Chapter Text
Sergei Dragunov quietly hums as his car speeds towards the outskirts of Moscow.
The mission to capture the Devil during the Fifth King of Iron Fist Tournament was a bust. He had expected to meet the creature in the finals, defeating opponent after opponent and even chasing off that cursed agent Raven – but nothing came. There was no supernatural creature of any kind matching the description from High Command, and Dragunov returned home empty handed.
He had fully expected to be punished for failing his mission. Instead, they have commended him for his efforts – he suspected that they might have not realized how difficult the mission would be when they sent him to the tournament – and granted him a week of paid leave.
Which was just fine by him, anyhow. His fractured hand could use the break – civil unrest has started to break out all across Russia, likely due to the actions of the Mishima Zaibatsu - and he might be in for quite a while of action after his impromptu vacation.
Dragunov turns from the road and pulls the car into a driveway.
He’s home.
The house is small, hidden behind a fence made of trees and climbing plants. As inconspicuous as a family house would be – no one would suspect that the place is home to Russia’s infamous White Angel of Death. To people that don’t know him, at least; and said number of people can be counted on one of his hands.
He parks his car in the leaf-covered garage and walks over to the door. His right hand is splinted, so his left will have to do.
Knock three times. Wait ten seconds, then another three knocks.
***
The door clicks open.
A man in his late fifties, with dark hair greying at the temples and trimmed beard, stands at the door. He wears a simple white shirt and pants, though his pose suggested deeply ingrained military discipline.
His gaze softens upon seeing the visitor.
“Sergei… Come here.”
Dragunov finds himself enveloping the other man in a hug, his face buried into greying hair. The other man gently pats him on the back – he is by no means a small man, but Dragunov’s tall figure simply dwarfed him.
“Dad.”
“It’s good to see you home, son.”
They embraced for a good while before breaking apart and stepping into the house proper. The door shut behind them, keeping the Russian chill out of the warm living room.
“Your room’s still the same way you left it, Sergei. Go get yourself changed, I can’t imagine that suit would be comfortable to wear for a long time.” One of the things Dragunov liked about his father: He never needed to speak much to get himself understood. Most of the time.
***
He could feel his father’s gaze – the gaze of a veteran combat medic – eyeing him over, even as he sits down on the couch, having changed into loose pants without a shirt. Still the same old plushy thing that resembles a bed more than a couch, and yet he finds it more comfortable than any hotel room he’d been through during his time as a tournament contestant.
“How are you feeling?”
Dragunov is aware that he doesn’t look his best, what with the sunken eyes and grey lips betraying the weariness that had sunken into him from all the fighting. He hesitated, but then mentally reminded himself that this is his father. He has nothing to hide, and he can’t even if he wanted to.
“I’m just tired.”
His father gently traces the scars that lined his face. Dragunov leans into the touch and closes his eyes.
“You look like you could use a good night’s sleep. Or two.”
He sinks into the cushions as his father checks his splinted hand. Broken bones are nothing new to Sergei – being a practitioner of Commando Sambo means he spend a lot of time breaking others’ bones. And inevitably some of his victims would fight back. He just tries to keep the injuries on himself to a minimum; he doesn’t want his father to fuss over him more than he already does.
“Your hand looks fine for now. Just don’t start doing anything rough to make it worse than it already is, young man.”
“…Mhm.”
Dragunov can feel the fatigue from fighting in the tournament and the hours-long drive he took to get home starting to catch up to him, as he slumps entirely into his father’s waiting arms. He’s safe in his own home with his father, and no call to duty for a week. It’s time for him to take a break.
The feeling of something soft underneath him was the last thing he felt before he passed out.
“Sleep well, Sergei.”
***
Dragunov wakes to the smell of food.
A glance at his watch tells him it was close to 7 PM. He had arrived home at around 5… two hours of sleep at least took the edge off of his tiredness. And at least he woke up in time for dinner.
He is still on the couch, with a thick pillow under his head and a quilt over his shoulders - his father must have put a quilt on him after he fell asleep. It smells faintly of pine and mint aftershave, and the worn fabric was soft to his bare skin.
He pulls himself to his feet and pads barefoot to the kitchen, silently glad for the thick carpet in the freezing Moscow winter.
His father is making dinner, deft hands handling a kitchen knife as if it was a surgeon’s scalpel. A pot is boiling on the stove, and Dragunov is sure he smelled something like beef stew.
It also conveniently reminded him that he’s starving. Normally he would offer to help his father with dinner, but he knows he would just get turned down because of the condition his hand is in.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Have a seat.”
Something in his heart makes a little happy dance, and he smiled. Unconsciously.
His father must have saw Dragunov smiling, because when he looks up the man is also smiling warmly at him. “Happiness is a good look on you, Sergei. I would tell you that you should smile more often… but I reckon the White Angel of Death didn’t get that nickname by being happy all the time.”
Trust his father to know him best.
Dragunov settles for a quiet scoff as his father lays out food on the table. How he has missed this – quiet home cooked meals with his father, away from the MREs and the mess hall that always seemed to have its share of troublemakers. His fellow soldiers knew better than to pick a fight with the White Angel of Death, but the noise gets on his nerves sometimes.
He has just started on his salad when his father finally speaks. “I saw the Iron Fist tournament on the news.” The Tekken tournament was all over the media, and he was sure rumors within the Spetsnaz would have kept his father up to date anyhow. “Heard you went for it on orders from the brass. How did it go?”
He had the feeling that High Command sent him on a wild goose chase. Not that he’d mind, a fighting tournament was good to keep his skills sharp. “It was a bust.”
“The Mishima Zaibatsu is really good at keeping things hush-hush – you were the first agent to get into their operations that deep. I don’t think what you were looking for existed in the first place – the Devil defies all known logic of existence.”
His father knew of the operation – that High Command sent his son into the tournament to capture the supernatural entity known as the Devil. Not the true purpose behind the capture, however.
“I’m sure they have their reasons, dad.” He knows, of course – about that strange body the military dug up from the permafrost in Siberia. But his father didn’t need to know that Dragunov entered a fighting tournament just to satisfy some mad scientist’s curiosity.
They eat the rest of dinner in silence, content to just be in each other’s company without the need to fill the air with meaningless conversation.
And Dragunov is fine with that.
When it is time to clean up, his father tried to shoo him off to the living room – only to be rebuffed.
“At least let me help.”
His father has relented, knowing that once his son set his mind on something then he is unstoppable. Dragunov spends the next half hour drying dishes and putting them away, as his father cleans them.
Doing domestic chores is… nice. Different from his usual work. And the constant repetition in silence - with only the occasional clinking of silverware and plates - soothes his mind, already on edge from days spent fighting in the Tekken tournament.
It feels like a large weight has been lifted off his shoulder, since he stepped through the door and into the warmth of his home.
***
They spend the next two hours lounging on the couch, reading books.
Dragunov has always been more of a fighter than a scholar, though he did receive proper education prior to his enlistment into the army. His father has insisted on teaching him a great deal about the human body, which came into handy during his Commando Sambo training.
And if he happens to enjoy a novel here and there, then no one else has to know.
By the time 10 PM rolls around, he starts to feel the exhaustion – which has somewhat receded from his nap earlier – creeping on him again.
“You should head to bed. …Unless you want me to tuck you in.”
The idea was ridiculous, but it made him smile. A Spetsnaz agent and the White Angel of Death being put to bed by his own father, even if said father is a kickass combat medic.
And to be honest? He’s not completely against the idea.
“Good night dad.”
“Good night, Sergei. See you tomorrow.”
It was some of the best sleep he had gotten in months.