Work Text:
She doesn’t really ask.
It’s early in the morning when she wakes up, some light already filtering through the curtains and nowhere urgent that they have to be for the day.
Still, she has never been good at lingering in bed, so it doesn’t take her long to slowly slip away from Illya’s grasp, only getting a disapproving hum in response as she leaves an empty spot next to him. She quickly fixes the blanket back up so that he’s covered, and she watches with mild amusement as he immediately makes up for her absence by turning more towards Solo, wrapping his free arm around him and pressing himself against his back.
It's way too adorable for this hour in the morning.
A few steps away from the bed, and there are already chills running through her, because their apartment is apparently freezing outside of their little nest. Damn winter.
She grabs a pair of socks first, before she ends up losing her toes, and then she goes half-blind for the pile of clothes on the nearest chair. She doesn’t waste much time wondering whom they might belong to, she just gets her hands on the warmest fabric she can find and she grabs it before slipping out of the room.
Which is how she ends up standing in the kitchen sporting what’s probably a concerning case of bed hair and engulfed in Illya’s sweater. The sleeves are comically long, but it’s so warm that by the time that her coffee is ready she has begun thinking about how much to invest into an army of sweaters for herself.
Or, alternatively, she could just keep stealing Illya’s forever.
She starts leaning more towards the second option when the victim of her theft joins her, stopping dead on his tracks when his eyes land on her. He blinks at her, opening and closing his mouth a few times and looking remarkably like a very confused fish out of water.
“Is there a problem?” she asks, not really managing to hide her amusement.
He seems somehow startled, but he recovers quickly. “No, no,” he says, walking up to her to give her a quick kiss. “Good morning.”
Yeah, she’s definitely doing this again.
Solo owns pretty much only suits.
Well, there’s the occasional t-shirt that still somehow manages to look like it cost more than her car, but it’s mostly three-piece suits carefully ironed and with matching ties.
She’s had a few more occasions to grab Illya’s sweaters or a shirt, mostly when they are at home or wherever they are sleeping that particular week, but Solo’s clothes seem somehow more sacred and less inviting.
Until one day she forgets how to drink properly and she manages to spill pretty much a whole glass of water over her shirt, making her stomp back to their bedroom with half-muttered curses and a little less will to get through the day without killing anyone.
Which is when she catches sight of the two piles of clothes neatly folded on the bed, including four clean shirts. She purses her lips, finding the idea strangely appealing, thinking of how Illya always seems a little awed whenever he sees her wearing his clothes and wondering what kind of reaction it would get out of her other partner. And, well, she would probably look good in that—she ends up grabbing the first shirt on the pile.
A white shirt that doesn’t even belong to her might not be the best thing to wear while trying to fix their busted radio on a Sunday morning, but, well, too late. She just rolls up the sleeves, smiles a little to herself at the sound of the running shower, and gets to work.
Solo comes out of the bathroom with his hair still wet, not looking at her as he finishes buttoning his shirt. “So, how’s our radio coming al—” Much to her satisfaction, when he does look at her he seems struck.
She smiles innocently at him, to which he just—keeps staring.
“Uhm—is that my…?” he asks, gesturing vaguely towards her and frowning a little.
“What if it is?” she challenges, still the picture of innocence.
He swallows, shaking his head. “Uhm, nothing—I’ll just—” He makes some vague gesture towards his hair, and then he flees.
Gaby comes this close to outright laughing, and she feels pretty sorry that Illya is out for a run. He would have gotten a kick out of this. “That was smooth, Solo!” she can’t resist yelling after him, grinning. The fact that she doesn’t get an answer makes it even better.
“I think I just saw a penguin on that seat over there,” Gaby mutters, darkly, rubbing her hands together and glaring at them, as if it were their fault that she’s tired and cold with no real hope of warming up.
They are on a plane headed back to London, and it’s freezing. And alright, perhaps she’s dressed lighter than it would be advisable, but in her defence it was warm before they boarded, so she left all the thicker clothes in her luggage.
And now she is to die cold and tired.
Next to her, Illya begins shifting, almost elbowing her in the face as he quickly takes off his sweater. “Here,” he says, handing it to her, because of course he does.
Her first instinct is, of course, grabbing it and letting her numb fingers sing its praises, because it’s so warm. But, well, she is not that selfish, so she only leaves it on her lap, fixing Illya with a sceptical look. “And what are you going to do?” she asks. “Freeze to death?” He could just keep it on and she can snuggle up to him. It’s not exactly the same as being properly clothed, but—
“Please,” Solo intervenes, popping up between their seats from behind. “Russians don’t get hypothermia, that’s just a myth. All babies are dropped in the snow as a rite of passage when they are six months old, right, Peril?”
Illya huffs, shaking his head with the barest hint of a smile and pushing Solo back with a palm against his forehead.
Then, of course: “It is eight months,” he corrects, because those two have the same terrible sense of humour and she questions everyday why she loves them so much in spite of it.
“My mistake!”
“You can take it,” Illya says then, his attention back to her, as he wears that horribly soft and encouraging look on his face that she’s grown so used to seeing more and more often. “I’m not cold.”
“Fine.” She quickly puts it over her head, getting lost for a few moments before she manages to find her way out. Illya watches her like she just gifted him the moon. “Tell me if you want it back, alright?”
“Of course.”
She doesn’t really believe him, but she can’t feel too sorry as she hides her hands in the long sleeves and crosses her arms, sighing contently as she sinks in the warmth. She’ll just have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t freeze to death out of chivalry.
“Do you own anything that isn’t a turtleneck?” Solo yells from the bedroom, sounding honestly pained.
His room is down the hall, but his luggage got mixed up at the airport and ended up on the wrong plane, so for now his only options are either standing around in the same clothes that he’s just travelled in for about a day or borrowing something from Illya.
Apparently, the second option is preferable but not quite up to his standards.
Next to her on the couch, Illya huffs, not even looking up from his folder.
“Seriously, Peril, you need some variety!”
Illya rolls his eyes. “You only wear suits,” he yells back. “You need variety too.”
“Okay, then you need taste,” Solo amends. He comes out wearing a black turtleneck, arms spread and eyebrows raised. “How do I look?”
The correct answer to that is really good, you insufferable bastard, which is probably why Illya seems to malfunction for a few seconds before he manages to come up with a tiny: “It looks good on you.”
Gaby doesn’t laugh at him out of the goodness of her heart. And maybe because she, too, finds this change of style a little too attractive for the midst of a mission, damn him.
Solo hums. “It does, doesn’t it?” he muses, looking down on himself. “I’m still buying you a suit as soon as we go back home,” he adds, with a pointed look to Illya.
“I have my suit.”
Solo looks at him like he’s being particularly dense. “One. And it has a tear.”
“It’s inside the jacket. You can’t even see it,” Illya mutters, turning his attention back on the folder.
“If I know it’s there, clearly I can see it,” Solo declares, getting settled on the armchair on Illya’s right after grabbing his own folder.
“It doesn’t matter—”
Gaby sighs, reaching out to grab the sweater that Illya abandoned on the coffee table about five minutes after they walked indoors. She slides into it and fixes the sleeves to her liking with practices ease, before leaning back against the couch. It’s going to be a long night.