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Contrary to what most of those who know him or know of him likely think, Napoleon does not lie to himself. He knows that the first rule of being a world-class liar is to know yourself well enough that you don’t end up believing your own lies. That’s how the best get caught, in the end. (Like believing the lie that you are capable of loving a woman. That’s the kind of lie that gets a man a fifteen-year prison sentence.)
When Napoleon – not yet Napoleon, not yet Solo – was twelve, he realized that the thoughts of kissing his best friends were far more appealing than the thoughts of kissing any of the girls at school or church. He suspected that many of the boys his age who had such thoughts would be sent into a lifetime of self-loathing by the mere notion, a cancerous kind of self-hatred that would eat them until there was nothing left. Napoleon, on the other hand, was – is – made from different stuff. Not better, maybe, but definitely different. He simply didn’t see the point in believing that a god he was already on bad terms with was more real than his feelings for other boys. He was smart, didn’t shout it from the rooftops or tell his parents, but he saw no point in pretending to himself that he was anything other than what was obvious.
It gave him a bit of superiority complex, especially as he and the boys around him grew, and some of those boys realized about themselves the same things Napoleon had already known about himself. It made him smug, especially around the boys who would kiss him and then punch him in the jaw. He was simply better than them for not hating the obvious truth.
Of course, knowing this about himself, and being comfortable with that truth, made it easier to build the persona of a normal boy, because he wasn’t fighting with himself to believe in it. He played sports and worked out and became a notorious flirt with the girls, pushing away the inherent wrongness of their touch. It became simpler to never date one girl for too long, less she notice his lack of… interest, a habit he has kept up throughout the years.
The need to hide himself, of course, made him grow easy, and then comfortable, with lies. Most of his lies were much smaller than the lie of his heterosexuality, for sure, but they built into bigger and then bigger lies, until at the age of sixteen he enlisted in the Army under a made-up name and a falsified birthday.
All of this is to say, when Napoleon looks at his irascible Russian partner one day and sees more than just the good looks he had admired even while being chased through the streets of East Berlin, sees the care with which he treats Gaby and his chess set and his father’s watch – the only three things in the world Illya cares for – and aches for it, he doesn’t shy away from this new truth, no matter how painful it is. It feels a bit like someone has taken hold of his beating heart and crumpled it like paper, feels like he is choking on a baseball wedged down his throat, but at the same time it feels like all the pleasure centers in his brain have truly come alive for the first time in his life and like he is finally home after well over a decade of being without one.
Ah, he thinks to himself, so that’s what being in love feels like.
This new truth is easier to process after a generously-poured glass of whiskey, and in the privacy of his own mind, Napoleon turns it over, looking at it from all angles. He already knows he cares for his newest partners in a way that’s unsafe for anyone in the espionage game, where nothing is permanent and they could be separated at any time, whether by distance or death or the organizations that hold their leashes. UNCLE could fold tomorrow, and he would lose Gaby and Illya just as he is realizing how much he cares for the other man. Napoleon takes a moment to imagine it, builds the idea in his head, until it hurts so much he cannot breathe, until the grief begins to overwhelm him (dragging him under the current of memory until he is fourteen and sobbing at his mother’s headstone, begging her to come back).
The sound of a car alarm going off outside his third-floor hotel room shocks him back to himself, and he takes a moment to put himself back together, to lock up those memories in the back of his mind where they belong. He returns to the thought of Illya, shying away from the thorn of loss. He knows he will lose this someday, but that doesn’t mean he needs to think about it. Instead he imagines what it would be like. After all, he doesn’t need to imagine what Illya would be like in love; Napoleon sees it every day, in every interaction between Illya and Gaby. That hurts too, another thorn that Napoleon must avoid. Illya melts, just a little, around Gaby. He doesn’t hold himself quite so rigidly around her. Gaby makes him smile, even laugh, over comments that would barely elicit an eye-roll were Napoleon to make them instead.
And of course, there are the things Napoleon has never witnessed between Illya and Gaby but can still so easily imagine. Illya’s care when he kisses, for one. In reality he might be kissing Gaby, but in the privacy of Napoleon’s own mind, he inserts himself in her place. He can almost feel Illya’s strong hand cupped around his jaw, because he doesn’t have to imagine it; Illya had touched him like that once, in order to turn Napoleon’s face so Illya could inspect a gash above his eyebrow that was pouring blood down into his eye. Also familiar is the feeling of Illya’s hands on his body, checking for wounds and broken ribs. Illya’s body is equally familiar, when the threat of injury overrides the societal rules that dictate how and when men may touch each other.
Napoleon sips his whiskey and imagines being in bed with the Red Peril. Not sexually, though. While Napoleon has entertained all kinds of late-night thoughts about Illya’s prowess in bed, back when he thought he was merely attracted to his partner’s body, those thoughts are for another time. Instead he imagines things he has never had – and will never have – with another man, especially not Illya: falling asleep next to him and waking up to find he’s still there. Curling up together on lazy weekends with sunlight spilling in from open curtains. The kind of comfort and familiarity that comes with a years-long relationship. This, too, feels like grief. Napoleon wonders, for just a moment, how he will ever look at Illya again without feeling a knot of grief in his throat over things that will never be.
Maybe it will fade, eventually, like a flower that’s never watered. Maybe, ten years down the line (as if they’ll ever live that long), when Illya and Gaby are married, Napoleon will tell him, I used to be in love with you. Isn’t that crazy? and they will laugh about it – the absurdity of Napoleon Solo, notorious rake, falling in love.
The question that needles at Napoleon isn’t how? or why? but when? When had his appreciation for Illya’s jawline and his body in a good suit snowballed into this? When had Napoleon lost control of himself so badly he fell in love? To his chagrin, he can’t pinpoint a single moment. It’s like every second of their relationship has been building to this. But finally, after unwinding the timeline of the last six months like unraveling a ball of yarn, he discovers when the first seeds were planted. A concrete room. A scrapbook. A swinging light. Electricity flaying him open. Illya’s voice: You doing okay, Cowboy?
This revelation, Napoleon decides, merits more whiskey.
That night, he lies in bed and imagines Illya lying next to him. It’s a comforting thought, even though Napoleon knows for a fact that Illya is two floors up, sharing a bed with Gaby. If Napoleon can’t have Illya (he can’t, not ever, and the knowledge hangs around his neck like an albatross), he can at least have his imagination.
When he falls asleep, it’s to the faint, phantom sensation of Illya’s lips on his temple.