#protective!toph

It didn’t work. But for Kya, he pretended it did. He tried to walk like Daddy.

He wasn’t second-guessing their mission, of course. That was the utmost priority. Mama and Daddy had been worrying over the bad guys from ‘the underground’ for so, so long…

It made Bumi almost as frustrated as it made him sad. 

He didn’t understand for the life of him why their parents didn’t go to ‘the underground’ with Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka to beat the bad guys up and get it over with. 

They were the bravest heroes ever.

And it wasn’t like ‘the underground’ was hard to find. 

It was underground.

Duh. 

Granted, he and Kya had to go through the old bad-place that Daddy had been helping Auntie Toph ‘clear out’. 

Mama had told him—before his and Kya’s planning phase—that they weren't allowed to follow Daddy to his Avatar-work near that place.

Bumi didn’t understand why she was so serious. 

Her or Daddy.

Especially Daddy.

The even worse part was that their father had smiled while he made them promise not to go to the bad-place. Then he had taken them for ice-cream, and Mama let them jump in the deep end of the oasis to practice their swimming. 

Then Daddy paced throughout the night, and Bumi heard through his door (if he pressed his ear so hard it hurt) that Mama stayed up with him and talked with him in the gentle way she did when he or Kya had nightmares. 

It made Bumi’s heart hurt in the ache-y way his lungs did when Kya dunked him in the water for too long and got in trouble for it. 

He didn’t want Daddy and Mama to hide frowns with fake smiles anymore. 

They were being brave, though. They always were. 

‘The underground’ was a really, really big bad, after all.

But Bumi and Kya could be brave, too. 

And their mission would help their parents way more than the extra hugs and kisses they’ve been giving them. 

Maybe, after he and Kya return as brave heroes, Daddy and Mama will sleep instead of fidget and whisper when he and Kya curl in bed with them.

Bumi sighed. Kya held his arm a bit tighter. His sister didn’t care what people thought; if she was scared, she showed it. 

Bumi wouldn’t admit that he was, though. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t. Especially not to Kya. Especially especially when his Sissy held his arm with both hands as their torch burned to its wick. He was teetering on a razor’s edge between thrill and terror, and he made himself smile at her even when his stomach felt all float-y.

Because even Auntie Toph had told them to stay away from the bad-place. And Auntie Toph never told them not to do something.

But Bumi could be brave like her, too. And Uncle Sokka. 

He will be. 

He and Kya were brave just like Daddy and Mama.

Plus, Bumi had his new knife that Uncle Zuko gave him for his birthday, so he was prepared for anything. 

********************************

Bumi lost his knife and their torch as soon as he saw the first bad guy. His hands shook so much—the bad guy was so big—that he dropped them.

Kya could at least waterbend. He saw her (try to) push and pull the water with Mama the last time they swam in the deep end of the oasis.

If there was any water down here, then maybe she could have made them slip.

They ran. They hit a dead end. Bumi’s limbs were long enough. He could climb up into the next tunnel. 

His sister’s weren’t. Kya’s whimpered panting—her lungs weren’t as big as his, either—broke free her first sob as she clawed the wall and kept slipping down.

She looked at him like Mama had when she watched him fall off the roof without knowing until she raced to the bottom that Daddy was there to catch him.

It made his insides turn to slush, and Kya’s small cry put daggers in his lungs.

His Sissy was terrified.

Bumi was almost just as scared, but he jumped back to the enemy-laden ground and glared like he was about to beat their butts all at once, just like Mama did in the stories Auntie Toph told them when their parents weren’t watching. 

His Sissy’s tight grip on the bottom of his shirt—she had only ever held on to Daddy’s robes, and only if she was really, really scared—gave Bumi the strength to hold on to the last string holding his shaking limbs together. 

His sister was smaller than him. He would not leave her, and he would not let the bad guys hurt her. 

No matter how big the fourth bad guy was. 

Or the eighth. 

Or the twelfth.

Kya’s back hit the wall before Bumi’s did, and she slid to the ground. Bumi stood in front of her. The bad guys painted the wall with the inky cloaks of their shadows. Bumi was a broken leaf between his sister and a pack of devils who jeered new no-no words that, even though he didn’t know what they meant, by the way they said them to his Sissy gave him the feeling that even Auntie Toph wouldn’t use them. 

The bad guys stepped closer. Bumi tried to stand like Daddy did a year ago when the other bad man and broke a hole through Kya’s wall and hurt Mama.

Daddy had stood over all of them in the middle of a storm of stone and fire and arrows and didn’t move an inch. He broke apart boulder after fireball like they were nothing as they waited for Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka to get there. 

Bumi’s legs shook, and he sucked in a breath and held it like maybe the air would keep him afloat and on his feet when his legs gave out. 

Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka weren’t coming this time.

Or Daddy and Mama. 

Bumi and Kya were alone.

Bumi’s heart raced so fast that it felt like it was vibrating more than it was beating. He stopped breathing a while ago. His lungs were shriveling up and hiding in his throat like they were even scared-er than his Sissy. 

Kya was crying on her knees behind him. She was shaking, too—he felt it from where she grasped his calf.

One of the bad guys had grabbed her arm the first time they cornered them. Bumi had bitten him and ran as far as he could while he dragged Kya behind him.

Now the bad guy was earthbending a boulder the size of Bumi six-times-over, and they all glared at him and his Sissy with smiles that were hungry to kill them. 

They were big. So, so much bigger than him. Bumi barely reached his head to their mid-thigh on his tip-toes. 

He was small. 

Too small. 

Bumi wanted to cry. His eyes did, too. They were hot and sting-y, and tears made his picture of the bad guys all blurry. 

He couldn’t cry. He made a vow with Uncle Sokka not to cry unless he deserved it. 

Kya was crying because she was hurt. 

He had gotten them into this mess. He had no right to free himself of the sea-prune-sized sob choking him.

Bumi bared his teeth. His voice broke, but he didn’t let his tears fall.

“S-Stay away! I-I—‘M w-wa’rn’ yous!”

Kya held onto him tighter like she was deluded by his voice into some feeling of reassurance. 

“Or what? You gonna throw dirt at us?”

“Daddy’s not here to save you, brat.”

Bumi swallowed. He would have been sick if he had eaten lunch. 

One of the bad guys had his knife. He reached to grab one of them, and Bumi used the last of his strength to move in front of him and puff out his chest. 

He still didn’t cry. 

The wall adjacent exploded in a shower of earth. 

The howling boom and hiss of all elements clashing were terrifying enough to bring more tears to Bumi’s eyes yet familiar enough to keep him from crying. 

Bumi threw himself over his little sister. Kya held him so tight it hurt. Dirt and rocks hit his back, and heat threatened to blister his skin even through his clothes. His Sissy screamed, and it sounded like she was calling for Mama.

He held Kya tight. He closed his eyes even tighter.

He didn’t open them even when Daddy, out of breath and smelling of ash and earth, slid to his knees before them and herded his whimpering, shivering children into the protective circle of his arms with soft coos and gentle assurances. 

Bumi knew it was him; he heard the smile in his voice. 

Daddy’s shadow swallowed them both like a too-big cloak. He patted them down from head to toe, muttering to himself between kisses to their faces and dozens of jumbled concerns before relaxing, a mountain leaving his shoulders as he sagged over them. He smiled like he might cry—Bumi felt it from where Daddy pressed his trembling lips against his cheek. 

Daddy rubbed their backs and kissed their foreheads as he gently, but urgently, pressed between their shoulders to encourage them to his chest. Bumi and Kya were too filled with panicked goo to move on their own, otherwise. 

Daddy crouched closer, as unmoving and safe as an iron shield but inviting like his smile would blind anyone who would do them harm. He curled deeper on his knees and bent around so he had to look up at them. He made himself small, like them, and he was smiling that smile that drove instinct to herd themselves into his arms. 

Bumi still hadn’t opened his eyes, though. He heard the smile in Daddy’s voice. It was safe. 

Bumi clutched his father’s robes, and he breathed again. Daddy was safe. His scent and his voice and his touch wrapped them in a bubble that unwound their grip on each other and massaged away the primal fear that had them flinching wherever he had first touched them. Now they leaned into him like they were trapped in a frozen shell and his hands were torches. Even the air around Daddy bled comfort into them; it was as potent as the sleepy-shots Mama used to help people feel better. 

Bumi and Kya latched onto him like they were built to be there, and Daddy cradled them like he was made to hold them. 

Bumi melted against his chest like he was sinking into warm water. Daddy’s arms were stronger than the ones that had hurt his Sissy. 

Daddy was bigger than the bad guys.

He was stronger and braver, too. 

He was their hero. 

Bumi fisted Daddy’s robes so tightly that his hands shook and his fingers tingle. Beside him, Kya shook even harder and hiccuped little sounds that made his chest hurt and his arms itch to hug her. 

Bumi still hadn’t opened his eyes. He didn’t want to open them and be in front of the bad guys again. He didn’t want to open them and suddenly be out of Daddy’s arms. 

He held his father tight. Daddy held him even tighter. 

Bumi didn’t open his eyes even when he smelled fresh air and heard the sounds of outside again. He tasted metal, sharp and cold, before he heard Auntie Toph. She was yelling so many no-no words that it made him cringe, and metal clanked as dozens of police-people ran by and around them.

Uncle Sokka yelled his relief and then an alert, and Mama’s voice was far away and then in his ear before Bumi took his next breath.  

Her warmth hit his back and wrapped around him in a force heavier and tighter than an iron net. Mama hugged Daddy and pressed Bumi and Kya between them so snugly that all Bumi knew in that moment was his Mama, his Daddy, his Sissy, and the warm-fuzzy feeling that bubbled under his skin and felt like home. 

He and Sissy grabbed tight handfuls of her dress. Mama grabbed them even tighter. 

Her soft coos and million kisses lassoed his heart and broke it tame. Daddy rubbed his back and scratched his beard on his neck as he kissed his hair, Mama’s face, and Kya’s hair over and over again.

Daddy was big enough to hug them all. His voice was soft, even for him. It wound around Bumi like a warm breeze on a cold day. 

Bumi kept his eyes closed. He tried to focus on Mama’s heartbeat. It was fast and light like Momo’s. Her face was wet when it pressed to his, and he tasted salt when he kissed her cheek on instinct. 

Mama’s arms were comforting. Daddy’s arms were safe. Bumi wanted to have both of them again, like when Mama first appeared. 

Kya whimpered. He got his wish.

He wished he hadn’t.

His Sissy was hurt.

Daddy’s arms were shaking when they held him again. His lap was warm as they rode Appa home.

Bumi’s eyes were still closed.

He only opened them when he tripped.

Mama tried to help him up, but Daddy lifted him to his feet before she could. 

Bumi looked up and wished he hadn’t.

Mama was sad.

She looked hurt.

Sissy was in her arms—she looked a bit better, but she held her arm close to her chest and bit the inside of her cheek.

She was hurt, too.

Daddy’s hand was on his back and between his shoulders when Bumi could hear again.

“Katara, take Kya home.”

Bumi flinched. He’d never heard Daddy talk like that. His voice was hard and flat and forced like a piece of measured timber sawed out of the corpse of an ancient tree. 

“Aang, sweetie, maybe right now isn’t—”

“Katara.” The hand on his back urged his shoulders to turn away from Mama. “Please. Take Kya home.” His voice lowered to something even more foreign. “I need to teach our son a lesson.”

His tone struck Bumi like a whip. Mama didn’t say anything. It was quiet for a while. Bumi wished he could see her, but he couldn’t think enough to even move his eyes off of the grass and setting sun that framed the ocean opposite the city. 

The soft crunches as Mama walked away made the silence even heavier. The hand on his back didn’t move until she was far beyond the courtyard. 

Bumi wished it wasn’t so quiet. His Daddy stood behind him, and the awareness of where he stood increased gravity ten-fold. 

His father ground his teeth so hard that Bumi heard it, and he exhaled a breath that burned the air and poured smoke over the back of Bumi’s tongue. 

The hand left his back. Daddy walked ahead of him. His shoulders were raised like a bristling tigerdillo, and waves of heat leaking from him and rolled over and into Bumi like thick licks of lava.

Daddy clenched his jaw and didn’t look at him.

The Avatar was mad.

“Bumi.”

His spoken name wound around him and tugged him along like a leash. The sky was pinker now, bordering on purple. Daddy’s face was bordering on red.

Bumi swallowed, but his throat wouldn’t move. The wind whipped around them and bent the tall grasses in an amber-green wave. It was cold. He hugged himself, wishing for his parents’ arms again. 

The wind blew harder as they neared the cliff. Bumi slowed down. He had to lean into the wind. He had to fight it. 

Daddy was unmovable even when a violent gust hit them. He didn’t even break his stride. Bumi had to crouch to keep from being blown over.

He looked up. Daddy was so much bigger than he was. 

Bumi’s chest rang hollow, and something cold blossomed from his stomach and crawled into his chest like creeping fingers of ice. It curled around his heart in an unforgiving fist. 

His limbs ached, filled with frozen webs. Even his breath came out cold from his closing airway. 

His Daddy was a hero. 

Bumi couldn’t protect his own Sissy.

“Bumi.”

Bumi flinched. He hugged himself tighter and walked towards his father, who was sitting facing the ocean with his arms and legs crossed.

Bumi swallowed. His throat burned. He crept around Daddy, passing through his shadow, to curl up beside him. The few inches between them yawned like a few oceans. 

He hugged his knees and tried to think he was bigger than he was, but he had to tilt his head all the way vertical to see his father. 

Daddy was tense like a loaded bow and drawn to his full sitting-height like he was ready to jump up into a fight. His arms were still crossed, but his face wasn’t bordering on red anymore. The sky had settled on a navy velvet, and Daddy’s eyes looked up instead of at him. 

But then he looked down.

And Bumi wished he hadn’t.

He wished his father would have kept looking at the sky.

He wished his father would have stayed angry at him.

Because the laughter and warmth in Daddy’s eyes were muted by something sad and caged behind something upset. A frown had moved in where his smile should be—where it always was.

The hot coal in Bumi’s throat made his eyes wet, and it threatened to sear a hole in his neck. 

“Bumi, I am very disappointed in you.”

His words were arrows, and Bumi hugged his legs so hard that the bony bits of his knees hurt his chest. 

“I know…”

“You could have been killed.” Daddy got louder, and his words bellied something like he was choking on a hot coal, too. “You deliberately disobeyed me. And what’s worse, you put Kya in danger.”

Bumi’s tummy flipped. The night had swallowed up the day, and his father’s shadow blended into the inky night that covered Bumi and all that he saw and knew.

“I—I-I wa’...w-wa’ ju’t—” Bumi’s lip trembled, and he wiped his eyes in hurried swipes, rushing to speak his defense before Daddy yelled at him. 

Daddy had never yelled before. 

But Daddy had never been this angry before.

Bumi wanted to wake up already so he could sneak into Mama’s bed and fall asleep in his parents’ arms.

The Daddy beside him curled over, just a bit, making himself smaller. He waited for Bumi to catch his breath and his words; though the searing heat of his stare burned his head, his shoulders, and everywhere else he looked. 

Bumi’s voice was little more than a gasp, a leak of air from a broken pipe. 

“I-I was just trying to be brave like you.”

Daddy uncrossed his arms. He looked down at him in every sense and meaning of the words. He was so much bigger than Bumi. His eyes looked down at him as distant and as powerful as the stars beyond him.

“I’m only brave when I have to be. Bumi...” Daddy sighed, and he suddenly looked like he had been beaten to within an inch of his life and slapped into manacles heavier than mountains. Bumi looked away. Daddy’s eyes were still upset and sad, and the gentle bass that leaked into his voice—the deep sound that cooed him after bad dreams and whispered their inside jokes behind Mama’s back—as he said his name nearly made Bumi break his warrior-vow to Uncle Sokka to never to cry unless he deserved to. “...Bumi, being brave doesn’t mean you go looking for trouble.”

Bumi looked up and couldn’t look away. Daddy’s eyes had locked onto his own and held him like a too-tight hug. 

Bumi couldn’t curl up anymore, either. His knees were bruising his chest. 

He wished so badly to crawl into his father’s arms. 

“B-But you’re not scared of anything.”

Daddy hesitated. Bumi didn’t notice that the wind had long since died until his father’s voice became quiet. It was hardly above a whisper. 

“...I was today.”

Bumi hesitated, too. He looked at his father, who had curled over a bit more and made himself a bit smaller. Their eyes were almost on the same level. The tension in Daddy’s shoulders unwound into an almost relaxed position, and Bumi would have thought they were just sitting there and talking like they always did if not for the lack of smile on Daddy’s face. 

“You...You were?”

Bumi’s voice cracked, and the small break of his words shattered the cage holding Daddy’s eyes prisoner. They were clear grey and rippled with a thousand unspoken words.

Bumi almost cried for him.

“Yes.” His father bent down some more. The hand Bumi hadn’t realized had been wrapping behind him gently curled around his shoulders. His father kissed his hair. He held there for a few seconds while he rubbed his arm. 

Bumi unwound and leaned into the touch on instinct; his father lifted him into his lap. He was small, but Daddy was big, and Bumi grinned and hugged his father’s light-y-blue-arrowed arms as they pulled him close to his chest. Daddy curled over him like he was trying to mold himself into armor around him. 

His warm voice was soft and small, like Bumi, and rumbled like smooth stones against Bumi’s back when he spoke. “...I thought I might lose you.”

“Oh…I’m...’M sorry, Daddy...” 

Bumi dared to glance at his father. Sunshine curled across Daddy’s face in a small grin that called Bumi’s lopsided one out to greet it. His Daddy smiled wider. Grey eyes softened to a wordless ‘I love you’. He touched his brow to his and held him even tighter.

Bumi’s squirmed like he was tickled. He fiddled with one of his father’s hands like it was taking the place of his habit of twisting his shirt. Their grins fed off of each other until they were both smiling stupidly. A giggle bubbled into Bumi’s next breath and shyly bled into his words. “I guess even Daddys get scared, huh?”

“Mhm.”

Bumi sank dramatically into his father’s robes and hugged tighter the arms that were curled around him like shields. “But ya know what?” he whispered, glancing about like he was hiding behind enemy lines.

Daddy looked around just as dramatically, matching Bumi’s theatrics step-for-step like he always did. (No one else ever did, and no one else ever could.) “What?” he whispered back.

“I bet those bad guys were even scared-er.”

His father laughed, and color came back to Bumi’s world. The night felt less like a shadow and more like a blanket, especially when Daddy pulled him closer and smiled like playing with Bumi would be the only thing that would ever matter. 

“That’s because nobody messes with your dad.” He laughed evilly. “C’mere, you.”

Daddy roughed his already roughed hair, but Bumi wiggled away. They were both on their feet, and the chase was on. His father’s laughter was loud and airy like happy thunder, and Bumi’s choppy giggles raced after him like sheets of rain. 

The cold night became so bright with his Daddy’s smile and so warm with his father’s hugs that Bumi thought he might cry without breaking his warrior-vow to Uncle Sokka. 

“Gotcha!”

And even though his Daddy was bigger—much bigger—Bumi somehow managed to catch him. He rolled him over with his little arms and sat on his shoulders like a lionbear over its kill.

They laughed some more. They laughed until it hurt to breathe, and they kept laughing until it ached to move their faces into anything but a smile. 

Bumi hugged his father’s neck and smiled like accidents could never happen. He forgot why he was ever upset. There was no reason to be upset—to ever be upset.

He had his Daddy. 

Bumi was small, but his Daddy was big.

And when Daddy was with him, Bumi didn’t feel small.

He felt big.

He felt bigger than the bad guys.

And besides, he had won! He had captured the Avatar and winded an airbender! 

He couldn’t wait to tell Mama and Kya and everyone else this story.

“Hey, Daddy?”

Daddy caught his breath, and Bumi could hear his smile. “Mhm?”

Bumi plopped his head on his father’s and hugged around his chin. His beard scratched his hands in a familiar way. “We’re pals, right?”

Gentle thunder rumbled beneath him. “Right.”

“And we’ll always be together, right?”

His father hesitated again. 

Daddy pushed up on his arms, making Bumi slide down his back. A gentle hand reached around and found the scruff of his coat, and Bumi, all-to-familiar with this maneuver of theirs, climbed around his father’s torso while Daddy sat cross-legged again. He curled his arms around his neck and tried to wind his legs around him even though they were too short to reach across his chest, let alone meet up behind his back. He was too small.

But Daddy held him close and held him up, all with one arm. His free hand rubbed his back with a few swirling scratches before hugging him close.

Bumi hugged him even closer. He pressed his face into his father’s neck and smiled into the robes that smelled like home and felt safer than a steel wall. Bumi heard his heart just like he’d heard Mama’s heartbeat earlier. Daddy’s was slower and harder, though. Like Appa’s. 

“Bumi, let me tell you something that Gya—that my father once told me.” He nudged his head up. They both looked up at the sky. “Look at the stars. The bravest heroes of the past—like Mama’s mama and Uncle Zuko’s uncle—look down on us from those stars.”

“Really?” Bumi shifted his weight and held on tighter.

“Yes.” 

Bumi looked at the shiny brave people. He liked the stars before. They were pretty. 

Now he loved them. They were safe.

And they were always there. 

They would always be there.

...But they were also so far away. 

“So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those brave heroes will always be there to guide you…” Daddy held him tighter and gently rocked them. 

Bumi’s eyes drooped. Daddy’s breaths were slow and strong and lifted him against his chest like the beats of large wings.

He smiled through his yawn.

Something sad moved into where the smile in Aang’s voice should be.

He kissed his son’s hair again.

“...and so will I.”

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Hope you enjoyed!:D