Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

They sit in silence. The young man’s head rests back against the cool of a cement wall, eyes closed to the fluorescent lights above. His little brother folds over himself instead, hugging his knees in search of relative comfort. But this is the police station, and in the way of comfort even the familiarity of these surroundings can’t provide much of that. Every breath reminds Bolin of the fresh burn under his collar. If he can be thankful for anything, though, it is that the pain keeps him from looking up and over. All he would find is a black-eyed face of the one who caused it, and that would be enough. Off they would go: chairs kicked or wielded as weapons, flames fanned by low blows, only dragged off of each other by the scruff of their necks.

Down the darkened hall, a telephone chimes four times for no one. It’s the graveyard shift. In the hours since the boys had been tossed inside and told to wait, they have only seen one other patrol officer and one armored metalbender passing through; but the longer they sit, the less the silence of their solitude actually sounds like silence. Bulbs buzz overhead. At the other end of a vent, an operator picks up the call after a fifth muffled ring. A dog growls.

Bolin doesn’t have to turn to see that, out of the corner of his eye, Mako’s arms are crossing over his stomach. 

If he weren’t so angry or tired or hungry himself, then the interruption would have easily made him laugh. That would’ve gotten Mako laughing, too, despite his best efforts to take himself seriously. And off they would go: laughing at nothing but the laughter itself. 

Bolin winces, his soreness forgotten in the effort to stop a stray tear. 

Worry stains the night in a way it hasn’t since their first time here. Much like then, it’s hard to say where they’re going or if they will be going there together. He wants to ask Mako if he remembers it as vividly as he does—how the police had knocked on their door, how they sat and waited in this station, and how they ran from one unknown to another—but what a stupid question that would be. Mako is older and, in a few important and unfortunate ways, wiser. Of course he remembers. Even after the officer returned their father’s scarf to them, Bolin couldn’t tell that the world had ended. He had to be told.

Take that off! Intense as their fight had suddenly become, the last surviving atom of kindness in him only wanted to protect the scarf from themselves. Mako would never forgive either of them if Dad’s memory was tainted: frayed or dirtied any more than it already is. Time still passes, of course. Cloth is cloth. Take it off, Mako!

His grip on him tightened, pinning him to the wall. Do you want to die? 

But Bolin’s intentions weren’t all kind to begin with. As his vision blurred with tears and tunneled with rage, the truth became easier to see. Easier to face. You don’t even deserve to wear it!

Now, long past midnight, the sticky heat of daytime is still trapped inside the station. The scarf is still tied safely around his brother’s neck. 

The day begins the same way it had for years. Mako rises before the sun. And because he does, Bolin does, too: tapped and then shaken out of his slumber. The motion is enough to disturb, briefly, a couple of other kids sleeping on the steps below and above him. 

“I’m going–”

“Okay. Can I–?”

“Nope.”

But, too grateful for the opportunity to return to his dreaming, Bolin barely huffs in protest. 

“Meet me by the–”

“Fire Lord,” his younger brother mumbles back. He rolls onto his side, waving him off as he does. “Yeah, yeah.”

The day should end as expected, then. Mako will run numbers for Shady Shin, leaving Bolin to play. There’s work to be done on both sides—money to be made and then pooled up—yet the minute details will not be discussed when they meet in the glow of the Fire Lord’s statue. Their minds will already be set on filling empty bellies. And then they’ll fall asleep, Mako then Bolin. And then they’ll start from the beginning. 

With any luck, the cycle is about to be broken. The Boss had given Mako an unexpected gift yesterday: for him and him alone, three simple words carried close to the heart. You’re going places. It meant something from a man who rarely spoke unless it was to bark orders. It meant something when his star pupil had bowed, catching the slightest smile in return. 

He’s going places. Bolin will, too.

What should be a hopeful thought drags him back down from the clouds unexpectedly. It slows his steps as he crosses a still-empty street, further scuffing his hand-me-down shoes as he passes into Triple Treat territory—because he had left his brother without any other option. The likelihood of separate homes frightened him enough to frighten Bolin along with him. And now, with so many years of this behind them, Mako is certain that the boy would have been happier and healthier had they played by the rules. That their parents would have been relieved to know they had not been failed. That their family, apart, would be okay. 

Past the corner store, past Narook’s Noodlery, a young businessman approaches from the opposite direction. He keeps his head down as he crosses the street. Keeping his distance.

What would San and Naoki think of their son skulking through the dark alone? Slipping through the basement window of a triad hideout, no longer to practice on his own, but to meet a man like Lightning Bolt Zolt? Removing the scarf from his neck, folding it neatly to set aside, he couldn’t dwell on it even if he wanted to. His world is so distant from theirs as to be indistinguishable; much too distant and for much too long. Sometimes he wonders if he would even recognize his parents passing him by on the street. His father’s broad shoulders, his mother’s listening eyes. They aren’t the rarest of traits. He’s seen them so many times…

“Good morning,” he says, head bowed to the door. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“Bright’n early.” Bare feet move leisurely across the mat, stopping under Mako’s lowered gaze. “Think we beat the worms to it?”

Smoky and melodic, the Boss’ way of speaking is classically Triple Threat: clearly colored by the dialects of blue-collared cityfolk and the easternmost Fire Islands, with a smattering of rural Earth Kingdom twang and Water Tribe wit. While deep in thought—often the case whenever Mako catches glimpses of him—he tends to be slouched and removed from the action. In ready position however, he stands almost twice as tall as his apprentice. 

Unlike Shin, Ping, or even the higher ranking members like Viper, he doesn’t dress flashily. His clothes are loose-fitting and practical but smart on him, the dark crimson and black contrasting sharply with the shocks of white in his combed-back hair. As their triad’s longstanding leader, he has little to prove but his unsurpassable prowess as a bender. And everyone knows it’s no contest. 

Mako mirrors him: elbows drawn back, fingers curled into fists. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the silence of anticipation is broken.

“So, then. Why d’you think you’re here?”

Without letting his attention stray too far, the boy is invited to take in their surroundings. The mat is soft beneath his feet. The walls of the basement are bare and white, save one corner where the layers of paint have chipped away. “To learn, sir.”

Years back, red. Further back, green. He had never noticed this when the room was filled, as it normally is, by other young firebenders fighting over their mentor’s good graces. But at the rough surface of clay, two shadows face each other in a golden halo of lamplight. 

“Lot of kids wanna learn,” the Boss says. 

And where are they? Slowly, Mako nods.

A slight smile answers this, more visible in the eyes as a glimmer—there and gone. “But let’s not waste too much time yapping. We got our lives to live. Let me ask you this: what d’you wanna learn here?”

Shifting his weight from one heel to the other, reminding himself again to breathe, to stay alert, he calls upon recent memory. The hideout. Watching the men play Pai Sho. “Well…” Shin had cheated his way to victory, and as his opponent had observed: “Don’t know what you don’t know.”

“Smart answer.”

He figured it might be.

“Lightning,” the man says next. “Ever wonder how that works?”

The changing snow. The world splitting apart, bright enough to blind. He hopes the past doesn’t show on his face. 

“Takes a real bender to get it right. And I tell you this ‘cause I got a feeling it won’t go to your head: I hate seeing good talent go to waste.”

So that’s what happened all those years ago. Gone to waste. To protect himself and his brother, he will have to take advantage of his own potential. He will have to become more dangerous. 

His next breath is let go carefully. Fists clench and unclench, reminding blood to work through the veins before bowing in thanks.

And the Boss is observant. He reads this response for what it is, his stance relaxed by the time Mako looks up again. “There oughta be some trust here.” It takes an honorable man to become a leader, and an honorable man wouldn’t strike at a moment of defenselessness.

“Yes, sir! I’m sorry.”

If it could be considered a misstep, though, it is quickly forgotten. Zolt is an honorable man after all; a Triple Threat, not an Agni Kai. He returns to his starting stance. “Talent isn’t enough,” he goes on. “Neither is power. Lightning’s the most powerful element in the world—but just like you and me, it’s got a mind of its own. If you wanna guide it, I’ve gotta guide you first. Make sense?”

Again, intrigued, he nods. 

“Then you understand what happens here stays here, right where I can see you. Promise me that and we can get started.” Bronze eyes flicker across him. “I can tell you’re itching.”

No decision needs to be made. Mako promises. 

All according to plan, perhaps, the first lesson doesn’t result in lightning. Their sparring is bookended by Zolt’s smile. A good sign if it ever was—and better yet, they agree to meet the same time next week. It will be difficult to stay patient.

That being the case, Mako does his best to push it out of mind entirely. He still has a full shift ahead of him. Shin will put him to work and, if he gets enough done that morning, will let him join in on the lunchtime Pai Sho matches as an observer. 

But when he does meet them that afternoon, it becomes more obvious to him that something has shifted: within him, suddenly, is the knowledge that he had been chosen. Not Shin. Not Ping. Not the other kids hanging with him by the tables of the hideout, pointlessly excited for tonight's firebending class with the master. Him alone. If his brother were here, it would be impossible to keep the news to himself.

So he’s glad that, right now, it’s just him and Ping. There’s a first time for everything.

“Y’know, Mako,” Ping says—in confidence, probably, just out of earshot from the others—“Shady might’ve pulled the wool over my eyes before, but he caught me on a bad day, y’see. He’s getting Two Toed Ping’s A-game this time.”

“Oh,” the boy replies. 

“But he don’t know that. ‘Cause I got an alibi.” Definitely in confidence, one hand cupping the side of his crooked mouth as he leans in to elaborate. The beginnings of a weaselly mustache reveal themselves as he leans in close. “Mushi says to him I was at Viper’s party last night! So’s far as Shin knows, I’m royally hungover. Just like last time!”

“Oh!”

“Yeee-ah,” the young man snickers, rubbing his hands together, “he won’t know what hit him!”

Mako opens his mouth, ready to question the definition of alibi before he moves on.

“Stick with me, kid!” A wiry arm catches him in a half-hug. His breath reeks of sweet liquor. “Together, we’ll be unsta- unstap–stoppable.”

“Oh!” It shakes a laugh out of him. “‘Kay. Hey?”

“Yeah, little brother!”

He wriggles out from under his weight. “You’re Two Toed Ping.”

“And don’t forget it.”

“How’d you get that name?” He and Bolin had mused on this question before. Maybe he had lost the other toes in an agni kai. Or to an Agni Kai. Or–

“Well, it’s a funny story,” he starts, that twiggy arm capturing him again, forcing him to lean against the wall beside him. “Y’see–”

“Ping!” 

Two heads turn to the room’s center table. Shin waits impatiently, icy eyes shooting daggers above his Pai Sho board. 

“Watch ‘n learn, pipsqueak.” With a proud sniff and a wink, Ping struts over to his friend. 

Over Shin’s shoulder, another young firebender by the name of Zhiwei makes a face. He’s caught Mako’s attention. Drunkard, he mouths.

Lips pursed to stave off a smirk, Mako nods. 

Zhiwei, while practically a stranger, is without a doubt his closest match in terms of height, weight, age, and ability. Zolt had been pairing the two of them off for about a year, ever since Mako’s last growth spurt. They get along fine. They rarely talk before or after class. 

But he is funny.

The next round starts. Ping loses spectacularly, of course. Shin, fanning himself with his winnings, holds court with the rest of Zolt’s admirers. 

“Darn,” a voice beside him whispers. “I bet on Ping.”

“Bo,” Mako hisses. Sure enough, his little brother beams up at him, hair mussed and face dirtied. “What are you–”

“I know, I know! But Mako,” he says, “you don’t know how boring it gets! And I already made enough today…”

“And lost it, apparently.”

“But now I know to bet on Shin! At least let me–”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because–!” 

There are eyes on them now. Zhiwei, Shin, Ping (albeit dizzily). Bolin had not been to the hideout since they were little kids. Both were tasked with collecting bets for the pro-bending matches, which stayed their primary duty for about two years. But Mako is a bender. A good one. He would be discovered and scooped up to be molded—and all for the best that Bolin’s fate is different than his. Had he been born a bender, he would have taken a real liking to the Triple Threats. He wouldn’t know how to keep them at arm’s length or treat them simply as allies. He would be no different than Ping. 

Mako pulls him into a corner. “Because,” he whispers, “this isn’t good for you.”

“For me?” There’s a funny smile on the younger boy’s face still. His brother can tell, certainly, that he isn’t even aware of it. “But it’s good for you?”

Forcing his own jaw to unclench: “Yes.”

“Why you?”

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

“Why don’t you answer any of ‘em?”

“Bolin,” he huffs, collapsing against the wall. He can’t look at him when he’s like this. His eyes, round and kind, remind him too much of their father. “You just have to trust me here. Okay? You have to.”

But his attention has already drifted, landing just past him.

“Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” he says, too quickly to mean it. “Who’s that?”

Unknitting his brows, Mako glances behind him. 

Another boy crosses the room toward them, unfazed by the chaos of laughter and smack talk and flying game tiles. Shin still sits at his table, flanked by rookies on all sides but focused only on one: Zhiwei. 

He greets the brothers with a cool bob of the chin, long hair pushed out of his eyes as he does. Mako has only ever seen him dressed for training: undershirt tucked into a pair of baggy pants, the legs of which tucked into his socks. The body supporting this uniform is all muscle and sinew. Well-balanced. Not like his supposed perfect match, whose skill might have only stood out thanks to the gaunt, lanky frame exceeding all expectations. 

Too aware of this as he stands before him, Mako hugs his arms to his chest. 

“Hi!” Bolin has to step around him to greet Zhiwei back. 

“Are you new?”

“He’s–” Just leaving. Not welcome. Mako doesn’t get the chance to answer.

“I’m this kid’s brother! My name’s Bolin.”

Confusion is short-lived on Zhiwei’s face, replaced by a settling smirk. “Is he a firebender, too?” Laughter is barely held back, reaffirming an urgency to get Bolin gone. 

“Nah, I don’t bend.”

“No?”

“I was just bringing him home,” Mako interjects. Grabs hold of his arm. “Let’s go, Bo.”

“Home?” his brother snickers. “We don’t–”

“Before you leave,” Zhiwei says, stopping them both in their struggle to the door. They only make it to the stoop. “Shin tells me congratulations are in order.”

“Congratulations?” Bolin parrots.

Lips still quirked with amusement, Zhiwei kneels exaggeratedly to answer him directly: “Your brother’s the next Zolt. You better sleep with one eye open.”

“Enough, Zhiwei.”

“So Shin’s right.” 

Tugging hard on his brother’s arm now, Mako has to drag them both away. There’s a heat building in his palms, serving only as a warning until a pair of footsteps can be heard following them down the alleyway.

“Ow!”

“Sorry!” Watching him yank his arm back; watching him, air sucked through the teeth, as he studies the reddening patch of skin. 

And Zhiwei, approaching from the daylight of the street, watches as well. He tuts. “See what I mean?” 

Bolin turns to look, then to listen, his attention staying on him as he crooks his arm—curling it close to the body, hand protected under his chin.

Though Mako’s mouth opens to apologize again, no sound comes out. It’s blocked at first by a lump in his throat, then by the relentlessness of Zhiwei’s taunting. 

“Cheer up,” he says, patting Bolin’s shoulder on his way over. “Now that he’s Zolt’s protégée, you won’t be seeing much of him!” His hand lifts toward the scarf, retracting as Mako does. His smile widens. “Onto bigger and better things, right, Ma-ko-to?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll admit,” he goes on, “when Shin let me in on everything, I got pretty jealous. Then I remembered… losing your mommy and daddy must’ve been really hard. And to an Agni Kai at that. No one hates those yahoos more than Zolt! But hey, pretty soon, the old man won’t even have to lift a finger. He can just sic his little guard dog–” 

“Shut up, Zhiwei.”

“Or what? You gonna zap me?” He bends forward, tapping his cheek as if inviting a kiss. “Go ahead,” he teases. “I deserve it.”

It happens too quickly. Something sharp whizzes through the air, launching squarely into the firebender’s jaw. He recoils hard, his hand returning with a matching streak of blood. Right then, a red hot rage flashes across Zhiwei’s face. The sparring partner is gone, and in his place, a hungry predator lunges for its prey. 

And then, silence. Bolin cowers at Mako’s heels. Zhiwei, on his knees, is still reaching toward the younger boy, two fingers pointing in the way a lightningbender might strike. In the way that he almost had. 

In the way that Mako, feeling the remnants of it buzzing in his chest, had directed it elsewhere.

Zhiwei rises sluggishly, cupping his bare shoulder in shock. Even in the muddy darkness of the alley, the mark is painful just to observe, branching out from the point of impact like frost on glass.

Mako searches for Bolin’s hand behind him. Lifts him onto his feet. With his eyes locked on Zhiwei and his back refusing to turn, he leads his brother away. 

They say nothing on their way to the Fire Lord. They let the day pass into night, saying nothing still. 

Until Mako can no longer bear it. “Listen, Bolin.” His voice is a rasp by then, too accustomed to his own wordlessness. It’s his brother’s that makes him uneasy. “You can’t let that creep Zhiwei get in your head. He was trying to make me mad. Because he’s mad.”

Bolin rests his chin on his knees, his eyes lowered on his shoes as they dangle over the ledge. 

Sighing, Mako sits beside him. He watches the passersby. With the sun setting below the skyline, they race against the dark on their way to and from the station—back from work or school and returning home. “It’s not like he said. You gotta know I’m only trying to protect you.”

Without a beat missed, his brother lifts his arm between them. The outline of Mako’s fingers is still visible around his wrist, a brighter red under the torchlike hand of the Fire Lord’s statue. “Good job,” Bolin quips.

“Fine,” Mako snaps. “Be that way. If I thought you’d understand this stuff, I would’ve let you tag along.” A pause—hopeful, strangely, that he’ll argue the point. 

But this time, Bolin doesn’t bite. 

Mako hops back down from the ledge. “Here.” He squeezes a few coins into his brother’s palm. “Get yourself something to eat. I gotta go.”

Fwip. 

Ting.

Rubbing his neck in disbelief, Mako glances from the copper coin at his feet to a straight-faced Bolin. The next round of ammo is pinched between the boy’s thumb and forefinger, just waiting for his older brother to turn again.

It was a smart move with Zhiwei: a favor that hadn’t been appreciated aloud. A hunk of trash to the face—or whatever it was—might very well have been the difference between life and death. Now, as earned as his gratitude would be, Mako can’t be bothered. He picks up his change and pockets it.

“Where?” Bolin finally asks.

Relieved as he is, his answer is blunt. “Where I always go. Practice.”

“Is he gonna be there?”

“Zhiwei? Probably.”

“Are you crazy?”

“But the Boss’ll be there, too, and I have to tell him my side of the story. You saw that scar. He’ll hear about it either way.”

“So you are crazy!” Hands fly to cover his face as he lets out a groan.

“Bo, we’re talking about the most powerful guy in the city. And he likes me! Do you realize what that means for us?” Close enough to him again, he digs in his pocket. Sets the coin down on the ledge. “For you? We could be set for life.”

Bolin peers through his fingers. 

“It’ll work out,” Mako assures him. “You’ll see.” 

His class is lined up when he arrives, their backs to the window even as he wedges it open. Though his feet land lightly on the mat, it’s the only sound that mingles with their mentor’s rhythmic pacing. The man will wait, as he always does, until the very top of the hour to begin—at which point, no one else may enter and no one may leave. 

Once the scarf is folded and set in the corner of the room, Mako joins the row. While he isn’t the youngest here, he’s far from being the oldest, his peers ranging in age from around twelve to eighteen. At attention, they zig-zag in height from one end of the basement to the other. He can see his rival’s long hair out of the corner of his eye, the rest of him blocked by the tops of heads. For the first time since it happened, a shockwave of dread surges through him. 

Upstairs, a clock chimes. Zolt turns to his students, not an expression to be read from his weathered face. He scans them all, one by one, then lingers on Mako.

On Mako he stays. His fear isn’t even all his own anymore, radiating beyond him in the bated breaths and restless energy hanging thick in the air. Nothing is said. Zolt points to the mat in front of him. And Mako, feeling the eyes boring into his skin, has no choice. He steps forward. 

Until Zolt gestures for him to return to his place, Mako would have sooner believed that lightning had struck through the open window. He covers his cheek with a trembling hand, tears welling before he can understand what had actually hit him. 

“We all make mistakes.” Whorled fingers clasp behind his back as he watches the boy return to his place. 

It’s only then that Mako notices, but can’t acknowledge, a new pair of eyes studying him from above. The window had not invited anything else—just Bolin. He couldn’t help himself. 

“A little trust,” says Zolt. “That’s all I ask.”

The fight between them didn’t start that way. Disbelief was the catalyst, loud and clear from Bolin and unadmitted by his brother. How could he? But to Mako, it couldn’t matter. He never claimed this path would be easy. 

More disbelief. You’re going back? 

More hope. It’ll work out.

In broad daylight, a screaming match became a knock-down drag-out brawl. Under the watchful presence of the Fire Lord and before a dozen other terrified onlookers, they were pulled off of each other just in time. The bender had him by the throat! But that little one sure could pack a punch…

I think he bent, too.

Are you sure?

“I never thanked you, by the way.” Mako doesn’t have it in him to remind Bolin they should both be grateful. If it weren’t for the Triad—for Shin and his abundant Pai Sho connections—they could have been sitting in a jail cell right about now. Of course, the kitchen of the hideout wouldn’t have been their first choice. He lowers the bag of ice from the side of his face, meeting his brother’s questioning gaze. “In the alley.”

“Hm.” He looks off into the distance. “It’s all a blur.”

“I know.”

“But you’re welcome.”

Mako nods. Where Bolin has rolled up his sleeve, his skin is still a bit pink. “When’d you find out?”

“About the earthbending?”

Nodding again, a smile finds its way onto his face.

“In the alley,” he tells him.

“How does it feel?”

Bolin purses his lips, considering the question. “Can I get back to you on that?”

“Sure.” Mindlessly, Mako finds himself rubbing his uniced cheek, remembering where the nerves had stung against that open palm. “I never thought bending could be bad. The way Mom talked…”

Across from him, Bolin folds his arms over the table. Rests his head. “Yeah.”

“Everything’s messed up.”

“Not forever.”

On any other day, this would have been too easy to refute. “Maybe,” Mako decides. If saying it could be enough, then it’s a start.