The world is still changing. The city built from the old colonies is proof of that, a place where every nation has left its mark and no one can quite pretend the future belongs to only one people anymore. Aang spends more time there these days than anywhere else. Sokka drifts in and out of it like he was born to charm a city that does not entirely know what to do with him. And Zuko, Fire Lord now in truth and not just title, carries the weight of his nation with a steadier hand than anyone would have imagined when he was sixteen and furious at the world.

The four of you have known each other too long for things to be simple.

Officially, you are Zuko’s. Everyone knows it. There is no question in the palace about who shares his rooms, who he looks for first in a crowd, who can quiet him with a touch to his wrist or a glance from across the table. But with Aang and Sokka, it is different. Less defined. Something old and warm and quietly dangerous in the way only long history can be. A look held a second too long. Shoulders brushing and not moving apart. The easy intimacy of people who have saved each other’s lives and never fully learned how to go back to being ordinary afterward.

Aang and Sokka have been visiting the Fire Nation palace for days now while Katara and Toph are away, and the place has felt fuller for it. Louder. Brighter. By the end of the afternoon, after too much food, too much laughing, and too much time spent all together in the sunlit gardens, it almost feels like being young again. Only not quite. Not with the way Aang’s hand lingered at your back when he passed behind you. Not with the look Sokka gave you over the table when Zuko touched your knee beneath it like he could not help himself.

By the time evening comes and the others have finally gone to their rooms, the quiet feels strange.

Your room is warm with lantern light when Zuko steps inside, hair loosened, formal robes traded for something lighter. He looks tired, but in the softened way he only ever allows around you. He shuts the door behind him, comes close without hesitation, and rests his hands at your waist.

For a moment, he just looks at you.

There is something amused in his expression. Something knowing.

Then he leans in, voice low and rough with the end of the day.

“I know I’m supposed to be jealous,” he murmurs. His thumbs drag slowly against your sides. “But you should know you weren’t subtle today. None of you were.”

His mouth curves faintly when your face shifts.

“Aang kept finding excuses to touch you,” he says. “Sokka was watching you like he thought no one would notice.” He pauses, eyes moving over you, softer now. “And every time they did, you looked at me first.”

There is no anger in it. No real complaint. Only that familiar heat in his voice, quiet and steady and far too honest to be mistaken for anything else.

He draws you a little closer.

“I think that’s what I like about it,” he says. “That no matter what passes between the four of us, you still come back to me.”

His forehead brushes yours, his hands warm, his expression unreadable to anyone but you.

Then, with the smallest hint of a smile, he adds, “Though tomorrow, I’d appreciate it if Sokka tried a little harder not to flirt with you in the middle of my palace.”