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

Chapter 25: Yukie: When It Changed

Yukie drifted back into the waking world next to Slade's very warm and solid form. This was the third morning in a row...and the sick, suffocating, dirty-fishbowl feeling was nowhere on her emotional horizon. Well, she had already passed that milestone with him over Christmas at the ski resort, and everything had been all right. The memory made her smile for several reasons.

One was that going to the mountains in winter always made her feel vibrantly alive, another was that she had enjoyed not just being with Slade, but being somewhere new with him. Among those reasons was that she realized he must have a house in the Lake Tahoe area he hadn't told her about. He thought he was being secretive, no doubt, but when he picked her up at the airport he was freshly showered, and while he had the GPS in the rental car programmed to take them to their hotel, he wasn't relying on it. He also knew the area very well for a supposedly occasional visitor. Even he sometimes wasn't as clever as he thought he was.

Who was she to smile at that? She wasn't as clever as she thought she was, either. No one was. She burrowed down into the futon, the better to enjoy the warmth. He snorted a little and half-turned, still asleep. What was this about, then, if it was about more than sex? She had known she would never live with him or have a family with him. He would never expect her to do his laundry or scrub a toilet and in turn she would never demand he hold her purse while she shopped or take out the trash.

So now he said he was serious, that it had been so for him since their third date. What did that even mean? She remembered that date very well. One moment she was finishing her sorbet, the next he roared, "Get down," and shoved her out of her chair to the floor.

Then he landed on top of her, so heavily as to leave bruises, and immediately upon that there came the explosion. His body jerked, and when he dropped his shoulder to turn and look at the room, she saw his suit was in shreds—his back was in shreds—and the restaurant was ablaze, a tunnel of burning wreckage strewn with bodies, shards of plate, and scraps of food. He winced, reached around and wrenched free a piece of metal which was sticking rather horribly out of the region of his kidneys, tossing it away.

They had been sitting at the front window, so the mortar round went over their heads and exploded at the back of the room. He had only survived because he saw what was coming and was tougher than boot leather, and she had only survived because he protected her with his body.

'Stay down' he mouthed at her, and she nodded. She could hear the tramp of running feet, several men by the sound of it, and wearing boots, not shoes or sneakers as Gotham dwellers usually wore, even in winter—a squad, then. After someone in particular—after him?

Yes. As they entered the hovel which had been one of Gotham's finest dining locations for New American cuisine, one ordered, "Spread out. Find Wilson. We've got to take his head back if we're going to get paid. And hurry—this is Gotham City. We don't want to tangle with the Bat."

His head? They were assuming he was dead. Through the smoke which swirled around the squad, she could see them—six men in heavy parkas, faces covered by ski masks, armed with rifles. No Rogue Gallery insignia, not well dressed as Mob thugs would be—not locals, then. Maybe they had on Kevlar under those parkas, or some other body armor--no, they were not bulky enough around the torsos and they were not wearing helmets, only their hats or hoods. 

A knife from the carving station was barely within her reach, its blade greasy from the prime rib. She teased it toward her with her finger tips until she could grasp the handle.

She glanced at Slade, seeing that he had already pulled his weapon. When he carried concealed, it was truly concealed; his custom tailored suits hid several surprises among their meticulous stitches. He gave her a glance in return that judged whether she was apt to do anything stupid, and nodded.