"Hey! Get back here!" yelled the store owner, poking his head out the door.
The small-statured thieves paid no heed as they skidded around the corner, holding their unearned bags of bread in grubby hands.
"Hey!" complained the store owner, outraged. He then noticed the slender police officer with a scarred arm standing on the corner. "Hey! Where are my tax dollars going, officer? Catch that kid! He stole my bread!"
Mako, who happened to be there because he was writing a ticket for an illegally parked Satomobile, had already jumped into action.
"Police! Stop!" Mako barked as he ran around the corner.
As usual with young delinquents, those words didn't deter them. As it turned out, they were waiting for him in an ambush.
Mako barely had time to see the wave of water before it hit him in the face full force, forcing him to step back. Growling, he swiped fire with his good arm at the stream to evaporate it away.
By the time the steam had cleared, the kids were gone.
Mako shook his head. What kind of police officer was he, anyway, if he couldn't even catch a couple of kids? He supposed he knew how the beat cops had felt back in the day when he and his brother used to pull these kinds of stunts all the time.
Mako stepped farther the way the kids had ran.
In any case, he had to at least find them and reprimand them; it was his job. And he knew the bakery owner; he was a loudmouth and Beifong might hear about Mako's failure and keep him in a desk job. She was already trying to get him to stay at the headquarters these days. She thought he couldn't fight because of his arm. But it had been a few weeks since he'd had the cast taken off. He was fine, he'd insisted. He'd bended a small flame in the palm of his scarred hand to show her. See, he'd said. I can bend. Beifong had sent him a skeptical look, shrugged and said "Your funeral," and disappeared back into her office.
Mako had immediately extinguished the flame and cradled his hand with the other, closing his eyes to block out the stabbing pain. He was fairly sure she'd seen the sweat bead on his forehead. But as long as she didn't fire him it didn't matter.
This was his job, he loved it, and no one was going to take it away from him.
Back in the present, Mako examined the wall of the alley to see where the still glistening droplets of water had fallen as the children had run away. From that, he could deduce what direction the bender had gone as the water flowed from her hands.
He followed the trail, and a minute later he had found the two children huddled behind a dumpster. He couldn't quite see them, as the garbage obstructed his view, but he recognized their scuffed up shoes from where they were kneeling.
Not wanting to alarm them, he stepped closer and gently whispered, "Hey."
The children, nibbling on bread, started at the noise and shot up when they saw his uniform.
He held his hands up. "I'm not here to hurt you-" He never got the rest of his words out; the other child, apparently an earth bender, kicked a large rock at him out of the blue.
Mako dodged it easily. "Stop," he shouted. The children paid no heed; now both the bending children were throwing all they had at him.
Mako fended off their attacks with one handed firebending, careful not to throw an aggressive move. "I just want to talk," he said with increasing irritation.
A new, hoarse voice spoke from behind the dumpster. "They don't want to talk. Get out."
A shrouded figure rose from behind the dumpster; a man in a ratty coat, but Mako couldn't make out the details before the other man ignited a fireball and hurled it his way.
Mako barely caught it and deflected it with his good hand. Great- three benders were now attacking him. And by the looks of it the firebender was incredibly experienced. His next attack, Mako was unable to deflect, and he was thrown against the wall. Instinctively, he threw both his hands up to bend a wall of fire between them to give him some time to recuperate. But the searing pain in his burnt hand did the opposite- the action made him hiss from the agony; he fell to his knees.
Dimly, through the haze of red, he heard the children running away from the scene. He struggled back to his feet and saw the other firebender part through the flames Mako had conjured easily. "Pathetic," the street crawler said in a deep, amused voice.
Mako climbed to his feet, gritting his teeth with the pain. He had to agree with the sentiment. Here he was, a pro-bending champion that had gone toe to toe with Amon... evil spirits... one of the world's most fearsome waterbenders... and a giant robot, and now here he was, bested by a bunch of street rats. Rather than irritation, all he felt was sudden exhaustion. "Look," he said tiredly, experimentally stretching his arm and wincing. "It's nice to know someone's looking out for kids on the street, but really I just wanted to..."
His voice died away when he looked up to see the man's face... a ratty beard... a smirk... and cold, cold amber eyes.
Eyes Mako remembered.
How could he forget the man who murdered his parents?
"Mom, Bolin doesn't need a new scarf," Mako complained, tugging on his mother's coat. "Please, can we just go home?"
His mother smiled down at him. "Be patient, will you?" She looked at Mako's father and rolled her eyes. "This one is going to be the death of me." She ruffled Mako's hair as he pouted. "Hold on there. We'll be home soon and eat dinner."
Mako watched with baleful eyes as his mother paid the street vendor for the scarf; but like all children, he had a short attention span.
Satisfied for the moment, Mako followed his parents, toddlin
g between them. On a whim, he grabbed one each of their hands and used them as leverage to swing himself back and forth between them. They humored him; they always did.
"Can I have a scarf like that?" Mako asked suddenly, still eyeing the silkiness of the green scarf.
His parents exchanged knowing looks and Mako barely caught a few of the murmured words between them. "No… not enough money…"
"Mako, you already have a scarf like that," his mother spoke to him finally. "Bolin's was getting a little ratty so he needed a new one. Bolin's little and he catches a cold easily. We all need to take care of him, okay?"
Mako sighed a little, finally relenting. "Okay." They walked in silence until his father said, "Mako, why don't you wear my scarf tonight."
"Really?" Mako bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. "Really? Can I? Please?" Just like any boy who idolized his father, he thought this would be the greatest honor.
Laughing, his father unwound his red scarf from around his neck and carefully draped it around the young boy's shoulders. It was far too long, reaching Mako's knees, but he didn't care at all.
"There," said his father, smiling with adoration at the boy. "All grown up."
Mako smiled proudly at his parents and walked with a spring in his step the rest of the way.
It was pitch black by the time the three of them reached the street where they lived. Mako wasn't really paying attention to what happened around him until his parents came to a stop. Looking around, he saw someone approaching. A man with cold, cold amber eyes.
Mako remembered wondering how a firebender's eyes that could normally conjure such warmth could be so cold... as if the flames inside had been frozen.
Mako still didn't remember quite what happened after that- it was a blur of shouting voices, fire flaring brightly, his mother tugging him behind her, heat sweeping over him, singed hair- but all of that was muted compared to what came to the forefront of his memory- his own ragged, uneven breathing, the stench of burnt flesh, and thoseeyes.
And for a long time, he saw those cold cold amber eyes every time he closed his own.
Within moments of seeing those eyes again, Mako forgot the pain of his hand. It was replaced with something else.
Anger.
In a flash, he'd sprang up and, catching the man off guard, reverse kicked a wave of fire into his face. Mako kept up his constant attack with swipes, punches and every punishing move he knew. His opponent stumbled backwards, unable to keep up with Mako's emotion fueled bending. The fire swirling around the scene only served to fuel him.
When the man was backed up against the wall, Mako grabbed his shirtfront with his burned hand and slammed him against the wall. The other hand unsheathed a fire dagger to hold to the man's throat.
Gone was the man's smugness and pride at this point; it was replaced with complete terror at the complete one-eighty Mako had displayed. "Whoa, man, what do you want?" he cried. "Help! Police!"
"No one's going to save you," Mako hissed, hoisting the man up and slamming him again against the wall. "Least of all the police. Murderer."
The man's eyes finally flickered down to Mako's badge, and the younger firebender took a savage sort of pleasure out of the instant intensity of fear in his eyes. "Murderer?" the man seemed totally bewildered. "What are you talking about? Please, stop!"
The man suddenly threw his hand up, hurling a fireball in Mako's face. Mako effortlessly closed his own fist on the fire to smother it.
Although he was shaking, the man was still defiant. "You can't do this! You're police! What do you want?"
"You killed my parents," Mako snarled in his face. It was at this point he realized he was shaking, as well; but for entirely different reasons. The man kept shaking his head so Mako slammed him against the wall again. "Fifteen years ago. I never forgot," he said with a quiet intensity as he brought his fire dagger a little closer to the man's throat and let his gaze bore into his. "Do you remember me? Are you going to admit it?"
The man was sweating profusely. "Yes! I remember," he gasped rapidly after a long pause. "I'm sorry. I was a different person then. I'm not that person anymore!"
Mako bared his teeth. "You made me an orphan. You made my brother an orphan. Can you even begin to comprehend what you put us through? I should kill you right now." His tone was almost matter-of-fact.
The man shook even harder. "Please! Please- leave me alone- I'm sorry! Don't kill me, I'll do anything!"
As if in a dream, Mako's arm moved up at its own accord, the fire dagger glowing white hot in his raised fist. A part of him wanted to glory in this moment, a moment he had dreamt about for many years. Having his revenge, all while watching the terror in this monster's eyes flicker in the light of the fire. How poetic it would be, to kill him the same way he'd killed Mako's parents. To see his eyes widen in shock as the fire burned him. To have him scream in agony the way they did. To burn him red and raw and black just like he had done to them; to leave his body in the alley with the filth and the garbage, forever frozen in a twisted, anguished position to immortalize the horror of it all.
For that moment, there was a monster in Mako too. A monster that would relish in seeing it.
And the man who killed his parents, face inches from his, could see that murderous intent in the young man's eyes, and closed his own in anticipation.
Mako faltered.
Maybe someone would find his body.
Charred, reddened body in a dumpster. Maybe those children would come back. They'd see him like that. And it would change them forever.
Mako knew that from personal experience. And it was this thought that made him pause.
Did he really want to do this? He was an officer of the law, a profession that he'd never thought he would ever be able to do. He'd been on the streets most of his life, doing work for the Triads. He would have laughed if someone told him one day he'd be a successful detective in the Republic City Police force. It was a job he really enjoyed doing. It was delivering justice, it was doing the right thing. It was setting an example. It was something Mako dearly wished someone had done for him when he had most needed it.
No matter how much he loathed this man, to kill him would go against everything Mako had ever stood for.
He closed his eyes briefly in disgust, and after one, eternally long moment, hurled the man by the collar on the ground.
He turned away and massaged his temples, all the while hearing the man's shallow breathing behind him. He could sense the confusion mingled with relief, and turned around again to face him.
Mako met his eyes and pointed to his own burned arm. "When this happened to me, all these burns reminded me of was my parents' faces after you were done with them," he spat. "Because of this, recently I've been thinking a lot more about that night. And I remember wishing someone was there to help me. I wish someone was there to stop you. But no one was.
"And now, I am that person, I can help people," he said, now talking to himself more than the man cowering in front of him. "And that's why I'm taking you in. I'm not like you. I want to stop people like you. I will never forgive you for what you did to me and my brother. But that doesn't mean I should kill you."
The man sneered, now that he recognized the immediate danger had passed. "You're just afraid. You coward."
In a flash, Mako had grabbed the man by the coat and hauled him up again, lifting him so high the shorter man's feet dangled. "I am not a coward, and I'm not afraid," he growled, and a certainty settled in his gut as he said the words. "What I am, is brave enough to let you live."
Mako then dealt a powerful back kick to the man's head to render him unconscious. For a moment he stood staring at the unmoving body in front of him and once again played with the idea. But no, he thought. As much as there was a part of him that wanted that, there was a larger part that didn't. It was a part of him that he'd thought he'd lost, a part of him that still retained the innocence of Bolin. Perhaps there was still a light inside him.
As he cuffed the man who killed his parents and began hauling him back to HQ, he certainly felt a little lighter with every step he took.
A/N: I love reviews :) Thanks for reading!