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It’s a slow, rainy day. Maybe it’s late morning, maybe it’s early afternoon, Korra doesn’t know. Heavy clouds hang over Republic City and the incoming storm makes the current under her skin sing like the lightning is inside her rather than overhead.
She sits on the floor, cooing to Naga, rolled over to expose her stomach and tongue lolling as she pants happily. Asami had shaken her head in fond exasperation when Korra whined I don’t wanna bend and brush! when they’d stood on the patio and watched the slow-moving, full clouds. They always brushed Naga outside to avoid her fur in every inch of their house for the next few days but Asami had given in easily when both Korra and Naga had looked at her with those eyes.
Now Asami stands at the counter, murmuring to herself instructions as she makes matcha with precise, measured movements. Korra watches from the floor and wonders if she’ll ever grow old of simply admiring Asami.
She hopes she never does.
Her hands, so strong and capable, so clever and quick and neat, so gentle, catch Korra’s eye. When she’d first held Asami’s hands, clambering out from the back of a race car, heart racing not just from the adrenaline but Asami’s shampoo in her nose, she’d been surprised at the callouses on her palm. Asami was a puzzle she hadn’t fit together yet, all loose pieces—rich but humble, confident yet quiet, sweet as well as stubborn. She smiled at Korra with her arm looped in Mako’s, invited her to her house then took her to the course behind it and offered to take Korra on a ride. Took the controls, flipped them in the car with the ease that comes of familiarity. When she’d shook her hair out of her helmet, Korra had written the twist in her stomach off as sheer excitement.
There’s calluses on Asami’s palms, the space between her index and thumb, on the backs of her ankles. She’s leagues from that prissy, rich girl Korra had pegged her for in that ballroom years ago but she also smells of expensive lotions and perfumes and the skin of her face is unblemished. Despite everything, she’s still her in a way that captivates Korra. She’s built and operated gloves that capture electric currents, machines that fly, engines that hum under the hoods of the cars that populate Republic City—but she also braids Korra’s long hair every day, enjoys painting their nails, makes matcha in the kitchen, undoes the straps of their sparring equipment before joining Korra in front of the punching bags.
But they’re not in the makeshift gym, they’re in their kitchen, Asami making matcha with focused eyes, Naga nosing at Korra’s side when her hands slow in her stomach scritches. Rain patters against the window panes; the storm’s here. Korra thinks about convincing Asami to climb back into bed with her.
Korra blinks. Asami’s looking up at her with a knowing look, eyebrow raised, lips pursed. “What?”
“I asked if you wanted some,” Asami says with a gentle laugh. “Did you get Naga’s fur in your ears again?”
Naga’s tail beats against the hardwood at her name. Flushing, Korra stands and stretches her arms wide to capture all the piles of soft white fur as she bends the air around them.
“No, no—I’m good. Let me get rid of this before we open the windows.”
She bends the back door open, careful not to drop any of the fur and deposits it all in the basket tucked under the veranda. It’s quickly approaching spring, only remnant of winter in the thin, stubborn sheen of snow in the corners of her vision so Korra always leaves Naga’s fur out for the birds to insulate their nests for incoming eggs.
She pauses, reaching one covered arm out into the downpour. Exhaling, she feels each raindrop before it touches her, feels it roll down around the curve, drip off or sink into the fabric of her armbands. There’s that pull in the back of her mind, whispering, water. Korra counts memories as she steps from under the overhang and lets the rain sweep over her, wetting her hair, dripping from the end of her nose, wetting her parted lips. She allows it. There’s Asami’s palm tightening around a wrench as she constructs a sand-sailer from the broken parts of a airship in the middle of the desert to save her, there’s Asami’s hand curling around Korra’s where they sit defeated in her lap in a wheelchair, there’s the press of Asami’s thumb against the space between her shoulder blades after three years worth of letters and distance connecting them over seas. There’s Asami’s fingers tangled in hers as they step into the Spirit World, swim in rivers, climb mountains, fall asleep under trees, then back out again.
Asami, Asami, Asami.
She’s at the counter in their kitchen. She’s at the open back door, just watching Korra, leaning against the frame, palms cupped around the chawan. Korra said she didn’t want any but Asami’s made it anyway.
She always does. She always will.
Their knees will knock together in bed, on the couch, on the floor. Wherever Korra draws her because Asami will follow her. She’s at the Southern Water Tribe, flying over the Earth Kingdom, arms wrapped around her limp form as they thunder away from a run-down motel, holding her close and trying not to shake in the mountains around an abandoned Air Temple, back in Republic City first in a fancy restaurant then under a bridge on the outskirts. She’s in her workshop in Future Industries’ headquarters, being ejected out of a hummingbird-like machine with a scream that Korra catches and makes sure to bend her to the ground safely, ducking into an abandoned building when the skyline explodes into yellow light, the first face Korra sees among the wreckage as she steps out, victorious.
Footsteps join her. Korra thinks Asami’s socks will get wet.
“Wanna go back to bed?”
She opens her eyes, turns. “I was going to ask you that.”Asami shrugs, eyes dancing. “I know. You had that look. You always want to go back to bed when it rains.” Her gaze suddenly darkens and sweeps over Korra’s body in a calculating manner. “Are you hurting? I can—”
Korra reaches for her. Asami steps into the rain with her and there’s a drop of rain on the curve of her upper lip when Korra kisses her.
“No, love, I’m fine. I just want you in my arms.”
“You do already,” Asami points out but doesn’t move from her hold despite the rain falling from the edge of the overhang. Her arm settles around Korra’s shoulders, playing with the short hairs at her nape.
Asami’s talented hands do more than build up a broken, hurting city—they hold up a broken, hurting Avatar. There’s books upon books stacked on her side of the bed, her notes a bookmark, on how to knead and soothe aches in muscles that will never quite go away. Korra’s better, she’s getting better, but her scars go numb sometimes while the rest of her spasms; her one shoulder that clicks from when she dislocated it during her imprisonment by the Red Lotus, how her knee stings when she steps on it wrong or twists the wrong way too fast. She's never much liked rules but she's learning to listen to her body instead of making it listen to her. It's a kind of balance that she'll never in a million years admit to Tenzin.
Korra loves her hands. Korra loves her.
She bends the water from both of them before they step back inside and Asami passes Korra her matcha to sip as she leads them into the bedroom. The lamp hums on Korra’s side and they crawl between the sheets with quiet kisses and comfortable touches, nothing lingering but staying all the same.
The storm passes outside in a few hours, far-off thunder no louder than Asami’s heartbeat under Korra’s ear. She falls asleep to Asami’s fingers combing through her shorn hair, wakes to the same thing when the bedroom is darker and Asami’s bowl is on her nightstand.
The thin, rectangle frame of her glasses that Korra loves so much are perched on Asami’s nose as she scribbles notes, lips pursed the way they do when she’s focused. Korra just shuffles closer, sighs.
“Rain’s stopped.” Asami’s voice rumbles in her chest. She presses a kiss to the crown of Korra’s head.
Korra nods sleepily. “Mm. I felt it.”
“That’ll never not impress me.”
“Good,” she chuckles, ghosting her lips over the space between Asami’s collarbones and sternum to let her feel her smug grin, “gotta keep up the magic somehow.”
“Magic,” Asami scoffs.
Rain isn’t the only thing Korra can feel.