Chapter Text
“Alright, welcome back to sportsMarkV. Newt Geiszler here along with partner in crime, Herm– what? Hermann, we have to introduce ourselves. what? Yeah of course we do this every day but that’s just – what if there’s a casual baseball fan that just turned on the tv and wondered: well who’s that guy with the awful haircut— ow, shit.”
Everyone’s huddled in the dugout to avoid the rainfall that resulted in a (hopefully) brief rain delay. They’re on the road and it looks like the Kaijus haven’t fixed up their visitors dugout since they built the damn stadium. The tarp’s been pulled over the field and everyone’s waiting on the guy who’s paid to watch the weather channel.
Mako’s pulling on her team issued windbreaker, the PPDC’s falcon spread across the back, and it feels like a defeat. They’re at the top of the 6th but they could hardly get 2 pitches in before the umpire issued the rain delay. PPDC was down by a run and if in 14 more minutes the rain doesn’t let up, that counts as a loss.
She glances over at Chuck, sitting on the end of the bench with heating packs and towels wrapped around his arm to keep it loose, sporting a permanent scowl on his face. He’s having a career season, with an incredible ERA of 2.03 and having pitched a perfect game earlier in the season. Everyone in the sports world had their eyes on him. Herc’s plopped down next to his son, still sporting his catcher’s gear - he hardly ever bothers taking it off unless he’s at bat - and offers some unwelcome comforting words. Communication between the father-son duo always seemed rough, but on the field, it was all signals and nods and when the umpire motions for that last strike out, it was like they didn’t need to talk at all.
Stacker meets with the ump and the GM of the Kaijus on deck and faces look grim (well except the opposite GM). 11 minutes and counting.
“Hey,” Raleigh sidles up beside her, an icepack around his left shoulder. “You look serious.”
Mako presses her shoulder to his injured one, “you look pathetic.”
“Robbed them of that homerun, didn’t I?” He’s smug, until he tries to lift his shoulder. “The battle scars will come tomorrow.”
They fall quiet, and Mako’s chewing on her bottom lip.
“Hey don’t worry about earlier. It’s been drizzling for the last 3 innings, it could happen to anyone.” Raleigh says. For some reason his words don’t make her feel any better, and Chuck’s determination to avoid looking at her makes her feel even worse. At the bottom of the 4th, her finger slipped on her throw to make an inning-ending double play to first and the runner on third came home. The only run of the game. She flexes her fingers, and remembers the moment where the threads of the ball didn’t feel right against her hand, but she went ahead - rushed it - didn’t need to rush it. Mako heaves a sigh.
“He’s right, the weather’s shit.” Yancy comes up on her other side, also huddled underneath his jacket. The other becket on the team, the right fielder to Raleigh’s left. “And what’s one game? We’ve still got two months left before playoffs. There’s no way we’re not gonna cut it.”
Mako watches Cheung, Hu, and Jin tossing a baseball back and forth from their respective corners of the dugout. Hu has a towel draped over his bald head to keep off the water that’s dripping through the cracks, but he can still somehow catch and toss the ball to his brothers. The three of them are an unstoppable team inside the field, with an unbeatable number of perfect around the diamond outs. She would almost feel like an imposter, as shortstop - like a hiccup in their natural breathing. But in the times where Cheung tosses the ball to her - her foot on second base - the sound of it hitting Jin’s glove at first, and the triplets come over and bud hips with her in camaraderie before hustling back into position - it feels like nothing else.
During the time she spends in her thoughts, Stacker convenes with the umpire again and then everyone’s on their feet, tugging off jackets, Sasha is grabbing her trusty bat to go back up to plate.
“All right, game time.” Raleigh grins, “Come on, Mori. It’s your second chance.”
She tosses her glove at him playfully. “Get on deck, you’re next to bat.”
“Promise you’ll bring me home?”
She grins.
"Always.”