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It was almost the end of school day and that was just as well because Ty Lee had crept into Azula’s classroom and had made herself comfortable in her lap.
“No one ever comes to your open office hours on Fridays,” she said as Azula protested and tried to nudge her off.
“What about you? Every teacher is supposed to have office hours on Fridays,” Azula said as Ty Lee wrapped her arms around Azula’s neck, kissing her cheek.
“I don’t have to do that because I supervise the cheerleading team,” Ty Lee said gleefully.
“Shouldn't you be doing that then,” Azula grumbled, trying to grade papers over her wife’s body.
“No practice today!”
“You’re just hoping and praying a student comes in, aren’t you,” Azula said, narrowing her eyes.
Ty Lee giggled.
“Then the whole student body will know that scary, mean Miss Azula is with sweet, happy little Miss Ty Lee,” Ty Lee said, swinging her legs.
“Which would be bad,” Azula said flatly. “Also I do have one student that told me they were coming.”
She picked up a graded test she had on the side of her desk.
“Sokka? He’s in my first period creative writing class,” Ty Lee said. “He’s very funny.”
“Well, he’s adequate at physics too,” Azula said, flipping through the test.
“Really? That doesn’t look like a good grade,” Ty Lee said, looking at the big red 60% written on the front.
“This was the best score in all three of the sections. The average was actually in the 40s,” Azula said, putting the test paper down.
“Why would you make the test so hard!”
“It’s not hard if you know physics. They’re all mostly incompetent,” Azula said.
“You’re meant to be teaching them physics. How can they know it if you’re still teaching them?”
“I only test them in stuff they’ve learned,” Azula said. “I don’t tell you how to grade essays, do I?”
Ty Lee shook her head.
Azula kissed her forehead and Ty Lee dug deeper into her lap.
“Anyways, I told them I would tell them what they did wrong on this test if they came to office hours Friday and Sokka is the only one who said he would come, which is why you need to get off,” Azula said, pushing her wife.
“Are you hiding me,” Ty Lee said.
“I’m not hiding anything. Even if it was common knowledge that we were married this is highly inappropriate for two teachers,” Azula said.
“Boo,” Ty Lee said, squirming around.
Then, the doorknob rattled.
“Ty, come on,” Azula said, but Ty Lee still didn’t move.
“Ty Lee!” Azula’s nostrils flared as she dropped her wife off of her lap.
Ty Lee stood up and rubbed her back as the door swung open and Sokka rushed in.
“I’m so sorry I’m late Miss,” he said bowing.
“She doesn’t mind,” Ty Lee chirped cheerily. Azula glared at her but Ty Lee just kept smiling at Sokka.
“Oh hey Miss Ty Lee,” Sokka said, looking up.
“Hi Sokka!”
Azula cleared her throat.
“I would appreciate timeliness next time young man,” she said. She indicated at the chair across from her at he desk
He nodded and dropped his bag on the ground, plopping down in the seat.
“Here is your test,” Azula said, sliding it over to him.
Sokka picked it up and began to flip through it. Ty Lee and Azula watched as his expression darkened and he became deep in thought.
“Do you give extra credit or something,” Ty Lee asked Azula.
“Why would I do that? Extra credit is a cop out in an AP class,” Azula said.
“So you just fail kids?”
“No, I have been told I’m not allowed to fail everyone, which frankly is a pity because failing is failing. However, I have designed a curve. I have 15 students in each of my three sections. In each class I give 3 As, 7 Bs, 3 Cs and 2 Ds. Usually every student ends up with a better grade than they would have gotten if I just averaged test grades. If the average somehow results in a higher letter I sometimes give that one, though.”
Sokka looked up at his teachers.
“Is that true,” he asked.
“Oh I forgot I didn’t share that information with the class yet,” Azula said, waving her hand. “Congratulations you won’t fail,” she added to Sokka.
“So it only depends on how I’m doing relative to everyone else?”
Azula nodded.
“Don’t spread the word though, or else you’ll get a D because I’ll know who told,” she said, glaring at Sokka.
“I won’t, I promise,” he stuttered.
“She won’t really do that,” Ty Lee said reassuringly, putting her hand on Azula’s shoulder.
“But if I did you wouldn’t know would you,” Azula said to Ty Lee.
“I would find out,” she replied. “Sokka would tell me, wouldn’t you Sokka?”
“Uh,” he said looking between his teachers, confused.
Ty Lee was famously the nicest teacher in the school. Her room was packed at lunchtime, everyone came to her with their problems and she seemed to love every single student. There was a waiting list for every class she taught and some kids tried out for cheerleading just because they knew she was the coach. She always wore her engagement and wedding rights and refused to tell anyone who her spouse was even though everyone suspected it was another teacher.
Azula was the teacher everyone feared. Even students she never taught moved out of her way in the hallways. Students in her physics class had to be dedicated, hardworking, and tough but the results were there because her instruction resulted in the highest standardized test scores in the country. She also allegedly wrote the best recommendation letters for her top three students every year. Indeed, students from years past often called her to thank her for the rigorous instruction as they moved through the highest tier science and engineering schools in the country.
Many noticed that she wore a wedding band as well but no one had ever mentioned anything about it to her.
A friendship between these two women seemed more than unlikely to Sokka. Therefore he couldn’t come up with a plausible reason that his English teacher was on the opposite side of the school in his physics classroom.
“Anyway, enough about that,” Azula said sharply. “Do you have any questions about your test?”
Sokka blinked a few times and looked down at his paper.
“Yeah. Problem two,” he said, turning his paper around. “For part e, how were we supposed to do this comparison if there aren’t any numbers and we aren’t allowed to plug in test values.”
Azula nodded. She brushed Ty Lee’s hand off of her shoulder and stood up to the white board. Sokka pulled out his notebook and a pencil from his bag.
“That was the hardest question on the test. I don’t think anyone got it right,” Azula started, uncapping a marker. “You might have been the closest though.”
Sokka copied down the work she wrote across the board.
When she finished explaining she turned back to see Sokka nodding along and scribbling some notes while Ty Lee was staring at her with astonishment.
“What,” Azula said, blushing lightly.
“You’re really smart ‘Zula,” she whispered, awestruck.
Azula rolled her eyes and tried to banish the color from her cheeks.
“I mean I always knew you were really smart but wow,” she said.
“Have you known each other a long time,” Sokka asked.
“Since we were kids,” Ty Lee said, turning to him.
“That’s a long time,” Sokka said.
“Any more questions,” Azula said, trying to cut off this conversation but the only thing floating around her mind was how adorably her wife had just been looking at her.
“About physics and not our personal lives,” she added pointedly.
“Question three,” Sokka said.
“What part,” Azula asked. “You know that I only answer specific questions.”
“I was just wondering how I was supposed to start because I pretty much just made something up and went off of that for the rest of the parts.”
“I could tell,” Azula drawled. “It was still more than most people did.”
Getting up she cleared the whiteboard and picked up a marker, tossing it to Sokka. She took a blank copy of the test out of a drawer in her desk and handed it to him as well.
“Get up and start talking me through the problem. What do we know,” Azula asked, crossing her arms and standing next to Ty Lee so Sokka could have room to write on the board.
Sokka started writing something but Azula cut him off before he even said anything.
“What is the first thing you do when you start a problem?”
“Draw a picture,” Sokka said. He erased the board and started over.
As Sokka worked through the problem on the board Azula paced behind him, often interrupting and asking questions. After many erasures and redos Sokka had the whole problem solved on the board.
Sokka cheered and pumped his fist. Azula rolled her eyes.
Ty Lee observed in silence once again thinking of how amazing her wife was. She was leading Sokka to the answer without telling him and he was actually getting there. When one guiding question didn’t work, Ty Lee could feel the gears in Azula’s head turning to find a way to rephrase it in a way Sokka would understand.
Even if she was very mean about it, Ty Lee could tell that she really wanted the students to learn.
When Sokka was done he started to quickly copy the solution onto the blank test but Azula yanked it out of his hand.
“You know that’s not how this works,” she said.
Sokka sighed and looked up at her.
“It was worth a try wasn’t it?”
Azula chuckled and Sokka grinned. He could make all of his teachers laugh except Miss Azula, until now.
She handed him a fresh copy of the test.
“So there is extra credit,” Ty Lee exclaimed.
“What? No there isn’t,” Azula said.
“What’s that for then?”
“If a student comes to office hours and I help them with a problem they have to redo it perfectly by the next time I see them,” Azula explained.
“Is that for a grade,” Ty Lee asked.
“Every part that gets messed up the second time takes points off of the original test,” Azula said.
Ty Lee gasped.
“You actually penalize students for asking for help! That’s so mean.”
“No, because if a student didn’t come to office hours they’re going to be asked to do the same thing with the same penalty but on their own and everyone will have to make an appointment which will give them far less time with me than Sokka just got.”
Ty Lee was speechless.
“Why do kids take your class,” she asked.
“Sokka, what’s your favorite class?” Azula asked in the same voice she used when cold calling, the one that demanded a quick and correct answer.
Sokka looked up from packing up his bag.
“Physics,” he said quickly.
“You can be honest,” Ty Lee said.
“I am,” he said, putting his bag on his shoulder. “It’s the most work I’ve ever done for school, or for anything actually, but Miss Azula is such a good teacher and it feels so good when you actually figure something out that it cancels out the pain,” he said.
Azula smirked.
“You hear that,” she said to her wife.
Ty Lee narrowed her eyes.
“Oh don’t be sore, I’m sure creative writing is a close second,” Azula said.
“For sure,” Sokka said with a smile. He’d never seen this side of his physics teacher, the kind that bantered with her childhood friend instead of just lecturing, yelling, or explaining judgementally.
“See you Monday Sokka,” Azula said, gathering her things.
“Thank you so much for the help Miss Azula. See you Monday,” he said, waving and leaving the classroom.
As soon as he left, Ty Lee pressed herself up against Azula.
“That was so hot,” she whispered as Azula looked into the glass window on the door to make sure Sokka was gone. She didn’t see him.
“Oh was it?”
“You’re a really good teacher,” Ty Lee whispered, slipping her hands up the back of Azula’s shirt.
“I didn’t realize physics was a turn on for you,” Azula said, kissing her.
“Oh, majorly,” Ty Lee said, pushing Azula up against the desk and kissing her neck.
“If I had known I could have lectured you on inertia many years ago,” she said, stifling a moan.
“Say more science things,” Ty Lee whispered.
“Can we actually do this at home,” Azula said.
Ty Lee sighed and stepped back.
“I promise I will deliver my whole Monday lecture to you tonight,” she said, reluctantly allowing Ty Lee to take her hand as they left the room. It was almost five o’clock on a Friday afternoon. There definitely wasn’t anyone still in school.
Ty Lee giggled.
“I’m excited to hear it,” she said as Azula turned off the lights and locked her door.
They walked through the hall and down to the parking lot without encountering anybody.
Azula unlocked their car and they walked towards it when Sokka drove past them, rolling down his window.
“Have a good weekend Miss Azula and Miss Ty Lee,” he shouted before he slammed the brakes on his car.
He looked from his teachers down to their clasped hands.
“Are you two dating,” he asked.
“That’s a very inappropriate question for your teachers isn't it,” Azula asked menacingly.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking away. “I just thought…”
“We aren’t dating,” Azula said.
“We’re married,” Ty Lee said happily.
Sokka’s eyes bulged.
“Married?” he asked incredulously.
“Have a good weekend Sokka,” Azula said in a bemused tone. “Work on physics.”
He correctly took that as his cue to leave and he drove off. He almost drove onto the curb because he was still in shock at the fact that his teachers were secretly married.
Ty Lee saw that and giggled. Azula rolled her eyes.
“Are you happy now? By Monday all the students will know,” she said.
“I am happy! That only took, like, five years,” Ty Lee said with a wide smile.
Azula shook her head and leaned down to kiss her.
“You’re too cute for me to be mad.”
Ty Lee batted her eyes.