OOM: Moscow, USSR, January 1947

[redintheledger]

Natasha should be in her room, studying. Unlike her fellow students at the Moscow State University, her semester breaks are spent back at the Red Room, where she has little time for her textbooks. Today is the first day she's been back in Moscow in (once she added up the hours) four days.

Four days spent in the nearest approximation to wilderness that geography had to offer near Moscow, which in the middle of winter was no joke. She is glad to be back in the warm and dry, with hot water and no need to try and melt the ice from her eyelashes. Not to mention the ability to wear a civilian girl's clothes, instead of a soldier's layers.

But after four days with the company of Comrade Winter, her room with a bed just for her seems too much like a cell for her to be comfortable in it.

So Natasha is in the common room, newly outfitted with amenities such as some sofas, tables, and a wireless. There is also a piano, old like the sofas but kept in good condition. Despite herself, she gravitates towards it, and walks her fingers across the keys. It reminds her of Papa, and today isn't a very good day for that.

Natasha sits down, and tries to play anyway. She can't remember any of the music Papa taught her, but she can stumble her way through some chords. It's better than sitting in her room and wallowing.

Comments

[redintheledger]

Natasha gives him an arch look and bumps into his shoulder.

Not hard, though. Metal has a distressing tendency to win when it comes to altercations with flesh.

"Tempting, but I don't think I'd be able to handle the circus and doing my degree."

[nerves_of_ice]

"You've got a point."

Not to mention her other training.

The cold outside hasn't gotten any warmer. He shrugs his shoulders inside his coat, settling it more closely against the back of his neck, and looks down at her.

"How long do you have before you finish, anyway?"

[redintheledger]

"Three and a half years. I'll graduate in 1950."

Her look at him is a little sharp. He could just be asking, but she wants to keep studying linguistics. Of course she'd accept if they want her to study something else, because she is loyal, but-

[nerves_of_ice]

"That long."

He lets out a short breath.

"Okay."

[redintheledger]

Not reassuring.

"It's a university degree," Natasha says, voice even. "Not a summer class. Is this...a problem?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Not a problem. It's only..."

They're walking, he's not sure where, but at the moment where doesn't matter.

"... you're doing very well, you know. I was just curious."

[redintheledger]

Natasha knows where they're headed.

She also know bullshit when she hears it.

"I am," she says, because there is being modest, and there is acknowledging one's talents, and she does - generally - trust him enough to be herself. "I think doing a post-graduate thesis would be pushing it, but I am doing well.

It's...good having that kind of intellectual discipline, too."

[nerves_of_ice]

He smiles a little, at that.

"I'll take your word for it."

[redintheledger]

She suddenly smiles.

"We'll have to be partners, then. I'll do analysis, and you lead the hands on side."

[nerves_of_ice]

His smile broadens.

"Sounds like we'd make a great team."

[redintheledger]

"I think we've already proven than, Alex." She uses her free hand to gesture to the street and the people still on it.

"We've successfully nearly completed a self-appointed mission to have a good time. There is just one objective that remains."

[nerves_of_ice]

"And what might that be?"

He slants an amused look at her.

[redintheledger]

"Ice-cream," she says serenely, and glances up the street.

"Here we go," she adds, and tugs him into a still-open store. Amongst the young couples talking and laughing, they don't stand out in the slightest.

"Please tell me you remember having ice-cream."

[nerves_of_ice]

He allows himself to be drawn, even as he protests,

"Of course I do!"

Even though he can't think of an occasion right at this particular second.

"It's just never been a frequent sort of thing."

[redintheledger]

Natasha clicks her tongue behind her teeth, and keeps herself hugging his arm to protect against accidental bumpings.

"Shame. So what flavour do you feel like?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"There's something to be said for simple chocolate."

He smiles down at her.

"What about you?"

[redintheledger]

"Chocolate or strawberry, I'm being indecisive."

It is, after all, a night for indulgence, and indecisive is not a normal state for her.




"Chocolate."

[nerves_of_ice]

"In that case, I could get strawberry, and we could share," he suggests.

(The vendor casts his eyes upward toward the ceiling, but forbears to say anything.)

[redintheledger]

Not expecting that, she suddenly smiles at him.

"I think that sounds perfectly acceptable," Natasha says, and the vendor looks relieved. She lets Alex pay, using the time to scout out a table for them, and then darts off to claim it as the current occupants leave. The table itself is a little rickety, but it's at the end of the row with a good view of the door, and no one has to have their back to a window.

It's acceptable enough.

[nerves_of_ice]

He carries their ice cream over to the table and sets Natasha's in front of hers before taking a seat beside her and putting his own down as well -- within her reach.

"Nice place," he observes, looking over the shop.

[redintheledger]

"Mmmhmm," she says around her spoon.

Chocolate ice-cream; nothing like it.

"And, thanks."

[nerves_of_ice]

"For what?" he asks, honestly uncertain, and scrapes up a spoonful of strawberry.

[redintheledger]

She steals some strawberry, only it's not stealing as he'd offered, and anyway they are communist. It gives her an excuse not to answer for a moment.

"It's my birthday," she says finally. "And...It's...I'm nineteen today. My parents only saw my fourteenth. I didn'twanttobealone."

Some more chocolate ice-cream is clearly called for.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Ah."

He taps his spoon lightly against the edge of the cup.

"I didn't know." A heartbeat's pause, and then, quietly,

"But now that I do... I'm doubly glad to have been here."

[redintheledger]

There is a quick smile, but she doesn't say anything for moment.

(This isn't the place for we're going to get in trouble, but then again, there is no place for that.)

"I don't think we're meant to be alone. Although Moscow could stand to have some better housing," she says with a laugh, partly a genuine sentiment, and partly because it's what a Muscovite would say.