Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of all the problems Zuko had anticipated about being Fire Lord, this was not one of them.

“You’re dating the Earth King?!” Toph all but shrieks, and everyone goes silent. Someone drops a glass.

Zuko buries his face in his hands.

“No,” he says. “No, Toph. No.”

“But you said—!”

“We’re going outside,” Zuko declares, planting both hands on her shoulders and steering her out to the gardens. The second they’re alone, Toph tears off his hands and whirls around.

“What the hell, Sparky?” she demands. “You’re dating Kuei?”

“I am not dating Kuei,” Zuko says, with a lot more patience than Toph deserves right now. “All I said was that I was going out to the theatre with him the next time I visited Ba Sing Se.”

“Do you even know what ‘dating’ means? Also, Kuei’s, like, ten years older than you. Didn’t think you were the type to go for older men, Sparky, but whatever floats your—”

“I meant we were going out as in out! Like friends! Kuei’s the only person I know who likes the same plays I do! How did you even get the idea that I meant dating?”

Toph makes a sound that reminds him that she spent a good deal of her childhood with badgermoles. “Because that’s what we were talking about, remember?! We were complaining about how that snotty old minister keeps trying to marry you off—”

“Yeah, but then I said it wasn’t gonna happen and the dating conversation was over—”

“But you said you were going out with Kuei right after!” Toph throws her hands in the air, smacking Zuko in the face as she does so. It may or may not be deliberate. Zuko’s betting on the former. “Easy conclusion, Zuko!”

Zuko groans. “Okay. Okay, fine, maybe it was reasonable. But why did you scream it? In a room full of nobles? Now everyone thinks I’m dating Kuei!"

“He’s not that bad,” Toph snorts. “Wimpy, sure, but at least he's not horrible.”

“His best friend is a bear, Toph.”

“...Fair point.”

Dear Earth King Kuei,

I am writing to inform you of a rumour that’s been making its rounds around my palace. Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding, much of the population seems to be under the impression that we are romantically involved…

Sokka arrives two weeks after what Zuko is now calling the Toph Incident. The first thing he does is kick down the door and yell, “YOU’RE DATING KUEI?!”

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples. He can feel a migraine coming on.

(Toph won't stop cackling.)

Dear Fire Lord Zuko,

This is unfortunate indeed. How do you propose we deal with this? 

My advisors inform me that a public statement would be out of the question, as it implies that we listen in on palace gossip...

“...Majesty?”

“Yes?” Zuko doesn’t have the energy for this, but Minister Lun is one of the more tolerable ones.

“In light of, ah, recent events…” Lun glances around the table at the other ministers. They all give him a subtle nod, urging him on. “We were wondering if, perhaps, we should begin considering the ramifications of a marriage between two nations?”

Zuko slams his hands down on the table, making all the ministers jump.

“For the last time,"  he hisses through gritted teeth, “I am not dating the Earth King!”

“Whatever you wish to call it, sir,” Minister Rinzuk says genially, and Zuko resists the urge to scream into his sleeve.

Dear Earth King Kuei,

The easiest way out would be for one of us to acquire a significant other. Seeing as neither of us have a significant other, nor are we in the market for one, this could prove difficult. 

Perhaps the rumour will die on its own, but until then…

“What’s this I hear about you and the Earth King?”

Zuko chokes. Across the table, Uncle sips his tea calmly.

“I’m not—we’re not—”

Uncle raises a brow.

“We’re not!”

“If you say so,” Uncle says, raising his cup to his lips. Zuko glowers at him. He loves his uncle dearly, cherishes it when he leaves the tea shop to visit Zuko, but…

Sometimes? Uncle sucks.

“Congratulations, your majesty,” Atsuko says graciously as she clears his plates. Zuko freezes.

“Congratulations on what?” he asks slowly. Please, Agni, don’t let it be what I think it is.

“On your relationship, of course,” Atsuko says breezily. “I’m sure you and Earth King Kuei will be very happy indeed.”

The door swings shut behind her. Zuko lets his head hit the desk.

He stays like that for a long, long time.

Dear Fire Lord Zuko,

Your assumptions were correct. The rumour has made its way to Ba Sing Se. 

I assume this means our plans for the theatre should be cancelled until further notice…

“How’s your boyfriend?” Toph asks smugly, and Zuko (very heroically) refrains from punching her in the face. Sokka snickers.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he replies frostily, throwing another handful of breadcrumbs to the turtleducks.

Toph grins like the horrible little chaos monster she is. “Ah, come on. You know who it is. The love of your life? Your forbidden romance? Your other, kookier half?”

Zuko turns up his nose. He is suddenly very, very aware of the guards stationed around them who are no doubt listening in. “No idea,” he says haughtily. 

Toph groans. “You’re no fun. How’s Kuei?”

“My friend, Kuei, is doing quite well,” Zuko says calmly. “We’ve been in correspondence.”

He realises his mistake a second too late. Toph pounces like a pygmy-puma on a mouse.

“Secret love letters, hm? Very romantic.” She leans in close, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. Sokka sidles up on Zuko’s other side, effectively trapping him.

“Didn’t know you had a romantic bone in you, lover boy,” he teases, poking Zuko in the ribs. “But Toph’s right. Secret letters? Kuei must be swooning.”

Toph puts on a high reedy voice that doesn’t sound like Kuei at all. “Oh, Zuko my love! Your letters fill me with longing and lus—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Zuko interrupts, because even the thought of Fake-Kuei feeling the L-word makes him nauseous. "Also, you're twelve. You should not be making jokes about this."

"I'm me," Toph counters, which is admittedly a very good argument.

“Besides, she was just getting to the good part!” Sokka chimes in. “And you’ll feel better after you hear all about how much your boyfriend loves you. It must be hard, competing with Bosco the bear.”

“You’re both dead to me,” Zuko intones flatly. This does absolutely nothing to discourage them.

Dear Earth King Kuei,

It has come to my attention that our correspondence through these letters is being viewed as, well, romantic. Perhaps it would be best if we stopped.

Your friend and ally,

Fire Lord Zuko

(Yes, Hawkmaster Shin, the Fire Lord is well aware you’re snooping on his letters. 

It’s really Zuko’s fault, though. Important political letters are sealed with wax. These ones are just tied with ribbon. And Shin is a curious man; he’s itching to know if the rumours are true.)

The next function is horrible. Noblemen and women are congratulating him left and right on his relationship, and Zuko has to gently correct them every time.

And, every time, they smile and pat him on the arm. “Oh, I understand completely,” they gush. “It’s hard to put a label on these things.” More than once, some dusty old minister shakes his head, smiling benevolently, and sighs, “Ah, the struggles of young love.” 

Zuko kind of, maybe, sort of wants to die.

(Sokka and Toph are no help at all.)

After hearing Zuko vehemently deny dating Kuei for several weeks, the rumour finally begins to die out. The nobles stop whispering. His ministers stop asking badly-disguised questions about whether or not they should be considering the union of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. Sokka stops bursting into hysterical laughter every time he catches sight of Zuko.

Toph, on the other hand, does not.

Dear Fire Lord Zuko,

Now that the coast is clear, so to speak, should we revisit our plans to the theatre?

On another note, I have been informed of a disturbance in a formerly Fire-Nation-occupied town. It appears that some Fire Nation citizens have been legally registered as Earth Kingdom for several years, and are now at risk of being chased out of town. Thoughts?

Your friend and ally, who has missed his theatre companion very much,

Earth King Kuei

Dear Earth King Kuei,

Rest assured I will look into the disturbance. If I require your input, I will contact you.

What play should we see this time?

Your friend and ally, who will likely be in Ba Sing Se within the month,

Fire Lord Zuko

Chapter Text

There’s an assassination attempt.

It is a shitty, shitty assassination attempt, involving a lot of screaming, some knives, and a frankly horrendous fighting stance. The assassin is an untrained man who can barely hold a blade right. Zuko kind of wants to let him try his luck as compensation, but in the span of a few heartbeats the man’s on his knees with Zuko’s guards pressing blades into his back.

Zuko kneels down in front of him. “Hello.”

The man spits in his face. Or, well, he tries to. Zuko tilts his head and lets the spit gob pass harmlessly over his shoulder.

“We’ll take him to the cells, majesty,” one of his guards says, dragging the man to his feet. Zuko nods and watches them go, then sighs and scrubs his face. He is not awake enough for this kind of thing.

He’s pretty sure that it’s an isolated incident. At least, until the Captain of the Guard visits him in his office to tell him that, thanks to the assassin, they’ve uncovered an underground group intent on overthrowing him.

Honestly? Zuko’s not even surprised.

Uncle,

I’m glad to know that your tea shop is doing well. How is everyone? You said the old lady who sits by the window hasn’t come in lately; is she alright?

On another note, I need your advice on some issues over here. It’s nothing too serious, just a small band of rebels…

Nephew,

When you say ‘a small band of rebels’, I am inclined to believe that you mean a very large group that is keen on staging a coup. My advice for you is thus: keep your guard up, and do not share information with anyone who doesn’t need it. In the meantime, at the palace, you can rely on help arriving soon.

In other news, the charming madame who sits by the window is perfectly fine...

Now that Zuko’s officially an eligible bachelor again, formal functions are even more of a nightmare. Yes, it was horrible for people to think he was dating Kuei, but at least it stopped them from throwing their daughters at him.

Now, they've apparently figured out that boys are an option too—so he’s getting sons and daughters dumped on him left and right. Which is pretty much the complete opposite of what he wants.

To make matters worse, none of his friends are here. Katara and Aang are at the North Pole, helping to rebuild bonds between the North and South. Sokka’s at the Northern Air Temple, talking with Teo about some kind of machine that Zuko doesn’t really understand. And Toph is in Omashu, consulting King Bumi on an idea she’s just had about a metalbending academy. Even Uncle’s back at the tea shop. Zuko’s only company is the dozen or so guards who are constantly tailing him, which he hates, by the way, but after the assassination attempt his council won’t let him go anywhere alone. And 'anywhere', apparently, includes a room full of unarmed nobles making small talk about oil refineries.

He doesn’t even know what they’re celebrating. He thinks it has something to do with a business partnership, but he can’t be sure.

So, yeah. As far as functions go, Zuko is definitely putting this one on the lower end of the scale. 

Then he sees a familiar face. It also happens to be a face that definitely should not be at a formal function.

“June!” He winds his way towards her. She turns her head; she looks every inch the uncaring noble, leaning casually against a pillar like she owns the place.

“‘Sup, little Fire Lord?” She smirks down at him. It’s infuriating how much taller she is.

“Nothing.” He waves away the nickname. “Just—what are you doing here? No offence, but I didn’t really take you for the high society type.”

“None taken. All you nobles are airheaded idiots.” June knocks back a full glass of amber liquid so quickly Zuko winces. “Your uncle hired me. Says you’ve got a bunch of assassins hunting you down, asked me to hunt them down first.” 

Zuko blinks. Oh. So that’s what Uncle meant when he said help arriving soon. “Huh. Cool.”

“He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“No, he most definitely did not.”

She snorts and flags down a passing waiter, taking yet another glass of unidentifiable alcohol. Zuko eyes the drink. 

“If you’re working, shouldn’t you be...well, sober?”

June rolls her eyes. “Please. You really think I’m gonna get drunk off of something like this? This alcohol’s a joke. I could buy you something ten times stronger for a quarter the price at half the taverns I’ve been to.”

“Good for you,” Zuko says. “Listen, can I stay with you? This is a nightmare. People keep trying to set me up.”

June narrows her eyes at him. “If you’re trying to get me to be your fake girlfriend—”

“What? No! Agni, no.” Zuko almost retches at the mere thought of it. June’s pretty, sure, but she’s never been someone he could be attracted to. Admire, yes. Respect, definitely. But attraction? No. June’s like a...cool, distant older cousin. A very intimidating older cousin.

Zuko’s past few months as Fire Lord have given him a new appreciation for the many, many advantages of being intimidating. He’s insanely jealous of June and her natural ‘fuck with me and you die’ aura. 

“You’re just scary, that’s all,” he tells her. “It’ll stop them from even trying. If anyone asks I’ll say you’re my bodyguard.”

June gives him an appraising look, then nods. “Alright. You stick by me, I’ll scare off any ladies with the stink eye of the century.”

“And guys, too,” Zuko corrects, slumping with relief and practically melting into her side. “They’ve figured out that it’s an option.”

June lets out a low whistle that might pass for her version of a laugh, slinging her arm around his shoulders. “Real heartbreaker, are you? I’m impressed, little lord. It’s not every day I get to glare at everyone who comes my way.”

“You do glare at everyone, though,” Zuko points out. “Every day.”

“If you don’t shut up I’ll make you,” June says casually, eyeing an approaching girl. “Heads up, little lord. Looks like an admirer.”

She’s right. The girl comes to a stop just in front of him, glancing up at him through her lashes.

“Good evening, your majesty,” she says in a rush. “I was—I was wondering if you’d like to—”

She’s interrupted by a loud slurp. Both she and Zuko turn to the source: June, who’s currently drinking her drink very loudly. She’s also maintaining direct eye contact with the girl, and, as promised, is giving her the stink eye of the century.

The girl glares at her. “I was wondering—”

SLURP.

“—if you’d like to—”

SLURP.

“—perhaps go on a—”

June smacks her lips and shakes her empty glass so that the ice inside it tinkles loud enough to drown out the rest of the girl’s sentence. The girl stops and glances between Zuko and June. Her eyes widen.

“My deepest apologies, majesty,” she stammers out, and flees.

Zuko turns to June. “You,” he says, “are a miracle worker.”

June plucks a drink off a waiter’s tray. “Trust me,” she says, biting a cherry clean off the stem, “I know.”

After the function, something changes. They don’t have anything that Nyla can use to track down the assassins, but June sticks around anyway to help Zuko figure things out (“What, you think Nyla’s the only reason I’m such a good hunter?” she asks, offended, when Zuko points this out). So he’s got company now, which is nice.

But something in the whole palace just...shifts. The palace staff give him strange looks. When he goes to visit the Royal Fire Academy for Girls—he’s planning a set of educational reforms, after all, and he can’t do that without knowing the curriculum—no one even tries to approach him. It might be the fact that June is standing at his side as his bodyguard, arms crossed and looking generally terrifying, but it unnerves him nonetheless.

It goes on like this for two weeks, with Zuko’s confusion and slight terror mounting, until Sokka flies back in from the Northern Air Temple. He spends one night—one night—in the palace, and in the morning he's shaking his head at Zuko.

“We never should’ve left you unsupervised,” he says mournfully.

Zuko’s never been more confused. “What?”

Sokka just keeps shaking his head, looking for all the world like a disappointed parent. “I mean, I thought Kuei was bad…”

“What?”  Zuko repeats, his voice considerably higher.

Sokka sighs. “Kings I can deal with, Zuko. But bounty hunters is where I draw the line.”

Hm? What's that sound? Oh, nothing; it's just the sound of all of Zuko's vital organs shutting down.

“June. Really? June?”

“I’m not dating June,” Zuko says numbly. He hasn’t felt anything but numb since Sokka first said the words bounty hunter.

“Then why is everyone saying you are?” Sokka points an accusing finger. “From what I’ve heard, June was getting real jealous whenever anyone approached you.”

Zuko stares at him blankly. “I... asked her to do that. It’s her job. She’s meant to stand next to me and look scary so no one tries to kill me. Do you know how paranoid my ministers are right now?”

Sokka sniffs. “Well, if June really was just doing her job, she did it way too well. Seriously. The jealous girlfriend assumptions were off the charts.”

“How do you even know all this?” Zuko demands. “You weren’t even there!”

Sokka taps the side of his nose. “I hear things, Zuko. Lots of things.”

Zuko stares at him.

“...You eavesdropped on the kitchens, didn’t you?”

“I eavesdropped on the kitchens,” Sokka admits, “but it was so, so worth it.”

Zuko shakes his head. “I just—it doesn’t matter! We’re not dating!”

Sokka’s eyebrows ascend into space. “Mmhmm. Well, everyone thinks you are. My highly reliable source of information—”

“The kitchens.”

“—says that you’ve been spending an awful lot of time around her.” Sokka twirls a nonexistent moustache. “Almost like you’re... courting her.”

“I’m not,"  Zuko says. “Like I said: it’s her job. She’s my bodyguard. Besides, you guys aren’t here, and it’s...it’s nice to see a familiar face.”

Sokka actually, visibly softens at that. “ Oh. Okay. I think I get that.”

“You do?” Zuko asks, surprised. It’s not like Sokka’s holed up in a palace full of stuffy old men all day.

“Well, yeah.” Sokka shrugs. “I mean, this Ambassador stuff...sometimes it gets lonely, y’know? Travelling all the time, none of my friends there to back me up…”

Zuko nods. Yeah, that makes sense. After all, Sokka’s spent the last year going everywhere with Aang, Katara and Toph.

“But!” Sokka jabs a finger into Zuko’s chest. “That doesn't excuse the fact that you're dating—"

"I am not."

"—a bounty hunter! Who, might I add, is literally a decade older than you! Seriously, what is it with you and older people? I'm starting to think you have a type."

"I don't have a type,"  Zuko grits out. "Because I wasn't dating Kuei and I'm not dating June."

"Tell that to the head chef."

"Maybe I will!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"This is legitimately painful to watch," another voice breaks in dryly. They both whirl around to stare at the newcomer.

"Uh."  It's only a syllable, but Zuko's voice still manages to crack on it. "June. Hi. Hi, June."

"Hello," June says, her gaze sliding over to Sokka. "You. Water Tribe. What did you say about us dating?"

Sokka audibly swallows. He looks very much like he'd rather be anywhere but here. "Nothing?"

"Bullshit."

"There's a rumour that we're dating," Zuko interrupts, before Sokka either pisses his pants or gets disemboweled. "Ever since the function, apparently. You know, the one where you got wasted on our 'piss-poor alcohol'?"

June hisses. "I told you that would start shit. But did you listen? Noo, you had to ask me to be your bodyguard—"

"You agreed! Besides, if you hadn't downed two dozen drinks I wouldn't have had to carry you to Nyla!"

"No one said you had to carry me. I wasn't forcing you."

"Oh, right. Because I was just going to leave you drunk and unsupervised in the palace. Such a great plan."

"Fuck you, I don't need your supervision—"

"No, but your daggers definitely do. Seriously, why do you have so many? What the fuck?"

"In case you've forgotten, little lord, I'm not a bender. And unlike you, the rest of us need to rely on steel."

"Well, the rest of us don't usually start threatening to murder everyone around us when we get drunk."

"The rest of us — "

"I think," Sokka interrupts, stepping between them, "that you guys both need to calm down."

"Oh, I'm calm,"  June growls, looking like the complete and total opposite of calm. "So calm, in fact, that I think I'm going to go on a nice, relaxing walk. And if I end up talking to the guards about the Fire Lord, that's a total coincidence. If I slip up and call the Fire Lord sweetheart, would you look at that? Another coincidence!"

Zuko gapes at her as her words sink in. "You wouldn't. You hate this rumour as much as I do."

"Nah, I think it's the funniest shit I've ever heard. Besides—" she smiles and pats his cheek. "—you don't know how far I'd go for spite alone."

Zuko can do nothing but watch in horror as she stalks off to stoke the fire.

June is very, very good at stoking the fire.

Neither of them are really mad at the other. They have tiny fights all the time, and they always blow out just as quickly as they start. So, by the next morning, he's back to walking around with her by his side.

June, however, is an evil mastermind who should not be trusted under any circumstances. Zuko comes to realise this throughout the course of their morning walk, because June is a diabolical demon who will stop at nothing to get revenge.

"Sweetheart, could you get me Nyla's saddle?' she croons at him as Kiyumi, a known gossip, scurries past. Zuko glares at her and hurls it at her head.

"That's a terrible idea, love," she says casually as they pass three of his ministers, two of whom look up sharply at the name.

"He's such a gentleman," she whispers conspiratorially to the grinning daughters of two businessmen as Zuko greets their fathers. 

Finally, Zuko chivvies her into the training rooms. "Okay," he says, crossing his arms, "what the hell was that?"

"What was what?" June tries to look innocent, but he's pretty sure her face forgot how to look innocent years ago. 

"The—thing! With the names!"

"No idea what you're talking about. I was just being friendly. Totally platonic."

"June."

She holds up her hands. "Okay, fine. I told you I'd do it for spite, but if you're seriously pressed about it I'll stop."

"I—okay. Okay. I don't mind you having a bit of fun, just...don't do it in front of important people. I don't need another international scandal."

"I can do that." She turns to the wall, scanning the weapons there appraisingly.  "Look, we're in a training room. Lots of swords, some pent-up anger, you, me and an empty floor. What do you say to a spar?"

A spar would be great, and June knows it. She never suggests things that she knows won’t get her profit, in one way or another. This time, her profit comes in the form of completely and thoroughly kicking Zuko’s ass at duelling.

She hands him a training sword. They get into their stances, and Zuko starts the countdown.

"Three, two—"

June strikes.

"You didn't wait for one!" he yelps, barely dodging the blow.

"Neither will your assassins!" she shoots back, already pulling away for a second swing. Zuko meets her blade halfway, mentally berating himself for forgetting that June fights dirty. How could he forget? It's literally one of her defining characteristics: June, twenty-six, bounty hunter, fights dirty.

He catches a movement out of the corner of his eye. There, in the doorway, are the two daughters of the businessmen he'd met before, watching the fight with interest.

Zuko thinks nothing of it, until June sees them too. She calls out, "Could you give us a little privacy, girls?"

The huge, exaggerated wink she sends them leaves no qualms about what she's implying. The girls both turn red and let out apologetic-sounding squeaks, turning to practically flee from the training room. The doors slam shut behind them.

June smirks, because she's a horrible person. He can't really be mad at her, though, because he knows—and, more importantly, she knows—that those girls won’t do any damage.

June may be an asshole, but she never breaks promises that she actually means.

"You suck,"  he tells her anyways. She blows a kiss at him over their swords. 

"Yes, I do," she says smoothly. "Your dick, apparently."

Zuko chokes. June takes the chance to knock his sword out of his hands and put the blunt tip of her blade to his throat.

"Your move, majesty," she tells him. Zuko's pretty sure he's out of moves.

Toph comes back from Omashu. She says she's going to open the Beifong Metalbending Academy, which is a good idea, because metalbending is awesome and more people should know it. But it's also a bad idea, because Zuko does not think Toph is going to cope well with having more than one student. Especially ones who aren't nearly as fast-progressing as the Avatar.

He doesn't voice his concerns. Mainly because he knows that, even if he does, Toph will go through with it anyways.

"So." Toph leans back on her hands. They're all sitting on a rug together, him and her and Sokka, on the slope at the edge of the turtleduck pond. "Anything interesting happen around here?"

"Spirits, yes,"  Sokka says, before Zuko can answer. He looks entirely too gleeful about it. "So first of all, we’re tracking down this bunch of assassins who want to kill Zuko, but that’s not important. Remember that rumour about Zuko and Kuei?"

A slow grin starts spreading across Toph's face. "Yeah?"

"Okay, get this." Sokka leans in closer, even though Toph can't see it. "It's the same rumour, but with Zuko and June."

"June?"  Toph wrinkles her nose. "The bounty hunter? But she's way out of Sparky's league." 

"I know, right?"

"Sitting right here, you know," Zuko reminds them. Toph waves him off.

"I'm surprised you're still alive, actually," she says casually. "Thought June would've killed you by now."

"Oh, no," Zuko grumbles. "She's encouraging the rumours because she's a spiteful lying piece of shit."

"She's what?"  Toph's voice pitches up with complete and utter delight. 

Zuko tells her about June's sabotage. Or, well, anti-sabotage, since she’s spurring on the rumours.

"I love her," Toph says when he's done, completely unsympathetic. "Can you tell her I love her?"

"Absolutely not." Zuko throws a spring roll at her. It bounces harmlessly off her face and onto the grass.

"Hey!" Sokka complains. "That was perfectly good food!"

"No it's not.” Toph reaches out for the fallen spring roll. "Zuko touched it."

"Oh, fuck you," Zuko says, and Toph throws the spring roll right back at him.

"This," Sokka says, "was a horrible idea. Terrible. Picnics are now banned."

"Your face is banned," Toph tells him, unimpressed.

"What the—you can't even see my face!"

"A blessing, I'm sure."

"Meeting you was the worst thing that ever happened to me," Sokka mutters. Toph snaps her fingers, and a spire of rock juts up right beneath him.

"You said best wrong," she says smugly. Sokka, all thoughts of food wastage apparently gone, starts pelting her with bread.

“I don’t know how I’m friends with you two,” Zuko tells them, watching Toph lock Sokka’s hands to the ground with matching gloves of stone.

“Nah.” Toph turns to grin at him. “You love us, Sparky. Don’t deny it.”

“I am one-hundred-percent denying it,” he deadpans, but deep down they all know she’s right.

He’s pulled aside by Minister Wu as the rest of the council starts filtering out. They’ve just finished finalisations on the educational reforms, so it’s not exactly out of the ordinary for Wu, his Minister of Education, to want to talk to him about it.

What is out of the ordinary is the way Wu is chewing his lip, his eyes darting around nervously.

"Majesty," he begins, "I would like to give you some advice about the, ah...the current situation."

Zuko's interest is immediately piqued. If Wu has anything good to say about the secret society, then he definitely wants to hear it. "Go on."

"Well, I would like to preface by first saying that I recognise this is a delicate subject," Wu tells him. "And that if you should choose to continue with your plans, then I support you wholeheartedly—"

"Wu," Zuko interrupts, "please, just speak your mind. I won't punish you for having an opinion."

Wu exhales, like he's steeling himself. "My thanks, majesty. My advice is...well, my advice is to end it."

"End it?" Zuko stares at him incredulously. Wu doesn't mean...he doesn't mean killing the society, right? He doesn't want Zuko to—to wipe them out, does he? The carnage would be horrifying.

Wu barrels on, seemingly unbothered that he's just suggested mass murder. "Yes, well—I am not one to judge your preferences, majesty, but I must say that this is a dangerous thing to be partaking in."

"My...preferences." Does he mean Zuko's preference for not massacring large groups of people? And yeah, it's dangerous, of course it is, but that doesn't mean they should just—kill them. That's way, way on the far side of the scale.

"Yes, majesty. I understand that you perhaps see an, ah..." and now Wu looks distinctly uncomfortable. "...appeal in the forbidden, but I do believe that it is in your best interests to end this before it starts."

"Wait." Zuko holds up his hands. There's a sinking feeling in his stomach. "What exactly are you talking about?"

Minister Wu looks at him strangely. "Why, your relationship with your bodyguard, of course. What else?"

Zuko reminds himself that torching one's ministers is generally frowned upon. For someone who is currently at risk of being roasted by the Fire Lord, Wu appears none the wiser.

Nephew,

I am proud to see how well you have adjusted to your new role! The drafts of the reforms that you sent me are very well done. If only you had no assassin troubles, hm?

However, I do have my concerns. Among them is your apparent choice in partner; I know that I am the one who sent her, and June is a lovely lady, but you must consider how it would reflect on you to be involved with a bounty hunter. I must admit, I never expected competition from my own nephew! 

Relationship troubles aside, I have much to tell you. It involves my tea shop, an earthbender, and a man with quite extraordinary hair…

Aang and Katara fly in on Appa, both practically glowing with pride. Katara spends a solid hour telling them about how well the rebuilding of the Water Tribes is going, and how the North is reaching out to the South again, and—

“By the way,” Sokka says, twirling his chopsticks, “Zuko’s got a secret society of assassins who want him dead. And everyone thinks he’s dating a bounty hunter.”

Aang spits his tea all the way to the other side of the room.

Uncle,

First of all, I'm not dating June. Definitely, completely, not dating June.

Aang and Katara have arrived at the palace, so we’ve got everyone working on the assassin case. We still haven’t found any major leads, but June and Sokka think they’ve narrowed the base of operations down to one of three islands…

There’s another fucking assassination attempt, which is somehow even worse than the last. This one involves conspicuously purple tea (which, by the way, had Zuko calling for his guards before the serving girl had even cleared the hallway), a bottle of vivid violet poison, and a servant found tied up in a supply closet.

This time, however, when they bring in Nyla to sniff the assassin, he manages to pick up a scent. 

“Congratulations,” Zuko tells June as they stand in the courtyard. “You’ve been promoted.”

“I’m honoured,” she says dryly, fastening Nyla’s saddle. “What’s my promotion?”

“Bounty hunter.”

June pauses her fastening to stare at him incredulously. “Is that not what I was before?”

“No. You were my bodyguard.”

“You’re a fucking prick, you know that?” She swings herself up into the saddle. Nyla paws at the ground, snuffling and practically rearing to go. 

“I’ll be back sometime before midnight,” she tells him, smoothing down Nyla’s fur. “Probably. Hopefully. Let’s just say that if I’m not back in two days I’m probably dead.”

“I can work with that.” He stands back and watches as she makes a few last-minute adjustments. “You sure you don’t want any backup? Firebenders? Guards?”

She snorts, pulling out her whip. “Please. They’d never be able to keep up.”

The whip cracks in the air next to Nyla’s ear—a starting signal. The shirshu bounds off without further ado, taking his rider with him.

Zuko stands in the courtyard until they disappear from view. He’s far from alone in the palace—he’s got all of Team Avatar with him—but as he watches June go, he still feels an odd sense of loss.

June comes back a solid ten hours later, dripping with mud. She shakes her head when he gives her a questioning stare: no leads.

“Your nation’s got too many fucking smells,” she grunts as she brushes past him. “And too many fucking swamps.”

Zuko looks at the mud on her and Nyla and finds that he’s inclined to agree.

“I hope you die in a hole somewhere and no one ever finds your body," Zuko says.

June grins at him over her wine. "Now, now. Play nice."

"Oh, I'll play nice. With a knife. And your neck."

"Is that really any way to speak to the woman who's hunting down your assassins?"

"It is if that woman is still sitting around in your palace despite being told, very clearly, to leave."

"And I'm telling you,"  June says, setting her glass aside, "that I was hired for this. I'm here on business, little lord."

"If you were here on business, you would be working. Not draining the entire palace's stock of rice wine."

"Why can't I do both?" June challenges. "Besides, Nyla's sleeping. He's tired from running around your nation all day. You do realise that the shit ton of spices you all use makes it about a hundred times harder for him to track?"

"Then work a hundred times faster," Zuko snaps. He's aware that he's kind of being a dick, but this is how he and June operate. The fact that this is a formal introductory banquet for June makes zero difference. 

He wasn't aware that he had to formally introduce the bounty hunter who's working for him, now that she’s officially a bounty hunter and not his bodyguard, but apparently he does. Nor was he aware that this meant all his ministers and head of staff would be attending, but they are. Apparently it’s so no one freaks out if June ends up raiding the palace for clues.

The rest of Team Avatar is here, which for once is something he expected, but none of them have said a word since June first opened her mouth.

Actually, no one's said a word since June first opened her mouth. Mostly because the only thing she's done with it is hurl insults at the Fire Lord, who hurls them right back.

The food arrives: sliced spicy beef with an assortment of vegetables. Zuko doesn't so much as look at it. June does.

"Nice," she says approvingly. "Very nice. See, the spice in this beef alone is enough to make Nyla dizzy.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Zuko tells her mildly.

She snorts, leaning back in her chair. “You can try.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Will you, now?” 

“There’s hemlock in the wine." 

“Classy,” she replies, picking up her cup and immediately draining half its contents. She nods at his plate. “The beef is poisoned.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” He cuts himself a slice and pops it in his mouth. His guards twitch, as if wondering whether or not they should intervene.

Zuko eats another slice of beef, holding June’s gaze. She brings up her cup for another sip.

The silence stretches on.

June lowers her cup and smacks her lips. “Brat,” she says casually.

“Hag,” Zuko shoots back.

“Weasel.”

“Witch.”

“Snivelling bat.”

“Sour-face harpy.”

“Son of a hog-monkey.”

“Wife of a skunk-fish.”

June pulls out a dagger and twirls it nonchalantly. Zuko could swear his guards are about two breaths away from dragging her to the dungeons. “Should’ve tied you up and left you in the woods when I had the chance.”

“Really? You don’t strike me as the type to know how to tie knots.”

She jams the knife into the table, its handle quivering. “How long will it be till you fuck up your nation?”

“Don’t know,” Zuko says. “How long has it been since you fucked up your life?”

She leans across the table to get right in his face. “You little coward shit,” she hisses. 

“At least I’m not a sub-par scrounger,”  he snarls right back, shooting up from his chair to meet her strike-for-strike. 

“Sub-par?” Her face darkens. “I dare you to say it again, you tiny—”

Zuko’s guards start forwards, and he throws up a hand: stand down. June’s gaze flickers over towards them, and she lets out a huffing laugh.

“Aw, does the baby widdle Fire Lord need his big bad guards?”  she sings. 

Zuko smirks. “Please. We both know I could take you down with a snap of my fingers.” He brings up his hand, sparks shooting from his nails, just to make his point.

June’s hand drifts towards her dagger. “I could take you down with less than that.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Believe me, I will.”

“Well? What are you—”

“Okay!” Aang interrupts, shoving himself between them. “I think everyone just needs to—to calm down, okay? And if you could, I dunno, not kill each other, that would be great.”

They eye each other for another second before nodding and falling back into their respective seats. Aang looks between them, sees that neither is moving to disembowel the other, and sighs with relief.

Zuko sips his wine. June eats her beef.

Neither of them break eye contact.

“So,” Zuko says, setting his glass aside, “how was your hunting trip?”

June smiles. “Lovely, Majesty. Very scenic. Thank you for asking.”

“My pleasure.” He inclines his head.

They’re nothing but civil for the rest of the meal, exchanging pleasantries like old friends. Everyone else’s eyes dart between them nervously, freaked out by the sudden veneer of calm.

Zuko raises his cup to his mouth and grins, where he knows no one will see him. He loves pranking people with June.

(The prank backfires on him at the end of the night, when one of his guards pulls him aside and asks, very seriously, what kind of relationship he has with June. It isn't healthy, he says, for couples to fight like that, and he's recently gotten out of an abusive relationship, so if Your Majesty would like June to be withheld from seeing him that can definitely be arranged—

Zuko appreciates the sentiment, but he also spends a good deal of that conversation wondering if this is what it feels like to die.)

June heads out again the next morning.

She doesn’t say much before she leaves, apart from ‘well, now I know where the swamps are’. But she does look down at Zuko, her face still dark in the pre-dawn light, and says, “You know I’m going once this is over, right?”

He does know. June’s not the kind of person who knows how to settle. She’s already stayed longer than he thought she would.

Doesn’t stop it from hurting, though.

Zuko steps out of the council chambers and comes face-to-face with an anxious-looking Team Avatar.

“Well?” Aang asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How’d it go?”

Zuko gives them all a tired grin. “The reforms are going through. Pro-war propaganda is now illegal in schools.”

“Yes!”  Sokka crows, dragging him into a hug. Aang worms his way into it, tucking his head under Zuko’s chin.

“Knew you had it in you, Sparky,” Toph says approvingly, throwing herself into the hug with the kind of force that’s equivalent to being hit with a rock. Zuko lets out an oomph sound, all the breath rushing out of him.

Katara’s standing apart from them, laughing softly. Sokka extends an arm. “C’mon, Sugar Queen. Get in here.”

“That’s my nickname,” Toph complains, but she lifts up an arm to let Katara in. Zuko closes his eyes and rests his chin on Aang’s tiny thirteen-year-old head.

“We’re gonna need to have a party to celebrate,” Aang muses quietly. 

“The council’s already planning one,” Zuko replies, subconsciously shuddering at the memory of their not-so-subtle suggestions that he should ‘break up’ with June. They seem to be under the impression that he’ll be taking her to the party, which he definitely will not be doing.

“No, not a proper party,” Aang says. “A small one. Just us.”

“Huh.” Zuko considers the idea. “Yeah. That would be nice.”

“Nyla got a lead," June announces, striding into his office without knocking. His guards splutter indignantly.

"Ma'am—"

"It's fine," Zuko tells them, waving them off, even though it’s clearly not fine because it’s super fucking late and most reasonable people are asleep. "You were saying?"

June slaps down a map on his desk, with a location circled in red. He peers down at it; the part she's circled is an old weapons factory on one of the nearby islands, abandoned now that the war is over.

"That's where they're hiding out," she says triumphantly. "The place was empty when I got there—"

"Because it's like one in the morning, June, what the fuck—"

"—but there were definite signs of recent activity. I'll head back when it's daylight, catch them in the act. You wanna send a troop of guards?"

Zuko raises his brow. "Do you need a troop of guards?"

June throws her head back and laughs. Zuko takes that as a no.

The rumour dies.

It doesn't die naturally or slowly, like it did with Kuei. It runs headfirst into a rusty trap in the middle of the forest and dies abruptly, violently, with a shit ton of metaphorical blood, howling as it does so.

In other words, June finds the assassins. June then proceeds to crash the celebration of Zuko's reforms by barging in and throwing aforementioned assassins onto the floor in front of him. She looks up at him and says, "My girlfriend helped, so double the money."

"The amount of alcohol you consumed is worth more than the money you're owed," he tells her, playing along, but he knows what she's doing. She's packing her bags, because she's not the kind of person who can stay in one place too long without feeling suffocated, but she doesn't want to leave any loose ends behind her when she goes. So this is June, saying that she has a girlfriend in front of a room full of nobles.

June does not have a girlfriend. She likes girls, but she doesn't have a girlfriend. She's doing this so everyone knows that the rumour isn't true, which ties up her loose ends quite nicely.

Later, when she turns down the gold he offers her, she'll sniff a little bit. He'll tease her and ask if she's actually going to miss him. She will, of course, vehemently deny it, but Nyla will nudge him a little mournfully, and they both know that this is a certain kind of bittersweet.

Later, when she's sitting in the saddle and saying, try not to die, little lord, your uncle would be a shitty ruler, he'll hear the real message of her telling him to take care. He'll watch her disappear down the street and he thinks that he'll miss her, but not too much, because she'll be back soon enough. June doesn't bail on her friends.

Later, they'll say goodnight and goodbye, and it will hurt a bit more than they expected.

But now, she grins down at him over the unconscious bodies of people who want him dead, and Zuko can't help but grin back.

Chapter Text

NOW

Zuko can do nothing but stare.

"Should we begin arranging his trial, majesty?" the Captain of the Guard asks. 

"I—no. No, don't do that." Zuko feels like he's watching from somewhere outside his own body. His voice speaks of its own accord.

"But it's treason, sir," the Captain says hesitantly. "He tried to kill you."

Zuko wants to answer. He wants to tell the Captain, no, you're wrong, but he finds that he can't tear his eyes away from the man in the prison cell.

General Iroh, Dragon of the West, looks back up at him.

"I'm sorry, Nephew," he says, and Zuko's whole world shatters.

ONE MONTH AGO

There's no warning, not even a letter. Just a ship on the horizon, and a jolt in Zuko's gut, and in the blink of an eye he's folded up in his uncle's arms.

"What are you doing here?" he demands, even though he can feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed his uncle until it was staring him in the face.

Uncle chuckles. "You didn't think I would leave my beloved nephew alone after two assassination attempts, now did you?"

"But the tea shop—"

"Will be fine," Uncle assures him, smoothing out his robes. "My second-in-command is more than capable of handling it for a few weeks."

"A few weeks?" Zuko draws back sharply. "Uncle, no, I know you love your shop—"

Uncle pinches his cheek, just hard enough to make sure it's felt. "I do indeed, Nephew, but I daresay I love you more."

Zuko splutters incoherently. "Uncle—!"

Uncle just laughs, folding his hands over his belly. "Come, Nephew, you know it's true. Now are we going to stand out in the cold, or are you going to invite your poor old uncle in?"

Having Uncle back lifts a weight off his chest that Zuko didn't even know he was carrying. It's better, so much better, to have someone in the council who knows why Zuko's so deadset on helping rebuild ravaged villages. And why he insists that five sacks of rice for one village is enough to survive, but not enough to sate hunger. It's a relief to have someone who knows that, on his worst nights, Zuko still flinches from the crackling lightning of tropical storms.

The rest of his council doesn't seem to agree. Zuko doesn't expect them to; in their eyes, five sacks of rice is enough, because surviving is enough, even though Zuko and his uncle both know that's not true. But he's not prepared for the blatant dislike in his ministers' eyes every time Uncle speaks. They glare at him like he's done them a great wrong, even though Zuko knows for a fact that Uncle has met almost none of them in person before.

It might be because, whenever one of them brings up an idea, Uncle shoots it down and brings up a better one. Or it might be that Zuko almost always agrees with his uncle. Is that really his fault, though? His council looks at the maps and papers, and they see numbers and costs and profits. Zuko looks at the maps and papers, and he sees a girl with a burnt leg and a boy whose brother might be dead. It just so happens that that's what Uncle sees, too.

It becomes a problem.

The dislike spreads from the council to the guards to the staff, until the entire palace is giving Uncle dirty looks out of the corners of their eyes. The servants start making small rebellions: Uncle's sheets are tucked in so tightly it takes him a solid half hour to pull them out. The candle on his desk isn't replaced when it burns to a stub. The ornamental rug in his chambers has a corner that mysteriously finds itself flipped over, no matter how many times Uncle smooths it out.

Finally, there comes the most heinous of all: his tea is brewed just a moment too long, but it's long enough to scald the leaves. And everyone knows how much Uncle loves his tea. Everyone.

"I don't get it!" Zuko paces around his uncle's chambers, wringing his hands. He kicks the folded corner of the rug over so that it's back to the way it's supposed to be. "You've never done anything to them! And it's not like they're suddenly turning against us, because they're still perfectly normal to me. Why would they—" he gestures uselessly. "—do something like this?"

Uncle sips his scalded tea with utmost serenity. Like always, he waits for Zuko's breathing to even out before he speaks.

"There is a simple explanation for this," he says calmly, lowering his cup. "Please, Nephew. Join me."

He nods at the cushion lying directly across from him. Zuko closes his eyes, forces himself to breathe in, and plops down onto his seat.

For a few long moments, Uncle doesn't speak. He merely sips at his tea and watches Zuko with a shrewd look on his face.

"I believe," he finally says, "that they are under the impression that I plan to depose you."

Zuko's sitting on the floor. He manages to fall over anyways.

"What?"  he squawks. "I—why would they—"

"It is well-known that Ozai 'stole' the throne from me." Uncle raises a brow. "Tell me, Nephew: if you were new to the palace, and the Fire Lord's uncle came to visit—an uncle whose rightful title had been taken by his brother—would you not grow suspicious if the Fire Lord began agreeing with everything he said?"

"But—!" Zuko throws up his hands. "I'm only agreeing because they're good ideas! I would've agreed if anyone else had said them!"

"I have no doubts you would," Uncle soothes, "but you cannot deny that it looks suspicious."

Zuko huffs. "Well, that's their problem. If they think you're going to—to kill me, or something—"

Uncle goes very, very pale very, very quickly. Zuko's words die in his throat.

"Nephew," Uncle says shakily, his cup rattling in his hand, "please, never say that again."

"I—" Zuko stares at him. There's a kind of desperation in his eyes, unlike anything Zuko's ever seen. 

"Please,"  Uncle pleads. "Please, Nephew, promise me."

"Okay," Zuko says, his mouth feeling drier than the Si Wong desert. "Okay."

TWO DAYS AGO

"Oh, dear," Uncle says, frowning at his letter.

Zuko looks up sharply, halfway through jotting down his signature. "What? What is it? Is the tea shop okay?"

Uncle waves him off. "Yes, everything's fine. I simply remembered that I made us a pot of tea."

Zuko glances around his office. There are several stacks of paper, a half-eaten plate of mochi, and ink stains all over his desk, but there are definitely no pots of tea. "...Okay?"

Uncle shakes his head, smiling benevolently. "I'm afraid I left it in the kitchens. Should I go fetch it?"

He's bustling out of the door before Zuko can so much as nod. Zuko shakes his head, smiling to himself, and goes back to his paperwork.

He hears Uncle before he sees him, the low murmur of his voice coming in through the door. No doubt he's talking to the guards about the tea, and how long it has to be steeped, and how hot the water has to be, and all the other things that Zuko never bothered to learn. The guards, of course, reply with nothing but stony silence.

Uncle comes back a few minutes later, holding a simple clay teapot above his head.

"It's still warm!" he says triumphantly.

"Uncle, we're firebenders. We can just reheat it."

"Yes, but the tea never tastes as good as it does on the first try," Uncle says genially, pouring them both a cup. "Come, taste. It's a new blend from the tea shop."

Zuko takes his cup and sips it. It's strangely bitter, but not bad; he shrugs and drinks some more. It leaves a pleasant burn in his sternum, not unlike when he eats something too spicy. Uncle finishes pouring his own cup and inhales deeply before drinking, like he always does; for someone who loves drinking tea, he takes a surprisingly long time to actually get to the drinking part.

When Uncle drinks his tea, Zuko's prepared for a long ramble about what, exactly, went into making it. He's prepared for a spiel about the tea shop, and probably some gossip about the regulars who frequent it, and he's prepared for Uncle to distract him from his paperwork completely.

What he isn't prepared for is Uncle's eyes going wide. He's not prepared for Uncle to immediately spit out the tiny sip he'd taken.

"Spit it out, Zuko!" he yells, snatching the cup from Zuko's grip. "Spit it out, quickly!"

"I can't," Zuko says blankly, watching as Uncle goes deathly pale. "I already swallowed it."

Uncle dashes to the door and wrenches it open. "Get the healer, now!" he shouts at the guards. "The Fire Lord's been poisoned!"

The words take a moment to sink in. Zuko staggers back, one hand immediately flying to his throat. 

The burning in his sternum is no longer pleasant. It spreads and twists and hurts.

"Zuko? Zuko!" 

He's...on the floor. He knows he's on the floor, because Uncle is kneeling over him, and he's too short to do that unless Zuko's lying down. 

Poison. The word rings in his ears, mingling with the voice of Healer Jinan: if you ever eat anything rotten or poisoned, spit it out immediately.

Well. It's a little late for that.

Distantly, he's aware of a pounding, drumming sound. It might be his head, or it might be the guards' footsteps, or it might be Uncle's heartbeat. 

Shaking hands come up to wrap around his arms, maneuvering him into what he vaguely recognises as the recovery position. "Good, Zuko, good," Uncle says, his voice broken. "You're doing so well."

Zuko curls his fingers around one of Uncle's wrists. Despite the burning in his chest, this feels nice—like when he was little and he'd plop down with his head in Uncle's lap. 

He closes his eyes. The last thing he hears is the sound of the door crashing open, and the healer's voice barking out orders he doesn't understand.

Zuko wakes up with a desperate need for water.

"Holy shit," he rasps to himself. He props himself upright; he's lying shirtless in his chambers, the sun is high in the sky, and he's completely alone. His throat is horribly dry, his head is pounding, and his chest aches like someone's thrown a log at him and hit him straight in the ribs.

He swings his feet out of bed and sits like that for a moment, breathing slow and even in an attempt to quell the churning in his stomach. When he's eighty-percent sure that he won't throw up, he pushes himself to his feet and shuffles over to the door.

He opens it, and the guards standing outside jump in surprise. "Can someone tell me what the hell happened?"

"Majesty!" stammers the guard on the right. "You're awake!"

"I should hope so," Zuko says, abandoning all formality. He feels like shit. "What happened?"

"You, ah—you were poisoned, sir," the guard says, glancing at his partner. She nods. 

"I'll get the healer," she tells them both, and hurries off down the hallway. The remaining guard turns back to Zuko. 

"There was mulwort berry extract in your tea, sir," he says, which makes a grand total of zero sense to Zuko. "It's an Earth Kingdom poison. Mulwort berry is a very common plant in Ba Sing Se." He glances up at Zuko, like this means something.

"Okay?" Zuko gives him a questioning look. "So I was poisoned. Then what?"

"Well, sir, you managed to get it out before it could kill you—very quick thinking, by the way," the guard adds quickly. Zuko's pretty sure he knows his name—Kinzu? Kozu?—but his head hurts too much to call him anything but 'the guard'. "Healer Jinan was able to stabilise you. You've been unconscious for two days."

"Two days?"  Zuko stares at Kinzu/Kozu in shock. Agni, he's missed a council meeting. He'll have so much paperwork to catch up on. "I—okay. Okay. Did you manage to catch the assassin?"

Kinzu/Kozu looks distinctly uncomfortable, rubbing the back of his neck. "Um—"

"Your Majesty!"

Zuko flinches. Healer Jinan is a formidable woman, and his childhood intimidation of her hasn't changed a bit.

He turns to see her marching down the hallway, her face dark as a thundercloud. He gulps. Kinzu/Kozu takes a step back.

Healer Jinan comes to a stop in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest. She jabs a finger at the door. "You need to rest, majesty. No standing, no walking, and definitely no talking with the guards." She sends an icy glare at Kinzu/Kozu, who curls in on himself like a tigerdillo.

She chivvies Zuko into his chambers, pushing him down until he sits on the edge of the bed. Then she starts unpacking: a jug of water here, an empty bowl there, a series of powders and liquids that Zuko doesn't even want to think about. She pokes and prods and yanks open his jaw so she can peer down his throat, and by the time she's done Zuko feels like he's just been put under the scrutiny of Agni himself. 

She steps back and clicks her tongue. "Lots of water, lots of rest. If you start feeling a pain around here—" she presses on his sternum. "—then you call for me immediately, you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he says automatically, the words having been drilled into him since he was a child. Jinan smiles faintly. 

"Good," she says, packing her bag. "You're well enough to walk around your chambers, but that's it. No walks around the garden, or sneaking out at night, or anything."  She gives him a sharp look. "I will be relaying this to your guards."

"Yes, ma'am."

She slings her bag over her shoulder. "Of course, there is an exception. If you want to apprehend the traitor, then you have my permission to travel to the cells. But before you do so, you must inform me."

The pit of Zuko's stomach seems to have disappeared. "I...what do you mean, traitor?"

Jinan's mouth falls open. She stares at him for a solid ten seconds.

"You don't know?" she asks, finally. He shakes his head.

Jinan sucks in a breath. "Ah. Well, young majesty..." she shakes her head sadly. "I'm afraid your uncle is a traitor. He was the assassin. Fear not—he's been arrested and thrown in the cells." 

She slips out, and the door clicks shut behind her.

Zuko sinks to his knees.

"Is it true?" he asks Kinzu (yes, Kinzu, that's his name) the moment he's sure Jinan is gone. "Is—did they arrest my uncle?"

Kinzu coughs, shifting on his feet. "Yes, majesty. The guards outside your office door say that he told them himself that he made the tea. They arrested him the same time Healer Jinan arrived."

"Would you like to see him, your majesty?" the other guard offers. He's pretty sure her name is Hina. "I'm sure Healer Jinan's not too far away. We could inform her and go down to the cells."

Zuko's head is spinning. "I—no, thank you. I think...I think I need to lie down."

"Of course, majesty." 

He doesn't even remember to close the door as he turns around and walks back inside. Hina has to close it for him.

He tells Kinzu and Hina that he wants to visit his uncle that night, at sunset. Kinzu runs off to tell Jinan. Hina stays to guard the door. Zuko retreats inside his chambers to pretend that he's not about to cry.

He knows Uncle didn't do it. The pure panic on his face as he realised the tea was poisoned—no one could fake that. Not even Azula. Besides, Uncle had said he'd left the tea in the kitchens. Anyone could've tampered with it then.

Spirits, he wishes his friends were here. But Toph's setting up her academy, and Sokka and Katara are at the South Pole, and by now Aang and Katara are practically attached at the hip. So he's alone again, dealing with treason that isn't really treason.

There's a knock at the door. "Majesty? Are you ready to leave?"

Zuko steels himself. "Yes," he calls back. "I am."

Agni, there are so many guards.

"The last time he was locked up, he broke out," the Captain of the Guard explains as he leads Zuko further into the cells. "You remember that, majesty, don't you?"

Zuko resists the urge to shudder. Yes, he remembers it—all too well. It had been equal parts relieving and terrifying, when he turned the corner to see Uncle's cell empty; relief, because Uncle had escaped, but terror, because now he had no idea where he would go.

"He broke out on the day of the eclipse, when all the firebenders lost their bending," Zuko says. "Do you really think it's necessary for there to be this many guards?"

"One can never take too many chances, majesty," the Captain says, turning the corner. "Here we are."

Zuko swallows. They're standing in front of a metal door that's entirely too similar to the one on Ozai's cell. The Captain pulls out a key and unlocks it. 

The door groans open.

NOW

Zuko can do nothing but stare.

"Should we begin arranging his trial, majesty?" the Captain of the Guard asks. 

"I—no. No, don't do that." Zuko feels like he's watching from somewhere outside his own body. His voice speaks of its own accord.

"But it's treason, sir," the Captain says hesitantly. "He tried to kill you."

Zuko wants to answer. He wants to tell the Captain, no, you're wrong, but he finds that he can't tear his eyes away from the man in the prison cell.

General Iroh, Dragon of the West, looks back up at him.

"I'm sorry, Nephew," he says, and Zuko's whole world shatters.

This is completely, entirely wrong. Uncle looks like Ozai, sitting with his legs crossed behind a wall of iron bars. 

"Captain, please leave us," Zuko says, his eyes fixed on Uncle. The Captain stiffens.

"Majesty—"

"Please."

The Captain exhales and backs away slowly, eyeing Uncle like a feral animal. "As you wish, Majesty. If anything happens, my guards and I are right outside the door."

"Thank you, Captain." Zuko waits until the door grinds shut before lurching forward like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He grabs the bars and leans in close, wanting more than anything to melt the cell into iron goo.

"Uncle, I'm so sorry," he breathes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, my nephew," Uncle breaks in, smiling faintly. "No one is in the wrong here. Your guards thought they were protecting you. It is a simple case of misunderstanding."

"Uncle, they think you're a traitor," Zuko hisses through the bars. "No one believes me when I say you're innocent. They all think you've—you've—"

"Brainwashed you?" Uncle suggests, and Zuko buries his face in his hands.

"This is a disaster," he says, his voice muffled. "Agni above, this is such a fucking disaster."

Uncle reaches out through the bars to pat his knee. "Now, now, Nephew. At worst, I will simply be stuck in here indefinitely. They cannot execute me without your approval."

"I can—I can order them to let you out—"

"No," Uncle says firmly. "If they believe I have corrupted you, then releasing me will only make it worse. Do not forget what Ozai has done to your people, Zuko. Their faith in you is still feeble, and if rumours of corruption get out now then they will never trust you again."

Zuko rests his forehead against the bars. This feels all too similar to the time Uncle spent as Ozai's prisoner.

"Cheer up, Nephew," Uncle says gently. "This is a good thing."

"How?" he demands. "How could this possibly be a good thing?"

Uncle smiles. "Those in your care are fiercely protective of you," he says, his eyes lifting to the door, where they can see the silhouettes of the guards. "The moment I was perceived as a threat, they began trying to chase me out. It is a good thing when your people are on your side, Zuko; it means you are doing your duty to them, and they are repaying you the best way they can."

Whatever reply Zuko had curls up in his throat. There's a sudden, inexplicable rush of fondness for his guards, and his staff, and for everyone who did what they did just to protect him. Not that he'd needed any protecting, but...it's nice to know that, even though his friends aren't here, he's not completely alone.

"I'll find the real assassin," he promises, standing up. "I'll prove that you're innocent, Uncle, I swear."

Zuko doesn't find out about the palace lockdown until the next morning.

He walks out of his chambers and does a double-take when he sees Kinzu and Hina. "You two are still here?"

The two guards exchange a baffled look. "Of course, majesty," Hina says slowly. "Where else would we be?"

"Um. Home?" Zuko knows for a fact that the guards don't sleep in the palace. For Kinzu and Hina to guard him for a day and a night is frankly a little bit scary.

"Oh,"  Hina says, exchanging another look with Kinzu. "Majesty, the palace has been on lockdown since you were poisoned. The Captain fears that your uncle may have had accomplices."

"No one's come in or out for the last three days," Kinzu adds. 

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Zuko was prepared to have to track down the assassin through obscure traces left in the kitchen, or on the teapot, or something. But if the palace has been on lockdown...

Then that means the assassin is still in the palace.

It's surprisingly easy to narrow down a list of suspects. The fact that he has a lot more free time now—no council meetings, healer's orders—means that he can spend that time trying to figure out who in this palace wants him dead. It also helps that, whoever the assassin is, they can't strike again; since most of the palace thinks that Uncle was working alone, another assassination attempt would be the equivalent of waving a banner that reads: THERE'S ANOTHER ASSASSIN IN THE PALACE, START LOOKING!

It's someone from the kitchen staff, of course, because they're the only ones who can go down to the kitchens without raising some kind of fuss. Even the guards don't go down there. Under the guise of searching for Uncle's 'accomplice', Zuko asks the Head Chef if she's hired any new cooks lately.

No new cooks, she says, but she's recently hired ten more servers. She hands over their files willingly, and Zuko heads up to his room to do some detective work.

(Take that, Sokka. Now who's the detective of the group?)

Kinzu had said that the poison was from the Earth Kingdom. For once, the war's actually done him a favour—outside of combat, the Fire Nation's been embarrassingly isolated from the other nations for the past hundred years, which means that no full-blooded Fire Nation citizen would know about an Earth Kingdom poison. So what he's looking for is someone born in the colonies, or someone who's immigrated from the Earth Kingdom.

There are three new servers who fit that description: Chen, Lin and Bao, all of whom come from the colonies. It's Lin that catches Zuko's eye, though; while the other two are full-blooded Fire Nation, Lin was born to a Fire Nation mother and an Earth Kingdom father. 

(Note to self, Zuko thinks: ask why it's mandatory for servers to register their parents' ethnicities. Like, that's weird.)

If Lin's father is Earth Kingdom, then that makes it much more plausible that she would have knowledge of an Earth Kingdom poison. It also gives her a motive for killing him—the colony she comes from is one that Zuko recognises. When he'd first started recalling Fire Nation citizens from the colonies, Lin's one had put up a fight: the Fire Naton citizens had actually settled there, some marrying Earth Kingdom citizens—like Lin's mother.

So. He has a suspect, a motive, and way too much free time. If he's going to do this detective thing, he's going to do it right.

(In other words, Zuko decides to question the kitchen staff.)

No one is able to provide Lin with an alibi in the half hour before Zuko's poisoning. Lin herself is nowhere to be seen.

Zuko grabs the Captain of the Guard and tells him his suspicions. The Captain nods along, his face growing more serious by the minute, and agrees that this is very, very suspicious. They plan to gather the kitchen staff together the next morning. Lin can't miss a summons of the entire staff; it would make her stand out too much.

Zuko goes to sleep that night praying that it's Lin.

It's Lin.

When he confronts her, she doesn't even try to deny it. She throws a teapot at his head and makes a mad dash for the window.

Turns out, a ladle to the head is a very effective way to take someone down. Especially if the person wielding the ladle is a fifty-three-year-old woman otherwise known as the Head Chef.

"Good riddance," she mutters, hauling a dizzy-looking Lin over to the Captain of the Guard. "I thought there was something up with her the moment she was hired."

"You're the one who hired her," Zuko points out. She, very pointedly, ignores him.

He lets Uncle out barely an hour later, after they weasel a confession out of Lin for all the council to hear. Uncle laughs himself silly when Zuko tells him what happened. 

"I once told you," Uncle says, his eyes bright, "to never give up without a fight. And nephew, forgive me for saying this—but you fight like a rabid mongoose."

It's a compliment, in Uncle's strange proverbial way, so Zuko just laughs and hugs him and offers to brew a pot of tea. 

Uncle vehemently refuses. He says he's not keen to test whether or not Zuko's tea-making skills have improved, and Zuko's inclined to agree.

A week after Uncle's name is cleared, Sokka, Katara and Aang drop in for a visit. Hugs are exchanged, Appa is petted, and Zuko's height is viciously mocked.

"So," Sokka says, throwing an arm around Zuko's shoulders, "did we miss anything interesting?"

Zuko glances sideways at Uncle, who's trying not to laugh. 

"No," he says, his face completely neutral. "You didn't miss a thing."

Chapter Text

It's funny, Zuko thinks, how a single letter can ruin your whole day.

In this case, the letter is a piece of unassuming yellow paper, with the words To Fire Lord Zuko written on it in a neat, formal script. It looks like something a noble would write, except it's not tied with silk ribbon or sealed with wax—it's tied with simple brown twine. And the hawk definitely isn't Fire Nation; it's a mottled brown-and-black, with darker eyes than the hawks Zuko's used to.

He opens the letter and immediately chokes.

Dude.

Did you fuck a dragon?

xoxo your favourite bounty hunter

p.s when you send a reply, send it to the blue moon inn in Garsai. It's where I'll be staying for the next few weeks.

What. The fuck.

How—?

He glances down at the baby dragon snoozing in his lap. Out of all the unexpected things that have happened to him, and there have been a lot, Druk might be the most unexpected. Zuko kind of wishes he could go back and tell thirteen-year-old Zuko that, in twelve years' time, he'd be Fire Lord with a baby dragon at his side, because apparently the baby dragon had imprinted on him when he grabbed its egg by mistake.

That...is what happened, right? Like, Druk's just imprinted? He's not Zuko's biological kid?

Oh, spirits, now Zuko's starting to doubt himself. He didn't sleep with Ran and Shaw, did he? That whole day is kind of a blur. Do dragons have the power to hypnotise people? Do they have the power to erase certain memories?

"Hey." Aang nudges him in the side, startling him out of his unwanted reverie. "Are you okay? Was the letter bad?"

Oh, right. He's at a dinner. With his friends. 'Friends' includes Aang, who was at the temple with him and knows what happened.

"Aang," he says, mentally steeling himself for the onslaught of teasing, "you know that day, when we went to visit the dragons? I didn't, um. I didn't fuck them, did I?"

All conversation dies, immediately.

Aang stares at him, his eyes so wide Zuko can see a full ring of white around the grey pupil. "What."

Zuko closes his eyes. "Please tell me I didn't sleep with one of the dragons. Or both of them. I don't know how dragons work."

"I—why would you—?!"

"So I didn't do it, right?"

"No!"

"Oh, thank Agni." He lets his head fall forward into his hands.

"Dude," Sokka says, "you've got issues."

"Zuko fucked a dragon?" Toph asks, sounding entirely too gleeful about it, that little shit. "Is that why he has Druk?"

"I didn't fuck a dragon," Zuko snaps. "I think we've just established that."

"You shouldn't have to establish that!" Katara looks more than a little disturbed. "Why would you even think you did it in the first place?"

Zuko waves June's letter. "It's from June. She asked me if I fucked a dragon."

Toph snatches it out of his hands. "What's it say?" Sokka asks, leaning over the table.

"How many times do I have to say it, Snoozles? I'm blind."

"Oh, right." Sokka takes the scroll from her and clears his throat.

"The letter says, 'Dude, did you fuck a dragon'," he declares. "And...that's it." He looks at Zuko. "That's it? That's all it took for you to start wondering if you fucked a dragon?"

"I don't know!" Zuko defends. "Maybe I did fuck a dragon and I just don't remember it!"

"How do you not remember fucking a dragon?"

"Dragons have been almost extinct for a hundred years, Sokka. For all we know, dragons have the ability to erase memories."

"I think we're all ignoring the big question here," Suki pipes up. "Which is: why does June think you fucked a dragon?"

Zuko points at her, inadvertently jostling Druk. "Yes! Thank you! That's what I—"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because Druk does not like being woken up before sunrise. He makes this very, very clear, by climbing Zuko like a goddamn tree and tearing his outer robe to shreds.

"Hot," Suki says, as the tattered remains drift to the floor. "You should show off more, Zuko. You've got a sexy bod."

"Fuck you all," Zuko announces. Druk curls up on top of his head.

Toph grins and leans back in her chair. "Nah. That job's reserved for the dragons."

June,

What the fuck? No, I didn’t fuck a dragon. Why would you even think that?

He doesn't even bother signing his name. June should be able to tell who it is from the contents of the letter alone. If she can't, then that means she's been asking multiple people whether or not they slept with dragons, in which case Zuko is really, really concerned.

June's reply comes on the back of Zuko's letter, because of course she doesn't want to waste her own paper, the stingy bastard. Paper scamming is the least of Zuko's worries, though, because the letter itself is disturbing on so many levels.

Because that’s what everyones saying. They saw you bending fire at your weird fire nation festival, except your fire had more than one colour, someone said the word ‘dragon’ and. Yknow. You have a baby dragon now.

Seriously. Did you get a dragon pregnant? You’re literally ten, what the fuck, why are you fucking dragons and having their tiny dragon kids?

Okay, well, he knows what festival she's talking about: the Summer Solstice. It's tradition for the Fire Lord to give a display at the start, to show the bestowal of Agni's favour, but that tradition ended the moment Sozin started the war. Zuko's revived it, and his displays have been multicoloured every year, but he does distinctly remember answering a question about it this time around. Someone had asked where he'd learned it, and he'd said he'd gotten it after an encounter with the dragons.

And...oh, shit. Druk had turned up right after that, because he hatched on the summer solstice, which...

Yeah. Zuko can definitely see how the rumour started.

June. I actually can’t make this any clearer.

I DID NOT FUCK A DRAGON.

I learned how to firebend with colours the same way the first firebenders did: by learning from dragons. LEARNING from them, not sleeping with them. The baby dragon was an accident. I touched its egg by mistake and it imprinted on me, so now I just...have a baby dragon.

His name is Druk, by the way. He’s an asshole and I love him. You’d get along like a house on fire.

Never thought i’d get a letter from the fire lord containing the sentence ‘i did not fuck a dragon’ underlined twice, but here we are. Never thought i’d see the words ‘the baby dragon was an accident’ either, but. Here we are.

Honestly, zuko. Did no one ever tell you to use protection? That's how you avoid ‘accidents’.

June,

Whenever I hear from you, I’m reminded of why I want to slit your throat every time we talk.

the feeling is mutual.

I gotta go, wont have any paper for a while so don't expect another letter.

xoxo your least-favourite bounty hunter

There's another play about them. Or, well, about Zuko. It's being performed by an Earth Kingdom travelling troupe, and it's called—

"'The Dragon's Lover'," Suki reads aloud, as Sokka and Toph shake with silent laughter. "'A colourful re-enactment of the Fire Lord's journey to the Dragon Temple, where he—"  her voice starts breaking up with laughter. "'—where he falls in love with the Dragon Spirit, who teaches him the true meaning of fire through'—oh, spirits. Kyoshi's flying fans. I can't believe they put this on the poster."

"What does it say?' Zuko grits out. Suki's apparently joined Sokka and Toph in the 'roll-around-laughing' club, so Katara takes pity on him and picks up the scroll.

"It says—oh my. Oh, no. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Yes."

"Um." She clears her throat. "It says, 'teaches him the true meaning of fire through the'—um—'the fiery passion of their love.'"

She squeaks out the last few words like it's physically painful, dropping the scroll immediately afterwards. Toph starts positively howling.

Zuko buries his face in his hands. "Did they just say—?"

"That you learned how to firebend colours by having super intense sex with a dragon?" Sokka sniggers. "Yes. Yes they did."

Aang pats Zuko's shoulder sympathetically, but his face is redder than the setting sun. "Are you okay?"

"No," Zuko says. "I am very much not."

This is, quite literally, Zuko's worst nightmare.

Okay, maybe not the worst. The worst would be Ozai getting his bending back, escaping, and laying fiery waste to everything Zuko loves—

He's gonna stop right there.

The point is this: Zuko is having a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. And his day only started a few hours ago.

Druk had flat-out refused to let go of him when he woke up, so Zuko's sitting in his council meeting, twenty-five years old and trying desperately to act like he's paying attention to his ministers. To be fair, his ministers are also trying desperately to act like they're paying attention to the other ministers, because Druk is a tiny hellbeast who is, apparently, intent on making Zuko's head his new nest.

Everything's going pretty badly. But Zuko's had bad days before. He can handle this.

At least, until Minister Rinzuk clears his throat. "Majesty, if I could suggest passing your son onto someone else...?"

"He won't let go," Zuko says tiredly, before the words fully register. "Wait. My son?"

Minister Rinzuk stares at him blankly. "Yes, majesty." He gestures at Druk. "Your son."

Agni above. He cannot handle this.

He refuses to make a public statement saying that Druk isn't his son, because that would imply that the rumour exists. As far as he's concerned, the rumour doesn't exist. Nope, definitely not, what rumour? Dragons? What are those?

It may be possible that Zuko's having a breakdown.

The rumour doesn't actually die. It just...gets buried. Under other rumours. Other rumours that are objectively worse.

(Like, for instance, the rumour that Zuko and the Blue Spirit were having a torrid love affair. That one was bad.)

The fact that Druk seems to be completely, one-hundred-percent dragon seems to help. He doesn't have suspiciously human eyes. He doesn't speak a human language. He's authentic dragon, the real deal, no human at all.

In fact, Zuko actually forgets about the dragon rumour. That is, until one day, two years later, when he's trying to get Druk to stretch out all the way so he can measure how long he's gotten. The rest of Team Avatar are watching him and being no help at all.

"You're terrible at this," Katara notes, as Zuko tries and fails to get Druk to shift his leg.

"Very much," Suki adds. "Complete failure."

"Well, excuse me if I have some trouble getting him to do things," Zuko grumbles. "Being a single father isn't easy, you know."

And just like that, everyone freezes.

"Oh my flapping penguin-otters," Sokka says, and Zuko can hear his grin. "Did you just call yourself—"

"No."

"You did!" 

"No."

"You should take legal action," Toph suggests. "Sue Ran and Shaw for being shitty parents. Or did you only fuck one of them?"

"I fucked none of them,"  Zuko says vehemently. "Druk, what did I say about eating my clothes?"

"Don't be mean to him, Zuko," Aang scolds, as Druk lowers his head and gives them the puppy-goat-dog eyes. Zuko huffs.

"Yeah, Zuko," Toph says smugly. "That's animal abuse."

"This? Right here?" Zuko points at her violently. "This is me abuse. This is Fire Lord abuse. Do none of you care about my mental wellbeing?"

"No," comes the chorus of synchronised voices, and Zuko sighs. 

He can never win.