A story I posted over on AO3, if you wanna catch up on my new ATLA series this is why events unnerve me (they find it all a different story).

Content Warning: Past Gang Rape, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Noncon-Parent/Child Incest (Ozai being an asshole, basically), some dissociation, Azula being Azula (crazy and really needs help). This applies to the rest of the chapters, which will be three and then we'll catch up to the sequel.

"How did you learn to redirect my lightning?"

His father is a monster, Zuko realizes. But by the time he's come to that epiphany, it was too late.

But maybe Zuko is a monster, too. After all, he's hunted down a mere twelve-year-old boy across the globe, nearly burned an innocent Water Tribe village in the inferno of his rage, stole an ostrich-horse from a family that had only ever shown him and Uncle kindness. Remained complicit when Azula shot the Avatar with lightning, shot fire at the waterbender when she had offered to heal the mark of his banishment.

Turned his back on Uncle.

Against his will, he stares at the eyes he shares with his father, watches the face Zuko would have one day, if not for the scar. His glare is defiant and spiteful, but he immediately regrets regrets it when he hears himself choke on strangled moans that are in tandem with Father's frustrated grunts. His throat is clogged with tears that spill over his cheeks. Bruises fresh from this morning, he feels his insides being torn apart by Father's deliberate and forceful thrusts. The man isn't even trying to be gentle, he never does. This punishment is only about suffering and pain and it will be his teacher, and oh Agni, it hurts so bad—

"You are lucky that I am even touching you and your filth," Father sneers, golden eyes glowing maliciously, the venom punctuated by a particularly painful thrust. Zuko bites back a cry, but he's unable to keep his face from contorting. "Given that mark on your face."

His hand cups the left side of his face, deceptively gentle. Zuko flinches violently, legs trembling from the memory of a hand ablaze, hundreds of spectators watching and doing nothing as his face was burned and burned until he couldn't hear his own screams anymore.

You gave me this mark, Zuko wants to say, wants to shout. You, my father, burned me just for talking out of a turn. My father, who banished me and sent me on a ghost hunt I was never meant to return from. Challenged a thirteen-year-old boy to an Agni Kai, how could you possibly justify a duel with a child? How could you justify doing this to a child, your child?

But he doesn't say any of this, because he's a coward, because he's too weak to fight back. Because there's blood smearing across his pale thighs and the guards holding his arms down leave bruises in their wake. So his mind retreats and he thinks of the tossing bread to soft, fluffy turtleducks, the ghost of Mother's gentle fingers running through his hair. Of running across the lukewarm sand on Ember Island with Azula, when she had loved him and her smiles were open and earnest instead of calculated and cruel.

He used to resent her for having Father's love so easily, how she was the prodigy and the one who was born lucky, while he was lucky to be born. But now he wonders if Father ever hurt her like he's hurting Zuko right now. Wonders if this is why she always strives to be perfect and flawless as possible.

(Now, he wonders if Mother ever thought of Azula as a monster, and hopes for her sake that she didn't. Because both need at least one decent parent who actually cares.)

Vaguely, he feels large, calloused fingers run through his dirt matted, tangled hair. Father's lips brushes over his healthy ear, whispering about how much Zuko looks like him when he was at that age. How it'll grow and grow and one day, he'll be Ozai's spitting image. And how, one day, he'll have the servants wash it and dress it like Ozai's, and sees how other potential suitors will like it, will want to run their hands through the silk soft strands as they have their way with Zuko, however they want.

A shiver runs down his aching spine, matching golden eyes widening as Father pulls out and the metal doors shut with a resounding clang.

The comet has come and gone.

Zuko sits in the far corner of his cell, thin blanket thrown over his bare, battered body. His inner chi had thrummed, his sparks exploding into blasts, singing the bars of his cell. It's easy to focus on that instead of the throbbing ache between his legs that hasn't dulled since Father's visit this morning. Or, rather, the Phoenix King's visit this morning.

(And Father sneered at him for his avid love of theater.)

Resting his head on the scorched wall, Zuko tries not to wallow in the misery of the Earth Kingdom falling and burning to ashes. Of Song and her mother, who had tended to Uncle's poisoning. Of Lee and his family, who had already lost their eldest to the war. Or even that girl from the teashop, Jin, who'd shown genuine interest in Zuko for reasons he will never know. He wills himself not to remember the open and eager smile she had given him, that expression turning into fear and horror as her skin blisters and boils until it's just a charred skeleton.

Why couldn't he have just avoided confronting his father when he knew he was on borrowed time. Why was Zuko so desperate for a love that never existed. Why couldn't he have accepted Uncle's love in those catacombs. Why, why, why?

Nobody answers, and he doesn't have the energy to ask the guard posted by his cell. Even if Zuko wanted to use the comet to aid in his escape, his body would sting and pulse, blood still sluggishly trickling between his legs. Father had been particularly rougher, this time employing the more eager guards for assistance. Taking turns and unrelenting. The asshole had made sure Zuko would be in too much pain to even stand, let alone escape his confines.

At some point, when a guard breached him, a stranger took over his body. His mind tucked away from their leering stares, from Father's blank, cold stare. That same stranger curled into himself once they've finished and left him there, tightening the blanket around himself. The stranger had wanted to wipe all the blood off himself, but his hands shook and his chest stung so much that it hurt to breathe.

The stranger becomes numb as time sets in, as his inner chi thrums and wails to breathe fire, but he hasn't been able to make more than a spark since he was put here. His rage, his drive, has all been sapped out, setting into a terrifying numbness and acceptance.

(He hates himself for what happened in the catacombs. Hates how desperate he was for Father's love. Uncle will never forgive him, especially knowing what exactly Zuko went back to.)

You're going to make justifications for your father raping you? Mai's voice had asked, a long time ago, when she had caught him burning his sheets and failing to hide the bruises from his neck. Her eyes, normally blank and impassive, had been luminous with barely suppressed rage.

He regrets that was the last conversation they had before his Agni Kai and following banishment. And regrets it even more when he had left her a letter and had gotten her taken away to some prison or possibly killed with Ty Lee when she tried to break him out weeks ago.

Why is he always ruining people's lives? Why can't he ever just do something good for once in his miserable life?

When his chi dulls, he knows that's when the comet ends, and waits for his father to return. To gloat.

But nothing happens.

Instead, the guard—who had disappeared a few minutes prior—standing next to his cell door hurriedly unlocks it, and enters. Zuko tries not to flinch, but his body betrays him, a phantom hand wrapping around his naked and vulnerable neck and squeezing as he's pushed down into the floor harder and harder, get off, get the fuck out of me—

The guard's lips are moving, something about how the other guards are trying to find the servants that haven't been banished (did Father banish the servants, why?). More guards trickle in, one with a wheelchair and another one with crimson red robes. With a shaking hand, he takes the offered robe and keeps the tattered blanket on his lower half, shrugging it on. The silk is soft against his skin, discolored from the welts and burns his father left. He has to bite back a hiss when the fabric brushes against one particularly nasty cut on the edge of his shoulder.

Once the robe is secured around his frail frame, the guards gently lift him up to the wheelchair, a kind eyes servant wheeling him away from the cell. Despite the gentleness, Zuko can't keep his mind from racing at what's about to happen. Was Father going to have him dressed up for 'potential suitors?'

The guard that had been posted at his cell informs him of the events that had transpired during the comet. Father declared Azula Fire Lord and left her here while he went off to go raze the Earth Kingdom. Azula had been banishing the servants, her precious Dai Li agents, and the entire palace staff left and right. The Avatar faced Father and won, but no one had any clue if his father was alive. Uncle and a group of old men liberated Ba Sing Se, while the Water Tribe peasant, some blind earthbender, and two other kids took down the airships headed towards the Earth Kingdom.

"Where's Azula?" he hears himself asking, as a medic comes forward to tend to his wounds.

Several of the guards and servants pause, and one hesitantly recounts the event of Azula's official crowning of Fire Lord. Before she was crowned, the waterbender (what was her name again? Kya?) confronted the Princess and, to his immense shock, won. Though Azula's mental wellbeing had taken a steep decline beforehand, and the last they heard, was seen chained up and spitting fire and losing her mind.

(He can't help but soften with sympathy once they finish, staring into nothing as he thinks of his little sister. Even after everything she's done, he still loves her, even though he doesn't want to and gloat at her first loss and smug at how she's had this coming for a long time. But that's something Father would do, and Zuko refuses to turn into the monster that burns half his son's face off and bends his daughter's entire personality as his own personal weapon.)

While the servants wash his hair and the medic smears creams on his bloody welts, he asks, "Wait, if Azula isn't Fire Lord, and my Uncle hasn't returned from Ba Sing Se..."

Trailing off, he stares questioningly at the guards, who fidget and exchange glances.

"Well...since there is no one left," one starts reluctantly, "and your father never officially revoked your birthright, you are the only viable option left for Fire Lord."

Zuko blinks hard, eyes widening as the servants do their best to make him appear more presentable. His ears are clogged by the sounds of his own heart racing, his body flinching when the medic pokes and prods, ignoring the invasive question of why there was so much blood, dried and crusty and some of it still fresh, smeared between his legs. Distantly, he's aware that a grim faced guard informs the medic of what Father—Ozai, call him Ozai, he's not and never has been your father—had done to him with the help of his loyal guards.

("Those guards had died on those airships," he thinks a servant whispers softly, under the avalanche of noise collapsing around him. He strangely feels relieved, but his throat hurts and the water they give him isn't enough.)

Blinking, Zuko finds himself looking at the mirror, watches his hair being brushed back into a royal topknot. Finger-shaped bruises mar the delicate skin of his neck, glaring proof of what had happened to him, of Father's handiwork. He can still feel the pain between his legs, the fingers pulling at his hair and complimenting at how he's the spitting image of Ozai when he was Zuko's age and how others will see the same thing as they push him down, down, down—

Unthinkingly, his fingers coil around a pair of scissors sitting innocently on the vanity table. He stares back at his stricken expression as the blades cleanly slice through the topknot, falling soundlessly on the floor. In the background, the servants, guards (and the Fire Sages? When did they get here?) all gasp and gawk at him, startled. But Zuko doesn't pay them any mind, deaf to the protests of the head Fire Sage, and he hacks off what remains of his bangs.

Snip, snip, snip.

He's always hated having to grow out his hair, hated how long he was forced to have it. Sure, it's soft and easy to run a brush through, but it gets in the way when he's firebending and swinging his beloved swords. He cuts through his hair until it's as short it was when he had been travelling through the Earth Kingdom and ran into Lee and his family, when he had discovered just how much damage the Fire Nation left in this Agni-foresaken war, coming to the horrifying realization that the other nations never saw their greatness, only the destruction and pain fire brought.

When he lowers the scissors, he stares back at his reflection and his own handiwork. The hair is short and bristly, but still soft as a servant tentatively pulls the scissors away from him and snips off some uneven strands he hadn't been able to reach.

Behind him, the Fire Sage is speaking rapidly, nearly in a rant, venting about how shameful short hair is in the Fire Nation and how they won't be able to put a crown because it's too short and unable to be pulled into a topknot.

"I don't fucking care," Zuko finds himself snapping, lips curling into a snarl as his eyes blazes with a familiar rage. "It's just hair, and it's never been law to wear a topknot in the Fire Nation."

"But it is tradition, Your Highness," the brave Fire Sage stresses. "And a sign of wealth and nobility."

The man flinches when Zuko's glare hardens, eyes luminous with murder as his fingers clench around the handles of his wheelchair. He's not even sure who he's glaring at, himself or the Fire Sage, but he keeps his voice strong even as it cracks from disuse and it feels like needles pricking his throat. "I'm not growing it out again," he states firmly. "It is my hair and I will choose what I want to do with it."

He didn't get a choice when Uncle escaped and Zuko was shoved into that cell. Didn't get a choice when Father stripped him of his clothes and used his own body as punishment. But his hair is a part of his body, it's his, and Zuko will not yield to tradition and customs against it.

The Head Fire Sage presses his lips tightly, a thin line forming between his brows. Zuko holds his stare, daring the man to press him on this issue. To his relief, the man lets out a long sigh, conceding with a nod.

"We will not be able to crown you with this," says the man, holding up the gleaming gold hairpiece.

Zuko turns away, as a servant steps forward to apply some makeup to conceal the bruises on his neck. The crown gleams gold and reminds him of Father—Ozai, he's Ozai. It unwittingly brings forth memories his mind retreats from, and Zuko wills himself to ignore the red fog that tries to consume him.

"No," he agrees, voice losing its venomous edge, "but does it really matter? It's just a piece of metal."

(It's a lie, but he still tries to convince himself.)

The man doesn't say anything to that, and instead watches with the other Sages as the servants and medic make him appear more regal and less haggard.

The rest of it all comes to a blur, as Zuko is cleaned, bandaged, and finally dressed in the appropriate Fire Lord attire. The fabric whispers on his skin as he's escorted to the main courtyard, and up close he can hear the distant howls of Azula's broken sobs that slowly fade. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he's staring into the mass of a faceless crowd, as the Fire Sages declare him Fire Lord Zuko.

Maybe in another life, he would have smiled, delivered a speech preaching love and peace.

But instead he gives a hollow stare as the crowd erupts into cheers.

He feels nothing.

Katara faced Princess Azula alone and won. Used an old waterbending technique Master Pakku taught her to deflect the erratic lightning. She wants to feel vindicated, jubilant, gleeful that she beat a firebending prodigy that had the power of Sozin's Comet.

She rants and spits and shouts as some physicians carry Princess Azula, the girl who had shot Aang full of lightning, away. Katara hates the girl more than anything, with the sole exception of her mother's murderer. And thinks of how Azula embodies everything horrible about the Fire Nation, the personification of death and pain and destruction.

Worst of all, she hates that she'd pitied the crying girl trapped in chains, screaming and spitting wild blue flames and losing her mind.

So Katara focuses on the rage at the girl, who's only ever been her enemy, and violently pushes away the empathy. Azula had it coming, so why does Katara feel so bad?

She stands in the empty courtyard, watching at how the Fire Sages and guards scramble to find the remains of the palace staff. When the comet passes and no word comes from the Fire Lord, oh sorry, the Phoenix King, they discover that the Avatar won. And Phoenix King Ozai lost.

Good, she thinks, her shoulders straightening with pride, but her stomach shivers in dread. While she wouldn't have hesitated to end Ozai's life, Aang would have. Sweet, gentle Aang, who couldn't fathom the idea of taking the breath from someone's lungs. And for his sake, she hopes that Ozai's death had been quick and painless.

Her good mood doesn't last when she remembers with a jolt, that Zuko is still in the palace. That Ozai has another child and heir to the throne.

She howls in rage when the Fire Sages murmur about crowning the firstborn and running off to search for him. She shouts at one that Prince Iroh, the rightful heir to the throne, will be taking back his birthright and usher in a new, hopeful era of peace. That Zuko knows nothing of true honor and he will only be destroying the world like the rest of his forefathers.

But nobody listens to her, only scowl and sneer at the peasant. She hates that can't blame them for it; after all, she is an outsider, and these demons are loyal to a bloodthirsty monster. But Tui and La, she's so angry and her hand itches for her waterskin, her blood aches with the unsteady beat of her rage. She fights back at the urge of how there will be a full moon tonight, how it would be so easy to twist her hands and bend the blood that flows beneath the thick layer of their skin, but that's something Hama would do and she can't be like Hama—

(Hama wasn't always a monster, a faceless voice whispers gently. She was taken away from the home she loved and had to watch the people she loved die while her soul rotted away in that spirits damned cell.)

So she's forced to watch a crows gather into the courtyard, glues herself to the back. She has to shut her eyes as the crowd cheers and the Fire Sages boom for their new Fire Lord.

Zuko doesn't give a speech.

It ends quickly, and Katara sits on the ground, lazily pushing and pulling the water in her pouch; the motions soothe the rage boiling in her chest, ready to expand until it explodes. The sky is still a vibrant orange, but she's too angry to focus on its beauty, and bristles when she's once again reminded at how they'd finally won, but lost at the same time.

Her fists tighten, eyes hardening as she remembers how Zuko betrayed her, betrayed all of them, betrayed Iroh in Ba Sing Se. Had turned his back on his uncle and shot fire at Aang, made Katara actually sympathize with him about lost mothers and broken childhoods. The anger that had earlier subsided wells full force once again, and she steels herself for another battle.

I can take him, she thinks as an airship lowers in the courtyard. We can take him. He's nothing compared to Azula.

Even so, she knows Iroh would want to at least search the palace for his precious nephew. Have the hope that Zuko's changed and found his own path, even as Katara privately snorts and regards the idea with a snide glare. It is so much easier to see Zuko in the light that they see Azula in, instead of Iroh's lost, confused nephew. She has to ignore Iroh's bittersweet nostalgia of who Zuko used to be, and instead focus on the boy who Zuko is now, leaving a trail of fire and false honor and letting Azula kill Aang—

"Where is my nephew?" is the first thing Iroh says, his face unreadable but the thinly veiled concern clouds his amber eyes. Behind him, she finds the members of the White Lotus, lugging out a bound figure from the airship.

"You're too late," Katara says thickly, swallowing down the bitterness she can't conceal. "They just finished the coronation."

Everybody freezes, all eyes widening to pinpricks, gawking at her in horror.

"You mean Azula is—"

"No," Katara cuts off her brother, noting the limp in his gait and files that away for later. "I took care of her. I don't think she'll be an issue for a while."

There's a collective sigh of relief, but it doesn't last.

"So if Azula isn't Fire Lord," Aang says slowly, his expression unable to hide the creeping dread.

"All hail Fire Lord Zuko," Katara says bitterly.

They inform of Uncle's return from Ba Sing Se.

And the Avatar's arrival.

"The waterbender had informed us they were planning for your Uncle to ascend the throne," a Fire Sage tells him. Zuko's still in his Fire Lord robes, the fabric of light material but it still feels so heavy on his body. His heart hammers, he wants to take it off, the weight is almost too much.

(Too much like Father's oppressive weight, holding him down, and fuck, he can't move, he can't even sputter sparks, he can't breathe, he can't—)

Zuko banishes the memory before it could fully come to fruition. Right. Uncle and the Avatar.

"Well," he runs a tongue over his lips, "I guess as my first act as Fire Lord, we can pardon my uncle for his crimes."

The Fire Sage (Zuko really needs to learn all their names, this is ridiculous) frowns. "Your Majesty, I mean no disrespect, but your Uncle turned his back on the Fire Nation for the Avatar."

"My Uncle turned his back on us to save us," Zuko counters, even though a horrifyingly familiar rage bubbles in his stomach, rising in his chest, the flames out of control in his head.

(He wonders if Uncle ever knew what Ozai had been doing to Zuko for all these years. If the man noticed the bruises on his neck and the way he limped after one of Father's 'lessons.')

Of course he knew, a traitorous whispers in his head. It sounds eerily like Father. He had to be a fool not to, especially with the nightmares during your travels.

The thoughts scatter and he forces himself back to the present. He wants to reconcile with Uncle, wants to push away the rage he feels for the frustratingly confusing proverbs and how the man could never tell Zuko what he actually means. He misses him (he misses Mother more) and wants to tell him how sorry Zuko is and how ashamed of what happened in Ba Sing Se and how he'll do anything he can to make it up to Uncle.

(He only hopes Uncle won't demand he do anything Ozai forced him to.)

"Even so, how can we trust him?" The Fire Sage continues.

"Because I do."

"Do you?"

"Of—" he stops, the words dying on his tongue.

(Does he trust Uncle?)

Yes. Yes, of course he does. He should. Uncle was the only person (except for Mother and Lu Ten, even though Lu Ten was closer to Azula) who actually cared about Zuko. Had been there at his side since his return from his alleged spirit journey, given up a life of luxury and privilege to assist Zuko on a fool's task.

(Except Uncle had sat back for three years and delayed his journey for useless trinkets and stupid pai sho games.)

(They hadn't even been that close before Lu Ten's death, and he's finding it harder to squash down the abandonment and betrayal he feels when he thinks of Uncle's eye-opening, enlightened spirit journey, while Zuko was thrust into the sudden duties of the Crown Prince and Father forced the ten-year-old boy on his knees with a spine dizzying pain exploding in his backside for not getting a stupid kata right—)

"I trust that he won't do anything to hurt our nation," he says once he manages to get his wits back to him. The Fire Sage almost looks concerned, and Zuko can't blame him. Even with his injuries bandaged and the servants tidying him up, it doesn't take away the weeks of abuse Ozai put him through.

If Zuko really concentrates, maybe he can pretend it was all in his head.

(Except he can only feel the ghost of an ablaze hand snaking between his legs.)

As he makes his way towards the courtyard, where Uncle awaits, a servant rushes to his side.

He turns his head, raising a brow when she hands him a small stack of papers. He takes and looks at them in curiosity, and his shoulders tense.

It's a list of high-profile prisoners in the Boiling Rock.

At the top of the list, is Mai and Ty Lee.

"Prepare me an air balloon," he immediately orders. "And have another servant tell my uncle I'll meet with him and the Avatar at dawn tomorrow."

I need to go pardon my girlfriend, he doesn't say.