Ever since she made it to Chief of Police, she found that she was able to take more control of her schedule. Nonetheless, quiet Friday nights at home like these were rare.
Using metalbending, Lin Beifong peeled her armor off and placed it in the cabinet beside the shoe rack, a reminder that she will get to its maintenance before going to work on Monday. She wiggled her toes and continued into the house barefoot, enjoying the feel of the cold marble floor against her skin. She headed towards the kitchen, tossing her work bag into the study along the way.
The paper bag of take-out food was plonked on the dining table and an old battered kettle with water was soon on the stove. She stretched her arms languidly then reached to turn on the radio, if only to fill the silence with white noise.
Plucking out some spice canisters from the shelves and taking out the vegetables she sliced earlier, Lin set about to prepare dinner. Humming softly with the radio tunes, she cleared a portion of the table and opened the containers of sliced vegetables. She sat down and unrolled a piece of cloth, intent on assembling a couple of vegetable wraps on the mat.
After decades of preparing vegetarian meals, Lin had learned to appreciate the cuisine and tweak it to her taste. She added spicy pickled kelp and sprinkled chili on some of the wraps. She made a mental note to ask her sister to bring more kelp on her next visit. (The older Beifong would never admit it but she dearly valued exchanging recipes with Suyin's ex-pirate chef.)
The kettle let out a high-pitch whistle (which her husband hated and had thus more than once offered to buy a replacement kettle; which she adamantly refused to do so since her mom made it for their housewarming party years ago) and she took it off the stove, placing a steaming pot in its place. The earthbender tore open her take-out paper bag and dropped the store-bought dumplings into the pot.
She then arranged the vegetable wraps on the serving plate alongside the fried puffs she purchased from the vendor beside headquarters ("Assorted crab and tofu puffs, please"). With not enough time to make dessert, she figured her husband would have to settle for some chilled moon peaches from the icebox.
As she waited for the dumplings to reheat, she decided to make herself a cup of coffee before dumping some tea leaves to steep in the kettle.
It was a quaint and cozy scene that greeted the last airbender when he got home. A scene that still brought a lightness in his heart even after being married for fifteen odd years.
Leaning against the kitchen counter was his wife, apparently fresh from the shower as evidenced by the dampness of her short grey hair. Tenzin continued to observe her quietly as she absentmindedly continued to stir something in a saucepan while reading a book propped at the side, page held in place by an empty coffee cup. Barefoot and clad in a plain tank top and shorts, the stern protector of Republic City was barely recognizable in the casual setting. He smiled as Lin made a face, probably scoffing at the plot of her novel.
He made his way towards her, landing a kiss on her exposed shoulder from behind, effectively startling her.
"Spirits, Tenzin!" Lin raised the spatula in shock, landing whipped cream on her face and on his robes.
Tenzin grinned. He loved that he was the only person in the world who could surprise the otherwise vigilant metalbending chief of police. It was a testament on how comfortable she was with him that she never felt the need to be on her guard.
"Hello, dear." He kissed off the cream from her cheek and was rewarded with a slap on the arm. "You seemed engrossed there, good book?"
"Oh Agni, no." His wife snorted as she marked her page in the book. "It's just one of those trashy books that Su sent me, in the hopes that I get in touch with my inner dancer or something." She placed the saucepan beside the peaches on the dining table.
The airbender accepted the napkin given by Lin to clean up his robes. "Still trying to convince you to join her dance group?" He turned to the counter, opening his paper bag of food.
"Yes, claims it would make me more flexible and limber - as if I don't have enough training at headquarters." ("Or in bed," Tenzin muttered, getting swatted on the arm for his contribution). She offered her husband assistance as he poured the soup he brought home into a serving pot. "I have to constantly remind those children running the precincts that I am not old." Her hand flicked in irritation. "And apparently, the only way I could assert that is by beating them down. While hanging on the ceiling. With my metal cables." Little tremors were felt on the floor as she punctuated her statements with barely perceptible stomps of her foot.
Tenzin chuckled, guiding his wife into her seat in the dining room as she scowled. "I'm sure you enjoyed putting them in their place," He added the pot of soup on the table. "Come now, I wouldn't have thought a bunch of new officers would get you down. It's the weekend!" He sat down, pouring tea for the two of them.
Lin shrugged and proceeded to pile Tenzin's plate with two (bland) kale wraps and a few dumplings.
"This one's new," He lightly touched an angry red cut on her forearm."And so is this." He grasped her wrist when she placed his plate in front of him, gently massaging a darkening bruise on her elbow. "Where...?"
Having been raised and grown up in Air Nomad culture, Tenzin feels discomfort whenever his wife arrives home with another souvenir from work on her body (often temporary, sometimes somewhat permanent).
"A new group of non-benders instigated a faceoff with some benders near the cultural center today," The metalbender downplayed the encounter, removing her arm from his hold. "Good thing we got there just in the nick of time."
"And got yourself something which is more than a nick," He frowned at the four-inch long scarlet mark that was a stark contrast against her pale skin. "Lin," He quickly ladled some seaweed soup into a bowl. He knew it had properties good for blood loss. "Please be careful." He pushed the bowl towards her.
"I always am." She caught the sober tone of his reminder. "Don't worry, I make sure to assess the risks beforehand. I'm no longer that reckless and brash detective who attempted to arrest her sister." She tried to make light of their conversation.
As if on cue, as with any other time that her scars or the origin of her scars were brought up, Tenzin delicately cupped her cheek and gave her a soft kiss. He was a husband seeking a reminder that all was well. He felt the familiar pressure on his lips as his wife pressed back to deepen their kiss.
They both ended the kiss, breathing heavily. She smiled, finally accepting the soup.
The rest of the meal continued uneventfully. Tenzin complimented his spouse on her thoughtfulness on the meal. They talked about how their day went ("Tarrlok, that chattering hog-monkey, would not stop about this new ordinance he wanted to pass. I was sorely tempted to ring Mother and Fire Lord Izumi to influence their representatives to vote against it out of spite." "Oh Tenzin, but you wouldn't. 10 yuans on you that you would not push through with that." "You're right dear," A sigh was heard. "I wouldn't have.") and how their respective families were faring ("Mom hasn't still gotten in touch with Su and I." "Should we be worried?" "I don't think so. Lord Zuko is out travelling as well - 10 yuans bet that they're out on a life-changing field trip." "Lin, what's with you and 10 yuans?").
The couple decided to finish their dessert in the study.
Lin tucked her legs under as she got comfortable on the couch while Tenzin cleaned up ("You go ahead and relax, I'll take care of the kitchen and dining table since you prepared the meal - well, most of it at least - ouuuuch woman, stop hitting me."). She pulled out her (Su's) novel to bide the time (yes, bide the time, she was not invested in the story of the lone ballerina who captivated the king in that one-night-only performance, nope, not invested at all, thank you very much) while waiting for her husband.
She had made it into a chapter and a half by the time Tenzin joined her. She got up to make space for him, then laid her head on his lap to continue reading while he elected to tackle his correspondence.
They passed the time in that position, with Tenzin alternately feeding Lin and himself some of the sliced moon peaches. The only sound was the occasional flip of pages and parchment being discarded on the side table.
Half-way into the book, Lin was making mental note to ask her younger sister if she had a copy of the sequel when the airbender released a deep breath.
"Is something wrong?" She lifted her eyes from the book and directed her attention to the face of the man above her, albeit a bit concealed by the beard from her point-of-view.
"The new Avatar has mastered Earthbending." He indicated the letter he was perusing.
"That's good news, right?" The earthbender sat up on her heels, taking her mother-in-law's letter to go through it.
"It says here they're inviting you to train the Avatar as her airbending master in five years time," Lin felt her excitement building as she read Katara's update. "Provided, however, that she passes her Firebending mastery test by then." She knew how important this was to him. "Ten-!" She looked up and saw his faraway expression.
"Hey," Lin tenderly took his face into her hands, looking into his eyes. Green met grey.
Earth and air - their elements and their personalities were as opposite as they can go. While Lin Beifong learned early on how to master her emotions (which several times proved to be necessary in her line of work, sometimes even a matter of life and death), the man in shades of saffron and red before her wore his heart clearly. Even at the age of forty-six, he exuded an air of artlessness. Some of his detractors saw it as a weakness but she recognized it as his strength, the ingenuous sincerity which coated each of his interactions appealed to the constituents. Nonetheless, Lin knew him for as long as she was alive and she knew something was troubling him.
"Do you," Like any earthbender worth his or her salt, she faced this head on. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Tenzin," She knew they had made peace with it in the past but she needed to ask, yet again. "Do you regret it?" Do you regret choosing me - the unsaid question hung thickly in the air.
The last airbender covered her right hand with his and leaned into her palm. "Never." He knew she can feel his steady heartbeats as she held him. After a beat, he leaned forward, capturing her lips with his.
Lin Beifong, while a confident woman, did need reassurances which only her husband can provide. He knew that she still experienced vestiges of guilt from time to time.
He saw it when she was reading the newspaper and an article called out the Chief of Police as a hard-ass with a heart of stone, unbending with the law and unbending in rehabilitating an extinct nation.
He saw it through the years as she accompanied him in various city council formal events and got asked on multiple occasions when they were going to start trying for kids. She would pleasantly smile, with a poise that would make the late Poppy Beifong proud. Then she would sweetly reply something along the lines of no, thank you, we're not trying for kids but rest assured we're frequently engaging in exercises that might (if we were not careful) result in one. Now, that (and the subsequent choking noise made by whichever pompous guest who dared ask) would make Toph Beifong proud.
He saw it whenever the entire family gathers at Air Temple Island to celebrate someone's birthday and the Air Acolytes seem to walk on eggshells around her, never mind that technically she was the first lady of the nation.
Everyone else saw her smirk or her stoic blank face; no emotion betrayed by the absence of hunching of the shoulders or the lack of a furious blush on her complexion.
But Tenzin, her partner for most of her life, saw the little indicators - the tightening of her jaw, the stiffening of her spine, the whitening of her knuckles as she dug her nails into her palm...
They simply did not know. They did not see her as a terrified child, fresh from being abducted by a convict on parole that her mother had put into jail years before her birth. It was the day that she first showed signs of metalbending as she broke off the chains the bound her. She was seven.
They did not see her stay up late as a teenager, waiting on the roof of one of the buildings in Air Temple island, scouring the horizon in the hopes that her mother might be coming home soon from a raid.
They did not see her collapse after returning to headquarters, after being beaten up (close to death) as a police captain caught in a turf war, getting more heat because of her ancestry. ("Bonus points in taking the metal woman down - her mother is the esteemed chief of police!" One of the fire-bending hooligans had spat.).
They did not see her weep neither did they hold her in their arms after a particularly difficult day on her job. She had murmured to him that she will never want to put a child, her child, in dangerous situations just because of the consequence of having her a mother. That would have been selfish. It was simply not an option.
Her (their) decision not to have children was publicly discussed and dissected. More than once, the usually calm Tenzin had blown up at the press to leave them alone. These only resulted in new heated rumors published the next day that he was probably selecting Air Acolytes across the Air Temples to impregnate to repopulate the Air Nation. If anything, while he was infuriated, Tenzin was glad to see Lin laugh out loud upon reading about it in the paper. His eldest brother Bumi had even called over just to check its veracity, volunteering to scout the United Republic in the next years in search for thick-eyebrowed large-nosed airheads cooped up in libraries across the temples.
Tenzin also dealt with the aftermath of these public set-downs once they returned to their home in Republic City. He would willingly offer the reassurance that only he can give her at her most vulnerable.
Even as the last airbender, Tenzin would do anything to make his metalbender happy.
Satiated and relaxed, the couple adjusted their position on the couch, with Tenzin airbending the throw blanket over them. He noticed Lin fingering the letter from the Southern Water Tribe again.
"It's just that - they're asking us to move to the South Pole for the duration of Korra's training."
Lin raised her eyebrows at this. "Oh."
"But no," Tenzin moved to put an arm around her as she sat in his embrace. "I wouldn't want to uproot you. It's not for a few more years; we'll figure something." He distractedly finished the rest of the peaches and cream from the crystal bowl. Between the two of them, he was the one with the sweet tooth. "I could start training Oogi for frequent long distance trips to the South Pole, if only to ready him for my frequent back-and-forth to you in Republic City."
The sound of the scraping of the spoon against the bowl echoed in the companionable silence.
"Or, Tenzin, maybe - what if," Lin played with the smoothness of the blanket. "You invite her to Air Temple Island?" She avoided his inquisitive gaze. "I mean, we can reinstate the White Lotus around the temple for security and prepare the island for airbending training. You've probably have enough in the coffers for a refurbishment on the Island, given that it's been a while since your family lived there. But those would be best put into use in rebuilding the other temples; I have enough money to add from the Beifong inheritance, we could use that - it will be my home too, you know -." She was interrupted by a tight embrace and a kiss.
"You're amazing, you know that?" The response he got was just a laugh. "But, really, are you sure about this?" He rubbed her side gingerly, taking care not to hit any of her bruises.
"Of course," Lin grinned at him. "But you better start training again - sounds like this Korra would be a tough kid to manage." She patted his chest.
"Train you say?" Tenzin had a glint in his eye. "Why don't we start now," He picked up his surprised wife as he carried her in the direction of their bedroom. "Let's get you all limbered up and flexible then let's give your sister a call so I can give her a blow-by-blow account on how you need not be a dancer to limber up." Laughter trailed behind him as Lin made sure to metalbend their door close.
Yes, they treasured quiet Friday nights at home like this.
Note: First posted on Tumblr (6 Aug 2020)
This came from a general what-if after rewatching LoK, because Lin Beifong was underappreciated and she deserves a happy ending.
Feedback is very much welcome :)