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The temple has a door that is impossible to open. 

It’s not like it’s heavy or rusted shut, it just doesn’t have a normal lock. You can’t pick this kind of lock with firebending. Zuko knows this much because he had spent literal months of his life trying to open this door. And the three other identical doors at the other Air Temples. The lock on the door has intricate bronze horns winding around three silver spirals. Enough poking around the temples lets him know that it’s the symbol of the Air Nomads: it’s on the statues and it’s on tapestries and it’s on the necklaces of skeletons.  

Of course, his uncle hadn’t wanted him to see those skeletons, but at the time he was newly-banished and could barely see anyway. He needed to check every inch of the temples before they could move on. Uncle was right, as he always was. It wasn’t just that there were skeletons, it was that too many of the skeletons were small. That was one of the many things he tried not to think about on a daily basis and failed miserably at doing so. 

He ordered Lieutenant Jee to stand guard at the impossible door while he searched the temple during the day, then at night, he sat beside it. Staking out a person he was convinced was on the other side. The Avatar had to be there because months of staking out the same doors at the other temples were futile. So it had to be that one. Otherwise, Zuko had no leads and he’d have to start with the entire world.

Three years later the prince, divorced from his nation for the second time in his life, is standing at the door again. He brushes his fingers against faint burn marks, knowing that it was not the conquerors or his ancestors that put them there, rather, it was a kid who could barely bend after his father had branded him. And he couldn’t order his uncle to burn down the doors because then he would have to admit weakness, brokenness. And if he was weak that meant his father was right. And if his father was right that meant he belonged in that hell. 

It’s only three years later, standing at the door again, that he understands how wrong his father was. 

The thing is, Zuko knows the layout of this temple better than anyone in the group, even Aang. There’s a secret stairway that leads all the way down the mountain to an underground oasis. There’s a garden for meditation that was once well kept but has been overgrown in the last century. There’s a courtyard with a mosaic floor that diagrams airbending forms if one steps in sync with the right tiles. There are giant looms for spinning bison fur into cloth, most of which were damaged in the raids. And he tries not to make it so obvious how familiar with the temple he is. He doesn’t need to give the group another reminder why he and the temple are so well acquainted. 

Zuko’s supposed to be returning to train with Aang after doing laundry, but he took the long way to visit this door again. It was a magnetic attraction. All the failed attempts at opening the identical doors didn’t dissuade him, it just convinced him that if he tried one more time, he could do it. Now he just feels ashamed for trying in the first place. 

His firebending is stronger than ever after he went to see the dragons, but he’s not going to even think about singeing another splinter on these doors. Despite that control, he can’t help but wonder what’s on the other side now that he knows it’s not the Avatar. 

“It can only be opened with airbending.” 

Zuko jumps at the sound of Aang’s voice. He’s usually pretty good about keeping track of where people are and not being spooked. It’s a habit he had to learn when he was young and he was being watched at all times. It’s a skill that became increasingly useful when he needed to break into places and steal to survive. 

Aang looks proud of the craftsmanship of the lock. It’s a testament to his people and it’s proof that, like the statue room in the Southern Air Temple, there were things the Fire Nation didn’t destroy. There were still some things that belonged to the last airbender. Zuko doesn’t want him or anyone else to take that away from him. 

“Have you ever opened it before?” Zuko regrets asking the question. Of course, he wants to know what’s inside but Aang doesn’t owe him anything and he certainly doesn’t owe him this. 

“No, but I’ve seen the one at the Southern temple. They have a statue room with all the past avatars. It’s amazing!” He walks up to the door and notices the burn marks. Zuko feels a pang of guilt and hopes Aang doesn’t say anything. Zuko doesn’t want to lie, he’s a horrible liar. 

“Are you from the Southern temple?” Zuko asks awkwardly. Aang smiles and nods. 

“I came here once for a summer retreat, this is where I designed my first glider. It was the first long-distance trip I had with Appa.” 

“That sounds nice,” responds Zuko, and he means it. 

“You’ve been here before haven’t you?” Aang asks. He thinks he should have probably expected this interrogation, but he’s thrown off his guard. 

“Yeah, a while ago. When I was, you know… looking for you and stuff.” He tries and fails to say casually. The next question Aang’s going to ask is about the burn marks, he knows it. He’s dreading it. 

But that doesn’t come. “I kind of figured, you seem to know your way around here pretty well,” Aang explains, “most people don’t know how to get to the temple without airbending but you got here fine.” 

Zuko shifts his feet around and looks at the door instead of Aang, “yeah, I guess that’s true.” He touches the back of his neck and searches for conversation to fill the silence. “My Uncle really liked the pai sho table.” 

Aang beams up at him, which wasn’t what he was expecting and doesn’t entirely know how to feel about. “Oh yeah, it’s huge! It’s the largest in the world!” Aang shows the same enthusiasm Iroh did upon his discovery three years ago. 

“Prince Zuko, you must come see this, there is a pai sho table so large it takes up an entire room.” 

“Uncle, we don’t have time to play pai sho, we need to finish searching.” 

“You have been looking around the temple all day, you need to take some time to relax. Why don’t you play a game with me?” 

“Uncle! I don’t have time for games!” 

“Maybe he can come back to see it when this is over.” 

That’s a big ‘maybe’, it all depends on if they survive, if Uncle survives, and if Uncle chooses to forgive him. A giant pai sho table is exactly what he’d want to spend his time with if they make it out of this whole mess alive and Zuko vows then and there to play with him every day if Uncle will let him. “He’d like that.” 

The conversation fizzles out and all that’s left is the locked door. 

Aang looks up at Zuko expediently, “do you want me to open it?” 

“No,” Zuko responds immediately. “You should leave it.” It’s not his place. It’s Aang’s. He knows that and the last thing he wants to do is touch one of the last sacred places he has left. 

That’s not the answer Aang was expecting, he could see how Zuko was staring at the door and could tell just how much he wanted to know what was inside. The prince of the Fire Nation just keeps surprising him, it seems. ‘ Thank you,’ is what he hopes comes across in the look he gives Zuko before they start to make their way back to the main corridor. 

--

The play was absolute garbage and no amount of special effects could mask the players’ utter lack of talent. Zuko had notes. Okay, that was putting it lightly. Zuko was on the verge of writing a lengthy essay about inaccuracies, disengaging characters, and acting quality and sending it to the playwright himself. 

It wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. He knew it was propaganda and he knew most of the sources were probably uncredible, but it was the principle of the thing. How someone could produce something like that and have the nerve to call it ‘theater’ was beyond him.

He didn’t plan to make a whole thing out of it, after all, he was pretty sure his friends didn’t want to listen to him rant about a play they had already seen and knew was bad. Zuko didn’t say anything about it or the general abysmal quality of the rest of the Ember Island Players production, that is until Sokka got him drunk enough to go on an hour-long rant about Love Amongst Dragons. 

Sokka had definitely fallen asleep in the middle of his rant but Aang, poor Aang, had listened to the whole thing completely sober. Zuko would remember being mostly articulate in his speech, but that was not exactly the case. 

Zuko woke up the morning after early as ever feeling that oh so pleasant hangover Aang had predicted. Firebending practice was still on the schedule and he’d have to get up and be functional whether he felt like it or not. Sokka was still sleeping like the dead facedown on the floor, the bastard. 

He met Aang on the beach for meditation and tried his best to look as though his head wasn’t throbbing. Had he thrown up at some point? Probably. He’d brought this on himself so he couldn’t complain. Aang was waiting for him with his version of a smug expression. It was too fucking bright and the sun was barely rising. 

Spirits, he needed some tea. 

“Good morning Sifu Hotman!” Zuko just groaned in response and assumed a sitting position, dreading the point where they’d have to get up and do some actual firebending. 

The actual firebending part sucked. Zuko hadn’t drank nearly as much water as he should have and was suffering the consequences, but in addition to the physical consequences of the events of last night, Aang was acting weird. His thoughts were obviously far from what he was doing and Zuko tried not to get pissed at him, but he was out there, hangover and all, and the least Aang could do was stay focused. 

“Okay, stop. Stop.” Aang’s spin kicks and power punches are half-hearted. He’s usually good at this and Zuko doesn’t know why he’s bending with the strength of a firefly. 

Aang stops in the middle of the form and knows he’s about to get a Zuko-style lecture. They weren’t as harsh or frequent as the Toph-style lectures, but that didn’t mean they were fun. All the rigid discipline that was imprinted onto Zuko during his own childhood training was projected in sarcastic questions and death glares. Again, not frequent, but they definitely stuck. 

In reality, Zuko doesn’t have the energy to give Aang a full lecture because he knows that Aang knows what he’s doing wrong. “What are you doing?” 

“General form twelve?” Aang gives a nervous grin and is met with a deadpan expression that negates the need for any detailed critique. “I’ll just… I’ll just try again.” 

He repeats the form a couple more times but it’s obvious his head’s not in it. Zuko eventually orders him to take a break and retrieves some water, chugging what he hopes is enough to alleviate his problem. 

Once he’s hydrated enough, Zuko starts on the lecture Aang was anticipating. “You aren’t focused, you’re thinking about something else. Fire is dangerous, you know that. If you’re not paying attention someone’s going to get hurt.” 

“I know, I know.” Aang’s heard this lecture in one form or another before and sighs. “Zuko, can I ask your advice on something?” 

“You should be practicing your basic forms more, that’s my advice.” 

“No it’s… it’s about Katara.” Aang proceeded with apprehension. 

“What about her?” Zuko took the opportunity to lay down on a boulder and drape his arm over his eyes to block the sunlight. 

“I messed up last night, I-” Aang bites the inside of his mouth before proceeding, “I told her some things and I did something and….it didn’t go how I thought it would.” 

“That’s really specific, Aang.” Zuko responded sarcastically, enjoying the warmth of the boulder and ignoring the crisis Aang was visibly having. 

“I kissed her and she didn’t want me to.” Aang blurts out, the events of last night having played over and over in his mind. At that Zuko lifts his arm off his face and shoots Aang a perplexed stare. Aang just waits to hear what the older boy has to say. 

“That, um, sucks?” Is what Zuko decides is the most appropriate response. 

“I don’t know what to do, I mean, we’ve kissed before and I thought she felt the same way but…” Aang trails off and messes with his shirt so his hands have something to do. “I don’t know what to do.” 

At that, Zuko realized with horror that Aang was asking him for dating advice. Agni above, he didn’t know what to tell the kid. “Couldn’t you, I don’t know, ask Sokka about this?” ‘ You know, the guy who actually has a girlfriend’ is what he thinks, wishing Aang had prompted him about literally anything else. 

“Yeah, I’ll just ask Katara’s brother. That’s a great idea.” Okay, point taken.

“I don’t know what to tell you!” Zuko had gotten his fair share of (unwanted) dating advice from Iroh and if he was being honest, had repressed most of it. One of the conclusions Zuko had come to after his travels in the Earth Kingdom was that there should be a legal cut off age for flirting from the sheer number of times he had wanted to gouge his eyes out watching Iroh try to charm any and every older woman they met. Every dating situation he’d been in had just kind of happened without requiring much effort. “Maybe you should just talk about it with her?” 

“I tried that but she’s avoiding me and I messed everything up!” Aang groans and falls back on the sand. 

This is one of those times Zuko desperately wishes Uncle was here. The man is a veteran in dealing with dramatic pre-teens. And there’s still just enough of his hangover left for Zuko to feel like he shouldn’t be dealing with whatever this is. 

“Sometimes relationships are like…” Zuko looks around the setting as if an answer to this dilemma is going to pop out of the bushes. “palm trees?” 

Aang looks at him with too much expectation. “Okay?” 

“Yeah so… there’s a trunk and it’s… tall? But then you have to climb it and there’s coconuts?” He felt like the world’s biggest idiot. “You have to work for it and sometimes you fall when you climb it and that’s what relationships are?” 

Aang blinked repeatedly with his mouth hanging open, then started laughing uncontrollably.  “I guess proverbs don’t run in the family.” 

Zuko shot him a death glare. “Hotsquats. Now.” 

--

The others mean well, they really do, and Aang knows it. But they don’t understand. They don’t have an assigned target. No one’s going to fault them if they don’t get blood on their hands. And it’s so easy for them to assume that it’s an easy choice. 

And he didn’t ask for this. He never asked for any of this and he wishes nothing more than to be twelve a hundred years ago instead of twelve now. It’s homesickness, but the home is Monk Gyatso, his friends from the temple, skies full of bison, Bumi young and free instead of old and imprisoned, and Kuzon —and he doesn’t even know what happened to Kuzon and he probably never will— and him exploring a Fire Nation people don’t fear. 

He’s tired. He thinks he’s too young to be this tired, and then he remembers that he’s actually not. The comet is imminent and he had a hundred years to do something, but now he’s cutting it too close and everything is at risk. 

There’s an alternate universe where he wasn’t this late. Where he was there to protect the Southern waterbenders from captivity. In this timeline, Katara and Sokka’s mother is still alive. There’s an alternate universe where the Avatar had years of training instead of months and little kids didn’t have to watch their homes and families burn before their eyes. This is the timeline where dozens of war orphans aren’t forced to live in the forest and a boy isn’t driven mad with a need for revenge. There’s a universe where a princess doesn’t have to sacrifice her life for the moon. There’s a universe where refugees don’t flood the Earth Kingdom capital. There’s a universe where the Firelord’s son isn’t plotting the demise of his own father. There’s a universe where the last of the Air Nomads isn’t confined to him and his memories. 

But Aang doesn’t live in that universe. And the comet is almost here. 

And now he has to kill a man because he was too late. 

Aang sits on the deck, technically the Firelord’s deck. It’s a slap in the face and the others might be enjoying taking advantage of the vacation house after all the Firelord has taken from them, but again, the enemy their fighting will be anonymous. It’s beyond uncomfortable sitting in the house of a man he’s expected to kill in a few days’ time. But this is where they are. This is where it’s safe. 

So after he storms out during dinner, when they show him the Firelord’s baby picture for spirit’s sake, and still don’t get it, he doesn’t return to the house. He’ll sleep on the deck tonight. 

It must be nearly midnight and Aang still can’t sleep, but he wants to. He wants to sleep for a hundred more years and wake up in a world where he’s not expected to save it. But this is the last opportunity for him to save everyone and he already had a hundred years. He lays on his stomach and watches the tides wash in and out under the night sky. 

A cup of tea is placed next to his head so silently that he doesn’t register it’s appearance until he feels the steam. Zuko sits next to him, holding his own cup. Aang doesn’t move or acknowledge his presence. 

Zuko lets Aang give him the silent treatment. He finishes his tea and they sit until it’s necessary for him to firebend Aang’s untouched cup to its original heat. Aang’s sulking —no not sulking, but Zuko can’t think of another way to put it— reminds him of himself at thirteen. In the early days when he was still getting used to how cold a shaved head was and at the end of every unfruitful day hunting, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into his blankets and wake up back home. Uncle would want him to come out and get to know the crew and Zuko would ignore him. He guessed that’s how he felt about Aang now was how Uncle had felt about him then. 

Because the real battle hasn’t even started and the kid already looks defeated. 

And Zuko gets it. He gets wanting nothing more than for things to be easy and wondering why the spirits and the universe seem to decide upon him as a candidate for hardship and responsibility. The horrors of an impossible task. He gets it. He’s been there. 

But he knows and Aang knows that there isn’t time to crawl into blankets wanting to disappear. There’s that damn impossible task and it has no sympathy for how undeserving, how unprepared, or how young one is. 

“You’re going to get cold out here.” Aang still isn’t meeting his eye but he does respond. 

“You taught me how to create internal heat,” he mumbles back, and damn he sounds as young as Zuko has to remind himself he is. There are moments like that where he pays attention and feels a pang in his chest with the reminder that Aang is a little kid. When he’s giggling or playing with his lemur or when his voice sounds that small. But Zuko can’t help but smile because just a couple weeks ago Aang was terrified of firebending and now he’s allowing it to keep him safe and warm. 

Zuko hopes Aang knows that he’s proud of him. He’s not good at giving or receiving praise and he knows that Katara is an encouraging enough instructor for her, Toph, and him combined, but he really hopes that Aang realizes how far he’s come in such a short amount of time. Usually, he’d be jealous. He’d think ‘I was right, he is just like Azula and it just comes easy to him,’ but doesn’t. He’s proud of Aang for being talented and just wishes he didn’t have to worry about talent not being enough. 

Because the Firelord shows no mercy and no one knows that better than Zuko. And he can’t sit by and let Aang make the same mistake he did when he was thirteen and underestimated that man. 

“Did I ever tell you why I was trying to capture you?” Zuko speaks softly. An indirect approach is the best way to make Aang understand. Those big grey eyes still aren’t looking at him. 

“You said something about your honor,” he heard. Zuko kept a steady voice. “My father banished me from the Fire Nation when I was thirteen. I disrespected him at a war meeting and couldn’t defend myself when he demanded it. I was stuck in exile until I captured the Avatar.” This was a telling of the story he had rehearsed in his head. The other parts couldn’t be said because the point of him telling it wasn’t for Aang to feel sorry for him or for him to be scared of the Firelord but to understand the kind of person his father was. 

Aang does look at him this time and Zuko expects to see confusion, he expects to see Aang ready to cry or something like that, but he doesn’t. Aang just looks like he understands. 

The truth is that he’s no longer surprised at learning about the hardship his friends have gone through and Zuko’s exile is just another add-on to the pile of ways the world has ruined people’s lives. Zuko spent three years looking for him when the world thought he was gone forever and that’s three years of Zuko’s life he’s not getting back. Aang comes back to the thought of other timelines, and in one timeline a young boy did not spend three years looking for a myth because again, he wasn’t late. And the prince might have chased them around the world and tried to capture him so many times, but Aang had seen Zuko for what he was the day they met. He was a teenager. 

So he looks up at his teacher with apologetic eyes, “that’s a long time to look for someone.” 

And three years is a long time. It was time that had been stolen from both of them. Zuko, in the form of a mission he wasn’t expected to fulfill and Aang in the form of the years of freedom he was supposed to have before he was officially the Avatar. It was technically supposed to be four years, but he would have taken three. 

Zuko grimaces and continues, “it was, and if you hadn’t shown up I would have probably spent a lot longer searching.” 

“When would you have given up?” Aang already knows the answer to the question. 

“I’m not sure I would have,” Zuko answers, “I didn’t have anything, I couldn’t go back home. All I had was this quest and as long as I had that to hang onto, as long as there was a possibility, I think I would have just kept looking.” 

Aang sits up to hugs his knees into his chest. He can’t face Zuko right now. “I’m so sorry.” Is what he chokes out. 

But Zuko knows Aang by now. He knows that he gets in this place where he convinces himself that everything is his fault and he’s failed if he doesn’t right every single wrong, even if he just can’t. Some things are out of reach and that’s just how it is. Zuko grips Aang’s shoulder and forces him to look him in the eye to see that he’s not upset and he’s certainly not upset with him. 

Because Aang is far from the person who is to blame. 

“It’s not your fault.” Zuko uses his ‘Sifu Voice’ as Aang once dubbed. 

“When Azula shot me and everyone thought I was dead, you got to go home?” Aang already knows this, but he wants to make sure. Zuko regretfully nods. 

“I thought it would be everything I ever wanted when I got back home. My father thought I had shot you instead of Azula and he welcomed me back as a hero.” Aang tried to decipher his friend’s tone as Zuko warmed up his tea for the third time and inserted it into his hands. “But it wasn’t right. I wasn’t right and I thought I had been for so long, I didn’t see my father for what he was until it was too late.” 

At what point marked “too late” Zuko didn’t know himself. Was it when Ozai decided to use Sozin’s comet to burn down the Earth Kingdom? Was it when Aang almost died? When he was banished? When mom left? He didn’t know. 

Aang was silent for a long time and Zuko couldn’t stand it but he didn’t want to push Aang. This was a delicate situation and he needed a delicate approach. 

Aang finally took a sip of the tea, looking as if he’s about to cry. Zuko will be there if he does start crying, but he has to go on and make Aang understand. 

“I know you feel like it’s wrong to end the Firelord’s life, but I need you to know that he doesn’t care. You can’t negotiate with him and you can’t plead mercy.” Aang is gripping the porcelain with white knuckles. “He doesn’t care about the people he’s hurt and he doesn’t value life. Nothing’s going to stop him from using that comet to get power. He’s going to go through with his plan, Aang, and it’s going to be bad. I need you to trust me on this.” 

He does trust Zuko on this, but he already knows this all to be true. Aang knows what’s at stake, but that doesn’t make what Zuko’s telling him he has to do any easier. Right now it’s too much. He can’t keep listening to people tell him what he needs to do and he thought Zuko, out of all of them, just might understand. Because he’s lost control: he hurt the general when he forced him into the Avatar state, he hurt the sandbenders when they took Appa, he destroyed an entire navy in the North Pole, and he hurt Katara when he first attempted firebending. The fear in people’s eyes when he goes into the Avatar state? The destruction he wakes up to? The not knowing of the full extent of the ramifications of his actions? Aang’s sick of it. And Zuko’s been destructive and terrifying before, he should know what it’s like to feel this way. But he keeps telling Aang he needs to do it. He keeps telling Aang he needs to kill his father. 

But he’s in control now and he’s going to make the right decision. 

Aang sets the teacup down and takes a demanding tone, “then why didn’t you kill him? You told me you redirected lightning at him on the day of the eclipse. Why didn’t you do it?” He knows that’s not a fair question and he wouldn’t wish this responsibility on anyone, especially not Zuko, but he’s tired of people telling him he has to go through with this impossible thing that they don’t have to think about doing themselves. 

Zuko feels that Ozai would have deserved it but knows that wouldn’t have been the right way to end the war and they both know it. It has to be the Avatar. That’s what the universe designed and it just so happens that the Avatar is a boy who didn’t ask for any of this. It’s cosmically unfair, but that’s how it is. 

But what if he had aimed at Ozai’s heart? What if he had been more precise and deadly? He’d probably be executed for assassination and treason of the highest caliber and Azula would have probably been crowned Firelord. The impossible task would still be on the table, but Aang would stand a better chance. Aang wouldn’t have to face that man. 

And Zuko doesn’t have to respond because they both already know the answer, but he does anyway. “He would have deserved it.” Aang can’t accept that. 

“I know he’s a horrible person and he’s done and will do horrible things if I don’t stop him,” he looks at Zuko, trying to find some evidence that he cares about the man and comes up short, “but he’s a human being. He’s your dad.” 

It’s a serious defense, but Zuko can’t help but laugh a little. 

“Yeah, he is my dad, and he tried to kill me. That should tell you all you need.” 

Aang doesn’t laugh. He’s exhausted and angry and nothing about this situation is funny. But he looks at Zuko and finally deciphers his apathy. The prince who used to care so much about returning home that he would go from one end of the globe to the other and back around more times than Aang would like to estimate, now cares nothing for the man who sent him away. The kid in the oversized helmet with the ridiculous ponytail telling Aang he would take his staff and gift it to his father? That kid is gone. He grew up. 

In his face, Aang can recognize bags under his eyes after sleepless nights over panic about destiny and fighting too hard for too long. He looks at the scar running all over his face, a painful reminder of something. A lesson, but he doesn’t know what Zuko had been taught. 

With his eyes widening and thoughts racing back to everything Zuko has done and said to him and for him in the last year, the realization hits him like a ton of bricks. Zuko had once taught him that a move he needed to learn was how to block fire coming towards his face. Now he realizes why. And it’s another one of those things that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been late. 

There’s still some tea left at the bottom of the cup and Aang doesn’t care enough to heat it up for the fourth time. He just drinks it cold and tells Zuko he wants to be alone now. 

--

If Zuko had been told a year earlier that seeing the Avatar alive after successfully defeating the Firelord would be one of the best sights he would see in his entire life, he would have laughed. But Aang’s alive and he didn’t have to kill Ozai to defeat him and everything actually turned out okay. 

Well, it’s not okay. There’s still a country that’s been occupied for a century and it’s not going to become free overnight. The Southern Water Tribe is still a fraction of what it once was. The once proud and cunning princess of the Fire Nation is now isolated in a hospital, crying and screaming with no idea what to do with herself now that the era of destruction she thrived in is over. But they all survived. The Earth Kingdom still stands. They don’t have to be afraid like they were before. 

Zuko’s okay. Well, he’s not okay. He can still feel the burn of electricity in his body and he can barely move without pain sparking through his torso. It’s worse than any burn he’s ever received and he was able to redirect most of it; he can’t imagine how painful it must have been for Aang who got the complete hit. There are bandages around his chest and Katara comes to help heal it every couple of hours. He can’t sleep, and not just because of the lightning, but because his sister is lost and his father is in prison and he’s going to have to step up and be Firelord in a few days’ time. 

But Aang is alive and the world is safe. They won. So he’s okay. 

Sokka, Toph, Suki, and Aang had taken Ozai to the Fire Nation capital to put him in the same cell that had held his brother a month prior, having no clue if Azula had been defeated too. They got their answer when Katara met at the rendezvous point, at first worried that Zuko wasn’t with her and the implications of his absence, but after giving the appropriate bone-crushing, thought-she’d-never-see-them-alive-again hugs, she explained what had happened. The Agni Kai, the lightning, and Zuko doing the stupid, heroic thing and jumping in front of it. But he was alive despite that. While Katara tended to Sokka’s injuries and Ozai was taken to prison, Aang made a beeline for the palace where Zuko was recovering. 

He got to the palace in the middle of the night and was led to the room where Zuko was, thankfully, sleeping. Aang had been out for weeks after Azula had shot him and he doesn’t know how exactly Zuko is doing as well as he is right now, but he’s thankful, he’s so thankful. Someone had apparently given him a sedative tea (several cups of sedative tea, actually) because he wouldn’t stop moving around and was threatening to jump on Appa to make sure everyone was okay. Aang wasn’t surprised to hear that in the slightest, not after all the times that Zuko had crawled his way through ice and fire in tracking them. He was relentless and that ended up being a good thing. After he joined them, Aang realized that was just how Zuko was. Not taking breaks and not sitting still, always doing something. Always worried. 

Sleeping and covered in bandages, Zuko didn’t look worried anymore. He was calmer than Aang had ever seen him. There was no longer a ticking clock and he could sleep for as long as he wanted. 

Aang was tired, but not exhausted. It was more like sleep was a gift he was ready to accept. So he curled up on the rug next to Zuko’s bed, Momo nuzzling into his stomach, and rested. 

He wakes up to Zuko sitting next to him on the floor petting the sleeping lemur in his lap. From the weeks of firebending training, he’d gotten used to waking up early for meditation, but he can tell by the angle of the sun hitting his face that it’s well past mid-morning. Neither of them have slept like that in months. Aang takes a minute to adjust to being awake before pouncing onto Zuko, forgetting his injuries for a moment, and hugging him so hard he can barely breathe. 

Zuko just ignores his own injuries and hugs him back because he could have lost this kid. There was a very real possibility that Aang could have died by his father’s hands. But again, Aang’s alive and they won. He learns that Aang gives really good hugs.  

The problem is that Zuko’s not officially Firelord yet and he can’t actually do anything until his coronation in about a week. Ba Sing Se had been taken by force, but for the rest of the Earth Kingdom, there are still occupying troops. There are still prisoners that need to be released and reparations that need to be made and families that need to be reunited. But Zuko isn’t Firelord yet and it’s driving him crazy. 

Zuko sees the five-day wait as being stuck in limbo, Aang sees it for what it is: an opportunity to rest. But Zuko’s relentless and never learned how to sit still, so Aang takes it upon himself to provide as many distractions as possible. 

“What is that?” Zuko asks on day two of waiting, indicating the mysterious wooden box Aang had just dropped onto his bed. 

Aang beams at him and takes out some beads and string. “We’re going to make bracelets.” 

Zuko looks as if he’s wondering if Aang had drank cactus juice before entering the room. “Oh, okay?” 

He’s been confined to his bed for as long as Iroh and Katara can make him stay put given the whole struck-by-lightning-thing, which hurts way more than Zuko will admit. He does actually need people to help him get out of bed and put his shirt on but he’s never going to ask for help and everyone knows it. All hospitality is forced upon him. What’s on his mind is not recovering from the hit or taking care of himself, but getting a head start on fixing the world. 

Which is decisively not what he has the ability to do at the moment, so he’s going to make bracelets and he’s going to like it.  

Aang takes a seat on the bed and measures out some string with his forearm and peels off his socks to tie a loop with his toe. He starts weaving the cotton strings in a semi-complicated pattern, integrating beads every fifth knot. It’s at the midpoint when he starts rummaging around the box for a centerpiece bead that he realizes Zuko has been staring at him, loose, uncut strings in hand, with no idea what to do. 

Aang blinks a couple of times before realizing, “oh, you’ve never woven bracelets before.” 

“Uh, no?” Zuko looked like he didn’t know whether or not to be embarrassed about that fact. 

Shocking Zuko, Aang undoes the progress he’s made on his own bracelet until he’s left with nothing but the loop around his toe and some loose beads. This is how Zuko taught him firebending, learning by doing and his teacher catches on to what Aang wants him to do. Zuko brings his own foot out from under the blanket and loops the strings Aang prepared for him around his toe. He knows knots, he spent three years on a ship, of course he knows knots. He thinks this will be easy. 

It’s not. Even when Aang scoots over to give Zuko a better view of his own weaving process and walks him through the steps, Zuko still sucks at this. Strings slip away from where he wants them to go. Adding beads makes it bulky in odd places. He ends up with one of the four ends phenomenally shorter than the other three and has to start over. And over, and over, and over again. 

Usually, he’d be annoyed that Aang has already made three bracelets, each with their own unique bead and weaving pattern, while he’s lost one of the strands in his weaving process again. But he’s too mature to get jealous over a twelve-year-old’s bracelet making abilities. 

On his fifth attempt, he finds that he is apparently not too mature to burn the strands to a crisp in frustration. 

“Maybe we should do something else,” Aang offers cautiously, moving his own bracelets away from Zuko. There’s no chance that Zuko’s going to let some string and beads get the better of him, though. He’s survived getting blown up by pirates, gotten the best of imperial firebenders and earthbenders, worked customer service in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, and survived getting shot at with lightning, twice. He can weave a fucking bracelet. 

“No I’ve got it this time,” he grits while fumbling with the pattern yet again. 

This goes on for the better part of three hours and Zuko doesn’t stop until he’s made five bracelets that match the quality of Aang’s. And yeah, he can’t help but smile when he sees Aang wearing his first successful attempt on his wrist and putting the one that turned out too small on Momo’s ankle. 

So it’s these distractions for a little bit. 

It’s laughing until they can’t breathe watching Momo get chased around by royal messenger hawks. It’s ordering seven kinds of fruit pies and Aang airbending them off the balcony to hit incoming admirals and generals. It’s Aang digging into Zuko’s collection of play scrolls and doing ridiculous voices for all the characters, especially for the serious tragedies. It’s Zuko showing Aang the turtle duck pond and telling him that he used to sit with his mom and feed them. Aang coming up with increasingly ludicrous names for all of them and Zuko begrudgingly stating to use them once they won’t answer to anything other than “Your Royal Turtleness” and “Shelly.” 

For a few days, limbo is the best place Zuko could hope to be. 

--

The palace has a door that Zuko won’t open. 

It leads to a room with a stage and spectator seats. There are banners all along the walls and the corners are lit with massive torches. It can and has fit hundreds. It can be used for training by princes who need a place to practice firebending in peace, away from judgemental eyes, but that’s not what it’s supposed to be used for. 

When Zuko returned to the palace in the spring, he kept noticing the door. There’s gold on the rims and red dragons mirroring each other, ready to breathe fire, ready to burn. The dragons have gold, callous eyes. When he walks past it, he swears he can hear a crowd inside, cheering for something he wants to stop thinking about; something he can’t stop thinking about. 

And it’s stupid. It’s stupid that he still cares about it after three years, is what he tells himself when he notices his body go stiff at the sight of the door. He’s sixteen and he’s moved on since then. Father has welcomed him home. He has his honor back. 

Zuko tells himself the same thing in the summer, after the end of the war and after his father is locked away. It’s stupid that the one time he passed the door on his way to greet everyone returning, he was anticipating it, scanning the walls for the red dragons and gold rims and looking for it to feel what? Relief? That couldn’t be it because his body still goes stiff and he speeds up his pace when he moves beyond its sight. 

The door is still on his mind the night of his coronation. It’s a party for the century but it’s not really about him, it’s about the end of the war. It’s everyone coming out of hiding into the light and not feeling scared for the first time in forever. Most people don’t know how to not be scared and it’s an adjustment. It’s watching everyone enjoy themselves and reuniting with the people they love and having every ounce of hope they held onto through their lives be validated that it hits Zuko, hard. 

He has no idea how to do this. He’s sixteen. He doesn’t know how to be Firelord and he’s the one who has to fix the world after his family spent a century destroying it. 

These people believe in him but they don’t know him. They don’t know that he’s the weak one, that he spent the last week in bed after getting shot or that he can’t deal with people touching his face unexpectedly or that he gets anxious over a fucking door. These people believe in him and he’s not worthy of them. 

“Nephew, are you alright?” 

Zuko zones back in and realizes he hasn’t heard a word of what anyone had been saying to him in the past five minutes. He doesn’t want to be here. There are too many people and he can’t live up to their expectations. He nods in response to Uncle’s question but decides to excuse himself from the celebration. 

The Avatar watches him speed out of the room and follows. 

The new Firelord doesn’t know he’s being watched as he stands in front of the door, breathes in and out, and pushes it open. He doesn’t catch that the door stays open long enough for Aang to slip in without him noticing. 

The room is empty and every footstep echoes. He lights one of the standing torches and waits for a hand to grab him from the darkness. He walks up on the stage and shifts his feet before kicking up to release a stream of fire. He punches the air and lets the blasts hit nothing. Before he can stop himself, he’s holding fire daggers and there’s smoke coming out of his nostrils. Swiping at thin air, Zuko lets out every ounce of anger he has left in his system. 

There’s a single spectator of this imaginary duel and he’s hiding behind one of the pillars, studying Zuko’s form and recognizing the emotion-driven chaos in the bending. There’s something wrong but Aang doesn’t know what.

Zuko doesn’t care about form and he doesn’t care about control. This room was designed to be inflammable. The walls and floors are marble, it’s only the people on stage that are supposed to burn. 

And he thinks bitterly, that he was the perfect kindling all those years ago. And he didn’t even fight back. 

But that was when he was thirteen and his firebending was nothing special, now he’s better than Azula. He taught the Avatar. He redirected Ozai’s lighting. He’s better than he used to be so he punches and kicks and lets fire fill the room. There’s only so much adrenaline in his system, though, and it’s a matter of time before he crashes. Firebending fueled by rage is much like a bomb with a short fuse. 

Zuko does crash eventually, literally. He closes his eyes and attempts a spin kick and falls right on the marble. It’s the robes that are getting in the way and he would get back up, but instead, he just sits there in the middle of the stage. He’s fighting nothing. Whatever battle he feels he is fighting, he lost a long time ago. Why he decided to go into the room in the first place, he doesn’t know. Maybe to prove that he could, maybe to spite the person that made it impossible in the first place. But it’s a bad idea. Every aspect of that day rushes back to him and even though he came in here to prove that he’s not weak and some stupid fucking room is just that, a room, it’s not. It’s not just a room and he’s not over what happened. 

Sitting down and accepting gravity as the victor, Zuko drapes his wrists over his knees and looks at the floor. He becomes acutely aware of his heartbeat. 

Then the panic sets in. And despite being crowned Firelord hours ago, he feels as weak and helpless as he did the last time he was on this stage. The marble is as cold as he remembers it. 

He tastes saltwater and realizes he’s crying. 

And fuck, he can’t cry. Zuko can’t cry about this because that means he’s weak. It means Ozai was right about him. But he is crying and he can’t stop himself and he wishes that he wasn’t stupid and impulsive and that things were different. He could have been gifted and smart but instead he was stupid and weak and cowardly. And now he’s Firelord, but he doesn’t deserve it and he doesn’t know what to do. What he should be doing is playing his role at his own coronation party, showing people that he can be functional, but instead he’s crying uncontrollably. This is panic mode and he doesn’t understand why. The room is empty. His father can’t bend anymore. He’s safe. There’s no reason for him to be on the verge of hyperventilating and covering his ears at the sound of nothing. There’s no reason for him to cry harder when he rubs the damaged flesh of his left ear between his fingers. 

It takes him a minute to realize that he’s not alone on the stage when he sees Aang tentatively climbing up the stairs at the end. The panic shifts to something different. Because he thought he was alone and this was private but now Aang is here. And worse, or maybe better, Aang comes running up and kneels in front of him, taking in the unexpected scene. He wants to say ‘ Aang, it’s nothing. Just go back to the party.’ But he can’t talk. 

And he keeps crying because as much as he wants to stop, his body won’t let him. He doesn’t want Aang to see him like this. 

But there’s no judgment from Aang. He reaches up to Zuko’s shoulder and wraps his arms around him and waits for the pressure he’s using to dissuade how much Zuko is shaking. In reality, he doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t expect to find this when he followed Zuko because he’s just never been like this. Dramatic? Yes. Angry? Yes. Uncontrollably sobbing? Never. He functioned as a voice of reason and said all the unpleasant truths they’d avoid, but he never showed that it got to him. So Aang doesn’t know what to do but he’s going to try his best. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry.” Zuko forces out. Aang shouldn’t have to see him like this. He’s a mess and Aang shouldn’t have to deal with it. After everything Aang’s been though, he shouldn’t be taking up space like he is with whatever he’s going through right now. “You s-shouldn’t… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

And he doesn’t understand it, but Aang’s not judging him in the slightest. All Aang wants is for Zuko to be okay because that’s what he deserves. 

“Zuko, it’s okay, you have to let yourself feel this.” That’s easy to say, but in practice, it’s hard because he’s never let himself cry about it like this before. It took him so long to stop blaming himself for what happened and the part of him that knows this is a normal way to feel is overshadowed by the part of him that thinks he’s selfish and stupid for crying about something that happened three years ago. It’s entirely possible that the only thing keeping him from a complete spiral is Aang who keeps hugging him. 

After what feels like an hour, Zuko stops crying not because he feels any better, but because he just physically can’t keep going. He feels dehydrated over anything else. His body eases up, telling Aang that he can let go, which Aang does but stays close. 

“You should be at the party,” Zuko says miserably. To stop his hands from shaking he reaches up to grab at his hair, dismantling parts of the topknot in the process, causing pins to escape. The crown is in danger of falling.  

“I was worried about you.” Aang responds, with the implied ‘ and I was right to be worried’ given the state he found Zuko in. 

“I’m fine, it’s just…” That’s the natural thing for him to respond with, but they both know it’s not true. This time there’s no way Zuko can act like he’s fine. He can’t finish the sentence because he still doesn’t know how to have this conversation. He’s had to talk about this more in the past month than he has in the past three years and he still doesn’t know what his friends want to hear from him. And this time Aang’s not asking and he doesn’t want to bring it up. He doesn’t need Aang carrying his emotional weight. 

But Aang’s a smart kid and he knows anyway. 

“Your dad did it, didn’t he?” Aang asks quietly. He doesn’t want to say it, but Zuko’s eyes are red and he looks nothing like himself, so Aang has to be the strong one right now and that’s okay. “Your scar, he did it.”  

Zuko just nods like he’s admitted guilt for a crime. There’s something in his throat that’s making it hard to breathe. 

Aang takes Zuko’s wrist and grips tight, grounding him in the reality that the room is empty and that he’s not in any danger. In reality, it’s horrific what happened to him and he should be crying about it as much as he wants. He astounded that Zuko is as strong as he is given everything that’s happened to him. In Zuko’s head, Aang doesn’t know what’s going on. 

What’s in Zuko’s head is a lot of painful memories. It’s him being thirteen and looking in the mirror for the last time before the duel, putting his hair up in the phoenix plume. It’s being able to recognize certain spectators in the crowd and spending the next few years seeing them at ports and meetings, knowing they watched it and thought he deserved it. It’s his father looming over him upon his return and him not knowing if or when the other side of his face would get a matching treatment. It’s the years he wasted hating himself and the months he spent hunting Aang, who’s comforting him when he should be back at the party with everyone else. Random Earth Kingdom villagers calling him an outcast. Azula mocking him about his face. Jet and Song and that woman in the tea shop treating him like a victim. Faces in the crowd today that looked up to him when he barely did anything to deserve it. Lighting. Sokka screaming at him for not telling him about it sooner. Katara reminding him that he’s nothing more than Ozai’s son and he’s expected to fuck up at any moment. Uncle’s silence in his prison cell. His face hot and bandaged and not healing properly. Lighting again, and this time it hits him. Falling off of mountainsides after trying to climb them. It’s Ozai’s hand coming to him and every muscle shutting down. It’s the second he expected his father to show mercy before being met with none. It’s the month-long period he couldn’t see or hear or bend and felt like a shell of a person. It’s everything . 

It takes a couple of minutes for him to stop shaking and he doesn’t make eye contact with Aang, but he needs to know something. 

“Did the others tell you?” And he hopes that the answer is no because he trusted them and he doesn’t need to feel stupid for another thing. 

“No, it just…” Aang’s speaking softly and it does calm Zuko down a little bit. If anything it reminds him that he’s older and he needs to get his shit together for Aang’s sake. “I figured it out after you told me I should have killed him.” 

“Oh.” Zuko barely remembers that conversation after the events of the comet. 

What Aang remembers is a split second when he was fighting Ozai. A hand full of flames sweeping towards his face and only because of the move Zuko drilled into his head did he know how to deflect it. He looks at the stage they’re sitting in front of and imagines a scene in his head that he knows must be true, but wishes weren’t. “Did he- did he do it here?”

Zuko nods again, his eyes still red but his breathing under control. 

Aang looks at the empty spectator seats and imagines them to be full. He imagines Kuzon on the stage getting his face burnt off by the now ex-Firelord and remembers how long Zuko had been searching for him. 

“And you were my age.” Aang doesn’t so much whisper this for Zuko to hear, but rather just to remind himself of how cruel the situation was. 

“I was thirteen.” It’s barely a difference but Zuko doesn’t want Aang to feel sorry for him without having the facts right. He doesn't want Aang to feel sorry for him at all because he defeated his father five days and when Zuko was his age, he just let Ozai burn him. 

“Still.” Zuko looks at Aang with his big eyes and baby face and thinks he must have looked older than that when he was thirteen, right? “I’m sorry he did that to you.” 

“Why are you apologizing?” Zuko snaps, harsher than he intends. “You shouldn’t be- it wasn’t you, Aang.” Right now he’s got his own tsunami of guilt to deal with and he can’t handle Aang feeling bad about something that wasn’t his fault. “You took him down. He can’t hurt anyone else now thanks to you.” 

That’s the most important thing for Aang to know and for Zuko to remember. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t… you know.” Aang offers, he doesn’t know if that’s the reason why Zuko’s this upset but he hopes it isn’t. He might not be certain about a lot of things, but he knows he made the right choice in taking away Ozai’s bending. Gyatso would have been proud of him and Zuko, well, he just hopes Zuko thinks the punishment fits his father’s crimes. 

“No Aang I’m… I’m glad you didn’t do it.” He doesn’t say that because he thinks in any way his father deserved mercy for everything he did to the world but because “you shouldn’t have had to do it. You didn’t need that on you.” 

A month ago he shot lightning at Ozai and missed on purpose and a huge part of him is still kicking himself for that. Avoiding that burden and passing it onto Aang. 

And Aang is still trying to figure out what to say. The world is safer but that doesn’t mean that everything that’s messy has been cleaned up. 

“Your dad, he shot lightning at me.” Zuko’s eyes go wide with panic, even though the victor of that battle is sitting beside him, completely fine, “I redirected it like you taught me. You saved my life teaching me how to do that.” 

Zuko can’t help but smile at that: he did something right. He had taught Aang that move and he was alive because of it. And he’s not smiling from the idea that Ozai was shot, because he knows that not something Aang needs on his conscience. 

“You didn’t hit him back.” It’s not a question because Zuko knows Aang too well by now. The monk shakes his head. 

“You were right, it felt exhilarating. All that energy flowing through me.” 

Zuko knows he’s right and it’s nice, it’s a secret feeling only they know. That moment where he can hold the lighting and know he’s not going to die, but rather he’s in complete control, nothing else matters. It’s not the power that fuels him, it’s the safety. Aang gets it. It’s energizing and the moment when it’s released? It’s the best high anyone can chase.

He wipes the wet spots on his cheeks with his sleeves and clears his throat. “Hopefully you won’t have to use it again.” Zuko can say that without dreading the possibility that he’s wrong because even if he is, Aang will be okay. He’s talented and he listened and he’s alive because of it. 

“Yeah, hopefully you won’t either.” 

Zuko’s calmed down; his eyes are still red and his hair is disheveled, but he’s no longer a crying, incomprehensible mess. Which means they need to address the elephant koi in the room, as much as it sucks. 

“Are you mad at me for not telling you?” Zuko asks Aang, who responds with a knit brow and confused eyes. 

“No, why would I be mad at you for that?” 

Zuko shrugs, “Sokka was mad.” He thinks back to the day before the comet and the look of confusion and hurt in his friend’s eyes. “I don’t think he was mad at me, but he was upset that I didn’t tell him.” 

Sokka’s protective and Aang knows that better than anyone, so he understands what he must have been feeling, “he cares about you, we all do.” 

And that’s the thing. They do care about him, but Zuko still has no idea what to do with that fact and everyday he feels like they’re going to wake up and realize he’s worthless. 

“I know it’s just…” he’s whispering at this point and knows he has to say the things he doesn’t want to. Because the look on Aang’s face that’s scared and concerned for him needs to go away. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Aang meets him with silence, allowing him to elaborate and word vomit for as long as he needs to.

“I don’t know how to be Firelord and I’m going to fail. My family has spent a century tearing the world apart and I barely know where I’m supposed to start fixing it. And you guys, you guys have known who you are and what to do for so long and I’m just- I made so many mistakes. I spent so many years thinking he was right and trying to find you and in Ba Sing Se… you could have died, Aang! I saw her shoot you, you would have been dead if Katara didn’t have spirit water on hand and it would have been my fault. I’m not- I don’t know how- I’m not supposed to be this.” 

Zuko’s being honest about everything he’s thinking but Aang doesn’t really know how to respond because, well, he doesn’t see Zuko like that. None of them do. They watched Zuko make his speech about a new era of peace and watched the crown fit perfectly on his head. Zuko’s worthy of dragons and he’s unquestionably worthy of being Firelord. Aang searches for the right way to communicate this. 

“Do you remember when Zhao had me captured and you came to save me?” Now it’s Zuko’s turn to be confused because they both know his motives weren’t exactly pure at the time, but he nods yes. “Do you remember the frogs I had in my shirt?” 

Zuko blinks a couple of times and momentarily forgets the existential crisis he’s having because yes, he does remember the frogs and out of all the weird things he’s seen Aang do, that was one action he still didn’t understand. “What….what in Agni’s name was that about?” 

A small laugh comes out of Aang’s breathing, “Katara and Sokka were sick, a crazy cat lady told me I needed to get frozen frogs for them to suck on. Zhao captured me before I could get back to them.” 

The image of Sokka and Katara sucking on frozen frogs is too good for Zuko not to laugh. 

“Did it work?” Zuko asks through chuckles. 

“Yeah, it did,” Aang smiles at him, “but if you hadn’t come to save me I wouldn’t have been able to get back to them. I don’t think I would have figured out how to get out in time. They could have died if it wasn’t for you.” 

“Oh.” In fairness, Zuko reacts exactly how Aang expects him to. The guy accepts praise as well as oil mixes with water. 

Aang needs him to know it’s okay because he knows the hard days aren’t going to stop now that he’s Firelord. The end of the war is only the beginning of the new era of peace, but the road ahead will be rough. But tonight, it’s okay. 

“I think you can do it, Zuko. Everything you said today about peace and love and change, that’s what the monks always taught me. The world right now… it’s nothing like the one I grew up in. But with you as Firelord, I think you can do it. Bringing peace and balance back. I think it’s supposed to be you who does it.” 

Zuko bites his lip, grants Aang a face full of gratitude, and says “we both will, together.” 

“Yeah, together.” 

Aang takes a look at the marble stage, white and sleek, and knows what he needs to do. 

“You know, I don’t really want to go back to the party.” 

“You should, it’s mostly for you.” Zuko doesn’t want Aang to miss out, not on account of him. But Aang just smiles and shakes his head. 

“No, I’ve got a better idea.” He stands up and takes a horse-stance, visualizing the structure in his head, and then with a stomp of his foot erects a perfect pai sho board out of the marble. Destroying the stage’s sleek floor. 

Zuko smiles and shakes his head, loose hair strands swishing around his eyes. He stands up and sits on the floor across from Aang, admiring the detail of the newly crafted tiles. The white lotus is smooth in his hand. 

“The guest has the first move,” he says to the Avatar, adjusting his crown until it’s no longer in danger of falling.