Ready To Love [[Zuko]]
Pairing: Zuko x Female!Reader
Warnings: Angsty i guess
A/N: This is my first Zuko fic absolutely ever. It’s lengthy, it may have a second part. word vomit. oops.
“ Tʜᴇ ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴅ ᴍᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴏɴʟʏ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴏʀʏ.”
It’s a little crazy to think how this all turned out. How this all started one way, turned upside down and then became something else entirely. Everything started off so innocently. So pure and easy to understand.
It goes like most romance tropes go- how cute little fairy-tales began.
A little peasant girl and a little Prince boy.
Simple right? By fate they meet, and typically, should fate be nice, they grow together. They grow and learn to love- they learn to love one another.
Being in the Fire Nation clouded your judgement. You assumed you were on the right side of history- assumed what you were taught was correct. You felt safe in your ignorance. The war was just, Zuko had a loving home, you weren’t truly a peasant- you didn’t really have to meet him in secret because it might be seen as bad. It was just more fun that way. Everything was just more fun this way.
At least up until his Mother was made to leave.
Up until he was banished some time following that event. Could have been days- could have been months. You couldn’t recall- he’d started to morph into a stranger once that pillar in his life collapsed.
You just knew you heard his pleads as you hid in the crowd, silently begging for his Father to have mercy. You heard the screaming- you heard the decree that broe your young heart.
A second pillar crumbled-
He was shoved out- cast away, and his Uncle went with him. You received no farewell, you didn’t get to give a teary goodbye.
Zuko disappeared for three long years- almost four by the time you saw him again- somewhere you never truly expected to see him (though you had hoped some hushed conversations you overheard were true). You’d heard whispered rumors of him being a failure, of him being a wanted criminal for failing his Fathers insane demand. How was he to find the Avatar? What good would it bring?
In your time away from him, you had no where to hide. You had no one to talk nonsense to in the dead of night. No one to tear your thoughts away from the sad reality you had tried so hard to escape. The Fire Nation was not great. It was not respected. It was hated. Feared. You learned this on your own, but that is a story for another time.
His hair had grown some by the time you saw him. In the beautiful place of Ba Sing Se. He looked different- he looked better.
“Zuko..”, you had breathed when he’d been stunned to silence. Questions written all over his face. Why are you here? How have you been? How long have you been in the Earth kingdom? Does anyone know where you’re from?
“I’m.. visiting.”, you had lied to him. You had to- though he was your old friend, it was clear you both had changed. You weren’t sure if it would be okay to tell him. What would his thoughts be.. how would he think of you if he knew?
“Oh.”, he says, and you know he knows. “I’m visiting too.”, he says to you.
You know he’s lying. If not because of his work apron, as well as knowing his background. He was still banished- he now had a scar as well. Marred- a punishment not fit for any child- not even a grown man.
The silence is uncomfortable. What to say? Asking how he is might be odd- how good could he be? You wanted to know though. Had he made a life out here? Had he come to the realizations you did? What else had changed him?
“Ah, ___. So good to see and old welcoming face. You have been missed, dear.”, Iroh’s voice breaks through the thick tension. He airs it out nicely.
“You know me?”, you ask, shock clear on your face. Of course you knew him- well, of him. Everyone in the Fire Nation did.
“Why wouldn’t I know the sweet little girl my Nephew went out to see almost every night as a young boy?”, he says, eyes crinkling with his mischievous smile.
“Uncle!”, Zuko hisses through gritted teeth, “That was such a long time ago! Why do you have to say it like that-”
“What? You act as though it’s been so long since you last wondered aloud of her wellbei-”
“Uncle!”
You shouldn’t have allowed your heart to flutter how it did. Shouldn’t have relished in the way his cheeks tinted in color and how he flustered the same way he had when you were younger. It wasn’t right to awaken what was laid to rest some years ago. You both are not the same- and you were not yet on a similar path.You didn’t know that though. You allowed your usual walls to fall so easily. You fell right back into step with him, as though no time had passed at all. For some few weeks it really felt like old times. It felt better than those times- you could see him during the day time. There was no sneaking, no worry of being caught. You had him all to yourself, no royal business to ruin anything. No training time- nothing.
You could be selfish and damn were you ever. Not only did you fall back into step with him, you did the same with your feelings. You basked in his small smiles- his little huffs of laughter. He fell in with you as well. He found someone- something, to sink into. Something to help him escape his own inner turmoil. He was still fighting a battle you didn’t know of. How could you know? He acted as though there was none. He laid back and stargazed with you as though he had not a single care in this world. Allowed his fingers to link with yours when he assumed you were asleep. He made it seem like.. like maybe fate was kind. Maybe she wanted you both to meet here- to regrow new roots in the Earth Kingdom. Maybe..
He still picked a side- one without you in it.
You had hoped he’d do better- you had hoped that him angrily admitting to you that he let the Avatars bison free, that he was done with this quest for his honor. That he’d found honor within himself- for himself. He could have lived his days with you- had a great time with his Uncle in that upper ring. You both could have. What life might you have led, had your own fates not been woven into a larger story? You could have done so much with him, grown and learned so much.. He could have flourished- but apparently he saw otherwise.
Apparently fate was not kind. She was cruel to you- she let your heart be broken a second time.
“Aw, Zuzu.. Looks like your little peasant is even lower than I thought. How could you waste your time with a fraud?”, Azula questions, voice chilling in the underground chambers. “How did you hide right under our noses?”
Azula’s words did not hurt you. It was the way Zuko looked at you. As if you were some vile thing- the knife in his back. He looked at you like you were the one that chose wrong, like you had broken his heart. His silence spoke volumes.
Zuko had changed, but not the way you’d hoped. You hated that you were glad you didn’t tell him why you were in Ba Sing Se from the beginning. He wouldn’t have understood. He couldn’t grasp it.
Zuko hadn’t lost anyone to this war. He had his own war in his home but here? Here where the consequences were not just the loss of his birthright or his own honor? Where it was the loss of thousands of lives and cultures? He was blind to it all. Or he simply did not care.
He deemed his destiny to be hunting down and capturing the Avatar. For his nation.
You deemed yours to be on the Avatars side. Helping save everyone else- fighting with the gift your now late Father had given you. Your loss in this war began with him, and it ended with Zuko. Your gains had become this found gang of misfits- you had agreed to meet back up with them in time for the Eclipse. You had went separate ways after surviving the Serpents Pass. There was someone you hoped to find. You couldn’t have known it would have been better to just stay with them. Fate shoved you into them in Omashu for a reason.
You never did listen..
“You always did pick weird ones, Zuzu..”, Azula spoke again, nonchalantly, as if she wasn’t currently directing a mass of earthbenders to apprehend those who opposed her. “Mhm.. maybe I’ll allow her to be kept as a trophy? Or a pet. Do a trick!”
You expected the lightning bolt to be for you, you weren’t yet aware of Aang finally reaching the Avatar State. Seeing him be shot down- watching him fall- it was a horrific sight. Blood boiled in your very veins- maybe you were not fully of Fire Nation blood- your rage however? Far more violent than any siege the Fire Nation had made thus far- yet lives were still spared.
A sight he never forgot.
“Hello. Zuko here.”
A sight he vividly recalled when he saw you again. He knew the anger was not solely for your fallen friend- but for him. The one friend who should have always been on your side. He knew he was wrong. He knew he’d disappointed his Uncle. He knew he hurt you..
It was a slap to the face to watch you disregard him like he was not there. To hear you say you only knew him from the fight in Ba Sing Se. To have you disregard every soft memory of you he held dear- ones dating back to childhood years, the only childhood he had was with you..
What of it now? Who was he now?
“ Wɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ғɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇ ɪɴ ᴍᴇ?”
Part Two
