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In hindsight, Zuko should have been more prepared for it. Assassins are about as easy to find as a good meal if you know where to look, and most of them have strong ideologies that, if you find the right one, amplify the quality of their work. Hating the Avatar isn’t an uncommon ideology amongst Fire Nation assassins, so much so that Zuko is surprised more of them haven’t shown up, but once Combustion Man is dealt with, so is the thought of another assassin coming for them.
Or, was. He gets the feeling they’re going to be thinking about it a lot more now.
The explosions rattle the entire temple, rocks and debris hailing down from above like meteors on Judgement Day. Zuko jumping to the front lines is the smartest course of action—fighting fire with fire isn’t as stupid a plan here as it is against Azula—and Toph and Sokka are right by his side as they plunge into the onslaught.
The assassin isn’t a bender judging by their style of knives and explosives, but other than that Zuko doesn’t pick up any useful information. Even the judgement call of them being a non-bender could simply be a red herring, and if this assassin was hired by the person he thinks they were, he can’t let a single detail slip through the cracks.
“Hey, Zuko, you know this guy?” Sokka shouts over the next round of rubble to come crashing down around them. “Because now would be a great time for you to give us some secret Fire Nation insight on assassins and—”
A bomb interrupts them as they’re forced to dodge in different directions. Zuko hits the stone on his shoulder, rolls, and gets his feet beneath him in time to deflect a second bomb with a swing of fire.
“Most of our assassins stay under the radar,” Zuko breathes, a hitch in his throat. Inhaling smoke isn’t fun either, but dust gives it a good run for its money. “If we can hold him off long enough for Aang and Katara to get back we should be fine—!”
Toph’s resounding stomp launches a boulder at the next round of fire. Sokka’s arms shield his face against new plumes of smoke. Zuko leaps through it and pounds the air into flames. The assassin dodges, slipping with ease through the holes in his offense, and the next round of bombs is deflected by a half-skilled, half-lucky throw of Sokka’s boomerang.
Toph’s eyes are wide, but her jaw is set. “Come on, keep pounding him! He’s gotta run out of bombs sooner or later!”
“Sooner or later isn’t exactly something to cheer about here!” Sokka hollers back, voice nearing hysterics, but with a grounded edge to it he’s honed through battle-driven months and leadership. “If we split up we should be able to divide his attention long enough to get the drop on him. He can’t chase all of us.”
Knives this time through a smokescreen; Zuko blasts them away, Toph shields them with a thick wall of stone. A bomb slams into it. The rock shatters. Zuko’s feet are swept out from under him, shoulder colliding with the ground with a crack and ricochet of pain.
Somewhere across from him in the smoke, Sokka screams.
It’s short-lived, like he’d snapped his teeth together or tried to muffle it, but it was loud enough. Zuko’s blood turns to stone.
“Sokka!” Toph’s voice is shrill and scared in a way she’s never sounded before, but the next time he hears it, it’s raw and angry with the force of a tidal wave. “Okay, that’s it!”
Toph brings down a pillar, toppling the corner of the temple and showering them in debris. She takes off in the direction of the assassin; Zuko passes her in the opposite direction. He knows where he needs to be and she has this under control. All he’ll do is get in her way.
A blast of fire clears away the smoke and reveals Sokka, flat on his back and clutching his side. Zuko’s stomach joins his heart in his throat and his knees bruise against the ground.
“Oh boy,” Sokka wheezes, squinting at him, “it’s bad, isn’t it? Your face says it’s bad.”
Zuko can’t answer. Behind him, Toph’s bending rattles the entire canyon, disrupting more rubble and dust and debris. Zuko inhales shakily, forcing his sight to lose its blur. A moment spanning a lifetime passes—and then the trance breaks.
He tears off his overshirt and presses it against Sokka’s side over his hands. Sokka’s teeth snap together with an audible click as he squeezes his eyes shut, tears gathered at the corners. The ground shakes again. An unfamiliar voice releases a cry of pain. Zuko applies more pressure.
“I’m sorry.”
“N-No, don’t be.” Sokka’s voice is barely there. “Just—D-Do whatever you need to do.”
Toph returns with twisted knives still held in both hands, knives that clatter to the stone the moment she reaches them.
“How does it look?” Toph asks.
Zuko can’t breathe. “There’s a lot of bleeding.”
“His heartbeat’s all over the place, too.” Toph’s eyes are wide, and even with determination and fury at the forefront, beyond that lies a fear he can’t shake. “Zuko—”
“Are the others on their way back?” There’s warmth beneath Zuko’s hands, warmth that reminds him he’s a firebender, warmth that reminds him Sokka is alive, wet-warmth that tells him that won’t be the case for much longer unless they do something. “Do you know where they are?”
“They aren’t close enough for me to feel them,” Toph says after a moment. She digs her nails into the stone. “His heartbeat’s getting slower.”
Zuko forces himself to take a breath. His ears are ringing and he can’t look at his hands, not without feeling sick, but he can look at Toph, and he can think. The next breath is harder to draw, but steadier.
“Toph.”
She inclines her head toward him, glassy eyes wide and empty. Zuko lifts his hands from the wound and sets them ablaze.
“Hold him down.”
Zuko doesn’t know how long he wanders the forest just above the Air Temple, but it’s long enough to get the feeling of Sokka’s blood off his hands, at least to where he can look at them without throwing up. Still, he doesn’t want to look at them. He keeps them tucked into arms crossed over his chest, tight enough to constrict his breathing, but at least he doesn’t have to see.
Katara, Aang and the rest of their ragtag group returned just after Sokka passed out and Zuko stumbled back on unsteady feet. Toph filled them in, Katara got to work, Hakoda clutched Sokka’s hand and that was the last straw before Zuko ran.
The sun set hours ago. He wishes he felt cold and that his inner flame wasn’t so in tune with him; what he wouldn’t give to not have the firebender reminder constantly etched into the very fabric of his person.
He manages the trek from forest to camp, trying not to drag his feet any more than necessary. Shimmering down the rope is easy enough, but he doesn’t quite stick the landing and careens into one of the last remaining pillars. His head has ached ever since that afternoon, but he hadn’t realized how bad until now, when he has something to lean on and struggles to catch his breath.
He closes his eyes and the images rush back, merciless. Sokka is two years older than Zuko was. Had Zuko thrashed like that? Had he screamed? Sobbed? It wasn’t even that long ago, but his clarity is compromised by just how much it hurt.
Now he inflicted that pain on an ally, a friend, someone he respects and cares for and he can’t.
He’d tried to be gentle, he’d tried to pay attention to Toph when she said his breathing was getting shakier or his heartbeat was too fast, but it’s fire, and blood doesn’t exactly stay put. He just hopes his efforts toward being gentle were enough to ease the torture.
He presses his temple into the pillar on the side his head aches worst, and stays there breathing until his heartbeat relaxes. He’s still far too aware of it and he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be feeling his heartbeat this heavily, as though being pounded into by a sledge hammer, but at least he can breathe. That’s more than he could do a few hours ago.
“Zuko!”
Snapping his head up and cursing the pain that follows, he meets Katara’s eyes as she sprints toward him. She looks about how he expected she would look: hair undone, eyes hazed and tired but weightless, and he knows from that alone that Sokka is okay.
“Where have you been?” She skids to a halt, reaching out as though to touch him but stopping short. The lines on her face are deeper, every shadow darker than the last. “We looked everywhere for you, are you—”
“I’m fine.” He wants to bat her hand away, but can’t muster the energy or the willpower. “How’s Sokka?”
“He’s fine, thanks to you.” Katara stands down, lowering her hand and offering him a small smile. “He’s still pretty out of it, and he probably will be for a while, but he’ll be just fine.”
Zuko had been dizzy before; now he feels like someone just hit him upside the head. “I’m glad,” he breathes, lungs choking him out again. The heat is there, just like always, and he would do anything to have five minutes free from the reminder of who he is and what he did. “He’s strong.”
“He is,” Katara says, “and I’m sure he’ll be back on his feet again soon, but—are you okay? You look awful.”
He feels awful, and incredibly not-okay, but he says, “I’m not the person you need to worry about right now.” Which, it’s true; if he had his way, no one would worry about him for anything, for any reason, any time, ever. But Katara keeps looking at him like she cares, and he doesn’t know how to cope with that.
“Sokka is fine,” Katara says. “I know he’s fine. But I’m not sure about you.”
There it is. Zuko’s inner flame hurts, chasing its tail in wide, swooping spirals in his chest, singing the tips of his ribs and the parts of his lungs that matter. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
The way she says it makes him want to scream. “Why?”
“So I know how to help you.”
Zuko scoffs and hopes it isn’t obvious, just how hard it is to pull a scowl when all he wants to do is curl in on himself and scream until he can’t feel anymore. “I don’t need help.”
“I don’t think you really believe that.” He’d been expecting her to yell at him again—that would be easier, he’s at least used to that—but not this, he doesn’t know what to do with this. “You…” There’s something in her eyes now, something that aches and burns, and, “Zuko, you know this doesn’t make you your father, right?”
That.
That—
“It hurt,” Zuko snaps, voice cracking at the end. “It hurt him— I hurt him.”
“You performed a medical procedure,” Katara says, more of her typical punctuality pouring into the words. “There’s a difference. Don’t you dare tell yourself there isn’t.”
His heart starts pounding again, and the heat beneath his skin climbs with it. “You could have helped him,” he struggles. “You would have been able to heal him without hurting him. I couldn’t.”
“I might’ve had to cauterize it myself anyway,” Katara claps back. “I’m not the most experienced with open wounds like that, but I have treated burns, and you didn’t damage anything important. I was able to work with what you did, Zuko, you did the right thing—”
“He asked me to stop.” Zuko heaves on the irony bile in his throat as he presses the heels of his hands into his temples. “He was begging me to stop and I couldn’t, and—” (please, Father, I only had the Fire Nation’s best interest at heart, please don’t, Father). “You don’t know how it feels. You don’t know what I put him through.”
“You saved his life.” She says it as though only just coming to the realization herself. “I’m not going to let you forget that. And, that idiot.” A smile lifts her tone, a sad one, but she doesn’t let it go and shakes her head fondly. “He keeps asking to see you. He wants to know if you’re alright, he even asked me to thank you. I should thank you. If you hadn’t done it so carefully, or if you’d waited a little bit longer, we would be having a different kind of conversation right now.”
Zuko can’t breathe again, but this time he doesn’t know what for, and the flames in his chest burn less. “I…”
“Don’t lump yourself in with your father,” Katara says. “You’re never going to be him.”
New footsteps echo across the courtyard and Zuko stiffens while Katara turns. Across from them is Hakoda, standing near the door leading into their makeshift medical unit. Zuko’s mouth goes dry, inner flame snarling up his throat and limbs tightening like bowstrings drawn too far. Hakoda meets his daughter’s eyes first, then Zuko’s and Zuko freezes, he freezes and forces his face to stay unchanging because emotion is weakness and flinching is weakness and anything but standing there and taking it is weakness and showing weakness has only ever dragged him deeper into hell.
Hakoda’s footsteps pull him closer. Zuko’s scar burns. There isn’t a trained instinct in his body that isn’t telling him to turn and run, or worse fight back, but he stands still and keeps Hakoda’s gaze and the last time he was approached like this by a father he was pinned to the floor and burned as he screamed and kicked and begged and—
Hakoda hugs him, and it’s warm. Warm like his firebending, warm like his mother’s hugs but just a little firmer, a little less practiced, and a lot more desperate. Zuko chokes on his sharp inhale and holds his breath there, eyes wide as his mind shrieks at him to run because even though he knows Hakoda isn’t Ozai he can’t understand why a father would want to hug him.
“Thank you,” Hakoda breathes. His voice is thick, wrought with tears either past fallen or about to fall, and his arms around Zuko’s shoulders are warm, and secure, and enveloping, and most importantly kind.
Zuko blinks.
Then he crumples.
He doesn’t hug Hakoda back—he doesn’t know how—but he does press his forehead into Hakoda’s shoulder and lean into him, suddenly realizing just how tired he is and just how strenuous these past several hours have been. He thought he’d have more time to compose himself before it really started taking its toll; turns out he was wrong. Hakoda doesn’t seem to mind taking his weight.
When he does pull back, he holds Zuko at arm’s length with both hands on his shoulders, and Zuko meets Hakoda’s eyes again and wonders if his own father ever looked at him like this (if he wanted to hug Zuko, if he wanted Zuko at all). Hakoda looks tired, too, but he’s smiling, if a little fragile.
“I can’t imagine how hard that was for you,” Hakoda says. “It took a lot of strength and courage, and you have my every gratitude.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Zuko says hoarsely. “I’m just—I’m glad Sokka is okay.”
“He’s been asking for you again,” Hakoda recalls, and turns to Katara. “What do you think?”
Katara studies Zuko for a moment. “I know you aren’t feeling well,” she says, “and Sokka’s still out of it, too, but… I think it’d be good for you to see each other.”
Zuko feels more dead on his feet now than ever, but she’s right. He wouldn’t be able to sleep without confirming for himself that Sokka is alive, okay, and… just, better off than Zuko was three years ago. He nods, Hakoda squeezes his shoulders and thanks him one more time, and Katara takes him by the forearm and tugs him toward the ward.
“There’s a chance he’ll be asleep again,” Katara is saying as she leads him and Zuko lets her, barely finding it in him to drag his feet. “But if he isn’t I’m sure he’d love to see you. If not—” She pushes the door open.
“Oh, hey!”
And of course Sokka is awake. His middle is bandaged and Zuko has to tear his eyes away because, memories, but Sokka is grinning like he hadn’t just been slashed and burned, and the dark hole in Zuko’s gut isn’t quite so gnawing.
“I’ll leave you two be,” Katara says, and is gone. Zuko doesn’t even turn to watch her leave.
“... Well that was quick,” Sokka says. “Usually I’ve gotta say more than that before she ditches. Pretty sure that’s a new record.”
Zuko sighs, but it loosens the anxious chains that’d been shackled around his ankles, and he shakes himself out of it and makes his way across the concrete floor.
“You… look okay.”
“Oh, that’s good!” Sokka says, grinning again. Zuko’s eyes had kept darting to the bandages before, but now Sokka’s smile gives him something else to focus on. “And you kiiiinda look like you just crawled out of a ditch.”
Zuko sits a ways away from him, close enough that it isn’t obvious but far enough to keep distance; he’d understand if Sokka didn’t want to be near him. “I feel like I did.”
“Yeah, me too. But, hey, no crawling out of ditches this time! Which has happened often enough for me to be happy about it.” Sokka shimmies over until their knees bump, and it takes all Zuko has to not leap out of his skin. “Honestly, I don’t know what Katara puts in that water but it does a pretty good job of healing stuff.”
Zuko prays Sokka can’t feel how tense he is. “It’s not the water.”
“Yeah yeah, but still, I feel almost as good as new. Still a little loopy from the bloodloss, which Katara said was normal and I’ve tripped on weirder stuff before, so bloodloss at least makes sense medically and doesn’t require an antidote—what’s with that face?—but yeah, other than that I feel pretty alright.”
“That’s good.”
“What about you?” Sokka looks him over again. “You look terrible. Did you get into another fight with someone while I was out or something?”
“I took a walk.”
Sokka quirks a brow. “Pretty intense walk, huh?”
Zuko makes a mistake when he turns away, because the very first place his eyes go is to the bandages, and,
“I’m sorry,” Zuko blurts before he can think it through. “For what I did.”
Sokka blinks, smile gone. “Uh. You might have to be more specific.”
“I—” Zuko wants to laugh, because he has to say it, he really has to say it out loud. “I burned you.”
“Oh, we’re talking about that.” Sokka just. Nods. “Yeah honestly I don’t know why you’re apologizing. I was meaning to say thank you, actually—I know it kind of sucked, like, a lot, but you didn’t have another choice, and you saved my life. I can’t complain.”
It’s not that Zuko hadn’t listened to Katara or Hakoda, because he did, but this is different. This is Sokka, this is the person he hurt and he doesn’t want to be excused, he doesn’t want to be— forgiven, not like this, not when he doesn’t deserve it. He needs Sokka to listen, to hear him, to get it, because as it stands Sokka doesn’t seem to realize the weight of what Zuko put him through. “But it—”
“Yeah, it hurt,” Sokka cuts in, “but I’m alive. I’d take hurt over, y’know. Being dead. If anything, I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I know how you feel about stuff like that, and I know you have a lot of baggage. I should’ve been more careful.”
Zuko’s stomach twists into a weird, confusing shape. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I know, it was just some stupid mistake on the battlefield, but… I don’t know, you look really messed up. I wanted to apologize.”
“I would very much rather you didn’t.”
“Wellp.” Sokka’s grin is back, weaker. Less true. “Now you know how I feel telling you not to apologize.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Zuko.” Sokka sombers up. “I know I was pretty out of it while it was happening—pain and bloodloss, y’know, that fun stuff—but, your eyes…” Sokka inhales, and it rattles, and Zuko hurts. “I’ve seen what people look like, when they want to hurt someone. You didn’t have those eyes. So.”
Sokka bonks his fist against the side of Zuko’s head. Zuko jerks, pain whiplashing through his skull and he bites his tongue. “So?”
“So, stop hating yourself over it.”
Zuko swallows the bile in his throat. “It’s not that simple.”
“Maybe not yet. But I want you to know that I was never scared of you. Not before, not while it was happening, and definitely not now.”
Something shatters. Zuko doesn’t know what, why or why now, but it shatters, and then it melts, and whatever contraptions that’d been restraining his breathing melt away, too. “Sokka—”
“Anyway.” Sokka pats him on the shoulder and leans back, challenging Zuko’s expression with one that says they aren’t arguing about it anymore tonight. “No offense, but I think you actually look worse than I do. You should get some sleep.”
Sokka won’t let him argue, Zuko knows that, and even if Sokka did, Zuko is too tired and he honestly just, doesn’t have the heart for it now. He hangs his head, lets himself seep into the relief and nods. “Yeah.” He doesn’t feel completely better, not yet, but his nerves have settled enough that he can relax. “Do you… Will it bother you if I sleep here?”
“As long as it doesn’t bother you if I snore. Which, Katara says I do but she’s never had any proof, so, grain of salt.”
Zuko deflates. “Thanks.”
Sokka’s smile is more like himself this time. “Of course.”
Settling in takes time, but once Sokka is comfortable, all Zuko has to do is lay beside him, still too anxious to make contact and unsure if that’s even something Sokka is okay with. Once again, right on cue and in almost intentional defiance, Sokka inches closer, only this time it’s different, because when he presses into Zuko’s side, Zuko leans into it instead of flinching away, and it feels nice. He lets his inner flame finally do what it wants, and the warmth that spreads through him doesn’t immediately bring back horrid memories of scorched, charred skin, but instead winds through him like a blanket, and calms the final edges of his frayed emotions. He lets it warm his skin and expand his lungs, lets himself breathe deep and in time with Sokka.
“Have I ever told you how warm you are?”
Zuko stares up at the ceiling. “You have now.”
“See?” Sokka pokes his temple enough to just border annoying. “Firebending’s not just flames and despair and destruction, it’s warm too. Soft-warm. Like, fireplace-warm. Hot cocoa on a cold morning kind of warm.”
Zuko’s heart does a weird little flutter. It wasn’t unpleasant, but he hopes it doesn’t do it again. “Nice.”
Sokka snorts. “Nice.”
“We’re supposed to be sleeping.”
He swears he can feel Sokka roll his eyes. “Alright, alright. But I hope you know I’m not letting you live that down.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“... Wow, I actually feel threatened.”
“Sokka.”
“I know, I know, sleep.” Sokka burrows down into the blankets. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.”
Zuko’s inner flame does a happy little twirl like ribbons on the wands of an enthusiastic dancer. “I am, too.”
Sokka is asleep a minute later. Zuko leans his head against Sokka’s, absentmindedly playing with a loose thread on the blanket hem and wondering how he got so lucky.
He’s sure it’s going to haunt him, just like a lot of his baggage does, but knowing he’s wanted here, that his flames are warmth too and not just scorch, eases him into a fitful but undeniable sleep.