Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Ooooh, what are you doing?"

Zuko didn't jump. And he definitely didn't cry out. He just used his burst of adrenaline to reorient himself into a fighting stance while letting out a tactical battle cry. There was a woman behind him, dressed in black and dangling upside down from the ceiling. Zuko glared at her and didn't relax his fighting stance. "Nothing." He thought a little bit and then added. "What are you doing here?"

He shouldn’t have let her sneak up on him. He'd been listening. He had definitely been listening. He was just still getting used to how he couldn't hear as well out of his left ear and it was taking all of his attention to read these stupid labels with their stupid tiny text in the stupid dark with only one stupid eye.

The woman shrugged. She was still hanging upside down. It was weird . "Oh, same as you, breaking in. Messing with files. How'd you get in here?"

Zuko kept glaring at her and purposely didn't answer the question. He wasn't sure why she’d want to know, but it couldn't be for anything good. That's what Azula would always do, goad him into digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole.

That didn't seem to stop the woman though. She looked over to the open window that he definitely hadn't been looking at. "Oh, the window! Good thought. They aren't usually locked in the summer, especially this high up." By this point, she'd reoriented herself into an upright position and unclipped herself from the line she was dangling from. "Did you climb down from the roof or up from the ground?"

"Up," Zuko admitted, not entirely sure why he was talking to her in the first place. It didn't make any sense to climb up to the roof just to climb back down again.

The woman nodded and peered out the window. "No equipment?"

"No." It came out sounding more confused than he wanted it to. Who was this person anyway, and why was she asking him all of these questions?

"Four stories, not bad," the crazy woman said and it almost sounded approving? His life didn't make sense. It hadn't made sense in a while. "You should probably get a rig though. Don't want to risk a fall, even at this height."

As if he had access to a rig, whatever it was. It wasn't like that was the sort of thing they had at stores, not that he could buy one even if they were.

She turned back to him. "Exit strategy?"

"None of your business," Zuko said every bit of royal presence he could muster because 'climb back out the window' seemed somehow inadequate when she asked. Also, he didn't have to answer any of her questions if he didn't want to. It wasn't like she was supposed to be here either.

"Do you have one?"

"Of course I do!" Zuko said a little too quickly. 

The crazy woman looked back to the window that he definitely hadn't glanced to. "Back out the window then. There's no need to be embarrassed. It's perfectly good for your first break-in."

"What's yours?" Zuko asked because he was trying to regain at least a little control over this conversation.

The crazy woman grinned. It was a grin that looked halfway between Ty Lee and Azula and that was enough to make Zuko very nervous. "Oh, I've got a fun one. I can show you if you want."

"Why should I trust you?"

"I'm a thief," she said, like it explained everything.

Zuko went back to glaring at her.

"Come on, it'll be fun! Even more fun than climbing down a building."

Well, it wasn't like he was particularly looking forward to climbing back down another four stories. At night. When he was still nearly half-blind. And maybe this crazy woman was trying to trick him, but she seemed sincere. And that usually never meant anything, but, well, maybe this time it would be okay. "Fine."

The woman's face lit up. "Great! Wait here, I'll be back." She started to climb back up into the ceiling. "Oh yeah," she said, poking her head back out. "I'm Parker by the way."

"... Lee," Zuko said. Because he wasn't crazy. You didn't go around telling people your real names when you were breaking into places.

Parker nodded and disappeared completely into the ceiling, leaving Zuko to go back to digging up information on the Avatar.

---

Parker’s exit strategy involved jumping off the roof with a new rig that she’d just been dying to try out. She only had the one rig on her, but that was fine. Lee could have it. The building wasn’t that tall and it wasn’t like she ever really needed a rig; they just made things easier to control. Lee looked at her like she was crazy when she told him that on the top of the roof, but that wasn’t anything new.

“Come on!” she said. When Lee still looked dubious, she walked over to the edge.
“I’ll go first.” Then she jumped. If she wasn’t supposed to be discreet because of the whole breaking and entering thing, she would’ve laughed all the way down as the wind danced around her.

Once she landed, she looked back up. She couldn’t really see Lee on the roof from this angle, especially since it was night, but she waved and hoped he caught the gesture. A few moments later he jumped, the rig catching him just before he hit the ground.

"See, way more fun," Parker said with a grin once she’d helped Lee get himself untangled and the rig put away.

Lee wasn't glaring at her, but he was definitely giving her a look. It kind of reminded her of Eliot when he was trying to look grumpier than he actually felt. "You're crazy," he said.

"I know." Parker shrugged. Then, because she'd given the matter some thought. "You should come home with me," she said.

Lee stepped back into a defensive stance. "Why?"

"I have some friends. We can help you." Was she getting to him? It was hard to tell. Sophie was so much better at this. He was still in that defensive stance. Maybe a different angle. "Or I can teach you to be a better thief."

"I'm not a thief," Lee mumbled, the glare was back. “And I don’t need help.”

"Do you have someplace to stay?"

He hesitated just a second too long.

"Then come with me, we can help you out," Parker said before he could lie to her. She did her best to look all trustworthy like Sophie had taught her. Smile, open posture. Was she supposed to stick out her hand or was that only if you gave a choice? It was too late to stick out her hand anyway, so instead she just waited. A stray breeze blew crumpled papers and empty bottles towards the mouth of the ally. Lee took a hesitant step forward and Parker smiled because she knew she’d managed to steal him.

---

“Parker?” Hardison had been expecting Nate and Eliot back from their part of the con when he heard the front door to Nate’s apartment opening. The fact that it was Parker on the other side of the door was the first sign that something was up. The second was the look on her face, somewhere between Alice White and something else.

From the couch, Sophie looked up from the script she was reading. “Is everything alright?” 

Parker didn’t respond to either of them. Instead she looked back behind her and said  "Come on, I promise they're nice," before nudging a scrawny kid through the door. "Lee, these are my friends Sophie and Hardison. Sophie and Hardison, this is Lee."

Lee glared at them. The first thing Hardison noticed was the nasty burn scar on his face. The second was the way he held himself, tense and ready to bolt at any minute. He’d seen that posture before, on the kids who’d come to Nana’s from rougher places. Put those two together and it didn’t paint a pretty picture. Where had Parker gotten this kid from?

Careful not to spook the kid, Hardison smiled his warmest smile. “Nice to meet you, Lee.”

“Yes, it’s very nice to meet you.” Sophie gave a smile that you could only tell was fake if you knew her very well. “Where did you meet him Parker? I thought you had… business to take care of.”

“Don’t worry, I took care of everything,” Parker said lightly. “Lee was breaking into the consulate too. I told him we could help him.”

“Help with what?” Hardison asked because he wasn’t sure if they were helping this kid with a heist or helping him because he looked like he’d been living on the streets. It was one of those things you never really could tell with Parker.

Parker shrugged. “You know, stuff.” So, probably the second one. Or at least not the first one. Hardison could work with that.

Hardison smiled back at the kid. “Well, whatever your problem is, we got you.”

Lee looked dubious and he hadn’t stopped holding himself like he was going to bolt at any minute, but he nodded, once, at Hardison.

“Why don’t you come sit down?” Sophie offered, standing up and taking a couple steps closer. She had her grifting voice on, all soothing and ‘you can trust me’. It was working on the kid; he relaxed a little and let Sophie lead him over to the couch in the corner. He was still scanning the room like Eliot whenever Sterling was around when he sat down, but small victories people, small victories.

“So, baby,” Hardison asked once they were settled. “What do you want me to do?”

“Ummm…” Parker was fidgeting with the wallet that Hardison hadn’t felt her lift from his pocket. He could see the wheels turning in her brain and waited. “Your thing, I guess?” she said at last.

"I can call up Nana," Hardison offered. "She's always got room for one more kid."

Parker shook her head. "No." She looked over to where Lee was sitting on the couch, talking to Sophie. "I mean, Nana's a good idea," she said, still looking at Lee, "she's good. But we should see if he has any family first." She looked back at him. "Right?"

Hardison nodded. It felt like there was something else in there that Parker wasn’t saying, but he could wait while she figured it out.  "Family first, then Nana if that doesn't work out. I'll see what I can dig up."

Parker took a step towards him and that was all the warning he got before she’d latched onto him with an impressively tight hug. "Thanks, Hardison," she said softly.

Hardison hugged her back. "It's what I do, baby girl."

And then almost as soon as she grabbed him, she was out of his grasp and wrapped around the spiral staircase in an improbable position, watching over where Lee and Sophie were talking softly. Hardison smiled and got to work.

---

Zuko still wasn't sure why he'd even come here in the first place. He shouldn't have, he really shouldn't have. They were strangers and he’d followed a crazy thief who broke into Fire Nation buildings and jumped off buildings to get here. (Zuko ignored the part of him that knew he’d done the exact same thing.) But the thief hadn’t seemed like she was lying and he was tired of sleeping on the streets. And now he was here, sitting as far away as he could manage from the woman whose smile seemed real but had just a hint of the way all the noble ladies smiled at him in it.

He didn’t say anything and neither did she at first. Zuko got the impression that she was weighing him up just as much as he was weighing up her. 

“Hello,” the woman said eventually in a soft, warm voice.

She was addressing him wrong. It was too casual, appropriate for a commoner, not a prince. It took a second to remember that he wasn’t in the Fire Nation any more, that they should be speaking English, not the ravaan fire dialect. He glared at her. “How did you know?” he asked, carefully not using the level of formality he was used to as a prince.

She smiled and he could almost believe it was genuine. “I have a good ear for languages. I could switch back to english if you prefer.”

Zuko shook his head. “You don’t have to.” He’d missed the language. It reminded him of home.

The woman nodded. “Do you have any family?” she asked gently.

His first instinct was to lie. He hadn’t told them his real name. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to tell strangers everything. But having family wasn’t everything and he was a terrible liar anyway. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Where do they live? We can help you go home if you want.” The woman looked right into his eyes and it felt like she was seeing everything, seeing all of him. Zuko was struck by just how much he could feel that she cared .

He wanted to say yes. He really did. He wanted to go home more than anything. Just say yes, he could feel her telling him,  and we can make it happen . But, but… Zuko looked down at the bag on his lap. The bag that held the files on the avatar. What was important was that he wasn’t looking at her. “I can’t go home,” he forced himself to say.

“Why not?” And the question sounded more earnest than it had the right to be. Why did she care so much?
“I- I just can’t.” And there was that lump in his throat and tightness in his chest that meant he was about to cry and he couldn’t cry. He couldn’t be weak. He held his backpack closer to his chest. The avatar. Think about the avatar. He had to find the avatar.

Zuko was focusing so much on the bag on his lap that he didn't notice her moving closer to him on the couch until there was a gentle touch on his shoulder. It felt warm and comforting like sitting next to the turtleduck pond at home. He wanted to sink into it but if he did he'd never be able to get up so he didn't. But he didn't move away either.

"You don't have to go home if you don't want to,” she said. “We can find someplace else."

"No." She didn't understand. "I want to go home, I just can't." And he really shouldn't have started talking. That definitely wasn't a sob that had come out, but it was close.

The hand moved from his shoulder to gently rubbing at his back and he really did melt into her this time. She felt safe in a way that no one really had since Lu Ten died and mother disappeared. "Do you miss it?" she asked.

He didn't trust himself to speak so he just nodded. 

"You can tell me about it if you want." 

There was still a hand rubbing circles on his back and he was pressed against her side and Zuko found that he didn't have it in him to tell her no. So he told her about home, not about being a prince of course. He wasn't stupid. But he told her about the way the sun shone down and the way the turtleducks swam in their ponds and about spicy food and festival nights. And maybe he cried a little, but that didn’t feel as important anymore.

---

Nate was hoping for a relaxing evening with Sophie and a nice drink. Both of those went out the window when he walked into his apartment to see Sophie holding a boy who may or may not be crying on the couch. Nate sighed. This was supposed to be a simple con. Where had the kid come from? "What's going on?" he asked the room in general.

Hardison looked up from his computer. "Parker brought home a kid."

“Really Parker?” Eliot asked from next to Nate in a tone that didn’t actually have any bite to it. 

Parker looked up from where she was perched on the stairs like a spider on its web. "His name's Lee, I told him we could help him."

Eliot sighed, but unlike Nate, it was clear that he’d accepted the situation. Nate was still hung up on the fact that there was a kid in his apartment when they were supposed to be on a con.

Eliot walked over to where Lee was still curled up on the couch. He’d pulled himself away from Sophie and was tense and alert, glaring at the room in general. Nate had to suppress a shudder when he saw the burn on the kid’s face. A drink was sounding nicer and nicer.

“Are you hungry?” Eliot asked gently.

Lee hesitated for a second and then nodded. 

“Let’s get you something to eat then.” Eliot led him towards the kitchen.

Nate went over to his alcohol stash and poured himself a glass. “Did you at least get those files planted, Parker?” he asked rather than dealing with the elephant in the room.

Parker untangled herself from the staircase and nodded. “Yep. It was easy.”

Well, at least there was that much. Nate took a drink. “Can you explain to me why you brought this random kid back to my apartment?”

Parker began to shift around a little. Her hair began to flutter about. “He needed help and that’s what we do. We help people.”

“Yes, but we take down corporations, not this.”

Parker glared at him. Some of the papers lying out rustled about a bit and Nate found himself idly wondering if Hardison was ever going to fix all the drafts in his apartment.

Sophie gave him a dirty look. “Nate, you can’t seriously be suggesting that we do nothing.”

Nate sighed. “That’s not what I’m saying. Look, there are organizations out there who help with this sort of thing. I’m just saying we drop him off with one of those, let them do their job and let us do our job.”

“But I told him we’d help him!” Parker said.

“And we will be helping him. We’re just helping him by introducing him to people who are more qualified to help him than we are. We’re thieves, we don’t run an orphanage here.”

“But Lee’s a thief too! He was breaking into the embassy. They won’t be able to help, not like we can.”

“Come on, Nate,” Sophie said. “It won’t be that much trouble. Hardison can take care of most of it.”

“You bet I can,” Hardison said with a shrug.

And now they were ganging up on him. “If you’re going to say something, say it now,” he said to Eliot who’d walked back about halfway through the conversation.

“Kid got on the bad side of someone pretty powerful. A burn that bad and that controlled? Definitely a master firebender. And firebenders don’t burn easy.” He shrugged. “We’d probably be the best people to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Of course the random child thief Parker picked up had a powerful enemy. Of course. Nate sighed and then processed the other thing he’d said. “Wait, the kid’s a firebender? You’re sure about that?”

Eliot gave him a look. “It’s a very distinctive way of breathing.”

“Of course it is,” Nate muttered under his breath. “Do we need to worry about random fires?” And as soon as he said that, he knew that he was admitting that Lee was staying. 

“Shouldn’t need to, he’s old enough to have control.”

“So we can keep him?” Parker asked almost at the same time.

“ For now ,” Nate said. “This isn’t turning into anything permanent.”

“Yay! Thanks, Nate!” Parker latched onto him with all the strength she used to climb up buildings.

“We’re still on a job.” Nate pried her off.

“I know,” Parker said and drifted over to where Lee was eating at the counter.

“Hardison, find out what you can about him. Where he’s from, if he has any family who can take him in, that sort of thing.”

“Already on it.”

“Good. I’m going to turn in for the night.” Have a nice drink and ignore the fact that he was going to have to spend far too much time with this kid Parker found, that was his plan.

Sophie nodded. “We’ll get Lee set up in the guest room. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

His guest room. Of course Lee was going to be staying in his guest room. Nate sighed. He definitely needed that drink.

---

Sophie cornered Parker as she was preparing to leave Nate’s place and guided her over leave via the actual door. Running across the rooftops may work for Parker but she certainly wasn’t about to start doing it.

"You know we can't keep him," she said as they waited for the elevator.

"I know," Parker said. Clearly , her tone implied. Judging by the look on her face though, there was at least a part of her that wasn’t ready to admit it. "But we can still help him."

Sophie nodded. "Of course we can."

The elevator arrived and began it’s slow descent to the main floor.

Sophie waited patiently, seeing if Parker would share the other thoughts that were on her mind. You couldn't push with her, only wait to see if she'd let you in. 

The elevator came to a stop. They both stepped out and made their way to the exit. "He broke into the embassy and didn't scream at all when we jumped off the roof," Parker said just before they reached the door. "I thought I could teach him to be the right kind of thief."

“I’m sure you’d do a good job,” Sophie said gently.

Parker nodded. “Thanks.” For a second, it looked like she might say something else, but instead she vanished into the night.

---

Zuko still wasn't sure if he trusted these people. They seemed nice enough. And it was nice to sleep in an actual bed. It felt almost strange after weeks of sleeping on benches and in hidden corners. He didn’t really feel safe, but he hadn’t felt safe since before the Agni Kai so that wasn’t as important. He'd sleep here tonight and in the morning he'd find out just what the weird woman who liked jumping off buildings meant by help. It probably wouldn't actually be helpful, but he had information on the Avatar and that meant he had a starting point. He'd figure out where to go from there, he'd find the Avatar, and he’d prove he wasn’t a coward or a failure so he could get his honor back and go home. He was going to go home. He had to believe that he was going to go home.

The room felt too quiet and too cold for the middle of summer. Zuko pulled the blankets tighter around him and eventually dozed off into a fitful sleep.

Chapter Text

Zuko woke up slowly, the sun needling at the edge of his consciousness. It was quiet, too quiet, and he was in a bed. How had he ended up in a bed? He remembered breaking into the consulate last night and there was… There was a crazy thief. She’d made him jump off a building and somehow convinced him to come with her. 

So now he was here. Whatever that meant. He wasn’t sure if he was going to stay here. He had an avatar to find after all. But… 

Zuko ran his fingers through the files he’d stolen last night. All the information the Fire Nation had on the Avatar (more or less). He still needed to read them. And it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go right now. He’d just stay for a little bit. Until he knew where to look for the Avatar. That was all.

- - -

Nate slept poorly. He had too many dreams about Sam, only Sam was taller and older and dying slowly with a burn on his face. He woke up with a splitting headache and the memory that Parker had foisted a kid on him last night. Great. Just great.

Lee was on the couch when Nate came down the stairs, quickly shoving something back in the backpack he’d brought along with him. 

“Morning,” Nate said.

Lee glared at him. 

Nate was not dealing with this this early in the morning. He thought briefly about having a little something to drink, but no, Sophie would be showing up soon. He didn’t need her disapproval on top of everything else.

Lee hadn’t stopped glaring at him. Nate sighed. Why was he the one who needed to look after him? “You, uh, hungry?” he asked.

Lee looked just as eager to be having this conversation as he was as he nodded with every ounce of young angst that Sam had never been old enough to exhibit.

Breakfast. He needed to track down breakfast. That couldn’t be that hard, could it? He ended up dishing out a bowl of that cereal Parker was always eating for him. (If she didn’t want him feeding her food to the kid, she shouldn’t have dumped him on him in the first place.) Lee ate silently, pretending not to be paying as much attention to him as he was. Nate did the same.

The rest of the crew trickled in gradually. Sophie dressed up and ready to play her part (and giving him a look that had nothing to do with his drinking for once). Hardison lugging around a million different pieces of electronic equipment as usual. Parker just appearing, sitting next to Lee on the counter as if she’d always been there, cereal in hand. Eliot grumping about a lack of proper breakfast and throwing something quickly together as last minute plans were gone over and preparations were made. Nate could almost forget about the sixth person in the room in all of the familiar bustle. And then it was time to head out and the fact that there was someone else here needed to be addressed.

“Hardison?” Nate asked.

Hardison caught on quick, like he usually did. “I can take care of things from here today, no problem.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, I want to stay with Lee!”

“We need you in the field, Parker,” Nate said with a sigh. She rolled her eyes at him, but started for the door. Nate took a moment to clear his head outside the door before going down to his car. It was con time.

- - -

“How’s it going?” Hardison said once it was just him and Lee in Nate’s apartment. The kid was watching him closely -- more relaxed than last night, but still on edge. Hardison could work with that. He’d spent enough time at Nana’s to learn how to interact with jumpy kids.

Lee just shrugged.

Hardison kept chatting, breaking the tension in the room the best way he knew. “So, breaking into the Fire Nation Consulate, huh? That’s pretty cool for a - how old are you, twelve?”

“Thirteen and a half,” Lee said with all of the sullenness of a recently turned teenager.

“Pretty impressive for a thirteen and half year old. Not as cool as what I was getting up to of course, but we can’t all be as awesome as me.”

Lee took the bait. “What were you doing?” he asked.

Hardison grinned. “I hacked into the pentagon the night before my thirteenth birthday just to prove I could, baby.”

Lee looked unimpressed. “Is that hard or something?”

“Hard!?” Hardison spluttered. “I had more skill at twelve than most hackers do in their prime. Is it hard? It wasn’t hard for me.”

“The consulate wasn’t that hard,” Lee said. He sounded almost annoyed. “It’s a Fire Nation building. It should have better security.” He was glaring, but it wasn’t at Hardison, more at the general concept of the building being easy to break into.

Hardison shrugged. “Maybe it means you’re just that good.” 

For some reason that made Lee turn his glare on him. It was an impressive glare, Hardison had to admit. “I’m not a thief,” Lee said.

That’s right. He probably shouldn’t be encouraging middle schoolers to lead lives of crime. “I never said you were. There’s plenty of non-crime reasons to break into buildings. Like locksmiths. They break into buildings all the time, locksmiths.”

Lee looked dubious. “I don’t want to be a locksmith.”

“There’s also those people who break into buildings to test the security,” Hardison said.

Lee looked slightly more interested at that but he still answered “I don’t want to be one of those either.

“Then what do you want to be, kid?”

“I-” Lee broke off and glared. “It’s none of your business.”

Hardison shrugged. “Suit yourself.” 

Lee didn’t seem particularly interested in continuing their conversation when Nate’s voice crackled in his ear, cutting off anything Hardison might’ve said to continue the conversation.

“Hardison, you’re up.”

“Roger that,” he said under his breath. He’d have time to talk to Lee later. Right now, it was showtime.

- - -

“What’s going on?” Zuko asked after a while because all chatty thief was doing was staring at his computer and talking to himself and Zuko still wasn’t sure why he was here in the first place.

Chatty thief guy looked up. “Ever heard of Smithson & Sons?”

“No?” 

“They’re a shipping company. CEO’s one Jake Smithson and let me tell you, their up to some shady sh-, err, stuff. You’ve got you’re usual smuggling, side arms dealing, etc. In addition to that they’re also up to all sorts of dealings with foreign governments, including selling information about their government contracts. ”

More context-less information out of the blue. Just what he needed. Zuko made no attempt to hide his complete disinterest on his face and chatty thief guy must’ve seen it.

He shrugged. “Anyway, we’re taking them down. It’s a pretty basic con, pose as potential buyers—”

“Not any of that,” Zuko cut him off. “With me.” And maybe he should’ve been more specific with the first question he asked, but how was he supposed to know that computer thief guy was just going to start talking about crime at the drop of a hat? (Okay, that was a stupid question. After all, he’d done it earlier too.) All of these people were crazy.

“Well, we’re going to help you out after we finish this job.”

And that still told him nothing. Help, help, help. That’s all they said. For all Zuko knew, help meant that they were going along with what crazy thief lady had offered and they were going to teach him how to break into buildings or something. “What sort of help?” Zuko asked.

Chatty thief guy shrugged. “If you’ve got a place to go, we’ll help you get there. If not, I’ll look into a few things, but I know someone who’d be able to take you in. We’ll make sure you have someplace safe to stay, get you off the streets.”

Zuko didn’t have a place to stay. Father had made that perfectly clear when he’d banished him. And he wasn’t about to find the avatar by staying in one place.

Chatty thief guy was still looking at him. “That sound cool with you?”

Zuko shrugged. “Sure.” Wherever they sent him, he wouldn’t stay for long. He couldn’t stay for long. He had to find the avatar. He wasn’t going to do that by staying in one place. Maybe you could find a nice Earth Kingdom family to adopt you , Azula’s taunt rang in the back of his mind. He wasn’t going to just replace his family. He’d stay until he found a lead on the avatar and then he’d go.

“Don’t worry, buddy. Nana’s the best. We ain’t gonna put you with any of the bad homes.”

Zuko just shrugged again.

Chatty thief guy studied him. After a pause that Zuko was pretty sure qualified as uncomfortably long he began to mess with his computer again. “You know what we should have? Movie night.”

“But it’s still the day,” Zuko said, confused by the sudden change of topic.

Friendly thief guy shrugged. “It’s an expression. Have you ever seen Star Wars?”

- - -

“I know we’re helping the kid,” Nate said once the con had been wrapped up, gloating had been had, and the CEO was under investigation by at least two separate law enforcement agencies, “but does he have to stay in my guest room?”

“It’s a nice central location,” Hardison said over the comms. The sounds of explosions could be heard faintly in the background.

“Not helping,” Nate said. If he’d actually been in the same location as Hardison, he would’ve glared at him. Instead, he had to settle for glaring at the traffic in front of him.

“Ooooh, he can stay with me!” Parker said from the back seat.

“Parker, you live in a warehouse,” Eliot said.

“It’s a perfectly nice place to live!”

“I’m sure it is,” Sophie said. “But it is a bit… bare. Where would Lee sleep?”

Parker was quiet for a moment. “I could get a hammock,” she offered. “I’ve always thought hammocks looked like fun.”

“A hammock’s not- Parker,” Eliot sighed in his ‘I’m done with all you crazy people’ way. “I’ve got a guest room at my apartment. He can stay with me.”

“That would be appreciated,” Nate said.

- - -

Later that night, after Nate had kicked them all out of his apartment and Hardison had finished the last of the clean-up and money moving, he finally settled down to start looking into Lee. According to Sophie, he was probably born on Caldera Island in the Fire Nation to upper-class parents, possibly nobility. And, oh yes, Lee was a fake name because who cared about making his job at least a little easier? According to Eliot, he was a firebender with at least some training, and that burn of his wasn’t more than a few months old. According to Parker, Lee was good at climbing and jumping off buildings. Put all that together, and he didn’t exactly have the makings of an easy search but he was the best at what he did. He could cope.

A quick pass with facial recognition didn’t come up with much. There were a few hits on traffic cameras, atm cams, etc, but not many. The earliest hit he got was May 29th, in an area of Boston near the docks. Local hospital records proved to be another dead end. Either the kid got treatment somewhere else, or he hadn’t gotten treatment at all. Hardison hoped it was the former.

The program he’d designed to crawl through records of people entering or leaving the country wasn’t having much luck either. There were a few potential matches but none of them panned out. So that meant that either Sophie was wrong (unlikely, considering how well he knew Sophie) or Lee’d been smuggled in somehow. Hardison sighed. He was probably going to have to hack into the Fire Nation. Wonderful.

- - -

So, somewhere in the middle of the movies that friendly thief guy insisted that he had to watch, everyone else showed back up again and things began to move far too quickly for Zuko’s tastes. Everyone was talking and moving around. The grumpy guy who’d given him food last night said that he was staying with him for some reason? Everything felt chaotic.

Eventually though, he ended up at grumpy food guy’s apartment. He made some food that tasted really good even if it wasn’t as spicy as Zuko liked. By that point, the sun was starting to set and Zuko was starting to yawn. (He’d stayed up late last night between breaking into the consulate and getting dragged around by crazy thief lady.) He was barely able to make sure that his backpack was carefully hidden in a corner under the bed before he fell asleep.

He wasn’t sure why he woke up, but it was still dark and the world felt wrong . The room felt too cold, the blankets felt too warm, and he couldn’t get back to sleep. He wasn’t sure what time it was but the sun felt like it would be rising soon-ish? For a loose definition of soon? And besides, he could hear grumpy chef guy moving around so it couldn’t be that early.

- - -

Eliot was making a survey of the food in his kitchen when Lee walked out of the guest room he’d been staying in. A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was a little after four, still too early for most people, even firebenders, to be up at. Well, it wasn’t like he was asleep either.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Eliot asked.

Lee shrugged. He looked the resigned sort of awake of someone who knows they couldn’t get more sleep but wasn’t exactly happy about it.

Eliot knew that feeling well. “You wanna help me make breakfast?”

“Now?”

Eliot shrugged. “Well, get started on it at least.” Cinnamon rolls, he decided. They’d make a good breakfast.

“… okay.” Lee nodded. “What should I do?”

Eliot pointed to the sink before starting to get out the ingredients. “First things first, you need to wash your hands.”

- - -

Making cinnamon rolls was nice, Zuko decided. He wasn't sure what they were (he’d never eaten them back at home) but grumpy food guy said that they would taste good. He got to help measure out the ingredients and punch the dough which was surprisingly fun. It was sticky at first and got on his hands, but the more he pushed it and rolled it around, the smoother it got until at last it was a round ball and grumpy food guy (who wasn't actually that grumpy now that Zuko thought about it) said that they needed to let it rest.

By the time they were done cooking, the sun was coming up and the whole apartment smelled really, really good and the wrongness of the night seemed long ago and far away.

Cinnamon rolls tasted good too. They were sweet, sweeter than most of the stuff they made at the palace, almost too sweet without any spiciness to cut it, but they were warm and gooey and it was really nice to be full again.

- - - 

Cleanup was done (Lee'd done his best to help, even though he'd clearly never done it before in his life), the leftover cinnamon rolls were put away for when the rest of the crew inevitably showed up uninvited at his place, and Eliot was forced to face the fact that he really didn't have much appropriate for a kid in his apartment. Why had he volunteered to take him again? Oh right, because Nate looked like his drinking problem was going to be much more of a drinking problem if the kid stayed at his place long term and everyone else on the crew was completely unqualified to babysit. (Except maybe Hardison, but Eliot barely trusted him to look after himself, so...)

He had a couple of home improvement projects he'd been planning on getting done. That probably wasn't the best thing to get Lee involved with though. A search of his apartment some cooking and outdoor magazines, some large book with a wizard on the cover that claimed to be an instruction manual that Hardison had probably left behind, a stack of blueprints to various museums and high-security buildings across Boston that Parker had definitely stashed at his place, and a few play scripts that Sophie had probably forgotten about.

Lee perked up when he mentioned the scripts. "Which plays?" he asked.

"Uh, it looks like The Mousetrap and Lucretia ."

"Oh! I haven't read those."

So Eliot gave the kid the scripts. He curled up on the couch thoroughly engrossed in them, his backpack still close at hand, but not held as tightly as it was before. Eliot left him to it and went to go and try and fix the drafty window that Parker always came in through.

The next time Eliot passed through the room, Lee was asleep. Eliot smiled to himself and went back to work, careful not to make too much noise.

- - -

Zuko was surrounded by fire. There was nothing but fire, the cool marble beneath him, and the towering figure above him. It danced on his skin and terrified him because it was just waiting for the right moment to burn and burn him to a crisp. He was begging. He knew deep down that it wasn’t going to do anything. That he was just making a fool of himself. But he couldn’t stop.

And then there was something touching him and- and he was waking up on a couch. There wasn’t any fire anywhere. His breathing was shaky. It shouldn’t be shaky. It wasn’t good for it to be shaky. He needed to control it better. Breath in, breath out. There was someone else there, standing a careful few steps back. He was remembering now. He was staying with chef thief guy - Eliot.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

Zuko nodded. It had probably been obvious.

Eliot nodded sympathetically. He looked like he was thinking for a second and then “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to the grocery.”

- - -

Eliot wasn’t entirely surprised to come back from the grocery store to find that his apartment had been invaded. Really, the only thing he was surprised about was that it was Hardison hanging around in front of his door instead of Parker sprawled on the couch.

"Don't you have computer stuff you're supposed to be doing?" he asked after he'd shoved Hardison and Lee inside.

Hardison shrugged. "I mean, yeah, but I've got the computer working on that. I've got it searching and I'll just check back when it's done. Easy peasy," he said, opening one of the cabinets and starting to rummage through it.

Eliot closed the cabinet before Hardison could pull out the gummy frogs that he knew the man kept stashed in their somewhere. "There's real food in the fridge," he said. "Warm that up if you're hungry." Then, after a quick glance around to make sure that Lee was busy elsewhere and in a quieter voice, "Look, if you find out who gave him that scar, let me know."

"It could be an accident," Hardison said, equally quiet.

Eliot raised an eyebrow. "It wasn't an accident." Kids didn't beg in their sleep because of accidents. Sure, his Raavan wasn't very good, and he couldn't make out more than a quarter of what he was saying, but you didn't need to know the words to recognize it for what it was.

Hardison sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Look, I can't make any promises, but if I do, I'll let you know."

"Thanks, man."

"Thank me, if I find out.”

"You will. Now clear out of the kitchen if you're not going to help with the cooking."

- - -

Parker came in through the window halfway through the cooking process. Honestly, at this point, Eliot wouldn't be surprised if Nate and Sophie came through the door next.

"What are you making?" she asked, leaning much too close to the hot stovetop. "It smells good."

Eliot batted her away. "Spicy noodles. And they're not done yet, so leave them alone."

She shrugged and moved to where Lee and Hardison were, joining their conversation while Eliot worked on finishing up the food. He'd just finished draining the noodles when there was a knock on the door. A moment later Sophie poked her head in. "Hello, just thought we'd stop by and check in." She walked in with Nate trailing behind her.

"You staying for supper too?" Eliot asked.

"Oh no, we've already eaten. I’ve got a rehearsal for Lucretia tonight. Nate's coming to see it."

Nate shrugged with a smile that didn't match the fact that he was about to be subjected to the worst theater known to man.

From the other end of the room, Lee seemed to perk up at Sophie's words. "You're putting on a production of Lucretia ?" he asked.

Sophie honed in on him nearly immediately. "It's going to be quite fine," she said, either ignoring or simply noticing Hardison and Parker’s grimaces. "I'm the lead,” she said. "Oh, you should come to see it! We’ve got a dress rehearsal tomorrow that you could and see."

Lee nodded. “I’d like that.”

Sophie clapped her hands together. “Excellent! Eliot, you won’t mind if I steal him for the day, will you?”

Eliot shook his head. “Not at all.” As long as he didn’t have to go to any more performances than he had to, he was fine.

“Wonderful!”

Nate tapped Sophie on the shoulder. “Sophie, the time.”

Sophie glanced at her watch. “Oh yes, we have to go. I’ll be by tomorrow!” And then they were gone, bustling out the door as quickly as they’d bustled in.

“Food’s ready,” Eliot said.

- - -

After gracefully bowing out of helping with cleanup, Hardison started setting up the Wii he’d brought along in the living room.

"You play many video games?" he asked Lee as he was digging around for the right wires.

Lee crossed his arms and looked away. "Video games are a childish waste of time," he said in the tone of voice kids had when they were parroting something that’d been told them.

Hardison gasped and put his hand against his chest in playful shock that was only exaggerated a little. "And ain't you a child?"

Lee shrugged but didn't say anything.

"You know what?" Hardison said as he plugged in the last few wires and turned on the tv. "I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that frankly insulting opinion and show you how real fun is had."

Lee still looked dubious, but Parker began rummaging through the bag of games he’d brought. "We should play Mario Party," she said definitively. "Dibs on Waluigi!"

Hardison had personally wanted to play some Super Smash Bros, but who was he to argue with Parker? "You want to join us?" he asked Eliot as he popped in the CD and pulled up the game.

"Someone's got to do the dishes since you all are ditching on me," Eliot replied in his ‘I’m not actually that annoyed but I’ve got to keep up appearances’ tone of voice.

"I can help," Lee said, inching towards the kitchen.

"Oh no, you don't." Hardison shoved a Wii remote into his hand. "You're going to learn about the wonderful fun of video games. Now, who do you want to be?"

Lee ended up choosing Yoshi. ("He kind of looks like a dragon, but like, a really messed up dragon.") Parker snagged Waluigi as usual and Hardison grabbed Mario because you really couldn't go wrong with Mario.

Despite his horrendous hand-eye coordination, Lee ended up coming in second place because Hardison was of the opinion that no one should lose their first-ever video game. Parker came in first because she was hella competitive and shared no such compunctions.

Hardison looked away from Parker's victory dance over to where Eliot was watching and leaning against the wall. "Want to join us for the next round?"

"Fine, but I'm playing as Toad."

Hardison grinned. "He's all yours, bro."

- - -

Sophie showed up at Eliot's apartment the next afternoon ready to share the joys of theater with someone who would actually appreciate the effort she put into her art.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

Lee nodded. "Yeah." He looked more relaxed than he did when Parker had first brought him in. And he looked a little excited as well, though he was clearly trying to disguise some of it. It was good to see him like this, acting a little more like an actual child.

"I'll bring him back later this evening," she said to Eliot. "Are you sure you don't want to come to rehearsal as well?"

And did he really think he could hide that grimace from her? He recovered quickly enough, she'd give that to him at least. "Nah," he said in a casual tone. "I've got some things I need to get done. Have fun though."

"We will. Goodbye," Sophie said.

Lee waved goodbye to Eliot and then followed her out the door and down to her car.

- - -

Here's the thing, Zuko liked the theater. It’d been forever since he’d gotten the chance to go, not since mother had vanished. So, he’d really been looking forward to seeing Sophie’s rehearsal, which was why it was such a complete and utter disappointment that the theater troupe she was a part of seemed to be on par with the Ember Island Players when it came to the quality of the performance. Actually, they were probably worse than the Ember Island Players -- the players at least had decent special effects.

And now he was sitting across the table from her at a restaurant and she was looking at him with eager eyes. "So, how was it?" she asked.

Zuko did the only thing he really knew how to do: blunt honesty. "Terrible,” he said.

"Really?" She looked so crushed at that that Zuko almost felt a little bad. 

“Uh, the costumes weren’t bad?” he offered.

That didn’t help. "Ugh!" She collapsed into the table with every ounce of melodrama she'd had on the stage. "What was it? Was it the introduction? Oh, I always felt that was a bit rough. Does it need to be more? Am I not getting the character across?"

"Uh," Zuko leaned back instinctively from the sheer amount of emotion she was exuding. "You don't need more, you're already too much."

"Really? You think so? But Lucretia has such a rich inner life that needs to be conveyed." Sophie sat back up and looked at Zuko like she actually cared about what his opinions on theater were. Which was… nice, and also something that hadn’t happened in a while.

“Yeah, but she’s also a noblewoman,” Zuko said, slowly gaining confidence in the conversation. “Noblewomen are all refined and dignified. They can’t just shout their feelings everywhere. They have to be polite and stuff.”

“Hmm, polite. I can do polite,” Sophie said thoughtfully. “How about my death scene?”

"It was, uh, emotional?" Zuko offered. He decided to be polite and not mention that the emotions were all wrong.

“Be honest. Where could I improve?” She leaned forward a little.

“They’re the wrong emotions. She was dishonored. She’d be scared and angry and determined, not-” Zuko made a vague gesture that couldn’t come anywhere close to encompassing just what had been in that performance, “whatever that was. At least, that’s how I’d feel if I were her.” Which he wasn’t. Mostly.

“And why would that be?” Sophie asked. Her voice was softer, gentler and she was looking him straight in the eye.

“Um,” Zuko got the impression that the conversation had changed when he wasn’t paying attention. “Well, she lost her honor and honor’s everything.” He stared down at the table. “So she’s angry because she lost it and determined because she needs to get it back and scared because there’s only one way to do it.” And if he didn’t have his mission, maybe he’d only have one way too. But he wasn’t going to think about that because he did have his mission and he was going to find the avatar and get his honor back.

Sophie nodded. “Hmm. I’ll think about that.” And then she did something, probably, (Zuko couldn’t tell) and the air suddenly felt lighter. “But enough about me,” she said in a far less serious voice. “I hate to speak ill of my fellow performers, but the actor playing Brutus?”

“Terrible,” Zuko agreed. Now they were on more comfortable ground.

“I swear, a brick wall would emote more than he does.”

“No stage presence, either.”

“Exactly!”

- - -

Eliot wasn't exactly surprised when Parker appeared in the middle of his living room on Friday morning. Lee did look surprised, but he hadn't known Parker for very long.

"It's time for our field trip," she said, later, after they'd settled down and Eliot had made some real food for breakfast. (Knowing Parker, she’d only eaten that sugary cereal of hers.)

"Huh?" Lee asked, looking up from where he was steadily eating his own pancakes.

"You got a field trip with Sophie, to go see her play. So now it's my turn."

"Don't do anything too illegal," Eliot said.

Parker looked a little annoyed at that comment. "Lee's a thief too."

"'m not a thief," Lee said, glaring through his mouth full of pancake.

Eliot fixed Parker with a look. "At least try and be a good influence."

She shrugged. "Fine, I wasn't planning on anything like that anyway," which wasn't exactly an all-out agreement, but it was probably the best he was going to get.

“Okay, have fun, kid.” Eliot shrugged and went back to clean-up.

“What are we doing?” Lee asked, still confused.

“Something fun!”

“Do have any choice in this?”

“Nope!”

- - -

“Do you know how to pick locks?” Crazy thief lady asked.

Zuko shook his head. Their destination had turned out to be a completely ordinary-looking apartment. He still had no idea what was going on since crazy thief lady still hadn’t told him anything about what they were doing.

She shrugged. “We’ll have to fix that.” And then she knelt down in front of the door and started messing with the doorknob.

“Didn’t Eliot say not to do anything illegal?” Zuko asked. He whatever this was counted as illegal. Fire Nation law was different from US law, breaking and entering tended to be a crime.

“We’re not.” Crazy thief lady stood up and pushed the door open. It hadn’t taken her long at all to pick the lock. “Peggy asked Alice to feed her cats while she's out of town.” On cue, meows started to come from the other side of the door and a few cats began to poke their heads through the doorframe.

He’d missed something somewhere, hadn’t he? Because, as usual, she wasn’t making sense. “… Who’s Alice?”

“One of the identities that Hardison made for me. You should probably come in,” she added, grabbing a rather large cat who’d been making a break for it.

Well, it wasn’t like his life had made much sense at all this past week. Zuko followed her through the door. And, wow, there were a lot of cats in the apartment. “So if she asked y-, err, Alice, why did you pick the lock?”

Crazy thief lady shrugged. “She left a key, but it was quicker this way. Help me find the cat food?”

Zuko decided that he was just going to stop trying to understand what was going on. “Okay.”

Later, after all the cats were all fed, Zuko took advantage of the fact that they were fed to pet them without getting bitten.

“Do you like cats?” Crazy thief lady asked from where she was perched on the counter.

Zuko shrugged. There were viper-cats back at the palace but they wouldn’t let you pet them unless you bribed them with food first. And the cactopus on the ship that brought him here had been nice enough, but she spent most of her time, crawling across the bottom of the ship and he’d spent most of the time curled up in the infirmary. These cats seemed nice though. “When they’re not trying to bite me.”

Crazy thief lady nodded. "I like them. They're good at stealth." She paused for a second. "And also Peggy really likes them."

"They're really soft." Another cat began rubbing itself against his leg. Zuko began petting it too.

“I bet we could steal a really nice cat.”

That caught Zuko’s attention. He looked up. “I thought these were your friend’s cats.”

“We’d steal a different cat, obviously.”

“I don’t want to steal a cat.”

“Come on, it’d be fun!”

“No!”

- - -

It took a version of his facial recognition program specially adapted to work around the recent burn injury, for Hardison to find Lee. There were a few false hits first, but considering what he was working with, that was better than he’d expected.

On the screen was a formal photo of two kids: Lee and a girl who was probably his sister. Lee looked a couple years younger; his hair was longer, not the short shaggy mess that he had now. His sister looked absolutely adorable and had the familiar glint of ambition in her eyes that Hardison had grown up seeing in the mirror every morning. They were both wearing fancy traditional Fire Nation clothes.

"Let's see who you are," Hardison said to himself, taking a swig of orange soda.

He nearly spat it out a second later when he scrolled down enough to see the names of the subjects. That couldn’t be right. A little more digging into some hinky stuff he really wished he could unsee and it turned that, unfortunately, it was right. There was no denying it. He'd found Lee.

- - -

Nate woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. “Hello?” he asked, still half asleep. A glance at the clock revealed that it was far from a reasonable hour.

"Nate?" It was Hardison.

"This had better be important if you’re calling me at 3 am.”

"Is it really-? Oh yeah. Sorry, lost track of the time. Look, I've got good news and bad news."

Nate groaned. "What is it?"

"Good news, I got the info on Lee."

"And bad news?"

"Bad news, it isn't pretty."

Hardison didn’t seem inclined to elaborate on that statement. "So are you going to tell me?" Nate asked.

On the other end of the line, Hardison hemmed and hawed before finally saying "Look, can we get everyone together before I do this? I only want to have to do it once."

Well, it wasn’t like Nate wanted to have this conversation at 3 am either. "Fine. Anything else?"

"Nah, that’s it."

"Goodnight, Hardison."

"'Night, Nate,” Hardison said and hung up.

Nate looked at the phone in his hand for a long moment before tossing it back onto his bedside table and going back to sleep. It was too early for this. He’d deal with whatever mess Hardison had dug up in the morning. Later in the morning at least.

Chapter Text

"Meet Lee. Also known as Zuko, former crown prince of the Fire Nation," Hardison said. On the screen was the formal portrait he'd found of Prince Zuko next to his sister, Princess Azula.

Unlike some of the other bombs he'd dropped in briefings, this one didn't generate chatter so much as silence. One, two, three, four faces staring at him and moving from surprise to understanding. He could basically see the gears turning in their brains.

"Huh," said Sophie.

"He's awfully good at breaking into buildings for a prince," Parker said thoughtfully.

Nate was the one who noticed the important part of what Hardison had said. "Former crown prince?" he asked.

"Former crown prince," Hardison restated. "A couple of months ago he was banished by the Fire Lord after a nasty bit of business with an Agni Kai."

"Agni Kai?" Sophie asked.

"It's an honor duel, traditionally fought between fire benders," Eliot said. "Used to be fought to the death, that's less common now though."

"Ah,” Sophie said. “Men.”

Eliot turned back to Hardison. "What I want to know is how a thirteen-year-old kid ended up in an Agni Kai."

Nate was also looking at him in a way that could almost be mistaken for casual if you didn't know the man. They all knew him though and could tell that something was starting to boil under his skin.

"Yeah, about that. Apparently, they still keep all their records about those sorts of things on actual paper over there. So, uh, the skills of yours truly were a little limited. What there was though, was this video." Hardison pulled it up on the screen. "And, um, it ain't pretty. Just as a warning." And then he clicked play.

Hardison had stumbled upon the video early into his stint hacking the Fire Nation before he’d realized that it was connected to Lee. It had kept popping up and getting taken down. He'd started watching out of curiosity and clicked out halfway through when it became clear that nothing good was happening in it. It started off innocent enough, a shakey phone video by an amateur historian recording an Agni Kai. And then the duel started and it became clear that it was not innocent at all. The kid — Lee — begged as his father came closer and closer and, well, they all knew how he'd gotten that scar now.

When the clip came to its sudden, unpleasant end, Sophie looked horrified, Eliot disgusted, Parker dangerously blank, and Nate, well, Nate looked just as dangerous as Parker, just in a different way.

Sophie was the first to break the silence. "Is... is that even legal?" she asked.

"Yeah," Eliot was glaring at the screen despite the fact that it was black and you could no longer see either Lee/Zuko or the Fire Lord. "There's not a lot of regulations for them. More traditional than legal. Generally, it's not honorable to challenge a kid. But as royalty, he’d be under a different set of rules."

"So that whole," Sophie waved her hands around in a vague gesture. "It was all legal? It feels wrong."

Eliot shrugged. "Like I said, not a lot of laws. Plus, he was up against the Fire Lord. No one's going to stop him."

"Do I want to know why you know so much about Agni Kais?" Hardison asked.

Eliot smirked. "Technically, you don't even have to be a fire bender to fight one."

Parker looked interested in that. "Did you win?"

"Of course I won."

"Guys." Nate's voice was sharp. The brief moment of levity was gone. "Back on track. Hardison, you said he was banished. What are the details on that?"

Hardison clicked a button, pulling a picture of the banishment notice up on the screen. “So, they’re really hushing everything up, probably ‘cause it’d be hella bad for PR if it got out, but according to the official notice I tracked down, it’s due to gross dishonor or something. It’s citing some really ancient law that I’m surprised is even remotely valid about cowardice and the Fire Lord’s role as the voice of Agni. Unofficially, word on the street, well internet forum, is that he hated his son and was just looking for the excuse.”

Nate nodded. Hardison watched him very closely. Everyone was watching him very closely.

“We’re going to destroy him, right?” Parker asked.

Nate nodded. “We’re going to destroy him. Hardison, what do you have on the Fire Lord?”

“Hold up,” Eliot said. “Nate are you serious? We took down Moreau two months ago. And now you want to take on the Fire Lord?” 

“Are you saying we shouldn’t go after him? After what he did? He hurt his son and used his power to get away with it. He needs to go down.”

“Yeah, and this isn’t some CEO, this is the Fire Lord. You rush in, you get us killed. Not to mention, you take down Ozai, what happens next? Unless you’re completely revamping their entire system of government, the options for the next Fire Lord are Lee, his little sister, or the Dragon of the West. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to play king-maker for the Dragon of the West.”

“So we just let him go?” Nate said angrily.

“Nobody’s saying that, Nate," Sophie said consolingly. "It's just, you're rushing into this because you're angry. We're all angry. But this is a matter that requires a delicate touch. It’s clear that Lee doesn’t trust us yet and I think we should start with that, not rushing over to the fire nation to take down his father.”

“Then what do we do? I’m not going to let him get away with this.”

“Well, we worked our way up to Moreau, didn’t we?” Sophie asked. “We’ll work our way up to him.”

“As long as he’s connected to the internet, I can make his life a living hell,” Hardison said. “And we did just steal a country. We could probably use a break before doing that again.”

Nate looked back at Eliot.

Eliot shrugged. “Fine,” he said. He didn’t look very happy about it. “You better have a pretty damn good plan though before we go in.”

“Oh, we will.” Nate turned back to the screen. “Hardison, what do you have on Ozai?”

Hardison pulled up a picture of him on the screen. “Fire Lord Ozai. He inherited his position under rather fishy circumstances. See his older brother, Prince Iroh was supposed to inherit, but then his son died in Bah Sing Se, and Fire Lord Azulon died like the day after. Apparently, Ozai’s wife disappeared around that time too. Anyway once all the dust settled he was Fire Lord. What everyone knows and nobody says, is that it was pretty clear-cut case of foul play.

"Since he took the throne, he's been expanding the whole war effort/invasion thing that the Fire Nation's had going on for the past hundred years or so with mixed success. Right now he’s going up against Omashu and not having much luck."

Sophie nodded. "So he wants power."

"And he killed his father to get it. Probably his wife too," Nate added. "And if that's what he wants, that's what we'll take away from him."

Eliot looked dubious. "And how are we going to do that? Taking down foreign leaders isn't exactly a piece of cake. Especially if you want 'em alive at the end of it."

Nate shrugged. "That's what we're going to figure out."

"We should start by stealing Lee," Parker said. She paused a moment. "Zuko. Whatever his name is." She shrugged.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Nate was already in mastermind mode. "He’s banished though. He won't work as leverage."

“That’ll just make it easier then,” Parker said. “Besides, I want him.”

“He’s a person, Parker, not a thing,” Sophie said.

“You can still steal people.”

“I suppose you can,” Sophie said. “We’re supposed to be helping him though.”

“Stealing him would be helping.”

While that exchange had been going on, Nae had had that thoughtful look in his eye. He turned back to Hardison. "What do you have on the banishment? Is there any way to undo it?"

Hardison shrugged. "Now, I'm not an expert of Fire Nation law or anything, but as far as I could tell, the only way that it could get undone was if the Fire Lord undid it."

"So either we force Ozai's hand or we get someone on the throne who'd be more sympathetic..." Nate said pensively.

“Good luck with that,” Eliot said. “Your options are the Dragon of the West or an eleven-year-old girl with a regency council who’re probably right in Ozai’s pocket.”

"So we get a regent who's more sympathetic. Maybe the wife if she's still alive. If not," Nate turned to Sophie. "You'd make a pretty good Fire Lady."

Sophie shrugged. "It won’t be the first time I’ve filled a royal role. How long a game are we playing here, though?"

"As long as it needs to be. You can always fake your death again if you need to."

"I do love a good death scene."

Hardison interjected before their deep eye contact could get annoying. Seriously, they just needed to get a room together or something. All this dancing around had to be unhealthy. "If the wife's alive I'll find her."

“So once we have that, all we need to do is remove Ozai from power.” Nate made it sound so easy. Like he did everything. Hardison foresaw many long hours of work in his future.

Eliot must’ve seen the same thing because he snorted. “The easy way to do that is to give me two weeks and not ask too many questions. Other than that, they’ve still got a divine monarchy over there. It isn’t like there’s an election we can rig like San Lorenzo.”

Nate nodded. “We can’t sic Interpol on him. There’s got to be someone else we can though.” He started pacing back and forth. “If it’s a divine monarchy, maybe we can sic the religious authority on him. And if that doesn’t work. Well, politicians are politicians.”

“So, earn Lee’s trust, turn Ozai’s allies against him, and put someone better in power,” Sophie said. “Should be fun.”

“And I can steal his stuff, right?” Parker asked.

Nate grinned a predatory grin. “Oh, you can definitely steal his stuff.” He clapped his hands together. “Well then, let’s steal a Fire Prince.”

Chapter Text

The briefing went smoothly enough, or at least as smoothly as they could go with this crowd. Hardison had given a million like them before and he’d give a million more. It was the standard story: Some crusty old white guy breaking labor laws left and right, probably embezzling money and doing some other shady stuff while he was at it. He was also way too obsessed with his family’s candle business. Parker was already adjusting her new rig. Sophie was practicing an outlandish russian accent. Nate said let’s steal a state fair and that should’ve been that.

“What are we going to do with Lee?” Eliot asked. “The fair ain’t exactly local.”

“We should bring him along,” Parker said.

Nate exchanged a look with Sophie “Do we really want to drag him into this?”

Sophie shrugged. “He’ll be fine. It’s the state fair, how dangerous could it be?”

Nate turned away from her and looked to Eliot, who shrugged, Nate sighed. “Fine. Hardison, can you…?”

Hardison resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, I can babysit, but you guys better help.”

And so it was settled: they were going to steal a fair and Lee was coming along.

—

Living with Eliot was weird, Zuko decided. Weird, but not really bad ? All of the other thieves showed up and disappeared at odd times and he was pretty sure that Eliot never slept but he let Zuko help cook and he didn’t ask any questions when Zuko had nightmares. So, he was starting to get used to it. At least until Eliot walked in one day and said that he needed to get packed up because they were going to the fair or something. Maybe he should just stop trying to understand the mess that his life had become.

He didn’t have much he needed to pack. Just the new clothes that Sophie had insisted on bringing him shopping to get and his backpack of essentials and avatar files that there was no way he was leaving behind. Eliot apparently had nothing to pack at all so they were out the door and on the road about fifteen minutes later. Yep. Living with Eliot was weird.

—

They checked into a hotel just after lunch. And as soon as that was done, Zuko watched as everyone promptly disappeared citing various implausible excuses, and leaving Zuko along with Computer Guy — Hardison. And then, because he was the only other person standing around, he got dragged into helping him set up the unnecessarily excessive amount of computer stuff he’d packed. Zuko should’ve disappeared too.

He finally managed to get away and hide in a corner between a bed and the wall with his avatar files because if they weren’t actually going to the fair he wanted to be doing something more useful with his time than whatever Hardison kept dragging him into. He didn’t manage get very far though before he was interrupted again , just like every time he tried to get some research done, this time by Crazy Thief Lady who appeared out of nowhere and was staring at him.

Zuko didn’t jump. He was getting better at that — the whole not jumping when she just suddenly appeared thing. He did glare at her though. “What do you want?”

“I need your help with something.”

Zuko was very dubious of anything that she needed his help with. “Does it involve breaking into somewhere?”

“No! Well, only a little,” she admitted. “Barely.”

“No.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

Zuko crossed his arms. “Fun like jumping off a building?”

“I thought it was fun,” Crazy Thief Lady said because she was crazy . “But not as fun as that.”

Zuko glared at her.

Crazy Thief Lady stared at him.

Zuko glared harder. He was not going on a potentially crime-filled outing with her.

—

Okay, so Zuko may have lost that argument which was why he was now in front of the stables area. It was filled with horses. Normal horses. Not water horse-buffalo, or ostrich horses. America really was filled with all sorts of strange animals. Next to him, Crazy Thief Lady was giving the horses a suspicious look and muttering something under her breath. Zuko only caught a couple of hints of what she was saying but it sounded like ‘clown murderers’ and he decided that he didn’t want to know. 

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

Crazy thief lady gave the horses one last dirty look and then turned back to him. “You see that office over there?” she asked, pointing to the opposite end of the stables.

Zuko nodded.

“I need you to break into it.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Too many horses,” she said, which only added evidence to the fact that she was clearly insane .

Well, Zuko had already lost this argument. He wasn’t about to have it again. “Fine. So, I break in. Then what?”

Crazy thief lady gave him a little grin and handed him a piece of plastic. “Put this in your ear.”

“When I get there?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Now,” she said like it was supposed to be obvious when she was the one changing the subject on him.

Zuko gave her a look, but slipped the thing in his ear. It fit neatly, surprisingly enough.

“Now we can talk to each other,” Crazy thief lady said and started pulling more pieces of black plastic out of nowhere. “You’ll need these too,” she said, shoving them at Zuko.

He still had no idea what any of this stuff was, so he put it in his pockets.

“I’ll tell you what to do once you get there.”

“Okay,” Zuko said.

“What are you waiting for?” Crazy thief lady asked. “Go!” she said, giving him a little shove down the isles of stalls.

—

The office door was locked. Zuko really shouldn’t have been surprised by that.

“You don’t know how to pick locks, do you?” Crazy Thief Lady’s voice crackled in his ear.

“No.”

“Hmmm, how about picking pockets?”

“No!” What sort of education did she think he had?

“Another thing I’ll have to teach you then,” she said, matter of factly. Hadn’t one of them said something about him leaving? Why was Crazy Thief Lady acting like he’d be staying around long enough for him to learn all of these crazy thief skills? “How about crawling through vents? You can do that, right?”

Zuko had personally never crawled through vents, but doing that sounded a lot more tolerable than whatever else she might think up if he said he couldn’t. “I guess.”

“Great!”

Crawling through vents turned out to be surprisingly not that bad. Sure they were a little dusty and cramped, but he’d snuck around some of the secret passages in the palace that had been worse.

“Now what?” he asked, landing in the center of the deserted office.

“Now we steal their information.”

Following Crazy Thief Lady’s instructions, Zuko plugged the piece of plastic that was a flash drive into the computer. The computer did a lot of things that Zuko didn’t really get, but he unplugged it when it was all done and put it back in his pocket. He was then instructed to hide what Crazy Thief Lady said was some sort of listening device, bug thingy and then he left.

Crawling through the vents was easier the second time around.

“Are we done now?” Zuko asked once he’d met back up with Crazy thief lady and handed her back the flashdrive.

“Nope!” she said way too peppily. “You did a good job though. Now we need to do it again.”

—

Hardison really should’ve noticed that Lee was gone before he followed Parker through the front door of the hotel room that afternoon. Especially since Nate had put him in charge of babysitting. Sure, he hadn’t seen the kid actually leave the hotel room he was hiding in, but if Parker wanted to leave a room, well she left a room, no question about it.

“We got your information,” Parker said, dropping a flashdrive on his desk and displaying absolutely no shame at the fact that she’d just run off with Lee without telling anyone.

“We?” Hardison asked, hoping that the answer wouldn’t be the obvious one.

“Lee helped. He needed the practice.”

Hardison noticed that Lee looked less than happy about that statement. “Parker, baby, you can’t just run off with Lee without telling us.”

“He was perfectly safe,” Parker said, shifting from one foot to another. “Besides there were horses there.”

Hardison sighed. “Look, just tell us next time.”

She nodded. “Next time, I’ll tell you.”

Which implied that there would be a next time, but Hardison was a reasonable guy with reasonable expectations. There was going to be a next time whether Parker agreed to let them know or not.

That was the moment when Nate walked back in. He took in the scene quickly and gave Parker a look . She looked at least a little cowed by it. “Parker,” he said.

“Yes?” 

“I have something else for you to do.”

Parker nodded and made to leave the room. Lee also began to creep off. Nate noticed him though. “Not you. You’re staying here.”

—

Once again, Zuko’s ability to do avatar research was thwarted, this time by the fact that he was stuck in a room with Hardison and Nate and they were going to notice if he pulled out the files and probably ask questions that he didn’t want to have to answer. So instead, he was bored. They were just talking about stuff that probably had to do with computers or crime or other topics that were vastly uninteresting. And he continued to be bored until Hardison pulled up some camera feeds from somewhere and he could see Sophie walking through a hallway.

At least, he thought it was Sophie. The longer that Zuko watched her, the less she looked like it. The face looked the same, at least as clear as he could see through the camera. But the way she moved was all different. It was weird.

“Hardison, can you turn on the volume?” Nate said.

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.” Hardison pressed one of his numerous buttons and white noise began coming out of the speakers.

Zuko was still trying to figure out whether the person on the camera was Sophie or maybe some sort of spirit creature doing a bad job of impersonating her when she stopped in front of someone else.

“Mr. Tilton,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Svetlana Volkova at your service. I have a proposal I think you will be very interested in.”

The voice definitely sounded like her, even though she was using a ridiculous accent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“You’re seeing Sophie in action, that’s what’s going on,” Hardison said with a smile.

“But what’s she doing ?” Zuko was really starting to get annoyed with all of the non answers these people kept giving him.

“She’s grifting.” Nate said. “You’re watching the finest grifter in the world work her craft,” he said, not looking away from the screen.

That answer would’ve been more helpful if Zuko actually knew what grifting was. Fortunately, Hardison clarified “It’s what you get when you cross acting and stealing.”

“Oh,” Well, the stealing part made sense at least. “But she’s a terrible actress.”

“On stage, yes,” Nate said, “but when she’s stringing someone along? She’s the best you’ll ever meet.”

Zuko looked back to the camera feed.

The other guy was talking. “And you’re saying that the… individuals you represent, would be interested in investing?” he said.

“Yes. Of course, they require certain… signs of goodwill, shall we say?” Looking at her, knowing that it really was Sophie there, it almost reminded Zuko of Azula when she was wrapping the court around her little finger.

“She’s good,” Zuko said, deciding not to pursue that uncomfortable train of thought any further.

Nate smiled. “The best.”

Sophie was scary, Zuko decided, as he watched her talk the man in circle after circle, Nate occasionally tossing out lines that she would parrot and transform into something far more powerful. She could never meet Azula. Zuko was sure that he wouldn’t survive that meeting.

 And then the conversation was over, Sophie walking away from a man who had no idea how completely he’d been fooled. Her voice -- the one that Zuko was used to — came over the speakers. “Well that went smoothly.” It was like she’d flipped a switch. Definitely scary.

—

“What are you doing?”

Hardison looked up from his computer to see that Lee was watching him intently. Which was a little embarrassing considering Hardison hadn’t been aware that the kid was even paying attention to him in the first place. Eliot would probably say something about him needing more situational awareness or something, but that’s what everyone else was around for.

“Nate asked me to look into a few of Tilton’s colleagues so I’m poking around, finding out where they live, what makes them tick. That sort of thing.” Hardison shrugged. “Why you asking?”

Lee shrugged noncommittally and kept watching the names and pictures that were scrolling by on the screen. “You can find people?”

“I can find anyone as long as they’re on the internet.”

“Anyone?” And Lee definitely looked interested in that.

“Anyone,” Hardison said with a nod. “There anyone you want me to find?”

“…No.” Hardison didn’t need Sophie’s help to tell that that sullen response was a lie. Which meant that there was someone he was looking for. The mom maybe? Well, pressing wouldn’t help, so he shrugged and went back to his program.

Another couple minutes passed. “Could you show me how to?”

Hardison grinned. “Yeah, I can show you the ropes.” Parker wasn’t the only one who could take on a protege.

—

  “It doesn’t look like an elephant’s ear,” Zuko said dubiously as he poked at the fried something covered in powdered sugar, chocolate sauce, and dark brown things that Crazy Thief Lady had given him.

“That’s because it’s not an elephant ear, it’s a funnel cake ,” Hardison said, holding his own elephant cake thing. He gave the one in Parker’s hand a side eye. “And you’re eating it all wrong.”

“It tastes better this way!”

“Too many toppings, woman. Too many toppings!”

“You two do know we have an actual job we’re supposed to be doing,” Eliot said. He’d been getting progressively more grumpy over all of the stops at food stands that Crazy Thief lady had insisted they make.

Both Hardison and Crazy Thief Lady turned on him.

“But fair food!” Crazy Thief Lady exclaimed.

“Come on, Eliot, lighten up!” Hardison said,

Zuko tuned out the rest of their argument and tried a bite of his own elephant ear funnel cake thing. It tasted like sweet and not much else, like most of the foods Crazy Thief Lady had shoved at him on this outing. He took another bite. He still had no idea what they were supposed to be doing since no one had bothered to explain it to him before dragging him along to ‘keep him out of trouble’.

“Look, let’s just pass out the stupid flyers!” Eliot said.

“Hey, don’t look down on my flyers. I made those; they’re my babies!” Hardison said.

“And we’re passing them out.”

Zuko found himself holding a stack of brightly colored fliers that seemed to be going on about the cruelties inherent in clowns, or something. Well, he’d given up on anything making sense by this point. At least he knew what he was supposed to be doing now.

—

“Everything ready?” Nate asked as he stood just outside of the fairgrounds.

“In position,” Parker’s voice crackled over the comms. Nate could hear the faint voice of Lee asking Parker something before the comm shut back off. Part of him was very dubious about the fact that he was involving the kid in their crimes but Parker was going to drag him along with or without permission. At least Eliot was supposed to be in shouting distance.

“Same here.” Speaking of, there was Eliot now.

“I’m always ready,” Haridson said.

Nate turned to Sophie. “And you?”

She made one last adjustment to the tiara in her hair. “Do you even have to ask?” she said, offering him an arm.

Nate took. “Let’s go then.”

—

Once again, Zuko found himself dragged along on some strange business with Crazy Thief Lady. It didn’t seem to involve breaking into places this time, but it did involve releasing a bunch of balloons and stealing people’s phones before returning them for some reason.

“Okay, now stare at that guy.”

“What?” Out of all the strange instructions Crazy Thief Lady had given him, this had to be one of the strangest.

“We’re gloating!” she said, which clarified absolutely nothing. And then, to demonstrate, she started staring at the guy that he was pretty sure Sophie had been talking to earlier.

Zuko glanced around. The others had showed up at some point and they were also all staring at the guy so apparently this was actually a thing and not just a Crazy Thief Lady thing. He glared at the guy. He was good at glaring. He wasn’t glaring very long when a bunch of guys showed up and started arresting the guy they were staring at. There was a whole bunch of shouting and stuff. Zuko still didn’t see the point. 

—

“Lee, do you want to help me take care of something?”

Zuko looked up from the frankly excessive amount of computer stuff that he had gotten dragged into helping Hardison packed up at the sound of Sophie’s voice. “With what?” he asked dubiously. “Does it involve stealing anything?”

Sophie shook her head. “No stealing. I’m meeting with someone I think you might like to meet.”

Well, if it didn’t involve crime (and Lee was a little dubious about that considering that everything these people did seemed to come down to stealing one way or another), it had to be better than helping Hardison pack. He shrugged. “Sure.”

The place Sophie brought him to was a rundown apartment. She knocked on the door and a nervous looking hispanic woman answered.

“Hello?” she said. “Oh, Ms. Pierson, it’s you. And you brought someone with you.”

Sophie smiled a warm smile that Zuko could tell was different somehow than the one she usually gave him. “It’s good to see you again, Lucia. This is my nephew, Lee.” She lied as smoothly as Azula did.

Zuko nodded once in greeting when the woman — Lucia — smiled at him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lee.” And then she stepped aside from the door, “Why don’t you come in?”

Zuko followed Sophie into the apartment. He was beginning to think that he’d been lied to about the whole not stealing thing. Why was Sohpie lying to this woman?

“I saw the news,” Lucia said. “About Tilton. You did that?”

Sophie gave an elegant little shrug that said yes but I’m not going to admit it. “We simply made sure that the truth came out.”

“Thank you, so much. That’s more than I ever hoped for.”

Well, if she was thanking them, maybe they weren’t stealing after all. Though what they were doing was still a mystery to Zuko.

“It was the least we could do.” Sophie reached into her purse and pulled a piece of paper. “I know, this won’t bring back your brother, but we also got a little something for you.” She handed over the paper — it was a check, Zuko noticed — with a smile. And if it was a check, that meant they were giving her money which was like, the opposite of stealing. Yeah, he had no idea what was going on.

Lucia gasped when she looked at the paper. “But this— How?”

Sophie smiled. “We have our ways.”

And then there were tears and thanks and smalltalk and Zuko did his best to be polite even though it was all rather boring and he still had no idea why he was even here in the first place.

“What was that?” Zuko asked once he and Sophie were back in the car. 

“Did anyone tell you what we do?” she asked.

“You steal stuff?” At least that was the impression he’d gotten. “And help people?” Which was what Crazy Thief Lady had claimed back in that alley even if he didn’t see how it all added up.

Sophie nodded. “We do both. We steal from the rich and powerful, from those who have all the power and use it to hurt other people. And we do that to help people out who have been hurt.”

“Oh. So who was that?”

“Lucia… her brother died because Tilton was abusing the workers at the state fair, among other things. She reached out to us and we agreed to help her out.”

“By stealing?”

“A little more than just stealing. We ran a con on him to both reveal his crimes to the appropriate people and, well, also to steal a good chunk of his money to give to our client.”

“Client?”

“Lucia.”

Zuko nodded and thought about that for a bit. He remembered the other thing that had confused him about the visit. “Your name’s not Pierson.”

“But what if it is?” Sophie said cryptically.

Zuko scowled. “But it isn’t. It’s Sophie something-with-a-D. So why did she call you Pierson?”

“I have lots of names. Sophie Devereaux is one and Elena Pierson is another. They’re all me, or I’m all them. One or the other.”

That was confusing. Zuko had only ever had one name, at least until now. But that’s because he was hiding. Because he was banished. “Which one’s your real name?”

Sophie was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Zuko was worried that he’d said the wrong thing. But in the end she said “That’s a tricky question. I’ve worn so many masks that it's hard to tell which one’s really me in the end. Sophie Devereaux’s just another mask when it comes down to it, though it’s the one I’ve worn the most.”

It was an answer that didn’t make sense. Zuko was, unfortunately, getting used to those.

  Sophie was quiet for another long moment that he wasn’t sure if he should try and break or not. “I could tell you my first name though. It’s probably closest to my real one.” She turned over to look at him. “It’s a secret though, and you can’t tell Nate.”

“Why?”

She smiled. “Because he isn’t supposed to know. He does know, but we’ve got to keep up appearances.”

“…Okay.”

“So, can you keep a secret?”

Zuko nodded. “I can.”

She told him and Zuko held it close like the gift it was. “So, do you want me to call you that?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just Sophie’s fine.”

—

Zuko spent the drive back to Boston thinking — thinking about names and honor and thieves. They helped people, or at least that’s what they told him. They helped him, no matter how strange the whole thing was, so they probably weren’t lying about that. Acting dishonorably to the dishonorable could be excused. Not that he had any honor to worry about in the first place. 

He liked them which was a little surprising considering they were all insane but he liked them. He felt like he might trust them. Almost. Sophie had given him her name. She trusted him with that and that gave him an odd feeling as he turned it over in his head. She trusted him.

They all ended up back at Nate’s apartment, the place where Crazy Thief Lady — Parker — had brought him that first night. Eliot cooked and Zuko helped chop things and fry things (and played with the fire a little bit when no one was watching) and all the while something was turning in the back of his brain.

They sat down to eat and in the middle of dinner that thought stopped turning and he said “My name’s Zuko,” while staring at his plate.

There was a second of a silence that made him just a little nervous and he looked up — at Sophie first, because she’d given him her name so she knew what he was doing — though they were all looking at him.

Sophie smiled. “Well, then, it’s nice to meet you, Zuko.”

And then everyone was nodding and saying similar things and Zuko found that part of him relaxed. This was… alright. It was the craziest thing that had ever happened to him, but it was alright. He went back to eating. Eventually, he’d need to find the avatar but for now he’d stay.