Work Text:
1.
“Every time I think you’ve learned your lesson...”
Solo lets out a small sound of pain, eyes glazed as he tries to curl in on himself. His body doesn’t seem to be obeying him, unsurprisingly.
“Your rebellious streak needs to be trimmed back, Solo,” advises Sanders. His knee spikes with a jolt of pain where he’s crouching beside his errant agent.
And it’s not as if he hasn’t given Solo chances. It’s that the man chooses not to take them. He’s like a wild dog, really- trying to bite the hand that feeds him, unaware the only one he’ll spite is himself. “For your own comfort.”
Solo tries to speak, but his jaw locks up as another shudder rolls like a wave over his form, and all he manages is a ragged breath.
Jones looks on from the doorway, expressionless. He’s probably used to it by now. Most of Solo’s co-workers know about his self-sabotaging tendencies, it’s not like he’s awfully popular back at Headquarters.
“Are you going to step back in line?” Sanders really doesn’t have time for this shit. He has a tangled mess of barbed wire on his hands, one that needs to be picked apart with gloves and a tweezer that he doesn’t have.
It’s starting to look like he’s going to have to call the fucking Russian after all...
Solo coughs, drags himself onto his hands and knees, swaying. The collar is just about visible under his shirt, gunmetal against the base of his pale throat. It’s slimmer than those used during the war, more refined. Less obvious, and unrecognisable for what it is at a glance.
“Solo?”
The thief flinches when Sanders shifts on his heels, knee throbbing. He’d love to clear this up so he can get the fuck back to work.
“Yes, sir.” It’s quiet, raw. Like gravel and surgical spirits on a skinned knee.
Sanders gives him a shrewd once over, then nods briskly. “Good.” He stands, pats Solo’s shoulder, the contact drawing another flinch from the kneeling agent. “Remember. Nine AM. No later.”
And then he’s out of there, a terribly long night stretching out before him.
2.
Oleg would be lying if he said he did not feel some satisfaction at Kuryakin’s efficient take down of Solo.
But then again, he has always been strong. Faster, more driven than the other trainees Oleg has worked with.
There is a rage in him, guiding him, cold and clinical. And while he might be slightly damaged, prone to those inconvenient bouts of psychotic madness, he gets the job done.
And one can tell that the American agent recognises that, because he finally stops struggling, one pale hand tight on Kuryakin’s wrist. Trapped, gaze caught on Sanders as his handler watches him choke.
It is rather cold, Oleg has to admit.
But they came here today for a reason, and it would not do to foul that all up before negotiations have even taken place.
“Kuryakin,” he says, and the blonde’s head jerks up and around. His eyes are a sharp shade of blue. Icy like a Siberian glacier. “Ne ubivayte partnera v pervyy den'.”
Kuryakin hesitates, as if to confirm it is an order. So Oleg tilts his head in a small nod. It would not do, as much as he does not care for Solo, teamwork does sadly require two sides of the coin.
Kuryakin snarls, but forcefully shoves the other agent away from him before drawing his knees up to his chest.
Solo crawls away, hacks a cough, before he sits back on his haunches. His hair is in disarray, cheeks flushed from the struggle. “What does that mean?”
“He said ‘don’t kill your partner on your first day’,” says Sanders, stepping around the sink. Solo’s body shudders in a visceral flinch when his handler gets too close.
Interesting...
So the rumours must be true.
Oleg frowns a little. If Solo truly is such a difficult personality, he might have to begin fearing for Kuryakin’s ultimate success.
“I know what he said,” wheezes Solo, tipping his head back as he drags in a breath. Kuryakin is watching him, Oleg notices- a guarded look. “What does it mean?”
Collaboration. Teamwork. Enemies to allies for a period of time. Capitalism versus Communism.
It means many things, but Oleg hopes it means Russia will finally triumph over America in this fucking slog of a race.
3.
“You’ve bugged him?” demands Gaby.
Illya huffs indignantly at her surprise. He’d thought she had witnessed their spat over the various tackers in the hall yesterday. “He tried to bug me,” he protests, aware of how childish it sounds the second the words escape him. But he can’t take them back.
Thump.
The chandelier shivers, filling the air with the sound of rattling crystal. At the same time, the static on his receiver clears and Illya is treated to a combination of sounds that he really could do without.
He’s also not entirely sure why they raise a pit of something sour in his throat.
Gaby crosses her arms, one slender eyebrow arched as Illya switches the device off with stubbornly steady hands.
“It doesn’t sound like he needs your help,” she quips, though not unkindly.
Illya disassembles the antenna of the receiver. “I was worried she would ask about collar,” he admits.
Instantly, Gaby’s expression changes into one of quiet sadness and even a little bit of horror. “So you know?”
“Da.” Illya ignores the chandelier shuddering again and sits down heavily on the end of his bed. “When we met for the second time, I asked. Could feel it under his shirt when we fought in bathroom.”
Gaby nods. She’s since been filled in on that fiasco. She hesitates, then makes her way over to join Illya, sitting down beside him. Her small body is warm against his side.
“I hate it.” Her confession is a whisper. Shaking. “I saw his handler use it on him, and I just...” She takes a deep breath. Lets it out. “I just hate it.”
“Me too.” Illya reflects on Solo, coming for him without any reason to. Saving his life from the dark grave of the harbour. Forcing that water out of his chest.
“Do you think there’s something we can do?”
Illya looks at her, really looks. She truly is extraordinary. He’s starting to see that more and more.
But he finds that he can’t quite lie to her. Not now.
So all he says in reply is, “I don’t know, chop-shop.”
4.
“Ready?”
And he can’t move, can’t think, can’t even find the breath to scream, because it’s all a blur of white light and agony and that fucking searing burn in his skin.
It’s so much worse than his collar.
Maybe this really is the day he dies. Is he even still alive? Or has he finally found his way into that Hell that his mother would always warn him about?
And somewhere, in the storm of his fracturing consciousness, there’s a thought swirling, echoing,
Fuck. FUCK, PERIL WHERE ARE YOU?
Which is foolish really, because why would Illya come for him?
God, he’s breaking. He’s breaking into so many little pieces that no one will ever be able to put him back together again, he’s dying, he has to be dying-
It stops so suddenly that a raw sound of pain tears free from Solo’s throat against his will, head lolling to the side as much as it is able.
He drags in a desperate breath, coughs, tastes blood on his tongue as it drips from his nose. His chest feels tight in that familiar, awful way, and he can’t breathe- fuck it, he can’t, not with these straps bruising his ribs.
Solo closes his eyes, tries to calm himself down. Tries not to think about the tingling ache in his body, the way the electricity jerks and twitches over his skin.
And then, like an apparition, a shape forms on the other side of the glass, letting a dead weight slide from it’s hands.
It’s tall, silent, and brings a finger to it’s lips as it ducks to open the door and slip inside behind Rudi, who’s waxing lyrical about goddamned pliers.
“I never thought I’d say this,” murmurs Solo, because he doesn’t think he can manage anything louder. Not with the way his chest is throbbing. “But I’m actually quite pleased to see you.”
And Illya, who came for him, who fucking came, crosses his arms and levels a look of loathing on Rudi. “You doing okay, cowboy?”
5.
“It’s over,” soothes Gaby, her delicate fingers teasing through Solo’s damp curls.
He looks younger like this, really. Less put together. As if a little of the weight has been lifted off his shoulders.
Illya echoes that sentiment with a hand on the American’s arm. They’re crowded on a bed in the Aircraft Carrier’s infirmary, Solo lying between them, a wire for a heart-rate monitor snaking out from under his shirt.
“Mild arrhythmia,” the medic had said, before prescribing Propranolol. “It should settle.”
Solo looks exhausted, that fucking collar still clinched around his throat. His eyes are heavy lidded, the faintest claw-scratch of sapphire peering out from underneath his dark lashes.
“Waverly’s sorting the rest out right now,” she adds.
“Well, I wish him luck,” says Solo quietly, mouth quirking into a bitter little grin. “Sanders is a stubborn son-of-a-bitch.”
Illya growls, there’s really no other way to say it. He’s got an unbuttoned coat on, ribs bound in white bandages. Because naturally not even he can fall down a hill with a motorcycle on top of him and come out unscathed.
Gaby’s lucky- just chilled and adorned with that nasty scrape on her shoulder. And an exhaustion that feels rooted in the marrow of her bones.
“If Waverly fails,” says Illya, voice firm and rough with a promise she doesn’t know if they will be able to keep, though she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try anyway, “then we will convince him.”
And his tone suggests that Sanders won’t like the specific type of convincing that’s in store.
“Hm,” hums Solo, but he doesn’t pull away from their touch.
And Gaby wonders, for a brief, shining moment, if she hasn’t perhaps found that family she hadn’t knows she was searching for.
+1.
“Ow,” says Solo, unable to help the note of accusation that bleeds into his voice as the small serrated drill nicks his skin.
“Apologies,” says the technician, steadying the American with a warm hand on Solo’s jaw. “But please try not to move. This is rather more delicate than I anticipated.”
Solo huffs a breath through his nose, but inside he is burning with an anxious anticipation. God, this is killing him- just sitting here in the mechanics room.
“I mean, you could take an inch or two off him,” suggests Gaby with a smirk. “Might help his ego.”
“Fuck you,” says Solo pleasantly, before the drill shrieks again and sets his teeth on end. He can feel the vibrations on his skin, tries to hold still.
“I’ve got Illya for that,” says Gaby, and the Russian chokes and does a honest-to-god spit take with his coffee.
Gaby laughs, arms going around her middle as Illya glares at her, and Solo can’t help a fond grin.
Then the technician says, “Almost got it-“
And there’s a click.
A snap.
And then the cold touch of air against his neck as something drops to the floor with a decisive ting!
For a long moment, there’s only silence. Broken only by the rushing in Solo’s ears as he swallows back the years of pain that rush up to greet him. For the first time in almost eleven years, there’s no pressure at his throat when he does.
It’s tentative, when he finally dares to brush his fingers against the bare skin. Almost disbelieving as he maps the faint electrical burn scars with the tips of his fingers.
And he gets about five seconds of it before Gaby is slamming into him, squealing her joy and he can’t help a laugh that sounds a little like a sob.
“It’s over,” she whispers fiercely, and he’s reminded of how she had said the same thing on the carrier that fateful day at sea.
And then Illya’s there, warm arms and smoky clove-scented aftershave, and he presses a kiss to Solo’s temple and murmurs,
“Is over.”
An echo.
A promise.
Solo holds them tight, lets them hold him, and finally, tentatively, begins to dream for the future.