Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Out of everything Zuko couldn’t change about his life, he was glad he at least had the ability to make a difference in the lives of others.

He didn’t consider it crime fighting or being a hero. In truth, he tried to avoid putting a real label on it at all. He simply wore a mask, put on a dark suit, and he went around at night making sure people weren’t getting taken advantage of. 

Or something like that.

He wasn’t like the Avatar, who used his powers to try and unify the city’s patrons. He wasn’t like the Painted Lady, who healed the sick and the wounded and miraculously paid off the debts of the community. He wasn’t like Kyoshi, who protected the young women and men who needed an extra pair of eyes (and fists) late at night when they were alone.

Zuko didn’t come up with his own moniker: the Blue Spirit. The people spoke about him as if he were a ghost or a spirit who put wrongdoers in their rightful place. Truthfully, all he wanted to do was balance out his bad karma with some good. It just so happened that it also felt good to hit bad people.

He mostly welcomed the identity of the Blue Spirit, though. As stealthy and quiet as the night, he came and went like the wind. He kept an eye on some of the deeper sects of the city, places where people like the Avatar or the Painted Lady didn’t cover -- where wealthy bastards took advantage of those who needed money, who preyed on those unable to make the choice between paying for rent and their dignity. 

Zuko took care of those types.

It made him feel better to be sure they didn’t come around for a long while after he finished with them. It helped, too, that the Blue Spirit seemed to exist in the weird limbo between heroic and horrific. The stories Zuko heard of the Blue Spirit sounded hushed and spoken like an urban legend, as if he didn’t really exist in the same realm as anyone else.

He stalked the rooftops in the evening, ears tuned in to hear any and every sound, from sirens to laughter to whistles in the distance. Usually there was the jingle of change in somebody’s pocket, or the footfall of heavy boots on pavement, but it was a mostly quiet evening. It felt too quiet. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but a feeling in his gut told him it wasn’t good. 

Then, he heard the sound of a heavy door slamming shut, a deadbolt sliding into place, and a voice yelling faintly.

That seemed suspicious.

He waited until the area was clear before moving in close to the building in question. This particular area wasn’t his expertise; the gangs here mostly dealt with Avatar and the Painted Lady. With a quick motion, a short stream of fire shot out of his finger to slice open the heavy deadbolt that locked the door shut. He quickly extinguished the flame -- not that anyone was around to accidentally see it -- and he looked through the opening of the double doors.

Inside sat a person tied to a chair, his back to the door Zuko peered through. He looked relaxed, strangely enough to Zuko. The man watched the guard at the front of the room with his head rolled back, but Zuko saw his hands deftly working at the rope that bound them.

“Hey,” the abductee said, “what do you need me for?”

The guard offered him a noncommittal grunt in response, and the abductee groaned. “I’m not special, man,” he insisted. “Why’d you nab me?”

“Nunya,” the guard answered. “Now shut up.”

“Is it the Triad?” he continued. “Xin Fu? Not that I would know anything about them as a totally normal civilian, of course, but as a totally normal civilian I can’t imagine they’d want anything to do with me.”

Zuko began to edge inside, quickly but silently, when he saw the man slip free of his ropes. “What do you think?” he asked. “Are they jealous of my roguish good looks? Or my masterful artistic ability?”

As the guard dipped his eyes back to the phone in his hands, Zuko watched the abductee quickly untie the rope that bound his ankles. He left them loose before sitting back up and whistling at the guard. “I know,” he said jokingly. “It was Azula, right?”

The name startled Zuko, freezing his already still body. The guard’s eyes snapped up to look at the abductee, but the man continued.

“Yeah, she definitely has it out for me. Jealous of my disability checks, right?” he said sarcastically.

The kidnapper kept his eyes locked on the man, and as he made to get up Zuko could see him gear up to knock him out. He raised his arm, hand clenched in a fist. As he closed in on him, though, the man darted up. The unsuspecting guard didn’t have the time to block the abductee’s chokehold.

Zuko retreated back into the darkness, watching the scene unfold. The man lowered the guard to the ground slowly before rubbing his wrists gingerly. “One guard?” he complained to the empty room. “What a joke. Who do they think I am?” He shook his head. “Do they think I’m inept or something?”

He watched the man continue to assess the situation. He leaned down towards the unconscious guard and nudged his head with his shoe -- alive and breathing but out cold, and with a bruise beginning to ring around his throat. He ran his hands along his jeans and came up with a pocketknife. Zuko heard him scoff at it, but still he opened it and held it out defensively.

Zuko kept his distance, moving to the side of the building silently. He watched as the man inspected the still smoking deadbolt that kept him locked in -- and the clear use of firebending that had been used to slice through it. He stepped through the door, moving into the open street. 

He watched the stranger from a distance. He wanted to make sure he stayed safe, of course, but also because Zuko was just damn curious about whoever this guy was. To not only be unphased about being abducted, but to be insulted that they didn’t even provide adequate guards to watch over him was… not exactly normal, civilian behavior.

When the man made his way into the major bustle of the city, Zuko left him alone. He pointedly waited until he flagged another person down -- a bald teen by the looks, barely old enough to buy his own drinks if Zuko had to guess -- before doubling back to investigate the warehouse again.

The man was no longer there, the spot where he’d been lying empty. Only the movement of dirt on the concrete floor provided any evidence there’d been anyone there at all. Otherwise, there were no signs of a struggle around the discarded chair, no scuffs of shoes on the floor. It was almost as if there hadn’t been an attempted abduction at all. 

As he began to circle around the exterior of the building again, the Avatar came into his field of vision. He tried not to sigh; he didn’t dislike the Avatar, but he had the air of somebody who hadn’t seen the worst the world had to offer. He seemed too soft for their line of work.

Now, though, he looked stressed: his shoulders tense, his head low.

“This isn’t your usual haunt,” Avatar said. Zuko only saw his mouth under the heavy hood he wore, dark gray with an alarmingly bright blue arrow over where his forehead would rest underneath the thick fabric.

“Do you know anything about a group using this place to hold hostages?” Avatar asked, and Zuko slowly shook his head. “Any run-ins with a potential fire-bender?” he asked then, gesturing towards the melted deadbolt.

Zuko shook his head a second time, though this time he was glad for his mask as his expression would surely have tipped him off.

The Avatar nodded. “You’d find a way to let me know if you find anything out?” he asked, and at Zuko’s vague shrug, he smiled. It looked more strained than usual, though. “You know how to find me, then,” he said, and in a flash he was gone, using what Zuko presumed to be the wind to expedite his travel towards the city.

A few weeks went by before Zuko thought about the strange abduction again. There were rumors afoot that someone was trying to lure the Avatar out. He also heard hearsay of the Painted Lady’s luck running out, and perhaps the man had been abducted to get to her. Both seemed plausible to him.

Zuko assumed easily enough that Avatar knew something about the man who’d been taken. It made enough sense that perhaps someone would try to abduct him as a means of getting the Avatar to come out.

But who, Zuko wondered, would even attempt to lure the Avatar out? The guy was an optimistic fool most of the time, but Zuko knew he had a dark side. He’d seen it once before when the Painted Lady had been injured by another group. Whatever magic lived inside of the Avatar was powered by emotion, and if that emotion went unchecked the results were disastrous. To purposefully attempt to lure him out by kidnapping someone he cared about sounded like a suicide mission.

He wondered, then, who would be brave -- or stupid -- enough to attempt it, and there was only one person he could truly think of who fit the bill. The abductee mentioned her as a joke, but she was the only person who made sense.

Azula.

She certainly had the motive to attempt to track down and wipe out the Avatar. He, along with the Painted Lady, somehow managed to find a way to eliminate a large number of the debts Azula made her living collecting. If she could eliminate them, she could continue eating the wages of her plethora of clients for years and decades to come.

But to intentionally provoke the Avatar seemed foolish, even for Azula.

His suspicions solidified after he heard a group of thugs complain about their loss of business, though. They described in great detail the two women sent to relieve them of their duties: one tall, with a black bun and heavy fringe who wielded a set of knives, and the other quite small in a pink suit and a thick braid that moved with her every twist and flip.

Azula sent Mai and Ty Lee to continue the job, two of the most formidable opponents Zuko had ever known. 

Maybe she wanted the stranger for herself, to possibly interrogate him? If he had a tie to the Avatar, or to both him and the Painted Lady, perhaps he would have been of some use to Azula.

Zuko kept his eyes and ears peeled for any information that headed his way, but he didn’t hear much more about the situation. 

He’d resolved himself to keep away from the other powered individuals, as he usually did. It would have worked had the Painted Lady not pointedly tracked him down one evening.

He didn’t particularly enjoy her presence, but even he couldn’t deny her unmatched skill. If he as the Blue Spirit was referred to as a ghost, then she was a witch, using water to spin inescapable webs for her enemies. Her true power, though, was to mend the wounded and to heal the ill. She cast a glowing aura and all of a sudden miracles were born and illnesses disappeared, their debts along with them in the night. 

Zuko had a sneaking suspicion he knew how she did it -- a certain alliance with a certain Bandit who had a talent for thieving, particularly from those rich enough to not even notice their funds dwindling.

He thought he sensed her presence, the temperature seemingly falling as she drew nearer. He felt his stomach drop as a wall of mist blocked his path away from her.

It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate what the Lady did for the city, because he did. His distaste for her rested in the way she turned up her nose at him, as if he were no better than the enemies they mutually despised.

She watched Zuko with unyielding eyes.

“I know you were there the night they tried to kidnap him,” she said. She didn’t need to name him for Zuko to know exactly who she was referring to. “The Avatar could feel your energy all around that building.”

She looked into the void of his mask where his eyes rested below, glacier blue into a black abyss. “Speculation on the street says the goal is to get to us,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything more, would you?”

Zuko paused. He saw in the set of her mouth that she was serious, but even more than that, Zuko knew she wouldn’t be asking for his assistance if the matter weren’t important to her. It was so uncharacteristic of her to even speak to him by herself that Zuko knew she was serious.

He weighed his options carefully. He could tell her -- she could use her own contacts to gain information that he wouldn’t have access to. She wasn’t stupid enough to get too close as to arouse suspicion. 

But if he told her, she would tell the Avatar. She would tell their whole gang. That is what worried Zuko. Too many hands in one pot, too much movement to manage, too much room for error. Azula could slip away in the chaos.

He didn’t know the Painted Lady, not well enough to know how she worked within their team. He didn’t know her relationship to him, the one that was abducted, only the set of her mouth and the pinch in her jaw was resolute, and her eyes were hard, and the air only became colder by the second.

He held up a placating hand. He couldn’t tell her, not how she wanted, but along the wall a sheet of ice began to form. He pulled out a small knife he kept in his boot, and carefully he etched Azula’s name into the ice. 

She looked at him resolutely. She nodded. She dismissed the mist that prevented his retreat, cleared the ice that bore Azula’s name, and he walked away without a second look.

Chapter Text

Weeks went by before Zuko heard or saw the Avatar, the Painted Lady, or any of the crew they ran in. He patrolled nightly, as he always did, and he kept tabs on Azula and her usual cronies, but he heard nothing. It was as if nothing had happened.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Azula, though.

After his father kicked him out, he didn’t speak to his sister. With Zuko removed from the picture, she inherited everything he should have had: his education, his training, his inheritance. She became the spitting image of Ozai, right down to the scheming way she robbed the community of their money.

Zuko hated it. He hated that she was able to create her own fortune off of the backs of others who needed genuine help. He hated that she preyed on their desperation like a leech.

In truth, he was glad to have been cast out of the family.

He moved in with his uncle at thirteen years old: heavily scarred, wounded both physically and emotionally, nowhere near the picture of normalcy in any sense of the word. His uncle, though, was as patient as Zuko was angry. He let Zuko feel his emotions, rather than let them fester: his frustration, his rage, his sorrow. He allowed him to learn discipline and control through sword-training, and then Iroh trained his fire-bending when Zuko was ready.

Zuko owed his life to his kind hearted uncle. It was under his guidance that he recognised the toxicity of his father’s existence. His uncle, who earned a modest wage preparing tea for the very people Zuko’s father and sister robbed blind, knew these people and their families personally.

It didn’t take long for Zuko to learn for himself the things the city’s patrons did to earn a living, and about the sick individuals who specifically targeted and preyed on those seeking money. 

The Blue Spirit was born shortly after Zuko moved in with his uncle. Initially, his goal was to stop the assailants from preying on the community, but he knew that wouldn’t eliminate their plight to earn money. That’s when he began robbing them for their valuables and leaving them on the steps of their victims. He couldn’t make their problems go away without removing Azula and Ozai from their pedestals, but he could make life a little bit easier for the people he lived alongside.

He understood the threat the Avatar and his crew posed to Azula, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that they would have that much of an impact on her livelihood. However, Zuko knew her: she may play with her victims, but she didn’t play when it came to the money she collected. If the Avatar and his crew became a serious enough threat, she wouldn’t hesitate before cutting them down.

But what about the man, then?

Zuko’s best guess had to do with him being affiliated with the Avatar and his crew. Did he know their true identities? Did he work alongside them? He knew how to free himself of his rope bonds, how to incapacitate the guard, and he had the sense to get as quickly as he could to a populated part of town. None of that inherently meant he knew the Avatar or his crew, but it didn’t discount the idea either. 

Zuko wondered: what could Azula want with him? Did she genuinely believe he had a part in the Avatar’s group, or was he someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? 

He continued listening for rumors and stories, but nothing else came up.

Then, one evening, he crossed paths with Kyoshi. She was interesting herself -- she didn’t appear to be enhanced in the same way Avatar or the Painted Lady were, but still she fought with everything she had. Her weapons of choice were two metal warfans which she used as extensions of her arms, not unlike Zuko and his broadswords.

She donned an armored green kimono and a golden headdress, white and red face paint disguising her identity. Zuko always thought she looked striking. Her style was so distinctly different from both the Avatar and the Lady, despite being one of their crew.

She didn’t smile in greeting, exactly, but the corner of her lip turned upwards when she saw Zuko. A smile, maybe. A snarl, likely. She crept silently along the alley wall, bringing a finger to her lips in a silent hush. Then, she pointed ahead, and Zuko followed the gesture to see two men huddled together, dark clothes and masks concealing their identities.

He took Kyoshi’s lead, following behind at a creeping pace. He noted the glint of something metallic in one of the man’s hands, the blade sharp and poised in the moonlight. The smell of musk threatened to overwhelm Zuko’s senses, sharp and pungent. 

Hushed voices over quiet whimpers.

A third figure, pressed tight against the alley wall, an ashen cheek flush against the brick, tears marking clear lines in the grime that dirtied her face.

The sound of a fly coming undone.

Zuko and Kyoshi moved at the same time: he launched himself at the one holding the knife as she lunged towards the man pinning their victim. He landed the blunt edge of his sword against the arm wielding the knife, hearing the sound of the weapon falling before instinctively kicking it far out of their radius. Brought his elbow up, hitting the man under his chin so soundly his teeth clipped his tongue and Zuko could smell the blood that came from the wound.

The man wobbled backwards, away from the girl, away from his partner, and Zuko advanced on him further. He cracked the edge of one of his blades against one of the man’s knees, forcing him to kneel down on one leg, then the other, but he didn’t expect the man to fight back, to surge forward and lunge towards his torso.

The sheer strength of it knocked Zuko back, forcing him to drop one of his blades, but he recovered swiftly, bringing his now empty fist to the man’s cheek, stunning him just long enough to scramble back, out of reach, empty hand sliding along the ground beside him for his lost blade. He found it some too-many inches to the right, grasping it and diving to the side just in time for the man to kick where Zuko’s face had been just seconds ago.

He was unable to dodge the second stomp that connected soundly with the center of his mask, the sound of his nose crunching and blood spilling within seconds of impact. But then, the sound of a body crying out and crumpling to the ground echoed behind them, and the distraction was all Zuko needed: he pulled himself up, flying forward to connect the hilt of his blade to the man’s temple. His eyes crossed, almost comically, as he fell forward onto Zuko.

Pain stung against Zuko’s side as he shoved the man off of him, spinning around to check the scene behind him, but he slowed as he watched Kyoshi pull the girl to her feet, wiping the tears and dirt off of her cheeks slowly, her voice calm and reassuring in the aftermath of their fight. The assailant’s face was now swollen and bloodied, and Zuko resisted the urge to spit on his prone form.

“Can you walk?” Kyoshi asked the girl, and to her credit she nodded, her eyes alarmingly clear in the dim evening light. She took a tentative step forward, eyes moving from Kyoshi’s to land on his mask. He sheathed his swords despite the pinch in his side, watching the girl staring at him.

“Do you have somewhere safe to go?” Kyoshi continued, but it fell on deaf ears as the girl stared at Zuko, her eyes widening in panic.

He was used to this -- the fear most civilians placed in him. He slowly turned around to walk away, but a catch in his side stopped him, and the girl gasped as he stumbled forward.

“He’s hurt,” the girl said, her voice clear, and before Zuko could so much as look down at himself she was there, at his side, holding him upright.

He looked down. There, the hilt of a knife stuck out of his side where the man fell forwards onto him.

Kyoshi was at his other side in an instant, but their voices were no longer clear. He reached a gloved hand out to reach for the knife, but Kyoshi’s hand swatted it away. He ignored her, pulling the knife out despite her protests, and the sticky warmth that spread over his side was almost enough to turn his stomach.

He recalled, vaguely, being led out of the light of the alley and into the shadows. He could hear Kyoshi (“You fucking idiot, the first rule of getting stabbed is not to pull the knife out!”) and the girl (“I live just around the corner, just please make sure he gets help?”). They hobbled along, his vision beginning to swim and his ears ringing.

If he could only allow himself to bend, he could cauterize the wound and at least stop the bleeding, he thought. He understood in the back of his mind that that could only cause further complications, but the blood that began soaking deeper into his suit squelched with every step and the urge to cauterize it grew with every second.

The girl departed, and he and Kyoshi watched as she unlocked her door with trembling hands before turning around, eyes wide with concern, waiting for their confirmation before sliding in. Zuko could almost hear the click of her lock turning.

Then, they stood there.

At first, he tried to disentangle himself from her side, one hand pressed firmly against his wound and the other held out for balance. He wanted to leave her, to stop the bleeding himself, to go home and lay down and pretend none of it had ever happened. He didn’t even get so far as two steps before his vision doubled and Kyoshi’s arms circled his chest, holding him as upright as she was able with her height.

“I know someone who’ll help,” she said, an edge of panic in her voice. It was new, he thought. He’d never heard her do more than pester and tease. “He’s a friend of the cause and… and I know he’ll help, even if he might not necessarily act like it.”

Zuko tried shaking his head, both to clear his vision and to refuse her offer. No, he wanted to say. It was bad enough already that he was wounded, bad enough that she felt responsible. He didn’t want another person involved.

Kyoshi sighed. “Come on, Blue,” she urged. “Do you have any better ideas?”

But that was the thing: he didn’t. Who did he have? Iroh, but he couldn’t know the shape Zuko was in. And… he was all Zuko had. No friends, no family, no allies. He remained still and silent, then hung his head in defeat. He waved his free hand -- go ahead, do it, he motioned.

With her free hand, she pulled out a phone from a hidden pouch inside her kimono. She found her contact quickly. It rang only once.

“Hey,” she said, singing the word out nervously, before the other end could say anything. “Uh… I need a solid.”

Silence. Then: “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Oh, it’s not me this time!” Kyoshi exclaimed. “But, uh… well, how are your stitching skills?”

Zuko’s ears swam as they worked out a rendezvous point. He found himself leaning heavily against Kyoshi’s side, a low throb beginning to build in his head. Idly, he tried to lift the hem of his shirt to see the status of his wound, but Kyoshi slapped his hand away with a shake of her head. 

(“Leave it alone until we get somewhere safe,” she’d said. “Last thing we need is a blood trail following us.”)

He didn’t expect to be led towards the center of town and stop at the side of an old truck, nor did he expect the person driving to step out and take his other side with a grunt. He definitely didn’t expect to be placed in the bed of the truck with Kyoshi bracing him as best as she could between her legs, or for the truck to take off at an alarming speed.

They stopped a few moments later and the two pulled him up and out of the truck and into a first-floor apartment.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Kyoshi apologized to her friend. She followed his lead into what appeared to be the living room, where a short table had been hastily cleared off. “You were closest and you-know-who is out of town, okay?”

Zuko closed his eyes as they laid him down on the table, his side stinging and a hiss escaping his lips.

“I’m not a healer!” the stranger said. “I can patch him up, sure, but I’m not a professional --”

“What was I supposed to do, leave him there to bleed out?”

“I’m sure he’d have figured something out!” he continued, but the heat began to dissipate from his tone. Zuko turned to look in his direction, forcing his eyes to focus on the man, and his breath caught in his throat, entirely unrelated to the pain --

It was him.

“Are you awake?” he asked. “Talk or don’t talk, I don’t care. Just give me a yes or no, or a nod, a headshake, something.”

Zuko forced his hand to cooperate, giving him a thumbs up. The man nodded.

“Your shirt needs to come off to do this. Either we cut it off or take it off, but the mask can’t stay if we take it off.”

A swear escaped his lips as the man began moving the hem of his shirt, lifting it to see the wound, but he held up his hand in a V-shape, mimicking scissors.

“You heard the man. Grab some scissors from the kitchen?” he asked Kyoshi.

The next hour or so passed by in a blur to Zuko. The cool metal of the scissors slid along his stomach and he tried not to listen to Kyoshi’s sharp inhale at the scores of scars glittering against his skin. The man talked Zuko through what he did, but Zuko was in no place to understand his words as he wiped an antiseptic over the wound, burning the skin and forcing a curse out of Zuko’s lips. (Two pairs of anxious eyes met above him, unsure how to respond to the Blue Spirit speaking, even if it was just to curse the situation.)

He wanted to rip off his mask, to tear off his cowl, to breathe. He resisted it, but only just. Instead, he thought of the man currently sewing his skin back together. He tried to look at him, but through his haze all he could make out was dark skin and blue eyes, the sliver of a pink tongue poking out from between full lips in concentration.

What was he doing, Zuko wondered? What was his role? Who was he? Why did Kyoshi know him, and why was he so willing to drop what he was doing to sew him up?

Azula wanted him. Zuko knew this. The man beside him knew this. Surely, Kyoshi did, too. He was wanted by one of the most notorious crime bosses of the city, so why was he opening his doors to some random vigilante with no known associates or affiliations?

Then, the man sat back. He reached to his side for a towel, wiping down Zuko’s side again, and then he looked up towards Zuko’s mask.

“That’s all I can do,” he said slowly, “but I really recommend seeing a doctor or something. You’re burning up, man. Were you this feverish before the stab?”

Zuko ignored him; instead, he looked down at the bloodied stitches along his otherwise too-pale skin, and then he closed his eyes beneath the mask. He’d be stuck for a few hours, at best -- surely these two wouldn’t be so stupid as to let him out in his current state.

“Earth to Blue,” the man said, snapping his fingers in front of Zuko’s mask. “You spent like 20 minutes cursing up a storm, you know. Might as well talk and save us the trouble of playing charades.”

He didn’t remember cursing but the once, but he also didn’t doubt the man’s words. He felt himself sigh, and a deep, rumbling shiver wracked his body as he did. 

“I run hot,” he finally gritted out, pointedly keeping his eyes shut so as to avoid their looks of shock.

“Okay,” the man said. “Now, I’m not normally one to berate someone who just got stabbed --”

“Hey,” Kyoshi interjected.

“ -- but what the fuck were you thinking?” he finished.

Zuko’s eyes darted back up to meet the man’s, and he was surprised to find them so angry. He stood up, making his way towards the kitchen where he turned on the faucet, and Zuko watched as the water ran red.

His hands didn’t shake.

“The first rule of getting stabbed is to not pull the knife out, you absolute moron!”

And at that, Zuko couldn’t help himself -- he laughed, a breathy wheeze more than anything, and then he winced. Kyoshi’s earlier words repeated out of the stranger's mouth, but it meant more coming from him, having seen his antics with Azula’s goons.

“Bold words coming from you,” Zuko couldn’t help but say. “First rule of getting abducted is to not antagonize your captors.”

He didn’t expect the man to freeze where he stood, drying his hands. He didn’t expect him to march towards Zuko with a steely glint in his eyes, nor to pull him bodily upright by the tattered remains of his shirt. Zuko bit back the pain that nearly made him cry out at the sudden movement.

“It was you?” the man asked. Then, he shook his head, a hard set to his mouth. “What do you know?”

But Zuko felt his head rush with the sudden movement, his vision spotting with black, and then --

Nothing.

He woke up on a couch, his shirt gone but his torso wrapped in… plastic?

His mask still sat firmly on his head, and he let out a deep breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“Are you finally awake?”

The voice belonged to him, the man from the abduction, the one who stitched his side. Zuko blinked in an attempt to clear up his vision, and when the man finally came into focus, he nodded.

“Kyoshi left a few hours ago,” the man told Zuko. “I told her I’d be on my best behavior.”

Hours. Hours. Zuko forced himself to sit up, and the man watched from across the couch, arms crossed over his chest, and Zuko could feel the truth in his words -- could feel the warmth of the sun bleeding into the sky, could feel the heat it settled into his bones.

“I have to go,” he said. His hands shook as he made to stand up, and it was only then that the man got up and blocked Zuko from making any steps.

“You aren’t going anywhere like that. Do you even know where you’re going?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Zuko tried to push him out of the way, but the man rolled his eyes at the gesture.

“Dude, one gust of wind blows over you and you’ll be knocked down. Nothing’s gonna happen to you if you just sit here and wait out the day, okay?”

But Zuko shook his head. “I can’t stay,” he repeated.

The man raised an eyebrow at Zuko. “Okay,” he said lightly. “You gonna walk out, just like that? No shirt, covered in blood, and a fucking stab-wound for the world to see?”

Zuko stilled. He looked down at the wound, still slowly oozing through the plastic wrap around his abdomen.

“Look,” the man said. “You need rest. I need answers. Let’s just… start there.”

And Zuko wanted to tell the man to fuck off, to let him leave. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as he could, but there was a quiet part of his mind -- one that sounded suspiciously like Iroh -- that said the man was right. He was wounded. He was exhausted.

Slowly, he sat back down. The man kept his hands outstretched, as if to brace Zuko should he fall, but then sat back down in the armchair opposite him, crossing his arms once again over his chest.

He looked different, Zuko thought. Fresher, like he’d had a chance to shower. His clothes no longer looked to be stained in blood (Zuko’s blood). And he looked… good, Zuko admitted to himself, the thought coming unbidden into his mind.

“What’s your name?” he heard himself ask, but it wasn’t the question he’d meant to ask, which was What’s your deal?

Two too-blue eyes looked at Zuko, and for a moment, Zuko thought he could see through the mask. It struck him, then, how familiar his eyes were, but he couldn’t place them. Not quite.

“Sokka,” he finally said. “It’s my real name, too, so I’m trusting you for some stupid reason, but you're already at my house so you’d be able to figure it out eventually if you really wanted to.”

Zuko nodded. He rested his head against the back of the couch, his exhaustion finally sinking into his bones.

In their silence, he looked around the room, and in his panic the previous night he hadn’t noticed how cluttered the tiny apartment felt. No surface was spared from the onslaught of maps, signs, books, and notebooks. Pens and rulers and calipers had been roughly shoved off of the table they’d thrown Zuko onto before. Handwritten notes were stuck on each map, some with multiple notes, some with pins, some with strings attached to other maps. Street maps, subway lines, train routes, taxi services -- all marked out on individual sections of the far wall, color coded, with clear dates and times for regular services.

“Who are you?” he finally asked.

But Sokka didn’t answer immediately. He stood up slowly, favoring his right leg, and walked towards the kitchen.

“You were there the night they tried to get me, right?” Sokka asked, instead, his blue eyes bright. Calculating. “What’s your theory?.”

“I --” Zuko began, but he stopped. His eyes scanned over the room, again, taking in the space. “You’re the brains,” he finally answered, “for the Avatar and his gang. You might as well have the city memorized.”

“Okay, but what do they actually need me for? Numbers and math? I’m not of any use to them.”

Zuko stared at him. Not of any use. He shook his head. “You’re the brains,” he repeated. “What do you mean, you’re no use?”

“I’m not a bender,” Sokka told him, arms crossing over his chest defensively. “I’m not even a fighter anymore. I stopped that when I broke my leg.” He gestured to it, his right leg.

“So you don’t help them at all, then?” Zuko asked. “All these maps and notes and the city’s encyclopedia seared into your brain are just for show?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just -- what use would I be to them?”

Zuko scoffed. “Would they even be able to operate without you coordinating for them?” he countered. “If you didn’t run the ops, how long do you think they’d be able to survive?”

Sokka stared straight ahead, his eyes widening in realization. “Oh,” he said simply. “Well… when you put it that way….”

“I don’t know who exactly ordered the hit,” Zuko admitted. “I have my suspicions, but I haven’t been able to confirm or deny them.”

“Azula, right?” Sokka questioned. At Zuko’s pointed silence, he shrugged. “The Painted Lady said you name-dropped her just after it all went down.”

“Yeah.”

“So, wait,” Sokka continued. “If all that happened, like, a month ago now, how come you’ve still been following up the leads?”

Zuko considered his answer. No honest answer would suffice, he realized. He could tell the truth, admitting that his true mission had been to take down Azula, but that would lead to more questions than answers: what was his relation to her, then? Why would the Blue Spirit have a personal vendetta against her, of all people? Who did she harm so viciously that it led to the creation of one of the most feared vigilantes in the city?

But he couldn’t lie to himself, either. He pursued the leads because this man, Sokka, intrigued him. His charisma, his attitude, his indignation at being treated with so little respect. Sokka was smart. 

Zuko wanted to learn more about him.

“Azula’s smart,” he said slowly, “but I don’t know if she took you as bait or if she legitimately wanted to eliminate you as a threat.”

“Because I’m the alleged brains,” Sokka reiterated, sounding shocked. Then, he shook his head. “I’m leaning more towards bait if she thought that idiot would be enough to keep me out of the picture.”

Zuko grimaced under his mask. “It’s not her style, though. Sure, she’ll get other people to do her dirty work, but she’s not usually one to underestimate people. 

“So?” Sokka countered. “Maybe she just miscalculated.”

“No. She wouldn’t. She has too much at stake to throw it away by staging a botched abduction.”

Sokka returned from the kitchen with a coffee in one hand and a cup of water in the other. At Zuko’s incredulous silence, he rolled his eyes and set it on the table beside them.

But there was a curious look in his eyes, one that was too-knowing. He sat back down in his armchair opposite Zuko, his back to the window, the sun beginning to shine behind him through the blinds, and Zuko felt himself ache for it, for its warmth, for its light. 

He exhaled, suddenly exhausted, suddenly feeling every beat of his heart on his side, and Sokka sighed in response.

“The interrogation is over,” he told Zuko. “If you want to leave, I’m not holding you hostage. I can send you on your way, if you want, or you can crash on the couch until you’re ready to leave.” Then, he reached onto the floor to pick up a navy blue T-shirt and toss it at Zuko. “It’s one of mine, but it should fit you fine.”

Pushing back against his aching body, Zuko stood up. It was a slow process. Even slower than that, he turned around, his back to Sokka as he unclasped his mask with shaking fingers. Underneath, his balaclava still concealed everything but the line of his eyes, but he couldn’t risk it -- couldn’t risk the scar showing, couldn’t risk Sokka knowing.

He slid into the shirt carefully, thankful that it fit on the side of too-loose on him, before nearly tugging his mask back on. Instead he stared straight ahead.

“Thank you,” he finally said. “And Kyoshi, too. I… I don’t know what I would’ve done without you two.”

Behind him, Sokka said, “Yeah, well… this just means you owe me.” Then, a little quieter, “Just stay safe, okay? Rest up. Don’t get stabbed, and if you do, don’t pull the damn thing out again.”

Chapter Text

“Who trained you?” Sokka panted. 

Several weeks had passed since Zuko's injury. They met at an old warehouse to discuss their shared goal of stopping Azula, but when they arrived with their respective weapons in hand, they began sparring instead.

“Piandao,” Zuko said. He didn’t hide the grin in his voice, though Sokka couldn’t see it through the mask.

Sokka gaped at Zuko. “He only trains the rich rich people,” he said. “I mean, I got to train under him, but it was under a ridiculously precarious scholarship that he only takes like once a millenia.”

Zuko thrust his weapon towards Sokka’s side, nodding at Sokka’s quick deflection. “I forgot he even did scholarships,” he said, ignoring Sokka’s rich kid comment. “You must have made an impression on him.”

Sokka ducked another swipe of Zuko’s blades. He swung low, narrowly catching Zuko’s knees. As Zuko dodged out of his reach, he watched Sokka’s facial expression change.

“What?” he asked.

“Just jealous of your joints,” he said. He crossed his arms in a large X, signaling a break. Zuko sheathed his weapons as Sokka did the same. He watched Sokka reach for his bottle of water and take a deep swig, leaning heavily on an old table in the warehouse.

“What don't you see?" Zuko asked, then. 

Sokka turned his eyes back towards Zuko, but they were confused. "Huh?"

"When you look at me," Zuko said. He waited for an answer, but at Sokka's silence he nodded solemnly. 

Zuko sat down on the concrete, and then he carefully rolled up his pant legs -- first the left and then the right. He tried not to let the way Sokka stared at him bother him as he revealed a history of flame that melted his skin, marking him permanently. 

“I'm pretty identifiable without the disguise," Zuko said. "You have your scars, and I have mine." He surveyed the damage for a moment before he shook his head and lowered the fabric back down to his ankles. “Trust me,” he said. “I’m not untouched by this… this war.”

Sokka shook his head. “It’s not fair,” he said. He didn’t look at Zuko, but instead at the space across from him. He pinched his mouth in a grimace.

“What isn’t?” he asked.

He gestured vaguely in front of him. “I don’t know how old you are, but I’m only twenty-four, and my entire life has been ripped apart by a bunch of rich pieces of shit. All of us have had our lives ripped apart by rich pieces of shit. I mean, why else would any of us be doing this?”

Zuko considered his words for a moment. “I stopped letting myself think about it,” he admitted.

“It’s not that easy,” Sokka grumbled. “My sister and I will never get our mom back. We’re never going to get our childhood back. Our dad tries, you know? He’s in law enforcement because he wants to bring about change, but it’s almost impossible. He’s… I don’t know. He’s not giving up, but we can tell how hard it’s hitting him.”

“I can imagine,” Zuko said quietly.

Sokka sighed. “So we started trying to fight the system our way, you know, doing the vigilante thing.”

“It’s all fucked,” Zuko agreed. “I got into it kind-of the same way.”

“Yeah?”

Zuko nodded. “I lost my mom when I was a kid. She disappeared one night and I never heard from her again.”

“What about your dad?” Sokka asked quietly.

Zuko’s shoulders tensed, but he forced himself to shrug it off. “I always thought he had a hand in it,” he admitted. At Sokka’s wide-eyed expression, he shook his head. “Rules are different when you’re rich rich,” he said, using Sokka’s earlier words. “She disappeared and no one tried looking for her. There were no police reports made. No investigations. It was like she stopped existing and no one talked about her again.”

“Shit,” Sokka exclaimed. He leaned back on his hands, staring down towards Zuko. “I mean… that’s terrible.”

“Is it any worse than losing your mom, though?” Zuko asked. At his grimace, Zuko shook his head. “Rich people will do anything to not have to face repercussions for their actions. My father decided one day he just didn’t have a wife, or a mother to his children, so we didn’t.”

“It’s all fucked,” Sokka replied, repeating Zuko’s earlier words. “A bunch of kids fighting to fix a city that doesn’t want to be fixed.”

“Against people who thrive off of its corruption,” Zuko added.

They lapsed into silence. Zuko couldn’t get his mind off of the strange turn of the conversation from a simple spar.

But Sokka -- he was different from how Zuko imagined he’d be. He reminded Zuko of himself, in a way.

He wasn’t a damsel; he made that clear within minutes of Zuko first seeing him. He wasn’t entirely a genius, either, if his idea of shotgunning hot tea meant anything. But he knew honor, and he understood the concept of respect. He was a warrior, and he protected his people above all else. 

Zuko was grateful for the Blue Spirit’s mask as he stared at Sokka. He had forgone his warpaint and regalia in favor of sweatpants and a tank top, revealing years of scars decorating his arms and shoulders from simple nicks and scrapes to one particularly nasty blast on his back that crept over his shoulders. 

He looked so unlike a twenty-four year old civilian that Zuko almost would’ve been willing to bet he was a battle-hardened veteran -- but in a way, that’s exactly who he was.

Wasn’t that just the same as Zuko himself, though?

Sokka still had his family, though, and that’s what truly separated them from each other.  He’d long since abandoned the idea of ever avenging, much less finding, his mother. Where Sokka fought to protect his family, Zuko fought to take his family’s power away from them completely. 

Zuko watched Sokka reach for his water and take a heavy swig from it before standing back up. He was slow, careful on his right leg. As he balanced on both feet, he himself eyed Zuko.

“Any more emotional backstories for tonight?” he teased. He reached down to touch his toes, and Zuko nearly laughed at the sight of him stretching so… normally.

“I think I’ve filled my quota,” he said.

But Sokka smiled at him, and he shrugged. “I’m gonna keep trying to find out who you are, you know. You could just go ahead and give in.”

Zuko found himself smiling at the way Sokka’s eyes glimmered in the rising sun’s light. How long had it been since he so casually joked around with somebody?

Of course, this person had no idea who he truly was, and therefore had no idea how much of a hand he personally had in ruining his life.

So instead he simply shook his head, grateful once again for the mask that hid his identity. “I wouldn’t dare ruin your fun,” he said simply. 

At Sokka’s roll of his eyes, they began their spar once again.

Chapter Text

“What do you know about Azula?”

It was the first question Sokka asked. He hardly waited for Zuko to breach the threshold before spinning around and taking a seat at his desk in the corner of his living room.

“She’s got two allies,” Zuko told him, “named Mai and Ty Lee. Have you or your people met them yet?”

Sokka nodded. “Kyoshi’s gotten into it with the contortionist before.”

“That’s Ty Lee,” Zuko said. He scribbled her name on a sheet of paper and tacked it to a space on Sokka’s wall that he’d cleared. “She’s not a bender, but she’s an expert in the human body. She can manipulate somebody’s pressure points and temporarily negate bending abilities.”

“Shit,” Sokka said, his brows raised. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“She’s been known to incapacitate non-benders, too, though, so don’t write her off just because you’re not enhanced.”

Sokka got up and moved towards Zuko, a pen in hand. He wrote “non bender” and  “removes bending” underneath Ty Lee’s name. He pointed his pen towards Mai’s name, then. “What about her?” he asked.

Zuko took a deep breath, not ignoring the way Sokka’s eyebrows rose at his reaction. “It wasn’t supposed to be a loaded question,” he defended.

“It isn’t that,” Zuko insisted. “I told you before that Azula and I have a history. I know both of them as well.” He gestured towards Mai’s name on the sheet of paper. “Mai isn’t a bender either, but she’s an expert in any and every blade that’s out there. She prefers throwing knives. She’s fast and she’s deadly.”

“Okay,” Sokka said. “Pressure pointing can temporarily incapacitate enemies and likes throwing knives,” he summarized. “What do they have to do with Azula?”

“They’re her right hands. They go where she goes,” Zuko answered.

“So if we see them, we’ll find her,” Sokka guessed. At Zuko’s nod, he returned to his desk. “So what about Azula then? What do you know about her?”

Zuko paused. “What do you know about her?” he asked.

Sokka frowned. “She’s a shark. She’s smart as fuck. She inherited her dad’s business before she was even legal. She has no associates or affiliations aside from her father. She’s never publicly let anybody go, and she’s got a knack for absorbing customers from other businesses to increase her profit margin.”

“From what I’ve gathered,” Zuko said, “she’s targeting your group because you’re affecting her income.”

“Well, yeah,” Sokka said, as if it were obvious. “We heal the sick and steal money from the rich to pay off their debts. Trust me, I know from experience how debilitating hospital bills can be.”

“Yeah, and your whole Robin Hood act is taking what she sees as her rightful money away from her,” Zuko told him. “I think that’s why she tried to have you kidnapped. If she can get you, she can get to the Avatar and the Painted Lady.”

Sokka hummed in thought, scratching his notes on a sheet of paper with Azula’s name scrawled over the top. “But she can’t draw them out personally. She’s no match for them.”

Zuko took a deep breath. “That’s where you’re wrong. She’s absolutely a match for them.”

“But they’re two of the best benders in the city,” Sokka said, his expression betraying his confusion. “What’s she got? A circus clown and a professional knife thrower?”

“Did you not know she’s a bender?”

“What?”

Zuko shook his head. He wrote “fire bender” on Azula’s sheet. “She’s been training since she could walk and was ordained a master at fourteen.”

Sokka simply looked at the word fire for several seconds in silence before he blinked rapidly, as if trying to restart his short-circuiting mind. “Okay, then. Not something I expected.” He turned to look at Zuko in disbelief. “Fourteen?”

He shrugged in response. “She doesn’t use her own force if she can help it, but like I said earlier -- if she needs something done, she won’t hesitate to see it through herself.”

“Like kidnapping me,” he assumed.

Zuko nodded. “Like kidnapping you.”

“But wouldn’t she send Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb out to do her bidding first?” Sokka asked. 

“They’re both brilliant in their own right,” Zuko warned. “Don’t underestimate them just because they’re her lackeys. But,” he conceded, “I do think she would send them out before she comes out herself.”

Sokka nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. 

He returned his gaze towards the wall, and Zuko followed his eyes towards the spot on the map that marked where Zuko presumed he’d been abducted. A few miles away a spot marked where he was held captive.

“What I don’t get,” Sokka said, “is where she’s based. By all accounts and records, she’s never strayed out of the eastern sect of the city. Why would she go so far south to get to me?”

“My best guess is that you’ve become that much of a threat to her,” Zuko answered. “Somehow, she knows who you are, personally. Either she knows you’re affiliated with the Avatar or she strongly suspects it.”

Sokka crossed his arms, raising a hand to his chin curiously. “No suspicions about anyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Zuko asked.

“It’s not just me, the Avatar, and the Painted Lady who are involved. Sure, fine, she targeted me because I’m the least threatening person, but what about the others?”

“You mean Kyoshi?”

“And the Blind Bandit,” Sokka said with a nod. “Who do you think connects us to the rich? It definitely isn’t the three of us.”

“Huh,” Zuko said quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that, actually. The rich know the rich.”

Sokka looked back towards his board. He had an eyebrow raised. “There’s a chance, maybe, that Azula could work in similar circles to the Bandit, then. Right?” he asked. “I mean, in her day-to-day.”

Zuko agreed. “If she’s rich enough, then I don’t see why not.”

Sokka surprised Zuko with a laugh, though. “Trust me, she’ll be rich enough. Do you not know anything about us?”

“I…” Zuko began, but he trailed off. Sokka waved him off. 

“Actually,” he said, “I’m curious.” He turned to face Zuko directly. “What do you know about us?”

“I know you and Kyoshi are a… thing?”

Sokka snorted. “Okay, and?”

Zuko remained silent.

Sokka grinned. “You don’t know shit about us,” he laughed. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s only fair, right? You have your secrets, and we have ours.” As he spoke, he walked back towards his desk, sitting down in the chair and spinning around to face Zuko. He gestured towards the sofa, allowing Zuko to sit down before him.

“I didn’t want to get you involved,” Zuko told him. “Azula forced my hand in that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to not want to get involved when she literally abducted me,” Sokka agreed. “But all of this does make me wonder what your connection to them is. How do you know this stuff?”

Memories flashed behind Zuko’s eyes. He could tell the truth to Sokka -- a part of him even wanted to. I grew up with them, he wanted to say. She’s my sister. But he bit the inside of his cheek, held his tongue. No, he knew he couldn’t tell Sokka any of it. Not yet, at least, he conceded to himself. 

Zuko looked at Sokka, and a part of him yearned to reveal his identity. He wasn’t sure why, though. For so long, he fought by himself. He didn’t operate with a partner at any stage of his crime-fighting. To now suddenly having somebody to plan alongside felt… strange.

But Sokka seemed different.

Zuko finally settled on a shake of his head. “Not yet,” he said, and he almost felt… sad. “I can’t…”

But Sokka offered him what looked like a genuine smile. “When you’re ready?” he asked.

And Zuko felt himself nod without entirely realizing he was doing it. “Yeah,” he agreed.

Chapter Text

He chose to walk to his Uncle’s tea shop for his company and food, wearing a pair of heavy sunglasses despite the setting sun to avoid the gawking eyes of the city’s patrons when they saw his scar. The Jasmine Dragon was beginning to close for the evening, but when Iroh saw Zuko step into his doorway he greeted his nephew with a beaming smile.

“Nephew! You look terrible,” he said jovially. He wrapped his nephew in a hug, so tight Zuko thought maybe his uncle was trying to hold him together with his bare hands. He winced at the wound in his side, hoping his uncle didn’t notice, hoping the stitches didn’t tear.

“I fell,” Zuko said in lieu of an explanation, but the knowing glint in Iroh’s eyes said he wasn’t fooled.

“Would you like a cake?” he asked, gesturing to the pastry case. He didn’t let Zuko answer before he pulled out one of each and placed them on a platter. He sat Zuko down behind the counter and handed him the plate before shuffling around for a cup of tea.

“It’s been a few weeks, Nephew,” he said. “It worries me when you avoid me, even if I know the reason why.” He held the mug of tea in his hands and warmed it gently before handing the cup to Zuko. “I care about you, and you disappearing in the night does little to soothe my soul.”

“I know, Uncle,” Zuko responded quietly. He graciously accepted the tea and took a sip, allowing it to warm him up from the inside out. “I wasn’t alone this time, though.”

“Oh? You have a partner now?”

Zuko shook his head. “Not really. It was a one-time thing.”

Iroh frowned. “You need an ally if you continue to pursue this activity,” he said. “Fighting alone is as dangerous as it is stupid.”

“I don’t trust anyone else,” he told Iroh -- and it wasn’t a lie. While he didn’t think the Avatar, or the Painted Lady, or even Kyoshi would ever do anything to betray him, he also knew they fought with their emotions as heavily as they did their minds. He’d seen firsthand how their emotions got in the way of their logic. It rarely ended well.

“You won’t trust anyone if you continue to isolate yourself. Trust is a two-way street.”

At that moment, a group bustled in and Iroh stood up. Despite the hour nearly ending and closing time was upon them, he greeted them warmly. “How may I help you kids?”

Zuko watched the group enter, shocked to see Sokka among them. He smiled as he leaned into an auburn-haired woman, the pair following a bald boy and a tall, willowy woman with striking blue eyes against rich dark skin.

He didn’t leave, but thoughts raced through his head like wildfire.

If Sokka was here -- and he was -- then was the auburn haired woman Kyoshi? And if that was Kyoshi… was that the Painted Lady? Was that the Avatar?

His gaze returned to Sokka, though. He watched as Iroh sat them down in one of their larger booths, as Sokka wrapped an arm around the auburn-haired woman. 

“Sokka, you can’t just chug Iroh’s tea. It’s an experience,” the bald one said.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he challenged. “You can chug anything if you put your mind to it.”

Iroh returned with four different drinks and a tray of sweets for the group. Zuko watched him, Sokka, grab a mug and dive in. As if to prove a point, he finished the drink within seconds.

The auburn haired woman raised an eyebrow at him. He set the cup down and sat silently for a few seconds before the pain of the boiling hot tea processed and he panted between coughs, his eyes watering.

“We tried to tell you,” she told him, patting his arm gently as she blew on her own cup.

“Shit,” he exclaimed, a few tears beginning to leak from the corner of his eyes. “That was delicious. Don’t breathe it in, though.”

The willowy woman rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

“The same idiot blood runs in both of our veins,” he sputtered. “We’re both idiots.”

The bald one laughed. At the woman’s look, he shrugged his shoulders. “We’re all kinda dumb, Katara. Why else do what we do?”

Zuko watched them for several minutes longer: Sokka still trying to clear his lungs of tea, the auburn-haired woman slapping his back affectionately, the bald one sharing a cake with the willowy woman. All of them, suddenly, so familiar to Zuko it shocked him to his core. Sokka, Kyoshi, Avatar, and the Painted Lady, all cozied up together.

Sokka, who was brothers with the Painted Lady.

All of a sudden, Azula’s desire to use him as bait made so much more sense.

Chapter Text

my place, dusk

Sokka left a message for Zuko this time. Zuko didn’t question it; he found it in the spot they generally met in, and in Sokka’s own handwriting. Still, as he made his way towards Sokka’s back steps, something felt just shy of normal.

Like how Sokka never left his porch lights on.

Zuko rapped his knuckles quietly on the door, but found the silence on the other side ominous at best. He gripped the doorknob and twisted it, easing it open so slowly he almost wondered if Sokka would even hear him enter.

The first sight he faced was, indeed, of Sokka -- tied once more to his own kitchen chair, this time at both hands, feet, and forearms. He looked furious, his hair disheveled and chest heaving, but it was the way his eyes continued to dart towards the main room that kept Zuko from immediately launching at him to untie and ungag him.

He drew his swords higher, carefully stepping across Sokka’s floorboards. How much time had he spent here that he now knew which ones creaked and which didn’t?

He didn’t know who, or what, to expect, but the sudden rush of black sleeves and the glimmer of steel weren’t it. He recognised Mai’s style immediately.

“Doing her dirty work?” he asked as he dodged two quick jabs of her blades.

But instead of answering his question, Mai looked at Zuko with an angry expression. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she said angrily, her voice coming in at just under a hiss. He wasn’t sure if Sokka would be able to hear her through the other room.

“I’m taking her down, Mai,” Zuko answered, his voice even quieter than hers. He evaded a second furious swipe, but he felt a distinct lack of fire in her movements. It almost felt as if she didn’t want to be in the fight to begin with.

He didn’t hesitate before tossing his blades to one hand and shoving her against Sokka’s wall of maps. He only slightly regretted the decision as several pages went flying around her, knowing Sokka would have to rearrange the maps later.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she said, this time at full volume. “You can’t possibly expect to actually take her out.”

“I can’t on my own,” Zuko agreed. He tried to keep his voice even, but he kept part of his attention on the other room, anxiously listening for any other footsteps. If Mai was here, then Ty Lee had to be close by. 

If not Ty Lee, maybe even Azula herself.

“So you’re enlisting the help of some dumbass kids?” Mai asked. “What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish?”

“Not them,” Zuko replied. “Him.”

“Oh, that makes it so much better,” she snapped. “You understand I’m the one that came out here tonight, right?” she asked. “I’m here on my own so that you don’t get your ass killed.”

That stopped Zuko short. “She didn’t send you?” he asked stupidly. He barely managed to duck from her headbutt, but he did let her go.

She glared at him from against the wall. “You think either one of you would be here or alive if she’d sent me?” she asked. “Idiot.”

“Well, then,” Zuko said, “message received. You didn’t have to go through all this trouble.”

“Didn’t I?” she replied. “What, should I have left a voicemail with Ir--”

Zuko reached forward to clap his hand over her mouth, and he winced at the way her eyes widened in response.

“He doesn’t know who you are yet?” she asked, voice as quiet as the wind. “That’s why you’re in the whole get-up?”

“He can’t find out,” Zuko said, just as quietly. “He’d never work beside me if he knew.”

She looked at him quizzically, but eventually she settled on a subtle shade of her head. “Fucking idiot,” she repeated.

She stepped away, drawing her knives back towards her belt as she made her way towards Sokka in the kitchen. In two swift movements, she slashed the rope that bound his arms.

He didn’t jump to get up, instead looking between her and Zuko in confusion as he pulled the gag from his mouth. 

Mai looked back at Zuko. “Whatever secret you’re trying to keep is safe with me,” she said evenly, “but consider this my only warning. Next time you see me will be because she wants you, and I won’t protect you again.”

She left before Zuko could answer.

Sokka stared at Zuko as he lurched forward to cut the remaining rope that immobilized him. He kept his gaze guarded. 

“So you have a history?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Zuko replied.

“No. No more vague non-answers, okay?” Sokka spat. He stood and planted himself in front of Zuko, angrily pointing a finger at his chest. “You know everything there is to know about me, and what do I get in return? Gagged and bound in my own house? While you have a nice evening chat with your girlfriend?”

“Ex,” Zuko offered, though he knew it wasn’t the point and that it would serve only to anger Sokka more. “Ex-girlfriend.”

Sure enough, he flushed. “Even better,” he said sarcastically. “What, you two worked together under Azula or something? Assassin interns for the company that wants all of us dead?”

Zuko held his tongue, knowing that nothing he could say would make the situation any less difficult.

“She came to warn you, of course. Why couldn’t she use somebody else as bait, huh?”

That caught Zuko by surprise, though.

Is that what he was upset about?

“You’re upset she used you to get to me?”

Sokka fumed. “I’m upset because it worked!” he exclaimed. “I told you before -- I can’t be the one responsible for someone else getting hurt. I don’t care if I was in the action or not.”

“But neither of us were hurt, so it doesn’t count.”

“The fuck it doesn’t,” he retorted. His eyes narrowed in on Zuko. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you two whispering in there. She knows who you are. She knows you, which means she knows how to push your buttons.”

“Then why does it feel like she pushed all of yours and none of mine?” Zuko heard himself ask, and immediately he wished he’d held his tongue just a little longer.

“My family is broken because of them,” Sokka said. “This isn’t some side revenge-gig for me.”

“What, and you think it’s a game for me?” Zuko prompted. He could feel his temper flare this time, but there was little he could do about it. “You think my family isn’t broken?”

“I think what happened to your mother is unfortunate, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with this. Azula and Ozai personally sent members of their organization to kill my mother.”

Before he could stop himself, Zuko heard himself say, “And who do you know would be powerful enough to do that to mine? Who do you think my father is, huh?”

His question brought Sokka up short, like his brain short-circuited again. “What?” he asked. 

The words had already left Zuko’s mouth. He couldn’t revoke them. “This isn’t some weekend crusade for me, either, Sokka. Mai wasn’t out here to rekindle an old flame. She came to tell me to watch our backs because Azula’s on our trails, and trust me -- she won’t hesitate to cut me down just because we grew up together.

“I want them taken out just as badly as you do because they’re the reason I don’t have a family anymore. The same as you. They took my mother away from me, just like they took yours, but at least you still have a relationship with your sister and father,” Zuko said angrily.

Sokka gaped at Zuko silently, unable perhaps to process all of what he was saying. “What do you mean -- you’re her brother? Ozai has a son?”

“Oh, he probably removed all evidence I existed the same way he made my mother vanish,” Zuko spat. “He left me crippled and homeless at thirteen, thinking I’d done something wrong for criticizing the way he was willing to kill to get more power.

“Excuse me for finding Mai to be a comfort from the horrorshow living with my father was, and for her to find me to give us a warning before she’s sent to kill us for getting in their way. And while I’m at it, I’m so sorry for not having anyone else I care about for them to lure me out with, too. It’s almost like everyone else I care about is dead.”

Sokka watched Zuko with blank eyes, but he finally found it in himself to shake his head. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“So am I,” Zuko said. He sheathed his swords, spinning around and walking for the door. He pulled the handle and yanked it open.

Azula’s bored smile was the last thing he expected to see. 

“Hi, big brother,” she said sweetly.

He felt the air crackle with electricity, and then he felt nothing.

Chapter Text

Sokka and the Blue Spirit wound through the labyrinth in tandem, neither one acting without the other in mind. Without their weapons, they moved cautiously. Blue kept his fists raised defensively and kept a step ahead of Sokka, and though Sokka wouldn’t dare voice it aloud, he was grateful. It was difficult to think about an escape plan when most of his thoughts were consumed by the pain in his knee.

He couldn’t bring himself to think any about Blue’s reveal before Azula took them, not while they worked to free themselves from Azula’s compound, and ultimately, he didn’t have the time to question it. At the turn of another seemingly endless corridor, he heard a steady tapping: nails on a tabletop. Steady, constant. Bored.

“Oh, you finally made it,” a voice called, and Sokka looked up to see a girl.

That was the worst part, he thought. Azula was just a girl.

Earth snapped underneath Sokka and Blue. It sank them both to their knees, their hands bound as if shackled. He couldn’t help the gasp that escaped him as pain shot through his bad leg, the ordinarily constant ache turning into a burning jab. Beside him, Blue turned sharply to face him -- in concern, Sokka thought, but he couldn’t quite tell through the mask -- before returning to Azula. The Dai Li agents behind her suddenly emerged from the shadows, holding Sokka and the Spirit motionless in their element.

She moved to stand up from her chair -- no, her throne. She walked with her arms crossed over her chest as if bored, her perfectly manicured nails still tapping over her forearm.

Sokka knew, somewhere in his mind, that Azula was only a year or so younger than he was. She was Katara’s age, if he wasn’t mistaken. So he couldn’t understand how someone so young, barely even legal, could look at human lives as so inconsequential? How could someone be so callous as to cause so much devastation in the name of -- what, power? Money?

He didn’t know what expression he was wearing, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it.

But, he noticed, she spared no attention to him. She focused her gaze on the Blue Spirit, a sigh escaping her lips when he turned his face towards hers. The leering grin of the mask met her disappointed expression --

And Sokka’s mind short-circuited. Why did she look disappointed?

“All of these theatrics,” she began, still staring at the Spirit. “You killed some of my best men, you know.”

The Spirit jerked his head sharply, denying her statement.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, right -- you don’t kill people. You only disable them, or leave them so useless they might as well actually die. That’s better, right?”

Azula spoke like she knew him. Not the Blue Spirit, but the man. Who he was underneath the mask.

(Didn’t he say as much to Sokka before, though?)

She raised one hand from where her arms crossed, signaling towards the Dai Li. Suddenly, the earth imprisoning them let up. It didn’t release them, not entirely, but somehow it was worse -- the nerve in Sokka’s leg that shot red-hot pain through his body pinched even tighter, bound now in an awkward position where he couldn’t move his ankle but he couldn’t support his weight, and it suddenly became more than he could quite bear.

He fell forward, and distantly he was aware of Blue moving towards him, gloved hands clawing at the dirt underneath to pull his leg free.

Then, something that might’ve broken his heart:

“Azula, please,” he pleaded.

The Blue Spirit, begging.

Her name sounded familiar on his tongue.

Sokka sucked in a gasp, eyes clenched shut. He couldn’t think of anything but the searing heat, trying to curl in over himself to find some kind of angle that worked, something that alleviated the pain, but he couldn’t. He could feel Blue, he felt him stand -- when had he been released, when Sokka was still stuck? He felt him pull Sokka up, trying to ease the weight on his leg.

“Let him go,” he continued. “You don’t need him. You have me. Just -- just release him, okay?”

A soft, contemplative hum. Then: “Oh, fine.”

The earth became soft underneath Sokka and Blue pulled him out, straightening his legs in the process and moving to crouch in front of him.

“You’ve gotten soft,” Azula sneered. Sokka looked up to see her perfectly painted lips curled up in distaste, and he forced himself to question it, to consider the possibility -- the now, very real chance that the Blue Spirit and Azula knew each other personally.

It wasn’t like he knew Blue, Sokka thought. They only spent months together, plotting this siege -- and for what? What could they have possibly accomplished together?

Sokka wanted to force answers out of Azula, but what did the Spirit want?

“I’ll let him go,” Azula said with a sigh, turning her gaze back towards the Spirit, speaking only to him, “but you’re mine.”

With a second wave of her hand, the Dai Li pulled Blue to his knees, re-binding his hands at his side. Sokka dropped to his knees beside him at his sudden lack of support, but it was Azula’s bored sigh that broke his attention.

“Get out of here,” Blue gritted out through clenched teeth.

“I’m not leaving you --”

“You think I’d hurt him?” Azula asked, finally turning her amber eyes on Sokka. They were incredulous, as if the mere thought of hurting him was blasphemous, but that didn’t make any sense to Sokka.

“Maybe not you, but what about them?” Sokka spat. He pulled himself to his feet, stalking towards her defiantly.

A single arrow’s warning shot is the only thing that stopped him.

“I’ll be fine,” Blue told Sokka. “Just go.”

Azula waved her hand in the Dai Li’s direction, but as soon as Sokka moved to look towards them, his vision went dark. The earth shifted beneath him. When he could see again, he found himself on a lake shore, sand beneath his feet, and the sun beginning to shine on the horizon.

Chapter Text

Sokka and Suki bounded through the labyrinth of musty tunnels. Sokka had only one thought on his mind: the Blue Spirit.

Aang caught wind of a rumor that there was an underground cavern used by the Dai Li to hold hostages and carry out particularly sinister business. Katara found a woman who claimed to have been held there for an unknown amount of time, and she allowed Katara and Aang to ease her mind and bring the memory to the surface. Toph searched high and low for weeks on end to find the alleged entrance, finally reaching it before the sun set on a shore located at the edge of the Republic.

In the meantime, Sokka searched for clues.

The Spirit was the brother of Azula -- this was the first, irrefutable fact. Not particularly close, or at least not on good terms, as the Spirit had spent the better part of a year plotting her takedown.

Azula, by all public records, had no siblings or family aside from her father, Ozai. This was the second fact. But hadn’t the Spirit mentioned that his mother simply… vanished? All mention of her, all records of her, all recollection gone without a trace?

Would it be that wild of a stretch to believe Ozai wouldn’t have done the same to his son?

Three weeks was an unbearable amount of time for Sokka to sit and wait for the rumors to be heard, and for the memories to be revealed, and then the labyrinth to be located. It was an unbearable length of time to imagine the horrors the Spirit must have endured at the hands of his sister -- Azula, the one believed to be the worst of the worst. 

By the time Toph finally located the labyrinth, Sokka was all but prepared to go in with just his fists and pajamas.

Toph maintained their perimeter as Suki flanked Sokka, her fans glinting in the torchlight. Sokka appreciated the pair of them more than either of them could know, as the last month had been a hellish experience as he worried so incessantly for the Spirit’s wellbeing. Here, now, he was so tangibly close to satiating the ache in his chest.

He rounded another corner, cursing at the empty expanse before him. It was Suki’s steadying hand that kept him as calm as he could manage.

Another corner yielded another empty room.

As they delved deeper into the hideout, the air grew cooler and dustier. A chill seeped into his bones, freezing him from the inside out.

“We’re getting closer,” he said aloud, though he couldn’t explain exactly how he knew this was true.

The air grew colder, and soon he could see his breath and his arms began to tremble -- not from the weight of his sword, but from his shivering. He could only imagine how Suki and Toph must have felt, having not grown up in the Arctic like he and Katara had. 

One more corner.

He saw the shackles first, and then he saw the man kneeling on the icy floor bound by his hands and feet. Five iron prisons: one for both hands, one for both feet, and a fifth that acted as a mask, concealing not just his mouth but also his nose with thin, short slits that provided him oxygen to breathe.

If not for his eyes tracking Sokka’s every move, Sokka wouldn’t have believed he was alive. 

Sokka knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the Spirit. He couldn’t wrap his brain around the iron precautions, but the irrational part of his brain that cared only about getting the Spirit out was louder than the rational part that wanted to know why Azula would entrap him so thoroughly.

“Can…” he began, his voice strangled, “can you bend iron?”

“Can I?” Toph asked, and with a heavy stomp the shackles keeping the Spirit upright cracked and fell away.

Sokka and Suki surged forward to grab his body as he began to fall forward. The full reveal of his face left a pit in Sokka’s stomach -- he’d wanted for so long to keep his identity a secret, and yet now he had no choice but to show who he was.

Sokka thought he might be pretty handsome under normal circumstances, with his shaggy hair and full lips. High cheekbones stood out against his gaunt cheeks, and his right eye was bright in the dim lighting, amber with golden flecks throughout.

His left eye was marred shut by a scar so thick and mangled it made Sokka’s stomach churn.

But Sokka threw the feeling away, instead allowing Suki to grab his other arm and the two began hauling him behind Toph as they began their ascent back into the daylight.

The Spirit was no longer a furnace like Sokka was accustomed to, but still he felt warmer than he should have been for living in a freezer for the last month.

His eyes darted back towards him, and his eyes were closed, his features enshrouded in the steam his breath made. Is he a firebender, too? Sokka wondered, but he disregarded that thought, too, because he had more pressing matters to be worried about than if the Blue Spirit, famed non-bending vigilante, could secretly bend the whole time.

Then, his golden eyes met Sokka’s concerned gaze. His voice was hoarse and quiet, but it was the Spirit’s. “She’s gone. They moved me to the freezer a few days ago. The Dai Li come in twice a day to give me water. No one will be back for another three hours, at least.”

“How can you keep track of the time when there’s no light source in here?” Suki questioned from his other side. Like Sokka, she wrapped one arm under the Spirit’s shoulder and hoisted him up, and her other arm remained outstretched with a war fan raised.

He shook his head warily. “Can feel the sun even if I can’t see it.”

Sokka tried not to react, but he took a sharp breath. “So you are a bender,” he said in a hushed voice.

The Spirit didn’t nod or shake his head in response. He apologized instead, his good eye fixed on Sokka. “I’m sorry.”

“We can talk later when we’re out of here,” Toph told them, throwing the comment back over her shoulder as she led them to the next level. Already, Sokka began to feel warmer -- but he wasn’t sure if it was leaving the dungeon that did it or that the Spirit was a space heater.

Toph stopped then, head cocked to the side as if thinking. “I have an idea,” she said. She turned around and stepped in front of them, her hands reaching out to grab Sokka and Suki’s arms. “Hold onto your butts,” she said, and then with a heavy motion she dug her heel into the dirt. A circle of earth cut out around the four of them. Toph shifted her foot, and suddenly the ground beneath them began skyrocketing upwards.

It only took a moment for them to reach the surface of the lake. The sun began to shine on the horizon, and Sokka felt the Spirit pull towards it. He didn’t look like he was consciously aware of doing it, but within only a minute or so of being on the surface he looked more like a normal person -- the color began returning to his skin, his right eye looked less sunken. Even his scar appeared less pronounced. 

“Thanks for the warning,” Suki said sarcastically. 

At her quip, Toph merely shrugged. “Rendezvous point is just over that hill. Can you guys make it or do you want me to make it happen?”

Sokka was surprised to hear the Spirit groan. “I can walk,” he claimed. 

Toph looked in Sokka’s direction. “Are we keeping the super names or can we go by our real ones now?”

Sokka shook his head, stepping forward with the Spirit towards where Katara and Aang waited with their transport. “Not in the open.”

They made their way up, listening to the eerie silence of the lake. As they moved, Sokka could feel his own weariness and fatigue begin to sink in; his leg began throbbing with each step, its ever-present aching now back with a vengeance.

He felt the Spirit tighten his arm around the back of his neck, and when Sokka looked up he was surprised to see so much genuine concern in his eyes -- concern for Sokka. “How’s your leg holding up?” he asked quietly.

He ignored Suki’s sharp look towards them and instead shook his head. “It’ll be fine.”

“So much for retirement, huh?” the Spirit joked, but it was half hearted and Sokka heard his own adrenalin wane from just his voice. “Sorry,” he apologized again.

As they came up on their rendezvous point, the sight of Aang’s van came into his view and Sokka breathed a sigh of relief. Then, a thought occurred to him, and he felt ashamed for not having thought about it earlier: “Do you want a mask or something?” he asked the Spirit. 

But he simply shook his head. “What’s the point now?”

Katara met the four of them at the back of the van, swinging the doors open quickly and ushering them inside in just seconds. Once Sokka entered the van, he set the Spirit down as gingerly as he could before collapsing himself, relinquishing his grip on the Spirit to instead cradle his knee to his chest. 

“Sokka, what happened?” Katara questioned. Her hands were already enveloped in a warm glow, and before Sokka could tell her to worry about the Spirit, she was already casting her magic onto his leg to ease the throbbing pain.

“I’m fine,” he argued. “There was literally nobody down there. It was a ghost town. Check him for me, please.”

She reluctantly left Sokka’s side and turned towards the Spirit: her gaze landed first on the scar over his face, but she resolutely chose to ignore it. It was long healed and old -- nothing to waste time trying to heal anymore. She kept the healing waters over her hands, lingering on the Spirit’s body one section at a time. His feet and legs were okay, his arms and hands fine, his face beaten up but not broken. When she got to his midsection, though, Sokka saw her expression twist.

“I need to take your shirt off,” she told the Spirit. “Something isn’t right, but I can’t place it.”

Suki helped the Spirit remove his shirt, and Sokka did his best not to gape at the new bruises, cuts, burns, and scars the Spirit donned since the last time he’d seen him shirtless. Some of them were expected, but the sheer quantity was alarming at best. Many of them were as healed and old as the one on his face, but just as many were fresh, and they ranged from scabbing blisters to full third-degree wounds from his fingertips all the way to the center of his chest.

“How are you alive?” Katara asked, but Sokka suspected he knew the answer: It was one thing for the average person to be burnt so severely, but burns didn’t affect fire benders in the same way. It took much, much more ferocity to wound a bender in the way the Spirit was marked.

He looked on at the Spirit, wondering what his response would be. Would he reveal why he was resistant to the burn wounds completely killing him?

“Azula likes lightning,” he said instead. 

She blinked at his words, and then her brows furrowed together before she set herself to heal the heaviest and worst of the marks: a spot in the center of his chest, right in the dip below his sternum. It was one of the freshest -- still angry and jagged and bright, bright red.

Sokka watched as his eyelids fluttered as the sensation of Katara’s healing waters washed over him: first in a sharp pain as she found her way into the deepest wounds, and then in relief as the water mended his nerves and not only repaired the tissues, but also cleaned his wound.

He leaned into Sokka’s side, his breath easing up and evening out. Within moments, he seemed to have fallen asleep with his head resting on Sokka’s shoulder.

Katara continued working on the wounds until she physically couldn’t do it anymore. Aang purposefully drew out the length of their drive to detract any attention to themselves and shake any potential pursuers, but Sokka wondered if it was necessary. 

They finally pulled up to Toph’s house -- she deemed it the safest place to hide from any unwanted visitors as it had nearly twenty rooms and even more labyrinth style mazes to get to her actual front door. 

(“It’s not like I need to see where I’m going,” she said when Katara first questioned her choice to grow what appeared to be a jungle around her home. “I know exactly how to come in.”)

Sokka accepted Katara’s helping arm as he struggled to follow Toph as Suki helped Blue. Aang took the rear and Toph led them all through the greenery. The sun was now shining in full and Sokka wondered if the sun itself provided healing properties for fire benders because he already looked stronger -- or maybe it was Katara’s healing. He wasn’t entirely sure.

All he knew, for sure, was that he would make Azula pay for what she did.

Chapter Text

He woke up some time later, finding himself in his own small, shared apartment above his Uncle’s tea shop. The bustle of rush was nowhere to be heard, though the sun shone on him from its eastward position.

But he wasn’t alone. 

Katara was there, looking as ethereal as he’d ever seen her. She shared Sokka’s even, dark skin and impossibly blue eyes. Her hair was lighter, though, a soft chestnut that waved gently around her shoulders and curled softly around her face. It contrasted sharply with the hard set of her mouth and angry glint in her eyes he was so accustomed to as the Painted Lady.

It was she who made the first move. She stood up and waved a hand out beside her, bringing along with it a bubble of water that she hovered carefully over Zuko’s chest.

“You’re lucky,” she said evenly. “You would’ve died if you spent any more time without your Uncle’s aid. Your Flame almost extinguished entirely.”

Zuko barely managed a nod. Katara massaged the water into his chest, working it over his arms, into his hands, maneuvering it through his legs. He knew she told the truth.

“Iroh has been tending your fire, but I’ve offered to stay to tend to your body,” she continued. “You may not have gotten frostbite, but you did go into shock. You could recover easily enough on your own in time, but I can help speed it up.”

Zuko met her eyes cautiously, nervous to find any lingering distrust for him, but he found none. She wasn’t looking at him warmly, but there was a peacefulness in her gaze that eased the anxiety that began building in him.

That, or she could somehow ease that with her healing magic as well.

But then his eyes slipped behind her, falling on the form of her brother slouching in the chair opposite his bed with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his eyes low, brows pulled together, mouth pinched. Katara returned her water to a bowl on Zuko’s nightstand. She sighed. “You two have a lot to talk about. I’ll be downstairs with Iroh.”

He couldn’t bring himself to meet Sokka’s eyes. He focused instead on the way Sokka’s fingers tapped incessantly along his bicep, how his lips curved downward in a frown. How his hair hung limp around his face. That, alone, was more telling than anything else how much his well-being affected Sokka, because Sokka took a painstaking amount of pride in his hair.

“I’m sorry.”

He wondered why Sokka was the one apologizing. It wasn’t he that got caught and had to be rescued like a damsel.

“You weren’t ready to reveal your identity,” he continued, his voice soft. “Azula forced your hand in that.”

He reached towards the ground and picked up a bundle; Zuko recognised his mask and swords among them. He avoided Zuko’s eyes as he set the bundle on his bed.

“I was going to tell you.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie. He was going to tell Sokka, in time.

“Your name is Zuko,” Sokka said. “You live with your uncle. By day, you help him run a tea shop. By night, you beat predators and offenders into a pulp and leave them out to dry. And you’re a fire bender.”

Zuko stilled.

“It’s fine. It makes sense, I guess, how you knew about Azula and Ozai being benders. Bending usually runs in the family, doesn’t it?”

Sokka looked up at Zuko with so much sadness in his eyes that it physically hurt Zuko to look into them. So he didn’t. He turned away, facing the window and allowing the sun’s light to warm him, illuminating his expression as well as the scar that disfigured him.

He couldn’t lie any more. He wouldn’t lie anymore.

“I was disowned shortly after my mom vanished. Uncle took me in. “

“But you…” Sokka stammered. He could see in Sokka’s eyes the confusion, the hurt, the desire to simply understand Zuko after not knowing anything about him for so long. He was scared, though, to learn more about his past. Zuko kept it secret for so long for a reason.

Sokka’s eyes returned to the scars Zuko once revealed on his legs, now on full display so Katara could work her healing magic deep into his bones. They compared little to the scar decorating his face, but now, in only a pair of shorts and a tank top, more scars were revealed: tiny, speckled ones like cigarette burns; wide-spread ones that left scars like blisters; thick, mangled, skin-warping scars that wrapped around his forearms.

And then his face.

There was no way to avoid the attention it brought. No long-sleeves or jeans would hide it from the public. It simply sat there, front and center, blinding his left eye and deafening his left ear. Sokka thought he understood, now, why the Spirit seemed to favor his right, why he swung around so often in battle: because he couldn’t trust his left side.

“Your family?” Sokka asked. He couldn’t explain the marks any other way, but it made his stomach twist and clench, nausea making his palm sweat and mouth water.

“My father, mostly,” Zuko said.

A tentative knock brought their attention to the doorway, and in it stood a plump, old man, his gray hair tucked into a long ponytail down his back and a somber expression on his face. 

“I’m not proud to acknowledge my brother’s actions,” the man said. He entered and stood at Zuko’s bedside, waiting for his short nod before his hands began kneading the air above Zuko’s torso. The action reminded Sokka of Katara’s healing magic, but instead of soft, glowing water he watched as fire danced over his skin.

“Our family is a complicated one,” he continued, his eyes closing, his hands tending to Zuko, “but it’s not time to discuss that. Your energy is returning, Zuko, but slower than it should. Have you been meditating?”

Zuko winced at a particular spot Iroh found in the center of his chest. “No, Uncle,” he answered. “Not as often as I should be.”

Wise, amber eyes opened and looked mournfully into Zuko’s. “I know you rely on your swords, but you have spiritual necessities you must fulfill to maintain balance in yourself. Before this, when was the last time you used your bending?”

Sokka felt like an intruder, but as he made to stand up he caught the small shake of Zuko’s head. Stay, he silently begged, and so Sokka did. He watched, then, as Zuko tried to keep himself from wincing, avoiding Iroh’s hawklike gaze. 

“It’s been a few weeks,” he finally admitted. “I’m sorry.”

After so long seeing the Spirit and wondering who he was under the mask, Sokka was surprised to finally see him -- and while the illusion the Spirit so carefully crafted seemed to have shattered, Sokka didn’t mind.