Momma's Dropping In
Tenzin hated part four of the interview. Who did this guy think he is, writing that stuff about him?
Before he could find out who this man was, he got a visitor.
"Mom?"
"Hey Tenzin!"
She hugged him tightly.
"How are you Mom?"
"I'm good. I just got Toph to Lin's house."
"What?"
"Lin couldn't find her, so I tracked Toph down and got her here. I didn't go inside though, I thought they could use some alone time, since they haven't seen each other in years, so I figured, why not drop in on my baby boy!"
"I'm about to be a father."
"You'll always be my baby! How's Pema?"
"She's good. She had a fall last month but …"
"You didn't tell me!"
"I took her to the doctor right away. They said it was fine. Anyway, it was there that I ran into Lin and her baby daddy."
"Oh, well I hear he's a nice guy."
"Who said that?"
"Kya said he was great."
"Kya's crazy."
"Are you jealous?"
"NO!"
"You sound jealous."
"MOM!"
"Just relax. You both will have your own families. Maybe the spirits meant for it to be this way."
Tenzin pouted.
While he got his mother doting on him, Lin got a different experience.
"Where are you, fat butt?"
"MOM?" Lin couldn't believe it. She ran into her mother and hugged her. "It's been too long."
"Yeah, yeah. So you got twins."
"Huh?"
"I feel two fetal heartbeats."
"Oh, we were going to get our ultrasound next week. I didn't know."
"Well, you got two rug rats, and where's this jerk who knocked you up?"
"He's not a jerk. He actually went out to get me lunch."
"And he didn't bring me any?"
"Because we knew your ass would show up today."
"You should have. You sent Sugar Queen to find me."
"Where is Aunt Katara?"
"Bothering Twinkle Toes Jr."
Just then, a man came through the door. "They didn't have the chicken dish you like, and I wasn't sure if you wanted beef or pork instead, so I got them both."
"I like him already," Toph told him. "Now give me one."
"Kuzon, this is my mother, Toph Bei Fong."
"A pleasure," he said as he punched her arm.
"What was that for?"
"Lin said it's how your family shows affection."
"It is. What do you know about my family?"
"He knows plenty," Lin told her. "We're having twins," she told him.
"Oh, my mom's gonna be mad. She's out 50 coins."
"What?"
"She and my birth mother had a bet on multiple births, so she just lost 50 coins."
"Your family bets on each other too. He might not be so bad."
They sat down with lunch. Lin ate the beef, so her mother got the pork.
"So what do you do all day?"
"I manage advertisement campaigns. I'm currently working on the new Satomobile."
"So you convince people to waste their money on stuff they can't afford."
"Well, I don't convince them, but I make the cars attractive in the first place."
"He sounds like my father. You would find a guy like this." She turned to Kuzon. "What do you know about fighting?"
"I got in some pretty good scraps in the marines."
"A military man. One enlistment or two."
"Two. I retired out when I was 30 and then went into business. My mom had to retire, so I wanted to send some money her way."
"And you take care of your mother. Seriously, is he like a fucking boy wonder?"
"Forgive my mother. She's senile in her old age."
"I am not you fat butt!"
"I'm not even fat yet."
"But twins, you gonna be huge!"
The women debated just how huge Lin was going to get before Katara called on the radio inviting them all over for dinner.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Lin questioned.
"Yes. You and Airhead need to figure out how to stop fighting before Katara goes all crazy mother on everybody. Plus, Bumi's going to be there, and he's been waiting to size up Mr. Pretty Boy over here."
"You can't even see him."
"But I heard the radio on the way here. They keep talking about how dreamy he is."
Lin shook her head.
That evening, she ended up at her ex-boyfriend's house.
Kuzon took her hand and kissed it.
"Stop giving me oogies!" Toph complained.
"What's an oogie?" Kuzon questioned.
Lin explained it to him.
"Ah."
"My uncle Sokka coined the term."
They entered the house. Katara had done most of the cooking. Pema was in her seventh month and didn't like being on her feet too much.
"Toph, Lin, Kuzon, glad you all could make it."
"Stop lying Pema," Toph retorted. "You're dreading this just as much as fat butt behind me."
"Toph can't you calm down for just one dinner," Katara chastised.
"Maybe when I'm dead Sugar Queen!"
Bumi came into the room, "Aunt Toph!" He hugged her despite her objections and flailing. She was too short to stop him.
"Linny, oh you have the tiniest baby bump right now."
"It's babies bump. She's got two suckers in there."
"Twins! Oh, do you think it will be one of each?"
"Maybe," Lin said. "It's too early to tell."
"There are other possibilities," Katara told them. "Depending on your lineage."
"Which means they could be waterbenders or nonbenders too," Kuzon added, "at least on my side."
"You're not all Fire Nation?" Katara would have thought that he was.
"No, my father was from the Southern Water Tribe. I never met him before he died, but my birth mother told me about him."
"I probably knew him," Katara realized.
"Yeah, but he wouldn't have told you. He was married, and well not to my mother."
"Oh you're a secret love child," Toph gushed. "So is Lin."
"Don't believe her. She's told me so many stories about my father, I can't trust any of them."
"Yeah, you'll never know."
"Are you an only child?" Katara asked him.
"I have a twin, but I don't think she knows about me. She was given to a different family, since she looks all water tribe."
"Wow, your family sounds as jacked up as mine," Toph told him.
"At least his mother was sort of competent," Lin retorted.
"Oh I'm gonna pop you," Toph retorted.
"Maybe if you weren't so old you're shrinking."
"I'll show you shrinking!"
The two women were ready to take it outside, but Kuzon had a different idea. "In my culture, pregnant women don't fight agni kais. Their child's father would be expected to step in."
Lin folded her arms. Oh no he didn't.
"Are you challenging me big boy?"
"Oh I am."
"Lin, I gotta beat up your boy toy. This will be too much fun."
They went outside. With two stomps of her feet, Toph had boulders headed his way. He slid past the first one and jumped over the second before an impressive jet of fire came right at her.
She had experience on her side, but he had been trained by two of the best fighters on Earth, his mothers, and he knew how to keep coming.
"I must admit. Pretty boy can move!"
She swallowed the ground beneath him but he jumped up at the last second. She decided to break out her metalbending, and he returned with lightening.
Lin had no idea how good Kuzon actually was. He can throw lightening? She knew that was really rare, rarer than metalbending.
"Would you two stop destroying my yard?" Tenzin yelled at them.
They both blamed the other.
"I have to admit, pretty boy knows his stuff."
"And I must say that our kids will have three badass grandmothers."
"You didn't tell me you could throw lightening."
"I can't tell you all my moves at once. You'd get bored of me."
"Remind me not to fight him," Bumi said loudly.
"You punk ass bitch," Toph told him.
Over dinner, Katara had all kinds of questions for Kuzon. "Who trained you?"
"Both of my mothers trained me. My birth mother is a firebender, but my adoptive mother is a martial arts expert, so I learned them both. I learned how to swordfight in the military, so I'm a jack of all trades."
Show off, Bumi thought to himself.
"Lin," Toph told her daughter, "he's way out of your league."
"TOPH!" Katara bopped her head.
"What Sugar Queen? I'm just telling her she got knocked up by like the coolest guy ever. It seems impossible that you just found in him a bar."
Tenzin shook his head. Everyone loved this guy.
"So what are you going to do when the baby's born?" Katara asked them.
"Kuzon's taking a year off work and when he has to go back, we'll have to find a way to balance our schedules."
"You won't get fired?" Toph questioned.
"I'm due for my sabbatical year, and I was going to take it anyway, so it's not like they're missing me."
"And he's staying home with the rug rats? Damn, why couldn't I have found a guy like this. I would have bothered to tell him he was a father."
"Again, who knows if this is true?"
"Yeah, maybe I did tell him. You'll never know."
Since they grilled Kuzon most of the night, Pema felt like she was off the hook. Tenzin, however, was not so relieved.
"Didn't you find him suspicious?"
"Why?"
"The way he had a perfect answer for everything."
"Most of those questions he did answer in the newspaper article. He had already thought about the answers."
"I guess," Tenzin growled.
"Is it so bad to think that Lin just found a nice guy?"
"No." He can't just be a nice guy. There has to be a chink in that armor, and Tenzin was going to find it.
