Chapter Text
“3 hits to one”, the cadet in the corner announces dispassionately as Nero deposits yet another potential drift partner onto the training room floor.
Nero is sweating, tired, and ready to call it quits. None of these “candidates” have come close to matching his fighting style or skill level.
Not like Vanno had, he thinks bitterly. But the shortage of pilots and the increase in Kaiju attacks is very real and not even the Marshall’s son is allowed more than a few months to mourn the untimely death of his drift partner before he’s back on the blue training mats, searching for a connection.
From the corner of the room, Grand Marshal Vincent Vanetti shakes his head in disapproval, “that will be all for the day. You are all dismissed.”
The gaggle of trainees look reasonably disappointed but file out of the room. Vincent shakes his head as he leaves. It’s back to the drawing board for him, time to riffle through an endless stream of pilot applications, in the hopes that one might match his son.
Nero sighs and starts to untie his jumpsuit, fastened at the waist for the training exercise, when a voice startles him:
“You could have been taking all of them down much faster.”
It’s the cadet who had been making the calls, monotone as always. He’s slim, dark haired with pale, almost delicate features. He clutches a clipboard to his chest, standard issue jumpsuit just a bit too bulky on his frame. Nero tries to recall a name…something like, Brunhild? Bruno?
While Nero ponders, the cadet has picked up a stave of his own, watching him with unblinking (and surprisingly gold) eyes.
He twirls his own stave, feeling something like a smile tug at his lips, “oh? Did you want to go a few rounds?”
“If you’re not too exhausted from trashing your potential drift partners,” he’s nonchalant, but before Nero can agree he has already begun shrugging off his jumpsuit, tying the sleeves at the waist as Nero had. The standard-issue T-shirt he wears underneath is also ill-fitting, but Nero wonders if it might not be the cadet’s attempt to appear weaker, less-threatening than he really is. His bare alabaster arms betray lean muscle, taught and primed to fight.
They circle one another, exchanging a few cautionary blows.
“Remember, this isn’t a fight, it’s a dialogue, blah blah blah,” Nero drops into a lower stance and lunges.
The cadet ducks his blow, barely ruffled.
“What’s your name?” Nero asks.
“Avilio Bruno.”
They cross staves for a tense second before Avilio ducks down and tries to kick out Nero’s feet.
“You’ve only been here a week or so, right?” Nero jumps out of range and delivers a quick riposte which is seamlessly blocked to his pleasant surprise.
“Yes.” His eyes narrow in concentration.
“How do you like it here? The food’s not terrible, we just got a new chef, Fango, I think,” Nero narrowly avoids a swift jab from Avilio.
“He certainly enjoys lasagna,” he says dryly.
Nero feels a grin pull at the corner of his mouth again. It still feels wrong to smile so close to Vanno’s… But he can’t help it. Something has inexplicably drawn him to this surly young cadet.
They exchange a couple more casual blows, more clacking staves together than anything before Avilio stops still, tension running in palpable lines through his body.
“Are you done playing, Vanetti? Or are you going to show me what you’re made of.”
The way this Avilio looks at him while he speaks is electrifying. Nero is either about to get his ass-kicked, or get shoved up against the nearest wall and thoroughly kissed. He is surprisingly ok with either option.
Avilio chooses the former and launches himself into a series of attacks that Nero barely can keep up with. He scores the first point, Avilio snags the next two, then Nero again. He scores a third and is about to call the match when his feet are swept out from under him, a much faster, much more calculated attack than before. He lands hard on his back on the training mats, winded, and before he can toss up a defense, Avilio is on him, one hand braced flat against his chest, the other using the stave to pin both Nero’s wrists above his head, his legs pinned between his thighs.
“Three all,” Avilio says triumphantly, breathless. His expression is open and dangerous, eyes practically glowing in the shadow of his bangs. Nero can only stare, breathing hard for a handful of reasons.
They stay suspended in this heated space, Nero unable to move and Avilio seemingly unwilling. Then, as quickly as he’d come, Avilio hops back to his feet, leaving a void around Nero in his absence. Unaffected, he replaces the sleeves on his jumpsuit and buttons the front.
Nero comes to his senses. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Avilio, picking up his clipboard, deadpans, “I have to complete a certain number of simulation hours.”
Nero shakes his head, grinning wide, “No you don’t.” He grabs Avilio’s wrists, sending the clipboard clattering to the floor, “we’ve got to tell my- the Grand Marshall.”
“Why?” Avilio raises a single eyebrow.
“You’re going to be my drift partner.”
"Absolutely not," he snaps his wrists free.
"Why not?" Nero counters
"I'm only a cadet, I don’t have the skills nor the experience to even be considered- “
"That’s not true-you don’t act like some greenhorn cadet-you move like someone who's been around Jaegers their whole life," Nero puts his arm out, pressed against the door effectively barring Avilio's exit. "My answer is still no,” he deadpans sourly.
"Listen. In a few weeks mine and-my Jaeger, the Goliath, will be repaired. I need to have a partner and we are drift compatible." he shakes his head as though incredulous, "what more do you need?”
"How are you so sure we are a good match Ranger Vanetti?" Avilio attempts to circumvent Nero who slides bodily in front of the door.
"We won't know for sure until we try. Train together, get to know one another better. Will you at least give it a chance?" Avilio's expression changes subtly-to something like... intrigue. He takes a step forward until he is fully in Nero's space.
“And... if I still have my doubts?" He looks up through half lidded, sultry eyes.
All smile tugs at Nero's mouth for the second time, "guess I have the next few weeks to change your mind,” He moves out of the way of the door and Avilio slips through, casting a single glance over his shoulder.
"I'll go talk to the marshal right away," Nero calls after him. He shrugs on his sweatshirt feeling giddy, still coming down from the high of finding a drift connection.
Vincent taps the grainy ID photo of Avilio Bruno while Nero anxiously shifts from foot to foot.
“He has only been at the Shatterdome for a week, you realize?”
“Yes but…there’s something about him…” Nero shakes his head, “I definitely feel a connection.”
“He was reluctant to be your co-pilot?” Nero nods, “do you think you should reconsid-“ Vincent breaks off, coughing roughly. He doubles over his desk, wheezing, while his hands scrabble for a tiny tin in his front pocket. Nero turns his head aside, knowing his father hates anyone to see the state he is in. Vincent composes himself quickly after the episode passes, swallows a pill, wipes away the blood dripping from his nose.
“Are…is the medicine helping?” Nero asks, feeling like a small child asking the doctors if his mother would ever recover from Kaiju poisoning.
Vincent exhales deeply and sits straighter in his chair. He is the Grand Marshal, the untouchable anchor. “It is staving off the inevitable.”
It isn’t what Nero wants to hear, but it’s about as good as he expected. After Vincent’s drift partner Testa died nearly fourteen years ago, he had run solo missions despite cautionary research warning of the debilitating neurological effects. When Nero had turned fourteen, he received clearance to become a pilot, the youngest ever. He and his father had run one mission together before the resident doctors forbade Vincent from drifting again. The neurological stress would kill him.
“Are you certain you want to go through with training with this new partner? I know I pushed you to search…but it’s still so close to Vanno…you could take more time to-“
“To what? To mourn? The kaiju aren’t stopping just because I have,” Nero says bitterly.
“We still have Volpe and Tigre, and your brother has been making great progress with Ronaldo.”
“I…don’t know…I can still be a pilot, so I should do it,” Nero runs a hand anxiously through his hair, “part of me thinks I won’t be able to clear my mind until I’m in a Jaeger again.”
Vincent nods slowly, “very well. I will have the Bruno boy transferred into the living unit across from yours. For the indeterminate future, the two of you will train together daily and otherwise have identical schedules. You’ll either bond as drift partners, or want to kill each other.” Vincent shrugs, “either way it will test your compatibility and afford plenty of opportunities to train.”
Nero salutes, “thank you, sir.”
He exits the office and traces a familiar path to his living quarters. Before dinner in the mess hall, he really ought to get cleaned up from an afternoon of sparring. He peels off his sweatshirt, then undershirt and regards his appearance. He could do to trim his beard back to his signature goatee, maybe he’ll feel up to it fairly soon. Ever present are a series of scars across his chest and back, identical to the ones his father has sported for as long as he can remember. His father’s are a testament to his willingness to participate in the first generation of solo pilots when the physical and psychological risks were not well understood. Nero’s scars are a cruel reminder of the day he slogged over a hundred miles alone in the Goliath before collapsing on the Canadian shore, mere hours after Vanno, his closest friend and drift partner, had been torn from the Jaeger. He had to undergo extensive testing to see if solo-piloting had permanently ruined his ability to safely drift. It hadn’t. The only thing that had been ruined was his oldest friendship.
Initially his search for a new partner was cursory, ordered by his father. Nero had gone through the motions feeling horrible, as if he could ever replace Vanno, as if finding a new partner could erase the hurt.
No, not all the pain. But some, maybe enough. Avilio took him by surprise, he might even feel…optimistic.
Behind him, the door creaks open, he must have forgotten to completely close it-“
“Oh,” a voice behind him stammers.
He turns to see Avilio, duffle bag slung over his shoulder, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
“The room across the hall,” Nero supplies helpfully.
He says nothing and shuffles away quickly.
A stupid grin has taken root on Nero’s face. Avilio’s calculating gaze had felt something like being a specimen under a microscope, slowly dissected surrounded by cold white fluorescence. But Nero was not lost on the way he raked his eyes over the scene in spite of Nero’s state of undress before carefully schooling his face back into a neutral expression. It’s a bit of a relief to find that the attraction, at least at a surface level, is more or less mutual.
The next few weeks fly by in a blur of routine: Nero and Avilio spend every waking moment together, training, doing cleaning duty, and eating Fango’s surprisingly good lasagna in the mess hall. They are rarely more than ten feet from one another, except when they bid goodnight and part ways to their quarters.
Avilio continues to fascinate Nero. He originally thought the young man’s taciturn nature was shyness, or possible hesitance due to suddenly being shuffled from the status of cadet to pilot-in-training, with the Marshall’s son, no less. An irrational part of Nero wondered if Avilio was one of his fans and secretly had an embarrassing fanboy crush on him, resulting in his reserved behavior.
This particular theory was dashed very early on, Avilio knew next to nothing about his piloting pedigree, and had little interest in status, for which Nero was grateful. The last thing he needed was some starry-eyed newbie looking at him like he was something special and not a reckless, stupid excuse of a pilot.
Their dynamic is unusual, with Nero having an easygoing, friendly nature that put people at ease, by contrast Avilio is an immensely private person. He is by no means ill at ease around other people, but seems to prefer to remove himself from the situation to observe from a detached vantage point – he would hopefully be a good anchor for Nero.
If he could complain, which he really couldn’t, it would only be that he wishes he could coax Avilio out of his carefully guarded shell a bit more. He barely speaks more than a few words to Nero on a given day, and Nero has some concerns that his reluctance to reach out could impact their compatibility.
The only person Avilio does seem to willingly talk to is one of the head scientists, Corteo. Nero happened to pass the laboratory while they conversed in hushed tones inside. It was then that everything makes sense, why Avilio converses regularly with the scientist, and particularly why Corteo seems to deeply dislike Nero.
He reflects at dinner while watching with strange fascination as Avilio hacked apart his lasagna, stuffing massive pieces into his mouth.
“So…you and Corteo?” Nero asks, feeling again a deep pang of disappointment.
Avilio looks up from his food as though inconvenienced, “what about it?”
“The two of you are…friends,” Nero wants the confirmation to come directly from him.
“We are…friendly. But I wouldn’t say friends,” Avilio takes another outrageous bite. For someone with as delicate features as he, the young man certainly has a crass manner to him.
“You mean you’re not..?” Nero claps his hands together.
Avilio sends him a particularly withering look.
“We were childhood friends. We haven’t spoken since then until I came to the Shatterdome, it has been 14 years. So no, we are not,” he mimics Nero’s hand gesture.
“He has a crush on you,” Nero insists.
He exhales through his nose, “yes. He does. But he knows that I have no interest in reciprocating those feelings. I don’t see how this is relevant to our ability to drift together.”
“I feel I should know at least something about your personal self, since you disclose so little,” Nero grins at him, hoping to draw out a similar reaction.
“Shared experiences are more important than knowing each other’s pasts,” he deadpans.
“But still, I’d like to know more about you,” he leans on his elbows over the table.
Avilio puts down his fork and mirrors Nero’s posture, leaning close.
“No you don’t.”
He then stabs a piece of Nero’s lasagna, stuffs it in his mouth, and bolts with his tray to the dishes drop off area.
Nero feels a little deflated by Avilio’s constant blocking of his attempts, but he’s also singing the praises internally. Avilio isn’t, and won’t be, interested in Corteo.
This, reasonably explains the salty behavior the high ranking scientist has been displaying towards Nero, knowing that he has been billeted to spend as much time with Avilio as possible.
He picks up his tray and follows in Avilio’s wake. Next time he passes Corteo in the hall, he’ll do his best not to rub it in.
It would have brought Vincent Vanetti nothing but pride had his two sons been drift partners. Nero knows this. But to his dismay, by the time Frate had been old enough to pilot, he and Nero had grown far enough apart to render their fraternal bond useless in the drift. Perhaps he would have spent more time trying to salvage the relationship with his younger brother had Nero anticipated this result. Between their mother's death at a young age for Frate and his father’s perceived favoritism towards Nero... the rift ought to have been predicted. ... But it still hurts like a goddamn bitch that the person Fate can drift with is a Gallassias.
The Galassias family has their hands in almost every pocket pertaining to the Jaeger business. War profiteering, is all they are really doing. It is well known that the Galassias also run the illicit trade of Kaiju parts. Their monopoly across the board has threatened the Jaeger program's existence. Ronaldo Galassias has only been allowed into the Shatterdome un-punched by Nero because the cousin of the head of the family is a peace offering, in the hopes Marshal Vanetti and the Galassias can find a way to cooperate for mutual benefit.
Ronaldo could have been a saint and Nero would have still wanted to beat him repeatedly into the training room mats. As it stands, he is an arrogant prick and Nero hates that he has to be compatible with his little brother. He finds himself in the mess hall again, across from the two of them. Avilio is mushed beside him, packed on the table with too many other people (not that he is ever opposed to being close to Avilio, even if it is a forced circ*mstance). The warmth from his thigh pressed firmly against Nero's grounds him, and the cramped space that causes him to negotiate shoulder space has prevented Nero from lunging across the tube to throttle Ronaldo, at least twice. The bags under Frate’s eyes are more pronounced than usual, but it seems reasonable as within the first few weeks of being on active duty he has been a part of two Kaiju take-downs (one by the Volpe-Tigre duo, one by Frate and Ronaldo).
Nero watches their interactions with increasing irritation. Seeing how Frate practically worships Ronaldo, and how his little brother preens under the attention given him.
"Isn't that right Frate? You got your first confirmed Kaiju kill before your big brother," Ronaldo shoots Nero a look meant to piss him off. It works. He leans forward, ready to lay in to this asshole when Avilio smoothly blocks him with his own shoulder.
"Hmm, it's not every day you see an ass pretending he's a lion…"
"What did you say to me?" Ronaldo lunges as far as he can across the table. Nero instinctively places himself between Avilio and the potential threat.
"Nothing," Avilio looks unaffected, "It’s just rare to see a sheep in a wolf’s clothing for a change.”
Ronaldo looks like he could tear Avilio limb from limb, but dually notes that his behavior is earning him an audience. Grumbling, he grabs his tray and leaves. Nero laughs and slings his arm over Avilio shoulders, sending him an appreciative look. Still tense as ever, Avilio accepts the gesture. He seems content to be nestled up against Nero. Across the table, Frate slams down his tray.
"Why are you like this? Why won’t you just let me have this?" He storms away, presumably to rejoin Ronaldo. Nero feels a pit in his stomach. A handful of engineers around them are hooting after Frates retreating form, punching his and Avilio's shoulders in a congratulatory manner.
All is well in the Shatterdome over the course of the next week, no mean achievement when Kaiju events had grown to nearly a weekly basis. Nero spends his days alongside Avilio, working in tandem. It has become so natural to seek out the other’s presence that Nero finds it somewhat jarring to be apart for long periods of time…
Even when it meant Nero repeatedly getting flung to the ground and battered during their sparring. Particularly ruthless for today, Avilio seemed to continually find new and creative ways to knock his feet out from under him and send him sprawling on the mats.
After being viciously disarmed, knocked off balance, and pinned, Nero lay winded on his back.
“Jeez Avilio, this is about developing a dialogue, not destroying me,” he laughs.
“Then maybe you should try to keep up,” he looks stonily down at Nero, grinding the end of his stave into the mats.
Nero rolls into a sitting position, hugging his knees while he regained his breath, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Avilio freezes mid-motion, “nothing.”
“C’mon, something’s gotta be bothering you…I know you’re not the friendliest person but something is definitely off.”
The other man begins rolling the stave between his palms, avoiding looking at Nero. He knows well enough now that if he doesn’t offer a valid response Nero will start asking prodding questions until he pries the answer from Avilio.
He exhales loudly and clarifies, “It’s nothing that will affect our drift compatibility.”
“So…something from that tight-locked past of yours?” Nero infers.
Avilio continues tossing the stave between his hands, agitated, “something like that.”
“Did you leave a family behind to come here? A lot of young cadets like yourself do.”
“My family is dead,” he blurts, finally stilling the nervous movement of the stave, “have been, since I was twelve.”
“Avilio I’m so sorry,” Nero reaches forward as though to comfort him but the young man steps away.
“Are we here to talk or to train?” he scowls.
Nero rolls to his feet, “right, of course.”
They circle each other for tense seconds before Avilio lunges with his stave with unnecessary aggression.
“Your whole family…when you were twelve?” Nero pries gently, absorbing Avilio’s lunge with a clean riposte.
“My father died in a freak accident,” he aims a sweeping kick at Nero’s ankles, “my mother and brother a few weeks later in a Kaiju attack.”
Dodging, Nero attempts to disarm Avilio, “in a Kaiju attack? That’s horrible.”
Avilio shakes him off and opts to take a double handed swing at Nero with his stave. The other man catches the obvious line of motion and blocks the blow. The crack of wood on wood is deafening and sends unpleasant vibrations up and down Nero’s arms.
“The Jaeger didn’t make it on time.”
Nero takes the revelation in stride though it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He disarms Avilio but by then the other man has driven him into a corner. He grasps Nero’s stave and forces the bar back horizontally, pressing him against the wall.
“It makes sense then, why you came here,” Nero says breathlessly. Avilio’s hands clench tighter against the wood, tendons straining white even against his pale skin. “You want revenge on the monsters that killed your family.”
Avilio’s eyes are narrow slits of gold when he answers,” yes”.
Nero releases the stave and places his hands on Avilio’s shoulders, squeezing gently, “Don’t worry. Soon we’ll be out there killing those bastards. Your family won’t have died in vain.”
For perhaps the second time since meeting Nero, Avilio gives him a most curious look, intrigued, but surprised, soft around the edges. He drops the stave to the ground.
“I think we’ve had enough training for today, hm?” Nero nudges Avilio with his shoulder, their bare skin sticking together from the thin sheen of perspiration, “Lets get cleaned up.”
In the locker room they shower in stalls kitty corner from one another, conspicuously spaced for decency. Nero needs to stop thinking about how Avilio is super naked only a few stalls away from him because wow does he ever need to hit the brakes on these thoughts otherwise the first time they drift might shape up to the second or third most embarrassing moment of Nero’s life.
“What went wrong with you and Frate?” Avilio asks, causing Nero to whip his head around. Usually he’s the one asking personal questions. He catches a glimpse of Avilio’s head and shoulders, just enough time to appreciate the pale clean lines of his collar bones and neck tendons poking out against the bare expanse of his alabaster skin, studded with glimmering water droplets.
“A lot of things ‘went wrong’ with us I guess,” he answers honestly, focusing his energy on rinsing his hair and not objectifying his drift partner. Frate was a sobering subject. “I never did anything to try to fix it, and now I can’t help but wonder if it’s just too little too late for us, if anything can salvage whatever semblance of brotherly bond we could have had.”
Silence from the other shower stall other than the stream of water. “I’m sorry I asked,” Avilio mumbles.
“Don’t be, it’s just…I just wish I could have a second chance with him,” Nero shuts off the water.
They dress in silence for several long, hollow minutes.
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?” Avilio murmurs, tugging his sweatshirt over his head.
Nero stares a moment, confused by the bluntness of his statement before rambling, “You’re right…I should talk to him…I should…maybe we can work things out, just a start. Will you…will you…come with me?” Nero looks plaintively at Avilio, expecting him to say no, because he seems like that sort of “tough love” kind of person but the other man hesitates a second, then nods. Nero feels something terribly pleasant squeeze in his chest. He steals glances over his shoulder as he heads to the units where Frate lives, and seeing Avilio trailing closely behind, he isn’t certain he possesses the words to express his gratitude.
The feeling fades the moment he rounds the corner to Frate’s room. The door is half-swung open, and Ronaldo is in the doorway, speaking in hushed, frantic tones.
“What’s going on, where’s Frate?” Nero demands.
“This isn’t a good time,” Ronaldo snaps.
“Not a good time? To see my own brother?” he feels his temper come to a boil.
Thankfully Avilio, collected as always, steps toe to toe with Ronaldo and orders, “move.”
Despite being half a head taller, Ronaldo moves.
Nero bolts into his brother’s room in time to hear Frate’s weak voice, “Ronaldo? What’s going on?”
Frate looks worse than before, pale and shaking with even more pronounced bags under his eyes.
“What’s happened to you?” Nero demands, tactless in the presence of white hot fear for his brother’s safety.
Face twisting in irritation, Frate ignores his brother and tries to step towards the door, but immediately he falls, landing hard. Nero is by his side in a second, noticing with a pang of terror that Frate’s eyes are rolled white, his arms jerking involuntarily.
“He’s seizing,” Ronaldo barks and pushes his way into the room.
And that’s the final straw for Nero, who has already tolerated enough of Ronaldo Galassias without retaliation. He winds back to lay into Ronaldo when Avilio’s voice cuts through to him like a bucket of icy water.
“Lay him on his back and keep him out of range of the bed and furniture,” he orders coolly. “If he looks like he might vomit turn him on his side otherwise he could suffocate.”
Nero and Ronaldo obey.
“And Nero…get a doctor.”
He blanches, “No, send Ronaldo, he’s of no help here.”
Avilio’s hand clamps onto his shoulder, “do you trust him to actually get a doctor? I can’t go because I can’t trust the two of you to not beat each other up while I’m gone.”
Nero stares up at him from where he kneels by his brother’s side and concedes. He races out the door to the nearest paging phone and declares a medical emergency.
The next half hour passes in a blur: Frate being wheeled away on a stretcher, shakily explaining to the medical staff the condition he found Frate in, waiting with and Avilio in the emergency room waiting area while Frate underwent diagnosis and treatment, finding out Ronaldo had disappeared from the Shatterdome shortly after the incursion.
All the while Avilio has been beside him, a hand on his elbow, standing close enough that their shoulders brush. He would never have kept his cool this long without his quiet reassurances.
They’ve been in the waiting room for hours and Nero’s stomach had begun to protest. Since he refused to leave until Frate was stable, Avilio brought him some supper that he could barely stomach.
The doctors finally emerge with the head scientists Corteo and Cerotto in their wake. They calmly inform Nero that his brother is stable but he will be in a clinically induced coma for the time being until they can thoroughly flush his system. The substance, Cerotto reports, is derived from effervescent Kaiju fluids and is widely believed throughout the black market to increase one’s drift compatibility.
Nero takes in the information numbly, hating himself for being so caught up in self-pity over Vanno that he hadn’t noticed his own brother’s suffering. Dazed, he takes his seat in the waiting room again until Avilio starts tapping his shoulder.
“Nero…Nero, I asked the nurses. You can’t spend the night in the medical bay,” he says gently, “you have to go back to your room.”
He groans and gets to his feet, back sore from sitting in the unforgiving waiting room chairs for the better part of the day. Avilio waits and watches patiently until Nero begins to walk towards the door to follow alongside him.
When they reach his unit Avilio pauses before walking to his own.
“If you need anything tonight, just knock, I’ll be here.”
Without thinking Nero grabs one of his hands, pressing it between his palms. He’s too emotionally drained to verbally express his gratitude, but maybe this can count as a start. Avilio surprised him today.
“You’re very sweet,” Nero says softly, “more so than you wish for others to see.”
Avilio had frozen the moment Nero took his hand and remained so, eyes wide, looking more at the floor than Nero.
He releases his hand and chuckles weakly. The young man pulls back his hand and clasps his other hand over top, backing up towards his unit as he does. Nero turns around and unlocks his door, he doesn’t need to check behind him to know Avilio is watching intently.
Nero’s least favorite alarm came in the form of someone pounding on his door at who-knows-o’clock-in-the-morning. It reminds him too much of the odd hours he and Vanno would have to wake up to fight Kaiju. Mostly of the last time. And the memories are enough to keep him unwilling to move from his cot for a solid couple minutes.
Barbero is at the door, and is relentless. Nero has nothing against him, but because the knocking is before his set alarm it’s way too fricking early to do anything.
The pounding is getting irritating so Nero drags himself out of bed, tugs on a tank top, and opens the door.
“What?” he groans when the too-bright florencence in the hallway momentarily blinds him.
“It’s a message directly from the Marshal,” Barbero says stiffly, “You and Mr. Bruno are to report to the hanger immediately for a test drift.”
“Why?” Nero has his forearm over his eyes, it’s too early, too bright, too much.
Barbero hesitates, “seeing as we are down to one pair of Jaeger pilots, and the Goliath has recently finished being repaired, I’m assuming Marshal Vanetti is hoping to move you and Mr. Bruno to active pilot duty.”
His forehead creases. It’s only been a day since Frate…there’s never time in this goddamn Shatterdome to breathe.
“Yeah, ok, whatever, I’ll wake up Avilio,” he grumbles, hoping to buy a few minutes of quiet.
“No need,” the man in question’s voice makes both of them jump. Avilio stands in the hallway, fully dressed and unruffled.
Nero sighs, “ ‘morning Avilio.”
He nods curtly, “Morning Nero, Barbero.” The latter regards him with disdain.
“Did you sleep alright, Nero?” Avilio asks, likely noting the obvious purple bags under Nero’s eyes.
“No, but it’s fine,” he rubs his eyes as Avilio brushes effortlessly past Barbero to stand toe to toe with Nero, nearly touching.
In an odd show of affection, Avilio places his hands on Nero’s shoulders, pressing his thumbs under his collarbones. “You sure you’re alright?” he murmurs. Behind him, Barbero’s face is more pinched than usual. He probably had to wake up even earlier, poor guy.
“Alright is a bit of a stretch, but I’ll manage,” Nero reassures, “Let’s go, best to not keep the Marshal waiting too long.”
They walk down the narrow corridor side by side, and occasionally the back of Avilio’s hand brushes Nero’s. It is a lovely perk. As they round a bend, Nero notices Avilio cast a slight smile back at Barbero, forced to walk a few paces behind due to the corridor’s dimensions. Nero is glad to see he’s making an effort to be friendlier.
Suiting up takes some time, with Avilio needing adjustments made to his brand new suit. He looks perfect encased in the smooth black panels of the Jaeger suit. Their weeks of training have paid off, and the Jaeger suit finally accentuates the raw, lithe power in his slim form, a weapon coiled tight and ready to strike.
Avilio is staring back at Nero, they both seem to realize simultaneously, and avert their gazes.
“You look good,” Avilio mutters.
“Hm, what was that?” Nero prods, having heard him just fine.
The withering look he receives is enough to remind him not to push his luck.
They board the elevator up to the co*ckpit of the Goliath.
Nero fidgets before blurting, “when we drift it’s going to hurt. You’ll…you’re going to see my last mission with Vanno, and feel what I felt…”
Avilio presses his gloved hand to Nero’s elbow, “It’s ok. Whatever happens I can handle it.”
He smiles gratefully and teases, “just don’t chase the rabbit, then I might get to see more of your locked-tight past.”
The younger man rolls his eyes as the door slides open.
The minutes pass with mounting anticipation as the duo is strapped in. From the command deck, Nero’s Uncle Ganzo and Barbero man the coms and initiate a neural handshake.
“Neural handshake ready to go on my mark,” Barbero intones.
“Ready to roll boys?” Ganzo roars a bit too loudly into the com.
Nero and Avilio nod, raising their right arms in tandem.
“Launching in 3…2…1-”
With a jolt, the outside world falls away, replaced by the blue haze of the drift, it’s jarring for Nero, but also a bit like coming home.
Until the memories hit.
Vaguely aware of his outside surroundings, Nero sees Avilio’s brow furrowed, jaw clenched. The wave of recollection crashes over Nero and it’s happening again: the Kaiju was dead, he and Vanno were going home, bantering with one another as they waded. The Kaiju was alive, its serpentine form shooting out of the waves like a missile, jaw unhinging to clamp onto the left side of the Jaeger. He and Vanno lurch forward, taken off guard. Nero winds up the right arm to slice the Kaiju free but the brief moment of time gained by the sneak attack is all the Kaiju needs to tear a mouthful free. And Nero hesitates. He thinks it’s just taking the arm they can live witout the arm once the Kaiju is detached he’ll have more mobility to give a clean decisive hit – but it’s not – it’s not just the arm – the helmet of the Goliath warps and peels back in strips where the Kaiju has latched on “Nero what are you waiting for-“ Vanno shouts a moment before the arm and left half of the co*ckpit are torn from the jaeger. Nero blinks and he’s gone. The co*ckpit is torn open and he’s alone, the neural load falls on him and burns him through his jaeger suit and it burns his mind because he feels everything from Vanno’s fear until the moment there’s nothing and he’ll take the fear – any thought at all – over nothing. His memory breaks up from there, shuddering images of grayed out waves where he slogged, pace by pace, until a shoreline comes into view and he can finally collapse, hours past the point of exhaustion.
The medical bay, his upper body swathed in bandages, his father standing in the corner, eyes heavy with sadness, holding a cloth discreetly to his nose, doctors swarm around Nero.
“Good news Ranger Vanetti, you can still drift.”
He catches a glimpse of his reflection. Sunken eyes, unstyled hair, uneven stubble. What’s the point he wants to scream when there’s-
From outside Barbero is shouting at them, telling Nero to stop chasing the rabbit, it’s throwing their connection out of balance blah blah blah…
Avilio is beside him now, looking dazed, and Nero remembers he’s never drifted with anyone before.
And of course for his first time he gets to drift with Nero, who despite what the charts might suggest is probably too broken to drift again-
“Nero”
He turns his head and it’s still not Vanno beside him but Avilio is calling his name, begging him to…not to let go…just to cope, hold himself together long enough to keep the connection stable. He’s been working towards this for weeks now. Avilio deserves this much.
Ganzo’s voice crackles through the intercom, “that’s better boys, just hold this and the handshake will stabilize nicely.”
Nero smiles at Avilio, who offers a vague semblance of a smile.
Things go downhill from there.
Avilio’s eyes widen suddenly and Nero feels the handshake shift wildly to Avilio’s side. He falls headfirst down the rabbit hole.
He is so very young in the first batch of memories, walking through a ruined city, clutching a single shoe to his chest. Avilio has the same haircut as he does now, but his face is rounder and soft, tears making pale rivulets through the grime on his skin. Behind him is a transporter train, derailed and destroyed.
“Mama?! Luce!?” he screams over and over again but there is only silence. Until there isn’t. A chilling shirek of a Kaiju breaks the silence. Avilio starts to cry a fresh wave of tears but sprints to the nearest alleyway, wedging himself on the filthy ground behind a dumpster. He presses his face into his knees to muffle his sobs, still clutching the shoe.
Nero waits for the Jaeger to come and rescue him.
It doesn’t come.
From that memory he’s dragged through a montage of Avilio’s life: a quiet sullen boy shuffled from foster home to foster home until he ran away and lived on the streets…another flash forward, he’s holding a letter but the scene changes before Nero can read it. The memories get clearer as they grow more recent. Avilio arguing in hushed tones with Corteo in the science bay, “what do you mean you’re here for revenge?” the scientist accuses, “What happens when you have to drift with him?”
Avilio, watching Ronaldo pass Frate a vial of effervescent fluid, “it will help our nueral connection,” Ronaldo’s voice is muffled and warped.
Avilio, looking at Vincent Vanetti with raging, unadulterated loathing.
Then at Nero, and with it comes a crash of hatred, revulsion, confusion…a mangled mess of emotions that Nero can’t begin to process before the connection is abruptly cut off.
“Sorry boys, we’re going to need to give that another try later today,” Ganzo’s voice feels like it’s coming through a heavy cotton wall.
“Copy that,” Nero hears himself say. He hasn’t been able to tear his eyes away from Avilio.
He looks like he might be physically ill, sagging against the tethers of his Jaeger suit. He looks at Nero, eyes dull gold, brimming with distress.
They are untethered from the jaeger, suits removed, and the whole time Avilio stares at the ground. He knows Nero knows. And it takes all of Nero’s paper thin composure to wait until they begin heading back to their units before confronting him. Nero motions for Ganzo to follow him out.
The moment they’re alone Nero grabs Avilio and slams him into the nearest wall, gripping his collar.
“You knew about Frate?!” he yells.
“Yes.”
“He could have died!”
“That was the point,” Avilio deadpans, eyes cold and listless.
“You wanted him dead?!” And it clicks for Nero, “not just him…my father…and me too.”
Avilio says nothing.
“That’s why you didn’t want to drift with me – because I’d find out about your plan…” Nero shakes his head, his whole body trembles with rage, “why? What could you possibly have against us?”
Emotion finally sparks to the surface. “Fourteen years ago,” Avilio snarls, “my family was set up. The train evacuating us was targeted by the Kaiju. The Jaeger that was supposed to protect us left. We didn’t stand a chance.”
Ganzo finally catches up to them, “Nero, what is going on?”
“I hereby place Ranger Bruno under arrest,” Nero says numbly.
“What for?” Ganzo pants.
“He knew about what Ronaldo was giving Frate and did nothing. He was planning on killing my father…and me,” his voice breaks a little at the end.
Ganzo’s eyes widen, “I’ll have a holding cell prepared immediately.
He disappears down the hallway leaving Nero alone with Avilio.
The younger man makes no move to try to escape. Nero can’t tell if it’s because he’s still shaken up from the drift or because he has accepted that he won’t be able to flee the Shatterdome without being caught.
If he’s being honest with himself, Nero feels like crying. He put a whole lot of hopes onto Avilio – seeing in him a friend, someone he could share his mind and life with, someone he could rely on and trust implicitly.
Was any of it real? Nero wants to scream at him. He’d like to believe it was, that some of Avilio’s actions had been genuine (but did that make it hurt more? That he might have felt a flicker of care for Nero and still chosen to betray him?)
Nero watches Avilio’s cold, unwavering expression. He could very well have faked the whole thing.
It doesn’t take long for Ganzo to return. They hand-cuff Avilio and lead him to one of the lower cell blocks, reserved for deserters and traitors.
Avilio sits in a folding chair in the cell facing the bars. Nero mirrors him on the other side.
After long tense minutes Nero breaks down and asks, “do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“You’ve already seen everything. I don’t believe there is anything to say,” Avilio shrugs.
“Yes there is! I want to know why! I want to know if any of this meant anything to you! If I meant anything to you!” He’s on his feet now, hands curling around the bars.
He slowly rises to his feet to meet Nero at the bars, “you didn’t”. At least he has the decency to look Nero in the face as he speaks.
It’s as though he can see the carefully constructed layers fall away from Avilio, the snark, the easy comradery, the silent support, the patient determination. All a façade, manufactured to lure in Nero, sink his hooks deep into his skin. Now all that’s left is the shadow of a person, a husk kept moving with the sole purpose of revenge.
“Why not kill me then, you had plenty of opportunities,” Nero hisses, grasping uselessly at a semblance of composure.
Avilio sinks back down into the chair, heels of his hands pressed into his forehead.
“I needed to get close to you so I could get to your father,” he shrugs, all apathy.
Nero feels the anger coil in him, ready to spring free, hating the man in front of him and hating himself for falling for him every step of the way. He’s too pulled open and raw, painfully aware that Ganzo is overhearing every bit of their conversation -
“Alright, that’s enough,” Ganzo claps both hands onto Nero’s shoulders and begins to peel him away from the bars. “I’ll watch Mr. Bruno. You need some space. It’s already been a draining day for you in the drift.”
He’s right but it still takes all of Nero’s willpower to drag himself away from the cell. Ganzo settles into the folding chair and gently shoos Nero away.
He considers going back to his room, digging out a bottle of rationed alcohol and drowning his sorrows. But Nero manages to talk himself out of the self-pity route and instead he directs his path to the nearest database computer. He needs to know who Avilio is, and what he meant by having been “set up”.
“Avilio” yields only one result in the staff database, and when Nero expands his search to the internet, he can’t seem to find any information on any Avilio Bruno, no family, no job history, no social media presence. It’s a dead end.
Nero tugs at his goatee pensively, he couldn’t have just come from nowhere. Squinting at the Shatterdome database, Nero searches “Luce”, the name of what Nero assumed must be Avilio’s younger brother. One result surfaces: the name Luce Lagusa, no photo, but whomever this was entered the Shatterdome database 16 years ago and was presumed dead…
Fourteen years ago. He would have been four years old.
Nero searches “Lagusa” with a sick, knowing feeling in his stomach. Four results return, all presumed dead: Luce, Elena, old enough to have been Luce’s mother, Angelo, and Testa. He can’t believe he missed the name of his father’s former drift partner. The records claim he died in an accident in the Jaeger hanger, but now that Nero considers it, based off Avilio’s accusations…maybe it hadn’t been an accident. And he blames my family, Nero thinks. Why would his father want his own drift partner dead? They had been the closest of friends…
Nero clicks on Angelo, uncertain he wants to know what he’ll find. The picture is of a young boy, twelve, according to the records. It’s Avilio. The faded photo undeniably matches the memory of young Avilio stumbling through a destroyed city.
But what does his family’s death have to do with me? Nero presses his palms into his eye sockets. He looks again at the date of presumed death, April 22, 2016. Fourteen years ago, on Angelo’s birthday.
…And the day of his one and only Jaeger mission with his father. Nero stares blankly at the screen before closing all the tabs and shutting it off. He buries his face in the palms of his hands. It makes sense now, and it’s all so messed up.
Understanding probably won’t make a difference to Avilio – Angelo – but Nero has to try.
He picks up a mobile drift connection box, outdated and formerly used for cursory drift compatibility testing. It will have to do.
Ganzo seems surprised to see Nero and abruptly halts whatever he was talking to Avilio about.
“You can go, Uncle,” Nero sets down the box, “this needs to be taken care just between the two of us.”
He looks like he might protest, though as a ranger Nero is technically a higher rank. His uncle nods, and stands to leave.
“Think about what I told you, boy,” Ganzo addresses Avilio, “it could be the difference between freedom and being behind bars the rest of your life.”
As Nero situates the box he asks, “what did he talk to you about?”
“Nothing important, the usual spiel about being honest if I go on trial and to plead guilty in order to avoid harsher punishment,” he deadpans.
Nero’s brow furrows in irritation, “Take this and put it on your head.” He holds up a headset for the drifting box.
“What for?”
“We’re going to drift again. I…I know who you are now. I just need you to see what happened from my side.”
“This isn’t going to change anything,” he mutters, but places the contraption over his head.
“I know. But I think you deserve to know,” Nero adjusts his headset, “the memories are going to be a bit fuzzy…it was a long time ago, and you’ll be looking at memories from my father within my memories,” he adjusts the machine, “Just sit back and let me chase the rabbit.”
He locks eyes with Avilio, “ready in 3…2…1-”
Nero is fourteen and couldn’t be more thrilled to finally get into a Jaeger, with his father, no less. The youngest ranger in history, they’re calling him. The first time he drops into the drift with Vincent elicits a mix of fear and elation. He focuses in on a particular memory, a woman enters Vincent’s office. She’s beautiful…but angry. “I know you lied about my husband’s death, it was no accident,” she rages. He recognizes her now as Elena Lagusa. “I have ordered a formal investigation. Detectives will be here within the next half hour and I doubt your flimsy explanation will hold up.”
“Mrs. Lagusa, in the next half hour you and your sons are to be transferred from this base,” Vincent counters icily.
“What are you talking about?”
Nero views the memory through Vincent’s gaze, which averts to the doorway where the fuzzy forms of young Angelo and a small blonde boy cluster in the doorway, eyes wide and scared.
“Since no one in your family is actively contributing to the Jaeger program, you will be relocated by train to a bunker which I assure contains top of the line security measures. Now if you’ll excuse me-“
The memory cuts out and Nero is back beside his father in the jaeger. They are escorting the train that Nero now understands holds the remainder of the Lagusa family. Then the Kaiju attacks.
His father begins to turn the jaeger around to join the fight.
“Shouldn’t we be staying with the transporter?” Nero asks.
“We need to help the other strikers,” Vincent orders, and Nero has neither the authority nor the ability to disobey.
His memories flash forward to after the attack, being photographed by the press beside Vincent. They called him a hero. A team effort between the other two strikers and their jaeger had taken down a particularly crafty Kaiju, but not before it had ravaged a deep swath into the San Francisco Bay area, leveling a good portion of the coastal city. In the back of his mind he recalls seeing tiny newspaper articles mourning the loss of life aboard a transporter train – the one he was supposed to protect. Evidently, the train also housed a car full of illegal Kaiju parts to be sold on the black market. It had drawn the Kaiju right to the transporter. They hadn’t stood a chance.
Nero tries to riffle deeper into his father’s memories but surfaces only vague flashes of Vincent arguing with Testa and Ganzo about the Galassias, the illegal trade…
“Nero, you need to stop chasing the rabbit,” he hears Avilio distantly, “I’ve seen enough.”
He forces himself to relax and let the neural connection even out.
“There’s something I need to show you too,” Avilio mumbles.
Nero wonders what he could possibly know about the attack fourteen years ago that Nero hadn’t already seen until Avilio chases the rabbit to a scene that could only have transpired barley an hour earlier.
Avilio sits in his cell, facing Ganzo.
“Alright Angelo, I think it’s time I’m honest with you,” Ganzo speaks first.
“You know my name,” Angelo narrows his eyes, “then you must be the one who sent the letter.”
“I was. I thought you should know the truth about your family’s death.”
“What were you expecting to gain from this?”
“I wasn’t certain of the sort of person you would be. But I must say I’m impressed. Or I was. Before today.” Ganzo laces his fingers together under his chin, regarding Avilio.
A smirk teases the corner of Avilio’s guarded face, “I came to the Shatterdome thinking it would be nearly impossible to destroy the Vanetti family, but here they were, Frate willingly poisoning himself with Kaiju extracts, and Vincent, dying from neural damage and Nero…so desperate to find a connection he went after the first cadet who showed any promise…it was all too easy.”
The tone of his voice is icy, calculated but co*cky. It’s all wrong, so wrong…
“It was my hope that you would come back for revenge, with the Vanettis out of the picture, this Shatterdome would have a vacant Grand Marshal position.” Ganzo lazily cracks his kuckles, moving from hand to hand, “But I didn’t come to talk to you about that. This whole deal has been blown wide open. Instead I want to interest you in the Black Market trade with the Galassias.”
“Money doesn’t interest me.” Angelo says bluntly.
“But it can ensure that when this Shatterdome finally gets shut down, you can live comfortably away from the Kaiju madness, somewhere safe in the Midwest. The Galassias have a monopoly both legally and illegally, it’s only a matter of time before the Jaeger program is shut down for good. Better to be on the winning side, and you’ve proven yourself to be shrewd enough to handle the trade,” Ganzo sounds like a charlatan, using the tone of voice that had once convinced Nero’s younger self to clean his room for some rare prize of sweets. Hearing it now nauseates him.
“How long…have you been working with the Galassias?” Angelo inquires, voice neutral. He leans forward, interested.
“A long time, my boy.”
“How long do I have to consider your offer?” The slyness is back but it’s different this time…
“I’d suggest you not tarry, if you’re moved to a different location for trial, it might not be possible to set you free.”
Nero hears his own footsteps coming from down the hallway and Ganzo cuts off speaking.
The machine begins beeping angrily and promptly shuts down, batteries dead.
Nero removes his headset in tandem with Angelo. They seem to notice at the same moment in disgust. Angelo drops the headset carelessly and Nero quickly reels the tech back before it can endure any more abuse.
“You want to join the black market?” Nero says incredulously once he’d finished.
Angelo makes a frustrated noise, “of course not. He just confirmed my suspicions that he was involved with the Kaiju attacking the transporter. Except unlike your father he’s still colluding with the Galassias.”
Nero sighs deeply, “So now the truth is out. Your father got into a disagreement with mine and Ganzo so they offed him, then used Kaiju parts as bait to ensure the rest of your family couldn’t live to get revenge.” He presses his head into his hands, feeling ill, “I shouldn’t have left the train unprotected.”
“But you did. And it cost me everyone I ever cared about,” Angelo stands slowly, predatory behind the bars.
“You can’t blame this all on me, I was a child,” he hisses.
“So was I. But we’re not children anymore. Can you fault me for wanting revenge?”
“Yes,” Nero grasps the bars, glaring down at him, “I will fault anyone who threatens my family.”
After a beat, “I can’t believe I fell for all of it.”
“You were desperate for something to fill the void Vanno left-“
“- Don’t talk about him-”
“So you were ready to settle for anyone, even lucky little cadet me,” Angelo finishes, regarding him, expression schooled back to neutral.
Nero runs his hands through his hair, messing up any careful styling spared by his jaeger helmet.
Something still doesn’t make sense…
“Frate. You could have let him die while I was getting a doctor, Ronaldo had already fled, why not take the opportunity?” Nero asks finally, seething.
“Doesn’t really matter at this point, he’s in a coma. Who knows if he’ll ever fully recover, and before you had a chance to try to fix things with him-“
“Stop talking,” he cuts him off.
It feels like a lie, but Nero is fed up with trying to weave his way through Angelo’s mind games. He lunges and grabs Angelo by the shirt collar and drags him up against the bars, using his height and bulk to his advantage. The younger man doesn’t fight back, hands only rising instinctively to steady himself.
“But it was all for nothing, my family is still alive, and the only reason you’ll be leaving this cell is to be transferred to a prison off-base.” He wants so desperately to get a rise out of Angelo, see a flicker of life, of anything, in those dead ochre eyes.
A set of frantic footsteps down the corridor catches their attention.
“Ranger Vanetti! There you are!” It’s Cerotto, panting, “Wait why is Avilio in a cage?”
“Long story,” Nero explains.
“Well never mind that! We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the last hour!”
“What has happened?” He releases Angelo and roughly shoves him deeper into the cell. The younger man coughs and shakes himself off.
Cerotto straightens himself, “there’s been a double event. Tigre and Volpe are already out there but they’re getting their asses kicked. We need you two to suit up.”
“That’s not possible, a double event?” Nero asks incredulously.
“I didn’t’ think so either but Corteo and his stupid numbers predicted correctly,” he rubs his temples, “but I can’t say anything I drifted with a piece of Kaiju brain earlier this week…”
“You what?!” Nero shouts.
“I was noticing some patterns in Kaiju tissue compositions so I thought, why not try to drift with a piece of inert brain, right? Um it nearly killed me but, that’s irrelevant, because it didn’t. Anywho turns out the Kaiju have a hive mentality but the brain piece was inert so I went to Strega Galassias, before you say it, I know I know, terrible idea, but they had a piece of fresh Kaiju brain so Corteo and I – we’re drift compatible by the way – drifted with the Kaiju brain and that’s how we found out about the double event,” he finishes, breathless.
“I’ll report right away,” Nero starts to march towards the hangar.
“Wait what about Avilio?” Cerotto splutters.
“For classified reasons, he won’t be joining me.” Nero motions for Cerotto to follow him to the hangar.
Cerotto has to trot to keep up, “then who are you drifting with?”
“No one.”
Behind them he hears a sharp clang of metal on metal and whips around to see Angelo, hands gripping the bars, staring after them with eyes alight.
“You can’t do that,” he shouts. Nero has never heard him raise his voice like this.
In three strides Nero is standing in front of the cell, this is getting tiresome. “You’ve left me with no other options.”
“The neural load will kill you,” Angelo insists, he’s shaking.
“And won’t that make you happy,” Nero turns around again, “but as long as I’m breathing I’m not about to let two good pilots and a city full of thousands of people die when I can do something about it.”
Angelo watches the receding shape of Nero’s broad shoulders until he’s eclipsed by the dim hallway.
He slams his cuffed hands into the bars again, growling in frustration. He screwed up, so, so irreparably. Resigned and distraught, Angelo sinks back into his chair and buries his head.
An indeterminate amount of time later the door to his cell swings open.
His head whips up, hoping against hope that Nero changed his mind…
But it’s Corteo, jetlagged to hell, jingling a set of keys.
“I came as fast as I could,” he says in a rush, “Cerotto told me they had you locked up. What happened?”
Angelo numbly lets him undo the cuffs before replying, “we did a practice drift…I couldn’t stop the memories…Nero knows everything.”
“Then you need to leave – while everyone is distracted with the Kaiju…”
Angelo rubs his wrists, “which way is the hangar?”
Corteo gives him a strange look, “down the hall that way, but you don’t want to go there-”
Before he’s finished Angelo starts sprinting down the hall.
The lady suiting up Nero has repeatedly reminded him that she cannot ethically recommend that he solo pilots, that it will cause irreversable neurological damage and possibly death.
He tells her to finish clipping him into the suit faster.
Nero stares into the reflective surface of his helmet. This might be it. All 28 years of his life…leading up to this day-
The door to the room bursts open and in runs Angelo, panting.
“Ranger Bruno? We weren’t expecting you?” the technician lady looks between Nero and Angelo in confusion.
“I just got cleared to drift,” He lies, the façade is back with its cool business-like demeanor.
“Thank goodness, no one has to go alone,” she says faintly, already starting to suit up Angelo. Another technician appears to tune up the wiring on Nero’s suit.
Angelo is vicerally aware of Nero’s gaze raking into the back of his skull but he ignores it. But Nero waits until they stand side by side in the confined space of the elevator leading to the Jaeger co*ckpit before breaking.
“What are you doing here?” He demands.
“I don’t know,” it is perhaps the most honest thing he’s said in weeks.
His brow is furrowed, fingertips drumming on the helmet visor.
Nero fidgets to his left, agitated.
They board the Jaeger and lock into their tethers.
“Here’s the plan.” Nero announces over the com, “We go in, rescue the Tigerfox, kill the kaiju and then…”
He and Angelo exchange looks.
“We figure out whatever the hell is the rest.”
By the time the duo is suited up, the Tiger Fox managed to take down one Kaiju, but the second monster jammed their controls. They were dead in the water as the Goliath slogged into the fight.
Angelo’s presence in his mind is a mangled mess of emotion that Nero doesn’t want to touch with a twenty-foot pole. He can’t be much better, but at least for the moment their neural connection is – unexpectedly – stable.
The Tigerfox and Kaiju are visible in the distance, still about a quarter mile out when Nero decides to risk the integrity of their neural link.
“Why didn’t you kill me, Angelo?” It’s hardly a relevant question anymore, they could be slogging to their deaths presently. Still the question gnaws at Nero.
The young man jumps at the sound of his real name, his eyes are dull and lifeless, still refusing to make eye contact, as though doing so would instantly cause something between them or within them to break.
After an extended silence, he admits, “I didn’t want to.”
Nero feels agitated all over again, they both are jarred in finally understanding the entirety of the series of events that led them to this point of conflict. He wants the discord to be over, to not feel like he’s trying to claw out of his own skin. More so he wants to rewind to before Avilio was Angelo and they could just be content drift partners, not this mess of old grudges and dead families and broken pieces Nero can’t begin to consider how to fit back together.
And if the finished product could in any way resemble the original.
“What made you change your mind?”
Angelo waits a few more paces before finally looking at Nero, and something does break.
“What do you think?” Angelo laughs softly, it’s real and viscerally honest. He draws forward a series of memories:
Nero, pinned under him on the training mats the first day they met, looking up at him with awe.
Nero, casually throwing his arm around Angelo’s shoulder, even if he pretended not to enjoy it.
Nero, looking even the slightest bit happier after talking to Angelo.
The memories continue to pile up, some indistinct but all linked by a warm glow of fondness.
Nero is rendered speechless and opts to focus on marching the Goliath onward rather than face Angelo.
“Not so different from your perception of me, huh?” Angelo offers.
As if he wasn’t already embarrassed, Nero feels his face flame red at the mention.
“You certainly think of me often,” he notes, and the bastard has the nerve to sound smug.
They march in silence while Nero composes himself.
“I really did try to hate you. At the beginning I had myself convinced that I did,” he stares out the co*ckpit window, focus somewhere far on the horizon, “But you’re not the person I expected you to be.”
“Angelo, about your family, had I known- “
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupts. Then, softer, “But I know you would have done everything in your power to stop it.”
Nero feels as though the warm light from the setting sun has seeped into his bones, maybe something did break between them.
But it feels like some of the hurt, some of the hate, is bleeding out.
Rescue the Tigerfox, kill the kaiju and then…
Maybe things could work out after all.
Now within a hundred yards, they ready their melee weapons.
“How are you feeling?” Nero asks Angelo, noticing his scrunched forehead through the tinted pane of his helmet.
“Like I think I’m going to enjoy this,” he flexes the Goliath’s right fist.
As they near the Kaiju’s energy reading, a faint crackling breaks through their radio transmitters.
This is the Tiger Fox requesting backup we are immobile and weaponless, please-
“Nero I’ve got eyes on it,” Angelo motions to a faint iridescent glow under the water a few hundred yards out.
The sun dips lower on the horizon; if possible Nero wants to end the fight before they lose daylight. Ahead of them, the Tiger Fox stands erect, a blackened silhouette against the horizon.
They track the motion of the Kaiju, which has begun to circle the Tiger Fox.
The Goliath breaks into a sprint, displaced water churning around its legs. Just as the Kaiju rears out of the water, intent on striking down the Tiger Fox, the Goliath slides in front of it, and Nero deploys his right-side sword arm, impaling the Kaiiju through its shoulder. Screeching, the Kaiju swings a crustaceous forelimb downward, but Angelo catches the spiked appendage in the Goliath’s left hand. They strain to push the Kaiju forward, away from the immobilized Jaeger.
“Barbero,” Nero grunts over the radio com, “sent out a team of helicopters to remove the Tiger Fox from harm’s way. We’ll keep this one busy.”
“Roger that.”
Agitated, the Kaiju pulls its forelimb out of Angelo’s grip, its identical limb on the other side is immobilized thanks to Nero’s well aimed stab. It twists backwards and lashes outward, but Nero and Angelo counter it, retracting the sword from the Kaiju and crossing the Goliath’s arms to block. The tip of the forelimb digs into the metal arm guards, puncturing the outermost layer.
“It’s sharp,” Angelo warns.
Locking the Goliath’s feet into position the duo prepares to push the Kaiju off, but before they can the monster’s seemingly tiny head extends out at them, jaw unhinged, like a twisted iteration of a snapping turtle lunging out of its shell. It scrabbles for purchase with hooked angler-fish like teeth against the smooth surface of the Goliath’s head.
“What the hell?!” Nero bellows, firing up the plasma cannon.
Angelo twists the left arm to maximize the probability of hitting the kaiju with a plasma blast.
“Fire now!” he snarls and the beam is enough to jolt the Kaiju back far enough to regain visuals. The tinted enamel of the jaeger’s co*ckpit windshield is deeply gouged but not breached.
Nero deploys the sword again. A well-aimed hit from the plasma cannon at point blank would seriously injure a Kaiju, but firing blind had merely scratched this beast, and made it angry. Angelo begins charging for another plasma blast, fist clenched.
They exchange cursory blows, the kaiju being forced on the defensive with only one forelimb in commission, though it compensated well by lunging its mouthful of teeth at intervals.
“It’s too fast with its motions to slice its head off?” Angelo growls.
“Unfortunately so,” Nero grunts.
Just as Angelo readies the cannon, the Kaiju rears back and two additional crustaceous appendages pop out of either side of its armored torso. The spikes stab into either side of the Goliath’s abdomen, momentarily throwing it off balance. It’s all the time the Kaiju needs to lunge out with its teeth and latch onto the left arm. For Nero, panic momentarily overwhelms him – it’s Vanno all over again and he can’t do that, he can’t lose another-
Angelo is quicker than Vanno and pulls the upper body of the jaeger over enough so that when the kaiju’s teeth sink in it only grabs the arm. With a shriek, the kaiju rends the arm from the torso, the plasma cannon fizzling out, and flings it far into the ocean. Nero swings the sword arm and severs the two lefthand appendages of the kaiju.
Beside him Angelo leans heavily against his tethers, panting.
“Hey, Angelo, are you hurt?” the panic returns, what if the neural shock of losing an arm was too much, maybe he was jolted unconscious by the impact-
“I seem to have lost motility in the left arm,” Angelo deadpans. His matter-of-fact reaction grounds Nero.
In the meantime the Kaiju has slunk back under the waves to lick its wounds. They’re losing daylight quickly.
“Can we beat it with only one arm?” Angelo asks, scouring the ocean for movement.
“I don’t know, without the plasma cannon…” Nero’s brow furrows.
“What if we concentrated the cannon charges into the central reactor in the chest plate? If you could impale the Kaiju, we could blast it head on.”
“Yeah and ourselves with it,” Nero counters, “the reactor isn’t built to be a weapon.”
“Lets do it,” Angelo says with resolve, “and before you ask me why I’m so willing to die for this mission – I’m not. There are two escape pods in the back.”
Nero nods, understanding, “we trap the kaiju, set the reactor to blow, then deploy the escape pods. Just one problem, there’s a delay between pod deployment, you’ll need to go first, I’ll set the reactor to blow and then deploy by own pod, ok?”
“I’m not leaving you here,” Angelo argues.
“Yes you are, I’ve been in this jaeger since I was fourteen, I know how it works better than anyone.”
“You’ll be solo-piloting for a moment.”
“Just for a moment, I’ll be alright.”
They don’t have any more time to argue before the kaiju launches itself out of the water into the Goliath. It stabs its remaining limb into the abdomen again, but this time it’s in their favor. Nero stabs the sword deep into the kaiju’s side beneath its useless upper left limb.
“Angelo, go now!” He barks as the kaiju shrieks furiously, hooked teeth gouging the co*ckpit window.
His partner doesn’t hesitate, but presses the button to start a plasma cannon charge. Warning lights go off, threatening a core meltdown. The moment Angelo unhooks himself from the tethers, the full neural load of the drift falls onto Nero. For a moment he falters, feeling faint, dark circles swim before his eyes. Angelo’s voice drags him back to the present.
“Deploying now, Nero, don’t you dare die.” In an instant, the pod flies from the jaeger, skidding across the waves at a safe distance. Nero makes one final thrust into the kaiju who seems to have decided the best way to take them down was to claw through to the head. He unhooks himself and manually overrides the meltdown prevention measures before stumbling into the second pod.
When Angelo hits the waves he’s winded even through the pod and his jaeger suit. He scrambles to open the top, removing his helmet in the process. In the distance the kaiju writhes against the jaeger, still like a statue. Fists clenched, he waits until he sees the clean arc of Nero’s pod launch from the jaeger.
A split second later it explodes.
Angelo doesn’t wait to see if the kaiju survived, before Nero’s pod hits the waves he’s already swimming for it. He wrenches the entire front panel off and straddles Nero’s hips. Without finess, Angelo removes his helmet. Nero is pale and still, a trail of blood dripping from his nose.
“Nero, wake up,” he hisses, leaning down to check for breathing and a pulse. Finding none, Angelo wastes no time tipping Nero’s head back. He pinches his nose closed, takes a deep breath, and exhales into Nero’s mouth. After repeating the process three more times, Angelo tries to find the space just under Nero’s rib cage, praying the jaeger suit was flexible enough to transmit compressions. He puts his whole weight into the compressions, growing more frantic as Nero fails to respond. Panic chokes him as he prepares to repeat the process, tipping back his head to give him another breath of air-
Nero chooses that convenient moment to regain conciousness. He lurches upward, gasping and nearly smashing his face into Angelo’s.
“Holy sh*t-“ he wheezes, “were you trying to break my ribs? And was that a kiss? While I was unconcious?” He seems to take in the fact that Angelo is indeed straddling his hips, thighs pressing tight against Nero’s sides. “you could have at least asked me to dinner first,” he says with mock disappointment.
Angelo largely ignores him, and flings his arms around Nero’s shoulders, crushing the older man against his chest.
“H-hey not so tight I still need to breathe.” But Nero reciprocates, clutching Angelo close.
Angelo nuzzles into the crook of Nero’s neck and shoulder, and Nero presses his cheek against Angelo’s temple. They remain curled against one another until the whir of the rescue helecopters deadened the noise of the ocean waves.
Tigre and Volpe greet them and let down a rope ladder. Once boarded the other drift pair enthuses about their fight.
“You blew that kaiju to smitherines,” Volpe explained with exaggerated hand gestures, “It was awesome.”
“The kaiju and most of their jaeger,” Tigre shakes his head, “you crazy kids.”
“You do realize I’m almost thirty?” Nero grumbles.
“Still young compared to the rest of us,” Volpe chuckles.
Out the window of the helicopter, Nero can see the faint outline of the jaeger, blown apart almost to the point of being no more than a pair of legs.
“The Grand Marshal said he’d send out clean up crews tomorrow.”
They arrive back at the Shatterdome to a mob of people congratulating them, Barbero, Ganzo, Cerotto, Corteo, even Marshal Vanetti. Angelo and Nero sneak away from the chaos a quickly as they can, snagging a couple people to help them out of their jaeger suits. In a drift induced haze, Nero slings his arm around Angelo’s shoulders and before they know it they’re both standing in Nero’s room. Angelo hesitates, “I should go-“
“Stay,” he begs, “I just need you near…just to sleep, I’m not good for anything but sleeping right now.” He drapes his arms over Angelo’s shoulders, “everything else we can worry about in the morning.”
Angelo nodds and slips his arms loosely around Nero’s waist, swaying on his feet. “shouldn’t I be in a holding cell right now?” he mumbles.
“Shh, that’s a tomorrow problem.” Nero backs them up until he falls onto his cot, Angelo atop him. “we still have so much to talk about.”
“Mmhmm,” Angelo agrees.
“I had you arrested earlier today…you lied to me about…almost everything…you wanted to kill me and my family and for that I was ready to harm you…”
“Nero,” he says sternly, “tomorrow.”
“You can’t sleep on top of me though, I already can’t feel one of my arms…”
“Fine, move over,” Angelo grumbles and they shift around until his back is pressed along the length of Nero’s front.
Nero is silent for a moment, “are you sure you’re ok with this?”
He sighs, this ridiculous man…
“Nero, we’re both consenting adults. You can spoon me.”
“Mkay,” he doesn’t need any more prodding to wrap Angelo in his arms, seeking out his hands to lace their fingers together, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s ok to call you Angelo?” Nero murmurs.
“Officially I’m still Avilio…but in private…yeah…it’s nice,”
They’re pressed impossibly close to one another, but it’s not enough, still too many layers of clothing, skin, sinews and tissue keeping them apart from the onness they achieved in the drift.
But for the moment, it’s close enough.
Nero awakes for the second day in a row to Barbero pounding on his door. He didn’t set an alarm for a reason, he doesn’t care if it’s three in the afternoon: it’s still too early.
“Are you going to answer him?” Angelo groans.
“Fine.” It’s honestly the last thing Nero wants to do. He’d like to stay curled up in his warm cot with Angelo’s heartbeat to lull him to sleep but it seemed he wouldn’t be allowed nice things today.
“This had better be important,” he prefaced, opening the door with his eyes already screwed shut to stave off the florecent enslaught.
“I received word from Mr. Alary that Mr. Bruno was placed under arrest yesterday shortly before the kaiju attack, that he was allowed to fight the kaiju with you, but he was never returned to his cell,” Barbero concludes, adjusting his glasses.
“I can solve that mystery for you,” Nero sighs.
As though on cue, Angelo appears beside him in the doorway, now sporting one of Nero’s pullover sweatshirts. It’s adorably large on the younger man, but also has the unfortunate effect of being rather damning evidence as to what Nero is certain Barbero now suspects of their nightly activities.
It also doesn’t help that Angelo has one hand draped across his lower back, hand on his hip, though Nero is beginning to suspect that part is on purpose…
“Mr. Bruno, you are under arrest-”
“No, he’s not,” Nero interrupts. “I overreacted yesterday. I want him aquitted of all accusations.”
Barbero stubbornly adjusts his glasses, “Unfortunately it’s not so simple, Mr. Alary has already filed an official incident report.”
Angelo and Nero exchange glances, Ganzo either suspected Angelo may be on Nero’s side, or was intent on backing Angelo into a corner so he had no choice but to join his black market scheme.
“He helped save millions of lives yesterday, if he can’t be outright aquitted, a pardon is in order,” Nero crosses his arms.
“You’ll have to work that out with the Grand Marshal I suppose,” Barbero could see he wasn’t making any progress with this intended arrest.
“Then I will. You’re dismissed.”
Looking miffed, Barbero leaves.
Angelo watches Nero close the door and pace tight loops in the tiny room.
“Should I be vacating the premises?” He asks, only half facetious.
Nero rubs his temples, “don’t go…I’ll talk to my father…he has to understand…”
He nods and brushes past Nero, intent on returning to his own quarters. There’s an awkward distance between the two of them in contrast to the closeness after the drift. It’s a cruel reminder that the moment Angelo’s indentity was revealed they could no longer just be simple drift partners.
First his father, then figure out the rest, Nero keeps telling himself, as though there were even time for the rest…
Facing his father is always more intimidating than he anticipates.
“Let me get this straight,” Vincent rubs his temples, “you need me to pardon Mr. Bruno because yesterday you placed him under arrest.”
“Yes.”
“Why place him under arrest in the first place?”
Nero rubs his temples before admitting, “because he’s the son of Testa Lagusa.”
Vincent’s head whips to attention, eyes blazing, “then arrest him again. He needs to be removed from this Shatterdome immediately-“
“Because he’s likely bent on killing you and I?” Nero supplies.
“You seem awfully unconcerned-”
“He’s not. Not anymore. He changed his mind,” Nero crosses his arms, “and we’re a perfect drift pair. So he needs to stay.”
Vincent shakes his head, “no. He must be arrested. He must be cunning, like his father, and people like that don’t just ‘change their mind’ about murder.”
Gripping the front of Vincent’s desk with both hands Nero argues, “but I saw his mind, there’s no revenge plot.”
The Grand Marshall doesn’t budge, “he’s decieving you. Fourteen years ago, Testa almost destroyed our entire operation, I cannot in good faith allow his son to have the chance to do the same.”
Nero slams a fist on the desk, “he’s not his father. And I’m not you. We won’t make the same mistakes.”
Vincent glares at him, emanating a cold fury, and Nero knows he has overstepped.
With extreme effort he tries to reign in his temper, backing away from the desk a few paces, running his hands through his hair.
“I need him,” he says finally, voice raw.
His father is regarding him closely and Nero feels flayed open.
With a deep sigh, Vincent conceeds.
“He has twelve hours to leave the base, if he has not done so already. In respect for your esteem in Mr. Bruno, and his heroic acts yesterday, he will be allowed to leave the Shatterdome without a criminal offense on his record. But he will not be allowed to stay nor return. Understood?”
Nero is shaking his head ‘no’. He feels sick but Vincent is still the Grand Marshall as well as his father and his word is law.
“You’ll find another drift partner, I have faith in you,” Vincent makes it sound like a peace offering.
Vaguely, he hears himself ask for permission to leave, and Vincent assures him he won’t need to break the news to Mr. Bruno himself.
Nero keeps his composure until he’s in a back hallway before sinking against the wall. The floor blurs in front of him.
He has half a mind to leave with Angelo.
But…he can’t….too far tethered into the Shatterdome: who will care for his father if he leaves? Frate is still in the hospital, he needs to be there for his family…he doesn’t know if Angelo even wants to stay, wants to be with him…
For moment it had just felt like he would have the time to straighten things out, with himself, with Angelo, maybe even with Frate…
He checks Angelo’s room, then his own, and finds nothing. Gone without a trace…
…or a goodbye.
At sundown Nero sits in the hangar, smoking cigarettes. He knows it’s horrible for him but he needs something to calm his roiling emotions. The horizon is baked gold in the sunset, soft light warming everything it touches, from the cresting waves to the far off city skyline. Nero sits with his feet hanging over the water, a third cigarette poised in his right hand.
Another drift partner here and gone, he thinks bitterly and goes to take a drag only to find the cigarette snatched from his fingers.
Angelo takes a long drag and sits beside him.
“You- wait you can’t be here, they’ll find you and-“ Nero stammers.
Angelo waves him off, handing back the cigarette, “Ganzo convinced the Grand Marshal to let me stay.”
“He what?” Nero blurts, intelligently.
His eyes glint pure gold in the sunset, “he thinks he’s roped me into his black market scheme. Told the Grand Marshal he’ll personally keep an eye on me.”
“But…?” Nero prods, hopeful.
“He needs to be taken out. Him, and the Galassias. I want them dead,” the fire is back in Angelo’s eyes, smoldering like twin embers.
“That’s not going to be easy,” Nero cautions, passing back the cigarette.
“It would be harder were I alone,” Angelo looks down to the side, bangs shadowing his face, as though embarrassed at the admission.
Nero wants to hug him, tell him in some capacity how much it means to him but…
…he doesn’t need to say anything, he realizes.
Angelo holds up the cigarette to Nero’s mouth, thumb and forefinger brushing his lips while he takes another drag.
They share the cigarette until it burns low and Nero snubs it out on the rough wooden floor. Before he can reach for another, Angelo places his hand over his and locks their fingers together. Languidly, he leans against Nero, soft hair tickling his neck.
Nero’s father is still dying and Frate is in a coma and his uncle is working for the Galassias and the rift is still open in the Pacific…but Angelo’s head his a reassuring weight on his shoulder, his whole presence is soothing and maybe things won’t be so bad with another set of helping hands. They still have a long way to go before they can fully trust one another.
In the distance two search helicopters scour the waves for broken off parts of the Goliath. They’ll pick up the pieces, little by little, together.
