Pacific Rim AU/Jaeger Championship
Tony is seven when he Drifts for the first time.
Howard had laughed, hooking up his son to a Pon as the pilot handled his own headset, thinking nothing would happen. Tony didn’t have shocking memories, was only a child and his thoughts would most likely scatter like birds after a stone was thrown at them. In fact, Howard was using this as a test for the pilot, to see if he could form a link with a flighty, unstable, neural path.
Michael Holst was the perfect candidate for the child to cut his teeth on, a seasoned pilot and a strong hopeful to join SI’s Jaeger Arena Team. Never brought anything with him into the Drift, and would most likely help Tony link for an instant before gently dropping him out.
Two minutes later, and Tony has a sync of 102.4% with the simulator and is blankly staring into space; chasing a rabbit that isn’t his. Sitting less than three feet away, Michael Holst violently seizes and bites through his tongue while Howard shouts for an ambulance. The snap of the connection ending brings Tony back, retching, in the hospital, while the older pilot is hooked up to life support in the next bed over
The doctors say it’s because Tony was connected to the left hemisphere of the simulation Jaeger program, that Holst was overwhelmed with numbers and the aggressiveness of the technical side of the child’s brain. That it’s not Tony’s fault. That it has happened before, with the much older research engineers for the larger and thus more temperamental, Jaegers and their pilots. Usually, the intensity of one side of the brain would have been caught before being forced to Drift with another person, they sternly said to Howard.
Nevertheless, five days later Tony is transferred to a private school halfway across the country, but it takes another week for the phantom link to dissolve completely, taking away the echoes of a life he’d never lived.
Michael Holst remains in New York at Saint Vincent’s for the Permanently Damaged and Infirm, vacantly staring at the wall and smiling at the warmth of the sun’s rays.
At the age of fourteen, Tony accepts MIT’s offer to attend the following semester, more excited to get away from his parents and see the college-level Jaeger games than the actual college experience. He’s hoping to get his hands on one of the smaller models, made for speed and agility and barely topping out at 125 feet, but knows those have been faulty and are barely out of testing. He’ll most likely be killed when the pilots ‘accidentally’ step on him, Obie says jokingly to Howard.
That’s where he meets Jim Rhodes. Rhodey. Graham cracker. Snuggle bug. Better than engineering, cheap gin, and outsmarting tenured professors.
Rhodey is the co-pilot of MIT’s university-level Jaeger Cardinal Beaver (a hilarious name, but on the school has stuck to for the past twenty-years), and he is Tony’s first best friend. Rhodey doesn’t care that Tony is Howard Stark’s son, richer than God from the developments after the K-War, or that he has the social tendencies of an eight year old boy on a sugar high. Rhodey likes Tony for his atrocious table manners and his lack of sleeping habits. He enjoys when Tony goes on spiels, complaining about the Jaeger Championship hopefuls (‘Venti Cappuccino? That West Coast team that barely squeaked by in the semis? They’ll be crushed, Rhodey! Crushed!), to the new technology being used to clone ‘humanized’ Kaiju (they had named the first Kaiju clone ‘Dolly’. It had died much quicker than the original sheep.), to slurred rants about his doctorate program and how he was going to finish it in three years (‘Then we can graduate together, honey bunch!’)
Tony never realized he was missing something until he met Rhodey.
And, unlike most college friendships, they stayed friends after they graduated and parted ways. Tony to take over Stark Industries from his radiation-ridden father (too much work on older Mark-Ones; not enough protection and medication), and Rhodey to join the US Military Rangers-Flight Division (a ten year minimum stint working with blowhards and flight-capable Jaeger units that still exploded every other liftoff).
Tony is twenty-five when he Drifts for the second time and it’s like coming home. Rhodey is there, and he’s everywhere but not-everywhere at the same time, and they just fit together like the two pieces of a fifth-grader’s friendship necklace. It’s how they know to balance each other out, how to move to cover blinds spots without even thinking about it and they just do it. No asking.
They don’t have to worry about chasing rabbits because any memory worth chasing, worth getting lost in, be it good or bad, fades to the background because the person who made it worthwhile is already there in the Drift. Tony can finally understand why the pilots always waxed so poetically about finding someone who was ‘Drift Compatible”, because Rhodey is the person for him. Rhodey is his co-pilot and Tony is his.
Tony’s also bleeding out from the shrapnel in his chest, splattering his half of the cockpit when they are hit with a vigorous right hook, but that’s besides the point.
---
‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the beginning of the live-telecast series of the North American Jaeger Finals! I’m your host, Peter Parker, and I’m ready to wow you with our lineup for this year’s competition!
‘As well all know, the games are held as part of the Summer Olympic Trials, with semi-trials held throughout the four years. The top three finishers will then represent Team USA! A great opportunity for a great couple of Jaeger pilots! And here to help me with the introductions are past gold winners, for the past three Olympics, the infamous Jaeger team Mac n’ Cheese! How have things been for you two, now that you’re retired and training your own competition team?’
‘Parker, it’s good to be here. Why don’t you tell Parker it’s good to be here, Cheese?’
‘Shut up, Nick. You promised no nicknames on-air. Or do I need to bring up that time we were flooded in the Peconic Bay and you asked me to call-’
‘Now gentlemen, gentlemen! Technically since you are no longer piloting the modified Mark-Seven Good Eye, there shouldn’t be any reason for arguing! How about we bring the public up to speed on some of our players we will see competing in the next couple of months for a coveted Olympic spot?’
‘Fine, fine, I’ll take over since Phil obviously has his panties in a knot. We’ve got eight good teams coming up this year, each with a good base to work off of. One of the up-and-coming pairs is the Captain America/Red Falcon combo, piloting a newly revamped Mark-Five. They’ve had a couple stop-go moments at the start, but they really started showing their colors in the victory against Ant Man and Wasp last December. Really giving themselves a name now.’
‘Now, not to get off topic, but I hear Rogers has been having a little trouble since his last co-pilot was injured during the last semi-finals? How is Barnes doing?’
‘Bastard’s fine, lost his arm, but he’s still alive for all the good that does him. Can’t operate the neural link missing a limb, which really hurt Rogers finding another co-pilot, but he’s been on the sidelines helping out as their head mechanic. Man knows that rig inside and out. Really helped out when Wilson finally got on board.’
‘Thanks for that update, Nick-uh, er, Mr. Fury, sir. Looks like we are running out of time, we’ll have to go over more teams in future netcasts. Just a couple more questions; is there any match you want in particular to see? One that you, as trained Jaeger pilots, are really looking forward to?’
‘Should I say it, Nick?’
‘Go for it Cheese, I’m actually interested in seeing who you’re rooting for. Not Hawkeye and Widow, since we both know since we’re personally training that wreck they’re sure to win’
‘Now, now, gentlemen, do I need to remind you about the arguing on-air again?’
‘Alright Parker, since you asked so nicely. If I had to watch any of these semi-finals, any of these, I would tune in for any match involving Stark and Rhodes. Those two have really tightened up since the last Olympics, where we had to compete side-by-side for the group and singles. If it wasn’t for that judge call, and that cheapshot by Russia, Stark and Rhodes would have been on that podium along with us for that event, to give us a gold-silver win.’
‘Interesting insight, thanks Mr. Coulson. Okay, last question before we have to wrap this up; how do you think the winners will respond to the aggressive post-semi, pre-Olympic training? If I recall correctly, this involved close quarters and a lot of cross-Drifting? Do you see any teams in particular having trouble with this if-’
‘Stark and Rogers.’
‘Oh, oh! That was a quick answer Mr. Fury. Care to back it up?’
‘I’ve never seen two pilots as stubborn as those motherfuckers in my life.’
‘Ah, please keep the cursing to a minimum if possible, Mr. Fury. This is a public broadcast. Feel free to curse in the un-edited version we’ll be recording later.’
‘Fine, fine, if they both place in these rounds, and need to train with each other, they’ll be lucky if they get past the initial layer. Rhodes and Wilson would have no problem, great men, but their partners….Jesus, they’ll end up killing each other in the Drift out of spite.’
‘Ha ha ha, well, that’s an interesting insight. And with that the first netcast is completed! Make sure to tune in for next week when the simulcast will start with the first match; Danvers and Drew versus Pym and Van Dyne!’