we were something, don't you think so?

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at [Link]

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/F, Gen, M/M
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Relationships: Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Mai & Ty Lee
(Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Characters: Mai (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka (Avatar), Zuko
(Avatar)
Additional Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Love Triangles, Love
Confessions, Pining, Ty Lee-centric (Avatar), MaiLee endgame, a lot of
tyzula though, so much repression, basically just girlhood and the
unbearable bonds they share, mai and zuko's lavender relationship, they
love each other platonically, and also bc politics, sokka and ty lee bond
over the anguish of being loved but not enough, it's still a happy ending i
promise, love is just so complicated, mostly centred around the beach
and boiling rock eps, as well as post-canon
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-11-16 Words: 1,154 Chapters: 1/?
 we were something, don't you think so?
by somethingholy

Summary

"I’ve always feared you more than I loved you. And I loved you an unbearable amount,” Ty
Lee admits.

They were girls, once. Desperate and lovely and tender and fiercely protective of each other.
Azula, brimming with indulgence and ease, forever taking the lead. Mai, lightning-fast
reflexes and dangerous precision. Ty Lee would follow them to the end of the world if they
asked.

It’s a strange thing, to love twofold, and have it leave you twice as bereft.

Or, tracing the Mai/Ty Lee/Azula love triangle throughout the years.
Ty Lee remembers being seven, sitting in the grass near the palace fountain while Mai braids
her hair, the two of them listening to Azula complain. The summer air feels delicate and
precious. She remembers a faint drumming in the background, the distant chatter of a festival
or a parade.

“... and I’ve been practising my forms because Dad wants me to show Grandfather soon, but
Mom seems to have something against it.”

“Does she still like Zuko more than you?” Mai asks wryly. How she managed to perfect that
tone at such a young age is still something Ty Lee doesn’t understand.

Azula rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Zuko.”

She watches Mai tie the end of Ty Lee’s braid with a ribbon.

“How does it look?”

“Pretty,” Azula says with a smile.

Ty Lee beams at her, something warm glowing in her chest. The drumming in the distance
grows louder. It’s Azula, who stands up, laughing, saying something along the lines of we
should check it out.

Azula, brimming with indulgence and ease, forever taking the lead.

Ty Lee remembers being seven, and coming to terms with the fact that she’s nothing special.
Azula’s literally royalty, and Mai’s the daughter of one of the richest families in the nation.
Her two closest friends are sharp-witted, clever-tongued, bright and alluring. She’d follow
them to the end of the world if they asked her to.

So when the drums start up again — louder and livelier, the fanatic thrumming heartbeat of
the city — she grabs Azula’s outstretched hand, and lets herself be pulled onto her feet.

Her best friends smile at her, and there are some rituals too precious to break.

She remembers being seven, and heading toward the sound of the drums. She holds Azula’s
hand in one of her own, Mai’s in the other. In the absence of grandeur, all she’s ever had to
offer is sincerity. She hopes it's enough.

During their years at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, Ty Lee learns two main things —
that vulnerability is the worst crime of all, and that girlhood is fuelled by fire. It’s the
undercurrent of every academic and social rivalry, flickering slow but steady. It’s in the
jealousy and resentment simmering in everyone’s eyes when they watch Azula come out the
top of every class they have.
Azula leads the way through hallways, classrooms, and training grounds, with Ty Lee and
Mai by her side. Head held high and footsteps firm.

Azula has been challenged to more Agni Kai’s here than Ty Lee has bothered to keep count
of. There’s a small pit in her stomach, a hidden thing which churns and flutters each time
Azula accepts. Ty Lee thinks her world would shatter if Azula was ever hurt. But here, in the
Academy, where they’re taught that vulnerability is a bitter thing, an offence worse than
death, she swallows down her anxiety before it turns into something beyond what any of
them can name.

There’s something else, too.

It’s in the way Azula glows after her victories — chest heaving, eyes glistening, breathing
heavily. It’s the way she always turns, gold eyes searching through the crowd with furrowed
brows until they rest on Ty Lee and Mai. And then, she’s beaming at them, just them, like
they’re the only ones she wanted to impress. Sometimes, she looks at Ty Lee directly.

Ty Lee eyes the strands of black hair framing her friend’s face, loose from the fight. She
wants to walk over, reach out and tuck them behind Azula’s ears, cup the flushed heat of her
cheeks.

Instead, she pretends there isn’t an itching in her chest, threatening to claw its way out.
They’re basking in that glory, the afterglow of Azula’s victories, and it’s enough.

She’s the sun, without question, and she shines so bright it almost hurts. It’s still a
performance, it always is — for the headmistress to report back to her father, for the other
girls to gossip among themselves. But each time her best friend meets her gaze, all Ty Lee
sees is that brilliant, shining gold and she wonders if Azula finds the same unnameable thing
in Ty Lee’s own dull grey.

Ty Lee will look away, turn to her side, meet Mai’s gaze with a grin.

And that’s the other thing — the way Mai is always, already looking at her. Quietly poised,
intimate, exhilarating.

Ty Lee doesn’t know how it started, but she never wants it to end.

Somehow, Mai carries an air of both unspeakable intensity, and practised nonchalance. Ty
Lee would find her world unbalanced without the gravitational pull of Mai by her side. The
girls at the Academy are supposed to be fiery and passionate — the two of them seem to be
the exception, content to trade muffled laughter, quips in low voices, conversations in the
shadows of firelight, away from the crowds. It’s not a performance.

Whereas Azula’s presence effortlessly demands attention and control from everyone around
her, Mai’s deadly aloofness is a temptation in its own way — she’s very particular about who
she wants in her life, and Ty Lee knows first hand, the exhilaration of being pulled into her
orbit.
She knows that the other girls here remember the lethal accuracy of Mai’s demonstrations in
the training grounds just as clearly as they remember Azula’s Agni Kai’s. But Mai has never
been one to bask in glory, opting instead to glare at the tentatively gathering crowds until they
scatter, peeking around corners and through classroom windows. Ty Lee and Azula get to stay
though, she says, lips quirked. It’s a deadly, delicate thing, the secrecy of Mai’s smiles. Ty
Lee tries not to overthink it.

Mai’s unfairly beautiful. She’s all lightning-fast reflexes and dangerous precision. Ty Lee
rarely ever sees the knives before they reach their targets, just flashes of silver. She
remembers Mai telling her, once, that the difference between grey and silver was a matter of
perception.

Her best friends are intoxicatingly charismatic, and Ty Lee hopes — naively, she knows —
that her world could stay like this forever. Ty Lee finds it difficult to understand this flicker of
envy, of insecurity, which runs deep through the hearts of the other fire nation girls here. Put
simply, she’s never wanted to outshine her best friends. She knows she’s made to love —
dangerously, unconditionally. It radiates from her like light, warm and devotional.

When she eventually joins the circus she’ll learn to control and manoeuvre her body, to turn it
into a vessel of balance and precision, but she’s never been able to disarm the mess of
emotions inside. She thinks she probably loved them both before she even knew what the
word meant, but it’s a dangerous thing to have hope when there’s something looming on the
horizon. There’s a war outside the walls of this Academy, and her desire starts to feel a little
like doom.
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!