Archive of Our Own

- - - - -

Azula hasn’t even stepped into the lab, and she’s over it already.

Working in a biological research lab hadn’t been her first choice of research position, but with the fluctuating job market (and the economy looking less like an upwards line and more like a sine wave), Azula’s been seriously considering grad school as an option. And what better than a gut microbiome lab to dress up her CV?

Dealing with the security guard downstairs had been an absolute nightmare, not to mention the fact that the elevator was broken and the stairs weren’t air-conditioned, when Azula finally made it to the sixth floor. The directions that Professor Singh gave her were far too vague, with notes like “walk towards the double doors and turn left when you see the vending machine that carries Fritos” and “don’t take the stairs because the stairs between the fourth and fifth floor are sticky”.

One-hundred-and-eight stairsteps and one convoluted labyrinth of a floor later, Azula’s wondering if this was all worth it.

“Welcome to the Singh Lab!” The girl standing in front of her doesn’t look a day over twenty, with platinum-silver hair tied in a sweeping ponytail and shining blue eyes to match. “You must be Azula. My name’s Yue, and I’m the lab manager here.”

(Azula thinks that Yue looks too pretty—no, too put together—to ever be working in a research laboratory at Ba Sing Se University.)

“Here is your bench, and here is your chair.” Yue leads Azula towards a secluded part of the lab, right in the corner next to the cabinet of glassware and across from a bench absolutely filled with swivel chairs. “We’re an open lab, yeah? So feel free to make some friends next door.”

Sighing, Azula runs her thumb over her desk, grimacing at the fine layer of dust on her fingertip. She looks over, cheeks tingling when she notices Yue smiling back at her.

Azula drops her backpack in the chair and cracks her knuckles.

“Yeah, yeah.”

(Definitely worth it.)

- - - - -

Later in the afternoon—after Azula’s finished cleaning her bench and setting up her things—Yue takes her on an unofficial tour of the lab.

“That’s Haru.” Yue points towards a young man slouching in his chair, hands flying over his keyboard. “He’s a lab tech.”

She motions towards a girl at the opposite bench, scribbling furiously into a lab notebook like her entire being depends on it. “And that’s Jin. She’s a sophomore studying bio, work study. Super sweet, too. You’re a bio major too, right? I think you two would get along.”

Yue frowns as they make their way towards a chaotic Stonehenge of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. “I thought I told Sokka to put everything away before he left.”

“Sokka?”

Yue sighs, wrinkling her nose at the mess. “Another lab tech. He’s not here today, but you’ll meet him soon enough.”

They’ve reached the end of the corridor, and through the bright reflection of the window, Azula can almost see the horizon stretching past the campus of BSSU.

“So yeah, we’re a pretty small lab. Now that you’ve pretty much met everyone, would you like to meet some of the other lab personnel on the floor?” Yue asks.

(Other lab personnel, which, in Azula’s mind, means: rivals I must crush in order to have my own lab in the future.)

“Oh, sure,” Azula replies, trying to sound as excited as possible about meeting her rivals peers. “Yeah, of course.”

“So the Mao Lab is next door,” Yue says as they walk past bench after bench of random reagents and through a doorway to another part of the lab, which has shelf after shelf of bottles and beakers overlooking the benches.

“—and June’s a fellow from Caldera University.” Yue leads them to another bench, this one occupied by a sullen-looking woman surrounded by Petri plates. The woman’s kohl-lined eyes are narrowed in concentration as she stares at a single plate, finger tapping noisily on a tally counter, the clicks echoing in the quiet room.

“You the new kid in Bumi’s lab?” June doesn’t look up from her work.

Azula crosses her arms. “I’m Azula.”

“Nice to meet you.” June makes a shoo-shoo motion. “Gimme a bit to finish these up. The colonies aren’t going to count themselves.”

Yue shakes her head as they leave June’s bench and continue walking. “I was going to ask her where Jet and Suki—”

“There’s a seminar today,” June’s voice cuts in from behind them. “Pretty sure they went there for free food.”

“—and I guess you’ll get to meet them later.” Yue rolls her eyes. She leads Azula around a corner—and Azula stops dead in her tracks.

There’s a guy sitting there, lab coat billowing around him as he hunches over the bench, a row of bottles neatly organized in front of him. The guy isn’t paying attention to his visitors, squinting as he diligently pipets row after row of solution into the plate in front of him.

Azula’s nose twitches.

Yue nods. “And that’s—”

“Hey, Zuzu,” Azula smirks. “So this is where you’ve been all this time.”

“Who’re you calling Zuzu?” The pipet thuds quietly on the bench as the guy turns and looks up at her, irritation marring his delicate features.

The guy frowns, scar crinkling across his cheek. “Azula?”

“You two know each other?” Yue sounds confused.

“Oh yeah, ‘course I do.” Azula takes two steps, reaching out and flicking the guy on the forehead. “It’s nice to see you here, big brother.”

Zuko scowls.

“Oh, dear,” Yue murmurs.

(Oh dear, indeed.)

- - - - -

It takes Azula two days to settle into a routine—namely working on her objective learning courses online (the mandatory ones that take two minutes teaching you how to properly take off a glove, never mind the fact that it’s practically impossible to fuck up taking off a glove) and swinging over to the Mao Lab whenever she wants to annoy Zuko.

Honestly, Azula’s surprised to see her brother here. So maybe she should’ve expected seeing him in a lab—Zuko’s a BSSU grad student, after all—but she hadn’t counted on being in the same building, let alone the same floor as him. Azula won’t say that she’s religious, but she’s fairly certain that the fact that someone up there allowed for this harmonic convergence of siblings to come together is reason enough for her to continue teasing her brother.

(Not to mention how easy it is to get onto Zuko’s nerves, especially after he’s had three or four cups of coffee from the café downstairs. The only thing more jittery than a zebra being chased by a lion is a grad student amped up on coffee.)

And then there’s Sokka—Sokka, being the architect responsible for the Stonehenge erected in half of the Singh Lab. Azula’s initial impression of the guy is nothing short of pure and utter annoyance. Sokka’s messy (the pile of recyclables is evidence enough) and way too hyper, often wheeling around the lab space in his swivel chair to grab a beaker here, a flask there. And don’t even get Azula started on his absolutely atrocious sense of fashion—or lack thereof. (When Sokka shows up to the lab one day wearing a highlighter yellow hoodie paired with camo pants, Azula can practically hear Yue and Jin losing their collective minds two benches over.)

In other words—he’s perfect.

(Perfect for annoying the fuck out of Zuko.)

Sokka’s already doing a great job—especially considering how often he goes over to the Mao Lab to chat it up with Suki while waiting for his gels to set. Azula tallies up the number of times these visits end with a heated argument, Sokka slinking into his bench with his proverbial tail between his legs and Zuko standing in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes lit in irritation.

“Oh, they’re actually on pretty good terms most of the time,” Yue mentions one day during lunch. The two of them are walking outside to eat lunch in the cool autumn sunshine.

“Wouldn’t have guessed.” Azula kicks at a stray pinecone in front of her.

“Yeah, but trust me.” Yue swings her lunch bag back and forth in the air. “I think they were roommates in undergrad or something.”

“That I didn’t know,” Azula replies, because she doesn’t talk about a lot of stuff with her brother unless it’s important or life-impacting, and a college roommate certainly falls low on that priority list.

The path takes them past the research building and into a stand of trees, a small pond in the middle of it all. Azula sits down at a picnic table and pulls out an onigiri, neatly wrapped in plastic wrap. Yue follows suit with a plastic container of seaweed noodle salad.

“So how’re you adjusting to the lab?” Yue unlatches the lid with a click.

“Pretty well, for the most part.” Azula takes another bite of her onigiri, wiping the edges of her mouth with a napkin. The last thing she wants to do is to leave a bad impression on the beautiful girl in front of her.

(And no, this is not a story about Azula and her love life, because she said so.)

Yue smiles. “I’m glad to hear it. The HIPAA module’s probably the worst one to do, but once you get through it, you’ll be pretty much done with the online training.”

“Hey, can I sit here with y’all?” A voice floats above them and Azula looks up into Jin’s face. The other girl looks bashful, one hand clutching her Tupperware, the other holding her water bottle.

“Of course!” Yue scoots over.

“Thanks.” Jin slumps down, sighing in relief. “I was actually sitting over there—” she points off in the distance, “—but then they started yelling, so I came here.”

“Who’s they?” Azula crumples up the plastic wrap in her hand and flicks a grain of rice off her fingers.

“Oh, just Sokka and Zuko,” Jin says airily, waving her chopsticks around. “Zuko trying to sic some squirrels on Sokka, yada yada, the usual.”

“What?” Azula says, confused.

“You know the squirrels, right?” Jin points up towards a particularly fat-looking specimen perched on a tree branch above them. “Zuko’s trying to get them to attack Sokka.”

(Oh, that’s terrifying, Azula thinks. She has a particularly vivid memory of a squirrel climbing into her freshman dorm through an open window one morning and making off with most of her snacks. Those damn squirrels.)

And as if to punctuate the absurdity of this statement, the bushes rustle and Sokka pops out, eyes wide as he holds onto a sandwich for dear life. Almost immediately, there’s four or five squirrels surrounding him, tiny black eyes narrowed and focused on their prey.

“Holy fuck, can a man eat his lunch in peace?” Sokka whines before he turns around and notices the three girls staring at him. “What’re y’all doing here?”

“Lunch?” Yue raises a chopstickful of noodles.

“Aw yeah, that’s what I was trying to do, too, before Zuko showed up.” Sokka plops down on a bench next to them. “All I want to do is to finish eating without any problems. Is that too much to ask?”

“I think you spoke too soon,” a voice echoes from beyond the brush. Azula watches as the leaves rustle and Zuko appears, hair windswept and eyes alight. It’s the same kind of light that Azula remembers seeing that one time Zuko played a prank on their uncle, and she chokes back a laugh when she watches Zuko turn his gaze towards the nearest squirrel and murmur something in Mandarin.

The squirrel fluffs its tail and begins crawling towards Sokka, who immediately screeches and backs away. “Get the fuck away from me!”

Zuko looks over at the other squirrels and repeats the phrase once more—and suddenly, the small platoon of furry fiends steadily advance towards Sokka.

“For Tui’s sake,” Sokka shrieks as he kicks fruitlessly at the squirrels. “Zuko, what the actual fuck?”

He scurries away from the table, pausing every so often to look behind him for any sign of the squirrel squadron. Zuko just laughs, slides his hands into his pockets and walks away.

“See? Best friends.” Yue blinks sagely.

“You sure about that?” Azula doesn’t mean to sound so skeptical, but— “Zuzu literally told the squirrels, and I quote, ‘I don’t have food, so go attack him instead’.”

“I’ve definitely seen Zuko feeding the squirrels a few times before.” Jin swallows a mouthful of curry. “Sounds like best friend material to me.”

“You mean best flirt material,” Yue counters.

Two pairs of eyes swivel in her direction.

Yue blinks incredulously. “Did I stutter?”

“Flirting.” Azula sounds wholly unimpressed. “You think my brother knows how to flirt.”

“Why not?”

“This is Zuzu we’re talking about,” Azula says. “The great Zuko Huo, first of his name, paladin of pipettes, scion of social anxiety—you think he knows how to flirt.”

“So maybe he has unconventional ways of impressing people?” Yue shrugs. “Honestly, I think they’re kinda cute.”

“Really.” Azula takes a moment to wrack her brain for any information or blackmail she might have on her brother’s interests—but besides serological pipets, sharp knives, and rubber ducks, she comes up empty. Zuko’s not exactly the type of person to show interest in others, especially in a romantic light (not that they’ve actually ever talked about it sibling-to-sibling, but still).

But the sheer amount of effort that goes into using a different language to train a scurry of squirrels into chasing after someone? That does take some effort.

“You might be onto something, Yue,” Azula says slowly, patting Yue on the arm and ignoring the slight spark of static against her fingertips. “You might be onto something.”

- - - - -

Like any good scientist, Azula is extremely observant. She also remembers to write down all her observations in her phone for future reference, including things that have nothing to do with the experiments she’s helping out with right now.

And one afternoon, she sidles up to Yue’s bench, phone in hand. Yue’s in the middle of organizing stacks of pipette tips, and she grins when she sees Azula approaching.

“So, I’ve been thinking—well, more like observing—about things, and I think you’re right.” Azula pulls up her notes app, flicks her way to a note titled “observations”, and shows it to Yue. “The only question is: who’ll make the first move?”

“First move?” Yue snorts. “We’re totally not on the same page. The real question is: how long have they been dating?”

“Dating?” Azula keeps her hysterics at a minimum. “I’m pretty sure that they aren’t dating.”

“How can you be so sure?” Yue unwraps another box. “You didn’t even know that they were roommates.”

“That’s because Zuzu and I only talk about the important stuff.”

“Really.” Yue blinks once, twice as she pulls out another box of pipette tips. “But I still think that they’re going out.”

“No, they aren’t. Zuzu’s too idiotic to realize flirting even if it was right in front of his face,” Azula scoffs.

“What if they’re actually engaged or something?”

Azula whirls around, eyes glaring at the person leaning against the bench. “What the fuck are you doing here, Jet?”

“I was gonna ask to borrow some gel combs,” Jet replies. “And then I happened to overhear your little conversation and wanted to give you my two cents.”

“Well, your two cents aren’t worth much in my book.”

“Pretty sure your cents would depreciate before I could get any use out of them,” Yue snickers.

“Oh, yeah?” Jet leans forward. “You wanna bet on it?”

Yue leers at him. “Bring it on, Pocky Boy.”

“That was one time, okay?”

- - - - -

The next day finds the Singh and Mao Labs sitting in the conference room around the huge, awkward-looking table in the center of it all.

The (informal) betting pool starts at ten dollars.

“Ten dollars,” Azula says, because anything more might lead to a high-stakes gambling op that she’s not keen on writing about in the “prior offenses” section in her grad school apps, and anything less makes the bet seem almost inconsequential. “Now go forth.”

“Put me down for ‘they haven’t made out yet, but they will in the next two weeks’,” Haru says, waving his phone.

“Haru, that’s my brother you’re talking about.”

“And you’re the one who started this.” Jet butts in. “Gimme ten for ‘they’ve been going out for a year and Sokka’s going to propose’.”

The look Azula gives him is sheer horror.

“I, for one, am sticking with ‘they’ve been going out for two years and taking it slow’.” Yue declares.

“Two years? You think they’ve been going out for two years.”

“You really don’t know anything about your brother, do you. It’s almost like you two aren’t siblings or something.”

“You take that back, Jet!”

“Alright, settle down.” June raps her knuckles against the table. “I think I’m going to go with Azula on this one. They’re each waiting for the other to ask them out on a date first.”

“Thank you.” Azula breathes a sigh of relief.

“Should we tell Doctor Singh about—” Jin’s voice trails off when the entire room falls silent.

“—so we won’t be telling either of them about it,” she follows up.

“Yeah, I don’t think knowing this is going to help Piandao at all,” Suki says.

“Bumi’s probably too busy dealing with his students to even care about the love life of his lab members,” Yue coughs, and that is that.

- - - - -

Doctor Singh pulls Azula aside when he comes to visit the lab that afternoon.

“I know what you’re doing,” he mutters in a gravelly tone, and for a split second, Azula can see her future of grad school bursting into flames from the terrible letter of rec she’s going to get from her advisor.

“Doctor Singh, I—”

“Put me down for ‘Sokka’s going to ask Zuko out next week’.” Doctor Singh’s eyes brighten with a feral shine to them. “And please, call me Bumi. Do you take Venmo? Is that what the kids use these days?”

- - - - -

The problem with scientists is that every single scientist has the inexplicable, insatiable desire to prime the research conditions towards their desired outcome.

(Ethically, of course.)

The problem with scientists and betting pools—as Azula soon finds out—is that scientists use that same approach in dealing with real-life, day-to-day situations.

Yue’s the first one to crack.

Azula catches her sneaking out the pipette stand from Sokka’s bench early one morning.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Azula asks before taking a sip from her iced latte.

Yue opens a cabinet and shoves the pipette stand inside before closing it, dusting her hands afterwards. “Just leveling the playing field, you know?”

Azula nods slowly.

“Hey guys!” Sokka’s voice echoes across the lab. “Got ourselves a coupla early birds, I see.”

“Just wanted a head start on my work,” Yue replies, winking at Azula.

(She’s going to be the death of me.)

The rest of the morning goes by as usual, Azula filling out a few more data spreadsheets before getting up from her chair and doing a few stretches. Yue’s been fielding phone calls about supplies and fixing the centrifuge that broke a week ago, and when Jin and Haru finally drag themselves into their respective benches, Azula’s elbow-deep in sampling tubes, painstakingly labelling each one by hand.

“Did anyone see my pipettes?” Sokka calls out from his side of the lab. “I coulda sworn I left them here yesterday.”

Azula can feel her heart rate rising by the slightest blip.

“Anyone?” Sokka’s pacing around the lab now. “Y’all, please. I gotta get this PCR done so I can finish the run before lunch.”

No one says anything. Azula catches Yue grinning, out of the corner of her eye.

“Guess I’m just gonna have to borrow someone else’s,” Sokka declares, adjusting his lab coat and pulling his hair back into a wolftail.

“You can use mine, if you want.” Haru waves a pipette in the air but Sokka’s already gone, past the Singh Lab benches and towards—

Azula watches as Yue hangs up the phone and tiptoes towards the doorway, Haru and Jin right behind her.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, Azula thinks to herself before she joins them, ear against the wall, trying to make out the sounds on the other side.

“—borrow them?” Sokka’s saying, and Azula can feel Yue shivering with excitement.

“—just use pipettes from your lab members?” Zuko almost sounds amused.

“—pretty please, babe?”

Yue punches the air with a silent cheer.

The sound of footsteps sends the four of them running back to their respective spaces. Azula picks up the Sharpie, heart pounding when she hears footsteps approach her bench.

“So, babe.” Yue clicks her tongue. “You don’t say?”

Azula feels a blush warming the back of her neck at the sound of babe. “Please. I bet Sokka calls everyone babe.”

“Really? C’mon.” Yue shakes her head. “I won.”

“Already?” Azula scoffs. “Please, it’s only been, like, what? A week?”

“Admit it!”

“Don’t most experiments last at least four to six weeks?” Azula caps the Sharpie and swivels around to face Yue. “Let’s give it another five weeks, just to be sure.”

“Whatever you say, hotshot.”

Azula chucks a tube at Yue’s retreating figure.

- - - - -

There’s a whiteboard in the break room right now, small enough for most people to pass by without a second thought but large enough for the words “ZHSQ” to be seen on top if you’re paying attention.

(Azula updates the betting pool at the end of the day: $120.)

(Somewhere along the line, Azula’s plans for Sokka “annoying the fuck out of her brother” had become “fuck the annoying out of her brother”.)

- - - - -

Zuko’s wearing a suit today.

In most cases, Azula wouldn’t find that to be all that surprising. What her brother lacks in social skills he makes up for in the fashion department. While Azula’s pulling on t-shirts and leggings and calling it good for a day in the lab, Zuko usually takes his time with his button-up shirts and his nice dress pants.

But this? This Zuko? The one standing in front of her, wearing the sleekest suit Azula’s ever seen with the pants to match, fiddling with the tie around his neck?

This Zuko looks more stunning than usual.

“Let me help you out with this,” Azula says, reaching forward unconsciously and untangling the chaotic knot around her brother’s neck. “Why’re you wearing a tie if you don’t even know how to tie it properly in the first place?”

“There’s a guest lecturer in the seminar I TA for,” Zuko grumbles. “Professor Zhao thought it would be a good idea to make a good impression.”

A good impression, Azula muses—which turns into a great impression when Sokka shows up.

“Hey Azula! How’re you—” and Sokka stops dead in his tracks, mouth hanging open comically at the sight of Zuko standing in Azula’s bench as Azula manhandles the tie into a semi-presentable Windsor.

“Hi Sokka! It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” Azula waves as she spins Zuko around so that Sokka gets the maximum exposure of Zuko’s entire visage. “View’s great, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, the view is—uh, the view—view is—uh, it’s certainly something,” Sokka stammers, trailing off into incoherent nonsense as he retreats into the safety of his bench.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Zuko sounds worried.

“No?” Azula gives her brother a quick glance-over. Still tall, still skinny, still infuriatingly good-looking, even if she does say so herself. “You look fine. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Zuko mutters under his breath, but Azula can see him casting furtive glances towards Sokka’s bench.

“Trust me, you look fine, brother dear.” Azula pats him on the shoulder. “Only an idiot would be blind enough not to see how attractive you are.”

She directs the last part of the sentence in the direction of the bench diagonally across from hers, watching as a dark wolftail vanishes from view with a squeak.

Getting closer to that jackpot, aren’t we.

- - - - -

Oddly enough, Jin’s the one who calls the next intra-lab meeting.

“So we all know that Zuko and Sokka are out at a conference. And I was thinking that we could do some—housekeeping?” Jin pulls up a schematic on the board and they all huddle around it, like kids clambering for their turn to see the illustrations during storytime. “Plus, it’ll make actual housekeeping easier.”

“How is rearranging all the benches in a clockwise fashion going to make it easier?” Yue’s hands are on her hips, a pencil stuck carelessly in a makeshift bun on her head. “I’m still going to have to do all the cleanup later.”

“And why are we here?” Jet whines. “I need to go back and feed my cells.”

Haru scratches his head. “Oh, shush. Your cells can wait for a few more minutes.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jet retorts. “You’re not the one raising them.”

“Now back to my original point.” Jin raises her voice. “First off, we’ll finally have an empty bench for communal things instead of having a bunch of swivel chairs in there. And then we’ll be able to finally break apart the mess that Sokka’s been hoarding for the past few weeks.”

“Not Stonehenge!”

“Yes Stonehenge,” Jin continues. “And besides, I think you’ll like the results even better once Zuko comes back.”

“Zuko? What does Zuko have to do with anything?” Suki looks curious.

“So Zuko has that habit of wandering into the swivel chair bench to take a nap—” Jin begins, but Suki cuts her off.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You’ll see.” Jin pulls down the schematic and tucks it back into a folder. “You’ll see.”

The answer comes in the form of a perpetually exhausted Zuko stumbling into the Singh side of the floor the following week, a poster tube under one arm and a file of papers in the other. Azula looks up from her new vantage point from the bench opposite her old one.

“How was it?” Yue asks.

“Absolutely horrid.” Zuko shakes the poster tube. “Remind me again why I ever thought poster presentations were a good idea?”

“I’m sure it went well. Mind if I took a look at it?”

“Go for it.” Zuko practically tosses the poster into Yue’s hands. “I’m going to go take a quick nap.”

And as Azula watches Zuko wander towards the old swivel chair bench, a terribly amusing realization surfaces in her mind. After the housekeeping session, the swivel chairs had been relocated to the bench across from Azula, while the other lab members had dutifully rearranged their positions around the lab. Now, the old swivel chair bench is actually Sokka’s—

Zuko walks absentmindedly towards the nearest chair in the bench and sits—

—right in Sokka’s lap.

Azula surveys the scene playing out in front of her with unbridled glee. It’s basically straight out of any K-drama, with Zuko immediately leaping up like he’d just been burnt and Sokka dropping the file he’d been reading, papers flying everywhere. There’s the requisite yelping (Zuko) and flailing (Sokka), both of their faces redder than the spider lilies Azula grows on her windowsill in her apartment.

“Ah, young love,” Jin sighs dreamily as she comes up to Azula. “Just look at them, all grown up.”

“You have great observational skills,” Azula says.

(Damn impressive, is what Azula thinks.)

“I do what I can.” Jin drops into a mock-curtsy. “So about the bet—”

“Four weeks.”

“Aw, fuck.”

- - - - -

“Oh my spirits, it went up.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, June. Look—it’s at $160 now.”

“Oh, shit.”

- - - - -

The one day that Azula has late lunch also just so happens to be the day she witnesses something extraordinary in the break room.

When Azula heats up her lunch in the microwave, she sees Zuko and Sokka sitting in the corner of the break room, lost in conversation.

Azula’s next thought is: I’ve won the bet.

(No, you haven’t. It hasn’t been six weeks yet.)

(Ugh, fine.)

Azula takes small, practiced bites of her yakisoba, taking care to stretch her lunch break out as long as possible. She steals quick glances at the guys in the corner, how Zuko leans towards Sokka, a steady hum of conversation filling the room.

When she finishes lunch, Azula ambles over, casually slinging an arm around Zuko’s shoulder. “So, what’re you two lovebirds up to today?”

Sokka chokes on his water.

Zuko’s ears turn pink.

“Oh, uh—” Sokka coughs, “—um, well, you see—uh, med apps.”

“Med apps?”

“He means medical school interviews.” Zuko gingerly extracts himself from Azula’s grasp. “I was just helping him out with interview preparation.”

“Oh, really? That sounds interesting.” Azula backs away slowly. “Excuse me for interrupting. I’ll see you later, Sokka.”

“See ya.”

As Azula washes up her container and her chopsticks, she keeps a careful eye out on the couple guys in the corner, how the two of them look completely lost in their conversation. Zuko’s face is animated, his hands gesticulating wildly as he talks to Sokka—and Sokka, to his credit, looks just as interested as Zuko, all wide-eyed and grinning as he nods along to Zuko’s every word.

(The last time Azula saw that look on Zuko’s face—it must’ve been a few years ago, when he won a prize for best undergraduate research paper in the biology department or something. She remembers how her brother had smiled from ear to ear, cheeks dimpling as he laughed, a shining contrast to his usual moody self.)

It takes a special someone to make him smile like that.

- - - - -

(Azula doesn’t bother raising the betting pool this time.)

- - - - -

Much like how scientists have to deal with unexplainable results, the worst part about running the betting pool is accidentally discovering things that should be left alone.

Azula catches Jet and Haru doing something in the dark room.

“My films!” she screeches, clutching her cassette to her chest and pumping a spray bottle of ethanol in the other. “Do you have no sense of professionalism?”

When Azula returns to her bench, eyes sufficiently scarred and brain wrecked beyond repair, there’s a cup of Thai iced tea and a jug of bleach sitting on her desk, along with a note.

“I heard what happened,” the note reads in a small, curly font. “Have this on me. Yours, Yue.”

Azula isn’t idiotic enough to consume bleach in any shape or form, but she’s seriously contemplating if the possible side-effects could be that much worse than realizing that Jet and Haru are—are—

We are not going to think about that.

- - - - -

“Look, Azula. I apologize for what happened—”

“Fine, fine. You’re still in the pool.”

“Yes!”

- - - - -

The betting pool’s now at a cool $230.

Or so the sign says in the break room. Azula hasn’t really been keeping track at this point—she’s way too busy dealing with helping Yue defrost the -80 freezer and relocating their samples to the communal freezer in the main hallway. There’s another week or so left on the bet, but morale’s been a bit low. Sokka’s been out on med school interviews for the past few days, and the usually bustling lab has subsided into a dull murmur from the centrifuges in the hall. The lab’s just more monotonous without Sokka bumbling around like a loud, rambunctious puppy with a passion for pipettes.

“It’s quiet, isn’t it,” Yue remarks one day as the two of them tear open more shipments of pipette tips and DNA extraction kits.

“It really is.”

“I wonder how Zuko’s coping with this new development.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that he’s coping—more moping, actually.”

(It’s true—the few times that Azula’s gone to check in on her brother, Zuko’s looked even more lifeless than usual, if that was even possible.)

“It’s a good thing that Sokka’s coming back this afternoon, isn’t it?”

Azula pauses. “Wait. He is?”

“Yeah, you didn’t know?” Yue slits open another cardboard box and flattens it in between her arms. “He said that he’s going to stop—”

“GUESS WHO’S BACK!”

“—by once he gets back,” Yue finishes. Azula watches as a blur of blue appears in her peripheral vision, Sokka thudding to a halt. He’s wearing a light blue hoodie today, chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath.

“Did y’all miss me?” Sokka pants.

“No,” Azula and Yue say in unison.

“Aw, damn.”

- - - - -

Azula’s gone over to the Mao Lab to borrow a multichannel when she sees it.

Zuko and Sokka are huddling in the corner of an unused bench, Sokka sitting in the chair, Zuko leaning against the desk in front of him. Azula peeks over, eyes softening when she sees how Sokka reaches up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Zuko’s ear.

Sokka whispers something and Zuko laughs, a rollicking sound that washes into Azula’s ears.

Azula wonders just how ridiculously oblivious her brother can be.

- - - - -

“Jin? Haru? Do any of y’all have the key to Bumi’s office?”

“No? Why?”

“Ugh, nevermind.”

“No, seriously. Why?”

“I was doing some housekeeping records, and I think the spare key is gone? I called Bumi and he still has his, but where’s the other one?”

“Beats me.”

“Haru, I know for a fact you used to sneak in to do some unspeakable things.”

“I used the fancy printer one time and this is where it gets me.”

“I’m sure we’ll find it soon, Yue.”

“Yeah, I hope.”

- - - - -

Azula’s getting ready to settle down after dinner and crack open her biochem notes for the night when her phone buzzes with an incoming call.

(There are only two, maybe three people who ever call her. And this isn’t including all those spam calls or telemarketers who’re notoriously persistent these days.)

Sokka’s number is flashing on the screen, and Azula looks at it in confusion. If there was anything major going on, someone would’ve texted their lab group chat about it, not call people out of the blue.

Then again, maybe something had happened in the lab, and Sokka might need help...

Sighing, Azula reaches over and slides her finger over to answer. “Hello?”

“Az?” Zuko’s voice sounds tinny over the line. “Az, you there?”

“Zuzu?”

“That’s me.”

“Zuzu?” Azula frowns, knowing full well her brother can’t see her confusion. “Why’re you calling from Sokka’s phone?”

“It’s a—a, hm—it’s a long story.” Zuko’s voice crackles. “I’ll tell you about it later. Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Uh—” Zuko pauses, and static buzzes through the phone. “Can you come back to the lab?”

Azula looks up at the clock and winces. It’s cold and dark outside, and sad to say, she’d rather be in her room reading up on proteins and carbohydrates than walking outside in this weather. “Why?”

“Please?”

“Ugh, fine.” Azula shrugs on her coat, eyebrows twitching in annoyance. She can’t wait to find out what the fuck her brother has managed to do to himself this time.

The path to the research building is long and winding, especially in the dark, and Azula twiddles her thumbs in the pocket of her hoodie as she braces herself against the wind. The streetlights glow in the dark, small orbs of light floating in the sky as she walks under them and towards the foreboding form of the research building looming overhead.

There’s no security guard when Azula taps in, no janitors wiping up the floors, because it’s far too late for any normal or sane person to be working in the lab at this time of night. Even the elevator ride is uncharacteristically smooth, Azula watching the floor numbers flick upwards as she gets closer and closer to the sixth floor. The doors slide open and she steps through, fingers reaching for her lanyard to tap herself into the department floor and straight through to the lab.

Zuko’s stuff is still strewn all over his desk—a stack of papers here, a highlighter there, and there’s even his phone, blinking on and off with incoming notifications. But Zuko himself isn’t there, even when Azula searches row after row of lab benches and comes up empty.

I swear to Agni, if I don’t my idiot of a brother—

As if on cue, Azula’s phone vibrates again, Sokka’s number decorating her screen.

“What.”

“Oh, good. I thought I heard voices outside.”

“Voices?”

“Voices. Sokka and I had—well, have been is the more correct term—we’ve been trapped in the cold room for the past hour.”

In the background, Azula swears she can hear someone else complaining about the lights being turned off, and she feels the slightest bit of sympathy—because, well.

(Azula was the one who turned off all of the lights before she left the lab earlier that evening.)

“The door isn’t locked,” Azula replies, an edge of snark to her words. “You can just push through.”

“The door is locked! I tried pushing against it earlier and it didn’t budge.”

There’s the sound of “that’s exactly what happened!” and “shit, I could use a cheeseburger right now” echoing in the phone.

“Alright, alright.” Azula’s already on her way out of the lab space and into the communal storage areas. “I’ll come and see what I can do.”

The door to the cold room is slightly stuck on the hinges, everything squeaking noisily when Azula pulls open and out on the lever. One more tug and the entire thing flies open, sending Azula skidding, along with the door.

Azula groans as she picks herself off from the ground and redirects her attention towards the open door. She can see two figures coming out, all huddled and hunched over against each other—and by the time the haze settles down, she recognizes Zuko and Sokka. Azula watches as her brother shivers up a storm in a flimsy-looking lab coat, cheeks rapidly blooming back to a healthy pink after Azula closes the cold room door and seals it properly.

Sokka’s the first two speak. “Hey, thanks a million for getting us out of there. I wasn’t sure how much longer Zuko would want to stay there—”

“Being trapped in a cold room was never on my bucket list.” Zuko shudders.

“Okay, okay, nevermind then.” Sokka runs a hand through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is, like, y’know—we should thank your sister for helping us out.”

“Thanks, Az.” Zuko looks dolefully at his sister.

“I’m always here for you, brother dear.” Azula follows her brother as he and Sokka walk back to their respective benches to pack up for the night. “What were y’all doing in the cold room, anyways?”

“It’s a long story.” Zuko slides his laptop into its sleeve and drops it into his backpack.

“And I’ve got time.” Azula folds her arms. “So why was Sokka in there with you?”

“So we have this new diet that I’m using for my experiment, except I may-or-may-not-have told Sokka about it for his future feeding studies—”

“And then you two got stuck in the room.” Azula isn’t impressed in the slightest.

Zuko finishes packing up and slings the backpack over his shoulder. “It was quite frightening at the time, okay?”

“You do know that the door doesn’t actually lock, right?” Azula tsks.

“What.”

“Yeah, the door doesn’t lock.” Azula says as they walk back towards the elevator. Sokka’s already standing there, hands flying over his phone as he leans against the wall. “The hinge probably caught on something, but you weren’t locked in.”

Two pairs of eyes widen simultaneously.

“So you’re telling me that Sokka didn’t need to give me his lab coat when I said it was getting cold?” Zuko sounds incredulous.

“Hey, it’s just common courtesy!” Sokka reaches out to press the elevator button.

“And I wore that smelly, stained lab coat for nothing.”

“Your coat isn’t much cleaner.” Sokka sniffs petulantly.

“Alright, settle down, everyone.” Azula groans quietly as the elevator doors open. “It’s late, and I don’t want to hear all y’all arguing about this anymore.”

Zuko looks everywhere else except for Sokka, and Sokka does the same thing. The elevator ride downstairs is awkward, the tension so thick, Azula swears she’s choking on something.

- - - - -

The betting pool’s stuck at $250.

“Could get you a nice meal at Baicai,” Yue muses to Azula when they head into the break room together for a breather.

“Baicai?”

“Some new place, I think?” Yue fills her water bottle. “Contemporary Taiwanese cuisine or the like. Pretty pricey, though.”

“Sounds like a great place for a date,” Azula muses.

“It is.”

Azula hesitates, and before she knows it, the words are already tumbling out her mouth. “You wanna go sometime? Tonight, maybe?”

The look on Yue’s face rivals the brightest of moonlit nights.

- - - - -

In hindsight, maybe confronting your brother in public about his ever-smoldering crush is not the best idea.

(Perhaps Azula’s getting the tiniest bit desperate as the days pass. There’s a betting pool to maintain and a brother to console, and what better than to two birds, one stone everything by having Zuko admit to his feelings?)

In an ideal world, Zuko and Sokka would be sitting together in the café downstairs, and one of them would declare their love for the other and the love would be reciprocated, with bystanders clapping and one of them dipping the other down in a kiss—

(Azula’s been watching way too many K-dramas.)

But in the real world, setting up this café date is a lot harder than Azula had originally thought. She’s been waiting for twenty minutes now, checking her phone every so often, wondering why Sokka’s so late. Naturally, Azula placates her brother with sweets, tea, and—and maybe a hard-hitting question about his crush.

“What did you say?” Zuko hisses, his voice carrying through the café. The two of them are taking a break from lab activities— “quality sibling bonding time”, or whatever excuse Azula’s managed to rustle up that has Yue begrudgingly agreeing to give her a slightly longer lunch break than usual. They’re sitting in the corner of the café, with Azula facing the door and Zuko facing the window outside. Zuko’s spreading some cream cheese on his everything bagel, hands shaking slightly as he takes a cautious bite.

Azula can sense that her brother’s on the verge of a breakdown, judging by the fact that he’s this close to lapsing into Mandarin so that he can speak his mind with less people listening in.

(But Azula is stubborn and Azula is determined and Azula doesn’t back down.)

“You and Sokka, you idiot.” Azula takes another bite of lemon loaf, the citrus puckering against her tongue. “Don’t tell me you haven’t realized it.”

“Realize what?”

The bells above the café door jingle merrily as the door swings open and Sokka walks in, a laptop tucked under his arm. His eyes light up when he sees Zuko and Azula sitting there, and he makes a beeline towards them, Converse tapping against the ground.

“The chemistry? Between you two?” Azula wipes the crumbs from her mouth. “You should just go out with him, you know.”

“Me?” Zuko scoffs. “Me, go out with Sokka? Why should I go out with him if I don’t even like him?”

Oh, shit.

And like some cliché misunderstanding, Sokka stops dead in his tracks. Azula watches in horror as the smile vanishes from Sokka’s face, replaced by something artificial, something plastic.

“Hi, Zuko.” Sokka slams his laptop down onto the table, droplets of coffee and crumbs of pastry flying everywhere. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Zuko turns around and looks up, and the expression on his face morphs into panic and shock. “Sokka?”

“That’s my name.” Sokka’s voice is flat and robotic, nothing like the cheerful, lively tunes he usually whistles in the lab. “I hope that you’re having a great day. I—I need to—I need to go.”

He blinks once, twice, before ducking away, and for the tiniest of seconds, Azula swears she sees a tear streaking down his cheek.

Zuko stares at her helplessly, a look of absolute terror still stuck on his face.

“Az?”

What the actual fuck have I done?

- - - - -

Azula can’t bear to leave the whiteboard up, but a bet is still a bet.

(She just writes everything extra small right now, with the smallest of frowny faces drawn in the corner and the words shrinking into a literal size 8 font.)

(It’s the least she can do, really, for fucking up so royally.)

- - - - -

Week Six of the betting pool rolls around—not that anyone’s paying attention, of course. Haru and Jin are busy finishing up a joint project, Suki’s abroad for a global seminar, and Jet’s nowhere to be found.

There’s an uneasy feeling percolating through the entire lab, suffocatingly thick and cloying, it clings to every flask, every pipette, every bench. Azula can’t go three feet from her bench without feeling an immense sense of guilt.

Sokka’s wolftail droops.

(Sokka’s wolftail never droops.)

Azula watches as the lab tech fumbles around through his analyses, eyes dull and flat as he listlessly prepares plate after plate of medium. There’s no spark to his movements, no pep in his step as he trudges around the lab aimlessly.

The same can probably be said for Zuko—who looks like he’s been tossed through a wringer and left out to dry, his entire being flapping in the wind generated by the ventilation system, his lab coat taking on a mind of its own.

There are no more visits, no snarky banter between the two of them, and as the air grows heavier and heavier with each passing day, Azula can see everyone’s spirits plummeting.

Yue pulls her aside one day into an empty bench. Azula cowers as her girlfriend glares at her. She’s never seen Yue quite this upset in the few weeks they’ve been dating.

“What the fuck is going on?” Yue’s blue eyes are positively murderous. “I haven’t seen productivity this low since Lu Ten got headhunted by corporate and left without a word.”

“I—I don’t know, okay?” Azula hopes her voice is quiet enough.

“Something happened.” Yue crosses her arms and huffs. “Something happened, and I want to know what it was.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the one who has the biggest stake in this. What the fuck did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Yue glares at her.

“Okay, fine. So maybe I was talking to Zuko about his love life—”

“Dear La.”

“—and maybe he accidentally said something about not liking Sokka and—”

“The fuck?”

“—maybe Sokka overheard him saying it—”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” Yue bonks Azula on the head. “What were you thinking?”

“Shit!” Azula rubs her head. “I didn’t know Zuzu was going to say that!”

“So now that you’ve singlehandedly decimated the remnants of floor morality, what’re you going to do about it?”

Azula hasn’t really thought about how she’s going to handle the situation she’s created.

“Give me a day, okay? I’ll sort it out.”

“Good.” Yue leans forward and kisses her on the cheek. “Good.”

- - - - -

Azula’s bright idea involves yet another misunderstanding.

(And some coordination with June, who is more than happy to do anything, if only to improve the stickiness situation on the sixth floor.)

“Hey, Sokka?” Azula asks one day. She’s standing in the middle of a veritable fortress of empty pipette tip boxes and painstakingly filling each one by hand.

Sokka barely looks up from the pile of tables in front of him. “Yeah?”

“I kinda need some help with the autoclave later?” Azula places another box onto the lab cart. “Think you’re up for it?”

“Can’t you ask Yue?” Sokka grouses.

Yue pops out from behind a tower of cardboard boxes, waving a clipboard in her hand. “I’m busy.”

“Fine, fine.” Sokka drops his papers and pulls on his lanyard. “I’ll show you how to do it, okay?”

He misses the smirk that dashes across Azula’s face for a split second.

The autoclave room is warm and muggy, the sound of steam hissing every which way as Sokka wheels in the cart, Azula right behind him.

“So you’ve never used an autoclave before.” Sokka’s taping each box shut with tape. “I think Haru or Yue handles most of the sterilization, but you might be brought on board to help once Yue’s project gets up and running.”

Meanwhile, Azula’s backing away, step by step, until she’s right at the door.

“—uses pressure and heat to disinfect and sterilize everything, okay?” Sokka’s still talking absentmindedly when Azula opens the door—

—and straight into Zuko.

“Zuzu!” Azula sounds scarily cheerful. “Just the person I wanted to see!”

“Az? What’re you doing here?” Zuko looks perplexed. “June told me that—”

But he doesn’t even get to finish his sentence, because Azula suddenly maneuvers around him and pushes him into the autoclave room with her free hand. Zuko stumbles forward with a shout, and Azula watches as Sokka looks up from the cart in confusion.

“Azula? What’s—”

And before anyone realizes it, Azula’s pulled the door shut and locked it.

“Az?” Zuko’s voice is muffled through the window on the door. “Az? This isn’t funny.”

“I just need both of you to talk it out, okay?” Azula yells through the door.

Sokka joins Zuko at the window, pounding against the door. “Azula! Let us out!”

“I can’t!” Azula tucks the key into her pocket. “I need to go and finish up something in lab. I’ll be back later.”

She backs away from the door, ignoring the muted sounds of Sokka and her brother arguing in the autoclave room.

(Azula sends a prayer up to Agni and hopes for the best.)

- - - - -

One gel and two hours later, Azula returns to the autoclave room.

It’s strangely quiet when she opens the door, and Azula jumps when Sokka strides out past her, a look of determination on his face. Zuko’s not far behind, cheeks red and forehead flushed, and Azula’s eyes widen when she looks down.

They’re holding hands.

They’re holding hands.

(Oh my fucking fuck, they’re holding hands.)

“Zuko and I are going to be busy for a while,” Sokka says without preamble. “We have some unfinished business to deal with.”

Zuko whimpers.

(Azula wonders if bleach works on ears, too.)

- - - - -

The next day, lunch in the break room takes a turn towards chaos.

The betting pool members are just about finished with their food when Sokka and Zuko walk in—and all eyes are immediately on them.

“Hi guys, wassup?” Jet’s the first one to speak.

“Oh, nothing,” Sokka replies. “Just coming in to grab some lunch.”

Six pairs of eyes follow his every movement as he walks towards the whiteboard near the announcement corkboard.

(Azula’s on the verge of passing out.)

“What’s this?” Sokka points to the whiteboard. “ZHSQ, eh?”

Haru blanches. Jin is suddenly very interested in the textbook in front of her.

“It’s—” Yue begins, voice faltering as she struggles to come up with an excuse. “It’s—”

“Stock prices for Zhi-Squared, okay?” June doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “They’re doing a bit mediocre right now, unfortunately.”

“Oh, really.” Sokka reaches for the marker hanging off the side of the board. “I thought it was something else.”

He draws a slash through the $250 and scribbles something on the side.

“I think I won this round?”

Jet opens and closes his mouth, but no sound comes out.

“Round of what?” Zuko looks up at Sokka.

“A betting pool, sweetheart.” Sokka rummages around his pockets and pulls something out, tossing it in Yue’s direction. “They had a betting pool on us.”

“A betting pool? What—”

Sokka wraps an arm around Zuko and pulls him close, whispering something in his ear that has Zuko blushing like crazy.

“If you need me, I’m going to be eating out—’scuse me, eating with—my boyfriend.” Sokka announces to the entirety of the break room. “And yes, Azula. I do take Venmo.”

“Hey, I’m the one who won the bet!” Azula protests halfheartedly, a grin on her face.

Sokka winks at her before spinning around and walking out the break room. Zuko follows close behind him, hands reaching up to scratch at his turtleneck.

(Azula’s stuck on the turtleneck part, mostly because Zuko never wears turtlenecks, often complaining about how itchy they feel and how “unemployed entrepreneur” they look.)

The break room is so quiet, you could hear a syringe needle drop.

“Wow,” Jin breathes out. “Wow.”

“Can someone tell me what the fuck just happened?”

“I told you they were dating already, you dimwits.”

June chugs her entire water bottle before standing up and stretching. “I—I think I need another break. For my break.”

Yue just stares at the key in her hand in disbelief.

“Good spirits.” Azula starts laughing. “Good fucking spirits. I need a drink. Anyone down?”

(And maybe some bleach—maybe some bleach is in order.)