Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2021-09-08
Words:
1,012
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
33
Kudos:
1,473
Bookmarks:
175
Hits:
8,004

trade-off

Summary:

in which azula and zuko trade names and pronouns when they are very young and ozai never actually notices.

Notes:

i did no research about anything. literally my only credentials are that i too am a queer.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

zuko doesn't realize until the question of succession comes up a few years after his coronation but it turns out almost everyone has forgotten.

*

ozai and ursa have a son named zuko and a daughter named azula.

if anyone asked ozai the first few years which came first there was a very real chance he'd get it wrong.

*

when they are four and six zuko and azula decide to trade names.

they practice for a bit, getting used to it, learning to react to the right name. then they go tell mom.

*

(technically, ursa commits treason for the first time when her children are six and eight. it took her a while to get the forgeries right so their birth records will show the correct name and gender for each child. she burns the originals and pours the ashes into the pond. it's a celebration even if shes the only one attending.)

*

(lu ten calls them by the wrong names once. zuko, six and already scared, cries. azula, four and not yet provably a bender, sets his pants on fire. he does not repeat his mistake.)

*

(iroh, rarely home these days, invites ursa to have tea and talks about soldiers hes met and old folk tales and proverbs, and ursa leaves knowing he understands and will never mention it.)

*

zuko bleeds for the first time when he's thirteen and relearning how to see and hear after the bandages come off. he panics a bit, not because he doesn't know whats happening but because he's alone on a ship in the middle of the ocean with his uncle and a bunch of disgraced soldiers and no one knows he's the sort of boy who bleeds.

uncle iroh brings him supplies without asking or saying anything. after that first time zuko never has to worry about it.

*

(neither of them realize it at the time but this is the moment that cements zukos trust in iroh.)

*

when zuko is sixteen and traveling through the earth kingdom, completely alone for the first time in his life, he stops bleeding for a while.

in ba sing se the bleeding comes back, accompanied by worse cramps and more intense mood swings. uncle starts making some kind of special tea for a fee days every month which relieves the pain, and after a while the mood swings go back to normal levels too.

*

on ember island zuko and azula argue and zuko realizes for the first time that their father doesn't know. the relief is overwhelming.

*

(the relief is not the straw that cements his decision to leave, to commit treason. but it certainly helped.)

*

(on ember island zuko and azula argue and azula realizes their father doesn't know. it's terrifying.)

*

zuko never quite gets around to telling the gaang. he assumes toph probably knows and treats it as she treats every other aspect of peoples appearances; irrelevant.

katara figures it out when she heals him after azula nearly kills him on the day of the comet. afterwards she forbids him from rewrapping his chest but she helps him arrange his shirt to disguise the shape of it.

*

zuko is nineteen the first time he actually has to sit someone down and explain it.

sokka, apparently realizing this is a serious conversation zuko is nervous about, sips his tea and waits.

when zuko's finished telling the story of how he and azula traded names as children sokka nods.

"you know how all the kyoshi warriors are girls?" he says, baffling zuko with the subject change. "not all of them knew they were girls from birth. and some warriors leave the kyoshi warriors when they realize they're boys." sokka pauses, staring into his tea. zuko feels kind of lightheaded.

*

(months later sokka tells him in a whisper in the dark that he's mostly a boy. but sometimes, sokka spends days at a time as a girl pretending to be a boy. zuko holds onto him and whispers, "i love you.")

*

zuko is twenty four the first time the question of succession comes up. zuko, too stunned to say anything, catches sokka's gaze and they stare at each other while other people debate how zuko might produce an heir when he's in a relationship with another man and has firmly rejected the possibility of a political marriage.

zuko pulls himself together and cuts the discussion short.

the moment he and sokka are alone their eyes meet and they promptly burst into laughter.

*

zuko is twenty six when he and sokka decide to try for a baby. given how quickly it works they both agree that it's probably a good thing both of them prefer other acts.

he doesn't bother to hide the pregnancy, although it takes quite a while before it shows through his usual outfits.

toph, katara and suki place bets on which high ranking official will comment first.

uncle congratulates them in one of his letters and promises to visit closer to the birth.

*

suki wins the bet when, at the first official function zuko attends after his daughter is born, an old general asks him, in carefully polite language, when zuko is finally going to present an heir.

zuko, sleep deprived and annoyed about milk and missing his baby, says, "perhaps you should visit an optometrist if you really didn't notice i was pregnant."

well, he thinks later, thats certainly one way to go public.

*

(for a very short while there is a rumor that zuko's gender is the true reason he was banished. zuko overhears this, speaks to azula, and the next time someone mentions it in his hearing he says, "no. azula and i switched when i was six and ozai never even noticed."

after that the rumor dies quickly.)

*

(mostly, izumi calls her both her parents dad. when she's being crown princess she calls zuko father. sometimes sokka adds an extra bead to a braid and izumi says mom until the bead disappears into sokkas jewelry box.

this is significantly less interesting to her friends than the fact that she calls the avatar uncle.)

Notes:

now. jic it wasnt clear, zuko was born first, assigned female and named azula. azula was born two years later, assigned male and named zuko.
i considered writing more about her recovery post canon but tbh that requires more care and energy than i can currently expend and i rly only wanted to basically write a joke abt ozai just straight up not noticing that his kids switched names.