A/N: I'm just gonna leave this here for you to enjoy.


Chapter 4

Zuko

"Did you steal your sister's car away from her this afternoon?" Ozai asked in a dangerously level tone. He leaned back in his desk chair and slid the lunch Zuko had just delivered him to the edge of his desk and surveyed him with a look of deep disappointment that Zuko was pretty sure was especially reserved for him.

"I only borrowed it to run a quick errand, I thought that was allowed?" Zuko defended quietly, tucking his hands behind his back and bowing his head so he was more addressing the desk than his father.

"And what errand did you run? I don't remember asking you to do anything that might require a car," Ozai replied.

Zuko felt a sliver of ice run down his spine as the reason for his father's displeasure became apparent. "I gave my literature partner a lift home while Azula was eating lunch," he admitted.

"I hardly think giving one of your grubby little friends a lift home warrants the use of your sister's car. In future, you will refrain from trying to show off to your friends," Ozai sneered the word, "by going for joyrides in cars that don't belong to you."

Zuko felt a faint hint of affront on Katara's behalf as Ozai deemed her grubby, but the real sting came when he mislabelled her as a friend. She wasn't a friend, she was someone who got stuck doing a literature project with him and would probably do her best to avoid him afterwards. But Zuko had just endured a particularly shitty day and apparently, this was going to be the stinking nugget that broke his self-control.

"What was I supposed to do? Let her walk all the way across town in the rain?" He asked sullenly, completely devoid of the respect he usually tried to cultivate in his manner when talking to his father, yet still unable to raise his voice like he wanted to.

But it was enough.

"Don't you dare take that tone with me," Ozai seethed, he rose out of his chair and took full advantage of his extra few inches to tower over his son, "You are just proving to me even more, that you are irresponsible and disrespectful of the privileges I have already given you-"

"What privileges?" Zuko asked desperately.

Suddenly Ozai's hand was around his throat and Zuko was being roughly walked backwards until he was pinned against the wall. "How about the privilege of breathing?" Ozai sneered as he heated his hand and squeezed. The heat wasn't enough to blister firebender skin, and Zuko tried to bend the heat away but his father just kept driving it into his skin. It hurt.

Zuko grabbed at his father's hand but the larger man just leaned more of his weight onto Zuko's windpipe until he was gasping for air and could not be budged.

"Did you not learn your lesson the last time?" Ozai hissed, the space where volume should have been filled with burning malevolence.

"I-I'm sorry," Zuko choked out with the scant air he had left.

"You obviously need a reminder of your position," Ozai said, leaning closer to Zuko's face, stars began to dance in front of his eyes. "You are a lazy, ungrateful, jealous brat. I feed you, I clothe you, I shelter you and in return, you embarrass me with your grades, you embarrass me in training and now you think you have a right to use the car your sister earned with her successes? I have obviously been too lenient with you so far. That will not be a mistake I will continue to make."

Ozai dropped Zuko and walked calmly back to his desk chair and gracefully took a seat, while Zuko slumped into a heap on the floor and wheezed. He assessed Zuko over his steepled fingers like Zuko was something unpleasant he had found on the bottom of his shoe.

Zuko softly stroked a quivering fingertip over the tender skin of his throat, he was sure there was a large red handprint there.

"I'm confiscating your bike until you can earn it back. Long Feng also tells me your performance in your MCB training is rather pitiful and Zhao says you continue to disappoint with your traditional firebending." Ozai spat. "Long Feng and Zhao are serious coaches, they train champions like Azula and others who are competent enough to make a decent career in the leagues. Therefore I will be moving you down a group in your training. I'll also rearrange your work schedule to accommodate this."

"Yes sir," Zuko replied in a daze and shuffled onto his knees.

"Just because you are being moved into your cousin's class, that doesn't mean you get to be lazy. I expect you to work even harder to catch up and I will be checking regularly to make sure you are still making progress, and don't think anyone is going to lie for you." Ozai leaned forward over his desk to stare down more forcefully at Zuko, "I am only moving you so you don't impede your sister's progress, or that of any of the other, serious fighters in your class. I suppose I have been blinded by my wish not to have such a pathetic son as you. I will not tolerate the shame you bring to our family any longer."

Zuko bowed his head. "Thank you for the opportunity," he croaked.

"I have also bought you a new outfit so you can stop looking so scruffy all the time. Try not to mess these up." Ozai curled his lip as he looked Zuko up and down. He then placed a bag on his desk, it was large and mostly golden apart from the name of the shop in bold, red letters across the top. Spark City, Azula's favourite. Ozai pushed the bag towards Zuko and held out his hand. "Give me the key to your bike chain, take your new clothes, then get out."

Zuko sat, mesmerised by the bag.

"Now, Zuko. Don't make me come over there and take the key. You won't like it if I do." Ozai warned.

Zuko came back to himself with a start and scrambled in his pocket for his key with an urgency that came from the awful knowledge that Ozai's warning was true. He would make Zuko regret it.

Zuko stood and held the key out to his father who then snatched it from him and dropped it into his desk drawer before holding his hand out once more, "And hand me your hoodie too. It needs to be thrown away before you can wear it out in public again."

Zuko hesitated only a moment, just long enough for his father's expectant face to begin to twist once more into displeasure before he tore the hoodie off over his head and gave it to his dad.

Ozai appeared to be done with acknowledging Zuko more than strictly necessary as he shoved the bag of clothes into Zuko's hands.

Once he was outside of his father's office, he went straight upstairs and set the bag on his bed. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pretend his hands weren't shaking. It didn't work. He needed to sit down. He hurriedly took a seat on the bed next to the bag and leaned his elbows on his knees, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

There had been a moment where he hadn't been able to get any air and the stark, primal terror that had descended upon him as spots danced in front of his eyes and he had started to wonder just how long Ozai would continue to squeeze his windpipe.

Zuko didn't know how long he sat on his bed, but eventually, his shakiness subsided and he felt like he could stand probably steady on his legs. But, just to be safe, instead of getting on with his chores, he peeked cautiously into the bag next to him. There was a red hoodie, a little brighter than his preference but that wasn't so bad, but underneath it, there was a brightly coloured shirt with an obnoxious pattern that he was pretty sure he'd seen one of Azula's more awful friends wear the other day. And underneath that monstrosity was a pair of trousers that Zuko had trouble believing was actually on sale in such an expensive, but most importantly, such a popular shop.

Zuko cringed minutely, at least Ozai wasn't in the habit of actually dictating what clothes he wore on a regular basis.

He pulled his new clothes out of the bag, ripped the tag off the hoodie and pulled it on, tugging the fabric of the hood up to cover his neck. He could still feel a phantom handprint prickling at his skin, squeezing his neck, and he did not care to see what it looked like.

He took the other two items out of the bag but couldn't bring himself to take off the tags, the act had a finality to it that Zuko just couldn't commit to in the face of the garishness of the garments he held in his hands. Instead, he simply folded them away and pushed himself up, (as he suspected, his legs managed to hold his weight with fairly little trouble,) and placed them in a drawer.

For once Zuko was glad he had chores to be getting on with. Although he had calmed down somewhat, his mind still felt wild and he had a jittery sort of nervous energy still thrumming through him, which was not a state to attempt homework in.

After he had finished dusting everything that needed to be dusted everywhere except Azula's bedroom and Ozais office, (the former because Azula wouldn't appreciate the intrusion and he was still shaken up from earlier and didn't dare show vulnerability in front of someone who operated very much like a dolphin piranha, and the latter for very similar reasons,) he began hoovering and mopping, again all the rooms in the house apart from two.

He worked feverishly and had soon completed all his chores for the day, but once he had run out of housework to keep him busy, his mind still had that frantic edge that laced all his thoughts. So he simply refused to think. He would probably mess up any homework he tried to start now anyway, he thought to himself, so he went outside and made a head start on chopping firewood.

He chopped until he started to get sweaty and had to take his hoodie off, but he kept it within easy reach, just in case Azula came looking for him. But all too soon, Zuko ran out of wood to chop. So he stacked all the freshly chopped wood inside the shed along with the axe and then headed inside.

There was still some time before he needed to start dinner so he headed to the home dojo in the basement. He practised his katas in the mostly mindless catharsis until the light began to fade and his shoulders, arms and back began to ache and it was time for dinner.

And at the end of the day, Zuko slumped against the kitchen counter, his body mostly felt like jelly and the dry skin of his hands, (which had taken a lot of abuse today from the cleaning chemicals and chopping the firewood,) had finally cracked in the soapy dishwater and were still stinging. He didn't mind that so much because it distracted him from the pain that still had yet to fade from his neck.

But despite how ready for rest his body felt, his mind was still thrumming with a restless energy that he knew would keep him from sleep. With a desperation that felt at once both distant and like it was searing through every cell in his body, he grabbed some meat from the fridge and made his way straight through his room and onto the roof. He opened the packet and hoped the smell would entice at least Mango before too long.

He placed the bait at his feet and pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his shins. He stared across at the stars twinkling just above the horizon and tried to lose himself in the feeling of cosmic insignificance he often felt while looking at the stars.

It didn't work as well as he'd hoped. His mind had slowed down a little, but thoughts about what would have happened if Ozai had squeezed a little harder, held on a little longer or burned a little hotter kept invading the fragile not-quite-peace he was attempting to create.

Zuko didn't think he would ever be able to have actual peace, but he didn't think that quieting his mind to a background buzz in order to sleep should be too much to ask.

He didn't know how long he sat there for, but eventually, he felt Mango brush against his leg as she stalked past him to get to the food. She gave it a sniff, then picked up the largest slice and turned towards Zuko. She put her front paws on his knees and looked at him as expectantly as a cat could look with a piece of meat in her mouth.

He straightened his legs and Mango quickly settled herself on his lap and Zuko gently stroked her as she ate. Once she had finished the first slice she looked at the rest of the food and then turned to stare up at him and meowed.

"Oh, you want it handed to you, do you?" Zuko muttered to the cat, "Such a princess."

He leaned forward and grabbed the rest of the food which Mango immediately began eating out of his hand as soon as it was close enough. Magically his tension slowly began to ease, yet it wasn't until Zuko felt himself jerk awake after drifting off against the chimney that he finally made his way back into the house and got ready for bed.


Katara

When Katara walked into her Monday morning literature lesson, she was prepared for the tension between her and Zuko to linger like a bad smell. But instead of having faded slightly over the intervening time, it had seemed to have accumulated interest more in the vein of a bad debt.

Katara was a little taken aback at the glare Zuko sent her way as she walked in and the surliness of his demeanour which seemed to hover and writhe around him like a miasma of anger and negativity.

Katara immediately slowed her pace to one more befitting of someone approaching a dangerous wild animal.

Even though they had gone back to their true form of leaving each other on bad terms, Katara was sure she didn't deserve this.

"What's eating you?" She muttered as she sat down next to him.

He glared at her for a second and seemed to have an internal debate with himself before finally huffing out a huge breath of air and turning back to face the front. "Nothing." He muttered back curtly.

"Right..." Katara replied, thoroughly unconvinced. She frowned at the side of his face as she tried to decide whether to call Zuko out on his pissy mood or let him get on with his pettiness on his own.

But she didn't get long to stress over it though because then Mr Pakku was starting the lesson. But even throughout the lesson, Katara had the nagging feeling that an olive branch needed to be extended and that the one to do the extending needed to be her. Katara could be the bigger person, in fact, she knew she excelled at being the bigger person. In a purely philosophical sense. (Although she wasn't exactly short, the only person she was actually taller than was Aang.)

As the lesson ended and everyone began hurriedly stuffing all their belongings into their bags and doing their best to escape the room as quickly as possible, Katara spun to face Zuko as she shouldered her bag. "Where do you eat your lunch?"

Zuko paused in the middle of zipping up his backpack and looked at her sharply. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and roamed up and down her before he slowly zipped his bag shut and swung it onto his own shoulder. "Why?"

"What? So I'm not allowed to ask a friendly question?" Katara remarked sarcastically.

Zuko shrugged as they both started to make their way slowly to the door, "You never have before."

That brought Katara up short. She quickly ran over all their previous conversations in her head. "Yeah... Well, neither have you!" Katara spluttered.

"I'm not a very friendly person," Zuko justified.

Katara was beginning to feel like she was losing the conversation - both in terms of letting it get off-topic and in the vague suspicion she had that Zuko was actually winning. "Look," she said, trying to stand her ground and stepping in front of him, "why are you making this so difficult? I was just trying to be nice!"

"But why?"

"Because I am a nice person! Which is apparently a concept you find difficult to understand!" Katara practically yelled and span on her heel to storm out of the classroom ahead of him, all thoughts of olives and the dismembered limbs of the trees on which they grow entirely forgotten.

She marched down the corridor and tried not to lose steam as she walked past Azula leaning against her locker, surrounded by a bunch of her cronies and eyeing Katara smugly as she approached. "You know, I just can't decide what's worse," Azula remarked to her audience while inspecting her fingernails, "a complete loser or someone who actually wants to hang around with one," she finished and lifted her eyes to stare pointedly, and with no small amount of malice, at Katara.

She sped up as she passed them, her frustrated thoughts at Zuko now extending to include the whole Nikko family. They raced around in her head like a little army of polardogs all chasing their own tails.

Katara fumed all the way to her regular lunch table and sat down in a huff.

"Let me guess," said Haru from her left side, "Mr Pakku was being a jerk?"

"No, it was Zuko being a jerk," Katara mumbled back as she unpacked the sandwiches she had brought for lunch.

"Zuko?" Haru looked at her quizzically, "Oh, the ugly rich kid with the scar all over his face."

Katara frowned, "you think he's ugly?"

Haru scoffed, "And you don't? I mean, no wonder he tries to hide it all the time, I would if I had something that big and gnarly over half my face."

"I think it's sad," commented Suki, leaning into the conversation.

"Don't tell me you feel sorry for him?" Haru asked disbelievingly.

Suki shrugged. "Well, yeah?" she replied, the question in her voice seeming to ask: why on earth wouldn't I? "That scar is huge, it must have hurt a lot when he got it. Plus how would you feel if you suddenly had a scar all over your face? Plus he's not ugly."

Which, Katara had to admit, she'd never really thought about before.

"If I had a scar like that, I would use all that rich boy money to get plastic surgery." Haru retorted.

Suki rolled her eyes. "You have no empathy," she lamented.

"You sound like you have a crush," Haru accused, but without true intent.

Nevertheless, Suki bristled and shot back, "And you sound like you're just jealous that someone with a scar on their face is still better looking than you!"

Haru spluttered as Suki rose imperiously from her seat and, with a questioning look at Sokka whose reply was simply to scramble to his feet, turned and strode away from the table, boyfriend in tow.

"Can you believe that?" Haru asked as everyone watched the pair walk away.

"Well, just because you feel sorry for someone doesn't mean you have a crush on them," Teo replied, "and you could've been a bit nicer to Suki."

Haru's only response was to pull a face at Teo and change the conversation.


Teo

It was only three days later that Teo got his first-hand opportunity to find out why someone may possibly begin to develop the tiniest hint of a crush on an individual such as Zuko. It was the end of the day and the school halls had emptied quite quickly apart from a few stragglers. Teo was quite often one such straggler as the quiet hallways were much more pleasant for him to move through than crowded ones, but unfortunately, some of his fellow stragglers happened to be known associates of Azula - which of course meant that they were extremely susceptible to caveman-like predatory instincts.

And devoid of compassion, good manners and eloquence, Teo thought as he suddenly found himself caught in their unfavourable attentions…

"Stop it!" Teo cried, to no avail.

Not that he realistically expected to achieve any so-called avail, but the instinct persisted. He gripped his bag tighter in his lap with one hand while the other grabbed onto the arm of his chair until his knuckles went white as he was recklessly pushed around in front of, what Teo would have described as a pack of rabid orangutans if he wasn't terrified it would earn him more severe punishment.

There were four of them, including the one that was using Teo's wheelchair - and his subsequent distress - as a wild source of entertainment.

The instigator whirled him around again and, for the seventh time that afternoon, Teo was convinced he was going to be tipped out of his chair. "Just stop!" He cried as the wall of lockers blurred past his eyes.

He was then brought to a stop with an abruptness that was even more dizzying than watching the hallway rapidly rotate around him. Once his eyes and ears had managed to catch up with the fact that he was now no longer moving, Teo looked up to see Zuko standing in an attitude that suggested he had noticed them mid-step and had frozen instantly.

"Keep walking scarface, pretend your shrivelled-up little eye didn't see anything," Chan warned, yanking Teo back towards him territorially.

Zuko's scowl, which could already have been described as murderous with only minimal exaggeration, intensified to a whole new level.

"Help! Please," Teo squeaked desperately.

Zuko's eyes flickered to Teo's at lightning speed before he focused the full and almost overwhelming force of his glare on the kid who was practically holding Teo hostage.

"Shut it, you legless freak," Chan hissed as he rattled Teo's chair.

"He told you to stop," Zuko snarled as he pushed Teo's chief tormentor into the lockers next to him.

Teo had flinched a little as Zuko had swept past and remained tense as his chair wobbled a little with the force of an overly boisterous teenager being forced to let go of something he wasn't prepared to let go of. But he quickly turned himself around as he heard the bully reply, "Yeah, well, he didn't say please. Gotta have manners, you know." and pushed Zuko away from him.

"As if you know anything about manners," Zuko hissed back as he squared up to the other boy.

Teo, too full of surprise to feel properly relieved that he was no longer the centre of attention, nevertheless was quite keen to remain on the edge of whatever attention was going around and slowly eased himself backwards away from the hostility charging the air.

"What you gonna do? Just because I was having a little fun with your cripple boyfr-"

A swift right hook to the jaw had the boy falling back into the lockers with a clatter before he landed, fully dazed on the floor. Zuko swung his bag off his shoulder and used the momentum to land the bag deep into the gut of the next boy to approach as they instigated a three (now two, as the other boy stumbled back wheezing) against one brawl.

Teo, who had always had an aversion to violence to the point where even the less graphic action movies that many of his friends enjoyed were something he routinely shied away from, closed his eyes. Each fleshy thwack, each thud, each pained protest had Teo tensing further and further until he was more tense than someone about to undergo their first full cavity search by a grinning airport security agent.

It wasn't until there was a tap on his arm that Teo realised that the sounds of fighting had already stopped and there was a throat being cleared above him.

Teo opened his eyes to see a set of raw knuckles, cracks filled wetly with crimson scattered across them, and an arm leading up to Zuko, breathing a little heavily, with his hair sticking out in every direction and looking on the whole quite dishevelled, but gazing down at him with wide, concerned eyes.

"I said, you okay?" Zuko apparently repeated. His obsidian hair was a contrast to smooth, pale skin except for the red rosette of his scar around one eye. Teo suddenly realised he had never really seen Zuko's face before.

"Oh, umm yeah," Teo blinked and surveyed the scene, it was thankfully quite normal now as the others had disappeared, leaving only a couple of scuff marks on the floor and an extra dent in one of the lockers behind them. "How...?" Teo began to ask, but as his train of thought derailed he found himself thinking instead, who would've thought Zuko had such high, sharp cheekbones?

Zuko had always seemed the type to prefer being inconsequential to others: always hiding at the back of whichever room he happened to be in, wearing dark, oversized clothes and trying to hide as much of his face as the teachers would allow with either his hair or his hood. Teo barely even knew his name before Katara had come away from their truncated tutoring session grumbling and cursing his name. He was beginning to think that was a bit of a shame.

Zuko shrugged, "They were big but they were dumb, and I think the only thing any of them actually knew about fighting is that their fists were supposed to go in the general vicinity of my skull." He walked over to collect his bag from the floor and turned back to Teo. He scowled when he noticed Teo's eyes trained on the red mark that would surely turn into a bruise on his brow above his scarred eye, "yeah one of those idiots tried to punch my forehead, I think he broke a knuckle," he said as he swiftly swept his hair over his forehead to cover it up. His fingers were long and dexterous as they swept through his thick locks.

"Right," Teo replied weakly, and moved his hands towards his wheels so he could turn himself to face the exit and keep pace with Zuko as he headed that way; only to notice his hands were shaking rather a lot.

"Well... we should probably go," Zuko said. He hesitated and then began walking down the corridor towards the exit.

Teo fumbled his bag into a more secure position on his lap and tried to wheel himself after his rescuer but his arms were too shaky and weak. "Wait!" He cried and sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

Zuko turned slowly on his heel. His eyes scanned Teo and locked in on his quivering hands, his eyes shone the same gold as the afternoon sun on a perfect, cloudless day. "Do you... need help?" He offered, approaching warily - as if Zuko had any reason to be cautious of him.

Teo nodded as he clenched his hands around his bag in an effort to control the tremors. "Thanks," he added quietly as Zuko stepped behind Teo and steadily, and probably with exaggerated smoothness, (which Teo appreciated a great deal at that moment) began to push him towards the school's exit.

Teo gazed at his lap as he was pushed through the school and tried to breathe out the remains of his distress and adrenaline. It only half worked, he managed to stop the trembling in his hands, but it still felt like there was a pressure building up against his diaphragm.

"Um, where...?" Zuko asked as they passed through the main entrance and hesitated.

"The bus stop is fine," Teo replied quickly.

"Sure," Zuko replied and promptly pushed Teo in that direction. "Hey, don't go blabbering about this to anyone, will you?"

"Okay," replied Teo, "I won't, but those other guys..."

Zuko sighed as they reached their destination and walked around to face Teo. "Yeah, I'm hoping they're too proud to admit that one of them got taken down by one punch and that another broke his hand on my face."

"And that you took on four people single-handedly and won. And without even bending," Teo added with a hint of a wry smile playing at one corner of his mouth.

Zuko shifted a little uncomfortably, one hand coming up to ruffle the hair at the back of his head. "I need to get going," he said and spun on his heel, calling out over his shoulder as he walked away, "Just keep your mouth shut about this, yeah?"

"Thank you!" Teo called out to Zuko's retreating back, which only made Zuko hunch his shoulders and retreat more hastily.

Teo's mind was still a bit jumbled and a bit fraught as he waited for the bus to come along, despite the steps he had tried to take towards some kind of calm. But he continued to try to hammer his thoughts into a recognisable shape as he waited. He could now easily see why someone would have a crush on Zuko... And perhaps the awkward standoffishness that had crackled and had radiated from Zuko from the moment Teo had opened his eyes again would have dampened any budding feelings on his part almost into a mere platonic admiration, had Zuko then not taken the time to help him to the bus stop.

Now he was alone, Teo felt the overwhelming urge to sob. He had been trying to hold it back like he had been trying to hold back the trembling but now Teo thought it might be best to let it all out. Brains were funny things, full of hormones that went around causing emotions and then, when things got complicated, led to things like shock.

The bus was fifteen minutes away, so Teo let his self-control crumble like an old, dried-out sandcastle under the tide of his built-up hormones. He indulged in falling apart for a good ten minutes before trying to pull himself together again. It was only a little easier than before and Teo thought he would probably be having some more emotions about it later, but at least he could be calm on the bus.


Zuko

Nobody employed at the gym, apart from the managers Zhao and Ukano (both textbook sycophants to a tee), was particularly interested in going above and beyond to please Ozai if doing the bare minimum would keep them their jobs. Iroh, on the other hand, if the fancy had taken him, and if he enquired in his usual warm way, would have been told in low tones that maybe Zuko had turned up late to his shift, but only by five minutes and who really cares about five minutes? And maybe he had recently - but only since getting all these extra shifts - been taking his school books with him where he could, not that there was any paperwork left blank or any mess left uncleaned after his shift, mind you, but maybe the poor boy could use a day off?

"Sorry I'm late," Zuko said quietly as he sidestepped behind the desk next to Jee.

Jee had spent quite some time in the navy, and it showed. It showed in the wiry muscles of his forearms, in the set of his broad shoulders, in the weather-beaten wrinkles that cobwebbed all over his skin, it showed in the way he rolled his cigarettes on his break. There was just something about him that made the word sailor drift lazily across any observer's mind.

"Don't sweat it, kid," Jee replied, "tides have kept me waiting for far longer and they never apologised for it."

Zuko nodded as Jee heaved himself off the stool and took a closer look at him. Jee squinted an eye and peered more clearly at Zuko's forehead. "What happened there?" he asked, waving vaguely towards Zuko's forehead.

"Oh, I ran into something at school," Zuko dismissed in what he hoped was a casual voice.

"Something?" Jee repeated with a raised brow.

"A fist," Zuko admitted.

"And why were you running into people's fists when you should have been running over here to relieve me of my duties?"

Zuko sighed and slumped onto the stool that was to be his for the next four and a half hours. "I lost my temper. Some of Azula's friends were bullying a kid at school. They were pushing him around in his chair and he was shouting at them to stop and they wouldn't... So I decked one of them and then got into a bit of a fight with the other three?" Zuko was cringing pretty hard by the end of his confession.

Jee nodded in understanding. "Terrible things, teenagers," he said sagely, before clapping a hand on Zuko's shoulder and walking solemnly out the door.

Huh, not the reaction I was expecting, thought Zuko, although he found he couldn't entirely disagree with what Jee had said.

He slid his sketchbook onto one corner of the desk and checked the log books for cleaning and maintenance and the appointment book, (there was one induction booked in about two hours and that was pretty much it) before doing a sweep of the room just to make sure everything was in order.

He then settled back in behind the desk and opened his sketchbook, making sure to cast a cursory eye over the room every so often. He wouldn't have minded art homework so much if it wasn't for all the annotations his teachers demanded, and apparently, I chose red because it's a cool colour, didn't cut the mustard.

He strongly suspected that the greatest painters in history who now had their works gloriously displayed in places of the highest honour had faced less harassment over the finer details of their paintings, and privately wondered what they would say to an art teacher when asked why he had decided to use that precise shade of blue for the sky. But this particular injustice faded gradually into the background tapestry of unfairness that made up Zuko's life, and he resolved to make up something better in his annotations about why the lines in this sketch were extra jagged.

His shift started smoothly, and despite having no particularly great love of art as a teachable subject, Zuko found a pleasant, zen-like feeling steal over him as he sketched, and before he knew it the client was turning up for her induction.

Zuko was a little surprised when the first thing through the door was the end of a cane. The girl was young, confident and grinning, while the man who trailed behind her was the exact opposite.

Every detail of the man's appearance hinted at a preoccupation with neatness that bordered on the obsessive, his hair was meticulously slicked back, not a strand out of place, and his clothes were pristine. The man also had an aura of superiority that sent a shiver down Zuko's spine, it was as if the man had been born looking down his nose at the world, and in all his years had never seen anything to make him stop.

The girl, on the other hand, seemed to be the opposite. She was short and scruffy, and barefoot, and although she also exuded an aura of unshakeable confidence, her smirk said that she found the rest of the world amusing, rather than disappointing.

"And this is Zuko," June was saying as she led them into the room, dialling the customary universal contempt in her tone down by several notches for the customers, "he'll show you around the weights room."

"Sweet," said the girl. She stuck her hand out in front of her and not at all in the direction Zuko was standing, "put her there, Zuko, I'm Toph."

"Nice to meet you," replied Zuko, stepping forward and catching Toph's hand when it moved towards him or, in his general direction at least.

"Yes, charmed I'm sure," said the man Zuko assumed was Toph's father, "but my daughter is blind. How do you propose to keep her safe when she is doing one of these workouts?" He waved a hand dismissively around the room.

"Well there's always at least one member of staff present in this room and we clean this room regularly and make sure everything is put back where it should be," Zuko explained in his best customer service voice.

"I don't think you understand just how fragile my daughter is. She needs constant supervision to make sure she doesn't over-exert herself," the man said, condescension and self-importance dripping from every word.

"We do offer personal training services here," Zuko replied.

"Do you have an earthbending dojo here?" Toph asked hopefully.

"We do. Are you looking to spar with someone or practice on your own?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Toph's father scoffed, "As if my daughter could possibly spar with someone! She needs a safe environment to practise her basics."

"Oh." Zuko blinked, surprised at the hostility and took a moment before replying lest he start actually growling at the prick in front of him. He was only partially successful but luckily the man must have had his head shoved so far up his own ass it made it difficult to hear other people properly. "Well, there's an earthbending master who teaches classes there on Monday, Tuesday and Friday evenings. Otherwise, you can book out a timeslot for a small charge to your account."

"And can these sessions also be supervised?" Toph's dad asked with a flatly unimpressed look on his face.

"They can upon request but the only earthbender we have on staff only works two days a week. But if it's just a safety concern then we can have someone else supervise."

"Fine." He said in a tone that suggested he didn't think it was fine at all, and then turned to his daughter, "And your heart is set on this?"

"It is," Toph confirmed with a determined air.

So Zuko showed her around the gym under the watchful eyes of her parents.

The whole thing was over in just ten minutes, and after Zuko told her she was welcome to stay and workout only to be quickly declined by her father, he decided he would push the incident out of his mind and make a start on the evening cleaning as it was so quiet. Once all his duties were done, Zuko took up his pencil again.

It was around seven o'clock when Iroh strolled through the door, still an hour until the gym closed, carrying a small plastic pot in his hands.

Zuko looked up at the sound of the door scraping along the carpet, "Uncle!" He gasped in surprise as he let the sketchbook flop closed and slide from the knee upon which it had previously been propped, to the desk along with his pencil. He stood up to meet Iroh's embrace. "What are you doing here?"

"Last week I extended an invitation to my brother and his family for dinner at my house tonight, and I was assured that my nephew would be given the night off so he could attend, but alas I was deceived." Iroh replied as he released Zuko, "plus I still own thirty per cent of this business, even if that doesn't give me much of a vote I should still be able to visit whenever I please."

"Oh. No one said anything about dinner with you..." Zuko trailed off as Iroh started inspecting his forehead (which Zuko had seen was now a murky shade of brownish-purple) and then caught sight of his knuckles.

"Zuko?" asked Iroh, disapproval resonating throughout his tone.

"I'm sorry, okay? I lost my temper when I saw a gang of kids bullying someone just for being in a wheelchair."

"Zuko," Iroh's eyes widened with concern, "you didn't firebend did you?"

"No uncle. I know I said I lost my temper but I didn't lose complete control of myself," Zuko replied with a roll of his eyes. "You know I would never."

"Well, that is certainly a relief. Still, I feel that while your heart may have been in the right place, your head and your fists were not."

Zuko snorted.

"Just because your father thinks violence is the answer to everything, doesn't mean there's not another way," Iroh chided.

"My dad seems to have gotten along pretty well with his way so far," Zuko argued unconvincingly and with perhaps a small amount of bitterness.

"Zuko, look at me," said Iroh, putting the pot down on the desk and grasping both of Zuko's hands. And Zuko looked at him, looked into the kind eyes that were the same shade of gold as his, only they were sheltered by eyebrows much larger and more grey and hairy than his own. "You are a better man than your father thinks you are, and you're a better man than you think you are. If you would only learn to curb your temper and uncloud your mind, then you would be able to prove it to the whole world if necessary."

"Uncle," Zuko whined in protest.

"I'm serious. Anyway, I have brought you the dinner you missed out on and I have also saved you the largest slice of my walnut and cherry brownie..." Iroh trailed off proudly and chuckled as he saw Zuko's eyes dart down the tupperware and a hungry expression overcome his face.

"Thank you, uncle," Zuko said and pulled Iroh into a grateful hug.

"Of course nephew, but I must be going. This evening has made Lu Ten quite impassioned on your behalf and he has been calming himself down by listening to music with a lot of drums in it very loudly in his room. I fear that if I don't get back soon, I will have some complaints from the neighbours." Iroh stepped back and graciously ignored the slightly overwhelmed expression on Zuko's face. "Don't forget that you are always welcome at my house, at any time," he added before departing.

Only a second later the door opened again to reveal Iroh's head poking around it. "Also, you may benefit from trying some yoga. It is said to do wonders for creating a calmer mind," he said before disappearing for the final time.

"Yoga?" Zuko mumbled to himself as the door closed.

He scoffed at the idea, he could just imagine what his father would say if he caught him doing yoga. Plus Zuko had little enough time as it was to get his chores and homework done on time around his training and work schedule, any free time he found himself with should be dedicated to improving his firebending or his grades, not messing about doing some namby-pamby yoga class…

But Uncle Iroh had suggested it and Uncle had never led him astray before, (apart from that one time a girl had kept turning up at the cafe and Iroh had been convinced it was because she had liked Zuko. Turned out she was just hiding from her friend's boyfriend who had started to get creepy, hence the Jet incident,) and Uncle Iroh was kind, and often came across as a bit silly but only because Iroh found it useful to encourage people to underestimate him.

Zuko pulled his generously bestowed (and, as always, delicious) dinner towards him and cupped it in his hands. He took a deep breath and concentrated on spreading the warmth evenly to gently heat his food and then popped off the lid. The idea was worth entertaining, and he allowed it to percolate in the front of his mind while the back of his mind took care of the whole business of eating.

He could try it. A lot of people seemed to be interested in it nowadays and Ozai had even hired a yoga instructor onto his staff, albeit with a lot of scoffing about the kind of people who chose to do yoga, but the numbers could not be argued with.

Although what his dad would say if he found out Zuko was doing yoga...

Well, Zuko imagined it would be quite vitriolic and nasty and demeaning, but it probably still wouldn't be as bad as what his father would do if he found Zuko doing Yoga.

Having not decided by the time he finished his dinner, Zuko folded his thoughts up neatly and tucked them away under the mattress of his mind. Then he pulled the foil-wrapped square towards him. His uncle's desserts were always shining examples of culinary excellence, and he wanted the use of all his brain to fully appreciate it.

Zuko moaned quietly as his first bite melted along his tongue and closed his eyes. Although Zuko had never put much stock in old sayings, he had to admit, as he was overcome with a rush of warm affection and love for his uncle, the way to a man's heart might really be through his stomach.