Chapter Text
Becoming a metalbending officer was not exactly the best way to avoid her family’s legacies, but then again Rina Beifong had never been the best at following directions.
And besides, she was more comfortable living with the Beifong legacy. At least no one ever questioned her role in the Beifong legacy, particularly whether or not she was even a part of it in the first place. The same could not be said for the other side of her family.
Rina glanced up at the nearest street sign, trying to orient herself in a newer part of the city. As one of the more recent additions to the metalbending force, Rina was usually rotated through different patrols. Filling in where there were missing officers or with squads that needed extra help. It meant a lot of learning on the job, but Rina didn’t mind.
“Let’s see . . . if that’s Boomerang Way, then this must be Kuruk Drive,” she muttered to herself, before continuing with her patrol.
The streets of Republic City were always loud and frankly if they were quiet, that meant that something was wrong. And that you should probably duck for cover. Rina kept her gaze focused forward but nodded and smiled at the passing civilians. Some shared the smiles. Some merely grimaced at her in return.
The morning had passed without too many problems. She issued some tickets and mediated a rather heated dispute between irate vegetable salesmen—she never understood why the vegetable venders were always the weirdest ones—but otherwise, Rina’s morning was rather calm.
She chose to stop for her lunch break at a food stand near one of the city’s parks. Passing by an alleyway, Rina glanced over and noticed two kids in rather worn-out clothing staring out at the food stand from behind an old cardboard box. But when they noticed Rina watching them, they quickly hid from her sight.
Walking up to the stand, Rina ordered three meals, to the surprise of the shopkeeper, before making her way back to the alley that she had passed before. She walked further into the alleyway, but not far enough to actually get anywhere close to the children. She spotted one of the kids behind the same box, but he hid himself again.
Rina placed two of the boxes on the ground in the middle of the alleyway. Standing up, Rina was about to turn and leave for her route, when she noted an older woman, who probably looked older than she really was, and stopped in her tracks.
Rina picked up the two boxes and placed them down beside the cardboard box that the two boys were hiding behind before walking further into the alleyway. She approached the woman cautiously, not wanting to startle her, before offering the box of food out to her. The woman peered up at her curiously, glancing between the box and Rina.
“You like pork dumplings?” Rina asked, offering the box to the woman again. The woman nodded slowly, before reaching tentatively for the box. Rina handed it over, before taking a few steps back. “Enjoy your lunch,” was all Rina said before she turned and headed out of the alleyway. The two boxes of food that she had left beside the bigger cardboard box were gone when she passed by.
Rina went and got herself lunch—for real this time—before returning to her patrol route. Turning a corner, Rina’s eyes landed on two men standing in front of a store, sharing odd looks. Sliding behind another stall, Rina narrowed her eyes at the men, who hadn’t noticed her yet. Suddenly, two more men jumped out of the store with bags full of stolen goods.
“Hey!” the store owner demanded as the four men sprinted down the street.
“Police! Stop!” Rina shouted, running after them.
The men ignored her and climbed into their getaway vehicle. Releasing her metal cables, Rina wrapped one around the crisscrossing lines that darted across the street and pulled herself up. She flew through the air towards the truck, which sped down the street erratically. Throwing out another cable, Rina flew over the vehicle before dropping down and landing on top of it.
Raising her hands, Rina shifted the ground below the truck, causing the vehicle to spin out. Jumping off, Rina landed gracefully on the ground in front of the truck before standing up, already in a stance. As the men piled out of the truck, disoriented from the crash, Rina easily wrapped her metal coils around them.
“You’re all under arrest for robbery,” Rina informed the criminals, walking back over.
She called for a paddy wagon and had the four criminals transported to headquarters for processing within fifteen minutes of arriving at the scene. The owner of the shop thanked her profusely, shaking her hand rather excitedly before moving to put back his stolen merchandise.
"Not bad, Beifong,” Sergeant Lee commented as Rina handed him the witness reports. She had collected them while she was waiting for the paddy wagon.
“For a rookie, anyways,” Chang, a metalbender about five years or so older than Rina, quipped from beside the paddy wagon.
“At least she remembered the witness accounts,” Nurung, another metalbending officer, replied, smirking at Chang.
“That was one time, Nurung!”
“Sergeant Lee, come in,” Captain Saikhan’s voice broke through the radio, breaking up Chang and Nurung’s little argument.
“Sergeant Lee speaking. Go ahead, Captain,” Lee responded, picking up his radio.
“Requesting backup immediately. Suspect on a white beast heading down 13th Avenue towards Boomerang Way. Wanted for property damage and evading arrest.”
“Unit 16 responding now,” Sergeant Lee reported back before turning to the metalbending officers. “You heard the orders!”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Chang was first in the air, leading the way on his metal cables. Nurung slid behind him with Rina pulling up the rear. Just as the intel stated, the suspect ran straight past them on 13th Avenue. Chang and Nurung moved to pursue the suspect with the other officers while Rina moved to cut off the suspect in their escape.
She landed on a metal cable and slid down it, searching for any sign of the suspect between the flashes of alleys and short cut throughs. She spotted a flash of white and a little bit of blue—the suspect, she assumed, based on the metalbending officers chasing after the flash—and looked up.
Throwing a cable up onto one of the overhanging wires, Rina yanked herself along. She swung through a back alley, before sliding on more wires. Glancing through the crisscrossing streets, she spotted Chang get dragged by the suspect. Rina winced when he slammed into a wall of ice.
Rina released her metal cables from their holds. Landing in a crouch, Rina released a set of coils right as the suspect rounded the corner. One wrapped around the suspect’s torso, knocking them off the animal, while the other wrapped around the animal’s front legs, causing it to crash down as well. But when the animal stopped in front of her, whining, Rina’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Naga?”
Rina turned and ran over to where the suspect laid on the ground. Korra yelled out angrily as she tried to fight the metal cables wrapped around her arms and torso. She had managed to get back to her feet with her earthbending when she and Rina locked eyes.
“Korra!?”
“Rina!?”
The two teenagers hadn’t seen each other in nearly three years. Rina used to spend weeks, more than half of her summer vacation, at South Pole White Lotus Compound since it had been built. It was Katara’s idea, considering that the two girls were only a couple months apart in age and Korra had no other friends. But then Rina started preparing for the academy and stopped going.
But this was certainly not the reunion that either of them was expecting.
“What are you doing here?” Rina asked, walking over to Korra. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the South Pole?”
“Yeah, yeah, but you gotta help me! I need to go see your dad!” Korra grunted, still struggling with the metal coils. “And, uh, a little help here?”
“He doesn’t know that you’re here?” Rina replied with slightly narrowed eyes. “What did you do? Run away from the South Pole?”
“Your grandmother suggested it,” Korra squeaked out, somewhat sheepishly. Rina sighed, rubbing her face tiredly. “But, come on, just let me go, direct me to Air Temple Island, and I can fix all of this in one second!”
“Korra, you’re under arrest,” Rina stated firmly. “You’re wanted for property damage and evading arrest. I can’t just let you walk off!”
“It’s not a big deal! And I was just doing my job!”
“And I’m just doing mine,” Rina returned as more metalbending officers rounded the corner.
“You’re under arrest,” Captain Saikhan told Korra, striding forward. Two metalbending officers pulled Korra back towards them, strapping metal cuffs to her wrists.
“Rina, come on!” Korra groaned, trying to break through the metal cuffs.
“You know her?” Captain Saikhan asked Rina. She straightened up under his gaze.
“She’s the Avatar, sir,” Rina replied, her tone completely professional. The surrounding metalbending officers shared incredulous looks before Captain Saikhan gestured for them to load Korra into the paddy wagon.
“Avatar or not, she’s under arrest.”
Rina didn’t miss the look of betrayal on Korra’s face as the doors to the paddy wagon were slammed in her face. Sighing, and rubbing her face tiredly, Rina straightened up again when Captain Saikhan and a few other metalbending officers walked over to inspect Naga, who was still lying on the ground, whining.
“Sir, how are we supposed to transport this . . .?”
“Polar bear dog,” Rina supplied, as Naga rolled around.
“Whatever it is, it’s not going to fit in a paddy wagon,” Fung, another metalbending officer, commented. “It’s way too big.”
“Figure it out. Drop it off with the kennel. I need to get ahead and deliver the report to the Chief personally,” Captain Saikhan ordered, looking down at Naga with a raised eyebrow.
He got into a patrol car and headed after the paddy wagon, back towards headquarters. With Saikhan gone from the scene, the residual metalbending officers were left to make their own judgements on what to do. Rina glanced down the street, where she spotted another food vender. Coming up with an idea, Rina turned back to her fellow officers.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Fung inquired, looking at Rina suspiciously.
“Just to the food stand,” Rina replied with a shrug before running over to the vender. She glanced briefly around at the various meats before turning to the vender. “Hi, I need some meat. Whatever you got. It doesn’t even have to be cooked.”
Paying the vender for some Komodo rhino jerky, Rina ran back towards Naga and her other officers as Naga started to get back to her feet. The polar bear dog had managed to gnaw or wiggle off the metal cable around her paws and turned to the metalbending officers.
“Beifong,” Nurung warned as Naga growled at them. Rina whistled loudly, causing the polar bear dog and her coworkers to turn to her.
“Naga!”
Rina held the jerky up in the air, causing Naga’s tail to wag. She still hadn’t eaten nearly enough since arriving in Republic City. Naga sprinted over to Rina, who realized her mistake far too late to do anything about it.
“Monkeyfeathers.”
Rina yelled out as Naga tackled her to the ground, licking her face in greeting. Nurung and Fung moved to help her, but Rina’s giggling caused them to pause. Naga turned from Rina to the meat that she held in her hand, licking it up in one go.
“Gah, Naga! Get off of me! I’ll give you some more jerky if you get off me!” The polar dog got off her as instructed, her tail wagging back and forth. “Sit,” Rina commanded, pointing at the ground. The polar bear dog followed her lead. “Good girl, Naga!” Rina tossed some jerky to her before rubbing her head softly. “Sorry about that whole thing. I didn’t realize it was you, girl.”
“Do you have a plan to get it to headquarters?” Fung asked, staring at Rina oddly.
“I was going to just ride her there. You guys can follow from above,” Rina replied, handing another piece of jerky to Naga. “Alright, Naga, I’ll take you to Korra. But you have to work with me, alright?” Rina cooed, scratching the place behind Naga’s ear that she knew Naga liked. Naga licked her once more, causing Rina to sigh.
“You’re sure about this, Beifong?”
“Not the weirdest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Rina assured her fellow officers before climbing up onto Naga’s back. “Alright, Naga, let’s go.” Rina dug in her heels and yelled out when Naga took off. In the wrong direction. “Naga! No! Not that way!”
After some coaxing—including a period of time where Rina held the bag of jerky in front of Naga’s face with her extended metal sword to guide the polar bear dog—they made their way back to headquarters. Rina dropped Naga off at the kennel, as well as the rest of the jerky, before heading upstairs to start her paperwork.
But as she walked past the waiting area, she spotted her father talking rather animatedly with one of the police secretaries, who seemed to not have any information for him. Not that Rina blamed the secretary. High-profile arrests, such as the Avatar, were always handled quietly.
“Dad,” Rina called, stepping into the waiting area.
“Rina! Perhaps you can help me,” he sighed, shooting a look at the secretary before walking over to his eldest daughter. “Apparently Korra has paid Republic City a premature visit.” Rina winced, causing Tenzin to sigh, lowering his head. “What did she do?”
“A bunch of property damage. Private and public. She apparently took on a couple of triad members and kicked their butts pretty badly. Resisted and evaded arrest . . . I think that might be it,” Rina listed off, causing Tenzin to sigh again. Rina paused for a moment before gesturing down the hall. “She’s this way.”
Rina walked up the stairs, heading towards the interrogation rooms. Tenzin trailed slightly behind her, letting her lead. It had been a while since he had been in Police Headquarters. Rina could see her coworkers staring at them, probably wondering why Tenzin was here in the first place, but she remained focused on the hall ahead of her.
“How has work been going for you lately, Rina?” Tenzin asked after another beat of silence.
“Fine. Lot of paperwork.” Rina shrugged nonchalantly, keeping focused on moving forward.
“Ah, yes. Though, I’m sure that you’ll adapt quickly.”
“Yeah, it’s not really that bad.”
Another beat of silence passed.
“The girls were wondering when you had a free day or night to stop by the island,” Tenzin mentioned offhandedly, glancing over at his eldest daughter. “Though, I explained to them that you’re very busy, so don’t worry too much about it.”
“It might be a while,” Rina agreed, feeling bad about letting down her sisters. “With all the . . . Equalist business popping up, we’ve had our hands full lately here.”
That was as far into detail that Rina felt she needed to go. No doubt her mother would have a few choice words to grumble out if Rina let too many details slip to anyone—let alone her pacifist and diplomatic father, who just also happened to be a councilman—about the Equalist situation.
“I see.”
Rina could hear the disappointment clear in his voice.
“But I’ll try to stop by sometime over the next week,” Rina conceded, focusing on the idea of seeing her siblings more than anything else. “I promised Jinora some of my old books anyways.”
“I’ll let the girls know.”
They walked around the corner to the interrogation rooms. Rina spotted Saikhan standing outside of Korra’s interrogation room, where Rina’s mother was no doubt giving the Avatar a rather hard time about the whole spectacle.
“Captain Saikhan, Councilman Tenzin is here to collect the suspect,” Rina stated, gesturing to her father.
“Captain Saikhan,” Tenzin stated.
“Councilman Tenzin,” Saikhan returned in the same tone.
The two had never really gotten along spectacularly, even when Lin and Tenzin were happy together. Rina never really understood why and frankly didn’t care. She had enough problems herself and didn’t need to go wading into it. She didn’t have the energy.
“I’ll just be returning to my desk unless you need something, Captain?” she spoke towards Saikhan, hoping to cut through some of the tension.
“You’re dismissed, Officer Beifong.”
Rina nodded curtly to Saikhan. Bidding her father goodbye, Rina made her way to her desk. Undoing the chin strap of her metal helmet, Rina sighed in relief when her helmet was finally off. She hated the stupid thing, but the helmet, and the sides that wrapped around her chin and cheeks, had a purpose.
Her mother’s scars were a testament to the importance of wearing them.
Rina straightened out her hair, muttering about the stupid helmet again. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a low bun pinned to the base of her head, save for two braided strands reminiscent of her Gran Gran’s loops. But unlike her Gran Gran’s, Rina’s hair loops were braided and pinned down to her head, which was more fitting for a police officer.
Rina sat her helmet on the desk and started on her paperwork for the day. She knew that her mother would probably eventually release Korra anyways, though Lin was certainly going to make Korra and Tenzin work for it. And Lin would probably never let the Avatar live it down. But it would all work out in the end.
Rina hoped, anyways.
As she was filling out the paperwork for the robbery arrests that she had before the whole chasing after Korra business, Rina paused when a brown hand smacked onto her desk, straight onto her freshly started paperwork. Letting out a sigh, Rina stared up at an annoyed Korra.
“What gives, huh? I thought we were friends!” Korra huffed, leaning on the desk. “And then you go and arrest me!”
Rina glanced behind Korra to see Tenzin sheepishly waving and murmuring ‘hellos’ to some of the bewildered officers before rushing over. The officers didn’t seem to pay him any mind as they were far more interested in the Rina and Korra showdown. Rina returned her gaze to Korra, who was waiting impatiently for her response.
“Korra, I was just doing my job.”
“Well, so was I!”
“Being the Avatar doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want,” Rina stated, standing up from her desk as well. “And I didn’t arrest you because I felt like it, I arrested you because you committed a crime and it’s my job to arrest criminals.”
“You sound just like Chief Crankypants in there,” Korra scoffed, missing the nervous glances from the officers in the background.
“You mean my mother?” Rina asked in a rather deadly and low tone.
The entire floor went silent at Rina’s question. Tenzin face palmed from behind Korra, his hand sliding slowly down his face. The bystanders glanced in between the teenage girls, waiting to see who would be the first to respond. Or perhaps the first to throw a punch. Someone coughed awkwardly in the background.
And Korra—bless her—just looked plain confused.
“Wait, Chief Crankypants is your mom? Since when?”
“My birth,” Rina replied sarcastically.
“I just always assumed that Pema was your mom,” Korra mumbled out, still confused.
A dangerous expression flashed across Rina’s face at Korra’s comment. Knowing his daughter as he did and also learning that Korra wasn’t particularly the best with her words, Tenzin decided to step in before desks started to be thrown about the room.
“Korra, it’s time to go,” Tenzin stated, moving to stand beside Korra. “We’ve caused enough of a disturbance here as it is.”
“Fine,” Korra sighed, frowning. But before she walked out of the bullpen, Korra paused and turned to point a finger over at Rina. “But we’re not done talking about this.”
“Fine,” Rina replied in the same tone.
Tenzin tugged Korra towards the stairs, quietly asking for directions to the kennel, before pulling Korra out of the room. As soon as the door to the stairs were closed, the normal noises of the police station filled the room again. Rina sat down at her desk, ignoring the looks from her fellow officers.
Sergeant Lee approached her first, holding the folder with the collected witness reports and the report for damages from the shop owner. Rina thanked him for the documents, before turning back to her paperwork, writing rather angrily.
“Surprised you didn’t punch her in the face,” he spoke casually, causing Rina to sigh.
Sergeant Lee, and frankly any of the officers who had been working during the whole fallout that was Lin and Tenzin’s failed relationship, knew what Korra’s comment signified to Rina. The girl who had practically grown up in front of their eyes at this very station into an officer in her own right.
“There were too many witnesses,” Rina muttered, opening the folder that Lee had handed her.
“Since when do you know the Avatar, Beifong?” Chang asked, leaning on her desk. Rina glared up at him and pushed his hand off of her desk.
“You don’t have anyone else to annoy, Chang?”
“No because his little crush is out sick today,” Nurung replied casually, walking by as he took a sip from his coffee mug. Chang’s cheeks went a bit pink before he whirled around to glare at Nurung.
“Oh, fuck off, Nurung!”
The rest of the day passed without incident, for which Rina was thankful.
After turning in her reports and filing the appropriate paperwork, Rina approached her mother’s office. Her mother’s secretary waved her through. Rina knocked on the door and opened it at her mother’s call from inside. She turned to her mother, closing the door behind her.
“Are you working late tonight?” Rina asked Lin, leaning back on the door.
“No. But I’ll be taking a number of files home,” Lin sighed, gesturing to the large stack on her desk. “And I’ll be coming in early tomorrow, so you’ll have to get yourself to work.” Rina pushed off the door and walked over to her mother.
“Remember what Healer Yun said about your blood pressure,” she reminded her mother, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yeah, yeah, hand me those files behind you. The ones marked ‘Fen’ on the shelf,” Lin muttered, gesturing to one of the large filing cabinets in the corner of the room.
Rina grabbed the files off the top of the shelf without question and walked over to her mother. Lin took it without deviating her gaze from the report on her desk and added the file to the growing pile beside her. Rina picked up the keys off the hook before turning back to her mother.
“Can I drive home?” Rina questioned, smiling innocently at her mother. Lin shot her daughter an unamused look over the top of a report.
“I’ve had enough of teenagers wrecking my city today.”
“Fine,” Rina sighed, tossing her mother the keys. “But that was one time!”
“Yes, and I still can’t pass that intersection without thinking about you hitting the fire hydrant,” Lin replied, standing up from behind her desk.
“I was dodging a pedestrian!”
“There’s this thing called the brake, Rina,” Lin stated, starting to gather the files.
Rina walked over to grab her mother’s bag and tossed it to Lin. Once the Chief of Police had packed up as many files as she could fit in the stupid bag, the two Beifong women made their way downstairs to the garage before driving out onto the darkened Republic City streets.
“What did you want for dinner?” Lin asked, causing Rina to shrug.
“I was going to make some instant seaweed noodles and call it a night,” Rina replied, leaning back in her seat. She stared at her nails with a bored expression. “There might be some frozen pork dumplings left too.”
“I suppose that works.” Lin turned down one of the main avenues, mingling with the rest of the later end of rush hour in the city. “Nice job with that robbery case, by the way. Sergeant Lee seemed impressed with your skills.”
The comments, the small notes of praise that Rina’s mother reserved for her police work always came after they left the station. When they were in Police Headquarters they were Chief Lin Beifong and rookie Officer Rina Beifong and did not have any excess interactions. When they were outside the station, however, Lin always made sure to end the day with a small comment of praise for Rina.
She knew how much she wanted to hear them when she was Rina’s age, after all.
“Probably just impressed that I didn’t lose the paperwork,” Rina muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You can be forgetful,” Lin reminded her daughter, turning down another street. Rina grumbled something under her breath, though she didn’t move to argue with her mother on it. They came to a halt at a stoplight when Rina turned to her mother.
“How was your interrogation with Korra?”
“Your delinquent friend?”
“Don’t know if she considers me a friend anymore,” Rina dismissed, glancing out at the darkened streets. "She was pretty pissed about the whole thing.”
“You did your job. No one gets a free pass just because of who they are.” The light turned green, and Lin carried on driving towards the Beifong family home. A beat of silence passed before Lin continued, “I heard about what happened in the bullpen.”
“I think the entire station did,” Rina muttered, glaring at her feet. “Who was the spy?”
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information to you,” Lin replied, causing Rina to huff and blow some of the bangs that had fallen out of her bun. “I suppose that I should just be happy that you didn’t throw a desk.”
“Right. I wonder where I got my temper from,” Rina sighed, shooting her mother a look.
“It’s both sides,” Lin replied, turning down another street. “Your Gran Gran, in particular, was known to be quite the arguer back in the day.”
“Well, I guess that explains Dad’s temper,” Rina mumbled out, before frowning at her own words. Lin glanced with concern at Rina out of the corner of the eye.
“You saw your father today, then?”
“I walked him to the interrogation room. And then I watched him drag Korra out of there,” Rina replied, keeping her glare focused ahead of her.
“And?”
“It’s fine. The usual,” Rina sighed, looking away for a moment. After a beat of silence, she turned back to her mother. “He asked me to come over to the island.”
“When was the last time you went?”
“Two weeks ago,” Rina stated, rubbing her face tiredly.
It used to be every other day.
Rina had a bedroom set up there since she was a baby, even though Lin and Tenzin technically lived in the city when she was born. She practically grew up on the island, where she could run around without fear of kidnappers or anything dubious between all of the watchful eyes.
Of course, then she grew up.
“I told him that I’d stop by later in the week. I promised Jinora and Ikki some stuff anyways,” Rina sighed, shrugging her shoulders.
That was how she always framed her reasoning for stopping by the island. She was there to see Jinora and Ikki and Meelo and eventually the little baby yet to be born. She wasn’t there for her father. And she was most definitely not there to see Pema. Absolutely the fuck not.
“Let me know what night you decide on,” was all Lin asked of her daughter.
“So, you can invite your unnamed fuckbuddy over to the house?” Rina questioned her mother, who withheld an eyeroll. “Be careful. There was an article in the newspaper about the rapid STD transmission among the elderly population.”
Though the rest of the city, and perhaps even Tenzin, were under the impression that Lin hadn’t been in any kind of relationship since Tenzin, Rina knew different. It started after she found the lube bottle and protection in her mother’s bathroom while looking for some pads as an innocent tween. And was then exacerbated by the additional sex talk Lin gave her daughter after the fact.
“Hey!” Rina grunted out as her arm slammed into the door due to the sharp turn. She rubbed her arm and shot her mother a look. “No need to be all sensitive about it.”
“You’re wearing armor,” Lin pointed out, though her lips were curved into a smirk. “And besides, you know I hate that term.”
“Fuckbuddy?”
Another sharp curve.
“Fine! For fuck’s sake,” Rina huffed, slumping into her seat. “Take it out on the . . . special friend instead.” Lin rolled her eyes at her daughter, shaking her head. “And I’m pretty sure this counts as child abuse, by the way.”
“I’m sure the Chief of Police would be happy to take your complaint,” Lin stated, rather amused at her own joke.
It was Rina’s turn to roll her eyes.