Chapter Text
It starts with a phone call.
“Hello?”
“Is this Zuko Watanabe?”
“Yes. Who is this?” Zuko says gruffly in response to the older female voice. He shifts the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he shuffles through the pages of the manuscript in his hands.
“My name is He Bian,” the voice continues, “and I’m calling from Republic City’s Child Protective Services.”
Zuko’s head shoots up. “What?”
The pages fall from his hands as the woman explains. A little girl has been identified after a year’s search for her birth certificate. Sheets of paper litter his desk and the carpeted floor of his office, but he pays them no mind while He Bian tells him that the little girl has been passed between foster homes for as long as they have records on her. But now they’ve found the mother’s identity.
Her name is Azula Watanabe.
“Azula is missing,” He Bian says. Zuko stares out the far window of his office at the rest of Republic City’s financial district. “You’ve been identified as the next of kin.”
The girl is two years old, He Bian goes on when Zuko does not respond, still staring blankly with his mouth hanging open. Her name is Izumi.
“We’ve run a background check and approved you as a suitable foster, but if you don’t want to collect her, she can be placed—”
“No,” Zuko rasps. It’s maybe rude to interrupt, but he’s never been good at controlling his impulses, and he really, really doesn’t care about being polite right now. “I’m coming to get her,” he says. He’s already shoved his laptop into his bag and started pulling on his jacket. The manuscript on the floor can wait. “Where do I find her?”
Zuko finds himself not long after in an administrative office near Republic City Hall, sitting in a waiting room in a hard, plastic chair. Luckily it’s Friday afternoon. His work as an editor normally allows him to have a pretty flexible schedule, but on Friday afternoons, he needs no excuse to leave the office, and he has no meetings with authors or agents to worry about.
“Zuko Watanabe?” a voice calls out.
Zuko rises and strides over to the counter where a stout, middle-aged woman stands rifling through paperwork. She wears a stern expression on her face, even the mole on her eyebrow practically glaring at him. The general impression she gives him is of an old, potentially poisonous toad.
“Izumi will be right out,” she says before he can speak. Her eyes narrow as she examines a piece of paperwork, and then nods before placing it to the side. “I’m He Bian,” she says, addressing him again. “I’ll be handling this case. You can expect to receive calls and home visits from me as we move forward with Izumi’s adoption.”
Zuko nods mutely until the last sentence. “Adoption?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
He Bian sighs. “Like I said on the phone, Mr. Watanabe, Izumi has never had a real guardian. It seems a missing persons report was filed for Azula three years ago—”
“That was me,” Zuko cuts in. Again, he’s never been the best at impulse control. “I reported Azula missing.”
“Hm.” He Bian eyes him warily. “Well. In these situations, we prefer to transfer custody to a member of the family. You might remember that’s you.”
He nods. The flat scan of He Bian’s eyes on him makes Zuko feel vaguely unsettled.
“Are you willing—”
“Yes,” Zuko says. His teeth are clenched to keep from shouting. “Yes, I already said I want to take her. Where is she?”
He Bian holds up a single pudgy, manicured finger, and then hands him a clipboard. “Sign this.”
Just like that, another woman comes out and places a tiny, tearful girl in Zuko’s arms, and all that’s left to do is take her home.
“She’ll cry for a while, probably,” He Bian says as he pulls the small bag full of Izumi’s belongings onto his shoulder. “These kids that move around so much, you never know how they’re gonna do with change.”
Zuko places his free hand on the little girl’s back, and her arms cling tighter around his neck. He glares at He Bian, but she’s already turned to another stack of paperwork. She shrugs.
“It’s fine,” she says.
It is not fine. Izumi cries in the cab home, she cries as they walk up the stairs to the apartment, and she cries after Zuko opens the door and tries to set her down. He gives up trying to detach her hands from his collar and sets them both down on the sofa. He’ll just resign himself to having a hot, wet neck and listening to little gasps of baby breath in his ear for the foreseeable future.
“It’s all right,” he tries to comfort her, even if just to do something. “Everything’s okay now.” He pulls back slightly to look in her round, red, damp face. She meets his eyes before squeezing hers shut and letting out another stomach-plummeting sob. Her head buries back into his shoulder.
“But it’s still kind of scary,” he murmurs. His hand covers the whole expanse of her ribs as he tries rubbing circles on her back. It feels a bit helpless.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes.
The sun sits low enough in the sky now that its light shines at the perfect angle through the windows of the living room and into Zuko’s eyes. He rises from the sofa to get away from it. There are few rooms in the apartment to carry a crying toddler, so he ends up in the kitchen. He walks back and forth across the hardwood floor and faded woven mat, continuing to whisper comforting words into Izumi’s hair. If only she would stop crying. Then he might be able to figure out what to do next.
Izumi figures it out for him.
“Anana,” she says, so quietly Zuko almost doesn’t hear her. He freezes, and her head rises from his shoulder.
Zuko follows Izumi’s gaze to the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. Sure enough, it is filled with a few brown-spotted bananas and a pair of tangerines.
“You want a banana?” Zuko asks. He mentally kicks himself for delaying the one thing that has so far managed to quell her cries.
Izumi nods, two clumsy bobs of her head on her little neck. “Anana,” she repeats.
Zuko reaches and pulls one of the bananas out, and Izumi’s head turns to follow its movement. He looks between his hands. He needs a third to be able to peel a banana and hold Izumi at the same time.
“Uh,” he starts, “I’m gonna have to put you down now. Just for a second, okay?”
Izumi’s eyes widen as he starts to lower her, and then she grips onto him even harder.
“No!” she wails. Her face crumples.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry!” Zuko rushes to right himself, and though she clings to him just as tightly, Izumi does not resume crying.
“Okay,” Zuko says again, trying not to betray his unease. He shifts Izumi higher onto his hip. Once again, he examines the banana. How is he going to open it one-handed?
He doesn’t need to. Izumi grabs for the now-slightly-bruised banana with her little toddler hands so that he can squeeze one end and pull back the first strip of mottled peel. She catches on quickly, though, and it’s not long before she pushes his hand away in favor of peeling more herself. At least until she gets over-excited and shoves the exposed fruit into her mouth.
“Be careful!” Zuko cries. He grabs the banana and tries to pull it from her mouth. “Slowly! Are you trying to choke?”
Something about Zuko’s concern must strike her as funny, because Izumi falls into a fit of giggles and grabs his face, leaving sticky remnants of banana mush on his chin. “Eat anana,” she says happily.
A glowing warmth surges through Zuko’s chest at the sound of her laughter, and he breaks into a grin at her words. His shoulders relax just slightly in relief. “Thanks,” he says, his voice rough, and he sits at the kitchen table after grabbing a knife to slice up the rest of the banana.
Izumi settles into his lap contentedly, but her face changes as she surveys the little rounds of banana now piled in front of her. Her hands open and close to reattempt her attack, and her eyebrows draw together in a familiarly determined expression.
It’s then that it hits Zuko. Her jetblack hair, her pale skin, her soft brown eyes that so easily turn fierce.
She looks just like Azula.
Not the Azula he remembers from three years ago, all sharp angles and tight shoulders and dark circles under her eyes. The Azula from when they were little. Before their mother left, and Azula started spending all of her time with their father, and Zuko went to live with their Uncle Iroh with a burn covering the left side of his face. That Azula, the one who played hide-and-seek with him and ate mochi by the boxful, was soft and round and sweet. Her cheeks were always full and tinged pink, like white peaches, and giggles fell easily from her lips that were otherwise poised to ask hundreds of questions. That is what Izumi looks like.
Which means she is Zuko’s family.
The realization leaves him breathless. A metaphorical anvil has landed on his chest, and all he can do is sit and watch in wonder as Izumi continues eating. When she turns and holds out one of the banana slices for his inspection, he feels his heart break open, and then fill up with her. How many times has she come to a new home and had to make do?
“Izumi,” he says quietly. He captures her tiny hand, and she stares at it, puzzled. “Izumi,” he says again, and this time she meets his eyes. “I’m going to take care of you. You’re safe. You’re home. We’re going to be together from now on. Okay?”
Izumi’s brow furrows. “Okay,” she says breathily, and on her next inhale, she’s back to waving the banana slice in his face. Only now it’s more of a mushy paste in her little fist.
Zuko’s content to watch Izumi keep eating banana slices, listening to her murmur quietly to herself as she eats two, then three, then four more slices, when two things happen at once: his phone rings, tinny and shrill, and the front door swings open.
Izumi goes still in his arms. She looks at Zuko with wide eyes.
“No, no, no,” Zuko tries to reassure her, but it’s too late.
Izumi starts wailing.
Sokka walks in from the entryway with a bag of takeout in one hand, his messenger bag in the other, and a bewildered look on his face.
“What is that?” he practically shrieks when he sees Zuko trying to juggle a ringing phone and a sobbing two-year-old.
“Sokka.”
“Okay, fine, who is that?”
“Sokka—”
“Don’t tell me that’s your baby,” Sokka continues. He’s dropped the messenger bag and is clutching his hand in his hair, but the takeout is still solidly held in his hand. “Oh my La, Zuko, she looks just like you. When did you have a baby?”
Zuko glances at his phone. A missed call from his uncle.
“I didn’t have a baby!”
“I mean, look, if it turns out you’re into women, that’s fine by me, but didn’t Iroh at least teach you to use protect—”
“Sokka!” Zuko barks over Izumi’s shrieks. “I didn’t have a baby.”
Sokka stares at him. He waits. Zuko can see it the second he can’t stay quiet.
“Then how—?”
“Azula,” Zuko says. He tries to bounce Izumi, hoping she can’t hear what they’re talking about. “Azula had her two years ago. And they still couldn't find Azula so they called me. This is Izumi.”
“Azula?”
Zuko’s phone rings again, and he glances down at it. Uncle.
“Take her,” he says to Sokka, and he starts handing Izumi, still screaming, over.
“Wha—Zuko, we can’t keep a baby here!” Sokka holds Izumi out at an arm’s distance, still clutching the takeout in his hand. His eyes narrow when her foot kicks the paper bag.
“Then I’ll move!” Zuko says harshly, and that shuts Sokka up. “Just—hold her for a minute, I need to take this.”
He leaves Sokka like that, shocked and stock-still with a red-faced and wriggling Izumi in his hands, when he finally picks up the call in his bedroom.
“Uncle?”
“Nephew!” he hears his uncle’s cheerful voice from the other end of the line. “Are you watching the Plant Planet channel? They’re doing a special on the pakui berries, and I was just thinking, do you remember the time—”
“Uncle,” Zuko says again, and Iroh goes quiet. “Something happened.”
Iroh’s voice turns gruff. “Are you all right? Do you need me to come to Republic City?”
“No, I’m fine,” Zuko starts, but then he stops himself. He can still hear Izumi’s cries, both coming from the hallway and ringing in his head, and he sits down at the foot of his bed. “It’s Azula,” he says on a sigh. “There’s a baby. Her name is Izumi.”
And then Zuko tells his uncle everything that’s happened in the last four hours.
At the end of it, he can practically see Iroh in his kitchen in Ba Sing Se, his face grave as he thinks.
“I see,” Iroh finally says. He pauses. “And what are you going to do?”
“I know what you would do,” Zuko says. He rubs his eye, his fingers pausing at the edge of his scar. “What you did.”
“Yes,” Iroh says slowly. “But we are talking about you. What would you like to do?”
Zuko looks at the door he’s left ajar to be able to hear Izumi from his room. “I’m going to adopt her. I already said I would. I’ll do anything. I don’t know how, but I’m going to take care of her.”
He can hear the smile in Iroh’s voice as he replies, “No one knows how they’ll raise a child, nephew, whether they have nine months or thirty seconds to prepare themselves. What matters is their intention.” Zuko can practically see his nod, too. “I’m proud of you, Zuko.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” Zuko clears his throat. “I need to find Azula.”
“You must,” Iroh agrees. “And I will help in any way I can. Do you know where she was last?”
“Izumi was born in Republic City,” Zuko says, “but I don’t think Azula stayed very long after.”
“Then we will start there,” Iroh says seriously. “You have the number for her last psychiatrist?”
“I think so.”
“I will send it just in case,” says Iroh. “And I will go through the records I have here.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” Zuko says again.
Iroh’s voice turns soft, and warm. “Go be with her,” he says. “Call me for whatever you need.”
“Okay, Uncle.”
“And Zuko?”
“Yes, Uncle?”
Zuko waits as his uncle considers his words.
“Being a father, or an uncle, is a great responsibility,” Iroh finally says. “But it need not be a burden. Remember, you are not alone.”
Zuko smiles, and he closes his eyes as he looks down at the ground. “Thank you, Uncle,” he says for the third time, and then he hangs up.
He hears a jingling sound. He finds, when he enters the living room, that it is Sokka’s keys, which are currently being waved in Izumi’s hands.
“These are for the house,” Sokka says as he points out one key.
“House,” Izumi repeats.
“And these are for the…?” Sokka trails off, looking expectantly at Izumi, his face close to hers as she sits in his lap.
“Dog,” Izumi says, shaking them up.
“Office,” Sokka says, leaning back, “but close enough.” His eyes land on Zuko, who stands still watching the pair, his phone still clutched in his hand, and he raises an eyebrow at him. “Everything all right?”
Zuko nods. “Yeah.” He comes to sit on the floor in front of Izumi, and her eyes light up when she sees him again. He smiles back. “Just updating my uncle.”
“Cool,” says Sokka.
Zuko takes the keys when Izumi hands them to him, and then looks back up at Sokka. “I’m sorry about before,” he says earnestly. “When I yelled at you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sokka says, waving the hand not holding Izumi. “I’m used to your little stress tantrums, and I definitely didn’t help with how I reacted.”
“I don’t have tantrums,” Zuko protests.
“Sure, you don’t,” Sokka says with a grin. He sobers as he watches Izumi hold her hands out for the keys again and then pass them back to Sokka. He takes them into his hands and pauses. “Now. Are you going to tell me how you got Azula’s mini-me or do I have to guess?”
So Zuko ends up recounting everything from the phone call, to He Bian, to Izumi, and then Sokka’s arrival for the second time that night. He continues taking the keys and passing them back to Izumi whenever she hands them to her.
“That’s it,” he finally says, determinedly watching the workings of Izumi’s hands over looking into Sokka’s open face. He has no idea what he might find there.
“You have to find Azula.”
Zuko looks up, and he sees Sokka’s gravest and most determined expression, his eyes hard as he looks directly into Zuko’s.
“That’s what I told my uncle,” Zuko says eventually. “He’s sending me the number for her last psychiatrist.”
“Good,” Sokka says immediately. “I can’t imagine. If it were Katara…” He trails off, and Zuko does imagine, for a moment, how Sokka would tear down entire walls to see whether Katara was kept behind them. A little wave of guilt sweeps through Zuko as he can’t help wondering whether he did enough three years ago, after his searches through Republic City, Ba Sing Se, and Caldera, when she seemingly slipped into thin air. He’d searched the cities’ hospitals, spoken to all her friends and doctors, watched hours of security footage trying to locate where exactly in her daily routine she disappeared. What could possibly turn up that didn’t the first time around?
Yet here is Izumi, sitting in his living room, with Azula’s eyes, giggling in delight as she jangles a set of keys. And Izumi is evidence that Azula was there, in Republic City, two years ago. That’s a new place to start.
“Also.”
Zuko blinks away again from Izumi’s passing-keys-between-them game. “Yeah?”
“You have to stay,” Sokka says, his voice firm. “I’m not making you move out with a new kid.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Sokka says, almost offended. Izumi turns to look at him with wide eyes, but Sokka bounces her twice on his knee before she can start up again. “Obviously it’s a shock, but Izumi’s cool.” He grins at her, and then turns earnest as he looks Zuko in the eyes. “You don’t have to do it alone. I’m here to help. We’ll make a plan, and we’ll figure it out.”
Zuko stares back at him, holding his breath as he waits. For Sokka to take it back, to wake up from the strangest dream he’s ever had, for something.
“Really?” he asks.
“Really,” Sokka says with a nod. “Just give me a day.”
“For your plan?” Zuko asks, smirking.
Sokka narrows his eyes. “Our plan,” he says. “Do you know how much stuff kids need? Or how much they eat? Seriously, we need one.”
Zuko can’t help the soft smile on his face when he looks again at Sokka. They’ve lived together for four years, have known each other since high school, but it’s not lost on Zuko that this isn’t a typical arrangement between roommates-slash-best friends. Especially when they’re in their mid-20s, working crazy hours trying to get ahead in their careers, Zuko at the publishing house and Sokka at the startup he founded just a year ago with their friend Teo. And not to mention the nonexistent love lives they’ve bemoaned for years. Sokka has put that all to the side to basically co-parent with Zuko for an indefinite amount of time.
“I can’t let you do that,” Zuko says earnestly.
“Don’t be stupid.” Sokka’s got that crooked grin Zuko likes so much. “What else are friends for?”
Zuko can only stare at him. Sokka looks back at him, his eyes determined, maybe even a little fierce, as if he’s daring Zuko to challenge him. The moment breaks a second later when Sokka sweeps Izumi up by her armpits and presents her to Zuko.
“I got dinner from Yee’s, and I looked it up, babies can eat curry noodles.”
“Okay?” Zuko replies. He scoops Izumi up into his own arms.
Sokka grins. “Cool, because I’m starving, the food’s getting cold, and this one needs a change.” He rises from the sofa and moves toward the kitchen, calling behind himself, “Think you could take care of that before I lose my appetite?”
“Nothing could make you lose your appetite!” Zuko yells after him, but then the smell hits him, and yeah. That could turn anyone off of their laksa.
Thus Zuko begins his journey into fatherhood with one of its less honorable, but unavoidable messes: Izumi’s dirty diaper.