Snippet for hardboiledbaby
Hopefully this satisfies her wish for a Napoleon/Illya pairing. Gosh, I missed these guys. Her prompt word = Title: Handkerchief
Handkerchief
Illya strived to remain focused as he led the search team through the rubble of the demolished hotel looking for signs of life. Feeling as though his own life hung in the balance. Which, in a way, it did.
Napoleon was as important to Illya as breathing. He simply must have survived this. Surely the Solo luck would’ve held true once again.
Illya sent up a silent entreaty to the god or gods that might be in control of such things.
Then he spied something familiar among destruction. A silk handkerchief.
Illya picked it up with reverence. He thought back on the scene in Napoleon’s office earlier that morning.
Napoleon had gently finished cleaning up the remnants of their hurried lovemaking with that familiar, silk bit of cloth and had begun to refold it to slip back into his pocket. Illya chided him.
“Really, Polya. I’d think, with your resources, you could afford to dispose of that and purchase a new one,” he said with a sigh.
“I could. But I choose not to,” came the reply. Decisive as ever.
“I’d never have considered you the thrifty sort,” Illya continued good-naturedly.
“Ah. But you, as much - make that more - than anyone, are privy to my romantic nature,” Napoleon purred. “This allows me to keep just a bit of you near me at all times,” and he quickly kissed his partner. “Think of it as a sort of Talisman.”
Illya snorted and rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d give in to that sort of superstition. So much for your reputation as the cold-calculating CEA - cum - head of UNCLE.”
“I’m assuming that my secret is safe with you, partner mine,” Napoleon stated.
“Your secret as well as your heart. As mine is with you,” Illya had assured him.
Soon after, Illya returned to his lab and Napoleon left for an afternoon meeting with several Agency officials, which had promised to be short an uneventful. About that last bit, they had been wrong.
An opportunistic THRUSH agent had found out about the meeting and decided to use the opportunity to try to cause optimum destruction. Fortunately Illya had caught wind of the plot and was able to warn his partner who succeeded in getting all the officials as well as the Hotel staff out of harm’s way.
In fact, the only soul unaccounted for now was Napoleon, himself. Illya had searched relentlessly, all the while cursing his partner’s heroic nature.
The handkerchief was the first indication as to the location of his partner. Illya stuffed it into his pocket and began scrabbling through the broken concrete and plaster, “Over here!” Illya shouted. Soon the rest of the team was aiding in the effort to free Napoleon.
********** **********
As much as Napoleon detested having to submit to a doctor’s examination, he managed to endure it for the sake of his badly shaken partner. As often as each had been put in harm’s way in the past, it never got easier, having your lover’s mortality tested.
Finally, the doctor finished splinting his arm and excused himself to double check the x-rays, leaving Illya and Napoleon alone for the first time since they had parted in Napoleon’s office that morning.
Knowing that his partner needed some reassurance that they had escaped yet another deadly fate, Napoleon recalled their earlier conversation.
“Illya?” he said with the arch of an eyebrow.
“Yes, Napoleon?”
“I seem to have misplaced something during today’s unpleasantness.” Sometimes Napoleon was the master of understatement.
Quickly regaining his composure and falling into the easy banter, Illya responded.
“Hmm. That is a coincidence. I seem to have found something which I believe belongs to you,” he said as he slipped the handkerchief from his own hand to his partner’s.
Napoleon grasped the hand along with the piece of silk, and held onto it firmly. Saying everything with that touch.
Well, almost everything.
When the doctor returned to inform Solo that he was cleared to be released, he found the partners in an embrace that seemed utterly impenetrable by any outside force. He decided to come back later.