some credence to
your theory,” he added, pointing to the racks of bottles.  “One of these bottles of wine could be
poisoned—the poisoner obviously knows which ones are safe and which ones aren’t,
and they can administer the poisoned wine at their leisure.  This may not be the case, but, at least, it’s
an angle for us to investigate.”

“Right,” Napoleon said.
He waved his arms.  “Now get me
out of here!”

Illya did so, and the two partners continued their
investigation—after Napoleon took a shower, of course.