Internet Connection

Try as they both might, it was hard to ignore the inevitable. Asami showed Korra the very best of Republic City, although the trip to the Future Industries race track had been just shy of a disaster. She hadn’t realised Korra had never qualified for a driving licence prior to her injury. If Asami had known she might not have let Korra loose behind the wheel of the hand-control prototype they’d been developing. At least they knew the airbags worked now though. Still, things were going well, or as well as could be. Even Bolin and Opal, once they were a little less star struck and had managed to mentally reshuffle Korra from ‘celebrity that can be interrogated’ to ‘private individual’, were good company, but the true purpose of the visit drew closer every day. Asami could see it eating at Korra, as much as she tried to hide it. Her hand kept straying to the bullet scar on her stomach, Naga nosing at her hand and whining every time she started scratching at it.

Korra hadn’t realised she’d been doing it, hadn’t even realised Asami was awake until her hand closed around Korra’s own, stopping her mid scratch.
“mmm...” Asami mumbled, still half asleep, pressing a kiss to Korra’s shoulder. “You’re goin’ make yourself bleed at this rate.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t go apologising, it’s not like you’re doing it on purpose,” Asami yawned hugely. “Did you bring those mittens?”
Korra didn’t even remember telling Asami about those, but it had been a spectacularly shitty few weeks and her head had been a complete fog for most of it. It wasn’t a time she’d particularly wanted to remember. She shook her head, and then gave a verbal negative because she wasn’t entirely sure Asami’s eyes were even open.
“Too hot here,” she added, by way of explanation. Her hand moved unconsciously back towards her stomach and she caught herself, slamming her hand against the mattress in frustration. “It just...” Korra tried to find the words but she was still half asleep. “It itches,” she went with lamely, but Asami seemed to understand what she was trying to convey, going by the sympathetic squeeze of her hand. “I can’t wait to get this damn thing out, you know?”
“I can’t imagine,” Asami said softly, “but leave it to the professionals, ok?”
That got a sleepy chuckle out of Korra.
“Do I have to?” She asked, in a mock-whiny voice.
“Yup. Can’t go tearing your skin off, Kor.” Asami rolled over, wrapping one arm around Korra’s midriff so that her arm covered the entry wound, pleasantly cool against Korra’s perpetually warm skin. “You’d look like Skeletor, and I’m really not attracted to Skeletor.”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t want to jump my bones?” Korra joked. There was a moment’s silence, and then Asami hit her with a pillow.

In the next room Tonraq sighed, questioned what he’d ever done to deserve this, and put the industrial ear defenders over his ears. Senna rolled over and started to snore.

“I was worried you might get bored,” Senna confessed. Asami almost didn’t reply, too engrossed in the spectacle.
“Wha...oh, no. No, I’m good. I’m...I’m really good. Thanks.”
“So I see,” the woman said, amused. Asami probably should have been embarrassed but she had other things on her mind. Like Korra. Or, more specifically, Korra’s arms. And Korra’s back. She’d seen photos and video from Korra before the ‘incident’, as Senna delicately referred to it, or the ‘complete fucking shitshow’, as Korra called it, and Korra had always been impressive but it was so much better in person. She could see every muscle moving beneath the tight shirt, and when Korra glanced over her shoulder and winked Asami knew she’d chosen it on purpose.

Korra had wanted to burn off some nervous energy and get one last good workout in before the surgery, and Bolin had fallen over himself to offer himself up as workout buddy. Asami wasn’t quite sure how that had turned into the current chin up contest but she wasn’t complaining. Her arms were still screaming from her own efforts in the contest, not too shabby at all, even if she did say so herself, and at least she’d beaten Opal, but Bolin and Korra had outlasted her easily and were still going. Bolin was tomato red and clearly feeling the strain but Korra didn’t even look winded. When he finally dropped there were cheers from around the gym and Korra just grinned, letting go with one hand to crank out the last few single handed just to make her point. When she finally stopped she dangled from one arm, mock-beating her chest like Tarzan in a way Asami would never have thought she’d find endearing, never mind attractive, before Tonraq stepped in to lift her down from the bar to her chair in an easy, practised motion. Bolin pulled himself up from where he’d dramatically collapsed on the floor to prostrate himself at her feet, proclaiming her the indisputable master of chin ups, and looking entirely too happy to have been roundly beaten by his sporting hero.
“I don’t want to know, do I?” asked a familiar voice. Asami turned to find Mako who, after a lifetime of Bolin’s somewhat colourful antics, couldn’t even bring himself to look surprised.

“It really does just want to slip out, doesn’t it?” Mako mused, once the introductions had been done and Korra had moved off to a different piece of equipment. “All I can think right now is ‘Hi, I accidentally trod in a puddle of your blood once, sorry about that’. And I don’t think that’s something you should say to someone. Especially not on first meetings.”
“I think she’d appreciate you not saying that,” Asami agreed, seeing the expression on Senna’s face.

 When Korra finally called it quits she could barely lift her arms, which created just a few logistical issues.
“It’s a major downside,” she groaned, as she slowly wheeled herself over to the table in the cafe the others had withdrawn to. “It’s like every workout is leg day.”

The tentative plans they’d made went out the window some time after the fourth round of post-workout drinks. Senna and Tonraq made their excuses, slipping away after a quiet goodbye to Korra. Asami never was quite clear how they’d ended up in that slightly grungy sports bar. Or, more importantly, how they ended up meandering drunkenly through the streets at four in the morning, flouting all public intoxication and drinking laws to Mako’s acute discomfort, and barely having to persuade Korra to try and get them food by rolling herself into the drive-through and trying to convince the very confused and sleep deprived teen manning the window that wheelchairs counted as vehicles. All Asami knew that it was far, far better night than any corporate do she’d ever attended, and not just because of the company she had at the end of the night.  

The meeting could not have come at a worse time. Almost. Asami knew that some decisions couldn’t be made in her absence, but this was supposed to be the quiet portion of the year for the business. It had been part of the reason for Korra scheduling the operation for now. But then the shit had hit the proverbial fan and Asami was now stuck in a boardroom instead of being with Korra for her last day before going into hospital. She knew she needed to salvage the contract for the sake of the business as a whole and she needed to finish the process today to stop it spilling over, but her head and her heart just weren’t in it. The company they were working with was impossible enough at the best of times, even without this barely legal attempt to stymie proceedings from Cabbage Corp. Her assistant seemed to pick up on Asami’s lack of focus, and called a ten minute break to proceedings.

Asami flopped into her office chair, trying to massage away the headache that was forming. Lu entered, setting a cup of coffee down on the desk in its usual spot.
“You’ve got a call on line three,” he said, apologetically, and Asami groaned.
“Nope. Not taking it. Not happening. Just... hang up. By accident.”
“Sorry, Miss Sato, but you made me promise not to do that when you hired me.” Lu shut the door behind him. Asami groaned again for good measure and lifted the receiver.
“Sato.”
“Well someone sounds cranky.”
Asami sat up in her chair.
“Korra? What are you...”
“Your assistant said you were having a shitter of a day.”
Asami tried to imagine those words coming out of Lu’s very proper mouth.
“No, no he didn’t.”
“Ok, it was more implied.”
Well that she could believe.

“So what’s up?”
“You really want to hear about contract disputes, undercutting, illegal tendering and material specifications?”
“Ooh, yeah. Talk nerdy to me, Sato.”
Asami chuckled.
“It’s just stuff. I’m handling it.”
“Never doubted that. But you know I make a good sounding board, even when you haven’t had a half bottle of whiskey. Unless you’ve replaced me as the go-to in times of jeopardy?”
“I think I’m probably stuck with you. Don’t think I’ll get so lucky if I try messaging a celebrity drunk again.”
“And I definitely picked the right weirdo fan to respond to. But, before we go all misty-eyed in reminiscing, you want to throw things at me so I can be a polite and supportive echo chamber until you work out your game plan?”
Asami checked her watch. She could spare a minute. And Korra was right. That first, embarrassing, drunken call had been the impetus for the plan that had saved Future Industries after Hiroshi’s arrest.

She was fifteen minutes late back to the meeting. One of the board opened his mouth to complain, and stopped. He could see the grin, the set of her shoulders. They all knew that look. Asami took her seat at the head of the table like an empress taking her throne.
“Alright then, ladies and gentlemen. Here’s how we’re going to sink this Cabbage Corp bullshit and still get home before rush hour.”

Asami was still flush with success when she got to the hotel that night, only to run into Tonraq and Naga in the hallway and was almost spun around on the spot.
“Korra’s doing a thing,” he said enigmatically. “Best to leave her to it for the minute.”
Asami hesitated, looking longingly towards the door, but went with him all the same.

It wasn’t that Asami didn’t like Tonraq. The big man had been nothing but friendly and accepting from the first day, but Asami had been hurrying back for a reason. Tonraq was not immediately forthcoming with an explanation, even as Asami tried to, politely as possibly, wheedle one out of him. Eventually she just gave up on diplomacy and outright asked him why he was less than subtly running interference. By the way his face fell he’d hoped he’d been less transparent, but Tonraq never had been one for political games and poker faces.
“She’s doing a thing,” he explained unhelpfully, and Asami just raised an eyebrow. Tonraq sighed, hurling the tennis ball overarm, sending Naga hurtling after it like a furry white rocket. “It’s not...it’s just something she does to help get rid of the pre-surgery nerves.”
“Something that I can’t see?”
“Something she doesn’t want you to see,” Tonraq corrected heavily, taking the ball back from Naga and throwing it again, wincing as he nearly hit a jogger. “It’s not...she needs some space, right now. Going to have a whole horde of folk buzzing about her for the next few days and ...” The man looked acutely uncomfortable, verging on genuine physical pain. Asami just waited. The same strategy worked on Korra. “Look.” He said at last, sitting down on an empty bench, motioning for Asami to join him. “Tomorrow...it should be fine. But there’s always a chance, no matter how remote, it won’t be. And given that Korra is something of a champion of impossible odds she reckoned she’d feel better if she just...wrote some stuff down. Just in case.”
Asami considered this.
“You’re telling me,” she began slowly, “that Korra is up there, alone, mulling over her possible demise? And you...”
Tonraq caught her arm as she stood.
“Asami,” he said gently, “she asked for space. We’re giving it to her.”
Reluctantly she sat back down.

“I have no idea how you’re so calm right now,” Asami admitted, and Tonrq laughed.
“Calm? Me? I don’t think I’ve been calm since I got that phone call telling me my little girl was in hospital with two bullets in her. Look at this!” he gestured to his temples, in mock horror, “It’s made me go grey! I look old!”
“You look distinguished,” Asami consoled him with a grin, and Tonraq rolled his eyes. He looked away, making a show of playing with Naga.
“I’m glad you two found each other. Hope you know that.”
Asami felt a lump rise in her throat.
“Thank you, Tonraq.”
“Anytime, kid.” Tonraq bumped his shoulder against hers. “So. When’s an old man getting some grandkids, huh?”
Asami spluttered and Tonraq just laughed. “Sorry, that was mean.”
“Let’s just take things one horribly stressful thing at a time, how about that?”
“Probably for the best,” Tonraq nodded, still grinning at the look on Asami’s face. His phone buzzed and he checked it. “Oh, coast’s clear. C’mon, let’s head back.”

 Naga was scrambling through as soon as the door opened, leaving Asami and Tonraq in her wake. By the time they made it through to the adjoining room Naga had climbed up onto the bed beside Korra, lying down with her head on Korra’s stomach. Senna gave them a nod from where she was packing a few of Korra’s things into a bag, getting ready for the next day.

 It was a quiet dinner all together that evening. And when they tumbled into bed that night Korra stopped her, making a request that Asami not leave any marks for the surgeons to see that only sounded half like a joke. Asami was only too happy to comply.

Asami woke when it was still dark. She tried to work out what had woken her when she saw Korra’s eyes open in the dark, heard the scrape of nails across skin. She was staring up into nothing. One hand was on her chest, over the old wound.
“Kor?”
No response. No indication she’d even heard her. Asami shifted even closer, mentally beating herself up for not noticing before.
“Korra? Sweetheart, can you hear me?”
Korra nodded absently.
“I need you to come back, ok? Can you feel my hand on your arm?”
“Never left,” She said distantly.
“Of course you didn’t.” Asami said gently, continuing to try and coax Korra out of whatever mental pitfall had snared her. It took time, but Asami knew better than to rush it, knew how to lead her back to the present. Eventually she felt confident enough to ask;
“So, do you think I should go for the mixed or the all-female naked jelly wrestling?”
“Whatever you feel like.” Korra blinked, finally snapping fully back to reality. “Wait, what!?”
Asami couldn’t help but snort at Korra’s bewildered expression.
“Sorry babe. But it’s nice to see you back on planet earth.”
“I never...”
Asami reached out and squeezed Korra’s hand, stopping the scratching at her scar.
“...oh.”

Asami stopped the upcoming apology with a kiss.
“Don’t. Just talk to me. I’m right here. Where’d your head go, sweetheart?”
“Then,” Korra tried to reach for the wound again but Asami had her hand. She could feel it itching away under the shirt, under her skin. “I mean...it was so close, you know?”
Asami wasn’t quite sure she did.

“One centimetre one way and it’d have missed my spine entirely. One centimetre the other way and...well it wouldn’t have mattered. My entire life in the hands of a few lousy millimetres. The odds of it...and now, well,” Korra looked down. “Now I’m rolling the dice all over again. And...and I’m not...” she trailed off.
“You’re having second thoughts?” Asami guessed and Korra shook her head.
“Eight hundredth thoughts, maybe. It could get worse, ‘Sami. I could get worse.”
Asami squeezed Korra’s captured hand.
“I know. I know the risks. And I’d hoped that you’d realised by now, after all the shit we’ve been through, that I’m not going anywhere. No matter the outcome. Call it off, I won't care. We got together with you like this so don’t you insult us both by suggesting I’d walk away just because, well, because you couldn’t. I didn’t leave last spring, I sure as hell aren’t leaving now. You hear me, Korra?”
Korra nodded. Asami wrapped her arms around her, holding her close. “I know this is scary. And I wish I could help, I wish I could take all the pressure off, but this isn’t a call I can make for you. This is something you have to decide for yourself.  But Korra, I’m with you. No matter how it shakes out. Fuck your legs, Kor,"
Korra snorted. "I mean it," Asami continued. "Fuck 'em. I’m in this for you.”
“I think I can feel it sometimes.” Korra blurted out. Asami squeezed her hand. “Like, inside me. I can feel it. Stupid fucking piece of lead sat there, mocking me like the worst fucking present ever. I want it gone. I just...I want it gone. Fuck the rest of it, fuck all the ‘maybes’ about recovery I just...I want it gone so bad.”
“Sounds like you've already made your mind up, then."
"Kinda does, doesn't it?" Korra sighed, rolling slightly to fit better against Asami. "Ugh. I just want to stay like this for ever. That ok?"
"You're awfully needy for a badass." Asami mock-huffed, and Korra chuckled.
"You love it."
"I do," Asami conceded. "Now c'mon, let's get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."