Work Text:
Bato can see that Katara is furious at him and he wonders what has he done this time to be the cause of such an extreme reaction. As he turns the chairs upside down and arranges them on the tables at the café, which is part of the fire-station serving as a community center for children from the nearby Sports Championship School, he looks at the events from last week in the light of their relationship and he can see no reason for such a reaction.
Katara is helping him with cleaning and tidying the coffee shop – as Wednesday is usually their day out – but if looks could kill, long ago he would have been pushing daisies. Yet, he knows that there is no way to make her share her concern if she doesn’t want it first.
After they are done, she reaches for her bag– decorated with her favorite tiny dragons’ embroidery and jewels– and they walk together towards his car in silence.
She has a valid (long term) reason to be upset with him, but Bato knows she will come to her senses. If somebody can hold a grudge it’s Katara; she mastered this skill to perfection, yet he wants her to figure it out by herself, and that makes her even more angry at him, because she thinks he’s patronizing her and she hates being treated like a little girl.
For Bato being her legal guardian and, more importantly, second father has its privileges but it also has certain obligations, so Hakoda– though reluctantly– agrees to this status quo. For the time being.
“You talked to Azula,” Katara says when she gets inside his car.
Bato holds his breath. First words in three months.
“Yes,” he nods.
“Why?” She looks at him accusingly.
“I was serving her a cake,” he answers, keeping his voice calm.
“That’s not why you did it!”
Bato slowly fastens his seatbelt. If he knew that talking to Azula would make Katara yell at him, he would have done it three months ago. Though three months ago, Azula still had a rich and influential father and now, Ozai is in prison and all his property was confiscated to the state treasury.
“No, I wanted to spend time in a nice company,” he says evenly. But he’s anything but calm.
“Nice company?!” Now she’s really upset. “It’s Azula!”
“Yes. Are you jealous?” he glances at her briefly, knowing that this question will probably infuriate her even more.
Katara freezes, as if realizing that she was yelling. “No! Of course, not! It’s Azula!” She states with a perfect pout.
“Okay.” He puts the key in the ignition.
“Yes, I am jealous!” she admits before he can start the engine.
Bato lets go of the key and turns towards her. “Of what?”
He can see her inner battle, but he knows it’s a lost cause, because he also once was fourteen and he doesn’t expect her to behave any differently than he used to.
“You didn’t talk to me for months!” she says with resentment.
Bato waits a few seconds before he answers, because it would be easy to remind her that it was her who shut him out, but he’s the adult in this relationship and it’s his responsibility to help her deal with this situation, now, when she finally is allowing him.
“For how many exactly?” he asks.
“Three!”
Ah, so she also counted.
“Can you guess why?”
She meets his eyes even more furious, but he holds her gaze. At least that much he owes her.
“Because I didn’t want to talk to you?” Katara is never one to avoid challenges. Or truth.
“Could that be the reason?” he asks softly, tilting his head.
And he can see betrayal on her face. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” she says at the verge of tears.
Bato clenches his fist on the steering wheel, because– for some reason– he is the only one who can make her cry and that is never his intention.
“I think you do,” he states matter-of-factly. Three months ago, she accused him of treating her like a child, so he will treat her as an adult until she changes her expectations.
Now it’s undeniable a pain of betrayal in her eyes. “Okay! It’s Jet’s fault!” she shouts, folding her arms across her chest.
As he has never had the ‘pleasure’ to talk to Jet, that is an interesting statement. Yet, they both know that it was Bato who ‘ruined’ her relationship with Jet, by making her face the fact that Jet was into drugs and that he was involved in illegal trade and smuggling dragon eggs. And that he tried to use Katara to get access to files with locations and predicted hatching times that only firefighters have access to. In this case, mainly Hakoda, who is the Chief of the State Fire Department in Caldera.
Bato knows she was also upset about the fact that her image of Jet was just an illusion, but then it evolved into anger at herself that she was too blind to see it and that she let herself be fooled by him. As she always needs to control everything, she’s suddenly realized that she can’t control other people and that is not easy to admit. Especially to Bato.
“Do you still care about him?” The least he can do is help her face what has happened, as Jet was her first love, she doesn’t really know what to do about it. He still remembers his first teenage crush, one that almost ended in a tragedy.
Katara shakes her head.
“Do you still care about us?” he asks.
She nods.
Okay, maybe they can get somewhere in this conversation. “If this is all Jet’s fault, you are still letting him control your other relationships. Until you let go, he will keep ruining what you care about.”
“It’s your fault, too!” she looks at him accusingly.
“Is it?”
“You are letting Azula ruin your relationships!”
He is grateful that she hasn’t shut him out completely and that she still feels safe enough to yell at him.
“You are the first one who seems upset about my conversation with her and we can discuss it to figure out how to keep our relationship safe despite other people being part of our lives.”
“Now you want to discuss?” she asks at the verge of tears. “You went behind my back and used your connections to find something on Jet!”
“You didn’t want to introduce us to each other and I had to make sure he wouldn’t hurt you,” he explains softly, remembering perfectly well how such a tone of voice infuriated him when his own father was using it when they were arguing.
“You hurt me!” she says bitterly.
And doesn’t he know that?
“You and I, we can work it out, together,” he states. “If he hurt you, I would never forgive myself.”
“How did you know?!” she asks, what’s most important for her.
Because Bato – obviously – wasn’t fooled by Jet’s charm, eloquence and general attitude.
“The same way you did,” he says, mercilessly.
“What?” Now, she looks surprised.
“Why didn’t you want me to meet him?”
He can see the moment she realizes the answer. “I hate you!”
He doesn’t say anything, as there is nothing to say, because the best way to deal with what now hurts her the most is for her to admit her feelings and then they can work on that. She’s been avoiding it for three months and he can’t even imagine how exhausted she must have been feeling recently. And he is glad that she chose him to help her, anyway. Finally.
Bato nods. He will have time to deal with his own emotions later.
“Do you wish to tell me something about Azula that I should know? I will listen to your objections and we can talk them over.”
“She’s everywhere!” Katara blurts out angrily.
“She visited this place for the first time today,” he corrects her.
“Hahn is in love with her.”
Bato frowns. That is something new. Hahn is Katara’s synchronized swimming partner and they both claim that they are not ‘romantically compatible’, as Sokka likes to call it, and Bato is rather positive it’s true, but he could understand that Katara wouldn’t like to have Azula included into the equation.
“Hahn is in love with Azula?” he needs to make sure.
Katara shrugs. “She doesn’t want him, but he– really likes her,” she states reluctantly. “Hahn liked her even before, when she was rich and arrogant. And Azula doesn’t like him even now, when she is poor and– still arrogant.”
Okay, now that he knows what the concern with Azula is, he can try to solve at least this issue.
“Azula is more than poor and arrogant,” he states seriously. “She’s a person, with history and dreams. Her history is not something to be desired and I’m afraid that her dreams had to considerably change in the last few months. I think that she is right now trying to figure out what to do with her life and I hope she will have people around who will help her make wise decisions. Unlike Jet.”
She looks at him intently for a long moment, because, evidently, it’s not what she wanted to hear, but then she shifts and looks out the window. It’s dark outside and he can see her reflection as if in a mirror.
He doesn’t say anything, he is used to this silence – a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable even through the previous three months. He loves this girl more than life, but he knows he can’t protect her from all the dangers life would throw at her; she must learn how to cope with every situation, even if she wouldn’t be getting help from those closest to her.
Finally, she sighs. And it’s such a heartbreaking sigh, he winces inwardly. Because it mixes anger and betrayal and pain and frustration and everything that only teenagers can feel and not burst out.
Then she bites her lip. “She’s– like me?” she asks in a shaky voice.
He would just love to reach for her, but she has enough to deal with related to her past to make her sort out the present as well.
“Like all of us,” he clarifies.
“She hurt me!” she says bitterly.
“I know,” he acknowledges, because Azula can be arrogant and he experienced this firsthand.
She looks at him. “You hurt me, too!”
“I know,” he holds her gaze.
She hesitates and her tears of frustration finally fall on her cheeks. “Jet hurt me!”
“Yes, he did.”
“I hate it,” the helplessness in her voice is breaking his heart, but she’s not done yet.
He nods.
“And don’t say it’s a valid reaction, because it doesn’t help at all!” she shouts.
“It’s not supposed to help. Your feelings only inform you that there is a problem. Then you have to take over and react somehow.”
“React somehow?! I want to destroy something!” she almost shouts. “And– I’m destroying us?!”
Bato waits a moment, until she can listen to him and actually understand what he is saying.
“Do you think we can be destroyed by your valid reaction to how wrong Jet treated you?” he asks.
“I don’t want to be angry at you!” she looks at him with raw desperation.
“You are not angry at me, Katara.”
“I am!”
“No, you were angry at me three months ago. And you are not angry at Azula, either. You are not even angry at Jet anymore.”
“Don’t talk like that with me! Dad is the therapist and even he isn’t!”
Bato shakes his head, “You did everything right. You helped Jet, who misused your trust and abused your feelings. You tried to help Azula, and she rejected your help and twisted it to make fun of you,” he lists all her disappointments for recent months. “And I didn’t want to listen to your reasoning that you could perfectly take care of yourself and I went against your explicit wish that I should stop interfering in your affairs with Jet,” he also includes himself into this mess. “I know you can take care of yourself,” he admits, because that does need explaining. “But you don’t have to.”
For a long moment she just looks at him. “I am not angry at myself!” she says as if suspecting where he is leading her. “I was right! I did everything right!”
“But it still didn’t work,” he sums up.
“Why?!” she asks with angry confusion.
Bato hesitates. He knows her inside out and she needs to know all the reasons so she wouldn’t fail again in the future.
“Why?” he asks, wondering if she is ready to listen to this particular reason. “Katara, you know I could have made you talk to me three months ago,” he says seemingly unrelated.
“Of course, you could have,” she admits.
“Why do you think I didn’t?”
“Because you don’t care!”
Bato knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but he couldn’t back off now.
“You are right,” he says.
“What?” Now she is confused. “I– I am?”
“Yes, you are. I don’t care about any relationship that feels forced. You can’t make people love you nor can you make them choose you. You may do everything right and, yet, they will still hurt you, reject you and make you feel worthless. On the other hand, if they choose you when you are not perfect, they will stay no matter what happens and evolve the relationship into one that is indestructible.”
For what feels like eternity she just looks at him. “You are not talking about me, right?”
“I am not.”
And he can sense she’s finally ready to face what happened.
“You didn’t make me because I didn’t want to talk to you,” she repeats. “And I wouldn’t, but you could have tried!” Now she sounds almost pleadingly.
“I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?!”
What is he supposed to tell her? Because she told him so? Because she didn’t need him trying? Because making her deal with it so soon would have only led to a similar situation in the future. Because he wanted her to know that there are many kinds of trying?
“Because I wanted you to have it your way,” he chooses at the end.
And he knows it was safe this way, because she really made all the right choices, she faced all consequences of this mess without blaming anybody else for what didn’t work in the end, and she ended her relationship with Jet in a way he rarely can witness in adult break ups.
Letting her have it her way was a chance for her to learn that there are no perfect relationships nor should she look for one, because it would be failure after failure and disappointment after disappointment.
“Do you think it was a wrong choice?” he asks, to give her an opening.
“Yes!”
He almost smiles. Spirits, he missed their arguments.
“I understand that you feel hurt and I apologize,” he says. “I’m truly sorry I have hurt you. That was never my intention. I also make mistakes and some of my decisions are wrong. I’m not denying it,” he shakes his head. “Regardless, I hope you’ll try to see my reasons the way I meant them.”
She doesn’t seem convinced with what he’s just said, but then she nods.
“Okay, I’m angry because you were right!” She also answers his question. “And I didn’t want you to be right!” she states disheartened.
Bato nods. “Do you see any way for us to go on?” he asks. “Would you want us to continue?”
“I don’t know,” she says frustrated. “I don’t know anything anymore!”
He thinks for a moment about the possibilities they have left and there is one that could help her ‘know’. One way or another.
Yet, it will require breaking so many rules, rules he hasn’t broken in a long time. Hakoda will skin him alive, probably, but as he stated a moment ago, he’s just a human and he is allowed to make mistakes. One more doesn’t make much of a difference in this case.
He starts the engine and drives them out of the parking lot.
“Where are we going?” she asks, frowning, when she notices he’s not taking her home.
“I would like you to meet someone,” he explains.
“I’m not talking to Azula!” she exclaims, almost outraged.
Bato glances at her sideways. “You really must be disappointed with me if you think I would try and make you talk to her.”
Katara looks at him almost insulted, but then she takes a deep breath and says, “You are right, this assumption was unfounded. You didn’t make me talk to you!” she states, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips.
He doesn’t comment.
There is little traffic on the road at this time of night and they drive in silence. As always, this silence is not uncomfortable. She’s playing with her bracelet, one that she got from him two years ago for her birthday, shaped as a dragon– what else?– and he can sense she’s trying to figure out where it is taking her.
As he pulls into the parking lot, she recognizes the building. And then she looks at him, her eyes widening in utter surprise and... hope?
She doesn’t move, when he gets out of his car and walks around to open the door for her. She stares at him tensely all this time, but she doesn’t get out.
“Bato...”
“Come,” he holds out his hand to her.
He can see she needs to make herself take on his offer. But she does succeed and follows him to the entrance.
Ham Ghao, who is guarding the door, looks at him and raises an eyebrow upon noticing Katara by his side.
“Don’t ask,” Bato shakes his head.
“Spirits, Bato, you just love making my life complicated, don’t you?” Ham Ghao complains, but he doesn’t try to stop him.
“I’ll clear it with ‘Koda later,” Bato uses his access card to open the door and he lets Katara enter first.
She’s never been here, but she knows where they are and she is just looking at him as if she has never seen him before. They both know that what he is doing now is not strictly forbidden, but it is a gray area at best. And they both also know that she will not try to hinder it.
He leads her toward the lift and chooses the seventh floor.
He opens the door for them and only then does she switch her attention from him to what’s around.
“Right now, there are seven dragons in this center,” he explains, after greeting the usual staff, who take care of the animals. “The youngest is just a few weeks old,” he stops at one of the terraria. They are huge, spacious and made of tempered glass that is resistant to all kinds of disasters that could even theoretically happen around dragons.
“The mountain goldscale is still getting used to living here, as we’ve found her just last week,” he says when they halt close to the glass.
“Put these on,” he hands her protective apron and gloves made of dragonfire-proof material. The gloves are thin and light, but almost indestructible. “She can’t breathe fire yet, but her claws are sharp and you may get hurt.”
She instinctively looks at his wrist. “It’s not a– normal scar!”
“It’s not,” he admits.
“I thought you had these because you are a firefighter?” she looks at him questioningly.
“I can work here because I am a firefighter,” he explains.
“Not every firefighter works here,” she says cautiously. “Dad doesn’t.”
“Indeed, he doesn’t. He is the boss here.”
For a long moment they just look at each other, because she knew he had contact with dragons, as by default the firefighters usually get called when someone finds a stray baby dragon, as only they can get into the protected areas, where the adult examples can’t get.
“Dragons are reptiles, but because they are spiritually affected, as few species are, they need to...” he says, but she cuts in.
“I know, they need to cuddle when they are still baby dragons. And this is why such centers exist, because they would die otherwise. And you are– you are working here?”
“Yes.”
“What else don’t I know?”
“It’s not something that should be shared freely with unauthorized people,” he states the obvious.
“I am not authorized,” she shakes her head.
“I just authorized you.”
“Why doesn’t Dad work here?”
Bato tilts his head. “Have you ever had an impression of him being the cuddling type?”
She smiles. “Yeah, he isn’t.”
“But you, on the other hand, are the definition of cuddling.”
Katara looks at him with wide eyes. “I– I– You would let me–?”
“Do you wish?”
“Yes, please,” she says almost pleadingly.
Bato reaches for a pair of gloves for himself and he opens the terrarium.
“Hey, Sweetheart,” Bato whispers affectionately, when the tiny mountain goldscale wraps herself around his hand. Mountain goldscales are the smallest dragons, but accommodate to almost any conditions and their survival rate is highest.
Bato’s been working with dragons for years, and he has scars to prove it, and the most heartbreaking part is when the little ones get lost within the human restricted areas. Almost everywhere, around the world, there are installed deterrent devices in places where people live, but the baby-dragons sometimes sneak inside. And they get lost because their herds can’t get close enough to save them. And as only the tiniest ones can get past the deterrent signals, there is no way for them to survive without help.
And Katara loves dragons. She knows virtually everything about them. She even made their coach to set up for Hahn and her a swimming choreography based on the Dragon Dance from the “Love amongst the Dragons”.
Bato carefully but neatly untangles his hand and puts the dragon on Katara’s outstretched arm.
Katara tenses and gasps, as if she never expected to ever be allowed to have her greatest dream come true, and then she cradles the tiny body into her chest.
And then she just stands there, holding her first dragon as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Which probably is for her right now. Bato leads her towards an armchair, where she could sit comfortably and after she vacantly sits, he asks, “Will you manage?”
She just nods, as if looking at him would make the dragon disappear.
“Take your time,” he smiles and leaves her there, walking away to clear her presence here with the shift commander.
When he’s back, he can say with full confidence that she’s just fallen in love and that it’s the kind of love that happens once in a lifetime and that is eternal and– as he’s learnt that by experience–its flame will never go out.
He smiles warmly and sits next to them.
“How do you know she’s a she?” she asks curiously. “They get horns only after they shed their skin for the first time, and she’s too young!”
Bato looks at her surprised. She’s really an expert in theory.
“I know how the other dragons react to her,” he explains. “And I know who the other dragons around are already.”
“Oh, that’s smart!” she commends, caressing the little feet. “She’s ticklish.”
“You’ve already discovered even that?” he also commends.
And then, they just sit there for what seems like eternity, until the dragon falls asleep in her lap.
“She’s been hurt, right?” Katara asks, frowning. “Her left wing seems weaker?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “But she’s a fighter.”
“Will she ever fly?” she asks with worry in her voice.
“It’s up to her.”
Katara looks around, at the other terraria, with different species inside–in one there’s even her favorite blue moonclaw–and then she frowns, looking back at the dragon she’s holding in her lap.
“She’s like Azula, right?” she asks, and somehow the name doesn’t sound as before. “Totally alone in an unknown world?”
Bato meets her eyes. Spirits, she’s clever.
“She’s not alone,” he states.
“She has you?” she asks with hope.
“And you.”
Katara hesitates. “Are we talking about Azula or about– this sweetie?” She caresses her ears, gently enough to not disturb her.
“What if we are talking about you?” he suggests.
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at the dragon and then she sighs. After a moment she shifts and hands her back to him.
“Thank you,” she says.
Bato smiles and carries the little one into her terrarium. Katara walks there with him and she rests her hands on the glass, staring at the sleeping dragon for a long moment. She’s already missing her?
Bato doesn’t rush her, he leans against the glass too, waiting until she’s ready to leave. But she doesn’t move towards the door. When she’s done with her goodbye, she reaches for his hand and turns his wrist palm up. The scar there is plainly visible even on his dark skin. She knows it was left by a dragon claw. A dragon that was not a little sweetie for a change. Sometimes even their parents need saving.
“Is it... worth it?” She looks up at him.
Bato knows she’s seen almost all his scars, even the ones that will never heal completely, because dragon fire is just like that. Katara knows the history of all of them, some of these redacted appropriately to her age when she asked about them for the first time, but later explained more thoroughly, because nobody ever had as many questions as Katara. This way every one of his scars turned into a bedtime story, when they ran out of fairy tales. Since then, he collected a few more that she’s aware of, because she was dressing these wounds herself.
He leans down and brushes his lips over her forehead. “Yes.”
And she puts her arms around him and hugs him so tight, he will probably get bruises.
“I’m sorry, Bato...”
He sighs and hugs her back. “I hope you can forgive me one day, child,” he whispers.
“I was wrong...”
“There is no right or wrong, Katara,” he shakes his head. “You can’t predict the future, you can’t think of every possible outcome. Sometimes you just have to make a decision and stay true to yourself while facing the consequences.”
“Avoiding you was a dumb decision,” she mumbles into his chest.
“We all have our fair share of dumb decisions,” he cradles her head.
“And some of us have scars to prove it, right?” she asks, sounding almost amused.
“Yup,” he also smiles.
The silence is long and only the scratching of claws in other terraria break the silence.
“I missed you,” she whispers.
It would be easy to let go, and just accept what she’s just said, but he can’t let her down. She still needs his help.
“I’m not asking you to be her friend, just don’t be her enemy,” he asks softly.
Katara shudders in his arms. “You are not my favorite person today,” she states, but without the previous heat in her voice.
“I’m not my favorite person today, either,” he agrees.
“I am?” she looks up at him.
He smiles, “You know me so well.”
“Can we go home?”
He nods and she releases him, but he keeps his arm around her shoulder. She doesn’t complain.
Downstairs it turns out that Bato is also not Ham Ghao’s favorite person today. And he hasn’t even talked to Hakoda yet.
“If possible, except for your dad, please don’t tell anybody we were here,” Bato says, when they leave the building.
“Will you get in trouble, because you brought me here?” she asks when they walk towards his car.
He glances at her, but he can see she’s already plotting in her head how to get here again.
“Only with your dad,” he states amused.
She grins and then she meets his eyes.
“I will tell him everything!” she says mischievously.
And then she laughs.
After three months of silence, for him it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.