Thanks for the ask! I actually really miss writing about Baatar.
Canon I outright reject
This was from the comics, but I vehemently reject the idea that Baatar became okay with people calling him junior again after he reunited with his family. It implies that he was only frustrated with living in his father's shadow because Kuvira manipulated him into feeling that way and that does his whole character a disservice. I cannot even describe how hard I cringed when Kuvira referred to him as "Baatar Junior" in the comics. I almost stopped reading then and there.
21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)
I'm not gonna lie, I think this man is a bit of a lightweight. Anything stronger than moonpeach wine and he's a little tipsy at least. Still, he indulges in Earth Kingdom soju every now and then.
On the nonalcoholic side, you'll always catch him with a huge thermos of chrysanthemum tea when he's going to be in his engineering workshop for long stretches of time.
31. If the had a tumblr what would it look like?
Ooh, I love this question! I think Baatar's page would be firmly on the science side of Tumblr. He'd post his designs and such every now and then, but his page would mostly be dedicated to answering asks people send in with random engineering/physics/architecture questions. He'd also reblog scientifically questionable posts with multi-paragraph explanations about how the phenomenon in question actually works.
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Scolding them for their reckless actions, while they look at you, smiling softly - for Baavira maybe?
Thanks for the ask!
Baatar had anticipated a battle, or at the very least an undercurrent of civil unrest that would have kept the troops on their toes. But when he arrived back in Zaofu, there were soldiers drinking and dancing in the streets.
He followed the sounds of jubilation all the way to the council building in the Central Lotus, where a corporal reported that Kuvira was meeting with her generals. With each street corner he passed, he heard more bits and pieces of a story that he truly hoped was exaggerated, but knew wouldn't be.
By the time he reached the council building, Baatar's mind was filled with images of an enraged avatar-state Korra blasting his fiancee through the air.
His worries were partially quelled when he saw her in her pristine uniform, not a hair out of place, asking the generals probing questions about their timeline on Republic City. But when she rose from the head of the table and walked towards him with a limp, they returned stronger than ever.
"What did you do?" Baatar asked as he slid a supporting arm underneath her shoulder.
Kuvira regarded him with a grin that oozed confidence. "I took Zaofu with no casualties."
"You took an unnecessary risk, and could have well gotten yourself killed."
"Baatar," she said, the ghost of a groan creeping into her voice. "I won. We have Zaofu. Just be happy."
He shook his head, but couldn't deny the flash of joy he felt when he saw their banner flying in the hall. "I'll be happy after you get those injuries looked at."
"How do you know I haven't already seen a medic?"
"Because, my love, you have no sense of self-preservation, and by now I'm sure the whole empire knows it. Honestly, to go against the avatar state with no—" Baatar trailed off when he saw the soft smile spreading across her face. "What is it?"
Kuvira tilted her head up and kissed his cheek. "I missed you."
"I missed you, too, but you're still seeing a medic."
When Tai was born, Toph had planted her feet in his general direction and declared him an earthbender, though his powers didn’t manifest until four years later. When Avani learned to crawl, she bore labyrinthine tunnels through the gardens and it took Kuvira’s seismic sense to find her in them, always caked in dirt and with moonflowers enmeshed in her hair. And when Priya’s peals of laughter split the air, his wife’s steel bracelets rattled like wind chimes, the metal singing in response to their infant daughter’s jubilation.Â
When Baatar’s mother called them thrice blessed with prodigies, Kuvira’s face glowed with pride—while Baatar suppressed an eye roll—and when she fell pregnant again, the matriarch made no secret of her wish for a fourth earthbending grandchild.Â
But Jae’s infancy came and went without any sign of a capacity for bending revealing itself. “Wait and see,” Kuvira had said, and “Give it time,” his mother advised, but years passed, and despite the family’s unceasing interventions, Jae was never able to make so much as a pebble move.Â
“He’s at it again,” Baatar said as he glanced out a window, watching his six-year-old son run through a sequence of earthbending stances his older sisters had drilled into him.Â
Kuvira drifted to his side and gazed out at the training field. “His form is flawless,” she said, shaking her head slightly. Baatar tried not to chafe at the hint of regret in her voice. “Maybe we can find him a master in the nonbending martial arts.”
“I don’t know if that helps.” Baatar sighed. “He doesn’t want to fight; he wants to earthbend. Anything short of that just winds up disappointing. Trust me, I would know.”Â
“Maybe you’re right,” Kuvira said. “I’ll try talking to him again.”Â
Baatar rested a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Let me go this time.”
She nodded and he slipped out the back door to make his way to the training field. He watched his son go through the stances again, his face set in hard determination—much like Kuvira’s when she was focused on a task— before intervening.Â
“Jae, would you like to come up to the workshop with me?” he asked. “I’ve been working on some new designs, and I could use your help.”Â
“Maybe later, dad,” he said. “I need to keep working on these moves so I’m ready when my earthbending comes in.”
Baatar took a deep breath, preparing himself to give a variation of the talk his father once had with him. To be a Beifong born without the power of earthbending felt in many ways like being a bird without a song. That had been Baatar’s reality for years, decades, before he came to terms with his own skills and limitations. But it would not be his son’s if he had any say in the matter.Â
“It’s true, you could develop earthbending in a few months or a few years.” He took a seat on a pile of earth discs. “But you could also be a nonbender, like me.”
“But probably not, though, right? Tai and Avani and Priya can all earthbend, so why would I be the only one who can’t?”Â
Baatar forced himself not to look away from the pleading look in his son’s green eyes. “No one can really say why some people have bending abilities and others don’t. There are geneticists who’ve dedicated their entire careers to the question.”Â
“Dad, what’s a geneticist?”Â
“A scientist who studies heredity and the variation of organisms and…and that isn’t really important now,” he said. “The point is, bender or nonbender, your mother and I love you and will always be proud of you.”Â
“Does being a nonbender mean I’ll have to become an engineer?”
“Of course not,” Baatar said, “but I’m here if you ever want to learn.”Â
Jae seemed to think this over for a moment. “Can we design a super fast car?”Â
Baatar smiled. “The fastest.”Â
“Really? Then let’s go!”
As he jogged to match his son’s pace back to the house, up to his workshop, he hoped the powers he could offer—of innovation and design—would be enough to fill an earth-shaped void.
Baatar knew logically that this was the last opportunity to sleep he’d have for a while, but still rest eluded him. In the morning, they would finish their march on Republic City. Kuvira anticipated a quick surrender once they demonstrated the power of the weapon, the scale of the colossus, how thoroughly outmatched the United Forces were—but Baatar had never shared her optimistic streak. Even in the best case scenario, there would be blood, and in the worst, it would be hers.Â
It was this thought, paired with the images of his mother’s assassination attempt during the weapons test, that roused him from a fitful sleep drenched in cold sweat. He reached across the cot for his fiancee, squinting to make out the familiar blur of her shape in the dark, but his fingers grazed only the cooling pillow left in her wake.Â
Baatar shot up in bed panting, his mind swirling with visions of assailants cloaked in night, vengeful spirits, the avatar herself, until rationality took hold. More likely than not, she’d been pulled from her rest by some task or pressing question for her generals.Â
He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and flicked the lights on, chiding himself all the while for losing his head, even momentarily. He was a creature of logic, a man of science; he should have known better than to jump to conclusions. Still, he knew that no sleep would come until he’d seen her face.Â
 With this in mind, he quickly donned his uniform and let his feet guide him to the colossus. If he was going to be up all night anyway, he could at least get some work done.Â
After greeting the sentries with a curt nod, he methodically went through the routine checks of the engine room and the power core, each motion like a talisman crafted to ensure her safety.
When he was finally convinced that no saboteurs had tampered with the equipment—Zhu Li’s antics had pushed him from caution to a state near paranoia—Baatar made his way up to the head of the colossus, where he found his fiancee calibrating the controls with her bending.
Kuvira was right in front of him—alive, breathing. It took everything within him not to pull her into his arms then and there.
She hopped down from the metalbending platform, smiling. “Have I mentioned what a perfect engagement present this was?”
“You could stand to mention it more,” he said, trying to hide his nerves behind a playful smirk. He walked over and inspected his handiwork, searching for anything he may have overlooked. “Do the controls feel alright?”Â
“They’re like an extension of my body,” she said. “You’ve outdone yourself.”Â
“Thank you, love.”
“Of course,” she said. “Now what’s wrong?”
“Why would something be wrong?”Â
“Baatar, I’ve known you for fifteen years,” Kuvira said. “I know what your heartbeat feels like when something is wrong. We only have a few hours left before we have to move, so talk to me.”Â
Baatar sighed. She’d always been able to read him too well. “I couldn’t sleep.”Â
“You never do before a major battle,” she said, reaching for his hand. “But this will be the last one.”
“But what if we lose? Kuvira, what if you die?”
“That’s always been a possibility,” she said, the steel of her resolve sliding into her tone, hardening her. “There are risks involved with our positions; you’ve known that from the start.”Â
“I have. It’s just…” He reached up and caressed her cheek, drinking in the warmth of her skin. “I can’t lose you. Just the thought of it terrifies me.”Â
“Baatar.” She sighed. “We have the upper hand.”Â
“But hands can change quickly in a battle with these stakes.”
“You’re not wrong.” Her forehead creased as her mind turned to scenarios, tactics. “What can I say to make you feel better about this?”Â
“Say you’ll be careful, that you won’t take any unnecessary risks.”
Kuvira raised an eyebrow. “I don’t take—”
“You challenged the avatar to a one-on-one duel with the whole army standing behind you.”
“Point taken,” Kuvira said.Â
Baatar took both her hands in his and squeezed them. “Love, promise me you’ll be cautious.”Â
“I promise. We’ll stick to the plan. Now we should head back and get some sleep before this all starts.”Â
When they were back in the tent, Baatar watched her sleep, memorizing the cadence of her breathing, the rare softening of her features. Some instinct, some dark premonition still told him it was the last chance he might have to do so.Â
If someone had asked Baatar what would happen if the reunification force were put in charge of a children's bureau before they left Zaofu, his guess would have been less than optimistic. Most of their group were twenty-somethings, few with any experience dealing with children whatsoever. Even so, he supposed he should have known better than to doubt her.
Baatar had initially been summoned to fix a set of hanging electric lights—a problem so minor that he might have said no if anyone but Kuvira had asked— but ended up lingering after he spotted her.
He leaned against a door-frame, watching Kuvira in the children's center play room, surrounded by a group of little girls. Half of them had their hair done up in elaborate braided styles, with metal flowers or butterflies clipped in at different places. She bent the ornaments in a highly efficient fashion, one hand deftly moving to create the shapes, the other handing them off to the waiting girls as she told them stories.
"And that, everyone, is how Avatar Korra brought back the art of airbending."
As she concluded, a child of about five or six, who was perched on Kuvira's lap, craned her neck around to look at her. "And she really didn't know it was going to happen?"
"She had no clue, Jia. She just did what she thought was right." Kuvira smiled and smoothed her hand over the girl's hair. "She even told me herself."
The girls released a collective gasp.
"You know Avatar Korra?" one of the older ones asked. "What's she like?"
"She's really strong—she learned how to metalbend in less than a day—but she cares a lot about people, too."
"Then where is she?" asked a third child, who was holding an Avatar Kyoshi mud figure. "We needed her help."
Kuvira reached for the girl's hand, making sure to put on her most reassuring smile. "Right now she's recovering from a really important battle, but I know she wants to be here," she said. "Now who wants to learn some earthbending moves?"
Most of the girls' hands shot up, though Baatar felt a pang of empathy for the nonbenders.
As Kuvira ushered the group out to the courtyard, she noticed him.
"What are you still doing here?"
"I couldn't miss story time," he teased, earning an eye-roll from her. "You know, you're really good with them."
Kuvira waved the comment off. "After dealing with the twins at this age, this is easy."
"Hey, some of us never actually learned how to deal with the twins."
"I remember," she said with a little laugh. "I should get back to them before someone gets hit rock."
"Of course." Baatar leaned down to kiss her goodbye, trying his best keep it tame in case—
"Kuvira! Who are you kissing?" Jia asked, looking quite scandalized by the matter.
Kuvira broke away then, cheeks slightly flushed. "Now they'll all be asking about my boyfriend for the rest of the day."
"Spirits. Sorry about that," he said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it. They were bound to find out eventually." Kuvira shook her head fondly. "I'll see you at home."
"Right. See you at home."
In truth, it still sent his heart pounding a bit to say it—that they shared a home, a life, perhaps someday a family with little girls running around, bending stones about with metal clips in their hair.
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For Baatar Appreciation Week 2022: Day 5 (Mother-in-Law) @baatarjrweek
Summary: Baatar has a heart-to-heart with the Earth Queen (Princess Kuvira AU)
Baatar had been married to Princess Kuvira for just over ten months, but she’d spent half that time away on this or that military campaign. For someone who’d been virtually a stranger this time last year, he missed her to an intolerable degree when she was gone and aspired to surprise her with modernized swathes of the city each time she returned.Â
He was on a site in the middle of the Loongkau district overseeing one such project when a gilded palanquin with the royal household’s insignia emblazoned on one side stopped in the middle of the construction zone.Â
Out tumbled the Grand Secretariat, looking quite anxious about being sent into the heart of the Lower Ring.Â
“Prince Consort.” Gun greeted him with a short bow.Â
“You really don’t need to call me that,” Baatar said, not for the first time. “Has Kuvira returned?”
“Not yet, though she is expected soon. It’s actually her mother, the queen who wants to see you—has summoned you, really, and you’re already late!” Gun started tugging at his queue, eyes darting nervously about the traffic along the dirt roads.Â
“How can I be late to a meeting you’re only now telling me about?”
“Because she’s the queen, and people have been imprisoned for less!” he said. “Now, please, enter the palanquin so we can make haste.”Â
He was ultimately taken not to the throne room as he’d expected, but to the Earth Queen’s private study.Â
“Beifong,” she said in greeting, scarcely looking up from the tome in front of her. “I’m told you have some skill as an architect.”
“Well, I dabble in architecture, but I actually see myself as more of a civil engineer—”
The queen raised a hand to silence him. “You speak as though I give a fuck, and believe me, I do not.”Â
“Then why—”
“You’re to design a new headquarters for the Dai Li—something elaborate, but hidden from plain sight. It’s to be a present to them from my daughter and yourself.”Â
Baatar’s brow furrowed. The Dai Li were at the absolute bottom of the list of people his wife would want to shower with gifts; perhaps only his mother, the self-styled Matriarch of Zaofu occupied a lower position.Â
“Your majesty, is Princess Kuvira aware of this request?”
The queen raised a single eyebrow. “You dare question me?”
“No, your majesty,” Baatar said quickly. He didn’t believe she would have him killed—she was much too fond of her daughter to do that—but he was in no mood to sit in a prison cell for hours or days until she came back to the capital. “It’s only…Kuvira seemed to make her stance towards them clear at the start of the campaign.”
“My daughter made a mistake in sidelining the Dai Li, and we will correct it by emphasizing their importance here in the capital. Do you understand?”
“I believe I’m starting too.”
“Then why are you still here?”Â
“I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with going against her wishes.”
“It will be more uncomfortable when you have to bury her!” The queen rose to her full height then. “If she continues to alienate the Dai Li, the nobles, the way things are, they will turn on her when I am gone.”Â
“Your majesty...have you said this to her?”
“The matter will be too far out of hand by the time she’s ready to hear it. If you love Kuvira, as I suspect you do, you will do what is required to protect her.”Â
“You really love her, don’t you,” Baatar said, before he could think better of it.Â
“What mother doesn’t love her children?” The queen scoffed. “Wait, you’re Suyin’s. I see now. Anyhow, away with you. I’m having the gardener in next and if the turtleduck topiaries are off again, heads will roll.”
Baatar held back a smirk. “Of course, your majesty,” he said and then was gone before her mood shifted again.
That idiot Varrick had long harvested all the volcanic rocks for pumice stones, but there was still a gaping hole in the middle of the grounds as proof of the lavabender’s machinations. Under different circumstances, Baatar might have regarded the phenomenon with a measure of scientific curiosity—to what extent were earthbenders able to manipulate heat, and could firebenders conceivably move magma with enough precision? But with Opal still their fugitive at the Northern Air Temple, and his mother and Kuvira rallying the metal guards to rescue her, he figured it was a touch too soon for such queries.
As he made his way to his father’s workshop, he tried to purge the variables of disaster from his thoughts—Opal’s general lack of life experience exponentially worsened by the unfamiliar deadliness of the attackers, Kuvira’s hero complex squared with his mother’s ruthlessness amounting to an ugly sacrifice.
When he entered the workshop, his father was behind his desk with a stack of sketches like every other day, but his usual pot of jasmine tea was replaced with a bottle of Fire Island whiskey. Clearly, he hadn’t been the only one plagued by worst case scenarios.
“Still no word from the temple?” Baatar asked as he sat behind his own desk, somewhat smaller than his father’s and stacked high with projects that weren’t his own.
“You know how your mother can get when she’s busy,” his father said with a familiar loving look in his eyes. “You should have seen her when we were first getting Zaofu started. She’d disappear for weeks at a time, and there’d be no word. Then, she’d show up at the work site with truckloads of platinum, acting like only a day had passed.”
Baatar raised an eyebrow. “But where did all the platinum come from?”
His father took a minute to consider the question, possibly for the first time. “You know, she never said. But the point is, we have to trust that they know what they’re doing and that they’ll come home safe.”
Baatar eyed the liquid trust on his father’s desk and wondered if it would be enough to improve his outlook. Ultimately, he decided against it, resolving to pop open a bottle with Kuvira whenever she made it back.
For the next several hours, he went through his engineering projects, finding needed distraction in the work, though he never stopped listening for the mechanized whoosh of a landing airship or the purposeful footfalls of a guard captain striding through the halls.
By the time they returned, night had fallen over the city, and both father and son had worked through two meals, four power disc matches, and an innumerable sum of artistic breakthroughs.
The moment Baatar saw her step down from the tram, discussing matters of security with her colleagues in hushed tones, everything within him wanted to run to her. But knowing it wouldn’t go unnoticed by his mother, he waited, taking part in the family hug and asking after Opal’s wellbeing. Eventually, in a phenomenon as inevitable as the changing of the seasons, he drifted off to the periphery of things, and when his family all headed inside the estate, they were alone.
“You waited,” he said, smiling softly as she bridged the distance between them.
“I got the sense you had something to say.” She gave a little smirk that left his thoughts scattered as a sheaf of fallen blueprints.
“Right, well.” Baatar adjusted his glasses, then cleared his throat. “I’m just really glad you’re back.”
He couldn’t tell for certain because of the low lights, but her cheeks seemed to redden a bit. “Thanks. I’m glad too.”
Kuvira took a seat on the steps leading up to the house, and he wasted no time before joining her. Baatar pretended not to notice when her knee bumped against his.
“So what happened out there?” he asked.
“The good news is we saved the new airbenders, your sister included. The bad news is there are more anarchist cells on the loose and we might be down an avatar for a while.”
“Fun times ahead,” he deadpanned.
Kuvira snorted. “The best.”
There was a lull in the conversation then, and Baatar chanced a glance over at her. There was no moonlight over Zaofu, but she was still gorgeous by the faint glow of the lanterns. “I meant what I said before, you know. If something happened to you out there, I don’t know what I’d do.”
She sighed. “Baatar.”
“I only mean you’re important to me.”
Kuvira leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know,” she said. “You’re important to me too. Now, do you wanna get out of here and head to my place?”
“Of course,” he replied, and they headed towards the midnight tram hand in hand, with only the domes above bearing witness.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Written for Baavira Week 2022: Day 1 (Boba Tea)
@baaviraweek
“Are you hungry? I can pick something up if you’re tired from the flight, or we can go somewhere.”
“Are you kidding?” Kuvira broke into a smirk. “Over the past six months, you’ve written me seventeen full pages of prose about the boba tea at the Jasmine Dragon. I need to know if it lives up to the hype.”
Or
Kuvira visits Baatar while he's studying at Ba Sing Se University.
