Chapter Text
Selina's words had helped. For the first night since he'd arrived (had it really only been four days?), he went to bed and slept soundly.
Like Dick had said, Alfred had helped him decorate his room. The walls were now a royal blue (Alfred had some blue wallpaper on hand, and with some hired help the room was ready in a few hours). An artist online had created a Fire Nation flag, which now hung on the wall. A small sakura tree (a gift from someone named Poison Ivy) sat in the corner, with a mat underneath to protect the floor. A half dozen candles sat on the desk, allowing him to finally meditate.
Even as the sun started to dip lower (something he felt rather than saw), he kept calm by focusing on the candles in front of him. Most of them were unscented, but Cassandra had sneaked in a few scented ones when Alfred put them on his desk. He didn't mind; she'd somehow known ahead of time that he preferred spicier scents. Sometimes he'd light a scented one to use alongside the normal ones in his meditation, just to further calm him. The one he'd lit this time was cinnamon scented.
As he breathed, clearing his mind of anxiety and rage, the candle flames grew and shrank. He had a few things to be anxious about, still (What was going on in the Fire Nation? Was Father mad that he'd disappeared? Was Uncle worried?). But... Something weird had happened to his firebending.
After his talk with Selina, he'd felt a lot better than he had in a while. He wasn't as angry: his father would never see him again, he knew what Ozai had done was wrong, he had a loving family that wanted/loved/helped him... He hadn't felt so peaceful in a long time.
But that meant that he had no rage or hatred to fuel his firebending. When he tried to do a few fire fists in the Bat Cave earlier that day, he hadn't been able to produce more than a tiny flame. He'd tried for a while, going through every move Uncle and his firebending master had taught him, even the advanced ones that Azula mastered when she was eight (though Zuko had finally managed them at ten). But each one brought nothing but a few sparks (a tiny flame burst, at most).
He'd debated asking Bruce about it, but had decided against it at the last second. Bruce was smart, but he admitted to knowing nothing about firebending. He wished he could talk to Uncle Iroh, but that was impossible. He'd wound up lighting a few candles (he still had enough firebending to do that at least) and meditating to calm himself down.
Even if he couldn't create too much fire right then, an anxious firebender was NEVER a good thing...
"Having fun there?"
He looked up to see Stephanie standing in the door.
Zuko... wasn't sure where he stood with Stephanie. He and Cassandra got along great, but that was partially because her personality was the opposite of Azula's: she was quiet, modest, and friendly.
Stephanie, on the other hand, reminded him a LOT of Azula. She was a trickster, she was very studious, her gold hair reminded him of his sister's gold eyes...
He knew it wasn't fair of him to compare her to Azula when he barely knew her, but... Scars ran deep.
The firebender held his breath, extinguishing the candles, before he turned back to the door.
"Jason and I are hanging out in the Bat Cave. Wanna come?"
He hesitated, then nodded.
While he hadn't voiced it to anyone, Jason reminded him heavily of his father. The bluntness, the insults (even if they were casual and said with affection), the anger...
Still, he knew that Jason was not Ozai. The sheer anger that he showed when he learned how Zuko got his burn... Ozai would never show such anger on someone else's behalf.
If he wanted to completely separate the two in his mind, then he'd need to spend time with him.
Stephanie led him down to the clock entrance, and then they rode the elevator down. Jason was already waiting for them, a few bags of snacks and some kind of game set up on a table.
"Are you serious, Jace?" The blonde scowled. "Battleship again?"
"I'm gonna beat you one of these days!" He smirked back at her before turning his attention to Zuko. "Hey, kid. Hungry?"
"A little."
Dinner had been a while ago, something called French onion soup with salad and rolls. He'd eaten the salad and rolls, but hadn't been able to take more than a few bites of soup; it reminded him of Ozai's favorite soup. It was prepared for the Fire Lord at the table, and served to him first before anyone else. Zuko had never been fond of it, though he ate it to be polite (he'd get criticized if he rejected food). Now that it reminded him of his father, he could say that he hated beef soup.
"Here."
Jason tossed a small pink chip bag to Zuko. He caught it at the last second, and looked at the package after recovering. The label contained both English letters (which he was starting to understand thanks to some tutoring from Bruce) and kanji. He read the kanji first, then looked at Jason with confusion.
"Shrimp chips?"
"Extra spicy. You told us about shrimp fire flakes, remember? We don't have those here, but we do have shrimp chips. Thought we'd try and find you a substitute."
Curious, Zuko opened the bag, pulled one of the chips out, and popped it in his mouth.
And his eyes widened.
The texture was different, as was the size of the food, but... It tasted exactly like fire flakes!
His pleasure clearly showed on his face, because Jason smirked.
"Good, huh?"
He nodded, swallowing before speaking.
"They taste just like fire flakes. Even better since my mouth isn't on fire."
Stephanie started to laugh, then stopped when she saw he was serious.
"Wait, really? That happened?"
"Only if you eat the low-quality ones. That only happened to me once when Mother took Azula and I to see a play at Ember Island. We stopped by a food stand, and... Well, thankfully I was fine. Azula laughed at me."
"Wow," Jason commented. "And I thought it was bad when my dad used to yell at my mom for getting high."
"...Did she climb on a ladder?" Zuko asked, confused.
The other two looked at him with confusion before it clicked.
"Right, other world," Jason muttered.
"'Getting high' is a slang term," Stephanie explained. "It refers to taking drugs."
"Oh," Zuko nodded, eyes widening.
He'd been somewhat sheltered due to his life in the palace, but even he knew about what some plants could do to the mind. Uncle had told him that the Fire Sages sometimes drank juice from a special desert cactus to open their mind... and that they had to be careful to not take more than a few sips, otherwise the juice would cause wild hallucinations and odd behavior.
"Yeah," Jason continued speaking. "My mom was addicted to this drug called meth. She couldn't get enough of it, sometimes she'd even forgo sleep or food so she could get high. Which meant we almost never had groceries. It was still better than when I got thrown on the street, though..."
Zuko was staring at him with shock and sympathy, the empty shrimp chip bag crumpling in his fist.
"I know it might seem hard to believe," Stephanie spoke up, "but we both kind of know what you're going through."
"What do you mean?" He asked as he sat at the table with them.
"Did Tim or Barbara go over Gotham's Rogues with you?"
"Tim said he'd do it, but he has a meeting to go to."
"Okay, well... There's one on there named Cluemaster. He's my father."
"...Oh."
"Cluemaster has done a lot of bad things. Robbed places, killed people... He was terrible to my mom and I. Thanks to Bruce paying my college tuition, I finally managed to get away from both of them, but..."
She sighed. "Let's just say I know what it's like to have a terrible person as a father."
"Same." Jason pointed to a white streak in his hair. "You're not the only one whose parents scarred him."
"Your parents turned your hair white?"
"I wish. Turns out the woman I lived with, who died of an overdose while I was in middle school, was my stepmother. I found my real mom when I was fifteen... And then she sold me out to the Joker, who killed me."
Zuko stared at him in shock, and had to fight the urge to back away. "Are you... a spirit?"
Jason seemed to realize he was scaring him, and took a few deep breaths before he spoke again.
"No, I'm not. There's this group of people called the League of Assassins; they and Ras al Ghul are on the list of 'Things We Don't Talk About Unless We Have To'. Got it?"
He nodded.
"Anyway, they dug me out of my grave and chucked me into the Lazarus Pit. That's an ancient lake of green sludge that can de-age an old person and bring a dead one back to life. But... It comes at a cost..."
He was staring murderously at the table and was clenching a bag of chips so tightly that its contents were crushed. Zuko wasn't brave enough to ask what that cost was.
"Jason's still a person, and he's as human and alive as any of us," Stephanie cut in, both to assuage Zuko's rising fears and calm Jason down. "He's just... really hurt by what happened to him."
"Pissed off it more like it..." the young man snarked. But he did visibly calm down.
"All we're trying to say," the blonde went on, "is that you're not alone, Zuko. Everyone in the family has trauma, and some of it is... really messed up."
"Dick and Cassandra told me about their pasts," Zuko admitted. "Not everything, but..."
The other two nodded. Jason opened an un-crushed bag of chips as he started to speak again.
"We just wanted to let you know that, even though your piece of crap father never should have done what he did-- and I will beat up that prick if I ever meet him-- we know what it's like to have trauma. And we'll stand by you as you work through it, however long it takes."
"...Thank you," Zuko responded, finally starting to smile a bit. Then it disappeared. "I... I think there's something wrong with me."
"What do you mean?" Stephanie asked, eyebrows knitted with concern.
"I... I can't firebend. Not like I could when I first got here."
"So you're having... performance issues?" Jason asked, smirking. Stephanie frowned and threw a chip at him, but he saw her mouth twitch.
Confused, Zuko continued.
"Yeah, I guess. See, I was always taught that firebending comes from negative emotions. Rage, and hatred. For the longest time, I had to use my anger and hatred at myself, because I couldn't be the prince my father wanted. But now... I don't feel that way anymore."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Steph asked.
"It is. I feel so much better about myself, and... everything. But now I don't have a way to fuel my firebending."
Jason winced as he pulled a chip out of the bag.
"That's rough, buddy. Unless a firebending master appears in the Bat Cave, I'd say you're out of luck..."
Suddenly, the air in the Bat Cave grew warmer. The bats on the ceiling all chittered and flew out of the cave en masse (which made sense since it was sunset, but it was a bit earlier than usual for them).
Then... a figure began to materialize in the center of the room. A familiar figure... with a familiar voice.
"Zuko?"
"Uncle?!" The young firebender stood so fast his chair fell backwards.
Stephanie's mouth dropped open and Jason did a spit take, sending chip pieces across the floor.
The girl was the first to find their voice, and shouted into her com.
"Everyone better get down here!"