[Open]

[alphatar]

Characters: Korra, Finnick, Po, Bean, Dinah, Tony Stark (616), Amon, Sabriel, Jim Kirk, Damian, Toph, Lin, Jack Frost, Raimei, Enjolras, Kyle Rayner, Bruce Banner, Asbel, Aisha, Katniss, Iskierka, Richard, and OPEN (That means YOU.)
Date: Various dates throughout July when not conflicting with Korra’s time during the clueventure.
Location: Korra’s suite, Various locations
Situation: Fish, Training, Flying, and whatever else happens!
Warnings/Rating: Physical violence, PTSD, NPC death, blood, FEELS, maybe even some swearing.

(If you want a thread starter, let me know. If you want to jump in and post your own, go ahead! Actionspam and prose welcome and interchangeable~)






(Seriously. Let me know if you want a thread starter.)

Comments

[jirk]

Kyle's the one you hurt.

[It's a correction. He is Not Okay with your compromise, girl, and he's been a captain long enough to have a pretty good idea about how to wheedle and manipulate people into the compromise that works out best for him.]

Trust me, he's a good guy. He'll get why you did it, and he doesn't hold grudges. At least talk to him, okay? For me?

[HE WILL BAT HIS FUCKING PRETTY EYELASHES AT YOU IF HE HAS TO, KORRA.

When the light dims and fades off, Jim draws in a sharp breath and looks - actually looks down at the leg. The incision scars are still there, but they're faded, they look years old instead of just weeks, and the tingling that signified nerve damage across his toes is gone. Hell, he can wiggle his toes without searing pain and he rubs a hand across his mouth, then down to his neck where those ligature marks from the torture have faded and he just doesn't say anything at all for a moment, or move. Or do anything but sort of look faintly bemused, like someone's presented him with a puzzle he can't quite solve. Then, barely audible,]

Holy shit.

[alphatar]

Hurt? [Oops.] He trapped me so I suffocated! That green ring wasn’t hurt AT ALL. The last time I was trapped like that, I had to escape or be delivered to Amon for him to take my bending away and then kill me!

[A torrent of words awash with emotion she had been keep locked up since telling Jack, all rising up from her gut at once. She was in a clinic that was one of Amon’s haunts, with a stranger she knew worked with him, and a boy she had a crush on was recovering while her arch-nemesis had been training an art specifically design against “her kind”. When it was all out of her, she was breathing deeply as if she had just sprinted the entire distance Jim had walked.]

…Sorry. I don’t know what to do about the plates. You should ask Soranik. I can heal the cuts she makes later.

[Guilt for lashing out him, who had always been good to her, made her shudder for a moment. Then she stood up to put the water in the sink when she saw his neck. Not about to let him tell her no to this as well, Korra tilted her head and leaned in to scrutinize.]

You didn’t have those scars last time I saw you, did you?

[jirk]

[I didn't mean physically, the argument is there in his mind, taking shape, but at the next bit, he stops. The rest of her words blank out in his mind, he couldn't have told her what she'd said even if she asked. Kyle suffocated her.

He hadn't heard that side of the story, and it makes him feel cold and sick and nauseous and it feels like water in his lungs and grayscale vision and burst capillaries and bruised eyes and just like that he's back in that room and kedan are holding him down and he's losing consciousness over and over and--

Jesus. Jesus. He has to remind himself to breathe and isn't that ironic. He shakes himself, looks up at her in time to see her lean down to study his neck and something in him snaps, cold and hard. He wants to not be here, the room's too small and Jim, who's never had claustrophobia in his life, suddenly wants the space and freedom and open air of Iowa.

His voice is harsh and a little rough when he replies,]

Drop it.

[alphatar]

[Her focus entirely on his neck, Korra merely assumed the shake was because she was getting into his personal space. When she hears his tone, Korra also assumes it just in some retaliation to her raising her voice angrily.]

Don’t worry, I don’t bite and I won’t set you on fire. Did you even know you had these?

[Raising one of her hands from the water still held in the air, Korra reached out to touch one of them.]

[jirk]

[And Jim catches her hand before she can touch him.]

Korra. I said drop it.

[Jim Kirk: serious as a heart attack, ladies and gents.]

[alphatar]

[When he grabbed her hand, Korra is a little taken aback by his reaction. She didn’t try to wrest her hand from him, the look he had made balked her and Korra furrow her brow. First his leg and then suddenly this, Korra was starting to wish Jim had just been in a simple bar fight.]

But I was jus-

[She couldn’t think of any way to relate why he would be that serious when usually they had a sense of silliness and fun between them.

But, there was one thing that she had been very serious about recently too.]

Did your team do okay in the mission from Evandau?

[jirk]

[He released her hand, but as much as he should feel ashamed of himself for manhandling a teenager, he couldn't do it. She'd helped him, and he was being an ass, but some things... some doors, to borrow a metaphor, couldn't be opened this way.]

We did fine. Got a few good leads.

[He's pushing himself, to ease up, not sound quite so damaged. He's fighting to get his pulse under control after that bout of adrenaline and as grateful as he is for the fact she healed his leg, he isn't sure how much more of her company she can take.]

What about you? 'We succeeded' doesn't tell me much.

[alphatar]

Neither does “We did fine.”.

[Korra sat down on the floor in front of the spinny-chair, forever renamed thanks to Toph, and the ball of water she held turned to ice. Setting in the ground next to her, Korra looked up at Jim. Giving him the look a scared child gave a nurse before they received their first shot, Korra just started:]

Our mission was to find out what the suspicious activity at the Quarry was. It was where the shell of Tu Vishan had been worn down. Our team of five were observing the kedan for a few weeks and when we tried to get into the shacks they had set up to get whatever evidence we could fine, we were attacked.

[Korra’s eyes drift to his neck and then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before opening them and continuing.]

One of the others got injured. Raimei, just above her knee. She couldn’t walk well, let alone run. Amelia was unconscious. That only left the other three of us. That’s when Another group of kedan showed up, they were arguing and it led into a fight. We were supposed to stop them, they began killing each other.

Hiding was all we could do. Just hide and watch.

[Grabbing her own throat and moving it around to loosen the knot that was growing, Korra’s voice trembled.A beat.]

Who I am.

[Korra looked down at her feet, her shoulders shaking.]

We succeeded because we brought the evidence. [The same tone she used earlier when asked about the mission.]

[jirk]

Hey.

[Just that word, to catch her attention, and then he reached out to grab her shoulder, fingers flexing a little. He's been there, a hundred times. But more importantly, he's seen other people there - his crew, his family - and no one deserves to be in that dark place, where they're questioning their own judgements and actions and running over the what-ifs in their mind.

He ducks his head, offers her a bit of a smile. She's too much like him and he's not enough like Pike, but maybe he can still salvage something here.]

You did what you could. That's all anyone can ask, ever. Don't be hard on yourself, all right? Learn from what happened, and do better next time.

[alphatar]

[When he spoke, Korra instinctively looked up, both of her lips were between her teeth, clamping down on them to keep any emotions from the event bottles inside. She felt that to do so otherwise would somehow taint the carefree friendship they had. Both of them had been through events more serious than they played it off as, and admitting it would betray the kind of escape they created by bouncing off each other’s humor.

Nodding at his words, Korra let them sink in alongside Toph’s. They coincided, resonated, and reinforced the stableness Korra needed from them. Finally, she stopped clamping shut and her lips were white for a brief moment before the blood rushed the color back into them.]

Thanks.

…

We can drop it if you want. I just didn’t want you to be alone with it. [With the what-ifs and how-comes.] Talking about those kinds of things is the first step to getting over them.

[A lesson that had actually stuck with her.]

[jirk]

[That actually gets a genuine laugh, and he reaches up from her shoulder to ruffle her hair.]

Kid, I'm twenty-six. I think I got the memo.

[Or at least he likes to pretend he did. Jim's never talked about his issues if he can help it, and he isn't going to start. Her offer's... appreciated, sure, but he's never going to be That Guy who dumps his problems on a kid.]

But I appreciate the concern.

[Don't lose that.]

[alphatar]

[The last person that had ruffled her hair like that had been her dad, and that actually gets a chuckle out of her.]

I’m seventeen, I’m not a kid. [Said in just the way all seventeen year old kids would say.]

Well I didn’t get a memo, it kind of tackled me out of nowhere.

[Technically a bolas snare out of the dark, but it was close enough for her.]

Hey, it’s what friends do, right? [As she does so, Korra picks up the ball of ice, refreezing it as she picks it up.]

Think fast! [Tossing a ball of frigid temperature just to break a serious moment should be an Avatar trait.]

[jirk]

[He catches the ice - of course he does, his reflexes are awesome, thanks - but doesn't throw it back. Instead, he turns it in his hand like a kid with a snowball.

He's never been a big fan of having things thrown at him, but this is play. She's trying to lighten the mood, and that (changes the connotations) makes a difference. He laughs, a little wry, and shakes his head.]

You could make a killing with this, man. Sell ice during the summer months.

[alphatar]

[Giving a smile that lay somewhere between humor, fondness, and something else; Korra was strongly reminded of Jack with how he expertly handled the iceball. But then:]

What?

[That sounded completely absurd to Korra.]

Why would anyone buy ice? Why not just-

[They weren’t at the South Pole, it wasn’t just everywhere. Benders were not there to give simple services like that.]

Oh. OH. That’s brilliant!

[Side business for extra juulan on top of what fishing gave sounded incredibly good to Korra.]

I could purify water and freeze it! [She gave him an appraising look.] So what’s your job on the turtle; Business consultant?

Because it should be.

[jirk]

[Jim starts to laugh - it's an automatic response to her comment, but after a moment it turns real and a little bit of that Iowa farmboy bleeds through in the slightly abashed way he reaches up to scrub a hand through his hair.]

Maybe I'll look into it. Right now I'm just doing manual labour, it's-- [what he's used to, from back home] -- decent work.

[alphatar]

[When he does so, Korra lets out a single laugh that’s almost inaudible.]

Hey, if that ice idea does work I’ll commission you to take orders. [It was half joking.]

And I’ll think about what you said. [That wasn’t a ‘I’ll apologize.’, it was just a ‘We’ll see.’.]

[jirk]

And I [he points a finger at her.] Will totally be on board for that. So there you have it, your own shady underworld ice racket. We'll get cool shades and everything.

[To the next bit, he's silent for a moment, and then he nods. Brief.]

Thank you. And if you want me there to mediate or something, I'll be there. I might as well put my rank to good use, huh? After are, we are trained to pursue diplomatic solutions in Starfleet.

[alphatar]

I’ll make sure to secretly broadcast it on the network, and when we’re a hit, then you can tell me about shades.

[That actually caused Korra put her head back, look at the roof and think. A long pause before she finally looks back at Jim.]

All right, but only if you’re there. [If anything, Korra was sure an encounter between her and Kyle, apology or not, wasn’t going to end well.]

I don’t think I could handle not being able to breathe again, you know? [Honestly, Korra didn’t want to be alone if that happened again. For all she knew, Kyle wouldn’t be as forgiving next time and allow someone- Jack, to come get her.]

[jirk]

[Damnit, Kyle. He knows he's got the capacity to be vicious, to be cruel. But it's something learned in him, rather than innate. Jim's seen it. He can't defend him against that, because it'd be a lie.]

He won't do that again. Captain's honour.

[alphatar]

Deal.

[Nodding furtively at the agreement, Korra got to her feet. She eyed the incision sites on his leg and thought of what Soranik had put in there to assist him. Whether they would affect him in a negative way now that his leg was healed was becoming a concern.]

Think you’ll be okay walking home or do you want to spend the night?

[jirk]

I'll be fine.

[He gives her a bright smile. Even if he isn't, he'll... figure something out. He really just wants to be by himself right now. Not that he's ungrateful, just... he needs room.]

But thanks. For-- you know. Everything.

[alphatar]

[That smile gets returned with some pearly whites.]

Hey, it’s what Avatar friends are for. Just let me know what Dr. Natu decides to do about that plate. I don’t know much about how it works, but I can keep the bone intact if she needs to pry it out.

[jirk]

It's just there to hold the bone in place while everything heals. I know they used to be permanent in earlier societies, so maybe she'd planned for it to stay there after everything was fixed up. No big deal, we'll work it out.

[He gets up, claps her on the shoulder.]

I'll catch you around, okay? Take care of yourself. You know where I am if you need me.