Work Text:
"This morning, at approximately 9 am, the United States of America declared war on—"
Herc laughs low in his throat.
"About bloody time," he mutters, drinking down the coffee he’s been playing with.
Mako glares at him but he ignores the heated look, focusing instead on the newscaster who informs him that America’s declared war. China follows shortly after and Herc things the world must really be getting back to normal if countries are hating each other again. The thought alone elicits a short bark of laughter from his lips and Mako’s glare intensifies.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," he says meeting her eyes, “it’s how the world used to work."
She rolls her eyes at him as if he’s trying to explain why the sun sets or the waves roll.
"I’m not that young," she mutters.
Herc grips his pen tightly and furiously thinks that she is. She is young. Young and innocent and tiny and still the girl in the blue dress with the red shoe. She is not an incredibly attractive, brilliant, dependable woman whose only red is the faint flush of her lips and the soles of the impossibly high heels she wears on days when she needs to meet with foreign dignitaries. Choi got her those. He called them power shoes but Herc knows a pair of fuck me pumps when he sees them.
She wears them the day the Americans come to claim Gipsy.
Honestly he’s only surprised it takes them a week to come to him after declaring war. They demand Gipsy’s research and any leftovers. Herc turns them down. The Chinese follow. Hell even the Australians come and want parts of Striker. Herc turns them all down. He’s not going to watch while Jaegers become machines of war. He turns them down as Mako hovers somewhere to his left.
Her blank features contrast the rage and disgust he’s pretty shit at hiding. At first the other countries try to woo her, play her as if she’s the key to the lock he holds. When he informs the Russian Ambassador that if he tries to flirt for another second he’s going to build Cherno Alpha and shove the Jaeger up his ass, the flirting and the wooing abruptly stop. Mako doesn’t say thank you but she doesn’t need to, her relief is thanks enough.
Thankfully the Jaegers were built underneath such a time crunch that they belong to everyone.
Whatever one country can prove they own is such a minuscule fraction of what is needed that the claims are pointless. Herc still refutes them all. For once he’s got a bit of luck and the courts uphold him. Still it’s a long, drawn out process that sees too many late nights, overflowing cups of coffee and him and Mako taking shifts sleeping on the couch. He wants to promote Mako but she turns down any attempts he makes at it.
Her place is right there.
She kills him a thousand different ways every day and the most he can hope for is that she doesn’t notice. Most days he thinks the only reason the Shatterdome hasn’t mutinied and he hasn’t lost his mind is her. She’s not just a fixed point. She’s a fucking force of nature. A world onto itself. She pulls people in in a quiet, unassuming way and by the time you realize it you’d sooner hang the moon for her than walk away. He’s pretty sure most of them are in love with her.
Mentally he tells them to join the fucking club and waits for the day when she goes out with one of them. Except she never does. He tries to drop hints, saying she can take a night off if she needs it—or if she wants it. But she never takes him up on his offer. He wants to shake her half the time, but he knows that’d be pointless. Shaking her would mean he has to touch her and that would lead to all kinds of problems.
The touching is hard enough as it is and those are innocent brushes of skin. They seem to send electricity up his, which is ridiculous because he can handle being gutted and keep going. Brushing hands with a pretty girl shouldn’t make him feel like the entire world should stop and do a fucking jig or something.
Then the anniversary comes up.
He’s made a mental pact not to kill himself and not to drink himself into oblivion but fuck it’s hard. Especially when people start talking about Charles Hansen and he wants to scream at all of them that Chuck hates it when you call him that. Because that’s what Angela would call him and she’s dead and you bloody idiots shouldn’t talk about things you don’t know. Except then he remembers Chuck’s not around to hate anything ever again and it just gets hard to swallow. Probably for the best, gives him something else to focus on.
It wears on Mako as well, but the pressure seems to polish her more. She folds into herself. Her makeup becomes slightly heavier, her heels higher. She is a poised professional, but it isn’t her. It gets worse as the memorials get closer and becomes horrific as they occur. There’s interviews and memorials. Throughout it they both look ashen, because for them it’s like the wounds that are healing over have been ripped open and salt’s been stuffed in them.
So he packs them both up and takes them to Brazil.
He doesn’t plan so much as close his eyes and jam his finger on the map. All he knows is he wants somewhere in the atlantic, away from the pacific and the crazy governments and the fucking memories. He tells her to pack for hot weather and when she asks what kind of conferences they’ll be attending he tells her the kind that start at noon and involve little umbrella’s in their drinks.
It’s hot and wonderful. The ocean is bright blue and it doesn’t stink of Kaiju blue. She wears baggy clothing that covers her more than any other person on the beach. He makes it two days before he strips off his shirt and ignores the stares people give him. He’s a career solider, his body tells that story in ink and scars. People stare but he’s used to it by now.
She shows up the next day in a bathing suit and he has to swallow back his reaction lest she think he’s surprised at her scars.
The bikini is as blue as the threads in her hair and though it covers her more than what the other women wear, it still shows the lines that span her skin. Neural overload. Not bad, nothing like what he has, but they’re fresh and she toys with the towel.
"You got sunblock on those?" he asks, addressing the elephant in the room.
"Yes," she says, “do you?" she asks nodding at the fresh ones on his arm from some surgery.
"I don’t bother with that crap," he says, “I need them for conversation starters," he says and glares at two men who look at Mako the wrong way.
Mako ducks her head with a smile and Herc tries not to think about how his heart soars.
They drink things with umbrellas and walk along the beach, digging their toes into the sand and letting the waves lap at them. She tells him about how much she’s always liked the ocean and he tells her about long gone beaches in Sydney where the waves are high enough to ride. At night they eat together. Sometimes Chuck or Stacker will come up but oddly it’s not in a bad way. In a way it’s like they have their own private memorial for them, one that isn’t awful and isn’t for the world.
At night they lay on the chairs on the balcony in one of their rooms and he points out constellations as she fills in the stories that go with them.
They fall asleep next to each other.
He’s fighting a losing battle and he’s fought enough to know that. He tells himself to enjoy this because he’s going to fuck it up very soon and then he’ll just be a broken old drunk with a head full of bad memories to overwhelm the pleasant ones. That or he’ll luck into a quick death from something. So he doesn’t feel too bad when he extends their stay another week.
One night they’re walking along the beach and she’s got her sandals in her hair. The wind whips up the hem of her dress and the waves lick at her toes. She looks so unguarded, so free that he stops dead in his tracks as she laughs. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen something so fucking perfect until she turns to face him. Her bottomless eyes look at him in the starlight and before he can stop himself his fingers brush an errant piece of hair back, tucking it behind her ear.
She turns her face into his palm, letting it cup her cheek and her skin is so soft against the callouses he doesn’t think will ever fade. Her lips part as their eyes lock and he knows—he fucking knows—that she wants to kiss him. Everything in him is screaming. One part to kiss her, one part to drop his hand and run. He physically cannot move because this is Mako. Stacker’s adopted daughter, the most perfect thing he’s ever seen, his rock, his world and he is old enough to be her dad. Too old to give her what she wants.
This time when that look flickers in her eyes it stays there. Not like the night of the gala, when it vanished before he could be sure. There’s no mistake it now. His throat works but no words come out. Definitely not when she turns her face and brushes her lips against the pulse point in his wrist. She steps back before he can drop his hand and turns. He has to get his feet walking properly.
They don’t speak.
He isn’t surprised that she wants him. He’s probably sending all sorts of messed up signals to her and the thought makes him swipe his hand over his face and feel about a thousand times worse. He looks at the picture of Stacker and him as younger men and sends up a silent apology for being the worst man in the history of men. He decides it’s an infatuation and that he will do better. He’ll make damn sure she gets better than a tired, broken old solider.
Except that there’s no-one good enough.
He looks, discreetly of course. But there’s faults with every man in the shatterdome and she deserves the best. And whenever he mentions someone she steers the conversation as if her very voice is made of un-moveable Jaegers. She doesn’t glare at him precisely, just acts like he’s lost his mind. Finally he oversteps when he cajoles one of the men to ask her out and the spineless bastart admits his role in it.
She shows up at his door and she’s heartbreakingly lovely when she’s angry.
"I do not want to be asked out by the men in this shatterdome," she snaps at him.
"He’s a nice fellow," he tries and she shoots him a look of pure venom that he should not find as hot as he does, “Mako—" he begins.
"Don’t," she cuts him off but he scrubs at his face and presses onwards.
"You’re young," he says, “there’s a world out there for you."
"For you as well," she says and he sighs.
"I’m a relic," he tells her with a weak smile, “hell I belong in that museum they’re putting together more than some of those Jaeger parts do," she presses her lips together, “you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you."
"Is this about your age?" she questions, her voice low, “is that what’s stopping you?"
He swallows, his mouth dry because they don’t talk about that. Especially not about the kiss she placed on his wrist that shouldn’t stick out in his mind but, God help him, it does. He leans against the desk because he feels spineless under her sharp stare.
"I’m old enough to be your dad," he says.
"And?" she questions as if that’s not a very good reason at all.
"I’ve got a head full of ghosts," he adds and wishes to god she wasn’t moving closer.
"And?" she repeats, as if she’s waiting for a valid reason instead of the excuses he’s coming up with.
"And—" he tries but she’s close enough for the jasmine of her perfume to reach his nose and the black of her eyes to sear through him and his next excuse is a swear and an apology all rolled into one.
Because the second after that his lips are on hers.
He yanks her to him and she wraps her arms around him and it’s so twisted and wrong that it shouldn’t feel so right. She’s soft against him, too fucking soft to be in his arms but he greedily pulls her closer. She deepens the kiss, her lips parting his as her tongue delves into his mouth. A muffled sound comes from him as he threads his fingers through her hair and his hand goes lower on her waist, fingers pushing into fabric that covers softness and muscle alike.
He wants to fuck her right there on the desk like he’s dreamed about for years.
He turns her and pushes her body against the slope of mahogany. One of her hands leaves his shirt to press into the desk as she sits back on it. He moves so he’s in between her legs, their mouths still moving. He hears some papers flutter to the ground and wants to slam everything off the desk until it’s just her sitting on it and his damn paperwork is covered by the ebony silk she’s wearing.
He rips his lips away from hers and stares down at her.
She’s flushed and perfect and he decides that if he goes to hell then it will be worth it. One of her hands is bracing her against the chest and he realizes how far back she is. How easy it would be to just push her all the way back and do it right there and then. Her other hand is on the back of his scalp, fingers buried in hair that’s badly in need of a cut. It’s hot as fucking hell and she deserves a hell of a lot more.
Even if she’s foolish enough to want him.
He slides a hand under her shoulder and sits her up, not moving from his place in between her legs. There’s a stab of unsureness in her eyes and he has to bite back a smile. Instead he kisses her again, slower this time. Taking his time to explore her mouth with his. She all but melts against him, a little sound escaping her lips. He lets his linger for a moment before pulling back.
"I’m no gentlemen," he says, “but I’m not going to fuck you on the desk tonight."
"Alright," she says, “how’s tomorrow?"
He has to laugh at that. She smiles up at him and he realizes that she enjoys making him laugh. Same as he does for her. He swears again because he can’t not and wraps his arms around her, pulling her closer and savoring the feeling of her body against his properly, without all the tension and shit that’s built up between them.
She deserves a hell of a lot better than him.
So Herc does the only thing he can and resolves to be a hell of a lot better.