Most of the earliest episodes remain the same, a few small snippets from Kyoshi (the episode) until The Storm (the episode). Zuko still picks up Katara's necklace from the prison rig.
Sushimi is based off Ryo-ohki, because it's criminal that Avatar doesn't have something like that.
. Austistic Zuko headcanons abound, though not called such in-universe.
[S1 Kyoshi]
Alright, Jet could admit that, despite the face paint and shapeless dresses, the Kyoshi Warriors were unfairly attractive. But it wasn't like he was unused to the combination of pretty with an attitude, there was one of those fuming over his shoulder literally right now oh hi, Zuko.
x
"What are you doing out here?"
"Keeping watch."
"For what? Think the crew's going to run us into an iceberg?"
"…I wouldn't put it past them."
And Jet couldn't even tell if that was a smear at the crew's competence or their loyalty—such as it was.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"When was the last time you shut up?"
Wow, okay. One, rude. Two, Zuko must have been even more sleep-deprived than he first thought, because that was weak.
"Let's spar. You look like you need it."
"I— You— We can't spar, you're injured!"
'We sparred when you were injured and I'm not even down a fucking eye,' seemed like a bad direction to take this conversation in. Tempting, but bad. "…don't think the enemy's going to kindly make sure I'm 100% before attacking us, so I might as well get in the practice."
"We're not sparring. We don't have time to spar, I need to catch the Avatar!"
"Then maybe," Jet dropped delicately like a ten-ton flying cow, "You shouldn't be so pissy all the time."
Zuko visibly took some deep, calming breaths. Visibly because every exhale was accompanied by a tongue of flame licking the air.
…I feel like I shouldn't find this as attractive as I do…
Well, it was flattering that 'no, you idiot, you're INJURED' apparently came in above 'no time; must Avatar' on the list of priorities, though.
x
"Would you kindly stop fucking in the rhino hold?" Jet asked, completely exasperated. "Try the cargo hold, or the river steamers, or engineering." And man, First Engineer Hinako was not going to appreciate that suggestion but dammit. "Or literally anywhere except the rhino hold."
"Why do you care?"
Because I'm tired of dealing with a crabby, sleep-deprived firebender! But he couldn't say that because one, he wasn't an idiot, and two, it really didn't need to get out that a prince of the Fire Nation was sleeping in the rhino pens.
(And the implication that Zuko trusted the animals more than anything on this ship with fewer than four legs.)
There was a very specific word for what Zuko was, both in summary and as a description of his attitude.
Twice-shy.
x
[S1, Crescent Island, being released from the pillars]
"What in the—" Zuko asked as the chains dissolved around them.
"Fucky spirit shenanigans," Jet summarized. "Go with it!"
x
[Pirates episode]
"I'm not doing this without thinking," Zuko scolded. "I have a plan," he tried to reassure.
Jet really could not overstate exactly to what extent he wasn't reassured by that. "No, you do not have a plan. What you have is an idea, and it's a terrible idea."
"How do you know it's a terrible idea?"
"You never have any other kind."
Here was the thing.
Zuko's definition of 'plan' was honestly closer to 'set of goals wrested violently from the sea of chaos that is life'. Jet couldn't really complain, except yes he absolutely could, what the fuck, Fire Prince?
"You stole my necklace?!"
Jet wheezed. Of all the many many many many things Zuko had stolen, the waterbender's necklace—miraculously—wasn't one of them.
If anything, it fell squarely into the category of 'finders keepers'.
Didn't the water tribes believe in the will of the spirits? Push and pull, give and take? Tui giveth and La taketh away and all that?
x
[S1, The Storm, morning confrontation]
"Uncle," Zuko seethed, with uncommon insight that made everyone around him deeply uncomfortable, "control your men."
And what did it say, that Zuko was acknowledging that he knew very well exactly who the crew actually answered to? (Nothing good. It said nothing good.)
Jet laughed. Blatantly. Loud and mocking. "You didn't end up on this ship because you've got a deep and abiding respect for authority, Jee." He smiled at the old sailor. It had a whole lot of teeth in it. "Go on, keep fucking with him," he goaded. Because Zuko could only be pushed so far before he wouldn't be pushed further, and he didn't have much sympathy for those who couldn't keep up with him. "The name of the ship's the only warning you get."
Exactly who did the crew think the dragon in the name the Wani referred to? Because it wasn't Iroh.
Jet shivered. Do not fuck with the blood of dragons, he recalled. For you are flammable and taste good with hot sauce.
When backed into a corner, Zuko always, always acted like a dragon. Hatchling confronted by parent? Tuck tail and bare throat. Annoyed? Growl, snarl. But he didn't lash out with claw and fang and fire unless someone tramped on his tail.
And Jee was dangerously fucking close to tail-tramping.
Jet gave Jee a hard, piercing, assessing look. "It hasn't even occurred to you that the prince has observed you so well that he can read your emotions just from the creak of your armor, has it?"
[Jet catching the crew in their below-deck talk of treason]
He'd been waiting to get back to that point that had been sticking since their confrontation with Zhao at the port. Out at sea just before a maybe-storm seemed the perfect time. (What was one more piece of jetsam, after all? Or two. Or—)
"So!" Jet began, leaned against the wall and again smiling with all of his teeth. "Does anyone want to save the trouble and just confess, or shall we do the whole song and dance?"
No one spoke up. No one confessed. Jet wasn't surprised.
He let the smile fall from his face. "Really? Zhao," he hissed. "Of every single asshole in the entire Fire Navy, you betrayed your commanding officer and prince to Zhao?"
Not that there was any love, or trust, for that matter, lost between crew and command. Yet, somehow, this whole thing still left a sour taste in his mouth.
"You bunch of spineless, treasonous fox-dogs."
"He found the fucking Avatar, didn't he? Just beat a navy commander and firebending Master in an Agni Kai, didn't he? Pikeman Bao, nice to see you up and about after the prince Breathed for you."
Jet laughed. "Trust you? The prince doesn't even trust any of you with the ship's cat."
And every single one of them froze, as if only just now reminded that weevil-rats didn't just stay off a ship out of the kindness of their evil little furry hearts, and had to actually be hunted like the food-destroying vermin they were.
As if Zuko would ever let people he actively distrusted near something that showed open and legitimate affection for him. And Sushimi couldn't be in a room without openly showing her adoration of her Warm Human.
Probably the only member of the crew Zuko halfway trusted was Cook, maybe. No name given, even in her service records. But she'd been here since just after the first mutiny and hadn't turned on them in the second. And she'd been the one to help Zuko with his budding new baby predator.
Had helped teach him how to cook for himself, even incidentally, as Zuko prepared food for Sushimi because baby meat eaters needed things like broken-down bone to build their own bones and needed meat chopped up because they had tiny little milk teeth and a ship at sea had—surprise— remarkably little milk.
[Sadly, Iroh doesn't let Jet keel-haul the whole crew, brushing him off to the side to listen in on Iroh telling the story of Zuko's scar, which I didn't put in because we all know it and I'm not going to copy it word for word and it's too perfectly done in-show to improve upon.]
Jet looked away from the group with a soft, inaudible scoff. The sailors were easily impressed by Iroh's telling, but Jet couldn't help his apathy.
He thought, for one fleeting moment, If only you could hear Zuko telling it. Because oh, the Fire prince had a voice for storytelling, planted by his mother, encouraged even by Azula in her younger, less-homicidal days, honed across hundreds of hours over years spent at sea.
Ursa had been an actress, before her marriage, and she loved theater the way she'd loved very little else. She'd passed on everything she knew to both of her children. Zuko had learned her flair for the dramatic and her love of theater, he'd learned storytelling.
Azula had learned lying, how to hold a sweet tongue in her mouth and a poisoned dagger in her hand—metaphorically, of course. The Cold Princess wouldn't be seen with actual steel in her fingers when fire was an option.
Both of them had learned masks.
And with that, the fantasy popped like a soap bubble, shimmery and pretty but so, so fragile.
Because if it was Zuko, he wouldn't be telling a story, like in the countless hours he and Jet had spent holed up in the rhino hold, voice a steady soft rumble rising in pitch and timbre before falling again like the endless rush of the waves outside the hull. If it was Zuko talking on this subject, it'd be a report, short and sharp to the point of abruptness, because his father had little patience and less tolerance and Zuko had learned early to spare no extra words when his father told him to report or share something. If a point wasn't made quickly enough for Ozai, a point would be made.
Ursa had always encouraged Zuko's voice. Had lived for the tales of his childhood adventures with Jet or Lu Ten.
Ozai thought children should be seen and not heard.
History had shown which opinion screamed louder, in the end. Ursa's mask lay silent, hidden under a bed deep in the ship.
And Zuko was screaming still.
Jet caught Iroh at the door. "If you think your nephew is any kind of problem, I think you've been away from your niece for too long."
And then it was just him and the crew.
"He's explained that before," Jet said into the silence after Iroh left, carefully not looking at any of the men. "I'm not sure which one was worse, the surprise mutiny, or the one where they were quoting the Naval Code at us while trying to slit our throats."
Zuko wasn't a bad ship hand. He knew the Wani inside and out, from the bilge to the bridge. Every vent, all the engine, each room. He knew the compass and the stars and sun and could probably chart a course half-asleep and drugged to his eyeballs.
(Unsaid: that the reason the crown prince of the Fire Nation knew his ship inside and out was because he trusted no one aboard it. Because if any single person in the small crew on the tiny ship that needed absolutely every single crewman to listen and obey didn't… The prince would know enough to do the job himself.)
He wasn't even a bad commander, in the technical sense. On the contrary, Zuko had a—if not a knack for all things technical, then a sheer, bullheaded try-and-fail-until-you-stop-failing persistence to his actions. And that worked startlingly well, really, for the ship.
It didn't work for the crew. It was at the interpersonal, human level, that Zuko failed in all ways to be human. And the crew wasn't as forgiving as the ship they sailed.
When Zuko messed up, he didn't apologize, because princes didn't apologize, apologies were weak and gave people power over you. But he did the next best thing, in his eyes.
Gave them a chance at revenge. The same way he'd done for Jet as a child to try and make him feel better. It wasn't really his fault that his crew wasn't as competent at it or observant.
So Zuko ignored the nasty things said to his back, and the tasteless and frankly tacky graffiti on the latrine walls. He tried to let them go physically, as well, but—
The crew of the Wani was at best military cast-offs, and though they tried, and Zuko didn't, though they had experience and Zuko didn't, though they were officers and Zuko was the Crown Disappointment of the royal family… Zuko was an imperial firebender. Zuko was a prince of the line of Agni. Zuko was the son of the Fire Lord and the nephew of the Dragon of the West and brother of the terrifying Cold Princess. There was a world of difference between those skill levels.
Zuko had fought an Agni Kai with the Fire Lord. He hadn't won, had surrendered, but only because the man facing him had been the Fire Lord. Had been his father.
He'd shown no fear or hesitation when pitting himself against an experienced general of the Fire Nation. And that…
That kind of said everything, didn't it.
"You thought he was nothing more than a spoiled prince. You thought he didn't care about a thing in the world beside himself. You thought he wouldn't find the Avatar. That's three times now he's proven you wrong, isn't it? Are you really willing to doubt him a fourth time?"
x
[Jet on his own away from the crew, reminiscing on his own backstory]
"This is your fault!" he shouted. "My family is dead because of yours and it's all your fault!" And then he was crying.
The stupid prince's eyes went wide, and then he was grabbing Jet's wrist and dragging him somewhere.
'Somewhere' wound up being a training courtyard, where two sticks were shoved unceremoniously into his hands and the prince picked up two more and—
The afternoon passed quickly as they… trained? Was this training? Was he being trained? That thought infuriated him and he threw himself into it harder. The prince got a few hits in, but Jet got more, wild and angry and—
And then he was on the ground again and crying. Again. And the prince fluttered over him like a dizzy moth-wasp high on smoke. "Sorry! Sorry. I don't know what— I thought this would help. I just wanted to help. I thought I was helping. I'm sorry. Please stop crying, I'm sorry."
"Why," Jet asked. "Why did you think this would help?"
More fluttering hands around him. Eventually, the prince gave up the fluttering and just collapsed to his knees in front of him— no. Sat in front of him. This wasn't the Earth Kingdom and people here didn't sit cross-legged sensibly like normal people. They sat on their knees.
The prince shrugged. "Beating me up makes my sister feel better. My tutors beat me when things are my fault. So, I thought…"
Jet stared. Couldn't do anything but stare. "So you— You let me—"
Flinch. "No! I didn't— I didn't let you, you're good! I wouldn't— You won fairly!"
What? What? "Fire Prince, what?" He was going to be saying that phrase a lot in his life, he could feel it.
x
[After the storm]
He found Zuko outside, of course. Up on the observation deck, as high in the air as he could get without breaking conduct codes.
The silence held for a few breaths before Jet gave in and broke the silence. "'Mutiny?'" he asked.
"It's almost that time of the year again, isn't it?" came the bitter reply, and yeah, damn, he really hadn't thought about that one.
Three years, three crews. "And you saved the helmsman's life anyway."
Zuko grimaced. "Tragic character flaw," he admitted, like he really believed it.
Probably did, actually. Dammit.
Zuko's outlook on life was kind of horrible, because it began at well, I'm not dead yet, and ended at this isn't even the worst thing the spirits have thrown at me.
Which, alright, fair enough because how much worse could it get than my father almost killed me when he was burning my face? (Jet would look back on that particular thought at a far-distant date with the irrepressible urge to punch his past-self in the face.)
The thing was, though it had never been aimed at him in particular, Zuko was used to being around competence. He lived—had lived—in the royal Fire palace, if the servants weren't skilled enough to live through generations of tetchy Fire royalty, they weren't skilled enough to live. Zuko wasn't used to dealing with incompetents. Cruel as it was to put into words, Zuko was used to being the most incompetent person in a given situation, and that just wasn't the case anymore.
Pair that, and his new temper with himself and everything around him, with an entire crew of cast-offs and misbegots…
If the mutiny had not been intentional, or incited, it had been inevitable.
Zuko's heart-wrenching summary of his crew attempting to murder him in the night, while still shaking in reaction from having to kill for the first time at thirteen? 'Azula was never that blatant about it. Trying to kill me, I mean.' Like the only thing surprising about it was how blunt it was instead of poison or something that could be construed as an accident.
Jet sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and straightened up. "Alright then, let's get it over with."
"We're not killing the crew," came from behind him, so dry it almost circled back around to amused.
He grinned back over his shoulder, bobbed his wheatgrass just to see Zuko twitch. "I'm not gonna kill 'em." The look he received was wholly unconvinced. "Just stab 'em. A little," he added, holding his thumb and finger just a bit apart. "Preemptive-like."
The prince snorted and shook his head, but his shoulders weren't as tight, and his expression not as drawn. What more could he ask for, really?
[More flashback backstory]
"I'm going with you."
"No! You can't!"
"Like to see them try and stop me."
"I order you—"
Jet grabbed Zuko's hand and pressed it to his cheek. "Then burn me. And I'll follow you anyway."
Even weak with fever, Zuko yanked his hand away. "No! I won't—" He choked. "I couldn't— How could you think—"
Jet shrugged and reached for the candle lamp on the side table. "If fealty through pain's the only thing you understand, that's how I'll swear my loyalty, too."
"No!" Zuko shouted, reaching out with his hand and pulling back with a sharp yank.
Every candle, sconce, and lamp in the room and out in the hallway went out all at once. Jet felt the wick, there wasn't a single ember of heat left. Even the wax was cool and hard to the touch.
Zuko's hands clamped down on his. "I won't burn you. I won't hurt you. I will not mistreat you."
Jet thwacked their foreheads together, careful to avoid the tender bandaged left half of the prince's face. "Then you better get used to me sticking around."
x
"…do you think I chose wrong?" Zuko eventually asked down in the safety of the rhino hold.
Jet couldn't do anything but shrug. "Hard to say, Fire Prince. Those clouds came out of nowhere."
"Uncle told us they were there."
And Jet could do nothing except bring up the general's last sterling assessment. "'The Fire Nation's greatest threat is nothing but a child'," he quoted, intentionally even-more-terrible than his usual talent for reenactment.
It was worth it when Zuko snorted so hard it disrupted his form.
X
Jet's early timeline for those curious:
-After his village is burned, he was picked up by the post-raid round-ups and shipped to the Fire nation for basic labor
-Jet was not very cooperative to this
-Zuko found him getting beaten up and made it stop, then asked his mother for help
-Ursa brought Jet in as a companion and bodyguard (like Mai and Ty Lee were for Azula, with Ozai and Azulon giving absolutely zero fucks if this was a terrible idea that might result in Zuko dying at the hands of an angry Earth Kingdom peasant child because that's on brand for them.