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There had been a time, back when Zuko was a prince and everything he knew about the world came from storybooks and legends, when being on the Good and Righteous side of things had seemed of the highest importance. And then his father took the throne. And Zuko learned that being Good was no longer meant to be any of his concern.
“Hey! Watch it, freak!”
The oversized oaf sprawled in the dusty road had meant to shoulder check him on his way past. It is new for Ember Island—the narrow streets used to be a beacon of manners and decorum. The shine of a perfectly frictionless society signaled high breeding, after all, and when one had amassed money and power enough for several lifetimes, all that was left was to find subtle signals of one’s superiority. Passing by an acquaintance without a polite hello used to be a scandal, indicative of a lack of focus or generosity or grace. To actually run into someone was a kind of social suicide.
But now, anyone with any sense of dignity or self-respect has been shipped off to support the war and all of Ember Island has been overrun with cowards, idiots, and oafs—the kind of people who delight in petty displays of spite and ego.
It pisses Zuko off. Honestly, as summer draws to a close and Sozin’s Comet looms, most things piss him off. But the steep downturn in the stupid, dependable sort of pleasantries he is used to on Ember Island digs especially deep. He stands, rooted to his spot in the middle of the market, staring straight ahead, trying like hell to rein himself in. What he wants is to throw off his cloak and hood and make the idiot in the dust understand exactly who it is he’s snarling at. He wants—
“No, you watch it.”
Katara’s voice is ice cold, but the fire in her eyes burns hot. It is one of a thousand things that keeps him perpetually off balance with her. Unsure. She is fierce as she looks the oaf up and down, mouth twisted into an angry little snarl. But she is also gentle as her slim hand closes around his forearm and tugs. The man on the ground starts to retort, but she has already spun on her heel and is leading the way back into the crowd. Zuko feels his lip curl. There is still a fight simmering just under his skin. But he schools it back, locks it up deep inside, and turns, following after her.
“What was with that guy?” Katara is grumbling as he falls into step in his place—not quite beside her, but not quite behind either. “He was the one who ran into you.” Her tone is more than irritated; she sounds offended. Zuko adds this to his list as well as she huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. The gesture is awkward. They’ve already made it halfway through their market run and the basket is just heavy enough to be unwieldy in her hands. “What a stupid, useless lump,” she seethes, blue eyes narrow, cheeks tinging pink. “He didn’t even apologize!”
Silence stretches between them as they walk. Zuko spends the time trying to match this new development against his list of things he knows and understands about Katara. On the one hand, Katara loves for things to be fair, like the chore chart she keeps trying to sell them on or the careful allocation of the best parts of whatever they’re having for dinner. On the other hand, Katara is also intensely kind, potentially the nicest person he’s ever met—excluding all of the death threats, of course. Getting this mad over nothing is more like him than it is like her.
He watches her as they go, noting the stiffness in her gait and the line of tension in her shoulders. He doesn’t worry so much about getting caught looking at her when they are in the market. She doesn’t ever look back at him as they go, not when they are alone here together. She does with the others, glancing over her shoulder every so often, checking that they are still there, but never when it is just them. He thinks it’s because it doesn’t ever occur to her that he might not be there, in his spot on her right side flank.
What that means, he has no clue.
After a beat longer, Zuko reaches out without looking to take the shopping basket out of her hands. It is a gamble. As a rule, she doesn’t like anything that could be construed as taking care of her, but she endures it from him occasionally. She looks at him then, huffing, but she gives up the basket without a fight and Zuko clamps down on the little thrill that washes through him with their fingertips brush. “I told Suki I would see if they have any kiwi berries,” she says and wraps her hand around his forearm. Again. “Wait for me here? Then we can hit the fish stalls and head back.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. Instead, she gives his arm a brief squeeze—a silent agreement that he will wait—and hurries away. Zuko frowns. The market is hot and positively bustling this time of day. He doesn’t even like kiwi berries. But he sets the basket on the ground at his feet, crosses his arms over his chest, and he waits.
It’s been a few weeks now since the two of them went off to face the man who killed Katara’s mother. Before that, Katara had hated him, which had had expected, but in a decidedly unexpected way. Cold as she did her best to live her life around the Air Temple as if he didn’t even exist, but also hot as she threatened to murder him with such sincerity that it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Zuko was familiar with hatred, he’d endured one form of it or another for most of his life. But Katara’s brand of hatred didn’t make any sense.
Until she’d said it.
I was the first person to trust you, remember? Back in Ba Sing Se? And you turned around and betrayed me. Betrayed all of us.
Betrayed me, she’d said, at once hard and vulnerable.
It hadn’t ever occurred to him what it could do to a person. Breaking their trust.
And so, he had supposed that the journey could set things right again, bring to a close something that had started a million years ago, deep in the belly of Ba Sing Se, when she tried to gift him something precious and he threw it back in her face. There isn’t a force on the planet that can resurrect the dead—and he knows, he’s spent the better part of his life criss-crossing the globe, looking for the impossible—but avenging seemed to him to be the next best thing.
He should have expected that Katara would find a way to turn it all on its head—terrible as she brought Yon Rah to his knees. Good as she gifted him mercy instead of death.
He had meant for the journey to bring that something between them to a close. And certainly things are different. There is no more dark hatred or icy spite. When she speaks to him it is as gentle or scolding or plain as it ever is with the others. With her blessing he is well and truly part of the group, with all of the camaraderie that that includes.
But still there is still something between them that feels… unsettled. And it would be a shame if he went into the end of the world having left anything unsettled. So he is here, in the middle of the market, with the sun beating down on him, sweating in his hooded cloak. Trying to figure it out.
He watches people while he waits for her to return. It’s an old habit. People rarely told him the truth when he was a prince. He learned to trust what a man did over what he said. Today, as he watches, he becomes more and more convinced that there is something off going on in the market.
For one thing, there is a pair of Earth Kingdomers operating a bao bun cart a few paces down the street. They are passing themselves off as colonists, no doubt, a believable enough lie but difficult to pull off in a place like Ember Island. The people here take a certain pride in knowing the lineage of even their servants. The pair should be crafty to have pulled it off.
But they don’t seem crafty.
The boy and the girl seem young, closer to Toph’s age than his own. They keep their eyes downcast as they work, take pains not to draw attention to themselves as they serve up their fare, take payment, make change. The girl steps away every few minutes, slipping into a nearby alley as if it’ll keep them all from hearing the wet, hacking cough that plagues her. The third time she returns, the hulking oaf from earlier steps up behind her and leans in close.
The pair of Earth Kingdomers cringe.
“Boss don’t like slackers,” the man growls. His voice is pitched low and menacing. He even cracks his knuckles. It is a big, bad show for a couple of fucking kids.
“We—” the boy breaks off, swallows, and tries again, “we’re trying. But she’s sick. Half of us are. We need a healer, medicine, something—”
The man closes his hand around the boy’s narrow shoulder. From the look on the boy’s face, his grip must be tight. “Boss don’t like complainers either,” he growls. And then he retreats into the alley, posted at its mouth. Watching.
“Sill not ripe.”
Zuko blinks. Katara has reemerged from the crowd with their usual fruit order and a frown nagging at the corners of her mouth. He glances for a moment back at the bao bun cart, then turns his attention resolutely away.
“Fine,” he grunts and takes the bag from her to add to the basket. “Kiwi berries are gross anyway.” Katara arches an eyebrow and for a moment it seems like she’s going to say something.
“Come on,” she says, and Zuko has a feeling that it isn’t want she is thinking. “We should finish up.”
They turn to head back to the mouth of the market where the meat and seafood vendors gather. As they go, Katara is strange—glancing around them, trying hard not to look like it is what she is doing—but she is also easy as she tucks her hand into the crook of his arm, as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
They go back to the beach house, he helps Katara unload and pack away their bounty, and he spends a productive few hours training down by the water. In the evening, he chokes down his dinner, some awful dumpling concoction that Aang insists on cooking for them. It comes out sour and dense, but Katara praises him as if he has brought fire down from the Spirit Realm. He takes his watch down at the entrance to the estate and when night falls, he retires to his room for the night.
He doesn’t think about the pair of Earth Kingdom kids in the market. Instead, he undresses and climbs into his bed, closes his eyes, and tells himself to sleep.
He used to suppose that Katara liked Good Guys. Before he knew her, back when they were just occasional and persistent enemies, there always seemed to be something so pure in the way that she battled him. It was like trying to fight a thunderstorm or a hurricane, something powerful and inevitable and just. People like that were attracted to others who were equally worthy. People like Uncle, who longed for a simple, honest life in Ba Sing Se that Zuko had single-handedly ruined. Or people like Aang, who was always searching for ways to help people, no matter how seemingly small.
Of course, now that he is a part of the team, he does his best not to wonder about the kind of guys that Katara likes.
Zuko rolls over onto his side and acknowledges begrudgingly that he should be asleep by now—that he would be, but for the image of the Earth Kingdom boy and girl rattling around in his head. He can’t help but wonder at the gaunt, sunken quality of their facial features, as if they have lost too much weight, too quickly. And the trembling way they had hunched in their shoulders as the man had approached them. As if they had learned to guard themselves against blows.
But he shifts onto his stomach and buries his face in the pillows and tries again to make himself breathe slow, to make himself not care. They have a mission to complete and it does not include smashing their way through the markets deep in enemy territory, looking for slighted bao bun vendors to rescue.
Things had been so much easier as a Bad Guy. There was no one to appease, nothing to compromise on. He had been free to do whatever he wanted whenever he pleased as long as it was in service of his goal. It was like living on the head of an arrow, hurtling in straight lines from point A to point B.
Back then, he wouldn’t have given them a second thought, other than to consider who among the ring of smugglers it might be helpful for him to blackmail. Now, he rolls onto his back again and glares at the canopy over his bed.
It is a stupid idea.
A Good Guy idea.
And Zuko is not a Good Guy.
“Damn it,” he hisses under his breath as he climbs out of bed again. “Damn it, damn it, damn it…” It takes a few minutes of digging deep in the recesses of his pack before he finds the black body suit, gloves and boot, before he can inspect his dual swords in their sheaves, before he rung his fingers reverently over the rough, hand carved wood of the painted opera mask. He is hoping that if he drags it out long enough that he will come to his senses and go back to minding his own damn business.
He is only going to check and that’s it. He’ll find where the Earth Kingdomers live and when he finds nothing more than two glum looking refugees running a mediocre scam, he will come back and refocus on the impending downfall of the free world.
Easy.
Zuko is not a Good Guy. But he secures the mask over his face and leaps off the balcony, making his way back toward town before he can talk himself out of it.
It takes longer than usual to get back to the market, but Zuko doesn’t mind doing things slowly if it means doing it right. The streets of Ember Island are quiet, but they’re not quite empty. Not yet. Here and there guardsmen patrol, late night workers make their way home, and every once in a while, from deep in the shadows, Bad Guys like him conduct their quiet business. He spots a pickpocket counting out his bounty and a street hustler packing up his dice. Lighthearted crime, the kind that the city guards tend to turn a blind eye to for the right price. But as he approaches the emptied out market, the tenor of the streets begins to shift. He makes a slow loop around the square, sticking to the shadows and rooftops. It’s not long before he spots the man who had bumped into him earlier, huddled up with two others. Zuko creeps as close as he dares, watching from the adjacent rooftop as the three count out handfuls of money.
“What’s the profit today?”
The man from earlier is the largest of the three, tall and broad and built like a boulder. His hair is cut close to his scalp. It makes his topknot look almost comically small. He frowns, thumbing through the bills and coins in his palm. “We’re under. Way under,” he rumbles, digging around in his pocket as if he might find something more in the folds. “There should be fifty more here at least.”
The man next to him sneers. He is lankier than his companion, but lined from head to toe in wirey muscle. His long hair hangs, limp and stringy in his face. “Lazy swine,” he sniffs and snatches the money out of the hulk’s hands. “Do you know what one of them said to me today? That they weren’t going to work anymore unless they get more food. And medicine!” He huffs and pulls a cigarette from his robes. “After everything we’ve done for them. After how we look out for them!” He lights it with a snap of his fingers and takes a long, deep, irritated drag. “What kind of ungrateful vermin would do a thing like that?” The hulk scoffs.
“What do you expect? They’re all the same in the Earth Kingdom. Useless, backwater snakes. Not an ounce of gratitude or honor in them.”
Zuko’s ears are starting to feel hot. What the hell would this trio of common smugglers know about honor—?
Suddenly, the third of the trio twists in place and shoots a lance of fire straight at Zuko’s head. He bites back a curse—he has to deflect the blast ever so slightly with his bending as he dodges to keep it from singeing his bodysuit. The move sends him tumbling to the ground, but he manages to get his feet underneath him, crouched down link a cat at the mouth of the alleyway. The third man, squat and round, blinks and gives a bark of incredulous laughter.
“Who the hell is this freak?”
Zuko rolls his eyes. A common smuggler and unoriginal.
He bounds forward, unsheathing his swords as he goes and the three thugs scatter, two moving to flank him, fire trailing in their wake, while the third spins in place and throws a flying kick that rockets a plume of fire straight at his chest. The maneuver is almost painfully military, one of the first that they teach newly enlisted firebenders in the royal forces. The thugs execute it seamlessly, with the kind of confidence that comes with both familiarity and trust. Zuko has to weave to avoid the tight, precise blasts of fire.
The fighting spills quickly out of the alley and into the abandoned square and it is only a matter of time before the light and the commotion will attract the guards and what was supposed to be a quick, covert errand becomes an incident that gets written up in a report and sent to the Capitol. Zuko grits his teeth. The three of them are a good team. He is hardly on one for more than a handful of strikes before the others flank and beat him back again. If he could just bend then he could bring this to a quick and resounding finish, but he can’t risk raising even a suspicion of his true identity.
He swears loudly as he flips backward onto a rickety vegetable stand, avoiding a plume of fire so hot that he feels himself start to sweat behind his mask. The whole thing collapses under his weight and there isn’t even time to appreciate the ache of new bruises blooming over his side and back before they are on him again, this time blasting fire from all sides. From the corner of his eye, he spots a bundle of long metal tent stakes in the rubble of the destroyed cart and dives for them, and rushing the smallest one, pummeling him viciously with his fists and his feet until he is flat on his back in the hard-packed dirt streets. He drives the stakes into the ground with the hilt of his swords, pinning him down by the folds of his robes and pants. He makes sure that the stakes are stuck tight before he dances away again, weaving underneath the other two’s coordinated blasts. It’s sloppy work, but it does the job nicely. The smuggler jerks at his arms and his legs, but he doesn’t get far. And now it is Zuko on the offensive as the try in vain to assist their fallen comrade, but he beats them back every time. He is almost having fun by the time a shout cuts through the hot summer air.
“Hey! Hey, you there! Break it up!”
Down at the far end of the square there are boots pounding towards them. Zuko locks eyes with the hulk through his mask and tilts his head. He can practically see the gears turning in his big, round head.
The pair turn tail and sprint away, leaving their partner trapped in the dust. Zuko gives the captured smuggler a mock salute, sheathes his swords, and bolts after them.
The pair of them move fast through the empty city streets. Zuko strains to keep his footsteps quiet as he follows, tries to give them enough of a lead to convince them that they have lost him. He even takes to the rooftops again, hoping to keep them just barely in sight. If he’s lucky, they will lead him back to their lair or hideout or wherever it is smugglers keep their captured human bounty—
But then something stops him short, a vision, an apparition, a phantom of billowing red, floating in the moonlight. The spirit looks like a woman—except for the otherworldly grace in her arms, except for the way that she wavers in the breeze, as if she is a lick of fire struck on the head of a match. She is dressed in a wealth of maroon red, some manner of shroud that sways gently in her wake as she slinks along the side of a nearby building. There is a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, draped in a long, gauzy veil, obscuring her features.
He wouldn’t have known that it was her at all, except that he spends basically all of his free time looking at her.
Before becoming a part of the group, he had supposed that Katara was fairly straightforward. She was beautiful. And good-hearted. And powerful. And kind. These things, while alluring, were fairly ordinary. Predictable.
But then he takes her to kill the man who killed her mother and she lets the blow that would have settled the score melt away to nothing—water that will disappear into the thirsty earth.
He hasn’t known what to make of Katara since then. Only that she is at once bright and crystal clear, like ocean water in the sunlight, and vast enough to swallow him whole, like the deep, dark waters of the open sea.
She draws even with the highest window on the building, hanging on by the tips of her fingers and her boots, and taps three times on the glass. A moment later the frame squeaks open and she maneuvers her way through like a willow wisp on the wind. Zuko doesn’t hesitate. He turns on the spot, hurrying toward where she has disappeared.
There is nothing outwardly distinct about the building she slipped into; it looks like every other mid-sized boarding house on this side of the island. Except that most of the windows are boarded up from the outside. The only other functioning window he spots is down on the ground floor, around on the building’s opposite side. Inside there are at least half a dozen men, all gathered together drinking ale and counting coin. When he loops around to creep up to the roof, he discovers a trail of divots and cracks that seem to have been carved into the stone. Up on the rooftop, he lays down flat on his stomach and peers through the high window. He can just barely see her in the darkness of the room. A gaggle of haggard-looking kids gather in a loose circle around her. One by one, they approach and she presses her glowing hands to their chests—healing them no doubt. The kids are a timid bunch. As soon as the glow in her hands fades away they scamper back into the corners of the room.
Despite himself he feels something like amusement burble up in his chest.
Of course she would have found a way to rescue them before him.
When she’s done, she goes to the door in the far corner and fiddles with it, but she doesn’t push it open. No doubt it is locked somehow. The frown on her face when she returns to the group is worn thin—the kind she wears when she is growing tired of finesse and she is about to start smashing things. He is considering what he can do from here to help when the dart of movement from the corner of his eye draws his attention. The pair from the market is winding their way toward them, quick and angry. His eyes go wide behind his mask and he reaches out to give the glass of the window three sharp raps. Down below, the Earth Kingdomers shoot frightened looks up at the window and each other and flock back to their corners stocked with pallets and thin blankets. He sees the moment that Katara sees him and he beckons to her urgently, then pulls back, crouching low against the tiles. As soon as she emerges he pulls her down next to him, nodding down toward the street. Her eyes are trained on the pair as they approach at a job and begin ordering people around, but he doesn’t miss the way her nostrils flare and she takes a deep, considering breath through her nose.
They wait, almost holding their breath, as there is a flurry of activity down below, like a hive of vulture hornets roused into a swarm. It is a few minutes before everyone hurries back inside and the street goes quiet once again. Zuko counts every one as the tick by.
One.
He shouldn’t be here.
Two.
She shouldn't be here.
Three.
He absolutely should not be here.
“They’re gone,” Katara whispers and starts to tilt her head towards him “What—?”
He doesn’t wait to hear whatever it is that she has to say. He shoves himself onto his feet and sprints, doesn’t stop sprinting until he is sure that he has lost her, let her disappear back into the moonlight.
It takes too long to make it back to the beach house, but the time is worth the peace of mind that Katara isn’t following him. He is still a ways out when he pulls off the mask and holds it loosely in one hand while he pinches at the bridge of his nose with the other. It’s a vain attempt at quelling the migraine creeping up on him.
He used to suppose that Katara might think that he was handsome. In those moments back then, when he caught up to them and they battled and clashed, he imagined that her eyes would linger on him a moment longer than was strictly necessary. That there was something… passionate in the way that she threatened to kill him. That maybe that night in the catacombs, her gesture to absolve him of his greatest shame was something more than a casual healing session between sworn enemies.
The problem with this, of course, is that Katara is incredible—gorgeous and intelligent and outspoken. She is as sharp as a blade and as true as a bolt of lightening. She is a dozen contradictions wrapped up in chestnut curls tumbling down across her shoulders and barely there freckles on her cheeks and eyes that are impossibly blue and eternally searching. Of course he would be damn near obsessed with someone like her. And of course she would have nothing but pity for someone like him.
He doesn’t belong out here. No matter how it makes him hope that maybe the ocean between them is not as vast as it always feels. Katara is a Good Guy. Zuko isn’t.
“There you are.”
His heart claws its way up into his throat as a shadow drops from up above, down into his path. A moment later, Katara stands, the fabric of her shroud fluttering in the breeze. He stumbles back with a yelp as she pulls off her hat and veil.
“Katara!” he coughs, trying valiantly to calm his hammering heart. “What’re you doing out here this time of night?”
She cuts him a look that his mouth closes with a snap. “The same thing you’re doing,” she answers blandly and glances down toward where he is hiding his mask behind his back. “Is that why you ran off like that?” She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. “You can spare me the bad excuses. I recognized you back on the roof.”
He hesitates—there’s still time for him to throw himself into the ocean, for example—but he recognizes the stubborn glint in her eye and lifts both of his hands in defeat, revealing the blue spirit mask. “I was just… checking out something weird that I saw when we were in the market,” he says. It doesn’t come out half as defensive as he feels. “I caught those guys talking in the market about the money they got out of those kids and how ungrateful they were for wanting medicine and food and one thing led to another…” He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “Anyway, what were you doing out there?”
Her mouth twists into an expression he recognizes. It is the extra edge of anger she reserves for those she feels are taking advantage of others. “Those kids were smuggled here from the colonies,” she tells him. “I guess most of the servants around here got drafted into the war and these assholes figured they’d make a fortune filling in the gaps. They told the kids that they’d get steady work and enough wages to send money home to their families, then when they got here they locked them up in that house and started taking all of their earnings!” Her voice is low and furious by the time she is through, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with indignation. Zuko blinks at her. It’s only been a few hours since they all turned in after dinner. He thinks of the trail of handholds carved up the side of the building’s wall and now it is his turn to cross his arms over his chest.
“You figured all of this out tonight?”
This stops her short and for a moment she looks chagrined. “Well… I’ve been going out there for a week or so,” she answers. She at least has the decency to look sheepish about it. His brewing headache flares to life again. “It took me all of that time for them to let me close enough to actually heal them. I thought that tonight I’d be able to break them out—I already looked into this captain of the guard in town, if they can make it to him he’ll help them get back home and keep the whole thing quiet—but those guys have something binding the door closed. I tried cutting through it, but nothing I did made any difference.”
Pushing aside the knowledge that she has been sneaking out of the beach house for a week to conduct covert operations all on her own takes significant willpower, but he manages it. She has the sort of gleam in her eye that tells him he couldn’t possibly convince her that she is in the wrong in anyway. So instead, he chances a step closer, until they are practically chest to chest, and inhales. He knows the way that Katara smells, like the plain, economical soap that she buys for all of them, and like peppermint shampoo, the only indulgence he’s ever seen her take for herself. But there’s another scent lingering on her, something strident and musky.
“Dragonsward,” he says, stepping back. “It’s a new concoction the military has been experimenting with. Rope and fabrics treated with it are almost impossible to cut or pierce. It can only be destroyed with fire.” When he meets her gaze again, her eyes are wide and there’s a light dusting of pink across her cheeks.
“Oh,” she hums, “well… fine. I’ll take some matches with me next time and—” She turns and begins striding back in the direction of town. Zuko sighs catches her arm.
“Will you wait a minute? Those guys are military trained. You can’t just run off half-cocked, we have to…”
The idea falls into place neatly in his mind, stopping him in his tracks. Objectively, it is a good plan. But for it to work, he’ll have to at least briefly admit that he is willing to be even more involved in this mess than he already is.
Then again, he hasn’t been able to tell Katara no once.
“I should go in,” he says. He is trying so hard not to sound like an idiot that it comes out overly gruff. “I’ll burn away the binding on the door. Get them out.”
He regrets it the moment he says it—it is a nakedly ridiculous proposition, but Katara tilts her head, considering it very seriously.
“I don’t know… they’re pretty skittish. I doubt they’d open the window for you, dressed like a…” She looks him up and down, eyes narrow. “Actually, why are you dressed like a burglar?” Zuko’s mouth drops open in outrage.
“I’m not a burglar,” he snaps, “I’m the Blue Spirit.” Katara gives him a blank look. He has to work to choke back his indignation. “It’s a disguise to make sure no one will know that I’m me. Anyway, why are you dressed like… well—” He takes her in more carefully. Up close he can see that there are red marks on her cheeks and her shoulders. “What the hell are you supposed to be anyway?”
Now it is Katara’s turn to scowl. “I’m the Painted Lady!” she answers, in a tone that suggests he is very ignorant if he doesn’t know what that is. Zuko just shakes his head. “She’s a spirit that guards the river in Jang Hui—shouldn’t you know this stuff? You’re supposed to be the prince of this place.” He scoffs.
“You think I know the patron spirit of every no-name village across fifty-six islands—?”
“Whatever,” she retorts, looking sour. “It works the same way. I figured no one would recognize me in all of this. It’s worked out that way before anyway.” Zuko huffs.
“Well, fine. Whatever it is, give it to me. If I go up to the window wearing it, they’ll let me in thinking that I’m you. Then I can get the door open and get the kids out.” Katara still looks skeptical.
“And what am I supposed to wear?” Zuko looks down at himself.
“Wear this. They’re out right now looking for me. You can draw the rest of them out. It’ll be easier to slip them out if I don’t have to beat a dozen of them off at the same time.” A beat passes between them while Katara blinks, and then frowns, and then a slow, conspiratorial little smile creeps its way across her lips. His face flushes. “What?” Katara just shrugs.
“Nothing.” She weighs her wide-brimmed had for a moment in her hands before she passes it to him. “I’m just surprised. It’s a good plan.”
“I make good plans,” he insists, taking it from her, only to quickly avert his gaze as she pulls the shroud up and over her head, leaving her in a red bandeau top and a pair of high waisted black leggings. Zuko grits his teeth and makes himself think of absolutely nothing as he strips off his black shirt and cut gloves, passing them both to her. He starts to pass her the blue and white mask as well, but he can’t stop the way that his muscles freeze just before her fingers brush the smooth-worn wood.
“It was my mother’s,” he blurts and Katara pauses mid-motion. “I mean, I don’t know if it was hers,” he goes on, blushing, “I don’t know if she used it or anything. But I found it in her things after she disappeared and I…”
She pauses a moment, like she is giving the words space to expand. Then she takes the mask ever so gingerly in both of her hands.
“Okay,” she says very seriously, “I’ll take good care of it.” There is a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t realized was there. It eases at her words. She sets the mask gently on the ground, then pulls on his shirt and gloves. The shirt is too big on her slight frame. The collar slips down over one shoulder and she has to tie a knot into the back of it to keep it from billowing around her middle. When that’s done, she pulls a small, folded handkerchief from her pocket and wipes the painted markings from her face. He helps her fasten the dual swords to her waist—they’ll be mostly for show, but he’d rather she have something more to defend herself in case anything goes wrong. She fixes the mask in place last, situating it crookedly against the side of her head. The costume looks good on her. Roguish.
He looks away before that thought has a chance to get away from him.
He starts to pull on the red shroud, but she stops him, handing over a small, flat pot of red face paint. His mouth twists—this is definitely overkill—but he dips the tip of his finger into the goop and smears it on quickly over his arms and shoulders, mimicking the general idea of her markings. Katara makes a soft scoff and then pulls the tin back.
“Have a little respect,” she mutters and before Zuko can blink she is leaning in close, close enough that he can practically feel the sweetness of her breath against his skin. She draws her fingers delicately over the apple of his cheek. “This is a real spirit, you know.”
She reloads her finger and reaches for him again and all at once a bolt of something like fear is skittering down his spine. She looks as if she intends to touch his scar and no one touches his scar—except for once, one night in the bowels of Ba Sing Se, when she had pressed her fingertips against his skin so gently that he’d worried that maybe he might be as breakable as she seemed to think he was—
His hand comes up to catch her around the wrist and he swears that he hears her breath hiss out into a quiet gasp.
“It’s… it’s good enough,” he says. He can’t even bring himself to look at her, but he can feel her hesitate, feel the way that for a fraction of a moment, she presses in…
And then relents. She takes a step back and pulls the mask down over her face. Zuko takes a moment to wrestle back the pang of emotion, busying himself with her shroud and hat, arranging it all so that it sits correctly. “Do I look okay?”
When Katara looks at him, there is something again in her eyes.
“You’ll do,” she says and clears her throat. “How long til sunrise?”
“Four hours,” he answers, weighing the proximity of the sun’s ascent. “Give or take.” Katara nods.
“Then we’ve got five before the others start to wake up. We’ve got to be back by then. I do not want to hear Sokka’s big mouth on this one.”
On this, they are in perfect agreement.
He swallows and tries as hard as he can not to overthink it. It’ll be just like going to the market.
“Then let’s go.”
He expects Katara to be bad at subterfuge—sneaking and spying are not exactly virtues, after all. But of course she is as good at it as she is everything else. Her footsteps are fleet and nearly silent as they go and she has a knack for knowing when there is probably a guard nearby. He adds it to his growing list of contradictions. The journey back to the captor house goes quickly, but he can nearly feel her looking at him the whole way. It is like pinpricks on the back of his neck. By the time she sighs for the fourth time, he is just about ready to jump out of his skin.
“So,” she says, once she has apparently had her fill of staring. “What are you really doing out here?”
Fuck.
He clenches his jaw and keeps his eyes straight head. “I already told you. I saw something weird at the market earlier.” His tone is brusque, bordering on hostile. Usually, with the others, it is enough to get them off of his back for a while. Katara only tosses her head and makes a dismissive sound in the back of her throat.
“Okay… but aren’t you the one constantly telling us that we have to ‘mind our own damn business for once’?” Her voice dips into something low and gruff and raspy and Zuko shoots her a glare. “You told Sokka that the only reason you managed to almost capture Aang so many times is because none of us know how to focus.”
He grits his teeth and turns his face away from her resolutely. “So?”
“Sooo,” she drawls, teasing out the word, “what are you doing out here in the middle of the night, minding everyone else’s business?” She bounds easily to his other side and pushes the mask up, peeking out at him from underneath. “And don’t bother trying to scowl me away on this. I’m basically immune at this point.”
“I am not scowling,” he mutters, scowling. “I just…” He flounders for a moment and then, because he isn’t sure what else to say, he tells the truth. “I tried to mind my business! But I had a bad feeling about what might be going on and I needed to do something. Is that okay with you?” There is smoke pouring out from underneath the veil as he snarls and for a minute they continue on in blessed silence, him watching Katara watch him, both from the corners of their eyes. And then, just as they come to a stop in the shadow of their destination, she makes a soft sound.
A snicker.
Zuko feels himself flush, but he keeps his expression doggedly smooth. “Really?” he snips. “You’re laughing?”
It only makes her laugh harder. “I’m sorry,” she manages in between giggles, “I’m sorry, it’s just… Prince Jerkbender actually has a heart, huh?” He clenches his jaw against a sudden, tight sensation in his chest.
“I don’t,” he retorts hotly, scanning the streets around them for trouble—he has no idea when Katara intends to make herself useful. “And don’t call me that!” Katara gives him an exaggerated shrug and he can practically see her smirk as she folds her hands behind her back.
“I’m just surprised is all. You try so hard to pretend you aren’t one of us. And yet here you are. Caring.” She bumps her shoulder against his gently—playfully—and grins so brightly that he momentarily blinded.
It pricks at him. These moments when it almost feels possible. When she is almost close enough to reach out and touch.
Because that is the something that is left, hanging between them these past few weeks. It is that Zuko is impossibly, distractingly, irritatingly in love with every contradictory inch of her. And he is good enough now to see all of the ways that he will never, ever measure up.
“Can we get to work? Please?”
It comes out colder and more angry than he means it, and he bites down on his tongue. He’s ruined it obviously—the sweetness in the air between them has gone sour and flat and she is looking at him again. His shoulders hunch and he clears his throat. “Just… let me get into position up on the roof. Then you do your thing,” he says and braces. Katara is kind, but she is also stubborn.
But she doesn’t say anything more, just pulls the mask back down into place. “Fine,” she says, voice soft and unreadable. “I’ll count to sixty. Get going.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. Moving silently in all of that fabric is hard. He probably looks more like a tumbleweed tripping upward than a wisp on the wind, but he makes it to the high window without bringing out the guards. He takes a steadying breath, then taps three times on the glass, peering down into the room with the brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes. Nothing happens for long enough that he starts to feel at least a little silly, but then the window frame squeaks open. He wastes no time scrambling through and lets himself drop down onto the rough, wooden floor below.
“You’re back!” A boy springs forward, grabbing at the fabric of his shroud, but a girl grabs him around the arm and drags him back.
“You’re not her!” she hisses. Her eyes are wide and afraid, but also furious. There are about a dozen kids, some maybe thirteen, some as young as ten, all of them huddled together around the edges of the room. They are wrapped in thin blankets and dirty clothes and they all have the same air of hunger about them. He holds out his hands, placating.
“I’m a friend of hers,” he hurries to say. “She sent me to help.” He goes to the door and presses his ear flush against the wood. At first, he doesn’t hear anything. But then a round of muttering begins. And then shouting. And then all out commotion. Suddenly, there is a massive boom and the entire building trembles under their feet. Zuko rolls his eyes. Obviously, he should have been more specific about the kind of distraction she was supposed to be.
The noise from the other side of the door peaks and then goes quiet. He gives it an extra thirty seconds before he tests it for himself. The doorknob turns and the door creaks open about an inch before it stops, held in place by a crisscross of rope stretching across the gap. He shifts, shielding his actions from the kids behind him as he conjures a small, hot lick of flame in the palm of his hand. Katara cad said that they were skittish. Better to not surprise them with the whole firebender thing.
The rope catches easily and falls away after a minute or two. Zuko doesn’t waste any time. “We’re getting out of here,” he says, turning to face them again. “Can all of you walk or do I need to carry some of you?” The boy who had approached him rolls his eyes.
“Of course we can walk!” he snaps, voice high and indignant, only to descend into a fit of coughing. “But why should we go anywhere with you?” Zuko suppresses a sigh and shoves the door open wide. He supposes that Katara would know exactly how to soothe and convince them, win them over with a soft smile and gentle murmur.
“Do whatever you want,” he growls. “But I’m only covering the door for the next three minutes.”
The group shoots each other hesitant looks before there is a great flurry of activity and whispery, excited chatter. They gather bundles of clothes and belongings, pair up so that the ones that are sickest have someone to lean on. “Stay close,” he orders and leads the way out of the room and down a flight of battered stairs. It leads to a single large, open room strewn with liquor bottles and old food. There is a massive, a jagged hole punched into the wall where the front door should be, studded with melting icicles.
His headache is definitely coming back.
The Earth Kingdom kids keep carefully to his shadow as they cross the room, close but not underfoot. However many men had been stationed here, they are all gone now, off chasing Katara. “Do you know the way to the captain of the guard’s quarters?” he rasps, voice low. “She said that—”
“We know how to get there,” a young girl chirps. “She told us the way.” He is barely even surprised this time by the lengths Katara has apparently already gone on this one. Instead, he nods, and peers through the opening in the wall. People are starting to gather on the sidewalks, muttering concernedly about the scorched and pummeled state of the street. Much longer and the guards will find them first and Zuko is sure that not all of them can be trusted to ensure the kids’ safety.
“Go now,” he says. “I’ll cover you for as long as I can.” The Earth Kingdomers give him a round of very serious nods and then head out, moving purposefully toward the east. He gives them a decent headstart before he makes a break for the alleyway nearby, ignoring the confused and horrified gasps that erupt in his wake. The kids will be less conspicuous without him floating along like a malevolent spirit in their wake, but he doesn’t like the idea of them going all that way alone—
Suddenly, a streak of black and blue rockets into him, hard enough that it knocks him flat onto the rooftop. And just in time. A plume of fire streaks by, exactly where he had been, moments before. He twists instinctively as they fall so that he takes the brunt of the impact against the stone.
“Katara?” he hisses, peering down at her masked face. Her body against his feels tiny and featherlight, but when she pushes herself upright and turns, settling into her stance, there is strength enough in the set of her shoulders to move mountains. She tilts her head at him.
“Of course it’s me,” she says. “Who else would be running around in this get up?” She swings her arms in great, graceful arcs, sweeping great streams of water in front of them, deflecting blast after blast. There are four firebenders advancing on them, taking turns with their shots so that there’s no time for them to retreat, but Katara doesn’t seem tense or worried. In fact, she looks like she is having fun. “Did you get them out?”
“Of course I did,” he answers, “through the hole in the fucking wall.” He still can’t read her expression with the mask on, but he imagines by her stance that she is pretty pleased with herself. Usually, when they spar, they do it as close to noon as possible to simulate what it’ll be like during the comet. He’s used to Katara being an exceptional fighter, but in a crafty kind of way, always sussing out every weakness in every attack and turning it back on him before he knows exactly what’s happening. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s seen her truly in her element, under the bright moonlight. Her movements are effortless as she bats away everything they throw at her. They try to split and flank again, but she doesn’t let them, laying down ice underneath their feet, breaking their strides, interrupting their breath. She is everywhere, striking out at one as she raises a shield against another.
A handful of blasts make it through her defenses, lancing toward them. And every time it happens she doesn’t look back, barely blinks.
He thinks it’s because she trusts him to be there, guarding her blindspot.
“The city guard will be here any minute,” he tells her. “Can we please ditch these guys and go home? This thing itches.”
Katara huffs and then strikes forward, catching all four firebenders in a thick orb of water. He watches, transfixed, as ice spreads from the outside in, until all four are frozen solid with just their faces breaching the surface, one on each face of the block. She pauses, likely to admire her work, but Zuko can see two full contingents of guards, quickly converging on the mayhem. He grabs her hand tight in his.
“Let’s go!” They turn and run and though it is awkward, Katara doesn’t pull away her hand. She curls her fingers around his, as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
They tumble to a stop on the outer edges of the town proper—it was only ever a matter of time before Zuko was going to trip over the ridiculous shroud and his fall sweeps her up as well. He just barely manages to catch them from going over the side of the building. They lay flat on their backs, breathing hard, swallowing back their groans as they listen for shouting or the boots of the city guard. But the night is blessedly quiet around them. Zuko lets himself relax in degrees, until he is limp against the sooty roof tiles.
Across from him, Katara makes a sound, pitched high and breathy, then lifts the corner of the mask with her fingertips to press her hand over her mouth. Zuko picks up his head to peer at her in the gloom—if she is hurt then Aang will kill him and then Sokka will kill him and he will have to let them—
Katara snorts and Zuko realizes with something like awe that she has descended into a fit of giggles. For a moment, all he can do is gape. And then, as if it is an infection, he feels a reluctant grin tugging at the corners of his lips. He chuckles. And then snorts. And then he is laughing too, trying desperately to muffle the sounds in his sleeve.
Because what the fuck just happened?
Eventually, the delirium passes and Katara reaches out to squeeze his arm and it is not the fondness in the gesture that stops him short. It is the familiarity.
Katara more than anyone knows every one of the awful, selfish, shameful, dishonorable things that he has done—but when she looks at him, he can’t help but suppose…
“That might be the dumbest thing we’ve ever done,” she says and Zuko very rationally tries to smother the little flip flop that happens in his chest every time she refers to them as a we.
“It worked,” he manages though the sudden dryness in his mouth. Katara gives him a wry smile, pushes the mask up so that it sits askew on the side of her head, and props herself up onto her elbow to look at him. He sits up too, pulling off the hat and the veil and the shroud—anything tho keep himself from falling headfirst into the ocean blue of her eyes.
“It worked,” she echoes climbing to her feet. She reaches down and offers him her hand, pulling him up as well. “Because of you.” Her voice is gentle, but it is also firm. She shuffles closer as he stands, brushes her fingertips up the line of his arm, over the hasty swipes of paint on his shoulder. “You’re a good person, Zuko. You know that, don’t you?” He tries to duck his head, but she is in her element, after all. Her fingertips touch his chin, lift his gaze back to hers. “I didn’t say you were perfect,” she insists. “I said you were good. And I’m right.” She grins. It makes her glow in the darkness. “No matter how much you like to pretend that you aren’t. You like doing the right thing.” Her hand drops down and she pokes him in the chest. “Deep down in your psycho jerkbender heart.”
It should make him feel elated. Instead it makes his heart sink. “I don’t,” he answers quietly and shrugs his shoulders, as if it could jostle loose the heaviness around his neck. “I’m not. Good, I mean. Not like Sokka or Suki or Toph. Not like Aang.” He studies his hands. “Not like you.”
She is watching him seriously. Intensely. It is one more thing keeping him perpetually off balance. Sometimes she is like the water that laps at the edges of the shore, teasing and shimmering and bright. And sometimes she is like a wall of ice, all crystal clarity and hard, straight lines. He can practically see her weighing out his words, rolling them around in her brain. And then she reaches for him, lifts her hand to draw her fingertips gently, matter-of-factly, along the swell of his scarred cheek, feeling the ridges and bumps there, ruined skin and muscle, dead save for the vaguest sense of pressure and warmth. He doesn’t flinch this time and he isn’t sure why. Instead he turns his face into her touch.
He tells himself it is because it is his only chance.
“It makes you unhappy,” she says. “That night. Back in Ba Sing Se.” It isn’t a question, but she is looking at him as if she is waiting for him to respond. “Even now,” she murmurs. “After all this time.” His mouth twists.
“Of course it does.” He expects the words to come out angry, but instead he just feels deflated. “I betrayed my uncle, practically handed Ba Sing Se to my father and Azula. I betrayed my honor, I betrayed you.” Katara is already shaking her head.
“And you made it right,” she answers. Her voice is firm. “And yeah, maybe you have to keep making it right. Maybe you work your whole life to make up for all of the things you got wrong. But Zuko, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. None of us are only good. We’re just… trying to do our best most of the time.” She pauses then, not quite hesitating, but holding space, waiting for her words to soak down into him. When she smiles, the twinkle in her eye is dark and lovely. “Didn’t you tell Sokka that we would get a lot more done if we were a little bit bad every once in a while?”
He frowns. “I definitely did not say it like that—”
She stops him with her fingertips against his chin and her lips pressed sweetly against his. And at first, Zuko freezes. He’d had his chance once, after all, and he’d proven himself weak-willed and stupid—proven to the world what Katara must surely have already known. Katara is so much better than him that it is almost offensive. She likes Good Guys and Zuko is not a Good Guy.
But then he feels her sigh against his mouth, feels her fingers slip into the hair at the nape of his neck, feels her hand rest against his chest—directly over his fluttering heart—and he decides abruptly that she is right as usual. He has been good enough for one night. Now, he wants to cradle her face in both of his hands, lose himself in the pillow soft brush of her lips against his, sling his arm around the delicate curve of her waist, keep her pinned tight in place until he has taken his fill.
She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat that makes him think she is satisfied with this course of action.
Zuko kisses Katara and thinks of the shadows and the moonlight, the depths of dark ocean waters, the kernel of bad that she keeps tucked away—balanced, under control, forever outshined by the good that she does every single day—but there. And he thinks of himself. Of the person he had been back when everything he knew about the world came from storybooks and legends, when being on the Good and Righteous side of things had seemed of the highest importance.
Maybe there is a kernel of him still, tucked away. Waiting.
Katara is fierce as she nips at his lower lip, but she is also gentle as she curls her hand against his jaw. Eventually, she pulls back far enough to breath into the space between them. When he peeks at her, she is smiling quietly, eyes closed, so that he can see the curl of her lashes against her cheek.
“We should go back before the others figure out that we’re gone,” she whispers. And pauses and licks her lips. Zuko smirks and leans into her again, kissing her slowly on the curve of her lips, along the line of her jaw, against the shell of her ear, down the arch of her neck.
“Fine,” he answers and wraps his hands around her waist. When she speaks again, her voice is airy and warm.
“If Sokka finds out that we’re out here doing this, he’ll blow a blood vessel.”
He doesn’t know if she means the impromptu rescue mission or the kissing, but he doesn’t ask, just presses his face against her neck and inhales, pulls her body flush against his. “We won’t let him find out,” he rasps.
Katara snorts, but she doesn’t protest. Instead, she tugs on his hair until his lips are pressed up against hers again. She kisses him until the darkness fades into twilight grey, until the ocean between them narrows, until Zuko feels Good enough again.
