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Chapter Text

Sokka was about to die from secondhand embarrassment when the feral child attacked.

To be fair, he hadn't known how the Duke had even found them or where he'd gotten a knife; all his previous interactions with the child had led Sokka to believe  that he was a fairly unremarkable six-year-old. Kind of like how Sokka had also assumed that he could never genuinely feel bad for the prince of the Fire Nation, and yet here he was, cringing at the human interaction disaster that followed "Hello, Zuko here" and continued up until Katara busted out the water-whip and nearly washed the firebender off the edge of the temple, which certain members of their party who had just shown up seemed to have taken as a universal attack indicator.

Which, okay, might be partially his fault since he'd used the aggressive negotiation tactic of saying, either you leave, or we attack, but that had been mostly a bluff. And his weapon of choice certainly wouldn't have been a six-year-old.

Zuko didn't take the attack as seriously as Katara's, sidestepping the unpracticed swipe at his knees with practiced ease, letting the child barrel past. Sokka's cry of alarm was echoed by rest of the onlookers; the firebender's eyes widened as he realized why.

The Duke was headed full speed for a nose dive off the edge of the temple.

Before anyone else had time to react, Zuko spun and dove after the helmeted child, managing to snag his shirt just before he went flying into oblivion.

Sokka let out a breath of relief, and then joined in the general rush that seemed to be Phase Two: Get Child Away From Evil Firebender. Who had just saved said child's life and was now holding him up by the back of the shirt at arm's length, as if not sure what to do with him and not eager to get stabbed with the blade the Duke was still swinging wildly.

"Duke!" Katara pushed in front of Sokka but ultimately got beaten to the scene of the crime by Aang and his airbending assist. "Get away from him!"

"It's the Duke," the Duke replied, "And I'm trying!"

"Would someone," asked the Fire Prince, with a rather constipated expression on his face, "Please call off this ... attack child."

Katara, of course, did not, which Sokka could support for the moment, and so naturally the Avatar stepped in.

"Zuko just saved your life, the Duke! We don't thank people who saved our lives by trying to stab them!"

"But he's Fire Nation!"

"Also, stop leaving your knives lying around," Katara hissed to Sokka as if somehow the whole thing was his fault. And not the Duke's. Or Zuko's, really, for showing up uninvited in the first place.

Sokka had lost track of Aang and the Duke's conversation thanks to his sister's baseless accusation, so he couldn't be sure but he thought he heard Zuko mutter something along the lines of racial profiling, much? while Aang was trying to explain the Air Nomad's no-one-is-inherently-evil philosophy to an armed child.

"But you all just said he was a bad guy!" the Duke protested.

"He's done bad things," Aang hedged. "But, uh, good things too! Like all people! Didn't he save your life just now? You almost flew off the cliff!"

"I almost flew?!" shrieked the Duke, overjoyed. "I knew if I tried enough I could fly just like you!" He wiggled harder.

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, with the hand not stifling a non-airbender's attempt to fly. "Listen, the Duke. People can't fly."

"But Aang can fly, and so can Teo!"

"Yeah, well, I flew here in a balloon --"

"You what?!" Sokka squawked, drafting immediate plans on how to get his hands on said balloon.

"-- and the Avatar has a glider to help him fly around. What do you have to help keep you from hitting the bottom of the canyon?"

"Zuko, just put him down slowly --" Katara was trying to get the situation under control and looked to Sokka like she was half a second from encasing everyone in an icy time-out.

"Put me down and find out!" the Duke challenged.

"DON'T YOU DARE PUT HIM DOWN," Katara immediately rescinded her earlier statement.

Sokka watched as Zuko's annoyed-and-confused expression leveled up a notch to counter Katara's aggression, and then suddenly the world exploded into fire.

Did someone say assassin? That's right, Zuko did, and they'd all forgotten about it like morons until the aforementioned assassin (Katara was not going to call him Sparky Sparky Boom Man, no matter how catchy of a name it truly was) decided to pre-empt Katara's plan to encase everything in her vicinity in ice, only he was trying to do it with fire. And explosions. Lots of explosions.

Which Katara wouldn't think was just cause for the pint-sized former Freedom Fighter to be whooping and hollering like it was the spring thaw come early. And why had His Evil Princliness shoved the Duke at her, who could actually be useful in this fight, instead of, say, her useless brother standing over there gaping instead of running for cover like he ought to? Squinting through the bright after-image of the explosion as if he were trying to …

Oh. Katara didn't immediately shove the Duke onto her brother, because this was actually exactly the type of situation where a boomerang could be incredibly useful. She pulled the flailing child behind the nearest wall with her, which happened to be one that Toph had just bent up from the paving stones beneath them.

The idiot child still had a knife -- Katara really should have done a better background check on anyone who'd been previously associated with Jet -- and she had to freeze it and the Duke's hand into an ice block to prevent accidental stabbings.

Then there were more explosions and a great deal of air-whooshing, and the building they were in shook, hard, so that even Toph insisted they get behind more solid cover than the fountain they were huddled around. Katara shoved the Duke onto her this time, certain that the blind earthbender would have no qualms about putting the child in a rocky time-out if necessary, and went to join the fight.

... For someone who talked a lot about how no one could fly, Zuko did a pretty decent job of proving himself wrong. How had he even gotten up there so fast?

Katara wasn't sure what Zuko thought he would accomplish by adding more fire to the mix, but the assassin was falling for the moment, although she preferred to attribute that to Aang's tornadoes rather than any assistance from Zuko. The airbender landed next to her and Sokka just as a new blast headed their way. Katara barely had a moment to glance at Aang before they were pulling the fountain water over themselves as a shield.

Ugh. Enough of this already. Katara swirled the water around her as she called up a huge wave to launch an offensive. She reveled in the sensation of the water following her arm movements, and let out a battle cry as she stiffened her fingers, sending icicles speeding towards her target. Take that, Combustion Man!

… Stupid metal arm, that was cheating. The assassin looked pretty angry now though, especially when Aang followed up her attack with a tornado. There was some fire and shouting going on up there, too, what was Zuko up to now? Either way, it was an opportunity to fall back.

Behind the wall with the others, Katara found that Toph had indeed earthbent the squirming child into a shallow hole to keep him from running headlong into the fray.

The temple rocked with another explosion; whatever Zuko had been doing clearly hadn't worked. Unless his plan was to get them killed, in which case it was starting to succeed.

"He's going to blast this whole place right off the cliff side!" Toph yelled.

"I can't step out to waterbend at him without being blown up and I can't get a good enough angle on him from down here," Katara said, frustrated.

"I know how to get an angle on him!" Sokka exclaimed, lining up the shot with his boomerang, and seriously Katara had expected him to do that five explosions ago, what had taken him so long? For the Idea Guy he sometimes wasn't so bright.

Katara would, however, grudgingly admit that he had pretty good aim, and was definitely thankful when the explosions stopped.

Finally. Maybe one day her ears would stop ringing too.

"Wow!" The Duke's shriek shattered the silence, and Katara winced from both the proximity and pitch. "That was totally awesome!"

Katara rolled her eyes; she could sense Sokka puffing out his chest from where he'd stepped out to check for remains, even if she couldn't see him clearly through the smoke and dust that was still settling.

"Just a regular day in the life of a boomerang-slinging --"

"You're a hero!" The child wriggled free of his earthen pit-trap and bolted in the direction of her brother.

And ran right past Sokka towards a different form emerging from the dust.

Again, how had Zuko gotten down here so fast? At least he didn't sidestep this time, Katara thanked Tui for small favors, and the Duke collided with the firebender's leg.

Katara noted, with some confusion, that this was voluntary on the Duke's part, because the child appeared to have wrapped himself around said leg and was chattering up at him with words like fire and amazing and taking out bad guys and saving everyone and teach me.

On rare occasions, she and Sokka understood each other perfectly. They shared a look that said, as only siblings could: What in the name of all that is frozen was going on?

The only answer Katara could offer, for now, was that the Duke was clearly a hazard to his own safety.

Toph's feet were beginning to develop an appreciation for the theatre. The pyrotechnics, the drama, the characters … this unexpected confrontation had all the hallmarks of a summer festival hit. It was way better than those boring productions her parents used to drag her to, because apparently even the frailest of noble girls could still attend the theatre if it made the Bei Fongs look as if they were patrons of the arts instead of the money-grubbing boar-sharks they were.

"Hey, what about me? I did the boomerang thing," said the comic relief, only to be interrupted by the villain. Who Toph wasn't totally convinced was an actual villain, but they didn't exactly have anyone else around to fill in the role.

"Who is responsible for this child?" the Fire Prince demanded, sounding … stressed.

No one answered. This only served to stress out the firebender more. Zuko had probably come back down here to repeat his tragedy of a tragic soliloquy, and was now stuck dealing with someone else's kid.

"Where are your parents?" he asked, addressing the Duke this time. Toph sensed that the child was still wrapped tightly around his leg, and stifled a giggle.

"I don't know," answered the Duke, and it was muffled in a layer of pants.

"The Fire Nation probably killed his parents!" Katara volunteered, full of the righteous anger of the typical noble hero, but boy was that the wrong thing to say. The Duke was back to maximum volume now, and he was wailing.

"Give him here, Zuko," Katara ordered, but without the usual cutting edge she addressed the prince with.

Toph wasn't clear what happened next, but it sounded like Zuko was more than willing to comply with Katara's request, even though the Duke was doing his best to the contrary, and the wailing was really starting to grate on Toph's sensitive hearing.

Aang tried next, with his trademark optimism. "Hey, it's ok! The Fire Nation killed my parents too! Probably. I don't actually know who they are, but they're definitely dead! Anyway, you don't see me crying about it!"

Hidden under the sound of Sokka smacking his own forehead, Toph was the only one who heard Aang add most days under his breath.

Evidently Zuko had come to the conclusion that this would take a while, and he sunk cross-legged to the ground, which momentarily dislodged the leg-leech but it just re-positioned itself onto his lap. Toph sensed one of his arms leaving the ground and wrapping around the kid by reflex. "Why don’t you tell us what happened?" he addressed the tearful bundle in a surprisingly gentle tone.

The wailing paused, replaced by hiccupping speech. "Well I had a dad once. But then one day he sent me away and told me I'd have to find a new dad now, and not to trust moms because they leave and never come back --"

Judging from the skip in Zuko's heartbeat, this struck a nerve and he unconsciously tugged the child closer.

"-- so then I went into the forest and I found my new dad, that's Daddy Pipsqueak! And we lived in the trees, but then we went for a really really long walk and even lived on a ship for a few weeks! But then we went to attack the bad guys and he wouldn't let me stay with him, he just went with all the other daddies and then we walked a whole lot but not as much as before and I was really sad and tired and then we came here and I'm not tired anymore even though I'm still sad but I figured out that I have to find a new daddy again and I did, I found you!"

People told Toph that eyes were important. She imagined the Duke's now, they must be big and sparkly and full of little hearts or whatever made sighted people go all soft and melty in their faces and start cooing. Aang was definitely cooing, and Katara was having a hard time not joining in.

Zuko, on the other hand, felt like he was about to have a heart attack. Toph should have known that the Fire Lord's son of all people would have daddy issues up the wazoo. "I can't be your father," he said, only choking a little on the last word. "I'll just have to leave you behind too one day. And your friends don't even want me around."

"That's not how it works, I get to choose, not you!"

Evidently Zuko knew enough about children to not argue with that logic, and tried a different tactic. "Don't you want to go back to your friends?"

"No I want to be a hero like you and fight the bad guys, will you teach me?"

"You're going to start crying again if I say no, aren't you."

"That's right!" The Duke must be cute, Toph decided. Cute kids could get away with blackmail like this. She should know.

Since this made it impossible for Zuko to vent his frustrations on the Duke, he started to take them out on the rest of them. "Okay, first of all, how could any of you think it was a good idea to bring a child into a literal war zone? And then separate him from his caretaker?"

"It's not like we had a choice," Sokka was protesting, although in Toph's opinion it wasn't that strong of a defense.

"Yes you did! Most of you are also below the age of conscription, one of you could have stayed behind with him," Zuko pointed out.

"Yeah, you would've liked that wouldn't you," added Katara, spitefully.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Toph could feel the affront through Zuko's posture. "But yes, I would have liked that, because then there'd be one less war orphan in my lap, and what were you planning on doing with him anyway? You're fugitives, you can't drag him along with you."

"We didn't exactly plan on losing!" Aang exclaimed.

"Sounds about right!" Zuko was shouting now, finally living up to his Prince Jerkbender nickname. About time, Toph thought, and settled back to enjoy the show. "You haven't figured out by now that, unlike me, my father and sister have the resources of an entire military-industrial complex behind them!"

"Well you're one to talk!" Katara fired back. "Was your entire plan to chase us down in a war balloon and try to convince us you've had a change of heart? Because nice try but we still don't want you to be Aang's firebending teacher!"

"I never claimed to be good at plans! Unlike you." Even Toph could feel that pointed look at Sokka.

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do now?" Sokka challenged.

"I don't know, but if the Avatar really won't have me as a teacher I'll have to find someone else because the Fire Lord is going to destroy the world if you don't stop him." By the end of his sentence, Zuko wasn't shouting anymore.

"Huh, so you're for real about that?" Sokka sounded surprised, but not in a bad way. "Maybe we should rethink this, you guys."

Toph couldn't stand by anymore. "That's what I've been telling you!" And she did not appreciate the fact that a man had to repeat what she'd already said for it to get heard.

"Hey guys, keep the yelling down, the Duke's asleep," Aang interrupted. Toph could imagine their guilty expressions, clearly they hadn't sensed how the child's breathing and heartbeat had evened out at the start of the shouting match.

"I think the yelling is soothing him," Katara sounded worried about that for multiple reasons. She sighed, clearly tired of dealing with the whole situation. "Just get out of here, Zuko."

"It's a turtleduck on the lap!" Aang cried, in a complete non sequitur, which, Toph had to say, was a terrible way to end a scene.

"You know, the turtleduck on the lap rule!" Aang elaborated. Why was Zuko suddenly so red, Aang knew that the Fire Nation loved red but it couldn't be healthy for them to have the blood rushing to their faces so much like that, it seemed like a lot to sacrifice in the name of fashion. "It's when, well, someone has a turtleduck on their lap! So they can't get up or do chores or go anywhere or do anything until the turtleduck leaves! The turtleduck gets real sad otherwise, you see."

"Are you saying that we have to keep Zuko," Sokka said, overly slowly and clearly, "Because he has a turtleduck-child sleeping on his lap."

"Yes? At least for now? Besides, the Duke said that he gets to choose, so we should respect that even if he did choose Zuko." Air was about freedom, after all, even if that also meant freedom to make bad choices.

Sokka seemed to have quickly co-opted the pinch-the-nose trick of Zuko's into use. "See, that's what I'm worried about. Both because, as you pointed out, it's Zuko, and also because we don't know a whole lot about the Duke besides a few days on a ship and the trip here, and he was always with Pipsqueak before, and I'm beginning to think he's got really bad self-preservation instincts."

"All the more reason he needs someone to take care of him!" Toph contributed. Aang was sure that she was just in this for the laughs, but even though it seemed funny, it wasn't, because the Duke was only separated from his real adopted daddy because they'd all put their lives on the line to give Aang chance to stop the Fire Lord and he'd failed them all in the end.

"If one of you could just take him from me --" the lap in question started, only to be shushed by Sokka's free hand.

"Nope, he's staying right there because this is too entertaining to pass up. So, Aang. Avatar Aang. What do you, and your hundreds of past lives full of wisdom, recommend we do about this situation?"

Aang honestly couldn't speak for his past lives because they so rarely spoke to him, but there was only one right thing to do. "The Duke said he was sad, we have to at least wait until he's not sad anymore! If he changes his mind then, that's up to him, but he's made it pretty clear that he wants Zuko to take care of him."

Zuko was muttering something about how is this my life, while Katara was scrutinizing him like she could deduce his childcare credentials from the tension in his jaw.

"Sokka's going to keep an eye on both of them," she decided, and Aang felt relieved because Katara really did know best about these things, she knew how taking care of people worked and would make sure that no one got hurt.

Sokka, however, was spluttering. "What?! Katara! Why me? Why not -- Haru?"

"Because I don't trust Zuko but I do trust you to hit him as hard as possible with your boomerang if he sets so much as a foot out of line or harms a hair on that child's head."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," Zuko protested, but Katara had already swept out of the building, which Aang could tell from Sokka's slump said he's your problem now, brother.

Aang had a bad feeling about this. But he had a good feeling about this, too, because the Duke really did need someone to take care of him and a part of Aang did want to give Zuko a chance to be friends. Aang had a good-bad feeling about this, which actually described a lot of things that had happened recently.

"So, here you go, home sweet home, I guess, you know, for now," Sokka was rambling, as Zuko was beginning to learn was his habit, but at least he was doing it quietly enough that the sleeping child parked on Zuko's back wasn't in danger of awakening. "Lunch, soon? Uhhh ... welcome aboard? Yeah."

The room was old but still functional, the mattress free of dust as Zuko laid the Duke down, trying not to disturb him. Should he stay until the child woke up? Probably, Zuko wouldn't think he'd react well to waking up in a strange place if the earlier stabbing attempts were any indication.

"Can I ask you something?" Zuko blurted quickly as the other teen turned to leave. Sokka was visibly reluctant to turn back, but Zuko had to know. "What just happened?"

The Water Tribe warrior flashed his trademark smirk, but there was no real mirth behind it. He was probably just as preoccupied trying to take in this whirlwind turn of events as Zuko was. "You got adopted by a feral child. Congratulations, you're a father now? And because my sister doesn't trust you and apparently hates me as well, I'm the co-parent."

"That's --" Zuko often had trouble finding the right words, but in this situation he actually felt that his vocabulary was too limited to cover what he wanted to express.

"Yeah," Sokka agreed with a sigh, and then plopped down unceremoniously at the foot of the bed. "We should probably figure out how this is going to work."

Zuko tried to hide his trepidation as he glanced at the sleeping child. "How long do you think he's going to sleep?" Sure, he looked harmless now, but he'd demonstrated earlier that he was anything but. Zuko thought he preferred him like this.

"I don't know, I barely know the kid." Sokka was being super helpful. "He was a package deal with big Daddy Pipsqueak but after the invasion the grown-ups surrendered and sent the Duke along with us to get away. I do know that he mostly grew up with a bunch of other kids in the forest. Probably."

That would go a long way towards explaining why the Duke did not appear to be house-trained. Zuko sighed, wondered if he should apologize for his indirect role in the invasion's defeat, and decided against it. He had enough to bear already without assuming responsibility for the actions of his father and sister.

"Look, I just want to stop the Fire Lord and keep everybody alive," Sokka said. "Including this kid, who I am beginning to realize may or may not be completely wild."

Zuko allowed himself a small smile. "That's something we have in common." Suddenly exhausted, he sat down at the head of the bed to wait. The silence that descended felt almost comfortable, and Zuko wondered if he'd somehow, after so many attempts, finally done the right thing.

Until the Water Tribe warrior broke the silence. "Okay, this is really, really weird."

Chapter Text

"Don't make me come up there," Zuko sounded threatening enough, but Aang just laughed. The Duke didn't but he grinned across at Aang from his spot in the opposite tree.

"You should definitely come up here," Aang dared the firebender, and maybe that wasn't the best idea he'd had all day, but he was finally having fun even if Katara hadn't let him show Haru and Teo the all day echo chamber. Oh, and then Combustion Man had showed up again and tried to kill them, and then Zuko showed up and said he'd changed which was all just a lot of stress for a twelve year old to handle.

Aang jumped to the next tree, and the Duke scampered after him. Down below, he heard a dramatic sigh, which was an improvement over the growl of rage he used to get from Zuko when he dared him to catch him. So maybe Zuko had actually changed.

"You're not helping, Avatar," and there was the growl, although it had words with it this time. "The Duke, you need to get down from there, otherwise you might fall."

"I won't fall! Trees are my friends!"

"Trees aren't -- " Zuko's voice had suddenly gotten a lot closer, and Aang reflexively hopped onto an air scooter until he realized that Zuko was chasing the Duke, not him.

… Part of him felt slighted at the lack of attention.

"Everybody come down!" That was Sokka, still on the ground. "Even you, Aang, you're just encouraging them."

"Come on, the Duke, we'll get to the nice war balloon faster if we walk on the ground," Zuko was trying to tempt the child.

"Trees are better!" The Duke was somehow managing to evade the older boy. Aang was absolutely not helping with occasional strong supporting breezes, not at all.

"Fine," Zuko grumbled, eventually. "You're pretty good at this, so we'll use the trees."

Zuko wasn't bad either, Aang noted, for someone who hadn't grown up in a forest. Or so he presumed. Wait, he was definitely right. He'd been to the Fire Palace, and the only trees there were for decoration. Especially the miniature ones, which were super cute but what was with that?

"As co-parent, I strongly disagree with that decision!" Sokka shouted up at them, and was subsequently ignored.

"So, uh. Hypothetically," Aang asked as he whipped out his glider to weave between the branches next to the Fire Prince. "Since we had so many reasons why you shouldn't teach me firebending. How are you going to find someone else? There's that guy Jeong Jeong but we kind of got off on the wrong foot -- not quite as wrong as the one you and I got off on, but then there was that time you rescued me from Zhao so I'm willing to say that evens out the feet."

"You met Jeong Jeong?" Zuko was surprised enough to take an eye off the Duke, which meant that it was the perfect time for the child to drop through a gap in the leaves. Aang airbent him back up just as Zuko dove for the back of his shirt. "I thought he died a long time ago," Zuko said when he'd placed his charge back on a branch. "I guess that's a possibility. But no, the clear choice is my uncle. The only thing is, I don't know where he is right now."

Oh yeah, the nice old guy who smelled like tea. Iroh, right? "But he's always with you!" Aang exclaimed. "How did you lose him?"

A frown darkened Zuko's face. "As you can imagine, my sister wasn't too happy when he played rear guard for your group in Ba Sing Se. He was in prison for treason, and I meant to get him out when I left, too, but when I got there he'd already broken himself out."

"No offense but your uncle doesn't really seem like the prison break kind of fellow," Sokka called from the forest floor.

Zuko spared a moment to gaze down imperiously at the Water Tribesman. "Dragon. Of the West," was all he said.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me? Super isolated tribe, remember? That I only left less than a year ago?"

Zuko groaned. Or growled. It was a growl-groan, Aang decided. "Ask Toph sometime," Zuko said. "I'm sure she knows. Anyway." He turned back to Aang. Figuratively, because he was still being a responsible father and watching the Duke. "If I can't find him -- if he doesn't want to see me, hopefully he at least wants to train you for the good of the world."

Aang was a bit lost. Again, figuratively, not literally! Although maybe also literally, he knew they were somewhere above the temple but if he had to point it out on a map he definitely couldn't. "Why wouldn't he want to see you?"

"He was in jail because of me, Aang."

Wow, had Zuko ever used his name before? Aang felt warm and fuzzy until he remembered the topic of conversation. And the person he was having the conversation with.

"Oh," Aang said, and pretended to understand how Zuko got his uncle thrown in jail. Fortunately, Zuko elaborated.

"Because I chose Azula in Ba Sing Se, and --"

Right. Aang had been dead for most of that, so it was excusable that he hadn't remembered.

"--after everything he'd done to guide me and support me, I repaid him by throwing it all away to try and win the approval of my father, who -- who was never going to give it to me anyway. Not for who I really am. Uncle Iroh was the one who was a real father to me."

"That sucks," called Sokka, saving Aang from having to respond. "But you did kinda ask for it."

Zuko growled, at himself this time. "I know. I just hope I'll be able to apologize to him before this is all over."

"Hey guys," Sokka called again. "Where's the Duke?"

Startled, Aang followed his first instinct and looked up. Oh, wow, the Duke was really good at tree climbing!

"Get down from there!"

Hee hee. Zuko's voice was really funny when he was panicking. Aang threw himself into a loop and swooped up to the branch -- more of a twig, really -- that the Duke was clinging too. With one hand, because he was pointing with the other. "Is that the war balloon?" he asked.

Aang looked, and blinked. "No, that's just a cloud."

The Duke pointed at another cloud. "Is that the war balloon?"

"That's a cloud too."

"Is that --"

"Aang, get him down from there!" Both dads were yelling at him now. Aang sighed.

"None of those are balloons. Hey, we've got to go down now. Want to ride on Daddy Sokka's back?"

"Yes please!"

Aang grabbed the Duke around the waist and leapt off the tree. He threw in another loop for good measure, and because ha ha Zuko's face. The Duke was screaming with joy at top volume, but Aang could bend a gale to reduce it, although that made the flying a bit more tricky…

He landed next to Sokka and let go of the Duke.

The Duke didn't let go of him. "AGAIN!" he yelled.

Uh oh.

After they'd gotten Zuko's stuff from the war balloon and argued for an hour about how to get it down to the temple (Sokka was definitely consulting Teo on that one, Zuko might be a lot of things but he was not an engineer), the kids (and Sokka) had gotten hungry so they'd trekked back, on the ground this time. The Duke was good and tuckered out from all the excitement and fell asleep right after dinner, which meant that they finally had time now to try and figure out this parenting business. In a businesslike fashion, of course, because Sokka fancied himself a professional.

"So." Sokka greatly mourned the lack of a chair to lean back in and the lack of a fake moustache to twirl. He'd left his Wang Fire facial hair combo on one of the ships en route to the invasion and well, it was surely either at the bottom of the ocean or on enemy faces right now. "Let's talk about your experience in the field of childcare. Namely, do you even have any?"

Zuko scowled at him from his similar cross-legged position on the ground. "What's the point of discussing preparation for something that we never even anticipated in the first place? It's already happened, we need to figure out how to deal with it now, not if we were qualified to do that to begin with."

"Avoiding the question," Sokka made a fake note with a fake pencil. Zuko looked confused. Maybe he thought the Water Tribes had a secret way of writing things down without ink. Had the firebender never heard of oral tradition? "Clearly you've had some training in politics."

"I was Crown Prince. They tried to teach me some stuff."

"Eloquence, not so much," Sokka countered, earning another black look and starting to thoroughly enjoy himself.

"Fine! Well, I was a Navy commander for almost three years and my crew complained about pretty much anything and everything, so I can handle toddlers."

"It could be relevant experience," Sokka allowed. "What else is on your resume?"

"Uhh, I don't know how much else would be applicable? But I do have one with my other important documents, if you feel like you --"

"Yes. Absolutely. Most important." Sokka could not believe his luck. And that the Fire Prince was such a nerd. Who brought paperwork along when committing high treason? "Go and get it. I'll wait right here."

In the meantime, maybe Appa had some hair he would like to donate to the Wang Fire Beard Restoration Fund.

"Why do you even have this?" Sokka asked when Zuko came back, folder in hand, and plucked out his resume. "And what's all that other crap?"

"I came here for a teaching job, didn't I?" Zuko defended himself. "And who knows what my father might have had destroyed when I left. It's not like I can just get another copy of my immunization record anywhere."

Sokka coughed on something -- pretty near choked, actually -- before he managed to gasp out a reply. "Logical. Good attention to detail. Nice to know we're not off to a completely disastrous start, although you bombed your elevator pitch earlier. Now give it."

Zuko did, and waited in agonizing silence while Sokka's facial expressions started stressing him out, the way they were changing every few seconds. Finally, the other boy spoke.

"Ok, so, prince, education, blah blah blah, no notable accomplishments, unexplained promotion to Crown Prince at the age of ten. I'll put that down to nepotism. More education, these are not great grades my man, seriously I thought you said you were pretty good at firebending?"

Zuko opened his mouth to respond but Sokka made no break in his monologue.

"Oh, finally some work experience. Commander of the Wani, from 93 - 99 ASC. What's ASC stand for? If I may," Sokka paused for dramatic effect, "Ask." He started cackling to himself.

Zuko didn't see what was funny. "After Sozin's Comet?"

"Heh, they're going to have to re-set to zero in a few weeks, or change the acronym. Anyway, so that was the ship right? Again, I'm putting that down to nepotism too."

"I thought that means you get the job because your relatives show favoritism towards you."

Sokka raised an eyebrow. "You're telling me that's not what happened?"

Zuko considered the circumstances under which he had gotten his ship, and asked: "… What's the opposite of nepotism?"

"Don't ask me, you're the educated one," Sokka shot back, and plowed on. "You've got an employment gap here --"

"Zhao blew up my ship …"

"Meaning after three years of experience your net return to the company was literal sunk costs? Not a great start to a career, let me tell you."

Zuko bristled. That had been his ship, almost his crew's lives, and was definitely not a laughing matter!

"Anyway, then we have a major demotion to 'Tea Server at Pao's Family Tea Shop' after that employment gap. So you didn't really spend the extra time on personal development, did you."

Zuko was starting to feel lost now, but he did his best to keep up. "I did some freelance roofing here and there? But mostly vigilante work and petty thievery. I didn't exactly have a passport after I spent three weeks drifting on the ocean after the Siege of the North."

He had the feeling that Sokka was not focusing on the important details Zuko was trying to get across. "So you were an undocumented migrant worker?"

"Well, I was a fugitive from the Fire Nation, so … yes?"

The Water Tribesman had the gall to tut-tut. "I feel like that's the kind of detail you should lead with on a document like this. Wanted in X number of nations, for example. Anyway, this tea shop. Was that customer service or inventory?"

"A bit of both." Zuko gave up on dignity now and let the weight of the world drag him down to lie on his back. At least this way he wouldn't have to meet Sokka's eyes.

"Gain any skills you'd care to comment on?"

"Not setting idiots on fire," Zuko growled pointedly.

"Appreciated," Sokka sounded smug. "Ok, now here's a reasonable-sounding job progression: Assistant Manager at the Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop. Very good, shows growth. But then it skips back to Crown Prince and a crapload more made-up sounding titles, more nepotism bullshit clearly. We'll disregard that. Also, no one's going to believe you if you put 'lightning redirection' in your list of skills. And what's 'Breath of Fire' supposed to mean? Were you a fire flake eating contest champion or did you blow vegetable cart drivers at caravan stops?"

Zuko's honor short-circuited at that interpretation and left him spluttering, blood rushing to his face. His next exhale was very much on fire.

Sokka blinked. Breath of Fire. Right. A big no-no on prostitution, then. "Oh," he said, and followed up with the first thing to come to mind. "Man, you couldn't even get a job sucking dick without the nepotism. You're probably the least employable person in the Fire Nation, between the treason and the lack of marketable skills."

Sokka never thought too hard about what he said, from years of experience of being himself, and this time was no exception. He turned back to the heavy parchment, eyeing the attachment scribed in a different, only slightly-less-pompous hand. "What's this?"

For a firebender, Zuko had very poor breath control. Maybe that was why it had been on fire a minute ago. The panting pile of Fire Prince was probably not capable of responding right now for whatever reason.

Sokka scanned the page, eyes widening as he read. "Holy shit, you've broken into a lot of places! Is that something you're supposed to put on a resume? Also, you should burn this, because this is so much treason."

He tossed the page at the prone prince, who seemed grateful for the chance to light something on fire. "I thought it might be relevant to this position," Zuko grumbled, having figured out respiration once more.

Sokka considered. "Well, I guess we don't need to do a technical then, since you got in here somehow. Which clearly we didn't think non-airbenders could just do."

Zuko snorted. "This temple's security is horrendous. I got in when I was thirteen and half blind."

"Toph's twelve and all the way blind."

"Did she climb down?"

"We've got a sky bison for that," Sokka replied smugly.

"I didn't."

"We'll skip the technical," Sokka confirmed.

"Wait, then, shouldn't you have one?" Zuko demanded, rolling onto his elbows to face Sokka.

"Who, me?" Sokka made his best innocent-Aang eyes to buy time while coming up with an excuse. "I'm already a certified care-giver. I'll have you know I was the only man in the village and head warrior trainer for five years, which involved plenty of work with children --"

"Children aren't warriors."

Sokka jabbed at the parchment in his hand. "Says the actual child soldier. That aside, I also oversaw the maintenance of the village wall --"

"You had a wall?"

"Shut up, imperialist. I'm also the Chief Tactical Officer of this Gaang, yes that's a double 'a' in there that I just pronounced, because I am also in charge of naming things and am very good at it, also it was me who came up with the invasion plan for the Day of Black Sun ---

"Which failed…"

"-- Inventor of the submarine --"

"Doesn't count if it's not your name on the patent --"

"-- And I spent one day hauling fish on a boat and another training with the Kyoshi Warriors and have totally gone ice dodging and received the Mark of the Wise!"

Zuko was choking again. Oh, wait, that was laughter.

Prince Angry Jerk knew how to laugh? Sokka tucked that detail away for later, but right now he was getting pretty angry and jerky himself. "Anyway, what's important is that my sister made me co-parent --"

Zuko coughed and it sounded like "nepotism". Sokka ignored him.

"-- And I'm the one doing the interviewing here, not the one being interviewed! My family doesn't have a history of genocide, mental instability and child abuse."

Ha! Silence! He'd won!

Zuko had gone still. After a moment, he asked, cautious: "How'd you know about that?"

Sokka blinked, thinking back to what he'd said. "About what? The child abuse? I was just referring to all the child murder."

"Oh," Zuko said, "That makes sense."

Sokka made another fake note. "Exactly what I expect to hear from a mentally stable person."

This co-parenting thing couldn't fail.

They were so doomed.

Zuko saw Sokka's face fall the moment he also realized that they were both just faking it. Neither of them seemed to have a lot of experience with fathers and what they did probably could have been better.

Zuko sighed. They'd have to try, of course. He'd just have to pray that their failures wouldn't hurt the child. "What was your teaching philosophy?" he asked. "For the toddlers."

"Huh?" Sokka seemed to break out of his own introspection. He scratched at the back of his head. "Um, there's always time for bathroom breaks, don't ever give them pointy weapons, and be glad you get to give them back to their moms at the end of the day."

"Did you do corporal punishment?"

"Sometimes I would shove them in a snowbank. Otherwise, no. That's just … that should be a last resort. And I feel pretty strongly about that."

"Okay." Zuko's voice was small and he hated it. There was a stupid lump in his throat that wouldn't go away, that must be why.

"What about you?" Sokka asked. "Teaching philosophy. I suppose you must have thought about it, since you're wanting to teach Aang and all. In a few short sentences."

"Uh, well … I guess…"

"If you can't manage three-to-five coherent sentences, I understand. Six-year-olds can't either. Sometimes." Sokka was back to smug, which did not help Zuko at all.

"My uncle always let me make my own mistakes," Zuko blurted out. "He'd give advice but he wouldn't punish me if I didn't follow it. Life and luck usually took care of that part. And I think that's the best you can do as a parent. You can tell a child what's right and show them how to get there but in the end they're the ones who have to choose to do it."

Sokka didn't say anything for a long moment, giving Zuko's brain plenty of time to go into overdrive trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that he had said that was wrong.

"We can do this," Sokka said, finally, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself.

"We have to try," Zuko said, with conviction.

We have to do it right, he didn't say. You didn't get second chances with parenting.

"Right, good then," Sokka cleared his throat. This was getting way too close to feelings territory to be comfortable, and with the Fire Prince of all people. He took a look at his imaginary notepad and asked the last question on his list. "Where do you see yourself in five years? Still in the field, or is childcare and teaching a 'those who can't do, teach' situation for you after your naval career went up in flames? Ha ha, still got it." That last part was mostly to himself.

"What kind of question is that?" Zuko was back to scowling, and Sokka felt relieved at the return of normalcy. "Do you have any idea how many people want me dead?"

Oh yeah, Sokka had forgotten how seriously the Fire Nation took the treason shtick. "So, either dead or, what, the next Fire Lord? That's the do-or-die attitude we like to see around here."

He stood up, and Zuko immediately scrambled to his feet. Paranoid, much? Sokka shook his head, and clapped the firebender on the back, earning a flinch. Geez, he hadn't hit that hard. "Welcome to the team."

Sokka's bed was calling him.

Wait, no, it was Zuko calling him, which was way less appealing. "So in the end we didn't decide anything practical, such as who wakes up to take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night?"

Sokka paused for a second. "Is he even house-trained? He did live in the woods…"

With that, Sokka made a rapid escape. He thought he heard an angry voice shout "Fuck you!" as he ran.

Yeah right. Someone was engaging in wishful thinking.

Zuko didn't sleep at all that night, both out of fear that he'd have to take the Duke to the bathroom and because the group hadn't set a watch and he hadn't been kidding when he'd said that the Western Air Temple's security was terrible. So it was a relief when the sun finally rose over the horizon, and then over the canyon rim to shine onto the still slumbering faces of his new companions. How they could sleep for so long was a mystery to Zuko, but they at least looked like they were enjoying it.

The Duke was the first to sit up and yawn. Zuko watched as the kid rubbed his eyes but immediately moved into grabbing distance when he saw him approach the temple's edge. But all the Duke did was open up his pants and pee over it, which was not house trained but better than some other options Zuko could have imagined, and in the end no one fell off of any air temples.

"Good morning," Zuko said, because that was what people said first thing in the morning.

"Daddy!" Zuko was not expecting the leg leech to return so soon or so enthusiastically. He patted the helmet-free head awkwardly, like you were supposed to do with kids.

"Sleep well?"

"Kinda. I dreamed about my real dad. Pipsqueak. I miss him a lot."

Oh Agni there were sniffles again. How could the kid go from apparently overjoyed to sobbing in the span of two breaths?

"Hey, uh. Do you want to meditate with me? It … it helps a lot. When you miss someone."

"Does it make the achy part of your heart go away?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it does, for a little while. Here, sit down. Do you like the sunshine? It's nice to sit in the sun." Zuko positioned the Duke next to him, and turned his palms and face up to greet the morning light.

He drew in a deep breath. Everything was going to be okay.

When Aang woke up, there were people meditating.

Meditating.

That was his thing. And he'd tried and tried to get Katara to join him (Sokka had had a laughing fit the one time Aang had asked him) and she never wanted to. But right over there in a patch of sunlight were two people who were even lower on Aang's list of Most Likely to Join Me in Meditation: Prince Kill-It-With-Fire Zuko and the hyperactive Duke.

Aang wasn't sure what to make of this, so he crept casually closer, making sure not to accidentally send out a breeze that might signal his presence.

"Fire can be dangerous and wild," Zuko was saying, and both he and the Duke were staring into a flame that was cupped in the bender's hand, pulsing like a small star. "But it can also be beautiful and comforting."

The Duke reached out to touch the flame, and Zuko quickly closed his hand, snuffing out the flame, while reaching with the other to catch the Duke's. He continued talking, calm and quiet. "So you see, as a firebender, I need to be very careful and control my bending, so I don't hurt people unintentionally."

Aang inhaled sharply, the resulting air turbulence blowing his cover. His expression was determined, though, when Zuko's gold eyes found his own storm grey ones. "I think you are supposed to be my firebending teacher," Aang declared. "When I first tried to learn firebending, I burned Katara, and after that, I never wanted to firebend again." He frowned at the memory of that day, his joy at discovery turning to shame as his dearest friend suffered for his mistakes. "But now I know you understand how easy it is to hurt the people you love."

Aang's hands formed the Flame as he bowed to his former enemy. "I'd like you to teach me."

Chapter Text

"So, what are we going to learn first?" Two eager faces looked up at Zuko.

Wait, two?

"I wanna learn firebending!" hollered the Duke.

That was...not actually impossible.

"How old are you?" Zuko asked, considering.

"Huh?" said Aang.

"I'm six!"

"I mean, it could be possible."

The Duke looked delighted, so that had probably been the wrong thing to say. It would only crush him later if he found out that he wasn't a firebender. Zuko knew how that felt, as birthday after birthday passed him by without any sparks. "I was… around that age when I started bending. There's a way to test it, but aren't you from the Earth Kingdom?"

"Do you really think the Duke could be a firebender?" Crap, it sounded like Aang was super into this idea too.

"It wouldn't hurt to do the test," Zuko said, cautiously, although it was apparently way too late to stop anyone from getting their hopes up.

"Can I do it too?" asked Aang.

"You're the Avatar. You already know you're a firebender."

"But I want to," Aang whined.

"Fine," Zuko snapped. "Anyone else want in?"

"Yeah, why not." Zuko did not jump at Sokka's sudden interjection, because he had been paying attention to his surroundings just fine and was not at all sleep deprived.

"All experiments need a control sample. Confirmed non-bender here to make sure you don't get any false positives."

As expected, Sokka tested negative.

Zuko was secretly relieved when the Duke did too, although he felt bad at the way the kid's face fell. "But you can still come to lessons with Aang," he said to the Duke. "The basics are helpful for anyone, whether they're a firebender or not. Everyone breathes, so everyone needs breath control, and the forms are useful for self-defense."

"Yay, I'm gonna be a firebender!" shouted the Duke.

Zuko could feel a headache coming on. He'd already explained this twice, was he really going to have to do it yet again? "I told you, you're not a firebender, the Duke."

"I'M GONNA BE A NON-BENDING FIREBENDER!" the child insisted, at top volume.

The headache was real, but Zuko didn't have the heart to correct him. At least the Duke appeared to have given up on his dreams of becoming an airbender.

… Right?

Sokka had made an executive parental decision and forcibly removed the Duke from firebending practice after lunch break, once Zuko had declared his intention of starting Aang on live flame in the afternoon. Since the Avatar was six to eight years behind on the curriculum, Sokka could see the need for expedience, but that didn't mean it was age-appropriate for his adopted son.

And it was worrying how the Duke was extremely curious about fire in any setting, in the same way that he was very curious about the certain-death drops off the side of the building. Next thing he knew the kid would start showing an affinity for pointy rocks, pointy ice, or both. All in all, it was better that Sokka put the Duke down for a nap instead of letting him hang around with the actual firebenders.

Turns out he could have saved himself the considerable trouble of doing so.

The firebending was just … not as hot as he remembered it being? Sokka questioned why he'd ever been scared of Zuko, aside from the armor and general Fire Nation-ness and the bending-less ass-kicking the prince had handed him when they'd first met.

None of this was enough to stop him from calling it jerkbending, though, because he had a lot of pent-up frustration that experts said wasn't healthy to express around a kid.

"GET OUT OF HERE," was his co-parent's reply, and geez he must have had something pent up too.

Sokka made a point of doing so in the slowest way possible and was rewarded with another pathetic -- almost adorable -- fwoosh that couldn't have toasted a marshmallow but made Aang sit up and say, "That one kind of felt hot. "

"Don't patronize me! You know what it's supposed to look like!" set Sokka's ears to ringing as he got out of there for good.

So it wasn't just a sudden increase in Sokka's self-confidence in his fighting prowess, but rather an actual decrease in the amount and temperature of Zuko's flames. Interesting. Sokka couldn't say whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, but since his self-worth had been everywhere from rock bottom to sky high on the day of the eclipse (which, he had to remind himself, was only two days ago), he figured it was just back to zig-zagging along in the usual teenaged boy experience.

He wondered if that was what bending was like, too.

"I've got some pretty bad news," didn't even begin to cover it, in Toph's opinion. Zuko really ought to have warned her to get some damn earplugs. "I've lost my stuff," he finished.

"Don’t look at me, I didn't touch your stuff!" Sokka, as usual, being less than helpful, but not disruptive. So far, so reasonable decibel level.

"Who took my dad's stuff?" asked the Duke, then followed it with an earsplitting scream. "AHHHHHHH!"

And then there were child vibrations everywhere, seriously what was he doing, jumping around like a crazy person and who had just yelled, "Shit, where'd he get that knife!"?

The yelling had not stopped and Toph's ears were ringing as badly as her earthsense as someone got tackle-hugged into submission, and probably disarmament as well.

Sweet mother of all that is holy, what had happened to the nice boy who'd offered her his helmet on the submarine, and above all WHY WAS THERE NO WARNING WITH THIS CHILD.

Something his co-parents also seemed to be struggling with, as their heartbeats settled down from panic-attack levels back to normal-attack levels while they talked the Duke down.

"I'm talking about my firebending. It's gone," Zuko explained, both to the child and the onlookers, and Toph could feel Sokka shooting him a dirty look that said, you should have led with that. "I bet it's because I changed sides."

"I bet it's because you had a kid," Sokka-the-human-straitjacket interjected, and was promptly ignored.

"That's ridiculous," sniffed Katara. Selective unhelpfulness seemed to run in that family.

"I don't know," Aang said, his calm, thoughtful voice having the only positive effect the conversation had seen thus far. "Maybe it isn't. Maybe your firebending comes from rage and you just don't have enough anger to fuel it the way you used to."

"So, all we need to do is make Zuko angry! Easy enough." Katara was twirling a metal object in her fingers, Toph noted, and there was something much more worrying about Katara having a knife than the Duke.

"Tried it earlier," Sokka said, dejectedly. "He was pretty angry but the fire wasn't any hotter."

"Are you already fighting?" Katara's voice held a frown for her brother.  "That's so bad for a kid! You know that Kaalik back home always had anxiety because her parents fought. Before one of them disappeared down a glacial crevasse."

"No one is getting disappeared down any kind of crevasse!" Zuko said vehemently.

Toph clucked. "Easy there, maybe try getting some sleep instead of overreacting." His heart rate had not come down as far as it should have, a sure sign of exhaustion in her book. Katara wasn't that scary.

The dazed sigh of a new parent confirmed her theory. "Yeah you're probably right. Anyway, I don't want to have to rely on rage and anger anymore."

That would really mean burning the candle at both ends, Toph knew, so she suggested an alternative. "Since neither of you sleep deprived idiots are capable of thinking right now, let me solve your firebending problem too. Zuko just needs to go back to whatever the original source of firebending is."

"Is it jumping into a volcano?" Sokka asked, sarcastic.

"VOLCANO, WOOO!!" hollered the Duke, immediately jumping towards the campfire and almost as immediately being re-tackled by Sokka. At least the boys were really starting to get a hang of this parenting thing, Toph thought.

"Why would you say that, Sokka," Sokka mumbled to himself, so low that only Toph's sharp hearing could catch it.

She ignored him, which she was really getting a hang of, and explained how she'd learned earthbending from the badgermoles before asking who had been the original firebenders.

…Of course it would be dragons, and of course Aang didn't know what had happened to them. Toph resolved to let him hit his head against a wall during their next training session.

"So, what," Sokka's voice broke into her fantasy. "Maybe you'll pick up some super old Sun Warrior energy just by standing where they stood a thousand years ago?"

"More or less," replied Zuko, and again Toph heard a muttered why would you say that, Sokka, from his co-parent.

"We're going on this little historical architecture field trip with you," Sokka announced, holding up the Duke's hand that was still protectively -- preventatively -- grasped in his own. "Art appreciation can never start too early."

He opened his mouth to say something else. As a good friend, Toph took it upon herself to punch him before he said yet another thing he would regret.

The Water Tribe siblings were determined to kill him. At least Katara had been up front about it; step one foot out of line, blah blah blah, hurt either Aang or the Duke (but mostly Aang it seemed), end your destiny permanently then and there. Sokka, on the other hand … what was he even doing?

Zuko asked that out loud, from where he was absolutely unwilling to move, lying down on the cool stone with the Duke curled into his side. It had started out with a turtleduck-in-the-lap situation that was still ongoing, and besides, his room was impossibly far away. The kid probably needed the warmth, as he was now confirmed to be not-a-firebender, but why someone from the South Pole was dragging his overly furry bedding over was beyond him.

"Going to bed." Sokka looked at Zuko as if he was the stupid one, and started laying out whatever form of old animal skin it was that was sewn into a bag that smelled like old farts. "Teo and Haru have watch tonight."

"This is my bed. Floor patch. Whatever." And it was a good one, too, Zuko was so tired and it had been eight hours since his muscles had last twitched involuntarily from leftover lightning and his mind was finally starting to relax too. Or maybe it was just shutting down.

"So?" Sokka continued whatever it was he was doing.

"Do the Water Tribes not have a concept of personal space?" Zuko didn't even put in the effort to sound annoyed.

"Ever seen an igloo? Oh, wait, you were probably too busy ramming the village wall with your giant ugly ship."

"My ship was tiny. And I was too busy kicking your ass to appreciate the architecture."

"Well, for your information, igloos are an order of magnitude smaller than your definitely not-tiny ship. And don't parents sleep with small children in the Fire Nation?"

"No. No, they do not."

Sokka snorted, and plopped down within half an arm's reach of Zuko on the other side of the Duke. Zuko twitched and reset his internal lightning side-effects counter. "No wonder you flinch every time someone touches you."

Zuko opened his mouth to protest, but Sokka just talked over him. "Well, that's about to be remedied, my formerly evil co-parent! Cuddle time!"

Suddenly there was a Water Tribesman sandwiching the child between them and burying his face in Zuko's shoulder. "Hey, you're warm," the face said.

Zuko was, in fact, frozen. And extremely uncomfortable.

He said so, once his mouth started working again.

"Not for us!" Sokka chirped. "Although you could seriously use some more body fat."

Zuko didn't know what to say to that. He didn't know any appropriate words for this situation at all, so he closed his eyes in hopes that it would either stop or he would wake up.

He fell asleep, instead.

This was the best day ever. The Duke had gone on a ride on the gigantic fluffy bison, and even though his dads had tied him into the saddle after five minutes so he couldn't try loop-de-loops when he'd stolen Aang's glider it was still great, and now they were at a really old island with big crumbly buildings and vines everywhere, like the forest had moved in on the city and made it its friend.

"Heave .. ho!" cried Daddy Sokka, and then the Duke was flying, WHEEEEEEEEEE, over a pit filled with spikes, ha ha, take that, people trap!

"Hey, how am I supposed to get over there?" Daddy Sokka complained, but the Duke didn't see why he couldn't just run on the wall like Daddy Zuko had just done. Eventually, Aang used his airbending to get him over, but the Duke wasn't paying attention anymore because were those cool buttons on the stone wall? Before he could run over there Daddy Zuko grabbed him and put him on his shoulders. Ostrich-horsey back rides were also cool, but probably not as cool as those buttons, so the Duke pouted.

Daddy Pipsqueak would have let him press the buttons. Also, he had better shoulders for sitting on. They weren't so… pointy. And the Duke didn't have to share the space with swords.

He forgot his discomfort in the next moment as they approached a giant stone mural of an angry person and a lot of fire. Daddy Zuko put him down and let him run over and touch the flames, but they were cold because they were made out of rock and not real fire. But that was okay, because then they were on an awesome bridge with funny stone creatures looking out of the sides that were just like his favorite kinds of tree branches, only with scary faces that would definitely keep the bad guys away! He scrambled onto one of them but Daddy Sokka must have been really scared of the ugly faces because he pulled the Duke off of it immediately.

"A little help here?" Daddy Sokka whined to Aang and Daddy Zuko, who were walking ahead talking about dragons probably.

"Put him on your shoulders," suggested Daddy Zuko, glancing back, and the Duke approved that idea and held up his arms to Daddy Sokka.

"He's heavy," complained Daddy Sokka. "And he jumps off. Give me your rope."

The Duke pouted, and tried to sneak off onto the next gargoyle while Daddy Sokka was distracted. He got caught by the back of the collar again, why did they keep stopping him, it wasn't as if he was going to fall down, that was ridiculous. Besides, forest floors were usually soft unless you got unlucky and there was a rock in the way.

"This is my nice rope, you can't just have it," Daddy Zuko said, but came over anyway.

"Yeah, well, give it anyway, the next time the Duke tries to fall off the architecture I want something to hold onto him by."

Daddy Zuko grumbled but knelt down and started to tie a web about his upper arms and legs, which resulted in a lot of arguing about knots of all things, and the Duke was fidgeting a lot by the end of everything because he wanted to climb into the mouth of that stone dragon over there. Eventually his dads let him go and he clambered over the big stone teeth, only to trip and get caught by the rope contraption that Daddy Sokka was holding onto.

"Ha," said Daddy Sokka, sounding smug. "Such convenience, with the application of modern engineering to childcare!"

"Whatever, it's just a child leash," grumbled Daddy Zuko, and led them to a big solar calendar.

"Hey, the Duke, come here." Daddy Sokka had a thinking expression on his face as he tugged on the rope. The Duke scampered to his side.

"Just stand … a little to the left…"

Daddy Sokka positioned him and the Duke didn't know the rules to this game. There was a light on the wall that Daddy Sokka was staring at though and it was moving when he moved his head, which was kind of fun but not as fun as fire.

"Here, let me." Daddy Sokka grabbed his helmet and his head along with it and started tilting it and the light was moving, ohhhhh, it was heading up towards the big red stone now! That must be the goal of the game!

"You know I have swords for that," Daddy Zuko broke in with a voice that sounded like it needed a good watering. "Swords that actually reflect the light. That are not attached to a child's head."

"Yeah yeah," Daddy Sokka dismissed him. "You've got swords, and magic fire, and a teaching job on top of a co-parenting position, and you're some sort of cat-burgling ninja when you feel like it, leave something for the rest of us, Zuko. Also, this is more fun."

The dancing light hit the red stone and it glowed.

"Ohhhhhhhh." The Duke watched, excited. Was it going to explode?! He loved explosions!

Instead, the giant stone door opened. They stepped inside.

"Wow!" screamed the Duke, and it echoed, so he laughed. Those statues were so fierce and AWESOME, but why did Aang want to play with Daddy Zuko and not him?

"I wanna do the dance too!" the Duke announced to the room, but no one paid attention to him. He repeated himself, louder. Sometimes in the forest you couldn't be heard because of all the trees. This tactic, noted the Duke, pleased, still worked outside of the forest.

"Ugh, fine," Daddy Sokka said, sounding upset. Maybe he was also jealous of the other two who had gotten a head start at the newest game. Try as the might, the Duke and his dance partner couldn't catch up, which the Duke blamed on the rope contraption still keeping him close to Daddy Sokka.

OH BUT LOOK AT THAT SHINY EGG. The Duke was vaguely aware of the older boys debating in the background as he struggled towards it, dragging a still-arguing Daddy Sokka with him. If he stood on his tippy-toes just so he could almost … almost …

The glowing egg fell from the pedestal at the push of his fingers, but it didn't hit the floor. Instead, a whoosh of green slime caught him up, and Daddy Sokka with him, and WOW it was SO STICKY AMAZING. The Duke shrieked with joy.

"Aang, get me up there NOW!" he heard Daddy Zuko shouting, and then he was stuck to a metal grate, what fun, and more whooshing was coming his way but it was air and not slime. Seconds later both his dads were right there next to him, trying to tear him away, owwwwww that wasn't very nice, he was good and stuck up here.

"Help me get him down, move your -- get your leg out of my way, Sokka!" Daddy Zuko sounded way more upset than a bunch of glue was worth.

"I can't move my leg, you move your arm!"

"My arm's stuck!"

"Uh, hey guys." Oh, Aang was here too now! "I think we're --"

The Duke's backside suddenly felt sticky and he knew he hadn't had an accident although with all the excitement he just might,  so he guessed that the sticky green glue had filled up the whole room.

"--Stuck." Finished Aang.

Well, of course. That's what happened when something was so sticky.

There was only one problem. "Dad? I have to go to the bathroom!"

Zuko was in trouble. He was in trouble because he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people he wasn't related to who didn't hate him, and the last one of those had been Mai and he'd fallen hard and fast for her. Even before that, there had been Jin who he hadn't even liked but tried so hard to please, and Jet who had at least wanted to kiss him too and even Song hadn't hated him so he'd tried to make sure she did, in the end, because it was better that way. That way the Fire Nation couldn't hurt her again.

Now Zuko had only had the Duke for a day and a half but he already knew that if anything happened to him, he'd kill everyone in the immediate vicinity and then himself. And on top of that there were Aang and Toph who actually liked him, which was so new Zuko wasn't sure how to deal with it yet, no one had liked him since Lu Ten had died and Azula had been young enough to still look up to him. At least Katara hated him, and Haru and Teo were afraid of him. But Sokka...

Sokka didn't hate him. Yeah, he was super annoying but because evidently the spirits hated Zuko and loved balance, Sokka was also extremely attractive. And they now were glued, limbs intertwined, to a grate until Zuko figured out how to break them out or the Avatar rediscovered some ancient de-sticking power.

Zuko was going to have to be very careful not to fall in love.

"Well, now is as good a time as any to hash out those co-parenting details you were worried about," Sokka said to Zuko.

Aang had the distinct feeling that he was being shortchanged on his own field trip.

"You don't think this is a better opportunity to contemplate our place in the universe?" Zuko replied, and even though Aang was starting to recognize Zuko's brand of humor -- heh heh, that was funny because Zuko was normally such a firebrand, get it? (if the older boys weren't going to entertain him and the Duke then Aang would have to do it) -- he did think that made more sense.

"Sounds depressing. I'm not the Avatar or a prince, that kind of thing is way less interesting for an everyday guy like me."

"I wouldn't say you're exactly ordinary," Zuko grumbled, but was talked over as usual.

"So, who has to give him The Talk?" Sokka stage whispered the last two words.

If Zuko had a hand free Aang was sure he would use it to slap his own forehead. "That's the first thing to come to mind? Sokka, that's years down the road!"

"Hey, it's the thing that scares me most about parenting." Sokka didn't shrug but it was implied.

"Lucky you," Zuko replied, dryly.

"Besides the costs of education, of course. I swear Aang's one week of school nearly bankrupted us!"

"Did not!" Aang protested, although he didn't actually know the details. "Isn't school supposed to be free?"

"Yes," Zuko confirmed. "If you paid anyone you got ripped off."

"Tuition doesn't cover art supplies! Those noodles had to come from somewhere! Besides, what about higher education?"

"Sokka. He's six. We'll worry about that when we get there."

"Spoken like a true rich boy," Sokka sniffed.

"Wow you guys, your arguing must be really therapeutic," Aang broke in, noticing the soft snores that were coming from the child stuck next to him, noting that that probably shouldn't be normal behavior.

"Now that is the kind of thing we should be worried about now," Zuko said. To Sokka, not Aang, and Aang was definitely feeling left out now that the only other person who didn't want to talk about parenting was asleep. "Along with things he doesn't know, like that fire can burn him, or how to climb on tall things without falling off, or basic knife skills. He should probably be learning to read and write, too, but first we have to make sure he has the common sense to survive long enough to do that."

"Yeah, but. We probably have a very different idea of what constitutes common sense. Just saying. Because I grew up on the tundra and you are like the antithesis of common." Sokka sounded doubtful.

Zuko's voice scowled. "Is that supposed to imply I don't have any sense?"

"I think a sense of nationalistic superiority, royal duty and princely honor really don't apply. So yeah. You have no common sense. Accept it." Sokka sounded smug. He did, Aang would allow, have a good point.

"Yeah, like that time when you jumped off the lookout tower of your own ship after me or when you decided you could deflect arrows with swords," Aang illustrated with a laugh.

"Yeah, that last one actually made no sense," Zuko was forced to agree as Sokka spluttered angrily about weapons and statistical impossibilities. "So what do we do?"

Aang thought about it. "The Air Nomads had this great concept for situations just like this," he settled on. "Have you ever heard the phrase, 'just wing it'?"

"Is that like 'go with the flow'?," Sokka asked, which Aang supposed was culturally equivalent.

"That's complete raptor-bull -- I mean, hog-monkey wash," Zuko interrupted. Now it was Aang's turn to scowl.

"Hey, chill, man," Sokka scolded.

Zuko's scowl-voice put Aang's facial expression to shame. "I'm a firebender, chilling is genetically impossible! Also we have no flow, or wings. Which is why this sounds like hog-monkey wash."

"I didn't mean literally!" Sokka yelled back, frustrated.

Aang's instincts joined in the shouting match, telling him to diffuse the situation at all costs, but since he couldn't blow the two teenagers far away from each other, he settled on diplomacy. "It sounds like these are cultural differences that you are going to have to consider if you want to make co-parenting work." Aang wasn't sure where this sudden insight was coming from, but it sounded like something one of the senior monks might say. Or an Avatar with the wisdom of a hundred lives. "Interracial parents raising a third culture kid? Not an easy task."

It worked, though, calming the tension and sparking an intense but respectful explanation of cultural expectations and value systems, which he should be interested in, as the Avatar, and he literally couldn't run away from even if he wanted to. But Aang felt that he'd filled his Avatar-duty quota for the day and would rather watch the clouds float past and imagine that they were actually herds of sky bison.

...He could see why the Duke found Sokka and Zuko's arguments therapeutic. Soon Aang, too, was fast asleep.

Of course they would leave Sokka to keep the Duke from running headlong into the fire. Sokka was insulted, not only by this sleight but also by the Sun Warriors being completely unimpressed by his own ancestry, which had a lot of very brave chiefs and great leaders in it, and none of them had committed genocide. But Sokka had the grace to admit that Zuko was probably more used to getting the stink eye from entire crowds of people than himself, so he was willing to let the Fire Prince take that one for the team. Sokka just wished he didn't have to take babysitting duty instead of Eternal Flame transport duty.

Discrimination against non-benders, for sure.

Not that the Duke hadn't tried to get his own piece of flame. All it had taken was one look and Sokka could practically see the visions of chaos and explosions behind the kid's eyeballs as he gave a happy delinquent shout-sigh of 'FIRE.' Sokka was really glad they'd kept the leash after that.

It was even useful now, as they trudged behind the whole Sun Warrior tribe, headed to some shortcut to these firebending masters that Aang and Zuko were forbidden to know about.

"So, these masters," Sokka started gamely to the closest ponytailed and bodypainted warrior. "What are they like?"

The warrior looked at Sokka and the Duke. "Not easily impressed," she said.

"Are you speaking for yourself, or about them?" Sokka tried to joke.

"Both." She was a woman of few words, it would seem.

"You're not impressed by us?" Uh oh. Alarm bells were starting to go off in Sokka's head at that escalating tone of the Duke's.

"Well, let me ask you this: Do you love your daddy?"

Holy flying lemurs, who had told the Duke that he could jump off of Sokka's shoulders and flying-tackle an adult firebender's ponytail?

"DO YOU LOVE YOUR DADDY? " the kid was screaming, and well, now the warrior was impressed, although what kind of impression she had was what Sokka was worried about. The Duke had gotten hold of a knife yet again but thankfully hadn't thought to take it out of its sheath, and Sokka was beginning to wonder about how that kept happening. Somehow he suspected that it was Zuko's fault.

The firebender was making some sort of noise and flapping around almost as much as the Duke, only more effectively because she managed to grab him and tuck him under her arm.

"If you could just give him back, I swear that will never happen again --" Sokka tried, hoping the spirits wouldn't smite him for trying to make a promise he wasn't sure he could keep.

Oh. The noise was a laugh. The warrior was tickling the child now, and his screams of very loud random phrases were now screams of laughter.

Firebenders were crazy.

"Hey kid, do you want a smoke bomb?" the warrior asked, setting the Duke on his feet and producing a small object from somewhere on her person. Sokka didn't think too much about where, because Sun Warriors didn't exactly wear the usual layers upon layers he'd come to associate with the Fire Nation. But hey, smoke bombs were pretty harmless and if they kept the Duke in that state as well, the already exhausted co-parent in Sokka could only approve.

That would, in retrospect, prove to be a huge mistake.

Almost as big a one as thinking that the dragons were dead.

Sokka peed himself a little when the masters emerged from their caves.

The Duke peed himself a lot.

Sokka would have preferred the immolation by dragonfire the other boys were getting.

"With this technique the dragons showed us, Zuko and I will be unstoppable!" Aang announced as he bounced out of the final pose of the kata.

Katara giggled. "Nice dance." Aang's eyes got a little misty as he remembered his dance with her in the cave, which had been so much better than his dance with Zuko, even if that one was also with dragons. Actually, it was a fairly close competition, but he would still choose Katara. 

"It's not a dance!" Zuko was protesting. "It's a firebending form!"

"We'll just tap-dance our way to victory over the Fire Lord," Sokka said to his sister, illustrating with his fingers.

"And what's this little form of yours called?" Katara asked, her sarcasm in top form.

Zuko visibly wilted, but he replied anyway. "The Dancing Dragon." His face was so red, even Aang had to giggle.

"SMOKE BOMB!!!" yelled the Duke, simultaneously throwing one down, and Aang didn't clear the air immediately because he noticed the proud smile on the Duke's face as he looked around and noted the others weren't laughing at Zuko anymore.

Awwww. The Duke really did love his dad.

Chapter Text

"Zuko," Sokka said, disbelief written all over his features. "We are not taking a child to a maximum security prison."

"Why not?" The Fire Prince seemed puzzled.

Sokka took in a deep breath, did not let it out in a yell out of fear that the sleeping child in Zuko's arms would wake up and demand to be brought along to the aforementioned prison, and wondered where it had all gone wrong.

It could have been last night.

Sokka was exhausted, and had definitely shirked Dad-duties in lieu of faking sleep. It said a lot about him that nobody questioned his ability to sleep straight through the Duke's earsplitting (by now, Sokka was almost resigned to the fact that that was the Duke's normal volume) awakening from what had to have been a very bad dream. It was almost impressive that he managed to keep his eyelids glued shut, given that the child was right next to him when it happened, and was currently leaking face fluids all over the back of Sokka's shirt.

"Hey, what's wrong, little buddy?" Zuko had woken up too, or was already awake, and Sokka had never loved the firebender so much as in this moment. Not that was a particularly elusive benchmark, given all their encounters that hadn't occurred within the last two weeks at the Western Air Temple.

"Bad dream," the Duke whimpered, and Sokka felt a little horrible for slacking off now because the kid was shaking.

Zuko tugged the Duke closer to his side of the blanket-pile -- which held noticeably fewer blankets than Sokka's side -- and let the child bury his face in his tunic, which thankfully both muffled the loud sobbing noises and gave the facial goo an alternate landing spot.

And yeah, Sokka felt pretty guilty for being grateful for that.

"What was it about? Can you talk about it?" Zuko murmured, his rough voice strangely soothing.

"It was," the Duke was hiccupping now. "It was about my dad."

"Daddy Pipsqueak?" Zuko asked.

"Yeah," answered the Duke, and there was relative silence for a few minutes. The rest of the room quieted down as disturbed sleepers fell back into their rest, and Sokka was about to too, when, unexpectedly, Zuko spoke again.

"It's okay. I have nightmares too." Zuko pitched his volume low, but Sokka was close enough to hear him add, even quieter: "Not as many since I've been here, though." And clearly with less violent reactions than the Duke had to his, which to Sokka spoke unnervingly of long habit.

"Are yours about your daddy, too?" sniffled the Duke.

Sokka could practically feel the intensity with which Zuko was avoiding the question, so he was surprised when the older boy answered at all. "No. They're about the Fire Lord, mostly," Zuko whispered in the end.

Sokka felt an internal eyebrow raise over that amount of dissociation but didn't let it show on his face. He could be generous, he supposed; Aang had nightmares about the Fire Lord too -- Sokka really hoped Zuko's didn't involve showing up to battle a pantsless Ozai though -- and Sokka himself had had some bad dreams of that sort before the invasion.

"Why?" asked the Duke, and fell another point in Sokka's estimation of his self-preservation instinct.

"Well, he's really evil," Zuko responded, with the kind of reasoning even a six-year-old could appreciate.

"Why?" the Duke pressed again, and Sokka should have remembered this type of persistence from the insatiable curiosity of his own childhood.

"He wants to take over the world and hurt a lot of people," Zuko tried this time, clearly hoping that would bring an end to the matter.

Sokka could feel the frown in the Duke's voice. "Did he hurt you?" the child asked.

There was silence for a while, before a single syllable slipped free on a long exhale. "Yes."

"Well, that's just a nightmare," the Duke reasoned, after a minute. "Daddy Pipsqueak says they don't come true. Besides, me and Daddy Sokka will keep you safe."

Sokka wasn't sure if Zuko had been talking about dream or reality, but at least the Duke seemed to have used the distraction of helping his dad to put aside his own night terrors. He could be a sweet kid, sometimes, Sokka thought warmly. Of course Sokka would do everything in his power to keep him safe. Zuko, too. It was what family did, after all.

"Thanks, kiddo," Zuko choked out, face buried in the Duke's hair.

Yeah, Sokka thought fondly with the clarity that came in the moments before slumber. There wasn't much he wouldn't do for these two.

Still, something about the way Zuko had said yes sat poorly at the back of his mind as he drifted off.

It could have been the morning.

Sokka had drifted into consciousness with a soft-haired head tucked under his chin and a lingering dream of that pet lion-seal puppy he'd always wanted as a kid. It all seemed too good to be true, and the strands of the spotted mane were way more silky-soft than he ever expected, this was the Good Boy that would always go hunting with him even when Dad wasn't there to show Sokka how a real man of the tundra did things.

It was probably the Duke, Sokka's wakening brain supplied, to whom the term Good Boy could only very selectively be applied; but now seemed like one of those times so it made perfect sense to card his fingers through the hair in patterns vaguely remembered from his mother. Kid had a big head, he mused, but then all kids did; they were all adult-sized skull and eyeballs on tiny stick bodies, and in the Duke's case a mouth the volume of that cabbage merchant who was always yelling at them.

The body curled up in his limb-nest started shifting slightly, and Sokka splayed out his fingers to keep the child in place. They came to rest on a leathery patch, and Sokka wondered when his lion-seal pup had fetched his favorite chew-toy, it was too early to play and could the bestest Good Boy please go find Katara?

A sharp gasp brought Sokka's mind back from drifting to fully awake, as if said sister had just bent a bucket of water onto his face. His eyes flew open, instinctively looking for signs of danger.

It had honestly not occurred to him to look right in front of him.

Oh, shit.

Shit-on-a-turd-pile.

The Duke didn't have mismatched golden eyes.

Sokka snatched his hand away from the scar at the same time Zuko's whole body jerked backwards, clacking Sokka's teeth together angrily as the dark head tore itself out from underneath Sokka's chin.

Sokka's eyes were watering from the pain, but he didn't think that was the only reason Zuko's form was wavering at the moment. Heck, even he was trembling from the shock of such a rude awakening, and the single thought that it was just too damn early in the morning for an immolation.

"Uhh…"

Wake up, brain.

 "Good morning?" it supplied, and Sokka was disappointed with his current cranial capacity.

Instead of a friendly Good Boy, Zuko resembled more of a spooked pygmy puma, now crouched defensively a meter away with murder in his eyes.

Sokka instinctively broke eye contact to signal non-aggression, hoping that his brain would catch up to his mouth and make it say something to diffuse the situation. "Look, man, sorry about that," he was currently rambling.

"It was totally unintentional, I was literally unconscious at the time and probably thought you were the Duke because your hair is soft like a baby's…"

Speaking of which, the anxious parent brain Sokka hadn't known he'd had until two weeks ago supplied, where was the child?

"Did you just crush our kid or is he on the other side of me right now?" Sokka spun around as best he could, legs tangled in his sleeping bag, and started kicking the offending furs away.

The escalating panic in his voice seemed to break through the visions of dismemberment that were surely dancing in his co-parent's head. "Where's the Duke?" Zuko echoed, voice rough but eyes widening in realization instead of narrowed in deadly intent.

"Shit," was all that Sokka's brain came up with, scanning the area and noting no kid-size bumps under any of the blankets. "Shit shit shit shit crap on a caribou-otter."

"You lost our kid? He was right next to you, how is that possible!" Zuko exploded, springing to his feet.

"I thought you were the kid!" Sokka defended, following suit as the firebender stormed out of the room. "Don't blame this on my subconscious!"

Judging by the fluency with which Zuko was swearing under his breath, someone had definitely gotten up on the wrong side of bed, and Sokka dearly hoped that this feeling of abject parental panic was not about to set the tone for their day.

Of course, it could have been the nightly parenting meeting.

Sokka was doing his best to derail the subject from schedules and behavior reinforcement techniques so that the ones he drew up couldn't be overruled, and it seemed to be working. "I just think our personalities fit too well with the good cop, bad cop personas for us to not give it a shot should the occasion arise," he was saying. "Me as the good parent, clearly, and you as the bad one."

Tired-and-constipated was a look that had become familiar on Zuko's face at these meetings, when he was preparing to argue against what he would call moronic idiocy, which Sokka would like to point out were synonyms. Sokka generally won their arguments, but he was beginning to suspect that not even Toph could out-stubborn the prince if he really set his mind on something. Sokka decided that he'd better let up on his stance a little to give it more of a chance. "Maybe good and bad is too black-and-white. How about this: you can be the uptight uncle, and I can be the cool uncle."

"Out of the two of us, which one actually has a cool uncle?" was the deadpan response Sokka had not been expecting.

"Fine," he bit out. "I admit that the Dragon of the West is a pretty cool uncle." Toph had been both emphatic and terrifying on that subject a few nights earlier.

"Yeah, and by the way, dibs," was called out from the darkened hallways by the only person who wouldn't be bothered by such petty concerns as lack of light or attempts at privacy.

"Children's bedtime was an hour ago, don't make us adopt you too Toph," Zuko growled in her direction, and Sokka squashed down the initial panic at the thought of having two Earth Kingdom terror brats to the even more alarming realization that and Toph and Zuko were friends.

"Fuck, you're right, that would suck," she responded casually, content to stay hidden in the shadows or simply not knowing or caring if she was in their line of sight or not.

Sokka couldn't resist resuming his previous argument with Zuko, murmuring, "See, this is why you should be the bad cop, you're so good at it already," as Zuko snapped at Toph, although without any real heat: "Language!"

"You're not my dads!" she threw back. "And don't pretend I can't hear what you're saying under your breath, Zuko."

Toph made a show of stomping off, oblivious to the fact that they couldn't see her, but her echoing footsteps emphasized the point she was trying to make.

Sokka snickered, and was consequently too caught up in the subtle success of his cop-labelling venture to notice any warning signs emanating from his co-parent.

This, Sokka thought, was about a good a time as any to bring up war prisoners.

It felt wrong to abandon the kid who clearly already had abandonment issues at the tender age of six.

Yes, Zuko supposed it was more logical to leave the Duke behind than it was to pass him off as a noble's child in need of protective custody ("What's that?" Sokka had asked. "Against assassination attempts?" Zuko had tried to explain, and was met with a shudder and: "What even is your life.") to buy them a free entrance to the Boiling Rock. Hell, just flashing his scar could accomplish the same thing with less child endangerment, although that would probably just earn him a one-way ticket back to the Fire Lord, who was now wise to the existence of lightning redirection. Parenting was hard, sure, but Zuko wasn't about to aid and abet his own murder.

"We can't just leave him," Zuko tried again, although he felt like he was rapidly losing what little ground he'd had to start with. I don't want to had never been an acceptable reason before, when faced with I have to or someone has to; in this case, someone had to keep this idiot Water Tribesman alive in a Fire Nation prison infiltration. Zuko hadn't seen Sokka's resume, but he was willing to bet Sokka had never broken into any place more secure than the next southern village with a cute snow-fort wall.  So it was clear that Zuko had to go. He briefly wondered if prisons had take-your-child-to-work days, but could barely remember his last visit to such a facility.

Nevertheless, he had to give his argument a try. "He's messed up because his mom left, and he's already had at least two dads before us. What if he thinks we're leaving for good?"

"Nah, it's cool," Sokka said, way too casual, in Zuko's opinion, for someone whose own mother had died and who was currently discussing his own child's trauma. "My sister has mega abandonment issues and she's just fine."

Zuko let out a soft snort of disbelief. "She threatened to kill me twice within the two days after I got here." Come to think of it, thought, that wasn’t too unusual. Maybe there was just something about Zuko that invited death threats. "Kind of like Azula," he admitted aloud. "Are all sisters the same like that?"

"Uhhh…. right," Sokka was staring at him with his we'll-talk-about-that-later expression. "But anyway, Katara's been getting a lot better lately because whenever Aang runs away --"

"He what?!"

"Oh, yeah, didn't you know? Aang runs away all the time -- but he always comes back!"

Zuko rubbed at a headache, and set the Duke down gently with a sigh. Of all the problem children in this Air Temple, he'd thought Aang would be the least of his worries. At least Teo was a nice boy. Spirits, why couldn't the rest of them just be like Teo?

"He's not coming with us, Zuko," Sokka returned to their original topic, finally with the gravity it deserved. "And that's final. I won't endanger any more people. I know this is dangerous, and it's got a slim chance of success, just the same as I know it's something I have to do. "

"Fine," Zuko could agree but he didn't have to like it. "What are we going to tell the others?"

"Hunting," said Sokka, breezily. "Very manly activity. They'll never suspect."

"Suspect what, an un-manly prison break?" Sometimes Sokka's adjectives made little sense to Zuko.

"What's un-manly about a prison break?"

"I don't know, how can you assign one gender to an action in the first place when they can be done by people of all genders?"

"Weirdo," Sokka muttered under his breath and dismissed the topic outright. "Just write a note, oh ye of princely handwriting."

Zuko considered as he went to put the Duke back to bed and get his writing supplies. "It's going to take a while to write an adequate letter," he grumbled to Sokka when they'd found a quiet corner to light a candle to see by. "They need to know about nap times, and proper nutrition, and the disciplinary protocol we agreed upon."

Sokka blinked at him as if he couldn't understand the problem. "You just used the phrase 'agreed upon' in casual conversation. So don't act like you haven't been taking notes, you nerd. Just enclose them with a quick explanation. I'll even write that part if you want."

Zuko didn't know what was wrong with his grammatical constructs but there was something very wrong with that suggestion. "Those notes are just cursory! I don't want anyone to base their caretaking decisions on unsupported conjectures!"

Sokka just rolled his eyes, snatched up Zuko's satchel of writing materials, and started pulling out one leather-bond journal at a time.

"Hey!" Zuko protested, careful to set down the brush so that it wouldn't drip ink on the floor before leaping to defend his property.

"Spirits, Zuko, did you bring the entire Royal Library with you?" Sokka was saying, and tossed a quickly-scanned volume his way. Zuko caught it on reflex. "What even are all these?"

"This is my lesson-planning journal," Zuko said, holding up the book, then quickly setting it down to catch the next one and answer the implied question. "That one's my personal training log--"

Zuko hadn't thought that the Water Tribe's emphasis on oral tradition implied no respect at all for the written word but right now he was getting plenty of proof to the contrary -- "Aang's training log --"

"This one is the parenting journal, you idiot," Zuko sighed, and tossed it back to Sokka, equal parts pleased and anxious as Sokka fumbled it before making the catch.

The other teen scanned it, then shoved the barely-dried note that said To Katara, daughter of Kya and Chief Hakoda, Master Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, Companion of the Avatar, good morning. Need meat, gone fishing into the tie holding it closed. "Great. Looks thorough enough for a sister who's going to ignore ninety percent of the content anyway. Let's go."

Zuko hesitated, then gave a sigh of surrender and held out his hand for the note.  "Okay, but let me add a few things, first."

Mothers. The first rule -- the only rule -- was never to trust them. The Duke eyed the self-appointed Team Mom from his seat in the sunshine, and missed his dads. He took steady breaths the way he'd been practicing with Aang and Daddy Zuko, but today it didn't make him feel better at all. What if his daddies didn't come back?

"They'll be back an a few days at most," Katara said in his direction, from where she was reading a paper over by the fountain. She didn't sound very happy either, unlike Aang who looked really excited until he found out he had firebending homework.

Dad, which is what he called his original dad, even if the Duke couldn't always quite remember what he looked like, had always said that the best thing about moms was that when they ripped your heart out at least they didn't stick around to watch you die. And he'd overheard his dads talking about how their own sisters were just the worst. The Duke liked his friends, but he knew better than to wish for the dream of a family where everyone loved and cared for each other. Dad had told him to find that kind of family at first, the day he'd been sent away, but then Dad had thought about it, sighed, and said that even if he only ever wanted the Duke to be safe and happy for the rest of his life it probably wouldn't happen, so at the very least he should find a new dad.

The Duke didn't know what he was doing wrong, because he'd kept finding dads but none of them seemed to want to keep him in the end, so he supposed he might as well try his luck with Team Mom today. Just in case.

Katara eyed the letter bound to the burgundy leather cover of the  journal with a wary gaze and a world-weary sigh. "Right," she decided. "Let's have a look, then."

It could have been worse. Gone to get meat, back in a few, long-distance training instructions for Aang, oh and please take our kid in the meantime, instructions attached.

Katara opened the journal and flipped through the first few pages. Then she turned a few more, and more, and then she flipped to the end and went backwards a disappointingly small number of pages until she reached the last one that had been written on.

"That's … a lot of stuff," she murmured quietly as she stared at the painfully well-organized and well-scripted document.

"Here, let me see!" Toph's sharp hearing had picked up Katara's comment.

Katara was almost reluctant to hand over the compilation of logs and analyses whose text was carefully blocked off with bold dividing lines, headers distinguished with elegant calligraphy, and was even color-coded according to topic. Katara did not feel inadequate about her own journaling habits because she refused to make it a competition … but still. What the frick, Zuko.

"Wait a second -- " she realized just as she'd taken her hand off the journal, landing it fully in Toph's possession. 

The blind earthbender crowed as she opened up a hole in the floor (ceiling? Katara wasn't sure about the terminology of this temple), threw the book inside, and re-sealed the opening. "There!" Toph exclaimed. "Doesn't life feel a lot easier now?"

"Those might have been useful!" Katara yelled in return, and it was true, if only for journal formatting inspiration.

"Yeah, like you were actually going to do anything Zuko told you to do," Toph shot back, which was a fair point.

"How can what they do be so different from what I do for the rest of you," Katara grumbled in agreement. If she could control Toph's worst impulses, after all -- which, admittedly, she could not -- how much worse could the Duke be?

"I'll help!" Aang offered, probably just to get out of his firebending homework, but Katara wasn't going to look a gift ostrich-horse in the mouth. "I bet I'd make a great dad!"

"Yeah, for someone who never had one," snorted Toph.

"Look, even Toph thinks so!"

Katara wanted to point out that Toph clearly thought nothing of the sort, but she was a good person who didn't abandon childcare responsibilities to her friends who were twelve and had never had siblings.

… She was an okay person who absolutely did (and anyway Haru was seventeen although he also had never had siblings), because it would be unfair if they never got to see what she had to put up with every day of her life with Sokka for a brother.

Aang scratched his head where he'd missed a patch of stubble shaving that morning, and pondered. Air scooter races were out. Air ball was consequently also a no-go. Air marbles, air hopscotch, air tag, even air hockey… geez, what did normal kids do for fun? He wasn't quite ready to risk Katara's poor regard by taking the Duke gliding with him and Teo when she'd expressly forbidden it after that first loop-de-loop incident.

Aang stared at the Duke.

The Duke stared back.

"Hey, Aang, look what Haru and I found!"

Fortunately, there were some benefits to being the incarnation of the World Spirit; the universe tended to help Aang out if he was really stuck in a hard place. Aang blew himself to his feet and grabbed the Duke's hand to drag him towards Teo.

"What did you guys find? Something fun?"

"Paints!" Teo indicated the large metal buckets stacked on the back of his glider. "Do you think they're still good?"

"Oh, definitely, Air Nomads were great at preserving things!" Aang exclaimed.

"I wanna paint!" chimed in the Duke.

A badgerfrog croaked, and Aang hurried through his exercises while the other boys unloaded the paints and brushes.

"You know," Aang panted through his set of hot squats, "How the monks used to paint? They … would put the paint … into smaller cans… and instead of using brushes… bend air into it…as it came out of an opening… which made an aerosol … we called it… airbrushing." 

"That's nice, Aang," Haru said kindly. "The rest of us will need these brushes though! Is there a place that needs some extra cheer around here? I don't know if the kitchen was originally painted, but it definitely needs a touch up."

Aang agreed, but then remembered that there were knives in the kitchen, so he suggested one of the more broken-down courtyards instead. The Duke, he found, was really good at painting. With Aang and Haru's help, he started with long brown streaks on one of the walls and then went back with green circles to make a friendly-looking forest.

"Wow, you're a really good painter!" Aang complimented after he'd air-dried the latest layer. The Duke was going for blues and yellows now, maybe he was going to add some birds. "Can I commission you?" he wondered. Aang wasn't sure what exactly that meant, but he'd heard one of the monks say it to an artist once.

"How will you pay me?" asked the Duke, and trust an Earth Kingdom child to know his transactional terminology.

"With … exposure!" Aang offered. Air nomads typically didn't have a lot of money, if at all, and he was the Avatar. He was confident that he could draw a large audience.

The Duke was not content with that answer, and let out a frustrated scream as he splattered paint all over the portion of the wall where Aang had been working on a still-life series of fruit pies.

"Hey!" Aang cried, and shook a bit of paint at the Duke in retaliation. Minutes later, things had devolved into a minor paint war but Aang was still sure he had things pretty much under control. Until the Duke ran out to the adjoining walkway to get away from Teo and dumped a bucket of blue paint all over the statue of Avatar Yangchen.

That was a level of disrespect to cultural heritage that Aang knew was unacceptable, so he had to find a way to stop this before it got even more out of hand. "Hey you guys, why don't we just go back to normal painting now, huh?" he tried. This was slightly a lot harder than normal Avatar-style conflict resolution, because firstly the perpetrators were his friends, and secondly this wasn't exactly a cut-and-dried situation where one side was clearly in the wrong. "Hey, stop!" Aang escalated, but he knew the conviction just wasn't there. "You guys! Things are getting TOO CRAZY!"

It was hard to be heard over the Duke and Teo's yelling, Aang supposed, and resolved to be a lot more intimidating as he filled his lungs again. The thing is, Aang wasn't sure how to be intimidating without excessive use of bending or the Avatar state. He tried to picture how Zuko looked when he kept Aang from running out on training without even a word; straight-backed, arms crossed, disappointed scowl and good eye narrowed to match the bad one to a scarily symmetrical effect.

Aang must have visualized really well because the next thing he knew a straight-backed, crossed-armed, narrow-eyed, Extremely Disappointed In You waterbender had materialized and effectively froze the room solid without a single bending motion.

On very rare occasions, having the universe on your side really sucked. Aang was never going to be able to practice his Dad Voice if this kept happening.

"I'm going to be a terrible parent, aren't I?" Aang asked, miserable as he watched Haru and Teo get sent away with the Duke to clean him up.

"Aang." Even the way Katara said his name in that soft, special way that was only for him didn't cheer Aang up. "You're only twelve."

Try one hundred and twelve, Aang thought. Or at the very least, almost thirteen. And besides, Sokka was only fifteen, and okay maybe Zuko was a lot older because he was taller and much more somber although even he wasn't yet grown, but neither of them had been parents before in their past lives. As far as Aang knew, anyway.

"You've already had to grow up so fast," Katara was saying now, and it was clear that she could picture the Comet coming as well as he could. "You don't need to rush into all areas of that just yet. And you're really great with kids, and people in general really. You can always put a smile on someone's face. But you aren't so great yet at doing unpleasant things when they have to be done, things like discipline or letting someone be mad at you or be sad because they need to be at the moment."

"Or at cleaning up," she added with a wry smile, experimentally pulling at the still-wet paint on the statue with her waterbending.

"Maybe I do just want to be a kid for a little longer." Aang sighed, but smiled back at her in thanks as he added his efforts to her own.

Toph was pleasantly surprised that the Duke's meltdown came a full day later than she'd expected. She was less than thrilled that it now coincided with the end of Katara's rope and the last of Aang's most recent bout of patience (which had also been four times longer than his usual attention span, so all in all it was a good thing but what absolutely shitty timing). Toph figured that the least they owed her was time enough to protect her eardrums with soft clay before walking in on the scene.

The older pair noticed her at the same time, Katara looking up from her exasperated attempt to simultaneously comfort the wailing Duke and fend off Aang, who was offering his best distractions (it was the air marble trick, which said a lot about the deteriorating quality of his distractions over the past forty-eight hours).

"Of course they're coming back as fast as they can," Katara was saying, voice soothing and doing its best to disguise the fact that she was currently devising dastardly ways to torment both her brother and the Fire Prince for not getting back sooner. "Sometimes… parents just need some time alone to … do grown-up stuff," she finished lamely.

Like 'get meat'? Toph's brain supplied unhelpfully and she repressed a chuckle. If the other two saw her snickering, they would think they were the targets of opportunity, not her mind's permanent residence in a delightful, quality dirt-filled gutter.

"I want my daddies!" the Duke wailed again, ignoring Katara and Aang completely.

Toph stomped over and plopped herself cross-legged in front of the child, imagining that Katara was probably glaring at her. "OH, SO WE'RE PLAYING THE YELLING GAME?" she hollered in the kid's face. "I LOVE THIS GAME!"

The Duke recovered quickly from his shocked silence. "GO AWAY!" he yelled right back. "I WANT MY DADDIES!"

"WHY?" Toph demanded, just as loud. "I'M WAY MORE FUN. ISN'T THIS A FUN GAME?"

The Duke didn't move, so he was probably staring at her with a tear-streaked face.

"YOUR TURN," Toph yelled at him. "YOU'VE GOT TO YELL BACK AT ME. THAT'S THE RULES."

"I don't want to yell back." Spoken at a normal volume.

"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"I DON'T WANT TO PLAY YOUR STUPID GAME!" It didn't take long for the Duke to return to shouting. "I WANT DADDY SOKKA AND DADDY ZUKO. I MISS THEM!"

"I MISS MY PARENTS TOO!" Toph returned. "WE ALL DO."

She thought about it. "Except maybe Aang."

… crap, now she'd gone and lost the dumb game.

"I miss my entire culture which is now extinct? And especially the monks who raised me, if that counts?" Aang offered, not even trying to abide by the rules.

"I don't like this game anymore," the Duke said, making a squelching sound as he wiped his nose. "It's too sad."

"It's too loud," grumbled Katara, under her breath. "Hey, the Duke, I bet Zuko would be great at this game."

The Duke perked up a little at that. "Do you think they'll play it with me when they get back?"

"I bet they'll play all the games with you when they get back!" Aang announced, back to his usual cheer disturbingly quickly.

Toph rolled her eyes at him; she'd been told sighted people took that as a sign to stop faking shit. Aang was allowed to be sad sometimes; they all were.

"Hey, do you want help me light the fire for dinner?" Aang asked the Duke, to enthusiastic agreement, and started to lead the younger boy out of the room. 

Toph thought that was that, for now, so she was startled when the Duke suddenly addressed her. "Are you a big sister?" Had he been staring at her the whole time? She wasn't sure, but there was definitely a tone of confirmed suspicions in his voice.

"Yup that's me!" Toph agreed, pleased. She'd never had siblings outside of this crazy group, but she found she didn't mind the title. "And I'm awesome." Just in case anyone forgot.

"Cool," said the Duke, as if he'd figured something out, and ran off to join Aang again.

"Hey Toph," Katara seemed hesitant to break the silence once it had finally settled over the room. "Do you want me to help you write a letter to your parents? It can help just to write even if you don't have a way of sending it yet."

Toph hadn't been expecting this. "Maybe," she replied cautiously, not about to turn down the offer but not sure if she wanted to act on it either. "Is there even any paper around here?"

Practical considerations, after all. They were kind of living the fugitive life right now.

"Well. Actually… " And if that wasn't the tone of sly conspiracy, Toph didn't know what was. "If you can you dig up that book you buried, I'm sure Zuko won't mind if we used a couple empty pages."

Toph laughed. Big sisters were great, but also evil. Given that she was one of the Duke's now, Toph was sure that the kid would figure this out eventually.

Chapter Text

Hakoda had been hoping to have a few more grey hairs on his head by the time he heard the phrase so, Dad, meet your grandson. Yet here he was, a mere thirty-six years of age and he'd only just gotten to embrace his daughter for the first time in years and realize that she was a woman now, and Hakoda was about to have a heart attack.

Katara was his fourteen-year-old daughter, and the Fire Prince who couldn't be more than a year or two older had just sprinted past and collided with a child who was hollering daddy daddy daddy at him as they embraced.

And his own son, with a nervous hand rubbing the back of his neck, was indicating the child and saying, "So, Dad, meet your grandson!"

Tui and La, he should have never left the tribe.

Hakoda hadn't felt that white rush of berserker rage since his twenties, but he could still recognize the beginning of it as he watched the young firebender pick up the child and carry him towards where Hakoda still had his arms around his own kids, walking casually as if nothing was wrong.

"Just kidding, ha ha, he's Zuko's more than mine. Son, not grandson." Sokka, oblivious, running his mouth as was his habit.

It pulled Hakoda back to earth, though, and he blinked back his sudden need for a sword to gut a Fire Nation teenager who was carrying his -- own? Hakoda's son's? Hakoda's daughter's? -- young child.

"Daddy Sokka!!" the child in question screeched as the pair approached.

Hakoda was so confused, and extremely glad to be unarmed for the moment.

"The Duke!" Sokka exclaimed happily. "Are you all right? Did Auntie Katara and Uncle Haru and Uncle Aang keep you safe? No need to ask about Auntie Toph." He shot a pointed look at the blind child dressed in green, who just shrugged smugly in return.

Sokka turned back to Hakoda, probably sensing the way his grip had slackened in shock. "And my kid, too, sort of, but that's Katara's fault, it wasn't voluntary at all."

His son's phrasing was not doing anything for Hakoda's cardiac health.

Or Prince Zuko's, either, it seemed, who hissed: "You're really not helping my reputation here, Sokka. Why don't you shut up and let me explain."

"Wait what do you mean, I -- oh." Sokka wriggled out from under Hakoda's arm in order to face him, eyes wide as he stumbled uncharacteristically over his words. "Dad, it's not like … we don't… and it certainly wouldn't be involuntary, not what I meant at all Dad, and by that I also don't mean what it sounds like, I'm not exactly over here all raring to sleep with Zuko, because hey, Suki!"

The two teens Hakoda had met at the Boiling Rock performed a synchronized facepalm.

Sokka continued further down the turtle-seal cave. "I mean, we do sleep together, but it's not -- I just mean that if anything sexual happened there would be consent because he may be a Fire Nation soldier and we all know how many war children they tend to leave behind, and the Duke is a war child, but not in that sense, and also Zuko's not like that. I think. Wait, you're not, are you?"

Zuko's face looked hot enough to firebend, but he was deadly serious as he ground out, "I have not and never will take sexual advantage of your son or any other person, Chief Hakoda, or may Agni smite me down where I stand."

Hakoda was grateful for the stunned silence that followed that statement, but was denied the moment to collect his thoughts by Sokka's stage whisper. "Wow, that sounded super intense, we might have insulted his H- O - N --"

A dry voice broke in. "Hey, the Duke, looks like Daddy Sokka's ready for that hug now."

"YAYYYYY!!" screeched the child, and launched himself onto the Water Tribe family huddle.

"He's self-adopted," Sokka managed to puff out from the strangle-hold around his neck, and could he have started with that? Or taken the time during their very long zeppelin ride to even mention the Duke at all? Clearly this was a set-up, and part of Hakoda had to admire his son for that.

Hakoda was not above taking some revenge of his own. He fixed Zuko with a look he deemed mild, but was probably only a few steps down from his earlier contemplation of murder, and said, playing along: "Sokka did mention that you were the one who assaulted my mother, a few months ago."

Zuko went from bright red to frighteningly pale and stock still less than a second.

Judging from the reaction of the room, this was not normal behaviour for the Fire Prince.

Hakoda received a pile of grandson to his arms as his son, face concerned, approached the other boy.

"Hey, Zuko, easy there, what's going on? It was just a joke, Dad's cool with you, he's not going to --"

For each step that Sokka advanced, Zuko retreated, eyes as wide as they could possibly go, which, Hakoda noted distantly, was a distinctly asymmetric attempt.  

"I'm sorry," said the Fire Prince, with a stiff bow which Hakoda knew he didn't owe to anyone in the present gathering. "Forgive me." He disappeared with a combination of quick strides and a sideways merging with the evening shadows in a fashion that Hakoda could only call running away. Beside him, Sokka made a noise of frustration that managed to sound sad at the same time.

"What happened?" asked Suki, also watching in bewilderment. "Is he okay?"

Hakoda wasn't sure exactly what had overcome the firebender, although part of him had to wonder what exactly had happened at the South Pole. Sokka had assured him that none of the villagers were hurt, but … well, Zuko had mere hours ago calmly and willingly taken rear guard on a retreat, which was usually a bloody post that Hakoda would never ask a combat rookie to fill. A strange mix of pride in his tribespeople and sympathy for someone who might know exactly how it felt to see his countrymen be cut down beside him overcame Hakoda as he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, son, I didn't mean to trigger him."

From his perch in Hakoda's arms, the Duke was looking behind them, head tilting ever farther back as he looked up at Chit Sang. "Whoa. Are you a daddy?"

Hakoda could feel utter validation of the choice to be child-free as the large firebender responded. "Ha ha, nope."

Hakoda rubbed at his sudden migraine wished he wasn't a daddy either.

"Hey."

Zuko did not almost jump out of his skin and out of his place in the rafters -- floorboards? It was so hard to use the proper name for things that were upside down --  but frankly Katara was the last person he was expecting.

He was also not expecting her to mirror his own fed-up-dad body language back at him, sighing exaggeratedly while pinching the bridge of her nose. "Get down from there, you hypocrite, you are also not an airbender."

She did have a point about the example he was setting for his six-year-old, so Zuko came down to stand across from her, arms crossed.

Katara considered him for a moment, then said: "Thank you."

"Huh?" Zuko's brain was outpaced by his mouth.

"Thank you," Katara said, louder as if she could force her point across. "For going with Sokka to go get my dad."

"Oh."

That wasn't what he was supposed to say, thank you was followed by you're welcome, but he hadn't done it for Katara, he'd done it because Sokka was an idiot with a death wish and Zuko himself was also an idiot but at least he was really good at surviving so of course he'd had to go, and crap he hadn't had time to say you're welcome by the time Katara was speaking again.

"Dad's sorry he freaked you out."

He hadn't freaked out, he'd just been -- startled, by the accusation, and he knew it was fake now (or was it?) because Sokka had said it was a joke and he trusted Sokka, but it was hard not to see the judgment and potential for violence in the flint-hard eyes of the chief.

"I didn't freak out," Zuko lied, and was rewarded with a very familiar Little Sister Eyeroll that said don't be pathetic.

"Look, just -- come eat with us. And if you're not going to change out of your prison clothes, can Suki have your other ones?"

"What? No, I -- I mean, I only brought one change of clothes." Which was actual foresight, take that Uncle, because his only other set of clothing was currently buried under a rock outside the Fire Nation's (formerly) most secure prison.

"Could have fooled me, you wear exactly the same thing every day." Katara's wrinkled nose made it clear exactly what she thought of the resulting hygiene implications.

"Why would I bring a change of different clothes?" Zuko wondered, following her down the hall towards the kitchens.

"Seriously? Is there some mandatory Fire Nation prince getup so you all look like evil clones or something?"

By the time they reached the next building, they were bickering like long-time enemies. Which, in retrospect, they were, but this was nicer than it had been …before.

"I'll still kill you if I need to." Katara added before they entered the room.

"I know."

There was something comfortable about the reassurance.

The last time Suki had seen Sokka, she'd kissed him in the moonlight, which was enough to make any girl get the nervous butterflies whenever she looked at him and wasn't currently occupied with defeating multiple opponents in hand-to-hand combat. He'd grown up fast, she thought. Or maybe it just seemed that way, since he'd adopted a child since they'd last seen each other and, like a typical teenaged boy, he'd failed to mention that during their emotional reunion. Suki could forgive him that though, since the kiss had been pretty good, but she also had to consider the fact that her standards for such things had drastically lowered since prison.

Suki had never before dated a single parent, so she wasn't sure what was the protocol for moments such as these. Sokka -- her boyfriend, she was sure about that part, but they'd never gotten around to deciding if they were exclusive or not, which made the presence of his co-parent who alternated between burning Suki's village down and risking his life for a gondola full of virtual strangers something they would definitely have to discuss -- was currently having an animated discussion with his adopted son about grandfathers of all things. Suki supposed that she should wait for an opening to steal him away for a quick chat. And to ask if there were showers here (although that might be a Fire Nation thing, and really it was too soon to be missing anything at all about prison) or if they all just bathed by the fountain. Either way, hygiene was high on her priority list right now and if it also brought up a chance to gauge Sokka's level of attraction to her now that they were in a more stable environment, that was just being efficient.

"No, the Duke, just because Chit Sang is bigger than my dad doesn't mean he's older. That's only how it works until you're like, eighteen or whenever you stop growing." Sokka had noticed her, at least, and flashed a bright smile in her direction, although it was clear his focus was on his child.

"But your dad is bigger than you, and he's older!"

"That doesn't --"

"You said he's my granddad! That means he's bigger than you…"

Suki did not follow this logic. While she wouldn't say she was bad with kids, she also knew that she had little tolerance for their mood swings and other behavioral particularities. Maybe it was like what the other women on the island said and she just needed to spend more time around them to activate her maternal instincts. She'd make the effort for Sokka, because it was the least he deserved for engineering the chance she needed to break out of that damned prison.

"Yeah, but there's great-granddads too. It just means they're older."

Suki wondered if it would be rude to clear her throat. Or if Sokka expected her to come over and insert herself into the conversation. What did one even say to kids? She didn't exactly have a pressing opinion on great-grandfathers that she was dying to share.

"When I grow up I'm going to be a great-granddad! That sounds awesome!" Good to know the Duke had an opinion on them, at least.

"I hope so, little buddy." Suki took this as the end of the conversation and started to approach, only to have the opportunity snatched away from her by Sokka's overactive mouth. "Hey, so how'd it go with my sister?" he asked after barely a breath. "What did you do while I was gone? I want to know everything!"

Clearly Suki wasn't going to get her boyfriend's attention any time soon, so she was okay with it when she was intercepted by Toph.

"Suki, hey!" the younger girl waved her over, so Suki went without a backwards glance. No one said dating a single parent was going to be easy, after all. She might have to get used to this kind of thing. "So, in prison, did you learn to make toilet wine?"

Suki scrunched up her nose a bit at the question. "Kind of?" she replied. "We didn't use the actual toilet, because that's gross, but I did learn to make a more general prison hooch, yes."

Toph grinned unnervingly in Suki's direction. "Wanna show me how?"

Suki shrugged. "Sure, why not." She might be needing a pick-me-up if her dating life was destined to be spent dealing with a six-year-old attached to her boyfriend's hip. And if it eventually led to a shower, too, so much the better.

Sometimes Toph and Zuko hung out in the evenings. Most of the time, Toph thought, Zuko was aware that it was happening. Tonight, she wasn't so sure.

He'd finished running cold forms with Aang fifteen minutes ago but still hadn't left the training area, preferring to catch a breath or a quiet, child-free moment away from the others instead. Toph didn't quite understand why he needed to be on his own so much -- she loved people, because people had the best reactions to her, even though badgermoles were a close second -- but she got why it was nice to just listen for a bit. Or look, Toph supposed was the sighted equivalent.

Toph didn't know what Zuko was looking at but she knew it wasn't her. Toph wasn't sure anyone could see her, actually, since she was lounging with her back to a smooth stone pillar digging her toes into some of the very nicest dirt in the temple. But sometimes they hung out like this, Toph and Zuko, not speaking yet aware of each other nonetheless, in the easy way of long-time companions.

Zuko had been less aware of late, Toph had noticed, but that probably came with the territory of a hyperactive kid and a mouthy co-parent. Hell, it was enough to stress even Sokka out, much less someone who was constantly wary, especially around new people who may or may not want to kill him. Toph didn't think this was a state of mind that was particularly good for either Zuko or the people around him, especially since when he got distracted, the Duke usually managed to filch a knife from one if its hiding spots.  Not that Toph would ever tell that to Katara, since it was just too funny to watch her keep blaming Sokka. And the escalating tension levels that it caused were Toph's guilty pleasure, because usually it gave her an excuse to shove rocks at people.

Still. She was beginning to get a sinking feeling that their hangout tonight was one-sided.

That suspicion was confirmed when she heard quick, light footsteps scampering down the hallway.

"Daddy!" The Duke's voice was, thankfully, tired of going full blast for the day and was at an acceptable volume for the late hour.

"Hey, the Duke," Zuko snapped out of his teenaged angsting or whatever it was he was doing to greet his adopted son. "You're not ready for bed yet? Aang told me you had a lot of fun today, you must be tired."

"Yes, but we're waiting for you! And I've got a question."

"Yeah? What is it?" Zuko had crouched down to the Duke's level, Toph could tell, since the half-dozen knives he usually wore concealed in his clothing had lowered with the movement. What had she even done before inventing metalbending? This must be like what sighted people felt like when they got glasses for the first time, Toph thought.

The Duke fidgeted for a moment before speaking up. "Katara said your dad is the Fire Lord, but that can't be right!" He sounded confused and slightly distressed. Toph frowned, not remembering Katara telling that to the Duke, but then she'd figured the Duke had known already.

"He is," Zuko answered simply, markedly without the note of caution such a topic probably deserved.

"But you said the Fire Lord hurt you! So he can't be your dad! Dads don't hurt their kids!"

Yeah, there was no way Zuko knew they were hanging out, because Toph was pretty sure he wouldn't want her to hear this.  Fire Nation pride was weird like that.

"That's right," Zuko answered, and Toph could practically feel his frown as he worked to break down an obviously painful and complex topic for a six-year-old. "He.. He's not a good dad."

That might be the understatement of the century, Toph thought. She couldn't imagine that the Fire Lord they were all fighting so hard to defeat could be good at anything. Except being evil, which was … well, contradictory to say the least.

"I had a good mom though. The best," Zuko added quickly.

Yup, this was absolutely meant to be a private conversation. Toph had complained to Zuko about her controlling parents plenty, yet he'd never volunteered any information in return aside from saying once that it sucked how perfect a Fire Princess Azula was. Some things, it seemed, he kept for family only. Toph was only slightly miffed that she didn't count yet.

The Duke didn't seem completely satisfied with Zuko's answer, but allowed: "Moms are okay, I guess."

Zuko huffed out a noise Toph had learned to identify as a laugh with too much thinking behind it.

"Well, Pipsqueak is like your mom then," the Duke concluded. "The best."

"Yeah," Zuko agreed, voice a little constricted. "And when people like that love us, we hang on and don't let go, okay?"

"All right," the Duke agreed, wiggling happily out of his cross-legged position. "But what if they let go of us first?"

"Then …" Zuko seemed at a loss for words, but not for the usual reasons. "Then we have to hold them even tighter in our hearts, so it'll be like they never left."

"Okay," the small boy agreed sleepily, and Toph envied him the naivety of childhood that allowed the matter to be settled so easily.

"We can go to sleep now," the boy decided, and Toph listened as two pairs of footsteps faded slowly out of hearing.

Maybe she wasn't supposed to witness all that, but it wasn't going to stop her efforts to hang out with Zuko. The guy probably needed it, after all, even if he wouldn't admit it. And next time, she might even let him know about it.

Toph mulled this over as she fingered the parchment tucked into her pocket, inked with words invisible to her eyes but known by heart.

Sokka was over the moon that Suki was here. Literally. He felt like he'd finally come to terms with Yue's tragic sacrifice and, while she would always hold a special place in his heart, Sokka was ready to share it again with someone else. A someone who had shown her bravery in defending her village from firebenders, her quick thinking under pressure at the Serpent's Pass, her warm heart escorting refugees to Ba Sing Se, and her freaking insane ninja warrior skills at the Boiling Rock. Sokka's heart was pounding again just thinking about it; the only thing he'd seen that could remotely compare was some of the moves Zuko pulled to get around the temple when he thought no one who would tattle to Katara or the Duke was watching.

Speaking of which, Sokka would have to spare a moment out of his rapturous teenaged obsessing over his crush to commiserate with Zuko, who might have lost his ex-girlfriend for good yesterday. That probably explained the intense brooding coming from the corner containing his co-parent -- looked like more than just the usual denial of the fact that his dad and sister wanted his head on a platter. Couldn't blame the guy for getting torn up over the fact that his girlfriend might be getting… well, torn up by his sister.

Girls, man. Tough stuff. Sokka released the Duke to pester his other dad out of his pensive state and leave Sokka to his daydreaming about what cute modifications to standard Fire Nation prison garb Suki and Katara were coming up with over in the other room. It wouldn't be long now before the evening light faded and the older girls came back, and once it was properly dark and the Duke was in bed maybe Sokka could grab Suki for a little more smooching practice somewhere away from the rest of the gang. He'd managed to steal one or two earlier -- the Duke had spent most of the day trailing after Dad and Chit Sang, which meant Sokka had been free to get his ass handed to him by not one but two regulation hotties today, first in swordplay and then in hand-to-hand. But now the Duke was back in his care while the men were getting the full temple tour courtesy of Teo and Haru, so opportunities to explore the physical side of relationships would have to wait.

"Dad, tell me a story about your granddaddy!" the Duke begged, climbing into Zuko's lap. So the child was still on about that, Sokka could see. It was great the way the Duke had bonded with his granddad so quickly, but good luck to him, trying to get a decent story out of Zuko.

"Uh, okay."  Zuko still looked pretty distracted as he began to talk. Girls, Sokka confirmed to himself with the wise nod of the not-single. Very distracting. Like for example how he was scheming up a way that he and Teo might manufacture some new war fans for Suki.

"I don't know too many stories about my grandfather," Zuko started. "But my two great-grandfathers started out as best friends and then one went conquest-mad and the other thought he could fight a volcano and then the mad one kind of left him there to die."

This was met with the slack-jawed silence it deserved.

"Zuko, you tell simultaneously the best and the worst stories ever." Sokka took it upon himself to admonish his co-parent.

"Wait, I understood that reference!" burst in Aang of all people. "Your great-grandfather was Fire Lord Sozin, right? And his best friend was Avatar Roku!"

Zuko blinked. "Yes, but I didn't think that was common knowledge?"

"Avatar Roku died in a volcano! And he was your great-grandfather?" Aang was getting really excited for someone talking about his own past life's violent and painful demise.

"That's definitely not common knowledge."

"Zuko. Do you have any idea of what this means?" On rare occasions, Sokka was afraid of Aang. Namely, when he went into the Avatar state, or the overenthusiastic -Aang state, as looked to be happening now.

"Good an evil are at war inside of me?" Now that was some proverb-sounding gator-bull shit if Sokka had ever heard any.

"No, silly. I'm your great-grandfather!" Aang launched himself onto Zuko with a gust of air and tackled the firebender into a tight hug. From underneath his wind-blown bangs, Zuko's golden eyes caught Sokka's own as he mouthed a terrified fuck no. Whether that was due to the hug or Toph's loud, evil cackle was debatable.

The Duke was quick to join the chaos pile with a screech. "So, we've got fathers, grandfathers, AND great-grandfathers here?" he announced. "Best day ever!" The Duke bounced on top of Aang's ribcage, earning a wince from the Avatar, who started to wiggle out of the pileup.

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, the gears in his brain turning. "Does that mean Aang and I are related?"

"We're not married, dumbass," grunted Zuko as he extricated himself from the small children.

"Yes, but I'm the Duke's dad too, so if you trace down my family tree, through his, and back up again on your side we eventually get to Aang!"

"It doesn't work like that," Zuko protested, with no further explanation to back up his statement.

Not that his opinion on the matter was valid anyway. "Shut up, you have no part in this discussion, you literal product of a eugenics experiment," Sokka proclaimed.

"How is that relevant?" Zuko sounded indignant.

"What does that mean?" chimed in Toph, taking a breath from her cackling.

"It means I'm co-parents with a lab mole-rat," Sokka explained. "Which explains the level of social skills. Oh, wait, I forgot about Azula, so there goes that theory. I'm guessing your parents were probably going after firebending mojo or something then?"

Zuko glared at Sokka, although the effect was somewhat mitigated by the fact that his ruffled hair was adorably fluffy and currently being combed through by Momo.

Sokka cleared his throat; sometimes when he got excited about science he got insensitive. "Right, sorry, that was probably pretty de-humanizing," he apologized. "Eugenics means selective, um, breeding to attain more desirable characteristics in offspring," he added for Toph's benefit.

"Oh," Toph said. "So, like, to improve firebenders they'd want what, hotter flames? Bigger flames? Or are you more burn resistant or something like that?"

Sokka's choking on his own saliva detracted from the dead silence that observation deserved.

Toph could apparently sense the faux pas anyway. "What?" she demanded.

"You know what would be a good idea," Sokka saw fit to announce out of the blue. "If I were to go and talk to my dad right now. About, uhhh… parenting. Yeah, parenting advice. He's a good dad, I'm sure he's got lots of ideas."

Lack of social awareness helped his co-parent take the abrupt subject change in stride. "That's actually a really good point, Sokka," said Zuko, thoughtfully. "Maybe I should do that too."

"You're on bedtime duty," Sokka shot back, standing up to make his escape. "Wait your turn."

"Fine," Zuko didn't put up much of a fight, although he was currently sidetracked with pulling a lemur out of his hair.

"I feel like we're avoiding something big here," Toph announced, but Sokka was already out the door before that something big could turn and fix him with its signature glare.

"Hey, Dad, can we talk?"

Hakoda would have bet his fanciest, chiefly-est wolf-helmet that he would never tire of hearing that phrase. By the end of the next hour, he would have been out of his comfortable, functional headwear and stuck borrowing Bato's heirloom helmet that was little more than a shaggy cap that probably hadn't been washed since his grandfather's time.

"Of course, son. What's on your mind?"

"Well, so I guess you've seen a bit of what's the situation with Zuko and the Duke," Sokka started, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. Hakoda wondered why his son seemed unsettled; the relationship they shared was a close one,  and a little withheld information about an adopted ward for dramatic effect wasn't enough to get in the way of that. "And don't get me wrong, it's going really well -- surprisingly so, in fact, the guy's actually a pretty reliable partner? -- but it's not like I am exactly experienced in this area…"

Hakoda was starting to get a bit nervous now, though, and not just because Sokka was rambling. Partner, eh? Sokka might not know better than to use that term, since it was fairly Earth Kingdom specific to same-sex couples, but they could laugh about that together later. Because there was no way that was where this conversation was going.

"It's not something you learn in school, as they say, or that I got taught in the village in my case, so we've both kind of been having to figure it out as we go, which as you can imagine is not the easiest thing at this age."

Hakoda would like to rescind his previous assessment, as his canoe of feelings had sprung a leak and was slowly but surely sinking into dark, polar jellymoose-infested waters as he became ever more certain that the conversation was, in fact, going that way. A way that was far from straightforward, or straight at all. 

"I mean, objectively I've got more experience than Zuko, although he's managed to apply a thing or two that he learned at sea, but we're neither of us experts? And it can feel like a lot of pressure sometimes…"

Hakoda felt his eye bulge out of their sockets. What exactly was the Fire Prince pressuring his son into? His brave, innocent, fifteen-year-old son? Who was apparently nowhere near as innocent as Hakoda had presumed? Sweet seal jerky, was his son a player? Was that fierce Earth Kingdom girl his side chick? Go get it, son, said the rebellious side of his brain that was still steeped in the toxic masculinity of their Northern counterpart, until Hakoda shut that down with the singular thought that 'it', in this situation, was Fire Nation dick. Because. Never. In his wildest dreams, which had gotten pretty wild during his own time at sea, had Hakoda imagined that could be a problem that would arise.

… Bad phrasing. Was what that was, and what Hakoda still desperately hoped was the only reason for his current heart palpitations.

"...not to mess up what we've got." Sokka finished, and Hakoda let out a strangled breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Okay, so Sokka might not have been talking about sex. But … he was clearly referring to his relationship. With the prince of the Fire Nation. Which may or may not yet be of a sexual nature, and may or may not also include a Kyoshi Warrior, if Sokka's comment from yesterday applied here.

Fuck.

There were reasons that Hakoda had left the village before his kids hit puberty. He was not qualified to deal with any of this.

Oh, spirits, Sokka wasn't done. Maybe that was for the best, Hakoda wasn't sure he could even form words right now. "And I know I was probably too young to appreciate what you and Mom had going on …"

Hakoda and Kya had been married, thank you very much, and had done so at an age several years older than fifteen, and oh fuck how permanent was this arrangement? There was already a child, Sokka couldn't possibly be thinking about … what Hakoda was determined not to let himself think about, because the last thirty seconds had led to enough avalanche-trigger realizations already.

"But somehow you must have been really good at it because, well, we were all pretty happy, right? At least as far as I remember. Anyway I guess what I'm trying to say is, do you have any advice? I know it's hardly your typical situation  --"

Hakoda made himself focus, because he was going to love and support his son no matter how unconventional his decisions.

 "-- and on top of that we've got different cultural expectations to deal with --"

Which would not make this easy, because even though Hakoda hadn't been the one to give his son the penguins and the glacial fleas talk, he was sure that someone would have mentioned to Sokka that his duties as a tribesman included procreation because of their declining population. And how serious was Sokka about his co-parent anyway? If he was already considering the cultural ramifications this had to be more than an exploratory fling…

Hakoda halted those thoughts as soon as they came up, because the last thing he wanted was to picture his son asking the freaking Fire Lord for his heir's hand in marriage, and likely getting presented with a literal hand. No matter how protective Hakoda was of his son, he didn't wish any more maiming on the prince than had already taken place.

"-- but in the end, family is family, right? You do what you gotta do to protect them and work things out."

Hakoda's brain had begun to short-circuit and he felt certain that at least one eye was twitching. What about the boys' relationship had anything to do with family and protection… oh Tui and La, was Sokka not using protection? Fuck, Hakoda was not drunk enough for this.

He was supposed to say something now. Something non-judgmental, and supportive, and above all useful. "Uh," Hakoda said.

Let it never be said, however, that the men of his family were not smooth-talking bastards. "Communication is key," Hakoda recovered a manageable thread of thought and grasped onto it like a lifeline. "It's important to establish boundaries that everyone is comfortable with. Make sure your expectations are well-defined. Don't be afraid to compromise" --  that word made him cringe although he did his best to hide it -- "on the little things, but make it clear if there's lines you're not willing to cross. Consent is important, too. Asking if what you're doing is okay, making sure you say so when it's not."

Sokka looked a little puzzled, but at least the nervous shifting was gone now. "Huh, I'd kind of hoped for more concrete examples of techniques based on your own experience," he admitted. "I won't bore you with the details of our situation, but, well …"

Hakoda knew it made him a horrible father, but he was internally begging his son to absolutely not share any details at all. 

"For example, we draw a hard line at spanking. There's so many more pleasant ways to get the same results."

Hakoda wanted to die. Quickly, but he'd take slow and painful if that was his only option.

… again with the damn phrasing.

"That's good," he managed, barely holding up his own end of the conversation, but honestly, how was he supposed to react to that?

"Do you need some water or something?" Sokka asked, looking concerned about the choking noises Hakoda was trying his best to stifle. "But it's good to hear you're not on the strict discipline train either, Dad."

Spirits, what did his son think Hakoda and Kya had gotten up to on cold winter nights? They'd done their best to be quiet once the kids got to a certain age…

"Zuko's really into the whole discipline thing, and even though I'm not super excited about it I can see how it can be one way to get the job done. And also he's always encouraging me to do these weird breathing exercises, but that's neither here nor there…"

Hakoda did not need to ever hear what kind of kinky or tantric shit the nation of his sworn enemies got up to in bed. Ever.

"That's certainly … not a technique your mother and I ever employed." Hakoda applauded his brain's capability to form human speech given the circumstances.

"Thank you," said Sokka, looking vindicated.

His son wanted details? Call him old-fashioned, but Hakoda didn't think that was something he could manage, but because he was a warrior and a chief he would have to try anyway. "At the beginning we had to talk each other through a lot of things since we… uh, had different needs and preferences, although maybe that's not so much of an issue for you…"

A thought occurred to Hakoda and he did his best to phrase it delicately, even though he was completely out of his depth in this area. "I suppose one of you is more habitually… on top of things…"

"Oh, don't worry Dad, I just let Zuko think he's in charge," Sokka interrupted with a wink and a grin. "But we all know he's lucky to take what I give him."

Hakoda swore he could feel his vision greying at the corners from the combination of too much information for any father, anywhere and too much self-confidence for a fifteen-year-old, ever. Either way, he was actively trying not to picture anything, especially what the words conjured up. "It's a complicated topic," he tried to push past. "There's no right or wrong answer… but you've just got to keep… working together, which will become easier to enjoy over time… eventually you'll figure out how best to …satisfy everyone involved."

The bright smile that lit up Sokka's face should have made it all worth it, but it did not. Maybe that, plus a heavy dose of amnesia would do the trick.

"Thanks, Dad! That's really helpful," Sokka said, then left with a cheery wave, doubtless to go either make out with Suki or sleep with Zuko. "I'll make sure to try first thing tomorrow!"

Hakoda let his head bang against the cool stone of the nearest column, then resolved to see if those jars of long-forgotten fruit juices that Aang had showed him on his literal whirlwind tour of the temple had fermented in the past hundred years. He hoped they contained something really, really strong by now. Something that would help him contemplate where his parenting had gone wrong and how to best advise his son to avoid the same pitfalls.

Just as he was about to reach the storage room he recalled, a pale form wrapped in red and gold materialized out of the growing shadows in the corner and stepped into his path. Hakoda did his level best to act like he didn't see the prince even though the boy was standing right in front of him. Hakoda closed his eyes and prayed that Zuko wouldn't ask --

"Chief Hakoda, sir, do you have a minute?"

Chapter Text

It is a fact universally acknowledged that when a person is trying not to slip up and reveal that a certain someone else's father was mistakenly trying to give sex and not parenting advice the other night, they inevitably fuck up something else instead. So if you'd told Azula that Zuko's attempt at a joke had immediately been followed by Sokka stomping off to their tent before even finishing his tea, she wouldn't have been surprised. After all, fucking up was one of the only things that Zuko was consistently good at, just like not-parenting was one of Ozai's areas of expertise.

And like most things Azula wasn't surprised about, such as Mai's sudden but inevitable betrayal, Zuko was. Mostly because the tea had been selectively fortified by the flask of Temple Hooch (Toph's name for it) that the earthbender had rescued during their flight, and Sokka was not an angry drunk.

Which left Zuko wondering if it had been the dumbness of the joke itself, or the challenge at Sokka's usual role in the group that had upset the other boy. Offering to chase them all around and try to capture Aang hadn't been very funny in the conventional sense, but considering some of Zuko's other jokes it wasn't bad. Although maybe Sokka could have done without the reminder of what a jerk Zuko used to be. He'd gotten pretty agitated after Toph had held up her teacup in toast, saying that today Zuko had been their hero.

"That wasn't heroic, it was reckless self-endangerment," is exactly what Sokka had said to that.

Zuko, had he been able to look Sokka in the eye following That Horrifying Conversation With Chief Hakoda, would have protested that analysis for a multitude of reasons. For starters, despite her grandstanding, Azula hadn't even been trying that hard to kill him. The girl could easily whip up lightning in the time it took Zuko to get up a good enough run-up to leap forty meters to her airship, and even if Ozai had swallowed his pride enough to mention to her that by the way, your brother can redirect lightning now, I just know that for no reason that you should be concerned about, the fact that Zuko had miraculously learned a new move before her had never stopped Azula from kicking his ass before.

Besides, the whole fight had ended with a friendly sibling fist-bump, which Zuko had to say was a major improvement on their high-fives which inevitably left him with a crispy palm for a few days. In the stunted language that their family used to communicate, it was practically a casual visit confirming his RSVP to the upcoming end-of-the-world Comet party, and Azula expressing her annoyance at his request for five plus-ones.

"Was it really that reckless?" Aang questioned, and Zuko was grateful for his level-headed approach to not making a big deal out of heights. Toph added that it had sounded pretty heroic to her, the way the Duke described it.

"Pretty badass," Suki agreed, which made Zuko almost blush, seeing who the compliment was coming from.

Katara was also angry at Zuko, although this was the default setting of their relationship, so that was far from as unusual as her brother's behavior. "It's not our problem if he wants to get himself killed anyway," she said.

Apparently that was Sokka's problem, at least nominally. "Disagree," Sokka shouted.

Zuko was honestly tired of getting this kind of reaction whenever he did something he thought was finally right. "Can't you just let me have this one thing?" he asked in frustration, although he didn't need to tag on a muttered: "Since when did you have such a stick up your ass."

"SINCE WE HAD A KID, YOU IDIOT," Sokka yelled, and maybe Zuko deserved that one. It still didn't explain the stomping off part, which is what Sokka did next.

"Are you two fighting again?" asked Toph eventually, interrupting Zuko's analysis of events. "Geez, just kiss and make up already."

Zuko didn't think that would help matters, especially since he had the feeling that he would appreciate that problem-solving method far more than Sokka would, and the look Suki gave Toph only seemed to confirm that.

"Yeah! Do that!" chimed in the Duke, with a big yawn and a stretch that spilled the cup of tea he'd still been holding.

Zuko sighed and looked around for a towel, but Aang obligingly bent the moisture out of the Duke's shirt. "Hey Toph," Zuko asked in a low voice. "Do you mind telling the Duke a bedtime story? I need to figure out what's going on with Sokka."

"You'll owe me one," Toph bargained, and Zuko knew he should fear the day when she came to collect because he owed her a lot of ones. Right now he had more pressing concerns to attend to.

"Tell me more about the Boulder!" he heard the Duke asking as he left the campfire, headed towards the tents.

Zuko paused outside of Sokka's, still not entirely sure what he was supposed to do about this situation. He could apologize, but what for? Was 'reckless self-endangerment', as Sokka had put it, wrong? And if so, why had no one told him earlier? In his mind, it was all right as long as he didn't drag anyone else into danger along with him, which he hadn't.

Zuko shook his head, trying to clear it, and took a meditative breath in an attempt to calm himself. For some reason, he knew, he didn't want Sokka to think poorly of him. It was important to their co-parent relationship that they be able to trust each other to make the best decisions for their child, and it was important to Zuko because … their relationship…

Sokka's relationship is with Suki, Zuko reminded himself, squashing down on that train of thought instantly. He squared his shoulders, and took another breath. He could deal with disapproval. It was hardly a new thing, since he was after all the family disappointment. It hurts more to disappoint someone when they might even love you back, said a small voice in the back of his head. Zuko ignored it, and strode the last meter to the tent.

Zuko didn't knock because there wasn't a door, and because Azula had always told him that striding in and taking a seat was a power move. 

One that clearly didn't work for him, because the instant he saw Sokka's cold expression, Zuko immediately went pig-chicken and blurted out a question about Sokka's mom instead.

Sokka had had a lot of fights with Zuko. They were, after all, co-parents and swordbending buddies, so it came with the territory.

Never before, however, had Sokka actually been mad at Zuko when they fought. Even after getting knocked on his ass for the fifteenth time facing Zuko's stupid cheating dual-wielding.

And Zuko had to start out by asking about the worst day of Sokka's life.

Needless to say, things went downhill quickly from there.

"Sit your ass back down," Sokka said coldly as Zuko tried to scrape together an excuse to escape. "Did you think you could just disappear without talking about what happened earlier today?"

Half of Sokka expected Zuko to bolt for the tent door anyway, but Zuko plopped back down in defeat and asked in a flat tone: "What did I do to make you upset with me?"

Like Sokka was supposed to believe that. Zuko may be a socially clueless ball of awkward, but even he had to know that certain things were not okay. "What did --" Sokka snorted, then started again. "Who are you and what have you done with the person I agreed to co-parent with?!"

"What? Sokka, I --" Hmmm. Based on that reaction, Sokka would allow that there was a small possibility that, just maybe, Zuko indeed did not see what the problem was.

Sokka hated having to spell things out for idiots. "Are you not jointly responsible for our child's physical and mental well-being?"

"Yes, but he's safe! Thanks to you, everyone got out unharmed --"

"Only to have a front-row seat to one of his parents falling to his death! What the hell were you thinking? Because you clearly weren't thinking about re-orphaning a kid who's already been orphaned twice!"

"I had it under control!"

Right, because Zuko was a gravity-bender now, too.

"Really? Because that's not what it looked like to me, or your son, who you know doesn't need any more encouragement thinking that jumping off of airships is an acceptable course of action! If Katara hadn't caught you --"

"I would have figured something out!"

"That's not the point! You're not in this alone anymore. It's not just up to you, and it's not just about you! If you end up a bloodstain on the bottom of the canyon, what do you think that would do to the Duke? You're part of this family now, start acting like it!"

Silence fell for a long moment, broken when Zuko admitted: "I don't know what that means."

Sokka let out growl of frustration, and tangled his fingers in his hair, torn between wanting to punch Zuko in the face or hug him. Or maybe there was some weird middle ground that involved punching Zuko's face with his own. "Being part of a family, or being part of this one?"

Sokka hadn't seen Zuko so unsure of himself since he'd first appeared at the Western Air Temple. "Both?" Zuko offered like he was trying out the sound of the word. "I don't think my family was … right. Except for my mom, and that was so long ago…"

Something clicked, and simultaneously reminded Sokka that he'd almost neglected his older brother duties for a moment. "What are you going to do about the Southern Raiders? And don't even try lying to me."

Zuko was silent for a moment, before asking: "You never wanted revenge, for your mother? Justice?"

"There's a big difference between those two things, Zuko," Sokka said, no longer shouting as he tried to gather his thoughts through the twist of pain that his mother's death could still elicit. "And. No to the first. Yes to the second, although I've seen enough of the world to know I'm not going to get it, and the best I can do is to honor her memory by making sure that the people I come into contact with are treated justly."

"I wish I could say the same," Zuko muttered to the hands he was fidgeting with in his lap, before looking up to fix a steady gaze on Sokka. "I think Katara does, too."

Sokka wished he didn't understand. "You're not wrong," he allowed. Katara hid her hurt, but Sokka knew it ran deep. "But explain anyway." He'd noticed Zuko was better at talking when explicitly instructed to.

Zuko looked away and chewed his lip as he gathered his thoughts; Sokka did his best to push his anger to a back burner to simmer, enough so that he could listen without exploding again.

"My mom … she's not dead, actually, which I found out recently," Zuko started haltingly. "The Fire Lord banished her, but I never knew that, it was just one night she disappeared and then everyone acted like she'd never existed. And then I was crown prince and Azula was a prodigy, and there was no one to protect us anymore, yet… I still loved him. I spent so long loving a monster, and now all I have left for him is…"

His voice trailed off, unable to find adequate words, then picked up again. "He was cruel, and wrong, and it took so long for me to see it. He tore our family apart, and I don't think I can ever forgive him for that. I don't even know if I should.  But Katara, you… you're better than me. So if it's possible, for someone else to confront that kind of person and do the right thing… I have to know what that looks like."

Sokka let the words hang in the air, taking a few breaths while he tried to reconcile anger with empathy. "Ugh, fine," he finally bit out, unable to let his previous frustration go. "You have issues, I get it. Katara does too, and I don't agree with how you choose to work them out but I guess I can't stop you, either. But." Sokka fixed Zuko with a stern glare. "We agreed to keep the Duke out of our issues. So go have a good hard think but don't bring that kind of poison into this family. Take my sister on a little self-discovery murder road trip or whatever you need to do, but please, for the love of seal jerky. Think long and hard about your role in this family."

Zuko nodded an acknowledgment, and Sokka had to look away because that stupid vulnerable look on Zuko's face was making something in Sokka go all soft, and he wasn't done yet with his self-allotted stewing-in-anger time-out. "Now go away, I'm still mad at your cliff-jumping ass."

Naturally, this put him in an excellent frame of mind in which to spend time with his girlfriend. At the very least, Sokka thought, heading out later to find Suki, she'd be a willing ear to vent to.

Katara stepped out of her tent the next morning to find a haggard-looking firebender parked outside it, and instantly blamed her brother. "You look terrible," she said, refusing to pull her punches because Zuko was a morning person after all. "Is this about your fight with my brother?"

They'd all heard the yelling last night, and in a group this small keeping up the pretense of privacy was too troublesome to be worth it.

"I waited out here all night," Zuko said, stating the obvious instead of answering the question like a normal person.

Katara scowled. Something she had added three more degrees of severity to since Zuko had joined the group with his myriad varieties on the expression. Not that she would ever tell him that.

"Outside of my tent is not the polar-bear-doghouse, that's Toph's rock tent," she said primly, and prepared to shove past him and be on her way.

"Hey, uh, so you know those raiders who came to your village and murdered your mother?" Zuko could evidently see the literal stormclouds that were brewing from the moisture Katara had just subconsciously summoned from the dewy ground, and quickly pre-empted a hurricane with a handy panacea. "What's your opinion on vendetta?"

"FUCK YEAH," Katara vehemently declared, then ducked back into the tent for her travel bag before taking both it and the storm with her as she climbed into Appa's saddle.

Zuko, she noticed, when she'd lashed down her baggage, was still standing frozen like an idiot by her tent. Katara quickly checked that she hadn't actually frozen him. Nope, no ice in sight. "What the hell are you waiting for?" she called. Because how dare he tell her he knew who had killed her mother and then expect her to do nothing about it.

"Uh, let me just say goodbye to the Duke real quick," Zuko said, snapping out of his stupor.

"Fine," Katara grumbled. She supposed she could sharpen the knives she'd confiscated from the Duke in the meantime. "But hurry up about it!"

The Wang Fire family, as Toph had taken to privately calling the Sokka-and-Zuko arrangement because one was clearly a wang while the other was clearly fire, plus Katara by extension, all had their various abandonment issues, but the Duke had it worst of all. Toph would have argued that Aang's ought to be colossal, since his past life had abandoned the entire world, but apparently hers and Aang's running away from their actual or substitute families didn't count, since according to Sokka "abandonment doesn't work in that direction".

So it was understandable that Toph was a little confused by what was happening right now. From what she could tell, the Duke was imagining himself a leg-leech for the day and had no intentions of giving up on this lifelong ambition anytime soon. The target, naturally, for inconvenience's sake, was Zuko. Who, as Toph understood, was trying to leave with Katara to go kill a bitch. Cool cool, cool cool cool. Toph wasn't jealous, not at all.

"I'm coming back, I promise, we won't even be gone that long, the Duke. Look, why don't you go hang on to Sokka's leg, it's right over there!"

Sokka was wisely hanging back out of reach.

"No," said the Duke, and from their postures Toph could see that the boys knew better than to fight that tone.

"Come on, they're practically the same," Toph exclaimed, because she'd always known Katara had murder in her but she'd never thought the goody-two-shoes act was going to drop long enough for her to do it.

"Well, different colors but lemur-bat bat-lemur," muttered Sokka, only to met by a storm of offended chittering from Momo.

"It's a perfectly good leg," Zuko tried again. "Well, a bit scrawny but that's because he skips leg days to go fishing."

Aang, who had recently set a personal record with hot-squats and wouldn't shut up about it, had a great laugh at this.

"Well screw you, prince perfectly-proportioned-in-every-way, some of us have to work for our gains," snapped Sokka, and Toph snapped too, because it was as obvious that they were gay for each other as it was that they were still mad at each other, and the collective amount of oblivious was nauseating. And with Suki right there, have some respect. Toph sunk both boys in the earth up to their ankles and used the ground to manhandle them into position, hip to hip.

"Hey, the Duke. Let's play a game," she announced. "Pick a leg, any leg."

Wow, the amount of heat coming off of Sokka and Zuko's faces was something fierce. Toph wouldn't be surprised if it was something even sighted people could pick up on. She'd ask Sokka about it later, because she never tired of riling him up further.

The Duke, for his part, stayed stubbornly attached to Zuko.

"Okay, fine, now I'm going to shuffle them around …" Toph started.

Two heads swiveled towards her, jointly shouting NO as visions of dismemberment danced in their heads.

Toph cackled. Good. "Chill, guys, I'm just gonna let the ground play twister with you," she said, and then did.

The result must have been super awkward, judging by the silence.

Finally, Suki cleared her throat and spoke up. "Don't mind me over here, clearly invisible."

"Hurry up, I haven't got all day," called Katara's uncaring voice from her seat in Appa's saddle.

Right. Time to end this. Revenge waits for no one. "Now pick another leg!" Toph encouraged the Duke, and much to her surprise, he did.

It was Sokka's, and Toph popped Zuko's feet out of the ground so he could get aboard the murder express to vendetta island.

"You really ought to pay me for the family counseling services I provide," Toph mentioned to Sokka as he and the Duke waved goodbye to Appa, Katara and Zuko.

"Don't do that, there's no way she's qualified," said Suki in a weary tone. Toph would let her have that one; after all, Suki was the counseling authority, as the only one of the group without abandonment issues.

… shut up, internal voice of Sokka.

Suki was an elite warrior who had trained for many years in the art of stealth. None of which was any good against a six-year-old who, while normally as dumb as rocks, was utterly determined to win hide-and-seek. Suki wasn't sure which of his parents to blame the Duke's stubborn streak on.

She sure as hell knew who to blame her current dilemma on. It was definitely, one hundred percent Sokka's fault, for assigning her the task of substitute co-parent, not only because his was conveniently absent, but also because of the boys had had huge fight the other day. And here Suki was, just trying to keep out of their drama. And hide from a hyperactive child who was slowly but surely exhausting her more quickly than pitched combat ever had.

A smoke bomb exploded just above her head on the boulder she had her back to, and Suki bent over coughing, wiping at her watering eyes as she saw a blur of motion headed at her. At the last minute, she remembered that she wasn't supposed to dodge and let the kid dive headfirst into solid rock, and tried her best to capture and re-direct the Duke's momentum to a safer landing spot.

"I FOUND YOU!" hollered the child, oblivious to how close his skull had been to becoming a smashed egg. Suki could now understand why his parents insisted he wear that helmet as much as possible. The downside of that was that it had ended up in her solar plexus, and between that and the smoke she couldn't breathe if she'd tried.

Suki lay on the ground with a child bouncing on her kneecap and waited for her lungs to start working again, idly eyeing the position of the sun in the sky.

It had only been half an hour. Suki had the Duke for the whole afternoon.

When she finally dragged herself -- and the Duke, who was protesting loudly as she literally dragged him by the hand -- over to the dinner circle, Suki felt she had aged a full decade. She really hoped Sokka had managed to pilfer some new clothing for her from the nearby town, because her prison garb was barely functional anymore, ripped and stained with smoke and dirt.

Fortune, it seemed, finally smiled down on her in the form of her boyfriend, who jogged over to collect the Duke from her and hand her a pile of refreshingly green clothing. "Welcome back!" he chirped, clearly in high spirits, and leaned in for a peck on the lips.

The instant Suki was relieved of her juvenile burden, she felt herself perking up. Sokka would probably attribute it to his smooching powers, and normally Suki wouldn't want to encourage him, but she didn't have the mental energy for that right now.

"Oogie," said Aang, but without any real heat.

Unlike the Duke. "Hey! You shouldn't be kissing! Only parents can kiss!"

Suki really couldn't be bothered to deal with that statement, so she just took a seat next to Toph, gratefully accepting the bowl Aang handed her.

"What do you mean?" Sokka had plenty of energy left to look puzzled at the Duke's declaration. "Suki's my girlfriend, that's why I kissed her." Through some sort of parent magic, he got the Duke to sit down like a civilized person and wait to be served his food.

"But you're my daddy! You should kiss my other daddy!"

Suki was not too tired to note the interesting color that spread across Sokka's face at that, along with the lack of the standard straight teenaged-boy response of eewww, gross.

"Daddy Pipsqueak once told me that when parents kiss, that means they're in love!" the Duke continued, never one to wait quietly for anything. "And then the whole family will be happy for all time! And everything will be sunshine and rainbows!"

Toph snorted as she took her bowl. "Trust me, kid, if your dads ever make out there's going to be hella rainbows."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Suki said sharply, for once bothered by her boyfriend's lack of conformity to heteronormative behavior.

"Don't ask me, I'm not relevant enough to the plot of this little family drama," Toph dismissed Suki's question in favor of jamming her mouth full of food. Aang caught Suki's glance with a sympathetic shrug that offered Toph as the only explanation.

Suki sighed. She was already starting to recover from the afternoon, thanks to an adolescence of strict training, but she still needed dinner, a bath and possibly a nap before she was willing to face any family drama.

"Sokka, we need to talk," she said in a voice pitched only for him to hear. But first, food.

"What's on your mind, sweetie?" asked Sokka, sweet and oblivious. "Oh, right, parenting meeting, makes sense that you would want to do that too. How did it go with the Duke this afternoon?"

Well. That was one way to tear of the bandage, Suki supposed. "Sokka, it's just -- I'm not really a kid person."

Suki was pleasantly surprised at Sokka's non-reaction, but was too realistic to think that that was for the reason she hoped. "Don't get me wrong, I like the Duke and mostly it's fun being around him, but he's also so tiring. And I don't get how to talk to him, and I know these are things I can and perhaps should learn, but deep down, to me it just doesn't matter so much, especially right now, when I'm focusing on the war in front of us."

So far, so good. Maybe this could actually work out. Suki took a breath and dropped the bomb.

"I -- I don't want kids of my own, you know. So that's a big part of it."

Now he got it, blue eyes widening and no longer smiling. "Wait, like, never? You never want kids?"

"That's right." Suki wasn't going to make excuses, or explain herself further. A lot of the older women in the village were sure she'd come around, hit the right age and then all the maternal instincts would kick in and she'd go baby crazy like women were supposed to do.

Fuck that.

If it happened, it would happen, and she'd deal with it then. For now, Suki had more important things to focus on than society's view of her as a failed woman or other such bullshit. She didn't have to have it all, it was so much work to have both a fulfilling career and a family, and maybe she was being selfish but Suki didn't want to spend her life running on fumes to try and make it happen.

"That's … kind of a dealbreaker," Sokka said slowly. Suki felt her own melancholy setting in, because she'd really hoped he could understand.

"No it isn't," Suki said, suddenly tired. "Not now, anyway. It would be if we were guaranteed to live long and happy lives. But we're fifteen, and fighting a war. It's okay to have a little fun, something or someone you can take some comfort in. I'm a soldier, and a commander. I know what our survival chances are."

A grim perspective, Suki knew, but necessary. Maybe there was still a chance … but one look at Sokka and Suki could tell what he was thinking. "Zuko knows that too, by the way."

"This isn't about him," Sokka protested.

"Yes it is," Suki shot back, tired of his denial. "And that's what's the dealbreaker."

She did feel bad when Sokka looked genuinely confused. "Why, because of the Duke? Because a child needs someone to look after him? None of this is his fault, Suki, if anything it's Katara's … wait. Suki, are you … breaking up with me?"

She really, really wished she wasn't. Sokka was sweet, and funny, and they worked well together. He was easy to be with, for her, but she knew the same couldn't be said in the other direction.

"Maybe I'm just finishing what you've already started." Petty of her to say so, perhaps, but Suki really wasn't the problem here so she refused to take all the blame. "Sokka, it's clear that you want what you have with Zuko. And the Duke, I don't know, maybe it's a combination of the two. Whatever. Like I said, it's the end of the world and right now we don't have time to not go after what makes us happy, and they're what makes you happy."

Not that Sokka either looked or sounded happy at the moment. "What about you, and your happiness? Don't I make you happy?"

She certainly had been, in the beginning. But if she took off the rose-colored glasses of a successful jailbreak and the sweet air of freedom, would she still feel like that? Either way, it had soon become clear that Sokka's attention was focused elsewhere. Suki could support a family-first attitude, but not when she was being constantly reminded that it was a family she couldn't be a part of.

"Not when I don't have your full attention even when it's just us. Not like this, when you're distracted by someone else."

"I don't know what to say," Sokka said, looking anywhere but at her, voice rough. Finally, he raised his head and she could see the tears sparkling in those blue eyes. Suki hated that she'd put them there. "I can't -- I have a responsibility to the Duke, and by extension to Zuko. I'm sorry, Suki."

"Me too," She sighed, swiping at a few of her own tears that had trickled free. So this was it, then. It had been good while it lasted. "I'd say … in another life, we could be together. But in another life, we'd have better chances of growing old, and then it would still be that other thing, wouldn't it."

"Maybe," Sokka responded, unhappiness written everywhere in his posture.

Suki spoke gently, trying to convince herself as much as him. "It's better that it ends this way. We can still be friends, right? And support each other as we move forward from this?"

"Yeah," Sokka sniffled, and from somewhere in the depths of his good, kind heart mustered up a smile just for her. "We'll always be friends. I, uh. It's almost the Duke's bedtime."

Suki watched him go, trying to comfort herself with the thought that she was no longer standing between him and his family. It didn't work, just then, but Suki hoped that one day soon, it would.

The Duke was never really sure if he would see a parent again after they left. But Daddy Zuko and Daddy Sokka had come back every time so far, so he was beginning to feel that maybe, with them, it would be okay one if of them left for a little while. Still, he hated it when they did and couldn't help feeling overjoyed every time one of them returned.

"Daddy Zuko!" the Duke screamed when he saw Appa landing, with a familiar dark-haired form on top. He sprinted towards the bison, dodging Daddy Sokka as he tried to slow him down.

"Hey, the Duke. I missed you," said Daddy Zuko quietly, jumping down from Appa to scoop up the Duke. The Duke buried his head in the too-warm neck of his adopted dad, glad he had come back for him.

"Your sister," said Daddy Zuko, projecting his voice over the Duke's head towards Daddy Sokka. Oh, yeah, the Duke didn't see Katara anywhere. Maybe she had run off. Moms did that, sometimes. He'd thought Team Moms were different, but obviously not by that much.

"Is terrifying," Daddy Zuko finished. "Also perfectly safe," he added hastily, and the Duke giggled. Daddy Sokka probably looked pretty murderous if Daddy Zuko had had to add that part so fast. Daddy Sokka got really worried about Katara sometimes, even more worried than he got about the Duke when he stole one of Daddy Zuko's knives.

"Oh," said Daddy Sokka, and he sounded close enough now that the Duke wiggled until he slid down to the ground and made a grab for Daddy Sokka's hand. Ha, Daddy Sokka must be distracted because he didn't even try to dodge!

"Swing me!" commanded the Duke, pulling himself up with his grip on his dads' forearms and taking the weight off of his legs. He looked up at them with a pleading grin, and got a soft smile in return from Daddy Zuko. Daddy Zuko didn't smile a lot, but he always had a special one for the Duke. It was something he'd missed while the firebender had been away.

"One, two, three!" Daddy Zuko counted, and he and Daddy Sokka lifted and swung the Duke together as they all slowly moved towards where Aang and Toph were practicing earthbending.

The Duke tried to kick his feet over his head during the swing, but didn't quite make it.

"How's it been here? Everything okay?" Daddy Zuko asked Daddy Sokka, as they prepared to swing him again.

"Well, Suki and I broke up, we, uh. Ran into some long term incompatibility."

The Duke managed to swing his feet even higher, although one almost hit him in the face. He nearly missed Daddy Zuko saying: "That's rough, buddy."

"You don't get to use that line twice," objected Daddy Sokka, although he didn't sound mad anymore, not like he had the other night.

"Um, I'm sorry to hear that? Suki is an indomitable warrior with unparalleled judgement. But breakups suck."

The Duke tugged at their hands; they needed to swing him again, but they were just standing there not looking at each other. "Again!" he demanded, and was promptly lifted into the air. He let out a scream of laughter.

"Yeah, I think I'll take a break from girls for a while," said Daddy Sokka when he set the Duke back down.

"That sounds like a good idea." There was a funny little look on Daddy Zuko's face as he said that. Maybe because he'd seen how close the Duke had come to doing a full flip this time.

Wait, if the Duke managed a full flip, would that turn their arms all backwards? Or inside-out? No, definitely not inside-out. He stopped to ponder for a second. His dads stopped, too, but to talk about boring serious grown-up stuff.

"The poison, the darkness -- it's still there, Sokka," Daddy Zuko was saying. "I don't know if I can make it go away. I'm not as good as your sister. But I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn't touch our family, or anyone else."

"It takes time to heal," acknowledged Daddy Sokka. "But if you need to talk about it, I'm here."

As if by unspoken agreement, the swung the Duke again, despite the fact that he was not ready, he didn't know what was going to happen to their arms! Oh well, it was fun anyway.

"So. Nice weather we're having. Should have a comet coming in a few weeks. You know, my family has a beach house…"

The Duke decided he was done with swinging, and let his legs turn to jelly and drag behind him so that he could scrape grooves in the dirt as they went along.

"Normally I would make a rich boy jab, but you had me at house. As in, house with a real kitchen."

The Duke hadn't lived in a house since his first daddy, but he had a vague recollection of a kitchen as a place of happiness, warmth, and food. It made sense that Daddy Sokka should be so excited about it, although the Duke would prefer some nice treehouse rope-bridges to play on.

"Wanna hide out there and trash my dad's stuff?" asked Daddy Zuko.

That made Daddy Sokka smile, big and bright. "Do I ever." He looked down at the Duke. "What do you say, little buddy?"

Trashing the place. The Duke liked the sound of that, and let out a shout. "Violence, WOO!"

Chapter Text

The Duke crashed into a leg, which was a fairly common occurrence, and looked up the length of a skinny man dressed in green. There was an iguana-parrot on his shoulder, and a cloth in his hand.

"Hey, kid, does this smell like chloroform to you?" asked the sleazy-eyed man, and the Duke automatically sniffed the rag he held out.

"What's chloro --" and why was the world spinning? The Duke barely managed to scream, reach into a pocket and hurl a smoke bomb before he felt himself involuntarily pulled into slumber.

His last thought, before visions of violence began to dance in his head, was to wonder if this was all his fault for making Daddy Zuko so mad at him.

--- That morning ---

Zuko had spent a good couple years being angry, so he knew that right now, he was not angry. He wasn't even a little bit mad.

Frustrated and exhausted from a combination of the midsummer heat and days of intense training, perhaps. He'd been having to do double duty with Sokka for the last week, since the younger man was still avoiding Suki, and Zuko wouldn't have minded the extra sword practice as much if Sokka hadn't insisted on sparring with his shirt off, which only added variety to Zuko's feelings of frustration.

He was not angry, but he was tired and irritated despite the early hour and the Duke was being an absolute hellion who was clearly not adjusting well to life in an actual house and had just shattered yet another heirloom urn with his attempts at earthbending. But none of those things were a valid reason for Zuko to raise his hand, as if preparing to strike the child.

It was a motion he'd seen hundreds of times during his own youth, from his father, his instructors, and soldiers chasing off children in the streets, yet the second he did it himself Zuko knew it was wrong.

This was a child.

His child.

Zuko had been chosen as this child's father, a title which meant love and protection, nurture and discipline but never harm, a title that was like Uncle, not like --

Zuko was just like him.

The poison was coming out.

The walls were closing in. The walls were closing in, and maybe they were shutting in the darkness too, so that it couldn't leak out onto his family, the Duke and his wide green eyes full of shock, guilt and betrayal, Sokka in his balanced stance, ready to intervene at a moment's notice, but that still left Zuko trapped inside with it, and he didn't want to live with it anymore, he'd had it for so long but he thought he'd finally broken free --

I'm sorry, Zuko thought he managed to choke out, although he couldn't hear anything for the winds rushing in his ears, feeling only the burning weight of Sokka's blue eyes on his back as he turned away from them, and the darkness carried him away as he ran.

Bad was an understatement, Sokka thought. Not what had happened, which, in his own mind was forgivable because in the end no one had done anything to regret, but rather Zuko's reaction to it. He'd seen the firebender wake up mid-scream from a nightmare, once, but it seemed that the real terrors were unafraid to play in daylight.

"Sparky's really not okay, Sokka," came Toph's worried voice. Sokka shuddered from the feeling of wrongness, hearing her like that. "We'll take care of the Duke. You should go to him."

"Okay," said Sokka numbly. His feet pulled him outside, down to that rocky cove he knew Zuko liked to go when he needed a moment alone, but Sokka barely registered the journey. He'd gotten to know Zuko in all of his various moods really well over the past months, but now, for the first time, he was afraid of what he'd find.

Scorch marks on the granite boulder, he could understand.

An arc of smoking sand, okay, but merciful moraines, were those lumps of molten glass mixed in with it? What must Zuko be feeling for his flames to burn that hot?

Not good was all Sokka could come up with when he finally saw the firebender, crouched with his back to a boulder, eyes vacant and fingernails clawing at his own palm.

"Hey, hey, easy there!" Sokka had to repress the urge to shout and rush over. He wouldn't be able to do Zuko any good if he himself was melted into the beach; Sokka needed to approach this like he would a wounded lion-seal. Not a creature he would normally voluntarily approach, but desperate times and all that.

He kept his voice soft and posture non-threatening as he drew closer, though part of him doubted that Zuko could even see him.  "Can you look at me, Zuko?" he kept asking, until finally the firebender responded, raising his head.

Shit. Zuko's expression was absolutely wretched, tears trailing from haunted eyes.

Sokka was so out of his depth. He dove in anyway. 

"Is it ok if I touch you?" he asked hesitantly. He didn't get an answer, but Sokka was pretty sure that Zuko would've said no if he'd meant it, so …

Sokka reached out and pried Zuko's left hand off of his right, noting the bloody crescents left by nails digging in. "Hey, you're okay, you're okay, no one's hurt," Sokka babbled as he felt Zuko tense. "Except you, a little. Um, breathe? Yeah. Let's breathe. I'll do the thing you normally do, and you do the thing that the Duke does most of the time and Aang pretends to do unless you glare at him."

Zuko was starting to come back, Sokka noticed from where he was still crouched in front of the firebender. Zuko's injured hand was gripping Sokka's of its own accord now, which Sokka took as a good sign. "There you go. Doing good, buddy. You're safe here. I'll be here as long as you need to get out of the bad place."

The grip on his hand was starting to get painful, but that was a good thing, right? Sokka reached up to tuck Zuko's hair behind his ear, mimicking an action he'd performed for the Duke countless times in the past weeks. It had always soothed the younger boy, so maybe it could serve the same purpose here …

Sokka's right thumb brushed Zuko's brow, and two things clobbered him like an iceberg, as he took in the position of his hand hovering over Zuko's face.

One, the scar was hand shaped.

Two, Zuko had freaked out after raising his hand -- his right hand -- towards his own son.

Sokka was a Water Tribe genius, and he had never regretted that so much as he did now.

There was, Sokka thought as his breathing started to accelerate until he felt capable of breathing fire, no matter what his native element or innate bending abilities. A special hell for Fire Lord Ozai, and Sokka was going to personally escort him there. With Space Sword buried as deeply in his sadistic, abusive guts as possible.

"I would've hurt him, Sokka." Zuko's rough voice snapped Sokka out of his growing rage. Sokka pulled himself back with some effort; the most good he could do right now, he knew, was still by helping his friend.

"I …  I don't understand how anyone could intentionally hurt a kid, but I was going to do it anyway."

And if that didn't just break Sokka's heart, that even though it had happened to him in the worst way possible, Zuko still innately didn't understand that level of cruelty. Sokka could only imagine the explanations Zuko had tried to come up with over the years, but at his core Zuko must have never truly accepted any of them, because he was good.

"But you didn't," Sokka protested. "You stopped yourself, because you're better than that."

Zuko turned away, hardness settling over his face. "But I … the darkness… you said…"

"Hey." Sokka needed Zuko to know something, and he couldn't do that when the firebender had his mask on. Sokka turned Zuko's face gently towards himself, and spoke. "I believe in you, man. You can beat it. You're fighting it right now, aren't you? Are you going to let it win?"

Zuko shook his head vigorously, mute.

"What's that they say? Old habits die hard. So let them die." It was a lot, Sokka knew, to push back against the entire way you had been raised and forge a better path. But if anyone had the headstrong determination to see it through, it was Zuko.

 "We'll be here to help you through it, ok? We've got you. We're not going to give up on you. So don't you dare give up on yourself, either, do you hear me?" And maybe that was why Zuko had looked so wrong, when Sokka had found him. He'd started to give up, which was so wrong because this was Zuko, who had borne even his father's own cruelty and come out with his ridiculous sense of honor intact. He couldn't -- Sokka wouldn't let this be the thing to break him.

Sokka squeezed Zuko's hand, trying to impart the strength of his feeling as he demanded: "Never give up, without a fight."

Zuko took a long breath, and some of the tension went out of him as he let it out with a shaky smile. "You know, I've got a knife that says that."

"Of course you do, buddy." Sokka sank to the sand beside Zuko, light-headed with relief at the return of Zuko's terrible sense of humor, a sure sign of improvement of his mental state at least. Sokka stretched out his legs and leaned back against the boulder, settling in for the long haul. He'd meant what he said. He'd be here as long as Zuko needed him to be.

Zuko didn't let go of his hand for a very long time.

The sun was much higher in the sky by the time Sokka returned to the house. He shook dark thoughts out of his head, and recalled the poster he'd seen on the street corner the other day. Tonight was already sounding like the perfect evening for some pointless fun to take their minds off of things.

Toph was certain that the Wang Fire family did not realistically expect their six-year-old to sit through a three-hour-long play. And with Sokka complaining about the comedy and Zuko bemoaning the dramatic retelling of his past mistakes, it wasn't surprising that they headed out early.

"We don't want him to have to see what-we-all-assume-but-don't-admit happened to Jet. Also, the Duke's not even in it!" was the excuse that Zuko gave, covering the child's eyes as Suki narrated how a papier-mâché rock was descending upon Actor Jet. Like Toph cared about the opinion of someone whose scar was on the wrong side.

Whatever. Toph couldn't see what was going on but she was still having the time of her life.

There were worse ways to end a day like this, Zuko thought. In the end, a play was just a play, even if it was an affront to the art of theatre itself. And right now, walking in the evening cool next to Sokka, stars glinting gently overhead, was a close to the day that Zuko could have enjoyed no matter what the start of it had brought.

The day wasn't over, yet.

"Hey, hot mama! Why you put the kid to bed and then I'll put you to bed, hmmm?" A suggestive voice called from across the street, shocking the two teens into a standstill.

Sokka's mouth dropped open like a string had been cut, and Zuko's own grip on the Duke's hand went slack.

"It's not my bedtime yet!" the Duke protested, wriggling free in objection, but Zuko was too distracted to notice, by the uncomfortable way Sokka was looking at him from where the other boy was mostly obscured in shadow.

"Objectively speaking," Sokka said slowly, clearly not liking the taste of the words coming out of his mouth, "And I'm aware that's not a word I should be using right now, with my male gaze and all -- I can kind of see why that asshole could mistake your gender? The waistline that cloak gives you should be illegal."

Far be it from Sokka to ever be helpful.

A wolf-whistle from the initial catcaller's companion broke through the air, and Zuko reached inside his outer tunic for a throwing knife.

Sokka was being really unhelpful tonight. "Wait," he hissed, hand catching Zuko's forearm before he could draw out the knife, but still keeping his position in the shadows. "I know this sucks, but we can't beat their asses in public without blowing our cover." Sokka tilted his head for a moment, thinking. "Try luring them over here into the alley. I mean, they clearly want a piece of you so that shouldn't be too hard. Maybe go with something that your sister would say to get them over here."

Sokka had come up with worse plans in the past, so Zuko would trust him this time, no matter how questionable the strength of Zuko's Azula-impersonation skills. Zuko cocked a hip and pretended to twirl long bangs around a finger as he announced in his best imitation: "You want hot? Bone cracks at six hundred degrees, and my flames can get even hotter than that."

It worked, Zuko supposed. The two men froze, then ducked into the nearest side street. The sound of their running feet was music to Zuko's ears.

"What the hell was that?" yelped Sokka. "You're supposed to be a helpless woman!"

Zuko blinked. While he would have very much enjoyed stabbing those two just a little, having them gone was also a good outcome. Besides. "Have you met my sister?" he asked flatly, and added, upon further thought: "Also, what does that sound like?"

"Are you kidding me," groaned Sokka.

"No," said Zuko, because he wasn't. Anyway, why was Sokka so upset about all this? He wasn't the one who needed to defend Zuko's honor. Although … did Sokka for some reason want to? Zuko wasn't sure what to do with the warm fluttery feeling he got in his stomach at that thought.

"I meant you should've tried something like, 'Oh no, I need a big strong man to come and save me!'" Sokka's voice took on a falsetto at the end.

Zuko scowled. "Women don't sound like that."

"What do you know about women?" shot back Sokka in exasperation.

"A lot I guess?" It was actually kind of true when Zuko thought about it. "All my friends growing up were girls. But none of them were helpless. Even my mom killed the previous Fire Lord."

"Ugh, now is not the time for respect women juice!" Sokka was clearly frustrated at the fact that they'd lost their quarry. Zuko was just glad that they were gone. "We were trying to get non-women-respecters over here so we could beat feminism into them with our manly fists!"

"I don't think it works like that," Zuko said slowly, not entirely sure what Sokka was trying to accomplish here, despite what the other boy had just said.

"Well, next time, just scream or something if you can't think of something to say. And do it all high pitched like."

The Duke, naturally, obliged at the request for screaming, although it was a lot fainter than it could have been. Thank Agni for small favors.

"Like that," said Sokka. "Thanks, the Duke."

Wait.

That had been too faint.

Zuko cast his gaze frantically about, finding no trace of the child, then turned towards Sokka, horrified to see the slow widening of his own eyes reflected in Sokka's. "Where's the Duke?"

A whiff of acrid smoke drifted by on the night air.

There was a common saying that went along the lines of, where there's smoke, there's fire. Sokka would very much like to suggest an alternative more fitting to the current situation: where there's smoke, there's a fucking avenging angel of a firebender out for the blood of anyone who would dare harm his kid. Hell hath no fury like a man whose child cried for help, and all that. That play had put Sokka in a mood, despite how bad it was, and --

Shit. That was his child, too, and this was real life, not the stage, no matter how much Zuko looked like a sexy ninja demon out of a spirit epic right now.

Sokka almost got hit in the face with a narrow-handled short sword that Zuko had pulled out of his boot and tossed Sokka's way. He supposed he deserved that kind of wake-up call.

Awesome. He had a sword now, and a decent sense of directional hearing, which he knew Zuko didn't when it came from his left. "This way," he shouted, pointing roughly thirty degrees north of left. Given the Fire Nation grid systems, Sokka would estimate two blocks left and one inland.

He took off running, glancing around for Zuko as he did so and finding no trace of him. What the …

Sokka looked up, in time to see the faint moonlight glint off of two sai gripped by a cloaked and hooded figure. His heart gave a small leap of instinctual panic, then calmed when logic won out and he knew the only person that could be was Zuko.

Who had not only found the time to get up onto the rooftops in the first place, but also managed to conjure up the forearm-length manji-design weapons from wherever the fuck he kept them hidden on his person.

Not that Sokka was complaining about that right now; paranoia had paid off, this time at least. He banked hard right, eyes straining for a sign of his son, and almost ran into a wall. Of course, the one Fire Nation town where there needed to be a grid system, there was no grid system. Sokka backtracked and found a windy passage between buildings. The rooftops were starting to look like they had been the better choice all along.

He caught the scent of bitter smoke mixing with salt air, and followed it to a shadowed corner of a different alley. Zuko dropped down soft-footed next to him, and they surveyed the scattered shards of one of the Duke's smoke bombs together.

"Where did they go so quickly?" Sokka bit out, voice low as he bent to scour the ground for signs. Curse these stone streets and the dry weather; there were no footprints anywhere.

His fingers brushed over something soft, and Sokka held it up to the moonlight. A long, green feather.

"Pirates," Zuko hissed, taking the feather and running it through his fingers. "I fucking hate pirates."

Sokka groaned. Because of course it would be pirates. Shit.

"Hang on, hang on," he started, grabbing at Zuko, who had already moved to seek higher ground. "Let's be smart about this, buddy. That's the major advantage we'll have on these guys. Obviously, they're headed seaside, to their ship. But there's a ton of hidden coves to lay anchor in and we don't know which is the right one, and we can't waste our time checking them all."

Zuko scowled, tugging away from Sokka's grip on his wrist. "I know that." He sounded exactly as frustrated and stressed as Sokka felt.

"We need more information," Sokka admitted, swallowing a bitter taste and forcing himself not to think about what any delay on their part would mean for the Duke. "We can't take out a whole pirate crew on our own."

Zuko snorted, and gold eyes narrowed. "Watch me," he bit out, clambering back up to the rooftops.

"I was afraid you'd say that," Sokka grumbled as he raced down to the water. They were going to need a bit of luck, which was one thing he knew for sure Zuko didn't have, so it would be up to him…

A flash of movement registered in the corner of his eye. A bird in flight; green. Sokka swerved into the street from whence it came, ducking behind a closed vegetable stand the instant he spotted the iguana-parrot's handler. Sokka was, like most people, somewhat prone to stereotyping, but then even someone who hadn't grown up in an isolated tribe full of their second cousins would have taken one look at that man and thought pirate. The man had the strong build, the cutlass, the leather vest accessorized with random metal rings, and a bandana for crying out loud, and all these things together screamed pirate. To say nothing of the iguana-parrot fluff he was currently brushing off of his shoulder.

Sokka hid behind the vegetable stand, heart pounding, and strategized. Okay, so, pirate. Same bird, too close together in time and location to be a coincidence. The bird was being used as a messenger, so something had occurred within the past few minutes that necessitated a message. Such as a kidnapping and the following "regroup at ship" announcement. Maybe they could follow this man back, and then --

Sokka had thought avenging angel before. That, as it turned out, was inaccurate until now.

A swirl of pale limbs wrapped in crimson and gold attacked from above. A long leg crashed into the pirate's shoulder before Zuko landed in a wide stance, arm already wrapped around the pirate's neck and using the momentum of the fall to torque the larger man over Zuko's hip onto the unforgiving ground. There was a sickening crack, and Sokka instinctively closed his eyes in a sympathetic wince. When he opened them again, it was to the sight of Zuko kneeling over the downed form, knife poised meaningfully at his neck.

"Where is your ship," Zuko growled, low and dangerous, and if that pirate wasn't pissing himself from fear Sokka might just go ahead and do it for him. Sokka had fought more against Zuko than he had with him, but never before, even in all his honor-induced rages, had the prince demonstrated the callous fury he was here. The pirate had definitely broken something in what may or may not be a life-threatening manner and it was clear that Zuko gave zero fucks. Sokka could relate, honestly, because that bastard's friends had taken his kid, but still the ease of the violent action scared him. Zuko, he knew for sure now, had never, ever tried to hurt Aang or any one of the gang. Or else he would have sure as hell succeeded.

"Please don't kill me," the pirate gasped, but he must not have liked the look he got in reply to that, because the next second he was shouting out, "Razor-clam Cove! We're anchored in Razor-clam Cove."

"You'd better hope I find what I'm looking for," Zuko snarled, stepping away from the man and turning down the street. Sokka followed, mute. He was having a very strange response to that display, once the initial shock and fear had worn off, a disturbingly large portion of which was extremely turned on.  Sokka thought it best to push that to the back of his mind and never examine it further. Right now he needed to focus on maintaining his pace and breathing as they ran for the cliffs.

Zuko was fast, but he utilized his speed in bursts and so struggled with distances; Sokka took it upon himself to make sure they reached their destination as efficiently as possible, managing their pace while Zuko used his knowledge of the island to direct them.

Eventually they reached the cliffs, breathing hard but not winded, and saw the pirate ship below, anchored perhaps fifty meters away as the iguana-parrot flew. "There's a beach on the other side," Sokka noted, recovering his breath. "It's at least half an hour's detour, though." Which was time that they did not have.

Zuko clearly had no intention of waiting either, although how they were going to circumvent this was beyond Sokka. He got a sinking feeling as Zuko threw off his cloak, the edge of it smoking from the barely suppressed flames in his hands.

"My cousin Lu Ten took me diving here when I was nine," he started, and yep, Sokka should have expected something like this from Zuko. "There's a spot where wash in and out from an underwater cave keeps the seafloor clear of large rocks. You'll need to time it so that the wave is retreating when you enter the water, but still as high as possible. The fall takes two seconds. Punch a hole in the water for your head and shoulders, like this." Zuko stretched his arms over his head and clasped them, demonstrating. "Then we're going to burn that fucking ship to its timbers." He stated it as fact, eyes still tracking the rise and swell of dark waters below.

Sokka made no effort to talk him down from either plan.

"Watch," and Sokka barely had time to nod before Zuko dove off the cliff.

He followed, not a few seconds later.

--- Back to the present ---

The first thing the Duke registered upon waking up was the smell. It was bad. Like, someone had skipped their bath time for three weeks bad.

Maybe three somebodies had missed their bath times, the Duke thought, glaring judgmentally at the men surrounding him. It was dark, and underneath the stink was the smell of the sea and damp wood, adding even more to the general badness of smells. And of the Duke's feeling about this whole situation.

"Who are you?" he asked the one closest to him. It was not the skinny man with shifty eyes that had made him smell his yucky handkerchief. This man was like the ugly mish-mash of the skinny man and the big bulky guy guarding the door, only dressed worse, with lots of dirty ruffles and once-shiny buttons  on his mostly-red attire.

"We're just ordinary do-gooders trying to get you back to your parents, kiddo," said Old Buttons, in what he might have thought was a comforting tone.

The Duke was not comforted. "You look like bad guys," he accused.

Old Buttons chuckled, and it sounded like vomiting. "Don't worry, son. From the looks of your mama I'd say your daddy's got money. You'll be back in your fancy house in no time."

"I don't have a mama," the Duke said slowly. Now he was definitely sure that these people were up to no good. "You're the bad guys!" He pointed an accusing finger to make it more true.

"So what if we are?" Skinny challenged. "What are you going to do about it, kid?"

The Duke launched himself at Old Buttons, going for the groin just like Daddy Sokka had taught him. "I DESTROY THE BAD GUYS AND RUIN THEIR LIVES!!"

He'd barely gotten a solid hit in before Old Buttons slapped a hand draped in a dirty lace cuff over the Duke's mouth. Gross. Everything smelled even worse up close. The Duke bit the hand.

And immediately spit it back out. The smell was nothing compared to the taste.

The squelch from his wet boots ruined what would otherwise have been a perfectly quiet landing. Zuko sank into a crouch, sai extended, and quickly scanned the darkened room as Sokka crawled in through the porthole behind him. It appeared empty; Zuko allowed himself a glance back at his partner, who was finishing his own evaluation of the room.

"Clear," Sokka confirmed in a whisper, then winced as he discarded his shredded forearm wrappings in a dark corner. The barnacles they'd climbed up the side of the woefully under-maintained hull were sharp, as the cuts in Zuko's hands attested, but it was a small price to pay for entry.

Finally, they could take the Duke back from these villains. Zuko breathed, stoking the fire within to as hot as he could stand, letting the water steam out of his hair and clothes. The last thing they needed was for a dripping trail to reveal their presence. As much as Zuko would love to charge in swords swinging, Sokka did have a point. They were outnumbered, out-armed, and had to make it out with a child intact.

Zuko turned his attention to Sokka, who was staring, and beckoned him over. Sokka's shirt was sleeveless, which would generate fewer puddles than what Zuko was wearing, but that still left his pants. Zuko set the backs of his heated hands on the other boy's waistband, moving slowly downwards as the fabric began to dry. Sokka muffled a squeak. Of course he would be on edge, Zuko reasoned, they were in an enemy ship. Oh, and maybe Zuko should've explained what he was doing. "Relax, I'm just -- you're wet."

Sokka made a noise which might have been well now I sure am, but Zuko was concentrating on not burning him so he wasn't sure. It was a feat enough in and of itself for Zuko to keep his mind off of Sokka's body, no matter where his hands were; he couldn't deal with interpreting Sokka's various sound effects right now.

"Where do you think they're keeping him?" Sokka asked quietly.

Zuko thought, grateful for the sharp reminder of their purpose here. "It's a small ship, about a two meter draft. A wooden Earth Kingdom trading junker, maybe from fifteen years back. Broad enough that there's probably one hallway down the length of the cabin, with rooms on either side until the cargo. We're likely to run into trouble the second we get out of here, but if we're fast we should be able to get to the Duke before they can react with overwhelming force." He scowled darkly and clamped down on thoughts of what the pirates might have already had time to do to his son. "In a pinch, I burn this ship and we pick the Duke out of the smoking wreckage."

"Nerd," said Sokka fondly as Zuko stood up. "But your logic checks out, given my knowledge of Water Tribe ships. Please don't burn this one down just yet though."

Zuko was about to promise to hold that thought of raining complete destruction upon their foes, but was glad he hadn't when they heard the Duke scream. Adrenaline shot through his core and Zuko burst out through the door.

Two pirates in the hallway, one with cutlass raised and the other still startled. Zuko went high, trusting Sokka to go low. A quick hop let him jam the sai's yoku into a space between planks, and Zuko used the leverage between it and the handle to elevate. The brief moment of contact between his foot and the wall allowed him to launch a powerful, full-rotation kick to the head as he leapt off.

The pirate had the presence of mind to duck his head, but not to turn his cutlass to meet the attack. Zuko's kick sent the weapon flying. He landed in front of the pirate, catching a dagger thrust by instinct on the hilt of his own right blade. A quick twist was all it took to disarm the pirate fully, and Zuko bashed his steel-protected left fist into the man's face for good measure.

Sokka, a glance told him, was winning his own matchup, spinning his opponent into an armbar throw. Perfect. Zuko pushed his own stunned adversary into a collision course with his crewmate. Suddenly Zuko realized that Sokka was not the only one with a hold on his enemy; he pressed himself into the wall as the pair, locked in combat, hurtled his way.

The two pirates crashed into each other with a nasty noise, and Sokka managed to shake his opponent's grip on his collar as he somersaulted over the carnage, short sword raking the air where Zuko had been standing as he flew by.

Sokka landed on his feet and was sprinting to the source of the scream before Zuko had time to register how impressed he was, then kicked open the door like it was nothing. The two boys crowded into the room, desperate for sight of the Duke.

And there he was, in the grip of a skinny pirate. There were two others in the room, Zuko noted out of habit, though every paternal instinct screamed at him to ignore the rest and grab his child. A large man crouched by the door, barely out of Zuko's kicking range, and another wearing too much lace cradled his hand near the opposite corner.

"Don't come any closer!" yelled the skinny man. "I'll kill him!" He declared, eyes wild, whipping out the most blinged-out blade known to man.

Zuko knew a mistake when he saw one.

So did Sokka.

Trusting Sokka, who was closer, to get the Duke, Zuko kicked an arc of flame at the big man.

"Ooh, SHINY!" he heard the Duke yell, and Zuko just knew the kid had made a grab at the knife, because he had no concept of self-preservation. Which would be the last thing his captor was expecting.

Not so the big guy, who dissipated Zuko's flame with a gesture. Firebender. Great. Well, they were in the Fire Nation, after all. But Zuko didn't care if this ship burnt to cinders, although he was willing to bet the big man did.

Keeping his body as a barrier between the big guy and Sokka,  Zuko closed in to slash the sai at tendons and arteries. He felt the blade bite, but not nearly deep enough, and cursed when the pirate grabbed him bodily and flung him into the wall.

Just before impact, Zuko caught a glimpse of Sokka with his arm around the Duke, and then a searing pain split his vision to stars.

Sokka smashed the pirate in the face and shoved the Duke out of stabbing range, apologizing silently to the child as he did so. Another blow with the hilt of his sword had the skinny pirate stunned, and Sokka could already see the Duke terrorizing the one with the hand injury, waving the bedazzled knife around with abandon. Zuko, meanwhile, had just been bodily thrown into a wall and was now lying in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Not good. Three-on-one and Sokka with a child in tow and an injured partner to retrieve.

He bared his teeth and raised his short sword. Bring it.

Main threat, the big one, and if Sokka could hold him off long enough for Zuko to recover they wouldn't even need to take him out all the way; Sokka would bet on himself and Zuko for speed, even with the Duke along.

Shit, fire.

Sokka ducked and closed the range with his sword, praying that the Duke was okay. He feinted, letting Big Guy push him back while drawing the threat away from Zuko. Sokka felt a motion behind him and spun, dropping his center of gravity. Big Guy's flame flew over his head and grazed the skinny pirate just as Sokka attacked knobby knees from his low position.

Letting his momentum carry him all the way around, Sokka burst up and inside Big Guy's guard, scoring a large but shallow slash with the short sword. The large pirate roared in pain and brought up a knee; Sokka felt his ribs protest as he took the hit but managed to roll with it. Suddenly, he heard the whoosh and thunk of a throwing knife burying itself in a target, followed by an impressive string of curses.

Zuko was up and herding the Duke away from the enraged flailing of the large injured pirate; Sokka saw his chance and slid past the two pirates and out the door. Zuko passed the Duke off to Sokka like a baton, and Sokka took the boy and started sprinting down the corridor to the ladder leading to the deck. Behind him, he heard the rush of flames as Zuko torched the room they'd come from.

"Are you ok?" Sokka called, hearing the firebender stumble and risking a glance behind him. He saw blood trickling down the left side of Zuko's face, coloring the scar a deeper red, and frowned.

"This is nothing, remember how many walls Aang used to blow me through?" Zuko replied, pivoting and ducking to avoid a club and coming up with an elbow to a pursuer's jaw.

"How do you not have brain damage," Sokka grumbled as he picked up the Duke, swung him out of the way of an opening door and slammed his own body against the door to knock the emerging pirate back inside.

Zuko set the door on fire once Sokka had sprinted onwards, effectively encouraging the room's occupants to leave through the porthole instead. "Bold of you to assume that I don't."

Sokka's jaw dropped. "Is that … a joke?" Whatever it was had nearly cost him his grip on the ladder. "Now is not the time to finally learn humor!" he yelled, popping his head above deck then ducking, letting Zuko hurl a fireball over his and the Duke's heads into an approaching pirate before finally gaining the deck.

"Let's be bad guys!" the Duke hollered, finally free to run around and stab things.

"Fuck yeah," Sokka agreed under his breath, although he was well aware that this parenting strategy would probably come back to bite them. He wasn't getting any disagreement from his co-parent, though, who flashed him a somewhat bloody grin.

"Been a while since I've stolen a boat," Zuko mused, then marched over to the lifeboats and slashed the ropes binding the pulley system. A boat slid down the side of the ship to splash into the waves below. "Oh right. It's not that hard."

Sokka just rolled his eyes and jumped overboard into the water, because he wasn't an idiot, then clambered into the boat and held up his arms. Zuko dropped the Duke down to him, and then jumped straight into the lifeboat, because he was an idiot who clearly wanted a twisted ankle. Or maybe he just wanted to keep the saltwater out of his wounds, who was Sokka to judge because the cut in his arm was only stinging a little bit.

Sokka was still judging hard, regardless. The momentum of the jump at least helped push the lifeboat away from the ship, and Sokka helped it along with a few pulls of the oars.

"Oh look, a bomb!" The Duke announced, and held up a bomb.

"Blasting jelly should be stored aft of the mainmast," Zuko muttered, taking the bomb from the Duke and pinching the fuse alight. "Ten seconds." He handed the bomb to Sokka.

Sokka had surprisingly few qualms about blowing this pirate ship to kingdom come. He calculated distance, hang time, and angle, and let fly with three seconds to spare.

"Bye bye, bomb!" chirped the Duke.

Zuko dove for the oars, frantically pulling their boat as far from the ship as they could go, and Sokka crouched over the Duke to shield the child while counting down.

A massive explosion shook the ship, cracking it in half. Debris whistled through the air, splashing down just short of their boat, the flames floating on the water like holiday lanterns.

"You just got beaten by a child!" screamed the Duke, wiggling out from under his dads to point gleefully at the wreckage.

Sokka couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.

It was a full belly laugh, releasing all of his fear, stress, and adrenaline, tinged with maybe just the tiniest hint of guilt that he might have just blown some pirates to actual pieces.

"We're okay!" came a chorus of voices into the night.

Sokka collapsed back on the lifeboat's bench, wheezing for air. "We didn't ask!" he hollered back.

It took a while for the laughter of his co-parent and son to die down. And people thought Zuko was the evil one.

Okay, so pirates losing their ships would never not be funny to Zuko. He might have also let out a small giggle or two. Not that anyone could notice under that brilliant, joyful guffaw of Sokka's.

They were all here, and they were all okay. The gash on Sokka's arm didn't look too deep and it had stopped bleeding, and the Duke hadn't come down from his adrenaline rush enough yet to feel the cuts on his fingers from where the knife had grazed him. Zuko's own hands were already stinging, and who knew how his face looked, although at least the blood had stopped dripping into his eye and obscuring his vision even further.

Eventually, an exhausted silence fell as they watched the ship burn. Gentle waves washed their small boat ever further away from the wreck and towards the sandy shore.

"Daddy?" the Duke spoke up, voice small. "Did the bad men get me because I made you mad at me?"

Zuko felt physically stung, as if he'd thrust his barnacle-shredded palms into the salty ocean. "No," he rushed to say. Is that really what the Duke thought, after the events of this morning? "I'm not mad at you. I'm so, so sorry for what I did earlier."

Zuko wanted to hold the Duke, but he wasn't sure if that was something he'd lost the privilege to do. "Even if I do get mad at you, I should never react by trying to hurt you because of it. No one should, do you understand that?" If he sounded miserable and pathetic, so be it, because that was how he felt.

"Or else they're bad guys?" the Duke said slowly, puzzling it out.

"Yeah. Or else they're bad guys," Zuko answered, relieved that the boy wasn't holding this against him after all.

A fact that was confirmed when the Duke attempted to throw his arms across both his dads. Zuko pulled himself up on the seat next to Sokka to make it easier for the child. "Thanks for saving me! Those pirates smelled really bad."

Sokka smiled down at the unruly head of hair in his lap. "I'm just glad we're all together again." He glanced across at Zuko with a little grin that broke Zuko's lungs. Zuko subtly checked his ribs for cracks, but found none.

"Me too," added Zuko once he could breathe again, tentatively patting the Duke's back. "And just so you know, I'll never, ever do anything to hurt you. Either of you. I promise."

"I know, Daddy," said the Duke, then yawned. "It's past my bedtime." He stretched and then flopped fully across both their laps, eyes shut.

They were okay. A bit bloody and worse for the wear, but a whole family again. This time it was Zuko who caught Sokka's eye and shared a tired smile. Which was a mistake, because now Zuko's brain was broken.

The man next to him was devastatingly handsome, dark skin illuminated by the flaming wreckage of the pirate ship. A wreck that Sokka was responsible for, too; he'd rescued their child and taken the enemy apart like it was nothing, he was so supremely capable in a fight yet somehow so compassionate and kind that it was unfairly attractive. Zuko noticed belatedly that Sokka's arm had slipped around his back and was resting casually on the seat by his hip; a perfectly natural placement, all things considered, but suddenly the weight of it burned. He let out an involuntary gasp as his gaze flicked to Sokka's lips, drawn there like a kitten-moth to a flame. It took more mental energy than Zuko could spare to raise his eyes back up to meet Sokka's own.  And somehow that was even worse, because Sokka was looking back at him, blue eyes smiling, incandescent in the blazing night.

A sound slipped out of Zuko's lips, unbidden, as he leaned closer. "Uhhh…"

"What?" Sokka breathed the quiet word warm across Zuko's face, sensation dulling as it found the edge of his scar.

"Nothing." Zuko swallowed thickly at that bitter reminder of reality and quickly looked away, face heating up. He hoped Sokka hadn't noticed that Zuko had been about to… that he had almost kissed him. That had to be the head injury talking.

When they got back to shore, Zuko passed the concussion test. And he wasn't even faking it.

Katara had said she was confused, okay, and she'd meant it too. Now she was just trying to avoid Aang for the rest of the night, which would be easier if he wasn't the product of an unholy union between a mosquito-wasp and cinnamon roll. The net result of which was sticky-sweet, annoying, and persistent, not unlike his kiss had been.

Katara just needed some alone time in order to clear her head, so naturally she ran into a group of tired boys sneaking home after curfew.

Katara crossed her arms and squinted at them in the low light. She'd been about to chew them out for taking forever to walk home from the theatre, because by all rights they should've been here before the rest of the group got back, but … they did not look great.

"Zuko, why are you hurt," she asked with a sigh, staring at the dried blood caked on the left side of his face.

"He hated the play so much he hit a wall with his head," Sokka said, straight-faced. "Repeatedly. While yelling 'honor!'"

Katara knew better than to trust anything her brother said with a straight face, but this was Zuko, who had known anger-management and honor-management issues, so …

"I respect that. You're lucky you didn't stay for the ending."

"I've got a knife!" broke in the Duke, yawning widely, barely awake enough to wave the glittery weapon at her face.

Katara looked at Sokka.

Sokka shifted uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "Ha ha, you know I wouldn't be caught dead with that thing, sis. I bet it's just an evening accessory he must've found misplaced."

"I steal from pirates!" the Duke announced sleepily.

"What he means is, the upper echelon of society can deprive those lower down of basic necessities in a piratical fashion," Sokka cut in quickly, but Katara didn't care.

"So do I," she said to the Duke. "I'll take that knife now."

She did so, and left to add it to her growing collection. It was a curious thing;  beguiling and desirable on the surface yet still capable of dealing damage, and Katara wasn't sure how to feel about it. Kind of like unexpected kisses.

Chapter Text

The circle of knives went like this: the Duke stole from Zuko, Katara confiscated them from the Duke, Sokka borrowed them from Katara, and Zuko kept up his owl-cat-burglary skills by filching them from wherever Sokka decided to conceal them when he got bored with playing with them.

It was a vicious circle, and Sokka was going to end it, now.

He marched down to where Zuko was stretching on the beach after his casual destruction of sand art and attack on Aang. The firebender’s movements were provocatively smooth and slow, because that smug jerk probably knew both exactly what that did to Sokka and exactly what the Duke had done with his latest acquisition. The sun caught on the glint of sweat on hard muscles, highlighting their lines like sharp steel, and the unfairness of it all threw Sokka into a white rage.

"I have just about had it with you," he announced. Zuko straightened up, his best oh-so-you-thought-I-was-socialized-like-a-normal-human-being innocent frown on his face. Normally, Sokka might find this cute. Today, however…

Frustrated, Sokka let out a growl and grabbed Zuko's collar, holding the other boy firmly in place as he started tugging at the belt holding the dark tunic shut.

"What!" Zuko yelped, trying to jump away, but Sokka wouldn't let him.

"Hold still," he hissed. Could Zuko please get over his trust issues long enough for Sokka to resolve his own trust issues regarding their son, sharp objects, and the source thereof? 

Zuko, to his credit, held still. "I think I need to consent to this," he muttered, face flushed, uncertain, but Sokka barely heard him.

"What is this?" asked Sokka instead, plucking a small object from the underside of the garment he was now holding open.

"A… throwing knife?" Zuko answered, to that and the next five that Sokka held up one by one before discarding them onto the sand. "They're a set," he explained.

"Of knives."

"Yes."

"That you feel the need to keep on your person at all times."

"Well, not all the time. I don't wear a shirt for firebending training or swimming -- "

At that, Sokka took out the next knife and threw it rather viciously into the sand. 

"Hey, that was my shaving knife!"

Sokka snorted. "What do you even need that for, you have like zero body hair."

Zuko bristled at that in a way his chin never would, and Sokka smiled the benevolent smirk of the hirsute. He moved to the other side of the tunic, occupied by a single long hunting dagger, and held it up without a word, daring the firebender to imagine what would happen once the Duke managed to steal this one.

"Hunting knife?" Zuko said, uncertain, as if wondering if that even required an explanation.

With a frustrated noise, Sokka added that one to the growing pile on the ground and jerked the tunic off of Zuko's right side, exposing the ties holding the inner shirt closed. He yanked on those and crowed triumphantly as it fell open, pulled by the weight of even more knives, no wonder the beach house shouji were gaining slashes at an alarming rate.

"How many knives do you need?" Sokka complained, bringing himself back on track after being greeted by the razor-sharp line of his co-parent's perfect collarbones.

"Knives are like socks, you can always use more," Zuko answered, shivering slightly as Sokka's fingers brushed his skin on their way to extracting yet another blade from its hiding place. "That's just a lockpick, though," he volunteered about the strange instrument Sokka held up.

Sokka dropped that one with a slight bit of care as to where it landed, since he didn't actually want that one to get lost in the sand. He hadn't had a chance to play with it yet, after all.

The next knife was suspiciously blunt. Predictably, it was also one that Sokka didn't recognize, because Spirits forbid that the Duke went for a blunt knife.

"Butter knife?" Zuko replied to the unasked question.

"Seriously?" Sokka snorted.

"Toph always steals mine," complained the firebender.

Sokka could believe that, but still. "Well then don't keep it next to your skin, that's gross. Unless you taste really good," Sokka added as an afterthought, and boy was that the wrong afterthought. The accompanying visual of a very well-defined chest that his left hand was lingering on for some inexplicable reason, likely the smooth warm skin with an unexpected softness beneath it or some shit like that, was enough to completely de-rail his hormone-addled brain from ...whatever it was he had come here to do in the first place.

Sokka tried to scold himself for thinking about his partner like a piece of particularly enticing, dryly sarcastic meat, but that didn’t really help because those were two of his favorite things. It also didn’t help that lately he’d added a third to the list, although he’d never admit it out loud; it was seeing how fatherhood and being with the Gaang – how being part of a family let all the best parts of Zuko shine.

Sure, the firebender had struggled to find his stride at first, but they all had, even Toph. Yet less than two months after being crossed off of their worst enemies list, Zuko was an integral part of the team. They trusted him despite all his past wrongs, and even more miraculously, given what Sokka now knew, Zuko trusted them, despite everyone who had wronged him in the past. Case in point: the way the boy was rooted in front of Sokka, stoic in his vulnerability, making the weight of his trust a precious burden in Sokka’s hands.

Yup, this was a situation of three of his favorite things in the same place, proving that Sokka had, in fact, completely lost it.

Zuko continued looking at Sokka as if he’d completely lost it. Zuko was, however, thawing gradually from the semi-frozen state he'd been in since the beginning of Sokka's interrogation. "Happy now?" he asked cautiously.

Sokka realized that he was still clutching Zuko's shirt, and stepped back. This did not help him recover even a modicum of control over his state of mind. From here he had the perfect view of Zuko, face flushed, half-undressed and a suppressed inferno in his eyes.

“I guess so?” Sokka responded, then turned to sprint away, because what he’d really wanted to say was I want that. All of it. And this was neither the time nor the place, with the Comet coming and a child depending on the two of them functioning as a unit, so Sokka shoved his feelings deep into the permafrost, dreading the next inappropriate time the heat would dredge them to the surface again.

It was a vicious circle, this cycle of feelings, and Sokka despaired that it would ever end.

"Hey, Auntie Suki, have you seen my dads?"

Suki looked up from polishing her katana to see the Duke run into the room. Setting the weapon aside -- high out of reach, as she'd learned after the first war fan incident -- she walked out to the balcony. "I think Sokka went to fetch Zuko from the beach, let me check."

She jumped quickly up onto the railing and then swung up around a rafter onto the roof for fun, and because they were still training and they'd found out earlier that Fire Lord Ozai was going to try to destroy the Earth Kingdom in three days. Peering against the bright sunlight from her crouch, she made out the figures of the two boys on the beach. Just as Suki was about to call down to the Duke that yes, she'd found his dads, she paused. What in the Four Nations…

Suki quickly averted her eyes, shuddered, and swung back inside in a single fluid movement.

"Uhhh, nope, nothing to see there," she announced shakily.

Yup, nothing to see, just her ex-boyfriend tearing at his current boyfriend's clothing, in full daylight on a technically private beach but what was privacy to their little group, and Suki was definitely thanking her lucky rocks that she and Sokka had broken up before she'd discovered his exhibitionist tendencies.

"What about we play inside for at least half an hour," Suki suggested to the Duke. "You know how to play Pai Sho, right?"

The Duke, as it turned out, did not know how to play Pai Sho. That was fine. Neither did Suki.

They just made pretty patterns with the tiles instead.

Toph was minding her own business and rubbing extra dirt into the lines in the bottom of her feet when the gay drama started.

"TOPH!" Sokka's yell made her question if he knew that she was in fact blind, not deaf. "What's wrong with me?" He flopped dramatically to the ground beside her, cursed softly as he landed on a sharp rock, and re-flopped with extra drama in a rock-free zone.

Toph thought this was an appropriate time for an eye roll, and tried it out. "You want the whole list?"

Sokka ignored her, in favor of wailing: "It's Zuko!"

"No offense, but aren't Katara and Suki your go-to's for ranting about parenting?" Toph asked, confused. This was not the type of drama she was looking for. "I get why it might still be a bit weird to talk about that stuff to Suki, but I just saw Katara…"

"This isn't about parenting," huffed Sokka. "It's about … ugh. Has anyone ever mentioned to you how hot Zuko is? Because he is."

Ah. Toph fought down an evil grin, and minor frustration about Things Sighted People Never Tell Her. Emulating her favorite element, Toph decided to play purposefully dense. "No duh, the guy's a firebender, you're just now figuring that out? Something is wrong with you."

"Not like that," Sokka groaned. "I mean the way that he looks." His posture shifted to appropriately guilty after Toph waved her hand in front of her eyes.

Toph cut him some slack for that. "I'm pretty sure you've told me that before, actually, did you forget or something or do you have a concussion?" It never hurt to check for head wounds when those two were involved.

"Yeah, but," Sokka started, and Toph assumed that he was responding to her first statement, not the question because she was lazy and didn't want to have to go fetch Katara from her splish-splash with Aang time.

Meanwhile, Sokka had gone on, as he tended to do. "The problem is, I knew that already, like in my head, and also somewhat in my, uh --"

"Whoa, I'm going stop you right there and remind you that I'm twelve," Toph interrupted, holding up her hands. She waited for a second to make sure that no more words on that subject got out of Sokka's mouth.

Toph tilted her head to the side, finding a clear summary of the issue at hand. "So, this is a gay freakout, huh?"

Sokka's flailing was answer enough in itself. His words only confirmed Toph's conclusion. "I don't know! But anyway, it's different now because now I have … feelings. That are about Zuko, as a person, and not just about his body, although I'm not going to lie and say that that doesn't play a role in this whole disaster…"

"Well, you came to the right person, then," Toph announced.

Sokka's whole posture brightened. "Really? You can help with this?"

"You had me at disaster," Toph admitted. "Firstly. Absolutely nothing is wrong with you. This is a classic situation of your co-parent also being your gay awakening. And now you've let yourself get past the 'oh no, he's hot' phase to the 'oh no, I might be in love with him' phase due to, I don't know, the impending end of the world probably. Zuko, meanwhile, is stuck on Pine Island, with feelings that as far as he knows are unrequited because he has zero people skills and surprisingly low self-confidence in this area. So basically this has just been escalated to a mutual pining scenario, with feelings edition. Question is, can you two get The Big Damn Kiss before the upcoming Moral Event Horizon, without messing up your co-parent vibe."

Sokka was doing that thing sighted people did when they held very still and made motions with their eyelids at her. Probably. Toph couldn't tell, but it was a decent guess because Sokka wasn't the holding still type normally. "You're not really doing anything to help me understand this situation," he said at last. "But thanks I guess?"

True to trope, he wandered morosely away, probably mutilating some poor plant as he did so, seeking to divine if he loves me or he loves me not.

Toph popped up a boulder from underground and flopped over it. Wow, she'd really dodged one there. She'd had no idea what she was saying, she was twelve damn it and who ever thought she was a good person to ask for love advice? Although she knew she was Sokka's only choice since the other ones were his sister, a monk interested in his sister, and his ex. Anyway it had looked like all he'd needed to do was get a load off of -- eewww, Toph was going to stop that thought right there and think of the ratings.

Feeling some familiar vibrations through the earth, Toph groaned. Oh great, now his prospective boyfriend was coming. Spirits, she really needed to get a writer with better phrasing, there is such a thing as too much information for a twelve year old. Toph sighed and idly sealed up a crack in a wall she'd made earlier, and regained some peace of mind after that.

Fire was always moving, dancing, consuming, and Zuko had had to fight so hard to keep himself from doing any of those things. Sokka's fingers left trails of heat across his skin, begging his inner fire to ignite, but Zuko knew that he could never let it. If he had … Zuko wasn't sure what would have happened. But the fire would have taken over and burned, bright and hot and beautiful, then gone out too soon, leaving nothing but ash in its passing.

Far better to freeze, and accept the sleepy-content comfort of the cold turning blood to sludge in his veins. Zuko recalled the creeping lethargy that followed the initial shock of being encased in a waterbender's ice, burying the warmth inside ever deeper, away from the surface. He'd held that feeling at the front of his mind for as long as he could bear, and stayed motionless while answering Sokka's questions, letting the remembered ice halt his deeper thoughts in place as well, for long after the other boy left.

Agni's children were not made for ice. The thaw came quickly in a burst of fire, greedy for air.

Zuko shook himself out of his stupor, fastened his clothing together and stomped over to where Toph had her favorite dirt patch.

Toph called out to him before he even saw her. "I'm not your therapist, go away."

"Why would you think I want to talk?" Zuko yelled back, leaping over a boulder to find Toph on the other side.

Toph's smirk bloomed slowly across her face. "Is that a challenge?"

"Fight me, you dirt-footed mantis-sloth."

"You're so on, you oblivious bisexual disaster of a flamethrower." Toph must be off her game, that wasn't even an insult, it was just the truth. Her earthbending was still on point, however; she immediately cracked the boulder behind them and sent the separate pieces racing apart then back together again to clap him into so much rock sandwich.

Zuko grinned and let loose his flame, relishing the feel of his chi flowing and igniting. Here was control in motion, in a way he'd not had about his feelings for some time.

Maybe, Zuko thought as he formed a flame whip to lash the rocks apart, in the few days they had left on the island he'd manage to sort them out enough to articulate to Sokka what they were.

So of course, because Zuko had no luck, he lost to Toph, Aang couldn’t even kill Melon Lord and the next morning the Avatar was nowhere to be found.

Five children walked into a bar. Wait, no, six, there were six, the smallest one carried on the back of a blue-eyed boy.

June cathartically beat up a bunch of thugs the second she saw the children, finished her drink, and then eyed the bottom of her cup with great sadness. She looked up, into a very familiar traumatic head injury and its resulting permanent glare. "Oh great. It's Prince Pouty. Where's your creepy grandpa?"

The new hairstyle may have softened the prince's appearance, but not his attitude. June could appreciate that. "He's my uncle. And he's not here."

Well well well. Things were looking up then. Or at least, they were looking her in the eyes instead of where Grandpa usually looked. June took in the rest of the group. "I see you worked things out with your girlfriend," she commented lazily.

A barbershop quartet of harmony combining various pronouns, the word 'not', and 'girlfriend' or 'boyfriend' greeted June. Oh, how she had missed teen drama. Not.

"Dude, that's his husband and kid standing right there," said the short soprano, pointing with her hand but not her eyes at the Water Tribe boy.

June tried again, for gay rights this time, and because really she should have known. "I see you worked things out with your boyfriend."

The quartet started up again, with a slightly more limited selection of pronouns and only the term 'boyfriend', but still prominently featuring the word 'not'.

June grinned. It was not a nice grin. It was a grin that could and had scared many skeletons out of closets. Queer teens didn't stand a chance against it.

"This sounds like fun," June said before she could stop herself and remind herself that she was a mercenary. Who nevertheless had a soft spot for kids that were struggling to accept themselves, the way she herself had once done.

It was fun, up until the point where they stopped outside a camp full of creepy old grandpas, and June happily took her leave. She still felt vaguely bad for the pretty boys, but at least they were staring more openly at each other now, which June would have to count as progress. Eh. Teenagers were dumb, June couldn't expect them to figure things overnight.

… She felt really bad when she realized that these teenagers were the ones the world was counting on to stop the war the next day.

Iroh hadn’t gotten a last chance to embrace his son in their camp outside the walls of Ba Sing Se, until now. It was so different than he had imagined it, thousands upon thousands of times in both physical and spiritual planes, but destiny was a funny thing. Which reminded Iroh that he actually had very little idea of how this miracle had come to pass. Faith tended only to cover the outcomes, and rarely bothered with explaining the small details.

"Tell me, Zuko. What happened, after the Day of Black Sun?"

"I left to go find the Avatar and teach him firebending. And, Uncle … there's something else you need to know." Zuko took a deep breath, and Iroh waited patiently. There was a whole new day ahead of them, after all.

"I met someone. Well, Avatar Aang obviously, although we'd met before and -- gah. I met several people, actually, and they're all very important to me but there's someone … someone…"

"Someone special?" Iroh dared to hope. This was a turn he’d not expected, and his old heart that had been so sorely used at the loss of his son and his future grandchildren threatened to sprout wings and fly; Iroh clamped down on the feeling though before it could get out of hand. He hated to be uncharitable to his nephew, but this was Zuko after all.

"Yeah. Someone special."

Iroh wondered if it was possible to ascend to the spirit world out of pure happiness.

"Uncle, do you … do you want to meet your grand-nephew?"

Iroh blinked. "What."

There was a proverb for every situation but this one. It hadn't even been nine months since Zuko's sixteenth birthday, and Iroh had never seen nor heard of him accompanying the crew on their frequent visits to establishments of low repute even after he was of age. Fortunately, Zuko was for once in his life quick to explain.

"There's this little boy, his name is the Duke. He's an orphan, and they took him along to the invasion but he's only six, and when I got to the Air Temple they were hiding at he just … he decided that I was his new dad, and then Katara decided that Sokka would be his other dad, so … he's my son now, and I'm not going to take him to another war, Uncle. You have to keep him here, and keep him safe, I know I have to fight and Sokka does too but we can't take him with us, it's too dangerous, and we love him so much."

“Of course, of course,” Iroh was quick to agree, although his brain was still stuck on the news that his nephew had, in Iroh’s absence, acquired a son and a partner. This was a significant improvement over the last time the two had separated, which had only gotten Zuko symptoms of malnutrition and a few cracked ribs. "You have a family now, nephew?"

"Yes," Zuko answered, a soft fond smile crossing his features.

Iroh couldn’t help himself. He clapped his hands together, bouncing slightly in his cross-legged position as a high-pitched noise of sheer joy emerged from his throat.

Zuko’s hands went unthinking for swords he wasn’t wearing. “Uncle, are you all right? What’s wrong?”

Absolutely nothing, and wasn’t that a first for the two of them? “Congratulations, Zuko.” Iroh was certain that the depth of the emotion he wished to convey couldn’t make it into the words. “All my best wishes to you and your little family. It truly warms my heart to see you so happy, nephew.”

Zuko scowled. "Uncle, it's not like --"

“I’d thought it would be so long before you found someone you would trust enough to love and care for you in that way, and before you yourself realized the depths of love you are capable of.”

"Sokka and I aren't --"

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven, my nephew, and I know that growing up you rarely if ever got to experience that. That you have this now, these people who love you and guard your own happiness, is a greater joy than I’d ever imagined.“

Zuko’s scowl was resigned now, and gradually melted back into that little smile. "I am really, truly happy, Uncle."

It was the truth, and it was all that Iroh had ever wanted to hear.

Zuko was happy. Yes, the Avatar had disappeared and the Fire Lord was about to raze half the planet to the ground, but perhaps he had finally learned to enjoy the moment, because right now none of that mattered.

Uncle was bouncing his grand-nephew on his knee and breathing out dragon-shaped flames for the Duke to laugh at, and Zuko caught Sokka's eye as they looked on fondly. The other boy winked roguishly and challenged Zuko to a duel.

The sparred under the proud yet critical gaze of Master Piandao, a short but intense bout, saving their strength for tomorrow. The swordmaster had embraced both of them, before Suki interrupted with a slow clap and schooled them both in footwork and unarmed combat to the great delight of the onlookers.

Zuko didn't mind; he only laughed, and then grinned outright as he saw Katara teaching Master Pakku how to waterbend with his feet in a move she'd definitely copied from him. In the afternoon, they listened to Toph and Bumi trade bending tall tales that escalated in ridiculousness while the Duke schemed to capture Bumi's eyebrows, which he was convinced were living creatures.

These were the people who made him happy, even if they weren’t the same people he’d met – fought against – a year ago. They were stronger, from training yes, but more so for the ties that bound them to each other. The all-powerful Avatar, a twelve-year-old with the kind heart that the world so desperately needed, had gone on ahead of them and Uncle's board-games-of-world-politics club was there to sort out the aftermath.

Zuko sighed and was surprised to find that he could label it as contentment; he looked across at Sokka and stopped pretending that the what he felt for the other boy wasn’t love.

He’d tell him when they next got a quiet moment alone. The thought of it made Zuko nervous and a little bit afraid of rejection, but the voice that told him that he didn’t deserve love or happiness had been silenced by his friends in a thousand acts of kindness and support. Zuko could allow himself to ask for this.

Before Zuko got a chance, though, the other sweaty sandal dropped when Uncle revealed he wouldn't be taking the throne.

Suki knew that look. She'd worn that look herself, two years ago, when the warriors had come home from the front but they weren't okay, and there were too few of them, and her aunt had leaned close, supported by an unfamiliar cane and said it's you, Suki.

It was a look of pride and purpose, underlined by apprehension and the grim knowledge that other people would pay for your failures, looking at her through hard gold eyes and pale skin instead of from a mirror. Suki beckoned Zuko over to sit beside her.

"Fire Lord Zuko." She tested the words on her tongue, a gentle prompt.

Zuko gave a grim nod, but it was clear that his thoughts were racing as he fidgeted, trying to gather his words.

Suki waited.

"It's … big," he managed finally.

Suki was glad that Zuko had Sokka by his side now. He'd need a lot of help writing speeches.

"A little less than half the world, yeah," she agreed lightly.

"Not that," Zuko rushed to say. "I mean, that too. But if -- when we win."

Suki was mildly surprised at the correction; Zuko was by far the most cynical of the group. She heard the steel in his voice though, and knew as well as he did that they didn't have a choice. They had to win.

"When we win, the world is going to need so much. To be fixed, because it can't be the same. What we had before, in the Fire Nation, even in the Earth Kingdom -- it doesn't work anymore. We need something new, and Suki, you know I … I'm not …"

"You're not what?" Suki challenged. "You're not creative? You're not adaptable? You don't listen to input and pick the best solutions to fit the problem at hand? I've seen you fight. Hell, I've seen you parent."

"That's different," Zuko protested. "That's one child, and Sokka and I have so much help from the rest of you, it's barely even me --"

"And you think that just because you're going to be Fire Lord, trying to wrangle a feral nation that wants nothing more than to shank people that any of that going to change?"

Zuko stared at her, eyes as wide as they could go. Suki felt a soft smile begin to bloom on her face, and she scooched closer to pat his hand. Her friends and fellow warriors meant the world to her, and knowing that they'd always have her back had been the firm foundation that enabled her command and strengthened her resolve. Zuko had people like that in his life too now, and Suki was proud to count herself as one of them.

"Suki," Zuko choked out, eyes moist but mouth starting to turn up in a hint of a smile.

She interrupted him with a bright grin. "We've got honor too, Zuko. We're going to stick with you as long as you need us, and then some more even when you don't." Suki paused, reflecting, then nudged him with her shoulder. "That's something we learned from you, actually."

"Thank you," Zuko whispered solemnly, accepting her oath with grace. "I won't let you down. Any of you."

"I know you won't," said Suki, fondly.

According to The Care and Handling of Your Fire Prince, by Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, as Narrated to Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors, Who Currently Looks Like She Would Rather Not Be Listening To This, it was best practices to force as many hugs on Zuko as possible. Suki did so now, making her movements slow and clear as dictated in the manual.

He gripped back, hard. Suki didn’t mind; she knew what it was that he carried. If it was Aang's job to restore balance to the world, it was now Zuko's to keep it. Suki was no merchant, but she knew how wobbly those scales got when heavy weights were involved. Her own burden of duty was smaller and less volatile, but a sacred one nevertheless; Suki knew the strength that it required.

“I’ll make you all proud,” Zuko swore, and Suki smiled.

She repeated the words her own aunt had said to her, that day, and they rang just as true now as they had then. “You already have.”

"Zuko," Sokka whisper-shouted when he caught sight of Zuko’s expression in the low light as the firebender entered their tent. "We are not taking the Duke into a war zone. We already discussed this."

"What?" Zuko whispered back, confused. "Of course we're not."

"Oh. Good. Then what was that look for?"

"What look?" Zuko asked, still giving Sokka That Look.

Sokka sighed, propped himself up on his elbow in an attempt to not disturb the child asleep beside him, and explained. "The one where you've made up your mind to do something stupid. Or -- wait." His purposeful eye-narrowing was probably robbed of its impact in the dimness. "Are you having that fantasy where your family loves and cares about you again?"

"What? No!" Zuko plopped down on the other side of the Duke, stretching out to lie on his back. After another moment, he spoke, voice even quieter than before. "I mean… don't you?"

Sokka would have loved to slap a palm to his forehead, but that was a noisy action and there was a sleeping child present. "Of course we do, moron," he settled for insisting as strongly as a whisper allowed. "I meant your bio family, not us. I'd fight the Fire Lord, the Earth King, and the Earth King's bear empty-handed for the two of you."

"Thanks, Sokka. I know how you feel," said Zuko softly, and Sokka couldn't help his eyebrows from shooting up and a little warm spot in his chest from tingling. "I would sooner jump in front of lightning than let anything hurt this kid."

Right. Their kid, of course Zuko was talking about their kid. Sokka sighed, and ruthlessly stomped out the little spark that was hoping for something more, frowning as he dissected the other half of what Zuko had said.

Just once, Zuko had known a figure of speech before it had hit him in the head, and that was because Sokka had seen him look up and dodge the giant stone character falling from the remnants of a building sign. This, Sokka knew, was probably not one of those times, and that worried him.

Literal or figurative, though, Sokka could agree with Zuko on this one. "Me too."

Sokka saw a flash of gold as Zuko's eyes flickered his way before fixing on him. He found himself drawn in, needing to examine the other boy's face even through the darkness, although he was careful not to press too close and disturb the Duke's slumber.

Zuko was somber as he confessed: "Everything changes tomorrow, one way or another. I don't want this little family to change."

"It's the end of the world as we know it," Sokka agreed, not wanting particularly to think about the ramifications at this moment. "Hey, do you think that would make a good song?"

Zuko gave a soft snort. "Is that really what you think about at the end of the world?"

"I guess so," Sokka replied, trying to keep his shame and frustration at himself from creeping into his voice. Of course there were other things, but he dared not speak them, because, well ... there was Zuko, ready to fight a war and take his place at the head of a nation and here was Sokka, still stuck on playing games. "Why, what are you thinking about?"

Zuko's eyes were soft and glowing up at him in a way that fanned that little squashed spark into a bonfire, and Sokka felt his breath catch at the sight. "Sokka… are we just going to ignore what's between us?"

Sokka spoke, keeping his voice low, both to prevent the fluttering in his stomach from invading it and to respect... well, what was between them. "It's a child and it's super loud, we couldn't ignore him if we tried, Zuko."

Zuko groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly before glaring up at Sokka and reaching for the back of his head. "Do you want to kiss me or not, Sokka?”

Sokka didn't have to be rudely asked twice. The question was barely out of Zuko's mouth before Sokka's lips were on the firebender's and they were kissing, a little fast and a little clumsy, yet full of wishes that wouldn't fit into words. Sokka had a child's skull in his solar plexus from their awkward entanglement but that was all right because the kiss had already taken his breath away.

Wait, no, that was the Duke waking up and knocking the air out of him.

"My dads are kissing, they love each other!!" Naturally the child chose to suck all the remaining atmosphere out of the small tent by yelling at the top of his lungs. "We're going to be a happy family forever and ever!!!"

Sokka legitimately couldn't breathe now, with the child's head battering his diaphragm, so he reluctantly broke the kiss and flopped back. He slapped a palm to his forehead as the Duke continued announcing his parents' private business to the entire camp.

"Who's kissing?" demanded a very sisterly voice from the nearby girls' tent. "Eewww, Sokka!"

Sokka reflexively stuck out his tongue in Katara's direction, then looked over to where Zuko had hug-tackled the Duke to stop his jumping and was ruffling the boy's hair.

"Fucking finally!" yelled Toph, causing Zuko to scramble to shove his hands over the Duke's ears, especially as she added: "Or should I say finally fucking?"

Suki did not like being woken up suddenly, and it was evident in her voice. "How is this news to you all, I've seen worse."

"What," Sokka yelped, joining the confused chorus of other voices. How could Suki have possibly seen worse?

"Be safe, nephew!" chimed in Uncle Iroh, and Sokka's embarrassed groan was matched by Zuko's own.

A rustle of canvas was followed by the stomp of self-righteous footsteps headed their way. Sokka resolved that if they were going to be busted by his busybody sister, she was going to need to scrub her eyeballs after her rude interruption. He was done playing games.

Sokka plucked the Duke from Zuko's grasp and set him aside, then swung his leg over the firebender and pressed him back towards the ground, doing his level best to shove his tongue down Zuko's throat.

Katara eyed the firebender sitting across from her in the saddle. She had a million things she wanted to say, but she'd heard that silence was intimidating, and that was what she was going for right now. Katara crossed her arms even tighter and scowled harder, daring Zuko to look away. He didn't, to his credit, which she supposed was a good thing given that they were currently riding into battle together.  

A bead of sweat did eventually form on his brow and was quickly whisked away by the wind.

Katara kept glaring, and stayed silent. She could do this all day.

She could not do this all day, there was so much she needed to know, and he was going to spill it all now.

"So," she started.

Zuko's gaze darted away and he swallowed. Katara let a slow, triumphant grin spread across her features. This man was supposed to be Fire Lord by the end of the day, and he was putty in her hands.

"You and my brother. Sucking face."

"Yeah I, uh. I like him a lot." Zuko mumbled to his hands. 

This was her only idiot brother they were talking about, Katara needed something more than I like him a lot. She liked Sokka a lot, when he wasn't being a jerk. Toph liked Sokka a lot. Aang liked Sokka a lot. She'd bet that even Suki still liked him more than a lot.

Zuko finally met her eyes again, and he was blushing enough to put a sunrise to shame. Katara shuddered. "Ugh, get some melanin, I can't look at you when you're blushing like that."

"Sorry?"

"You know what happened the last time royalty got freaking dewy-eyed over my brother? Aang defeated a naval invasion." It had been a great day for the Water Tribe, mostly; less great for the Fire Navy, which Katara was surprised to find that she cared about now.

"Then that's good I guess?"

"What?" That was definitely not something Katara had expected to hear from a former naval officer.

"Well, I really wouldn't mind if Aang took out the airship fleet and killed my scumbag father today," Zuko elaborated. At least his skin had stopped annoying her and returned to its normal ghostlike pallor.

"That wasn't the point," Katara cried. "The point is, you're not allowed to break his heart. Which means that you're not allowed to die like Princess Yue did!"

"Katara." Zuko's tone was gentle even through the characteristic roughness of his voice. "I promise we'll all be fine. I'm certainly not going to die, and neither is Sokka, because there's a kid waiting for both of us and he needs us, along with his scary aunt, and --"

Katara gave him a look. He may be her brother's boyfriend now but he was also her friend, however that had happened, and she didn’t want to lose any of them. That still didn’t mean she needed to tolerate any of their komodo-rhino crap.

"-- and his, um, nice aunt, and also -- um, Toph and Aang.  And I will never, ever hurt Sokka. He's kind and brave and always there for me even when I'm a jerk, and he makes me want to be a better person and gives me hope for a better future."

Katara started to make a gagging noise, but found that she couldn't, because that might not be how she felt about Sokka but it was how she felt about Aang, and … if she thought about it that way…

"I think I love him, Katara."

… Shit.

Katara wished she could conveniently find Aang and give him the biggest hug of their lives, then hold his hand as they laughed and reminisced about penguin sledding and made plans for future adventures. Then she could be the one who kissed him if she felt ready for it, before flying off to the Fire Nation Palace. But apparently life was unfair and badly timed, so she just groaned and said: "Eewww. I don't want to hear about it. Please just shut up and drive."

Zuko did, but not before he muttered something about how he hoped Sokka's eel-hound ride with his ex was going better.

Katara knew it wasn't because Toph was there, just like she knew how this day would go because Aang was there, waiting for them.  They each had their own part to play, and Katara wasn’t going to let him down.

None of them were.

Chapter Text

Zuko awoke to searing pain and loud noises, as his boyfriend yelped and tackled their son off of his sprawled-out flop on Zuko's chest.

Zuko had quite honestly never been happier.

"Daddy, daddy, it worked! Daddy Zuko's awake!"

"Do I have to get Doctor Katara in here to explain that bandages don't mean jump here," Sokka lectured severely, then blinked and leaned over Zuko.

Two wide-eyed faces stared down at him.

"Hi," Zuko gasped out, still a little winded from the pain, and held his arms open.

"Dude, don't encourage --"

Zuko wanted to crush the small boy to his chest but was wiser than to actually do so; still, he held him as tightly as he could, and the Duke returned the embrace with all the strength in his young limbs. Zuko nuzzled his cheek into the child's soft hair, then looked back up to see Sokka still leaning over him, now with a dreamy expression on his face. Feeling bold, Zuko tilted his face up; Sokka eagerly took the cue and planted a soft kiss on Zuko's lips.

There was a whoosh of air from the other side of the large bed and then another young body joined the hug pile. Tattooed arms spread across the trio, and Aang laughed. "You're awake!"

The heavy door burst open, and an authoritative voice demanded: "Who's awake?"

Zuko managed a glimpse of Katara from underneath Aang's arm. He frowned; her hair was as disheveled as her clothes were stained, and her eyes were exhausted. "You look terrible."

Katara ignored him, choosing instead to set her hands on her hips and fix a withering look on her brother, whose kisses had migrated north. "Sokka get your lips off the patient, he might be contagious."

"Bullshit, he's not that kind of sick," Sokka protested, and kissed Zuko's forehead again for good measure.

"Yeah but you two are," Katara shot back. "Oogie."

"Burn," crowed Toph, who had finally ventured onto the tatami from the marble near the fireplace. Suki had a guiding hand placed lightly on the younger girl's shoulder as they came over to the bedside.

"Is that what that is," Zuko mused, remembering the crash of Comet-enhanced lightning, tearful blue eyes, and … and …

He didn't want to think about her right now.

"Yes, Zuko," a longsuffering Suki was explaining kindly. "It's something people say when …"

"I meant under the bandages," Zuko was quick to jump in, same as it had been for the lightning. "But thanks for explaining."

This earned a laugh from the group, tinged with obvious relief. Smiles were wide, and contagious. They'd done it, after all. They'd won, and they were safe now, and all together, even --

A polite knock on the door sounded and Uncle stepped in. Zuko was sure now that his grin was bigger than anyone else's in the room. "Uncle!" he exclaimed, giddy, as the older man wrapped him in an embrace.

A telltale sniffling sounded near his ear, and Uncle's eyes were moist when they finally met Zuko's. "I am so very proud of you, my nephew," he said solemnly, before reminding Zuko why he often referred to the man as his weird uncle. "And so very glad that you survived! Comet enhanced lightning is no joke!"

"Yeah, Zuko, what was that about?" broke in Sokka, doubtless recalling their previous conversation.

"You can't say I didn't warn you," Zuko tried to joke, then turned back to Uncle as Sokka lost his words to indignant spluttering. "Uncle. There's something I need to do. Can you get me the Royal Seal?"

Iroh nodded, and started out the door, sensing the urgency in Zuko's tone. "And something to write on!" Zuko called after him, then faced the consternated faces surrounding him.

"What do you need that for?" Sokka asked, curious, but Zuko just accepted the brush, parchment and lap desk from Katara and set to work, careful not to let the Duke bump his elbow and mess up his calligraphy.

"Zuko," Sokka breathed, upset, reading the draft over Zuko's shoulder. His voice was a soft whine. "Do we really have to?"

Zuko paused, closing his eyes so that he couldn't let the sight of his little happy family break his resolve. "It's the right thing to do," he said, but he couldn't keep the emptiness out of his voice.

Sokka sniffled and Zuko cursed. "If you weren't recovering from a mortal wound right now I'd give you one myself," Sokka threatened, although without any real heat.

Well, at least now Zuko found himself capable of glaring at Sokka instead of questioning whether he was really going to be able to finish the letter.

"I hate it when you're right," Sokka allowed finally, despite how his voice trembled.

Just because it was the right thing didn't mean that they didn't both start sobbing the moment Zuko stamped the seal down on the closed missive.

"What's wrong, daddies?" asked the Duke, puzzled, finding himself suddenly in the tight embrace of his caretakers.

"We just --" started Zuko, then found himself unable to continue. 

"We love you so very much," finished Sokka, in a perfect summary of the joy and the pain of parenthood.

It was hard to win a breakup when you went straight from prison to the palace, but Mai already had the high ground. She hadn't been the one to do it via text, after all.

Still, she was annoyed at how annoyed she was about the fact that Zuko looked … well, for the lack of a better term, head over heels in love. It shouldn't matter to her. She should be happy for him.

Like Ty Lee was. Except that ha ha, nope, Mai would never allow herself to be seen as happy as Ty Lee always appeared to be.

"Zuko, your new boyfriend is so cute!" the acrobat was currently squealing. "And your kid! I didn't know that you had a kid, why do you never tell me anything?"

"Ah, well…" Zuko's eyes cut to Mai's for a second, which did nothing to interrupt her impassive stare. A vindicated voice that would never get near enough the surface to be seen on her face said, he would have told me first anyway.

"Things got a bit busy and it's hard to send out messenger hawks to prisons when you're wanted for treason," Zuko finished lamely, subtly tugging his boyfriend away from Ty Lee.

And yeah, the whole treason thing might have evened out their post-breakup points tally, but it was sort of cancelled out by the fact that Zuko was going to be Fire Lord now. So that together with his new relationship and dubiously acquired child meant that Mai was lagging significantly behind, especially since her hair's shininess had really suffered from the lack of coconut oil available in prison.

Unacceptable.

Mai narrowed her eyes, and put on her very best monotone. "Speaking of prison," she intoned with the boredom of someone who hated flowers watching a rare flower bloom, "Ty Lee and I also bonded in our exile, and discovered our sexualities." She grabbed Ty Lee's hand and pulled her over, glaring at the acrobat in a dare to not betray her.

"We did?" chirped her friend, still smiling. Mai had never been so glad for the permanence of that stupid expression on Ty Lee's face.

"We did," Mai confirmed, without a hint of inflection.

"Whoa," breathed Sokka, looking between her and Zuko. "You two were totally each other's beards!"

Zuko gave Mai a funny look. "Really?"

Sokka's expression had turned to smug. "At least I know Suki's straight."

Mai saw the Kyoshi warrior out of the corner of her vision, and the woman looked like she had just choked on something.

The Water Tribe boy swallowed, eyes widening.

"I'm back to being confused again," Zuko announced, speaking for everyone in the room.

Mai privately counted this as a win.

"Speaking of terrifying exes." Sokka was the first of the Avatar's crew to recover, and the fates had apparently decided that his attention should fall on Mai. She honestly couldn't think of what she could have done to deserve such inhumane treatment.

"I've got something for you!" he sing-songed, and flashed her a blinding grin and then an even more blinding knife, decorated to within an inch of its life in glitzy gemstones.

Mai threw up a little in her mouth upon seeing it. "Eeww," she droned, reluctantly taking it between her thumb and forefinger and letting it contact as little skin as possible as she hastily passed it to Ty Lee. "It's for you," she explained.

"Aww, Mai, you're so sweet! You really shouldn't have," sang the acrobat in glee.

"It made me think of you," Mai said honestly, feeling strangely warmed at Ty Lee's words, and then strangely flustered when Ty Lee leaned in and kissed her.

Mai was equal parts pleased and annoyed; pleased because objectively speaking it was a good kiss, and annoyed because she could no longer count this situation as a win. She was now also confused.

Ty Lee just drew back with a dopey smile on her face and clapped her hands. Her expression changed fast enough to give Mai whiplash, morphing into a evil grin as she turned on the male couple, shoved them together and ordered: "Now you kiss."

Zuko squeaked. This was, in Mai's book, completely worth the pain of breaking up with someone she actually didn't hate.

"Um, so, yeah, this is getting weird," announced Sokka, initiating a rapid retreat and hauling Zuko along with him. "We're just gonna… go now. Bye!"

Ty Lee, face back to normal, turned to Mai and shrugged.

Mai allowed herself the barest tilt of her head as she considered the acrobat, and wondered if she had indeed won the breakup after all.

"So, Dad, meet the new Fire-Lord-to-be, and also my new boyfriend, Zuko!"

Hakoda's hair turned white in an instant as he looked past his son to the firebender at his side. Their gazes locked, and Hakoda heard haunted echoes of a conversation they'd both sworn, on the pain of death, to never mention again.

This was bad. This was really, really, bad.

Hakoda realized he was supposed to react to his son's announcement of a relationship that was just about as revelatory as telling someone that that summer followed spring.

"I'm so surprised. Never in a million years would I have thought that you two would be dating," Hakoda exclaimed. Hmmm, maybe he should tone that down a bit, he might sound suspicious. Oh, and he should probably congratulate them. But now, in order to do that, he needed to backtrack. "Not because I'm heteronormative, by all means go ahead and love who you want, but … just so you know. Never, before this moment, had the thought crossed my mind and influenced any conversations you can ever recall having with me. So don't even bother analyzing things I might have said to you before about completely unrelated topics."

Okay, now Hakoda had probably overdone it, and was that a knife that Zuko was subtly fingering underneath that long sleeve and would he please hurry up and plunge it into both their hearts because Sokka was a smart boy and might figure it out any second now, and death by steel was far preferable to death by parental embarrassment. "Congratulations," Hakoda finished lamely, and sent Zuko a loaded look that said kill me quickly.

"Uh, Dad, are you sure you're okay with this? You don't sound okay." Sokka was clearly suspicious, and Hakoda had never regretted the sleeveless nature of his own attire as much as in that instant. For all he knew, Zuko could be happily bleeding out to non-mortified oblivion underneath those five layers of crimson robes and not sweating buckets wondering if his son was figuring out that his father had given him unsolicited sex advice about a relationship that was not even sexual at the time.

"He sounds fine to me," said Zuko, bless his heart, that young man would make a fine son-in-law, despite being the Fire Lord.

Salt and sails, Hakoda's future son-in-law was the fucking Fire Lord. He was so not ready for this, they'd just deposed the last one the other day and now … Hakoda should have asked for at least a five year advanced warning to prepare the tribe for this news.

"All right," Sokka was reluctantly agreeing with Zuko, and now turned back to his father. "Dad, I know that this might not be what you always wanted for me but… we're happy."

"I'm happy you're happy," Hakoda returned lamely, and did likewise with his son's subsequent embrace. This heartwarming interaction however did nothing to appease his now-pounding headache. And this from post-war politics a mere two days after the war was over… he guessed he would have to kick-start the process by integrating his Earth Kingdom grandson into the Tribe. At least by the looks of it, Hakoda thought, spotting his daughter hand-in-hand with Aang, he had a bit longer until he would have to re-introduce his Air Nomad son-in-law, the Avatar, to the tribe.

Hakoda's last thought, before disappearing in search of a darkened cave in which to scream, was to wonder when exactly it was that he'd signed up to become the dad of the Four Nations.

Iroh had been sixty-three years, nine months, and twenty-two days old when he'd lost his son, and he'd been decades too young to endure such heartbreak.

Prince Zuko was sixteen years, eight months and three days old, and Sokka was even younger.

To his credit, Zuko was putting on a far braver face than Iroh had. "We've got a surprise for you," he was telling his son as they stepped out into the courtyard. His voice was impressively steady, even though Sokka's lower lip was already trembling.

"We're gonna rob a bank?" shouted out the Duke in glee, which earned a watery laugh from Sokka.

"If you're going to do crime in the Earth Kingdom," lectured Zuko sternly, "it's best if you learn the dual dao. And also if you don't talk while doing it. Talking is incriminating."

It certainly was right now, Iroh observed. His nephew's voice was filled with unshed tears.

"But I want to …"

They all watched as the Duke caught sight of the towering form of Pipsqueak. The boy's mouth dropped open, and the large man grinned down at him radiantly.

"Hey, son. I missed you so much."

Pipsqueak opened his arms wide, and the Duke leapt into action with a deafening shout. "DADDY!!!" In a flash, the Duke had scaled his adoptive parent like a tree in his native forest, to perch on one of the broad shoulders and hug Pipsqueak's face.

"Welcome home," laughed Pipsqueak, doing his best to return the embrace.

Iroh wiped away a tear leaking from the corner of his eye.

Zuko and Sokka weren't faring much better, clinging to each other and visibly fighting back sobs. About to lose, too, if the loud sniffle Iroh heard from his nephew was any indication.

"I'm not crying are you crying?" Zuko asked his co-parent in a wobbly voice.

"No, my eyes are just leaking. It's all the stupid chilies in all the stupid overly spicy food," Sokka insisted, though he looked no less emotional than Zuko.

"Well now that you've gone and said it, I'm just going to lose it," Zuko declared, and then did. This triggered not a few more tears for Iroh to swipe away covertly.

"Dammit, Zuko," Sokka choked out through hiccupping sobs, clinging to the older boy as they stared up at the Duke's incandescent smile.

The smile faded as the child looked down at the couple. "Don't cry, daddies! Crying is for when you're sad."

"This is happy crying, I promise," swore Zuko, and Iroh felt his heart swell to an unhealthy volume.

They all jumped collectively when a nearby boulder sniffled.

"TOPH ARE YOU CRYING," Sokka wailed as he simultaneously blew his nose on Zuko's tunic and pointed in the direction of the noise.

"ROCKS DON'T CRY, SHUT UP," came her voice, shout muffled like she had her face buried in her hands.

Helplessly confused, the Duke turned back to Pipsqueak. "Why is everyone crying, Daddy? Is something bad going to happen?"

"No, kid, of course not," said the big man. "I think they're sad because you have a very important decision ahead of you."

"Me?" The Duke looked incredulous, and a bit upset.

"See, all your daddies love you very very much," Pipsqueak explained. "And of course we want to be with you as much as we can. But Zuko and Sokka here live in the Fire Nation -- "

"Well I don't, actually," Sokka mumbled, hiding his face in Zuko's collar.

"-- and I live in the Earth Kingdom.  You're a lucky boy to have more than one place to call home, but it looks like you're going to have to choose."

"I don't want to choose. I choose everyone!"

Pipsqueak patted the small boy's back affectionately. "Don't think that's gonna work out, little buddy."

"Why not?" protested the Duke, frowning down from his perch.

Iroh felt a pang in his chest, recalling what his sister-in-law must have gone through, that fateful night. An impossible choice, indeed, to choose between family members. Unless one truly hardened their heart, as his brother had done by putting his own aspirations ahead of his loved ones again and again. At least the Duke's choice was between two loving homes, yet he doubted it was any less torturous.

"Well," Zuko said once he'd managed to compose himself slightly, "I definitely have to stay here because of my job… you can stay too if you want! Both of you!"

"Okay!" agreed the Duke, before adding thoughtfully: "But there's no trees here. Home has trees."

"I'll plant you a forest, I promise," Zuko swore, desperate.

"Can you really do that?" Sokka sounded equal parts awed and curious.

Iroh hated to be the one to have to do this, but it needed to be said. "I don't think that's possible even for the Fire Lord, nephew. The earth dictates what grows, and the Caldera has never been hospitable to forests."

Both Zuko and Sokka looked even more downcast at this. "What do you want, the Duke?" Sokka asked finally.

"Well… I love all my daddies, but my home is with Daddy Pipsqueak and the trees." The little boy was uncharacteristically serious. "And I haven't been home for a very long time."

"I understand," replied Zuko, who was finally home, even if Iroh wasn't sure that his nephew would truly be able to call the Caldera that yet for quite some time to come. His journey had been tumultuous -- as had all of theirs -- and under such circumstances, home became often more about the people than the places.

"We're going to visit as much as we possibly can, I promise!" Sokka reassured the Duke.

Zuko aimed his next question at Pipsqueak. "Please stay awhile?"

"We've got nowhere to be in a hurry, and we all want to make this easy for him," the large man answered gently. "Of course we'll stay until he's ready to go."

"I'm not ready yet," the Duke clarified hastily, and Pipsqueak chuckled.

"Of course not. Hey, the Duke, I did see one big tree on my way here." The Duke made skeptical expression, and Pipsqueak screwed up his own face comically in response. "Promise I did, want to take a look?"

As the newly-reunited father and son went off together, Iroh turned his attention back to the grieving couple. They were looking less devastated than they had been at the beginning of the whole affair, doubtless comforted by the prospect of a more gradual goodbye.

The emotional reunion had drawn the Avatar over like a politically savvy old man to a Pai Sho table, Iroh noted. The airbender now moved forward from where he'd been hovering around the edges of the scene, and stated speaking. "Heeeeyyy, so, who's got two thumbs, no parents or authority figures to explain how his body is changing and why he gets sweaty all the time, and a serious love interest?" Aang stopped waggling his two thumbs to point them at himself. "Heh heh this guy! In case you want a new kid?"

Sokka screwed up his own face at the sight of Aang's hopeful one. "Aforementioned love interest is my sister, eewww, super weird, REJECTED."

"Sorry, Aang, you're my great-grandfather's reincarnation. Hard pass," added Zuko.

The young airbender shrunk into himself a little at the rejection, face downcast.

Iroh himself was always in the market for super-powerful highly traumatized thirteen-year-olds, and said so, albeit with more delicate phrasing.

At that, a blind earthbender manifested out of her element to shout: "Hey! I had dibs on Uncle!"

Iroh started, and then joined in the children's laughter. He caught his nephew's eye and smiled fondly; they may have both lost sons, and although they would never stop loving those far out of reach, there was still more than enough love to go around for the new families that surrounded them.

The Duke wasn't one hundred percent sure he approved of Daddy Zuko's new fashion choices. The material was comfy, sure, and stiff enough to provide some extra protection against bony shoulders when the Duke was getting a ostrich-horsey-back ride, and he didn't have to jam his knee awkwardly against a sword hilt anymore. But it was also a bit deceptive; not all the shoulder-parts were located over actual weight-bearing shoulders, and there was that stupid shiny thing that the Duke hated that was stuck in Daddy Zuko's hair and reflected the sunlight directly into the Duke's face.

The Duke finally had enough and wrestled it out of Daddy Zuko's hair. He threw it at Daddy Sokka, because Daddy Sokka had the best reactions, and beamed up at Daddy Pipsqueak.

"Don't do that again, kiddo, I know that thing's annoying but it's also important," chided Daddy Pipsqueak.

The Duke pouted. Daddy Sokka had caught it anyway, and besides the metal was too soft to properly stab anyone with. He slid down Daddy Zuko's back (Daddy Zuko yelped because he still wasn't used to that, ha, weirdo) and tugged Daddy Sokka, who always had food in his pockets, in the direction of the turtleduck pond. It was one story down and across a lawn decorated with rocks, but that hardly mattered. Buildings here had lots of places to grab on to, they were almost as easy to climb as trees!

"I think it'll be soon," he heard Daddy Pipsqueak sigh as the Duke hopped up on the balcony railing.

Daddy Sokka froze at that, probably because he was afraid of heights and was also a really bad climber. They weren't even that high up!

"I know," Daddy Zuko answered, voice thick. "Um, there's something I want to give you. For him, for later."

The thought of a secret present cheered the Duke up immensely as he slid down a column to the lawn. He'd needed more cheering up lately, too, he'd noticed. It was great having all three of his dads around, but Daddy Zuko was getting busier and so was Daddy Sokka, and the palace was nice, but it wasn’t home.

Home was trees and ladders and Pipsqueak and Smellerbee and Longshot and … and other children whose names he was forgetting, now, because he hadn't seen them in so long and didn't even know where they were anymore.

The Duke hoped that they were home, wherever they were.

Daddy Pipsqueak had said that they might have to live in a house when they went home -- a treehouse, of course, he'd laughed when the Duke had asked just to be sure, he'd seen a lot of different types of houses since leaving the forest after all -- and things would be different and places would be different too, but in the end it would be mostly the same, Pipsqueak and the Duke and occasionally visits from other friends and daddies.

So even though the Duke was having fun trying to turn turtleducks carnivorous with Daddy Sokka, he looked up at Daddy Pipsqueak when the taller daddies eventually showed up at the pond. "I'm ready," he said, somehow not finding the energy to shout it. "I'm ready to go home."

"We'll visit you the first chance we get," Daddy Sokka promised, handing the Duke another piece of seal jerky.

"Promise," added Daddy Zuko, deftly swapping out the jerky for a scrap of bread, which the Duke then threw dejectedly into the water.

He did smile when the smallest, fluffiest duckling snatched it up in its beak though. The Duke turned around to command his daddies to look, when he caught a glimpse of blue-and-white as Daddy Pipsqueak tucked something into his tunic. "Hey, what's that?" the Duke asked, curiosity piqued. It had looked like a mask of some sort, maybe.

"You'll find out when you're older," Daddy Zuko said fondly.

"Will you tell me yourself, when I'm older?" the Duke requested. "When I'm really old, like -- like twelve, you and Daddy Sokka will still come visit me, right?"

Twelve was double his whole life, the Duke had learned, and if his far-away daddies still loved him after that impossible amount of time, he wouldn't be afraid to go home without them anymore.

Daddy Sokka put his arm around Daddy Zuko, shared a glance with him, and then spoke for both of them. "We'll be there for you whenever you need us."

Zuko had never before seen such a swirl of colors in the large courtyard of the Fire Nation Palace, a building he'd once called home -- as he was finally beginning to think he might be able to do again one day. Earth Kingdom greens mixed with Fire Nation reds and the occasional Water Tribe blue, and hangings in yellow and orange honored the Air Nomads. The first post-war peace summit had been a success, and the delegates were in good cheer as free-flowing drink slowly but surely eroded longstanding barriers.

A lump that hadn't yet receded from his throat threatened to stifle his breathing once again as Zuko sighted the large form of Pipsqueak and heard the Duke's bright laughter.

A sniffle came from the young man at his side, and Zuko reached out to grasp Sokka's calloused hand and squeeze. The delegation from the Earth Kingdom was leaving tomorrow, and their young son would sail with them to his native shores.

"We weren't his real family, anyway." Sokka said, mournfully, visibly allowing himself a moment of sadness despite the celebrations.

"Yes, we were," Zuko protested, fire in his words though no flame left his mouth. "Some family you can't choose, but others...you can choose."

Sokka barked a dry laugh, but he seemed comforted. "Not a lot of choice involved in this one, but I wouldn't do it differently for the world." Sokka's smile turned a sly as he directed it at Zuko. "Besides, it led me to you."

"Well, technically I hunted the Avatar," Zuko returned, copying Sokka's dry tone from earlier and ignoring the way the other boy's words made his stomach flutter in pleasure. "And found him."

Zuko hid a grin at Sokka's genuine laugh. The Water Tribe warrior turned to put his back to the railing, focusing the full power of his teasing on Zuko. "Get off your villain high-ostrich-horse, you're one of the good guys now."

Oh, and Zuko really wanted to smirk now, especially because he knew Sokka had a tendency to kiss those off of his face, but instead he simply raised a lone eyebrow and stated, "I'm literally the Fire Lord now."

"And I'll take great pleasure in making you my personal conquest," Sokka returned smoothly, with a suggestive wiggle of both his eyebrows, making Zuko immediately regret his choices. He could already feel a flush breaking out high on his cheekbones, and rapidly spread out and down until it disappeared into a high collar. Sokka looked on unapologetically, the hunger in his eyes forcing Zuko to close his own and take a long, slow inhale.

"You're an idiot," Zuko growled when he could speak again, although all the fierceness was lost in lust. "But I choose you anyway."

Sokka leaned in to close the last bit of space between their lips and Zuko pressed forward eagerly to meet him, but they were interrupted by a sudden impact.

A dark-haired toddler had collided with Zuko's leg, and was now looking up at him with liquid golden eyes.

"Daddy?" she asked.

"Oh, my," Zuko breathed, taking her in. He locked eyes with Sokka for a fond instant, and it was love.

They reached down for her together.

--- fin ---