A Second Fiction

For Asami, the past few days had been a blur.

She stayed in the CIA's bunker facility otherwise known as 'Castle' for two nights. After a thorough sweep through and installed security measures she was given the all-clear to return home, eat a tub of ice cream and sprawl to blissful albeit paranoid sleep in her own king sized bed surrounded by dozens of pillows and blankets. However as grateful as she was to be back in the comfort of her own home, she'd actually been a tad reluctant to leave the safety of Castle and by extension, Agent Korra. She'd woken each morning unsure of what to find or expect, but felt comfort quickly spread through her uncertainty finding Korra already dug into files and cases, fresh coffee already brewed for her and Asami (and Mako), and a breakfast platter containing an assortment of fruits, pastries and various breads laid out for her, seeing as it was deemed unsafe for her to leave Castle and get breakfast herself. What surprised her even more than the delicious breakfasts and beverages laid out for her each morning, was how quickly she had accepted and adjusted to the concept of Korra's true identity. She told herself to be mad, to despise Korra for manipulating her (even though she knew it was for her own good), to even will herself to throw one last dig at the girl, but she just couldn't. In fact the more time she spent with Korra, the more she grew to know her and like the real side of her. Granted Korra being an Agent for the CIA meant she couldn't tell Asami much about herself, but that didn't stop her from trying. For example, she picked up on Korra's minor habits, the features and facial expressions she would often carry, note her reactions to certain things. For instance whenever Korra was trying to concentrate, or was confused, her brow would furrow and she'd bite down on her pencil ignoring the hum of the computers, the quiet crunches of Asami's chews, Mako's slurping - everything else became ambience for her as she focused entirely on even the smallest detail she could've possibly overlooked or situations she was trying to interpret. When they'd eat together, Asami noticed despite her still reserved behaviour, that her demeanour was far more calmer, far more relaxed when Mako or her superiors weren't around. She was at ease. Something about this side of Korra, made Asami feel like she could slowly, over a period of time, begin to break down her walls and get to know her better. Asami knew it wasn't fair to ask such things from her, she knew she was being selfish - she'd only met Korra a few days ago after all. But she simply couldn't help it, she wanted to know more about her. It was just who Asami was. Someone who's curiosity always got the better of them. She had to see something through to the very end, until there were no more solutions, nothing more to find out about a particular object, situation or person in this case. It was one of the reasons why people didn't stick around for long in her life. Yes, she'd dated -- and dated plenty of times. She'd been wooed, whisked, almost swept off her feet and had tonnes of fun but eventually the flame of a long-term romance would sizzle out and die down, leaving her having to dump the poor guy because he couldn't satisfy her anymore. There'd be nothing left to know about them, no more surprises, nothing knew to learn. She'd exhausted them. She knew it was a tad cynical, but she was simply someone driven by knowledge. It was one of the many reasons that made her prodigal and a successful business magnate. She craved knowledge and constantly sought something out until there was nothing new left for her to know. Right now, Korra was her new interest. Not just romantically, she wasn't just someone looking to jump the gun after all, but on a personal level. Asami was genuinely interested and wanted to use her isolated days in Castle productively. 

Though timing clearly wasn't on her side, because each time she'd get remotely close to Korra and try to begin the process of breaking down her walls, Mako would suddenly and unexpectedly burst through to doors into Castle and boom! Korra's cool facade immediately set in, the walls were back up, higher than they were before and she'd only talk to Asami in small doses, her attention mostly set on Mako now and any missions or open cases they'd have to discuss, before leaving Asami to join him at the hoard of computer monitors set up beneath the exit's mezzanine, to work. The next time she set herself up to try, she'd been informed that the security measures were installed, Korra's and Mako's covers were in place and she could return home.

She found herself feeling a mixture of sadness and happiness both at the same time.

The CIA had given her the day to rest, recover and rejuvenate and told her to call into the yoghurt store above Castle before work on Monday. And so, here she stood watching Korra from outside the suspiciously quickly and newly built Orange Orange Yogurt store, trying to (once again) wrap her head around this 'new kind of normal'.

"Well here goes nothing" she muttered under her breath, as she pushed open the cool glass door to Orange, Orange.

This all could've played out far differently if Mako had've manned up for a second and formed words that other day at the store, then perhaps he'd be the one in this situation and not me.

During Asami's stay in Castle, Korra too had been ordered to stay in the base in the corporate facilities. Throughout that time Korra had Mako go round to her apartment to feed Naga and keep her company until she could return home. Normally being kept in Castle for extended periods of time made Korra feel suffocated. She enjoyed the outdoors. Being outside in the fresh air, letting the Vitamin D soak up her skin, her hair blowing in the wind while Naga played fetch. And so, when she was ordered to stay in Castle until Asami was able to return home, she went into the situation feeling pessimistic. She could withstand being in Castle for that long, she just didn't prefer it. Except this time round, Korra found herself pleasantly surprised with the calm environment Asami provided. When they would talk, even if it was just debriefing and preparing Asami early for future missions, protocol and procedures, she made Korra feel relaxed and eased. In spite of this typically preferred atmosphere, Korra knew this was a dangerous position to be put into. It meant she could be made vulnerable, and as a result, compromise herself with Asami, to Asami. The sad, but harsh truth was that she couldn't tell Asami about herself even if she wanted too. The more her asset knew, the more danger she could be placed in. Standard Asset-Handler rules. Only tell your asset what they need to know. No more. No less. It came to the point where Korra was almost grateful for the distraction Mako provided. Giving her the chance to recover, to realise where she'd gone wrong in being around Asami and mentally kick herself so she'd remember to not let Asami get as close to her next time. Yeah, that's right - she knew what Asami was doing. She knew Asami knew she wouldn't be able to find out about her right off the bat, and that she would try to observe her instead, note her habits and find out what made her tick from afar. Though she couldn't always help it, she threw some fake reactions her way to keep Asami occupied. Like laughing wildly at things Mako said - things that weren't half as funny as she made them out to be - hell they weren't even funny at all. It was Mako for crying out loud.

Perhaps Mako would have been able to handle her better than me. Perhaps Mako would have captured her interest instead. Perhaps Mako should be the one doing this, instead of me.

"Who am I kidding? It's Mako." Korra chuckled. 

The gentle bell ringing signalling someone had entered the yogurt store, shook Korra from her musings. She looked up to find Asami, snazzy as usual, clad in business attire. Her hair graciously swept over her shoulders, eyes piercing green clashed starkly against the baby blue painted walls of the store. She donned a grey petticoat, leaving the bottom half of her dark red shirt visible. Her long legs were accentuated by stockings and a grey pencil skirt and accompanied by heels. Meanwhile Korra's Orange, Orange uniform consisted of white capri pants and a thin sleeved orange cami singlet. Definitely not as snazzy, but it was a cover job. She could've been made to wear far worse and had been assigned to a far different case. She could've also worn her blue jumper as part of the uniform to spritz it up, but it was only 15 degrees in the store - not nearly cold enough to be wearing one. 

Korra checked her watch, it read 7.45am. The store didn't open until 8.

"Am I late?" Asami asked as she slowly strolled toward the counter.

"Nope, you're right on time." Korra began whipping up a concoction of yoghurts and fresh fruits in a to go cup, sliding it toward Asami. 

"This is what the government called me in for? For a," she paused, quickly dipping her finger in the frozen serving before unintentionally licking it off rather seductively. She only realised after when she pulled her finger out of her mouth, just how that might've looked, and given Korra's subtle cough continued, "for a uh, surprisingly delicious peach and mango yoghurt?" 

That's not the only thing that looks delicious - Stop it Korra!

"Uh, no. Well the yoghurt you can have for free so it doesn't look too suspicious but basically we called you in this morning to quickly go over the cover again. Mako is already stationed inside and should be getting shown around by your assistant right now. His cover is going to be in tact so treat him as you would your normal assistant to make sure nothing looks too out of the ordinary. If you come across anything that might be suspicious or look off let him know immediately and we'll sort it. There is no reason for you to feel unsafe, we have surveillance set up around the perimeter and throughout the building," she said this as she turned the Orange, Orange counter screen towards her, logging into the CIA database and bringing up live surveillance footage of the entrances, workshops, conference rooms, hallways, Asami's office and foyer. Asami nodded, signalling she understood and was okay with all of Korra's instructions.

"There is one more agenda we need to discuss and that is our cover." 

"Our cover? Beifong did mention something in the meeting where I agreed to cooperate with the CIA, but she didn't explain further."

"Yeah, it was decided that if you agreed to be a consultant, we would have to further establish a cover as you would become my asset and I, your handler. I'm personally responsible for your safety and wellbeing in and out of missions." Korra said seriously. She would not be one to mess around with this situation. 

"What does that mean for us cover wise?" Asami asked slowly. She looked as if she already knew what Korra wanted to say, she just wanted verbal confirmation.

"It means that because we've already established a cover as potentially dating, when I ran into you at the F.I Tech store and we went out the next night, that the CIA intends for us to resume and pursue this relationship further. If you're okay with that." Korra paused, when she noticed Asami's eyes grow a little wider and her eyebrows raise. She opened her mouth a few times, trying to formulate words but nothing came out so Korra interjected again, "I can understand if it's a problem or you don't feel comfortable. Otherwise if you'd prefer to have a cover relationship with Mako, I can arrange that instea--"

--"No! No that's fine, that's more than okay." Asami tried to recover so she wouldn't seem overeager, "You're right we've already established a cover. We technically did go out on a date so it makes sense that we'd pursue a relationship-- a fake, relationship." Korra nodded and Asami was relieved Korra didn't press any further. 

The door quickly swung open as the morning rush of business people and school children filled the store. Asami took it as her cue to leave and gratefully took her frozen yoghurt, before Korra reached out for her hand. She turned and just like that, despite the cool air of the store, Asami suddenly felt hot. 

"We'll grab a coffee later on today at the little cart down the road?" Korra said smiling, before leaning in close, the store patrons watching the interaction not so subtly, her breath hot on Asami's ear, "we can go over more details about the cover as well as your first mission and I can also answer anymore questions you might have." To the outside world, it looked as though Korra had just asked Asami out on another date (sorta) and was whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Of course the reality of the situation was far from romantic but Asami found herself wishing more than anything, for the former to be true. 

Korra pulled away grinning, her eyes only for Asami as the onlookers in the store quickly went back to studying the yoghurt menu far too closely. Korra watched as Asami gracefully stepped out into the cool morning air and strolled across the road into work, yoghurt in hand. 

Satisfied with the further establishment of her relationship cover, Korra knew that as easy as it was to slip into this fake life with Asami, that it was going to be one of the most difficult missions of her career so far. 

The morning rush of patrons had long been and gone and it was practically closing time. Korra hadn't noted anything suspicious all day, and judging by the surveillance and slight lack of communication, neither had Mako. She'd studied Asami's schedule to see that all of her appointments had been completed, when she flicked her a text message, asking about that coffee.

Korra - 2.56pm: Coffee? Meet me outside Future Industries when you're ready.

Asami - 2.56pm: I'll let Mako and Zhu Li know I'm heading out. See you soon.

Asami - 2.58pm: On my way down now.

Korra closed up the shop, putting up the "be back in 5 minutes" sign and locked the door. She waited outside Future Industries for Asami and upon greeting her, beckoned down the street to the nearest coffee chain.

"I saw that your appointments were all cleared up for the day, so I figured now would be the best time to go over details of the case. Sorry if I pulled you away from anything important or personal though. Mako being serious and brooding often lacks emotional intelligence and doesn't understand when a person needs some time to themselves to recover or when a person wants to stray away from a schedule for that matter." Korra said, hands in pockets as they casually took their time making their way down the street.

Asami laughed as Korra made light fun of her new colleague, "It's fine really. I could do with a break. Sometimes I get so caught up in work and meetings and clients that I often forget to eat and sleep and work well past the typical business hours. Habits of a CEO I suppose." she said, chuckling at the cold truth of it all. Korra knew this is what it was like for Asami. She was barely two years older than herself and she had an entire company to run, investments to monitor as well as the chain of F.I stores to supervise. Everyone knew she was doing extremely well after taking over from her father; profits soaring through the roofs, new lines of products better than the last, advancements in the fields of engineering - it went without saying that she knew what she was doing. The front face of the company. But nobody got to see the effects it had on her personally. Nobody ever got to look behind the scenes, because the minute she took over from her father, she never had time for it and shut people out even more than she did before, not allowing for people to get close to her. Korra knew all to well what it was like.

"Well I'm glad I could help. You looked like you could do with a break and," Korra took two steps beckoning Asami towards to coffee cart to place her order, "who doesn't like a good pick me up? My treat of course."

Asami stepped up to the counter thanking Korra, "oh no, please that won't be necessary I can pay."

"Are we really doing this again? I asked you out for coffee, I'm paying!" And with that, she shoved her cash on the table as they made their orders.

"Well thank you. You shouldn't have, really, but thank you. I appreciate it Korra."

"It's no problem! If I'm being completely honest, it seemed like it's been a while since anyone outside of your work life has done something for you, and I'm more than happy to - even if it's just coffee. And before you say anything! Business dinners, functions and lunches don't count." Korra added, holding Asami's espresso out to her and making their way back.

"You know me so well considering I've only known you for less than a week. You are right though. It has been a while. I guess I haven't really had the time, but isn't this," she beckoned between them, "technically work? I mean, you're working right now. I'm sorta working right now too, right?"

"Yeah, but if work doesn't feel like work, it doesn't necessarily count as work, does it?" Korra countered, a grin tugged nicely on her lips. Asami nearly stopped in her tracks admiring Korra's easiness and playfulness despite her prominence and importance in an undercover position for the government. 

"I suppose this doesn't feel like work." Asami said as they stopped outside of Future Industries. Korra came inside as Asami gathered up her things and followed her out of the building across to the Orange, Orange where they continued their debriefing. Much to Mako's dismay, he had to stay a little late working with Zhu Li on Asami's work schedule for the upcoming weeks. The entire day he had jumped between running about the craziness of the job of being one of Asami's personal assistants and daydreaming about cleaning the well stocked, well supplied weaponry in Castle's armoury. 

Asami didn't end up leaving Castle with Korra until 7pm. They discussed doing a few in depth defensive training sessions so Asami would possess some skill should she run into any sticky situations ahead of their future missions. They of course planned to develop this, but the basics were the necessities for now. Korra debriefed Asami on her first mission with Mako and Korra as a team; it was a relatively "basic" one. Asami would stay inside the black out van, working monitoring and surveillance, whilst Mako and Korra ran infiltration. The mission, was to break into a foreign arms dealers hotel room at the Grand Ambassador hotel, locate and steal back sensitive intel they'd stolen off a U.S consultant for the government while he were visiting Russia, before he sells it on the black market for millions of dollars. The last thing Korra discussed with Asami was outlining their cover and relationship as Asset and Handler. 

"So what exactly does that entail?" Asami asked propped forward on her elbows.

"Obviously our relationship is strictly a cover, a fake. Strictly professional. There are lines that cannot be crossed because it jeopardises not only your safety, but mine too. My job as your handler is to ensure your safety and wellbeing not just in missions, but outside it as well. Anything goes wrong - I am held personally responsible - because you are my sole responsibility. That being said, you can of course go to either myself or Mako for issues, questions or anything else. We are a team after all. And like a well oiled machine, we need to all cooperate and work together, in order for this team to become a success."

Asami had guessed most of this. She'd overheard Mako talking to Korra about the nature of the handler-asset relationship. But the words that wrung in her head, over everything else, was "cover", "fake" and "strictly professional". Asami moved her mouth to speak, but Korra accidentally cut in before she could.

"I forgot to mention that, with us being in a fake relationship, you won't actually be allowed to pursue a real one outside of this. It might not sound so bad, but take into account the fact that we don't know how long this assignment could go on for. It could be weeks, it could be months, maybe even years. We don't know much about the people after you, so until we can find out more and bring them down, I'm afraid you can't see anyone else."

"What about you?"

To this Korra laughed a little, "what personal life? I'm not as bad as Mako, but I'm practically married to my job."

"That's not what I meant." The look on Korra's face, showed that she half understood but needed Asami to voice it, "When this is over. Will you be able to see someone? Even if that someone was me?"

Korra took her eyes off Asami, and hung her head slightly "Asami, you know I can't talk about this with you. I'm not just your handler, I'm also an agent. I'm one now and I'll continue to be one long after this assignment is over. And you'll go back to being a civilian. I'm sorry but I can't."

"I understand." Asami mumbled, barely audible, but Korra's nod indicated otherwise. She knew what the answer was going to be, but something deep inside her pushed her to try anyway. It couldn't hurt - except it did. The finality in knowing nothing could happen with Korra, but she'd have to pretend like they were involved, put a pain in Asami's chest. One she fought to keep from showing on her face. Korra however caught it even in her smallest expressions, and spoke up.

"Asami look--"

"I'm here! I didn't miss the briefing did I?!" Mako announced as he burst through the sealed door into Castle. 

He did miss it. By several hours. But he looked visibly worn and eager to be around the steady hum of the air conditioning unit, cool interior walls, hoards of guns, computers and files and that distinctly undercover environment that Castle provided.

"Asami's up to speed. She can head home for the night, there's nothing left to cover. We will however be running a couple of training sessions for her prior to the mission just so she has basic self defence under her belt." 

Asami gathered up her belongings once again, and thanked Korra for the debriefing before bidding her team goodnight and heading home. Mako quickly disappeared to the guns and ammunition lockers to ease his mind and jump back into his spy-frame-of-mind while Korra took a moment to truly reflect on Asami's words. She knew she had chosen them carefully, and put it out there, almost as if she was putting her heart on the line in the small hopes of something more. 

Wow. And to think I've known this girl for less than a week. 

Perhaps in a different time, a different place, if she was a different person, she would've leapt, heart on her sleeve, toward the possibility of having something more with Asami. Perhaps in a different time, she would be given that. For the rest of her life even. But this wasn't a different time. This wasn't a different place. This was her. This was now. And reality, is a cold hearted sucker, and has a way of putting us in some of the most difficult, excruciating situations possible, just to have a kick and laugh at us. Which was the current case for Korra. And it all came down to one, little rule: Spies don't fall in love. For now, all she focused on was moving forward. As much as she didn't want to. She had to put it at the back of her mind, and focus on the next most important thing she could do for Asami; protect her. If she couldn't be with her, she could at least be there for her. 

Inhale.

Spies don't fall in love. 

Exhale.