Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bolin had forgotten how easy this was.

In his defense, it had been a while.

Bolin understood now why Korra had looked at him and Mako as if they were some kind of… Anomaly when they all met. In Republic City, a firebender being an earthbender’s brother didn’t raise any eyebrows, but the rest of the world wasn’t like Republic City.

Sometime between their estrangement and the prison camp, his arms had forgotten how it felt to have pure heat at his back.

Fighting at Mako’s side was as instinctual as breathing, more intuitive even than his bending. They didn’t have to speak. He didn’t even think. He just moved.

Bolin ducked as Mako swiped an arching punch above his head. Sparks danced in Bolin’s hair. Fire cascaded above his brow-line, but he wasn’t afraid of it. He’d never, in his memory, been afraid of fire.

Then Mako stepped aside, and Bolin slashed two metal boards in half with his lava blade. He had a lava blade now. He was a lava-bender. The novelty hadn’t yet worn off.

Mako didn’t even flinch at the heat, didn’t change any step of this dance they had invented.

Bolin was in the heart of a giant mechno-suit controlled by the most determined and intelligent despot the world had seen since Firelord Ozai. He was surrounded by metal-benders who passionately, strongly, unerringly believed in Kuvira’s vision for a better world.

He had no clue where Beifong and Su had gone. Korra was presumably in the head of the mechno-suit fighting Kuvira, and who knew what damage was being done to the rest of the city in the meantime? It was all enough to send the strongest person fleeing for his damn life, screaming. Bolin wasn’t altogether sure he wouldn’t have been one of those people a few weeks ago.

But he was with his brother now.

Dad had once joked that it was Mako who acted like an Earthbender. He was stone. He was mountain. He did not flinch. He did not waver. That kind of hard courage had a way of sucking Bolin along in its current.

“Do you know how many guards are in this place?” Mako hissed as they edged along a floating bridge. The two guys they’d just taken out lay sprawled across the platform, moaning. Bolin scanned them quickly. They had some nasty burns, and a few bruises to boot, but they would live.

“Um…” he swiveled his head slowly, tense. “No.”

Mako snorted. “Why did you have to think about it then?”

Bolin had stopped mentioning his firebender brother while in Kuvira’s army. Which was something he would never mention to Mako, but it hadn’t been out of shame or anything like that, just a selfish wish to be accepted.

People in the Earth Kingdom whispered the word firebender as if they were afraid to summon an evil spirit. Most people believed they were devils at the worst, and downright functional sociopaths at best. It was a symptom of a war that had decimated entire communities. Bolin understood their trepidation, really, he did, and in some twisted notion of not causing any more pain, he had ceased to mention that he was half fire nation.

So yes, in this moment, Mako was being a jerk, but it felt good. It eased some of the tension from his shoulders. Here, Bolin could be his full self, half Earth Kingdom and half Fire Nation. Mako’s little brother, and if Mako was making fun of him, then they couldn’t be in too much trouble, right?

“I was trying to guestimate a number but then I realized this place is too big for me to guess and…”

“I didn’t ask you to guess. Do you know where the engine room is, then?”

Bolin was nearly twenty-four years old. He was way too adult to be riling up his brother like this, but he did. Because it was Mako. “Um…”

“Why are you thinking about it if the answer is no?”

“Would you shut up and let me…! Duck!” Bolin quickly blocked two shards of metal from decapitating his brother. Then he knelt and let Mako use his shoulders as a springboard. The firebender leapt into the air and fired off three short blasts.

The metalbenders below him had already built crude shields and crouched low, but that was the problem with most people. They thought firebending was all plumes of flame and embers and heat. They prepared for the blaze, but Mako wasn’t like that. He was all precision and sucker punches. So the fire curved in midair like a comet and smacked into them from the sides. They tumbled off the bridge, screaming.

Bolin cringed when they fell.

Mako landed a few hand widths away, easy as an air bender, and watched them fall with a hard glint in his eye. “Don’t worry,” he murmured before Bolin could say anything. “The fire wasn’t that hot. They’ll be fine.”

And in a structure made entirely of metal, that was probably true. They would survive the descent, and because Mako had a thing about killing with fire, they would survive the burns too. Bolin set his jaw and nodded.

One of the reasons he’d left was because Mako had this uncanny and irritating ability to know what he was thinking. It used to make Bolin feel simple, as if the reason Mako could read his mind was because Bolin just wasn’t very smart. With a jolt, he realized that he had not felt that way – not once- since returning.

He had escaped Kuvira’s specially designed reconditioning camp. He had helped rescue Opal’s family with Toph Beifong. He had been a mover’s star, a professional fighter, and taught himself lava-bending. He was a pretty smart guy. He could say and believe it now.

Mako just knew him really well because he’d raised him.

“If this place is shaped like a person, and Kuvira is in the head, then it makes sense the power source would be in the largest cavity,” he speculated aloud. Mako glanced at him.

“The chest cavity?”

Bolin shrugged. “Couldn’t have been in the feet.”

“Well, where are we now?”

He turned in a circle, evaluating their gloomy surroundings. It was pretty hollow around the metal bridge, and the outskirts were bathed in shadow. He jabbed a thumb at the farthest corner. “Give me some light.”

Mako didn’t have to ask what that meant. He cupped a ball of fire and flung it toward the darkness. The flames struck the side and sizzled out like fireworks. The corner had seemed far away in the dark, but with light Bolin realized it was actually closer than it appeared. Flat design. Lots of room but plenty of pulleys and mechanics. Like puppet strings. Or ab muscles.

“The stomach. So we have to keep going up,” he pointed to the adjoining bridges leading into obscurity above them.

“Huh,” Mako smiled. “Nice work, little brother. Let’s go.”

If he was a hundred percent honest, Bolin couldn’t remember what he had said to Mako before he joined Kuvira. He knew heated words had been exchanged, but he couldn’t recall just what they had been.

But that was usually how their fights went. They argued, and shouted, and sometimes threw things at each other. Shoes, books, smelly socks and on one memorable occasion, some green goo Bolin had scraped off the side of a dumpster.

Mako had never thrown fire at him except in training. When Bolin was padded up. And paying attention. A lot of stars had to align for Mako to use firebending on him.

Bolin had never asked why, but he knew. Their parents had been murdered by fire, and there was a part of Mako that hated himself for harboring the same force that had cut them down.

Nevertheless, after the fight Bolin could never remember what it had been about, or why they had started. It was as if the second he stepped away, the memory was erased completely. Only the raw feelings of frustration or hurt or rage remained, and those continued to build and build and build.

Bolin was sure he had said some hurtful and unfair things to Mako in the past. He was sure that Mako had said some hurtful and unfair things in return, though trying to bring those words back was akin to trying to regurgitate one’s own stomach. It was kinda latched down there. Unmovable.

He did know that most of those arguments had probably revolved around similar themes.

Bolin felt like a burden. Mako felt like he always needed to prove himself. Bolin felt like second best. Mako felt like he had to carry the world on his shoulders. Bolin thought Mako was repressed and cold. Mako thought Bolin was irresponsible and naïve.

Mako’s things were stupid, but Bolin had legitimate reasons for being insecure.

After all, he’d only been twelve when he had caught Mako with his then-girlfriend, a skinny waterbender named Matura, smoking something behind a dumpster. “If you didn’t have to watch Bobo, you’d be leader of the triple triad by now,” Matura had informed Mako with the kind of cool indifference of someone half dead to the world.

“Yeah,” Mako agreed glumly. “He’s always holding me back.”

Yeah, neither of them had noticed that Bolin was there. They were high and fourteen years old. But Bolin was twelve, and those words had cut through him. It wasn’t as if Bolin didn’t know that Mako would be better off without him.

One kid on the streets had it hard enough, but one kid trying to raise and look after his little brother?

Bolin had run off after that and tried to get a job. His plan backfired of course, when he erroneously trusted a human trafficker who promised him clean income. He’d nearly been kidnapped, would have been, in fact, if Mako hadn’t shown up looking for him and nearly burned the guys pants off.

They got into a fight that night.

It was one of the only fights Bolin remembered.

He had been shaken and humiliated and hurt.

Mako had been slightly hungover and furious and confused.

“I wish you were the one who’d died in that stupid alley! I don’t want you anymore!” Bolin had shouted.

In another life, one where Mako hadn’t been completely hardened by the age of eleven, he might have been shocked. But that’s not how their life panned out, so Mako had just given him a dour, hard glare.

“Well, I didn’t and I’m the only one you’ve got.”

Chapter Text

“Think this is it?” Bolin asked, craning his neck to stare at the circular door above them. He spun his lava with his fingers. The problem with lava bending in small qualities was that the rock cooled quicker. He could still use it as a blunt projectile, of course, but half of the usefulness was in its heat.

Mako made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. “One way to find out. You wanna open it, or should I?”

Bolin started forward immediately. He loved breaking down doors. It was basically his thing. Then he hesitated and glanced at the stiffening black stone in his hands. “Ahhh,” he pouted. “My rock is cooling down.”

“Why d’you think there are two of us?” Mako pointed out, as if he had planned for this all along. Bolin smirked. Earth and fire. Together they were basically like a volcano, two halves that could make or break entire continents. He held out his rock and Mako surrounded it with both hands, palms radiating spirals of flame. It was like he’d created his own tiny oven.

The rock melted into dripping lava again.

Bolin twirled the glowing mass of earth in his hands. It was ridiculous to think that he had actually forgotten what this felt like.

“I love cracking safes,” he growled, in a rough reiteration of three-toed Ping’s gravelly voice.

Mako chuckled and took a few steps back.

Bolin sheared through the metal door and pushed it open. He immediately spotted two of the engineers, on either side of the crackling mass of purple vines. Mako popped his head out a second later. “I’m going for that lever,” he muttered. “You get the other one.”

The first week Bolin spent in the Earth Kingdom, he thought about Mako all the time.

It was totally fine, he told himself. Normal.

He and Mako had rarely been apart for more than two days since they were kids. And those times, they had still been in the same city. Bolin was accustomed to having his brother’s stalwart presence at his side.

When he felt awkward or uneasy, he started to retreat behind a form that was no longer there. He hesitated during conversations, waiting for Mako to finish his thought or interject with something sarcastic.

It never came.

In the beginning, it felt wonderful. Half of the reason he joined Kuvira’s army was to gain a greater sense of independence. He and Mako’s lives revolved around each other so tightly in Republic City.

No matter what Bolin did – become a mover’s star, start dating a Northern water tribe princess, stumble through adoring Opal- Mako was always there. Doing his own thing, sure, but his thing always had a way of impacting Bolin’s thing, and it was demeaning. So, he left.

While his freedom and independence were a welcome change, he still missed Mako.

He also missed Korra and Asami and Opal and Tenzin and his grandma. He missed them with an ache that didn’t seem to wane until months passed. At some point in that time, he realized that he had completely forgotten the date.

For the first time in his life, he and Mako weren’t together for the anniversary of their parents’ murder. Bolin planted some water lilies in a small village in remembrance of them, contemplated writing Mako a letter. It would be his birthday soon too, and Bolin had never missed Mako’s birthday before.

Then Kuvira called, and everything else slipped his mind as things became increasingly… dictator-ish. Other dates came and went, and Bolin learned to shove the tiny voice in his mind down into a locked box.

He didn’t have time to worry about his old life right now.

No time at all.

Chapter Text

This was a problem. A big, big problem. They were probably going to die.

“Nothing is happening!” Mako yelled, as if Bolin couldn’t see the obvious. They both took a minute to glare at the vines.

“Kuvira must have done kind of over-ride thing and taken control!” He guessed. Aggravation built in the back of his throat. He should have seen this coming. Kuvira was cunning and paranoid. Of course she had planned for every contingency.

“There’s gotta be some way to shut down power from here!” Mako growled.

Bolin’s fingers hovered over the knobs and buttons of the control panel. “Um….”

“C’mon! You spent all that time working with Verrick and Bataar Jr.! Didn’t any of their genius rub off on you?”

Bolin was tempted to hit him. In Mako’s mind, the best way to motivate someone was to challenge or insult them. It’s no wonder he and Beifong get along so well, he thought. They probably just stand and criticize each other from opposite rooms to solve a case.

“Look, the only thing I know about these vines is that if you mess with them too much, they explode,” he replied tightly. He skimmed past two blinking red buttons. Could one of them be the over-ride, or would he blow up half the city by touching it? He had a feeling it would be the latter.

“Get those engineers out of here,” Mako suddenly blurted. “I have an idea.”

Thank the spirits one of them did. Bolin looked up. His stomach flipped at the grave expression his brother wore. “Want to fill me in?”

“I’m going to zap these vines with some electricity.”

Bolin blinked, once, twice. Waited for the punchline. When it didn’t come in six seconds, he raised his hands. “Back it up, ok? I said that will make the vines explode!”

“Exactly! This is our only way of shutting this thing down,” he started to turn away, as if he were seriously willing to blow himself up. “I can handle it.”

How many times had Bolin heard that one? Mako skips a meal for the second day in a row, but he can handle it. Mako sleeps in a cramped corner of the library basement so Bolin can sleep in the warm attic, but he can handle it. Mako has feelings for Asami and Korra at the same time, but he can handle it.

Bolin spun him around by the shoulder, heart in his throat. “No, you can’t! This isn’t the time to prove how awesome you are! I already know how awesome you are,” he huffed exasperatedly. “You’re awesome.”

Mako arched a brow as if it were Bolin who was talking crazy. “I don’t have time to argue. I’m doing this, so get out of here!”

Bolin knew that look. That mountainous determination.

It was the same look he gave Bolin and the doctors after he stumbled into their gym loft with electricity burns on his arms. The same look when he stood in front of Bolin facing off four angry water-benders. The same look when he snuck into the underground bending fights and got his ass kicked for a few palsy coins.

It was the look of a man who would do whatever it took to save the people he loved.

If there had been any earth nearby, Bolin would have taken this opportunity to encase Mako in a cocoon of rock and drag him to safety. Mako would have been furious, but better angry than dead.

If only they weren’t in the heart of a metal machine with destructive capabilities. He was helpless and Mako was unmovable.

He bowed his head. “Ok, but for the record I do not approve. Just… get out as soon as you can,” he raised his hand. “Promise?”

Something in those cinnamon eyes softened. Mako accepted the vow. “I promise.”

It was impossible to tell who pulled the other in first. Maybe they did it together, but one moment Bolin’s hand was surrounded by warmth and the next he was being held tighter than he’d ever been.

It felt like winter nights being cradled by Mako’s fire. It felt like buying his first pair of new shoes. It felt like laughing so hard that water spurted from his nose. It felt like saving the world all over again.

It felt like goodbye.

Bolin buried his face in Mako’s shoulder, blinking back tears. Don’t make me let go. Please don’t make me let go.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Between the two of them, he was the one with most intense emotions, like a true firebender, but he didn’t miss the sheen of wetness across Mako’s eyes. “I love you too,” his brother murmured. “Now go!”

Bolin nodded. Swiveling on a heel, he tossed both engineers over his shoulder and started wobbling back down the ladder. He sent one last pleading stare over his shoulder, but Mako wasn’t even watching him.

He was curling and coiling along the floor, calling the electricity out of the machines nearby in crackling waves. The stark blue light illuminated the pure determination in his eyes. He was not afraid to die.

That was just peak Mako. He was not afraid for himself. He never had been. Bolin had enough fear for both of them.

He slipped away.

“Mako, will you love me forever?” He asked. It had only been a week since… Since it happened. Mom and dad were gone now. Mako had seen it. Bolin hadn’t. He wasn’t sure if he was angry about that or not. But Mako said they were gone, he had seen it, and now the brother Bolin had known was changed.

They lay on the hard concrete of the alley, under a single blanket that was starting to smell. They’d managed to get a spot behind the bakery. The oven’s heat radiated beyond the wall, and they leaned against it, curled like beetles under an overhang.

Mako was silent a moment. He didn’t talk much these days. “How many stars are in the sky?”

Bolin scowled and gazed up at the glittering lights hidden behind clouds of dark smoke from the factories. “Um, I don’t know? Why?”

“Because that’s how many years I’ll love you.”

He gasped, awe-struck. “Mako, there are a billion, billion stars up there! More stars than there are years in the whole world!”

Mako’s mouth quirked at the corners. He folded his hands behind his head. “Yeah. I know. Now go to sleep Bo.”

“But do you know how many…?”

“Goodnight Bolin,” Mako interrupted firmly.

He cuddled into the tempered warmth of his brother, still trying to count the tiny pricks of light above.

“Goodnight Mako.”

Chapter Text

The decision to turn around hadn’t even been a decision, really.

More like an instinct. A subtle go, go, go that surged through him. He’d spent maybe ten seconds outside the mecha-suit, just long enough to lay his unconscious charges on the ground, before he was scrambling back into the unguarded hole.

He found Mako on the floor of the engine room, face lax.

He could have been sleeping.

Or dead.

Such utter dread surged through him that it momentarily made him woozy. His heart leapt into his throat, but he didn’t have time to indulge in terror. The vines were imploding with ear-shattering pops and crackles. He dragged Mako to his side by the arm and jumped.

It was then that the vines detonated.

The blast was so intense, and the sun so bright, that he saw spots dance behind his eyes even as they were closed. As awareness returned to him, so did a deep and persistent ache in his lower hip.

Bolin moaned. “Ugh…”

“Bolin!” A familiar voice shrieked from somewhere to his left. A solid and warm body skidded to a halt beside him. Bolin’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Opal first. She was basically sitting on top of him, hands skimming over his shoulders and neck. “Are you alright? What happened?”

Jinora’s head popped over Opal’s shoulder, her dark eyebrows creased in concern. Bolin nodded. Mostly because he hated to hear Opal so distressed. If a doctor had asked, are you alright, he would have informed them that he felt as if his head had been partially knocked from his shoulders and his hip felt like he’d run into a hundred table edges.

He squeezed his eyes shut again as pain throbbed behind his eyes.

“I-I think I’m fine,” he breathed after a long moment. Finally, he shielded his eyes with one hand and examined the craterous damage around them. And… Was it just him, or had the spirit portal become brighter? Not a great thing for his migraine. Concussion. Whatever it was. “The engine blew up on me…”

“Um,” Jinora bit her bottom lip. “I think the whole thing blew up.”

“But you aren’t hurt?” Opal pressed anxiously. He gave her a wan smile.

“Nah. My hip hurts but I don’t think its broken,” as if to prove it, he folded his smarting leg beneath him and shifted weight onto it. Nothing snapped and there was no blood, so he carefully stood. “Nothing a nice hot bath with some salts won’t help,” he deduced. “I’ll ask Mako. He knows how to make them really…”

Mako.

Bolin gasped and swiveled on his heel, almost buckling as the sudden movement aggravated his hip. “Mako! Where’s Mako?” The last thing he remembered was trying to tangle his fingers into his brother’s shirt as the blast threw them down a narrow passage.

He looked down. A scrap of grey fabric lay in his palm.

Lin, Su and Asami appeared over a small mound to their right. “Everyone alive over here?” Lin demanded, her tone set somewhere between indifference and irritation. As if the past day had reminded her just how much she hated them all.

“Has anyone seen Korra?” Asami added anxiously.

Oh, sure worry about the woman who could bend all four elements. Korra was the Avatar for crying out loud! She was capable. Bolin squeezed two handfuls of hair. “Has anyone seen Mako?!”

Lin arched an eyebrow, as if to say: you lost your brother?

Bolin’s cheeks burned. Thanks to their quick escape, he hadn’t even been able to ascertain whether Mako was alive before they got blown up. It could have been a corpse that he’d dragged from the engine room.

The thought made him want to crumple into a ball and scream.

“Give me a minute,” Lin ordered. She reared back one foot, swiped the metal away from her sole, and slammed it against the ground. Bolin felt a slight tremor go through his spine as she searched through the rubble and destruction using bending alone. “I don’t… I can’t feel Korra, but Mako is over there, buried under all that.”

She jabbed at a finger to the left and Bolin dove for the spot. He instantly wanted to yell in frustration. He stood atop a small hill of debris, vines, metal shards and scattered pieces of concrete. Mako was somewhere underneath it all.

Without a word, Jinora and Opal appeared on either side of him. Strong winds started dislodging the vines while Lin and Su lifted the metal. Bolin would have burst into tears of gratitude if he weren’t so damn scared.

Would he find his brother’s crushed body, mangled beyond recognition? Would he be met with a pile of flesh and pulverized ones soaked in blood? Lin’s expression gave nothing away. Maybe she had no words. Maybe her bending-sight thing didn’t work like regular sight.

An eternity passed. At last, a patch of pale skin took shape in the ground. “Mako!” He cried, dropping to his knees beside the limp form of his brother.

Bolin pressed trembling fingers against Mako’s wrist. Please be there, he silently prayed. Please spirits, don’t do this. Don’t leave me Mako. Don’t leave me…

 An unsteady pulse hammered against his fingers.

“Bolin?” Asami whispered, gently squeezing his shoulder from behind. Dread made her voice quake.

“He’s alive,” Bolin gasped. A hot tear dribbled down the side of his face. He lifted Mako by the shoulders and cradled him to his chest. “He’s alive.”

“He’s, um, waking up,” Su pointed out.

On cue, a warm breath wafted past Bolin’s ear. “Ugh…” Mako mumbled.

“Mako!” Bolin slipped a hand behind Mako’s back and carefully raised him into a sitting position. “Are you ok?”

Mako didn’t answer at first. He just tensed, coughing haggardly. Which was terrible for Bolin’s nerves. Thankfully, the coughing fit passed quickly. “Y-yeah, I’m… Ow!” He lurched away as Lin poked his right arm.

“Your arm is broken,” the chief reported, unnecessarily. Bolin curled around his brother protectively. She couldn’t have just felt that through the earth or something? Opal, in her infinite kindness, began ripping a piece of her suit to fashion a sling. “What happened?”

“Mako tried to be a big hero!” Bolin tattled in an admittedly childish shout.

Asami stood. “Guys, can we talk about this later? Korra is still…”

“D-did it work?” Mako interrupted groggily. His head lolled around to take in the catastrophe. “Oh. Guess it worked.”

“You did that?” Jinora demanded incredulously. “How?” 

“Yes!” Bolin shouted, recalling the reason for his ire. “He shot the glowing, highly combustible vines with lightning because he thinks he’s some big hero hotshot who needs to get himself killed!”

“Wait a minute!” Mako interrupted, squinting up at him skeptically. “Bo, did you come back for me? I told you to get out. You could have been killed!”

Bolin’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, I could have been killed? If I hadn’t come back, you would have been fried! Look!” He waved at the smoking mess around them. “It blew up, Mako!”

Opal looked at him, then Mako, then back to him. “Bolin, sweetie, its ok. No one was too badly hurt. It’s fine now,” she tried to reassure, calmly wrapping the makeshift sling around Mako’s arm and shoulder. He cringed as she settled his broken arm against his chest.

At any other time, Opal’s emerald eyes and soft tone would have settled him a little, but Bolin’s skin was still alight with panic and a grief that had been waiting just below the surface, ready to strike again. He couldn’t be calmed, not when mako was still acting like he was the one who had done something wrong in coming back to save his life.

“I told you to leave! I had it handled!” Mako yelled, face tinted red in either pain or frustration.

“You were unconscious!”

Mako made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat and tried to pull away. Bolin didn’t loosen his hold at all. “There was no reason both of us needed to be in danger…!”

Bolin grasped a handful of Mako’s already destroyed shirt and dragged him close. Their noses brushed. “You listen to me, you idiotic jerk, I don’t care about your big brother ego, ok? I spent days in one of Kuvira’s torture camps…”

Mako’s eyes widened. “You what?”

“I marched hundreds of miles in the sand dune deserts!”

Opal clutched her heart. “What? When?”

Asami fidgeted in place impatiently. “Um, guys…”

“I have been arrested, humiliated, beaten up and kidnapped, but I-I will NOT LOSE YOU!” His shout echoed in the empty buildings around them. Bolin choked on a sob. “You understand now? I can’t lose you Mako.”

Mako blinked at him, stunned. Then he nodded and gently tipped his forehead against Bolin’s. “Ok Bolin. Ok,” he whispered.

Lin rolled her eyes. “Not that this hasn’t been touching and weird, but can we please go find the Avatar now?”

Chapter Text

The makeshift hospital was nearly bursting by noon the next day.

Republic City citizens filed into the hollow rooms in droves. Thankfully, none of the injuries were life-threatening, but many of them were debilitating.

Bolin carefully made his way past the three beds blocking most of the hallway. He waved at the bleary-eyed people lying in them, who could only blink at him with slack jaws.

Oh, so the nurses had brought out the good drugs.

Mako had refused any semblance of special treatment, up to and including a private room. Nonetheless, he had been given the bed closest to the window so the rising and setting sun could warm his firebender veins. A thin sheet separated the room into fours.

Ms. Agatu, who had been struck by a piece of concrete in the evacuation, noticed him over the edge of her book and gave him a friendly nod.

Bolin noted that the tight bandage around her head was bloodless today and shot her an answering grin and thumbs up.

The other denizens of Mako’s room were asleep, but of course, Mako had risen with the light. He sat against a mound of pillows, eyes tracking the slow incline of the sun past the crumbled buildings.

“How’s your hip?” He asked when Bolin slipped past the separator curtain. 

Bolin opened his shirt front, allowing the squirming ferret bundled against his chest to wriggle free. They technically weren’t supposed to have animals in the hospital area…

Whatever. Bolin and Mako had helped save the city from Kuvira. Surely they had earned a little freedom to break a couple of rules?

“Almost wrenched my hip outta place in the attack,” he reported. “I had a concussion too but one of the waterbender doctors fixed me up. So now I’m good as new.”

He patted his healed hip contentedly. There was nothing better than a nice long session in warm healing waters.

Opal had ushered him into the first tub they found, and he had spent so long allowing the waterbenders to heal him that in the end, his toes had looked like tiny prunes.

“Hey Pabu,” Mako greeted as Pabu scrambled up the side of his bed to affectionately lick Mako’s cheek. He obligingly scratched the ferret beneath the chin. “The others?”

Bolin had spent the entire morning ascertaining the status of their friends just because he knew Mako would ask. He walked over to study the heart monitor beeping at Mako’s bedside. The pulse was steady, a little fast on account of the morning sun.

“Asami had a nasty cut on her calf. Opal had a concussion, and a sprained wrist. Korra was exhausted so Tenzin took her back to the air temple to sleep. Um…” he tapped his chin. “I think Meelo got bumped on the head? No one is dead.” His voice cracked. “You’re the one with t-the worst in-injuries.”

Damn it, Bolin thought as tears sprung to his eyes. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. He quickly turned away so Mako wouldn’t see him acting like a giant baby.

Which was stupid because it had literally never worked. Their mom used to say that Mako could hear Bolin crying from down the street. “As long as no one is dead,” Mako sighed. He patted the bed next to him. “Come here, little brother.”

Bolin hesitated, but the second he looked up, and noticed Mako’s knowing eyes and slight smile, he dove into the bed and curled up on his brother’s uninjured shoulder. “We did it, huh?” He sniffled. Pabu, sensing his distress, quickly tried to burrow into Bolin’s side. He hugged him tightly.

“Yeah. Helped save the city and the world. Again,” Mako agreed casually.

 Bolin scrubbed his tears with both palms. “Now aren’t you glad I convinced you to let Korra join the fire ferrets?”

Mako rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you were right, I was wrong…”

“I’m sorry, could you say that again?”

Mako smacked him in the face with a pillow, cutting off the rest of Bolin’s teasing. “Get over it. You tired?”

“Yes,” Bolin turned his face into Mako’s shoulder, at once reassured and embarrassed. He was probably too old to cling to his big brother like a baby platypus bear. Mako didn’t seem to mind though. “I haven’t had a chance to, you know, sit down and think since Verrick and I escaped Kuvira. It’s all catching up to me now.”

“I figured.”

When will it catch up to you? Bolin wanted to ask.

He hadn’t seen his brother shed a single tear in years. Before Kuvira, he had assumed that Mako demonstrated his emotions differently, or perhaps just didn’t have them, but now he suspected it was just that Mako never allowed anyone to see him vulnerable. Not even Bolin.  

“Prince Wu asked about you,” he blurted, surprising even himself with the change in subject.

Mako groaned. “Please say you told him I was dead.”

Bolin tensed. “Too soon, bro.”  

Mako studied him curiously. “I really scared you, didn’t I?”

Bolin tightened his grip, mind flashing back to the moment when they’d uncovered Mako from the debris, pale and hardly breathing.

Bolin had never seen their parents…After. By the time Mako allowed him out of hiding, the police had arrived and covered their bodies. He knew death, but only in the way that a philosopher knew death. It was ethereal. Something between nightmare and predator. But for a moment, he had felt it like an old friend at his back, smiling evilly and with skeletal hands outstretched.

“I-I, uh, told him you broke your arm trying to be a hotshot,” Bolin said, shaking himself free of the cold dread in his chest. “He wasn’t surprised. He did seem... Kinda… Territorial? Like, he told me I was a subpar brother, and he was going to take my place and then just… Left? In a huff? Like we’d just had a big fight?”

Bolin didn’t know whether to be confused or impressed. According to Asami and Korra, Prince Wu was an irresponsible kid who wasn’t ready to raise a dog much less rule a country, but he had a good heart.

Apparently, that included a protective nature that somehow now encompassed... Mako?

His brother curled slightly as he burst into wheezing cackles. It was the first time Bolin had heard him laugh in years. He couldn’t help but giggle himself. “It’s not funny Mako. I got told off by a guy who wears feathered socks!”

That sent Mako into even greater hysterics. “Ah! Ah, Bo, don’t make me laugh. My ribs are bruised,” he begged at last, clutching at his chest and tears shining in his eyes. Bolin, feeling as if he’d completed some enormous task, settled back down with a smile.

“So, why does he…?” He began, hoping that the sentiments about him being an awful brother hadn’t actually come from Mako himself.

“I don’t know. I guess he’s become attached to me,” Mako swiped away a tear, still chuckling. “You know he’s wrong, right? You’re a great brother. You saved my life.”

Bolin wanted to believe that. He really did. A few years ago, he would have taken Mako’s word for it without question, but now… No one had ever been protective of Mako against him before. “I left you there.”

Mako’s arm tightened around his shoulder. “Hey, we didn’t have a choice. Besides, you didn’t leave me, remember? You came back.”

He ducked his head. “No, I mean, when I left to join Kuvira’s army… I just up and disappeared. No calls. No letters,” Bolin inhaled a deep breath and finally allowed himself to meet Mako’s confused gaze “I tried to forget you, Mako. I tried to forget you. What kind of brother does that?”

He expected Mako to push him away, or express some of that famous firebender fury, but his brother just cocked his head, as if considering something. Then he let his head fall back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“Do you remember Toji?” He asked softly.

A chill swept down Bolin’s spine. Toji had been a witty, handsome firebender a few years older than Mako. A low life in the Triple Threat triad. Bolin remembered his beaming grin and booming laughter, as well as the candy he always stashed in his pockets for younger street kids.

The police found him drowned in one of the city canals a few days after nineteenth birthday.

“Of course.”

Mako’s eyes traced something on the ceiling. “He wanted me to help him take over the gang and turn it into… Something better. A safe haven for orphans and the homeless. He had a lot of cool sounding plans, and he wanted me to be his number one man, but I didn’t want to drag you into some gang war. It didn’t seem fair. So he found you a new family.”

Bolin surged upright in astonishment. Pabu squeaked questioningly, looking between the two. Mako did not meet his gaze. “What do you mean, a new family?” he demanded in a horrified whisper. He’d always known he was a handicap to independent Mako while on the streets, but he’d never imagined…

“A new family, with a mom and dad and two siblings. They lived in a village outside the city. Not a rich family, but better than living on the streets. They lost a son recently and were willing to take you in. Toji had it all set up, and I agreed.”

He scrambled up so he was kneeling on the edge of the bed, insensate with horror. “You what?”

Mako blinked, and in the early light of morning, Bolin caught a hint of wetness on his lashes. “The night before you were supposed to go live with them, I was going to tell you. I thought…” he sighed. “Toji convinced me that they could give you a better life than I ever could. And I wanted that for you, but… I also wanted to forget. I wanted to take a new name, a new identity, a new life without any reminders of my old one.”

Bolin did the mental math. At that time, Mako must have been maybe fourteen or fifteen, which meant that Bolin would have been twelve or thirteen. Too young to know that their big break would come in time. Too old to make their living begging on the street with large puppy-dog eyes.

Their lives had been made up of hard, hungry winters and insect-infested summers. They had gotten by but only because of Mako’s sacrifices and Bolin’s cleverness.

“Why didn’t you?” He asked softly.

For the first time, a tiny smile crossed Mako’s lips. “I promised dad that I would look out for you. I couldn’t do that if you were hundreds of miles away and I was a gang leader, so… I said no. To all of it.”

Bolin gave a start. Of course he knew about that promise. Neither of them mentioned it often, but it was hard to forget Mako’s eight-year-old voice as they had fought to stay together after their parents were killed.

“I promised dad I would look out for you! They can’t do this!”

“W-when did you promise dad that?”

Mako fingered the scarf round his neck. “While he was dying.”

“Then, a few weeks later, I found out that the supposed ‘family’ Toji set up for you was a fake. They were actually child slavers. If I had sent you away the next day, you would…” Mako’s voice cracked, and Bolin reached out instinctively to squeeze his hand.

Mako squeezed back. “I never told you because I was ashamed, so believe me Bo, I get what it’s like to want to forget. I know I haven’t always been there for you in the way you needed. I don’t blame you for leaving.”

Bolin looked down. Pabu was pressing his tiny feet into his sternum. He stroked his neck absently. He would never tell Mako this, but the reason the ferret comforted him so much was because he had his brother’s eyes, their mother’s eyes. Bolin tried to leave all that behind and it had nearly destroyed him.

Tears clogged his throat, but he did manage to croak: “Mako? Thank you.”

His brother gave a start.  “For what? I just told you I almost sold you into slavery!” He breathed.

Bolin shook his head. “We were kids! It’s not your fault Toji tried to trick you, and in the end, you could have sent me away. It would have made things a lot easier on you, but you didn’t…” he smiled.

“Because I was a coward!” Mako cried, blinking rapidly.

Bolin grabbed both of his hands and pressed them against his heart. “No, because you look out for me! You always have, even if it meant you had to sacrifice or suffer. Maybe – actually, no definitely- you’re a really annoying and emotionally constipated brother, but in my book, you’re the best.”

Mako smiled at him – that smile he rarely gave to anyone. A leftover from the sullen but joyful little boy who had existed in the time before his parents’ murder. Mako had shut down after that, became more like a vault with a thousand locks, but every so often, he let Bolin peek behind the wall.

“Thanks Bo.”

“That’s why the Triple threats had Toji… Disappeared, isn’t it? Because he was trying to take over?” He asked, the words marching slowly off his tongue. Yeah, Toji had nearly gotten him sold off into slavery, but he had been a child too. Ambitious, bold, naïve.

He must have been so scared.

Mako’s expression hardened again. “Yeah. One of his own guys ratted him out for money. It’s a good thing I never joined, or I would have been disappeared too.”

The thought of a young Mako discarded in some underground sewer or abandoned warehouse basement was enough to make his gut clench up again, but Bolin released the terrifying what-ifs. “So we both got lucky,” he surmised.

Pabu chittered in an exasperated sort of agreement. Mako stroked the lone dot on the fire-ferret’s forehead affectionately. “Seems like we always do.”

“Yeah,” Bolin leaned back on his hands and regarded his older sibling. “So, do you think we could get room service, being heroes of the city and all?”

And the idiocy of the moment was worth it to hear Mako laugh, strong and alive.