What's up, people? Pacific Rim is one of my all time fave movies, and I am dying for a sequel. Anyways, a little something I thought up lurks below. Hope you like it. P.S. Disclaimer: Sadly, Mako and Raleigh were not my inventions. Own nothing!
From the moment she laid eyes on him, she knew. He wasn't what she expected in more than one way. She imagined him to be sadder, lesser, more... empty. She expected a man with his head held low, still carrying the scars of his loss like a burden. She didn't expect a man with handsome features who stood straight and tall to the world and had a glint in his eye when he teased her, "Better or worse?" She did not expect someone bursting with ability and strength, ready to take on the world and all it's trials. She didn't expect him. But she wouldn't have it any other way.
When he fought, it was what she expected though, powerful, but unreliable and predictable. He wasn't even trying with his opponents and gave her cause to frown. Why couldn't he just make a simple time of it? He knew when they were compatible or not. Why did he have to be so... him?
As soon as they began to fight, she realized that she had the upper hand and the element of surprise, while Raleigh had stupidly underestimated her. As they fought, Mako let out a smirk. Point to her, point to him, they grew more and more important. She had to win. It was driving her forward, making her more and more ferocious. When her sensei's voice rang out, cautioning control, she felt herself be thrown back to the silence of anticipated attack and defense. She no longer felt the rush to do anything to win.
When he asked for her as his co-pilot, she was surprised, to say in the least, but her sensei's reaction was anticipated, and she kept her quiet outrage silent even as Raleigh tried to tell that the Marshall had no hold over either of them. But when she tried to explain in simple terms her respect for the Marshall, it was obvious the soldier didn't get it. Her mixing up their rooms was only insult to injury at that point.
...
After the disaster of their first drift, Raleigh's extreme defense of her towards Chuck, and their (mostly her) scolding from the Marshall, it seemed like they would never be in a Jaeger together again. But, the world had gone through quite a lot of impossible occurrences recently, and one more couldn't hurt. Leatherback and Otachi. Her first two kills. When her blade or plasma cannon punctured one of them, she felt a sick sense of relief and revenge, but Raleigh didn't seem to mind. He felt it too, in way, for the loss of his brother. Both of their souls screamed for vengeance, and maybe that was what thrust them together their as pilots.
When she lost her sensei, when the war was over and won, and she faced the circus of the media, she felt as if the only person she could count on was Raleigh. Her co-pilot, and possibly something more. Something hidden in looks cast across board rooms and press conferences. Something she didn't expect. Something she couldn't have. She was in love, like she had never been before, with a man who knew exactly how she worked. And she loved it that way.
Their first kiss was also something she didn't expect. She expected it to be playful and awkward, but it was deep and meaningful and warm. Mako didn't believe in perfection, but if she had, that kiss and Raleigh's was it. That kiss made her forget about the media and what they would do once they found out that the saviors of the world were in love, and it was more than the Drift hangover. The only thing she could think about was him and his everything. How he wasn't like anything she had ever seen. And she adored him for it.