AN: i have one more political compass chapter with nazbol hakoda planned but imma take a break from that timeline unless y'all have requests.

feat. request from Guest

In the dark of night, Zuko crept off the ship and towards the figure waiting for him on the dock. The moon shone down on his visitor, illuminating one side of her face, and Zuko self-consciously felt his own visage, adjusting the bandages over his eye.

It way Mai, the girl he hadn't seen since before his banishment, and would not be able to see in anywhere besides secret until he had captured the avatar. His stomach flopped at the thought of her seeing him like this — seeing what he had become — a disgraced prince, branded a traitor. Nonetheless, his need to touch her, hold her soft hands in his, tell her that he still wanted to be with her even though he didn't deserve her anymore — these needs pushed him onward.

He stepped down onto the wooden dock. "Hey Zuko," she said quietly.

"Hey," he echoed nervously. "So, um…" He fidgeted uncomfortably. "I get if you don't want to go out with me anymore, and if that's what you wanted to tell me tonight. All the shame I've brought to my people, and, and… not to mention… my face…"

Wordlessly, slowly, she reached for his bandages, and he pulled away sharply, but leaned forward again. She had to see him as he was now.

The bandages fell away layer by layer. Then, a surprised, "What the hell, Zuko? This is so sexy?"

His eyes widened. "It's sexy?"

"If we weren't twelve years old, I'd be saying some very explicit things to you right now," Mai explained. "Holy shit. It's exactly on one side. This is such a badass villain scar."

"Really? You don't think it's ugly?" He felt a lump come up in his throat, and tears welling in his eyes.

"Zuko, you have that ponytail and I still like you." Mai gave him one of her rare smiles. "This is nothing."

—

Ever since coming home to the palace, Zuko's scar had been acting up. He'd ignored. After all, it hadn't been that bad, that was, until his third day back.

"I can finally say that I am proud of my son—"

Zuko couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed his face, rolling around on the floor.

"What!? I welcome you home, and you disrespect me like this? How dare you!" Ozai roared. "You mock my obviously terrible discipline techniques?"

THE DARK LORD WILL RISE, a voice in his head screamed as he suddenly had visions of the Fire Nations slaughtering innocent civilians, and his father at the head off it all. Zuko almost laughed at such a silly mental image that definitely wasn't a premonition or anything.

"I'm so sorry, Father. My scar has been acting up ever since I got home, and especially, right now—" he grunted out through the pain.

"Fine, you're forgiven just this once. Only because you actually did the impossible task I assigned you. Seriously, I never thought you'd be able to find the avatar. In fact, I lost quite a bit of money gambling that you'd never pull it off—"

"Thanks, Dad," Zuko rasped, scrabbling to his feet and excusing himself from the throne room via the third-story window.

—

"Look, Aang, I just want to talk to you in private," Zuko said, pulling him aside at the beach. "I'm not ready to tell the rest of the group, but you need to hear this. Do you know how I got my scar?"

"No, Zuko… You never told me," Aang ventured tentatively, shaking his head.

Zuko launched into his tragic backstory. "…And that's how, after six days, me and my dad got kicked of IKEA," he concluded. "We're banned for life. The whole store burned down."

"Zuko, I can't believe your father would do something like that to you!" Aang cried.

"I know, right? It took me so long to realize how fucked up that was."

"No, as in I literally can't believe it," Aang clarified. "That's insane. Even someone as evil as Ozai couldn't… You're just making this up so I'll decide to kill him!"

Of all the responses Zuko had been expecting, this hadn't been one. "What? Of course I'm not lying!"

Aang stuck his fingers in his ears and began to loudly yell, "La la la, can't hear you! You're just making it up so I'll kill somebody because I totally have never killed someone in a fight before!"

"Aang, I know it's a lot of pressure—" he tried, but he soon gave up. "Fucking bald ass middle school motherfucker."

— —

"Zuko! It's really you," Ursa cried and wrapped her arms around her son, her little boy she hadn't seen in so many years. "What the fuck happened to your face?"

"Well, you know how Dad is," Zuko muttered, his hug clumsy and awkward in spite of the joy coursing through him.

"What do you mean?" Ursa gasped, grabbing a spiked mace from her bag. "Do I have to beat a motherfucker?"

"Yes, please," Zuko replied sheepishly.

—

"Hey handsome, did you ever did tell me how you got that scar?" Katara asked in her wobbly old lady voice from the porch of a Legend of Korra-era retirement home.

Zuko stilled his rocking chair. "You know how it was back in the day. You spill the milk on the way back from milkin' the cow, and yer father beats you unconscious," he explained wisely.

"This is the third time today they've had this conversation," the nurse observing them commented, making a note on a clipboard.

"I hate it when the old folks flirt, it makes me sick," a second one blanched.

"Tell me about it…"

AN: Wenchicus Thoticus keepin it classy and making fun of child abuse victims and people with dementia