Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Asami Sato was probably the only university student on the planet who didn’t like pizza. She wasn’t sure why. But there was always something that prevented her from enjoying it. Some days it was the smell, others the texture, even the look. And for some reason the fact that it was a round food, served in a square box, eaten in triangles unnerved her.

Her issues with pizza were vast and ever changing.

When her best friend, Opal Beifong, physics extraordinaire, found out, there had been a lot more pizzas delivered to her dorm. The two of them started a tradition last year to order take out, pour some wine, and watch the most random Netflix movie they could find every Friday. But then, Opal Beifong, royal pain in the ass, just had to change “take out” to pizza.

Every Friday, Asami Sato, connoisseur of the Chinese place two blocks away, would groan as Opal would call in a large pizza with a new combination of toppings. And every Friday, Opal would playfully hit her arm and declare that this Friday, you’ll enjoy it.

Because, seriously, who doesn’t love pizza?

Asami’s father always said that she got her brains from him and her wit and looks from her mother. Right now, she felt devoid of all of these traits.

Her hair was messily tied up, she was in a t-shirt two sizes too big, and her old, but oh so comfy university sweat pants, sported one too many ice cream stains. But it was Friday, god damn it, and she had a right to not care. Because normally the pizza delivery guy was:

A) a greasy teenager five years younger than her or

B) an old guy who was fed up this his crappy job and had delivered pizzas to too many naked drunk and/or high males to give a flying fuck about who gave him the dough for the dough.

But opening the door to her single-bedroom dorm, she could add a C) none of the above. And to be honest, doesn’t everyone want to choose C?

(Although, to give Asami Sato credit, she's in Mechanical Engineering and hadn’t had a multiple choice question since she took a history course her first year as her required humanities elective.)

But none of that really mattered, because the person holding Opal’s newest, I guarantee you’ll love it™, pizza was definitely not a sleazy teen or a grumpy man. But a jaw-droppingly beautiful female.

She must’ve been staring for a little too long, because the pizza girl, the tanned, toned, very cute pizza girl politely cleared her throat and said “One large Canadian with extra cheese. That’ll be $11.50.”

“Oh yes, right,” mumbled Asami, opening her wallet that she was clutching far too tightly because, hot damn. Staring down at the small collection of greenbacks, she gulped nervously.

Despite being able to do triple variable calculus in her sleep, Asami Sato forgot how to add one plus one. “Oh fuck it all,” the engineer mumbled and withdrew the first two bills she could get her hands on, which just so happen to be twenties, and shoved them roughly at the pizza girl.

“Here you are,” said the pizza courier, extracting the box from her insulated bag. “Lemme just get you your change.”

“Oh, no, it’s perfectly alright,” bumbled Asami as she snatched the pizza box away. She was quite ready to stop making an ass out of herself.

“But it’s at least $25 over,” protested the pizza girl, her gorgeous blue, blue, eyes widening in surprise.

Asami laughed nervously. “Uh, no, just consider it my thanks for coming out so late…” she looked down at the girl’s chest to read her nametag and immediately flushed redder than the tomato sauce she was about to have to ‘enjoy.’ “…Korra,” she spluttered out.

“It’s not late,” said Korra, her face scrunching up in an adorable confusion, still reaching for her change pouch. “It’s only nine thir—”

Korra, dazzling, very hot Korra, never finished her sentence as the door slammed in her face with a woosh of “HaveagoodnightThanksBye.”

Asami Sato always kept her cool.

Asami Sato was the epitome of cool.

Asami Sato was—oh sweet baby Raava what was she thinking? She was a full-fledged, 100% bonafide fool.

With that, Asami plopped on her bed next to Opal with a glorified and drawn out “ugh.” She poured herself well over two fingers of wine and took a bite of pizza, which to no surprise fell flat on her tongue.

“Well?”

“Nope. Try again.”

Opal clicked her tongue and shook her head, disappointed. “What will I have to do to make you a believer?”

Asami shrugged. She may not like pizza, but she’d brave that round tomato, cheese, and bread concoction if it meant seeing Korra again.

Next Friday, Asami wore jeans and a nice shirt, left her makeup on and her hair down. It was enough to make Opal suspicious, but she tactfully brushed it off with an incredibly not suspicious “It’s nothing.”

Yes, Asami Sato was a total super suave engineer.

Then there was a knock on the door and Asami almost sprang to her feet. She was so ready to make Korra’s jaw drop, not the other way around. And she had just the attack plan. She’d open the door slowly, with her award winning smile that made all the guys and gals swoon. Then she’d place the correct amount of money (not without a generous tip, mind) lightly in that girl’s hands lingering just long enough, making sure to ‘accidently’ let their fingers touch. Then she’d—

Asami opened the door and was greeted by A) a greasy teenager five years younger than her. She frowned and threw a couple of bills at the poor kid, took her pizza in a huff and closed the door without even a simple thank you.

Opal raised an eyebrow at the sudden turn in her mood, but the engineer deflected it yet again, with yet another, definitely not suspicious, “It’s nothing.”

The next Friday, it was the same.

And the one after that.

The next next next Friday, she gave up and wore her sweatpants and baggy shirt. It was the same.

Asami Sato, brilliant, charming, master of romance, Asami Sato had a plan. Pizza can be ordered from 11am to 1am Sunday to Wednesday and to 3am Thursday to Saturday. Inclusive. Because it was noted in her planner using square, not round, brackets.

As in, pizza does not need to be ordered on a Friday. And if her STATS 241 class helped her learn anything, more events would grant her a higher probability of seeing Korra.

By the time Friday had rolled around again, Asami Sato had ordered two pizzas everyday (one in the afternoon and one in the late evening) and she was beginning to think that the event of ordering a pizza was mutually exclusive to the event of her seeing Korra.

She had nothing to show but a fridge full of pizzas she didn’t like and a greasy teenager five years younger than her remarking “You must really like pizza.”

But of course she didn’t. Her relationship with pizza had gone from mild dislike to burning hatred.

Because, seriously, who can love pizza?

Chapter Text

“Personal cheese pizza!” calls Bolin, as he attaches the ticket to Korra’s line.

“Thanks, Bo! Is it from Five-o-Eight?” Korra asks as she sends a disk of dough spinning into the air.

“Oddly, it’s not.”

Bo, or Bolin, as his full name went, was a student at the nearby culinary school, who, along with Korra and his brother Mako, worked part time at the local pizzeria. Or well, Mako worked full time, since he was taking a year to save up money to attend the Republic City Police Academy.

Korra, on the other hand, transferred to Republic City University this year was finishing up her senior year in Political Science, specializing in International Relations.

“D’you think she had a pizza overload or something?” asks Korra. “I know I would if I ordered that much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, pizza is in my top five favorite foods, but really.”

It’s currently 12:15pm. And at exactly 12:15pm, on the dot, and every 8:24pm (Yes, twenty four, not a minute earlier or a minute later) there’s an order for a personal cheese pizza to the customer living in RCU dorm number five hundred and eight, or, as the pizzeria staff like to call her, Five-o-Eight.

Bolin just shrugs and goes to pick up the ringing telephone.

Asami Sato always had a plan. Her life was organized and ran like the well-oiled machines she would design and assemble in the lab.

She had “shower” and “sleep” penciled into the hours of her planner. She labeled all of her drawers (and sub-drawers). And all of the music files on her computer had every information block from “Title” to “Year” to “Lyrics” filled in. Heck, she’d even creates weighted Excel sheets to make logical and numerical decisions, like which brand of toaster to buy.

But Korra was quickly becoming the wrench in the proverbial cogs of her life.

Asami’s brilliant plan of ordering pizza to her door twice a day in hopes of seeing Korra again fell through the floorboards. And in hindsight, was not that bright. She had not only wasted quite a deal of money (despite the fact that a personal cheese pizza was the least expense item you could get delivered), but also was left with a fridge bursting at the seams with pizza.

And she hated pizza.

As the engineer drummed her pencil against her Fluid Mechanics textbook, her mind worked on an entirely new plan to oh so casually run into Korra again.

(And, although she won’t admit it, her mind drifted to other forms of fluid mechanics.)

It was the fifth time in the last hour that Bolin got a call with only silence on the other end. And since it isn’t Victorian times, the caller ID declared it was the same person.

Meanwhile, over at Asami Sato’s dorm room, the very smitten engineer hung up on the pizzeria for the fifth time in the last hour, too afraid to even utter a word.

Asami’s phone clattered out of her hand and onto the desk. Her head followed soon after, hitting her textbook with a muffled thump. She let out a very elegant, long winded, and well worded, FML.

Because, seriously, she couldn’t even say a word. A single word.

She was Asami freaking Sato. If she wanted to, she could convince an entire room of PhDs that the sky was, in fact, not blue. She could say “Sally shot the city chief” five times fast without slipping up and swearing.

But she could not simply ask if Korra was available. For delivery. To deliver. To her. Pizza to her.

If Korra was available to deliver pizza to her.

Dear Raava, she couldn’t even say it straight in her mind. Asami thumped her head against the equations for Newtonian fluids a few times. She should just give up now. Even if she did miraculously run into Korra again, she’d made such a fool out of herself the first time that the poor girl would probably want nothing to do with her.

A groan.

A fleeting thought that she could at least calculate the viscosity of her lonely tears late in life as she snuggled with cat number five of twenty.

The engineer sat up. No. Asami Sato was not a quitter. When her first draft fails, she just makes a new one and tries again. And again.

She flipped her notebook to a brand new page and in all caps wrote out: “How to Give Korra My Number Without Being a Creep v3.0.1a”

Ordering multiple pizzas had been a mistake. Calling the pizzeria had been a mistake. And now this idea was quickly becoming yet another mistake. More like “missed-steak,” since she probably had enough pizza to last her a year, she bemoaned.

Asami Sato was currently sitting in her car, shades on (despite the cloudy weather), and not so suspiciously craning her neck to look into the pizzeria’s windows for any sign of Korra.

She was being a complete and utter stalker and she knew it. No, it was undercover espionage. Because that had a much better ring to it than stalker.

So far she had only seen the person manning the register. A friendly-faced guy with black hair, a tuft of it chronically draping itself forward, despite the numerous times he would push it back. But no Korra.

Asami debated going inside a few times, but decided against it. After all, if Korra was in there, she’d probably get a nosebleed or hit her head or maybe fall on the floor or perhaps all of those at once. And that would be terribly embarrassing.

And, well, if Korra wasn’t there she’d have to face those she had obsessively ordered pizza from for the past week. In person. Asami shuddered lightly at the thought. There was a reason she was in engineering and not looking to make it on Broadway.

She looked down at her dashboard clock and frowned. She had class in twenty minutes. Vowing to return, Asami twisted the keys in the ignition, shifted to reverse, and made her way back to campus.

The next day there was no sign of Korra.

Nor the one after that.

The next next next day, Asami contemplated buying a white van and spray painting “free candy” on it. Because even that would make her feel less like a creep.

“Hey, Mako, that same car is in the lot again.”

“It’s a black sedan, Bo. It’s about as generic as they get,” sighed Mako, absently spinning a spatula in his hand.

“But I swear that license plate looks familiar. Maybe the Academy is scoping you out. Seein’ if you’re made out of cop material.” Mako gave his brother a blank stare as if to say “Really?”

Bolin leaned forward, his chest touching the register.

Asami noticed the guy manning the front focus in on her, eyes squinting. Then he leaned forward.

She’d been made. The engineer panicked. She flung herself to the empty passenger side. Her seat belt snapped rather painfully across her torso and she hit the console and gear shift with her ribs.

Abort. Abort.

Asami Sato, picture of feminine grace, counted to fifty before propping herself up. Ignoring the soon-to-be bruise on her side, she fired up the engine and high-tailed it out of there.

Back to the drawing board.

Chapter Text

“Korra, ‘nother order from Five-o-Eight!”

“Personal cheese? Haven’t made one of those for her in a while,” quipped the girl in question, wiping a bit of flour from her cheek.

“Naw, it’s a large pepp, sausage, mushroom, banana pepper? and pineapple? What?” asked Bolin, turning his nose up and scratching his head.

“Oh, Bo, is it Friday already?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s Friday, why?”

“Because every Friday Five-o-Eight orders a large. And every Friday it’s different.”

“Ohhh, you must really keep track of her,” smirked Bolin.

Korra tossed a small handful of flour his way and rolled her eyes. “It’s not hard. I make her a pizza at least every day.”

The machine that spit out order tickets whined again, and Bolin went to go remove it. “Oh, Korra, there’s a note to the order…” The machine kept printing out words. “Eh, make that a novel.”

Asami was sure that this time she would get to see Korra. And at best give Korra her number. And at bestest (Yes, this is a word. After all, Asami is an engiere engenere engeer. She’s good with math.) Korra would call that number and Asami would invite her out on a date to which Korra would say yes.

So when Opal texted her saying that she was running late and that Asami should go ahead and order the pizza this time, the engineer had just the plan (again).

Hopping onto her laptop, Asami opened the pizzeria’s website (now conveniently bookmarked), where, thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, she could order her pizza online. And add a beautiful thing called delivery instructions.

Technology these days was truly something to marvel.

Please send Korra. She typed first. It was efficient and down the point. Truly the work of an engineer.

Asami backspaced. That was probably too forward. She didn’t even know if Korra still worked there. After all, she had ordered a pizza twice a day for a week and a half and still no Korra. She had failed to call and ask for Korra. She had even stalked her place of work. No, not stalked. Performed surveillance.

A delivery girl by the name of Korra transported my pizza to me once before and I would like to request her services yet again for this particular order. With the love of everything that is good and green in this world. No. Asami quickly held backspace. “Her services” really now. It’s not like she was some posh royalty figure.

I’ve been ordering pizzas from you every day for the past week just to see the very hot delivery girl that had a nametag that said Korra, which, might I add, rested quite wonderfully on her—Asami stamped on the backspace button like it was on fire.

The constant typing and backspacing went on for a few minutes. Asami blinked at the very long and rambling note that she had typed out for the umpteenth time and groaned. This was not going well. She hit her head against the keyboard, amending a long string of gibberish to her “delivery instructions” and sighed again, going to hit backspace.

Instead, she had to be made a fool again. Because she hits enter, not backspace. And to her horror, the “order confirmed” page pops up.

Quite numb from the whole ordeal, Asami gets up, falls face down into her bed and groans every expletive she’s ever heard (and invents a slew of new ones) into her pillow.

“Can you read it to me?” asks Korra, referring to the large amount of ticker tape in Bolin’s hands. “My hands are all doughy right now.”

Bolin clears his throat dramatically and puts on his best radio show voice.

You must think I’m entirely crazy, and you’ve probably noticed the numerous orders of pizza I’ve been placing. I swear I’m not hiding an army of refugees in my dorm that eat solely pizza. Or going through a difficult breakup, but wait, that doesn’t mean I’m taken. I am single. Oh, crap, that sounded really desperate. Holy shit, I‘m going to have to rewrite this stupid note again. Can I even say shit on this thing or will it censor it? Eh, nevermind. **[[[DELETE THIS PARAGRAPH LATER, YOU IDIOT]]]]]

What I wanted to say was that if you could send over Korra to deliver the pizza, that’d be really nice. I don’t know if she works there anymore or if she’s working tonight, or maybe you have two Korras working there? I’m talking about the one that has beautiful baby blues and wonderfully toned arms. Great smile. Yeah, that Korra. Oh this is just falling apart again. I should jussdfaskjdfhasd aauisfh9erwherhw8erawsuahrwe2938;g2;g3a4gtasjhdfsdf.

Bolin tries his hardest to bring life to the keyboard gibberish, but ends up sounding more like a senile old man with a lisp and a mouthful of peanut butter.

Korra laughs and asks Mako if he can hold down the kitchen while she’s out. He nods, his usual grumpy frown cracked upwards in a small smile.

Opal arrives to Asami still mumbling expletives into her pillow, right after groaning out that she’s a “fucking shit-wit.” The physicist plops down next to Asami and strokes the engineer’s head. “What happened?”

Asami groaned and rolled over. “I’ve made a complete and utter fool out of myself.”

Opal grins. “What’s new?”

Asami swats at Opal’s arm, but her friend sees it coming a mile away. “I need a glass of wine first.”

“Sure thing, is it in the fridge?” Asami nods.

“Uhm, Asami?” calls Opal. “Why is your fridge stuffed with pizza?”

The engineer startles upright. Because, oh fuck, the pizzas. No one was supposed to know the extent of her problem. The engineer goes to open her mouth, but a knock sounds, and she goes into full panic mode.

“You have to hide,” blurts out Asami.

“Why on earth do I have to—”

“No time to explain, just…” Asami sweeps the room for somewhere to stash Opal, and her eyes fall on the door next to the entrance. “Get in the closet!”

“The closet?! Fuck no! Asami, why are you stashing pizzas in your—” Asami shoves Opal into the closet and puts her finger to her lips, telling her to be quiet. Opal’s eyes narrow.

Asami answers the door, as composed as she can be after shoving her best friend of three years into a tiny coat closet. Any shred of composure she does muster up flies straight out the window because there’s Korra, standing there with her pizza, a few streaks of flour accenting her uniform’s shirt and cap. “I got your message,” grinned Korra with that beautiful, dazzling smile.

Asami blushed. “Sorry about that. I’m not crazy, I swear.”

“No problem, Five-o-Eight. I’m just glad I got to see you again. I mean, I make you a pizza every day, so it’s nice to see who they go to." Korra chuckles and ruffles the back of her head with her free arm. Asami secretly dies a little inside. "That's why I wasn't around, I only deliver pizzas if they get super swamped with orders. Normally I'm in the back kitchen.”

“Oh..." breathes Asami. A pause "Five-o-eight?”

“Oh, sorry, must’ve let that slip. It’s what we call you down at the pizzeria since, you know, your room number is 508.” Asami nods. This is not going as plan and she can almost feel Opal’s eyes on her back. “Anyways, I need you to sign this credit card slip, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Oh, there’s no rush, I don’t mind you being here.” Asami blushes even redder. She was normally so composed. The master of the flirt. But she’s a puddle of bright red goo next to Korra. The pizza girl smiles and hands her a pen and receipt slip.

Asami gathers up some courage and quickly signs her name and phone number to the bottom. She hands it back, trying to do so very calmly and with a coy smile. She’s pretty sure she fails.

“I, uh, added a few extra digits to your tip,” Asami almost goes to wink, but stops herself, because hasn’t she done enough damage already? She hears a snort of Opal’s laughter from the closet and wants to die of embarrassment.

Korra takes the slip of paper and raises her eyebrow, before going a bit red in the face herself. The next words that come out of Korra’s throat are a bit too high, and stick a bit too much, but Asami doesn’t notice because she’s imagining a hole in the ground that would swallow her up. Because “a few more digits to your tip?” Really? Innuendo much? Really?

“Well, I hope this isn’t too cheesy,” starts Korra, handing over the box “but I’d love to spend a pizza my time with you,” she laughs nervously at her own bad joke.

Asami gapes, the pizza box held loosely in her hands. She didn’t just. Korra didn’t just make two puns in one sentence. The delivery girl blushes and Asami has an internal meltdown.

System Failure. Press okay to reboot.

'OK.'

Those bright blue eyes and, sweet Raava, that fucking adorable blush.

Error encountered: Unable to load thoughts.exe. Emergency auto pilot engaged.

Yet again Asami shuts the door in a hurry. It slams in Korra's face with a whoosh of "ThatsoundsgreatOkayThanksBye."

The engineer leans against the closed door and lets out a shaky breath. Be still my beating gay heart.

Asami’s euphoria upon seeing Korra again (and managing not to drive her away) is short lived as Opal comes crashing out of the closet, red in the face herself, not from embarrassment, but from trying to contain her laughter. “Oh. My. Goodness,” heaves Opal between choked laughter. “Asami, don’t tell me you’ve been ordering pizza, a food you have no interest in, just to meet a cute girl.”

Asami’s silence is all the confirmation she needs and Opal bursts out in fits of laughter yet again.

“You’re telling me you don’t even like pizza?” scoffs Korra. “I literally made you two pizzas a day for a solid week.”

Asami blushes. “Yeah, I may have just wanted to see you,” squeaks the engineer.

After the whole pizza fiasco, Korra and Asami had hit it off splendidly. They went for coffee, the movies, and were now on their third date at the Chinese Restaurant two blocks away from the university. Or as Asami insisted, “As far away from pizza as possible.”

“Well, you know if you ever feel the need for pizza, I can swing you a friends and family discount,” grins Korra.

Asami blanches at the thought. “I think I’ve had enough pizza to last me a lifetime.”

Opal and Asami continue to have their weekly Friday hang outs, despite the fact they are now both seeing someone. (Ever since Asami had brought Opal to the pizzeria to meet Korra, Opal and Bolin had been quite inseparable.)

They don’t need to order pizza, though, since Asami’s freezer is now stocked with neatly wrapped slices of pizza. Dated and sorted by toppings.

Even Opal gets sick of frozen pizza. They’ve switched to ordering Chinese.

“What are you going to do with all of those pizzas? You can’t just leave them in your freezer forever.”

Asami shrugged. “I’ve been mocking up some blueprints to make a cannon that fires pizza. A barrage of frozen triangles should be able to dissipate any late night party. Or maybe I’ll just explode them in slow-mo. The internet rather likes that.”

The engineer later decides to combine the ideas and shoots exploding frozen pizzas at a frat party, an event she films with a slow motion camera. The video goes viral two hours after its upload.

It’s surprising how casually Asami asks Korra to go steady. She didn’t mean to, but it just slipped out. She has her end of the year senior project to present and of course she has to provide food and drink. It’s a semi-casual affair, so she picks up water and soda from the grocery store and calls up Korra on the work line.

“Hey, so does that friends and family discount apply to girlfriends?”

The word slips out and the line goes silent for a moment. “Certainly.” Asami can almost hear Korra’s grin over the phone. Asami hangs up wearing an identical one.

Korra, naturally, delivers the pizza to Asami’s event, saying that she’d be off work in a few minutes and just needs to change before attending.

“It’s just a bunch of engineering technobabble, you’ll find it boring.”

“But it’s your engineering technobabble,” grins Korra and goes to leave.

“You forgot your tip.”

Korra stops and turns around, wearing that cute scrunched up face of confusion. “You don’t have to—”

Asami silences her with a kiss.

Korra’s work clothes always smell like freshly baked pizza, and a few months ago the engineer would’ve turned up her nose, but now she swears there’s a ghost of the taste on Korra’s lips and it makes it all the more enjoyable. Asami doesn’t mind pizza anymore. In fact, it may just be her favorite food.

Because with pizza, there’s Korra.

Asami breaks the kiss and smiles. Korra does too, before dipping her head back to Asami’s lips.

Yeah, she loves pizza.