tushanshu_logs | [Closed]

"Hey," he answered easily, his hands in his pockets. Something to show that he was completely at ease, even as he glanced around the empty dojo. "Seeing how you were doing."

Seeing how everything's working out after this month. He wanted to make sure that Korra was finding other outlets for her frustration, and if leaving behind one of her many jobs helped at all. Maybe it was too early to tell, but hey, the check-up couldn't hurt.

And he'd had the day off, himself. So finding out what everyone was up to was at the top of his list anyway.

"I've been putting that extra time to good use." Said with a small grin as she turned around and beckoned him over her shoulder with a taped hand. On her way to the office, she grabbed a towel off the floor next to the heavy punching bag that had rips near the top. "And I might have to order new equipment because of it."

Wiping the sweat off her neck with the towel, Korra left it hanging off her shoulder and opened the cupboards to get out some crackers and tea.

"What about you? Came to work out all that stiffness from sitting down?" That grin turned into a teasing smile as she filled a tea pot with water.

"What are you talking about?" At least Korra wasn't tearing up her punching bags like that woman he'd met in the Wood Sector. It's the last statement, however, that gets the most immediate response out of him.

Him? Sitting down all the time? Clearly, she had some misconception about what he did with his free time, or something else. "Are you talking about at Stark Industries?"

He shook his head, and stepped further into the dojo. He wasn't dressed like he was ready to work out, but he could probably tear that punching back up worse, right then. Probably. But he'd refrain from proving he was still on his game.

"I don't have a sit-down job there, Korra. I'm firebending all the time, making sure stuff works."

"You actually firebend there?" she asked honestly curious as she warmed up the tea and set the crackers on the on the wooden table in the office. "I mean, I've seen your office. I just didn't know what you did there." The reasons for that was something she wasn't bringing up. At all.

The open doorway to the office gave a clear view of the first floor and she glanced at it before looking back to him. "No wonder you don't practice firebending that much." After getting two cups down, she sat in one of the chairs and began to pour tea for both of them.

"Have you ever been here before?" If he had been, it was when she wasn't here.

"Yeah, it's basically what Mr. Stark hired me to do," he replied with a shrug. If he actually were sitting down all the time, he'd have way more pent up energy than he'd know what to do with. "Don't worry about my job."

Then, he glanced around, rolling with the topic change. A shake of his head. He hadn't really been to any sort of gym since he'd gotten there, besides the one she'd had in her old apartment, and one he'd fashioned for himself back in his own.

"Not before, no."

Once both cups were full, she held his cup for a second in her hand until it was steaming and then set it on the table to slide it over to him. She grabbed the towel off her shoulder and tossed it out the door and into one of the empty laundry bins.

"It reminds me of the gym at the arena." She held the cup just next to her lips and her breath, which had finally slowed down from her exertion, caused ripples in it. "I miss it." She took a careful sip as she closed her eyes.

"Thanks," Mako said before taking the tea. He wouldn't turn it down, not now that he was starting to get a taste for more than the cheap tea leaves.

Another glance around, and he could see why it would remind her of the arena. The equipment there was more general than what he was used to seeing for pro-bending. But it was also more advanced than anything in the city proper. Perhaps it was his level of overfamiliarity with that particular gym that stopped him from really comparing them.

He just nodded, more concerned about home. He wanted to go back to Republic City more than anything, no matter what was going on there. It wasn't something he slowed down to think about very often, but the feeling was there. And it was more the mention of the gym, rather than anything that really reminding him, that made him think about it.

"I miss it too." He replies with a sigh that doubles as a cooling breath on the tea before he takes a sip.

This was the longest he'd been out of his city in his entire life.

It was the first time he mentioned their world, let alone missing it, since around the time he arrived and Korra opened her eyes to look at him, taking a longer sip than she should have. Once she was done, she opened her mouth to apologize, but closed it. He wouldn't have wanted to hear it, she knew that.

"If you ever make some use out of it, it's open. Even when it's not, I can change that." She said this over pointing at him with a cracker, right before she chomped down on it. "I don't have to rush my work outs now. I guess I should thank you for that."

And like that, she’d shifted the conversation back to something he’d figured was safe. He didn’t reply right away, thinking about the talk they’d had a few weeks ago, about talking to each other when they needed to. He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times that he ‘needed’ or even really wanted to, but he was surprised by how a simple ‘I miss home’ really affected him when he thought about it.

He missed Republic City. If he had the chance to go back, he was pretty sure he’d take it, instead of staying to see things through in Keeliai. This was a war he’d never been asked about. He was involuntarily drawn in to something he had no ties to, and he really resented it whenever he allowed his thoughts to linger there.

There was so much to look forward to back home.

After a moment, he realized he’d gotten lost in his thoughts, and he nodded quickly. “If I ever need to—I’ve got some stuff back at my suite, and there’s a few things at Stark Industries…” he trailed off again, still weighing what he actually wanted to talk about.

He hid it by taking another drink of the tea. And then, “Would you go home if you could?”

Before Korra could get a crack into her mouth, she held it up and stared at him after the question registered. What it meant in general, but more importantly; what it meant to her. Back home on the world she knew, where her parents were, Tenzin and his family, and the role she had been born with.

"Yes." She set the cracker back down and placed her chin into her hand so she could look back out at the dojo. "I miss it too. This world has foreigners that are stronger than the Avatar, they can save it with or without me." But her world only had her, and she had seen what threat was to come from her traitorous uncle.

But those were the important things, what Korra knew had to be done regardless of what she wanted. "I want everything to be familiar again. We've been here for months, but everything's still foreign. If I could go home, I would."

There was bitterness in her tone on the last part. For all the care she had for Tu Vishan, the baby turtles, and for the late Emperor; Korra didn't ask to be swept away from her life and plunged into a battle against a creature that thrived off fear and pain. Resentment had been there, and she had done everything she could to keep it as small as possible. The fact that no one had ever directly asked her that question made it easier. Even then, she wouldn't have told them the entire truth.

But this was Mako. He knew exactly what it was like and would snatch up the option to go home.

Admitting it felt like saying that she didn't care about the kedan, the other inhabitants off the turtle, or any living creature there. That wasn't how it was at all and she knit her brow before sitting straight again, sipping from her tea. Hair was stuck to her forehead now that her sweat had dried and she wasn't about to start sweating again by overthinking the subject.

Something she had done all too often when she was by herself, even before she found Naga, before Mako, and before even Toph.

"We'll get home somehow." she promised.

He listened to her response, his face almost impassive for a moment, before his true feelings of resentment at being snatched away from his home, from the only life he ever knew, began to show. He knew better than to let those feelings loose, so he tried to school his face into something more neutral as she spoke, but there was still just that little bit of edge to how his eyebrows furrowed closer, and his eyes narrowed.

He tried to hide it by drinking the tea, and then finally looked away from her as she finished talking, and made her promise to him. He believed her, if only because they had a future. That implied they had to live it sometime. Asami and Bolin had already lived through it, though, so what did that mean for them? Mako wasn't leaving anywhere without them, if he could help it.

"I know," he acknowledged, punctuating the statement with a frustrated sigh, before his hand went to his forehead, and then out again. "But no one ever asked my opinion about this. After everything that's happened, there's nothing we can do but grit our teeth and bear it."

He set the cup down, and then stood up, pacing for a moment. As he paced, he continued speaking. "And now I'm in debt to them, because I wanted to see what happened back home. It pisses me off, I have no say in what my firebending will be used for. I almost didn't agree."

He hadn't told anyone about that, so it figured that it would come out with Korra, in a moment of frustration. He turned to face her, looking a little lost. "And I had to watch one of the worst moments of my life play out in front of everyone. And for what? Something I didn't even agree to."

The sigh wasn’t what told Korra just how Mako was feeling right then. That was apparent when she saw that shift to his usual guarded look and she knit her brow at his statement. It was true. Despite how much their help was needed, how accommodating the suites were; they were forced to just deal with their predicament. And Mako just perfectly explained how she had been handling it: grit her teeth and bear it. Just like he had been doing.

At first, she wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t walk out and drop the whole thing, but his pacing made her more on edge than him doing just that. When she looked to him, Mako explained the bargain he had given for his future and that got Korra to stand up and step towards him. Bending was an important part of their lives and now they had control over when, where, and why Mako’s firebending would be used. And Korra knew Evandau, he was more militaristic than even Eshai so he wouldn’t even think twice about having him use it for something that would leave its own mark on Mako.

Just like how they were drafted to go into the bottle. But that moment was one that she had only heard about until then. Now she knew what Mako was carrying with him and the look on his face, that confusion- lost, made her reach out to put her hand on his arm.

"I didn't know you paid that price to see your future." It was apologetic. Not only because she felt sorry for him, and Korra feels more deeply than most, but because in a way it was her fault. If she hadn't been so eager to see her future, then maybe Mako wouldn't have been tempted to see his.

"Nothing good came from that battle aside from Han. There's nothing we can do about what we saw and experienced." And she hated that. More than she could say. A life she never lived was in her mind now, permanently parallel to the one she's had.

"The missions we went on when Tu Vishan was too sick to keep our powers up." That was before his time, she mentioned it but never went into detail. "Our team had to fight and probably die or hide while two groups of kedan killed each other."

Her mouth grew thing and she hated the memory of watching the bloody battle while hiding. Running away was something Korra would never do, but it would have meant the lives of the other foreigners she was with and without her bending- "We had to. Just wait until they were all, dead."

That was a hard night to get through, and she managed to keep her tone even. Were it not for Toph letting her unburden on her, Korra wouldn't have slept for who knew how long.

"Nothing we can do but grit our teeth and bear it." She echoed his words through the knot building in her throat and looked down where she was holding him, too tightly and she went to release him.

She'd never told him that.

In fact, when the words hit him, it feels like they land squarely in his gut rather than his ears. He'd had no idea about that, at all, which he knew was by design. Korra always had to do things her way, and do them alone. It was maddening sometimes, but this was one of those rare times that Mako could completely understand why she did it. He'd have done the same thing.

He was still looking at her when she finally released him. he hadn't even realized how hard she'd gripped his arm until he could feel the dull ache from where the pressure of her hand had just been.

There wasn't an inclination to press on that. Not yet, he could still feel the effect of it, physically, on his arm, and he could see it in her face and hear it in her voice. He had no doubt about how Korra felt, and what it'd done to her. He stepped closer, his actions guided more by instinct than any rational thinking. Something like this, right then, felt natural.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. He would have wanted something like that, after his parents had died, and Bolin had needed the same thing.

"Hey, we're not alone, at least," he says, to no one in particular.

Her gaze didn't move, she didn't even notice him moving. All she was seeing was that day and how they had to walk out among the dead to find the evidence of Dust that they were sent there for by Evandau. She was stiff and it was a few moments into the hug when she was brought back to the present. Korra put her hands on his chest and placed her cheek on them. Swallowing hard, she fought back the urge to shed tears. That was already done, and she managed to get past that over time.

"Not anymore." she agreed quietly. Of course they meant having their friends from their home, from their time. But now that she'd seen just how his parents died and how it affected him, she included that in her answer. Even if it was just for herself, but she reached around so she could hug him back. Something she was sure he needed, just like her, and neither of them would ask for it.

They didn't have to.

He didn’t assume much about the hug. This was one of those times he really didn’t want to concern himself with assigning some sort of motivation to anything she did. He already figured saying what she had enough, and the haltingness of her actions for those few moments only confirmed what he knew. He wished she’d told him sooner, but he knew that he wouldn’t have known what to do with that information then.

It would have only set him further on edge in a situation he already wasn’t comfortable in.

So, after a moment, he pulled back from her, his hands on her waist for a moment. He seems okay with that contact, though. “Hey… Thanks for telling me. You didn’t have to, and I don’t think I can help much but…” This was better than before?

But he wanted to help, even if he knew he was pretty useless?

There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but he had no clue how he could phrase them, so he was hoping that maybe she’d understand, no matter what he finished his sentence with. That what he was trying to say wouldn’t get lost with his own inability to say it. “I want to help you. As your friend.”

"Just being able to tell you was a big help." It was true. Not just her fears, but just being able to talk about things that really hit her right down to the core was something Korra needed and there wasn't anyone that would make a viable outlet. Not when they didn't come from her world and that she knew she could trust with something as important as that. A kind of weakness. Something Korra didn't want exposed for any to see.

The contact wasn't unfamiliar, but she knew the difference and she placed her hands on his shoulders and nodded.

"Only if I can help you too. We're in this mess together." For all that their life on Tu Vishan was, at the end of the day it boiled down to a large mess that they were charged with cleaning up.

"Even if it's something as crazy as being shrunk down and sent into a bottle of Death." She looked at him with her baby blue eyes trained on his amber ones and gave a half shrug with one shoulder while she tilted her head into it.

"Literally."

“Literally,” he repeated with something of a grin. Then, he took a step back, his arms separating from her waist, and creating that distance between the two of them again.

Talking out your problems. This was a new concept for Mako, especially as too often, talking out problems felt like they’d lead to a fight. And Mako, as a rule, hated conflict. He much preferred to detach himself from it where he could. But with Korra, he knew he had to try. She’d been trying really hard to help him, just like he’d been trying to help her.

He was really, really glad he’d caught her fighting underground now, even if the thought had infuriated him at the time.

“Hey, so, I haven’t had dinner yet. You wanna grab a bite? There’re a few food stands near-by that aren’t that bad, believe it or not. They kinda remind me of home.” Food like at home sounded like something they both needed, no matter how bittersweet it was in the end.

Eventually. Eventually they’d be home.

Korra brought her hands down from his shoulder and put her hands on her waist where was, still warm from the contact. Everything was much better than when they first spoke after breaking up, avoiding anything wasn't Korra's favorite thing to do and how they've been helping each other was putting her back on track to being comfortable.

"Sure. I can spot you." She was of course referencing her income from multiple jobs, which had been cut down by one. It was progress. "Besides, I could really use a slice of home." Especially now that they both knew how much the other had been longing for their world.

They could eat together over that and at least pretend for one night that they were home.

She went to put on her sneakers, the ones she only ever wore when doing a work out and just mentally shrugged at her flowing blue pants and tank top. They'd have to do since she didn't come to the dojo with a change of clothes.

"You know I haven't actually had anything in the Wood Sector yet."

"You don't have to spot me, I've got cash for myself," Mako answered easily enough, before placing his hands in his pockets. His posture said that despite everything, he was at ease, significant around her, since they'd been so guarded recently. This was a change both of them needed, and it made it harder to ignore the feelings he had for her than he thought it would.

It was one of the few times he didn't care, though.

"It's not bad there, you know. I like it-- a lot less fancy and overpriced than anything in the Metal or Fire Sectors. And the people are..." he pauses as he considers how to say this. "... Less noses in the air." Wait. "--Not that I'm saying you or Asami are that, you know, just... uh, you know what I mean."

Well, that was an awkward way to end that sentence.

Seeing him actually being himself was something she didn't get to see too often recently. Glimpses of it from the palace's pool that showed her the future weren't her, so just right then was enough for her to sidle up next to him casual as she pleased.

Still, she couldn't keep the single laugh out of her words. "I think I know you meant the kedan." When Mako wasn't his cool, collected self and almost tripping over his own words was one of Korra's favorite facets of him. Her feelings for him were always just beneath the surface and she fought to keep them there.

"I can't do the nose in the air trick too well. But if you want, I could try and give it a shot." Completely teasing because she knew just how much of a disaster that would turn out to be.

"That's alright, I'll just take your word for it," he replied quickly, and then pushed the door open for her. "After you."

He could walk them over to the park where the stands were, and maybe, just maybe, they could talk more. There were still some things that he wanted to ask her, though he was still screwing up the courage to just ask plainly.

It's not that he wanted to break from their previous conversation completely, but he thought they could both use a break from it, too.

"Ah-thank you, sir." Said with a smirk and she waited until he was through it so she could just lock up for the night. Anything left out she would just come in early and pick up or let Ryou handle.

When she saw the stands, Korra lowered her hands from the top of her head and sniffed at the air curiously. "Oh wow, that does smell familiar. You weren't kidding." That food made her stomach growl, the appetite she built up earlier wasn't helping either.

"Come on!" she went to grab his arm so she could move them along faster.

He let his arm be grabbed, picking up the pace a bit. Which for him really just meant taking longer strides, but details. He was more familiar with this place, and the one thing he appreciated was that, honestly, it was safe compared to some of the neighborhoods that he'd been in.

When they got to the stands, he let her pick out what she wanted first. He knew he probably wasn't anywhere near as hungry as she was. He could take his time making up his mind while she went ahead.

At least the stand owner recognized him. That was pretty impressive.

Longer strides was exactly what happened since Korra was noticeably shorter than him. The atmosphere of the Wood Sector was different from Metal and it was easy for Korra to tell.

As soon as she was able, Korra was taking practically two of everything. Her hands were slowly getting fuller and she actually had to hold a bag of steaming dumplings by her mouth.

She nudged Mako with her hip to get his attention. "Gibth ne a habd."

Somehow, he wasn't surprised when suddenly she had more than she could handle all at once. He stared at her-- and being in a particularly good mood did not stop him from giving a baleful, 'are you kidding me' stare at all the food she was trying to buy at once. But he could help her out, at least.

She was as bad as Bolin, though. That definitely didn't escape his notice.

He took one of the bags, and then placed his order. He already had the cash out, and he could go ahead and cover her while she wrestled with the fact that she didn't have three hands, even though she apparently had two stomachs.

Payment and greeting out of the way, they were gonna have to find a place to sit. And there were plenty of places-- and the good thing about the Wood Sector, that was the one advantage over Republic City? You could see the stars at night. So, just about anywhere would do.

So he just picks one of the grassy hills. "Over here, c'mon."

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