Napoleon Solo

After hearing so much about Julia's best friend over the years Solo almost felt like he knew her himself. Like a famous actress or tv personality that had never interacted with him but whose life he had insight into. He would have to remember that she had absolutely no idea who he was other than the man her best friend was going to marry that she'd never met. That was potentially a recipe for disaster. Hopefully she would trust Julie's judgement when it came to Solo and he could reassure her that he could make Julie happier than anyone else.

Of course the only sign he gave that he was possibly a little anxious about the meeting was the sheer volume of cooking that he was doing. Under the guise of testing various foods out for the wedding he had cooked up a wide variety of appetizers and little desserts for them to try. It seemed like a save enough even for the three of them to do while Solo and Maddie got to know each other.

Everything was arranged on the large kitchen island, appetizers on one end, dessert on the other. The ladies should be here any minute and he didn't want anything that was supposed to be warm to get cold or anything that was supposed to be cold get too warm. Really, why wasn't more food supposed to be served at room temperature? It would make the timing of everything much easier. Of course, then it wouldn't be as much of a challenge.

It was supposed to be a romantic evening meant to celebrate their three week anniversary of living together. Not that the three week anniversary was a very standard thing to celebrate but Solo was of the mind to use any excuse to cook a fancy meal and general spoil Julie. He'd had flowers delivered to her work with a little note that was equal parts suggestive and romantic.

He had even taken off the afternoon from work the day before so that he had the proper amount of time to make the boeuf bourguignon and let it sit. It was a long and involved recipe but he'd made it before and it always tasted better the next day after all the flavors had time to sit. There was even the perfect selection of wine and mood music to go with it.

But Solo was still getting used to all of the appliances in the kitchen and their particular settings and something had gone terribly wrong. He hadn't even noticed it until this evening when he was doing the final preparations for the meal. Perhaps he hadn't properly burned off all of the alcohol or maybe the onions weren't done just right but when he took an experimental taste of the dish it was... wrong.

It wasn't completely horrible but it was far enough away from what he wanted it to taste like that he had declared it a failure. Not that anyone was home yet to hear him declare it a failure but by the time Julie would get home he was still standing there, glaring at the dish on the stove with his jaw set and brow scowled, as if he could make it right itself just by how unpleased he was at it.

Solo generally didn't have much to do with children. It wasn't that he didn't like them, he could be fond of the right ones at times, but he just didn't have much reason to interact with them. No one he was all that close to back home had them and none of his close friends in the city had any. He had met Liesel by random chance but she happened to be the sort of young person he actually liked. Beyond that she was from close to his own time.

If he was honest with himself, which he usually wasn't, he would have to admit that maybe part of wanting to invite her to see the museum was partially based on guilt. Any of the German soldiers he had killed in the war could have been her father or brother. Perhaps not literally but there were thousands of girls similar to Liesel and some of them were without people close to them in their life because of Solo. While he would do it all over again, there was no doubt about that, it didn't mean that he didn't wish it could have gone differently. So the least he could do was try and show her a little kindness.

Also, growing up in Nazi Germany he couldn't imagine that she had a lot of chances to see this sort of artwork. The Nazi regime had been very active in collecting as much art as possible, from their own people as well as other countries they had invaded. This sort of thing shouldn't be hidden away though, it should be seen by everyone. A strange stance for an art thief to take, perhaps, but Solo could live with the hypocrisy.

So he had invited her to come let him show her the museum. He also had an annual pass for her so that she could come any time she wanted. If Julie could make it in a bit he also wanted to introduce the two of them together. Julie had about as big a heart as anyone could have and he thought that every young person should have a good role model and friend. Maybe he was a bit biased but Solo thought that Julie was about as good a role model as any young woman could find.

But, that was all wishful thinking and honestly more planning for the future than he did for most things. At the very least he could show Liesel around the museum.

Normally Solo wouldn't bother with something like this. If he didn't want to sleep with a woman anymore he would simply just leave the city/country/continent they were on and that would be the end of it. And it wasn't necessarily that he was just confined to the one city that made him do this either.

Nikita was a friend. A friend that he had phenomenally good sex with but somewhere along the line her friendship had become primary and everything secondary. So he tried to imagine how he would handle this if he had a friend that he couldn't go drinking with anymore for some reason. It wouldn't be something he would run away from, he would just deal with it.

So he had decided to just deal with this. He was entirely sure that she would understand, he wasn't nervous at all, it was just something he hadn't done before. There was a certain sort of thrill that came with it though, even if he was fairly certain he knew how it would go. Of course, that didn't stop him visiting her bearing gifts though. Not that the gift was just to sweeten her mood, but it probably couldn't hurt.

Ringing the bell to her apartment Solo waited patiently for Nikita to answer. It was one of their regularly scheduled evenings together, which usually consisted of food, conversation, and then possibly sex. Hopefully she would still want to continue doing the first two without the possibility of the third. It seemed like they had that sort of relationship now.

Solo rubbed at the stubble on his face before he took another drink of his beer. It was the sort that was thick enough that he was fairly sure you could stand a spoon up in it. It wasn't particularly good but it wasn't all that bad either. It was exactly the sort that you expected to find in the sort of bar he was in. It wasn't exactly a dive bar. It was more the sort of place with the clientele of a dive bar but somewhat cleaner. Not much, but clean enough that the rough and unrespectable that liked sanitary drinking establishments went here instead of somewhere else.

Solo had come to conduct business earlier. Dressing down a bit meant he didn't have stick out enough to attract more attention than he wanted to. Once he was done here he'd head home and shave and retire the outfit of jeans and a dark shirt to the back of his closet for the time being.

Still, while he was here he might as well enjoy himself. Or at least try and enjoy the beer, thick as it was.

"I'm not entirely sure if this qualifies as a drink or a meal," Solo said, holding up the glass again before taking another drink. Maybe he'd know when he got to the bottom of the glass.