Walking in Death's Footsteps Part 2 - Non Challenge fic

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Part 1 was here

As with the first part, this deals extensively with suicide. And it's three parts, but I'm posting the third immediately.


Walking in Death's Footsteps Part 2

Napoleon stayed in the shower for longer than he normally would, making sure that all the grime from the river was thoroughly washed away. And he took his time getting dressed to be certain that he looked just as immaculate in the spare suit he kept in the office as he normally would. Others might tease him for his attention to his personal appearance, but at times like this, it was armour. There was little he could do about his burgeoning black eye, and the spectacular bruising down his face. Illya had really hit him hard.

He tried not to admit that he was hiding.

His hands gripped the sink tightly as he looked at himself in the mirror, struggling to think past the white noise in his head. Illya had tried to kill himself. Twice. And the second time he'd used Napoleon's gun...he'd taken Napoleon's gun and right in front of him he'd...he'd....

Damnit.

He took a couple of deep breaths and met the eyes of his reflection, making sure none of the inner turmoil showed through. Good. Straightening his tie, he walked out of the shower block, towards medical, taking care to make his steps light. Some days he was untouchable.

No one stopped him which was good. He wasn't sure he was up to offering the lines of careless flirt right now. He'd stayed with Illya through the journey, watching unhappily as Illya made a pretence at docility, refusing to even talk to Napoleon. The medical team had looked askance at his bound hands, evidently silently questioning if it was really necessary, right up until the second Illya's hands were untied in order to set his wrist, and he'd made a lunge straight towards the drugs trolley. It was only because Napoleon had been expecting it that he'd managed to haul him back and, with assistance, get him onto the bed for the staff to restrain.

He'd told them to make sure the straps were tight.

He stopped outside the room, looking through the observation window, standing far enough back that Illya wouldn't be able to see him even if he looked up – which he didn't. Seemingly, he was intent on pulling at the restraints around his wrists in an endless loop of testing at them, trying to pull them loose. There was an expression of calculated concentration on his face. Napoleon shivered. He'd seen that look many times before. He didn't know what was going through Illya's head right now and maybe he was afraid to find out.

“Can't you sedate him,” he asked the nurse – Cindy, he'd taken her out once or twice as he remembered.

She looked at him sympathetically. “Sorry, Napoleon. Dr Meadows is afraid anything we could give him might interact with whatever he's been given. We don't want to risk making this worse.

Worse. Right. How could this be worse?

It wasn't like he'd never considered the possibility that he might lose his partner. In this life of theirs that was always on the table, for both of them. And as much as he worked to ensure it would never happen, he knew that there might come a day when the demands of the mission meant he might need to sacrifice Illya's life for the good of the world, and as much as he hated the idea, he also accepted it with the same equanimity with which he accepted the possibility of his own death.

This though...this was something else. Watching Illya destroy himself – he hadn't prepared for that, and he wasn't so sure he could accept it. Suicide was a senseless waste of a life, and he hated that his friend was helpless in the face of whatever had been implanted in his mind.

“Are you going to go in and sit with him for a while?” Cindy asked expectantly.

He took a step back unthinkingly. Normally he would, as she knew. And Illya looked alone and more fragile than Napoleon had ever seen him. “I've got a meeting with Mr Waverly,” he said hastily. “I should get going. I just wanted to see that he was...” Safe. “Alright.”

With one last long look, he turned and walked away.

*

He was aware of Napoleon hesitating outside the door and then walking away. It hurt, but he wasn't surprised. This was just the last in a long line of ways he had hurt Napoleon and he couldn't blame his friend for finally deciding to wash his hands of him. He screwed his eyes shut as those memories battered at his mind. Everything from little trivial incidents of mockery and aggravation that had seemed funny at the time – stealing Napoleon's wallet in line at the deli, that time during the Girls of Navarone affair when he had chosen not to divulge that the formula was a failure, times when he had left Napoleon to explain the details of a failed assignment to Mr Waverly – to the really significant times when he had let Napoleon down – when he had not been fast enough or sharp enough to save his partner, when Napoleon had needed to risk himself to rescue him, when Napoleon had been hurt because of him.

Napoleon might disagree for all the conventional reasons, but the truth was he would be better off without Illya. Once Illya was dead he would move on. It wasn't like there would be a shortage of sympathetic shoulders for him to cry on. Heh. The death of a partner was probably good for a dozen dates at least. And after all, he could easily find a new partner.

This was better. And Napoleon surely had to realise that sooner or later Illya would get out of here and the next time there would be no one to stop him.

Whatever drug Boothby had given him, it had lifted the clouds from his eyes. He could see clearly now how things really were. How he really was.

Napoleon – the doctors – might still be talking as though they thought he was deluded, but he knew the truth. All these thoughts, all these feeling, all these memories – they were coming from him, not the drug. That had simply been a gateway.

The restraints were too tight for him to pull his hands out. He kept pulling at them anyway. The cuffs were soft, supple leather, thoughtfully padded so as not to cause injury, but still he could feel the constant pressure and friction start to leave a mark, and his newly relocated wrist ground painfully. Unfortunately there was no way he would be able to cause any lasting damage to himself this way, but even just the attempt calmed the clamour in his head some.

He really hated being here. More than usual. The restraints, the blood tests, the looks above his head - no matter how much he tried to tell them that as long as he was conscious and rational they couldn't keep him here against his will, nor treat him without his consent, they just ignored him until eventually he refused to speak to them altogether.

There had been a girl when he'd been young. Valentina Ivanovna. He'd been fifteen, a lonely child of the state. She'd been four years older and she'd believed in freedom, liberty and love, and she'd introduced him to the last in her attic, listening to forbidden music, reading forbidden books, and making love for hours on a pile of old coats. Her voice had always been too loud. She had spoken up once too often for what was right, and they'd called her mad and taken her away, and when she came back a year later, her head had been shaven and her hands shook and when he looked at her he couldn't see anyone looking back. She hadn't recognised him. Sometimes death was kinder.

He hadn't saved her. He'd let her go, hadn't spoken up in her defence, because he'd been fifteen, powerless and weak. If only he'd known then that his life was worthless a hundred times he might have thrown it away and it might have meant something to someone.

He was a coward. He was a killer. He deserved to die, and he was going to. Soon.

*

Mr Waverly fixed him with a long look of consideration as he walked in. He returned it evenly, all untidy emotion locked away. “Good evening, Mr Solo,” he said as he sat down. “How is Mr Kuryakin?”

“Quiet, for the moment, sir,” he answered as though that somehow meant something. “Good evening,” he added, nodding to the other two people in the room – Dr Meadows from medical and Dr Rachel Weir from the lab. “What do we know so far?”

“Very little that you yourself didn't tell us,” Mr Waverly said.

“I've taken samples from Mr Kuryakin's blood for the lab,” Dr Meadows said. “And I've been in touch with the NYPD pathologist to take samples from Alvin Whittaker. If this is a drug, it's not like any of the ones that I've seen THRUSH use before. It doesn't seem to have created a compulsion towards suicide so much as driven him into a state of mind where suicide seems the only possibility. He was attempting to use medical ethics to argue that I should release him so he could end his life. The obvious aside, he appeared to be quite rational and himself.”

“That fits with what I saw,” Napoleon agreed. “He knew who he was and who I was – he even knew he had been drugged – and he did try to avoid hurting me.”

They gazed at the bruises on his face. “It doesn't exactly look like he tried very hard,” Dr Meadows said with a grimace of sympathy.

That hadn't been precisely what he meant. “If I could reliably win in a physical fight against Illya that easily, the betting ring in the ladies locker room wouldn't have so many takers every time we spar,” he said dryly.

“Oh!” Rachel blinked. “We, ah, didn't think you knew about that.”

“Yes, well.” Mr Waverly cleared his throat. “What have you found out so far Dr Weir?”

“It's definitely a drug of some kind, but it seems to be made up of several different compounds and I haven't been able to fully isolate any of them yet,” Rachel said apologetically. “I've got several tests running simultaneously as we speak, but honestly this is going to take time. And I can't be certain whether or not I'm going to be able to produce a cure when I'm finished.”

“But if it's a drug, eventually it will wear off, right?” he asked. “Once it's out of his system, I mean.”

“Napoleon...” Rachel looked at him sympathetically. “We don't know exactly how this drug works, but it must be wreaking havoc on Mr Kuryakin's brain chemistry. I don't know that it's going to wear off.”

“And if this carries on too long I'm afraid that Mr Kuryakin's brain may be permanently damaged,” Meadows added unhappily. “I suspect he must have been given an extremely high dose given how quickly he succumbed compared to Whittaker.”

Maybe. But a dark part of Napoleon's soul remembered past days of moodiness and melancholy and wondered if perhaps Illya had just been more susceptible.

“A most despicable weapon,” Mr Waverly said. “One, Mr Solo, that you need to find and stop before THRUSH can make further use of it. Mr Kuryakin was aware of having been drugged you say, perhaps he is aware of who it was that drugged him.”

Right. His mouth was dry. “Of course, sir.” He hesitated. “I think it would be a good idea to set up a guard on Mr Kuryakin,” he said.

“He's in restraints,” Dr Meadows pointed out.

Napoleon smiled darkly. “If Illya wasn't good at escaping, neither of us would still be alive.”

*

This time he didn't hesitate outside the door, he walked right in and stood by the head of the bed. “How are you feeling?” he asked and he winced inside – his voice was too sympathetic and too distant. Not the way he should speak to his best friend.

Illya looked at him, his eyes dulled and haunted. “Let me go, Napoleon.” He pulled at the restraints meaningfully. “Let me out of here.”

“You know I can't do that, right now,” Napoleon said, his heart breaking.

“I have to die,” Illya said intently. “It is what I want. I deserve - “

“ - that's the drug talking,” he reminded him. “Not you. You don't really think that.”

Except that didn't really matter, did it? Because drug or not, this was what Illya was feeling and the shuttered misery on his face told its own story. “Everyone who cares about me dies.”

“I'm still here,” Napoleon reminded him fiercely. “I'm still alive.”

“For how long?” Illya demanded darkly.

“I'm alive because of you,” he said.

Illya turned his face away. “You should have let me die as I wished.”

“That's never going to happen,” he tried. “Illya, I'm going to find a cure. I know that right now you feel like everything is...I can't even imagine. But this is all just temporary. You're going to get better.”

“And if I do not?” Illya asked, pulling against the restraints like he was trying to sit up. “If I am condemned to feel like this forever, what will you do? Will you keep me chained to this bed for the rest of my life? Will you send me to some sanatorium somewhere to live out the rest of my days in a straitjacket? Will you send me back to the Soviet Union? If you tell them this is drug-induced, my government would doubtless be extremely happy to conduct experiments to see just how it works.”

He didn't let himself think about any of that. “I'm going to find a cure,” he said again.

Illya slumped back. “Why should you want to?” His eyes flickered briefly to Napoleon's face. “I hurt you.”

Napoleon chose to take that as just being about the punch. “Not your fault,” he said, and he nodded towards the brace around Illya's wrist. “Besides, I hurt you worse. I think in the circumstances, we both get a pass on the friendship score.”

He wasn't certain Illya was entirely listening. “If you knew of all the things I have done, all the things I have seen, you would have left me in the river.”

“None of us have clean hands, tovarisch,” he pointed out gently.

“You know, making it look like suicide is favoured assassination technique of KGB,” Illya told him. “I remember there was a man....he was in favour with some among the party, but my superiors did not care for him. I pushed him in front of train and it was ruled a suicide. He knew it was coming. I remember he begged me for his life. He had two young children, you know.”

He listened to the thickening tones of the accent, and thought there was truth there, but not the whole truth. Either Illya was holding back some details or else the influence of the drug was making him gloss over them in his head. Whatever the case, the memory was obviously causing his friend considerable pain. “You did what you had to do,” he said carefully. “What you were told to do.”

“I enjoyed it.” The answer came with cold, clinical detachment.

And paradoxically, that made everything so much simpler. “Then I have no doubt he deserved what happened,” he said with absolute faith. “Because I know you. Even if you don't right now.”

For a second there was a look of uncertainty in Illya's eyes. “I...that does not matter. It was murder.” He shook his head. “Why are you even here, Napoleon?”

He sighed and dropped onto the chair beside the bed. “I need to know who drugged you, Illya. So I can stop this and find a cure for you.”

“There is no cure for me,” Illya said immediately. “None save death.”

He let the weight of the dramatic words wash over his head knowing they would come back to him in the small hours when he was alone. “You do know.”

Illya gazed at him impassively. “And what will you give me for knowledge?”

He understood at once. “No.”

“You are right,” he said, a trace of that crooked smile apparent on his face. “You do need to stop this. So no one else dies like Whittaker.”

“Or you,” Napoleon insisted. “You can't say that you deserve it but Whittaker didn't.”

“It is not same thing,” Illya said dismissively. “Whittaker had a lot to live for.”

And you don't? He was afraid of the answer. Afraid of being told once again that he was not enough for the people he cared about.

“I am not asking you to hand me your gun, Napoleon,” Illya said in answer to his silence.” Just loosen these straps a little and walk away and I will tell you what you need to know.”

“That's quite enough,” Mr Waverly said authoritatively. Napoleon hadn't even heard their boss approach, but there he was, standing in the doorway. “Mr Kuryakin, we do not negotiate with our agents for intelligence, no matter what the circumstances. Now, tell me, who is responsible for this?” Illya hesitated, and Mr Waverly added “That's a direct order, Mr Kuryakin,” in a tone that brooked no arguments. Napoleon hated how cold he sounded.

But Illya's expression shifted into one of exhaustion and defeat. “Dr Philip Boothby,” he said grudgingly. “A pharmacology professor. He approached me, asked if I was investigating the deaths. He distracted me and I let him drug my coffee. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He dug his fingernails viciously into his palms and Napoleon could see the red dots of blood. He grabbed Illya's fingers automatically, holding them still so he couldn't hurt himself.

“Hardly that, Mr Kuryakin,” Mr Waverly said in a far more gentle tone. He nodded at Napoleon and left the room.

Napoleon squeezed Illya's fingers lightly. “I'll be back soon,” he promised. “I told you I told you I'm going to fix this.”

“I cannot be fixed.”

Mr Waverly was waiting for him outside. “It occurred to me that as you said Mr Kuryakin was otherwise rational, he might respond better to orders.”

Rather than kindness and reason. Yes. He had. That didn't mean Napoleon liked it. “I'll go and find this Boothby and put a stop to him. “

“Yes,” Mr Waverly said. “And please, do try and find a cure for Mr Kuryakin.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. He would. The alternative was unthinkable.

*

Boothby's lab was completely cleaned out when Napoleon got there, a fact which seemed to take the other staff working late in the building by surprise. Questioning them led to the revelation that Boothby was very dedicated but kept to himself and no one really knew what he was working on. Sometimes Napoleon thought they should have all quiet, secretive scientists on a watchlist.

At least he was certain now that Illya had been correct about who had done this to him, particularly when he discovered that Boothby had indeed been at the same fundraiser as Whittaker. He'd have had ample opportunity to administer the drug.

He made a thorough search of the lab and the wider department, and then acquired Boothby's home address from the office and headed there, hoping that maybe there was something, some clue as to the formula or the name of Boothby's THRUSH contact. But nothing turned up. It didn't even look as if he'd been home tonight. Maybe when he'd realised Illya was asking questions he'd really panicked. Gone into hiding.

Instinct told him Boothby wasn't deep in the hierarchy. The fact he had still been working in the college suggested that. Perhaps Whittaker had been a sort of audition piece – a proof that the formula worked. In which case THRUSH might well now be welcoming Boothby into the fold. But that didn't give him anymore answers as to where the man was.

He heard again Illya's voice asking him what they should do if this didn't wear off. Was he really prepared to agree that Illya should stay restrained and locked up in some sanatorium for the rest of his life? But then, what was the alternative?

No. There would be something. Some intelligence report, some lead that would tell him where to start looking. And even if there wasn't, eventually the lab would come up with a cure. He had to believe that.

The sun was starting to rise as he started to head back to headquarters, giving the sky a soft, pinkish hue. He hesitated – it was early, maybe unforgivably so, but there was something else he should do. A detour he should make, and he knocked on Mrs Whittaker's door gently, not surprised when she opened the door almost immediately, her clothes and the shadows under her eyes making it clear she hadn't slept. He doubted she'd tried.

“I'm sorry to disturb you so early,” he began.

“No, don't worry about it, Mr Solo,” she said tiredly. “Do know have news? Do you want to come in?”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I can't stay. I just wanted to let you know we've found evidence that your husband was under the influence of a THRUSH drug when he died. I'm sorry.”

“And that made him kill himself?” she asked, her voice trembling. “It wasn't....he didn't want to leave us?”

“I'm sure that was the last thing he wanted,” he assured her gently.

“God.” She closed her eyes, swaying slightly. “I've been so angry with him.”

Yes. He knew that feeling. “He would have had no way to resist,” he said. “He was murdered.”

She clapped her hand to her mouth. “Is it wrong that helps? I...he's still dead.”

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“You said he wouldn't be able to resist...how did you know?” A small frown creased her brow. “Have there been other victims?”

“Some students were experimented on,” he said reluctantly. He didn't tell her about Illya. She didn't need to know.

“They're dead? How awful.” She paused, looking at him. “Thank you, Mr Solo. At least I can grieve for Alvin now without being so angry with him.”

“I'm sorry I couldn't do more.”

As he drove back to headquarters he wondered; was he angry with Illya? Yes, he admitted to himself. He couldn't help but think that Illya should have been able to resist the effects of the drug. He'd known what it was, what it did. Napoleon knew how stubborn and strong-willed his partner was, and even though he knew it was completely unfair, he couldn't help feeling that maybe Illya hadn't fought this off because he hadn't tried hard enough. Because maybe hadn't wanted to try. Completely unfair and the thought made him angry with himself.

That wasn't even about Illya, that was about his father and that was a whole can of worms he didn't even need to think about right now. The situations couldn't – shouldn't – be compared. Illya had called him for help. Illya had thrown his gun away and called him for help because he'd wanted Napoleon to save him. And he was going to, just like any other time his partner needed him. Anger had no place here.


Onto part 3