Avatar Fic: Firebrand
Title: Firebrand
Rating: um…R probably? Although I’m thinking that would be a bit much.
Word Count: ~4700
Spoilers: None really.
Summary: Jet doesn’t need to know how it happened to know the end result.
Disclaimer: Avatar: the Last Airbender is property of lots and lots of people who are not me. Consequently, I am not getting paid for this and no copyright infringement is intended or any of that nonsense.
A/N: Ok, so this. THIS scares me. This fic is a first for me on so many levels, it’s not even funny. It’s a very different style than I’m used to writing in; it’s my first post EVER on to this community, and it’s the very first Modern AU that I’ve ever written. Like, in my life. Ironically though, this isn’t the first Jet/Zuko story I’ve written; the first one is a monster of a story (~9000 words and no end in sight), and will be completed some day in the vague and distant future. Also, Superman/Batman fanfiction and Superhero!Merlin fanfiction should never be combined. This is what happens.
***
Jet has a single comic book that managed to survive through the years. It survived through the space of his life when it suddenly wasn’t okay to idolize men in spandex flying around wearing capes, through an entire decade now (well, eleven years, if he wants to be precise), after the fire that destroyed his family and his childhood alike. The corners are rough and doubled over from use and age, the bright colors faded to mere muted shadows of their former glory. Jet leaves it in the second drawer of his dresser most days, and it sits alone and forgotten, gathering dust.
Until one day, that is, when he takes it out, unfolds the cover-it’s been creased under the pressure of his neatly folded jeans-and just stares at the faces looking up at him. Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, it says (propaganda bullshit, Jet knows, but after so many years, he just accepts that as part of the story and tries to ignore it) and scrawled in the bottom right-hand corner, in bold red typeface, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
It’s the last of a mini-series of eight; that much Jet knows. What he doesn’t know is how the story started, how most of the Freedom Fighters got their superpowers, what must have happened within the pages of the first seven, but it doesn’t matter all that much. He knows the ending by heart now, knows without even opening the cover what happens, how many people die within its pages.
Most importantly, Jet doesn’t want to fill in the gaps left by the first seven; this comic was the one his father had given him on his sixth birthday. He doesn’t want to discover the beginning of the story, not when he can still remember the way his father had ruffled his hair and said “You’ll like it well enough, even if there’s no movie about them,” the way the flames felt against his knuckles as he pulled it out of his burning room, the way his tears soaked into the pages those first tentative weeks in foster care.
And Jet doesn’t need to know how it happened to know the end result.
He stares at the comic book, not bothering to open it or flip through the pages, watching as his hands begin to tremble and, less than five minutes later, stop. Only then does he carefully replace the comic book in his dresser drawer, piling layers of crisp denim over it like he can stitch together old wounds, still raw and oozing after so many years. The drawer closes with a snap, and when Jet leaves his room, it’s with the intention of forgetting about it all over again.
***
He first meets the other boy in the alleyway outside the gym he works in. Jet’s sweaty and he’s in his oldest under armour compression shirt and basketball shorts, and all he wants is to get out of the building for twenty minutes and eat before his lunch break’s over. He’s thinking about proteins and carbohydrates and calories when he grabs his hoodie and stuffs his wallet into its pocket, so when he steps out into the brisk October afternoon and sees a pale boy standing there with a cigarette held between his lips and a small flame hovering between his thumb and pointer, it’s strange that the first thing that comes to his mind is Firebrand from his comic book.
The other boy looks up at the sound of the gym’s back entrance creaking shut, and when he locks eyes with Jet, it’s a strange, petrified expression that crosses his face as he drops his fingers and the flame disappears. Jet watches him for a few seconds, wondering how many people must have seen him do the same thing (or worse) and fled from his presence to put that particular shade of dread in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Jet finally says, and drags his eyes away from pools of molten honey.
When he walks away, he tries to sweep the memory into the second drawer of his dresser like always, but the boy manages to float through his mind all day; mixing up with the blond superhero who assassinates bad guys under the orders of Uncle Sam and bringing a faint ache of displaced homesickness with it.
Jet sees him again the next Monday at noon, walking to the café next to the gym as Jet goes on break. He can tell the other guy’s very deliberately Not Looking at Him; eyes trained on the floor as they pass each other, face tilted so that all he can really see is the dark burn under his black hair. He wonders what the guy would do if Jet tapped him on the shoulder and asked for his name.
He waits all of thirty seconds before he follows the boy into the café and strides purposefully to the counter, where the other boy is watching him with a guarded expression and a dark green apron tied around his clothes. Jet just smiles casually at him and orders a cup of green tea and a tuna sandwich, hands splayed over the black countertop innocently. When he pays, he lets his fingertips deliberately slide over the other boy’s wrist, who frowns deeply even as a faint blush (more like a pale echo of color than anything else) creeps up his face.
“My name’s Jet,” he says, undeterred.
The other boy nods and hands Jet his change, waving vaguely to his name tag with his other hand.
“Zuko,” the other boy answers in case Jet doesn’t know how to read or something.
Jet’s smile slides from casual to devious as he grabs his lunch and paper cup of steaming tea.
“I’ll see you around then, Zuko,” he says and leaves.
The next day when Jet saunters up to the counter and places his order, he gives Zuko his telephone number and shrugs when Zuko merely frowns at him. As he turns away, he only barely catches Zuko surreptitiously pocketing the small slip of paper. Jet smiles into his cup.
***
Amazingly, Jet and Zuko become fast friends. It starts with a few calls-after Zuko gets out of class and late at night when they’ve both finished working for the day-and quick text messages at random times throughout the day, and soon Jet doesn’t even realize how seamlessly Zuko has been integrated into his life.
Jet has never trusted easily, except for Smellerbee and Longshot, who just sort of popped into his existence once day like it was their soul purpose to be his friends. But, Jet guesses that most friendships are like that; one day you’re alone and the next your trusting someone so easily and so deeply that its implications frighten you.
It also doesn’t help that Zuko is hauntingly beautiful. Jet has never met anyone quite like him before, with his pale skin and dark hair and impossibly golden eyes that seem to see everything and nothing all at once. And then there’s that scar that obliterates the left side of his face, leaves it so that the only thing that shows expression is his pale lips, contrasting sharply with the soft lines on the other side of his face, so easy to read once he knew what to look for.
Zuko is something Jet has never encountered before, and he’s unprepared for the way it leaves him wanting.
Before Zuko, when Jet was left wanting, he had no problems with just taking whatever it was that had caught his eye. But Zuko is his friend now, and Jet doesn’t exploit friendship like that.
So he laughs with Zuko, and watches him, and stuffs his want somewhere deep inside so it’s easier to live with himself.
***
Zuko is not a superhero, Jet later finds out. He didn’t gain his…whatever he wants to call them, Jet will always think of them as powers-in a freak accident, or by chemical contamination. Zuko smiles at him fondly and tells him that he’s just always been that way, whether he likes it or not. Zuko doesn’t dress up in silly costumes and fight crime in his free time; he doesn’t assassinate supervillains or call himself a Freedom Fighter. As far as Jet can tell, he’s just a normal University kid, who lights cigarettes with the tips of his fingers and will never have to worry about freezing to death in the dead of winter.
Sometimes he wonders how many people Zuko’s really told about what he can do; he always seems so hesitant to mention it, and when he does, there’s this look on his face that Jet can’t quite name. Almost like relief that he can finally talk to someone about it, but cautious at the same time, uncertain. But Jet doesn’t ask, because the one time he did, darkness settled around Zuko’s face, and he whispered in a small voice “I don’t like to talk about it,” before looking down at the laces of his shoes.
That day Jet promised himself that he’d never make Zuko sound like that ever again.
***
Jet doesn’t go to school. He probably should, but when he was nineteen he fled the abyss of low expectations that was his foster parent’s house with fervent fuck yous and a promise to never see them again. Now that he’s twenty-one and finally free of their stifling presence, he can’t bring himself to enroll. He’s got a place that he shares with Smellerbee and Longshot (both of whom do go to school, and mostly don’t pester Jet about his decision), and to make up for his share of the rent, he works as a personal trainer at a gym.
He’s brilliant though (or so everyone tells him), and sometimes university kids’ll come to their doorstep and pay Jet to tutor them in physics or calculus or political science or even history. He always helps Smellerbee and Longshot out for free though, because they are his only family, and he doesn’t exploit his friendships.
There are times, however, when he feels like he’s missing out, especially now, with Zuko in his life, frowning at him when he avoids the subject of school. He has an argument of sharp looks and biting glares with Longshot over it one day, and in frustration he screams “I don’t care Longshot! What do you expect me to do with a degree anyway? I’m not about to get chained to a desk like an adult.”
He spits the word out like a curse, and Longshot only smiles at him sadly. Smellerbee watches from her spot on the floor, frowning. She opens her mouth and is about to say something, but changes her mind at the last minute and shakes her head. Jet thinks she’s been spending too much time around Longshot because he knows exactly what she wants to say.
Potential’s nothing if it’s left to rot.
Maybe I’m just a waste of potential then, he thinks back at her, and hell, he’s probably spending too much time around them both, because both Shot and Bee wince. Jet shrugs and turns to leave.
“Whatever,” he says, grabs his keys from the coffee table, leaves without a backwards glance.
He doesn’t drive; Jet doesn’t think he’d be able to resist the tempting call of the road stretching out underneath him, alive with endless possibilities and free from the things that tie the world down. He knows that if he had his own car, he’d drive off into the horizon and never look back; he’d belong to the road and let the road belong to him, and he might be happy in an empty sort of way.
So instead, he walks around the small university town and ends up collapsing under a tree in a park somewhere, the wind swirling through his hair and biting his ears.
He sits there for a long while, until the shadows start to lengthen on the grass beneath his feet, and then suddenly, there’s another shadow falling across his face. Jet looks up and sees Zuko there, arms crossed over his chest, but his brow is creased more with worry than irritation. Jet thinks it’s rather unhealthy for him to be this relieved Zuko came to look for him instead of his best friends.
Zuko doesn’t say a word, he just sits beside Jet, shoulder bumping into his comfortingly, and stays with him until the sun finally disappears behind the horizon. Only then does Zuko sigh and turn to him.
“I think you should go back to school,” he finally says.
Jet has always been stubborn, so he merely straightens his back and raises an eyebrow.
“Why?” he shoots back venomously.
The answer he receives is offered quickly, voice steady and eyes defiantly honest.
“Because I want you to,” Zuko says quietly.
Jet looks away, studying the blades of grass as they shimmer, their shadows thrown into harsh relief by the lamppost just beside them. He doesn’t want to say that after three years, he’s half-afraid to try to go back, that for all his potential and supposed brilliance, it won’t be enough; that his parents had wanted him to make something more of himself, and those dreams had all gone up in smoke years ago.
When he turns back to Zuko, his eyes are sparkling, filled with anticipation and maybe even a little bit of hope. Jet really wants to kiss him.
“Okay,” he finally says, and looks away before he can watch the smile break over Zuko’s face like the sunrise.
****
Jet doesn’t understand how after all this time a single smile from Zuko can ignite a fire inside of him so fierce, it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before. Sometimes Jet wonders if it isn’t because of Zuko’s powers, reaching inside of him until he can feel it under his skin, tingling with Zuko’s heat and his fire and his smoldering fingertips. Jet wants to hate him then, because he rekindled something inside of Jet that had been dark for so long, he’d almost forgotten it was there. He wants to hate Zuko for making his heart clench and his blood boil and his mind remember cool Sunday afternoons in the park with his family, back when he was still whole.
Jet hadn’t known he wasn’t whole, until Zuko showed him. He wants to hate him for that too.
But he can’t.
***
It’s Smellerbee’s birthday, and Jet thinks that the best gift he can give to her is an evening alone with Longshot. Unfortunately, that leaves him very much alone on a Friday evening, so he calls Zuko and with a few insistent words, gets him to drop by. They spend the day meandering through parks and zoos, and later, when the sun has finally set, they buy a bottle of vodka and go to Zuko’s to watch a movie.
Jet remembers Zuko telling him that he was pretty well off; he remembers the soft look in Zuko’s eyes as he fondly explained about his Uncle, a retired general who had been with Zuko since he was 13. Still, Jet raises an eyebrow at the modest loft that Zuko reveals to him-it’s his, in every sense of the word. Iroh might have bought the place for him, but Jet can see Zuko everywhere in the apartment, from the dual broadswords hanging stately in the living room to the bookcase nearly overflowing with books and magazines and ancient scrolls Jet knows without asking he’s read.
And somehow, Zuko still gets this sheepish grin on his face as he rubs the back of his neck and waves an all-encompassing hand at the living room.
“It’s not really much,” Zuko says, “But it’s home.”
“It’s great,” Jet answers, thinking about his own living room (that’s really more of Bee and Shot’s study room) with the textbooks and discarded pens and shoes lying everywhere. “It’s just-clean.”
Zuko grins at him and shrugs, embarrassed.
“It’s a habit, I guess,” he says before collapsing onto his couch and turning on the television.
Jet follows seconds later, jumping over the back of the sofa and landing in a graceful crouch on the cushions, the bottle of unopened liquor held up behind his back like some kind of weapon. Zuko merely rolls his eyes and yanks Jet’s arm until he overbalances and almost lands on top of him.
They both laugh, and Jet feels the sudden want filter into his body again, but he pulls himself away, opens the bottle and takes a large swig.
“Put on the movie then, Sparks,” Jet teases around the burn of alcohol as it slides down his throat.
Zuko glares at him, and stands to put in the movie. Or rather, Jet guesses that the look he sends Jet is supposed to be a glare. The effect gets lost though, around the swell of happiness in Zuko’s eyes that Jet has no trouble understanding.
It’s the reason why they became such good friends so quickly. Jet’s gathered that Zuko’s never told anyone about his power willingly, and those who found out never stayed around long enough to be able to tease him about it without malice or fear. It’s strange how Zuko’s probably spent his whole life hiding it, and Jet saw it the first time they ever met, how the secrets Zuko guarded so fiercely were laid bare at his feet before Jet even realized what that might possibly mean.
Jet likes it though, the knowing, even if they never speak of it directly. It means that he’s known a part of Zuko no one else has, and he holds that thought deep in his chest, like the treasure it is.
The movie starts, and Zuko turns out the lights before he crawls back onto the sofa, the light from the television screen making him look like he is made of silver instead of flesh and bone. He steals the bottle from Jet and takes a long drink; Jet has to swallow and focus on the movie to keep his eyes from lingering too long on the marble column of Zuko’s neck.
The movie’s supposed to be good; Zuko assured him it won an academy award for best picture, but halfway through Jet’s bored out of his mind and pleasantly buzzed. It’s one of those movies with too much thinking and talking and not nearly enough exploding and fighting to keep his interest for long. He turns to Zuko, who looks enraptured, and Jet thinks that the other’s probably one of those types. Jet can see Zuko going to the theater on weekends, watching plays about love and dragons and honor and, oh God, Shakespeare.
The thought makes him chuckle (in a horrified sort of way, really), and ok, maybe not so much ‘buzzed’ as pretty much wasted. He picks the nearly empty bottle up off the ground from where Zuko left it last and downs the remains.
Zuko turns to him then, a tiny frown on his face.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, eyes shining in the darkness.
And Jet is drunk, so it only seems natural to drop the empty vodka bottle with a laugh and tackle Zuko, so that he’s lying on the sofa, Zuko’s head only inches away from the armrest. Jet smirks at him, and Zuko smiles back (because hey, Jet only drank half a bottle of vodka, so Zuko must be drunk too).
“Tell me you don’t go watch plays and stuff,” he says, resting his elbows on either side of Zuko’s head so he’s not smothering the guy.
Zuko frowns up at him, in that way Jet knows means he’s embarrassed and trying hard not to blush.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asks defiantly.
“They’re boring Zuko,” Jet says Most Seriously. “Not a single explosion.”
Zuko rolls his eyes at that, lets his arms wrap around Jet’s neck as a smirk teases the corners of his lips. Jet can hear the scathing remark about to fall out of Zuko’s mouth, so before the words get a chance to escape, Jet leans down and kisses them away. Zuko grins into Jet’s mouth for a while, so at first it’s more like an easy brushing of lips, before he lets out a small puff of breath (almost a laugh, mostly a sigh) and then he’s licking his way into Jet’s mouth, teasing and tasting and claiming and perfect.
Jet balances himself on one arm and runs his free hand through Zuko’s hair, so soft it’s like strands of silk against his fingertips, and Zuko leans into the touch, making a small, happy noise in the back of his throat. The noise runs through Jet like a bolt of lightning, making his breath catch in his throat and his fist clench around Zuko’s hair and his hips buck involuntarily. Zuko says something, muffled and punctuated by the wet, sporadic kisses he lands on Jet’s lips and jaw, and all Jet can think of is yes.
However, when Zuko sits up, Jet is not at all prepared, and topples off the couch in one ungraceful movement. Zuko laughs at him and Jet grins back up, feeling stupid and amazingly giddy at once. Zuko stands and hauls Jet up to his feet and soon, they’re falling into the softness of Zuko’s bed, ripping off shirts as they go. Jet just lays there for a while, looking up into Zuko’s golden eyes, the needs of his body just a sluggish, numbing burn from the alcohol. They’re pressed nearly flush against each other, Zuko’s arousal obvious against his thigh even through the heavy fabric of his jeans; Jet swallows heavily and reaches up slowly to stroke the marred skin of Zuko’s scar.
It feels too intimate suddenly, more so than even the tips of Zuko’s fingers trailing under the waistband of his jeans, and Jet feels something clench hard in his chest because they’re drunk, and if they were sober this wouldn’t be happening. Zuko’s eyes close and he lets out a shuddering breath before closing the distance between them and capturing his lips again in a slow, sweet kiss.
Jet sighs into the kiss and opens up to him, invites Zuko’s tongue into his mouth, finally giving himself away to his want.
The morning light filters in through an opening in the blinds, and the tiny sliver of light is enough to pull Jet into wakefulness. He opens his eyes to a foreign room, with soft cotton sheets against his bare skin and a warm body lying mostly on top of him. Jet tenses automatically, remembering the feel of hardened muscles against his fingertips, sweaty skin against his tongue, golden eyes shining in the darkness, pupils blown wide with pleasure.
He looks down at the faintly stirring form of Zuko, the sweep of his dark eyelashes a stark contrast to the skin of his unscarred cheek, his lips pursed slightly even in his sleep. Jet thinks he remembers those lips swollen and red, locked tightly around his cock and Jet weakly rasping out his name in a mantra of Zuko, yes, oh fuck, Zuko-but it’s vague and blurry in his memory, like watching something underwater, or through a thick pane of glass.
What he can remember, without the vodka turning last night into an indistinct smear across his mind, is the way Zuko’s scar felt against his palm, the heat that filtered its way down his body, until he was nearly burning from its assault on his senses, the way Zuko had looked, with his head thrown back and the tendons in his neck taut with strain as Jet pushed him over the edge again and again.
Jet runs his hand through Zuko’s hair; it gets stuck in a tangle (the flash of affection he feels at that is very definitely not healthy) and Zuko’s eyes slowly open.
“Morning,” Zuko mumbles quietly, the soft grin breaking over his face something of utter perfection.
“Morning,” Jet says.
His fingers sift through the tangle in Zuko’s hair gently and slide down the back of his head to rest on the other man’s back.
“We were drunk,” Jet offers up a bit ruefully.
He watches Zuko’s expression carefully, studiously ignoring the sudden pounding of his heart. Zuko’s smile remains fixed on his face, and Jet allows himself to hope.
“We were,” Zuko agrees. “But we could have been worse. We don’t have hangovers.”
Jet grins at him, a foreign happiness swelling in his chest.
“So, what happens now?”
Zuko blinks once, twice, clearing any lingering sleep from his gaze before he closes the remaining distance between them and plants a soft kiss on his lips.
“Whatever you want,” he says.
Jet brings his hand up to hold Zuko’s chin in place and deepens the kiss. He thinks you, Zuko; I want you.
What he says, after he pulls away and presses his forehead against Zuko’s (eyes clenched shut because the feeling in his gut is too deep and too real and too soon), is:
“All right.”
***
There’s a day, several months later, when Jet opens the second drawer of his dresser and comes face to face with his old comic book. It’s a surprise; Jet always has a layer of jeans covering the bottom of that drawer, mostly so that he doesn’t have to be reminded. It takes him a moment, but then he realizes that the drawer is empty because most of his stuff is currently mixed into the dresser in Zuko’s room.
Jet smiles and pulls the comic out, letting his fingertips graze across the title fondly. He looks at it for a while longer, remembering everything that happens within its pages and everything that happened outside of its pages, and for the first time in years, he considers himself lucky.
He rolls the comic up and stuffs it into his duffel bag (that doubles as his backpack now), wondering how he could have found someone like Zuko, who’s angry and stubborn and thoughtful, and could have popped right out of a comic book.
But really, Jet doesn’t need to know how it happened to know the end result.
When he gets home-Jet wonders when he started thinking of Zuko’s apartment as home-he shows Zuko the comic book and explains to him exactly what it means, about the fire in his childhood and the foster families and the comic book that helped him remember. Zuko smiles at him and later that night they sit on the couch and read it aloud, making stupid voices for Uncle Sam and laughing until tears are streaming down their faces and Jet can’t breathe.
A week later, Jet lets himself in-when exactly he acquired the spare to the apartment, he’s not too sure, but he’s got a sneaking suspicion that he might have moved into this place already and just not realized it-and sees the comic book hanging above the mantle behind a thin layer of glass, the stately black frame a silent promise that warms something inside Jet’s chest. Zuko comes in a few minutes later, and when Jet mentions it, he smiles softly and looks at the ground.
“I was hoping you’d like it,” he says shyly, and Jet thinks he might have fallen for him that much more.
“I do,” Jet says.
He crosses over to where Zuko’s still standing by the door and wraps him in a hug, burying his face in the crook of Zuko’s neck. In that moment, he successfully categorizes the warmth in his chest that seems directly connected to Zuko’s smile, and the force of that revelation leaves him momentarily reeling. He feels the words swirling around inside his mind, sappy declarations and promises that he suddenly wants to share with Zuko, because Zuko is the most important person in his life now. He showed Jet what he was missing in his life and healed Jet’s old wounds and still leaves him wanting more and somehow, nothing else.
“Thank you,” he says instead.
Jet feels the tiny chuckle that escapes Zuko, who gives him a long, lingering kiss before pulling away and tugging Jet into the kitchen.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll make us dinner."
So, Jet does the only thing he can do.
He follows.