We...ARE the Furious Five...WE ALWAYS SAVE THE DAY. And if you think we can't. WE'LL ALWAYS FIND A WAY.

Yes, I've gotten into Steven Universe, don't judge me. It's an awesome show, and now I can say I've mourned over rocks. Ayyy, any other fans? Anyway, this chapter was SUPER CUMBERSOME to write and I kind of gave up on it by the end. BUT IT'S 4,000-ish WORDS. JUST FOR YOU. (AND THE NEARLY 4,000 VIEWS ON IT, YESH).

The winner of the free one-shot is...Guest! I think I'm going to call you Kitty unless you give me a name, but your one-shot will be up in the next two days or so on Never Once Told, and written as you requested.

Thank you guys SO MUCH for 76 REVIEWS IN TOTAL, 12 for the last chapter. You just blew me away, and I'm so happy! Let's see if we can set a record...15 reviews for this (super long, hurt/comfort) chappie? I know you all can do it! It would definitely speed up the next chapter, I promise. So enjoy, leave a review, I don't own Kung Fu Panda, and remember that Steven is a precious cinnamon roll, to good for this world, too pure.

Po's palm fit snug against Tigress's, and her fingers tightly curled like lace through his paler ones. Together, they hiked up the hill, hearing the tireless admiration of their audience, the valley-goers, fade as the descended into the forest.

They let go as soon as there was the soft quiet of the wood around them. The Masters' steps crunched lightly on the grass, leaves, and twigs littering the worn path. The trail, mostly beaten dirt and warm, flattened grass, beckoned one through towering trees with aging red and brown trunks, stiff yellow bamboo and a canopy of gold-green that left calico marks on it's explorers. Storm clouds bumbled in across the evening sky, a horizon of purple and fading blue struggling against the oncoming army of grey-white, lumpy soldiers. The wind was still and humid; birds and insects called out trilling warnings, the patter of rabbit and mice feet crinkled the undergrowth. Po accompanied Tigress with his mouth shut in a curved line, his eyes wide and searching the melancholy and whimsical forest. He was like a child; dashed forward when he saw a sparrow hopping around the dirt to catch it; poked his head through bushes and squealed when he spotted a butterfly; stepped on any twig he deemed crunchy enough to snap; ripped leaves of branches and blew them away like wrinkled bubbles. Tigress merely watched out of the corner of her eye, allowing herself to smirk every now and then at his antics.

The pair had escaped the preparations taking over the last of the fortnight of Zhau-Fu's stay for some privacy in the woods, mainly to discuss everything happening and what exactly they were to do to prevent them from wedded bliss forever. Tigress decided she'd sneak in some training, and she currently wrapped yellowed, starchy bandages around her forearms. Her feet were bare, and her shoes were in Po's hands. The soles of her feet delighted in their freedom, the softness of the wind-swept, decaying grass and the crumbling texture of recently rain-splattered dirt. Po seemed to notice this.

"I wanna try," He grinned, pausing to awkwardly snatch off his shoes. He raised one eyebrow cockily at his friend. "I bet you think I'm not man enough to go barefoot."

Tigress rolled her eyes. "No." She paused to smirk. "I bet you're not woman enough."

Before Po could retaliate, he yelped. Half a thorny vine peeked out between two of his toes, and his face twisted into a grueling mask of pained shock. He whimpered as he delicately pried his foot off, then held it up in his hands, barely balancing on his other heel. He hopped up again, this time with a swallowed cry, and swatted the calf of his other foot frantically.

"Augh! Tigress, I've got a huge spider on my foot!" He popped up and down like an overexcited, dancing spark of fire. "Don't just watch me suffer! Stop-aaahaaAh! Smiling like that!"

"Po, that was just a leaf. Also, you're about to step on an anthill."

"Guaaah!" Po leapt onto a tree and scrambled up a branch, desperately clinging onto the splintering bark. He squeezed his eyes tight and clawed at a higher limb, like the ground would swallow him whole.

Tigress's face crinkled, and against her will, she began to chuckle. Louder and louder, until it became a stream of fluctuating laughter, infectious and hearty. Po tried to hate her, but with that kind of adorable, crescent-eyed giggling, and the fact that she snorted and covered her mouth with her hands in horror of it was too much for him. He felt his heart beat in his ears and smiled goofily. His attempt at a scowl melted.

Tigress's laughter faded, and she straightened herself up from her bent-over position. Her sides were in agony and her cheeks felt like they would split apart from the smile that she couldn't kill. Po slid down with over-the-top cautiousness and casually asked, after clearing his throat several times, "I would like my shoes back, please."

Hiccuping slightly, Tigress held them out. "What did I tell you?"

Po hung his head in shame, grinning bashfully. "I don't think I'll ever be woman enough to walk barefoot through these..." He put on one shoe and kicked a tuft of grass, "gosh-dang woods." With a pouting haughtiness he crossed his arms and stifled a laugh at her stern look.

She began to walk away, making sure that he would catch up.

"Was there even an anthill?"

"No comment."

"I really don't like you."

"Oh yes, I know."

They ducked through a tunnel of knobbly chocolate limbs, boasting wine-colored plum blossoms that showered down into their hair and shoulders at any friction. Branches twisted in an arch over their heads. The sun's wane light warmed the flowers in different shades of tangy red and lilac. Tigress didn't have to bend over to get through, but Po did, being the taller one. He was about to tease her about it, but her knowing glare shut him up before he even said anything.

The passage of flowers, shadowing Po's brow in maroon, ended abruptly in a grey light coming from a clearing. The two stepped out, one behind the other, and Po looked around in awe.

The trees were huge. A thick circle of obsidian columns loomed around them, a battalion poised and eery in the ashen sky. Their branches stretched to the setting haze of the sun and they were clothed in clustering flowers of pale, blushing pink petals that only emphasized the dark of their armored torsos. And as for armor, Po thought, the trees had gone all out. Their bark was smooth, but as one advanced, they would see the nasty spikes, about the size of a man's thumb, jutting out of their trunks, shining and ready to snare into someone's unsuspecting flesh.

Tigress immediately seemed to relax; her shoulders loosened and she inhaled the sour, cold scent of the blossoms and musty wood. It was comforting, to her, to stand in the abstractedly circular, pale-sanded clearing, surrounded by something she knew would never leave, even if she was angry, or sad, or ancient and graying. The trees merely watched patiently whenever her hands bit and gnawed into their bark, like a hungry tiger, tearing apart their armor until her hands were soaked in her own blood. They hadn't run away when she was young and her furious facade would crack, and she'd break down into ugly, wracking sobs, her back digging into it's mauled trunk. They were emphatic when she cursed herself and her ineptitude to please her father; they listened to her ranting about how she wasn't good enough for him. They were still here, embracing her as she grew, every time her face colder and more emotionless, and all they could see was the steady flash of her feet and hands pounding, over and over and over, for 20 years. The Ironwoods were her humble, understanding guardians.

Po looked over at her serene smile and tilted his head. "Twenty years, huh?"

"Ever since I was seven," Tigress nodded. She ran a gloved palm down one of the trunks absently, noticing how the thorns pricked at her bandages in satisfaction. "They've always been this tall, they've just become less intimidating as I grow." Her tone was almost fond.

She tugged at her wrappings with her teeth, making sure they were secure, and began to stretch and warm-up. Po sat down on a pale white rock, boasting a coat of bouncy moss. "So. Let's go over what we'll do for the wedding."

"Well," Tigress murmured as she brought her right leg up against her back, one palm against her calf. "Whatever we deem simplest. We've entangled ourselves in enough lies, and I don't think it wise to make this hole deeper. Forging or signing false signatures is a complicated process to struggle out of."

Po's head lolled on his fists, and he watched her with a sort of wistfulness; she was so eloquent in her speech, and elegant in her movements. Tigress pretended she wasn't noting the soft gleam of his jade eyes, gazing at the grass instead. The green of it seemed to pale in comparison to that of his, no matter how agonizing it was for her to admit that. She sat down she craned her hands out to reach the tip of her toes.

"Uhm," Po said, "Well, we're both adopted, so we already had to make a really quick betrothal letter, and by we I mean my dad. We've also had to fake and show a gift and wedding letter for Zhau-Fu. The gifts were mostly food though, so I'm pretty okay with that."

"What about the six etiquettes?" Tigress cracked her neck, then her back and rolled her shoulders. "We did the matchmaker proposal ceremony already. We didn't serve tea, the proposal was successful, and now she has a year's supply of dumplings, right? So we didn't have to fake that."

"Oh yeah! That soothsayer didn't have a beard, I remember. She was the one who confirmed the dates and stuff. Right?"

Tigress huffed out a brief chuckle. "Po, that was the fortune teller who proclaimed our dates matched and such. Second etiquette."

"Oh. Third was the gifts Shifu got from my dad, right?"

"Lots of gifts in these ceremonies. That took care of wedding and betrothal gifts. Then the banquet was yesterday, the day that the soothsayer prophesied on."

"I couldn't even eat breakfast today because of all the food." Po patted his stomach affectionately.

"You ate a snack at ten o'clock. That counts as breakfast." Tigress shook her head. "Anyway, the actual wedding is in three days. We've made sure that the day does not match the soothsayer's. So are we going to make her say that we're not compatible?"

"I don't know." Po shrugged. He was sketching out a face in the dirt with a sharp twig. "We could do that, but wouldn't Zhau-Fu force us to do it another day?"

"Good point. Okay, we can do that and false signatures. The soothsayer can declare that our marriage could end in flames and death, and that should scare everyone. I don't know about Zhau-Fu's personal views, but Shifu informed me that the people of his region are highly superstitious. It should convince him. That should be enough, and even though it's a trap that will be difficult to get out of, we'll have to take the risk. Otherwise, we'll be married, and we'll both have to give up our titles."

"Both?"

"Yes. We're both a threat to the other's safety; it's not just a sole rule for the Dragon Warrior."

"That makes more sense. I'd always thought the Dragon Warrior's wife or husband would be in just as much danger as the spouse of any other Master."

Tigress nodded in approval.

"So that's cleared?" Po grinned, and he felt a little rush of dizziness shoot up his spine when she grinned back at him.

"Yes, and now, I'm training." She exhaled longingly, anticipated the sting of wood bruising her knuckles with closed eyes.

"Can I train with you?"

Tigress turned from her perfected stance with a quizzical twitch of her eyebrows. "What? No."

Po balked at the defensive tone and startled look. "Why not?"

Tigress wasn't sure why a sudden surge of absolute resistance soared up. Her nose flared in irate confusion. She didn't know exactly how to pinpoint her feelings, but it seemed like the Ironwoods...were her's. They were something unique only she had. The one thing she could claim that made her intimidating and different, apart from her reputation.

"No," she repeated, again perplexed by her own defiance. "I..this is a personal kind of training. Besides, it's perilous."

"So the trees are yours?" Po asked incredulously, without any sarcasm, but more bluntness. He rose from his seat and walked over, brow furrowed.

"It's…" She swallowed down the sediment of her emotions. "It's complicated, Po."

These trees were what she used to unleash all her concealed thoughts, her bitter sadness and violent rage. She'd poured her secrets out on these trees and their iron wood and thorns. It was her blood and sweat and tears. Her scars came from her torture! This was her medication, a numbing relief, that only she could have. It was like biting your tongue until it bled. The hurt was good for her. But for Po..he didn't have her snarls, her silent condemnations.

"Why not?" Po asked again.

"Because you don't deserve to hurt yourself like I do." She paled at her abrupt threat, and realized with a sickening kind of cold how dangerous it sounded. She swallowed and looked away.

Po's eyes widened, and he found his eyes haze over with warmth. Her words seemed to pierce him straight through his soul and jut out through his shoulders. "Tigress…" His voice deepened in seriousness. "What do you mean by that?"

"Stop," she growled, whipping her head around. She struggled to not narrow her eyes. "Please..let me do this for myself." Her own words, out loud, thoughts running in her subconscious now in her own ears, seemed malicious. She tried to play it down with a half-hearted smile. "It's only training, Po."

"Tigress, this isn't healthy." Po shook his head and reached out to place a hand on her tensed shoulder. "I think I understand now. I thought it was cool back during Gongmen, but I don't know anymore. This doesn't seem right."

"I'll be the judge of how I train myself. Besides, it's no worse than the Training Hall." Her voice stayed in the same pitch, yet became darker with each syllable. She shook Po's arm away and got into her stance again. This time, due to lack of concentration, it was sloppier. When she punched the trunk of the tree, her knuckles slammed deep into the wood and the forest shook, reverberating with a thunder-like boom. A flock of birds cawed and flitted off into the blackening clouds.

"Tigress stop," commanded Po. His eyebrows shot up in distress. "Please."

"This is nothing! You wanted to train a few minutes ago," She scowled, completely focused on the tree. She punched again, sharper, harder. The tree moaned. A sudden gust of wind swept her hair back, and she kicked her adversary with a series of snapping kicks. Po saw droplets of blood streaming through her bandaged fingers, and he wanted to pull her away with strength he didn't have.

"I don't want to anymore, Ti!" He said, exasperated. "I thought the trees wouldn't hurt so much, but look at you! You're bleeding, and you've been practicing for twenty years. These are more dangerous than the Training Arena."

Tigress didn't seem to have noticed herself bleeding. She scowled, and delivered another stunning blow. "How are these trees more dangerous, Po?"

"Because you do this to hurt yourself, not to train." Po growled, reaching over frantically to refrain her.

"No! This," Tigress turned to him, and Po barely recognized the wild, fanged glare of her's. "Is how I made myself who I am." Her punches became a flurry of intense, angry jabs that were completely unorthodox in their precision. "I did this," strands of hair covered her face and framed her contoured anger, "To train myself to be the best I could be! I didn't do this because I was disappointed in myself! This was constructive. You wouldn't understand, because you didn't have a father..." She drew her arm back, halting to growl out her next words, "who didn't-,"

She grunted, refusing to finish her sentence, and her knuckles ricocheted off the splintering, white wood of the inside of the tree, "Then, just when you've gained his pride, and you begin to show the side that no one ever sees, you go on a mission, and fail to protect your best friend from getting blasted by a cannon." Her sentences became frantic, her movements choppy. She refused to face him. "First! You train to gain praise, to be worthy, then you realize all those hours of torture, meant to make sure no one you ever cared for got hurt, were for nothing! Because, I," She punched again, "Wasn't good enough," again, "To save," harder, faster, more aggressive, crueler, "You!"

Her last word was a roar, her last blow so savage the trunk cracked straight around the perimeter.

The silence was suddenly deafening, and when Tigress spoke, it was a whisper.

"I was supposed to protect you, and I failed you. I failed Master Shifu. I failed China. I failed myself. That's why I need to get train until my bones break, until I'm good enough, and discipline myself, so that next time I won't...I won't be..." she sighed, and her bottom lip trembled. "A...disappointment."

She hung her head, her eyes red with unsaid cries for help and barely concealed tears.

Po hesitated behind her, the pregnant silence of the oncoming storm and clearing laden with bitter sorrow. He slowly reached over from behind her, then engulfed her in a tight hug. His arms squeezed against her stomach and his head tilted down against her shoulder blades. Tigress let her arms hung limp against her sides, her whole body void of want for movement.

"Tigress," Po looked up, to the back of her wild mess of tawny hair. "I..." He sighed through his nose, and ignored the rumble of thunder, followed by the sudden dots of rain pattering against his shirt.

Tigress looked up, squinting, a raindrop plopped down on her cheek and rolled down to to her chin. Her amber eyes pinched up, hot with teardrops, and she let them follow the example of the rain. Po allowed for silence. Rain attacked the Ironwood's flowers and ran down the Master's skin like slivers of ice.

Po laughed, faintly, "You know, Tigress, I've always idolized you, and don't tell the others, but you were my favorite, since I was a kid. You were the most coolest ever." The belief in his words was unshaken. Tigress let out a breathy kind of laughter that comes as a side-effect of crying; tiny spurts of trembling air that are grieving, but heal.

He stood there with her in his arms, his square jaw on top of her head, his chubbiness giving the effect of hugging a pillow. That didn't fare too badly with Tigress. She found herself slowly smiling as he continued to tell about his obsession with her and the other's, but especially her, 'bodacity'. She could tell he'd averted angering her with a stylistic joviality, but there was a resonating note of sheer worry and care in every word.

"Ti, you're really important to Shifu, to me, to the Five, and to all of China. You're amazing, and you don't need to prove anything, especially by beating yourself up in ways you don't deserve." His voice saddened suddenly. "I know I can't possibly help you with this kind of pain; I don't understand it, you're right. But please stop. You are the exact opposite of a disappointment, and you should know that. In fact, I'm going to go lecture Shifu about the awful way he treated you after this whole dumb marriage thing."

Tigress laughed again, without her voice quivering. "You don't need to." She suddenly realized she was rubbing his forearms with her bandaged, splintered knuckles. Rain ran down her neck, suddenly warm, and she pulled her fingers away.

"You're not a disappointment." Po stated firmly, his hug warming her sides, his breath tickling her neck. "Shifu's proud of you. And about Shen...I'm sorry. That was my fault, for being an idiot and not listening to the one who knew best. I understand now, why you took the cannon for me. You were making it up to me-"

"I would of done that, no matter what circumstance. At least I pushed you away, that time." Her voice wanted to hitch, but she grabbed it by it's metaphorical horns and willed it stoic.

He chuckled into her hair, "Tigress, listen. You didn't fail anyone. And you need to accept that. You did your best, we all lived, and we learned from it."

"You almost died." She repeated. She'd stopped crying as soon as she regained her willpower, and now drying tear streaks ran down her face. It was drizzling heavily, and the marbles of rain joined the saltwater.

"And that wasn't your fault," Po sighed. Tigress bit her bottom lip stubbornly.

"It was Shen's. You need to learn to forgive yourself." In this, he was adamant. "Or at least try."

The Dragon Warrior waited until she nodded, defeated. He hugged her tighter and grinned. "Thank you."

Tigress found herself reluctant to step away from his embrace, which she scolded herself for. Po waited for her to gather her dignity with a gentle patience to his smile.

It was strange; Tigress felt like that grin began mending the gaping wounds of all the resentment she had towards herself, slowly stitching themselves back together. It was enough to melt the anger she'd had towards her failures, if just a bit. She could feel it make her cheeks warm and a dull pounding ring in her ears.

It was a kind of caring expression that she'd never seen on anyone's face before, at least, directed at her, and she didn't want it to leave; why, though? Why did his presence, the soft lifting of his lips, his doting worry, heal her?

"Better?"

"Yes." Tigress paused. "Thank you."

"Hey, anything for you" Po nodded timidly, suddenly red. The Dragon Warrior shook it away with a snarky narrowing of his eyes.

"Bet I'll beat you to the Palace!" He jousted, light-heartedly, and his eagerness comforted her.

Tigress smirked slyly, rubbing one eyelid to banish the tears goodbye. "We'll see about that,"

On their way home, amongst the pouring rain, barefoot and racing and drenched, Tigress realized that maybe she loved him.

She is their fury, he is their patience, they are a conversation...

REVIEW! AND tell me what your favorite kind of Gem is! (I can't decide between Peridot and Garnet).

-DOTS