Kept forgetting to put this up on ffnet when I've had it up on ao3 for a good while. Anyways...
So, I've always felt that Zuko just looking up and seeing Katara at the end of s2e19 would be a small action with big impact on the story. So I'm finally writing something about it. Obviously, it also has to be zutara, and me being me I also added in some world building. The Zutara in this might end up not getting all that romantic depending on how far I decide to go with this but they are going to be the main characters for this fic and their relationship is going to be front and center.
Okay, that said, hope you enjoy!
Zuko catches a flash of blue out of the corner of his eyes. He keeps the friendly server smile on his face as he turns to look out of the open doors of the tea shop. The Avatar's waterbending master, still in her water tribe blues, runs across the plaza away from the shop.
"Excuse me," he says to the man he's serving as he sets down the tea as well as the tray he was carrying it on then turns and bolts out of the front door.
She might have a head start on him in addition to knowing where he's headed, but he has height on her. It doesn't take him long to catch up, and he takes care not to touch her as he skirts around her to get in front of her and block her way.
"Get out of my way, Zuko," she warns, practically shouting his name for everyone to hear. Her flask is already uncorked and her hand rests inches above its mouth.
"Shut up," he hisses at her. "That name is dangerous."
"Only because it's your name and you're dangerous."
He swallows down a noise of frustration in case she was intentionally attempting to set him off. "Right now, you're putting both my uncle and me in danger so will you shut up and listen to me for a minute," he hisses at her, trying to control the volume of the confrontation.
He carefully assesses their surroundings without turning away from her. He can see other upper ring denizens walking around them with the sleeves of their robes hovering over their mouths so they can titter an gossip behind them. They might wear Earth Kingdom green rather than the red of his father's court, but Zuko knows the danger of the mouths hidden with expensive brocades even if he'd never learned to use them the way Azula and his father had. Zuko may be hidden in his green robes, merchant not noble class, but the waterbender is not in her tribal blues. He'll stick out in association to her and his distinctive scar. He chides himself for acting so rashly. Then again, perhaps it would have been worse still to let her go.
"Why should I trust you for even that long?" she asked, eyes narrowed and body still poised.
"There's no war in Ba Sing Se," he says, hoping she would understand his meaning even if she doesn't seem to understand why using his real name would be a problem. He had heard of the recent power shift in the palace, all the whispers the nobles brought with them to tea, and he knew the Avatar had been involved. Still, the Earth King is weak. His studies at home before his banishment had said as much, and traveling through the Earth Kingdom and living in Ba Sing Se reinforced it. Whoever controlled the Dai Li held Ba Sing Se, and the Earth King did not control the Dai Li. They wouldn't hesitate to crush him if they so much as caught a whiff of smoke from him.
He watches as horror momentarily crosses her face. Then, her fierce look returns. She lowers her hand, but doesn't close her flask. Zuko doesn't relax.
"I freed your bison," he adds.
"What?" she asks, shocked.
"I freed your bison," he says, unwilling to way from where or who from with so many open ears around them.
"How?" she asks, sounding amazed then her tone shifts to suspicion. "Why?"
"I have nothing to gain from attempting to return home," he says. "Will you please accompany me to the Jasmine Dragon as my guest so that I may explain myself in confidence."
She gives him a strange look. The words feel as strange in his mouth as they must sound to her. He hasn't had to use such language in years, and he's always been rather clumsy with it. It matters little with the danger she has put his uncle and him in, especially with Azula knocking at the gates if she hasn't already found a way to worm underneath them somehow already. Politeness is all he has in this damned city, and it's by far the weakest tool in his arsenal.
"I can't. I have a message to deliver, and I can't have you stealing it," she says, as if he had even known she was carrying a message.
"But you had the time and leniency to stop into a tea shop when I'm sure there are plenty of parties that would wish to see your messages contents," Zuko says, and he can think of several nobles he had seen just today on top of the Dai Li who would be interested in any of the Avatar's groups correspondence. "I'm not one of them."
She puffs up in anger as he has clearly pricked her pride, but she has little to volley back with as it is merely the truth. She takes a deep breath in and calms herself, but she doesn't move away. They're in a stand still now that they both know the other is in the upper ring and can't afford to the let the other go. Zuko already knows how this will end as she has the upper hand no matter how many barbed observations he throws at her.
She finally puts him out of his misery and says it. "You can come with me, and if you don't try anything, maybe I'll listen to you afterwards."
Her words are even coarser than his, and he grimaces. It's a very precarious position with the people still surrounding them, and his uncle lacking any other waitstaff in his shop. He can't just let her run off and tell the Dai Li about him and his uncle, but she might lead him right into their clutches anyways. He sighs because he has no better option. "I will accompany you and ensure you deliver your message without harm, provided that you refer to me only as Lee from now on."
"Lee?" she asked, sounding surprised and suspicious.
"It is appropriate that you refer to me by my given name as I have no family name to offer you, Master," he says, mustering up the dignity of every soldier he'd ever met who had risen above their station on merit with no family name to open doors for them. He is fairly sure that she has no family name herself, but he doubts it carries the same connotation in the Water Tribe that it does in the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Thankfully, he can use her title rather than her name to refer to her inconspicuously in the Earth Kingdom just as he could have in the Fire Nation. Though he couldn't be sure that female masters were referred to the same as the male masters in the Earth Kingdom as they were in the Fire Nation as he'd yet to meet a female earthbending master.
"Okay then, Lee," she says, pronouncing the name sarcastically. "Let's go see the Earth King."
He considers questioning her judgement in bringing a banished, traitor Fire Nation prince to the Earth King under a war name, but instead bows to her in the style of Earth Kingdom merchants to nobles. He's seen it often enough in the tea shop to have learned it. She doesn't return it, and he ignores the likely unintended insult. He straightens from the bow and moves to stand on her left side and a step back, out of the way of her dominant hand. He had seen Earth Kingdom merchants stand a step to the side and back of nobles, but he hadn't been able to confirm if it had been done on the nobles' non-dominant side. His attendants had stood to his right until he had begun firebending and his father insisted that his attendants stand on his left. It was the first battle his mother had lost to his father.
"What are you doing?" she asks after a few moments of walking.
"Accompanying you," he answers, somewhat distracted with trying to fold his hands into his sleeves as the other merchants had done. The fabric doesn't fold the way he was familiar to and it came out bunched up and wrong.
"I can't see you when you stand there," she says, checking over her shoulder to look at him.
"That's the point. I'm accompanying you."
"I don't like having you where I can't see you."
He sighs then takes a step forward. It's highly inappropriate when he can barely be classed above a servant, and she is an honored guest of the King as well as a master bender, but she did ask for it. "Then I'll escort you, better?"
"Yes," she says, now picking up her pace. "What does it matter if you're accompanying me or escorting me? They're both just fancy ways of saying you're coming with me."
He bites down on his initial, reactionary comment, not wanting to risk offending her in public or otherwise cause her to start shouting again. He'd learned a lot from people who had never heard of and would never care for upper class etiquette in his time in the Earth Kingdom. It had put the manners of the Avatar's group into a new perspective, but it did make things difficult trying to blend into the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se. "It matters to the people around us, and the less they notice me the better."
"You think they care?" she asks, now looking at the people around them. The people around them are carefully avoiding looking at them, but that doesn't mean they aren't listening.
"Ba Sing Se is in the midst of a power struggle, and you are the waterbending master of the Avatar, the most powerful being in the world, and you think they aren't watching you?" he asks, feeling the strogest desire he's had in years to raise his sleeve and cover his lips so no one could read them. "Everyone is watching you."
She shakes her head like she doesn't believe him and continues to march on towards the palace. She gets him past the guards easily, and he has to work against his instincts and keep his head deferentially lowered instead of walking with his head high and his shoulders back like a prince. He looks up only once they're well past the gates.
Katara, he believes her name is now that he thinks about it, guides him through several antechambers to reach the throne room. His heart stops at the sight. The throne room is empty except for three girls he recognizes despite their heavy make up, and every half formulated he plan for making it through an audience with the Earth King is forgotten. Katara gasps beside him, and it's not one of horror, just surprise and delight. Zuko's stomach drops. She'll get them both killed or worse.
He puts a hand on her shoulder and turns her left to keep Azula on his right, trying to mimic one of his attendants redirecting him during his more misadventurous years of boyhood.
"What are you doing?" she hisses at him like a sand cat. "That's Suki and the Kyoshi warriors."
"Rather small entourage for the Kyoshi warriors, don't you think?" he asks, continuing to guide her away. "They're working the refugee ferries anyways. Those aren't your friends. That's Azula and her friends."
"But they're wearing Kyoshi Warrior armor and make up," she argues.
"And I'm wearing Earth Kingdom green. They stole the outfits, or maybe killed for them. Keep your voice down."
"Why should I?" she asks and wrenches herself free. Zuko raises his hands and steps back.
"If you want to march in there to your death, go ahead, but you're on your own. If you come with me though, keep your voice down so the Dai Li don't hear us."
"The Dai Li are on our side now," she insists.
"The Dai Li are barely better than mercenaries. The only side they're on is their own or more accurately their leader's. If Azula is in the palace you can be pretty sure it's not the Earth King they'll follow."
She clenches her teeth so she must know how precarious the Earth King's hold on the Dai Li is. He gives her a moment to decide. She glares at him. "Okay, what's your plan?"
"Get out of the palace," he says, beginning to walk down the hall again and away from the throne room. "Two on three aren't the worst odds, especially as you're a master waterbender, but I'm weaponless."
"Why aren't we running if we're retreating?" she asks, picking up her pace and keeping her voice down. "Aren't you a master firebender? You don't even need to carry your element with you so how can you be weaponless?"
Zuko gives her a weird look for calling him a master firebender. He would have thought through her travels and all she knew now that she'd be able to tell there were many superior firebenders to him. Still, he answers her inane questions "We don't run because it's inappropriate and we don't want to draw Dai Li attention. Acting oddly definitely will get us caught. I'm assuming the Dai Li have already learned that the Kyoshi Warriors aren't actually here, but that doesn't necessarily mean they know who they are, and I certainly can't let them know that I'm here. The end game is if Azula or I reveal ourselves and firebend it doesn't matter what plans the Dai Li leader has, we'll both be killed."
"Long Feng, that's their leader. Doesn't that make Azula weaponless, too?"
Zuko tilts his head, considering. "She's better than me at hand to hand. Still, she'd send Ty Lee and Mai first. Have you bested either of them on your own?"
"No," she admits sullenly.
"I could potentially beat either one of them if their skills haven't progressed beyond what can be assumed from when I last saw them," he says. "But I don't know that I could protect you if they took you down. I certainly couldn't take Azula alone or with one of them if you at least took one down with you. They're bad odds."
"Why would you protect me?" she asks.
Zuko gives her another weird look. "I said I would see you deliver your message without harm. I suppose allowing you to fight with me would be considered allowing you to come to harm, but it would be far ruder to suggest you couldn't hold your own as you are a master. Even so, if you were defeated it would be my duty to see that you weren't killed or captured or your message taken or destroyed."
"You would do all that just because you said so?" she asks.
"Yes," he says slowly. "Do you not keep your promises in the Water Tribes?"
"Yes, of course," she says defensively. "You just seem to be taking it rather far for just a promise. I thought you just said it because you were being all weird and formal. We're kind of enemies."
"Kind of," he says, almost laughing. "That's certainly one way of putting it. You can call me your enemy if you like, but I certainly don't see you as one of mine. I've abandoned my search for the Avatar. I only came after you because of the danger your knowing that my uncle and I were in the city posed."
"What?" she asks, holding out her hands like he said something offensive. "You chase us all over the world and now you're just like, it's whatever, I won't chase you anymore?"
"Yeah," he says then crosses the hall and opens a door. His guess that the relatively ornate door was hiding a formal dining room was correct. "This way. There should be a back way the servants use somewhere in here."
She follows him into the room. "Princes know about those?"
"Of course," he says, searching the far walls for any gaps. He's guessing it will be more difficult with earthbending being much finer than what the Fire Nation carpenters and architects could create. "It would be foolish to not know where all the entrances and exits are. Here it is."
He pushes on the door and it swings open, revealing a skinny, undecorated hall lit with glowing rocks rather than flames. "Hopefully this will lead to the kitchens and a way out."
She follows him into the hallway and shuts the secret door behind them. Zuko finds the hallway much creepier without any natural light. He doesn't even know how crystals could create enough light to see by, and he'd much prefer the soft light of candles than this eerie green lighting. He finds a door at the other end, and when he opens it, he's embraced by the warmth of a palace sized kitchen.
Katara doesn't waste any time looking about, stopping a scullery maid and asking, "Excuse me, could you tell us where the exit is?"
The maid eyes both of them suspiciously. "It's that way. Don't come through here again. We don't need any extra people in here mucking up our work."
"We're very sorry," Katara says, and Zuko thinks she's putting it on a little thick. "It won't happen again!"
Katara leads the way through the kitchen, and Zuko spends the entire time wanting to grab some of the food. He hasn't seen food this rich or plentiful in such a long time. It won't do him any good to take it, though. Katara opens the door out of the kitchen and outside. Zuko's relieved that it faces the wall surrounding the palace rather than leading to an interior kitchen garden. It must be where they take in shipments of food.
"What now?" Katara asks as they continue walking towards the palace wall and its guarded archway.
"Depends on who is available to us," he says. "Where's the Avatar?"
She gives him a suspicious look. "The Eastern Air Temple, where you and your sister can't get him."
"I told you, I'm not chasing him anymore. Why would I free his bison if I wanted to capture him?"
"I don't know," she admits, throwing up her hands. "But it's not like you've offered any proof. You've only given your word."
"My word is all I have," he says, and it's uncomfortable how true it is.
They keep silent as they pass the guards. Zuko counts the steps as they walk away and when they're far enough, he says, "We can run."
"Finally," she says, picking up her pace to a jog. "We should find the Earth King."
"He has his own guards. He'll be safe. We won't be," Zuko counters. "We should go back to the Jasmine Dragon and get my uncle."
"Can your uncle even fight?" she asks.
"Don't you know who he is?" he asks. "He's the Dragon of the West. I know he looks like a cooky old man, but he could certainly defeat Azula single handed."
"The Dragon of the West?" she asks, stumbling momentarily in her stride.
"Yes, I've only got one uncle."
"I thought," she starts then shakes her head. "Whatever, lead the way to the Jasmine Dragon."
"What did you think?" he asks even as he began leading them towards the tea shop.
She stays silent for several moments then says. "The Dragon of the West was the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. There was a new Fire Lord, and you said you were the Crown Prince."
"So you thought my father was the Dragon of the West," he says, wondering how such an egregious error could come to be. The only explanation was how quickly his grandfather died after Lu Ten and how quickly his father was crowned in the aftermath. Perhaps there hadn't been clarity in the communications outside of the Fire Nation. "Is it commonly known outside of the Fire Nation that the current Fire Lord is Fire Lord Azulon's second son?"
"No, I don't think most people even knew there were two sons. Does it mean something?"
"I don't know, but that's not the issue we need to solve now," he says, shaking his head. "Where's your brother?"
"On the coast."
"So we're three on three, but two of us weaponless."
"I wish I knew where Toph was," Katara says.
"Who?" Zuko asks.
"Earthbending master, you might have seen her in that abandoned village where we faced Azula."
"I don't remember that," he says without remorse. He'd been rather busy at the time.
"She should still be in the city somewhere, but I haven't seen her in a few days because she's with her mother."
"Then that doesn't help us," he says, slowing down, and she slows as well.
"Why are we slowing down?"
"I don't see how we can stop whatever Azula's planning unless you have any ideas. She's safe in the palace with Ty Lee and Mai."
"Are you and your uncle enough to draw her out?" she asks.
"No, Ba Sing Se is a bigger prize. We'd need the Avatar."
"And he's not here," she says with a nod. "And we're three on three with two firebenders who can't firebend."
"And we have no idea what the Dai Li will do."
"Would your uncle have any ideas?"
"Probably," he says and sighs. "It would be more advantageous to strike now while we can surprise her because if she does manage to get Ba Sing Se and the Dai Li, she will find my uncle and me and kill us."
"Kill you?" she says, surprised.
"Why not? Even if I've been named a traitor, I will always weaken her claim to the throne just as my uncle does to my father," he says even though it's difficult to admit. He never would have before freeing the Avatar's bison. Uncle is lucky to have lived so far into his father's reign. He remembers that part of his history lessons well.
Katara stares at him so hard he sends a questioning look back at her. She asks, "Why is your father the Fire Lord if your uncle is first born?"
No one from the Fire Nation would dare ask him such a question as it would question his legitimacy as crown prince and his father as Fire Lord. Zuko's never had to think of an answer to this question before, and how could he explain it to anyone outside of his own family without them knowing all the people involved? "My only cousin, Crown Prince Lu Ten, died at the Siege of Ba Sing Se, and everything just got worse from there. That's why my father is Fire Lord."
"That's not much of an explanation," she says sourly.
"That's all I can tell you," he says. "This isn't someone else's family across the sea for me, okay? This is my family that this happened to."
"Sorry," she says, and she sounds genuinely remorseful.
They continue on in silence for a few moments before she speaks again. "What about the generals?"
"There are generals in the Upper Ring?"
"Yes, that's who I was coming from," she says, and Zuko nearly chokes on his own breath at the thought of her thinking it was safe to stop at a random tea shop when she was carrying a letter from a general meant for an Earth King. People would literally kill for that sort of information. "Couldn't they arrest Azula even if the Dai Li won't?"
"Yes, why didn't you say so earlier?" he asks, switching back to running, and she keeps up with him.
They burst out into the plaza they had left from. It seems like it had been more than the hour or so it had been. Zuko sprints the last few yards up to the Jasmine Dragon.
"Nephew," Uncle says, spotting him immediately. "Where have you been-."
He stops when Katara catches up to him. "Oh," he says, looking less like a kindly tea shop owner and more like a general.
"My sister is in town," Zuko says. "We should prepare a surprise for her."
Uncle nods then pastes a genial smile on his face as he turns back to his customers. "Forgive me everyone, but I must leave due to an unexpected family reunion."
There's an uproar, or as much as respectable nobles and merchants can make inside of a tea shop, but Uncle ignores them. He casts off his apron and follows them down the steps into the plaza. "What has happened?" he asks, and he's back to looking like a general.
"Azula's infiltrated the palace with Ty Lee and Mai, all dressed as the Kyoshi Warriors," Zuko explains as Katara leads the way to the Earth Kingdom generals.
"She must be aiming for control of the Dai Li then," he says.
"I thought so as well."
"We're short people on our own, though," Katara adds. "Aang is at the Eastern Air Temple, Sokka's on the coast, Toph is off somewhere else in the city, and you two can't firebend with the Dai Li around so we're going to the generals."
"And do they know who we are?" Uncle asks.
"No, they don't," Katara admits. She's clearly unhappy about having to lie to them, but that's what they'll have to do for this to succeed.
"They don't know Azula. They'll need our help," Zuko says.
"I'm surprised you would take this course of action, Nephew."
"What other option is there?" he asks, noting his uncle's surprise though he doesn't know why he would be. He's the one who said Azula needed to be taken down. "Master Katara nearly handed us both over to her just because they were all wearing fancy make up."
"Hey," she says warningly. "It was more than just fancy make up."
"Regardless," Uncle says, ending any chance of argument. "We have an advantage over Azula, and I doubt we will have another opportunity. We must use it."
"The only unknown is the Dai Li," Zuko says. "Will the generals be enough to get them to stand down or against Azula?"
"I don't know," Katara says with a frustrated sigh. "I would think they would choose to preserve the Earth Kingdom over siding with whoever leads them, but I'm not sure. They've messed around with brainwashing. They could have used it on themselves in which case it really doesn't matter who the leader is, just that they lead."
"They are the sort of people who care for order over all and only know how to follow the commands of their leader," Uncle says in a tone of disgust. "Unthinking and uncreative soldiers. They may even stay neutral without a true leader if it comes down to a decision between one of the generals and Azula. They'll be too confused and unused to being decisive.
"Anything is better than them joining her."
Uncle nods. "I agree. I'd like more time to plan this out, but Azula is rarely surprised. The time to act is now."
Zuko looks over to Katara to see how she feels on the subject. She meets his gaze with a fierce look of determination, and nods. She leads them to the government building where the generals are gathered.