Katara wondered when she had started giving kisses out as favours. Thought that perhaps it had started when she was young and Gramma Kanna was the kindest woman in the world, leaning up to peck her on the cheek for letting her eat the last fruit tart or for playing Damsel & Dragons with her and Sokka. Katara had, even as a child, vehemently opposed to the role of Damsel and so the two had often roped their sweet grandmother to fill in with both of them as the valiant knights fighting for her affections.
She gave Aang a peck occasionally, but was worried he was starting to take it the wrong way when he started blushing scarlet and staring at her at odd times of the day. It's just something she did to family, like a sabertooth moose-lion softening with her cubs.
Sokka also did not escape and suffered many a slobbery smack on the cheek, most recently when she had fallen asleep sewing patches into a pair of pants worn ragged throughout their trips and had woken to dinner already made and set before her. Sokka had run away complaining about girls and their 'oogies' but had come back a little while later and asked Katara to teach him how to sew anyways, maybe out of guilt. She gave him another one just for that, grinning, and he made a big deal of wiping the spit off his cheek.
Katara wondered why it seemed different then, when she had swooped in and planted her lips softly on Zuko's cheek for the barest of moments. Why she could still feel it tingle afterwards and felt the need to trace her mouth with her fingers. Katara wondered why seeing the tips of his ears burn a bright red as he turned away made her heart skip a beat but, as with most things concerning Zuko, filed it under things to deal with at a later date.
He had helped her with the dishes. A small thing, of course, but she hadn't even needed to ask. Zuko was like that, he did his chores and others' too without needing to be told. Katara hadn't realized how draining taking care of everyone by herself had been until she finally found herself with free time and not a thing to do.
With a war going on there was always something to do. Something to prepare for, something to plan for, something to run from. But the gang had taken it in stride, or she had at least. Without some chore needing finishing, some item needing cleaning or a kid needing soothing she found herself at a loss. So Katara did the dishes twice. Then she did them again.
When Zuko had walked in and saw her cleaning he had frowned but had made his way over nonetheless, held a hand out for the dish she was drying and got to work. He had seen her doing the dishes an hour ago and she knew he knew it didn't take that long for a master waterbender to wash a couple bowls, but he didn't question her compulsive need to have something to do or her apparently lacking dishwashing skills. They finished the task quickly and, to Katara's dismay, it seemed she still had time before the sun started setting and they all hunkered off to bed.
Zuko saw her frown.
"Do you want to go over battle schematics with me and Sokka?" Zuko's voice was gruff as always but she couldn't help but feel it was soothing, tender almost.
Katara looked up at him and wondered how he always seemed to know just what to say. She thought perhaps it was General Iroh rubbing off on him, but he hadn't seen Iroh in ages. She stretched onto her tippy toes, put a hand on his shoulder for balance and pecked him on the cheek, almost on autopilot. When she got back onto the soles of her feet she blinked a couple times, her heart coiling and fluttering all at once.
"Sure." She replied, voice a little stilted with the soft beating in her chest, "I'd love to."
Katara wondered idly why the small smile that pulled at his lips as blush swept from his cheeks to his neck looked welcoming and warm and why her heart wouldn't stop beating so hard she thought it'd fly out from under her ribs. She thought the way he looked at her then was so full of something she couldn't place.
Katara laced their fingers together lightly on the way to Sokka's tent, nestled close to him as they sat down, bumped their shoulders together occasionally as Sokka described the fall of the Fire Nation with much more dramatiscism than was needed and tried not to think about how fast her heart was beating.