Chapter Text
“Oh uh… hey buddy…” Sokka nervously laughed as Zuko stared down at them.
“What are you guys up to?” he asked.
“Um…” Aang’s eyes were darting all over the place. “Nothing?”
Zuko glared at them a bit longer then turn his head towards the ground. “Look I… I understand you all wanting to have a meeting without me. I know that after everything that I have done to you… you can’t fully trust me. I just want you to know that I promise, I’m not that person anymore…”
He turned to leave before Katara grabbed his arm. “Zuko wait, you’ve got it wrong. We trust you completely.”
“Yeah Sparky, you’re part of the team now!” Toph smiled up at him.
He gave them a confused look, “Then, what were you talking about?”
“Um… You?” Suki finally replied.
“What?”
“Well, uh…” Aang started tripping over his words, “You see uh… at the beach today… and you know the… and the… you know… the… yeah…”
Toph rolled her eyes, “Thanks Aang, that really cleared things up.”
Katara turned back to Zuko, “We were actually… talking about your scars…”
“Oh…” he subconsciously wrapped his arms around his bare chest. “Um… what about them?”
Suki gestured for him to sit down which he did, “We were... trying to figure out a way to bring them up without upsetting you…”
Now he was confused again, “Upset me? I was afraid they had upset you…”
“Huh?” Sokka’s eyes sprung open, “Why would we be upset?”
He blushed, “Well… most people don’t like… well, looking at them. That’s why I normally wear long sleeves. I was afraid that today at the beach, I had upset you…”
Toph suddenly sprung up and wrapped him in a hug, “You can be so stupid sometimes Sparky.”
“We would never be upset with you over something like that.” Suki elaborated.
“Oh ok… cool…” his face remained red, “Then uh, what were you wanting to know?”
“How you got them…” Aang muttered quietly.
“Oh…” his hand slowly traced the bottom of the scar on his face. “It’s really nothing all that exciting. The worst one is this one, but you know how I got that…”
“Actually, we don’t.” Sokka pointed out.
“Really?!” he looked at them in shock, “After all my time chasing you… and you never knew what happened?” they shook their heads, “You never knew why I was chasing you?”
“Does your scar have something to do with why you were chasing Aang?” Suki asked.
He sighed, “You could say that… look… none of what I’m about to say is a very good bedtime story… are you sure you want to hear all this?”
Katara put a hand on his shoulder, “Zuko, we’re your friends. We care about you, and we want to know more about you so we can help you. If you don’t want to tell us you don’t have to, but we’re here for you…”
“I think I should probably tell you. Just so you know what the people you are going up against are really like.” He chuckled softly, “I had wondered why you all were so calm at the beach. I half expected Sokka to start screaming and losing his mind.”
“Me?! Lose my mind?! Never!” Sokka started waving his hands in the air.
Suki gently patted him on the shoulder, “Calm down dear.” They all started laughing.
“So, um… where should I start?” Zuko asked quietly.
“Where ever you’d like.” Aang suggested.
He nodded and looked down at his chest, “Well, a lot of these are just from my own clumsiness and stupidity.” He pointed to some of the thin, white scars. “When I first started to learn how to use my Dao Swords, I wasn’t very good. I cut myself on multiple occasions from just tripping or dropping my sword.”
“Why did you learn how to use swords anyway?” Toph asked, “I mean, you’re a fire bender.”
He looked down at the campfire, “I… didn’t use to be very good at fire bending. I’m still not as good as Azula, but I have gotten better. Growing up… well… until a few weeks ago actually, my one goal in life… had been to make my father proud. I know he’s a terrible person. I know that now. But at the time…”
“He was your father.” Suki said sympathetically. “He was supposed to love and care for you.”
“You don’t need to apologize for loving someone who should have loved you back.” Katara added.
“Yeah…” he continued, “I first started training with swords, because I thought if I couldn’t be a great fire bender like Azula, maybe I could be good at something else. I trained constantly, and when I thought that I was finally good enough to show my father… Well…” he pointed to a burn that wrapped around his wrist. “It didn’t quite go as planned…”
Everyone gasped, “Your father gave you that scar?!”
He looked down, “That’s not the only one…”
Aang got up and snuggled next to Zuko. Everyone fallowed his lead and sat closer to him. Even Appa and Momo crowded into the huddle.
“This one I got one of the times Azula tried to kill me.” He pointed to a burn on his shoulder.
“Azula tried to kill you?!” Katara said in shock.
He just shrugged, “She’s tried multiple times. When we were kids though I think she did it more as I joke but I’m not really sure. I was the crown prince. If she killed me, then she would get to be Fire Lord one day.”
“That’s terrible…” Sokka couldn’t even fathom hating Katara so much that he would try to kill his on sister.
“These are from training.” He pointed at several rows of small, circular burn scars. “In the fire nation, there is a method of teaching called the Sozin Method. It’s how I, and everyone else in the royal family has been taught to fire bend. If the student messes up a kata, they receive a burn. Azula never messed up, so our teachers never had to use the Sozin Method on her. I on the other hand, was obviously a failure…”
Katara gently ran a hand over the dozens of scars, “I’m so sorry you had to go through that…”
He shrugged, “It’s in the past now.”
“Sokka said there was some shaped like handprints.” Toph asked gently, “What about those?”
Aang gently took one of Zuko’s hands, and placed it on tops of one of those scars. He let out a sigh of relief when his hand was much smaller. “What are you doing?”
He gave him a small smile, “I just had to check something.” He then gave him a bone crushing hug.
“Those were also from my father.” He continued. “During different times in my life if I disappointed him, that was how he made sure I wouldn’t do it again.”
“That’s just so cruel…” Suki had tears welling up in her eyes.
“I’m going to kill him.” Toph pounded her fist on the ground, and a boulder nearby tumbled down a cliff.
“The ones on my back,” he continued, “Were from some of my teachers. Simply burning me was no longer enough… so they switched to whipping.” They all had tears dripping from their eyes at this point.
“What could you have possibly done to justify them whipping you?!” Sokka was pissed now.
He brought his knees up to his chest, “On one occasion… my father ordered me to execute a prisoner, to show that I was loyal. All the man had done was steal some food from the palace to feed his starving family. I couldn’t do it, so that was my punishment. Even after all that, they still killed him…”
“Oh Zuko…” they all squeezed him in a hug. “You can’t blame yourself for that. It’s not your fault.”
He shrugged, “Well… I think that’s all of them.” He finished, “I’m sorry I upset you so much.”
“Zuko…” he looked over to Suki, “What about that one?”
“Oh…” he touched his face, “Yeah…”
“You don’t have to tell us.” Katara told him gently.
He shook his head and took a deep breath. “Growing up, my father always made sure that he never touched my face. Burning your children as a disciplinary measure is not all that uncommon in the Fire Nation. But the one unspoken rule, is that you never touch the face. That’s why it was such a big deal… when he did it…”
“Your father gave you that one too?” Aang was extremely depressed by this point.
“Yeah…” he looked down. “I… when I was thirteen, I went to one of my father’s war meetings. I was supposed to be quiet, but there was this general who came up with a plan to use new recruits as bate. They all would have surely died, so I spoke out against it, saying it was wrong. Because of that, I was forced to fight an Agni Kai. I thought it would be against the general, but since it was in my father’s war room, it was he I had disgraced. As soon as I saw him, I refused to fight…”
Aang patted him on the shoulder, “Take your time…”
He wiped a single tear from his good eye, “This is so stupid, I got over this a long time ago… I didn’t fight him because… well… even then, deep down… I loved him. And I thought he loved me… For refusing to fight, I had dishonored him even more. And well, now I will always have a reminder of that disrespect.” He gestured to his face.
“Oh Zuko…” They all squeezed him as tight as they could without actually breaking any bones.
“After that, I was immediately put on my ship and told that I couldn’t return home until I had captured the Avatar.” He sighed, “This was three years before you had come out of the ice, so I now know that I was never actually supposed to accomplish my mission. My father had practically banished me.”
“You know all of that was wrong, right Sparky?” Toph asked carefully.
“Yeah… I do now…” For the rest the night they stayed huddled together beside the fire. The commit was coming soon, but for right now it could wait. All that was important right now, was caring for each other when they needed it most.
The End.