Chapter Text
The day Valkyrie digs him out of the Alaskan shithole he would never call home she slaps a thick file into his hands and says, evenly, “The Fury needs you. Time to suit up.”
Max knows all about Furiosa. He’s read the articles, seen the interviews. It's hard not to know who she is in a world where Jaeger pilots are a dying breed, their stars falling in bursts of sudden, blazing glory before being swallowed by the sea and what lies beneath it.
Furiosa becomes a pilot at 22. Her simulator scores are off the chart, her mechanical skills close behind. Her co-pilot is her mother, Mary Jo, a perceptive, elegant woman who - from the faded photo under Max’s palm - shares her daughter’s striking green eyes. The rest of Furiosa’s family consists of five younger sisters - Angharad, Toast, Capable, Dag, Cheedo - and a stepfather, Joe.
Joe is everywhere in Furiosa’s file. There are psych evals with notes like estranged relationship with stepfather and possible past abuse. What is worse are the medical records, weekly exams from the Thunderdome’s medical staff - bruising and ligature marks on wrists, fractured tibia, vaginal tear and evidence of sexual trauma. Every week it seems like there’s a new injury. Furiosa breaks ribs, fingers and exhibits more and more signs of being sexually abused. The doctors note that, when asked if she wants to report something, Furiosa declines. Max feels the muscles in his shoulders tighten. Back in the day, those same doctors would have been required to report possible abuse but things are different now. He can read it clearly. They can’t lose a pilot so they do nothing.
Furiosa’s mother dies in a fight with a Category 3. She’s ripped forcibly from the cockpit and Furiosa loses her left arm but she kills the Kaiju and gets the Jaeger back to shore on her own. She spends three weeks in the Thunderdome’s med bay before being sent home to recover with her family.
A week later her stepfather, Joe, is dead from a bullet to the brain a day after Furiosa's sister, Angharad, is killed in a car accident. Joe is ruled a suicide.
Max reads that line again and wonders. After Joe’s death, Furiosa comes back to the Thunderdome as Valkyrie’s Imperator, her second-in-command and in charge of Jaeger restoration. She spends the next two years doggedly keeping their hulking robots in working order by the power of her blood, sweat and fury. She never sets foot in a cockpit again.
Max exhales and closes the file. In the seat next to him, Valkyrie is watching him.
“Why does she need me?”
“Because I say she does,” Valkyrie replies immediately, “and because she spent three hours solo piloting an old Jaeger when Sydney was attacked and she’ll die if she has to go out again alone.”
Max feels cold, sudden anger rising up through his chest. “You let her solo pilot?” Solo piloting was almost impossible - two pilots were needed to share the neural load of interfacing with such a large mechanical unit or a pilot could stroke, suffer brain damage. He, himself, had never solo piloted. When Jessie died he simply stopped.
Valkyrie only arches a smooth eyebrow at him. “And my other choice was to what? Let the Kaiju destroy Sydney? All the other Jaegers had been deployed elsewhere and the program has no spare pilots anymore. None that can match Furiosa, at any rate.”
He interprets what she does not say. “But you think I can.”
She nods and the corners of her mouth turn up a bit. “I think you can.”
Valkyrie takes him to Sydney and they fly over the wreckage of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That was as far as the Kaijuu got before Furiosa stopped it, it’s massive body a decaying ruin in Walsh Bay.
The Thunderdome in Sydney is very much like the one he’d been stationed at years ago in Los Angeles. It’s big, loud, and crowded - everything that sets Max’s nerves on edge and sends memories skittering across the edges of his mind. He makes it ten feet inside before he realizes it’s a terrible mistake, what the fuck is he even doing here, he’s not a pilot anymore, he can’t—
A stretcher with a med crew pass him, one of the nurses hauling a saline drip, another leaning over the rails of the stretcher as if to protect the patient from the noise of the Thunderdome. And there is noise, such noise that it rises from the mouths of every engineer, mechanic and computer tech on the floor as the stretcher wheels by, every hand half-lifted in gentle salute.
Furiosa, is the name that lifts from a thousand lips, and Max turns to catch green eyes in a pale, bruised face, one pupil blown, the white of the eye bloodshot. Blood is running from the ear on that side too but she is wheeled by him too fast for him to catch much more. He stares after her, he’s not sure how long, until Valkyrie moves into his line of sight, arms crossed loosely over her chest.
“Well?”
He shifts the duffel bag on his shoulder and looks away. “So where’s the Rig?”
From her file he knows that Furiosa’s Jaeger is the War Rig, a massive old Mark-1. Seeing it Max understands exactly what it is - a brutal, Kaijuu-killing machine. It stands in it’s own mech bay, a veritable army of techs scrambling over it, illuminated briefly in sprays of welding sparks. He thought it would be in worse shape having defeated a Kaijuu with a solo pilot only 48 hours ago but he can see that they are pushing the repairs as fast as they can.
Max’s voice is low, almost drowned out by the clatter of the mechanics. “The next attack?”
“Four days,” Valkyrie answers. When he shifts to look at her she puts a hand on her hip. “The Rig’ll be ready by then. The question is, will you be?” She taps his shoulder, a questioning look in her eyes.
He shrugs away her touch. “And what about her?” They both know he means Furiosa.
Valkyrie looks a little more grim. “She’ll have to be. These are our last days, Max. Soon we’ll be having Kaijuu attacks every seventy-two hours until they are coming every twenty-four, every six. Even before that our scientists say that we will start experiencing double events - two kaijuu coming through the Breach at a time. I only have three Jaegers left, Max, and one of those has only a single pilot. I’ll burn her out with the others until there’s nothing left if that’s what I must do to end this war.” Valkyrie’s voice is hard but she’s not tense. She’s almost...pleading with him, he realizes. “I don’t want to,” she continues, “but I will. All I ask is that you give it a shot. We’re at the end here. We fail and that’s it, game over. So ask yourself, would you rather die out there in bum-fuck-nowhere Alaska, or in a Jaeger?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. He’s standing in the Thunderdome.
Valkyrie smiles.
Max sleeps for the next nine hours, wearied by the trip from Alaska and from all the mental input he’s been subjected to since Valkyrie swooped back into his life. When he wakes he feels jittery in his skin, restless, as if something woke him. It takes him a few minutes to realize what it means, why the feeling is familiar, and then he is rolling out of his bunk in the barracks, pulling on a shirt as he stumbles into the hallway barefoot.
He grabs the arm of the first person he sees. “The med bay, where is it?”
“S-second floor, northwest corner,” the boy replies, startled. Max is already turning to leave when the boy pipes up, “Hey, you one of the candidates?”
Max pauses, looks back. Candidates. Plural. His chest tightens.
“They probably won’t let you see the Imperator, if that’s what you’re after,” the boy goes on without waiting for an answer. “I’m one of the mechanics assigned to the Rig. I know one of the nurses, could probably get you in if you like?”
Max squints. “What’s your name?”
The boy beams. “Nux.”
“Max Rockatansky,” he replies, the name sounding rough in his own mouth. The boy nods.
“I thought so. My brother worked on the Interceptor at the ‘Dome in L.A. I’ve...seen pictures.” Nux sounds regretful, uncertain if he should bring it up. Surprisingly, his words don’t initiate the flashbacks Max sometimes gets. It’s strange but his head has been quiet ever since…
Ever since you saw her.
Nux leads the way to the infirmary. It’s the early hours of the morning so thankfully the halls aren’t as busy as before. The med bay is lightly staffed as well - Max guesses the only serious patient at the moment is Furiosa - and Nux easily catches the attention of a nurse with flame-red hair.
“Capable!”
The nurse looks up from her clipboard, her sweet face lighting with a smile. “Nux! What are you doing here so early? I’ve still got—” She’s cut off by Nux giving her a quick kiss on the lips and grabbing her free hand.
“He wants to see Furiosa.” Nux imparts this information as if it’s some sort of vital secret, a fervor-like shine to his eyes. Capable’s eyebrows draw together and she turns her attention to Max, who realizes he probably looks like a complete wreck.
“It’s long past visitor hours,” she says warily, more to Nux than to Max. “She needs her rest.”
Nux shakes his head. “You don’t understand, he’s a candidate…” Capable’s eyes widen and she looks at Max more closely, trying to read his motives. Max lets himself be seen. It’s the only way. He remembers this girl’s name from Furiosa’s file.
“She’s awake,” he tells her simply. “Let me see her.”
Capable makes some sort of sound, an “oh” that catches in her throat. She’s watching him wide-eyed. “Room 4.”
He breezes past her and doesn’t even think before pushing into Room 4, the electricity along his skin telling him everything he needs to know. The room is dark, lit only by a small, cold nightlight in the corner, but he doesn’t bother stopping to flip the overheads on. He just crosses to the hospital bed, reaching over the railing as Furiosa lifts her bandaged arm and his fingers intertwine with hers easily, like keys in a lock. The charge rattling through him subsides into a warm hum, sinking into his skin, disappearing.
He exhales shakily, as if he’d just finished a sprint. He finds her eyes in the darkness.
“Hello,” he says, hoarsely.
“Hello,” she whispers. She squeezes his hand once.
There’s nothing more to say.