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The first time it happened, Aang had only realized what was going on after it had already been too late. Which, yeah, which made him want to kick himself, a lot, but it made him want to kick Zuko even more. Because, really? Could anyone be surprised that he’d been confused?
“Nope,” Katara said from the other side of the sofa, reaching out for a handful of potato chips. “I wouldn’t exactly get please go to prom with me from what he said, either.”
“So you think I may be reading too much into it?” The thought dropped heavy stones down into his stomach and Aang slid from the couch to the fluffy-carpeted floor.
“Not really,” Katara comforted him, reaching down to pat his head with the hand that was not coated in potato chip crumbs. “He just needs to do better than,” here she dropped the tone of her voice down by about an octave and made an awkward face, “So, uh, can this dancing of yours have any practical applications? Like, I don’t know… proms?”
Aang laughed. It was kind of impossible not to in the face of a Zuko impression so bad that it was disturbingly spot-on.
“At least we can be pretty sure he’s interested,” Katara offered helpfully. “You just need to give him time to think of something a bit less… awkward.” She paused, as though processing what she’d just said, and then shook her head and sighed. “But since it is Zuko we’re talking about you might be better off just asking him out yourself.”
Aang twiddled his thumbs. As usual, Katara had a point.
Maybe if he wanted something done, he really did need to do it himself.
***
Which, as he discovered the next day, was easier said than done, especially since he’d foolishly forgotten to factor Zuko’s social ineptitude into the whole thing.
“Soooo.” Battle-ready, Aang sauntered up to Zuko by the end of the dance class, putting his widest grin on and hoping for the best. “You’ve been getting better! Congrats!”
The look Zuko shot him spoke with surprising eloquence on the matter of liars and Zuko’s opinion on them. Aang cleared his throat, rocked on the balls of his feet a little, and decided not to let it deter him.
“You gonna show off your new dance moves at prom, then?” he asked.
Jet and Sokka promptly burst into snickers behind him, but he ignored them with ease born out of years of practice and hoped dearly that Zuko would do the same and not get spooked. Zuko, however, had a much harder time ignoring people than Aang – his face immediately cracked into the familiar lines of anger which, at this point, Aang recognized as Zuko’s primary defense mechanism. And as soon as that thing reared its head… well. Aang could just as well go home.
“There’s nothing to show off and I don’t need patronizing,” Zuko snapped, slinging his backpack over one shoulder with such finality that he could have as well slammed the door in Aang’s face. “I don’t even want to go to this stupid prom in the first place. I don’t get why people are so excited about this damn thing. It’s just a stupid dance, for God’s sake. But you can’t go anywhere without people yapping about it. Who cares? Anyway.” He cleared his throat, glaring at his Nike sneakers while his healthy cheek reddened furiously. “See you tomorrow.”
Aang watched him stomp off and shove past a red-in-the-face Sokka, and glared at the two morons to show them exactly what he thought of them ruining his moment. At least Jet had enough social grace to shrug apologetically, but Aang resolved to put him in the front row for tomorrow’s class anyway. Jet hated being at the front.
… Well. Next time, he would just have to catch Zuko somewhere private.
***
As it happened, he didn’t need to. And that was because a tray slammed into a table on the spot across from his during lunch break the next day, sending some of his French fries flying all over the place. A very grumpy Zuko trailed down after it, the habitual storm cloud that usually followed him everywhere in public scattering a little when he cleared his throat and glanced briefly up at Aang, only for his eyes to escape to the food almost immediately.
“Hey,” he mumbled, grabbing a fork to pick at his vegetable salad.
“Hey,” Aang echoed, trying not to let it show how totally floored he was by this sudden visitation. Next to him, Katara scooted a bit to the side and opened her World History textbook, being as inconspicuous about it as a cactus in the middle of a field of daisies. “Um. What’s up?”
Zuko pulled a face that, if Aang were honest, made him look constipated. Then, he glanced briefly to Katara, as if to make sure she wasn’t listening, and picked a bit more at his food, arranging it into an abstract pattern that apparently required that the tomatoes be apart from the cucumbers.
“So, uh. I,” he started. Then, his face scrunched up even more and he ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. “I thought I might, uh, go to the prom after all.”
Oh. Well, that was the kind of news Aang was definitely interested in hearing, so he swallowed the sudden nervous lump down his throat and leaned in, his elbows on the table. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Now the cucumbers and tomatoes were neatly divided into front lines and Aang wondered idly if they were liable to start a vegetable war over the bits of lettuce and radish resting in the middle. “Uh. Are you going?”
“Sure.” Aang fidgeted in his seat. “I love dancing.” Duh, you idiot. “And I love proms. I mean, I’m an underclassman so I can only go if someone invites me, but I’d love to.” Whoa, yeah, that was subtle as a truck tire to the face, but Aang knew Zuko well enough to suspect that even this sledgehammer of a hint could have missed its mark.
And sure enough, there went Zuko’s striking eyes again, flashing gold up at him briefly with a raw, naked surprise that made Aang’s heart swell and then constrict a little. “So no one’s asked you?”
No, you gorgeous gloomy idiot, because everyone is waiting for your stupid ass to do it! “No,” Aang confessed instead, directing a single french fry into his mouth.
On Zuko’s plastic plate, the strips of carrot have now reinforced the ranks of the tomatoes while the radish rallied to the cucumbers’ side. The lettuce remained neutral for now, but Aang had a feeling it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“Not even Katara?” Again, Zuko sent Katara a nervous glance which crashed right into the textbook wall and failed to reach her. “I thought that maybe you two…”
“It’s a contingency plan,” Aang explained. “If no one asks me, Katara will take me as a third wheel with whoever she chooses to go with as a date. As friends.” The extra emphasis seemed to be laying it on a bit too thick, but if Zuko was in fact rallying to do what Aang had been hoping he would do, then no message was too subtle to encourage him.
So he held his breath and settled to wait, his stomach twisting into a jittery swarm of insects.
Zuko opened his mouth. He looked at Aang. Then, he took a deep breath and Aang’s hand closed its grip on the fork all on its own…
“Right.” Zuko looked away again, his fork spilling all of the vegetables on his plate back into chaotic disarray that could only mean that the battle had begun. “Right. Okay. Well, see you in dance class.”
Katara had the decency to wait until he fled before she started laughing. Aang kicked her under the table.
***
Aang decided to try again right after Zuko’s kung-fu practice the following day. It was bound to put him in a better mood than the dance class, and had the added bonus of privacy because Zuko was committed enough to take individual classes after everyone else went home.
So Aang settled down for a long stake-out by the gym door, armed with an avocado sandwich and his Art homework, and distracted himself with texts to Katara while he tried not to pry the door open just a little bit to peer inside. Spooking Zuko was the last thing he wanted right now and he’d probably do just that if he showed him he was stalking him during private practice.
When the door finally did open, Aang was in the middle of adding finishing touches to a drawing of a Chinese dragon and nearly snapped his wooden pencil in half in his hurry to jump to his feet and hide all evidence of lurking.
And then he saw Zuko, and all the lines he’d prepared to deliver scattered all over the place like a collapsing domino tower.
“Aang?” Zuko quirked his single eyebrow up at him, the towel slung around his neck and entirely failing to conceal the very visible pink nipples sticking out on his very muscled, very sweaty, very shirtless chest. “What are you doing here?”
Aang stared at Zuko’s chest, from his lickable pecks down to the frankly delicious abs, and completely failed to produce any words whatsoever other than “Nnngh.”
Now Zuko was beginning to look decidedly uncomfortable. “You waiting for someone?”
“Yeah!” Aang managed to tear his eyes away from the nipples long enough to tune in to reality again. “Yeah, I was waiting for…” The abs were trying to lure him into gazing again, but he blinked rapidly and dragged his eyes back up to Zuko’s face. “I was waiting… uh…”
Those abs. Those abs. Aang wanted to lick them.
“… Right.” Zuko cocked his head to the side. “Well, I’m gonna go take a shower and change. You, uh… See you later, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Aang stammered.
It was only when the door to the locker room closed after Zuko that he remembered why he’d come here in the first place.
***
Maybe face-to-face wasn’t the best strategy here. Maybe it would work better if they didn’t have to see each other’s nervous faces to, as they say, seal the deal. After more three days of awkward shuffling of feet and avoiding eye-contact and tension brimming to the point of overflowing, Aang was ready to try anything, especially since he’d discovered the bet Sokka and Jet had going about the two of them going to prom together.
It was high time to nudge things along or he’d really end up as Katara’s third wheel.
Resting his feet up against the wall, Aang reached for his phone and selected Zuko’s number while the setting sun lazily spilled its colors across the sky on the other side of the window.
Zuko picked up after the second signal. That seemed like a good sign – right until Aang heard his voice.
“Aang.”
Okay, that did not sound good.
“You okay?” Aang asked automatically, alarmed by the quiet, raw… something on the other side of the phone.
Zuko was breathing quickly, too. Maybe too quickly. And if it was loud enough for Aang to hear over the phone…
“I – “ A choked moment that spilled something cold in Aang’s chest. “Yeah. It’s fine. It’s just. I heard Uncle talking to my father on the phone. About me. And I… listened in.”
Aang screwed his eyes shut, chewing on his bottom lip. This couldn’t be good. “Wanna talk about it?” he asked gently, and could practically see Zuko shaking his head when he immediately replied, “No.”
“But… Could you maybe talk to me about something else?” Zuko asked, and the wobbly shake to his voice stabbed Aang with something else entirely, something that was no longer cold at all. “How’s your day?”
Right. Aang took a deep breath and rallied his thoughts, and started babbling into the phone about how he got into an argument with his World History teacher.
The prom could wait. There were more important things.
***
In the end, it was Katara who got the job done – as usual.
“Aang!” she called during lunch break, catching Aang by the lockers as he was replacing the textbooks in his backpack.
She was also dragging Zuko along by his ear.
“This idiot wants to ask you something,” she declared when they stopped by Aang’s locker, Zuko massaging his ear and somehow managing to look both sullen and intimidated out of his skin. “Well?” Katara crossed her arms over her chest in that bossy way of hers and raised her eyebrow at him.
Zuko managed to build up enough courage to try and glare at her, but that only succeeded in her turning up the temperature of her own glare, so he retreated with what little dignity he still had and cleared his throat before looking up at Aang.
“We’re waiting,” Katara announced. Any moment now she would start tapping her feet and man, would Aang feel bad for Zuko when it happened. The guy was bound to turn tail and leg it any moment now…
But then something strange, unexpected and wonderful happened. As if spurned on by the challenge, Zuko set his teeth, scrunching up his face into mulish determination, and blurted out, “So are you going to the prom with me or what?”
The bubble of tension broke with a pop as if pierced with a needle. And Aang felt his face breaking too – right into a splitting smile.
“Finally!” someone in the crowd snickered while a few onlookers cheered. Once again, Aang ignored them.
Walking up to Zuko and planting a kiss on his cheek was entirely more rewarding.
He owed Katara big time.