Fic: "No Right Angles"

[redbrunja]

I don't have much time on the internet today, so I'm doing a drive-by post - I wanted to get this up before I got jossed. Enjoy!

Title: No Right Angles

Author: redbrunja

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Rating: PG

Characters: Zuko, Katara, Aang.

Author’s Note: Spoilers for 3x12. This will undoubtedly be jossed after the next episode. Many thanks to fairest1 and renagadekitsune for the speedy beta.

Summary: “He should know better by now, know better than to want something he had possessed before and lost, but he seemed doomed to make the same mistakes over and over.” Zuko continues to reach for things he can’t have.

  

“That is a waterbending move,” Katara said from behind him, her voice just as harsh with betrayal as ever.

Zuko felt his movement hitch, her voice causing everything in him to tighten, and then he forced himself to finish the kata before turning to face her, the sun warm on his bare back, the ever present wind from the canyon cooling the sweat away.

Alright, he may have been optimistic in his expectations for getting the Avatar and his friends to trust him, but he was finding out that there were limits to how far he could swallow his pride, and after a week of Katara’s viciously sharp tongue...

“Is there a reason you’re here?” he said, crossing his arms and staring at a point just over her shoulder.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” she said, watching him like he was a slug that was trying to climb into her boots. “Aang’s going to be late for firebending.”

“Why?” Zuko asked, wondering if it had anything to do with the swipe of mud across her right cheekbone.

“Because,” she ground out between her teeth.

Zuko wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled like dry bones, until she stopped snipping at him and reached for her element (there was a fountain right behind her, it would practically be handing her a weapon) and he’d firebend and there would be the cool/hot hiss of steam and maybe then, after violence was bled out of her, she’d be able to look at him and see the same person she’d reached out to in the green crystal cave.

He should know better by now, know better than to want something he had possessed before and lost, but he seemed doomed to make the same mistakes over and over.

Zuko turned away from Katara, dismissively, and went back to practicing the move Iroh had taught him to deflect lightning.

This isn’t a mistake, he told himself, eyes tracing the line of the cliffs across the canyon. This is what Uncle would want you to be doing. He focused on the greenery hanging from the edges of the stones down into the air like a lady’s kimono, and tried to find the inner calm Iroh seem to possess effortlessly.

“That is a waterbending move,” Katara repeated, voice growing deeper with anger.

“Yes, it is,” Zuko answered, “My uncle taught it to me.”

There was a pause, and then she said, “I see,” in this carefully neutral voice.

He knew exactly what she meant by that; he’s seen it in her eyes when Toph had asked after Iroh the first evening, and he’d had to explain that his uncle had been in prison, and now wasn’t, and Zuko didn’t know where the old man was. Katara had tried to look concerned, and she’d mostly managed it, but he’d seen the faint upward jerk of her lips, had read You Deserve That written across her face as clearly as his scar marked his. The cooking fire had shuddered in reaction to his anger. He’d forced it into quiescence but still, Katara had looked at him like that had been an assassination attempt.

So now they stood alone on one of the Western Air Temple’s terraces. Five hundred feet from the valley floor, water lacing through the rocks of the cliff, suspicious waterbender in front of him: Zuko lost his temper.

“YOU DON’T,” he roared, flames licking the edges of his words and then whirled away from her.

He paced the edge of the cliff, and stared out, ignoring the drop in front of him.

Up, down, across, out, Zuko told himself, trying to redirect his emotions the same way he’d redirected his father’s lightning. That had been easier then this.

Katara was still standing behind him, clearly waiting for him to do something. He was about to open his mouth and ask if she thought he was an idiot, that he was going to betray her right before her eyes with nothing at all to gain, and then realized what her implied question had been.

“My uncle said that you can draw strength from other elements, besides your own,” he told her, looking over his shoulder. There was a flash of curiosity in her eyes, and he reached after it like a desperate man following foxfire in a swamp. “I could teach you, if you wanted.”

She looked as insulted as if he’d just propositioned her.

“You think you have anything to teach me about waterbending?” her voice cracked incredulously on the last word.

Zuko exhaled through his teeth and resisted the urge to tug at his hair in frustration. Couldn’t he do or say anything right?

“No! I meant, if you wanted, I could teach you some firebending moves,” he explained.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you aren’t confusing me with someone short and bald? Who you’ve so far failed to teach anything?”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “That,” he informed her tightly, “is because Aang isn’t trying.”

Katara had her hands on her hips. “Of course he is–” she started automatically.

He made a quick motion of negation with his hands, and miracle of miracles, she shut up.

Of course, that was mostly because his fingers had been on fire, and she’d been busy drawing up a rope of water out of the fountain 10 feet behind her.

He curled his fingers together, opened them, and then casually hooked his thumbs in the drawstring waistband of his pants.

She stared at him for a moment longer, and then she released the water. The fountain was burbling cheerfully, but he never found the sound of water restful when Katara was around.

She crossed her arms and looked at him stubbornly, the wind lifting little pieces of her hair and the cliff above her throwing her face into shadow.

“So what’s Aang doing wrong?” she asked, in a this-better-be-good-way.

Luckily, Zuko had an answer. He’d had nothing else to think about lately. It was ponder Aang’s lack of progress or brood about his outsider status. In fact, he could sometimes manage both simultaneously.

“He’s too controlled,” Zuko informed her, crossing his arms as well, unconsciously mirroring her posture. He waited until she opened her mouth and then continued. “He’s so focused on controlling the fire that he’s not bending.”

Katara’s gazed dropped to the left, the corners of her mouth dropping, and maybe it was instinct - too many years of thinking of her as the enemy, or maybe she was right, and deep down he was just irredeemably malicious, but he pushed his advantage, “frankly, I’d have a better chance of turning you into a firebender.”

“Oh, really?” she retorted.

“No,” he swiped at her, wanting a little vengeance for the hundreds of times she’d made digs at his character, his morals, his brains, and his hair. “You don’t have enough will.”

And really, what under the sun was her problem with his hair?

“Let me tell you something, you arrogant, lying-” she stalked towards him. Her hands transcribed a brief circle in the air and a wave rose out of the fountain to mimic her, its edge frozen white and glinting.

“Your stance is wrong,” he informed her.

“What?” she momentarily stopped her tirade and he took the opportunity to correct her, nudging her left foot to widen her stance and reaching out to raise her elbow a little.

“I’m not in the mood to fool around with you–” she started and then he said the three little words that he knew would make it impossible for her to walk away.

“Now, punch me,” he instructed.

There was a fractional pause, during which, Zuko was sure, Katara was mentally deciding whether or not the others would accept her explanations if Zuko showed up at dinner bruised and bloodied. Clearly, the answer was 'yes' because she proceeded to try and knock his teeth out.
 

He blocked, the line of contact between their forearms stinging at the impact. It was a decent punch, but it could be stronger. He stepped back, and she didn’t push her advantage. They’d have to do something about that.

 

“That’s your weakness,” Zuko said, realizing. He stepped forward, tapping the edge of his foot against hers again.

 

“Excuse me?” Katara said, shifting her footing and automatically falling into a proper firebending stance, mirroring his posture - clearly she’d been paying attention during their previous fights.

 

“You wait. You don’t know how to use your own strength,” he came straight at her, leading with kick to the stomach. She twisted away, but then he was close enough for a combination of blows towards her face. “– you let your enemies’ strike first.”

 

She blocked, twisting his punches away, diverting his force. She was glaring at him, eyes narrowed, but she was listening, too.

 

“You take strength from your opponents' strength,” he finished, with another straight forward punch.

 

“And that’s a bad thing?” Katara retorted, grabbing his wrist, twisting, and managing to

pull him off balance for an instant.

 

He shook his head, bits of hair sticking to his cheeks, “If you want to invade - if you want to win - stop being so-” he couldn’t think of the right word.

 

Katara cocked her head and then advanced, using the combination he’d opened with.

 

“Almost,” he informed her, the defensive moves coming without thinking. “Now, stop holding back.” She nodded, stepped back, and then come at him again, eyes implacable, form perfect. His forearms stung when he blocked her blows and Zuko wondered if this was what it was like teaching Azula. No wonder all the sinfus had preferred her to me.

 

She stepped forward, arms extending, feet solid on the ground, and Zuko half-expected fire to bloom in her palms.

 

He tried that circular, diverting move she’d used earlier. It didn’t work, and her knuckles rapped hard against his solar plexus.

 

He stumbled back a step.

 

“Almost,” Katara said. She was breathing heavy, but her voice was clear. “Like this,” she reached out, corrected his hand position, guided his arms through the motion and then stepped back.

 

He nodded at her, letting her know that he was ready, and she repeated herself with another blow towards his chest.

 

Zuko had no idea what to call what they were doing - it wasn’t fighting, and he’d almost call it sparring, except that he’d never been in sparring match where both participants would periodically stop and show the other how to attack more effectively.

 

They didn’t stop until both of them were breathing like bellows.

 

Katara rested her hands on her knees, forcing herself to take slow, steady breaths and Zuko watched the way tendrils of hair clung to her neck, sweat shining across her face. He focused on getting his heart to stop pounding like a war drum. He rubbed a hand along his right ribs - they were sore, either from Toph slamming that pillar of rock into him a week ago, or from that nice sidekick of Katara’s just a moment ago.

 

There was a smile on her lips, her eyes focused inward on something only she could see. She looked like a child who had found a new world to explore.

 

I made her look like that, Zuko thought and smiled back at her, tentatively. She looked up at him, blue eyes bright and then Aang was hollering at them, galloping down the stairs, apologizing for being late when he was still across the terrance from them.

 

Katara lifted her head, looked at him, and recognition filled her eyes like oil covering water.

 

“I still don’t trust you,” she said, voice to low for anyone besides him to hear, and turned away.

 

Zuko grabbed the collar of her dress, jerked her back to face him. She slapped his hand away.

 

“I don’t care what you think of me,” he informed her, voice low and angry. “I’m going to teach the Avatar firebending, he’s going to stop my father, this war is going to end, and then it won’t matter what one. little. Water Tribe girl thinks of me.”

 

She scoffed, shrugged her shoulders and started walking away.

 

“Hi, Katara,” Aang said, beaming at her.

 

She smiled back at him, Zuko knew, because the Avatar practically skipped his way across the remaining ground.

 

“By the way,” Zuko yelled at her back, “you have mud on your cheek.”

 

Katara stopped, paused, and then kept walking away from him.

 

He turned back towards the canyon, ignoring the puzzled look Aang was giving him.

 

“It won’t matter at all,” Zuko told the ever-present wind, and the words tasted dust-dry in his mouth.