Work Text:
.
.
.
Bolin is unaware the first night. Mako disappears like he always does, but this time, he comes back covered in bruises. He says the run went badly; they do, sometimes, but this time, he can barely move the next day. At seventeen, his body isn’t prepared for what he's putting it through every week in addition to full-time work and looking after his brother.
It continues this way, once in a week or two, for several months until Bolin can’t take it anymore.
“Where did you go?” he says as his brother tries to sneak back into their shack house in the slums of the Dragon Flats Borough in the middle of the night.
“Nowhere,” Mako says.
“Okay,” Bolin says, though he clearly doesn’t believe him.
After the next time, when Mako comes home with a black eye, Bolin speaks up.
“What are you doing? Runs never give you marks you can see,” he says.
“Nothing," Mako says, trying to push past him to get to the door. It doesn't work, and Bolin stands in the way, looking at Mako accusingly.
"Something's going on. What are you doing all these nights?" Bolin says.
"You don't need to know," Mako says, and pushes through, shoving his brother out of the way.
That night, Bolin follows Mako to another slum in the city, lurking around at a distance before he finds what he's looking for...or what he nearly overlooks.
It's very unassuming - the back door of a butcher's shop. He sneaks in with a crowd and rounds the corners of the dirty building, smelling of rotten meat and human sweat and blood as he gets closer to the sounds of the yelling and cursing he can hear as he approaches.
The first thing he sees is the backs of the men, sweaty, waving money and screaming at the men in the ring.
The second thing he sees is that one of the men is his brother.
"Mako!" he yells as he gets closer to the edge of the circle of people. There aren't many women here, but the ones that are here are dressed scantily and holding trays with small shots of sake on them. All of the men, excepting Bolin, Mako, and a few other younger ones that are scattered throughout, stare and ogle them, a choice few making grabs at the women. Bolin is disgusted, but he's used to it, all the same.
Mako doesn't hear him; he's busy beating the shit out of some poor sap who'd come to the club on the wrong day, a rookie, probably, and somebody who wasn't suited to fighting underground with nearly no rules for money. Mako didn't like doing it, but he was good at it. Bolin sees that as Mako punches the boy in the stomach, his knuckles bandaged and bloody already, but with the other man's blood. Mako gets a fist to the jaw and winces, rubbing it before taking the boy's legs out from under him. He holds him down for a three-count, and wins the match. He leaves the open space, going back into the crowd.
Bolin realizes that he won't be able to get his brother's attention and stays for his next fight, which he also wins. He wins the third, but the fourth is with a huge man, his neck muscles larger even than Bolin's arm. He leaves Mako with a broken rib, a massive bruise on his stomach, and another black eye. Bolin nearly cries out, but just waits until he's done, knowing that his interfering may get the both killed. He carries Mako home, but the next time he goes out, Bolin follows.
And that time, he bandages his own fists, preparing for a fight he didn't want his brother to do alone.
.
.
.
Bolin shows up ready; he'd done what training he could in addition to his earthbending exercises (which Mako had paid an old man to teach him on the streets a long time ago, forgoing lunch for a month, to make sure he could defend himself) to prepare, so that he wouldn't kill himself in the process. Mako was still out, able to work, but unable to attend these nightly fights. Bolin had made sure of it.
He arrives, and they make him take his shirt off, and then, they tell him the rules.
"Rule number one: you do not talk about what goes on down here," the skinny man says to him as Bolin stands in front of him, sweating as a light beats down on him unmercifully. "You do, and we will hunt you down and nobody will ever hear about the 'Fabulous Bending Brothers' ever again, alright?" He smacks his hands together as emphasis, using their nickname from their days of running numbers for the Triad as a mockery.
"Yes, sir," Bolin says.
"Second rule: all hits in the gut. Nowhere else. We realize accidents happen, but we don't care. No hits outside the gut count in the score."
“Third rule: when your opponent hits the ground, whether you hold them down or not, you win the match.”
"Last rule: the money you make is up to you. We don't handle that. You get what you get. All fighters get thirty yuans at the end of the night. Now get out," he says.
Bolin exits the tiny, damp room, going back out into the melee which is the entirety of the underground fighting ring. He realizes that everybody knows everybody, and tries to stay quiet as he takes his place in the huge empty space in the center of the room. An average-sized man stands across from him, back turned, stretching his muscles for the fight. He's prepared like Bolin suddenly feels he isn't. He gulps as the man turns around. His left eyebrow is cut straight through, and his eye is swollen and purple, like he just got done fighting (which he did). He slips into a fighting stance, and Bolin does the same. He has a hand up by his face and the other extended. He roots himself to the earth using his basic forms, an advantage he sees that the other man does not have. Bolin suspects he's a non-bender.
Suddenly somebody pushes them together. Bolin shakes the man's hand abruptly and then they return to their positions when that same person screams "FIGHT!" as loud as he possibly can.
The scarred man lunges, making a right at Bolin's body, but he jumps out of the way, still scared, but constantly remembering the reason for this - Mako - and turns around, walloping the guy in the stomach, like he was told. The guy becomes angry, and his arms come around Bolin, who isn't large enough at fifteen to hold his own, but small enough to escape. So he does, and uses the man's momentum and his own grounding to the earth to send him careening into a spectator. The force of it makes the man fall to the ground, and when he gets up, Bolin socks him in the stomach and holds him down, jumping on top of him. The somebody - the referee, Bolin figures out after the adrenaline of his first fight wears off - counts to three before he lifts Bolin off the floor, raising his hand in the air. He's won.
Bolin fights again twice that night, and the second match earns him a fat lip, the third getting him a bruise on his arm. He wins both. He takes home money for his brother, whose broken rib has begun to heal, and now they can get food for the next two weeks.
Mako doesn't say he's proud of him, but when he goes out the next night, he ruffles Bo's hair vigorously, smiling at him before he goes.
.
.
.
Bolin discovers the the fights happen a lot more often than Mako had been going to them - not because Mako was a bad fighter, but it turned out that Bolin was a really GOOD fighter. He only lost two matches in as many months, and began bringing home more money from when his supporters, who'd won bets they'd made on his matches, would give him a cut of the profit.
Because it's easy, he goes out to fight nearly every weekend, only stopping on Sundays out of exhaustion, and because nobody comes to fights in the early week. He fights everyone, and the only provision is that he doesn't bend. You can tell who can and who can't, even if it's not allowed in the fights. He tries not to permanently hurt anyone, but because of the fights, he gains a lot of enemies he didn't know he would have. He also makes a lot of friends.
Despite the fact that there are very few women ever at the fights, and for good reason, he begins to see more of them show up as he gets older. On his sixteenth birthday, he gets more than a few glances from women in the crowd, many of whom try to come to him with propositions that he tries to refuse, feigning ignorance.
He knows exactly what they want.
Bolin scans the crowd quickly, then his gaze shifts down as he avoids everyone, heading over to the back room to get his shirt and jacket before leaving. He's stopped when he bumps into a girl...a beautiful girl, he notices. Her long hair is swept aside, her bright green eyes boring into him as he steps away.
"Sorry, ma'am," he says shyly, and before she can say anything else, he slides away, embarrassed. He tries to smooth the redness out of his cheeks as he gets his things and leaves.
In his bed that night, he wonders about her. He wonders why she was at the seedy underground matches, he wonders why she bumped into him, and finally, he wonders what her name is.
.
.
.
Mako returns to the fights after a month of resting at home and getting a job at the power plant, bending lightning for the city's energy. He says it pays decently, and they have enough to pool for the first and last months' rent on an inexpensive apartment, not the shack they'd commandeered from the Triads. They move in soon, and then Mako is well enough to start fighting again.
They are there for a few months before anything really interesting happens. Yeah, a couple guys are hurt bad enough to stop fighting for a good long while, and one guy dies in a bending fight outside (firebenders; Mako feels guilty afterward, but Bolin reminds him that it's not the bending, but the person that determines if somebody lives or dies), but it becomes monotonous. Bolin almost considers leaving and going to pursue something else, but he doesn't.
He and Mako become known throughout the underground fighting community, though nobody acknowledges them in daylight except with knowing glances and discounts on produce. They don't tell anyone, obviously, because you don't talk about it.
They don’t have to fight each other, thankfully, because they never go in on the same nights, but they spend their time patching each other up afterwards. Bolin usually doesn't have many wounds, but Mako once had a knife pulled on him after a fight by an angry competitor, who he'd beaten, and Bolin had had to drag him to a healer that night. He'd been fine, but that had been it for awhile.
One night, Bolin finishes a fight and goes off to sit in a chair to watch the next one. Mako, who had a knack for predicting fights, had begun to place careful bets a long time ago after Bolin had noticed he'd be able to tell who would win every single time. He'd convinced him, and they would make good on every bet. They had garnered a lot of enemies in their time, but they could defend themselves, especially when they tried to get them after matches, when bending was legal.
Bolin is sitting, waiting for the next fighters to reveal themselves, when the door bursts open loudly. The crowd parts as a beautiful girl of Water Tribe heritage pushes her way to the opening. She is wearing a blue shirt and dark shorts, and her hair is tied tightly into a high ponytail. She has the respect of the crowd instantly, and when Bolin looks over, nudging Mako, he sees that his brother doesn't need telling to notice what's there.
"Hey, bro..." he says, and Mako turns back to him, his head snapping as he shakes himself out of a trance.
He'd been staring.
"Do you know who that is?" Bolin asks.
"No idea," Mako says. The girl wraps her fists carefully, weaving the bandages through her fingers as she tightens them. She turns to another girl, a girl Bolin hadn't noticed walk in.
It's the one from months ago...the green-eyed girl who he'd bumped into rather hastily. Bolin notices that he was quite wrong about her...she wasn't just a girl, she was practically a woman. He swallowed and looked away.
"Is she going to fight?" Bolin asks Mako, distracting himself from the women talking as one prepared to fight.
"I guess," Mako says. He begins talking to another man in a cap about the fight and immediately places his bet on the Water Tribe girl.
She takes on a man (because she is literally the only female fighter that's ever come here), and absolutely destroys him. She's fast, but also strong, they notice, and very, very sure of herself. She smiles as she buries the man's face into the dirt of the ring, twisting his arm behind his back, and receives her victory within three minutes.
She smirks, helping the man back up before dusting herself off. She pulls her shirt off and throws it to her friend, who claps and shouts fighting tips at her every time she has to make a move, though she doesn't need it. Bolin just watches, awestruck, as the girl takes on two more opponents, beating them handily.
Mako, though, continues to bet on her, and when their eyes lock, she lowers a cup of water slowly from her lips. Bolin watches his brother swallow, nervous, and he turns beet red as he turns away from the searching gaze of the blue-eyed girl.
After the fights end, they stay and collect their money from the manager, an older man who gives them a small cut of money in return for all the money he himself made running the bets. The women who had cleaned up also collected a small fee, but when the blue-eyed girl sees how small, she is understandably furious.
"What do you mean, that's all that there is? I beat four guys tonight, all in less than an hour!" she yells.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, that's the best I can do," he says, though it's a lie. He turns away and retreats into his butcher shop, leaving them in the alley to their own devices.
She huffs, and the green-eyed girl pats her shoulder.
"It's not like we really need it," she says. "We'll figure something out."
Mako and Bolin are still standing in the alley as well, beginning to walk home, but they're caught before they can leave.
"Hey," the blue-eyed girl says, catching Mako by the elbow. "What's your name?"
"It's Mako," he says after recovering from his staring earlier, though it hasn't completely abated.
"Korra," she says, sticking her hand right into her personal space before he takes it.
"It's nice to meet you, Korra," he says.
Bolin laughs silently to himself at this exchange, closing his eyes in exhaustion before looking back up to notice the other girl's eyes on him. She's staring, he realizes, and makes a point to stare back.
"I'm Asami," she blurts suddenly from across the alley.
"Bolin," he says.
.
.
.
In the days that follow, Bolin is stuck on thinking about that girl. The one with Korra - and her beautiful name. Asami.
"What's with you?" Mako asks him one afternoon when he gets home from the plant early, stripping off his heavy work gloves and exchanging them for fingerless ones. He wraps his father's scarf around his neck as he looks at Bolin, who doesn't know what answer to give.
"Nothing, I swear!" Bolin says, waving his hands in front of his face.
"You've been smiling for three days straight."
Bolin looks away, blushing. "It's nothing, alright? Nothing's happened yet."
"Okay," Mako says, but the tone in his voice implies that this conversation is far from over.
.
.
.
One day, Korra invites them to Asami's house to practice some moves. They go over, not knowing what to expect, but it's just a normal house in another borough. It's a nicer borough, yes, but it's not very fancy, though the way Asami holds her teacup and clears their dishes after dinner tells Bolin that she's accustomed to better.
Asami takes all of them into their living room, moves the sofa and tables aside, and wraps her own hands quickly to show them some moves.
"Asami taught me everything I know about fighting," Korra says. "At least, fighting without bending."
"Waterbender?" Mako asks.
Korra thinks for a minute, smiling, and says, "Yeah."
Bolin studies her mischievious smile carefully as she asks Mako to go out back with her and spar. He stays inside with Asami, who shows him what she knows about self-defense and some other fighting styles. He realizes that his own style is somewhat self-invented, and though effective, he is certain that if he knew what she knows, he could win the tourney coming up.
Asami shows him how to disarm an opponent by shifting his weight against him and using it to push him to the ground, and Bolin is immediately impressed. Even when she uses this move on him, grabbing his enormous hand in her tiny one and wrenching his arm around, he can't find any way to be upset.
"That was amazing!" he says once she releases him.
"Thanks," she says. "I learned it in self-defense class when I was nine."
"You took classes?" Bolin thinks about where he was at nine. He'd started running numbers for the Triple Threat Triad that year. "That's cool."
"It helped," Asami says. She looks at him, smiling when their eyes meet, and he smiles back. They don't talk for a minute before he begins again. She starts at the same time, but they are both startled out of their conversation by Mako's screaming.
"AaaaaAAAHHH!" he yells, and they see him run in, followed by an enormous splash of water.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to get your hair!" Korra yells as Mako runs his fingers over his scalp, which is fine, but the ends of his hair are burnt.
"I'll get the scissors," Asami offers, walking off to find them to fix the ends of Mako's hair.
"What the -" Bolin begins, but when Korra earthbends Mako a seat in the living room out of the tile floor, he gasps.
"You're the -"
"Avatar," Mako groans. "She burnt my hair!"
"I'm sorry," she says, looking back at it.
"I got the scissors!" Asami says.
.
.
.
Mako’s hair is fine. They continue working closely with the girls on fighting and bending techniques, quickly gaining money from the winnings of the tournament.
Asami and Bolin spend more and more time together due to her knowledge of fighting, which he needs more training in, and Bolin begins to notice his feeling for her, though he doesn’t want to distract her in the middle of the tournament.
He takes to calling her Princess, a name nobody else shares, treating the woman with respect, calling her “Sato” in the ring. She strikes fear into the men, as Korra’s trainer and manager, and nobody messes with her.
However, everyone can tell she has a soft spot for the earthbender. She smiles when he calls her Princess and blushes when he compliments her, which is fairly often.
Mako had noticed a long time ago, and eventually he makes Bolin admit that he likes the girl. Bolin can’t even say anything through his intense blushing, and just sort of mumbles his “yes”.
.
.
.
In one of the matches leading up to the tournament, Bolin is injured by an angry man in the crowd, one who had apparently lost a lot of money on another match. He’d lashed out and burned Bolin, who was taken to a healer immediately. Korra and Asami showed up a few days later to check up on him and Korra brought healing water to speed up the process before the tournament, which was in a few days.
“Hey, Princess,” Bolin says through the fever he has. The burn hasn’t affected him well, and it’s taking far too long to heal fully.
“Hey Bo,” Asami says, smiling as she sits next to him. She puts her hand over his and sits by him, not saying anything.
After awhile, she speaks. “I lost my mother to a firebender.”
“So did I,” Bo says with a little difficulty. “And my father.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine, now,” Bolin says, noting Mako’s tight expression.
“You’ll get better,” she says, gripping his hand tighter.
Bolin smiles. “Just for you, Princess.”
.
.
.
Many men try their luck against Korra, but she defeats each one handily. The last night of the tournament before the championship, Korra defeats the last man, and Bolin defeats his brother. He's become an even better fighter, and Mako doesn't know who to bet on this time, so he refrains.
They take their stances carefully, looking each other in the eyes as they begin. They yell to begin, and Korra attacks first. Bolin swerves out of the way, dodging every attacks she throws at him, and catches one of her fists in his right hand. He immediately lets go, not wanting to hurt her. He's surprised she hasn't had more men give her the win simply because she's a woman before (there were a few, but they had more in mind than just her own safety). He gets over this quickly, looking over at Mako, who just watches the fight with little nonverbal commentary - his body language says he doesn't know who to root for, and Bolin understands.
He carefully punches at Korra, allowing her to take his arm, but he takes her own weight against her, despite the fact that he has so much more, and she falls, her arms pinwheeling as she nearly hits the ground. He grabs her hand in his, catching her, but she sits on the ground, conceding defeat.
"Winner!" the old man says, lifting Bolin's hand. He's the champion. He tries to keep himself from crying out of sheer joy and relief, because this means they can do something else now. He's been tired of fighting every night.
Mako hugs him tightly once they leave for the night, after they collect their winnings and go home to count them. Korra and Asami come along, just because they can. Mako grabs his brother in a headlock, mussing his hair as they walk back. Bolin laughs, and a few tears come from his eyes.
Mako smacks his back again, and begins to walk ahead. Korra follows after him and takes his hand in hers. He kisses it when their fingers intertwine, and Bolin looks up at the sky with relief.
It's over.
.
.
.
Back at their apartment, Bolin and Mako sit until late into the night, talking with the girls until they can't see straight anymore. Mako and Korra leave, going to Mako's room, where Bolin assumes they've fallen asleep.
Bolin lays on the couch; Asami sits on the end of it, looking at him with her head resting in her hand.
"So what are you going to do now?" she asks.
"I dunno," Bolin says. "Probably look for a job, definitely quit prizefighting in basements."
"Well, yeah," she says, rubbing her eyes. It's very, very late. "But what if you did something with your talents?"
"Like what?"
"Well, you're a good earthbender, right?"
"I'd like to think so," he says, grinning.
"Then you should do something that combines your prizefighting and bending. Maybe you should pro-bend for a few years. I could sponsor you - you'd just have to get a team together."
"Hmm," Bolin says, thinking about it. He's listened to many pro-bending matches, but never thought he'd be in a place to afford fielding a team. He loves the idea, he's just never had the means to do it. "I think that is fantastic," he says.
"Okay," she says. "We should look for a waterbender and firebender...or ask Mako and Korra."
They sit there, delirious and happy, beginning to fall asleep in the haze of the early morning, and Bolin lets his head fall onto the cushions. Asami catches him.
.
.
.
The next morning, Bolin is woken up by the smell of eggs being cooked. Mako is working on them, looking very focused, like they were children again. Since he'd been with Korra, he'd been more relaxed than ever, but this morning was like a return to the times when they didn't know whether or not they'd have food that night, a worry that had passed them by.
"Bro," Bolin says as they wait for Asami and Korra to wake up, "what's eating you?"
"Just nervous," he says.
The reason for his nervousness reveals itself when he presents Korra with a ring shortly after breakfast when he takes her back into his bedroom. He gets down on one knee, tells her he'll love her forever, and asks her to marry him.
Bolin is unaware that Mako had plans like these to begin with until he hears Korra shriek her affirmation, and looks back toward the room, where the door open reveals her arms tight around his neck and Mako reeling back from the force of her embrace. He steads and hugs her back, and then she kisses him, and keeps kissing him.
.
.
.
Bolin's pro-bending days begin like a whirlwind, and they have to find a new water and firebender because having a married couple on the team would make locker-room time a little too awkward. They come to nearly every match, though, when Korra's Avatar duties and Mako's job at the Police Department don't interfere.
The first time he goes out into the ring, Asami reminds him what a good fighter is was and is, and hugs him tightly. He squeezes her back, nervous, and prepared to fight.
Afterward, they walk around Republic City, he eighteen and she twenty, looking for something to do until the morning. He looks over at Asami, at her long, long hair and green eyes, her bright smile, and reaches over, grasping her hand. She threads her fingers through his and he feels like a child with his very first crush, fumbling with the words. He stops in the street.
"So does this mean..." Bolin starts.
"We're together?" Asami says. "I hope so."
Bolin smiles as she begins rambling and earthbends a rock beneath her foot, causing her to fall forward into him. He wraps his left hand around her waist, pulling her close to him. She's only a little bit shorter than him due to his most recent growth spurt, and he's glad of it when his cups her face in his hand, getting a better and closer look at those eyes.
"Hi," she says, surprised. She gasps when he leans in, tilting her head to the side.
His lips are soft when they kiss, and she instinctively wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. When he pulls away, he regrets the human need for oxygen and they walk along, her blushing, and him unable to keep his eyes off her and they walk, his arm around her waist.
They stop in front of his apartment and she smiles at him. He kisses her again.
"I love you, Bolin."
“I love you too, Asami.”
.
.
.