The velvet curtain had just fallen.

The applause still echoed like distant thunder beyond the gilded proscenium, but backstage was hushed—reverent. Dancers passed each other in hushed admiration, some still trembling from adrenaline, others wiping sweat and rosin from their limbs. And at the heart of it all stood you. The jewel of the Bolshoi. The Swan.

Your final pirouette still lingered in the air like the scent of jasmine and crushed powder.

You had danced as though your body defied human law, as if gravity itself had bent to kiss your satin shoes. It was no surprise that even the cold steel of the Kremlin had turned its attention toward you—nor that he had.

Outside the back entrance of the theatre, the streets were blocked, soldiers standing stiff and discreet in a perimeter of quiet control. No fanfare, no announcement. Just a gust of frost-laced wind and a glint of red and gold.

“Comrade Kent,” the KGB official muttered, clipboard clutched tight. “Permission granted. Five minutes.”

Clark didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. In his navy coat, cape tucked clean behind his shoulders, he stepped inside with the silent confidence of a man who had seen battlefields level beneath his hands and still paused for beauty.

Down the corridor lined with mirrors show posters, he moved—past bouquets left by foreign dignitaries and notes from admirers in trembling Cyrillic.

Then he saw you.

You were alone in the dressing room, your posture soft but not broken, still wrapped in the delicate afterglow of performance. Your feet were bare now, your hair slightly loosened, skin dewy from exertion. Radiant, even in exhaustion.

Clark paused at the door, gloved hand against the frame.

“You were… magnificent,” he said, his voice deeper than the Volga, but laced with something gentler. “May I come in?”

He’d seen gods fall and leaders beg. But something in you—the discipline, the elegance, the loneliness masked by grace—unsettled even him.

He waited.

A symbol of Soviet strength.

Asking permission from a ballerina.

Not as Superman.

As a man.

As your guest.