Prompt: Threats

Summary: Part 1 of 2.  Though the Summit Five Affair is behind them, Strothers’s former partner, aiming to replace Beldon, is determined to make Napoleon pay for discrediting Strothers.

Cross-posted to AO3

Napoleon was charismatic and charming—being able to get
people to like him was second nature to him.
While people would be wary of Illya, who presented himself deliberately
as cold and aloof, Napoleon never faced any of that.

But the Summit Five Affair had changed things—changed how
people looked at Napoleon.  Accused of
being a traitor—and tortured until he confessed, the fair-weathered crowd had
begun to see Napoleon in a different light.
Even when the true traitor had been eliminated and Napoleon’s name
cleared, it only slightly reduced the whispers and pointing when he and Illya
had returned to New York.

That was the extent of most of it, however; Napoleon didn’t
pay much attention to that, anyway, just like how Illya had been ignoring his
detractors all this time, as well.  And,
overall, it didn’t seem to bother him; he had Illya’s support through the whole
thing, and that was all that mattered.

But old wounds were reopened, however, several weeks later,
when a visitor from U.N.C.L.E. Berlin had arrived for a meeting with Waverly,
as he had applied to take over Harry Beldon’s position as the head of the
Berlin branch, and had to meet with the other four U.N.C.L.E. heads
individually for an interview, who would then discuss on whether or not he
would be accepted as the fifth member of the Summit Five.  He had passed his other three interviews, and
only needed to complete the one with Waverly.

What no one had realized at the time was that the man had
been Strothers’s partner, and subsequently his very close friend—he had been
out of town during the entire fiasco with Strothers and Beldon, and had only
come back for the figurative (and literal, in the case of Beldon)
post-mortem—that his partner had been unceremoniously sacked after allegedly
torturing an apparently innocent agent from the American branch.

He didn’t buy this—as far as he was concerned, Strothers
had been innocent, and the smug American agent had to have been guilty after
all, but succeeded in worming his way out of things.  He got the name he had been searching
for—Napoleon Solo—and kept this information to himself as he headed to New York
for his final interview.

Strothers’s former partner was more than a bit confident
about getting accepted as Beldon’s replacement, and so, on his way to meet with
Waverly, found Napoleon in the hall and dragged him to the nearest dimly-lit
room.

“Just listen to me now, Solo,” he hissed.  “I don’t care if you were found innocent or
not; when I become head of U.N.C.L.E. Berlin, I will see to it that you are ousted
from your position with as much pain and humiliation as I can see you get!”

He left immediately, and Napoleon stood in stunned
confusion—so stunned, that he was completely unaware that the dimly-lit room
that the unpleasant fellow had dragged him to was none other than the
U.N.C.L.E. autopsy room, and that Illya had been putting things away in a
darkened corner of the room—and had heard and seen the entire thing.

As Napoleon left the room, still looking stunned, it was
clear to Illya that Napoleon would not be likely to inform Waverly.

He would take it upon himself, for no one—but no
one–threatened Napoleon Solo in his presence and got away with it.