Of Fathers And Storms

I remember it as if it were yesterday. Standing at the Arkhangelsk docks, my hand small in my father’s, the air a winter mix of salt and coal. "Papa," I said, "will I be a good father someday?"

He looked down, smiled, but did not answer. His fingers tightened around mine. To protect me from the wind, I told myself. Now I wonder if he was steadying himself against a truth he could not speak.

I never forgot his silence.

A father stands in the storm so his children feel only the quiet, Jared.

But what if the father is the storm?  — He buried his mother in May.

Fanya. Dancer. Revolutionary. The shape of love separated from ideology. At her funeral, Arina stood beside him in the cold, their hands clasped. Snow fell on the cemetery, silent and heavy.

Six months later, she was polite. Distant after Jared. Grief had its own calendar.

Standing beside him while the world froze, one would think snow reminded her of Ivan. But it didn’t.

It was the rain.

It ticked against the windows as she walked the corridor, smearing Moscow into gray light. She thought of London, of Marx’s Tomb, of his body between her and the crowd. She ground her teeth. The replacements held.

Her hand drifted to her neck, fingertips brushing the spot where Justine had gripped her.

The worst bruise was not visible. It lived beneath her sternum, the place where guilt gnaws quietly and does not stop. She had done what Ivan commanded. She had done it and then cried in a bathroom stall where no one could hear. She pressed her fist against her mouth, knees drawn to her chest on the closed toilet lid. She had let out a small sound, the kind made by a tiny kettle before it boils.

When Justine confronted her, Arina accepted what she’d done. The mark on her neck would fade; the choice wouldn’t. But responsibility was only half the path. The rest led to Ivan. She would go to him. She would forgive him. She was ready.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she stopped.

“My office. Come alone. ASAP -Maksim”

Stepanov made her skin crawl. The screen dimmed, then darkened, but the words burned into her vision.

Paperwork, she thought. Perhaps some detail while she was away. Maybe about the carrier. Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked, each step punctuated by the rain's rhythm against the windows and the quiet voice in her head whispering: liar, liar, liar.

She reached Maksim’s door and paused. The rain was louder here.

She knocked. A beat of silence. His voice came through, mild and pleased.

“Come in!”

The office was too warm. Cologne and printer ink. Maksim stood behind his desk with a drink in hand. "I was not sure you were even in Russia, Arina Rakhila."

“I returned yesterday,” she said. Her uniform felt thin. “I was going to report this morning…”

“Of course.” He gestured at the chair. “So, I wanted to congratulate you personally.”

“Congratulate me?”

The glass ticked on the desk. He slid two sheets toward her, each movement deliberate.

Tokyo — Tulips 75 USD Charlotte — Tulips and 1 Rose 85 USD

Her throat tightened. “Tulips?”

“And one rose, at least on the second one,” he said, mild as a teacher. “Seven months apart. Same florist chain. Same woman who buys flowers when she travels. Curious, isn't it?”

“It’s just a line item…”

“Yes.” He folded his hands.

“I have friends in many cities. Gifts are normal.”

Maksim didn't move. He just watched her, the way a cat watches a bird with a broken wing. The silence stretched until she felt compelled to fill it.

"People send flowers," she said, hating how defensive she sounded. "It's not unusual."

"No," he agreed pleasantly. "It's not unusual to send flowers. Once." He tapped the Tokyo receipt. "But twice? Same chain. Same amount, more or less. Same woman doing the sending." He leaned back. "That's not courtesy, Arina. That's pattern."

The rain grew louder. She could hear her own breathing.

"Japan was interesting, wasn't it?" He stroked his chin. "I reviewed stills near the consulate. You and a female language student under an umbrella." He waved his hand. "Nothing indecent. Only expression. The sort people hide in our country."

She felt her throat tighten. "I have friends in many cities. After Culture Shock, Starshy Praporshchik does not dare go to Japan. I was—"

"Yuki Nakamura."

The name landed like a slap. Her breath hitched.

"Does that name mean anything to you?"

She forced her voice steady. "She is a friend. We grew distant, but we write sometimes."

“I did some digging while I manned your desk, you know? I found out Ivan ordered your arrest in Japan. Then rescinded it."

"You don't know what you're saying."

"I do not need to know. Two lines are enough. The rest is arithmetic." He tapped the Charlotte receipt. "You grew distant from Yuki. But then tulips and a rose in Charlotte. How interesting."

She said nothing. She only felt the oiliness of his eyes from the opposite side of the desk.

“I know what you are.”

She conjured up her courage. “I have lived through worse men than you.” But her voice trembled.

“Undoubtedly,” he said. He pushed his hands into his pockets nonchalantly. “Tell me. Does Ivan know? Will he protect you when the Ministry finds out? Would he protect himself when the papers learn the stain that rests upon his medals?”

The words landed like a hand across the face. She did not give him the flinch he wanted, but something in her chest tore in a small, painful way.

He watched her in that silence and smiled with genuine pleasure. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs.

“Do you want money?” She said quietly. “I could put in a good word…”

Maksim’s laugh was almost kind. “As if you could give me enough money. And I don’t need a good word from you.” He sounded offended.

“Then what?” Her voice cracked. “Why are you doing this?”

He smiled faintly, as if amused by her question. “My father thought money was enough. He was wrong. Of all people, you taught me something, Arina. You and Ivan. You taught me that patience is a virtue only the powerful can afford. I waited years for this. Years of nodding at his speeches, pretending to respect that grumbling skeleton Ruslan, and listening to you, the golden child, recite propaganda with trembling devotion.”

He shrugged. “Years of being ignored. Years of being wasted.”

Arina narrowed her eyes, trying to understand. “What do you gain from this?”

Maksim’s smile sharpened. “Everything Ivan takes for granted.” He buttoned his jacket. “You’re his anchor, Arina. The one person he trusts without question. More than even Alexei! His perfect little pet who manages his schedule, parrots his delusions, and makes him feel like a father.”

He walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back. “Colossus is upon us. Ivan faces Jared Sykes, an arch-rival, and a father fighting for his family. Poetic, isn’t it?” He glanced back at her. “But what happens when Ivan’s own family, that he worked so hard to cultivate, shatters? When his daughter fades away? When he steps into that ring emotionally compromised, distracted, and vulnerable?"

“You want him to lose,” Arina whispered.

“I want him human.” Maksim corrected. “The world has seen Ivan Stanislav bleed. That means nothing. He wears his scars like medals. No, I want to see him doubt. I want him to question everything he's built. And when he does, when he's broken and desperate and grasping for stability…” He smiled. “Someone will need to steady the ship. Someone he underestimated. Someone with resources, connections, and patience.”

He turned back to her fully. “You're not just a knife, Arina. You're the first cut. The one that matters. Small holes sink great ships.”

She tightened her hands into fists and feigned strength. “You won't get away with this.”

He picked up his glass, swirled the amber liquid. “I suggest you think very carefully about your next move. Colossus is in three days, after all.” His smile widened. “And I'm a patient man. But not that patient.”

He gestured toward the door. "You know where to find me when you've made your decision." — She drifted into the hallway. The warm air of his office slid over her like someone else's breath. In the corridor, the temperature dropped. Rain sounded farther away and sharper at the same time.

Behind her, she heard the soft clink of glass. Maksim, pouring himself another drink.

Celebrating.

Arina stood alone. The receipts crumpled in her hand, paper soft from her grip. Ink smeared at the edges where moisture from her palm had found it.

The corridor was cavernous. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Through the window at the hall's end, rain traced patterns down the glass.

For the first time in what felt like years, she had no one left she could tell the truth to.

She walked toward the window and pressed her palm against the cold surface. For a moment, her warmth showed, then vanished. Fading. Like everything else.

She'd been planning to forgive him.

Days of rain. Days of silence. Days of embracing the quiet while Ivan tried to stand in the storm for her. By the end of those days, she made her decision.

She would go to his apartment. Tell him she understood. That ordering her to attack Jared Sykes had been wrong, yes, but that she knew why he'd done it. That Marx's Tomb had taught her what real danger looked like, and this wasn't it. That she forgave him because he'd earned it. Because he'd saved her life. Because he'd chosen her over arrest. Because he'd danced with her in the snow and told her it wasn't about how you dance, but the joy it brings.

She would forgive him, and they would move forward. Together.

That was the plan.

But that was before Maksim Stepanov had smiled at her across a glass desk and shown her two receipts that meant the end of everything.

She ran through her options with the cold admission that none of them worked.

Tell Ivan? The Ministry investigates.

Pay Maksim? He’s rich.

Run? Maksim keeps the evidence. Saves no one but herself.

Refuse? Everything burns.

Fight? With what?

Every option ended in disaster. Every path led to someone she loved getting hurt. There was no solution. No clever answer. No escape that didn't require sacrifice. The rain grew louder. She realized she was crying, though she couldn't remember when the tears had started.

Ivan had stayed by her bedside reading Lenin while she drifted in darkness. Chose her over everything he'd been taught to believe.

And now she had to choose. Between love and survival.

She looked down at her phone with blurry eyes. She stared at his contact. "Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav." She could call right now. Let him try to fix it. Let him try to save her one more time. Walk to his door and give him what she meant to give him.

Forgiveness.

Or something else.

She remembered the photo: wild hair, laughing eyes. Rakhil. "The only woman Ivan truly loved," Fanya had said. Arina once confronted him, asking if that was why he hated Jared, because the man still had what Ivan had lost.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and straightened her uniform. The rain continued to drum against the window. Moscow lay gray and unforgiving. She walked toward the exit, her choice still shapeless in her chest.

She stepped into the rain and let its cold decide for her. — I speak to you now, Jared, before Colossus, because you have something I never learned to hold.

Not a championship. Not a country. Rather a child who sleeps and wakes believing the world can be shepherded into kindness.

A father stands in the storm so his children feel only the quiet, Jared. I have lived long enough to know storms do not end because we wish them to. They end because someone stands in them until the sky grows tired. That is what a father does.

She'll test shelter. She'll step outside and count her steps and wait to see if the door remains open, and it always will be open for her.

I tell myself these things because I must believe them.

You speak of futures, Jared. Of light and lullabies. I speak of roofs that do not collapse. I have never been gentle. That is the difference between us. You cradle your child and hope the world will forgive you. I teach Arina that the world will not, and that is why we must endure.

She understands this. She has seen me bleed and call it duty. She will come back, because she knows the door remains open. She knows the storm belongs to me, and that I will not let it take her. — He glanced at the clock. 9:47 p.m.

There was a knock.

“Enter,” he said.

The door opened. Arina stepped inside, soaked from the rain. The radiator hissed in the corner. A single lamp cast Ivan’s apartment in amber. Bed made tight. Table with a neat stack of notes. A mug gone cold.

She stood in the doorway, dripping. Hair clung to her forehead. Plain clothes. A garment bag on her shoulder.

“Arina?” Ivan said, rising. He was smiling. “Come in. I was hoping we could talk…”

He gestured to the chair by his table.

“I need to speak to you,” she said, cutting him off.

He faltered. “Of course.”

She set the garment bag on a rack beside her but remained on her feet. Water tapped the floor. She couldn’t look in his face, so she stared at the images of Jared on the table.

Her voice was steady and rehearsed. “I submit my resignation.”

The words landed between them. Ivan stared, silent. The room was so quiet she could hear her own breathing. Her coat wept rainwater.

He stared at her.

“Why?”

She took a breath. When she spoke, her voice trembled despite her efforts to control it.

“You say you protect me.” She finally met his eyes. Hers were wet, but her jaw was set. “But you sent me to attack Jared. You knew Justine would retaliate. You knew what would happen to me.”

Her voice cracked. “You put me in danger for your war. That’s not protection. That’s…” She swallowed. “You used me.”

Something in his chest tightened, a fist closing around his massive ribs. His shoulders rose, a reflex to a blow he couldn't see. His hand found the edge of his table, curling around the wood as if it might anchor him and keep him from toppling.

“Arina.” His voice was gentler than he intended. “Whatever has happened, we can fix this.”

Her words were clipped. She had to push harder. Make him stop trying to save her. She forced the words out, each one a small violence against herself.

“No. We cannot.” Her voice was hollow. “I’m tired. Of following orders. Of being your soldier.”

She saw him flinch. Good. It had to hurt. It had to be final. He had to let go, for his own sake.

“I want my own life.”

He went very still, and stared at her as if she had struck him.

“I am grateful for everything you have done,” she said. “But I cannot be your…” she looked away, “...I’m just an assistant. Nothing more. Replaceable like all parts of your machine.”

She wanted to take the words back immediately. For a long time, Ivan said nothing. The rain filled the silence.

His face emptied. Warmth drained until only stone remained. The mask he kept for his enemies and the world. Now she received it too.

“Very well.” Flat. Dead. “You are dismissed.”

She flinched. She wanted him to let her go. She hadn’t meant to shatter herself in the process. Breaking her own heart was never supposed to feel like this.

“I said dismissed.”

She faltered, and then turned to go.

Arina Timofeyevna had heard his voice every day for years. The booming speeches in conference rooms. The quiet confessions with his mother. The orders barked at Alexei. The rare laughter that was true.

She had heard every version of Ivan Stanislav’s voice.

But she had never heard this.

“I’m sorry.”

Two words.

Barely more than a whisper. Breaking on the second syllable like something cracked down the middle. Her hand froze on the doorknob. Her shoulders locked. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn around even though every instinct screamed for her to do so.

In another world, a world where she was braver, or stupider, she turned around.

She saw his face, the stone mask crumbling. Tears in her eyes. She ran to him. He’d catch her, massive and solid and safe, the way he’d always been. She’d bury her face in his chest and tell him everything.

Maksim is blackmailing me. I should have told you. I was scared.

And he would. Of course he would. He would call Alexei. They would handle Maksim. They would weather the storm together because that’s what families did. That’s what fathers, real fathers, did for their daughters. And she knew, beneath the iron and the ideology, that man yearned to exist.

In this other world, that man could be free. Free from the weight of revolution, from the performance of strength, from the storm he'd been taught to embody. He could just be a father. Not the Russian Bear. Not Starshy Praporshchik Stanislav.

Just Ivan.

He would say: We will fix this. I promise you.

And she would be safe.

And he would be happy.

In that world, Fanya would call at dawn the next morning, just to check on them. She'd tell Ivan to stop being so serious, and remind Arina that mistakes were forgivable. She'd make them tea and laugh at how stubborn they both were.

In another world.

But that world didn’t exist.

Fanya was gone. And soon, Arina would be too.

She stood at the door. Rain drummed against the window like fingers tapping. She forbade her tears from cresting her eyelids. Her hand released the doorknob.

She left without a word.

Ivan was truly, completely alone. A storm with no one left to shelter. — He sat there for a long time, the rain continuing outside, her uniform heavy in his hands.

The reports of Jared Sykes stared up at him from the table. That tight smile. Those mocking eyes.

“You put me in danger for your war.”

She was right. Of course she was right.

What if everything he’d done to protect her had actually been control? What if his love had been violence dressed in ideology?

“Replaceable like all parts of your machine.”

He pressed the uniform against his chest. Cold fabric. No warmth left.

He had tried to walk away. At ReVival Seventy-Five, he stood before his Red Army, and the world, and spoke truth. Admitted failure. Tried to be something other than the storm. And Jared Sykes had stolen that moment with a single punch.

He'd tried to avoid the fight. Told Jared he wasn't worth his time. Walked away in hallways. Arina begged Jared for mercy. But he kept coming. Kept pushing. Until there was no choice but total war.

And when war came, he had used Arina. Ordered her, a noncombatant, to swing the flagpole. To commit violence she was never meant to commit. He told himself it was necessary.

Now she was gone. Colossus loomed. A match he never wanted, a war he'd tried to escape.

Sykes would come to fight a monster. But tonight there was no monster left, only a man who had built his fortress out of people he could not keep.

Maybe he'd already lost. Maybe the moment Arina walked out that door, the match had already been forfeit. The bell would ring and Ivan would have nothing left to fight for. And worst of all? He wasn't sure he cared.

He'd taught Arina that the world wouldn't forgive. That endurance mattered more than happiness. That storms were meant to be weathered, not avoided.

Maybe the lesson had been wrong all along.

Maybe teaching someone the world won’t forgive them is just a way to confess: I can't forgive myself, and I don't deserve your forgiveness either.

Somewhere in that rainy city, she was walking away from him.

And Ivan Stanislav sat alone in the quiet, holding a uniform that would never be warm again, waiting for a dawn that would bring nothing but Colossus.

A father stands in the storm so his children feel only the quiet. But what happens when the child walks into the storm to escape the father?

He didn't know the answer.

And he was afraid he never would.