Chapter Text
The dark figure in the blue mask alighted on the rooftop with a little more noise than was typical for them. It had been a long week at the office for Mai Ukano, and tiredness meant she landed heavily. Once again, she questioned the wisdom of having a full-time job on top of being the Blue Spirit.
She hadn’t always hated the job. If you’d asked her three years ago, she might even have said she was excited to start over in Yu Dao, especially after the way her father’s political career had ended so abruptly. At the time, a full-time job had seemed like the quickest way to adulthood and independence. Mai had managed to trade on her family’s connections – and an excellent letter of recommendation from Master Iroh of Ba Sing Se – in order to secure a job at one of the most prestigious auction houses in the Fire Nation, but after nearly three years’ work at Meiyintang Auction House’s Yu Dao offices, her responsibilities as a Junior Client Liaison mainly involved persuading pompous old windbags to part with objects of value, and occasionally involved making delicate enquiries of Master Piandao in Shu Jing and several well-placed sources in Gaoling, Omashu, and the Southern Water Tribe as to how certain priceless cultural artifacts could have ended up in the possession of the aforementioned pompous old windbags. The novelty of working forty hours a week had well and truly worn off, but vigilantism didn’t pay the bills, and the Blue Spirit couldn’t exactly claim expenses.
Her arrival had been just loud enough to get the attention of the two men standing on the rooftop. One was leaning in the doorway leading down into the building. His upper lip curled up at the sight of her, and the glowing cigarette in his mouth bobbed up and down with the movement. He pushed himself off the wall, and was standing by his partner’s side in two quick strides. Commissioner Yagami might not have an arrest warrant out for the Blue Spirit, but he didn’t trust them, and neither did many of his officers. Mai didn’t recognize this one.
The other figure was more familiar. Captain Matsuda gave her the same smile every time: wary, slightly nervous, relieved the Blue Spirit had shown up. The Yu Dao Police Department didn’t put the light up in the sky because they wanted to. If Matsuda was waiting out here for her at five minutes past midnight, Mai had no doubt it was important. Taki was fond of saying that there were only three types of people in Yu Dao: Fire Nation crooks, Earth Kingdom crooks, and Yu Dao cops on the take. Mai was inclined to agree, but Commissioner Yagami and his right-hand man seemed to genuinely want to help.
“So you're the Blue Spirit.” The new arrival looked her up and down for a moment. “I thought you'd be taller.”
It wasn’t the warmest greeting Mai had ever received from Yu Dao’s finest, but then again, it was far from the worst. She didn’t bother returning in kind, only turning back towards the more familiar one of the pair.
“Captain Matsuda,” she greeted him shortly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Blue Spirit,” Matsuda was a lot more respectful than his colleague. “Commissioner Yagami wanted me to give you these.”
Matsuda handed her an envelope, and she took it. Helpfully, it was open, and she could reach in to pull out several papers. “The Blue Shirts?”
“Yeah,” Matsuda nodded. “It’s the, uh, name of the outfit. No pun intended.”
He chuckled nervously, but trailed off as his partner gave him a scornful look. Mai didn’t respond, devoting her attention instead to the file. Whoever these Blue Shirts might be, they didn’t seem like a ragtag bunch. This was a serious criminal organization. Flicking through the papers, she could see several characters that stood out – assault, fraud, racketeering, fencing, smuggling, and robbery.
“Cops in Ba Sing Se are cleaning up the streets,” Matsuda’s charming partner spoke again. “Got the gangs running scared. They’re looking to move out, and Yu Dao’s the nicest-looking neighborhood. We’re only catching soldiers at the moment, but the same names are coming up enough that we think we know who’s in charge.”
“Have they come up against the Kohs yet?” Mai asked. The Huátíng Kohs ran the waterfronts and had the city’s illegal bookmaking scene in a chokehold. If a new gang was trying to grab a slice of the Yu Dao pie, they wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“Not yet,” Matsuda replied. “But Aizawa thinks it’s only a matter of time.”
“I didn’t say that,” his partner mutters. “I just said we gotta take them seriously. Meaning you gotta take them seriously.”
Matsuda shifted on his feet. “I do.”
Aizawa’s silence spoke volumes for his thoughts on the matter. The last thing Mai wanted was to get drawn into that conversation. It was probably time to wrap this up.
“You took a risk in giving me this information,” she told Matsuda. “Thank you.”
The captain glanced at his partner before straightening up and nodding. “Can you do anything with it?”
“I know someone who can,” Mai replied evasively.
“You mean that lady who came to see me last week?” Matsuda asked eagerly. Mai tried not to groan at the way he visibly perked up. Meiyintang had been auctioning off a collection of scrolls from the Beifong private collection last week, and it had somehow turned into a pissing contest between two rich old farts with more money and ego apiece than sense combined. Mai had arranged to drop by the police station and give Matsuda an update on a series of missing persons cases she’d been following, but the time she had gotten out of there, she hadn’t had the energy to do anything other than drag herself back home and collapse into bed. It didn’t seem like Matsuda had missed her too much in her absence, though.
“No,” she said flatly. No way was she encouraging… whatever that was. “Someone else. He’s more familiar with Ba Sing Se than she is.”
“You mean your…” Matsuda trailed off for a moment as he tried to find the right word. “Associate. With the swords.”
“Red Hood,” Mai supplied. A face flashed into her mind: a thin face with glittering eyes, all sharp angles and a rather cruel mouth. And the wheat-stalk. Always, that stupid wheat-stalk.
“Oh, wonderful,” Aizawa mumbled, almost to himself. “Psychopaths are color-coding themselves now, that's helpful.”
“He’s not a psychopath.” Mai wasn’t quite sure whether it was the truth, but that technically meant she wasn’t lying.
“That doesn’t mean he’s one of the good guys,” Aizawa pointed out. Which, okay, fair enough. “You sure you can trust him?”
“He hasn’t killed anyone in nearly two years.”
If anything, that only made Aizawa look unhappier. “That really is not your best argument.”
“Saving that one for the commissioner,” Mai retorted, before his previous comment registered with her. “And what do you mean, color-coding themselves?”
Aizawa grunted again, but he didn’t say anything else before turning on his heel and disappearing down the stairwell. Mai really hoped she wouldn’t see him again. At least when Ide showed up, he contented himself with eyeing her mistrustfully. If it were up to her, she’d pick Mogi; he tended to stay quiet and let her and Matsuda get on with exchanging information.
“Um,” Matsuda began hesitantly. “You know, back when I joined the force, we didn’t have any gangs coming here to try and take over.”
Mai was a little skeptical of the nostalgic note in his voice. “Aren’t you a little young to be talking about the good old days?”
“I’m not that young,” Matsuda grumbled, before his eyes widened. “I mean – I’m not that old, either!”
Mai couldn’t help but smirk at the look on his face as he visibly struggled for a way to justify himself. After a couple of moments, he sighed and gave up. “But I meant more, like – back then, the Blue Shirts would have been eaten alive as soon as they got here. And now they’re coming here because they think they’ve got a chance.” He shrugged slightly. “I think it shows, I dunno, that we’re making a difference. These last few years, you can really see the difference.”
Mai hadn’t thought about it like that before. Maybe Matsuda had a point. If opportunities were appearing in Yu Dao’s criminal underworld, it was because the criminals were being beaten back and the cracks were starting to show. Their iron grip on the city was being loosened, little by little.
“The city's really changing,” she said absently to herself.
Matsuda sighed heavily and shook his head. “Not fast enough.”
Mai looked out at Yu Dao, a sprawling metropolis that had been one of the first Fire Nation colonies to spring up from a backwater village in the middle of nowhere. The Second City of the Empire, they’d used to call it. Now that the Hundred Year War had ended and the Fire Nation was gradually handing over all their overseas territories back to the Earth Kingdom, they’d had to come up with a new nickname: the city that never sleeps.
“I don't know,” she said thoughtfully. “Be a shame to see all the character scrubbed away.”
The police officer looked at her strangely for a moment before grinning. It made him look surprisingly young. “You didn't grow up here, did you?”
Mai allowed herself to smile underneath the mask. For all that Captain Matsuda was very good at putting his foot in his mouth, he could be a surprisingly sharp detective when he wanted to be. “What gave it away?”
“Besides the fact you sound like one of those high-class Fire Nation aristocrats?” He didn’t give her a chance to deny it before continuing. “All the locals hate it here. We’ve been waiting on change for thirty years.”
Mai looked down at the envelope she’d been given earlier. When she’d first started working with the then-Sergeant Matsuda three years ago, most of the information they had exchanged had been about corrupt police officers. But following Commissioner Yagami’s tireless example, the Yu Dao police had shown that they were serious about winning back public trust, holding corrupt officers and officials to account as well as cleaning up the streets, and Matsuda was right when he said that you could see a difference. Little by little, Yu Dao was starting to fear a little less and hope a little more. Change wouldn’t ever come overnight, but maybe daylight was breaking through.
…
Taki didn’t even look up from her novel as Mai shoved their third-story window open and slid through into their shared apartment. That either told Mai that she had made too much noise climbing up the drainpipe (unlikely), or that Taki was far too relaxed about the possibility of a break-in.
“Mind where you step,” were Taki’s first, laconic words of greeting. “Chiran puked up earlier and I haven’t gotten round to cleaning it up.”
“Lovely,” Mai grimaced, pulling the blue mask off her head. Just as Taki had warned her, her first breath of freedom in several hours was spoiled by the unmistakable odor of crococat vomit. She glanced over at Chiran, who was stretched out on the couch next to Taki without a care in the world. “What are we going to do with you, hm?”
“He’s a menace,” Taki agreed. She sounded almost proud. “How was the meet?”
“See for yourself,” Mai replied, setting the police envelope down on the armrest next to Taki before making her way through the apartment. She made sure to keep a watchful eye out for crococat puke as she went.
She wasted no time in grabbing something from the semi-permanent pile of clothes on the chair in the corner of her room. They still had almost a month to go before it was time to celebrate the Spring Equinox, but nights in Yu Dao had been unseasonably warm for the last week. A nice warm bath sounded like the least she deserved, but if Taki couldn’t even be bothered to clean up after the crococat, the chances that she’d made the effort to get their hot water fixed were vanishingly small. Thirty seconds of frantic scrubbing with freezing water it was, then.
One highly unpleasant trip to the washroom later, Mai returned to the living room to find Taki leafing through the Yu Dao police files with an intent look on her face. There was a pot of tea and two cups on the table that hadn’t been there earlier, and Mai took the liberty of helping herself. It had occurred to her more than once that the money Taki spent on cloud tea from the Kolau Mountains could instead be spent on renting an apartment that was, you know. Not a dive.
“So, what’s the plan?” Taki asked. With typical timing, she asked the question just as Mai was about to take a sip of her tea. “Are you going to Ba Sing Se?”
Rather than speak, Mai shook her head and continued to drink her tea. If she was doomed to live in this tiny, cramped shoebox of a living space whilst Taki blew all their money on good tea, she was damn well going to enjoy that good tea.
“Meiyintang’s got a gala coming up in a few weeks’ time that I have to be around for,” she eventually explained. “I was in charge of securing one of the lots, so my boss wants me there to see it sold.”
It had taken nothing short of eighteen months of appeals, negotiations, and just the gentlest hint of political pressure from both Master Iroh of Ba Sing Se and Master Piandiao of Shu Jing, but Mai had finally convinced the Baiyu family to auction off their prized hanging scroll depicting the signing of the Treaty of Renyi by the Huangyi Emperor and Fire Lord Sheng. It was due to be the centerpiece of the night, as much for its outstanding brushstrokes and delicate calligraphy as for its subject matter: the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation coming to a harmonious accord. Considering the determined effort the two nations were now making to once again work together after a hundred years of war, Mai was in no doubt that the hanging scroll would fetch a tidy sum. For a piece that captured the mood of the present time so aptly, she was expecting at least six hundred thousand wubian.
“Shame,” Taki commented. “I wouldn’t have minded filling in for you on patrol again. That Matsuda guy’s kind of cute.”
Mai very carefully didn’t react. She didn’t understand Taki’s blatant interest in Captain Matsuda, nor did she want to. There were a whole multitude of reasons why she wasn’t going to encourage Taki in whatever weird infatuation she had with Matsuda, not least because it would make it kind of difficult for her to keep moonlighting as a vigilante if her roommate started dating a cop. The problem with saying any of that out loud was that it might make Taki think that she cared.
“He’s too old for you,” she said instead.
“No, he’s not,” Taki disagreed. “I read his file, he’s only thirty-two.”
Mai shook his head, half in mock-censure, half in amused disbelief. “Do you make a habit of doing background checks on all the men you like?”
“You mean you don’t?”
Rather than respond right away, Mai hummed noncommittally and took another mouthful of her tea. The worrying part was that she couldn’t even tell if Taki was joking or not.
“So you’re busy in Yu Dao, and you’re not going to Ba Sing Se.” Taki set her book aside as they returned to the more pressing matter at hand. “Which begs the question, who is?”
“What, you don’t fancy it?”
“Can’t,” Taki said simply. “Chiran doesn’t eat the food you put out.”
Mai scowled once again at the sleeping crococat. The stupid biscuits tasted the exact same no matter who put them in his stupid bowl.
Whatever. She had enough pride that she wasn’t going to get drawn into that argument again. “I told Matsuda that the Red Hood knows Ba Sing Se better than I do.”
“Jet?” Taki raised her eyebrows. “Alright. Definitely didn’t see that one coming, but alright.”
“Did you have someone else in mind?” Mai asked politely. She’d known Takahashi since she was eight years old, and they’d had plenty of time to get to know each other since then. Taki had been the one to introduce her to her first set of throwing knives, and the one to initiate her into the Order of the White Lotus three years ago. They’d disagreed on plenty of things over those three years, but Mai thought they were both getting better at handling those disagreements.
“Um, yeah,” Taki said bemusedly. “Master Iroh. He’s literally in the Upper Ring right now. We’d only need to send him a messenger hawk, and he could get started within the week.”
“There’s plenty of people that like Master Iroh well enough, but there’s also plenty of people that still only think of him as a retired Fire Nation general,” Mai reminded her. “He can’t do too much when so many people are still suspicious of him. Also, running that teahouse is a full-time commitment. I thought someone from the Earth Kingdom would be able to move about more freely.”
“And Jet was the only person from the Earth Kingdom you could think of? Don’t get me wrong,” Taki held her hand up to forestall Mai’s affronted protests. “I’m not going to try and talk you out of it. I’m just trying to understand the reasoning.”
“Suki is busy, Fung is still recovering from cactus juice poisoning, and Bumi is literally a king,” Mai ticked them off on her fingers. “Jet’s the only one who can go at short notice; he’s also the only one who’s lived in Ba Sing Se before. He knows the city.”
“He’s also the only one who’s got a history of trying to kill firebenders,” Taki pointed out. Her voice was mild, but there was a hint of steel underneath it. “Are you sure he can handle the fact that he’s in the same city as a retired Fire Nation general, even if they are on the same side? You said it yourself: there’s still a lot of people who don’t trust Master Iroh.”
“He’s been training with a retired Fire Nation general for the last six months, and there haven’t been any disasters so far,” Mai pointed out. A voice that sounded a little like that Aizawa guy from earlier popped into her head to point out that this was also not her best argument. As she’d had to learn the hard way when the Blue Spirit was investigating Kankei Industries, absence of proof was not proof of absence.
“That we know of,” Taki muttered darkly, but shook her head and settled back into her seat. She made herself comfortable as she reached for her book again. “Alright, then. We’ll send a messenger hawk tomorrow and tell him there’s something to do in Ba Sing Se. I’m not sure who’ll be happier he’ll be leaving: him, or Jeong Jeong.”