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Katara was the first one to notice how Zuko always seemed to be following Sokka with his eyes, mostly because Katara’s eyes were always following Zuko. She started noticing this -- unfortunate -- phenomenon just after Sokka and Zuko got back from Boiling Rock. Their “life changing” field trip -- Toph's words.
Katara hadn’t known they were leaving -- and she definitely hadn’t known they were leaving together, which was probably a good thing because Katara trusted Zuko about as far as Momo could throw him and Momo was a twelve-inch flying lemur that ate berries.
The thing was that the way Katara saw it, someone had to watch Zuko! It wasn’t Katara’s fault that everyone was drawn in by Zuko’s poor little ‘woe is me’ act where he did the dishes and taught Aang firebending and slowly helped everyone confront their personal problems with a strange sense of inner peace that came out of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere.
She knew it had to be an act, because -- he’d been remorseful before, okay? And she’d believed him and she’d been wrong and now it was up to her to stop everyone else from making the same mistake as her. Also, every time Sokka put his arm on Zuko, Zuko jumped or froze or smiled or turned red or, once, memorably, dumped an entire tray of hot tea on his feet which was just -- weird. Weird and strange and definitely part of a nefarious plot. And a little funny. Especially the way he tried to play it off but tripped over the upturned tray while he was trying not to limp away. But it was only a little funny whereas it was a lot part of a nefarious plot. 20/80 funny/nefarious, Katara decided definitively.
Katara spent the next few days pondering this yet-undiscovered nefarious plot of Zuko’s.
He was exhibiting what her mother would have called textbook guilty behavior around all of them -- but especially Sokka. He wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- make eye contact and he would try really hard to do nice things for them all the time. Katara couldn’t do nice things for her brother for more than three or four minutes at a time before she started wanting to pull her hair out, so she was -- grudgingly -- impressed that Zuko had managed for as long as he had.
Maybe it was just guilt that he would be turning them over and eventually murdering them? But that didn’t explain Sokka, which was the problem Katara kept returning to. He was going to do something unspeakably horrible to her brother. Katara knew it. She just had to figure out what. She’d been taken for a fool once and. Well. It wasn’t going to happen again.
This time, she wasn’t going to be sitting around waiting to be saved and thinking kind thoughts about Zuko.
This time, she was going to gather clues and get answers. Kick ass and take names. Save her friends.
But first, Katara needed to get ready for the fight. Which meant that Katara was going to bring in the biggest guns she knew: the Avatar.
“Aang!” she whispered to Aang, right before he went to bed for the night. Aang jumped.
“Katara!” He cried, loudly. “I didn’t see you there. Not that I’m normally looking for you, just that --”
“Aang, I need to talk to you.”
Aang immediately got serious. Well. More serious than he was previously which was, ultimately, only just barely serious. “Yes, Katara,” he said. “Anything that you need. What is it?”
Katara bit her lip. “I’m not sure how to say this,” she began, and Aang started to lean in eagerly. “It’s about, um, feelings -- my feelings -- and I --”
“Just yours?” Aang asked, blushing for some reason. Katara wondered if there was a disease going around, turning people’s cheeks red and making them act like idiots. That might explain some things. And if there was it would mean it wasn't her fault that -- Katara shook her head.
“Well, -- hopefully,” Katara admitted, drawing her head down closer, “it’s mine and -- and yours --”
“Just say it,” he said, breathily. “I feel the same, don’t worry.”
It was a bit -- overenthusiastic, in Katara’s opinion, but that was Aang. Overenthusiastic to the death. But at least he cared, which was more than Katara could say for anyone else at the moment.
“Oh, Aang,” she threw her arms around him in relief. “I’m so glad! I’ve been so worried -- and thinking that I’m the only --”
“Katara, I know exactly how you feel!” Aang said. “Ever since I --”
“-- the only one who still had doubts about Zuko,” she finished. “But I’m so glad you have them too.”
“What?” Aang said. “Zuko?” he took a step back, disentangling himself from her arms. His eyes looked big and sad. Katara steadfastly ignored them.
“Yeah,” she rushed to explain. “I’m so glad you also share my doubts about Zuko, because he’s been looking at Sokka in a very suspicious way --”
“Zuko,” Aang said flatly. “You wanted to talk to me about Zuko. And -- Sokka?”
“Yes, Aang,” Katara said, starting to get impatient. “Zuko. Evil, puppy eating fire nation prince? Your firebending teacher? Hunted you halfway around the world?”
Suddenly, Aang’s eyes narrowed, like he was annoyed or something, which Katara really didn’t understand at all. “Katara, Zuko isn’t a bad guy,” he told her.
“But!” She protested. “You just said you agreed!”
“Oh. Um.” Aang was back to the blushing and the stuttering. “I -- I thought you were talking about something else.”
“What?” Katara demanded. “What the hell else could I possibly be talking about?”
“I -- um -- oh, never mind,” Aang said. “Katara, the point is that -- you need to get over this, whatever it is that you have against Zuko, okay?”
Katara pursed her lips. “I thought -- I thought you understood,” she told him.
Aang looked pained. “Katara, I --”
“I’m not trying to be mean,” she told him in a soft voice. She thought that maybe she hadn’t meant to say it at all. “I just, he’s my brother, Aang. And I’m worried Zuko is -- is going to do -- something to him. Something bad.”
“Why?” Aang asked. “I mean, they just went to Boiling Rock together,” he pointed out, not unreasonably. “If he was going to do something, why not then?”
“Because,” Katara pointed out, obviously. “Then we’d know he did it.”
“But --” Aang started, and then looked around. “Why Sokka? I mean, not to be an egomaniac or something, but wouldn’t Zuko rather attack -- well, me? I am the Avatar.”
“It’s not always about you, Aang,” Katara snapped frostily, because she had been wondering the same thing herself and didn’t really have a good answer to Aang’s question.
“But I’m the Avatar!” Aang repeated. “The Avatar!”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything!” Katara said, voice tight with unexpressed tension. “What, just because we aren’t the Avatar, we don’t pose a threat to the fire nation?”
Aang swallowed nervously and licked his lips. “That’s not what I said at all! You’re super dangerous and so powerful and the Fire Lord should be having nightmares about showing up naked to fight you but -- Zuko’s been chasing the Avatar across the world! Not the Avatar’s -- super, super powerful and dangerous -- friends.”
“Look,” Katara ground out, interrupting Aang, “I don’t know why he’s targeting Sokka -- who knows why Zuko does anything? But he keeps -- looking at him!”
“Looking at him?” Aang asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” Katara hissed. “ Looking at him. In a very evil and suspicious way.”
“Um,” Aang said. “I’m sorry Katara, but that doesn’t sound very, um. Devious?”
Katara glowered at him.
“Not that, um, looking at, um, someone can’t be a very very dangerous sign. I mean, I’ve -- been looked at by Zuko. When he was hunting me. Because. And I hate to repeat myself but. Because I’m the Avatar.”
“Wait a second!” Katara said, too loudly. “I think you’re onto something!”
“I -- am?” Aang asked. “I mean, yeah, I am.”
“Zuko is hunting Sokka,” Katara proclaimed. “But why?”
“What?” Aang said. “No, Katara, that’s ridiculous. Besides, he literally lives with Sokka. How much closer could they possibly get? Like, how much more could he even hunt any of us? He’s found us. We’ve been, you know, caught. Hunted.”
“I -- look, it’s concerning, is all I’m saying!”
Aang yawned. “Okay,” he said, “you’re concerned. If that was all,” he asked, “Could I go to bed now?”
Katara pursed her lips. She couldn’t expect Aang to understand. “Fine,” she told him. She’d just have to keep looking out on her own.
She noticed other things about Zuko, too. Katara kept watching him after her conversation with Aang, at first because she doesn’t trust him and then later, out of habit and finally, out of pure, unbridled curiosity.
Zuko moved like someone who expected to be stopped. It was so different from how Aang moved. Aang glided through the air, flew, finding the path of least resistance. Zuko, on the other hand, walked like the air was a boulder or strong current, like he had to force his way through everything.
She didn’t notice this at first. She didn’t notice this until after they’d gone to kill the Southern Raiders, until after she admitted that maybe Zuko wasn’t completely evil and was maybe just kind of a low-grade dick. That maybe he, liked, helped her. Or something.
And anyway ! Just because she trusts Zuko a little bit more doesn’t mean -- Katara doesn’t know what it means, actually. Maybe it means nothing.
So she kept watching.
Zuko didn’t sleep much, Katara realized. Or very well or very often.
He wanted to stop the Fire Lord for personal reasons. And he was scared they were going to fail.
These are other things she realized, while watching him.
Like when Sokka asked to him spar and he just went completely catatonic or the time when Suki joined them all by the fire and he shot so far away he unbalanced all their dishes and broke a third of their cups or why he never wanted to talk about Mai, not even when Aang asked. Aang!
Katara couldn’t imagine anyone saying no to Aang -- she couldn’t imagine anyone even wanting to.
Her first real clue, though, was when they went swimming on Ember Island. They all changed and -- Zuko blushed and looked away and Katara wondered if it was because he had scars that were worse than his face, scars he didn’t want them to see.
Katara only wondered because she didn’t know and Katara hated few things in life more than things she didn’t understand so she’d made sure to keep an extra close eye on Zuko at the beach. Maybe today would be the day he tried to kill them.
He doesn’t join them in the water. Katara narrowed his eyes at him, but Zuko didn’t move. He stayed far back, near the shore, and he scowled, which really wasn’t that unusual for Zuko. He scowled a lot. Probably too much. Her brother came over to talk to him anyway, even though Zuko was scowling. Sokka was smiling and soaking wet and telling Zuko to stop being a sour catsnake and join them.
“I --” Zuko protested. “I’m not being a catsnake.”
“Oh,” Sokka asked with a smirk, “what, did they never teach princes to swim?”
“I’m not really the prince anymore,” Zuko replied quietly, with a look to the side, which made Katara sigh sadly but only made Sokka roll his eyes.
“Zuko, you make it no fun to mock you because you get all sad and serious. I like to mock, okay, I am the King of Mock. You’re supposed to, I don’t know, laugh and tell me I’m funny.”
“Ha ha,” Zuko said dryly. “You’re funny.”
Katara thought that it was the only time she’d ever heard Zuko make a joke -- let alone one that was -- kind of successful?
Sokka was equally shocked. “Hey!” He objected, with a laugh. “That was kind of a joke.”
“No,” Zuko replied, still sarcastic. “I was being completely serious.”
Sokka gave Zuko a fake expression of hurt. “Leave the sarcasm to me, okay buddy?” he told Zuko. “You don’t know this, but around these parts, I’m the sarcasm and meat guy. It’s my thing, okay? You guys have your magic water and your bending, but me? I got the sarcasm.”
“I thought you were the plan guy?” Zuko shot back innocently, and Katara almost choked. She wondered how the hell Zuko even knew about that. She wondered how often he and Sokka talked. Why did it sound like he was teasing her brother? What were they, friends? Was Zuko probing him for weakness? How had Zuko wiggled his way into Sokka’s carefully guarded --
“I am many things at once,” Sokka boasted, “like amazing, phenomenal, funny, heroic,” and oh that’s right, Katara thought. Sokka was an idiot. That’s how Zuko had wiggled his way in. Katara watched Sokka hold out a hand to Zuko and demand he “come on! You’re coming swimming!”
“Yeah!” Aang calls from the beach. “Don’t be such a chickenmouse!”
“I’m not -- !” Zuko broke off, for the second time in the last thirty seconds. Katara stifled a laugh. “Why does this feel distressingly familiar?” he asked, staring down at Sokka’s extended hand with a deep blush. That was Katara’s second big clue, even if he didn’t understand at the time.
“Because,” Sokka said, “you’re on the team now. You have to participate in team bonding activities. They’re mandatory. We’ll all bully you until you give in. Chickenmouse.” Only he was smiling when he said it, soft and nice.
And Zuko had smiled back, but awkwardly, like his face wasn’t quite sure the right way to move those muscles. Katara almost shuddered. God, were they really wasting time preparing to invade the Fire Nation teaching Zuko, the crown prince of the Fire Nation, to smile?
But she couldn’t think about it anymore, because in the next second, Zuko grabbed Sokka’s hand and joined them. Sort of.
That should’ve been Katara’s third clue. Because Zuko did get up to join them, but he also did so by sprinting to the edge of the sandbank and somehow, miraculously, diving gracefully into the clear blue water because of course he did. Because of course Zuko was incapable of doing anything like a normal human being. Sokka had just stared, mouth open, utterly speechless; Katara, whose eyes were fixed firmly on Zuko and only Zuko, did not notice Sokka's reaction.
Why, she wondered, was Zuko was showing off. And. For whom?
Zuko’s head popped out of the water and he looked at Sokka expectantly. “Are you coming in?” he asked and with an “oh, fuck yeah,” her brother rushed to join him.
Katara didn’t like it. She trusted Zuko enough to fight beside him but. Sokka was her brother. Her only brother. There was no taking chances, not when it came to Sokka.
There was nothing else to do. She took a deep breath in. She was done gathering evidence and talking about it and wondering and wondering and waiting. Katara had to do something. She was going to have to confront Zuko.
She waited until the morning, after lunch. When Zuko was alone. She’d waited for him to be completely alone and then spent a precious few moments psyching herself up and double checking that she had her water canteen full -- in case Zuko tried any fire-related funny business. Maybe she should do this by a lake?
Katara shook her head, forcing herself to take a breath, stop pacing and march right up to Zuko himself. She intended to ask him, politely, if he wouldn’t mind coming with her to have a word in private?
Instead, when she opened her mouth, “What do you want with my brother?” came out instead, full of righteous anger and fury.
Righteously angry and furious Katara might’ve felt, but even she had to admit it was funny watching Zuko choke on his own spit and nearly fall over at her "polite inquiry".
“What?” he coughed out. “I don’t -- what are you even -- me, look at your brother? I -- what?”
“Wow,” Katara said, unimpressed. “You really are a terrible liar.” This was harsh coming from Katara, who was a terrible liar herself.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Zuko lied, terribly.
“You’re always -- looking at him!” She said. “And -- and, you turn red whenever he asks you to spar or takes off his shirt for swimming -- and! And at breakfast, yesterday, when he asked you if you wanted tea, you tried to get up but you spilled all your food instead and then you kind of fell down but you accidentally kicked my breakfast into the fire which I know you did on purpose and --” Katara cut herself, forcing herself back on track, “-- I know you’re planning something.”
“Um, I don’t -- I don’t do all that,” Zuko said, now completely red and refusing to make eye contact.
“Zuko, I’ve seen you do it. Stop lying! I just need you to tell me why!”
“It’s -- not obvious?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s obvious, all right,” she started and watched Zuko go gratifyingly white with terror. “Obvious you’re trying to plot some sort of convoluted -- Firelord -- thing,” she got out, because even she can admit that her theories don’t make any sense at this point. she's mature like that.
“I -- what?” Zuko asked.
“You’re trying to hurt my brother,” Katara told him, clearly, pointing at his chest. “With -- plots.”
“Plots?” Zuko repeated dumbly.
“Nefarious ones!” Katara insisted.
“Nefarious?” Zuko repeated, again.
Katara resisted the urge to stamp her foot. It was childish and she was beyond childish behaviors and -- “Tell me what you want with him.”
“I -- “ Zuko froze and then, he got really, really quiet and really really serious. “I would never hurt your brother, Katara,” he said. “I’m sorry I tried to do it before. I’m sorry I tried to hurt any of you before.”
Katara didn’t know how to respond to that, and it wasn’t fair, because she was so mad at him, because he was the bad guy, even if he was all remorseful now, because he chased them all around the world trying to kill them and she doesn’t understand how she’s the only one who seems to remember or care about that.
He’s the bad guy, she reminded herself. It’s unfair when he does that thing where he goes all quiet and serious and noble about things and makes her feel bad.
“Well, okay. Good,” she told him. “You better not, because, if you do --”
“I know,” Zuko told her. “You’ll kill me.”
“Exactly,” she replied. Her voice trembled, though, which made her grit her jaw. She wasn’t going to weaken now. It was exactly what she’d done in Ba Sing Se and Aang had almost died because of her then. That wasn’t going to happen again. “Then, what do you want with him?”
Zuko winced. “We’re, um, friends?” he said.
“If you don’t tell me what’s really going on,” Katara said, “I’m going to tell him what you’ve been doing --”
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Zuko interrupted her, looking at the ground. “I won’t -- I’ll stop.”
Katara didn’t feel bad. She didn’t. She -- refused to. She had to protect Sokka. She was the only one left and she wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- let the Fire Nation take this from her too.
“Just tell me,” she said, and it was only a little imploring. “What’s going on? What do you want?”
Zuko still doesn’t look at her. “I, um.” he told the ground. “I just like him. That’s -- it. I’m sorry.”
Katara doesn’t understand. “I like Sokka too, but you don’t see me staring at him like - like -- “ Katara wracked her brain, trying to think of what Zuko was acting like, “like some little girl with a crush!”
Zuko shifted uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t,” he said stiffly, “say that I was a little girl, with,” he coughed. “A crush --”
“Oh my God,” Katara said. “You like Sokka.”
“It’s, um -- it’s -- not really that much?” Zuko tried. “I -- I mean, it’s weird and you know, I wouldn’t because. um. He’s a guy? And, anyway, I have a girlfriend. Or I had a girlfriend. I broke up with her, so I don’t really have one anymore, but --”
“Oh my God,” Katara repeated. “You actually like him. You mean, that’s it? That’s why you’ve been acting so weird? A crush?”
Zuko looked up at her and frowned. “What do you mean, that’s it? You aren’t mad at me anymore?”
Katara wrinkled her nose. “Well, it’s like, super gross that you like my brother, because, um, ew, and he does kind of have a girlfriend -- which I like to think about even less, but.” She shrugged. “It’s hardly evil, you know?”
Zuko sat kind of still in front of her, looking torn. Hesitantly, he spoke. “Yeah, but you really don’t mind that,” he paused, looked around, then set his shoulders and continued, in a lower voice. “I’m, you know, a guy?”
Katara rolled her eyes. “I know you were raised in the Fire Nation, but boys don’t have cooties, Zuko.”
“But --” Zuko lapsed into a troubled silence. Maybe the Fire Nation boys did have cooties?
“It’s not exactly common,” Katara tried to explain. “But it’s the way some people are. My -- mom told me that. ‘Cause I always said I didn’t want to get married. And dad would just laugh but mom always said I didn’t have to.”
“I mean, but. It’s -- isn’t it wrong?”
“Are you trying to make me hate you again?” she asked him. “Do you want me to be mad that you like my brother?”
“No!” Zuko insisted. “I’m just -- confused.” Katara, somehow, believed him. Zuko looked like he would rather be literally anywhere else than stuttering his way through this conversation with Katara, which, okay, fair enough. “I thought -- I’m -- do you like me now?”
Katara thought about it. “I still don’t trust you,” she told him, no longer sure if she was being honest or not. “Not completely. And I’m still going to be watching you. But that’s just because someone in this group needs to be wary of second chances.”
Zuko gave her a nod of respect, his stance relaxing a little bit. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re right. Second chances should be earned. I’ve -- made a lot of mistakes.” He gave her a strained smile, that was kind of rueful and kind of sad, in that weird way Zuko always was and Aang sometimes was. “But it’s funny, you catch me in the middle of yet another crime and you -- still find a way to show me a kindness --”
“What?” Katara asked, suddenly alert. “Crime?” she asked. “What crime? Are you doing a crime? Who are you attacking? Aang?”
Zuko blinked at her as if she was particularly slow. “Um,” he said. “My -- um, feelings towards. Sok -- your brother.”
“I mean that’s gross,” Katara repeated herself, “like, literally traumatizingly horrible for me to think about, but it’s hardly a crime.” Then she perked up, a smile cracking across her face. “Unless you mean that Sokka’s so ugly that anyone finding him attractive is a crime!” See! She could be funny! Take that, Sokka, she was so funny! The funniest! They should call her Queen Funny, she was so funny!
Then she looked at Zuko, who didn’t look like he was laughing. He still looked alarmingly pale, actually, and even more confused than before.
“Zuko,” she reminded him, in case he’d forgotten, “you’re supposed to laugh when I make funny jokes. I'm pretty sure you've already been over this with Sokka.”
“Ha ha,” he said, in an obviously fake and distracted sort of way.
“Why are you being weird?” she asked.
“It’s just -- in the Fire Nation -- these kinds of, feelings, are, I don’t know. Frowned upon. It’s technically illegal.”
“But it’s how you feel,” Katara said, confused.
“Well,” Zuko said with a bitter chuckle. “When you put it like that …”
“How else would you put it?” Katara asked.
“I guess,” Zuko said, looking kind of thoughtful and kind of bemused. “There isn’t any other way.”
Katara smiled, satisfied. And then she looked closer at Zuko, who seemed like he hadn’t slept well in months and she started to think that maybe he was telling the truth. And then, thinking back over their conversation, she realized something.
“Is that -- that’s why you were so scared,” she told him. “You thought we were going to -- turn against you, or something. Isn’t that right?”
“Um?” Zuko asked. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
Katara felt a pang and she longed to reach out and hug him. But -- no. She couldn’t. She had to remember who he was. He was the Fire Prince. Ozai was his father. But somehow, that last thought just made her want to hug Zuko more.
Instead, she looked at him one last time. “None of us would ever do anything like that,” she said. “We aren’t barbaric, like the -- well, Fire Nation, I guess,” she finished, awkwardly.
“Thanks,” Zuko told her harshly, embarrassed, and Katara took that as her cue to leave.
Wow, Katara thought, watching Suki grabbing her brother’s ass at the edge of the fire, something she never wanted to see again as long as she lived dear God, maybe I should tell Sokka to be nicer to Zuko. Either that or institute a hunger strike against Sokka’s libido.
“Sokka,” Katara told her brother, that night after dinner, “you need to be nicer to Zuko.”
“What?” Sokka said. “I’m plenty nice. We spar like, every morning. At like six in the morning, too, which is just not when I want to be awake at all. But. That’s the sort of thing I do for Zuko! Because I’m a great guy! A nice guy! And as if you’re one to talk!” he said, suddenly accusingly. “You’re the meanest --”
Katara waved her hand as if that didn’t matter. “I’m nice now. Anyway, you spar? Since when?”
“Yes,” Sokka sniffed. “And you’re not invited because it’s swords only --”
“What about Suki?”
“Suki?” Sokka repeated, after a minute, utterly bewildered. “What does Suki have to do with anything?”
“Why doesn’t she spar with you? She’s not a bender,” Katara pointed out.
“Oh.” Sokka paused. “Huh. I don’t know. She’s usually sleeping? You know, like a normal person?”
“Why do you wake up that early? You hate waking up early!”
“I know!” Sokka agreed. “Tell me about it! Zuko just always -- wakes me up. I mean, not intentionally. I just heard him practicing one morning -- shirtless, I might add because, and I don’t know if you know this but apparently firebenders just ‘run hot’ which is the most --”
“Sokka!”
“Right,” Sokka said, getting back on track. “So he woke me up and I was like whaaaat and he was like sorry but he looked all guilty and sad, you know the way he does pretty much all the time? Yeah, so anyway, long story short I said I always wake up early and he was like, same, and then asked if I wanted to spar and now I’m trapped in this hell of my own creation where I have to wake up early every morning to maintain the lie. Oh, and have I mentioned he always beats me? He’s like freakishly good and he has two swords and it’s like! Pick one, okay? You can be a freakishly good swordsman or you can have two swords. Not both!”
“Right,” Katara said when Sokka was done. “Well, you should be nicer to him.”
“Nicer?” Sokka nearly screamed. “Katara, have you been listening to a single word I’ve been saying?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “It was kind of blah blah blah sword stuff.”
“Blah, blah, blah, sword stuff?” her brother repeated, voice rising in pitch with each word. Katara hid her smile.
“Yeah,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “Blah blah blah, sword stuff. Blah blah,” she added, blandly, for extra measure.
Her brother’s eye started to twitch, which was both hilarious and a little frightening.
“And I know you’re, like, nice and stuff, but you’re always sneaking off to -- suck Suki’s face off.”
“No, I’m -- you’re sneaking off to -- you’re sneaking off to suck -- I -- she’s my girlfriend!” Sokka unconvincingly protested. “I can -- do whatever I want with my girlfriend --”
“Yeah, I know she’s your girlfriend, but Sokka, I’m your sister and I don’t need regular visual evidence that Suki is your girlfriend, okay?”
“That’s … actually pretty reasonable,” Sokka admitted.
“I -- thank you,” Katara agreed. “I’m reasonable all the time.”
“You’re reasonable some of the time,” Sokka corrected. "Actually, scratch that, you're pretty reasonable maybe only this one time."
“All of the time actually -”
Sokka scoffed. “Tell that to the pirates --”
“You always bring that up!
“It always needs to be brought up!” Sokka responded, at a slightly louder volume than either of them probably intended. "You stole! From pirates!"
Zuko poked his head around a tree. “Hey guys, maybe we shouldn’t be fighting --”
“WE’RE NOT FIGHTING!” Both siblings turned at once to scream at the errant firebender. Katara blushed and looked away.
“I mean --” she began.
“Katara started it,” Sokka said.
Katara smacked him in the head -- gently -- with a loose piece of water.
“Ow,” Sokka said. “Bending is an unfair advantage --”
“I’ll show you an unfair advantage,” Katara snapped back and --
“I’ll just -- leave you two to it,” Zuko said, backing away with both hands up. “Don’t, um, kill anything.”
When he was gone, Katara and Sokka turned to each other and laughed.
She knew that she should -- stop watching Zuko, after that. She’d figured it out and -- honestly, she didn’t need to spy on Zuko crushing on her brother (crushing on Sokka? Of all people? In the whole world full of many people, Sokka ? Why ?) but. Weirdly enough, watching Zuko had become a strange sort of habit that was surprisingly difficult to break.
A kind of sad, creepy habit, but Katara was surprisingly okay with that.
He was still quiet and awkward, but he smiled more with the group. That was nice, Katara thought. She had thought that she wouldn’t like it when Zuko started to get comfortable, but something had changed. Maybe she had. Maybe he had. Maybe she had started to believe he'd changed. But she was -- glad to see him fitting in. It made something warm curl up in her chest.
She mostly ignored Zuko’s crush on Sokka, because Katara didn’t like to think about anyone doing anything with Sokka. It was relatively easy to ignore, except when Sokka and Suki would get a little -- too comfortable with each other for even Toph’s comfort, to put it lightly.
To put it less lightly, sometimes Sokka and Suki would attempt the horizontal mambo on their old breakfast stump and. Well, there was a reason it was their old breakfast stump. Katara had tried using magic water to erase the memories of that particular morning, but to no avail. Yet. She wasn’t giving up hope.
Look, she was happy for her brother. But he was her brother. And there were so many things she just -- did not need to see. At all. Ever.
“Why are you still staring at me?” came a raspy voice from just behind her.
Katara shot violently into the air, barely containing her scream. She spun around to face -- Zuko. She relaxed, letting go of the water she hadn’t even realized she’d called up with her.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
“Why are you staring at me?” he repeated. “You just -- every time I turn around, you’re, I don’t know, looking at me.”
Katara raised an eyebrow. “That must be how Sokka feels about you,” she said, trying to tease him.
But when Zuko’s shoulders slumped and he turned away, Katara realized that she might have miscalculated. “I -- don’t do that, do I?” He asked. “I don’t try to. I try not to.”
“No,” Katara was quick to reassure him. “You don’t! I was just -- I was trying to make a joke. But I guess I’m not very good at them.”
“No,” Zuko told her earnestly. “I think you are.”
“Thanks, Zuko.” Katara smiled. “I think you’re kind of good at jokes too.”
Zuko kind of smiled back at her. It changed his whole face, Katara thought. It -- softened the hard edges, or something. Made him seem rounder.
Katara liked that. “Hey, Zuko,” she told him, an idea occurring to her. “I’ve decided that I’m going to help you.”
“Um, what?” Zuko said. “With what?”
“I’m going to help you seduce Sokka!” she told him proudly.
Zuko blinked rapidly at her. “Katara, please, please, please don’t do that,” he said. “I will -- I will do anything you want just --” he looked around rapidly. “Please -- don’t.”
Katara scowled. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “Are you saying you don’t want my help?”
“I --” Zuko was caught. “It’s not that -- it’s just that -- you’re very helpful and everything but --” Zuko cast around desperately. “Would you really want to do that to Suki?”
Katara relaxed, slightly, looking mollified. “Good point. I kind of forgot about that.” Then she squinted. “Didn’t you have a girlfriend or something?”
Zuko rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah. Actually, I think you know her from when, um. She attacked you? With Azula?” Zuko winced. He really needed to stop reminding these guys of that time when he was attacking them constantly. Like, you know, a few weeks ago.
Katara shuddered. “The bubbly pink girl who could -- Chi block?”
Zuko also shuddered. “No!” he said. “God, no, the gloomy one with the knives.”
Katara smirked. “Yeah,” she said. “That makes a lot more sense.” She paused, then brightened up immediately. “Hey!” she said. “You said you’re broken up with her, right? I can help get the two of you back together!”
“What? No!” Zuko said immediately.
“Why not?” Katara asked.
“I … broke up with her?” Zuko asked instead of said.
“Yeah, but she helped you out at Boiling Rock, right?”
Zuko nodded.
“So, she’ll probably forgive you. I mean,” Katara fixed Zuko with one of her Serious Looks. “If I can forgive you? She can too.”
Zuko didn’t look happy about this. Instead, he looked even grumpier. “It’s not that -- I -- just think, okay, that I don’t -- I don’t know that I want to get back together with her,” he admitted, a weird note in his voice.
Katara moved closer, noticing how his arms were kind of wrapped around his knees and how he was kind of tensed and curling inward and -- “Why not?” she asked.
“I don’t -- think I like her. Or, um. Girls. Like that. At all,” Zuko admitted and Katara realized what she’d been hearing in his voice: shame.
“Oh,” Katara said, unsure how to proceed. “I mean, me neither,” she said awkwardly, when she couldn’t think of anything else.
It kind of worked though, because Zuko gave a sort of weak chuckle that turned into a long, loud laugh. “You really are funny, Katara,” he told her again and even though she hadn’t meant it as a joke, Katara preened.
“Now you just need to tell that to Aang and Toph that I’m funny. This one time, Sokka was off learning how to like, fight and stuff and everyone was really sad ‘cause he was the funny one even though he’s just the sarcasm and meat guy and -- hey,” Katara stopped in the middle of her story, a devilish glint in her eye. “I bet you like thinking about my brother as the meat guy --”
Before she could finish, Zuko reached out and gently shoved her off the log.
“Hey!” she said.
“Oh, sorry. That was an accident.” Zuko said in a completely flat voice but Katara just laughed, because Zuko was kidding and so was she and maybe they weren’t the best at jokes but. They could be terrible at jokes together.
“Anyway,” she resumed the story, “he went off to go to training and everyone was missing him so much -- which like, I get, but he’s also, you know, my annoying older brother. And I was being really funny, only no one would believe it. And another time --”
Katara wasn’t great at telling stories, but Zuko was great at sitting quietly, so it kind of worked. Katara could maybe sort of start to see where the others were coming from. He was -- kind of -- nice.
In a weird sort of way.
“You know,” Katara told him, one afternoon, “you’re pretty nice sometimes.”
“... Thanks?” Zuko responded.
“Yeah,” Katara admitted. “It’s not exactly a compliment. I just -- I don’t know. I was thinking about how I -- thought you were mean and everything, especially back when you were chasing us. But you aren’t that at all. And I guess -- I’m kind of sorry now, that I misjudged you. Like that.”
“Oh,” said Zuko, surprised. “You, um, shouldn’t be. I was -- pretty terrible back then.”
Katara laughed. “Yeah, we used to be so scared of you.”
Zuko thought about apologizing again. He’d apologized a lot and he would do it again but he was thinking that maybe he didn’t have to. Maybe everyone knew and understood that he was sorry and he could just sit and joke. So he tentatively bit his lips, lifted his arms and unconvincingly muttered, “Grr?”
“See,” Katara told him, laughing a little, “Now you’re just a silly idiot who likes my brother.”
“... you’re never going to let that go, are you?” Zuko said.
“Consider it your penance.”
“Isn’t training Aang penance enough?” he responded.
“Hey!” Katara protested. “Don’t say that about Aang! He might just be a kid but -- I believe that Aang can save the world. And he really, really tries, so hard. That’s probably what I admire … what?” Katara cut herself off to glare at Zuko, who was shaking with laughter.
“It seems like I’m not the only one with a crush -- Ow! Hey! Stop copying my ideas!” Zuko complained, when Katara shoved him off the log.
The bastard landed easily into the shallow creek.
“You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that,” Zuko told her. “Azula was my younger sister.”
“Oh yeah?” Katara said, lifting up her hands. “But Azula wasn’t a waterbender!” And the water from the creek flowed upward into three wiggly tentacles. Katara used one of them to tap Zuko’s shoulder and the other to wave, so that he would know she was kidding.
Zuko lifted his hands in the air. “Truce!” He said. “You don’t bully me about my crush, I won’t bully you about yours?”
Katara pretended to think about it. “What about -- I tease you about your crushes and you take back every word you ever insinuated about me and Aang?”
Zuko laughed. “You aren’t the only bender here,” he told her, summoning up two fire bolts. One of them blinked out and then back in and --
“Were you trying to wink?”
Zuko sort of blushed at that. “Yeah. Because -- you know, you were doing the wave thing and I -- thought --”
“It was cute!” Katara told him and Zuko rewarded her with a small smile. “But you’re going down firebender!”
She used one of her tentacles to splash down on Zuko’s fireballs, but he quickly reformed them, taking a step back and --
“Hey! What the hell are you doing? Get away from my sister!” Sokka yelled, pointing the wrong end of the boomerang at Zuko while wrapping an arm around Katara.
“Yeah,” Toph said, crossing her arms viciously. “Just walk away, Sparky.”
Aang just stood in the background, looking sad and disappointed.
“What?” Katara said, rolling her eyes. “Guys, stop. Zuko and I were just -- having fun.”
Zuko had extinguished his fireballs the second the Sokka had spoken.
“You were having fun?” Sokka asked, suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. “Attacking each other at night?”
“... yeah!” Katara said, and then winced. “Guys …” she trailed off.
“I believe you,” Aang told her seriously before his face split into a wide smile. “I’m so glad you two are getting along!”
“Didn’t you two like, hate each other yesterday?” Sokka asked, still suspicious.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Katara told him. “Zuko and I are best friends.”
This made even Toph give Katara a double take. And Toph was blind.
“Right, Zuko?” Katara asked.
Zuko nodded. “The best,” he said while trying to hide a laugh. “We’ve really been bonding over --”
“What -- being angry and getting revenge?” Sokka demanded, sounding a little close to the edge of completely losing it.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Katara agreed, sharing a smirk with Zuko.
“I hate this,” Sokka told both of them. “You’re both terrible and I hate this. Can you two go back to not getting along?”
“Sure, Sokka,” Katara agreed. “Zuko is evil and wants to kick puppies!” She frowned extra hard to make her point and even crossed her arms.
Everyone was silent, waiting.
“Uh, I hate Katara?” Zuko volunteered, when he realized what everyone was waiting for.
Sokka smacked his forehead.
Katara and Zuko shared a grin.
“Oh no no no no no no,” Sokka said, gesturing between the two of them. “I saw that! You’re friends! Goddamnit! It’s too late!”
“There, there,” Aang said, patting Sokka’s shoulder absentmindedly, not looking very sorry at all.
“Well,” Toph said, after a brief silence. “This whole adventure has turned out to be staggeringly dull. Sokka?”
“Oh, uh,” Sokka said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, after a weird pause, “you guys should come back to the fire with us. And when I say fire --”
“ -- he means burnt pile of logs,” Toph finished. “Come on, Princling. Your unique skill set is needed.”
She didn’t want for a response, just reached out her arm backwards to grab the edge of Zuko’s shirt, dragging him behind her to what was left of their fireplace.
Katara doesn’t point out that Aang is a trained firebender, like she would’ve a few days ago. She gets that Toph and Sokka are trying to include Aang in their group and -- for once, she thinks that maybe they’ve had the right idea all along.
“Yeah, Zuko,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They rejoin the group and even if this is going to be one of the last times they have to relax as a group before Sozin’s Comet, Katara’s glad Zuko is there for it.