A/N: Part II! This one is a bit sloppy in my opinion, but I needed a filler chapter type of a thing to show how the overheard conversation has tortured Zuko.

The Perils of Eavesdropping, Part II

The following week was quite busy. One's days are filled to the brim with diplomatic meetings and such when one is trying to rebuild a broken world. He may as well have been trying to repair a shattered window with his bare hands. It was painful and mildly bloody. Shards of open hostility, hefty reparations, and a crumbling economy left the Fire Lord with a very long list of things to do.

But Zuko found himself not worrying about the increased tax on rice that week. He kept getting distracted. When Katara was nearby, he found himself watching her from the corner of his eye: the way she threw back her head to laugh at a joke Sokka told, the way her arms swayed as she moved through her waterbending forms, the way she got that little furrow between her eyes when she was poring over progress reports from the Southern Water Tribe. Even when she was gone, gone to visit a bakery or a school or a hospital with Aang, he was distracted. While his calligrapher grilled him on letters he had yet to send to the governers, Zuko found himself wondering (extremely reluctantly) how such a small kid like Aang could be so…well-endowed. His cook demanded more expensive ingredients for the dishes that would be served at his birthday feast as Zuko contemplated his own…qualities (even more reluctantly). And as his uncle asked him politely exactly whom he was thinking of with such a "delightful expression of love," Zuko was staring at the red drapes on his office window and wondering exactly how brown skin would look against crimson sheets—

His elbow slipped off the corner of his desk.

"Expression of what?"

Iroh's grin was beatific. "Love, my dear nephew." He lifted his teacup. "I have never seen you look so…incredibly smitten as you did just now."

"I am not smitten, Uncle." He tried very hard to ignore the blush creeping from his neck. "And there was no 'expression of love.'" He mimed air quotations and folded his arms. "I was just…"

Iroh waited politely, his eyes shimmering with what Zuko assumed was suppressed mirth.

"It doesn't matter," he said, and sounded so much like his old angsty give-me-the-Avatar self that he unfolded his arms and folded his hands instead. "What is it you needed?"

Iroh shrugged, but his feigned nonchalance was transparent. "I was merely going to ask what your favorite flavor of custard was for your birthday celebration." He put down his teacup and folded his hands over his belly. "But," he said, smiling softly, "I can see you have other, more pressing issues on your mind, nephew."

"It's nothing, really. Just…something stupid." The blush had spread to the bridge of his nose.

Iroh continued to smile.

The blush had reached the crown of his head. They continued to stare at each other.

Iroh reached and drained the last of his tea. "Very well, Fire Lord Zuko," he said, and Zuko could hardly believe he had won. Iroh smiled as he lifted himself from the table and bowed.

This was…too easy.

Iroh was at the door.

"Uncle—"

"I am excellent at giving advice, Zuko," Iroh interrupted, fully grinning now. "Just ask Miss Suki and Lady Katara."

He knows.

Zuko's stunned silence made the room seem much larger than it was.

"If I were you," Iroh continued, and Zuko thought his teeth would rot, Iroh's smile was so saccharine, "I would not wait until it's too late." And with a wink, he was gone.