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FUTURE INDUSTRIES BANQUET: TODAY

“So,” said Asami.

Mr. and Mrs. Varrick were very pointedly not making eye contact. Or, to be more specific, Zhu Li was very pointedly not responding to her husband’s attempts to make eye contact, despite Varrick’s increasingly desperate puppy-dog eyes. Were the situation less dire and/or patently ridiculous, Asami might have laughed, but her nerves were frayed and her temper was short. “Asami,” said Zhu Li, her voice and her face as implacably deadly as tempered steel, “I would like to formally apologize for the fire damage caused to your family’s perfectly lovely banquet hall.”

“Oh, I’m not asking for an apology from you,” Asami began. “This isn’t at all your doing—”

“We’ll be here all night if you think my husband has the intellectual capacity necessary to understand why everyone in this room is furious with him,” said Zhu Li flatly. With that, she turned on her heel, stalking out of the room in a deceptively demure flutter of expensive silk.

“Zhu Li, don’t be like that!” Varrick burst out, surprisingly aggrieved for – well – Varrick. He made a move to follow her, but Korra caught his arm. “Oh, come on, Avatar!” he snapped, trying in vain to wrench his arm free. “I helped save all of you from Kuvira, and Zaheer, and, and, giant kites, and this is how you repay me?”

“Do you even work out?” said Korra with mild interest. “Your arms are like tiny twigs. You know your wife could probably bench-press five of you, right?”

“Please just let him go after Zhu Li,” said Bolin very tiredly. “He has separation anxiety when she’s not there. He’s going to start crying in like five minutes if you don’t.”

“I am not going to – I do not have – listen here, Bolin, what happens in the Earth Kingdom stays in the Earth Kingdom,” snarled Varrick, “and I’ll thank you to remember that I thought the love of my life had just left me to die alone at the hands of Kuvira!”

“Technically, dear, they were at your own hands,” said Zhu Li from directly outside the room. She still sounded pretty angry, but Asami thought she could detect a slight tinge of amusement. “No one asked you to make that bomb—”

“Zhu Li, come back in here so we can sort this out!” But Zhu Li’s footsteps were already retreating. “You see what you did?” said Varrick to the room at large. “All of you are ruining a perfectly wonderful romantic gesture.”

There was a sudden silence.

“Romantic gesture?” said Korra disbelievingly.

“Romantic gesture?” said Bolin, sounding almost impressed.

“I hate this guy,” said Mako into his hands.

Another rustle of silk from the door indicated that Zhu Li had entered the room again. With a kind of resigned exhaustion that made a lot of sense for the person in the room who had known Varrick the longest, she said, “Iknik. Please explain to me and to everyone in this room how you deliberately setting the entire banquet hall ablaze constitutes a romantic gesture.”

Varrick let out an indignant huff. “Zhu Li. You didn’t think I did this all on purpose, did you?”

Zhu Li didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.

“You’re my wife.”

Zhu Li raised an eyebrow.

Varrick deflated. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. Asami, who had never seen Varrick sheepish, exchanged a bemused look with Korra. “It maaaaybe didn’t go the way that I was hoping it would.”

FUTURE INDUSTRIES BANQUET: FOUR YEARS AGO

“Would you look at the architecture?” Varrick said delightedly, swinging his arm around in a grand gesture and nearly knocking Zhu Li’s bun loose. Adjusting her glasses with a quietly exasperated huff, she stepped back, letting Varrick and Mei walk ahead. “Look up, Zhu Li, can you see it? The ceiling to this ballroom opens up – the mechanism is set to open it at precisely eleven-thirty every night. They’ve got glass paneling that can slide back so that they’re able to light fireworks from inside the ballroom. Can you imagine cutting a rug while – Zhu Li, you’re falling behind. Mei, get off my arm for a sec, I’m trying to talk to Zhu Li.” Impatiently, he shook his date free, tugging Zhu Li up past her.

Zhu Li mentally marked Mei down as yet another recipient of the Sorry-My-Boss-Is-An-Idiot gift basket. She still didn’t understand why he insisted she accompany him on dates. “Sir, you have someone to talk to,” she said. “You have Mei. Why would you invite her here if you aren’t going to show this place to her?”

“One,” said Varrick, “because you still stubbornly refuse to dance with me. Two—”

“I don’t dance.”

“Two,” said Varrick, ignoring her entirely, “because you haven’t been here before either, and it’s not like Mei’s going to be around all that long after tonight anyway.”

“Sir, she can hear you.”

“I know.” Varrick turned a big grin on Mei, who was watching them both with narrowed eyes. “Listen, Zhu Li, friends are fine and all, but assistants? Assistants are forever.”

“Didn’t the last three assistants before me all quit after less than two weeks with you, sir?”

“You haven’t,” said Varrick, as though this should be obvious. “Stands to reason that you’re around for the long haul if you didn’t quit when I accidentally set your hair on fire that one time, right?”

“You set your assistant’s hair on fire?” said Mei disbelievingly.

“Mei!” said Varrick with genuine surprise. “I forgot you were here. Zhu Li, grab me some hors d’oeurves, won’t you? I’m starving.”

“And some for Mei, too, sir?”

“Mei can get her own assistant,” said Varrick dismissively. Mei was staring daggers at him.

Zhu Li spent most of the walk to the buffet table attempting to figure out why, exactly, Varrick had invited Mei if only to ignore her entirely. None of the answers she came up with made any particular sense, which she was resignedly beginning to get used to as part of being Varrick’s assistant. The man was a walking contradiction, and blissfully unaware of it. He’d probably die in two seconds without his money and his multitude of carefully-woven connections.

She snuck a glance over her shoulder at Varrick, who seemed to have somehow – miraculously – softened Mei up again. Hanging off his arm, she was laughing at a joke he was making, tipping her head towards his and batting her lashes.

“ZHU LI!” Varrick yelled, and hit Mei directly in the face as he gesticulated for Zhu Li to come back over with the food. “WHAT’RE YOU DOING, JUST STANDING THERE?”

Rubbing her nose, Mei’s eyes darted between Zhu Li and Varrick, then narrowed. Tugging at Varrick’s shoulder, she whispered something in his ear that made him turn beet red – and proceeded to pull him onto the dance floor.

Zhu Li exhaled, exasperated. Honestly. Mei wasn’t the first girl to try and emphasize her status as Varrick’s date due to some kind of misplaced jealousy, and she wouldn’t be the last. If Varrick had enough emotional intelligence to stop bringing Zhu Li on dates, most of his actual dates wouldn’t leave thinking that he was madly in love with her. Republic City socialites never seemed to gather the nuance to assistant-boss relationships, and they were all so horribly insecure about not having enough of Varrick’s attention that they never stopped to consider what a full-time job it was to actually have all of it.

Finally reaching the buffet table, she artfully selected a mixture of brightly colored miniature pastries and actually nutritious miniature sandwiches, dividing them neatly between two plates (because even if Varrick didn’t know her place, Zhu Li wouldn’t let him forget it). Carefully balancing the plates on one arm, Zhu Li poured two champagne glasses, then snagged an empty tray from a passing waiter with an assertive nod. Looking like she knew what she was doing got her very far with waitstaff.

Varrick was nowhere to be found.

Of course. Zhu Li let out an exasperated huff, scanning the dance floor – but it would be positively impossible to maneuver her way through dancing couples with a food tray, and she didn’t intend to risk it. She stepped back towards the buffet table again, deciding that she would hand Varrick his food whenever he remembered that he’d asked for some.

A flutter of pink caught her eyes – the exact same color as Mei’s scarf. Slowly, Zhu Li turned towards the entrance to the Satos’ lush back gardens, watching with a strange, sinking feeling in her chest as Varrick and Mei stole away. Not once had Varrick done something so deliberate and pointed as giving her a fake task to keep her busy – and certainly not for a girl who he was currently taking out on the town for the very first time. She supposed she’d understand it if it had been one of the regulars – Chiyo, maybe, they’d always gotten on surprisingly well – but a fortune-hunting nobody who didn’t like anything about Varrick but his money and prestige?

Well. Zhu Li hadn’t known that that was his type.

Because it was Zhu Li’s job to adjust to Varrick’s general unpredictability, she set the tray carefully down on an empty corner of the buffet table. It wasn’t particularly Zhu Li’s job to feel this upset about Varrick being Varrick, though, and she glared resentfully at the sandwiches as though it was their fault she was saddled with an incompetent ditz of a boss who clearly had no idea that his assistant had any feelings of any kind. It wasn’t as though she minded Varrick going on dates – if she minded that, she would have had to quit months ago. It was really just that she didn’t at all like Varrick treating her like she was some kind of inconvenience to be fooled with false tasks when he had invited her here in the first place. It was unprofessional of him. It was—

“Zhu Li!” Varrick raced up to her, closely followed by a seething Mei. He was still a little red in the face, and there was a smear of lipstick across his mouth. “What the hell are you doing? Mei and I have been waiting for our food for ten minutes! Surely it doesn’t take that long to slap together a tray of something-or-other and get going?”

Zhu Li stared at Varrick. Then she stared at the lipstick. Then she stared at Mei, who looked like she was on the verge of committing a violent crime. “Sir,” she said slowly, doing her best to try and hand Varrick the material to salvage the situation. “Didn’t you and Mei want some alone time? I assumed that you only told me to go get food so that the two of you could spend some time together without me there.”

“Oh,” said Varrick. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Zhu Li, tilting his head like she was some kind of complex mathematic equation. Slowly, she saw the spark of comprehension in his eyes, and her heart very nearly stopped. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. “Zhu Li,” he said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I see what this is. You don’t have to hide from me.”

“Don’t I, sir?” said Zhu Li as calmly as she could manage.

“No, of course you don’t,” said Varrick with feeling. Mei was clenching her fists so hard that her knuckles had gone white. “Zhu Li, listen to me – if you need some time off to enjoy the party, all you have to do is ask.”

Both Zhu Li and Mei turned to look disbelievingly at Varrick.

“What,” said Zhu Li.

“Is there something wrong with you?” said Mei through her teeth.

Varrick was not listening at all. Zhu Li, who was a professional through and through, was doing a very good job of hiding her struggle to not burst out laughing. “You don’t have to make up some kind of crazy excuse for not bringing me the food I asked you to bring me,” Varrick continued airily. “I brought you here because I wanted you to have some fun, Zhu Li – and usually, you seem to have more fun bringing me food than dancing. And besides which, Mei was the one who dragged me out to the gardens.”

It was the way he said that last sentence that gave Zhu Li pause. His eyes on her were quiet and serious in a way that didn’t quite match how lightly he spoke. He’s trying to apologize, she realized, feeling the same kind of endeared bemusement one did when a very young child made a questionable attempt at walking. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Varrick. He was still a little pink around the ears. “Shows how much you know, huh?”

Above them, the creak of the roof opening signified the beginning of the fireworks show. “Oh, sir,” said Zhu Li hastily, well aware that Varrick’s infuriated date was still hovering bemusedly in the background, “don’t you want to—”

“Dance?” said Varrick, a slightly manic twinkle in his eye. Zhu Li, correctly predicting what he would try to do, stepped back into the throng. “Oh no,” said Varrick, deftly maneuvering through the crowd to reach Zhu Li (who had carefully positioned herself between four dangerously whirling couples). “I think I’m entitled to some compensation, considering how long you kept me waiting for those crustless sandwiches I like so much.”

“Sir, I was laboring under the apprehension—”

“A misapprehension,” said Varrick, his playful expression dropping.

Now it was Zhu Li’s turn to stubbornly ignore Varrick. “—that you and Mei—”

“Oh, come on,” said Varrick disbelievingly. “I’ve known Mei for maybe two hours total. You really think she’s so special that I’m gonna throw over my best assistant on fake errands just to get alone time with her?”

From behind Varrick, there was a muffled sob.

“Sir,” said Zhu Li, exasperated. “Are you really going to ruin your date’s evening in some misguided attempt to strong-arm me into dancing?” He really was as impossible to manage as a small child. No, worse – one of those circus animals he was always talking about. Ridiculous, and she could never tell what he was going to decide to do.

“Yes,” said Varrick. He was looking at her with a strange intensity.

Zhu Li let out a furious huff and pushed past him, catching Mei’s arm before she made her dramatic, emotional getaway. “Listen to me,” she said very clearly. “You are a lovely young woman who can do much better than an idiot like that, do you understand me? I made my bed, I have to lie in it, but you can leave and he won’t even notice that you’re gone.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Mei wailed. “He’s spent this whole night talking about nothing but you! Oh, Zhu Li did this and Zhu Li did that and Zhu Li has teeth that are sharper than his pocketknife – you’re just some plain little Earth Kingdom bumpkin who can make a nice cup of tea, and he talks about you like you’re the President of Republic City!”

Zhu Li had dealt with quite a lot of slights regarding her appearance from Varrick’s extremely attractive girlfriends. She supposed this would be bothersome if they didn’t also find the prospect of being Varrick’s committed girlfriend attractive, which she felt was empirical evidence that anything they had to say about the way the world worked wasn’t of use to her whatsoever. “Mm,” she said noncommittally. “Well. Varrick does tend to prioritize work over romance. I suppose you’re mistaking his appreciation of my talents – which, mind you, he hasn’t breathed a word of to me – as some kind of proof that he’s romantically interested in me and stringing you along, which is patently ridiculous.” She exhaled, hard. It didn’t come out as much like a laugh as she’d meant it to. “Can you even imagine me at his side?”

“I don’t have to,” said Mei bitterly. “You haven’t left it.”

They were then interrupted by Varrick, who grabbed Mei’s arm and towed her off into a corner. Zhu Li, thoroughly sick of having to do damage control in the midst of a perfectly lovely gala, made her way to the center of the dance floor, looking quietly up at the fireworks. Bizarrely, the large, multicolored explosions seemed to be calming her down.

“Hey,” said Varrick, and tugged at her sleeve.

Zhu Li whirled and very nearly flipped him over.

“Spirits, Zhu Li—”

“Sir, I’ve told you not to sneak up on me!”

“Well, I’ve told you that you’re not in the Dai Li, so there’s no need to act like it! They wouldn’t take you, anyway,” Varrick added sourly, “you can’t earthbend, and that means everything to the Dai Li, you know—”

“Sir,” said Zhu Li, “is there any particular point to this?” Something else occurred to her. “And where exactly is Mei?”

“Mei…” Varrick trailed off. His cheeks went a little pink, but he seemed less excitably smitten and more quietly angry. “Mei had to leave,” he finally said. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“She certainly seemed to, sir, before you started telling her all about me,” said Zhu Li.

“Oh, you know women,” said Varrick, his blush suddenly deepening. “They hear you say one thing about your assistant and they blow it all out of proportion. Hey, you wanna dance?”

“No. Sir, what did you say about me?”

“Nothing. Wanna dance?”

“No, because my answer hasn’t changed in the last two sec—aah!” said Zhu Li, taken entirely by surprise as Varrick grabbed her hand and tugged her neatly into his arms. Her hands were braced against his chest, and this close, she could smell his ridiculously expensive cologne. “Sir!” she said reprovingly. “This isn’t any dance I know!”

“Well, if I hold you any more loosely, you’ll get away,” Varrick explained, as though this should be obvious. “This is how I trapped seals when I was growing up, you know.”

Zhu Li didn’t even know how to begin to unpack that statement. It was becoming abundantly clear that getting her to dance was Varrick’s main focus of the night, and any attempts to dissuade him would likely lead to him pursuing his goal with more intensity. She really didn’t want that. “Sir, I can’t dance—”

“So follow my lead,” Varrick suggested. “You do that already, don’t you? This is just like being my assistant, but with music.”

Being Varrick’s assistant usually entailed comforting a lot of crying dates and diffusing a lot of extremely ridiculous situations. At no point in time did it ever involve following his lead. Besides which, Zhu Li didn’t at all like the thought of letting herself dance to slow, romantic music with Varrick, for a very particular and unnamed reason that she refused to divulge to anyone at all. Deciding to make this as difficult as possible for Varrick (which he definitely deserved, after the night he had put Mei through), she slumped, boneless, in his arms, falling limply against his chest and forcing him to hold her up.

This was a mistake. Entirely losing his balance, Varrick collapsed to the ground, Zhu Li landing solidly on top of him. “Oh, great,” he said, glaring up at the fireworks. “I try and do one nice thing for you and how do you repay me? You try to kill me.”

“I’m not trying to kill you, sir.”

“I could have you prosecuted for this. You tried to—” Varrick’s breath hitched in a strange and not entirely unfamiliar way. “Zhu Li,” he said, in a tone of voice that she had never heard him use before, “is that – jasmine shampoo you’ve been using, or something? Your hair smells like that flower garden I was just in.”

Zhu Li drew in a sharp breath and jumped to her feet, yanking Varrick along with her. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks, saw Varrick’s incredulous smile at her blush – because by some goddamn miracle, she had managed to not blush around him for nearly two years – and resolutely decided that dancing was worlds better than continuing this conversation. Wordlessly, she stuck out her hand.

Varrick stared at it like it was some kind of complicated time bomb. “…what.”

“Sir,” said Zhu Li through her teeth. “Do. You. Want. To. Dance.”

She was all but expecting him to say no. She was certain to her bones that part of the reason he’d been needling her was because he knew she’d never say yes. This was perhaps why it came as a surprise to see Varrick’s little grin, and to feel him carefully lace her fingers with hers. “Yeah, okay,” he said, tugging gently at her hand until she stepped just a little bit closer. His other hand moved to rest lightly on the small of her back. “Move with me, all right? Try to follow the rhythm.”

Zhu Li looked carefully past him, up at the fireworks, and focused on moving in tandem with Varrick. It was uncomfortably less difficult than she’d hoped for. She was fairly attuned to him, after such a long time working by his side, and it was fairly easy to translate that into dancing. The rhythm of the music was entirely lost on her, but the rhythm of Varrick – well. That wasn’t as hard.

“You really like these fireworks, huh?” said Varrick, almost to himself.

“Hmm?” said Zhu Li.

“Nothing,” said Varrick. A burst of color lit up his face, accentuating the blue in his eyes. “What did you say?” he said suddenly, his ears going pink.

“What?” said Zhu Li.

“You said – my eyes,” said Varrick, stumbling a little over his words.

What? Oh. Well, she was bound to slip up occasionally, and she’d certainly double down if she had to. “The colors in that last firework,” said Zhu Li. “They accentuated the blue of your eyes. Sir,” she added pointedly.

“…okay,” said Varrick. He looked a little spellbound.

Zhu Li would probably never know what was going on in Varrick’s head. But this moment – in this light – it didn’t belong to her, and certainly someday Varrick would find the perfect arm-candy trophy wife to dance with him at these things, but it was…nice. Unbidden, a small smile stole across her face. “You were thoroughly awful to Mei, sir,” she informed him. “I’m going to have to send her a gift basket tomorrow.”

“Yeah, you do that,” said Varrick vaguely. Absently, his thumb stroked the small of her back, sending a shiver up her spine.

FUTURE INDUSTRIES BANQUET: TWO HOURS AGO

“Oh!” Zhu Li tilted her head back, smiling up at the starlit sky. “They still have that old ceiling from years ago. Do you remember how excited you were when you saw it for the first time, Iknik? I think Asami said that they don’t really use it for fireworks shows, so it doesn’t open anymore, but it’s still—”

Varrick wasn’t retaining a single word she’d said. He was thinking about the first time he’d been here, years ago, with Zhu Li dressed determinedly in the clothing of an assistant on the job and her hair tied in a somehow rigid bun. His wife’s hair was loose around her shoulders, now, and she was wearing a luminescent blue dress that perfectly matched his own dapper number, her fingers laced tightly with his. Without a word, he tugged roughly on her hand, pulling her closer to press an awkward kiss to her temple.

“Iknik,” chided Zhu Li, lovingly smoothing down his tie. “Behave yourself. I need to maintain some degree of professional decorum when it comes to public appearances.”

“Hmm,” said Varrick. His throat was tight when he looked at his wife. His wife. It had been barely three months and it never stopped being incredible to say. He’d hated the thought of a wife when it was some glitzy socialite to take to parties, but now it was Zhu Li and having Zhu Li as a wife was more than he deserved. More than anybody deserved, really. His wife was so beautiful.

Zhu Li stopped, looking up at him with a strangely touched expression. She always seemed to know what was going on in his head, because she stood on tiptoe to press a firm kiss to his mouth. “If you’re the one being reticent at parties, there’s seriously something wrong,” she informed him, bumping her forehead against his.

Varrick let out a shaky laugh. “I was just thinking about that time we were here with Mei,” he said, which was kind of the truth.

Zhu Li frowned. “Who? Oh, Mei. I sent that woman three gift baskets just on principle. You were awful to her, you know,” she added, looping her arms around his neck, but she didn’t sound all that mad about it.

“Well, I was in love with somebody else, and she was hanging all over me like she thought she could be the future Mrs. Varrick,” Varrick pointed out.

“You were in love with somebody else?” said Zhu Li, arching an eyebrow. “From what I recall, you were an unattached billionaire on a date with a new woman every week.”

“I invited you along every single time—”

“To your dates. With other women.”

“Excuse me for being emotionally unavailable,” said Varrick somewhat dramatically.

“I have excused you,” said Zhu Li. Her mouth twitched. “I married you.” And then her face broke open and she laughed, one of those shy, delightful little laughs that Varrick had only started to witness when she stopped being his assistant and started being Mrs. Varrick. His heart did a backflip. “Really, Iknik,” she said. “Take some accountability here.”

“Now, if I recall, there were two of us, and you know I’d have thrown over any girl if you’d so much as given me the time of day—”

“I do now! I didn’t then!” But Zhu Li’s cheeks had gone delightfully pink, which in turn inspired Varrick to kiss her again. She pulled away, laughing. “Iknik, we haven’t even said hello to any of the guests yet—”

“HELLO, GUESTS,” Varrick yelled at the top of his lungs. “ASAMI, NO ONE’S IN THE GARDENS RIGHT NOW, RIGHT?”

Asami’s eyes landed on the two of them. Wordlessly, she buried her face in her girlfriend’s shoulder. “HI, VARRICK!” yelled Bolin from next to them, waving frantically and theatrically as though they were separated by an enormous river.

Varrick had a plan and he was determined to enact it. “All right, honey, to the gardens,” he said, already nudging Zhu Li through the crowds.

Zhu Li dug her heels in. Pointedly, she said, “The gardens where you and Mei—?”

Belatedly, Varrick realized that this particular plan had a particularly glaring flaw. “Uh,” he said, fighting down the impulse to toss out his usual random excuse. As his assistant, Zhu Li had gritted her teeth and tolerated his refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing – but it didn’t seem right anymore to do that with his wife. “Listen, I…kind of have a surprise for you. You know, to make up for all that stuff with Mei, and—” Thinking of all the dates he’d dragged Zhu Li into awkwardly third-wheeling, he had to wince. “Some other stuff.”

Zhu Li’s eyes widened. The anger in her face dissolved. “Really?”

“Yeah, but—” Varrick bounced nervously from foot to foot. “You have to give me some time to set up.”

“I—”

“Without supervision.”

Now Zhu Li just looked genuinely wary. “Iknik,” she said, “if you set something on fire—”

“I’m not gonna set something on fire.”

“Iknik Blackstone Varrick,” said Zhu Li, “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you when you say that you have a surprise. The last time you said you had a surprise, the fire was so out of control that we got banned from the Fire Nation. The Fire Nation.”

“I’m not gonna set something on fire, Zhu Li,” said Varrick, impatient to get to the part of the night where Zhu Li was lit up by multicolored heart-shaped fireworks on the dance floor. “And besides, if I was gonna set something on fire, why would I tell you? That would ruin the surprise!”

This had been intended as a joke. The look his wife was leveling at him made him think that it hadn’t exactly gone over all that great. “No fire, Iknik,” said Zhu Li. “We’re on thin enough ice with Asami as it is.”

“No fire, sweetheart,” Varrick promised her, and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. Reluctantly, Zhu Li smiled. “Go wait in the gardens until I give you the all clear, okay?”

Rolling her eyes a little (but still smiling), Zhu Li obliged.

Honestly, thought Varrick, strolling casually over to the crate he had paid an exorbitant sum of money to get smuggled into Future Industries. (He knew for a fact that Asami wouldn’t trust him with a sparkler, let alone industrial-grade, bright blue fireworks, and he had no intention of asking her for permission until his plan had gone off without a hitch.) Me, set something on fire? That whole mess in the Fire Nation had been before he’d married the Republic City President and established himself as a happily kept man. It was easy to jeopardize his reputation, but he’d sooner be eaten by a platypus-bear than do anything that might reflect unfavorably on Zhu Li’s political career. She was stellar. He’d never seen anything like her.

His plan had been carefully orchestrated: he was going to sneak a whole bunch of fireworks into Asami’s banquet hall, time them to go off exactly ten minutes after the ceiling had opened up for the fireworks show, and tug Zhu Li onto the dance floor just in time to recreate the fireworks of four years ago, when she’d told him that she liked his eyes. (Not exactly, but when you worked with Zhu Li, you got used to reading between the lines.) It was going to be sickeningly romantic, one of those things that would make her do that adorable little smile/eyeroll hybrid that he loved more than absolutely anything. He was going to knock her socks off.

Varrick opened the last box, hit the last timer, and strolled out to the garden.

Zhu Li was standing next to a particularly gorgeous array of flowers with a deep purple blossom cupped in her hands, smiling down at it with a level of absent fondness that Varrick suddenly found himself absurdly jealous of. He cleared his throat, and she turned, tugging the blossom free of the vine to tuck it carefully into his hair instead. “I thought it would suit you,” she said. “Seeing as you’re wearing Water Tribe colors, and all that. Is your ostentatious and terrifying romantic gesture entirely ready, sweetheart?”

“Heh,” said Varrick, doing his best to remind himself that he was a strong and competent man who did not have to melt into a puddle of mush every time his tiny and adorable wife called him sweetheart. “The – ahem.” He cleared his throat again, grateful that the moonlight hid his blush. Zhu Li’s eyes sparkled; damn it, she could tell anyway. “Yeah, it’s ready.” The first round of fireworks would have started about a minute ago, if his calculations were correct. “You wanna come in?”

Zhu Li tucked her arm into his as they stepped back inside, bumping her head companionably against his shoulder. However, when they saw what had happened to the banquet hall, she stiffened. “Varrick,” she said, in that particularly dangerous tone of voice that meant he was really in trouble. “Why is everything in this banquet hall on fire?”

Slowly, Varrick looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling which – uh oh, he was remembering now – Zhu Li had said Asami didn’t open for fireworks shows anymore. The ceiling which one of his fireworks had hit directly, sending glass and debris raining down on everything, and messing up the trajectory of all the other fireworks. Which were all going off at random, setting everything else on fire.

“Uh,” said Varrick, and cast about for something to say that wouldn’t absolutely ruin what had been shaping up to be a beautiful night. “So maybe I should listen a little bit more when you’re talking, huh, Zhu Li? Who’d have guessed?”

This was perhaps the worst thing he could have said.

FUTURE INDUSTRIES BANQUET: TODAY

“…I don’t believe this,” said Asami. It was hard to be angry at a series of events that was essentially just Varrick being monumentally stupid. “I – Varrick, I am never inviting you anywhere again. Spirits.”

“So, wait,” said Korra, finally letting go of Varrick. “Your plan was completely safe, it just didn’t work because…you didn’t know that Asami stopped opening the ceiling for fireworks shows, like, two years ago?”

“He could have just looked up,” said Asami disbelievingly. “Or maybe, I don’t know, actually asked me before smuggling in fireworks?”

Zhu Li was pressing her fingers to her mouth, her face hidden behind a curtain of hair. Her shoulders were shaking. “Iknik,” she said, and exploded into a fit of bubbly laughter. “You complete and total idiot!”

As soon as it became clear that Zhu Li was laughing, Varrick’s entire body relaxed. Crossing the room to take his wife’s hands in his, he said very earnestly, “I am sorry, Zhu Li.”

Zhu Li started laughing even harder.

“Yeah, you – you actually have to apologize to people that aren’t her,” said Mako very tiredly. “You know that, right? You can’t just apologize to Zhu Li every time you do something that affects other people.”

“Oh, we’ll pay for damages,” said Varrick, waving a hand in Asami’s direction. “And I already apologized to Asami anyway. I’m apologizing to Zhu Li because I didn’t listen when she said that the ceiling wouldn’t open, and because I ruined a perfectly excellent romantic gesture.”

“Iknik, I don’t ask you to do any of these things!”

“Well, I don’t ask you to be the prettiest, smartest, cutest President in all of Republic City, but you do it anyway, don’t you?” Varrick tapped Zhu Li’s nose, beaming, then turned to Asami. “We’ll pay double,” he said. “Property damages, and…should we call it psychological damages?”

Despite herself, Asami was more than a little bit amused herself. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t imagine Korra or Bolin coming up with a harebrained romantic gesture – only that the level of damage they could cause wasn’t anything in terms of the absolute chaos Varrick wreaked on a weekly basis. And he had apologized. That was kind of a step up.

Of course, she wasn’t going to let him get off that easy.

“Triple,” she said, without smiling.

Varrick winced, glancing nervously back at Zhu Li.

“You would think that you’d learn,” said Zhu Li reprovingly. “I am sorry, Asami. I’ll keep an eye on him next time. No more romantic gestures outside of our own house, Iknik.”

“Zhu Li,” said Varrick, sounding positively appalled. “Zhu Li, we’re going to be married for the rest of our lives. Are you telling me—”

“I am not having you blow up someone’s home. We’re lucky that Asami likes me enough to forgive you.”

“Wh – Asami – Asami, tell me you didn’t forgive me on Zhu Li’s account,” said Varrick indignantly.

“Oh, I absolutely forgave you on Zhu Li’s account,” said Asami as seriously as she could. “Marriage has made you manageable, Varrick.”

“I still don’t like him,” grumbled Mako. Korra, who was visibly biting back a laugh of her own, patted his shoulder.

FUTURE INDUSTRIES BANQUET: TWO HOURS LATER

“Ridiculous,” said Zhu Li, and settled comfortably into her husband’s side as their chauffeur began to drive. It really was nice, not having to do the driving anymore. This was always where she’d wanted to be, anyway.

“And yet you forgive me,” said Varrick, kissing her hand and smiling fatuously down at her. It was an excellent look on him.

“I forgive you,” said Zhu Li, “because you said it was your fault for not listening, and because your silly mistake was all thanks to being too distracted by domestic bliss to pay attention to anything that didn’t have to do with me. Though I’m not at all pleased about what happened with the fireworks, I certainly can’t be upset about the attention.” Smiling slightly, she chose her next words with precision. “And I know I can’t really make you promise to not make grand romantic gestures, or to not set off fireworks in enclosed spaces—”

“Obviously not—”

“—but,” said Zhu Li, “if you do want me to notice how lovely and blue your eyes are, you don’t need to set off fireworks anymore to get me to say it.” She kissed his nose. “I can just tell you now, sweetheart. Your eyes are the prettiest blue I’ve ever seen.”

“Hmm,” sighed Varrick, and tipped his head towards hers. “Do you wanna know what I told Mei?”

“What did you tell Mei?” Zhu Li murmured.

Varrick grinned. “She started talking about how she was sick of playing second fiddle to a girl who wasn’t half as pretty as her, and I told her that she needed to get her eyes checked, because you were prettier in your cheap beige nightdress than she could ever be in her expensive silk gown.”

Zhu Li’s smile slid off her face. She stared at him. Fighting down laughter, she said, “You did not – you did not tell her that. There is no way you told her that and then spent four years not telling me how you felt. And talking about my nightdress – do you have any idea how that must have sounded to her?”

“She called you plain,” said Varrick, “and she had the audacity to try and get me to ditch you by the buffet table.”

“She had a reason, though, didn’t she?”

Varrick let out a soft laugh. “Every single girl I went out with after I met you,” he said, “every single one, they all broke things off for that reason. You know that, right? Even if we didn’t say it, you knew what it looked like. You were the one who sent them all those gift baskets, even though you didn’t have to.” He tugged her into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I didn’t say it back then,” he said, “and I sure didn’t do the best job of showing it – I definitely shouldn’t have been taking anybody else out on the town when I only had eyes for one little firecracker – but I was crazy about you. Still am.”

A quiet, contented smile stole across Zhu Li’s face. She pressed her cheek into Varrick’s coat, and he kissed the top of her head.