Teamwork

by LizBee

A flicker of movement out of the corner of Iroh's eye, and Zuko is collapsing. For a second, the image is frozen in his mind: the Fire Lord sprawled on the great courtyard of the palace of Ba Sing Se while the guards of two nations wheel around in something that is almost, but not quite, panic.

Iroh looks up at the roof line. Something had moved. Someone had moved. Perched on the rooftop where once the Dai Li had spied on the city.

Bare seconds have passed since Zuko collapsed. Iroh begins to run.

When he was a boy, he and his brother had chased each other through the alleys and catacombs that snaked around and beneath the Fire Nation palace. Hiding from their tutors, or each other, they had uncovered every secret of that ancient palace and imagined that they were the first, just like every other prince and princess before them.

Iroh, skidding to a stop in front of a dead end, begins to think he grew up in the wrong city.

"There."

He hasn't heard Mai approach. No one ever hears Mai approach. She isn't even breathing heavily, he notes ruefully, although she must have run like the wind to join him so soon. She points at the concealed door and he ignites it. Mai doesn't even wait for the flames to subside before she runs through, ascending the stairs on the other side.

They reach the rooftops in time to see their quarry disappear around a bend. The roofs reflect the sun. Iroh leaps, promising himself a refreshing pot of tea as soon as this is over, as soon as Zuko is safe. (He has decided to cherish the delusion that such a day will ever come.) Mai is a silent shadow at his side, the heavy outer robes of the Fire Lady abandoned behind her. A knife glints in her hand. They're too far away for knives and fire to be of any use.

The assassin slips. Precious seconds. Iroh heaves himself over a ridge, regretting that the comfort of peace has robbed him of much of his prison strength. There's a sharp drop onto a flat roof. From below he can smell baked goods and burning coal. The assassin has his back to a wide chimney, his eyes wide.

He's trapped.

Of course, so is Iroh.

And his prey is holding a blowgun. He looks terrified; under different circumstances, Iroh would have doubted he had the stomach to commit murder. But his hands are steady. And he's already tried to kill once today.

He raises the blowgun to his lips.

A knife flashes in the sun, burying itself in the soft clay of the chimney, pinning the sleeve and the arm inside it.

"Thank you, Mai," says Iroh. With another knife, she has secured the assassin's other arm, but the blowgun is already rolling away. Iroh picks it up.

"Been a long time since I saw anyone use a fukiya," he says. Carefully, he removes the dart from within and sniffs the tip. "Red belladonna. Very nice. Slow acting, so he'd have hours to regret his sins. Most young people want nothing to do with the old ways."

"Zuko will be happy to know he was almost murdered by a historical recreationist," says Mai. She regards the assassin dispassionately. He's staring at Iroh.

"I thought you ran a tea shop," he says.

Iroh chuckles. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Omashu. I'm from Omashu."

"And who paid you to kill my nephew?"

He swallows. He seems younger by the minute.

"No one paid me. I - I seek vengeance on behalf of the Earth Kingdom."

"The Earth Kingdom doesn't want vengeance, it wants Fire Nation industry, and perhaps fewer colonists taking up its farms." Iroh examines the fukiya again. "Who is it who wants vengeance?"

"No one!"

"The penalty for attempting to assassinate the Fire Lord is death," Mai tells him.

"I'm not afraid to die."

"No one's going to die today," Iroh says. "Mai, the antidote is somewhere on his person. In case of-"

Mai throws the remnants of the assassin's cloak away and holds the vial containing the antidote between her forefinger and thumb. It vanishes into one of her hidden pockets.

"No," moans the boy-assassin. His skin is ashy-grey. He swallows, his attempt at defiance wilted. "When they hear the Fire Lord survived - my family - my parents-" He shakes his head. "I was promised money. Lots of it. I knew I wouldn't survive, but they said they'd give the money to my mother and father. I'm not an Earthbender, or a scholar, or anything. I'm just fast and good with the fukiya. My grandfather taught me. Now they'll be disgraced, and I'll be dead, and - and-"

"Son," says Iroh, "it's not too late. Come with us. Go back to the Fire Nation with the royal entourage." Mai is giving him a look of disbelief, inasmuch as she ever demonstrates emotion. "Your parents will be protected. They can meet you in the Fire Nation. You can make a new start."

"Or," says Mai, "we could hand him over to the Dai Li and - conventional justice."

Iroh very strongly suspects that it's a sharper and more direct kind of justice that she really wants, and wonders, not for the first time, what Zuko sees to love in her.

"You'd give me to the secret police?" the boy cries. Somehow, this seems to affect him even more than the prospect of a Fire Nation execution."

"I think they're just called the police now," says Mai.

"No," says Iroh. "If people are plotting to kill Zuko-"

"People are always plotting to kill Zuko. I think it's part of his charm. Personally, I come up with a new plot every day at breakfast." Mai's face is as flat and unreadable as ever, but there is something very much like a smile playing around her mouth.

"But strangers?"

"You're right. It'll be peasants next."

Their prisoner stirs. "I - I think - you'll really keep my family safe?"

"My word," Iroh promises.

He doesn't say anything, but his knees buckle, and Mai's knives are the only thing holding them up. When she releases him, he all but collapses into her arms. She looks faintly incredulous, crouched on the ground with a teenage boy sobbing in her arms. She pats him uneasily on the shoulder.

"There. There."

"That's the spirit," says Iroh.

Later, when they're back at the palace, and Zuko has swallowed the antidote, and hawks have been dispatched to Omashu and the Fire Nation, Iroh returns to his tea shop.

The sun is setting when Mai appears on the threshold.

"He's still talking," she says. "The Earth King has banished three advisors already." She accepts the tea that Iroh offers her, watching the steam rise in the fading light.

"Boys who are scared and confused make foolish decisions," he tells her.

"Not just boys." She gives him a sidelong glance. "Uncle," she says, "if you offer sanctuary to everyone who tries to assassin Zuko-"

"Then maybe they'll form a nice, orderly queue and give us some warning next time."

He thinks that soft, sharp exhalation is Mai's version of a laugh.

"I'm going to use the privileges of the Fire Lady and appoint myself as Zuko's bodyguard."

"Good. Then I know someone will be looking after him." Iroh sips his own tea. "Mai?"

"Yes?"

"You called me 'Uncle'."

"It was a slip of the tongue," she says, but she's looking away, and Iroh is very certain that she is smiling.

"Of course," he says. "More tea?"

"Thank you, Uncle."

end