#honorable mention to dorian for being a true homie

[honeysidesarchived]

THE LAND OF GODS AND DEVILS, a sequel.

—part ii.

word count: 9.2k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: naughty language, massively canon-divergent, roman gets his own tag because he’s a fucking nutso, canon-typical violence, established relationship that might not be the healthiest, age gap, domestic murder family. if you’re here i imagine you know exactly what he’s about.

notes: hello! it has been a hot minute since i updated, but i promise i am not dead. i just went on a real vacation and juggling two longfic projects at once is (surprise) very time consuming! but i am here with chapter two. it's a lot of roman pretending not to be jealous when he's actually seething inside (we love to see it), as well as a few little drops of intrigue. yes, i know, i TOO wanted an entire longfic about roman and varya just making out between dramatic proclamations of their violent devotion for each other, but alas, alack.

special thank you to my beta @starcrier who of course helped me proof a good portion of this, and is eternally my cheerleader and the loml, as well as @shallow-gravy who put her eyes on the very very rough draft of this when i wanted to bash my head into the top of the desk a-la-roman's theatrics. without you this chapter would not have happened!

and thank you to everyone who has read this so far! carry your throne was truly my baby and so getting to write a sequel for it is the most incredible feeling. your support means the world to me. <3

Roman did not like sharing his things.

It was perpetually difficult enough to have let Varya waltz around the club so that she might have happily enjoyed being lavished attention on (attention that was, to be kept in mind, not his)—but watching a stranger, an interloper from her past, indulge himself in her, that was excruciating. Because that’s what it was, in the end; less about his girl enjoying herself and more about people enjoying her, realizing they would never have her, that she would always be his.

So as Irina took the twins back upstairs and Roman ushered her back into the throng of partygoers, he did so with intent; Roman watched Varya wind her way from person to person, lingering at their friend Dorian—dutiful member of the press always content to show her in a good light—before she and Maxim connected.

Roman watched them. He watched the way Maxim beamed at her, the way he ducked his head to hear her say something. He laughed and rocked back on his heels a little, and when Varya brought the glass to her lips, Roman saw it—saw Maxim’s eyes dart down to her mouth, their ascent short-lived as he busied his hand with sweeping a stray curl from her face. Maxim seemed very comfortable touching Varya, he thought. Men were never comfortable touching Varya. They were either—he had found, at least—aware of her proclivity for having hands cut off or (what he could only argue was the most correct deterrent) understanding of the simple politeness that came with not putting your hands on another man’s woman.

More than anyone, Roman appreciated having the things which others could not, so that he could be envied: but this?

This was treasonous. Poisonous. Heretical. Not in my fucking house.

Puzzling yet was Varya’s willingness to let her childhood friend conduct himself in such a way. She was a greedy thing, his girl; he knew that she so loved the attention, preening and glowing under the adoration. Greedy and hungry for love. Had she always been so active a participant in the act of touching, of being touched? Even by a stranger?

Not a stranger, he reminded himself tartly. Childhood friend, the man whose father she killed. That’s two fathers now, in her ledger—her own and someone else’s. And petulantly, he thought it a bit unsettling that it was a bond he could never have with her—dear old dad was already dead as a fucking doornail, wasn’t he? No chance Varya would want to ice him for Roman a second time.

He had determined to swallow his pride (impressive, gracious, generous) and make his way over when Dorian swept in; Dorian, preening and wrapping his arms around Varya from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder and making the noisy announcement, “Stealing her away, thank you!” just before he steered her past Maxim. There, the crowd shifted and scooted out of the way to reveal the birthday cake getting wheeled out on its little tray, decorated in gem tones and sparklers.

The determination to close the distance between himself and their newfound associate did not abate, even with Dorian’s well-timed interjection. As he wove through the crowd of milling partygoers, accepting compliments on his good work, he waited until he got within a foot or two of Maxim to stop. Everyone was applauding the cake. Everyone was having a great time looking at the expensive cake glimmering under the oh-so-obnoxious chandelier, but mostly he thought they were applauding his wife.

So, Roman clapped. He clapped, because the cake was out and the sparklers were fizzing and popping prettily, dancing golden light across his wife’s delighted face. He clapped, because everyone else was clapping, too. He clapped, and he flashed an all-teeth smile at Varya from over the top off the elaborately decorated cake (tasteful, not gaudy, of course).

Over the fizzing and popping, and without taking his eyes off of Varya, he said to Maxim, “Did you fuck my wife?”

Maxim clapped. He clapped, too, and he stood there for a moment and blinked a few times and replied, “What?” His accent was thicker than Varya’s, and thicker than Ilarion’s had been.

“You speak English, don’t you?” Roman snipped, his words and perhaps some of his annoyance masked by the party chatter. Varya shrieked delightedly when Dorian dabbed frosting on her nose. “I asked if you’ve fucked my wife?”

The blonde cleared his throat. He rubbed the back of his neck, apparently grateful that the attention had gone from clapping now to cutting the cake. In the corner of his eye, Roman could see Zsasz lurking—watching, keeping an eye, making sure he didn’t need to intervene on Roman’s behalf. Always a good man.

“No, Mr. Sionis,” Maxim replied, talking over the din of music and laughter.

Good, Roman thought. And then: “Do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Fuck,” Roman bit out, “my wife?”

Maxim barked out a laugh. He looked caught off-guard by the question—like maybe he wasn’t sure if Roman was asking to threaten or offering to join their marital bed—and then he said, “You have put me in an uncomfortable position. If I say no, I am insulting my childhood friend. If I say yes, I am insulting my new boss.”

There was something about this that flared a little spike of victory in Roman’s chest. Yes, that was right—he was Maxim’s new boss. And Maxim should be nervous about pissing him off, shouldn’t he?

“But,” the blonde plunged on, “I imagine having something that other people want feels good, does it not?”

His eyes narrowed. He smiled thinly. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “Yeah,” he agreed, “it sure fucking does.”

There was a moment where it looked as though the other man was going to say something, his mouth opening but no words coming out, brows knitting together at the center of his forehead; but then silk and warm stretches of skin were filling up Roman’s vision, Varya having swept around to come to him, eyes bright. They’d only been at the party for a little while, but already his fingers were itching—he wanted, having stood by idly while greedy hands brushed against his Varya, and it was time to erase them all, he reasoned. Wipe her clean of them as best he knew how.

Still, she had not looked so happy in a while, he thought. Varya always beamed around the twins, practically glowing radioactive from the inside out, but it had been a long time since he’d seen her so delighted without them in her arms. And surely, this was a testament to his doing—his meticulous, flawless planning, regardless of whatever wrench Maxim Kuznetsov was trying to throw. Yes, Roman thought, he had done exceptionally, in this as in all things.

“Romy,” she said sweetly, “are you playing nice?”

“I’m always nice, kitten,” he demurred, sliding his arms around her waist and nosing the hair at her temple automatically. Every time she came around, the gravitational pull was inevitable—hands on, hands on, hands on, making sure everybody knew exactly who she belonged to. “But you can ask your little friend, if you’re worried I’ve hurt his feelings.”

He said, you can ask, but he kissed her after he said it, purring against her mouth and keeping her otherwise preoccupied; when she did pull away, still encircled in his arms, she smoothed her hand along the exposed skin of his sternum and looked inquisitively at Maxim.

Roman mimicked the tilt of her head. The blonde regarded him for a moment, and then Varya, and then smiled.

“Your husband is very accommodating, Varushka,” he told her, shrugging as if to say, and what else would he be? “I have never met a man like him.”

He felt his mouth downturn—Varushka, the same pet name Ilarion had used with her. It was one thing to accept that his wife’s twin brother would always be held in high regard in her memory, that he’d had to endure the Varushkas and the closeness that they had shared that purposefully, intimately excluded him.

“That’s because there’s nobody like me,” Roman idled, despite the venom thrumming in his veins. He was cool. He was cool and fine and totally cool. Varya hummed and planted a kiss against the slope of his jaw; her nose brushed the hollow of his throat, more than content to remain there.

But even though their exchange remained pleasant, for a second, the blonde Russian regarded him with the same deadpan, venomous gaze that Ilarion had so often. It was so close to the way his wife’s twin had looked at him, in fact, that the disdain which had been almost exclusively reserved for Ilarion himself now prickled up the back of his throat like a bile—instinctual, muscle memory.

He had seen the same look crossing the faces of the men from St. Petersburg, flown all the way to Gotham to meet their new pakhan, as Varya had put it: disdain. We’re not for you, those fleeting glances said, despite the acknowledgment in all other things that they were. What do we want with some American gangster?

He was vaguely aware of Varya and Maxim saying something, exchanging words, but their voices had dulled to the cartoonish wah wah wah of an old-time cartoon, with Varya’s occasional laugh vibrating against his sternum. Maxim waved a hand dramatically. There was ink, there; he hadn’t noticed it before. He’d been too busy inspecting the man’s stupid fucking face, trying to find the lip of his mask somewhere in there. False fucking face, that’s all it was.

And yet: Roman could not help but feel a little burn of intrigue at the sight of the inked Cyrillic letters on the back of the man’s hand.

“—stairs, my darling?”

Varya’s voice bled through the dull static that had overtaken his mind. He glanced at her, reaching up and tracing the slope of her jaw with his thumb, his other fingers splaying along the spine of her neck. Obediently, her chin tilted. She was complacent like this—docile, even; he could have snapped her neck if he wanted, dug his nails into that warm, dusky skin and watched the blood well, and she would have let him—so much so that he wondered at it for a moment. All of his hard work, all of his tempering, cupped right there in his hand; she was his.

Rather than admit to having checked out of their conversation, Roman pressed the pad of a gloved thumb against her lower lip and deferred, “Whatever you want, kitten.”

Briefly, the thought that he had agreed to let Maxim into his loft occurred. Oh, what a dreadful thought.

“Then it’s settled,” she replied. “You can stay while the party goes on, of course, Maxi.”

Maxim lifted his head, regarding them with a gaze that was no longer venomous, but playful. “Of course.”

“And you’ll leave the address of where you’re staying with Armazd?”

“If you want it, I will.” He cocked his head, smiling politely. “Goodnight, the both of you. I am happy to finally put a face to the name Roman Sionis.”

What the fuck is it with these people, he thought wearily, and with no absence of annoyance. This is just how it had been before—everyone saying things beneath the things they were saying, layers and layers and layers, piling up over each other. Didn’t any of these stupid fucking gun dogs say anything exactly the way it was?

“Yes,” Roman agreed, “I bet you are.”

With great purpose—and having determined that Varya was quite done with the evening—he planted his hands on her hips and turned her, steering her towards the doors which exited out of the club and into the hallway housing the elevator. It was her birthday, after all; there was nothing he could do except whatever it was she wanted.

“Goodnight, Maxim,” he said over his shoulder, steering the brunette in his grasp toward the door. A distressed ugh! sounded to his left, and he turned to see Dorian glaring at him accusingly.

“You get her all the time, Roman,” the journalist announced. “Surely you can spare her for a little longer?”

“Afraid I can’t,” he replied over his shoulder, squeezing Varya’s hip when she stifled her laughter. “You see Dorian, close to a year ago, Varya and I decided that we had plenty of other uses for cake to be explored on our birthdays—”

Another disgusted sound came, but it was too late; Roman was already nudging Varya through the doors to the hallway, and down to the elevator. Once the door clicked shut behind them, it was quiet; it was the one area of the building where it seemed like the air conditioning didn’t quite reach, having so many accesses to the outside, and so the air already felt a little humid and muggy.

“Oh, we forgot the cake,” Varya pouted, trailing ahead of him. She’d collected the hem of her silk dress loosely in one hand, keeping it from the floor as she wandered to the elevator to push the button. The neon red of the Exit sign cut across one side of her, illuminating her in half crimson and half shadow. It reminded him of the night he’d come back to the loft to find her covered in another man’s blood, kitchen knife in hand.

And mine, he thought. Varya Astakhova, the gem of St. Petersburg, only living heir to the Astakhov gun-running fortune, his wife.

“Darling,” she purred, breaking him out of his thoughts, “are you going to just stand there all night?”

“Maybe,” he replied idly. “Maybe I will just stand here all night and stare at my wife, hm? Who would stop me?”

“Well, certainly not me,” she demurred, turning to look at him fully now. “But you can hardly kiss me from there. And what am I suppose to do, go without cake and without your hands on me?”

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Roman thought about the way Maxim had looked at him—just for that tiny split second—all of the disdain and venom welling in his gaze before it was wiped away. Your husband is very accommodating, I’ve never met a man like him. And that fucking tattoo on his hand. It nagged at him, dragged his attention away from the very, very delicious task at hand.

“Roman?”

“You go,” he announced. “I’ll be up in just a minute.”

A plush, ruby lower lip pouted out. Roman sidled over to the elevator, planting a gloved hand on the doorway so that the doors wouldn’t close, and she prompted, “What could you have possibly forgotten when all you need is right here?”

“You are most spectacular,” Roman agreed, reaching up and twisting a curl around his finger. “But it’s just a quick thing. Don’t worry that pretty head, kitten. I’ll be up in no time, and you had better—”

When he leaned in, their noses brushed; Varya hooked her fingers in the space between the buttons of his collared shirt and tugged a little, playfully, humming sweetly.

“—have this dress off,” he finished, voice pitching low and warm, “by the time I get up there.”

“And what if I don’t?” The cloying, saccharine tone of her voice belied the little spark of rebellion in her words. Roman made a pleasant sound against her mouth, a humid warmth plunging down his spine when she closed the tiny space between them to kiss him; it was entirely unhurried, and on instinct his free hand went to the small of her back, pulling her more flush against him as her lips parted prettily beneath his to sigh.

He said into the kiss, “Why don’t you try it and find out?”

“Is it a test?” Roman felt her smile. “I love tests.”

“Get upstairs,” he growled, unable to resist a final kiss. “Wicked thing.”

Varya did pull back, reluctantly and with a dramatic, long sigh. She’d always had a thing for the dramatics. “Fine, I will go upstairs all alone,” she drawled. “Don’t keep me waiting, Romy.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He stepped back, dropping his hand from the elevator door and turning around to head back to the club. The party was still in full swing; people wouldn’t even begin to start leaving for another few hours, patiently and dutifully babysat by Armazd and Zsasz (well, mostly Armazd—Zsasz was not good at being ‘patient’ or ‘dutiful’ if it didn’t include face-carving). It was like having three nannies on payroll, instead of just the one.

The door swung shut behind him. People chattered brightly over the music, lingering around tables in clustered groups. He could see at least half a dozen mobsters and their families, associates of Varya’s from overseas, socialites she had charmed and wealthy businessmen determined to get into their good graces before the weapons chokehold came into full effect.

But there was only one man he wanted to see.

Dorian Young had been smitten with Varya since the moment they’d met, through Roman—and since then, they’d been nearly inseparable. Dorian had even done her the kindness of writing Ilarion a flattering obituary. It would have been annoying, if Roman considered Dorian a threat in the least. He did not.

“Dorian,” he barked out, catching the brunette’s attention. He smiled, full-teeth and as charmingly as he could. “Buddy-mine. I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Oh?” Dorian arched a brow loftily. “A favor outside of the eternal wisdom of Gotham’s madonna, Roman? How scandalous. You know I can’t resist a special in.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Roman adjusted one of his gloves absently, glancing around the room before inclining his head and taking a few steps outside of the cluster of milling partygoers. He didn’t have many concerns about being overheard, given the noise level, but it was better safe than sorry. “You have access to certain records, don’t you?”

Now two perfectly-manicured brows arched upward before Dorian cleared his throat, dark eyes fluttering in a bat at innocence.

“I’m a journalist, Roman,” he intoned somberly. “If someone were to give me access to records that were anything but public, it would be a grave and disgusting infringement on the American Privacy—”

“Yeah yeah yeah, shut the fuck up,” Roman interjected, waving his hand. “I don’t give a shit about that. How about this: you don’t use the records you aren’t able to access, and you don’t dig up literally everything you can on Maxim Kuznetsov.”

“The ex-boyfriend?” Dorian tsked his tongue. “Roman, green is not your color.”

“Hey? Dorian? Don’t be a fucking moron.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well just say you’ll do it.”

“You mean,” Dorian amended, “that I won’t.”

Roman let out an exasperated noise, clapping a hand onto the man’s shoulder and giving him a little jostle that was meant to convey he wished that he could instead be strangling him in that moment. Varya would have been upset if he did. Dorian flashed him a pearly grin.

“Consider it done. Or not-done, as the case may be.” He took a swig of his drink, sucking his teeth. “Anything I should be on the look-out for?”

“Any red flags. Suspicious shopping behavior. Outgoing calls to private numbers. He’ll likely have two separate phones—one burner, one not.” Roman dropped his hand from Dorian’s shoulder. “Armazd will have his address, if you want to get that from him before you leave tonight. And—one more thing.”

The journalist looked at him expectantly, waiting.

“Not a word,” he continued. “To anyone. But especially not to Varya.”

“If you’re sure,” Dorian ventured.

“The surest.”

It was when he turned to depart the party—for real, this time; he was tired of waiting to unwrap his wife—that Dorian said, “Roman?”

A deep, calming breath. I need Dorian, he reminded himself, and V’s fond of him. Roman pulled another one-eighty. “Yes, Dorian, beloved of my wife?”

“How is Varya?” Dorian’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, really?”

The question was not one that Roman had anticipated. Why would she be anything other than great, glowing, in love with her life? Sure, the last year had been full of turmoil—but they had come out of it fine. Better than fine. Roman had gotten everything he had wanted, and Varya—well, much the same, hadn’t she?

Dorian’s prying reminded him of the way Varya’s body had stilled, the way her expression had hardened, that dark, wild look slipping into her eyes when the lights in the club had blinked on to reveal the surprise party. She’d looked frigid, the softness wiped clean from her in that split moment.

“She’s fine,” Roman replied after a minute. “I mean—she’s great. What do you mean?”

“I can’t get a good read on her. You know,” Dorian pointed out. “And she did watch her supposed-to-be-dead daddy unload a round into her twin brother while she was drugged to the gills on ketamine.”

Well, when you put it like that, Roman thought dryly.

“Some of us, Dorian,” he said primly, “are able to rise above our trials and tribulations and come out better, hm?”

The journalist smiled. He didn’t looked swayed by Roman’s words, but eventually he said, “I’ll contact you as soon as I find out anything.”

“Good man.”

It was only a few minutes from the club’s main floor up to the loft, but those few minutes felt like an eternity; stretching out, impossibly long and endless in front of him. Varya’s birthday was supposed to have been a problem-less occasion, and now he had several problems lining themselves up in front of them. Chiefly, Kuznetsov. And the rest of them, too, but mostly Maxim.

Roman tugged the gloves from his hands and shrugged the suit jacket from his shoulders as the doors to the loft slid open, the gentle ding announcing his arrival. Faintly, he could hear the classical music that Varya favored to play in the twins’ room as they slept; there would be a little speaker on the table closest to her side of the bed, so that she could rouse the second either of them needed her, but they were good babies, like she’d said; it was rare when they didn’t sleep through the night.

He tossed the articles he’d disrobed from onto the long dining table as he passed, nudging the door to the bedroom open.

“Ah,” he sighed, eyes roaming expanses of warm, dusky skin exposed to him as Varya lay stretched out on the bed, “I see we went with behaving tonight?”

“I told you,” she replied demurely, “I love a good test. I can hardly resist the challenge.” Her eyes glittered playfully, and she propped herself up on her elbows, the silk of her underclothes rustling in a way that beckoned him—his hands, his mouth. “You didn’t bring any cake up?”

A quick laugh billowed out of Roman as he sidled over, stepping out of his shoes before climbing onto the bed. “It’s vanilla, you know. Not chocolate. It would have been sacrilege, in memory of our first big fight.”

“Was it chocolate?”

“Oh, yes,” he told her gravely. “I’d never forget. Don’t you remember? You were a terrible brat to me, and then you didn’t speak to me for a week, and then you showed up with a cake—”

“Terrible brat?” She laughed, feigning insult. “On my birthday, no less.”

He grinned. Leaning down, he pressed a leisurely, open-mouthed kiss to the top of her sternum, hooking one hand in the crook of her knee to yank her down the bed so that she was more firmly under him, eliciting a playful little shriek out of her before he tugged the tie of her robe loose.

“Your birthday, yet here I am, unwrapping a present,” he murmured, leaning down and pressing a kiss to the slope of her jaw. He rumbled, pleased, “I’ve been thinking about you all day, you know.”

Varya made a sweet little sound. “Is that so?”

“Mmhm.” Roman kissed down the pillar of her throat, dragging his tongue over a faded love-bite bruise. He’d need to renew that. “Especially when you put on that dress. Admittedly, I am a bit disappointed—I was looking forward to cutting it off of you if you misbehaved.”

“For someone who spent all day thinking about me,” she murmured coyly, “you certainly spent long enough coming up here.”

Roman paused in what he was doing—his fingers hooked in the top hem of her underwear, scandalous things that they were—and glanced up at her. He was trying to gauge where she was actually at, emotionally, but true to what Dorian had said, it was almost impossible to get a read on her.

“It’s just business, baby,” he replied.

“Oh. Of course.”

“You see? I told you not to worry about it.”

“Yes,” Varya agreed, “what would I know of business?”

Roman groaned, pressing his forehead to the smooth plane of her sternum. The scent of her jasmine perfume washed over him, and even though he was this close to indulging himself (which he, above all others, deserved the most), he knew Varya wouldn’t let go of the conversation so easily.

“It’s nothing,” he insisted. He let the fabric of her underwear snap back into place against her hip bone, sliding down her body to kiss down her abdomen. “Focus on enjoying your birthday,” he added, “and let your man worry about everything else, hm?”

Varya’s lashes fluttered lightly, eyes watching him hungrily as he worked his way lower and lower still.

“Ambitious,” she murmured, “to think that I will let go of it so easily.”

“Well,” Roman replied against her skin, “I suppose it’s lucky that I love tests, too. And I always—”

The thin, silky fabric of her underwear made the most delicious sound as it ripped, tearing satisfyingly. Varya made a soft, sweet sound, and he glanced back up at her.

“—pass with flying colors.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In his experience, Roman found that the best time to approach Varya about things was first thing in the morning. If he was exerting any amount of true self-awareness, of course, he would have acknowledged that “approaching” Varya about anything was not about the time of day, but rather how it was done—a skill Roman thought he had only honed in their short time together.

It was nearly ten; they’d roused late, thanks to the previous evening’s festivities—including an after-hours indulgence that Roman was more than pleased to drag out— and now Varya was chatting conversationally with Zsasz, who provided minimal noises between mouthfuls of food. It was as though her annoyance from the previous night had faded with the glow of morning, which left only the bones that Roman had left to pick.

Therefore, in a show of good faith, he let the chatter carry on for a little while before he decided to Broach(TM).

“So,” he said, sitting in his usual spot at the head breakfast table, “Maxim is funny.”

To his right, the brunette hummed and idly stirred her coffee. The gentle clink-clink of her spoon against the side of the mug was almost soothing; little creature comforts Roman hadn’t realized very often that he truly liked.

“I don’t remember you ever mentioning him,” Roman continued casually.

“I do not like to talk about boring things.” Varya’s brow was furrowed, lips pressing into a little line as she read the newspaper. “Pass me the cream, my love?”

She was feigning disinterest, but he thought she might have been listening more closely than she let on; one wolfish little ear swiveled in his direction, always.

He did as she asked. “He has an interesting tattoo on his hand.”

“I did not notice.”

“No?”

Varya finally tilted her head to look at him, dark eyes inquisitive. She didn’t ask what it was she was thinking, not right away; instead, she waited, did that thing where she let him sit in silence, maybe in the hopes that he’d fill it with his own chatter. He didn’t, of course. He wasn’t stupid.

“Romy,” she said sweetly, setting the paper down and resting her chin in her hand as she gazed at him, “won’t you just ask me what you want to ask me?”

There was no room to stop the irritated noise that came out of him at her words. He scoffed and settled more comfortably in his chair, lifting his chin a little and watching her.

“Or we can play the little game,” she acquiesced, as though she were speaking to a particularly tedious child. “You don’t really care about Maxim’s tattoo. You just care what I think of him.” She fluttered her lashes. “Hm?”

“No,” he replied tartly. “I’m curious about the tattoo.” He paused. “And also what you think of him.”

“I think he is boring.”

“Well, I could have told you that.”

A smile curved her mouth, delicate and fine a gesture as gossamer spread across those soft, Renaissance-features. That painting of her that had been done in the ballroom of the Astakhov mansion was still around somewhere, wasn’t it? Not that he needed a painting when he had the real thing, but maybe he’d hang it in the foyer, as a reminder to anyone who just happened to pass by.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Roman continued idly, “this man of yours—”

“My man, is he?”

“—is just one more obstacle to getting what I wanted. How do you think he’s going to react when he finds out that you put his daddy in the ground?”

“If,” Varya replied. “And what do you mean, obstacle?”

Another scoff came out of him. “Varya,” he chided, voice welling with a patronizing tone, warm and buttery, “come now.”

“Roman,” she replied. Her tone mimicked his. “Explain it to me like I am five.”

“I know the oh-so-omniscient lords of St. Petersburg and Moscow are dragging their fucking feet because they don’t like me.”

“You are trying too hard.” She settled back, dipping a bit of cream into her coffee and stirring again. Clink-clink. It offered him no comfort now; it had become a way for Varya to dismiss him. Don’t you see, Roman, how busy I am? “They are like cats. If you try too hard to gain their affections, they will balk and bolt. They hate being coddled, except by a woman. It’s terribly outdated, but what can you do?”

“I’m—” A sharp, incredulous noise came out of him. “I haven’t spoken more than a handful of words to the lot of them!”

“You see? That is already too much.”

“Well, I don’t want them to like me,” he managed out, feeling the bubbling frustration rising up in him. “I couldn’t give a shit if they like me or not. I want them to accept that leadership is changing hands and they have a new boss to answer to, now.” He leaned forward, forearms rested on the table. “And I know Daddy Astakhov liked to brand his things, hm? So what’s Maxim’s tattoo mean?”

Varya leaned forward, too. “I do not know,” she replied evenly, “and I wish you would stop bringing that man up in my presence.”

“I can’t very well erase him from the conversation completely when I’m inheriting his business.”

“My,” she snapped out viciously, suddenly, “you are inheriting my business, Roman.”

It was just a split second. It was only a split second of venom welling up in her expression, suddenly so wicked that not even Roman was shielded from it; it was worse, now, than it had been before. Those times he’d seen the switch inside of her flip had been under great duress. Was this duress to her, now?

Women, Roman thought, watching her smooth dark hair from her face and collect herself. Perhaps motherhood had not made her soft, but rather emotionally volatile. He couldn’t afford to look more hysterical than his wife, so he waited—with great patience and grace, he thought—for her. She cinched the silk robe at her waist more snugly.

“You know that I am happy to do so,” she continued, as though she’d not just bitten his head off in front of Zsasz, “and that I have no problem with it. I just want...” Now, her voice trailed off, and she skimmed the pad of her index finger along the rim of her coffee cup before she picked up the newspaper again, as well as the red-ink ballpoint to her right. “I want it done right, that is all. And if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

A buzzing sound vibrated from the marble hallway leader to the elevator. Roman was waiting for Varya to issue her apology (which she was certainly going to do), and Varya wasn’t looking up from the newspaper.

“Who could be coming so early?” his wife idled, spurring on that molten-hot frustration inside of him as she continued to avoid the topic at hand. “Not someone you called on, Romy?”

The buzzer was the last thing that Roman wanted to think about, let alone deal with. He had much more on his mind; Varya’s elegant dodge of his questions, and—most importantly—her blatant dismissal of his concerns about their current timeline. She was all well and peachy over there, wasn’t she, drinking her coffee and reading her paper and not doing him the courtesy of looking at him?

She had always been a needler, Roman reasoned; she had always had a wild, stubborn streak in her. He’d watched her sit and push Ilarion’s buttons for an entire dinner, once, just to see him get to the edge of snapping at her. She was good at it. He liked it about her, liked watching her do it; might have even made a past-time out of the whole sport of it. How quickly can my little viper unravel a man? Place your bets, gentlemen, time ends when the idiot’s screaming his fucking head off in a public place.

And he would have been foolish to think that she never did it to him.

“Zsasz,” she said, without looking up from the paper, “be a darling and get that, won’t you?”

Zsasz, who had been sitting at the far end of the table watching all of this unfold the way a man might watch a trainwreck happen, moved to come to a stand. Roman barked out, “Stay,” and the movements stilled considerably, immediately. It was satisfying, at least, in an exchange which had been everything but up until then. He turned his gaze to the brunette on his right.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he said tersely. He gestured to Zsasz. “Sit.”

The blonde did. Roman could feel Victor’s eyes darting between them.

“Oh, darling, you are spoiling my morning.” Varya set the newspaper down on the table and smoothed it out primly, the thin paper edges fluttering between her fingers. “Why would you ever say such a silly thing?”

“Varya.”

“Surely you do not mean to.”

“V,” he snapped.

“Well, I do not know what you want me to say,” she replied after a minute, leaning back in her chair to finally look at him. “My father never deigned to share his operations with me. It was always ‘what a tedious child you are, Varvara’ this, and ‘since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved’ that. I mean, the man spent most of my life quoting Machiavelli at me. Do you think he told me what all of his little art projects meant?” She shrugged, picking her newspaper up again, ignoring the second sound of the buzzer. “You could just ask.”

The irritation spiked high and hot in his throat. Of course, he could just ask. Of course, he could, but he was the fucking boss, which meant doing things like asking an employee what a stupid fucking tattoo meant were below him. He replied tersely, “Why don’t you figure it out for me? Clerical work and employee management is your forte, after all.”

Varya hummed. It was a prim, musing hm, the sound she made when he’d said something she found to be particularly annoying. “If you wanted me to personally manage Maxim,” she demurred, glancing at him through dark, sooty lashes, “you only had to say.”

Somehow sensing this particular phrasing was not going to go over well with Roman (it wasn’t), Zsasz said, “Can I buzz ‘em up?”

“Yes,” Varya replied.

“No,” Roman insisted.

“Romy, there’s a guest.”

“I’m not through with you,” he snapped.

“I’m gonna buzz ‘em up,” Zsasz announced.

Roman felt the frustrated note rising in his throat, strangling it before it could quite make its way out of him. His jaw set; his eyes followed Zsasz on his way out of the main room and toward the elevator to—presumably—let up their guest (intruder). He drummed his fingers against the top of the dining table and said, “You think you’re very funny, don’t you?”

“Darling.” Varya leaned forward, elbows on the table, lacing her fingers together and cradling her chin atop them. She looked awfully pleased with herself, the little snake, that gigantic stone sitting on her finger. “If I knew what the tattoo meant, I would just tell you. Why not? I could tell you what the word is, but that is hardly ever what the tattoo actually means.”

Darling, she said, as though she hadn’t just snapped her teeth at him moments before. Roman sucked his teeth. Yes, it was very reasonable, he thought; Nikita had always cherished his son over his daughter, had always anticipated Ilarion taking over the business, as Varya had framed it—and even once, Ilarion had confirmed himself. He wanted you and only you, Ilya, and that’s why you couldn’t look at him when he died. That’s what she’d said, and the memory of that night—of Varya, needling the person she was closest to in the world, weaned from venom and taking so much pleasure from inflicting it on someone else—reminded him that there was still much about his wife left to be unearthed.

And it would be an unearthing. Roman had no doubt that it would be a graveyard he would be turning over, full of skeletons—not just a closet.

From the other room, the sound of an infant’s cry drifted down the hall. Varya’s gaze flickered to the space over Roman’s shoulder, behind him, and she came to a stand.

“I will ask, if you would like me to,” she told him, coming around the table and smoothing her hand along his shoulder in what was supposed to be a peace-making gesture. “But I don’t think there is a reason to bother yourself with the detail.”

He felt his mouth press into a thin line. Fine, he thought, fine, the tattoo isn’t a big deal. But what about everything else? “This is all taking a long time, V.”

“I know.” She paused, and then softened a little, all of her button-pushing and needling having dissipated for the moment; Varya leaned down and kissed his temple, and then the top of his cheekbone. “These things take patience, you know. It is not just a—used car business we are inheriting. There are processes, formalities, the like. The men have to know they can trust you.” She paused, tilting her head and regarding him with dark, inquisitive eyes. “You just have to trust me, Romy.”

Roman sighed. I do, he thought, turning his head to look at her. Don’t I?

Of course, he did. She was his wife, the mother of his children—and Roman hadn’t even wanted kids, not really. Not until he realized how much they, by proxy, made Varya belong to him. There was nothing quite so devoted as carrying someone’s child, was there? So yes; he did trust her, in the same capacity at which he supposed a man trusted a relatively-domesticated panther on a chain. Maybe just a smidge more than that. But enough to expect she’d bite off someone else’s hand, and not his.

“Fine,” is what he said, and the word still came out a little petulant. “I will. I do.” Reaching up, he snagged her wrist when she started to pull away, keeping her in place. She watched him expectantly.

When he didn’t say anything—just watched her, gauging her—she prompted playfully, “Are you going to scold me?”

Roman pressed the pad of his thumb to the pulse point on her wrist. His eyes narrowed. “I ought to, vicious girl. You just can’t resist pushing a button when you see it, can you?”

Her pulse jumped pleasantly under warm skin, whether by the term vicious girl or his touch, he didn’t know. It seemed that storminess had passed as soon as it had arrived; and though she hadn’t yet uttered the words I’m sorry, he almost preferred her like this. Coy.

“You would be bored, otherwise.” Her eyes glittered, mischievous. “Don’t you think?”

His fingers stayed curled around her wrist, but she didn’t try and pull away. Watching the flutter of her eyelashes, the way the corners of her mouth quirked upward in a smile, he felt nearly won over. How tedious, Roman thought, that even when he was irritated with her, he found her endearing. That’s amore.

“Don’t goad me,” he warned, and Varya smiled dreamily at him.

“I love you,” is what she replied, and then leaned down to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Let’s never fight again.”

He dropped his grip from her wrist and she stepped around his chair, the silk of her robe fluttering behind her as she started to the sound of babbling infants. The one or two cries that had roused her initially had melted down into baby-chat. Roman was reminded, once again, that they had a nanny on the payroll for seemingly no reason.

“Varya,” he called, taking the newspaper from where she’d left it on the table, “I mean it.”

Her voice drifted from down the hall: “Of course, Romy.”

The sound of the nursery door opening echoed, and then Varya’s voice; saccharine-sweet, honeyed and muffled by distance. He glanced over the front of the newspaper, but it was impossible to focus on the words—what did they matter, anyway? He didn’t give a fuck about what was going on in Gotham. He had bigger fish to fry. Bigger, Russian, potentially radioactive amalgams of different fish that seemed to be stalling on a deal that should have been up and done with already. Not to mention, one of those fish breaking off of the nightmare-fish and showing up, unannounced, sporting tattoos likely administered to him by Nikita Astakhov himself?

These things take patience.

Roman suppressed a scoff. Like he didn’t have patience. He’d been the most patient. Varya had dragged her feet for about a month after they’d put Ilarion in the ground, but after that, things had typically moved fast—the engagement, the twins. Everything except the thing Roman had been waiting for since the beginning. Of course, he’d never anticipated inheriting the business himself and had only gone into the whole thing wanting an exclusive deal, but now he knew better. He knew what was owed to him. He knew what belonged to him.

The elevator door down the main hall dinged. Roman didn’t bother stifling the sigh that wanted to come out of him; it was only ten in the morning, who could possibly need him and for what? He pushed the chair back from the table and came to a stand, sucking his teeth and prepping what he thought could only be the tranquil expression of a man ready to murder before Maxim stepped inside.

He blinked. The tranquility fled his face. Zsasz trailed in after him, looking uneasy. There was something about his expression that didn’t sit right with Roman, the hard lines of the blonde’s face setting him even further on edge. Would his suffering never end?

“Oh, Maximillian,” he greeted, keeping his voice the pinnacle of lazily annoyed. “Clocking in for work a little early, aren’t we? Over-achieving?”

“I am an early riser,” the blonde acquiesced. He looked genuinely apologetic, the fuckhead, in Dolce & Gabbana, no less. “I hope I did not disturb you.”

“A big wager to make, first day on the job.” Roman trailed Zsasz with his eyes, watching the blonde pace around the far end of the table. What had gotten into him since he’d gone to buzz their guest up? Idly, he sat back down at the table, resuming to glance over the words of the newspaper he couldn’t have given two shits about.

And he said nothing. He instead enjoyed, immensely, the act of letting Maxim stand there in silent uncertainty. It was probably almost a full minute before Maxim cleared his throat, prompting Roman to set his newspaper down with a sigh, as though it were very troubling that he had to stop this thing he didn’t even want to do.

“If you’re here to play catch-up with Varya, she’s busy today,” he deadpanned, turning his gaze reluctantly to where Maxim stood. “And every other day. Generally, I think it would be safe to assume she’s much too preoccupied to assist with whatever problems you might have; that type of work is beneath her now, you know.”

“I am sure being a mother and wife is more than enough to keep her busy,” Maxim agreed soberly.

“And transitioning the business in my name,” Roman replied pointedly.

The blonde shrugged, smiling a little. “Of course.”

He felt his eyes narrow. He leaned back in the chair, interlacing his fingers while his elbows rested on the armrests of the chair. It was impossible to figure out what it was about Maxim that Varya might have liked; the man was painfully well-mannered and non-confrontational, which Roman knew wasn’t her style at all.

Never mind that Varya had not once said that there was a romantic interaction between them. That didn’t matter. He knew how men looked at his wife, and Maxim had been a little too comfortable touching her for there to have been nothing at all.

“But, I did not come here to speak to Varya,” the Russian continued, taking a few steps toward the table. “I actually came here to speak to you, Roman.”

Roman blinked. Well, that wasn’t what he expected.

“What?” he asked flatly.

“I wanted to come and see if you were free today,” Maxim elaborated casually. “I was Nikita’s man. Now, I am yours. It only seems right I get to know you better.” He gestured with his hand. “I know you have more than enough help around here, and I was tied up in Turkey before, but...”

Roman’s lips pressed into a thin line. He saw no trace of yesterday’s venom in Maxim’s face, no indication that he was trying to be sarcastic or pull some kind of joke. Instead, Maxim’s face looked completely open and earnest.

“You’re here to ask me on a fucking lunch date,” he began, “and not Varya?”

“Varya,” the blonde replied demurely, “is not my boss.”

Huh, Roman thought. He swept his gaze over Maxim scathingly, and then looked at Zsasz, who remained unreadable. Well, wasn’t that just the most unhelpful thing? It did feel nice to hear Maxim say it, even if Roman would rather see him crying or begging or bleeding out.

“I’m busy today,” he replied after a moment, turning his attention back to Maxim. “But you can swing by the—”

“Maxim.” It was Varya’s voice. Roman turned to look at her. There was no baby in tow. This wouldn’t have been unusual, if Maxim had been a stranger; she tended to keep the twins as far out of reach of people she did not know as much as possible, nested away for safety. But Maxim had been her childhood friend, hadn’t he?

“Good morning,” Maxim greeted her warmly. “I was just asking Roman if he would—”

“I know what you were asking,” Varya interrupted. “You overestimate yourself, showing up to your boss’ home unannounced, don’t you think?”

Maxim looked about as lost as Roman felt; the sensation that he’d stepped into a fever dream very suddenly was washing over him. He looked at Zsasz. The blonde gave a little shrug, as though to say, Why the fuck would I know?

“Varushka,” Maxim ventured after a moment, “you know I did not mean...”

“I don’t know anything at all,” the brunette replied coolly. “You should have called ahead.” She paused, and then added purposefully: “Temka never showed up unannounced.”

Roman found himself in the very strange position of feeling...bad (?) for Maxim, standing there a little helplessly, the poor thing. Varya’s words had gutted him. He could only assume that she was referring to the blonde’s father when she said Temka, by the look on his face, and that—

Oh, you wicked thing, he thought, affection welling up inside of him as he looked at Varya, you know just how to unravel a man. Sticking a salted hot-poker straight into his grief-wound, aren’t you?

“I am sorry,” Maxim said after a minute. “I did not mean to be so thoughtless.”

“The transgression is not mine to forgive.” Varya swept around Roman then, sitting back down in her seat. She looked at him, expectant. “Roman?”

“Me?” he asked.

“It is as Maxim said,” she replied. “You are his boss, not me.”

He waited to see if there was some kind of strange undertow to her words, but he could find none; just Varya waiting, expectantly, for him to excuse Maxim’s showing up without having called ahead. It was odd, and he couldn’t figure out why it was that she was acting like this toward Maxim now—had it been the Varya is not my boss comment? Was she trying to make up for their little spat?

It was commonplace for nothing to be straightforward, with Varya. This was different.

“So,” she continued primly, turning to look at Maxim now, “apologize to your boss.”

“I am—” Maxim stopped, like he didn’t want to do it, drawing Roman’s gaze to him. Quite suddenly, Roman thought he knew exactly what his wife was doing; putting the blonde in a position where he’d have to put good faith behind his words. Varya is not my boss, he’d said, but did that matter if he couldn’t even apologize to Roman?

He finished, more smoothly now, “I am sorry, Roman.”

Roman beamed. “Insolence forgiven,” he replied, all thoughts of his disagreement with Varya gone now. He reached over the table, snagging her hand and dragging the pad of his thumb across the back of her hand. “As I was saying—I am busy today, but you are welcome to swing by the club later this evening. Before midnight. We get busiest just before the witching hour.”

Maxim ducked his head. “Of course.”

Varya’s nails skimmed Roman’s palm. She didn’t look up when she said, “Was there something else, Maxim?”

“I do not think so.”

“Then,” she replied sweetly, “have a lovely afternoon.”

A moment stretched where the blonde looked a little unsure, and then he cleared his throat and said, “Of course,” and excused himself down the hall. Varya circled something in the newspaper with her red-ink pen, her other hands still interlaced with Roman’s.

“Mr. Zsasz,” she began, “did you let Maxim up?”

Zsasz looked at Roman. “I didn’t,” he replied after a minute. “Armazd did.”

“Hm,” came the reply, even as she noted something in the margins of the paper.

“Were you apologizing for your tantrum, just now?” Roman asked. He would puzzle out why Armazd letting Maxim up was worthy of a hm later. Now, he could see the hint of a smile ticking the corners of Varya’s mouth upward, but she did not sway from whatever it was that had captured her attention in the news of Gotham; instead, she circled something absently.

Varya said, “Did you find it a suitable apology?”

He considered. “Well, I would have liked it better if you’d made him cry.”

“It would have spoiled my appetite,” she demurred, folding the newspaper primly and coming to a stand. “I am taking the twins to the park with Irina. And Zsasz too, if you’ll spare him. I won’t be back until late afternoon.”

“Late? Then you’d better come here, wife.” Roman tugged on her hand, watching her expression warm when he said wife. Once, he might have squinted at loaning Zsasz out to her. Now, he didn’t mind; especially if it gave a peace of mind that she and the twins be that more secure. “So that I can get my fill of you before you’re gone.”

The brunette laughed, letting him tug her down onto his lap. She carded the fingers of her free hand through his hair and brushed their noses together; it was all glowing affection, now, warmth buzzing under her skin.

“Oh, darling, now I want to leave quicker, and more often,” she murmured, “so that you’ll never have your fill of me.”

Roman supposed that was how she’d gotten him in the first place. Hooked him with being inaccessible, with being coveted—as if she had always known he was not a man could resist something considered off-limits—and now that he had her, he couldn’t get enough of her. He’d seen the way that others looked at her, and by proxy him; with want. With envy. Bruce Wayne could eat shit.

“Roman,” Varya said, “I want you to be careful when you are around Maxim.”

He paused, pulling back to look at her a little. She smoothed her hand over the slope of his collarbone affectionately.

“You are right,” she continued. “When Maxim finds out what I did—if he does—he will be angry about it. He is used to being the right-hand man, you know. Do not...” She glanced down, looking for the words. “Do not give it to him so easily. Make him work for it and prove himself to you.”

Tracing the lines of her expression—soft, concerned—Roman dragged his thumb across her wrist.

“I told you, doll.” He planted an affectionate kiss to her wrist. “Don’t worry about these things. I’ve got it perfectly under control.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I know you do, Romy—”

“Then stop this fussing,” he interjected mildly. “You’re spoiling your very charming apology. You know I love a good public humiliation. Which park are you taking the twins to?”

The dark eyes of his wife swept over his face for a minute, contemplative and impossible to gauge, before she smiled at him warmly.

“The one just a few blocks away. It has the most shade. Mr. Zsasz, won’t you bring the car around?”

And just like that, things were back to normal. Varya swept away to busy herself with getting ready and loading the twins, and Zsasz went to pull the car around, leaving Roman at the table for a rare moment of peace. Soon enough, he’d have all the information he needed from Dorian, and he could well-and-truly mitigate Maxim Kuznetsov as a problem, and everything would be back on track. He could bet money Varya didn’t think he’d had the foresight to dig up information on Maxim—it wasn’t his style to get his hands dirty, but extreme circumstances called for extreme measures.

Roman sighed, quite pleased.

Back to normal.

#spilled ink #f: the land of gods and devils #roman sionis/oc #x: this smile is a loaded gun #c: varya astakhova #c: roman sionis #c: victor zsasz #c: maxim kuznetsov #honorable mention to dorian for being a true homie #birds of prey fic #birds of prey oc #i think uhhhhhhhh yeah i think that's it! #thank you thank you thank you everyone who has even given me a tiny bit of love for this #it's definitely a project that's self-indulgent but !!!! #<3