Cold-Blooded: A DC Universe Fanfiction (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 42: Slade: Progress

Most of the time one spends downhill skiing or snowboarding is not actually spent skiing or snowboarding. It's spent getting back up hill or waiting to get back up hill, which leaves people with a lot of time to talk. That week at the Mount Hakkoda Ski Resort, there was plenty to talk about—namely, the family of three who arrived a day late but proceeded to make up for lost time. They were all remarkably athletic—the man preferring skis, the teenage girl, snowboards, and the woman equally at home on either—and good-looking too, even though the man was scarred and missing one eye.

There was a great deal of speculation about who they were, exactly. Some speculated that the girl was an Olympic hopeful—she was the right age to be training up for the Games. The man and girl were American, and she was very obviously his daughter, while the woman was Japanese, or Japanese-American at any rate. Was she the girl's mother, or was she her trainer? Of the three, the woman was the most at home on the slopes and in the snow, so that was credible, although no one knew of her. Not all professionals were well known. She and the man were a couple, that was clear, and there were no rings on the hands of either one, so it probably wasn't anything official.

However, at least two people staying at the lodge wanted that to change before the end of their stay…

"So, it's tonight, right?" Rose asked him anxiously. "You're asking her tonight?"

"Yes, since we're here for three more days. That way I'm not running out first thing in the morning as if I thought better of it," Slade told her.

"And you've got the ring and everything?" his daughter questioned.

"Yes," He patted the box through his pocket. Rose had been of great help in choosing an engagement ring, as she had artfully found out Yukie's ring size while shopping for one for herself, and then, on another day, sussed her out as to what style and setting she liked best. It remained to be seen how transparent or how successful she had been.

"Can I see it again?"

He regarded his offspring with some concern. "Why? What's gotten into you?"

"Well, you said she turned you down the first time. What's to stop that from happening again?"

"That was months ago, before the trip and before she knew I was serious. Now we're making plans as to where we'll live. This is simply a formality," he injected reassurance into his voice.

Rose was having none of that. "Yes, but it's an important formality! And you're not even making it romantic or special or anything!"

He chuckled. "Are you under the impression Yukie will be heartbroken if there isn't a string quartet and a horse-drawn carriage on hand?"

"No, but—."

"Then what is really troubling you? Out with it." He crossed his arms and waited.

"It's just—I don't know—We've all been so happy, even you and me, these past weeks. It seems like something's got to go wrong somewhere. I don't ever remember being this happy—just like being happy–everyday-happy, not birthdays-and Christmas-happy, that's different. It's like we're really a family now, for the first time, ever."

He was silent a moment. "C'mere, Rosie," he said, and opened his arms. She went into them and he hugged her. She hugged back. "I know I've made mistakes as a father, a lot of them. I'll probably make more before you're out on your own. A lot of it comes from the fact that until I joined the Army, there wasn't anything reliable in my life. No structure, no rules, just—well, as bad as I was as a father, you still got a better one than the one I did."

She looked up into his face. "You've never said anything about your family before. Ever. Mom didn't even know anything about them, except that she was a homemaker and he was a school teacher."