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Zuko was furious that Aang hadn't invited him to the wedding. Of all the nerve — it was both his best friend's wedding and his sister's. Two reasons to be there. Two reasons he'd been robbed of.
But they did something different to celebrate. Or to mourn. Depending on how you looked at it.
They went drinking. Anonymously. Two men pretending, just for one night, not to be the Avatar and the Fire Lord.
It required two methods. The first: hide anything remotely recognizable. Zuko had chosen the single most idiotic approach imaginable and simply bandaged half his face, giving the impression of a severe skin infection. Remarkably, nobody wanted to look closer. The second method was simpler, and honestly more effective: nobody expected to see the Fire Lord and the Avatar in a random bar in the Earth Kingdom.
And yet — it worked. They were seated at a small, sticky table in a bar so forgotten by Agni that the candles on the walls seemed embarrassed to still be burning. Two cups of sake sat between them. Two supposedly normal guys.
They were adults. So they talked about adult things.
"My back hurts," Zuko said.
"Have you tried warm baths with salt?"
"I have." A pause. "Didn't help."
"Sorry."
Aang took a long sip of wine and stared at his cup with the quiet reverence of a man rediscovering something dangerous. He hadn't touched alcohol for most of his life — not until the wedding ceremony, where a ritual cup had apparently lit something in him like a spark in dry grass. That one break in a lifetime of abstinence, and now here he was, several glasses deep and listing slightly to the left.
"Sooo," Aang said, drawing the word out like taffy. "How's the new baby?"
"You mean Okami?" Zuko straightened. "The one who was definitively, unambiguously born by my — " he caught himself, suddenly aware that using her name would shatter their entire flimsy disguise — "by my wife. Who was pregnant. Because that is how babies work."
Aang blinked. "...Whose else would she be?"
"Exactly!" Zuko said, a little too loudly. "Obviously she was the one who carried our daughter! I don't know why you'd even — there's no other explanation — it was simply her, being pregnant, in the normal way, and I was there, and — "
"Do you have a concussion?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Zuko's face went red. "...Yes."
Aang accepted this with the easy grace of someone too drunk to push further. "Is it okay to leave a baby that new at home? She's only a few weeks old."
"She has multiple nannies." Zuko knocked back a shot.
Aang nodded sagely and refilled his cup. "Babies are incredible," he said, with the soft wonder of a man who had clearly thought about nothing else recently. "I want more. Two isn't enough."
Zuko stared at him. "Do you have any idea how painful that process is?"
"It's actually pretty pleasant. "
"I was not talking about the pleasant part, you absolute dumbass."
"Oh. That part." Aang had the decency to look briefly chastened. "Yeah. I know that part. I was there for both."
Zuko took another shot. He was still, somewhere deep in his chest, in a kind of quiet denial that his best friend had two living children with his sister. The math of it kept refusing to settle properly in his brain.
"So," Aang said, shifting gears with the gracelessness of the extremely drunk. "Hypothetically. Is there any legal way to legitimize a premarital child?"
Zuko looked at him flatly. "No. It's fairly black and white. That's why I got married when — when my wife got pregnant."
"So my kids are just... permanently illegal?"
"Yes, you idiot."
"...Hm." Aang swirled his cup. "Well. At least the next ones will be legal."
"The next ones?!"
"Babies are too amazing to stop at two!"
"We are going in circles!"
"Sorry, sorry." Aang held up his hands in peace, then dropped them. "Okay. Different topic. How's your — how's the, uh — " he made a vague gesture — " is your sex life?"
Zuko's eye twitched slightly. "...Good. Since I — since she finished healing, things have returned to how they were before. She's remarkable, honestly." He said it simply, like a fact about weather.
Then, in a moment of weakness that he would spend the next decade regretting, he asked: "...What about you?"
Aang's eyes lit up. "Incredible. Your sister is amazing and— "
The color drained from Zuko's face so fast it was almost audible. Aang, to his credit, read the room with the speed of a man who values his continued existence, and closed his mouth.
"Yeah. Sorry," Aang said cheerfully. "Anyway. I love her. I really, genuinely love her. She has empathy in her, you know — it was just buried under years of... everything. But it's there. She is amazing."
Zuko traced his finger around the rim of his cup. "I'm not fully convinced she isn't simply performing empathy as an extremely sophisticated manipulation tactic."
"Even if it started that way," Aang said, more seriously now, "her actions are kind. Her deeds are gentle. That's what matters. She's caring, and helpful, amazing and peaceful — "
"You've said 'amazing' three times."
"Because she is amazing."
"...Sure." Zuko rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "You know she killed you once."
Aang considered this. "Yeah." He took a sip. "That's kind of — "
"If you finish that sentence I will set you on fire."
Aang closed his mouth. Then opened it again. "I've also forgiven her. Genuinely. Because she was a child who was turned into a weapon, and that was never her fault."
Zuko was quiet for a moment. He rolled his eyes, but it was softer this time.
Aang leaned in suddenly, close, conspiratorial, nearly knocking over his cup. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
Aang cupped a hand around his mouth as if sharing state secrets. "The ruler of the Fire Nation is the Fire Lord, yes?"
"...Yes," Zuko whispered back, matching his energy despite himself.
"And his wife is the Fire Lady."
"Correct."
"But what if the Fire Lord is a woman?"
Zuko's eye twitched. "...Still Fire Lord."
"And her husband?"
A long silence settled over the table like fog rolling in off the Caldera.
"Zu."
"...Fire Lady."
Aang sat back. "Oh boy."
Zuko stared into his empty cup and sincerely considered ordering the whole bottle.
So he did.
The bartender slid it across the counter without a word. Zuko considered tipping him extra just for that.
"So," Aang said, refilling both their cups with the solemn focus of a man performing surgery. "Your wife."
"What about her."
"She's great right?"
"...Yes."
"She's like. Really great."
"Aang."
"I'm just saying. She's great. You agree?"
"She is my wife."
"So that's a yes."
"That is a yes, obviously, why are you — "
"Cool, cool." Aang nodded sagely. "My wife is also great."
The silence that followed had texture.
"Good," Zuko said carefully, in the tone of a man defusing something.
"She's incredible actually."
"You mentioned."
"Did I mention she can lightning bend?"
"She's my sister, Aang, I am aware — "
"Because that's pretty — "
"Do not."
Aang wisely redirected. "What I'm saying is we both have great wives."
"Agreed. New topic."
"Right." Aang pointed at him. "Your wife is a waterbender."
"...Still my wife, still aware of this, yes."
"So she can like. Control water and other liquits.."
"Aang, where are you — "
"All liquits."
Zuko put his cup down very slowly. "I am begging you."
"I'm just saying that's a very powerful thing to have in a — "
"NEW TOPIC."
"OKAY." Aang held up both hands. He thought for a moment. "Okay. Okay I have one. If our wives fought, who would win?"
Zuko stared at him. "They would not fight, they would simply unite and destroy a third party, that third party being us, this has been obvious since the beginning — "
"But hypothetically."
"Hypothetically they would unite and destroy us."
"Okay but before they united."
Zuko opened his mouth. Closed it. Picked his cup back up. "...Katara. Probably. She's fought Azula before and — " he stopped. Looked at Aang. "You're doing that thing."
"What thing."
"The thing where you act dumb to get me to say things."
Aang smiled with the pure serenity of an Avatar who had absolutely been doing exactly that. "I have no idea what you mean."
"You've been doing it since we were teenagers. You did it to get me to apologize to the Earth King that one time. You did it to get me to eat the weird fermented sea-prune thing. You — "
"I genuinely just wanted to know if you thought Katara could beat Azula."
"...She could."
"Hm." Aang took a sip. "Interesting."
"What's interesting about it?!"
"Nothing." He was smiling in a way that suggested several things, none of which Zuko could legally prove. "Nothing at all."
Zuko pointed at him. "You tell Azula I said that and I will — I will — " he searched for a threat proportionate to the crime — "I will make turtleduck ownership illegal in the Fire Nation."
"You love turtleducks."
"I know what I said."
Aang gasped. "You wouldn't."
"Try me."
They stared at each other across the small sticky table with the intensity of two world leaders who were absolutely not world leaders right now.
"Okay," Aang said. "New topic."
"Thank you."
Aang refilled his cup. Thought very hard. "If you were a cloud, what kind of cloud would you be?"
Zuko blinked. "...What?"
"Like what shape."
"That's not — clouds don't have — you pick a shape, Aang, clouds are just — "
"I'd be a cumulus." Aang nodded. "Big and fluffy. Avatar shaped."
"Clouds are not Avatar shaped."
"Mine would be."
"That's not how any of this — " Zuko pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. His scar pulled slightly with the expression. "Why are we talking about clouds."
"Because you said new topic."
"I meant a real topic!"
"Clouds are real." Aang looked personally offended. "Clouds are very real, Zuko, I have flown through them, I have significant experience with clouds — "
"That's not what I — "
"Appa loves clouds."
Zuko opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at his cup.
Drank the entire thing.
"Okay," he said, setting it down with great dignity. "Fine. Fine. What kind of cloud would I be."
Aang studied him with the gravity of a man asked to solve a complex equation. He tilted his head. He squinted. He pointed.
"Cirrus."
"...The thin wispy ones?"
"They're elegant."
"They look like someone sneezed across the sky."
"They're elegant," Aang repeated firmly, "and they're high up and they act like they're not trying but they absolutely are, and they're actually really important for the weather even if nobody talks about them."
There was a pause.
"...That was almost a compliment," Zuko said.
"It was entirely a compliment."
"It started with sneezed."
"The compliment was in the second half, Zuko — "
"Fine." Zuko refilled his own cup this time. "Fine. Thank you. You'd be a cumulus."
Aang beamed. "Big and fluffy?"
"Annoyingly large. Takes up too much sky. Everyone looks at it."
Aang beamed harder. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"It wasn't — " Zuko exhaled hard through his nose. "You know what. Sure. You're welcome."
They drank in companionable silence for approximately eleven seconds, which was a record for the evening.
"Hey Zuko."
"No."
"You don't know what I'm going to say."
"It doesn't matter. No."
"I was just going to ask if you think Okami will be a bender."
Zuko's expression shifted. The defensive sharpness dropped away like a coat off a hook, and something quieter settled in under it. He looked at his cup.
"...I don't know," he said. "I think about it."
"She'll be great either way."
"I know." He said it quickly. Then slower: "I know. I just — " a pause — "Katara's a waterbender. And I'm — obviously. So she could go either way. Or neither. Or — "
"Okami's going to be incredible," Aang said, with the calm certainty of someone who had spent considerable time talking to the universe directly. "I have a feeling."
"Your feelings are famously unreliable."
"I once felt that I should go left instead of right in a cave and it led me directly to a secret underground library."
Zuko stared. "That never happened."
"It happened a little."
"That is not — " Zuko stopped. Squinted. "Did it actually happen?"
Aang smiled serenely into his wine. "Okami's going to be incredible."
Zuko looked at him for a long moment. Then he picked up his cup.
"...Yeah," he said quietly. "She is."
They drank.
"Hey Zuko."
"What."
"What if she could bend both."
Zuko choked on his sake.