A/N: Thaaaank you as usual to those who reviewed and favorited and followed, you make my day when I see your names in my email inbox. Constructive criticism is, as always, appreciated. UMM as for people asking questions about plot - i.e. Korra being evil, and such; I think it's safe to say that Korra is not evil but definitely, one-hundred percent being deliberately misguided. A warning about this chapter: there is a graphic description of a wound and a character who is briefly in a very large amount of pain. So, thanks for reading, hope you like it, let me know what you think!
I. BROTHERS
The tunnel is wide and dark and the red shadows shift swiftly, soundlessly, over the Amon mask, breathless under the mechanical clicks of the elevator platform as it slides down the ramp. As they drop the air rushes into her hood, pooling rough and cool over her cheeks, her ears, fluttering her bangs; and Korra leans against the railing so that the bottom of the tunnel is behind her and she falls backwards into the draft.
"Twenty-six years?"
"Yes, Korra, twenty-six years."
He has both hands on the railing, watching the tunnel rise to meet him.
"You haven't talked to Tarrlok - your little brother, my uncle - no letters, no phone calls, nothing at all, in twenty-six years…" she says.
"I have no interest in revisiting the past. Do not press me any further," Amon says, turning his head; and his eyes catch the dim red light, the gleam fading in and out as the elevator descends. She can sense his chill irritation and crosses her arms against it. It's too early in the morning to annoy him, and the hours are all off their axes. They'd left before dawn for the Sato mansion in full uniform and after the initial blur of drowsy bleariness, she was vividly awake, her thoughts warm to the touch in the quiet white of an overcast winter morning.
She had to make sure it was twenty-six years and not anything else. In her deeper, fainter dreams, the ones that drag the last flashing glint of sunlight with them into the depths below her waking hours, there is another man, someone big and tall and safe, someone who holds her close and speaks to her with a rumbling affection, and she thought that maybe - maybe it had been Uncle Tarrlok visiting his baby niece, before everything went… wrong. But Uncle Tarrlok had also been unceremoniously ditched on the steps of City Hall for the council to find yesterday morning, with his bending intact.No martyrs, Amon had said, not yet. She wants to ask about the man, know if he's real or just some dreamy fleck of light, playing across an ocean of things to forget; but Amon is bristling with ice, knuckles gripped in strong angles on the railing, and she won't press him into a mood.
And there had been no front-page headline.
The platform squeals down another several dozen yards.
"But… that's why your impression of him is so good," Korra offers, and she ventures a nudge to his arm. He startles and gives a short laugh, clearing his throat for the right chords.
"We must… restore the city to its former glory as a shining, glorious beacon of harmony and unity, with good will to all - except, of course, Tenzin, you bald bat," he blusters, his voice full of Tarrlok's spaciously high and oily tones, and Korra snickers; "vote for me and I will personally catch every single spider rat that plagues your homes, good citizens of Republic City…"
The elevator platform grinds to a stop at the bottom of the tunnel and she feels the shudder of the gears right around her waist, pitching her forward. He steps off smoothly towards the door to the factory.
"Don't forget the box," Amon says, and Korra lifts the wooden crate that mutters with glass clunks and papery rustles. She moves towards the factory floor but stumbles over her feet as he turns to a different door, an unmarked panel in the wall that tilts up with a careful, firm touch. The doorway gapes darkly onto a staircase that goes down, down, down, and then turns on itself and goes further down, and turns again…
"Is this where you've been going every morning?" she asks, as they start down the staircase, the wall falling shut with an echoing slam; and he hums a flat note in response as his boots tap down the honeycomb stair grating, chack chack chack chack.
At the bottom of the staircase, there is a door into a massive vaulted room. A warehouse, mostly empty, save for a few dozen crates of spare parts and uniforms. The heavy presence of the mountain weighs coolly in the air, lit with large bare lights.
"Wait here," Amon says, and Korra shrugs obediently. She sits on a crate as he crosses to one side of the room to a nondescript door and disappears. She rests her chin in her hands and waits, like she always does, for whatever he's going to do. Her mask is poorly tied from sleepy apathy, the ribbons tugging over the curve of her ears, the top edge scraping against her skin.
"Stupid mask," Korra mutters, undoing the crooked knot, her fingernails creasing the soft black cloth. She is caught in a quiet, restless point between alertness and exhaustion. She holds the mask out, tilting it up and down, its sharp petal eyes wide and alert and blank. Who defeated Tarrlok? Tenchu or the Avatar? It felt like the same thing, really, and Korra sighs. The little blue lotus on the forehead of the mask is fading a bit; she'll probably have to repaint it, lacquer and buff it shiny… why did her father choose that, anyway? She never bothered to ask.
The far door opens again and Amon is marching someone towards her, gripped tightly by the elbow. Exhaustion rolls off Mako like smoke as he walks, his expression somewhere hopeless and sullen, his yellow eyes dim and flat. Only the red scarf is bright, looped around his neck; and there is still a stiff resistance in his movements as Amon pulls on Mako's arm, making him sit, cross-legged, several yards away from Korra, who has her mask back on in the space of a blink.
Amon is already turning on his heel; he vanishes into a different door on the opposite side of the room and Korra is alone with Mako.
The silence yawns wide and creeps silvery cold into her bones, winding around her. Mako's eyes are on the floor and she can't read his breathing. He is threadbare, everywhere: from the softened tufts of canvas on his shoes to the rips and tears in his coat, raised like pale grey scars with stitching.
His gaze flicks to her, briefly, and then goes out; a quiet glimpse of an ember in charcoal. He must be chi-blocked. There are words, sticky and tasteless, on her tongue. Korra swallows them. He is a prisoner just like Bolin was and she will not be as weak as she was with Bolin.
But the silence plummets as Mako opens his mouth, his voice hoarse and unused and shot through with an unyielding anger.
"Tell me where my brother is."
"He went to go get him," Korra says, lifting her arm and pointing to the far door, the second one, and Mako reels in a slow breath and drops his face into his hands.
"Tell me where my brother is," he mutters, and this time it sounds like an unfinished plea.
Korra feels a squirming, swelling discomfort pushing inside her. Mako's lines are bent up on themselves, elbows pressed into his thighs, his expression covered by his gloved hands. How long were they down here? Inside the mountain, by themselves, visited only by Amon? A queasy guilt settles into her throat.
"I have food for you," she says swiftly, standing up and feeling for the wooden edge of the lid -
"Do you know…" he says, into his hands, and his voice is like breaking glass wrapped in cloth; "what's it's like to be alone in the dark, dreaming of things that aren't there and seeing people who aren't with you and they're telling you things you can't really hear? Do you? For nine solid days?"
Korra freezes over the crate, listens to his muffled voice, the sting of hopelessness piercing the break between each word, needling into the cracks and forcing them open. He's pulling out splinters, with his teeth clenched over a sob.
And she does know how it feels. She does.
Korra pads over. His hand isn't broken anymore and she can see the roughness of his skin, the whorls spinning over the tips of his fingers, smeared by callouses and shiny flat scars. Firebender hands.
"Would you believe me if I said yes?" she asks, and he drops his hands and finally looks at her, his eyes caustic and flaring yellow; and then they flick to a point up behind her and she follows them with a glance. Tenchu is on a banner on the wall, the blue lines bearing down on them with an oppressive sleekness.
"Oh, that. Ugh," Korra snorts, jerking her head away, and Mako recoils slightly, defensively, his chest rising and his head tilting back - and suddenly she can't stand it, she can't stand the look on his face, his sick defeated fear of her.
So Korra starts with the mask, untying it and dropping it, looking at him. It clatters woodenly across the stone floor and she does the gauntlets and shin pads next, the leather stiff and creaky, and the skin on her forearms and hands feels fresh and bare in the cold air. And then the belt and the uniform - the belt going shff as she slides it off her waist and drops that; her fingers nimble on each silver button as the uniform front curls down, like a wilting flower. She shrugs it off and it lands with a flump over the rest of her things and finally Korra is down to just her bulky pants and her sleeveless black shirt and no mask, none at all.
"So my real name," she says, drawing herself up; she is awake with the feeling of diving into untested waters, "is Korra, and I'm the Avatar. My spirit animal is a polar bear dog in a cage, and I kinda know what it feels like."
Mako opens his mouth, and shuts it. His tension is strung across his body, his gaze narrow and his broad chest hunched in defensive restraint. Korra sits on the floor in front of him, hands in her lap. She lets her words turn stale in dry air - he can take them if he wants.
He sits up straight and crosses his arms.
"I don't know whether to trust you or hate you," Mako says simply, honestly. She can't, won't blame him…
"But you let Bolin go. And then you didn't take our bending. And then you - you went all - I don't even know what you did but you didn't let him kill us."
"Yeah, I went all Avatar glowy-eyes," Korra adds, because he starts to - not relax, but shift, slowly return to life… and Mako takes a long breath, eyes widening slightly, like he can't believe he's saying it, but he lets go with a short huff and says it:
"You saved us, and for that, I guess, I should say 'thanks.'"
There is a long pause as the deep ache in his voice settles into her, and it stirs up so many things…
How do you say don't mention it sorry about everything to someone like this? Korra smiles at him and it catches as a blush of color on his face. Mako uncrosses his arms and tugs on his scarf with nervous energy, wringing the red out of its knit weave and ducking his head away from her gaze. He's embarrassed - ashamed? - of his own gratitude. But he means it, she thinks.
Korra drags the crate over between them, feeling overly casual even in her smile. And Mako keeps his hands politely, tightly on his scarf as she opens the box and finds a paper bag of steamed pork buns, dry and a little shiny with grease.
"Here, I'll warm it up if you're chi-blocked," she says, offering him a bun.
"Please," Mako says, his fingers twitching, and Korra lights a flame on her palm, passing it over and around the bun. He watches with transparent fascination and she remembers… firebending is like death, he said, and she kind of knows what that means now, and with a twinge of sadness Korra kills the fire in her fist, cold rushing in around her hand, routing the warmth.
"Not bad, for an Equalist," Mako says, taking the bun, and as he stuffs half into his mouth with a whole-hearted bite she sees the humor playing in his eyes.
"I'll take that as a compliment, firebender boy," Korra says, and he smiles into his next bite and she wonders what he's like when he's with Bolin, in places not like this, with people not like her…
The door at the far end opens and now Amon has Bolin by one arm, the fire ferret clinging gamely to the other, and Korra scrabbles for her discarded clothing and jumps to her feet, strapping things back on, hands skipping over buttons. She fumbles with the mask ribbons and decides to skip it completely, fuck it, she doesn't wanna be Tenchu with them, and ties the mask to her belt. Amon forces Bolin to sit next to Mako and pauses, looking at Korra, his gaze thin from behind his own mask; and her heart skips a nervous beat. He stands next to her, both of them facing the boys, and Korra realizes that the strange fit of her gauntlets is because they're on the wrong arms just as Amon notices it too - and he rolls his eyes, giving her a swift, exasperated cuff on the back of the head.
"Ow," she mutters, but his attention is already gone, his stance already hardened into intimidation, feet apart, hands behind his back. The mouth of the mask frozen in fearless, feline satisfaction.
Mako and Bolin are wide-eyed and quiet, Bolin's hand surreptitiously pressed to the floor under Mako's. And Bolin is openly nervous, his round cheeks pink and drawn by his tight frown, his other hand pushing up tufts of fur on the ferret curled in his lap. But he looks better than Mako does, more lively; and there is nothing hidden in his straight and unguarded posture. Mako still has the pork bun in hand and he holds it out to Bolin, whose happy surprise at warm food glows clearly behind his eyes.
"Hi," Korra mouths silently, and snaps back into rigidity as Amon begins to speak.
"Gentlemen," he says, each syllable pointed; "I take very little pleasure from seeing you here, a pair of useless bender scum. I have no idea why my daughter went spineless for you - "
Mako's face hardens and Bolin softens and Korra feels a sting towards anger at her father - she had never felt less spineless in her in her life, trying to stop their murder. And, entirely on a whim, like something giving her a firm, gentle shove, Korra interrupts.
"But the fact is that you're down here and we can't really let you go, so you're my, uh… under my care," she says, skipping over the word 'prisoners', looking from Mako to Bolin.
"Precisely," Amon huffs beside her, but she doesn't care to let him take back the lead.
Korra sits down on the crate again, scooting away from Amon and closer to the boys, and she claps her hands together and drops them into her lap.
"So, I'm the Avatar, and I was hoping you guys could teach me some stuff about bending," she says, with a measured cheerfulness, "because - uh - obviously I don't know that much, and I really don't want to lose control over it again."
Mako and Bolin consider each other, their eyes meeting warily; Bolin's mouth in a small, hesitant pout, Mako with his chin up, his eyebrows furrowed together, skeptical. In the dim, spacious warehouse, the colors they wear stand out with all the bright defiance of graffiti on a wall. And then the ferret, still curled in Bolin's lap, looks at her with dark, glittering eyes and she feels judged.
"This is not a request. The alternative is being taken back to your cells," Amon says from above them, his fingertips grazing her shoulder; "and left to rot."
Korra frowns up at him and clicks her tongue and tries to shrug him off, but he stays there, overkill, Dad, so much overkill. If only he could tone it down, just a bit -
"Face it, you got nothing better to do, right?" Korra says, and Bolin chuckles lightly.
"Yeah, I mean, I guess so, and it's… awesome that you're the Avatar, but see… you're also an Equalist. So, uh. You probably won't use anything we'd teach you in a good way…?" he asks, carefully, peaking his fingers together under his nose, his brow quirked thoughtfully. And Mako crosses his arms and tilts his head to study her.
Amon snorts, a short tch of disgust.
"What she uses her bending for will be none of your concern - "
Korra meets Mako's gaze and it's like he knows, he knows but she just has to tell him, sometimes she hears him say it in the quiet of her mind, firebending is like carrying death around, and then: it was an accident, you are the firebender who killed your mother -
"My mom died because of my own firebending," she says, and she says it to Mako, he'll understand; "it was an accident. So, like I said: I don't want to lose control of my bending again. I don't want to hurt any more innocent people."
This is the truth - at least, her truth; the cold air between her and Amon is filled with a ringing, dissonant silence, forced out by a sudden pressure from his hand on her shoulder. Mako's eyes are warm on her, sunlight breaking through her overcast thoughts; he rubs his arm absently and nods, more to himself than to anyone else.
"Excellent," Amon drawls, "now allow me to expand on a few terms… You will earn the privilege of keeping your bending every day, through hard work and her progress. My instructions are to be followed immediately and without question - "
"Wait, why?" Mako says suddenly, his expression narrowing, and Amon stops short.
"Why, what?" he answers, in a flat, clipped tone.
"Why are you letting us keep our bending? That doesn't make any sense," Mako says, his voice rising, cautious on the edge of daring.
Amon steps forward without hesitation and makes a fist around Mako's scarf and collar, yanks; drawing him up close and leaning in so that the mask looms wide and implacable over Mako's face. Korra swallows her protest and throws her hand, palm out, at Bolin, who tenses with the urge to move, to fight - it's better if you don't.
"Do you want me to take your bending?" Amon growls, and Mako flinches at the words but doesn't look away, breathing heavily, his face tense with a feral anger.
"No," he says, between gritted teeth, and Amon throws him back with a rough, careless shove.
"People who have had their bending taken away are unable to teach it," Amon says, after a forceful sigh; "they lose all respect for it. But rest assured, your bending will not help you escape. Bending only brings pain. It cannot set people free."
Mako, in a half-sprawl on the floor, looks ready to challenge that idea; hands balled into fists, chest heaving, trying to burn Amon with a searing look of hatred. And Korra thinks of dogs, street dogs; the dirty, homeless mutts that stalk down alleyways on scabbed paws, desperately hunting shadows that can't feed them. The dead ones flatten, their bodies collapsing into hollows of coarse fur that sags across the ridges of their bones, their tongues wilting over their yellow-black teeth. The ones left behind always look hungry, even after you toss them scraps. It's a different hunger, a wild hunger, a starved emptiness choking on hostility. No one cares about them.
But Bolin twists at the waist and leans over, his knees tilting out at unbalanced angles; and with a furtive glance at Amon, whispers into his brother's ear from behind his hand. His smile is quiet and sincere and Mako lets out a bark of laughter and sits up, dusting himself off with a resigned sweep of his palm.
"What?" Korra asks, confused, looking from one to the other, but Mako just bites his hand, muffling his laughter without success. Bolin rubs his hands, sheepish; his expression glowing of with the hazy pink of a red paper lantern.
"Well, sir," he says to Amon, cracking a grin, "even with all this Equalist stuff and scary threats, you know what? Of all the landlords we've ever had, you're still not the worst."
The fire ferret slinks around them, curious and furry, sniffing at Korra with its paws on her knee as she takes things out of the box and hands them to Bolin and Mako - the bag of pork buns. A bag of ripe green pears, freckled with brown spots. A box that rattles as Mako opens it: it's full of nuts. Bolin picks out a walnut and holds it out to the ferret, who takes it delicately in its teeth and then gnaws away with tiny bites, whiskers twitching.
"Does it have a name?" Korra asks, ghosting a hand over its head, and when it doesn't turn on her, she scratches behind its ears and it chitters happily.
"Pabu," Bolin says, "the finest fire ferret in all of Republic City. Found him behind a dumpster when I was eleven."
"I wanted to sell him," Mako adds affectionately, scuffing dirt off a pear with the side of his hand, watching as Pabu rolls over under Korra's hand so that she can rub his stomach.
"No, you wanted to eat him," Bolin says, with an offended tone, and Mako shrugs indifferently. Korra takes a handful of nuts and eats them one by one, the muffled damp crunch sounding loud in the hollow quiet, Pabu with his eyes closed blissfully as she strokes his downy fur. Amon is sitting on a crate several yards away, an ink-dusted newspaper folded on his knee; he's working on the sudoku, which she knows he won't finish. His pencil scratches audibly on the cheap paper as he writes in numbers, crosses them out, tries again.
"I'm surprised he let you keep him," Mako says, through a mouthful of pear, in a low voice, and Bolin hums in agreement.
"Yeah, I think I would've gone nuts, waiting in there by myself. Pabu! Show Ten - uh, Korra what you can do, buddy," he says enthusiastically, leaning forward over his crossed legs to shake Pabu's upraised white paw, and Pabu opens his eyes with a righteous sort of annoyance.
"C'mon, just one trick."
And he gently picks up Pabu and sets him on his feet. Pabu shrinks down lazily, his limbs disappearing into his fur, only the edges of his paws visible under the fluff of rusty red. Korra lets out a laugh.
"He's not really interested in impressing me, is he," she says, running her fingers down his tail, and Pabu turns and scrambles up her arm, his claws dull through the fabric of her sleeve, and curls around her shoulders, snatching the last nut in her other hand from right in front of her mouth. His fur is feathery on her neck and she giggles, wincing away the ticklishness.
"Ha! There it is," Bolin says triumphantly, and helps himself to another pork bun.
"There what is?" Mako asks, as Korra bows forward, feeling Pabu heavy around her neck, and he clambers to the top of her head, balancing, his back paws pushing against the knot in her wolf-tail.
"Her smile, I got her to smile," Bolin says, and Korra feels heat flush under her eyes as she grins and claps her hand to her mouth. Amon clears his throat, once, punctuating his displeasure, but Korra ignores it as Pabu slips forward, pushing her bangs over her eyes, making a mess out of her hair. She dips her head and he topples off, rolling into her lap with a catlike chirp. Mako doesn't say anything.
"You don't have to smile if you don't want to," Bolin says brightly, "I just think you could do with a few more things to smile about."
"Haha! Gosh, you're sweet," she says, and it's his turn to blush red. She remembers this is how it started - with Bolin being nice, Bolin being brave, Bolin treating her like a friend when he had no reason to be friendly.
"Makes my teeth hurt," Mako chortles, earning himself a swift punch in the arm, and he finishes his pear with a smirk, core and all, in three crisp, snapping bites.
"What about your parents?" she asks, and his lips purse over his fingers, sucking on the wet dribbling of pear juice - it distracts her from her own question.
"Gone," Bolin says, taking Pabu from Korra's lap, slinging him over his shoulder; "when I was six. I don't remember all that much about 'em."
"Mugged, by a firebender," Mako says, and there's a moment where he sniffs and rubs under his nose, brushing something away, some old feeling. "He cut them down right in front of me. I was eight."
The pencil stops, briefly, and scratches away again; the sound falls hard on her ear and Korra brushes it off, idly fiddling with her wolftail. She wishes Amon hadn't heard that. And now Mako makes more sense, now she can finally feel him, his image resolving with precise understanding - no wonder he was so desperate for Bolin, no wonder he attacked an Equalist rally, no wonder at the look in his eyes as he watches Bolin tear bits of bread off the pork bun. He wears it with unfelt devotion, as easy as breathing.
"I'm sorry," she says. They both sigh with resignation and she gets it. It's not something they have the energy to feel all that much anymore.
Mako rests his elbow on Bolin's shoulder, tilting his brother down with his weight; they exchange a look that lasts a second too long and Bolin pushes him away, stretching, his knuckles popping high over his head. Pabu jumps off with a chirrupy squeak.
"I'm sorry, too," Mako says, with a sudden force -
He lunges forward and sweeps her up, rising to his feet, one arm strong and tight across her upper body, turning her around and pressing her to him - Bolin scrabbles to his feet and braces himself, fists up, his legs squared over the ground - Korra's arm is pinned to her side by Mako's, his hand closed with a firm, painless grip over her opposite wrist - and he drags her with him as he takes several steps back, widening the distance between them and Amon - his outstretched hand is sizzling and lit with blue - sparks of lightning playing over the tips of his pointed fingers.
Amon slowly tosses the newspaper aside and stands up. Korra, feeling Mako's chest rise and fall against her back - her heart sinks and drops into her gut, sending a chill through her.
"This is a bad idea," she mutters, and Mako tightens his grip, his hot breath on the side of her face.
"We're getting out of here," he says fiercely, "we're leaving! Get out of the way and no one gets hurt!"
Amon waves his hand towards the door, a casual invitation, and Bolin's eyes dart there and back to Amon, disbelieving.
"What are you planning to do with her, take her as a hostage? I invite you to try," Amon says, his voice slick and amused; "she can be more trouble than she's worth."
And Korra is not remotely worried about herself, she doesn't care, she could break away in a dozen different ways in half as many seconds - but she's worried about them. She's seen this dance before, the way he wears people down, his icy cunning cutting into even the most solid and unchanging people. Freezes over them, finds the weak spots and cracks them open. And he's been listening this whole time - she doesn't want to go Avatar state again, lose control, and she takes a deep breath -
"Mako, you don't know what you're doing - "
"Yeah, I do, I'm getting my little brother out of here and away from him. And you shouldn't be here either, Avatar Korra," Mako growls, taking another step back, a thorns of lightning trailing from his hand.
At this, Amon laughs, a wild, harsh sound, a laughter drowned in contempt - he spreads his arms wide and drops them to his sides. Korra feels the blunt slap of each laugh and she's afraid for them.
"I'm not going to move. Why don't you try?" he says. His encouragement is nothing but vicious - Mako exhales once and catches his breath again - the door is right there, a dozen yards behind Amon -
"Do it, firebender," Amon says again, "strike me. Use your lightning. You will learn exactly what I mean when I say bending brings pain."
"Hah - get out of the way!" Mako yells, with a heated panic in his shout, his knuckles white and tense around Korra's wrist. Bolin takes a slow, cautious step towards the door.
"Dad, don't!" Korra yells - she can see his fingers rolling, splaying at his side, feeling out a tangible threat of pain -
"Shut your mouth! He wants to escape; I won't begrudge him the chance. Do it now," Amon commands, in a ringing voice - she can disarm Mako, before anyone gets hurt - the Avatar state calls to her from a distant place, behind all her senses, between the beats of her thudding heart - no - Mako takes one more step back -
"DO IT!"
- and a huge bolt of lightning erupts from his fingertips, wiry and sharp, shedding needle points of white-blue electricity as it tears through the air - Amon throws out his hand and Mako's arm twists away at an unnatural angle and he yells, clutching Korra to him, his two fingers now pointed at Bolin - the streak of lightning cracks through the air and Bolin screams as it hits him -
- and for an endless second, barely a second - Bolin is screaming and screaming and screaming, white and hot as the lightning courses through him, rips and snarls through him on the knife-edge of Mako's own rage -
He collapses with a sigh. Drops bonelessly to the floor and twitches violently as Mako makes a sound that Korra has never heard before and never wants to hear again.
He lets go of her and sprints to Bolin, falling to his side, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, desperate and terrified -
"Bolin! Bolin! Wake up!" he yells, "Bo! Spirits, wake up, Bolin, open your eyes - "
Bolin's head rolls back and Mako slaps him across the face, a reckless, helpless gesture. There is a jagged burn seared onto the upper right of Bolin's chest, straight through the cloth of his jacket: a ring of shiny, puffy skin around an angry gash full of mottled black-white rot.
" - wake up, Bolin, I'm sorry, wake up! Bo, please, I'm so sorry - "
But Bolin is unresponsive and lifeless. Korra hugs herself, not knowing what to do, feeling ill and cold - Mako moans in anguish and hugs Bolin to him, fumbling, trying to hold him as close as he can, and Bolin slouches limp in his embrace.
" - please, I'm sorry, don't leave me," Mako sobs, cradling him, and his voice breaks.
"Get him off," Amon says, unstrapping his gauntlets, rolling up his sleeves; "and restrain him."
Korra puts her hands on Mako's arms, trying to pull him off, but he doesn't let go. He shrinks away with Bolin as Amon takes off his mask and sets it aside, kneeling on the floor in front of them. She drags Mako from Bolin, twisting one arm behind his back and folding him over himself; and she pushes down as Noatak lays Bolin flat and tilts his chin back -
"No!" Mako shouts, heaving against Korra, "Don't touch him! Don't you dare - "
"Shut him up," Noatak says, with two fingers on Bolin's neck, his head hovering an inch over Bolin's open mouth. And Korra doesn't have the heart to do anything except kneel and press him into her, hold him tightly in place, her palm curved around the back of his head and her uniform front soaking with his tears. He clings blindly to her, wraps an arm around her waist, and doesn't look at Bolin anymore I'm sorry don't leave me I'm sorry
Noatak's hands flutter over Bolin, skimming his clothing, searching, tracing… he stops over Bolin's heart and turns one hand palm up and squeezes the air, slowly, like testing the ripeness of a delicate fruit. And as he does it, Bolin seizes once, his back arching, his limbs going rigid - and he lies still.
"Please, I'll do anything," Mako begs, on splintered breaths, and Korra believes it.
Noatak snorts irritably and fans his other hand over Bolin and squeezes again, this time without getting the jerk of motion. He does it one more time and nothing happens - and he pinches Bolin's nose between two fingers and covers his mouth with his own and Bolin's chest rises, fills with air - he does it twice, spares a glance at Mako, and squeezes the air again, slowly, carefully, the curl of his motion gentle and steady.
And then one more time -
- and Bolin coughs, and coughs again, his eyes blinking open. He rolls onto his side and gasps, struggling for breath and slapping the floor as he comes back to himself. Noatak puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him onto his back.
"Stay there, don't move," he orders. He stands up and goes to the box of food, shuffles things around. Mako relaxes against Korra, releasing a long groan of relief onto her chest, and Korra sighs because she's relieved too - Bolin is fine, he's alive. And Mako slips out of her arms and turns to Bolin on all fours, presses his forehead to Bolin's, says something but can't get any sound out of the words.
"Big bro - I love you too, but next time, could you - could you fucking warn me?" Bolin murmurs feebly, lifting a hand to Mako's face. And Mako makes a hoarse sob of laughter and grabs it, taking it with him as Noatak comes back and waves him out of the way, holding a tall round canteen of water.
Noatak unscrews the canteen, bending the water out, and it starts to glow a clear sky-blue over Bolin's burn. Bolin winces and hisses through his teeth as the burn bubbles under the dome of water, the charred, spongy flesh spilling up and out, his skin turning raw and smooth. It takes a few moments and then the water dims and spirals gracefully back into the canteen, leaving only a new, smacked-pink streak of skin where the burn was.
"You're one tough son of a bitch, aren't you," Noatak says, capping the canteen again, and Bolin grins.
"Born and raised, sir," he says, in a weak voice that gets stronger on every syllable, and Noatak stands up, arms crossed, scowling down at the three of them -
"And you - I told you that you would learn what I meant," he says, and Mako blanches, his face streaked with tears, "this is your own doing."
Noatak gathers his mask and gauntlets from the floor and holds a hand out to Korra. He pulls her to her feet and she follows him away, leaving Mako and Bolin to each other. Korra turns her head to glance back as she goes. Mako is bowed over with his face hidden in Bolin's chest, his shoulders hitching up and down as he sobs. And Bolin tries to reassure him, with his hand closed tightly over his brother's - hey I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere, it's okay, we're both okay, look, you gave me a really cool scar - she looks away.
They go to the door and then through it, into the bottom of the stairwell, closing the door with a quiet click behind them. Noatak sits on the third step and huffs wearily, rubbing up his face and brushing his hair back in a two-handed movement.
"Boys, playing at being men. They can have some time to themselves," he says, strapping the gauntlets back on, "what had to be done is done."
"No, it didn't," Korra says, her words driven on the impulse of a sudden anger, the ancient rage that she knows frames the Avatar state, strengthens it with a cosmic, ageless willpower. "You didn't have to do that. You chose to make Mako hurt his own brother."
"You're too nice to them. Mako had to le - "
"No, I'm just treating them the way you always say - everyone deserves to be treated equally and fairly," she shoots back, her voice clear in the stairwell, soaring and billowing: this is what she, the Avatar, believes - "and I don't care if they're benders or not. They're people. They're my age."
He doesn't say anything and Korra leans against the wall, pressing her hands into the small of her back. It's dark in the stairwell, what with the weak light coming from the red lamps on the walls, and there are indefinite shadows, soft as smoke, curving over his face.
"You're lucky I chose not to go into the Avatar state," Korra says, and the shadows bend and flicker as his expression changes, into - into what?
She hadn't felt it, or recognized it, in the warehouse room; she'd been too freaked out during the whole ordeal… but now she feels it, looking at him, at his hands as they tug and tighten the straps, the broad, wrinkled palms, the old scars braided across his skin.
He bloodbends and heals. He threatens Mako and helps her up. The sweep of his fist over the faces in a crowd, brushing their emotions together like a smear of paint, all the colors blending together into a shade of his choosing - benders are scum, purge them from the world. And then, when he cuts her hair over the kitchen basin, his fingers carding through the strands and turning her head with a light touch, when he is nothing but gentle and tells her about the Northern Lights, the way they seem to whisper across the sky, and the snow on those nights glows with a pale, heavenly color - I'll take you, someday -
There's an unreconciled compassion in him, somewhere; and it spites his own iron violence. Or is it the other way around?
"If Mako had to learn, why'd you heal Bolin?"
Korra throws it into the deep shadows and the silence ripples with the challenge.
"Did you really think I was going to let him die?" he asks, his forearms draped over his knees, the mask dangling from his hooked fingers; and Korra can hear a hesitant disappointment under the lofty tones of his voice.
She doesn't answer. She doesn't know. She never really knows.
"It's a terrible thing, to watch your brother suffer at your own hand," he says quietly, after a long moment, and the shadows shift as he frowns at the Amon mask, its blank, frozen gaze.
Korra lets that sink into her, settle to the bottom. Tarrlok is his brother, whom he hasn't spoken to in twenty-six years… and then something he said earlier… about people without their bending, and respect. It comes back to her and she catches it, puts it with the first thought.
"Who taught you how to bend?"
The silence stretches longer this time, and the question starts to drifts away.
"My father," he says.
Noatak re-settles himself on the staircase. The words come out of a shadow.
"What happened to him?"
This is the longest silence of all.
She tries again.
"Dad, what happened to your father?"
But now the question is gone, she's dropped it out of her reach, it won't come back. She can feel it leaving, dragged away on a deep-flowing current of memory… and he sinks it with the weight of an old, bitter remorse. Korra sighs and kicks the floor with her heel and traces the staircase up the stairwell, the black-grey-red crosshatch of light and grated silhouettes.
"Come here," he says, and she stays where she is.
"Korra, come," he says again, tossing the mask onto the step next to him, and she goes to him. His hands brush along her jaw, rough and dry, his thumbs stroking her cheeks, and he pulls her forward to kiss her on the brow.
And Noatak murmurs something into her skin, his voice imperceptible even in the quiet; and the words disappear with the fleeting bright silence of a light falling from a dark and star-dusted sky.
I wish I could regret this.
His touch is startlingly warm.
a/n: that's it for now. see yall soon