#Oof writing Eli is like indulging in my most assholeish teenage self

[moosemonstrous]

Ghost Rider Pacific Rim AU - a reliable narrator

Robbie Reyes is, for all intents and purposes, Eli’s only way back into the world.

He’s also the most boring motherfucker the world has ever seen. It’s like he actively avoids fun. Eli is aware that his tastes are somewhat eclectic in that regard, but his nephew is truly. Genuinely. The least fun person to be stuck with while pretending to be the odd errant thought in his head.

It was so exciting at first, too. Kinda like back in the black ops days, dressing up in local rags and pretending to be a crazy mute until it was go time. But Robbie is like a cracked egg, too much pressure and all the soft stuff starts spilling out. Eli needs to get the pan ready first.

...He doesn’t know what the pan is in this equation. He does know that he felt his nephew’s whole body through a proper Pons bridge, and now all he has is a single eyeball and the contents of his stupid, slow, boring brain. And he can’t even control the eyeball. He’s stuck looking at whatever Robbie is looking at, which is more often than not Beto’s other kid. If he’s forced to vicariously experience another goddamn comic book...

He will continue being unable to do fuck all about it. It’s torture.

At least fighting is back on the menu. Toothless, often no-contact, safe, boring fake fighting. Robbie has zero technique and absolutely no idea what he’s doing, but at least he takes after his father in that he picks it up quickly when the alternative is getting beat. He has some pent-up rage he can dip into if sufficiently provoked. And he likes to win, which, finally some semblance of balls on the kid. The new Fightmaster watches him with a little too much interest, so maybe it’s for the best Robbie takes his sweet time getting up to speed. Wouldn’t want to attract that kind of attention – Eli is reasonably sure he could take the guy with enough prep time and hidden surprises, but. Not in the state he’s in.

A lot of people are watching Robbie. He’s just so fucking oblivious about it, Eli has to point it out more often than not. He has one of those faces people make a fuss over and just. Doesn’t do anything with, or about it. The school TA might as well pull her shirt up every time they talk. He makes the store clerk blush just standing there glaring at produce. Eli doesn’t even have a body and is reasonably sure the entire D-Sci department takes turns having important paperwork to pick up from the egghead’s office whenever he’s in there. Robbie’s lack of appreciation for the kind of influence he could get is frankly insulting. Eli would’ve charmed his way back into The Charger three times over by now.

Which loops back to his original point: it’s so. Mind-numbingly. BORING. To follow him around. After ten years in a hangar, Eli feels he deserves to hitchhike on someone who at least watches better TV than the constant fucking cartoon reruns and internet instructionals on how to politely inquire about a fucking passport application.

Slap him, he projects out when the crazy Asian nerd talks Robbie into yet another scanner. All he does is blather on, Jesus, just slap him and be done with it.

It’s a few seconds of entertainment to watch Robbie twist around while he tries to resist a perfectly reasonable instinct to loosen teeth in an annoying face. But no, he’s such a good fucking boy he will let a clearly insane scientist keep him in a goddamn magnetic tube for hours at a time. Or let his new pals from the academy call him names and think it’s all friendly rather than unbearably humiliating. God, as soon as Eli takes over he’s going to have a word or two with Guerro and his fucking minions, that’s for sure.

Guerro isn’t even subtle about what he wants. He thinks having some common background – dead parents and geographically similar childhood haunts, the bar is on the floor – will make them drift compatible, and he’s got his sights set on becoming the next ranger. Damn, Eli could do so much better with an ambitious prick like Guerro than his soft idiot nephew who couldn’t see the writing on the wall if he walked into it face-first. Alas, he’s always prided himself on doing wonders with limited resources. And having an extra pilot to snack on the next time Robbie plugs in can’t hurt.

Occasionally – usually when Robbie is sleeping, because his brain going into rest mode makes Eli all fuzzy and weird – he goes back to The Charger. In some ways, he can feel more through the jaeger’s many sensors than as a floating fart at the back of his nephew’s brain. And it’s definitely easier to pick up on the surrounding conversations when he doesn’t have to filter them through whatever inane concerns bounce around Robbie’s skull at the time.

The techs are replacing the wiring from the ground up. The Charger has brand new rubber casings for the extremity connectors and there are three people up in his motor controls at any given time scratching their heads at the inexplicable power surges Eli causes whenever he forgets himself and tries to make Robbie do something. This is all jolly fucking good – they wouldn’t bother if they didn’t plan on trying to get him moving again. The gossip is scarce, the same old ghost story about the accidental weapon failure repeated ad nauseam and some incoherent grumbling about age brackets. Eli vaguely recognises most of the journeymen assigned to him – old hands, know what they’re doing, and better than to stick their mittens into his primary computer.

Ivanov hasn’t left the base. Eli sees him sometimes, up in the LOCCENT bridge rebuilt exactly the same, like nothing ever happened. He shows up at the edges of Robbie’s vision more often than the kid realises, like he’s taunting Eli to come and get him.

Soon. He’s going to get his opportunity soon enough. He just needs to be patient for a little longer.