A/N: This will be the first of (hopefully) many drabbles related to the trials and tribulations that Aang and Katara's children have to deal with throughout their lifetimes, along with some fun times too. Though I'm planning on having this collection centered around Tenzin, since I know his characterization the best, I plan on throwing some Kya and Bumi stories in too. I'll update the summary once I have a better handle on what direction I'm heading in.

Disclaimer: Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra both belong Bryan and Mike. I am merely a college sophomore with a shitty laptop.

Marbles

The glass marbles felt smooth and cool in Tenzin's tiny palms. He rolled them around in his hands and few times, wondering how it might feel to do the marble trick that Daddy had showed him a couple days ago. He held the two colored marbles between his palms, brows knitted together and tongue sticking slightly out of his mouth in concentration as he waited for them to spin.

Nothing.

Well, he supposed bending was overrated anyways. Marbles were fun enough on their own. He put the red one down on the floor and rolled it around himself a couple times, loving the sound it made against the wood floor. He stopped the tiny scarlet orb in front of himself and scuttled backward on the floor a couple feet, leveling his face with the ground. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the still marble lying on the floor. With the dark blue marble still in his hand, Tenzin flicked his thumb out of his fist, shooting the blue marble forward and laughing as it collided into the red. Normally he could never hit his target on the first try.

He crawled along the floor in pursuit of his runaway marbles when he heard his father enter the house. He scrambled on his hands and knees and slammed his hand down on the hardwood, fingers grasping around one of the smooth glass spheres in triumph.

As Aang's footsteps grew louder, Tenzin hurried across the floor, down the hall, chasing after the still-rolling red marble. When it rolled into Aang's study underneath a closet door, Tenzin got an idea. The little boy sneakily decided to surprise his Daddy by jumping out of the closet; his dad always loved playing tricks. As quietly as a five-year-old could run, Tenzin sprinted down the hall and into his father's study, knowing that's the first place Daddy went to when he came home from his day in the city. He scrambled inside the tiny broom closet and shut the door behind him gently, leaving it cracked open just enough for him to peek out and see his father.

Aang entered the room the room with a huff, his grey eyes cold and his jaw set. Tenzin's plan to spring out and surprise Aang faded as he peered at his father with concern. What was wrong?

An Order of the White Lotus guard walked in behind Tenzin's dad, and Tenzin nodded to himself in understanding. That mean old man had been pestering his Daddy for a while, and Aang was always getting frustrated with them. Tenzin prepared to launch himself out of the closet and cheer up Daddy when the guard spoke.

"So have you tried practicing with Tenzin yet?"

The mention of his name made Tenzin stop short and listen.

Aang's jaw clenched and unclenched. "I told you, it's different for everyone. If he's going to be a bender, he'll start when he's ready."

"This is your third kid, Avatar Aang," the Lotus Guard's statement sounded like an accusation. "You know as well as I do that there will be a problem if this child can't bend air." Tenzin frowned. He had been trying his best, and practicing every day on his own, but it didn't seem like he could bend any element yet. Or maybe ever.

"Oh, really?" The malice in his father's usually-kind voice made Tenzin flinch. "How so?"

"You and your wife aren't getting any younger, sir. If you're planning on repopulating the airbender race, you need to start producing children that can actually bend air."

Tenzin slid to the floor and sighed. He didn't want to listen to this conversation anymore. He wished he could leave, but he was afraid he'd get in trouble for eavesdropping. He glanced out of the closet once more, but he could only see his father's hands balled into fists. His arms were held rigidly at his sides, and the blue arrows on the backs of his hands were in stark contrast with his white knuckles.

"I don't recall it ever being my job to produce airbenders," Aang said in a voice that sounded so calm that Tenzin was almost more afraid of it than he would be if his father were yelling. "I have duties as the Avatar. I have duties as a husband and a father. But I don't ever remember it being my duty to breed an entire race."

"Avatar Aang, be reasonable."

Tenzin shut the closet door with a quiet click, deciding to leave the rest of the conversation alone. He didn't understand much of what they were saying now anyway. Duties and producing weren't things Tenzin cared about. What he did care about was his red marble, which he found next to his knee on the floor of the closet. Tenzin placed the red sphere in his palm beside its blue counterpart. He rolled the marbles in his hand, watching the light from under the door glint on the spheres' shiny surfaces.

The muffled voices of his father and the White Lotus guard could still be heard. "It's your responsibility, as the last living airbender, to repopulate your people. We thought that an entire culture was lost for over a century before you returned. You are the only one capable of recovering the airbenders."

"They were my people, Keiji. No one understands the loss of the airbenders better than I do," Aang said quietly. "And I do miss them. But it is not my responsibility, nor my duty, to keep having children until an airbender is born. I have a responsibility to Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin to love them unconditionally as their father, whether they can bend anything or not. I have a responsibility to be the best Avatar I am capable of being, to keep this world safe for them." His voice hardened. "To continue to father more children simply because the ones I already have aren't airbenders is cruel and unfair to them. I want an airbender child to pass on my culture to, but I don't want to do it this way. Not if it means making my children unappreciated."

Tenzin pressed the marbles between his palms again and let them roll in circles between his clamped hands, imagining there was tiny storm churning between his fingers causing the marbles to swirl, instead of the circular movement of his palms.

Keiji huffed behind the closet door. "You may think that way now, Avatar. But when your wife is too old to bear children you will regret the fact that you hadn't taken the opportunity to produce an airbender, and were stuck with two nonbenders and a waterbender to carry on your heritage—"

A loud rustle of fabric and a choked "Uck!" cut off the White Lotus guard mid-rant, distracting Tenzin from his marbles momentarily. He could hear his father's strained voice coming through the crack under the door. "Don't you ever, ever, insult my children for who they are. I have let you say your piece on this situation, and now I'm asking you to leave." Another rustle of fabric and a loud gasp coming from the Keiji. Then the sound of retreating footsteps.

The marbles grew warmer as Tenzin turned his hands round and round, sitting in the darkness of the broom closet.

He heard Aang on the other side of the door fall heavily into the upholstered chair in his study. He could imagine his Daddy rubbing his face with his large hands as he heard the man sigh loudly. "It's not a problem if I'm the last airbender," he said softly to himself, like a resolution. "That's fine. It's nobody's problem if there are no more after me. I am a father. I am a husband. I am the Avatar." A shuddering breath. "And I am the last airbender. That's not a problem. Not a problem at all." A brief silence punctuated the Avatar's words. Afterwards, a loud sniff came from Aang, and then Tenzin heard his father leave the room as well.

Alone in the room, Tenzin smiled to himself as the marbles swirled and swirled between his hands. He missed the warmth of the glass against his skin, but didn't mind the alternative of the cool air that swirled between his palms. He grinned at the marbles suspended between his splayed fingers, spinning faster and faster on an invisible twister. Daddy would be proud of Tenzin's new trick.

It looked like Daddy's "problem" would soon be his problem too.

A/N: Looks like even a pacifist like Aang can get pretty riled up when it comes to his family, huh?

Leave a comment to tell me how you like it so far, or even if you have any ideas for future drabbles/one-shot about the cloudbabies!