Chapter Text
When there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son?
These changes ain't changing me
The cold-hearted boy I used to beAll These Things That I've Done by The Killers
Act 1: The Bounty Hunter
Chapter 2: Nowhere Else to Run
Just over a week after his first encounter with the Avatar, Zuko wore his mask and his swords to a shady bar just outside Omashu and sat down right next to a potential ally. Of course, his hope for her to become his ally diminished substantially when she reacted to his arrival by stabbing a knife into the bar between his fingers. “What do you want?” she snarled at him.
“Back off, June,” Blue replied tersely. “I’m here to negotiate.”
June leaned back in her barstool, scowling skeptically at him. “How much are you offering?”
“Not ‘how much,’ but ‘what.’” Before she could question him again, Zuko pulled the cloth he’d cut from Aang’s tunic and placed it on the table. “This belongs to the Avatar.”
June’s jaw dropped. “Damn, Blue, you work fast.”
It was more a case of being in the right place at the right time, but she didn’t need to know that. “It would be a lot easier with your help, and more specifically, Nyla’s. At the same time, you don’t have any way of tracking him without my help either. We may as well work together and split the reward.”
“Hmm. Or, I could kill you, take the cloth, and find and capture him myself.”
“Could you?”
Zuko watched in silence as she eyed him warily. After a few seconds, her gaze widened minutely, and she sniffed the air. “Damn it. Perfume.”
“You really think I’d come without it?” Zuko laughed at her. “I would rather not get in a fight with your shirshu. I’m more attached to my life than I am to my masculinity.”
“Always did like that about you,” June purred. “Fine, then. When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Let me arrange for a weeks’ safe keeping for my ostrich horse tomorrow morning and we’ll meet back here to begin our search for the Avatar.”
Their first stop was Omashu. Zuko was worried they’d have to go hunting the Avatar through the city, which would be difficult since the Earth Kingdom guards wouldn’t give him up without a fight. However, June's shirshu Nyla caught Aang’s scent leaving Omashu, too, so they followed it from Omashu to a mining village just outside of a military fortress, which was possibly even worse. Zuko and June left Nyla tied up somewhere and made their way to the outskirts of the village. As a villager wandered too close to them, they came at him from either side and pinned him to a tree. “Seen the Avatar lately?” June inquired sweetly.
“N-N-N – “ The villager swallowed harshly and looked down. “…Yes. He passed through here a few days ago with a Kyoshi Warrior named Suki.”
June cursed. “Damn it, one of them.” She exchanged glances with Zuko. “That complicates things.”
Zuko focused on the villager. “Did they say where they were going next?” The man shook his head vigorously, and Zuko yanked him forward before slamming him against the tree again while drawing his sword. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes!” the villager cried. “Please, I swear I’m telling you the truth, I have no idea where they were going! I didn’t even speak to them! The two of them freed our Earthbenders from the Fire Nation soldiers who were using them for slave labor. That’s all I know! Really, it is!”
“This guy’s a coward,” June muttered. “If he knew more than that, he’d tell us.”
Zuko scowled and released the villager, letting him scramble back to the village. “Let’s get out of here before he tells anyone.”
They got back onto Nyla and followed the Avatar’s scent through a forest that had been burned down to a bordering town. “I’ve got an idea,” Blue declared as they left Nyla tied up somewhere again.
June waited a few seconds, then glared at him. “Well? You gonna share with the class?”
“Just follow my lead.”
Zuko strode off to the town, ignoring June’s griping as she begrudgingly plodded after him. The villagers looked at him in alarm as he approached the village leader. “Have you seen a teenage girl from Kyoshi Island with short brown hair, about this tall?” he demanded urgently, raising his hand to Suki’s height.
The leader took in Zuko’s appearance and his expression darkened. “Yes. Why?”
“She’s wanted back on Kyoshi,” Blue explained. “She defected from the Kyoshi Warriors. The leader of her village informed me that she deceived the Avatar into traveling with her and hired me to catch her and bring her to justice.”
“I see,” the village leader said gravely. “I had no idea. She and the Avatar were here earlier today, but I’m afraid they are long gone now – they left for Crescent Island.”
Zuko stared at him in disbelief. His target had wandered right into the Fire Nation. On the one hand, if he could catch the Avatar on Crescent Island, it would save him the trouble of transporting him there safely. On the other hand, without his mask on, Zuko absolutely could not enter the Fire Nation. He didn’t want to know what the Fire Lord would do to him if he did. He glanced at June on his side. The Blue Spirit could not be deterred from his prey by enemy borders. Zuko would just have to not get caught. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll make sure the Avatar gets away from the Warrior safely, don’t worry.”
Zuko and June left the town and returned to Nyla. “What now?” June asked.
“I have a boat back at Gaoling, but by the time we got there and then to Crescent Island, I’m sure the Avatar and his escort would be long gone.” Zuko growled in frustration. “Do you have any nearby contacts in the Fire Nation? Someone who could get us a ride there?”
“No one nearby owes me that badly.” June rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “But…. I know someone who could get us the Fire Nation patrol schedule….”
Zuko’s stomach dropped. “And then we just have to smuggle ourselves onto a ship and smuggle ourselves off of it.”
“Exactly.” She flashed him a daring smirk. “Scared?”
“Not a chance,” he bluffed smoothly. “Just wondering if you can keep up.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “I can take care of myself, Blue. You worry about you.”
They rode Nyla to another shady bar, where June left him to watch her, went inside, and returned with the information they needed. From there, they went to the nearest harbor, where a war ship bound for Crescent Island was parked as its crew gathered supplies. “You wanna take your mask off, maybe, and draw a little less attention?”
Zuko chuckled darkly. “You’ve never seen my face. Trust me, I’ll draw more attention without the mask.”
June gave him a strange look and shrugged. “If you say so. I hope you’ve got a plan. I’ll meet you on board.” With that, she sashayed towards a Fire Nation soldier.
Zuko glared at her as she left. Somehow she always rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn’t wait to be done working with her, but for now, he had to focus on the current objective; finding the Avatar. To do that, he first had to find a way onto that boat. Luckily for him, he was intimately aware of how those ships worked. It wouldn’t be the first time his origins were an ace up his sleeve instead of a curse. If he could get his hands on some blasting jelly, he knew exactly where to use just a little bit of it to blow the right size hole in the ship where no one was likely to notice it. It’d make quite a noise though. He’d have to do it while no one was on the ship – so he’d have to do it before they returned to the ship, which could be anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour away. He’d have to hurry. And though he would never tell her so, June was right; if he could avoid letting the Fire Nation know that the Blue Spirit was in the area, he really, really should.
He went to a secluded part of the dock and settled on the edge of the dock. He would make too much noise splashing around in the water if he tried to hang onto the dock and slide along the edge, so he’d have to press himself to the bottom of the dock instead, staying above water. He took off his shoes, pulled two hiltless daggers out of a small sheath not dissimilar to the one he kept his favorite knife in (a memento from his late uncle), and then he put a dagger into each shoe, pushing the blade through the heel so that it stuck out just a bit. He carefully put his shoes back on, his heels pressing down on the backs of the daggers, and braced himself. Agni, he hated this part. He slowly lowered himself into the water, adjusting the way his hands gripped the dock so that his arms were over his head. Then he swung back and kicked the daggers in his shoes into the bottom of the dock, steadying himself and holding himself in the air just inches above the water. He inched sideways until he heard a familiar voice, and then he pulled himself back onto the dock, right behind his favorite vendor. He let himself in through the back. “Hey, Oh,” he greeted the green-clad pirate manning the store.
Oh grinned sharply at him. “Blue! So good of you to stop by. I suppose it’s too much to ask that you come in through the front, and, I don’t know, dry.” He gestured to Zuko’s sopping clothes.
“You know I don’t like the Fire Nation,” Blue replied mildly. Most of his recurring associates did know that. It wasn’t uncommon enough to be dangerous knowledge; almost everyone who wasn’t Fire Nation would rather avoid them whether they were wanted or not.
“Fair enough,” Oh conceded. “What are you here for today?”
“The usual.” Zuko had found blasting jelly to be a near-necessity for him in order to maintain the guise of not being Fire Nation himself. Hiding his bending all the time was exhausting.
Oh ducked behind his counter and retrieved a large jar of blasting jelly. “How much?”
“Twenty-five grams.”
“Aw, that little? Fine. Five silver.”
“Five - ?”
“But!" Oh inched backwards, eyes trained on Zuko's swords though his smile didn't falter. "For my favorite customer, three.”
“Fine.”
Moments later, Zuko clung to the underside of the dock at a safe distance from the warship, most of the blasting jelly spread over a roughly Zuko-sized space on said ship while the leftovers were tucked away on Zuko's person. Then he proceeded to set it off from afar with his firebending. The explosion, as predicted, was loud enough to echo in the ship but not loud enough to be heard by those shopping.
Once he reached the ship, Zuko slipped inside the cargo bay, where they normally kept only cargo and didn’t set foot inside until the end of a trip. Unfortunately, he’d made a minor miscalculation. Very minor. It was just that this ship seemed to have been renovated some time within the past three years, and his initial plan of staying in the cargo bay until they reached shore and leaving the same way he’d come in wouldn’t exactly work anymore, because he was in someone’s bedroom.
He had to act fast. Zuko turned the door handle, tugged it open a crack, and pressed himself to the wall behind it. When no one came to investigate the opened door, he darted into the hallway and towards what he dearly hoped would still be the bridge. To his relief, it was. He lightly closed the door, pushed as much furniture as he could against it, and went for the steering wheel. I hope June’s aboard, because this ship is sailing. He felt bad that he might be inadvertently leaving her behind, but bounty hunters didn’t go out of their way for each other, even during an alliance. She certainly wouldn’t have even remotely inconvenienced herself for him, and she was level-headed enough that he doubted she’d hold it against him if he treated her the same way.
Still, he was relieved when he heard someone push against the door, followed by her shouting irritably, “Hey, Blue, it’s me!” Zuko let go of the steering wheel to let her in. She whistled as she entered, striding leisurely enough that he assumed she’d already checked the ship for stray soldiers, which was another relief. “I gotta say, I’ve never hijacked a Fire Nation war ship before. Working with you is always a unique, if stressful and aggravating, experience.” Zuko didn’t know whether to interpret that as a compliment or an insult, so he ignored the comment completely. “You know the way to Crescent Island?”
“Yes,” Blue bit out.
“Okay, okay! Sheesh, no need to bite my head off. I’ve never even heard of Crescent Island, so I wasn’t sure if you’d – “
“Stop. Talking.” Zuko hesitated, then ground out, “Please,” through gritted teeth.
June huffed and threw herself into a chair so violently it skidded across the floor and slammed into the wall. “Well, since you asked nicely.”
They spent the rest of the trip in blissful if mildly uncomfortable silence. Soon enough, they were nearing Crescent Island. “I’m positive he’s going to Avatar Roku’s temple,” Blue announced. “He’s probably going to try and get in touch with his past life. To what end, I can’t say, but it’s the most logical conclusion.”
June rolled her eyes. “You actually believe all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo?”
Zuko sighed heavily. “I’m not interested in arguing with you over this. Agree to disagree. The point is, I’m sure he does, whether you do or not. He’s the Avatar, and more importantly, he’s an Air Nomad. Before the genocide, Air Nomads were well-known for their faith in the spiritual aspects of life.”
“Why do you know all this?” June demanded.
My honor hinges on me knowing all this. “It doesn’t matter. What, do you think I’m lying to you?”
June slammed her fist down on a nearby surface. “Why are you so damn defensive? I was just making conversation! God, I hate working with you.”
“The feeling is mutual, I assure you.” Not a moment too soon, they reached the island. “This way.” Zuko headed for the door and gestured for her to follow him with a jerk of his head. “There’s a hole in one of the bedrooms. That’s how I got on board, and that’s how we’ll get off-board.” They made their way to the bedroom and slid through the hole into the water, which was just below them. Then they swam to shore.
“Since you know so much about this place, I assume you know where this temple is?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
Zuko had settled the boat as close to the temple as he could, so they had only half an hour at the most of walking time before they reached the entrance to the temple. “Is there a more discreet way into this place?” June looked around dubiously.
“Not that I know of,” Blue revealed reluctantly. “We’ll have to enter the normal way and hope for the best.”
June’s eyes landed on something behind him and widened in alarm.
Zuko groaned. “Don’t tell me. Company.”
“Right on the money, Blue. War ship incoming, like, fast. We gotta get the Avatar and bolt.”
Zuko cursed. “Run.”
They dashed into the temple, forgetting about secrecy – if Fire Nation soldiers caught them intruding on sacred ground, the results would be none too pleasant. As they ran up staircase after staircase to reach the top, Zuko ran headfirst into a bright green someone running in the opposite direction. He caught her mouth with his upper arm, and they tumbled to the ground in a heap. When he composed himself, he realized he was looking directly at one of the people he least wanted to be within arm’s reach of – Suki, the Kyoshi Warrior. “You!” she snapped at him.
“Blue!” Aang exclaimed, and then did a double take. “Wait, you two know each other?”
“Unfortunately,” Zuko growled.
“Yeah, no kidding! You stabbed me in the foot!”
“You threw a torch at me!”
“You were intruding on sacred ground!”
“How was I supposed to know that?!”
“Well, maybe if you weren’t sneaking around in the middle of the night like some kind of Fire Nation spy – “
“Enough!” June shouted, taking Aang by the back of his shirt and lifting him to his toes. “We’re all intruders on ‘sacred ground’ now and I’m not sticking around to see what Fire Nation soldiers do to those!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a shirshu spit dart. Before she could jab Aang with it, however, a blast of firebending knocked it out of her hand.
Suki jumped to her feet and readied herself in a warrior’s stance, as did Zuko. A Fire Sage faced them, narrowing his eyes determinedly. “You will not take the Avatar!” he declared.
“Are you helping us?” Suki asked in shock.
“Isn’t this treason or something?” June pointed out, maintaining her grip on Aang’s shirt.
“The Fire Sages are supposed to serve the Avatar, not the Fire Lord. Even if my brothers have forgotten that, I have not. My name is Shyu, and I will assist the Avatar and any ally of his in any way that I can.”
“Great!” Aang chirped. “I really need to find Avatar Roku, can you tell me where he is?”
“Enough talking.” Zuko drew his broadswords. “The Avatar is coming with us.”
Suki charged at him with her fans. Before she could reach him, however, Zuko heard a distant but hauntingly familiar call. “Search the temple! Do not let the Avatar escape again!”
“Zhao,” Zuko and Suki hissed at the same time.
“Uh, who?” June asked.
“He’s the commander who nearly burnt down my village until Aang showed up,” Suki explained. “He’s been chasing us since then.” She glared at Zuko. “How do you know him, anyway?”
“That’s none of your business,” Zuko snapped icily. “In any case, I’m getting out of here. We all need to get out of here. I don’t know why you came, but it can’t possibly be important enough for you to risk getting caught by Zhao.”
“I have to talk to Avatar Roku!” Aang protested. “Why does no one understand this? If one of my past lives is showing me a vision about a comet, I think that’s pretty important!”
“…A comet?” Zuko paled.
Aang nodded vigorously. “Yeah, a comet! Do you know what that’s about?”
Zuko shook his head. “No. The only comet I know about is Sozin’s Comet. That’s what happened the day Fire Lord Sozin – “ Zuko swallowed. The day Fire Lord Sozin killed everyone you ever knew.
“It doesn’t matter!” June snapped. “We don’t have time for a history lesson!”
“I have to hear what Avatar Roku has to say!” Aang insisted.
“Then stay here! The bounty isn’t worth this.” June threw her arms in the air and started to leave, but she stopped to stare in disbelief at Zuko, who was stationary. “Blue. Don’t you dare – “
“Do you know how to steer a boat?” he asked quietly. “Do you know the way back from here?”
“Damn it, Blue!” June snarled at him. “Fine. Fine! I guess I’m staying to help you bunch of dumbasses too.”
“I don’t understand,” Suki interjected.
“Well, no surprise there,” Zuko sneered.
“Excuse me?”
“We don’t have time for this!” Aang implored them. “If you two are helping, then help. Shyu, how do I get to Avatar Roku?”
“This way!” Shyu shifted a light on the wall and pressed his palm to where it had been. He closed in eyes, concentrating, and Zuko felt heat radiating from his hand even from a distance as a secret passage opened. “Come on!” he urged them, dashing into the passage. Suki and Aang ran after him. Zuko and June exchanged glances before following.
Naturally, Suki could not stop griping at him even long enough to run for their lives. “I can’t believe you,” she fumed.
“What did I do now?!”
“I mean, I never thought you were a good guy, but this is pretty low, even for you! Hunting down the world’s last hope just for money?”
“What do you mean, for money?” Aang asked, bewildered. Zuko glared at his back. He knew where this was going.
“He’s a bounty hunter, Aang,” Suki explained patiently. “Right now, you’re the bounty. If he brings you to the Fire Lord, he probably gets enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his godforsaken life and then some, even if he splits it with the other one.”
“My name is June,” June snapped, but she was ignored.
“Suki, that's not it at all! Blue has to capture me so he can go home to his family!”
“What are you talking about?” Suki sounded genuinely confused now.
“When Blue had me tied up on his boat, he told me that his father would only let him come home if he caught me first,” Aang elaborated cluelessly.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Suki shook her head. “It was a trick, Aang, he just wanted you to let your guard down.”
“Why would he need your guard down, though?” June pointed out mildly. Zuko shot her a look of betrayal. He couldn’t believe all three of them were gossiping about him right in front of him. “I mean, you said he had you tied up, right? So then why would he need your guard down?”
“What difference does it make?!” Zuko demanded, stopping to face her. “No matter why I’m hunting you, Zhao is in this temple with us right now and I swear to Agni I am not getting captured by him and neither is the Avatar! So keep running, damn it!”
Suki jolted back into action, and the five of them reached a large, complicated door soon. “No!” Shyu cried in despair. “This is awful! They closed the door.”
“So? Just open it,” June hissed.
“I can’t just open it. Only a fully-realized Avatar can open it. Otherwise, all five sages have to be here to open it with five simultaneous blasts of firebending.”
“Blasts,” Zuko muttered pensively. “Blasts – blasting jelly!” He reached into his satchel and retrieved the diminutive container of small but potentially powerful clumps of jelly.
June cackled. “Blue, you’re a genius.”
Zuko spread the jelly in each of the five slots, and then he, Suki, Aang, and June backed away behind some pillars while Shyu used his firebending across the five slots. The room shook with the force of the combined explosion, and when the smoke cleared, the door was wide open.
“Yes!” Aang cheered. “Thanks, Blue! You’re the best!”
“Hurry up and talk to Roku,” Zuko grumbled.
Aang nodded and darted into the room. Shyu closed the doors behind him.
“Oh, great,” Suki groaned. “I’m stuck in a room with you until he’s done.”
“If anyone should be complaining here, it’s me,” Zuko complained. “You’re the one who nearly killed me.”
“Please,” Suki scoffed. “All it would have done was burn your face a little.”
“Yeah, I'm really sorry that I don’t want my face burned again!” Zuko exclaimed incredulously. “What a crazy thing to try and avoid! So sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
“Ooh, again?” June echoed, interest evidently piqued. Zuko cursed himself. “So that’s what you were saying earlier, about your actual face being more distracting than the mask! You’ve got some kind of nasty burn on your face, is that it?”
“Wait.” Suki scowled. “A burn on your face…? No, it can’t be.” Zuko stilled as Suki came dangerously close to a realization he would rather her not make.
“What is it?” June leaned forward curiously.
“There was a visitor on Kyoshi Island,” Suki recalled slowly. “A teenager around my age. He had a burn covering the left side of his face. He approached me in the marketplace when I was watching Aang to tell me about a crime going on nearby.” She squinted at Zuko. “That would be awfully convenient, but there’s no way you’re that young. Are you?”
“What do you want me to say?” Zuko said exasperatedly. “I could tell you I’m twenty years old and have never set foot in the Kyoshi Island marketplace, but I doubt you’d just take my word for it, so what’s the point?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t make a difference,” Suki decided venomously. “You’re reprehensible either way. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how far you went to catch Aang. The fact that you would try at all, when he’s the only person who can defeat the Fire Lord, end the war, and restore harmony, is unforgiveable.”
“Thankfully, I don’t need your forgiveness, little girl,” Zuko sneered at her.
As Suki puffed up her chest, likely about to tell him exactly what she thought of his response, Shyu hissed, “Shh! I hear footsteps!”
Suki grabbed Zuko’s arm and yanked him behind a column. His heart pounded. He could not be caught by Zhao – not now, when he was so very close to fulfilling his father’s last request. And he wasn’t letting Zhao get his slimy hands on the Avatar either, for both his sake and Aang’s. He didn’t want to imagine how Zhao would treat him.
“Can you swim?” he hissed to Suki.
She opened her mouth, then closed it and nodded wordlessly, watching him with thoughtful, calculating eyes.
He turned to the column on their right, behind which June and Shyu hid. “Can you two swim?”
They both nodded.
Zuko took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay….” He pulled the rope meant for the Avatar out of his satchel. “A fall from this height could do serious damage, even landing in water. If I tie one end of this rope around your wrist and one end around June’s wrist, if you two go on either side of a column and each go out one of those windows, the column can probably hold your combined weight…. That would cut the height down a bit…. Shyu, you and I could climb down one side each…. I don’t know if the rope is that strong, though….”
“I will stay here,” Shyu volunteered. “I will help the Avatar escape once he’s finished communicating with Avatar Roku, and then I will face the consequences for my actions.”
“Thank you, Shyu.” Suki bowed solemnly. “We will not waste this sacrifice.”
All too aware of the rapidly dwindling seconds between them and their capture at Zhao’s hands, Zuko hurriedly tied the the rope to both girls’ wrist. Suki walked around the column so that the rope was wrapped loosely around it. Then Shyu firebended at the window, and Suki and June leapt through. Zuko waited a few seconds, and then, once he saw the rope go taut as Suki and June reached the full extent of its length, he leapt through the window.
Grimacing, he used the daggers in his heels to scrape along the building and slow his descent. These are going to be blunt after this. I hope I can afford replacements. He caught Suki’s rope with his right hand, hissing as he felt the friction do serious damage to his palm. Suki reached out and grasped his left hand, steadying him. The rope started lowering them thanks to their combined weight. He got a better grip on the rope and, as June was raised almost back to the window, cut through the rope between him and Suki, sending her diving into the water below and him flying back up.
As he’d hoped, the weight change caused a see-saw effect; he was raised disproportionately high, and at his peak, was several yards higher than June despite probably weighing at least as much as her if not substantially more. Before gravity could correct the situation, he let go. June squeaked in alarm - do not forget to make fun of her for that later, Blue - and Zuko used his shoe-daggers to slow himself down, an advantage June didn’t have.
“Spread out!” June shouted. It took Zuko a second to understand what she meant; her arms and legs were spread, leaving her body horizontal.
Zuko took the instructions at face value, leaning back and stretching his limbs in opposite directions. But because he was facing the wrong way, and was falling just slightly ahead of June, he was completely unprepared for the water slamming painfully against his back as he was submerged in the ocean. He panicked immediately, instinctively drawing breath and choking on the water. Water poured into his lungs, triggering the instinct to draw breath, but more water was drawn instead. Struggling against the urge to flail, Zuko cracked his eyes open to see the surface much farther than it should have been -
The next thing he knew, he was vomiting water onto safe, steady land. “You can’t swim?!” someone shrieked at him. Wiping water from his chin, he looked up to see a blurry Kyoshi Warrior glaring at him in disbelief.
“Can,” he muttered blearily. “Jus’ bad at it.”
“Blue, I can’t decide if you’re a badass or a dumbass,” June told him gleefully. “Or should I call you…, Red?” She dangled something in front of him. Zuko blanched. It was his mask.
“You are that kid from the marketplace!” Suki accused.
“’M not a kid,” Zuko snapped, lunging for his mask and tumbling back to the ground when June stepped to the side. His reflexes must still be a little off from the near-death experience.
Suki actually outright laughed at him. “You can’t be more than a year older than me!”
“I’m twenty,” Zuko asserted.
Now June laughed at him. “Twenty? I’m twenty. You’re, like, ten.”
Zuko sighed heavily. “I’m sixteen.”
June whistled. “Damn. Where’d you learn to fight so well at sixteen? I’ve seen you wielding those swords.”
“Rich family,” Zuko muttered defeatedly. “And lots of practice.”
“What were you doing as a bounty hunter at fourteen?” Suki questioned surprisingly mildly.
Zuko resisted the urge to firebend her back into the ocean. “My mom’s dead, my dad’s an asshole, my uncle killed himself, and my sister’s a psychopath,” he snarled, counting off his fingers as he listed each relative. “What were you doing as a Kyoshi Warrior at fourteen?”
“Thirteen,” Suki corrected quietly. “My parents went to war. I wanted to carry my own weight in the village. I’m a fast learner.”
“Great. Now that the heart-to-heart is over, can I have my damn mask back please?” Suki looked genuinely hurt by his flippancy, enough so that Zuko almost felt bad about it, but then again, how was he supposed to know that the Kyoshi Warrior protecting the Avatar would be emotionally impacted by the opinions of the bounty hunter doggedly impeding her? He held his hand out to June, who reluctantly gave him back his mask. He immediately put it back into place on his face.
“So you, what, ran away from home?” June asked, because apparently she was physically incapable of restraining her incessant nosiness.
“What is this, an interrogation?!” Zuko demanded hostilely. “My personal life is not for you to know! End of story!”
“Geez!” June held up her hands innocently. “You really need to chill.” She grinned wickedly, gesturing to the left side of her face. “Get it? Chill? Because of the burn on your face?”
Zuko stared at her in disbelief.
Suki snickered.
It was very lucky for Suki and June that that was when Aang chose to drop from the sky, because he was very, very close to murdering them both on principle. “Hey guys - what’s up - sorry - don’t have time to talk because if I stop you’ll probably kidnap me - Suki hang on tight - nice seeing you!” he shouted cheerfully as he swooped by on his glider, holding out an arm which Suki grabbed onto as he passed.
June sighed. “Still got that cloth, Blue?”
Zuko scowled. “Of course.”