What's in a Name

Chapter 16

Alfred inwardly cursed that he'd lost his helmet the previous night as the wind blew his hair around his face. The roaring of it in his ears practically deafened him as he drove down early morning streets, swerving around corners easily as the memories of riding a bike came back to him. It really was something he would never forget.

He knew exactly where to go, even if he had never been there before. He'd been made to memories the address three years ago when he was still working alongside the gang leader. It wasn't far to drive, even on Arthur's older styled bike (the man really did like antiques…), and Alfred found himself speeding past more and more familiar landmarks as he made his way through the backstreets of the town he had once lived in.

The house was old and worn down, ivy growing up and around the windows. As far as most people were concerned the building had been deserted for years after the man who owned it had died, but in reality three siblings had moved in there inconspicuously, the younger two of which had formed one of the largest gangs in the town's history. The eldest of them was rarely seen and Alfred only knew about her from the younger sister's occasional offhand comments, which were usually hushed by her brother.

Alfred pulled on the driveway, stepping over the long grass which had grown up through the concrete.

Ivan had done a really good job of hiding that anyone was living there, he had to admit, and in any other situation Alfred would have thought that the house might have been haunted, and maybe there actually were ghosts in there and then, and then! No, no, this was not the time to start panicking about that kind of thing. There were more important things to worry about.

The paint was flaking off the front door as Alfred twisted the handle, letting it swing open on its hinges to reveal a dimly lit hallway.

His footsteps echoed down the corridor as he stepped inside. It was eerily quiet, almost making Alfred think that he had come to the wrong place, putting the fact that the lights were on aside.

A clatter pushed the thought out of his mind as Alfred started and swung around to locate the source of the noise and the stuttering that had ensued.

"Oh- oh my…" A woman stood at the top of a small flight of stairs, her eyes darting between Alfred and the tray she had dropped down the steps. "I- I wasn't expecting visitors this early… I would have…" She glanced quickly around the dark room, as if expecting more people to materialise out of the shabby drapes that covered the windows.

"Katyusha, right?" Alfred looked her up and down, trying not to land his gaze on her… assets.

"How did you-?" She looked even more bewildered, pushing her hair band back further on her head.

"I know your brother." Alfred's tone was noticeably darker when he mentioned her younger brother, the severity of what he was doing finally sinking in.

"Oh." Katyusha stared at Alfred for a few seconds before quickly gathering up the objects she had dropped and taking a few steps ahead of him down the corridor. "You'd best follow me then." She spoke over her shoulder, no longer looking the younger boy in the eye before she continued walking in silence.

Alfred followed behind her, taking note of how well the house was decorated on the inside despite its outer appearance. Red drapes hung down the walls, insulating the building a little too well (Alfred remembered Ivan mentioning that he was from somewhere very cold so he liked the heat). There were a number of different ornaments and tables placed down the corridors that he was led down, all looking of a particular high class.

Katyusha herself was looking more and more uncomfortable by the minute. Her posture was stiff as she walked, still holding the tray and making sure to keep a few paces ahead of the blonde. Occasionally she would push her short hair behind her ears or adjust the strap of her overalls, still not looking around to see whether Alfred was still walking behind her. She wore her shoes even though she was inside the house, evidently not wanting to walk on the wooden floorboards in just her socks or barefoot, which Alfred could understand, seeing the thick layer of dust that covered pretty much everything.

"He doesn't usually bring people to the house." She stopped suddenly, nearly causing Alfred to walk into her.

"Oh- Well, he didn't exactly invite me." Alfred shuffled his feet, letting his eyes wander around the narrow hall. "But I need to see him." He quickly added, noticing Katyusha's eyes widen with even more worry.

"If you're sure." She said uncertainly, "I'm not sure how he'll take to it though." She turned to carry on walking.

Every single window in the house was covered, bathing it in a permanent twilight, lit by shallow electric lamps that were steadily getting brighter the further they moved into the large building. They passed several doors, one of which was open to show a bedroom, obviously belonging to one of the female siblings, but was evidently empty when Alfred quickly peaked inside.

The last corridor they passed through was entirely empty save for one large wooden set of double doors that were shut and locked tight with a padlock, stopping any prying eyes from seeing what was inside. It was also the only thing in the whole building that didn't seem to be coated in dust and cobwebs. Alfred found himself staring at it for several seconds before Katyusha realised that he was no longer following her and hissed at him to catch up. There was definitely something different about that room though.

She finally came to a halt at the end of a particularly long hallway where the light inside the house had seemingly been lost once more, one small stream of yellow shining out from under the door she was standing in front of. The door handle here was cleaner than all the others in the house, obviously having been used considerably more often and twisted without so much of a squeak, despite the age of the house, swinging open when Katyusha opened it.

"Ah, Ukraine, I was wondering when you would come back." The smooth voice floated out from behind a tall sofa in front of the fire place, which had flames crackling in its grate.

The room itself was more than just grand. Unlike the rest of the house, black drapes hung down around the walls instead of red and the decorations were silver, not bronze. There were several tall bookshelves lining the area closest to the fire filled with dusty old books that looked like they hadn't been read in years. The sofa was positioned in the middle of two comfortable looking arm chairs and a small coffee table where a few empty plates and cups and saucers had been discarded.

A hand moved out from the arm of the sofa, taking one of the cups for a few seconds before replacing it on the saucer, but the person, Ivan, did not look around.

"I'm not Ukraine." Katyusha whispered, looking down at the floor before moving further into the room. "Anyway, I came to collect the dishes." She started to load the dirty crockery onto the tray she had been carrying, avoiding looking at her younger brother, who was still calmly watching her. "Oh, and you have a guest."

"Is that so?" Alfred could see the man lean on the hand that was resting on the arm of the sofa. "How unusual." He finally stood, slowly taking the few steps around to the back of the seat. He whispered something quickly into his sister's ear causing her to whip around, stare at him for a few bewildered seconds before rushing from the room looking quite a state.

"She is a good girl." Alfred could tell he was smiling without having to see his face. Ivan's expressions were predictable, even if his mood wasn't. "I was hoping that you would come here. I'm glad that you have not disappointed my expectations even after three years." He finally turned to face the blonde, sly grin in place, one eyebrow quirked upwards contemplating the other man. "I must say, I think you looked better without the glasses."

"These are your fault." Alfred's voice was stiffer than he had hoped. He matched Ivan's gaze with a glare of his own, clenching and unclenching his fists as a way of distracting himself.

"Yes, yes." Ivan brushed off the comment with a wave of his hand and moving back around the sofa and sitting back down. "Have a seat. We can talk properly."

"Not a chance." Alfred growled, not moving his eyes from the back of the gang leader's head.

"But you came here to talk, did you not?" The tone of Ivan's voice was still light, though it had become slightly questioning without losing any of its confidence.

"I- There are things I need to know." Alfred tripped over his words, inwardly cursing his lack of control over the situation.

"Then ask what you need to ask."

Alfred walked around so that he stood in front of the seated man, looking at his feet rather than at Ivan himself. He held his fist so firmly now that his nails were digging painfully into the palms of his hands.

"That paper you gave me-"

"Ah yes." Ivan cut him off, folding his fingers together in contemplation. "England was glad to receive it, correct? I thought it better to return it to him."

"Why?" Alfred let his hands droop, anticipating what was sure to be a bad answer to a bad situation.

"'Why?'" He chuckled, looking up from his hands to catch a glance at the younger man's face. "'Why' you say. That's easy. I've got something much more valuable than that now. Do I need to expand on that?"

Alfred swallowed hard, hoping that Ivan hadn't noticed (but knew that he had). He knew exactly what he had meant and wished for the life of him that he was wrong.

"Good." The biker leant back in the chair, his smile growing. "Is that all?"

"You know it's not." Alfred practically spat back, finally making eye-contact with the other man.

Ivan stood, forcing Alfred back a couple of paces. He looked down at him, knowing all too well how to intimidate another person to the best of his ability. It was a useful skill that he had picked up over his years of being in and leading gangs.

"Well then, hurry up." He paused, surveying the man in front of him again. "Don't waste my time, Jones." He turned away, taking a few steps forward, away from Alfred.

"You left back then." Alfred felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as a chill entered the room. The flames in the fireplace had died down, leaving the weak electric lamps to light the room. "Why?"

"Another easy one, Alfred." Ivan's voice had gotten colder with the change in the room's temperature. "I couldn't have you coming after us with the police now, could I? I thought I told you not to waste my time."

"Oh, come on!" Alfred could feel himself losing his temper again. This man really did something to him that made him lose control. "You came out on top every time you took on the cops and you expect me to believe that you left the warehouse because you didn't want to get raided? Bullshit!" He was breathing heavily, glaring at the back of the platinum blonde head.

"Now, now. You mustn't shout, Jones. You might wake the neighbours."

The man's voice was now icy, much darker than its usual light tone. It was a sound that probably could have sent the toughest man running away, but Alfred stood his ground. He'd heard the voice before, but only once, when they had raided that gang for the first time and Ivan had taken out their original leader. He had spoken like that before striking him for the last time. But he couldn't back down! Braginski still hadn't answered the question!

"You abandoned the gang, but stayed here and you expect me to believe that you didn't want me to tell the police where you were? How stupid do you think I am?" His fists were clenched up again. "You ran away Braginski!" Ivan had stiffened up. Got him! "You ran away like a fucking coward!"

Swing.

Crash!

Alfred had ducked just in time to see the coffee table get smashed into pieces beside him.

Ivan's bar was now embedded in the mess of wood chips, gripped at one end by the man himself. It was rare to see him with such a serious expression fixed on his face. The smile was gone, replaced by a thin line and his eyes looked wild. His pupils small and manic.

He moved to swing the bar around again, missing the younger man by centimetres as he rolled out of the way, instead hitting the floor with a loud thud. The sequence repeated itself, Ivan chasing Alfred around the few feet of space that they were occupying until Alfred vaulted over the sofa to avoid being hit by the giant man when he lashed out again.

He landed clumsily, his glasses falling off his face with a small tinkle on the wooden floor, the light of the lamps reflecting in the lenses.

Alfred looked up in time to see the large black boot step in front of him and the small crunch of his glasses as they were destroyed.

A hand grabbed hold of his hair, pulling him back up off the floor to face the giant man, whose smile was now firmly set back on his lips.

"Ah, yes." Ivan cooed, "I much prefer seeing you face like this. It's so much easier to see such defiance and anger when your eyes aren't covered, don't you agree?"

Alfred struggled against the grip on his head, ignoring the pain as his hair pulled at the roots. Everything in the room was a complete blur now, all expect for the face of the man in front of him, which he could see in much too much detail for his liking, positioned only a couple of inches away from his.

He could feel Ivan's breath mingling with his own, making him feel sick to his stomach as the gap between them closed another inch.

The door burst open abruptly behind him and he felt the grip on his hair tighten as the gang leader stopped him from moving around to see what commotion was now ensuing, though it was pretty easy to guess from the voice that was shouting from the doorway.

"Stop right there!" The rest of the sentence finished with some offensive German that Alfred didn't understand, but knew instantly that Gilbert was throwing the words around.

There was a scuffling noise and a thump, followed by some more violent swearing before some more footsteps stopped by the door and another voice sighed. "You shouldn't be so violent with girls, Gil." It was Antonio this time, and by the sounds of it Lovino was panting his lungs out from next to him.

"She shouldn't have tried to get away then." Gilbert's voice was annoyingly calm, despite the fact that it sounded like he had just tried to knock out one of Ivan's sisters. "Oh no you don't." There was a clang, more swearing, this time from a girl, mixed with some of Gilbert's barks of laughter.

"I wasn't expecting quite so many visitors." Ivan's voice had an edge to it, signalling his annoyance. His grip on Alfred's hair had slackened but he was still holding on to his injured wrist, sending waves of pain up his forearm but it still allowed Alfred to swing himself around to see the three men standing in the doorway, Gilbert holding Natalia hard up against it so she couldn't move. She had lost her usual biking attire and was instead wearing a more formal looking dress with matching Mary-Jane shoes, making her look younger than when she was dressed up for her more violent antics and despite all this, she was decidedly struggling against her captor, trying to move her right arm which had been pulled up behind, gripping her own piping. "I suggest you let my sister go."

"Well I suggest you let our friend go." Gilbert's voice hadn't lost any of its bite in the struggle and Alfred could see the smirk appear on his face as he denied his old boss what he wanted. "You didn't think we'd just let you come and be Mr Hero by yourself, did you Al? You're pretty easy to follow, y'know?" He sniggered at the blonde's expression, rearranging his hold on the female biker so that he was more comfortable, before turning his cocky grin back on the gang leader.

"I'm afraid I can't do that." The tone of Ivan's voice rivalled Gilbert's easily, taking on the exact same register as his ex-subordinate. "You see, Alfred and I were in the middle of coming to a little agreement." His hand moved to Alfred's chin, tilting his head upwards.

Then Alfred felt something disgusting. Ivan's face was next to his, he could see his violet eyes in the corner of his line of sight. His breath was even closer than it had been before as the man's tongue ran up the length of his cheek, leaving Alfred feeling like he was going to vomit just from the very feel of it. He knew that the sadistic grin had returned to Ivan's face and screwed his eyes shut in an attempt not to see or even imagine it.

"Take your fucking hands off him!"

Alfred's eyes flew open to rest upon the short blonde man who had joined his three friends in the doorway. He was panting slightly, obviously having run from the front of the house to find the others. Arthur's glare was fierce it was surprising his eyebrows hadn't knotted themselves together.

"Trust you to get lost, Artie." Gilbert shot the new arrival a quick grin before turning his attention back to the problem in front of them.

"Shut it, git." Arthur hissed back, not even bothering to look at his friend.

Ivan didn't even see it coming, and cursed himself for momentarily losing his focus as he felt the bar leave his hand.

Alfred, despite his lack of sight, had used the man's lack of concentration to grab hold of the lead pipe, pulling it from the gang leader's hand before spitting in his face so that the hold on his wrist was broken.

Realising his mistake, Ivan dodged the swing that Alfred aimed at him, jumping back a couple of feet so that he was out of reach.

"Well, we always did praise you for your speed." He glowered at Alfred, the smile momentarily flickering off his features.

Alfred was breathing heavily. His eyes stung from the loss of his glasses and he had to fight his own urges to rub away the irritation, knowing that if he lost sight of the giant man for just a second then he'd be dead.

Someone cursed loudly from behind him and Alfred dodged to the side just in time as something flew past him and Ivan caught it. He knew the smile had grown on the other man's lips even if he couldn't see it. He also knew exactly what had been thrown to him.

Natalia had been tackled back to the ground by Lovino who was now muttering something in what sounded like Italian and Gilbert had taken to swearing again before audibly being elbowed by someone (most likely Arthur).

The bar in Ivan's hand was shorter than the one Alfred had taken from him, suited to his sister's tastes rather than his own, but it was better than nothing. He had a weapon, and that was the most important thing.

The next few seconds were like a blur to Arthur. He saw the gang leader move lashing around with the bar, and then he was standing where Alfred had been, and the blonde was a few feet to one side, wielding the stolen piping defensively. The younger man's speed was amazing even when he had lost the majority of his sight and when the next move was made the Englishman made sure to watch the other man more carefully, seeing the bar miss him by inches as he ducked and swept another few paces to the right.

It was in his next feat, however, that Alfred's luck ran out. He dodged out of the way of Ivan's attack without a problem, but missed his footing and slammed into the back of the sofa.

Ivan didn't miss the opportunity that had now been laid out in front of him and swept forward, striking Alfred hard across his injured shoulder, sending him crashing onto the floor.

Alfred anticipated the next move, clenching his fists as the gang leader's foot made contact with his stomach but he couldn't stop his eyes from streaming from the effort of trying to see without his glasses and the strangled yelp that made its way up his throat. He was kicked again, making him fall painfully onto his side before the taller man raised the bar again.

But this time nothing happened and looking up Alfred could see the blurred shape of another man clinging onto the other end of the rod, preventing Ivan from swinging it forwards.

Arthur clung to the metal desperately. He'd had quite enough of watching Alfred getting smashed to pieces by the other man, and failed to see why he shouldn't step in and help. He could see how much effort it was taking Alfred just to be able to see what Russia was doing, let alone dodge his attacks. It was just turning into a game of cat and mouse, and Alfred was most definitely the mouse.

Ivan swung his arm around, trying to shake the smaller blonde away and loosen his grip so that he could carry on with the job at hand, but it was turning into an impossible feat to carry out. The man was a lot more stubborn than he had originally thought. Was this all it took for his subordinates to stand up against him? One idiotic child appears on the scene and suddenly no one's scared anymore. Unbelievable.

He threw Arthur forward more violently this time, making the blonde trip over his own feet and fall forwards. But then something hooked around his ankles and pulled him backwards, sending him crashing to the hard floor.

"You two alright?" Antonio jumped back up, satisfied with the job he had just done.

Alfred had caught Arthur when he had fallen, and the two were now helping each other to their feet, the smaller taking the majority of the taller's weight as he staggered to his feet.

"I've been through worse." Alfred rolled his shoulder, feeling the bandage sticking to it where Ivan had hit him.

"That's not the point, idiot!" Arthur elbowed him hard in his side, causing the other blonde to flinch away slightly as the feeling of the gang leader's attack came back.

"Eurgh. Did you have to do that?" He felt sick from his lack of sight, feeling like the room was both completely blurred around him, and that it was spinning.

Arthur hoisted him up again, looking as if he'd just killed the other man. Alfred's head dangled in front of him before he lifted it up again to try and make out what was going on around him again, though his hair still covered a lot of his features.

He had just about managed to make out the shapes of Lovino practically sitting on Natalia before Gilbert's shouts caught his attention again. Alfred's gaze snapped back to the doorway where the albino was now slumped, muttering something in German and clutching his waist.

Ivan was now sprinting back down the corridor, bar still in hand, his scarf billowing out behind him.

The next thing Arthur knew, the weight at his side had left him as the blur of a bomber jacket rushed forwards and out of the open door, dodging around the angry German's form on the floor. He looked around for the others, seeing Antonio rush to Gilbert's side to make sure he was alright, and Lovino pressing down harder on the gang's second in command as she tried to follow her brother out of the room.

"Go after him." Antonio's voice broke through the confusion, as Arthur tore his eyes away from the disappearing figure of Alfred running down the corner. "Go on! He's going to get himself killed at this rate!"

It was the only prompt he needed. Arthur leapt forwards, darting past his friends as he rushed down the corridor after Alfred.

The taller blonde had already turned the first corner and was rapidly making his way down to the next. Arthur could only make him out by his hair down the dark hallways, his jacket blending in completely with the dim lighting. He was far too fast for his own good.

But Arthur was fast too, and he knew it. He'd be able to catch up, no problem.

Alfred turned another bend, coming face-to-face with an open set of double doors, the same large doors that had been locked when he had been following Katyusha. They opened into complete and utter darkness, the only light coming from what little there was in the corridor he was standing in.

With no other option looming in his mind, he felt no choice but to take the few steps inside the room, bathing himself in the pitch black.

"Alfred, wait!" The running footsteps echoed down the hallway as Arthur turned the last corner.

He made the last few strides towards the room before Alfred realised what he had just walked into.

"Arthur, don't!"

But it was too late.

Arthur sprinted into the room behind him, practically knocking them both over before the door slammed shut behind them, cutting out any source of light there had once been and leaving them blind, waiting for the gang leader to make his first move.