mmmm i was thinking abt a kuvira x reader where they were like besties but then r distances herself during the whole great uniter shabang and falls for kuvira after. sort of like second chance i suppose?? ty for considering <333
⠀⠀⠀ ،، 𝓛ast piece ; Kuvira
summary: where Kuvira and you had been best friends since kids, but, as many friendships, you start to fall apart.
content warning: fluff ; kinda angst if you squint enough ; kuvira x fem–metalbender!reader ; description of eye color ; no use of y/n
wc: 2.4k
a/n: HI, I FINALLY AM WORKING ON MY REQUESTS :D I'm sorry if I took too long, but I hope I meet your expectations!! I did a different ending here from my other Kuvira's fics, I loved how it turned out at the end
“ Please stay by my side no matter what happens, I’m not complete without you.
Focus, focus, focus.
Two, three, four, and bend. Two, three, four, hands. Two, three, four, stay still.
“UGH! Gorgeous as always!” Suyin exclaimed with a smile looking at the group of dancers, she clapped for a couple of seconds. “That's all for today, people! You can go rest.”
After those words, you were quick to touch ground again thanks to the one lifting you up and smiled big once your best friend was at your sight. “How was it?”
“You could work on your posture, you look hunched.” the captain said in a fun tone, you knew it was a joke when a tiny smile started to form in her lips. Your hand hit her softly in the shoulder.
“Yeah, sure.” you started to walk over to your stuff.
“It was great as always, miss perfect.” she followed you, helping with the bag of clothes you always brought to practice and hers was on the other arm.
“You owe me dinner, Kuvira.” you changed topics to look at her with a big smile and a bottle of water on your hand. “How about you pay your debt?”
“How about you pay your debt and do the dinner? You are the one owing me a dinner, not the other way around!” and both of you began your way to either home.
Kuvira and you had been best friends since you can remember, maybe it was around the time Su took her under her wing when you met Kuvira. You remember how a little earthbender walked over to you asking if you wanted to share moon peaches with her after she caught you looking at her and ever since that day you both have been inseparable.
She helped you to improve in your metalbending making you one of the best engineers in the city alongside Suyin's oldest son, when someone was bothering you she was the first to jump to defend you, when you had a bad day she always found a way to comfort you and make you feel better. She was your rock, the same way you were hers.
Everyone in Zaofu knew how close you two were and the appreciation one had for the other, but not a single soul knew how there was something more than friendship between you two. It was so secret that not even you both knew.
Both have had relationships before, even if they didn't last enough, you were certain to recognize the feelings between friends and lovers' affection. Or so you thought.
Your own feelings were questioned one of the days the avatar and her team arrived to the city, you were helping them with anything asked for as one of their hostess.
“Hey, you and your girlfriend look cute together. Are you in the guard too or is just her?” you heard the waterbender ask, your shoulders tensed at the noun used for Kuvira.
“Oh, uhm, it's just her.” you answered, surprising yourself when you didn’t deny the claim. “I'm actually an engineer. I like to work with metal.”
“I'm an engineer too!” the other girl exclaimed excited to meet a fellow engineer, thankfully that changed the subject to machinery and inventions with her and made you forget the moment before.
Even though you were a junior engineer, that didn't stopped you to talk for almost an hour with the girl about the struggles as an engineer and shared advices one with the other.
When you talked to Kuvira about your nerdy rant with Asami, her face had an indescribable grimace painted in it.
“So you like her.” she said abruptly, cutting your train of thought and making you blink in confusion.
“I mean, yeah?” you said more in a question than in an answer. “It's nice to have a chat with someone about this stuff other than Baatar Jr who loves to cut me off or not pay any attention.” you shrugged.
“And she's pretty too.” Kuvira voice felt as she was thinking of something else, her focus somewhere else.
“She is.” you backed up the statement. “But what does that has to do wi–.”
“I have to go, I need to take care of some business. See you at dinner.” she spoke as if being rushed and started to walk away from you, leaving you even more confused.
In Kuvira's mind, there were alerts and sirens left and right, warning her about something, something she had repressed too deep to understand it now.
The events following your talk gave no one time to think, it was one thing after the other and that kept Kuvira away from you since she was the captain for the military guard so it made you grew closer to the young inventor and she was aware of it.
After the avatar left, Kuvira seemed distance with you. Only talking when you looked for her, she still walked you home, but the talks were ephemeral, she answered with monosyllables or head movements and you only could hope to find a way to get your relationship back to how it was.
“I'm leaving,” she said one day, interrupting your commentary about how the practice was boring. You stopped in your steps, Kuvira stopped a couple after. “The Earth Kingdom is in need of a leader and I offered myself to Republic City's president to help get the Kingdom united until the new monarch takes their place.”
Your eyes were trying to look for hers, she was evading your gaze by keeping hers pinned behind you.
“What–”
“I leave tomorrow.” every single word felt like a bucket of freezing water pouring over you. “Bataar is going with me, I need an engineer.”
“You tell me now?” the question left your mouth as a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Didn't you think I would like to know your plan? Or I would like to go as your engineer? You don't trust me anymore?” for the first time, she looked at you while calling your name, you shook your head. “Kuvira, I'm your best friend... I would go with you anywhere.”
A couple of seconds you both stood in silence looking at each other. “I'm sorry.” was the only thing she could think of saying to you.
Your hand rearranged the gym bag's strap over your shoulder. “I'll walk myself home, hope you have a great journey.”
You walked pass her and Kuvira fought against herself not to run after you, to tell you that she was sorry, she wanted you there with her... But her pride was stronger, she stood there.
That was the last time you two had a proper conversation, you didn’t attend to her farewell event nor talked to her before that. However, after two days of her being on the road, a letter with your handwriting arrived to her wishing her luck and health in her journey. But that was all, no more letters neither from you or her, you two took separate ways after that. Regardless of the years passing by, you couldn’t help but find yourself thinking about Kuvira every once in a while.
With Bataar gone from Zaofu, you moved from engineer junior to senior and with that more responsibility came along, enough to keep your mind occupied.
Suyin grew closer to you as you usually tagged along with her husband to talk work related things and city matters. She knew about how close you and Kuvira were, so every information she had she told you.
“I heard they just went to Qinchao.” the matriarch said while serving tea on your cup, you smiled a little bit her way.
Deep down, you were grateful with her for that, those comments were enough for you to make sure that at least Kuvira was still around. But one day she stopped talking about the metalbender and you didn’t want to appear desperate to know about her, so you didn’t ask anything.
You thought she was on her way to pass the now united Earth Kingdom to Wu, but were met with the news that she planned to invade Zaofu.
You helped with what you could to stop her, however when the Beifongs were captured, you got captured too. Instead of going to the same air-suspended prison, someone took you to Kuvira's train and made you sit in –what you thought was– the reunion wagon. A map of the kingdom displayed infront of you and a table with a bunch of blueprints on its right, sitting impatiently you were waiting for something... or someone.
The sound of the metal doors opening behind you made you sit straight again, one pair of shoes were making noises so you thought it was the last guard. Your mouth opened to talk and ask what you were doing there instead of being with the Beifongs, but your words caught up in your throat at the sight of the ex–captain.
Her eyes shined with distress, unsure of what to say or how to proceed, almost like waiting for a signal from you to tell her what to do. You only looked at her with a gaze she could not interpret, silence reigned for what felt hours while the two green-eyed were looking at each other.
At the same time, the two of you decided to break the silence colliding your voices. Kuvira blinked a bit and shook her head. “Sorry, you talk first.”
“Can you uncuff me?” you asked quickly at her making sounds with the platinum around your wrists.
“Shit, yes, one second.” Kuvira was fast to take out the key while walking behind you to take the cuffs out so you could be more comfortable. “There, uhm, you're free.”
Your left hand was quick to touch your right wrist once you were able to get your arms to the front, you looked for Kuvira. “Why am I here?”
The leader stood up again and walked to be face to face with you again, she still couldn't read your expression. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Your heart skipped a beat and Kuvira was able to see how your eyes softened a little bit, she was able to see that one girl a couple years younger that could make her world shake with her mere existence.
It took Kuvira three years away from you to know that she did love you like she had said a lot of times, but she loved you on another level which she never thought could've happen.
“To say... What? To boast about how you were capable to unify the kingdom on your own with... tyranny?” you words were harsh on her, she knew she deserved them either way.
“I did what I had to for my people.” she said back, almost in a sharp serious tone. “And I know you won't understand this now, but I did it for them... I did it for us.”
You stayed quiet, just looking at her, admiring her face like you used to do back in the day. “You never wrote to me.” your mouth talked in a low voice. “I was surviving with what Su told me about you and it wasn’t nearly enough.”
Kuvira's shoulders fell, her whole serious leader facade disappeared. You were the only person with the ability of making the ex–captain soft at your very liking.
“I didn't know what to say.” she said, raising her brow with tenderness. “I tried so many times to write you, tell you that I missed you, ask you if you wanted to join, but I never found the right words to do so.” Her gaze looked to the floor. “I needed you by my side.”
You felt dizzy, but in a good way. It was almost as if those feelings repressed by you all those years ago were creeping back in a plodding way.
“If you had asked me two weeks ago if I wanted to join you on unifying the kingdom I would've joined.” you said after another round of silence, the lighter green eyes shot back to you in surprised. “Hell! If you had asked me yesterday if I wanted to join I would've say yes, Kuvira... Because I need you too.”
For the first time in so long, the military leader had no answer to give, her mind was cloudy with a bunch of thoughts unclear to her right now.
“All those years made me realize that I can't live without you by my side,” you continued when you realized she wasn’t going to speak. “You are the air that I breathe, even when we fell apart I still woke up everyday with the motivation to see you again and tell you that I love you.” your voice lower at the end, maybe you went a little bit too far by confessing to your best friend that.
A smile began to make an appearance on the pale girl's face, your heart beating so fast that you thought it was going to leave your chest to fall at her feet. “It's so good to know that you would be by my side.” she started, squatting infront of you. “I'm so sorry it took me this long to realize that I love you too and I can't continue this without you... If I want the Earth Empire to together I need you with me.”
Your eyes sparkled with emotion at her, getting closer to her face you whispered. “I would walk through hell if that means I get to be with you.”
Kuvira took the step to kiss you, at the beginning a shy kiss took place, later on it escalated a little bit. Your hands cupped her face while one of her got in its way to pull you closer by the neck. After running out of air, both of you pulled away a little bit. “We should get ready to rule our empire together, my love.”