The gym after midnight breathed like a living thing—oil-slicked floors gleaming, banners stirring in the draft, the faint salt of sweat and riverwater hanging in the air. Pro-bending balls lay abandoned where practice had ended, and the city hummed beyond the windows, a distant pulse.

Tahno moved through that quiet like he owned it. All sharp edges and wolfish grace, water coiling obediently at his wrist before he let it fall, laughing softly as if the night itself were in on the joke. You stood with him beneath the lights, heart a drumbeat you could barely muffle. Months of secrecy pressed close—stolen glances in corridors, hands brushing under tables, the shared language of danger and desire. Love, too. Unavoidable. Unforgivable.

His fingers found yours. Warm. Steady. He kissed you like a promise he’d already broken, and you kissed him back because the truth had already chosen you. His palm rested at your stomach—gentle, reverent—and the future trembled there, unannounced but undeniable. You were carrying something fragile and fierce, and the weight of it made the room feel holy and doomed all at once.

The doors slid open.

The sound cut the moment in half.

Korra stood first—power in human shape—eyes wide, breath caught like a tide slammed against rock. Mako froze beside her, fire flickering instinctively in his fists before dying in confusion. Bolin’s smile fell apart, shock spreading across his face as if he’d been struck.

Time splintered. Tahno’s hand stilled. Your pulse roared. The intimacy you’d wrapped yourselves in unraveled under their gaze—too close, too clear, too honest to be explained away.

Korra’s stare moved from his mouth to yours, from his hand to your stomach, and something ancient and hurt cracked open in her chest. The Avatar, who bent the world to her will, couldn’t bend this. Not betrayal. Not love misaligned. Not the quiet truth standing between you like a blade.

“You?” Her voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It carried the weight of everything you’d been and everything she thought you were becoming together.