5 headcanons on AU where Zuko is the Bei Fongs’ eldest child, please?

attackfish:

I never got an alert or a note for this, or anything.  I didn’t even realize it was here until just now.  I’m so sorry about that.

Anyway, I worked out a whole little thing with Zuko as the Bei Fongs’ kid, and Toph as Azula’s little sister before I realized you probably meant Zuko as Toph’s older brother with them both as Bei Fongs instead of Fire Royals.

1. This is it, this is the universe in which Zuko is the favored child.  Not that the Bei Fongs don’t love Toph, far from it.  It’s just that in Zuko, the Bei Fongs have the heir they want.  He’s healthy, and a son, and it’s his job to someday run the estate and preserve the family’s good name, and of course, take care of his poor little blind sister.  It’s so wonderful to have a son like Zuko, their parents tell each other and their children.  They never have to worry about what will happen to Toph when they go, or trying to marry their poor fragile child off.  She has a brother to protect her. Toph seethes with frustration and resentment.

2. Zuko isn’t an idiot.  He knows how his sister feels.  When she was really little, he used to teach her moves from his own earthbending lessons, but that had to stop after they got caught.  (Zuko was never in that much trouble ever.  Their parents were so angry.  It was like they caught him holding a knife to her throat, instead of teaching her to make pebbles dance around.) After that, they got Toph her own lessons, that never went beyond the very beginning of earthbending, but he knows she’s better than that, and he knows she knows it. And there are times when he can’t find her, when she’s just completely disappeared, and he knows she has to be sneaking out.

3. Zuko feels so guilty about it.  He knows he should tell somebody, because Toph could get hurt.  She’s just a little kid, and she doesn’t seem to get it, because she thinks she’s so strong, and he knows she isn’t a wimp, that’s not the point, but then their parents go and treat her like she’s a glass vase, like she’s pretty and fragile, and valuable, but has no opinion of her own and they don’t expect her to ever question being shut up an hidden like this.  And Zuko doesn’t know who’s right.  (Maybe neither of them are right, the back of his mind whispers.)

4. When the Avatar comes, and it all comes out about Toph being a total prodigy, Zuko tells her good bye and helps her sneak out and packs her a lunch.  He stays behind.  Lao and Poppy are furious.  How dare he?  His entire job is to protect her, and instead he let her run off like that?  They send him to hunt her down instead of Yu and Xin Fu.  He tracks her to Ba Sing Se, gets all caught up in the fall of the city, and the Avatar almost dying, and having to flee for their lives, and also meeting up with the Firelord’s fugitive brother, and somehow along the way, he ends up joining the gaang.  Their parents are not going to be happy.

5. After the war is over, Zuko, Toph, and Mai spend a lot of time comparing parents and asking if they’re really sure their parents weren’t secretly the same people.