Day 5: Disguise
Summary: KW 2024 Day 5: Disguise. Katara is volunteering at the senior center's Bingo Night, but she's pretty sure she's seen this Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis somewhere before… Or, the one where Katara and Aang have very different memories of their first conversation.
Word Count: 2.2k
A/N: Welcome to Day 5! For convenience's sake, this is a modern AU but Appa is still Appa. Enjoy!
"Hey, handsome."
Aang looked up and grinned at the sight of Katara walking over to where he sat on their bed, her hair clustered in dripping waves from the shower she had just taken. He nodded appreciatively at the cobalt-colored slip she wore, the fabric riding dangerously high on her thigh. The satin perfectly complimented the strap of her necklace, whose stone pendant was now adorned with the Air Nomad insignia.
"Looking beautiful as always, my dear fiancee."
She squealed as he grabbed her hips and pulled her onto his lap. Her arms immediately snaked around his neck as her knees settled on the mattress, humming in pleasure when he began peppering her jaw and the side of her face with kisses.
The waterbender couldn't stifle the smile that graced her lips at his words. Fiancee, he had called her. He was going to be her husband, and she his wife. It had been a fantasy in her head for so long that she had had to periodically pinch herself in the few hours it had been since he had proposed to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
"I still can't believe we're engaged," she whispered. She pulled away slightly to cradle his face in her hands, her thumbs running up and down his flushed cheeks. "To think that we'll be married soon, spirits."
"I hope you're not having second thoughts," he murmured in reply. A shiver ran down his spine at the contrast of her warm hands with the cold droplets sprinkling onto his chest from her hair.
Katara gave him an appalled look, the glint in her eyes obviously playful. "As if."
With one firm but gentle shove, she pushed him down to the bed, chuckling softly at his quiet gasp and quickening heart rate. She followed the line of sight of his darkened gaze and began tutting her tongue in disappointment.
"Such impure thoughts," the waterbender admonished as she lay down beside him. She rested her head next to his on a pillow with her body pressed flush to his side, her curves fitting against him like a puzzle piece. Her fingers traced random swirls on his bare chest while he closed his eyes in contentment, lost in his thoughts.
"Reminiscing?"
He nodded, opening one eye to look at her. "How'd you know?"
She scrunched her nose in the way she knew he found adorable. "You always do the same little sigh and smile. It's cute." Katara tilted her head. "What are you thinking about?"
The corners of Aang's mouth upturned, his gaze distant and nostalgic. "How we met, my first memory of you, our first conversation, things like that."
The waterbender exhaled softly as images flooded her mind- a nervous first day of history class in their junior year of high school after he had transferred to her school, the flutters in her stomach at the presentation he had given the following week on Air Nomad culture, his voice passionate and filled with pride for his heritage, that icy winter afternoon a few months later (which technically was their second conversation, but Aang didn't have to know that).
"The snowball fight, right?"
"Yeah," the airbender grinned. "When someone hit me with a snowball even though I wasn't playing."
She rolled her eyes, a smile dancing on her lips. "Well, someone wasn't too upset about it because he decided to join my team. And asked me to go penguin-sledding with him right after!"
Aang shrugged. "Hey, I'm just a peace-loving nomad who needed to learn from the master."
Katara snorted. "You tried to tackle like four penguin-otters, unsuccessfully mind you, before actually listening to me about luring them with fish." They both laughed at the memory, the image of Aang faceplanting into a pile of snow permanently etched into Katara's mind.
"A good first conversation," Aang mused.
The waterbender pressed her lips together, knowing her smile would give her away. "Yeah."
The airbender frowned, raising an eyebrow at her. "Why did that sound so unconvincing?"
Her eyes widened ever so slightly. "I have no idea what you're talking about, sweetie."
He gave her a look. "Sweetie, I love you, but you are a terrible liar. Spill."
"I don't like that you can see right through me like that," Katara said with a pout, eliciting a chuckle from Aang. "It's just that… I don't think that the snowball fight was actually our first conversation."
Aang froze. "Toph told you about bingo?"
"Bingo?"
"Nothing!"
Her eyes narrowed.
"Aang."
"Katara."
She glared at him, the piercing blue of her eyes making him squirm under her scrutinizing gaze.
"Okay, okay, you win!" Aang finally relented after the mini-staring contest. "A few weeks before the snowball fight, I may have lost a bet to Toph regarding a certain someone in my history class."
Katara blushed, reminded of how flustered she had been when he sat next to her the day after the snowball fight, all crooked grins that made flutters in her stomach and stupid puns that made her laugh so much that she had to finish her essay at home.
"Long story short," he continued, a light pink on his cheeks. "I had to talk to you, but I didn't really know how to approach you. So…"
"So…?"
"So, I may have tried to talk to you in disguise."
She raised an eyebrow, an amused glint in her eyes as she waited for him to continue.
"Do you remember Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis III? From the senior center's Bingo Night?"
Katara's hands darted to cover her mouth.
"You're joking," she gasped. "I thought I knew you from somewhere but I was never able to place it!"
The airbender rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, the memories of him complimenting Katara on her enunciation of the numbers and the flutters in his stomach when she'd walk past his seat hitting him like a freight train.
"No wonder your table seemed to need my help so often." Katara shook her head in disbelief, pressing her lips together in an effort to keep it together. "But where did the hair come from, sweetie? I remember you having a whole mustache."
Aang closed his eyes and groaned, dreading her reaction.
"Appa sheds a lot."
The waterbender took a moment to process the implications of his sentence before dissolving into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, her feet kicking under the blankets at the bashful confession. She envisioned the conversation the flying bison and her fiance must have had at the time, Appa's confused stare and bellow at Aang forming his shed fur into a wig while he tried to explain himself in vain, which only served to make Katara laugh even harder.
"Sorry… sweetie…" she managed to choke out between giggles. The airbender rolled his eyes but was nevertheless unable to stifle a smile, shaking his head at how adorable she looked happy.
Katara wiped the moisture away from her eyes once she finally calmed down, her ribs aching and her face flushed.
"You really did all that for me?" she asked incredulously. "Used Appa's fur to make a disguise, snuck into that Bingo Night- all just to talk to me?"
The airbender shrugged. "You were such a sweet person. I was too scared to make the wrong impression and have you hate me forever. I liked you too much."
Katara's gaze softened, her heart melting at the casual admission. She lifted her head to press a gentle kiss to his cheek before landing back down on the pillow with a quiet thump.
"Funny you mention that," she whispered.
"Oh?" Aang's eyebrow quirked up, his interest piqued. "You do have yet to tell me what you thought our first conversation was."
She chewed her lip, hesitating. "Promise not to make fun of me?"
He gave her an unamused look. "You are the person who was just cackling at me for using Appa's fur as a disguise to talk to you?"
Katara chuckled. "Fair enough." She scooted closer to the airbender so that his arm was pressed flush to her chest, their fingers intertwined over his heart. "Do you remember Toph's Halloween party that year? The one where you were dressed as a panda?"
He frowned. "What? I never dressed up as a pa- oh!" Aang pouted. "I wasn't a panda- I was supposed to be Hei Bai!" She stared at him blankly. "The black and white spirit? Protector of forests? Transforms into a six-legged lizard thing when he gets angry?"
"No clue who you're talking about, sweetie." She struggled to contain her smile at the overdramatically heartbroken look he gave her, hand pressed cinematically to his chest in shock. "Back to the story though."
Aang nodded, his stormy gray eyes curious.
"I had had a crush on you for a while, but I was also scared to talk to you." A dark magenta rose to her cheeks. "I wasn't initially planning to go to the party, but I saw you in the background of one of the photos Toph sent me, so I put together a costume last minute."
The airbender pursed his lips, trying to think back to that night. "I don't remember ever seeing you that night, sweetie."
"Do you remember the Painted Lady?"
His eyebrows furrowed before he gasped, recalling the pretty girl in the hat and veil that had approached him that night, shoulders marked with red stripes drawn on with face paint.
"That was you?"
She nodded, sighing quietly at the memory of her trying to subtly walk over to where he was standing and offering him a glass of lemonade, the goosebumps that ran down her skin when he had asked her to dance, the squeals her pillow had muffled that night every time she remembered the way he spun her and the subsequent groans of frustration at the reminder that he had no idea who she actually was.
The airbender shook his head in disbelief before chuckling. "I think that might've been our first real conversation."
"Really?" Katara raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't sure if it came before or after Bingo Night."
"Definitely before." She looked at him curiously, intrigued by his confidence. He gave her a sheepish grin. "Because I remember asking all of my friends afterward if they knew who was wearing the Painted Lady costume that night, before I really had a full-blown crush on you."
The waterbender laughed and pressed her forehead to his temple, cupping the side of his face with her palm and stroking his cheek gently.
"It's crazy to me, you know," she murmured. "To think that we were so head over heels for each other from the very beginning- the lengths we went to in order to talk to each other, just because we were so scared of making the wrong impression- saying or doing the wrong thing."
Aang held her hand in place and turned his head to kiss it, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. "And even then, to think it still took us two years after that to get together," he chuckled.
"But we did it," she smiled. "And now we're engaged."
"Now we're engaged," he grinned back at her, pressing another kiss to her palm. "So, which story are we telling our kids?"
Katara's breath hitched at the thought, the image of little humans running circles around their legs with their father's crooked smile, his eyes, his energy flooding her chest with warmth.
"All of them," she whispered. "Starting with how it took us getting engaged to actually sort out when our first conversation was," making the two laugh.
Aang's gaze softened, his mind now running wild fantasizing about their future- the way Katara's hair might fall over her shoulder in waves on their wedding day, the idea of her pregnant with their child, the vision of a little boy or girl running around with her laugh, her bravery, her determination, and getting tackled by the two of them with hugs and kisses.
"Thank you," the airbender said after a few minutes of silence. "For coming up to me that day at the party, for helping me at Bingo Night, for teaching me to penguin sled." He turned to her, moving his hand to cup her cheek. "I love you, sweetie."
Katara beamed and tackled him in a hug, arms wrapping around his torso as she buried her face in the crook of his neck and sighed at the faint scent of incense lingering on his body.
"I love you too," she said, her voice muffled. "Thank you for dancing with me that night, for using Appa's hair as a terrible wig, for joining my team that day, for being so easy to love."
"Hey! It wasn't terrible."
"Yes, it was, Aang. Yes, it was."
The two giggled before lying in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then,
"Sweetie?"
"Yeah?"
"Let's grow old together."
Katara smiled, sweeping her fiance up in a kiss that left them both flushed and breathless, but so unimaginably besotted.
"Let's grow old together."
(Years later, their son would ask, "Really, Dad? Mom dressed up as a ghost lady and you still fell in love with her?" and he would shake his head at his wife and reply, "Wait until you hear what I did.")