#for people in the nosebleeds he’s nothing but a singing ant

[releaseholiday]

"#I have a lot of thoughts on how unhealthy their relationship with their job is" please share

[zukofenty]

just my luck

➜ Summary: The one where Katara whisks away her picture-perfect life the night she kisses a stranger with the worst luck in the world.

“I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!” 

“I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?”

➜ Genre: Modern!AU, Journalist!Katara, Girl group manager!Zuko, Music Producer!Zuko

AO3, @zutaraweek

“I am too pretty to be punched!” Katara yelps, ducking and clenching the holding cell’s bars until her knuckles turn white. 

  “And I thought I was too pretty to commit tax fraud, but here we are.” Ty Lee rolls her eyes. “That’s just how the pussy crumbles.” 

  “First, you need a gynecologist. Second, I think the saying goes ‘that’s how the cookie—’” Nothing in life could have prepared Katara for the tiny girl to deliver a resounding punch that has her head rattling against the jail cell. 

  “I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!” 

  “I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?” 

  Katara sighs, still recovering from the intense nosebleed Ty Lee bestowed on her. “Where the fuck would I even find a leprechaun?” She promptly shoves wads of tissues up her nostrils. Of course, the next one she reaches for actually had a spider in it, and she thinks killing herself just might be easier on her soul at this point. 

  “Just say you like Megan Thee Stallion and all of a sudden all the men under 5’7” start giving you a 5’11” attitude. Easy peasy.” 

  She’d managed to limp her way back to Suki and Toph’s apartment from prison, after getting a call that her apartment had flooded, destroying everything in it. Only her apartment. She was barely holding on to her broken YSL pump in one hand and her pride in the other. Emphasis on limp , because while calling taxis to instantly stop for her was always her thing , now she was nothing but an ant (in head-to-toe Prada) on their radar. If they do stop, the taxi either gets snatched up by someone else, or the drivers tell her, not so kindly, to eat a dick. 

  Nevertheless, she’s still determined to have a positive day, walking and humming a Rihanna song to try and calm her nerves. But, because this day was sent by Satan himself (Jeff Bezos), she was drenched, face to booty to toes, in drain water by the seemingly hundreds of Uber Eats whizzing by, trying to get someone’s Buffalo Wild Wings order to them quickly. 

  “I can’t believe you guys actually think all that stuff’s real!” Suki scoffs, diligently painting her toenails a pretty pastel purple and not giving any mind to the conversation. 

  “Tell me, how would you explain this bitch’s life?” Toph points an accusatory finger in Katara’s way. “Katara has been living life as the main character. For fuck’s sake, you won prom queen five years in a row at Ba Sing Se High!” 

  “A lot of people win prom queen—” 

  “We went to Omashu High!” Toph adds with frustration. “You even won the year after you graduated!” 

  Toph and Suki could never quite wrap their heads around Katara’s life. 

  For as long as they knew her, she was always the luckiest girl in the world. 

  At seemingly every turn, the girl had all the luck in the world on her side. I mean, just the other day she was accidentally delivered Rihanna’s dry cleaning, because of course she lives in the same fucking building as Rihanna, the goddess herself. See, Katara was the type of person with the luck to manage to find an upscale apartment on their shitty salary in the city for nearly half of what Suki and Toph were paying to sleep next to inbred cockroaches. 

  “Bitch, you do not have the range for that.” Toph snatches the dress away before Suki or Katara could make a face and whimper a soft ‘gimmie gimmie’ that surprisingly always worked.  

  “I might not, but at least we could clone Rihanna now.” 

  Toph pauses. “Say what?” 

  “I’m getting the girls and gays that album, no matter what.” 

  Katara went to return the dress after getting in a helicopter with her date of the night, People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, Haru (before the mustache). On top of all that madness, she said Rihanna, in the shimmery, Fenty Beauty Body Lava coated flesh, even complimented her makeup. Suki almost shit herself when Katara was added to the Fenty Savage PR list. 

  Katara would walk outside and the clouds seemed to part as if on her command. She could wear all-white in the city without a bird unloading one on her shoulder, or one of those guys on the street flicking feces in a pudding cup her way. Jammed streets or congested traffic never ceased her from being ten minutes early to every meeting, event, or even accidental movie set she walked on and got cast as an extra instantly. The lead actor, Academy Award winning Bolin, is still sending her detailed DMs about the various ways he would harvest her toenails because it reminded him of her. 

  And you know those Airpods or laptop scams that go around on social media you have to train your grandparents not to click on? Or those princes that email you promising to marry you after you send them your banking information? Guess which bitch manages to actually win over a prince’s heart and his inheritance? 

  Katara had the universe wrapped around her finger, and it didn’t seem to mind bending to her will. 

  Fresh out of college, after much clawing and fighting and miraculously switching coats with an editor at a restaurant, Katara managed to snag a job at Nyla magazine and secured spots for her best friends, too. They’d been reading the entertainment magazine before they could even process solid food. While they were all saddled with a mailroom job, Katara’s quote unquote irresistible charm had landed her as a scribe to record meetings when their original conveniently broke a nail. 

  Of fucking course, the day their entire team is stuck in a broken elevator is the day the CEO of White Lotus Records was coming into the office to discuss Nyla ’s next cover star. 

  Their next big thing, teen singer, Song was still hesitant to work with a magazine aimed at young adults with unhealthy coping mechanisms, compared to the J14s and Tiger Beats with the foldable poster at the back you could steal if you were quick enough at Walgreens. 

  “ Young lady.” Ugh, why do old men always sound so fucking condescending? You know how easy it is to push an old person? “You know how much dough I make so I can regularly spend it on drugs? Every minute of my time is worth $964.” While Piandao gets up for his assistants to put on his fur coat, Katara slams her hand on the table. 

  “I promise you this cover story will be worth every minute of your time. I’ll even pay you $965 at the end of my presentation if you hate it.” 

  And who could say no to that sweet (and scary) face? 

  When editor-in-chief June waddles back, glazed with sweat after someone farted their entire Del Taco Thursday three chicken soft tacos for $2.49 deal in her face , their cover story was booked. The carnival themed, masquerade party to celebrate Song’s new cover was already scheduled in Google Calendar. Soon enough, Katara was handed her own office, Tesla, and platinum corporate card to start planning the entire event. 

  Everything was going fine . There were acrobats doing flying yoga in the sky, a fortune teller she hired at the last minute that everyone loved. Music was playing, people were dancing without a care in the world, and everyone was having a good fucking time. She even snagged her bitchy boss a date with her hot neighbor, and her Painted Lady costume was designed by Vera Wang herself. By the end of the night, her brain was scrambled from the paperwork and yelling and pen marks all on her hand. Yet, with her luck, she still managed to kiss the cute guy who asked her to dance. 

  Well, at least she knew he felt and smelled like a cute guy, considering half his face was covered by a mask. 

  He was a bumbling thing, managing to stomp on her feet a few times even when she reassures him at the end of the day. Despite being all broad shoulders and muscles, he seemed to shrink in on himself at that moment.  “I’m really, really bad at dancing.” She gave him a weird look and Zuko had to remember that he had stolen a backup dancer named Lee’s gig for the night to sneak into the event.  

  Katara rolls her eyes. Dancing, much like nearly everything else, always came easy to her. “So what if you gave a girl a black eye and another guy a concussion?” Her laugh is so pretty and her waist between his warm fingers just felt right. 

  He lets himself laugh, too. Wrapped up in the girl’s spell. Forgetting any thought of trying to win over the White Lotus CEO. 

  She leaned in first, and he was more than happy to reciprocate. Zuko didn’t have time for impulsive decisions, not when the universe was actively always trying to kill him. For some reason, he couldn’t help but be drawn in. Her soft lips against his felt like a plush dream, and all he didn’t want to wake up to reality. Not when in that moment, there were sparks and blood rushing to his head and soft skin peeking out of her expensive dress he wanted to discover more of. 

  One minute, Katara was throwing back a margarita in case she had dumb bitch breath that caused her mystery man ran off. The next, she was choking to death, only spitting out the olive on Suki’s face after Toph delivers a quick punch to her sternum, right between the titties. 

  “Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a stupid whore by her throat!” 

  “Stop choking me, June!”

  “No!” June screeches. How was Katara supposed to know she accidentally set her boss up with the ‘ King Kuei ’? The FBI’s most wanted illegal animal trader by day, male prostitute by night? And who knew that would land her a night in jail? 

  “The universe is a stupid fucking whore!” Katara sniffs, still trying to detangle the chunk of hair embedded deep into Suki’s blow dryer. Katara managed to not only break a mirror with the blow dryer in her mere ten minutes in Suki and Toph’s place, but also rip out a section of her hair after throwing said blow dryer in their bathtub which promptly caught on fire. The icing on the dog shit cake of the day was when she managed to cause the building’s power to short circuit, shutting off everyone’s lights.

  //

  The universe, for the first time in his life, was finally on Zuko’s side. 

  For as long as Zuko could remember, rain clouds suddenly appeared when he walked outside, even despite what Alexa told him earlier that morning. 

  “Alexa, what’s the weather like today?” 

  “Completely sunny with a chance of naive bitch,” the smart speaker might as well have said. 

  Zuko was sure of four things in life. 

  Adderall and 7 up were never a good combination 

Alexa was always watching for an opportunity to strike fear in his heart

He could never catch a fucking break

Having a waterpark poncho always on hand never hurt

  He heard from his Uncle Iroh his family was perpetually cursed. Something about a fame-hungry witch with the last name Kardashian in the past life, and one of his relatives eating said witch’s ass that inflicted the present day curse on his family.

  Everyone he knew was impossibly clumsy. Random flooding accidents, cars always running into you, bugs trying to get their fuck on in your ear. It was like the universe said yeet! On their good fortune.

  What does he wish for every year on his birthday? For it to be easy just to be him . To be easily liked, like Adele, or Dippin Dots. He wished life could be easy enough for him to take a shit without the toilet bowl accidentally caving in, or a lightbulb somehow always falling on his good eye.

  Zuko had always been relatively clumsy, worse than what Iroh’s seen before. After so many years of being shit-out-of-luck, and having literal shit on you at all times, he was used to being alone. 

  It stopped stinging a few years ago. Besides, he had his half-sister Kiyi to keep him company these days. 

  Nobody wanted to be around the guy who constantly smells like dog shit because he always manages to find a shit covered dollar bill flowing down the street. No one wanted to be associated with the guy who, without fail, splits his pants open every time he bends down.  Saddling him with yet another public indecency charge. 

  Like clockwork, at least two times a week, he was getting his face shoved into the concrete and handcuffs slapped on him. He started investing in a mouth guard about five years ago.

  It was like a safety hazard, just being him. There were so many times you could get struck by lightning before you were banned by the nation from buying umbrellas. 

  Predictably, he has been rejected from every job he applied to. His laptop has been hacked by so many Hentai porn bots he doesn’t even bother upgrading his Dell from 2013. He even started a conversation with the guy monitoring his keystrokes. Landlords chucked his application out the window before he could even give them his soul and a deposit, and while the doctors didn’t think he’d do it, he found out that yes you can survive being hit after someone throws a piano out their window while you leave the leasing office. 

  Sure, he came to the city with dreams of making it big, loving music since his mom taught him the difference between a treble and bass clef. But when he’s always accidentally setting his tsungi horn on fire? Breaking his nose open trying to put resin on his violin’s bow? Somehow getting a reed stuck in his throat and his sphincter (on the same day)? No chance in hell was anyone willing to risk their lives to let him play anything on stage. 

  So he stuck to writing and producing, watching YouTube tutorial after tutorial to learn mixing, because he thinks it’s safer for everyone involved. 

  “Zuko, someone tried shoving Nutella up their ass and shat it back over the bathroom.” He looks up from his laptop to see a plunger too close for comfort near his face. 

  “Why?” 

  “Some weird sex thing! I don’t fucking know.” Jet points to the elderly couple nearby. “You ask them why!”

  Zuko takes a deep breath in. “No, I’m asking ‘why?’ because my shift doesn’t start for another two hours.” 

  He was a janitor at the bowling alley across the street (it was the only place that would hire him, but he thinks they felt bad for him after he ugly cried and ate out their supply of shitty, frozen curly fries). 

  “You know I love you, Zuko! But these!” Jet cups Zuko’s chest with two, oddly gentle, hands.  “Make our alley’s world go round.” He even gives them a squeeze for emphasis. 

  “Let go of my man titties,” Zuko glares at Jet. “ Now .” 

  “You’re the breast.” 

  Zuko’s eye twitches. 

  It wasn’t all bad. After all, the alley does let him make music in his free time, and the girl group he was “managing” can perform their sets on Fridays. 

  “We’re firing you!” Mai pokes at his chest and has him readjusting his glasses from the force. 

  It was a Monday and his week was starting off better than most. He was scraping green colored poop from the walls and was already being threatened at 9 a.m. without any weapons in sight. 

  “You don’t pay me!” He points out, which only seems to get everyone in the room angrier. His sister and her friends formed Shooters 4 Rihanna when they were pre-teens. They wanted to be a group trying to make it big in the pop scene, and quickly signed to a record label together. The girls were promised all their years of childhood training would pay off when they would debut as young adults. That was, until their CEO was broadcast on TLC’s My Strange Addiction for his habit of collecting Mark Ruffalo’s nose hairs, and confessed to killing someone for it. 

  Investors weren’t too happy. 

  While all the girls could see was repressed childhood trauma, Zuko saw that and potential star power. 

  Every single member already had years of dancing and singing lessons under their belt. They could play their own instruments, write their own songs, and had the stage presence. A few Twitter DMs later (from his multiple accounts, because they thought his profile picture made him look like a fucking creep and blocked him years ago) they were dumb enough to trust him with their future. He’d been trying to get them signed for months to no avail. Somehow fucking up, or electrocuting himself in the process of showing an executive their new single. 

  “This was a mistake!” Jin shoveled the curly fries in her face. 

  While Yue was always one to stay positive, her sad ‘ I miss pickled fish ,’ had the rest of the girls wanting to leave, too. Going back home, just give up seemed sensible. Why waste your prime years on a pipe dream?   

  He stopped them, plunger in hand. Against all logic, and partially because they could smell the desperation, the girls gave him one week . 

  One masquerade party later, he managed to throw Piandao out of harm’s way, taking the brunt of the taxi running into him. 

  “ Are you fucking stupid !” The CEO screams. The boy had blood flowing from his scalp, but looked as alive as ever handing over Shooters 4 Rihanna’s demo CD. 

  “A little.” Zuko admits. He could feel his bones still intact, and judging by the blood it wasn’t anything serious. Piandao gives him a call the next day after listening to the tape. 

  By some miracle, or Kardashian curse lifting, the girl group and him were shuffled into the city’s upscale penthouses, and their debut single was slated to be released on the radio the next day.

  While he headed for lunch at a nearby cafe (one he couldn’t afford to eat at just last week) he can’t help but notice her . 

  //

  “Ma’am, I have already told you our restaurant’s motto! No eat, no shit!” The waiter glares down at her. “Either pay up or get out, broke bitch.” 

  Katara was caked head to toe in mud, tissues shoved yet again up her nose. Haru had invited her out to his dad’s art show the night before. After insulting the literal piece of shit art, she tripped over the clump of clay on display and landed face-first in his million dollar creation. 

  Of course, it would land her in prison, and of course Ty Lee would be there, too. “Move bitch, I’m gay! ” When Katara was too exhausted to budge, the girl, yet again, socked the shit out of her. 

  Katara just wanted a plate of steaming breakfast foods, but of course all her cards declined. And of course, she has a meltdown because she was fucking tired, hungry, and was about to throw hands.

  She grabbed the salt shaker. “Look, I’m just going to try one thing before I go!” 

  “It’s the bath salts,” she hears one woman whisper. “Those fashion bitches are always on bath salts.” 

  “Just smile politely. We’re witnessing mental illness.” 

  She didn’t expect that throwing salt over her shoulder would land in the waiter’s eye, or cause him to collapse on the table of Mormons nearby. Or something to catch on fire, or someone to get stabbed with a fork with a pancake on it. 

  She certainly didn’t expect a (cute) stranger to be so gentle with her, helping her escape the madness and handing over his turkey on rye. Or him following her as she tried to save face and sit on a random bench away from any nearby birds’ tiny assholes. 

  “You look sad.” He’s not mocking in the slightest.

  “What does that even mean?” She went from sad to affronted in just a second. 

  “What’s wrong?” Fuck this guy and those eyes that were so damn enchanting . 

  “I don’t look sad.” She says with the roll of her eyes. “I am fucking sad.” She was blackballed from every newspaper in the Four Nations, the prince she was talking to did indeed end up stealing her savings, and on top of all of that, her undereye concealer was creasing. 

  “You!” Katara points her finger in the fortuneteller’s face. 

  “Me?” Aunt Wu looks beyond irritated. “Look, I can’t predict when you’ll get a fat ass, just buy a resistance band and leave me—”

  “You’re the one who told me whatever Wheel of Fortune would spin back on me! And Alex Tribek would take away my good luck or something!” Katara was crazed and running on two hours of sleep, but she had a bone to pick. “My perfect life is gone.” 

  “Wow, that was a lot to unpack.” Aunt Wu locks her shop’s door. “Look, can you think of anything strange that happened that night?” 

  “Besides someone telling me to make them toilet wine in prison, no I don’t think so!” Katara grunts out petulantly. 

  Aunt Wu smacks her with a stack of tarot cards. “No! Jesus! What else happened?” 

  “Can’t you just tell me? Childhood trauma has really fucked with my memory.” 

  “You kissed someone, didn’t you?” The fortuneteller scurries to her Kia Soul before Katara could retaliate. “Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!” 

  She tried kissing every single dancer that was working that stupid party, and came up with nothing but mono and the feeling of defeat.

  “Did you know, I even fucking sharted myself today!” She smacks her forehead repeatedly. “At twenty-fucking-three! How fucking embarrassing . All I could do is run to the H&M with my cheeks out to buy a pair of sweatpants.” 

  “I know a job looking for someone,” he says and even when he’s staring at her with nothing but understanding, she’s still apprehensive.  

  “Don’t care, didn’t ask, plus you’re a colonizer.” If she had any energy she would’ve put more force into the shove. “Why are you even helping me?” 

  She looked like shit on a dick and he was just smiling at her. “Let’s say, I just know what it’s like to be SOL.” 

  “What’s the catch?” She stares at him down and pouts. He’s wearing an Armani shirt with an Off-White belt, which was already offending her senses, but on top of that he dared pair the atrocity with a pair of knock-off Converse. He couldn’t have sprung for a real pair, he just had  to get the off-brand from Costco that made everyone’s ankles look like cankles. 

  New money . “I am not letting anyone suck my toes for money, again. Try a different girl.” 

  Zuko grows positively red, but at least it brings the ghost of a smile to her face. “No toe sucking. Only on Wednesdays.” 

  She delivers a well-aimed kick to his crotch. While she’d expect him heaving and puffing, he’s unphased. He’d put on his MMA fighter grade, groin protector out of habit, even though he’s getting kicked a lot less in the ball bags lately. 

  “So, you’re trying to convert me to Scientology?” Katara scoffs. “I’ll pass, Asian Tom Cruise.”

  “Not that either.” He sees the defeated look in her eyes, the same one he’s seen in himself. There’s a spark there, though. A willingness to just keep going. Something he lost years ago. “Trust me.” 

  “No.” 

  “All good.” He shrugs. “Can I at least help you up?” Before she could bite back, she turned to the spot on the bench where he was pointing.

  Wet paint. 

  He’s taking her mustard covered hands (the sandwich exploded in the foil) in his soft ones without question, and peeling her off the bench. 

  “Of fucking course,” she huffs. 

  //

  She thinks he knows. He knows the fact that she wants him sticking around. Even with her adamant protests against it, he’s persistent. 

  Stopping by after long days at the studio to her shit job, handful of first aid supplies at the ready.  

  He’s just always there . 

  He’s there when she’s scraping gum from under the alley’s tables and almost swallows one that had “Live, Laugh, Love” carved into it. He quickly stops her from choking, practically an expert at the heimlich with how many times he’s almost died from drinking boba. 

  There when she electrocutes herself changing the alley’s light bulbs to catch her as she falls straight off the ladder. He’s not even phased, pushing a fried piece of hair sticking up the heavens and staring at her as though she squirted cupcake frosting from her nipples. 

  He’s there with his first-aid messenger bag, all duct taped and falling apart and it makes her want to say sorry to Alexander Wang for daring to wear it with his Spring 2019 boots after Zuko forces her to carry it around. But then he’s pulling out a tube of toothpaste from the bag while she’s cooling her burnt fingertips on a 10 year old Yerba Mate can, and she’s reminded why he’s so firm about it. 

  “Earth Nation trick to heal burnt skin.” He’s too concentrated on rubbing the paste into her flaming skin to notice her staring. She remembers that he included her favorite Fenty gloss in the bag after handing it off to her, and blushes. 

  “I don’t need your help, you know.”  Katara was always the one fighting for her own dreams. She didn’t want to stick back living the life other people imagined for her. Even all the luck in the world couldn’t help her escape a sleepy town or an unsupportive family. 

  When they came to the city, she knew her friends let her take care of them on purpose. It was second nature, what she grew up on. She’d always been the one looking out for everyone, even if they didn’t ask, and they let her do it because they all needed a coping mechanism. Toph’s is cake cutting videos, Suki’s is practicing her crying face because she always wanted to be a pretty crier, and Katara’s is being overbearing. 

  She was confused. As many times as she tried drilling through his thick head that her grandma was a nurse, that she could easily wrap up every cut, bruise, and swollen toe, he never budged. For the first time in a while, someone was there, stubbornly making sure she was okay. 

  “I know?” He says it as though it was obvious. “I’ll make you a deal, though. Just let me help you out, just this one time?” He gently taps her fingers wrapped in Minion bandaids he got her just because he knew she hated them in public, loved them in private. “I won’t do it again.” 

  He’s teasing and it’s obvious he knows she’s putty in his hands. Though, his newfound look (she helped with) balancing boy-next-door with heartthrob is not working on her heart. Her pussy, sure. Not her heart, though. She swears. 

  “That’s what you said last time,” Katara protests, without any energy behind it. 

  He sends her a lopsided smile. “I know.” 

  Zuko wasn’t about to let any hair on her pretty head get hurt. 

  While Kiyi already had enough of a bad case of bad luck, considering all the Power Ranger figurines she had super glued to her face by fourth grade boys, Katara’s was just something else. 

  It reminded him of him . Whatever stroke of good luck he had, he knew the universe takes in ten-fold what it might give. So he’s taking advantage of every bit of luck he has for a girl without any. 

  While he’s been stabbed many a time walking back home at night, somehow he’s in the clear when he escorts Katara back to her apartment. Or the times he buys her Water Tribe take out because she’s still figuring out how that prince managed to spend $10,000 on Swampbender diet pills. Or when he sneaks in before her shift to do some of her tasks for the day (he still has the keys), so he doesn’t have to worry about her bruising her pubic bone with the vacuum, or breaking the ceiling with a slippery bowling ball. 

  He wasn’t all used to his new life. The designer shoes, the fancy parties, the attention . Girls in the past would look at him as though he wasn’t more than shit at the bottom of their Jimmy Choo, but his good luck brought this newfound female attention that was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Especially when, all he wanted was to catch her eye. 

  She was his good luck charm and didn’t even know it. 

  Since he’s met her, everything just was going right . She brought Toph over with her guitar to string together a few verses the day they were in desperate need of new lyrics to go with the beat he’s spent the last few nights cranking out. The day after they released it on Apple Music, the song went #1 on Billboard. Piandao had even booked them to play the Hard Boulder Cafe for their first performance, and tickets were sold out. 

  Even when things just seemed to get better and better for him, the universe doubled down in its punishment for her. 

  He’s there when she’s walking back from work, drenched to the bone because she missed all trains for the day, a taxi said her face looked stupid, and she was just tired of it all and wanted to go home and eat processed frozen food and die. 

  Zuko’s there, though. Without fail.

  He’s there with his fucking Tesla and personal driver and Chanel top and she couldn’t be any more embarassed. 

  “Get in!” He hesitates before approaching. “Also, maybe let’s put down the umbrella?” It was inverted anyways, and looked three seconds from whisking her away into the storm. 

  “No, I’m good!” Katara insists. She was afraid that falling for Zuko, going to bed and waking up thinking of him was messing with her brain and she didn’t know if she wanted it to stop. 

  “You could get hit by lightning.” 

  “That can’t—” She ponders it for a second. “You know what, fuck you.” 

  He throws his expensive jacket over her to quell the shivers, and when she protests, seeing as it was a Valentino Lacquered Nylon Jacket, he bundles her even deeper in the thing, buttoning it up until she’s complaining from the warmth.  

  “You’re laughing at me.” She pouts.

  He’s covered completely in bubbles. Not her fault he decided to strip off his shirt to throw in the cycle with her wet clothes, and she got distracted by the abs and dumped the whole bottle of laundry detergent in the washing machine. 

  Zuko shoves her face into a pile of the suds. “I am, yeah.” She looks upset and he stops the mirth growing on his face. Reaching out to her, instead. “Katara, I’m sorry did I—” 

  She might’ve leaned out to accept his embrace, but then she’s flipping them over, pinning him down to the floor. Her warm, still soaking wet body, pressed against him and her arms coming out to pin his hands to the ground. 

  He gulps. 

  “This would be more fun if you let me peg you afterwards.” 

  Her laugh vibrates her whole body and he couldn’t help joining in, too. 

  He let her have her pick of his dress shirts, and she looked so much at home. Little strands of her bangs framing her face and growing curly with the addition of water. Her brow furrows when she mentions her leave-in conditioner washing away with the suds, and he takes advantage of the momentary distraction. Flipping her and placing two hands at the sides of her head. 

  She knows he’s covered in the bubbles, just so she wouldn’t feel anymore of a stupid bitch than she already does. He never seems to mind it, even when Katara was frustrated and just couldn’t figure out why all this was happening to her and dragging him into every single accident. 

  “What would you say to the universe, right now?” She’s curled up on his couch and he’s massaging the balls of her feet she presses in his lap. 

  “Welcome to your tape.” 

  “Katara, no.” 

  “That bridge off of Fourth Street? Looking really easy to jump off of right about now, universe.” 

  He lets her take his bed that night after he cooked up his famous komodo chicken and both Kiyi and her complain about having a food-baby.

  “Hey, Katara.” He whispers while her eyes could barely open. He tucked her in those blankets all ethnic people have, the super fluffy ones with a tiger on them that are always wrapped in a plastic bag.  “You’re cute.” 

  “Yeah?” She breathes out, crinkling her nose and blinking those long lashes and making his heart skip beats. “Hey, Zuko.” 

  “Yeah?” 

  “I think I like you.” 

  He pinches her cheek. “I think I like you, too.” 

  //

  He was right. As soon as life blessed him with everything he’s wanted and more, it whisked it away just as fast. 

  He’d mustered up the courage to invite her to a studio session after everyone in Shooters 4 Rihanna insisted on meeting her. Their songs were getting a little too emotional and they wanted to meet his muse. It was going well, too well. He even catches all the lamps she knocks down. When she rights herself, she manages to knock down the table with their food. Double bagging existed for a reason, just like he warned her! But, of course, the bags holding the takeout she was supposed to surprise him with broke from the bottom. He’d go hungry, that day. But, anything for her, though. 

  She looked so into the session, asking him if she could play with the buttons, leaning into his chest when he hesitantly surrounds her space. His two lean arms coming out to steady her waist when she trips on herself and sends him a sheepish smile that has him hypnotized. 

  Katara normally felt lightheaded around him, but she felt absolutely faint as soon as Piandao walked in to finalize the details of the performance, and Zuko started talking about some lucky masquerade ball. 

  She couldn’t hear much else, body getting up before she even registered it. 

  Before he could fully get into his chair at the mixing console because just one little note in their new song “Rihanna Impregnate Me” just sounded off, she’s tugging him up. 

  “Can I kiss you?” 

  “W—what?” She’s holding him up by the collar of his shirt. 

  Katara smirks. “I really want to kiss you.” 

  “I mean, uh, yes! Definitely a ye—”

  It’s everything he’s imagined, hoped, prayed for the last few months and more. She’s sweet and soft and tasted like lip gloss and the toothpaste he had stowed away in her bag. When he’s leaning in for more, ready to do things like give her his heart or do her taxes for her because he couldn’t think straight and his heart was guiding him through the motions, she’s gone. 

  //

  Katara’s gone when Ty Lee somehow gets into, yet another, tax fraud case and can’t make their performance. 

  She’s gone when he needs her by his side because even though he’s not performing he still manages to feel fucking sick. He wants her holding his unnaturally sweaty palms and telling him it’s going to be okay, just like what she does during his late night writing sessions where she stays up and refuses to sleep until he does. 

  She’s gone when the band has to answer to an angry crowd, an angry CEO who already sees the articles lambasting the girl group’s unprofessionalism and was ten seconds away from pulling the plug on his dreams. 

  “Zuko!” 

  He hates his heart rushes, even when it was about to break because of her, too. 

  She's gotten her perfect life. She’d gotten the job back, her apartment back, Rihanna even sent her a secret song for fuck’s sake. 

  She must really love this fucker, because she was giving up a chance to stalk Rihanna so he could be happy. 

  “Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!” Was running through her head the entire week she avoided him.

  “I don’t know what to do, Suki!” 

  “Why don’t you both fuck leprechauns?” She says between bites of string cheese. 

  Katara sighs. “Why are yours and Toph’s minds built like that?” 

  “I heard my mom tried punching her stomach every day, hoping that I wasn’t going to be a result of St. Patrick’s Day sex. That’s why my head’s lopsided.” 

  He felt nauseous. Not only did 3 of the girls just spew their lunch into whatever container they could get their hands on, of course Azula has gone missing. “Katara not now I—” 

  She comes to him flushed, extensions stuck to her hand after running too fast and accidentally grabbing someone’s hair. Her feet hurt, her heart hurt, but in this moment she knew. She knew he needed this more than her. He was soft and kind and took people in and cherished the moments with his half-sister because he missed all the ones with Azula. He worked so hard now because he was afraid she hated him, and even when he was on the verge of giving up, he still pushed through. He gave people chances, even when the universe was never as kind to him. 

  After she presses her lips to his, suddenly Azula presses a button from the underground room she was trapped in, appearing on stage in front of their very eyes. They have the best show the Hard Boulder Cafe’s seen in decades . Their contract is extended, and he opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate without taking his eye out. 

  He was the luckiest man in the world. 

  Though, when he turns, he realizes. 

  His girl’s missing. 

  //

  “Katara!” She tried shuffling away, but accidentally slips on a few drug needles someone threw carelessly on the ground. 

  She’s still nursing the sore spot on her forehead, where the champagne cork hit. “Zuko, please just...go.” She waves him off with a bandaged hand. 

  “I know you’re going to be stuck here for the next three hours. Because trains never come on time for you no matter what.” 

  Even in the middle of the nearly dead station, he was right. Every stop flashed to delayed .  

  “Then you’ll be robbed by someone on the train, and then you might even get spit on by the guy with the imaginary dog who’s afraid of whoever gets too close to it, and then you’ll get an eye infection.” 

  Katara wipes the snot at her nose. “So?” 

  “So?” He laughs, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I’ve lived a whole lifetime of bad luck, and I can’t let you do that for me.” 

  She lets him turn her to face him, lets him gather her up in his arms and hold her like she’s delicate and irreplaceable, and not just a girl with mascara running down her face and her heart stolen by someone she couldn’t love. 

  “Even in a lifetime of being shit out of luck, I still got the chance to meet you.” 

  “Zuko, stop.” Katara wipes at her tears. “Our luck will just get switched, and I always figure things out, I always do. But, I just want you to keep this. You put it to better use than I would’ve.”

  Zuko shakes his head. “I don’t want it anymore.” 

  “I said that to my bladder infection, and that didn’t work. What makes you think that will work now?” 

  “I can live without it.” He smiles. “A few bumps and bruises are the price I’m willing to pay for you in my life.” 

  She’s blushing, hands coming up to bring his head closer to hers, to see every little detail of him.  

  “You’re so fucking stupid.” She whispers, millimeters away from his lips. 

  The grin splits on his face without his permission. “I am, yeah.”