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1
The first time Gaby sees it, she is evesdropping on a conversation she is quite certain she’s not supposed to know about.
It had been the trepidation in Solo’s face when Jones had come for him, saying nothing more than a simple, “He’s here,” that had convinced her to shadow them.
“Grow a spine, Solo,” says the man now, and his voice rasps like sandpaper. Something about him makes her skin itch. He’a not tall, but Solo seems to keep his distance, his stance slightly tense. Gaby might be new to the spy game, but she’s perceptive. “Contrary to what you might think, we’re not in the Haberdashery business.”
“I don’t think you understand,” says Solo, and now he sounds distantly annoyed. “It tore the back off my car.”
Gaby shivers as she recalls the menacing man who had chased them through the streets. Solo was definitely the most likeable agent she has met so far. Barring Waverly of course.
And then the man, Sanders, says, slowly, “Remind me Solo, how long was your prison sentence?”
And Solo goes still, face falling back on that unreadable mask he’d been wearing in the workshop. He’s not looking at the man, rather focused on the middle distance, but she can see his hands shaking where he’s fisted them at his sides. Gaby frowns. prison sentence?What was Solo before? Was she wrong to trust him? He could be a murderer for all she knows. Or something worse.
“You owe me five more years,” says Sanders, and oh... He must be Solo’s handler. “Now I know you’ve been... taking care of yourself on the sly. Wetting your beak, so to speak.”
A muscle jumps in Solo’s jaw, but still he says nothing.
“We don’t pay you enough to put truffles in your risotto, Solo.”
That... could he have been a thief? It’s starting to sound like the most likely option.
And then Sanders’s voice hardens, and he adds, “But don’t ever make the calamitous error of mistaking my deliberate short-sightedness for blindness.”
And then Solo finally reacts, and even though it is only a glare, it is full of so much hatred that Gaby can feel it like a acidic burn in the air.
“Now you report for duty tomorrow morning nine am sharp.” The man’s voice cracks like a whip. “And with a better attitude!”
She dares to peer out a little more, hidden by the shadows. All she sees is Solo’s smirk, saccharine and biting, cold like a razor, and Sanders making a movement with his hand, as though he’s flicking a switch in his pocket and suddenly Solo jerks.
Gaby recoils in shock as the American spy shudders, almost managing to bring a hand to his throat before his legs give way and he is brought to the floor, knees ringing out against the wood. He’s choking, shaking, almost as if against his will. As though someone has forced him to clamp his hands onto an electric fence and refuses to allow him to let go. There is agony etched into every line of his face, but it’s not new. Gaby can see that much. It’s an old pain. A familiar one. And she has to hold in a sound of horror, her slender fingers splayed over her mouth.
Then it’s over. And he slumps almost bonelessly onto his side, outflung hand twitching like a dying spider. His breathing sounds desperate, like a man who is drowning, and when he coughs it sounds like sandpaper. Gaby feels the hairs raise on her arms, trying not to make a sound as the man crouches down beside a trembling Solo, and she takes the chance to slip away back to the kitchen.
What has she just witnessed?
Later, he shows her to a small room, the double bed perhaps a little dusty but soft and warm. And safe.
And yet, despite this, she quite suddenly fonds that she doesn’t want to be alone. Her hand flits out to snatch Solo’s wrist when he turns to go and he stops, sapphire eyes full of concern. She can see no proof of the pain he had been in mere hours ago.
“Gaby?”
“Just... stay. Please?” Gaby doesn’t say what she’s thinking. That Sanders scares her. That she feels all alone again. That she feels like she can trust Solo, despite the fact that he’s obnoxious and annoying. That this had not been Waverly’s plan, even in the slightest, and now she’s not sure what she is supposed to do.
He blinks his eyes once, twice. They are like gemstones in the dim light. He seems tired, she can see that now- having looked harder, with dark rings under his eyes and a flat line to his mouth as he hesitates.
Then he sighs and gives in. Collapsing onto the left side of the bed with a groan, waistcoat and all.
Gaby smiles a little. She thinks she might be able to like him. Make a friend out of him. If she can get him to drop that goddamned mask for a while.
“Sleep,” he advises, not opening his eyes, though he does offer a curl of a smile. “It’s late, but you might be able to get a few hours in.”
The covers are silky on her skin. But despite that, Gaby finds that she can’t take his advice, much as she would like to.
It’s only later, when she’s sure he’s unconscious, that she inches closer and gingerly peels back the collar of his shirt. She’s not sure what she had expected to find. But the way he had choked... had made that aborted gesture towards his throat... the shaking...
There’s a steel collar locked around his throat, just brushing his collarbone. It’s a dark grey, smooth. Not thick enough to be seen under his collar, and the skin around it is red and inflamed.
Gaby has seen them before. During the war.
Solo stirs under her touch murmuring softly and she draws back, fingers tingling with the horrible fact.
He’d been electrocuted. Sanders was using the collar to shock him. This was... was...
Gaby feels sick. The poor man. What on earth had he done to deserve this?
2
The first time Illya finds it, he’s pinning the struggling American in a choke hold on a bathroom floor.
Solo is gagging, trying in vain to arch away from the Russian, but Illya is unmoving. Steady. He can feel the moment that Solo gives up. Feel the fight drain from him, breath harsh, and that’s when Illya realises something is wrong.
It’s not obvious. But he can feel something hard under the American’s shirt collar, around the base of his throat. It could be steel, Illya’s not sure.
But when Oleg shakes his head and says, “Ne ubivayte partnera v pervyy den,” he does, growling as he pushes the American away and drawing his knees up to his chest. He watches Solo, through a narrow eyed gaze.
“What does that mean?” rasps Solo, kneeling, his breath ragged. Illya might feel a little satisfaction at that, but then he remembers what he thinks he’d felt under the American’s shirt and he sobers.
“He said ‘don’t kill your partner on the first day,” replies the shorter man. He has an unpleasant voice, a little like chalk on a blackboard, and Illya sees it all: Solo’s flinch when Sanders comes too close, the wary language of his body: almost as though the American is bracing for something. As though he’s cornered.
Illya thinks he might be beginning to understand.
Then they are alone at the cafe and Illya bites back the barbs he had been ready to fling, and says instead, “How long have you had it?” And his voice might be a little flat, but it is not for lack of trying. Because he is. Trying.
Solo looks politely confused. “Had what?”
Illya leans forward, elbows on the table and drops his voice, despite there not being anyone close by. “They exist in KGB too, though we only use them for dangerous prisoners.”
Solo blinks, eyes giving nothing away. His face is handsome, but unreadable. A mask. It is rather irritating.
Illya glares, then hisses, “The collar. How long have you had the collar?”
Then he gets a reaction. Small though it may be. A shudder trails trough Solo’s form, and something flashes in his eyes. Fear? Anger? Resignation? He frowns. “How the fuck-“
“Bathroom,” is all Illya says.
Solo seems to struggle with himself for a moment, flashing a worried glance over his shoulder, then all at once his shoulders slump. “I...” He sighs, puts his face in his hands, and his admission comes out muffled. “Since I got signed up.”
Illya cannot quite understand the feeling of rage that sweeps over him like a tidal wave. Why his fists shake when he clenches them. This is... not right. Not at all, Solo being an American or no. The main question that haunts Illya, unbridled, is how. How is the man still alive if he has been shocked for insubordination for the past ten years? Bozhe moi... “How often are you treated for arrhythmia?” He has heard tales of the things agencies will do to ensure loyalty. But this...
Solo’s face is carefully blank now. “Often.”
“Do you get... side effects?”
“Sometimes.”
“Medication?”
Solo’s mouth curls sourly. “Oh, yeah.”
“Is it because you are thief?”
The American huffs a laugh at that, slightly cynical. His eyes are very blue... “You seem to know all my secrets.”
“Nyet. Just important ones.”
That draws a smile, and it’s crooked and makes Illya’s pulse jump. He finds he no longer has the urge to insult the man. He feels... comfortable? This is comfortable. Is that wrong? It feels like treason. There is a ghost hovering at his shoulder, and Illya refuses to look, but he knows who’s face it will have. So instead he says,
“How much do you know about me?”
Solo bites his lip and that’s when Illya realises he had been meaning to do exactly what the Russian had been planning. To insult; gage the terrain. To look for the nerve endings they could set on fire to gain the upper hand.
“Enough,” is all Solo says at last.
Illya feels a stab of gratitude, then offers a smile of his own. “We can both hurt each other, yes?”
Solo rubs at his throat, just above the hidden collar, bruising a faint shadow spreading like a stain where Illya’s arm had been. “Fucking seems like it. So we’re good?”
Illya considers. There is a weight that lifts off this shoulders when he thinks it over. Then he nods. “Da. We are good, tovarishch.”
3
The first time Victoria sees it, she’s just landed atop Mr. Jack Deveny, the bed soft beneath them.
He really is gorgeous- all pale angles and dark curls, with eyes like a sea under sunlight and she takes satisfaction in how he shudders when she pushes his dressing down from his shoulders, her wrists like iron on his. He’s littered with scars, little points of silvery mystery in the dim lamplight of the bedroom. She doesn’t mind- after all, she has plenty of her own. Some might find it uncouth on a woman, but he doesn’t seem to mind, kissing the one in the crook of her throat, his breath heated. And that’s when it catches her dark eyes.
The collar is unobtrusive. A dark grey like gunmetal- smooth, almost elegant, if she dares to go that far.
And he flinches when she touches it. Victoria thinks to herself, content for the moment in just straddling him. Holding him down. And she can- her lithe body is deceptive. She’s a tiger in the guise of a crane.
“What’s this, Jack?” she asks, voice a soft caress against his ear as she leans down.
He swallows, and Victoria watches how the collar restricts the movement. “Uh...” And now he sounds almost... embarrassed. “Bit of a souvenir from an old... acquaintance. No one’s been able to get it off.”
Victoria smiles. An acquaintance, hmm? Only one kind of endeavour gets you stuck with things like that. But far be it from her to judge. “As you say.”
He’s an excellent kisser. And the hiss of pain she draws from his reddened lips as her nails rake into his back makes her smile. Not may men can handle her.
It is she who handles them.
4
The first time Rudi sees it, he’s fitting the electrodes to an unconscious Solo’s hands, Victoria watching from her chair.
As he finishes the final one, he catches the glimpse of steel under the American’s collar. Now a master of pain like Rudi... he knows of it all. He knows what it is. Knows the fear that this man must have. Knows that he could not have picked a more fitting opener to the game than the chair.
“Did you know about this, madame Victoria?” he asks as he pulls the straps tight around Solo’s chest. The leather creaks, and it has been too long. Too long since he has gotten a chance quite like this one.
“The collar?” She dances the syringe between spidery fingers. “He wasn’t awfully forthcoming about it, I’m afraid.”
Rudi nods, pushing back the American’s sweat-dampened curls to fix the strap over his forehead. The man is undeniably gorgeous. It has years since Rudi has been able to take apart such a handsome canvas. “It is a shock collar. Quite the rage back in America, I’ve heard.”
He hears the noise of intrest she makes as he retreats behind the chair, busy with the final touches as Victoria comes forward to stab the needle into Solo’s arm. A bead of blood wells up, vivid like a ruby in the light, and it takes all of five minutes before the American lets out a soft groan and his eyes peel open, squinting against the light.
“Mummy says hello,” sneers Victoria, stepping back. She looks like a huntsman spider, prey suffocating in her web. And then Rudi sees the fear sparking in the American agent’s eyes and feels his own satisfaction seeping onto his face. To his disappointment, Solo’s are imperfect- the right marred by a fleck of an ordinary dull brown. Pity. They were close to uncut sapphire without it.
“You are familiar with electricity, are you not, Mr. Solo?”
A small sound escapes from Solo’s throat; a kind of strangled whimper. And he flinches back as far as the chair will let him when Victoria appears to loom over him again. She considers him, smiling to herself, before she raps her knuckles against his collar. The sharp ting is loud in the stillness of the room.
“He’s all yours, Rudi.”
And Rudi smiles.
5
The first time Waverly sees it, he’s standing beside the warhead, skin crawling with the thought of the other, definitely nuclear, bomb out there.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep faith in this world. What with people out there who could destroy everything and everyone with a snap of the fingers. And he’s far from perfect, but at least he can sleep at night knowing he’s doing his best.
Solo’s holding a folded square of bandage to the side of his head, a grimace on his face. He looks exhausted, aching, and Waverly makes his way over, hands in his pockets, about to say something when it catches his eye.
It’s a gunmetal collar, sleek and snug around the base of Solo’s throat. Unobtrusive, innocent, if not for the fact that Waverly knows exactly what it is. He’s not a fool. He knows they exist. Has seen what they can do.
The words change in his mouth and when he reaches Solo, he says, “How long?” And it comes out gentle, as if he is speaking to a spooked animal.
Solo lifts his gaze and looks confused. “Sir?”
Waverly waits for the understanding to dawn and then the American spy’s face sours into a tired frown. “Since I started working for them.”
Waverly feels a flash of anger. Sanders had mentioned parts of Solo’s story, warned that he was volatile, disobedient. But this...
“Does Kuryakin know?”
Solo nods, a rueful smile splitting his lips. He’s pale, but Waverly is suddenly struck by just how brightly this man’s flame could burn if he were treated better. A pillar of blue fire. Now, he’s just a defeated prisoner, tired and chafing at his leash. The CIA really doesn’t seem to know what an asset they have in this man. What he could help them achieve if he were treated with some common decency.
“Gaby too.” Solo shrugs, offers a crooked smile, and that’s what breaks Waverly’s heart- the acceptance. “It’s fine, sir. I got used to it.”
“Be that as it may,” says Waverly, and his voice comes out hard and cold. Solo looks up in surprise, startled. But he seems to know that it’s not aimed at him. “You shouldn’t have had to.”
The American bites his lip, blinking rather rapidly. When he finally speaks, his voice is scratchy with something Waverly chooses not to name. Let the man retain some semblance of dignity. “I... I appreciate that, sir.”
Later, back on the carrier, one of Waverly’s technicians looks the collar over and announces it broken.
Apparently the voltage from the chair had been too powerful and had shorted the circuits. It’s ruined, and the cautious relief that blooms like a new flower in Solo’s eyes is enough that Waverly makes a call direct to Langley, leaving the American in the arms of Gaby and Illya.
The voice on the other end is hoarse, unpleasant. “Sanders.”
“Ah, yes, hello Adrian,” says Waverly, and his voice is balanced with just enough pleasant ice to declare this an unsocial call. “I have a proposition for you.”
+1
The first time Napoleon sees it, he’s just been released from prison into CIA custody. He’s tired, bruised, black curls lank and growing past his ears, stubble scratchy on his jaw. He’s a shadow of the man he had been before he’d gone in. And that scares him. Because he had only been inside for six months. Six months where no doubt Sanders had payed them to make it hell for him in the hope that he’d change his mind.
Well, it had worked, goddamn them.
He doesn’t question the way he falls asleep so fast on the drive to Langley. Doesn’t care. Uninterrupted peace for a hour or two sounds like pure heaven. Though his dreams are strange. Full of voices and strange shapes that dance like smoke behind his eyelids. He feels like he’s drowning. Alone.
When he wakes in the interview room, however, wrists shackled to the bar dividing the table and a strange new pressure at his throat, he realises that he’s made a terrible mistake.
Sanders is opposite him, a file spread out on the table top and a small remote in his hand. Napoleon feels disoriented, woozy, as though he had not slept at all. He swallows past the collar on his throat and says nothing.
The first shock takes him wholly by surprise, and he cannot keep from gasping. He feels as though he’s on fire, trying to curl in on himself, but the cuffs won’t let him and he’s burning, burning, burning...
It’s gone, quick as it came. Leaving Napoleon shuddering, face pressed to the cool steel of the table, sweat dripping into his eyes, stinging his cut lip. Somewhere, somehow, he finds the strength to lift his head and his throat aches.
Sanders smiles, cold and calm. “This is how it’s going to go...”
And Napoleon has to hold in a sob of utter despair.