The Weight of Something In Between
Pairing: Adult! Zuko x Female!Reader
Summary: Being forced into an arranged marriage with the Fire Lord is bad enough. Realizing he's kind, ridiculously attractive, and somehow convinced you hate him? That's definitely worse.
Word Count: ~4.5k (estimate)
Warnings: arranged marriage, misunderstandings, mutual pining, social anxiety, fluff, slow burn, soft intimacy, happy ending
Author's Note: okay so this is just zuko being the sweetest, most patient man alive 😭 i loved the idea of a reader who accidentally looks angry all the time when they're actually just really shy.
The throne room of the Fire Nation palace feels colder than it should.
You stand at the far end, positioned like a piece on a board game that never asked to be moved. Your arranged betrothal was announced three days ago—a political alliance, some said. A union to strengthen ties with your family, others whispered. You called it a prison sentence with silk curtains and gold trim.
Your mother spent hours grooming you for this moment, pinching your cheeks until they flushed, reminding you to smile, darling, try not to look so… severe. As if you could help the way your face naturally settled into what she called "that expression." As if being trapped in an arrangement with a stranger was supposed to make you beam with joy.
You don't look up. You've trained yourself not to—it's easier to maintain your walls when you're not making eye contact. But even without looking, you can feel him. There's a shift in the air, a warmth that has nothing to do with the eternal flames licking at the palace braziers.
Fire Lord Zuko enters like he was born walking into rooms. Like every step is deliberate, purposeful, graceful.
And then you make the mistake of glancing up.
Your heart performs an involuntary gymnastics routine that you have no control over. He's tall—so much taller than the reports suggested. His shoulders are broad, the kind of broad that comes from a lifetime of discipline and training, and he wears his Fire Nation formal robes like they were designed specifically for his frame. Rich crimson and black silk, detailed with gold threading that catches the light like captured fire. His long black hair falls past his shoulders, framing a face that seems almost unfairly beautiful—sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and those eyes.
His left eye bears the ragged edge of his scar, pale against his skin, and yet somehow it only makes him more striking. Both eyes are a molten amber that seem to hold the weight of a kingdom, intelligent and calculating and—
Your face immediately shifts into what you can only assume is your most menacing glare. It's a defense mechanism at this point, your features rearranging themselves into something cold and unapproachable before you can stop them. You tear your gaze away, staring instead at a point on the wall just past his left shoulder.
You don't miss the way his expression flickers. Confusion? Disappointment? It's gone too quickly to tell.
"Your Highness," the Fire Lord says, and his voice is like warm honey—unexpected softness wrapped around something strong. He bows, a gesture that seems ridiculous given that he's essentially your future husband, and you're trying very hard not to notice the way his hair catches the light when he moves. "I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Your jaw tightens. Of course he's charming. Handsome and charming. The universe's idea of a joke at your expense.
You offer a stiff nod, still refusing to look directly at him. The silence stretches, uncomfortable and heavy.
"Perhaps we should speak privately?" he suggests, and there's something almost hopeful in his tone. "There's much we should discuss about the arrangement."
You finally meet his eyes for half a second—long enough to see them searching your face for something, anything—before you turn on your heel and stride past him. Not rude enough to be outright disobedient, but cold enough to make your point clear: you have no interest in this. You have no interest in him.
Behind you, you hear him exhale slowly. It sounds almost like resignation.
Over the following weeks, you're forced into proximity after proximity. State dinners where Zuko sits across from you, his golden eyes tracking your every movement. Political meetings where he somehow always ends up sitting beside you, his warmth a constant, distracting presence. Family walks through the palace gardens where he attempts conversation and you respond with monosyllabic answers and glacial stares.
The worst part? Everyone else loves him.
You watch from a shadowed corner of the dining hall as your future sister-in-law throws her head back laughing at something he's said, her face lit up with genuine joy. His smile—a real smile, not the diplomatic one he gives you—is warm and easy, and it transforms his entire face into something almost boyish. He listens to the servants with genuine interest, asks them questions about their families, remembers their names.
You catch him studying you sometimes when he thinks you're not looking, his expression unreadable. That's when you turn your head away the quickest. Because the more time you spend around him, the more you realize how spectacularly unfair he is. No one should be allowed to look like that and be genuinely kind.
No one should be allowed to make your traitorous heart skip when he walks into a room.
It happens three weeks into the arrangement, and you're furious at yourself for it.
You're in the palace library, supposedly researching Fire Nation history for your upcoming wedding ceremony. In reality, you're hiding from another dinner where Zuko will inevitably try to engage you in conversation and you'll inevitably respond like a glacier with a conscience.
He finds you between two towering shelves, afternoon sunlight filtering through the window and catching in his dark hair like gold leaf.
"There you are," he says, and there's something different about his voice. Something that sounds dangerously close to exhaustion. "I was wondering if you'd—" He stops, and you watch his shoulders drop slightly. "Never mind. You're probably reading something important."
Against every instinct screaming at you to let him go, you find yourself speaking. "Wait."
He turns, eyebrows raised with something that might be hope. You immediately feel your defenses rising, your face falling back into its default position of disdain. But you force yourself to stay, to not run away like you've been doing.
"I…" Your voice comes out smaller than you'd like, betraying the anxiety beneath all your walls. "I wasn't reading. I was just… I needed some quiet."
He's quiet for a moment, and you can feel him assessing you. Really looking at you, not at the mask you wear. "From all the wedding preparations?"
You nod slightly, still not meeting his eyes directly. From you, you think but don't say.
"I understand." He moves deeper into the shelves, but not too close—giving you space, you realize. Showing you he's not a threat. "I found these archives overwhelming too, when I first became Fire Lord. Everything feels very… final. Very heavy."
Something in his tone makes you glance at him. His golden eyes are reflecting the sunlight, and they look almost sad. He's looking at the shelf of books, not at you, and for some reason that makes it easier to speak.
"Does it get easier?" you ask quietly. "Feeling trapped in something you didn't choose?"
The question hangs in the air between you. You realize too late what you've admitted.
Zuko is quiet for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft, almost vulnerable. "I was a prisoner once. Not literally, though that too. But I meant…" He pauses, choosing his words carefully. "I was trapped in expectations. In anger. In the belief that I wasn't worthy of anything good, and that I deserved only what was taken from me."
He finally looks at you, and his gaze is steady, unflinching. "The cage wasn't the worst part. The worst part was believing I belonged inside it."
"How did you escape?" you whisper.
"Someone showed me I didn't have to." He gives you a small, sad smile. "But I had to let them. I had to stop pushing them away, even though I was terrified."
The subtext hangs between you like a held breath. He thinks you're pushing him away. He thinks you're terrified. And gods, he's not wrong.
"I'm not good at this," you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. "At people. At… at you."
"I know," he says, and it's somehow more comforting than if he'd denied it. "But you're kind to everyone else. I see it. The way you speak to the staff, the way you read to the children in the lower city. You have this light, and it's…" He trails off, shaking his head like he's said too much. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to—I know you don't feel the same way."
"You don't know that," you blurt out, before your brain can catch up to your mouth.
You're already mortified, already backpedaling. "I just mean—I'm difficult. I can't seem to control my face, and I know I probably look like I hate you constantly, but I don't. I'm just—" You squeeze your eyes shut, hating yourself. "Shy. And terrified. And you're so—"
"So?" His voice is gentle, almost teasing.
Your eyes snap open. "Don't make me say it."
A smile blooms across his face, slow and genuine and absolutely devastating. It's the kind of smile that makes his entire face soften, that reaches his golden eyes and makes them shimmer with something like hope. Something like joy.
"What?" he asks, stepping closer, and his voice has a warm amusement to it. "Not going to tell me I'm 'annoyingly attractive' or 'infuriatingly graceful'?"
Despite everything, despite your mortification and your anxiety and the four-alarm fire his proximity is setting off in your chest, you feel a laugh bubbling up. It comes out as a small, startled sound, and his smile widens.
"For what it's worth," he says softly, "you're the most beautiful thing I've seen since the moment you walked into the throne room. And your 'resting bitch face,' as I've heard it called, is absolutely terrifying."
You make a small noise that might be a laugh or might be a cry of embarrassment. Probably both.
"But your smile," he continues, reaching out carefully, as if you're something wild that might bolt, "is worth every cold stare. It's worth the walls you put up. Because it means you're letting me in, even just a little."
His hand hovers near yours, not quite touching. Asking permission.
You think about running. You think about retreating to your comfortable cage of indifference and ice.
Your fingers brush his, and the contact sends electricity up your arm. His hand is warm, calloused from a lifetime of bending, and when he gently closes his fingers around yours, you feel something crack open inside your chest.
"Hi," he says softly. "I'm Zuko. Would you like to get to know me?"
You're trembling slightly, still terrified, but you take a breath.
"Hi," you whisper back. "I'm… working on letting people in. But I'd like to try."
He squeezes your hand gently, and when he smiles again, it's like the sun breaking through clouds you didn't know were blocking out the sky.
"That's all I've ever wanted to ask for," he says.
The wedding happens on a night when the fire lilies are in full bloom, their crimson petals falling like snow. You wear white and gold, colors that make you feel less like a political pawn and more like a bride. Zuko wears his finest robes, and when you meet his eyes across the ceremony, you don't look away.
His smile is soft, patient, and it promises that he'll wait for you to catch up. That he'll give you time to shed your walls brick by brick.
You're still terrified. Still struggling with the way your face naturally settles into something cold when you're nervous. But now, at least, Zuko understands. He sees the shyness beneath the glare, the tender heart hiding under all those careful defenses.
When he takes your hand during the ceremony, his touch is warm and grounding. When he cups your face gently and kisses you for the first time as your husband, it's soft and asking and so achingly tender that you feel tears prick your eyes.
He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, breathing the same air.
"We can take this as slow as you need," he murmurs. "All the time in the world."
And as his golden eyes search your face—not looking for judgment or coldness, but for the real you beneath—you finally, finally let yourself smile.
