Chapter Text
After that it became something of a routine.
Any time Zuko had a particularly hard day he would don his mask and swords and go out to roam Caldera city’s rooftops.
The only problem was that he didn’t always come home at a reasonable hour. More often than not, it fell to Sokka to go find his feral boyfriend and drag him home before sunrise. Otherwise he would spend the next day in a cranky fire lord snit, and that wasn’t good for anyone.
That night Sokka had stayed in his office late working on some budget plans for the Southern Reconstruction Project that his dad had asked him to look at. He was so focused that he didn’t realize that the sun had gone down until it was well into the night and everyone else had already packed up and left.
He stretched his arms above his head and relished the satisfying pops his back made in response. Yep, definitely too late.
He swept all his papers into a drawer to deal with tomorrow and headed back to the residential wing where the fire lord’s quarters were.
The inside of the palace had changed a lot since Sokka was 16. Where before everything was all stifled by thick red velvet curtains that trapped heat like a heavy woolen robe, now so many doorways and windows had been opened up to let air circulate. During the day the sun would slant in and reflect a warm glow over every surface. At night you could hear the beetle-crickets chirping and feel the cool air. It felt much more like a livable place than a dragon’s armpit.
It was a monumental improvement in Sokka’s opinion.
Before Zuko had moved in, the Fire Lord’s chambers had been a vast, dark, tomb-like chamber with the ginormous bed in the center and little else. It had been one of the first things to go when Zuko started renovating the palace. The huge room had been split up into two more reasonably sized segments, a bedroom and a living area.
The living area, where Sokka shucked off his shoes and tossed them in the corner, had couches big enough to fit the entire gaang when they visited for sleepovers and enough pillows to smother a small army. (The majority of which originated from numerous impulse purchases on Sokka’s part)
Padding into the bedroom, Sokka glanced around the room, expecting to find Zuko in bed or at the very least poring over scrolls at his desk. Instead, he found a note folded up in the center of the bed. The ink had long since dried.
Be back soon
Yeah right. Zuko was even worse at registering the passage of time than Sokka was.
Sokka tossed the note back on the bed and went back to the living room to grab his shoes.
__________
After a while wandering the rooftops of Caldera city checking all the usual spots, Sokka’s attention was grabbed by the sound of a scuffle in an alleyway below. He followed the sound to the edge of the roof. It was a one-story building with a fairly low ceiling, meaning that the ground was closer than usual. If he needed to, Sokka could probably make the jump down without injury.
Down on the ground Sokka could see a timid looking man standing to the side and two figures facing each other with blades drawn. One was The Blue Spirit, wielding his dao, and the other was someone he didn’t recognize with a bag clutched to his side who was wielding a wicked looking dagger.
On instinct, Sokka felt a jolt of protective fear and he tensed, ready to jump in and defend Zuko, but he quickly realized that was not necessary.
Zuko moved like twitches of flame, fast and dangerous. He knocked the dagger back with a flick of his dao then swept the legs out from under the man. The guy lost his grip on the dagger as he hit the ground with a whumph but didn’t let go of the bag. Zuko kicked the dagger away before the man could make a grab for it.
The facial expression of the man shifted from smugness to panic and as Zuko leaned into his space to take the bag he lashed an arm out with a burst of fire. A firebender then. Must not have been very confident in his bending if he relied on his dagger though, Sokka mused. It was clear in the sloppiness of the motion.
Zuko jumped back to avoid the flames, but was back on him again just as fast. The man didn’t stand a chance.
He made another attempt at firebending with a forward blast but Zuko swept it aside with his dao with no hesitation. Sokka felt his face heat. Tui and La, the way he moved–
Soon Zuko had the guy pinned on his front, held at bay by one curving saber by his neck. (Not that he would ever actually use it, but the man didn’t know that.)
Zuko liberated the man of the bag and straightened, sword still pointing at him threateningly, to return it to the guy standing off to the side. The shrimpy guy bowed and choked out a few stuttering words of thanks before booking it out of the alley and, presumably, back home.
Once he was sure that he was far enough out of range to be followed, Zuko gestured at the other man to get up. He did, eyes wide and hands up pleadingly.
“Look man, I– I’m not looking for any trouble, okay?”
Zuko tilted his head and pointedly looked at the dagger on the ground.
“Look– I’m sorry, okay? I won’t do it again I swear–”
Zuko crossed the distance between himself and the dagger and stood on it with one foot. He gestured with one of his swords to the man, then the mouth of the alley. The message was clear: You go. This stays.
The man nodded, eyes on the swords and inched his way toward the end of the alley.
Zuko leaned down to pick up the dagger and the man, who was apparently an idiot, took the opportunity to try to lunge at Zuko again.
Predictably, Zuko straightened, grabbed him by the wrist and the back of the neck and slammed him into the nearest vertical surface, which happened to be one of the windows on the building Sokka was standing on.
The angle meant that Sokka’s view was blocked by the edge of the roof but he heard the shattering of glass loud and clear. He peered over the edge to see the idiot mugger knocked out and slumped against the wall with his ass in the air. Zuko stood over him, looking like he was at a bit of a loss for what to do.
Sokka silently lay flat on his stomach, braced his hands on the lip of the roof and leaned his whole torso over the edge so that his face hung down right in front of Zuko’s.
The way that Zuko jumped when he turned around was deeply amusing to him, even if he did nearly get his head sliced from his shoulders. Sokka glanced casually at the swords crossed at his neck. “Rude.”
“AGNI SOKKA!” Zuko lowered his dao.
Sokka grinned cheekily, “Have I ever told you how hot it is that you’re literally a ninja?”
The muffled huff behind the mask was heavy with exasperation. Zuko sheathed the dao in their scabbard with a metallic shiiink and pulled up the mask to reveal his incredulous face.
“Did you follow me across rooftops all the way from the palace just to flirt with me?” Zuko said.
Sokka shrugged as much as his position would allow. “Not this time. It’s past your Fire Lordy bedtime.”
Zuko frowned, glancing around at the darkened windows and unlit streetlamps.
“...It’s not that late,” he muttered, then paused. His shoulders dropped. “Okay, maybe it is a little late.”
“We passed ‘a little late’ a while ago, bud. C’mon you have stuff to do tomorrow.” Sokka said.
Zuko grimaced. “I know,” he said quietly. “I just–”
He broke off, glancing back toward the shattered window. With a frustrated huff, he turned back, digging into the pouch at his belt. “Let me handle this real quick.”
He stepped over the body of the man, brushed the glass away carefully from the window sill, and set a fistful of gold pieces in its place.
Sokka craned over to see what he was doing and his eyes almost bugged out of his head. “Zuko, baby, that much could buy this whole block. Replacing a window costs, what, like ten silver pieces?”
Zuko frowned at the small mountain of coins, then at the window. “It’s an apology. It was my fault the window broke.”
“So on top of vigilante justice to petty criminals you’ve decided to bestow this random family with generational wealth?”
Zuko leveled him with a flat look.
Sokka shrugged, “seems like overkill but you’re the Fire Lord.”
Zuko sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who only fixes things when he’s forced to,” he said quietly. “Or who pretends it doesn’t matter.”
He glanced up at Sokka. “Can we just– drop it?”
A fond warmth filled Sokka’s chest and he smiled softly at him. “Sure, bud. C’mere.”
Sokka shifted his weight so that he was supporting himself with his left arm while his right reached out to cup Zuko’s cheek. He tugged him in for an upside-down kiss and grinned into it when Zuko’s posture melted. Tui and La know that he had a hard time with words but Zuko was always honest with his body. Sokka felt Zuko’s hands come up to grab the side of his head and a too-warm tongue licked into his mouth.
Sokka tilted his head to get a better angle. Kissing like this wasn’t something he had a whole lot of practice doing, but it was no less enjoyable. He felt his heart beat thudding in his chest as their tongues retraced the same paths they’d wandered a hundred times before. Snow and sea, he loved this man.
Even though it killed him a little bit inside, Sokka stamped down the butterflies in his stomach and pulled back. “Alright, any more of that and we’ll be here all night, and this roof isn’t exactly the height of comfort.”
Zuko swallowed, clearly still a little dazed.
“...Yeah,” he said hoarsely. Then he huffed a short laugh and glanced toward the rooftops stretching back towards the palace. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Sokka drew himself up to standing, blinking a bit as the blood rushed from his head, then grinned at Zuko down below.
“Race you?”
Zuko grinned back and pulled his mask back down. “You’re on.”