Work Text:
Despite how long he was in the shower, Zuko’s body still ached as he hauled his equipment bag over his shoulder, picked up his hockey stick, and trudged out of the locker room.
Coach had him skating extra laps and had the whole team focusing on their footwork this practice after their dismal defeat against the Wolf Warriors in their last game. Normally, the Fire Comets did pretty damn good out on the ice, but the Wolf Warriors had completely knocked them off their feet, practically dancing circles around them.
As he went about turning off the hallway lights, Zuko went in search of Gyatso, the ice rink’s caretaker to let him know he was done so the old man could close the place up for the night. What he found instead was someone twirling out on the ice.
Stopping where he was, Zuko watched as this person continued to spin faster and faster before throwing their arms and a leg out to abruptly slow down and skate out in a large loop, moving with a fluidity that he had never encountered.
He was mesmerized.
+
Katara couldn’t help it. She laughed. She laughed so hard she had to stop skating, bracing her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath, gliding to a slow stop before Zuko’s sprawled figure from where he had spun himself into the wall of the rink.
They had been meeting up for several weeks now and his brutish hockey moves had finally smoothed out enough for her to teach him a few of the more complicated figure skating forms she enjoyed doing during her free time.
“Why do I need to know how to do this again?” Zuko complained as he was helped to his feet.
“It’s about being confident with your center of balance,” Katara explained. “Regardless of how chaotic it gets out there, so long as you instinctively know where you can throw your weight, you’ll be able to move and weave between opponents with no problems.”
“You know an awful lot about hockey for someone who has no interest. Are you sure you won’t just join my team?” Zuko asked, not for the first time. “I still stand by my promise that no one will care that you’re a girl.”
Katara shook her head. “I know you think it’s just about that and my brother, but it’s a little bit more complicated than that.”
Lips thinning, Zuko nodded once in understanding and skated back to the center of the rink, ready to try again.
+
The handholding thing had been a bit weird at first. Holding hands while skating was for those who didn’t know how to skate and couples who viewed skating as a lovey-dovey activity.
But then Katara showed him just what they were meant to do while holding hands.
The first time she threw her weight to the side and tugged, Zuko went flying. The second time she did it, he stumbled. The third, he counter-balanced and pulled back.
The first time Zuko did it, he had used a tad too much force and pulled Katara right into him and they both went crashing down. Katara laughed, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and pushed herself off of Zuko’s chest with an apology and promise that she would be ready for the next one.
After several hours, they were both smiling, dancing around the ice as they pulled and pushed one another, both managing to stay on their feet as they swung each other around, dodging what usually turned into body checks during hockey.
By the end of the night, they had slowed their game down enough and were simply skating side by side, hands still clasped and shoulders brushing.
+
“Katara!” Zuko shot up from his seat in the bleachers, where he had been waiting for the other girl to show up. “I have great news!”
Giving Zuko an amused glance, Katara looked around the rink to ensure they were alone before sitting next to him to start pulling her shoes off. “What is it?”
“My team won the last game! We’re in the finals!” Zuko reached out a hand to stop her from putting on her skates. “It’s all thanks to you. I’ve taken a lot of what you taught me and showed it to the team.”
Katara’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah. You should see us now. I’d say we’re good enough to grind the Wolf Warriors into the ice when we finally face off with them again!”
Katara’s smile was forced wide. “That’s great.”
“And I was wondering…if maybe tonight, instead of practicing, we maybe went out together? Like to dinner?” When Katara didn’t answer right away, Zuko nervously rushed on. “Not necessarily as a date or anything, but to celebrate. And as a way to let me thank you.”
“You wouldn’t want to date me?” Katara asked, lips pulled down in a frown.
“No. No! I would love to date you!” Zuko hurriedly tried to correct. “I just didn’t want to assume anything since I kind of forced you to teach me and you never wanted to come to any of my games, so…”
“What if I came to your finals games?”
Zuko’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Would you really?”
Katara stared down at her skates for a moment before squaring her shoulders and looking back at Zuko. “Yes.”
+
“Zuko! What are you doing here?” Katara asked, after giving the young children and parents she had been helping to instruct a quick goodbye and skating over to the rink’s entrance.
“I figured maybe since you’re willing to break tradition and come see my championship games, maybe I could sort of do the same and come see you outside of our usual late night meetup times.”
Instead of the usual bright grin that Katara gave him whenever Zuko voiced an idea, her smile was small and strained.
Zuko frowned. “Is this a bad time?”
Before Katara could answer, another boy came gliding up to them.
“Hey, Katara, if you’re done with class, can we hurry it up and get home? Gran-gran’s making her special soup tonight and I am starving.” The boy, towering over the both of them thanks to his skates, turned to look at Zuko. “Who’s this?”
Looking between them and seeing a family resemblance, Zuko pulled a hand out of his pocket and offered it in greeting. “Zuko Sozin. I, uh, have hockey practice here on Thursdays and bump into Katara sometimes.”
“Zuko So—…wait, Sozin, as in captain of the Fire Comets?”
“You’ve heard of me?” Zuko asked in surprise.
Rather than answer, the boy turned to Katara who was looking ashamedly off to the side.
“Seriously, Katara? Instead of practicing your dancing, you’ve been sneaking off to see him?”
"It’s really not like that,” Zuko defended, stepping up to the very edge of the carpet.
“Uh huh.” The boy crossed his arms. “The name’s Sokka Tuila. I’m captain of the Wolf Warriors, and Katara’s older brother.”
Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Katara’s refusal to go to Zuko’s games. Her sudden promise that she would be there for the championships — the Wolf Warriors had made it in as well, and already hockey circles were talking about the two teams being each other’s biggest rivals.
The Wolf Warriors had been so light on their feet when they last faced off. And now, thanks to Katara’s tutelage of what might have been a team secret, the Fire Comets knew and could match all their tricks.
What Zuko didn’t understand was why Katara never bothered to tell him any of this in the first place.
Looking between the two siblings, Zuko took a step back.
“Right. Well, I can tell you’re probably busy, so I’ll just…see you around, I guess.”
Despite the dejection running through him, Zuko was unable to stop himself from looking back before he left the arena to see Katara and Sokka locked in a heated argument that ended with Katara whirling around to skate off, smacking Sokka in the face with her braided hair.
+
Next week’s practice went horribly. Zuko’s head just wasn’t in the game, and after sitting through a long lecture from his coach, he purposely left through the back exit, just so he could avoid walking by the ice rink. He didn’t want to know if Katara would bother showing up or not now that her secret was out.
He tried to do the same the following week, but stopped short when he spotted the shivering figure standing by his car.
“Katara? How long have you been out here?”
Katara shrugged, dancing a little in place and sniffling before speaking.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for deceiving you. Even though I wasn’t really, but that’s what Sokka keeps calling it when he’s not accusing me of being a traitor and betraying his whole team.”
“He’s kind of right.” Zuko found he couldn’t quite meet Katara’s hurt gaze. “You probably shouldn’t have taught me all those tricks if you knew I was from the rival team.”
“Why not? It’s not like those are trademarked moves!”
“Except they kind of are!” Zuko argued right back. “Wolf Warriors are known for their fancy footwork, and now we’re about to face off against them with nearly the exact same moves! What are people going to think?”
“That you guys trained hard and smart so they wouldn’t wipe the floor with you this time around!” Katara immediately shot back.
Anger flared hot and quick within Zuko. “So, what? You agreed to train me out of pity?”
Katara’s jaw dropped and she reached out to shove Zuko back, but he barely flinched.
“No! I agreed to help you because you were this hot guy who was looking at me like you were genuinely impressed with my figure skating!” Tears were swimming in Katara’s eyes. “I really like you, okay? But my family is in really deep with the whole hockey thing to the point where everyone on my brother’s team is like extended family. I never really cared that much, but if I knew you were just as bad as all of them, then I probably would have told you to go and screw yourself in the first place.”
Zuko blinked, having nothing to say to that.
“God, his team, your team, I don’t care about any of that. I like you for you! And because you have no problem with learning things from a girl who doesn’t even play hockey and you respect my boundaries. This weekend I want to cheer on both your teams and be happy for you regardless of if you win or lose.”
“But…” Zuko adjusted his grip on his hockey stick and nervously tapped it on the ground. “How long did you think you could hide us?”
Katara’s shoulder’s slumped. “I don’t know. I tried not to think about it.”
“Will you get bullied if we’re together?”
“Sokka will probably complain and a few of the other parents may give me odd looks, but it won’t be anything I can’t handle. No one on the team will say anything because Sokka’s about as overprotective as they come despite his complaints.” Katara bit her lip. “Will it be a problem for you?”
Zuko shrugged. He honestly had no idea what his teammates would think of this whole situation. Probably that he was with her just to spy on the Wolf Warriors. Even though it was completely not true, them being together was going to look pretty bad when everyone saw just how evenly matched the teams were now.
Zuko stared at Katara. He took in her loose, wavy hair, her red nose, her earnest blue eyes, and her pink lips that glistened in the street light thanks to all the licking and biting she had done to them while waiting for him outside. And Zuko decided he didn’t care what everyone was going to say about them. That as long as Katara wanted him, he was going to stay with her.
+
The Fire Comets blasted their way through the finals and were now playing for the title of Champions against the Wolf Warriors. The game was brutal, even by hockey’s usual standards and the Fire Comets were barely hanging on. When their team suffered yet another injury, the coach called for a timeout.
“These guys are really desperate to win,” one of the teammates gasped out, grabbing a water bottle and squirting it on his face.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Zuko admitted, struggling to meet his coach’s piercing stare.
“And what else do you think it could be, Sozin?” Coach demanded, crossing his arms.
There was little doubt in Zuko’s mind that Coach already had his suspicions. Watching the two teams play against each other, it would be hard not to note the similarities in how they moved, and with how insistent Zuko had been with teaching the team one new move at a time with each week’s practices, conclusions were easy to draw.
Zuko refused to admit anything down that path.
“I’m…sort of seeing their team captain’s little sister.”
The team’s completely synced chorus of “WHAT??“ was loud enough to cause the audience to momentarily quiet down.
"I didn’t know who she was at first!” Zuko explained. “But then Tuila found out and he wasn’t exactly happy about it.”
Another teammate snorted and rubbed at his shoulder. “I’ll say.”
“Alright, new mission, team,” Coach ordered. “Get out there, and show some support for Sozin’s relationship!”
The team cheered and as the players jumped back out onto the ice, Zuko looked up into the stands.
Katara wasn’t hard to spot. She sat in a sea of blue with bright red gloves on her hands. As soon as she noticed Zuko looking, she smiled, waved, and cupped her hands over her mouth. Over the roar of the crowd, he was unable to hear her, but it wasn’t hard to see her lips forming the words “Go Fire Comets!”.
Unable to stop a grin of his own, Zuko pulled his helmet down and skated back onto the ice. He had a game to win.
THE END.