Work Text:
To so many, they could not have been more different.
A dainty, elegant little lady. A fearful, brutishly massive bear.
Night and day could not even begin to describe it.
But not for lack of trying on many people’s parts. Rumors and whispers swirled around them, questioning, questioning, always questioning.
What did she see in him? How did she not fear him, when - for everyone said it was not ‘if’ but ‘when’ - he was liable to hurt her? How could she care for someone so distant and damaged? Surely this was just her acting out against Francis and Alfred; to make them jealous; to spite them?
And what did he get from her? Was it the money? She couldn’t be more bourgeoise; something he’d been taught to despise for years, but then again desperate times called for desperate measures, after all. Or was it the fact that she *was* so small; so much that he could easily have swatted her aside if she displeased him?
Sure, perhaps they had once had something of a relationship; built upon an alliance between their countries...but that was decades ago, before they had been cut off from each other by the inescapably churning tides of war. Plenty of their kind had formed relationships like that, and had lost just as many the same way. After a while it stopped meaning much, and anyone who claimed otherwise was usually considered being overly sentimental.
Even when they eventually met again in peacetime, it seemed impossible that they’d still have feelings after so many years.
She was angry. He was miserable. How could they have been drawn to return to each other when they parted on such unfriendly terms before?
It just didn’t make any sense.
But then again, do such things ever make sense for outsiders looking in?
When some of the bolder ones tried to confront them directly about it, their reactions were different too.
Angelique would scoff at their claims, and stated that they should mind their own businesses rather than pry into hers.
If she truly desired to silence their mutterings she could have told them she saw the softer side of Ivan; the iciness that her presence could melt and the warmth within him that was reserved for so few in his life.
It was a small spark, to be sure; one that so many had been determined to snuff out...but one that could be kindled by none but her.
It was not a matter of ‘when’, not a matter of ‘if’ he would hurt her. It was a matter of ‘never.’ He would rather die than truly hurt her, and she knew that too well.
Even the rare times he had; he had hated himself for it...more than he did already.
He could be a brute, yes. Dearly as she cared for Ivan she would not deny that there were some truths in all rumors. But with her he was never anything but tender, and with him she rarely felt safer.
It was those who would see her come to harm that saw that frightening beast that history had immortalized.
And that whole thing about taking up with him only to spite Francis and Alfred? Really now. She did not think she could be so offended by such a scandalous suggestion until she’d heard that one. Just what kind of petty little girl did they think she was?
Meanwhile, Ivan...he just snorted, brushed them off. Let them talk. They had assumed much about him for years, and were unlikely to stop now.
This talk of him only tolerating her for her money...did they think that he had forgotten just what the rich life had once been like, his head emptied and filled with visions of communist collectivity and brutalist design?
...well, perhaps *certain* people did...certain obnoxious Americans, anyway...
But there had been a time when he had been able to properly appreciate the arts, and the idle pastimes that being well-off afforded. He did not need money to still have a fondness for beautiful things.
Perhaps some would call it nostalgia. He preferred to think of it as remembering a time of peace and stability after the many he’d lived through that were fraught with anger and bloodshed.
Some of his happiest days had been spent with Angelique, after all. Quite literally, the warmest days; the long afternoons they spent together just enjoying each other’s company.
Was it really so unusual that he would want to try and experience something like that again, rather than just live on his memories?
And while the bold ones tried to get an answer directly, it was the *smart* ones who stayed quiet and merely theorized with each other just what it was after they’d been separated that must have brought them back together.
No one thought she would make it on her own, after all. That she would keep her independence, her sovereignty. They assumed she would be absorbed into the underbelly of a more powerful nation; that if she *did* manage it, it would be as a mere figurehead and nothing more. Just a pretty little show pony to trot out and show off - certainly she wouldn’t have been expected to have any sort of actual power or say in the world’s affairs!
And no one thought he would survive through the bloody revolutions that wracked his homeland. Bounced around like a puppet on a gallows-string from dictator to dictator and one corrupted political system after another; broken and rebuilt time and time again. Scars left upon him physical as well as mental. How could he have lasted through that when it had shattered others like him? Rome did not last. Prussia did not truly last. They did not think he would, either.
And in that way, they could not have been more alike.
Because they were stubborn. And persistent.
Angelique was small, yes, but she was not helpless. She was intelligent, a shrewd businesswoman to a fault. Just as able to play with the ‘big boys’ at the table - both abroad in the political scene and at home in her casinos.
Ivan might have seen more blood and regime changes than most, yes, but he had outlast them all, and would outlast the ones still inevitably to come. While others fell, he always remained. He did what he had to do to survive, sometimes, but he still survived.
Sure, they had their vices. Vodka and cigarettes - cheap and expensive alike. Cards and other games of chance. They had their problems - what couple didn’t? She could be a brat when things didn’t go her way, and he could be cold in more ways than one.
He refused to believe he was worth her. She refused to tolerate his self-deprecation. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
And it was that, it was that very reason, they managed to stay together. When so many others before them had come apart.
To so many, they were as different as night and day.
But just as the moon cannot shine without the sun, so too could they not shine without each other.