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“Where are you going?” Zuko heard Hakoda’s voice at his back as he went to go to bed.
They had just gotten back from Boiling Rock. They’d had dinner, he’d served tea and now they were settling down. The group slept together around the fire. It was safety thing, or maybe a comfort thing, he wasn’t sure. The ex-prince still stayed in the room they gave him at the start. He didn’t want to make them uncomfortable. Even if he was starting to get in with the group, he was still a former villain. It was reasonable for them to not trust him to sleep near them. He was the face of the enemy for a long time, they needed to adjust. If he was them, he wouldn’t either.
“Going to bed?”
“I thought the group slept together.” Hakoda looked to where his children were dragging out extra supplies for their new temple guests to sleep with.
“We do!”
“I just sleep separately. It’s for the best, given my... history with the group.” Zuko turned to leave, trying to leave it at that.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. After that prison break, they’ll be looking for us. If by chance they find us and it was night, you’d be vulnerable and we’d be down a fighter. Maybe you should move down here with the rest of us.” The chief said it with such authority that Zuko felt bad he was about to protest.
“I wouldn’t-“
“I think Dad is right, it’s about time you joined the sleep circle.” Sokka said and Zuko looked at him surprised.
“I wouldn’t want to make people uncomfortable and I-“
“You totally just helped save my dad and girlfriend from super jail. You risked your life a few times to do it. All that time in the cooler, staying back to break the brake, fighting your rat-bat crap crazy sister. I think I’d sleep safer with you here.”
“I’ve wanted you here forever! I think it’s dumb you sleep separate. Your as harmless as a baby hamster-bunny.” Toph huffed, looking in the direction of Zuko’s heart beat. Aang echoed his agreement.
“You heard them, go get your stuff.” Katara didn’t say it like a command but it might as well have been.
“Alright.”
After a few minutes Zuko jogged up with his bags. He looked around for a place to settle, quickly feeling awkward before The Duke waved him over to sleep by him. The one thing that had shocked everyone was how quick The Duke took to Zuko. Well, Sokka wasn’t. Because Zuko was a shy dork and loved showing Duke fire tricks. If The Duke asked a few more times he might even start showing him how to sword fight. The Duke was impressionable and if you didn’t know any better, Zuko was kind of awesome. It was weird how good the former prince was with kids, given how terrible he was with everybody else. When asked he said something about customers that confused them immensely.
The firebender plopped down next to the groups youngest and at the pleading look on the kids face, waved his hand and made a small bird of flame soar from the fire, around The Duke, before poofing into smoke. Katara chucked a blanket in his face. Zuko thanked her while Aang put his hands on his hips like a disappointed mom. Zuko settled down, laying on his side to listen to the talk that had started up.
“So, what did you do to them that got you put out? Can’t be that you’re a firebender, they’ve taken me right in.” Chit Sang said, raising a brow, and the whole group turned their heads to see how he would answer them.
“I chased them around the world to capture the Avatar and regain my honor. It was only for a few months, but I did a lot of damage and caused a lot of trouble. And the next time they saw me after that, despite having given up hunting the Avatar, I betrayed them and my uncle, resulting in the brief death of Aang. Though, I knew he was alive- well it was just a strong feeling but- I knew, you know?” Zuko rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. “I’m deeply ashamed of that time in my life and am doing my best to make up for it.” Katara gave an angry snort that made Zuko flinch.
“That would explain it. You are royalty, after all. Though, your journey to find the Avatar was a lot different than your Grandfather and Great Grandfather.” Chit Sang drawled. “Most royalty don’t dedicate themselves to it until they are older, normally a mid-life crisis sort of thing, or so I’ve heard. Though if the rumors I heard are true, you’re different.”
“I was different.” Zuko nodded and the other firebender nodded in understanding. “It was nice seeing the world over the years, though. It’s a shame I wasn’t really paying attention until after the North Pole.”
“What happened after the North Pole, anyway? You totally stopped chasing us, and the two times we saw you in the earth kingdom then you were way different.” Aang asked.
“Well, fighting against Zhao to try and save the moon made us full blown traitors. I was already banished, so if we were caught, we’d be handed over to Azula. We decided to be earth kingdom refugees, it was safer.” Everybody who had met Azula nodded in agreement. “I was stubborn, and I fought it every step of the way, but traveling the kingdom by foot softened me. I ended up finding the Appa. I was going to take him, but Uncle yelled sense into me. I decided that I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I set the bison free and let go of that side of myself, the angry part. I got really sick, woke up after a week a different person. A happy person. Then Azula got to me... and dragged that anger right back when I thought I threw it out.”
“Sounds like your sister.”
“No kidding.”
“Being a refugee most have been hard for a spoiled prince like you.” Katara scoffed, rolling out her sleeping bag.
“Katara!”
“It was.” Zuko gave an awkward chuckle. “I refused to beg like my Uncle, so I did a lot of stealing for a while. Sometimes I’d do work for food or shelter, because there was some honor in that, but I mostly just stole from rich assholes so that me and my uncle could survive... except for the time a blew a bunch of it on a nice tea pot, because I wanted to do something for Uncle. We went hungry a lot.” Another more awkward chuckle. “Working in Ba Sing Se was the big humbler, though. I finally adjusted there. I never had a problem with hard work, I’ve always had to fight and work hard, but doing... peasant work was something that took adjusting.”
“You’re still a lot skinnier now then you were at the pole.”
“I’m working on it...” Zuko had enough talking about him for a long while. He knew this group was all about honesty and trust but he was feeling a bit too exposed. “I’m going to bed now...”
He rolled over, pulling the blanket over his legs and getting out his special scar moisturizing ointment to put on before bed. He was so glad to have fire nation quality scar cream again. The stuff he had bought, or stolen, in the earth kingdom worked but it had nothing on the fire nation stuff. One of the small blessings of his banishment was that even if he was banished, the Wani’s healer still got fire nation medicine. He also thanks the moon and sun spirits that he was always able to have some on the run. If he hadn’t, the scar would have started to crack, bleed, pull on his healthy skin and generally make his scar worse and even more of a hideous deformity. It was especially nesassary with how much the skin on the face moved, he needed to keep it moist. He got a dollop of it on his finger, closed his eyes, and started to methodically rub it in. Starting with by the bridge of his nose like he always did and moving upwards, careful to get it deep in his skin.
“What’s that?” Guess asking for the light to be off him was too much because that was clearly directed at him.
“Scar cream, keeps it from getting worse. It’s already a hideous eye sore, no need to make it worse.”
“I think it looks cool!” The Duke hollered and even with his eyes closed he could see the kids determined smile and eyes shimmer with admiration of something he thought was awesome.
“Thanks, The Duke, it looks nasty, huh?” Remembering how cool other boys in the military affiliated school his father sent him to thought nasty scars were.
“Yeah! Like someone tried to melt your face off!”
“The Duke!” Called several voices, but Zuko chuckled. Yeah, that stung, but the kid meant well so he could brood later.
“It’s fine.”
“Scar?” Toph asked, waving a hand in front of her face. “On Sparky’s face.”
“Big one, Toph.” Zuko said, not opening his eyes. He’d worked down to his cheek bone, having throughly gotten what remained of his ear. “Texture of soft, old leather, stretched tight over my face, on the left hand side. Starts at the bridge of my nose, stretches over my eye to my ear. The lowest it goes is my cheekbone, and it goes over my brow. My eyebrow and most of my ear are gone.”
“Can you see and hear on that side at all, Sparky?”
“Most of my sight was recovered, but the scar pulls whats left of my eyelids tight so it’s blurry on that side. I lost some hearing in the ear to infection, and some depth of hearing because of the lose of most of the outer ear. But, I’ve got superhuman hearing, so it’s not really a problem.” Zuko shrugged, moving to the center to the scar, the part that took longest.
“Does it hurt?”
“Just sort of itches most days, sometimes it flares up and gets painful, though.”
“You’re pretty casual about this.”
“I mean, it’s still a touchy subject, but I don’t mind talking about it like this. There’s nothing I can do about it, and lately I’ve been focusing on the the things I can help, instead of things I can’t, you know? If you tried to tell me something about my scar or touch it, I might get mad, but I’ve started to make my peace with the fact that this is the way my face is now.” Zuko started on his eyelid area. He hated the pressure on his eye, it made spots appear in his vision. “I don’t think I’ll ever be over it, but that’ll happen when dear old dad burns your face off. What kind of guy challenges a 13 yearold to a fire duel, anyway? Jerk.”
It got quiet and even Zuko could feel the tense atmosphere. He peaked an eye open to see the group staring at him in shock and sadness.
“... You didn’t know.”
And they exploded.
“Of course we didn’t know!”
“You’ve been here for weeks and you never said anything!”
“What the hell!?”
“I suppose that answers my big question about you.” Hakoda, calmer than the rest, said, gazing at the boy.
“And that is?” Zuko went back to applying cream.
“I was wondering what made you want to try and defeat your father. I could see running and hiding, if you just didn’t like him and his rule, but this is more aggressive. This explains it.”
“It does. He was terrible father, who challenged me to a duel for speaking out of turn. I could pretend that I deserved it, for a long time, because I was always told the Fire Lord was always right, the ways and traditions of the fire nation were absolute good and superior. Then I got out.”
“It gave you prospective.”
“He’s an evil maniac, who lost his ability to love years ago, and doesn’t deserve to rule anything. He would never love me, he only knows how to destroy things. He needs to be taken down” He felt a pair of tiny arms wrap around his stomach as he finished applying the scar cream. He looked down. The Duke.
“I’m sorry the Fire Lord did that to you.”
“Nobody is safe from the fire nation under my fathers rule. Not even me, I should have realized it a long time ago, but I’ve always been the dumb one. I think Azula knows exactly what it’s always been...” On the beach, Azula thought he was mad at father. She had always seen father for what he was, and probably thought he had finally realized it. That was just like her. “It’s why we have to win. If he can burn and banish his thirteen yearold son, he can do anything. Nobody is safe under the fire nation under my father. Once Uncle is Fire Lord, things will be better for everyone, including the fire nation.”
“Your Uncle? Not you?”
“It was supposed to be my uncles throne in the first place, my father stole it because he’s the worse.” Zuko frowned. “I would prefer to work on myself before being Fire lord if I can.”
“I think you or Uncle would be a great Fire Lord.” Toph grinned broadly. “You’re both blunt dorks who are badasses, he’s just all calm and wise cause he’s old. You got Aang to be old and wise, you know, except the old part.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry that happened to your face, even if it looks really cool.” The Duke mumbled into Zuko’s ribs.
“It’s okay. I mean- it’s not okay, it never will be, but I’m getting used to it. Don’t apologize, it’s not you’re fault.” Zuko pried the child off him. “And if it makes you feel better, on the day of the eclipse, I went to tell him to his face he was a liar, that what he did was cruel and wrong, and that I was leaving to teach the Avatar firebending. I threatened him with swords and everything.”
“You did?” The Dukes eyes sparkled, and the other murmured to themselves.
“I did.”
“He couldn’t have taken that well.” Toph scoffed, picking dirt from between her toes.
“He did not. He shot lightning at me. You should have seen his face when I shot it back at his feet.” The disgraced fire prince’s casual smile turned into something of a feral snarl. Everybody shuddered a bit.
“Any reason you didn’t just kill him?”
“It... isn’t my destiny to kill my father.”
“Plus, he’s still family.” Hakoda gazed at him.
“... He is. My uncle is more of a father to me than... than Ozai, but...”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to force yourself to say it.” Hakoda said, firmly in dad mode. “And it shouldn’t be your job to kill him.”
“... Thanks.” Zuko knew his face was dry enough to lay down, so he did, now much more drained than before he went to go to bed in the first place. He close his eyes and tried to sleep but he felt the eyes of group on him. He opened them. “What?”
“Why didn’t you tell us about any of this?” Aang asked, looking at him with sad lemur eyes.
“You didn’t ask? And honestly, I didn’t want to make excuses for myself. What I did was wrong, and if you guys are so kind, if you knew you might make it easy for me. I didn’t want this easy, because if it was I might not learn. Though, thinking of it, that might be a bit stupid. I’ve always wanted to do what was right and good, I just... didn’t know what that was.”
“Children in the fire nation are taught that they are the best, that the rest of the nations are violent savages who needed the fire nations peace and prosperity. You wouldn’t know any better.” The airbender nodded. “I went to a fire nation school for a few days, they do a good job of making it seem okay if you don’t know better.”
“I should have figured it out sooner. I traveled the world for years, but I didn’t learn anything important until a few months ago, I was blinded by rage.” Agni, he just wanted to go to sleep. “I figured out some things, or at least suspected them, but I wasn’t sure until recently.”
“Like?” It was Sokka asking, curious.
“When they tell us about the first use of Sozin’s comet, they tell us told told us about how the Fire Nation had you use the comet to swiftly overpower the savage air nations army. When I left, I found that everybody else called them the Air Nomads. I visited the temples to try and find clues, and found no evidence of an army of any kind... but because of the copious fire nation skeletons, I dismissed it. Then I actually met Aang and fought him... and I knew for sure I’d been lied to, though I was never sure to what extent.”
“So when you met Aang...”
“I was expecting an aggressive savage monk.” Zuko rolled his eyes. “They tried to tell us that the Air Nomads collective child rearing made them savage and valueless.”
“Because family is the foundation of most societies.”
“Right, but when I thought about it it didn’t make sense, monks are peaceful, why would they need an army? It’s not like good values can only be given to you by your parents.”
“Right!” Aang smiled. “I could educate you about the Air Nomads! If you want, we can have history lessons after bending practice.”
“That’d be nice.” It’d also be very boring but it’d make Aang happy and he could probably use the lesson. He’s still far too ignorant about plenty of things, and Aang is his best replacement for Uncle’s folksy wisdom.
“You really should have told us about this before, Zuko.” Katara said and Zuko was suddenly more awake. Did this mean she was forgiving him. “If you want us to trust you, you need to be honest with us. We don’t hide things here, it’s only ever caused us trouble, and this is important to know. What if Aang accidentally shot at your face during sparring and triggered a bad reaction? What if my father did something to trigger you? We need to know this. You’ve already done a lot just by being here, doing what you are doing. You don’t need to make things more difficult for yourself. We are good people, and you need to trust us as much as you want us to trust you.”
“Katara.” Zuko propped himself up on his elbows, unable to keep the hope from his tone or his eyes. “Does this mean-“
“I haven’t forgiven you.” The waterbender is quick to dismiss, eyes flashing with cold fury for a second before softening into something softer. The former prince sags a bit in disappointment. “It just means... it’ll be easier now. If you had told us, we could already have a better understanding of each other. I still can’t forgive you... but I think I understand, so it’ll be easier now.”
“I understand.”
“Zuko?” Aang asked and the fire bender spared him a look. “I know you’re not touchy, but I need to hug you.”
“What-“ Zuko’s face scrunched up and his tone was confused, offended, and slightly grossed out, but as he said that Aang was doing an airbending fueled back hand spring over the fire to him and pulling him into his scrawny arms.
Zuko tried to push him away for a second, but the kid was strong then he looks and he was tired. His skin itched at the initial contact, a thing he’d gotten used to. He didn’t like being touched, before Mia a few months ago, most of his physical human contact was through violence. Once his fire bending came in, it was pretty much only his mom who would give him affection like that, with Uncle away at war and Lu Ten finishing up his military education. After the Agni Kia, Uncle would try but it was rare Zuko would let him. The fire bender went to struggle against the Avatar when he was suddenly bowled over by a rush of feelings from Aang. Warmth and affection, some other things he couldn’t sort radiated from the boy and it was eerie how much it reminded him of his Uncle. It wasn’t like when Mai would touch him, where affection was always laced with something more adult, or even the rare type of affection he might feel from Ty Lee when she’d try to hang on him when they were all spending time together. This was like affection like his mother and Uncle gave him. The itching faded into the back of his mind, and he melted into the hold and hugged him back. The unpleasantness of touch was pushed back some sort of primal need he didn’t understand was hollering and pulling at him to just hold on.
“Woah, okay!” Aang grinned, surprised Zuko returned the hug. He hugged him tighter as Zuko, who had had yanked up before scooter so he had a better leverage and sort of squished himself down so he could hook his chin behind Aang’s shoulder. Zuko screwed his eyes shut so he could see the others faces as he displayed such weakness.
‘Not weakness!’ A voice that sounded like Uncle yelled in the back of his mind. Zuko squished the voice.
“Wow, Zuko, you give such good hugs. You’re so warm, like Kuzon was. Must be a fire bender thing.” Aangs smile dropped into something more ancient and understand than should probably be on a twelve year old’s face. “I’m sorry... that you had to go through that. You’re a really good guy, even if you like to play tough and mean. I know I’m right, because the dragons wouldn’t have let you live. They see thing different then we do... they let your uncle live, right? And back then he was a big evil general. The dragons saw into your soul, and your past, and they know you’re good. Because you’re not like you’re dad. Maybe you’re like your uncle.”
“Or like my great grandfather.”
“Uh-“ Aang started to pull away in bewilderment and Zuko yanked him back.
“Not- not Sozin! My mother’s grandfather. Was a good dude. Really good, because he was Avatar Roku.”
And the group exploded all over again. Zuko just want to sleep.