“Why have you summoned me today? You know I have to go for my ‘extracurricular activities’ thanks to you,” Ward Meachum leaned against the doorframe with all the defiance any 18 year old can and will easily extrudes.
“Come now, a father doesn’t have to have a reason to want to see his son, does he?” Harold took a deep breath from his oxygen mask. “Besides, I have cancelled all your ‘extracurricular activities’ for the next 3 days.”
Ward didn’t know whether to be happy or worried so he settled for suspicious, eyeing the extra machines that were set up around his father’s hospital bed.
“What are those?” he asked just as one of Harold’s bodyguards crowded into his personal space, making him tense and shuffle forward to avoid the other man’s beefy chest from bumping into his own decidedly much more scrawny one. He was ushered all the way to his father’s bedside where the hard and uncomfortable plastic chair was slid behind him. He butt planted into it with an oomph and with absolutely no grace.
“Wait…” he paused as suspicion turned into dread as he recognized the Pons helmets. “You know that I can’t drift right? Because as I’m sure you remember and had never failed to not remind me whenever no one brought it up, you made me do it and I was out of it for 3 whole days--Damn it, Dad! You planned this!”
“You can’t blame a man for trying,” Harold sighed, his thin shoulders drooping slightly in defeat. “I don’t know how much longer I have, Ward. I need you to know everything I know.”
Ward pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew exactly what Harold was gonna say next.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
Harold nodded towards the room across the hall, a gentle smile on his face as Joy turned and waved to him from the coffee table she was sorting M&Ms with Danny.
Ward immediately sidestepped to block his view. “You leave Joy out of this,” he hissed at his father.
The smile on Harold’s face was decidedly less gentle.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
And that’s how Harold got Ward to accompany him to a pretty legitimate meeting with the Hong Kong Shatterdome.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
And that’s how Harold got Ward to accompany him to a slightly less legitimate meeting with the BuenaKai.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
And that’s how Harold got Ward to accompany him to a completely illegitimate meeting with Hannibal Chau.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
“No.” Ward pursed his lips. The plastic folder covers crinkled in his hand as he balled his fists in anger.
“No?” Harold finally looked up from where he was signing something, probably his body to the BuenaKai if the recent increase in donations and meeting with cult leaders were anything to go by. The devil probably still had his soul.
“You have to stop using Joy to make me do your bidding, Dad,” Ward threw the wrinkled stack of nondescript folders onto Harold’s desk. “You have to stop doing whatever you are doing and start taking care of yourself! I don’t care what shady business you did before. I don’t even care what you made me do for you! You have to take your medicine, you have to get checked out, you have to—you have to—“
“I TRIED!” Harold all but roared at his son. “I’ve tried everything and nothing is working.”
”...When were you planning to tell us?”
“Never, if I get my way,” Harold leaned back in his chair.
.
“Or we can get Joy to do it”
And that was how Harold got Ward to drift with him on his deathbed.
~
[“What’s happening here?” Wendell Rand burst in through the roof door and yanked the wires off of Danny’s head. Ward barely had time to turn everything off safely and started to help remove the sticky pads from Joy’s forehead.
Wendell patted Danny’s cheeks roughly and received an annoyed swat. He laid Danny back down onto the deck chair before rounding on Ward.
“You should’ve known better, Ward. Danny and Joy may not recognize the seriousness of it all but you should. Drifting is not a game!”]
.
{“It’s perfectly fine, Wendell! This is just a freak accident. I’m sure Dr Lightcap will come up with something soon and we don’t even have to use it until she’s made it safer. But we need to deliver—“
“We can’t put this out for the pilots to use yet, Harold. It’s still too dangerous. We’ll just have to wait for Caitlin. I insist.”
“Since you insist…”}
.
Rand Enterprises never did release that iteration of the Pons system and the prototype had been in cold storage until Danny came across the whole set in his father’s basement.
.
[No wonder Uncle Wendell was so angry at us when he caught us play-drifting]
{Wendell is a pussy}
[Oh my God, Dad...]
.
{“I'm retiring, Harold,” Wendell dropped in on Harold's Ranger quarters at ass o'clock in the morning. He scrubbed his tired face, grimacing at his sore hand. Heather must have quite the grip. He had just spent the previous close to 10 hours beside his screaming wife's side as she pushed out their son. “I can't be doing this any longer.”
“Does this have to do with your son? Did Heather put you up to this? Come on, Wendell. You know you can do both. I did and Ward turned out just fine!”}
Harold waved away the snort of disbelief Ward had interjected in the middle of their memory sharing.
{Wendell sighed again. “I don't want to keep worrying my family when we go out in the Jaeger. I’m going to help Caitlin in J Tech from now on.”
Harold woke up fully right then. “...How long have you been planning this, Wendell?”
“Almost 9 months now,” his now-former drift partner gave a wry smile.}
.
[Harold stumbled into the shared living quarters of Joy and him. He jumped slightly when the doors slammed shut and Harold tottered over, waving a mostly empty steel hip flask. Harold never came over so early in the morning even if he always came over so drunk. Ward quickly ushered Joy to the other side of couch, narrowly missing the hip flask Harold was brandishing as he retold his tale of bros-before-hoes betrayal yet again.]
{Aww Ward. You wound me. You really think of me like that? A drunk?}
[No. You're worse. I just didn't know it yet.]
[“Can you believe the nerve of him?! Leaving just because he's got a son now. I've got a son too!” Harold pulled Ward towards him, pressing cheek to cheek with the boy. “What do you say, son? Wanna be my drift partner?”
That was different. Normally Harold would just rant about Uncle Wendell leaving him with all those cocky hotshot baby Rangers to be some Pons developer. But today, he actually offered Ward a position by his side. Ward didn’t want him to know but he was so happy in that moment when Harold considered him for his next drift partner. The smile Harold usually reserved for Joy was finally turned onto him for once.
But alas, he should’ve known he was shit out of luck. He was not drift compatible with his father. Even worse, they couldn’t even fire up the Pons with him in the room without a low grade migraine steadily growing as he walked deeper into the room. He gritted his teeth and sat down on the modified dentist chair while the techs fussed with his headgear, determined to earn his father’s proud smile. He lasted all of one minute before the tension in his head snapped and darkness started edging into his vision so rapidly that by the third blink--
Joy was so worried. She didn’t know what’s going on, just that her brother won’t wake up no matter how much she shook his shoulder and tapped his cheek. Uncle Wendell had let her stay with them while Ward was in the Shatterdome’s medical center. Heather sat with Joy for those three days. He wondered if Joy would be better off living with the Rands.]
.
[He didn’t have to wonder for very long.
Harold retired soon after and joined Uncle Wendell in making better Pons for the Jaegers. Both of them decided to gift the Iron Fist over to Hong Kong’s Shatterdome after they retrofit it with the Pons system that Rand Enterprises had prototyped so that someone else will have use of their old Jaeger.
They were both supposed to fly over with the Jaeger but Harold convinced Uncle Wendell to bring Aunt Heather and Danny for a short getaway. It would be fun, he said.
That was the last he saw of the Rand family.]
.
{Harold had intended to leave Iron Fist to Ward but when Ward proved to have a near fatal allergic reaction to drifting, Harold decided to retire soon after as well. He joined Wendell and together they turned Wendell’s tinkering to a fledgling company but Wendell scrapped so many prototypes that their Jaeger was still gutted and sitting in their old hangar. They just needed this one system up, goddamnit.
When even Dr Lightcap had thrown in the towel, saying that this is as safe as they could make it with their current technology, they finally agreed to send their best version over with Iron Fist.
Maybe he could leave Rand Enterprises to Ward instead.}
.
[So... what? You had them killed?]
{Well…}
A series of illicit back alley meetings flooded Ward’s brain and he wasn’t sure if the sick feeling was a reaction to the drift or the knowledge of what his father did.
A series of bitter pills being swallowed and bitter medicinal kaiju bone powder packets being poured down his throat was pushed into Ward’s brain and he knew for sure his father was flooding him with what being sick really feels like.
The only common thread to all of Harold’s shady dealings was an elderly Chinese woman, bent over with a walking stick. He could feel his father underestimating her in their earliest meeting and slowly but surely realizing how badly he’d fucked up {language, Ward} .
The Madame Gao in Harold’s memories turned towards him and gave him a knowing smile.
.
Ward decided to cover up the unnerving feeling by turning it into disbelief and disapproval of Harold's actions.
[You didn’t have to do that! You didn’t have to do any of that!! I don’t want you to leave Rand Enterprises to me, Dad. It’s not yours to give!]
{But I want to, Ward.}
The rumbling thunder that accompanied his migraine ever since they started drifting was growing in intensity with each passing second. Ward watched the city lights shut off block by block slowly but surely around them while they stood on the rooftop of Rand Enterprises. Harold looked pinched.
Another five blocks--
{I still have so much to do…}
Another three blocks--
[...What are you talking about?]
Another two blocks--
{I’m running out of time, Ward...}
Another one block--
{Will you help me?}
The lights in Rand Enterprises shutting off floor by floor--
{Will you let me in, W--}
~
“--ard?! Ward! Come on, wake up. Don’t do this to me… Don’t—Not now… Not after Dad--oh god… Dad…”
“Joy…” he sighed in relief at the sight of her face.
He hates how much he sounds like him.
.
End.