Work Text:
I curse the road, I curse the road
And I came home to the love you gave
And as I walked through my door I saw the stars spelled out: saved
And all the gardens bloomed a flower for each day I was away
one
The empty spaces in Asami’s airship creak and grumble quietly into the silence at midnight, and it’s keeping Korra awake. It’s been a week since they left Republic City and they’ve floated along above the clouds on their way to the Earth Kingdom, surrounded by stars and blinding sunrises and Tenzin’s incessant rambling about the new airbenders.
Korra’s room is small, her broad shoulders and the tips of her toes reaching towards the corners every time she yawns. She grumbles sleepily into her pillow, flopping over onto her other side and screwing her eyes shut in determination to go back to sleep. Instead, the airship groans again and she curses into the metallic air of her room.
“Stupid metal needs to--”
A knock on her door cuts her off, and she sits up too quickly, disrupting the glider propped against the wall by her bed. It clatters to the floor, the sound echoing in the confines of the small room, and she curses again.
“Korra?” Asami’s voice pushes tinnily through the door. “You okay?”
Korra trips over her own glider as she stumbles to the door and yanks it open. “Yeah, I’m okay. Stupid glider.”
“Right. Stupid glider.” Asami smiles down at her, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Why are you still awake?”
Korra pushes at her hair, loose and rumpled from her attempts at sleep, a curling mess in comparison to Asami’s glossy sheets of black hair and meticulous clothes and--
“Wait, why are you asking me? You’re not even in pajamas.”
“I was going over the flight plans and was on my way to my room when I heard you insulting my airship.”
“It’s the middle of the night!”
“Well, it’s not like you’re asleep either, are you?” Asami folds her arms and quirks an eyebrow up at Korra. Her smile widens with the movement, and Korra’s chest pulls tight at the sight of it.
“I-- fine, okay,” Korra mumbles. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Everything okay?” Asami leans against the doorframe, her body tilting towards Korra’s and bringing a small tidal wave of perfume and soap and engine grease with it.
“Yeah, just insomnia, I guess.” Korra tugs at the hem of her shirt and focuses on her knuckles instead of the way Asami’s ear shifts imperceptibly when she raises an eyebrow, or the flash of white as her teeth close around her lower lip as she regards Korra. “Thinking about airbenders and all of that.”
“Excited?”
“Nervous, mostly,” Korra shrugs. “What if we can’t find them? What if they hate me for the change? What if something terrible is going to come out of keeping the portals open? What if--”
Asami lunges forward through the imaginary barrier of the doorway separating them, uncharacteristically lacking in grace, and lands half in the room with her hands curling around Korra’s jaw and her mouth pressing haphazardly against Korra’s, cutting through her words. Korra barely manages to catch herself on the bed frame with one hand before they fall, her other hand gripping into the fabric of Asami’s jacket and holding her close.
A long moment of Asami’s lips moving gently with Korra’s passes before she jerks back onto her side of the door, the empty borderline between hallway and room stopping Korra short from following her.
“I--” Korra starts.
“Korra, I’m-- sorry, I’m sorry.”
“You are?” Korra pulls back, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “I mean-- wait, was that bad?”
“No! I just-- should have asked? Or something?” Shadows flicker in her eyes and Korra’s stomach twists, her hands reaching out towards Asami.
“I mean, if you say so? Okay?” Korra pulls her hands back, rubbing them over her eyes once more and shaking her head. “If you want to--to pretend it didn’t--”
“No!” Asami’s hair flies as she shakes her head violently. “That’s not what I meant. I just--that’s not how I wanted to-- not how I’d planned to do that.”
“Planned?” Korra says slowly.
“Well, not really planned, but-- considered?”
“You’d considered kissing me?”
“Yes?” Asami’s cheeks are almost as dark as the trim on her jacket, and Korra smiles in spite of herself. “Is that okay?”
“I mean, not really, because I’d kind of planned on doing it, too, so you more or less stole that piece of glory from me.” Korra’s mouth hitches into a smirk.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Korra says, scratching at the back of her head. “So, uh--”
Asami steps forward and tilts Korra’s chin up to kiss her again, soft and short. “So,” she says against Korra’s lips. “So we can talk about that tomorrow, maybe?”
“Tomorrow,” Korra echoes faintly. “Okay.”
“Goodnight, Korra,” Asami says, pressing her lips against the corner of Korra’s mouth.
“Night,” Korra says, staring into the empty doorway long after Asami’s disappeared to her own room.
By the time breakfast rolls around, she still hasn’t slept at all. Asami looks flawless, and Korra can’t stop yawning, but she’s in too good a mood to do anything but lazily bend some water at Bolin when he comments on her exhaustion.
Next to her, Asami smirks quietly into her tea.
two
“You can’t expect us to just sit by and let Zaheer take you!”
Asami’s words echo long after she’s spoken, weighing heavy across the empty air between them, and Korra squares her shoulders and leaves for the radio room.
Footsteps follow her, quick and light, and Asami pulls even with her halfway down the hallway.
“Korra--”
“Don’t,” Korra says, and her shoulders finally slump. “This is the only option we have, I--”
“I know,” Asami says. Her hand curls easily around Korra’s palm. “I know.”
They walk in silence to the radio room, Asami’s fingers twisting between Korra’s and her free hand gripping into the material covering Korra’s forearm. She doesn’t let go as she follows Korra into the radio room, quietly ordering her crew out of the room.
Asami finally lets go so she can fiddle with the knobs on the radio, checking the wires and flipping switches to counter the static. Her spine is sharp and stiff through the material of her jacket, and Korra twists her hands around one another.
“Asami, I--”
“Don’t,” Asami says shortly. “Please just-- don’t tell me that this is the only option. I know it is. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
She turns back to Korra, the microphone in her hands. “Promise me you’ll come back.”
“Asami--”
“No,” Asami says, and the brittle edge to her voice lances through Korra’s chest. “Tell me, right now. You’re going to come back to me.”
Korra steps forward, swallowing the words in her mouth, and kisses Asami instead. It’s heavy and it hurts, the way Asami clings to her and the way Korra folds into Asami’s arms, but she presses further into the pain anyways, swallowing Asami’s concerns.
“Tell me,” Asami says again. It comes out like broken glass that Korra can’t bend or fix, and Korra cringes and clings tighter to Asami’s back. “Tell me you’re going to come back from this.”
“I’ll come back.” She kisses Asami again. “I promise.”
It’s a lie, her promise, and the understanding of it presses Korra further into Asami’s unwavering grip.
“Call him,” Asami whispers into Korra’s temple. “Before I change my mind and stop you.”
Korra doesn’t let go as she starts the call, her fingers gripping too tightly over the microphone.
“I’ve been waiting for your call,” Zaheer says over the radio, and Asami jerks away from Korra. Her gloves creak as she clenches her fists, and Korra separates herself, avoiding Asami’s eyes, and stares tiredly out the window. “Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Korra says into the microphone. Out of her eyeline, Asami leaves the room, the door falling shut behind her with a quiet thud.
three
The first time Korra wakes up, she’s floating in a pool of water. The air is dark except for the glow alighting on the stern face of a healer as his hands move over her body; the contrast weighs oppressively on her sternum like metal poison and a cavern full of people ready to kill her, and she lashes out, bending ice shackles around the healer and slamming him into the wall furthest away from her.
She launches out of the pool, only to collapse onto the floor with a sob as her legs collapse like dead weight below her. Her palms and forearms leave smears of blood on the floor and her ribs protest her every breath, and the door is flung open to reveal her parents. Her mother gets to her first, skidding on the floor and gathering her up like a child after a nightmare.
It’s only her mother’s voice and her father’s hand on her cheek that calms her, and she succumbs swiftly, pain washing over her and tugging her back to unconsciousness. As her eyes draw shut, she holds on long enough to see Asami in the doorway, one hand over her mouth and the other digging into Bolin’s shoulder as she watches Korra pass out.
The second time Korra wakes up, she’s in her bed at Air Temple Island, and the room is empty for the sunrise except for Asami, sitting at Korra’s desk with her head bent over stacks of paper.
“Asami,” Korra manages to say. The words grind against her throat, raw and painful.
Asami jumps, knees banging against the underside of the desk, and the chair clatters to the floor behind her as she stands.
“Korra--oh, finally.” She materializes at Korra’s beside, hands hovering in the empty air between them, and Korra swallows painfully at the uncharacteristic rumples in Asami’s jacket, the lack of shine in her hair. “You’ve been asleep for days, I was--” Her voice catches and her fingers clench.
Korra pushes at the blanket covering her, throwing it weakly away, and pushes pathetically against the bed to sit up.
“Korra--”
Korra stares down at her legs, dark skin and muscle and bone staring innocently back up at her like always, except without an ounce of movement.
“Korra,” Asami says again, and it rings loud in the room despite coming out as barely as whisper, and something like a sob lurches out of Korra.
“Am I-- will I--”
Asami grabs for one of her hands, gripping it tightly between both of hers as she sits carefully next to Korra’s useless right knee.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “You’re going to walk again. You will. You will.”
“How do you know?” Korra collapses back onto the mattress, screwing her eyes shut against the sunrise and the way it patterns light over her broken body.
“The healers said that the poison was in your system for a long time.” Asami’s words come out haltingly, the sporadic gaps between them offering no comfort for Korra. “But they had Su and Lin and every metalbender they could find feel for anything left in there that they could remove, and they’re sure it’s all gone. There’s a bunch of-- healer bending science that I don’t understand, but they’re sure you’ll walk again.”
“Katara,” Korra says weakly. “What did Katara say?”
“She’s not here,” Asami says. One hand releases Korra’s, moving instead to slide gently up and down the tender skin on her forearm. “She’s just--too old to make this trip. She sent her best students, and they’ve been talking over the radio with her every day about you.”
“Asami,” Korra says, and it’s finally enough to break through her resolve. Her eyes start to water and she clenches her jaw as tightly as she can, unable to say anything beyond Asami’s name for long seconds. “What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t--what if I don’t walk--”
Asami shakes her head violently. “Korra, no,” she says, pressing her hand against Korra’s shoulder heavily. “You’re going to walk again. You’ll beat this. You’re the strongest person I know, and you will get better.”
She punctuates it with a kiss, leaning down and pressing her mouth to Korra’s, finally letting go of her hands so she can brush her thumbs over the tears that finally start to spill over Korra’s cheeks. Korra lays under her, limp and broken and useless, and Asami kisses her again, gentle and urgent.
“You’ll be okay,” Asami says quietly, pulling back barely far enough to speak. “And you won’t have to do it alone.”
It takes more than Korra has to stay quiet, and she shudders and sobs, curling awkwardly into Asami’s leg with the pieces of her body she can still move. She hasn’t cried so thoroughly since the moments before Aang appeared to her, all those years ago, rebuilding her from the inside out and catapulting her into the Avatar state for the first time.
No one appears to give back her legs, though, and all she has to hold onto is Asami.
four
As the team starts to disband, leaving Varrick and Asami to run the workshop with Hiroshi and Zhu Li, Korra pauses halfway to the door. Bolin claps a hand on her shoulder as he passes her, and she steps to the side to let everyone else file out, tilting her head towards the door when Mako hesitates at her side.
As they leave, she moves back to Asami’s side, sliding between her and Hiroshi and latching onto Asami’s wrist.
“I need to talk to you for a minute,” she says quietly, ignoring the way Hiroshi falls silent and Asami’s jaw clenches. “Just a minute,” she promises. She tugs Asami through the workshop, through the door leading into Asami’s office.
“If you’re going to--” Asami starts, arms folding over her chest and familial defenses rising in her eyes.
Korra kisses her, pressing heavily forward and gripping tightly to Asami’s sleeves.
“I wasn’t going to,” she says into Asami’s mouth. “Promise. I told you I’d stay out of you and your father’s business, and I am.” She kisses Asami again, slow and gentle. “But just-- be careful. I know you aren’t going to let anyone else fly one of those before you do, so just-- don’t get hurt.”
She presses up on her toes to kiss Asami once more, arms twining around Asami’s neck and pulling her close.
“Korra,” Asami says quietly. She doesn’t have anything else to offer beyond the soft exhalation of Korra’s name, though, and instead she just pulls Korra closer. “Are we ever going to talk about this?”
“Tomorrow,” Korra says. Her lips brush against the small expanse of skin on Asami’s neck. “After we finish this. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Asami echoes. She smiles like a window covered in fog, distant and blurry. “What if--”
“You’re going to come back to me,” Korra says firmly. “Okay? This time you’re going to promise me. Not that I get to ask you that, but I’m doing it anyways, because--”
“Okay,” Asami says. “Okay.”
Korra kisses her once more, a little bit messy and a little bit desperate and a little bit afraid, before she spins on her heel and marches out of the room, stubbornly refusing to look back.
five
As Kuvira is lead away, exhaustion creeps through Korra’s bones, settling into her body somewhere beneath the cuts and scratches and overworked joints. Behind her, Mako’s arm is covered in horrifying burns, and Tenzin is leaning on Jinora, and Bolin has a scratch across his forehead.
Asami breaks away from them all and breathes shallowly from her place leaning against an empty mecha suit.
“Hey,” Korra says quietly, settling down crosslegged and looking up at Asami.
“Hey,” Asami says. She tries for a smile but it only lifts half of her mouth, and Korra cringes.
“I’ll say it again when we’re not so tired,” Korra says. She picks through her words delicately, focusing on some spot on Asami’s shoulder instead of the way her jaw is clenched tight or her forehead is creased like it did when when she discovered her father was an Equalist. “But I’m so sorry about your father.”
“Korra, I can’t--not now--” Her face is dry but there are tears in her voice, and her throat works visibly to keep her voice level.
“I know,” Korra rushes out. “I just wanted to say it once, and I won’t say anything again until you want to talk about it, promise.”
“Thanks,” Asami says tightly, pressing a hand against her ribcage.
“Are you hurt?” Korra materializes on her feet, hands hovering near Asami’s ribs.
“Just bruised,” Asami says. “The ejection mechanism is still a little--” A sob catches in her throat, and she curls around herself, swallowing in the quiet cries.
“Come on.” Korra puts a hand on her shoulder carefully. “Let’s get you home, and I can do some healing, and--”
She cuts herself off as Asami just nods silently, leaning into Korra’s touch. Over Asami’s shoulder, Bolin and Mako are watching with naked concern, and Korra just shakes her head gently when they start towards the two of them.
She takes Asami to Air Temple Island instead, silently bending a boat across the bay and leading her inside. Tenzin and Pema are still on the mainland, leaving only a few acolytes and White Lotus guards on the island; Korra sends them away quietly as she guides Asami to her room.
Korra climbs into bed with Asami and waits,watching as Asami stares at the ceiling, until Asami finally cries again and curls over into Korra’s side. She clings to Korra’s dirty shirt and cries silently into her shoulder, and Korra presses a kiss to her temple and keeps a hold on her until they’re both asleep.