Chapter Text
Zuko struggled against the cloth gag between his teeth and the bonds the Dai Li had locked around his wrists, but there was no escaping. There wasn’t even any sitting up straight. He was forced to kneel with his hands cuffed to the stately granite floor before him while Azula perched delicately on the Earth King’s massive throne. She crossed her legs and tapped her chin with an idle talon, debating silently for a long moment before the faintest smile curled the corners of her lips.
“Now. What to do with my disgrace of a brother... Any ideas, Mai?”
The dour girl, leaning one hip against the side of the throne and watching Zuko with the mildest amused interest, shrugged. “I don’t know. Weren’t we supposed to take him to jail like a year ago?”
“The obvious answer, but there isn’t exactly a barge on hand to export him to a proper Fire Nation oubliette,” Azula sniped dryly before sliding her eyes to her other side. “Ty Lee?”
The acrobat, who had taken a break from teaching the bear circus tricks, shrugged and crinkled up her brow. “Uhm... a closer jail? We could put him in with the waterbender...”
Zuko did not initially realize - and was presently too angry with his sister to think it through - that they were referring to the only waterbender he actually knew. He had seen the Avatar fly over the city not so long ago, but he hadn’t seen the waterbender since that fight in the desert almost six months back.
“Sure,” Mai said blandly. “And then they can forge an alliance and come out of there fighting as a team.”
“She turned him in. I don’t think she’ll be in a very friendly mood when she sees him again...”
“Have you never heard that ‘enemy of my enemy’ saying? Taking her down on her own would have been such an ordeal if you hadn’t chi-blocked her. I do not want to deal with that savage miniature alpha again when she has friends around.”
“Ah.”
The way Azula said it, as if it was the flash of a shockingly illuminating bolt of lightning in which one finds exactly what one has been fumbling for in the dark. Her smile, fixed unblinkingly on Zuko, was malicious.
“That’s right. The waterbender is an alpha. Isn’t she.”
Zuko’s stomach, tight with his rebellious fury, dropped like a cold stone. He couldn’t stop his eyes widening as he met Azula’s steady gaze. He realized now which waterbender they were discussing. Azula’s smile widened.
“It has not escaped my notice that my brother still has the temerity to challenge me to an Agni Kai. One would think that subsisting in dirty hovels and laboring like a commoner would have humbled him, and yet he believes he has the right to an honorable duel with a princess. I think it really is past time we clipped that oversized ego of yours, brother.”
Mai and Ty Lee watched her with puzzled brows but Azula went on, still watching only Zuko though she raised her voice to clearly address the other two - and perhaps the guards that loomed over him, behind him.
“You see, Prince Zuko has a secret which has not been made widely public. A secret which requires daily medication without which he will lose his grip on the proud, determined prince he seems to be...”
Zuko jerked harder on the stone cuffs but they were unyielding. Inescapable.
He had hoped that maybe Azula didn’t remember. That perhaps she had been too young when he was banished to notice the subtler cues of what had happened, that maybe she had not heard what their father had said to him while he lay in his sick bed in the hours before he was bundled onto a ship for his long exile.
He had hoped all that, but Azula’s knowing had seemed inevitable in a way. It was her willingness to expose their family’s shame now that shocked him, had him shaking his head as if denying reality could change it.
“...and reveal his true omega nature.”
“Rrrh!” Zuko struggled harder. He broke one cuff and surged up - but rather than just shattering, the stone reformed and wrestled him back down.
“O- Omega?” Mai said, all traces of boredom wiped away as she stared between Zuko’s hot face and Azula.
Ty Lee gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. These three were high-born betas. There were numerous alphas in their society - two of their fathers, in fact, were alphas - but it was unheard of for an omega to be born into the upper crust, much less the royal family. And doubly unheard of on top of that was the sex of the omega being male. Omegas were rare, and they were almost always women.
“Oh,” Ty Lee murmured, distraught. “How does that even work?”
“I haven’t cared to research the details,” Azula breezed, “but I’m given to understand that alphas always penetrate and omegas always receive. Is that accurate, Zuzu?”
Zuko clenched his jaw and glared knives at his sister. If his mouth hadn’t been stuffed full of a rather flammable rag, he would have spat fire at her. His face felt like he’d already lit the fabric and scorched himself.
“Does that mean the waterbender has a...?” Mai stopped abruptly and shook her head, rolling her eyes. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”
“She does, though,” Azula said readily, “and as soon as we dose my brother with a suppressant-negating heat accelerant, she won’t be able to resist putting it to good use.”
Zuko’s mind flitted to the waterbender, but she was not the problem before him right now. “Rrhh!” he snarled, and couldn’t help but puff flames from his nostrils. One of the Dai Li cuffed him upside the head with a stone gauntlet.
As the stars cleared from his vision, Zuko did not hear or understand the chatter or movement going on around him. For a moment his mind dipped into the muffled murmur beneath the surface of some unnameable body of water. Memory tugged at him, pulled him this way and that, but it was the waterbender he let himself slide toward.
Zuko of course knew the waterbender was an alpha. He’d known since the night he tied her to a tree.
It wasn’t instantly evident like it usually was with alphas, likely because she was so young still, just breaking into the initial weeks of her presentation. With most alphas, their scents hit Zuko hard, rank and aggressive and overbearing. When he scented an alpha, Zuko reacted on instinct - though it was not the usual instinct omegas experienced. Faced with an alpha, Zuko bristled and stood straighter, swelled his chest bigger. He wasn’t a small man - not anymore - and had worked hard through all the long years of his banishment to be bigger, as muscular as any alpha just naturally was. He drove himself hard because he knew a confrontation was always on the horizon. When Zuko scented an alpha, he reflexively prepared himself to fight for his dignity, his autonomy - for his very life.
It wasn’t like that with the waterbender. He didn’t catch her scent at all until his fists were tight around her wrists, pinning her helpless little hands up near his chest. Then he trapped her wide, frightened eyes with his own and, for a heartbeat as he caught the smell of her, he froze.
Her fragrance came over him like whale song, low and distant but so resonant. It wasn’t strong yet, just the raw hints of her designation beginning to establish itself, but it was compelling.
Alpha pheromones were always a little compelling, a little intimidating even through the safe haze of suppressants. Most unsuppressed and unbonded omegas reacted to the scent of an alpha by submitting, relaxing, just allowing themselves to be bred and claimed. Male or female, it didn’t matter. Designations negated sex, imposing a second set of rules over what should have been rational human minds. Inevitable as the turning tide, a male omega who scented an alpha was powerfully compelled to submit and eventually, when his heat came, present himself for breeding.
And the waterbender, while her scent was subtle and just barely emerging as she began to leave childhood behind, possessed the same compelling alpha qualities. It was so bizarre, smelling that smell from a tiny teenage girl instead of a burly older man. It flitted through Zuko’s mind that, if she got a chance to scent him, she would probably react just like alpha men. She would attempt to corner him and dominate him and maybe even Command him to do some degrading thing.
Like Zhao had tried to do after Zuko won their Agni Kai.
It had happened just a few weeks before. Zuko hadn’t even realized then that anyone but his father had sensed his presentation. But, somehow, Zhao had found him out. The whole time Zuko was stuck on that base, Zhao had stalked around him, smirking and taunting him. Making vague insinuations. And Zuko had answered that disrespect with the challenge it had called for. He won the Agni Kai, put that arrogant bastard in the dirt...
...and as he had turned to walk away, Zhao had struck ruthlessly.
“Don’t you turn your back on me.”
It was like someone had struck a gong. Low and resonant and quaking down to the root of Zuko’s very being, to the omega part of him that he kept buried so deep inside.
And Zuko had, completely against his own will, stopped.
And turned around.
Zhao, climbing to his feet, had smiled nastily. As if in slow motion, Zuko realized what was happening. Zhao was using his Command to control him. He knew what Zuko was, and now he thought he could do whatever he wanted. Whatever petty display of dominance or humiliation he wanted to inflict on him, he thought Zuko would just take it.
But Zuko wouldn’t be beaten that easily. Scowling every ounce of his hate and rage, straining as if against a powerful wind, Zuko turned back around. Zhao’s Command hung on him like massive chains, but he managed it. And once he had turned, he found that Iroh had joined him and watched Zhao with cold disdain.
Zuko had left that base with the burning victory of beating Zhao both as a firebender and overcoming him as an alpha... but that didn’t lessen the violation or the fear. For those seconds as his omega reached up through him and forced him to obey, his will had been supplanted. His body had not been his own to control. After, he was wracked with disgust and horror and had several nightmares in which he’d turned around and found Iroh wasn’t there...
...Zhao had Commanded him again, and no one had been there to stop him, and such terrifying and demeaning and confusing things had been done to Zuko in those dreams...
Now, after a couple of weeks of being dominated and overpowered by his own subconscious, Zuko gripped the wrists of a little alpha, and he had power over her. A little jolt of vindictive excitement shot through him.
He was very present in this moment, though. He was very aware that he was gripping the wrists of a girl who stared up at him not in predatory anticipation but in fear. Her scent was burgeoning alpha but also sweetly female, and much more immediate was the acrid panic of a girl alone in the woods suddenly surrounded by a bunch of men. Disreputable men whom she had quite recently robbed.
Her fear in this moment, the terror of being vulnerable, maybe even powerless in the face of those men, was a fear Zuko was coming to know quite intimately.
“I’ll save you from the pirates,” Zuko said and, to his own surprise, meant it. But he also meant the growling, threatening tone that belied the promise of protection. The pirates would not harm her, it said, but she wasn’t off the hook with him. Alpha trash. She had best respect him.
Which she of course did not. Bold little arrogant little- She told him to jump in the river, refused to meet his eye, even denied him what he wanted when he offered her her necklace back. And Zuko, aware that he was failing to extract information in front of those fucking pirates but unwilling (too much of an omega) to do what it would take to break her, had given up.
It galled him and stuck with him. Every time he saw her after that, her alpha pheromones were stronger and her fighting skills were more evident. He didn’t think often of her at all, except for carrying her necklace around his wrist. It brushed his gland there, which tickled pleasantly but he endeavored to ignore. He was just wearing it for convenience, really. It wasn’t some weird sexual thing. It wasn’t like it even had alpha smell on it - she’d apparently lost it before she began her presentation.
What it did have was harder to place. It was like... holding onto a piece of her before she began to change. Like, somewhere in the world, Zuko knew there were portraits of him with a whole face. That kid was gone forever, but those images existed and that proved that he had existed once, too.
He didn’t think he could ever bear to look at one again, but it was kind of... reassuring, knowing that they were out there. Knowing that he hadn’t always been... this.
That had nothing to do with the waterbender, though. She was just some girl, and just another alpha. Time passed and she kept getting stronger and smelling more alpha. Her brother too, Zuko noticed at some point, but that was sort of a background detail. Not really interesting like the waterbender was.
Not that he was interested in her or anything about her. Not really. If anything, he was wary. Because while it was easy and natural to be leery of male alphas, a female alpha seemed dangerous in a different way. She was a threat he needed to be conscious of, to somehow be ready for.
Admittedly, a part of the fascination was simply that Zuko wasn’t gay. He had never had steamy thoughts about men or their cocks. A girl, though... Zuko didn’t often entertain sexual thoughts - his mind was not an entirely safe place - but when he woke with pleasant tingles chasing the length of his body and his dick stiff and weeping, it was a girl that went flitting out with his dreams. A girl with bright, kind eyes and soft, beautiful bosoms that slipped eternally out of his grasp as easy as smoke or water. And... a warm, wet place to hold him...
A female alpha was dangerous because Zuko sensed she could get to him. She could overwhelm his mind in a way a man couldn’t. A male alpha could certainly force him into sex, but a female alpha could get in his head and make him want it. And that... wanting it... actually wanting to be put on his belly and used like a whore... That was a horror Zuko kept quarantined in the back of his mind. Too hot to touch.
So even as his head was still ringing and stars were still swimming across his vision, Zuko’s sense of panic and alarm was strong. He started fighting in the heavy-limbed way of slumber, but he couldn’t escape the hands gripping him. The gag was pulled roughly from his mouth and some bitter liquid splashed into his throat. Zuko choked and nearly spat but a hand clapped over his mouth and - No no no no no! - he panicked and gagged and swallowed and was quickly released to gasp through his racking coughs.
The medicine Azula had promised. Zuko had heard of it - a cocktail that some omegas took to hurry along their heats when they could not afford an unexpected inconvenience. It was vile in his throat and heavy and syrupy in his belly. He wanted to throw up. He tried to throw up but couldn’t will himself to do it.
Staggering, half-dragged by those stony hands still gripping him, Zuko’s mind spun in a panic. Heat. He was gonna be forced into another fucking heat. He’d only been through two. The first came shortly after he had been thrown out of his home and it had been a bizarre agony. Agony in the ravaged blistered raw wound that remained of his face, and agony between his legs that had him squirming and flinching and begging in need. He’d endured it alone, of course, with his uncle sitting outside his bedroom door and talking to him through the worst of it. Uncle Iroh’s alpha scent was unlike any other alpha’s. It was strong, but it was quiet and soothing. Affectionate but unattracted. Clean. And sad, pained for the pain of his nephew. Afterward, Iroh had reassured him that he knew the things Zuko had said were just the heat and the temporary madness that came with it.
Zuko had nodded with brittle dignity and proceeded to never broach the subject again, a cue Iroh respected without fail. For once.
After that, Zuko had stayed faithfully on the suppressant tea regimen the ship medic brewed for him first thing in the morning. It completely blocked his omega pheromones and muffled the clanging awareness of alphas that seemed to get worse by the day for years to follow. Fully dosed, Zuko could pass for a beta even in a bath house and, so long as no one knew about his designation, no alpha thought to mess with him.
Until Zhao. Until...
His second heat, Zuko had endured alone in the Earth Kingdom in the months following his separation from his uncle. He had had some suppressants provided to him by that foolishly generous healer, but eventually he had run out. The heat that followed...
He tried not to think about it.
After, Iroh had found him in the shameful mess that remained and nursed him back to health, feeding him medicines he had apparently had the foresight to gather. Uncle had given him peace and space, safety he had desperately needed. And as soon as he could rise and walk far enough to snatch up the new bag of suppressant herbs and drag himself onto the ostrich-horse, Zuko had snarled at him and left.
“I’m not weak!”
It was only true as long as Zuko stayed on suppressants. They both knew it. It didn’t really occur to Zuko that Iroh, an alpha and master firebender, could also be vulnerable - until he was injured in the fight with Azula some months later. It changed his perspective subtly, being the one to nurse his uncle back to health.
A lot had changed for Zuko, actually. He had been so angry and hungry on the ferry crossing into Ba Sing Se that he’d actually decided to work with an alpha of his own volition. That had gone fine but then something had... changed. Maybe he got a bad batch of suppressants. Maybe there was some trace of his pheromones still on his clothes after months. Maybe something in his manner had tipped the guy off. However it had happened, Jet had been on his trail like a wolf-bat after that. Showing up in the alley outside the tea shop when Zuko took out the trash. Watching him through the window of his apartment.
It was distinctly different from his encounters with other alphas. There was none of the violence or domination or Commanding at the start. There was only a suggestion of the potential for it, and only as subtext that Zuko read loud and clear. The actual text was a lot more... companionable.
“You’ve had a tough time. I get that. I’m just saying a guy’s gotta blow off steam sometime, you know? I could help you out with that.”
“I’m not gay,” Zuko replied stonily, still holding the sack of trash by his hip with one hand. The other hung at his side, deceptively relaxed.
“Hey, no judgments here. But omegas have needs. You want to keep it quiet. I-”
“I’m not an omega.”
Jet had arched his brows and lowered his chin, letting that stalk of grass droop down. But after assessing Zuko a moment longer, he shrugged. “Whatever you say, man. My offer stands.”
But his offer didn’t just stand. It followed Zuko around, appearing from the shadows to badger him and press him. It hung over him like a constant cloud, a friendly threat just biding its time.
Finally, it happened. The moment Zuko had on some level always known would come.
Uncle had gone home early to make dinner while Zuko finished closing up, but minutes later Jet had let himself in through the back door. It was the same coaxing, the usual wheedling that Zuko shot down now with more annoyance and embarrassment than anger and fear. But then-
“Come on, Lee. Just relax.”
The Command shot through him, that low timbre in the alpha’s voice cutting straight to that fragile, malleable place that Zuko hated in himself. He obeyed. He had to.
Before he knew it, Jet had him bent over one of the tables and was grinding gently against his ass, reaching around to grasp at his soft but responsive dick through his clothes. Against the back of his neck, Jet whispered praise and reassurances that tickled the omega in him.
Oh, Alpha... it whispered, rising up unexpectedly in Zuko’s numb brain. Alpha wants us so much. Feel how hard he is already? But Alpha would be gentle and give us pleasure...
Indeed, Jet squeezed Zuko’s growing hard-on in a way that drew a thick groan from his throat. Jet’s other hand slipped around the side to get under his tunic and dug deeper, nudging past Zuko’s balls to press unerringly at the tacky, tender flesh beyond. He adjusted his hips to grind lower, deeper, no longer just stimulating Zuko’s anus, but that other (secret, shameful) place, where he was open in the way of omegas.
“There we go,” he groaned against the back of Zuko’s ear. “There’s that sweet little pussy you’ve been trying to hide from me. You don’t need to be scared, Lee. I know how to treat a pussy right-”
It wasn’t a pussy. Zuko hated that word, hated the way men used it. He hated the thing that happened when alphas realized he was a hole they could fuck and they fucking forgot who they were fucking dealing with.
Suddenly, the omega’s voice was lost under Zuko’s own, and all he could hear was No no no not again never again never fucking again!!
He came out from under the languor of Jet’s Command with the force of mindless fear and rage. He twisted so he could reach behind him and elbow a burst of flame in Jet’s face. He staggered back and Zuko kicked him hard, sent him flying through tables and chairs to slam into the wall by the door.
The voice in the back of his mind shriveled back into the crevice where it belonged and Zuko was in control again. He stood looming over Jet, who was rubbing the back of his head from the impact.
“If you ever come back here again,” Zuko snarled, “I will fucking kill you.”
“Y-you’re a firebender?” Jet wheezed, a crazed light in his eyes.
“I will kill you, you rapist alpha trash. Do you understand?”
Jet had retreated that night but he hadn’t stayed away long. At least he was done with the come-ons and the next time he appeared, it was in an attempt to expose the firebenders to the city guard. Zuko had snatched up a guard’s swords and had fully intended to keep his promise, but the Dai Li got to Jet first.
And then he disappeared. Like trouble did in Ba Sing Se.
Zuko wasn’t inclined to let his guard down after that, not that he’d been less than vigilant before. He was tightly wound, he knew it, and he knew that ran the risk of drawing attention, which was the last thing they needed. So, when Uncle accepted Jin’s date invitation on his behalf, Zuko was only half as outraged as he should have been.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Zuko said darkly as Iroh parted his hair down the middle and combed into place. “But I understand your strategy. It’s suspicious, not mingling with any of the locals. By going on this date, I can better blend in with these people.”
Iroh blinked and was silent for a poised beat. “Yes,” he said at last. “Better to blend in.”
The date was painfully awkward and it made Zuko aware of how little he had done to prepare. But how was he supposed to know she was going to ask the questions she asked? Where had he and Uncle come from? Why were they traveling? Why was anyone traveling?! Why did she want to know?!
But as he fumbled and struggled through the evening, Zuko felt a warm, excited pressure in his belly and chest. Something was happening. He was out on a date with a girl, like a normal man his age should be. She had asked him out but she wasn’t... She wasn’t trying to force him into anything. She didn’t know what he was, and even if she did, she probably wouldn’t have cared. Betas weren’t effected by omega pheromones. Maybe with her, he could just pretend he was a beta, too.
And she was a girl. A pretty girl, with bright, kind eyes. And... bosoms... and all the other parts of girls that Zuko knew were there. Her scent was soft and clean and sweet. Amused and interested, playful. She wasn’t forceful, though she drove things forward entirely on her own with no help from him at all. She grabbed his hand but Zuko didn’t feel himself being dragged, just tugged gently along. He could have pulled away easily if he had wanted to... but he found he did not want to.
When she took him to the fountain with the lanterns and was so disappointed to see they had not been lit, something flickered fully to life in Zuko’s chest. She was, he realized finally, trying to romance him.
He had kind of forgotten that romance was a thing, or at least he had figured it wasn’t a thing that he could have. Perhaps, some deep part of him believed, he did not deserve it. An omega, a banished prince with a scarred face, a weak disappointment to his father, a failure a thousand times over - what was there to love about him? What was worth romancing?
All your striving and fighting and big talk about honor doesn’t amount to anything, came Zhao’s voice, echoing horribly out of memory. You’re still nothing more than an unwanted son, and your designation is just biological proof of your inadequacy. It’s time you accepted the reality of your situation, Prince Zuko. I’m going to teach you the one thing you’re good for.
And yet here was Jin, a girl who liked him and was pursuing him with something sweet and charming and meaningful in a way Zuko could not have put words to. She had brought him to this fountain, hoping to dazzle him with lights that she found dazzling, and the look of disappointment on her face when she could not share it with him...
Zuko felt that unfamiliar force throb in his chest. “Close your eyes,” he said quietly. “And don’t peek.”
It was such a stupid, reckless thing to do, lighting those lamps. But it felt like a revelation when she smiled in wonder and delight at the lights glittering off the water, then at him, like he was giving back to this girl some little piece of what she had offered him. More than that, it felt like he was feeding a long neglected boiler in himself, a sustaining force that had been guttering for a long, long time.
And then she tried to kiss him and Zuko panicked and shoved a tea coupon in her face. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kiss her... but he couldn’t - couldn’t - just stand there and accept it, just let her give him the gift of a kiss when she didn’t even understand who or what he was. The shame and dishonor of his very existence. But then she told him to close his eyes because she had a gift for him, too, and he’d let himself be led, let himself yield to her.
The kiss was innocent, chaste. It was his first. Despite everything that had happened to him, Zuko had never kissed anyone or been kissed before. It shocked him. First, the soft contact, her breath wispy and warm on his face. Almost immediately, she retreated, and Zuko pursued to kiss her again, to feel the delicate silk of her lips against his, to scent her so close, her surprise and pleasure and- and arousal.
Zuko retreated and made a break for it. “It’s complicated,” he’d murmured. And it was.
The fact that she did not follow him, that she never appeared in the tea shop again after their date, was important in a way Zuko hadn’t realized he had needed to experience. He had declined every sexual advance he had ever received, and it was only this one - the one he might have liked to accept - that he could say no to and be taken seriously. He wondered sometimes in the months that followed if Jin would forgive him, if she would understand or appreciate what an incredible gift she had given him by just letting him go.
He thought she would. Jin seemed so... nice. Way too nice and sweet and pure to get tangled up with him. Zuko had nothing nice or sweet or pure left. He was deficient, jaded and tainted, too paranoid to let himself connect with others and too traumatized to let anyone touch the sexual part of him.
Only, he was about to lose the ability to control that, and his sister meant to present him to one of his enemies - the waterbender - just to torture him and remind him of his true place. As if he’d ever been allowed to forget it.
No no no never again!
Zuko lurched suddenly, bracing his rigid legs against the uneven rock floor in an attempt to break free. A stone fist swung hard into his gut and doubled him over through the next several steps. Then, finally, a massive slab of rock slid out of the way and Zuko was flung through to tumble down an incline and land sprawled on his face in the greenish light of a cavern. He heard the thunderous slam of the door shutting behind him as he struggled up to his hands and knees, still nauseated from the medicine burning in his belly but now sore from rough hands and impacts as well.
“Zuko!”
He couldn’t help but snap his head up to stare at her even though he had known she would be here. She looked a lot like she had the last time he saw her. When Uncle was hurt and she tried to bull her way in and ‘help.’ It was a very alpha thing to do and Zuko had lashed out as he knew he needed to when an alpha got too close to him in a vulnerable moment.
She wasn’t approaching him now, though. She just stood five paces back, staring at him in obvious shock and alarm. Her scent was strong in the chamber - which Zuko barely noticed was lit with large clusters of glowing green crystals, because her emotional scent and her alpha scent were both intense in this enclosed place. She must have been here for a while now. Several hours, at least.
And clearly not happy about it. Her rage and frustration and fear hung heavy on the stagnant air in here. It wasn’t overbearing, but it did have Zuko’s heartbeat picking up a bit in response to the danger she was signaling.
But, he realized abruptly, there was no water in here. The waterbender was without water. That didn’t mean she was helpless, but it was one big advantage in his favor if this came down to a fight.
Which, eventually, Zuko knew it would.
He drew a few deep breaths as he straightened and sat back on his heels, angled away from her, and worked to calm down. She was still an alpha, but she wasn’t gonna be able to physically overpower him without her bending. Especially if he could shut her up before she could Command him. He could do that. Fight her, knock her out, maybe tie her up with... he could tear his coat into strips. A gag.
“Why did they throw you in here?” she demanded.
Zuko watched her from the corner of his eye, waiting for her to take an aggressive step - but she didn’t. He was poised to spring into action, but she kept her distance, so he didn’t. Not yet. His suppressants were still working for the moment. That was good. He had time to figure something out, if he just stayed calm.
“Oh wait, let me guess,” she went on nastily. “It’s a trap! You’re hanging around down here with me so that, when Aang comes, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches.”
Oh Agni. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the Avatar might show up. But of course he would. This was his waterbending babysitter. Of course he would come for her. Then, Zuko would have a shot at escape as well. The only problem was time...
“Is he close?” Zuko demanded. Sweat was already prickling his brow.
The waterbender sneered at him and folded her arms over her chest. “You wish. You’re gonna have to wait around with me for a while this time. And honestly, I’m glad because I have some things to say to you!”
Zuko looked away and glowered at the far wall. She could say whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t try to touch him.
“What do you think you’re doing, pretending to be a tea server in Ba Sing Se?” She snapped at him. “This city is filled with real refugees who need jobs and resources and you’re just slithering around taking that from them? When your people are the ones who created all this upheaval and desperation? Do you hate them that much, that you want to add to their suffering however you can? Or are you just completely shameless?”
Zuko remained silent, but his neck was flushing. These things had occurred to him, but not in such uncharitable terms. He didn’t want to be in Ba Sing Se. He may have come to accept his life here, but that didn’t mean it was all he aspired to.
And who was she to stand in judgment over him anyway?!
But it didn’t matter right now. What mattered was staying calm and figuring out some way out of here. Only... he could see from where he sat that the place was solid stone all the way around and overhead. There was no getting out of here until an earthbender came and let them out.
“Probably both,” the waterbender said darkly. She was pacing now, maintaining her distance but prowling around him like she was surveying a repellent spectacle. “You’re the Fire Lord’s son. You probably think it’s your right to take things from these people. How else could you justify trying to capture the Avatar? You want your honor or glory or whatever, no matter what price the rest of the world is gonna have to pay for you to get it. Thug. Bully!”
Zuko bristled at her mischaracterization, but more at the way she was circling him like a predator. He couldn’t leave that unanswered - it would just escalate if he didn’t address it. He surged to his feet and squared up, made himself big, made her see how much bigger he was than her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
And he was bigger - by a lot. He wasn’t sure if it was normal for a female alpha, but the waterbender stood no taller than his shoulder. She was easily half his width. Her limbs were slender and her fists were tiny where they quaked at her sides. She had no water and no way to overpower him-
And yet she stared him down like an enraged sea serpent.
“I don’t? How dare you!”
Without warning, she launched herself at him, using his own reflexive response to flip him down on his back on the stone floor. Then she loomed over him, sitting on his chest and pinning his arms under her knees and hands.
“You have no idea what this war has put me through!” She barked down at him. “Me personally!”
Zuko gaped up at her for a moment, and he was caught in her rage and pain that rang dangerous warnings through his head - gonna hurt you hurt you - until his own fear and panic overwhelmed him and he fought back hard. He hooked her with one leg and peeled her off of him and for a moment they wrestled back and forth. She was fierce and quick, with an intense energy and wiry evasiveness that was hard to pin down, but Zuko had nearly fifty pounds of muscle on her. The struggle was brief and came to a straining halt with both of them on their sides, twisted in each other’s legs.
She was choking him a little with her calves on either side of his neck, grinding hard on his gland. Zuko snarled through his teeth at her.
“Let go and get off me!”
“You let go!” she wheezed. He had her whole torso caught between his legs and a hard grip on her wrist so she couldn’t try to backhand him in the crotch again. “Unless you’re actually that scared to be confronted with one of your family’s victims when they know who you are!”
She’d clearly scented and misinterpreted his fear. She was so close to him now, though, she could probably detect all kinds of things he didn’t want her to. He had to get her away from him. Cautiously, he loosened his grip on her and, when her grip also eased, he hastily pulled away. He withdrew to a sitting position, once more a comfortable distance from her and angled away. She had taken up a position sitting on her heels and was glaring directly at him.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m trapped in a cave with a self-righteous lunatic who hates me.”
“No, you don’t smell right. Like you’re sick or something.”
Zuko’s eyes bulged. He could feel it now, the gradual burning that was radiating out from his abdomen. It was beginning. There would be no escaping it now.