Archive of Our Own

War photographers have a sick sense of humor.

Chuck is ten when he winds up on the front page of some international journal, being held back by his father as he screams for a woman whose body is dust by now. He’s got tears on his cheeks and his mouth is open in a wordless scream as Herc holds him like he’s the last real thing in the world. He’s one of the first children immortalized in the war, a symbol of everything they’re losing. Of everything they’ve lost. Of innocence shattered.

If something like that bothered him, he’d be pissed off. But he’s got bigger things to worry about.

He tends to avoid the papers, he doesn’t need to read about shit he’s experienced. So he isn’t sure how he sees the picture of Mako with her torn stockings and red shoe. She’s screaming too, but there’s no-one there to hold her back. Everyone’s on the other side of the camera just watching as she clutches the red shoe and staggers over broken glass. If his photo is heartbreaking then hers is just cruel.

He expects her to be so cold when they meet.

Except she isn’t. She’s closed off but he has yet to meet someone their age who isn’t. He expects her to be a lot of things. Except she isn’t any of them. She’s closed off and angry and seems to fool pretty much everyone who sets eyes on her. He doesn’t know why it’s easy for him to see through her tricks, probably because he’s used them all himself.

Except the blue hair, that he hasn’t done.

It’s mesmerizing. He doesn’t think he’s someone to fall easily prey to beauty, or to care about that kind of stupid shit, but if he did then he thinks Mako would be the standard. She’s beautiful, but more than that she’s whip smart. She emulates a soldier on par with him, someday he thinks she’ll be a solider on par with him as well.

He doesn’t understand love, truly he doesn’t. But if he did he thinks he’d equate it with Mako. his feelings are rough, twisted things. He doesn’t want her out in the field, he wants her to be safe. He wants it more than anything else. But its only for her that he can acknowledge how twisted that is. When he becomes a pilot and she doesn’t, he’s glad because he know she’ll be safe. And he knows her respect and gratitude for Pentecost won’t let her protest.

And then Becket has to come along and do what he does best.

no, not run away, though he’s good at that too. Becket inspires. Chuck still has a faded Gipsy Danger t-shirt in his closet. He’s got them from every Jaeger but Gipsy and Lucky Seven are the most worn, they’re also the ones stuffed in the back of the closet. He’s already mentally vowed that if Becket leaves he’s going to hunt him down and drag him back.

He knows he’s in trouble when Becket actually gets Pentecost on board. Mako’s first drift is appropriately disastrous, as first drifts are supposed to be. He doesn’t run with the rest of them, he stays with Tendo and rips cables out of the wall with Raleigh’s voice screaming in his ears. He gets in a fist fight and makes a fool of himself and in the end it’s actually him that needs to be saved.

He hates being saved.

He fades in to the background as the cheers engulf Mako. It’s the strangest thing, like watching someone come to life. He knows that photo of him screaming is still the first thing people think of when they look at him, that there have been dozens of photos after it that haven’t done much to erase that first one. But the girl standing in front of the crowds now is so completely different to their eyes, she may as well be someone else.

only he notices how her fingers are in a death grip on the plating on her thighs, as if she still needs something to hold on to.

No, he isn’t the only one. Becket notices. Becket notices and he angles his body and drops his hand down. He guides her fingers from the metal and threads them through his. It feels like a Kaiju is eating him, Chuck realizes. It’s sharp pain and he wants to be sick when Mako smiles at her copilot like he’s something more than that.

Shutting down has always been their defense mechanism, he supposes its just his now.

He says goodbye to his dad, goodbye to his dog and steps inside Pentecost’s head, old man said he didn’t bring anything in to drift but that isn’t true. The love he has for Mako is it’s own possessiveness, it’s own desire to keep her safe at the cost of—well of anything. Certainly of her hopes and her dreams. He hears Raleigh’s voice telling him that and feels that moment of realization.

She isn’t theirs to keep safe.

Pentecost’s jolt of surprise is erased as their minds line up. Their are many different kinds of love in the world, but theirs reflect each other. It synchs their minds, anchors them to Striker who hums around them like she understands the mission as well. In the moments before his death, Chuck thinks some part of him knew from the first second of the drift what their real mission was going down there.

He certainly knows it as he flips the switches for manual overriding. It hurts to destroy something you love and he loves his Jaeger, purely and selflessly. And as he flips the switches something seems to shift and he realizes that the possessiveness he’s always felt is gone. In its place is just an overwhelming desire to see Mako happy. Pentecost’s mind echoes his, he wants her to be happy too.

You always pick the best man for the job.

Things start to go white hot as the warhead thrums to life, drawing the Kaiju’s curiosity and, most importantly, its attention. Out of the corner of his view screen he can see Gipsy ready the sword Mako was born to make. His free hand grips the rig as Striker’s arm maneuvers in to salute, she deserves to say goodbye too after all. The warhead hums and burns and he closes his eyes against the brightness.

At least he got to save her once.