Archive of Our Own

The first time he sees Raleigh Becket, he is thirteen years old.

On that day, he does not specifically choose the Beckets as his heroes. That comes later. It’s a year before they get commissioned, a year before they get a jaeger, a year before Gipsy Danger is born out of fire and steel and war. It’s a big spread on the news, the rising stars of the PPDC - a selection of newly qualified pilots that the press have chosen to do a piece on. It’s the first time Raleigh and Yancy Becket have been in the public eye. They are still young. Raleigh is eighteen, Yancy is twenty one. And whilst that is practically ancient to a thirteen year old boy, to Chuck Hansen, them and every other pilot on that report are beacons of hope. They’re all young. So much younger than his Dad and Uncle Scott. They’ve been pilots for a year now, fighting the monsters out in the sea. And whilst part of him gets afraid every time his Dad walks out into one of those things, he is mostly angry.

If there were no kaiju, then maybe his Dad wouldn’t need to abandon him in their room in the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and ask one of the J-techs from Lucky Seven’s crew to come and keep an eye on him. Chuck wouldn’t need to hiss in reply, his ever present complaints of Dad, I’m thirteen, I can take care of myself, because really, what on earth is he going to do in their room, smother himself with a pillow? If there were no kaiju, there wouldn’t need to be a Shatterdome at all, and he would not need to live in the military base that was the complex in Hong Kong, with the knowledge that in a few months time they’ll be moving to Sydney when the Shatterdome opens, and he doesn’t want to go back to Sydney. He hadn’t wanted to leave his hometown, at the time. But now? Now the thought of returning makes him even angrier. Because if there were no kaiju, he would not need to hate them for destroying his home, would not need to hate his father for failing in the one thing he was supposed to do. He wouldn’t need to hate his father for not being invincible, for not being the hero he’d always thought he was.

If there were no kaiju, his mother would still be alive.

And so he’s angry. Because whilst he never ever admits how much he hates his father walking into the sea to take on the invincible that tore his life apart, he’s mostly angry because more than anything, he wants to be out there too. The kaiju destroyed him. He wants to do the same to them.

Even if it kills him.

The first time he realises that Raleigh Becket just might be his hero, he is fifteen.

He’s already started training, joined the Jaeger Program. He doesn’t give a shit that he doesn’t have a partner, and neither does anyone else, because he’s Herc Hansen’s son, because he’s Scott Hansen’s nephew, and that’s all that matters. That gets him in the door. Past that, he wants to prove himself. He will not get through this just because he is a Hansen, and anyone in the Academy who makes any comment that is even slightly along those lines gets a fist to the face and a fast track straight to the medbay.

That usually lands him in Stacker’s office. The older man gives him a disapproving look over that stupid mahogany desk of his and then sighs, dismissing him and saying how disappointed he is. Chuck doesn’t care how many camping trips he’s been on with Stacker Pentecost, it doesn’t give him the right to be disappointed in him. He will defend his father until the day he dies, because his Dad is a jaeger pilot and he’s more than earned his place. He will defend his father, because professionally, his Dad is the best.

Ironic, really, since he throws worse shit at his Dad than is muttered behind cupped hands when Herc Hansen’s son walks into a room.

But more to the point, where Stacker goes, Mako goes, and the two of them have practically grown up together over the years. It was a little awkward at first - his Japanese wasn’t the best, and her English hadn’t been great either, but they both improved, and once they’d manufactured a model jaeger that had successfully torn apart an entire room when they were thirteen, they’d bonded quite considerably. They’re best friends. More, even.

They’re together on the 22nd of July. The day Clawhook hits San Diego.

The day Gipsy Danger blasts the kaiju away like it was nothing.

As always, they’re sitting together, messing around doing nothing at all. He spends so much time with Mako that he think he might like her (yes, like her like her, please Dad, I’m sixteen, I can handle myself, please don’t put us through the talk, neither of us will like it). Eventually they fall into that traditional play by play analysis that they do, and Chuck is half fantasising about when he’ll get his own jaeger, when it will be his turn, when he’ll get to walk out into the bay like a god descended to earth, and beat the unbeatable.

He wants it more than anything.

And more to the fact, Raleigh Becket is twenty. That’s only five years, he reminds Mako eagerly. And Raleigh Becket didn’t enlist until he was eighteen. He’s been in the Academy for a year already. If he’s as good as Raleigh Becket, he might have a jaeger soon. If he’s like him, he’ll get to be a hero too.

All he wants is to be just like the Beckets. That’s all.

Mako teases him mercilessly, and he just scrunches his nose up a little, teases her back because she prefers Shaolin Rogue, something about ‘technical ability’ being better than Gipsy and Chuck just says she doesn’t know a classic when she sees one. Gipsy could survive anything, he thinks.

If Gipsy Danger is a god, then the Beckets are archangels. Not any of that stupid wings and halo shit. Warriors. The armies of god. If Gipsy is a god, Raleigh and Yancy Becket are her angels.

Chuck wants nothing more than to be an angel too.

The first time he sees Raleigh Becket in the flesh, he is sixteen.

Raleigh won’t remember, Raleigh doesn’t even notice him, and Chuck knows it. They’re back in Hong Kong, and it’s December. Part of him wanted to vomit when the call came in, when the kaiju hit Manila, because it’s almost Christmas, and as much as he still hates his father, as much as he nurses his anger like he nurses a wound he wants to scrape open over and over again like a barely healed scab he can’t help but peel away, he doesn’t want his father to die before Christmas. He’s already alone most of the time. His Dad is always doing something with Uncle Scott. Training or working or whatever. Chuck is training too now, of course. He’s due to graduate within the next couple of months. A fully qualified Ranger. Ranger Hansen. It’s everything he ever wanted.

But he knows deep down it wouldn’t be the same if his Dad wasn’t there to see it happen. Because deep, deep down, the small crying boy inside him still wants to make his father proud.

It’s all fine, of course. Horizon Brave is damaged, but her pilots, Shen and Po, will live to see another day. Lucky Seven is also largely intact, and his father is back, so is his Uncle. There’s something wrong between them, and he knows it. He doesn’t question it though. It can wait, because there are more pressing issues to deal with. Because it was a three Jaeger drop.

Gipsy Danger is in the Shatterdome. Gipsy Danger is right there, and despite Chuck knowing he should really stay in his room, knowing that he’s really not meant to go down to the jaeger bay alone, he does it anyway because Gipsy Fucking Danger. No way in hell he’s passing that up. He has posters of that thing on his wall. He can’t resist the chance. He just can’t.

So he sneaks down into the bay and does his best at blending in. Those that know him don’t stop him, because he’s Herc Hansen’s son. Those that don’t, don’t take notice. He does his best to blend in with the tech crew, and it works. Because all of a sudden he’s right there and Gipsy is a two hundred and sixty foot tower above his head and he’s never felt so small in all his life. He’s seen jaegers before, sure, but this is Gipsy Danger. It’s not the same. Not at all.

It takes him a minute to realise exactly who else is around. There’s a group of techs nearby, by one of Gipsy’s feet, and when he glances over, he catches a glimpse of blonde hair through the moving throng of people. Eventually the crowd parts, and Chuck finally gets a good look at the man he idolises far more than he’ll ever admit.

All he can think is the posters make him look taller.

He’s about to question where the other half of the pair is when he hears a voice behind him, a question. “Aren’t you a little young to be a tech?” Chuck turns, and it takes everything he’s got not to completely fall apart, because Yancy Becket is talking to him. Part of him wonders if this means he’s busted. Part of him doesn’t care.

He’s too damn stubborn to let the fan moment show, and almost on reflex his jaw tightens and he objects, because he’s not a kid. He’s almost a pilot now and he’s as good as any of them and he won’t let anyone tell him different. But he minds his manners, and before he knows it, Yancy’s smiling at him fondly, like he’s a cute puppy with floppy ears or something, and Chuck might have complained, but Yancy says the words tour and do you want and suddenly it doesn’t matter.

If he wasn’t breaking the rules before, he is now. But Yancy doesn’t seem to mind, so Chuck doesn’t either. All he knows is somehow, Yancy sneaks him into Gipsy’s Conn-Pod, and yeah, Chuck’s seen Lucky Seven before, but it’s not the same, because this is Gipsy Danger. This is everything he wants and so much more.

Yancy is patient and decent, and offers to answer whatever questions he has, Ranger to Ranger, despite the fact he hasn’t qualified. He tells the elder Becket as much, but Yancy still calls him Ranger, still treats him like an adult. And it’s fantastic, because no one else ever does.

Yancy tells him he’ll be watching out for his assignment. Chuck smiles.

He sees Raleigh again before he has to sneak away, when Yancy rejoins his brother, dragging him out of the gaggle of techs he is still surrounded by. They act like brothers. Like best friends and so much more. Part of Chuck always wondered if that was for the cameras. But they click so well, and anyone can see it. Chuck wonders if they were like that before the drift, or if it’s because of it.

He wonders when he’ll get that for himself. Because whilst becoming a Ranger was always about the piloting for him, part of him wonders what it would be like, not to feel so alone.

The first time Raleigh Becket breaks his heart, he is sixteen.

It’s been barely two months since Manila. Two months since he finally saw his heroes, two months since everything was so perfect. He’d called Mako after meeting Yancy, practically gloated to her. He could hear the smile in her voice over the phone. She’s humouring him, and he knows it. But he doesn’t care. Because it’s Gipsy Danger, because he still has that poster on his wall, despite the fact he’s so achingly close to graduation.

In fact, he graduates in February. He’s sixteen. Youngest Ranger in history.

Precisely one week later, Knifehead hits Anchorage.

It’s late when it happens, and so he doesn’t find out until he wakes the next morning. Doesn’t know what’s happened since he fell asleep the night before. The fucking thing dodged Romeo Blue. It avoided the damn jaeger, as if it knew what would happen if it did. As if it knew that if it kept pushing in, Gipsy would be waiting. Chuck watches the footage in horror the next morning, because that bastard is smart. It dodges Romeo, but it’s more than that. He hears some of the techs muttering about it. It played dead, it used a boat as leverage, it acted like it had some sort of strategy. Until now the kaiju have been mindless brutes. Now? Now they’re all worried. Because it’s like the kaiju have learned their plays.

They don’t know his, Chuck tells himself. They can’t. And it just means that when he gets out there, he’ll need to be better than ever. Better than everyone else in the program, because that’s who he is. A jaeger pilot. It’s all he wanted to be.

The facts of the day still remain. Yancy Becket is dead. Raleigh is in hospital. He piloted Gipsy back to shore alone, and part of Chuck thinks that’s amazing, because no one pilots solo, but the rest of him wonders what it did to the youngest Becket, how long it’ll take for him to get back into the field.

The news goes quiet. It all dies down.

It’s three weeks later before he hears more. He’s training in the kwoon with some of the new recruits when he hears them talking, the gossip of the day.

Raleigh Becket is gone. He was in medbay in the Icebox, in Anchorage. Now, he is not. He is simply gone.

He’s so angry he goads his father into confirming it for him, and when the words come out of Herc Hansen’s mouth, it’s like someone ran him through with a spear. Because Raleigh Becket was his hero, his idol. Raleigh Becket was everything he wanted to be. And now he’s gone like some fucking coward. Jaeger pilots are supposed to die together. Jaeger pilots are supposed to be the strongest, the best, they’re supposed to stay and fight. It’s not as if they wouldn’t have found something for him to do. Maybe he would have gotten a new jaeger, a new co-pilot.

But it doesn’t matter. Because he’s a fucking coward and he’s gone, and that night in his room, he tears the poster off his wall. He stops short of ripping it up, instead tossing it in a drawer with the rest of his junk. He’s not upset, he tells himself. He’s not. How could he have known what those men would be? Besides, it’s better this way. Because he no longer wants to be Raleigh Becket. He’s going to be twice the man Raleigh Becket ever was, in every way possible. Because he is not a coward, and he will show everyone that ever doubted him exactly what he is worth.

His Uncle Scott is gone a few weeks later. His Dad won’t talk about why, neither will Stacker, which makes him think that it’s something bad. Lucky Seven is destroyed beyond use. Australia are building a new jaeger, though. A Mark-V. It’s his, if he wants it. That’s what Stacker says. Chuck was never going to say no.

Not even when he learns that his co-pilot will never be his best friend, his other half. Because they want him to drop with his father. Part of him wants to object, say it will never work, because he saw the Beckets and they were best friends. How are they supposed to drift when his Dad still pisses him off ninety per cent of the time?

But they are not the Beckets (and that is fantastic) and this is the only shot he’ll get.

His Dad protests more than he does. He’s too young, Stacker, this is crazy. (I’m not a kid, Dad, I’m a Ranger, just like you.) They start training together anyway. Annoyingly enough, they’re compatible.

It’s not until their first Drift that his Dad learns exactly what Knifehead did to his son. How Chuck spent that night in his room, curled up with a four month old Max, telling himself not to feel hurt because they were just people on TV to him. They agree not to talk about it. That and a lot of other things. Part of Chuck thinks he understands his father better now. Part of him doesn’t want to.

There is an unspoken agreement, though, that they will never be the Beckets. Chuck will be better than that coward Raleigh Becket without even trying, and if they go down, they’re going down together.

How it should be.

The first time he meets Raleigh Becket, he is twenty one.

It’s unexpected, which is what makes him grind to a halt as he calls Max over to him, sorting all the things they brought from the Sydney on the chopper that landed less than an hour before. It’s been less than twelve hours since Mutavore started to tear through that useless wall as if it were tissue paper, less than twelve hours since every bad word he’s ever had to say about the blessed ‘Wall of Life’ was proved true. He hasn’t even had time to change out of his drive suit, which, given a ten hour flight, was a bit of a bitch. It’s also twelve hours since he told the press that useless has beens like Raleigh Becket are the reason the PPDC lost its funding.

He still stands by that. So when he sees said useless has been, striding across the jaeger bay, he can’t help but stutter slightly, because he knows exactly why he’s here, and he doesn’t like it. Mako’s been rebuilding Gipsy Danger for over a year now. He’s known, he’s always known, talked to her on the phone about it time and time again. He’d always assumed that giving her a jaeger to play with was a way of keeping her busy, never really thought the thing would go live. When he’d found out it was Gipsy, it had hurt, sure, because he’d been half in love with that thing for so long. He’d been in that thing.

He’d never really thought about what would happen when it was finished, though. They’re going to take another run at the Breach, Chuck already knows that. But Chuck had never counted Gipsy into that equation. The fact that Pentecost has brought a coward like Becket back to run defence for them hurts, because he’s Chuck fucking Hansen, he’s dropped ten kaiju in five years, and he’s the best of the best. He doesn’t need some washed up nobody like Raleigh Becket running his wing. He doesn’t need Becket fucking it up. He doesn’t need anybody. And he hates the fact that Stacker thinks they do.

They’re in the mess hall when they finally meet, properly, not just fleeting glances across empty spaces. His Dad practically rolls out the red carpet for the asshole, and he sits there like he belongs, and it takes everything Chuck has not to jump right in the second Becket gets close. (Where were you, walking away from the PPDC like that, how could you, you were my hero and you let me down you useless piece of kaiju shit.) But he’s patient, for once. He waits, takes the time to look him over. He’s older, Chuck realises with a surprise. You see the five years on Becket like it was fifty. His face has worn, each line screaming of wear and time gone by. It’s not that the years haven’t been kind, because Raleigh Becket is still every inch the American poster boy he was when Chuck first saw him. But he’s older. He was a kid with Yancy around. Now he’s had to grow up, and grow up fast.

Not fast enough, Chuck thinks. He still ran away when things got hard, like some bratty little kid that was never meant to be worthy of this fight. Chuck had earned his place. Becket had lost his when he ran. And now he’s the prodigal son, and it burns. Because everyone is so fucking delighted that Raleigh Becket is back in a Shatterdome, and Chuck doesn’t get why.

His words have spite, even from the start. He’s pissed at his Dad for demanding the has been sits with them, and he’s pissed at Becket for even existing. And it shows. He doesn’t even think as the words come out. He calls Gipsy a rust bucket (which, in all fairness, she was when they finally hauled her out of Oblivion Bay), and when he finally asks what the hell Becket was doing for the last five years, he can’t stop his comments because construction? He hates that. And most of all, he hates the fact that he ever thought anything of the man in front of him.

He says as much to Becket. Because he is dead weight. He is a fallen star, an old rusted idol that doesn’t quite work anymore. He is better than Raleigh Becket ever was, even when he was the poster boy of the world. He is a better pilot, and that’s just a fact. And yet Becket is still everyone’s hero.

But that’s fine, Chuck thinks. He doesn’t need people to like him. He needs them to get out of his way and believe in his ability to smash the kaiju back into the hellhole they came from.

And he doesn’t even have that anymore.

The first time he punches Raleigh Becket in the face, he is twenty one.

They threw Becket back into Gipsy like it was nothing, like of course it would be fine, and more to the point, they put Mako in there with him. It’s been a while since they’ve really talked. They were closer as kids, Chuck knows. But just after his assignment they’d been together and he’d kissed her, or maybe she’d kissed him, and it had been nice, but it had been weird. Because it was like kissing your sister and whilst it had felt like a good idea at the time, it wasn’t. Then she’d gotten more into J-tech and he was moving all over the place doing drops with Striker and it just… it was never meant to be.

So he’s pissed. Of course he is. Because Becket slipped up and threw them both into danger, because Mako’s just a rookie and she deserves better than Becket, because this run is going to be his crowning glory, because he is going to make sure no kid out there ever has to feel what he did when he was just ten years old, and if Becket fucks it up, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He will not have them destroying this, and he makes that crystal bloody clear. Fat lot of good it does, though. They dismiss him like he’s a kid (Dad, please, I’m twenty one, we’ve been at this for years, my opinion matters), and of course, Mako and Becket are right there. Right outside.

And he can’t stop himself. He just can’t. Because Becket is the root of every problem he’s ever had. And when he speaks, it's not just a few days worth of anger. It’s five years worth. Because he’s still a kid that lost his idol, and from the look on Mako’s face she knows that. She tells him to stop, and Chuck knows it’s because she thinks she gets it now. She’s drifted with Becket, and now she thinks she understands why he ran, and later she’ll try and explain how it was okay for him to run away, to ruin a kid’s dreams.

Chuck doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter, because no matter what anyone says, he was still a kid with a hero that let him down.

But then Becket’s in the middle, holding her back, and when he talks again, the hurt is dangerously close to showing, and all Chuck can think is don’t you dare show weakness in front of Becket. What he says is meant more for Becket than it is for Mako, and Mako will know that he’s just lashing out. But Raleigh fucking Becket thinks he knows it all.

He’s been hit twice before he manages to realise what the hell’s going on, and when he finally lands a punch back, he realises it feels good. He’s been dying to do this for years, and so when he tastes blood in his mouth and his knees hit the metal floor, there is no question of stopping, of doing what Becket asks, because whilst he’ll probably apologise to Mako later anyway (in his own way, of course) he’s not going to give Becket the satisfaction. And then when they start laying into each other again, what makes him even angrier is that Becket’s winning. His whole life, he’s been trying to be the best. He’s wanted to be Raleigh Becket, and he’s wanted to be better than Raleigh Becket. He is better than Becket, the coward, the has been that ran away when things got hard.

So why the hell does his back crack the pipes on the wall, why is the pain ringing through his head as Becket’s stupid voice makes stupid demands all over again? And he won’t give this up, because he’s not fucking going to let Becket win.

But then he’s on the ground and his nose is aching and it only stops when he hears his Dad’s voice, but it’s not his Dad. It’s Ranger Hansen and he knows he needs to get up, needs to move. But then he’s looking at Becket and he won’t let this be over because Becket can’t win. But there’s no choice, because then his Dad is yelling in his ear and Stacker is dragging Becket and Mako into his office and it’s just over. But that’s not what hurts most.

“You’re a Ranger for Christ's sake, why don’t you start acting like one?”

That’s what his Dad says to him. And Chuck just stares, because yeah, he’s a Ranger. He’s a better Ranger than Becket ever was, and yet this is his fault, his problem, and Raleigh is the saint once more. He’s a better Ranger than Becket. And yet Becket is the prodigal, the saviour, and he is just Herc Hansen’s kid.

He walks away because if he stays another second, he might end up punching his Dad as well.

The first time he thinks Raleigh Becket might not be all that bad, he is twenty one.

He should be dead.

That’s all he can think, for hours and hours as he lies there in med bay. He should be dead. And he should be. He was ready to die. When Stacker Pentecost walked out in a drive suit and told him to suit up, he knew he was going to die, because Stacker Pentecost didn’t pilot anymore. Chuck knew that, and he knew why too. If Stacker was going down, it was suicide. It was suicide even without that. And Chuck was always okay with that, because he’s a child of war and he doesn’t really think he has a place in this new world he keeps fighting for. He’s a soldier. Most of all, he doesn’t know how not to be one. Even before the kaiju, his Dad was in the Air Force. He probably would have ended up there too, if not for the kaiju. If not for everything.

But the kaiju did happen, and he’s a jaeger pilot, and he’s going to finish this because they have two jaegers left and this is their last fucking shot.

He’s earned some begrudging respect for Raleigh since their fight, because he’s not unreasonable. Becket went out there in the bay and did what he couldn’t. And Chuck knows he can’t blame himself, because it’s a bloody EMP wave that knocks them down, that’s not a lack of skill, that’s the kaiju being too goddamn smart. But Becket and Mako pull through, and really, it doesn’t matter who’s killing kaiju as long as someone is. As long as someone’s making those bastards pay for Sasha, Aleksis and the Weis. And Gipsy… watching the fight in the harbour, he’s reminded of every reason why he loved Gipsy before, and he finds a few new ones too. She’s different, with Mako in there. Chuck can see it. And he smiles, because despite being in J-tech, he knows all Mako’s ever wanted was to pilot. She deserves this. She’s good at it too.

But that fight has repercussions, and his Dad can’t hit the Breach with them and that hurts. Because they promised all those years ago, that they’d go down together or not at all. That he wouldn’t leave his co-pilot. That they wouldn’t be another Yancy and Raleigh, torn apart with nothing but a wounded soul left behind. And yet as Chuck sees his father for what he thinks is the last time, he knows that’s exactly who they’re going to be. He’s going to leave his co-pilot. And he hates it. But he has to. Because this is their shot.

He’s going to make his father proud, though. Even if it kills him. (I’m sorry I never listened, Dad, I’m sorry I was such a pain, I know you tried, I know you did everything you could, I might have whined about not being a kid, but I was always your son.)

And so he steps into Striker, and for a moment, it’s empty. He wonders if this was how Raleigh felt, after Knifehead. As if there is a void at his right hand side that will never be filled again.

Stacker steps up. They drift. The man’s like a bloody blank canvas, so of course they work well together. It’s all clinical precision and laser point focus with him, and Chuck admires that. And so they fight. But the fact is that the stronger you drift, the better you fight, and Stacker Pentecost is not his father, and their infinitesimal mental wars over actions mean that Striker’s disabled faster than he’d like, and all he can think is he never wanted it to end like this.

All he can think is that he never really said goodbye to Mako, never really apologised to Becket, never got sunburned on a beach, never skied down a mountain or spent a day, just one, blessed day, doing absolutely nothing but watching bad films with someone he liked. He never found someone he liked either. (Memories of him and Mako come back then, which makes him cringe. Stacker never knew. There is a brief moment of argument, but it is clear that it was child’s fumbling, and nothing serious, and Chuck can see that part of Stacker is glad that he was good to her, at the very least.) All those stupid books and shit go on about soulmates and love and Chuck never felt any of it. He never even had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Hell, he’s never even been laid.

None of it matters, though, because he is a soldier, and he will die for his cause. He just really wished they could know, though. Wished they’d be able to know if this was all for something. He’d been okay with closing the breach and dying in the attempt because hey, if it worked at least it would be closed. But this? This is putting it all into Becket and Mako’s hands. They could do this and it might not even work. Strangely enough, though, he’s okay with that. Because Becket might be a washed up has been, and Mako might be a rookie who deserved better, but Becket is also a great pilot and a decent guy, and Mako is a talented girl who accepts nothing less than perfection.

There is no choice though, so he accepts it. Gives his father the last comfort he can. (I listened, Dad, I always did, you were always there and I’m sorry that I couldn’t see that sooner.)

But then the water bursts in a little more and the comms short out, and it’s only then that Chuck sees option B in the other man’s mind. Thousands upon thousands of lines of code, the most sophisticated computers in the world. Even with everything failing around them, the lights burning a dim red, there is still one last thing they can try.

Even a washing machine has a delay timer these days. And Herc, they both think, will kill them if they don’t at least try and come back alive.

Set the timer. Push the button. Leave it to cook.

His pod’s systems short out on the way up. Everyone thinks he’s dead until one of the choppers spots a third escape pod, when they go and collect Mako and Becket. Stacker doesn’t make it. Chuck remembers nothing after ejecting from Striker, because the explosion spreads shockwaves far and wide, and no escape pod was designed to survive that.

So he’s lying in medbay, with cracked ribs, two broken legs, a shattered wrist, more cuts and bruises than he’s willing to count, and a very mild bout of radiation sickness. Everyone tells him it's a miracle. Chuck’s just regretting he even agreed to the stupid plan, because Stacker was his co-pilot, and they were meant to make it back together, or not at all. Co-pilots don’t abandon each other.

Stacker is dead. And thus he should be too.

His Dad spends a lot of time in the medbay, but the truth is they’ve never been good at talking, and just because he nearly died doesn’t make them miraculously better at it now. But he’s in and out a lot. He brings Max by too, which the doctors complain about to no end, but Herc’s the Marshal and Chuck feels better when he sees his dog around. So Max stays.

Besides his father and his dog, his next most frequent visitor is Raleigh Becket.

For the first three days, he leaves no comment about it, entertaining the man when he comes in, waiting until he leaves, sometimes arguing with him until it forces him to get out because hey, you can’t hit a injured guy. But on day four, when Raleigh comes by for the ninth (ninth!) time, Chuck finally glares over at him and opens his mouth.

“What are you doing here, Ray?” he asks, the irritation and pure exhaustion clear in his tone. Becket hovers by the door, looking somewhat like a puppy that just got caught peeing on the carpet. It’d be adorable if he wasn’t a twenty six year old grown man for god’s sake.

“Visiting?” he tries cautiously, and Chuck just rolls his eyes.

“No shit, Ray. But why?”

Raleigh just shrugs, at takes up his usual seat.

“Thought you could use the company.”

“You don’t owe me anything just because I nearly died,” Chuck objects. Raleigh’s expression softens slightly.

“I know that. But I got stuck in medbay once too, after my co-pilot died. And I thought you could use the company.”

His tone speaks volumes. Yancy had died. And despite Stacker had only dropped with him once, they were still co-pilots. Chuck does not want to admit they are the same (they are not the same, old washed up has been like him), but he can see the parallels.

“I should have died,” Chuck mutters, voicing the thought he’s been repeating since he woke up alive.

“I know.” That’s all Becket says. I know. No platitudes, no admonishing, no nothing. It’s why he’s never said it before. The doctors would give him psychobabble, his Dad would frown and tell him not to be stupid, and Mako would smile sadly and say that it is better that one of them lived. Becket doesn’t even try. He just accepts it.

Chuck frowns, and when he meets those endless blue eyes of Becket’s, he sees a sadness there that he’s never noticed before. And it’s only then that he realises that he has everything he wanted. He is exactly like Raleigh Becket at his age. Because when Raleigh Becket was twenty one, he lost his co-pilot. When Raleigh Becket was twenty one, he ended up in the hospital wing in Anchorage. But when Raleigh Becket was twenty one, he ran away. Not out of fear or cowardice. But because some wounds are too deep for any man to bear, let alone to inflict onto a drift partner.

Raleigh Becket is here, because he wants to make sure that Chuck does not end up exactly like Raleigh Becket at twenty one. Raleigh is here because he wants him to stay. Raleigh is here because he’s trying to remind Chuck he’s not alone, and he didn’t fail, whatever he might think.

Chuck wonders how things might have been different, if Raleigh had had someone like that five years ago.

He settles down onto the pillows, sighing.

Raleigh stays.

The first time he realises the Raleigh Becket he wanted to be like as a kid, and the Raleigh Becket that actually exists are two different people, he is twenty one.

He hasn’t forgiven the bastard (of course not, he still ran away, even if he had a decent enough reason for it) but he can at least understand a little. And more to the point, Raleigh stays for longer than he expected. He’s in medbay for 12 days, and by the time he’s released, he’s on crutches and has so much metal in his legs he keeps making crude jokes about being the real last jaeger on earth. When he gets out, he’s still restricted, because of the crutches and everyone’s fussing so much he can hardly breathe. But Raleigh sticks around. Not really to fuss, but to entertain him. They watch bad, old movies together, and Raleigh’s eyes practically pop out of their sockets when he discovers that Chuck’s never seen Star Wars (these movies are literally fifty years old Becket, why would I have seen them, I had things to do like killing kaiju, y’know). They watch them one after the other, and when Herc finally comes looking for them, they’ve fallen asleep on each other, Chuck is drooling on Raleigh’s shoulder and the other man has his head tilted so far back he could be stargazing if there was no ceiling. Chuck hisses about it and denies everything.

Secretly, he shares a smile with Becket when he leaves, heading for the comfort of his own bed.

It’s late at night and they’re watching another lame-ass movie that Chuck doesn’t even know the title of, and Raleigh’s clearly in some sort of soul searching mood.

“You thought about what you’re gonna do now?” Raleigh asks, and Chuck looks over at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh, go to bed, wait for my legs to get better?” Chuck replies. Raleigh rolls his eyes.

“After all that.”

Chuck shrugs. “Dunno. Never expected to make it this far.” Raleigh stares at him again, in that same way he stared at him when he said he’d never seen Star Wars. Chuck stares back for a moment before giving in. “What?”

“You never… not once?”

“Kinda busy killing kaiju, mate. And let’s face it, the mortality rates of jaeger pilots have been pretty high recently.” Chuck pauses. “What, you thought you were gonna make to some big sunny future when you jumped in a jaeger?”

“I guess we never really thought about it,” Raleigh replies. “Yance and I… we had nothing left to lose. And we were so young… it all felt like a game more than anything else.”

“You weren’t that young,” Chuck objects, and Raleigh looks at him funny again.

“Yeah, we were.”

“C’mon, you two were big stars, don’t tell me you didn’t love every minute of it,” Chuck cajoles, nudging Becket in the side. Raleigh laughs slightly, and Chuck thinks it might be the first time he’s seen him laugh. He’s seen the smiles for the cameras, of course, but those are different to these, the real, genuine moments. These feel different. It feels real. Chuck knows the difference. Of course he does. He’s been doing it for a long time himself.

“Yeah. But that’s why we loved it. We were never really much before we became Rangers and then… everything took off. We were idiots, though.”

“Pretty sure you had a lot of fans, Becket,” Chuck says. He would know. That poster’s still in his drawer somewhere, he was sure. Suddenly, he’s glad he’s not dead, because that means that Becket didn’t have the chance to rifle through his things and find it. Can you be totally embarrassed if you’re dead? Chuck’s glad he won’t need to find out.

“I know. But we were more rockstars than we were pilots, which is probably why…” He pauses. Chuck frowns.

“You’re a good pilot, Becket,” Chuck says, and he doesn’t get why Raleigh needs to be told that, because Chuck spent half his childhood believing it more than any other thing in the world.

“Yancy was better,” Raleigh murmurs. “Didn’t want the limelight for it but… Yancy was always better. He just let me ride the front seat.”

Chuck stares at Becket for a long moment, because somehow, that’s not what he expected. Raleigh Becket was a poster child, but he’d loved every second of it, as far as Chuck was concerned. He was all smiles and laughs and puppy ears, tripping over his own paws and being so fucking adorable everyone and their mother was drooling over him. From interviews, you would believe that Raleigh Becket was the dominant force in Gipsy, the engine of it all. That, however, is not how Raleigh talks.

For the first time, Chuck realises that there is a difference between the hero he painted in his head, and the man Raleigh Becket actually is. He wonders why it has taken so long, since he knows how the media portrays him is not who he is. Maybe he just forgot. There were, after all, bigger things to worry about than what he thought of his old heroes.

“What?” Raleigh finally asks, and Chuck shakes his head slightly.

“Nothing, Ray. Watch the film.”

“It’s Raleigh,” Becket grumbles half heartedly.

“Fine, watch the film, Raleigh,” Chuck retorts. Raleigh sighs, but there is the ghost of a smile on his face.

Chuck can’t help but smile back.

The first time he kisses Raleigh Becket, he is twenty two.

It is precisely one year after Operation Pitfall. It’s been a busy year. Chuck is back on his feet, long since recovered. Things have moved on. His Dad is still Marshall. They’re still maintaining the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and there are plans on the ground for building new jaegers. Chuck has been working with what’s left of their J-tech department, sketching out plans, bringing together the best of their old designs. There’s been commission for three jaegers. That’s it. Just in case, they say. Because no one wants another K-day, and whilst the Breach has been closed for a year, everyone’s still cautious.

Raleigh stuck around too, which surprises Chuck more than anyone. He mostly tells himself it’s for Mako. The two of them are close, and they spend a lot of time together. Chuck tells himself that he’s not jealous. (It’s a lie, but he’ll never admit it.) He knows it’s because of the drift. His Dad and him have started to patch things up a little. They don’t really have the drift anymore. So they’ve started talking every now and again. Little things. Going out for dinner together, taking Max for walks. But it’s good. It’s a start. It’s more than they’ve had in years. Chuck hasn’t forgiven him, but the hate has bled away, because it’s so damn tiring to hate someone.

The anniversary is marked in Hong Kong and in cities all across the world with parties and festivals. Heads of state have been cuddling up to the heroes of the world every day since the breach closure, but all of them take the decision not to go to the fancy bow-tie party, and they instead go to the street party in downtown Hong Kong. The atmosphere is loose and free, and people are just happy. A lot of the techs and crew from the PPDC are back in town, and it’s great, it’s fantastic because none of them really thought they’d have this day. There’s lots of alcohol, and Chuck was never really a heavy drinker to begin with.

Needless to say he’s drunk within two hours. Mako takes pity on him, and leaves him with Raleigh as a sitter, which makes him pout. Raleigh looks at him, and Chuck waves a hand loosely. “’M fine,” Chuck insists. Raleigh raises an eyebrow.

“Look pretty drunk to me, Hansen,” Raleigh replies.

“Only a little bit,” Chuck replies.

Raleigh smiles. Chuck, drunk as he is, has even less of a mental filter than he usually does.

“Y’know, I bet those guys at the senate office thingy are really pissed right now,” Chuck says.

“Yeah, but it’s better here,” Raleigh says, looking around the street from the bench they’re sitting on. The whole place is lit up with little paper lanterns and candles in glass jars line the curb, there are people in costume, with kaiju blue dust spread down their skin in swirls and rivers. Raleigh has two streaks on his cheeks, Chuck notes. He wonders how he got them. He wonders what it would be like to kiss them off.

It’s not the first time he’s had thoughts like that. Raleigh’s been around for a whole year, and whilst Chuck doesn’t forgive easily, he’s come to realise that Raleigh’s in a lot more pain that he’ll ever let on. It might be years since Yancy Becket died, but Raleigh still misses his brother. And whilst Chuck can’t undo the way he felt when Raleigh Becket ran for the hills, he’s older now. And he understands. Because he’s lost a co-pilot too. He gets it. And it’s okay.

All that is without mentioning the fact that he’s been half in love with Raleigh Becket since he was thirteen, that Raleigh Becket is still a highly attractive man, and he’s been there for Chuck for a whole year. They’re friends. Not something someone would have predicted from the days before Pitfall, but they understand each other better now. Not that they never fight, because sometimes, they do. But they’re still friends. Chuck’s wished more than once that they were more, and sometimes he thinks Raleigh wants it too, but Chuck’s too damn proud to make a move and face rejection, and Becket spends a lot of time with Mako. He isn’t going to ruin Mako’s chance at happiness. She deserves it. Of course she does. So he leaves it alone.

But he’s drunk. So the filter that would usually make him hold his tongue is completely nonexistent.

“You’re pretty.” The words are out of his mouth, and he can’t process what he’s saying. Raleigh looks at him funny.

“Uh, thanks?” he says cautiously.

“No I mean… you’re really fucking pretty, Becket,” Chuck states. Raleigh looks at him again.

“Something you need to say, Hansen?”

Chuck sighs.

“Naw. Wouldn’t want to interfere with you ‘n’ Mako,” Chuck explains, waving his hand vaguely.

“Me and Mako… what?” Raleigh asks.

“Well, you two have been spending a lot of time together…” Raleigh frowns. Then he seems to realise something.

“Chuck, are you jealous?” Even drunk, Chuck splutters slightly at that.

“What! No, no no no, why would I be jealous? What’s there to be jealous of?” Chuck protests. Raleigh looks at him funny again, and then he’s scooting closer on the bench, and their legs are touching and Chuck’s brain is just a recital of every curse word known to man.

“We’re not together,” Raleigh says, low under his breath and wow that’s really hot.

“Oh,” is the only sound Chuck manages, his eyes fixed on Raleigh’s face, and Raleigh’s still looking at him funny.

“Actually there is… someone,” Raleigh admits. Chuck is mute, his eyes wide. Half of him is disappointed, but Raleigh’s still looking at him funny and his insides are twisting a lot and he’s right there and the words are literally gone, which has to be a first for him. “He’s a bit of an asshole, but he’s loyal and he’s the bravest man I know, and I’ve liked him for a while. I’ve just been waiting for him to tell me that he’s interested.”

Oh. Oh.

“And?” Chuck asks, sounding more pathetic than he’d like.

That’s when Raleigh leans in and kisses him.

It’s slow and sweet at first, and Chuck’s too stunned to do anything, plus he’s drunk, which isn’t helping matters. But eventually his brain catches up, and he yanks Raleigh closer, crushing him to his chest, his movements destroying all space between them as his lips move sloppily across Raleigh’s. If Raleigh is ice, then Chuck is fire. Chuck brings the heat, and frankly, with the way they’re kissing, you’d think Chuck was about to tear their clothes off. But Raleigh eventually pulls back, smiling softly, his forehead resting against Chuck’s.

“You’re drunk,” Raleigh states. Chuck pouts.

“I’m not that drunk,” Chuck complains. Raleigh smiles a little wider.

“You’re drunk. And I’m not taking this further until I think you’ll remember it by tomorrow.”

Chuck pouts.

“Spoilsport,” he mumbles, burying his face into the crook of Raleigh’s neck. Raleigh’s arms wrap around him, and Chuck can’t help but think that it feels like home.

Goddamn Raleigh being such a gentleman, though.

The first time he says I love you, he’s twenty four.

It’s not that they move slow, because they don’t. After admitting that yes, he’s got a massive crush on Raleigh Becket and thank god it’s mutual, it’s easy. He wakes up the morning after the street party with a pounding headache and some vague memories of the night before that might be a really good dream, but then he realises that Raleigh is asleep beside him, arms splayed out like he’s a goddamned octopus, and when Raleigh wakes up, he presses a light kiss to his lips like they’ve been dating for the last year instead of being awkward friends the whole time.

After that, he’s fairly sure he’s not dreaming.

It doesn’t take long before they descend into lots of really, really great sex, and it’s everything Chuck could have wished for and more. Not that he ever dreamed about this when he was a fifteen year old staring at pictures of Gipsy and her pilots (because wow, no) but he’ll take it either way. Because it’s not just the sex. It’s everything. It’s the way Raleigh likes to wake him up with the smell of fresh pancakes when he gets the chance. It’s the way they never sleep in separate beds after that night, the way that they nurse each other out of nightmares, Raleigh’s about Anchorage and the breach, Chuck’s about the explosion that should have killed him and robbed him of all this.

For the first time since it happened, Chuck is glad that Stacker talked him into trying to get out alive. Because if they’d just blown the damn thing like he’d wanted, he never would have had this. Never would have gotten to live. And he’s beginning to see how much of a gift that is.

They take a holiday. Travel, see everything. Chuck successfully gets his wishes. He burns on a beach in Brazil so badly that he peels for a week. He goes skiing on the French Alps, and faceplants so badly that he thinks he might have broken one of his limbs again. He’s already fulfilled the movie one, time and time again. Funny, he thinks. Raleigh started filling his wish list before he knew he had one. When he finally tells the man about it, Raleigh doesn’t even question it. Just books them a flight and they leave. Raleigh’s there. Raleigh rubs aftersun into his back, trying to cure the red burns, reminding him that he’d said this was a bad idea from the start. Chuck grumbles, but lets him continue because he needs it. Raleigh’s cutting through the snow like a pro, and his French gets them through every day they’re there, because the guy’s fluent. It’s that weekend that Raleigh finally mentions his mom, that she was French, that he spent his childhood wandering the globe with Yancy, Jazmine and his parents.

Once, he might have said he knew everything there was to know about Raleigh Becket. But he was a kid then. He’s older now. And he knows. (You were right, Dad, okay, I was young and stupid and thought I knew it all, now don’t gloat for Christ's sake.)

He’s found Raleigh. He likes Raleigh, a lot. They click like no one else. Chuck gets laid over and over again and part of him wonders if this is what the fairytales always meant, when they finish up with ‘and they all lived happily ever after’. It’s not that nothing goes wrong again. Because it does, of course it does. They’re terrible at travelling, because Raleigh hates long haul flights and Chuck gets impatient and they end up fighting and cussing at each other too easily. They fight all the time, over stupid stuff, like ‘Chuck, could you please hang your towels up’ or ‘Christ Becket, would it kill ya to leave me in bed for twenty minutes?’. Life isn’t easy, even with the kaiju gone.

But they live it together. And that’s what matters.

And so it spills out one night. Almost by accident, because Chuck Hansen is bad with words and worse with feelings, but they’re lying together watching movies, like they did at the start, and for some reason, they’ve ended up on the sappy ones, and Chuck can’t help but ask why they always need to end in I love you. Raleigh shrugs.

“Seems like the usual kinda cliché?”

“Yeah, but I mean, if you say something enough it starts to lose meaning, right?” Chuck states. Raleigh looks at him funny. Sometimes everyone forgets he’s not a dumb jock. Chuck understands. He wasn’t exactly good at showing off his brain. But he did pay attention when people taught him things, thank you very much.

“Yeah, I guess.”

There’s a pause.

“I do love you, Becket. Y’know that, right?” Raleigh just smiles

“Yeah. I know.”

“Good, because I’m never saying it again,” Chuck promises.

And it’s not out of spite, or out of emotional constipation.

It’s because if he says it more than once, it’ll mean less. And really. It means the world.

When Raleigh Becket dies, Chuck is thirty three.

It’s a freak accident, that’s what everyone tells him. They’re back in Sydney. They have a home there. Actually, they have two, one in Sydney, one in Anchorage. The Sydney Shatterdome is under construction, being reopened as a museum, and his Dad is in town. Chuck is meeting him at the Shatterdome. They’re taking a look around before it opens. Raleigh says he’ll meet them later. He’s got to look after the kids.

Kids is not something Chuck would have ever expected. None of this is what he would have expected, but his Dad asks how he is when they meet up and Chuck realises he’s happy. He’s sickeningly happy and he doesn’t even understand how or why. They have a family. They have something to be proud of. They’ve all come a long way and it’s something they should be proud of. And Chuck is proud. Because this is the life he’d never expected to have. He’d never expected to be good at civilian life. But they manage. He does alright as a Dad. Or at least he thinks he does. He’s never quite sure. And when it comes to his own Dad… well, they’re talking. And now Chuck has children of his own, he think he understands, why his father did what he did all those years ago, when Sydney was falling apart around them.

He wishes his Mum was here. He wishes she could see that they made it. After everything, they made it.

Chuck says that to his Dad one day. He just smiles, and says she knows. That she always knew. Because of course she does. How can she not?

Everything’s perfect until the hospital calls. There’s been an accident, they say. He should probably get to the hospital. At first Chuck thinks it’s the kids and he’s in an utter panic, but then the doctor says it’s Raleigh.

His panic gets worse instead of better.

It’s a car crash. The back of the car was largely intact, so Angie and Dom are fine. Chuck’s thankful for that much, and when he sees them with cuts and bruises and little else, it’s great. But he has to leave them with his Dad because he needs to see Raleigh, right now.

They let him into the ICU eventually. His heart’s stopped twice, they tell him. Raleigh has died twice. The kaiju, seven fucking drops and the apocalypse, and it’s a car accident that finally stops Raleigh Becket’s heart. But Chuck won’t let him go. Neither would the doctors, thankfully. He’s critical, but stable, they tell him.

In a mirror image of their positions twelve years ago, Chuck sits down by Raleigh’s bed, and he waits. Time passes. His Dad volunteers to take the kids home, let them sleep. Chuck stays. When the doctors try and throw him out, he throws saviour of the world around like it makes him the President, and it works, because even twelve years later, people still know, people still remember. Chuck falls asleep in the chair more than once. People have to bring him food. Raleigh’s not even conscious, they’ve got him so doped up. But he’s alive. He’s breathing.

They move him out of ICU after two days. It’s a good sign. He’s a fighter, the doctors say, and Chuck wants to yell of course he is, because he’s a jaeger pilot and my fucking hero and he always was, and my hero wouldn’t be a weak fucking coward.

Chuck takes up his seat again. Sometimes he talks to Raleigh, tells him of everything that waits for him when he wakes up, what exactly Angie and Dom are going to do to him, all the cuddles and stories that wait him, the pictures from the artistic talents of a seven and five year old which are priceless to them both. Chuck whispers how hard he’s going to kiss Raleigh when he wakes up, how he can’t leave him, because co-pilots don’t leave each other. Together or not at all, Chuck reminds him. Because maybe they never drifted together, maybe they’ve never been in a jaeger together, but they’re as good as co-pilots. More, even. And Chuck won’t live without him. He doesn’t know how.

Chuck laces his fingers with Raleigh’s, his hand squeezing Raleigh’s as he murmurs the sweet nothings once more. Eventually, he gives up.

“If you don’t wake up right now, you fucking piece of kaiju shit, I’m never letting you in our bed ever again.”

Chuck squeezes his hand.

Raleigh squeezes back.

Raleigh wakes up.