Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a few months after the Fire Nation invasion attempt, while they were still in the North trying to finish Aang’s training and helping the city to recover, when everything very suddenly began to suck for Katara in a whole new way. 

She woke up one morning sweating and plagued by strange scents. People who had been perfectly tolerable the day before now stank like fish or mold or too-sweet flowers. But that was bearable. She could have held her breath or breathed through her mouth and gotten used to it. 

She couldn’t get used to the staring. All day, wherever she went, people - mostly men but a couple of women too - would see her, perhaps even smile and wave in recognition, but then do a sharp double-take and fix her with a hard stare. Like they were wolf-bats scenting a cat-rabbit. Katara carried on the same as before, stood tall and walked at the same steady speed. She spent training hitting the other students extra hard to drive them back, beyond some extended personal-space boundary that hadn’t been there yesterday. Only one of them gave her the look, but she had a weird feeling that they all needed to be driven back.

None of them were good enough.

Sokka was the first to finally say something. He came in after his day in training with the other warriors, smelling like his usual foul smells, but today he also had a particularly strong sock stink. He came through the apartment door, drew a breath to greet them, but just stared at Katara in horror instead. 

“Oh no.”

He had finished his patchy presentation last year, shortly after their run-in with Jet. Before that, Katara hadn’t known anything about alphas. Then, suddenly, her brother had bulked up a little and started being even more obnoxious. He played it all off as kind of a joke - “See? Clearly, I was meant to be the leader. You two beta normies can sit back and relax now because ole Sokka’s got it all under control.” After which they almost immediately had to save him from drowning in that storm.

For all Sokka’s jokes, though, it clearly stressed him out. He ended up in more conflicts with other alphas and seemed to draw attention more frequently. He’d been in at least three pretty nasty fights since they got to the North Pole. Sokka didn’t usually get in fights at all. And while a part of Katara wanted to chastise him for acting like a child, she didn’t, because she could see how hard he was struggling.

Yugoda had been such a blessing. She explained a great deal about alphas, including that they had to deal with unusually intense emotions, especially early in their presentation and, of course, should they encounter an omega.

“What’s an omega?” Katara had asked. But Yugoda only smiled and shook her head.

“Your chances of ever encountering one are terribly slim - even as much as you young people travel. There hasn’t been an omega presentation here in over twenty years. So there’s really no reason to worry about it.”

But now, a few months later, it seemed there very much was a reason to worry about it.

“You’re an omega?” Sokka shouted through his shirt where he had pulled it up over his nose. He pointed at her, a little wild-eyed. “Katara, as your big brother, I demand you stop right now and suck that weird girly smell back inside your eternally childlike body!”

Katara had thrown up her arms and argued with him for a time while Aang sat watching and occasionally chipping in, so calm and reasonable and reassuring and infuriating and self-righteous... 

The next day, she had gone to Yugoda and received a very different lesson.

“You must wash all of your clothes and bedding - wash it all very thoroughly. Most especially, the ribbon of your necklace. You might consider replacing the ribbon. Against your neck that way, for years, it will be heavily loaded with your scent. Maybe that wasn’t a problem before you presented, but now... Better to be safe.” 

She stood over her work table in the store room of the healing hut, tamping bitter-smelling herbs into a jar and avoiding eye-contact. Katara watched her with a doubtful moue, not liking the idea of trading out the ribbon that had touched her mother’s throat and deciding in advance that a wash would be perfectly sufficient...

“Scent is extremely provocative to alphas and you must do everything you can to avoid notice. Use this suppressant twice a day, every day,” Yugoda said, twisting the cap down hard and clacking the jar down on the edge of the table nearest Katara. She still didn’t look up, reaching down a different jar from a high shelf and measuring out more herbs into a paper packet. “Suppressing will not stop your presentation, but it will slow it so that... no major changes will come on too suddenly. Most alphas won’t be able to pick up your scent when you’re fully dosed - but there is always a chance... accidents can happen.” 

She sealed the envelope and jotted hasty instructions on the back, then placed it gingerly atop the jar of suppressants. Katara would only realize much later that it was a contraceptive. Yugoda settled her warm hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. Her eyes, finally meeting Katara’s, were sad. But Katara was picking up a peculiar scent from her, an acrid smell that subtly suggested distaste.

“Girls must be mindful. Omegas must be ready.”

What she meant had swiftly become evident when, before her suppressant dosage could fully muffle her scent, a couple of warriors followed her from the market and tried to stop her on her way home. Of course, Katara was a master waterbender in a city made of water. She sank them in the walkway up to their shoulders, then stood over them with her basket, telling them how disgusted she was by their behavior until the guards came. 

“What were we supposed to do?” one of them asked, red-faced more out of anger than embarrassment. “You smell like a dinner bell sounds. I’ve never known a woman who smelled so good.”

“I am a sixteen-year-old girl,” Katara snipped. “Not a meal somebody laid out on a table for you.”

“More like a caribou-yak doe with her tail up,” the other warrior growled as he watched her steadily, “driving every buck around her into rut. You’re the one doing this. Not us.”

The next day, she was informed that those warriors had been released - because they had only been following their instincts and alphas could be that way sometimes. She had been encouraged to try just talking alphas down in the future because “there’s really no need to turn a misunderstanding into a fight.”

The only misunderstanding so far as Katara could see was the expectation that she should be accommodating and permit people who did not even know her to intrude on her sense of safety in order to liken her to food or an animal. And that was less of a misunderstanding and more of an offensive erosion of her humanity by a tribe that struggled to even allow her a chance to learn in the first place.

And the fact that Yugoda had wordlessly given her a contraceptive - a thing, she had eventually realized, usually reserved for married women - as if expecting it was a foregone conclusion that Katara was going to need it... As if it was just a matter of time. As if it was expected that some alpha was eventually going to rape her and Katara just needed to be ready for that to happen.

Sokka had insisted on accompanying her everywhere after that and they had shortly made ready to depart the North Pole. There had been some weird pressure to stay. Yugoda showed up on their doorstep the night before and, sitting by Katara at the fire, she had whispered so the boys wouldn’t overhear... from their room where they had retired - and shut the door...

“It won’t be better in the Earth Kingdom,” she said with painful gentleness. “Alphas are everywhere, visible and forceful in a way that omegas usually aren’t. An omega who stumbles into the wrong hands at the wrong time can become little more than a slave to her own body’s rhythm - and few understand or believe that it is not her choice to do so.”

And that was when - hours before Katara’s departure, almost too late - she finally explained the thing about omegas that was arguably most important for her to know; they went into heat. Katara listened in ever-increasing horror, certain this couldn’t be real. It had to be some kind of myth. Only, this was exactly what those two warriors had been referring to. A doe with her tail up. An animal invitation delivered through scents and postures. Mating season.

“Do... alphas really go into rut, too?” she asked, wide-eyed and quiet.

Yugoda nodded, face tight with grim warning. “The scent of an unpaired omega in heat... changes alphas. It doesn’t matter what kind of man he is starting out, once he slips into rut, that man no longer has control over what he does - the alpha takes over. And the alpha’s only goal is to... breed successfully with the omega. There are some... physiological changes as well...” Her face reddened and she pressed on, “but the important thing is the threat of violence. Alphas have killed other alphas over omegas in heat.”

Katara pressed a numb hand over her mouth. 

“Your safest option,” Yugoda finished with her now-familiar sad urgency, “is to find a compatible alpha as soon as possible and let him mate you permanently. Once he bites your gland, your scent will change again and your body will no longer send out the call. You will still go into heat twice a year and experience much the same... desperation... but you will only be drawn to your mate after that, and his-”

Katara opened her mouth to deny this insane new twist, but something else came out. “How long do I have? Before I... go into heat.”

Yugoda shrugged. “My texts suggest it varies widely between omegas. Since you’ve only just presented and are taking your suppressants, it... shouldn’t happen for at least a few months. Perhaps as long as a year. The suppressants will slow the process, but eventually you will run out... and your body may very well find a way to work around it. Some say your first heat can even be triggered by encountering an especially compatible alpha - so there is a chance it could happen at any time. It would be so very dangerous to wait until you are on the cusp of heat before making a choice. You must be proactive in this. You cannot wait.”

Yugoda looked at her hands, folded in her lap, then into the fire, struggling for words.

“I cannot stress enough that your mind will not be your own. Omegas have been known to beg anyone around them, even family members, for relief. Katara, you must think of your brother, too.”

“Ugh! Sokka? Setting aside for a second how crazy that is, he smells more like feet than ever. There’s just no way.” 

“Understand me when I tell you then, heat will completely alter your perspective. Even if you manage to avoid... that, you could easily emerge from the frenzy to find yourself trapped with a complete stranger who will treat you cruelly or take advantage. And then, there will be no fighting your connection to him; he will be the only one who can... give you what your body needs.” She shook her head woefully. “Designation is a deeply rooted and powerful part of how your body and mind work. I can’t claim to fully understand it, but as a healer I can tell you that trying to fight what your body is is difficult as swimming upriver.”

Katara pressed her cold hands over her hot face and just breathed for a long moment. “This is just... so terrible and embarrassing and frustrating. How am I going to help Aang and deal with this at the same time?”

“Perhaps,” Yugoda ventured softly, “there are ways in which it will make you an even stronger ally. Omegas and alphas are two parts of a whole, like Yin and Yang or healing and waterbending.”

“Great,” she spat back, her heart choked with bitterness. “So somehow I’m going to be a stronger ally when I lose my mind and can’t do anything but beg some random guy to... to get me pregnant?”

“Heat only comes twice a year, assuming you do not become pregnant... Again, if you choose a mate now, you could avoid so much difficulty later. You could have your pick of the alphas in the city, you know. There is not a one who would not jump at the chance to claim the only Water Tribe omega.”

Katara thought about it, folding her arms. “How many of these alphas would be supportive of me being a waterbender? How many would be willing to go on this journey with me?”

Yugoda would not meet her eye. “It is difficult to say... Perhaps if you stay a while longer-”

“Aang needs to find an earthbending teacher and I am not staying behind here to start my new life as a helpless, mindless baby-factory. I spent years fighting to become a waterbender. I’m not about to give up being the thing I worked so hard to become.”

And she had not. She had taken her suppressants religiously every morning and evening for almost another two years, sticking to the dosage Yugoda had said would work. When she ran low, she consulted with a deeply flustered healer in the Earth Kingdom and got something slightly different that seemed to work just as well. Sometimes she would catch an especially enticing scent in a town or an alpha would cast her a searching look, but it never came to anything. In the mean time, she trained Aang, every day putting a finer polish on his waterbending. They found Toph and Aang started his earthbending training and they were working on establishing some kind of balance in the group when disaster struck.

That tank full of scary girls started chasing them and, after a couple of nights without sleep, Katara’s suppressants began to fail. Worse, one of the girls in that tank - that firebender - was an alpha. And even though she hadn’t caught much of her scent since that night in Omashu, Katara remembered the particularly vicious burned-house smell of her and knew this was probably the last alpha she wanted catching her in heat.

The pursuit was relentless and Katara’s existence narrowed to keen suffering. Her skin felt hypersensitive, too hot even at night when she iced herself down. All clothing, including her underclothes, chafed terribly, but she couldn’t just hang around naked. She was endlessly irritable - although that could have been the lack of sleep. It hardly mattered. She was miserable and making everyone around her miserable too. 

And throbbing like a pulse under all of it was an ever-swelling need. She could never find enough time or privacy to even try to sate it. 

Sokka decided to stay behind and set a trap on the second day. “Katara, I love you and want to protect you more than anything, but this is getting too weird. Your smell is changing from sour stewed seaprunes to savory stewed seaprunes - and I can’t have that. It’s. Too. Weird. Stay with Aang and Toph, give Appa a bath, and I’ll meet back up with you guys in a week at the place with the thing.”

Toph dug him a massive trench with a few stomps and, as they flew off, Sokka waved and set about arranging sticks and turf over it to make it look like a regular expanse of ground. Katara watched him until she couldn’t see him anymore, dread twisting her stomach.

Because he was right. His sock-stink had actually started to smell not entirely bad that morning and that was... really too weird. Still, it made her terribly anxious to leave him behind. Mostly because he was her brother and she loved him and he was in danger on his own... 

But there was also that little voice in the back of her head - a voice that had been growing steadily louder for the past few days - that scented Sokka and thought safe alpha. 

In that way, it was a relief to part from him. Katara held onto that and reminded herself constantly that they would meet up in a week at the place with the thing. Sokka could take care of himself until then. She had her own problems to deal with.

Whatever Sokka did, it must have worked, because they were able to wash Appa and catch a nap in the afternoon sun. Except Katara. Every time Katara started to drift off, she needed to adjust her hips, flex her back. Toph eventually felt the distant patter of racing lizard feet, so they flew low and fast and used every trick they could to stay out of sight.

But losing their pursuers didn’t solve the other problem.

Toph left them the next morning. “I haven't even presented yet and you’re driving me nuts, Katara. Like in a bad way. Your nagging has reached previously unseen levels. And having the time to sleep doesn’t do us any good when you’re up all night wiggling like a freak. I’ll take care of myself. You should try it sometime. Maybe I’ll see you at the place with the thing. Maybe not. Bye.” 

After that, it was just her and Aang. 

That should have been alright. Aang was her friend, and seemed to be a beta so most of the smells Katara was generating flew right over his head. He was the Avatar, destined to become a hero and do what no one else could possibly do and save the world. He was funny and sweet and playful and... 

...and sometimes he looked at her with a tender hopefulness that Katara wasn’t sure what to do with. She knew it was a crush, and a pretty serious one; he’d had a crush on her for years now. And yet, it never seemed to be a conversation she could take part in. There wasn’t really a moment to voice her own feelings - well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had often had chances to express her love for Aang, her admiration for all he was doing and could do, and her trust and belief in his abilities. It was just her total lack of romantic attraction to him that never had a proper moment to be discussed. Because Aang’s feelings weren’t subject to conversation at all. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, just... wait for her to come around.

Which was fine when he was a little kid - but he wasn’t a little kid anymore. He was sixteen, starting to look less like a boy and more like the man he was becoming... and he sometimes... especially lately... smelled... kind of interesting. 

Which was about as unsettling as Sokka’s sock-stink becoming not-unpleasant. Worse, the voice in the back of Katara’s head seemed to be growing louder by the hour and now, as she rode in the saddle with Aang just upwind, it started chiming in constantly.

Not an alpha. Not right. But better than nothing at all. Nothing will hurt most.

Katara silenced the voice every time, but the seed was planted and the root was stubborn. She was beginning to understand that, while Aang loved her and would do his best to help her, she couldn’t spend her heat alone with him. It would be too confusing. Because she might tell him every moment she was lucid that he needed to just ignore the things she did and said and begged for, but she knew in her heart that he couldn’t watch her suffer when he very much wanted to give her the thing she was asking for.

And if it happened during her heat, when she had no control and wasn’t really making conscious choices, there would never be a conversation at all about how she really felt. Aang would feel like she’d given him something - even though she hadn’t had a choice in the matter at all - and then, once her heat ended, taken it away. He wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t want to understand, why she might not want to continue in the same way afterward. Their friendship would be strained, maybe fractured...

...or Katara would set aside her misgivings and just accept that a relationship with Aang was her inevitable future. She would buckle down and commit, even though it didn’t feel quite right, because that was what was needed from her to keep their little family afloat. 

All day, Katara stole furtive glances at Aang as they put more distance between themselves and the scary girls - who were probably still chasing them somehow but, without Toph, they couldn’t be sure without risking being spotted. Every hour, Katara’s thread of unease only grew. It didn’t matter how friendly and upbeat Aang was, she couldn’t stop imagining what was going to happen when she got desperate. And the little shivers of pleasure and disgust and dread and despair she got thinking about it just kept coming - but building steadily the whole time was Katara’s resolve.

They made camp in a cave near a stream and Katara acted as normal as possible. She made dinner and laughed at his jokes and stories and then washed their dishes and settled into her blankets. And once Aang was breathing the deep rhythm of full slumber, she packed a bag and her bedroll, hushed Mom, and sneaked away. 

She walked all night, being careful not to leave any obvious signs of her passage, and shortly after sunrise she came upon the dusty ruins of a town. At first, she skirted wide around it. But as she passed, she realized no one was stirring there. It was abandoned. 

That was how she ended up hunkered down in a dilapidated building - one of the few with an intact roof and working doors and shutters she could close against the heat and light. All through the baking hours of the day, she slept fitfully, frequently waking to freeze some of her drinking water and run the ice over her skin, wet her clothes. It seemed almost to steam off her but, for an increasingly short time, it was enough to alleviate the misery.

And then she realized she was alone and didn’t have to restrain herself anymore. She stripped naked. Her hands skated over her skin almost constantly after that, offering a different sort of comfort. It was difficult to reach orgasm, and when she did the relief was short lived. It didn’t make the unsettled hunger go away, but rolling her nipples and sliding a finger or two through her slippery labia at least distracted her from the unrelenting heat. 

She wasn’t even trying to come when she hit upon the thing she was missing. Her mind had slipped to one of the alphas she had scented in the last village they stopped in some weeks ago. She hadn’t even seen him, had just smelled something like leather and animal sweat that zinged along her senses. He would be rugged, big and strong as alphas often were, with wide, callused hands and a questing tongue and a cock that could reach the maddening itch deep inside her that she needed scratched. She imagined following that scent to a stable or an alley where he would find her and snatch her clothes off and take her roughly, fill her up, spill his hot seed inside her-

Katara gasped through the orgasm, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling as she clenched and pulsed around her three slender fingers. They weren’t enough - she felt a painful twinge as her muscles squeezed tight and forced them out. But the tension broke at last and, finally, she was able to sleep a couple exhausted hours. As she drifted off, she entertained the faintest regret; if it was so easy to gain relief with just the memory of a complete stranger’s scent, maybe she had been a little short-sighted. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so awful to find an alpha before things got so dire...

She woke near sunset to the darkening house around her and sweat dotting her skin and heat itching every inch of her like crawling insects. Her fingers had returned to tugging at her nipples when she heard careful footsteps on the low front porch.

Katara threw on her dress in silence and had already crept a few steps toward the door when it hit her. His scent, like some arid landscape she had once visited but didn’t quite remember. He smelled of sweat and thirst and distance and determination. And an electric kind of promise - the way the air smells before a storm. His scent on her tongue had her mouth watering, lips parting to draw in more, to invite him even though he could not see her.

The voice inside her keened her jubilation.

Alpha is here! He found us! He is a good and relentless hunter and-!

Katara bared her teeth and readied herself to fight for her freedom, her autonomy, her humanity.

Chapter Text

Zuko found the wreckage of the tank and the lizard tracks that proceeded to the west, but he reined in the ostrich-horse and hesitated instead of following them, his eyes drawn inexorably to the north.

He had a hunch, one of those impulses that he’d occasionally followed to the Avatar years ago, back when he’d been so hot on the kid’s trail. Back then, it would be something innocuous - a snapped branch or scuffs in the dirt, or maybe something unnameable about a certain rock near a stream. It had been difficult sometimes to place what it was, or where it came from, but now there was even less substance to it. 

Something in the wind simply told him he should veer north. 

The wind shifted and he just knew he would find what he was looking for to the north. 

Maybe the Avatar had doubled back. Whatever it was, if Zuko headed north now, he could beat Azula there. And he had to beat Azula this time. 

He rode hard to the north all day before the forest gave way to a drought-struck plain. Buildings loomed in the distance like faded ghosts. He tied the ostrich horse in a shaded outcropping of boulders and approached the remains of the wrecked town stealthily as the hot red sun was just settling onto the horizon. 

Zuko was excited. His alpha - an unwanted but inescapable companion through his long hunt - was champing at the bit today, pulling him to run faster, don’t bother with stealth, just bull in - might miss another chance, could slip away again, always slips away - but Zuko fought hard to restrain the impulse.

Now wasn’t the time to make a careless mistake. This was it. He had found the Avatar at last. Even after nearly two years bouncing around the Earth Kingdom with everything he had ever cared about a smoldering ruin behind him, he still had a chance. Despite everything, despite the shameful desperation and depravity that had only gotten worse since he’d separated from Uncle, he could still redeem himself, here and now.

It pounded through his blood, his alpha snarling its impatience the closer he got to his quarry. This was Zuko’s moment of triumph. Everything was about to change for the better.

It was... a little weird that he was sneaking around the dilapidated buildings with his dick half-hard. That hadn’t happened in a long time - not since he’d been a teenager who wore armor constantly and didn’t need to worry about his body’s weird reactions to random sensory details. Presently, there was no reason for it that Zuko could identify. He chalked it up to excitement and tried to ignore it.

The scent only began to really register in his conscious awareness when he found the mostly-whole building with the closed door. It was heavy, that scent, spicy and wet and delicious, and it prickled along Zuko’s senses, had his dry mouth watering. He licked his chapped lips and paused outside the door, trying to think.

It was suddenly difficult to think. He wasn’t just excited... He was aroused. Like more than a little. He had to shift his clothing so his erection was pressed mostly down his thigh instead of sticking out so obviously.

Something about this was off, but he couldn’t seem to put his finger on what it was. He just knew that he needed to get through this door. But some instinct was telling him that kicking it down and storming in wasn’t the best way to go about getting what he wanted. Which was weird, because he’d never had a problem kicking down doors that separated him from the Avatar before.

He hesitated too long. A voice - a girl’s voice - came to him from inside, tight and ragged. Some nuance of the scent he was picking up resolved itself into emotions that made sense. Fear. Anxiety. Rage.

Sex. That wasn’t an emotion. It was just an overwhelming, pulse-pounding tide swelling through the cracks around that door.

“Whoever you are, you can either go back the way you came or you can get the stuffing kicked out of you when I open that door to send you packing. There’s nothing here for you.”

Zuko knew deeply that this was not true. There was something here he had to have. He needed this door to open. 

“Come on out then,” he growled, hoarse from long thirst.

“I’m not playing around,” she shouted, sudden and fierce from her chest and close to the other side of the door. “If I have to come out there, you’ll be lucky to walk away in one piece. And I’m in the mood to take your favorite pieces first. Get lost! Now!”

The scent had become more rage than anything else. Zuko sensed she would strike soon. He braced himself. “I’m not going anywhere until I-”

The door banged open so hard it knocked him staggering back into the street when it struck him. Inside was only darkness and a figure, a little hunched and unsteady. 

“Until you what?” she hissed. “Breed me like some kind of animal? I am not-!”

A fist of water shot out of the dark and struck Zuko hard in the gut, had him scrambling to evade the water’s backswing. She pursued, shouting now.

“-some dumb beast-!” 

Zuko recognized her now. It had been two years since he’d seen her last and she looked dramatically different - filled out like a feverish fantasy - but how could he forget? The waterbender had been so suddenly powerful at the North Pole, just a few months of real training and she had become a master strong enough to take him down. And now, here she was in this accursed place. There wasn’t a ton of water around but it would be only a few scant minutes before the sun left the sky and her power would outweigh his.

And he also recognized... That smell that had been so enticing a moment ago was almost overwhelming now that the door was open and she was wading through her stance toward him, the new roundness of her hips and breasts obvious under her blue dress. Her hair was loose and her nipples were stiff and her legs and feet were bare, all of which he noticed lamely as she drew her water back to strike at him again. 

Omega, his alpha bellowed, exultant. 

Fury and power rolled off her like the sweat beading her face and neck - which he suddenly, desperately wanted to taste.

“-waiting around for a stranger to impregnate me!”

Zuko fought to shake off the intense hold his alpha suddenly had on him. He saw her water coming in hard and, with a roar, kicked an arch of fire down atop it, splattering her element all around and leaving just steam and the waterbender, staring at him now with eyes wide with recognition.

“I’m not a stranger,” Zuko said into the sudden quiet, holding his ready stance. “But I didn’t come here for you.”

Yes, we did. Just for you, Omega, to do exactly what you think we came to do. Exactly what you need.

She just went on staring at him like he’d grown a second head. “Zuko?”

He jerked his chin in the affirmative. His alpha was purring about her knowing his true name, about what other names she could call him if she wanted, about the sex-smell already hanging so thick over her like a veil. It was so difficult to marshal his control - but Zuko did it, shoving the alpha back into a corner of his mind where it belonged. He reminded himself why he was here.

The waterbender just stared at him, then pressed a hand to her forehead and laughed unpleasantly. “Of course. You disappear for two years and catch up to us now. Why should that be surprising?”

“I’ve been busy,” Zuko snapped, still holding his bending stance, fighting to hold his focus. “Where is the Avatar?”

She gaped at him, evidently shocked by the question. “The Avatar isn’t here right now,” she finally sneered with eviscerating force, bracing her hands on the swells of her hips, then stabbing one arm out to point him toward the horizon. “Go look for him somewhere else.”

Zuko didn’t move, watching her for a confused moment, then relaxed slightly out of his stance. “Are you... an omega... now?”

It was a stupid question. He knew she was. Just like she had to know what he was. But it seemed... unwise to do what his alpha was shouting at him to do and try to get closer to her. Omega or not, the waterbender was fucking dangerous. He hadn’t fought her since the North Pole; she could have learned any number of nasty tricks since then. Zuko stood resolutely at a safe distance, most of the way across the street from her position on the low porch of the building she had been hiding in. She scowled at him and suddenly folded her arms over her breasts. 

“Why are you asking? Can’t alphas just tell? Isn’t that what drew you here? My scent?”

“I’ve never scented an omega before. Until I saw you, I didn’t realize that’s what I was... I just... got a feeling I should come this way.”

Like he frequently had hunting the Avatar... 

...who had always traveled with an unpresented omega. 

Zuko’s eyes widened as he stared at her and suddenly saw the situation with new clarity. Her scent had never really registered to him, but he must have subconsciously caught the faint beginnings of it and followed it on more than one occasion because he had associated it with the Avatar... but it wasn’t the Avatar. It was the waterbender.

He had thought somehow it was destiny that drew him to the Avatar, that made him so good at picking up the trail, but he was realizing now it was nothing so grand. It was only his alpha, pulling him to one of the few rare omegas in existence. 

Not that that wasn’t its own kind of marvel. The Fire Lord’s line was entirely composed of alphas, but there hadn’t been an omega in the Fire Nation since Azulon’s second wife - Zuko’s grandmother. 

But now, Zuko had found one.

An omega who, he realized abruptly - suddenly understanding the situation and the context of what she’d said earlier about breeding (his alpha was still panting about that over his shoulder) - was about to go into heat. That really was what had drawn him here, a day’s ride off Azula’s trail. That’s why her scent was so strong. Her body was ripening, calling out, very nearly ready to mate.

But the waterbender herself seemed to have other ideas.

“Huh,” she said, watching him with nothing shy of scathing. “You ‘got a feeling’ and decided to come bother me all the way out here? I isolated myself in an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere. What about this situation made you think ‘She probably wants me to come talk to her!’?”

Zuko wanted to say something peevish back but instead he maintained eye contact and pointedly raised his chin to sample the air. He was hit again by the molten scent of her, intoxicating and delicious and not-quite-desperately inviting - but not far from it. 

Her legs were bare, he realized now, because she was not wearing pants. With terrible certainty, he knew she was not wearing anything under that blue scrap of a dress. Probably, she had been interrupted - from writhing naked in her nest, his alpha helpfully supplied, whining and touching herself and longing for her Alpha - by his arrival and had thrown that dress on just to come out here and drive off the intruder. 

But it was only Zuko. She knew him. Sort of. She’d stopped attacking, at least. Maybe...

Omega needs you. She knows it. In a way, she must surely be glad you’re here. 

The waterbender watched him, her face and her scent both somewhere between scandalized, annoyed, and aroused. Quickly followed by deeply alarmed. That cooled his ardor a bit, though Zuko mostly just found himself compelled to reassure her.

You don’t need to be scared anymore, Omega. I’m here now.

Only, Zuko understood what his alpha didn’t seem to grasp. She wasn’t scared because she was alone; she was scared because he had shown up. She wasn’t even a bit relieved that a compatible alpha had found her. She was alarmed because Zuko had.

“Like I said, I didn’t realize it was just you. Alone...” Zuko said, then frowned harder as he thought about it. “Your friends left you here like this? Alone? About to go into heat?”

She glared especially hard at the way he rasped that final word, blushing and holding up her chin too high. “My brother is an alpha, in case you forgot. And it was getting... weird... with my other friends... I just decided it was better if I dealt with it on my own,” she snapped finally. “Alone. So feel free to get lost any time now.”

Zuko huffed and tamped down the frantic feeling in the back of his brain. She wanted to endure it alone? But Zuko was here now! He could make everything so much better for her! Surely she would change her mind if she took a moment to consider what he had to offer!

He wrestled back that desperation and centered his thoughts. If solitude was what she actually wanted, it would be dishonorable to press her... but he also couldn’t just walk away like she might want him to, either. 

“Omegas aren’t supposed to just be left alone. Anyone could come along and mess with you when you’re vulnerable.”

The waterbender arched one very steep eyebrow at him. “Yeah. Like the creep who chased me and my friends around the world for two- no, I guess make that four years, huh?”

“I’m not a creep! I’m trying to tell you you can’t just be out here alone! I rode hard all day to get here because I sensed you from that far away, alright? And there are worse people than me in the area, trust me.”

She stared at him for a moment and there may have been a whiff more arousal on the air, but it was overwhelmed by suspicion. She narrowed her eyes. “You know those scary girls, don’t you! The firebender and the acrobat and the knife-girl.”

“It’s my sister,” Zuko grumbled. “And I guess she brought her friends.”

“Your sister! Yeah, that tracks!”

“We’re not on good terms,” he snapped. “She came to the Earth Kingdom to arrest me and I guess now she’s after the Avatar. I thought I had an edge and could beat her to him but...” He huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “Now I guess I’m two days farther behind instead.”

A lot more than that if he stayed here until he was certain the waterbender had made it safely through her heat. That would be days, at least. Either days of exhausting, demanding ecstasy or torturous days of sitting out on the edge of town, smelling her and hearing her but unable to go to her. It looked more and more like it was going to be the latter. Azula could capture or kill the Avatar in that time and Zuko would just be trapped in this miasma of spicy-sweet, forbidden promise, probably jerking off constantly while his destiny, his very identity was snatched away forever.

“Oh no,” the waterbender said without a trace of sympathy, then raised a hand in a shooing gesture. “Well, better get moving then, Zuko, you wouldn’t want your sister to have all the fun of terrorizing the world’s last hope for peace.”

He turned a surly, searching eye on her and did not move. “How far out are you? From it starting.”

She gave him another withering look, but Zuko smelled confusion and anxiety. “What do you mean?” she finally demanded. “It’s already started.”

“No,” Zuko said. “It’s close, but not started yet.” At the same time, he narrowed her eyes. Shouldn’t she know that?

But the look the waterbender was giving him derailed the thought - probably should have peeled the skin off his face, it was so furious. “This has to be it. I’m miserable. I can hardly think or sleep! It’s been this way for days!”

“How long does it normally-?”

He stopped because it suddenly occurred to him what she was saying, what it meant. She thought she was already in the midst of her heat - because she’d never gone into heat before. This was her first time. 

And who should happen to be here to help her but Zuko?

His alpha was crowing inside him, reveling in giddy, selfish triumph.

She’s been waiting for us! Such a good omega, waiting for us to get close enough before going into heat so ours could be her first knot, her only knot as soon as we bite our claim-

Zuko realized he was staring at her and, whatever she saw on his face or picked up in his scent, it enraged and excited her in seemingly equal measure. She made claws at him with her fingers like she meant to tear him apart. “What do you know? You’re just some rut-dumb alpha chasing a raised tail! Go fuck a koala-sheep and leave me alone!”

“What? I’m not in rut!” Zuko bared his teeth and pointed one accusing finger at her. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I know enough to know you’re a threat! Just get out of here, Zuko!”

Zuko did not want to leave. But there was a tang of fear in the air now and he didn’t want that, either. He huffed a deep breath and folded his arms hard over his chest and worked to get a handle on himself.

Clearly, the waterbender had an incomplete understanding of designations. She was anxious and alone and on the precipice of an ordeal that was both frightening and unknown. A good alpha strove to soothe his omega and, even if she might not accept him that way, Zuko was going to do the best he could for her. She needed him to be patient. He would try to be patient. 

He would not snarl at her about her barbarian people or try to soothe her by rushing across the very-important space between them to hug her to his chest. Those would both clearly be mistakes.

“I am not a threat,” he said through his teeth, “and, for your information, rut doesn’t start until after the first knotting.”

She crossed her arms again and watched him closely, a sour look on her face. Her eyes slid hesitantly but pointedly down to his crotch. 

Zuko’s ears got hot, but he didn’t bother trying to hide the bulge under his clothes - didn’t really want to. In fact, her eyes on him only had him hardening impossibly more until his erection was pressed in an aching arch against the inside of his loincloth. 

She may have looked just to make a point, but now her gaze seemed stuck. Her blue eyes were wide and growing dark. Her lips parted slightly and her chest heaved a little faster with her elevated breathing, pressing her breasts harder against her arms. Zuko found himself suddenly entirely aligned with his alpha and the feeling was heady, satisfying.

Yesss, Omega can look all she likes. Maybe she’ll change her mind about going it alone if she takes a moment to consider how much better her heat would be if she spent it stuffed to the brim with this cock. 

The tip of her tongue darted pink against her bottom lip and she swallowed. Under his trousers, Zuko’s dick twitched so hard he felt it in his abdomen. 

So close. Come here, Omega. You want it, you can come touch it. Come on, now.

Very slowly so as not to startle her, he unfolded his arms from over his chest and let them hang at his sides. Because he needed his hands free to... to scoop her up when she got close... only she hadn’t taken a step yet... so...

Maybe she just needs a better view to be fully convinced; pull it out and show her what’s on offer. Work it a little for her, nice and slow.

The feeling of unity dissipated. Because, okay, rut-dumb was probably an accurate description for Zuko’s alpha. The rest of him, though, the part of him in command, wasn’t that stupid. He was... He was in the middle of making a point! And she wasn’t gonna derail him with just her hunger-darkened eyes! (Even if they did drag him in like a defenseless little ship caught in a maelstrom.)

Instead of exposing himself like a pervert, Zuko just twitched his hands, hanging by his hips, palm-up in a what-do-you-want-from-me gesture.

“Not the same thing as rut. I’m in my right mind. And I can say with confidence you’re not in heat yet. I can just tell.” He couldn’t resist lobbing her own words back at her.

The spell seemed to break and she curled her lip and gave him a withering shake of her head, but Zuko wasn’t done.

“It might be hours. Another day, maybe - not long though. And then,” he pressed with frank force, “since you want to do this on your own, you’re gonna be in pain and you’re gonna struggle to eat and drink enough water, and you won’t be able to defend yourself from anyone who comes along.” He pressed a hand to his chest and sneered at her. “No need to worry about me, since in your great plan I’ll have gone off to fuck an animal for some reason, but my sister - and all the bandits and refugees and soldiers and mercenaries basically crawling all over this region, you might need to worry about some of them.”

She didn’t look nervous, but she smelled it. Instead of giving any outward sign, she only rolled her eyes at him. “And I guess you just want to lend a helping hand because you’re such a nice guy, huh?”

“No, I have to help you, because-”

“Oh, I know! Your alpha instincts compel you to! You can’t help it if your designation makes you a bully, so it’s just fine for you to do whatever sleazy thing you feel the urge to do.” 

Zuko wanted to hotly cut her off and inform her that he was certainly not doing that or she’d be getting a real show about now but realized just in time that it was probably better to not admit to having that impulse at all... And as she went on, with her arms still folded tight over her chest and her shoulders creeping up, he was glad he’d hesitated. She looked very small and angry and disgusted, but there was also something like despair in her scent. And that was... not right. Zuko felt a much stronger desire to soothe those troubled feelings away - but she was still talking.

“And now you feel the urge to hang around me and help by being a witness to my humiliation. Is the plan to just enjoy watching me beg or do you intend to rape me too?”

Zuko jerked back a step, wide-eyed. “What? No!”

“Because, shocking news, Zuko! I do not want to have sex with you, even though you came all this way and it was such an inconvenience for you!” she shouted with vicious sarcasm. “That was your mistake. No matter what it smells like, I’m telling you right now with my working human brain that I don’t want sex and I don’t want to be pregnant and I really don’t want any of that with you of all people!” 

She was red to her hairline, and he didn’t need to smell it to know her fury and fear and embarrassment and despair. Her revulsion.

But confusingly, her arousal was still so heavy on the air, too.

Zuko shut his eyes to think but her disorienting scent was everywhere, permeating every corner of his mind, pounding with the blood in his veins. He tugged his sweat-stained under-tunic up to hold over his nose. His own smell, sharp on his unwashed clothes, steadied him a bit. He opened his eyes to meet her incriminating stare, still breathing through the rough cloth.

“Look. I’m not gonna push you to accept me. You’ve made up your mind. I can deal with that.”

His alpha was writhing in anguish. No! Push her! She needs us! There will never be another chance like this to be near her! To touch her and taste her and claim her! She always flies away! We can still convince her-

But Zuko’s resolve was steel. He wasn’t what she thought he was, and she needed to know that. He needed to prove it. He wasn’t some sleazy creep out to use her heat as an excuse to do something awful to her, and he wasn’t some weak-willed moral degenerate who would cave to desperation over a nice (intoxicating) smell. Maybe he had robbed some people in the past, fine, but he had recently turned a corner! He had chosen starvation over preying on the weak. He had stood up for people who had no one else. He was Prince Zuko, crown prince of the Fire Nation and an honorable man who tried to do the right thing.

And when people were too stubborn and proud to let him... Well, he would still do the best he could.

“I really can’t just leave you here unprotected, though. Not because of my alpha instincts, but because it wouldn’t be right.” Her scowl deepened, but Zuko only held out his free hand and spoke as earnestly as he could. “I’ll stay past the edge of town. You won’t even know where I am. I won’t see you. If you stay inside this house with the doors and windows shut, I probably won’t hear you, either.” 

That was likely too much to hope for, but Zuko pressed on anyway. His alpha clawed at him, tried desperately to stop him from what he was about to say. 

“And... if you call for me once it’s started... I promise not to answer. I’ll just be around to make sure no one bothers you.”

No! Omega is going to hurt! She’ll need us! Don’t pull your noble bullshit now with her suffering on the line!

The waterbender watched him and did not speak for a long moment, but her scent indicated grudging interest and deep skepticism. “It’s supposed to be impossible for an alpha to resist an omega in heat,” she ventured.

“I control what I do. My alpha makes suggestions, but I’m in charge of what happens,” Zuko said, not really thinking about how he’d gotten here today - or a great many of the impulses that swept him up from time to time. Instead, he just narrowed his eyes at her. “My human brain also works.”

She squinted as if weighing whether contesting this point was worth it. Zuko huffed through his shirt.

“It’s also gonna be a lot easier once I’m out of range of your scent. I didn’t even notice it really on the edge of town. Just when I got up on the porch, it got pretty... intense.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should just go back to mouth-breathing and minding your own business.”

Zuko gritted his teeth and did not inform her that breathing that way just got the scent of her on his tongue and made his dry mouth salivate, made him want to taste it from the source. Her gland, he could see just above the collar of her dress and just below the band of her necklace, was slightly swollen. 

His teeth would pop through her skin like biting a ripe plum.

Zuko shook the thought away, but the rush of hunger that came with it was more persistent. “I’m gonna go now. How much food and water do you have?” 

“Plenty. Just leave.”

But her eyes flicked down to the wet spots on the dirt of the street, still hot from the setting sun. Zuko scoffed.

“I’ll be back tonight with more water. Stay in the house.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

“Fine,” he said, tipping his head forward and glaring. “Roam the streets in the dark so I run into you unexpectedly. That won’t be a disaster at all.”

“Oh! I thought your human brain was in charge of your actions!”

“It is! But that doesn’t mean I want to struggle more! You smell so good from across the street - I really don’t need to know how good you smell up close.”

Her mouth went tight and her eyes went wide like she was offended, but the arousal in her scent thickened, grew sticky and strong. She might have been... dripping. Zuko grunted faintly as that awareness curled through his mind, twined around all his senses. He tried to focus on his own stinking shirt but it wasn’t working as well anymore. He forced himself to back up a long, dragging step; his feet were extremely heavy.

“Just-! Stay in the house? Please.”

“Fine,” she huffed. 

Zuko didn’t wait to see her go inside before he fled. It wasn’t easy to stride with dignity down the street with his fully erect cock tugging uncomfortably with every step, but he managed to get out of sight before he braced one hand against a wall and pressed his other fist against what felt like an iron rod under his clothing. At the touch, pleasure arced through him and his alpha’s steady monologue got louder.

Omega wants it, wrong to make her wait, the way her eyes darkened the longer she stared, she wanted to touch, stubborn omega, needs me, wants me, drips for me...

Zuko groaned through his teeth. Because no matter how good she smelled or how much slick came dribbling down her thighs, she didn’t want it. Not from him. Not really.

Not the way Zuko wanted it, anyway. He was aching, burning. He was dizzy with it; he had never felt desire so intense. He wanted so desperately to go back, to keep talking to her, to get closer to her. To coax her to lead him back to her nest... and then... 

The pressure of his fist was excruciatingly good and devastatingly insufficient at the same time. But Zuko maintained it, breathing clean, almost scentless air for long minutes. Gradually, the fire in his body died back and he was able to think again. He removed his fist and raised that shaking palm to brush the sweat from his wide-eyed face.

This was not good.

Chapter Text

Katara watched Zuko march off and swallowed down her omega’s compulsion to call him back but couldn’t help the way her eyes stayed glued to his body. Particularly the front panel of his ragged brown tunic where it bumped out significantly over his groin - where he had had an erection the entire time he stood there talking to her. 

And he’d just acted like it wasn’t even happening! Like she was reading too much into it, she was making it weird by finding his obviously erect penis distracting.

Deeply distracting. It had been hard to hold onto her outrage when her mouth was watering and her omega was whining loudly - need to smell it, taste it, rub against it, feel how hot it is, is it hot as me, Alpha? If he hadn’t broken the moment with his puffed-up superiority, she might have stepped off the porch and gone to him and reached right out to stroke him through his clothing.

It was difficult to tell through his layers, but it looked... substantial. If she touched it, she could be sure.

Katara heaved a sigh and rubbed her face with both hands. She scrubbed off the sweat, but more would soon replace it.

Everything about this was so surreal. Katara felt like she was caught in a fever dream. As soon as he disappeared from her sight, she wondered if maybe she had actually dredged him up from memory as a weird sort of familiar comfort through this absolutely insane episode... but then she saw the scorch mark on the ground and her water a splattered shadow around it and knew it had happened. 

Carefully, slowly so as not to pick up too much dirt, she pulled her water out of the ground and streamed it back inside, back into her canteen. Almost half of it was lost and what remained, despite her efforts, was soiled. It wouldn’t be pleasant to drink later - which was really unfortunate, because it was all the drinking water she had right now...

Unless Zuko really did bring her some more. 

Alpha will come back, her omega chirped. Good hunter. He will provide what we need. First water, then his cock. 

It was in her head so quickly she stumbled shutting the door - it slammed with a rending squeak of old hinges - and ended up with her back against it, panting.

You smell so good from across the street, he had growled. 

-If I get too close, it would be so hard to stay in control, her mind now provided what he had left unspoken. If I run into you unexpectedly, I might just fuck you right then and there.

Katara breathed out a wretched groan and rucked up her skirt. She wet her fingers scooping up the long, tickling drips that had come rolling down her inner thighs as he talked. She swiftly plunged three fingers back into her clenching cunt. It wasn’t enough.

I rode hard all day to get to you. I sensed you from that far away.

-Your body called and I’ve traveled the world for the chance to ride it hard. I could find you anywhere you try to hide. I’ve done it before.

As her fingers worked frantically, as she toyed with her clit with her other hand, she pictured him stepping up onto the porch, pinning her with his stare as he invaded her space. She imagined letting him back her through the door. She imagined how he might spin her around, hoist her against this door, how he might shove clothing aside so he could free that erection she’d found so distracting and drive it up into her-

I’ll make sure no one bothers you, he’d said, smelling so honest and determined. I’ll be back tonight with water.

-I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe and sated. I know just what you need and I’ll give it to you as many times as it takes-

Her fingers straining inside her made wet, sucking noises that mingled with her gasping cries. She was using all four fingers now, but it still wasn’t enough. She tucked her thumb and used that, too, but the angle was impossible. She hunched forward, slid to the floor, spread her knees wide and used the door to push herself up, desperate to work more of her hand in. It was a little better on the floor, but her wrist quickly grew sore and she still wasn’t getting enough-

Alpha could do it, her Omega keened. Alpha has big nice hands! He would do it, he wants to - he just wants you to let him. 

I’m not gonna push you to accept me. You’ve made up your mind. I can deal with that.

(And just like that, he’d taken her rejection in stride. The desire she’d smelled rolling off him like steam off hot sand - he’d made it so figuring out what to do with that wasn’t her problem. He would deal with it. She didn’t have to.)

But she knew what she wanted to do with all that desire. She wanted to lick it off his pale skin and leave only the shapes of her teeth behind. She wanted to see what happened when all that control snapped, when his alpha took over and fought her and subdued her and bred her.

Katara tipped over the edge, her moan a broken, gasping thing - but it turned abruptly into a cut-off scream as her muscles clenched too hard and squeezed her stiff hand out with a punishing, sickening cramp that continued, pulsing horribly for several minutes.

It took her a long while to regain her senses. Katara found herself slumped against the door in the dark with her skirt bunched up around her waist and her naked ass pressed to the dirty floorboards, sweating and shaking with sour-bellied aftershocks and feeling forbodingly tender inside. 

You’re gonna be in pain. He had said that, too, she thought irritably. Yugoda hadn’t mentioned anything about pain. Just desperation and desire to mate. But Katara’s experience was bearing out some very unsettling shortcomings in Northern Water Tribe education. Most immediate among them: yes, there was definitely pain. 

How infuriating that Zuko would know that and she wouldn’t.

The cramping she had felt with this orgasm had been so much worse than what she had felt earlier this afternoon. And if it was also true she wasn’t quite in heat - Zuko had seemed pretty sure about that, too, the jerk, and yes, fine, she was miserable but she didn’t actually feel mindlessly needy yet - it stood to reason that things really were just going to keep getting worse.

Katara pressed her palms over her eyes briefly and fought back a wave of wracking despair. How was she going to get through this? She felt worse than she had ever felt before and her actual heat hadn’t even really started yet!

Alpha will come back. He’ll make it better if you stop being so difficult and let him-

“That’s not helpful like you think it is,” Katara snapped to the empty room.

She thought about getting up but couldn’t bring herself to do it yet. She felt absolutely depleted. Exhausted and emotionally drained and so hot it was hard to breathe. It was full night now, and the evening air would be cooling off, but it was stuffy inside the house, still choked with the sun’s heat. If she opened the shutters, the place would cool down a bit.

But if she opened the shutters, the breeze would carry her scent out into the night...

...but maybe... that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Katara thumped her head back against the door and groaned. It was absolutely insane that she was even considering it. She could have just let it be Aang, her friend who she could at least trust to care about her, and now instead she found herself actively lusting after Zuko, their kind-of-deranged enemy. As if he was trustworthy by any stretch of the imagination! 

What if he bit her and bound her to him forever? What if she always had to go back to him for her heats? What if Zuko got her pregnant?

A shudder quaked up her spine. She chose to believe it was one of horror and that the throb in her sex was unrelated.

Because the idea of being with Zuko - of getting pregnant by Zuko, of allowing Zuko do the things she kept imagining being done to her - was so outrageous, it was hard to accept it was really a real possibility that was dangerously close to actually happening. 

And it was dangerously close to happening. Katara sensed her situation growing steadily more dire, and she could cope with the desire itself, but if every time she sought relief was going to be painful like this - and grow steadily worse... and if there was something Zuko could do that would actually diminish that pain... she was rapidly approaching a point where she wasn’t too proud to... consider the possibility.

Katara sighed and wrestled her way to her feet. She carefully climbed the creaking, broken stairs up to the second floor in the dark and began opening shutters up there. The night breeze came in at once, dry and cool and smelling fresh after the stale air of the house. She stripped off her dress and let the breeze soothe the sweat off her back and the space between her breasts.

She hadn’t recognized him at all initially. In her mind, Zuko always had that tall ponytail and the full compliment of Fire Nation armor. His threadbare Earth Kingdom disguise and new, less intense hairstyle might have been enough to throw her off all on their own if not for his scar - and, with the setting sun off to one side, even that massive scar had been cast in hard shadow, too. For a few seconds, wide-eyed and scruffy and startled by her attack, he hadn’t even looked a little familiar. He had looked like a handsome stranger and his scent had been so right and good - but Katara had been in a fury over her unwanted hunger and her omega’s insipid wailing for her to stop, let him in, let Alpha help us- that she’d come at him with every intention of driving him back, driving him off.

Not good enough.

Until he met her attack with his firebending and shut it down like a hammer strike. And spoke. The fire was a surprise, but not as much as his voice. She could never forget that voice. Sometimes it still came cajoling across the years -

Try to understand...

- or contemptuous, offended -

You little peasant!

- or just his overconfident threats -

Well, aren’t you a big girl now...

Katara shuddered and considered closing the windows, but didn’t. Soft currents of air fluttered the hairs of her body, but instead of a simply pleasant sensation, it also felt irritating, unsettling.

She hadn’t really noticed Zuko’s designation back then. Sokka had mentioned it one time - “I can smell that guy coming a mile away now. You know, in proper conditions. Wind’s gotta be just right.” When Katara and Aang had snickeringly asked what Alpha Zuko smelled like, Sokka had shrugged and scratched his head. “Fireflakes, but not how fireflakes smell? Like, that feeling you get when you eat too many all at once and a portal to hell opens up in your sinuses.”

They had all had a great laugh about it then. 

Katara, frowning at the open windows and clutching her dress in one fist by her hip, was no longer laughing. She was tingling, itching, burning all over. Whatever relief her orgasm had brought was already departing. And she could not help but inwardly assert that Zuko smelled nothing at all like fireflakes.

He smelled like a disaster waiting to happen.

Maybe, if she just didn’t touch herself at all, she could avoid more of those hideous cramps. Even as she thought it, she caught her empty hand stroking the smooth, hot curve of her hip, dipping into the junction of her thigh. She yanked her fingers away and bunched her dress in both hands before her. Maybe this could work. She could control herself! Maybe the desire would remain manageable if she didn’t exacerbate it. She thought again of closing the windows.

But didn’t.

Zuko had certainly seemed surprised by her designation... which was weird, wasn’t it? He had clearly come here looking for Aang - he said he got a feeling he would find Aang here... He got a feeling so he rode all day to get here. Like a crazy person. But, from Zuko, completely believable. He had swum into the Northern citadel through water cold enough to kill normal people. Comparatively, riding all day to chase a feeling was a fun jaunt, hardly out of his way.

Katara really hoped her scent didn’t actually travel that far, that she wasn’t summoning every alpha in a thirty-mile radius... and it seemed unlikely. Zuko was... unusual. And he had also said he didn’t really realize what her scent was until he got up on the porch. Whatever had drawn him, it wasn’t omega neediness, not exactly.

Although, he certainly had been drawn by that once he got in range of it. The way he had sniffed the air and his yellow eyes had caught the half-light and burned. The way his breathing picked up, his chest and belly expanding with it. And that indistinct protrusion below his sash...

Despite what Yugoda had said about alphas losing control around an omega in heat, and despite that obvious erection, Zuko had been visibly working to restrain himself. More than once as they talked, Katara had seen his eyes go a little too focused - sometimes on her legs, bared by the splits up the sides of her dress, but sometimes just meeting her stare and catching her scent - and for a few seconds, she was pinned under the gaze of a hungry predator in the moment before he pounced. 

But the pounce had never come. Because each time, Zuko had blinked it off and gone back to huffing and making testy pronouncements regarding her safety. 

Alpha is so strong and caring, her omega panted. Alpha wants to keep us safe. He will be attentive and protective and generous-

Katara realized she was holding the dress tight against her chest, rubbing her forearms against her nipples. She sighed and rolled her eyes and made her way back down the treacherous stairs. 

Zuko didn’t actually care about her safety; they had fought countless times and, though he’d never actually burned her, he’d never been gentle either. The only thing she absolutely knew he wanted was to capture the Avatar. That was his whole thing. Now, in a bizarre about-face, he had refused to just leave her and continue his hunt. There had to be a reason for that. She hadn’t even sensed much conflict from him, and she knew he was aware Aang had to be close and undefended without Katara there...

But instead of going off to jump on that opportunity, he had insisted he had to stay to watch over her from a distance. She might have thought he meant to wait until she was desperate and then take advantage of her, but he had smelled so honest and concerned, frequently anxious in a way that his sour facial expressions didn’t really hint at. He looked almost perpetually angry, and his scent was a little, but it was also surprisingly clean and... true. 

She told him she didn’t want him and he took her word for it. Just that easy. He had even pulled his shirt up over his nose just like Sokka sometimes did to clear his head.

Which... actually was kind of impressive impulse control, considering Katara had spent an indeterminate amount of time staring at his hard-on like it was a fancy pastry under glass and she was a starving urchin ogling it through the shop window. That whole time, he had just watched her watch him, radiating satisfaction and anticipation and fierce desire. He’d smelled like an invitation, like all he wanted was for her to take a step, come a little closer. He’d unfolded his arms so slow like he meant to... do something... 

And then had instead decided to let her know he was in control of himself.

By arrogantly informing her he wasn’t in rut and she wasn’t in heat. Yet.

Alpha would have fucked us anyway though, her omega whined. He has to lock antlers with you because you’re so stubborn, because he was waiting so patiently and you wouldn’t just go touch his cock like you were supposed to-

Katara let out an outraged little squawk at the traitor in her head as she stomped her way back to the spot where she had laid out her bedroll. She was irritably rearranging things - mounding her blanket against the wall and packing her dress into the corner and then pulling it out again - as it played out a little differently in her head, as her omega breathed a different version.

Alpha would have been so pleased if you had investigated him properly. Did you see how his cock strained against his clothes? It would have been so hard and hot and it would have filled your hand just so perfectly. Both hands. Alpha would have enjoyed watching you get excited just putting your little hands on him through his clothes. 

Katara could see it. His drab, dusty Earth Kingdom tunic pulled taut below the belt. The smug curve of his mouth, the heat of his eyes down-turned to watch her, to drink the sight of her hunger in like a plant in the sun. And his hands hanging at his sides, ready to close around her like the jaws of a trap once she’d been lured in by the bait. 

She didn’t notice that she was winding her legs together, clenching a wad of fabric between them, grinding it in a slow, tight rhythm against her crotch.

It would have smelled like Alpha but better. He would have really enjoyed watching you scent it.

He did smell so terribly good. Like a storm rolling in, electric tension crackling up her spine, sodden wet wind and clouds mounded up into pillars that flickered, towering with all they had to give. 

All Zuko had to give. Wanted to give.

Katara clenched her wadded dress between her thighs and dreamily traced circles around her nipples and the ticklish undersides of her breasts.

Alpha likes your legs. His eyes kept coming back to them and catching. He was imagining what they would look like wrapped around him or shoved up over his shoulders while he plunges his cock through all your slick to feed your hungry cunt.

Unthinking, unaware, she shifted positions so she could curl against her heaped-up blanket and slide her fingers through the sopping mess between her thighs, cram them deep inside. The omega’s voice was no longer a quiet intrusive thought; it had grown loud and all-consuming in the way of waves washing up on a beach that stretched off endlessly in both directions. In this place, Katara was very small - but the omega was vast and gentle and all-knowing.

His hand would feel better working its way in there. His fist is almost as big the thing we really need, the other thing he has that he will give us, the unnamed thing, tight and hard and too much and just right-

With her mind drifting somewhere beyond conscious thought, she came in a dazzle of clenching pleasure, groaning and grasping at the nest around her - and then shrieking as all that pleasure curdled into agony.

Katara did not know how long she lay there, whining and sweating and wrecked with pain that went on surging, wave after wave. Nor did she know how long she was unconscious afterward. She only knew she woke stiff and sticky to his voice.

“Waterbender! Can you hear me in there?”

“Alpha,” she warbled in the quiet of the room. 

He was outside somewhere and certainly couldn’t hear her, and that realization filled her with devastating helplessness. She needed him! She needed him and he was not coming, was too far away to hear her enfeebled calls! He would move on and she would be left here alone, horribly alone with an anguish she had not known to prepare herself for.

But then, a moment later, he called again, louder this time.

“Waterbender! Come out and get your... water.” He paused, suddenly irate. As if just now realizing he was delivering water to a waterbender.

Katara struggled to her hands and knees and, blinking hard, regained a measure of lucidity. She realized she was naked and fumbled around for her dress - which was still wadded up and damp with sweat and slick. Disgusted, she shrugged into it and knotted her sash, then stumbled to the door.

It was difficult and painful; she was sore in her abdomen and definitely had a fever, she was so hot. The fabric of her dress felt coarse and scraped against her skin. When she reached the door, she had to pause and lean against it, afraid she might pass out.

This was not good.

Chapter Text

Once he’d gotten past the edge of the town - and jerked off for an embarrassingly brief time - Zuko’s head had cleared and he’d taken some time to think this situation through. 

The waterbender didn’t want his help easing her heat in the traditional sense - she’d been very clear about that - so Zuko immediately and continuously exerted a great deal of energy into pounding that into his head. He had meditated, fighting to quiet his mind. When his alpha’s protests had lost a little power and the moon started to rise, he had ridden back to the forest and the river beyond (caught himself turning the ostrich-horse around no less than four times) and filled his water skins and canteen. 

Then, his alpha badgering him the entire time, he stripped down and sank into the moon-glittering shallows, splashing the grime and sweat off and trying to cool down. 

And think, now that the scent of omega was just a whisper at the back of his awareness.

It was right to help her. It was wrong to get too close. It was right to bring her water and keep watch. It was wrong to do anything else she wouldn’t allow in her right mind.

Her right mind is wrong. She’ll scream and cry and hurt. She’s hurting right now. Go back - already been gone too long. Omega needs.

What she needed was for her asshole friends to not leave her alone. What she was gonna get was Zuko, for all the good it would do her. He laid back under the water, letting out a long, thin stream of bubbles from his nose. In the total darkness and cool beneath the surface, he could finally, really think.

It occurred to him, now that he had fought his way beyond the reach of her most compelling scents, that this really would be an ideal time to go capture the Avatar. He would have at least one less defender on hand and Azula was sure to be closing in. All Zuko had to do was leave the waterbender - like she wanted him to do anyway.

But he couldn’t just leave her to die of thirst or worse in that nowhere town. Somebody had to look out for her. Even if it was him - clearly not her favorite person. She actually thought he was some kind of opportunistic rapist - which was just-! So beneath him it was offensive she’d even say that! 

Not that he hadn’t had some very eye-opening experiences in the last year or so about what war and upheaval meant for the world and for women in particular. And it wasn’t like his own family history was uncomplicated when it came to omegas... And he was obviously interested and had refused to leave when she told him to... So it wasn’t entirely crazy that she would be leery of him.

Omega is fierce and strong. Won’t settle for a weak alpha. Won’t accept less than her due. She snaps and snarls to make sure you’re strong enough. Wants you to fight her and win before she’ll let you mount her-

Zuko surged up out of the water and stomped back up the bank with his rejuvenated erection bobbing ridiculously before him. 

She most definitely did not want him doing any such thing. If he was lucky, she would come out of this sane and none the worse for wear, remember he hadn’t been a total creep, and think better of him in the future.

Fuck the future. Omega is the future. Claim her before she escapes again! Some other alpha will mate her if you don’t give her what she needs now!

Zuko wasn’t prepared for the sudden fury he felt at the thought. She could refuse him - that was fine, absolutely fucking fine - but the thought of someone else moving in on her had him clenching his fists and baring his teeth. He stood over the pile of his dirty clothes, breathing hard.

Because she’s my Omega, his alpha snarled with him. Been chasing her for years. For always. Waiting for her scent to come. Thought she was lost, some other alpha’s by now, but now-

Zuko didn’t question this, didn’t think about it, even though he certainly hadn’t been chasing the waterbender all these years. All he could presently think about was-

Now it’s here! It’s everywhere - can’t you smell it?

Zuko could. It was faint here, a tantalizing hint that tugged his head back toward the town like a line hooked through some fool fish’s mouth. A part of him was aware he shouldn’t be able to scent her from this far. That wasn’t normal. But Zuko had long ago grown accustomed to being... peculiar among alphas. 

And what was more interesting now was the subtlest shift in that scent, incrementally sweeter and more enticing.

Omega is so close, needs me now, saved her first heat for me. Could have happened any time - she waited for me. Shouldn’t have to wait any longer!

Zuko took a step toward the ostrich-horse before realizing he was still naked. Naked, hard as wrought iron, and half-stupid on just traces of her scent. He couldn’t go back to her like this - not naked, obviously, but this worked up, he was likely to make a mistake. And he couldn’t allow that.

Growling, he dropped a hand to his cock and worked it with quick, impatient strokes. His mind dove straight to that dress, exposing a narrow side view of her legs all the way up to her rounded hips. It was long, the white trim brushing just above her bare feet and ankles, and Zuko couldn’t stop thinking how easy it would be to fuck her in it. Just hitch up the front and heft her against a wall and she would spread out, wet and open and ready. And wet... He had smelled her dripping. He thought of her pulling up her little dress and touching herself as quick as she could after his departure-

He came suddenly in a hot rush that left him a little dazed, then a little clearer. 

Hurriedly, Zuko dragged his unwashed clothes on and rode his weary ostrich-horse back toward the town, unthinkingly driving the poor beast faster than he ordinarily would. 

The omega scent got stronger and sweeter and harder to think around the closer he got. His cock had stiffened again before he even hit the edge of town and, inwardly apologizing to the ostrich-horse, Zuko palmed himself as he crossed the empty expanse between the last rocky outcroppings and the first buildings.

He had to deal with this again. He couldn’t be anywhere near her in this state.

Why not? She liked looking before. She’ll like it even more now. Give her every reason to change her mind! 

Zuko... hesitated. He knew in theory that omegas reacted to the scent of desire on alphas the same way he was reacting to her. Maybe, from a certain standpoint, it would be better to tempt her if he could. It was natural and right for an omega to choose an alpha to see her through her heat. Bearing it alone was kind of unheard of, a sort of legendary misery that no one in their right mind would choose... 

...and maybe the waterbender didn’t know that. Maybe she was sailing herself into a storm she didn’t see coming, and Zuko would be justified in interfering in any way he could to convince her to change paths, to spare her from the mistake she was so intent on making.

And if sparing her that suffering meant Zuko got to share a heat with her, well... that wasn’t the point really...

Only, he recognized with a measure of disgust, it was an enormous part of the point. He wanted her. Had wanted her a bit even when he thought she was a beta. Now, suddenly, circumstances had fallen in such a way that he might, perhaps, if she could be convinced to change her mind before her heat fully started, Zuko might actually get to have her. He might actually get to...

Zuko shut those thoughts away. He had robbed people, had stolen food and money, most everything he owned now. And yet the shame of having committed those crimes would be nothing beside the shame of pressuring or luring the waterbender into sharing her heat with him when he knew she did not want to.

If she offered, that was a whole other thing... but that wasn’t going to happen.

Zuko tied the ostrich-horse to an awning and ducked behind the remains of a stone wall. There in the ruins, he steadily stroked himself. He lasted longer this time, so his mind rambled, took the scent filling this town like a fog, the certainty of her arousal, and added it into a fantasy he had sometimes enjoyed. 

He could still remember the chill of the windless air in the Spirit Oasis. The crackle of dawn infusing him with fresh power, fresh fury. Wiping that smirk off her face... That had been satisfying. But he had occasionally wondered how much more satisfying it might have been if he’d taken his time after, if he’d left the Avatar to sit in his trance a while. He might have tied her to a tree just so he could lord his ultimate victory over her, really get her riled. Show her what a real smirk looked like. In his fantasy, he never pushed or insinuated, he didn’t say anything overly untoward... but her outrage would be subsumed by arousal all the same until the desire was clear on her face. Until she challenged him to do it. Then, it frequently being a fantasy as much spurred by spite as lust, he would fuck her against that tree right in front of the asshole Avatar’s unseeing white-glowing eyes. 

But that was when he had thought she was a beta.

Now he was half-drowned in the scent of her omega need. His hand hit a quicker rhythm as he imagined her slipping into a spontaneous heat right then, triggered because he had subdued her, he had proven he was a strong alpha, a worthy opponent, a desirable mate, and the effect his scent had on her was the undeniable proof of it. He would tease her, entice her until she was whining and snarling, demanding, until his own control thinned and he finally fucked her against that tree-

Or maybe he would carry her away somewhere more private and lay her down in the soft grass, rail her like his life depended on it, and then lavish her with kisses and gentle nibbles while they were tied. That felt exquisitely right.

This close, her ripe scent on the dry evening wind had his knot more fully engorged than it had been either time before. When he came, it throbbed and swelled a little more, electric against his clamping fingers. 

And when his vision cleared, he glared down at it, breathing hard and curling his lip. He knew from experience that squeezing the tender partially-expanded bulb would extend his orgasm and drag more release out of him, but he did not do that now. He had not done that in a long while - because his knot had not swelled, not even a little, for almost a year now. Not even the few times he had actually been with a woman. He’d come to believe he had simply been going through a phase all that time before, some issue to do with his drawn-out presentation that had finally, finally resolved itself. 

Now, with the waterbender’s matured scent pounding through his brain, he was starting to understand. And, with his head clear for the moment, he was deeply annoyed about it. 

He had been chasing the Avatar, but his alpha, just starting to emerge and define itself, had picked up on the scent of the unpresented omega and thrown itself into the hunt. It had lent him the superior sensitivity he needed to chase the faintest trace of her, to keep tailing her when there was no other sign. It had clung to those scant hints of her so tightly, it had his knot swelling a little almost every time he masturbated - which was absolutely not supposed to happen. 

He had asked Uncle about it. It had been the most embarrassing conversation in a long line of embarrassing conversations. There had been many probing follow-up questions Zuko had been equally unwilling and unable to answer. Because while Uncle was knowledgeable, he had pretty obviously never heard of an alpha knotting all the time without any omega scent present to stimulate the response. 

And that had been just great for Zuko. Banished. Scarred face. Weird penis. The universe just went on throwing hardship down on him.

Well at least, if nothing else, this newest torment solved one of the stupider mysteries of his life. 

What was unclear now was why Iroh hadn’t sensed the omega, too. It wasn’t supposed to be possible to divine designation before presentation. Zuko was proof enough of that. Ozai had been confident he had to be the first beta born into the royal line. When he’d begun presenting three years into his banishment, shortly after the Avatar reappeared, Zuko had felt so vindicated, so relieved... 

...but the weird things about his presentation, particularly the embarrassing thing with his overactive knot, had always hammered at a fault-line of insecurity for him. Perhaps he was not a normal alpha. Perhaps he could never be with a woman in a normal way, a way a beta woman could manage. Perhaps his father had been right after all.

Or perhaps, Zuko thought sourly as he cleaned himself up and led the ostrich horse the rest of the way, this waterbender was just ruining his life in a heretofore unnoticed way. Maybe he’d be a perfectly normal alpha if not for her.

A perfectly normal alpha who would only ever in his wettest dreams get this close to an omega, much less an omega in heat. 

They were so very, terribly rare. In the Fire Nation, there had for over a century been a standing mandate that any omega to present must be handed over to the Fire Lord. Zuko’s grandfather had even killed another alpha to claim his young second bride. So the story went. 

Privately, Iroh had told Zuko that she had already been bonded - these things could be unpredictable and the time between an omega presenting and falling into her first heat could be as short as days. When Okumi slipped into heat during her transport to the palace, one of the guardsmen had answered her call and tried to secret her away to safety. But Azulon had come to meet her on the road. He killed the guardsman when he stood in defense of his omega, then had finished the heat with her. Despite the frenzy of her need, and despite Azulon’s mating bite, Okumi had never accepted him. She had borne Zuko’s father and had chosen death shortly after, unwilling to endure a second heat with the alpha who had killed her true mate and raped her.

What my father did was a dishonor and a disgrace. When people tell the story, they say Azulon was strong to dispatch the lesser alpha and claim the omega. The truth is that he should have respected the mating bond that existed between Okumi and her alpha and left them alone.

How could he, Uncle? The guardsman had defied a royal mandate! 

A mandate from the Fire Lord is nothing but words, Prince Zuko. An omega’s need is the more powerful mandate by far. And while a strong alpha, not unlike a strong firebender, must first control his own mind and his own actions, it is hubris to think a mere man’s command could ever stop an alpha who has been called - but more importantly, accepted - to join an omega during her heat.

Zuko, presently feeling the power of such a call, had a new appreciation for how much restraint was required to stop himself from answering it. In retrospect, reflecting on all this, he could definitely understand why the waterbender would be extremely leery of him. 

But Zuko was not Azulon. He was a better alpha than that. And a better man. Her body might be calling, but she was not. She hadn’t accepted him. Wasn’t going to accept him. 

Zuko forced himself to stop several houses up the street from where he knew she was nesting. From this distance, she wouldn’t be able to scent him. His alpha snarled and cajoled and pleaded for him to get closer - just a few more steps, just a little more, and she would sense how much he desired her. 

Omega needs to know we’re here to answer her call. What if she thinks we don’t want her? She’ll keep calling until an alpha answers. But no other alpha has found her out here. No other alpha could. Because she is mine. Meant to be mine!

Zuko clenched his teeth and didn’t take one more step. She thought he was some kind of animal, that he’d exploit her given the chance, that he’d cave to temptation. But Zuko was better than all of that. She’d decided against him? Fine, that was her right and it was fine. He wouldn’t try to change her mind. He wouldn’t let his scent tempt her, he wouldn’t let his alpha off the chain. He would maintain perfect control.

Unless she changed her mind.

Which she wouldn’t. 

But if she did.

Zuko drew a great breath and huffed it out, but that only refreshed the wash of sparks her scent lit in his brain. Ruining his life. She was ruining his life.

“Waterbender,” he called. “Can you hear me in there?”

By the light of the fat quarter moon, he could see the open upper story windows. She had to be able to hear him, but a long moment passed and no answer came. Zuko clenched his fingers around the tough hempen lead until his knuckles cracked, but he didn’t step closer. She must have opened those windows to cool the place down, but he doubted that was helping with her discomfort. 

Her scent was so much stronger now, coating his tongue and saturating his thoughts with his alpha’s persistent rumble - Needs. Wants. Hurts. Mine. Even though he’d come moments ago, even though his knot was still slightly thick and oversensitive, he found his dick was stiffening all over again, preparing to give her everything her scent was telling him she needed - everything he had to give.

But she didn’t want it. 

And, idiot that he was, Zuko had fallen so far into humble ignominy that he’d volunteered himself to be her errand boy. Not even for the chance to claim her - just because it was right to help her and protect her in her hour of need. She didn’t want him, but here he was hanging around her like a moth desperate to get to a flame. 

...if the moth was eager to tear any other moth who came around to pieces and, at the slightest signal from the flame that it was amenable and in its right mind, go fuck it for days. 

“Waterbender! Come get your... water.”

Scowling, Zuko pulled his shirt back up over his nose and tried to focus on how foul his clothes smelled rather than what might be going on behind those dark windows. If she was injured and couldn’t answer, what could he do? He couldn’t go looking for her. Because if he found her, especially in the state her scent told him he would find her - naked and trembling and alone in her nest, so desperate to be fucked she might turn dark, vacant eyes up at him and open her arms and spread those soft-looking legs - Zuko was not at all confident that his self-control would hold against that invitation.

He had to be so careful. He could still think here, where he stood, but if he ventured too close, that was liable to change. Her pull was so powerful now. If it had been a fishing line before, it had since become a chain, links clicking together under the strain of the fight he was putting up.

“Just come out?” he called, a thread of desperation creeping into his voice. “Or come to a window. I shouldn’t get any closer.”

“Would you give me a minute?” her snarled response finally came, strained and muffled by the door. “La. You’re worse than Sokka waiting on dinner.”

Zuko scowled into the underside of his shirt and tried to focus on remembering whether Sokka was her brother or the flying bison. The Avatar’s name was Aang - he’d heard her shout it enough times and it was pretty commonly known around the world now... but the rest of their names had kind of jumbled around in Zuko’s memory. Sokka wasn’t the Avatar, so it was definitely either the brother or the bison...

He hoped it was the bison. He would rather not be compared to her brother... but he could definitely see the appeal in being likened to a large animal she rode into the heavens.

Zuko huffed and refocused. She was irritating, but at least she was still herself. She wasn’t going to beg him like he had heard omegas in heat did. He wasn’t going to have to refuse her in addition to refusing himself. She would come out, be irritating enough to nearly counterbalance how deliciously tempting she smelled, and Zuko would remain strong. He would send the ostrich-horse to her, she could get her water off the saddle, and he would go back to the edge of town. 

Then the door opened - the hinges squeaked sharply in the silent town - and that plan fractured and faded from his mind.

First he saw her, moving carefully and holding onto the door jamb. She had been moving around easily just a few hours ago. Zuko didn’t recall learning many details about omegas who endured heats alone, but he knew instinctively that it wasn’t good that her condition was deteriorating so quickly. His alpha paced the back of his mind, urgency rising.

The waterbender’s head turned as she searched for him, then spotted him. She stiffened.

Her scent had rushed out of the open door around her and it reached Zuko in that instant. The chain grew thicker, stronger, pulled so much harder. She was tense, verging on desperate. Puddling, gushing arousal poured off her, deepening as she went on staring at him.

-Omega needs me, shouldn’t do this alone, suffering, hurting without me, my Omega-

“I’m too close,” he choked.

Chapter Text

Katara teetered back and managed to open the door, then stepped out to a view of the empty street. Zuko waited off to the left, several buildings away, standing there with an ostrich-horse. The light of the moon left him shadowed and indistinct. From this far, she couldn’t even properly catch his scent, but she could see he was holding his shirt up over his face again.

Alpha is so good. Alpha is so strong and good, but he should be closer. Invite him closer...

Just the shape of him had a deep pang of desire striking between her shaky legs. Katara had to grip the door frame to steady herself. Slick spilled out of her, dripping more heavily down her thighs than ever before. She pressed her legs together, but that just... felt good. She moaned under her breath.

“I’m too close,” Zuko rasped in a much quieter voice. 

“Don’t go,” Katara gasped before she could think better of it. He pulled up short, about to take another long step back. She worked hard to straighten her spine and speak with dignity. “It’s... come to my attention that... there is... some pain. Which, I didn’t actually know was a part of... this.”

He seemed to hesitate, still poised to back up. “It’s bad?”

Katara couldn’t help herself; she made an irritated sound and folded her arms over her chest. “No, Zuko. It tickles and I’m totally fine with it.”

He was silent, still, watchful. She couldn’t even see the look on his face. Katara heaved a breath, dug deep, and finally spat out the words.

“I need help.”

Zuko didn’t move, but he seemed to grow somehow more tense. Like a bow that had been drawn and was waiting in its tight position. “What do you need?”

The tenor of the question had her skin prickling and she found very suddenly she was actually rubbing her thighs together, the slick between them creating a sensuous glide. While he stood there, watching her. He made the faintest sound - something between a grunt and a whimper - but did not move.

“Uhhh...” Katara breathed, shallow and unsteady, and stopped the movement as best she could. “I... think you know.”

She blinked sluggishly. Zuko had shifted his weight. He was no longer poised to move farther away. The fist in which he held the ostrich-horse’s lead shook slightly at his side. 

“I have to hear you say it,” he growled, enunciating

The sound that came out of her was nothing short of a moan. “Alpha...”

He made a sharp, pained sound, every line of his body taut, drawn impossibly tighter. “Urhh... no...” he managed through his teeth. “No, I promised... the waterbender.”

It was an odd enough thing to say that it pulled her mind from the puffy clouds that were so close to swallowing it. She emerged deeply offended. 

“Do you not know my name?” 

“Uh,” Zuko said thickly, suddenly stilted. “...no... actually. What’s your name?”

“It’s Katara!”

“Mm,” he said, and infuriatingly, even now the sound of his voice tugged at her. “Tell me what you need, Katara.”

“Ah, uhm, I- I need- You don’t even know my name,” Katara panted, blown away by the enormity of this situation, “and I was just gonna- You know what? Never mind! This is-!” She turned to go back through the door, flinging up one hand as if to dismiss him.

“Wait!” 

She stopped, a whine squeezing out of her. It was with extreme effort that she didn’t turn to look at him again.

“Y-your water.”

Powerful forces were exerting themselves on Katara in that moment. Her pride was telling her to blow him off and ration her dirt-water. She didn’t need anything from some spoiled, selfish prince who couldn’t even bother to learn her name during the years he spent terrorizing her and her friends. 

Her pragmatism was telling her to do without the man if she couldn’t stomach him, but at least take the water. Without it, she would be lucky to survive so much overheating and sweating and... other excreting.

And of course the omega believed the water was an insignificant benefit of acquiring the man. Her voice was a purring rumble in the back of Katara’s head now, powerful and constant as thundering surf.

You’re so close. It’s not too late... Just tell Alpha what you need and he will provide it. He just has to hear you say it. Don’t need to hurt anymore; Alpha is right here and he is so good...

The pain was... pretty bad... and it was only going to get worse... 

Katara heaved a sigh and turned to face him again.

Zuko had brought the ostrich-horse several steps closer. He slowed, stopped, and watched her for a long moment. Then, deliberate and meeting her eye, he kept coming. He was still holding his shirt up over his nose and mouth, but the way he stared at her told her it wasn’t working so well. 

He got as close as he had been before and, finally, Katara picked up his scent. 

She opened her mouth, let it play across her tongue like humid wind. Thunderheads grumbling their sodden promises. Determination. Caution. And looming massive over both was his desire, poised to sweep all the rest away. She pressed her thighs together but that did nothing to stop the trickle of slick - a drop itched down the soft side of her knee.

Zuko did not stop until he stood just off the porch where she waited, still meeting her eye, seemingly transfixed as he watched her scent him. He had an erection again. And he smelled different. Less like that arid landscape and more like... water... and something close and tight and secretive, where skin chafed skin and spicy musk bloomed in the air.

Abruptly, he steered the ostrich-horse around so it stood between them.

“Get your water, Katara.”

He said it so quietly, muffled through his shirt, but it was a challenge. And she very suddenly wanted to meet it. She wanted to snatch the water out of the fat skins she saw hanging from the saddle and use it to knock him back, send him staggering, see if he could handle it...

...but she already knew he could. She might knock him down, but he’d get up again. He’d come back for more.

Zuko always did.

Something deep in Katara’s abdomen fluttered, a throb of pleasure and an echo of the horrible cramps she had endured. Surf crashed through her.

Want...

“If you want something,” he said tightly, and Katara realized with some embarrassment that she’d breathed the word aloud, “you’re gonna have to say what it is. And you’re gonna have to talk to me like you know who I am.”

Zuko watched her over the ostrich-horse’s back and over his hand still holding his shirt to his face, a deep furrow in his brow but his eyes wide and burning. He smelled so hungry, it was like a quiet demand on the air between them now.

Katara bared her teeth at him. “I know exactly who you are.”

“Good,” he said darkly. “Then just say what you want. And you’ll get it.”

She shuddered and panted a little at that tone, at his closeness and his fierce promise, but only glared back at him harder. She had lulled herself into thinking she could get what she needed from Zuko - and, fine, maybe she could - but being in his presence was such a stark and immediate reminder of all the history between them. All the fights, all the desperate escapes. In a way, he was still just trying to capture what he wanted; it just happened to be her this time.

And Katara wasn’t about to just give him what he wanted because he smelled good and she hurt and was having trouble thinking over the voice in her head commanding her to do it. Denying him and resisting him was the proper response to Zuko demanding something. That was what she needed to do!

You’ve fought Alpha hard enough, now, crashed her omega, punishing the shore of her mind. You have his measure, and his measure is good. Time to present for him.

Katara’s knees wobbled underneath her and pressed together, suddenly desperate to bend, lay her back, spread herself out for his searching eyes. Instead, she grabbed the door frame with both hands and physically shook her head, trying to clear the spray from her mind. 

She had to think this through! She’d take the water, she decided, and just ignore him. She could do that much. 

Refusing to meet his eyes, she shuffled the few steps across the porch and started untying the water skins with fumbling fingers. For several long, awkward moments, Zuko just watched her steadily over the animal’s back. She could feel his eyes on her now like she’d feel the blazing sun. He was nearly within arm’s reach, and her omega carried on a steady stream of pleased and excited nonsense - so strong, take good care of us, smells so tasty, nice big, hold us tight, thick good - and the constant ramble kept drowning out Katara’s thoughts. 

She needed to think but it was so unrelentingly hard.

She wanted to just stare fixedly at the ties as she clawed at them, but couldn’t help the eventual upward drag of her eyes. Zuko looked so angry - she didn’t have to see his nose or mouth to know he was scowling - but he smelled more muted, frustrated. And there was a hint of something restless, something like worry.

“I’m sorry I didn’t remember your name,” he said abruptly, quiet and urgent. His voice was a little deeper, a little heavier. His desire smell was getting in her head and had her heart racing even faster. “But you have to know when I leave this time, I can’t come back. I shouldn’t even be this close to you... I wouldn’t have - except you said... You were trying to ask for help. Katara, if you want... something... from me, this is your last chance to say so.”

“If I did want something,” Katara said icily as she finally freed one water skin and started on the other, “I wouldn’t want it from someone who never bothered to learn my name.”

“Rrh!” He rolled his furious eyes upward and then back to her. The frustration flared and took on an angry edge, but the desire steamed off him thicker, too. “In a little while, you’re not gonna know your name!”

“Yeah, well, at least I won’t have to-” 

She cut off abruptly, realizing that, technically, yes, she was going to have to have sex with herself. She’d tried to stop and couldn’t. It was going to happen, and it was going to hurt more and more. 

And that was why she needed Zuko. 

Mortified, Katara gritted her teeth and scowled down at the last water skin, which was evidently tied on with some kind of impossible knot known only to total jerks. A tear dashed down her cheek, squeezed out of her by all this desperate, shameful helplessness.

The jerk drew a deep breath, flinched, and pressed on in a much quieter, almost gentle voice.

“You said you need help. I can help. You said you’re in pain. Katara, you-” He huffed out a breath, shook his head against the cloth over his face. His voice eased down to something soft and faintly exasperated - almost a purr - and it sent a shiver scrabbling up her spine. “Maybe you don’t know this, but that’s what alphas are for. I can make that... so much better.”

Katara shivered. Her fingers stilled. Her thighs pressed wetly together as her inner muscles fluttered. She couldn’t even find it in herself to be outraged over the suggestion that he might know more than she did.

Alpha can make it so... much... better, her omega sizzled and rushed in her ears. He brings us heavy gifts, still dripping from the river. Taste them, tongue their shapes into your mind. Let it in. Let him in.

Very slowly, Katara let her eyes slip back up to Zuko as he sighed and went on. He was not watching her now, but peering off to the side, toward the end of the street. He didn’t look angry now, though the crease in his brow remained deep. This close, eddies of his emotional scent rose and fell about him, complex and rich and confusing. His voice was quiet and strained as he searched for words.

“But I understand you don’t want help from me, even though you need help. And you’re conflicted about that. I know what that’s like. Maybe you really do want to do this alone, even though it’s gonna be hard. Maybe that’s your path.”

It was a much more empathetic thing than she had ever expected to hear come out of Prince Zuko’s mouth. Maybe that was why her omega’s overwhelming voice receded, why it finally occurred to Katara that Zuko was alone here, too. He’d said his sister tried to arrest him, and she’d seen the wanted posters... no more armor, no more soldiers, no more ship. No more kind-eyed old man. 

With his face turned to the side, he looked like that stranger again. Handsome. Kind of... noble and romantic in the moonlight. It was easier to think of what she had to do, to accept it, when he didn’t look or sound so much like the Zuko she had known. 

He frowned, or frowned harder - she could see it in his eyes, the shape of his brow - and glared at the saddle between them.

“This was a mistake. I see that now. I should never have gotten this close to you. I said I wouldn’t push you, and I meant that, so I’m gonna go. I have to go. You can just cut the strap. It’s fine.”

Katara watched him, her fingers motionless on the ties securing the water skin, and tried to wrestle up the will to speak. She scrounged frantically in her mind to find a way to say this that wasn’t totally humiliating. Zuko’s eyes flicked toward her but did not raise. They lingered on her still hands.

“The ostrich-horse will... probably follow me if I walk away. Maybe. I’ll just-”

“Come help me with this stupid knot.” 

His eyes snapped to her, poured over her. The scent of his desire took on a sharp, animal edge. Katara shivered and felt her face getting hot, but she just frowned and waved impatiently for him to come around the ostrich-horse. He only watched her with that same restrained intensity.

“That’s a bad idea,” he uttered, very low and very quiet.

Katara huffed and scowled at him. “Do you want to help me or not? Because-”

“I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings. Are you asking for help with that knot or...” He tipped his chin down, breathed a little harder. “...the other-?”

“I’m obviously talking about the larger situation, Zuko!” Her face was blazing hot. She couldn’t believe she was actually going through with this, that he was making her actually say it out loud like this. She scowled and rolled her eyes up to the night sky. “I am asking for your help,” she spat, “with my heat.”

It seemed then, quite suddenly, that Zuko was done with cautious pausing and thinking. 

He reached over the saddle, slid his hand under hers to grasp the ties, and, in a flash of flame contained within his fist, incinerated them. The ostrich-horse startled. The water skin hit the porch with a heavy thump. 

Katara could only stare at the large hand that was suddenly cupped between hers, the wide knuckles and strong fingers. The light and heat had hardly touched her skin at all before vanishing, leaving the night feeling darker and closer than before. In it, she felt even more acutely aware of the firm warmth of his skin, the solid bones beneath.

That hand turned under hers - his palm was hotter, smelled good - and caught one of hers in a grip that bordered on hard. Katara throbbed. She panted, felt herself fully ensnared, and did not try to pull away.

There was a swatting sound and the ostrich-horse trotted off out from under their joined hands, may as well have vanished from the surface of the earth for all Katara noticed. She was staring heavy-lidded at the fingers curled around the back of her hand, which seemed to be getting closer to her face. Lips parted, she snuffled at the scoop between his thumb and first finger where a delicious scent clung. 

She felt more than saw him step readily onto the porch, into her space, felt his other hand stroke up her cheek near her ear, then comb its strong fingers deep into her hair, breaking and dispersing the heat that had gathered there to damp her scalp and neck with sweat. His fingertips slid through her hair at the root to curve around the back of her head. Katara distantly heard herself emitting a soft, sighing moan.

“Don’t worry, Katara,” he growled almost tenderly, dazedly. “I won’t let it hurt anymore.”

Katara’s eyes popped open and she snapped a sudden glare up at him. Or she would have. It was hard to glare properly with her tongue sliding along the creases of the skin between his thumb and forefinger - which was a thing she abruptly realized she was doing. Zuko was watching her with his mouth slightly open, hot yellow eyes fixed on her lips. As she glared at him, he only stroked his fingers against the back of her head, delving slowly through her hair.

Her omega was a whole ocean telling her to just savor the good taste she had found and let Alpha do what he needed to do now. Something very important needed to be done and Alpha was going to do it thoroughly and efficiently. All that was required of her was to accept it, submit herself to it, enjoy it... let him take care of it.

But Katara was not accustomed to leaving important tasks in the hands of others. There was something she needed to be doing; the thought was a scalding ember in her brain. And when she looked into Prince Zuko’s desire-darkened eyes, she knew part of what needed done was definitely not just letting him do whatever he thought needed to happen next. 

So she sank her teeth into his hand.

Chapter Text

Zuko’s night was taking a miraculous, unexpected turn. It was surreal. Truly incredible.

The waterbender had changed her mind.

The pain she was going through must have been pretty severe to make her reconsider within just a few hours. Zuko had been afraid at first that she might have already slipped fully under the influence of her heat as well - and if she had, he would have been honor-bound to ignore her request. Because he had promised. But she was still her irritating self. Mostly. She still openly disliked and mistrusted him. The only thing that had changed was that she didn’t want to be in pain anymore.

But the fact remained that she had accepted him. The waterbender. Katara. She had actually asked him to see her through her heat. Grudgingly, yes - and not without Zuko coaxing her a little through her misgivings - but she was still lucid and knew who he was. And she was going to allow Zuko to be the one to help her anyway!

Admittedly, she had almost certainly resigned herself to him because he was the only alpha on hand at present... and it was pretty unfair and awful that she had been essentially tortured into accepting him... but Zuko wasn’t going to let his pride and moral quandaries over the unpreventable circumstances stop him from stepping up and seizing the chance to do what every alpha dreamed of perhaps one day getting to do. 

Zuko was going to get to share a heat with an omega. Better, it was the waterbender. Katara. He was going to have intense heat-frenzied sex with Katara. And knot her. He was going to get to knot a girl! He was going to get to knot the waterbender! Katara. He was going to-

And he’d very nearly blown it all just by not knowing her name. Katara. Zuko figured he wasn’t totally to blame; she was entirely too proud for a peasant, even for such a powerful bender, and was clearly just looking for any stupid excuse to talk herself out of accepting him. Which, fine, was her right, but Zuko was going to show her he was better than she thought he was, he was a worthy choice - no, the best choice! It was important to her that he knew her name? Fine. Zuko would be sure to use it frequently so Katara would know he was listening and attentive to Katara’s wishes and-

It was so difficult to settle his thoughts now, with her scent closing in around him like the sweetest drowning water and her tiny, loose fist enclosed safe in his and her wet mouth intently exploring his hand... the hand, Zuko realized at length, with which he had so recently gripped his cock. He struggled to think past the excitement whipping his thoughts into chaos. Because the way her tongue slid so hot and slippery against his skin and the way she shut her eyes and sniffed and seemed drawn so mindlessly... she had to be scenting his cock. 

And that was... that was just... amazing. Maybe the best thing that had ever happened to Zuko. Her pouty little mouth lapping damply against his skin had his heart pounding and his erection straining harder than ever against the confines of his pants.

It had been so risky to approach her. He had sensed with every step that her scent was saturating him, eroding his self control, that he was approaching a point where he might not be able to walk away again. But then he had been there, an ostrich-horse away from her, and he had felt her need hammering through him to his heart. Not just her need to mate, but her need to hold onto herself, her pride. Her need to fight. When he had started to really understand that, when he’d seen that desperate tear sparkle down her face, he had known in his heart that he could walk away. It would be painful, a horrible devastating disappointment, but if she really wanted him to walk away, he would do it.

But she had not. She had accepted him. She wanted his help. She wanted his scent, his knot.

She wanted his knot. She had all but said it!

His knot, which for years had been a useless source of shame and uncertainty and anxiety. His knot, which had sprung to life for her long before it ever should have. She wanted it. 

No. Zuko ruthlessly steered his mind out of the gratifying trance of his alpha’s jubilation and back to reality. She had accepted him, but she still didn’t entirely want him. More accurately, she needed his knot to ease her discomfort. Maybe... she would come to want it later. Zuko resolved to do everything he could to ensure that happened. For now, though, he had a mission, a more important purpose to fulfill for her.

“Don’t worry, Katara,” he said in a daze as he watched the pink shape of her tongue search his hand for more of his scent. “I won’t let it hurt anymore.”

He felt an instant of mild foreboding at the way her eyes cleared and snapped up to his. Then she bit him, hard.

“Rrh!” Zuko snarled and his grip on her hand and her hair clamped down reflexively. His alpha flared hot at the challenge.

She still wants to fight? Prove your strength! Take her down. Pin her in position. Once she is reassured that you are worthy, she’ll invite you to her nest and welcome your knot.

Her hair felt so silky-good threaded tight through his fist. Her scent was an insistent tangle. Her wide blue eyes glared up at him and she breathed hard through her nose, waiting for him to react, attack her, whatever crazy thing she wanted. 

In this moment, Zuko did not think specifically of that mother turtle-duck that had bitten him so hard all those years ago, but he had been reflecting on it a lot so recently - on mothers who bite back - that it lingered in the back of his mind still- 

Why would she do that?!

Zuko...

-his mother’s voice, gently chiding, her tone so clearly telling him you know better, you know why... His alpha was intruding on that too now, infusing every part of him in a way it never had before he came to stand so close to Katara.

Strong, defends what is hers. You must be strong enough to match this omega.

And a part of Zuko knew being strong enough meant dominating her, forcing her to yield. But another part of him was gentle hands that pulled the defending mother away, redirected her to her babies, soothed the sting of her wroth.

You must be strong in the way she needs.

But Zuko wasn’t presently thinking about any of this. In the moment, he simply refused to be ruled by his alpha’s impulse. He wasn’t an animal, and he knew Katara wasn’t either... even if she looked totally deranged with her teeth clamped on the tough-yet-sensitive flesh of his hand. So instead of lashing out at her, instead of giving her hair a good yank to make her let go, Zuko just breathed through the sharp pinch of her bite and scowled down into her face.

“Why,” he growled, low through his teeth, “are you biting me, Katara?”

For a moment, she didn’t react. She just blinked and her eyes switched back and forth between his. She spoke against his hand, her breath puffing hot past her sunk-in teeth.

“I don’t trust you.”

“What am I supposed to do about that?” Zuko demanded. 

Katara glared at him and shrugged a little. Her breathing was irregular, her scent building even more in intensity. Behind her teeth, her tongue prodded at his skin, then traced it in a slow, liquid circle. 

Zuko heaved a breath and forced himself to gentle his hands even though she was still latched onto his flesh like a fanged pentapus. It didn’t hurt that bad - she wasn’t breaking the skin - and she was clearly on the verge of her heat beginning for real. She smelled strongly of her turmoil, many scents rising and fading as she fought some internal battle. 

She was fighting her omega, Zuko realized. The omega was telling her to do something she didn’t want to do. If his alpha was telling him to dominate and overpower her, what was her omega telling her to do? Lay back and take it? 

He didn’t know Katara very well, but he was pretty confident she wasn’t going to want to do that.

Zuko had a choice here. The omega was ultimately his ally in getting him what he wanted. And by the same logic, Katara was his adversary. If he waited a bit, the omega would win that fight and Katara would be forced to submit to her nature.

But Zuko didn’t want it to play out like that. Everything he’d been taught about omegas suggested that heat came in waves - waves that overwhelmed and then broke, then swelled again and again. Katara would lose control, then return to herself for a time before slipping away again, and if she came to her senses and saw her enemy over and over, naked and bound to her intimately, clearly taking his pleasure in her time of vulnerability... Zuko figured the odds were really good that he would end up stabbed with an ice dagger. 

He also thought, sour-bellied, of the grandmother he had never met. 

Very gently, still wrestling back the dregs of his anger, he stroked his fingers though her soft hair. 

“Look. I know we’ve fought a lot in the past and that maybe that’s kind of confusing for you right now. But you can trust that I don’t want to hurt you, alright? It’s my job as an alpha to take care of you and keep you safe. That’s what I’m here to do.”

Katara narrowed her eyes. “I thought the alpha’s job was to breed.”

It gave him a weird little shiver, hearing her say that against his skin. That was another thing he was going to get to do. Breed her. It chafed at the back of his brain that she needed it and hadn’t gotten it yet, that the slick he could smell so much more clearly up close was a pure note - because that scent needed to be mingled with his, thick with his. It was extremely important that his scent be on her, in her, everywhere. His alpha was slavering and panting, pressed massive against Zuko’s mind. Not quite overwhelming, but close.

Omega needs to be bred, needs filled with seed and knotted up tight-

But Zuko shoved it back. He couldn’t shut out his alpha completely like he normally could, but he refused to be derailed from... whatever he’d been about to say before. 

“It’s pretty rude to talk with your mouth full,” he managed instead.

Katara gave him a withering look, but finally released him. Apparently so that she could frown at him unimpeded. “You’re gonna take care of me?”

Oh yeah. That’s what he’d been saying...

If she had been even a little starry-eyed when she said it, it might have made Zuko melt. Instead, she spoke it with dismissive incredulity, as if to assert that Zuko was not only unlikely to take care of her, but perhaps also incapable of doing so. He scowled back at her.

“Yes, Katara. I’m going to take care of you.”

He felt her tremble where he still held her hand in his, where her other hand still cupped the side of his. Her fingers twitched, stroked spasmodically against his knuckles. Once they started moving, they seemed unable to stop. “Hmph. Do you even know how to take care of yourself? Your clothes are filthy.”

“I’ve been traveling.”

“Never stopped me,” she said snidely as she traced the lines of his cuffed sleeve. Zuko was extremely aware of her wandering hand, but he held her hard eye contact. 

“I wasn’t exactly prepared for life as a fugitive. It’s been an adjustment.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet!” She smiled meanly up at him and felt at his arm through his sleeve. “What, your servants wouldn’t go on the lamb with you?”

She gave his bicep a little squeeze. It was like her mouth and her hand were running on two separate systems. It would have been deeply confusing if Zuko hadn’t also felt his mind so split between priorities. He flexed under her touch. 

“They got better offers. Besides...” Zuko struggled to keep his focus as her hand slid from his elbow to his ribs, a light exploratory pressure. “...servants can, uh, get in the way.”

“You mean when they’re not dressing you and bathing you like a giant toddler?”

“More like,” Zuko snarled softly as she stroked down his belly, “when you want a little privacy.”

“Hmm,” she sighed. Her eyes had gone dark and half-lidded. Her hand eased past his sash. “Privacy for what?”

Zuko couldn’t help but lick his lips as her fingertips ghosted over his straining erection. His voice came out rougher than it had been. “Whatever you want, Katara.”

“Alpha so good...” she murmured. 

Zuko grunted faintly through his teeth and was on the brink of stepping fully up against her - but the second those words left her mouth, she stiffened. She evidently had not meant to say it, and the words aloud seemed to break a spell. She blinked up at him, then looked down at where her hand was hovering over his bulge, fingertips just barely pressed against it. 

Zuko expected her to panic. Wrench her hand away, maybe shove him or make some accusation. But instead, she turned her wide eyes back up at him. Her face darkened - a blush in the moonlight. Her fingers slid to the side and she braced her hand on his hip.

“I- I’m not... I didn’t mean to say...”

She trailed off, looking small and lost. Smelling like a thousand troubled emotions that were impossible to pick apart. Under all of it was her need, a hot ember compelling him toward action. Zuko remembered his own hands and slowly opened and closed his fingers against the back of her head. 

“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to worry. I mean it, Katara. I will take care of you.”

He stroked her knuckles with his thumb, then tugged her hand to his chest. Her fingers splayed out against him readily.

“You’re just an animal that wants to impregnate me,” she accused, sounding a little disgusted, a little petulant. But also breathy, like the idea of him impregnating her was no longer as unappealing as she wanted it to be. And her arousal was only thickening on the close air between them-

Omega wants it, needs it, her scent is calling for it-

-but her turmoil was thickening, too.

Zuko huffed out a breath and fought to focus. The excitement and arousal that flooded through him at the suggestion were even stronger than they had been when she brought it up minutes ago. 

-she keeps bringing it up- 

But this wasn’t her omega talking - it was her, Katara, and if she was talking about it, it had to be preying on her mind. In fact, this was probably a big part of that internal battle she was fighting. Because, yeah, obviously the omega had one pretty specific goal - and Katara had told him explicitly that she did not want to be pregnant. She did not want sex with him, and she did not want to be pregnant. She’d been very clear. Just because she was now willing to accept the sex - so she wouldn’t have to keep enduring terrible pain, he reminded himself ruthlessly - that didn’t mean she had changed her stance on the other thing.

And, actually... now that he was thinking about it, Zuko wasn’t totally on board with that other thing, either... like- like not at all!

So maybe... Maybe she needed to know he was with her there. Maybe they could kind of... go back-to-back on this one.

“My alpha wants that,” Zuko admitted sourly. “Every time you mention it, it gets... loud. But I’m not exactly in a great place to...” His heart started hammering in his chest and a little unexpected jag of terror lanced through him as he actually said the words out loud. “...become a father... right now. What with being a fugitive and all.”

He finished on a lame note, but Katara’s fingers curled tight into his tunic, pulled him closer. The hand on his hip clenched. “I have some herbs,” she mumbled, dazed but still anxious. “They’re old but maybe they’ll still work.”

Her desperation and fear hung heavy in Zuko’s belly. He needed to ease them, needed to comfort and soothe her with an urgency that went much deeper than the compassion he might ordinarily feel. His own worries flew from him, forgotten.

“Even if they don’t, we’ll figure something out,” he said with quiet certainty, stroking her scalp and settling his free hand on her shoulder. It felt so small and fragile. He wanted to shield it from all the things that troubled her. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Katara.”

Her eyes were almost black in the moonlight. Her hand on his hip slid haltingly back to his erection. 

A short, hard breath escaped Zuko’s mouth. Katara briefly flicked her eyes between his as if to gauge his response, then dropped them back down between them and proceeded to squeeze him through his clothes with a tormentingly light touch. Her lips parted. Zuko groaned faintly and gripped her shoulder and her hair, had to really fight to loosen his hold and not just drag her into a kiss.

She didn’t look back up for a long moment, just watching her hand squeeze him as if it was not entirely her own. He twitched under her hand and her eyebrows gave a startled little hop. Zuko swallowed and tried to think of anything to say that wasn’t stupid and overexcited. 

“Do you like it?” he asked, and then barely suppressed the urge to slap a hand over his eyes. But Katara did not seem to notice.

“Yesss,” she breathed, daring to slide her hand lower, searching for his end. When she found it, she curled her fingers around the head in a way that made Zuko’s hips rock forward. He immediately stilled himself, but was breathing pretty hard all the same. 

His fingers had come loose from where he held her shoulder and his palm slid down her back, along the thrilling curve of her waist, and at last settled on the plush roundness of her hip. It would have been pretty innocent... except his fingers encountered the bare skin at the top of the split in her dress. A little slice of creamy soft flesh that demanded his immediate and full attention. He quickly found his fingers sliding slowly under the back panel, drawn as if by magnets toward her plump ass. Her plump, bare ass. He wanted to grab her hard with both hands and press his pelvis against hers, grind into her soft body. Instead, he splayed out his fingers over one cheek and grasped it as gently as he could. It filled his hand so perfectly, hotly molding to the spaces between his fingers.

Katara gasped. Her hand firmed a little on his cock, her grip turning to an almost-delicious squeeze. 

“Uh,” Zuko half-grunted. “You can be rougher than that. If you want-”

Apparently she did. Her fingers clamped down on him about mid-shaft and she pressed the heel of her hand downward with sudden, steady force.

Zuko rolled his hips into it and growled. He watched her face, her mouth fallen open and her lowered eyes half-lidded. She was so beautiful. He had noticed her before, knew she was a pretty girl, but he hadn’t ever really realized how incredibly soft her lips looked. He wanted suddenly to kiss her - more than all the rest of it... But her lips were moving, speaking low, desperate words.

“Alpha... I need... I - ah...”

With his hand on her butt, it was very easy to feel the way she was squirming, rubbing her thighs together and working her hips to get some stimulation where she so desperately needed it. Zuko felt a powerful urge to pick her up and get those legs wrapped around him so she could get it from his cock like she ought to. 

But his alpha wasn’t in control. Zuko was.

“Do you want to invite me to your nest?” he asked, stroking the curve of her skull and gently squeezing her backside, gently tugging her a little closer until her hand was trapped lightly between their bodies. 

“Uh... uh-huh...”

There, she said she wants to go. Pick her up and take her already! Omega needs!

She pressed her hips a little harder against his, and Zuko felt her squirm against her hand - because when she did it, that hand pushed harder against him, too. 

“Katara,” Zuko said instead of rubbing against her, watching her very closely.

She tore her eyes from where she had been watching the fingers of her free hand slide slowly under his tunic where it crossed over his chest. She had at some point undone the simple toggle, leaving that outer layer held in place only by his sash. There was little clarity left in her stare, but she watched him, suddenly much more alert. 

“When we get to your nest, I’m gonna fuck you in it. Are you ready for that?”

She shuddered and slipped her hand from between them to his hip, pulling him harder against her. “Are you? Because you see-eep!”

Completely reassured by her snarky tone, Zuko ducked down and scooped both hands under her (silky naked) butt to haul her fully up against him. Her legs parted and hooked around his waist and her hands were suddenly clamped on his shoulders. Her face was slightly above his, and her wide, startled eyes met his. He felt her breath puff softly against his mouth and wanted again to kiss her - but hesitated. 

“I’m ready,” Zuko explained unnecessarily instead. 

“Oh,” Katara said, high and soft. Her breathing was coming faster. She squirmed her hips to rub against him but winced. “Too rough...”

“S-sorry!” Zuko immediately tried to gentle his hands where he held her under her butt, almost dropped her, but she clung to him tighter.

“No,” she whined. “The fabric. My dress. Need it off.”

“Oh,” Zuko said. Relieved and spurred on by fresh urgency, he carried her through the door. “I can definitely make that happen.”

Chapter Text

Katara was on fire. She could hardly think at all now, and most of the things hammering through her head had less in common with thought than with observation and compulsion. And the things she was observing had narrowed down so that she didn’t even notice Zuko carrying her inside and kicking the squeaky door shut behind him and stepping searchingly through the dark.

All Katara really observed was how good his body felt between her legs, the size and hardness of him. She just needed so much more. She needed the taste of him on her tongue, so she hugged his shoulders close and began licking at his neck with short, hungry strokes and nipping his flesh lightly here and there. There was a particular spot near the thick muscle of his shoulder that smelled especially tantalizing and Katara rubbed her cheek and jaw there, licking and sucking and biting and savoring the deep, increasingly musky taste of him. His throat vibrated against her mouth in a groan. 

It was good, exciting, but she needed more. She needed his weight on top of her. She needed his substantial hard-on to be out from under all those layers and preferably quickly relocated to inside her. She needed to at least be touching it, but he was holding her too high up now for some unfathomable reason.

She was aching, she needed something, anything! She squirmed in his hands even though the cloth of her dress was chafing between her legs when she tried to rub herself against him. She raked her teeth across the side of his neck and gasped words that weren’t her own in his ear.

“Alpha, please. Need you now. Need it. Please, Alpha. I’ll be so good for you now, I promise I’ll be good.”

“Katara,” Alpha growled, “stop wiggling and tell me where your nest is.”

A little part of her recognized that voice and warned her not to let her guard down... but there was no guard left to muster. There was only the omega, sprawled out into an endless ocean, and it had already swallowed Katara down into its depths. She couldn’t stop either wiggling or babbling against this familiar stranger in the dark.

“Please, Alpha! I’m so empty, please touch me, please!”

He was breathing hard, she could feel against her chest and belly - between her thighs - and he adjusted his hold so he could slip one hand farther under her, sliding deliciously through the slick that had gathered a little in the crease where her butt met her thigh. Alpha let out a broken groan as his fingers slid through the fluid and finally began exploring her slippery folds.

“Agni, you’re so wet,” he gasped. He slid one finger inside and Katara moaned and writhed, already pleading for more. He shortly followed with a second, curling them against the side of her channel in a way that had her grinding into the movement. He began squeezing in a third. “Where’s your nest?” he demanded breathlessly. “I need- to get you to your nest.”

Katara could only hum in pleasure as his fingers delved into her, spreading and massaging as her slick came dripping down his knuckles. She used her grip around his body with her legs to work herself up and down against the intrusion and her mouth was quickly hanging open. She pressed it behind his ear, breathing the omega’s words into his short hair. 

“Alpha, smell so good. So right. Needed you and you came. Found me. Alpha always finds me!”

He snarled and turned and suddenly her back was against a wall or the door or whatever hard surface and he pinned her against it with his chest and firm belly. He withdrew his fingers - she wailed and begged at once - but then swiftly reached between their bodies to sink them back in. The new angle was so much better that, when he curled his fingers, she quaked and blubbered.

“Yes! Please, Alpha, more! Need it! Need you inside me now! Fuck me, please fuck me!”

“Not here,” he said against her ear, breathing hard into her hair. He kept working his fingers deeper inside her. His other hand clenched and tugged her butt cheek, pulling dizzyingly against where his fingers impaled her. “I told you I’d fuck you in your nest. Where’s your nest?”

“Please! More!”

Alpha growled and spread his strong fingers, worked in his fourth. His mouth was against her jaw, breath pooling hot down her neck. “So tight for me, Katara... Gotta open you up, get you ready... for my knot...”

Katara was sunk too deep under the omega to voice her confusion, but the omega wasn’t confused at all. The omega knew instinctively what her alpha wanted to do. “Yesss, put it in, put all of it in, need it, Alpha!”

His hand felt so good, spreading her wider than her own hand could, his knuckles brushing her soft lips as he sank farther in, twisted his wrist. “Not until I get you in your nest,” he said in a strained whisper. “I told you I’d do it when I got you to your nest. Come on my fingers now, show me how much you want me.”

She curled her hips against him to get the intrusion deeper, to just the right spot, and then broke over the crest, crying out and writhing in his arms. Her cunt clamped down hard on his fingers, but Alpha was strong, pressed harder and deeper, refused to be squeezed out. He growled against her cheek and kissed softly around her slack mouth as she groaned and panted through the long shatter of her release. 

“Rrrh, so good, Katara. You feel so good. So strong. Gonna knot you so tight, Katara. Give you everything you need. Take such good care of you...”

Katara floated nearer to the surface than she had been since she’d bitten his hand... the same hand that was presently inside her, still holding firm as her orgasm slowly faded. There had been only a little pain this time, a faint cramp that his hard fingers had eased significantly, and Katara’s mind latched hard onto the relief. It really didn’t have to hurt. She could just... let go. Her omega purred, momentarily satisfied, and the purr was a hypnotic ripple cascading through Katara’s peaceful mind.

Alpha is so good. Alpha is waiting for our nest. Alpha takes care of us...

“Where is it, Katara?” he asked, low and tense against her mouth. She could only groan softly, still regaining her wits. “Your nest. Where-? Fuck it.”

His fingers carefully withdrew and Katara keened in spent protest. Then a light flared and a rundown house appeared out of the dreamy dark. All she could do was hang limp in his arms as Alpha strode with her hurriedly from the front room to the back. He quickly lowered her to stand on her wobbly legs among the scant heap of blankets she had arranged. She stared up at him and clung to his tunic, stricken by the sudden fear that he meant to abandon her, but Alpha did not pull away. He just held her to his chest with one arm and looked down at her. 

In his other hand, he held a dancing flame. His expression was serious, his yellow eyes warm and bright and so very hungry. The flame illuminated mostly just the one side of his face and he was so handsome and familiar and unfamiliar.

“Now,” he said, and his tone sent a quiver racing through her. It was dark, full of intent and promise and thunder. His hand lowered to tug slowly at her sash. “Let’s get that dress off. Since it’s too rough.”

Katara nodded and fumbled her sash apart, shouldered hurriedly out of the dress, and let it drop on the edge of her bedding. Then anxiously toed it over to a better place. When she looked back, Alpha’s eyes were wide and trailing down her body. She felt them like a physical touch. Her nipples stiffened and her thighs shifted together.

“So beautiful,” he murmured. 

Katara felt the briefest sting of embarrassment being naked under these particular eyes. But it wasn’t an emergency or anything and it wasn’t a feeling the omega wanted hanging around, so it swiftly passed. What the omega wanted was still covered in shabby Earth Kingdom clothes. Alpha was wearing far too many layers and was just staring instead of touching her. But these were problems she knew how to fix.

“Alpha,” she purred, catching his hand and guiding it to her breast. His fingers were deliciously callused and rasped against her skin just right. His mouth fell open and his eyebrow tipped back as he gently palmed her. “Your clothes are so rough, too,” she added quietly, raising her hands to his chest.

“Uh... I guess they... should probably go too, then,” he said a little absently as he watched his hand cup her flesh and his thumb drag across her nipple.

Katara shivered at the pleasant sensation and the permission. Hardly restraining her urgency, she tugged his sash until it unraveled and fell to the floor. She spread his outer tunic open to reveal the drab olive garment beneath and began undoing the ties so that it too gaped open to reveal a long slice of his pale chest and belly. His scent was so much stronger under this layer, and there was a gleam of sweat on his skin. Katara wanted to press her nose to him and breathe him in... but she wanted to strip him bare even more. She pushed his clothes back over his broad shoulders and down. The sleeves caught on his elbows, but Katara hardly noticed. As she leaned in close to tug at them, she gave in to the urge and inhaled deeply against his chest. It was so smooth and firm under her lips, her tongue.

He tweaked her nipple and Katara squeaked and looked up to find him watching her, a faint smirk tugging at one side of his mouth. “Careful, Katara. I don’t want to scorch my only clothes.”

With a lingering stroke, he removed his hand from her breast and used his teeth to tug off the tight-wrapped cuff from around his wrist. Katara watched the sharp white flash behind his lips and felt herself flood with fresh slick. Then, after he’d pulled his arm free, Alpha passed the little flame from one hand to the other. 

And the light fell hard on Zuko’s scar. 

Out of the depths of the omega, Katara came thrashing back to the surface. 

She was completely naked. Prince Zuko stood inches away, a pleased little smirk on his stupid evil face as he pulled his other arm free of his clothes - some of which fell to the floor, but the majority still hung secured about his waist. Thankfully. His chest and arms were bare. That was quite enough. 

No! Not enough! Need the rest of Alpha! To touch, to taste, to-

Katara stomped the omega down and folded her arms over her exposed breasts.

When he had freed his other arm and looked back at her, Zuko seemed to recognize the change in her. His eyes widened slightly. The smirk vanished.

“Katara...?”

Katara looked him over slowly with sharp, clear eyes. He had been muscular before - she remembered from the North Pole how heavy he had been when he hit the rock wall and the ground, when Aang had hauled him into the saddle. Now, everything of excess had been boiled off him. His ribs pressed subtly against the underside of his skin and his abdominal muscles were a hard plane carved by starvation. His cheeks were faintly caved in as well, his entire body stripped down to its basics.

He really was a fugitive. Nothing but that ostrich-horse to his name, probably. Still chasing the Avatar for some reason. He looked more desperate than ever.

“Do you...” he asked very carefully, “remember what’s going on?”

Katara did. She was in heat. Her omega had taken control and would take it again in a moment. She had caved to the need for relief from the unrelenting desire and accompanying pain. And she had resorted to Zuko to help her, despite all the danger he posed. Despite what a terrible person he was. Despite the fact that he was an alpha and represented a whole new variety of threats that Katara had never had to worry about before her presentation. 

And she had just invited him in here and was about to have sex with him regardless. She had just- She had just clung to him and begged him for sex and he had instead used just his fingers to give her a mind-blowing and largely painless orgasm.

Because he was waiting to... to fuck her in her bed. Where she now stood. And he, just on the other side of the edge of her bedroll, waited.

Here he stood half-naked before her, tense and hesitating, searching her eyes for a signal, a sign of impending attack. He didn’t look like an out-of-control animal who would savage her given the chance. He looked like he’d gotten a good dose of comeuppance and was wary of getting another.

“The fugitive life really hasn’t been kind to you, has it?” she finally asked.

He blinked and relaxed his tense posture slightly despite her hard tone. 

“Good,” Katara said, raising her chin. “You deserve to know how it feels to be hunted. That’s what you did to us.”

His eyebrow popped back, then he scowled. “You and your little pals fly around on a bison like some kind of sappy fairy tale. Everywhere you go, people welcome you with open arms. Everywhere I go, I have to hide who I am and fight to survive.”

“I guess when who you are is an evil jerk, things must be pretty tough.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he snarled. 

“You’re the one who doesn’t know!” Katara snapped, shaking a finger at him. “You have no clue what this war has taken from me - from me, personally! And now I’m stuck here with you, throwing myself at the Fire Lord’s son, a bully who’s only ever cared about himself!”

Zuko tore his scowl away from her and glared off at the darker side of the room. He spoke through his teeth, like every word was incredibly heavy. “I... can still go... if that’s what you want.”

Panic flashed through her so swift and fierce it was hard to maintain a calm voice. But she did. “It’s not.”

He looked back at her askance with his scarred eye. The flickering light made the ridges of damaged tissue crawl horribly. But Katara refused to look away. 

“I’m not a bully,” he said finally. “Or evil. And I don’t just care about myself.” His mouth twisted, hard and bitter, and his voice climbed a little as he went on. “But I’m not just the Fire Lord’s son. I’m the crown prince, and the heir to the throne-”

It wasn’t a boast. Just a fact. He was simply correcting the record. His anger was acrid, too much. Katara narrowed her eyes harder against it. She hadn’t known these things, but she didn’t see that it mattered. If anything, it was just reason to hate him, to hate what she had to do with him, so much more.

“-and my mother’s name is Ursa,” he finished after a second’s pause. Like he’d hesitated to include this but it was an essential part of some getting-to-know-Zuko tirade he’d been working on. 

Katara, still scowling, didn’t miss the flutter of complex emotions, deep and warm and sweet and so terribly aching. The anger was still there, too, but then a tang of embarrassment darted in. He knew she was scenting his feelings the same way he was scenting hers. Zuko screwed up his mouth like he meant to go on, holding his chin higher and still scowling back down at her as his anger tried to drown all the rest of it out, but Katara cut him off.

“My mother’s name was Kya,” she snapped, “and the Fire Nation took her from me.” She paused just long enough to register the widening of his eyes. She didn’t linger in the well of her grief and rage - didn’t need to. They were always kind of there. Let him breathe that in and look her in the eye! “But you’ll probably forget her name, too. What’s another peasant to the crown prince?”

Zuko faced her fully now, both eyes wide and stricken in the light of his fluttering little flame. For a long moment, he just stared at her, and Katara only folded her arms tighter over her chest and glared back. It was surreal to be having this conversation with him at all, much less naked. 

Stranger still to meet his eyes and feel her heat start to overwhelm her again, despite her anger and sorrow and fear. He still just smelled so good. And hardship may have winnowed him down, but what remained was solid and strong. He had picked her up and carried her like she weighed nothing. Just a few moments ago, his fingers had been inside her, and it had felt so devastatingly good, had provided unbelievable relief. Despite how raw and angry she felt, she also found herself searching desperately for a way to get his fingers - and other things - back inside her.

“I won’t forget,” he finally said. His look was solemn, his head slightly inclined toward her. She saw the moment he picked up the scent of her renewed arousal - his nostrils flared and his chest swelled... and Zuko fixed his eyes on the flame in his hand and stubbornly pressed on. “My mother is... I don’t know where she is. But that feeling you... I know what it feels like. That... absence. Where she used to be.”

A nervous shiver raced up Katara’s spine. She wasn’t sure if it was recognition or anxiety or arousal. But on its heels came increasing waves of need. She wanted to keep talking about this, but she couldn’t focus. She needed what he had promised her outside. 

“This conversation isn’t over,” she said, breathing harder. Her breasts tingled where they pressed against her arms. She couldn’t stop hugging them, rubbing her forearms against them. “I want to... circle back... later. Right now, I- I need... Take off your boots.”

Zuko watched her warily as she clung to the last inch of her control. Slowly, keeping his eyes on her the entire time, he crouched down and pulled the ties around his calves and ankles loose with his free hand. He held the flame steady out before him, and by its light Katara saw very clearly when his eyes flicked down just once to where the soft hair of her sex waited not far at all from the level of his eyes. His pupils were blown wide, just a ring of gold left to flash around them, and his nostrils flared with each deep, controlled breath. His desire-scent was growing thicker on the close air, a powerful counterpoint to the scent Katara had already infused into the entire house.

Then, slow in the way of a panther-viper, Zuko uncoiled back to his full height and toed off his boots. His balance wasn’t perfect - he wobbled a little kicking his second off - but then he was done and stood before her in socked feet, steady and waiting. Katara got the feeling he was watching for some signal. He smelled like his patience was straining. Any second, he would pounce. 

Or maybe he was waiting for her to slip back under, for the omega to take control again. Katara clenched her teeth at that thought, her control fed by fresh fury, betrayed by her own body to this-

“What do you want me to do now, Katara?” 

Fuck me, Alpha! 

Katara ruthlessly suppressed the thought, fought hard against that powerful voice and the tremor trying to take her knees out from under her. Zuko sounded quiet, but in his stillness he seemed to be vibrating. Any second. Any second, he would strike.

“Give me your clothes,” Katara said in a rush, for no clear reason she could immediately identify, except that she was naked and he had to be, too. 

Her breathing had been coming hard before, but it only came harder as she watched him. Still holding the flame with one hand, Zuko used the other to pluck his waist ties loose and push his pants and underclothes down past one hip and then, awkwardly, the other. 

Katara couldn’t tear her eyes away from the thatch of black hair that grew below his navel. As Zuko pushed his clothes off, his cock came into view, a thick shaft first pressed down and then, when the fabric finally dropped to pool around his feet, it bobbed up, jutting out from his body dramatically. 

It was big. Impossibly big. So much bigger than Jet’s - and that had been... difficult enough. There was just no way that the thing she was looking at now could... That it could even fit. 

Yes it can! Yes it will! It will squeeze and it will stretch us and then it will fit just right-

The musk of his arousal grew even more intense as she went on staring at him, and at length Katara realized her mouth was open, her breaths coming short. 

The omega was fawning, salivating, desperate. But Katara fought hard to keep her head above the surface, fought like her life depended on it. She clenched her teeth and knuckled her arms and by sheer force of will refused to go under. She couldn’t let this situation slip out of control. She had to be in control.

Slowly, watching her, Zuko crouched down to gather up his clothes and then held them out to her one-handed. He was close, didn’t even really need to take a step to offer her the bundle. But he did. His bare foot touched the edge of her bedding as he held his clothes out to her. Her view briefly obstructed, Katara broke free of her trance and glared up at him. She didn’t reach out for the clothes. 

Zuko just waited for a long moment, calm and steady. His unruffled appearance was belied by the scents coming off him. Urgency, desire, impatience... worry.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Katara,” he said quietly after a long moment. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

“Hah! I am not afraid of you.”

“Yeah, you kind of are right now,” he said with an irritated tilt of his head. “I can smell it.”

“Well-” Katara sputtered, embarrassed and flailing. “-maybe it’s just your gigantic penis! Did you think of that?”

His eyes widened and he stared at her, a little red spot appearing on just the one cheek. He glanced down at himself, then back up at her. “It’s not... gigantic.”

“Says who? That thing is enormous, there’s no way that’s gonna fit!”

Zuko huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes. “It’ll fit fine, Katara.”

Katara shivered a little - out of nerves! Not because the embarrassment she could smell mingling with his irritation was kind of... reassuring. He didn’t smirk or swagger or find her worry amusing. He took it seriously. It clearly annoyed him, but he still took it seriously.

“If it takes a little time and patience,” he said, meeting her eye steadily, “I can deal with that. Just... trust me.”

Katara blushed to her hairline, because it beat through her mind and her body and her skin that he was talking about slowly and patiently putting that gigantic penis - Prince Zuko’s gigantic penis - inside her. And her omega was howling for it.

“Trust you,” she finally managed. “Hmph!”

“Do you want these or not?” he asked irritably, holding up the clothes for her. 

Katara had forgotten asking for them. Still covering her breasts with one arm, she snatched the garments from his hand. And then very suddenly she found herself kneeling down on her bedroll. Seemingly of their own volition, her hands tucked those clothes, smelling so strongly of Zuko, around the perimeter of her blankets and her own clothing. For a moment, she couldn’t seem to stop. She was handling his underwear while he watched and couldn’t seem to stop.

Then, abruptly, she could and did. Katara sat back on her knees and braced her hands on her thighs to keep them still. She was sweating more than the still air of the house could account for. She felt wild and caught herself wiggling her hips slightly for the scant stimulation. Finally, she ventured a look up at Zuko.

He still stood tall just outside the edge of her bedding, watching her now with intense hunger. His chest and shoulders heaved with his deep, forcefully-slow breathing. His cock, a little above her where she knelt, seemed even bigger from this angle, the shadow it cast heavy and dark from that flame - which was flaring brighter in his hand.

“Your nest looks... nice,” he said quietly, his voice tightly restrained. “I’d like to get in it with you now.”

“Nest...” Katara repeated, breathless. She couldn’t meet his eyes all of a sudden. She looked down at the scant barrier of clothes she’d dug out of her pack and arranged, now mixed in with Zuko’s, so she didn’t have to look at him - so she wouldn’t have to fight so hard against the intense pull she felt to get him closer, to scent him in ways that had her blushing hot again just thinking about. “I didn’t realize... but that’s what it is, isn’t it?”

A nest. Like an animal would make.

Katara felt a whole new wave of anxiety and horror welling up in her belly. She was clinging by her fingernails to her control - and on the other side, there was just an animal, building nests and compelled to-

Present for Alpha. Alpha is so good and patient, but he will not wait much longer. If he has to fight to mount you, he may need to be rough...

Katara shuddered, and was more horrified to realize how not horrified she was at the prospect. She found her hands were rubbing slowly up and down the smooth length of her thighs, dipping deeper between them on every anxious pass. She stopped the movement and snapped her eyes back up to Zuko as if watching him would stop him from the inevitable pounce.

But he had not so much as moved. He just frowned back at her for a silent second, then lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged and straight-backed. If he hadn’t been naked and sporting that massive erection, he would have looked formal, like the prince he was supposed to be.

“Omegas build nests to have a safe and comfortable place to go through heats,” he said, sounding almost like a recitation. “What you’re doing is normal. It’s not... weird or bad or whatever you’re thinking that’s upsetting you.”

Katara just stared at him, narrow-eyed. Was he... trying to reassure her?

“And,” Zuko pressed on, evidently annoyed that she wasn’t responding, “when they choose an alpha, the omega includes that alpha’s scent in the nest. So... now that you have all my clothes... in there...” His eyes trailed along the line of clothes, then up her body. “...my alpha is telling me that’s more than invitation enough, and that I’m being stupid and neglecting my- responsibility by not just... joining you. Right now.” He clenched his jaw, released it. “But I want you to invite me. Because I get the feeling your omega is making decisions you’re not on board with.”

“Picked up on that, huh?” Katara snapped. 

He just met her eye evenly, and after a beat, she sighed. 

“Sorry. You’re right. And I know this is... It’s inevitable, I know it’s going to happen, I-”

“Not inevitable,” Zuko interrupted, tight-lipped. He sounded like every word was being dragged agonizingly out of him. “I can still... rrh! I can still go. But it’s getting harder just to be patient. The thought of walking away from you now is... with my... scent in your nest and... yours...” He clenched his jaw and his empty fist on his knee and shut his eyes. “I think I could still do it if you tell me to get lost, Katara, but I don’t know how much longer that’s gonna be true.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

His eyes flew open and he immediately narrowed them at her searchingly. “...Katara?”

Katara huffed and folded her arms back over her breasts - and squirmed her shoulders a little for the tingling friction. “You leaving doesn’t solve my problem, Zuko. I would just... It would just hurt. Earlier, when you... were...” She licked her lips and made a little gesture with her fingers, and his eyes flicked down to her fingers - and her breasts and the tops of her thighs and back up again in rapid succession. Katara throbbed under his glances but forged onward. “...there was... a lot less pain than when I tried on my own. I... I want help...”

“You just don’t want it from me.” 

Bitterness flooded his scent and it pricked at Katara’s frayed nerves.

“No. I don’t. The thought of regaining my senses and seeing your face - the enemy’s face - first thing every time does not fill me with peace and comfort, Zuko.”

“Yeah, I get that,” he said sourly. After a huff and a beat, he shrugged tightly. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t feel great about you being lucid and scared and angry to see me when it probably won’t occur to me that I might need to defend myself from you.” At her confused look, he went on. “From what I understand, alphas in rut aren’t exactly known for self-preservation or critical thinking.”

“Hmph,” Katara said with an airy curl of her lip. “How will I be able to tell the difference?”

Zuko frowned at her, annoyed, but his desire-scent spiked. “Probably the constant fucking is gonna be a dead giveaway.”

She couldn’t help it. Her eyes dropped down to his cock. It twitched, seemingly all on its own. 

She didn’t remember Jet’s ever doing that... but then, things with Jet had always been so hurried, so secretive - mostly because Sokka had been paranoid and suspicious and... right. He’d been so right about Jet, and Katara had had to silently swallow her heartbreak in addition to everything else.

But she wasn’t thinking about Jet right now, not really. All she was presently thinking was how good Zuko smelled, how strong he was, how deeply interesting his cock was.

“You could invite me in,” he said quietly, “if you’d like to look closer.”

Katara nearly scoffed that he was close enough, thanks, but the omega choked her back and forced her to restrain herself to a hard look. 

Yes, Alpha, please come closer. That’s what you say. And then sniff it and lick it and rub his scent all over-

“I just mean...” Zuko said, shrugging irritably, “if you want me to stay, maybe you want to be the one who decides when... we proceed. While you’re still... you.”

It wasn’t a bad point, but that didn’t make it any easier to agree with. A little part of Katara thought she should wait as long as she possibly could. Delay as long as she had strength to delay - but based on the omega’s growing power and Katara’s heavy breathing and the way her eyes kept sliding down his chest and trying to return to the point of her current fascination, it wouldn’t be much longer before the choice was out of her hands. 

And did she want to permit Zuko to come closer with a little dignity... or beg him to come closer so that she could smell and lick his cock with the feverish desperation she felt building at the thought?

Through clenched teeth, Katara grated out, “Fine. You can come in.”

He was over the edge of her nest so fast, it shocked her - though whether it was a sign of her slipping mind or his speed, she was no longer sure. All Katara knew was he was suddenly beside her, sitting back on his heels the same way she was, his knees just a hand’s span from her hip. His expression was calm and determined, but he smelled so excited he probably should have been fidgeting at least a little. But he wasn’t. He just watched her, patient as a cat-owl. 

And then the look broke as something occurred to him.

“Have you...” Zuko asked haltingly, nervousness suddenly in the air. “...not... done this before?”

Katara blushed and glared at him, but he only waited, his nervousness increasing. “I have had sex before,” she said primly.

“Oh good,” he blurted with palpable relief and a faint whiff of disappointment. “I mean-! Just... Was it another alpha? No! Never mind - it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know that.”

Katara watched him narrowly. In fact, she was remembering now, Jet had been an alpha. Sokka had complained about his good-bad woods smell. It hadn’t really mattered to Katara at that point because she hadn’t even begun presenting yet. She had just felt ready and Jet had been enthusiastic if maybe a little... rushed... and the whole experience had been just... uncomfortable. Every time. So uncomfortable that it later made her start to think that maybe she hadn’t been as ready as she’d thought she was.

And now here she was, dripping slick down her ankle and faced with another alpha. And if Jet had been too rushed, then Zuko was riding the brake like he was taking an unwilling trip in an Omashu mail cart. 

Katara huffed and put her hand on his knee. He jerked slightly like a skittish animal, but then immediately leaned closer to lay his hand on her shoulder and, slowly, stroke down the length of her back. It felt good. Katara was too warm, fever-hot, but the heat of his hand seemed to diffuse her discomfort in its wake, leaving a wide stripe of relief. His fingers brushed the thick curve of her backside, then retreated back up, sliding now over her spine.

Zuko had leaned closer. His scent was everywhere, dizzying and storm-cloud swollen and just on the cusp of downpour but waiting, waiting...

She found abruptly that her hand had ventured up his thigh and the tips of her fingers were tracing the velvety soft skin of his cock. The light in the room flickered, then steadied. His hand stroked uninterrupted down her back.

“You um,” he murmured, licked his lips, “don’t have a candle or anything. Do you?”

“I’d prefer the dark. So that... It’ll just be easier, I think, in the dark.”

Against the nape of her neck, his hand stilled. The words hung unspoken between them.

So I won’t have to see your face.

“Oh,” Zuko said very quietly. “I see.”

The light flicked out and there was only darkness, but that just made the scent of his hurt and bitterness sharper. But it quickly passed, washed away by his arousal, his excitement, his impatience. His hand glided down her back and pressed past where it had turned back before, pausing now to lightly squeeze the swell of her butt. And his other hand appeared, seemingly from nowhere, to spread wide on her thigh just above her knee.

Katara realized her fingers had curled around his cock and were sliding down, down to the tickle of hair at the base, then up his rigid length to the head where his skin rolled back deliciously and her thumb encountered a bead of moisture. 

She didn’t think. She twisted and bent down, her other hand bracing hard on his thigh, and licked the smeared drop from her thumb, from the tip of his cock. Zuko groaned and twitched hard in her hand. The taste had Katara panting, swiping her tongue across stiff ridges and sliding skin that smelled and felt so good, so right...

“Oh-mega...” Alpha growled. 

She could only whine wordlessly against his cock.

His hands shifted, gripped her leg and shoulder with sudden force, and pulled her up to straddle his lap. He pressed their bodies flush and settled her so her dripping labia were spread by the hard topside of his cock. 

“You can scent me later. All you want. Right now-”

“Need you inside, Alpha,” she murmured, hips rocking to slide back and forth along his length. Her slick made it a smooth, almost-perfect glide. “Inside now. Fuck me, Alpha, please, waited so long.”

He reached hurriedly between their flush bodies, pushed her up and angled his cock and, in a moaning rush, Katara felt the tip penetrate her opening. It was so big, and it stopped just inches in, blocked by the tightness of her channel past the reach of fingers, but she couldn’t stop bearing down, a quick, bruising rhythm trying to force herself open.

“Slow down,” Alpha snarled against her shoulder.

But she didn’t listen. She needed it. She would die probably if she didn’t get his entire length in her now-

He rolled her roughly on her back. He pinned her legs wide and used the weight of his chest to hold her in place, keeping the pressure of his cock inside her light, teasing. 

“I said I wasn’t gonna hurt you,” he said, low and fierce against her neck, “and you’re not gonna make a fucking liar out of me, Katara.”

She shuddered under his weight and his hot breath, feeling suddenly so right... except... He didn’t push in. He rocked his hips in tiny, insufficient thrusts that made her squirm and mewl and scratch at his shoulders. 

“Alpha, please- just do it, put it in me, I need it, I need split open on your cock, Alpha, need it deeper, have to-”

“Easy,” he breathed, steady and quiet and soft. He slid his hand up her thigh and used his thumb to circle the delicate flesh around her clit, a subtle tug that had her keening and shaking under him. “Can’t rush this part. Gotta be so gentle and careful right- ahhh...!” 

He emitted a guttural sound and Katara wailed as her walls finally began to yield and the tip of his cock penetrated deeper - but he didn’t press on. He shivered and lingered, gently working that spot wider with short, controlled presses of his hips.

“Therrre,” he growled. “So good... Already taking me so well, Katara... still gotta... ease you open, get you all... mmm, stretched and ready for me. Never... rhh... Never had a heat before... or a cock this big before. You’re so tight,” he said through his teeth. “But you’re already taking me so well, Katara, you’re gonna take my knot so well...”

Whatever this meant, it didn’t matter. Alpha was finally inside her, finally really fucking her, and it felt so good - but she needed more. Katara’s abdomen flexed to meet his short thrusts, stealing a little more penetration from around the rigid limit of his control. Her mouth ran constantly, begging for more, deeper, harder, please Alpha, but he only kept on, slowly working deeper at his agonizing pace. His thumb went on circling around her clit, steady and teasing, and he trailed careful nibbles and suckling soft kisses against her throat, up to her jaw, growling near her ear. 

And then, finally, when she thought she was going to absolutely lose her mind, he bottomed out. For a long moment, he stayed still, his pelvis pressed fully against hers and his cock huge and throbbing inside her. For an eternity, he was silent in the dark, only his breathing and the involuntary twitches of his cock proving he hadn’t turned to a statue.

“Alpha, please,” she breathed, gasped, moaned, cried, winding her hips under his to get any tiny bit of stimulation. But with his weight impaling her in place, it was almost impossible. She was trapped and desperate and Alpha wasn’t listening, 

Alpha wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do!

Something snapped. Katara clamped her teeth on his shoulder hard.

“Ow,” he grunted down at her.

“Zuko,’ she said, still biting him, “roll over. I wanna be on top.”

In the dark and the silence, he seemed to consider this. His excitement buzzed through the tight air between them. But he didn’t move.

“No. I’m just getting started.”

“What are you doing, meditating?” she sneered. “You’re supposed to be fucking me, not... whatever this is.”

“I was just thinking, Katara,” he said, slowly withdrawing and then firmly pressing back in. Katara grunted and released her jaw to drop her mouth open on a moan. “That I should try and be gentle with you, seeing as you’re in an altered state and this is all so new. But clearly-” He eased out, then shoved his hips back against hers, harder than before. Katara moaned, bared her teeth in the dark at the delicious slick impact of being so suddenly full. “-gentleness isn’t what you want. I guess what you want-” Again. “-is just to get fucked.” Again. “Is that right, Katara?”

He didn’t move and Katara clawed at his back and writhed and bared her teeth. “Yes! Please please please fuck me!”

He leaned in close, shifting his hips, grinding deeper. “Who do you want to fuck you, Katara?”

“You! A-Alpha!”

“Hm. For now,” he growled, ruthlessly bearing down. “But the sun’s coming up pretty soon, Katara. You aren’t gonna be able to hide in the dark and pretend it’s not me fucking you then.”

Katara hovered on the edge of awareness, the omega moaning and purring and writhing all around her while she waited in a strange stillness, her mind fighting to keep its grip, to keep an eye on Zuko - because who knew what sinister thing he might have planned.

Chapter Text

Zuko was having a revelation. He was fucking the waterbender - Katara Katara Katara - and he was fucking her deep. He was really finally buried to his root inside her tight, sopping wet, voracious pussy, and he was beginning to really work her hard. And, based on her aroused, pleased smells and her moans and shaking legs wrapped around him, she was having a pretty good time, too, now that he was getting her up to stride.

He had never been able to get this deep in a woman before. Between his size - which had been a bit... prohibitive with both of the women he’d been with previously - and his lingering fear of knotting unexpectedly, he had always maintained tight control over the depth of his stroke. 

But neither of those problems was a problem right now. Katara felt like she was built for him. Not only was she deep enough to accommodate his entire length - he had almost come when he’d first realized she could do it, that she was comfortable and wanted more, already ready for it even before he was - she was almost excruciatingly tight and so slippery wet with slick that his cock made a fantastically satisfying splort sound every time he shoved it back in her. 

More than that, though, he didn’t have to worry about any accidental knotting because he knew she could take it. He was supposed to knot her. She wanted it. (Well, needed it... No, he resolved indignantly, she wanted it - because she had repeatedly had the chance to send him away but decided she wanted him to stay.) She wanted his knot. 

And she was gonna get it soon.

The best thing, though, was that it wasn’t just her omega anymore. Katara was... present. That wasn’t supposed to happen - omegas were supposed to completely take over and lose control - but something about Katara, probably how incredibly irritating and controlling she was as a person, made her keep fighting her way back to goad him and take shots at him, and that was... that was actually really exciting. Because the omega was demanding and needy and perfect in her way, but the waterbender - Katara - was willful and forceful and she would try and wrestle control away from him if she could. 

And Zuko was very excited about the prospect of popping his knot inside Katara when she was snapping and snarling and gasping and letting him do it. He hadn’t planned it initially, but after her latest stab, he kept adjusting their pace, taking his time so that the sun would rise and she’d have to see his face when he knotted her for the first time. It was agony to draw it out that way - but he had to do it.

It wasn’t even out of spite, really, just... he didn’t want her to be able to pretend he was that other alpha. He needed her to know it was him. Zuko. Because it wasn’t like he was... unworthy... to be her alpha... No. He was an excellent choice for a mate. He was a fucking prince! The banishment could still be temporary! And she should be able to look him in the eye while she was tying him in and acknowledge that he was a worthy mate. A mate to be proud of.

Finally, the darkness had eased to gloom and Zuko’s knot was beginning to thicken beyond a point he could mentally coax himself back from. He worked it slowly in and out of her tight opening, savoring the unique sensation for the first time, when Katara reemerged from out of the omega and dropped another barrel of blasting jelly on his head.

“What is that?” she asked breathlessly, trying to look with wide, unfocused eyes down between their bodies.

Zuko was sure she had to be joking, she must be fucking with him. She had been asking him for it just minutes ago - give it to me, Alpha, need all of it, more! He nuzzled against her jaw, licked her throat just above her necklace, and held his weight up off her so she could see him slowly push it in, slowly pull it out. “That’s my knot,” he purred near her ear. “Are you ready for it, Katara?”

“Ready for...?”

“I don’t think you’re ready yet,” he teased and thumbed the flesh around her clit the way she seemed to like best. 

Then she was writhing and whining beneath him and Zuko started thrusting with more intent, driving deep into her as she wrapped her legs around his thighs and clung to his shoulders, squeaking and moaning as he worked up to a hard, slapping rhythm. 

“Might be ready now, though,” he gritted out as he jammed deep into her and just pressed her down into her bedroll, circled his hips in aching anticipation. “Feels nice and opened up, ready for my knot. Feel it starting to catch?”

She made a delightful shocked sound as he pulled out and there was a little resistance, then a little more when he pushed back in. Zuko held himself up so she could watch the shadowy shapes of their bodies coming together, though he himself was torn between seeing it for himself or just enjoying the look on her face the first time he stuffed her full and came inside her-

“Wha-?” she breathed, open-mouthed, smelling so wildly of lust and desire and need that the hint of confusion and trepidation seemed unimportant. She groaned as Zuko’s steady work on her clit took her suddenly over the edge, sent her spiraling and straining and squeezing. Her feet dug into the backs of his thighs to hold him in, pull him deeper.

-and Zuko began to press his knot back in - she needs it, she needs to bind around it or she won’t get enough relief - but Katara was suddenly shoving at his shoulders, pushing him back.

“No! Don’t put that in me,” she gasped, squirming against the broader intrusion even as her inner muscles squeezed his cock and searched for the knot that wasn’t where it was supposed to be. The sound coming out of her was more wail than moan now as pain pierced her scent like a needle. 

Zuko let out a miserable groan with her, desperate to get his knot where it belonged to ease that pain but - she didn’t want it, she didn’t really want him at all, he wasn’t good enough, she’d rather hurt than accept his knot - he only rutted it firmly against her, not really trying to force it in. It was too late anyway, some deep knowledge told him. He had timed it wrong and it had swelled too much, she had tightened too much in her orgasmic contractions. It would hurt her going in now. He had fucked it up. And she didn’t even want it. So, despairing and frustrated and disappointed beyond reason, he dropped a hand down to squeeze himself, fighting hard to control the power of his strokes as he came with a grunt and spurted deep inside her.

But not deep enough! Stupid incompetent failure! Next time, no fucking around, keep it in when it starts swelling. Omega needs it!

“Off,” Katara puffed, sounding very lucid all of a sudden. “Get off me.”

Zuko rolled away at once, afraid he’d been putting too much weight on her. But Katara just immediately propped herself up on one arm and worked a hand over her abdomen, legs spread wide as she pulled liquid out of herself in a viscous stream and redirected it into an empty bucket in the corner.

Zuko watched, his bare knot tender but swiftly deflating, as she waterbent his seed out.

And that was... deeply upsetting. 

It was weird and gross, sure, but more than that, it felt like a personal insult. Logically, Zuko understood. They weren’t mates. She didn’t want to be pregnant - she was at war, she obviously couldn’t do that with a baby, not without her mate... and she didn’t want him for a mate. And-! And he didn’t want to be a father! Still, no matter how much reason Zuko threw at his feelings, it hurt him like a knife through the liver that she had rejected his knot and then just flushed out his seed into the bucket in the corner like waste, like it wasn’t good enough. 

Like Zuko wasn’t good enough. Not good enough to knot her. Not good enough to sire on her. 

His Alpha was untroubled by any such frail human insecurity. It snarled and paced inside him, closer than ever, desperate to stop her.

This waterbender’s doing it all wrong. It needs to stay in to catch. Knot her properly next time! Fill her with seed, plug her up with your knot, and she’ll settle down and be content - you’ll see.

Katara finished and fell back, still breathing hard. She stole a sideways look at him, probably scenting his turmoil, and frowned. Her eyes were sharply lucid, but still very dark. “What?”

Zuko shook his head and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. He understood. And really, it wasn’t that he wanted kids right now-

It was nice though, wasn’t it? Showing Lee the swords? Wouldn’t it be nice if-

He shoved the thought away. They weren’t mates. This wasn’t forever. He was just helping Katara through this one heat. It was an accident he was even here, she didn’t really want him here at all. When her heat was over, she would fly off like she always did and Zuko would be alone again.

“You’re upset,” she persisted. “I can smell it. I can just tell.”

Zuko huffed and turned a frown back on her. He suddenly missed the version of her that was a panting, salivating mess beneath him - because she was only intermittently irritating then. But... looking at her now, Zuko realized that that version of her would be back all too soon. Her eyes were clear, but the flush of her orgasm wasn’t fading - she looked feverish, her breath coming a little too hard and sweat heavily dotting her temples and neck. Whatever relief she might have gotten, it would break quickly. Her scent suggested the situation was even more dire. She smelled like irritation and suspicion but also a looming, clawing need. More faintly, there was that sour note of fading pain. 

Omega hurts! She hurts and it’s your fault for not doing what you said you’d do!

“You’re going to have to let me knot you.”

He didn’t mean to just... blurt it out like that, but the urgency of the situation was greater than he could keep bottled in. If she wanted him here to help, she had to actually let him help. She had to! She was being so unreasonable!

Katara, unsurprisingly, glared much harder back at him and folded her arms over her breasts. “No. I don’t want to do that.”

Zuko scowled and mentally buckled down for a fight. But at the same time, he scented her nervousness, her fear, and wanted to soothe them. His tone was hard but he kept his voice low and even. Excessively reasonable. “You’re in pain. You need relief.”

“Phuh! And you think... that is gonna somehow magically cause me less pain?” It was an odd thing to say, but Zuko hardly noticed because she flicked her skeptical eyes down at his much-reduced but still swollen knot. Her lip curled. And that was a very unflattering look to receive. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He growled and rolled his eyes back up to the ceiling, seething in his barely-restrained fury. “Katara-”

“Let’s see you let somebody put something like that in some tender orifice of yours, huh?”

“You don’t like me - fine! But there’s nothing wrong with my knot!” 

He didn’t mean to blurt that last part out, either. It was way too close to admitting to the actual fear he’d harbored since his presentation. He didn’t like the embarrassment and shame he felt all of a sudden, and he liked even less that she had to be scenting it on the air. That was just blood in the water. 

“Why would you even bother letting me be here,” he demanded, snapping a fierce glare back to her, “if you’re just gonna torture us both trying to deny your body what it needs?”

Katara was watching him, assessing him with those suspicious, hungry eyes. They turned back down very suddenly, lingering a little longer on his knot. This time, as the seconds stretched, her response grew more complicated. He watched her swallow. Her scent was a tangle of anxiety and disgust and aching, building lust. Then her sharp eyes returned to his and her frown got a lot deeper. 

“You cannot lie to me about this.”

Zuko sneered at her, offended and confused. “What the fuck am I supposed to be lying about?”

She watched him, her arms quivering with tension as she held herself harder. Finally, she turned her scowl back up at the ceiling. She seemed to be having some kind of horrible epiphany. “Great. That’s just great. That’s just- Physiological changes? Really, Yugoda? Errgh!”

Zuko watched her warily from the corner of his eye, not quite convinced he wanted to intrude on whatever this was.

Katara let out a harsh breath and spoke a little more calmly through her tight mouth. “I need you to explain this. Because apparently, the Chief Healer at the North wasn’t entirely forthcoming. When I started presenting, she told me a whole bunch of stuff that has since proven... sketchy and short on pertinent details. Your... knot? Did not come up at all. So is that an alpha thing or a Fire Nation thing?” 

“Alpha thing,” Zuko choked out. His eyebrow was tipped up and back as far as it would go. 

No wonder she hadn’t wanted his knot... She hadn’t been joking at all. And she hadn’t... totally rejected him... exactly. She hadn’t known what a knot was or what it was for at all... 

And he’d just tried to shove his inside her... 

And if he’d succeeded, she would have been tied to him. As grouchy as she was now, it would be nothing compared to how epically pissed she would have been to regain her senses and discover that knotting was a thing while her enemy’s knot was swollen and stuck inside her, trapping Zuko right up against her while he was dim-witted and vulnerable to whatever vengeance she felt like inflicting on him.

He was suddenly grateful to have failed to knot her. Because now, instead of being that angry at him, she was angry at this Yugoda person. Which was... so much better. 

“Of course it’s an alpha thing,” she spat, disgust rolling off her. Zuko chose to believe it was disgust for Yugoda, who was clearly the villain here. “She couldn’t have warned me about what I should actually expect to happen during my heat.”

“That seems like a dereliction of duty,” Zuko offered. It... actually made him a little mad, too. “She was the ranking physician attendant for the presentation of an omega and didn’t bother to fully explain basic alpha traits to you? Does the Water Tribe just not know about omegas or something?”

“The Water Tribe knows plenty,” Katara sniffed. “But Yugoda’s fussy Northern lady sensibilities were probably so offended by the notion of an unmarried girl needing to have sex that she couldn’t get past worrying that I was gonna... seduce my brother and just-! Completely fall apart!”

Zuko cast a surreptitious sideways glance at her. “Some omegas have been known to-”

“Yeah, well I didn’t and Sokka separated from the group before it could become an issue so you can just drop it, alright?”

Sokka. Of course it was the brother. Zuko rolled his eyes back up to the ceiling. 

“So what other weird surprises do I have to look forward to?” she demanded.

“It’s not weird!” Zuko folded his arms over his chest and scowled at the ceiling. “Knotting is a perfectly natural part of an alpha’s response to an omega’s scent. It’s normal.”

“It’s normal,” she repeated with scathing disbelief, “for your giant penis to swell up even more? While it’s inside me! What, is the point to completely destroy my vagina?”

“Knotting won’t destroy your vagina,” Zuko sneered, still at the ceiling. “Omegas respond to a swelling knot by binding around it - their muscles clamp down and hold it in. That’s also called tying. It’s the part that alleviates heat.”

“Oh! Great! How long is that supposed to last?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko grumbled. “Minutes or... maybe hours, depending on the circumstances-”

“Hours? You were gonna put that thing in me and we would have been stuck like that for hours?”

“I thought you knew! It’s insane nobody told you! What did you think I was talking about when I kept bringing up knots and knotting?!”

“I thought that was some weird Fire Nation slang for sex!”

She smelled increasingly insecure, and it finally chafed at him enough that Zuko became aware of how upset she was. He pinched the bridge of his nose and fought to slow down and think. “It’s a universal alpha thing that transcends nations. It never crossed my mind you might not know.” 

He heaved a deep breath and tried to imagine what it would be like to be learning this stuff in the midst of heat. She had to be... so confused and afraid of what might come next. She certainly smelled angry and anxious. And beneath that, yes, afraid.

“I’m sorry,” he said more gently. “I wasn’t trying to spring it on you or force you. I was taught that omegas usually feel an instinctive drive to be knotted, but... maybe not if nobody bothers to tell them about knots at all.” 

Katara let out a bitter little laugh. Zuko saw from the corner of his eye that she was still holding herself tight and glaring at the ceiling. “Yugoda just told me I would feel the compulsion to... breed. Nothing about knots or building nests, which I apparently do now...” She shot Zuko a hard side-eye. “She was way more interested in warning me about how dangerous alphas could be, and how the scent of an unpaired omega changes them so they aren’t even really the men they normally are. Like they basically turn into violent animals who might kill each other over the chance to claim... the omega.”

Zuko thought of Fire Lord Azulon and the guardsman who had fought to his death, and his mouth twisted tightly downward. 

“The call is... pretty intense. If another alpha came after you-” He felt that flash of fury but tamped it down. “-I would definitely fight to keep you safe and m- Maybe that’s not something I’d do if you weren’t... in need. I definitely,” he added sourly, “wouldn’t ordinarily blow off capturing the Avatar when I know he’s close just because a pretty girl might decide to give me a go.” He scented her faint surprise and fainter pleasure, so he gritted his teeth and refocused. “I haven’t suddenly become some unthinking animal with no sense of right or wrong, is the point. What you’re describing is alphas using an omega’s scent as an excuse to do whatever they want to do anyway. That’s a choice to not control their impulses, not a compulsion.”

“Right?” she demanded, turning her head to look at him in fierce appeal. “These two guys tried to follow me out of the market one time and everybody acted like it was my fault when they were obviously just making the choice to be creeps!”

Zuko scowled at the ceiling and fought the sudden urge to put his arm around her and pull her closer. He wrestled back his fury and outrage so he wouldn’t reek of it. He wanted to snarl something about the barbarous ways of the Water Tribe but... he was the product of worse savagery than that.

Katara sighed and laid back again. “Anyways. It’s becoming clear to me that Yugoda was either withholding information or just had a very skewed idea of what’s caused by designation and what’s caused by culture. Are Fire Nation alphas all... as controlled as you?”

It felt like praise, and Zuko couldn’t help the flutter of pleasure it gave him.. which was a little embarrassing because how pathetic was it really to want so badly for her to appreciate anything about him? He only clenched his jaw and shrugged it off. “Self-control and discipline are important in firebending. But not every firebender exercises restraint like they should, so no.”

“No,” she said quietly - and a terrible crashing surge of grief and rage flooded her scent. He never would have guessed the depth of it from the soft sadness of her voice. “Some firebenders don’t really seem to bother with restraint at all.”

Zuko could only stare at her for a long moment, so drawn to ease her pain that his hand came up of its own volition to - he wasn’t sure - stroke her cheek or hair or somehow soothe the hurt away. But the grief swiftly retreated and she looked back at him, arching one eyebrow. 

“After all the stuff I’ve seen you burn and the rage-fits I’ve watched you pitch at Aang, I’m frankly shocked to learn that you can control yourself.”

Zuko scowled at her and snatched his hand back as if realizing he was reaching for an animal prone to biting. Which, he sourly reminded himself, he was. Instead of making some scathing reply, he glowered up at the ceiling and tried to remember how good it felt to bury himself balls-deep in her, tried to imagine how good she would feel clamping down around his knot. Her scent was still growing steadily more demanding, like a chasm yawning open next to him, and he felt a desperation of his own rising up to answer. 

...maybe he just needed to figure out the right way to explain it to her-

“Yugoda said,” Katara ventured after a moment, “that mating bites are permanent. That an alpha could bite my gland and I’d be dependent on him forever for all of my heats? Is that right?”

Zuko heaved a calming breath and tried not to let her anxiety chafe at him. “That’s part of it... but it’s more mutual than that. The omega chooses her alpha. And the alpha is bound to his omega, too, and will do anything to defend and protect her.” He thought of the guardsman who defied his sovereign and died, of Okumi trapped in her despair. “Bonded pairings are kind of... sacred. They should just be respected.”

Katara was quiet for a long moment. “But even if I didn’t choose the alpha, he could just bite me anyway. Just because he wanted to.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said softly. “That’s true, too.”

A little panic raced through him at that thought. 

This is why you have to claim her, his alpha pressed doggedly. Leave her unprotected and anything could happen to her!

But no, this was why he absolutely couldn’t claim her. He might do it in an attempt to protect her, but he’d just be trapping her with him - a fate she clearly did not want.

“Well, I guess at least she wasn’t just trying to scare me into doing things her way,” Katara went on. “She wanted me to let one of the alphas in the city mate me so I could avoid... oh, say, going into heat randomly and attracting an alpha I might not want to be permanently bound to...”

They were silent for a moment. Zuko drew a breath and picked up on her anxiety, her fear. “I know you don’t want that with me. But if you knew it was a possibility, why didn’t you tell me not to earlier?”

Her fear diminished, but her anxiety only grew. “I don’t know.”

Omega knows. Omega wants to be claimed. Wanted me to do it before the waterbender could interfere. Impatient...

“I... I guess I was so freaked out at the prospect of having sex with you at all that I kind of blanked out what might come after.”

“Great,” Zuko muttered before he could stop himself, then redirected into another topic he didn’t really intend to broach. “So she was trying to pair you off with some Water Tribe alpha. Was that the guy?”

Katara blinked at him for a confused second, then her mouth popped open. “Are you asking if I had sex with-? No, and also, that’s none of your business!”

Zuko wanted to argue but restrained himself because she was technically right. “I’m just trying to understand how you had sex with an alpha and didn’t know about knots,” he improvised.

“I never said he was an alpha,” she said primly.

But Zuko was pretty sure it had to have been an alpha. He just... was sure.

“Alphas don’t always... knot... when they climax?” she asked thoughtfully. 

Zuko broke out in a sweat but kept his voice even. “It’s only supposed to happen when there’s an omega present, and it’s especially... when the omega’s in heat.”

“Experiencing some new things about yourself today, Zuko?” she asked with an overly sweet little smile.

Zuko turned his eyes to assess her mean, charming little mouth and made plans to kiss it when she was too far gone to mind. If he didn’t put his foot in his own mouth too badly, there was still a chance he wouldn’t be the only one experiencing those new things today. He just needed to... figure out how to explain it...

“So every town I’ve been passing though, all the alphas get...?”

“Not likely. To trigger the response, they’d have to get pretty close.” Zuko very carefully did not look away from a cobweb he’d spotted snagged among the joists overhead. “It’d be pretty unusual,” he said, measuring out the words and trying not to let his surly resentment show, “for an alpha to just spontaneously pop his knot when he hasn’t even scented an omega enough to go looking for her.”

Like, say, if he’d kept an unpresented omega’s necklace tied around his wrist for the better part of a year. And slept with it more often than not. And once or twice... or so... feeling very dirty and excited about it... stroked himself while it swung from his wrist...

“My suppressants were keeping my scent pretty well masked,” Katara said with a faint note of satisfaction, apparently glad to ignore whatever emotional scents he was emitting. “Yugoda didn’t expect me to last much more than a year before my heat came, but I made it two.”

Zuko turned his head to gape at her directly. “You presented two years ago? And you haven’t had a heat all this time?”

She nodded. He narrowed his eyes at her.

Omega was waiting for me, Omega was suppressing for me, Omega didn’t even know what a knot was before me, because she’s mine, mine, meant for me-

“Before or after the invasion?”

“A few months after,” she said, narrowing her eyes back. “What is your problem?”

You, Omega, are my problem. A perfect, delicious, infuriating problem intended just for me.

“Nothing,” Zuko huffed, looking back at the ceiling.

“No, not nothing. You’re all... excited. What?”

“I’m just realizing,” Zuko groused, “why you seemed to have... grown up. When we fought at the Spirit Oasis.”

“Pff, you sure it wasn’t the part where I kicked your butt twice?” 

She was smirking, he could hear it, could see it from the corner of his eye. And maybe from this close she could smell the answering desire he felt for her, because she huffed and went on, sounding less pleased with herself.

“You couldn’t have known then. Nobody knew for another three months. Besides, you seemed pretty surprised when you found me here, so don’t pretend like you had anything special figured out.”

“I’m not saying I figured it out. I’m just saying I...”

Zuko hesitated, torn between keeping his embarrassing secrets and revealing just how invested he had been in her presentation, just how much he - or at least, his alpha - really had figured out. 

I scented you before anyone else, Omega. You didn’t even need to call before I was answering.

“I just... noticed you.”

“Not enough to learn my name though,” she said with a too-sweet, so-sad little pout.

Zuko frowned, then smirked nastily back at her. “Disappointed, Katara?”

“Aw. No, see, you only feel disappointment when you expect better of someone,” she said with another of those mean little smiles. 

It didn’t really make sense how she could insult him and only make him want her more. Maybe it was her scent. It was growing headier now, tugging him to get closer. Roll back on top of her, maybe. Just lay on her a little and let his dick slide between her thighs. It would glide so easily, especially now that he had fucked her once already, now that he had stretched her open pretty well and got her soft folds so blood-plumped and receptive, plunged through her slick and spread it around. It would have been better if she’d kept his cum inside so their fluids could mix and his scent would be especially strong there, penetrating her like a banner on a hilltop - a pronouncement no other alpha could fail to take note of: Zuko was here. 

No, more like: Zuko will be returning shortly, so fuck off.

“Are you in rut now?”

Zuko scoffed, momentarily stunned by the question, and then frowned his annoyance at her. “No.”

“But you... knotted.” She narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t you say rut starts after knotting? And you smell more... turned on than before...”

His face was suddenly terribly hot. “Yeah, well...” he muttered, then forged on. “To start rut, I’d have to actually knot inside you and you’d have to bind down on me. Which, again-”

“It did hurt less to orgasm with your... you... inside me, so...” 

Katara shrugged a little and Zuko started to feel optimistic. Maybe he didn’t need to talk her into it at all. Maybe she’d come around on her own again! But then she went on. 

“Maybe we could get through this without knotting at all.”

Zuko’s alpha shrieked like a kicked hog-chicken at the very suggestion. He let out a long breath through his nose and frowned at the ceiling. He didn’t want her sensing that little spike of shock and panic and hurt. 

“Setting aside that you shouldn’t have to be in any pain... Maybe. But you could end up dealing with your heat on your own when it hits its worst.”

She shot him a disbelieving, furious look. “What, like you’ll leave?”

“No,” Zuko said with as much withering resentment as he could summon. “More like I’ll pass out from exhaustion.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Rut is a heightened state that allows an alpha to keep up with an omega’s heat. Without it, I won’t have the stamina to keep going with you for days.”

She was quiet for a moment, then rolled to face him, peering up at his eye and tapping her fingers together, not quite touching his shoulder. He caught the scent of her uncertainty and determination and looked down only to get caught in her wide blue eyes - which were beginning to go unfocused again. 

“You want to do it,” she said quietly. “It freaks me out a little bit how much you want to. How upset you were when I didn’t want to. I’m worried I won’t like it but you’ll go into rut and... want to do it anyway.”

Zuko felt his eyebrow tip back in surprise and concern and he briefly floundered. Reassuring girls was not exactly one of his strengths... But his alpha crowded in behind him, anxious to comfort her and get her on board with the game plan. So Zuko propped himself up on one elbow to look at her more directly and let the alpha tell him what to say.

“I do want to do it, but that’s not why I was upset... I mean,” he immediately corrected despite the alpha telling him to stick to the program, “I was frustrated with myself because I messed it up, but I wasn’t upset that you didn’t want it. Well... I was a little, but more because you didn’t want... me - and that’s- that, I understand... that.”

She peered up at him, the fretful furrow still deep in her brow. Zuko got back to the point.

“I’m just glad you told me to stop. I didn’t realize you didn’t know what was going on, and I would have felt pretty bad if I’d gone ahead anyway and hurt you or scared you.”

Her eyes were a little darker, her breathing came heavier. Her need seemed to rise off her like the air rippling over a scorching landscape. “You may not feel that way when you’re in rut,” she murmured. “You might lose control.”

“My alpha doesn’t want to hurt you either, Katara. It’s actually really disturbed that you’ve been in pain. Part of the reason I want so badly to knot you is because it will ease your heat without the pain you’ve been feeling.”

“I guess...” she sighed, smelling troubled but reassured at the same time. Smelling so terribly needy. “...you’ve been... pretty decent so far. Maybe I can trust you to... knot me, too.”

The wave of elation and desire that surged through him must have been pretty obvious, because she immediately went on more sharply.

“Since you apparently can’t keep up with me otherwise. Honestly, there’s no reason to get all giddy about it!”

“I- I’m not giddy!”

“You are so. You’re practically gloating. Ugh! It would serve you right if I changed my mind.”

Zuko dropped his head back and glared at the ceiling. “I’m only a man, Katara,” he muttered, his ears hot. “Most alphas never even scent an omega, much less get a chance to knot or experience rut. I can’t help being... excited... to be given that chance.”

She was quiet for a moment. “If I find out later you went around bragging to your little Fire Nation friends-”

“I don’t have friends,” Zuko cut in sourly. “And even if I did, that’d be pretty ungentlemanly.”

He would have to tell Uncle Iroh, though. Assuming he ever saw him again... But that troubling thought wasn’t for this moment.

Zuko met Katara’s suspicious glare with his own put-upon exasperation and, at length, she softened. Her scent had deepened, grown wild and hungry now, too big to be easily restrained.

“Hm,” she said, resting her chin on his chest, tipping her head so their hot skins touched. “Tell me... why else you want to knot me?”

Zuko’s cock lurched upright but he didn’t so much as blink, meeting her intense stare. Her arousal was so thick on the air, tugging him closer, loosening his mouth. “Alright... Don’t get me wrong - sex with you is... incredible. And I could happily do that all day. But I know, my alpha knows just by the smell of you, you can take more than my dick. You need more.” He traced his thumb over her gland so she shuddered and her dark eyes hooded. “I want to give you what you need.”

Her tongue peeked out as she worried her bottom lip. Her breathing was coming harder. Zuko pressed on.

“Your scent is telling me that you’ve been searching for something and it’s got you antsy, so frustrated... But I have just the thing. I can make all that frustration go away.” With his fingers over her shoulder, he tugged her slightly closer, whispered. “When I pop my knot inside you, Katara, you’re gonna come so hard you’ll see stars.”

“Ooh,” she breathed, turning her head and catching his thumb in her mouth, sucking hard and scraping her teeth over the pad. 

“Hmm... I want to see the look on your face when I do it, because you might be worried you won’t like it...” He dragged her up onto his chest, sniffed fiercely against her throat and savored her soft moan. “...but my alpha is telling me that, as soon as I get you on my knot, you aren’t ever gonna want to get off it again.”

Katara shuddered, settling her legs on either side of his hips and her slick cunt unerringly on his dick. She started a slow slide back and forth, panting against his hair, then down to his ear. 

“I want it, Alpha. I want your knot in me. Want you, Alpha.”

Zuko knew it was the omega talking now, but he let her professions move him all the same. She wanted him. Some part of her, the part speaking now, this part wanted him. 

And the other part, the bigger part of her... she wasn’t entirely opposed to him, either. That was a start.

He reached around her hip and angled his cock for her, felt his head slide through her slick folds before she positioned herself and eased back, gulping him down in one slow, smooth stroke. Zuko groaned with her, admiring the little ‘o’ her mouth made... 

So he sat up on his elbows and kissed it. Her pretty, mean, too-sweet mouth. 

She kissed him back distractedly, holding mostly still as her pussy got reacquainted with his intrusion. Zuko licked and nibbled at her bottom lip before raising his arms and sinking his fingers into her soft hair, stroking her scalp gently on both sides. His belly burned holding the angle without the support of his arms, but he persisted, kissed her through the ache. 

She tasted, he finally realized, like something precious he had stolen, and that just made him kiss her deeper, slide his tongue along her open bottom lip until her tongue brushed his.

He wanted to kiss her so deeply that Katara came stomping out to demand that he focus. But she didn’t emerge to demand he stop kissing her.

Instead, she started riding him, undulating her hips in short little strokes that had his toes curling and made him increasingly desperate to thrust up into her. But he resisted for a long while, let her get comfortable and work herself up until she broke away from his kiss and started bouncing. 

Zuko laid back and watched, slack-jawed, the way her breasts jiggled and heaved, and he watched her face screw up in her passionate focus. He had never been in this position before, had never seen a girl move like this, had never expected one to take him so easily at all - and it truly was amazing. When she’d said she wanted to be on top before, he had had a brief vision, deeply enticing, that now was forgotten forever, replaced by the actual sight of her, the feel of her body working against his for her pleasure... 

He could come just like this. Knot her just like this and let her lay sprawled on his chest while they were tied...

But even though she was gasping and panting and twisting her hips and spilling slick deliciously down on him, it wasn’t quite right. Her eyes were shut. And maybe another time that wouldn’t be a problem, but right now it was. He was gonna knot her for the first time, and he needed her looking at him, needed her eyes open and seeing him and knowing his name. 

Zuko sat up and, in one deft move, planted her on her back in her nest and came down between her legs with a hard grind. She let out a startled squeal, but it immediately became a desperate whine as she squirmed under his weight.

“Alpha! Ooooh, yesss! Heavy, big, feel so good...”

Zuko gripped her thighs against his sides and gave her a few hard strokes just for the satisfaction of hearing her squeak - but then he stopped. And just held her there, pinned down and ready with his cock packed in her as far as it could go.

“Katara,” he murmured against her neck. “Do you want this knot?”

“Alpha,” she whined, rolling her hips what little she could against his. “Knot me, please, Alpha! Need your knot in me, need it hard and thick and fill me up and seed me Alpha, please, Alpha, need your cum...”

The beast inside Zuko roared and thrashed, suddenly deafening in its desire to answer that plea. It trampled over his control and dragged him for a moment. He choked and his hips bucked two sharp, involuntary jerks into her. 

But Zuko wouldn’t be thrown. He bared his teeth and focused his mind and wrestled that animal back under control.

“Fucking- Rrh! Good little omega, I’m gonna give you everything you want-” Calm again - relatively - he rocked his hips back, then forward hard. She writhed beneath him. “-but first I need that irritating waterbender to look me in the eye and say my name while I’m fucking her.”

“Alphaaa!”

“My real name.” 

Zuko squeezed one hand between them to tease her clit and she started squirming and whining and begging, scratching at his back and shoulders and kissing and lapping and nipping at his neck and staring imploringly up at him with her wide, unfocused eyes. Around his cock, he felt her flutter and clench, reaching, reaching for her climax. Zuko stilled his fingers around her clit. 

She wailed.

“Please, Alpha! Please knot me! Fuck me and knot me! Why won’t you knot me, Alpha? Please! Was I bad? I’m so sorry, Alpha!”

“No, you weren’t bad, you’re so good. You’re perfect, Omega, but I need- ow!”

She had reached up from behind his shoulder and gotten a grip on his good ear and was twisting. Zuko hissed and glared down at her. Sure enough, nearly-clear-eyed, Katara glared back, teeth bared.

“You have one job, Zuko. Are you going to knot me or are you going to play around like a child?”

With his head still pulled back at that awkward angle, he licked his lips and rolled his hips sharply against her. “I’ve been waiting for you, Katara.”

“Ah! What do you mean, waiting for me?” She demanded, still annoyed but suddenly breathless. “I’m right here- ooh!”

Zuko withdrew slowly and pressed back in, feeling every inch of her muscle and slick. His ear stung but, perversely, that just made it all feel better. “I just didn’t want you to be confused- Mm,” he bit his lip and watched her eyes flutter but stay on him, burning, as he filled her again, again. “-want to be sure you know exactly whose knot-” 

“Ohhh, you unbearable, arrogant- Oh!” 

Zuko couldn’t seem to stop his lips peeling back in a half-grin as he assumed a brutally slow, forceful rhythm. “Yeah? Whose arrogant knot are you begging for, Katara?”

“I am no- ahh! -ot begging you for- Ohhr!”

“You were, actually,” Zuko purred, “with that same perfect little mouth- rrh -you keep using to insult me.” Her grip on his ear had turned into her fingers grasping at the back of his head, pulling his hair a little. Her eyes fluttered shut. “No. Look at me, Katara.” 

Her eyes flashed, hazy but annoyed still. 

“Are you ready?”

It wasn’t exactly how he meant to say it. He wanted to tease her, mock her a little, get her going... but instead he asked with complete seriousness. 

“Yes!” Katara snapped, breathing hard and pink-faced and so very irate. “Yes, I’m ready for your knot, Zuko, you puffed-up spoiled-”

Zuko let it loose. He bared his teeth and fucked into her roughly, driving an agonized cry out of her as his knot quickly thickened. His control was getting thin, but he remembered his mistake from last time and switched gears.

He pressed deep and did not pull out this time, just kept pressing, rocking their bodies together rapidly as he began swelling inside her. He felt her fluttering, teetering on the verge of orgasm. He urgently thumbed around her clit, occasionally daring to brush across it so she jerked her hips minutely against his. 

“Ugh-ugh,” she grunted, “too much!”

“Shh,” he breathed against her neck and laid off with his thumb. “Almost there. I’d hurt you if I tried to pull out now.” It was the truth. His spine was buzzing with sensation, every push an electric jolt deeper and harder and closer. “You can take it, Katara. So strong. My knot was made just for you. Gonna... mhh... it’s gonna fit just right - just what you need.”

She shuddered, her legs clamping around his jerking hips, holding him in despite her keening whine.

Zuko watched her face and gripped her ass cheeks, holding her tightly sealed against him as he shoved-shoved-shoved-pressed - and Katara wailed in exquisite rapture as her orgasm broke, as her muscles fluttered and clamped and bound down and his knot filled and swelled completely and seemed to grow enormous inside her and he was coming and coming and coming-

For a long while, he lay entangled with her, his cock pulsing smaller and smaller spurts into her. Deep inside, where it was supposed to be. His alpha rumbled a satisfied growl that vibrated through Zuko’s throat.

“That really,” she panted, “actually does feel better... Somehow. Which is insane, because it’s... so tight.”

“Mm,” Zuko said, nuzzling close to her gland and savoring the heated twitch her cunt gave him. “So tight. Perfect Omega, binding my knot so deep and tight.”

She craned her neck to look at him and he caught a whiff of bewildered amusement and arousal, so Zuko rasped the pad of his tongue over her gland until she squeaked and writhed a little under him, tugged just slightly against where their binding was held stationary by his weight pinning down her hips. 

It felt so good to have her pinned down and impaled this way. Finally. She was such a difficult girl, but right now, like this, all her difficulty just made this triumph sweeter. Every moment of struggle made sharing this victory with her an achievement worth fighting relentlessly toward. Everything about her was so... perfect.

“Look how well you take my knot,” he breathed against her neck. “Got you so nice and full now. Smelling so right.” Zuko’s mind was buzzing, far away from himself in a way he had never been before. He rocked against her, tiny thrusts that quickly had her emitting an agonized little moan. “Think you can come again for me? Squeeze a little more cum out of my knot? Huh?”

“Ah- oh! Ye- Zuko?”

Her breathless uncertainty drew him up and Zuko propped himself up on his elbows to look into her huge blue eyes. His hips slowed but seemed incapable of stopping at present. The control he had exercised moments ago was blown out, difficult even to recall. Yet his foggy brain cleared enough to remember; she was afraid of his rut. She was afraid his alpha would hurt her, force her. So Zuko blinked hard and grappled with himself, finally stopped grinding into her. 

“I’m here. Sorry. I can stop.”

“Nooo,” she groaned, squirming under him, curling her pelvis up against him harder. “Don’t stop.”

Growling, Zuko resumed the slow, tight thrusts, watched her mouth fall open and her eyes screw shut as her fingers clawed at his shoulders, her legs pressed up his sides. He hooked his elbow under one of her knees and lifted it nearer to her shoulder. It changed the angle of the massive intrusion inside her just right. She tipped over again, wailing and clamping down on his knot with so much force that Zuko’s vision whited out briefly. 

He came back to himself with her hands stroking his back and neck, sliding up into his hair. He was rumbling from his chest with each breath out, slowly easing back down to earth. She smelled like a dreamy, delicious sanctuary he never wanted to rouse from. Like if a sensual hot spring was a woman who had accepted him and wanted him and found pleasure in him. He wanted to stay inside her forever.

“You smell... pretty pleased, Zuko.”

Zuko blinked, struggling to get back to himself. He turned his head to peer at her through the close, breathy air between their faces. “Is that bad?”

Her eyes were heavy with exhaustion but clearer than they had been. There was some annoyance there, but it lacked heat and the amusement was still in her scent, a reassuring and wholesome note. Her arousal remained, too, but languid, not presently demanding. Instead, she looked... vexed but too tired to lash out at him presently. So spent and so over-worked she could drift off any moment, even mid-conversation. 

Unthinking, Zuko stroked his palms down her arms and sides, up her thighs, long soothing passes of his hands, gently bending the lingering over-excited heat out of her skin.

“No, not bad,” she said, smirking and still catching her breath. “I just kind of expected rut to make you... more ravenous tigerdillo, less snuggly cat-rabbit.”

“Mm, rather be a cat-rabbit...” Zuko didn’t really think about the words he was saying, too focused on nuzzling her ear, her cheek, daring to press a soft kiss against her relaxed mouth. “Nobody does it more than a cat-rabbit.”

Her lips curled against his, kissed him back a little. 

“Let’s take a nap,” Zuko whispered. “I’ll show you my tigerdillo later.”

Chapter Text

After days of irregular sleep, constantly disrupted by her body’s increasing demands, Katara slept the deep, heavy slumber of the truly exhausted. There were no dreams. No tossing or turning. No discomfort even though she was lying on her bedroll on a hardwood floor - not to mention being half-buried under a man and speared open on his unthinkably huge and seemingly perpetually hard knot. As she was drifting off with his big hands sweeping slowly over her, she marveled that she could feel so sheltered and secure with anyone, much less Zuko.

It must have been a hormonal thing. Or something to do with finding relief from the absolute misery heat had been for her so far. Certainly, that had to be the reason she’d felt almost... fond of him when he had recovered from his orgasm straight into rut.

His scent had changed, turned decidedly musky and animal. But he’d been so... soft. So unlike the Zuko she had known before. Sweet. Tender.

Zuko was an unrivaled jerk... but sex with him was... not like sex as Katara had known it before. With Jet, it had been hasty - and at the time, she had thought that was a result of passion. Jet was excited to be with her, and their time alone together had always been so brief, they had to make the most of it. Over the course of their week-long affair, she had grown accustomed to soreness that lingered and had learned to savor unsated arousal.

But Zuko... Zuko was also excited to be with her. His impatient, urgent scents were obvious. And still he was so... persistent and restrained. When he worked his way up to passionate, he went to great lengths to ensure she was there with him. In more ways than one... and Katara wasn’t sure what to think about that...

This all passed very briefly and hazily through her mind as she was drifting off in the morning. When she woke in the afternoon to find Zuko sitting up on the bedroll beside her, the length of his thigh a comforting pressure against her back, she hardly noticed his alert posture or his watchful eyes. 

Because she was on fire.

“Alpha,” she mumbled, and he was there. 

He coaxed her to drink a little water, eat a little of the food from her pack, and while she chewed and swallowed, he ran his soothing hands over the length of her sweating, overheating body. He lay behind her and kissed her neck and back and shoulder as he stroked her. She could feel his erection brush occasionally against her butt, but he didn’t press it against her.

Until, finally, she couldn’t wait any longer. She caught his hand and redirected it between her spreading legs. “Please, Alpha - need it now.”

He growled and got to work. He reached around her to toy briefly with her clit before sitting up and working his fingers into her from behind. Katara was still so slicked-up that she was ready and impatient from the moment he started. Then, sitting up on his knees straddling her lower leg and hitching her upper leg over his arm, he pushed his cock in just like that. 

Katara hadn’t even known sex could be done this way and stared up at him in shock as he sank slowly in to his twitching root. He met her eyes and his mouth quirked up a little on one side - a breathless little almost-smile - and then he proceeded to fuck her with long, languorous strokes that gradually grew rougher until he was gripping her leg in one hand and her hip in the other, a tight, almost bruising hold that held her steady as he slammed into her. 

The whole time, he murmured sweet profanities that dripped excitingly off Katara’s conscious mind - up until the end. He had driven her very close to climax and he was working on knotting her, leaning over her and grinding deeper into her with the hard, urgent quickness he had used that morning.

“Ready for my knot?” he demanded, grunting as he pushed. 

“Yes, Alpha! Please, Alpha! Knot me, plug me up-”

“Yeah,” he growled, hunching even farther over her and releasing her leg to brace his hands in the nest on either side of her shoulders. “I’ll plug you up, Omega, pump you full of cum and seal you up so none of it can leak out.”

Katara moaned, her excitement hitting new peaks. “Yeah- yeah- fill me up with your cum-!”

“Gonna seed you so deep,” he snarled. “Fill you up with my babies.”

The idea was so mindblowingly exciting, Katara started to come - but in the same moment, her conscious mind sensed danger and lurched back to the surface. She could feel Zuko’s knot filling out in earnest, his thrusts going suddenly especially deep and staying deep. She felt his cum spilling hot and sloppy inside her, his knot expanding shockingly hard, stretching her channel impossibly wide. 

Sealing her tight so his cum would stay in.

“Gonna make such strong babies for me-” he grunted as he flexed his hips into her.

“No...” Katara whimpered, but her traitorous cunt pulsed into a fierce orgasm, binding hard around his knot and squeezing him as he continued pumping shot after shot of cum deep inside her. Zuko, head tipped back and teeth bared, seemed all but deaf.

“Rrrhh - so good, Omega. Seeding you so deep right now. So deep and good.”

As her orgasm rattled through her and began to fade, Katara had a terribly clear-eyed view of Prince Zuko holding himself over her, his head hanging and his chest heaving, his muscles and ribs even more visible by the muted daylight. His slack, closed-eyed expression and scent suggested wrung-out bliss. And triumph. His knot went on pulsing inside her, unloading more and more of Prince Zuko’s semen into her - probably into her very womb, he was lodged so deep inside her. 

It filled her with horror and fresh arousal and disgust and satisfaction. One after the other. All at once, throbbing through her alongside the aftershocks of her intense orgasm.

Zuko must have scented her distress because he quickly came blinking back to himself and immediately looked to her with confused concern. His pupils were still blown wide. He had that same soft, unguarded quality that he’d had after he knotted her the first time. 

“S’wrong?” he panted, eyes widening.

Katara felt helpless tears welling up, but she refused to cry. “I just... I don’t want to be pregnant. Remember? Talking about that?”

“I remember,” he said slowly, a deep furrow in his brow. 

Very careful to not pull too hard at where they were bound, he adjusted their bodies so he could lay down in front of her with her thigh still hitched up over his hip. He tucked one arm under his head, but his other hand lingered on her leg, a warm, not-unpleasant weight. He was very close, peering at her evenly, fully attentive. 

He smelled anxious and... sad. 

“I’m sorry I upset you. I wasn’t thinking. I know you don’t want to get pregnant... All that stuff I said just, I don’t know, came out... like my alpha started talking through me or something. The rut is making me a little...” He huffed, suddenly annoyed. “I don’t want to say dumb but it’s the only word I can think of.”

Katara let out a half-laugh and patted his shoulder. “It’s okay that you’re dumber than usual, Zuko.” 

He looked briefly reassured, then narrowed his eyes. Katara just smiled and tucked her hand back under her cheek.

“And I understand what you’re saying... I’m honestly more freaked out about... how much I didn’t hate it. That and... it just occurred to me how incredibly likely it is that you’re actually getting me pregnant...” She wasn’t sure if the sudden pulse in their binding was her or him or both of them and decided to just ignore it. “...because that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Of heat and knotting and all of it...”

Zuko sighed and nodded. There was a note of guilt in his anxiety and sadness now. But whatever he was thinking, he didn’t say it.

“It makes me feel better to know it’s just your alpha talking through you because then it’s okay that my omega is talking through me, too. And when my heat is over, I can still make my own decisions.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, determination welling up from him - Katara was surprised to find it had become a reassuringly familiar scent. “When it’s over, we’re gonna figure something out. I passed a village on the way here. There’ll be a healer there - or someone who knows where to find one. And, on the ostrich-horse, it’s not such a long trip.”

“You’ll take me?”

“Of course. Have to catch the ostrich-horse first but yeah...”

Katara met his gaze and, for a long moment, she just stared into his gentle eyes and marveled, not for the first time, that this was the fearsome alpha in rut that Yugoda had been so worried about. 

She also let herself wonder at the stark difference between this guy - naked, soft-eyed, bound inside her, attentive and accommodating - and the fierce foe who had appeared calamitously on her doorstep yesterday, still hunting for the Avatar. She wondered how big the difference really was between those two guys. She wondered, fleetingly, what it might be like if he took her to that village... and then maybe... Maybe, if he was still this guy after that, she might let him take her to the place with the thing...

Sokka was gonna have a meltdown.

“And you said you have, uhm, herbs?” Zuko asked at length.

“Yugoda gave them to me two years ago,” Katara sighed, glad to put a stop to that line of thinking. “They may not work.”

“Did they work before?” he asked carefully. “I mean, depending on how long ago that was... If it was recent, maybe they’re still just as good?”

Katara was confused for a second until she scented that whiff of stifled jealousy. He was asking about the other alpha again. She scoffed, not sure whether she was more annoyed or amused. “I haven’t used them before at all,” she said primly, and then added, for no reason she could identify, “That happened before we got to the North.”

“Before you presented,” he said like he was coming to some grand realization. “That’s why.”

Katara rolled her eyes. “Why what?”

“He didn’t knot for you. Probably had no idea what a treasure he had.” 

For a second, Katara stared into his dark, soft, golden eyes, and her mind lingered pleasantly in the scents of his pride and wonder and... smug self-satisfaction. Then she curled her lip. 

“I never said he was an alpha.”

“He was though,” Zuko said, his mouth sliding up into a smirk. “Just not a very good one.”

“Pff! Yeah, okay, and I guess you are a good alpha?”

“I might be the best alpha,” he said, smugness rolling off him now. 

“Why, because you sensed me from a day’s ride away? It was windy! You probably just-”

“No, because I was knotting for you way before anybody else.”

When the words came out of his mouth, he was delighted with himself, but it seemed the second he heard them aloud, he was mortified. He stared at her, wide-eyed, and clamped his mouth shut tight. All those proud smells suddenly turned to shame. A big red spot appeared on his cheek.

Katara’s smile spread out, slow and predatory. “What does that mean, Zuko?”

“Nothing. It’s just my alpha, making me dumb. Forget I said anything.”

“How can I forget when you’re the best alpha?” She emphasized the last two words with pouty-lipped mockery.

This time, the pulse inside her was definitely him. He raised his hand off her leg and laid it over his eyes.

“So, as the best alpha,” Katara pressed, delighted when he pulsed again, “when did you start knotting for me, Zuko? Was it after the Spirit Oasis? Is that how you noticed me then?”

His mouth pulled up, a tight, crooked frown but his knot kept pulsing as she needled him. “Katara...”

“No - it was before that, wasn’t it?” She couldn’t resist leaning in close, smelling his irritation and embarrassment and arousal rise off his skin. It was like discovering someone was unexpectedly ticklish. Katara smirked against his jaw, whispered near his frowning mouth. “Was it that time you tied me to a tree? Did you get a good sniff then, Zuko?”

“You’re the worst kind of girl,” he snarled. 

“It’s just occurring to me,” Katara said, grinning against his throat, “how comfortable you looked yesterday coming out of a bending stance with a huge erection right in front of me. Had a lot of practice with that over the years, armor guy?”

He just growled at her. Which sounded a lot like confirmation.

“But you still didn’t know I was an omega, huh? I guess this means your alpha must be pretty smart. But then... it kinda makes me wonder,” she purred, sliding her tongue out to taste the sumptuous skin over his gland, “who really brings the dumb to the party, Zuko?”

Suddenly, he rolled her on her back and, still bound inside her, let his weight press between her legs and force them out wide. He glared down at her, pink-cheeked and smelling like vengeance. 

Katara stared up at him, mouth open in a little shock - and a little more arousal. She wasn’t really thinking about it, but her heat hadn’t quite rebounded yet - his knot lingering inside her was still staving it off. She was just teasing him, and it was fun. Arousal had built in her all the same.

“I’m actually really glad we could have this talk,” Zuko growled. With one hand, he firmly pinned one of her wrists to the bedding by her shoulder. With the other, he slid his fingers between their bodies to tease around her clit. “Because, since the Spirit Oasis, there have been few things that reliably give me as much pleasure as the thought of fucking that smirk off your face-” 

He ground his knot inside her and Katara groaned from her belly. It was so achingly agonizingly tight but it felt so good and with his fingers working her clit at a quick pace, she found herself squirming and grunting, sliding her free hand down his chest and over his shoulder. He dropped his mouth down to suck hard on her nipple, laving it fiercely between his teeth, then spoke against her flesh as he kept on her clit with devastating persistence.

“-and now, thanks to my smart alpha, I get to actually do it.” 

He sucked hard on her other nipple, growled and let it pop out of his mouth. Katara stared down at him, unaware of how her mouth still hung open and her eyes sparkled. Zuko worked her clit and drank in her expression and smirked.

“What, no insults now? Come on, Katara. Give me your best shot. I can take it.”

“Zuko,” Katara puffed, struggling to think past the quivering tension building outward from her buzzing clit. “You- oooh...”

“I didn’t catch that, Katara. Were you gonna tell me again how dumb I am? Or maybe you wanna make some pithy comments about what an evil person I am? What a creep I am? Huh? How about that, Katara?”

His fingers slipped off her clit just long enough to dip lower, to gather more slick from where she was leaking now around the stiff flesh still impaling her, and come back more furious than before. 

“Maybe you still think I’m here to prey on you? Or did you just mean to say my dick’s too big? Was that it?”

“Ohhh, no...”

“No? Don’t want to complain while it’s still inside you, huh? My knot’s about to go down enough for me to fuck you again. Ready for me to fuck you again, Katara?”

“Aww yeahhh...!”

“Yeah?” 

His fingers were still working fast, but something in the quality of his voice shifted, gentled.

“Gonna come for me first?”

“Yeah,” Katara whimpered, writhing, her fingers grabbing at the short hair on the back of his head. His other hand shifted against hers, interlacing their fingers.

“If you come for me now,” he murmured against her throat, “I’ll fuck you as many times as you want.”

“Kiss my neck!”

And he did, his hot mouth opening on the side of her throat. Katara quaked on the brink of release as he mouthed down the side of her neck, then sucked on her gland.

She came with shattering force, clamping down tight again on his softening knot. Zuko ground his hips against her, extending her release. Katara moaned and writhed and it was only as she was coming down a long moment later that she realized she’d been pulling his hair.

His tongue dabbed softly at her gland, his teeth scraped lightly past.

And she kind of wanted him to bite her.

But then her head cleared and she pulled her fingers out of his hair and up to rub down her face as she caught her breath. 

Zuko kept breathing steadily against her neck. He smelled like heavy turmoil, arousal and anxiety and anger for the most part, but under that was a deep note of hurt. With studied casualness, he withdrew his fingers from hers. It gave her a sour feeling in her stomach. She felt him tug experimentally, but his knot must have swollen again because it was caught firm inside her. She winced a little at the sensation, then folded her arms around him.

He stiffened, then heaved a deep breath and, slowly, relaxed into her hold. His turmoil scents eased slightly. The hurt and anxiety began to dominate, though, and Katara... found herself troubled by that.

“I know you’re not actually dumb,” she sighed at length. She stroked one hand down his spine, then back up to brush through his surprisingly soft hair. “Or evil. And I know you’re not here to prey on me. You clearly have... some kind of moral code, at least about some things, and you... do actually try to listen to me even when... you might not want to... so... I guess you’re not entirely terrible.”

Zuko remained very still in her arms. His breath against her neck kept steadily on.

“And the size of your dick is... obviously fine. I’m clearly perfectly capable of... enjoying it.”

He let out a hard little breath that might have been a huff or a stifled laugh.

“And if none of that is the problem,” Katara pressed on, toying a little with the hair at the top of his neck, “then I guess... maybe I did tease you kind of hard...”

“You didn’t,” he said quietly against her neck. “I like it when you take shots at me. And criticize and goad... It’s... provocative. Makes me want to prove you wrong, or...” He sighed and turned his face away slightly so his breath no longer warmed her neck. “Don’t coddle me. I’m the one who overstepped, Katara. That obviously wasn’t... part of your heat. That was me, letting my alpha be an excuse to do what I wanted to do anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Well... I... wasn’t exactly telling you to stop...”

Zuko pushed himself up so he could look down at her with narrowed, irritated eyes. They weren’t any clearer than they had been, and rather than the sharp look he might have wanted to give her, he just looked... troubled. “No. But you’ve been pretty clear that you don’t want me, Katara. I’m here for your heat, because you needed help. Even though you didn’t want it from me. You’ve invested trust in me and you’re granting me the privilege of seeing you through this heat. For me to use that as an opportunity to fulfill my own selfish fantasies is... pretty shameful.”

“Oh,” Katara said, taken aback. 

The distinction he was making was one she had certainly started out with. Her omega wanted Zuko. Katara just needed him to stop the pain. But at some point, she was realizing, her omega’s wants had stopped seeming entirely distasteful. Zuko had started to seem... She’d actually started to think...

She... had just been holding Prince Zuko and stroking his back like he was someone she needed to comfort! She had teased him and nuzzled his neck until he snapped and rolled her on her back and- and brought her to orgasm on his fingers while he smirked and growled at her. Zuko had done that - not his alpha. 

And Katara - not her omega - had enjoyed it.

It filled her with a tangle of mixed feelings. Her own anxiety and anger, shock and dismay, fear... and soft feelings that didn’t bear acknowledging.

Suddenly, she couldn’t hold herself separate from her omega as cleanly as she had thought she could... maybe because Zuko had insisted on her being herself for so much of it! He’d made her ask for his help, wouldn’t accept the request from the omega. He had waited and tormented her omega with his denials until Katara was conscious for the first time he knotted her, had demanded she tell him she wanted it from him by name... 

He really was being a bully, insisting she take ownership of what she might otherwise pretend her body was just forcing her to want. He wouldn’t let her just be an unconscious, blameless passenger for her heat. He couldn’t just let her have that!

Because Zuko didn’t just want the omega. He wanted Katara. The realization shocked her more deeply than it probably should have. Of course it wasn’t enough for the omega to want him back; he wanted Katara to want him, too. And now, here he was, telling her he had overstepped, he had taunted her and stroked her to orgasm because he wanted to, and his alpha and her heat and his knot still hard inside her had all just been an excuse to go ahead and do what he really wanted. 

And because he was making such a big stinking fuss about it, Katara was forced to acknowledge her own desires, too.

What Zuko had said he really wanted to do, what he had apparently fantasized about doing since their fight at the Spirit Oasis, was... fuck the smirk off her face. Because he found her provocative. Not overbearing or mothering or controlling. Provocative. The thought had a pleasant feeling welling in her belly and a blush warming her cheeks.

And that... was not okay.

Thankfully, this was the moment when his knot finally went down enough for him to withdraw. He slipped out and sat up, then immediately turned to rifle around in her pack. Katara nearly said something, but then realized he must have gathered up the dropped water skins while she was sleeping because they sat nearby, handy for when they were needed. 

Finally, he withdrew the pouch of jerky - only instead of taking any, he just held it out to her. Katara hesitated before sitting up and reaching out, then stopped as his stomach emitted a vicious gurgle. His glare just got harder.

“Take it. You’ll need your strength. Your heat’s gonna start building soon.”

Katara took the pouch, but she also looked again at his hunger-stripped belly and chest. She held out a piece of jerky for him. “I’ll eat some if you will.”

It wasn’t compassion, she told herself. He wouldn’t be much good to her when her heat got bad if he fainted from lack of nourishment. 

Besides. This had just become a contest of wills.

His eyes flicked down, then back up to her. “You don’t have enough food here for two people. It’s more important that you-”

“I don’t eat next to people who are starving.”

“I’m not starving. I can go a few days without food. I can deal with it. Your heat is gonna require way more fuel to keep you going.”

“I’m not eating if you don’t eat, too.”

He scowled at her, but he took the piece of jerky. He didn’t bite into it until she was chewing on her own strip. Then, he seemed to inhale it. Katara watched from the corner of her eye. Still chewing, she held out a second piece of jerky for him, but he didn’t take it.

“I’ve been robbing people,” he said abruptly. He scowled at the edge of the nest, smelling like shame, then surprise and embarrassment, then determination. “That tunic. I took it off someone’s clothesline.” 

Katara’s eyebrows crept upward but she didn’t comment. Zuko just went on, seeming unable to stop.

“I stole the ostrich-horse from a family that shared a meal with me and my uncle. And when my uncle tried to talk to me about the stealing, I left him behind. An old man. I just left him. I haven’t seen him in months- I don’t even know where to start looking for him now. I don’t even know if...”

Katara watched and listened, taking in his sad, anxious, angry scents and the tense way he knelt with his fists on his thighs and his glare fixed on that neutral point away from her. His eyes weren’t clear. He wasn’t wholly in control of what was coming out of his mouth - probably wouldn’t have admitted to his life of crime at all if he had - but she got the feeling he also just needed to say this to someone.

“My alpha wants you to know this stuff because I’m a fighter and a survivor. It thinks... you’d find that enticing.” His frown got tighter. Every muscle in his arms and chest seemed to strain. “But I’m telling you because you deserve a warning. My moral code has been anything but clear lately. And I might not be evil, but I haven’t exactly done a lot of good, either.” His eyes shut tight. “Even when I do, it blows up in my face and nobody ends up happy.”

He turned his eyes sideways to look at her. He was faced at such an angle that she mostly only saw his scarred side, terrible and twisted. “I don’t need your pity or your charity, Katara. I just need you to remember who I am.”

“As if I could forget.” 

Katara huffed and tucked the piece of jerky back in the pouch, then tossed it down. She wasn’t hungry anymore. She was... her skin was... broiling. She wasn’t hungry but she was so very, horribly empty. The omega was crashing and booming and thundering her demands - and meanwhile, here was Zuko, suddenly deciding to be so unexpectedly open and human. Drawing lines of honor and principle that hemmed her in, too.

...it felt like some kind of trap. Like the omega was going to take over and Katara would return to herself later to find she was doing all manner of things she didn’t want to want to do but did and crossing whatever lines he was drawing and- and what would happen if she found herself on the wrong sides of those lines? With Prince Zuko?

She could tell the moment he scented her returning need. He had been watching her askance with his expressionless scarred eye, but then he blinked and his head turned more fully in her direction. His other eye opened a little wider - but they both simmered with his answering hunger.

And the sight of it made her throb. For him. For Prince Zuko, who fucked her like her pleasure was the most important part. And who fantasized about her because he found her provocative. And who was still trying to capture Aang, even when he was scrounging and thieving to survive.

It all just made her so angry. 

“You’ve made it absolutely impossible for me to get through this with any dignity at all,” she snarled. “I could have just blamed all this on my omega and let it take over and just- not been forced to be the responsible person in the room for once!” She reached out and gave Zuko’s shoulder a hard shove. 

He fell back on his hip, staring at her with both eyes suddenly wide.

“And instead you need me to be considering your feelings and looking at you and knowing who you are - like who you are is so important! Like you’re some kind of big deal!”

“It’s not about that!” Zuko snapped back. 

“Crown prince of the warmongers! What a badge of honor!”

He just watched her, scowling now, but with the hunger still in his eyes. Katara felt a feral force building up in her. The omega was trying to assume control again, was welling up past her chest and throat and lapping at her cheeks trying to swallow her down - but Katara refused to go down. She was in the middle of a discussion with Prince Zuko, and she refused to just allow herself to start begging him to impregnate her.

This situation needed to be managed. 

“Katara...”

“Just shut up,” Katara spat, reaching out to shove him again, “and do what I need you to do.”

He caught her wrist before she could touch him and just glared at her for a few tense heartbeats, mouth tight and nostrils flared. Then, so fast she couldn’t even manage a reflexive resistance, he pounced. 

Katara found herself with her face rubbing the bedding as he hauled up her hips and knocked her knees out wide. His fingers sank into her, so achingly good Katara choked out a broken moan.

“Is this what you need, Omega?” he demanded, spreading her open with those hard fingers. His quickly-stiffening cock brushed unobtrusively against the back of her thigh.

“No, Alpha,” she hissed, still not wholly lost to her heat but close enough to desperate to pretend. “I need you to fuck me. Do it right!”

His fingers withdrew and he fumbled hurriedly, then notched himself and, without warning, shoved in. Katara made a sound between a squeak and a growl, immediately pushing back against him. He got a grip on her hips and launched into a punishing fast rhythm. He was growling words she only half-heard over the sound of their bodies colliding.

“Just need to be mounted and fucked, huh? I can fucking do that, too, waterbender. No fucking problem. Your cunt feels even better now, starting to really get fucked open, aren’t you? Feel good? Finally getting what you wanted? Huh?”

In fact, his pounding rhythm sent dazzling shocks through her with every beat, had her straining to spread her legs wider, to open even more for him. His ramming cock forced more and more of her slick out to spill down her thighs and his balls kept slapping wetly against her clit in compounding bursts of sensation. It was the best sex had ever felt.

But Katara was still so angry.

“Oh, Alpha,” she sneered breathlessly into the bedding, trying to push up with her arms so she could shove back against him harder. “Are you in yet? Because-”

“Stay down,” he snarled. 

His hand was suddenly around the back of her neck, pinning her to the nest. Katara made a faint choking sound and felt a pang of worry as her breath came harder. Almost instantly, Zuko let her go and got a fistful of her hair and held her head down that way. He had to hunch forward over her to reach, and it changed the angle of his unrelenting thrusts, but he picked up the pace, fucked her even harder. Katara moaned through her bared teeth, her eyes rolling up involuntarily. 

“This is what my alpha told me to do from the fucking start,” Zuko snarled. “Force you down and mount you like some mindless animal. Now, according to you, I’m the fucking bad guy for not doing that because I wanted your consent? Rrh!” 

He shoved himself upright again so he could grab hold of her ass cheeks and yank her back on his cock with even more force.

“Fucking- impossible- girl!”

Katara was getting close. She was panting hard from her gaping mouth, clawing at her nest around her, barely choking back the blubbering pleas her omega wanted to voice. She reached between her legs and started rubbing her clit. His balls, tightening up as he approached his own climax, struck the backs of her fingers - then suddenly stopped.

“Oh no,” Zuko growled against the nape of her neck. His hand was suddenly clamped around her wrist, dragging her fingers away. Katara whined out a wordless protest. “You don’t get to chew my ass for trying to let you keep a little control and then just go back to making decisions when you start feeling a little frustrated.”

His cock was huge and pulsating inside her but remained horribly, wretchedly still. Katara tried to writhe her hips against him, desperate for stimulation, but Zuko was pressed so firmly against her, there was almost no room to move. He remained as merciless holding still as he had been in motion. 

“Rrh!” she snarled against her other forearm. “If Alpha isn’t gonna make me come, then I have to-”

“Wrong.”

Slowly, easily overwhelming her token struggle, Zuko pulled her hand behind the small of her back, then grabbed the other from under her face and dragged it there too. He clamped one of his big hands around both of her wrists and held them there. Then he braced his other hand against the nest near her face.

“You’re no longer the responsible person in this room,” he said against the back of her shoulder. The anger and frustration in his scent faded, fed into his musky arousal smell. “I’m in charge now. Everything that needs to happen - I’m gonna make it happen. Your one job is to take my knot and come on it like a good omega.”

The words shot through her, and Katara found herself struggling in a new level of desperation. The pull to give in was all-consuming and her drive to deny it was equally animalistic; she was waging a war with every breath.

“Huhh,” Katara groaned into her bedding, shuddering and angling her hips to try and close her thighs together to clamp just a little harder around his cock - but her legs were spread too wide and weighed down firmly. No matter how she writhed, she couldn’t get what she needed. A tiny, choked “Please...” forced its way through her teeth.

“Please what?” Zuko leaned in close, his cheek brushing her ear. It put more pressure on his cock, digging it ever so slightly deeper into her. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Fuck me,” Katara panted. “Ohh, just fuck me already, Zuko.”

“Mmm,” Zuko sighed against the side of her neck, ducked his chin down until he was sampling the air over her gland. “I want to. But that sounds like an order, Omega. And you’re not giving orders right now. What’s your one job, Omega?”

“Rrr... Zuko...!”

“Tell me what your job is and then Alpha is gonna make you come.”

Katara gritted her teeth, but the words came out anyway. “...take your knot and come on it...”

His hips gave the tiniest thrust, then stilled. “Louder. Or that’s all the fucking you’re gonna get.”

“Hrrrah! My job is to take your knot,” Katara half-snarled and half-whined, “and come on it like a good omega.”

“That’s right,” he purred, his hips starting a slow but forceful rock. 

After the long lack of stimulation, it felt even better, her sensitive inner walls grasping at him with every slow inch he pushed and pulled through her. Zuko’s mouth dragged along the width of her shoulder and he lightly set his teeth in one place and then another. He didn’t bite down, just took the slim muscle of her shoulder between his teeth as if testing, searching.

“You are a good omega, aren’t you?” he asked, his tongue flicking her skin as he spoke through a bite, then released and bit an inch nearer to her neck. “You want to be good for me?”

“Yes...” she panted, her mind going tidal with the waves of his steady thrusts. “I can be good. I’ll be good.”

“Such a strong omega,” he slurred through his teeth, “been fighting so hard for so long.” He changed his bite again and settled his teeth at a point on her shoulder much closer to her neck, to her gland. “Can stop fighting, now.” He bit down a little harder, still gentle but firmer than before. “Alpha has you now.”

Once his teeth were set in the spot he wanted, he abandoned the slow rhythm and began working his hips in short, rapid thrusts. Katara could feel his knot starting to thicken inside her, creating a shivering, wild friction.

“Take it, take it,” he grunted low through his teeth. “It’s for you. Everything I am is yours. I’ll be good for you, too, Omega. Gonna give you the biggest, hardest knot - the knot I made just for you...”

She shuddered in tingling waves of excitement, floating now. “Yesss, your knot... so big... fill my...”

“Gonna plant so much seed in you-”

“Ahhyeesss...!”

“-good, strong seed for my good, strong Omega...”

“Alpha so good...”

“And you’re gonna keep it this time,” he growled. His thrusts turned fiercer, sharper. “No more pushing me out. No refusing my knot.” His bite got suddenly harder, a sharp pain that, for a few cruel seconds, cut the pleasure. “No more bending out my seed.”

Katara’s mind was sunk so deep she hardly understood this, hardly remembered what he was talking about. But from her mouth, her omega was whimpering. “No, Alpha, never again Alpha, so so sorry Alpha...”

“Rejecting my seed, the fucking nerve,” he snarled, “like I’m that half-assed alpha who didn’t even know an omega when his cock was in her.” He fucked hard into her, the expansion of his knot momentarily paused, pinning her with his tight grip on her wrists and his bruising teeth. “I’d know you anywhere, could track you anywhere, catch you anywhere-”

“Yes Alpha! Yes yes always find me! Catch me and fuck me and-!”

“-always hunted you, always knotted big and full just for you, just waiting for your scent to bloom-”

“-knot me Alpha, breed me Alpha-”

“-not gonna let you fly away this time, though, not til you’re good and bred. Marked and bred and mine.”

“Alpha! Yes! Please! Waited for you, Alpha, knew you’d come!”

The quality of his thrusts changed again as he started trying to knot her in earnest. He pushed so hard, her shoulders and cheek chafed against the bedding. She warbled her overwhelmed delight.

“Yes you did,” he growled as he ground sharp and short into her and his knot quickly fattened, “yes you did, good good Omega waited for me, saved your first heat for me, waited so long for this knot, so good-”

She felt the moment he started coming, the molten spill of his release flooding her deep inside while his knot fully engorged and stretched her channel tight. The feeling had her legs pulling reflexively together, squeezing even tighter around the enormous intruder swelling so much bigger inside her as she teetered on the brink. 

“That’s right,” Alpha groaned behind her as he ground his knot inside her, his hips flexing in short, hard thrusts as he continued spewing his hot release inside her. “Take it all, Omega. All for you. You’re gonna keep me now. Keep me.” 

At his growled words, at the feel of his knot tugging bruisingly massive inside her, she quaked and her own orgasm swept through her, locking her muscles tight around the bulky intrusion in her cunt, binding it in snug. For a long moment, she was blind and deaf to everything but the dazzling sparks behind her eyes. When she returned to herself, all she knew was Zuko behind her.

“Filling you so full,” he grunted breathlessly as he pumped a few final, firm times. His cock and knot went on surging in the liquid heat inside her, rippling bursts of continuous pleasure. “Knotting you up tight, gonna keep all that cum where it needs to be. Gonna make such strong babies. My strong babies. Gonna be... so good...”

Katara floated for a long while. She only distantly felt him lowering them to their sides, hardly noticed wincing at the discomfort of closing her legs on his still-hard knot, and barely noticed him wedge his balled-up tunic between her thighs.

Katara didn’t rouse. It was okay just to float there. Zuko was taking care of it.

At last, he settled and his chest swelled warm and steady at her back while his hands stroked her sore shoulders and hips. His lips dabbed at the tender place where he’d bitten her, then traced across her gland, and the pleasure mixed with the sting in a delicious suggestion. Her cunt occasionally clenched down on him, and Zuko grunted softly, open-mouthed like he was still catching his breath.

At length, she became aware that he was talking, murmuring softly against her skin.

“...middle of this fucking Earth Kingdom backwater nowhere... and you were just here... like some mirage... just waiting to share your first heat with me... for two years... waiting for my knot... stupid, freakish fucking thing... thought I was defective... but it was just you... and your stupid necklace... smelling like... snow...”

His hands were slowing, and they felt warmer than they had, but that was pleasant too, restful. He stroked down her arm and up the back of her hand where it rested on the nest in front of her and Katara caught his fingers between hers, trapped him to stillness in her sleepy grasp.

Then they slept.

Chapter Text

If Zuko had been capable of clear thought, he would have recognized that the state he was in was not quite what he had expected from his uncle’s legends about rut. 

The alpha did not come roaring in and assume full control right off, which was a welcome surprise. Zuko sometimes felt almost normal. It seemed especially to happen when Katara was lucid and he needed his faculties to handle a more complex situation. His head seemed to be clearest after they had first untied - but he still wasn’t completely himself then, either. He couldn’t seem to shut up... 

It came as no surprise that he was continuously alert and felt intensely protective. He thought he heard a noise past midday and sat up for over an hour listening and waiting in case there was a threat before his omega finally woke up needing him. She slept long hours in a deep and exhausted sleep - much of it while locked perfectly around his knot in a state close enough to nirvana that Zuko could not have named a difference - and for the most part he drowsed and listened and sniffed frequently at the air. 

He sensed there was some danger. Whether this was knowledge from his human brain or instinct from his alpha did not matter. The danger existed. Distant, for now, but that could change at any time. He had to be ready to protect her. And he would be.

This was normal and expected. An alpha protects his omega, even if he hasn’t bitten a claim and mated her yet. 

Mating her was a thing which Zuko continued to inwardly insist he was not going to do, because she didn’t really want him and he would not be like Azulon. Her gland called to him constantly, so spicy-sweet to scent and taste, and every time he pressed his nose or lips to it, he reminded himself that he was not going to bite her, he was not going to claim her. This was only temporary. Just one heat. His alpha, mercifully, did not press him. It took a long while before Zuko realized his alpha sensed that there was a correct moment to bite his claim, and that certain conditions were not quite right yet. In this, for now at least, it left him in peace.

And instead threw itself into an intense, awkward campaign Zuko hadn’t expected at all. He had thought, not unlike Katara, that the alpha’s main goal was to breed. Certainly, that was a major concern constantly dominating the forefront of his thoughts... but it seemed there was more to it than that. As soon as he had come down from knotting her the first time, his alpha initiated what it clearly considered an even more important pursuit.

Excellent, it had rumbled while she was napping and his knot was still hard inside her. Now that Omega is assured of our virility, we can proceed and begin enticing her properly...

It wanted to woo her. Ensnare her. Keep her. 

It rode him constantly. Some of its endless suggestions aligned very comfortably with Zuko’s own ideas about how he should treat Katara in this situation. It was easy to feed her and help her drink and to see to her physical comfort, easy to listen to her concerns and try to address them as best he could, and his alpha (he assumed) filled him with a sense of rightness when he did these things. 

Omega needs to be reassured that we are reliable and worthy. Omega needs to know she is secure and safe and cherished. Her body and her mind must both be at peace.

And that... that felt really good. Zuko had never actually taken care of someone before. He hadn’t realized how sweet and good it felt to hold someone and soothe them and watch patiently for any need that he might leap forward and fulfill. But cradling Katara’s soft, too-hot body against his and diffusing the literal heat from her skin and anticipating her wants might have been as satisfying as the sex. Nourishing. It filled a long-empty place in him that had ached - a hunger pang he had lived with for so long, it was hard to remember a time when he’d truly been replete. 

But then his alpha made it weird and embarrassing. It started tricking Zuko into blurting out things he would rather she didn’t know.

Omega needs to know how attuned we are to her - so much better than any potential rival! Tell her all about your knot and how it is for her, has always been for her, especially.

Omega needs to know how alluring we find her, have always found her! Tell her how frequently you worked your cock and thought of her.

Omega needs to know we will provide for her! Tell her how easy it is to rob rich people, tell her all the things you would gladly steal to keep her in comfort.

The alpha was blind to Zuko’s shame. It flitted around him, quick and insistent and oppressively loud, often forming words before Zuko could think to stop his mouth from moving. It teased all these humiliating little fragments out of him and presented them to Katara, and every time before the shame hit him, Zuko felt little flashes of stupid pride. 

Like some fucking idiot bird building a bower with bright-colored garbage. 

This over-sharing was unacceptable and devastatingly embarrassing. And Katara was entirely unsympathetic. She had taunted him more mercilessly than Azula ever had! ...but... Zuko hadn’t scented any real malice in it. If anything, embarrassing him seemed to bring Katara a nuanced kind of pleasure, something exciting and warm and good and right. And while it chafed his pride, it didn’t... hurt. Still, he’d immediately felt the urge to take her down a peg - because he had to defend himself! - and it had been an unfortunately irresistible excuse for him in his weak-willed state to do it in the way he’d for so long wanted to... 

Well. He had never envisioned it happening when he was already knotted inside her, but that should have only made the vengeance sweeter, really...

Only making her come on his fingers and knot hadn’t turned out exactly like revenge and it didn’t bring him the sort of satisfaction he had imagined. Instead, it left him feeling like he’d taken advantage of her good nature. Just because getting her off had suddenly become his top priority, that didn’t give him the right to enjoy it too much... because she didn’t really want him and he wasn’t some stupid bird or some weak-willed moral degenerate. 

He was a prince. He reminded himself over and over as his fuzzy mind spun. He was Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. He was Zuko. He had to remember who he was!

But holding onto that was getting hard, especially when his alpha was cursing him for an idiot and Katara’s heat ramped up again and she was suddenly mad at him for trying to be a decent man and... 

Her sounds and smells had all indicated pleasure and eagerness, so he’d been as rough as instinct and anger suggested he should be. Then anger had drifted away from him and there was just instinct. He’d let instinct take hold and run wild, and Katara had been right there with him through it. 

Or she had seemed to be... 

The alpha kept trying to dismiss his anxiety - her smells were right! Besides, Omega needed to let go. Fights too hard, needs to save her strength - but Zuko wouldn’t be dissuaded. He knew better. 

He spent much of Katara’s long sleep holding her to his chest and fighting hard against his alpha’s overwhelming monologue to claw back just a little time to brood properly. He figured the ice dagger phase of this arrangement was likely to begin when she next regained lucidity - which would mean after he had knotted her again and was stupid and slow. She would come out of her frenzy and put one right between his ribs while he was still a drooling moron-

Omega needs to know we are smart! It is not good that she thinks you are dumb, even if this is true. You must prove to her that you are smart-

-because it didn’t really matter if she’d liked it or if she’d demanded it that way. What mattered was how she was gonna feel about it later. And if she was mad that he had insisted on having her consent and wanted her in her right mind, she was probably gonna be a whole lot madder about him making her actually submit to him. 

And just like his petty stupid vengeance from earlier, Zuko couldn’t in good conscience blame his alpha for this. Not really. Maybe that voice had provided a series of tempting instructions, but Zuko had been so angry and frustrated and insulted, he could have wrestled control away from his alpha. He didn’t have to do everything it told him to do.

He’d just wanted to. And she’d seemed to want him to. So he had.

And then his alpha had stepped right over him and Zuko had hardly been there at all. He’d stopped thinking, stopped filtering, and the alpha had taken over completely.

And the alpha, apparently, had had some concerns it wanted to address with her directly. Concerns which were also pretty fucking likely to get him stabbed.

Omega likes us mostly. She won’t stab us now. You’re being dumb and you need to be smart-

Zuko knew Katara didn’t want to be pregnant. He’d sensed her anxiety and disgust and fear - and he knew it was the thought of him, specifically, getting her pregnant that gave her that much grief... 

But he was also intensely excited by the thought of getting her pregnant. His alpha was even worse about it, a trumpeting strutting embarrassment; it would settle for nothing less than jubilation and wanted very much to talk about the entire process. Not just during sex, either. It had been all Zuko could do to stop his unruly mouth from trying to talk Katara into just letting nature run its course...

Which Zuko didn’t want either! He couldn’t be a father! He couldn’t even come to terms with his own father! What would his life be if there was suddenly an infant around him all the time? What, would he just hold the baby all day while he rode the ostrich-horse toward the horizon and his shapeless, uncertain future? While he fought tooth-and-nail to capture the Avatar? Just hold the baby all soft and heavy and warm against his chest? Impossible! Babies were mysterious and precious and terrifying, and they had needs and Zuko couldn’t deal with that right now!

Not that the baby would be immediately present. There were some in-between steps... He had to get Katara pregnant first... and getting Katara pregnant of course meant that Katara would then be pregnant for a while... 

And every time he thought of that, fierce primal desire filled him, drowning out everything else. Katara pregnant with his baby. She would grow increasingly round-bellied and soft and vulnerable while his baby got bigger inside her. She would need her mate so terribly much then. To protect her and provide for her. To take care of her... to take care of them both... And when the infant in Zuko’s head was swaddled in Katara’s arms, or when she was there on the ostrich-horse with him while he cradled the baby to his chest... suddenly it wasn’t so frightening. Suddenly, the worries and fears and burdens he had wrestled with for years seemed so far away...

But she didn’t want that with him. The thought of it actually disgusted her.

There were so many reasons a baby was an impossible, terrible idea. And still, right now, those reasons just didn’t seem real enough. They didn’t seem more important than an omega and an alpha doing what they were made to do together, and they didn’t seem important enough to fully banish the sweet images from Zuko’s mind.

So Zuko, unable to resolve this tension within himself, was fighting hard in both directions. When Katara’s heat was over - assuming she didn’t just stab him and leave - he would be a good and responsible man and support her in whatever she wanted to do in any way she wanted. And right up until the last drop of heat-slick had come welling out of her amazing, perfect, wondrous vagina, he was gonna pump a baby into her if it fucking killed him.

It even crossed his muddled mind that, should she decide to stab him when she was next lucid, at least it would be after he had come inside her one more time. The possibility of making a break for it before then, of course, did not even occur to him.

Things about this were... deeply complicated and morally hazy. And that troubled Zuko. But the alpha was too loud, crowing and chastising him and trying to decide what their strong babies would look like. The cognitive dissonance was more than his overwhelmed system could process.

Katara slept well through the afternoon and on towards evening and Zuko drifted in and out after his knot finally shrank enough to separate from her. He could sense in her scent that her heat was going to intensify soon. Her lucid periods would not be so long or deep after that. His alpha fretted that she was sleeping so much, both because it indicated how worn-down she had become during the days she waited for him and because he had only bred her a few times so far, and it probably hadn’t taken yet. If another alpha came along now, she would be vulnerable. That other alpha could take her away and try to mate her, even though there was already a bond forming...

The way Azulon had.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Zuko would not let it happen. He would kill or die - he didn’t care, nothing mattered but the shining, snarling, glorious, expansive force he was enmeshing himself into. She was everything good: the future and the past, reason and order, light and hope and honor... She was everything.

And if she needed to stab him, well, he could probably get past that. It was the not wanting him that was the real problem...

Omega can be beguiled! We have her eye now, but you must be smart! You must prove you are not dumb!

Zuko dozed beside her and tried to meditate - but it was impossible to clear his mind with his alpha chattering and her scent so rich and suggestive and building now toward a maddening peak. His cock got hard and stayed hard as he marinated in her insistent invitation. His alpha wanted to wake her, or perhaps to roll her gently on her belly and slide into her while she slept so she could awaken with her need already being answered - but Zuko was confident that that would be an unforgivable violation of her trust. When she finally did wake up, she whined and clawed him into position between her legs now-now-now, and his alpha smugly growled as he fucked her full with all haste.

As he came down from his orgasm, Zuko became aware first of her hands on his back, hanging limp where they had scratched hard at him moments before- 

-presently not stabbing him with the long-anticipated ice dagger. Yet.

Then he realized he was purring against her gland as he caught his breath, a steady whispered flow of his alpha’s words.

“...with your pretty eyes and my hair... or your pretty hair and my eyes... I have my mother’s eyes... She was kind, you could see-”

He shut his mouth and stiffened, not sure how long he’d been talking or exactly what more he might have said. But Katara only smelled sated and some bewildering combination of annoyed and amused. 

Because he was talking about babies again, Agni fucking strike him dead.

“Sorry,” Zuko gritted out, hot-faced against her neck. But despite the mortification, the urge to continue was still hard to resist. He was still pulsing his drawn-out release inside her, and his alpha was loudly rumbling its pleasure and anticipation for the undoubtedly beautiful offspring they might have just made. It was hard to get past the alpha enough to think right now. “I... I can’t shut it up at all anymore,” he managed tightly.

But the scent he was getting from Katara, annoyance and amusement and, swelling up behind it, that particularly exciting and warm pleasure... that was actually pretty soothing... The fear and disgust he remembered from before were not evident presently. Though, that could change at any moment. As could the absence of that ice dagger.

“Oh no,” Katara said, and he could hear her smirking. That cut through his alpha’s rumble. “You were just telling me about your kind eyes. Here, let me get a good look.”

Zuko growled and resisted, but she tugged and pulled his hair and - curse her - tickled him until he had leaned away enough to prop his cheek on his fist off to the side. It was getting dark in the house as the sun set, but there was enough light to make out her expression. He fixed her with a surly look and she just smiled her too-sweet, self-satisfied smile back at him.

And just radiated that special pleasure as she breathed in his embarrassment. ...hateful girl with her shining eyes...

“Hm... yes. Spirit of kindness right there.”

Zuko curled his lip. “It’s not exactly kind to make fun of people, either, you know. I can’t help it if...”

“Alpha’s got baby fever?” Katara smirked.

He scowled at her but that didn’t stop his blush. He kind of wanted to lash out at her, but his knot was throbbing hard inside her and he was feeling too many complicated feelings. He couldn’t seem to gather his wits. All he could do was frown and blush like a fucking fool.

“It’s... honestly kind of sweet,” she went on as she looked away with a smaller, more genuine smile. “Definitely not what I was expecting from rut. Way more cat-rabbit than tigerdillo...”

She trailed off and her pink cheeks got pinker. Zuko assessed her arched eyebrows and drew a careful breath. This was not the fury he had anticipated, but he sensed turmoil within her and he needed to face that fury, needed to get it over with. He’d laid here for hours beside her, waiting and dreading this moment and now... He had to know. 

“I was pretty... rough with you... last time. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Katara said, but she sounded thoughtful in a way that pricked his nerves, made him wait and watch her closely.

But she didn’t go on. She smelled conflicted, different emotions stewing together too tightly to be easily identified. Anger was definitely in there, though. Zuko worked hard to remain calm.

“If I was too... forceful or anything, I really need you to tell me... because it seemed- Your smells and everything seemed right but if I misunderstood and went too far, I just need to know so I can never do it again, because I don’t ever want-”

“Oh,” she cut him off, a cross furrow in her brow, “just stop it. You could tell I... You have to know it was... good.”

“I know you don’t seem totally okay about it right now.”

“How can I be totally okay when I - not my omega - apparently enjoy you taking control of me sexually?” she snapped.

Zuko’s knot gave a hard throb and his thoughts briefly scattered, then shuffled disorientingly back together. 

That was what he’d done. He’d taken control of her. Forced her into position and fucked her as hard as he could... stopped her from touching herself. Denied her control of her own body, her own orgasm - because making that happen was his job.

And she’d enjoyed it when he took over and did his job. Not just her omega. Katara. Katara had enjoyed when he took control and fucked her hard and made her come on his knot. 

And - the disorienting good feelings dissipated as he zeroed in on the important thing - much as he’d expected, she wasn’t happy about it. At all. She was hot-faced and glaring now at the ceiling as she went on.

“I am the grownup. I make sure everyone in the group is fed and clean and happy and doing their part. I do not-” She seemed to puff up, anger or outrage physically swelling within her. “-lay back and leave other people to their own devices because if I do, suddenly things aren’t getting done. Someone has to maintain order, and that someone is me. That’s who I am. Not this pathetic, helpless, submissive animal who wants a man to take charge of her!”

She switched her furious blue eyes back to him and Zuko, who had sat up a little on his elbow to put a slightly more comfortable distance between his throat and her flashing teeth, found himself pinned by her glare. For all her outward fury, though, the scent of her shame was thicker. And that was... that just wasn’t acceptable.

“It would probably be easier to be okay with this if I could pretend I didn’t have any choice at all. That my omega was making all these decisions and this was just one of them. But you wouldn’t let me pretend that. So now I not only have to have sex with you, I have to sit here with the knowledge that I asked for sex with you and I like it, and I like when you’re forceful - and considering our history and our relative positions in this war, that feels incredibly twisted and uncomfortable!”

It took Zuko a moment to remember what war she was referring to. Ah yes, the war where the Fire Nation was trying to take over the world... including her people, who were scraping by at the South Pole in decimated poverty, which was a devastation he’d been learning a lot about over the last couple years... And it meant something that he was... the prince of the warmongers... forcefully making her submit...

These were issues that were upsetting and very difficult to think clearly about while his knot was still firm inside her, but he easily understood the urgent need to comfort and reassure her now. His alpha, too, pushed hard for him to say whatever it was going to take to make it better for her.

“I”m sorry I made you... ask... No-” His alpha weighed him down like armor that refused to be shaken off, but Zuko fought the heavy resistance. He would not forget who he was! “I’m not sorry I wouldn’t do this without your consent, Katara. Maybe that’s kind of messed up too, but... I couldn’t rape you. That’s not who I am.” 

“Who you are,” she huffed. He met her bitter eyes and felt torn between sympathy and frustration. “Fine. I get it, Zuko. You’re a deeply honorable bully. Goody for you. And you’re just giving me what I want, right? So you aren’t even doing anything wrong! So I guess that makes me the... the-!” 

Her face tightened, fury and pain and helpless rage all stewing through her tense muscles and scowling face. And Zuko understood suddenly that she needed him to lance that pressure.

“It doesn’t make you anything, Katara.”

“It makes me weak,” she snarled back at him. “Submitting to a stronger force? Giving up the fight? Letting myself be conquered? By you? Enjoying it?! That’s shameful! It shames me and it shames the Water Tribe and it makes everything I’ve spent my life fighting to prove about myself a lie!”

Zuko stared down at her for a second, wide-eyed and taken aback. Whatever she saw in his face, it seemed to cut her and she shut her eyes and covered her face with her hands to hide the tears he could smell anyway. Her anguish was choking him, hard to breathe through. He had to fix it. He had to.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said gently. “Like... any of that. The whole time you were sleeping, I was thinking about how you were gonna wake up and stab me... because- and I know I don’t really know you all that well, but... I do know you’re not a person who gives up the fight. Any fight. Not that-! Not that that was a fight before, between you and me! You wouldn’t have just let me win if it was a fight... I mean-! The fight I’m talking about is this fight, the fight you’re having with your omega... and your heat...”

Zuko paused and drew a deep breath and fought to stop rambling like a witless buffoon. But Katara dragged her hands down her face so she could frown narrowly up at him again. “It wasn’t my omega, though,” she said nastily. “It was me.”

Zuko did not presently have the mental acuity to recall their previous conversation or his own insistence on the distinction she was alluding to. But he remembered her loudly complaining about having to be the responsible person in the room. 

And he remembered that her asshole friends had left her to face her heat alone.

“So? You’re the grownup. You control situations all the time. So what if you don’t want to have to be in control during this especially difficult time, too? You aren’t hurting anyone. It’s your heat. It should be the way you want it to be. And if somebody has some kind of problem with what you have to do to get through your heat, I’ll kick his ass for you.”

Zuko was thinking specifically of the Avatar in this moment, and he didn’t really care if he was writing a check he couldn’t cash later. If she wanted him to do it, he would. His alpha was cheering him on raucously.

Yes! Fight for Omega! Prove to her that you are the strongest and best potential mate, that you will defend her against anyone, against anything, against the world-!

But it seemed like... maybe he’d overshot the mark. Katara’s eyes were a little wide now, a little taken aback. Like his anger was unexpected. Or like it hadn’t occurred to her that her heat was hers. Or that he might actually fight for her, not just for the chance to share this heat with her or protect her here and now, but just on principle. Just because someone might make her feel bad.

Zuko, presently limited to less thinking power than he would have needed to work out and understand the subtle undercurrents of Katara’s response, huffed and scowled and wound his temper back down a little.

“And the idea that you relinquishing control during your heat somehow shames the Water Tribe isn’t right either, because you’re not like the ambassador of the Water Tribe and this isn’t some public forum or high-stakes negotiation. It’s just you and me here. And...” He frowned at the far wall for a second, fighting to think - which he couldn’t do as easily with her soft-hard eyes locked on him. “And, yeah, okay, it makes sense you’d see me as a representation of the Fire Nation... considering the whole prince thing, but-”

“Crown prince,” she cut in prissily. “And heir to the throne. I mustn’t forget who you are, after all.”

“...I’m not even really...” 

His alpha pulled him back - crown prince is much more enticing than banished nobody. And Zuko found he couldn’t argue that. Didn’t want to. There was no reason to remind her of more of his glaring faults.

“When I said I needed you to remember who I am, I wasn’t really talking about titles. Here and now, with you,” he said carefully, peering back down at her again, urging her with his eyes to understand what he was trying to say, “I’m just Zuko. That’s the important part. I just want to be Zuko. Because,” he continued, not quite thinking, “you’re the first person I’ve met in months who has any idea who I am. You know me. Like I know you. And that’s... so much more than nothing.”

It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t find the words that would express the things he had been learning not just about deprivation and despair and hope and perseverance, but about loneliness. About a life wherein only pitying strangers or prospecting predators spared him a glance. A life without his uncle, or a purpose, or his own name.

It was so desperately important to him that Katara knew his name. She could forget he was a prince. He was hardly a prince anyway. He just needed her to know... him.

She seemed to spend a long moment assessing him, scenting him. Her own smells had gentled a bit, though they were far from peaceful. 

“What do you mean, you know me?” she finally asked, soft but tart. “You only just recently learned my name, Zuko. How well could you possibly know me?”

“I didn’t need to know your name to know you, Katara. Well, you know - the part you show to your enemies. Since that’s how you see me. I never really thought of you as an enemy so much as...” He sighed and rolled his eyes, his alpha dragging its heels on this. “...more like an over-principled bystander who just... insisted on becoming an adversary and refused to be reasoned with and made me fight her so I could go home. And then won. So I didn’t get to go home.” 

Katara was giving him a withering look now, so he pushed down his old irritation and hurried on. 

“You’re bold and driven and defiant and strong. That’s who I know you are. Don’t think that I see you in this situation as if this is some realer version of you. It’s only heat. It’ll pass. And, honestly, I’ve never heard of anyone being able to just... take control back from their omega during heat like you do - but it makes so much sense that you can, because you’re... you.”

She watched him narrowly, smelling marginally reassured but still not won over. Still not entirely convinced. But she didn’t cut him off.

“It probably... isn’t great that I make you feel the need to do that, actually,” Zuko went on, sort of realizing it as it came out of his mouth. “It has to be really difficult to be going through this with someone you mistrust so much that you feel like you have to fight that hard to keep some control over something that’s designed to override your control...” 

Katara’s look and scent shifted subtly. Zuko wasn’t entirely sure why these words had such an impact on her or what the result had been, but he could see her eyes open wider and the angle of her furrowed brow ease slightly. What was clear to him was the mellowing of her scent as some tension released. 

He could not have known - was too busy being hectored by his alpha about adding to Omega’s stress - but Katara was looking at the face of her enemy as he empathized with her and put his finger right into the heart of her struggle. As he screwed up his brow in thought and compassion and saw her. If Zuko had realized he had just once and for all convinced her that he was not stupid, he would have been proud. But instead, he just went on, blabbing as his alpha pushed him to.

“I mean, I’m fighting for control but it seems a lot like I’m mostly just fighting to stop myself from saying humiliating shit to you. And failing.” He watched her carefully, saw the tiny upward twitch of her mouth, the measure of softness returning to her eyes. It soothed some irritable part of him. “You seem to be fighting for control because you don’t think I’m gonna take care of you like I said I would.”

Katara peered a little dryly up at him, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s what you’re doing? I’ve taken care of a lot of people, Zuko. It only very rarely involves putting parts of my body inside theirs.”

“I don’t know, Katara,” he sighed, faintly exasperated, “maybe you’ve just been doing it wrong.” 

She let out a sound that might have been shock or disgust or mirth, and Zuko found himself suddenly too nervous to wait and discern which it was.

“I just mean that I get this is hard for you and I really want to make it easier. An alpha’s job is to make it easier. And you can trust me to do my job. I’m making sure you have what you need and you’re safe. And... the other stuff... I’ll make sure that gets done, too. Honestly, in whatever way you want,” his alpha tacked on. “I’m just happy to be here.”

His face got hot and he tore his eyes away from her bland frown to glare at the far wall. 

“I mean! Not happy. I’m never happy. Just... it’s a privilege to see an omega through her heat and I am privileged to be your alpha. Well- I mean! The alpha you’ve chosen- accepted! For this heat specifically. And if anything I’ve done so far was uncomfortable or weird or bad, I want to know that I shouldn’t do that again.”

He scented her amusement before he let his eyes venture back down to her. There was a faint smile tugging at her lips. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed. Her scent was smoother, significantly less agitated.

“No. Nothing has been bad.”

“And... I really didn’t hurt you?”

“No, you really didn’t hurt me.”

He let his eyes drift down to the bruise he had bitten into her shoulder, a threatening purple shadow so close to her gland. “Not even-?”

“Ugh! Look, no, you didn’t hurt me at all. Even the biting was... It hurt a little but it felt good, too.” 

“What about when I was... I mean... with my size, I should’ve been more careful-”

“Tch! Your penis is fine. Somehow. I guess I really must be... What was that phrase you used?”

Zuko blinked, struggled to think and not jump to any panic-inducing conclusions.

“Fucked open,” she mumbled sourly and blushed. And smelled deeply of irritated arousal. 

Zuko’s knot gave an extra-hard pulse, which he endeavored to ignore, but he couldn’t stop himself getting pulled more fully into his alpha now that he sensed the danger had passed. Now that they were talking about one of his new favorite topics. Him fucking her open. Zuko figured he could pretty happily discuss that in as much detail as she liked... She hurried on, still not meeting his eye. 

“If we hadn’t already had a few rounds and if I wasn’t producing just... an absolute mess-” She glanced down at her bedroll a little despairingly. “-it might have hurt. But it didn’t. At all. It just... felt really good.”

Relief and smug satisfaction and arousal flooded him - he had fucked her open and absolutely railed her harder than he’d ever even really fantasized about, and now here she was, pink-cheeked as she grumpily admitted how good he’d made her feel when he did it - but those fierce emotions were accompanied by a lot more simple joy than Zuko was accustomed to. 

And the joy absolutely dominated everything else.

“Oh! Well that’s good! ...then!” 

He fought hard to stop talking, but as was becoming a pattern, more words poured out. She was watching him oddly, staring at his eyes, but that just seemed to spur him on more. 

“It seemed like you were enjoying it and I was enjoying it and - I mean obviously I was enjoying it! I’ve never just let loose like that. I mean... I’ve had sex before! But like both times it took so much focus to be careful enough- and the first girl, she never got comfortable so we had to stop - but with you it’s like, for the first time ever, my dick isn’t a problem.”

He had just a second to feel embarrassed at having... gushed like that while Katara watched him with slightly narrowed eyes. “So when you told me before we started that ‘it’ll fit fine’ your actual experience suggested there was a fifty-fifty chance it wouldn’t?”

“Oh no, I knew it would fit,” Zuko assured her, relieved that they weren’t going to talk about him being giddy or pleased or any other feeling he should maybe not be feeling in this very serious situation. “I mean, I really hoped it would and had reason to believe the odds were probably good... You know, because omegas are pretty famously-”

He managed, this time, to stop. But it was too late. Katara’s narrowed eyes narrowed further. 

“Famously what, Zuko?”

On the one hand, his alpha was entirely sure that sharing his worldly knowledge couldn’t hurt in his endeavors to impress and beguile her. On the other hand, Zuko was fairly certain that no woman wanted to be informed that her lady parts were rumored to offer “unrivaled accommodation”.

She was frowning now and smelled angry and embarrassed enough that she’d probably filled in the blank for herself. And there was also a whiff of hurt...

“Famously... perfect,” Zuko said, a little stilted with the change in direction but willing to fight hard to land it. “Because omegas are able to, uh, adjust for different... girths! And that’s a pretty cool thing... to be able to do...”

“Cool. Right.” She did not appear to be any angrier, but nor did she seem less angry. She huffed through her nose and snapped her eyes up to the ceiling. 

Zuko was trying to think of a way to dial this conversation back that did not involve his alpha waxing poetic about how exquisitely formed her insides were, especially now that they were packed properly full of a knot worthy of her. But before he could come up with anything, Katara went off.

“That is just hurtful and untrue!” she snipped, crossing her arms over her breasts and elbowing him a little violently in the process. “Just because I can apparently fit some... ridiculously oversized appendages in my vagina does not mean that every omega could or would want to! I mean - huh! - there’s no way this would have worked if I wasn’t dripping more juice than an overripe melon and that is not normal for me I will have you know...!”

Zuko only very briefly entertained some possible ways he might coax a comparable amount of juice out of her when she was no longer in heat - but then he listened closely, contritely, and resolved that he would absolutely not become distracted by the angry flash of her eyes and the pink in her cheeks. But she was so beautiful when she was angry and this anger seemed not-entirely directed at him - perhaps his bid to save himself had succeeded at least a little and he had landed in a relatively safe neutral ground... and that notion made her passion even more enjoyable to admire. Because really, when her wroth was directed at someone else, it made him appreciate even more how fierce and principled and strong she was. What an excellent mate and mother she would be...

“-besides which, I can report from personal experience that omegas are not just like wide open down there because I did not have an easy time with my previous partner-”

Zuko’s attention, admittedly having strayed, snapped back.

“-and he was by no means a giant! He was just impatient and selfish.” Sadness bled through her anger. “And sick. But that- It was mostly the selfishness. Maybe if my vagina was actually a sprawling open avenue, I wouldn’t have had a problem!”

“Your vagina is perfect,” Zuko cut in. This time when he said it, it had weight and conviction behind it. The quiet confidence of a man presently and quite contentedly occupying the vagina in question. When she turned a suspicious sideways look on him, he met her with serious focus. A little part of him wanted to emphasize her criticisms of that other alpha, but a bigger part looked into her eyes and just wanted her to forget him forever. “It’s actually my second favorite thing about you.”

The suspicion did not abate but she turned her head to assess him directly. Annoyance rolled off her. “What’s the first thing?”

“Your temper.”

She blinked at him blandly. “Oh ha ha. My favorite thing about you is your sense of humor.”

“That’s a relief,” Zuko said point blank. “If you’d said my dick, I would have felt pretty objectified.”

Katara froze for a second as if unsure how to react, then puffed out an unwilling laugh. 

Zuko savored her mild amusement and the other faint, pleasant feelings he scented on her. “I wasn’t joking about your temper, though. I like it that you care about stuff enough to fight for it.”

“You admiring someone else’s temper is kind of like the whale admiring the guppy’s fins.”

This sounded like a proverb but it didn’t take a lot of pondering to grasp her meaning. “Right. Yeah, I guess you’ve... seen a lot of that. From me. In the past.”

“Yeah, I recall most recently being called a... ‘fucking impossible girl’...”

“Oh! Well, I was... uh... pretty frustrated-” 

“Which I honestly like better than ‘peasant’. And, while I have some complicated feelings about it, I can admit-” She heaved a short, hard breath. “-I do prefer the angry sex to the angry firebending.”

“Really?” 

Katara fixed him with an unimpressed look, but whatever she saw in his face pulled her up short. Her expression softened. Finally she sighed. “Yes, sex with you is better than having fire launched at me and my friends. Is that really where you want the bar to be, Zuko?”

“No! It’s just kind of blowing my mind that you wouldn’t rather be fighting me.”

She was quiet for a moment, just watching him steadily, thoughtfully. Her emotions were complex and confusing and Zuko found he felt out of his depth - as if he had run out of fuel and could no longer quite focus enough to parse what her reaction meant. In part, because he sensed she needed to eat and drink; this conversation was too hard right now but her physical needs were simple and easy to address. 

The room was nearly dark now, and Zuko reached over the edge of the nest to retrieve indistinct shapes he knew to be one of the water skins and a pouch of food. He presented them for her wordlessly and, under the last faint impressions of her waiting stare, ate a few bites to placate her so she would eat more.

At length, after darkness had filled the room, she spoke.

“It’s hard to know what to do with my anger sometimes.”

Zuko, setting the food and water back outside the nest where he would be able to easily find it later, stilled. 

“Most of the time, it’s easy. Someone is doing something wrong, and my anger gives me the courage to confront them about it. Someone is being mistreated, and my anger gives me strength to defend them. Toph is being a selfish beast,” she went on with an audible curl in her lip, “and I can be the one who steps in and corrects her for the good of the group.”

Zuko’s alpha was quietly transposing their offspring into all of these situations and admiring what a fine defender and executive she was, but Zuko ignored that. He thought of that town he’d passed through last week. The soldiers who were really bullies. Lee and his family. His anger had helped him persevere when he was dazed and injured but still needed to finish the fight, needed to win...

He didn’t know who this Toph person was... maybe that was the bison... but he sensed what Katara was saying now was a deeply important thing, and he waited, stiff with trepidation but also hungry to hear what she would say next.

“But sometimes my anger doesn’t have a clear problem to solve. Like... I’m so, so angry at the Fire Nation for what they did to my mother. But that anger can’t ever bring her back.”

Zuko could smell it, a crackling raging anger... and terrible sharp grief. He’d scented that special blend before, and his mind snapped him to those other conversations and his alpha wanted him to seem Smart, so it was out of his mouth before he even thought about it.

“A firebender.”

Katara was silent in the dark for a second, and he thought she might be glaring at him, probably hating him a little still just for what he was. But she didn’t smell like she hated him. She smelled sad and uncomfortable and, whatever she was thinking, she just went on. 

“He came in our house during a raid. She sent me away. When I came back with my dad... it was too late.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, aching for her now. “That’s terrible. You... have a really good reason to be angry.”

“Yeah, I do.” 

He could tell she was planning something, preparing to do something. He couldn’t think what it would be, though. He was still tied inside her, wouldn’t be able to pull away if she struck at him. His alpha was confident she didn’t intend to do that - her omega liked him too much and she was at least ambivalent herself and her heat was just getting going - but Zuko didn’t share that confidence at all. He had blundered his way through this entire conversation and felt like a fool. Why wouldn’t she lash out at him?

“I get the feeling,” Katara finally said, “you probably have a good reason, too.”

It took a second... to remember. 

Because he had kind of set aside his anger for a moment. It was a part of a life that existed beyond these walls and, for a moment, he’d had other, more important things to feel... But then Zuko remembered. And his anger was there like a smirking shadow, looming bigger than his alpha, bigger than any bright emotion he pathetically tried to cling to. It was a part of him, who he was.

And he'd let himself forget it.

Zuko turned his face away and scowled, but it was dark, so she would only pick up the scent of his suddenly stormy emotions. Not just anger, but pain and shame and a whole tangle of confusion. But where he might have ordinarily shut her out, his alpha was still there, desperate to nose its way back to her.

“I guess so.”

“You said earlier that, when I won our fights, that meant you didn’t get to go home.” 

He scented a surprising little whiff of compassion. Genuine concern. It made him want to pull away or curl closer, but he did neither. She went on after a moment. 

“I always kind of thought you were on some sort of quest. That seemed like the kind of thing a prince would do - go on quests for glory and honor...”

His alpha was not so sure this was the sort of winning material one feathered a nest with, but Zuko gritted his teeth. “I’m banished. I thought you knew that.”

She was silent for a second, stunned. “I... did not.”

“It’s not a secret,” Zuko said, seething now. “It’s actually a pretty widely known story. Random people in the Earth Kingdom have heard all about the banished prince.” 

His alpha was holding him back, now certain this was a deeply flawed approach. Zuko struggled. He wasn’t ashamed of who he was! 

He was so deeply ashamed. 

“Normal princes might get to go on quests for honor and glory,” he spat. “There is no honor for me until I capture the Avatar.”

“Well that’s just not true,” Katara huffed beneath him. “You’ve been... frustratingly honorable through this ordeal.”

“That’s not-! That isn’t the same!”

“In what way,” she asked with stern challenge, “is your honorable behavior with me not worth as much as some abstract virtue that hinges on you doing something terrible?”

Zuko scowled and drew a sharp breath and contorted his mouth into a snarl - and was stumped. And increasingly frustrated, like a steam pipe blocked off at its vent. It was a feeling he was well accustomed to, usually leading to an explosion. Usually directed at Uncle. In the past, he had called his uncle fat, lazy, jealous - all manner of easy insults that helped him dismiss what he was being told. Presently, he wanted to tell Katara that peasants just didn’t know anything about honor and that she should just shut up or go back to mindlessly begging for his knot like she was supposed to.

But his alpha wouldn’t let him. His alpha knew that to say such things at this moment would be a critical error in enticing the omega to select him on a more permanent basis. The alpha also suspected that such sentiments might lead her to actually injure him, which this omega could do if handled improperly.

Strong Omega. 

The words, rather than the adulation they normally were, now came as a warning.

“Rrh!” Zuko managed, breathing a little puff of fire up at the ceiling. He pulled slightly away from her, trying to force his knot out, but he was still bound tight and it hurt. He tried to do it anyway. He wanted away from her and he wanted away from his alpha and untying could give him that for a little while.

“Ow, hey!” Katara’s legs came up around him, clenching his hips back down against her. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it! Stop!”

Zuko did, then bowed his head and breathed hard through his nose, fighting for calm. His knot ached in a much less pleasant way now and he had a feeling there would be some lingering soreness. The pain helped clear his head a little.

“In the future,” Katara finally said, “you can just say you don’t want to talk about something. You don’t have to try to hurt me or scare me to get out of a conversation.”

“I wasn’t...” Zuko heaved a breath and caught her wariness, her... faint emotional hurt. His jaw was tight, but he spoke anyway. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you or scare you. That... I wasn’t thinking. I just...”

“Didn’t know what to do with all that anger?”

“...Yeah.” 

They were quiet for a long moment, and Zuko’s alpha gnawed hard at his conscience. Finally, compulsively, he went on.

“I burn it off in my firebending mostly,” he said, hating himself. “Or I used to, back on my ship... Now I can’t exactly go around firebending without giving myself away, so I just stay angry... but I used to train three times a day, every day. As long as the Avatar wasn’t in sight... or my uncle wasn’t inventing some excuse to cancel or hold me back. Katas at dawn. Combat and advanced sets at midday. Katas at dusk. For five years.”

“Woah.” She smelled surprised and a little impressed. A little aroused. It was a good smell. Zuko let himself breathe it in, let it soothe him. His knot still twinged unpleasantly, but it was shrinking more rapidly now.

“And you still beat me at the Spirit Oasis. After... how long did you train with a master? A couple months?”

“Almost three.”

Zuko sighed, at once irritated and perversely pleased by his omega’s skill. 

“I was training the whole journey before that, though,” she went on with a little tang of bitterness. “I adapted moves I saw earthbenders use and studied that waterbending scroll I reclaimed from those pirates. And I trained with Aang every day after I took care of chores. When he wasn’t flying off to play.” 

Zuko could hear her exasperation and she could probably scent his mounting irritation - the Avatar, legendary master of the elements and literal child - because she forged on. 

“Anyway, by the time I got to the North Pole and Master Pakku refused to teach me because I was a girl, I knew enough moves to hold my own when I challenged him to a fight.”

Zuko wasn’t sure where to start with this, but his fear immediately won out. “You dueled a master? Without ever training with one before? That’s crazy!”

“I was angry. Did I mention the part,” she said, clearly angry now, “where he refused to teach me because I’m a girl?”

“Yeah, that’s crazy, too, but...” Zuko struggled, feeling much more strongly than he should - because she was clearly okay, she’d clearly survived and she didn’t have any horrible scars, he would have seen - but he couldn’t help it. “He could have killed you.”

“In a fight with a teenager? Ooh, big strong man...”

“Then he could have scarred you to teach you a lesson,” Zuko snapped, breathing hard. “To teach you respect. He could have done anything!” 

His knot was down now but he didn’t pull away, couldn’t pull away, needed to be over her, covering her, keeping her safe and away from the danger he knew in the memories of his flesh was real and immediate-

“That’s not what happened, though.”

Her voice was calm, gentle, soothing. She smelled faintly of alarm, but increasingly more of something soft and deep and comforting. Her tiny hand was on his chest. He grasped it, felt its reassuring heat.

“What happened,” Katara went on, “was he trapped me in a bunch of ice spikes - which, yeah, could have been lethal if he’d been a bully and a monster - and told me to go back to the healing huts with the other women. Which was honestly close enough to bullying to set me off all over again.” She sighed and went on, bitterness thick in her scent now. “If he hadn’t figured out that my grandmother was his long-ago-fled betrothed, he still wouldn’t have taught me. And I get the feeling, if he’d known I was gonna present as an omega later, he wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“Why not?”

“The Northern Water Tribe just doesn’t teach girls martial bending. They think healing is the feminine art-”

“No, I mean, that’s messed up but... why would your designation make a difference?”

Katara seemed to hesitate, tracing her thumb back and forth against his chest. “I don’t know. I got the impression up there that women are property and omegas are even more property. I just knew I had to get out of there.”

Zuko considered this. It hadn’t occurred to him that omegas were treated like property in the Fire Nation... but that’s exactly what the Fire Lord’s mandate was. A demand for the surrender of property to the crown. That property just happened to also be a person. Okumi. Katara. The tragedy of his grandmother’s story stung even deeper now.

“I guess that’s done differently in the Fire Nation?” Katara asked. Zuko broke out in a sweat, but she went on. “I mean... it can’t be safe for a firebender to go totally without training... right?”

“No,” Zuko agreed readily. “That’s a good way to burn a house down. By the time a firebender presents, they’ll have already had extensive training in basic control. But... omegas in heat have still been known to start some pretty serious fires, so it’s... there’s this... mandate... to make sure that, if an omega presents, she ends up with an alpha who’s also a strong firebender.”

“Why do I get the feeling this is something awful?”

Zuko sighed. “Because it is... It’s mandated that the omega has to go to the Fire Lord.”

“Oh, so creepy. But... somehow not that surprising.”

“Yeah...” 

That was where he ordinarily might have stopped. His knot was down. His alpha was being a little less overwhelming. Katara smelled like grinding thoughts and subtle resentments. Zuko could have just pulled back and been quiet and let the moment pass, let her ask some other question or launch into a screed about the Fire Nation...

But he found that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

“The last omega to present in the Fire Nation was... Her name was Okumi. And when she presented, about forty years ago, she was on the road to the capital when she fell into heat...” 

He told it the way Uncle told it, and Katara listened with her hand lingering on his chest. Her heat began to pick up again even though he had never pulled out, and her scent gradually intensified as he talked, but the escalation was strangely patient this time. As he told her how Azulon had killed Okumi’s alpha and mated her himself, how she had despaired and perished, but not before giving birth to his father, Katara remained with her hand under his, growing warmer against his chest.

“What Azulon did was a dishonor and a disgrace,” Zuko recited quietly. “He should have respected the mating bond and-”

“Wait,” Katara said against his forearm - he had propped his cheek up again and she had at some point started nuzzling against his arm. “I thought a mating bite is permanent?”

“It is.”

“But if the guardsman had already mated Okumi, how could Azulon also have mated her later?”

“The guardsman hadn’t marked her yet. Their bond wasn’t complete, but it was strong. Okumi accepted him, and she rejected Azulon. A forced mating bite couldn’t make that go away.”

She was quiet. Angry. Nervous. Warm. Her breath puffed against his arm. “I thought the bite was what created the bond.”

“The bite cements it, but the bond is more ephemeral. It forms between two people enduring the trials of a heat together.”

“So we’re... bonding. Right now.”

Zuko felt a wild swoop in his chest and wasn’t sure where it came from. “Yeah...” But Katara smelled like trepidation, a spike of worry. So he went on. “It’s okay. Without a mating bite, the bond can fade over time. And I know you don’t want me to bite you. So I won’t.”

She was quiet for a moment, just breathing against his skin and smelling of desire and... more nuanced feelings Zuko was starting to struggle to follow.

“Why did the guardsman wait to bite Okumi? Why didn’t he claim her right away?”

Zuko blinked, because he had never really wondered that. “Well... he had to wait for the right moment.”

“What’s the right moment?”

“I... don’t actually know.”

“Hm,” she said, unimpressed.

She shifted her hips slightly and Zuko felt a pleasurable tug as her movement and her scent began stiffening him again. His mind became a little less clear, a little more interested in her fingers that occasionally fiddled against his chest. Almost a stroke.

“Why didn’t Okumi fight?”

“Huh?”

“She was a firebender, right? She was with her guardsman and some man who thinks he has a right to her body shows up... why didn’t she fight?”

“I always sort of assumed her heat made that impossible. But... maybe she did,” Zuko said, sad and thoughtful. “She would have been maybe sixteen or seventeen... and probably didn’t spend her whole life training. And Azulon had to be in his fifties at least-”

“Gross.”

“-and a master firebender... and the Fire Lord. Even if she was brave enough to fight the Fire Lord after she’d just seen him kill her mate, she probably couldn’t have won...”

He thought horribly of Katara facing down the waterbending master, of her trapped in ice spikes and still trying to come at him when he delivered his parting insult.

“...but she still might have fought.”

Katara’s fingers stroked his chest and he became aware of how he ached there. For a long moment, she was quiet, and Zuko’s mind drifted back to her scent, brewing increasingly closer to need. 

“That story makes you so sad,” she said softly at length.

“It’s a sad story.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, her lips began dabbing up his arm and her hand slid out from under his and down his side to his hip. His cock had yet to fully harden - probably slowed by the heavy topic - but it resumed gamely now. He wouldn’t even pull out this time, he decided. He’d fuck her just like this again, maybe pin one of her legs over his shoulder... she would probably like that.

Zuko was deeply aware that her mouth was getting closer and closer to his, but he didn’t lean down. He waited, his heart banging in his chest, because she was going to kiss him. Katara was going to kiss him. For real. Her hand slid over his hip to the top of his ass and tugged ever so gently. Her lips were peeling off his wrist. He could taste her breath. He followed the pull of her hand to roll his hips against her-

-and twinging pain shot out from the base of his mostly-hard dick. 

“Augh,” he wheezed, jerking in such a way that her chin jabbed his cheek with bruising force - which Zuko hardly noticed. He stared wide-eyed in the dark, his whole body tense and hunched.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Everything was not fine.

He eased his hips back and withdrew and his dick twinged again as it swung free. He stifled his wince. Sitting back on his heels, he gingerly felt around and found a swollen, tender lump at the base. A horrible wave of panic and despair crashed down as he realized what had happened.

He had messed up his knot trying to pull out earlier. He had strained his knot or something and now he was injured. Zuko didn’t know how long dick-or-knot strains took to heal, but he could fucking guess it was a matter of days or weeks. And he didn’t have days or weeks. He was with an omega in heat now. He needed his knot now. She needed his knot now-

-his omega was in heat and needed his knot and he had fucked it up being an angry idiot asshole-

“Zuko?”

“I’m good, just gotta...”

What was he gonna do? Pray to Agni to make his dick not broken?

“...uh! Pee. I need. To pee.”

Zuko did not need to pee. He probably wouldn’t for a long while. Between the rut and the little amount of water he was drinking to make sure Katara had enough, he might never pee again. But he had to buy time. He had to figure something out. He couldn’t just fail her like this-

“You’re in pain. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Katara’s voice had moved. She’d sat up and shifted her legs and her soft, hot hand came to rest on his thigh.

“Bend a flame so I can see.”

“No! I mean, there’s nothing to see. Because it’s fine. I’m fine-”

“Zuko,” she said in a chastising tone he didn’t deserve at all. “You’re obviously not fine. Just let me help you.”

“What?” Zuko demanded nastily. “Are you gonna waterbend my- Just! Don’t worry about it!”

He heard her irritated huff and her hand snatched away. He was immediately sorry and wrestled himself back from making some even more pathetic apology. Then there was a shuffle of her feeling around the edge of the nest.

“What are you-?”

An ominous slosh. The squeak of a cork. She’d opened one of the waterskins. Zuko tensed to make a break for it if she was about to finally strike him.

As is Omega’s right now that you’ve made yourself truly useless to her!

Because it couldn’t be avoided. He had failed her. There was no fixing it now, and her heat would continue and he would be even more an upsetting intruder to her if he couldn’t even provide a knot and he was pretty sure he hadn’t managed to successfully breed her yet so he would leave her with nothing but her suffering-

And then a soft blue illumination glowed off her water-enveloped hand, revealing her exasperated, concerned face. The light also, raised as it was to the level of her belly, revealed in devastating clarity her beautiful, irresistibly soft breasts, the curved undersides glowing like two plump half-moons. She sat on her hip, her legs folded daintily to one side. Her hair was gorgeously tangled and her eyes were dark with her unanswered need. And annoyance.

“I have healing abilities. Where does it hurt?”

Zuko stared at her, realizing suddenly that he was kneeling before her clutching his tragically flaccid dick. He immediately cupped both hands over it.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m way too annoyed to laugh at you right now,” she said severely. “Show me where it hurts.”

Zuko still hesitated, scenting her emotions carefully and looking at the glowing water rippling around her waiting hand. He had never actually seen a waterbender heal before, though he’d heard they could. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Katara might actually be able to do that... but she’d mentioned the healing huts earlier, too, so maybe she really had training and could fix it! 

But at the same time he thought this and hope battered at him, he also recognized that getting that help would require acknowledging his weakness and stupidity and showing her what he had done to himself. And accepting her help with something he was helpless to deal with himself. His alpha was almost as horrified by the prospect as he was. For Zuko’s part, he simple knew he needed to be strong to not be a pathetic disappointment or object of ridicule. For his alpha’s, he needed to be strong for her, not reliant on her strength when she was the one in need.

The blue light faded, then returned. Katara heaved a breath as if struggling for patience, but her look and scent were worried, urgent... her need was getting more intense. And yet she also smelled gentle in some deep unnameable way.

“I’m not going to laugh. I can smell how... disturbed you are, and I wouldn’t laugh at you over something that made you feel like this.”

It was true. He could read it in her scent, in her kind and concerned eyes. She was mean sometimes... and seemed to feed on his embarrassment like some kind of wicked parasite... but she was not vicious. His embarrassment might please her, but his humiliation would not.

Zuko breathed in, grimaced, and opened his hands. Her eyes darted down, then back up.

“I’m gonna touch you. Are you ready?”

“Just get it over with,” he said through his teeth. He wasn’t sure if she could see him blushing in that blue light but he couldn’t meet her eye anyway and glared at the ceiling.

She repositioned and he felt... not her hand, but the cool soothing spill of her healing water. A discomfort he had hardly been aware of began to recede.

“How did this happen?” she asked quietly. 

There was a sour little whiff of guilt that cut right through Zuko’s anxieties. He looked down at her creased brow, her kind eyes lowered as she worked. Did she think it was her fault?

“I... When I tried to pull out earlier. I really... shouldn’t have done that.”

“That hurt you, too?” Her eyes flicked up to him, a little wide in surprise.

“...Yeah...”

“If it hurt, why did you do it?”

“I was trying to untie,” he forced out, rubbing the back of his neck and glaring at the ceiling again, “because I can hardly think straight when we’re tied and I thought I could clear my head if I could get loose. And I was angry... so I didn’t feel how much I was hurting myself. Or I didn’t care.”

“Oh...” she said, and wordlessly continued her work for a moment. 

At length, Zuko looked back down at her focused expression. Then, only a little nervous to see what was going on down there, he followed her stare to where her hands moved gracefully around the glowing blue water that encased his dick. It was a weird sight to behold. Not as sexy as he might have hoped. Just... hypnotic and soothing as her hands traced patterns he didn’t understand.

“Why were you so angry?” Katara asked after a long moment. “I was just trying to tell you that you’ve shown your honor in how you’ve handled this situation. It speaks well of you.”

Zuko sighed. The fury he’d felt before was absent. Now he was just... sad and ashamed. Like his floppy broken dick. “Honorable behavior is kind of a different thing from honor.” 

“Could you explain that to me?” she asked, still not looking up. Still just gently working over him. Zuko watched her thoughtful, focused face, and struggled to answer.

“The honor I’m trying to restore is more like... proof of my courage and strength and integrity. Because,” he said, turning his face off to the side and fighting to think of a way to explain that didn’t expose too much. His alpha was digging its claws in him, warning him that she might still turn from him if she found him unworthy, too. 

Because, after all, she hadn’t hesitated to fight a master...

“I... did something that threw all that into question. But I can still redeem myself and reclaim my birthright by completing my mission.”

“Capturing Aang.”

“...Yeah.”

The crease in her brow deepened and her dark eyes flicked searchingly up to his. The way they gleamed and shined by the light of her healing was dazzling. Her scent was truly demanding now, her heat a mighty summons not to be denied by petty trifles like human emotion or the fragility of a man’s body. 

“Maybe later...” she breathed through her parted, kiss-starved lips, “could we talk more about this?”

Zuko hadn’t realized he was getting hard until his cock nudged one of her hands. Her fingers closed gently around him. Her eyes dragged him down. 

“Uh huh...”

Then the light was gone and so were they. Her grip grew exquisitely hard and he was kissing her and growling into her mouth. He stroked her plush, silken breasts. She broke the kiss to press her mouth to his chest, to his belly, and then out of the darkness bloomed the hot, wet pressure of her lips and tongue on his cock. He grunted, groaned. His hands forgot what they were doing and slid grasping to her shoulders, her hair.

“Silly Alpha,” she said, low and husky and deliciously strange, “thought I would let you go now?” She rubbed her soft cheek against his shaft, breathed heavy and shoved her nose into his pubic hair, used her hand to guide his cock as she pressed the head hard against her gland. “...when I need my good Alpha most?”

Zuko shuddered, her praise reaching so much deeper than just his alpha. “No, Omega... yours, Omega...”

“Mine,” she slurred with her tongue pressed against his opening, searching for the precum that was already beading out of him. “Tried to take what’s mine, hurt what’s mine. Should punish you, Alpha.” 

He felt the glossy front of her teeth glide harmlessly, threateningly against his vulnerable flesh and quaked, panting his instinctive fear and arousal. But he didn't pull away - he didn't need to. Omega would never really bite him there. She wouldn't hurt what was hers, either. “...won’t do it again, Omega, never again, I swear...”

“No, you’re a good alpha, aren’t you? Want to be so good for me?”

She said it slowly, interrupted and distorted as she tongued the sensitive underside of his head, as her lips wetly yielded against just his crown, just his very tip. Sucked.

“So good, Omega! I can be so good,” he gasped. “So good for you!”

She pulled back, turned around under his clutching hands and opened her thighs over his folded legs. He could feel her posture, arms long holding her shoulders high, her ass jutted out and spread for him in his lap. He could smell the command of her splayed-open cunt. He could feel her sodden curls brush his cock. And from the sound of her voice, he knew her head was turned back to peel her lips off her teeth at him.

“Prove it,” she growled. “Show me how good you can be, Alpha.”

He grabbed his cock and crammed it inside her as quick as he could, as hard as he could. She purred, but was not yet pleased - he could tell - so he gripped her hips and fucked up into her as much as the position would allow, quick and vigorous and desperate to please her, fill her, satiate her.

“Like this, Omega? Like this?”

“Mmm... more.”

He thrust harder, using all the compact power he could force out of his cramping thighs, shifting his hands to her waist, then her shoulders, bit his bottom lip and snarled.

“More? Huh?”

“More!”

He shoved her up, got his legs out from under her, spread his knees out wider than hers so he could still thrust from slightly beneath her. His grip on her shoulders turned hard as he pounded up into her, bending her spine so her ass bounced upward with the power of every stroke.

“How’s that, Omega? Am I fucking your cunt right, now?”

“Yesssss... good Alpha... thank you, Alpha...”

“Is this cock good enough for you now, Omega? Is it hard enough? Fucking you deep enough?”

“Yes! Yes, Alpha! Good good cock, so hard and deep and good!”

Her hair kept brushing his wrists and he finally gave in to the temptation to dig his fingers up the back of her head and tighten them into a fist. He pulled slightly, dragging her head back until she snarled.

“You like that, Omega? Is your Alpha fucking you good like you deserve?”

“Almost,” she whined with her teeth bared. “But there’s still no fucking knot in me.”

“Ooh,” he snarled, “you want a fucking knot, Omega? I’ll give you a fucking knot.”

“Yeah? Gonna breed me for real this time?” Her voice turned hard, taunting. “Or should I have let you crawl off so I could find myself a real alpha?”

“A real-? Rrah!”

Something snapped. He abandoned her hair and shoulder and grabbed her hips, driving into her with everything he had. Words spilled out of him, erupting out of a deep, festering place inside.

Chapter Text

Katara, all of a sudden, was... no longer having a crisis. 

It had initially seemed like the crisis was over after Zuko knotted her that first time; the relief of finally getting the thing her body had been crying out for had been so very intense. Not just the orgasms, but the total collapse that had followed - a long and restful sleep at last and a deep feeling of rightness accompanied by emotional quiet that had left her not wanting to think for a while. With Zuko’s knot in her and his weight on her... Everything just felt better. Her mind and feelings had settled, even though there were good reasons they shouldn’t have. And her omega had welled up around and through her with the certainty that Alpha’s weight was supposed to be on her, holding her snug and stationary.

...to ensure his seed has plenty of time to find purchase, it had calmly explained to her. Alpha has many fine qualities. Alpha will give us strong babies. And... it went on, vast and weirdly wise all of a sudden, he will be a good mate and sire... You do not see it yet because you are difficult, but Alpha will show you. Watch and see. 

Katara had hardly even registered her omega’s turn toward patient observation then because, no sooner had she awakened from that first restful sleep than the crisis resumed. Her relief was chased off by her fear and shame, and the truth she had always known was reaffirmed; the crisis was just going to go on and on until her heat was over.

But then, shockingly, the crisis had come to an abrupt end. It wasn’t her omega talking her around or overwhelming her - her omega was mostly quiet so long as the required sex was happening - but Zuko. Zuko, being reasonable and empathetic. Zuko, reframing her heat as a limited period during which she didn’t have to do or worry about anything except the required sex, Zuko assuring her over and over that he would take care of her, he would take care of everything. 

And now, as he hammered into her from behind, Katara bit her bottom lip and just let herself savor the power and fit of his body. The relentless drive his temper lent him. Her omega purred happily, filling her mind with ripples of soothing interference that held her down deep. 

Alpha has fought so hard to offer us his many gifts. Receive them. Glory in them. This is what it is to be a mated omega. This is the good thing we want.

Katara was coming to find it was easy to slide gently under the influence of her omega and let go of control... because Zuko had made it feel okay to do that. Zuko, she had decided, could be trusted in this particular situation to take care of things when she was not entirely able to. And it was so much easier to rest and receive right now than it was to fight so very hard for control.

Her thinking mind receded comfortably. She wasn’t drowning. She was floating, supported and surrounded and secure. For the most part, she could just hang peacefully suspended in the pleasurable depths of her omega, awash in her body’s riotous sensations and not thinking about the words she said or sounds she made, and not reflecting with any depth on what she heard or felt. 

But she was not so deeply sunk that she didn’t hear the things Zuko started spouting off. Most of it glided pleasantly, deliciously past, all just a part of the process, not deeply important, just Alpha taking care of things.

“...fucking show you a real fucking alpha...”

“...won’t be able to pretend I wasn’t the real alpha who got your belly so round...”

“...everybody who looks at you is gonna know I put this baby in you...”

Really, it was only when he started talking about her friends that her attention sharpened. She let her mouth fall open to pant as he worked furiously behind her, more acute waves of pleasure building her quickly toward her climax as his knot started to thicken.

“...fucking Avatar’s gonna know... fucking brother’s gonna know... fucking bison’s gonna know... No doubt in any of their asshole minds because I’ll be right there with you, tell them myself that’s my baby in you, make sure you always smell right, always have my scent on you - in you - because you’re mine!”

Her cunt clenched in her shock, verging suddenly on orgasm. 

From the start, Katara had viewed her heat as a nightmare to be feared, and the likelihood of getting pregnant during that time had filled her with even more terrible dread. She’d imagined how her life would change in the aftermath - doing the regular unending chores around camp and trying to fine-tune Aang’s waterbending with a baby in her belly or on her back. Sokka gloomily grudgingly watching the baby while she took even a moment to herself for something basic. When Toph joined the group, her regular booming had been incorporated into the nightmare, waking the baby constantly. In every village, there would be uncomfortable questions about who and where the father was. And worse than all of that was the mortal fear; in the late stages of a pregnancy, fighting would be so terribly risky. The danger of getting hurt was so much greater - and the danger of losing and costing one of her friends’ lives... 

Babies were cute - she’d loved playing with the governor’s lost baby in Omashu, with his sweet little fingers and toes and scrumptious heart-melting smell - but there was nothing she could imagine that would make a baby of her own a good idea right now.

It certainly didn’t change her mind earlier when Zuko had whispered so sweetly about how beautiful their babies would be! She had just never really... thought about that... and the notion then and the snuggly simplicity of Zuko in rut had been... pretty cute. She had pictured the governor’s baby, but with a few Water Tribe features. Cute. Not mind-changing, but cute. Even cuter because the notion came out of Zuko, who had at one time been a frightening and dreaded enemy. Now he purred about how beautiful their babies would be like it was his dearest wish to make them and see them - and then broke out of his alpha’s spell in a burning wave of embarrassment that was just... also cute.

But it didn’t change her mind about a baby of her own. Certainly not.

It also didn’t change her mind when he had been attentive and considerate and had made jokes. Or when he had told that story about the omega-grandmother he’d never known, which made him a lot sadder than Katara ever would have expected Zuko could be about another person’s suffering and injustice...

...or when he had listened to her. He had listened to her when she was upset and had said so many genuinely reassuring things that tugged her back from the edge of her fury and shame. He had not left the tension between them to wait under the surface, had not avoided the conversation, had not backtracked or placated or dismissed. He had disagreed and reasoned and encouraged and comforted and... and empowered...

And none of that changed her mind... 

...but who even was this guy?

Just Zuko, he said. He just wanted to be Zuko. Zuko, who somehow kind of knew her, and recognized her struggles, and respected her.

Even after he had put her face-down on her knees with her butt up in the air and fucked her like an animal. Dominated her. Rough and efficient. Like she needed him to. 

It had frightened her how quiet and calm she had felt afterward. Like he had fucked the fight out of her. It had crossed her mind to wonder if that was what it felt like to have her spirit broken... But before that line of thinking could even settle in, there was Zuko, asking if he’d been too rough, insisting on making her talk about how not okay she was with it...

She hadn’t wanted to at first because she had been kind of afraid he would gloat, try to embarrass her to get back at her for enjoying his embarrassment moments before- 

Ha ha, waterbender, who looks dumb now? You seemed to really like getting bred with your ass up like that. Mounted and fucked like any other doe in season. Do you enjoy the feeling of all my cum building up inside you? Ready for another load?

-but no, he had been worried. Because he had thought she was going to stab him... because he knew she would still want to fight. A real fight, not the pitched struggle of their sex - he had made that distinction, too. Thrown it out in words, made it real, a thing they both knew.

Katara hadn’t known she would need to do that, to talk about it and hash it out and come to terms with it. She hadn’t known how much she needed the reassurances Zuko had so readily offered her. Or how it would warm her to know he wasn’t actually all that experienced either, that his excitement was partly born of newness and fulfilled hopes and soothed insecurities. The way he had looked at her, bright-eyed and hopeful and... so happily sharing it with her...

She had felt suddenly too naked, like he was too naked, too. She had looked into his missing mother’s kind eyes and felt... And saw... 

Those sweet yellow eyes would look very fine indeed with her hair, adorned with the blue beads of her people.

She’d had to redirect, pounce on a convenient reason to get angry so she wouldn’t fall into her omega’s trap.

Alpha will give us such beautiful babies... Alpha will tend us just this way when we’re heavy and round... Alpha will provide and protect and care for us... Alpha is so good, Alpha-

None of that changed her mind about having a baby of her own. Absolutely not.

But it did kind of change how she saw Zuko. It had become unavoidably clear that the angry Zuko she had always known was not... the whole of Zuko. She’d kind of believed he was just an angry, selfish person, and that any deviations from that now were probably just a result of his rut. He talked excitedly about babies and revealed things about himself that embarrassed him - that was rut-Zuko for sure. 

But then he admitted he found her provocative. Just Zuko. And then he had struggled, often awkward and grouchy, through that most recent conversation in a way that frequently hadn’t sounded at all like the dopey-sweet version of him who’d just popped his knot inside her and started dreamily describing their future children. The rut was definitely effecting his ability to think, but he was still fighting for clarity, fighting to talk to her and connect with her about things he considered important. He had known she didn’t feel good about the situation and was willing to fight to make her feel less bad. To draw her into his experience, to share his good feelings. To alleviate her bad ones.

Zuko, she was coming to find, was not an entirely selfish person. He could be compassionate - so much so it shocked her. He was not just an angry guy. He was a guy with a reason to be angry. He was like her.

It didn’t occur to Katara that she could just know that and leave it alone. He had reached out and connected with her to alleviate her turmoil. It was only natural for her to reach back.

And it had not been unlike reaching into the cook fire to pet a lonely little ember. The rage that rolled off him. The pain and shame. All seemingly as a result of his banishment. He had flared alarmingly hot, actually breathed fire like the maniac she knew he sometimes was - he could have lit the house up around them! - but then he cooled fairly quickly. And apologized. And reconnected... And then completely panicked when he discovered he’d hurt himself... He had reeked of fear when he told her not to laugh. As if she would laugh at someone with an alarming injury! What kind of awful person did he think she was? 

Katara had been leery but undeterred, and she’d tried to ask about the source of his anger again when he’d seemed calm and it had come up. That time, he’d kept it together and admitted he’d done something to call his courage, strength, and integrity into question, resulting in his banishment. 

And that was a tantalizing question to just leave unanswered... What did Zuko do to get banished? To get sent off to capture the Avatar? What crime could have been so heinous as to result in that punishment and the terrible wracking shame that accompanied the thought of it?

There had been no time to dwell on it, but it tickled at the back of Katara’s mind. Because while she certainly wasn’t in any position to have a baby or even really think seriously about it at the present - and her omega could crash and thrash and moan about Alpha’s beautiful babies all it wanted, Katara knew better than to follow that siren song out to sea - she found she was kind of thinking again about what might happen if she let Zuko take her to the place with the thing... 

After Sokka got through the expected meltdown... what might happen then? How would Aang take it if she showed up with Zuko, having spent her heat with Zuko? It’d probably hurt him quite a bit, considering how long he’d had his crush... but he would still be her friend... wouldn’t he?

It wasn’t even worth worrying about it! None of this was permanent anyway. Her heat would end and rut-Zuko would go away and, probably, the full-time angry jerk would return. Everything would go back to normal. Maybe it would be awkward seeing him around later when he kept chasing Aang, still trying so hard to end his banishment... and she would face him in a real fight and have to hit him after she had seen him like this, all soft and sweet and naked and sad because he couldn’t go home...

How could she even be thinking about taking him anywhere near Aang?! This was still Zuko, the guy who chased them around the world and burned Kyoshi Village and dealt with pirates and bounty hunters and made every possible attempt to drag Aang off to the Fire Nation and take away the world’s only hope for peace and balance! Sure, maybe he was just trying to fix his messed-up life and make up for his past mistakes, but he was essentially prioritizing his needs over the survival of the entire world! Maybe he wasn’t entirely selfish, but that was incredibly selfish! It made her sad that he was sad sometimes, but Katara didn’t even know what Zuko had done to get banished in the first place! Judging by the intensity of his shame smells, it was probably pretty bad!

So no, nothing had changed, and when her heat was over they were obviously just going to go back to life as usual. He would take her to find the healer - maybe, if he kept his word when he completely stopped being rut-Zuko - and then they would part ways. And the next time they met, they would probably have to fight. That’s just how it was gonna be.

But right at the moment, clear-sighted pragmatism was not a ruling force in Katara’s mind.

Presently, Zuko’s hands gripped her hips like a vice and he was slamming into her hard enough to have her jolting forward every time, his hips slapping her butt loud with each quick stroke. His scent was thick with lust and rage and pain and longing, and he was growling out a picture of a future she never would have imagined on her own.

“-mine, my Omega, keep you safe and happy and you’re not going fucking anywhere without me, Omega, I’d never ditch you like those assholes, mine now, gonna rub your feet and carry your shit and fetch every fucking thing you want so you can relax and focus on being treasured and getting fucked full of my babies-”

“Ooh,” Katara groaned, louder than she had been. She’d kept up a stream of praise and sounds and pleas, but kicked to a higher level as his knot snagged and he started grinding hard to come. “Yes! Knot me, Alpha! Breed me, Alpha! Your babies! Give-!”

“-and I’m gonna be a proud, loving, devoted father!” he spat, fury rolling off him. “Better man, better alpha, better fucking father! I’m your fucking Alpha, the best fucking alpha!”

“Yes, Alpha! Best alpha!”

“-any time you want it,” he snarled, pressing his chest against her raised shoulders and gusting his breath hot and close against the cheek she had turned toward him. “-deserve to get fucked just how you want, when you want-” His hands held her hips firmly back against his as he rocked rough and fast, his knot quickly expanding now. “I’ll be right there. Because this cock belongs here, locked in your perfect pussy. You like this cock yet, Omega? Have I proven it’s good enough for you? Huh?”

“Yes, Alpha!”

“Is it worthy of you?” he roared, suddenly savage, shoving even harder against her.

“Yes, Alpha! Worthy Alpha!”

“How about my knot! You want that? Say it!”

“Want! Need it, Alpha! Your knot’s worthy, Alpha! So worthy! You’re worthy, Alpha! Best alpha! Mine! My Alpha!”

He came with a broken grunt, his knot jerking hard as it filled her so wonderfully too-full. His release slipped juicily around his cock as he pumped more deep inside her. Katara’s orgasm flooded her as she bound tight around him, had every muscle in her body straining upward against his belly and chest and throwing her head back against his shoulder as he hung his chin over hers.

“...worthy, Alpha...” she found herself panting. “...good alpha... so good... best alpha... thank you, Alpha... thank you, Alpha...”

“...be so good for you, Omega... whatever it takes... good enough to be... yours...”

Katara caught the faint scent of tears but never felt one touch her. Lingering under thick bliss and satisfaction she smelled the distant ache of his pain and longing. She wanted to hug him to her - but he’d tied in behind her so there wouldn’t be any getting at him. All she could do was turn her face against his, press soft breathless kisses to his cheek and jaw. He tipped his head into it, sighing. 

She kissed his hungry mouth, pulled his lips between hers, savored the deep, good, increasingly familiar taste of him.

For a long moment, she stayed there on her hands and knees, kissing him and spread wide open with his full knot locked inside her and his taut chest breathing deep against her upper back. It felt like a perfect moment, weirdly powerful, and Katara found she wanted to linger here a little longer.

He was purring again - more a low, pleased groaning sound than what an animal would make - and she knew he was deep in his rut, now. It would be a while before Zuko resurfaced. Still, he was cognizant enough to not drape his full weight on her and, after just a moment with his head on her shoulder as he caught his breath, he started carefully guiding them to lay on their sides. He put something soft between her legs to prop them apart again, even though she hadn’t winced at the sensation of closing her legs on his knot this time. It was still huge and not totally comfortable, but it didn’t feel like it was bruising her in there anymore. Or, more likely, it was, but Katara was riding so high on the residual swells of her heat-deepened orgasm and the perpetual, massive volume of her omega, she hardly felt it.

But she was no longer just floating unthinkingly... and she had... questions.

“Zuko?”

“Mm. Thirsty?”

Katara blinked in the dark and her mouth, still open as she caught her breath, quirked. “Yeah.”

He reached over her, somehow knowing exactly where the waterskin was, and opened it before her, helping her up on her elbow to drink.

“You too,” she said.

“Gotta save it for-”

“Please?”

He sighed, but she heard him take a swallow before putting the water back. Then he settled in behind her, wrapping her snug in his arms against his chest and nuzzling in to breathe against her gland. Occasionally he would lick his lips and dab his tongue against her skin. Katara drifted pleasantly, but her critical mind was awake and her omega was sated for the moment.

“You want to bite me,” Katara said softly, uncertainly, “don’t you?”

“I won’t though. Just like to taste.”

“But you want to.”

“Of course. Perfect Omega,” he sighed dreamily. “I’d mate you in a second. Keep you safe and mine. Make so many beautiful babies with you...”

Katara let out a little huff of laughter and rolled her eyes. “If... If I decided to let you... what about...” 

She hesitated. It felt kind of unfair to ask rut-Zuko serious questions because his brain was so obviously overwhelmed by his alpha that he couldn’t stop himself from saying ridiculous, sometimes terribly cute things. It was also probably not a great way to get reliable information out of him... But what could it hurt to ask? She had questions. Zuko was reticent when he had his wits about him. He was about as far up in her business as he could get. His was fair game!

“What about capturing the Avatar? If we mated, I wouldn’t want you to keep going after Aang.”

“For you, Omega, I’d teach the little shit firebending myself.”

“Don’t call him that,” Katara huffed reflexively - but she felt a flood of emotion, surprise and excitement and hope and... other bright things... and Zuko seemed to respond to the scent rather than the sentiment. He gave her gland a long lick that sent shivers down her spine and an echoing flutter through her sex. He purred and pressed a little harder with his hips, pulsed inside her in answer.

But this was just rut-Zuko... and he wasn’t... all of Zuko. The rest of Zuko was gonna wake up soon and Katara reminded herself firmly that he would never actually do what he’d just said... Really, she was being so silly about this right now. Zuko was still her enemy! Well... sort of... Adversary, he’d said. Which was basically the same thing... Only, not really.

“You don’t believe me.”

Katara sighed at the faintly hurt note in his voice. “I just know your head is gonna clear and you’re gonna want that honor and birthright and stuff.”

“Yeah,” he said glumly and then went back to dabbing his tongue over her gland. “But you’re the Omega. What’s more important than everything?”

Katara let the gentle pleasure tease through her and ignored that weird, vague question. She felt her heat welling up again - already - but she had an agenda here. She needed to know.

“What did you do?” she asked gently. “To get banished?”

His scent shifted pretty quickly; the animal satisfaction receded and the more tumultuous emotion-smells cranked back up. Anger, always at least that hint of anger. But sharper than that now were dread and anxiety and shame, so much rancid, sickening shame. 

Zuko was back. Summoned by her perfectly innocent curiosity to probably pitch a fit and hurt himself again. Ridiculous man.

His tongue stopped, but then he pressed his nose against her gland and breathed in deep for a moment. His scent gentled, swelled warmer and sweeter again in an unnameable way. Then he spoke.

“I wasn’t as brave as you,” he said, tight and quiet. “I challenged a master. And instead of facing him and fighting for my honor, I tried to back out of it.” 

All the tension Katara hadn’t realized she’d been holding dropped out of her. “Oh. Well... That’s not so bad! I thought you’d maybe robbed the wrong person.”

“What? No.” He scoffed, broodily insulted. “I didn’t start robbing people until I lost everything and became a fugitive. I’m not, like, a criminal.”

Katara wasn’t entirely convinced that that was true at this point, but she didn’t bother arguing with the ostrich-horse-thief behind her. “If you were mad enough to challenge the master in the first place, why didn’t you want to fight?”

His jaw flexed against her neck. The anger and shame stewed darker, a bubbling tarry concoction. But he kept breathing deep over her gland and his voice stayed low if tense. “He was my father.” 

“Oh.”

Bitterness and rage and aching longing and shame-shame-shame welled out of him like blood from a heart-wound. Katara, still reeling at the shock of what he’d just revealed, felt his anguish sting and pound in her sinuses.

“I refused to fight,” he gritted out, “because I didn’t want to fight my father.”

“Of course not,” she said, and huffed through her nose, only partly to clear his powerful hurt-scents. More out of her own building outrage. “He’s your father. How could he even accept a challenge to fight from his own child? That’s just-!”

She faltered, too horrified and furious to put words to it. Zuko nuzzled against her, breathing her scents even deeper. 

“He’s the Fire Lord,” he said quietly, and Katara didn’t notice how his voice took on a venturing tone, like he was testing out an idea just to hear it spoken aloud, just to see how she’d respond, “and I disrespected him in front of his generals. I spoke out of turn-”

“Then he should have taken you aside and given you a stern talking-to! Not-! Ugh! Chuck you out of the country!” And then it hit her and she got even angrier. “To go capture the Avatar! Who hadn’t even returned yet! Ugh! How long were you sailing around just searching before Aang woke up?”

“Less than three years.”

“Three years?! Ugh!”

She was so angry she didn’t really notice him open his mouth against her gland until the wet, clenching pleasure of him sucking gradually harder dragged a moan out of her and had her reflexively grinding her hips back against his so his knot would shift deliciously inside her. He met her hard, steady pressure with his own and growled softly against her skin. His teeth settled against her gland, pressed light and gentle around it, and... so obviously wanted to close down...

“Wha- what are you doing?” she panted. Nervous. Excited.

He reluctantly released the almost-bite, but he didn’t lay off the press of his hips. In fact, he ground a little harder, forced her forward. His warm palms were sliding over her breasts, scraping her nipples lightly. “Just... uh. Heat’s picking up. And... I really like it when you’re mad at someone else. For me.”

Katara arched her back a little more to adjust the angle and he responded by striking up a languorous rhythm. Press... relax... press... 

“Ah... No wonder you’re so... Ohh... so angry...” She caught his hand on her breast and guided his fingers, showed him the particular way she liked her nipples tugged. He picked it up almost too quickly. “Such a maniac... training all day and- mmm - following us everywhere... always turning up to- ooh!” She shuddered as his mouth opened again on her gland, as he ground his pulsating knot inside her, shifting his stiff cock through the slick and cum stoppered there. “-make some- huh -crazy attempt-”

“...always hunted you...” he purred, his lips a maddening tickle against her sensitive gland. “...scent was always just out of reach... so excited to catch you... had me knotting in my own hand every night...” 

He’d alluded to it before, but now Katara moaned loud as she pictured it. Zuko as she’d known him then - all rage and armor and that dramatic ponytail - shut away in some dimly-lit metal room in his ship, scowling and shoving that armor aside to stroke himself and squeeze his knot with her scent so deep in his brain he couldn’t even identify what it was. 

How frustrated he must have been. She quaked, smiling a little. 

“You must have been so mad when you figured it out.”

His hips rolled a little higher, tugged his knot at a devastating angle. Katara dug her fingernails into his arms, wrapped warm and hard around her now. Holding her steady, trapping her to his chest and his knot and his soft, whispering mouth. 

“No shit. At first I thought you’d ruined my life... made it fucking impossible to be with any beta woman... because I might knot and freak her out or hurt her... until I hadn’t scented you for a year. It took a year to convince my body you weren’t coming back. I thought I was finally normal. And then I try and have sex with a girl who isn’t you-” He raked her neck with his teeth and gave her a sharp little thrust. Katara shuddered and smirked. “-and my dick is just too big.”

“Your life is so hard, Zuko,” she cooed. 

“It is, really,” he snarled softly, teeth brushing her gland. He rolled his hips at that high angle again and Katara let out a breathy squeak, then held still and waited desperately for him to do it again. Which he did. “But there are good things about struggling. Fighting has made me strong. It’s made me who I am. And now that I’ve got you tied around my dick like you were always supposed to be-” She shivered, moaned. “-things are kind of looking up.”

“Oh yeah?” The impact of his short thrust bounced her a little, jarred her voice. “How so?”

“It’s just occurring to me-” He gently pushed her hips and shoulders with his, and Katara let him roll her on her belly. “-if my life wasn’t so hard, and if I hadn’t been banished to go find the fucking Avatar-” 

He tucked a rolled up blanket under her hips and his legs pressed hers out wider. She was face down beneath him, and she felt helpless and immobilized and deliciously open with his knot still grinding in her, grinding a little harder now with his weight behind it. The pressure on her sensitive front wall was lighting up stars in the dark, had her sighing and moaning and flexing against him.

“-I wouldn’t have kept crossing paths with you, and you wouldn’t have kept getting my alpha so stirred up-” 

He bit firmly at the back of her neck and it sent fierce chills down her spine. His weight was propped up on his elbows, which were braced snug against her folded arms. His hands twisted into hers, interweaving their fingers beneath her shoulders. Holding her in and down and tight and safe. 

“-and then I wouldn’t have known to come here and find you when you sent out your call. I’d be like any other alpha - normal...” He growled as he started circling his hips. Katara panted open-mouthed into the bedroll under her face. “...with no clue that I was actually made to be here, giving you my knot and my cum and my... my... mm... I want to wake you up like this later. Is that okay?”

“Uh huh,” Katara panted, getting close now despite the persistently slow pace. She was drooling a little into the bedding but did not notice. “Uh huh!”

“Even if you’re sleeping? Because I can smell you need me when you’re sleeping sometimes...” His tone was between a mocking purr and an earnest question. Half-teasing and confident but still listening. “...and I hate to make you wait and wake up so empty...” 

“Uh huh!”

“I- My... I’d like to just be there inside you when you wake up. Keeping you stuffed full like we both know you need to be...” He whispered it against the back of her ear, his breath hot and his lips tickling her hair. She was teetering on the edge of release, squeezing his fingers with all her might, her whole body tense in the seconds before shattering. “Because I’m pretty sure my cock was destined to be sunk to the root where it is right now,” Zuko murmured, nibbling her ear, “but I wouldn’t want to be too forward getting it in there.” 

“Yes,” she groaned, an aching pleading note. “Please. Keep it there! Stay in me, keep me full! I need-! Please, Zuko!”

He took a sharp little breath and flexed his hips and circled tighter, faster. “Come on. Come for me, Katara. Show me-”

Her orgasm crashed through her and she hardly heard his choked groan. She was tumbling in a shimmering breaker, drenched in his smells of sex and pleasure and that particularly warm, sweet scent that welled up big as a cumulonimbus towering in the distance, pink and gold and gleaming majestic in its unhurried approach. All around her, her omega shimmered with her little wavelets of satisfaction and rightness and yesss Alpha...

Things got hazier after that. Katara had vague, dreamy impressions of Zuko above her, kissing and licking her nape and shoulders and gland, always back to her gland. He must have untied at some point, because she woke later curled against his chest, her hips already winding in search of the cock that was there and ready and, quick as he could manage, sliding in. And soon after she was coming, getting tumbled harder and harder in that sensory surf. After that, there were a few soft words and soft kisses in the dark. A little food and water. Sleep.

And it just happened like that over and over again, until Katara opened her eyes to stare blindly into the dark as her ecstasy mounted and instead the room was faintly visible in the bluish light before dawn. Zuko was on his knees, one of her legs over his shoulder as he pushed-pushed-shoved and bared his teeth as he knotted her. He stared the entire time into her eyes. And as she came apart, she was struck by his gaze, the one eye so angry and twisted, the other a little wider, shining with some softer light. 

Kind.

Katara bound down and came in a fierce rush that very nearly dragged her under again, except that she felt Zuko settling in and rearranging her leg as she came down, and something in his movements felt stiffer than usual. Uneasy in a way that called her up as close to the surface as she could presently go. 

She opened her eyes again and found him propped up on his elbows over her, watching the doorway that led to the front of the house. He smelled wary, patient. But there was no alarm. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t presently a threat she needed to worry about.

From this angle, with his head turned as it was and his attention fixed elsewhere, she was free for the first time to stare unabashedly at his scar. It was a dark, ruddy pink, almost red where it spiked back from around his eye. The skin was glossy, and subtly textured like the striations of muscle stripped of its skin. It cut roughly back into his short hair and vanished, but not before mangling his ear, curling it inward like a burned flower.

The injury must have been pretty horrific. Katara was distantly aware of her own past experiences treating burns. Back before she was a healer who could just reach into the skin and correct the problem, she had made poultices and ointments with Gran-gran, had treated a few burns around the village over the years. In the North, she’d helped out at the healing huts for weeks after the invasion was rebuffed. She’d never seen a burn scar quite so deep or destructive as the one on Zuko’s face. 

Although... she had seen one body charred more horribly, one dear and forever-deafened ear more crisped and curled in than the one she looked at now...

Zuko caught her hand before she even fully realized she was reaching up to touch it. 

She blinked, her hazy mind clearing enough to be a little embarrassed at herself. Zuko turned his attention from the door to her, and for a second only peered down at her with his two very different eyes. If Katara looked at just the scarred one, he was glaring down at her. If she looked at the other, there were so many softer, less certain feelings waiting there. His scent was complex and troubled as he searched her face and sniffed her back.

“Sorry,” she said, her breath still coming deep as she settled back from her recent orgasm. “Don’t know what I was thinking...”

The pressure of his grip shifted in nature. 

“Don’t be sad,” he murmured. It was almost a plea. Somehow, despite the furious shape of one half of his face, his eyes were both warm, soft, the pupils blown wide. “I know it’s ugly, but scars don’t pass down. Our babies will be perfect.”

“I know that,” Katara said, faintly exasperated. 

“Here,” he said, and gently tugged her hand up, stretched out her palm to lay over his scar so the pad dipped into the hollow below his brow. His scarred eye shut beneath in trust and acceptance. “See? How handsome our sons and daughters could be?”

And she saw it. Katara stared up into the shapely golden eye, the strong jaw and the silky black hair - and the ghost of a hopeful smile haunting the generous mouth - of a very handsome man. Zuko’s faint smile pulled faintly deeper, like it was hard, but he would do it for her.

“But with your ocean-over-iceberg eyes,” he murmured. His hand drifted down to cup her cheek. “Or your warm-tone skin... Any combination between us... They’ll be so perfect and beautiful...” 

She drifted pleasantly, sliding her fingers back gently toward his ear to uncover his eye, let it open and peer out at her as he went on softly, his voice taking on the ring of conviction. Of truth.

“...They will never have scars like mine. I swear to you, Omega. On my life. I could never do that to our babies.”

Katara’s eyes snapped open. And she looked at her hand on Zuko’s scar, fingers curled tenderly back toward his ear. His yellow eyes peered beseechingly down at her. 

Much as they must have peered up at his father when the mark was made. Scorched deep into the face of a kind-eyed child.

-scarred you to teach you a lesson. To teach you respect-

The horror in his scent as he’d said those words suddenly made sense. It was the instinctive fear of a devastation intimately well-known to him.

“I swear,” he said with more urgency now as he scented her sharp emotional turn, “I’m better than what’s in my blood. Better than my father, better than Azulon. I’m a better alpha than that. I’ll be a better sire-”

Katara pulled his face down into her chest and held it there with one hand cupping the back of his head. She flung her other arm across his broad back and wrapped her legs around his waist, hardly noticing the pleasurable tug of adjusting. She pulled him as close as she could, needed him as close as she could get him as she absorbed how Zuko had really come to be who he was.

“I know,” she said against his spiky hair, crying a little now. “I know you’re better, Zuko. I know you. I know.”

He smelled a little desperate and panicky, but he wrapped an arm behind her head to cradle her to him. For a long while, they just held each other that way. 

“What did I say?” he asked at length when he smelled more like himself. “Katara, what did I say to make you so upset?”

“I didn’t know your father burned your face, Zuko. I’m sorry. That’s so horrible.”

“Oh...” 

His panic fell away but his emotions grew tumultuous, moving and flashing and burning out as his mind worked. Shame dominated the chaos. He was angry, too, but his shame lingered on, persistent and rank. 

His father had burned him and sent him away to do something impossible. And for three years before Aang woke up, Zuko had been trying to do that impossible task. He had sailed and trained and searched for someone who hadn’t been seen in a hundred years - and his father had never let him come home. When he’d finally actually had a chance to succeed, when he’d come so close at the North Pole, his father had labeled him an enemy of the Fire Nation and condemned him to live as a fugitive and a thief.

Zuko wasn’t ashamed of some crime he regretted. He was ashamed because his father had done this awful thing to him. Because his father, for whatever foolish reason Katara didn’t care to ponder, did not value him. Did not find him worthy. Did not, maybe could not, love him.

And that was just insane, because Zuko was so terribly, achingly lovable. 

“You deserve so much better than that,” she found herself saying fiercely against the side of his head, sniffing back her angry tears. “You know that, right?”

He huffed out a hard breath and his feelings were too difficult to read now - except for the anger. That drowned out everything else. That blaze inside him was flaring higher, threatening to blow, and maybe Katara should have pulled away, maybe she should have released him from her tight hold and tried to put a little space between her and that fire-breathing mouth - but she didn’t. Couldn’t. 

Wouldn’t.

“I don’t really want to talk about this,” Zuko finally said, low and dark. 

Katara wanted to argue. She wanted to insist, push him until he agreed that he deserved to be loved and treated well... and maybe also that his father was a monster and a bully. But she hadn’t forgotten when he’d blown up before. And apparently he hadn’t either. He was trying to use the out she had promised him. She had to honor that.

“Okay,” she said, but didn’t let him go. She just held him tighter.

He had been tense - but she only realized it as he began to relax against her. He let out a long sigh and his arms tightened around her. For a long while, they remained that way, holding on to each other as if some force was trying to pull them apart.

“You know,” Zuko grumbled at length, “I’m starting to not feel bad for forgetting your name before.”

“What,” Katara sniffed, trying to sound normal and at least a little tart, “because I didn’t know all the awful details of your devastating backstory?”

“I’m just saying there’s at least one mouthy old man in the Earth Kingdom who knows all this stuff about me and I wasn’t chasing him around for four years.”

Katara let out a little laugh against his hair, then nuzzled into it to smell him more deeply. He had that sweet, warm scent again, that massive front moving in. She wanted to consume that smell, swallow it down and make it hers, too. Pull every part of him into her until there was only them. 

Keep him. Alpha wants us to keep him. Wouldn’t it be nice to keep him?

After a while, he raised his head so he could fix her with a frown, looking broody and thoughtful. Then he reached up for her hand that was still in his hair and pulled it back down to his scar. 

“Touch it.”

It was not an invitation, but a challenge, a command. If she’d been fully in her right mind, Katara might have taken issue with that tone. But presently she was drifting on Alpha’s good new smells, assessing this sharp and needy one. Her annoyance felt far away, unimportant. What was important was that Alpha needed her to touch him. 

So she did, first idly tracing the ridges of scar tissue and then, as her healer’s mind came closer to the surface, using the probing touch that told her how deep it ran, how tight and underworked it was, whether it pulled at the other muscles around it. 

“I thought...” Zuko met her eyes, more himself than he’d been all night now. He looked angry, but he just smelled sad and anxious all of a sudden. 

“What’s wrong, Alpha?”

He grimaced, shut his eyes. The sadness drenched his scent, bitterness cut through. “Nothing... Omega. Don’t worry about it.”

She lingered with this for a long moment, considering as she gently rolled his ear between her fingers. “And just let you stink up my nest? No. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Right now,” he sneered, “I’m thinking Katara isn’t really here anyway, so there’s no point talking to you like you’re actually her.”

“Well that’s just rude and untrue.”

“Yeah?” His voice was a little less nasty, but not by much. “Because to Katara, this is the face of the enemy. Katara wanted to fuck me in the dark so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Katara doesn’t want me. Or she doesn’t want to want me. Same thing.”

“Hmph,” Katara said, suddenly much more aware of how tightly she was holding him with her legs and her other arm. Her face got a little warm. Stubbornly, she held on - and she kept touching his scar. Massaging now, firmly in the therapeutic way that would eventually help break up the dense tissue. Not that he’d appreciate it! “Well. We’re bonding. So it’s not like I can help... seeing you a little differently.”

“You don’t want to bond with me. You don’t want-” He stopped and scowled but the hurt he stank of spoke for him. “Anything from me.”

Katara was quiet for a moment, working her way down the side of his face to below his eye. “I might,” she finally snipped, frowning and lifting her chin so she could look down her nose.

“Name one thing,” Zuko challenged, “that isn’t inside you right now.”

“Humph! Do you remember,” she began, squinting and cautious. She didn’t feel entirely mentally up to the delicate discussion she was wading into, but Zuko couldn’t be that much better off. “...when you said you’d teach Aang firebending?”

He scowled more ferociously than ever before. “No.”

Katara shrugged, still watching her hand work his scar. He seemed entirely oblivious to her fingers on his face, just glaring down at her. But she didn’t have to meet that forbidding stare if she didn’t want to. “It did seem kind of out of character-” 

Zuko made a rude noise.

“-but it was a thing you offered to do that kind of... made me more receptive to... some of the other things you’ve offered.”

“Oh,” he said, low and angry and mocking, “is this a negotiation now? Are you trying to buy me like I’m some low-life mercenary? What kind of compensation are you proposing exactly?”

“I am not trying to buy you,” Katara snapped, meeting his glare now. “But I couldn’t just be mated to the guy who chases us around. I mean! What would I do? Every heat, just split off from the group and let you catch me alone somewhere?”

His knot had been uncharacteristically unobtrusive through this conversation and had lost some of its firmness, but at this suggestion, it throbbed back to full, stretching her again. Katara let out a little grunt at the renewed pressure. It was pleasurable, satisfying, but it was tight, too.

Zuko watched her, narrow-eyed and suspicious despite his obvious arousal. “I could make that work.”

She gave him a sour, exasperated look. “Maybe for yourself. Not for me.”

“You don’t think it’d be a little fun?” he asked, dark and soft and faintly smirking down at her. “Trying to evade me? Thinking you could give me the slip? But I’d always catch you - because eventually you’d always want to be caught. Because now you know exactly what’s gonna happen when I get my hands on you...”

Katara shivered, eyelids fluttering, but then huffed and rolled her eyes away from his penetrating stare. Her heat was pulling her down, but with Zuko’s knot so hard in her, she found herself able to hold onto control a little longer. 

She had rubbed gradually up the side of his face and now was working back from his temple, fingers sinking into his hair. “And what about all our beautiful perfect babies, huh?” 

A furrow bit into Zuko’s brow. His smirk evaporated. “I... I thought...”

“I guess they’re just gonna raise themselves somewhere,” Katara went on. “Will the servants be handling that, Zuko? Oh wait - I forgot they found other employment. I guess that just leaves it all to me. Plus training with Aang and fighting in the war. Plus my heats. Plus my other chores. I don’t have time to live out your fantasies, Zuko. I’m a real person.”

He blinked down at her, taken aback, but quickly worked himself back to a glower. “I know that. I’m just-”

“If I was gonna let you mate me forever,” she went on, not really thinking about it, “I’d want more from you than a wild time twice a year.”

His eyes widened a little. Narrowed again. “Like what?”

“Well,” Katara thought hard and then waded in with prim persistence, “the future you described was kind of interesting.”

His frown deepened. He looked angry in the way of a hooked fish. The shape of his mouth was almost identical. “Refresh my memory. What future is that, Katara?”

Katara sighed. It felt like she’d be making herself vulnerable if she told him the things his alpha had said that had so excited her. They were probably just like the Aang thing. He wouldn’t remember and he wouldn’t actually want to do them. Worse, he might agree just to win her over and then renege later, after he’d bitten her and she couldn’t go back.

...Although... that didn’t really sound like Zuko... Not the Zuko who saw to her needs and talked through her concerns and wanted her permission before he did things to her body... That couldn’t all be rut-Zuko, could it? No! Some of it was definitely the opposite of rut-Zuko. 

“Katara,” he wheedled, grouchy but gentle. “What did I say?”

The question had a faint note of whine in it. And, yes, he smelled just ever-so-slightly embarrassed.

“You said you’d rub my feet and carry things for me.”

He curled his lip, bewildered and non-plussed. Katara rushed on.

“And help me out around camp. And sex whenever and however I want. And...” She was blushing, but she tipped up her chin and went on anyway. “And treasure me. And you described yourself as being... a pretty doting father. Proud and devoted and loving. Were your exact words.”

Zuko’s eyes had widened. The crease in his brow rode much higher than it had been. His scent was warm and sweet but also many other things. There was an acrid note of terror in the mix.

“But you don’t even remember saying any of that,” Katara rushed on, “and it’s not like it could work if you were still trying to capture Aang to restore your honor and go home-”

-to your horrible father...

Actually, as she thought about that, it struck her as pretty short-sighted that he would rather go back to his monstrous, child-mutilating father than stay with her, making perfect babies and helping to save the world. And that was the heart of the issue, she reminded herself fiercely. That was why Zuko could never be allowed to bite her. That was why he was the enemy.

“Forget it,” Katara said, and dropped her hand from his ear. The dusky pink flesh was red from where she had rubbed too hard. Zuko seemed not to have even felt it. That just made her feel worse in so many ways.

“No, I just...” He looked away from her, then back again as if searching for some escape that was not presenting itself. “I’d just... give up trying to redeem myself, forsake my honor and my nation, carry your stuff and rub your feet and then I’d still have to teach the Avatar firebending? Seriously?”

“You offered to do all of that,” Katara huffed. “Or... your alpha did.”

“Yeah, that fucker thinks resigning myself to life as your personal lackey is pretty ideal,” Zuko sneered, “as long as I get to spend my down time with my dick in you.”

“Well, you’d better not bite me then! Since the prospect of being a supportive, caring partner is so beneath your royal ostrich-horse-thieving dignity!” She unwrapped her legs from around him and released her grip on his back. 

When she moved her legs, she became aware of his knot sliding loose.

For a heartbeat, he scowled down at her and she scowled back. The hooks of her heat pierced through them both and tugged.

Then he pulled out and they were struggling, both fighting to reposition. He was quickly up on his knees, one hand hard on her thigh to lift and shove it back so he could penetrate her from a slightly new angle, still on top. He was guiding his cock and about to push in when she managed to kick free. He let out an outraged little snarl. She rolled over and shoved his hand off her hip - trying to pin her down on her belly - so she could regain her knees, already arching her back, presenting. There was hardly time to glare over her shoulder at him before he was on her, roughly crowding her forward and down near the wall in the awkward seconds it took to position, to get in-

And then he was pounding hard into her, one hand on the wall so he could lean farther over her, press her ass up until she was more on her toes than her knees, until she was face-down and clawing helplessly at the clothes she’d mounded up in that corner and glaring up at him with one eye as she spat at him to fuck me Alpha, harder Alpha, more Alpha-

They exchanged few words of any substance over the indeterminate time that followed. Katara spent her lucid periods - though the term ‘lucid’ was no longer entirely apt - distantly aware of Zuko’s lips and tongue stroking her gland and murmuring his alpha’s sweet, fractured fantasies. They filled her with warmth and hope and security and - in the very rare moments when she managed a cogent thought - deep, heart-rending doubt. In those moments, he only nuzzled closer, held her tighter, promised it would be okay, he would make it okay.

Time lost meaning. Light and dark became less noticeable because smell and taste and touch were all as massive in her mind as sight had ever been. Need became an all-consuming language she spoke, a question she asked over and over and found always there was an answer, always the same; I’m here, Omega. I’m yours, Omega, and I want you for mine, for always.

Endlessly, she burned hotter than the sun - and Alpha was there to diffuse that heat, to bend the fire in her body so she never scorched away. He was the trickle of water soothing her throat, and he fed the push and pull on the tide in her mind, and he became the surf that curled like the tongue of a yawning cat-rabbit and crashed and cooled - destroyed and replenished her again and again and again and again.

So when the old hinges squealed as the door in the front room was pushed open, Katara was entirely too far gone to hear them.

Chapter Text

Zuko sensed that someone had ventured too close to the nest long before the door opened. There was no clear sound or smell that he could have pointed to. It simply prickled along his senses, an unnameable awareness that the danger was here now and would have to be dealt with soon. 

Unfortunately, his omega was in the thick of her heat, writhing and whining and endlessly needy. He couldn’t just leave her to drive off the threat... but he also couldn’t knot her and risk being unable to fight. So Zuko arranged her on her back, tucked his tunic close around her, and worked four fingers steadily into her while he sucked and lapped languidly at her clit. She came several times that way but could no longer settle at all without tying in a knot, and Zuko had to just keep going. It wasn’t what she needed, and she begged and pleaded for more, but he wouldn’t be swayed. The danger was here. He had to be ready to extract himself from her within just a few seconds in order to fight.

So, hardly thinking about it, peering frequently over the enticing squirm of his omega’s sweat-slicked belly to watch the doorway, he tucked his thumb and gently, patiently delved into her past the thickest part of his hand. Her cunt was well-worked by now, overflowing with their combined fluids so that they dripped down his wrist. He made a fist inside and she was finally able to bind down and rest, shuddering in exhaustion. 

Had Zuko been in his right mind, it would never have occurred to him to do this. But the alpha knew his omega needed to bind down on something to get a little relief, and there was only one option when trouble was brewing. For long minutes after her climax, he kissed slowly along her thighs, pressing his cheek to her warm skin and always, always watching the doorway.

Zuko’s instincts told him the intruder had been lurking nearby, listening to his omega’s cries and waiting for them to go quiet. Hoping to strike when her alpha was knotted and helpless. But Zuko wasn’t some blundering weak-willed excuse for an alpha. He was the best alpha. And, whoever had come to interrupt his omega’s heat, he was gonna show them just how outclassed they really were.

When the door squeaked its alarm, he froze against his omega’s thigh in the stiff, silent language of warning. 

Lying beneath him, Omega lay still and mute in response. Her eyes were unfocused, half-lidded. Her heat had taken on life of its own. The moment she unbound, she would swiftly climb back to writhing and begging. But right now, with her alpha stiff and alert against her, warning her of the nearby danger with his body, she was receiving the signal to remain quiet and still and small.

With a predator’s ruthless quickness, Zuko crimped his thumb and withdrew, then flipped his tunic over her, never looking from the doorway that led to the front room. His omega was helpless now, but she was clever; she had tucked her nest in a corner that could not be seen directly from the entryway. He had to take a step to the side to confront the threat - but that was one more step protecting his omega from sight.

Zuko took the step in a bending stance and, with a belly-deep roar his only warning, leapt forward to launch a fierce blast at the intruder. But the flames only parted and dispersed, expected and easily countered.

The rival alpha stood in the open doorway, the blazing bright street behind her. Her scent was familiar and only more threatening for that.

“Zuzu,” she said, smirking, taunting. “I knew I smelled pathetic desperation, but I thought that was just the omega.”

Zuko, in his present state, did not recognize Azula as his sister. He only saw a dangerous rival, one he had tangled with in the past. If he had had his wits about him, he would have remembered the shock of encountering her fully-presented alpha scent for the first time back in that beach house in the colonies or the betrayed hurt and rage he’d felt fighting her after she attempted to arrest him. 

But Zuko did not remember any of those distracting emotional experiences right now. Danger had finally come and his alpha was in full control. He faced his sister, totally naked and still pretty aroused from his omega’s scents but he was totally unabashed about it; he was aware only that the alpha before him had to fucking go.

“Shut the door,” he snarled. “And walk away.”

“And leave my prize here for you to spoil with your inferior line? No, I don’t think I will.” 

Zuko growled loudly and sank deeper into his stance in preparation to strike, but Azula only examined her claws. 

“You see, I’ve been tracking that little minx for days now. She’s given me quite a chase. But now I’m here to collect her-”

“Fuck off! She’s mine!”

“So coarse, Zuzu. Since you seem to have gone savage, I’ll explain this in simple terms.” Her look was hard, a little ugly. Her scent was harder and uglier. “You may either accept that I’m the better firebender and the stronger alpha and leave, or you may fight me until I win. After that, you will lie outside somewhere, terribly injured, for the next few days. During which time, I shall be in here, claiming my-”

“Rrahh!”

Zuko launched into a fierce assault that finally drove her back through the door. But he couldn’t stop there. This rival, he knew deep down, wouldn’t be rebuffed easily. She would need defeated and dominated to truly be driven away. That was the only way to keep his omega safe.

Wild with fury and outrage and possessive terror, Zuko pursued Azula out into the street. 

.

.

Something bad was going on. There was danger and Alpha had stopped fucking her and left the nest. There were loud sounds, a smell of flames. Her cunt was graspingly, painfully empty and the heat of her body felt stifling, and there was nowhere in the nest that smelled enough or felt enough like Alpha, and Alpha was not here.

It was important that she was quiet now while the danger was still nearby. She must not draw attention to herself. But she was growing increasingly desperate with how empty and exposed she was. Alpha should be here, holding her down and filling her and covering her - but he was not. He was defending the nest, and she had to be quiet and soft now and listen and wait. Hardly whimpering at all, she wrapped herself snug in the cloth that smelled like Alpha, covered her fever-damp skin at least in his scent. The fabric was rough and dry and unpleasant to touch, but it was more important that Alpha be on her in some way, concealing her even when he was off protected her. Wherever he was...

Katara would have been horrified to see herself curl up in a quivering ball while there was a fight going on just outside. But Katara was sunk deep in her omega now. She was tired and sore in her body and her mind and her heart. She had been learning slowly ever since Zuko appeared here how much easier it could be sometimes to just let go, just let someone else handle stuff when the weight on her was too much to carry. And she had come to find that it was safe to let go that way while Zuko was taking care of things. If he said he was going to do something, it would get done. And he said he’d keep her safe.

He was a jerk, and it was so irritating the way he kicked up a fuss about every little thing, but he was dependable.

And that was a lucky thing because, right now, Katara was depending on him.

So she was not presently fighting to surface, and her omega held her there, down and still and unthinking in the silence below while a storm raged overhead. She curled up under Zuko’s tunic and waited there.

.

.

For a little while, it seemed like Zuko would win. Azula had precision and deadly poise, but he was drawing power from his alpha in a way she presently could not.

Zuko was underfed, ill-rested, and significantly dehydrated; he’d spent the better part of four days tending to Katara now, and he hadn’t been in great shape when he found her to start with. By rights, he should have gone down quickly due to some hunger-brained error or a sluggish reflex. But rut gave him whip-quick speed and ferocious strength and an unrelenting energy that went beyond the physical limitations of his body. 

And the wounded rage deep in Zuko’s heart only tossed more fuel on that blaze.

He drove the rival alpha down the street with barely-restrained crashes of fire. There was no hesitation, no opening he left untried, no mercy or remorse or doubt. He was so ruthlessly aggressive, his opponent hardly had a chance to get attacks of her own in at all. Which, for Azula, came as quite a nasty shock. The easy rhythm of fighting and trouncing her brother never emerged - because the mind that would have stayed Zuko’s hand was there to lend its firebending knowledge, but only barely.

And eventually, that became a problem.

Azula led him through several decrepit buildings, popping out and trying to catch him unawares, but Zuko met her head-on each time, always driving her back. She tried to lure him through an open door that let out onto an upper level of a house with no floors below, but he was quick enough to grab the sides of the doorway and two-foot-kick a blast at her where she perched on a splintered joist. When she dropped down the two stories to land cat-like and bend a wicked fork of lightning back up at him, Zuko darted out of the way and leapt down to attack her from the street.

Cornered there in that shell of a building, the rival alpha finally seemed on the brink of defeat. She had a faintly frightened, desperate smell... But as Zuko came through the door to press her yet again, she sprang her trap. Knowing he would come around to keep pressing his attack, Azula had burnt out the supports around the door. As Zuko came through, she severed the last stud holding the wall up and brought it all down on him in a thunder of wood and crumbling plaster. 

In the end, he was pinned in the burning rubble, a beam across his back weighing him down, making it hard to breathe. Pain pierced him even through his rut. Azula stood over him, smirking.

“I must admit I’m surprised, Zuzu. Getting in touch with your inner beast seems to have made you a better firebender. But it appears even your inner beast isn’t quite savage enough.”

Zuko struggled, snarling and mindless in his desperation to get at her. Azula only tipped her head to the side and let the smirk slide off her face. She peered coldly down at her brother.

“I could finish this now, you know,” she said, low and thoughtful. Really considering it. “Father wanted to simply lock you away, but there are few scenarios in which I foresee you ever being useful to me. More likely, you will discover some novel way to make a nuisance of yourself.” Her expression hardened into a scowl. “But death seems almost merciful after such a pathetic life, and you’ve vexed me terribly today so I’m more inclined to let you suffer a little longer.” She scented the air pointedly, her smirk returning. “Now. It seems there’s a juicy little moon-peach just begging me to take a bite-”

“No!”

“I’d say I’ll try to keep down the noise,” she gloated as she stepped on the beam atop him to get over the wreckage, “but I know how you hate it when I lie.”

Zuko struggled and fought and tried to breathe fire at her but he didn’t have the breath. Azula disappeared from sight, strolling back off toward the house that hid Omega’s nest. Toward the nest where Omega lay helpless, depending on him, needing him to come back to her, needing him to protect her.

But Zuko was trapped. He could hardly move, could hardly breathe. He struggled so hard, shouted so loud, his vision quickly blotted out and he lost consciousness, knocked out by his own frenzied desperation.

“No!”

.

.

It became quiet and Katara lay still and listened. It was over. Alpha had driven away the danger and he would return to her now. He would relieve the terrible empty aching in her - so much worse than the cramping she did not even remember at this moment. She was sweating, overheated but clutching Alpha’s tunic tight around her anyway, slick trickling down the back of her thigh to puddle in the bedding. She felt dizzy, sick, disoriented as the waves of pain and deprivation went on and on. The faintest mewl of desperation escaped her - but she remained quiet and still otherwise. Instinct told her to listen, to be wary. The danger had not truly passed until Alpha was back in her nest.

The door had been left open by the departing combatants, so there was no rusty squeal this time. There were no footfalls. The only warning of the terrible threat stealthily descending on her was a smell. 

The room had its own intense scent - a deep heat-and-sex musk touched with sleep and frequent good feelings that made the space feel close and safe and right - a scent that Katara was not even aware of, she was so steeped in it. But when a new smell pierced her space, she noticed it instantly.

And she understood, instantly, that Alpha wasn’t coming back to her nest. Because if Alpha was able to return, if he was able to walk or draw breath, he would never have allowed this other scent anywhere near her.

It was a raw, vicious smell, like comfort and security and familiarity reduced to smoldering wreckage. A burned house smell. A smell she had encountered once before.

So when the interloper-alpha stepped into the room, Katara was already watching with wide eyes and bared teeth. Her heat remained a keening summons on the air. Her eyes were not entirely focused and she could not stop her steady panting. She could not sit up - the pain and dizziness would knock her down again - but she had pushed herself back into the corner and she wore Alpha’s tunic wrapped tight around her. When the new alpha’s eyes fixed on her, Katara peeled her lips back even farther and hissed.

“Well well,” the alpha said with a smirk - but she smelled surprised, unsettled. “Aren’t you a spitfire? It’s alright, Omega. You have no reason to fear me...”

The alpha’s purr was gentle - but Katara did not relax. This was not a safe alpha. This was not her alpha! These yellow eyes were not right. So similar to Alpha’s but not right at all. All the warmth and sweetness and kindness in Alpha’s eyes were missing, replaced with cunning and ruthlessness. 

“...I can tell by your scent that you’re suffering,” she said, taking a slow step nearer. The compassion in her voice and creased brow was nowhere to be found in her scent. “But don’t worry - I have what you need...”

“Not my alpha,” Katara panted, her teeth still bared. “So no. You don’t.”

The alpha’s eyes narrowed and her mouth turned sharply down. Her irritation was thick on the air. Then she seemed to adjust and turned calm, confident, smug. Cruel. 

“You don’t have an alpha, though, do you? Not really. Certainly, you are rank with my brother’s scent... but he never completed his duty to you, did he? He never claimed you. Perhaps he did not want you so very much after all...”

Katara quaked, struck to the heart. It was hard to remember now, with her body so wracked with need and with the desperation of knowing Alpha isn’t here, something’s wrong, Alpha isn’t coming back... 

Why hadn’t Alpha claimed her?

“...and now he’s left you to cower in your nest alone,” the interloper was saying, slowly closing the distance between them, “so ravaged by your heat that you probably can’t even get up. Every second, the scents of your pain and pitiful need grow more acute. More... enticing.” 

She stopped on the other side of the meager barrier of clothes and drew a slow, deep breath. Her sharp eyes hooded and she smiled. Her desire smelled greedy and cold and calculated. And yet, horribly, Katara found her body responding to it. More slick trickled from her, feeling now like blood from an aching wound. She cringed and squirmed in the corner. 

This was not Alpha... but Alpha wasn’t coming back, Alpha had not claimed her, had not wanted her enough. And her heat churned on, thrashing her now against jagged rocks-

“I doubt there is another alpha alive who could scent you like this and not immediately ravish you. But men are weak, and my control is flawless. And - just between us girls - I find...” The alpha stepped over the edge of the nest, her curl-toed boots sinking heavily into the stained bedroll as she loomed tall over Katara where she huddled in the corner. The callous demand of her arousal grew thick in the air. Her smile was wicked. “...anticipation is the better part of pleasure. Now open your legs... and show me what a mess that blundering failure left you.”

Katara couldn’t seem to stop. She throbbed. Her thighs trembled. It was as if unseen hands had grasped her knees and began forcing them apart. She was on one hip, her shoulder hunched up against the wall, so her top leg raised in a slow, shaking spread, exposing her swollen vulva, the smeared and dripped and splattered fluids coating her, Alpha’s cum and her own slick still leaking from her painfully empty cunt. 

“Oh my,” the alpha said, eyes burning down at her. “Such a tiny flower even in full bloom. However did you manage-?” Her breathing grew heavier, came more from her disgusted mouth. Her sharp eyes grew sharper. “Never mind that now. Your scent... You are utterly befouled with Zuko’s stench. It’s vile but... I can’t deny the appeal of supplanting him.”

Alpha... Zuko... not coming back... hadn’t wanted her enough to make her his... for always...

“For now, Omega, it will please me to watch you touch yourself until you’ve squeezed him out. Perhaps after that, I might give you my knot...”

Chapter Text

“Get up!”

Zuko knew that voice, and he knew that scent. Ginseng, jasmine, and that deep and wholesome burn of swallowing too-hot tea. The familiarity, even after months parted, sliced through the veil of his rut, if only just for the bleary moment it took to wake.

“Uncle?”

Like some strange dream, the old man was suddenly there in the wreckage, using a long timber to lever the beam up a few precious inches - just enough for Zuko to slip free and drag himself painfully out. It hurt to breathe too deeply. Some broken ribs. Some cuts and scrapes. Not enough to stop him. 

“Prince Zuko! What has-?”

He tensed and cast the old alpha a wild-eyed look, but this was not a threat. Not a rival. The nest was under attack, but not by this alpha. Without a word, Zuko wheeled and raced back toward Omega’s nest. He couldn’t be distracted now - he might not be too late!

Behind him, Iroh’s brows rose into high arches as he watched his entirely indecent nephew dash off up the street. It was fairly evident from the state of him and the powerful scents in this town what was going on here. 

History was repeating itself. 

But Azula had not taken the murderous path of her namesake. And perhaps Zuko was ready to choose his own destiny. Perhaps he was ready to set right the wrongs of their family’s past. One wrong, at the very least. And, inevitably, his nephew was finally coming to understand a deeper truth about the nature of his long hunt. Iroh could only hope he would realize in time which of the things he had chased all these years was actually worth capturing...

But that was another day’s battle. Right now, judging by some of the other scents he had picked up wafting around these ruins, Iroh got the feeling his nephew was going to need all the clear-headed backup he could get. 

And perhaps... should things go uncharacteristically well... some advice regarding his new lady-friend!

Entirely unable to suppress his hopeful smile, Iroh trotted up the street the way Zuko had gone.

.

.

“For now, Omega, it will please me to watch you touch yourself until you’ve squeezed him out. Perhaps after that, I might give you my knot...”

Katara’s fingers were sliding through her slippery folds before it could strike her as a thing she might not want to do. Every touch was maddening, not enough. She needed a knot. Something. Anything. She didn’t even bother with her clit, worked all her fingers in past the knuckle in the squelching heat that pooled inside her. It came out between her fingers, through the hollow of her palm, the scent of their joining filling the air, drowning out the oppressive demand of that burning house with the light and hope and rightness of their togetherness, of her and of Alpha-

She needed Alpha, needed his knot-

-but Alpha was gone, hadn’t wanted-

Keep me.

No, Alpha wanted to claim her. His breath and lips and teeth had pressed his scent into her gland for time beyond memory. For always. He had woven in murmurs a future he wanted to build with her, all their perfect beautiful babies, his furious resolve to stand by her side - he had made it all so real in her heart in the dark. She had been tumbling in an endless sea and he had built her a raft of his sweet words, a steady place she could return to when everything else was frenzied chaos.

A place she could reach for now.

Drifting in the silent depths of her omega, Katara sensed that the situation was no longer under control. 

At first, she only drifted toward the flashing storm-light and turmoil that seemed so far away. The closer she came, the sharper her feelings became - not annoyance or impatience... but fear. She clawed her way up, fought the grasping currents pulling her back toward peace and acceptance, screamed NO and struggled and refused to be kept down-

And blinked back to herself with most of her hand wedged into her fluttering cunt, staring up into the cold, lustful eyes of that scary firebender. She was on the brink of an orgasm, desperately needed - but she knew what would happen if she tipped over that edge. Agony. Collapse. Unconsciousness.

And the alpha standing over her watched, and waited, and smiled.

Katara stopped the delicious slide of her fingers and eased off the pressure. Her body screamed in hovering, devastating protest, so all-consuming that she groaned aloud through her bared teeth. As she pulled her hand free from her clutching channel, a little flood of slick and cum spilled out of her. The firebender recognized some change had come over her but - unlike Zuko - did not know enough to realize the danger.

“What are you doing now, Omega?” she asked, cruelly amused.

Katara might have shot back some snappy retort, but did not have the wherewithal to come up with one. Pain and her denied orgasm hammered through her abdomen. She felt light-headed, and sweat rolled down her face and neck and back - everywhere, damping Zuko’s tunic to her skin. The fluids that had oozed out of her formed a sickly cooling puddle against her butt, of which she was deeply aware.

So it was easy to reach for that liquid, one handed, and flick it up at Azula’s throat in a flight of razors.

Azula fell back, clutching her face and snarling her shock and disgust, and Katara made a break for it. Or tried. She couldn’t rise, ended up sprawled on her belly as the room spun. Scrabbling, on the verge of panic, she dragged herself from the room-

-and came face-to-shoes with someone who had just sprung weightlessly through the door.

“Katara!”

Thin, strong arms swept around her, tried to pull her to her feet. Katara stared up into Aang’s worried eyes. “Look out,” was all she could manage before staggering to the side. 

Aang’s attention redirected toward the firebender, who was suddenly launching blue flames at him - flames he gusted off-course and sent licking at the walls and ceiling - but Katara hardly noticed that. She would have fallen if familiar arms hadn’t swept her up and hugged her to a chest she knew. Before she could adjust to this new change, he was hurriedly carrying her outside-

-not Alpha. But safe alpha-

-and complaining loudly in a distorted, nasally voice. “We will ndever speak of this day! Do you hear be, Katara? Ndo! Don’t answer that. Don’t talk to be at all right ndow! Gran-gran on bath day, Gran-gran on bath day...”

When she finally managed to tear her eyes up from her double-fisted grip on the front of his familiar blue-and-white tunic, Sokka had two big globs of some kind of stinky goo packed into his nostrils. He glared straight ahead, sweating hard. He kept trying to hold his breath, then gasped, getting redder in the face.

“Gran-gran on bath day! Gran-gran on-!”

He was running with her down the street when a splash of flames cut them off. Sokka skidded to a halt as a figure leapt out at him and squared off in a familiar bending stance.

“Put her down!” Zuko snarled.

“Gah!” Sokka startled back a few steps but at the same time Katara pushed away from him to reach out toward that voice.

“Alpha!” she cried.

Sokka, the sanest guy on the block, looked disbelievingly between his suddenly-squirmy little sister and the extremely naked Prince of the Fire Nation blocking their escape. He wasn’t able to smell much through the pine resin nose-plugs he had crafted for this very special rescue but it was getting really hard now to miss the fact that Katara was pretty much slathered in essence of ponytail-jerk. 

“Oh no! Wha-? Seriously, Katara?”

She blindly elbowed him in the chest and just kept on reaching out and calling for Zuko, whose eyes flicked between her and Sokka with a sort of feral impatience that was honestly deeply unnerving.

“She doesn’t want to go with you,” Zuko shouted, taking a threatening step closer. “Put her down!”

“She’s out of her mind!” Sokka protested as Katara heaved and whined and struggled. 

He could remember her pitching a similar fit as a toddler, so he clung hard to that impression rather than letting his brain go off on the absolutely freaky and unacceptable track his alpha was pretty sure this situation called for. 

Sokka had known from the very start of his presentation that his alpha was not to be trusted. It had been his alpha instincts that got them tangled up with that insane mass-murderer Jet... and then later led to him saving that village... His alpha wasn’t always wrong, but it was just safest to take anything from that flea-scratching corner of his brain with a block of salt. Most especially when that corner of his brain was telling him incredibly weird stuff about his sister.

Like that he was interfering right now. He was the one causing a problem by putting himself between Prince-I’ll-get-you-one-day-Zuko and his temporarily deranged and helpless sister. 

This omega’s already chosen that other alpha, his alpha informed him glumly, then brightened. But if we’re taking her for our own anyway, I can get behind that-!

Big nope there. Katara was a squealing kicking toddler working herself through her big emotions. And it was Sokka’s job to protect her - especially from Aang’s naked fire-flinging stalker. Who, presently, was stalking toward them and looking extra-stalkery.

“She doesn’t actually want to go with you either,” Sokka went on, curling his lip and trying to pretend his voice didn’t sound stupid with the nose-plugs. “Trust me on this.”

Zuko pulled up short and, for a second, seemed to take this extremely hard. His fierce warrior-face turned suddenly stricken. His eyes, Sokka finally noticed, did not look normal. The pupils were huge like he was on some kind of seriously bad medicine. He was also pretty beat-up. Blood was oozing down from a few long cuts on his chest and he had numerous other scrapes and lacerations. Scratches... There were a whole assortment of bruises on his shoulders and neck that looked suspiciously like little bites. 

And it occurred suddenly to Sokka that Zuko must have started out in that freaky stink-fest love-nest, but somehow he’d ended up out here while Katara had been struggling to escape the fully-clothed firebender. From the looks of Zuko, he must have lost that fight. 

But losing never really seemed to take with this guy. Whatever was going on exactly, Zuko was back for Katara and he was not in his right mind. He stared at her with this deeply torn look on his face, and Sokka didn’t need to be able to scent his feelings to recognize his sorrow and longing. 

But then Katara made a knife-through-the-heart sound of misery and curled tighter into herself in Sokka’s arms. “Alpha! Hurts! Please!”

Zuko’s hesitation vanished. Scowling hard at Sokka, he commenced his menacing approach. He had abandoned the bending stance and now just looked like a naked guy primed to kick Sokka’s ass.

“I’m right here, Omega,” Zuko said, then bared his teeth and snarled at Sokka. “Put her down or I will take her from you!”

He could just try it, the savage. Sokka wasn’t backing down. Not over this. No chance. He retreated a few steps, felt his own lips peel off his teeth.

“I’m not just gonna give my little sister to you so you can get back to exploiting her when she can’t-!”

But as he was winding up for the big shame-on-you-asshole, blasts of fire and airbending came from the street behind him and Zuko’s focus shifted. Sokka flinched and glanced back just long enough to see Aang bounce across a roof and that scary firebender slice chunks off like the building was made of bean curd. Houses were going up in flames all around over there. 

He had to hurry up and get Katara out of here. When he turned back, he tried to dodge around Zuko, but the guy just cut him off, expression harder than before. He was nearly in arm’s reach now; Katara was still grabbing for him like a crazy person and her grasping fingers only fell a little short.

“Prince Zuko,” came the breathless voice of the old man - who was apparently here, too. He came jogging out of the same alley from which Zuko had appeared. This guy, mercifully, was fully dressed. He stopped a stone’s throw away and gestured back up the street at the fight. “Azula must be stopped! Quickly!”

Zuko seemed to struggle with sudden indecision. His eyes snapped to the old man, then Sokka, then dragged back to Katara with that desperate weirdness - and then turned back up to Sokka with refreshed fury. But it seemed the old man was ready for whatever insane thing this was.

“As her alpha, you must drive away the threat,” he said, and it seemed to Sokka he was choosing his words pretty carefully. “I am certain Miss Katara will be safe in her brother’s care, but I will stay with them to shield them from any stray blasts!”

Zuko’s wild eyes were all on Sokka then. His nostrils flared as he scented, assessing him anew. Some of the crazy cleared out of his eyes, and they narrowed, looking suddenly a little more like his usual self. But still not right.

“Stay away from that fucking bison, Sokka,” Zuko said, leaning closer and holding up a finger to point in his face like the domineering jerk he was. “If you try to fly off with her this time...”

His mouth curled down ferociously and he seemed on the brink of delivering some truly nasty threat. Sokka was winding up for a snide comeback, but Katara’s hand popped up and snatched at Zuko’s, tried to drag it down- 

-to do unspeakable things to her eternal-child-body! 

But Zuko just caught hers back and pulled harder, pressed her hand to his face.

“You’re safe,” he said, soft and gentle and relieved and bizarre. “You’re safe. I know it hurts, but you’re gonna be safe, I’ll be right back-”

Sokka pulled a face as this nightmarish tender moment played out just inches away from him as if he wasn’t standing right here! 

“Um! Excu- ooh...”

He stopped short when Katara switched from sweetly cradling Zuko’s cheek to gripping his ear in a vicious Gran-gran-style submission hold. Zuko winced and glared down at her.

“Rrh!”

“You are not leaving me again, Zuko,” she snarled. 

All of a sudden, they were grappling. She was trying to launch away from Sokka and fully glom onto the Fire Prince using her merciless pinch on his ear and the shackle-like grip she out of nowhere had on his arm. It took all Sokka’s strength to keep his hold on her as she struggled hard to escape him.

“Katara!” Sokka protested.

“Katara!” Zuko barked at the same moment and, in an admirable display of manliness, hardly whined at all. “Let go! I have to go!”

“No! What you have to do is get your knot back in me before I completely lose my mind!”

“Too fucking late!”

Sokka looked on in devastated horror, reflexively clinging to the flailing beast that was once his sister until Zuko managed to pry her fingers off him and spring free. There were fresh scratches on his arm and his ear looked like it had to be throbbing. His wide, furious eyes seemed unable to tear away from her and, crowning horror of all horrors, the exposed dick Sokka had been studiously pretending was not dangling in his peripheral vision this whole time was no longer just casually hanging out. 

Katara, meanwhile, was making swinging grabs for him and emitting sounds like an enraged ice cat. Sokka had to heft her up to correct the position of his arm around her back so he wouldn’t spill her on the street. She hardly seemed to notice.

“You said you’d handle it! You said-!”

“I’m handling it right now,” Zuko bellowed, marching around Sokka before sprinting off up the street.

Katara watched him go with shining, desperate eyes, then wailed as if the world was ending and balled in on herself, pulling up the unfamiliar brown tunic she was wrapped in to cover her face.

“Katara,” Sokka said gently, “I feel like I shouldn’t need to say this... but you’re coming on a little strong.”

She might have laughed a bit at first - or she might have just started crying. It was hard to tell initially but then she was clearly just crying, shuddering wracking sobs interspersed with heart-wrenching words.

“...hurts... Alpha... hurrts... please...”

She wasn’t just sobbing, he realized with a wash of horror that was much realer than what he had felt moments before. She was flinching. She was in actual physical pain. 

“Katara...”

She didn’t answer, just went on sobbing and shuddering inside that tunic. Sokka stared at the top of her head and felt terribly helpless. He had kind of thought this heat thing was just intense horniness and a variety of smells a brother didn’t need to ever smell, but now here was his little sister, flinching and sweating and clearly in agony.

His alpha, scratching at the back of his brain, had this crazy idea to pitch...

...but - and Sokka wasn’t sure whether he was more relieved or aghast because he was very much both - he didn’t even need to entertain his alpha’s unspeakable suggestions. There was a conveniently naked firebending maniac running around here that Katara actually seemed to have some kind of... unhinged understanding with. How that had come about and what it was going to mean later were larger questions that would have to wait until she came out the other end of this thing. Until then, Sokka resolved that the best he could do for her was reserve judgment and let her work it out the way she seemed to want to.

And get ready to deliver a big-brother-style ass-kicking to Zuko later, should that turn out to be necessary. 

Sokka raised a wide-eyed look to the old man. He had not moved, still stood a solid fifteen feet away. He held one hand before his nose, slowly rolling some invisible thing between finger and thumb. A tiny thread of smoke drifted up. He was slowly burning a few hairs between his fingers, Sokka realized, using that strong odor to cut Katara’s scent. 

Which was both decent and mind-shatteringly creepy if he paused to think about it at all. Because that old guy was an alpha, too, Sokka remembered. He couldn’t get a read on him now - thank you, nose-plugs - but he remembered his scent as sort of subtle and steady and herbal. It had always come mixed with Zuko’s much more intense scent as a grounding, consistent backdrop. 

Presently, the old man’s expression was one of solemn sympathy, but there was also a watchful quality about him - as if he was gauging what Sokka was about to do. And it struck him that, if he did try to take Katara away on Appa, this man would probably try to stop him. 

He supposed it was for the best, then, that he didn’t intend to do that.

“So,” Sokka said as he began briskly making his way toward the edge of town, glancing back toward the fight before watching the other alpha. Katara squirmed and whined in his arms and he felt like a bastard for it but he was glad to have a good reason to ignore her. “You just been hanging around, cheering your prince on while all this goes down or what?”

Those bushy eyebrows arched high and his eyes got big. Then the old man just looked a little offended. “Nothing so vulgar, I assure you.” He kept apace with Sokka, maintaining the wide gap between them and peering back at the fight frequently. “This is the first time I have seen my nephew in some months now. I was tracking him at a distance and only found his ostrich-horse this morning. To be honest, I was afraid something terrible had happened to him until I got to this town and... the situation became clear.”

“Oh, the day’s not over,” Sokka shrugged, glaring down the street and trying to remember if he saw any potential safe hiding places on the way here, “something terrible could still happen to him.”

“If you are thinking that a debt of honor has been incurred, I do not doubt Prince Zuko will gladly address your concerns once Miss Katara’s heat has ended. Until then, the rut will make it very difficult for him to think beyond her safety and comfort. As you saw.”

“And can never unsee...”

“Really,” the old man went on, almost casually, “it is a lucky thing that she has accepted him and their bond is already so powerful. Otherwise, it is unlikely you would be able to carry her to safety that way without succumbing.”

“Do me a favor and never say that word again, first off. And secondly, what do you mean ‘their bond’? What bond? He didn’t bite her...”

The word ‘yet’ hung on his back teeth with terrible certainty.

It occurred to Sokka that he knew by the smell of the omega in his arms that she had not yet been fully claimed - he didn’t even need to glance at her gland to be sure there was no bite, he just knew there wasn’t one. It did not occur to him to remark on the fact that the other alpha had delayed. Because it obviously just wasn’t time for that. Yet.

“Sharing a heat binds an alpha and omega together long before the bite,” the old man explained. “The physical and emotional closeness of such a strenuous time forges a bond even between partners who might otherwise be incompatible. But when there is compatibility as well, a deeper emotional acceptance can take place and the omega’s scent begins to change. Her call quiets to all the rest of the world, because there is only one alpha she wants to answer it.”

Sokka peered down at Katara’s tangled hair and white-knuckled grip on (obviously) Zuko’s tunic. And he realized it was true. Every breath he took was a mouthful of information he really didn’t want to know. The nose-plugs never would have been enough if her scent had been at full strength; they had only ever been a desperate attempt to prepare himself for the nightmare he’d assumed was coming when Aang found him and told him Katara had ditched him. 

Because Toph had ditched them, and Katara had evidently decided she didn’t want to finally just hook up with Aang - which was really the worst timing to come to a conclusive decision about that... But whatever, everybody could just dump this devastating life-ruining responsibility on Sokka, that was fine.

He could very clearly remember the intensity of her scent in the early days when her suppressants started to fail. He’d known that, when he helped Aang track her down, it was gonna be bad. There had just been no other option. They had to find her, she couldn’t just be left alone to fall prey to whatever random alpha she encountered... 

But it kind of seemed like the random alpha option might have worked out okay after all. The scent he couldn’t avoid picking up from Katara now was nothing like those early days. She smelled like all the expected awful things of course, but the neediness was less a lusty invitation and more a fussy impatience. Every jagged, grabby aspect of her was insulated in fireflake-stank. And it was a relief. Sokka’s alpha wasn’t getting louder now like it had sometimes done then; it was interested, perking up its ears because omegas were just generally pretty interesting, but it wasn’t driving him to do anything crazy.

She’s already chosen that other alpha, it explained again. It’d be a real struggle to win her over now. Could be worth it, though-!

Still not to be trusted. 

“Look, I don’t know how this got started but I’m pretty confident Katara is gonna have a few things to say once it’s over. Until then, can we talk about literally anything else? Seriously.”

“You know,” the old man said, smiling and raising a finger as inspiration struck, “I recently met the most fascinating group of singing nomads. Their leader was composing a very interesting song about the Avatar! Let me see if I can recall the tune...”

“Yeah, not really a big singing nomad fan either... How about you tell me about crazy blue-fire lady?”

.

.

Zuko rejoined the fight without hesitation, hurling himself between the two combatants with a single-minded focus on demolishing the rival alpha. If he had been a bit more cognizant of the people around him, he would have noticed Azula’s disgust and dismay and the Avatar’s momentary - and nearly catastrophic - shock at the sudden appearance of his long-time antagonist, inexplicably naked and... apparently on his side? 

“Zuko?”

Really, it was a lucky thing that Zuko came into the fight with the intention of taking Azula out as quickly as possible because she was immediately so beset by his relentless attacks that she wasn’t able to get off a clean shot at the opening she suddenly had on the slack-jawed Avatar. As it was, her blue fire scorched a spot on the wall over his bald head and that was the closest she got before being driven down the street.

Zuko only really knew two things. First, he had to drive the rival alpha in this direction because his omega was the other way. Second, he had to hurry. Omega was hurting, she needed him. And even if that other alpha hadn’t smelled aroused or even really interested, hadn’t smelled quite like a rival, he had her in his arms. The fucker. 

His conscious mind was able to offer up even more urgency - though it was allowed to do little else. His alpha knew that other alpha’s scent had been faintly on some things in the nest, which suggested Omega found his scent comforting and he could possibly be trusted to keep her safe... but Zuko knew that guy, knew he was close with Katara, and that intimacy, even if it wasn’t sexual, was absolutely a threat. They could fly off together at any time like they always did, and then she would be beyond Zuko’s reach! Maybe that other alpha would decide to finish her heat with her then, or maybe she would find a new alpha, a real alpha, since Zuko couldn’t cut it. Since he’d said he would take care of everything and had yet to fucking take care of this.

It fleeted through his mind and fed his rage. Zuko was an inferno. He was the best alpha - definitely better than this noxious rival or that wild-game-smelling buffoon - and he was gonna prove it once and for all.

“What is this?” Azula demanded as she fought hard to counter him. “Have you allied yourself with the Avatar now?”

“Yeah,” Aang added, arching an eyebrow and frowning in bewildered amusement at Zuko’s nakedness. “I can honestly say I never expected to see this side of you, Zuko.”

Zuko’s only response was to shout and press the rival harder.

Azula tried to slip away down an alley, but Zuko shut down her escape with a searing line of fire that laid over the better part of a building into her path. She punched and kicked blasts back at him but Zuko swiped her blue flames from the air and met them with roaring yellow blazes, always bigger and stronger and wilder. The airbender seemed to pick up on the goal and sliced an awning apart to block another alley while Zuko continued to press the attack. The rival alpha was forced back and back until they came at last to the stony ruins around the edge of the town. 

Finally, caught in the corner of a crumbled wall, she raised her hands in apparent defeat.

“Fine, Zuko, you’ve made your point. A princess surrenders with hon-”

But Zuko wasn’t accepting surrender. He roared and kicked a whorl of flames at her and she lurched out of the way in wide-eyed shock. After that, it was a simple chase. He pursued her around a final building in time to spot her retrieving a racing lizard from a sheltered spot. Then she was off toward the west, too fast to be caught. Zuko might still have kept chasing her - she has to be beaten or she might come back! - but the airbender who had been fighting her when he arrived stood suddenly in his way.

“Wow, Zuko... Thanks for your help,” he said, a hesitant, hopeful smile on his face and his brow wrinkled in what might have been concern. 

He didn’t smell like an alpha, but he was still young, maybe not presented yet. This should have reassured Zuko, but for reasons he could not presently identify, the sight and mild scent of this guy filled him with furious frustrated rage.

The airbender’s eyes squinted just a little. “Are you... doing okay?”

Zuko was not doing okay. He would not be okay until he was back with his omega, back inside his omega, reassuring himself that she was safe and his. Without so much as a word, he turned from the airbender and the thought of pursuing the defeated rival and swiftly made his way back toward where he had last seen Omega.

Aang watched, bewildered and actually stricken with a not-insignificant bit of compassion, as the naked and possibly-insane prince who had chased him for so long glared at him seemingly without recognition and then just turned around and ran off the way he’d come. The question had been pretty rhetorical; it was clear Zuko was in the midst of some kind of crisis. And Aang still remembered when he had saved him from Zhao... He couldn’t just leave him in the middle of... whatever this was.

It was... also pretty weird... that Zuko was running around naked in the same area where Katara had been hiding out while she went through her heat. But that might just be a coincidence... It was probably just a coincidence.

Aang felt terrible about how all this had played out. First, the group had splintered, everybody shooting off in different directions. Then, Katara had snuck away from him in the night. Rather than telling him she hadn’t wanted to be around him for her heat, she had just disappeared. Initially, Aang had been mostly terrified and angry as a result of that terror. Why would she do that? It was crazy to go off alone when she was vulnerable! Did she think he would take advantage of her? Aang would never do that! He loved Katara, he would never betray her trust like that! 

But, in the back of his mind, Aang knew why. It just took Sokka saying it out loud to really hammer the point home.

“Did you guys talk about what was gonna happen when her heat started?” he’d asked a little angrily from Appa’s saddle as they rode back toward the campsite where she’d slipped away. It had taken over a day just to find him, and then they had run into two of the scary girls and had to fight. So it wasn’t entirely clear at that moment whether Sokka was angry about the delay or the topic of discussion. “Like at all?”

“Not exactly,” Aang said, morosely clutching the reins and staring off into the distance. He felt bad for losing Katara, and he felt bad for dragging Sokka back into the situation to help him find her. He knew it was... uncomfortable and weird for them both. But, he’d figured, better to be uncomfortable and weird than lost and alone and in danger. “I mean, what was there to say? She knows I would be there for her no matter what. For anything! She has to know how I feel about her! I just don’t understand why she’d run away without a word to me like this.”

Sokka had been quiet for just a moment, then sighed. “In the language of not talking to girls, that’s a no, buddy.” 

And that hurt to hear... but Aang kind of knew it already. He wanted to dodge around the no and try to fix it, try to win her back into the safe ‘maybe one day’ place where she had hovered with him for so long. If she just needed to have a conversation about it, he could do that! But, as they rode on, Aang started to realize that he was thinking like an airbender again. Changing direction and adapting, coming at a problem from a new angle... hovering in undefined spaces. For the last couple months, Toph had been trying to teach him - before she stomped off into the countryside and maybe resigned as his teacher, it had been kind of unclear - that an earthbender came at situations head-on. An earthbender dealt in certainties and rigid intentions. You move the rock or you get squashed.

Katara’s no, even unspoken, was a no. It was firm, inarguable. She was in need and, rather than take whatever she needed from Aang - who was willing, even eager to give her anything in his power to give, she had to know that! - she had moved away from him. Created space, distance. It was a no.

The fact that Aang had never asked the question to begin with didn’t make it any less a no. It just filled him now with terrible regret. Because maybe, if he had asked, if he’d been bold like an earthbender and laid out his interest and commitment clearly, if they had talked about it before Katara came to a decision on her own, maybe it could have been a yes.

But now it was a no, inescapable as a boulder rolling down a chute toward him. And Aang knew, after two months of boulders rumbling inexorably toward him, that dodging the no wasn’t going to make it go away. He would still have to face it.

If he was lucky, he wouldn’t also have to face being responsible for something terrible happening to Katara, too. 

And, watching a very naked and clearly out-of-his-mind Zuko sprint off down the street of this desolate town where clearly no one else was, no one but Katara, Aang was starting to understand that there was another boulder rolling toward him. 

The terrible thing had already happened. He was too late to prevent it. Too late to save her.

Frowning and now deeply anxious, Aang snapped open his glider and followed Zuko at a distance.

Zuko was unaware that he was being followed, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to him if he had know. He passed the building where Omega’s nest had been hidden and found it fully ablaze. There would be no going back to the nest. That troubled him a great deal because how could Omega settle comfortably while they were tied if there was no nest? No space that was snug and safe and theirs? 

It lent him even more urgency. Because the nest didn’t really matter. She mattered. She was all that mattered.

He passed the spot where he had left her with the other alpha and sprinted on. His broken ribs were beginning to scream under his breast with every breath, every step, but he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, what if that other alpha was carrying her onto the bison now? Any second Zuko could look up and see the familiar shape of his destiny flying off, ripped out of his grasp once again.

But then he rounded a corner at full speed and saw them. He barely registered the old alpha - who was still a safe distance away from his omega - and didn’t spare much more than a glance for that fucker still holding her in his arms. Zuko looked at him just long enough to ascertain that he did not mean to fight to keep her this time. With a beleaguered groan and a roll of his eyes that left them focused up and away from Zuko, he seemed to be signaling no intent to challenge. 

“Fine, whatever. Worst day of my life but as long as everybody else is happy...”

Completely ignoring whatever he’d said, Zuko just ran the last steps to reach her where she hung there shivering and moaning and he scooped her up and held her to his heaving chest and pressed his face against her hair where it stuck out the top of the tunic. 

The relief he felt as he scented her and held her weight against him was devastating - world-shattering.

Omega was okay! She was safe and whole and smelled like her aching, painful need and a deep desolation that was beginning to fade now, but no blood or fire and only the faintest trace of that other alpha who had carried her to safety - who was acceptable, Zuko supposed. 

But who gave a shit about that guy when Omega was okay, was still wrapped in Zuko’s scent, still smelling of him and his saliva and sweat and cum and their mating and the right and almost-perfect combination of their fluids still leaking out of her. Her scent significantly dominated his now - of course, he had not come inside her for what felt like an eternity and she needed it, had to have it as quickly as possible, as quickly as he could get her away from these watching alphas and someplace safe-

But she emerged from his tunic and he was derailed, first by her large eyes, dark except for the thin blue iris that shone so pale and bright in the daylight. They were puffy, reddened from crying. Zuko pressed light kisses to them, soft and sweet and tender against her eyelids. Then he kissed her little nose and her smooth cheeks, rubbed his nose and his brow and his cheeks against her skin until her perfect mouth appeared and then he kissed it, long and deep and needy. 

“Ugh! In public? Come on!”

“Prince Zuko, perhaps it is time to return to Miss Katara’s nest...”

“Nest? You mean the stink-shack? That place is up in flames, Iroh. Like half the town now. It’s not safe here. They’re gonna have to shoo their PDA-perpetrating selves somewhere else...”

Zuko was oblivious to the chattering alphas. Omega’s hands were on his face, stroking his cheeks and his jaws and her fingers pressed over his ears and dug though his hair, her arms coming up around his neck as she hugged his head closer, mashed her lips against his, biting him, drawing a little blood. He could taste it, feel the sting and it was good-

There was a gust and a sudden silence and the airbender’s subtle smell - and that was unsettling enough that Zuko broke away from the kiss to look. Omega began kissing and biting at his neck instead.

He recognized the look of fury on the Avatar’s face, because he had some deep-set memories of that expression, accompanied by glowing white eyes and closely followed by some manner of epic, life-threatening destruction. But those eyes weren’t glowing now. They were just watching Omega kiss Zuko's neck and stroke his hair and growing increasingly furious.

“Aang! Buddy! Great news! Katara found an alpha and seems to be doing just fine!”

“Just fine?” he echoed, turning his furious stare to that other alpha. He flung out his arm at Zuko. Zuko bared his teeth, then turned his body so Omega would be shielded and began creeping away slowly so as not to draw attention. The airbender seemed oblivious, just went on shouting. “How can you say that, Sokka? How could you just hand Katara over to him like that? To Zuko!”

“Listen, I hate it too, but she seems to be okay and the alternatives here really aren’t an improvement-”

Zuko sidled into the mouth of a narrow alley. The old alpha was watching from the corner of his eye but did nothing to alert the others to his stealthy exit while they raised their voices into a full-blown argument. Zuko took his chance and darted down the alley. 

Omega was biting his gland a little too hard now - it had him hardening uncomfortably as he ran. Her need was so intense, she couldn’t wait much longer, but she had to, she was going to have to wait because the nest was gone and they needed a new safe place, he couldn’t knot her until they were in a safe place. The town was full of smoke; they couldn’t stay here. The fire could spread to any of these buildings.

So Zuko set off across the barren plain to the east as quick as he could manage with his ribs jolting white-hot pain through him with every step and every breath. He did not think at all about how much more it hurt to carry Katara - because he needed to be carrying her. There was no version of this moment where he didn’t carry her. But the inevitable fact remained that the energy and resilience that Zuko’s rut lent him were failing. He was very tired and in a lot of pain. There was a treeline in the distance, but it seemed so terribly far away, and his omega shivered and flinched in his arms every second, plagued by her agony. Crossing that open expanse took an eternity.

Strange, disorienting things were happening and Zuko could not be sure whether they were real or in his mind. The ground seemed to move under his feet sometimes, like he was getting somewhere faster than he was actually running. He reached the forest and it only got stranger. Unidentified rumbling sounds came from just beyond the foliage. Walls of rock appeared seemingly out of nowhere, forcing him to adjust his course.

Then they came to the river. He did not remember laying in this water some days ago to try and regain his wits because said wits were well and truly lost now, and he really didn’t remember the weird rock formation at the edge of the water, because it had not been there before. Zuko was drawn instead to the cave in that rock formation. Inside, it was dry and dim and close. The river flowed inside the cave along one wall, a deep cut-out trough in the soil. It was a perfect place. So Zuko took Omega inside.

The entrance rumbled shut behind him. 

Logically, Zuko knew this was bad. The only other way out seemed to be a hole in the high ceiling that let in a little light and fresh air, but it was too far up to reach and seemingly too small to squeeze through even if he could get up there. They were trapped.

But being locked in also meant that the rest of the world was locked out. He was here with Omega and plenty of clean water. They were safe and alone and together. That was all that mattered. 

The sandy soil embankment along the river was soft, but he decided it wasn’t soft enough to lay Omega on her back here. He lowered himself to a sitting position and just cradled her in his lap, just kissed her face and hands and neck and hair and let her scent his relief and returning calm, let her know they were safe now, everything was alright-

“Alpha,” she moaned, her voice cracking from the long strain. “Need...”

She sat up and he felt her dripping wetness spill down his thigh. He wanted to roll her on her back at once - cover her and protect her and fill her right - but his chest hurt threateningly when he tried even just a little. Instead, he pulled her leg over to straddle him. He wasn’t quite hard yet, hadn’t quite recovered from the demands he’d made on his body, but that changed quickly as her scent began to fill the chamber and she rubbed against him with shuddering, searching rolls of her hips. She reached between their bodies to grip him, stroke him, guide him, and then he was pressing up into her, striving up into the wet, all-encompassing heat of her body.

Zuko had been trying for years to go home. Even before he was banished, he had worked hard to reclaim something that he had once had - a sense of acceptance and togetherness and belonging that had vanished from his life one night with Ursa’s kind, sad eyes. Now, sinking back into Omega’s scents and Omega’s body, he recalled suddenly the spicy-sweet flavor of a particular chili-glazed confection his mother had liked, a special treat she would share with him when they attended the Fire Festival in the lower city. Father and Azula hadn’t cared for the sticky fried pastry - Father had always dismissed it as peasant fare and Azula followed where he led - so it was just Zuko and Mom, sneaking peasant food that was so perfectly sweet and crisp and doughy with a kick of spice that lingered warm on the tongue even when the treat was gone.

That was what Omega smelled like. That was the spicy-sweet scent he could never get enough of, that called him and fed his famished heart. He needed it, he needed her, more than he needed anything. 

And he had come so terribly close to losing her forever. Lost to another alpha, lost to the sky, it hardly mattered because in any scenario she was simply gone from his life and what had seemed like a bleak and difficult existence before her was revealed as lush and colorful and hopeful compared to life with the chance of her removed forever from it.

As she sank down on him, receiving him so easily and perfectly - like he was a piece she had been missing too - a terrible jagged feeling inside him smoothed away. As she wrapped her arms around his neck and rode him with urgent rocking and winding gyrations that left him desperate and dizzy, he grasped her hips, curled his fingertips into her soft flesh. As she moaned and sighed and threw back her head, he dragged his tongue across her gland and tasted peppery glaze. He scraped his teeth hard across her there and was certain he felt the same sparks that had her moaning and working him harder. He rose quickly to the precipice, no longer able to spool out his lust with the patience and control he had wielded for so long. His knot was already thickening inside her, tugging deliciously with her every movement, and then-

“Bite me, Alpha,” she gasped, and began grinding her hips in tight circles, wedging him impossibly deeper inside her clutching, velvety depths. Her fingers dug hard into his upper back, pulling at his flesh. One hand slid up the nape of his neck, clawed up through his hair. “Claim me, Alpha! Need to be yours... only yours!”

Zuko found his teeth were already firmly clamped on her gland. He was breathing hard, growling, and her every flex wrung tight around his firming knot and had pleasure sizzling up his spine. He hung on the cusp of spilling inside her, his jaw tense and ready. His teeth were pressed hard against her skin; all it would take was a little clench, a little more pressure, and her gland would yield to him, pierce open for him- 

-and then she would be his. Forever. She would be safe and his. He could stay in her accepting embrace, submerged in her gentle warmth and fierce affection. He could make perfect beautiful babies with her-

“Mine! My Alpha! Best alpha!” she pleaded as she wound herself tighter, dragged him with her to the very edge, closer still.  

-and they would raise them and protect them and teach them together, love them sweet and kind and gentle and they would be a family-

“For always, Alpha, please...”

The alpha in him was roaring his greatest triumph because Now! This is the moment! I have her! Now is the time to claim my omega and make her mine forever and always, knot her and give her my baby and mark her deep and right and mine, perfect Omega, so sweet and right and-

-for always-

His teeth pressed just slightly harder - not quite hard enough to pierce her gland, but he tasted the thinnest copper tang of blood. She jolted and fluttered and clenched, squeezing his sides with her thighs as she started coming. The taste shot through his senses, heightened the friction of her cunt tightening around his knot, of his knot expanding inside her as he tipped over the edge with her.

And it came to him then as if from a great span of time and distance; Katara didn’t want him to bite her. She'd said.

He tore his mouth away from her gland. Katara and the alpha made similar wails of protest.

Do it! She wants it, waterbender has conditions, nothing major, just do it just bite mark claim mine mine-!

“No! Please, Alpha, bite! Bite now! Nowww!”

He very nearly snapped his teeth back in place at her plea - but no, this wasn’t... all that stuff she’d said before, the way she’d seemed to... it was all just her omega influencing her thoughts. Katara hadn’t ever really changed her mind!

He was coming and his jaw had to had to close on her gland and his alpha was bellowing and Katara was begging-

Zuko clapped his hand over her gland and sank his teeth savagely into the meaty base of his thumb.

Chapter Text

Katara woke incredibly sore and sticky and smeared with so much filth she wanted to plunge in a river and never come out. She was sweatily plastered to the warm body behind her. A hard chest and belly swelled against her back with slow, deeply restful breaths. Long legs were tucked close behind hers. There was a heavy arm around her waist, the hand curled between her breast and the bedding they lay on. Her head was resting on his other arm, and his breath came hot and steady against the nape of her neck. Her butt was up against what she quickly surmised was a mostly-flaccid penis.

When she opened her eyes, there was only darkness. Distantly, she heard running water and cheeping night insects, but the noise came to her strangely, as if traveling by an odd, echoing route. The smells she was getting were mostly sex and their unwashed bodies - but there were also scents of dirt and river... and a little blood... All in all, it was a very comfortable and familiar odor. It was right. Everything was right.

It took a disconcertingly long while to remember what had happened. Her mind was moving slowly - sluggish and grown unaccustomed to active thought. What was clearer were her feelings. She felt safe, secure, cared for. She felt like she had needed something desperately and gotten it - like a hard sleep after a difficult day that left her feeling deeply sated and content.

She had gone through heat, she eventually recalled. Yes... she had gone off on her own, left Aang behind, and... found a deserted town to hide out in... 

...and an alpha had found her there. The alpha presently smooshed against her like a bearskin cape that missed the bear. These good feelings she was feeling, they had come from him. His protection and care. His eagerness to provide whatever was needed. His warm, strong body. And his scent... vast pink and gold cloud-towers heavy with rain and energy and thunder that purred...

Zuko. 

His name clicked into her mind like a puzzle piece, as if she had thought it and spoken it in a thousand sentences and now it came to her easily, the syllables snapping just perfectly into place. 

For a second, she was afraid. She remembered him as she had always known him - the villainous prince. He had appeared in that dilapidated town just like that, her scowling enemy demanding the Avatar and... an alpha who was clearly very interested when he realized he had instead found an omega entering heat... 

As quickly as it came, her tension dissipated. Because her body knew how it had happened, and her mind was slowly catching up. What an absolute trial it had been sometimes. What a towering jerk he was... and, shockingly, often was not. The way he had talked with her... How he had been when his rut started... That other Zuko, soft-eyed and gentle and responsive to her needs. Wounded. Vulnerable. Angry... but angry in the way of a cloud of honeybees bristling over the smashed hive.

She had spent her heat with Zuko, and that was... right. The good feelings she was feeling... Zuko had done that. He had made her feel safe and secure and cared for. He had taken care of her and given her what she needed.

She had had just... an incredible amount of sex... with Zuko...

...and there was an extremely good chance he had gotten her pregnant.

But the feelings she got thinking about that were far more complicated now than they had been when she had imagined the prospect at the start of her heat. The fear and desperation she had felt before were absent. In their place was a glowing certainty. Because they were gonna figure something out. That’s what Zuko had said. So that was what Katara expected would happen.

And instead of disgust or horror at the thought of being pregnant at the hands of her enemy, Katara found herself softly wondering, pleasantly warm. Because there was a piece of Zuko inside her, already growing. There was a possibility easing into being like a little boat venturing out on still water, a perfect and beautiful little boat with his warm, kind eyes or his handsome face or his silky hair or really any combination between them... In this moment, pressed against Zuko, sleepy-brained and at peace, it felt like the future could be radically different than she had anticipated, and that could be okay. He would make it okay.

It did not occur to Katara that her omega was no longer talking to her and was instead simply rising up through her, pouring out of her. Her mind was slowly separating again, but the omega’s impressions remained strong; it was no longer an enemy inside her trying to force her into foolish decisions, but almost a sort of advisor, a source of instinctive knowledge she couldn’t explain but could sometimes rely on. After all, the omega had known Zuko was a good choice from the start. The omega had been right.

For a long while, Katara lay in his snug embrace, letting herself remember what had happened. Her breath came shorter as she remembered some of the things they had done. Positions their bodies had assumed. Things he had said. Things she had said... She remembered... a lot of that...

How they had gotten to be in what sounded like a cave was a total mystery to her...

But that didn’t seem terribly important right now. They were safe and secure. The smells around them were familiar and right. The nest smelled of her and of him and of other lingering scents that comforted her. 

Zuko shifted impossibly closer, rubbing his soft mouth against the side of her neck and down to nuzzle against her gland - which was pretty sore... and that soreness, like the soreness in her hips and between her legs, gave her a peculiar sense of satisfaction. His breath gusting there gave her pleasant chills. His hand under her breast seemed to wake up and firmed to give her a gentle squeeze, his thumb sliding deliciously against her nipple. The soft penis against her butt shifted and grew especially warm and a bit... less soft. And that all felt good and right. A promise, a reassurance.

But the scent coming from Zuko took on a faintly sad note.

“What’s wrong, Alpha?” Katara murmured, not realizing she was saying habitual words until they were out of her mouth. Because, she remembered, Zuko was sad sometimes. Troubled sometimes. He worried. Katara stroked the back of his arm, cupping her fingers around his as they stilled on her breast.

He heaved a long sigh and nosed her gland a little more firmly. “Heat’s almost over,” he rasped in a voice rough from sleep and misuse. 

“And that makes you sad,” She snorted softly. “Aren’t you tired and sore? I’m so tired and sore...” 

“Yeah, but...” he mumbled even softer against her skin, his breath hot and damp and comforting on that sore spot. “...a little pain is a small price to pay to feel this way.”

“Mm...” Katara drew a long breath, scenting that particular warm and sweet smell that hung so heavy and constant on him now. She turned her head to let his hair tickle her nose and quickly found herself burrowing into it. “How is it possible for you to smell so good? When was the last time you bathed?”

“Uh... I got in the river at least... five? Days ago? Maybe six. I haven’t exactly had a lot of interest in time or hygiene for a while.”

“We definitely need a bath,” Katara chuckled, “but you do smell nice.”

“...So do you.” His voice was getting a little clearer, his scent growing more complex as his mind woke up. “Does that mean you want to take a bath with me?” he asked very quietly.

He didn’t shift his hips at all but there was a subtle movement against her butt as he began to stiffen. His hand shifted to hold the weight of her breast, gentle and leisurely.

“What, you mean sit in the river with you?” Katara smirked and kissed his temple. “Yeah, I would sit in the river with you.”

“I was thinking more like... a hot spring... or some deep pool we can soak in. Doesn’t have to be hot. I can make it hot.” His mouth opened against her gland and his tongue dragged slowly over the sensitive skin. 

Katara shuddered. The sensation was so... complicated. It felt good, zinged pleasure through her, but it hurt that sore spot too... and yet it itched. Like licking wasn’t hard enough. Licking was just a maddening tickle when she needed something... sharper.

Had... Had Zuko bitten her? She didn’t really remember it if he had. Her gland was sore but not as sore as she would expect if she’d been bitten through the skin. The last thing she remembered was... talking about becoming mates- No, she remembered grabbing his ear because he was trying to get out of doing something she needed him to do... Had they been outside? It was all terribly fuzzy. 

But that didn’t seem all that important right now. What seemed important, what preyed on Katara’s mind, was whether he had bitten her. Whether he had claimed her properly. Because it was important that he did that and, if he didn’t do it, she could be in danger-

Katara frowned. Where had that notion come from?

“Er... sorry,” Zuko said, removing his mouth and pulling back his hips suddenly. His hand started to withdraw from her breast as well. “I thought you might... sorry...”

“What? Sorry for what?” Katara caught his hand and mashed it back in place. She wanted to lay like this for a while, probably for the rest of the night, and all of a sudden he was trying to escape and taking his comforting warmth with him. Only he wasn’t moving now; he just lay still and hesitant behind her.

“It just seemed like you didn’t like that. All of a sudden.”

“Oh! No... I was just thinking...” She rolled into the space he had vacated, pressing her back firm against the solid warmth of his chest. He quickly closed the gap the rest of the way, curling the arm she had been resting her head on to close snug along her collarbone. His semi-hard dick rested against her hip. It was exceedingly casual and immediately drew the lion-turtle’s share of her attention.

“Thinking about what?” he asked into her hair, faintly worried.

“I’m having trouble remembering things, I guess... Did... Did you bite me?”

“No,” he said at once, smelling a little proud. “I mean, I bit you kind of a lot, but I didn’t mark you. I didn’t pierce your gland.”

“Oh,” Katara said, feeling a lot of things all at once. 

She was relieved of course! Because-! Because she didn’t want to just wake up and find herself bound to Zuko for the rest of her life! That would have been terrible! Way too sudden! They hadn’t even really had a proper conversation about it, or at least hadn’t had a chance to finish the conversation they had started, so it was only respectful of him to not bite her until they had done that.

But knowing all that, telling herself that firmly, didn’t stop disappointment from aching terribly through her chest and throat. She was unarguably disappointed that he hadn’t bitten her. Because that meant he hadn’t claimed her - hadn’t wanted her enough, her omega mournfully insisted. Zuko had decided the things she wanted were too much and he wasn’t willing to do them. He would rather go on chasing Aang and trying to redeem himself to a man who didn’t deserve even a fraction of the goodness Zuko was capable of. He wanted to win back his honor from a man who, as far as Katara was concerned, had no honor, being as he was a child-mutilating monster in addition to being a warmongering tyrant. Zuko wanted that more than he wanted her.

Her relief and crushing disappointment were becoming mingled with more and more anger. And hurt. And fear.

...Because at some point in the future - maybe in six months like Yugoda had said and maybe just at random - she was going to go into heat again. She was going to have to figure out what to do all over again. And the chances of there being another alpha as good as Zuko, as honorable and considerate as Zuko, were not good. More likely, since Zuko hadn’t wanted her, the next time she went into heat-

-yellow eyes, but not Alpha’s eyes, hungry and cruel and waiting and Alpha was not here-

“Hey,” Zuko said suddenly, holding her tighter to his chest. “Woah - what’s going on?”

“I...” Katara hesitated, not sure where the image had come from - or the intense fear that accompanied it. “Something... happened. Something really scary happened, but I don’t remember what.”

“Another alpha found us,” he said, the words drawn out like he was struggling to remember, too. “My sister. I kind of remember fighting her... and I remember carrying you here.”

“She was in the nest with me,” Katara realized, horror thick in her throat. “Watching me.”

Zuko’s arms tightened even more around her, and his breath came harder over her gland. He smelled like anxiety and guilt, but Katara hardly noticed that. Very suddenly, she remembered.

“I bent our... stuff at her.”

“What stuff?”

“Right in her face. I was aiming for her throat but she dodged...” She smirked, repulsed and delighted in equal measure. “...just not quite enough.”

Zuko made a choked sound. “That’s... so disgusting.”

“Serves her right for being a creep.”

“I’m so sorry, Katara,” he said in a tight rush, angry and frustrated and ashamed. “I should have been there. I should have been able to protect you.”

“You did.” It was just true. She knew deeply that Zuko had protected her, that he had done exactly what he was supposed to do. “We’re safe and together now - that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t protected me.”

He was quiet for a long moment, brooding on something. “I... I think I had help. I think my uncle was there. And... I don’t know, that might have been some kind of dream.”

Katara let herself rest a moment, just feeling the firm pressure of his arms around her. Scenting his longing and hope. It warmed her, chased her lingering fear away. “That’d be so great, Zuko. If your uncle found you. Right at the moment when you needed him. I mean, I guess it’d also be pretty weird too, because we’re... we’ve been... And it’s probably pretty obvious...” She could feel herself blushing harder and harder as she thought of that kindly old man witnessing... any part of whatever had happened.

Zuko heaved a gusty sigh. “Don’t worry. There’s not a lot of my life over the last seven years that my uncle hasn’t witnessed more closely than I wanted him to. It’s embarrassing but...”

His warm, sweet scent built back up a little.

“...he means well. If Uncle Iroh really is here somewhere, he’ll be looking out for us.”

“That’s pretty reassuring,” Katara said, letting Zuko’s calm confidence buoy her with him. “I just... kind of hope your uncle didn’t see me naked and... you know... saying things.”

“Even if he did,” Zuko said gently, “it’s just heat. He knows that... he taught it to me. Honestly, everything I know about being an alpha I learned from him.”

“He must be pretty good then,” she murmured, pressing a slow, unthinking kiss to the forearm holding her so close, “if he taught the best alpha.”

.

.

Zuko breathed Katara’s calm, contented scents and held her to his chest and fought not to be distracted by her breast in his hand while he tried to decide how to proceed. His head still wasn’t fully clear yet, and his alpha was chafing against the back of his mind-

Time is running out. You have to bite her now. Claim her before her heat fully ends or she’ll fly away and you won’t get another chance!

-but the alpha was no longer the dominating force it had been. Zuko’s mind felt stretched out, like he’d been sharing it with something massive that had since departed. He finally had room to think... but he felt a little like he had to relearn how. And there wasn’t time for that!

He hadn’t bitten her. She’d begged him to bite her, over and over for days, but he hadn’t, because he hadn’t believed it was what Katara wanted. And it had to be what she wanted if he was going to bite her and bond her to him permanently. He had to be what she wanted.

And her reaction to the news that he hadn’t bitten her, that quick slide from relief to fierce disappointment, and a whirlwind of even less pleasant emotions... Zuko didn’t like it that she felt that way and intended to rectify that as quickly as possible, but he was also struck with fresh hope - because if she was disappointed that he hadn’t bitten her, maybe she really would like him to bite her.

Katara, not just her omega in her desperation. Katara might want to be mated to him! It was a possibility almost too sweet to be believed...

But then she had become deeply afraid and he had dropped the notion to comfort her and... remember... which was a strain all on its own. He hoped both that Uncle was somewhere not too far away and that some of the other faces he remembered in vague flashes were just hallucinations. But that was a problem for later.

Presently, the most important thing was her lips dabbing against his forearm as she called him the best alpha - and she wasn’t even being sarcastic, she was just calling him that. Maybe with the slightest bit of teasing. And apparently she wanted his hand - Zuko’s hand - to be on her breast, because she was still holding it in place there, her fingers nested atop his as he cupped her. And that was excellent. Very good, very promising signs...

He briefly squeezed her pillowy flesh while her fingers rode the back of his hand snugly in silent encouragement. He lost his train of thought for a time. He was hardening a little against her hip again, but her intense demanding scents had mellowed and, without them, his body did not rouse with the sort of enthusiasm he was accustomed to. Her heat was winding down and his alpha woefully informed him he’d likely missed his shot to seed her one last time because he’d been sleeping like a fucking mortal for hours now.

Not that he felt entirely up to the task to start with. He ached all over - pretty miserably in some places - but the drive to be close to her was so powerful, it was easy to set aside the throbbing in his ribs and hands. If she wanted him again, by Agni she would get him. He could certainly touch her and hold her like this forever. Until her thumb idly traced the fresh scabs on the back of his hand and pricked his alpha’s urgency.

“Katara, do you still want me to bite you?” he blurted with his lips brushing her gland. He hadn’t meant to sound so eager to do it, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. His rut was winding down with her heat, but maybe he was a little dumb from it still. He chose to believe that was the case.

Katara, meanwhile, smelled a little confused. “Still?”

“You’ve been asking. Well, your omega has been asking.” He frowned as it came back to him a little clearer. “Demanding, actually.”

She withdrew her hand from the back of his and reached up to slide her fingers under his lips to feel her gland.

“At first, I kind of thought you had already done it,” she said quietly, embarrassed. “It’s so sore.”

“Yeah...” Zuko murmured, also embarrassed. He kissed slowly at her knuckles in a sort of half-felt apology. “I’ve been a little... focused... the last few days.”

“What did you do, chew on it?” she asked sourly.

Zuko huffed out an annoyed breath. “Yeah! Alright? It tastes amazing. I couldn’t stay away from it. It was all I could do to not sink my teeth in as hard as I could every time. Especially with you egging me on to claim you and mate you and keep you...” He sighed again and dialed back his frustration to mere surliness. “So yeah. I chewed on it a little. But mostly I just sucked on it. Your biggest complaint up til now has been that I haven’t bitten you. But I wanted to make sure you were sure. When you were really you.”

She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers lingering still between his mouth and her gland - but they raised up, the backs of her knuckles stroking his chin, tracing his jaw. 

She smelled like aching hope.

“Are you sure? Do you even remember all that stuff you said you’d do?” she asked, clearly still believing he was an idiot. But she went on touching his face tenderly anyway.

Her finger traced his bottom lip and he couldn’t resist kissing it, giving it the lightest nip. His heart hammered in his chest. “I remember.”

She got a grip on his chin and turned her head, apparently trying to scowl at him through the dark. “And you’re suddenly just fine with all of that? What about being my lackey?”

Zuko released his hold on her shoulder and straightened out his arm that still rested under her head. He sparked up a little flame in his palm off to the side so he could glare back down at her - but was immediately surprised by how very, very close her face was to his. Katara squinted up at him as her eyes adjusted to the light. They were clearer than he had seen them in days now - clearer even than that first night - and she was presently using them to shoot daggers at him from close range. Her mouth was a tiny, pouty little frown.

Zuko wanted desperately to kiss it until it bloomed for him, but they were negotiating right now. It was important he maintain focus.

“Some of your lackey work doesn’t sound so bad,” he admitted, eyes flicking between hers and her lips. “Rubbing your feet and treasuring you... and sex whenever and however you want... That’d be...nice. I could handle that.”

He wanted to. Desperately. He’d had a taste of what it felt like to take care of her and he wanted to keep doing it so he could keep on feeling the way he felt with her sighing and satisfied beside him. 

Katara’s anger scents faded and her eyes widened. She stared up at him like she meant him to fall in those blue pools and drown. Her fingers traced gently up his jaw. 

“And you-” She shrugged, struggling. He felt the tight twitch of her shoulder against his chest, in the hand still cupping her breast. “You’d really be willing to stop trying to capture Aang? Just... give up trying to end your banishment and go home? Just like that?”

Zuko drew a deep breath. Hearing it laid out so frankly made it harder, more firm in his mind. A real ledge he was getting ready to throw himself off of rather than just a vague idea of falling. He wanted to press his face back to her gland, smell that comforting spicy-sweet smell at its source - because that was home now - but he had to deal with this first. He had to face it, and tell her the things she needed to know to be certain of her decision. To know exactly what she was getting. His mouth, unthinkingly, twisted down into a tight frown.

“I’ve been struggling for a while now,” he finally managed, “to see a way forward. For so long, capturing the Avatar was my one goal and purpose, because that was the only way to get my life back. My honor. My home. My future. I lost all of that. But if I could just do this one thing, I could get it back. And when the Avatar returned-” His lip curled harder, an unthinking scowl. “-it wasn’t impossible anymore. It wasn’t just a... cruel false hope. It was real. And it seemed, at first, that capturing the Avatar really was my destiny. Because why else would he come back right when he did, right when I was there to see it.” 

She was watching him with that compassionate furrow in her brow. She smelled like soft feelings that made him uncomfortable talking about this. But he had to. Zuko grimaced, glared off to the side and focused on keeping his little flame steady. 

“Then the North happened. I had him, and I still failed. My father decided to bring me home - as a prisoner - so I couldn’t embarrass him again. And for nearly two years now I’ve been wandering the fucking Earth Kingdom as a fugitive and a beggar and a thief. I try not to use a name at all, because I hate lying about who I am or pretending to be some simple refugee when I’m not... But lately, it’s started to feel like that anonymity itself is an identity. I became no one and I had no destiny and I had no worth. And I couldn’t live like that, just drifting. I couldn’t just give up being who I am.”

Her fingers stroked his jaw and she smelled so powerfully, achingly gentle. Zuko couldn’t look at her. He was remembering the exact sound of a boy who had tried so hard to befriend him, a kid he had fought and bled to see free, shouting I hate you. He was remembering the desolate feeling of riding out of that town with all the occupants lining the streets with rocks and pitchforks in their hands and all the friendliness burnt off their faces. 

It would be so easy for Katara to turn from him that way now.

The very thought cut him horribly, and the logical part of his mind scrambled to deny it - because no, maybe she had started out her heat feeling about him much the way those townsfolk had felt, but he and Katara were bonded now, they had seen each other so deeply and so nakedly, there was no going back to where they had been... 

And yet her mother had been killed by a firebender in her home, and her people had been driven into ruin by raids. He had personally chased her and her friends around the world for years. She had just as much of a right to drive him away as those townsfolk had. More. Her life was just as devastated, just as much cruelly reshaped as any of theirs.

Even as he’d ridden out of that town, he’d understood their hostility was born from decades of Fire Nation aggression and ruthless tactics. Maybe he was the stranger who had fought their tormentors for them - who could have been a hero, someone a kid could look up to - but he was also part of the nation at the root of all their personal tragedies. It didn’t matter how much good Zuko tried to do; it didn’t change who and what he was. He couldn’t erase the destruction his nation had wrought on the world. And he couldn’t expect people to be grateful to him for fighting some minor battle for them when their suffering just went on and on with the war. 

He couldn’t expect Katara to want anything to do with him when she understood that he could never truly shed his connections to his past life. 

But knowing there would be consequences did not change what Zuko felt he had to do. He couldn’t lie by omission. He needed Katara to know that choosing him, keeping him, meant keeping all the baggage of his identity, too.

“You need to know,” he said, glaring at his little flame and hoping desperately that she wouldn’t start to hate him now, “no matter how much I want to, I can’t just be your alpha. I’ll always be Zuko, the banished prince of the Fire Nation. Even if I do stop trying to capture the Avatar, my past is always going to follow me - because I won’t pretend to be something I’m not. I won’t forget who I am and what I come from.”

Her fingers immediately unfurled up his cheek. “I wouldn’t ask you to stop being you... just... maybe a you who doesn’t want to capture my friend...”

“Who’s given up trying to restore my honor and end my banishment,” Zuko clarified a little bitterly. “You want a version of me that’s decided not only to turn my back on my nation, but to actively fight against it.” 

He had not entirely acknowledged to himself yet what it meant that he was willing to do this, that he was willing to abandon his mission and that glorious destiny and instead grab hold of this one - perhaps ignoble, perhaps shallow and selfish, perhaps morally right. He had not thought it through fully yet. He just knew it felt right. In the same way his alpha often told him things were right. But Katara pounced before he could think any harder on it.

“What I want is for you to recognize that what the Fire Nation is doing to the world is wrong! And that your father had no right to do any of that to you in the first place! And that going along with it and fighting so hard to fulfill his impossible conditions is just letting a literal tyrant continue to rule you when he has no right to treat you-”

She stopped short, smelling swept up in intense turmoil. Anger and hurt and worry. Her fingers pressed stiff against his cheek but did not withdraw.

In the past, Zuko might have gotten angry now. He might have defended his nation or his father, or tried to dismiss what she was saying as the ravings of any peasant who got hurt in the inevitable unfairness of life and war. But he had seen too much of the world and too much of her. He couldn’t look at Katara and see just anyone anymore. Hearing Katara talk this way, he couldn’t help but be excited, enticed. Because there was no doubt in his mind that this girl would fight the Fire Lord himself if he stood before her. 

Zuko peered down at Katara’s unhappy face - and was struck all over again by how singular she was. How brave and bold. Even when her eyes were anxious and angry and turned away from him. It was easier, looking at her lovely face, to keep going.

“When I came here, I believed that capturing the Avatar was the only way to go on being Zuko,” he said, “because that was my destiny, the one chance I had to force my father to give me my life back-”

There was a whiff more hurt on her, building quick and terrible, so he pressed hurriedly on.

“-but it had never really occurred to me before that I could build a better life than the one I had. A life that was more... mine. Or that there might be another destiny open to me - one that didn’t feel like a shameful burden, but a gift.”

He withdrew his hand from her breast so he could cup her cheek, tug her back to look at him. To see him. She went easily, watched him with her wide, uncertain eyes.

“Finding you here, realizing it’s always been your scent I was following when I was on the Avatar’s trail - that was so... annoying.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not just because it felt like you were on some personal quest to make my life harder, but because it seemed at first like it was only a biological compulsion. Like my alpha had been tricking me for years all just for this opportunity to take over and force me to do what it had wanted all along.”

“Yeah,” Katara uttered as if not quite able to keep it back. Because she knew exactly what he was talking about. So he hoped... he really hoped the next thing would be the same way.

“But... some of the things my alpha has been driving me toward are things I actually do want. I’ve just never... allowed myself to want them. Because it seemed weak or wrong to want those things.”

“Which things?” she whispered.

The thought of revealing what he was about to reveal made Zuko extremely nervous. He lay here naked beside her, had recently blathered far more humiliating drivel at her, and yet he was certain he would somehow become even more exposed by admitting to these desires now, with his control mostly returned to him. Like he was pointing her right toward the spot where she could hurt him worst. And she might! Katara wasn’t exactly a peaceful and gentle soul.

No... She was like him. She had rage and frustration and good reasons for it, and she still managed to be so kind and sweet and good. 

“I don’t just want to chase you around, waiting for your heat to come,” he admitted softly, tense and rigid. “I mean, if that was all you wanted with me, I’d take it. The thought of catching you like that is... I mean, obviously, that appeals to me kind of a lot, but it would never really be enough. Because I don’t just want... I want more from you than a wild time twice a year, too.”

He had to pause to swallow, but his mouth was suddenly so dry. He stroked his thumb across her silky skin, drank in the cool waters of her eyes. She watched him, staring, listening.

“I miss there being... love. In my life. I miss my uncle. And my mom. It’s been getting clearer and clearer to me since you started to trust me that that’s what you are. Love. And lots of other things, too, but just... I want that. A lot. I want love. And kindness. And caring. I want a family built on that.”

She was practically gaping at him now, surprised and disbelieving and giving off the almost cloying scent of her rebounding hope. Her fingers on his face were stroking, tugging. Zuko licked his lips and pressed on.

“That’s the destiny I want. I want to be with you, beside you, as your alpha and your mate. And a caring and supportive partner, and the father of your children. Eventually. One day. When you’re ready for that. And I guess,” he forced out, blushing hard and rolling his eyes and shaking his head in disbelief at himself, “I couldn’t just... hang around watching you be the grownup and not help you or carry things for you. That wouldn’t be treasuring you. So of course I’d need to do that.” He scowled suddenly and huffed hard out his nose. “But I’m not gonna be nice about it to your friends. They’re gonna help, too. I’m not just gonna do chores while your brother and the Avatar run off to play.”

Zuko was struck with an overwhelming sense of disorientation because that was... such a bizarre sentence to say aloud. This entire proposal was so other-worldly and strange, it was just insane that he was really about to commit to it... But when he looked back down at her stunned, wondering face, when he felt his heart slide out of his chest and sink down into her clutches, he knew he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“Sokka doesn’t play,” Katara offered, a little prim and quiet. “He actually contributes a lot by getting food... and Aang doesn’t really play around so much anymore. Everybody takes turns at some tasks... Well. Mostly.”

“Right,” Zuko said, watching her shifty eyes narrowly. “That’s why they need a grownup to take care of them.”

She narrowed her eyes back at him and seemed on the verge of making a pithy reply, but then searched his face for something instead. “Does... Does this mean you’re going to teach Aang firebending?”

Zuko huffed and glared at his little flame, fighting a nasty internal battle. “You said that made you feel more receptive, so yeah, I guess-”

He was cut off by her hand in his hair, dragging his head down and her mouth pressing hard against his. Her lips were so soft and Zuko swiftly found himself tumbling into her kiss, matching the cautious strokes of her tongue and angling his head a bit for a deeper angle as she opened for him. Her fingers stroked over his scar and delved through his hair again and again. His senses flooded with her pleasure and hope and... and affection... and maybe even... and suddenly his dick was throbbing hard against her hip and- 

Katara parted from him abruptly. “Is this all just rut-Zuko talking?” she demanded.

“Huh?” Zuko panted a little. “Wha-?”

“How sure are you that you’re gonna feel this way when your rut is over?” she pressed. It was half a fierce demand and half an anxious plea. Her hope was strong, scintillating, but fear pervaded it, faint but sharp. “What if your head clears the rest of the way and you go right back to chasing Aang? If I let you bite me, I’d be bound to you permanently regardless of what you do, and what would any of what you’re saying now be worth if it’s just your rut talking?”

Zuko didn’t know how to tell her that he knew that wasn’t going to happen without sounding like he was still under the influence of his alpha. His rut really was almost over, but he wasn’t sure he could convincingly say that with his erection pressed against her like it was.

“I wouldn’t go back on my word in any case, but I’m pretty confident this isn’t gonna change for me,” he said instead. “I don’t want to rush you, though.” He stroked her cheek and admired the way his firelight made the rich warm tone of her skin even warmer. “I promised to take you to a healer. So I will. Maybe we just... travel together for a while and see how it goes.”

His alpha was scolding him viciously, but it didn’t matter. Her cheek shifted under his fingers as a smile pulled it up. The furrow in her brow eased a tiny bit, like clouds clearing to free up the sun. Her pleasure and reassured calm spilled over him like a sunbeam.

You were stupid to delay - the waterbender will only get stronger and make up excuses and pick fights more and more now. Omega wanted your claim, needed it, and you were too stubborn to be a good alpha-!

But Zuko just ignored those mopey accusations. Because this wasn’t really about claiming an omega. It wasn’t about some instinctual imperative. It wasn’t even just his destiny, either. It was their destiny, their future. A path he wanted to walk with her - but only if Katara actually wanted to walk it with him. And if she needed time to be sure, he would provide it. He would do whatever it was going to take to convince her.

...but if she was going to choose him freely, there was more she needed to consider. Stuff she should be aware of. 

Her fingers slid steadily up his face to stroke his scar. Zuko felt her touch and her emotions wash around him like sun-warmed surf, fresh and unexpectedly desperately needed. He drew courage from it and plunged ahead.

“Since we’re thinking all this through though... There are some things you really ought to keep in mind as you’re making your decision...”

.

.

Katara felt like she was soaring, but she needed to get her feet back on the ground. Zuko leaned over her, his frowning mouth inches away and his stare fixed on her as he talked. The light from his little flame mostly just illuminated his scar and his twisted eye, but she could see him better somehow than she ever had before. She saw the faint widening of that eye, the alert brightness. Worry. She could see it there and she could scent it rising off his skin, mingling with the warm sweetness she had come to find so comforting and enticing. 

“I don’t know how it is in the Water Tribe, but in the Fire Nation, it’s not exactly a great honor,” he was saying tightly, “to be bound to a man who’s been disowned by his father.”

Katara shook her head and stroked his jaw. “I’m not worried about that.”

He frowned at her as if not entirely convinced, then pressed on. “Okay, but what about our relative positions in the war? That worried you kind of a lot earlier...”

“Your position is changing, Zuko. It’s not really the same if you’re really serious about teaching Aang firebending.”

“I am! But changing course now doesn’t just make the past - or my status as a prince of the warmongers - go away.”

It would be more enjoyable, Katara was certain, to reach down and stroke his cock instead of talking about any of this... but she kept her hand on his face and tried to focus on what was important here.

Zuko wanted her, wanted to bite her and keep her with him forever, wanted it enough to agree to all the things he had scoffed at before, but he wasn’t pressing her to say yes. He was being patient, methodical... Not unlike their first time, when he had sat down outside the nest - also naked and hard - and talked her through her misgivings. The erection against her hip was flagging now, though. It seemed pretty clear that his rational mind had started working again, since he was using it presently to throw every practical obstacle he could think of in her path - and, with her own mind still kind of fuzzy, it was difficult to sort through it all.

“I have a responsibility to the Fire Nation, Katara. It may be a long shot, but there’s a chance it could fall to me to rule one day. If that happens, if it comes down to me or Azula, what would you do then? Would you force me to choose between that duty and my family? Or would you go with me to the capitol and into all the danger that might mean for you and our children? And my kids-” He peered down at her, his eyes widening and the furrow deepening in his brow. “My kids would be in that line of succession, too. They would be princes and princesses of the Fire Nation. They could be firebenders. Could you deal with that? Considering... your mom? And what if-?”

His mouth stilled as Katara slid her thumb up from his chin to his bottom lip. She let her fingers stroke back up his cheek to the leathery flesh of his scar, let the texture of it ground her mind. 

His fretful questions were actually as reassuring as they were frustrating. His awareness of all these hurdles they might face ahead and his unflinching willingness to face them with her, to ask her these hard questions now before she was committed and to talk through all of it with her, to find out what she wanted... 

All of that only made her want him more. Her omega, in the back of her brain, was chanting quietly.

...bite me Alpha bite me Alpha bite me Alpha...

Katara swallowed that back and worked to think. It seemed kind of... far-fetched that Zuko might one day become Fire Lord. Between the long banishment and his present state as a naked, unwashed maybe-criminal and definitely-fugitive of the Fire Nation, the odds of him somehow ascending to the throne struck her as poor. 

But if he did, if duty called him to a palace in a strange land, would Katara be willing to follow him there? Could she? The thought was a little frightening... but Katara had traveled the world; she knew places were usually strangest and most frightening before she had been there. It was more frightening right now to think about what might happen if Zuko chose his duty to his nation over his duty to his family...

But then again, what might happen if he chose his family - and the Fire Nation was ruled by his sister instead?

At the present moment, with her thoughts swimming and her heart swooping, she couldn’t say exactly what might happen, what she would do, or how she might feel about it later. But she was certain about one thing.

“I would love my children if they were born firebenders,” she said, stroking back to his mangled ear, tugging it gently. “Would you love your kids if they were all waterbenders?”

That scarred eye widened, then shut as he smiled ruefully. Then it opened and fixed on her, warm and soft. “I would love my kids no matter what.”

“Would they still be in line for the throne?” Katara asked, smirking a little at the thought. “A waterbending Fire Lord?”

“The sages would put up a fight,” Zuko admitted with a sort of grim determination and the faintest amusement, “but I wouldn’t let anyone deny my kids their birthright. I can be pretty persistent.”

Katara stroked his smooth part of his cheek with her thumb as her fingertips traced the ridges of his scar. She was thinking about all the times she had cursed that persistence, all the times he had appeared like a bad dream, threatening and inevitable. But now she thought, too, of how Zuko would use that same persistence to defend his kids - their kids...

“I know you don’t want to be pregnant right now,” he said abruptly, low and kind of rushed. “It’s not a good time, I know that. And the thought of suddenly becoming a father is pretty terrifying but-” He was frowning again, struggling to put words to a powerful feeling. Longing, sweet and sharp on the air between them. “But I think one day I could be. I really want to be. The kind of father you said, I mean. Proud and devoted and loving. I want that. And I know you don’t right now but- do you think you might one day? Not just your omega, I know your omega would but would you? Want to...” He licked his lips. He was blushing hotter and hotter. “Do you think you could really want to have babies with me?”

Want your babies right now, Alpha...

Katara cleared her throat and blushed a bit, too, because it didn’t really matter that now was a bad time for a baby, not to the omega curled up and satisfied inside her - and she was realizing now, all of a sudden, how deeply the omega had gotten to her. That little boat bobbing out on the still water, that sweet possibility that no longer felt like a threat or a hardship at all... Logically, Katara knew better. Babies were so much work! She’d been around enough babies and new mothers to know that. But Zuko, she realized suddenly, almost certainly had not.

“Have you even held a baby before?” she asked tartly. “Do you have any idea how much work babies are?”

Zuko blinked down at her. “I know they have a lot of needs-”

“Constant. Babies have constant needs. Feeding and burping and changing nappies and washing and soothing and sometimes they just cry for hours - but you can never lose your temper with a baby no matter how frustrated you get!”

What are you doing? her omega stirred, its panic rising. Don’t! You’ll scare Alpha away! He can learn all this after he holds his baby and his heart is stitched to us forever-

“Of course not,” Zuko huffed irritably. “I wouldn’t lose my temper with a baby.”

Katara frowned at him and elbowed her wailing omega back in the corner where it belonged. “You lost your temper repeatedly with a twelve-year-old child.”

That little flame flared in Zuko’s hand.

“He’s the Avatar! Legendary master of the fucking elements! Not some helpless infant!”

Katara just watched him narrowly. Those yellow eyes were wide and outraged now as he went on.

“That first time he escaped, he almost sank my ship! My crew would have drowned or frozen to death! It took a full day to dig out of the ice. And that was nothing compared to what he did to the armada at the North. He might be your little buddy, but he is not a normal kid.”

“No,” Katara agreed sternly. “Aang doesn’t ever get to be normal, but he’s still a kid. And if you’re going to travel with us and train him, you’re gonna have to do it without exploding at him all the time.”

Zuko stared at her in disbelief for a tense moment, then turned his scowl on the flame in his hand. His mouth was a tight frown and he breathed slow and deep through his flared nostrils. He smelled furious. And a little hurt.

“And if you can do that,” Katara said, prim and superior, “you might be ready to deal with a baby.”

His eyes snapped back down to her. “I didn’t ask if you thought I was ready. I know I’m not. I asked if having a baby with me was something you could ever really want.”

Katara swallowed, pinned under his hard stare.

“Because if it’s just your omega that wants that, and in reality you still find the idea of having my baby disgusting, I won’t-”

“I never said that! Did I say that?”

He just looked at her harder. “You didn’t have to say it. It was in your scent.”

“Oh... that wasn’t exactly about... babies.” Katara felt herself blushing now and couldn’t quite meet his stare, had to turn her eyes upward instead. “That was more about... you being my enemy and... ejaculating inside me.” 

Just talking about it - muttering actually, because she couldn’t bring herself to say it above a certain volume - had her flushing all over, embarrassed and excited and grossed out all at once. Because Zuko really had deposited a huge volume of semen inside her over the last five or six or however many days...

And she kind of wanted him to add a little more, now that the subject had come up. 

Her face was on fire.

“Oh,” he said now, his tone uncertain, a little breathy. “You really are... conflicted... about that.”

“Mm hm,” Katara said, biting her lips and staring at the dim circle in the ceiling. The sun was rising somewhere up there, the sky slowly softening from black to blue. It was still dark in the cave, but not for much longer... 

That didn’t seem terribly important with his cock getting hard against her hip again as he breathed in her conflicted feelings.

“But you still haven’t answered the question,” he said with gentle persistence. His fingers traced a slow line down her jaw and throat, grazed her gland, then eased back up again. “Could you ever really want to have my baby, Katara?”

Katara hesitated, but there was no hiding her arousal, her pleasure and excitement at the prospect - and at his asking. He knew the answer, had to be able to smell it on her, but instead of accepting her tacit confirmation, he just grew bolder, pushed harder for her to admit it.

“Because I really want you to have my baby,” Zuko whispered hotly beneath her ear. Katara groaned, shivered. “I know now is a bad time, but - fair warning, waterbender - there’s a part of me that isn’t quite my alpha that’s hoping we don’t find that healer-” His fingers trailed down until they teased around her breast, tugged her nipple the way she liked best. “-and that your old herbs fail-” He tugged her other nipple, slow and exquisitely hard. Katara panted. Her fingers dug through his hair seemingly all on their own. His hand slid down again to her belly, just above her pubic hair, where it splayed out flat and hot. “-and that this baby we worked so hard to make, our baby, keeps growing despite what our better judgment tells us. Because the thought of my baby inside you...” 

He growled a little, adjusted his hips so his stiff cock was pinned between their bodies, rutted a couple slow strokes against her. 

“I can’t get over it. And don’t worry - it doesn’t change anything. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, take you wherever you want to go, won’t drag my feet or mope for one second... but one day, I’m gonna want it to be real. I’ll want it to be on purpose. I want to make babies with you, and take care of you while you’re pregnant, and take care of them once they’re born.” He peered down at her, searching her eyes. “And I need to know right now if that’s on the table, Katara. Do you want that with me? Do you think you could?”

“Ugh,” Katara huffed, rolling her eyes and blushing and breathing hard. “Yeah, fine, okay! You won me over on the perfect beautiful babies. One day. Not while we’re living on a bison.”

“Mmm,” he sighed, bowing his head to kiss her, pulling gently on her belly and rolling his hips against her, slow and hard. And yet the enticing scent of his desire seemed almost faint while his happy scents were so powerful and so new, and that vast pink-and-gold cumulonimbus was settling fully, massively into place over all of it-

“I want to name my first daughter after my mom,” Katara panted when they broke apart. She watched him closely, watched his eyes. 

This wasn’t totally fair, she knew - testing his memory when their minds had been so compromised. But he had said he would remember. She was searching for a reason to refuse him now, to stop this thing before it became entirely real and forever. Before she - not just her omega - let her heart and hopes fix on him completely.

But Zuko met her stare without so much as batting an eye. “Kya is a good name. I’d like tha-”

This time, when she kissed him, she rolled over to face him, pressed her chest against his and sucked hard at his lips, licked them apart, tasted the texture of his tongue on hers. She ran her hand down his side with every intention of immediately getting a grip on his cock-

But he flinched and hissed as her hand passed over a spot that was hot and swollen in a drastically less sexy way. 

“What happened?” she gasped, immediately looking down at the injury and knowing on sight even in the fluttering half-light that it was nothing short of broken ribs. But that was far from the only wound she could see, now that she was looking.

“My sister, I guess,” Zuko grumbled. 

“Zuko! You’re a wreck!” 

He was covered in scrapes and cuts, scabs and long-dried blood. His shoulders were lined with nipped bruises - some of them obvious rings of toothmarks, the sight of which had Katara wincing in guilt and sympathy. She had broken the skin in places. She had clawed him; he had several sets of three or four lines scratched parallel down his chest and arms.

“It’s not that bad.” Zuko tugged her leg up to hitch over his hip and adjusted a little so his cock rested between her thighs, barely brushing past her entrance. “I’ve got this other really urgent thing I’d like you to-”

“What happened to your hand?” Katara squeaked, snatching his hand off her thigh and dragging it up for a closer look. “Did I bite you this hard?”

Unlike the nibbles on his shoulders, these bites looked like some kind of animal had attacked him. The punctures were deep and angry, swollen and discolored from trauma.

“No, that was me,” Zuko sighed, trying to drag his hand away. He rolled his hips a little, sliding his cock distractingly against her - but there was no real force or friction to it. Probably, he wanted that hand free to help rectify that. But Katara’s mind was entirely elsewhere now.

“What? Why would you do this to yourself?”

“I had to bite,” he huffed as if she was being dense and difficult. “I didn’t want to bite you before you were ready, so I just...”

He raised his hand and she let him place it - strangely, familiarly frustrating - over her gland.

“You need a healing,” Katara sniffed, and began sitting up.

“That can wait a little longer.” 

The light winked out and Zuko’s hands were suddenly both on her waist, dragging her over him so she straddled his hips. She fell a little forward, bracing her hands on his hard belly and chest, and was both irritated and afraid she might strike his wounded side. 

“Rrh! Zuko-”

But before she could really chastise him properly, a terrible and uncontrollable sensation shot through her. Sitting up with her legs spread, gravity brought forth a flood from inside her. Fluid spilled out of her, pooling down on Zuko’s dick and pelvis. Katara whined, a sound torn out of a deep place in her psyche. Zuko groaned and rolled his hips up against her.

“Oh no,” he grunted, not sounding in the least disappointed. His cock glided slickly against her through the copious wetness. “It took so long to get all that cum in there-” 

“So gross,” she whimpered - but despite her mixed feelings, her hips twitched to meet his grinding thrusts.

“-and you just let it spill out... Now we’re gonna have to start all over again...”

“We’re not doing that! Just... Just one more time.”

Katara was already gripping his cock, lining up his tip to her entrance. Sliding back to take him. It stung a little - she was so sore - but that was nothing next to the satisfaction of being filled again, having his girth back inside, stretching her walls just right.

“Agni, you feel so good,” he murmured, rolling his hips a little to shift his angle inside her. His hands slid down her thighs, then up her sides to her breasts, tugged her nipples perfectly.

Her eyes were adjusting to the pre-dawn gloom, so Katara could see his parted lips, his furrowed brow. She could see the way he twisted his jaw as he watched her move on him, the intense focus and strain on his face as she rode him slowly. His yellow eyes cutting the dark between them to study her, savor the sight of her.

She had never been on top before - or at least, not before her heat - so it might have felt awkward and new... but she seemed to recall being on top rather a lot recently. Her body knew exactly what it was doing. Her hips made little circles, grinding his bulk deliciously into all sorts of sensitive places. She braced her hands on his chest and rolled her hips back, felt his pubic hair rasp little shocks of sensation against her clit. She spread her legs wider and bounced a little so his meaty head prodded delectably against her cervix. 

Katara flicked her eyes back down to Zuko. He was watching her breasts jiggle like that was the most interesting thing in the world, his hands clamped around her hips to help steady her in her forceful movements. She slowed back to grinding and planted her hands on his scratched-up chest.

“Do you like it like this, Zuko?” she found herself murmuring. 

His eyes flicked back up to hers and the furrow in his brow deepened. “I fucking love this.”

He tugged one of her hands off his chest and pulled it to his mouth, kissed and sucked and tenderly nipped at her fingers in a way that sent shivers running all through her.

“Hmm,” Katara purred. “I kind of got the impression you liked being in charge.”

Zuko just watched her languid movements for a long moment, meeting her eyes with that same fierce intensity while he bit the tough pad of her thumb. “A prince must always be in charge. An alpha is sometimes called to take charge.” He pressed the soft wet of his tongue against her thumb, soothing the pinch. “But a wise man can see the benefits of his lady taking charge of him.”

Katara smiled a little breathlessly, and went on winding against him. It was... weirdly charming to be called a lady here and now. Like this. And not just a lady, but his lady... “What benefits are those?”

“The incredible view, Katara.” His eyes narrowed, grew more heated, but despite the words, did not stray from her gaze. “And the satisfaction of witnessing you take your pleasure from my body. And of... being claimed... as yours. To do with as you like.”

“Mine,” Katara sighed, and the word seemed to jolt through her body, had her rocking back harder and circling tighter. “Only mine.”

“Yes.” Zuko’s eyes fell open wide and his head dropped back as he breathed harder through his mouth. He grasped at her hands, at her thighs and hips, his fingers hard and desperate and ineffective. “Only yours.”

“No second wives or concubines,” she said through bared teeth, climbing higher and closer. “I don’t care if you do become Fire Lord-”

“Only you.”

 “-in the Water Tribe, it’s one wife and one husband. That’s how it’s going to be.”

“Yes - just you and me, I’m yours-” His fingers closed hard over her hips, slotted into sore spots that had to be bruises, places he’d gripped her many times before. “-you’re mine!”

Katara felt his knot starting to thicken and tipped over, straining and groaning and squeezing his sides with her thighs as pleasure thundered through her. Zuko’s hips bucked up against her a few times and he spilled inside her, his release hotter than ever before. 

It felt different, and in her post-orgasmic haze, it took Katara a long moment to realize why. There was no massive, borderline-painful knot locked inside her. There was just a plump-but-softening cock, held inside just by her weight on his hips.

Zuko blinked up at her, looking very spent and faintly embarrassed. “I, ah... sorry?”

Katara, resting with her hands still braced on his chest while she caught her breath, squinted at him. “For what?”

“My, uh, my knot didn’t expand. I mean, a little but not... properly.”

“Yeah, I did notice that,” she said dryly. “Why are you apologizing?”

He shrugged, a little wild-eyed. “I just... thought I might have let you down.”

Katara screwed up her face, bewildered and a little charmed. “You didn’t, Zuko. You were perfect.”

He peered up at her with a sort of startled, touched expression, smelling very warm and very sweet and so very deeply good. Katara leaned forward to kiss him-

And they both hissed in pain as their now-extremely sore and tender genitals slipped apart. Katara eased herself over to his side and sat on one hip. Zuko, with some effort, managed to prop himself up on one elbow and then gingerly adjusted himself.

“Okay,” she huffed. “Now it’s healing time. Unless you have more urgent things that require my attention.”

“Nothing is more urgent than how awful I feel right now,” he grunted, struggling to get up to a seated position.

Katara streamed water from what appeared to be some kind of spring along one wall of the cave and set about healing them both. The chamber around them was stone - as she had guessed from the echoes she had heard previously - but the walls were surprisingly smooth and roughly conical. They slanted steeply upward to a point high overhead, where that imperfect circular hole opened onto the blue sky. When she had taken care of the worst of Zuko’s injuries, she sat back and frowned around at the space.

“How did you get us in here?”

He looked around like he, too, was struggling to piece it together. “There was another entrance - there.”

The rocky alcove he indicated was completely blocked off. Katara got a sour feeling in her belly. “That looks way too tidy to be a collapsed tunnel, Zuko. Was there an earthbender?”

“I didn’t see an earthbender... Or at least, I don’t remember seeing one.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t exactly in great shape when I got us here, though.”

“Maybe it was a well-meaning stranger,” Katara offered, “and they’ll come back and let us out when they realize my heat is over.”

“Right,” Zuko sighed, folding his arms over his chest and peering up toward the hole in the ceiling. He was very obviously trying to figure out a way to climb up there. 

But there wasn’t one. Not even any handholds in the rock. Getting to that hole would take essentially climbing on the ceiling. And it was hard to tell from the floor, but the hole itself looked pretty small. Clearly frustrated, Zuko turned a sour look back on her.

“Run into a lot of well-meaning strangers, Katara? Is that one of the perks of being in the Avatar’s entourage?”

“Yes, actually,” she said primly as she settled back to kneel in the nest and start picking through wadded fabric in search of something to wear. “People want to help us out because we pretty famously wants to help out the world.”

“Uh huh. When should I expect those benefits to start kicking in?” Zuko asked a little snidely. “Seeing as I’m part of the team now?”

“Pretty much immediately. You’ll see!” Katara irately tossed clothes aside as she distractedly identified them as things needing mending or stuff that no longer fit. He was being such a pill all of a sudden, and she was hungry, and none of this junk was wearable.

Zuko sighed and stalked to the far side of the nest, then settled beside her and held out a pouch for her. “Here, eat.”

Katara peered sideways at him for a moment, then took the pouch. It was half-full of nuts. Not really paying attention, she ate a few and held out a few to Zuko, who was frowning up at the skylight again. “How did you know I was hungry?” she finally asked.

“We were sleeping for a while.” He finally accepted the nuts - when she leaned over and pressed them into his hand. Slowly, watching her now, he ate one. “And I’m hungry, I guess. We have to figure out a way out of here, Katara. There’s a chance we may need to fight. You have to be ready.”

“Well yeah,” she scoffed, smiling and shaking her head. “I’m obviously gonna be ready to fight too. It’s just that sometimes, when we talk to people instead of, oh, chopping every vine in a sentient swamp, we find out we don’t need to be fighting at all.”

Zuko frowned at her like she was a particular brand of crazy he was not entirely unfamiliar with. She put a few more nuts in his hand and patted his bare knee. 

“Maybe just let me do the talking, okay?”

He peered at her dubiously, but then nodded and ate his nuts one by one. Katara picked out the dress that needed a new hem and the pants with the hole in one knee and shook out the worst of the wrinkles, then set them aside. Then she drew water from the spring and wet a rag and was about to wipe her face when Zuko cleared his throat.

“Allow me,” he said, clearly trying to sound cool.

Katara eyed his faintly smug smile and his outstretched hand. She very nearly blew him off just out of baseline suspicion, but decided she was curious enough to find out what this weird new behavior was. Frowning, she put the rag in his hand.

And he raised it to his face, shut his eyes, and breathed a gout of steam on it. When he handed it back to her, the rag was piping hot - so hot it took a second to cool enough for her to even use it.

During which time Katara stared at the smirking firebender beside her and entertained a number of ways in which Zuko could make himself extremely useful. Of course, she couldn’t tell him that he’d just won himself a lifetime of heating wash water and starting cook fires... That might discourage him from sharing more helpful little tricks in the future.

“Thank you, Zuko,” Katara said instead, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. A little red spot appeared nearby and his smirk morphed into a softer sort of smile.

They both got cleaned up and dressed - as much as was possible when Katara could only find clothes in need of mending and Zuko could only find his outer tunic. They investigated the spring, and it became clear that the holes through which the water came and went were actually quite small. So no escaping that way. It was as the morning sun was easing toward midday and they were eating more nuts that Katara noticed something unsettling. 

There was a little smiley face with an arrow drawn on the pouch of nuts.

“This is Aang’s.”

Zuko watched her, unsure of the significance of this, but Katara was looking around at the nest with fresh eyes, at the tooled leather canteen he had just been sipping from. This stuff was all so familiar, so none of it had set off any alarms before - but they were going off now.

“That’s Sokka’s canteen. And all this junk...” She lifted up a torn sleeve, the ratty spare blanket that made up the nest. “This is all stuff I left in the saddlebags.”

Zuko heaved a massive sigh, scowling and pinching the bridge of his nose. “They were there, too. When Azula attacked. I remember your brother carrying you.”

“What? And you just weren’t gonna tell me?” Katara demanded shrilly.

“I was hoping it was a hallucination!”

To her horror, pieces were falling into place for Katara, too. That was how she had escaped Azula. She distracted her with the surprise attack, but it was Aang and Sokka showing up that got her out of there.

Which meant they’d been there, way too close to her nest for comfort. Definitely close enough to smell a bunch of smells that were not their business to be smelling. Aang might have seen her naked! Sokka might have...!

“Did you have to fight my brother, too?” she wheezed.

“No...” Zuko rubbed the back of his head, thinking hard. “I was going to but... he wasn’t a rival. He was just trying to keep you safe. He... I’m pretty sure he let me take you after Azula was gone.”

Katara sputtered. “Maybe you did hallucinate, because that does not sound like Sokka.”

“Whatever exactly happened, it’s pretty clear your friends have been feeding us in here.”

They were both silent for a long moment, mulling over this bizarre development. “Is it possible you robbed them?”

Zuko scoffed, offended. “No! I don’t think!” He shrugged and scowled. “It took all I had left just to get you to a safe place. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to rob the Avatar too.”

Katara let out a long sigh and then groaned, because if Sokka and Aang were here, that probably meant-

As if on cue, there was a rumble as the rocks blocking the door rolled out of the way. Late morning sunshine spilled across the floor and a piping voice lanced in at them.

“Good morning, sluts! You two lovebirds ready to come out of the cone of shame yet?”

Zuko had leapt up into a bending stance, but Katara just put her hot face in her hands. “Toph...”

“You know this person?” he demanded in an undertone.

“It’s Aang’s earthbending teacher.”

“And friend!” Toph interjected, clearly eavesdropping. “Although, okay, I haven’t really been a great friend to you lately, Sweetness. I’m sorry I ditched you... It didn’t even occur to me how weird things could have gotten with you and Twinkle-toes until Snoozles got on my case about it.”

Katara was blushing impossibly even hotter. Zuko looked between her and the open door like he was putting together pieces of a puzzle.

“It must be a family skill, the nagging, because he’s really picked up the slack while you’ve been out of commission. I keep trying to tell him I hadn’t slept for like three days and it was so obvious you just needed to get your rocks off-”

“Don’t worry about it! Seriously!” 

“I didn’t realize that you needed me there, Katara. I’m sorry I bailed. Girl warriors don’t do other girl warriors dirty, but that’s what I did. You needed me to be a buffer and instead I left you alone with a guy you weren’t into when you were already kind of out-of-your-mind desperate and that could have-”

Zuko was watching her with widening eyes. Whatever picture the puzzle was revealing for him, he hadn’t expected it.

“Great! Thanks!” Katara grimaced, rubbing her forehead. “You can shut up about it now!”

His stare felt hot even now that she couldn’t meet it. She felt it on her skin, on her neck and face. It seemed to throb in her gland especially.

“I’m just still learning what it means to be needed as part of a group... Speaking of which, is Zuko, like, joining us or chasing us or what? There have been some debates around the campfire, let me tell you. Everybody likes Gramps, but both the boys have major hangups about this guy.”

Katara pressed her face into the comforting darkness of her palms. Worlds were colliding much faster and harder than she had anticipated and she wasn’t sure at all how she was gonna keep Aang and Sokka from freaking out, much less keep Zuko from-

“My uncle has just been hanging out with the Avatar?” he asked, disbelieving and faintly disgusted.

“What, me and Snoozles don’t count or something? He hangs out with all of us. He’s a cool old dude.” Toph let out a woeful sigh. “You’re really lucky to have someone who loves you that much looking out for you.”

Katara stole a look up at Zuko only to find him watching her steadily, his yellow eyes a little soft. “I know,” he said. 

Then he straightened, his posture suddenly very princely even if he was barefoot and dressed only in his threadbare over-tunic. With his head turned to look out the door and his jaw lifted and set with fresh resolve, he looked like that handsome stranger, noble and romantic and... hers. Katara’s heart fluttered in her chest.

“Whatever hangups they’ve got about me, they’re gonna have to get over them. I’m teaching the Avatar firebending.”

“Sweet,” Toph said, the smirk audible in her voice even from a distance.

But Katara didn’t really notice that, because Zuko was holding out his hand to her, watching her with those determined eyes. Serious, patient, kind. She slid her fingers into his warm palm and let him pull her to her feet. And it was like falling in a way when her arms swept up around his neck and she rocked up on her toes and her mouth found his softly, sweetly. He was briefly startled, but then hugged her to his chest and kissed her back. 

Chapter Text

“Ugh, come on! Haven’t you both sucked enough face for like a lifetime?”

Zuko broke away from the kiss to shoot a glower out the door - where there was still no earthbender in sight - and then fixed Katara with his bewildered outrage. She just patted his cheek sympathetically.

“Toph is blind and sees with earthbending.”

“Great,” he grumbled, only getting more irate as the implications of that sank in. No wonder Katara was so embarrassed. This little girl had been spying on them? For how long?! “That’s just great!”

“I also have pretty good hearing and my sense of smell is excellent, which has made being anywhere near you two losers super educational.”

“Well that’s not our fault!” Katara snapped.

She pulled away and stomped through the doorway into the sun, lecturing the whole while. Zuko watched her storm off, watched her fury and her shapely backside. She was so perfect... and she was his. Somehow, against all odds, so long as he didn’t screw it all up by being an angry idiot asshole, she could still decide to be his.

She had chosen him. She could have had the Avatar. And instead, she had chosen Zuko. That hadn’t really occurred to him before, that she might have spent her heat with the Avatar, but it was occurring to him now. Thundering through his head and heart like whitewater. She had chosen him over the Avatar.

Well, sort of. She hadn’t exactly gone looking for Zuko... But she had left the Avatar. She had rejected the Avatar. And she had later accepted Zuko. Well! She had initially rejected Zuko in various different, personally hurtful, gradually-diminishing ways... but she seemed to have truly come around now. After something like a week of near-constant fucking and a terrifying brush with Azula and some very deep emotional connecting... and an agreement to some pretty major life changes on Zuko’s part...

...which were, in the light of day, becoming disturbingly realer than they had been in the steamy naked space in which he had decided to make them...

But regardless of how it had come about or what was next, Zuko had been accepted by the same girl who had rejected the Avatar. Because Katara just wasn’t into that guy.

The earthbender had called the Avatar a guy, which was subtly different from how Zuko had always thought of him (and how Katara had just recently referred to him) - as a kid. When he’d last seen the Avatar in the North, he’d been stringy and thin and small, barely into puberty. He’d been so light, so easy to pick up and carry out of the citadel... But that had been two years ago, and the airbender Zuko vaguely remembered from the fight with Azula was not the same as the kid he had carried onto the tundra.

He’d gotten taller. Not as tall as Zuko, but taller than Katara. His movements were easy and graceful, his muscles toned from years of training, his face clear-skinned and bright-eyed. Confident. Charming.

Zuko thought he could probably hate the Avatar a lot more now that he was closing in on manhood. Especially when he was suddenly a teenaged guy who got to hang out with Katara and train with her and get taken care of by her... The thought was actually enough to make him instantly jealous.

But Katara just wasn’t into that guy - that kid. She was into Zuko. Somehow.

In a bit of a daze - and with a vast hungry bonfire rousing in his chest - Zuko followed her from the cave. He was beginning to think he would follow her anywhere.

“When you go around snooping into people’s private time,” she was saying to a slouched, diminutive teenager with a downturned face and milky green eyes, “you don’t have any right to complain about getting exposed to stuff you weren’t meant to see! Er- hear... and smell!”

“Oh, I’m not complaining, Sweetness,” the girl - Toph, Zuko recalled - smirked. She propped her fists on her hips and grinned, looking way too confident for such a pipsqueak. “But I haven’t just been snooping, you know. I’m kind of your jailer and caretaker. A host, actually! You freeloaders have been living it up at Chez Toph for almost three days. But luckily I’m a lady of exceptional breeding who knows how to entertain uninvited guests-”

“Chez Toph has a real sand-flea problem,” Katara snipped.

“Those are complimentary. I made sure you had food and stuff for your nest since nobody else wanted to get close enough to drop anything through the hole. I even corralled you guys into the cone of shame in the first place!” She shrugged. “Or, you know, I noticed some unknown alpha trying to carry you off into the woods so I trapped you both here while I checked in with the others-”

“You just left me trapped with a stranger,” Katara sighed, exasperated. “Toph-!”

“He didn’t seem to be a stranger to you,” Toph huffed, rolling her unseeing eyes. “Besides, you don’t interrupt a pair during heat. Everybody knows that. No matter what was going on, you wouldn’t have thanked me for interfering right then. And like I said! I knew Sokka and Aang were close, so I went back and got the scoop from them. And let me tell you, Sugar Queen, you should be thanking me, now. I kept you hidden from Aang until he calmed down. So you’re welcome.”

“Oh no...” Katara said, putting her hands on her head. Zuko stepped a little closer and wanted to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder but hesitated a heartbeat too long. Toph snapped an arm up to point unerringly at him.

“You’re welcome, too, by the way.”

Zuko glowered at her pointing finger. “You trapped us and I’m supposed to be grateful?”

“I made a safe little hidey-hole for you when you were wounded and desperate, boner-brain.”

He sputtered, too offended to even formulate a sentence before she went on. Katara, he distantly heard, also made shocked noises.

“When he realized you’d disappeared with Katara, Aang went totally ballistic.” Toph’s tone shifted. She wasn’t exactly holding this over them; she seemed genuinely unsettled. “He pretty much leveled that town. I probably saved your life by keeping you out of sight right then.”

Zuko, who had seen the Avatar unleash his wrath a few times, did not doubt this. The Avatar obviously loved his friend and had historically gone to incredible lengths to see her safe... and if he saw her as more than a friend... which - a sixteen year old boy looking at a beautiful girl who cared deeply about him - most assuredly, he did. If he had been hoping Katara would spend her heat with him... and he instead got rejected and then found her with Zuko...

“Hmph,” Zuko said. But what he was thinking was I would almost certainly be dead.

“That must have been scary,” Katara said, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Usually, when he goes into the Avatar State, I’m the one who calms him down.”

“Is that what that was?” Toph asked, a furrow in her brow. “I haven’t really had a chance to ask about it. Everybody’s been so on edge. I keep trying to tell them you seem to be doing fine, but Aang and Sokka are only gonna be satisfied when they hear it from you.”

She paused a beat and Zuko could only focus on Katara’s tension. He wanted to touch her, soothe her, but he kept hesitating. Now that they were out of the nest and back in the real world, had they departed from the time and place where it was acceptable to touch her easily and constantly? Would doing so put them both at risk?

But Zuko firmed his resolve; Katara was his omega, she was everything. He wouldn’t be dissuaded from comforting her when it felt right. He raised a hand to her shoulder and let it stroke gently to her back. She turned a faint smile toward him, and her worried smells faded a little.

“Your uncle believes me, though,” Toph went on with a wry grin that she turned a fraction toward Zuko. “He’s been talking up your honor and respect like a professional hype-man. It’s pretty cute how much faith he has in you.”

Zuko scowled and blushed and swelled up in either pride or preparation to drive off that overly mushy impression, but Katara held his eye. Her smile was small - but it glowed.

“Yeah, Iroh knows Zuko pretty well.”

His heart thumped hard in his chest. At her confirmation, at her fond look, at the intimacy of her knowing him. It didn’t matter that they’d left the nest and her heat behind. Their bond was still there, and it was strong. For a moment, Zuko basked in that certainty.

Toph snickered for some annoying and unclear reason of her own, and Katara raised her chin and sniffed at her.

“Well? Are we going back to camp or are we just gonna stand around here? I hope someone’s already made breakfast because I’m not cooking.”

The earthbender spun on her heel and started walking up the bank of the river. “Right this way, horndogs!”

“Don’t call us that,” Zuko snarled, but she just went on talking over him. Katara abandoned her own protest and they shared a look of mutual irritation before following along.

“Gramps was making breakfast when I left. We aren’t far, so you should be able to smell it when we get around the bend up ahead...”

Zuko could smell it already. Something bland and wholesome and hot that had his belly wringing despite the handful of nuts he’d eaten so recently. He wanted to walk faster toward that scent, but was mindful of Katara beside him, her shorter legs and bare feet and careful way of walking on the winding, irregular bank of the river. He kept wanting to reach out and steady her, hold her hand, cup her elbow. Carry her. This was a lot of walking for her after the strain her body had gone through over the last week. And she was... almost certainly pregnant... She had healed herself a little between her legs - just soreness, she’d reassured him, nothing surprising after so much vigorous activity - but she’d healed Zuko, too, and he was still pretty tender in a few of those places, not to mention desperately tired.

At the very least, he wanted to take her hand, wanted it with a burning drive that knocked a lot of other thoughts from his head. He didn’t, though, because he needed to follow her lead now to deal with the situation they were wading into. She was the one who talked the Avatar down, so she would know how best to navigate whatever was about to happen.

And no, Zuko wasn’t fucking scared of the Avatar. He just... understood how dangerous he could be, especially if he thought Zuko had been less than honorable and respectful with Katara during the heat that she had chosen to share with Zuko rather than him. But that thought didn’t make Zuko nervous - just angry that the little shit would think that low of him. Katara would set him straight. No fucking doubt.

She cast a speculative side-eye at him, frowning. “What are you stewing about?” she asked, quiet so that Toph might not overhear where she walked several paces ahead.

“I’m not stewing,” Zuko huffed.

“Fine. What’s got you feeling so angry and anxious, then?”

He scowled and glanced back at her before glaring at the river ahead. There was a break in the trees coming up. He could see the faint tendril of smoke from a cook fire there. In a few moments, they would come around those trees and into sight of the camp. Where Zuko would once again face the Avatar.

...who he’d been chasing for seven years... The evasive object of his long struggle to regain his honor and his birthright... all of which he’d decided to just throw away-

Suddenly, her cool hand caught around his fist and he could look at nothing but her.

Katara Katara Katara

“Are you having second thoughts already?”

She asked it so softly, anxiety sharp in her scent and her eyes. It took Zuko a moment to realize what she was asking about - because there were certainly no second thoughts. There was no doubt in his mind or heart about what he wanted, what he was willing to give up to get it.

He stopped and turned to face her, tugged her hand up to his chest, stroked her cheek with his other hand.

“I’m kind of realizing that your friends don’t have a very high opinion of me. It’s not a big deal. Just something I’m gonna have to rectify.”

“We’re going to rectify,” Katara corrected with an increasingly sour little frown. “Ugh. Definitely more me. Toph’s right. They need to hear it from me. You talking about it would probably be counterproductive.”

She was blushing, and the color of her skin was so lovely in the sunshine. So warm and flushed and soft. She was talking, he realized abruptly, about telling the Avatar and her brother how he had comported himself with her, how he had treated her.

How well he had fucked her.

No! No, likely not that. That was probably the counterproductive thing she had mentioned. Definitely better to let her take the lead on this and reduce the risk of blurting out something potentially life-ending.

“How can I help?”

Her eyes narrowed at him slightly, thoughtfully. “Don’t blow up. Even if you’re offended or your feelings get hurt. Be mature about it. Don’t...” Her mouth tightened, her eyes got a little pleading. “Don’t be weird with Aang.”

Zuko was not certain what this meant, but he didn’t want to seem stupid. He nodded, firm and dutiful, and resolved to be very mature and normal.

...about having gotten to share a heat with Katara (and knot her to her heart’s content until she was overflowing with his cum and almost certainly now pregnant with his baby) while the Avatar had not - and never fucking would.

He blinked the fierce thought away and stroked her cheek one more time with his fingertips. She peered back up at him, searching his eyes sharply as if she’d caught a whiff of his gloating thoughts.

“I won’t be weird,” he insisted, cupping her cheek. “I can be civil. To the Avatar. Aang. Whatever.”

“Can you be civil?” she asked, seeming even less convinced. A faintly mocking smile tugged at her lips. “Really, Zuko?”

“Yes, Katara. I really can.” Zuko screwed up his mouth and glowered at her.

Her teeth flashed when she smirked.

“I’ll believe it when I see it. ...and maybe... if you can be civil... and if you can be a very good, helpful... grownup...” She stared steadily up at him and her breath brushed warm over the skin of his wrist. “...we can spend some private grownup time together later.”

“Katara...”

It came out a sigh, a groan. He wasn’t sure if he meant to tell her not to start something she couldn’t finish, or that he was shocked at how much he wanted her still, after days and exhaustion and fresh clarity surely should have taken the edge off. His dick was a little tender even after she had soothed away the worst of his overused discomfort - but his heart was a hungry inferno and oh, was he willing to undo her hard work.

He glanced toward the clearing ahead, toward Toph, who was still trudging away from them, snickering like she frequently seemed to do. When Zuko looked back at Katara, he moved quickly. His fingers that had so gently stroked her cheek snaked suddenly through her hair, held her firmly by the back of her head. He pressed his mouth hard against hers, invaded her gasping lips with his tongue, stepped one foot between hers so his knee edged deliciously between her legs.

And she shifted her weight to spread her thighs for him. He kissed her fervently for a moment, then broke away to press his forehead to hers, breathing hard and searching her dazed eyes.

“Alright, waterbender. You want a grownup? You want civility? I’ll show you fucking civility.”

She smiled and purred, her hands stroking him where they were splayed out against his chest. She seared him with her amused blue eyes, then stepped out of his embrace and made to follow Toph.

“Okay, Zuko,” she smirked. “You do that.”

Zuko watched her flounce ahead and drew several long, calming breaths as he followed more slowly. It wouldn’t do to follow her into that camp reeking of fresh arousal, because maybe the unpresented Avatar wouldn’t notice, but her brother sure would. And while Zuko was less concerned about how Sokka was gonna receive him - he held onto that vague memory of scooping Katara easily out of his arms while those annoyed blue eyes just rolled away from him - he also wasn’t not concerned about it.

He was fewer than ten paces back, which was close enough to hear Toph loudly and crudely announce their arrival. It was also far enough back to observe as the Avatar sprang weightlessly down to the riverbank to greet Katara. Sure enough, he was long-limbed and tall now. His shoulders were not powerfully muscled but they were wide in a way that spoke of more growth soon to come.

Not a kid. Not anymore.

“Katara!” Even his voice was different. Lower. Not quite a man’s voice, but close. “I was so worried! I woke up and you were just gone! Are you okay?”

And he hugged her, folded his long arms around her like she was the most precious and delicate being alive. His face, bowed over her shoulder, registered wrenching relief. She hugged him back and reassured him that she was fine, everything was fine. Their easy intimacy wasn’t quite a knife in Zuko’s gut, but it didn’t feel great to watch from his untried new footing on the outside, either.

He wouldn’t hesitate or linger on the periphery for long, though. Wherever Katara went, he would follow. Nothing could stop that now. Zuko firmed his expression - wiped away the trace of startled pain - and strode closer at the same unhurried pace.

Those large, no longer childish gray eyes opened and fixed on Zuko. The Avatar’s expression hardened to anger and accusation. His hold around Katara visibly tightened.

The little shit.

Zuko had to work pretty hard to not scowl back at him. Instead, he only frowned and lifted his chin and drew a fortifying breath as he closed the gap steadily. Katara withdrew from the hug as he came near them, apparently feeling the stiffening of the arms around her and noticing the Avatar’s focus. She shot an anxious glance back over her shoulder at Zuko.

She didn’t need to worry about him, though. He would not fail her.

“Avatar Aang,” he said, an exceptionally restrained formal greeting. Very civil and mature. Not weird at all.

The Avatar’s expression only tightened. He did not return the greeting, which was pretty rude, but Zuko didn’t really notice that presently. Katara’s hand was flat against the front of his lean shoulder, an unspoken restraint. There was a tension in the air and, without realizing it, Zuko was mentally preparing himself to fight. Not to attack and subdue as he so often had when faced with this opponent, but to defend against a blow he sensed was coming.

Then Sokka came skidding down the embankment and smashed through the tension like a boot through thin ice. He stuck himself right in the middle of the stand-off, his back mostly turned to Zuko as he grasped Katara’s shoulder, talking fast and low. She blinked up at him, just her startled eyes visible to Zuko over her brother’s shoulder.

And that was instantly infuriating, having another alpha put himself between them. Zuko’s mind reflexively provided the sequence of grabs and steps it would take to spin Sokka out of the way so their positions were reversed. But he restrained himself. Katara had to be the one to handle this. Involving himself now would be counterproductive.

“Katara, I am so sorry if... however it... not your fault,” Sokka was whispering, so quietly that Zuko barely heard him at all. “...can talk about it or not - whatever you need... be okay.”

Katara smiled up at him with too-bright eyes and then hugged him hard. “Wow, that’s... really considerate, Sokka. Are you feeling okay?”

“No,” he said with deceptive breeziness, hugging her back briefly but fiercely. “I’ve been feeling a little off lately. Worrying about you is kind of a demanding pastime.” As he withdrew from the embrace, he turned his head just enough so he could shoot Zuko a sideways appraisal over his shoulder. “So do you want me to get rid of this guy or what?”

Zuko scoffed aloud and folded his arms over his chest but managed to bite back his retort.

As if you fucking could, Sokka.

Exhausted and sore as Zuko was, today could very well be Sokka’s lucky day. He might not even need help from the Avatar to shove him in the river. Zuko wasn’t worried, though. Katara obviously wasn’t gonna let her brother try to drive him off. He was more offended and incensed that this dimwit thought he could just send Zuko away like some inconvenient attendant.

The fucking nerve! Zuko was Katara’s alpha! Okay, fine, so he hadn’t technically bitten his claim on her yet but she was absolutely awash in his scent. Sokka literally couldn’t not know that! Zuko obviously had a claim and was in the process of pursuing it; he had followed her here and was clearly putting in the effort to be respectful and keep the peace with her people. Sokka could run his mouth all he wanted. Zuko wasn’t going fucking anywhere and if there needed to be a fight about it, that was just fucking fine!

It was also, he was belatedly remembering, incredibly rude for a peasant to turn his back on a prince - and Zuko was duly offended! Plus, the Avatar just kept on glowering at him like he was some despicable criminal. Zuko’s controlled frown slipped and hardened into a scowl and his fists tightened against his chest.

But Katara’s wide blue eyes flitted over his face and he remembered.

Don’t blow up. Even if you’re offended.

She probably hadn’t expected him to become offended instantly... but Zuko wouldn’t fail her. Certainly not this quickly. He shut his eyes and took a moment to breathe deep and slow. Her friends cared a lot about her. They were just being children. But for Katara, Zuko was gonna be a grownup. He was gonna be a man. And a man didn’t lose his temper over the antics of children. He and Sokka... and the... Aang... would just have some words later. That was fine. That would be fine. Everything was gonna be fine.

“No, I don’t,” Katara replied firmly, and went on in a voice that was just a little high-pitched. “Zuko is... actually going to be traveling with us for a while.”

“What?” cried the Avatar.

“What,” Sokka deadpanned at the same time.

Zuko opened his eyes to take in their respective panic and exasperation. The Avatar had both hands pressed to his tattooed scalp. Sokka rolled his eyes so hard his entire head lolled back. At the sight of them, Zuko was flooded with spiteful satisfaction and had to really fight against the smirk suddenly trying to spread across his face. Katara just continued primly.

“We’ve decided to take a little time and see how it goes before we, um... proceed...”

“I don’t believe this!” the Avatar interrupted, his shock and horror edged with anger. “Katara, you can’t be serious! This is Zuko! Have you forgotten everything he’s done? You don’t have to spend one more second with him, no matter what your biology might be telling you to do! You-”

“I think what Aang’s trying to say,” Sokka cut in in a much calmer voice, “is that you’ve been through kind of a lot lately and you might not be thinking entirely clearly yet.”

“Yes, I’m aware of what I’ve been through, thank you,” Katara huffed, crossing her arms hard over her chest. “That’s why we’re taking some time to think things over. And let our, uh, heads clear a bit... before making any decisions...”

She was blushing hard, all the way down her neck, and Zuko wasn’t close enough to scent her perfectly, but he could pick up the sharp notes of her distress. And that wasn’t fucking acceptable. It was a clanging alarm calling Zuko to action. Remaining a civil grownup and following her lead became suddenly less important than alleviating that distress.

“He didn’t bite you,” Sokka said abruptly, and his head snapped around to look directly at Zuko for the first time. Zuko wasn’t looking back, too focused on Katara, but he picked up mostly surprise and confusion from him. “You didn’t bite her.”

“Not yet,” Zuko confirmed before he could think about it. He was watching Katara steadily, trying to comfort her with his eyes and reassuring words. “If she still wants me to when her head’s clear, I will.”

The Avatar sputtered but Katara, staring back at him as if from so much farther away than a few feet, relaxed a degree and her troubled expression softened with the faintest hopeful smile, and that was all Zuko really cared about. He didn’t notice Sokka watching him with narrowed eyes and a pensive frown, and he didn’t notice the Avatar’s wide-eyed anxiety.

But he did notice the instant one of those blue-tattooed hands came to rest on Katara’s shoulder. A bit closer to her neck - and her gland - than he liked. “Katara! This means you don’t have to-”

“Your uncle is up in the meadow feeding the ostrich-horse,” Sokka interrupted loudly, indicating a direction beyond the camp with a tilt of his head. “Toph’s probably found him by now, but you might catch him before he runs all the way down here. He’s spry for an old guy,” he shrugged, “but spry doesn’t undo old.”

Zuko was torn. Uncle was here! He hadn’t seen him in months and longed to... but that blue-tattooed hand... He couldn’t leave Katara in the midst of a difficult moment.

But Katara’s smile just widened. Her eyes were so sweet and open and reassuring. She didn’t really seem to notice or mind the hand on her shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal. She wasn’t really into that guy, after all...

“Go see your uncle, Zuko,” she said, her smile turning a little wry. “I need a minute here anyway.”

He met her eyes a moment longer, drank in the familiar feelings of that connection. Their bond was strong, even in the light of day, far from the nest. That reassured him, too.

Zuko didn’t really think about it, but there was also something about Sokka’s presence - his familiar wild game scent or some nuance of his posture - that was reassuring as well. Katara was with her people, she would be safe, and Zuko’s place beside her would still be his when he got back.

He gave the group a short bow - exceptionally civil - and strode off up the hill to find Iroh.

.

.

Katara watched Zuko mount the hill, his long over-tunic tugging up to reveal flashes of his pale, muscular calves. His arms were bare up to the shoulder and she could pick out a set of scratches she had left on the back of his upper arm. And that was pleasing, because it reminded her here and now how very hers he was.

“Did Zuko just... bow to us?” Aang asked, squinting after him.

“He must be pretty messed up still from, uh...” Sokka shrugged. “Iroh says the effects can linger for a while.”

They were both awkwardly silent for a second. Katara rolled her eyes and pushed a big breath hard out her nose.

“He’s just being polite. He promised me he’d be civil.” They turned to peer dubiously at her and Katara clenched her arms harder where they were folded over her breasts. “And you can just say rut. It’s not like a dirty word or something!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sokka said with heavy sarcasm. “Pardon me if the thought of our long-term nemesis entering an enduring amorous state for my incapacitated sister makes me feel a little uncomfortable!”

“I wasn’t incapacitated!”

“You were when we saw you, Katara,” Aang said quietly. His brow was furrowed in worry and sorrow now, with little sign of anger at all with Zuko gone. “You couldn’t even stand up on your own. And Sokka said you didn’t seem to understand him when he was talking to you.”

“You didn’t,” Sokka said, gentle but firm. “I’ve never seen you that out of it, Katara. It was seriously freaky.”

Katara heaved a sigh and looked between their dear, anxious faces. “Okay, admittedly I don’t remember much of that,” she said as calmly as she could, “but you need to understand that that was during the worst of it. Zuko found me before my heat really even started. I wasn’t...” Her face was getting hot and she had to roll her eyes up and away from their stares to keep going. “Whatever you saw me do or say, that’s not what it was like at the beginning. I was pretty much normal. I even told him to go away at first! Because - you know! It was Zuko! I was creeped out that he just showed up at the worst possible time. But... it turns out heat without an alpha involves a lot of pain...”

Sokka worked to remain calm and patient as he watched his sister nervously relate the appearance of their enemy and start explaining how she’d come to change her mind about accepting his offer to help.

That sleaze.

Sokka had figured out pretty quickly that it was probably the pain that had made Katara fall back on that desperate option - because he certainly hadn’t forgotten the squirming misery she had been in while he’d carried her through that burning town - but he had been kind of seethingly wondering how exactly Zuko had managed to get to her. A lot of possibilities had occurred to him over the last couple days. Maybe he sat outside the house, waiting for her to break and suffer enough to call out. Maybe he had swept her off her feet with some princely proposition (though Sokka struggled to imagine exactly what sort of prince-stuff Zuko could still have access to that Katara might find remotely tempting) or maybe he had told her things to heighten her fear, taunts that tore her down and made her even more vulnerable when she was already alone and hurting.

Or maybe he had forced his way inside that house. Maybe all those marks Sokka had seen on him before - most of which were hidden now under the tunic that Katara had been wearing the last time he saw it - had been wounds Katara inflicted when she fought back, when she was still able to fight back.

And Sokka had just let him take her. In the moment, faced with the choices he’d had before him, it had seemed like the least worst option. But the intervening days had been empty except for keeping watch for Azula - who still hadn’t reappeared - and awkward conversations that broke up his main occupation: idly contemplating terrible possibilities.

Sokka had become half-convinced that he was the worst brother alive. More than once, the only thing that had held him back from giving Aang the go-ahead to bust open Toph’s disgusting orgy silo and get his sister out of there was the lingering image of Katara snarling her demands with a fierce grip on Zuko’s ear. The way Zuko had wrestled away but never lashed out despite the obvious pain, that particular not-whine he’d protested with... Sokka had been wracked with doubts, but he’d held out hope that his impression of the situation wasn’t wrong. That instinct wasn’t wrong, not this time.

And now it was starting to look like maybe he’d been right. Katara was here with tangles in her hair and tired smudges under her eyes and a few little bruises on her neck, and otherwise seemed none the worse for wear. Her eyes were bright and expressive. She smelled just awful - extremely Zuko-y - but her emotional scent was mostly nervous and embarrassed, not ashamed. Not afraid or wounded or angry. And when she looked at Zuko, she oozed affection. It was disgusting, but not the nightmare Sokka had been afraid of.

It looked like the big-brother-style ass-kicking was not called for. Presently. Sokka would keep the option open just in case.

But Zuko hadn’t even bitten her. Sokka had been certain that Zuko would have bitten her by now. The guy had been completely lost to his alpha the last time he’d seen him, and Sokka had been confident Zuko could no longer resist operating purely on instinct. He didn’t need Iroh’s gentle warnings (An alpha’s greatest weapon in protecting the omega who has chosen him is the claiming bite. After Azula’s attack, my nephew is most assuredly more aware of that than ever.) because Sokka had gotten the same impression from his own alpha, too.

Yup. That omega’s off limits. She’s got an alpha and that guy’s committed. She’s good as bit. Zero percent chance I’m wrong on this one.

Aang, on the other hand, had needed to be told by everyone around him repeatedly (if gently) that the claim was a foregone conclusion. He had seen Katara clinging to Zuko with his own eyes - kissing and licking and biting and stroking his hair, it was insanely gross - and still denied that Katara would want Zuko to claim her. He’d even denied that Zuko would go that far.

He definitely isn’t my favorite person right now, but I know there’s good in him. On some level, he has to realize she only wants him because of her heat. She hasn’t chosen him; at best, she was just accidentally around him at the wrong time!

Sokka had thought then that this was just wishful thinking but, against all odds, it looked like Aang had been right on that one. Somehow, Zuko had stopped himself from biting Katara.

That moment of realization had been a confusing rush of different feelings for Sokka, because it was both the best news - Katara was free and they could all just put this bizarre interlude behind them! - and the worst news - she would go back to smelling not-bad-sometimes and there would be more heats in the future and-

-who the fireflake-munching fuck did Zuko think he was to reject Katara and leave her vulnerable?! She was so out of his league it was ludicrous and if she’d chosen Zuko, then the Fire Prince needed to strap on his big boy armor and step the fuck up!

But it seemed Zuko just hadn’t claimed Katara - yet - because he was waiting for her to be certain.

If she still wants me to when her head’s clear, I will.

Bold as you please. Announcing his intent like some actual suitor or something. Phuh. Like he was some kind of stand-up guy... or whatever!

Not that that possibility hadn’t been in the air, too. Iroh hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to brag about Zuko but Toph had happily wheedled out any stories and anecdotes the old man mentioned about the nephew he had been following for so long. For like seven years, Sokka had come to understand. Iroh had followed Zuko into banishment, across oceans, through mountains and tundras - and poverty and desperation and war-torn ramshackle towns. And to hear him tell it, his nephew was brave and honorable and he persevered even when hope was a thin and impossible thing.

He has been going through an especially difficult time lately, the old man had said into his shaped-stone teacup, but I am certain my nephew will come out the other side an even better man.

Sokka wasn’t sold, though. Katara handled the touchy-feely optimism. Sokka was a realist. So he’d mentally prepared himself for the likelihood that he was gonna need to kick Zuko’s ass and/or keep him as a prisoner since biting Katara essentially meant committing himself to satisfying her nightmarish sexual deviancy forever. Sokka didn’t feel great about toting around his sister’s fire-breathing sex slave like an item of embarrassing luggage, but it was a feasible option. Realistic.

It hadn’t seemed realistic at all that Zuko might actually join them of his own volition, so Sokka hadn’t wasted a lot of time considering it. And he was presently having a little trouble processing Katara’s explanation as to how it had all played out and accepting this surreal story as reality in his brain.

Zuko had fetched her water and planned to stay past the edge of town, had promised to ignore her if she called to him after her heat started. Zuko had offered to leave repeatedly and was only willing to help her if the request was coming from Katara in her right mind, not her omega, which Katara described through tight lips and blushing, eye-rolling irritation that smelled a whole lot like delight.

So gross.

“Just! Suffice it to say that I was perfectly capable of consenting when we started, and I did. It wasn’t, like, the thing I wanted most in the world, but I preferred it to the alternative.” Her eyes softened a little and she squeezed her biceps with both hands. “And Zuko has proven himself to be surprisingly... considerate. He... We talked a lot. He’s not... just an angry jerk.”

She had this awful little smile on her face. Fond. She was fondly remembering something Zuko had said - probably while they were naked together! Ugh! Brain poison...

“Okay,” Sokka said blandly after a moment, sharing a glance with an uncertain and deeply anxious Aang. “So... I can accept that we don’t hate Zuko more after this, but... traveling together still doesn’t strike me as a winning idea.”

“I agree,” Aang said readily. “Katara, what if this is a trick and he’s just trying to capture me again? You’re so lucky he didn’t bite you already and trap you with him forever - but what if he only did that so you’d let your guard down? There’s no reason to risk everything by letting him travel with us now.”

Katara’s eyes flicked sharply between them, and Sokka could tell she was holding back a lot of thoughts and secrets, probably a lot of girly feelings, too... She had that mulish look on her face, the kind of look she sometimes got when she’d made up her mind about how a situation was going to go and someone else had the audacity to point out a flaw in her plan.

“He’s not deceptive like that,” she said, visibly annoyed. “And as far as capturing you goes, he’s... changed. I know there’s probably nothing I can say that will make it sound less crazy but... spending this time together... It really meant a lot to him, and-”

“I’ll just bet it did,” Sokka muttered. Katara went on with some force.

“He says he wants...” She hesitated, crossly glancing between them and then heaving a sigh and pressing on like she was certain she was doomed to be doubted. “He says he’ll teach Aang firebending.”

Sokka didn’t mean to burst out laughing, but he didn’t feel as bad as he might have when Katara scowled at him, considering Aang immediately shook his head, big and fierce.

“No way. I said I was never gonna firebend again - there’s no way I’m going back on that to learn from Zuko.”

“Besides,” Sokka chortled, “Aang’s been kicking Zuko’s butt for years. What’s his first lesson gonna be? Looking dumb?”

“Self control,” Katara snapped, glaring at Sokka with her lip stuck out in classic arguing-little-sister stance.

Said so baldly and so close to the uncomfortable fact that Zuko had somehow not bitten and claimed her, the words shut Sokka’s mirth down with stunning efficacy. He raised his hands in submission and looked away.

“Aang,” Katara went on bracingly, “you have to master all four elements before you can control the Avatar State. You can’t just decide to never use it, because sometimes situations happen where your anger and pain are too powerful and you lose the ability to make that choice. It’s really important that you learn firebending. I know it scares you, but eventually you’re going to have to face that fear.”

“I haven’t even mastered earthbending yet, though,” Aang said, looking everywhere but at her. “I can’t go out of order!”

“Then we’ll have some time to see how Zuko fits with the group before you would need to start learning from him. Maybe you’ll be surprised!”

It wasn’t fair that Sokka’s sister looked so hopeful and bright-eyed over a guy who was probably going to try and betray them. Realistically. But Sokka couldn’t quite bring himself to rain on her parade. Besides, Zuko seemed to have an unsettling way of defying reality...

Which didn’t mean Sokka bought this crap! Just-! That he was gonna have to think about it. Think and watch and observe. And in the meantime...

“What’s left to be surprised about?” he smirked very wittily. “Zuko doesn’t exactly keep things under wraps - if you know what I mean!”

Katara screwed up her face in annoyed confusion, but Aang gave him a startled laugh. It came as a relieving break in the tension of the past few days. “Good one, Sokka!”

“Why, you could almost say his intentions are totally bare...”

“Ha ha! Yeah!”

Katara gave them both a sour look and then struck out for the camp. “I’m too tired and hungry to deal with whatever this is.”

They watched her climb the incline toward camp, their smiles fading together.

“Well, this is significantly less horror and trauma than I was afraid of,” Sokka sighed, casting Aang a careful side-eye. “At least she’s okay. Right?”

Aang’s face was like if somebody draped a blanket of stoicism over the top of a tangle of fighting hogmonkeys named Regret, Loss, and Heartbreak.

“Yeah... At least she’s okay.”

Sokka wouldn’t call Aang a liar on this, but his little buddy’s feelings were about as naked as a rutting firebender. Aang was deeply glad Katara was okay - but he was also disappointed, because there might have still been some kind of chance if she had been just a little less okay. Instead, she’d come home with her new jerk boyfriend. A boyfriend who had apparently spent time during her heat just talking to her. And that had to sting extra to hear, considering...

Clearly, Aang was in dire need of a dose of restorative levity.

“You know,” Sokka said thoughtfully, “Zuko promised to be polite, but I don’t see any reason not to test his resolve.”

Aang frowned up at him. “What do you mean, Sokka?”

“Just that, if he’s making promises to Katara, we should probably create a little adversity for him. You know, to be sure he takes that seriously.” A slow, satisfied smile spread over Sokka’s face. “For Katara.”

Aang’s face lit up with answering mischief. “Yeah,” he said with a knowing nod. “For Katara.”

.

.

Zuko found Iroh in a little clearing just past the camp. The ostrich-horse stood tied on a long line to a tree so that it could graze on the tough early summer grasses, and the old man himself stood tugging his beard thoughtfully while the earthbender slouched nearby.

“Uncle!”

“Zuko!” Iroh turned toward him with brightening eyes and a wide, relieved smile.

It was the sort of expression of unrestrained affection that Zuko might have found embarrassing some months ago, when this old failure had been the only person in his life who seemed prone to such displays of emotional weakness. Even a week ago, Zuko would have shied away from such a look or tried to downplay his own response.

Now, still popping like hot ceramic coming out of the kiln of Katara’s heat, Zuko met his uncle’s warm reception head-on. He sort of forgot the earthbender was there and jogged the final steps to reach him, hugging back almost as hard as Iroh hugged him. So close, it was easy to pick up the old man’s faint scent of surprise - but that was drowned out by his warm, resounding joy.

“My nephew,” he said in a soft, pained voice, “I am so glad to see you feeling more yourself.”

It did not occur to Zuko to wonder whether Iroh was saying that he was more himself now than he had been as a naked, snarling madman, or if he was perhaps saying this heartfelt embrace was more like Zuko than the raw, bitter desperation he had lingered in for so many years. It also did not occur to Zuko that he had not hugged anyone this way since he was a boy who played the tsungi horn and laughed at his uncle’s jokes. Such things occurred only to Iroh.

Zuko’s mind lingered in a much simpler place. He pulled back from the hug and glanced over his shoulder the way he had come - so he did not see the old man dash away a tear. He could just barely see the camp through the trees from here, and there still didn’t appear to be anyone sitting around the low fire.

“Uncle, we have to get back. I need to make sure Katara eats and rests.”

“Of course, Prince Zuko.” Those familiar eyes shone up at him from under arched eyebrows. “And what a delight it will be to finally meet your new lady-friend!”

“She’s not a lady-friend, Uncle. She’s my- She’s... Katara.” Zuko frowned and started down the path. “And you’ve already met her. Repeatedly.”

Iroh cheerfully followed. “Context is everything, my nephew.”

In the clearing behind them, the saddled ostrich-horse went on grazing and flicking its tail at passing flies. The sparse gear tied to its back was no real burden, despite the fact that Iroh had been thorough, had packed up everything of theirs to be ready for a quick retreat, just in case.

“Tell your uncle about teaching Aang firebending,” the earthbender butted in, apparently also following them back to the camp. “That’s context!”

Zuko paused his descent to glower back at her - not that it accomplished anything since she just went on smirking at nothing - then found his uncle peering at him with genuine surprise. Zuko drew a breath and raised his chin.

“I agreed to train the Avatar. I-” His voice turned stilted, momentarily uncertain. What would his uncle think of him after this dramatic change in direction? “I can’t exactly go back to trying to capture him if I want Katara to be my mate.”

“No,” Iroh agreed sagely, completely unruffled. “That would be most unreasonable. An alpha must prioritize his omega’s peace of mind.”

“We may never return to the Fire Nation, Uncle,” Zuko realized abruptly. All of his worries very suddenly welled up in his chest, creating a cold pit beneath his heart. He had committed them both to this path without so much as considering Iroh. And... he was abandoning his mission and betraying his nation. He was turning, finally and decisively, against his father... “I’ve agreed to... some pretty major changes.”

“Change is an essential part of life, Prince Zuko. It can be frightening, because we cannot predict what lies beyond the life we have known. All you can do is search your heart and follow what you know to be right.” The old man smiled, his eyes shining with warm reassurance. “Then, even if the path you have chosen is a frightening one, you will at least have the peace in your heart to comfort and guide you.”

His hand settled warm and heavy on Zuko’s shoulder and Zuko, very faintly, more with his eyes than his mouth, smiled. He didn’t say home is here and now, but that was what was in his heart.

Except that Katara was off somewhere with those idiots instead of resting in his arms and eating whatever bland hot food he was still smelling.

“Come on, Uncle. I can’t leave her alone too long.”

Iroh hummed in happy agreement. Behind them, Toph snickered. Zuko had forgotten about her again. There was something about being away from Katara that made his mind rattle like a machine with all the bolts loosened in their sockets.

“What? Do you think she’s gonna meet someone else while you’re out of sight for five minutes?”

“An alpha must be attentive!” Iroh defended gamely. “His duty does not end with heat. He must also ensure his omega recovers in comfort, not to mention...”

Zuko didn’t bother responding at all, or even really listening. He stepped off the path into the clearing at the same time that Katara came huffing up from the river. The sudden sight of her grouchy face was like tripping off an unexpected drop. Her eyes fixed on him, bluer and lovelier than the clear sky overhead. Her expression brightened at the sight of him - and that... That felt simply incredible.

Zuko had crossed the camp and put a supportive arm around her back before he realized he was going to do that. Her scent enveloped him, welcomed him back where he belonged.

“Um, excuse me!” Her brother’s voice came from a little farther toward the river. “We don’t really do public displays of affection in this group? Sorry, but there are these rules.”

Zuko turned a glower over his shoulder at where Sokka and the Avatar were approaching. “You both hugged her pretty much the second you saw her.”

“That was a hug of greeting that followed a period of long separation and danger. This,” Sokka said, waggling a finger at them, “appears to be entirely recreational.”

Zuko nearly snarled at this other alpha that his omega was still recovering from her heat and obviously needed support, but Katara spoke first. “Sokka, don’t be a pest.”

She stepped toward the fire and Zuko went easily with her, his arm still snugly in place. He shot Sokka one last narrow-eyed look but the guy just smiled blandly back at him. The Avatar looked on, expression a little glazed.

A semi-circle of large stone steps had been raised on the well-shaded side of the camp a comfortable distance away from the dwindling cook fire. The arrangement was not dissimilar to a tiny amphitheater. Zuko helped Katara settle there and then went to fetch two bowls of whatever Iroh was dishing up.

“Jook,” he said with quiet good cheer as the earthbender got her serving and trundled away. “It will restore Miss Katara’s strength. And yours, my nephew.” He filled the first bowl and then dipped the ladle back into the pot - and paused as the breeze shifted. “Zuko,” he said, low and shocked. “You did not claim her?”

“No, Uncle - I have to-”

“He’s waiting until Katara’s head clears,” Sokka explained from just behind him.

Zuko stiffened and whipped around a quarter-turn to glare at him. He hadn’t even heard him coming. Was Katara’s brother just that stealthy? Or was Zuko actually that out of it? Sokka stood with his hip cocked and a speculative little frown on his face.

“Which is a pretty big gamble. I mean, points for honor or whatever, but do you really expect her to feel the same way about you when her brain isn’t pickled in hormones?”

Zuko raised his chin. “Yeah. I do.”

Sokka squinted back at him, unimpressed. The family resemblance was suddenly disconcertingly evident.

“Sokka does have a point, my nephew,” Iroh said quietly as he finally filled the second bowl. “Heat has simplified the situation for you both. It will only grow more complicated the longer you wait. If you wait too long-”

“I don’t care. I won’t do it before she’s sure,” Zuko snapped. He took the bowl a bit more forcefully than he should have and spilled a little hot porridge on his thumb. Ignoring the sting, he gave Sokka one more parting glower, then turned toward where he had deposited Katara-

-only to find her laying her hand on the Avatar’s shoulder. That little shit sat beside her, rubbing the back of his neck as he said some rueful thing in a low voice. Zuko was suddenly stricken with the furious (panicky) feeling he was watching another guy move in on his girlfriend.

Right behind him, the two other alphas caught a whiff of his intense emotions and exchanged a dry-yet-unsettled look.

But Zuko didn’t notice that. He marched back to the seating area with a scowl and a half-formed notion of kicking the Avatar because his hands were full.

.

.

“Wow,” Aang said as Sokka trotted off after Zuko toward the food. “Zuko looked... really happy to see you just now.”

“Yeah,” Katara said, trying not to sigh as she recalled that look on his face. His eyes, big and warm and open as he swept across the camp toward her. As if they’d been parted for hours or days rather than minutes. And his arm around her back had felt so warm and right and good and...

And Aang was watching her a little sadly, his smile bittersweet. She felt suddenly embarrassed, Sokka’s PDA comment coming back to mind. Maybe... Maybe she needed to be more careful about Aang’s feelings...

“Sorry, Aang,” she said, shrugging and folding her hands together in her lap. “I guess he’s not the only one who’s still, ah, experiencing lingering effects.”

“Actually,” he said, peering down at his toe as he kicked idly at a rock, “it’s kind of... nice. We’ve known Zuko for years and, this whole time, he’s just been this angry guy who chased us around. I always had this idea that he had good in him, that he had been just as hurt by the Fire Nation as anyone else...”

Katara peered up at him, stunned. There were times when Aang still seemed like a kid. He goofed around and played. He made up excuses to not do chores. And, often, Katara felt the need to be careful of his feelings... But then there were also these moments like this, when Aang revealed the sort of insight and wisdom that reminded her that he really was the Avatar. Not only that, but that he was a compassionate and thoughtful person who liked to think the best of others. Even Zuko.

Apparently, Aang had secretly thought better of Zuko than she had all these years...

“And now,” Aang said, half grinning and plopping down on the stone seat next to her, “he’s almost smiling? And he’s actually thinking about joining us? This is... I mean, assuming he doesn’t suddenly revert back to his old ways, this is great news!” He looked back at Katara, a genuine smile spreading across his face. “And all that is kind of secondary, because... he seems to actually make you happy, Katara. I don’t know how much of that is a lingering hormonal thing for both of you but, since you’re taking the time to think it through, I guess... I can just be happy to see you happy.”

“Aang,” Katara said, completely taken aback. She laid an affectionate hand on her friend’s shoulder and didn’t even notice Zuko looking over and going all wide-eyed and furious-looking. “That’s so incredibly mature and thoughtful...”

Aang rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I mean, I do have some other feelings about it, but that’s kind of just... my own thing. Mostly, in the ways that count, I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, Aang. Seriously. That means so much-”

It was at this moment that Zuko came looming up with a bowl in either hand and a ferocious scowl fixed on Aang. Katara saw the impending explosion, scented the jealous anxiety behind it, and didn’t even really need to think about it. Maybe it was a lingering omega instinct, but that didn’t matter. Her heart was soaring and Zuko’s temper was no obstacle to her now.

She reached up with both hands to cup around one of his, to slide her fingers over his, to take the bowl and to take his hand. She demanded his eyes to meet hers with her touch and her smile and her words.

“Thank you, Zuko. For being so helpful.”

And his eyes answered. The fury faded rapidly as he gazed back at her. In its place was that warmth, that sweet softness they had found together, just beneath his surface, immediately ready to be summoned back to her. Eager to return.

Katara couldn’t tell if he remembered his promise, or if he remembered hers. That didn’t matter either right now. What mattered was his gentled eyes, his fingers tangling gladly with hers. He had been worried. He thought Aang was a rival in a way that neither of the alphas here were, and all he needed was the reassurance that that wasn’t the case.

“Yeah, thanks Zuko,” Aang said cheekily as he swiped the bowl from Zuko’s other hand and flitted off to sit on the upper steps nearer to Toph. “Ha ha!”

“Aang!” Katara rolled her outraged eyes after him. “So much for maturity,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

Zuko frowned after him for just a second - stunned, then annoyed - before looking back down at their joined fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly as he lowered himself into the spot Aang had just vacated. He sat much closer than Aang had... but Katara scooted a bit closer still so that her thigh pressed lightly against his.

“Here,” she said, tugging his hand so he would put his arm around her back again, freeing her up to lift the spoon. She smiled sideways at him. “We can share.”

Zuko watched her steadily. “You first,” he said, ignoring the bite she raised toward him.

They were very close now. Her shoulder was snug against the side of his chest and his hand was braced on the stone bench just lightly against her hip. His scent was mellow and pleased, just a little excited. And that hint of excitement, his warmth and the reminder of his body against hers, had Katara breathing a bit harder, watching him watch her as she raised the spoon to her mouth and-

“Please,” Sokka said, standing over them. “I am begging you. For my sanity. Do not be this couple.”

Katara turned wide, innocent eyes up at him and did not see the surly glower Zuko fixed on him. Sokka, holding two bowls, shoved one into Zuko’s chest so he would take it with his free hand.

“Meal time is sacred! All gazing is to be restricted to our food as we enjoy it! Barring extreme illness or injury, we do not feed each other! Katara! You’re-! Tell your boyfriend he’s being rude!”

“You’re being rude,” she fired back at Sokka.

Her face was hot, though, and she pretty obviously didn’t have any further defense. She had gotten completely swept away again, had forgotten other people were around at all. She’d gotten close to Zuko and forgot all about Aang’s feelings - or Zuko’s uncle! How embarrassing...

Sokka pressed his hand to his chest and pulled a long-suffering face.

“This is self-preservation. I am in recovery from witnessing devastating things a big brother should never have to witness. It would really mean a lot if you could restrain yourselves from further traumatizing me in my current fragile state!”

Logically, Katara knew he had a point... but she wanted to argue with him, partly just out of reflex - because her brother didn’t get to boss her around. And, much deeper and more powerful than that, she didn’t want to move away from Zuko. She didn’t want to leave his warmth. She was tired and sore and hungry and just wanted the comfort of her nest and her alpha!

Zuko moved before she could lash out, though. He retracted his arm from around her and sat a little straighter, created a sliver of space between them. But he didn’t move away, so his leg was still against hers. His arm still brushed against hers, just a breath away. It stung Katara for a second, and she snapped her head around to shoot him a pained look, only to find him glaring up at Sokka.

“After meal time,” he said quietly, “I’m gonna go back to gazing at your sister. And I’m gonna hold her too, if she’ll let me. If that’s gonna be traumatic for you, I suggest you man the fuck up and avert your eyes, Sokka.”

Katara was too busy staring at Zuko’s hard, handsome face and scenting his resolve, his measured aggression - in a distant part of her mind echoes passed each other like ripples in calm water Alpha will defend the nest, Alpha will provide - so she didn’t notice how Sokka frowned down at them, simultaneously annoyed and mollified.

“Humph.”

“A most excellent compromise,” Iroh said as he made his way over to sit on the opposite end of the stone benches. The seats were curved in such a way that he sat facing them across the space, and Katara could see him smiling faintly as he looked at them over his bowl. “If perhaps less cordially delivered than one might expect of a prince...”

Zuko huffed, but Sokka shrugged and went to sit in the middle. “Actually, based on past experience with this particular prince, that was shockingly cordial.”

“What’s so shocking about it, Snoozles?” Toph asked casually from the top step.

Sokka chuckled and sprawled out, talking easily (disgustingly) as he ate. “You weren’t around for the raging ponytail times. Trust me. He might not look like a fire-breathing maniac right now, but nobody sustains a bad mood like Zuko. It’s like his superpower. A little snippy repartee is nothing coming from this guy.”

Katara watched Zuko from the corner of her eye as Sokka went on. He was glowering and seemed to be eating faster, perhaps to spitefully shorten the duration of the meal-time break in intimacy. But then he caught her eye and paused...

And Katara smiled as she remembered him as he had been then, shouting and attacking and coming out of nowhere to waylay them unexpectedly. Always so fierce and determined. And frustrated.

Always on the very cusp of scenting the coming change in her, unaware he was chasing her, and all the while, back in the privacy of his ship, he was knotting in his own fist for her.

Katara’s breath was coming a little heavier, and she didn’t know it but her soft smile complimented the secret knowledge in her eyes. Zuko peered back at her, and his cheek was just a little pink, and one corner of his mouth twitched just slightly upward-

“Sure, I get that,” Toph said, already smirking. “What I’m saying is, are you actually surprised he’s feeling cordial after a solid week of boinking like a cat-rabbit?”

There was an electric beat of stunned silence. Katara and Zuko froze, their stare turning wide-eyed in shared mortification. Then Sokka began choking hard on the bite he’d inhaled, Aang snorted trying to stifle a giggle, Zuko glared hot-faced and furious at Toph, and Katara was wheezing.

(Iroh peered into his bowl, inconspicuously silent.)

“Toph! That is so inappropriate!”

“Hah! Says the boinkee! You were even worse than he was.”

“Guys,” Aang tried to interject, “let’s all just-”

“We couldn’t help it!” Katara snapped. “And you just think it’s so funny to dehumanize us like-!”

“You do realize I herded you guys into the cone of shame the same way they clear the wailing cat-rabbits out of the streets of Gao Ling in the springtime, right?” Toph grinned. “If it caterwauls like a cat-rabbit-”

“Are you allergic to letting people keep a little dignity?” Zuko demanded hotly.

“Are you always such a fragile wilting wiener? Because-”

“Rrh-!”

“Knock it off!”

Aang shouted at the same time Katara felt Zuko start to rise. And stop, tense beside her.

“Toph, you’re teasing too hard. You’re embarrassing them. That’s not a very ‘cool friend’ thing to do.”

She sighed and leaned back on her hands, tipping her face up to the sky. “You guys and your feelings.”

“Well,” Sokka waded in, finally done coughing. “You gotta remember you’re used to razzing at a professional level. Amongst friends, we dial it back. Unless Zuko turns on us, then you can razz him as hard as you want.”

“I’m not gonna-!”

“But until that day,” Sokka rushed on, raising a finger as if about to impart great wisdom. “Razz with care.”

Katara made a disgusted sound - a louder echo of the sound that came out of Zuko at the same time.

“How about just don’t?” she asked, glaring around at them. “Maybe you could all just try being nice to Zuko!”

Sokka chortled and shared a glance with Aang, who cracked a little smile. Toph was smirking again.

“Come on, Katara. Let’s be realistic here.”

“I fail to see what’s unrealistic about treating a new member of our group with courtesy and respect,” she snipped.

Toph waggled her pinky in her ear. “Is that a thing we do?”

Katara screwed up a glower and drew a breath to launch into a lecture, but Zuko’s warm hand came up around the back of hers where she held her bowl.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly, just for her.

She looked up to find him watching her steadily with his warm, soft eyes.

“You don’t have to fix this. It’s just gonna take time.”

Katara stared into Zuko’s eyes and the tense, striving part of her, the grown-up who had to manage situations so that things worked out okay, perked up and listened. His voice was firm and gentle, his scent was patient, intent. And she understood. It didn’t matter what they said, how they teased him or tested him. Zuko could take it. He might snap and snarl at some point, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to see this through.

Because he was hers. He was hers and he would stay by her side, even when it got hard, because that was what Zuko did. He persevered. He endured.

“So... Iroh has been telling us about his travels but what have you been up to, Zuko?” Aang asked at length with seemingly genuine curiosity. “We haven’t seen much of you since the North.”

“Uh,” Zuko said, suddenly smelling faintly of his shame. He looked away, his warm hand fell from beneath hers. Katara ached for him, could see the nervousness and guilt plain on his face as he recalled his descent to his current life of crime.

Not current. His recent life of crime, Katara mentally corrected. Because things were changing for him again. Zuko was starting a new life now. For her. With her.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she said quietly, gently.

Zuko looked back at her, and his scent eased, though it didn’t totally calm. “I’m not gonna hide the things I’ve done.”

“I know. But it can wait for another day. You can just be here now.”

He searched her eyes, seeming unsettled.

“Rest with me, Zuko.”

Zuko blinked as if these words had special meaning - and Katara realized they did. In the wake of her heat, they were both so tired. This was like every time he had coaxed her to eat and drink and she had bargained to get him to join her. She was coaxing him to rest now and deal with this difficult situation later by reminding him that she needed to rest, and that she wanted him with her. So it didn’t have to be about his waning strength. It could just be a matter of pleasing Omega.

“Now Aang,” Sokka said in a winding-up tone, apparently impatient with the whispered conversation, “you have to remember that we can’t say we haven’t seen much of Zuko anymore.”

“Oh! Ha ha,” Aang sputtered, apparently taken by surprise. He rallied quickly into a playing-along tone. “Why not, Sokka?”

“Because there’s really not much of Zuko that we haven’t seen!”

Katara huffed and fixed her brother with a sour look as Aang and Toph had an obnoxious little chuckle.

“What? What annoying thing are you hinting at?” she demanded, glowering at Sokka’s expression of increasing delight. “Just say it already!”

“You guys seriously don’t remember, do you?” Aang asked, a little concerned. “You were both pretty out of it.”

“Oh,” Toph cackled, “that is priceless!”

“When Azula attacked,” Iroh explained, “my nephew did what any alpha in such a situation would aspire to do. He leapt into bold and decisive action with no regard for his personal safety!” He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed a little. “Or modesty!”

Zuko emitted a faint “Oh.” as if he was being struck by a horrible realization. He sat very straight, his cheek pink. He glanced anxiously at Katara, who was gaping back at him and at her smirking brother and Iroh’s demurely averted gaze and Aang’s chuckling shrug and Toph cackling.

Katara squeaked, covering her face and not able to meet any of their eyes. “Oh! Oh! Was I naked too?”

“No, you were wearing Zuko’s tunic,” Aang reassured her, blushing a little himself.

“But you were not taking no for an answer, Katara,” Sokka huffed, glaring up at the sky. “You almost peeled Zuko’s ear off. And everything else about that day was horrible for me too, I promise you. So yes, I’m gonna make fun of your deranged boyfriend because it’s the only joy in my life right now.”

“Great. Fine,” Zuko snapped, glaring. “Go on and hit me, Sokka. What’s it gonna be? You wanna tell jokes? Go ahead!”

“What do you call a naked firebender?” Sokka demanded, glaring right back.

“What?” Toph asked, already grinning.

“A flasher,” Sokka said joylessly. “How did we all know the naked guy was a firebender?”

“How?” Aang chuckled.

“He burned the image of his butt into our nightmares. Why did the naked firebender cross the ocean?”

“Why?” Iroh asked, bright-eyed.

“Because he needed to be three feet away from me so I could learn his mast lists to port. Need I go on?”

“Ugh. Sokka...” Katara rubbed her face.

Zuko shrugged. “Those... aren’t very funny.”

“Yeah. Not my best work,” Sokka grumbled.

“I was so fortunate that my innocent eyes were spared such unspeakable vulgarities,” Toph chirped in her helpless-little-rich-girl voice.

Everyone looked at her with narrowed, confused eyes - because even Zuko, who knew her the least, was suspicious of this facade - so they were all watching when she grinned and went on.

“But I sure heard that thing smacking his legs when he ran around!”

There was a chorus of protests.

“Toph!”

“Augh! Too far!”

“Aw no, now I remember it! Toph!!”

Toph just held out her arms and paced the top step, basking in the boos like a true heel.

Iroh smiled broadly. “Everyone admires my strapping nephew. I could not be more proud!”

“Zuko and I are gonna go take a nap,” Katara finally snapped, putting down her empty bowl and grabbing Zuko’s wrist. “And tomorrow we’re taking the ostrich-horse for a field trip. No questions!”

Sokka of course called questions after her, but he didn’t pursue them as Katara dragged Zuko over to the tent and picked a sleeping bag at random to pull him down on. He went easily, and readily curled around her from behind, his arms warm and snug and his legs nestling in against hers.

It made her chest hurt, how familiar and right it felt to fall into bed with him this way. She had needed this, hadn’t entirely realized how tense and overextended she had begun to feel out in the world beyond their nest and their bond. Here in Zuko’s arms, she felt the reassurance of the peace they had built between them. A truce they had each worked toward, often unwittingly, but that now linked them like toggles up the front of a parka, holding in so much warmth and comfort and two hearts beating as one...

...And admittedly there was also a little part of her that felt Zuko’s belly swelling and relaxing against her back with his slow breathing and his hips and thighs cradled around her butt, and the currently soft pressure of his penis just right up against her - she felt all that and tingled and remembered all they had done together in this position specifically...

“I... really don’t want,” he murmured into her hair against the back her neck, “to discourage you from whatever you’re thinking about, but I’ve gotta ask Sokka to loan me some pants later and he’s gonna be even less inclined to do me any favors if I get revved up with you in his bed.”

“I’m not thinking about anything,” she sniffed. “I’m too tired and sore to even think about thinking about things.”

Zuko didn’t argue. He just huffed out a single laughing breath and went on inhaling slow and deep in her hair. For a long while, Katara just lay with her eyes closed, enjoying this togetherness, this warm and glowing bond. One of his hands, she realized, had settled over her abdomen, and she threaded her fingers between his, held him firm against her, and wondered what he was thinking now about the perfect, beautiful babies they would one day make.

“And besides,” she whispered, “I really doubt there’s anything you could do to that would make Sokka unenthusiastic about getting you back into pants. He probably just hasn’t realized yet that you’re naked under that tunic.”

“In that case,” Zuko murmured, nuzzling closer against her neck, “I recall being promised private grownup time...” His lips dabbed her nape through her hair. “...and I intend to claim it.”

Katara sighed, anticipation tugging her gently tighter... until she realized that Zuko had fully dozed off. She smiled as she drifted after him, as the toggles closed tighter and the present stitched itself to a perfect, beautiful future.