Toko Week: Duck

"Act dead." Zuko raised an eyebrow at Toph's strange order, but she didn't even turn her blank eyes toward him as some kind of reassurance.
"Uh, why?" he finally asked. He could hear the footsteps now.
"Don't question me, Jango, just do it!"
He frowned and thought about correcting her on his name, but the footsteps had turned into a thunderstorm echoing down the concrete corridor, so he obediently lay down at the sewer's mouth, a slightly pained expression on his face that, upon closer inspection, could have also been disgust. The footsteps came to a crescendo, and Zuko heard the little earthbender yell;
"Stay back! I've already taken out your friend, and I'm not afraid to do the same to you!"
The hoard of gangsters slid to a stop in the sewer slop, eyeing first their fallen comrade, then the young girl, with growing trepidation.
"O-oh, that guy?" a nasally goon piped up. "Who cares? He was a freelance weakling anyway!"
Well, there goes that bluff, Toph and Zuko both thought with a grimace.
"Wow, you guys are really stupid, to follow an earthbender into a tunnel of stone!" Toph revised. She grinned, and with her hair covering her eyes, the effect of her smile was even more disturbing. "I should bury you all where you stand, but I'll show mercy if you back off."
The mob of red-clad muscle stared at her for a moment, then burst into gruff, insulting laughter. Toph growled and spread her stance. Zuko felt the ground beneath him tremble slightly, and he winced, wishing he could open his eyes to see what was going on.
"You think you're so tough, little girl?" an eye-patch-wearing gangster chortled, pulling his burnt orange sleeves over his biceps black with tattoos. "Strength is nothing if you don't have speed. Let's see how you fare against the immense power of lightning!"
The men around Eye Patch took several steps back as he pulled his arms in a slow circle, readying his attack.
Toph turned her left ear slightly to measure the length of the man's breath, while the vibrations in the tunnel travelled up her legs to tell her how he moved.
"She's not even moving!" a short ruffian mocked.
"What a stupid kid! She's gonna get fried!"
When the gangster's breathing hitched and her nose was filled with the sharp tang of ozone, Toph shifted and jabbed three fingers toward the ground, launching the lightning bender mid-strike into the ceiling of the sewer. The lightning was released on impact, collapsing large concrete boulders on anyone unfortunate enough to underestimate the young bender.
"I'm taking your bounty hunter as a hostage!" she yelled over the crumbling rocks and groans of the injured as she cut a platform out of the rock. "If any of you slug monkeys tries to follow us, he gets it!"
With that last, empty threat, Toph launched them from the sewer and into the offage drain below.
"Which way do I go, Hotpants?" she whispered, and Zuko cracked an eye to look around. "Follow the drain. Stop when we're under the train tracks. From there, we'll take a line to a friend of mine's place." Now that they were about one hundred yards from the sewer main, Zuko sat up and took off his sludge-soaked cloak.
"I can't believe I'm actually trusting the guy who kidnapped me in the first place," Toph said, but there was a laugh in her voice. "You're lucky you're cute."
Zuko blinked up at Toph, who kept her face toward the puddle-ridden path ahead, the dry wind tossing her cropped black hair behind her.
"You, uh," he blushed red, touching the scar covering half his face timidly. "You think I'm cute?"
"Not a clue!" she laughed. "Blind, remember?" Zuko growled at her teasing, which made her laugh more.
Even after the chuckels subsided, she still smiled, but it wasn't one of her cheeky smiles. It was a smile of pure joy, and he felt a similar one stretch across his face as well. They were both free.

The train station was the first totally new experience for Toph. More vibration images coursed through her mind than she had ever had before, and she had never heard so many sounds, or smelled so many scents. After purchasing their tickets with civilian bills Zuko always kept on hand, as opposed to gang marked currency, they headed to the docking stations. Upon crossing the threshold into the glass-covered dome, Toph clutched Zuko's sleeve like a child in a grocery store, pressing one of her ears to his shoulder.
This total change in character startled Zuko at first, and when she felt his elevation in heartbeat, she pulled her head away, her cheeks pink.
"Don't get the wrong idea!" she objected, talking a little louder than necessary. "It's the sensory overload! I've never been around this many people before!" One of the train engines let off a horn blast, and Toph yelped, wrapping her arms around the bounty hunter's torso and burying her face in his chest.
Zuko tried his best to regulate his heartbeat as the girl in his arms came to terms with her surroundings. Though he'd had a couple of girlfriends before, he'd kept them all at arm's length, and those relationships fell through when they found out what he did for a living. His scar scared off the gang-terrorized public before he had time to make any friends, let alone be flirted with.
Taking his track record into account, having an acquaintance embrace him so carelessly was nothing short of miraculous, yet there they were, standing in the middle of the station as if they were lovers, and he was a young captain about to be deployed with the next fleet.
Wait, what?
"Uh um, Toph, we really need to get on the train..." he mumbled, then realized she couldn't hear him over the hustle and bustle and whistles of the steam trains' exhaust. "Alright, fine." Zuko delicately pried the earthbenders arms from his back and placed her hands over her ears, then hefted her like a toddler so that her legs circled his waist. Catching on to his plan, she wrapped one of her arms around his neck before covering her right ear again and pressed her nose into his popped collar, which didn't do anything for his elevated heart rate.
However, with Toph attached this way, Zuko was able to use his arms to push their way through the pressing crowds and catch their train's sliding door before it closed. The contrast between the racket in the terminal and in the car itself was immense, and Toph pushed off of him almost immediately.
"This is incredible!" she exclaimed, walking purposefully through the car, her strange actions and even stranger appearance, with her tousled hair and torn nightgown, drawing more than a few eyes. Feeling the awkward silence, she quickly retreated to where Zuko was sitting, near the exit. "I can feel everything!" she whispered, sitting on the edge of the bench so her feet touched the varnished floor. "The engine is sending out such strong, constant vibrations that I can see everything with complete clarity!" Zuko instinctively covered his face at this statement, and Toph felt the hitch in his heart rate.
"What is it, Gloomy?" she asked.
"Nothing, and enough with the nicknames, alright?" he sighed, slumping down in the neutral brown padded bench. "My name is Zuko."
"Nicknames are my thing," she protested. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. "Besides, it's probably not best for us to be flaunting our identities right now, is it, Emo boy?"
Zuko growled. "Well, at least stick with one nickname. I think you've gone through about five now. And I get to pick one for you, too."
"Fine." Toph pouted. As she considered, though, a mischievous smile curled over her face. "How about Mr. Lolita?"
The bounty hunter fumed. Of course she wouldn't be serious about this. "What? Why?"
"Because every time I get close to you, your heart beat speeds up real fast."
Zuko's cheeks heated up, and he tried to turn his back on her. "That time in the terminal was because I was carrying you, and I don't like crowds!" he objected.
"And there was that time I called you cute. And even when you kidnapped me! Your heartbeat was so loud, I practically have it memorized!" She wrapped around his arm like a boa and grinned up at him. "So, Zuko, do you think I'm cute?"
Zuko looked down at her thoughtfully. Why did he get so flustered around this girl? It wasn't because he was physically attracted to her; she was barely a teenager. But there was something infectious in her laugh, something addictive in her personality, a kind of boldness he wanted for himself, and a vulnerability he wanted to protect. He swallowed hard and wiped some dirt from under a pale, wide eye with his thumb.
"Yeah," he said simply, and he grinned at the growing pink flush on her face as she fought for words. "I think I'll call you Thumper," he decided, tweeking her nose. "Because right now, your heart is beating just as fast as mine."
Toph sat ramrod straight. "Zuko, you--"
"Toph, duck!" he suddenly commanded, pushing the young girl into his lap and pulling the hood of his black wool jacket over his eyes as a couple of sneering men with suspicious looking scars looked in the train car windows. "Pyro-Nation scouts," he whispered as the men passed by. "Better stay down."
Finally, the train hissed and jerked forward, pulling out of its stasis and onto open track. Toph smiled up at her partner as the train car rumbled with the efforts of the engine and the wheels against the open track.
"So," Toph sighed, tucking an arm under her head, which was still on Zuko's lap. "How long will this train ride take?"
Zuko gave their tickets to the conductor. "About an hour and a half. My friends live on the outskirts of Republic City."
"Then we have enough time for you to tell me how you knew I see through vibrations!" She tugged on his hood, and he frowned down at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I whisked you off on a stone platform, and all your buddies think you're my prisoner," she pointed out, pulling down on his hood so that his neck bent with the force. "So for all intents and purposes, I've kidnapped you, which means you have to tell me how you kidnapped me so skillfully."
Zuko pulled the hood from her tiny grasp and pursed his lips.
"Your pulse is speeding up again," Toph smirked, and Zuko blushed.
"Ugh, fine, you little gremlin," he growled.
"Thumper," she corrected, and the little smile that demonstrated her satisfaction with her new nickname cause him to smile as well.
"Fine, Thumper," he amended. "Truth is, the night I-- kidnapped you-- wasn't the first time we met." Toph's brow furrowed slightly under her bangs, completely hooked as Zuko continued.
It was five years ago. I was eleven, and my father had just banished me from the Pyro-Nation territory after refusing to fight him in an Agni-Kai.
"Wait, wasn't that tradition outlawed twenty years ago?" Toph asked.
"Yes." Zuko sighed at the interruption. "Now quiet, so I can tell the story."
I tried to find a job with the other gangs for days, but of course they all thought I was a spy and tried to catch me and use me for ransom. Eventually I left the gang quarters completely to find legitimate work. I soon discovered that the child labor laws I was unaware of forbade children under the age of fourteen from work.
So, for the next week I wandered the streets, scrounging in dumpsters and dodging the police who would put me in an orphanage, which was akin to a prison sentence. Finally, I was tired of eating rotten scraps every other day, so I decided to do what I'd been raised to do-- steal. I staked out the biggest house I could find, hiding in the trees nearby until I had discovered where the kitchen was and when the maids went home from work.
One night at midnight, I snuck over the outer wall and fell behind the chrysanthemum bushes, where the guards weren't posted because they hated the smell. I followed the fence to the greenhouse where the vegetables were grown and crawled down the stairs to the basement entrance to the kitchen. From there, it was easy to pick the lock and slip inside.
However, when I got in, I was suddenly encased in a tube of earth. I looked around frantically for my attacker. I was sure all of the help had gone home, so had another thief targeted this treasure trove as well?
Zuko smiled down at Toph, who waited with bated breath for him to continue. "It was you, standing at the kitchen's wooden island, eating a rather large piece of red velvet cake.
I wondered how you had caught me, since your back was to me, and I was even more confused when you turned around.
'You're blind!' I exclaimed, which was rude, I guess. Your bangs were shorter, then. He grinned as she fingered her long bangs thoughtfully.
'Yeah, I'm blind,' you said, 'you got a problem with that?'
'But if you're blind, how did you earthbend me?' I asked.
'I can feel you through the ground,' you said. 'I'm the best earthbender there is!'
And I believed you.
You asked me who I was, and I told you I was abandoned and without food because I couldn't get a job. After that you let me go and told me I could take whatever I wanted, except
'If you take any of my summer sausages, I'll skin you alive!'
Zuko laughed, and Toph tilted her head toward the sound. "To this day, I've never heard a kid command so much authority! Anyway, I took the food, and before I left you gave me enough money for a week's stay at a fancy hotel." Zuko's grin faded to a reminiscent smile as he said, "no one had ever been so generous to me before. In the underground, I was the equivalent of a pro-bending towel boy, only existing when there were chores to be done." He shook his head. "Anyway, I left, but I never forgot the blind girl's kindness. A year later, after my uncle left the gangs to open his own tea shop, I worked there and saved up enough money to repay you. But when I went back to the house, they told me a young blind girl didn't live and had." He snorted. "I thought maybe I'd seen a ghost, until I got the bounty a week ago."
"So you cheated." Toph pouted, and Zuko leaned his head against the window behind him.
"I was resourceful."
They were silent for a minute. Suddenly, Toph asked, "Why don't I remember this?"
"You were young. Six or seven at the oldest," Zuko shrugged. "It doesn't surprise me that you don't remember." Toph still frowned, sitting up in her seat, her brows flatlined. He thought about asking about asking why she looked so troubled, but didn't want to push his luck, so he pulled his hood over his eyes and let the low rumble of the train rock him to sleep.