man do you ever think about zuko finding his self worth and realizing he never deserved ozai's abuse and cry a little bc i do

He comes back home and his people cheer and sing him praise and his father looks him in the eye and everything is wrong.

The palace feels empty. The three of them, he and Father and Azula (five of them if you count Mai and Ty Lee, with how often they hang around), don't fill up nearly enough space to make the place livable.

He can barely stand to look at the generals and nobles who congratulate him on his return, who say they never doubted him a bit, who say it was amazing what he and his sister accomplished in Ba Sing Se, who say they're honored to be in his presence, when he knows that many of them were there three years ago when his father burned him. When he knows they gossiped and whispered about fools errands, when they damned him a disgrace.

If there's something he missed about this place, it definitely wasn't all these formalities, all the fake compliments of men with agendas.

The palace feels empty, big enough that there's no reason for Father to send them away for a week if he really wants to meet with his advisors privately, but he does, and a pat of Zuko is grateful he doesn't have to listen to the sound of his own footsteps echoing when he walks down the corridors.

All the trip does is highlight how out of place he feels. How off all of this is. He and Mai fight and then Ty Lee is yelling and so is Mai and so is he and they're all digging deeper than Zuko ever feels comfortable with, picking away at all the little reasons why they are who they are.

Who are you angry at? they ask, and he is cornered and desperate and doesn't know, Who are you angry at?

And—and—he doesn't know, he doesn't know, it's no one and everyone and everything and nothing, and it's Azula and Father and Uncle and the Avatar and Mother and all those goddamn people in Ba Sing Se, and it's none of them and it's all of them and it's—

and it's him. Himself. It's himself, he's so damn angry at everything and at himself and at all of this.

Why? Azusa asks, quiet and sounding so genuinely confused and skeptical it makes him pause, and he says because I'm confused—

(Because he doesn't know what to do. Because Mother is gone and Azula is like this and people are dying everywhere and Uncle is in prison and he put Uncle in prison and everything is all fucked, all twisted up and messy—this isn't what he spent three years working for—it's not supposed to be like this—this isn't what he was supposed to come home to.)

(Nearly everything he was supposed to come home to is gone.)

And he says because I'm not sure I know the difference between right and wrong anymore—

(Because he sits in the throne room and his father looks down at him and says welcome home, says I'm proud of you, says I see the weight of your travels has changed you—and Zuko wants to say no you don't, you don't know, you could never know what I've done for you, you don't care. Zuko wants to say you're proud of me for something I didn't do, he wants to say if you knew the truth you wouldn't look at me.

He wants to say how dare you, how dare you talk to me like you know what I've been through, like you weren't the one who hurt me and scarred me and sent me away—and he doesn't know where these wants are coming from, because he's never dared to want them before, because this, this right here, these words are the words he's wanted for so goddamn long and they. They feel like nothing. They feel empty. But he swallowed down his wants and took that empty praise and tried to feel content.)

And he doesn't know. His father finally talks to him and Uncle says nothing, nothing, won't talk to him won't yell at him won't look at him—and Zuko wants him to, would feel better if Uncle yelled at him, got angry and hated because it's Zuko fault he's behind bars it's Zuko who betrayed him after everything—and for what?

He doesn't feel safe here, with Azula setting him up for defeat and his father looking at him and the person he trusts the most in the world hating him, surely, resenting him. Nothing is the way it should be and Mai is stone where she used to blush and hide her face beneath her sleeves and Zuko is scarred and ruined and angry.

But, I feel all smooth now, Ty Lee says after they've all said their piece. And Zuko doesn't, not yet, not really. But he will, soon.

And when he does, when everything straightens out and Uncle finally finally talks to him and father is nothing but a horrible man in his eyes, he will make up his mind and choose his side and he will apologize. He will say his own piece and he will drop to his knees before his uncle and he'll beg to be forgiven, if that's what he has to do.

And he does. And he wills his hand not shake as he pushes that door open, and wills his legs to hold steady as he steps in and hears that door creak shut behind him.

And he tells the truth. And his father says get out of my sight, get out of my sight if you know what's good for you, and a small, pathetic part of Zuko almost complies, because his father is still tall and still has those hands and those eyes and a small pathetic part of Zuko is still afraid of him, of what he can do, of the control he's had over him all these years.

But he hold his ground and says no, says I am going to speak my mind, and you, he says, are going to listen.

(He grips the handles of his swords tight and looks his father in the eye. He is the one in control, he is the one with the power right now, and it has never been this way before. It's increible, and it's terrifying.)

And he knows. He knows now. He sees him now, he sees the man who calls himself his father.

You hurt your wife, Zuko says, because it made you feel better about yourself, didn't it? You were bigger than her, you were stronger than her. You were her husband, you were in charge.

You hurt your kids, he says, because it made you feel powerful, didn't it? You were the second son—you weren't gonna be Fire Lord. The only real power you had was over us and Mom, and you always wanted perfection in places perfection couldn't exist. We were children.

And for so long, he says, I was just trying to please you. You, he says, my father. Who banished me, just for talking out of turn. My father, he says, trying to spit the out the venom in that word, the connotations that leave a bad taste in his mouth, who challenged me, a thirteen year old boy, to an Agni Kai.

He says, how can you possibly justify a duel with a child?

It was to teach you respect, Father says, but

It was cruel, Zuko snarls—because it's taken him so damn long to understand this, to realize this, to realize he didn't deserve this—and it was wrong.

And his father looks down at him and laughs at him and mocks him and Zuko can barely believe that he once respected this man, idolized this man.

He says I'm going to join the Avatar. I'm going to help him defeat you.

He says I know my own destiny. Taking you down is the Avatar's destiny.

He says you are a pathetic man, hiding behind your title, and your bending, and your power. And when you die, he says, you will be alone.

And the Fire Lord stalls and taunts and tells him something worth knowing for once. Shoots lightening at him because it turns out he really can stoop lower than he already had—but Zuko?

Zuko, this time, gives it back.

Lets the shocks flow through his body and out his other arm, takes it in and pushes it right back out because he is not that little boy anymore, and he is strong now, and he won't let this man take anything else from him.

I am not yours, he thinks as he turns and runs. I was never yours. You can't hurt me anymore. I was never yours to hurt.

He leaves. He doesn't look back.