hi i’ve never posted much on here and definitely not any fics but i’ve been watching the olympics, and as a virtuemoir fan, the DC fanfic delusions came over me and i wrote some blurbs to a brutanna ice dance one shot that will probably take me months to finish. sharing just a piece of it to get the squirmy feelings out!
you can also find me on ao3 here:
https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderelsa/pseuds/cinderelsa
—
“Should I be nervous?” Zatanna asks her coach, and her father, Giovanni Zatara.
Zatanna thinks to herself that it’s a foolish question as soon as it leaves her mouth. Her father had always stressed to her the importance of the spoken word, and to ask if she should be nervous would be to give weight to the emotion, to let it solidify within herself. Retired Italian Olympic Gold Medalist Giovanni Zatara did not believe in being nervous. Well, really, he didn’t believe that Zataras should ever be nervous. She hadn’t been, ever, not before her accident.
To her surprise, he doesn’t chastise her. “Your physical therapy wasn’t for nothing, amore.”
“Is he already here?” She’s not quite ready to see him, but she’d be annoyed if he was late. He wouldn’t be the same person she knew, if he was.
Her father squeezes her shoulder. “You know Bruce is never late to anything.”
Never late to anything, but didn’t make the time to see her during her six months of recovery. Not that she’d invited him over, but still. Would it have killed him to do more than text her? Her father was their coach, for crying out loud. He hadn’t tried to nudge Bruce to join them for dinner? For any of her runs, when she was finally cleared to exercise again?
She makes a noise, a petulant hmph that sits in the back of her throat.
“Be easy on him, amore,” Giovanni says. “And on yourself.”
God, their chances of winning Worlds must be a complete pipe dream if her father is gentle-parenting her back onto the ice. They’d been the favorites for last season, but she and Bruce hadn’t even made it to Skate Canada for their second GP. Will they even qualify this season?
They have to–they’re the reigning Olympic bronze medalists, and it’s an Olympic-qualifying year. She hasn’t even considered the possibility that they might have to skip an Olympics, it had never even seemed in any realm of reality for any of them. Not her father, not Bruce, and certainly not Zatanna, who navigated life knowing she had been born for this.
Zatanna can hear him before she sees him–the telltale slice of blades hitting the ice, a steady rhythm of swooshes as Bruce Wayne warms up. From how fast he’s going, Zatanna can tell that he’s a bit nervous to see her too.
Good, she thinks to herself. He should be.
—
“You’re staring,” she whispers through clenched teeth. “The cameras are on.” Zatanna resists the urge to pick a hand-placed Swarovski crystal from the skirt of her costume, and instead presses the pad of her thumb against it until she’s sure it’s made an imprint. She smiles at the cameras and waves.
Bruce is watching Selina Kyle as she practices her twizzles with her partner, Harvey Dent, following the spin of her arms amidst the many bodies of their warm-up group. His gaze is zeroed in on her the way it did when they were all juniors sharing the Gotham Ice Rink, when Zatanna knew that he harbored a secret crush on their biggest competitor.
Bruce leans in close, the way he always has, angling his face away from the cameras in the kiss and cry. “I’m not looking at her any differently than I would look at you,” he says, his breath tickling her ear.
For some reason, that answer bothers her just as much as it would have if he’d admitted he still wanted Selina Kyle.
Giovanni clears his throat from behind them, and the frustration she’d hoped that she was projecting at Bruce dissipates. The speakers in the arena crackle to life, and she sits at attention, shoulders back and back even straighter. Bruce’s hand rests on her knee, where it has during every kiss and cry for the last ten years.
“Zatanna Zatara and Bruce Wayne have earned in the free dance 116.83, bringing their total score to 221.04. They are currently in first place.”
—
hope the vision came through!
