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It’s always the nightmares.
When they get worse, he gets worse. It’s predictable to a fault. Just as the moon waxes and wanes and the tides push in and out, the nightmares come, and Zuko spirals.
What he can’t figure out, this time, is what sets him off. He’s relatively safe on Ember Island, eating fairly well, no one’s tried to kill him in a while. It isn’t the anniversary- that had been months ago, with Uncle still next to him, happy, safe. Protecting him.
Maybe it’s that he gets a slight sunburn one day, careless on the sand with Aang meditating next to him, and the burning on his cheek is enough to plant the seed. The stress waters it; they’re only weeks out from the comet, and Aang- he’s working hard, but Zuko knows his father. Perfection isn’t even enough. He knows he’s not sleeping, and that doesn’t help, but the last time he slept through the night was back in Ba Sing Se, with Uncle- don’t think about it.
What he is sure of is that Aang harvests it, too.
It’s raining; not hard enough that Aang can beg off morning practice- that would take an act of a spirit- but just enough that Zuko acquiesces to practicing under the pavilion instead of in the courtyard. Katara and Toph are sitting on the side and watching. Toph had promised to be quiet, but she’s been jeering and shouting every time Aang slips up- at least, she had, till Zuko yelled at her. They’ve finished their katas, and Zuko has goaded Aang into sparring. The Avatar is happy to meditate until his stomach grumbles, but fighting fire with fire makes him antsy as hell.
Zuko gets it.
He also gets that there can be no room for fear when he fights his- when he fights Ozai. So he forces him to fight, and Aang begrudgingly gives in.
He’s improved, Zuko thinks, as he’s forced to duck under a wave of flames exiting Aang’s foot. He hears Toph whoop and resists the urge to roll his eyes as he jumps back to his feet and punches out in quick precision to make Aang practice putting up his blocks. But Aang’s grinning now, and he laughs triumphant as he gets too close for Zuko to attack properly and sweeps his legs out from under him. Zuko hits the pavement with a hard thump, and all the air in his lungs is forced out.
Firebending is controlled by the breath.
Aang is grinning toothily as he leaps over Zuko, and
His fist is on fire.
Red-hot.
A branding heading towards his- his
face.
The cool stone of the ceremonial chambers doesn’t quell the heated panic rising in his chest like bile, and Zuko can only force out a broken “NO!” before he throws his arms over his face and prays to a god that has never done anything but forsake him for mercy.
The blow doesn’t come. Zuko can almost hear Azula groaning with disappointment, and he can’t force himself to look up and find his father’s face above him, stone-set in cold, calculated fury that can only mean one thing.
“Zuko?”
A voice, hesitant, high and childish. Zuko doesn’t lower his hands. If Ty-Lee and Mai know what’s good for them, they’ll stay silent.
“Zuko, are you okay?”
That jars him enough that Zuko forces his eyes open and finds the wide-eyed face of the Avatar right above him.
Zuko is suddenly, painfully, aware that tears are dripping off the side of his face onto the stone floor of the pavilion, and that Katara is a step away, hand reached out, and that Toph is standing next to her with her feet spread out and fully grounded, arms crossed tight.
“Get off of him, Aang,” Toph says quietly.
“But-”
“Now.”
The weight on his chest disappears, and it takes all Zuko has to not throw up.
Well, he tries.
His breakfast appears again over the side of the the walkway, and he can feel sweat blooming on his neck, tears pricking at his eyes, his scarred skin pulling tight over his cheekbone like it isn’t quite healed like it’s still infected like it’s screaming at him to pull it off, take it off, please-
“Zuko-” Someone comes at him from his bad side- he can’t hear, he can’t- he can’t see- and Zuko barely realizes it’s Katara before flames appear on his fist. He can’t- his breathing won’t calm down, he can’t hear over the hammering of his heart in his ears, and his face- it hurts.
She stumbles back in shock, like he’s burned her, and Zuko can only look at her face, contorted in fear and confusion and pity for a millisecond before he’s had enough.
Zuko runs.
“What- what just happened?” Aang asks. There’s a little wobble in his voice. Toph doesn’t even try to address it. Zuko’s heart, usually beating a good deal faster than everyone else’s on a good day, had ratcheted up to insane levels the minute she felt his body hit the floor.
She has suspicions. But she needs them confirmed.
“His heart went crazy.” She announces to Aang and Katara. “Like, balls-to-the-walls, heart attack, crazy. Can one of you tell me what just happened?”
“We, uh, were sparring?” Aang offers. He’s obviously shaken by the whole thing, but Zuko’s already gotten nearly far enough away that she can’t track his heartbeat, so Toph’s gotta prioritize.
“Yeah, got that part, dumbass, what made the whole-” Toph draws circles by her ear. “-happen?”
“I, uh, tripped him up, and, I guess I had flames on my hand, and he started acting really weird,” Aang stutters.
Oh, spirits.
And the way Aang was saying it- it’s like he doesn't know. It’s like he doesn't realize. Toph stills for a second. Maybe he doesn't.
“How close were you?” She asks.
“I don’t know, a few feet from his face?”
Yup, there it is. No fucking wonder his heart was going insane.
“So, to put this together,” Toph says in a highly-measured tone that she didn’t know she even had the capacity for. “You were sparring, you had Zuko on the ground, and you held flames close to his, you know, scarred face?”
Aang is silent, and Toph hears his heartbeat speed up. He’s starting to put it together, and he's starting to realize what he did.
“But, I mean, it’s a burn, it was probably a training accident?” Katara says hesitantly, like she’s trying to convince herself.
“Firebenders don’t burn easy.” Toph says bluntly. Katara cannot still be this naive. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“But- but he’s the Prince-”
“So who could have done that to a prince?” Toph asks.
Ah, and there goes Katara’s heartbeat.
“He acted really weird when I came up to him, though. He really startled.” Katara says, defensive. “He almost firebended at me.”
“What side did you come up to him on?” Toph asks patiently, like she’s talking to a young child.
“His scarred side, I guess,” Katara says.
Toph doesn’t even feel bad when she bites out,
“He’s practically deaf and blind on that side, Katara, seriously?”
The silence that falls over the pavilion is deafening. Oh, spirits. Toph knew they were dumb , but did they really think a burn like that- she’s felt it once before, rough, marred skin stretching from his nose to just beyond his malformed ear- would have no affect on him other than cosmetic? When Katara doesn’t respond, Toph gives up and stomps off to where she last heard Zuko’s heartbeat, ignoring Aang’s shouts of apology behind her.
The rain hasn’t let up.
It’s fine, really. Zuko’s huddled in a small cave by the shore, knees hugged to his chest, and at least the rain is giving him some cover. There’s no way anyone can hear how pathetically long it takes him to drag his breath back under control and stop his fucking crying.
It wasn’t even Aang’s fault. Zuko had never told them. He assumed they knew, really- who didn’t know? Ozai had done a wonderful job spreading tale after tale of his useless son’s disrespect, how it had gotten him branded for life. The misinformation had made its way to nearly every corner of the world by the time Zuko had recovered enough to start getting off at ports. Fire Nation soldiers saw his face and knew he had fallen out of favor, not only with the Fire Lord, but with Agni. How was Zuko supposed to know that somehow the fucking Avatar had missed out on the hottest piece of court gossip in years?
The kid wasn’t close to him, hadn’t been raised and poised to strike. He had just been sparring. How Zuko had made him. Because he hadn’t wanted to. Because he was twelve and a pacifist and being forced to fight in a war that none of them should have to deal with, because Zuko might be a man, but the rest of them are kids, and Zuko would scream with how unfair it all is, but any childish idea that there was fairness to be had in this world was burned out of him a long time ago.
So he sits with his back to the cool stone and stares at the rain returning to the ocean, one small drop at a time, and tries to just, not think.
“Zuko.”
Zuko startles about a foot off the ground, and is in a defensive stance before he actually looks up. Toph is leaning against the entrance to the cave, arms crossed, absolutely soaked.
“Relax, it’s just me.” She says, and then comes in and flops down next to him.
“I am relaxed.” He says, and his voice creaks, because he hasn’t spoken in several hours.
“Sure you are,” Toph says. She shakes out her hair like a dog and Zuko ends up with a face-full of icy water. “Spirits, you were a pain to find. Can you start a fire? I’m freezing.”
Zuko wipes off his face and flicks it back at her, but complies, rolling his eyes. He finds some dried leaves and sticks at the back of the small cave and soon enough, there’s a small fire roaring on the ground. Toph leans back on the wall, crossing her ankles like she plans to stay a while, and Zuko has a healthy fear of her, so he doesn’t question it.
It’s nice. Toph doesn’t feel the need to fill up silence with endless chatter like Aang or Sokka, and doesn’t alternate between mothering him and shooting him withering looks like he personally is responsible for everything wrong with the world like Katara. They just sit, and they breathe.
Zuko doesn’t even realize that he’s meditating until the fire begins pulsing with his breaths, rising higher as he inhales deep, trying to quell the last tremors in his fingers, and falling lower as he forces the breath out of his lungs.
“Huh,” Toph says contemplatively. “That’s the lowest I’ve heard your heart beat since, like, I’ve met you.”
Zuko realizes with a start that she’s right. He’s gotten so used to his heart desperately hammering out of control practically every hour of the day that the distressed beat had almost fallen into the background. But it’s quiet now, beating in time to his slow, deliberate breaths, and Zuko realizes that the silence is so loud.
“I guess,” He says slow, and clears his throat. “I guess I haven’t been meditating enough.”
Toph shrugs and puts her hand to the ground, pulling up intricate stone statues and slamming them back down to dust just as fast.
“Earthbenders don’t need to meditate.” She says. Zuko snorts.
“Earth can’t blow out of control and destroy everything in its path.”
“Fair.” Toph says, and pulls up a mind-bendingly detailed Appa replicate. Zuko’s about to ask her to keep that one when she shoves it back down to the earth.
“You don’t have to tell them, you know,” Toph says. Her tone is strange, and Zuko can’t quite place it.
“Tell them.” He repeats flatly, but his face has already started to burn again, and he’s itching to just- pull his skin off.
“It could help them, like, get you, but like I said, you don’t have to. It’s none of their business, just yours.”
“And yours, apparently,” He snaps and waits for Toph to rise to the bait. She doesn’t. Earth is strong, unyielding. Earth is stubborn, and Zuko’s temper is white-hot and blinding, but it’s a flash in the pan and gone as quick as it came. He takes a deep breath and straightens his back again.
“Zuko, most of the Earth kingdom knows.” She says softly. It’s not an indictment or a gleeful accusation that she knows of his failure, of the source of most of his nightmares. It’s quiet, almost rueful.
His mouth has gone very dry, but Toph hasn’t moved from her position by his side, pulling art up, slamming it back down. The rain steadily patters on the roof of the cave, and the waves crash down on the shore and pull back.
“Great.” He says finally. “Glad you know.”
Toph stops for a second.
“What do you mean, you’re glad?” She says in that strange tone again.
“I’m glad the whole world is aware of my greatest failure-”
Toph stomps to her feet, and the whole cave shakes.
“Failure?” She repeats. The wall cracks. “The only failure that happened was Fire Lord Loser’s failure to be a human fucking being!” She stomps again, and stone rises and falls with her anger.
Zuko stays quiet. He knows how the world works. He knows not every father was- was like Ozai. But he also knows not every family was the Royal Family and direct descendants of Agni.
Toph collapses back on the ground.
“You- you were a kid, Zuko.” She chokes out, and doesn’t seem to realize that she’s younger than he was. Zuko slumps back until his head hits cool stone, and when he speaks, it’s like it’s coming from someone else’s mouth.
“I disrespected him in his war room.”
“It doesn’t MATTER!” Toph yells. Zuko can’t quite connect to what's happening in front of him- that he’s quiet and calm while someone else rages on his behalf. Besides his Uncle, no one had ever cared what had happened to him. It simply had, and Zuko had to deal with it by himself.
Toph slams her fist into the wall as thunder booms overhead.
“You didn’t deserve it.” She says. “You didn’t- you didn’t deserve it. You were a kid.”
The scar tightens and burns, and Zuko can only think of terrible fire, terrible, controlled fire, because Ozai had to control the fire to burn his child’s face with the precision that he did. He can only think of how he was hazily conscious, staring at the dark stone of the floor of the chambers, and realizing with growing horror that he can’t- he can’t hear, he can’t see out of his left eye. He thinks of Uncle’s arms around him, of an infection that left him bedridden for weeks. He thinks of the first time he saw his face, and cried so hard he could barely breathe, and cried more when his sobs pulled painfully at the wound.
He doesn’t realize he’s bent over, forehead nearly to the ground, until tiny arms encircle around his shoulders and hold tight.
“You didn’t deserve it.” Toph says firmly. “I got you. You didn’t deserve it.”
By the time they get back to the house, the sky has darkened around them and the rain has stopped. Someone’s built a fire in the pit. Katara seems to be handing out plates for dinner, Sokka and Suki are sitting on the steps, and Aang is staring into the fire with a mournful expression on his face. Zuko has only taken a few steps into the courtyard when something small and orange charges at him and accosts him around the waist.
“I’m sorry!” Aang wails. “Zuko, I’m so- I’m so sorry!”
Zuko carefully extricates his arms out from under the younger boy.
“It’s okay.” He says. “You couldn’t have known.”
Aang looks up and narrows his eyebrows.
“It’s not okay.” He insists. “What…” He trails off and looks down. “What happened?”
Zuko swallows and glances over at Toph, who gives him a firm nod. She’s right. He should tell them. It’s better they hear it from him than some rumor the next time they’re at the market.
“I-I want to tell you something.” he says unsteadily. He looks up and meets Katara’s eyes. “I want to tell all of you something.”
They sit around the fire, and Zuko is flanked by Aang and Toph. There’s a bowl of steaming soup in his lap, and he’s staring at the flames, matching them to his breaths and trying to keep his heart from exploding.
“I didn’t always have my scar.” He begins, and the words feel like ash in his mouth. Toph squeezes his arm.
“When I was thirteen years old, I begged my uncle to let me go into a war meeting with him…”
When he falls asleep that night, after tears have been shed and hugs forced on him, after four separate and weirdly-specific death threats have been made to the Fire Lord, after Aang clings onto him and apologizes repeatedly until Zuko literally puts a hand over his mouth and tells him to stop, after Toph tells them stories about Earth rumble to make them laugh, after they drag their mattresses together in the living room and settle down, the nightmares still come.
But when he wakes to the sharp pangs in his chest, he finds Aang shoved against his shoulder, snoring, and Toph using his other arm as a pillow, and somehow, his heart settles again without too much effort. So he sleeps, and he sleeps well.