"There are things in my life I don't want to talk about." At nine, Bolin had been arrested and dragged into an orphanage, whose grimy walls held greasy smiles and curious hands, where the children lost all sense of virtue. Preseries AU.

My idea for this fic actually started from a line in my friend Bolinlover123's fic Quintessence. As my plot bunnies fired, I asked her whether or not I could have her permission to write this, and she graciously allowed it. She also had the idea to connect Age of Innocence with the canon storyline I have going in my WIP fic, The Other Side of Me. After giving her suggestion some thought, I figured out a way to make it work. To understand who Karu is, I strongly suggest reading my oneshot The Weighted Life before continuing on with Age of Innocence.

Warning: There will be child abuse, gang violence, mild language and other triggering themes throughout this, so if that's not your cup of tea, please don't feel obligated to read on. I will take no offense whatsoever.

B, this one's for you.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra, but I do own my original characters.

Age of Innocence by boasamishipper

So we can only get one chance, can we take it?
And we only got one life, can't exchange it
Can we hold on to what we have, don't replace it
The age of innocence is fading like an old dream

A life of petty crime gets punished with a holiday
The victims' mind are scarred for life most everyday
Assailants know just how much further they can go
They know the laws are soft, conviction chances low

Iron Maiden "Age of Innocence"

Fate is a funny thing.

She is in charge of every occurrence, every happenstance, every spilled bottle of milk and chance meeting. She makes sure the right people meet at the right places, even if it doesn't make sense at the time.

She'd been called a cruel bitch and worse on every occasion, and she'd be the first to admit that in most of these incidents that an insult was well warranted. In the case when a family of four had been severed in half, she'd been insulted through thick and thin by the two boys. But good had blossommed from the bad, and they were rescued nearly eight years later.

Salvation is at the end of every situation, she likes to say. The problem was how much evil you had to trudge through to get there.

She keeps herself sane by thinking that good will come out of every bad situation, and tries to make it so. But she doesn't always have a say in life changing, earthshattering events. She holds true because she always has, not because she always will.

When things are difficult, when things are bad, when things are downright bleak, you just have to hang in there, she says.

So Fate watches from above, trying to assist when she can and when she is needed.

It's the least she can do, after all.

...

Fate is a funny thing.

(And you can't run away from her, no matter how hard you try.)

160 AG

Karu spits on the ground as a family of four walks by the alleyway that he's been occupying for a few months. He gets a thrill in his gut as the mother shoots him a dirty look, wrapping her arm around a boy who looks around five or six years old…and then the good feeling is gone as the father leans over and gives the mother a kiss on her forehead that practically has her swooning before they continue on.

He hates them. He doesn't even know them, but he hates them.

He knows their type. The proud, hard-working daddy; the beautiful, loving momma, and the annoying two drool machines otherwise known as children. He's willing to bet that the father works at a power plant, that the mother is a housewife—all of which is common in a city as diverse as this. The drool machines are probably the 'best of friends', and they all probably live in a nicely-furnished apartment in the outskirts of the city with a picket fence, nice neighbors and a puppy.

Their situation reminds him all too much of what he can't have—of what was stolen from him. The two boys remind him of his son, and the mom reminds him of his wife, his YinLi.

YinLi. Just the name of his wife makes his insides twitch, his throat dry up and his hand jerks, causing the cigarette that he'd been smoking to drop to the sidewalk. YinLi. Kind and caring. YinLi, with her light brown skin and blue eyes. The blue eyes that his son inherited.

Just thinking about Xin makes him want to spit fire, as is his nature. For years he'd barely been able to stomach the sight of his offspring—Karu hated every bit of him, every oxymoronic bit of him. What with his blue eyes and lightly tanned skin and YinLi's heritage, the chances of Xin inheriting his skills were next to nothing.

And then Xin had burnt down half the apartment on his seventh birthday, earning a hard slap on the back from him and praise from YinLi like their son had achieved nirvana.

Spirits, I need a drink. A long, long drink. But no, he'd been sober for a year now—he'd been stone cold sober ever since YinLi and Xin had run away like pussies in the middle of the night. More specifically, he'd been sober since his source of money to buy cactus juice and smoke joints with Jiao and Feng had suddenly run dry, like a puddle in the desert.

He wants a drink badly.

Goddamnit, he needs one right at that second. He needs his hands to stop trembling, he needs to feel content and fuzzy, he needs his one way ticket into a blurry oblivion…

"Fuck you!" he shouts to the night sky, which is surely taunting him somehow with its hundreds of stars. A man passing by gives him a funny look, and Karu flips him off. "Yeah, that's right, you keep walking," he growls. "Tough piece of chicken shit." And that's the only insult his mind can come up with at the moment, so he shuts up while the man yells at him in a Fire Nation accent that he can't quite decipher.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the same family from before exit an ice cream shop, their faces smeared with chocolate syrup. If he squints, he can just make out a few yuans sticking out of the mother's purse. His mouth waters, because that's just enough to get him a whiskey at Asoka's Bar and Grill.

Shoving the man aside with an irritated "Get the fuck outta my way", he follows the family. His blood boils once he gets close enough to hear their laughter. It sounds so melodious and genuine—and it takes every ounce of willpower he has left to not keel over and vomit in disgust.

"San, darling," the woman says sweetly, and she ruffles both of the boys' hair. The youngest one giggles innocently. "When these little rugrats of ours are going to be running around the house on a sugar high for the next four hours, let me remind you that I'm going to bed early."

The man—San—grins sheepishly at her, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Aw, Naoki, you like them all riled up, don't you? They're cuter that way."

The older of the two boys laughs, jumping up and down happily. San picks him up and twirls him around while the son shrieks, "Poppa, again! Do it again!" A red scarf is wrapped around the kid's neck, much too big to be his own. Probably San's, then.

"They get this from you, you know," Naoki deadpans, but from Karu's viewpoint, she's smiling just as wide as her kids and husband. "Come here, Bolin, want to spend some time with your favorite momma?"

Bolin—the other kid—is laughing so hard that tears of mirth are pouring down his small, chubby face. "You're my only momma, Momma!" Naoki picks him up, and he nuzzles against her face. Karu wonders why Naoki doesn't care that her white shirt is smeared with chocolate and something orange that he can't identify. He would if he was in her position. "I love you, Momma."

"I love you too, my little darling," she whispers back to him. Karu can remember YinLi saying those exact words to Xin on more than one occasion. In the back of his mind, he wonders if he'd ever said anything like that to Xin before. But what had the little brat done to deserve his love anyways? What had this Bolin kid ever done to deserve Hana's love anyways? All that kids did, he concludes, was take well-earned yuans from their parents' pockets. Xin had done it too. All that cash I could've spent on joints and drinks, and I had to give him nicer clothes because 'the children at school might tease him, babe'. He scoffs in disgust.

By now, he and the family of four are the only ones left on the street. It's now or never, Karu thinks, and then his conscience decides to catch up with him. You really going to mug them? Look at their clothes. This ice cream was probably a special treat.

But he quells the nagging voice inside his head—mostly because it sounds like YinLi, and he's used to tuning out her rightous babbling.

"Well, well, well," he drawls, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dark brown jacket, and the family whirled around. He can see the fear in San and Hana's eyes clear as day, along with the frightened innocence in Bolin and the other kid's eyes as their parents put them back on the ground. "Look at what we have here. A happy little family, out on a happy little stroll."

"Hi!" says the other kid, obviously not understanding what's going on. San attempts to shush him. "My name's Mako. What's your name?"

"Shut up, you little shit," he growls, spitting a wad of tobacco-flavored sputum on the sidewalk. The boy—Mako—gasps and shrinks back against his brother, muttering something about bad words. Karu almost laughs—is the little punk going to wash out his mouth with soap now?

San is shaking his head so fervently that Karu thinks it'll fly clean off his shoulders if the man isn't careful. "What do you want?" he asks, trying to sound brave. "Leave us alone."

"What do I want?" Karu repeats. "I want money. Don't even try to tell me you don't have any. I know you do. I'll give you ten seconds to give me the entire contents of your purse, lady."

"Or else what?" she asks, sticking her nose up in the air. Her hand is clamped on Bolin's so tightly that the kid is moaning. "What will you do?"

Karu grins, smacking his hands together. "You didn't let me finish, my dear woman. I said I'll give you ten seconds to give me the entire contents of your purse, or else I'll make sure that attempted is taken off the attempted murder charge." He likes that line a lot. Maybe he'll use it more in the future if he gets results as quick as this time around.

Naoki, without a moment's hesitation, tosses him her purse, taking two quick steps backwards as she does it. Mako and Bolin shrink against their father, who looks like he's scared shitless but is trying to remain calm for the sake of his family. "Here," she says shortly as Karu goes through the purse, counting the yuans.

Wait a minute. Six yuans? That was it?

He goes through the bills one more time to make sure.

Nope, still six.

That couldn't be right—it wasn't enough! No self-respecting bar or liquor store would give him alcohol with only six yuans. He growls under his breath. "Six yuans?" he yells, his left hand ablaze with crackling orange flames. It vaguely registers in the back of his mind that Bolin and Mako are crying, but he's too pissed to care. "Is this your idea of a joke, you bitch? Why would you carry only six yuans in this piece of shit at all times?"

"Because that's all we have!" San snarls, taking an angry step forward. "Now get the hell away from my family, you bastard!"

It almost sounds impressive, and Karu would've left had he not been so angry. "No," he says simply. "I don't think I will." Extinguishing his fire, he hurls a fist at Naoki's face, and her scream is loud as she collapses to the ground, blood on her lips.

"Don't you touch my wife, you son of a bitch!" San shouts, stamping his foot on the ground and thrusting his hand forward as a chunk of rock flies toward his head. Karu barely manages to duck in time before sending a wave of flames toward San, whose shirt sleeve catches on fire. He screams as he whacks his arm against the brick wall, and the fire goes out.

"Mako!" San yells. "Take your brother and run! Go!"

Mako whimpers. "But Poppa—"

"Honey, listen to me," Naoki says, sliding closer to Mako and Bolin as Karu dukes it out with San. "Poppa and I will be alright. Please, darling, I need you to be a big boy for me and run as fast as you can, okay? Mako will be right behind you."

Fat tears pour down both of the boys' faces. "O-okay, Momma!"

"Oh, no!" Karu shouts. "Uh, uh, no one is going anywhere! Get back here, you little shits!" He moves forward, intending to throw a fireball at the two kids when San suddenly tackles him from behind and both of them fall to the ground.

"Naoki, go, get out of here now!" San screams, but Naoki shakes her head and gets into a fighting stance.

Karu's lip curls. "You've got spunk, you two," he mutters. "But it ain't good enough. You either hustle or get hustled, you know!" Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bolin and Mako peering from around a street corner. This is it. "Say goodnight," he tells Naoki and San before channeling his inner rage and sending a wave of orange flames at the two of them. The mother and father are soon enveloped in a cloud of fire, and the scent of burning flesh fills the air, like a thousand people smoking cigars all at once. They're screaming and screaming and screaming until…

Until suddenly their charred, blackened bodies fall against the brick wall with a loud thud, like a crack of thunder on an otherwise still night. And then there's silence, such a loud silence that it almost makes Karu's ears bleed. He's panting, and so are the two boys, when a primal scream suddenly splits the air in half, startling him.

"NO!" Mako howls. "Momma! Poppa! Nooooooooo!"

Karu cackles, because this makes him feel so damn good. "I told you you'd pay, you little shit!" Then he pauses. "And if you tell anybody, I'll track you down, you and your brother, and I'll put two bullets through your heads!"

The little boy caves in on himself, sobbing and curls up into a ball between Naoki and San's bodies. They're so blackened and smeared with soot that Karu can't even tell who is who anymore. Bolin is crying and screeching bloody murder, yelling, "Momma! Poppa! Wake up, wake up, you gotta wake up!" Then a pause. "Mako, why aren't they waking up?! What's wrong with them? Make them wake up!"

Karu grins, shoving his hands into his pockets and fingering the six yuans that he'd scavenged from the family of four. As he strolls off into the dark night while Mako and Bolin's sobs and the scent of smoke fills the empty air around him, he can't help but wonder if there were any bars open at this time of night.

Six yuans have to be enough to buy him a drink. They just have to.

He doesn't know if he has it in him to murder another family tonight.

To be continued…

-Boa :)