Work Text:
It was a surprisingly peaceful afternoon. Korra was sitting at her laptop, catching up on some coursework, music turned down low in the background, windows open to let in as much of the breeze as she could after days of fierce heat.
The work was going okay, and everything was calm and still, almost like–
“Korra!”
Korra jumped what felt like a foot in the air. “Asami? What is it? Is the house on fire?”
Okay, maybe that was an extreme assumption, but Asami was decidedly not the one in this relationship who was likely to burst into the apartment yelling. Korra couldn't remember her ever doing that before.
Her girlfriend burst through the door, her cheeks flushed and her green eyes sparkling with excitement. “I finally figured it out!”
“Figured... what?” Korra asked warily. “Are you really Asami? Has someone kidnapped you and replaced you with an alien or something?”
“What, no, why?” Asami asked, frowning in confusion.
“Because you never yell my name like that,” Korra said, then amended, “well, not outside of bed.”
Asami rolled her eyes, but Korra noted with satisfaction that her cheeks flushed a little. “Shut up. I just... I finally figured out how to get my prototype to work! The problem with the aerodynamics can be fixed if I just...”
She pulled out a sketchpad filled with diagrams of her latest project and started explaining them at top speed. Pretty much every other word was a technical term that no-one outside of the engineering world could be expected to know, and Korra was very much outside. She couldn't even figure out driving, and after failing her test for the fifth time, she resigned herself to relying on Asami's excellent driving skills and ridiculous levels of patience when something required a car. And her girlfriend hadn't let her down yet.
All this meant that by the time Asami had been talking for thirty seconds, Korra was already fairly lost as to what exactly she was talking about. Which she was okay with, because it was enough just to watch Asami. She had a specific kind of energy about her when she talked about the things she loved that made Korra feel like she could watch her for hours without once getting bored, even if Asami decided to start reciting quadratic equations backwards in Japanese (which honestly, she would probably have been capable of, if she put her mind to it).
And the fact that Asami was comfortable to share this side of herself with Korra was a privilege Korra wouldn't trade for anything. Outside, Asami seemed to feel this pressure to be calm and collected and mask her emotions, and Korra was pretty sure 90% of the people she knew wouldn't believe Korra if she told them about this side of Asami, the side where she could talk for hours about a new project with a light in her eyes and a pen behind her ear and her hands gesturing all over the place.
Just two years ago, Korra wouldn't have been able to believe it herself. She'd thought Asami Sato was just some prissy, popular rich girl who half the campus seemed to be in love with. Then her friend Kuvira's car had broken down halfway out of the parking lot and Asami had fixed it in ten minutes flat.
After that, Korra thought Asami Sato was a smart popular rich girl and maybe she understood a little why half the campus was in love with her.
Now, she knew all the little things that made Asami who she was, the way she pressed her hands against her heart when she was sad, the way her eyes lit up when she made a breakthrough, the way her glare when she was angry could make a grown man wither in ten seconds flat; what she looked like in reading glasses and how scary movies didn't bother her and the terrifying ability she had to function on less than three hours of sleep, and a million other little things that made her the girl Korra loved.
And there were a thousand different words she could have used to describe her, half of which the Korra of two years ago would have scoffed at.
“You're not listening, are you?” Asami said accusingly, and Korra started and put on her best attentive face.
“What, me? That doesn't sound like me...”
Asami raised a sceptical eyebrow. “What were you even thinking about to get you so dreamy-eyed?”
“Seriously?” Korra asked, and then went on without waiting for an answer. “You.”
Asami tried very hard to keep the smile off her face, but Korra could see it in her eyes. “What about me?”
“How when we met I thought you were some prissy rich girl, but now I know your true nature!” Korra declared dramatically.
“Which is...?” Asami sounded wary.
“You, Asami Sato, are a nerd.”
Asami rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”
“A very cute nerd,” Korra amended.
“You're not helping your case,” Asami said with faux exasperation. “I'm going to hold a test on aerodynamics later, specially for occupants of this apartment, and woe betide anyone who happened not to be listening just now.”
Korra pasted an expression of innocence on to her face. “I'll ace that test, then. Since I always listen when you talk. Particularly about dynamics. All the... kinds of dynamics.”
“Riiight,” Asami replied. “So you were thinking about that just now, and not how I'm a 'very cute nerd'?”
“She admits it!” Korra announced dramatically, pleased with herself for her cunning avoidance of the actual accusation.
Asami lost the battle not to smile. “You're ridiculous.”
“I may be ridiculous, but I'm right,” Korra said smugly.
“Fine,” Asami replied. “If giving long speeches on the topic of aerodynamics makes me a nerd...”
“It does.”
“...then I guess I am one. But Korra?”
“Yeah?”
Asami crossed over to where Korra was sitting and sat down on her lap, facing towards her and leaning in close. She brushed a few strands of hair away from Korra's face, and Korra knew she was smiling like a total dork, but she couldn't help it.
Asami leaned in closer still, her lips close to Korra's ear, and Korra shivered involuntarily.
“I may be a nerd, but I'm your nerd.”
Korra couldn't argue with that. She closed her arms around Asami's waist, keeping her where she was, and leaned up for a kiss. Asami met her halfway, and for a minute or so there were no more words between them.
Then, in a display of cruelty as far as Korra was concerned, Asami pulled back, a smirk on her face. “Hey, Korra?”
“Yeah...?” Korra asked again, and this time it was her turn to sound wary.
“I was serious about that aerodynamics test. You're not getting away with it that easily.”
Korra bit her lip and attempted to paste on a confident expression. “Hypothetically, of course, because I'm obviously going to ace this, but... what do I have to do if I fail?”
Asami smiled and leant in close to her again, trailing one finger slowly down Korra's arm. “Oh, I'm sure we can come up with something.”
Korra swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
She was definitely doomed.
(And it was definitely worth it.)