Prompt: Fever

Summary: Illya looks after a stricken Napoleon as they wait for backup to extract them.

Cross-posted to AO3

Illya could only wish that they weren’t in an isolated
forest; Napoleon needed medical attention—proper medical attention, and not
just what limited work Illya could do with some wild-growing herbs.

During their escape from a THRUSH satrap, Napoleon had been
struck by a THRUSH poison dart.  It had
taken a while for it to take effect, but once it had, he had collapsed as his
weakened body now tried to fight back.
He was burning up with a high fever as his system attempted to purge the
toxins from him.

Illya had done what he could with what he had—which wasn’t
much.  He had concocted a green herbal
soup and had fed it to Napoleon, and then he had spent several hours trying to
get back in touch with U.N.C.L.E.; he had finally succeeded and managed to
summon help, but given their location, far from civilization, it was going to
take a lot more time before their extraction team reached them.

“They will be here,” he said, gently wiping Napoleon’s
forehead with a cold cloth.  “I don’t
know when, but they will find us eventually.
But, until then, you have to hold on.
Do you hear me?”

Napoleon’s face slightly turned in his direction; Illya
took that as a hopeful sign.

“Do you remember when Mills went renegade and poisoned me?”
Illya went on.  “After I recovered, we
had another case where another one of our agents had been poisoned with the
same toxin—only he had not survived.  We
both concluded that it was because he had no one trying to encourage his
recovery that he was not able to make it.
Well, Napoleon… I am here.  And I
will not stop fighting to make sure you survive.  So you had better keep on fighting to do so,
as well.”

Napoleon’s eyes briefly opened, looking up at his partner
for a moment.  He gave a slight nod and
rested his eyes again, but slightly moved his hand to grab Illya’s free one.

Satisfied, Illya kept tending to him and talking to him
until their backup finally arrived to extract them.  Soon, Napoleon was in Medical, having been
administered the antidote to the poison, and was recovering, his fever down at
last.

And Illya was still by his side, ready to help him fight
again if need be.

It was just one of the things that made their partnership
work so well.

Prompt: Thrown Against Something

Summary: Part 2 of 2.  Illya gets a chance at some trickery and subterfuge to avenge Napoleon.

Cross-posted to AO3

Sometimes, Illya’s own deviousness surprised even him.  Technician George Dennell owned him a
favor—and Illya was ready to cash it in, asking him to get Waverly down to the
lab and keep him occupied before the meeting with the applicant for the new
Berlin head could go underway.

George was true to his word; the moment Waverly had left
his office, thinking it would only take five minutes to see what important
developments George had asked him to take a look at, Illya took his place,
explaining to Lisa that he would explain to the applicant that Waverly would be
only slightly delayed.

He sat at the circular table; Baba Yaga the office cat
wandered into the room and leaped onto his lap, sensing something afoot.  Illya gently gave the cat a few skritches
behind the ears, causing her to purr loudly—at least until the door opened and
the job applicant walked in.  her purring
ceased almost immediately as he walked in, and her ears flattened with intense
dislike for the man.

“I was supposed to meet Mr. Waverly here,” the man
said.  “We were to have an interview to
decide my taking over as section head of Berlin.”

“Mr. Waverly has been called away on an important
emergency,” Illya said, calmly, as Baba Yaga’s tail twitched.  “I will be handling this interview in his
stead.”

“I see…” the man said.
He frowned.  “Do I know you?”

“Perhaps.  Perhaps not,”
Illya said, without any emotion.  “Shall
we begin?”

“Er, yes…” the man said.
“You’ve already seen my CV, I presume.”

“Yes, I have,” Illya said.
“A move impressive amount of experience, I must agree.  However…  There was one thing that left me rather
concerned.”

“What’s that?”

“You were in very close association with one Gerald Strothers
for a great many years,” Illya pointed out.

“Well, yes, we were assigned as partners and worked very
closely together as a result,” the man admitted.

“Hmm,” Illya said, pretending to rub his chin in thoughtfulness.  “Then my concerns are not unfounded.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand…”

“Gerald Strothers was recently dishonorably removed from
his position—using unauthorized torture methods against an innocent U.N.C.L.E.
agent and failing to notice that Beldon was a traitor in his zeal to prove this
innocent man as guilty.”

“No one suspected Beldon!” the man countered.  “And as for Strothers, I believe that he wasn’t
wrong about that American!  And even if
he was wrong, why must I suffer for something that I did not do?”

“So you, an innocent man, does not want to be held accountable
for misdeeds that you were not responsible for,” Illya said.  “And yet, you have no qualms about seeing an
innocent suffer for something he was not responsible for?”

“I believe him to be guilty,” the man insisted.  “And given the opportunity, I will prove it!”

Wordlessly, Illya played back the footage from the autopsy
security cameras.

“We had these installed after it became a hazing ritual
among the new probationary agents to sneak into the autopsy room and take
Polaroids of a corpse.  It also serves as
a nice method of capturing threats given to our personnel.”

The threat to Napoleon played back in full picture and
sound.  The man sat flabbergasted for a
moment before scowling at Illya.

“Give me that tape!” he hissed.

“I think not,” he said.
“This interview is over—you will not get the position.”

The next thing Illya knew, the man had seized him and had
hurled him against the wall.  Baba Yaga
screeched, attacking the man with claws and teeth.  The man ignored her, going for Illya again.

Waverly soon returned, followed by Napoleon, who had been
alerted by Lisa to the noise.  Waverly
stared, stunned, while Napoleon leaped into action, pulling the man off of
Illya, who rubbed his neck where he had been seized.

“You can threaten me all you want,” Napoleon hissed.  “But you will not lay a hand on my partner.”

The man glared at them, and then turned to Waverly.

“You, see, Sir?  They
are in this together to discredit me!”

“I think it was very clear that you were the one who
attacked Mr. Kuryakin; he made no effort to defend himself—no doubt because you
would accuse him of instigating it.”

Baba Yaga hissed loudly at the man, her back arched
angrily.

“A temperament and immense moral blindness such as yours is
not one we like to encourage at U.N.C.L.E.,” Waverly continued.  “You will be discharged from your position
post haste.”

“You can join your friend and former partner Strothers in a
search for a new job,” Illya said, coldly.

“…So that’s why you had it in for me,” Napoleon said, eyes
arching in realization.  “You wanted to
get me out to avenge Strothers.”

The man merely cursed at Napoleon as other agents came in
to apprehend him.

“Well, Mr. Solo, Mr. Kuryakin, I’m sorry you had to go through
that,” Waverly said.  “But I thank the
both of you for using such a clever way of bringing this to my attention.  Well done.”

“I don’t deserve any praise,” Napoleon said.  “This was all Illya’s doing.  …How did you know?”

“The room where he made his threat to you was the autopsy
room,” Illya said.  “Neither of you
noticed that I was in there.  So I saw to
it that I would give him a swift and humiliating exit.”

Napoleon smiled.

“Thanks, Tovarisch.  I
owe you one.”

“Believe me, Napoleon…  The pleasure was mine.”

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.