Chapter Text
Ilya woke up after a night of amazing sex with Shane Hollander. He opened his eyes, facing an unfamiliar ceiling. Ilya sat up abruptly, "Where am I?" He began to observe the room.
This was a bedroom in a luxury villa; outside the window was a view of the natural forest, sunlight streaming through the cracks in the window was beautiful, but Ilya didn't have time to appreciate it. He went to the wardrobe, took out an outfit and put it on haphazardly. He didn't care too much about the owner of the wardrobe. If that bastard kidnapped him here, he deserved to lose his clothes.
Ilya appeared calm on the outside, but inwardly he was in turmoil. Who kidnapped him here? Russian? A crazy, obsessive fan?
Ilya noticed the condition of the bed he woke up in; it was clearly a double bed, and judging by the books and glasses on the bedside table, someone else had been lying next to him last night, or while he was unconscious. The sight of a stranger lying beside him, naked, infuriated Ilya.
"You'll pay for this, you bastard."
Ilya flung open the bedroom door, searching for a way out. As the door swung open, he saw a teenage blonde, blue-eyed girl in a blue and white striped pajama set, carrying a plate of pancakes and a glass of orange juice, approaching him or rather, the bedroom he was standing in.
The girl's eyes widened in surprise, her mouth agape. She didn't seem to know who Ilya was or why he was there.
Ilya acted first, rushing towards her like a whirlwind, restraining her, and questioning her in a threatening tone. "Who are you? Where is this?! Why am I here? Is the person who brought me here related to you?"
The girl, frightened, sobbed, "I'm Victoria Rozanov, this is my parents' house in Otowa, Canada. I don't know who you are, but if you harm me, my parents won't let you get away with it."
"Haha, your parents will be in jail first for kidnapping, you bastard."
Victoria glared, "My father would never do that! You're probably the intruder, you thieving bastard."
"What the hell? Do you know who I am? Fucking Ilya Rozanov!"
The girl stopped struggling and became genuinely angry, "You lunatic, my father is Ilya Rozanov!" "What kind of sick act is this?"
Victoria didn't hesitate to use the escape techniques she'd learned in self-defense class, punching Ilya before running down the stairs while the pancakes and orange juice fallen and were trampled by the two chasing each other. Family photos lined the hallway, but Ilya didn't pay much attention to them; he had to catch the girl who claimed to be his daughter.
Victoria ran down the stairs but was caught again. Ilya held on too tightly, preventing her from escaping, but at that moment, Ilya was confronted by a wedding photo.
Of Ilya and Shane Hollander, both in tuxedos, looking at each other with an expression Ilya usually tried to drown in vodka.
"What the hell?"
Victoria stared at him, bewildered. "What?"
"How is this possible?" Ilya whispered, his voice shaking. "He doesn't love me."
Next to it was a photo that made his brain stall entirely: Shane, looking softer than Ilya had ever seen him, smiling at a camera from a high angle while cradling a pregnant belly.
A terrifying thought took root. "Hey. How old are you?"
"Thirteen," she said defensively. "Why do you care?"
"The year," Ilya demanded, gripping her shoulders. "What year is it?"
"It's 2027."
"Prove it."
Victoria reluctantly turned on the TV under Ilya's scrutinizing gaze. The morning news was showing the date, June 15, 2027.
"So, 13 years have passed...you said your parents are Shane Hollander and Ilya Ronanov, right? When did they get married?"
"Yes? Why are you asking? Everyone knows that. Don't pretend to be clueless, didn't you do your research beforehand?"
"No, I mean, how could that happen?"
"When two people are very much in love..." Victoria began to say mockingly.
"No, I mean, he and I hold hands in public in the future?"
"You're talking weird."
"I'm your father," Ilya said, a desperate excitement bubbling up in his chest. "But I'm from thirteen years ago."
Victoria looked at Ilya as if he were high. "Are you crazy? Time travel doesn't exist."
"Ask something about me, something only family knows."
"Uh... what do you like most about Shane, Ilya?"
"His freckles," Ilya answered instantly, thinking of how they looked after a day in the sun.
Victoria was slightly surprised. "No, you must have known it from some interview."
"Ask something else!"
After a few questions, Victoria became increasingly shocked because Ilya had answered everything correctly.
"What the hell? You're really my father?"
“That not the way to talk to your father, young lady,” Ilya said, his lips twitching into a smirk. Despite the confusion of the situation, a desperate excitement bubbled in his chest. This was the best scenario he could have imagined—a true family with the man he had spent all night trying to forget.
Victoria found his "fake" father’s accent funny, though she noticed a look in his eyes that she recognized. This younger version of Ilya had the same intense devotion toward her other papa, Shane, that she saw in her father every day. Sensing his genuine hope to see their future, she decided to help him.
She marched him toward a heavy cabinet and began pulling out the physical evidence of their life together
"Here," she said, shoving a piece of paper under his nose.
It was a birth certificate. Victoria Yuna Rozanov-Hollander. Parents: Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. Ilya’s fingers traced the embossed seal. It looked official. It looked real.
"And these," Victoria added, flipping open the album.
Ilya’s breath hitched. It was a deluge of Shane. Not the Shane he’d left in a Vegas hotel room but a Shane who looked radiant. There were dozens of photos: Shane sitting on a porch in the sun, his shirt stretched tight over a massive, unmistakable curve; Shane in a hospital gown, looking exhausted but glowing as he held a tiny, screaming bundle; Shane and Ilya an older, softer-looking Ilya pressed together in a nursery.
Ilya felt a manic laugh bubbling up in his chest. He looked at the photos, then at Victoria, then back at the image of a pregnant Shane.
"I knew we were good together," Ilya muttered in a daze, his shock curdling into a very specific kind of Russian arrogance. He thought back to the bathroom in Vegas, the desperate, perfect friction of them “I knew I was better than any other man. But this?”
“I have a magic dick,” he announced to the room, ignoring Victoria’s look of pure disgust. He felt more smug than he had when he’d lifted the Stanley Cup. “Clearly. How else does this happen? I am so perfect, and he is so perfect, that we have broken the laws of nature. My god dick has given him a baby. I really am the MVP.”
Victoria groaned, covering her face with her hands. "Oh my god, stop. You are exactly like him. This is a nightmare."
Ilya didn't care. He was too busy memorizing the way Shane looked when he was carrying Ilya’s child.
Ilya’s mind, usually sharp enough to find the smallest opening on the ice, began a frantic series of calculations. If Victoria was thirteen years old in June 2027, she had to have been conceived in 2014. He traced the timeline back from the Vegas awards in June 2014, realizing with a jolt that Shane had likely been carrying her during the very playoffs where Ilya had won the Cup. He realized that Shane must have missed nearly the entire 2015 season following the pregnancy.
The smugness about his "magic dick" vanished, replaced by a cold, leaden weight in his stomach. He looked at the photos of a radiant, pregnant Shane and saw no longer a miracle, but a sacrifice. In Ilya's 2014 world, Shane Hollander was everything: the golden boy, the rival, the man who lived for the game.
"Did he have to stop?" Ilya asked, his voice cracking. "Because of me... did he lose his career?" He couldn't bear the thought that his own desire had extinguished the light in Shane’s eyes, the very thing he found so irresistible.
Victoria, seeing the raw guilt on his face, softening. She reached out, perhaps seeing the same devotion in this young version of her father that she saw in the man who tucked her in at nigh.. "Papa Shane is a talented player; no one can replace him," she said firmly. "He's fine. He’s the captain for the Ottawa team now."
Ilya blinked, the relief hitting him so hard he felt dizzy. "The Ottawa team? His hometown team?”.
He frowned, his 2014 brain struggling to catch up. He thought of the blue and white jersey Shane wore in his own timeline, the one he loved to taunt. "Why? Montreal is good, isn't it? Why would he leave?"
"They never told me," Victoria said, leaning against the kitchen counter. "Uncle Hayden probably knows, and he's always been salty about it".
"Why is Hayden here?" Ilya asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"He's Papa's best friend".
Ilya searched his mind, but his memory of Hayden was vague at best just another nameless face on Shane’s team. He couldn't even picture the man’s features; usually, they were buried behind a visor and a helmet.
His thoughts turned dark as he considered the timeline. What could have happened to force a trade? He looked at the photos of Shane’s pregnancy again. Had the Montreal front office turned on him? What had those bastards done to make Shane leave the team he had dedicated so many years to?
His eyes blazed with a sudden, protective anger, a fire that Victoria noticed immediately. "Don't do anything stupid, Ilya," she warned.
"Call me father, Vic," Ilya corrected her sharply. He didn't like the way she threw his first name around; in Russia, talking to your father like that was a one-way ticket to a sore backside.
Victoria just rolled her eyes, unimpressed by his 2014 posturing. "You’re not my father yet".
The doorbell rang, the sharp chime cutting through the tension of the living room, and the two of them turned to look toward the door.
"Oh... oh, hide!" Victoria gasped, her eyes widening with a sudden, frantic energy.
"What?" Ilya asked, his brow furrowing as he remained planted where he was.
"Go away, my friend's here!" she hissed, trying to shove him toward the hallway.
Ilya didn't budge, crossing his arms over his chest. "So what? I'm literally your dad".
"No! You're not my dad yet. Go away!" she pleaded, her cheeks flushing a deep pink that Ilya found far too revealing.
"Vicky! It's AP! I've brought my science lab equipment for our assignment," a young boy's voice crackled through the doorbell speaker.
Ilya chuckled, a predatory glint in his eyes as he leaned back. "Hmmm, who's this boy, Vicky?". He immediately noticed the way her posture stiffened, a tell-tale sign of teenage shyness.
"Just my friend," she snapped, pointing toward the couch. "Go upstairs, old man".
"How can I leave my daughter alone in her room with a boy?" Ilya said, his voice dropping into the heavy, protective register of a desperate Russian father. "I am here to protect your dignity".
Finally, Victoria gave up on hiding him and allowed Arthur Pike into the house. The boy was a lanky, red-haired kid who looked like he was struggling under the weight of a heavy box of equipment. Victoria had forced Ilya into a pair of modern glasses and tucking his long, 2014 hair into a beanie to disguise his younger features so the boy wouldn't realize he was looking at a version of his friend's father from over a decade ago.
Arthur waved nervously at Ilya, who was sitting on the sofa pretending to watch the news. "Hey, Mr. Rozanov," the boy chirped.
Ilya gave a curt, intimidating nod that he’d perfected in front of NHL referees. The two children were both thirteen, currently navigating the treacherous waters of 7th grade at the local middle school. Although he remained in the living room, Ilya’s focus remained razor-sharp, his ears straining to hear every word between the two children as they set up their lab in the kitchen. He watched the red-haired boy out of the corner of his eye, his mind already running through all the reasons why Arthur Pike was definitely not good enough for a Rozanov-Hollander
Ilya didn't just sit on the sofa; he loomed. The news anchor was talking about interest rates, but all Ilya heard was the lanky redhead in his kitchen laughing at something Victoria said.
If this boy was Hayden Pike’s son, then the annoying "Uncle Hayden" must have passed down more than just a surname; he’d passed down the audacity to hover around a Hollander. Ilya’s protective instincts, already on high alert from the shock of the morning, shifted into a tactical strike.
He stood up, adjusted the modern glasses Victoria had forced onto his face, and sauntered into the kitchen with the same swagger he used to enter the offensive zone.
"You look hungry, children," Ilya announced, his 2014 accent thick and heavy as he leaned against the marble counter.
Victoria froze, her hand hovering over a microscope. She shot him a look of pure, concentrated venom, her eyes screaming get out. But because Arthur was sitting right there, she had to trap the scream behind her teeth.
"We're fine, Papa," she said through a forced, tight smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Nonsense," Ilya said, ignoring her as he turned his gaze to Arthur. He took a slow, deliberate step toward the boy, looming over him just enough to be a problem. "So. Arthur. Pike. I know your father. He is... very loud. Are you loud like him?"
Arthur blinked, looking a little startled by the sudden intensity of a man he thought he’d known for thirteen years. "Uh, no, Mr. Rozanov. My mom says I take after her."
"Good," Ilya hummed, his eyes narrowing behind the frames. "And what is this 'science' you do with my daughter? You are very close to her. Too close for a lab, I think".
"It's just a chemistry project, sir," Arthur squeaked, shifting in his seat.
Victoria’s face was turning a shade of red that rivaled Arthur’s hair. She grabbed a bag of pretzels from the counter and shoved them toward Ilya’s chest. "Thanks for the snack! We’re going to be really quiet and busy now! Goodbye!"
Ilya didn’t budge. He took a single pretzel, crunched it loudly, and kept his eyes locked on the boy. "In Russia, if a boy wants to spend time with a girl, he must first show he is capable. Can you even skate, Pike? Or are your feet as clumsy as your father’s?"
"Papa!" Victoria hissed, her voice a low, warning vibration. She looked like she wanted to teleport out of the kitchen, but since she couldn't, she settled for gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white.
"I play for the junior team, sir," Arthur said, trying to find his courage.
"Junior team. Cute," Ilya smirked, his 2014 ego flare-up in full effect. "I will be watching. I see everything in this house".
He gave Arthur one last intimidating nod and finally began to saunter back toward the living room feeling immensely satisfied with himself. As he passed Victoria, he heard her let out a long, tortured breath of air, her dignity barely intact.
He might not know how their family is with the Pikes in the future, but he knew one thing: no son of a Pike was going to have an easy time in this villa.
"Sorry, Artie," he heard Victoria whisper harshly in the kitchen. "He’s being... extra today."
"It's okay," Arthur whispered back. "My dad says your dad has 'Russian Mood Swings' whenever he loses."
Ilya bristled. He didn't lose. He was the MVP.
Ilya didn't stay in the hallway for long; the urge to oversee the situation and perhaps show off just a little pulled him back into the kitchen. He wasn't content to simply loom; he decided to participate.
"Move over, Pike," Ilya commanded, nudging the red-haired boy aside with his shoulder. "You are mixing this like a child. In Russia, we learn this when we are ten. The curriculum is for real students, not like this Canadian play-time".
To Victoria’s absolute shock, he actually knew what he was doing. The rigorous schooling he’d endured in Moscow had left him with a surprisingly sharp memory for chemical equations and reaction stabilities concepts that were far more advanced than the 7th-grade project laid out on the counter.
However, his 2014 English was a brick wall when it came to scientific terminology. While he could balance an equation in his head, he had no idea how to say "precipitate" or "catalyst".
"Wait," he muttered, pulling out his phone. He aggressively typed into Google Translate, then shoved the screen toward Arthur’s face.
Google Translate: "If you add this, the liquid will turn blue. Do not drop it, you clumsy son of a Pike"
Victoria leaned against the counter, her jaw dropping as she watched her 2014 father expertly titrate a solution while simultaneously using his phone to insult Arthur’s heritage. She was mortified by his behavior, yet she couldn't deny that the experiment was suddenly moving twice as fast.
"See?" Ilya smirked, his eyes glinting behind the modern glasses. "I am not just the MVP of hockey. I am the MVP of science. Your father, Hayden, probably thinks a beaker is something you drink beer out of".
Arthur looked impressed despite himself, while Victoria just groaned into her hands. She had to keep her composure so Arthur wouldn't suspect this wasn't the "usual" Ilya, but having her 22-year-old father acting like a smug, genius bully in her kitchen was a special kind of nightmare.
"Now," Ilya said, glancing at the boy with a predatory focus. "We finish this. Then you go home and tell your father that Rozanov had to fix your homework".
As the time go on, Ilya’s grip on his "predatory" posture began to slip. He watched the kid out of the corner of his eye. Arthur wasn't loud or obnoxious like the vague, helmeted memory Ilya had of Hayden Pike. The boy listened, his red head nodding with a genuine, quiet studiousness that didn't match the "audacity" Ilya expected from a Pike. Arthur handled the glass vials with a careful precision that suggested someone likely Shane had taught him a thing or two about discipline. Ilya’s internal "referee" found himself lowering the whistle. By the time the solution in the beaker turned the exact shade of cerulean Ilya had predicted, he gave Arthur a nod that was less of a threat and more of a silent, begrudging acceptance.
When the front door finally clicked shut behind Arthur and his mountain of equipment, Victoria didn't give Ilya a moment to gloat. She glanced at her watch, her eyes widening with a sudden, sharp dread. "The stairs," she hissed, grabbing Ilya by the sleeve of his borrowed shirt.
The pancakes from their morning confrontation had turned into cold, rubbery pucks, and the orange juice had dried into a tacky, amber film that promised to be a nightmare to scrub. Ilya looked at the mess, then at the pristine, high-end decor of a house that clearly belonged to a man who didn't tolerate a single speck of dust.
"We clean," Ilya said, already stripping off the borrowed sweater and rolling up his sleeves.
The next hour was a blur of damp rags and sharp, rhythmic scrubbing. Victoria moved with the same intensity Ilya used to attack a loose puck, and he found himself falling into a strange, synchronized rhythm with her. They didn’t need many words; she would point to a syrup stain, and he would drop to his knees to scrub it with a focus that would have made a professional janitor weep. At one point, Ilya slipped on a stray piece of pancake, his arms windmilling as he narrowly avoided taking out a decorative vase. Victoria let out a bark of laughter a bright, genuine sound that felt like a punch to Ilya’s chest because it sounded so much like the joy he’d seen in Shane’s photos. He didn't snap at her; instead, he flicked a drop of soapy water at her nose, grinning when she shrieked and swiped at him with a sodden towel. They were a mess of soap suds and damp hair, two generations of Rozanovs fighting a war against sticky floors and winning.
As they finished, Victoria led him down the hallway, her fingers trailing along the wall of frames. She stopped in front of a photo of a much younger version of herself, looking tiny and overwhelmed in a graduation cap. "First grade," she murmured, a small smile playing on her lips. "Papa Shane says you cried so hard you had to hide behind your sunglasses".
Ilya’s fingers hovered near the glass of another frame: the three of them standing in front of a giant purple castle. Shane was wearing Mickey Mouse ears, looking more relaxed and unguarded than Ilya had ever seen him in his own timeline.
But it was the large, framed certificate at the end of the hall that made the air leave Ilya’s lungs. It was an invitation to a gala for a foundation dedicated to mental health and Alzheimer’s research. At the top, in elegant, embossed letters, was the name: The Irena Rozanova Foundation.
"You started it," Victoria said softly, watching the way his jaw tightened. "For your mother".
Ilya stared at his mother’s name, the weight of the secrets he was carrying in 2014 the fear for his father, the emptiness of his summer, the silence of his home suddenly feeling lighter in the presence of this house. He thought of the Moscow apartment he was supposed to return to next week and then looked at the daughter who carried his blood and Shane’s heart.
"It's a good name," Ilya managed to say, his voice thick and rough as he looked at the life he hadn't yet earned, but desperately wanted to keep.
The front door groaned on its hinges, the sound of a heavy gym bag hitting the floor echoing through the villa. Then, a voice that made the air in Ilya’s chest tighten, a familiar, yet seasoned with a weight Ilya hadn't heard in 2014 called out.
"Vicky? Ilya? Where are you two?".
They descended the stairs together, and there he was. The Shane Hollander of 2027 stood in the foyer, appearing almost untouched by the decade that had passed. Perhaps it was the luck of his genes, but he was exactly as handsome as the man Ilya had pinned against a bathroom wall only hours ago in his own time. His hair was styled differently, but the sharp line of his jaw and those dark, irresistible eyes were identical. Seeing him, knowing that this radiant man was his husband and that they had created the girl standing beside him sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through Ilya.
Overwhelmed by a sudden, desperate need to touch him, Ilya lunged forward. His socks, still damp from the soapy war they had waged on the stairs, found no purchase on the polished wood. He went down hard, the breath leaving his lungs as he tumbled to the floor at Shane’s feet.
"Ilya!" Shane was there in an instant, dropping his keys to the side. He hovered over Ilya, his brow pinched with a confusion that deepened as he looked closer at the youthful, unlined face of the 2014 version of his husband. "What the... you look like you’re twenty-two again.".
Ilya opened his mouth to explain, to tell him about the magic of the morning and the daughter he already loved, but the words died in his throat. A strange, violent pull started in the center of his chest, like a magnet dragging him backward through a thick, invisible fog. The bright sunlight of the villa began to dim, and the edges of the room blurred into grey static.
He felt the timeline reacting to him, a heavy, crushing sensation as if he were being buried alive in a sandpit. He reached out, his fingers clawing at the air, trying to anchor himself to this perfect future, but his body felt leaden and unresponsive. He didn't want to go back to the emptiness of 2014, to the sick father and the lonely summers. He wanted to stay here, in the warmth of this family.
His vision began to fail, the image of Shane’s worried face flickering like a dying candle. Just as the darkness claimed him, he felt a ghost of a sensation, the familiar smell of mint and citrus as Shane leaned down. A pair of lips pressed lightly, almost tentatively, against his own.
"See you later," Shane whispered, the voice sounding miles away.
Then, with a final, sickening lurch, the villa vanished, leaving Ilya falling into a deep, silent void.
.
.
.
Shane stared blankly at the empty space where the younger, frantic version of Ilya had been just a heartbeat ago. Beside him, Victoria remained in a stunned, unmoving silence, her breath catching as the reality of the morning caught up with her. But the stillness was short-lived; a second later, the air seemed to shimmer, and Ilya, the 2027 Ilya reappeared exactly where his younger self had fallen.
He didn't look confused; instead, he let out a hearty, booming laugh that echoed through the foyer as he pulled both his husband and daughter into a fierce embrace.
"Haha, it really happened, didn't it?" Ilya crowed, his eyes bright with a secret he had kept for over a decade. "I actually traveled to the future!".
"What the heck, Ilya?" Shane stammered, still trying to reconcile the 22-year-old boy who had just vanished with the man now holding him.
Ilya offered a knowing wink to Victoria before turning back to Shane. He explained that fourteen years ago, in a Vegas hotel room after the NHL Awards, he had woken up in a life he hadn't yet earned. He had always suspected it was a hallucination brought on by nerves or too much vodka, but to be safe, he had marked June 15th, 2027, on every calendar he’d owned since as a reminder.
A sudden clarity washed over Shane. He remembered how, years ago, Ilya had been obsessed with a very specific set of idea.
Then he remembered the early days, the confusing insistence from Ilya that they needed to document everything. It explained why Ilya had been so adamant about taking those "Maternity Photos". Even though Shane wasn't actually the one carrying the child, Ilya had insisted on the high-angle shots and the radiant smiles, ensuring they were printed, framed, and hung prominently for a visitor he knew was coming.
"You've been waiting for this," Shane whispered, finally understanding the smug look Ilya was wearing right now.
"I told you," Ilya said, his voice dropping into that familiar, arrogant purr. "I am the MVP of more than just hockey"