On the cusp of what would one day be known as the date that wasn't supposed to be a date, Katara and Zuko find themselves trying to figure out why they're so damn nervous.

Part of the same continuity as First Kiss, Tea, Turtleduck, and Crystals.

Slight Content Warning: A few instances of adult language are sprinkled throughout.

Element Swap

ZUKO WAS NOT HAVING THE BEST OF MORNINGS. For one thing, he hadn't slept very well the night before. Well…as a rule, Zuko didn't sleep well, but for once, it hadn't been because of bad dreams or a general feeling of dread; those, he was used to. An ever-present sense of doom was his natural state of being, after all. No, this time, he had tossed and turned because he was, well, nervous. He kept telling himself that he shouldn't be nervous, hadn't he been spending time nearly every day with Katara for a whole two months now? This was just…them thanking each other for all the help they'd been exchanging, for all the laughs and the smiles and the joy and for that time Zuko had put on his Blue Spirit mask and saved Appa from the Dai Li. Sure, it was supposed to be somewhere nice for once, and not just some random noodle shop, but what was the big deal about that?

Nothing, that's what. Nothing at all, Zuko, you monumental idiot, nothing.

Then, when he woke up, he had found himself still living in a world in which he was a wanted fugitive hunkered down in a tiny, shabby apartment in the Fire Quarter – the part of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring that had housed people of Fire Nation descent for eons – while all around the rings of forts that circled the Great City, the world went ever more mad. Naturally, this had depressed him, and not even a morning round at the nearby firebending field had brightened him up.

Thus, his stomach was still twisted up in knots of – to him – inexplicable nervousness by the time he headed in to work, which, combined with that familiar sense of doom and his usual morning blues, left him in a rather black mood. Spending the next few hours with his arms elbow-deep in a tube of hot water, washing dishes, didn't help.

Oh, and then there was the fact that he was probably going to kill his uncle.

"Listen, my boy," Uncle was saying, sipping a cup of tea while leaning up against the doorway that led into the cramped space where Zuko washed dishes, "all I'm saying is that a young lady appreciates it when a young man puts some effort into his appearance."

Zuko frowned, the tip of his tongue popping out of the side of his mouth as he worked at a particularly stubborn bit of food. "And I'm telling you that it's not that kind of evening."

He didn't have to look at his uncle to know that the old man was rolling his eyes. "An evening comes in many shades, Oi, but they are all but variations on the same tune."

Zuko groaned and counted to ten, distracting himself by puffing a stray piece of hair out of his eyes. His hair had grown long enough in the six months since he'd shorn off his topknot to be tied back into a short ponytail, but no matter how hard he tried, a few strands always escaped confinement. Figures that I can't even tie a ponytail right. "Oji, what does that even mean?"

His uncle sighed and made clucking noises with his tongue. "If I have to explain it, then you have not yet reached the point at which you can understand it."

One-two-three-four-five-six- "Okay, Oji, whatever you say."

That brightened his uncle right up. "That's the spirit, my boy! Just start listening to your wise old Oji, and you'll never regret it."

-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty- "Is that what brought you in to bother me at work today, Oji? Reminding me of how I should listen to you more often?"

His uncle laughed. "Oh, no, Oi, I can tell you that at home and never even have to put pants on." -thirty-nine-forty-forty-one-forty-two-forty- "I came here today to take you back to the apartment."

Zuko shrugged. "So, to score free tea off Endo-san, then?" Endo-san being Zuko's boss and the owner of the restaurant. Zuko half-suspected that the man knew exactly who he and Uncle were. "Well, don't let me hold you up, I'm sure Endo-san already has the Pai Sho board set up."

"Oh, I won't be playing Pai Sho with my dear friend Endo today, young man."

"Well, then I don't know what you hope to accomplish by annoying me for the next few hours." The stubborn chunk of food finally dislodged, allowing Zuko to dunk the dish in the cold-water basin a few times, put it on the drying rack, and move on to the next. "My shift doesn't end until the Hour of the Goat."

"That's where you're wrong, young man. Your shift ends now."

"No," Zuko said through gritted teeth, taking his frustrations out on an unlucky bowl, "it doesn't."

"Yes, Tsukuru," which was Zuko's alias, "it does. I've already cleared it with my good friend Endo. We're going to leave here and head directly to the bathhouse, where you're going to get a good bath, a massage, and a haircut. We're not going to touch the length, of course; I think that ponytail style suits you nicely. However, we do need to do something about those split ends…"

Zuko realized with a shock that he had arrived at a hundred in his mental count and started over. One-two-three-four- "Well, that's just silly, Oji. Why would I need to do all that?"

"Surely you want to look your best for your date with the Lady Katara."

Gah! "Gods-dammit, Oji, how many times do I have to tell you that it's NOT A FUCKING DATE?!"

His uncle just made a tutting sound. "Such language, Oi. Do you kiss the Lady Katara with that mouth?"

Zuko rounded on his uncle, trying not to think of how ridiculous he probably looked, what with soap suds dripping from his fingers. "Again, I'M NOT KISSING HER!"

Uncle just tapped a finger to his nose. "But you want to."

Desperately. "No!" It's all I think about sometimes. "It's not like that!"

His uncle just chuckled, setting down his now-empty teacup and pulling out his pipe and tobacco pouch. "Be that as it may, you still need to look your best."

"I can do that after work," Zuko muttered, turning back to the soap bath and shoving his hands in, imagining that the spoons he was scrubbing were his uncle's neck.

"I see. And when was your date again?"

"At the Hour of the Rooster." There was a beat. Wait a minute…GODS-DAMMIT. "And it's NOT A DATE!"

"A thousand utterances of the word will not turn a hill into a mountain, you know."

If you kill him, you'll feel bad. If you kill him, you'll feel bad. If you kill him- "Whatever. Point is, I'll have of time to get ready."

"Less than an hour to get ready?!" Uncle paused to light his freshly packed pipe. "Don't talk crazy, my boy. No nephew of mine is going to go on a date after less than an hour's preparation."

"For the last time, Oji, it is NOT A FUCKING DATE, and I am going to finish my gods-damn SHIFT!"

Naturally, ten minutes later, Zuko was thanking Endo-san for the early release and trailing his uncle out the back door.

Just as naturally, as soon as he got outside, he lit a cigarette, stuck his hands deep in his work apron's pockets, and grumbled under his breath all the way to the bathhouse.

-0-

As Katara sat in front of the vanity, inside her enormous room – one of several she had, somehow – deep in the Imperial Palace of Ba Sing Se, she discovered that the things she wanted that afternoon were very simple and, in her rarely humble opinion, not all that far-fetched. She wanted a vanity that was not made of luxury wood polished to a brilliant sheen, she wanted brushes that were not inlaid with enough precious jewels that each one was worth more than all the valuables in her hometown combined, she wanted Sokka back from seeing their father out at Chameleon Bay, she wanted to know how Aang and Toph were, and she wanted very much to brush her own damn hair.

Sadly, as she watched the lady's maid who had been assigned to her when her and her friends arrived at the Palace three months before pick up one of those jewel-encrusted brushes, she began to wonder which of those things would be the most difficult to attain that evening.

"You know, Wenling," she said, putting on her best smile while picking up another, to her eyes identical, brush, "I'm perfectly capable of brushing my own hair."

She watched through the mirror as Wenling gave a polite bow of her head, the woman's perennial servant's smile never wavering so much as an inch. "Of that, I have no doubt, my lady. However, it is my duty to ensure that your ladyship always looks your absolute best, especially when your ladyship is heading out for a romantic evening with a young man. In such a situation, it would be negligent of me to shirk from my duty."

Katara ignored the nagging little voice at the back of her head, the one that Zuko had helped train to translate Servant Speak, as it whispered that it was pretty sure that Wenling had just insulted her. She probably did, but whatever. "It's not a romantic evening, Wenling; it's just a quiet outing with an old friend."

Once again, Wenling's expression never so much as twitched. "Well, if that's the case, my lady, perhaps one of the regular day dresses would be sufficient…"

What?! "Oh…well…um…" Katara fought down the blush – she hoped – and waved the point away. "Well, you are correct, a lady must always look her best, even on a…um…quiet outing with an old friend."

Wenling did not so much as pop an eyebrow. "Of course, my lady." She gave a quick, shallow bow, rose, and stepped into position directly behind Katara. "Now," she continued, picking up a some of Katara's long, curly hair and starting to run the brush slowly, gently, through it, "how would you like your hair done? And has your ladyship made a final decision as to your dress for the evening?"

Katara closed her eyes and started counting to ten. Once she reached ten, she decided that perhaps a hundred would be more helpful.

-0-

By the time Zuko and his uncle finally made it back to their apartment, Zuko felt a lot like how he imagined a plucked pig-chicken felt. He had bathed and steamed until he could feel pores he had forgotten he even had open. He had been shaved and his hair had been trimmed and washed and done up in a neater, more immaculate form of his usual short ponytail, and his skin almost seemed to gleam in the afternoon sun. He felt a good ten pounds lighter than when he had woken up, his freshly cleaned and clipped fingernails felt bruised and battered, and his ears were still ringing from the raunchy conversations Uncle had insisted on having with his numerous old man friends at the bathhouse.

All that said, though, when he finally got a look at himself in the small, dull, badly cracked mirror bolted directly into the wall in what passed for he and his uncle's closet (since they shared a room and had to use the communal bathroom on the first floor), he had to admit that he did, indeed, look like a million yen.

And Zuko would know. When he had been nine, he had actually seen a million yen.

"Well?" Uncle said, standing in the kitchen (since they didn't actually have a bedroom, or any rooms, now that Zuko thought about it, the apartment was all one room; bedtime meant rolling out two tatami mats on the floor and bunching two threadbare blankets into makeshift pillows) as he made some tea and puffed on his pipe. "Was I right, Zuko, or was I right?"

Zuko groaned and rolled his eyes. "Surely you're going to get tired one day of hearing me tell you that you were right about something."

To that, Uncle didn't answer; he just laughed, which, Zuko admitted to himself, was fair.

"So," Zuko said, walking across the room into the "kitchen," settling himself on a rickety, rather crooked stool and lighting himself a cigarette, "now that you've given your doll a makeover, are you going to accessorize it, too?"

Uncle frowned at the leaves he had just taken out of a clay, rather battered jar, bringing his palm up to his nose to give them a sniff. "Of course; one should never leave a job half-finished. Zuko, do these leaves smell funny to you?"

Zuko rolled his eye. "Why would you even bother to answer me that question, Oji?"

His uncle shrugged and gave the leaves another sniff. "In the hopes that, through repeated suggestion, you will eventually realize the error of your ways with regards to the nectar of life that is tea."

"Wait," Zuko said, pointing his cigarette at his uncle, "I thought a thousand utterances of the word will not turn a hill into a mountain, or something?"

"It will not turn a hill into a mountain, but it can help a hill that is actually a mountain realize that it was a mountain all along. Oh, and your clothes for this evening are in that satchel on the dining table."

After staring at his uncle, mouth wide open, for what felt like a long time, Zuko stubbed out his cigarette, slid off the pathetic excuse for a stool, and headed for the dining table, which was also his and Katara's work table, he and his uncle's night stand, and possessor of four legs of varying lengths, no one length repeated twice.

-0-

"You don't enjoy any of this, do you, my lady?"

Katara frowned, running her hands down the skirt of her dress for the thousandth time and struggling with the urge to reach up and fiddle with her hair. Wenling had done a perfect job, of course; the young woman always did. But Katara hadn't done it herself, and everything about that fact bothered her.

"Well," Katara said, skootching across the bench and lifting one of the curtains that covered the carriage's windows, "I wouldn't go so far as to say that I don't enjoy any of it. I enjoy the food, I enjoy the hot running water, I definitely enjoyed the dress selection you presented me with this morning…"

She trailed off, not bothering to utter the word but, knowing that Wenling was perfectly capable of supplying it herself.

The truth was, she hated all of this. Even the selection of dresses, while fun to play around with, had felt oppressive and demeaning somehow. There were times when she felt almost as if she could feel the weight of the Palace pressing down on her. The corridors were wider than any street she had ever known, her bedroom alone was big enough to fit three or four of the hut she had grown up in, gods, even the tables seemed larger than most pack animals she had known, and yet she still felt hemmed in. Closed off.

Claustrophobic.

"I guess I just feel out of my element," she finally said, letting the curtain fall and turning back to Wenling, who sat on the bench across from her. "This is…it's not just that I don't know this world, it's that I never even imagined that a world like this existed." And Zuko grew up in a world like this. I didn't know his world existed, and he didn't know mine existed. It's like we grew up on two entirely separate planets, part of two completely different species, and now we've…we've…it's like we've swapped elements, or something. As if I've started bending fire and he's started bending water, and now we're stuck trying to figure it out…together, I guess…yeah…together…

Katara couldn't quite explain why that thought made her feel so at peace.

Wenling gave a nod that felt wiser than her years (Katara reckoned that the woman wasn't much older than she was). "It can be…overwhelming, for those who weren't born to it."

Katara arched an eyebrow. "It never feels overwhelming to you, Wenling?"

Her lady's maid gave a soft, demure sort of shrug. "Not really, no, my lady. Of course, I don't live here; I just work here."

"Servants don't have quarters at the Palace?"

For a moment, Katara could've sworn that an actual human emotion flickered across her lady's maid's face. "Not in any part of the Palace you've seen, begging my lady's pardon."

Katara smiled and looked down at nails that had been manicured, a process she hadn't even heard of before setting foot in the Northern Water Tribe six months before. Though, she couldn't help but think, running a thumb over one of her palms, the calluses remain.

"Do they still think I'm just an uncouth barbarian, Wenling?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, my lady."

Katara smiled and shook her head. "Don't lie to me, Wenling. My Putonghua may not be the best, but I don't need it to see the smirks on some of the courtiers' faces." And some of the servants, too.

Wenling seemed to weigh her answer before she replied. "Not as much as when you first arrived, my lady. Your manners, your Putonghua, even your ability to quote Confucius have markedly improved. At least two noblewomen have asked me if I know where they can find your tutor."

Katara couldn't help but laugh. "They think I have a tutor?"

"They assume so, and I imagine that they're not wrong."

"What do they want to do, buy my tutor away from me?"

"I imagine that would be the end goal, my lady."

"Well, they can't. He doesn't work for money, anyways."

"No, my lady, I imagine that he works for your smiles."

Katara's head shot up, her eyes wide. "What…what do you mean by that?"

This time, there was no mistaking it: Wenling had an honest-to-La human expression on her face. "I find it hard to believe that you don't know, my lady. Ah! Here we are, the Fire Quarter. And unless I am profoundly mistaken," she continued, leaning forward to lift a curtain and look out a window, "your young tutor seems to have beaten us here."

Katara's heart moved from the pit of her stomach up into her throat, its place in her gut quickly replaced with butterflies. "Well…I mean…of course, why wouldn't he be? He's a gentleman."

"Of that, I have no doubt, my lady. Enjoy your evening. We'll be right here to pick you up at the Hour of the Rat."

And with that, after fighting down the thousand-thousandth urge to fiddle with her hair and managing to only spend a solid minute smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt, she stepped out of the carriage and into a comfortably warm summer evening.

-0-

"Now, young man, I really must insist that you stop fiddling with your belt."

"I can't help it, Oji, I'm nervous."

"Yes, I would imagine so; only a fool would be immune to an attack of nerves on the cusp of spending an evening with such a beautiful young lady."

"That…by the gods, Oji, that's got nothing to do with it."

"Oh? Because everything from your facial expression to the number of cigarettes you've smoked says otherwise."

"I just…gods, Oji, do you live to torment me?"

"It's what gets me up in the morning."

"Grr. Look, okay, I'm excited to see Katara, but has it occurred to you that theoutfit you have me in is eerily reminiscent of a Royal Army dress uniform?"

"I've always felt that red was a good color on you, Oi."

"Don't you think someone will notice? Oh, look, there goes a young Fire Nation man, he looks an awful lot like a soldier."

"Considering how the Fire Quarter is awash in draft dodgers and deserters and dissidents, I think you'll be just fine. Surely, you've noticed that most of the young men here are dressed in bits and pieces of Fire Nation uniforms? You could probably raise an entire army, just from this part of the city."

"I had noticed, and that's fine for them, but I thought our goal was to not stand out, or had you forgotten that? Again?"

"I'm quite certain that I have no idea what you mean, Oi."

"Don't do that, Oji."

"Do what?"

"Put on an enigmatic face while puffing your pipe, hoping that I'll get so exasperated that I'll give up and concede the argument."

"One, for there to be an argument, both sides need an equal chance of success. Two, why would I stop, when it works so well?"

"…you're infuriating, you know that, right, Oji?"

"I love you, too, Zuko."

"Not in public, Oji."

"The love, or your name?"

"…why do I put up with you, again?"

"Because I distract you from your nerves on the eve of your first ever date?"

"I…it's…oh, never mind."

"Honestly, you worry too much. Once people see how radiant the Lady Katara looks in her dress, they'll forget your very existence."

"Well, naturally, but still…wait…how do you know what Katara is wearing?"

"Because she's climbing out of that carriage right over there as we speak."

"…oh…"

Iroh smiled, patted himself on the belly, patted his nephew on the back, wished him luck, and headed off towards the dilapidated little teahouse next door to the neighborhood fire temple, there to spend his evening sipping tea, drinking sake, puffing on his pipe, and swapping lies with the other old men, whistling The Girls from Ba Sing Se the whole way there.

Oh Iroh, you sly dog. What are you up to? A lot, no doubt, most of which even he's not sure of. That's our Iroh.

So, full disclosure, I am...not a hundred percent happy with this story. But when you've got a deadline, sometimes it's best to just put a period on it, submit it, and trust in your readers. I have never been a good judge of my own work; at best, I end up with work that I'm tolerably okay with, but I can't honestly say that I actually love anything I've ever written. A lot of it, I don't even particularly like. It's one of the shitty things about being a creator; it's difficult not to see all the twists and turns, all the things that didn't make it or ended up on the cutting room floor, all the versions of the story that you deleted or edited out of existence. Like, there's a good, I dunno, I could probably make a whole other, full-length fic out of what got cut from Romance of the Four Nations, which is pretty solid, you should scope it out.

Anyhoo, the important thing is that, the more I type this note, the more I like this piece. I don't love it, I'm not exactly happy with it, but it's cute and it's fun and it's got Iroh in it. This is definitely an AU I'm going to explore further.

Because, if this week has accomplished anything, it's reminded me of how much I fucking love writing, especially writing for you guys. Pushing me into doing Zutara Week is one of the best decisions my wife ever made, in a lifetime of good decisions (except for that time that she married me, but hey, that one's on her). There is just so much I want to share with you guys, and not just Zutara.

Actually, while I've got you here...what AUs or story ideas or what-have-you would like to see more of? Shoot me an Ask over on Tumblr (kangaroo2010) or hit me up on Twitter ( Historybuff2013), or mention something in the comments. Don't PM me; I suck at checking my PMs. Like, I'm just awful at it.

Before we leave for the day, few quick things about the story. Oji is Japanese for uncle, and oi is Japanese for nephew. I'm rather enamored of the idea of the different nations speaking different languages, and in my mind, the Fire Nation speaks Nihongo, which is the Japanese word for...well...Japanese. Also, I tend to stretch out the time frame; for me, the canon story takes place over two years, rather than six months. The Siege of the North happened six months before this (thus why it's summer), and the Gaang kicked Long Feng's ass (or so they thought) about two months ago, which is why Toph tried to go see her parents, Sokka went to see his dad, and Aang went off to the Eastern Air Temple to unlock chakras with Guru Pathik. Katara's been alone in Ba Sing Se for most of that time...

Except for when she's been with Zuko. ;-)

Moving on...that's it! We're done! That's all she wrote for Zutara Week 2018, guys! But stay tuned to this channel; there'll be a lot more coming your way! See you soon!

And I love you, babe!