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When Mai goes into labour, Zuko Does Not Panic. He is perfectly calm as she gently shakes him awake a few hours before dawn, and definitely remains so as she (less gently) twists his ear sharply when he doesn't wake quickly enough. He sends one of the guards running for the midwife and the other for the healers, and—very serenely—he settles beside his wife and holds her hand firmly. His breathing is calm and steady and he Does. Not. Panic.
“You're panicking,” Mai says evenly, laying her other hand over his, and only then does he realize he's trembling. “We talked about this.”
Zuko lets out a very unsteady breath and lets his head hang, his sleep-mussed hair sliding past his stinging ear. “I know.”
“It's going to be fine,” she says, and when he doesn't respond she reaches up and grasps his chin firmly, bringing his gaze up to meet hers. Her dark eyes are soft and reassuring, belying the sharp nails he can just feel biting into the skin of his jaw. “Nothing has gone wrong so far, and nothing will go wrong. Someone needs to be calm in all of this, and we both know it's not going to be you, but I'm going to need all the help I can. So I need you to take a deep breath—” he obeys instinctively, “—and keep those nerves inside your big head.” Mai gives his face a little shove to the side as she releases him, and Zuko huffs even as a tiny smile tilts his mouth.
“Thanks, Mai,” he says quietly, squeezing her hand, just as the midwife barrels into the room in a flurry of instructions and professional bustling.
The healers try only once to shuffle Zuko out of the room, insistently pressing him towards the door despite his protests because “it isn't proper for you to be here, my Lord; our lady needs calm and quiet.” They all freeze when a wicked-looking dagger thuds into the door just above the handle that one of the healers was reaching for.
“If I have to be here then so does he,” Mai hisses from the bed with all the venom and authority of a true Fire Lady, sweat gluing her hair to her neck and her teeth gritted.
They don't try again.
(Zuko quietly removes the dagger from the door and returns to his wife's side. “I thought we agreed no knives for this?” he whispers quietly during a moment of reprieve. The look she gives him in response questions the intelligence of not just him but all of his ancestors, and he carefully tucks the dagger safely out of reach and doesn't mention it again.)
Later, hours later, when the sun is sinking toward the horizon and Agni's light is shining through the curtains in orange daggers across the floor, Zuko holds his tiny daughter in his arms and can't look away. He can't even blink, his heart pounding in his ears as he catalogues every red and wrinkly inch that he can see. Izumi's eyes are squeezed shut and her face is crumpled into an adorable grimace, her impossibly tiny fingers curled in front of her as she wriggles in protest against the cool air. Zuko breathes deeply and lets his breath warm the air around him, and Izumi's kicking feet calm as she smacks her lips gently. He looks at her little fingernails, the brush of dark eyelashes against her flushed cheeks, the hearty fuzz of black hair across her head, and has a very hard time comprehending that this is his child.
His daughter.
His.
His and Mai's.
Suddenly his knees go a little weak, and he sits heavily on the chaise near the bed. Izumi lets out a little squeak of protest but settles quickly.
“I know that look.”
Zuko looks up to find the midwife smiling at him from beside the bed, where the last remaining healer is helping Mai get comfortable sitting up against the headboard. “What look?” he asks, and his voice comes out impossibly soft, almost a whisper.
The midwife steps over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. She's a strong, buxom woman, one who had helped bring both him and Azula into the world—and probably Ozai and Uncle Iroh, as well—and her face has lost none of the kindness it carries as the years wrinkled her skin. The hand on his shoulder is firm but gentle.
“That look. The look of someone holding their baby for the first time.” She pats him twice. “Don't worry, what you're feeling is normal.” Her smile is small but genuine, and Zuko finds himself smiling back.
“Thank you,” he says, letting it encompass everything she's done now and in the past eighteen hours to bring his daughter into the world.
Her eyes twinkle. “It's my pleasure, my Lord.” She doesn't bow, but she does dip her head forward before straightening. “Well, it's about time for the little princess' first meal, so let me—”
“Oh, of course!” Zuko feels like he's fumbling as he tries to hand Izumi over, but the midwife just takes her confidently with an indulgent little smile and moves back to the bed. Mai looks exhausted, but when she holds out her arms and takes their child, the light in her eyes is unbearably fond.
Zuko lets himself lean back on the chaise, his shoulders slumping as he sighs. He's... a father.
He's a father.
It's deep in the night when Zuko jerks awake, the echo of an unremembered dream passing through his ears. He runs both hands over his face and sighs up at the bed canopy, the moonlight painting slices of colourless light through the sheer fabric. He lets his heartbeat settle, breathing with the sway of the fabric in the light breeze from the window, and when he feels steadier he rolls gently out of bed. Cocooned in healer-prescribed masses of blankets next to him, Mai hardly stirs at his movement.
Zuko finds himself drawn like a magnet to the bassinet on the other side of the bed. Izumi looks tiny, swaddled in a knitted blanket with her fists flung on either side of her head. He doesn't know how long it's been since the last time Mai woke to feed her, but she looks as deeply asleep as he thinks a newborn can. The gentle moonlight washes her skin a pale grey. He finds himself reaching out and brushing gently at her forehead, at a darker smudge there. The residue of ash from the Fire Sages' blessing earlier in the evening rubs off easily, leaving Izumi's brow smooth and unblemished in sleep.
He can't name the feeling that wells up in his chest as he stares down at her. She's so quiet, so still, so impossibly small, that he can hardly believe she's real. The pressure in his chest grows as he watches her eyebrows wrinkle slightly, her lips pursing together in an innocent little frown. Almost without his bidding his hand reaches out, running a single finger over one of her arms and feeling the baby-soft skin. He touches her fingertips and her fist uncurls, grasping at the air unconsciously. He lets his fingertip brush hers, and the little fist wraps around it and squeezes slightly. The pressure is soft but present, a grip holding all the potential of a lifetime, but right now so very very fragile, so easily breakable—
He—
He can't breathe.
Zuko stumbles back on his heels clumsily, his finger pulling out of Izumi's grip with hardly any effort at all. He feels dizzy, air whooshing through his mouth but none of it reaching his lungs, as he trips across the room with the sudden and powerful urge to get away, get away from something so tiny, so delicate, so easy to destroy—
He hardly notices the questions of the guards as he stumbles out of the suite, doesn't know what he says or does to make them leave him be, and the cold of the stone hallway is unnoticed against his bare feet. He blinks, and there's a window, moonlight over a wide garden; blinks again, and there's another a door, familiar. The next blink, he finds himself wedged in a space on the floor between a wall and a dusty mattress covered with untouched linens.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes firmly and lets his head thump against the stone wall behind him. His knees are pressed against his chest and his toes curl restlessly against the cold tile. He grits his teeth, letting air hiss out between his lips in stuttering fits and starts. There are swirls behind his eyelids but he doesn't let up on the pressure, letting the curling patterns distract him. When that doesn't work, he instead wraps his arms around his legs and buries his face in his knees, letting his feet rock him forward and back in a fruitless attempt to find a rhythm that his lungs can follow. He can feel his chest expanding, can hear the air moving, but he can't breathe.
Time dissolves as he floats there in limbo, trying desperately to make his body do what it's supposed to. The world around him fades into the pounding beat of his heart, the tiny guttering sounds of distress he can't stop from escaping his mouth, the bite of his fingernails through the fabric of his sleep pants. His muscles seize and release in random patterns, his hands jerking up to pull at his hair and then down to press at his chest, his knees kicking out against the heavy bed frame. He presses himself down harder and smaller into the wall, the floor, anything that will help to relieve this ungodly pressure against his chest as he heaves for breath—
“Zuko?”
—and the world suddenly snaps back into dizzying reality, his eyes pulling open to see a dark blur in front of him, the flickering of orange flame illuminating the walls and floor in a bizarre dance that his eyes dart around to follow.
“No, hey, right here.”
The flame is on the floor, dancing back and forth, unfocused, dizzying, until it's suddenly blocked by something darker. There's pressure on the backs of his hands, which he suddenly realizes are squeezing into the sides of his head, fingernails digging into his scalp. There is an insistent pull, and his fingers release like claws only to be pressed onto his knees. Other hands take their place, gentle, cool. Familiar.
“Look at me, Zuko. I need you to look.”
The darting of his gaze finally finds where it's supposed to be, and he feels like all the breath he's been struggling to find escapes from his lungs. The eyes he stares into are dark, black and consuming, but the light of the flame on the wall flickers against tiny whispers of deep brown and a lick of gold deep within. He feels intoxicated, sinking into the tiny flicks of colour that seem to move in and out of view with the light.
“Okay, now I need you to breathe with me.”
He hardly notices the hand on his chest, the instructions being directed into his ears, too consumed with staring, unblinking and utterly fascinated. His thoughts are frozen in time, hooked like a fish to motes of colour he can barely see.
And then there's a blink.
Zuko comes back to himself leaning against a wall, his arms limp by his sides, legs splayed in front of him. There's weight on his thighs and hair in his nose, and he drags one shaking hand up to his face to find a head tucked under his chin.
“...Mai?”
She hums, the sound reverberating in his chest—a chest that houses lungs that are following his commands, dragging shaky air in and out of his body in a stuttering but consistent rhythm. As his nerves come back online, he feels Mai's hands running over his chest, tracing muscle groups in a soothing pattern. She's leaning sideways against him, legs somehow curled up across his in the space between the bed and the wall. It takes a solid minute for him to place why it feels familiar—it's his old childhood bedroom, now left empty after they built the newest wing of the palace. It's hardly changed in the time it's been without an occupant, the tapestries and furniture dusted but clearly unused. He lets his head thump back against the wall, his arms falling back to his sides as he just breathes.
Mai doesn't move, doesn't shift from where she's sitting, just continues to let her hands trail over his skin. It might have been arousing at another time, but they both know that right now it's just comfort. Presence. A silent reassurance.
Time passes. They sit in a tiny bubble of space together in silence. It's familiar, in a way Zuko almost wishes it wasn't—this isn't the first time Mai has seen him like this, has had to talk him down, and he knows it won't be the last.
It is the first in a while, though, and he knows she'll wait as long as she has to for him to be ready to talk about it.
“She's so... tiny,” he croaks eventually, voice breathy and barely there.
Mai stills, but doesn't sit up. “She is.”
“I... I can't stop thinking—she... something that small, so breakable—how could anyone look at her and not be terrified?” His breath skips slightly, and Mai's hand finds one of his and squeezes. “Anything could happen to her—anyone could... could do anything and she's so, so fragile—”
“We're here to protect her,” Mai cuts in, not nearly as sharp as she could be. “And she won't stay tiny forever. Children grow up.”
Zuko closes his eyes. “But... but what if that doesn't protect her? What if... what if I don't protect her?”
His heart is starting to jackrabbit again.
“What if—if the one who hurts her is me?”
Mai sits up abruptly and turns to stare at him. “What are you talking about?”
He can't meet her eyes. “I—I never had a good example of a father, and... a-and everyone knows that... that a-abu—abuse victims...” He trips over the word, one he's worked to be able to say for years and still can barely get out, “They can... can mimic their—their parents, or—or—”
Mai grabs his face tightly with both hands. “Zuko. You are nothing like your father.”
“But how do we know?” he bursts out, all the air leaving his lungs in a rush. He's panting as though he's run a race, and he barely has the strength to lift his arms as he jerks them into nonsensical motions through the air. “How do we know that there isn't some—some mental break in my bloodline that makes me turn out just like the rest, that makes me want to hurt my family? How do we know that Ozai didn't... didn't hold me when I was born and look at me and promise to protect me just like... just like I did?”
Mai's fingers tighten, almost like a reflex, and her lips lift in a snarl. “We both know he didn't. He wanted to throw you over the wall.”
A near-hysterical laugh leaves Zuko's mouth. It hurts. “I know that. But that doesn't—doesn't mean he didn't care, that he—”
“Yes it does.”
He pulls his head out from her grip with a growl. “But that doesn't matter!” He knows he's shouting, but the words won't stop. “He was crazy, but he loved us in his own twisted way—” he keeps going over Mai's protests, “—and he's the only example I have! Ozai, and Azulon, and fucking Sozin, they were all terrible fathers who didn't give two shits about their children, and that can't be a coincidence, it can't be something that just happened, so it has to be—be a taint in the bloodline, something that makes everyone turn into abusive assholes who hurt their kids, fathers who don't think there's anything wrong with... with—who can f-fucking hold their own kid down and light their face on fire! What if one day Izumi does something disrespectful, or she doesn't listen, or she just exists in the wrong place and I just—snap? What if I... I... ” He can't get the image out of his head once he's conjured it, the terror on a little girl's face as fire bears down on her, the sound of a high scream cut off—
His hands are being crushed.
“You listen to me, Zuko,” Mai hisses fiercely as she squeezes his hands between hers until her knuckles turn white. “And I want you to burn this into your fucking brain. You are nothing like Ozai. You are nothing like that man in any way. If I ever saw anything like that in you at all, ever, I would have put a knife in your heart myself. I never would have let you touch me, and I never would have brought your child into the world. He didn't do those things because he was a monster—he was a monster because he did those things. There is no switch in your brain that is suddenly going to turn you into him. You are kind, and good, and loving, and you are going to be an amazing father.”
Zuko stares at her, stunned, his words frozen in his throat.
There are tears running down Mai's cheeks.
“I'll keep saying it until you believe it,” she says much more softly. “Izumi is the luckiest girl in the world to have you as her father. You will protect her and love her and she will never be hurt the way Ozai hurt you. And if anything does happen to her, I know you'll raze the world to fix it.” She releases his hands and presses both of hers to his chest, locking their gazes. “She's going to be amazing, and you're going to be the reason.”
Then she lays her head against his shoulder and wraps her arms around him, and it's only then that he realizes the same tears are sliding down his own cheeks. He brings up his shaking arms and wraps her in a crushing embrace.
It feels like hours later (but probably only minutes) when he opens his eyes again, nose buried in the hair at Mai's temple. They're breathing in tandem, arms looser but still wrapped around each other. Suddenly he becomes aware of the smell of antiseptic and sweat that hovers around her, the ever so slight tang of old blood, and he remembers that she was in labour a few hours ago.
“We should get you back to bed,” he says, trying not to let the sudden anxiety into his voice. Mai will kill him if she thinks he's in any way fussing over her.
She sits up and gives him a very flat look, but it shows how exhausted she really is that she doesn't offer up a protest. Zuko tries to help her up as they stand in the tiny space, but they mostly end up helping each other—her unsteady from being out of bed, him still shaky and legs a little numb. Mai bends down to pick up the little candle lamp that she brought with her, and they make their way out the door of his old room and down the hallway in comfortable silence, leaning on each other.
“You know,” Mai says abruptly into the silence, “there's a decent chance Izumi isn't a firebender.”
Zuko blinks at the apparent non-sequitur. “O... kay?”
She looks up at him out of the corner of her eye. “She might not want to learn how to use knives, either. Or fight at all.”
“Is that... a problem?” He's not sure where this is going. “I mean, the war is over.”
“What if she doesn't want to be Fire Lord?”
Zuko stops them in the middle of the hallway and turns fully towards Mai. “Then she can go be a teamaker like Uncle, or fly around the world like Katara and Aang, or—I don't know, start a school for underprivileged orphans in the Earth Kingdom. She can do whatever she wants. What's this about?”
Mai stares up at him seriously, her gaze searching, assessing. After what feels like a very long minute, she smiles a rare sweet smile and steps up on her toes to press her lips gently to his.
“I love you,” she says firmly, and then wraps her arm through his and tugs him down the hallway back to their chambers. Zuko follows, confused but too tired to actually ask.
They both wake a few hours later to the cries of a tiny, hungry infant and the sun shining past curtains that have been thrown wide.
“Ah, good morning!” Uncle Iroh's voice calls from the balcony as Zuko rubs his eyes. There are footsteps approaching the bed, and then Uncle's voice dips down. “And good morning to you, little Izumi!” Zuko sits up just enough to see Uncle pulling the squalling baby from the bassinet and cradle her against his chest with such gentle care that it makes his heart want to burst. “I think we can wait just a little bit longer for breakfast and let your mother rest, hm?” He bobs gently as he steps away from the bed, Izumi's cries slowly petering out as she's rocked. Zuko can hear Uncle start to hum some kind of nonsensical tune as he putters about their chambers, not in the least bit concerned with the couple still lying in the bed.
Zuko lets himself flop back onto the mattress, his eyes feeling gummy and ready to slip closed again. He turns his head to see Mai on her stomach cocooned once again in her blankets, her eyes open and staring at him.
“Ozai wasn't the only example of a father you had,” she whispers very quietly, before letting her eyes slide closed for another fifteen minutes of shut-eye.
Zuko lets the sound of Uncle Iroh's humming and random bits of wandering baby talk wash over him as he too closes his eyes, feeling a calmness wash over him.
Maybe, maybe... everything will be okay after all.