TO THE MOTHERLAND

Matt hadn't passed out. Not really. More like he'd experienced what felt like a curious fever dream. He couldn't think, let alone move. Pliable under that traitorous scum's every touch, Mattias had his arms treated under running water and with some kind of numbing spray. The bastard even washed out Matt's mouth to minimize the blackened tint to it. Part of him wondered if that's what Ubiytsa had been looking at in the first place, but it was too late to ask now. 

A flurry of activity followed suit—Matt got thrown unceremoniously over Cifer's shoulder like a sack of potatoes after he'd been dragged out of that tin can and back into the open. His head lolled against the soft, warm fur of the coat that pressed itself against his cheek as the other man moved. The scene changed, then; it was like he teleported out of that secret compartment and into the plane proper. 

Because the next thing his gaze fleetingly met was a much wider, grander space and multiple finely dressed men scowling down at him. 

Garbled Russian he didn't bother trying to understand had his expression twisting into something he was positive looked ugly, but no one seemed to take any offense. Matt laid atop a long, plush couch that was meant for lounging. Or sex. 

Both? Indistinct shapes occasionally interrupted his burgeoning awareness, but aside from a man in a hazmat suit appearing practically out of thin air to tend and bandage his decimated arms, no one stood out enough to remember.

No one, until that fucking voice piped up again and began picking at the edges of Matt's mind like a bird pecking at seeds. 

"—fought me."

"Why? What did you do?"

"My job."

"Piss off. I asked you a question. Why did you feel the need to risk everyone's lives for a fucking pig?"

"He got sick. It could have spread. Needed to check."

One monotonous, robotic reply after another. The bird stopped picking at seeds; now it was plucking at Matt's mind directly. Throughout his entire childhood, he'd never known Cifer to be some emotionless husk. If someone had dared to utter those kinds of words his way, the wild teen would have clocked him in the mouth by now. 

But he didn't. Matt turned his head subtly to crack his eyes open and watch.

"Sick, yes. Burned? No! I thought you had enough sense in you not to set a fucking plane on fire because your old 'friend' poked your ego?"

Silence. Dread consumed him, but when Matt saw Cifer's blank, empty face, a deep sense of wrong took root amidst the corruption within him.

"Meet me in my hotel room later. I think I need to remind you which one of us is in charge. No burning. No killing, no fucking any women. Nothing. You're here because I've allowed you to be. Don't forget that."

"I won't." 

What the fuck, what happened to the boy who had the balls enough to manhandle their nan?? What was this… thing left in his wake? More importantly, who was this asshole boss of theirs that, now that he could see him at least partially from the corner of his narrowed eye, was nowhere near the size—nor half the alpha—Cifer was? 

Cifer looked like he could crush that guy's skull with his bare hands. There's no shot that he'd ever take a guy like that seriously, let alone respect him enough to stand there and get reamed out quietly. He wanted to stand up and shake hi—

Wait. No. What did Mattias think he would get out of this? Nothing. This was Cifer, the dead man. A traitor and a war criminal wanted by several countries for his horrific acts during the war. The man who betrayed not only his nation and his people, but his family, too. Guise was fucking devastated when Matt had to—ugh. Dark eyes diverted themselves, ears closed to any whispering and canines bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted rot. 

It made him nauseated again, but that sick feeling was better than empathizing and trying to scope out the psychology of the man who'd destroyed Matt's life and betrayed him. That kind of heartache drove men mad. And Matt had gone mad for a while. He couldn't understand it then, and he didn't want to understand it now. 

Better to kill Cifer at the earliest opportunity and bury the last of his ghosts, once and for all. 

… § … 

Matt really had lost his touch, but twenty years of peace and complacency does that to a man. So damn focused on Cifer, he'd missed a vital piece of information; hotel. They were staying at a public hotel. Couldn't be that secure, could it? Not enough to deter Mattias from seizing an opportunity to escape whilst everyone was dead drunk or asleep. They were Russians, after all. There's no way they wouldn't celebrate their victory.

After what felt like days in the air without the need to refuel—technology has come a long way in the last two decades now that the intelligence-based supes can focus on commercial tech—they finally landed in the place where Matt's childhood went to die. Joyously, he'd received something more than just achingly tight pants to wear and was busy sorting his attire out back inside his little smuggled compartment. 

He held a slight limp to his gait and a weakness to his arms, but other than that, he couldn't feel fuck all in the way of pain. The guy in the hazmat suit had come back and stuck him with a few things, handed him some familiar-looking pills and then buggered off again without a word. It put him to sleep; genuine sleep, for the first time in probably a few months. He dreamed of nothing, got chased by nothing, fought no demons and wrestled no ghosts. 

In fact, his nausea was quelled sufficiently enough to gorge himself on a full-sized meal. It took all day for his shrunken stomach to handle it in small bites over time, but he'd eaten. Purple and green fingers smoothed out the unassuming grey jacket he wore atop what was a simple athletic tank top. Seems these guys at least knew well enough to make that pitch black.

Same with the casual black pants he wore. Although Matt didn't know their material, the pants were surprisingly warm and stretchy. He wore a pair of black boxers that didn't fit him well enough to leave anything to the imagination, some black crew socks and black shoes. It wasn't like this was beyond his usual attire; men like him that had gotten sick during the war stained almost everything they touched for long periods of time, and Mattias was no exception. 

Wearing white was entirely out of the question. Even this grey jacket—fur lined, but not heavily so as it was early autumn in Russia—wasn't likely going to last longer than three or four days before it would need to be burned. His other clothes, unless made of a special compound fabric, would also need burning. He'd have to wait and see what they did with them. Once he settled, Mattias fetched a toothbrush, some toiletries and other things that almost made him feel like a person again. 

Were it not for Cifer having thrown him into another shower and helped him get cleaned up. His arms may be free and the pain gone, but he couldn't get them wet at the moment. 

"... Done?" Cifer asked. 

"No. I forgot something at home. We need to turn the plane around and go back."

"Shut up, Matt. We're leaving."

Mattias had to physically stop himself from bursting into laughter—he refused to let that cocky bastard think he was winning him over. Heels clicked against the expensive floors as he turned on them, peering down the bridge of his nose to get a proper look at Cifer now that things weren't quite as messed up. 

That coat he wore, the fur one, was fucking excessive. It was obviously real fur—the prick—as it's speckled with varying natural browns. It fell down to Cifer's mid thigh, and despite the man still not wearing a shirt under it, he'd closed it to hide half of his stupidly defined chest. Matt wasn't sure which unfortunate animal they'd used to create that thing, but it must have been exceptionally fluffy. 

Cifer wore semi-loose, silver pants made of a material Matt also didn't recognize. What? He's not a tailor, and with the amount of new fabrics that have recently launched to accommodate various types of supes over the years, it's impossible to keep track. The boots Cifer wore were black, intricate, and obviously expensive. Tactical, maybe? Cifer had slicked back his somewhat longer, platinum blond locks to keep them out of his eyes. 

And yet, even with the significant glow up, there was no hiding the dead stare on the other man's masculine features. 

"... What's wrong with you?" Matt asked. 

In Russian, mind you. 

"Nothing. Get moving."

Automatic, stale, devoid of everything that was a living man. Faintly, as he started making his way through the plane and out of their smuggling compartment, Matt wondered whether he was being accompanied by a man or a living corpse. 

It didn't take long to get to the plane proper, "stop there," the 'boss' said. "There are ground rules before we get off."

"Ground rules?"

They couldn't be fucking serious, could they? As if Matt was going to follow any of their fucking ground rules. 

"Yes. You follow them, or there will be consequences. Not only for you here, but for your little friends back in America."

"What?" he switched back into Russian; "I don't have any friends. You're lying."

"The blond man. What was his name? Quite pretty, even if he looks more alpha than omega. Was it… ah, yes. Hero. Apex. Boreas. The ice hero of the war."

Oxygen fled from not only his lungs, but every cell in his body. 

"He's got nothing to do with this."

"You're right. For now. So long as you follow the rules, this will remain so. If not, well. He's fuckable. Shame if his… reputation gets besmirched."

Matt lunged at the sick fuck without batting an eye, but a powerful arm snaked itself around Matt's middle and left him struggling to reach him in vain. 

"You wouldn't fucking dare! You don't have the balls or the resources! I'd like to see you try to get past Apex's defenses you—who the fuck even are you?!" 

Ah, there it was. The dreaded, loaded question Mattias had been avoiding asking since all this went down. Even hearing the words get hissed through gnashing teeth and flared nostrils made his blood turn to cement in his veins; out of all the baggage he still dragged around from the war, this one fucked with him the most. 

Names. Asking people who they were; that was personal. You stopped being two lethal instruments on a battlefield and started being two people. It's easier to mow down an instrument of death than it is to know the name of the man whose life you just snuffed out. Enemies were enemies. Comrades were not friends. If they were, and they had names, Mattias would go mad from the amount of them he'd seen turned to nothing but disintegrated ash in front of him. 

He didn't want this to be personal. He fucked up. Fervent panic expanded inside him like a balloon being filled with a machine, and it happened so fast, he hadn't realized the look on his face had shifted dramatically. 

"Ha! Finally, some real, proper fear. No one likes a pompous alpha."

The bastard snapped his fingers and one of the many loitering men that had brought Matt all the way back to Russia jumped to his side. 

"Phone," the boss said. 

He got handed a device quickly after. 

"Ground rules," his eyes remained glued to the screen as he unlocked it and idly thumbed, "no screaming. No fighting, running or giving anyone your name. No calling for the police—they work for us. You will find no sympathetic ears. Do not speak to anyone other than us. You may not speak English in public. Don't try escaping, it will waste time—and piss me off greatly."

Matt bit back his less than polite replies. 

The boss paused his explanation for a few moments to type something onto the screen of his device, continuing only after he finished. "You keep your head down. Do not insult anyone. Especially not Ubiytsa! Be good. Do as you're told. Finish what we need of you and maybe, just maybe, we will let you live."

"Don't lie to me. I'm a dead man."

Laughter was all he got. Cifer slowly released him as though he were letting go of an unruly cat to see how it would respond, but when Mattias calmly stood himself upright again and swallowed his septic pride, he nodded. The look on his face was something out of a nightmare; however, as he contemplated allowing his pent up rage loose to go feral.

"Do you, or do you not, understand?"

"I understand."

He didn't. But for the moment, Matt would say whatever this fuck wanted to hear. 

"Good. We leave."

Rough, gloved hands shoved him forward, and Matt considered intentionally walking slowly just to piss the traitorous bastard off. For a small amount of comfort, it seemed this man and his lackeys weren't ready to reveal their identities yet.