Written for today’s short affair prompt at Section VII

Summary: Illya’s playing around with a confiscated THRUSH portal device leads him and Napoleon to a parallel universe–where they meet their counterparts Ivan Trigorin and Hunt Stockwell.

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

Napoleon had decided to sleep in that morning—a rare
weekend off.  He knew that Illya had been
wanting to tinker around with that perfected portal device, so he’d have been
occupied—it was a device they had seized from THRUSH that had malfunctioned and
sent Napoleon through time and space, but with the help of Dr. Rutter, Illya
had succeeded in not only finding Napoleon, but had gotten them back to New
York and had gotten the device in working order.

Illya was still intrigued by the device, however, and spent
a lot of free time tinkering with his new favorite toy—which could now be
operated by a remote unit that Illya would always have on him in the event he
ended up somewhere else in space and time.
Napoleon had one, too, for the same purpose—though since his journey
through time and space, he had no desire to repeat the experience (especially
when his retirement was merely two years away, after which the danger of his
lifestyle would be behind him); nevertheless, he supported his partner, for it
made Illya happy, and Illya’s happiness was the most important thing in the
world.

By the time Napoleon had gotten out of bed, it was well
into the morning, and he eagerly poured himself coffee from the coffeepot that
Illya had, clearly, set up for him before carrying on with his project.  Baba Yaga, their Egyptian Mau, was amusing
herself in a sunbeam from the window.
Napoleon had just sat down at the breakfast table and was about to take
his first sip of coffee when his communicator suddenly went off.

“Napoleon?” Illya asked.

Napoleon looked at the communicator suspiciously.

“I thought you were in the study, working on your little
project,” he said.

“Er… I was,” Illya admitted.  “I seem to have ended up in a most
extraordinary place, Napoleon…”

“Well, use the remote, come back, and tell me all about it;
I’m just about to have my coffee,” Napoleon said, but he frowned as Illya
responded by clearing his throat.
“…Illya, what happened?”

“Well, er… my remote control has been confiscated by
someone who thinks I am trying to impersonate someone very dear to him,” Illya
said.  “I need you to use the device and
come here, where I am, to corroborate my story.”

Napoleon stared at the communicator, utterly confused.

“You’re not making any sense,” Napoleon said.

“Napoleon, believe me, the moment you arrive here,
everything I said will make perfect sense,” Illya promised.  “I know you dislike the idea of traveling
through time and space—after what happened to you before, I don’t blame
you.  But…”  He paused, and then let out a soft whistle.

Napoleon’s fingers gripped the communicator, recalling an
exchange between the two of them a few years ago—

“If you need me, just
whistle.”

“You said to whistle
if I wanted you.  Well, I want you.”

Napoleon hadn’t been able to help Illya then—but nothing
would stop him from helping now.

                                                *******************************

Illya wasn’t concerned when Napoleon didn’t respond to the
whistle; he handed over his communicator to the man who was impatiently holding
his hand out for it—a man who looked remarkably like Napoleon, but older—gray
at the temples.  But in spite of his
resemblance to Napoleon, his cold expression had none of Napoleon’s
warmth—something that Illya found to make no sense.  But it was proof positive that he had ended
up in a parallel universe—and he had gotten lucky getting the good-natured
Napoleon in their universe—and Lionheart, Napoleon’s spirit doppelganger who
had resided in their universe and had the identical personality to match
Napoleon’s, as well.  Doppelgangers
weren’t a new thing for Illya—but this was definitely more than that.

Illya now looked to his right, glancing up at the blond man
who looked like an older version of himself—the golden hair slightly darkened.  The man looked intrigued by Illya (an
understandable reaction for someone who was seeing a parallel self for the
first time), and turned to the stern-looking version of Napoleon.

“I think he is telling the truth,” he said, his voice a
perfect echo of Illya’s.  “If he had been
trying to impersonate me, why would he have made himself look younger—and with
a different name?  And you heard the
other man’s voice over his communicator—he sounds exactly like you.”

“It could be an elaborate trick,” the parallel Napoleon
said, darkly.  “He would have had a vocal
impersonator on standby to attempt to corroborate his story that he’s from
some… parallel universe.”

“You will see with your own eyes when he gets here,” Illya
insisted.  “You will see that I am
telling the truth—my partner, Napoleon, looks like a younger version of you,
just as I resemble Mr. Trigorin here.”

“He clearly isn’t coming—this… ‘Napoleon,’ of yours,” the
stern man replied.  “He didn’t say
another word when you asked for him to get here.  If he was a ‘parallel version’ of me, as you
claim, then he would have insisted upon coming to his partner’s aid–”

He was cut off as the portal suddenly reopened right in
front of him, and Napoleon, still wearing his purple bathrobe and carrying his
still untouched mug of coffee, stumbled through it; his back was to his stunned
parallel self, and he was staring at Illya, and then at the man beside him who
looked so much like him.

“Illya…?” he asked.
“How…?  Who…?”

“Napoleon,” Illya said, calmly.  “I want you to meet Ivan Trigorin.  He is my counterpart in this universe—one
that is parallel to our own.  You see, it
has been a theory that there are an infinite number of universes parallel to
our own—where we change based on the decisions we make.  This is one such universe, and Mr. Trigorin
and General Stockwell are what we could have been had we chosen our paths
differently.”

“Stock…what?” Napoleon repeated.  Illya silently indicated behind him, and
Napoleon turned, pausing with a look of utter disbelief as he looked upon the
face of his counterpart, who was removing the amber sunglasses he usually wore
to get a better look at Napoleon.

Napoleon stared at Stockwell for a full minute and, without
a word, chugged back the entire mug of coffee in his hand before looking again,
as though to confirm he wasn’t asleep on his feet.

“Napoleon, this is General Hunt Stockwell,” Illya
said.  “He didn’t believe my story as to
who I was and that you were his counterpart in my universe, but I think it is
safe to assume he does believe it now.”

Both Illya and Ivan looked on, calmly, as Napoleon and
Stockwell continued to stare each other down.

This was going to be an interesting misadventure, indeed…