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Lin Beifong isn't the type of woman who you'd normally bring flowers, Tenzin reflects. Still, he's doing it anyway; it's the end of Lin's first week as the new Chief of Police for Republic City, and if she doesn't care for the flowers themselves, maybe she'll at least appreciate the gesture.
Bouquet in hand, Tenzin strides across the darkened bullpen and raps lightly on the Chief's office door before letting himself in. Lin is seated at her desk, bent intently over some paperwork. She looks tired but determined rather than defeated, and Tenzin smiles with relief. Lin reluctantly tears her eyes away from the files in front of her, mouth quirking up at the corner when she sees him.
"Flowers?" she asks, eyebrow cocked skeptically.
"My congratulations for making it through your first week. How are you liking life as Chief Beifong?"
She makes a face. "I'll never be able to hear that title and think of anyone but my mother."
"It's quite the family tradition."
Lin rises and fetches an empty teapot from the shelf behind her, a relic from the last Chief of Police. She comes to stand beside Tenzin, shoulders lightly brushing his, and deposits the bouquet in its makeshift vase.
"Thank you for the flowers. Even if they are a bit of an obvious choice." She rubs at her nose, smirking.
"You wound me!" Tenzin pretends to be mortally offended as he straightens her haphazard arrangement. Feeling playful, he glances sideways at Lin and slyly wiggles his fingers over the flowers, letting a barely-perceptible air current whisk a puff of pollen towards his girlfriend-in-chief. She turns away from him suddenly with a couple of the tiniest, most kittenish sneezes he has ever heard.
Tenzin bursts out laughing.
"What's so funny?" she growls, rubbing her nose again and spearing him with the pale green glare that both intimidates him and drives him wild.
"Nothing. It's just that I didn't expect your sneezes to be so…feminine."
"So what, now that I'm the Chief of Police it means I can't be feminine?"
"Certainly not." Tenzin slides an arm around her waist, knowing he'd better defuse things quickly. "Being a badass and taking down the city's criminal element is in no way incompatible with femininity."
"Damn right," she says gruffly, but a smile is once again playing at her mouth.
Perfectionist that he is, Tenzin continues to fiddle with the flowers one-handedly until they're just right. Suddenly inspired, Lin reaches out with her seismic sense and smiles. There is just enough dirt in the dust coating the office floor that she can Earthbend the particles - which she does, sending an irritating puff of dust toward Tenzin.
The effect is immediate: a stricken, helpless expression momentarily passes over Tenzin's face before he lets loose with an unconstrained "HAAASCHOO!!" that propels him several feet into the air and scatters every petal in the carefully-arranged bouquet.
Lin is frozen in shock for several seconds, then flings her head back and howls with laughter.
"Lin!" he splutters, cheeks reddening with embarrassment. "I'm an Airbender!" Flowers are strewn across her desk and half the office. Lin is breathless with laughter and after a moment, Tenzin finds that he can't help but join in.
"See," he points out, a little defensively. "I knew that flowers would cheer you up."