In the Southern Water Tribe, boys were always boasting about how much cold they could take by wearing the minimal amount of coats and pelts to keep from freezing to death. This was probably why the White Lotus hadn't let Korra near tons of teenage boys in the South Pole.

But Korra has never seen Mako or Bolin bare-chested. They're always in undershirts. Even their swimwear covers their chests.

For a long while, Korra chalks it up to a cultural thing, one more difference between her and her city-born teammates. They don't know how to track a polar-bear dog, she doesn't know the first thing about traffic laws.

It isn't like the White Lotus lets her near tons of teenage boys in Republic City either, but Korra figures it's possible that all boys in Republic City are just shy about their upper bodies.

It's not until Bolin invites her up for lunch one day, after a Fire Ferrets practice at oh-spirits-the-sun-isn't-even-up -yet o'clock in the morning, that she has reason to suspect anything else. They all ditch their sweaty uniforms for apartment casual. Korra turns on the radio for jazz hour, and she and Bolin settle on the couch as he tells her about Pabu's adventures. Mako makes them noodles.

"You want your noodles soft or hard, bro?"

"Yes," Bolin calls, then resumes, "and after Pabu got back in the tube—"

"Soft or hard, Bo," Mako reiterates.

"—which we didn't know at the time, but was actually a water pipe—"

"Burned it is," Mako says, and the smell of charcoal and ash follows like clockwork.

Bolin sniffs, stops conversing, and genially excuses himself from Korra—to go tackle Mako to the floor.

Korra watches them wrestle, laughing.

"Insult a man's food, and you insult his honor, Mako," she jokes as Pabu curls up in her lap, unphased.

Bolin gets Mako in a headlock—"You hear that? The Avatar's made a decree! This is a new low, even for you!"—and Mako flips him, pins him—"Not as low as biting the hand that feeds you."—and Bolin scrabbles, and Mako's undershirt rides up a few inches and—

Korra sees a flash of skin pink, and raw, and ravaged.

—before Bolin says, "You want to see biting?" and wriggles free of Mako's grip, turning them so Korra can't see any more.

She eyes the noodles, all safe except for the two strands Mako toasted to make his point, and reminds them that lunch is burning because they're fighting over lunch burning. Bolin calls a temporary alliance until both warring parties are well fed. Mako rolls his eyes and resumes poking at noodles. With his other hand, he tucks in the back of his undershirt.

Korra nearly vibrates with her burning to ask. The only thing that keeps her tongue bitten is Bolin's enthusiasm at returning to his story. She listens as Bolin hoists Pabu out of her lap with a squeak and regales her of the Fearless Fire Ferret, but her mind is whirring. Maybe she didn't see what she saw. Maybe it's not what she thinks.

Portraits of Fire Lord Zuko aside, Korra's seen enough burn scars on her firebending instructors to know one when she sees one.

But, "Watch this!" Bolin says and lets Pabu have a noodle before pulling him up off the ground by it. Mako scowls at the use of his cooking and Korra grins. She has to smile if Mako's grumpy. It's the way of the universe.

She slurps up her noodles and ferrets the scar away in a mental folder titled, 'Things I'm Going to Get Mako to Tell Me about One Day'.

Months later, with Amon defeated and Mako hers, they lay on the couch of his new apartment, exploring each other with hands and mouths. He's down to his boxers and undershirt; Korra's down to the only pair of modern underwear she owns. It had taken Asami weeks to convince her that a bra was, in fact, fashion and not some sort of modern torture device.

"You're thinking of corsets," Asami had clarified, smirking at Korra's horrified face.

She's grateful she gave in now, of course. It's one less cultural difference, one less reminder that she and Mako come from different worlds. Besides, Korra wouldn't trust either of them to keep a straight face if she had to explain how to undo a chest binding in the middle of a passionate haze.

Mako's lips dance up to her ear.

"You're so smooth," he murmurs, running a palm down her leg.

"Waterbender," she joke-whispers, tangling her fingers in his hair. "We take good care of our skin."

He kisses her softly, agreeing, and Korra draws her hands down his back. Reaching. Feeling through cloth. Remembering the shock of color…

It starts halfway down his back. The skin is bumpy, a texture like bark, and inconsistent. A mountain range with hills and valleys. Skin smooth then jagged then smooth. Mid-back to waist. Hip to hip.

Korra reaches under the fabric, skin on skin, and there's no denying now that it's a grid. Burned and unburned lines like cell bars. Not a scar.

A brand.

Mako is still in her hands.

"You, uh, you need a healer for that?" she asks. It's not her smoothest line. "Because I know a pretty good one."

"It's old," he says, dismissively. "I don't want to talk about it."

He moves his attention to her neck, and Korra passes her hand across it once, left to right. Her fingerpads rise and fall evenly, like when she was little and would run her hands across rows of icicles.

"Factory accident?" she guesses.

"Yeah," he says quickly, kissing her throat with an intensity that makes her shiver.

Korra lets him coax her back into the moment. Mako has experience with this that she doesn't. But like Pai Sho or bending, Korra's a believer in the motto that to get better, you have to learn from the best.

She lets it go.

…Until she can corner Bolin and pry the story out of him.

After a week and half of airbending training and Equalist clean-up and restoring bending to the last of the civilians, Korra picks an evening that Mako's working at the station to crash a Fire Ferrets 2.0 training session. She hasn't had a chance in all her responsibilities to watch one of their matches, but Asami swears she's not missing much.

Wincing as she watches the two newcomers practice with Team Captain Bolin, Korra can see what Asami means.

"Ok, that was great," Bolin says with some effort. "Why don't we take ten, huh? Grab some water and, you know, touch up on the playbook?"

Korra watches the two shuffle out as Bolin collapses on the bench next to her. "Are we sure Mako can't make more money winning Pro-Bending than busting crooks?"

She chuckles. "Doesn't matter what we think. He's doing it."

"So!" He grins at her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Korra shrugs. "Nothing big. I wanted to ask you about a scar Mako has."

She expects a reaction like Mako's: Wince, evade, deny. And she gets the wince, but Bolin tackles the question.

"He showed you, huh?"

That was less awkward to explain than the truth. "Yeah, but he didn't say much about it."

Bolin roots both feet to the floor and leans elbows on knees. "He got it while we were still on the streets, just before we started pro-bending. He doesn't like to talk about it."

"So he's mentioned," Korra says, leaning forward as well, "but why not? Was it an accident? A fight?"

Bolin coughs into his hand. "Mako didn't want to tell you about this?" he says nervously.

Not an accident. Not a fight. Damn, she hates when her Avatar instincts are on point.

"I don't know what to say," Bolin shrugs, gaze on the mat. "The amount of stuff Mako and I have done that we're not proud of could fill Wan Shi Tong's library. I don't want to tell you if he doesn't want you to know."

Korra looks at Bolin, processing. She lines up 'just before pro-bending' with what the boys have told her of their history. Just before being taken in by Toza, they were still with the Triads.

A possible answer hits her like lightning, and hurts just as much.

"You're right. I shouldn't have prodded," she says standing up.

"Hey, are we still on for that Water Tribe place on Saturday?" Bolin asks, cheerful again as easily as a cloud passing over the sun.

"Mako and I are good. And if Asami doesn't have to play politics with Cabbage Corp, yeah. We'll all be there."

"Great!" Bolin adopts his best Bumi impersonation. "Then I best better get these whippersnappers into shape!"

Korra waves as Bolin goes after his team, and stays on the mat a minute longer, her anger simmering. She pieces together her puzzle once more to be sure, before deciding on a plan and marching out the door.

As she hops on Naga and makes her way to the police station, Korra considers, briefly, if this is another cultural thing. If the way Mako and Bolin treat their childhoods on the street as normal and noncommittal and unavoidable is standard practice in Republic City.

Cultural or not, she's the Avatar. Maybe Mako couldn't do anything about it then. Maybe he, like Bolin, feels there's nothing to do about it now. Korra refuses to believe that.

"Hey, sweetie," Mako says, as Korra walks over to his desk. His pleasant surprise is laced with worry. "What brings you by?"

"Your handsome face," she jokes, kissing him over the top of his desk. "I need an address from Bei Fong."

"Whose address?" He stands. "I'll pull it for you."

"You're busy," she insists.

"And the Chief isn't?" Mako walks towards the file cabinets. "Who are you looking for?"

Korra bites her lip, and goes for broke. "Shady Shin is still on Bei Fong's…What did she name it? 'Bending parole'?"

He glances back at her. "Yeah…?"

She's a horrible liar and they both know it. Her options are truth or bail.

"I was talking to Bolin," she admits. Truth. "And he mentioned an incident that happened when you were both with the Triple Threat Triads." Half-Truth. "I want to investigate it for…Avatar reasons." Close enough.

A brow climbs. "What incident?"

"Something illegal," she says vaguely. That covered most of her bases. "…that I probably shouldn't repeat in a police station."

Mako eyes her a moment longer, then glances around the room at his fellow officers doing paperwork, before turning back to the file cabinet. He pulls out a drawer and expertly leafs through the characters on the folders, pulling out Shady Shin's arrest reports. Korra grins and reaches for them but Mako holds them away.

"Don't trust him, don't get too close, and don't for a second think that weasel is harmless because Bei Fong says you can't give him his bending back for sixteenth months." He hands her the folder. "I want you to tell me everything at the apartment tonight. And please, please, don't make me answer a phone call that says Shady Shin's apartment has gone up in flames, or that he's been hospitalized and a turf war has started or—"

"I get it, I get it," she says, handing the folder back, address memorized. "I won't make you Bad Cop."

Mako betrays a long-suffering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Promise me."

She kisses him on the cheek. "I promise, officer."

He smiles a little. "Be safe."

Korra hesitates, then kisses him properly. Deeply. "I love you."

She heads back out to Naga before he can wonder what all that was about.

Shady Shin lives in Dragon Flats according to his arrest reports. It's nearly across the city from the police station. Korra knows from countless Bolin stories that it's also where he and Mako used to live before becoming pro-benders.

The gangster isn't home when Korra arrives. She hastily picks his door up off the floor and leans it back on its frame before taking a seat in his kitchen, crossing her arms to wait.

Korra gives it an hour of pacing and fuming and second guessing before deciding to try her luck at the Triad's headquarters.

In the shadows of the stairs down to the ground floor, a figure jumps her. It spins her into the wall hard enough to see stars, a knife digging into her back. Korra kicks up a blast of air that sends her assailant an entire flight of stairs up, and she follows with another burst, amplified by the concrete stairwell.

She lands atop Shady Shin who abruptly drops the knife, holding his hands up.

"My bad," he says smoothly.

Without extinguishing the fire at her fist, she growls, "What is wrong with you?"

"I'm a de-powered gangster living on my own in the shittiest part of town," he smirks. "I could set my watch by the regularity of people trying to kill me." He raises a brow. "You here to kill me, Avatar?"

Korra snuffs out the fire and gets off him. "No."

He sits up. "Any chance you're here to give me back my bending then?"

Standing over him, Korra makes her words icily clear. "What did you do to Mako?"

"Haven't seen your boyfriend in months, not since his smug ass brought me in for a DUI," Shady says.

"Not recently. When he worked for you," Korra demands.

The gangster looks amused. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"The burn on his back," she growls.

For a long moment, Shady Shin looks her over in the dim light of the stairwell. His smile is ever so mild.

"You're asking the wrong depowered bender."

He stands. Korra's blast of air vortexes in the tight space and drops Shady Shin right back on his rear. She crosses her arms, her skin crawling at his nonchalance.

"I know exactly who I'm asking," she says. "You were close to them. Bolin trusted you enough to get captured by Equalists. You know who did this to Mako and why."

Shady Shin raises an eyebrow. "You don't know who did it to him?"

It could have been any number of firebenders within the Triple Threats or a rival gang. But the way he asks means the answer is obvious.

"Lightning Bolt Zolt," Korra says, the word like copper on her tongue.

"Your boyfriend had it coming," he says, starting to stand and then thinking better of it.

"Had it coming?!" Korra balks.

The former waterbender's grin stays just as mild, but Shady Shin's eyes are glacier-hard.

"We gave that boy everything, me and Zolt," he says casually. "A place to sleep, a job to do, the means to take care of his brother. Zolt took Mako in as a son, taught him everything he knew about lighting and firebending. And how does he thank us?" He spits. "The dirty aynoko turns his back on us, on the whim of his stupid brother, for a pro-bending has-been."

Korra stares.

Shady snorts. "You don't leave the Triple Threat Triad."

"…What did you do to him?"

"Zolt was like a father to Mako," Shady Shin repeats, leaning back on his elbows, "and Zolt's father was a conniving drunk. He had a nasty habit of knocking his kids around and holding Zolt over hot metal as a twisted firebending lesson. 'If metal can take the heat, so can you, son.' He had cattle prods, stovetops, steam vents, you name it. These days we have radiators."

The Avatar State pulses at the edges of Korra's vision, on the crest of her fury. She's acutely aware of the water in the pipes, the stone foundation, the fires burning in ovens throughout the apartment complex. Somewhere in her centennial soul, a woman's voice, gravelly like the earth, whispers, Kill him. Kill him for destroying what you love.

"He was a kid," Korra hisses.

"He was fifteen," Shady says bluntly. "He knew exactly what he was doing."

At fifteen, Korra was passing her earthbending tests with flying colors. She was learning how to do her own wolftails. She was telling her mother about the cute White Lotus guard stationed at the West Gate who let her run Naga across the tundra longer than she was supposed to.

"You hurt him just for trying to leave," she says, swallowing bile.

"We needed to send a message about what happens to those who leave the Triple Threats," Shady corrects. "But Zolt did let them leave, even after everythingwe put into them. And smart little Mako knew the score." He grins thoughtfully. "Hell, when we jumped him, he didn't even put up half a fight. Said he'd take whatever he had coming. As long as we didn't make Bolin watch."

Korra grabs him by his lapels and slams him up against the wall so hard the plaster cracks.

"And did you?" Korra hears herself saying, but it's not her voice. It is a hundred voices, echoing in the stairwell like a riot. "Did you make a thirteen year old boy watch as you tortured his brother?"

The water in the walls is shaking, reaching for her through the crack in the plaster as it splinters out in all directions, the air roaring around her in a wind tunnel with nowhere to go and nothing to do but peel paint from stone and flesh from bone—

You promised him, a voice in hundreds whispers. A voice like the kiss of a breeze. A voice she knows. You promised him, Korra.

Shady Shin is staring at her, petrified.

Korra forces herself to feel her body. Not the elements, not the spirits, or the avatars, or the aching of a world where people like Shady Shin and Zolt exist. She focuses on her hands on shirt cloth, her feet on the landing.

The fabric of the world relaxes back into its proper place.

"Where is he?" Korra says evenly.

Shady glances at the exit. "I don't—"

"Don't." Her voice echoes. "Lie to me."

"…Azulon's Crossing," he says. "By the steel mills. Apartment nine."

With some effort, Korra lets Shady Shin go, prying her fingers off his lapels one by one.

Then she turns on her heel and walks out of the building, out to the alleyway where Naga waits. Naga sees her coming and rises, meeting her halfway. She nuzzles Korra's hands and face as Korra clings to her fur and lets Naga's heartbeat bring her back to the world the rest of the way.

Before doing anything else, Korra stops by a payphone and dials the Sato Mansion. A butler puts her on the line with Asami.

"Korra? Is everything alright?"

"I need to ask you about something."

"Okay?"

"What's an aynoko?"

There's a pause. A long pause.

"Asami? You still there?"

"Where'd you hear that?" Asami says finally.

"On the street," Korra says. "What's it mean?"

Asami hesitates. "It's… It's a slur. A pretty bad one." Korra hears her shift the phone. "It's a name for someone of mixed elements. It implies that one parent…forced themselves on the other, and the resulting child is a homeless mongrel."

Korra takes a deep breath through gritted teeth and clenches her hands around the phone. She doesn't trust herself not to tear the phone booth out of the ground.

"Korra, where did you hear that?" Asami says again, very carefully.

"Will we see you Saturday?" Korra asks almost immediately. "Bolin's really looking forward to all four of us hanging out again."

"…Yeah. Yeah, I've cancelled my meeting. I'll be there."

"Great. See you then."

Korra takes the phone off her ear to hang up, but Asami's voice, calling, brings the phone back to her ear.

"Korra." Asami's voice is soft but the spine of it is unyielding. "Don't do anything rash."

"Yeah. Thanks for the info."

She hangs up.

Korra doesn't know the exact location of Azulon's Crossing, but 'by the steel mills' is good enough. It's easy to follow the gray smoke clouds from atop the buildings, even in the near dark. As they get closer, however, Naga grows more resistant to Korra's leading.

"Come on, girl. I know it smells bad but this is important."

The polar-bear dog turns her head to look at Korra, gaze accusatory.

"I have to do something, Naga!" Korra defends. "You didn't hear what that Triple Threat scumbag called him! You didn't see what Zolt did and how Mako and Bolin treat it like it's nothing—!"

Naga sits abruptly and whimpers.

"Please," Korra says, tugging lightly at the reigns. "What good am I as an Avatar if I can't even… If I can't…"

Naga lays down stubbornly, still eyeing Korra, placating. She whimpers again.

Korra sighs. She dismounts and comes around to kiss Naga's head.

"Stay right here then. Good girl. I promise I'll be back soon."

Korra makes it across the remaining rooftops with air-propelled jumps, until she's across the alley from Azulon's Crossing. And on the topmost floor, a light shines in a kitchen window, revealing Lightning Bolt Zolt sipping at tea.

The sight of him makes her bristle. The stone ledge beneath her hands cracks as the elements begin singing to her from the four corners of the city, and the anger builds in her like a volcanic compression.

But look at him, a man's voice goads from within the fire. Warm as hearth, soft as ash. Really look at him.

Zolt is slumped in his seat, cupping his drink in both hands. His hair is stringy and unkempt, his wrinkles more pronounced. It takes effort for him to blow on his tea. Whatever he was before, he looks like just an old man now.

Korra imagines Mako, her Mako, at fifteen, and the man across the alley sending a message, and she swallows down smoke from the raging fire in her stomach. Zolt was a monster. Monsters didn't shed their scales.

Another man whispers in her soul, soothing her fire with a voice like her father's, like water, like home.

I know, Korra, he says. I know what you feel he has taken from you. But Mako is not dead. He's not dead and that makes all the difference in the world.

Korra tears her eyes from Zolt and wrenches them closed. She gulps down air, clenches and unclenches her fists, feeling the tides of Yue Bay pulse with her heart. It isn't fair. She wants to… So badly… She wants to…what?

What would hurting Zolt change? Mako's past? His future? With the elements at her command, with the wisdom of generations, what could she do?

With effort, she forces herself to look at Zolt again. At both the man and the monster, as he struggles to rise and pour himself more tea from the stove.

Amon took his bending. There was no power on earth that could force her to give it back to him. Maybe…that could be enough.

She eases back from the edge as a motorcycle roars down the street to her left—and surprises her by turning directly into the alley below her. She knows the figure hastily climbing off before his hands have left the handlebars.

"Mako!" she calls.

He pulls off the helmet and looks up as Korra jumps down, cushioning her landing with a burst of air that almost knocks his bike sideways.

"Korra! Oh thank spirits." He sounds relieved and infuriated at the same time. "What the flameo happened?! First the station gets a dozen calls from Shady Shin's neighbors about a disturbance, then Asami calls me to say she just got off the phone with you and you sounded primed for murder, then someone else calls in to ask why the Avatar's polar-bear dog is sitting on their roof a few blocks away from where Lightning Bolt Zolt lives!"

Korra throws herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck.

"Korra?" His indignation morphs into panic. "Korra, what happened? What did you do?"

"Shhhh," she whispers against his skin. "Just hold me. Please."

Mako debates the command for a moment. "Not before you tell me—"

"Please."

She feels his panic settling, his breathing slowing down, before he wraps Korra in his embrace.

"Are you okay?" he asks, no nonsense.

Korra can feel him raising his body temperature to soothe her. A trick he must have picked up on the streets.

She nods against him.

"…Am I going to have to be Bad Cop?" he murmurs into her hair.

She shakes her head, even as her hands stray down his back. She can't feel the difference in skin through his uniform, but Korra passes her hands over the spot all the same.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"For scaring the crap out of me? Or for what I'm going to find out you did in the papers tomorrow morning?"

Korra doesn't answer, just breaths him in—hickory smoke and motorcycle oil and the city in the fall.

Mako shifts his weight uneasily. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Korra nods.

"Nothing is on fire? No one is hospitalized or traumatized?"

"Shhhh."

Mako rubs her back, awkwardly quiet.

"Have you had dinner?" he says finally. "Do you want to come over for dinner?"

"Only if I don't have to debrief," she says, pulling back to look him in the eye.

Paranoid, Mako glances at Zolt's building and back at her. He opens his mouth to protest but Korra holds up a hand to his lips.

"Not indefinitely, officer," she promises. "Just…not tonight."

Mako sighs in a huff and leans his forehead against hers. "Yes, all right. But tomorrow morning I want to know everything, okay?"

Korra kisses him and says, "I'll race you back to your place."

She and Naga travel by rooftop, all the way back across the light-speckled city to Mako and Bolin's apartment.

Korra races up the stairs but it's Mako who opens the door at her knock, in his undershirt and shorts already. A grin flickers on his lips at her sour expression. The apartment smells like fried rice and sounds like Bolin's singing, presumably from the shower.

"El! Is for the way you laugh! With me! Oh! Is for oh, darling…"

Mako steps aside to let her into the apartment. "Let me get you an extra bowl. Keep Pabu out of the kitchen for me."

"Sir, yes, sir."

Korra turns to scoop the fire ferret off the carpet, but Mako catches her arm.

"Are you sure I don't need to be worried about anything?"

"You can be worried about anything you like," she teases. "It's not like I can stop you."

"Hey," he says, looking at her intently. "I love you."

"Yeah?" she says with a smile, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You could've fooled me."

Mako kisses her, all sparks and heat that coils in her stomach and has nothing to do with firebending.

"VEEEEEEEE! IS VERY! BABY! NOTHING LIKE THE ORDINARY!"

"I'll tell Bolin you're here," he mutters, and leaves Korra snickering in the living room.

She lays across their couch and looks around the apartment, with its minimal decoration and Fire Ferrets poster. Mako's coat is on the hangar and Bolin's is on the floor. They have an entire bookcase by the door and not nearly enough possessions to stock it with. She stares at the ceiling, at the lightning bolt crack of plaster that darts across the linoleum.

As Mako goes into the bedroom, Bolin's singing sheepishly cuts off at the news of her arrival. Pabu bounds over and nestles himself into a ball atop her thighs.

Korra falls asleep before dinner is ready, humming the rest of Bolin's song.

FIN

Author's Note: My first Korra story, originally published on AO3 on 3/10/15. A tumblr gift exchange for agentkorra, who asked for angst and scars. I just found this beautiful vein of story in the fact that they don't have matching scars. While they may be alike in numerous other aspects, this is one thing where they are absolute yin and yang. I had so much fun writing it (particularly the scenes of Korra's Avatar State).

Since this is my first ever published Korra piece, I hope you don't mind bearing with me through a few of my MANY Legend of Korra plot bunnies. Like, Does Korra wear bras or chest bindings? How would Korra know which previous incarnation is talking if they've never introduced themselves? Is it really so easy to leave a gang as notorious as the Triple Threats? What kind of music does The Krew like listening to? and Exactly how much culture shock did Korra embarrass her way through before realizing that, oh, right, the rest of the world was not raised in isolation in the middle of an arctic tundra?

This story was written almost exclusively listening to "Say When" by The Fray, hence the title.