6.

"Faster! We can't let him get away," Zuko urged as they chased after a thief clutching a woman's purse. Mai wanted to retort something but she didn't have enough breath to do so.

The guy they were chasing took a sharp right around the corner and Zuko sped up to follow. There was a yell and a crash, and Mai put on a burst of speed. When she rounded the corner, she saw both Zuko and the thief lying in the broken remains of a…cabbage cart?

"MY CABBAGES!"

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"You truly lead a life of mystery and glamour."

"Yeah, that's me, the mysterious and glamorous Blue Spirit," Zuko griped, brushing cabbage leaves off of his clothes and wiping cabbage juice off of his mask.

"At least you didn't let him get away," Mai offered.

"…You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Just a bit," she admitted easily. Zuko got flustered easily, but he was always so prim and proper. Seeing him in such a dishevelled state was interesting.

A sudden splat made her look down at her stomach. A ball of soggy cabbage leaves was sliding down her clothes.

"Hah!" Zuko crowed. "Take that!"

"Oh, you're going to get it now," she said, narrowing her eyes playfully. She reached down and, heedless of her manicure, scooped up a handful of mud. It had been raining constantly over the past week, so there was plenty available.

Zuko's eyes widened behind his mask. "Oh shi – "

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The next day, when they were walking to school, Mai told Zuko, "We made this morning's paper. Third page. The press somehow got pictures of our little mud fight yesterday. I'm glad that my parents were out, or else they might have wondered why both Thorn and their daughter got covered in mud at the same time." Not that her parents were ever home.

Zuko's understanding expression told her that he had correctly guessed her thoughts. "Dad was working late yesterday too," he shared. "Some big deal of his fell through. He was pretty pissed."

Mai bumped her shoulder against his to acknowledge his attempt to make her feel better, mostly because it was working.

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The next day, Zuko was at her doorstep. It had started raining halfway through their impromptu mud/cabbage fight and he was clearly feeling the effects. He sniffled quietly, looking so pathetic with his dishevelled hair and red nose that Mai couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

Even though she knew that was likely his plan (why was everyone that she knew so devious? Tom-Tom did the same thing and she fell for it then too) she sighed and ushered him into the kitchen. "I'll make some hot chocolate. Just this once," she warned as he brightened immediately.

"You are amazing," he said, entirely too sincerely.

"Yes, well." She turned away to hide the pink on her cheeks and busied herself with getting the water to boil.

Zuko sneezed.

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After the hot chocolate, Zuko ended up sitting on the couch, swaddled in a blanket and looking pathetic indeed with only his face showing.

Mai passed him a magazine. "Look at this, you were voted as 'Sexiest Superhero.'"

Zuko groaned and flopped onto the floor. "They don't even know what I look like. For all they know, I could be ugly as sin under the mask."

You're definitely not though, Mai thought. Of course she didn't say it.

"It's the air of mystery," she said instead. "I've told you this before."

Zuko rolled over on his stomach and complained into the blanket. Mai suspected that his complaints were mostly obscenities which were fortunately muffled by the carpet.

"You've got fangirls," she teased over his mutterings.

Zuko raised his head and scowled. "You've got fanboys."

"Don't worry, you're the only one for me."

There was a pause as both of them blushed (not that Mai would admit it).

Zuko eventually said, "If I wasn't sick as a dog right now, I'd kiss you."

"I appreciate your consideration." Then she leaned down and kissed his cheek.

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Zuko recovered after a few days (he claimed the hot chocolate was crucial to his good health), and just in time for exams. On Mai's part, taking them was easier than she had expected. She had done a lot of studying and her hard work paid off, with the only exams of any note being for Biology and English.

She experienced a moment of blind panic when she flipped over her Biology exam and didn't recognize anything, but rationality quickly reasserted itself and she was able to move past her brief alarm. She had no reason to panic for this exam; Ty Lee had tutored her. Out of all of them, she had the most extensive knowledge of biology, being particularly adept at understanding the human body due to the martial arts that she practiced.

Mai's English exam was a breeze thanks to Sokka's ramblings. She almost smiled when she got to the poetry section; all he had been talking about lately was poetry and Suki and poetry for Suki.

When she was finally finished, Mai felt relief and cautious confidence. Ty Lee was also pretty optimistic about her grades, mostly because of a pencil that she had deemed 'lucky.' Mai made a half-hearted protest that it wasn't just her pencil but her diligence in studying that enabled her to do well on these exams.

Azula came up to them in the middle of her explanation. She was radiating subdued smugness, so Mai figured that her exams had gone as expected. She really wanted to go find Zuko though, and she wasn't hiding that very well.

Ty Lee gave a wide grin and two thumbs up while Azula rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, go on your date already."

As Mai left, she could hear Ty Lee crowing about her 'lucky pencil' to anyone who would listen; Azula obviously wasn't, but Ty Lee didn't let that distract her.

Mai put them out of her mind. She had a movie to see.

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As movies went, it was fairly awful.

Zuko was thoroughly unimpressed with it and made no secret of it, saying, "How could they take such a rich fantasy setting with complex characters and themes and turn it into that?"

Mai, ever the dutiful girlfriend, nodded her head. That wasn't to say that she didn't agree with him – she did, the movie was a travesty – but she didn't feel as strongly about it as Zuko did, and she liked seeing him this passionate. Besides, he had slipped his hand into hers and interlocked their fingers for the duration of the movie.

"At least the effects were decent," she said, mostly because they weren't and she wanted to see his reaction.

She was not disappointed. He threw his head back into a dramatic groan. "Not really," he started to say. She quickly pulled his collar down to her level and kissed away his words.

"Let's go get some food so you can tell me everything that's wrong with the movie," she suggested when they finally separated.

And they did.

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Mai finally had some time to catch up on books and TV shows that she had put on hold, as well as working on her other side projects, such as reading up on superhero stuff.

"So I've been doing some research. Actual research, not reading comic books." She paused. "Not just reading comic books. Anyway, it seems to me that sidekicks get a pretty raw deal in general."

"Does that mean you're admitting that you're a sidekick?"

"I'm not. Admitting it or a sidekick. But I think there should be a sidekick union or something."

To his credit, all Zuko said was, "If anyone could do it, it would be you."

Mai thought that deserved a kiss.

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Mai and Zuko decided that they needed to branch out a little bit, so they started patrolling with other superheroes in addition to their current circuits. Mai found that she was not cut out for working with The Boulder, who mostly attacked first and asked questions later. The Blind Bandit was similarly reckless, but she had the skills to back it up and she wasn't averse to taking orders.

Sokka…Boomerang Guy…was more prone to planning, and skirted the line of too cautious, but Mai didn't appreciate his ridiculous puns like Suki apparently did. As part of the Kyoshi team, Suki was extremely competent and Mai found that she enjoyed taking on tasks with her.

Zuko had already been working with Sokka and Suki for a while now, and he got along well enough with the Blind Bandit once he got over his pride. He was also more patient with The Boulder than Mai was.

The Painted Lady usually didn't work in their unofficial 'territory,' but she and Zuko teamed up to take on the Southern Raiders, a local gang that had been causing trouble. The teamwork seemed to have served them well, as their interactions had become decidedly less frosty.

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Mai also worked with the Painted Lady a few times. They did become closer as a result, and she shared her real name, which was Katara. By this point, Mai already knew what her face looked like under the mask (mostly due to all of those operations as Sapphire Fire), but it was nice to be confided in.

Katara also let her know that while she liked being undercover that was more Sokka's division and she did enjoy the occasional straightforward beat down. On one such occasion, they were able to take down Zhao; Zuko was sorry that he had missed it, but satisfied that there was enough evidence to lock him away.

Zhao was as slippery as an eel, but even his luck ran out. He did, however, get a reduced sentence because he agreed to share information on the Phoenix King. Mai personally thought that it wasn't worth the Phoenix King's wrath, but evidently, Zhao was willing to take the risk.

One of the things that they learned was that the Phoenix King was grooming a successor, though he didn't know more about that. Mai thought that was an interesting little tidbit of information.

A/N: Three guesses who the Phoenix King's successor is and the first two don't count. Also, since people have been asking, Aang is going to be mentioned only. He's not actually going to make an appearance in this story.