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Sokka hadn’t really expected to sound casual when he’d asked Zuko what the most secure prisons in the Fire Nation were. Even less when he’d asked where political prisoners would end up.
In fact, he’d very much expected to be caught out in his mission.
What he hadn’t expected was to be joined.
“I’m coming with you,” Zuko says, as resolute as Sokka’s ever heard him.
“You most definitely aren’t,” Sokka tells him flatly.
“I am,” Zuko insists, “Or I’m waking Katara up and telling her what you’re planning.”
Well.
That won’t do.
And so it follows that Sokka and Zuko end up on a war balloon together, headed for the Boiling Rock.
“Maybe this is a good thing,” Sokka tries awkwardly, searching for a positive spin in this situation. “You can use your prince-iness to get us access to my dad’s cell.”
A very strange look comes over Zuko’s face. “I’m… not sure how effective that will be.”
And it just figures that he wouldn’t want to play the only angle they have. Sokka scowls at him, crossing his arms. “Right. Of course. Guess we’ll do this the hard way, then.”
“The hard way is the only way we’ve got,” Zuko snaps, narrowing his eyes.
“Oh, sure, Mr. Fire Lord’s Son,” Sokka retaliates irritably.
“You think that gets me any advantages?” Zuko asks incredulously, as though Sokka is the one being unreasonable. “You think my parentage comes with perks?”
“Yeah!” Sokka snaps. “Excuse me if I think the solid gold crown you wear opens up some doors for you.”
Zuko’s mouth turns down at the corners, but no response follows, and for some reason it makes Sokka feel guilty. Asshole.
“So,” he says, when the silence has stretched from awkward into unbearable, “is there anything you miss back home?”
“My uncle,” Zuko says immediately, but his face has turned even more conflicted, which is exactly the opposite of what Sokka intended.
“Right!” Sokka tries for cheer and misses by several nautical miles. “The Dragon of the West?”
Zuko’s face contorts further. He doesn’t look proud. “I mean, yeah. But that’s not all he is.”
“What else is he?” Sokka asks, softening his voice carefully.
There’s a long moment of silence. Then, “...he makes good tea.”
“Oh!” Sokka’s voice pitches up unnaturally high, and he clears it before beginning again in a deliberately deeper tone. “What’s your favorite kind?”
Zuko shrugs. “Jasmine, normally. But anything he makes is good.”
“My dad makes good tea, too,” Sokka says wistfully, against his better judgement. “Well, not good, exactly. But… nice. When I fell into the ice when I was a kid, he knew exactly what to brew to make me feel better.”
He’s expecting scorn, so he’s surprised when Zuko’s face softens. “What did he make?”
“Some nasty concoction out of seal blubber,” Sokka admits, laughing slightly when Zuko wrinkles his nose. “I know, it doesn’t exactly sound appealing. And it wasn’t. But… it was what I needed. It was warm.”
“My home is warm, too,” Zuko says, something distant in his voice.
And Sokka knows it’s an absentminded comparison. He knows that Zuko doesn’t really mean to suggest the Fire Nation is anything like the Southern Water Tribe. And yet, he can’t help saying, “Our homes are nothing alike.”
Zuko’s eyes go shiny and sad like Aang’s do, sometimes, when he thinks no one is looking. “Yeah. I know.”
Guilt roils in Sokka’s gut. He tries to shove it down, but it rebels, and the words escape him before he can stop them: “Is there anything you’re proud of about your home?”
“Our honor. It means a lot to us,” Zuko says immediately. Sokka’s face must do something without his permission, because Zuko sighs. “I guess that must be hard for you to believe.”
“Yeah, I’ll say,” Sokka scoffs. But Zuko’s face still looks shiny and sad and young, in a way it rarely does, and Sokka’s anger dies down quickly. “What does honor mean to the Fire Nation?”
Zuko visibly struggles before speaking. “Honor means… It means doing what’s right, and what’s needed, even if it isn’t what you want. It isn’t about what’s easy. It’s about what’s necessary.”
“If that’s what honor means to you,” Sokka begins, suddenly unable and unwilling to keep the frustration from his voice, “then why did you chase a twelve year old pacifist across the world?”
“I was told it was what I needed to do,” Zuko says, sounding a little lost. “By someone who I believed to be honorable.”
“But you just said honor is about doing what’s right. You must have known that wasn’t right,” Sokka presses.
There’s a long moment of silence. Then, “I knew it didn’t feel right. But I always told myself that if I knew the first thing about honor, I would still be home.”
“I don’t understand,” Sokka says, a little irritated, but mostly sad.
“I didn’t, either,” Zuko sighs.
Neither of them speaks for a long time. “How old are you?” Sokka asks suddenly.
Zuko looks reluctant, before he finally admits, “...Sixteen. My birthday is the Winter Solstice.”
“Sixteen,” Sokka echoes, oddly numb. “...That feels wrong.”
“Yeah,” Zuko sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It briefly obscures the scar, and Sokka can suddenly see his lingering baby-fat, and he realizes how young sixteen is. Nearly the same age as him– even if it doesn’t feel like it. “It feels wrong to me, too, sometimes.”
“That’s rough, buddy,” Sokka says eventually, struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration.
Zuko snorts. “Yeah.”
Sokka smiles.
~
And of course it doesn't go to plan, because the Spirits hate them and nothing can ever be simple.
“Southern Water Tribe prisoners won’t get here until tomorrow,” Sokka forces himself to admit, nausea roiling in his gut. “And even then, Dad might not be among them.”
He’s expecting scorn, and an immediate order to retreat. Instead, Zuko nods thoughtfully from behind the guard helmet. “Alright. So we stay until the shipment tomorrow, and then reevaluate.”
“What?” Sokka says dumbly.
Zuko looks startled, then cautious. “I mean, unless you don’t want to wait for your father…”
“Of course I want to wait for Dad!” Sokka bursts out. “But… you’re alright with that?”
“I mean…” Zuko shrugs. “Isn’t that what we came here for?”
“Yeah, of course it is,” Sokka agrees, a little too forcefully, feeling oddly like he’s fighting with himself.
“Then… We should wait, right?” Zuko prods.
“Obviously!” Sokka snaps. It’s weird. He feels like Zuko should be… pushing back on this. And now that he isn't, Sokka’s got all this pent up argumentative energy and nowhere to put it.
Zuko’s expression shifts, but Sokka can’t name the way it ends up. “Or… We can pretend we searched for him, and we’ve failed. No one could fault you for him not being here,” Zuko says, with a strange urgency.
“What?” Sokka frowns. “Why would I want that?”
The strange, inscrutable expression vanishes, replaced by a blank stare. “...You wouldn’t. Sorry. Just thought I’d ask, I guess.”
“You’re weird, man,” Sokka sighs.
Zuko frowns and looks away. “Yeah. I know.”
“Not that that’s a bad thing!” Sokka rushes to assure awkwardly. “Weirdness makes the world go ‘round, you know?”
“Right,” Zuko says slowly. “I guess.”
“It does!” Sokka emphasizes, lifting his helmet up slightly so Zuko can see his sincerity.
“Put that down,” Zuko hisses, looking around frantically. “The last thing we need is to already be in trouble before your dad even gets here.”
Which is true, but something about the way he phrases it makes Sokka’s stomach turn. “Right,” he says anyway. “Good point.”
~
The Spirits must take pity on Sokka, because suddenly, completely unexpectedly, something goes very, very right.
“Suki!” The delighted exclamation escapes him before he can stop it as he takes in familiar green eyes and a rigid, defensive posture.
“That’s my name,” Suki agrees, her voice low and cautious. “Who the hell are you?”
Sokka flips his helmet up; he hears Zuko sigh beside him, but he can’t bring himself to care. “It’s me!”
Suki’s stance relaxes instantly, and before he knows it he’s caught in a tight hug. “Sokka! What are you doing here?”
“We’re here to break my dad out!” he responds without thinking, then winces at how that sounds. “Well… My dad, and you, of course!”
“Of course,” she agrees, though her tone is teasing. Then she pulls back from the hug, a certain glint in her eye that he only vaguely recognizes.
“Uh–” Sokka begins, before being cut off by the press of warm lips against his own. He should be thinking about how wonderful it is, but weirdly, the only thing on his mind is I hope Zuko doesn’t see this.
Why does he hope Zuko doesn’t see?
He doesn’t have time to figure it out before there’s noise from the hallway, and Zuko is arguing with a guard, and before Sokka can apply his own genius to the situation Zuko is sacrificing himself, because of course he is, apparently that’s just what the Fire Prince does whenever he ends up in a tight spot.
“An imposter,” the real guard shouts from the hallway as Zuko battles her away from Suki’s door, and Sokka snaps into position, securing his helmet back over his face.
“How could an imposter have gotten in?” Sokka asks, letting a bit of scorn creep into his voice. “I mean, this place is pretty secure. He might just be poorly trained.”
The guard rips Zuko’s helmet off of him, and his scar glints for all to see. Sokka half expects the guard to retreat with apologies for her prince, regardless of the situation, but instead, her smile only grows.
“The traitor Prince,” she realizes gleefully, grabbing his face with one hand. Zuko flinches back from her grip, before fixing her with an even fiercer scowl as if to make up for his instinctive fear.
Something about it makes Sokka feel distinctly icky.
“Agni would be ashamed of what you’re doing here,” Zuko snarls, and is silenced by a sharp slap against his scarred cheek.
“Oh, yeah?” the guard growls. “You and Agni speak often? Well, let’s see if he can reach you in the cooler.”
The minimal color in Zuko’s complexion drains, but his scowl remains steadfast and unflinching.
“You,” the guard says, and Sokka startles as he’s addressed for the first time. She shoves the prince towards him. “Take him to the cooler.”
Relief floods through Sokka’s skin as he grabs Zuko’s shoulders– he doesn't know what the cooler is, exactly, but it sounds pretty bad. If he's the one in charge of taking Zuko there, he can just… take him somewhere else, can't he?
“Don’t,” Zuko mutters, quiet as a breath, as though he can hear Sokka’s thoughts. “It isn’t worth jeopardizing this whole thing.”
"Once he's good and frozen," the guard adds from behind them, "I'm sure the Warden would like to see him. Make sure he isn't disappointed."
Sokka’s stomach twists, already leading him away from her watchful eye. “Zuko–”
“It’s two lefts, a long hallway, then it's on the right,” Zuko tells him near-silently.
Sokka follows his instructions without another word, hoping it isn’t as bad as the guard made it sound. But when they get there and he opens the door, he’s blasted by a chilled wind as icy as the South Pole has ever gotten. “You’ll freeze in here!” he objects.
Zuko had started shivering the moment the door had opened, but he visibly suppresses it at Sokka’s alarm. “I won’t,” he argues, oddly gentle. “It’s only a few hours, and it’s worth it to get your dad back. I can do this.”
“You freezing to death isn’t worth it,” Sokka says, and the words feel like a betrayal on his tongue. “Not for a chance. We don’t even know he’ll be here tomorrow!”
“In your shoes,” Zuko begins slowly, “I’d take any chance I could get. It’d be worth anything to me.”
Sokka feels… more understood than he probably should, when his audience is the Fire Prince. “Are you sure?” he asks hesitantly, one final time. “We don’t have to do this.”
“You want to find your father, right?” Zuko asks. “You really want this?”
“More than anything,” Sokka admits, his voice coming out as nothing more than a whisper.
“Then I do have to do this,” Zuko says.
Now comes the time where Sokka should quietly say ‘thank you’ and shove him into the cooler like a real Fire Nation guard would, but he can’t.
Instead, Zuko carefully removes himself from Sokka’s grip and steps into the cooler voluntarily, held rigid as a stone so that his shivers can’t be seen.
An idea sparks in Sokka’s brain. “Wait! While you’re in there…" But, no. He can’t ask this of Zuko– not when he’ll already be stuck in what is essentially a torture chamber as punishment for Sokka’s carelessness.
But Zuko has latched onto his words. “What? What can I do?”
Sokka braces himself. “Well. We still need a way out of here, right?”
“Right,” Zuko agrees hesitantly.
“If you can unscrew the latches from the cooler… Separate the parts that secure it to the rest of the prison… Maybe we can sail out of here in that. It’ll keep us from boiling,” Sokka admits his plan. It’s too much to ask. All of this is. But… it might also be the only way.
Zuko nods, determination steeling his features. “I’ll do it. Come get me in a few hours. Three, maybe. I should be done by then.”
It’s wrong. Three hours is too much– he can feel that just from the chill that escapes the cooler through the open door. Sokka should say it’s too much, but what comes out instead is, “thank you.”
He gets a single terse nod from Zuko, and then the cooler door swings closed.
~
And finally, finally, Sokka gets to see his dad again.
“Thank goodness you’re okay!” Sokka can’t keep the words back as he approaches his father, preparing for the tightest bear-hug of his life.
But the affection doesn’t come. Instead, Hakoda sinks back into a battle-ready posture, distrustful blue eyes fixing on Sokka. “If you take one step closer, you'll see just how ‘okay’ I am.”
Oh– bad opening, probably. Embarrassment floods Sokka as he lifts up his helmet so his face is visible. “Dad, it’s me.”
Hakoda’s stance instantly relaxes, and his eyes grow shiny with tears. “Sokka,” he breathes, and then there are strong arms around Sokka, pulling him in closely.
Sokka fights against the urge to cry hysterically. He’s a man now– it doesn’t matter if he’s still only fifteen, not yet old enough to join the war efforts by the Southern Water Tribe’s standards. He turned into a man the day his father left and took all the soldiers with him, leaving Sokka as the sole defender of their homeland.
And the thing is, most of the time it’s so easy to believe what he tells himself, to honestly feel like a man instead of a child– but with Hakoda’s arms around him, strong and large and secure where Sokka’s own are scrawny and indisputably boyish, he feels abruptly young, in a way he hasn’t had the privilege to feel in years. I’m a kid, he thinks, a little petulantly; I’m Hakoda’s kid, and he’ll fix this.
But Hakoda can’t.
Sokka is the strategist, and he’s the one with the information, and Zuko is in a cooler shivering and counting on him, not his dad.
Sokka isn’t a kid, because he can’t be. None of this works unless he’s a warrior.
He pulls back and clears his throat, forcing his voice lower than its natural octave when he speaks: “Where’s Bato? And everyone from the invasion?”
A strange, sad look crosses Hakoda’s face before he schools it away. “The others are being held at a prison near the Fire Nation palace. They singled me out as their leader and sent me here. But before I left, I met some young women who said they knew you. The... Oshinama Fighters?”
Sokka smiles slightly. “You mean, the Kyoshi Warriors?”
“That’s right,” Hakoda agrees, and there’s so much pride in his eyes that Sokka can’t look at him.
“Their leader Suki is here, and she’s gonna escape with us,” Sokka says, trying to sound more confident than he feels.
“Good,” Hakoda nods, laying a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “We’ll need all the help we can get.”
“And, you know Prince Zuko?” Sokka asks hesitantly.
“I know of him,” Hakoda allows, his voice guarded.
Sokka swallows hard. “He’s here, too.”
Hakoda crosses his arms. “Sounds like a major problem.”
And, the thing is, it does sound like a problem, and Sokka is a kid, and why should anyone trust his instincts– But Zuko is shivering in a cooler for him, for Hakoda, so Sokka pulls himself together and manages to say, “actually, he’s on our side now.”
His dad looks ready to argue with him, opening his mouth to refute the words–
– and Sokka can’t listen to it, because he knows Zuko is trustworthy, but he hasn’t seen his dad in so long, and he isn’t sure he can bear to fight with him. He speaks before he has to. “I know. I had the same reaction. After all he's done, it was hard to trust him. But he's really proven himself, and I never would've found you without his help.”
Hakoda nods, and even though it’s slow and cautious, it’s the best thing Sokka has ever seen, because it means his dad trusts him.
Now, back to the main issue: “We’re gonna get out of here. But first, I have to get Zuko out of the cooler.”
Hakoda’s face changes into something hard and unfamiliar, and Sokka wants to cry at how many of his dad’s expressions he doesn’t recognize anymore. “He’s in the cooler?”
“Yeah,” Sokka says hesitantly.
“How long has he been in there?”
“I don’t know, two hours now?” Sokka guesses.
Hakoda swears. “And he’s on our side?”
“Yes,” Sokka says, urgent and alarmed, now. He’s never seen his dad curse before.
“Then we need to get him out,” Hakoda says grimly. “That’s no place for Firebenders.”
~
“Zuko?” Sokka hisses cautiously, cracking the cooler open. “Are you in there?”
“Wh-where else would I b-be?” comes the irritable response, wracked with shivers.
Sokka’s gut twists with urgency– he doesn’t know Zuko very well yet, but he knows enough to understand that he would never show weakness if he didn’t have to. “Come on out, prisoner; I trust you’ve learned your lesson,” he says in a louder voice, in case anyone overhears.
“I c-certainly have,” Zuko agrees, the satisfaction in his eyes belying the tremor in his voice as he extends a handful of screws.
“Great!” Sokka’s voice pitches up with excitement before he catches himself, and coughs. “Um. Good, prisoner,” he recovers.
Zuko rolls his eyes, then lowers his voice as he approaches the door. “I’m sure the W-Warden will be wanting to see me.”
“Oh!” Sokka jolts. “Right. Of course.” He puts a hand on Zuko’s shoulders to guide him away, then startles away from the icy-cold of his skin.
“What is it?” Zuko demands, eyes darting around in search of danger. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Sokka assures him hurriedly. “You’re just– man, aren’t you cold?”
Zuko goes rigid and cautious, and Sokka knows even before he speaks that he won’t receive an honest answer. “The cooler was… chilly,” he begins carefully, “but I’m fine.”
“Right,” Sokka grumbles, trying to surreptitiously rub warmth back into Zuko’s arm as he guides him towards the Warden’s office. “Of course you are.”
“Sokka…”
“What?” Something like hope surges in Sokka’s chest at the idea that Zuko might say something sincere, and he turns to give him his full attention.
“...The Warden’s office is the other way,” Zuko mumbles.
“Oh,” Sokka says, cheeks flaming. “...Right.”
~
So. The whole cooler plan was a bust. And Sokka should have known it would be, should have predicted that Zuko’s suffering would have been for nothing, because nothing is ever easy and of course it wouldn’t go how he planned it–
Anyway.
The cooler plan was a bust, and now they have the Warden hostage and they’re making for the gondola, and Hakoda and Suki keep exchanging looks like they think Sokka is a fool and they’re trying to figure out how to leave Zuko behind while making it look like an accident.
“The cooler sounds pretty awful,” Sokka says loudly as they run for the gondola. “Sorry it didn’t work out as an exit plan. Thanks for trying.”
“What?” Zuko seems puzzled.
“Thank you for going through that to try to help us,” Sokka says again, louder.
Hakoda glances back at them questioningly, and Zuko flinches before offering a tense nod. “...No problem.”
Right. Not exactly what he’d hoped for, but he’ll take it.
“We’re almost there!” Suki cries as they approach the gondola, hesitant relief creeping into her tone, and Sokka mentally kicks himself for the thousandth time for not trying to rescue her sooner. He should have known, should have been quicker…
Guards approach them, but Zuko surges forward, grabbing their hostage tightly. “Back off! We’ve got the Warden!”
Reluctantly, the guards retreat, and Hakoda shoots Zuko an appraising look. Sokka tries his best not to appear smug.
“Everyone in!” Suki shouts, ushering them into the gondola.
They all pile in– except Zuko. He lingers, kicking the handle repeatedly.
“What are you doing?” Sokka shrieks as the guards close in and the gondola begins to move away from the prison. “Get in!”
Zuko ignores him in favor of kicking the handle again. It finally breaks, and with seemingly no consideration granted towards the boiling lake beneath them, Zuko takes a running start and launches himself over the gondola.
Sheer panic lights up Sokka’s brain. Moving on instinct, he extends an arm to grab Zuko; a heavier limb holds him in place as momentum tries to bring him forward, over the gondola’s side. He leans back into Hakoda’s body, pulling Zuko in. It’s nice, having his dad at his back again.
Once he’s in, Zuko backs away from them both, his eyes going wide with fear as he looks at something over Sokka’s shoulder. Sokka glances over, but finds nothing more sinister than Hakoda at the end of Zuko’s gaze. He’s probably just realizing how close he came to dying, he thinks.
“What were you thinking?” Sokka demands, failing at keeping the shrillness out of his voice.
Zuko shakes himself out of whatever strange, frightened trance he was in, his eyes narrowing in on Sokka. “I was making sure they can't follow us.”
“Good thinking,” Hakoda praises.
Zuko flinches slightly, his eyes darting to the gondola’s floor.
What is up with him? Sokka wonders.
He doesn’t have much time to consider it before everything goes sideways for the hundredth time that day.
“Who’s that?” Hakoda asks, pointing to something behind them.
Sokka turns to see Azula and that cheery pink girl– Ty Lee?– racing across the gondola’s wire towards them.
“That’s a problem,” Zuko says grimly. “It’s my sister and her friend.”
“This is a rematch I’ve been waiting for,” Suki says, cracking her knuckles expectantly.
Zuko sets his jaw. “Me, too.”
Man, Zuko’s family is weird. Sokka follows them to the gondola’s roof and prepares for battle, trying very hard not to wonder why Zuko looked less frightened to enter this life-threatening match than he had while being praised by Hakoda.
~
“...And then Zuko jumped over the boiling lake to get onto the gondola!” Sokka exclaims over the campfire, watching as his rapt audience oohs at the story. “It was, like, the length of an Appa and a half, but he didn’t even flinch!”
Zuko smiles modestly. “It wasn’t that far of a jump.”
“Looked pretty far to me,” Hakoda disagrees kindly. “You were very brave.”
“It was nothing,” Zuko says, a bit more sharply. His face has closed off completely.
“Come on, buddy,” Sokka tries, baffled by his reluctance to accept credit. “You were great!”
“Buddy?” Katara scoffs from across the fire. “He’s your buddy now?”
“Well, he did help me break Dad out of an impenetrable Fire Nation prison!” Sokka snaps. “So, yeah, I’d say he’s reached ‘buddy’ status!”
“That’s all it takes for you to forgive him?” Katara rises to her feet angrily. “In case you forgot, he almost killed Aang!”
“No he didn’t,” Toph snaps, her cloudy eyes narrowing. “His sister did.”
“Same thing!” Katara snaps.
“Now, Katara,” Hakoda admonishes gently. “We can’t blame Zuko for the sins of his family.”
“Really?” Katara whirls on him. “Because I find it pretty easy! You don’t know half the things he’s done, Dad! You just show up now that he’s got everyone convinced he’s good, and you think you understand it all, but you don’t!”
Zuko shoots to his feet, his hands clenched tightly into fists.
“Calm down, buddy,” Sokka says gently. He doesn’t know quite what’s happening in Zuko’s head, but the look in his face is more panicked than aggressive, and that’s all he really needs to know. “You’re fine.”
“See!” Katara points, vindicated. “He was about to attack us!”
“I really don’t think he was,” Aang says hesitantly.
“How am I the only one who sees through his act?” Katara demands, angry tears shining in her eyes.
Sokka aches at the sight of her pain. He knows how much it cost Katara to allow Zuko to stay, knows she hasn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since the prince first showed up, and it hurts that he can’t be on her side right now. But she’s fighting a battle that’s already been won, and they have enough wars ahead of them without seeing enemies where there aren’t any. “I don’t think it’s an act, Katara,” Sokka tells her placatingly. “The prison didn’t treat him like a prince, they treated him like a traitor.”
“Because I am a traitor,” Zuko snaps. “I’ve turned my back on my nation and my father. You don’t have to trust me, but you should at least know that to be true.”
“And we’re just supposed to take you at your word?” Katara demands. “You magically woke up one day and realized the Fire Lord is evil, after months of trying to kill Aang just to– what? To make him happy? To fulfill some sick duty for your even sicker family–”
“That’s enough!” Hakoda says, his voice sharp.
And something–
Snaps.
Zuko’s eyes blow wide with fear, and he darts in between Hakoda and Katara, his arms thrown up defensively. Hakoda stands up, too, but he’s frowning uncertainly.
“See!” Katara hisses, bending water out of her pouch into blades.
Zuko’s posture goes even more rigid, but he turns his back to her, ignoring her indignant gasp. “Your quarrel is with me, Chief. Not her. Let’s settle this like men.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Katara rages. “You don’t think I can handle myself? God, you’re worse than Pakku!”
Sokka is equally lost, but he thinks that what’s happening is maybe the exact opposite of whatever Katara has in mind.
“Zuko,” Suki says, her voice low and firm, “What do you think is going on right now?”
“A punishment,” Zuko says certainly, not taking his eyes off of Hakoda. “But it doesn’t need to happen to her. I’m the problem. No one else.”
Hakoda’s face twists with something like horror, but he schools his expression quickly. The tension in his broad shoulders eases with visible effort, and he sits back down on the log rather than meeting the threat.
Zuko’s eyes widen, and he darts his gaze around the campfire, as if searching for an explanation.
“Son,” Hakoda says carefully, once he’s seated, “I don’t punish my children the way I expect you’re used to.”
“What does that mean?” Katara demands, but some of the fury has seeped out of her posture.
“What do you think it means, Sugar Queen?” Toph snaps, looking truly, genuinely angry in a way Sokka rarely sees. “What, did you think the Fire Lord was prone to fatherly advice?”
“Toph!” Sokka snaps, because as soon as she says it he knows she’s right and he doesn’t deserve to know this about Zuko. None of them do.
“I don’t understand,” Zuko says, his body shaking with tension.
“Stand down, Prince Zuko,” Hakoda says, firm but gentle. “There’s no threat here. Least of all from me.”
Zuko swallows hard, as if Hakoda has said something else entirely, but sits back down obediently.
Obediently.
It’s not a word Sokka would have ever used to describe the Fire Prince before.
“You thought he was going to… what, hurt us?” Katara demands, finally bending the ice blades back into her water pouch.
“Katara,” Zuko grits out, gaze darting frantically between her and her father.
“No!” Katara insists, a very strange look in her eyes. “Tell us what you thought would happen!”
“I think maybe you should sit down, Katara,” Aang puts in softly, and there’s open pity in his face when he looks at Zuko. "He's... kind of freaked out already."
“Why are you all acting like I’m the crazy one here?” Zuko demands, surging back to his feet with a wild look in his eyes. He turns to Katara almost pleadingly. “I’m trying to protect you!”
“From what?!”
“From me,” Hakoda answers for him, voice soft and sorry.
Zuko seems to remember himself, and his posture hunches respectfully. “I don’t mean to question your ability to discipline your children, of course it’s up to your discretion–”
“Discipline me?” Katara snaps, affronted, but the anger in her eyes is being steadily replaced by confusion.
“I have failed you in many ways as a father,” Hakoda begins, cutting off Sokka’s reflexive protest with a raised hand, “but I am proud that you can say that word without fear.”
“Why would I be afraid of discipline?” Katara demands. Then she looks at Zuko, takes in his pale skin, his wide eyes, his clenched fist. “Oh,” she breathes, deflating.
“I think maybe Zuko and I should have a moment to discuss things,” Hakoda says slowly. “Alone.”
Zuko’s eyes blow impossibly wider, and Hakoda’s face falls.
“Like hell I’m leaving you alone with him,” Toph growls.
“My dad would never do anything to hurt him,” Katara says, and it seems as much a reassurance to Zuko as it is to Toph.
“I wouldn’t,” Hakoda agrees, soothing as a creek, “but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Zuko would feel better among company.”
“No. I’d prefer not to have an audience,” Zuko speaks up, his head held high and rigid like he’s preparing for battle.
Hakoda looks like he’s mourning something. “Have you had an audience for... this sort of thing before?”
Zuko’s hand snakes up towards his scar before he catches himself, and Sokka feels something curl unpleasantly in his gut.
“None of my business,” Hakoda murmurs when the silence has stretched for too long. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Zuko’s eyes widen, but he says nothing.
“I don’t understand,” Katara says, her voice hard but no longer vicious.
“I think your friend,” and Hakoda emphasizes the word, as though daring Katara to object. When she doesn’t, he continues, “has been… disciplined in ways that were disproportionate in the past. I’m sure he didn’t mean any offense when he stepped between us. He only meant to protect you from me.”
“But why would I need protecting from you?” Katara asks, seeming genuinely puzzled. "You're my dad."
“No need to rub it in,” Toph snaps.
Katara’s face twists. “I didn’t realize I was.”
“Not everyone has a dad like ours,” Sokka tells her quietly, wrapping an arm around her as if to soften the blow.
“But… are you telling me your dad hurt you?” Katara asks Zuko, her eyes wide.
Zuko stiffens. “It doesn’t matter. Clearly I… got the wrong impression about what was happening here, and for that I apologize.”
“It does matter!” Katara insists sharply, pressing her hand tightly against her mouth when Zuko startles at her raised voice.
“Zuko doesn’t have to tell us anything he doesn’t want to,” Aang says softly, but his gray eyes are wide and sad, like maybe he already knows.
Zuko glares at him. “I guess it doesn’t matter whether I want to,” he snaps. “Since clearly, you know it either way.”
“I don't know anything for sure,” Aang placates.
“But?” Zuko urges angrily.
Aang chews his lip. “...But, I know what a scar like that means on a Firebender.”
Sokka sucks in a sharp breath.
Of course he’s seen the scar. It’s kind of hard to miss.
…It just hadn’t occurred to him that it meant anything.
But of course it does. He’s seen Zuko spar the Avatar and win enough times that he knows he can’t be easily bested, seen him stick his hand into the campfire enough times to understand that he isn’t easily burnt.
So why is there a scar left by fire sprawled garishly across his face, the middle dark like it had burned for a long while, the edges crisp like he hadn’t struggled against it?
Why is it years old, when the other side of Zuko’s face is still padded with the fat of youth?
Who could scar a prince?
Why is Zuko afraid of fathers?
The questions all jumble together unpleasantly in Sokka’s mind, roiling like his stomach had the night he’d broken into Hakoda’s stash and chugged half a bottle of whiskey because he knew real men liked it.
And maybe he isn’t a real man, after all, because he suddenly wants to hide in his father’s arms rather than hear whatever explanation is about to come.
“What does it mean?” Katara asks softly.
“A man’s business is his own,” Hakoda tells her firmly, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“None of us are old enough to be men,” Sokka snaps, feeling suddenly and inexplicably furious. They’re children, all of them, and it’s all so unfair that his bones ache with it.
“No,” Hakoda agrees, soft and sorry. “I suppose you aren’t.”
“My father burned me,” Zuko says suddenly, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
And even though the question was already half-answered in Sokka’s mind– he’s smart, too smart for the child he is, no child should have to be this smart– horror still rips through him, as raw and barbed as the day he’d seen his mother turned to ash.
“Why?” Aang asks, devastated, and Sokka doesn’t have to ask to understand that whatever Aang had known, it hadn’t been this.
The silence stretches, and Hakoda speaks up, his face looking much older than Sokka’s used to. “You don’t have to answer that. You don’t owe us any explanation, son.”
“I’m not your son,” Zuko says, almost reflexively.
Hakoda’s face falls further. “And I’m sorry for that.”
It’s what Zuko needs, apparently, because he inhales sharply. “I spoke out of turn. It was a punishment.”
“What?” Toph snarls, jumping to her feet, and the earth trembles with her anger.
Zuko blinks, as though startled. “I sort of figured you already knew. It wasn’t exactly private.”
I’d prefer not to have an audience, Sokka remembers, and his hands clench in futile rage.
“Yeah, everyone knows the tale of the banished prince!” Toph shouts, ignoring Zuko’s flinch.
Banished?
“But I never knew the details,” she says, quieter.
Zuko looks away. “It’s not an interesting story.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Sokka can’t help saying, feeling about two inches tall when his father sends him a chiding look. “...But you don’t have to tell it.”
Zuko shrugs helplessly. “It's what it sounds like. I spoke when I shouldn’t have, and when I was required to defend my honor, I failed.”
“I don’t think you failed,” Aang says sadly. “I think someone else failed you.”
“We’ve all been failed,” Zuko says, sounding tired.
And he’s right. They were all failed a long time before they were born. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“I don’t understand,” Katara says, and Sokka is grateful that she doesn’t. “Why would you go back to… that?”
“Katara,” Hakoda admonishes, gentle as scruffing a polar-kitten. It’s about as forceful as he’s ever been with his children; it had never occurred to Sokka to be thankful for that.
“Because I’m a fool,” Zuko spits.
“I don’t believe that,” Sokka disagrees. “You’re a lot of things, Zuko, but you aren’t foolish.”
The silence stretches, then Zuko hangs his head. “Yeah. And Ozai is a lot of things, but he’s still my father.”
And Sokka feels so stupid, for ever hearing ‘Ozai’ and ‘father’ in the same sentence and imagining anything but cruelty.
“But still,” Katara presses, clearly struggling to make sense of it all, “he burned you. And you still wanted to go back to him?”
Zuko shrugs helplessly. “How much would it take for you to give up on your father? For you to accept that you were better off in a refugee camp than with him, and that no matter what you did, he’d never welcome you home?”
“That’s different,” Katara insists, looking at Hakoda as if for support. “Our dad would never have hurt us like that in the first place!”
“But if he had.” Zuko says urgently, suddenly seeming a bit desperate for her to understand. “If you had no one else, and everyone told you your father was the divine embodiment of all that was right and just, that doubting him was akin to doubting the Great Spirits themselves, and then he’d hurt you and banished you. Wouldn’t you think maybe he was right to do that, too? Wouldn’t you do anything you could to learn whatever lesson he’d been trying to teach you?”
Katara opens her mouth as if to argue the point, and Sokka silences her with a look. It isn’t their place, because it isn’t something that children of Hakoda could ever understand.
No one could claim that the war has left them untouched– they’ve lost half their Tribe. They’ve lost their mother. It’s impossibly cruel, and so unfair he feels it like a dagger through his ribcage. They’ve known hardship and pain and loss, and neither of them are as young as they should be. But they’ve never, not once in their lives, been unloved.
He looks at Zuko, at his sharp edges and his bristling hurt and his clenched fists, and sees the terrible lack written all over him.
“There is nothing the Fire Lord could teach you about honor,” Hakoda says, and it’s clear that he’s struggling to keep the anger from his voice. “You learned all that in spite of him. You should be proud.”
Zuko looks away. “I don’t know what your children have told you, but I’ve got a lot more to be ashamed of than proud of.”
“Yeah, speaking of, how does the whole Avatar quest come into this?” Sokka asks abruptly. “Not that you need to keep explaining yourself, or anything. Just... given all this, I’m guessing you had a reason. It doesn't exactly seem like the sort of thing a prince would do for fun.”
Zuko hunches up even further, staring into the fire like he isn’t quite seeing it. Or maybe like he’s seeing a different fire, at a different time. “After the Fire Lord burned me, he banished me from the Fire Nation on pain of death. I was told I could return with the Avatar in chains, or not at all.”
“Your scar was already old, when you found me in the South Pole,” Aang says gently, not quite asking but allowing Zuko to answer if he chooses. "I hadn't been seen for a very long time."
Zuko looks away. “Yeah. Well. Nice, clean way to get rid of me, wasn’t it? Send me chasing after a Spirit’s tale. I didn’t realize for a long time that he never…” He hisses softly. “I wasn’t wanted back.”
“I wish I had known,” Aang says mournfully. "Things could have been so different."
Zuko’s head shoots up, like he’s infuriated by the idea of being forgiven. “It doesn’t change anything. I still behaved cruelly. I hunted you.”
Aang’s mouth tilts up into a sad smile. “Yeah, you did,” he allows. “But I understand what it’s like to miss home. I’d do anything to get back to mine.”
And just like that, Sokka gets it, too.
He knows what it’s like to miss his father.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to be your friend,” Aang adds, his eyes wide and shiny. “I bet you needed one.”
Zuko snorts softly. “Aang, I was shooting fireballs at you every five minutes.”
“None of them hit us,” Aang points out, and Sokka realizes with a start that it’s true. All those months, all those battles, and none of them had ever been so much as singed by Zuko’s fire. For some reason he can’t identify, it makes him ache more than anything else has tonight.
“I'm a lousy bender,” Zuko shrugs him off, cheeks flaming.
“Not that lousy,” Aang says, smiling. Then, more quietly, “you were always honorable.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Zuko disagrees sharply, tensing up again.
“Maybe you weren’t,” Katara concedes, though there’s no anger left in it. “But you were a kid. I don’t think I really realized that before.”
“It doesn’t matter as much as it should,” Toph says, sounding abruptly twelve.
Not for the first time, Sokka curses the Great Spirits and their incomprehensible ways. He remembers Hei Bai stealing townspeople one by one as retribution for a burned forest, and wonders why the skies had then been empty to avenge a burned child. Or Sokka’s burned mother. Or Aang’s burned nation.
“The Great Spirits aren’t meant to be understood,” he remembers his Gran-Gran chiding once when he’d pestered for answers. “If they could be, they wouldn't be Great. They’d be too much like us for that.” He wonders now, just as he had then, how anyone had decided that such terrible, incomprehensible power made them great rather than just cruel.
He’s not sure it’ll ever make sense to him. But then, maybe trying to know the Great Spirits is like trying to understand how Ozai could burn a loyal child. Maybe it isn’t the sort of thing that can be understood by anyone kind.
“I’m sorry,” he forces out finally. “You deserved better than that.”
Zuko shrugs. “It’s war. We all deserved better.”
Sokka’s chest aches with the truth of it.
“Thank you,” Hakoda says suddenly. “For trying to protect my children.”
“They didn’t need it,” Zuko says stiffly, cheeks flaming.
“No,” Hakoda agrees, gentle as a breeze. “But you didn’t know that.”
“I should have. I never meant to suggest you would be cruel to them–”
“Oma and Shu, take the compliment!” Toph despairs, launching a small pebble at him.
“Oh,” Zuko says after a pause, ducking his head. “...I didn’t realize that was what was happening.”
Sokka makes a mental note to compliment him as much as possible in the future.
“None of this is right," Aang says suddenly, shaking his head. "I know it’s war now. But it won't be this way forever," he vows, with the weight of a hundred past lives ringing in his words. “We’ll end it. I remember what things used to be like. They can be like that again. We’ll make them like that.”
“Do you really believe that ?” Katara asks, hugging herself tightly. Hakoda puts an arm around her, and she leans into him.
“I know it,” Aang says firmly, and it would have sounded childish and naive from anyone else. But not from him. Not from the Avatar.
“And after the war,” Hakoda begins haltingly, looking at Zuko like he isn’t sure of his welcome, “if you find yourself in need of a father… I’ll be around.”
Zuko darts startled eyes to Katara, as though searching for a rejection, but she only nods firmly.
“Sorry, buddy,” Sokka says lightly, “but you’ve been adopted.”
“You don’t need to do that?” Zuko says slowly, like it’s a question.
“Too late!” Aang pipes up, launching himself at Zuko like he’s clearly been itching to do this whole time. “You’re family now!”
“I’ve always wanted a brother,” Toph says appraisingly.
“Hey!” Sokka puts a hand to his chest, affronted. “I’ve been here this whole time!”
“Like I said,” Toph emphasizes, “I’ve always wanted a brother.”
Sokka feigns woundedness, and Katara laughs at him, and even Zuko manages a little snort.
And just like that, their little family grows by one.
And here’s the thing:
It shouldn’t be up to a group of kids to win the war.
But it is.
And for the first time in a long time, it’s not so hard to believe they’ll win.