He grunted with effort, the heavy (unnecessary) equipment weighing him down as he strained to lift the beam to let his teammates slip under and through.

A wiggle of fingers that they could not see, or could blame on readjusting grip, and the heat became a little less oppressive for him, warm air rising and straining through the growing cracks above them. His partner exhaled in time with him as they found a ledge to rest the crossbeam on to allow passage back through for through for their teammates.

Yen Tai gave him a meaningful look, as best as he could over the breathing mask and under the helmet, for the beam was noticeably less on fire.

Zuko shrugged and bent to pick up their hose so he could continue to cool the supporting walls. The rudimentary hose system worked well enough, with barrels of water on a cart outside pumped in with a combination of gravity and someone outside willing to risk sore arms. Waterbenders could do it better, but this was a fire in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom, where earthbenders tended to be born. Not to mention, there was the matter of the war the waterbenders were all involved in.

Well, all but one, on a technicality.

Tai followed Zuko's lead and grabbed his own coil of hose, falling into the rhythm of trying to keep the way out clear as the building burned down around them. Sometimes, this helped. Sometimes the building was lost anyway. It was always at the end of the shift that the hardest calls came. Teeth clenched, Zuko breathed intentionally, chi seeking stray sparks and embers to crush before they could flare up, keep the way clear for his team to extract the rest of the family.

Anything to keep the father from picking through the ashes of a home alone.

"Can I get a lift, Lee?"

Shen Wei's voice always carried, no matter how loud the fire crackled. Zuko let the hose fall and moved to shift the beam higher. Wei slipped through, a child held in his arms.

"Where are the others?"

"Still upstairs, Shei's trying to break down a door because there's a kid behind it that the mom won't leave and is actively fighting Other Lee about it."

And then Wei was gone, out into the fresh air and safe.

As the beam settled back down, Zuko was on the other side and Tai was sighing. "You're going to do something stupid."

"Yes."

And he was gone, vanishing deeper into the burning building, fear and resolve held in a tight fist in his chest. Carefully up the stairs, some missing, he slipped to the side of the hallway to get out of the way of Shei and Lee, a quiet, still, woman thrown over the shoulder of Lee.

No kid.

"Lee! The floor and roof are collapsing! We gotta go! Did you miss the yelling outside?"

As a matter of fact, Zuko had. He nodded, ushering the two ahead of him, and then took off towards where they'd left.

"Lee you-"

He was in the room, more like a square hallway with bedrooms branching off. The door Shei had been working on was obvious, splintered and cracked, but the planks in the floor right in front of it were also splintering away.

Only his intense focus on the problem, the calculations and discarded ideas, let him hear the sniff behind the door, the quiet "mom?" echoing out into the growing roar of fire.

"Stand back from the door if you can, kid."

The faintest shuffle of steps, and Zuko breathed deep. His right leg slid back, a solid base, as he reached deep for the flow of chi inside him. His arms moved in a slow, deliberate, gathering circle, and the fire around eagerly answered the call. One slow breath, a strong step forward on the sharp exhale, and he punched fire through the door, leaping in after it over the gaps in the floor. He nearly crashed through the floor on the other side, but caught himself, and stood shakily.

A boy shivered on his bed, wide-eyed. Zuko immediately crossed over and picked him up.

"How did you do that?"

"I'm the coolest firefighter in Ba Sing Se."

The boy nodded, accepting, and Zuko turned back to the door just as the ceiling collapsed over it. Zuko spun again to the window. "Good job keeping your shutters closed, kid. Fire needs air to grow."

And then he did something stupid.

Zuko jumped out the window, curled around the kid to keep the boy from hitting the ground first, desperately wishing he wasn't in hiding because a cushion of fire to slow his descent sounded really nice right about now.

He didn't die, surprisingly, or end up maimed. As he fell, he heard the shouts of onlookers and the horrific screech of metal popping out of wood, and then water was wrapped around him, in midair. Zuko was instantly cold, and not just from the cooling effect of the water, moved with intent, that stopped his fall and gently placed him down on his knees.

He opened his eyes to watch the water breaking apart to be flung onto the burning home according to the direction of the Fire Chief. Hwan was clearly bristling with anger, and Zuko knew he'd pay for that as well as the anger Hwan couldn't direct at the waterbender for wrecking their barrels in order to gather enough force to stop Zuko's fall.

The boy wiggled out of his arms to be enfolded into his father's, the man much less panicked now that his family was out of the house and safe.

Tai was suddenly next to him, offering a hand. "Did you burn your cover," he asked quietly.

"No," Zuko replied, ignoring the pun as he came to stand. "But she might."

Tai didn't say anything, though he clearly wanted to, and the two turned to watch the woman draped in blue move to follow the advice of their chief. Zuko was impressed by how much she'd improved. Some of her movements echoed his own gathering forms from a few moments earlier, pulling water from the air as the heat of the fire boiled more and more water away. She hadn't been able to do that the last time they'd fought, or the last time he'd watched her fight.

Another fire cart rolled up with more barrels, teammates swarming over to hook up their hoses and help.

Katara, last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribes, met Zuko's eyes as he stepped forward to help and shook her head, hard. He stopped in his tracks. She called the small globe of remaining water back to herself, murmured something to the chief, and then left him aiming straight for Zuko.

Tai instinctively stepped closer, and a smile briefly twitched across her face.

"You are his partner? Good. Keep him here. I need to check the child, but I want to inspect him before he returns to duty. It seems things inside aren't as bad as first thought." She paused meaningfully, staring at his eyes above the partial mask. He didn't bother trying to hide. She'd always been able to find him at the worst times.

"You've met before?" Tai whispered sharply as she moved away.

"It's a long story."

Zuko watched her tend to the kid, making him giggle and his family smile as she drew glowing water over him with practiced ease. Three years had given her height and deepened the steady confidence of mastery. She wasn't the bristling, over-confident teen standing against him as if bravado and righteousness of cause would make up for the lack of skill.

The way she moved now, standing with no wasted effort, bowing respectfully to the family, now she would take him seriously if they fought; she'd move with honed instinct and think less. He'd have to take her even more seriously. With a deep pang, he wished the world were different. He wanted to run off with her to some empty space and let loose, challenge that confidence. Sparring just for fun would be such a balm.

"May I," she asked, sincerely, still needing to look up at him. Three years had also given him height. He probably looked even more like his father now, not that he could be sure anymore. "I would like to check your lungs for smoke, at least, though Aang is much better at that."

He raised an eyebrow, questioning, and she smirked.

Got him.

He nodded his consent. With a quick glance to his boss - Hwan clearly staring right at them with the house fire mostly extinguished - Zuko turned his gaze to the young woman as she placed her palms, wrapped in water, directly on his chest. "How have you been?"

"Oh, the usual: fighting pirates, running blockades, the usual. Haven't you heard?"

Zuko looked over her head to the empty rooftops. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se," he murmured, so softly he doubted Tai heard.

"Still?" She was as quiet as him, hands moving to his head.

"Why should the Fire Lord change the advantageous policies of his enemies when his power is unopposed here because of them?"

"The Earth King-"

"Not here." Zuko hissed, stepping back from the intimacy of the moment. He shaped a formal bow, one from an uneducated male refugee to the Avatar's unmarried waterbending teaching, daughter of an international war hero and practically princess for it. "It has been an honor to speak with you, Master Katara, and please accept my sincerest gratitude for my life. Mine and my uncle's home is open to you, if there is any way we can even hope to be of service to you."

"Fa! Yen! If you're alive, the sooner the fire is out the sooner you're done for the night!"

There was enough lava in Hwan's voice to melt good steel. As Zuko moved back towards the only faintly burning home, he leaned towards Katara and said quietly, "do not leave here without me, please."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Water coiled back into the waterskin at her side, and she trailed respectfully behind them as the two firefighters returned to their job. Amidst the ashes and exposed framing of the walls, Zuko surreptitiously snuffed out the last few embers still burning as Wei turned around and proclaimed the building clear, safe for the family to tiptoe through and reclaim some possessions as long as they were guided by one of the team.

Katara made her move then, sketching a polite bow to the chief - a rough one, but Zuko knew everyone would ignore that detail - and requested leave to abscond with a certain firefighter to accept his offer of aid.

No one could miss Hwan's look to the empty rooftops before he gave his assent. The empty rooftops were a worrying problem, but perhaps it had been judged that if the Avatar's band had so missed the city rot the first time, perhaps they'd remain so naive three years later.

Aang did, probably, Zuko mused, also knowing this was only a temporary leave from the chewing out he was sure to receive for his stupid stunt. He knew Tai wanted to ream him out as well, though that would be less "I can't afford to have good men die on me and damage my reputation" and more "think of your uncle who has no one to provide for him when he retires." Not that Hwan wouldn't think of the latter point, it would just take him a while longer.

Tai, relentless as ever in protecting the man who he thought was just a simple colony refugee, stepped forward. "If you have no further need of me, Fire Chief, I will escort the lady to her destination with all the honor of clan Yen."

Hwan gave a dismissing gesture, turning away, washing his hands of all responsibility for any trouble the waterbender might bring down upon their heads.

Which, since Zuko now had to lead her to Uncle, was potentially a fair amount. They had skated by the past three years due to Ba Sing Se's policy of silence - no war meant no wanted posters which meant no one could recognize (former) members of the Imperial Family, as long as they stayed away from nobles or any errant Fire Nation soldiers. Working as a Lower Ring fireman or running a Middle Ring teashop provided that safety and further shield of implausibility. Everyone knew Sozin's line was the best. Why should they deign to toil among commoners as commoners?

And if they vanished - well, Zuko doubted the Dai Li were talking to the Fire Nation intelligence and vice versa, so they'd probably both assume the other had pounced on potential troublemakers. It might suck, but Zuko would bet that now could work for a breakout.

Provided Katara played along long enough.

He wasn't sure why she was silent, trailing along at a respectable distance from his right side. Maybe the time apart had calmed the riotous emotions the little band of heroes had seemed to harbor for him. Of course, life-debts helped.

Sokka had blown everything to Koh's lair in a hand-basket, in the best way possible. You didn't let in people claiming to be allies - not into the palace of the Earth King - without checking who they really were. Zuko couldn't blame him for revealing their identities then and there, either. The Water Tribes liked honesty, fair fights out in the open where the challenged knew exactly what was going on. Zuko'd heard stories of what the Northern Tribe had tried, "infiltrating" Zhao's ship. And, to be fair, Zuko hadn't really been trying to kill them the half year he chased them around the world. So Sokka couldn't have known Azula would react with deadly desperation.

As usual with the Avatar, no one he knew died. But there were palace guard widows Uncle had brought soup to, after, though nothing really helped after a fourteen year old narrowly took the city down in one day with only two other teenagers.

And Zuko, he'd gotten them out, when all was almost all lost. Gotten that stupid bison out. Gotten home feeling like he was going to die of shame - he'd disobeyed his father! He'd helped the Avatar! He'd been sick for days after - to find Uncle had smuggled the Earth King out and half the Dai Li and had been doing much more than playing Pai Sho on his breaks at the tea shop. So at least treason ran in the family.

"We're being followed."

Katara, to her credit, didn't react. Tai looked like he'd been slapped with a fish and was told to like it. "What? Who? How dare they! I ought to-"

"You'll do nothing but keep walking with us, Tai. We're three obvious people walking together away from a disturbance. Uncle will be prepared for this." On second thought- "Tai, you know where the Jasmine Dragon is?"

"Of course."

"Then you'll be a perfect escort. Don't go in without me, though." Zuko smiled. "I want to see Uncle's face."

He let the flow of the evening crowd pull him naturally apart from the other two until he could slip down an alley and onto a roof. Night was settling in, which would make it all the more easier to tell who belonged up here, and who didn't. Who was walking somewhere with intent, and who was tailing them. At home, he started the hunt.