It should have been an unforgettable opening move.
In Raven's head, it probably was: an explosion of righteous fury, a devastating first strike that would knock him flat and prove, once and for all, that she was not weak, not a child, not something to be protected and put aside, and certainly not someone who would abruptly be struck dead in a war on the other side of the world.
She lunged.
Her fist came in straight for his chest, shoulders tight, eyes blazing, fire leaping eagerly to her knuckles.
It was… not actually that impressive.
Zuko's irritation moved faster than his fear. He snapped his arm up and backhanded her punch aside before it could land properly. Her fist whipped past his ribs instead of into them; the small burst of flame that came with it went skidding across the front of his coat.
The fabric smoked, then caught.
"Raven, stop it—wh—hey!" he yelped, patting frantically at his chest. A black-edged scorch blossomed over the rich red, curling the new gold embroidery. "That's my coat! My mom just got this for me!"
She froze for half a heartbeat. Just long enough to hear it.
My mom. He knew he shouldn't have said that, even if it should have been harmless.
Something ugly and bright went through her eyes like lightning. Her jaw clenched so hard the muscles in her cheeks jumped.
"Must be nice," she bit out, the words cracking. "At least you still have one!"
Fire snapped up around her hands before he could answer.
"Raven, that's not what I—" Zuko started, backing up, one palm already sweeping to redirect the next wild punch. It came in a sloppy straight line, more arm than shoulder, the little flare of fire on her knuckles barely singeing his sleeve as he brushed it aside.
He caught a proper look at her face then.
She was furious, yes. But underneath the rage her eyes were shining, on the edge of spilling over. Her mouth was twisted, not just in anger but in something awful and wounded that reminded him of the day she'd stood in the palace courtyard and listened to the news, refusing to cry for the first time in her life, while everyone else did it for her.
He hated that look. He hated putting it there. Even when he hadn't done anything, he felt like he must have.
"How could you taunt me about her?! You're the worst!" she shouted along with her flames.
"Raven, stop," he said, more firmly, continuing to give ground. His heels scuffed on the polished floor, carrying him backward down the hall. He batted aside a clumsy kick that sent a puff of fire skidding along the tiles. "You're not making any sense!"
"Shut up!" she snapped, voice thick. She kicked again, then spun into a punch, then another, each one flinging little bursts of flame that were more noise than danger. "You think I'm weak, you think I should just stay home and sew or something like dad, you think you're so much better just because—just because—!"
She was breathing hard already, each words dragged like it hurt. The hall echoed with the slap of their feet, the smack of redirected blows, the hiss of fire against stone. He kept backing up. He could have stopped her without much trouble, but every time she came close enough he saw that look again, like she was trying to burn straight through her own chest, and he didn't have the heart to stop her. Maybe she needed it. Maybe she had to hurt him to feel better, but she never seemed happy even then. Nothing ever made her happy anymore.
He couldn't hit her. Not like this.
Her attacks drove him until his shoulders brushed cold stone. He glanced back at the wall, then forward again at the girl trying to set him on fire.
"Nowhere left to run," Raven panted, triumphant and wild. "Is this weak?!" She somehow had no idea that he was clearly not really fighting back at all, and that too just made Zuko feel even more bad for her. "Why are you just... looking at me?!"
She drew her arm back for a final punch, every muscle taut, fire already gathering around her hand.
For a moment, just a moment, their gazes locked. Her eyes were huge, pupils blown, teeth bared. Underneath all of it, right at the bottom, he saw it.
Fear.
Not of him. Not really. Something deeper, messier, turned inward and then flung out at anything that got close. It looked, to young Zuko, for all the world like someone screaming for help in a language nobody understood, not even her.
Her fist started forward.
His hand moved.
He caught her wrist.
Her knuckles stopped a breath from his chest, and he wrenched her arm up, heating the ceiling and not further destroying his beleaguered attire.
Raven made a strangled, enraged sound and tried to wrench free. When that didn't work, she tried to hit him with her other hand. He caught that wrist too with his free one, shoved off the wall, and turned, using his weight to push her back the way she'd driven him.
He didn't think about it. Training and stubbornness did it for him: short, sharp kicks that sent controlled bursts of flame at her feet and shoulders, forcing her to step where he wanted; tight, economical punches that never quite landed but demanded all her attention just to block or bend away. He wasn't amazing, but she was worse. The fire he used wasn't huge, but it was hotter than hers, more focused. He was used to sparring Azula. Compared to that, this was…
Well. Harder than it should have been, because his chest hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with bending.
Raven's flurry stumbled. Her footwork fell apart as she scrambled to keep up, breath going ragged. She got quieter as she was forced to focus, the shouted accusations falling away between grunts of effort and little gasps when a near-miss singed a sleeve or skirt hem.
The corridor narrowed around them: wall, floor, heat, two children throwing fire because they didn't know how else to get through to each other.
Zuko barely registered when her back hit the opposite wall. He just knew he had her there, and if he let her go she was going to explode again, and if she exploded again he didn't know if he could take it. He felt like he'd rather just let her hurt him and maybe realize she shouldn't have... but he pushed her wrist up, pinning it above her head against the stone. His other forearm came up across her throat, firm enough to hold her, not enough to choke. There wasn't any fire left to accost each other with.
They both stood there, panting.
"Stop," Zuko said, voice shaking now. "Just… stop. Please, Raven. Please."
Her fists twitched against his grip. He tightened his hold.
"I'm not—" his voice cracked with anger and embarrassment and something rawer, "I'm not the one who won't let you go to the stupid tournament. That's your father. I'm not the one who says you're 'unseemly' or 'unladylike' or whatever." Her eyes flinched at the words. He pushed on. "I never said you're a bad firebender. I said I barely think I'm good enough. We're just... still kids!"
She let out an involuntary little huff that might have been a broken laugh if it hadn't hurt so much.
He swallowed. The lump in his throat scraped like it was made of stone. "Just," he blurted, louder than he meant to as he twisted up, eyes watering, "stop being so mean to me! Please!"
Her eyes went wide.
"I didn't do anything to you!" he went on, the words tumbling out now, rough and unpolished. "I'm trying, okay? I'm trying to be nice. I was trying when you screamed at me in the garden, and when you kicked me in the shin because I said hello wrong, and when you threw that vase because you didn't like the flowers in it and it almost hit me in the face!"
"Nobody told you to stand there," she muttered, but it was automatic, weak, almost silent by the end like she knew it was stupid before she could finish.
He ignored it. "I know your mom died," Zuko said, the words softening but not backing down. "I know it hurts. But I didn't do that. I can't fix that. I just—" his lip wobbled, and he hated it, "I just want you to stop acting like I did!"
They stared at each other, both of them breathing hard.
Something in Raven's expression faltered.
Up close like this he could see every tiny tremor: the flutter of her lashes, the twitch in her jaw, the way her shoulders were hunched like she was waiting to be hit and didn't even realize it. Her mouth opened.
"You said I was weak," she tried again, but the fight had gone out of the words. "You said I should—know my place, and I—"
He flinched. "I said you're weaker than me right now," he said defensively. "And I shouldn't have said it like that. I was mad. But that's not the same as thinking you can't ever be strong. You're… you're… annoying. And stubborn. And you don't listen. But you're not hopeless. You're comparing yourself to me or... spirits, Azula, but like... Raven, you're better than most kids our age! We're not the only other benders in the world..."
Her brows knit like she was trying to follow a very complicated, very unpleasant math problem.
She inhaled. Stopped. Tried again.
"I'm mad because—" Raven began, then cut herself off, eyes darting away. "Because you get to go and I don't and it's not fair, and because you… you still have your mom, and I don't, and every time you say 'my mom' I feel like I can't breathe, and—" she made a frustrated noise, shoulders shaking, "and because everything feels wrong, and I don't know... I'm so mad all the time, Zuko..."
She sounded less like she was accusing him and more like she was discovering it in real time, horrified.
Her gaze dropped to his collar, to the scorched edge of red fabric near his shoulder. "I… I didn't mean to ruin your coat," she muttered, very small. "Not really."
Zuko blinked. His arm loosened a fraction against her throat.
"I don't…" Raven's voice shrank. "But... you did—I'm mad at you because—" and she halted again, eyes dancing in thought. "I just—am. You upset me, I can't think straight, there was a reason I just can't remember." Her fingers uncurled slowly against the wall, all the tension draining out of them. She tried several times to look him in the eye and failed, before letting out a whimper she tried to stifle. Barely audible, she uttered, "I'm sorry."
It came out almost as a question.
Zuko let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It left him feeling hollow and shaky. His arms burned from holding her, his chest ached, and there was a weird sting behind his eyes that had nothing to do with smoke.
"Okay," he said, and it came out rough. "I mean… you're—" he started like he was going to scold her, but what even would be the point. "Just... okay. It's okay now." And he got a worried look she couldn't make herself turn her head up to see. "Right...?"
He stepped back, letting go of her wrist. His forearm dropped from her collarbone. Freed, Raven's arms stayed where they were for a second, like she didn't quite trust them to move yet. Then they lowered, hanging limp at her sides.
She stared at the floor between them. Her shoulders hunched inward, as if she could fold herself small enough to disappear. The fight had gone out of her completely, leaving an uncomfortable, bewildered girl who looked like she wanted to disappear.
The silence stretched.
Zuko scrubbed a hand over his face, then glanced toward the end of the hall where light slanted in from the palace gardens.
"Do you…" he began, stopped, then tried again. "Do you want to go feed the turtleducks or something?"
Her head snapped up, disbelief and confusion warring on her face.
"We don't have to talk about… any of this. We can just… throw bread at birds." He shrugged, but really he meant it. He just wanted it all to go away forever and never come back. He just wanted to get along with her again. "Like it never happened, right? Everything else too." And when she didn't immediately respond, he gave a weak, "please?"
Raven made a noise that was not quite a word, more of a tentative "mmm," and gave the smallest nod.
She pushed off the wall, shoulders still tucked in, eyes carefully not meeting his. When he started toward the far doors, he heard her fall into step a half pace behind him, quiet as a shadow.
Like a very sulky, slightly singed, firebreathing puppy with her tail between her legs.
He did not mention the coat again. It was in the past, or it never happened, whatever it took to get her to just calm down.
Zuko blinked up at the metal ceiling of his cabin until it resolved back into dull painted plates instead of palace stone.
The ship's heartbeat hummed under his back. His ribs throbbed in time. He could still feel the way her wrists had trembled under his hands, the rasp of her breath against his forearm, the way her voice had gone thin and lost when she'd admitted she didn't know why she was so angry.
"She couldn't ask," he muttered to himself. "She never could. She just… picked fights until someone stopped her."
On some level, he knew that. Had known it. That she'd been so scared after her mother died that she'd pushed everyone away as hard as she could, so if they went it would be because she'd made them, not because the world simply reached out and took them.
He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut. The memory sat in his chest like a hot stone.
"She really thought I was out to get her," he said, the words almost soundless in the tiny room.
Shame flickered, thin and sour, part of him knew very well that twelve-year-old Zuko had done better than he was doing now.
"Come on, Zuko," he told the ceiling. "What did you do that actually worked?"
He sifted through it again: backing up, refusing to hit her, losing his temper, finally hitting back, pinning her, yelling, not yelling, offering turtleducks like a coward's truce. None of it felt like a neat recipe he could just repeat now, years later, out in the world where their fights involved real fire and real stakes and armies instead of empty hallways and scorched new coats.
He let out a long breath that pulled unkindly at his bandages.
"I still don't get it," Zuko admitted, aloud, to nobody. "She stopped, but why?"
The ceiling, predictably, had no helpful suggestions.