Work Text:
“Ready Maggot?”
“Are you Lynch?”
5 minutes to neural handshake
Ronan looks over at the girl who’s going to be in his head in five minutes. Blue looks even smaller in the obsidian drivesuit than normal, which is an impressive feat, as she was tiny to begin with. She’s staring straight ahead through the glass face of the Raven Dreamer and he wonders briefly what she’s thinking. Not that he’ll have to wonder much longer. He’ll know exactly what’s she’s thinking in 3 minutes and 47 seconds time.
He remembers the first time he drifted. The first time he stood where Blue now stood in the cockpit of the great Mark-3 Jaeger, the Raven Dreamer. He remembered how his heart pounded and his blood sang. He remembered his stomach doing flips and his hair on end. He remembered feeling alive. He’d been chasing that feeling for so long, ever since his father was murdered sending Ronan’s world crashing to his feet in a million piercings shards. The racing, the booze, the drugs, they hadn’t even come close, but that first time falling into the drift, and every time since, well he wondered if that was what it felt like to be a god.
Blue is looking at him now, behind her helmet a smirk is firmly entrenched on her face. Tough attitude aside, Ronan can see how her jaw is clenched a little too tightly, eyes hard but focussed. He nods once at her and moves toward the right of the cockpit, wordlessly Blue moves to the left.
3 minutes to neural handshake
“No pep talk then Lynch?” Blue’s voice filters through the earpiece in his helmet as she’s being attached to the spinal back plate, the teasing lilt in her voice so familiar it drives an ice dagger into Ronan’s throat. For a moment it all seems wrong. This tiny girl shouldn’t be next to him, she doesn’t belong there. It should be Adam, his other half, his partner in crime, his Jaeger co-pilot. How dare she try to take his place. Where he stood so tall and brave, so calculating and clever, he was the best of them. Ronan clenches his fist, as if that simple action could prevent the wave of acid threatening to overflow
Blue looks up from fastening her gear, eyes narrowed, as if sensing the impending explosion. “Don’t flake on me now Lynch. I know you wish it was Adam here with you. Hell I never would have imagined in a million years that you and I would be drift compatible, but we are. And those people out there they need us. Their lives are depending on you and me. My mom, Matthew, Gansey they’re counting on us. Adam is counting on you. So be a big boy now Lynch and play nice with the new girl. The Kaiju will be on the city in less than an hour and I intend to make a lizard sandwich out of it.”
“I thought I was the one who was supposed to give a pep talk.” Ronan spat, swallowing the acid in his throat.
“Let’s be honest Lynch, you needed one more than me.”
2 minutes to neural handshake
Ronan exhales, she was right. For a tiny midget she sure could be annoying. But she was right. They were the last Jaeger pilots left on the East Coast and Gansey had picked up a category III Kaiju on the radar this morning heading straight towards them. It was either Ronan and Blue playing nicely, or mass death and destruction. It wasn’t too long ago that it had been Ronan and Adam, the dream team, legendary killers of Kaiju, fighting the alien plague besieging the Eastern seaboard. That was until one hellish night and one too many category III’s that left Adam confined to a hospital bed, wires and machines still required to live, the chance of ever piloting a Jaeger again a cruel joke. His co-pilot lost Ronan had been prepared to leave his Kaiju fighting days behind him as well, but Gansey had had other ideas. There was no other option, Gansey had said, Ronan was the best of the best and they needed him out there. When he was first introduced Ronan to Blue Sargent he had laughed in his best friend’s face and took another swig of the biting liquor. The very idea Ronan and the Maggot could ever be drift compatible was a fucking joke. Gansey had just given him that look and told him he and Sargent were cut from the same cloth, whatever the fuck that meant, and just give her one chance in the dojo. He’d never got the hang of saying no to Gansey, and surprisingly, or maybe not so, of course it turned out Ronan Lynch and Blue Sargent were drift compatible. Sparring in the dojo they’d just fit together, different to the way he had fit with Adam, but they didn’t crash and burn like Ronan had expected, they danced to beat of their synchronous hearts. So the Raven Dreamer had been revived by the engineers and much to his distaste Ronan was stuck with the Maggot.
1 minute to neural handshake
Neither was talking now, both focusing on the impending drift and battle. When Ronan had told Adam about the resurrection of the Raven Dreamer and Blue he’d expected more of a reaction. Instead he was given a cold shoulder and silence. In the end Adam had wished him a quiet good luck, and a squeeze of his hand. But Ronan didn’t miss the haunted look that had replaced the proud fire in his eyes. He’d left him in that bed staring longingly at the television screen showing the recent battle of the Striker Eureka and a Category II in the Sydney harbour. Ronan was a being who dealt with fire and ice; he didn’t know what to do with whispers and shadows that were left. Gansey said he still needed time to heal but he just wanted his Adam back, to argue over some trivial shit, see the pride flare over the beautiful angles of his face once more. He’d gone to see him once more this morning. Adam was asleep, or at least pretending to be, and Ronan didn’t have the courage to wake him or call his bluff. He’d only left the black origami raven on the bedside table, a promise, I love you, I’ll be back, don’t give up yet idiot.
30 seconds to neural handshake
The Jaeger is pulsing, humming, throbbing. The adrenaline spikes in his veins, anticipation on the tip of his tongue. Ronan forces all thoughts of Adam from his head embracing the silence, the focus, the zone.
One last glance at Sargent, her eyes closed, teeth clenched, he follows suit, closing his eyes, leaning his head back. He’s ready.
3...2...1...
Neural handshake initiated
The world implodes. Images flash before their eyes, snippets of sounds fly past their ears. A raven cawing. The night lights of Henrietta. The smell of gasoline. A speeding BMW. The cackles of too many women in a too small kitchen. Adam’s breath in his ear. A crowded pizza parlour. Watching Gansey’s eyes light up behind his glasses. Light hitting his face as he kneels beneath a stained glass window. Tarot cards spread out on a table. Niall Lynch standing before him, goading him to take the punch. Sitting in an empty room in the dark phone pressed to her ear, the cord wrapped around her fingers. Adam’s determined face seconds before the final Kaiju shattered his dreams.
They’re connected. Ronan can feel Blue’s joy they same way she must be able to feel his own elation. They are one. It’s completely different to how it was with Adam in his head, Adam whose mind whirred with endless possibilities, whose fierce intelligence complimented Ronan’s emotional heart. With Blue, he saw what Gansey meant when he said they were cut from the same cloth. It was like another Ronan had taken up residency in his head in the form of one Blue Sargent. Together they raised one fist, then the other, the giant arms of the Raven Dreamer echoing their movement. Their hearts beat in unison, blood and adrenaline rushing through their veins. Ronan can feel the butterflies in Blue’s stomach, the sudden anxiety, the fierce determination. The warehouse doors open displaying the open ocean before them, dark and stormy, waves crashing and churning. Adam may not be here with Ronan, but Blue is, and they have a job to do.
“Ready to kick some Kaiju butt Maggot?”
“I was born ready Lynch.”