A/N: Written for an online competition with the prompt "Inventions." This particular post-war setup wouldn't leave me alone, and I sort of like writing the interaction between these two characters, who never even met in the actual show.
Disclaimer: I don't own Mai or Teo, but I do own the coolness that is Teo's latest creation.
Arsenal
He remembered quite well how he had once scorned his father for creating weapons in this very workshop. Weapons for the Fire Nation, to continue the brutal cycle they'd begun. It hadn't mattered, in the heat of that moment, that they might have threatened him with death if he'd refused. It had been the principle of the thing, the honor involved.
But the irony almost pleased him, now.
He wheeled himself forward a fraction, aligning his body better with the worktable. Nimble hands, callused with years of gripping wooden wheels but now trained to work with the tiniest implements, grasped a piece of metal and transferred it to a set of clamps.
Over and over he turned the shaft of steel in the thin flame, letting his hand fall naturally into the rhythm, admiring the dancing tongues of blue and yellow in the fire, the heat on his face. He preferred the rush of the wind on his reddened cheeks, of course, but on a winter's day this would do.
When the metal began to glow bright red, he began to fold it, shape it. He had done this what felt like a hundred times, but this time he wanted to try something new.
As he molded the layers that would render the weapon unbreakable, he pondered what interesting addition to add to this one.
He glanced at the array he'd already created, lying gleaming and freshly honed on a roll of soft scarlet cloth.
He hoped this one would be ready in time.
The guards stepped respectfully aside for the thickly robed figure. They weren't real guards, just a couple men who were more than happy to watch over the Mechanist's son to make sure he wasn't interrupted. The figure was obviously uncomfortable amid the biting wind and thick snowdrifts, but neither man would have dared offer her a hand.
It took some effort to force the heavy door shut behind her. She had to fight back the shiver that rolled through her as she transferred abruptly from icy cold to stifling heat. The snow on her bulky cloak seemed to liquefy instantly. She shoved back the hood so her face could receive the heat from the tiny, elegant, tabletop forge.
Teo's wheels squeaked on the stone as he executed a graceful turn to face her. He snapped his goggles up, revealing the enthusiastic gleam of his dark eyes. His hushed, mysterious tone was playful. "And what might you have come for, stranger?"
"Are they done?" she asked bluntly. She was always unsure how to reciprocate his silly roleplaying, so she usually just bulldozed over it. No one ever said subtlety was her strong point.
Teo didn't seem put out by her brusque tone. "Just finished the last one. Come see. Not to sound full of it, but I think I outdid myself." And he really didn't sound arrogant, just happy, pleased to have done something for her. Sometimes she wondered if he had a crush on her. The idea made her feel odd, so she dismissed it.
She came to look over his shoulder as he bent over the table with a grin, spreading his arms to present his work. Agni, sometimes he really reminded her of Sokka. Then she forgot all about him as her dark eyes lit on his creations.
Glistening knives, edges keen as the icicles that hung from the Temple's stone roof. Simple needles of steel, so thin they could rest flush against the skin, undetectable even by the wearer. Flat, fan-bladed shruiken, their arms curved in elegant flares, with serrated teeth on their outer edges.
His gentle tap on her arm brought her jarringly back to reality, out of the beautifully simple world of glittering metal. He held out his prized invention, the one he had worked all night long to finish. His genius creation.
"What is it?"
This time, Teo rolled his eyes at her skepticism, though it was good-natured. "Hold out your arm."
She did so, though hesitantly, letting the sleeve of her robe fall back to expose her pale forearm. He took her wrist in one gloved hand, turning it gently over. "Here." Soft silk ties were double wrapped around her forearm, and something cool and sleek and solid came to rest against her skin. When his hand released her, there was something attached to her…but amazingly it was feather-light.
Meeting his hopeful eyes, she glanced from him to the metal contraption strapped against her skin. Raising thin brows, she used all her powers of eloquence to express herself.
"Huh?"
Teo drummed his hands on his armrests and made an impatient sound. "It's a launcher. You know, like a crossbow?"
"I know what a crossbow is." Mai rotated her arm, examining the object from different angles. "But it's…light."
"That's what's so cool." Teo selected one of the daggers on the table before him. "Watch." Grabbing her wrist again, he slid the dagger into the opening on one side. "I knew you'd need something light if you were carrying it under your clothes. The trigger-catch is right here, so you can hit it with your finger without really looking like you're doing anything." He pointed at a bare wall of the room. "Fire it there."
Slowly, as if she were making a casual adjustment of her robe, Mai lifted the weapon, ensuring that her sleeve was open enough. She imagined that an enemy stood before her.
Her finger flicked the catch.
The hissing song of steel was as familiar to her as it was thrilling. A rare smile, full of savage pleaure, spread across Mai's face as she watched the dagger slam into the stone so hard it fairly rang. She turned and found him grinning too.
"I could do that myself, you know," she said coolly, not willing to betray how her mind was already racing with the possibilities.
"But this is way better," Teo finished, raising his eyebrows with a knowing look.
She didn't see how it could hurt to let him have his glory. "Yeah," she said, gazing at the table full of weapons, fingers itching to use them. "This is way better."
She thought of the nights when she would hear crashing outside the bedroom she and Zuko shared, the hushed snarls of the guards and the yelps and muffled curses as they dragged another spy, another assassin away. And she would roll over and press herself close to Zuko, who was such a sound sleeper he usually didn't even wake up. And she would wonder what would happen if the guards ever made a mistake.
She thought of the times when they had had close calls; Zuko tried to get out among the people, but he was always at risk. He didn't have eyes in the back of his head. The war was over, but the danger wasn't, and it never would be. She looked at the daggers.
She wondered if Teo knew what his work meant to her. That his inventions for her were not just idle toys anymore, to be thrown at tree trunks and makeshift dartboards that portrayed the face of whoever was annoying her at the time. Now her arsenal meant life and death for herself and the man she loved, it meant the relative stability of a nation, and it could be the one thing that stood between the throne and a tyrant, the world and another war.
The inventions of his father had once been the fulcrum on which great battles like the taking of the Air Temples and the Day of Black Sun had rested. And now his son supplied the Fire Lady with weapons of death…but not to continue the cycle of war. To keep it ended. Hopefully.
Before she could change her mind, she leaned down and kissed his cheek. It was a spur of the moment thing. But he would never take payment, and he'd even made her the launcher this time. Even she would have felt like a pig-chicken leaving him with nothing.
He grinned at her. "Same time in spring?"
"Of course. Really…thanks for this." She lifted her sleeve.
"No problem."
They parted ways like any other supplier and receiver. And the legacy of the Northern Air Temple remained unchanged. Even though the times were very, very different.
Mai was actually looking forward to the trip home. The condescending ministers who'd insisted on accompanying her on the airship were always more cooperative on the voyage back than on the way there.