Work Text:
After Kuvira is taken away in the United Forces armored police van, Korra stares after the departing van for a while. She doesn’t move for long enough that Tenzin touches her on the shoulder, a worried look on his face. “Korra?” he asks. “Is everything all right?”
Korra turns back to them. Anybody else who has been through what she had would be collapsed in a bone-weary heap on the floor, or possibly passed out entirely, but Korra just looks as determined as ever. “I’m going to start clearing the rubble across the city with my earthbending,” she says. “I think I’ll start with the city center and move outward.”
"Count me in!" Bolin says, cracking his knuckles.
"I’ll help too," Mako says, because even though he’s not an earthbender, he’s strong enough to at least move some debris out of the way with his hands and clear parts of the streets.
But then Lin turns around, fixing him with the most fearsome look he has ever seen in his life. Kai dives behind Jinora for shelter. Asami gulps. Tenzin takes a few steps backward. “Mako,” she says, eyeing his injured arm. “You will do no such thing. You are going to the hospital.”
Her tone brooks no argument. “But—” Mako begins.
In less than a second, she has him by the uninjured arm, and is yelling at a few of the nearby officers to surrender their car to her, because she has urgent business to attend to. Before Mako can even blink, he is stuffed into the passenger seat of the commandeered police vehicle while Lin gets behind the wheel. Korra, Bolin, and Asami don’t even lift a finger to help him, the traitors. She’s right, Mako, they call to him, waving and promising to visit tomorrow. Horrible.
Lin takes him to the city hospital, driving way too fast. “I’m fine,” Mako insists. “This is really unnecessary.”
Lin makes a sharp turn, not averting her eyes from the road. “You’re slurring your speech and literally falling asleep. You almost got blown up at the factory this morning, and then again in the Colossus. You need rest and treatment. Actually, you needed it hours ago.”
When they pull up in front of the hospital, Grandma Yin and his cousin Tu are waiting outside. How they heard his whereabouts, Mako doesn’t know, but Tu yanks the car door open and actually almost carries him out of the passenger seat, to his eternal embarrassment. Grandma Yin is crying, clutching her scarf, as she hugs him tightly. “Grandma,” Mako says weakly. His arm is throbbing, and he’s starting to feel lightheaded. “Please don’t cry. Bolin and I are okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”
This triggers another fit of weeping. “Don’t cry, he says,” his grandma sobs to Lin, who pats the older woman’s shoulder tentatively. “He and his brother are so brave. Just like their father.”
Grandma Yin and Tu wait with him as Lin goes inside and terrifies someone into getting a room available as soon as possible. Mako thinks he might have passed out a little, leaning against his grandma’s shoulder, because the next thing he realizes, he’s upstairs in a hospital bed. There’s a giant needle stuck into his arm - which is making the pain factor so much better, really - and it’s pumping a bag of clear liquid into his veins.
The doctor says it’s pain medication, and that he needs to rest, before giving Lin, his grandma, and Tu pointed looks. None of them take the hint, and Tu glares at the doctor until he leaves.
Grandma Yin stands by his bed and doesn’t let go of his hand for a long time, not until his eyes start to feel heavy and leaden. “Go home and rest,” Mako manages. “You must be tired. You can’t sleep in this chair.”
His grandma obviously doesn’t like the idea - she sniffles - but then Tu comes up and rests a hand on her shoulder. “Mako’s right,” Tu says. “And look, he’s falling asleep.”
Grandma Yin removes the red scarf from around her shoulders, and then wraps it around his neck, with slightly shaking hands. “Your father would be so proud,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
Mako watches them leave, relieved that they’re all right, and his eyes have almost closed when Lin comes back into the room. “I talked to the doctor,” she says gruffly. “They’ll examine and treat your arm in a few hours, after you’ve gotten some rest and the pain medication has started to kick in.”
Against his will, Mako’s eyes close. “Thanks,” he mumbles. His mouth feels as useless as his eyes.
He feels Lin’s hand come to rest gently, briefly, on his forehead. “You don’t know how glad I am that you’re all right, kid,” she murmurs, her voice much softer than usual. “You had some close calls out there.”
Mako tries to open his eyes to look at her, but then he hears her leave quickly, her boots tapping against the floor, and sleep overcomes him.
-
The morning after Kuvira’s attack on Republic City, Mako wakes up in his hospital bed to find Korra, Bolin, and Asami clustered around him, grinning down at him like loons.
Mako shrieks in a very unprofessional and very un-defender-of-the-law-like way and tries to throw up his arms in self-defense. He fails miserably, thanks to the sling around his left arm.
"You’re awake!" Bolin cries, hugging him tightly. "I was so worried. I thought you’d never wake up."
Asami hovers near him, looking concerned. “How are you feeling?”
Korra pokes his sling critically. “What is this thing? I’m going to take this off and heal your arm for you, waterbending-style. You’ll be good as new in a few minutes.”
"No!" Mako yelps, feeling rather overwhelmed. The pain medications that the doctors had pumped him with last night are still in his system, making everything feel fuzzy…and making Korra, Bolin, and Asami’s combined energy levels more overwhelming than usual. "Wait. Just…everyone hold on a second. Bolin, relax. I wasn’t going to die."
Bolin clutches his face in his usual overdramatic way. “You’ve been out for like twelve hours, bro. You didn’t even wake up when Grandma and Tu came by earlier. We thought they overdosed you on sleeping meds.”
"I guess they gave me more in the middle of the night, after they put this on." Mako gestures awkwardly at the sling. "Korra, I know you’re great at that stuff, but please don’t try healing it with bending. You overexerted yourself enough yesterday, and you need to take it easy too."
Korra pouts, and it’s only then that Mako realizes that he can’t move, because he is literally weighed down with multiple blankets, all of which are extremely velvety, plush, soft, and sweet-smelling. “Where did these come from?” he asks, confused. “This is too nice to be hospital stuff.”
"I brought them from my house a little while ago." Asami shudders. "You should have seen what they had in here before."
Mako smiles. Honestly, he feels a little bit too warm, what with his dad’s scarf on and under several blankets - and a familiar Water Tribe fur pelt lying across his feet - but he’s not going to take any of it off. “Thanks.”
Just then, a harassed-looking orderly comes into the room and bows deeply. “Here’s the newspaper you requested, Avatar Korra!”
Korra grins, dashing over to retrieve the newspaper. “Thank you!”
She comes rushing back to them, her face alive with excitement. “You have got to see this,” she says, unfolding the paper on his bed. “Asami, Bolin, and I did already, and we wanted to show it to you.”
All of them huddle close, and Mako’s jaw drops at the front-page headline and the lengthy, full-page accompanying article. Avatar Korra, Savior of Republic City,the headline declares, in bold capital letters. “Wow, Korra, that looks awesome!”
Korra waves her hand impatiently. “I know, but it’s not that I wanted to - look!”
She flips past the front page, showing them the next headline. Profiles in Courage: The Defenders of Republic City, it reads. Mako sees, with a jolt of recognition, that black-and-white pictures of Asami, Bolin, Tenzin and the airbenders, and Lin, smile up at him. Each picture is accompanied by its own article.
"And there’s you!" Bolin crows, pointing Mako’s own picture out. It’s right underneath Lin’s, the second on the page.
"We helped them pick out the picture," Asami says proudly. "The three of us were combing through the archives at like two in the morning, but it was so worth it."
Mako stares at the page, feeling rather moved. “I can’t believe it.”
"The paper just wanted to profile Korra, but she said that they had to do a feature on all of us," Bolin says, patting her on the shoulder. "Even if the paper had to go out late this morning."
"It was only right," Korra insists. "I mean, we took Kuvira down together. It was a team effort."
Mako tries to pick up the paper with his free hand. “What do the profiles say?”
That turns out to be a mistake. Korra, Bolin, and Asami all vie to be the one who will read his article to him. Nobody can decide who will do it, so Asami suggests they take turns - which devolves into the three of them reading the article simultaneously. Korra skips around the article and yells crucially important lines and words such as bravery, selflessness, sacrifice, and critical for the mission. Bolin tears up at the memory of what happened in the Colossus, and then begins a spirited reenactment of exactly how he and Mako took down their opponents in the engine room. Meanwhile, Asami valiantly tries to read the article properly, word-for-word, from start to finish.
The whole endeavor ends with several nurses coming in and threatening to kick them out of the hospital for disruptive behavior, Avatar and friends or not. Mako coughs to hide his laughter as the nurses leave, with Korra, Asami, and Bolin sitting and looking thoroughly chastened.
-
They stay for another couple of hours, filling him in on everything that’s been going on around the city, and then creating an improvised puppet show for entertainment. That, Mako would prefer to forget. Still, he valiantly fights the sleep brought on by his pain meds, just because it’s so nice to be around them. This is the first time they’ve been together, without having to deal with threats posed by the Red Lotus or Kuvira, in so long.
He makes the mistake of yawning, though, and Korra, Asami, and Bolin all immediately fix him with the kind of concerned looks normally reserved for extremely elderly individuals trying to cross a busy street. “You need to rest,” Korra decrees, at once.
"Do you need anything?" Asami asks. "We can come back later today."
Bolin nods. “Yeah, I’ll bring Pabu and Grandma and Tu after lunch. Tu says he’s got some special herbal salve at home. I’ll ask if the doctor will let us put it on your arm.”
"I’ll be fine," Mako assures them. "And hey, you guys take it easy too. Take a nap or something. It doesn’t sound like you actually slept last night."
"I don’t know what gives you that idea," Bolin says, as he stands and tries to button up his zippered jacket. "Why isn’t this thing working?"
They all crowd around him, hugging him tight. Mako gets a face full of Asami’s hair, Korra crushes his head, and Bolin accidentally squeezes his injured shoulder too hard. It’s still pretty great, though.
Mako waves at them with his okay hand when they leave, throwing worried looks at him over their shoulders. He relaxes against his pillow and sighs, looking up at the ceiling. He thinks of Lin, dragging him here to get medical treatment despite his protests, and Grandma Yin and Tu, and Bolin, who had been his world for so long. And Korra and Asami, two of the most special people he’s ever met.
So many people, Mako thinks, closing his eyes. He hasn’t eaten anything in a while, thanks to the fact that he’s apparently getting nutrition from the needle stuck in his arm, but he feels surprisingly full and content, nevertheless. It’s unbelievable to think that just five years ago, he had been a street rat completely alone in the world, except for Bolin.
You’re lucky to be alive, the doctor had told him last night. He’s lucky for so many other reasons, too.
-
In the moments before waking up fully, Mako registers a pleasant smell, so unlike the hospital-antiseptic scent he had wrinkled his nose at earlier. He can’t quite put a name to it. It’s light and sweet and floral, and for some reason, he thinks of Wu.
Mako opens his eyes with difficulty, and then blinks, startled into full alertness. His hospital room has been transformed. Two scented oil burners rest nearby, and every available inch of space on the tables and windowsill has been covered in flowers. Roses, lilies, orchids, bright daisies. There are too many bouquets to count. There’s even soft music playing on a record player that hadn’t been in here a few hours ago.
Mako rubs the sleep from his eyes with his free hand, and only then does he notice the green-jacketed figure in the corner of the room, obliviously humming to himself as he straightens a bouquet of roses.
"Wu?" Mako asks, his voice cracking with disbelief.
Wu turns - it is Wu, who else would it be? - and his face literally lights up with delight. “Mako!” He abandons the flowers and rushes to his bedside, carefully touching his un-injured shoulder. “Are you all right? How are you feeling?”
"I’m fine." Mako stares around, still amazed. "Did you do all this?"
"Of course!" Wu beams. "Do you like the oil burners? I chose the lavender scent, because it’s supposed to be healing and relaxing."
"It’s really nice," Mako says, and he’s no longer surprised that he means it. More and more often, he’s found himself expressing genuine sentiment toward Wu. "Thank you."
"Only the best for the hero of Republic City," Wu says forcefully, leaning close and looking awestruck. "Mako. You. Were. Amazing."
Maybe it’s just the abundance of blankets, but Mako feels himself blush a little. “Yeah, well, my grandma and Tu told me that you didn’t do so bad yourself, with the evacuation effort. You saved everyone from Kuvira’s forces.”
Wu blushes deeply, looking profoundly affected by the compliment. “Yeah, well, Bao and Po were great badgermoles. You should have seen them in action.”
"I wish I had," Mako says, grinning. "I bet Kuvira’s soldiers didn’t know what hit them."
Just then, a waiter walks into the room. Not a hospital orderly wheeling a cart of food, but an actual waiter, wearing the uniform of Quong’s Cuisine. The waiter bows to Wu, and then to him. “Prince Wu,” the waiter says. “Lunch is ready.”
"Uh," Mako says. "Is that…"
"Yes, thank you, kind sir!" Wu replies cheerfully. "Please bring it in."
Without further ado, a small team of waiters arrives, carrying a table and a wide array of covered dishes. The smell makes Mako’s mouth water, and he’s hit with a painful hunger pang. When was the last time he ate? More than a day and a half ago by now, that’s for sure.
The waiters whisk the covers off the dishes and then retreat, bowing deeply. Mako stares, stunned by the array of his favorite foods. Komodo chicken, spicy shrimp noodles, fried dumplings, hot and sour soup—
"Wu," he says, and it takes him a second to realize the emotion welling up inside him. It’s more than just gratitude. He’s actually touched. When he had first met Wu, he had thought he was nothing more than a rich, selfish brat, but now - it’s like every day, he learns something new about him. "You didn’t have to do this."
Wu clasps his hands over his heart. “I did,” he says earnestly. “Mako, ever since we’ve met, you’ve looked out for me - way better than anyone else ever has, actually,” he adds, as an afterthought. “You’ve taken such good care of me. Now it’s my turn to look after you.”
The words are so simply stated, so genuine, that Mako is at a loss for what to say. “Thanks,” he settles with, averting his eyes, feeling that warmth creep up his neck again. He reaches for the chopsticks on the plate. “You have to share this with me, though. Otherwise I’ll feel bad.”
"Are you sure?" Wu asks, hovering anxiously. "Wouldn’t it be easier if I fed you?"
Mako sighs. Thankfully, it’s his left arm that is out of commission. “No, I’m fine. I’m right-handed anyway.”
"All right," Wu says dubiously, sitting near him. "Ooh," he adds, brightening up. "Do you want to hear the songs I sang to Bao and Po? I think my vocals have improved since the last time we went to the zoo together. I’ve been going for a more polished, refined sound."
A couple of months ago, the prospect of listening to Wu sing would have made Mako want to fling himself out of the nearest window. Now, he just gives Wu a wry smile. “Did you try rhyming again?”
"No!" Wu protests, but then he wilts. "Well…maybe a little. Okay. Yes. Anyway, badgermoles like rhymes."
Mako frowns, popping a dumpling into his mouth. “I thought they liked jazz music more than actual singing. I mean, isn’t that why you were teaching yourself the harmonica?”
"Yes, but I think they might like opera, too.” Wu taps his finger against his chin contemplatively. “I actually have a theory about that, and I want to test it sometime. Maybe when you’re feeling better, we could go to the zoo together and figure it out…”
-
end
-