Korra slid her hand inside the giant glove and was surprised at how snug it felt given its absurd size. She flexed her hand against the rigid leather and then clenched it tight again to form a fist of comedic proportions. Holding up her enormous new appendage, she grinned slyly at Bolin and aimed a test punch at his shoulder.
His chest caved forward as the momentum sent his shoulder backward, and a small, exasperated cry of surprise and pain escaped his mouth.
"Baby," she taunted as she struggled to put the other one on. There was a time, she reflected, when he could have taken a punch like that.
"They're padded to protect your hands and my gorgeous face, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt," he said.
She wiggled her eyebrows. "Noted," she said, walking over to one of the stuffed bags hanging from the metal ceiling of the aircraft carrier's gym, launching several combos in quick succession. It was a crude way to fight, she thought, lacking all the elegance of the bending arts. But damn if it wasn't pure bliss feeling her fists make contact with something solid. Adrenaline surged through her system as she continued punching, a swell of something delicious building in her stomach, driving away the awful something else that had been rotting there for so long.
"I knew you'd take to it like a waterbender to, well…"
"It feels good," she said, letting herself go at the bag a little bit more. "Great." Beads of sweat started to form at the edges of her hairline, and a burn crept into her shoulders. Pulling back, she spun and hammered the bag with a roundhouse kick. It rocked from its anchor in the ceiling, and Bolin reached out to steady it with his hands.
"No kicking in a match," he said. "Fists only. And absolutely no bending."
She nodded. "You have the guts to call me out tonight?" she asked, a smirk spreading across her face again as she jabbed at the bag with her right three times and then crossed with her left.
"You're new at this. I would want to…"
She pretended to miss the bag and hit him in the shoulder again. Once again, he stumbled backward and affected a look of offense. But then she saw his pout turn to a smile, and in the mirror, she caught the fleeting image of her own face, flushed and exhilarated.
"It's good to see you strong again," Bolin said. And that's when her features came into sharper focus and Korra noticed the changes, the scar that bisected her left eyebrow, the big one on her neck, the still sunken hollows of her eyes and the alarming thinness of her face, its former soft roundness carved into severe angles.
She swallowed hard, fighting with some part of herself. And then without a word, she turned away from the mirror and went at the bag even harder than before.
…
Asami swept her hair up on top of her head, the lean muscles in her thin arms flexing as she arranged it in a messy bun, enjoying the feeling of dressing down for one night after months in uniform. She heard the door to her quarters open and then slam again, and in the small mirror, her fiancé's form came into view. He pulled his uniform shirt over his head without even unbuttoning it, and from the tendons on his neck alone, she could tell he was tense and sulking.
"You're going tonight, huh?" he asked.
"Iroh says we should…he and I. For the crew's morale."
"Oh, so he's Iroh now, not Ad…"
"Don't start, Mako," she said, feeling the edge in her voice. Jealousy was not a color she particularly liked on him.
"I just don't see what the point is."
She turned from the mirror to watch him flop onto the narrow bed they shared most nights, against regs. He stared at the ceiling, refusing to meet her eyes. "Come tonight, and maybe you'll see," she said. "It's tradition, Mako."
He snorted, and she tried to do the math in her head and figure out when exactly his tight-assedness had extended to this. It was incongruous to hear the former pro-bender scoff at the idea of a few rounds of recreational hand-to-hand fighting.
She stood her ground, staring at him for several long seconds before turning to the door. "Suit yourself," she said, and as she let the door swing shut behind her. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she pushed them back. Avatar or no Avatar, Admiral or no Admiral, why I am even trying to save this?
Asami forced herself to smile as she rounded the final corner and entered the bay where a makeshift ring had been set up, ropes surrounding a rectangle of raised mats, two fighters already squaring off against each other, ready to strike. A fat bridge officer named Ty stood next to them, a whistle dangling between his lips.
She heard it screech, and then her attention was pulled away from the colliding bodies by the voice of Iroh, "Ah, there's my X.O.," he said, his angular face curving into a smile. She felt her cheeks get uncomfortably warm, but that was another issue she really didn't care to explore.
So without saying a word, she took her place beside him and tried to take in her surroundings, the crowd of young officers and enlisted men and women who now comprised her family. Several of them turned toward her and gave a small salute, and her heart momentarily felt lighter. Because despite the chaos in her life, she loved these people with every part of herself. The United Forces had provided meaning when the last remnants of her family's legacy had slipped through her fingers. This was home. This was her everything.
…
Bolin saw Asami enter through the cluster of heads and wondered for a second where his brother was. Then his eye caught Korra immediately to his right, straining on tiptoes to see what was happening in the ring. He grabbed her by the arm and made a path through the cheering bodies until they could practically touch the ropes.
"You in, Chief?" a voice asked, and Bolin saw one of the biplane pilots squatting on the steps that led to the ring. He was chewing a wad of tobacco and jangling a hat full of dog tags in one hand. Bolin pulled his over his head and dumped them in.
"If I might speak for the Avatar, I think she's game too." Bolin nudged Korra with his elbow and saw her beam back at him. Her face still made him uncomfortable, but the tightness in his chest went away whenever she smiled again and reminded him of another Korra he'd known—not the Korra who'd emerged from the wreckage, shaking and covered in the blood of one of her captors. He was still trying to reconcile himself to the fact that that was the same woman who'd disappeared almost two years ago. But it didn't really seem possible.
A roar went up from the crowd, distracting Bolin from his thoughts, and he looked up to see that one of the fighters—one of his engineers, in fact—had his opponent on the ropes and was delivering blow after blow to his ribs. He joined in, cheering them on and felt Korra's hand clench around his arm, her nails digging in just a bit as she got lost in the excitement, and he remembered what she'd looked like when he'd first shown her the pro-bending arena.
The man on the ropes gave the sign of surrender, and the officer who was playing referee blew his whistle. The winner took a victory lap around the ring, accepting congratulations from his comrades before thumping his opponent on the back and thanking him for a bout well fought.
As they left the ring, the pilot on the steps plunged a fist into his hat and came up with a tag. "Oh ho ho!" he said, rising from his place. "It's the Admiral himself!"
There were raucous peals of celebration from all ends of the holding bay. The matches were meant to place everyone on equal footing, to collapse all distinctions based on rank or element—thus, no bending—but everyone still got a kick out of seeing the senior officers take the stage, and all were wondering who the "old man" would call out.
Admiral Iroh shrugged off his jacket, his lean, muscled arms gleaming white under the harsh lights. He took his time strapping the gloves on and then gestured over the crowd until he was pointing at…
"Chief Bolin," he said loudly, voice bouncing off the metal walls. The guys closest to him went nuts, pushing him toward the ring, and Bolin struggled for a second to find his feet, wondering what he'd done exactly to deserve this dubious honor.
The Admiral was already bouncing on his toes as Bolin made his way onto the mats, legs a little heavy, all too aware that his shirt was too tight and put his gut—a recent development—on display. As he strapped on the gloves, he caught Korra's eye again, and she put her thumb and forefinger into her mouth and whistled so loud that the communications officer next to her had to cover her ears. He winked at her, and hopped a few times, letting his arms hang slack at his sides, loosening up.
When he turned to face his opponent, Iroh was already in a fighting stance. Bolin worked his lips around the mouth guard and tried to say something cocky: "Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're my C.O. again." But it came out all mumbly, and no one could hear him anyway. The cheers from the onlookers were too loud.
The truth was that he was hesitating, and he knew it for certain when the whistle finally blew, and Iroh's gloved fist clocked him hard on the chin.
…
"Reassignment?" The Admiral's eyebrows were practically touching each other, and his right hand was clutching the piece of paper his Chief of the Deck had just handed him as if he were restraining himself from setting it on fire. "You're asking for reassignment, now?"
Bolin didn't know how to reply except to nod and then look at the floor. He was a disappointment and he knew it. But he was just so tired. Every nerve in his body was singed raw, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl back inside the bottle of rice liquor he'd just sobered up from.
"Is it because of your brother?"
Bolin cleared his throat, "No, sir, not exactly." But they both knew that wasn't true. Their last fight still echoed in Bolin's brain, and word had certainly gotten around.
"Look, I know things have been hard for you since she disappeared," the Admiral continued, clearly still trying to guess."I know you two were…close."
Never as close as Bolin had wished.
"I just…I just need some new surroundings." He forced himself to look Iroh directly in the eye and saw the dismay and anger on the other man's face.
"Bolin, I'm speaking to you as your friend, not just as your C.O. You're the heart of this crew. You leave, and…"
"Specialist Galen is ready to take my place, sir. She'll do a fine job for you. I'm sure I won't be missed at all." He clasped his hands behind his back to conceal the shaking.
The Admiral stared back at him. "You're dismissed."
…
The first thing Mako saw when he sauntered into the bay was his brother taking a pounding from the Admiral. His body careened backward as a punch landed square in his gut, and Mako winced a little bit on his sibling's behalf. But he also quietly appreciated why it might feel good to take a swing at him.
It still hurt that Bolin hadn't recognized how much his older brother had needed him back then, and it hurt a little still now that he was back—and a hero at that—acting like neither of them had anything to apologize for. Not that Mako was going to be the one to bring it up. It was remarkable, given all of the loss they had suffered together, that neither of them had ever really mastered grief.
Pushing through the crowd, he saw his fiancée's jet black hair, tendrils of it falling from its place atop her head to brush her long, slender neck. She looked alone amid the clamor, her arms folded in front of her, erecting a boundary between herself and anyone who might dare to get too close. He crept up quietly until he was standing just behind her.
She seemed to sense his presence and turned her head just enough to confirm it was him. "Major," she said huskily before turning back to the fight.
Mako swallowed. She only used his rank when she was either really aroused or really pissed, and all evidence pointed toward the latter. Two urges were doing battle inside of him. The first was to sarcastically ask why she was letting her work-husband beat up his little brother. And the second was to beg for forgiveness. She hadn't asked for any of this after all.
His dueling impulses reached a stalemate. Turning his head back to the fight, he saw that his brother was in bad shape, pinned up against the ropes and refusing to give up even though it didn't look like he was fighting back. Then out of nowhere, Bolin came out with his left and the Admiral went spinning back a few steps, and Mako felt an urge to shout with pride but swallowed it. He had a rep to maintain, after all.
The cry he thought he'd stifled still rang in his ears, though not in his own voice. It was a familiar voice, though, and he focused his attention on the other side of the stage, catching sight of Korra's head as it poked between the ropes. She was screaming at Bolin to keep it up, and her face was so fierce that Mako felt like laughing until a second later when he felt like crying.
Bolin got in a couple more good punches, but they only seemed to encourage Iroh, who came back at him so fierce and so strong that inside of a minute, Bolin folded, and Iroh pulled him into a hug and said something Mako couldn't hear.
Asami still refused to look back at him. Iroh grabbed a towel, and Mako could see that the Admiral was moving in their direction. He didn't feel like sticking around, so he pushed through the crowd, determined to just let whatever was happening between the two of them happen. Because whatever. He was sick of fighting.
He intercepted Bolin as he stepped down from the stage, and Bolin caught him in a hug that took Mako by surprise. "Glad you came, bro," he said. In his brother's eyes, Mako could see that he had reached some kind of resolution.
"What did the old man say to you up there?"
A broad grin cut across the former Deck Chief's face. "He told me to lose some weight and get back to work." And on the last word, Bolin slapped his belly—which was quite a bit flabbier than Mako remembered—and pulled his brother in the direction of Korra.
Mako hesitated, hanging back in the crowd, but suddenly Korra was practically on top of them both, and she was beaming from ear to ear. And Mako's heart felt like breaking because the flush on her face made the scars—especially the one on her throat—stand out even more.
He'd been watching her heal for weeks, sitting next to her in sick bay when she slept but keeping his distance otherwise. Because Korra was wary around him and Asami was always watching. And they'd all been here before, and Mako was trying and failing with every move just not to fuck it up this time. And also because while part of him still loved her, he'd been doing his level best to kill that part. And he was angry still, so very, very angry without quite knowing why.
She was the first to force eye contact between them, and Mako couldn't look away, but he also couldn't speak. And he saw the greeting die on her lips and fade into something colder. And Mako wondered when he was ever going to shed this knack he had for pulling people to him only to push them away again.
"Hey," he stammered. But it was too little too late. He didn't know how to just be in her presence anymore. And the uncertainty in her eyes set off the riot in his mind. He didn't notice that another dog tag had been pulled from the hat. And he didn't notice that it was one of his pilots who got called up, the one he called Fire Flake because he had too much aggression and too little follow-through. (Asami said his sense of humor hadn't improved any with age.)
But he did notice when Fire Flake pointed into the crowd and singled out the Avatar as his opponent.
…
"Dance with me," he said, and he pulled her away from the bar, away from the drink she'd been fumbling with for half an hour. Korra giggled and stumbled over her shoes as she followed him. They were tipsy and euphoric, and soon they were lost in a crowd that seemed to include every officer and enlisted person in the entire United Forces fleet.
Mako's arm slid around her waist, and she tipped her head up to look at him as he brought her close, a little closer than two friends should be. Her face was flushed, and she was smiling. But her eyes looked as old as the world and very, very tired. It was hard to believe she was still as young as she was.
She said something he couldn't hear, so he dipped his head downward so that she could repeat it directly in his ear, her breath hot against his skin and her lips brushing against him just for the briefest second. "I'm seriously considering retirement."
He pulled back slightly to look at her, and the look on her face said she wasn't completely kidding.
"Or, you know, slowing down at least, standing back and letting the military deal with more of this stuff. Maybe it's time for the Avatar to become more of a ceremonial position."
His eyes fell on her lips, which were turned up slightly, and he had the strongest impulse to kiss her. But he didn't know whether to believe her just yet. He was still wary. "So you're not going…" It was a fight he'd stopped himself from having with her for weeks because she never listened. It was a stupid mission, and needless. And it hurt too much to get invested in whether or not she made yet another rash error.
She shook her head. "It's not him. It can't possibly be."The tone in her voice suggested that she was still trying to convince herself, but her eyes were earnest, and he wanted to believe them.
There was still a bandage at her throat where she'd been wounded in the latest fight, and he couldn't help but reach up to brush a fingertip against the gauze and give thanks that maybe, just maybe, he'd be free of this constant fear. He'd never asked her to slow down, never told her to give any of it up for him. He never asked her to consider him—whom she still called her best friend—at all. He only realized then that some piece of him had been hanging on, waiting.
She caught his fingers with her hand and brought them to her lips, which were pillow soft and rough at the same time. And still feeling the alcohol buzz inside his brain, he knew for sure that nothing would keep back the confessions that were boiling underneath his tongue. He leaned his forehead against hers and felt her gently swaying against him like the tide that would bring them home.
…
As Bolin helped her get the gloves on, Korra's eyes landed for a split-second on the needle tracks on her arm before. Her pulse was becoming quicker, and she caught a look of worry in her friend's eyes.
"Don't," she said. And he just smiled back.
"You'll be great. This meat head doesn't stand a chance."
She'd seen the pilot before in the gym, not leering exactly, but appraising her like a dog does a newcomer, a challenger on his territory. Bolin just said he was an asshole.
Clapping her gloves together, she gazed off into the crowd and caught Mako staring at her hard. She frowned in his direction and knitted her brows together. Why couldn't he just behave like a human being again?
Her blood was up when she turned to face her opponent. His hair was cropped close to his scalp all over, and his eyebrows sort of disappeared at the edges. Like most of the male pilots, he was handsome in an obvious sort of way—symmetrical features, square build, not very tall but still taller than her.
"They call you Fire Flake, huh?" she said. And she saw his cheeks flush red even as he tried to make his smile more menacing.
"Because I'm red hot," he taunted back, and she snorted.
The dropped into a stance. "Why me?" she asked.
The referee placed a hand on each of their shoulders, and she brought her fists up in front of her like Bolin had taught her.
Fire Flake shrugged. "You're the Avatar. I guess I just feel like it's my destiny to face you."
I'm just trying to help you realize your destiny.
The word seemed to hang in the air above them, and she felt sweat start to gather at the back of her neck, a storm made of equal parts anger and panic pooled in her belly.
"Come on, give me your best shot," Fire Flake said.
Her vision got slightly blurry, and for a second the young man's face morphed into another one. And she could feel him hovering over her, a needle pressed against her arm. I'm just trying to get you to see.
The whistle blew. Fire Flake came at her with a jab, but she dodged it easily. Her opponent's momentum sent him pitching forward slightly. Korra's skin was on fire. She took the opening and sent her fist flying toward Fire Flake's head.
The impact set off a rush inside her skull. She barely heard or saw his body hit the mat. For a moment, it was like she shifted into the Spirit World, like she was watching her body from outside herself. But then the wave of euphoria sent her careening back to earth, and the crowd started to countdown as they waited for Fire Flake to get back up.
…
It wasn't Noatak. It wasn't. Noatak was dead. Of course he was. But she had to know. She had to see. And it was going to cost her everything.
He wasn't Noatak. He wasn't even a bloodbender.
She didn't know how long they kept her drugged until she got out. "Ketamine," it was called. And it kept her tame. She couldn't bend. She couldn't do anything but exist inside that fever dream and listen. Listen to the voice that kept saying. "This. This is your destiny."
…
Once Fire Flake came to, Asami allowed herself to laugh because damn if she hadn't wanted to do that about fourteen thousand times since that pain in the ass arrived on deck. When her glance fell on Korra, however, she got a little worried. The other woman was strong again, clearly, but she still looked brittle and vaguely feral.
"Well done. First knock-out of the night," she said when the Avatar came close enough to hear.
"Glad I didn't disappoint." Korra shrugged, and Asami could see that her eyes were glassy, like some part of her wasn't quite there.
They said she stabbed one of her captors with a syringe needle. The blood was everywhere.
"You ok?" She felt like she asked that question each time she was in Korra's presence. And each time, Korra just nodded, and there was this tacit agreement to make no attempt to extract further confessions.
The next fight was between two pilots, and the women watched in relative quiet as the combatants danced around each other in the ring, neither taking initiative with the first punch. Until one did—a left cross that hit the other fighter square in the stomach.
Asami's hand flew instinctively to her own waist. Until today, she thought she might be pregnant. And when she woke up to her period, her relief made her feel both stupid and guilty. They'd discussed trying, and they hadn't exactly been careful, even after Korra came back.
She was glad to see her friend. She told herself that what she had wanted more than anything else was for the people she loved to be alive and safe, but was hard to know what to want anymore, or to trust herself to know what she wanted. For a time, when everything was spiraling toward chaos, when the Avatar had disappeared—everyone was certain, forever—she thought she wanted a quiet life with Mako. But now it seemed like what she really wanted was for Mako to just finally admit that he wasn't in love with her.
"Asami, I want to thank you for everything you and your crew have done," Korra said. And when she met the other woman's eyes, they were still distant, but they were understanding. "And I want you to know that I'm leaving as soon as we hit land."
Lieutenant Colonel Asami Sato felt something inside her harden. Because this was Korra's way of giving her permission, she supposed, to keep living the lie, to go on like Korra had never come back. And it made her angry and sad because it sucked, and it shouldn't all be this fucking hard.
"You do what you need to do, Korra," she heard herself say.
…
"Marry me," he said. And his eyes were desperate, his fingers clutching at her skin as they lay together in the aftermath.
She knew she wasn't his first choice. But maybe it was ok. Because this wasn't how Asami had pictured any of it either. "Okay," she whispered, and his lips were so, so grateful, so gratifying, when they crashed against hers once again.
…
Korra remembered the first time she'd wanted to leave the compound in the South Pole—was desperate to get out, in fact—and the White Lotus guards had stopped her. She had been seven, and her new earthbending master—whose methods were something of a shock after training under Katara—didn't really seem to be working out. She'd been escorted back to her quarters and locked inside. And she'd howled at the closed door, pounding her fists into the wood, and by the time she'd set the room on fire, and they had come to bust her out, she no longer remembered what had made her so angry.
Korra had always carried deep reserves of rage. But she was aware enough of herself to know that it only really crept to the surface when she felt caged, when she was trapped in a corner with no way out. And even though she'd recently been liberated from one such cage, she still felt trapped and thus always on the verge of breaking again.
She felt trapped because even though Mako had folded her in his arms when she arrived on board with Bolin, he was distant now and could scarcely stand to look at her. She felt trapped because there was no way to apologize at this point for letting him down. She felt trapped because Bolin was always trying to keep things light and because Asami was just so kind and so concerned and always asking how she was, and yet Korra was sure that she didn't really want to know the answer. There was no way to talk about what she'd experienced and no way to confess that the instant she'd put that pilot flat on his back was the most alive she'd felt since they had rescued her. And there was no way to say, "I'm glad that you have each other," while she still wanted to rip Mako's face off and fuck him senseless at one and the same time.
Her breath caught as she watched the ongoing fight. She could hear leather smacking against skin, and she could feel the impact in her own body. And more than anything else, she wished it was her fists striking somebody, anybody. It really didn't matter who.
If I stay on this ship too much longer, I'm really going to hurt somebody, she thought.
"Korra, you look a little green," Asami said. And like that, Korra was suddenly out of her head and aware of her body again, and she realized she urgently needed the head. She cursed herself for the way her body betrayed her like this, over and over again. And she cursed a second time when she heard Bolin's name called. Because she really, really wanted him to call her up there to play. But for his sake, she also really, really didn't.
…
Bolin mounted the stairs again just in time to see Korra in retreat with Asami following after her. And he was torn because he had promised to call her up and relieved because her annihilation of Fire Flake had made the hairs on his neck stand on end. And he was already sore from his fight with Iroh, a purple bruise blooming across his left cheek.
Scanning the crowd quickly, he saw his brother instead. And as soon as their eyes locked, Mako was already shaking his head in refusal. Bolin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted his name. And he kept shouting it until the crowd started to join him.
"Ma-ko! Ma-ko! Ma-ko!" He could hear a few rookie pilots—who were without exception terrified of their CAG—just chanting "Major."
Mako finally relented. "I didn't put my tags in for a reason," he said as he came up into the ring.
"You thought that would stop me?" Bolin shot back, but he was slightly giddy. Because even if he was about to get the tar pounded out of him, at least he'd gotten his brother to do something other than sulk.
Once the fight started, Bolin realized he had the advantage of still being warm from the first fight, his muscles supple and loose even though his endurance wasn't quite what it used to be. He was going to have to use this to his advantage because instantly Mako fell into his signature style, maintaining distance, moving lithely around the ring and making Bolin chase him until he got tired. Bolin's only hope—and he knew it—was to draw Mako out early.
…
"You gave up! You gave up on her!" Bolin screamed, though he was drunk out of his mind and barely aware of what he was saying.
Mako strode up to the bar, wrenched the bottle out of his younger brother's hand and smashed it against the wall. "Talk to me about giving up once you're sober enough to actually be of use to somebody."
He lunged wildly at Mako, and that was the last thing he knew.
…
When they got back into the holding bay, Asami didn't know whether to be worried or glad about what she was seeing. She knew that there was a very real way in which the two brothers boxing could quickly get out of hand. But then again, maybe it would be best if they could get some of their issues out in the ring, given that Mako seemed incapable of expressing anything genuine outside of it.
And Bolin was doing better than she would have expected given how out of shape he had gotten. They were dancing around the edges, and then she saw the younger brother do something almost no one could and draw the older one out. Backed into a corner, Mako attacked stiffly and begrudgingly, but Bolin blocked it, and Mako got a glove in his ribs for the trouble.
Korra slid up next to her, and Asami could see that she looked better, though given what had happened in the bathroom, she was likely done fighting for the night. It was hard seeing the Avatar so diminished, and Asami was at a loss for how to truly make it better.
"Go Bolin!" she heard Korra scream out of nowhere as Bolin got another good hit in, and Asami looked over at her friend and caught her eyes. And they smiled in tacit recognition of the fact that they were not-so-secretly rooting for the same side.
…
She had seen grown man crumble once before when the police told them that her mother was dead. And she saw it again when the S&R team said that they'd found remains that would, in all likelihood, prove to be the Avatar. But whereas Hiroshi had collapsed there and then, with Mako it had taken weeks. He picked apart every detail of their report, looked for any gap in the evidence, trying to find some reason to keep believing. And she had watched the slow unraveling happen behind his eyes until they concluded she had died in the counter-attack on the terrorist compound.
On the night the Avatar had been declared KIA, she stopped by his quarters and heard him falling apart inside, a low animal wailing that left her numb. And it was so awful that she had just sunk to the floor herself and waited until he got quiet to knock and ask to be let in.
…
Mako absorbed another cuff to the jaw and then skipped aside to avoid being pinned against the ropes. He was sloppy, he knew, and tried to correct, tried to put some distance between himself and his brother's fists.
"You haven't landed a good hit, yet, big bro. What gives?"
The taunt wasn't malicious exactly, but Mako still felt his cool slipping. "I'm not the one who feels the need to punch his brother." His endurance was still superior, and for minute he was able to keep Bolin chasing him around the ring. But then the younger man closed, and Mako felt the leather make contact with his gut, driving the air straight out of his lungs.
Bolin backed off, and Mako could see that there was fire in his brother's emerald green eyes, and he wanted to scream, "Why are you doing this?" He felt panicked and out of control. These were not the terms on which he had wanted to have this confrontation. He hadn't wanted any confrontation at all.
As Bolin attacked again, Mako finally fought back, and for real this time. He let his instincts go, the rhythm of combat taking over his body. There was a satisfying thud as he punched quickly and efficiently at his brother's torso, and for the first time in the bout, he was actually driving his brother back to the ropes, forcing him to put his arms up and protect himself from the blows.
Mako took a step back and let them both regroup, and when Bolin's face peeked up from behind his arms once more, he was actually smiling. And then with a burst of energy, the younger man struck out with his right. Smoothly and reflexively, Mako blocked him and launched a right uppercut toward his face that hit home with a sickening crunch. Mako saw blood spurt from his brother's nose, and instantaneously, he backed off in horror.
Expecting the referee to call the fight immediately, Mako started to remove his gloves, but no whistle blew, and to his shock he saw Bolin assuming a fighting stance once again.
"You're quitting?" the younger man said incredulously.
"That's enough, Bolin, you need a healer."
"I'll say when it's enough." Bolin started to come at him just as Mako had gotten one glove off, and before they could collide, Mako gave the signal to surrender, and the ref finally blew the whistle.
…
He finally tracked Korra to Iroh's office just as she was coming out the door. And a look between them told him that she was rescinding whatever promises he thought she'd made the night before, and he was so angry—with her, with himself—that he couldn't even speak to her.
"I have to go. I have to take this mission. If Amon is still alive. If he's been behind all of this from the beginning, I have to know. I have to."
And he did know, but he was so tired, and he was so sick of fighting.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she begged. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, and once it's over, I promise…"
He didn't let her finish. He was done trying to keep her from making bad decisions. He was done arguing with her when she'd already made up her mind. There was no way Amon was hiding out among the remnants that they'd successfully driven into the hills. There was no way. But there was no telling her that either.
…
"You don't get to do that! You don't get to tell me when it's over!" Korra could hear Bolin screaming at Mako from across the room, and she and Asami took one look at each other before rushing to the bottom of the stairs where the younger brother had his palm pressed against Mako's chest, shoving him into a group of people.
"Hey, guys, the fight's over. Either chill or take it outside." The pilot who was drawing new tags out of the hat hovered between them, and by the time the women approached, the two brothers were just standing silently, staring daggers at each other. Satisfied that it wasn't going any further, the pilot dug another set of tags out of the hat and called the next person up.
"What's going on?" Asami asked, looking from one to the other.
Mako raised his hands up to cover his face, "Bolin, you're such an idiot." Then out of nowhere, he rounded on Korra, "Take him to the head and heal him, would you?" There was venom in his voice.
"Why are you angry at me?" she shouted.
Blood was still pouring out of Bolin's nose. Korra pulled her own shirt over her head and wadded it up, shoving it at Bolin's face. She saw Mako's eyes get a little bit wider, and she felt like she'd scored a blow. Good, look at me. For once. Her hands were shaking as she reached up to palpate Bolin's face. She tried to steady them as she felt around for breaks, but…
"It's not even broken. The bleeding will stop. He just needs to clean himself off."
"Yeah, I don't need you to throw in the towel for me, Mako."
"Hey…" she interjected, trying to diffuse the situation before it ramped up again.
"I'm just trying to take care of you since you're so unwilling to do it yourself," Mako rejoined.
"What good are you at taking care of anybody? You just stand back and let things fall apart because you're too afraid to get your hands dirty!" Bolin screamed.
"Guys…" Korra saw Asami's hand dart forward and rest on Mako's shoulder, and she saw Mako shrug it away.
"You're so scared," Bolin kept yelling. "You're so scared that someone's going to get hurt and that it's going to be your fault and we're all going to hate you. So you don't do anything. And then bad things still happen to us. You gave up! You didn't fight for her. And you let this happen!"
"Stop it." Korra tried to get the words out, but they were barely a whisper.
"Guys, it's no one's fault. It's no one's," Asami urged. And Korra just wanted to scream at them all to shut up. No one was looking at her. It was like she had just vanished.
"Neither of you know what you're talking about," Mako said through gritted teeth. "I fight. I fight all the time, but fuck if it does any good whatsoever."
People kept glancing in their direction, distracted from the actual contest that was happening in the ring. But Korra still felt invisible. This was what she hated. They were all still acting like she was dead.
"Stop," she said again, louder this time. But they still didn't hear her. And she wanted to burn the entire ship and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Up in the ring, the fighters stopped to look at the four of them. "I think it's time to break this up," Asami said. "Ty! Call a break!" The ref nodded and held up 10 fingers before running off in the direction of the head. All around them, the crowd started to disperse, but the four of them stayed rooted in place.
"Guys, this isn't the time or the place to do this," Korra heard Asami say.
"Well, when is it ever?" Bolin said. He brought Korra's shirt back up to his nose and stalked off. Korra was left standing beside Mako and Asami. She felt naked in just her sarashi and about two feet tall. She was watching them have an argument they'd been having with each other for almost two years, an argument that developed in her absence, because of her absence, and they were still having it. Looking at Mako, she realized that for him, it was like she had never come back. He was still grieving, still angry at her for dying, and all this time, she'd really been fighting to stay alive. She was still fighting.
"Look at me," she said, training her eyes on Mako.
"Korra," Asami started, and her voice was so gentle she could scarcely stand the sound of it.
"Mako, look at me," she was louder this time, and she could feel the hot tears welling around the edges of her eyes.
"Let's all take a break, and we'll talk later." Asami was still trying to diffuse it all, but it was no good. Blood was pounding inside of Korra's head. A pale, slender hand took Mako by the arm and started to pull him away. And once his back was to her, something inside shattered, and she knew the rage would come spilling out like vomit if she didn't find a way to channel it.
With fists clenched and eyes blurred with anger, she leapt into the ring. No one paid attention until she screamed his name. "MAKO!"
And to Korra's surprise and satisfaction, his retreating back stopped moving, and he turned and finally met her gaze. His face was hard, jaw tense. "Mako, get your ass up here and fight me!"
At that, the members of the dispersing crowd started to turn around and look. She was terrified that they would laugh either laugh at her or just turn again and walk away, and she would go back into the darkness, back to being the cipher no one talked about because it was too scary and too painful.
But as if her will was compelling them, they started to come back. And Mako started to stride forward, ignoring Asami's protests. And then suddenly, he was close enough to touch. She reached for a pair of gloves and started to pull them on. Get ready, she ordered him in her head. And he did.
…
They left the dance floor and the party and found a secluded spot on the beach where no one could see them, and in seconds, Mako's hand was up her dress and clutching at her backside, fingertips slipping up into her underwear. She shivered a little and felt the fine hairs on her skin rise in response to his touch. Her mouth left his with a wet pop, and she reached a hand out to gesture at the landscape. "I was thinking about building a house somewhere," she said. "Maybe right here, right here by this beach. I've never had a place of my own."
She felt him stop what he was doing and appraise their surroundings with her. She turned, leaning back against him and looking out at the water, feeling the pulse of the tide in her bones. His arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and for a long moment, he remained quiet with her, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder.
"And could I come visit you at this house?" he asked.
"Whenever you want." she replied, reaching back and pulling his face to hers, and his tongue slid neatly between her lips once again. In some corner of her liquor-fogged brain, she knew that her words were all a fantasy. But it was such a pleasant fantasy. So she imagined what it would be like to live down here by the ocean, away from all the pleas of politicians and generals and the crazed demands of terrorists and would-be warlords. She had never imagined that sort of happy ending for herself, and in that moment, with her body still healing from her most recent incident, it seemed like a real possibility.
She indulged further in this little story, in which she lived here all alone and Mako came to visit her and found her walking by the beach, and they embraced just like this. And his hands lifted the hem of her dress just like they were doing now. And she turned to him and let him lift it over her head. And her fingers played with his belt buckle and then reached down into his pants to feel him growing hard for her.
With two strong arms, he picked her up off the ground and then bore her back down until she felt the rough sand against her skin. And as they relieved one another of the rest of their clothes, she said, "Yes, it will be just like this. We'll make love just like this."He reached down and slipped the tip of his finger inside of her, and a groan vibrated in his throat when he discovered how wet she was.
They'd been kids the last time this had happened, and she felt like one again when she guided him inside of her. In the dream, there would be no party close at hand, and she could scream as loud as she wanted as his mouth attached to her neck and his hips ground a messy rhythm against hers. She bit into his shoulder and met each frantic thrust with one of her own. And when it wasn't quite enough she flipped them over, reaching down to touch herself as she watched him begin come apart underneath her. His skin was as pale as the sand that dotted his coal-dark hair, and he clenched his teeth and gripped her hips as she brought him to completion.
If she had a house on the beach, she would take him there and wash them both clean of sand and heal the friction burns that were already marking their knees, and they would keep making love to the sound of the ocean outside her window.
She didn't know as they lay there that she would wake up a few hours later, sober and cold in the early morning air. Or that the dream-world she had constructed for them would suddenly start to feel like a cage. Or that she would get up without waking him and pull Iroh out of bed to tell him she was accepting the mission, and that the result of that decision would be running from one prison to another.
It had been such a pleasant fantasy, and she never for a moment realized that she had made him start to believe in it.
…
Even as he was putting on the gloves, Mako couldn't figure out what he was doing. It was all automatic, like some force outside of himself was urging him on. He saw Korra drop into a ready stance, and his attention was suddenly directed toward her body. Her skin was still sallow, and her torso was slashed with scars. He saw the muscles of her abdomen flex wildly with each intake of breath, and a thin sheen of sweat glowed where the sickly light of the overhead lamps hit her shoulders.
There was no ref. Lieutenant Ty was long gone. And it took Mako a second to realize that no one was cheering either. Those who stayed to watch were sober and quiet, like they were bearing witness to something terrible and sacred.
He didn't want to hit her. And for a while he didn't. She charged at him so fast that all he could do was keep his arms up and take the blows. They landed on his arms, his shoulders, his ribs. And it was only after the first barrage was over and he felt pain raking across his side that he let one fist go and felt it connect.
…
Asami saw Iroh re-enter the bay. Bolin was close behind him. She registered shock and confusion in both of their faces, but she ddin't feel it herself. She'd been half expecting this for a while.
"What are they doing?" Iroh asked.
"What's it look like?" she replied. "They're trying to kill each other."
…
"I knew this would happen. I knew she couldn't get away with this forever," Mako said, and Asami had no consolation to offer. She reached out a hand to comfort him, and the next thing she knew, she was being drawn against his chest.
…
Korra fought until her muscles burned. She fought until the sweat on their bodies caused their gloves to slide off whenever they landed a hit. She forced him to fight back, forced him to meet every one of her attacks with one of his own. He was covering her recently healed body with bruises, and every one of them felt like a blessing.
…
Mako avoided her face for a long time, even after she broke his nose. But after a while, he no longer cared. One of her eyes was swollen and red, and he could see it starting to close. Her hair was falling out of its hold, and he watched her spit at the strands that fell across her vision.
At first, it hurt when she struck him, but then it didn't any more. She drove him back against the ropes and laid into him, and he was amazed at how brutally strong she was, at how long it took her to tire. He would get away from her only to fall back under another assault. But eventually, she slowed.
…
Bolin stood with his arms crossed, wondering if anyone was going to pull them off each other. "Should we do something?" he asked, turning to Asami.
"What's the point?" Her face was set, but her eyes looked sad, like she knew she was watching the last piece of her status quo finally disintegrate as her fiancé and the Avatar pounded each other to bloody pulps right in front of them.
Bolin saw Iroh place an arm around her in comfort. "Come on," he said. "We don't need to watch this." The Admiral's face looked slightly disgusted, and Bolin understood why. They were all bearing witness to something unseemly, something indecent almost, unspeakable in its terrible intimacy.
…
Korra's gloves were slick with sweat and blood, and she could no longer see on her left side. But she didn't feel any pain. She felt nothing but exhilaration and freedom, and as long as she could keep standing, she would keep fighting.
…
Mako could feel himself tiring out, but luckily, she was running out of steam too. Her strikes became sloppy, lacking force, and he expended the remainder of his energy slapping her gloves away and shoving her back to maintain distance. The one advantage he had left was his longer reach.
But she easily overcame even that. Korra threw her body at him, driving him against the ropes and delivering weak blows to his battered guts. He could barely see anything anymore, and the only sound in the room was their labored breathing, the dry gusts of exhaustion that escaped their throats, and the dull slap of leather gloves on flesh.
He threw his arms around her torso and hung on for dear life, keeping her still, just trying to get a break. His back was against a post without which he didn't think he'd be able to stand. She struggled, trying to get free for another blow, but with all of his strength, he just kept holding on.
…
"I love you," he whispered against her forehead and she lay draped across his chest, wrapped in his shirt and the warmth of his body and the sound of the ocean lulling them both to sleep. "I love you I love you I love you."
He held onto her with all his strength, but in the morning she was gone.
…
Korra couldn't move. He wouldn't let her get her arms free to throw another punch. She tried to squirm away, but he lifted her upward until she was on her toes and her face was pressed between his shoulder and his neck. She felt the blood pound away underneath his skin in time to her own heartbeat. And just like that, her muscles finally gave in.
She put one arm around his neck to hold herself up, and then she let the rest of her body go slack against him. Her skin felt unbearably hot, and the sweat mingled with fresh tears on her face.
His hold on her relaxed a bit, but they stayed like that, holding each other up, breathing raggedly into each other's ears.
"I missed you," she said, and it felt like the storm inside had expended all of its rage.
Mako turned his face slightly toward hers, and his arms tightened around her once again. "I missed you too."