Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

by CrazyBellatrix13

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

56. 89 Avatar

Now that Suki was out of prison, she never wanted to spend another moment stuck inside a tiny metal box. Which was why, even though she was exhausted and really just wanted to sleep, she was standing on the lower deck of the airship, leaning on the rail and letting the wind blow around her. While in Boiling Rock she hadn't known if she'd ever feel this again, so she was going to take full advantage of it.

"Aren't you getting cold out here?" Suki opened her eyes and turned to see Hakoda stepping through the doorway and onto the deck.

"Chief Hakoda," Suki bowed.

"Please, just call me Hakoda," he waved her off and came to stand near her at the rail. "What you did in the prison was very impressive. You saved all of us."

Suki smiled. "I was eager to get out. I'd been in there far too long."

"How long were you there?" Hakoda questioned, Suki sighed and turned back to look at the horizon.

"A long time. A few months, I think. I tried to keep track of the days but…" she shook her head. At first, when she'd been with the rest of her Warriors, it had been manageable. They took turns on watch and kept each other company. But when news reached them that the Avatar died, Suki got - well, pissed. They staged an escape attempt that almost worked, but they were caught at the last minute. There had been a moment where Suki's path to freedom was still open, but she would've had to leave the rest of her Warriors behind. As if. There was no way in the spirits damn world Suki would've ever done that.

After that escape attempt they were split up. Suki was sent to Boiling Rock, and she had no idea where the others ended up. The trip to the high security prison had been lonely, stuck in a cold dark cell with no reference for the passage of time.

"I'm sorry, that must've been hard," Hakoda said softly, breaking Suki out of her memories.

"We're free now," she pointed out, trying to smile.

"Indeed," Hakoda glanced at the door behind them before turning back to her. "Can I ask you a question?" Suki nodded slowly, she really hoped he wasn't going to ask about her relationship with Sokka,shedidn't even know what they were, and she didn't want to have to explain it to Sokka's father.

"What are your thoughts on Prince Zuko?"

"Oh," thank the spirits this was a question she could answer. Suki tilted her head to the side and considered her answer. "Well, the first time I met him he burned down half my village." Hakoda raised an eyebrow. "He was looking for the Avatar and wasn't concerned about who he hurt along the way. But he could've been worse. Once Aang left he followed, and didn't bother sticking around to take out his revenge on the people who helped him." Which Suki knew from experience wasn't how the Fire Nation usually did things. "And he did help us escape from prison, so I'm willing to give him a second chance." The words surprised Suki even as she said them. She hadn't given Zuko much thought beyond being a temporary ally, but it was true. At this point they were even.

"That seems reasonable," Hakoda murmured as he returned his gaze to the horizon. "I'll admit I was surprised when my son told me that he was on our side. I never had much interaction with him, but it seems strange that he'd suddenly change sides. Though Sokka says he's trustworthy, and Aang and the others seem to agree, so they must see something different," Hakoda mused. Suki wasn't sure whether he meant to be talking out loud, but she nodded along anyways.

"I have more of a grudge against his sister," Suki added. Hakoda looked at her questioningly and she continued. "Princess Azula and her friends are the reason I got locked up in the first place," Suki let out a huff and turned to stare at the horizon. "I'm glad I got a rematch."

"You are a very impressive fighter," Hakoda noted, Suki smiled at the compliment. "I should get back to the helm," Hakoda straightened from where he was leaning on the rail. "I left Chit Sang in charge of steering us, but I'm not sure he knows what he's doing." He made his way to the door but paused before stepping through. "Are you sure you're not cold?"

Suki smiled and shook her head. "I prefer the wind."

Suki liked the Western Air Temple. Even though there were eleven people living in it, it was big enough that she could still find an empty terrace to spar by herself. It shouldn't be surprising that it was spacious, considering it used to be home to a lot of Air Nomads - a fact that made Suki's stomach twist up in knots if she thought about it for too long.

Suki didn't have her fans anymore, they'd been confiscated a long time ago. But that morning, their second day at the air temple, Suki was complaining to Sokka during breakfast when Toph overheard and offered to make her some new fans. Suki thought metalbending was impossible, but Toph proved her wrong. Her new fans weren't much more than triangular pieces of metal, with a much different weight and feel than traditional Kyoshi fans, but they were better than nothing.

As she went through a series of moves, Suki could feel the weight of someone's gaze on her. She wasn't sure how long they had been there as they were being surprisingly quiet, but the feeling of someone staring at her was too familiar to ignore. After she finished a set, Suki took a moment to inspect her makeshift fans, giving whoever was watching her time to approach. When they still didn't move, Suki couldn't help but roll her eyes, looked like she'd have to start the conversation.

"Are you going to stand and watch me all day or are you going to actually say what's on your mind?" Suki called out without looking up from her fans. There was a moment's pause, then the sound of shuffling footsteps echoed off the stone, and Suki looked up to see Zuko stepping out from the shadows. They stared at each other for a moment, and Suki couldn't help but eye the sword Zuko had strapped to his back.

"Well?" She prompted. Her words seemed to snap Zuko out of whatever trance he was in, and he stood up straight before bowing to her in the traditional Earth Kingdom style.

"I wanted to apologize for attacking and burning your village," Zuko said evenly. Suki raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. "I was so caught up in my quest to capture the Avatar that I didn't care about any collateral damage. That was wrong of me and I'm sorry for all the harm I caused your people." The words sounded rehearsed, but they also sounded genuine. "I know I can't ask you to forgive me, but I wanted you to know that I regret my past actions. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you, please let me know." He bowed again, deeper this time, and Suki waited until he was looking at her to nod.

"Okay." She turned back to the center of the terrace and started going through her forms again.

"I… what?"

"Your apology is accepted." He still didn't move, and Suki paused in her motions to glance over at him.

"You're not… mad?" He tilted his head quizzically.

"You apologized. I have no reason to hold a grudge - they're a waste of time," Suki pointed out. "Your sister is the one I'm mad at."

"But I burned down your village."

"And then you rescued me from prison. I think that makes us even."

"I just thought you'd be mad." Suki stopped her practice and turned to fully face Zuko.

"Do you want me to be mad?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Okay then." He still looked at her like he didn't understand, and she sighed. "Why don't we start over. Hi, I'm Suki." She bowed a greeting to Zuko as she would to any of her peers. It took a moment, but he eventually mirrored her.

"...Zuko," he said, eyeing her warily.

"It's nice to meet you, Zuko. Want to spar?"

"What?"

Suki motioned to the sword Zuko had strapped to her back. "I assume you know how to use that?" He nodded. "Then why don't we spar. I've been locked up for so long that I've gotten a little rusty."

Zuko considered her for a moment before nodding. "Ok." He drew his sword from its sheath and placed the sheath on the ground. With a quick twist of his wrist he was suddenly holding two swords.

"Twin dao, nice," Suki commented as he made his way to the center of the terrace. Zuko's face flushed, and she waited for him to get into a ready stance. "Don't go easy on me," she warned. He nodded, and she attacked.

Zuko was holding back. Suki didn't have a good feel for the weight of her makeshift fans, and the handles got slippery with sweat after just a minute of fighting, but Zuko still didn't win. He was good, she'd give him that, but there were several openings that he didn't take advantage of.

It only took a few minutes before Suki disarmed Zuko and sent him sprawling on the ground. She held out a hand and quickly pulled him to his feet.

"You're holding back," she pointed out as he went to collect his swords.

Zuko froze. "No I'm not." She scoffed and raised an eyebrow, not dignifying the obvious lie with a response.

"If you're going to hold back I might as well continue practicing by myself. There's no point in sparring if you don't give it your all."

"I'm sorry, I just…" he trailed off before he finished his thought, and Suki looked at him curiously.

"I wouldn't be mad if you won," she said slowly.

"You wouldn't?"

"No. I'd be impressed, and motivated to try harder the next time."

"Oh," Zuko looked like he genuinely hadn't thought of that, and Suki wondered who he had sparred with that would get mad if they lost. Who was she kidding, it was probably Azula.

"Let's go again, and don't hold back this time," Suki said seriously. Zuko nodded, and they started sparring again.

She was right, hehadbeen holding back. Now that he was giving it his all, his attacks were faster, more precise, and he kept doing things she didn't expect. It kept her on her toes - she liked it.

They were evenly matched, though Suki would bet if she had her normal fans instead of the temporary ones she still would've won. As it was, her new fans didn't have very good handles on them, and after several long minutes it was getting harder and harder to hold on.

Eventually, after they'd been going for a while, Zuko hit one of her fans with his sword in just the right way to send it clattering to the ground. Suki swore under her breath, and tried to find an opening she could use to pick it back up again. Zuko had the advantage now and he pressed forward, forcing her to try and attack and defend with just one fan.

It didn't last long.

Soon Suki was the one sprawled on the ground, both her fans out of her reach. There was a look of surprise on Zuko's face and she couldn't help but grin.

"Nice one." She sat up and held out a hand towards Zuko. He stared at her for a moment, seemingly unsure what she was asking of him. "You gonna help me up?" She prompted, waving her hand around.

"Oh, uh, right," he gingerly reached forward and helped pull her to her feet, taking several steps backwards as soon as she was standing.

Suki reached down to grab her fans, then returned to the center of the terrace and dropped into a fighting stance. Zuko mirrored her, an expression on his face that almost looked like a smile.

"Ready?" Suki prompted. Zuko nodded, and she attacked.

The thing about prison was that there were a lot of rumors that floated around. Suki never put too much stock into anything she heard, figuring any stories were greatly exaggerated at best and completely made up at worst.

The thing about Boiling Rock specifically was that there were a lot of Fire Nation citizens, meaning a lot of the rumors had to do with the Fire Nation.

Rumors about the Fire Lord, and how he was a tyrannical leader even to his own family. Rumors about the unconventional tactics of the Fire Nation army, and how the generals wouldn't think twice about sacrificing a division of new recruits if it meant securing an objective. Rumors about what the then thirteen year old Crown Prince had to do in order to get himself banished and sent on what was supposed to be an impossible ghost hunt.

Suki didn't put much stock in rumors, she knew they were over exaggerated, and could be twisted up until they were nearly unidentifiable from the original source.

The thing about rumors, though, was that they were often based on the truth.

As much as Suki didn't want to stay in the Fire Lord's personal summer home, she had to admit it was nice to sleep in a real bed again. She wasn't the only one with that sentiment.

Katara was more excited about having a real kitchen and the fact that they were near a marketplace—which Suki was also excited about, it meant that she got to change out of her prison-issued clothes and into something more comfortable. Sokka was extremely paranoid about the whole ordeal and only begrudgingly agreed to the plan because it was the last place anyone would look for them. Toph was mostly just annoyed that the house was made out of wood, making it hard for her to see. Aang was excited to be staying there, but he was excited about everything so that didn't mean much. And Zuko absolutely loathed the entire island.

Which, the more she thought about it, wasn't that surprising.

He mentioned the place in passing to Toph, who immediately jumped at the chance to sleep in a real bed again. Zuko said they'd be safe there, but was the last one to agree to the plan.

They'd been there for a couple days, and Suki still wasn't adjusted to the idea that they were staying in the Fire Lords summer home. It was weird, no matter how many Fire Nation insignias they removed - and there were alotof them.

They now had the option to eat inside at an actual table but somehow, without discussing it, they'd all decided to continue eating outside in the courtyard. Part of it was because it was nice outside in the sun and they were already used to it, part of it was because Toph got annoyed when she couldn't see people in the house, but it was also partly because the house was just… stuffy. Oppressive. Overbearing. It was a lot, and they all tended to spend a lot of time outside just because they could.

Suki knew that Zuko had been acting differently since they arrived there, she didn't need Toph telling her something was bothering him.

After lunch, Suki dragged Zuko to the courtyard to spar. She tried to get Sokka to join them, but apparently he and Aang had to go to the market to get something for Katara. So it was just the two of them.

Suki won five out of their first seven matches. Usually they were a lot more evenly matched, but Zuko wasn't really paying attention. The two times he'd won were because of mistakes she made. Toph recently made Suki a new set of fans that were weighted better, and she'd bought some leather to wrap around the handle to make them easier to hold, but even taking those factors into account she knew that Zuko's mind wasn't in the practice.

She waited until they took a water break to ask about it.

"What's bothering you?" Suki asked between sips of water. She was currently perched on the edge of the nearby fountain while Zuko sat on the ground, legs splayed out in front of him.

"Nothing," Zuko answered immediately. Suki didn't bother replying, and instead raised an eyebrow and gave Zuko a look. He stared back defiantly for a moment before sighing and slumping forward, pulling his knees to his chest. "It- it's nothing. It's stupid."

"If it's bothering you this much, it's not stupid," Suki pointed out. Zuko lifted his head to look at her suspiciously, searching for a hidden meaning in her words. When he found none he sighed and dropped his head on his knees.

"I don't like being here," he said, his words slightly muffled.

"Here as in the Fire Nation? The island? The house?" She prodded when he didn't say anything else.

"...the house."

"Okay."

"And I know it's stupid!" Zuko's head shot up to glare angrily at nothing in particular. "It's just a building, it shouldn't affect me this much, I'm being weak and I should just get over it," Zuko spat vehemently. "And I'mtryingto ignore, to act normal, but I- Ican't," his voice broke slightly on the last word and he aggressively rubbed at his face.

"Says who?" Suki asked after a moment passed.

"What?"

"Who says you're being weak because being back here is affecting you?"

Zuko looked at her for a moment before breaking eye contact to stare at the ground. "...my father," he mumbled.

Suki let out a small laugh. "No offense Zuko, but I wouldn't listen to anything the Fire Lord has to say." The smallest smile crossed Zuko's face. She waited another moment before standing up and moving to the center of the courtyard, gesturing for Zuko to follow her.

"You remember that move set I showed you the other day?" She asked. Zuko nodded, and the two of them fell into a familiar rhythm of strikes and blocks, practicing their footwork. She waited until they got a pattern going before she started talking again.

"Do you have any good memories of this place?" Suki questioned. "If you think of those times it might make it easier to stay here." Zuko tilted his head to the side and thought for a moment. A brief smile flashed across his face before it turned into a frown.

"There are some good memories. Or, well, I'd call them good memories, but I've been told that my scale of how fucked up something is, uh, off," Zuko admitted.

"Maybe it is, but if it's a good memory for you that's all that really matters," she pointed out.

"I guess…" he sighed, not sounding very convinced. His eyes flickered to something over Suki's head, and he motioned towards it as much as he could while keeping their practice going. "When I was seven, Azula and I were climbing those pillars when she pushed me off." Suki glanced behind her to see a row of pillars lining the outside of the courtyard, maybe 15 feet tall. "I broke my arm from the fall, but she told everyone I tripped," Suki looked back at Zuko. "And when I was nine, Azula and I were playing by that fountain when she pushed me in and tried to drown me," Zuko gestured to the fountain they had been sitting by earlier, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile.

"Those are the good memories?" Suki clarified. Zuko flushed slightly and shrugged.

"She only tried to kill me when we were playing together. And it wasn't like she wasreallytrying to kill me, she wanted someone to play with as badly as I did. Her way of playing just…"

"Involved injuring you?"

"Yeah," Zuko's smile turned sour. "She wasn't always like that. We were normal kids once, before she started firebending. We'd play, fight, have fun like kids are supposed to," Zuko frowned, like he didn't fully believe kids were supposed to do that. "But once she started bending it was obvious that she was a prodigy, much better than I could ever be," he sighed. "Seeing Sokka and Katara reminds me what we could've been if my father…"

"Hadn't been an asshole?" Suki offered, he smiled a little.

"Yeah," Zuko stared at nothing for a moment before shaking his head and refocusing on their practice. "Sorry, um, do you have any siblings?"

"Not in the way you mean," Suki responded. Zuko tilted his head and looked at her quizzically. "I don't have any blood siblings, but the Kyoshi Warriors are all my sisters."

"Oh." There was a moment of silence. "When did you join the Kyoshi Warriors?"

"When I was five."

"You were five?" Suki raised an eyebrow at the surprise in Zuko's voice. "It's just- that's young."

She shrugged. "It's where I was needed."

"Where were your parents? If you don't mind me asking."

"Dead," Suki replied bluntly. Zuko stumbled slightly in his form.

"I- I'm sorry."

"Thanks, but it was a long time ago."

"That doesn't always make it easier to deal with," he replied quietly. Suki nodded in agreement, then switched up her form, moving through a different set. Zuko hesitated for only a moment before copying.

"I never met my father," Suki said after a moment passed. Zuko's gaze flickered up to meet hers. "He died in a Fire Nation raid before I was born."

"I'm sorry," Zuko repeated quietly.

"I never knew him, but my mom talked about him a lot," Suki sighed. "He was the reason she didn't want me joining the Kyoshi Warriors, she didn't want me sacrificing myself for nothing," Suki narrowed her eyes. She loved her mom a lot, but Suki had wanted to fight the Fire Nation, while her mom would rather stay out of it and not cause any problems.

"But you joined the Kyoshi Warriors anyway?" Zuko asked.

"When I was five my mom got sick. It was sudden, and there wasn't anything we could do about it. She never wanted me to join the Warriors, but after she was gone I didn't really have another option," Suki shrugged. "I don't regret my decision, and I probably would've ended up with them even if my mom didn't die. But she did, and I did, and now I'm the leader so I must've done something right." Suki never intended to be the leader, but joining the Kyoshi Warriors tended to drastically shorten your lifespan, and Suki had always been one of the better fighters. It was inevitable that she'd one day be in charge, she just hadn't expected it to happen when she was fifteen years old. A year later she was still doing a pretty good job, or had been until she got all her Warriors captured.

"You're a really impressive fighter," Zuko's voice broke Suki out of her thoughts. "And strategist. What you did in the prison was amazing."

"Thanks. You're not so bad yourself," she added with a grin.

"Not so bad?" A glint entered Zuoks eye, and Suki barely had a moment to prepare herself before Zuko broke their pattern and lunged at her. She dodged to the side, tucking into a roll so she could spring back up to her feet and counter attack. He parried, and though there was an intensity in his gaze that hadn't been there before, there was also the hint of a smile.

He pushed back against her attack, and the fight was on.

They were evenly matched, and now that they were both focused solely on the fight it lasted a long time.

There was a moment where their respective weapons met in the air, and with a twist of her wrist Suki forced Zuko to drop one of his swords. He glared at her, and before he could recover she feinted to her left, but when he went to block she kicked out instead, hitting him square in the chest. He lost his footing and fell, hitting the ground hard but keeping his grip on his remaining sword. As soon as he landed Suki moved forward and held a fan to his throat.

"Like I said, not so bad," Suki grinned. He didn't say anything, and continued to just stare at her, so after a moment she pulled back to stand up. As soon as she was no longer pinning him down he kicked up, knocking one of her fans out of her grasp. She scrambled to grab it, but he swept out his leg and pulled her off her feet. It was her turn to go sprawling on the ground, and she didn't manage to keep hold of her weapon.

"You sure about that?" Zuko teased.

They were both panting and Suki took a moment to lay on the ground and catch her breath.

"Ugh, fine, you win this one," Suki rolled her eyes. She sat up and held her hand out to Zuko, who didn't hesitate to help pull her to her feet. She moved to pick up her fans, not missing the opportunity to shoulder check him as she passed, causing him to stumble.

"Well that was fun and all but I am exhausted," Suki announced. "Want to see if Sokka and Aang are back from the market?"

"Sure," Zuko sheathed his swords.

Suki paused at the edge of the courtyard and glanced conspiratorially at Zuko. "Race you," she said, and took off in a sprint.

"Wait I wasn't ready!"

It was the middle of the night and Suki couldn't sleep.

There were a million things that had to happen before the comet arrived in a little over a week, and so many ways everything could go wrong. Suki knew that they were an easy group to identify since the beginning, but seeing that stupid play only made her more nervous.

Aang and Zuko were the most identifiable in their group - and that wasn't including Appa, who was literally one of a kind. The actor who played Zuko had his scar on the wrong side, but the wanted poster was accurate.

The wanted poster that Zuko was unable to tear down before the entire group caught sight of it. Suki was still outraged over the fact that Zuko was wanted 'dead or alive'. She knew the Fire Lord was a cold and callous man, she'd known that since she first knew who he was, but telling the entire world he didn't care if his son lived or died? She couldn't imagine that.

The only people in their group that weren't easily recognizable were Suki herself and Toph, so maybe they should be the only ones going into town for supplies from now on. Toph wouldn't be much help during the actual shopping, but she was invaluable in a fight, and they'd all agreed to stick with a buddy system until they left the island.

A rule that Suki was ignoring at the moment because she decided to go on a walk instead of tossing and turning in bed all night. She wanted to put her restless energy to good use and do a perimeter of the property, just to make sure it was safe. The moon was almost nonexistent in the sky, and Suki was only paying enough attention to make sure she didn't fall off the cliffs and into the ocean below, so she wasn't a very good lookout.

Suki sighed and kicked out at a rock, sending it flying off the cliff and into the dark night sky. The shadows in front of her shifted suddenly, and Suki let out a surprised yelp, barely turning her backwards flailing into a purposeful defense stance.

The shadow seemed as surprised of her as she was of it, because it also fell backwards onto the ground, though it didn't make a sound.

Neither of them moved for a long moment until Suki recognized who it was.

"Zuko? Spirits you startled me," Suki dropped out of her fighting stance and laughed nervously. It took Zuko a moment to respond.

"Sorry," he said eventually, his voice thick in a way that made Suki pause. Had he been crying?

"It's alright, it's my fault for not watching where I was going. It's kinda hard to see," Suki said lightly, smiling even though he couldn't see her expression. There was another pause, and Suki could just barely see Zuko wipe hastily at his face. A second later a small flame sprung up on Zuko's palm, causing both of them to blink at the sudden brightness.

"Sorry," he repeated, not looking up at her and instead staring at the flame, which jerked and danced in his hand. Now that there was some light Suki could see the slightly glazed over look in his eyes, and how his leg bounced restlessly against the ground. She stood there for a moment before realizing she should probably say something instead of staring at him like an idiot.

"Can I sit here?" Zuko finally looked up at her with a blank expression on his face, and he took so long to respond that Suki almost repeated the question.

"Oh, yeah, sure, sorry." As Suki moved to take a seat Zuko scrambled to his feet. "I can just-" Zuko hooked a thumb at a vague point over his shoulder. "Sorry."

"Wait, hang on," Suki reached out and grabbed Zuko's arm to keep him from leaving. He tensed at her touch and the small flame he was holding went out. She dropped her hand, and was relieved when he didn't try to move away again. "I was asking if I could join you. I didn't mean to kick you out," Suki clarified.

"Oh, right," Zuko shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Sorry." A small flame clickered to life once more in his hand, shedding just enough light that Suki could see a blush rising in his cheeks.

"If you want me to leave I can," she offered. She wouldn't blame him if he did, as he probably came out here to be alone, and she didn't want to intrude on that.

"No!" The flame flickered violently then, almost going out. Suki could see Zuko taking a deep breath as it stabilized once more. "No, sorry, you can stay. I just assumed…" he trailed off without finishing the thought, and Suki gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"It's alright, I'm tired too," she sat down, and after a moment Zuko followed suit. As soon as they were settled the fire in Zuko's palm went out again, leaving them with the dim light from the crescent moon in the sky.

They sat in silence for a while, the only noise coming from the waves crashing on the distant shores below them, and the occasional animal moving about. Suki had missed this in prison, being able to be outside and hear nature instead of the hum of machinery. She wasn't going to take it for granted ever again.

"Nightmares?" Suki asked after they'd been sitting for a while. She'd had her fair share of nightmares, and a lot of experience helping others with them. Every member of the Kyoshi Warriors got them—some more than others.

"No. Well, sort of I guess. But I haven't really slept yet, so not this time?"

"Did you even try to sleep?" His silence told her all she needed to know. "We're all anxious about this," she said after a moment passed. "The comet, what comes before then, what comes after."

"Everyone has their own shit to worry about," Zuko mumbled.

"So what's bothering you?" She pressed. He didn't answer immediately, though she saw him run his hands through his hair.

"Aang isn't taking his training seriously," Zuko said after a long moment passed. "I've tried explaining it to him but he won't- he won't kill the Fire Lord."

"He might still find a way around that," Suki said.

Zuko let out a bitter laugh. "Trust me, he won't. The only way that fight ends is when one of them dies. My father doesn't believe in the concept of surrender."

"I think you're underestimating how powerful Aang's gotten."

"You're underestimating how ruthless my father is. He won't care that Aang is just a kid. He didn't care when I- I-" Zuko blew out a harsh breath and rubbed at his face. "You don't understand," he mumbled.

"Actually I do," Suki responded.

"You don't- what?" Zuko lifted his head to stare at Suki, and even in the dark she could see the incredulous expression on his face.

"Well, I don'tunderstand, but I know," she amended.

"...you do?" His voice was barely more than a whisper, filled with trepidation.

Suki nodded. "A lot of rumors circulated around Boiling Rock," she explained. "I didn't believe them at first, didn'twantto believe them, but…" now she knew better.

Zuko seemed to collapse in on himself, sagging until he was curled up in a ball. Suki let a few minutes pass before speaking again. "Does Aang know?"

"No," Zuko's reply was immediate and sharp.

"You should think about telling him."

"Why?" Zuko glanced at her briefly. "He doesn't need that. Doesn't need to know that."

"It might help him understand why you feel so strongly about fighting the Fire Lord," Suki said. "He would know what he's getting into."

"No, I- I can't," Zuko shook his head. "He's just a kid," he added quietly.

"So am I. So are you. We're all 'just kids', but the world decided that we had to grow up too fast. Aang needs to know who he's dealing with," Suki said, trying to keep the venom out of her voice. All Suki ever wanted to do was keep people safe, but the fact that she was only sixteen and already the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors - it just proved how messed up the world was. Adults were supposed to be better than them, yet they kept making all these messes and leaving children to pick it all up again.

"...I'll think about it," Zuko said eventually. Suki nodded and leaned back, looking out over the ocean. "For now… don't tell the others? Please?"

"I won't," Suki promised. It wasn't her story to tell.

M. M. M. M. M. M

The war was over.

Strange.

When he looked in the mirror he was still the same person (Mei had gotten him to stop binding with bandages, instead getting him some contraption from the Earth Kingdom made specifically for people like him). He traced his hand on his face. It was his father's nose, the slope of his brow was the one of his father's. His chin curved as Ozai's did. He had the same mannerisms. Same explosive anger.

He thought back to his childhood. He knew that there were things he knew, memories that came to him at inopportune moments but he still couldn't willingly find them. His childhood was like a wall. As far as he was concerned, his life didn't start until he was 13 years old. But he remembered what he did afterwards, even if it was draped in a hazy fog. He remembered hurting people. He remembered feeling power, he remembered feeling no shame.

He felt like a monster in his own skin.

But.

That was wrong. He was good. He thinks. But Zuko was not going to be like Ozai. So what was the one thing Ozai would never do?

He turned to the mirror, hating himself for the golden glow within his brown eyes. He was going to tell them. Maybe it was best his past stay buried, but Zuko didn't care.

He didn't care anymore.

-

Okay.

So.

Zuko honestly didn't know how to start this conversation. It wasn't like he could just blurt "hey the reason my father scarred half my face off, resulting in me being completely disabled on that side, is because I said sacrificing an entire division of people who were just a few years older than me was bad".

... could he?

Actually, that was probably a bad decision. They hadn't reacted well with the watered-down version, oh Agni what if they hated him. He could barely run a country as it was- oh Agni he was running a country who decided to put him in charge of a country. He pushed it away. Numbness was a privilege, and he was fit to indulge right now. This was fine. He was fine. He was okay. He wasn't lying to himself constantly. He wanted to feel something other than self-hatred. Fuck, what was he doing with himself? Why was he so fucked up?

Push it away. Don't think about it again. Forget.

How to tell them. It wasn't casual, he had established that. So that means serious conversations, he hates serious conversations.

He probably should talk to Sokka first. After they had gotten together a month ago (it was only a matter of time until Sokka realized that Zuko wasn't all that he could be, that he was broken), Sokka had understood that Zuko wasn't as well-put-together as he seemed. He never seemed well-put-together, so that was saying something. Sokka had been understanding when Zuko told him about his body, it couldn't be that bad, right? Sokka should know.

So.

How would he start the conversation with Sokka?

As if that thought had been a scream, Sokka appeared. Zuko wasn't quite sure how to start this conversation, still, but it was his motto to jump into things without a plan.

"I need to tell you something." Zuko blurted. Sokka shrugged.

"Sure, what is it?" He sat down on Zuko's bed, hands on either side of him.

Zuko tried to speak but the words seemed to be firmly lodged in his throat. "So." He made his way over to the bed, sitting down beside Sokka.

"So," Sokka repeated.

"I, uh, wanted to tell you about the... the thing," Zuko said. His heart beat quickly. This was difficult. How the actual fuck was he supposed to say this without being a nuisance or getting into a confrontation? Zuko's thoughts were bouncing around in his head like popped rice-corn.

"What thing?" Sokka asked. Zuko hoped that Sokka could see the larger issue underneath. Unfortunately, Zuko was good at hiding things yet expected people to read him like an open book.

Zuko frowned. "The important thing. I talked to you a while ago." Zuko said by means of explanation. How was it that he was easily able to discuss his scar in his head but the moment he tried to say it out loud, it was just word vomit?

Sokka frowned as well. "I don't remember it, was I supposed to?"

Zuko paused. "... no, actually. But it's important. I want to talk to you about it now."

"That's good. Is it about that trade agreement?" Sokka prompted.

Zuko shook his head. "It's more important than that. I want to say it but I don't really know how." He groaned, falling back. "I hate words." He grumbled.

Sokka patted his shoulder in sympathy. "I'll wait as long as you need."

Zuko sighed. He just needed to stop being a bitch and just say what he meant. Why was it so hard? Why was he such a fuck up? Unlucky. But this wasn't fate or chance, this was just him being worthless and annoying. And that was when he was finally able to force the words out. "My scar."

Sokka stiffened. Exactly. Sokka hated him. This was when he would leave him. Zuko curled in on himself slightly. "Are you ready to talk about it?" Sokka said gently. He started running his fingers through Zuko's hair. "I won't leave." He promised. Zuko was reminded harshly of his mother leaving. His mother promised she wouldn't leave, but she did. Everyone did.

"You already know it was my father." Zuko began slowly. "But... I... I don't actually remember what happened. I guess I just blocked it out." He continued. Sokka seemed surprisingly okay with this. "I got Uncle to tell me about the why. You were there when I remembered right before it... happened."

"Do you want to tell me why it happened?"

Zuko paused. "Yeah. There was this... division. The 41st. They were going to be sacrificed, and I spoke out against the plan. That's what Uncle told me. Ozai made me fight in an Agni Kai. Uncle told me that everyone thought it would be the general I was fighting, but it was Ozai." He said, paraphrasing Uncle. Uncle didn't know that he had been listening and that Zuko was as clueless of the story as the crew. Sokka blinked.

"You were 13, no one deserves that."

Zuko nodded. "It was cruel and it was wrong..." Zuko trailed off. "Sorry, I shouldn't be saying all of this to you."

Sokka shook his head. "No, you don't ever have to apologize for this. I mean, yeah, I won't always be available to talk because of stress and stuff but that doesn't mean I won't be here for you." Zuko was skeptical. Sokka saw this. "I'm dating you because I like you, all of you, even the stuff I don't know about yet."

Zuko was shocked. "I..." Zuko didn't think that anyone could like him like that. Zuko didn't think that anyone could love him at all. "Thank you." He whispered.

Maybe this was 'getting better'.

-

The hard part was over. He had said it once, he could say it again.

Sokka was amazing, he had helped gather everybody. He didn't deserve Sokka.

It felt bad to have all these eyes on him. There was a long moment of silence as Zuko attempted to sort over his thoughts. "Do you remember that time... on Ember Island." Zuko finally said.

Katara fixed him with an indecipherable look. "Are you going to tell us what happened?"

Zuko paused. "Yes."

Everyone's attention was on him. It was too much. Sokka's hand in his was the only thing grounding him. "Not about the scar." He chickened out. Sokka was slightly surprised but didn't comment. Katara was confused.

"What about then?"

Zuko fidgeted with the hand that wasn't in Sokka's. "It's why I never went swimming with you guys. Ever. It's cuz, uh, I wasn't born in the right body."

Aang, surprisingly, lit up. "Oh! We had plenty of people like that in the Air Temples! One of my moms was like that! And one of my dads!"

Zuko was shocked. "Oh."

Katara nodded. "It's pretty common back in the Water Tribe, we have two-spirited people as well. People who aren't male or female." Zuko smiled. It was nice to know that there were more options than just girl or boy, even if Zuko wasn't like that. From that point on, it was a bustle of noise and conversation. Zuko smiled.

Zuko lost track of the supportive comments. "Thank you." He didn't need to tell them about it right now, perhaps he was never going to tell them about what happened at all, but that was okay. It wasn't something he owed them, and it wasn't something that they needed to know. But it felt better to get the weight off his chest of at least one secret.

M. M. M. M. M... M.

Sokka asks first, because of course he does. Sokka can't not ask.

Sure, he doesn't spring the question on Zuko within the first five minutes. Sure, he waits a respectable(ish) amount of time. But Sokka's spirits-damned curiosity always gets the better of him, which is why—about three nights after Zuko's joined Team Avatar—he jabs his chopsticks in Zuko's general direction and says, "So, how'd you get that thing? Was it, like, a bad sneeze, or…?"

Zuko nearly drops his bowl of rice and vegetables. "Uh…"

"Wait," Toph says. "What thing?"

Everyone just blinks at her, and she doesn't react at all. It's too easy to forget that Toph can't actually see anything. Even Zuko forgets, and considering that he's pretty much half-blind, he really ought to remember.

"I've got a scar on my face," he says finally, and his voice is surprisingly level considering that he usually blows up when people so much as look at the scar wrong. Uncle would be proud.

Toph shrugs. "Oh, yeah, that. I know about that. I thought you had something interesting."

It's the first time someone has called Zuko's scar boring. It's a lot of things, but boring? That's a pretty fucking rude thing to say. Nothing about his scar or the story behind it is boring.

Anger flickers in Zuko's stomach. He takes a deep breath and ignores it.

"Wait," Aang says. "How did you know?"

Toph turns her empty eyes in Zuko's general direction, almost like she can see him. For some reason, Zuko's heart starts hammering like a panicked rabiroo's. He tries to tell himself that everyone already knows, that there's no way they can't have heard something, that there's no way that Toph will say anything that the others haven't heard or guessed—

(But what if she says it in a mean way? He know he'll have to shut up and take it, knows that he deserves all their scorn and more, but sweet Agni he doesn't think he'll be able to keep the hurt off his face—)

"You guys mentioned it when you were talking about him," Toph finally says. She shrugs again, dismissing the very idea that she might not know about the scar. "Remember? Angry, ponytail, big ugly scar?"

Everyone winces slightly. They're all staring at Zuko now, clearly waiting for him to elaborate and tell them why he was angry, why he had that awful phoenix tail haircut, why there's a big ugly scar on his face. This is a test. They know what happened to him; they're waiting to see if he'll be honest.

He wants to be honest. He should be honest. Uncle would want him to be honest.

But he just can't do it.

Zuko peels his tongue off the roof of his mouth and mutters, "Training accident."

Miraculously, no one calls him out on the lie, and the conversation moves on.

Chapter 2

Even after they get a firebending masterclass from honest-to-Agni dragons, Zuko starts with the basics. He sits Aang down at the edge of the Western Air Temple before dawn and makes him wait to feel the fire rise inside him as the sun creeps over the horizon. He sets the end of a twig on fire—not a candle, but it does the trick—and makes Aang breathe in time with the flame. And—most awkwardly, but most importantly—he makes Aang talk about firebending. About why it scares him, why it worries him. About what he's learned from his old friend Kuzon, from Fire Nation soldiers, from Jeong Jeong (because of course Aang has trained under Jeong Jeong, even if it was only for a few disastrous days—why did Zuko expect the Avatar to have learned from anyone less brilliant?).

(Not for the first time, Zuko thinks that he's a pretty shitty excuse for a firebending teacher. The Avatar should be learning from a real master, and Zuko's always been a mediocre bender at best. But, he reasons, a mediocre teacher is better than no teacher at all, and right now, he's Aang's only option.)

Mostly, Zuko just tries to teach the way Uncle would. Because Uncle would know exactly how to teach the Avatar. He would know just what to say to make Aang's fear of fire disappear like smoke on a breezy day.

Aang hasn't been truly afraid of fire since they visited the Sun Warriors, but he's still hesitant. It's frustrating. The kid is talented. He could be punching out blue fire by the end of the year, if he wanted to. But he's still producing weak yellow fire blasts that never go too far or get too wild.

"It's just," he tells Zuko, when Zuko finally asks him why he's holding back, "I hate feeling like I'm not in control of my bending. Once the fire's out there, I don't know if I can keep it from destroying things."

"You can bend three other elements," Zuko says, exasperated. "And there's no one else around, and we're in a stone courtyard that hasn't been used in a hundred years. Who is it going to hurt?"

Aang looks immensely guilty and gives Zuko the big guppy-puppy eyes. "It's just," he says again, "you've got that big scar from that training accident—"

"That's not going to happen to you." Zuko's heartbeat skyrockets at the thought, because, shit, Aang's about thirteen, isn't he? Zuko doesn't know when his birthday is, doesn't actually know how old Aang is, but he does know this: Aang's about thirteen, and he's going to be facing the Fire Lord. Just like Zuko did. And if Zuko doesn't get his shit together and turn Aang into a real firebender, then Aang's fight against Ozai will go even worse than Zuko's did.

Impossible as that might seem.

"Hey." Zuko sets his hands on Aang's shoulders and shakes him gently. "Look at me."

Aang looks, and he looks miserable. No, worse than that—he looks defeated. Like he's resigned himself to a fate that he hates.

Zuko shakes him again, more roughly. "What happened to me will never happen to you." Zuko doesn't believe in making promises that he can't keep, but he knows in his bones that he would rather throw himself on his own swords than let Aang be denied honourable surrender in an Agni Kai.

(It was cruel and it was wrong.)

"I've seen your arms," Aang says sadly.

Zuko looks, more on instinct than anything. He knows what Aang is talking about. "Those weren't accidental."

"I know." Aang frowns and then, quick as lightning (no, not lightning, he's too gentle to be lightning), grabs Zuko's hand and flips it to inspect his wrist. There's a hard light in his eyes as he looks over the telltale pink-white circles dotting the inside of Zuko's arm. "This wasn't you. The prints are too big. Somebody grabbed you and burned you. On purpose."

"My father did that." Spirits, Zuko hates talking about his father. If it were anyone else, he would shut the conversation down as fast as possible. But Aang is going to have to fight the Fire Lord, and right now, to him, the Fire Lord is just some shadowy abstraction of evil. Some warmonger far away on a throne whom Aang's never met, never spoken to, never even seen.

But Aang's not going to be fighting a shadowy abstraction. He's going to be fighting a flesh-and-blood man. And he deserves—he needs—to know what that man is like. Because if Aang gives Ozai even the tiniest sliver of mercy, Ozai will take it and twist it into a weapon.

Zuko knows he should tell Aang about his eye, his father, the Agni Kai, all of it. Not because he wants Aang to fight his battles for him—he really, really doesn't, that wouldn't be right or fair—but because it's his responsibility to do whatever he can to impress upon Aang that Fire Lord Ozai is a monster. Aang says that all life is sacred, but for the sake of the world, he's going to have to make an exception.

But he can't bring himself to do it. Not yet.

Aang's fingertips brush over the burn marks. They've faded since Zuko left the Fire Nation; what were once clear prints are now scattered collections of circles and lines, the remnants of fingertips and broad palms. "Why would he do that?"

"He's a horrible person." There are more burns on Zuko's body that he hopes Aang doesn't know about, ones across his shoulders and back, places where Ozai and Azula casually seared him just because they could.

(That was also cruel. That was also wrong.)

"I don't want to lose control and hurt you," Aang says frankly. "Or anyone else."

"You won't," Zuko replies, equally frank. "You need control to deal out injuries like these."

"But what if—"

"Fire needs a master," Zuko snaps, "or else it will run away from you. And people will get hurt. What you're doing right now—messing around with these tiny little flames, not even trying to learn real control—that's what's really dangerous. You're not going to learn anything by hiding in your comfort zone."

He doesn't miss the way Aang flinches at his outburst, and he can't stop the guilt from exploding in his stomach. He promised himself he wouldn't be like the firebending teachers at the palace. That he wouldn't get mad at a kid for being nervous or slow to learn.

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose, hard, and sighs. He wishes Uncle were here. Uncle would know what to do. "Okay. You know that thing you do with Katara, where you pass the water back and forth?"

"Yeah?"

"We're gonna do that." Zuko backs up a few more feet and settles into his stance. "Every time it comes to you, make it bigger. I'll be right here, helping to control it. But you've got to move past your fear."

Aang groans, but he also conjures up a little yellow flame and tosses it to Zuko. He's a good student who wants to improve, and he's also just a good kid who genuinely wants to please the people around him. He trusts Zuko to be a good teacher. He's willing to do scary things if he thinks it'll help others. He's thoughtful. Gentle. Smart.

Ozai's going to eat him alive.

Chapter 3

After the Boiling Rock, Zuko is a complete wreck. He's never been happier that Fire Nation airships are powered by firebending, because he's at the point where the only thing between him and a nervous breakdown is a stupid amount of exercise.

(He just broke in and out of the Boiling Rock. Agni drunk on a moonless midnight, this has got to be the dumbest thing he's ever done. Uncle's gonna kill him when he finds out. Well, Uncle might kill him no matter what—)

(Focus.)

Zuko steps back. Wipes the sweat off his face. Jumps up and down a little to loosen his muscles. He's trying to learn to bend like Aang and Katara, trying to stay quick and fluid when he bends. Katara still hates him, but that doesn't mean that Zuko can't learn from her.

He sighs and settles back into his stance. The engines are still running hot, so Zuko just has to keep them that way. It's a lot for one bender to handle. Too much, if he's honest. They're flying lower than he'd like—but as long as they don't nose-dive into the sea, things will be okay.

(Well, they'll be okay for him. But what about Mai? What the actual fuck was she thinking?? Don't get him wrong, Zuko's grateful that she saved him, but—)

(Focus.)

Zuko punches fire into an engine. He's alone in the belly of the ship, walking up and down a line of furnaces, making sure each one is roaring nicely. It's dim and sweltering, just like the lower levels of the prison.

(Don't think about that, don't think about what would have happened if Mai hadn't—don't think about Mai—don't—)

"Are you okay?"

Zuko trips over his own feet. His fire blast goes sideways; only half of it makes it into the engine.

Chit Sang scoffs. "Nice going."

"I'm fine." Zuko rights himself and swivels around to face Chit Sang and Hakoda. He doesn't quite have time to school his expression as he does.

Chit Sang is hanging a few steps back, looming. He gives Zuko the barest nod.

Hakoda is the complete opposite; he steps forward, chin lifted, eyes bright and calculating. "I wanted to introduce myself properly. We didn't really get a chance to meet while escaping. I'm Hakoda. Sokka and Katara's father."

"I know," Zuko says stupidly, and then winces because wow, that sounded really rude.

Hakoda folds his arms and looks Zuko over. "So. You're the…Fire Prince."

"Yes." Zuko knows he doesn't look like it. He's dirty and sweaty and tired, he hasn't eaten well in days, and he's still wearing his scratchy prison clothes. He's about as far from princely-looking as you can get. "I mean…I was. I'm not exactly—"

"Yep," Chit Sang interrupts casually, as though they're just talking about the weather, "you're looking at the future Fire Lord."

"Oh, no," Zuko says automatically. "That's my uncle." Iroh never formally abdicated; he just didn't stop Ozai from scrambling up onto the throne the minute Azulon died. But if you want to get technical about it, the current Fire Lord is an impostor. Always has been.

Chit Sang checks the nearest engine. He looks mighty unimpressed, but then, he always looks like that. "This kid's the only royal worth giving a damn about. I know he doesn't look like much—"

"Hey!"

"—but trust me. I know what I'm talking about." Chit Sang doesn't turn away from the fire, but the big man's eyes slide to their corners, suddenly sharp. Wickedly sharp. "And so does the 41st."

And that's when Zuko's whole body goes freezing cold. His brain sputters and dies. Shit. Shitshitshitfuckingshit. "You…know about the 41st?"

"What do you think I was in for?" He says it like it's an answer. It's really not. Zuko doesn't know the whole story of the 41st. He's heard rumours that some villages revolted after the 41st was massacred; but he's never dared to hope that those rumours might be true.

"I'm sorry," Zuko finally croaks. It's a tiny apology, so tiny that it can't even begin to make up for his failure. Zuko's never been able to figure out what, exactly, he could have done to stop the 41st from being massacred—hell, he's pretty sure his father would have personally murdered every soldier in that whole division if he thought it would upset Zuko—but he's dead certain that he should have done more. Zuko finds a way to succeed despite the overwhelming odds. That's his thing. That's just what he does. But even he couldn't do anything for the 41st.

He can barely catch Chit Sang's words over the roar of the engines. "Don't be. Just because things didn't turn out perfectly doesn't mean you were wrong to try."

Well. Zuko can't really argue with that, can he?

Hakoda looks at Zuko, eyebrow raised in mild confusion. (He looks just like Sokka. Or maybe Sokka looks like him?)

(Focus.)

Chit Sang shuts the engine with a quiet laugh. "Don't worry about it, Chief. Just some Fire Nation business. Point is, when this kid takes the throne, it'll be because he deserves it." He claps Zuko on the shoulder, just once, and ambles off to attend to one of the weaker engines at the other end of the airship.

"Well," Hakoda finally mumbles, "that was cryptic." He looks Zuko over again, no doubt scanning for signs of Zuko's inherent greatness.

Zuko feels Hakoda's eyes trace over his scar. There's pity in Hakoda's gaze, but worse, there's recognition. It's a look that Zuko knows all too well. He only ever gets it from soldiers and sailors. Civilians look at his scar and wince away, thinking that it was an accident; soldiers and sailors look at it and understand that it can't be anything but purposeful. Zuko can see the pieces coming together in his head: Old scar. Deep burn. The sort of thing you have to be held down for. Someone wanted this to hurt. Not many people could hurt the crown prince of the Fire Nation like that without some serious consequences. Who could even get close enough to do that in the first place? That's a pretty short fucking list—

Hakoda's clear eyes shutter, and Zuko braces himself. But Hakoda doesn't say anything. He just silently holds out his right hand.

Zuko stares. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do here. This is either a Water Tribe thing, or a dad thing, or a fighting thing, and Zuko's only equipped to handle one of those situations. He's just staring, like an idiot.

Miraculously, Hakoda doesn't get mad about it. "Stick your hand out."

Every fibre of Zuko's being screams that he should not do that because that is not safe. "Uh…why?"

"Just do it."

Don't be disrespectful, a voice in his head tells him gently. It sounds an awful lot like Uncle. This man is your friends' father. You have no reason to fear him.

Zuko sticks out his hand and waits for the attack. He hates that he's waiting for it. He can't seem to stop.

Hakoda grips his forearm with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Prince Zuko. I've heard a lot about you."

Zuko winces. "Uh, yeah. Sorry about that."

"Let me clarify. I've heard a lot about you in the past hour." Hakoda steps back and jabs a thumb over his shoulder. "My son says that you're crazier than a polar bear dog with midnight sun madness, and that that's the reason we're all alive and on this airship."

Zuko has no idea what midnight sun madness is, but it sounds like something Sokka would say. Too many words and not enough sense.

"He also said," Hakoda continues, as though he hasn't insulted, complimented, and confused Zuko in a single breath, "that you were in the cooler just the other day. I'm not a firebender, but it seems to me that a machine like that will mess a man up. You should take a break."

"I'm fine," Zuko says, and for once he's not lying. He genuinely is okay, thanks to his fire breath. Thanks to Uncle's lessons. Thanks to Uncle.

(Focus.)

From further down the engine room, Chit Sang levels him with a look. "I can keep this bucket flying, Your Highness." He somehow manages to say it in a way that's both vaguely scornful and not actually insulting. "You should turn your attention to more important things. Like the komodo sausages up in the mess."

Now that catches Zuko's attention. He hasn't had Fire Nation food in weeks. (Fire Nation prison food doesn't count.) Katara doesn't trust him to cook—she's still openly convinced that he's going to poison them all, which…isn't great, but okay, Zuko's working on it—which means that he's been eating nothing but Water Tribe food for weeks. And there's nothing wrong with Water Tribe food, or with Katara's cooking, but Zuko's at the point where he would trade his left arm for one decently spicy pepper.

Hakoda sees the interest in Zuko's eyes and grins. "Go on up, son, before Sokka eats the entire crate."

That's all the prompting Zuko needs. He's off like a shot, too excited at the prospect of a good meal to think about anything else.

It isn't until he's halfway up the stairs that he realises that Hakoda called him son. Which is…actually, it's okay. Hakoda strikes Zuko as the sort of guy who just calls people son when he likes them. Maybe it's a little weird to be called son by his friends' dad, but it's no weirder than being called Sifu Hotman by a hundred-year-old twelve-year-old who is also technically his great-grandfather.

Anyways, Hakoda isn't wrong. Zuko may not be Hakoda's son, but he is someone's son.

He's Iroh's son.

Chapter 4

After Azula (fucking Azula, why does she have to ruin everything, why is she so dead-set on making Zuko's life miserable when he's never done anything to her) chases them out of the Western Air Temple, they find themselves stuck in Appa's saddle for a while. It's a long flight to Ember Island—a couple days, at least.

Zuko tries to be patient, but patience has never been his strong suit. It helps that the others seem to have a routine that they fall into on these long-haul flights. After a few hours, Katara takes the reins so that Aang can fly alongside Appa and Momo. Toph clings to Sokka's arm and announces that she's going to take a nap because, "Once you've seen one cloud, you've seen 'em all."

"But you've never seen a cloud," Sokka points, and then Toph bends her meteor bracelet into a the shape of a hand and slaps him with it before curling into his side and conking out.

Sokka flops back and immediately starts pointing out funny-shaped clouds. Suki and Zuko exchange a look that clearly says,Well, I guess cloud-watching is better than nothing.

An hour later, they're still at it. Zuko can't remember the last time he spent this much time doing something this lazy. He almost wants to feel anxious about it, but...well, there's just no point in that, is there? It's not like he can do anything until they land. He might as well try to figure out which of the clouds hovering above them is supposed to look like a komodo-rhino.

"It's rightthere," Sokka emphasises. Zuko feels him shift, knows that he's raising his arm, but can't see anything more than a smudge of darkness swipe through the sky.

"If you say so, Captain Boomerang," Suki laughs.

Sokka huffs. "Okay, well, what do you see?"

"A pretty bird," she replies serenely.

Zuko squints. None of the clouds look remotely like birds. "Which one is it?"

"The real one?"

"I…" Zuko scans the sky carefully. One or twice, he thinks he sees something; but his depth perception's not great, and what he thinks could be a far-off bird could just as easily be a dark bit of cloud or old smoke from a Fire Nation airship. "Sorry. I don't see it."

"Really?" Sokka props himself up on his elbows, curious and concerned. "You can't see that thing?"

"I said I'm sorry," Zuko bristles.

A few weeks ago, Sokka would have jumped back from Zuko's outburst; now, he just spreads his hands in anI surrendergesture.

"Okay, okay. Sorry."

"Sorry," Zuko says again, more quietly. He gives his heart a moment to settle back down (don't freak out, don't freak out, you're not in trouble, he's not making fun of you) and, after a few deep breaths, admits, "My depth perception's not that great."

"Yeah, we know," Suki quips.

Zuko jerks up onto his elbows and stares at them. "You do?"

"Uh…yeah." Sokka frowns, but he doesn't look angry, just puzzled and kind of concerned. "That eye barely opens, buddy. We kinda figured it didn't work so well."

"Yeah." It's the understatement of the year. "Not so well."

Sokka hesitates for a long, long time. "Must have been some training accident."

"Sokka!" Suki punches him on the arm, hard.

"It's okay," Zuko mutters, and the weird thing is, he means it. He knows that Sokka knows that it wasn't a training accident. Sokka's notstupid. He's seen Zuko rearrange the embers in a dying campfire with his bare hands. He knows that firebenders don't burn easily. And anyways, Sokka's travelled around the whole world, so there's no way he hasn't heard about what the Fire Lord did.

But he's still respectful, still gives Zuko space, still gently hints that he knows the truth while never pushing Zuko to talk about it. And Zuko finds that he doesn't mind that Sokka knows the truth, even if Sokka didn't learn the truth on Zuko's terms.

Chapter 5

Returning to Ember Island is weird and kind of depressing. Katara just wants to be alone for a while, so the gang leaves her to parse through her thoughts while the rest of them tear through the royal holiday home. It's not every day you get to snoop through the Fire Lord's stuff.

Zuko should not have let the others run around unsupervised. They're too nosy for their own good, and Agni help him, they've found baby pictures.

Even Toph's losing it, and Toph can't even see. She's shrieking with laughter out in the garden as Sokka describes the family portraits that he managed to get his grabby little hands on.

"—Azula's face is basically a circle," he's explaining. "And Tui and La, there isn't a hint of crazy in her eyes. And Zuko is—he's gotta be, like, four? Five? His hair is in this tiny little ponytail that's pretty much just a puffball. And their mom is—wow, really pretty, actually. I mean, I'm guessing that's the Fire Lady 'cause of the crown—aww, look at this one, look how big and sad Zuko's eyes are, he looks like a kicked guppy-puppy…"

There's a lot of cooing from Suki and Aang. Zuko doesn't remember that portrait being painted, and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to think about what he and Azula could have been. Doesn't want to wonder if his mom is alive or dead. Doesn't want to think about why he looked so sad in that picture.

He just snorts some more steam into his dishwater and focuses on washing up. They don't actually need clean dishes, but Zuko needs something to distract himself from the fact that they're in one of his family's homes. The kitchen looks like it's been abandoned. The cupboards are full of neatly-stacked pots and bone china dishes and spices that haven't seen daylight in over ten years. It's like the family who had once lived here just up and vanished one day.

Well, that's pretty much what happened, Zuko thinks dully as he presses a hot palm to a plate. It dries in an instant. A little trick he picked up at Pao's, back when sneaky firebending late at night was all he could get away with. He has to be careful with it, though—unlike Pao's dishes, these are fancy Fire Royalty ones that will break if they get too hot.

Another shout of laughter bursts through the open kitchen window as Sokka produces another portrait. Agni, how many of those things did Zuko forget to burn? "And here we have…more baby Zuko!" Sokka waves the portrait around and then pauses. "No, wait, that's some other kid."

"No, that's Zuko," Toph says.

As usual, it takes Sokka a minute to figure out that she's joking. The others have a good laugh at his expense, and then they huddle around the picture. It's probably of Lu Ten.

Zuko misses Lu Ten. Misses Uncle. Misses what his family could have been.

Sokka shuffles the portraits around. The next bit of conversation is hard to hear over the swishing of water and clinking of dishes, but if Zuko tips his head just right, he can catch Suki murmuring, "Kind of weird to see him without the scar, huh?"

"Yeah," Sokka says. Is it Zuko's imagination, or does he sound…kind of sad? "Makes you wonder when he got it."

Zuko breaks a teacup without meaning to, cuts his hand, and starts cursing. It's enough to grab the others' attention. When they come over to see what the fuss is about (and, in Toph's case, congratulate Zuko on calling a broken cup a shit dog-fucking bitch of a motherfucker), they leave the portraits behind.

Which is good, because Zuko's pretty sure he couldn't handle thinking about what he might have looked like, what he might have been like, if his father hadn't burned and banished him.

Chapter 6

The biggest problem with Zuko's scar isn't that it's messed up his skin or his senses. It's not that his depth perception is screwed, or that his vision is smudgy, or that his hearing is pretty much fucked. He's learned to more or less accept those things. He can work around them.

What he can't work around is that there's pretty much no way to hide the scar. The incredibly big, incredibly distinctive scar that the incredibly (in)famous traitorous crown prince of the Fire Nation got from his even more incredibly (in)famous father.

Zuko can take steps to hide it. He wears his hair long, lets it flop over the left side of his face (it's not like he uses his left eye much, anyways). At night, he can justify throwing his hood up and going into town with his friends. But hanging out in the town square during the day is out of the question. It's the height of summer, and people are going to wonder why someone would wear a hooded robe in the midday heat.

So Zuko pretty much sticks close to "home," if the Fire Lord's holiday house can ever be called that again, and figures that he'll just stay there until it's time for Aang to fight the Fire Lord. There's pretty much fuck-all he can do to hide the scar, and he's not about to jeopardise the team's safety for a few hours of fun, so. That's that.

Or at least, that's what he thought, until one morning when Suki busts into his room. "Are you ready to get out of this joint?"

"And go where?" Zuko asks dryly.

"To the market. With us."

Zuko just raises his remaining eyebrow and waits for the copper coin to drop. "You mean the market that's covered in wanted posters of my face?" They had found the posters on their first night on Ember Island. Zuko, apparently, is wanted alive or dead by the Fire Lord. The others were horrified.

(Zuko hasn't told them that if it comes to it, he'd prefer to be dead. Dead is bad, but alive gets him handed over to Azula.)

"Your face, yeah," Suki confirms, and holds up a little red bag. Something inside it clinks softly. "But what if I told you that I could give you a different face for a few hours?"

"Please stop being cryptic, it's freaking me out."

Suki snorts. "Whatever, Crown Prince Grumpy Guts." She tips the bag out on the bed with a flourish.

Huh. It's…makeup. Zuko recognises the little brushes and pots; they look similar to what Mai uses to paint those sharp lines onto her eyelids, albeit with a lot less gilding on the packaging. Suki's gotten her hands on several jars of creams and powders—some very pale, some very dark. They're the colour of his skin and hair, and something inside Zuko lurches when he realises that she must have planned this out. He's not sure if it's trepidation or gratitude. Maybe it's both.

Suki seems to read his jumbled emotions perfectly, because she puts a gentle hand on his arm. "Hey. You don't have to. I understand if you don't want anyone touching it." The word hangs heavy in the air between them as her eyes trace over it, taking in every inch of angry flesh. "I just thought—you're probably sick of hiding out in the house when the rest of us can run around the island all we want. And, not to brag, but I'm almost as good with a makeup brush as I am with a sword."

Zuko considers this for a moment. He's seen how good she is with a sword. And he is pretty sick of hiding, even if it is in a spacious royal residence. "Yeah, okay. Let's try it."

Suki is a fucking genius. That's all there is to it. She fusses with her brushes and creams and powders for the better part of an hour, and when she finally steps away, Zuko almost looks normal again. She's completely covered up the scar, and she's done some kind of magic trick that makes his left eye look a little bigger, a little more like his right one. She's even painted on a new eyebrow. He looks…good. Not perfect, but really, really good.

The others ooh and aah as Suki twirls her brushes smugly, and then they all walk to the Ember Island market together. The whole experience feels unreal. It's been years since Zuko was able to walk down the street and not be stared at. In fact, he's not sure he's ever been able to do that. Before his banishment, he was a prince, and princes don't exactly stroll through the market with their friends. They get carried from one important place to the next in palanquins, carefully sheltered from common eyes.

But Zuko's basically a commoner now, and he actually really likes it. Being a refugee sucked, but just living like your average, run-of-the-mill Fire Nation citizen is pretty okay. They're wandering through the market towards the town square, and Zuko's carrying a basket of slightly overripe fruit that they got for cheap, and Sokka's quietly fistfighting with Toph in a way that Zuko's learned is not cause for concern, and it's nice. It's peaceful and only a little weird and just really nice.

"So…?" Suki falls into step beside him, hands clasped behind her back. "How're you liking the face?"

Zuko doesn't even try to hide his enthusiasm. "It's great," he blurts. He knows he shouldn't touch the makeup, but he can't help brushing his cheek with his fingertips, just lightly, just once. His skin almost feels soft. "Did you see that fruit merchant's face when I took the basket? He barely looked at me! And not like he was trying not to look," he adds hastily. "It was like he didn't care what I looked like at all."

He had forgotten what it was like to be so boring. He could get used to this.

Suki beams at him. There's just a hint of sadness in her eyes, and Zuko's willing to put that down to empathy. "Well, anytime you want the royal treatment, you know where to find me."

Neither of them misses the way Zuko flinches.

"Are you okay?"

Zuko responds way too quickly. "I'm fine! Everything's fine. Everything's better than fine, it's great, you're great—"

"Well, I won't argue with that." Suki looks like she wants to say more, but that's the point when cheering erupts from down the street. Aang, of course, shoots off to see what's going on; and the rest of them don't have much choice but to follow.

They walk out of the narrow market street and into the town square, where a cheerful crowd has gathered around a small, makeshift stage. Twirling across it are two of the Ember Island Players: A petite woman dressed as Aang, and a scowling man as Zuko.

"Oh, great," Katara mutters, as "Zuko" yells about honour and throws a fistful of red ribbons at a laughing "Aang." "Those morons again."

Toph cackles like a damned maniac. Zuko groans. The Ember Island Players are hot garbage; he's known this since he was a kid. But The Boy in the Iceberg is truly the worst thing they've ever done. It's a bad play put on by a bad acting troupe, and the fact that Zuko has to watch any of it more than once proves that there's no justice in life.

He doesn't remember this fight scene from the play; either it's something new they made up for this publicity stunt, or the play was just so bad that his brain has erased all memory of it.

Everything about the scene is beyond awful, but Zuko can't stop staring. "Zuko's" papier-mâché scar looks even stupider up close. Why is it on the right? There are wanted posters of Zuko's face hanging on a notice board just a few yards away. Who the fuck was in charge of the costumes? Did they honestly not know, or do they just not care? Or is this a deliberate choice, a way of disrespecting what Zuko went through?

A smiling man holding a bunch of tickets pops up in front of Zuko. "Come see The Boy in the Iceberg! Showings every night this week!"

"Um…no?" Zuko ducks away on instinct, turning the right side of his face to the man. The man pouts, shrugs, and moves on.

Zuko blinks for a moment, amazed that that worked. "Huh."

"What's the matter?" Sokka asks dryly. "You don't want to sit through another two hours of ribbon dancing?"

"That guy didn't recognise me," Zuko says quietly. He looks from the ticket vendor to the actor on stage and back. Yeah, the guy playing "Zuko" is pretty bad, but he's still got that big papier-mâché scar. And yeah, Zuko's makeup is pretty good, but when you get up close, you can still see that the left side of his face is pretty fucked up.

"That's 'cause Suki's a genius." Sokka's chest puffs up. It's kind of endearing, how proud he is of his girlfriend. Suki could have done the worst job in the world, and Sokka would still be beyond proud of her. "And anyways, why would he recognise you? He probably thinks you look like that guy." He jabs a thumb at the stage, where "Aang" and "Zuko" are suddenly both cowering from some unknown danger.

Zuko watches as a heavily made-up actress climbs onto the stage, announces that she is Princess Azula, and starts hurling pale blue ribbons everywhere. A cheer swells from the crowd as she chases the other two actors around. "Zuko" loses his footing, and the papier-mâché scar falls off his head and rolls away. He scrambles to catch it.

And it all suddenly seems so unfair—unfair that this third-rate actor can slap some red paper on his face for a few hours and then take it off again, unfair that some stage hand can decide that it doesn't actually matter which side the scar is on, unfair that some hack playwright can reduce every inch of Zuko's suffering down to a few campy lines about honour, unfair that a crowd of Fire Nation citizens can cheer at the thought of Azula going on the warpath and killing her brother, unfair that a ticket vendor can look Zuko dead in the eye and not even realise that he's staring Fire Lord Ozai's cruelty right in the face.

Zuko has a sudden, wild urge to scrub the makeup off and get on the stage. For the first time in his life, he wants strangers to stare. He wants them to gasp and recoil in horror. He wants little kids to burst into tears when he starts yelling.

He just wants the Fire Nation to square up to the fact that they're being led by a monster.

As if reading his thoughts, Sokka winces. "Hey, you wanna get out of here?"

Zuko really, really does.

He doesn't disguise the scar again, and Suki doesn't offer.

Chapter 7

When Zuko finds himself in front of Uncle's tent outside Ba Sing Se, all his nerve leaves him. And he's never been all that brave to begin with, just stupid and stubborn enough to keep going even when he's scared shitless. But even stupid and stubborn don't seem to be enough right now.

By the time Katara plops down next him and asks if he's alright, he's on the verge of collapsing into nothing. He wants to. He blurts out everything that's on his mind and a part of him hopes that she'll bloodbend him into Uncle's tent. The only way he's going to be able to stand up and walk in there is if he's forced to.

"Zuko…" Katara's calm, sympathetic. How can she be so calm and sympathetic at a time like this? Doesn't she understand what he's up against? Why he's got every reason to panic and run away? "You're sorry for what you did, right?"

"More sorry than I've been for anything in my life." And, spirits, that's a long list of things. Zuko's only been out in the world for three years, but he's fucked up a lifetime's worth of things, from burning down Kyoshi Island to stealing Song's ostrich-horse to threatening Sokka and Katara's grandmother (did he really do that? Did he really sink so far into his own blind desperation that he threatened someone's grandma? He needs so much help).

All of those mistakes are nothing compared to what he did to Uncle.

Katara shrugs lightly, as though everything is so simple. "Then he'll forgive you. He will."

Zuko doesn't know whether to scream or laugh. The noise that he makes is sort of both. "Yeah, that's what I thought last time."

"Last time?" Katara's brow creases. "What happened the last time you hurt your uncle?"

"I'm obviously not talking about my uncle!" Zuko glares at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She's on his left; she can see the scar, even with his hair flopping over his face. She had told him once that when she looked at him, the scar was all she could see.

(Okay, so her exact words had been, When I pictured the face of the enemy, it was your face. But that's basically the same thing. And who could blame her? Up until recently, the scar was all Zuko could see, too.)

"Zuko?" Katara's still looking at him like she has no idea what he's talking about.

"The scar?" Zuko snatches up a fistful of his own hair so that there's nothing blocking the damage. Even at night, it's impossible to ignore. "My father?"

She blinks slowly, grasping for something that she can't quite reach. "Your father?" she echoes dimly. "What do you mean, your father?"

Zuko stares at her. Does she really not know? He thought everyone knew. Certainly, everyone in the Fire Nation knows. Anyone who's anyone in the Fire Nation watched it happen. They received invitations and probably went for tea and sweet cakes afterwards. And in the Earth Kingdom, it's half-grim truth, half-sick joke. Zuko can remember boiling with rage as late-night customers in Pao's tea shop gossiped about what the Fire Lord had done to his own son. The rumours range from gave him the royal treatment to taught the brat a lesson to far, far worse.

The rumours always make him out to have been older—sixteen, eighteen, sometimes even twenty-two. Definitely not a kid. And they usually try to justify what happened, at least a little. But as far as Zuko knows, he never challenged his father for the throne and then chickened out, or selfishly demanded command of the army when he clearly wasn't ready to lead. He just tried to stop a bit of cruelty and it blew up in his face. Or, well. Burned half his face off. Same difference.

But Katara clearly hasn't heard the rumours, or the truth, because genuine heartbreak is seeping across her face. "Zuko—"

"Let's just say my family isn't the forgiving type." Zuko lets his hair fall and heaves a sigh. He meant it when he told Ozai that he was going to beg for Uncle's forgiveness. He's not ashamed at the thought of throwing himself at the man's feet. He's probably going to cry, and he's absolutely okay with that.

He's just not looking forward to what's going to come after. Ozai burned half his face off for talking out of turn; Uncle would be well within his rights to do something way, way worse. Maybe if Zuko's lucky, the half of his face that isn't burnt will still be that way by morning. If he walks away from this with one good eye and one good ear, that'll be nice.

No, scratch that—it'll be a fucking miracle.

Katara's hand falls on his wrist, light but firm. There's real power in her grip. "I'm here for you. We all are." She's trying to be reassuring, but her mouth is in a tremulous line, and he can tell that a part of her just wants to cry because her emotions are too big to be contained in one human body. Katara feels so much, all the time, and Zuko's both baffled and grateful that one of those things is sympathy for him. He never thought he'd be lucky enough to have a friend care for him this much.

He takes a deep breath. "Stay close?" He wants it to be a statement, but it comes out like a question, and he's too nervous to hate how scared he sounds. Fuck it, he's scared. He's scared. And he has every reason to be.

She nods, just once, but Zuko knows what she means: Say the word, and we'll all come running. Two warriors, two master benders, and the spirits-damned Avatar all have your back.

He knows he doesn't deserve their protection, not after what he did to Uncle, but—selfishly—he's glad he's got it.

Zuko stands, takes another deep breath, and walks inside Uncle Iroh's tent.

Chapter 8

Uncle forgives him, immediately, no strings attached.

It's a fucking miracle.

Zuko jumps in front of lightning. It catches him mid-air and burns him from the inside out until he hits the ground. Somehow, Katara drags him back from the edge of death.

It's a fucking miracle.

Aang defeats Ozai without killing him, and the airship fleet is stopped, and Uncle helps to liberate Ba Sing Se, and just like that, the war is over.

Zuko wonders just how many miracles a person is allowed to experience in a lifetime. He's probably already pushing his luck, but he doesn't care.

Chapter 9

Zuko's coronation is scheduled for a few days after Sozin's Comet ends. There's no time to put together a proper ceremony, but the Fire Sages and the palace staff are slapping together whatever they can. The Fire Nation needs an official leader, and Zuko's the only member of the royal family who hasn't abdicated, vanished, gone insane, or gotten their ass kicked by a literal child.

Everything is a hot mess.

If he's honest, Zuko hasn't thought too much about what life after the war would be like. As a kid, he had assumed that the war would be over when the Fire Nation had conquered the whole world. (He had also assumed that his father loved him, though, so he clearly hadn't known much.) He knows he's been groomed to lead a nation since he was a child, but commanding an entire war-weary nation is pretty different from commanding the crew of the Wani. Helping to restore peace is a job so big that Zuko can barely wrap his head around it.

He's so, so happy that Team Avatar is staying in the palace with him. He hadn't realised how much he didn't want to come back until he woke up in his bedroom and felt that familiar fear settle over him like the world's scratchiest blanket. Having his friends around makes the palace—well, fun. And safe. So safe that Zuko doesn't mind being shoved back into his bed by Suki, Aang, and Toph when he tries to leave his healing session early.

"I've got work to do," he says halfheartedly.

Aang settles lightly on Zuko's shins. He's looking a lot better after passing out for thirty-six hours and eating his weight in egg custard tarts, but the shadows under his eyes suggest that he still hasn't recovered from his battle with Ozai. "Not yet you don't, Crown Prince Hotman."

"That's Fire Lord Hotman to you," Zuko mumbles, but all the same he sighs back into the giant mound of pillows. He's given up trying to stop Aang from using that horribly outdated slang.

Toph, who's apparently decided that the best thing to do is clamp herself around Zuko's left arm like a manacle, snorts. "Not for a couple more days."

"Yeah," Suki chimes in, "show your great-grandfather some respect."

Zuko just groans. He's so annoyed and he's never been happier.

"Stop distracting him," Katara scolds. Zuko hears the eerie humming of water as she infuses it with her weird powers and winces as she presses it to his stomach. It's cool and soothing, but it also draws attention to just how much the lightning wound hurts.

There's a long moment of pleasant silence. Zuko breathes into the pain, lets himself get used to it. Suki settles on the foot of the bed and leans against Sokka, whose leg is still pretty fucked up. He's smiling anyways. Toph shifts against Zuko, and while he can't really see what she's doing, he's willing to bet that she's picking her nose.

That little dirt gremlin is so disgusting, Zuko thinks fondly. He doesn't know what will happen after his coronation, but he hopes that his friends will stay close by. He'll need a lot of help if he wants to get the Fire Nation back on the right path.

Katara huffs and pulls the water away, bending it straight into the bucket at her feet. "It's healing nicely. You should be good to go after a few more days of this." She hesitates as she pulls more clean water from the bowl on the bedside table. "It's probably going to scar really badly, though. Sorry, Zuko."

Even though it's completely inappropriate, Zuko grins. "Eh, what's one more scar from a family member?"

There's a loud splash as the water falls out of Katara's control. It hits everything—the floor, the bed, the pillows, Zuko.

"Hey," he complains, and it's only then that he realises that everyone is staring at him. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

They just blink at him with huge, horrified eyes. They're like a flock of owl-raccoons, speechless and staring. Aang is sitting up very straight and Suki's jaw is already working like she's trying to grind an old piece of seal jerky to dust.

"Buddy," Sokka finally says, very slowly and carefully, "what are you talking about?"

Toph's grip on Zuko's arm is suddenly very tight. He ignores it and—completely baffled, and with only a few shards of dread poking at his stomach—asks, "You know? My eye?"

"What about your eye?" Sokka wants to know. His tone could almost be mistaken for steady, but it's not, it's too low and quiet to be steady. His eyes are quickly narrowing, and they're as cold as the South Pole in winter.

"Wait—do you really not know?" Zuko's first instinct is to shrink away, to deflect until he's sure that no one is angry with him, but he quashes it. You're not in trouble, he reminds himself quietly, even as his heartbeat ticks up just a bit. It was cruel and it was wrong.

"I know." It's so rare to hear Toph speak softly that Zuko almost misses it—or maybe that's just because she's by his bad ear. Her calloused hands scrape across his arm as she pulls it close to her chest, as though he's at risk of falling away from her if she doesn't hold on with everything she's got. "Or at least—I've heard rumours."

"Yeah," Suki spits, "I have too." Her eyes flick across Zuko's face and that apparently tells her all she needs to know, because her upper lip curls in utter disgust. "I should've killed Ozai when I had the chance. Kyoshi wouldn't have let that bastard crawl away."

The pieces click together in Aang's head, and suddenly he's floating to his feet in a little whirl of cool air, too angry to stay still. "Your father did that?" He yells, airbending making the words way too loud.

"Yeah," Zuko mumbles, "when I was thirteen—"

"Thirteen?" Aang bellows. The curtains around Zuko's bed flutter. Behind Aang, Suki sputters, "I heard you were eighteen!"

"How could I be eighteen when I'm only sixteen?" Zuko wants to know.

"I don't know!" She looks furious. Her whole head has gone bright red. If Zuko doesn't do something fast, Ozai's not going to live to see another sunrise. Which would be, you know, great, but also a political nightmare that no one has time for.

He tries to sit up, but Katara shoves him back down. "You aren't going anywhere, mister." She sounds like she's about to cry, or maybe throw up, or maybe commit murder. Or maybe all three.

Agni drunk on a moonless midnight, Zuko thinks, it's not that big a deal. Which isn't to say that it doesn't matter, because of course it matters, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to. Physically or emotionally. Ever since he realised what a piece of shit his dad was, and decided that his father's love wasn't worth the price, the pain has eased. That's all Zuko ever really wanted—to stop hurting so much all the time.

He puts on his most reasonable tone, which is—let's face it—not much different from his most unreasonable tone. "Guys, please. It happened a long time ago. I'm over it."

"No, you're not," Katara says. She's so mad, her breath is freezing. Cold puffs of air bloom around her as she says, "You didn't see your face when you were preparing to apologise to your uncle. You were terrified."

"Well, yeah," Zuko says, because it's so obvious and why is fresh horror welling up in everyone's eyes? "Wouldn't you have been?"

There's a horrible silence that Zuko knows all too well, because he's an expert at throwing a bucket of cold water on a conversation and watching it die from the shock, and it's only broken when something even more horrible happens: Toph starts crying.

Toph.

Starts crying.

And damn it, if that isn't enough to set the rest of the room off. Aang's eyes well up, but he looks more shocked than anything. Suki's so fucking mad that she's crying even as her fists shake at her sides. Sokka's blinking hard. Toph is actually sobbing, which is so weird and terrifying that Zuko really doesn't know how to react, so he just wrestles his arm out of her grasp and pulls her close. That seems to signal to the rest of the group that it's hug time, and before Zuko knows it, he's being gently crushed by weeping teenagers.

"It's fine," he says weakly. It's only just sinking in that they really didn't know what his father had done, which is…to be honest, it's a very weird thought. Zuko honestly thought the whole world knew. Or maybe he's just used to feeling like the whole world knows. Feeling like the whole world thinks he deserved it. "I mean—it's not fine, I know that now—"

"Now?" Toph wails, and since when is this kid so emotional? "You mean you thought what he did to you was okay?"

Zuko considers lying, but figures that that will only make Toph more upset. Time to rip the bandage off. "Yeah. For a long time, I did. I was never a good student, not when it came to important stuff like firebending or holding my tongue. Pretty much all my teachers put me into the ground. I figured my father was just…doing the same thing."

"Wait—" Sokka suddenly looks nauseous. "All your teachers? Even Piandao?"

Zuko thinks back carefully. He remembers being scared shitless of Piandao, but in retrospect, he hadn't needed to be. Piandao had been stern but patient, and his idea of reinforcement just included things like painting and tea making. Useless things that Zuko had actually been pretty good at. "No. Not Piandao."

Katara's voice is deadly quiet. "What about your uncle?"

"No!" Zuko jerks on instinct and regrets it immediately. The lightning wound throbs and he's forced to grit his teeth to keep from screaming in his friends' ears. Katara shoos the others off and presses more magic water to Zuko's stomach.

"You really shouldn't do that," she scolds.

Zuko heaves a few deep breaths. They hurt. "Sorry. But Uncle would never hurt me." He knows that. He's ashamed that he ever thought otherwise. "Uncle and Piandao and Mom—they were really patient with me, even though I was such a lousy student."

The others exchange a look.

"What?" Zuko demands. "I was!"

"Were you actually a lousy student?" Aang asks. "Or did you just have lousy teachers?"

"How should I know?" Zuko flops back. His head is still swimming from his outburst, and he just doesn't have the strength to try and make sense of his fucked-up childhood. He doesn't have any frame of reference for what teachers are supposed to be like. He's never been to school; he's barely ever interacted with people his own age. How is he supposed to know anything about—about anything? "Look, the point is, my dad burned half my face off because he's the worst, and now my sister's burned half my stomach off because she's also the worst. That's it. That's the joke."

Sokka tries to smile, but can't. "Yeah, you might want to leave the jokes to me, pal."

There's a grim silence, and then Aang—merciful kid that he is—pipes up, "Hey, on the bright side, we have matching scars now."

"Yeah," Sokka snarks, "like the world's worst friendship bracelets."

Toph stirs. It's unusual for Zuko to forget that she's in the room; she's not exactly subtle. Her voice is rough when she speaks, but it's got a hint of its usual brashness. "Pretty badass friendship bracelets."

"Thank you, Toph," Zuko grumbles, and pulls her a little closer. There's a weight lifting off his shoulders now that the conversation is over. He hadn't even realised that it was there. Heck, if he'd known how good it would feel to tell his friends the truth, rather than just hoping that they had heard half-accurate rumours…he might have done it a long time ago. Might have even told them the truth at the Western Air Temple.

Yeah, this feels weirdly good. Zuko should open up about this stuff more often.

"Wait," Katara says suddenly. "Toph, you said you heard rumours. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I've got fucking manners. I'm not about to go telling the guy's life story without his permission." Toph snorts very loudly, probably to draw attention away from the fact that she's slipped her hand into Zuko's. Her dirty nails dig into his palm, one, two, three, silently letting him know that she's there for him. "Anyways, the rumours I heard were from the guys at Earth Rumble Six, and I figured most of what they said was wrong. Those dipshits aren't exactly known for their critical thinking skills. I mean, Fire Nation Man thinks the earth is flat."

Zuko's snort of laughter is completely unbecoming of a Fire Lord. "My real question is, how did most of you not know? I thought it was pretty common knowledge that the Fire Lord had banished his son to go find the Avatar."

Aang jolts. Katara sputters. Sokka isn't drinking anything, but he still somehow does a spit-take. "He did what now?"

Well, I guess you get what you wish for. Zuko sighs and settles in. It's going to be a long afternoon.

But it'll be an afternoon well spent.