The Manifest

Baby Zuko (13 year old) being babysat by the Gaang straight after rescue (kidnapping) off the Wani?

Going with “only Zuko is aged down” and, to avoid just writing Little Zuko v the World again, “instead of Uncle Iroh, he sails out under the auspices of Uncle Zhao <3”

- - -

Fire Nation jail cells were everything Sokka ever imagined, if by ‘imagined’ he meant ‘had nightmares of’. And it was really inappropriate, and not a thought he’d ever share with Katara, but the longer they were down here the more his thoughts kept roaming back around to I’m glad mom was never in one of these.

There was rust, but not in any strategically important, make-it-easier-to-break-out places. Water dripping, but not in his cell where he would have been getting really close to wanting to lick it off a wall. Guards, but at the far end of the cell block, where they refused to interact with his witty banter and/or attempts to lure them into grappling-through-the-bars range. The only one who ever got close enough to grab was the tiny semi-feverish child who, given the huge fresh sorta oozy burn wound over half his face, Sokka was going to go ahead and classify as not the best hostage material. 

Unlike the son of Chief Hakoda, his waterbending daughter, and—

“How’s Appa?” Aang, who was another tiny child, who was the Avatar, who was arguably the reason Sokka and his little sister were in this mess but Sokka was still wrapping his head around the Avatar part, said. Said after wooshing towards the bars, and then wooshing again in a way that made him not hit the bars, and then he was holding them and leaning as far as he could through which was almost but not quite enough for him to slip through entirely.

“Fine,” the kid who’d gotten on the bad side of his own country croaked. Sokka did not get the impression he was allowed to talk much, outside of the prisoner block. The kid’s face was twisted into even more of a scowl than just the burned-on one. “He’s too fast for the catapult operators. Zhao said he’s going to keelhaul them if they keep missing, but when I yelled at him about it—”

The kid stopped mid-sentence in that sort of horrifying way he did sometimes. And then he set down his tray and gave them all their slop, which they got once a day, and which contained all the water they were getting, too. Something about Katara’s extremely ineffective waterbending had the big bad Fire Nation spooked. 

“Thank you,” his little sister said, her own voice a rasp-croak that pained Sokka a lot more than the random Fire Nation brat’s. 

The kid scowled harder, which was his general reaction to any gratitude from them. 

“So,” Sokka croaked his own croak. “About helping us with that escape…”

“I’M NOT,” the kid shouted, and then the guards turned to look at them all, and then he hunched in on himself and re-evaluated his volume decisions. “I’m not helping you escape.”

“Why not?” asked Aang, bless him.

“Because,” the kid said, which is usually as much of a reply as they get before he stormed off. But today he added, even if it was really hard to hear: “Because I want to go home.”

“So,” Sokka said, “did you get that on the ship or at home?” And he waved at his own face, like the subtle genius he was. 

Ah. There was the storming away.

“You forgot our bowls!” Sokka called after him.

“Keep them,” the kid shouted back, and left Sokka alone with a metal spoon and a Fire Nation lock.

- - - 

The lock was a bad idea, actually. It would have taken way too long to file the spoon down against the floor so it would fit, not to mention made way too much noise. Also: Sokka did not actually know how to pick a lock.

The screw slots on the hinges, on the other hand…

- - -

“What?” the kid got out, all sleepy-confused, before Sokka was shoving a literal sock in his mouth and tossing him over a shoulder and running as quickly and quietly as he could with a very angry sack of potatoes bouncing on his back. 

“Go go go go,” Sokka said, as he vaulted the rail into the saddle waiting below.

“Yip yip!” said Aang.

The catapult didn’t even come close to hitting them, in the darkness. Sokka kind of really felt bad for the operator team and their future date with the hull, but there was only so much saddle space, and there was an upper age limit on the Fire Nation soldiers he was willing to pardon no-questions-asked.

“Let me go!” shouted their squirmy new friend, as Katara held him around the middle, because otherwise he’d have thrown himself into the ocean an alarming number of times by now. 

“Nu-huh,” Sokka said, patting the kid’s angry little head, right on its ridiculous little ponytail. Which was nothing at all like his own extremely masculine wolf tail. “You’re our prisoner. Relax, and enjoy the improved living conditions.”

“My father isn’t going to pay for me,” the kid said back, with a glower. 

“...Please, please don’t tell me that Zhao guy was your dad.”

“What? No,” the kid said. 

And then he opened his mouth again, and Sokka’s world got both way more complicated and way more simple.