Author's Note: There is torture in this fic. Be warned. Well, at least, I'd call it torture. It's done by bending and that's all I'll say.
He wasn't the finest firebender around. His finesse needed working on. P'li directed her combustion bending with the finest accuracy while he still worked to focus his own flames slighter, centralize them to the target, dissect his opponents with mastery. He bounded, zig-zagged left-right, right-right, center, flipped back onto his hands and knees, bouncing up with scratches he ignored, pains he pushed aside. Bolin was slow and slightly methodical, though he could be improvisational when he needed to be.
This was all just a distraction while Zaheer and Korra knew better than to outright think of it like that, though. He never wanted to have to tell Korra the message Zaheer wanted her to hear; the meeting place, the broad picture of the ultimatum; he'd even told Bolin to keep his mouth shut, but Korra had gotten it out of them both. She knew they'd been taken, held hostage by the Red Lotus. First, she'd asked them simply, and Bolin had this character fault, physical fault, genetic, Mako didn't know, but the guy couldn't keep his face from telling the truth. It was written all over him. Usually, it was something Mako found endearing about his brother. But not now. Not when Korra pointed at Bolin's face and said, "Okay, I'm sure you're hiding something from me now. You were held hostage and they let you go, let you leave alive, for a reason.
"Tell me, please," she'd finished, plaintively, near something that resembled desperate as Ba Sing Se continued to be ravaged and ransacked beyond the outer wall behind them. They hadn't gone back in yet since Korra, Asami, Lord Zuko, Chief Beifong, and Chief Tonraq had arrived.
Mako covered his face with his hands, only lifting his eyes to Korra when she had touched his fingers. He licked his lips, the background noise of great walls collapsing violently ringing in his ears, causing his entire body to vibrate as if an earthquake hit each time a wall came down. He gripped himself to the ground as well as he could, steadied himself, and said, "All right. Zaheer did want us to deliver a message to you."
Bolin breathed a huge sigh of relief, and Mako knew the reveal had taken a load off his shoulders. He pulled his earthbending brother close to him and rubbed the side of his head roughly, messing up Bolin's hair. It was something they did to tease, to reassure, to comfort, to torment. Sometimes it served one purpose, sometimes it served all. He kept Bolin near him, though, and delivered the message to Korra.
When he finished, she held the side of her head with the tips of her fingers and chewed on inside of her cheek, digesting the information. Then, she took off without another word, another thought, leaving Mako to call out her name with no response, no turning of her head, nothing of those blue eyes he had fallen for in the midst of falling for everything about Korra. He was left with two others like him, Asami and Bolin, and three adults still in momentary shock.
They composed themselves quickly, though, and took off after Korra, even though they knew they were all going into a line of fire they may never return from. Mako wanted to fall to his knees, sleep, sleep, and wake up and have none of this ever happen. Have all of it be a horrendous night terror. but he chose to run after the three adults, tailing them as Bolin and Asami tailed him.
And now they were here; Zaheer's three friends had been expecting them. They stood between them and Korra. They were the obstacle, and Mako didn't care about defeating them. They were temporary, and his flames, after several minutes, combined with the others distractions, allowed him to breach their lines, fleeing into their territory beyond the rubble and into what used to the be the middle ring of Ba Sing Se.
Korra's name, her laughter, her zest for life and excitement for and about the simple things… everything about her pounded in his ears, tore through his brain, created only one goal, one tunnel vision: make it to the house. He leaped over collapsed buildings, ran through the gaps between earthbent rock, nearly wheezing by the time he reached the right address.
It was the only house left standing.
He was certain that the Red Lotus had everything to do with that.
Sparing several moments, Mako caught his breath and briefly thought back on the fight he had left behind him. He felt burned by some kind of guilt for not staying – if anyone died, if anyone was irrevocably injured – his fingers curled into fists and he shook with unadulterated rage for the Red Lotus. He forced himself to calm, though, before he surveyed the house, hearing nothing, but knowing that everything vital to the world as he knew it, as everyone knew it, was teetering on a thin line inside. The balance of their entire world was in jeopardy, and no one pillaging the streets knew a single thing.
He didn't knock. Courtesies were long past.
"Mako…"
Zaheer's voice floated down the hall towards him, genial on the surface, but Mako heard that faint trace of violent fury beneath. He and Korra were sitting across from each other, legs crossed, nearly looking as if they planned to meditate together. However, as Mako drew closer, Korra turned his head toward him and, her eyes wide yet focused, ever so slightly shook her head. He halted and rubbed his hands together, sensing the delicacy of the situation.
"We were just talking about you," Zaheer went on, gesturing to Korra, "After we'd already talked about Bolin and… Asami, was it? We reached you, the firebender. I had been wondering which of you three would come to join Korra; I knew one of you would, but I still had a slight question whether it would be you or the nonbender."
Mako grit his teeth but saw Korra's shoulders tense below him, still a few feet away, and made himself loosen his muscles. Shaking himself out as subtly as he was able, Mako settled his back against one of the walls, at a vantage point where he could just slightly see Korra's face, pale in light of what Mako assumed was her reaction to hearing more of the details of the Red Lotus's ultimatum.
"You can't make her do this! She has no good choice!" he said, though somewhere inside of himself, he knew the words were as fruitless as trying to bend against the man who had just brought the Earth Queen to her death. Zaheer smiled at him and waved his hand in the air, dismissing the words, as useless as they already were.
"We've prepared a place for the Avatar in this new age, free from tyrannical and controlling, divisive and useless, governments and nations. She knows what we can do if she doesn't agree to our terms."
"You can't do this!" Mako said again, but this time he wasn't so lucky with the airbender. He felt a slice of air choke itself around his neck, gagging him. He crumpled the ground, fingers clawing at the air, but never able to break through. It was too fast, it kept him away, kept him from breathing.
"I did worse to the Earth Queen," Zaheer said softly as Korra blanched, suddenly up on her feet now.
She begged him to stop it. Mako watched as that only spurred Zaheer on further, as a ball of wild air forced its way into Mako's mouth, squeezing through his lips, making its way down his throat until his lungs were full of pure air. He couldn't breathe and yet he was full of oxygen. Within several seconds, he felt dizzy, his line of vision dimmed, and he felt his fingers and face involuntarily twitching. Still, he saw Korra; he latched onto her, trying to tell her, I'm okay. Just don't do this. Don't let them ruin everything.
He saw her crying and just wanted to see her smile.
She gave in as an intense wave of nausea came over him, and when Zaheer lifted his influence, his airbending, off him, Mako turned away from them both and vomited violently onto the floor. He coughed as he finished, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, still dizzy from the encounter, still weak. But he stood up as straight as he could, just to see Korra haphazardly shaking hands with Zaheer while the airbender smiled serenely. He gave a thank you to the Avatar and brushed past Mako without a word.
"Why did you…" he hacked out, covering his mouth with his hand again.
Korra looked as if she was on the verge of going into the Avatar state, her entire body shaking, but Mako gripped her arm tightly, "Korra, Korra… Korra."
The young woman in front of him lifted her eyes to meet his; they were bloodshot, tired, furious, but they softened when they settled on him, finding hope in the firebender's own gaze, still there, still alive.
"You're still here," she said, her voice nearly a whisper.
"You let him go," Mako said. "You…"
Korra suddenly latched onto him, wrapping her arms tightly around Mako. He gasped, feeling the air enter him as something pleasant, life-giving, but it came out of him as carbon-dioxide despair. He had come for Korra, unable to restrain himself, but it had been too easy; he had come for her and forgotten he had use.
He had use, still. And Zaheer had taken him, manipulated Korra.
"I'm sorry."
It was all he could say as the walls of Ba Sing Se continued to fall.