[color=silver][right][sub]TIMESTAMP — Flashback (December of 2019) 
A few days after [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5343298]Badger, Boa, Bambi & A Baby[/url]
 [/sub][/right]

[indent][indent][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/sWiiSbF.png[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/RJJ7UGa.png[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/tTLU1ux.png[/img]
[color=635687][b]____________________________________________________________________________________________________[/b][/color][/center]

It hadn’t even been a full week since Mika was last in New York. The last time he was here, he had come of his own volition. He had sought out Boa because of the months that went by since he had seen his brother and occasional fuck buddy (not so much anymore). He spent the night with him, Bambs, and little Viva. They lit the menorah in Danny’s honor and Mika had dinner with them, caught up on lost time, and spent the first night since before the shooting with his brother and in a state of temporary bliss.

But ever since that day, ever since he came back out here, there was a black cloud lingering over Honey Badger. This black cloud was cast before he left Brooklyn. It reached out to him.

[indent][right]Timestamp - Just hours leaving Boa and Bambi’s apartment - Brighton Beach[/right]

The day even before Mika had found where Boa had been staying since he left in August, Mika had received a text. The text was from Sergei. Sergei was one of Ivan’s most trusted bodyguards. What he did for the family was pretty much what being Ivan’s direct bodyguard implied: he protected Ivan and Ivan’s interests. Mika didn’t know an extensive amount of what that bastard did nor did he care to know, but Sergei had been around him for as long as he could remember.

Dyadya Sergei. Uncle Sergei. 

Mika’s memories of Sergei were, for the most part, pleasant. Despite being around the cancer that was Ivan Zima, Sergei never was aggressive or treated him or his mother or his sisters like Ivan often did. So that’s why Mika wasn’t against meeting with Sergei at a playground in Brighton Beach. 

The playground itself was as Mika remembered. So vibrant and colorful, like the core memories that came up as Mika sat down on a bench, looking through nostalgia glasses. The rare times in his life when Mika wasn’t always angry, he was here with his mother and the twins.

[color=635687]“After all this time, it still hasn’t changed.”[/color] Mika’s voice was full of fondness as he turned his head. The blonde Russian man, who was so clearly many years his senior, sat as he always did: hunched forward, elbows resting on his thighs, and a stern expression on his face.

[color=876356]“You and Boris used to play over there all the time--”[/color] [url=https://i.imgur.com/SIyRsF6.jpg]Sergei[/url] pointed his head at the jungle gym. [color=876356]“You’d climb to the top and Boris would follow. He always followed you, Mikhail.”[/color]

Mika chuckled. [color=635687]“And what did that get him? He fell and cracked a rib.”[/color]

Sergei laughed even harder. It came from deep within the older Russian man. [color=876356]“Boris is strong. Like his mother. He survived. No regrets. He never had any when he was with you.”[/color] Sergei laughed again. [color=876356]“He misses you. Denis too. They wish you didn’t move.”[/color] 

And here it was. Mika should have expected it, but Sergei always liked to reel in with talk of family then came in with the guilt-tripping, but he didn’t mind it. Truth was, he missed them too. [color=635687]“You know your sons are clueless without me, right?”[/color]

Sergei laughed again, knowing what Mika said is a truth even he can't deny. [color=876356]“Denis is too chaotic for his own good. And Boris has no sense of leadership. You kept them in line. Especially after…”[/color] 

Both men knew what that meant and chose not to speak any further. Speaking of Veronika was a wound neither men were willing to reopen at the moment.

Silence took hold of their conversation for a few moments, all of which during, neither men spoke a word. The stared off into the distance, looking at the playground. In Mika's mind, he had a theory about why his uncle asked him here. There would be only one reason why he'd go out of his way to ask him here and deep in his gut, in the part that filled him with a dormant apprehension, Mika knew but he wouldn't have peace of mind if he didn't ask. [color=635687]“So you texted me. Told me it was important.”[/color] Mika and Sergei exchanged a glance. [color=635687]“What does Ivan want? To tell me I shouldn’t be here?”[/color] 

Sergei shook his head and kept his eyes on Mika. He observed him, scanning his face, making a low thoughtful sound when he saw what he wanted to find out. [color=876356]“You still angry. About him. About your upbringing.”[/color] Sergei looked forward again, but continued speaking, stern Russian eyes on his nephew. [color=876356]“Your father--”[/color]

Mika's face twitched, visibly furious at the mention of Ivan and the word father being used as a descriptor for the man. [color=635687]“Please, Uncle, don’t call him that. No father sends away his kids because of a scare. I know he still blames me for what happened--”[/color]

[color=876356]“He doesn’t.”[/color] Sergei looked at Mika as he spoke and the younger man laughed, shaking his head. [color=876356]“Dismiss it as much as you want, it the truth.”[/color] 

Sergei, out of anyone, understood just how deep the hatred between father and son ran. Being around the Zima-Capek family for so many years, in service of both Ivan and Gustav, he understood how deep the hatred ran. Vladimir Capek, the father of both Gustav and Ivan, was a cruel, cruel man. An iron fist in both his rule of the Bratva and his family. Gustav was lucky and got out, but the firstborn son always had a choice to be in or out. The second-born didn't and he made Ivan into what he was from an early age and Ivan did the same to Viktor and Mikhail. Viktor was more equipped to take it and make the most of it. 

Mikhail was different. Sensitive. Emotional. He didn’t have the darkness in his eyes. He had more in common with Gustav than he did his own father. He didn’t yearn for killing and violence. He was an angry boy, that much Sergei observed over the years, but he did not have the killer instinct most within the organization did. He's a good cub on the edge of becoming a strong bear.

[color=876356]“Mikhail, Ivan wants to see you. I know it brings you anger. Your fire grows wild and the winter in your heart for him is like an unpredictable blizzard on the coldest month in Siberia. It’s almost manic, but it has been three years. Your father does miss you. Mary left him three months ago. It’s been…a trying time for him.”[/color] Sergei knew he had to choose his words carefully. As he stood up, he kept his eyes on Mika. [color=876356]“Go or don’t go, it’s your choice. But…”[/color] He looked forward and a small frown crept its way onto the older man’s face. [color=876356]“Family is complicated. Father and son is especially complex. You still have a chance. Ivan is unforgiving like Moscow winter. And you are persistent like Russian warrior. You survived that harsh winter without proper protection. Do the same now and you might come to know something deeper about yourself.”[/color]

Was that true? Or was Sergei just trying to sell him to the idea that Ivan has changed? What a bunch of bull! He hasn’t changed. Ivan Zima was incapable of changing. No amount of time alone from his children, his wife, any of his closest loved ones that he sent away, would ever make what he did to him and his mother go away in the snap of a finger. Nothing Ivan could do or say would make Mika forgive, much less forget all the pain he was forced to endure because Ivan Zima couldn’t process that Mika wasn’t like him in the slightest. The abuse he suffered through, the lessons that resulted in him punching a kid’s light’s out - that was all Ivan’s doing.

But at the same time, Mika was here. His father wanted to see him and he wasn’t a scared fourteen-year-old anymore. He could stand up to the Big Bad Boogyman if he tried to come for his soul.

[color=635687]“Fine.”[/color]

Sergei looked back at Mika, his brow raising at the young man with an intense curiosity.

[color=635687]“Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow. Perhaps for lunch, assuming he still knows how to make Perogies like before.”[/color]

Sergei laughed. [color=876356]“It’s the only thing he [i]can[/i] cook without burning down the kitchen.”[/color] 

The two men laughed. For as loyal and faithful to Ivan as Sergei was, the one thing Mika probably missed the most was seeing his Uncle Sergei. Laughing with him. Trading stories. When he was crying and his mother was in a screaming match with Ivan, or she was tending to the twins, Sergei was always the one person who managed to turn his frown upside down. So few people could do that nowadays. Even Cece, for as much as she has tried to get him to open up to her more, couldn’t do that. Not since the shooting. In a way, maybe this was what Mika needed.[/indent]
[/indent][/indent][/color]