PART 1

Princes of Moscow

Chapter 3

Their father died twelve days later.

The bullet wound to Vaska's shoulder was a challenge. With Vaska sprawled out on a stained sheet on the floor of Oleg's empty house, Vladimir supporting him in his lap and holding him down by his unwounded shoulder, Anatoly watched as the bullet was dug out from his father's back with a pair of old forceps and half a bottle of vodka. Vaska was pale and drenched in sweat by the time the twisted metal was pulled from his body, blood continuing to gush from his back, coloring the old sheet in a dark crimson. Anatoly had to help stitch his father's wound. His hands were the steadiest.

In the end, it wasn't the wound in the shoulder that killed Vaska. It was a small graze, tucked beneath his arm. Vladimir noticed it three days after they escaped the bar, pointing it out to his younger brother as Anatoly brought in a bowl of fresh snow from outside, to wrap in cloth and cool the fever that had haunted their father.

The wound was nothing more than a thick line cut through his skin, a thin layer of blood crusted over it. Anatoly dampened a piece of fabric with some of the snow and washed away the grime around the graze. The skin surrounding it had turned red and angry, swelling up and hot to the touch.

Neither brother knew what to do. Oleg had left after the first night, back to Maxim, and hadn't returned. They kept the wounds clean, they kept their father comfortable.

On the fifth day, Vaska became nauseous. Anatoly had gone out and pinched three cans from a local shop, stuffing them into the large pockets of his brother's winter coat. He had quick, nimble hands and brought back his bounty with a small proud grin. His father was is no position to badger him for the small crime. His brother said nothing, just took the cans with a nod and began to heat one on a dwindling fire kept alight for light and warmth.

Anatoly helped his brother shift their father into a seated position. Vladimir spooned some of the soggy spinach out from the can with the can lid and held it in front of Vaska's mouth. After ten minutes of his father simply shaking his head, refusing the food, Vladimir shoved the can into his brother's hands in frustration and stormed from the house, muttering curses as he left.

Anatoly managed to get a few mouthfuls of food into his father, followed by a swallow of cool water. Vaska was sick a half hour later, emptying his stomach with a pitiful moan. Alone, Anatoly cleaned up the mess the best he could and moved his father to the other side of the living room they had claimed, carefully lifting him up by the armpits and dragging his limp body closer to the fire. Vaska cried out when his son's fingers grazed the inflamed skin around the bullet wound.

That night, Vladimir came home with an empty bottle of Dovgan and a stagger to his step. Anatoly didn't bother asking him where he got it.

On the ninth day, Oleg returned, bringing with him a small pill bottle of antibiotics. It seemed like too little too late. By the time he returned, Anatoly had watched his father descend into the clutches of infection.

Vaska's nausea prevented him from eating. Whenever he attempted to, one of his son's ended up wiping away a puddle of vomit. He moaned throughout the day and night, a sheen of sweat painted across his brow. While Anatoly and Vladimir hunted down food and medical supplies, Vaska slept. When he was hot, Anatoly would wipe his brow with a wet rag. When he was cold, Vladimir would stoke the fire and drape his coat over his father's shoulders.

Every night Vaska would mutter to himself, asking for forgiveness, apologizing to his sons. Apologizing that he would have to leave them so soon. Despite his physical condition improving, his mental state deteriorated rapidly. Vaska was convinced he was dying.

The shoulder wound had started to heal nicely. The skin was mending and Oleg took out the stitches while Vaska slept. When he woke an hour later, Oleg helped him swallow two pills followed by some water. Then, once again, he left.

Anatoly and Vladimir saw him to the door. As Oleg shrugged his jacket onto his shoulders, he gave Vladimir a stern look. "You should leave the city," he said. "Head towards the west. Try to get into Ukraine, Belarus. Start a new life."

Vladimir shook his head. He gave Anatoly a small shove between the shoulder blades. "Go watch otets," he breathed to his brother, pushing him away from the doorway.

Anatoly's gaze traveled from his brother's face to where their father was curled into himself near the fire. "No, I want to hear what you have to say," he protested, leaning backwards in resistance against his brother's nudge. With crossed arms, Anatoly glared at Vladimir defiantly.

"Anatoly…" Vladimir growled.

"He's sleeping! There's nothing to watch." Anatoly watched his brother's face darken. "I'm not a kid any more, Vladimir, you can't keep telling me what I can and can't do!"

"Like hell I can't!" Vladimir yelled, shoving his younger brother once more with more force and ferocity. "Do what I tell you. Now."

Oleg watched the exchange between the two brothers with an impassive look.

Anatoly looked annoyed. He stomped off towards the fireplace and his injured father. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be able to hear what the two older men talked about. The old house echoed like a cavern. It was an act of defiance. It was a failed act of defiance. Anatoly was waiting for the day he stopped being Vladimir's little brother and became his equal.

"Start a new life?" Anatoly glanced over his shoulder, taking in his brother's frustrated posture, before crouching down next to the flickering flame and prodding at the embers with the fire poker. "With what?"

The tone in Vladimir's voice left no room for Oleg to reply.

"We have nothing," Vladimir spat in anger. "We should go to Maxim."

"NO!"

When Oleg shouted, Anatoly whirled around, bringing the hot poker in his hand to bear. He was faced with a pale, panicked Oleg and a tense, confused brother. Vladimir fixed his elder with a dark, quizzical look, his mouth turned down in a scowl.

"And why not?" Vladimir asked. "He employed my father; I could work for h-"

"No," Oleg interrupted, shaking his head. "It would be better if you left."

"But, why-" Anatoly piped up from his place by Vaska.

"Trust me," Oleg said, cutting in once more. "It is better." This was the second time Oleg had given them an order, speaking cryptically and refusing to explain himself.

Oleg clapped a hand down onto Vladimir's shoulder. "God watch over you, both of you," he murmured, nodding at him, and then his younger brother, before turning and flinging the door open. He disappeared into the snowy night, leaving Anatoly to wonder if he would ever hear the great tales of Moscow from the old man again.

"Old fool," Vladimir snarled, slamming the door shut behind the man's coattails. "He lies down at Maxim's feet like a bitch, who is he to say leaving is our best choice?"

Anatoly tossed the poker back into the pit of the fireplace. "So, we won't be leaving?" Vaska gave out a weak moan by his feet.

"Net, brat moy," Vladimir replied, stalking away from the doorway, his voice becoming calm as quickly as it had become heated. He mussed his younger brother's hair, much like their father always would, before sitting down beside their father. He ran a hand along the man's brow, which was beaded with sweat. "We will go to Ilya. He'll let us stay with him. Once father is better, you'll see."

On the eleventh day, as Anatoly curled up on the floor and feigned sleep, he heard his father whisper to his brother. "Soon, it will just be the two of you. Watch out for your brother."

On the twelfth day, Vaska was dead.

Neither son cried.

"Gregori will make sure the two guards on the south corner are taken care of, then that leaves Vladimir and myself to deal with the staff." Ilya's gray eyes traveled from man to man seated around the kitchen table, each either meeting his gaze or staring intently at the crude blueprints of the bank spread out on the tacky tablecloth.

Vladimir was one of the men looking at the plans, a grim frown on his face, his fingers absentmindedly rubbing at the tattoo on his left hand, nestled on the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger. He had gotten it two years ago, but it still seemed to itch sometimes. A simple symbol much like the Orthodox cross, a thick black line with smaller protrusions. He was told it could be a religious symbol. Vladimir was not religious. His interpretation of it was he was following in his father's footsteps.

Anatoly had begged to get a matching one and Vladimir had found it difficult to deny him. Instead of the barbed line on the web between his fingers, Anatoly had decided on a small circle with a dot inside on the back of his hand. Orphan.

Ilya continued, "Settled?" The room remained quiet, until…

"No."

Ilya's eyes snapped to Vladimir. "Stoh?"

Vladimir shook his head, finally looking at his friend and partner. "No. This won't work; we're two men short for this job. We have no getaway driver and Luka can't cover two doors at once. He's fast, but not that fast, and he's new to this. We'll have the politsiya on us before the job even begins."

Some of the other boys shifted in their seats, glancing at one another. Many of them were fresh off the streets, just beginning their career in crime. As Vladimir, Ilya, and the two other members of their crew had continued to have robbery after robbery end successfully, they had decided to expand. Their names were becoming well known in their neighborhood. When the word spread that Ilya was looking to step up in the criminal world, a number of desperate young men came crawling to their doors.

The crew considered Ilya to be the official leader of their operations, but it was blatantly obvious that Vladimir made a majority of their plans and decisions. While Ilya, a large, strong built boy, ran the break-ins, Vladimir was the clever, calculating mind that told him where to strike and when. They balanced one another, which was what made their team so effective.

The two other original members of the crew, Filipp and Misha, watched the exchange with interest, clearly used to back and forth arguing between their two heads and waiting to see if it came to a compromise or a fist-fight. Meanwhile, the four new men stared with wide, worried eyes, wondering whether or not joining up was a good idea or not.

The unspoken argument going on through the glares tossed across the table was practically spoken aloud. Ilya was unhappy, Vladimir didn't care.

Once the silence in the conversation had bypassed the point at which it turned painfully uncomfortable, Ilya gave a small jerk of his head and Misha, quickly followed by the rest of the men, rose from his seat. Chairs scraped against the floor, feet stomped away, and the door slammed before the room returned to a peaceful silence.

Ilya, his long, dark hair tied back away from his face, rubbed thoughtfully at the stubble on his chin before sighing deeply through his nose.

"How long is this going to go on, Vladimir," he asked, staring intently at his friend. "We can't afford to keep calling jobs off because of small technicalities."

"This isn't a small technicality," Vladimir returned, his voice agitated as he gestured at the plans spread out on the table. "I spoke to you earlier about this and you ignored me, so I brought it up to everyone and I will bring it up again. This job will land every single one of our asses in prison. We don't have enough people."

"We do, Vlad, if we just have Luka-"

"Net."

"But if Luka covers the extra-"

"Net."

"Vladimir, if we-"

"Net!"

Ilya slammed a fist onto the table, the whole structure shaking on weak joints. "God damn it, Vlad, we can't afford this."

"Well, I can't afford to go to jail. Not anymore."

Silence followed this. Vladimir pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He wasn't drunk enough for this argument. All he wanted was a cheap bottle of vodka.

Ilya made a small noise of acknowledgement. "Jail. You never worried about that before."

Vladimir sighed, letting his hands drop to his lap. He really wanted that vodka. "Well," he replied, his voice tired. "It used to be that if I went to jail, Anatoly still had our father. Clearly, he's not around anymore."

The look Ilya gave Vladimir was both one of understanding and one of ignorance. Unlike the Ranskahovs, his father had landed in jail before he was born and gotten himself killed in a riot fourteen years later. Ilya didn't know what it was like to lose a father because he had never had one to begin with.

However, he had known Vaska. He had seen the man's dead body. He had helped Vladimir toss his father to the bottom of the Volga River because they couldn't think of a place to safely take him. He had watched the way Vladimir's gaze hardened and the way the innocence in Anatoly's had died. He knew their loss.

"Three years ago I killed a police officer," Vladimir finished. "If we're arrested and they make any connection between me and that bar, I'll never see the sun again, let alone my brother. If you can scrape up another pair of guys, I'll consider it."

Ilya nodded, his hand back on his chin, moving methodically as he thought. "I think this plan will work," he said confidently.

"Then I'm out. Get that ass from down the street, the one always chasing your heels, to take my spot. He was dying to get in on this."

With a chuckle, Ilya replied, "You know he's always half drunk. Poor sukin syn couldn't hold a gun even if it was nailed to his hand."

"Hmm, sounds just like this guy I work with, but he's always trying to tell me what to do." Vladimir pushed his chair back and stood up.

"Hey!" Ilya laughs, deep and harsh, rising as well. "You mudak!" Vladimir didn't join in on his laughter.

"Hey," Ilya said once more, his voice softer. He circled around the table and grabbed Vladimir by the back of the neck in an act of comfort. "We'll figure this all out. You and Anatoly, you're my brothers. I take care of my family."

Vladimir nodded.

"Good." Ilya pulled him into a quick hug, pounding him on the back. "You're a tough bastard, Vlad. There's something in that Ranskahov blood."

Vladimir hummed in agreement as the other man let him go and led him out the door. Ilya's home was a ramshackled old apartment building he'd somehow acquired. It was a small, decrepit building wedged onto the corner of a street. The buildings next to it seemed to be trying to push it from its perch and out onto the road. It was a nice place for the crew to stay; there were apartments, albeit tiny, one roomed apartments, for each person, so the men had some space. Their meetings were held on the main floor kitchen.

They wandered through the dark hallway that led from the kitchen to what may once have been an office and was now a communal room to talk, to relax, and, most importantly, to drink. Vladimir could hear the buzz of quiet conversation and the clink of bottles against glasses as booze was poured.

Ilya stopped Vladimir before they entered the room with a gentle hand on his chest. Vladimir gave him a stern, confused look. "Anatoly would be fine, just so you know," Ilya murmured in a hushed voice to answer his friend's quizzical look. "He's seventeen, a man. He's out there right now," he jerked his head towards a window, looking out onto a deserted street, "taking care of himself. If you weren't around, he'd still be out there, taking care of himself."

"That's true," Vladimir agreed, "but it doesn't hurt to have someone looking after him when he comes home."

With that, Vladimir swung open the door and strutted into the room. The new members glanced up with wide eyes, gaping as their leaders make their way into the room. Misha and Filipp were lounging on a pair of chairs in the back of the room, observing everything with a watchful disinterest.

"So," Filipp asked, taking a swig from the full bottle of vodka in his hand. Everyone else had glasses. "Are we in or out?"

The entire room turned to Ilya. They all knew Vladimir's opinion on the matter, but whether or not Ilya would listen to him seemed up in the air.

Ilya paused, looking thoughtfully around the room, meeting the eyes of every man in the room. Vladimir rolled his, knowing Ilya was simply enjoying a bit of theatrics. Vladimir preferred grabbing the bull by the horns and getting to the point.

"We're out," Ilya said with a tone of finality. He moved out of the doorway and towards the shelf of liquor at the back of the room.

The room erupted into a wave of disappointed groans and complaints. Filipp simply shrugged and went back to his bottle.

Luka, the eager young pup he was, leapt to his feet. "Is this because of me?" he asked, his voice offended, and a little desperate. "Because I'm fast enough. I can cover both doors if you need me-"

"No, no," Ilya said with a shake of his head, returning to the center of the room and patting the boy on the shoulder. "This isn't anything against you. The boss just has a bad feeling is all."

Luka's eyes, as well as the other fresh blood in the room, followed Ilya's to where Vladimir lurked by the entrance. He met them with a passive face. He didn't care what they thought of him. They'd thank him later when they were counting their money and not the number of days they had left in the Siberian wasteland.

"You all look like someone pissed in your vodka," Ilya laughed, watching the crestfallen faces of the new recruits. "If you're that desperate for a bit of action, there's a bar two blocks down. The owner owes me some money."

The whole room seemed to perk up at the idea. "Blood thirsty bastards," Filipp chuckled, swallowing another mouthful of his liquor before capping it and tossing it to Gregori, who caught it with deft hands. "Come on, boys, let's raise a little hell!"

With a surge of moment, the room began to clear as the crew members left to prepare, boys whooping in excitement. Ilya snatched the bottle from Gregori's hands as he passed, and then threw himself haphazardly onto one of the couches. He let out a content sigh, tossing a grin towards Vladimir, who remained at his post near the door. "What am I supposed to do? Got to keep the masses happy."

Vladimir rolled his eyes.

As he passed, Vladimir latched onto Misha's, the last to leave the room's, forearm. Unlike Ilya and Filipp, he was a quiet soul and Vladimir found him the easiest to work with and to get answers from.

"Do you know where Anatoly is today?" he asked.

Misha glanced down at his arm, eyeing Vladimir's grip, and then flicked his eyes back up to his face. "I heard he was heading to the train station," he replied. "Him and those quick fingers, always practicing."

There are two rules to pickpocketing. Don't look suspicious. Don't get caught.

Everything else is a choice. You could work solo or in a team. Anatoly worked solo. You could use the cover of a crowd or the distraction of interaction. Anatoly preferred not having to talk to anyone. You could cut purse straps or lift wallets. Who would steal from a pretty woman, honestly?

It had taken him a few years, but Anatoly had gotten good at picking pockets. Samara wasn't the largest city in Russia, but it was still large. It had decent tourism and tourists meant crowds. Crowds meant pickpockets.

It had started as a way for him to contribute. Anatoly was only fourteen when Ilya took him and his brother in, so bank raids were strictly out, according to Vladimir. He started by shoplifting, sneaking out expensive products under the noses of clueless shop owners. For a while, he had been doing the same with food for his family. Vladimir helped him keep it a secret from their father, for who knows what his reaction to his youngest being a criminal would have been. He got more and more skilled with each snatch, but soon it got too dangerous. Anatoly rotated the shops he stole from, even going in and actually purchasing things to prevent suspicion, but the shopkeepers began to watch him too closely. There were only so many stores he could go too, and it wasn't long before he didn't felt safe.

So, Misha had taught him to pickpocket.

Misha reminded Anatoly of Vladimir in a way. They were quiet, analytical, smart. Misha was more patient and had no problem sitting down in the common room or wandering the streets between jobs to teach Anatoly the trade. They started by working together. A young, lost fourteen year old boy was a good distraction for Misha to sneak up behind and slip a wallet from a jacket pocket.

Then, their attention turned to solo work, so Anatoly could go out on his own while the older men prepared the high paying robberies. Misha would take him to crowded, tourist locations; the train station, Kuibyshev Square, Ploshchad Slavy, the opera and ballet theater. They would pick out the clear tourists. People speaking other languages, women flapping maps into their husbands' faces, people who simply looked lost.

And Anatoly was skilled. He gotten away unnoticed all but once, and was chased nearly halfway through the city by a red faced man, who was far too fast for his girth, screaming curses. It had been a learning experience; what not to do and how to run away.

It wasn't long before Anatoly could watch a crowd and pick out the best marks; the people who looked wealthy; and steal their possessions right from under them. Misha would openly praise him and his ability to take a mark that was nervous, suspicious, expecting a pickpocket, and still make it away with the cash.

Every day before he left, Vladimir would tell him to be careful. He had never seen Anatoly work before and he probably didn't realize how good he was at it. All Vladimir had was the word of his friend and the word of his little brother and he always seemed to be expecting for Anatoly to wind up in jail. So, naturally, the onetime Vladimir decided to pop by for a visit, he got caught.

It was a stupid mistake, really.

Anatoly was perched on a set of stairs near a car park across from the train station, watching the ebb and flow of the crowds. He watched eyes, analyzed body language, eavesdropped on conversations as the people walked past. In a crowd full of people watching their belongings, keeping their eyes open for a pickpocket, no one seemed to notice the teenage boy noticing them.

He kept a book in his lap, an easy diversion if someone started to become suspicious of him. The day was cool, but warm enough to keep away the heavy winter jackets that hid bags and pockets that prevented Anatoly from working.

A man caught his attention. Dressed casually, in the middle of the crowd, turning, searching. Searching for someone? A street sign? A point of reference? He scanned the crowds. Looking for someone, most likely. Distracted. Alone.

Anatoly flipped the book closed and slid the small volume into his own jacket pocket. There was already a small wad of rubles tucked away inside, the wallets themselves each dropped into separate garbage bins along the streets.

He jogged across the street, weaving between a taxi and a large van before he reached the large open sidewalk in front of the building. He walked in the direction of his target, looking like he knew where he was headed, but not in a way that was suspicious. He was doing everything perfectly, exactly the way that Misha had taught him, exactly the way he had done it countless times before.

The problem was, as Anatoly sidled up alongside the mark and let the current of the crowd push him up against his target's side, he didn't notice the other man. As his fingers slipped into a back pocket and gracefully pulled out the man's wallet, he didn't notice the other man. As he began to disappear back into the crowd, he didn't notice the other man. Anatoly didn't notice the other man until it was too late.

A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder, squeezing tight and preventing him from slipping away between a pair of women. "Where do you think you're going!" a gruff voice growled above the clatter and hum of the traffic and crowds. The hand tightened its grip, enough to be mildly painful, and spun Anatoly around so he was facing his captor. It was a taller man, his face very much rodent like and his body long and wiry. His face looked familiar…

Anatoly didn't have time to dwell on the familiarity of a stranger. He had bigger problems. Like how his mark had noticed his missing wallet, how his mark had located Anatoly as the perpetrator, and how it appeared his mark and the man who had uncovered him appeared to be friends.

Wasting no more time, as heads of commuters began to turn and notice the episode happening in the middle of the crowd, Anatoly ripped the hand from his shoulder and sprinted off. He shoved people aside, dodged around others. An elderly woman ended up being flung to the ground and a pair of young men ended up knocked back on their rear ends as Anatoly came flying past. He could hear the curses of the men behind him, snapping at his heels.

Anatoly was physically fit, but he was short. The weasley man behind him had long legs, much longer than Anatoly's, and while he lacked the same muscle as the younger boy, his legs made up for it.

Despite speeding his was down a few blocks, heart racing, breath coming in short gasping puffs, jacket billowing out as he pumped his arms and pushed his legs to their limit, hands quickly found a firm grasp on Anatoly's coat and dragged him back. Anatoly yelled out in protest, digging his heels into the ground and throwing his elbows back towards his assailant, trying to get in a decent hit.

The hands flung him to the ground, Anatoly landing with a pained grunt and a blossoming of pain in the wrist he landed upon. He looked up; the two men were stalking down the alley they had tossed him in. Anatoly began to scramble up to his feet, stumbling over his own limbs, but was knocked down with a kick to his chest. The wind flew from his lungs and he landed hard on his back.

"You made a bad decision today, street rat," the weasel man smirked. The sadistic grin on his face was disheartening. Anatoly swallowed hard, trying to crawl his way back, away from the men. He was always so good at picking his mark. Why had he picked the man as his target? He had looked lost, like a tourist. Hadn't he? Anatoly couldn't think clearly.

The other man jumped on him before he could scamper too far away. He grabbed a fistful of Anatoly's shirts and hauled him up, slamming him up against the wall of the alley and snapping a fist right into his face. Anatoly saw stars as his head smacked up against the wall.

He pushed his hands into his attacker's face, trying to gouge, scratch, anything to cause pain and to get the man to back away. The man, angered further by his actions, drove another punch into his chin.

By this point, Anatoly's vision had begun to blur, blood running freely from his nose and his head throbbing. He blamed his injuries for his confusion during what happened next.

A blur seemed to fly out of nowhere, knocking his assailant from his feet and releasing the man's grasp from Anatoly's shirt. With the loss of support, Anatoly stumbled and found himself on the floor in mere seconds, gazing up to watch none other than his own big brother driving the head of his assaulter into a wall and releasing him to crumple into a pile.

Vladimir drew a blade, a hidden sheath tucked beneath his jacket, and faced the other man, the man who had discovered Anatoly's pickpocketing.

"Hmm, another street rat, eh?" the weasel hummed, eyes tracking Vladimir as he maneuvered his way in front of his brother.

Vladimir didn't respond, keeping his knife poised in front of him.

The weasel sneered. "Your face looks familiar, boy." Vladimir spoke, but ignored the man's question.

"Anatoly, can you stand up?" His brother did not turn, he did not waver.

"Da," Anatoly breathed, bringing his hands under him and pushing himself to his feet, ignoring the sharp pain in his wrist.

"Good. Walk out of the alley, I'm right behind you."

Anatoly began to back his way out of the alley, watching his brother's back, shoulders clearly tense beneath his jacket. As soon as the brothers reached the edge and were back on the streets, Vladimir grabbed Anatoly by the sleeve and took off running, dragging his brother behind him.

"You shouldn't mess with Maxim!" The shout followed them as they ran.

Anatoly and Vladimir ran for blocks, streets, they ran until they were back to the apartment building.

Anatoly bent over, gasping for breath. He turned his head towards his brother, who leaned against the side of the building, equally winded.

"That was Alexei," Vladimir said, his voice blunt. "He's one of Maxim's. You really shouldn't mess with him."

A/N: So once again, another chapter for y'all. I want to thank everyone for the likes, follows, and comments. Please, keep 'em coming and let me know what you think! Hope you enjoy! -Krieg

Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, Daredevil, or any characters affiliated with the show or comics. Maxim, Ilya, and the crew of OCs are created by yours truly. This is rated T for potential violence and language; if you watch the show, you should be just fine!