Genre: Slash
Rating: PG
Words: 3,936
Thanks: to Xparrot, Gnine and Saki for editing and beta-testing.
Three Minutes to Midnight
by Utopian Trunks
Mr. Waverly called it the War Room. In an organization dedicated to world order, only he would have gotten away with it. It was better outfitted than the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall, but the idea was the same: all the information one needed about world powers and their current moves towards mutual annihilation in one convenient location. U.N.C.L.E. New York's version was outfitted with a computer terminal linked to the mainframe, and was satellite-linked to organization outposts worldwide, but it did bear a certain resemblance to those rooms where Churchill's wartime advisors had gathered: the Spartan conference table, the huge globe, the maps, charts and notes lining the walls. It was those last that really did it. The density of information in this setting could not help but look desperate, as if frantic overanalysis and the cataloguing of every detail would stave off disaster. Illya couldn't walk into the room without feeling like he was at war.
He looked up from contemplation of one well-marked map when the door opened. Napoleon paused in the doorway. "I didn't expect you still to be here," Illya said.
"Wish I could say the same." Napoleon shut the door. He twisted his hips to slide between the globe and the conference table and joined Illya by the map. "Is it speaking to you?"
"Not in any language I wish to hear," Illya said. He turned his back to the wall. His eyes lit on the rolled magazine in Napoleon's hand. Half-hidden under his thumb was the minimalist depiction of an analog clock. "They've reset it."
"Hm? Oh." Napoleon unrolled the magazine and passed it to Illya. The hands on the clock indicated three minutes to midnight. Illya handed the magazine back. Napoleon glanced at the cover again, then tossed it onto the conference table. Both their eyes went automatically to the similar clock on the wall opposite them.
"They're one minute more optimistic than U.N.C.L.E," Illya said.
Napoleon grimaced, seemingly in sympathy with the editors. "It went to press before this morning's news."
"Mm," Illya agreed absently. He knew the admiral leading the Soviet fleet engaged in the conflict, personally. He was well-acquainted with the psychological profiles of the key advisors who would be consulted on both sides. "It should be one minute," he said.
"Do you want a drink?" Napoleon held out a small, silver flask.
"Where did you get that?"
"Kittridge passed it to me when he left. Said he was heading home for something better."
"What is it?"
"Scotch, I assume. He turns up his nose at Black Label, so it's at least a single malt. Want some?"
"Yes," Illya said. "No." He held up a hand. "No. I don't want my senses impaired."
Napoleon held the flask out once more with a lift of the eyebrows. When Illya shook his head, he stowed it in his inside jacket pocket. "Are you planning to deflect incoming missiles with your bare hands? You would need all your reflexes sharp for that."
A retort flickered through Illya's mind. He exhaled shortly, instead. "It would be a shame not to perceive any of one's last night clearly."
Napoleon tilted his head to one side and made a brief moue--the expression Illya classified as his 'oh, come now.'
"The world won't end tonight," Napoleon said easily. "It's well past close of business in Moscow."
Illya snorted. "When you put it that way."
Napoleon pulled Illya's jacket from the back of the chair where it hung and tossed it to him. Illya looked at him questioningly. "Come on," said Napoleon, nodding towards the door.
Illya shouldered on the jacket and followed Napoleon out of the building. They met no one in the halls. Mr. Waverly had dismissed all non-essential night shift personnel, to remain himself with only a skeleton staff till morning. That, perhaps, more than anything, seemed to confirm that it would be tonight.
"It's not my imagination, is it?" Napoleon said, as he turned the car-pool Lincoln onto 48th Street. "The traffic's lighter than it should be."
Illya sat in the passenger seat, one knee pulled up against the glove compartment. He surveyed the streets and sidewalks, which were moving past too quickly for New York City at seven in the evening. "It's not your imagination," he said. The pedestrians, too, were scarcer than normal. The sidewalks they had left open were orange in the light of the sun nestled between skyscrapers to the west.
"I wonder if that's a great show of optimism or pessimism," Napoleon mused. Illya turned to look at him sideways. Napoleon was squinting slightly as they drove towards the sun, but otherwise, his face was relaxed. Illya followed the contours of his partner's face, limned in amber light. He always felt freer to look when Napoleon's attention was, as now, occupied, but he felt an added license, now. Last chance to see.
"I'd be out," Napoleon said, startling him. He didn't look away from the road, though, so instead of turning away, Illya watched him speak. "If I thought this was the big one, I mean," Napoleon continued. "I wouldn't want to be at home."
"No?"
"Mm-mm," Napoleon said, taking a turn south so it was Illya's turn to squint. "What's the point? I finished the book I was reading yesterday."
"Oh? How was it?"
"Don't believe what you read on the jacket."
"Mm."
Napoleon turned to look at him, and Illya noted the absence of an impulse to avert his gaze. "Where to, Illya?"
"Where to?"
"Where do you want to go?"
Illya repressed a sigh. This was good. This was fine. "You can drop me off anywhere."
"I'm not dropping you off," said Napoleon. "I'm asking you where you want to go."
"You're coming, too?"
"I am driving."
"Not terribly well--watch the divider, please."
Napoleon glanced back through the windscreen and realigned the car. He cleared his throat. "Well?"
Illya looked out his window, at the slivers of the sun visible as it burrowed its way down amongst hotels and office buildings. His gaze tracked up, but it was gleaming mirror glass and concrete until the roof of the car. "Somewhere I can see the sky," he said.
Napoleon considered for a moment. "I know just the place."
The sun was flirting with the horizon when Napoleon killed the engine. He and Illya opened their doors and stepped out of the car in unison. They had pulled off a steep, winding road onto a short, gravel driveway that hugged the contour of a hill. Illya hadn't noticed the altitude climbing as they drove until near the end of their journey, but once through the clutch of evergreen and maple trees screening this offshoot from the main road, they stood overlooking the entire West Side. It seemed incredible they could have gotten so far above the sprawling maze of streets so quickly. Then again, he'd been trying to ignore the passage of the minutes as they drove, concentrating less on their route than on the silent company of his partner.
Napoleon's door slammed. "One sky, as ordered."
Illya looked up from the buildings, just beginning to glow in the lengthening shadows, to the vast expanse of cloud-strewn blue. He tilted his head till it would go no further--still sky. It felt like years since he had seen it. "Where are we?"
Napoleon came up beside him and opened his arms. "Why, Lover's Lane, of course."
Below the gravel drive, thick grass stirred in a mild breeze. Even between the groves of trees dotted down the hillside, offering further seclusion and privacy, there was no sign of life. "I note a distinct lack of lovers."
"Astute as always," said Napoleon. "You may be the only one who wants to see the sky, tonight."
"You're here."
"That I am." Napoleon put his hands in his pockets and stepped off the gravel onto the grass below. Illya followed him down and around a crest of the hill, till another line of trees blocked the car and the drive from view behind them. Napoleon sat and patted the grass beside him. Illya sat a little further than he had indicated.
The sun dyed the clouds at the horizon purple and the sky above that green. The sun itself looked small; a very contained ball of fire, comfortingly distant from that which would follow.
The Soviet government had issued an ultimatum. The Americans had responded in kind. Unless one fleet left the gulf by morning, they would be at war. Each fleet was accompanied by at least one nuclear submarine. Attack by either of them would begin the chain reaction, fire blooming like a brilliant flower over the gulf, expanding till the world was carpeted in flame. It all rested there, in the few knots between the prows of the flagships floating in stalemate, in the nervous hands of the submarine crews, in the tempers of the admirals and the wisdom of their superiors. One mistake--and it was bound to be made by morning.
"You don't want to die in bed, do you?" Napoleon asked.
"No," Illya said. He watched purple spread across the horizon, a layer of pink drawn over it. "I can only think of one thing more terrifying."
"What's that?"
"To die unconscious."
Napoleon whistled. "With all the agents who say they dream of dying peacefully in their beds."
Illya grimaced and shook his head. "I want to have my eyes open. Dying without realizing it's happening... without some notion that the end has come, some ability to prepare..."
"So we watch the sky," said Napoleon. "I suppose we should go around to the other side of the hill, if you really want a good view."
Illya considered. "The sunset is good, for now."
"Then we'll go watch for the missiles."
"Yes."
"Think you'll catch any?"
"I'll give it a shot, if they come close enough."
"I should've brought my glove."
Illya smiled.
The sun flattened itself against the horizon, then burst, splashing the sky with brilliant colour. They watched as the colours spread and faded. The city lights brightened to take the place of the sun.
Napoleon stood and brushed himself off. He held out a hand to Illya. Illya regarded it for a moment before grabbing hold about Napoleon's forearm; Napoleon's fingers wrapped around his and pulled him upright. When Napoleon turned, Illya brushed the fingers of his other hand over the warmth left by his partner's palm.
The eastern sky was already a darker blue, fading where it approached the city skyline. Illya stood scanning the open sky, the streamers of light cloud. From which quadrant of the sky would they come? How close would they be before they were visible? How many minutes would be left, once he'd sighted them? He started and looked down at a tug at his trouser leg. Napoleon looked up at him expectantly. He was leaning against the steep rise of the hill behind him, legs stretched out, ankles crossed. Illya sat down beside him--only a handsbreadth apart, this time. He bent his knees in front of him and rested his hands atop them.
"You could've gone home," Napoleon said gently--not a reproach or even a suggestion; merely an observation.
Illya shrugged. "I wasn't reading anything particularly good, either. I could guess the ending."
"No, I mean all the way home."
"Ah," said Illya. He shook his head. "There's nothing for me there that would warrant spending the night on an aeroplane."
"Ah," Napoleon echoed. He plucked a blade of grass and twirled it absently between his fingers, eyes on the first few stars of the evening. "It seems like hardly a month ago we were standing in the War Room, looking at Russia on the globe, and you were being just as much of a pessimist."
Illya only half-turned to raise an eyebrow at him. "That was two years ago."
"We're still here."
"Because it was THRUSH launching the attacks, not the United States."
Napoleon hummed to concede the point.
"That time," said Illya, "I felt almost as if you went off to solve the problem as a personal favour to me."
"Oh, I did," Napoleon said.
Illya grinned briefly. "I don't suppose you could do the same, now."
Napoleon grimaced and sucked air through his teeth. "That's the trouble when governments openly accept credit for their actions."
"Isn't it, though." Illya closed his eyes and massaged the hollows above them with his fingers. "All the time we've spent fighting THRUSH, and it will be legitimate governments that bring about the end of the world. The representatives of the people." Napoleon made a noncommittal sound. Illya released his breath in a hiss. "I understand the politics. I've studied the historical background from every side that's committed an opinion to paper. I know the leaders involved, and as far as the textbooks go, I understand their psychology. I understand every piece, and yet--"
"The whole still doesn't make any sense," Napoleon finished. "I know. Hey, I think we can see Kittridge's house from here. I wonder what he's drinking."
Illya ran a thumb up the centre of his forehead and opened his eyes to follow Napoleon's line of sight. With his partner's uncanny sense of direction, he might actually be looking at the building. "It must be something good if he gave you his flask."
"I think he has a secret compartment behind a picture frame somewhere in his house. It's got a specialized lock which you need three steel rods, hidden in separate locations, and a code that changes weekly to open. Inside is a wax-sealed cut glass decanter of six-hundred year-old Scotch distilled in a remote island castle which has now sunk into the North Sea."
Illya snorted, then chuckled. He stopped, then caught Napoleon's eye and laughed till he was breathless and wiping tears from his eyes. The deep, rolling sound of Napoleon's laughter bore him along. "That bastard," Illya gasped. "I'd drink some of that."
"We should break in and steal it," Napoleon said, chuckling. "Serve him right for hoarding."
"Yes, let's go." Illya rocked onto the balls of his feet.
"Ah--" Napoleon's hand closed around Illya's upper arm. Illya stopped and looked back at him. "I forgot. He has dogs. Two. Dobermans."
Illya sat down hard enough that he bounced slightly against the springy turf. "Forget it, then," he said. "I suppose he can keep his whisky."
"Better let him. You didn't want to drink, anyway."
Illya was suddenly, keenly aware of the hand still half-circling his biceps. A shiver passed through him. "That's right," he said. "I don't." He felt each fingertip slide over his sleeve as Napoleon withdrew his hand.
"Unless you changed your mind, because I still have the flask."
"No." Illya's head still felt oddly light from laughter. "The agents who want to die in their beds," he said. "Are you one of them?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"You don't mean asleep, though, do you?"
Napoleon grinned and ducked his head, looking up at Illya through his lashes. "You know me too well to think so. Hey, if you have to go, right?" Night had fallen, but the moon was full and bright overhead, and New York City shone in reflection from below. In their light, Illya could still see his partner clearly, though his colours were muted.
Illya chuckled and shook his head. His chest tightened. He was glad there would be nothing left of him to miss this. But he would regret up until the last moment that it was ending. "Why are you here, Napoleon?" he asked.
"I'm sitting with you."
"Yes, but why are you not sitting with someone else? Someone comelier?"
"I think you're very comely, for someone who owns only three sets of clothes, each in triplicate."
Illya's brow furrowed. "Do you not have something you would rather do, on this--"
"On this, my last night on earth."
Illya frowned and looked back at the horizon. "It sounds so melodramatic."
"World politics tend toward that failing."
"Well? Don't you?"
"For one thing," Napoleon said, "tonight is not the night."
"Moscow will be opening again, in a few hours."
"Even so, my friend. Not tonight. Not this time."
"Your baseless optimism never ceases to astound me."
"We weathered the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was at least a two-minute situation, and we're all still here. We'll still be here tomorrow, and next week. I have that much faith in humanity."
"Even the Russians?"
"Especially the Russians. I know you, don't I?" Illya turned to find Napoleon smiling at him. "You talk a good game and pull a spectacular bluff, but you'd never blow the world to smithereens. I would leave the button in your hands with absolute confidence."
"I am not a politician."
"I wouldn't like to be your partner, if you were."
Illya sighed again and closed his eyes. He wished he could share Napoleon's outlook. In any other situation, Illya would simply decide the outcome. He would decide to be alive the next morning and no matter what the obstacles, he would fight through them, depend on Napoleon to make up the difference wherever he fell short. When he could take the threat in hand, he was that confident. When the decision lay so far out of his grasp, he had no idea what to do. Sitting idle in the face of disaster was not his way, and yet, what option had he?
He looked back at his partner. "And for the other?" he asked.
"Other what?"
"You said, 'for one thing,' tonight was not the night."
"Oh," said Napoleon. "Well, and for the other, no."
Illya frowned. "No, what?"
"No, I don't have anything I would rather be doing."
Illya laughed. "That does tell me you're confident you'll be around tomorrow."
Napoleon gave him a joking pout. "You wound me, Illya."
Illya turned so he was facing Napoleon fully over his knees. Any other night, he would have kept his eyes averted for the majority of such a conversation, but he wanted to watch his partner while he had that option. "There is no beautiful girl with whom you could be sharing your final hours? There is nothing you have left undone which you would now hurry to finish? If you truly thought this was the end, now, be honest."
"I've had a good life," Napoleon said. "I do my best to live it to the fullest. No. Truthfully. I have no regrets. Well..." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Maybe one."
"What's that?" Illya asked.
"That suit I soaked in ink on the Petra Affair," Napoleon sighed. "It really fit me beautifully. I don't know where I'll find another like it."
Illya huffed out a breath.
"I mean it, you know," Napoleon said. "I'd be sorry to see it end, but there's not much I would have done differently. Details, here and there. Nothing big." He leaned forward and propped his chin on his hands to meet Illya's eyes. "What about you? What are you regretting?"
"A thousand things," Illya said, and the next words rolled straight off his tongue without any conscious decision on his part, "but this resolves what would have been the worst of them."
"What?" Napoleon asked. "Sitting here watching the skyline?"
Illya's pulse quickened. They were not watching the skyline. "With you," he said. "When I walked into the War Room this evening, I could only think what a waste it would be to spend my last night on earth anywhere but in your company. I was sure I wouldn't be able to."
Napoleon's eyebrows angled upwards just slightly. "You would regret the lack of my company."
Illya was glad he had chosen not to drink. He could pick out the line of Napoleon's face against the sky behind him with diamond precision, every smile line around his eyes. The cool air in his lungs made this moment seem more than real, sharper and more precise than any he had experienced before. So he could not doubt his own sudden candour. "I always do," he said.
There was no time left for repercussions, and so no need to fear them, but as Napoleon continued to watch him with the same steady gaze, Illya realized he had always known his partner would accept this confidence with this calm, would handle it gently. There had never truly been reason not to share it.
"Thank you," Napoleon said. Illya lifted his eyebrows. "For giving me your last hours."
Illya gave a huffed laugh to keep his face in check. There was too little time left for the longing that unfurled in his chest. Too little time to spend it wishing for more than a magnanimous universe had just seen fit to grant him. He put one hand to the ground, pressing his fingertips into the soft soil.
Napoleon's eyes flicked down to that hand. Illya blinked when Napoleon's fingertips touched his own. Slowly, Napoleon's hand slid over his. Illya looked up to meet his eyes. "There, now, you see?" Napoleon smiled in gentle reproach. "Now I regret something. You should have told me earlier."
"I know," Illya said.
"I would have been more careful."
"I know."
Napoleon's gaze flicked down, then up again. His fingers curled under Illya's hand. "Why didn't you?"
Illya's face creased in confusion. "I don't know," he said slowly. "It was never so clear before. The Alps, the Sahara, Siberia--the air has never been so damned clear."
Napoleon leaned his shoulder back against the hillside, hand still loosely clasping Illya's. "What can you do," he said. "There's just something about certain New York nights."
Illya closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He wanted to say something. About the air. About silence. About how this was the first sky he'd looked on that had ever made him feel small and insignificant. About how much he'd liked that suit, himself. The light brush of fingers through his bangs made him open his eyes. Napoleon pushed a lock of hair back towards Illya's ear. When it fell across his forehead again, he repeated the gesture. Illya tried not to breathe.
"Sit with me," Napoleon said. He lifted his hand from over Illya's and extended that arm. Illya rose onto one knee and twisted round to sit within its circle. "Closer," Napoleon said. Illya shifted till Napoleon's side made a warm line against his own. Napoleon draped his arm around Illya's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," said Illya, "that you're not in bed."
"This will do."
"Don't let me keep you from that Scotch, if you want it."
"No, I think you had the right idea, there." Napoleon cupped a hand around Illya's head and pulled it against his shoulder. Illya relaxed against him, savoured his partner's warmth as the summer night grew cooler and the sky overhead clearer still. It was jet black where the moon hung, surrounded by those stars bright enough to outshine the city.
"What would you do, if you were in bed... with company?"
"Hold her," said Napoleon. "Lie. Say that everything would be all right."
Floating above a fifty-mile expanse of dawn-lit salt water, half a world away, the hands of mortal men with mortal fears and failings were poised above the levers that could shift the earth. In the basement beneath Del Floria's, U.N.C.L.E.'s War Room stood dark and empty but for a thousand maps, files and notes which could do nothing to sway those hands. Not forty miles east, on a quiet hillside, Illya put his hand over Napoleon's heart and found it racing.
End
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