Chapter Text
Greenwich Village, New York
6th November, 1953
The trouble with being in a confined space surrounded only by writers and writer wannabes, all of them drunk, is that they're all obsessed with sharing their story or making their voice heard or drinking so much that I make Kerouac sound unintelligible. It's why Napoleon prefers artists. They'll get drunk with you and stare at their own art in silence for two hours in silence and thank you for it.
He's crammed into a corner booth with a group of bohemians watching in silence as they try to crack open a packet of Benzedrine, feeling the scotch in his glass warm up to the room's temperature and listening to the preaching of a few Catholic Workers from a far off corner. It's a familiar sound, and the Irish lilt that weaves through the chatter is welcome. Napoleon shifts, sweeps his eyes over the patrons of the White Horse Tavern and wonders how to escape the booth short of jumping on the table and kicking a few drunks. As he scans, he spots a blond at the bar. She's looking directly at him, which is hardly a surprise, and she crooks a finger at him when he grins.
Suddenly inspired, Napoleon stands, abandoning his scotch. "Come on, friend, give me that," he says, taking the Benzedrine from the pliant hands of the man sitting next to him.
The man, dark haired with a square face, slurs something in a voice that rings with a New England accent. Napoleon opens the packet in a moment and hands it back with a fleeting smile.
"Would you mind terribly if I slipped out of here?" He asks and the man nods his assent as he and friends shuffle so that Napoleon can leave easily.
When he checks, the blond is still looking at him. He grins again and adjusts his collar as he sidles through the crowd to arrive at her side.
"Buy you a drink?"
She smiles and drains her glass, maintaining eye contact throughout. Napoleon's mouth momentarily goes dry. "Scotch. Neat."
Napoleon swallows and looks at the bartender. "You heard the lady. Two scotches."
"What's your name, stranger?" She asks, and Napoleon's sharp ears pick up on the cadence of another New York native.
He grins, holding out his hand. "Merritt Proudfoot. And yourself?"
She takes his hand, her grip his delicate, the tips of her fingers brushing against the inside of his wrist. "That's quite a mouthful," she says with a smirk. "Call me Milly LeBlanc. You looked lonely in that corner. That crowd not doing it for you?"
Their drinks arrive and Milly releases his hand to take her glass.
"Not at all," Napoleon admits. "Your company seemed so much more welcoming."
Milly winks. "We'll see."
Dizzying hours later, they stumble through the door to Milly's apartment, his arm wound around her waist, her lipstick smeared on his neck and shirt collar.
"You want another drink?" Milly asks, still breathless from laughing. "I've got wine," she singsongs.
"Absolutely." Napoleon scans the apartment. He gathers that it's small, made cosy with a couch and homely embroidered cushions as a centrepiece to the living room, made Milly's by the film posters hung on the wall. "'A Streetcar Named Desire', huh?" He comments as he settles on the couch. "Heavy stuff."
"You seen it?" Milly asks as she re-enters. At some point she's kicked off her shoes, and she pushes her feet against his thigh when she curls up next to him.
Napoleon thinks vaguely back to ducking into a cinema in Chicago to avoid the local police just as Brando-as-Stanley pulls off his shirt and grins. "Seen enough." He leans forward to clink their glasses together and has a sip. "This is good? French?"
Milly nods, smiling. "I'm impressed you can tell. Guys who hang around the White Horse have usually ruined their palate with whiskey."
"Milly." Napoleon pauses, blinks. His vision blurs for a second and he shakes his head. "I think I've had enough," he says with a chuckle. "As you can see, I am not that kind of guy." He attempts what he hopes is a charming grin.
The floor sways underneath him as Napoleon looks at Milly again, but he sees enough to watch her stand up and push him back onto the couch. "No," she says. "You're dumber."
A pang of confusion twists his stomach as Napoleon frowns in offence. "What?"
Instead of answering him, Milly walks toward a door that Napoleon had assumed was the bedroom. "You can come out now," she calls, her voice suddenly distorted and harsh, echoing off the inside of Napoleon's skull.
A man emerges, the air around him shaking with each step and Napoleon shrinks back until the man's eyes land on him and they both stop moving, Napoleon paralysed and his heart pounding.
"Holy shit." The man's voice sends shock waves through Napoleon's body, filling the entire room. "Delilah, that's Napoleon fucking Solo."
His chest feels unbearably tight, and as he looks around the room for an escape he realises that the small room is growing smaller. The walls slide inward and the ceilings drops suddenly. His vision, full of flashes and crimson blood and black powder, sears white until he is slammed into darkness.
CIA Blacksite, New York
7th November, 1953
For Napoleon Solo, waking up to a thumping headache after a night out is nothing new. Waking up handcuffed to a steel chair in a room he doesn't recognise, however, is a novelty. It's dark in the corners of the room, grey-walled, with a single strip light in the centre of the ceiling above Napoleon and a metal table in front of him.
Moments later, a door behind him clicks open and sharp footsteps follow. A man enters his field of vision. His skin is pale and gaunt, a line worn between his eyebrows. He removes his hat and sets it on the table, revealing mousy brown hair, already thinning and greying although he can only be in his early forties. His stride is confident, his eyes shrewd and narrowed at Napoleon, who grins at him despite his burning eyes and the woolly feeling of his mouth.
"Well, you're not who I came with."
The man's mouth doesn't so much as twitch. He drops a file on the table, and even upside down Napoleon can make out the eagle and 'C.I.A' emblazoned on the cover. His stomach drops through the floor, the blood turns icy in his veins, but he keeps grinning.
"If this is about the beer I stole ten years ago, I can pay for it."
The man continues to study him in silence, but when Napoleon's grin shows no sign of fading, he flips open the file and starts talking. "Napoleon Solo, I am Adrian Sanders. As you've probably guessed, I'm with the CIA and you are under arrest." He pulls out a wad of papers as he lets the fact sink in. "We'll be charging you with robbery, handling stolen goods, and serial thefts of art and antiquities." Sanders stares him down, the lines around his eyes hard and unyielding. "I hope the last two years have been worth it, because we're currently looking at a fifteen year long sentence for you."
Sixteen years trapped in Hell’s Kitchen. Seven years in the army. And technically six years of theft and mixing with English high society. So much for the CIA's unparalleled intelligence. Overall, it didn't seem to be a bad run for the son of an Irish janitor and a Basque immigrant.
Napoleon looks at Sanders. He notes how he's still being watched, how Sanders flicked to a new piece of paper, how the index finger of Sanders' left hand twitched just slightly against it.
"Are you sure that's the only possible outcome?" Napoleon asks, lifting an eyebrow.
Sanders' eyes flick between Napoleon and the file. "As it happens, Solo, there's one other option. Remember how fortunate you are to receive this proposal. There is a task-force comprised of four different countries that would very much like to get its hands on you. The CIA is willing to offer you a way out."
He sits, and he waits, certain there will be a catch.
"The CIA will suspend your sentence if you come and work for us for fifteen years."
Part of him says, that's just as bad . Part of him says, that might be worse, who knows what these spooks are up to? But another part of him says, I duped these guys for two years. Escaping them isn't going to be a problem.
"Fine," Napoleon says, and holds up his cuffed hands. "Mind taking these off me? I'll sign now."
Sanders sets the majority of the papers from the file in front of him, as though he expected no other result. "Read this first, Solo. It's your contract."
He leaves without any of the grandiosity than he entered with. His footsteps are suddenly silent. The door is locked behind him and Napoleon sighs.
"I think someone drugged me last night," he says to no one in particular as he opens the contract. "And now I'm going to work for them."
In the corridor, Adrian points to an agent outside the door. "We've got Solo. Tell White and have him meet me in my office, then tell the Director."
The agent nods and hurries away.
"You don't get to give me orders, Sanders," George White growls as he stalks into Sanders' office, slamming the door behind him. "Just who the hell do you think you are? And now you're going to take all the credit for the Napoleon Solo case, too?"
Adrian raises his eyebrows. "Have a seat, Colonel."
"We should have dosed him before you talked to him," George continued, pacing back and forth in the office. "We would have an exponential amount of blackmail available. You should have listened to me." He jabs a finger at Adrian. "What do you know about any of this?"
"More than enough, Colonel." Adrian pushes a file across his desk. "Take a look at that. I think you'll appreciate the ideas we have for Mr Solo. You already know the work of Dr Cameron and Dr Sargent, I assume."
George glares at him, but snatches up the file and scans through it, tension ebbing from him as he does.
"Very interesting," he says, continuing to flip through the papers. "Deep sleep treatment for Solo. Very interesting indeed.”
Adrian leans back in his chair, satisfied. "Of course, the way we'd be using this influence is so far untested, but Director Dulles and Dr Gottlieb agree with me that the only asset we stand to lose is similarly untested. Whether this fails or succeeds, we stand to only to win."
George nods, his thin lips stretching into a sneer. "I'll have my boys whip something up."
Napoleon misses his apartment. His room in the CIA's base may as well as have been a prison cell with its claustrophobic size and oppressive atmosphere. The agent who had escorted him there assured him he could return to his apartment once the paperwork had gone through, but Napoleon knows a lie when he hears one (the Milly-Delilah incident was an anomaly). He's sitting on the edge of a bed that would have been equally fitting in a cave when the door opens. He also misses being able to lock doors from the inside.
A man steps inside. He's smooth-faced, hair combed over to the side, wearing an ill-fitting but expensive suit, and walking with a limp. Napoleon immediately doesn't trust him; validates his suspicion when he catches the cutting chemical smell the man carries with him; and is assured of it when the man opens his briefcase to remove a syringe and attach a hypodermic needle.
"Mr Solo," he says, observing him over the frames of his glasses. "I am Dr Gottlieb. With your permission, I'm here to vaccinate you." He pushes the needle into a vial of clear liquid and draws it into the syringe slowly. "Your work with the CIA will take you to much more removed locations than you previous work. Trust me when I say this is necessary."
Stutterer, Napoleon guesses from the hesitation and small, nervous breath Gottlieb takes before each new sentence.
"I'm not sure I can do that, Doctor," Napoleon says with a tight smile. "And you can't act without my consent."
Gottlieb shrugs. "Very well." But he makes no move to replace the syringe, instead he turns his head away from Napoleon. "Guards!"
Napoleon jumps to his feet, facing the door and Gottlieb. There are no available weapons in the room; he's already checked. There's only the needle in Gottlieb's hand. Throwing caution to the wind, Napoleon lunges forward, missing the needle but slamming a fist into Gottlieb's chin. He's knocked backwards, but before Napoleon cam follow through the door crashes open and two burly men are blocking him. One has a pistol trained on him, the other brandishes a baton. Napoleon's back hits a wall. I may have misjudged this one .
"Restrain- ah." Gottlieb's breaths are coming quick and shallow now, and a vein in his forehead has started throbbing.
Napoleon has to take what small victories he can.
"Restrain- Restrain- Restrain him ," Gottlieb says, still clutching the syringe.
The men holster their weapons and advance on Napoleon, and as much as he struggles and swears and tries to appeal to the camaraderie of having served in the war, one locks him in a chokehold and the other grabs his arms.
Napoleon kicks out when Gottlieb approaches again, but receives a punch to the gut instead and doubles over, winded.
"Roll up his sleeve. Left arm."
One brute tugs at the cuff so roughly that the button is torn off, and pulls the sleeve up so that Napoleon hears a rip.
"That's a Sulka, you cu-"
He's punched again, and the insult is cut off into a wheeze. Gottlieb walks forward, his limp rendering each step irregular, and appears in Napoleon's periphery. Cold hands grip Napoleon's forearm, and he feels the needle jammed into his arm.
" Fuck ."
For almost half a minute, nothing happens. Elation lifts Napoleon's heart and he wonders how he can still escape, until he feels a buzzing flood up his arm and the room gives way to black.
CIA Blacksite, New York
11th November, 1953
The report from Gottlieb is, put simply, inspiring. Reading it, Adrian feels sure their scheme will work. Gottlieb has detailed the procedure used for Solo's treatment so far and the plans for the second week, and Adrian can hardly believe what the man's capable of.
They began by playing a recording of a cigarette being tapped rhythmically against its case for hours at a time. After three days, they interspersed it with a recording of Adrian stating his name and position above Solo as his handler. The aim is to create a process that will remind Solo of his programming, as it were, to make him compliant with whatever the CIA asks of him via Adrian.
CIA Blacksite, New York
18th November, 1953
This week's report from Gottlieb is even more enthused than the last. He's been playing slightly more complex recordings to the unconscious agent, all from Adrian, regarding loyalty to the CIA above all else. Gottlieb had also suggested just a hint of dehumanisation. Halfway through the week, he had added a recording of how Solo would be addressed- never by his first name. Adrian thought it was sheer genius.
Dulles had advised against programming Solo to be loyal to so broad a concept as the West, or even America. Adrian agreed. Solo was their agent and their experiment, linking him to anything else was too much of a risk.
CIA Blacksite, New York
24th November, 1953
If all went according to plan, Solo would wake up tomorrow. Gottlieb's writing had advanced from enthusiastic to almost frenzied. He theorised that the outcome of the experiment would be Solo's willingness to follow CIA orders whilst maintaining the personality and skills that had made him such an attractive asset in the first place- none of the 'robot agents' that Gottlieb was investigating elsewhere. If that went right, Solo could become their most prolific agent.
CIA Blacksite, New York
26th November, 1953
Apparently they'd sedated him. Apparently there had been complications due to the drugs already in his system. Apparently they'd had to keep him sedated for three weeks in order to keep him alive. Apparently that warranted him having a polygraph test the day after he's woken up.
On the bright side, the test is in a far more comfortable room than anything the CIA had to offer before. The couch is leather and, if anything, too comfortable- he doesn't like how he's sinking into the cushions. In general, the room has the atmosphere of a tenured professor's study. Everything seems to be made of polished oak or leather, there are books and papers scattered around a desk at the front of the room by a window that looks out onto Washington Square. Also, the man observing the polygraph test is wearing a tweed blazer with elbow patches. That, in particular, Napoleon finds very upsetting.
"Comfortable?" The man asks, and Napoleon cocks an eyebrow at him.
"You're monitoring my blood pressure and respiration rates, Dale," Napoleon says flatly, watching him squirm somewhat. "Have a guess."
"Right." Dale opens what Napoleon assumes is the script of questions he has to ask. "Your name?"
"Napoleon Solo."
Dale nods and makes a note. "Your age?"
"Twenty three."
"Who are you loyal to?"
Napoleon frowns. "The CIA." Isn't it obvious? Had Dale not looked at who his current employers are?
"Will you serve the CIA to the best of your ability? Yes or no."
"Yes." Napoleon rubs at his left forearm, still frowning. "How many more of these are there?"
Dale pauses his writing to look at Napoleon and smile, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Not many. We've got the important things from you now."