Work Text:
Some loud knocking drills into your head.
You frown and try to move in denial. The knocking stops and you settle again to go back to sleep, but then it comes back. Louder than before.
It makes you open your eyes.
You blink sleepily looking around.
Nothing has changed since last night, except that the room is bathed in sunlight and your alarm clock on the bedside table marks past eight AM.
You yawn before you try to roll over, but two things happen then.
One: they knock again and two: the warm blanket over you groans in disapproval.
You didn’t need to turn your head to look but you did anyway.
Your big warm blanket wasn’t a blanket at all.
It was made of flesh and bone, was rather heavy, and had a hairy strong arm around you.
It was not going to let go of you anytime soon and you knew it very well.
“Someone’s knocking”, you said, voice heavy because of sleep.
“They’ll go away”, he mumbled, against your skin, with a heavier voice than normal. His accent mixed with sleep, always did things to you.
It will never get old apparently.
There is another knock.
“I don’t think they will”.
He sighs then, tingles jumping all over your skin.
It was too early for this type of thing, honestly.
“At least, let me check who it is”.
“No”, he mumbles, and you feel his arm tightening its hold on you.
You sigh while your hand travels to the back of his head.
His hair is soft, so you run your fingers through it, making it more of a mess than it already was.
He purrs, approvingly.
You smile for a moment until you hear another knock.
“It must be important”.
“Nothin’s more important than bein’ with my Золотце".
“I know, but they don’t”.
He doesn’t say anything.
“C’mon, is time to get up anyway”.
He groans disapprovingly again, but this time, he slowly lets you go and rolls away from you until he is sitting down in bed.
It takes your breath away for a moment.
You always have known he was handsome, and you always told him so at any given opportunity you had.
But you think this was one of the top three of them all.
Him shining in a room bathed in the morning sunlight, shirtless, dog tags hanging loosely from his neck, hair a mess of curls.
He then drags himself out of the bed and stretches lazily, groaning like the old man he was.
You laugh, while he turns around, to face you and gives you a sleepy glare that makes your stomach explode with bees.
Not butterflies, bees.
“I hope their reason to wake me up is good”, he says, clearly annoyed, while he rounds the bed. You see him exit, barefoot and shirtless, with just some old sweatpants hanging loosely from his hips. Then you realize where he is going.
“Wait, is cold!”
“I’m Russian, I don’t get cold!”
You sigh in the middle of a chuckle before you hear his steps going through the hallway.
He has a point after all.
As quickly as you can, you get out of bed, stretch a little, and then make the bed before going to the bathroom and changing into something decent.
When you come out of the bathroom, you hear voices. You guess that it was important because otherwise, they wouldn’t be talking inside.
You then make your way through the hallway and find yourself in the lounge.
It was indeed important because there they were: Kate Laswell and John Price.
“Good morning, sorry for the intrusion”, Kate said, with an apologetic smile as soon as she saw you.
You made her a dismissive hand gesture before you approached to hug her. She accepted the hug and then you looked at the man who was accompanying her.
“Morning, John”, you said, and he smiled at you softly before he hugged you too.
“Sorry for stealing Nik from you so early”.
“Not a problem, as long as you return him in one piece and fully functional”.
Kate chuckled and John smiled brighter, before you looked at your husband, who was now standing beside John.
He looked down at you, you looked up at him.
He was giving you the worried defeated look he always gave you when his job intervened in your lives. He hated when that happened and you knew that sometimes it was inevitable, but he was still hard on himself about it.
He had an obsession with separating those things, and you understood the real reasons for it, but it was Kate and John, they would never be one side or the other entirely.
They will always be family and job at the same time.
“Get comfortable, you two, I’ll be in the kitchen making breakfast”, you smiled at them and patted your husband lightly in the stomach before you turned to get into the kitchen.
You heard him say something to them before you heard his steps following you to the kitchen.
“Don’t leave our guests alone”.
“I’m sorry”, he said at the same time as you.
You turned to look at him.
He was frowning for some reason.
“Why are you apologizing?”
He swallows.
You say his real name then.
His eyes change.
Sometimes you think he had forgotten that he had an actual name. That Nikolai was just the soldier, not the man, not the man you married. Nikolai was still inevitably around, like a shadow obscuring his days.
“Stop worrying”.
“I can say no”.
“No, they are your friends”.
“But they can still get a no from me”.
You sigh, before you take his hand.
“What is happening?”
He doesn’t answer, but honestly, you don’t need him to answer for you to know.
“Look, if they ask you for your help to save the world or whatever, you’ll say yes”.
“I don’t want to do this anymore, not when you are here”.
“I’m going to be here when you come back”.
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because I’m your home, and I’ll always be here to take you back”.
He stares at you then, for what feels like a long time.
If you didn’t know him, you would have said that he was emotional about your words.
He squeezes your hand then and pulls it up to kiss it like he has done a thousand times before.
He then mumbles something in Russian that you almost don’t get, but you do at the end, and it makes you smile like a fool before answering him back.
He then pulls you into a hug and his arms swallow you wholly until you must push him away because you need to breathe.
“I’ll be fine, Медвежонок. Just do your thing. I’ll be here when you return”, he smiles softly at you. “But first you need to wear a shirt”.
He chuckles.
“Stop acting up, you like to see me shirtless”.
“Yes, I do, but we have guests. I’m pretty sure your parents taught you manners”, and with that, you walked away to the laundry room and returned with a red hockey jersey.
You threw it at him and he caught it with ease.
“My old Soviet jersey”, he said, with the glee of a child on Christmas morning.
“Was the only clean thing I found. Is better than nothing. Now leave, Kate and John can’t be left unsupervised in this country”.
He chuckles deeply and richly while he puts the jersey on and turns to the lounge again.
You sigh before you start making coffee.
You did hope you were right on this one.
He wouldn’t stand losing another lover thanks to the Ultranationalists.