Pink Bows In His Hair – Part One – Marblez

Reading Time:
13 Minutes

PINK BOWS IN HIS HAIR
or
five times people were surprised how good of a father Ilya is and one time Shane knew

ONE
CLIFF

Ilya Rozanov was an asshole.

Everyone knew that.

He was even proud of that fact.

But he was their asshole, Boston’s asshole, and they loved him for it.

The team.

The management.

The fans.

Only a few people were permitted to get close enough to realise that it was all an act.

Ilya Rozanov liked people to think he was an asshole.

He did it to keep people at arm’s length.

To protect himself from being hurt.

Hurt by what, precisely, Cliff wasn’t entirely certain.

All he knew is that one day he was allowed to see the real Ilya that was usually buried behind a mask of indifference or a sneer of distaste and what he found surprised him.

Ilya was kind.

Ilya was gentle.

Ilya was vulnerable.

He was also lonely.

From that day, one random Tuesday when the younger player had randomly decided to trust him, Cliff had done his best to be there for his friend.

He supported him.

He shielded him.

He let Ilya rely on him, lean on him or even vent at him, accepting harsh words that the younger man didn’t really mean and would eventually apologise for without a word.

He’d got into a routine and through that routine had found himself a Best Friend.

Rozy.

It was nice.

Cliff hadn’t realised how isolated he’d been until he’d started looking out for Ilya, his own loneliness hitting him like a slap to the face.

Random hookups with women more interested in bagging a hockey player than getting to know him did little to fill the void but even when he tried for something more serious it never lasted, his partners claiming his lifestyle was “too much” and leaving him.

Ilya understood.

As well as having a reputation for being an asshole, his young friend had a reputation for being one of the biggest sluts in the league, the tabloids reporting on every casual hookup he had wherever they went.

Only Jane was different and even Cliff wasn’t supposed to know about her.

She was the only girl, apart from his childhood friend back in Russia, that Ilya text on a regular basis.

Quips.

Jokes.

Inappropriate comments.

Cliff was pretty sure he’d accidently walked in on Ilya sending her a dick pick once but had decided not to mention it, preferring to stay as ignorant as possible about Ilya’s sex life just as he hoped his friend stayed out of his own.

Perhaps if he’d paid a little bit more attention he might have seen this coming.

~ * ~

He’d always thought Ilya was pretty careful about his casual hookups, playing it safe and respectful, not doing anything stupid or damaging or harmful to either party.

And then she’d arrived.

Cliff hadn’t thought anything of it at first.

They’d just won the Stanley Cup, something that had seemed impossible but was now very much a reality, so random fans approaching them in public was to be expected.

“Ilya.”

The first warning sign was a frown of confused recognition on his friend’s face.

He knew her.

The second had been the golden curls framing the toddlers face as she snuggled against the woman’s shoulder, thumb tucked into her rosebud mouth.

Shit.

“Helen.”

It felt as though a stone had formed in his stomach as the woman, Helen, sniffed loudly, rubbing the back of her free hand across her nose before confirming his worst fears.

“This is Victoria,” she declared, shifting the little girl in her arms so that an all too familiar face was turned more towards the two hockey players. “Your daughter.”

Shit.

~ * ~

She wanted money.

Of course she did, Cliff had thought bitterly to himself as he’d listened to her attempt to use her innocent daughter to extort money from Ilya.

He’d demanded a paternity test even though, truthfully, the girl’s appearance was confirmation enough given that she was the Russian’s miniature.

Cliff did his best to support his friend in the weeks that followed, Ilya forgoing returning to Russia for the summer as he usually did in order to get everything sorted.

She’d agreed to the test, confident in its outcome, but clearly hadn’t anticipated that Ilya had only ever intended for it to give him time to hire a suitable lawyer.

Catlyn Mahoney was terrifying in a good way.

She cared about the child more than the parents, wanting her safe and happy.

The fact that her mother was willing to use her as a bargaining chip was not a good sign and so, with Ilya’s permission, she performed one of the most extensive background checks Cliff had ever seen outside of a movie.

“She’s an addict. Heroin.”

Cliff had seen Ilya take easier hits on the ice than the one she’d just delivered, instinctively reaching out to physically support his friend when Ilya swayed.

“She’s maxed out four credit cards and, from what I can tell, has no means to pay them off,” his lawyer continued, voice and expression tight, hands laying out sheets of paper proving what she’d learnt. “There’s also some unpaid medical debt too from her pregnancy and the birth and an overdue car rental policy.”

Cliff cursed under his breath at the sheer amount of money the woman owed.

“Currently, she is of no fixed abode and seems to be living with a man who may or may not be her boyfriend. I haven’t had time to look into him as closely as I would like but from what I have learned so far he is currently unemployed and most likely an addict.”

He’d never seen the expression on Ilya’s face before as his friend processed what he’d heard, a coldness unlike anything Cliff had realised his friend was capable of.

“Is my daughter in danger?”

“Yes.”

It was a simple, honest answer.

Ilya petitioned for full custody that afternoon.

~ * ~

There was no hiding it from the press, not with how badly Helen reacted to being served the relevant legal documents, and Cliff could only watch as Ilya worked with his agent and the teams PR department to issue statement after statement as the case progressed through the courts.

It took far longer than it should have.

Helen somehow found a lawyer to represent her, clearly hoping for a payout from the money she planned to take from Ilya, but Miss Mahoney tore her to shreds.

The public were firmly on Ilya’s side, his popularity playing far more of a role than it should do even though in this case Ilya was the better option to raise the poor girl.

It left a bitter taste in Cliff’s mouth to see how easily people could be swayed, his mind easily able to conjure a scenario where someone with the kind of influence Ilya possessed used it to keep a child away from a mother who loved them.

And then, finally, it was over.

“Full custody is granted to Mr Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov.”

~ * ~

Victoria Ilyinichna Rozanova, formerly Victoria Anne Roope, was a painfully quiet child.

It took her weeks to do more than blink in response to her father’s voice and a small part of Cliff expected Ilya to grow frustrated or disheartened or upset.

He didn’t.

He waited patiently, hours of research into child development and healing the damage caused by child neglect at hand, until finally she began to respond.

It was then that she became Vikusya.

“Vikusya?”

“Ah,” Ilya chuckled softly, turning away from the little girl who was happily playing with her ridiculously soft bunny rabbit toy while Cliff and Ilya went over their contract renewals together. “Of course, you do not understand. Is a Russian thing, I think.”

Cliff nodded, waiting patiently.

“Is name for family,” his friend eventually explained, struggling to find the right words. “My mother…my mother called me Ilyushka. My grandparents too.”

No mention of his father, Cliff noticed sadly.

“Okay, I think I get it,” he murmured, nodding, before asking, “So what should I call her?”

Ilya rolled his eyes, fondly, before responding like it was the most obvious thing in the world,

“Vikusya.”

There was no fighting the smile that appeared on Cliff’s face in the wake of the unexpected confirmation of his place in his friend’s life, a warm feeling blossoming in his stomach as his eyes immediately drifted across to the little girl.

“Okay,” he murmured again, suddenly feeling rather emotional about the whole thing, protective instincts rising up within him. “Vikusya. It suits her.”

~ * ~

FROM: ROZ

I need to bring Vikusya to training camp
Coach approved but you are roommate so want to check

TO: ROZ

Yeah, that’s fine with me, man
You got a travel cot or something?

FROM: ROZ

At store now
Getting travel bed not cot
She is big girl, will be tall like me one day
Should I get her new pyjamas?
I got her new pyjamas
And slippers
And a sleeping bag
It has princesses on it

TO: ROZ

Did you buy out the entire store?

FROM: ROZ

No

TO: ROZ

You sure about that?

FROM: ROZ

Not entire store
More like half
She deserves it

~ * ~

Cliff had always enjoyed training camp unlike some of his teammates, enjoying the routines it naturally created for them as they trained together on and off the ice.

As a veteran he was more confident going into it than some of the other’s, confident in both his ability and his fitness levels, so focusing on helping Ilya move the extraordinary number of things he’d brought for his daughter into their shared room wasn’t an issue.

“Seriously, Rozanov?” he snorted, placing the third duffel bag on the bed while Ilya gave Vikusya a tour of the room. “I was joking about buying out the entire store, you know?”

“I did not buy entire store!”

It took the two of them working together to put together the state-of-the-art travel cot Ilya had bought, the instructions looking like something NASA would produce for their space shuttles, but soon enough Boston’s new princess was napping contentedly on her new bed in her new sleeping bag wearing her new pyjamas and clutching her teddy.

The teddy was the only thing that wasn’t new, although it was new to her.

“It was mine,” Ilya had told him when the bear had been delivered to the rink by courier. “My mother got it for me when I was small. I asked a friend to send it to me from Russia.”

It was well-loved and carried a smell that was unfamiliar to Cliff.

Vikusya had fallen in love with it the moment she held it in her arms and had hardly let it out of her sight ever since, carrying it around the same way Ilya carried her in his arms.

~ * ~

Day One began with a hearty breakfast, Ilya somehow managing to eat his one handed whilst focusing most of his attention on meeting his daughters needs, and a briefing for the benefit of the rookies about what lay ahead, Cliff making note of anything important.

Off-ice testing had been first, an hour of tests designed to determine the strength and conditioning of the players after the break, some faring significantly better than others.

Cliff had knuckled down, focusing on his own performance, but one he was done with each stage of the testing he couldn’t help but check on his friend and honorary niece, finding the little girl contentedly playing in the safe zone Ilya had created in the corner.

On-ice testing had followed and the change in Vikusya was unmistakable.

No toy could hold her attention.

No picture book or game or story.

All she wanted to do was to follow Ilya onto the ice which, obviously, wasn’t possible.

“I am sorry,” his friend had been forced to grunt more than once, disappearing after completing his part of the test to comfort his daughter. “She is not normally like this.”

Ilya was right.

She wasn’t normally like this and Cliff couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong, either with her or the young woman who’d agreed to watch over her whilst they were on the ice but she seemed perfectly competent and hadn’t raised her voice once.

“Hey,” Cliff grunted, skating over to where Ilya was chewing on his thumbnail, every bit the confused and worried parent. “You need me to cover for you? Take her out for a bit?”

Ilya glanced towards the coaching staff, shifted anxiously.

“Go,” Cliff insisted. “It’ll be fine. You’re their star player. Go look after the little princess.”

“Thank you.”

Everyone watched as he sprinted across to where his daughter was grumbling loudly, pushing the young woman’s hands away as she reached from the barrier, her pathetic cries easing when Ilya hopped the barrier and scooped her up in his arms, gloves and stick abandoned on the ice for someone else to deal with as he focused on his child.

“Any idea what that was all about?”

“No,” Cliff grunted. “Hope she’s not coming down with something.”

She wasn’t.

No fever.

No cough.

Ilya was thorough in his checks and, apparently, she’d calmed down the moment they were back in the locker room, her little fingers playing with the strap of his helmet, but the moment he tried to leave her on the bench and return to the ice she’d start up again.

She wasn’t cold, he checked that too, nor hungry or thirsty.

“Maybe she’s tired, man.”

It wasn’t that either.

No, the source of her unhappiness was something that finally dispelled any lingering doubts anyone had that she was Ilya Rozanov’s daughter – she wanted to go skating.

“I’m sorry, dear one, I don’t know what’s wrong,” Ilya apologised, voice shaking as he reached over the barrier to pick her up after the coaches had dismissed them for lunch and a mandatory rest period, their aching muscles needing time to recover. “I’m sorry.”

His second apology was unnecessary, her protests having come to an abrupt stop the moment she was in his arms and gliding slowly across the ice, her eyes locked on his skates like they were the most amazing thing in the world, lips turning up into a smile.

It was then that something of a miracle happened.

She found her voice.

“Papa.”

Ilya froze, tears building up in his eyes as he held her in his arms.

“Yes, Vikusya?”

“Me.”

She pointed at his skates and it took both of them a moment to realise what she meant.

“…you want to go skating, Vikusya.”

Nodding, she spread her arms wide, trusting him not to drop her and announced clearly,

“Me go skay.”

Cliff couldn’t hold back a snort of amusement even as his friend struggled to respond.

“Of course your daughter was fussy all day because she wanted to go skating!” he laughed, loud enough to be heard by some of the other players and coaching staff lingering on the ice. “Couldn’t just create a mini-me looks wise, could you? Had to create the next generation of the Rozanov skating dynasty! Only you, Rozy. Only you.”

His friends confusion turned relief transformed into his usual cocky smirk.

“Well, yes, of course she wants to go skating,” he declared. “It is in her blood.”

~ * ~

Cliff found out later that not only was that the first time she’d ever called him Papa it was also the first time she’d actively asked for anything since coming to live with him.

Until then she’d still been too afraid or perhaps just uncertain to ask for things.

Not even food.

Her to asking to go skating was a huge deal and so, of course, Ilya made it happen.

Where he got skates small enough for her so quickly Cliff didn’t know but the next thing he knew he was holding one of Vikusya’s little hands as Ilya held the other, both men crouching down so she didn’t end up overbalanced as they helped her move across the ice long after she should’ve been in bed and they were rapidly approaching their curfew.

And then she laughed.

She laughed.

~ * ~

A/N So I signed up for this challenge with every intention of completing it and then in true fanfic writer fashion suffered a series of unfortunate events in the real world that took up all my writing time (lets just say next time my husband and I drive to Belgium we’ll make sure with overseas breakdown cover and travel insurance) so I’ve only just been able to complete this singular chapter. For anyone who would be interested in reading the rest of this story I will try to complete it and post it on my AO3 account.