Work Text:
My Nonna…My Babushka
By
DH Bryn
My Nonna
By Napoleon Solo
My Nonna is my favorite person after my Mom and Dad. She gives me the best hugs and always makes yummy treats for me. She bakes the best cookies and when I stay at her house she makes cannoli just for me, with extra chocolate chips. She calls me her angioletto, which means I am her angel.
Nonna likes when I come and visit her after school, and we do fun things like work in her garden, or I help her cook. Last week I got to make meatballs and we had them with spaghetti and it was very good.
Nonna tells me to do my homework and be a good boy, and when I got good grades last year she bought me a new bicycle. Nonna gives big hugs and pinches my cheeks, and my mom says she spoils me, but I think it’s okay.
I love my Nonna!
***
Babushka
I.N. Kuryakin
My Babushka is my hero, and she is also a Hero of the People. She might look small and weak, but she is the strongest person I know. She calls me Illyusha, and that is special.
Babushka tells me stories about our Motherland and how we must defend her. When the Germans came – when I was little - Babushka hid us in the basement. They burned some buildings near us, but we were safe because of her. I heard shooting and the Germans went away. I think my Babushka used her gun to chase them away, but we are not to talk about that. I don’t care. The German soldiers are bad.
My Babushka keeps us safe and she feeds us when Mother has duty. For my birthday, she found a tin of meat and a whole loaf of bread and we had a feast! Babushka tells stories about Baba Yaga and wood spirits and she knows everything about history. Even when we are very cold or hungry, her stories can make us laugh. She says “Humor is the gadfly on the corpse of tragedy.” That sounds wise.
Babushka says even though I am small I am smart and that makes me a giant.
I love my babushka very much.
***
“What is it about your eyes, Mary Beth?” Napoleon murmured, “They beguile me. They get to me, like you can see straight into my soul…” He nuzzled her ear, sighing as he pulled her closer and initiated a prolonged, passionate kiss.
“Ohhhh, Napoleon,” she sighed. “You are too much…”
It was several hours later that an extremely self-satisfied Napoleon Solo sneaked into the house and was startled as a familiar voice spoke from the darkness of the living room.
“Napoleon, amore mio. Out so late on a school night?”
He flipped on a light and bent down to plant a kiss on the old lady’s wrinkled cheek.
“Don’t worry about it, nonna. My grades are good.”
“Who is she – this time?” His grandmother sighed.
“Mary Beth Evans…”
“Napoleon Solo! How many girls are you seeing these days? I thought you were dating Cassandra Barton?”
“That was last week…”
The old lady shook her head in dismay. “Too many girls, Napoleon. You will have nothing but trouble, mark my words. You need to find a nice girl and settle down with her…”
The young man smiled at his beloved grandmother. “Nonna, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing!” He patted her arm affectionately. “Now let me walk you up to bed. It’s late.”
###
“…and so what comes next? You will receive the PhD in May. Will you return to serve our country? Back to the Navy, perhaps?”
The slight blond student replied with the hint of a smile. “That is being decided, Irina Petrovna.”
The two Russians were strolling near the Cambridge Physics Laboratory where they both worked and studied. The woman, Kuryakin knew, was an insider as far as the Soviet Intelligence apparatus was concerned. Her parents were both officers with great authority – so he was cautious about what he would share with her.
“I heard you are being considered for an international intelligence assignment, is it true?”
“You probably know more than I do,” he replied in a level voice. “If your parents tell you anything, will you let me know?”
“Illya!”
“Shall we change the subject, then?”
“No. I want to ask you one more thing. If you take this intelligence position, does that mean you will be more a policeman than a physicist?”
He snorted. “A policeman? That is a rather pedestrian interpretation, I’d say.”
“You are already skilled at evasion, I can see that.”
“A skill I learned from my babushka, actually.”
Irina chuckled. “Your grandmother? What could she have taught you about evasion?”
Taking a deep breath, Illya stopped, turned and faced the woman with a subtle, dangerous look in his smoldering blue eyes.
“She taught me everything about survival. Everything, including evasion, deception and self-defense. She died protecting our family, and I would not hesitate to die defending our country and its ideals. Do not question me any further, comrade.” He spat the last word at her, leaving her startled.
“Illya Nickovetch…” she started.
He glanced at his watch and replied with icy calm.
“I am late for a meeting with my lab team. I must go. Have a good afternoon and do greet your parents for me.”
The blond man turned and walked deliberately away from the woman.
###
Napoleon Solo scowled at his partner’s seemingly omnipresent black ensemble, including his signature black turtleneck. “You don’t have the look of a business consultant.”
“All right, I’ll switch to white shirt and tie if it will satisfy you.”
“What would you think of a bow tie? Amp up the scientist angle? You know, like Mr. Wizard on TV?”
Illya Kuryakin scoffed at his partner. “Napoleon, I cannot see myself in a bow tie. At least not until I am much more – mature.”
The U.N.C.L.E. agents were preparing to execute an operation after meticulously laying the groundwork for days. A business fronting for a Thrush project was to be undermined by the partners, Solo having befriended several of the (female) executive assistants while Illya had been positioned to join the firm as a scientific consultant.
“Are you saying bow ties are for old men? I’ve always been fond of them, personally.”
“Only when you are undercover, my friend. Like that time in Chacua…”
“Illya! That again? This isn’t about the bow ties. You just had a thing for Salty Oliver, I knew it!”
“Just because you chase every woman we encounter does not mean I do the same.”
“Look, try the bow tie.”
“What, and have Thrush laugh me out of the facility?”
“You’re the one who says ‘Humor is –‘ what, something about tragedy?”
“The gadfly on the corpse of tragedy, and it was my babushka who said that. I will do my best to avoid tragedy on this assignment, with or without humor.”
“I endorse that strategy.”
“What I will say,” Illya observed, “is that your susceptibility to women will be the death of you.”
Solo snorted. “Hah! Now you sound like my nonna!”