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Chief Beifong wants to see you.
Asami stares at her hands, starkly pale against the dark surface of the table, and fights to keep them from trembling. It’s harder with every passing second - she’s been waiting long enough that the hard metal of her chair digs painfully into her thighs, and the shafts of light streaming through the window have moved across the room.
“Excuse me,” she calls out softly, getting the attention of the guard standing a few feet behind her. He’s spiralling a thin wire rope between his fingers methodically, the metal dancing at the slightest twitch of his digits. “Did the Chief say what she wanted to speak to me about? Or… how long she might be?”
As often as she receives dirty looks from the guards, she’s not quite prepared for the man’s hateful expression. He says nothing, but the chain he was toying with crushes itself into a ball as he stares at her with a loathing that sends prickles up the back of her neck. She recognises him now - he was one of the security workers Amon had captured at the arena. Who she had helped capture. He glares, and never stops playing with the metal.
She turns back to face the door as footsteps approach, dread and relief emulsifying in her gut.
“Miss Sato,” comes a brusque voice that she hasn’t heard in years. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to see you, but…”
The rest of the sentence fades to an indistinct buzz as someone else follows the police chief into the room.
‘Someone’.
Korra.
Stumbling to her feet, she’s not even aware she’s done so until a heavy, metal-gloved hand forces her back into her seat with a brutal shove from behind. “Korra,” she says, helpless not to.
Chief Beifong clenches a hand and an extra chair screeches across the floor, joining the one opposite Asami. “Yes, yes, the Avatar’s here. Very exciting.”
It takes every bit of strength Asami has to tear her gaze away from Korra (Korra. Korra!) and offer Beifong a small, polite smile. The woman looks the same as she did years ago, though the freezing hatred in her gaze has been replaced with hard-edged practicality. She knows the expression well: the look of a businesswoman prepared to close an unsavoury deal.
“Look, Sato,” Beifong says. “We need your help.”
Asami plasters a polite smile onto her lips, hardly able to believe her luck as she approaches the teenager frowning at one of the tourist maps erected on the sidewalk. “Excuse me, can I help you?”
“Oh,” the Avatar says, bashful. She rubs at her neck, and Asami sees the result of years of combat training in the flex of her bicep. “Yeah, that would be great! I’m new to town, and I’m a little bit lost.”
“Where are you trying to get to?”
“The Southern Water Tribe Cultural Centre.”
“Ah, feeling homesick?” She lifts her brows, widens her eyes, twists her mouth. It’s the perfect facsimile of sympathy.
“Sorta. Apparently they can get letters back quicker, and I kinda owe my parents an explanation for why I crossed an ocean without letting them know.”
“Now that sounds like a story,” Asami says, letting her smile grow wider. “You’re not far - it’s about half a mile along this road, and then you’ll want to turn left by Qi’s Salon. There’s a big pair of scissors on the sign, you can’t miss it, and then it’s across the square from there.”
“Thanks so much!” The girl lifts onto the balls of her feet, bobbing on them energetically. “Nice meeting you.”
She turns to go, and Asami holds out a hand to stop her. “You know, I’ve lived here my whole life - I’d be happy to show you around the city if you ever want a tour.”
“Wow, that’s so nice of you! I’d love that. I’m staying on Air Temple Island - the number is publicly listed, if you want to get a hold of me there…?”
“Asami.”
“Korra,” says the Avatar. “It was super nice to meet you, Asami.”
“I assume you keep up with news on the outside?” Asami nods. She gets every major paper delivered to her here; Iknik Blackstone Varrick offers her certain perks in return for free consultation on his projects. “Then you know Kuvira.”
“The Great Uniter. I’ve read about her.”
Chief Beifong scowls. “More like the Great Warlord. She’s marching on Republic City. Wants to reclaim it for the Earth Kingdom. She has some kind of weapon made from spirit vines, and we need someone with your technical expertise to help us figure out how to take it down.
Korra scoffs. “I still don’t understand why we’re here. What does she know about spirit energy? What, she’s an expert because there’s a few running through her jail cell?”
“Sato redesigned half the city; she’s been basically running Future Industries from inside here for years. Clever lawyers. Raiko saw fit to let it be official, as long as she doesn’t profit.”
“The United Republic trusted her? There’s probably hidden terrorist tunnels all over the city.”
Asami winces. “All of my designs went through scores of city planners. I just had some ideas about how to work with the spirit vines that won FI the contract, but they needed my input directly to implement them.”
“It was the president’s call. I’m sure someone would’ve told you if you’d been here in the last three years. The point is Korra, she knows spirit vines.”
“I read in the papers you’d been gone since the return of the Air Nation, but none of them knew why…?” Asami asks, the first time she’s been brave enough to directly speak to Korra.
“I’ve been through more shit than just what you put me through,” Korra says bitterly. The look in her eyes makes Asami want to crawl out of her own skin, replace it with something, anything that would be more palatable to Korra.
“Of course, sorry.” She averts her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Korra.”
“Save it,” Korra snaps.
Asami returns her attention to Chief Beifong, unable to take any more of Korra’s abhorrence. “I’ll do it. I’ll help, however I can.”
“Why?” Korra asks. “Are you that desperate to get out of your cell?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Asami manages to say. “I always tried to do that. It’s just my idea of good used to be pretty fucked up.”
“What?” Asami asked self-consciously, noticing the way Avatar Korra was eyeing her over the top of her sundae. “Do I have ice cream on my face, or something?”
She wonders if she’d done anything to make the Avatar suspicious of her, but she can’t really think what. She’s had… a really nice day, actually. The other girl is bright and chatty and was infectiously enthusiastic about every sight Asami had to show her. It’s not exactly been the chore she had thought pretending to befriend the Avatar would be.
“No.” The girl across from her wrinkles her nose and gives a self-deprecating little chuckle. “It’s silly really. I’m just really glad you offered to show me around today. It’s been kind of intimidating moving someplace so big. And I was thinking… Other than my polar bear dog, I’ve never had a girl friend before.”
Oh. Asami feels a little pang in her chest, because neither has she, really. She was home-schooled, and the rest of her time was spent alone, or working on engineering things with her dad, or busy on Equalist business. She never exactly had the opportunity to meet other girls her age.
Avatar Korra’s cheeks go pink after a moment of Asami’s silence. “Sorry, that was kinda lame wasn’t it? I kind of had a weird upbringing, I’m not so good at making friends. Not that we - like if this was just a one time nice thing to do for a new arrival in the city, that’s fine too, you don’t have to be my friend or anything.”
Asami feels warm as she smiles at Korra. “I’d like to be.”
She’s told she’ll be working with Varrick, which is fine. She respects his undeniable genius, though his eccentricities certainly wind her up. He spends their whole brainstorming session hanging upside down.
“I once saw some dragonfly hummingbirds in the yard at the prison,” Asami hums, tapping her pen against her chin. “I remember thinking it would make an interesting design for a flying mech suit - the ability to hover would give whole new utilities versus biplanes. We could outfit them with different tools for different purposes.”
Varrick scrunches his face up at her for a long stretch before flipping to his feet surprisingly acrobatically. He seizes her shoulders, shaking her vigorously. “I...I love it!”
“Good,” Asami says, vaguely lightheaded at the way Varrick’s assault had sent her brain rattling in her skull. “Let’s get drawing, then.”
Amon and her father had been thrilled with her for making contact with the Avatar, under the pretence of befriending her. Their tour of the city had gone so well that the Avatar had invited her to a pro-Bending game, and now the Fire Ferrets are the Future Industries Fire Ferrets and the Avatar is both fond of and indebted to Asami.
The Avatar is brash and unruly and easily manipulated. She doesn't know how to airbend. She has affection for her teammates, especially the firebender. She considers Councilman Tenzin and his brood to be a second family here in Republic City. Her days follow a precise schedule of bending and Pro-bending training, only diverging in pockets of free time she spends increasingly with Asami. It’s easy to pin down where she’ll be at a given time.
It’s invaluable intel.
They get prototypes mocked up fast. Asami’s tweaking the wing connections to see if they can reduce the fuel consumption needed to hover in the mecha suits when she becomes aware of another presence in the workshop - other to the several guards assigned to watch over her, that is.
“You said your idea of good used to be pretty fucked up,” Korra says.
Asami puts down her screwdriver, ready to talk. “Yes, I-”
“No, keep working,” Korra demands, and Asami does. It’s easier, though less appealing, to study the wiring behind the panel she’s half-unscrewed than it is to try and meet Korra’s eyes. “I just want to know what changed.”
“A lot of therapy?” Asami’s laugh is hollow and met with silence. “There was a deradicalisation program. I didn’t even realise I had been radical before. It was just what I was raised to believe. I grew up in the Equalist movement.”
“Your father was certainly dedicated.” Korra’s comment is perhaps deliberately cruel. Her dad was killed in the attempt to apprehend him.
“He was,” Asami doesn’t rise to any intended barb. “I guess my mom dying drove him to extreme beliefs. He passed them down to me.”
“That doesn’t excuse what you did.”
“I know,” Asami says, and she looks away from the mech then finds the strength to plainly meet Korra’s gaze. “My actions led to a lot of people being hurt. The results could have been much worse. I deserve my punishment.”
“Right,” Korra mutters, though she sounds a bit taken aback by Asami’s agreement. Asami wonders if she’d come here looking for a fight. “You do. Okay, bye.”
She turns to go as abruptly as she arrived, but Asami calls out after her. “I don’t believe what I used to think about benders. I don’t think what I put you through was good, or right, anymore. I’m so sorry I tried to tell you it was.”
Korra says nothing as she leaves.
Asami has never enjoyed spending time with someone like she does Korra, her friend. Their tour of the city had gone so well that Korra had invited Asami to watch her play a pro-Bending match. When the team needed money to compete, Asami made sure they got it. She did it to make Korra happy; she doesn’t owe her anything.
Korra is bold and funny and trusting. She doesn’t know how to airbend, but she tries so hard. She treats Bolin like a brother, and Asami’s gut twists when Korra looks at Mako. The airbender kids consider Korra an older sister, and Tenzin and Pema another daughter. Her days are filled with training but she always makes time for Asami. Asami seeks her out whenever she can.
Her time with Korra is priceless.
It becomes habitual, Korra appearing in her workshop for a few minutes to ask Asami questions while she works.
“I guess I don’t understand,” Korra says, “why you kept insisting that what - what we were doing - was real. You knew you were lying to me the whole time. I don’t get how you could do that if you lo- cared for me like you said you did.”
“Dissonance,” she replies at once, easily. This had been covered extensively in her therapy sessions. “I turned you and the Avatar into separate people so I could love you and betray you at the same time.”
“Me and the Avatar?” Korra echoes.
Asami flushes at the slip from where she’s working underneath her mech. She’s usually so much better with it now. “Korra, the person, versus Korra, the Avatar I mean. It’s just how I framed it. Obviously you’re just you.”
“Hm.” Korra says.
“I had a lot of fun tonight,” Korra says, tugging on one of her wolf tails. Asami itches to replace her fingers with her own, to feel the silky lock for herself.
“Me too,” Asami says. Her palms feel slightly sweaty, despite the chill of the evening. “Is it bad I’m glad the boys ended up bailing?”
Her and Korra, no Mako. It thrills her that Korra hadn’t seemed to mind at all when he told them he and Bolin wouldn’t make it to the restaurant. She’d only shot Asami a lopsided wink and linked their arms.
“If it is, then I’m in the wrong too.” Korra smiles, and Asami feels it echo on her own face. It’s like her lips are being puppeteered these days: when Korra grins, she does too. When Korra’s sad, her own expression turns down. “Actually, I was wondering… would you maybe wanna do this again sometime? Like, go for dinner just the two of us, or whatever.” The casual tone of her voice seems forced, and Asami watches the rise and fall of Korra’s throat as she swallows hard. Her voice is firmer when she speaks again. “A date, I mean?”
“Yes.” Asami does not leave an appropriate space of time between the question and the answer, but it spills out of her with an exhilarated breath. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”
“Oh, good! Phew.” Korra looks and sounds so relieved that Asami can’t help but laugh. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
They make plans for the next night, neither of them willing to wait.
Asami goes home and shares with her father the proposals for the new anti-Equalist policing budget she’d copied down in Tenzin’s office on Air Temple Island that morning.
“Can I ask you something?” Asami gathers the courage to ask, when Korra is once again about to depart from one of her impromptu interrogations. “I get if you don’t want to share with me, but I was wondering something.”
Korra hovers for a moment, before sitting back down, cross-legged across the workshop from Asami. She always puts a healthy distance between them. “You can ask. I don’t promise to answer.”
“You seem… different.”
“It’s been four years. Obviously I’ve changed. As much as you claim you have.”
“No,” Asami says, frustratedly dropping her wrench. “Not like that - I mean, yes, that too, but - I meant since you rescued everyone who got grabbed by the spirit vines. You seem more settled, more confident. Did something change?”
Korra gets to her feet. “No,” she says, her voice cold. “You don’t get to ask about that.”
“Wow, I didn’t realise it had gotten so late,” Korra says, as they leave the restaurant. Asami laughs as she hooks their pinkies together. Korra one-ups her and entwines their hands fully.
“What, the restaurant staff packing up around us didn’t give it away?”
“They were?” Korra sounds genuinely surprised. “I guess I was only really looking at you.”
“Charmer,” Asami says dryly, more steadily than she feels; it’s not saying much, considering she’s practically molten.
“I mean it,” Korra says earnestly. “I wasn’t just trying to be cute or something. It’s just hard to pay attention to anything else when you’re with me.”
“Well, even if you’re not trying, you’re successfully being very cute.” To the point it might be hazardous to Asami’s health, actually. Her heart thuds in her chest, her stomach, her brain, her knees - her whole body trembles under her racing pulse.
“Oh, um, good.” Korra says, and rubs her neck. “I’d say the same back, but you’re more than cute, you’re beautiful and - Asami, I’d really like to kiss you if that’s okay?”
It’s more than okay. It’s the best idea Asami has ever heard. She loops her free arm around Korra’s neck and draws her in. Their joined hands are trapped between their sternums, and Asami cannot distinguish the beat of her heart from Korra’s.
Kissing Korra is perfect. Her lips are soft and warm, and she’s just a little shy - it makes Asami chase after her, and she relishes in her success every time she captures Korra’s mouth.
“Wow,” she says, panting as they pull apart. Her awe is reflected in Korra’s shining eyes, lit up by the stars and the warmth of streetlamps.
Korra goes to tug Asami back in for more, but she holds back, reluctantly. “You’ll miss the last ferry.”
“I think I already have,” Korra’s smile is sheepish. “It’s alright though, I can just waterbend my way across.”
Asami goes cold at the mention of her powers. It’s miles to Air Temple Island. It isn’t natural for anyone to be able to command the water to take them there. Most probably couldn’t, Asami thinks. It sounds like the kind of casual feat reserved for the Avatar.
She smiles tightly. “I think it’s time we both got home.”
Asami strokes a finger along the length of the rolled-up blueprints in her lap as she waits for their meeting with President Raiko. The paper is silky soft, a pleasant tactile distraction from her hyper awareness of Korra and Mako sitting together across the room. She has no right to be jealous, she knows. She can’t exactly ask anyone what their deal is, either, whether they got together after everything that happened between Korra and her. She knows Korra had at least a little crush on him at one point, and he’d certainly returned it.
It should be so insignificant, in light of what they’re dealing with - spirit weapons - and yet Korra’s possible romantic entanglements weigh heavily on her. She’s just so beautiful: Asami can’t help the way she feels when Korra tucks her short hair behind an ear, or when she sees her smile - never directed her way - of course. She’s a few inches taller than when Asami saw her last. Asami’s been trying to judge what their height difference is now. Korra never comes close enough for her to be sure, but Asami thinks her lips would be level with the prominence of Korra’s cheekbone.
She needs not to think about her lips and Korra’s skin, so she returns her focus to the designs in her lap. The hummingbird mecha-suits are a good idea, versatile and highly mobile - they should be able to avoid the slow aiming of a superweapon, and work equally well for offence and aid provision. They could certainly be repurposed after a fight for any number of utilities.
Raiko hates them, of course, when they show him. She’s glad Varrick stands firmly at her side at her refusal to add spirit rays.
“May I remind you that your little vacation from prison is entirely at my pleasure, Ms Sato?”
“Throw me back in a cell. Extend my sentence, throw away the key, whatever,” she says firmly. “I will never build a spirit weapon.”
“Are you forgetting that Kuvira harvesting spirit vines is what made the wilds go crazy?” Korra points out, backing her up. A warmth blooms in the pit of her stomach.
“Hey,” Korra says, catching her elbow as they leave city hall. There’s very little expression on her face, and her hand falls away quickly, but the brief touch - the first time Korra has touched her in years - is enough to stoke within Asami a desire to weep. “Thanks for standing your ground on the spirit vine thing. Raiko was wrong to threaten you like that.”
Asami watches with elated fervour as Amon relieves the Wolfbats of their bending in front of such a large audience - everyone left in the stadium, and the radio broadcast too. They’ll reach so many people tonight, show them the kind of world that’s possible - a true utopia where everyone’s equal, and everyone is safe from bullies wielding elements.
She’s aware of the Lieutenant dragging the unconscious Fire Ferrets from the water, but she doesn’t worry - the electricity in his bolas was perfectly calibrated to stun through the conductive pool; she and her father made sure of that. Their inventions being used to help the cause fills her with pride. ‘Anyone can hold the power of a chi-blocker in their hand’, Amon had said, and it is thanks to her - the gloves were her idea, her proprietary design, and now they are being used to bring about equality.
The crowd erupts into chaos when the central demolition charge explodes. Asami watches from her private box as people flee. She supposes Amon and the Lieutenant will come back for the Avatar and the brothers, put together another spectacle where he’ll cleanse them, show the world it doesn’t need an oppressive force keeping it ‘safe’.
Except suddenly, the Avatar is shooting skyward on a twisting vortex of water; the power it must require sends fear down Asami’s spine - she sees hot whorls of fire in her mind’s eye - as it elevates the girl easily a hundred and fifty feet into the air. It’s not enough to reach the gap in the stadium roof, and she’s flung the rest of the way on steel cables. It can only be Police Chief Beifong helping her with the precision and speed required.
All Asami can see then is flashes of red and orange and blue through the semi translucent roof, the Avatar occasionally sending limp-bodied Equalists - Asami’s associates - plummeting through the jagged hole above the burning playing field.
And then it’s the Avatar falling, through a new chasm in the weakened roof, and Asami rushes to the edge of the box. She might hate the Avatar, but she can’t die, mustn't die, because Korra would die with her. When she swings forth on a metal rope, a sob of relief escapes her. There’ll be other opportunities to deal with the Avatar. It matters that Korra’s safe.
She turns to leave the box - the show is over now, ready to slip quietly out into the chaos that is sure to rein beyond the arena.
“Asami! I thought I saw you.” A voice calls from behind her, accompanied by a thud of feet and the whirring of metal cables retracting away. “Thank the spirits that you’re alright, but what the hell are you still doing here?”
Strong, tan arms sweep her off her feet into an embrace. She’s about to give in to the urge to scream, to push her away, to press her fingers into the sensitive places that will leave the Avatar helpless on her knees. She could deliver her back to Amon.
But when she’s set back on the ground, the Avatar is nowhere to be seen. It’s Korra in front of her. She doesn’t look powerful or destructive or god-like. She looks small and tired and human. Her cheeks are tear-streaked as she gazes at Asami with unrestrained relief.
“I couldn’t leave until I knew you were safe,” Asami says. Until I knew we’d succeeded, she thinks. They mostly have: they mightn’t have the Avatar, but the purification of the Wolf Bats and apprehension of members of the security forces are definite wins.
“I’m so glad you’re safe too,” Korra says, picking up one of Asami’s hands and tangling their fingers. “That was so horrible - I don’t think I could have handled it if you were hurt in the chaos.”
Korra steps in close. Asami’s breath catches in her chest as the full lines of their bodies are pressed against each other. Tilting her chin up and looking at her with those impossibly blue eyes, Korra silently entreats a kiss. Asami is helpless but to grant her request, and fails to keep at bay the soft moan that rises in her throat as Korra deepens her efforts. They’ve kissed a lot, in many ways - chaste pecks, saccharine smooches, long make outs - but something about this is new. It feels like it’s building to something. It’s setting Asami on fire from the inside out.
“Come back to the island with me, tonight,” Korra implores her, pupils blown wide as she curls her fists in the lapels of Asami’s jacket. “I need you close.”
The next time Korra shows up at the workshop, she asks no questions.
“Keep working, okay? And don’t… just don’t say anything.” Asami nods, and starts dismantling one of the mech’s appendages. She doesn’t strictly need to - she was actually about to go and recommend the project go to full production in its current form, but it will be easily reattached after, and the rote work means she can pay full mind to Korra while respecting her wishes.
“I guess the harmonic convergence stuff was all pretty well covered by the papers, so I won’t rehash, but basically… This man called Zaheer got airbending. He was part of an anarchist group called the Red Lotus, set on destroying world leaders and ending the Avatar cycle. I guess that was in the news too? The guy who killed the Earth Queen.
“They tried to kidnap me a few times - didn’t work. He held all the airbenders hostage instead so I gave myself up to get him to release them.”
This had all been in the newspapers too. It was what happened after - the three year absence, what exactly had happened to the Avatar in her sacrifice for the new Air Nation to warrant it - that was a mystery.
“It was a trick and we fell for it - ended up with me in chains and pumped full of poison to force me into the Avatar state so they could end the cycle. Clearly, that didn’t happen but - it really fucked me up. I went back to the South, didn’t speak to anyone in the city for three years. I couldn’t walk across a room for six months, and even then I needed to be holding onto something. I couldn’t bend, again.”
Korra gives a shuddering sigh, and guilt surges savagely within Asami, cresting bile-like in the back of her throat.
“Couldn’t access the Avatar state, either. I, um, ran off for a bit after I hit a wall. I was having visions - flashbacks and hallucinations and things. I found out there was still poison in me, got it out, thought that would be the end of it. But then I fought Kuvira, and I choked.
“I’ve been trying to prove I’m up to dealing with all this while everyone tiptoes around me. For fair reasons, mostly, but still. So then everything happened with the spirit vines going crazy, and I tried to meditate into the spirit world, but I couldn’t. It felt like I was being blocked - like Zaheer haunting me was the reason I couldn’t get there. So I went to see him.”
Asami’s spanner clangs loudly against the mech’s metal shell as she tamps down an unruly bubble of protectiveness, born of newfound hatred for a man who hurt Korra so much. How could she rail against Korra going to see one old enemy while she’s here speaking with Asami? Was she not a villain in Korra’s history too?
“Sounds crazy after everything he put me through, I know, but it helped actually. He’s like, the anti-Kuvira, so he was weirdly keen to help me. I realised I had to accept what happened to me if I wanted to move past it. It was good advice. I feel better. Anyway, you asked before. That’s why I’ve been different since the spirit wilds went crazy.”
Korra pushes to her feet, stopping briefly by the door.
“I’m trying to accept everything that happened between us, too.”
“What are you thinking about?” Korra’s hand swirls in spirals over the skin of Asami’s bare stomach, lying pressed against her in the single bed on Air Temple Island.
Asami makes a meaningless little noise. It’s a dismissal of the question, but Korra props up on an elbow behind her, intent on an answer.
“You can talk to me about anything, Asami. You know that, right?”
Asami knows the opposite. Maybe this much she can share, though. “It’s silly. You won’t like it.”
“Try me.” Korra, ever stubborn.
“It’s just - don’t get me wrong, the other day was so awful, and I hate that it happened. I’m with you all the way against the Equalists,” she prefaces the truth with a lie, hating that she’s bringing even a mention of her double life into this sacred time, her and Korra. “But everyone’s acting like the Wolfbats and those officers are worse than dead. I can’t help wondering… is it really the worst thing in the world, not being able to bend? Being like me?”
“It’s not like that!” Korra is quick to rile, hotheaded always and particularly sensitive to this topic. “You don’t get it, you’re not a bender. It would be like losing a limb! Worse! I’d rather die.” She shudders, and a sick feeling settles in the pit of Asami’s stomach.
“I don’t think not being able to bend is a disability,” Asami says quietly. “Or makes my life not worth living.”
“I didn't mean it like that. You’re the most capable, worthwhile person I’ve ever met.” Korra deflates instantly, obviously genuinely troubled by the idea she might’ve upset Asami with the implication. She tugs on her shoulder so they’re facing each other, presses warm kisses to Asami’s cheek, once, twice, three times until Asami smiles at her and chases her lips instead. “What I should’ve said… It's an identity thing. Like - you’re you, right? Imagine you woke up tomorrow, and you couldn’t do maths and you knew nothing about cars and you didn’t have any money.”
“Money?” Asami isn’t sure how she feels about the fact Korra considers her wealth a defining trait.
“Well, yeah.” Korra shrugs - it’s awkward, as she’s lying on her side, and Asami feels the jolt in the thin mattress beneath them. “It’s about how you move through the world, you know? The power you wield. Not many people can begin to imagine having what you do.”
“I don’t think it’s the same,” Asami offers after a long pause. “A bender could learn about cars, or go to school for engineering, or run a successful business. I could never do what they do.”
“Of course you don’t understand, Asami - you’re brilliant as you are. Without my bending, I’d be nothing. I wouldn’t be the Avatar.”
“You wouldn’t be nothing.” Asami feels fierce, taking Korra’s perfect face in her hands. “You’d be Korra. You’d be everything. You are already.”
Korra kisses her. “I love you,” she says for the first time.
“Korra,” Asami sighs against her lover’s mouth, heart wild and blooming in her chest. “I love you too.”
It's only the Avatar she hates.
All their preparation is destroyed in one fell swoop when their warehouse of flying mecha suits is destroyed by Kuvira’s spirit weapon. The strength and flexibility of the giant suit it’s mounted on makes it far more wieldy than they could have anticipated a weapon of its size being. Asami’s not even sure their hummingbirds would have been useful - Kuvira could probably take a squadron of them out in one arcing sweep.
Still, they’ve two prototypes left - one of each design, the two-seater and the solo machine, and she has an idea.
“If we can convert the welding torches with plasma saws…”
“... we could bore through the platinum and give the others a way in.”
“Exactly. Like mosquitoes.”
Varrick looks afraid but the set of his mouth is determined. “You know what happens to mosquitoes that land on me? I squash ‘em.”
Asami’s palms were sweating. She was scared too, but she couldn’t see another way.
“The rest of us will attack in a swarm,” Korra says, voice strong and brave. “We’ll protect you from Kuvira’s attacks. Your suits are our only hope.”
Korra looks at her, and Asami holds her gaze, drinking in those blue eyes like it’s the last time she’ll ever see them. It might be.
“What are we waiting for?!” Meelo cries, spurring everyone into action.
The next time she delivers a report to Amon, she hesitates before she leaves.
“The Avatar - you’ll only take her bending, right? She won’t be hurt.”
Amon’s expression is concealed by the smile of his mask, but his voice is gentle. “You’ve grown fond of the Avatar. I suppose it’s natural, but-”
Asami interrupts him with a vehement shake of the head. “I care about Korra, not the Avatar.”
“Interesting.” He sounded like he meant it. “So you remain dedicated to our goals?”
“I believe in our vision of an Equal World.” Asami is impassioned. “I believe that the existence of benders can only bring tyranny, and that the Avatar is an oppressive tool of supposed bender supremacy.”
“Then we don’t have a problem,” Amon reassures her. “Like you, my argument is only with the Avatar. I’m here to protect our non-bending citizens - once she’s been cleansed, she’ll be one of them.”
Relief touches the worry in Asami’s heart. “Thank you, Amon.”
Asami realises this is how she’s going to die, watching Varrick and Zhu Li eject from their mech. She's their last hope; she has to succeed, or everything is lost. So she’ll stay hovering in place, blazing her white hot circle of plasma. Hopefully she’ll complete it before Kuvira crushes her like a bug. She doesn’t have the manoeuvrability to avoid an attack, not while operating the plasma saw in the solo model.
Yes, she thinks, as she closes the loop, and a round plane of platinum falls inwards. Worth it.
As Korra’s ice breaks apart, shattering against her window, she doesn’t see the hand coming for her. The shadow that dims her world is enough to know that it is.
In her last moments, she thinks of Korra.
“Oh, man, you should have seen my firebending instructor’s face when I accidentally singed his eyebrows off. They’d been so majestic too - like walrus-yak level shaggy - and woah! ”
Asami gripped the side of the car, white-knuckled, as it lurched to an abrupt stop in front of the red traffic signal. “Eyes on the road!”
Asami would have suggested the Avatar talk a little less and concentrate a little more, but the stories of careless, reckless power make it easier to draw the line between her enemy and Korra. It’s shocking to her the levity with which the Avatar talks about the accidental destruction she’s caused - like the tale of her as a potbellied little kid, figuring out she could earthbend. It was intended to be cute, Asami was sure, from the playful little looks the Avatar kept shooting at her as she giggled at her own recounting of how she practically levelled her childhood home, but it made Asami sick. That uncontrolled power in one person - a child, no less. Could the Avatar not see how dangerous that was? How wrong?
Obviously not, with the Avatar in the driving seat, laughing thoughtlessly at her abuses of power. It makes it clear to Asami why she’s doing what she must. Doing what’s right, to make the world better and safer for everyone, even if it means that her Korra will hate her for a little while. She’ll understand eventually, when she sees how beautiful the future they’re building is.
“If you take the next right we could stop off at that bakery with the little fruit tarts,” Asami says. “I know I promised to teach you to drive, but my nerves can only take so much.”
The Avatar snorts a laugh. “Yeah, sorry, that’s completely fair. Bakery sounds good! My treat, as a thank you for the lesson. And a very earnest apology that you got landed with me as a student.”
Asami hates when the Avatar is sweet and Korra-like, when she’s trying to think of her as the former. She wishes the boundaries wouldn’t blur.
“I’m always glad to be landed with you, in any capacity,” she tells Korra, who beams back at her before flicking on the indicator to turn right.
“And hey, at least you still have your eyebrows!” The Avatar chuckles and turns the wheel, taking the car down a quiet side street.
Within seconds, two dozen green suited Equalists descend on the convertible, from shop fronts and roofs and from within cars. The onslaught is too sudden, too strong, and Korra is too distracted by Asami. The Avatar doesn’t even have a chance to fight back before she’s chi-blocked and electrocuted and bound in platinum.
She calls out Asami’s name again and again, twisting in her bindings until she sees her girlfriend is safe. With one more shock of a bola, she’s rendered unconscious. It’s all over in less than a minute.
Across town, she knows that Captain Beifong will have been captured too. The police force will be in disarray - there would be no organised help for the Avatar anytime soon.
By some miracle, she’s alive.
The miracle was Korra, of course. Hadn’t it always been?
A blast of air stronger than should have been possible - the hummingbird mech suits were specifically designed to stay in place against heavy winds - had thrown her out of the way of Kuvira’s metal arm. In the speeding blur of her peripheral vision, she’d spotted a radiant figure launching towards the mech, before crashing into the side of a building. The suit retained just enough functionality to float rather than fall to the ground below. Asami is battered and bruised, and she thinks a couple of her ribs might be broken, but she’s alive. All she can do now is watch and wait as the benders do their thing.
It’s increasingly unbearable, as the mech staggers its way down the street. Asami has never been so annoyed at something for being opaque; she wants so badly to know what’s going on inside the giant.
When the suit explodes, beams of purple light flying in all directions, she can’t hear her own screams over the din. The only proof that she’s making a noise at all is the raggedness building in her throat.
Asami runs as fast as she can towards where the mech had fallen, but she’d been flung in the opposite direction, and she’s slowed by her injuries. She pushes through the pain, needing to know Korra was okay, terrified she’d find the opposite. Before she even comes close, the world seems to rend apart - she ducks into an alley to avoid the onrush of brilliant pink-white energy. She sobs as she waits for it to recede, clutching her chest as her heart breaks over and over. It came from exactly where Korra had to be. There was no way anyone could survive that.
When the explosion fades she starts running again - her feet carry her towards the point of eruption, still, though her head screams at her to go the other way, to get as far away from the reality of Korra being dead as she physically can.
The spirit wilds and the buildings that used to surround it are completely levelled, leaving behind only a crater of vines. In the centre, there’s what can only be a spirit portal - she’s only seen black and white photos before, but there’s no doubt in her mind that it’s what she’s seeing now, twisting green and yellow lights.
She’s aware, as she roams the huge depression, that she’s not the only one looking for life among the vines. Asami’s ears echo with shouts of Korra’s name, but she’s unable to find her own voice to join them. She’s got a strange feeling she’ll break apart if she dares to speak, so she searches in silence, her heart growing heavier with each second that passes.
“The spirits have returned.”
Everyone stops to stare at Tenzin’s declaration, but Asami’s own gaze is drawn insistently to the portal.
“And so has Korra!” she exclaims, her tongue heavy and her heart finally grasping some sense of lightness as she stumbles forward. She stalls in her steps at the interruption of Kuvira’s troops, and then when Korra’s loved ones gather round her. Asami stands apart, not belonging, wishing very much that she did.
Except then Korra’s eyes, electric blue, find hers. The Avatar strides towards Asami; she gasps as Korra’s arms wrap tightly around her - partly because of the pain in her ribs, but mostly because she hasn’t been held in years, and now it’s Korra doing the holding, clinging to her like she’s a lifeline. Her sharp chin is digging into Asami’s shoulder, hair soft on her cheek.
“Thank Raava you’re safe,” Korra says, lips brushing Asami’s ear; she shivers uncontrollably, gripping her back tighter. She doesn’t know how she’ll ever let Korra go now she’s in Asami’s arms again. “I was so scared, when I blew you out of the way like that - I saw you hit the building, but I didn’t have time to go check…”
“You saved me,” Asami dares to press a kiss to Korra’s temple, where a scrape marks her skin. “Thank you.”
“I couldn’t let anything happen to you. Not when I - well, you know.”
Asami doesn’t, but she does know that right now - the battle over and wrapped in Korra’s arms - she’s the happiest she’s been in years.
Asami’s uniform doesn’t seem to fit quite right. It’s too tight around her ribs, making her chest ache. She doesn’t understand - it was perfect on her the day before yesterday, when she and Amon had gone over the plans to ambush the Avatar, making sure their timings would be just right.
There was no Avatar, master of the four elements - or three, as it was - anymore. Only Korra, though Asami hadn’t yet seen her since she was cleansed; Amon had wanted her and her father away from the scene. Apparently he wishes them to keep maintaining their facade until the Equalist control is fully consolidated.
It was a shame - she’d wanted to see her Korra made right, freed from the taint of bending.
She pulls on her mask, fitting it to her face and tying her hair back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. There’ll be heavy Equalist patrols tonight, seizing their victory over the Avatar to affirm their control of the city.
From somewhere close in the Equalist base - the underground one downtown where they’d brought the Avatar, not the war room at her father’s factory below the mansion - there’s a loud crash, sudden yelling.
Quickly, Asami slips on her gauntlet, watching the white disc at its centre power up. She turns just as the commotion reaches the corridor outside of the changing facility she’s in, ready for action.
“Where is she?” Asami’s stomach turns. She knows that voice. “Where is Asami Sato?”
There’s a crackle of electricity, and then a thump, and Asami lurches forward with Korra’s name on her tongue, but the door opens suddenly, revealing Korra, a limp green-uniformed body on the floor behind her.
She looks grey, Asami thinks, the rich warmth of her skin pallid, and her eyes sunken. It’s likely only temporary, she reassures herself, while the body adjusts to the lack of bending; most of the population get by without a connection to the elements.
“Where are you keeping Asami Sato?” Korra demands of her, not knowing who she’s speaking to. “Tell me, or I’ll make it hurt, I swear to you-”
Asami has no idea what to do - she can’t possibly raise a hand against Korra in an earnest fight. The thought makes her sick. She can’t reveal herself, not like this. She doesn't have permission from Amon, and Korra is too upset already. She needs time to adjust, to acclimatise Korra to it-
Her decision is made for her when Korra lunges forward and attacks.
Korra is a much better hand-to-hand combatant than Asami had expected. She seemed so reliant on her elements when she fought, but the blows she rains down on Asami are fast and strong and surprising. It takes all of her skill to block and evade. She thinks she might just be able to secure the upper hand if she was willing to go on the offensive, but she refuses to even attempt to hit Korra. As it is, she’s tiring quickly, always on the back foot.
Korra spins out to the side unexpectedly, and Asami is too slow to avoid the kick; her foot sinks forcefully into her kidney, sending Asami gasping. Korra’s fist lifts into the air above Asami’s cheek and then-
-stops there.
“What…?” Korra murmurs, looking at her unmoving arm, before her whole body goes stiff. She lets out an agonised scream as her taut body jerks into the air.
“Avatar Korra,” Amon says, entering the room with a sigh, his hand raised aloft like a claw. Asami didn’t understand. “Or is it just Korra now? You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? We’ve caught your little friends, by the way, the fire and earth brothers. They’ll be like you, soon.”
Some part of Asami registers that it’s Amon that has Korra writhing in pain, suspended in the air. He’s bloodbending. Amon is a bender. The betrayal rattles through Asami like a shockwave, but she can’t focus on the broader implications right now, not when Korra’s in pain.
“Stop!” she cries, too distressed to remember to hide her voice. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt Korra. She’s not a bender anymore.”
“Yet she’s still getting in my way,” Amon says, levelly, but he’s lost Korra’s loathful attention. Her gaze falls to Asami’s masked face, dread and apprehension looming large.
“Asami…?” she whispers through a grimace, face contorted in pain.
Amon laughs cruelly. Asami’s stomach drops to her feet. “Yes, your little girlfriend is one of mine. Her intel has been invaluable. And, of course, she delivered you right to me.” Korra face is torn between agony and disbelief. “You don’t believe me? Take off your mask, Miss Sato.”
She doesn’t move, can’t move under the weight of Korra’s stare. A pain wrenches through her arm after a moment, and it lifts of its own accord. Her puppeted arm rips the mask from her face roughly, pulling with it strands of hair caught in the straps.
Only now does Korra start crying, even after all the pain Amon had been putting her through. “You told me you love me.”
“I do,” Asami pleads with Korra. “I love you so much, but bending is wrong, being the Avatar is wrong. I just want to make the world better for everyone, can’t you see that?”
Korra is shaking her head, the one part of her body not locked in place by Amon’s hold. “Of course you never loved me. Fuck, I’m so stupid. Fuck!”
“I do love you, Korra please, you have to understand-”
“I don’t understand anything! At all!”
Korra lets out a howl of anguish that flays Asami alive, and suddenly she is back on her feet. Wind whips Asami’s hair loose from its bun. She can’t see anything as it covers her eyes. When the air settles, Amon is slumped against the wall, unconscious.
“You can airbend,” she whispers, as Korra turns to look at her with a face like thunder.
She feels a stream of air batter against her chest before her head hits something hard, and everything goes black.
Asami can’t quite believe she’s attending a party - a lavish wedding, no less. She keeps waiting to be sent back to a cell now the battle’s over. Nobody asks her to dance, but that’s fine, it’s as she expected. She’s content to watch and sip at her champagne. Korra disappeared a while back, though, so the scene laid out in front of her isn’t quite as lovely as it had been earlier.
Bolin slides into the seat next to her. “Hey Asami, enjoying yourself?”
She startles. “Oh - yes, thank you. The music is great.”
“Right!” he enthuses. “I’d ask you to dance but I’m kinda wiped.” He swipes the back of his hand over his forehead dramatically.
“I’m not surprised,” Asami gives a tentative laugh. Bolin’s being friendly, but she’s still not sure she has the right to tease. “I saw you tearing up the floor.”
Bolin hums happily. “I love weddings. Hey, have you seen Korra? We were meant to have a dumpling-off at the buffet table but I couldn’t see her dancing.”
“She disappeared that way with Tenzin a little while ago.” Asami gestures at the spirit portal splitting open the sky.
“I knew you’d know,” Bolin says. “How’s that going, by the way?”
“How’s what going?”
“You know, the two of you. You guys did the whole dramatic clutching at each other thing when Korra came back with Kuvira, and then I dunno, it’s like I haven’t seen you together since.”
“We haven’t been, really,” Asami says. “We’ve both been busy with different things, and it’s all… complicated. I don’t think she wants anything to do with me, really. Emotions were just running a little high.”
Bolin scoffs, but his impression is soft. “You’re a good person, Asami. A good person who was led severely, extremely, distressingly astray, sure, but a good person. We know that, Korra knows that. She cares about you. Talk to her. However that conversation goes, even if its not what you want, spirits know it needs to be had.”
“You got wise while I was in prison, Bolin,” she says, and fights the urge to wrap her arms around him, affection balling in her chest.
“I’m a man of the world now,” he says, preening, and then he hugs her so tightly she thinks that her healed ribs might crack back open. It makes her want to cry, and not because of the pain. “Thanks for helping us out, Asami. I’m gonna go find my girl. You should, too.”
“You came,” Asami says, breathing a sigh of relief. “I didn’t think you would.”
Korra hadn’t been at the trial - she’d given written testimony instead. Asami hadn’t seen her since Amon had revealed the truth, but maybe her letters had done their job of explaining - that Asami sees now that they’d been going about things the wrong way, but couldn’t Korra see why she’d had to do what she did?
Except Korra throws a stack of envelopes on the table and they’re unopened. She doesn’t sit down, but her knuckles turn white where she grips the edge of the table.
“Do you know how I got my other elements back?” Korra spits out. She doesn’t give Asami a chance to speak. “I was standing on the edge of a cliff at the South Pole, about to… If Aang hadn’t appeared, and unlocked the Avatar state for me… ” She gulps, hard, and Asami watches a fat tear slide down Korra’s nose. “I told you I’d rather die than have my bending taken Asami. And you - you-”
Korra’s words falter as she takes a shuddering breath, turning back to the door. Asami is stricken by the idea of a universe without Korra, one her own actions helped to create. That’s not the beautiful world that she wanted, wasn’t what she had been promised.
“I really do love you.” Asami’s voice comes out thin. It feels weak after Korra’s revelation, but if she’s never going to see Korra again, she badly needs her to know that. That it was real, despite how it might appear.
“Yeah?” Korra says, spinning back around, and Asami recoils as their eyes meet. She wishes there was anger in them, anything but the terrible, haunting emptiness where there should be a familiar spark. “Well, I hate you. I hope you rot.”
Korra stalks out of the room.
“Hi,” Asami says, taking a seat at Korra’s side. It hadn’t taken her long to find her. She’d always liked this spot, back when they were together.
“Hey.”
“I just wanted to say thank you, for tonight. I think the prison here took some damage, so I don’t know if I’ll be sent somewhere in another city or what, but it was really nice to have one relaxed night before I go back. Music and dancing and all that.”
“Thank Varrick, not me,” Korra waves away her thanks. “But what do you mean, before you go back? You don’t think we’re sending you back to prison after you saved the United Republic, do you? We couldn’t have done it without you.”
“But…” Asami flounders. She’d been so sure this was only a temporary respite. “I have another sixteen years on my sentence.”
“Asami, you redeemed yourself. You were willing to die to protect Republic City and a group of benders. The city will want you to help rebuild. You’ll be pardoned for sure.”
“Oh,” she says.
“You don’t sound very pleased,” Korra says, eyebrows lifting.
“I guess it’s just - I don’t really know what that means for me? I’ve spent nearly a fifth of my life in a cell. To be free…” Asami props her chin on her knees, looks out at the spirit portal. “I guess it would be different if there was anyone in the city - the world, really - who’d be happy to see me.”
“There are people,” Korra says, and Asami looks to her quickly, cheeks going pink. She cares about you, Bolin had said. Korra must catch her hopeful expression, because she twists her mouth, awkward. “I, uh. That’s not what I meant. I thought like - your colleagues or something. Varrick. Bolin, maybe even.”
“Right,” Asami says, embarrassed. “Of course.”
“It’s not that… I mean…” Korra huffs under her breath frustratedly, like she can’t figure out what she wants to say. “I think there’s just too much history for us to be friends. It’s too confusing for me - I’m sure we’ll see each other sometimes for the rebuilding efforts, but otherwise…”
Asami shouldn’t have let Bolin get her hopes up - this is what she’d expected before, after all. She’d stay and rebuild the city, obviously. Maybe afterwards she’d go start a new life in the Fire Nation, do her best to live in relative anonymity somewhere that hadn’t been touched by the Equalist movement. If she was pardoned, her frozen assets would be released. She’d have plenty to live on, if she went to become a hermit or something.
She does need to say something to Korra first, though, if this is the last real conversation they’ll have.
“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I just have to say - I love you, Korra. I never stopped. I’m so sorry for everything I did that made sure that that could never be enough.”
There’s silence for a long while, both women staring fixedly at the horizon.
“You don’t love me,” Korra says eventually, but her voice is not only her own. It rings with an ancient timbre as her eyes glow. She shakes her head as Asami shies away, unable to help her reflexive fear in the face of the power on display. “You only ever loved a part of me, Asami. If even that, I guess. I don’t know who you had to pretend I was to care for me, but Korra and the Avatar were never two separate things. You hated me. ”
“No!” Asami refutes. The concept of hating Korra is anathema to her. She couldn’t, could never. Had never. “I didn’t. I just… hated. And I was scared, and all twisted up. I loved you. I love you.”
Korra looks at her for a long time, breathtaking in her blue dress and glowing with the energy of the Avatar state. “Prove it, then.”
For a long moment, Asami doesn’t know what Korra is asking her for. Not until Korra starts to turn away, beautiful face creasing in a tight frown, does Asami surge forward and capture Korra’s cheeks between her hands.
“I love you, Avatar Korra,” she swears, using a title that hasn’t escaped her lips since she met the Avatar and decided she cared for Korra. She looks into bright white eyes and finds soft lips with her own. Asami closes her eyes, and Korra’s radiance - the evidence of her unassailable power - lights up the thin membrane of her eyelids in hazy red. She basks in the warmth of Korra’s mouth, the softness of her skin, and the thrumming energy beneath her fingertips. It’s been four years since she last kissed Korra. It’s like finding water after being lost in a desert.
Eventually, the glow behind her eyes dims. She opens her own to see that Korra’s blue has returned. Her expression is a confused mix of smile and frown.
“If we do this, it’s going to be difficult,” Korra says, warningly.
The fact that there’s even an if - a slight chance for something with Korra - devastates Asami with unexpected, joyful hope. “It will,” she breathes.
“I still don’t fully trust you.”
It stings, but… “Completely understandable.”
“And other people will hate that we’re trying.”
“I’ll prove myself,” Asami swears. “To you, to them.”
Korra turns her face away for a moment, gazing at the horizon. “You really did a number on me, Asami-“ she’s quick to anticipate and rebuff Asami’s apologies- “I don’t mean…not the betrayal stuff, though, yeah, that too obviously. Just. How much I loved you. I don’t think I could ever feel that way about anyone else.”
Asami feels brave enough to take Korra’s hand, pulling it into her lap. “Do you think that maybe - one day - you could feel it again?”
“I think I’m already halfway there,” Korra admits. Asami’s stomach turns in twisting somersaults. She can’t take her eyes off Korra’s face, searching for a lie, some cruel trick. There’s nothing, only the green glow of the spirit portal turning the blue of her eyes a strange, ethereal teal. “I think we should go away together for a bit, just the two of us. Hash things out properly now we aren’t at war.” Her gaze flickers back to the horizon for a moment before finding Asami’s, heavy with intent. “I’m thinking maybe the Spirit World.”
It’s a test, Asami thinks, or at least a challenge, as much as the kiss in the Avatar state. Embrace it, Korra is daring her. Embrace me, all that I am.
“Sounds perfect,” Asami says. The Avatar’s soft smile matches her own.