Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Captain Mitchell was an incorrigible flirt.

This was a widely known fact about him. It wasn't an uncommon thing for a man in the Navy to be. But what was different about him was that he flirted…respectfully. He avoided married women, never flirted with anyone serving under him, and backed off the instant it seemed unwelcome.

Phoenix had assumed that was a load of bullshit. A case of the man's mythical status smoothing the edges of his worse traits. No woman got this far in their career in the Navy - or any branch of the military - without learning very quickly which men could be trusted.

But as she's laying there in the infirmary, set up for observation for the night, she sees him chatting up a nurse outside the window, and she thinks she may have been wrong about him. The nurse laughs at whatever he says, shaking her head, before gesturing to the room she and Bob are in and brushing past him. Couple that interaction with the fact that he's never so much as looked at her any differently than any of the men in their class, and she finds herself pleasantly surprised.

He opens the door and steps into their room, and exhales a quiet, relieved, "Phoenix, Bob." There's a tightness at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been visible from the hallway, and his hair is mussed up like he's been running his hand through it restlessly. "You're alright," he continues, straightening up now that he's able to look them over.

"Yes, Sir," Bob replies from her right, lifting a hand to wave at him. Phoenix nods, too.

They were both bruised to shit from the harness straps digging into them during the ejection, but nothing had been broken. Assuming the observation period passed with no issues, they'd be allowed to fly again in a day. And, most importantly, they shouldn't be out of the running for the mission. She hopes.

But then again, she'd just lost the Navy a multimillion dollar aircraft. She wouldn't be surprised if Maverick decided that he couldn't risk the mission on her. She'd hate it, but she wouldn't be surprised.

"It wasn't your fault," Maverick says, like he can read her mind.

Her gaze snaps up to him in surprise, and she can all but feel Bob's eyes on her from the side. "Sir?" she asks carefully.

Maverick drags a hand through his hair, and there's something haunted in his gaze. "The bird strike. It wasn't your fault. You did good to punch out when I told you to."

Phoenix stares at him. And then glances sideways to meet Bob's gaze, and he just tips his head at her. Letting her take the lead, letting her decide how much to say. If she wants to say anything at all. Some of it was a blur of adrenaline-fueled fog, but she remembers barely hearing Maverick in her ear telling her not to start an engine, that it was still on fire. She'd already been pressing the button, moving on autopilot to try and recover at least one engine before they fell out of the sky, and she hadn't been able to stop the process in time. "Sir, you said-"

Maverick shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. You'd have been in as much trouble not starting up that engine as you were with it on fire. It wasn't your fault. And as long as you're cleared to fly, it's not going to affect my decision on who's flying the mission," he says evenly, his gaze locked on hers.

Phoenix swallows hard, but she doesn't protest, doesn't argue. "Yes, Sir," she says carefully. "Thank you, Sir," she adds, quieter.

Maverick's shoulders slump a little, and he seems to relax as he walks up to their beds, leaning over to place one hand on her shoulder, the other on Bob's. "I'm just glad you two are okay," he says, squeezing lightly.

Phoenix almost doesn't hear what he says, because as he leans over, she catches a flash of silver on a chain around his neck with his dogtags. A ring? It's there and gone in an instant as Maverick straightens back up, giving them both a reassuring smile.

"What about Coyote?" Bob asks, glancing over at Phoenix. She's starting to be able to read him better, and she's pretty sure he's noticed something. The man notices nearly everything that happens around him, whether or not he acts on it.

"He'll be alright too," Maverick replies with a nod. "I'm going to go check on him next, but I wanted to stop by and make sure you two were good. Get some rest, I'll see you tomorrow when the docs clear you."

He's already turning to leave when Phoenix pulls herself together to ask, "Sir-?"

He stops in his tracks, turning back to her with an eyebrow raised.

"Are you okay, Maverick?" she asks, searching his face. There'd been a panic in his voice over the comms that's stuck with her since they pulled the ejection handles. He'd never sounded like that, even chasing Coyote down to Earth. Besides, he'd seen so much combat that there was no way it was the first time he'd watched a wingman go down beside him. On top of it all, he had a haunted look on his face that hadn't quite disappeared until he saw them step out of the rescue helicopter. Even then, she had wondered if he'd just plastered over it with his trademark grin.

"What-?" Maverick looks genuinely surprised at the question, caught off-guard. But then he smiles, something softer than the one he'd given the before. "Yeah. Long as you kids are okay, I'm alright," he says easily. "Don't worry about me, and get some rest."

Phoenix nods, smiling back, though the words stick with her as he leaves. Less that he called a cohort of the best pilots in the Navy 'kids', and more the fact that it sounded like he was pinning a lot on all of them coming back from the mission. From a mission that was seeming more impossible with every day they failed their training. As determined as Phoenix was to be on that mission, she was also very aware that it was incredibly likely that one or more of them didn't come home from it.

The door closes, leaving them both in the quiet room, the only sound the humming of the lights overhead and the machines beeping in the background.

"What are you thinking, Phoenix?" Bob asks, watching her now that Maverick is gone.

"I'm thinking about how little we know about the man who's supposed to teach us how to survive a suicide mission," she replies thoughtfully. "Besides what Hangman said, but that-"

"Felt targeted?" Bob offers succinctly.

"Yeah," she agrees. "He hasn't shared much with us on his own."

"When would he have?" Bob points out.

"At the beach," she shrugs. "In the air, even," she laughs.

Bob shrugs. "Guess he wants us connecting with each other, not him," he muses.

"I guess…" Phoenix murmurs.

"Why, what did you notice?" Bob asks wryly, an eyebrow raised.

"He was wearing a ring around his neck, on his tags," she says. "But he's notoriously a flirt, so he can't be married…"

"Family heirloom?" Bob tries.

"Maybe…" she says uncertainly. "I don't think that's quite right, though."

"You think he's married, or something?" Bob shifts a little in his bed to turn and face her better.

"Yeah. Maybe 'or something'," she says, glancing at him before looking up at the ceiling as she thinks it through. "I'm sure if we started a betting pool, someone would be able to figure it out."

"You want to start a betting pool about whether our teacher has a secret relationship and/or marriage?" Bob asks, like he hopes the repeating of what she's just suggested might knock some sense into her. "What happened to Hangman's digging feeling targeted?"

"It did," she insists. "But he's wearing this ring. Surely someone besides me has seen it before." It wasn't exactly something that he seemed to be hiding that well, given that even under a shirt, the shape would stand out as non-standard.

"He's wearing it under his shirt," Bob replies.

Phoenix hums. "Then we just wait for one of the others to notice. You know Fanboy won't be able to keep it quiet if he sees it."

"If," Bob says wryly.

Phoenix laughs, but concedes the point, shaking her head in agreement.

"I admit, I'm more worried about whatever the hell is going on between Rooster and Maverick," she says after a bit.

Bob hums, his response to let her know he's listening and paying attention, without having to give some useless answer.

"I guess it has to do with what Seresin found, but still." She chews at her lip. Rooster had only told her about his papers being pulled, and she wasn't the type to share that, even with her WSO, who she was quickly learning to really trust. They'd bonded over their shared ribbing at Hangman, but it's more than just that. She likes Bob, likes his quiet attentiveness, his witty remarks that pick up exactly what she puts down. And he's entirely uninterested in pursuing something with her, which is a massive relief. She doesn't swing that way, and it got really fucking exhausting having a backseater with a crush on her. They usually never took the hint and kept flirting regardless of how nicely or meanly she let them down.

"You know something else about it," Bob says, and it isn't a question. But he isn't prying, either. He's just pointing out that she has more pieces to the puzzle, whether or not she shares them.

"Yeah, Rooster told me a little," she says apologetically. Bob shakes his head with a little smile, letting her know there's nothing for her to apologize for. "I just don't know if he can get past it. If he can't pull his head out of this mess that he becomes around Maverick, we'll be stuck with Hangman."

Hangman might be an insufferable asshole, but part of that was because he was that good, and he knew it, and he loved to shove it in everyone else's face. She's not blind. If Rooster isn't chosen as team leader, Hangman will be. No one else flies quite like him, except Maverick. And that already might be enough to get him chosen, really. Hangman had said it himself, just as offensively as possible, because that was his style. On this mission, a man flies like Maverick here, or a man does not come back.

"And Seresin will leave us hanging in the air for glory or to save his own hide," she sighs.

"All signs point to that being true," Bob agrees quietly. "Doubt that's something Maverick can teach."

"I'm not even really sure it's something Maverick knows," she snorts. She's heard of his legendary exploits, of how he and Admiral Kazansky had taken out four MiGs together just a couple of weeks after graduating from TOPGUN. But how do you take down four enemy aircraft without leaving your wingman? Three of those kills were Maverick's.

"I think he does now, if he didn't when he was younger," Bob murmurs thoughtfully. "But how long does it take someone to get there?"

"However long it is, we don't have that kind of time," Phoenix sighs.

Bob shrugs a little. "He's gotten better since we played dogfight football," he offers.

"He has," Phoenix has to concede. "Maybe that got through to him. That we're supposed to be on a team together, not fighting each other up there."

"Even if he's not team leader, he'll probably be the other single-seater," Bob continues.

"Let's just hope he's not ours," Phoenix huffs. She knows she could keep up with him, she just doesn't want to have to rely on him. She doesn't trust that he'd pull through for her and Bob. She'd love to be proven wrong, but not with her and Bob's necks on the line.

Bob smiles wryly, but doesn't respond, just nodding as he relaxes back into the uncomfortable bed.

The silence that falls over them is comfortable, and Phoenix lets it sit for a while. The aching relief that this is a companionable silence, that she hadn't lost her WSO. That she hadn't gotten Bob killed. "Hey, Bob," she says softly.

He cracks open an eye, looking over at her. He'd already started getting himself ready to drift off.

"I'm glad you're alright," she whispers. I'm sorry I landed us here goes unspoken. She knows he wouldn't accept the apology, so she doesn't try to push it on him.

His eyebrow curls, and it's clear he hears the guilt, the apology, without her having spoken it. "Yeah," he says, instead of pushing her on it. "Me too."

"Let's hope Payback or Fanboy come by later and bring us some food from the mess," she sighs, reaching for the controls to flatten her bed out so she can sleep. Or at least nap until someone comes by to bother them - there wasn't much else to do here, after all.

"One can hope," Bob replies, doing the same to his bed and laying back.

Phoenix doesn't bother him again, but she doesn't fall asleep, either. The dull ache she feels all over keeps her a little too aware to nod off. The exhaustion from the adrenaline come-down can't quite beat it yet, but maybe if she stares at the ceiling enough it will take her.

Until then, she finds herself musing idly about the ring she saw around Maverick's neck. She'd asked around for gossip about him once she learned he would be their teacher, but she feels like if someone had been insane enough to marry Captain Mitchell, they'd come up in said gossip. She's sure his partner - whoever they are, if they exist - has been given enough heart attacks to last a lifetime with the shit he pulls. But if he had one, somehow no one had ever heard of or met them.

Maverick wasn't exactly known to be shy, he loved to peacock around (from what she'd heard of his past exploits), so it made little to no sense that he wouldn't also feel the same about whoever he chose to spend his life with. She'd have expected him to show them off, unless they were also Navy, unless they somehow had even more of a reputation than Maverick himself and even the ultimate rebel was afraid to have his name attached to theirs.

She almost snorts aloud at the thought. She doesn't know of any Navy soldier with more of a reputation than Maverick. If ever a man had earned their callsign, Maverick had. Hell, it almost seemed like he'd been born into it, made for it.

This is going to bother her until she figures it out. Like any puzzle, any maneuver she's trying to master, she hated leaving something a mystery. Hated not being able to unravel it and uncover the truth to it.

She just has to hope Fanboy actually lifts his head enough to notice the ring and start the betting pool himself. Hopefully before she has to elbow him into doing so.

It's to that thought that she finally manages to drift off. Bob's even breathing just a few feet away helps slow her down enough to manage to get some rest, finally, and she closes her eyes to the warm late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window.

Chapter Text

He's been cleared to go home, so as soon as he's let go by the medics, he goes to check on Phoenix and Bob. Coyote hadn't quite been all-there yet when they'd hit that bird, but he'd quickly caught back up to see the aftermath, staring in horror at the burning wreck in the dirt. That could have been him, mere seconds before. And Maverick just talked all of them through two separate crises, cool as a cucumber the whole while.

Once he checks on his wingmen, he's going to go thank the man for saving his life, and maybe ask him how he does it, how he stays so calm and clear-headed. And hope the answer isn't 'you just have to live through enough explosions to get used to it'.

When he stops by the room Phoenix and Bob are in, he glances through the window to see that they're already asleep. He doesn't want to wake them, so he just watches them for a moment, assuring himself that they're okay, before turning to leave.

Only once he leaves the infirmary does he realize that he doesn't actually know where he should even look for Maverick in the first place.

He thinks he knows where the Captain's office is, so he starts to head that way first. There's no guarantee he's still on base though, with the sun already going down, dyeing the world a burnt orange. He could always just talk to him tomorrow after the morning briefing, but he's nearly at the building already, so he may as well poke his head in and see if he's still here.

The main lights are all off, the hallways barely lit with every third ceiling panel actually being turned on. All signs point to the building being abandoned for the day, and he wonders if there's even a point to going all the way to Maverick's office.

It's as he's passing the classroom - and debating just going home - that he hears a quiet voice. He freezes on instinct, as if he's afraid of being caught in a building he definitely has access to. It's an irrational fear. But by the time he reminds his body that 'freeze' is maybe the worst nervous response to dealing with a threat, he realizes the voice is familiar.

"Hey, sorry, you're probably in a meeting, huh?" the voice asks.

Coyote's in the hallway, out of sight, and he doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but he realizes he recognizes the voice because it's Maverick's, and he doesn't want to interrupt his phone call just to talk to him. He should walk away, give the man some privacy, but he's on the phone in the dark classroom. If he wanted to have a secret conversation, he'd be in his office, right?

He figures there's no harm in listening, and if there is, he'll just die before he tells anyone what he heard.

"No, no, it's- everything's okay. They're all okay," Maverick reassures, his voice low and soft.

When Coyote risks a glance around the doorway, he sees Maverick staring up at the ceiling like he's searching for answers in the old plaster panels.

"I just- needed to hear your voice," Maverick admits hoarsely. His voice is ruined, and the sound immediately gets Coyote's hackles up in concern. "No, it just- I just realized today what he's missed. He-" Maverick laughs then, but the sound is hollow and humorless, and Coyote finds himself even more alarmed at the tone. "He said I had 'no wife, no kids, no one to mourn me when I burned in,'" Maverick continues. "And it just hit me that he doesn't- he doesn't know."

Coyote's mind is reeling as he tries to figure out what the hell Maverick is talking about. And who. Who said that to the Captain? And who could possibly say that and have it actually hurt Maverick? The man cared about exactly nobody's opinion of him. It's how he operated, it was a basic facet of Captain Mitchell's personality.

Except apparently, it wasn't. Apparently, there was someone out there - a few someones even, maybe - that had the power to say something to Maverick and have it actually get past his walls.

And…perhaps more interestingly, Maverick does have a wife? Or kids? Or a wife and kids? He pulls his phone out and debates sending something to the new Daggers group chat (the one they'd made after their day at the beach, when it felt a little more like they were a team and not competitors fighting against each other). But maybe this is a secret that he shouldn't blab about? Even his love of discovering gossip (egged on by Hangman) stalled at the way Maverick's voice sounded just now. Maybe he can just needle the Captain into offering the information up himself? He'd certainly feel a little less guilty about digging into it if Maverick broached the topic first of his own volition.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Maverick continues, his voice a little steadier, if only just. "I doubt he even realizes the actual reason got me to do a double take."

Coyote peeks around the corner again, and nearly jolts back before he realizes Maverick is looking out the window at the airfield instead of in his direction. The Captain opens his mouth to continue, but stops as he's obviously interrupted by whoever's on the other end of the call.

Maverick smiles then, something small and fragile, but it's there all the same. "I know. I know it isn't true." He runs a hand through his hair, a motion that Coyote is starting to recognize as something he does when he's stressed. "He asked me why I did it," Maverick continues, sighing. "Did I tell him the truth-? You know I can't. I won't. She's all he has left. I can't ruin her memory for him, too."

Maverick looks torn as he listens to the person on the other end of the call. The expression slowly relaxes into something less distressed, something more even. Whatever the other person is saying, it's getting through to Maverick - or at least he's pretending it is. "Yeah. I love you too. Sorry for pulling you away from work. I should let you get back to it."

Coyote pulls back from the doorway now that the phone call seems to be ending. He slinks backwards silently, careful to keep his boots from squeaking on the waxed floor. He can still barely hear Maverick, saying something about dinner and bringing food home? He backs up a little further, stills, and then waits a few seconds. Then he straightens up and starts walking forward again, as if he'd only just arrived, letting his footsteps make plenty of noise as he walks down the hall and toward the doorway.

He passes the open classroom door right as Maverick pulls the phone away from his ear, and he stops like he's surprised to see him there. Maverick's gaze snaps to his the moment he hears his footsteps stall.

"Coyote?" Maverick asks, surprised.

"Sir- you're still here?" Coyote asks, because he is still surprised about that. What was Maverick doing sitting alone in the classroom, in the dark?

"Yeah, I got caught up with some incident reports, figured I'd just finish them now," Maverick explains with a wave of his hand. Which is entirely and obviously bullshit, given the absolute lack of paperwork around him, but- "What can I help you with?"

"I just- I just wanted to thank you, Sir, for saving my life today," Coyote says, frowning a little at the pensive expression on the Captain's face. Like he's…confused that he's being thanked? "I heard from the others that you broke the hard deck chasing me down to keep tone on me, and I- thank you," he stops himself, realizing he's rambling.

"Of course, Coyote," Maverick replies. "Of course I'd go after you. I couldn't just watch you burn in and not try to do something," he says, shaking his head once. His gaze is intense, even in the low light, and it almost feels like his too-green eyes are glowing. "You never have to worry about that," he vows, reaching forward to squeeze Coyote's arm.

"Thank you, Sir," Coyote says again, giving him a small smile in return. He glances pointedly around the Captain to the empty chairs he'd been sitting in, without a hint of paperwork in sight. He wasn't even at the desk. "Do you need me to help with that incident report?" he asks, the corner of his lip curling up.

Maverick huffs a quiet laugh, but the expression reaches his eyes, so Coyote chalks that up to a win, and the Captain shakes his head. "No, I'm all done. I was just getting ready to head out."

"Got someone to go home to, Sir?" Coyote asks, very innocently. Without any ulterior motives whatsoever.

Maverick raises an eyebrow at him, his gaze intense and too sharp. "Probably not for long, if I'm stuck at work this late," he laughs.

What kind of answer is that? It's not even a deflection, even though it is.

"Fair enough, Sir," Coyote replies with a grin in return. "Did you get to see Phoenix and Bob? They were asleep when I went by to check on them."

"They were sleeping? Oh, good," Maverick replies, his expression softening, something warm and relieved in his gaze. "Yeah, I talked to them earlier. They're alright, they're just being kept for observation, but everything looked okay last I saw them."

"I'm glad to hear it," Coyote says, and means it. He knows his G-LOC incident had nothing to do with a bird striking Phoenix's jet, but it was hard to feel disconnected from it when they'd both gone through it in the same day. When he got lucky because Maverick chased him down to Earth, but she lost her bird and had to deal with the pain from an ejection.

Maverick nods. "Go and get some rest, Lieutenant. We'll be back at it again tomorrow."

Coyote nods, and just barely stops himself from saluting to the man - Maverick had insisted that it wasn't necessary when they were one-on-one, or off-base, or in any situation that was outside of work. It was a hard instinct to kill, though. "Yes, Sir. See you then," he says, giving him a little wave as he steps away and heads back out of the dark, stuffy building and into the dark airfield.

He starts walking for his car, and pulls out his phone as he goes. Maverick's response was enough of one that he feels like he can ask the other aviators about it - maybe someone else actually knows about the Captain's elusive personal life. For a man who was so legendary, and so infamous for his bragging, the fact that they knew so little about the real Captain Mitchell was something that itched at him, at all of them, Coyote's sure.

Coyote waits for a bit, laughing to himself, as he keeps walking. Leave it to Hangman to find a spot to get a dig at Rooster in. He glances at his screen one more time when he finally gets to his car.

Chapter Text

As soon as they got the news that Phoenix and Bob were being let go, that they were cleared to fly, someone said they should party about it. So now they're all heading to the Hard Deck tonight to celebrate.

In part, they're celebrating their fellow aviators' escape from harm. Mostly, they're taking the opportunity to enjoy life a bit. They have to. It might be easy in the sun, in their jets, to think of this as a detour to make them better pilots. But in less than a month, half of them are going on a mission at a level that even Maverick himself admits he's never seen. Focusing too much on that would only guarantee failure, but they can't forget it, either, can't become careless.

Any soldier would be nervous in the weeks before a deployment. But most deployments weren't to what the brass is calling a suicide mission when they think the training detachment can't hear them. They don't expect them all the come back. Hell, they might not expect any of them to come back.

Besides Maverick. The Captain is the only one who seems hell-bent on making sure they all know they're all going to come home. That he won't stop teaching them until they're ready to.

In any case, Payback thinks, it's better to drink with friends than sit alone in the dark contemplating mortality.

Of course…there's also the other reason they're going to the Hard Deck, specifically.

Payback pulls his phone out to look at the group chat and sighs.

Alright, so he got himself into this situation a little bit. Fanboy better at least buy him a beer for it - he hasn't forgotten that his WSO egged on Maverick just as much as he did for that bet. He'll take the fall for his backseater anyday, but it'll cost him this time.

He still doesn't even know how the hell he's supposed to ask Penny about Maverick. Just because Hangman said she's related to an Admiral doesn't mean she knows all the gossip, does it?

Still, any further protests would just seem like he's chickening out, and Payback was no coward.

So they all get there at 1730, just a little after the bar opens. It's a weeknight, so it should be slower, and it's early enough that he'll hopefully have a chance to talk to Penny before she has to start juggling patrons.

"Yo, Penny," Payback waves, walking up to the bar as the others filter in and start to take over the pool tables.

"Hey, Fitch," she says, coming over to him with a smile. "What can I get for you?"

"Twelve cold ones - surprise us," he says with a grin. "I think most of 'em prefer IPA, but they'll drink what I give 'em," he says with a wink. He pulls a credit card from his back pocket - Fanboy's. He'd pilfered it from his backseater on the way in, just because he could.

Penny glances down at the card, and then back up at him with a raised eyebrow. "Does Mickey know he's paying?" she asks wryly.

"He will in a minute," Payback grins. "He owes me, anyway."

"Oh yeah? What for?" she asks, making conversation as she takes the card and starts to pour pints for him.

"I'm taking the fall for something we both did," Payback says with a shrug. "Say, Penny…"

"Yes, Lieutenant?" she asks, the corner of her lip curled.

"That guy you had us throw overboard a couple weeks ago…" he says, still wincing at the memory of throwing the man in the sand when the next morning he strolled up the aisle and to the podium to teach them. Maverick certainly recognized them, though it wasn't like it was hard with the way they all sank into their chairs once they recognized him. But he never held it against them, even though he could've given them all kinds of shit for it.

Hell, Payback probably owed the Captain a drink for that alone.

Penny's smile turns warmer, fonder.

"Did you know he was going to be our teacher the next day?" Payback laughs. "You coulda warned us, Penny," he pouts, though there's no real heat to it.

Penny laughs, then. "No, he hadn't told me why he was here yet." Her eyes sparkle with mirth, and Payback finds himself wondering…

He's never seen anyone look that happy to be talking about Captain Mitchell.

"Well, he's been teaching us," Payback says with a shrug. It wasn't exactly a secret. Or it was half a secret, anyway. Pilots didn't get recalled to TOPGUN out of the blue for nothing, and dragging Maverick in had made it a spectacle of a sort. No one knew why they were here, but the fact that a mission was being prepared was obvious to anyone in the area.

"Yeah? How is he?" she asks, arranging the pints on a tray for him to carry in a bit.

"As a teacher?" Payback asks. "Well, he's real good at teaching us that we're no match for him," he snorts. "I'm not even sure we can learn what he's trying to teach us." He pauses, realizing he's never actually admitted that, to himself or anyone else. "That doesn't mean we're going to stop trying, though," he adds.

"I'm sure you'll get it," Penny says, and somehow when she says it it doesn't feel like she's just blowing smoke up his ass. He believes her. Or he believes that she believes it, anyway.

"We will," he vows. "I uh…I was wondering if you knew Maverick at all?" he asks, watching her bring the seventh and eighth pint over. He's running out of time.

She raises an eyebrow. "What about him?" she asks mildly.

"Like, know him beyond the stories we all know," he clarifies. "He barely tells us anything about himself." Which he knows isn't unusual - it wasn't like most COs shared their life story with their subordinates. But most COs also weren't teaching a pack of the best naviators the Navy had, and they weren't preparing them for a suicide mission.

And, crucially, most COs had more time with their team, time to get them to trust each other, to gel together. Maverick had been dealt a shit hand and was doing the best he could with it, but it still wasn't enough.

"What makes you think I know any more than you do?" Penny asks, but there's a test there. Something unreadable in her gaze. She's fishing to see how much he knows.

Payback shrugs easily. "You've got family in the brass, right? Besides, everyone who's anyone around here comes to your bar all the time," he adds, not above flattery. It was true, anyway.

Penny laughs. "Yeah, I do know Maverick. Or I did, anyway." There's something there in her gaze, quiet and maybe a little pained? She pauses for a moment, like she's debating how much to share. "He actually took me up in an F-18 once," she says, grinning.

"…What?" Payback asks, stunned.

Penny laughs, then. "He took me for a joyride. Nearly got himself shipped off to the desert for it." Actually, he might have, but he should have lost his wings over it, so all in all he'd made out alright.

"How the hell did he not end up in jail over that?" Payback asks, stunned.

She snorts. "I tried to cover for him as much as I could, but I needn't have bothered. He has his own guardian angel looking out for him." She finishes lining up the pints on the large tray. "Think you can carry this yourself?" she asks.

"Yup, won't be a problem," he assures, still reeling over the tiniest details he's been given.

"You leaving this tab open?" she asks.

"No, I'll have mercy on Fanboy, you can close it out," he grins. "I can get him to sign the receipt if you need."

Penny raises an eyebrow. "You do that," she says, sliding the card and printed receipt under one of the pints of beer. She tosses a loose pen onto the tray and waves him off. "Have fun, Lieutenant," she says with a wink.

He suddenly wonders if that story is even true, or if she's just pulling his leg, stirring up mischief. He hefts up the tray of beers, carefully balancing them all as he walks over to the nearest table to where the rest of the training detachment has started to set up.

"Drinks are on Fanboy," Payback announces as he sets the pints down.

"They're what now?" Fanboy asks, jumping up out of the stool he'd been perching on.

"You owed me for taking the fall for that bet," Payback replies cheekily. "Consider your debt paid."

"Ugh, you need to stop earning your callsign over and over, Fitch," Fanboy groans, but he comes over and signs the receipt like a good sport - throwing in a good tip on top. "So, what did my round of beers buy us?" he asks, snagging one of the darker beers and taking a sip as he pocketed his credit card again.

"Apparently…Maverick took Penny on a joyride in an F-18 once?" Payback repeats. He's still not sure even he believes it, but there it is.

Hangman blinks, staring at him as he grabs an IPA for himself. "Come again?"

"What, she's never told you?" Payback teases. The bartender seemed to have a soft spot for Seresin for some reason, though it was perhaps just because of his Southern charm. He really knew how to turn it up when he wanted something - even if that something was just 'making a good impression'.

"No, but that explains some things," Hangman huffs, taking a long drink of his beer.

Rooster turns to them, seeming like he planned to grab drinks for Phoenix and Bob, who'd just arrived, when he stalls. Either at what Hangman says, or- no, he's just staring at him.

Payback promptly decides he wants nothing to do with that particular disaster-in-waiting, and turns away to wave at their fellow pilots - and 'guests of honor'. Or the excuse for the hangout, anyway.

"We miss any juicy gossip?" Phoenix asks, stepping around Rooster - who still looked a little like he was rebooting - to grab herself a glass. She tips her head to Bob, and he tilts his chin back up to her. She apparently understands whatever that means, grabbing a glass for him too and handing it to him.

"Just that Payback says Penny told him Maverick took her for a ride in an F-18 one time," Yale relays.

Phoenix's eyebrows reach her hairline. "He did? How the hell didn't he get discharged over it?" she asks, stunned.

Payback shrugs. "She said she tried to cover for him, but that he also had a 'guardian angel of his own'."

"Does Penny have a wedding ring?" Fanboy asks, peering over his shoulder back at the bar, trying to get a glimpse at her left hand as she works.

"She's outta your league, Mickey," Payback teases, smirking sharp, though he knows why Fanboy is actually asking.

"Fuck you too, Fitch," Fanboy replies, without much heat. "Captain Mitchell would have to like her a lot to risk his career over her, just to take her on a ride," he clarifies.

Payback nods. "I was thinking the same. But she talked in the past tense, said she knew Maverick, not that she knows him."

Phoenix hums. "What if it's not a wedding ring? What if it was an engagement ring for a failed engagement?" she muses.

"Who would wear a ring from a fiancee they broke it off with?" Hangman asks skeptically.

Phoenix shrugs. "I wouldn't assume anything Maverick does is normal," she points out.

Rooster makes some strangled noise in his throat, but before someone can ask him if he's choking on his own spit, he snags an unclaimed glass of beer and takes a long drink. Phoenix's gaze flicks to him, but moves off just as quickly, as if hoping no one noticed.

Payback noticed, though.

"What's your deal with Maverick, anyway, Rooster?" Payback asks, leaning his hip against the pool table, watching him.

Watching the way Rooster's expression shuttered, tightened up. Watching the way anger flickered through his eyes before he forcibly shoved it down. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Hangman. It's none of your business," Rooster replies brusquely.

"Do you know who Maverick's married to, Rooster?" Harvard asks, innocently enough.

"Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you," Rooster replies, raising an eyebrow. "That would be hardly fair for your betting pool," he points out.

Harvard groans good-naturedly. "Fair enough, Bradshaw," he says, toasting him with his own pint glass.

"My money's on Penny," Fanboy decides. "I've never seen anyone look happy to talk about Maverick before," he says. "Even people talking about the insane things he's done seem begrudging about it."

"Just because she's friends with him doesn't mean she's still with him," Bob points out from where he's sitting.

Fanboy shrugs. "It's the best I've got to go on so far," he says. "We're not locking in bets until someone finds proof, anyway, right?"

"Right," Coyote says, from where he'd been typing something into his phone. "What do we think, $75 a bet? You can pick more than one person if you feel like wasting your money, I guess," he says.

Fanboy nods. "Lock in either way before we leave for the mission?" he suggests.

Coyote nods, and then their group chat pings with a link to a shared note where he's written out the basics. The first name listed is 'Fanboy - Penny, $75'. "There. You all should be able to add your name in whenever you decide on your guess."

Bob glances at his screen with a frown. "I don't think I can open this."

Hangman groans. "Of course you're the one with the Android breaking the group chat," he says.

Bob shrugs. "You won't catch me paying twice as much for a shittier phone just so I can text with blue chat bubbles," he replies simply, taking another drink.

Phoenix snorts in amusement.

Rooster nods, tipping his head toward Bob, acknowledging the point.

"Typical," Coyote grumbles, though it's more good-natured than Hangman's jab had been.

The rest of the evening is less about their Captain and more about spending time with each other, steeping in the relief of Phoenix and Bob being okay. Of a reminder that they risked their lives up there in the sky every day, but they would fight like hell to make it back to Earth so they could do it all over again the next.

Only once they - responsibly - make it all home does Payback check his phone again to see if there have been any new revelations. Instead he chokes on a snort at what he sees.

Whatever. It was someone else's turn to do the digging, now. He'd done his part.

Chapter Text

They all show up to class like normal the next day, with Phoenix and Bob retaking their usual seats up front. Everything is alright again.

Except it isn't. Because instead of Maverick walking up to the front this morning, it's Cyclone.

Fanboy immediately sits up a little straighter, gaze flicking to Payback's to see his own confusion mirrored in his pilot's eyes.

"Captain Mitchell has a personal emergency to attend to. He is no longer your instructor, and as of today, there are new mission parameters. Time to target is now four minutes. You'll be entering the valley level at reduced speed. Not to exceed 420 knots."

Fanboy stares in shock. In front of him, he sees Hangman and Coyote turn to each other, twin looks of skepticism on their faces.

Bob speaks up, saying what everyone is thinking. "Sir, won't we be giving their planes time to intercept?"

Cyclone's jaw twitches. "Well, Lieutenant, you have a fighting chance against enemy aircraft. What are the odds of surviving a head-on collision with a mountain?"

That's a low blow, and out of the corner of his eye, Fanboy can see Phoenix inhale sharply. She'd had to watch her plane do just that less than two days ago.

Cyclone continues, ignoring the tension in the air - maybe even relishing in it. "You'll be attacking the target from a higher altitude, level with the north wall. Gonna be a little harder to keep your laser on target," he says. Next to him, Payback is shaking his head. Cyclone carries on, ignoring the reaction, "but you will avoid the high-G climb out."

Fanboy leans over to Payback, just a little. "We'll be sitting ducks for enemy missiles," he whispers, as if it needs to be said.

Before Cyclone can speak - or reprimand him for talking - the monitor behind the admiral starts beeping. On the screen, the icon for an F-18 Single approaches the course.

Cyclone spins around, staring. "Who the hell is that?" he asks. Fanboy's wondering the same - the whole training detachment is here.

The radio crackles to life. "Maverick to Range Control. Entering Point Alpha. Confirm green range."

Fanboy's eyes widen, and he feels the air in the room go still.

"Uh, Maverick, Range Control, uh…green range is confirmed." Fanboy's never heard Range Control sound uncertain about anything before. Further ahead, he sees Phoenix sit upright. "I don't see an event scheduled for you, sir." The chair behind them creaks, and Fanboy glances back to see Warlock leaning in too. A few rows up, even Rooster shifts forward.

Maverick's voice comes back on the radio. "Well, I'm going anyway."

Phoenix murmurs, more to herself than anything else, an awed, "Nice."

The Captain continues, "Setting time to target: two minutes, fifteen seconds."

Payback starts shaking his head. "2:15? that's impossible."

"Final attack point. Maverick's inbound."

They watch the plane dip through the starting square, and the timer at the top starts ticking down. The first minute is just him navigating the canyon, keeping up that high speed and taking those tight turns with perfection. He never gets close to hitting a wall, never takes a turn even a hair too wide.

For that entire minute, Fanboy's pretty sure no one really breathes.

Maverick reaches the straightaway, and they all lean in a little further, sitting up and watching the screen, riveted, as if they could see his plane on a live camera.

"Popping in three, two, one."

A few moments later he's inverted, swooping over the simulated ridge of the mountain, and then righting himself again just as quickly.

They hear the sound of the laser locking on, which means Maverick is controlling it at the same time while he's flying. He's doing the job of two planes, two pilots and a WSO, all by himself.

Rooster leans forward, and Payback can almost see the frown on his face. Phoenix's breathing speeds up, like she's flying right beside Maverick, along for the ride. Payback holds a fist up, squeezing it tight, rooting for the Captain, unable to look away. Hangman, all the way up front, doesn't move at all.

"Bombs away."

Bob stands, and then a bunch more of them stand, needing to see. The timer ticks below ten seconds, and Maverick's already climbing. The indicator ticks upward with each G he pulls, up past 8, 9, to 10. Cyclone hasn't moved since this started, but Fanboy can see the tension in his shoulders. He can imagine the vein popping out on his forehead.

"Bulls-eye, holy shit!" Fanboy doesn't even know who says that, but it doesn't matter - it's what they're all thinking.

The timer stops at -00:00.16 seconds and flashes green.

Fanboy glances around the room, sees Warlock pumping his fist to himself, biting back a smile. Hondo, all the way in the back, is nodding to himself, either like he knew this was going to happen or he isn't surprised by the result.

"Yes," someone breathes.

Even Hangman is awed, murmuring a quiet, "Damn."

This is what they've all been missing, even if they hadn't realized it. Proof that this is possible. That it can be done.

Maybe only Maverick can do it, but it isn't totally, entirely, physically impossible.

The air in the room is charged, and Fanboy hadn't even noticed how they'd started to feel like they were railing against the unachievable, how they'd started to lose morale. But Maverick had seen it. Had realized they needed to see him do it.

Hell, even Cyclone had admitted Maverick hadn't ever done anything like this before.

But now he has.

Cyclone doesn't turn around for a few moments longer, and when he does, he looks like he's trying desperately to keep his expression even. But they can all see the way his jaw tics, the vein on his forehead.

"Class is dismissed," he says gruffly.

They all stand, looking at each other in confusion.

Obviously Cyclone wasn't in on this. But he'd said he was taking over their training. So why did Maverick show up regardless?

Fanboy ponders this the whole way out of the building. He doesn't notice Payback walking with him, or the others just behind, until he stalls in the entryway. He isn't really paying attention until he realizes he's stopped in front of a giant photo of Captain Mitchell, from thirty years before.

Rooster nearly bumps into him from behind. "Fanboy-" he says, surprised.

"Sorry," Fanboy says, shaking his head. "I just realized- I don't think I ever noticed this life-size photo of Maverick here," he says.

Phoenix huffs from beside Rooster. "Don't think I had either," she admits.

"Has that always been there?" Payback asks.

"What, you think they printed and hung it just for this mission?" Coyote laughs, catching up to them.

"There's a copy of this in every Pacific Fleet base," Hangman says, looking at them all like they're crazy. "You know, because it has Admiral Kazansky in it? The Commander of the Pacific Fleet?" He gestures at the photo, at the man on the other side of it, a young Iceman grinning at Maverick as they shake hands after famously saving the Layton.

"It's the most well-known photo of him, isn't it?" Coyote offers. "The Admiral, I mean."

"Probably the best quality one they have, anyway," Payback replies. "It got printed in newspapers, didn't it?"

Hangman rolls his eyes at them, unimpressed. "If you were Commander of the fleet, wouldn't you want a picture up that celebrates your first air-to-air kill?"

"Why, you saying you have one in your pocket if you ever get that far, Bagman?" Phoenix asks, in a clear bid to rile him up.

"You'll know how it feels, if you ever manage to get a kill of your own," Hangman fires back at her.

Phoenix huffs. "I care more about my mission being completed than hunting glory," she says derisively, and pushes past them to keep walking.

Rooster carefully nudges Fanboy aside so he can walk out with her.

Fanboy steps aside for him, but he keeps looking at that photo.

"What are you thinking, Fanboy?" Payback asks.

"Just thinking about how I wonder if the Admiral still feels this way about Maverick," he says with a bit of a grin. "Have you ever seen any of the brass smile about Maverick? Let alone to him?"

"No, in fact, I'm pretty sure Cyclone was about to have a stroke today," Payback replies.

"Yeah, what the hell was that all about?" Fanboy muses. "He said Maverick wasn't going to be our instructor anymore?"

Payback shakes his head. "Guess we'll find out tomorrow."

"We're deploying soon anyway. What was he going to teach us in a couple of days? There's no way we can pull off the mission with his parameters."

Payback nods, frowning. "Yeah, I don't know. If that's what we're ordered to do…" He doesn't have to say the rest: the mission will fail, and they'll all die in the attempt. If Maverick had taught them anything, it was that they were going up against nearly impossible odds, and that was with his strategy, which was the best shot they had at surviving this whole mess.

"Let's hope it isn't," Fanboy says. "Maybe that's why Maverick went out there today. It sure as hell almost sounds like he stole his own F-18 to fly the course," he snorts.

"Like when he took Penny for a joyride? Not totally unheard of for him," Payback answers, grinning.

"Exactly," Fanboy agrees.

They start walking, starting to head back for their base housing. They walk in companionable silence, at ease with each other after long deployments spent together.

"I wonder what that 'personal emergency' was that Cyclone mentioned," Payback eventually says.

"Couldn't have been that urgent," Fanboy points out. "He showed up anyway and flew."

Payback hums in agreement, but both of their gazes stray to the row of parked F-18s, and they see Maverick's pulling in at the end. Fanboy glances at his pilot, and Payback's expression matches his own. They don't need to speak, both on the same page, and as one they turn to their Captain's plane, walking down the row toward him.

By the time they get to him, he's clearly finished his post-flight checks, because he's already climbing out of the cockpit. He's moving quickly, like he's in a hurry, but he's still thorough, walking around his plane and checking everything over in a quick run-through.

"Captain Mitchell," Fanboy calls. When Maverick's head snaps up in their direction, Fanboy waves at him.

He tips his head up, and then pulls his helmet off, striding over. He looks…distracted. "Fanboy, Payback," he greets them. "What's up?" His gaze flicks past them, like he's looking for someone.

"Are you alright, Sir?" Payback asks carefully. "Cyclone said you had an emergency to take care of and that he'd be taking over our training."

Maverick snorts, something harsh and rough. "Is that what he called it? I'm alright, Lieutenants."

He doesn't look alright. There's an edge to his gaze, to his smile. But he says he is, and Fanboy isn't sure it's his place to say anything about it.

So he settles on the safer thing. "That flight was amazing, Sir," he says. "I think we'd started to think the mission was impossible. But you did it in time, and shaved fifteen seconds off on top of it all."

Maverick's smile is a little more genuine, then. "I wanted to show you it can be done. And that I believe you all can do it."

"I'd say you did that, Sir," Payback agrees.

"Good," Maverick says softly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go." It's abrupt, but not meant to be harsh, with the way Maverick nods at them before pivoting on his heel and striding quickly away. Away from the TOPGUN buildings, away from the administrative offices.

Away towards the parking lot, actually.

"Huh. I wonder what that's about," Fanboy murmurs. "You'd think he'd go back to the locker rooms or to talk to Admiral Simpson, right?"

Payback hums. "Maybe that emergency was real?"

"And he put it off to fly for us?" Fanboy asks, surprised.

Payback shrugs. "Would that be so surprising?"

"…I guess not," Fanboy concedes.

He pulls his phone out, an instinct by now, his first thought to check if the others have any further intel whenever they learn something new about Maverick. Payback snorts beside him, but pulls his phone out too, nudging him to start walking again so they're not just loitering in the middle of the airfield while texting.

Fanboy shakes his head in amusement, and can't help the snort of laughter when the shared note pings with an update.

Bets: $75 each

- Fanboy: Penny

- Omaha: Hondo

- Halo: Hondo

Now this was getting interesting.

Chapter Text

The orders come in a day or so later. They never did figure out what Maverick's emergency was, but it can't have been that pressing, because he's been assigned Team Leader for the mission.

Bob feels a lot better about that than he maybe should. But knowing that Maverick would be out there with them - if they got selected? It made the whole thing seem a lot more doable. He'd been impossible to catch during their training, impossible to kill, and to have someone that…invincible with them? It helped. Logically, Bob knew that him being better than all of them at dogfighting didn't make him impervious to SAMs, but they needed all the reassurances they could get.

Of course, first they have to actually get to the carrier. It's not as simple as 'drive down to the port and get on board', because they don't have the time to wait eleven days - minimum - to cross the ocean. So instead they're flying to Alaska, where they'll catch the USS Leyte Gulf. The carrier had been summoned back to a Coast Guard station there, and it'll give them a much shorter path to sail to get to their target.

Which would be fine, except the Air Force C-130 they were supposed to catch a ride with got delayed, and now they're being put on commercial flights so they can make it before the carrier has to leave to even have a chance of making it near the target before the plant is operational.

Somehow, Bob did not expect the most difficult part of this suicide mission to be economy class on United Airlines.

They're in uniform because they're already 'late', and they'll be all but sprinting onto the carrier as soon as they touch down on Kodiak Island.

Bob hates traveling in uniform. The stares are impossible to avoid, and harder still to ignore. Especially with the fact that they had two Admirals with them and a Captain. The overpriced airport coffee - a sweet pumpkin spice latte that shouldn't still be in season - is a small perk to help offset it, at least.

"What're you thinkin, Bob?" Phoenix asks from beside him, gently nudging him with her elbow.

It's only then that he realizes he'd been staring sightlessly out the window, ostensibly watching the activity of planes moving in and out of the terminal. He shrugs, one-shouldered. "Just thinking how annoyed I am at the Air Force for being late," he says wryly.

She huffs softly in amusement, sipping her own iced caramel macchiato. "You can say that again. C-130 doesn't have Starbucks in the terminal though," she points out, tapping her cup to his in a mock toast.

"That it does not," he agrees, smiling small at her as he matches the gesture. He glances back over his shoulder at the rest of the detachment, and at the brass who's hovering nearby while somehow managing to project the air of 'I don't know these assholes' about the people right next to them. "Who do you think's the worst at flying coach?" he asks after a moment.

"What, like the most annoying passenger?" Phoenix asks, turning to follow his gaze. She hums, taking the question seriously. "My money's on Admiral Simpson," she decides.

Bob agrees with her, but that's no fun, so he tips his head thoughtfully. "Yeah, maybe. I'd say Admiral Bates," he decides.

"Loser buys coffee at the next layover?" she suggests.

"Deal," Bob says.

"What are you two gambling about now?" Rooster asks, leaning in.

"Who's worse at flying commercial," Phoenix replies. "I think Admiral Simpson, Bob says Admiral Bates."

"It's Maverick," Rooster replies, so quickly it's like he didn't even have to think about it.

Phoenix raises an eyebrow at him. "Joining us in the bet then? Loser's buying coffee in Seattle."

"Sure," he says with a careless shrug. "How do we get a loser if there's three of us?"

"We can split the cost of the winner's drink," Phoenix offers.

Rooster nods once, satisfied. "I'll make sure to get something obnoxious and large," he says with a grin.

"That confident, huh, Rooster?" Bob asks, wondering what that's about. Rooster answered like he knew, like he's been on a commercial flight with Maverick before.

"Guy like him? Pretty sure he loses his mind whenever someone else is at the stick and he's along for the ride," Rooster defends himself. It's a reasonable enough explanation, but something about it feels just a little off to Bob. Not enough for him to call him on it, though.

Just enough to think about.

Before he can say anything further, they get the boarding call - first class and the highest eschelon of credit card spenders, and then uniformed military. Bob glances at the rest of the cohort, sees them all grabbing their bags, and picks his own up to join them. Might as well at least get settled. Either stand out here or wait in there, it didn't matter overmuch. Except there would be fewer people staring once they were seated, which gives that option enough of a lead for him to gladly take it.

They follow the Admirals onto the plane like the ugliest line of ducklings he's ever seen. There was something so dehumanizing about flying commercial, and that was saying something, given he'd spent time on an aircraft carrier before.

He suppresses a wince at the gate agent saying 'thank you for your service' to each of them as they scan their ticket. If only she knew what she was thanking them for. 'Thank you for going on a suicide bombing run' didn't quite roll off the tongue the same, though.

Too messy a thought for the average civilian to want to contend with.

He plays with the thought, quietly amused as he sips his latte and they board the plane. Their seats are in the back - good old last-minute economy tickets - and not even all together. Just close enough to be a problem, because he has a feeling that even if the Admirals (or the Captain) are the worst, a pack of wired aviators just close enough to yell at each other probably wouldn't be much better.

Bob's ticket puts him in the aisle - thank goodness, his legs are long enough to be a problem even there - and Phoenix beside him at the window. The middle section of the plane is large enough that the outside sections are only two seats wide. Captain Mitchell is a row ahead and diagonal from them, on the outside of the middle four-seat section. Admiral Bates is two rows ahead, but directly in front of them - unfortunate, since it makes it harder to watch him. Admiral Simpson is behind them, in the second seat in the middle. Halo has the misfortune of being sat next to him, apparently. Bob winces sympathetically at her, and she meets his gaze with a helpless sort of resignation.

The rest of the training detachment gets settled, scattered around them, and then a little later the plane starts filling up with all the other passengers. Bob's glad he doesn't have to worry about getting up to let someone into the seat next to him, and he leans back as much as he can, trying to stretch his back preemptively before it gets tight.

"Know what else C-130's don't have?" Phoenix asks cheekily. The answer is 'nearly everything', but he tips his head obligingly. "Personal media screens," she grins, pulling out a pair of headphones and pulling the bagged adapter out of the seatback pocket, connecting her cable to it and then her headphones to her armrest..

"Yeah? Got something you want to watch?" Bob's lost lock on what's just left theatres, and he kind of doubts the 'new releases' section will have anything he particularly wants to see, anyway.

"Jason Bourne," Phoenix replies with a grin.

"Yeah? Didn't take you for an American spy movie fan," Bob says curiously. It's not judgmental - he's always learning something new about her.

She shrugs, popping her headphones in. "Sometimes it's nice to see the world get saved so simply that one guy could do it alone," she says. "And the fight choreography's generally actually decent. And there's enough movies in the series to cover the whole trip," she adds.

"Hm," Bob muses. "Might join you," he says, pulling his own headphones out of his pack. He already has his own adapter - one bad experience where they didn't offer adapters and he had to watch movies with those painfully hard plastic earbuds was enough for him to make sure he carried one with him always. Just in case he ended up on a plane without having time to go home and pack.

Like now.

The vindication is sweet, in any case. He grabs the packaged adapter offered by the airline, tossing it in his pack to add to his collection of adapters, cables, and dongles.

Bob does end up starting the Bourne series, but he maybe shouldn't have even bothered, because at some point shortly after they reach cruising altitude, he gets distracted by Maverick across the aisle.

The Captain's leg is twitching, into the aisle and then back under the seat in front of him, and then out again. Like he's impatient for something, but the plane left the runway less than half an hour ago.

Then he realizes Maverick is tapping his phone on his thigh, checking it every few moments. Which, it should be in airplane mode, so what is he even checking it for?

Bob realizes what he's waiting for when the flight crew force-pauses all of the media screens to announce that in-flight wifi is now available. They don't even finish the announcement before Maverick has unlocked his phone and is checking out with what must be a credit card saved into his phone.

He gets a handful of notifications near instantly, and then Maverick opens his text messages and doesn't close them. He responds to a few messages - not that Bob can actually read them from here, from this angle - but then he opens one chat and stays on it. Bob finds himself leaning forward a little, trying to get a better look.

Whoever it is he's texting is responding nearly instantly, clearly also hovering on their phone to message the Captain.

He gets a glimpse of the contact name after a bit, but that doesn't clarify anything at all. It just says 'Ice', but Bob has no idea why he'd be having an invested text conversation with his 'In Case of Emergency' contact number. Usually that was a parent, or some friend that wouldn't get deployed at the same time, and so could actually be called in an emergency.

And it definitely wasn't someone Bob would expect anyone to be that desperate to text. So much so that Captain Mitchell just sat there staring at the ceiling until he could pay for the overpriced in-flight wifi to talk to them.

…He wonders if the Captain is making arrangements. For if they don't come back from this mission.

But surely he wouldn't be doing that in front of them all, right? He's never even implied a single doubt that they wouldn't all come home successfully. This would be…extraordinarily out of character, at least of the Maverick they've known for the last two weeks.

Phoenix elbows him, hard, in the ribs, and he jolts, turning to look at her with a mildly-affronted expression. "What-?"

She smirks at him, crooked. "I paused your movie like fifteen minutes ago and you never noticed," she points out.

His gaze flicks to the screen, and he realizes she's right. Huh.

"What are you watching? Which one of them?" she asks, leaning around him a little to look into the aisle, clearly annoyed that she can't get a clear view into their betting pool. Not that she didn't trust Bob - out of any of the training detachment, she knew Bob wouldn't lie just to win a bet.

"Maverick," he whispers, low enough that the Captain shouldn't overhear it over the dull roar of the plane's engines. He thinks he might not have heard him regardless, with how fixated he is on that screen, on the typing bubble indicator on the left.

She leans a little further, nearly draping herself over him to see. "What about him?" she asks.

"He was ready to bounce off the walls until they turned on the wifi," he says. "And he hasn't closed his messaging app or put down his phone since," he adds.

"Huh. Wonder who he's texting," she muses.

He shrugs. "No idea."

Once he realizes Maverick is going to do literally nothing else except keep texting that person, Bob eventually turns back to watch his movie. He starts it over from the beginning, and leans back as far as the seat will let him recline. Not much else happens during the flight. Cyclone sits as still as a statue - though him ordering a Bloody Mary is both curious and somehow totally fitting, once Bob lets himself think about it. Maverick gets a ginger ale, which also catches Bob's attention. It makes him wonder what Warlock's drink of choice from an airplane cart is.

He barely manages to finish the movie before they start the chain of announcements that would interrupt him every three minutes on their descent, which is a small mercy. Nothing quite ruined a movie's climactic action scene like a massive neon blue bar plastered across the screen saying, 'Important Announcement: If you cannot hear through your headphones, please remove them.'

Bob's already put away his headphones by the time the slew of them start, including - most infuriatingly - the long spiel about credit cards.

"Guess we owe Rooster a coffee," Phoenix sighs. "I'd hoped for something more exciting."

Bob hums in agreement, though he's perhaps glad nothing got too exciting. Rooster's somewhere on the other side of the plane, so at least they don't have to deal with any gloating until they get to the terminal. And, probably more importantly, until they're out of earshot of the brass.

Maverick starts fidgeting again the moment they turn off the wifi, his leg bouncing as he looks up the aisle as if he can will the pilots to land any faster by staring at the cockpit door from all the way in the back.

It's almost…cute. Bob really does wonder who he was texting. He wonders, if he asked, if he'd surprise the Captain into answering honestly. He'd bet Maverick wouldn't remotely expect the question to come from him. Bob can't help but wonder if the Captain knows about the betting pool, too. He thinks they've been pretty subtle about asking around from people who aren't Maverick, but they're running out of time, and it might be time to get a little more drastic.

He watches the Captain turn off airplane mode while they're still at least fifteen thousand feet in the air, and he keeps his expression even despite the amusement. Of course that was a rule he'd ignore. If anyone would, it would be a fighter jet pilot who knew that 'cell phones mess with airplane systems' was bullshit.

As soon as he locks onto signal, he gets a few texts, and he's back to messaging, relaxed in his seat again.

Bob watches him, and the time passes by in a flash because they've suddenly landed, the plane hitting the runway a little roughly - though smoother than some landings he'd had in an F-18, ejection notwithstanding.

The moment the seatbelt sign turns off, Bob stands, pulling his bag over his shoulder, watching Maverick stand up in the spot in front of him. The Captain is short enough that he can easily see his phone screen, and he only feels a little guilty about looking at the tail end of a conversation that's been going on for the better part of three hours.

"Got a penpal, Sir?" Bob asks, casually enough. "Or a sweetheart back home?"

Maverick jumps nearly a foot in the air, and Bob leans back just to make sure he doesn't take a headbutt to the chin in the process. "Shit- sorry Bob, I didn't see you there," he says, slipping his phone into his pocket.

Bob gestures to the seat he's just vacated, though Phoenix is now perching in it, ready to get up too. "Didn't mean to startle you, Sir," he says apologetically. He doesn't say that he doesn't think anyone could have approached the Captain without surprising him, given how absorbed he was in his phone.

Maverick waves off the apology, smiling that easy, crooked smile. "Ha, pen pal," he says, like the thought is funny. "Before the internet, yeah. Now, someone I can pester whenever I want." His grin gets a little wider.

"And who will pester you back all the while," Bob points out, with a small smile.

Maverick is still half-turned to face him, so he and Phoenix get to see the way his expression all but melts into something warm and fond. "Yeah," he says, after a moment. "That too."

Bob subtly glances down to Phoenix, but she doesn't look at him until the line of people in front of them moves and Maverick turns away. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he's pretty sure that means 'that has to be his partner'. Bob nods in agreement.

The Admirals are not waiting for them when they get off the plane, and when Bob looks at Maverick questioningly, the Captain just shrugs. "Cyclone said something about having status and going to a lounge, I think," he offers. "He took Warlock with him."

Bob glances at Phoenix, and she bites back a laugh. "Maybe Cyclone saves his diva time for demanding access to airport lounges."

"Not technically being a bad passenger," Rooster points out, from where he'd been standing by the nearest pillar, waiting for them.

Maverick raises an eyebrow, looks like he's going to ask, but then his phone dings, and he's back to looking at it.

Rooster tips his head, so Bob and Phoenix go with him, heading for the nearest coffee shop. "So? Do you two owe me a coffee?"

Bob doesn't quite manage to stop the smile. "I think we do," he sighs. "Maverick was ready to climb the walls until they turned on the wifi. He bought it immediately and spent the next three hours texting someone, and then looked like he was going to land the plane himself when they turned off the wifi for landing."

Rooster looks mildly surprised - not at the result, but maybe at the details. "Yeah, he's not great at staying still, I've noticed." Those last two words feel tacked on, like a last-second addition, but Bob doesn't call him on that, either.

"Pick your poison, Bradshaw, what are you ordering?" Phoenix asks as they get to the front of the line.

"I'll have an extra-large blended mocha," Rooster replies, his expression perfectly straight.

"Chocolate, huh?" Phoenix muses. "You know what - not a bad idea. I'll get a large iced peppermint mocha," she decides, and goes to pay.

Bob hands her a five dollar bill to cover his half of Rooster's drink. She pockets it with a nod, and then it's his turn to order. He just gets himself a regular latte, something a little less sweet the second time around.

"Should get something to eat," Rooster says. "For us peasants that don't have lounge access like the brass," he adds with a grin. Phoenix huffs, but nods, and once they all get their drinks, they head for the food court between their old gate and the one their next flight is leaving from.

They eat some greasy, overpriced airport food, and Bob pulls out his phone to text the group while they do.

Bob looks slowly up at Rooster, both surprised that he'd offered this information, and wondering how to ask about it. Rooster sips his coffee, not quite looking at them.

"Why do you hate Maverick, Rooster?" Bob finally settles on.

Rooster flinches, though he clearly tries to suppress it. "I-" His gaze flicks to Phoenix, and there's some unspoken question in his eyes. Whatever he sees in her gaze seems to be answer enough. "He pulled my papers, blocked my application to the Naval Academy. Set me back years," he finally says, his voice rough.

"Why?" Bob asks, eyeing Rooster more carefully now. Searching for the puzzle pieces to make this all make sense.

"Never managed to get a real answer out of him," he replies bitterly.

"No, I mean- why would Maverick know who you were and pull your application?" Bob clarifies.

Rooster looks up in surprise, and then looks to Phoenix. She raises an eyebrow at him, and apparently Rooster is surprised she hadn't told Bob what she knew. Or that he hadn't dug more, after Hangman's confrontation. "After my dad-" his jaw goes tight, and it takes him a moment to continued. "After what happened to my dad, Maverick stuck around. When my mom got sick, he took me in. He was- pretty much my dad, for most of my teenage years."

Phoenix looks pained, the empathy of knowing Rooster is digging open old wounds to answer their questions.

"Oh," Bob says, mostly because he thinks Rooster isn't quite used to his wordless responses the way Phoenix already is. Rooster has spent his whole life losing parents, and Bob has no idea it would feel to lose one and know they're still alive, to run into them again. "I'm sorry, Bradley," he says, softer.

Rooster shrugs, his shoulders tight and tense. "It is what it is. I still made it here, despite him." Unspoken is the fact that he doesn't trust Maverick not to ground him because he's biased. In fact, he probably expects that Maverick won't choose him.

"Come on, we gotta head to our next gate if we want to catch our flight," Phoenix says, a little too gently to be coincidentally timed.

Rooster looks relieved at the out, and Bob nods, picking up his bag and the remnants of his coffee, and resolves not to press any further. The fact that Rooster trusted him with this much is already a lot. Bob doesn't take it lightly.

The next flight passes much the same as the first. Bob watches the next movie in the Bourne series, watches Maverick perform the same ritual again, a carbon copy of the last flight, though three rows up this time.

By the time they land in Alaska, Bob is ready to be done flying in any plane that Phoenix isn't piloting. He's starting to understand it.

Their last flight is thankfully only an hour. Bob expects it to be a little pond-jumper, so he's surprised to see an airplane large enough to need a staircase that's going to take them to Kodiak Island.

Maverick is in the window seat directly across the aisle from him, and he's well and truly on his way to losing it, in Bob's somewhat-informed opinion. There's - obviously - no in-flight wifi on a trip that spends less time at cruising altitude than in take-off and descent, so Maverick has no way to keep texting his friend. He keeps staring at his phone though, like he can will it into locking on to cell service if he won a staring contest with it.

Bob worries he might actually be ready to try climbing out a window by the time they start announcing the fact that they're preparing for landing. Curiously, Maverick stops looking at his phone, and starts looking out the window, then. Even when they're about to touch down, when there actually would be a moment for him to get signal, he's still looking out the window. Their wheels touch down, and then Maverick sees something that makes him go finally still. Bob leans forward a little to try and see out the next window, but it's pretty impossible in the twilight to see what caught Maverick's eye off the runway, especially from the other side of the plane.

Maverick finally checks his phone, and Bob catches him smiling at the screen, something soft and almost gentle.

The plane pulls up to the gate - one of probably less than four total, if Bob had to guess, and they disembark relatively quickly. He hopes the carrier is close - he's not sure how much more travel logistics he can handle today.

Two Coast Guard trucks are parked a bit away from the airplane, and Cyclone nods to it. "That's our ride. May need to take a few trips," he says, eyeing the trucks and then the assembled aviators. "None of you checked any luggage, right?"

They all shake their heads, and he nods his approval. "Good. Pile in." He heads for shotgun in the front truck.

Bob glances around, and realizes Maverick is nowhere to be seen. He frowns, confused. Where the hell had he gone and how was he not being chased by airport security for going AWOL - presumably - on the airfield side?

"-hello? Earth to Bob?" Phoenix nudges him in the ribs with her elbow, and Bob starts, turning to look at her. "We missed the first ride because you were spacing out," she says, and though she sounds tired and annoyed, she's also laughing a bit.

"Ah- sorry," he says sheepishly. "Just…did you see where Maverick went?"

"…huh. No, I didn't. Cyclone took the first truck, Warlock took the second," she says, like she's confirming to herself.

"Is Captain Mitchell about to get himself arrested…?" Bob asks carefully.

Phoenix snorts. "No, knowing the stories we know, he'd probably charm his way out of it," she reassures.

And then Bob spots a familiar silhouette, except nothing about that makes sense. He's nearly certain that that's Maverick, but he's standing next to some billionaire's Gulfstream G500 and talking to someone who'd disembarked from it. That plane had to cost at least $45 million dollars. Definitely not something someone in the Navy would, or should, have access to. So what the hell was he doing over there?

"Is Maverick trying to get himself a Gulfstream?" Phoenix asks, when she sees what he's staring at.

"I…don't know," Bob replies, nonplussed.

"Okay…weird. Our ride is here," she adds. "Should we…go get him?"

Bob shrugs. Somehow he gets the feeling he probably wouldn't get away with running across the airfield the way Maverick seems to have. "Captain Mitchell!" he shouts, hoping to get his attention.

Maverick turns at the sound of his name, looking surprised to be called. Bob waves, and then gestures at the Coast Guard trucks. Maverick waves back, in a very clear 'go on without me' gesture.

"What the fuck is that about?" Phoenix mutters as they climb into the truck.

Bob shrugs. "We tried. If Cyclone wants to throw a fit about it, that's between him and the Captain."

Phoenix grumbles wordlessly in answer, letting her head thump back against the headrest. "Thank you for the ride, by the way, Sir," she says to the Coast Guard officer in the front seat.

He grins crookedly at them in the rearview mirror. "Not a problem at all. Happy to save you a little time on your way out," he assures. "And we're also looking forward to getting your massive carrier out of our bay," he adds, laughing.

Phoenix snorts. "Yeah, I can see why," she says, when they drive straight out of the airport and the aircraft carrier looms directly over them.

The drive is less than ten minutes, and they're there and ready to board the carrier - and finally, finally pass out in a bed. Bob can almost taste it.

"Let's hope the ship doesn't actually leave without Mav," Phoenix murmurs as they climb the ramp.

"If it did, I bet he'd steal a plane and catch up with us," Bob says with a little laugh. Phoenix giggles with him, which really shows how long they've been traveling today. Airports and commercial travel managed to do that to a person, even if they didn't actually do much the whole day besides move from one flying chair to another.

"Yeah, he would, wouldn't he?" she says, with an almost fond smile.

Bob echoes the sentiment. It may have only been a few weeks, but the Captain had somehow gotten closer to them than any CO he's had before.

Admittedly, he does hurry for their assigned bunks as soon as he gets the number, but he doesn't actually see Maverick board the carrier after all.

Chapter Text

The next morning, there's rumbling in the mess hall, and the crew from the carrier doesn't even bother to try and keep their whispering from the training detachment.

There's a lot of talk about why the hell they got sent to 'fucking Alaska' to pick up a tiny squadron, on next to no notice. There's even more talk about the number of the brass are on the ship now. More Admirals than an aircraft carrier knows what to do with, and no word on what they're here for.

There's an unease permeating through the ship. The country isn't at war, not right this moment, and definitely not in the Pacific. But this feels like a prelude to war, like something is going down. A lot of the younger crew have never even thought about being near combat.

Bob's loading up another serving of oatmeal - mainly only because he saw them just refill the pot, and fresh oatmeal was better than overcooked goop that had been sitting in the warming area for too long - when he hears someone say something about how 'four stars worth of admirals' had shown up.

Which, that was a weird way to refer to Cyclone and Warlock, but maybe it was just how they arrived as a unit?

He wonders how long it'll take until one of the sailors here just up and tries to ask one of them why they're here. Not that they can answer - not yet, and even when they deploy, he has no idea how much they'll tell the carrier crew.

He heads back to the table Phoenix and Rooster are posted up at, nodding to Payback and Fanboy as they arrive, curling around their respective cups of coffee.

"Do we know when Maverick's going to pick his teams?" he asks as he sits down. Phoenix slides him a new cup of coffee, and he looks at her in pleased surprise, nodding his thanks as he takes it.

She shrugs. "Tonight, maybe? Unless he's still stewing on it, and then he'll wait until the last second to tell us," she snorts.

Fanboy shrugs. "We're all prepared to be on reserve, so I guess as far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter all that much when we find out who's going and who's hanging back."

Payback grunts, though he's in the middle of taking a long drink of coffee, so he doesn't try to speak until he's done. "Not sure how much more there is for him to deliberate on. It's not like we're going to do any training hops out here."

"We might," Bob muses. They had a day or two of travel time ahead of them.

Phoenix looks thoughtful as she nurses her coffee. "What would be the point of that? If he doesn't know already, what's one more hop going to show him?"

Rooster hasn't engaged, and Bob notes that he's staring off into the distance, his jaw tight. He doesn't intend to poke him about it - it's an obvious enough conclusion to draw. Rooster doesn't want to engage because he's already pretty certain that Maverick isn't going to pick him, out of bias and not an objective assessment.

Bob doesn't know how true that actually is, but he knows it's true for Rooster, which functionally is the same thing, at least where this breakfast conversation is concerned.

"I almost want us to have a hop just to have something to do," Fanboy sighs.

Bob can't help but agree with him.

"Guess we take over a rec room and watch some movies," Phoenix suggests.

The day passes strangely. It's weird, being on a carrier without having anything to do on it. Like a cog that's fallen out of a machine, laying discarded while the gears above turn on without it. It's jarring, and Bob can tell the rest of the crew feels the same about them, this interloper squadron that isn't part of the carrier wing. That's clearly only here for a little bit, and so, not worth getting to know.

No point wasting time forming friendships with people who were about to leave - even if they had no idea that this was doubly true for the fact that they're about to go on a suicide mission.

By the time dinner rolls around, Bob realizes he actually hasn't seen Maverick since the airport. And sure, the aircraft carrier is massive, but he also knows Maverick enough to know that he would have swung by to check on them at some point or other.

"Starting to think we actually did leave Mav in Alaska," he tells Phoenix as they sit down to eat.

"Maybe he'll fly that Gulfstream onto the carrier," she jokes with a snort.

"What Gulfstream?" Fanboy asks, dropping his tray down beside Bob.

"There was a G500 at the airport yesterday when we landed," Bob supplies. "Maverick went to talk to someone who got off it and didn't come with us to the carrier."

"Can a G500 even land on an aircraft carrier?" Fanboy laughs.

"Anything can land on a carrier once," Phoenix replies primly.

Fanboy snorts. "Sure, but we need the runways usable for our mission," he points out.

Phoenix lifts her piece of bread up at him in a salute, acknowledging the point.

It's right as Bob debates asking the group chat if anyone's seen Maverick that he spots the man walking into the mess like he's on a mission. "Speak of the devil," Bob says, drawing the others' attention to their Captain.

"Well hey, he made it onboard after all," Phoenix muses.

That mission appears to be getting two sets of dinner, loading up two trays and juggling them as he gets them filled with the skill of someone who's clearly done this before. They're too far to see how he charms his way through taking seconds at the same time as his first serving, but it's not hard to imagine - a cheeky smile, a wink, a flirtatious line, and Maverick got whatever he wanted.

He's in and out quickly, though he spots them when they wave at him on his way to the exit. He nods in greeting, since his hands are full, and slows, a question in his gaze, wondering if they need him for something. Phoenix waves him off, and he continues his stride as if he'd never stalled, heading straight back out of the mess.

"Wonder where he's going," Fanboy muses.

"And why he didn't just get his food from the officer's mess," Payback adds.

"Maybe he figured he couldn't get away with taking two meals out of there," Phoenix says with a grin.

"There's no way he's eating all that by himself," Fanboy says, curious.

"That's true, he's nearly as short as you," Payback teases, smirking.

"Oh, fuck you," Fanboy grouses, shoving at his pilot, just this side of hard enough to send him to the floor. Payback laughs all the while.

"Who would he be taking dinner to on this carrier?" Bob asks, bemused.

"…What are the odds Maverick's partner is here?" Phoenix asks.

"Unlikely," Fanboy snorts. "What, we just happened to call back the carrier that's got Maverick's sweetheart on it?" he asks.

Phoenix shrugs. "Who else would he be taking dinner to? Cyclone?" She can't even finish the sentence with a straight face.

"I'd pay to see that," Payback grins.

"Maybe he's taking it to Warlock," Bob offers. "Could be they've got more mission details to go over together."

Fanboy's incredulous expression tells him he thinks that's as likely as it is to be Cyclone. Bob shrugs, taking another bite of food.

"Anything's possible with Maverick," Payback concedes.

Dinner passes otherwise uneventfully - as slightly-off as the rest of the day had been - and Bob decides he's looking forward to just going to bed. This liminal space of pre-mission nerves but nothing else they can do to prepare is enough to grate on anyone's sanity. Not that they had much of it left, anyway; sane people did not make it to TOPGUN.

Bob's just thinking about this - no wonder they made Maverick their teacher - as he strolls across the carrier, stretching his legs one last time before turning in for the night. He's walking past the jet elevators when he hears the hushed whispers that make his steps stall. The lights are low, and it's a little hard to see who's lurking in the corners, but Bob realizes after a moment that it's Admiral Bates.

Admiral Bates and Maverick.

The Admiral is saying something to him, leaning in close, a hand on Maverick's shoulder.

And Bob suddenly feels like he shouldn't be intruding. He keeps moving, quick and quiet, like he'd never stopped at all. Hoping that the general noise of the carrier - it was hardly ever a quiet place - was enough to not draw attention to himself.

It does make him wonder, though. Also, he thinks the group of them could do with a little distracting.

He smiles to himself as he walks back for his bunk. Mission accomplished - at least in the aspect that he gave them all a little something to think about that wasn't everything…else. If it helped any of them, for even a little bit, it was worth it.

Plus, they needed more people to add to the betting pool for possible partners, anyway. Even if he didn't think Warlock was a particularly likely option, they didn't have much else to go on. Except the most likely answer - that it wasn't someone in the Navy at all, and was just as likely someone they'd never met.

Besides, could he even be with someone in his own chain of command? Bob was pretty sure there were a half-dozen regulations, at least, forbidding that.

…Not that Maverick was the type to follow rules like that. But was his partner?

Bob makes it back to his bunk before he realizes, and puts all those thoughts aside for now to get ready for bed. Best get as much rest as he can before they find out who's going and who has to stay behind and sit on their hands. Sit on their hands and know they couldn't do anything to help their teammates come home.

He'd like to think he and Phoenix are getting chosen, though. She was one hell of a pilot, and they'd done better than most of the two-seater pairs, in his - relatively - objective opinion.

He hopes they'll find out tomorrow, though he supposes it's possible Maverick just waits until the morning of the mission to decide.

—

By the time morning comes around, it becomes clear that they'll get close enough to launch for the mission within twenty-four hours, which means the tension in the entire carrier has ratcheted up to a new high.

Their team - almost the entirety of it - spends the day more or less trying to pass the time together in the various rec rooms, avoiding the ones that are already scheduled for different rotations of sailors on the carrier. None of them say it, but it feels a little like they're trying to get as much time together as they can, before it's too late.

He hasn't seen Maverick since the night before, but that doesn't really mean anything - the pre-mission prep is probably a lot of meetings he keeps getting dragged into, if Bob had to guess.

And after dinner, they get summoned to hear who's going to be chosen for the mission. At least they weren't called before they started eating - it meant he hadn't had to worry about losing his appetite.

They're quieter, subdued, when they get to the large space. There's a lot of ceremony to this, for some reason.

Still, they all line up without question and watch, unmoving, as Maverick moves to stand before them. Cyclone is beside him, half a step behind, looming over the Captain.

"It's been an honor flying with you," Maverick says, his voice carrying across the yawning space at the heart of the carrier. "Each one of you represents the best of the best."

Bob swallows hard - he knows this, but it's one thing to know you're good and another to hear the best active pilot in the Navy confirm it. Phoenix nods beside him, like this is a simple truth, though he knows Maverick's praise means just as much to her as it does to him.

"This is a very specific mission," the Captain continues. "My choice is a reflection of that and nothing more."

Bob realizes he's holding his breath after a bit, and has to force himself to exhale slowly.

Cyclone nods, looking across the pack of them. "Choose your two foxtrot teams."

Maverick nods, not turning to look back at him. "Payback and Fanboy," he starts.

Near them, Payback exhales slowly, steadying himself. Fanboy nods, like he knew it was a foregone conclusion. In some senses, it was. Bob would have been surprised if they didn't get put on the mission.

Bob's thinking about the other pair, and he almost misses Maverick starting to speak again.

"Phoenix and Bob."

Phoenix's gaze snaps up, and Bob turns to look at her. She meets his gaze, blinking once. She's resolute, in her confidence that they can handle it, that they were right to be chosen. It's hard to falter in the face of her quiet confidence.

Cyclone nods, and continues. "And your wingman."

Bob looks around, watching the rest of the detachment. Wondering whose hands they'd be putting their lives into. Rooster looks down, bracing himself. Hangman looks up, biting back his smirk, confident and sure.

"Rooster." Maverick isn't looking at any of them. He's looking beyond them, into the distance.

Cyclone looks over them, his eyebrows twitching. It's a silent judgment, or maybe just an expression of surprise.

Rooster looks up slowly at the sound of his name, frowning. His brow furrows, and it's clear that he's just as surprised as Cyclone is by the decision.

Warlock steps up, taking over in the sudden silence. "The rest of you will stand by on the carrier for any reserve role that's required."

Bob spots Hangman swallowing hard, unmoving, staring forward. Reeling, maybe, if that's what that looks like on him. He'd been as certain that he'd be chosen as Rooster was that he wouldn't.

Warlock waits a beat, then two, before saying a simple, "Dismissed."

They stop standing at attention, and Bob's still wrapping his head around the fact that they did it, they're on the mission, they're going tomorrow. Payback and Fanboy come up to them, nodding. Fanboy reaches for him hand held out in a fist. Bob matches the gesture, fistbumping him with a small nod.

"We've got this," Payback says quietly.

Phoenix grins, something sharp and fierce. "Fuck yeah we do."

Bob glances past the three of them, realizing that Maverick hasn't moved. And he still doesn't. He's staring off into the distance again, his jaw working. Like he's searching for something on the other end of the carrier, and not finding it.

Bob turns around, looking back over his shoulder, trying to see whatever it is that Maverick's looking at. Looking for?

There's nothing there. No one. Just the cavernous core of the aircraft carrier, dark despite all the lights lit along the walls.

"Bob?" Phoenix asks, looking up at him.

He turns back to her with a questioning hum.

"You okay?" she asks, searching his gaze for something. Checking in on him.

"Yeah, I'm good," he says. "It looked like Maverick was looking for something," he says, tipping his head back to where he was looking.

Phoenix peers around him. "There's no one there."

Bob shrugs. That had been his conclusion too.

They both turn back to the front, but Maverick's gone. So is Cyclone. Warlock remains, watching them all impassively. When he catches Bob's gaze, he just nods to them once. Bob nods back, and then takes a steadying breath. "Guess we should go get some rest," he says.

"Yeah," Phoenix murmurs. "Early start tomorrow."

They both stand there a moment longer, before turning to head for their bunks. It's a strange process, going to do a usual nightly routine when it very well may be the last time they ever do.

It would do him no good to dwell on that, though. He had to believe they could do this, that they could get out of here.

"Think we'll be with Rooster, or Maverick?" Bob asks as they walk.

Phoenix hums. "Dunno. Maybe Maverick? We were faster than Payback and Fanboy in training."

Bob nods, considering it. "Going to be pretty cool to say we flew on Mav's wing, if it's us," he says with a small smile.

"And even if it isn't, I like flying with Rooster," Phoenix says, and Bob nods in agreement.

They get to their bunks shortly thereafter, and Bob gives her a little wave goodnight. "Night, Phoenix," he says.

"Night Bob. See you in the morning."

—

The morning passes in a haze. Bob doesn't even remember eating breakfast, but he clearly has because they're gathered for their final briefing before they get into their planes and take off.

All twelve of them stand at the front of the assembled crew, with the flight deck teams behind them in a cluster. Warlock and Cyclone stand by a screen at the front, ready to go over the details. They stand in the belly of the carrier, surrounded by parked jets.

Maverick is…missing?

Bob looks around, and then freezes when he turns to the side and sees Maverick arriving. When he sees Maverick flanking Admiral Kazansky, walking at his side and half a step behind.

What the hell is the Commander of the Pacific Fleet doing here?

Phoenix nudges him, and then seems to catch on to his state of shock. She follows his gaze, before going just as still as he is. "That's…" she whispers. The Admiral and the Captain walk together, not speaking, like they're aware they're being watched already. Admiral Kazansky is in his dress blues, looking immaculate. Bob almost feels underdressed in his flightsuit.

"Yup," Bob replies, equally soft.

"…Huh," she concludes.

The quiet murmuring of the gathered crowd falls to absolute silence when Admiral Kazansky stops in front of them, Maverick staying by him. The only sound is that of the ocean, an ever-present companion.

The pictures did absolutely nothing to prepare him for the sheer weight of his presence. Of the way he stands there, gaze passing over each of the chosen Dagger Squad, assessing them. Bob wonders what he sees. If he finds them wanting.

He finds himself truly understanding the concept of the divine right of kings, suddenly. Admiral Kazansky carries himself like he owns the place, owns them, and he does, but it's less about his rank and more the fact that he is simply a person that people want to follow. They don't have to be ordered to, because they would willingly do anything he asked.

A large part of that might be because even Maverick looks at Admiral Kazansky like that. Bob's pretty sure he's never seen the man respect a single Admiral they've seen around him. The infamous stories match up with that, with his penchant for pissing off Admirals wherever he's posted. It can't just be the number of stars on Admiral Kazansky's shoulders.

That kind of respect, Maverick's especially, is earned.

"Aviators," Admiral Kazansky starts. His voice doesn't carry far, but it doesn't need to, because everyone's attention is laser-focused on him. "Today, your country asks you for a lot. I am asking you for a lot. Your mission today, your actions today, will save countless lives, will protect the world from an escalation in conflict." He stands with his hands clasped behind his back.

Bob glances over at the rest of the squad, curious. Phoenix is watching the Admiral, something calculating and thoughtful in her gaze. Rooster stands rigidly beside her, and he looks stricken, his face pale. Bob wonders what that is about. Payback and Fanboy are watching the Admiral with stars in their eyes. Hangman is staring forward, almost like he's looking past the Admiral.

He wonders if Hangman is still stewing about not being chosen.

Which makes him wonder if the Admiral had a say in the chosen teams. If he's here, he had to have, right?

"You are the Navy's best and brightest," Admiral Kazansky continues. "Nobody is more qualified than you to run this mission. Captain Mitchell has seen to it that you are the most prepared you can be in the time that you have had. I trust that you will put all you have learned to use. Strike the target, and then come home to us."

Bob inhales sharply, surprised. The Admiral put equal weight on their success and their safe return. He's the first one besides Maverick to do that.

Admiral Kazansky looks over them all again, before nodding once and stepping aside, looking over to Warlock.

Warlock nods in return and steps up, gesturing to the screen beside him. "Your target is a clear and present threat. A secret uranium enrichment site under rogue state control. It's an underground bunker, tucked between these two mountains." The screen shows the coordinates of the site, the ring of mountains that they've been practicing flying into and out of.

Warlock continues. "Your route of ingress is heavily defended by surface-to-air missiles backed up by fifth-generation fighters. Once your F-18 strike team crosses the border, Tomahawk missiles from the USS Leyte Gulf will launch a synchronized strike on the enemy's airfield, here." The screen changes to a satellite photo of the enemy's airfield. Of what will soon be a crater-ridden wreck, with an unknown number of expected casualties.

Bob wonders how this mission won't be considered an act of war. But then, maybe that's why Admiral Kazansky is here. It's certainly above his own rank to deal with that.

"This will knock out their runway. But you'll have to contend with any planes already in the air. The moment those Tomahawks hit, the enemy will know you're coming. Your time to target will be two minutes and thirty seconds," Warlock says.

Bob nods, and sees Phoenix nodding to herself out of the corner of his eye, too. None of this is anything new to them, though it's almost certainly the first time the assembled carrier crew behind them is hearing this.

"Any longer than that and you will be exposed to any aircraft the Tomahawks may have missed." Warlock's gaze rakes over the squad, almost like a silent plea for them to be fast enough, to avoid running into any of those fifth-gen fighters.

Cyclone lifts his head, looking over them all with a similar expression. It's almost…pained. "This is what you've all been training for. Come home safely."

"Dismissed," Warlock says, and Bob blinks, glancing over to where Admiral Kazansky stands to the side with Maverick.

They're speaking quietly, and then Maverick gestures in their direction, and the Admiral nods.

Before they can scatter, the Admiral speaks up. "Lieutenant Bassett," he calls.

Halo's gaze snaps to him in surprise, but she walks over to him and salutes sharply.

"What the hell is that about?" Phoenix asks, though she's clearly not expecting an actual answer. Bob shakes his head, anyway.

Bob can't hear what the Admiral is saying from here, and he supposes they don't really have time to loiter and try to eavesdrop.

"Nevermind," Phoenix says, shaking her head too. "We should go." They turn to head for their lockers one last time, to leave behind their phones and grab their helmets. "Hey, Bob," she says, as they walk.

He hums curiously.

"Do you trust me?" she asks.

"With my life," he replies, looking down at her in surprise.

She huffs a laugh, rolling her eyes. "I know that. I mean with your money. Specifically $75 of it."

He blinks at her, lip curling up at the corner. "Sure, Phoenix. What are you thinking?"

She waves him off, pulling her phone out and tapping at it for a few moments. "Trust me," she grins.

Bob does, so he doesn't press the issue. He does glance at his phone when it starts pinging, and can't help but smile a little at the group chat, as he gets ready to leave his phone behind.

"Where'd that come from?" He asks, now that they've left behind their phones. They head to the flight deck together, fully geared and ready.

"Just a hunch," Phoenix answers with a shrug.

"I trust your instincts," Bob says. "It's not…totally out of the realm of possibility," he adds.

Phoenix nods, and then they're out on the deck, and the noise and chaos of it all pulls Bob back to what they really need to be focusing on now. There'd be time for the rest later - but they have to get to later, first.

He follows Phoenix to the jet that had been prepared for them, quick-painted with their names, ranks, and callsigns. As he walks past, he sees Hangman stop Rooster, sees him shout something at - to? - him. It's too loud for him to have any idea of what the man says, but Rooster doesn't react or shout back, so it can't have been too awful.

They pass Maverick, stroking the nose of his jet as he does his walk-around, as he checks over everything. It's a ritual every pilot knows, down to their bones. It looks, in some ways, like it's meditative for the Captain. Pilots and their rituals.

And then they reach their jet, and they're climbing in, and everything on the deck ceases to draw his attention as he and Phoenix go through their pre-flight checks. Phoenix waves two fingers forward as the canopy closes over them, and the cacophony outside fades with the sealing of the cockpit.

They taxi slowly toward the catapults, lined up and ready to go, save for Maverick, who's already hooked in. His voice comes in over the radio, a simple, "Dagger One, up and ready on Catapult One."

Hangman chimes in next, "Dagger Spare, standing by," looking over at them all from the side, where he waits.

Payback pipes up after, with "Dagger Four, up and ready."

Then Phoenix, and Bob included in it, with "Dagger Three, up and ready."

Then it's just Rooster left. It takes him a moment longer, and Bob wishes he could turn around and see him, check in. But then he speaks up, too, "Dagger Two, up and ready."

Someone from the control room carries on now that the jets are set for takeoff. "Support assets airborne. Strike package ready. Standing by for launch decision."

Another moment. Another heartbeat. And then Cyclone's voice reaches them, unsteady, a tone Bob's never heard from him before. "Send them."

And they're off.

Chapter Text

The morning had sort of passed in a blur, as had everything once she'd learned that she and Omaha hadn't been chosen to fly the mission. She's not sure if she feels relieved or distressed - it's some mixture of both, maybe. Relief that she doesn't have to worry about Omaha, distressed that she can't be out there to watch Rooster and Mav's backs.

And then she'd learned Admiral Kazansky was here, and that threw a whole wrench into the questions she'd been asking herself. Did the Commander of the Pacific Fleet weigh in on the selections? Had she been found wanting by not one, but two Navy legends?

She sort of zones out the rest of Warlock's briefing, and only realizes she's done so when he says 'Dismissed'.

It's as she's turning to leave, to follow her squad, that a voice calls out.

"Lieutenant Bassett!"

She whirls, freezing in surprise when she realizes Admiral Kazansky is calling for her. And then her brain kickstarts into motion and she moves to stand before him, saluting him sharply. "Sir?"

"At ease, Lieutenant," the Admiral says, his voice soft. "Captain Mitchell tells me you're fluent in sign language?"

Halo looks at Maverick in surprise. "I am, Sir," she says, wondering how the hell he found that out.

Admiral Kazansky's lip curls up at the corner, a ghost of a smile. If that's true, tell me what Cyclone last said about M-A-V - Mav, he signs. He spells out Maverick's name, and then does a unique gesture right after - Maverick's namesign, if she had to guess. It looked like the sign for 'plane' - or 'fly'? - followed by an M.

"Uh," she says, carefully. And then starts to respond, her hands moving tentatively - not because of discomfort with the language, but unsure if she should actually be answering that truthfully. But the Admiral had asked, so, He said 'this asshole is going to cost me my career', she replies.

"Hey-!" Maverick says, frowning at her hands as they move.

Admiral Kazansky huffs a quiet laugh, and the sound makes Halo feel like she's been awarded a medal.

"Good," he says. "You're with me."

"Uh, yes, Sir," she says, still surprised. She's not sure what any of this means - that Maverick and Admiral Kazansky both speak sign language, that the Admiral wants her to stay by his side for…for the mission? That Maverick found out she's fluent in sign?

Admiral Kazansky hums, and then turns to Maverick. "Good luck, Captain Mitchell. Come back safe," he says, nodding to him once.

Maverick looks like he wants to say something, but clearly reconsiders it. He just nods. "Yes, Sir," he says, and it sounds like it means more than just those two words.

The Admiral doesn't call him on it, and instead turns to her. "Let's go," he says, and she straightens up, ready to follow him. He meets Maverick's gaze, and they seem to communicate something wordlessly, before the Admiral starts to walk past him. Maverick watches him for a long moment, before turning to head the other way, to the ready room for final prep.

She stares after Maverick for a moment, before turning to follow after the Admiral, catching up to him in a few quickened strides. "Sir, if I may ask-"

The Admiral glances to her, an eyebrow raised. She's pretty sure he knows exactly what she wants to ask. Something to the tune of 'what the hell do you need me for', phrased more diplomatically for his rank.

"My arrival here was on short enough notice that I could not get my interpreter. Captain Mitchell assured me he would handle it," the Admiral responds.

Halo knows better than to ask the obvious follow-up question - what does he need an interpreter for if he's been speaking - and clearly hearing - this whole time? But that isn't something you just ask someone, even if they weren't a four-star Admiral. Which Admiral Kazansky is.

She doesn't ask the other question on her mind either - did her fluency in ASL cause them to not be chosen for the mission? She's not sure she wants the answer to that, one way or the other.

"You're in good hands, Sir," she says, with a little grin.

The Admiral raises an eyebrow, but he lets out that little huff of a laugh again.

Halo isn't sure what to do with the knowledge that the Admiral is amused by puns.

She's kind of not sure what to do with the knowledge that the Commander of the Pacific Fleet is a regular human being, one who laughs.

She doesn't get much of a chance to wrap her head around that, because before she knows it, they've reached the CIC. Her steps stall at the door, and Admiral Kazansky turns to face her at the sound, a question in his gaze.

He'd said she was with him, but- "Sir, am I authorized to be in there-?" she asks carefully.

Admiral Kazansky simply nods, and waits for her to start walking again before he steps in, his gaze flicking to the officer holding the door for him.

The man wisely doesn't ask about her. Apparently being the Commander of the Pacific Fleet meant he could bring plus-ones just about anywhere without being questioned.

Halo's never been in a CIC before, certainly not one this full and prepped for a mission. The hum of machinery is constant, and the dark room is lit only by the glow from dozens of monitors along the back wall.

Admiral Kazansky walks in, and as soon as his presence is noticed, everyone in the room scrambles to their feet to salute. The Admiral waves a hand, walking over to stand by Admiral Bates and Admiral Simpson. "Return to your stations," Admiral Kazansky says, a barely-there rasp in his voice. Halo only hears it because she's following on his heels.

The other Admirals nod to him. "Sir-" Cyclone starts, sounding almost uncertain.

Admiral Kazansky shakes his head and says, "This is still your mission, Cyclone. I'm here so that I'll be better prepared for whatever fallout may happen in our international relations."

Halo is starting to think that the Admiral can read minds. It's something about the steel in his gaze, that piercing stormy blue that cuts right through anyone talking to him. His callsign is a little too fitting.

"Yes, Sir. If you're sure, Sir," Cyclone says, looking both surprised and…flattered? The mix of emotions on his face just looks like consternation, really.

The Admiral simply nods in confirmation instead of answering verbally.

Halo noticed the edge to Admiral Kazansky's voice. Something rough, though he hadn't looked visibly upset, his expression impassive.

She's musing on that, lost in the noise of the CIC as the rest of the mission prep gets underway, when Admiral Kazansky nudges her arm. Her attention snaps to him, first to his face, and then down to his hands when his gaze dips downward.

I cannot always rely on my voice, the Admiral signs. Better for you to be here and I end up not needing you than the opposite.

Halo nods, instinctually replying with I understand, Sir, in sign even though he can hear her just fine. The instinct to fully swap her communication to ASL when someone signed to her was too ingrained to beat.

She wonders how many people know about what he's just told her. It was most likely that he had his aides trained in ASL, so no one would assume anything unless and until he started signing. She feels like the rumor mill would have made this general knowledge, though, especially about someone as important as Admiral Kazansky. It makes her feel more honored, suddenly, to know this. To realize that Maverick trusted her to know this, to be discreet about it. And clearly Admiral Kazansky trusted Maverick's opinion. Which, as far as she knew, was incredibly rare among the brass.

She finds herself thinking about the betting pool. About how Phoenix and Bob must have seen something to make them put money on Admiral Kazansky. It didn't feel like a joke bet, not like Hangman and Rooster choosing Cyclone. But what had they seen? None of them even knew the Admiral was here until the briefing this morning. If anything, Halo is the one who's seen the most of the Admiral so far. And his conversation with Maverick - save for the part that had been in sign - had been perfectly professional, even a touch distant.

She's so lost in her musing that she doesn't realize she's missed all the preflight authorizations until there's the sudden thump above them of the catapult launching a jet.

"Dagger One away," someone in the room reports. Everyone else is dead silent, watching the screens. Another thump. "Dagger Two away," she continues. Two more in short order. "Dagger Three away. Dagger Four away."

A few moments later, Maverick's voice comes through, crisp and clear. "Comanche, Dagger One, standby check-in."

Overwatch chimes in, the E-2 Hawkeye circling high up and keeping an eye over the entire operation area. "Comanche, one one set. Picture clean. Recommend Dagger continue," the operator says.

"Copy, Daggers descending below radar," Maverick replies. A moment later, the Dagger fleet squad disappears off of the screen.

"Daggers now below radar," someone in the room confirms. "Switching to E-2 picture."

The image on the monitor changes, no longer a radar scan, and the squad is back on visual.

"Here we go. Enemy territory up ahead," Maverick warns. "Feet dry in sixty seconds. Comanche, Dagger One. Picture."

The Hawkeye responds, "Comanche. Picture clean. Decision is yours."

"Copy," Maverick replies. There's a long, heavy pause. Beside her, Admiral Kazansky lets out a slow breath. "Dagger attack."

The sound of dozens of Tomahawks launching is a lot louder than the jets taking off, and Halo almost thinks the room shakes a little with it.

"Tomahawks airborne," an operator in the room reports.

"No turning back now," Admiral Bates says, shaking his head and staring at the monitor.

Maverick's voice carries through the CIC, now. "Daggers, assume attack formation." They watch the formation on the screen as it flattens out into the line they'll take through the canyon. "Daggers set," Maverick confirms, "proceeding to target. Two minutes and thirty seconds in three, two, one, mark."

The other three chime in with their marks, and Halo sees Hondo start a physical stopwatch in his hand, at the same time a timer on the screen starts ticking down.

"Going in," Maverick reports. And then they're in the canyon, taking the turns that Halo almost knows by heart, now. She glances around the room, instead. She sees Cyclone and Warlock tense and watching the monitor. And beside her, Admiral Kazansky stands unmoving, his sharp gaze taking in everything on the monitors. "First SAM site overhead," Maverick adds, a few moments later. The room collectively holds its breath.

"Looks like we're clear on radar, Mav," Phoenix says, after a moment. Halo exhales slowly, sees a few other people's shoulders slump a little in relief.

"Let's not take it for granted," Maverick warns.

Fanboy chimes in a little later, from his position at the tail of the formation, "More SAMS! Three o'clock high!"

"We got two minutes to target," Bob reports, and Halo looks at the map, looks at the distance they still have to go. The first team is on track, but-

"Copy. We're a few seconds behind, Rooster. We gotta move," Payback says, putting voice to Halo's thoughts.

"Thirty seconds to Tomahawk impact on enemy airstrip," an operator warns, pulling their attention back to the Hawkeye's view on the enemy compound.

Before the Tomahawks land, though, their overwatch speaks up. "Dagger, Comanche. We're picking up two bandits. Single group, two contacts."

Cyclone's brow immediately furrows. "Where the hell'd they come from?"

Warlock shakes his head, looking stunned. "Long-range patrol?"

"Comanche, what's their heading?" Phoenix asks.

"Bull's-eye, zero-nine-zero fifty, tacked southwest," Comanche responds.

"They're headed away from us. They don't know we're here," Rooster says, quietly relieved.

Before anyone can truly relax about that, though, Maverick warns, "The second those Tomahawks hit the airbase, those bandits are gonna move to defend the target. We have to get there before they do. Increase speed."

"We got you, Mav. Don't wait for me," Phoenix insists, and they watch on the monitors as Daggers One and Three speed up through the canyon.

"Sir, Daggers Two and Four are behind schedule. Time to target, one minute twenty," an operator in the room says, her voice tight. Reporting what they can all see.

"Tomahawk impact in three, two…" the main monitor flips to the Hawkeye's live view as another operator in the room calls out. "Impact. Enemy runway is destroyed."

"They know we're coming now," Cyclone says, his voice tight.

"Bandits are switching course to defend the target," Comanche reports, confirming Maverick's earlier warning.

"Rooster, where are ya?" Maverick asks, his icon on the map rapidly approaching the straightaway.

"Come on, Rooster," Payback echoes. "Bandits inbound. We gotta make time up now. Let's turn and burn."

Maverick's next words aren't for them, or for Rooster. "Heads up, Phoenix," he says, and his smile is audible. Beside her, Admiral Kazansky shakes his head once, but his expression is a little less stony than it usually is.

"-woah!" Bob shouts, and they have no idea what it is they just flew past, but it's clearly an obstacle they hadn't trained for.

"Sir," Comanche calls in, "bandits are two minutes from target. Daggers are one minute from target."

It's too close. One minute doesn't give them enough time to get away without a dogfight. They'll have enough to deal with against the SAMs, and that's not including adding two fifth-gen fighters into the mix.

Up in the front of the room, Hondo mutters something softly, and Halo only hears it because of how silent everyone else is. "Come on, Rooster. Move it or lose it," he nearly whispers.

"Guys, we're falling behind!" Fanboy shouts. Halo feels a stab of sympathy - she knows exactly how it feels to see a situation going to shit and be helpless in the backseat. "We really gotta move!"

"If we don't increase our speed right now, those bandits are gonna be waiting for us when we reach the target," Payback agrees, backing up his WSO. The tension in his voice makes it clear he's got his hand on the throttle, itching to speed up.

Rooster finally speaks, so quiet that she's not even sure he meant for it to be heard. It's a barely-there rasp of, "Talk to me, Dad."

Beside her, Admiral Kazansky goes still. Or…stiller than he already was. His hands are curled tight into fists at his sides.

And like he's answering him, Maverick responds, just as soft. "Come on kid, you can do it. Don't think, just do."

And then there's silence. A moment passes, and for a second, Halo is afraid that it's over. That Rooster can't do it.

Before she can really start to despair, Payback shouts, "Jesus, Rooster, not that fast!"

"That's it, kid, that's it," Maverick encourages, and Admiral Kazansky relaxes, taking a slow breath and smoothing out his shoulders.

"Alright, let's go," Rooster says, and on their screen, Rooster's icon jets ahead down the canyon.

"Damn, Rooster, take it easy!" Fanboy yells, and Halo almost lets out a hysterical little laugh. From one extreme of helplessness to another. Now he's being taken for a ride.

"Sir, Dagger Two is re-engaging," the operator reports. They can all see it on the screen, can hear it in the voices on the comms, but Halo supposes it ends up in the transcripts this way.

"Alright, now hit your target and come home," Cyclone orders, though the squad can't hear him.

"Thirty seconds to target," Maverick confirms. "Bob, check your laser."

"Air-to-ground check complete," Bob replies dutifully a moment later. "Laser code verified, one-six-eight-eight. Laser is a go!"

"Watch your heads," Rooster warns, which means they must just be reaching the obstacle Maverick had warned Phoenix about.

"-holy shit! Shit!" Fanboy yelps.

"Payback, you with me?" Rooster asks, clearly worried at the sounds of Fanboy's distress.

"Right behind you!" Payback vows.

Halo feels a strange sense of run-on deja vu watching all this. Seeing each event repeat itself, just a little off, just a few seconds later.

Maverick interrupts her musing, alerting them all to the next stage of the mission getting underway. "Phoenix, standby for pop-up strike," he says.

"Dagger Three, in position," Phoneix affirms.

"Popping in three, two, one," Maverick calls a moment later. Admiral Kazansky is tense again beside her, his gaze narrowed and locked on the icons of the jets on the screen. Halo wonders if he wishes he were out there flying this mission with them. If he wishes it were him flying as Maverick's wingman.

The planes must have done their inverted swoop over the mountain ridge, because then Maverick's voice carries through the CIC again, "Get me eyes on that target, Bob," he demands.

"Dagger Three- stand by, Mav-!" Bob replies.

"Come on, Bob, come on," Maverick replies, nearly a whisper.

"Stand by-!" Bob's voice is tight. "I've got it! Captured!"

"Target acquired, bombs away," Maverick reports, voice smooth and even. As if this is just a regular delivery run.

Admiral Kazansky huffs softly under his breath, and Halo's gaze snaps to him curiously.

A moment later, his voice under strain, clearly trying to communicate despite pulling way too many G's to still be capable of conversation, Bob shouts, "We've got impact! Check, direct hit! Direct hit!"

Admiral Kazansky reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, nudging his glasses up.

"That's miracle number one," Warlock murmurs.

"Dagger Two- status," Maverick demands, gasping for breath with each word.

"Almost there, Mav. Almost there-" Rooster assures. "Fanboy, where's my laser?"

Halo flinches. It's too late to be asking that. Maverick had called for Bob to check it before they ever popped up. But Rooster's already done with the straightaway, has already popped up, already inverted and swooped over the mountain ridge. Fanboy won't have time to finish his check.

She hopes he'd thought to do it earlier.

"Rooster, there's something wrong with this laser! Shit! Deadeye, deadeye, deadeye!" Fanboy cries, and Halo swallows hard. There goes that hope.

"Come on guys, we're running out of time. Get it online!" Rooster demands, a thread of panic in his voice.

Warlock looks over to Cyclone, fear and worry clear on his face. Cyclone doesn't notice, gaze flicking back and forth between the monitors as if there's anything he can do for them from here.

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Fanboy cries, and Halo aches for him. Seven seconds is nowhere near enough time to get the laser recalibrated and ready to go.

Admiral Kazansky doesn't move, his gaze locked on the other half of the screen, where Maverick and Phoenix are defying physics and the whims of gravity trying to climb out of the valley.

…Almost like he cares more about the status of the pilots than the success of the mission. She doesn't expect that from the COMPACFLT. Of all the people in this room, he should care about the mission the most, shouldn't he?

"Come on, Fanboy!" Rooster shouts, pulling Halo's attention off the Admiral and back to the second pair.

"Nearly there, nearly there!" Fanboy replies. He's stressed out of his mind, Halo knows, because he's reverted to his habit of making every call twice.

"Come on, Fanboy, get it online!" Payback snaps, in a sharp departure from how he usually talks to his WSO.

"There's no time. I'm dropping blind," Rooster cuts in.

"Rooster, I got this! I got this!" Fanboy insists. And he probably does, probably would, if there wasn't a mountain a few hundred feet away from their noses, at most.

"No time," Rooster cuts him off. "Pull up."

"Rooster wait-!" Payback protests, clearly willing to push the limit on how long he had before having to pull up so he didn't plow into the rocks.

"Bombs away!" Rooster reports, ending the conversation, an explosive last word.

The room goes nearly silent, save for the gasping breaths of all six aviators currently fighting with everything they had to stay conscious.

And then- "Bull's-eye, bull's-eye, bull's-eye!"

The room erupts into cheers. If nothing else, they accomplished the mission. They stopped the enemy's attempt to develop more nuclear weapons.

Warlock clenches his fist, holding it up victoriously as he says, "Miracle number two."

Cyclone shakes his head. "Now they're in Coffin Corner."

Maverick seems to concur, even though he can't hear him. "We're not. Out of this. Yet. Here it comes- radar warning! Smoke in the air! Phoenix, break right!"

Phoenix's voice is almost even as she responds, "Emergency jettison. Dagger Three defending."

Bob shouts, "Here comes another one!"

Maverick's response is, "Dagger One defending." Like it's a simple fact, like it isn't their lives on the line. There must be pause, for just a moment, because Maverick has the time to say, "Rooster, status."

Rooster's response is a low, "Oh my god- smoke in the air, smoke in the air!"

Fanboy shouts over him, "Break right, Payback, break right!"

"Breaking right-" Payback assures.

The cacophony that follows is intense, panicked callouts layering over each other as the six of them try to keep each other and themselves alive on their way out of the canyon.

"Break right, Phoenix! Break right! Mav! Nine o'clock, nine o'clock!" Bob shouts, his voice cutting through the din.

Halo's pulled her gaze from the monitors to watch Admiral Kazansky, in case he needs to say something and can't be heard. Which means she gets a full view of his expression as they listen.

"Ngh-" Maverick groans, and the Admiral almost flinches. It must have been close- too close. "Rooster, two more on your six!" he warns, as if nothing had happened. But judging by the pinched look on the Admiral's face, it takes a lot to make Maverick make a sound like that.

"Dagger Two defending," Rooster assures, and Halo has no idea how they're keeping any of these warnings straight.

They're all shouting over each other, but after weeks of being trained by the Captain, Halo instinctively picks his voice out of the pack, as he says, "Phoenix, break right!"

"I see it, I see it!" she calls, and then they're all shouting over each other again.

Halo doesn't know how long it goes on. How many SAMs they've collectively dodged, at this point.

Except then she hears Rooster, "Dagger Two defending-" and it's the same as all the other times, except suddenly it's not. "Shit, I'm outta flares!"

Beside her, Admiral Kazansky stills, nearly holding his breath.

"Rooster, evade evade!" Maverick urges, his voice tight with worry.

"I can't shake 'em, they're on me, they're on me-!" Rooster shouts, panicked.

And then they don't hear anything, for one horrible moment. They have no way to know what just happened, if Rooster has dodged them.

"-woah!" Rooster shouts, and Admiral Kazansky exhales beside her. That must mean something to him - did Maverick pull something crazy? "Mav! No!"

"Dagger One is hit! I repeat, Dagger One is hit!" Phoenix cries, anguished.

Admiral Kazansky freezes, his gaze locked on the screen, his hands clenched at his sides. He's gone sheet-white, and the fact that she can even tell in this blue-lit room says something. Halo sees movement beyond him, sees Warlock looking to them, but it all fades into the background.

"…Maverick is down," Phoenix says, quieter.

Something crumples in Admiral Kazansky's expression. It's barely there, the smallest tightening of his lips, the way his sharp gaze turns a little brittle.

"Dagger One, status. Status!" Rooster begs. "Anyone see him? Does anyone see him? Dagger One, come in!"

Admiral Kazansky reaches for the edge of the nearest console, leaning against it suddenly.

"I didn't see a parachute," Payback says hesitantly.

"We have to circle back," Rooster insists, his voice cracking.

"Comanche. Bandits inbound. Single group, hot. Recommend Dagger flow south. One minute to intercept," their overwatch interrupts, reminding them all that it wasn't just the SAMs they were running from.

Cyclone shakes his head, looking down, his gaze flicking back and forth, like he's searching for an answer. For hope. "Get 'em back to the carrier. Now," he finally says.

Admiral Kazansky swallows hard, but says nothing. His hands don't move, either.

The operator speaks up, relaying those orders, "All Daggers flow to ECP. You have bandits headed for you."

"What about Maverick?!" Rooster demands, and Halo agrees. They can't just leave him…

"Tell him there's nothing he can do for Maverick," Cyclone snaps, his voice cracking, "not in a goddamn F-18!"

Halo doesn't expect the next voice to speak up, but maybe she should have. It's Hangman, low and urgent. "Dagger Spare request permission to launch and fly air cover."

Halo forces herself to look past Admiral Kazansky, sees Warlock looking to Cyclone, deferring to him. Cyclone closes his eyes and shakes his head, and it feels like an admission of defeat.

"Negative, Spare," the operator relays. They hear a clatter over the line, but nothing else.

"Launch Search and Rescue," Warlock murmurs. Halo bites her lip so hard it bleeds. Maverick went down over land, over enemy territory, over foreign soil. There's no way SAR would be allowed into their airspace, let alone landing to find him.

"Negative, not with bandits in the air," Cyclone insists, killing the idea where it stood.

"But Sir-!" Hondo protests, desperate. "Maverick is still out there!"

"We are not losing anyone else today," Cyclone snaps. Hondo stares for a moment, before his jaw clicks shut. He looks past Cyclone, to Admiral Kazansky, wordlessly beseeching him. Trying to communicate something, ask for him to intervene. But Admiral Kazansky isn't looking at him. He isn't looking at any of them. He's staring sightlessly at the screen where the little plane icon tagged 'Maverick' should be. Where it isn't. Where it never will be again.

"Get 'em home now," Cyclone repeats, quieter.

"Dagger, you are not to engage," another operator says. "Repeat, do not engage."

The first operator nearly cuts him off to say, "Dagger Two, return to carrier. Acknowledge." She'd seen it before the rest of them, the way Rooster started slowing down, falling behind the two-seaters. "Acknowledge!"

The Admiral shifts, and Halo's gaze snaps to him just in time to see him sign, He won't.

"He won't," she says on autopilot, remembering why she's even here in the first place.

And then everyone's attention is suddenly on her, and she's pinned under it, feels like she's about to be reprimanded. "Ah, Admiral Kazansky said, 'He won't,'" she clarifies uncertainly.

The Admiral's shoulders are rigid, and he still isn't looking at them.

"Rooster, those bandits are closing," Phoenix says, barely keeping her voice even. "We can't go back," she adds, and that's when her voice cracks.

"Rooster…" Bob chimes in, low and mournful, "he's gone. Maverick's gone."

They're trying to save him, Halo realizes.

But Admiral Kazansky ends up being right. Either he knows more about Rooster (and the rest of them?) than anyone knew, or his instincts are just that sharp. Probably the latter.

Halo can feel the dismay in the room, thick in the air, as they all watch Rooster's icon swoop away from the squad, veering back into the valley.

The bandits don't even catch up to him, in the end.

"Dagger Two is hit," the first operator announces. SAMs, then. "Dagger Two is hit," he repeats helplessly. They can all see Rooster's plane disappear, the signal loss from his ESAT.

Cyclone exhales, trying to compose himself. So much like that afternoon when Maverick had run the course himself, but for a far worse reason. Beside her, Admiral Kazansky closes his eyes. His hand shakes, and she pretends not to notice.

"Dagger Two, come in," the other operator requests, her voice quiet but urgent. "Dagger Two, do you copy?" Beyond her, Halo sees Hondo reach up under his glasses, trying to wipe away a tear. "Dagger Two, come in," she begs.

But Rooster never does.

And Halo has just heard one of her friends die. Her teacher. The man they all knew would give his life for them. And she has to guess that he had, somehow. Rooster had run out of flares, had two SAMs on him, and then the next thing they heard, Mav was down. Had he taken those missiles instead of Rooster? Pulled some insane maneuver to throw himself in their path, to shield Rooster with his own plane?

No wonder Rooster went back for him. Whatever issue Rooster had with him, he wasn't the type to leave someone behind. Especially not someone that went down for him. In all their training hops, Rooster had always been the first to put himself in the line of fire to save his wingman.

Admiral Kazansky stays frozen, unmoving. His gaze is cold, his expression still, and he keeps his eyes pinned on the spot on the map where Maverick and Rooster disappeared. Like he's trying to will their icons back into existence. Or like he's memorizing where exactly it is, where he wishes he could be.

The other two planes make it to sea, closing in on the carrier. Halo itches to go up there, to drag Phoenix into a hug, to try to be there for her and the other three. But she has a duty to Admiral Kazansky right now. She'll just have to hope he wants to go up there to see them for himself.

And then Admiral Kazansky turns and moves for the door, done here. He probably has to start dealing with the fallout, now, if his phone hasn't already started ringing off the hook. She follows him, casting one last forlorn glance at the screen, before stepping out into the suddenly too-bright hallway.

She's still adjusting to the new level of light when Admiral Kazansky starts walking, so she moves to keep up with him. He hasn't dismissed her, so she assumes she's meant to keep following him.

…And then she realizes maybe he can't dismiss her. It had been clear she was just standing in for Maverick, temporarily taking his place until he got back.

Only he isn't coming back.

The Admiral stops suddenly, pulling open a door and glancing in, before stepping into what looks to be an empty conference room. Halo moves to follow him, but he turns to her and signs quickly, the motions tight and constrained, A moment, please.

"Of course, Sir," she says, surprised, looking up at him. His expression reveals nothing, but he nods in thanks and closes the door. Something thumps against the wall, and then it's quiet.

She's left to her devices, alone in the hall, caught in limbo. And then she realizes the others don't know. And they're about to find out, sure, when only two planes come back, but it feels- wrong, for them to find out that way. She pulls out her phone - it isn't like she's giving out classified intel.

She looks up from her screen, frowning a little at the closed door in front of her. There's been no sound from the conference room in a few minutes, and she isn't sure if she should knock or just keep waiting. But Admiral Kazansky had asked for a moment, and she wasn't obtuse. He wasn't going in there to work. He was going in there to let himself feel it, as a person, as a human being who knew Maverick, knew Rooster, and not as the Admiral everyone looks to for answers.

She'll give him as much time as she can.

Her patience is tested when she hears the jets landing above them, and she has to control herself to stop from running up to the flight deck. She just has to trust that Omaha, the Ivies, Fritz, and Coyote will take care of their teammates.

When the second jet lands, Halo finds herself hoping despite everything to hear a third, a fourth. But of course she doesn't. Admiral Kazansky opens the door in that gap of silence, like he'd felt the same thing.

"Sir-?" she asks, straightening up at attention now that he's returned. She can't help but look him over, but he looks as immaculate as he did before the mission. His uniform still perfect, edges sharp. The only thing she notices is his hair, no longer slicked back in sharp order. It looks like he's run his hands through his hair, set some strands free. It's such a small difference though, she only notices because she's looking, because she's been watching him all day.

He otherwise looks entirely unbothered. Thank you, H-A-L-O, he signs, clearly opting for her callsign instead of taking the longer time to sign her rank and finger-spell her last name. Let's go.

"Where to, Sir?" she asks, trying to remain steady. She's relying on the Admiral's calm, collected state to keep herself on an even keel.

We need to debrief the remaining Dagger squad members, he signs, his movements measured and slow. The tight, jerky motions from before are gone, almost like he's just talking about paperwork. Like he isn't talking about the death of an old friend.

"Yes, Sir," she says. She wonders where they'll debrief - the briefing this morning was in the hangar, which is definitely not where they'd debrief. She doesn't know this ship enough to know which rooms are for that - though maybe the conference room the Admiral had just ducked into is one of them.

He nods back to the CIC, and Halo moves to follow him, just a step behind and to his right - the same spot that Maverick had taken, this morning. Fuck.

He opens the door and steps in, and Cyclone and Warlock look to him. They clearly hadn't moved, going through the post-landing procedures. Admiral Kazansky half-turns to her, and signs, Ask them where the debriefing will be held, please.

"Admiral Kazansky would like to know where the debriefing will be, Sirs," Halo translates, turning to Cyclone as she speaks.

Cyclone nods, his expression still tight and pinched. "Down the hall to the left," he says. And then, to the sailor by the door, "Simmons, go up to the flight deck and bring those four to conference room 3, ASAP."

"Yes, Sir," the man says with a sharp salute, before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Admiral Kazansky nods, glances once in passing at the monitors, the now empty screen with no planes in the air, and turns to leave. Halo goes with him, and they find that conference room 3 is right across the hall from the one he'd ducked into. She follows him in, and he moves to take a seat at the center of the table. It's a small conference room, just large enough to fit a dozen or so people at the table, a few more along the walls.

She stalls in the doorway, unsure where she's supposed to sit. She's never been in one of these where she wasn't the one being debriefed. The Admiral nods to a seat across from him at a diagonal, so she can see his signs easily without being in the way of the aviators being debriefed. She understands as soon as he gestures to the seat, and goes to it. She doesn't sit yet, though. She'll have to stand when the Admirals arrive regardless, but even if she didn't, she wants to hug her teammates when they get here.

There's a commotion in the hall after a bit, and then the door opens and Warlock holds the door as Cyclone steps in, striding around the table to sit beside Admiral Kazansky. She salutes him and Warlock both, and then she sees behind them, the four aviators that made it home.

"At ease, Lieutenant," Warlock says, and Halo bolts, moving to all but fling herself at Phoenix and hug her hard.

"Halo-" Phoenix breathes, her voice brittle.

Halo just squeezes her a little tighter. "I'm so glad you're okay," she whispers. And then she lifts her head and meets Bob's gaze, a silent question in her eyes. Wondering if he wants to be hugged - if he wants to be touched right now. He just nods once, his eyes red, and she moves to hug him next, wrapping her arms around him tight. He doesn't say anything, and she doesn't either, just squeezing once.

Fanboy and Payback are behind them. Fanboy's leaning heavily into Payback's side, and Payback has his arm tightly around him. She doesn't want to separate them, so when Bob pulls away she just squeezes both of their arms, she's sure she's showing them the same ache in her gaze that she can see in theirs.

Warlock shuts the door behind them, and she moves back to the seat Admiral Kazansky had told her to take. It puts her next to Phoenix, and she presses her boot to hers as soon as she sits down, hoping the contact helps.

And so it begins.

The Admirals - and Halo, when Admiral Kazansky has something to say - have the Daggers walk them through the mission from the start to the bitter end. They spend some time on Fanboy's faulty laser, trying to understand what happened, why it wasn't ready, why he hadn't caught the deadeye earlier. It had been right when they'd kicked up their speed to keep up with Rooster, and he'd had to focus on other things for just long enough for it to be a problem.

They don't press too hard on him in reality, because it ended up alright. Because Rooster's blind drop was the only blind drop in all the weeks of practice to succeed, and right when it mattered most.

And then they get to Coffin Corner, and Halo watches Admiral Kazansky…sharpen. He doesn't shift, not outwardly, but something in the weight of his presence changes. The intensity of his attention falling onto them. She straightens up instinctively.

What happened to Mav? he signs, his hand hesitating for only a heartbeat on the namesign he'd shown her earlier this morning. Halo dutifully repeats the question aloud for them, only she doesn't shorten the Captain's name. "What happened to Maverick?"

Phoenix and Bob had been closest, and she takes a steadying breath before she starts to speak. "We'd dodged at least a dozen SAMs by that point," she says. "Rooster rolled, trying to defend, but he'd run out of flares. Mav- Mav told him to evade, but they'd already locked on him. And then he pulled a Cobra maneuver, and dropped his own flares while he was over Rooster." She's looking past the Admirals, at the wall, trying to hold herself together. Knowing if she sees the pity, the sympathy, in their eyes, that she'll break. "It…It worked. The first SAM blew up in his chaff. The…the second one hit him, sheared his plane in two," she says shakily.

Admiral Kazansky's hands clench as Phoenix speaks, and Halo thinks she's the only one who notices, because she's got her eyes on his hands constantly.

"I tried to watch for a chute," Bob speaks up, his voice low. "All I could see was the nose spinning until we were blocked off by a hill."

"And then?" Cyclone asks, his voice the gentlest that Halo has ever heard it.

"And then Rooster fell behind," Fanboy says. "He started slowing down, and I thought he was just trying to cover us, until he stopped responding on comms. He swerved left out of the first opening in the canyon he spotted, and that's- that's all I could see."

"A SAM took his plane out," Warlock says. "The bandits never made it there, they turned back once you four hit the ocean."

They sit there in silence at that, for a moment, then two.

Warlock takes a slow breath, and then nods to them. "Thank you, aviators. That's all for now. You did good today. And you did all you could for your team. Don't let yourselves get lost in wondering what you could have done differently. You did the best you could with what many thought was an impossible ask." He pauses, looking over the four of them. "Dismissed."

The four of them stand, slow and almost reluctantly. And then they turn for the door. Halo stands with them, but then steps to the side, and doesn't follow them. Phoenix looks back to her with a question in her eyes, but Halo just nods once. Phoenix squeezes her arm and then goes.

Halo turns back to Admiral Kazansky, who meets her gaze and moves to stand.

Cyclone and Warlock look to each other once Admiral Kazansky is standing, and seem to be conversing without words.

"Sir," Warlock says carefully, evidently having lost whatever he and Cyclone were silently arguing about. "Do you need anything? We can get someone to bring you some food," he offers.

Admiral Kazansky raises an eyebrow at them. He angles himself to make sure Halo can see him before signing No, thank you.

"He says 'No, thank you,' Sirs," Halo reports.

Warlock nods once, though his expression says he isn't happy about it. Admiral Kazansky doesn't wait any longer, striding out into the hall. Halo scrambles to follow him, only to realize he's heading back for the CIC.

"Sir?" she asks, speeding up to keep up with him. Fuck, his legs were long, she doesn't even think he's actively trying to hurry.

He steps into the darkened room - now a good deal emptier than it was before - and goes back to where he'd been standing before. He doesn't seem inclined to explain, so Halo just moves to stand with him. She'd pulled longer duty stretches before, and it's only been a few hours.

Or maybe it's been longer. Time got a little fuzzy in the belly of the carrier.

She's not sure what the Admiral is looking for, but she stands by him all the same. At some point, Warlock and Cyclone return, both of them looking to Admiral Kazansky and then the monitors.

And then Halo sees that the Hawkeye is still in the air, and she realizes they're still hoping for the airspace to be clear. For them to be able to launch SAR.

She wonders if there's anything to find at this point besides bodies. And she hates herself a little for not being able to hold onto hope.

"Sir…" one of the operators says, turning back to look at the Admirals. "We're receiving a signal from Rooster's ESAT," he says.

All three of the Admirals' gazes snap to him, instantly.

"But there seems to be a malfunction," he continues carefully.

"Have you lost him?" Warlock asks immediately.

"No, Sir," the operator says, shaking his head with a ghost of a smile. "He's supersonic."

"He's airborne," Warlock realizes.

"In what?" Cyclone asks, looking to Warlock in astonishment.

Another operator seems to have the answer, "Sir, overwatch reports an F-14 Tomcat is airborne and on course for our position."

Admiral Kazansky turns to her. "Launch Dagger Spare," he says, his voice hoarse but urgent.

"Sir-?"

"Now," he says.

She turns back to her console, quickly speaking into the microphone. Ordering them to get Dagger Spare onto the catapult. Has Hangman been sitting in his jet's cockpit for hours?

"Can't be. It- it can't be-" Warlock says, shaking his head.

"Maverick," Cyclone murmurs, stunned.

Chapter Text

There's something bitter to suiting up, strapping into his jet, and then being left behind.

Hangman doesn't let it show, not when he says "Dagger Spare, standing by," not when he watches Rooster launch, not when he listens to Maverick say 'Dagger attack'.

He's still reeling from the decision to take Rooster instead of him. From the fact that, when the chips were down, Maverick believed that he couldn't be trusted to look out for his team. It's the only thing it could be. He was better at the course than Rooster, faster, better in a dogfight, more decisive in every way that mattered in the air.

And then one of his heroes, the fucking Iceman showed up. Which means he had to have some say in the squad, or at the very least had to sign off on it. So the COMPACFLT must think that of him, too. He hadn't been able to look at him during the briefing, had stared through him at the wall behind.

It hadn't changed anything. He's still sitting on the flight deck, listening to the radio chatter of the mission he's supposed to be on. Listening to them work their way through the canyon. Listening to Rooster do it again, hold back when he needed to fly faster.

Rooster gets with the program eventually, but he's wasted precious seconds by then. And he can't do anything about it from here. All Hangman can do is sit here and twiddle his goddamn thumbs, entirely fucking useless.

Maverick lands the first bomb - of course he does - but he can't help but make a victorious little motion, pumping a fist, when he hears Bob's report. The smile falls from his face instantly the moment Fanboy starts shouting about a faulty laser. And Rooster- Rooster doesn't hesitate, for once. He takes charge, makes the call, and drops blind.

Jake's pretty sure his heart stops for a good few seconds there. And then overwatch reports the facility destroyed, and he can't help the burst of pride in his team, dancing a little in his seat. Two miracles, one after the other, three if you count the fact that Rooster dropped blind and still hit the target.

They're in it, now, though. And this- this is where his nerves kick up another notch or ten. Rooster didn't have the confidence needed in their dogfight training to dodge an endless stream of SAMs. It should be him out there. It should be him taking the risk, flying for his life, with Rooster safe on the boat.

As much as he believes that, though, he doesn't want to be proven right. It's the last thing he wants.

When he hears Rooster's voice, tense and afraid, that he's out of flares, he almost reaches for his engine startup sequence on instinct. And then, worse, the anguish in his voice when he shouts, "Mav! No!"

Phoenix confirms what he fears - Maverick just went down. Maverick just went down…to save Rooster. It's the only thing that makes sense. He stares in shock at the controls. Maverick had been…had seemed, invincible. Untouchable.

"Dagger One, status. Status!" Rooster begs. "Anyone see him? Does anyone see him? Dagger One, come in!"

Payback confirms the reality that he doesn't want to hear. That no one saw a chute.

But Rooster insists, "We have to circle back," as if they did see some sign he'd ejected successfully.

They're ordered to return, regardless. Reminded of the fifth-gen fighters heading straight for them. And Rooster ignores them, says, "What about Maverick?!"

He's not going to let it go. Jake knows this. He's flown with him enough to know that Rooster couldn't make himself leave someone behind, even if it got him killed.

But maybe…maybe if he can get to them, they won't be so outgunned. Maybe if he can get to them, he can make sure they make it back to the carrier.

He picks up his mask, pulls it over his mouth to call into the radio, "Dagger Spare, request permission to launch and fly air cover." His other hand hovers over the switch he'd flip to start his jet up.

The silence is deafening. He's sure, for a moment, that they're getting ready to approve it, to get him on the catapult-

"Negative, Spare."

Fuck. He throws his mask down, though it doesn't go far, still attached to his helmet.

He's still staring at the controls when he hears, "Dagger Two, return to carrier. Acknowledge. Acknowledge!"

Rooster's going to get himself killed, Jake realizes. And he can't do a fucking thing about it.

Neither can Phoenix or Bob, though. They're flying right beside him, trying to convince him that the bandits are closing, that Maverick is gone, that they can't go back.

But Jake knows Rooster. He probably doesn't even hear them, right now.

He finds himself hoping, not for the first time, that Rooster will prove him wrong. That he'll pull himself together and come back.

"Dagger Two is hit. Dagger Two is hit," control reports.

Jake stares into his cockpit, at the dead plane, listening desperately for reports of a chute. But there aren't any. Had Rooster left behind his wingman? So much so that none of them even saw him go down?

Fucking ironic, that.

The one thing everyone was afraid that Hangman was going to do to them, done by their favorite, instead. Rooster left them behind.

He doesn't realize how long he's sat there in silence until he hears the commotion of the flight deck crew running to the other end of the carrier, setting up the line. He twists in his seat, looking back over his shoulder to see the two remaining F-18s in the distance, coming in for landing.

It hadn't really hit him that it was real until he sees that, until he sees the empty space those missing jets should occupy, that should be coming in with them.

One of them lands, and then the other.

He doesn't unbuckle his harness, doesn't move to go see them. He hasn't been released, hasn't been ordered to stand down and get off the deck. Part of him hopes that means they're planning to launch search and rescue, that he'll be sent to escort them so they can go look for Maverick and Rooster.

The chatter over the line continues, now that their remaining jets are on the carrier. Calls from the Hawkeye about the position of the bandits, who'd stopped chasing the Daggers after they hit international waters. They looped back, flying back to the now-destroyed facility, and then stayed in the air, circling around. A longer, slow patrol.

Which…they did take out their runway, so maybe they can't land anywhere. Maybe they don't have the range left to get to their next base.

Jake hopes they run out of fuel waiting for a refuel and have to bail out. That might give them the opening they need.

If they'd just let him launch, he could get them to burn more gas trying to chase him down. But they're not going to, and he can't launch on his own. Not off a carrier, not without the flight crew on board.

So he's left to cool his heels on the deck, plugged in to the radio chatter, in case something changes. It could, at any moment. If those bandits were returning from a long-range patrol, they might already be low on fuel. It's possible they could get a clear shot at bandit-free airspace any moment.

At some point, he's dragged back into full awareness at the sound of someone pulling the ladder out on his plane. He jerks upright, leaning over to see what the fuck is going on-

Only for Javy to almost headbutt him on his way up the ladder. Jake dodges back and barely avoids breaking his friend's nose with his helmet.

"Javy, what the fuck-?" he asks, stunned.

Javy shrugs, draping an arm over the edge of his cockpit, leaning in. "Figured you were stuck here for a bit, thought I'd come keep you company," he says, casual as anything. His gaze is sharp though, and Jake knows there's more to it. "Also brought you some water, if you want it," he adds, offering him a bottle.

Jake takes it with a nod of thanks, popping the lid off and taking a few sips. It was hot, sitting in a cockpit in the sun, even with the canopy up. Still, if he was in it for the long haul - and part of him hopes he is - he doesn't want to have to piss.

"You alright?" Javy asks, watching him as he drinks.

Jake closes the bottle again, looking down at it before looking out to the ocean. He doesn't meet Javy's gaze. "It should've been me out there."

"You would've left Mav behind?" he asks, an eyebrow raised.

Jake's lip curls. "He wouldn't have gone down in the first place," he says. He knows why Javy's asking. Why he's prodding, trying to see where Jake's turmoil lands.

"He'd burn in for any of us," Javy says, frowning a little, his brow furrowing.

"Wouldn't have needed to," Jake grits out.

Javy hums. "You don't know that," he says, and it's almost gentle. "Still didn't answer my question."

"I…I don't know, Javy." Jake shakes his head. "Leave one wingman behind to protect the other two jets escaping, or turn back and leave the two still in the air on their own?" And that's not even bringing in the factor of orders.

"They haven't pulled you off standby," Javy notes.

"Yeah. Guessing we're waiting for the all-clear to send SAR," Jake says.

"Well. I'm not needed for the debrief, so I'll hang out here if it's all the same to you," Javy shrugs casually. As if he might as well be here, draped over the edge of an F-18's cockpit than anywhere else.

"And if it isn't?" Jake asks, an eyebrow curled.

"Tough shit," Javy says, grinning wide at him. "What are you gonna do, shove me off the ladder?"

"Thinking about it," Jake grumbles. Javy knows he doesn't mean it, though.

"Try it. Can't make me leave once I'm down on the deck," he points out.

"So you came to bother me because you had nothing better to do?" Jake asks, finally turning to look at Javy.

"Something like that. The others have got those four covered," he says, gesturing back over his shoulder to where the two Foxtrot jets landed.

Unspoken is, 'and no one had you'. No one except Javy.

But that isn't anything new. He's used to that.

"Where were you this whole time?" Jake asks, though he knows the subject change isn't subtle enough to escape notice.

"What, while you were cooking up here?" Javy shrugs. "Most of us just stayed by the flight elevators, out of the way." He looks out toward the ocean. "It's not like we could just camp in a rec room and play Xbox and pretend none of this was happening," he adds, quieter.

"Sounds like you planned that all out already," he comments idly.

Javy snorts. "Unlike the rest of you, I knew I wasn't getting picked a long time ago," he says, not looking at him. "Nobody is gonna risk another G-LOC incident on enemy soil," he adds.

Jake doesn't bullshit him and deny it, because they both know it would just be him blowing smoke up Javy's ass. They didn't do that with each other.

"Can't believe you didn't have a movie marathon ready and planned then," Jake says instead, grinning crookedly at him. It's mostly facade, instinctual to reach for in the face of potential vulnerability.

"Should've, you're right," Javy replies airily. "Next time I know I'm skipping a suicide mission, I'll be ready."

Jake huffs a laugh, and they lapse into a companionable silence. He'd never had trouble spending time with Javy, and, surprisingly enough, the same was true for Javy. He seemed to take a particular glee in Jake being befuddled by that every so often.

The sun starts to hang lower in the sky, and Jake is starting to worry that their overwatch is going to have to land sooner rather than later. He'd heard them report some time ago that the bandits got a mid-air top-up. Clearly they were intent on keeping anyone else out, and maybe hunting down their crashed pilots.

"Wonder how much longer they're gonna-" Javy starts, but Jake immediately stops listening to him as the radio in his ear crackles to life with something important.

"Sir…We're receiving a signal from Rooster's ESAT," an operator from the CIC says. "But there seems to be a malfunction."

Someone in the room must ask what the fuck he's talking about, because the next thing the operator says is, "No, Sir, he's supersonic."

"Holy shit," Jake breathes.

"Earth to- what? What is it, Jake?" Javy asks, searching his expression. Any trace of annoyance at being ignored has vanished from his face.

"Rooster's supersonic," he says, because there's no other way for him to relay that information.

"What?"

"Sir, overwatch reports an F-14 Tomcat is airborne and on course for our position."

Another operator says, "Sir-?" which informs exactly nothing.

And then she speaks more clearly, a sharp, "Dagger Spare, you are clear to launch."

"Javy, go," Jake says, his hands flicking over the controls, starting up his jet.

"Oh- oh shit they're sending you- okay okay, fuck, good luck," Javy says, leaping down the ladder and stowing it quickly before sprinting out of the way as the deck crew rushes in to take over, starting those final preparations for his plane as he gets the engines going.

Pins being pulled, the catapult being drawn back, the afterburner shield lifted.

"Hangman," Admiral Kazansky- Admiral Kazansky says. To him.

"Yes, Sir," Hangman replies instantly, swallowing hard. He doesn't stop moving, pulling his harness on, his mask on, closing the canopy.

"Get to that Tomcat. Make sure it's them. And get them home." There's something aching in his voice, Jake thinks. Them. He'd said 'them'. Of course, of course he did. Rooster didn't know how to fly a fucking F-14. It had to be- could only be - Maverick.

"Yes, Sir," he vows.

He's already taxied the rest of the way to the runway, lining himself up on the catapult, backing up until he's given the thumbs up to stop. He hears the clank of the catapult latching onto him, and he holds the brakes, throttling up, listening to his engines roar to life.

His eyes are locked on the flight crew, waiting for the hand signal that clears him to hit the gas. As soon as he gets it, he salutes sharply, and then he's off, rocketing down the runway, slinging off the catapult at the exact right moment for takeoff.

As soon as he's cleared the deck, he goes full-throttle, full afterburner. Those bandits are still airborne, and they're in an F-14. The fact that a museum piece like that could even still break the sound barrier was a feat of its own. But could it survive a dogfight against fifth-gens, even with Maverick in the cockpit? He doesn't even know if they have weapons.

Jake hits Mach 1 when the Hawkeye reports that the bandits have flanked the F-14.

"Come on, hang in there," Jake murmurs to himself, pushing his jet faster.

"Bandit One is down," Comanche reports, matter-of-factly, as if that isn't insane. As if an F-14 didn't just take out a fifth-gen fighter.

It also means they're in combat, now. It means they're fighting for their lives while Hangman jets over open ocean, trying to get to them. There's a stone in his gut - there's nothing he can do from here.

Do they even know he's coming? Of course they don't - how would they? They think they're on their own out there - they are.

He can't let them down. He can't let Rooster down.

…And if this isn't the worst fucking moment for his confusing mire of feelings to snap into focus.

He doesn't have time to deal with that right now. None of it will matter, anyway, if Rooster dies here.

He can finally see land on the horizon, almost there, when overwatch speaks up again. "Bandit Two is down," Comanche reports.

Holy fuck. Maverick just took out two fifth-gen fighters in a plane that got decommissioned over a decade ago - and it was already old even then. He might have had the element of surprise for the first kill, but he definitely didn't have it for the second.

"Comanche, Dagger Spare," Hangman calls in. "Where are they?" He has his radar off, knows he needs to stay hidden so the enemy doesn’t get any warning he's coming.

"Dagger Spare, F-14 Tomcat is at bearing zero-three-five, heading to you."

Jake turns, adjusting his angle, when his proximity alarms start to blare. "Comanche, tell me that's them," Hangman says.

"Negative, Spare," Comanche reports, the worst news. "Third bandit, between you and the F-14."

Fuck.

How the hell hadn't they seen it? This asshole must have his radar off too.

Jake has to intercept before they get within missile range of the F-14. If anyone can do it, it's him. This is what he's good at. Flying so fast that no one can keep up with him.

He sees them. Up ahead, he's almost on the bandit's tail, when he sees smoke in the air. His grip tightens on the stick, pushing his plane as far as it will give him. The F-14 rolls, shoots flares, and the missile doesn't land.

"Dagger Spare, I see them," he reports. And then he picks up the open radio channel, realizes it has to be them. "Rooster, Maverick, is that you?" he asks.

No response.

"We're outta flares, Mav!" Rooster. It's Rooster. Jake doesn't realize how much he'd started to think he'd never hear his stupid voice again until he does.

"Rooster, this is Hangman, I'm almost there," he tries again.

"Shit, he's already on us!" Rooster continues.

They're sending, but can't receive. Jake hooks them into the boat, at least, so the CIC can hear them too, piggybacking off his own channel.

The F-14 swoops away from him, and he bites back a curse as he gives chase, trying to get the bandit lined up in his sights.

Is this how his wingmen felt in dogfight practice with him? The lead plane pulling maneuvers like it's alone, like no one else is in the air trying to help?

He'd have preferred to not have the point be made at a time like this.

"Agh, this is not good!" Rooster yells, though he doesn't say what exactly isn't good. There's a lot that's not good, right now. "We took another hit!"

Hangman doesn't see any more smoke, so the bandit must have switched to guns.

"No, no no no!" Maverick shouts, and Jake has never heard him sound like that before. Not even when Phoenix and Bob were burning in.

"Augh, we can't take much more of this!" Rooster warns.

"Mav, this is Hangman, I'm closing on your position. I'm almost there." He can't help himself trying to reach them over the radio again.

"We can't outrun this guy. We gotta eject," Mav says, talking over him.

"What?!" Rooster cuts in.

"We need altitude! Pull the ejection handles the second I tell you," Maverick continues, firm and certain.

"Mav wait-!"

"Rooster! There's no other way!"

The F-14 banks upward, hard, which means it's no longer swerving away from Hangman. The bandit does the same, angling to line up the kill shot.

"Eject, eject, eject!" Maverick shouts, way below minimum altitude for a safe ejection. "Rooster! Pull the handle, eject!"

"It's not working!" Rooster grunts, his voice strained, like he's pulling with all he's got.

"Come on, come on," Hangman growls, to himself and his plane more than anything else. He's caught up to them, angling behind the bandit, guiding his crosshairs, aiming to lock on faster. He can't use radar, can't risk the bandit dodging, so he's working with his helmet-mounted sight.

"Mav-!" Rooster's breathless, anguished.

"I'm sorry…" Maverick whispers. "I'm sorry, Goose. I'm sorry, Ice…"

He barely hears him over the sound of missile lock, tone, and he fires a sidewinder.

Hangman sees smoke in the air, and he thinks that this was it. He was too slow, he failed.

And then his missile hits dead on, blows up the bandit from center mass. Its missile explodes too, joining the fireball.

Holy shit.

Holy shit, he did it.

There's silence on the radio, but as he flies through the remnants of the explosion and the cloud of smoke - just because he can, because if this isn't a cause for a little showboating, then what is? - he sees them, the F-14 still whole, still alive. He throws in a few rolls as he maneuvers to them, grinning like a madman.

The radio clicks, and he doesn't know why they finally stopped holding down the send, but he takes his opening where it's given. "Goood afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is your savior speaking," he says, certain his grin is audible. "Please fasten your seatbelts, return your traytables to their locked and upright positions, aaand prepare for landing," he continues, as he pulls up on their wing.

Rooster laughs over the line, which is all he wanted out of that. It should probably concern him, that he's willing to say something cheesy and dumb just to make Rooster laugh.

Up front, Maverick pounds twice on the glass, pulling his attention, before giving him a thumbs up.

…That simple gesture probably shouldn't mean as much to him as it does, but before he can spiral too hard about that, Rooster speaks.

"Hey Hangman," he says, "you look good."

And Jake…Jake grins at that, a new twist of warmth given to their earlier snarking, two weeks and a lifetime ago.

"I am good, Rooster," he says, his cheeks hurting from his smile. "I'm very good." And then he turns and peels off, heading down and back for the carrier. "I'll see you back on deck." It's a promise, he realizes.

He flies back quickly. He has no idea how airworthy that Tomcat still is, and he needs to get on deck and clear the runway as fast as he can for them.

Jake calls the ball, and the radio goes silent for him. His landing gear is down, and he starts adjusting, a couple hundred micro-adjustments to get him perfectly in line with the carrier. His wheels touch down, his tailhook snags the third cable, and he slams the brakes, wheeling to a stop with practiced perfection.

As soon as he's unhooked from the cable, he taxis off the runway and toward the line of parked jets, pulling out of the way so they can reset the cables for Maverick.

"Maverick is downwind. No front landing gear, no tailhook. Pull the cable and raise the barricade."

Shit. Forget resetting the cables, then. Jake parks himself, running through his post-flight at lightning speed.

"Foul deck, foul deck! Raise the barricade!" the Tower calls.

The deck is full of people suddenly, all pulling the barricade out and stretching it open.

Maverick's coming in, too fast, and Jake has just popped his canopy when he sees- when he sees the fucker buzzing the tower.

He bets if Maverick's asked, he'll say he was looping around to buy them time to get the barricade up.

Jake's still in his jet, turning in his seat to watch Maverick come in, leaning on the edge of his cockpit.

Except the F-14 stutters in the air, jerks in an unnatural way. A small twitch that he might expect from a less-experienced pilot, but Maverick?

"Please don't tell me we lost an engine," Rooster begs.

"…Alright. I won't tell you that," Maverick replies, easy as anything.

Holy shit.

"…okay," Rooster grits out, clearly bracing himself.

Maverick's going to land an F-14 with no tailhook, no front landing gear, and one engine?

He barely has time to wrap his head around the thought before the plane hits the deck, nose tipped down, slamming straight into the barricade. The sparks from its rapidly slowing slide drag all the way to the other end of the runway.

Jesus Christ.

Jake's out of his seat before he even realizes it, leaving his helmet behind and jumping down to the deck. He's running with what feels like the population of the entire carrier, all rushing to get to them.

The fire extinguishers get there first, which is probably a good thing, because the rest of them aren't slowing, probably wouldn't manage to even if the F-14 caught fire suddenly.

The canopy lifts, and there's Rooster, holding his helmet up victoriously from the back seat as he stands. Maverick's a little slower to get up, helmet in hand, looking around like he can't quite believe he's alive.

The two of them toss their helmets into the crowd, and Rooster doesn't even wait for a ladder, just jumping off the edge of the cockpit.

Phoenix and Bob beat him somehow - where the fuck did they come from? - but Jake's pushing his way through the crowd to get to Rooster anyway. He gets there right as Phoenix lets go of Rooster, and then Rooster's meeting his gaze, and the din of the crowd seems to fall away suddenly.

Jake…doesn't know what to say, for once. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, just staring at him. At Bradley, alive. Alive and grinning and safe.

He takes the safer option, holds his hand out, an offering. Of what, he's not exactly sure, but something.

Rooster smiles at him, looks like he's trying not to, but takes his hand and grips back just as tightly as he does as they shake.

Jake can't help himself, can't stop the wide grin.

"Chalked yourself another kill," Rooster says, only it sounds like he means something else. Jake isn't sure what, exactly - it's been too long, he doesn't know how to read all of Rooster's little hidden meanings anymore.

So he goes with, "That makes two," instead.

"Mav has five," Phoenix pipes up, smug and gleeful. "Makes him an ace."

Rooster looks from her to him, and the setting sun makes his eyes look golden in the light. He doesn't say anything, just lifts his eyebrows with a twist of his lips, a silent 'she's not wrong'. But then the expression shifts into a warmer smile, something genuine, and Jake can't remember the last time he saw that aimed at him.

His own smile softens a little, and before he can fuck this up, he pats Rooster's chest once, letting him go, and turning to Phoenix.

She surprises him by reaching back, pulling him into a hug just as tight, clapping his shoulder.

"You did it, Jake!" she says into his ear.

Fuck. He did, didn't he? It hadn't really hit him until she said it. She seems to notice - nothing ever gets past her - and holds onto him a little tighter.

He's gripping her flightsuit, riding the high of adrenaline, of success, of his team all making it home. "Yeah- yeah, I did!" he shouts back, and his voice comes out a little hoarse, and Phoenix is kind enough not to mention it.

"You did good," she says in his ear, and then lets go of him, beaming.

Jake can't help the smile on his face either, relaxing a little.

When he turns back to look for Rooster, the man's hugging Maverick, holding onto him like he thinks he may disappear if he lets go.

He's pretty sure Maverick's doing the same, which is why neither of them notice the crowd suddenly starting to part. The crew are scrambling out of the way of someone - it isn't hard to see who.

Admiral Kazansky is tall, cuts an imposing figure, and as soon as one crewman jumps out of his way, others notice and follow suit.

He doesn't have to shove his way through the crowd like Jake did. People all but fall over to make room for him.

Admiral Kazansky waits, though, until Rooster lets go of Maverick.

Maverick turns, smiling a little, curious at the gap in the crowd, and then he sees the Admiral, and that little smile goes megawatt bright.

The Admiral reaches for him, grabbing one of Maverick's outstretched arms, his other hand landing on the pilot's side. "You insane, impossible, incredible, idiot!" He shouts, his voice hoarse and rough and barely audible over the crowd.

He looks furious.

He's glaring murderously at Maverick, and all Maverick is doing is grinning at him, his gaze warm and sparkling.

Jake knew the man had audacity. This was something else.

Admiral Kazansky looks like he's about to start up again, start really ripping into the man - and really, was this the time? Couldn't he at least wait for debrief to ream him out? - when he stops. He looks down, frowning, and Maverick looks down with him, as the Admiral pulls away from Maverick's side.

His hand comes away red.

"…huh," Maverick blinks in surprise at the blood, at his blood. He looks back up to the Admiral, and very helpfully says, "I think I've been shot."

"You think?!" the Admiral snaps, but then he lurches forward to- oh fuck, to catch Maverick as the Captain's knees give out under him. "Maverick- Mav!"

Jake's moving before he actively realizes it, shouting for a medic, snagging Maverick by the straps of his flightsuit and helping the Admiral lower him to the deck.

Then the medics show up, dragging a stretcher between them, using the convenient opening the crew had made for Admiral Kazansky. In a flurry of motion, they more or less shove him out of the way, pulling Maverick onto the backboard and lifting him up, and then taking off with him, Admiral Kazansky on their heels.

Jake just stares after them, unmoored.

Chapter Text

Rooster thinks he's in shock, probably.

The view out the canopy is obscured by the foam from half a dozen fire extinguishers, but they're here. Aren't they?

Nothing has felt real since Mav came sprinting full-tilt at him through the woods. Since he'd shoved him into the snow, had yelled at him, asking what he was thinking, only to be fully stopped in his tracks by Rooster's answer. "You told me not to think!" he'd yelled, and gotten the satisfaction of seeing Mav be utterly dumbfounded by having his own bullshit thrown back at him.

Everything after that had sort of been a blur of being dragged along in the wake of Maverick's particular brand of chaos.

Strangely, the whole ordeal just made him feel a little like a kid again. This wasn't the first time he was an accessory to Mav stealing a fighter jet. It had even been an F-14 back then, too.

Mav had promised to show him the sky. Had wanted to show him what he and his dad had loved so much. It was his tenth birthday, and they'd quickly dashed into a hangar, just like today, only with less craters and smoke and klaxons.

Mav had boosted him into the backseat, had disappeared as he got the air going (the job he'd given Rooster, today), as he darted around the plane while he prepped it.

He doesn't know how they got into the air that time, either, but he does remember watching the world fall away from them, somehow different than any commercial plane he's ridden on.

Bradley hasn't thought of that particular memory in years. How the hell had Mav gotten away with taking a child up in a Navy jet without being discharged?

Just how much had he risked, to give Bradley the sky?

And after all that, why had he tried to take the sky from him eight years later?

"You good?!" Mav shouts from up front, slamming Rooster back into the present.

"Yeah…I'm good," he replies, and is surprised to find that's true.

Mav pops the canopy, and the roar of the crowd by the plane is suddenly overwhelming. He pulls his helmet off, holding it up victoriously as he straightens up out of the seat. Mav is standing too, looking around himself in awe.

For the first time, Rooster realizes Mav hadn't actually been sure they were going to survive all that. He'd been so self-assured, so confident, that Rooster had just…believed him.

Rooster shakes his head in wonder as he perches on the edge of the cockpit. He tosses his helmet down - someone catches it for him - and then he hops down to the deck.

Holy shit.

They really made it back.

And then Phoenix is there, dragging him into a hug as Bob claps giddily behind her shoulder.

"Bradley Bradshaw don't you fucking dare scare me like that ever again!" she shouts into his ear.

He laughs, hauling her in and holding tight to her. "Sorry!" he shouts, but he can't promise that. "I couldn't-"

"I know," she says, interrupting him. And she does, doesn't she? If anyone knew him, it was Phoenix. "I know you had to go back."

He just squeezes her a little tighter, and only lets her go when she pats his back.

When Rooster looks up, Hangman is there. His gaze catches, holds, and the rest of the crowd around them sort of fades into the background.

Jake opens his mouth to say something, and Rooster waits for it. And then he closes it again, in a rare moment of maturity, clearly thinking better of saying something dumb.

Instead, Jake holds his hand out, and Rooster barely hesitates before taking it. He's smiling despite himself, squeezing his hand tightly. They're both reluctant to let go, and Jake gives him an honest grin. Something real, a smile he hasn't seen on him in years.

"Chalked yourself another kill," Rooster says, watching him, searching for something in his expression. He means that, but he also means 'you saved my life'.

"That makes two," Jake replies, smirking crookedly, like it doesn't really mean much of anything at all.

Before Rooster's expression can sour, Phoenix pipes up, pointing out, "Mav has five. Makes him an ace."

Rooster glances from Phoenix back to Jake, his eyebrows raised and lip twisting as if to say 'she's got a point'. But then he lets it all go, and smiles a little more warmly.

Jake's expression softens too, and then the man pats his shoulder, before turning to Phoenix.

Rooster turns then, just in time to see Hondo letting go of Maverick. And he suddenly needs- he doesn't know what he needs. But Mav said they'd talk, and while he knows this isn't the place for that, he still has to say…something.

Only, he doesn't know what to call him. What he's allowed to call him.

"Captain Mitchell-" he calls - which feels safe enough - starting to budge his way through the crowd - they're not separated by too many people. "Captain Mitchell!"

Maverick turns to look at him, a hint of confusion in his expression.

Rooster makes it to him, and they're in a little bubble of their own, surrounded by everyone celebrating, He nods to Maverick, and goes with, "Sir."

Mav shakes his head once, and then drags him into a hug, pounding a fist on his shoulder. Rooster's breath freezes in his throat, and he holds onto Mav's arm, wraps himself around him too. The last time Mav hugged him- he'd still been shorter than Mav, he thinks.

It's been so long.

Maverick either doesn't notice or hasn't let himself notice, pulling back and gripping Rooster's collar. "Thank you for saving my life," he says, dead-serious, and Rooster takes it like a knife to the gut.

He thinks he manages to hide that, trying to keep his expression even as he nods. "It's what my dad would've done," he says.

Maverick swallows hard at that, his gaze heavy, searching. Looking for something in Rooster's eyes. He nods again - did he find whatever he was looking for? - and drags Rooster back in, holding on tighter, swinging an arm around the back of his neck and making him lean down a little.

It's the easiest thing in the world to cling on, to bury his face into Maverick's shoulder.

Maverick must have thought he'd meant Goose.

But Goose hadn't been a pilot, and Goose wasn't his only dad.

He'd meant Mav. He'd meant Ice. He'd meant both of them, the fathers he did know, and Goose, the father he didn't. Not a single one of the three would have left Mav - or anyone - behind in the snow like that. So of course he went back.

He doesn't regret it, not for a second. Not even if it gets him court-martialed for disobeying a direct order.

It takes him a bit to open his eyes again, but the noise of the horde to his left changes, and he sees the crowd making space for someone.

And like thinking about him had made him appear, there was Ice.

Rooster lets go of Mav, stepping back. He doesn't know what he would even say to the Admiral, but it's pretty clear Ice is waiting to talk to Maverick first, anyway.

Mav looks surprised that Rooster's pulling away, but then he sees the movement out of the corner of his eye, sees Ice, and it's like the rest of the world has stopped existing. He's beaming, smiling that wide, genuine smile that Rooster hasn't seen in over a decade.

The last time had been at his high school graduation.

Ice, however, isn't smiling at all. In fact, he's got that terrifying Iceman glare that Rooster feared any time he got into trouble growing up. It's piercing, dark and stormy, and he doesn't say anything until he's in reach of Mav, until he has a hand on his arm and his side.

He looks like he's about to shake Mav like a ragdoll, like he wants to rattle some sense into the man. "You insane, impossible, incredible, idiot!" he shouts, his voice rough and uneven with emotion, with anger.

Maverick does what he does best - he makes it worse. He grins right up at Ice, as if he isn't being yelled at by the COMPACFLT in the middle of a crowd. He's not even remotely cowed, and he really, really should be.

Ice takes a deep breath, winding himself up to really get into it - and Rooster knows exactly how long he can go once he's wound himself up into a speech about his disappointment - when he pauses. Ice hesitating is unusual - or at least it used to be, from what Rooster remembered.

Ice looks down, and Mav's gaze follows his, as he pulls away the hand he'd had on Mav's side.

His palm is a bright, glistening red.

Oh, fuck. How had Rooster not noticed Mav was hurt?

"…huh," Maverick says, and Rooster has a new question: how had Mav not noticed Mav was hurt? "I think I've been shot," he adds.

"You think?!" Ice snaps, and then he darts forward, gripping Maverick's arms to keep him upright as the Captain's knees buckle. "Maverick- Mav!"

Rooster starts to move, startled into urgency by the way Maverick's eyes slip shut, but Jake beats him to it, snagging Mav's flightsuit by the straps and helping lower him down.

Medics are being shouted for, and Rooster drops to his knees by Mav's side, his hands hovering, looking for where he's hurt. The right side of his flightsuit is dark with blood, and he stares in horror.

Before he can do anything, the medics arrive, and he's only aware of it the moment one of them shouts, "Lieutenant, move aside, please!"

He scrambles out of the way so they can get to Mav, and they don't hesitate to get him on the stretcher before taking off for the infirmary.

By the time Rooster looks up, they're gone, and Ice with them. Jake's standing near him, looking at where they'd disappeared, before looking back and seeing Rooster on his ass on the deck. He frowns at him, but doesn't say anything, holding a hand out to help him up.

Rooster takes it, nodding in thanks as he lets go of him once he's upright.

Jake's gaze is narrowed, watching him sharply, and he realizes that Jake is searching him for injuries too. "You should go get checked out," he finally says.

Rooster wants to rankle under the assumption that he needs a minder, but he doesn't deny the fact that Jake is probably right. He just nods, because he's too tired to want to get into a fight. "Yeah," he says. "I'm- I'm gonna go there next."

Besides, if he goes to get himself checked out, he'll be closer and might get word on how Mav is.

He categorically refuses to believe that he'll be anything but okay.

They can't have gone through all that for Mav to just…die like that. To make it back, alive, just to bleed out once they'd landed?

It would be so deeply unfair, and that thought is enough to send a cold shiver of fear down his spine, because Rooster's life was punctuated by losing parents in the most unfair of ways. So of course it could, would, happen like this, now that he and Mav were finally going to talk.

Jake is still watching him, and he opens his mouth to say something, before changing his mind and closing it. And then evidently changing his mind again, as he says, "You want someone to go with you?"

He'd clearly been hesitant, probably didn't want to imply that Rooster needed someone to make sure he actually went. Or maybe assuming that even if the answer was yes, Rooster would never tell him that. Which he isn't necessarily wrong to believe.

"I'm good," Rooster says. And then, because he's not an asshole, he adds, "but thanks." If nothing else, Jake has earned some grace for saving his life.

Jake nods once. "I'll uh- I'll get Phoenix to bring you your phone."

He's clearly assuming they'll keep Rooster overnight, but he's also probably right to do that. "Thanks," he says again, and then he turns to head for the infirmary too while there's still a gap in the crowd.

He pauses then, just before Jake turns away from him. "Hey, Hangman," he says. "Thanks for saving our asses, too."

Jake frowns at him, something thoughtful in his expression. Maybe wondering if he's being thanked because Rooster didn't think he'd come back them up. His lip quirks, that troubled expression smoothing over, and he says, "I'd say 'anytime', but try not to need me to save your ass again any time soon, huh?"

Rooster laughs, shaking his head. "Hoping to never need it again," he assures, and then gives him a little goodbye wag of his hand before he takes his leave.

He manages to slip away from the crowd before someone comes to drag him to medical. The celebrating had come to something of an understandably abrupt stop after Mav collapsed. A few crew members stuck around to tell him they were glad he made it back, and Rooster nods his thanks, before ducking away and making his way to the infirmary.

He can still walk - and it doesn't hurt yet, not really - so at least his legs aren't broken. The rest he leaves up to the medics, once he gets there.

—

It turns out his legs are in fact not broken, but he didn't escape entirely unscathed. He's got some bruised - likely cracked - ribs, a fracture in his collarbone, a probable concussion, and something in his spine that he didn't quite catch that they're concerned enough about that they want to keep him where they can watch him.

The adrenaline crash comes for him quickly enough anyway, so he passes out in the bed they put him in in short order.

The first time he wakes, he's alone, but his phone is by his bed, which means someone had let Phoenix come by to drop it off. The lights are too bright, and he thinks the 'probable' in 'probable concussion' could likely be dropped, given how he's reacting to the brightness in the room.

He checks his phone, sees that it had been topped off - Phoenix's doing too, he's sure - and smiles a little. It's a bad idea if even the lights hurt his head, but he needs to make sure he hasn't missed something important. He's too exhausted to open the group chat with its thirty plus notifications, but he does open the text from Phoenix that's threatening bodily harm if he doesn't tell her he's alright as soon as he's able to. He fires off a reply - something stupid like 'confirm still breathing', and sets the phone back down, closing his eyes and drifting off once more.

The next time he wakes, he's no longer alone. His first sign of it is the beeping of monitors that weren't there the last time he was conscious.

His second sign is the sound of someone shifting in a chair by the beds.

He cracks open one eye, but the lights are dim and no longer head-piercingly bright. He blinks both eyes open, and then he turns his head slowly to look, feeling for some reason like he needs to be asleep and shouldn't be caught being awake.

"I know you're awake, Bradley," the rasping voice comes from whoever's in the chair near him.

And Rooster knows that voice, no matter how hoarse it is.

He swallows hard, turning to look at Ice, to see him in the chair by another bed. And in front of Ice, in that bed, he sees Mav. Mav, who all those monitors are connected to. He lurches upright, a hand on the rail of his bed, suddenly, painfully awake. "Mav-" he breathes.

"Is stable," Ice assures, his gaze sharp on Rooster, a silent admonishment for moving and trying to get up.

And maybe Ice has a point, because ow. He gingerly leans back into the pillows, shifting for the button to lever his bed upright so he can sit without having to hold himself up.

"He's gonna be okay?" Rooster asks, his voice uncharacteristically quiet and uncertain.

"That's not what I said," Ice replies.

"What-" does Rooster even have the right to know, anymore?

"It depends on how the next few days go," Ice continues, looking back to Mav.

Rooster only realizes it then, that Ice's hand is wrapped around Maverick's left wrist, two fingers pressed up against his pulse. Like the heartrate monitor behind Mav's head isn't good enough, like he needs to feel it for himself.

How bad had it gotten? How close had they come to losing Maverick?

"I…I'm so-"

"Don't apologize to me. He'd have done it for any of you," Ice says, and he's still looking at Maverick.

"Yeah, but it happened because of me," Rooster breathes, aching. Aching for so many more reasons than just his ribs making it hard to breathe.

Ice doesn't hurry to respond, and when it finally starts to be unbearable, he realizes Ice is focused instead on Maverick, on the fact that Mav is shifting a little, waking up.

"Mnugh-?" Maverick croaks, and Ice turns to him, turns all his attention to the Captain.

"Hey, Mav," Ice says, soft and almost gentle. His hand tightens a little around Mav's wrist.

Maverick's eyes slowly open, and he blinks up at Ice in confusion. "Where 'm I?"

"The infirmary, back on the carrier," Ice informs him.

"Since when are Navy nurses so hot?" Maverick asks, grinning dazedly. Clearly he has to be on the mend, if he's already flirting.

He must be drugged out of his mind, Rooster thinks, only a little hysterically. The thought that Maverick could ever confuse Ice - a four star Admiral - for a nurse-

Ice huffs a quiet laugh. "I'm not a nurse, Mav."

"Oh shit- a doctor? Sorry, doc, didn't mean to cause offense," he says hoarsely.

"I'm not a doctor either, Mav," Ice sighs, the long-suffering sound of a man who's experienced a drugged Maverick before.

Maverick blinks in confusion, looking up at Ice and then down at the hand on his wrist. "'m sorry, Sir, hate to have to let you down, but I'm taken," he says.

That makes Ice laugh, and he lets go of his arm with a nod. "You are, yes. Glad you remember that, at least."

"Oh- shit- has anyone told my husband I'm not dead-?" he asks, trying to sit up.

Ice puts a heavy hand on his shoulder to keep him down, and he's making that face he does when he's both trying to keep down a smile while being exceedingly concerned at the same time. Rooster saw that face a lot, growing up. "Yes, your husband knows," he says.

All the fight bleeds out of Maverick at once, and he slumps back into the pillows. "Oh, good," he mumbles, his head lolling back to look up at the ceiling. "don' wan' him t'worry," he continues.

Ice loses the battle with his expression, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "Too late for that one, I think," he says, but Mav's already out cold again.

Distantly, Rooster realizes he should probably tell the group chat that Fanboy's lost the bet - Maverick didn't have a wife.

The thought stabs him with guilt all over again - he'd lashed out blindly, tried to hit Maverick anywhere he could hurt him, told him that with no wife, no kids, no one in the world would mourn him burning in.

It hadn't really occurred to him, when he'd been so blinded by rage, that he had basically told Maverick that he'd never consider him family again. That he wasn't his kid, that he wouldn't mourn him.

What a load of shit.

He couldn't even stomach the thought of leaving Mav behind, let alone actually losing him.

And Maverick was loved. He had a husband who would mourn him. He had friends who would mourn him - Rooster had seen how Hondo hugged him when Maverick got out of that F-14, saw how Ice was here by his bedside, watching over him. And he had Bradley, even if he spent the last fifteen years trying to kill the parts of him that still loved and looked up to Maverick.

He was loved and he still sacrificed himself to protect Rooster.

He's too busy reeling over that to notice Ice moving again, too busy staring at the ceiling as he tries to wrangle the mess of emotions tying a knot in his throat.

He's so lost in the storm of emotions that he doesn't even notice drifting off to sleep.

—

The low murmuring of voices pulls Rooster back to consciousness some time later.

"Heyyy, Ice," that has to be Maverick.

"Hey Mav," Ice replies dutifully, like he's already responded this way more than once.

"Can I keep the cat?" Maverick asks.

"…What cat?" Ice asks.

Rooster looks over, and Ice is looking down at Maverick in mild consternation, clearly trying to figure out what the fuck he's talking about.

"The cat!" Maverick repeats, like that's supposed to make anything clearer. "She was such a good cat, Ice."

"You hit your head, Mav," Ice explains carefully. "You didn't bring a cat back from the tundra." The Admiral has his hand around Mav's wrist again, though Maverick doesn't seem to take issue with it this time. Ice squeezes his wrist, though that doesn't stall Maverick.

"Course I did," Maverick insists, frowning up at Ice. "How do you think I got back here?"

Ice blinks, and then exhales a rough sigh, huffing in disbelief. "You want to keep the F-14. Of course you do."

"Well what else are we gonna do with it, return it?" Maverick snorts, and then winces, clearly rethinking bursting out laughing. "That'd go over well. I wanna be on the phone when you offer to give back their wrecked jet." Maverick's grinning despite the pain he must be in, his eyes glazed over with it. "'Hello, Sir, sorry we bombed your secret uranium enrichment plant and also your airbase. Would you like us to give back that F-14 one of our aviators stole from you? You did shoot at it a bit, so it's not really currently airworthy, but we can drop it off for you at the post office if you like. It did also take out two of your fifth-gen fighters though, you may want to look into how they could possibly lose to a plane that we decommissioned over a decade ago.'"

Ice is pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation, and Rooster realizes then that he isn't wearing his glasses. "Mav," he says, sighing like he's trying to gather all of his patience to deal with the man lying before him. "You can't keep an enemy fighter jet."

"Why not?" Maverick asks, entirely seriously. "She's just a pile of scrap at the moment. I'll fill out the requisition forms if I have to."

Ice looks down at him in surprise, then. "I never thought I'd see the day where you volunteered to do paperwork."

"Then you know how much I want it," Mav huffs, like this just proves his point.

It kind of does, in a way - in that way that it only does if you met Maverick where he was at, for whatever harebrained scheme he was planning.

"Mav-"

"She doesn't have any ordinance left, and we could pull out the guns and missile racks if that's a concern," Maverick continues, like he thinks Ice is seriously entertaining the idea.

"The Navy is never going to release an F-14 into private ownership," Ice warns.

"But I bet they would if you asked," Maverick insists.

"You want me to co-sign on your req form asking to keep an enemy F-14 because you think they'll say yes if my name is on the paper," Ice says, his expression somehow both disbelieving and stern.

"Yes, exactly!" Mav nods, grinning.

"The President would likely be involved," Ice says, with a single eyebrow raised.

"Even better - the President likes you," Mav agrees.

"You're impossible."

"You already called me that today," Maverick pouts.

"That was yesterday," Ice replies, a little more gently. "And you're still impossible today."

"You like me that way," Maverick says, sly and mischievous. "Keeps your life interesting."

"That's a word for it," Ice sighs.

This is achingly familiar. All of the bickering, tinged with exasperation and amusement and far less anger than one would expect. Rooster remembers endless dinners just like it.

Only this time they're not sharing a meal. They're a world away, separated by time and betrayal and hurt. The chasm between infirmary beds is as wide as the Pacific Ocean they're sailing through.

Bradley doesn't know how to reach across that.

So he just closes his eyes and lets himself drift off again instead. If Ice noticed him watching, he doesn't call him on it this time.

—

Rooster only sleeps for a few hours at a time, he realizes eventually, despite how exhausted he is. Time doesn't seem to be passing all that quickly - though it tended to be impossible to tell in the heart of a carrier like this anyway.

The halls outside are quiet though, the lights dim, and Ice isn't here anymore. He must have finally gotten tired of keeping vigil once it turned into babysitting-Mav duty. He had a fleet to run, anyway. And probably international relations fallout to deal with on top of it all.

Something's bothering him, though. A penny of a thought, turning over and over in his head, his mind a tumble dryer on low.

Mav had a husband.

He thinks back to his childhood, to how Mav never really did find a girlfriend he was ever serious enough about to bring home. He'd joked about it, had brushed it off every time. Said silly things when Bradley was younger, like the fact that he was a dragon protecting his hoard, and he'd never bring someone around to meet his Baby Goose unless he was certain they were special.

Somehow, they never had been.

When Rooster had been older, off at college and bitter, he'd attributed it to the fact that Maverick had never been able to take anything seriously, of course no one would want to spend their life with him.

But this shines a new light on it all. Had Maverick never brought anyone because he couldn't? Because he was gay, because he'd be discharged if anyone found out? He went on dates with girls all the time, but never brought any of them home, never spent the night away from home either.

He remembers feeling guilty about it when he was in middle school. Remembers feeling like he was holding Mav back, that he was already home so rarely and even then, he gave up all his time for Bradley.

But Maverick had refused to even entertain the thought - he'd always told him he had all he needed waiting for him back home.

Which brings him to the question of Ice.

Technically, Ice had been his legal guardian. Maverick couldn't be, not while he was on active deployment. Ice wouldn't have been able to either, except he'd taken a promotion when Bradley's mom died so that he could take him in, could stop being deployed.

He hadn't realized it back then, hadn't understood that Ice gave up his wings for him. And later, once he'd enlisted and realized exactly what had happened, he'd been too bitter about it all to try and understand.

Why had Ice shared a house with Mav, never bringing anyone home either? Not that Ice went on dates, not really, except when his sister all but forced him to go on one she'd set up for him.

What did Ice get out of any of this?

Nobody would have expected Ice to adopt him. Maybe he felt guilty about his dad's death, but no one seemed to ever blame him. And there certainly wasn't anything to feel guilty about with his mom's.

But he hadn't been friends with Goose like Maverick had. Hadn't been his godfather the way Maverick was. Maverick adopting him made sense. Ice doing it hadn't, not really.

He's starting to see pieces of a puzzle that he's not really sure he wants to see.

Ice had given up so much for Mav, for him, and gotten…what? Nothing? Bradley had cut them out. Maverick had a husband.

Ice had been left alone.

Bradley has no right to feel angry for his sake - he's half of the problem - but he finds himself annoyed anyway.

He pulls out his phone to distract himself from it all - though his head hurting at the bright screen reminds him that he probably doesn't have too long to look before it gets too painful.

Rooster snorts in amusement to himself, content to leave Hangman to grapple with that, when he hears movement in the bed beside him. He sets his phone down, leaning up a little to better see around the privacy curtain. "Mav-?" he asks softly, just in case he isn't really awake.

"Rooster…?" Maverick rasps, and the heartrate monitor above his head kicks up a notch. "Rooster-"

"Hey- hey, I'm alright," Rooster replies, carefully levering himself upright. Trying to get to somewhere Mav can see him, because he can barely move.

"Bradley…?" Mav asks, and now he sounds…surprised?

Rooster stands carefully with a low groan, leaning up and bracing himself on the nearest fixture so he can get closer. "Hey- it's okay, I'm alright," he says.

Maverick stares at him, his gaze a little glassy but mostly present. "You're alright," he breathes, reaching up, and looking confused when his hand snags on the IV stuck in him.

"We made it back," Rooster confirms, reaching to brace himself on Mav's bed next, and then offering him his arm, where Mav doesn't have to stretch too far for it.

"We made it back," Maverick repeats, like he can't quite believe it.

"You got us back," Rooster clarifies.

Maverick wraps a hand around his forearm, squeezing tight. "Couldn't have done it without you," he says, looking up at him.

Rooster huffs, though he's careful with his ribs. "You could have if it hadn't been for that helicopter."

Mav tips his head thoughtfully, considering. "Maybe. Bit harder prepping an F-14 for takeoff solo. More likely I'd have been caught." He's taking the statement seriously, running through the scenario. "Wouldn't have had someone watching my back in that dogfight. Or had anyone to drop flares," he adds. "And, I'd have had no radio to tell the carrier I couldn't land clean," he finishes. "Nope. Couldn't have done it without you," he concludes decisively.

"Bit different to the last time we were in an F-14, huh?" Bradley asks instead of challenging him.

Maverick laughs, and then flinches, the sound coming out wheezy. "Yeah, bit," he agrees.

Bradley's maybe staring at him a little, cataloguing all of the various bandages he can see, the obvious injuries and maybe the less obvious ones too. It takes him a moment to realize Maverick is doing the same to him.

"I'm okay, Mav," he promises. "Nothing serious." Except maybe his spine, but he's standing right now and he's not in agony, so it can't be too bad. "What about you? What's the damage?"

Maverick shrugs, one-shouldered. "Better off asking Ice. Wasn't entirely lucid when they ran through it all."

Rooster hums, leaning back against the table between their beds. "He still your emergency contact?" he asks. If it was the usual chain of command in absence of NOK, it should be Cyclone, shouldn't it? But he finds it hard to believe Mav wouldn't list his husband. Granted, he would believe that Ice pulled rank to get himself in here over Cyclone so that Maverick would have a friendly face in his corner.

Maverick grins, warm and fond. "Yeah, he is. Easier for him to put out fires when he hears about them before the gossip reaches him," he says, amused.

"Of course," Rooster says, exasperated, because that sounds exactly like something Maverick would do.

"Hey, should you be standing?" Maverick asks, a little more alert suddenly.

"Probably not," Bradley concedes, and he tries to straighten up, hiding the wince. "But I wanted you to see I was alright." He looks away from him for a moment. "Listen, Mav, I'm-"

"Later, Bradley," Maverick says, his tone gentle, careful, as he moves to lever himself upright, gaze sharp and concerned on him.

"No, I…I just need to tell you how sorry I am for all the shit I've said," he says, swallowing around a lump, unable to meet Mav's gaze. Fearing what he'd see there - recrimination, hurt, refusal?

"Oh, Bradley," Maverick rasps. "C'mere."

Rooster's gaze snaps to him then, and he moves carefully back to Mav's bed.

Maverick reaches up, an invitation and request both. And Rooster doesn't want to push him away again, doesn't want to run anymore. He leans carefully down, wrapping a gentle arm around him. Maverick lets out a little sound and holds onto him. "You don't have to apologize, Bradley."

"I do-" Rooster insists into his shoulder.

"You don't. I forgave you as soon as you said it. I'm so sorry for pushing you away. For ever making you think I don't think the world of you," Maverick rasps, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm so proud of you, Bradley. I love you so much. I'm sorry I failed you."

Bradley swallows hard, burying his face into Maverick's shoulder and blinking back tears. It's everything he wanted to hear, everything he needed to know. "I'm sorry I never came back," he whispers, his voice cracking.

"You're here now," Maverick murmurs, like that makes up for him being gone for the last fifteen years. Like this is all that matters. Mav might even believe that, but Rooster doesn't.

"Yeah," he says, instead of arguing. "I'm not going anywhere." It's a promise, and the words themselves may not mean anything yet, but he's determined to prove it. His ribs start to protest after a bit, though, so he adds, "except back to my bed," only a little sheepishly.

Maverick lets go of him immediately. "You okay?" he asks urgently.

"Yeah- yeah. Just hurts a bit," he reassures. "Don't want to push it."

Maverick looks up at him, and his eyes are luminous for a different reason this time. "I'm so glad you're alright," he says, squeezing his arm one more time before Rooster can pull out of reach.

"…Yeah. Me too, Mav," he says softly, before gingerly making his way back to his bed.

"We'll talk more later," Maverick promises.

And this time, it's so much easier to believe him.

—

Now that they've talked a little, it's easier being in the room with Mav, spending time with him.

They talk a bit, when they actually manage to both be conscious at the same time. The nurses try to get them to eat, and Ice plays the role of an exceedingly over-qualified babysitter.

Didn't the man have a fleet to run? And a possible war to avert?

"Hey, Ice," Maverick asks one evening, as he carefully lifts his unbandaged arm to eat.

"Hey, Mav," Ice replies, like he always does. Like it doesn't matter how many times Mav will call out, Ice will always answer.

"Since when does Slider call you 'princess'?" Maverick asks, far too casually.

Rooster chokes on his jello.

Both of them look at him in sudden concern, and Ice looks like he's about to come over and make sure he's not choking to death. He quickly shakes his head, coughing a little, until he can breathe again and it doesn't feel gelatinous.

"What-?" he rasps hoarsely.

Now that it seems to not be a fatal situation, Ice turns a glare back to Maverick. "That's your fault," he says.

"How is it my fault?!" Maverick squawks.

"Most of the things that give me gray hairs are your fault," Ice replies easily.

"Sounds like Slider isn't treating you right, if it's giving you gray hairs," Maverick replies slyly, grinning sharp.

Rooster is reeling, trying to wrap his head around that. Too much information, but also - did Ice marry Uncle Slider?

He really wishes he didn't know what Ice's maybe-husband called him in bed.

He spends the rest of the meal desperately trying to un-hear that, trying to forget.

It doesn't even occur to him to text the group and tell them Phoenix and Bob were definitely wrong.

—

Rooster's starting to lose his mind a little, stuck in this bed, so he's been spending most of his time sleeping. None of the squad have come to visit, but he wonders if that's because he's in a room with Mav, and they don't want anyone bothering him while he recovers.

He's glad he can keep an eye on Mav, though. Glad that he can look over whenever he wakes with a start and prove to himself that he's okay. He gets the feeling the reverse is true for Mav, too.

So when he wakes and Mav is gone, Rooster startles upright. His bed is gone, the monitors, and the room is too quiet suddenly.

"Bradley," Ice says, and Rooster hadn't even noticed him, hadn't realized he'd moved the chair to be by his bed.

"Mav- where's Mav?" he asks. Why is Ice here? He's immediately jumping to the worst case scenario.

"Bradley," Ice's voice cuts through the panic, makes him listen. "It's alright. They took him for some tests. Mav's okay."

Rooster stares at him for a moment, before slumping back into the pillows like a puppet with its strings cut. "What are you doing here, then?" he asks, though he doesn't mean to sound as bewildered as he does.

Ice raises an eyebrow at him, his expression otherwise carefully neutral, and says, "In case you woke up and panicked that he was gone."

Bradley doesn't know what to do with that. He and Mav were…better now, but he feels totally lost on how to broach this with Ice.

"How are you holding up?" Ice asks, and his dry expression softens into something more familiar, almost gentle.

He's blindsided by that, too. "I'm alright, Sir," he says carefully. He doesn't miss the way Ice's expression shutters a little at the formal address, and he bites back the wince. "Hurts like a bitch," he adds, trying to pull it back to something more familiar, "but I'll live."

"Good," Ice says, a ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips, before he looks back to the book he had in his hands.

Shit. He's fucked this up already. But he wants to fix this, too.

"Ice…" he starts, and doesn't miss the way Ice immediately slips a small metal bookmark into his book, letting it fall closed in his lap. "Can we talk?" he asks hesitantly. Clearly, Ice already knew what he was going to ask.

"Of course, Bradley," Ice says, angling to face him fully.

"Did…did you help Mav pull my papers?" It isn't the question he thought he was going to ask, but he realizes it's the one he needs answered. All these years, he'd assumed that Ice had, that Mav didn't have the kind of pull required to do it alone, and had thus cut them both out.

"It doesn't matter-" Ice starts, but Rooster doesn't let him get any farther than that.

"Of course it matters!" he snaps, that old anger crackling to life, searing hot through his veins.

"It doesn't matter," Ice continues, with a sharp look of admonishment for interrupting him, "because even if I didn't, when he asked, I would have."

Bradley stares at him, mind whirling, blood roaring in his ears. He was asking because he was trying to find out if he had fucked up even more in cutting Ice out, if Ice had been entirely uninvolved and just punished for Maverick's actions. But this…doesn't answer that at all.

Ice taught him the importance and weight of words though, and he knows there's more to what Ice is trying to tell him.

He's saying that it doesn't matter because the reality of what happened doesn't change his intent - and his intent would have been to back Maverick up.

Or maybe, it's less about backing him up, and more that he let Bradley assume what he would because he didn't want him to only cut Mav out, but keep talking to Ice.

Ice had been willing to lose a son to protect Maverick?

"Why don't you ask the question you really want to ask?" Ice prods. That stormy blue gaze is piercing, and Rooster feels like he's seeing straight through him, reading every feeling he'd tried to keep locked down and hidden.

"…Did you think I wasn't good enough, too?" he asks, his voice the softest whisper.

"Is that what Pete told you?" Ice asks, the tiniest furrow in his brow.

"I…no, but-"

"What did he say when you asked him?"

"He…said I wasn't ready," Bradley admits carefully.

"Looking back now, do you think you were?" Ice asks. His question digs straight to the heart of the matter.

Had Maverick been right?

"I…I don't know anymore. If I'd had the support of my family, yeah, I would have been." He has to believe that. Because if he doesn't, if he admits to himself that Maverick had been right, then he'd torn apart the only family he had left over his dad looking out for him.

"Do you think that, if we really didn't want you to fly, you would have ever made it to TOPGUN once, let alone twice?" Ice asks, slow and measured, walking him through it like he used to do when he was helping Bradley with his math homework.

"I…" Rooster stares at him. He'd never really thought about it. He'd thought that Maverick had just learned his lesson and didn't want to meddle again. He didn't think that it meant the opposite, that Maverick let him get as far as he did because he thought he was ready, then.

"Maverick loves you, Bradley," Ice says, softer. "His greatest fear was something happening to you, was losing you as young as your dad had been."

And that- Bradley had never even considered the fact that the delay in his career meant that he'd gotten older than his dad ever got to be before he stepped foot into the cockpit as a pilot.

"But he lost me anyway," Bradley rasps, clawing for some semblance of familiar ground.

"Yeah. We did. But at least we knew you still lived and breathed to hate us," Ice says, with a sardonic little smile this time.

"I don't- I didn't hate you-" Bradley says, his gaze snapping back to focus on Ice.

Ice raises an eyebrow. "I seem to recall you saying exactly that."

Bradley flinches. He- doesn't remember a lot of what he said in anger. Some of it, though, he'll never forget.

"I'm so sorry-"

"Bradley. I need you to understand that I love you. That I always will. But I can't forgive you yet. Maverick already has, I know." Ice looks away from him, pausing to swallow hard, to clear his throat. "He forgives you the moment you say anything that hurts him, because he believes it. He agrees with you."

His heart stutters in his chest, the ache more physical than that of his bruised ribs. 'No one to mourn you when you burn in.' 'I can go as low as you, Sir, and that's saying something.' 'It should have been you. You're not my real dad. I wish you had died instead of him.'

Ice watches him, his gaze heavy. Bradley has a feeling he's thinking of some, if not all, of the same words Bradley had flung at Maverick, now and a decade past. "He doesn't think you need to be forgiven for speaking the truth as he sees it. Every awful thing you've thought, that you've said, he lives."

Ice looks away then, back to the book in his lap. "Your leaving broke him, Bradley." Distantly, it occurs to him that Ice isn't talking at all about what his leaving had done to Ice himself. "I've spent the past decade trying to convince him that he is worth loving. That an accident that was as much my fault as his shouldn't make all the good he does, all the good he is, worthless." Ice's gaze is on him again, blazing, a hurricane of emotion that Bradley's never seen in him.

Bradley's throat has gone dry.

He'd never known that Ice blamed himself, too.

A nasty little voice in the back of his head asks if Ice only ever took him in because he felt guilty. But that isn't fair to Ice. Isn't fair to him when he'd sacrificed so much to raise Bradley, to keep him in a home that loved him and not lost in a system where it would have been so easy to fall through the cracks.

Ice takes a slow breath, looking like he's about to continue, but instead his breath hitches, and he's caught in a coughing fit, gasping for air that he can't seem to catch.

"Ice-?" Bradley asks, alarmed.

Ice waves a hand dismissively, coughing into his fist, before he reaches for a thermos he'd had by his foot.

It takes a few more agonizingly long moments before he pulls through it, and then he takes a long drink from the thermos.

"Ice- are you okay?" he asks, lost.

Ice watches him over the rim of his thermos, but he nods as he caps it again. "This is a good day," he says, his voice hoarse.

"…What do you mean, 'a good day'?" he asks carefully. Rooster remembers the only time anyone talked about someone's 'good days' being about his mom, when she was dying. Dying slowly, over many months, until the good days became so rare that they were worth celebrating, even if they were just barely better than the bad days.

Ice's gaze is weary, but unwavering. He knows what he said, and he knows what it made Bradley think of. "I'm fine, Bradley. I'm through the worst of it. But the surgery took some of my vocal chords, and I've spent most of today on the phone already."

Surgery. "What surgery?"

Ice watches him, clearly weighing whether he wants to tell him, or how much he wants to tell him. "I've been in remission for a few years now. I had cancer."

"You-" Bradley feels like the world has dropped out from under him. "You- you had cancer, and I had no idea?" his voice cracks. "Were…were you ever going to tell me?"

Ice's lips narrow into a thin line. "No," he says, and he watches Bradley take it like a blow. "It would have been cruel and manipulative, to try and bring you back into our lives against your will, just because you felt like you had to, just because I was sick."

"But-"

"And," Ice continues, soft, but Rooster's mouth snaps shut, aware now of what it cost him to speak up to be heard. "Mav was already going through enough supporting me through it. I couldn't risk watching you break his heart again."

Bradley flinches then, and doesn't try to suppress it. Because as much as he'd like to think that he would be righteous to feel angry at the assumption that he would hurt Mav again…Ice is probably right. He'd still been so furious, unable to even think of Maverick without spinning himself up into a rage. Even if he'd tried to put it aside to be there for Ice, it was almost a given that he'd lash out when faced with Maverick.

"You said you never wanted to hear from us again," Ice reminds him, almost gently. "Mav kept sending letters, kept hoping you would come back, or even just reply."

"…Why did he stop?" Bradley asks. This is maybe the question he's feared asking the most. Because out of nowhere, the letters had stopped coming a few years back. And even though Bradley never opened any of them, the sudden lack of them felt like a confirmation that he'd never been good enough. That he wasn't worth the effort.

Ice stares at him, frowning. "You not coming to our wedding seemed a clear enough sign that you really wanted nothing to do with us ever again."

Bradley stares right back at him. 'Our' wedding, he'd said. Our. "…what wedding?" he croaks, because surely he had misheard that.

"The one we invited you to," Ice says slowly. "I made sure it got to the carrier you were deployed on. And I kept an eye on leave requests, ready to call in a favor to make it happen if you put in for one." Ice glances away then, something turmoiled in his gaze. "But you never did, and that was answer enough."

We. We.

Oh god.

They hadn't left Ice alone. He had, yes, but Mav never did.

Maverick's husband was Ice.

And Ice had just watched his husband die on a suicide mission to protect Rooster, had watched him return from the dead, and then watched him collapse in his arms as soon as he'd gotten back to him.

Oh, fuck.

Chapter Text

He doesn't remember much of how he got here. They landed on the carrier. Rooster was okay, and then he'd seen Ice. Had gotten to hold him, had been considering kissing his incredible husband in front of God, the Navy, and everyone, but…

Why hadn't he?

Ice had stopped him? But… not like that. Oh. Right. Ice had found the bulletholes in his side that he hadn't known about. And then everything had started hurting, like a papercut after it's found, and he'd passed out probably.

Everything still hurts, actually, though in a more muted way. Distant, like there's a blanket between him and the…everything. Apparently there's a blanket between him and his vocabulary at the moment, too.

He tries to open his eyes. It takes him a few attempts, but he finally manages it. He's bracing himself for too-bright lights, but surprisingly it's dim in the room, just a few low lights lit. He's overcome with a wave of warmth and affection - Ice must have been here.

Correction: Ice is here.

He's aware suddenly of a warm touch on his wrist - it's Ice's hand, wrapped around him where he can feel his pulse, where he can get away with the contact without anyone assuming something untoward. It's an old habit, an old comfort, from decades where they'd had to hide.

Mav pulls his gaze from Ice's hand, moving slowly up him, taking in his husband. He's in his dress blues still, dozing in the chair by his bed. He must have been exhausted, but couldn't make himself leave Mav here. Even exhausted, dozing, he still looks radiant. His hair has fallen loose from its styling, a few strands flopped over his face in that way that Mav finds endlessly endearing but he knows Ice hates. He hadn't even taken off his glasses, and he's sure there's an indent in the bridge of his nose from wearing them for so long.

He wants to reach up and brush those strands of hair out of his face so badly. The only reason he doesn't try is because the hand Ice isn't holding has an IV in it, and trying to move it doesn't let him go very far.

So he just contents himself with watching his husband.

He should probably press a button, get a nurse here to check on him, but then they'd wake Ice. Or worse, walk in on Ice asleep, which he knows Ice would hate. And the possessive part of Mav also likes knowing that seeing Ice like this is for him alone. That he's the only one Ice lets his guard down around.

The same is true in reverse, though it's more about his persona than his appearance. He's looked like roadkill enough times in his life that he has no pretensions about that anymore, but Ice is the only one he lets see his rawer emotions.

In fact, he's pretty sure that there's not another living soul that has seen Maverick cry besides Ice.

He's sure a therapist would have a field day with that, probably.

It still hasn't really sunk in that he made it back. That he's still breathing, that he gets to even look at Ice again. He'd been certain, for a moment, that his last words to his husband were going to be "Yes, Sir," and that thought was unconscionable.

Of course, they'd said more real goodbyes that morning, though they'd tasted like ash in his mouth on the heels of 'happy anniversary'. It hadn't changed the fact that the last words his Ice ever heard from him had almost been a response to an order.

He doesn't regret shielding Bradley - he never would - but he also was never going to stop fighting to get back to Ice.

It wouldn't have been the first time he'd gone down alone behind enemy lines and had to get his way back to neutral ground to get rescued. Granted, there hadn't been a Mil Mi-24 bearing down on him with barrels spinning that time, and he'd been hiking through sand instead of snow, but still.

Hell, he's been captured before, too. He kind of thought that might happen to him this time. Being gunned down in the snow was not close to his expectation of what would happen once he made it back to earth, but when did anything ever go to plan for him?

But Bradley had come back for him. Had gotten himself shot down to rescue him. And then he had to get himself back to Ice and Bradley back home safe.

He'd almost failed them both, again.

The exhaustion drags him back under while he's still grappling with that thought.

—

He lurches awake with a breathless gasp, shot straight into wakefulness by the thought that he let Bradley down, that he failed him-

"Hey, hey, Mav-" Ice is suddenly there, putting his weight into holding Mav down so he doesn't thrash hard enough to hurt himself.

"Brad- Bradley-" he croaks, desperate. If he's alive, if Ice is here- surely Bradley is okay, right?

"He's fine," Ice murmurs, reaching up to cup Mav's cheek and catch his gaze.

"He's-?" Maverick rasps, caught on Ice's eyes, searching his expression.

"He's alright," Ice agrees. "He's right here," he says, turning his head gently to the bed beside him, where Bradley's sound asleep.

"Fuck," he breathes, slumping back into the pillows in exhausted, aching relief.

"He'll be alright, Mav. You both made it home safe," Ice murmurs, slow and even.

The sound of his voice, the comfort of his touch, and the promise of their son being alright all pull together to drag him back under into the sucking void of unconsciousness with little further delay.

—

When he next wakes, Ice is still by his side, reading a report, looking down at it over his glasses.

Fuck, he's gorgeous.

Ice's gaze flicks over to him, as if he could hear Mav's thoughts spinning up, and he closes the report, reaching for his hand. "Hey, Mav," he says softly.

"Hey, Ice," Maverick murmurs, taking his hand and squeezing it tight. "You alright?"

"Am I alright?" Ice asks, staring at him with an eyebrow raised. "You nearly died and you ask if I'm alright?"

"'course," Maverick replies. "You had to listen to it."

Ice takes a slow, shaky inhale at the reminder. A sign of vulnerability that he would normally never let slip, that he'd never dare show while he was being Admiral Kazansky. But here, with him, he was just Ice, just his husband Tom.

"I did not enjoy thinking the last time I'd hear your voice was you apologizing to me," Ice admits quietly, interlacing their fingers to hold his hand a little tighter.

"Shit- you heard that?" Maverick asks, quietly alarmed.

"Hangman picked up your broadcast once Bradley got the radio on," Ice replies.

"Fuck," Maverick breathes. Ice had to listen to him almost die twice. In the same day.

On their thirtieth fucking anniversary.

Ice grips his hand tighter still, enough to hurt a little, and Maverick squeezes back with all the strength he can muster. "I'd rather have heard than not," Ice rasps.

"I know," Maverick replies quietly. He knows, he knows his husband, his other half. Ice would rather know than not. Would rather hear it, no matter how much it hurt. "I'm still sorry you had to."

Ice lifts their joined hands, pressing his lips to Mav's knuckles. There's a weight to his gaze, locked on Mav's, and he finds himself swallowing around a lump. "Thank you for coming back to me," Ice whispers.

"Always, Ice," Maverick breathes. "I will always fight with everything I have to come back to you," he vows. It's a promise he's made before, it's a promise he'll continue to make until his dying breath.

Ice exhales, pressing his forehead to their joined hands, to the back of Mav's. "I would like it if you could take a break from nearly dying on me," he admits. "Before the stress kills me," he adds wryly.

"Sounds like we gotta teach you the art of zen," Maverick offers, instead of succumbing to the tight squeeze of guilt around his heart at the memory of getting that phone call. Of being told Ice had collapsed, was rushed to the hospital. Of breaking several driving laws to get to him, to stay by his side as they both feared the worst. Of refusing to leave while they waited for the scans, until Cyclone had called to tell him he was grounded.

Even then, he almost hadn't left his side - Ice had been the one to tell him to go, that he'd be fine for a few hours. And they didn't lie to each other, not about this, never about this. If Ice said he was okay to be left for a bit, then he would be. Mav had left him for exactly the amount of time it took to steal his own jet, make a point to Cyclone and the training detachment, and then go straight back to the hospital.

"I don't think you've ever been zen a single day in your life," Ice says drily, interrupting his train of thought and bringing him back to the present.

"I resent that," Maverick says, with no heat in his voice whatsoever.

"Because you know I'm right," Ice nods sagely.

"You often are," Mav concedes with a fond smile. He realizes his mistake too late, when Ice gets that glint in his eye.

"So you admit that I'm the better pilot," Ice concludes, smug.

"I said often, not always," Mav huffs. "I can't believe you watched that mission and still insist you're better," he protests, wounded.

"I take my openings where I see them," Ice answers, a smile pulling at his lips.

He realizes, belatedly, that Ice was trying to bring them back to some level of normal.

"Speaking of," he says, though Mav doesn't know exactly what he's referring to, only that the thought flitted by and he needed to catch it before it slipped his grasp. "Think you've got something of mine," he says. And then the second half of that thought slams into him. "Shit- where are my tags?" he asks, gingerly moving his hand out of Ice's to reach for his own neck, searching.

"You're wearing them." Ice reassures, catching his hand and not letting him pull away. "Let me." He sets the report he'd been holding aside, before leaning over and reaching for the chain around his neck. The chain that feels like it's a part of himself. His whole life on a string, those two tags and that precious ring, the Navy and Ice. Ice lifts it, waiting for Maverick to tip his head forward so he can take it off for him. Mav does, always pliant under Ice's touch - a fact that he knows Ice takes smug pride in.

"Got something of yours too," Mav says, once he catches the flash of gold as Ice takes his tags.

"So you do," Ice murmurs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Though normally you wait until you can take it off yourself to give it back."

"My hands work, you just kept one captive," Mav replies, definitely not defensively.

"I didn't hear you complaining," Ice says easily. "Except yesterday," he adds, the barest hint of a smirk at the corner of his lips.

"Yesterday?" Mav asks, because he's not sure he remembers anything of 'yesterday'.

"You thought I was a, quote, 'hot Navy nurse'," Ice informs him entirely seriously.

"I what now?" Maverick asks, stunned at the thought that he could ever see Ice and not recognize him.

"You were drugged out of your mind," Ice amends charitably. "But after I told you I was neither a doctor nor a nurse, you took issue with my holding your wrist and very politely let me down easy." His eyes sparkle with mirth now, and Mav almost wants to call bullshit. "You told me you were taken."

"Well I am taken," Mav points out. "You didn't feel like correcting me?"

"I wanted to see how long it would take you to realize you were flirting with your husband while also trying to tell him you weren't available," Ice shrugs, amused.

Maverick shakes his head with a little grin, holding his hand out for his tags. Ice sets the chain in his palm, the clasp in easy reach. While Mav busies himself with separating the ends, Ice reaches into his own jacket pocket and pulls out a slim chain with just a silver ring on it - Mav's ring. Mav's tags have a gold ring on the loop with them - Ice's. A matching pair, each one made for its owner. Though the outer metals differed, the cores of both rings were the same. A band of glittering black split each ring down the middle, inlaid with bits of titanium from the wings of two specific F-14s. Both rings had intermingled shards from both jets - half the titanium sourced from the left wing of the F-14 Ice had flown during the Layton rescue, the other half from the right wing of Mav's jet.

It had been the way they loved to fly together, wingtip to wingtip, regardless of who was leading. Mav always knew he could look right and Ice would be there, anticipating his maneuver before he managed to do so much as say his name.

He'd felt it only right to get that immortalized some way, especially with the Navy getting rid of, destroying, every F-14 that was left. They may have not been able to get married back then, but it hadn't mattered. He hadn't expected to ever get to marry Ice, really, but it had been enough for him to give him that ring. To ask, in his own way, as if Ice wasn't already his, as if he wasn't already Ice's.

But having something tangible, something real and permanent and part of them, it meant something. It meant something in him asking, it meant something in Ice accepting. It meant something that they started carrying them, keeping them with them.

It meant something that they traded them whenever Mav shipped out, that he took a piece of Ice with him and left a piece of himself home with Ice.

And it meant something that they swapped them back when he got home, when he was safe and back in Ice's arms.

He pulls the golden ring off of the chain, holding it for a moment, before turning it and slipping it onto Ice's finger. It won't stay there long, but he loves putting it there regardless, for however short the duration is. He pulls Ice's hand up then, pressing a kiss to the ring.

Ice is looking at him with an ocean's worth of fondness in those blue eyes. Mav could drown in it, happily. He just smiles against Ice's hand before he pulls back.

"Thank you," Ice murmurs, his voice low and just for Mav. He pockets his own empty chain, holding Mav's ring in his hand. "You want it back with your tags?" he asks.

Maverick shakes his head. "Nah, not yet," he says, lifting his hand and offering it to Ice, who obliges and slips the ring onto his finger, where it belongs.

Where he still isn't quite used to being allowed to have it. Where he definitely isn't used to seeing it.

"Hits every time, mm?" Ice asks, pressing a kiss to Mav's ring, mirroring Mav's returning his.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Don't know that I'll ever get used to it."

"Me neither," Ice agrees, looking down at both of their hands with their rings adorning them. "Glad we get some more time to," he adds, softer.

"Yeah," Maverick agrees. "Sorry for ruining your anniversary plans," he adds.

"I hadn't realized you shipped the enemy their uranium early," Ice says drily, an eyebrow raised at him.

"You know what I mean," Mav huffs. "I know you, and I know you'd had something planned."

Ice tips his head, conceding that he's right. "I got you back. That's all I needed out of our anniversary," he says, softer.

"If I'd known the bar was so low-" Maverick teases, though it doesn't quite land right. It would probably go better when he wasn't half dead in an infirmary bed.

"Don't tell me you brought a box of chocolates," Ice says drily.

Maverick bites back the grin. "You haven't dug through my bags yet?"

"…Did you actually."

"'course I did," Maverick replies. "If I can get chocolates to you when I'm deployed across the world, you think I wouldn't when I was right here?" It was something he's always done for him, ever since Ice first kissed him over a box of chocolates thirty years ago. Sometimes he'd had to get creative, including getting Sarah involved when he was on the other side of the world flying classified combat missions, but he never failed.

He wonders how many people thought he was actually courting Sarah over the years. She always found the very idea preposterously hilarious.

"No, I suppose I should have expected that," Ice replies, smiling that fond little smile that only Mav gets to see. He cherishes each one like the most precious treasure.

"Glad I can still pull one over on you," Maverick says smugly, properly pleased with himself.

"Yes, though I'd appreciate if you stopped doing it in ways that left me thinking you had died," Ice replies drily, though the way he squeezes his hand gives away how much he's dealt with in the past few weeks.

"In my defense-" Mav starts, squeezing his hand back.

"Go on," Ice says, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at him. "Tell me again why you had to hit 10.4." Even in a mostly private infirmary room, Ice is still careful whenever he talks about Mav's classified work.

"I had to hit 10 for the contract threshold-" Maverick starts to explain.

"Yes. 10. Notably, a fair bit less than 10.4," Ice agrees, his gaze stormy and unyielding.

"I wish I could show you what it was like up there, Ice," Maverick murmurs. "You'd have been right there with me if you could see it."

"Maybe thirty years ago," Ice replies, unimpressed. "I care more about you surviving now."

"I'm still here, Ice," Mav whispers, aching. All he wants is to pull Ice into his arms, to lay against him and listen to his heartbeat. But he doesn't need to know the extent of the damage to know it would take a stiff breeze to knock him over right now.

"You almost weren't," Ice says, looking away from him, looking past him toward the other bed. "How many times have I nearly lost you in the last month alone?"

"Too many," Maverick murmurs. "I'm sorry I worried you."

"Two of those times were because I sent you," Ice continues, the slightest waver in his voice. It's barely audible, and Mav only knows it's there because he's known him, loved him, for so long.

"You were right to," Mav reminds him. "No one else would have taught them how to get home." Not because no one could, necessarily, but because it just…wasn't the priority for anyone in charge of this op until Maverick showed up. Which is why Ice sent him, he knows. "Especially with Bradley on the roster."

Mav doesn't think he could live with himself if he'd found out Bradley had been sent on a suicide mission, taught by someone who saw every pilot as more expendable than their jet, and that he didn't come home because Maverick hadn't been there to teach him, to push him, to protect him.

Ice doesn't disagree with him, because Ice knows he's right. But he can hate it despite knowing it was the right decision, and Maverick doesn't begrudge him how he feels about it.

"Can't wait to get home with you," Maverick murmurs. Where Ice is safe to let his walls down, where he doesn't have to be Admiral Kazansky at the drop of a hat. "Think we can get Slider to pick us up in that jet on the way home?"

"Maybe if you video call him and look pathetic enough," Ice muses, his lip curling up at the corner.

"What, he wouldn't do it for you?"

"He already did do it for me. This would be for you," Ice counters. But he doesn't look haunted anymore, so Mav will count that as a victory for him.

"I'm sure I can find something Slider owes me for," he grumbles, mostly putting on a show.

"I'm sure he would say the exact same to you," Ice sighs, somehow both fond and tired at the same time. The mostly-playful (at least this millennium) feud between Ice's husband and his best friend showed no signs of fading any time soon.

Of course, Maverick insists he won, because Ice married him. Slider insists that's not remotely an indicator of winning, because he never wanted to marry Ice in the first place.

"Don't think I can fly coach again like this anyway," Maverick grouses tiredly.

Ice reaches up to card a hand through Mav's hair, brushing it out of his face. "Can't wait to see you try to expense a first class ticket to the Navy," he murmurs, his voice softer, gentle.

"'m sure you'd approve it," Maverick mumbles, feeling the exhaustion start to pull at him again.

"They don't let me sign off on your forms anymore," Ice reminds him, amused. "After we got officially married."

"Shit," Mav realizes. "Knew we shoulda stayed under the radar."

"No you didn't," Ice replies wryly. "You were about ready to vibrate out of your skin by the time our wedding came around."

"Guilty," Maverick replies shamelessly. "Had to tie you down before you could change your mind on me."

"Yes, because that was definitely something I was planning on doing, after twenty years with you."

"y'never know," Maverick mumbles, though he's smiling up at him as he fights to keep his eyes open.

"I do know," Ice says, rubbing a thumb under his eye. "Nothing would make me change my mind about you. Get some rest, Mav," he murmurs. "I've got you."

And he does.

—

"Whatcha readin', Ice?" Mav asks, looking at the stack of reports Ice has been working his way through over the past while.

"Guess," Ice replies, an eyebrow raised at him over the edge of the file.

"Paperwork you don't want to deal with?" Maverick offers, sitting up a little further.

"Too general," Ice chides.

Mav shrugs, one-shouldered, careful with the one that hurts to move. "Admiral Cain's retirement announcement?" he says hopefully.

"You wish," Ice says, all but rolling his eyes. "But no." He looks over Mav, assessing. "How do you feel?"

"Like roadkill?" Mav offers.

"Think you'll be awake for a bit?" Ice amends.

"Probably, for now at least," Maverick says.

"Good, then you can go through these reports with me," Ice says easily.

"Woah, hey now-" Maverick protests, definitely not pouting at him.

"You're in no shape for a real debrief any time soon," Ice explains, a little gentler. "At least this way I can get your perspective on what happened, and you don't have to try recounting it to Cyclone. You're welcome."

Well, when he puts it that way… "alright, hit me then," Mav concedes with a sigh.

"These black box records have been particularly interesting." Ice's voice is entirely too casual as he speaks.

"…Yeah? What parts?" Maverick asks carefully.

"Let's start with 'both runways are cratered.' 'Why are the wings comin' out, Mav?' And 'Mav, this is a taxiway, not a runway. This is a very short taxiway, Mav.' To which you eventually responded with 'you just hang on'." Ice says, an eyebrow raised.

Maverick grins a little, shrugging one shoulder. "What's there to elaborate on? The runways were useless. I had enough ground on the taxiway to take off with."

"Is that why Rooster said, quote, 'hoooly shit' and you said 'come on, come on, come on, needle's alive, come on'? Doesn't exactly sound confident to me," Ice says drily. He's trying to rile Mav up into spinning the full story, and he knows how to needle him into doing just that.

"You know I talk to my planes," Maverick replies easily, not taking the bait.

"What was Rooster warning you about, when he said 'Mav?' and 'Mav!' and 'hoooly shit'?" Ice asks, an eyebrow raised.

"The towers at the end of the taxiway," Maverick says with a grin. "It's how we lost the front landing gear. Snapped it off against the catwalk during takeoff."

"Of course," Ice agrees amiably, like that makes perfect sense. Like it's an entirely ordinary course of action. "According to our timeline, this is when Rooster re-activated his ESAT?"

Maverick tips his head curiously. "I wouldn't know about that. You'll have to ask him. I didn't know you knew we were still alive at the time."

"Rooster appeared on radar, at supersonic speeds," Ice explains. "And then overwatch spotted an F-14 heading for the boat. I had Hangman launch the second I heard the words 'F-14 Tomcat'," he continues.

"Saved our lives," Maverick murmurs, reaching for his hand. "If Hangman had been a second later, it would have been over." The only reason they still lived to see the sun rise was because Ice knew instantly what an F-14 with Rooster in it meant, and reacted accordingly.

"Glad there was something I could do to make a difference," Ice says, and it's part self-deprecating and part vulnerably honest. Maverick knew it sometimes killed Ice to see the fallout of his decisions, his calls, the people he sent to die. He felt that way even when it wasn't his husband and estranged son on the screen. It was just another thing Maverick loved about him - how it didn't matter how high up the ladder Ice climbed, he never forgot the value of the lives he commanded. He never saw any of them as expendable fodder. "You were right to choose Hangman as your Spare," Ice continues, re-centering himself.

Maverick hums. "If anyone knows the value of keeping an ace up your sleeve it's me," he says with a wink.

"You were not anywhere near an ace up anyone's sleeve back then," Ice frowns at him.

"And of the two of us, who's an ace now?" Maverick asks, entirely too smugly.

"Still not you, probably," Ice responds. "You've been an ace for how long now before this? You know it doesn't officially count when they start redacting your file," he sighs.

"At least let me have it for a few days before you remind me," Mav pouts.

"Your squad will know, in any case," Ice consoles, patting his arm far too patronizingly.

"Whatever. Someday they'll declassify those records, and then I'll get my title," Mav huffs, waving a hand dismissively.

"You'll have to live that long, first," Ice frowns at him. It's both lighthearted banter and an actual plea for Mav to not die on him, now or ever.

"Oh I plan to. I am nothing if not fueled by spite," Maverick assures.

"This is true," Ice agrees with a little smirk. "Shall we continue?"

"There's more you wanted to talk about?"

Ice doesn't even deign that with a response.

"Rooster was, presumably, trying to get the radio working when he said 'tally two, five o'clock low. what do we do'? and you said 'just be cool'?" Ice asks incredulously.

Maverick grins a little, biting at his lip. "Well, what else were we supposed to do? Had to make them think we were friendlies."

"So your genius plan was, 'wave and smile'?" Ice continues. "You said to put your masks on. They couldn't even see your faces."

"It's the idea of it," Mav defends himself. "I gave 'em the 'no radio' signal."

"Seems like he responded, since Rooster says 'what's that signal, what's he saying?'," Ice probes.

Now Maverick hesitates, looking sheepish.

"What was the signal, Mav?" Ice asks, unimpressed.

Mav tilts his head, and lifts his arm, holding his hand flat and chopping the air forward twice.

Ice just stares at him.

Mav grins, all bravado, before swallowing hard.

"You know what that means, Maverick."

Maverick bites his lip, not denying it.

"And the second signal?"

Mav repeats that one, too - holding three fingers up once, twice, and then a fist.

"Mav."

"Yeah, I know, I know. 'Follow me' and '3 - 3- 0' for a heading," he says, in case Ice thinks he hit his head so hard he forgot universal hand signs.

"Rooster should have known them too," Ice points out, confused.

"Don't think he could see them from the backseat. It was the pilot's far arm."

"Care to explain why you told Rooster you had no idea what those signals meant?" Ice asks, staring him down.

Maverick glances away. "There was no point in acknowledging them. They wanted me to turn around and head back to their base - not the wrecked one, whichever one they had closest. If we followed them, we'd have to land with no landing gear, so we'd definitely not be able to take off again. Assuming they didn't kill or capture us the second we hit tarmac," he says.

Ice nods thoughtfully.

"There was also no point in telling Rooster and making him panic, especially while the enemy pilots hadn't made a move yet. Didn't want them reacting," Maverick continues.

"And you were hoping not to get into a dogfight with Rooster in your backseat," Ice concludes softly. He doesn't need an explanation - Mav knows he knows why. His worst nightmare come to life, back in an F-14 again.

It's a miracle he hadn't had a flashback in the middle of that entire shitshow.

"Yeah," Mav replies, unnecessarily.

"But you went for it anyway," Ice prods, softer still.

Maverick takes a slow, steadying breath. "He-" he glances to the side, double-checking to make sure that Bradley isn't awake. "He said 'it's not the plane, it's the pilot'," he says, swallowing hard. "After- after he told me Goose believing in me was a mistake, I…" His jaw works as he tries to steady himself.

Ice reaches for his hand, taking it and squeezing. "It was him telling you he did believe in you," Ice says for him. Ice, who always knew what he was trying to say, who could put it to words for him.

Maverick nods.

"And," Ice says, with another squeeze of his hand, "you needed to get back to me."

"That too," Mav rasps, his voice a little rough.

"Tell me about the dogfight," Ice murmurs, giving him an out, ever generous with Mav.

He takes what he's given. "I pulled hard right while his wingman was still lining up behind us, fired the guns clear across his tail and sent that one down," Maverick starts.

"How did you take the first one down for good? Rooster says 'smoke in the air' and then 'splash one'," Ice says wryly, which is a fair question to ask. Because the transcript sure makes it sound like the enemy killed their own jet.

Maverick grins. "I pulled left during a dive and used the burning plane as some free flares," he says, a glint of mischief in his gaze.

"Of course you did," Ice says, fighting the smile on his own face - and failing. "Your flares caught the next missile, and then you called that you were splitting the throttles," he goes on.

"Yeah, pulled us around hard to get behind him. Got tone and fired, and then he did something-" Maverick shakes his head. "You're not gonna believe me again."

"Again?" Ice asks, an eyebrow raised.

"How many years did it take for you to believe me about the MiG?" he fires back, though the annoyance is all fondness now.

"Are you trying to tell me the enemy pulled some impossible maneuver?"

"Kind of-" Maverick frowns. "Let me-" he holds one hand up flat, and with the other hand sticks out a single finger. "If this is the missile, this is what that guy did-" he says, and he pulls his hand up and then twists it around the missile while pulling it back.

"Is that what that high pitched whistling noise was that the box picked up?" Ice asks.

Maverick nods. "Yeah, he hit the brakes with that and whipped right past us."

"When you said 'what the' and Rooster said, quote, 'hooly shit, what the fuck was that?'" Ice repeats those quotes in perfectly dry monotone, and Maverick can't help the wheezy chuckle at his delivery.

"Yeah, that was then," he confirms.

"So then you dove down into…?"

"A canyon," Maverick answers, a little sheepish.

"A canyon. One you'd never seen before," Ice presses.

"Yeah. It was more likely I could take those turns than try to out-fly his targeting system up high," Maverick explains.

"Rooster said you took a hit, then?" Ice questions.

"Yeah, he'd switched to guns. I was right - his targeting system couldn't get missile lock onto us, but he got a few lucky shots."

"And when Rooster said 'c'mon Mav, do some of that pilot shit'?" Ice asks, and there's something softer to his gaze. Mav realizes then that Ice remembers, too. That Goose used to tell him to do that all the time.

"I swung the wings out, pulled up hard and braked, and then dove back down behind the enemy," Mav nods, smiling too. He doesn't even think Bradley knew that Goose used to say that.

"Getting you another 'wh- hooly shit'," Ice concludes drily, amused.

"Yeah," Maverick grins. "Did you count how many times he said that?" he teases.

"It was enough," Ice says wryly. "You had one missile left then, but missed?"

"His flares caught it," Mav sighs. "Swapped to guns after that. Took the rest of the ammo we had for me to line up a shot that took out his engines."

"'Splash two,'" Ice surmises, and Mav nods in agreement.

"We made it to sea then, and that's when our proximity alarms went off and we found that third bogey," Maverick adds.

"You had no ordinance left, so you dodged while you still had flares, before concluding you had to eject?" Ice is watching him, something sharp and unreadable in his gaze. It's not often that Mav can't tell what he's thinking.

"We were too low to safely eject, but…" Maverick swallows hard, looking away from Ice. "I didn't know we had backup on the way, and I didn't trust that I could keep dodging missiles without chaff or cover to use. Our best bet was to get up high enough to eject and then hope you would send SAR and spot us." Maverick was a dangerous pilot, reckless to those who didn't know him, but Ice knew him. And if Maverick thought ejecting was his only way out, it meant he'd run out of every other option available to him.

Mav knew Ice knew this. Especially in an F-14. Especially with Bradley in his backseat.

The fact that he'd even managed to tell him to eject was a marvel.

"…And then while you were going for altitude, the ejection handles failed when Rooster tried to pull them," Ice murmurs, reaching for Maverick. He rests a hand on Mav's arm, squeezing, and it's clear he wants nothing more than to pull Mav into his arms. To hold him close, to give him shelter from the world.

"…Yeah," Maverick rasps.

Ice doesn't make him go over the next lines. His list of apologies, culminating in what he feared was his greatest failure - leaving Ice alone. Ice leans in, pressing his lips to Maverick's forehead and just staying there for a moment. Seeking comfort as much as giving it.

Maverick reaches up to curl a hand around the back of Ice's neck, gripping it lightly and holding him close. He scratches lightly through the hair at the base of Ice's skull, and he's rewarded with a shaky exhale into his hair. "'m here, Ice," he rasps. "I'm okay."

Ice nods, pressing his nose into Mav's hair, steadying himself before he leans back and settles into his chair again. Composed once more.

"That all?" Maverick asks, gesturing to the report.

Ice raises an eyebrow. "I like how you think you're getting out of addressing buzzing the PriFly," he says.

Maverick grins then, tired but warm. "It was worth a try."

"You radioed in once Hangman hooked you into comms to tell us you had no tail hook or front landing gear," Ice continues.

"Yup. The flight deck needed time to set up the barricade, so I had to loop around and re-align."

"You had to loop around at speed and close to the tower," Ice teases.

"You know me," Mav grins. "As if you didn't do that with me before," he reminds him, his grin sharpening.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ice sniffs.

"Oh no you don't. I'm never going to forget how you buzzed a tower on my wing," Mav crows gleefully.

Ice shakes his head with a sigh. "You're a menace."

"Yeah, but I'm your menace," Maverick's grin softens into something dopey and adoring, aimed directly at Ice.

It thaws some of the annoyance in Ice's gaze, leaving warmth and little else. "You are, yes." He glances back down at the report, at what must be the last few lines of recordings. "And then you lost an engine."

"The left one," Maverick agrees. "Rooster begged me not to tell him we lost an engine, so I didn't," he says, very satisfied with himself.

Ice huffs a little snort of amusement. "And then you landed an enemy F-14 with no tail hook, no front landing gear, and only one engine."

"That about sums it up," Mav nods sagely. "I still want those req forms," he adds, in case Ice thinks he's forgotten or was only asking because he was on the Good Stuff.

"Mav…" Ice warns.

"I'm serious, Ice. She's little more than a paperweight right now. And all the Navy will do is scrap her." Sue him, he's attached. But he'd thought that he would never fly an F-14 again, and then he had, and she'd saved his and his son's life.

Ice sighs. "If you're actually, truly serious about this, you're going to need to work fast," he says, his gaze stern.

"More serious than I was about the P-51," Mav responds. That seems to convince Ice, who leans back to think about it.

"If you want a chance at succeeding, you want to submit something before we make landfall and general protocols kick in," he muses.

"I can do that, probably," Mav nods. "What form is it?"

"Therein lies the problem. What form is it," Ice hums. He pulls out his phone, tapping away at it until Mav hears the 'whoosh' of an email being sent. "You owe Jean," Ice says simply.

"I always owe Jean," Mav agrees amiably. "Did you ask her to figure out what I need to fill out?" He's touched - as much as Ice tried to act like he wanted nothing to do with Mav's shenanigans, he was still helping him figure out how to pull it off.

"I asked her if she knew," Ice clarifies. Which is a yes. Maverick just smiles at him, fond and probably a little dopey.

"I love you, Ice," he says, because he thinks he hasn't said it enough lately, and it's true.

Ice pauses, and his expression softens a little. "I love you too, Mav," he murmurs.

"Got anything else to interrogate me on?" Mav asks after a moment, feeling the exhaustion start to drag at him.

"Plenty," Ice says with a wry smile. "But get some rest. I've got enough now to keep Cyclone from lurking in the corner waiting for you to wake up so he can ambush you."

"My guardian angel," Mav mumbles, smiling warm. Several admirals have called Ice that to him over the years.

"Something like that," Ice agrees, reaching up to cup his cheek, a light and gentle touch.

Mav tilts into the touch, pressing a kiss to Ice's palm as he lets his eyes fall closed. Ice's touch is warm and grounding, and now that he's no longer fighting unconsciousness, he passes out quickly.

Chapter Text

Ice does not enjoy being reminded of how much he hates sitting in a chair for hours on end by Mav's bedside, for a multitude of reasons. Most pointedly, though, is that his back really can't handle this for days at a time anymore. There's an incessant ache that's built up at the base of his skull, and no amount of stretching or shifting of positions has made it go away. The pain has gone from an annoyance to a persistent stab that pulses every so often.

He refuses to leave Mav's side though, not when he'd come so close to losing him. Not when the outcome was still uncertain, when the surgeons had done all they could and it was up to Mav to pull his battered body through.

But Mav hadn't let him down. He'd held on to life as stubbornly as ever - by the tips of his fingers, at times - and slowly started to recover, to stabilize.

The first time Mav wakes up, Ice is so swamped in relief that he hardly realizes Mav didn't even recognize him and tried flirting with him anyway. He should be flattered that Mav still finds him attractive even if he thinks he's a stranger - or should he be jealous and possessive? It seems silly to be jealous of himself - but he's too preoccupied staring into those green eyes. He thought he'd never get to look into them again, to see them glimmering and full of life, even though he's not quite all there yet.

He's still not quite willing to leave Mav, and is only vindicated in that decision when Maverick lurches awake the next time with a desperate, pained sort of sound. Ice all but lunges into action to keep him in the bed, to keep him from disturbing one of his myriad injuries, to reassure him that Bradley is okay.

He'd made sure to arrange a room for the two of them to share because he knew Mav. He would stop at nothing to see Bradley with his own two eyes, to make sure he was okay, and if it took him crawling out of the room and down the hall, he would have.

So Ice headed that off at the pass. And now he can keep an eye on both of them as they recover. The only cost to it is that Bradley's squadmates can't come and visit him - not while Mav's condition is still a little precarious - but that's a trade Ice is willing to make.

And it's a good thing he did. He only gets Mav to relax by literally turning his face to look at Bradley in the other bed, and just like that, Mav collapses back into unconsciousness again.

Ice is left alone then, slumping back into his chair and dragging a hand down his face.

Only once he makes it through Mav's loopy plea to adopt a cat - that he eventually realizes means acquire the F-14 - does he think he might be okay enough to leave him for a little bit. Just long enough to address his responsibilities, to check in on Hangman's debrief report, and to get what records he could from the F-14.

There were several calls he had to make, too. First to the Commander at PACOM, then the CNO, then the Secretary, and, on top of it all, possibly the President. He'd made the first round of calls while Mav was in surgery, giving them the short status update of mission success, but he has to give the longer updates now.

He sets off quickly, stopping at the head to check his appearance, where he adjusts his jacket and combs a hand through his hair, before making his way to tackle everything as quickly and directly as he can. He needs to take those phone calls in his quarters where he won't be disturbed or overheard.

Not for the first time, he finds himself enjoying the way sailors all but throw themselves out of his way when they see him coming down the hallway. He experiences no delay in collecting the reports before taking them and going to his stateroom.

He's going to need a cup of tea or three by the time he's done with all of these phone calls. He's reminded once more that Mav had packed his portable kettle and collection of teas for him, and he can't help the pang of aching fondness as he pulls out his favorite thermos from the bag. Of course Mav thought of this, of course when he'd said he'd pack a bag for Ice, he thought through everything he would need. He starts the kettle on autopilot, filling it with water from his personal bathroom.

He's so, so fucking glad he doesn't have to keep staring down the barrel of a life without Maverick. He's done it before, but it gets harder every time. And this - watching him go down behind enemy lines - threw him right back to a decade ago, when Mav had gone down in Iraq and been taken.

Ice had been climbing the ranks in the Pacific Fleet at the time - which meant he'd been absolutely fucking useless to do anything to make sure Mav made it home. He didn't have the kind of sway yet to try and push for intel, for a rescue op, for them to do literally anything besides wait for a hostage exchange to be arranged.

Hell, it had taken days before he even got the news. And that was with being his emergency contact and NOK.

He'd had to pull favors and risk exposing just what Maverick meant to him, and then just rely on hope that they would decide the value of Maverick being rescued was worth the risk of putting together an extraction team.

Then he'd had to find another Rear Admiral to take over command of his carrier strike group so he could cross the world and get to the Atlantic. It put his entire planned career climb in danger, and he hadn't been able to make himself care or even hesitate, not when the thought of Mav alone, held captive in the desert, haunted his every step.

He'd managed to spin it, in the end. The Rear Admiral he'd given the opportunity to had seen it as a debt he owed to Ice, and Ice was more than willing to let that be the narrative. It hadn't mattered to him. It could have set him back years and he'd still have done it.

By the time he got himself to that side of the world, they'd gotten intel that Mav was being held in a base the ground forces had planned to target anyway, and Mav's squadmates had been more than willing to fly air cover for his extraction.

Ice would later hear that Mav had burned in to make sure his wingman got home.

The Maverick they'd gotten back hadn't been the one Ice said goodbye to when he deployed. He'd been…smaller, hunted, always on alert. But they'd gotten him back, and Ice had refused to leave his side in the infirmary, and then the civilian hospital they transferred him to. He'd been ready to throw his career on hold to be there for Mav.

It had been a terrifying realization. There'd been a part of him that hadn't been sure, that when something bent and broke and made him choose between the Navy and Mav, which side he'd land on. But maybe he should have known, should have trusted, that he'd choose Pete every time.

Perhaps most importantly, Mav hadn't ever asked him to. Had never asked Ice to choose, never made him decide between his career and his love. He hadn't pushed - hell, he'd seemed surprised to find Ice here when he was supposed to be in the Pacific Ocean on an aircraft carrier he commanded - and that meant everything to Ice. And it made the choice, choosing Mav, all the easier.

But a decade has passed since then. Time came for them all, and Maverick - despite appearances and the boundless energy he seemed to contain - wasn't as young as he'd been back then. Even if he'd survived the crash, Ice wasn't sure he'd survive being held captive again.

And then Rooster had burned in too, and Ice knew that if they'd both survived, Mav would do everything in his power to protect Bradley from the horror he'd been through before.

He's not sure Mav would have come back from that, if he'd had to watch Bradley be hurt like he had.

The kettle starts whistling, and he's startled back into his body with a sigh. There was no point in thinking about it - it hadn't happened. They'd made it home, in mostly one piece, and they were both safe. They'd recover. The enemy never got their hands on them.

He makes himself a cup of green tea and gets to work, calling up the chain and providing personal updates to each of the men he reported to. It would have been easier to get them all into one meeting together, but there were nuances to these conversations, and Ice knew the game.

It takes him a few hours until he's finally done, and his voice is wrecked by the end of it. He makes one more thermos of tea to take with him, though he knows it won't help much anymore. He'd already tipped past the point of no return for the day. It would take many hours of rest for him to be able to speak much again, certainly at anything louder than a low murmur.

He tucks all the reports back into the folder and slips it under his arm as he collects himself again to return to the infirmary.

It occurs to him that he should probably shower while he's here - the steam would help his vocal chords too. He reluctantly decides to, even though he's itching to get back to Mav now that he's done with his responsibilities to the fleet for the moment. He'd done all he could to assist with the fallout - it was now above even his rank to deal with the rogue state they'd bombed and make sure this didn't escalate into an actual extended conflict.

His mind continues inspecting the problem from various angles as he takes care of himself and freshens up, and his throat does hurt less by the time he's done, so he begrudgingly admits to himself that the detour was important.

Ice re-dresses himself, gels back his hair, pulls his glasses on, and takes his thermos and reports with him as he leaves his stateroom. No one has come to retrieve him, which he can only take as a good sign - both about Mav and Bradley's condition as well as the fallout of the mission itself.

He dislikes adding another detour to his path, but he decides he should stop by the wardroom and grab something to eat, given that he can't remember the last time he ate something substantial. Breakfast with Mav? Maybe he ate something after that, while Mav was in surgery, but he doesn't remember.

He's on his way to the officer's mess when someone nearly runs into him.

"Shit- I'm so sorry, Sir-"

It's one of the aviators from the training detachment, still in his flightsuit. It takes Ice a moment to realize it's Hangman, snapping to attention.

"At ease, Lieutenant," he rasps, looking over him with a critical eye. Why is he still suited up?

He's lost track of time since the arrival of that F-14, but it's definitely been long enough that the aviators should be out of their flightsuits and back in usual uniform.

"Admiral…?" Hangman asks him, looking uncertain as he relaxes out of attention.

Ice nods to his flightsuit. "Why are you still in your gear?"

A faint flush crawls up the back of Hangman's neck, just barely visible. "I…haven't had the chance to change, Sir," he says.

Ice raises an eyebrow at him. Seresin isn't stupid enough to think that he'd fall for that. Hell, Ice has had time to shower and get changed, and somehow he doubts Hangman has spent the last several hours on the phone with the brass.

Props to the kid though, he sticks to his guns and doesn't buckle.

"Have you eaten anything?" Ice asks instead.

"…no, Sir," Hangman admits.

Ice nods. He'd suspected - and had a feeling that Seresin wouldn't try lying directly to his face on a yes or no question. "Walk with me," he rasps, and turns to continue the way he'd been heading when Hangman ran into him.

Hangman looks surprised, and then confused, and then he starts to follow him, and Ice's lip twitches up in amusement as he walks. He leads the way to the wardroom - he'll be able to get a plate made to-go there with less hassle than if he swung by the crews mess, even though that was closer to the infirmary.

"Sir-?" Hangman asks, hesitating for less than a moment, before following Ice in.

Hangman's still walking, so Ice doesn't respond, heading for the food. He nods to the chef and requests something he can take away. Even if the rules normally expected everyone to eat in the mess, nobody would dare try to enforce that with him. He almost wants to see someone try - it would be entertaining, at the very least.

He glances over to Hangman. "Allergies?" The aviator shakes his head. "Any preferences?"

"Uh- I'll have whatever you're having, Sir," Hangman says. He looks entirely caught off guard, still reeling a little from being asked to accompany him, probably.

Ice gets two sandwiches made for them, handing one box to Hangman and holding the other one with his reports. "Thank you," he says to the chef, and turns on his heel to head right back out. He's been away from Mav for too long - he's not about to look kindly on any further delays.

"Admiral, Sir," Hangman starts again, once they're back in the halls and heading toward the infirmary.

"Yes?" Ice rasps, glancing over to him.

"Where are we going?"

"The infirmary." Ice looks him up and down for a moment. "You need to see them and make sure they're alright, don't you?"

Hangman's steps stall, and he stares at Ice in surprise, before forcibly kickstarting himself into motion to keep up with him. "Uh-"

Ice nods, "I understand. I feel the same. I've been away long enough."

"Sir-?" Hangman asks.

Ice stops, then, turning to face him. "Thank you, Lieutenant Seresin, for bringing them back to me," he says. His voice is rough, but it holds for what he needs. "Mav was right to put you on Spare."

"What-?" Seresin stares at him, stunned.

It seems it never occurred to him that he may have been chosen for that role, rather than left over.

"He knew that if he went down during the course of the mission, they'd need you to get the squad back," Ice nods, turning to walk again.

"But- they didn't let me fly cover for the rest of the team, Sir," Hangman says with a frown, not understanding.

"No," Ice agrees. "But no one else would have made it to that F-14 in time to save them when you were sent," he says. It's a simple fact, and he knows it to be true.

"I don't understand, Sir," Hangman says carefully.

Ice hums, flicking the cap of his thermos open so he can take a careful drink, to ease the strain building in his throat. "Did you know that Mav was on Ready 5 for the Layton rescue?" he asks.

"Uh…no, Sir, I didn't," Hangman replies, sounding surprised by that.

Ice supposes more young aviators learned about that mission ever since he became COMPACFLT - Hangman probably thought he knew the whole story. He nods. "My wingman went down and they launched Mav to come cover us. The catapults broke after that, and it was just Mav and I against six MiGs. But he wasn't originally on the mission." He glances over to Hangman, and sees that thoughtful glint in his gaze.

Good. He's putting together the pieces of what Ice is laying out for him. "Maverick knows the value of keeping a good Spare in case something goes horribly wrong," he continues. "That's why you were chosen for that role."

"I see, Sir," Hangman says, blinking in surprise. "Thank you, Sir," he adds after a moment.

Ice nods with a little hum. "You can come with me to check on them, though you can't stay," he says.

Hangman perks up at that, and then seems to try to stifle the reaction, though Ice has already seen it. "Thank you, Sir," he says, his shoulders slumping in relief.

Ice nods. "And then I want you to eat that food and go get some actual rest. Don't make me make that an order," he says wryly.

Hangman laughs, a startled sound that he seems surprised to have made. "Yes, Sir," he says, though he's grinning, that sharp expression that makes his eyes glint with mischief.

It reminds Ice of Mav.

A lot of Hangman does, really. Desperate to prove himself, certain he'd get the opportunity to show just how much he deserved to be here. That he was the best. And he just might be, of this new generation of aviators. Only time would tell, but having two air-to-air kills already has clearly set him apart from his peers. It will continue to set him apart - Ice and Mav knew that personally.

They get to the infirmary shortly thereafter, and Ice nods to the staff on duty as he walks past them.

"Sir-" one of the nurses starts.

Ice waves the hand he's holding his thermos with. "He's with me. He won't stay long."

The nurse nods, falling back and not obstructing his way, and Ice nods his thanks in turn. He gets to Mav and Bradley's room and stops at the door, glancing back to Hangman.

The aviator is staring at the door with a little frown, a furrow in his brow. It takes him a moment to notice Ice's attention, and then he startles a little. Once he realizes Ice's hands are full, he reaches for the door. "Sorry, Sir-" he says, and Ice's lip quirks in amusement. He's no stranger to the kind of hero worship he's encountered in the later years of his career, and Seresin seems to both be trying to desperately hide that while also reeling under the weight of having the COMPACFLT's attention.

Hangman holds the door for him, and Ice steps in, setting his various things down by his chair as he looks over the room. Both of the patients are asleep, though it looks like Bradley is just dozing. Seresin's standing in the door, looking a little stunned. He doesn't move, either because he's unsure he's welcome, or because he doesn't know what to do. His gaze keeps flicking back and forth between Maverick and Rooster, like he's trying to catalogue every detail about their appearances, take in the sight of them and assure to himself that they're okay. Or that they will be, at least.

Ice doesn't press him, taking a seat in his chair with a soft sigh and opening the sandwich he'd gotten to try and pick at it before he got distracted again. He has Mav here, now, he can stop worrying about every moment he doesn't have him in his sight.

Rooster stirs in the other bed, and Hangman nods jerkily suddenly, stepping back. "Thank you, Admiral," he says softly, and makes his retreat out of the room before his presence might be noticed. Ice watches him go with an eyebrow raised, listening to the door close quietly. Bradley doesn't end up fully waking, in the end, but the motion had been enough to scare Seresin off.

Ice just settles into his chair, opening the reports to look through them once more.

—

Eventually Maverick is awake enough that they want to take him for some further examinations - and possibly planned follow-up procedures once he makes it back to land and a better-equipped civilian hospital. The commotion of pulling his bed out of the room somehow doesn't wake Bradley, which draws Ice's attention.

Just like he knows Mav would have stopped at nothing to get his eyes on Bradley, he knows Bradley too. Or he likes to think he does, anyway. And if Bradley wakes up and Mav is gone, bed and all, he'll panic and think he'd started crashing or been pulled for surgery.

And then exacerbate his own injuries in trying to figure out what happened.

So Ice sighs a little and pulls his chair across the room to be closer to Bradley's bed. He wants to make sure Bradley doesn't wake up alone.

It's a good thing he did, because Bradley lurches upright once he realizes Mav isn't in the room with them.

"Bradley," Ice murmurs, and when Bradley's gaze snaps to him he realizes he hadn't even known Ice was there.

"Mav- where's Mav?" he asks.

"Bradley," Ice repeats, trying to get him to focus on him. "It's alright. They took him for some tests. Mav's okay."

Bradley stares, like he's searching for a lie, before he slumps back into the pillows. "What are you doing here then?" he asks, and it almost sounds like an accusation.

Ice is careful not to let his reaction show, raising an eyebrow instead as he explains, "In case you woke up and panicked that he was gone." Which is exactly what Bradley had done. "How are you holding up?" he asks, a little more gently.

"I'm alright, Sir," Bradley says.

Ice doesn't flinch, doesn't even react, but it feels like a knife stabbed into an old wound all the same.

He must have let something of his reaction show, though, because Bradley continues with, "Hurts like a bitch, but I'll live."

"Good," Ice murmurs, a bit of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips, and then he turns back to his book. Bradley had made it clear - even in the infirmary, after everything, Ice is his superior and not his family.

"Ice…" Bradley starts, hesitant and careful.

Ice doesn't dare let himself hope, but he puts a bookmark into his book and sets it down in his lap.

"Can we talk?" Bradley finishes.

"Of course, Bradley," Ice replies, turning a little to face him fully.

"Did…did you help Mav pull my papers?" Bradley's voice cracks a little, but he asks it all the same.

It's not the question Ice expected, or at least not the question he thought he'd ask first, but he did anticipate it would come up one way or another, eventually. "It doesn't matter-" Ice starts to answer, but Rooster doesn't let him get any farther than that.

"Of course it matters!" he snaps, rearing up for a fight. It's clear that all the years away did nothing to temper the kid's rage. He'd always been quick to burn into anger, and Ice hoped he'd learn to get a handle on it. Clearly the distance hadn't helped.

"It doesn't matter," Ice repeats, with a sharp look at Bradley to stop him in his tracks, "because even if I didn't, when he asked, I would have."

Bradley stares at him, and Ice can all but see the gears turning as he tries to process what Ice is really saying with his refusal to answer.

Ice may not have agreed with the decision, may have foreseen this outcome, but when push came to shove, he would always stand with Mav. Would always back him up.

And he understood how Mav wound himself up into that wreck, regardless.

Ice knew how much Mav's word meant to him. More than that, Ice knew that the last promise he'd made to a Bradshaw had been to Goose, promising to be careful, to not get them kicked out of TOPGUN.

That had been the night before Hop 31.

So of course when Carole made him promise to keep Bradley safe, to keep him from the sky, Mav was desperate to keep it. He couldn't handle the thought of letting her down too.

And then, as Bradley grew up with them, as they raised him, he watched the fear in Mav's gaze shift. Watched the reality set in, that Bradley wanted to be like them, that of course he wanted to apply to the Naval Academy. That he expected to get in - of course he would, on his own merits because he worked hard, and because he could get a recommendation letter from one of many Navy legends at the drop of a hat.

Then Mav had been deployed to Bosnia. It stopped being about just keeping his promise to Carole. It started to be about the realities of a horrific war that he wanted to protect his son from.

And then 9/11 happened, just after Bradley turned seventeen.

Both of them had known that there was no way through the near future without the United States entering another war. The weight of Mav's promise only added to the fear he felt at the thought of their Baby Goose thrown into a conflict where he'd only be seen as fodder for the offensive push.

So, in the end, Ice had understood why he'd done it.

He'd understood Bradley's reaction, too. The kid had had no way to understand the reality of what Maverick was trying to protect him from. All he could see was his wings being clipped by the two people he thought would support him no matter what.

He'd expected Bradley would need some space, need time to simmer down and maybe wrap his head around the reason why Mav did what he did.

Ice wasn't surprised that he ended up running away to enlist. He wasn't all that surprised at the blowup fight that had happened, either, but he hadn't thought Bradley would truly stick to his guns about never wanting to hear from them again.

But as the years passed and they continued to get no response to their attempts to reach out, Ice had to admit that Bradley had absolutely inherited Mav's stubborn streak (and his own, if he were being particularly introspective).

"Why don't you ask the question you really want to ask?" Ice says, watching Bradley, searching his expression. He used to be able to read him so easily, and even the years of distance haven't made Bradley such an unknown variable that he can't still read a bit of what he's thinking.

"…Did you think I wasn't good enough, too?" Bradley whispers.

Ice frowns, just a little. What does he mean, 'too'? "Is that what Pete told you?" he asks, needing to know. That doesn't sound like something Mav would have ever told Bradley, not even when he was being screamed at as Bradley packed a bag.

"I…no, but-" Bradley stutters, and Ice tamps down the small ache of relief at being right.

"What did he say when you asked him?" Because he knows Bradley asked - recently, before the mission. That night before he'd collapsed, when Mav had called him, sounding ruined and desperate for some comfort.

"He…said I wasn't ready," Bradley admits, glancing away from him.

"Looking back now, do you think you were?" Ice asks. Him being ready had nothing to do with the decision, because in reality, nobody was ready for war, and he would have enlisted directly into one. Did enlist directly into one, in the end.

"I…I don't know anymore," he says. And then braces himself, steadying. "If I'd had the support of my family, yeah, I would have been," he decides. It's a judgment cast upon them, but Ice doesn't point out that the rest of his uncles tried to support him anyway, tried to stay in touch and keep an eye on him and help out.

Bradley had spurned them all, had assumed Ice or Mav were asking them to meddle, had assumed they'd come back and tell them any and everything Bradley was getting into. As if Ice needed his classmates from '86 to keep tabs on his son when he'd already been climbing the ranks and knew everyone at the top.

"Do you think that, if we really didn't want you to fly, you would have ever made it to TOPGUN once, let alone twice?" Ice asks slowly, watching Bradley's expression. Watching him pick up the pieces Ice is laying out for him, intelligent as ever, trying to understand what Ice is telling him.

"I…" Rooster stares at him in shock.

Did he underestimate Ice's reach? Did he think that if Mav hadn't wanted Bradley to fly, for real, forever, that he wouldn't have continued to interfere? What else could Bradley have done to punish him? They'd already lost their son - if Mav wanted to commit to that, he could have sunk his career, kept him from truly reaching his potential.

But as afraid as Mav had been, he'd also been incredibly, unceasingly proud. So had Ice, of course. They watched their son rise without them, watched him reach for the sky and earn his wings, watched him be everything he'd ever dreamed of. And they knew - just as they were sure he knew - that he'd gotten there under his own power. That he hadn't had the way paved for him by the Navy legends who raised him.

"Maverick loves you, Bradley," Ice says, softer. "His greatest fear was something happening to you, was losing you as young as your dad had been."

"But he lost me anyway," Bradley rasps, clearly reeling and trying to re-center himself.

"Yeah. We did. But at least we knew you still lived and breathed to hate us," Ice says, with a pained little smile. They'd lost their son, but Mav had bought him some time. Had given him time to grow up, had watched him grow older than Goose ever got the chance to be.

"I don't- I didn't hate you-" Bradley says, his gaze snapping back to focus on Ice, a desperate plea to be believed.

Ice raises an eyebrow. "I seem to recall you saying exactly that." And he'd never unsaid it, never spoke to them again to imply any differently.

Bradley flinches, starts to say, "I'm so sorry-"

"Bradley. I need you to understand that I love you. That I always will. But I can't forgive you yet. Maverick already has, I know." Ice looks away from him, pausing to swallow hard, to clear his throat. Maverick could never hold any of Bradley's reactions against him - he doesn't think he has the right to. He doesn't think he deserves to be upset when Bradley tries to hurt him. And Ice- Ice can't let Mav believe that to be true. If he forgives Bradley, Mav will understand that Ice thinks he doesn't need to be held responsible for what he's said. Mav would agree with him, would think that he wasn't deserving of love and care and warmth. Ice can't allow that.

"He forgives you the moment you say anything that hurts him, because he believes it. He agrees with you." And if Ice was the only person left in the world who would fight to try and prove to Mav that he mattered, he would take on that fight alone for as long as he lived.

Bradley stares at him in shock. Perhaps he didn't expect that. Maybe he expected Mav's persona to be how he handled Rooster too. That he'd act like - or believe - he could never do anything wrong, that Rooster's accusations wouldn't hit true.

Ice can all but see Rooster replaying the greatest hits of all the worst things he's said to Mav over the years in his head. Now and then, when he'd first left them. When he'd told Mav he wished Maverick had died instead of Goose, that it should have been him.

Ice hasn't quite let that one go, yet. Bradley was just a kid when he said it, but that didn't make it okay. And Mav had spent so many years grappling with that very thought himself, trying to raise Bradley well, trying to be the father he deserved when Mav saw himself as the reason Bradley lost his real dad. To have it thrown in his face by the kid himself had only burrowed that particular knife deeper. Ice never quite managed to get that one back out, had never quite managed to convince him that his life had worth.

"He doesn't think you need to be forgiven for speaking the truth as he sees it. Every awful thing you've thought, that you've said, he lives," Ice continues. He needs Bradley to understand, needs him to know that he can't just throw words carelessly and not expect for them to hurt the people around him.

He's spoken too much. He can feel it in his throat, that slow building itch that's going to punish him soon.

Ice looks away from him then, back to the book in his lap, steadying himself for another push. "Your leaving broke him, Bradley. I've spent the past decade trying to convince him that he is worth loving." His gaze snaps back up to Bradley's, heavy with intent, with the storm of intense emotion he feels at the thought of Maverick believing himself unlovable. "That an accident that was as much my fault as his shouldn't make all the good he does, all the good he is, worthless."

He takes a slow breath, intending to continue, but he's pushed it too far, and can't speak suddenly. His breath hitches, catching in his throat, and then he's coughing, gasping for air.

"Ice-?" Bradley asks, alarmed.

Ice waves a hand dismissively, coughing into his fist, before he reaches for the thermos he'd left by his foot. He lifts the cup, fighting through his coughing fit until he can finally steal a breath. And then he has it under control, taking a long drink of his still-hot tea, relying on it to soothe his throat enough so that he doesn't immediately launch into another fit.

"Ice- are you okay?" Bradley asks, looking lost, helpless.

Ice watches him over the rim of his thermos, but he nods as he caps it again. "This is a good day," he rasps, his voice hoarse and barely audible.

"…What do you mean, 'a good day'?" Bradley asks carefully.

Ice knows what he's made him think of. He holds his gaze, steady. It was a simple fact - there'd been a time where Ice hadn't been able to speak at all, where he'd been so sick that even having the energy to learn and practice sign had been rare. He's gotten a lot better since then - the fact that he can spend hours on the phone before it gets so bad was something he had started to think he'd never be able to do again.

"I'm fine, Bradley. I'm through the worst of it. But the surgery took some of my vocal chords, and I've spent most of today on the phone already."

"What surgery?" his gaze is panicked, flicking over Ice like he's looking for a sign that he's about to keel over.

Ice hates that expression. It's part of why he does his best to hide his fight with cancer. Once people learned, it was all they could see in him. They kept expecting him to collapse again, to be on death's door at all times.

It made them pity him.

Mav had been the only one who hadn't. The only one who only saw him as a fighter, as stronger, as someone who'd never quit even if his body turned traitor on him.

Ice wouldn't have survived it alone. Without Mav, he wouldn't have been able to face down those slim odds, everyone's pity, and find the strength to keep pushing through.

He watches Bradley as he says, carefully, "I've been in remission for a few years now. I had cancer."

"You-" Bradley's expression is heartbroken, cracked open. "You- you had cancer, and I had no idea?" his voice cracks. "Were…were you ever going to tell me?"

Ice's pauses. "No," he says, and he watches Bradley take it like a blow. "It would have been cruel and manipulative, to try and bring you back into our lives against your will, just because you felt like you had to, just because I was sick." It was a decision they'd made many years before Ice ever got sick, when Mav pulled Bradley off his NOK list, when he removed him from his emergency contacts. Bradley had said he never wanted to hear from him again, and when he never responded, never reached out, they had to take him at his word. And Ice knew how it would come across, if Mav ended up in the hospital and some unsuspecting nurse called Bradley.

It would seem like a desperate attempt to force Bradley's hand, to make him come back.

When Ice got sick, they'd revisited the conversation, but the answer remained the same. It would be even worse to try and call him back because Ice was dying of the same thing that took Carole, that took the last blood family Bradley had had.

"But-" Bradley tries.

"And," Ice continues, soft, though it gets Bradley to go quiet, not trying to speak over him. Just another thing that the knowledge of his cancer has done. "Mav was already going through enough supporting me through it. I couldn't risk watching you break his heart again."

Bradley flinches then, staring at the ceiling and blinking quickly.

"You said you never wanted to hear from us again," Ice reminds him, almost gently. "Mav kept sending letters, kept hoping you would come back, or even reply."

"…Why did he stop?" Bradley asks haltingly.

Ice stares at him, frowning. "You not coming to our wedding seemed a clear enough sign that you really wanted nothing to do with us ever again." It had been the final blow, and Ice couldn't watch Maverick keep breaking his heart over and over with every letter sent and ignored.

Ice had found himself hoping - though not optimistic - that Bradley would come back for it. Would come back to them, would consider trying again.

He hadn't been surprised that they'd been rebuffed again. But he knew it had wounded Maverick irreparably. They'd put the wedding off for a while for a multitude of reasons - Ice's career being the main one - but one had been that Mav wanted Bradley to be a part of it. He'd hoped that enough time would pass that he could repair their relationship, that Bradley would still consider them family, deep down.

Bradley stares back at him. "…what wedding?" he croaks.

And that- that actually stops Ice short. There was no way he didn't know about the wedding. Distantly, he recalls Mav saying something similar. That he didn't know. But Ice had assumed that Bradley had just been speaking thoughtlessly at the time, fueled by anger.

"The one we invited you to," Ice says slowly. "I made sure it got to the carrier you were deployed on. And I kept an eye on leave requests, ready to call in a favor to make it happen if you put in for one." Ice glances away then, back to the book in his lap, trying to parse out where he missed something. "But you never did, and that was answer enough," he finally says.

It takes him a bit before he looks back up to see Bradley's expression. He looks devastated.

"Ice-" Bradley rasps, pained. "I didn't- I didn't know."

Ice wants to believe him. He certainly looks shell-shocked enough. "I made sure that letter got to your carrier," he says again.

Bradley winces. "I probably got it. I- I never opened any of them."

Ice doesn't know if that makes it better or worse.

All of Mav's desperate attempts to show Bradley he was loved, that Mav had made a mistake, that he wanted nothing more than to have his son back in their lives, not just ignored, but unheard. Unread.

"I didn't- I knew I'd cave and come back if I read them, and I couldn't-" Bradley tries to explain, halting and uncertain. "I couldn't see what Mav wrote to try and get me to reply."

Ice supposes he was right, in the end, in convincing Mav that it was okay to stop sending letters. To stop throwing himself on the sword of his guilt to try and get their son to respond. To stop ripping open the wounds every time he sent a letter and got no response two, three, four months later.

It is a bitter victory.

"Well, we got the message," Ice finally says, quiet and careful, his voice a hoarse rasp.

Bradley seems to chew on that for a while. "If that's the case, why am I here?" he finally asks.

Ice looks up to him in confusion, frowning a little as he tries to grasp what Bradley is asking.

"On this mission. With Mav teaching it. Did you arrange all of this?" It's not quite an accusation, though just barely.

"You were nominated for the mission by your CO and your TOPGUN instructors. I pulled Mav because I knew there wasn't anyone else who could teach it. Did I hope you would reconcile? Yes. But I wasn't about to set you up to die just to keep Mav away from you, not when there was no one better than him to teach you all to complete the mission and come home," Ice explains. His throat aches, and he reaches to take another drink of tea while Bradley chews on the thought.

"I see," he finally says, slow and carefully.

"The other option was to pull you from the roster," Ice points out. "But I knew you had it in you, that you'd be one of the best," he continues, because he thinks Bradley needs to hear it. That he won't realize Ice believes that if he's not explicitly told it.

"…oh," Bradley says after a bit, staring at him in shock. His expression is cracked open, heartbreak and hope and pain warring in his eyes.

"We both did, and do," Ice adds, insists. "Mav chose you to be his wingman because he believes in you, Bradley."

Bradley doesn't respond to that, and if he looks away and blinks back something that looks suspiciously like tears threatening to spill over, Ice doesn't call him out on it.

—

Ice knows he should return to his quarters to get some actual sleep, but he can't make himself leave Mav for anything that isn't strictly necessary, so he ends up catching fitful naps in the chair by Mav's bedside when he can.

Bradley's observation period passes without too much concern, and the nurses let him go back to his quarters as long as he behaves and doesn't push it while he's recovering from the concussion. He'd looked reluctant to leave Mav, but the slowly building stress of going stir-crazy won out in the end. The rest of the detachment was anxious to see him too, so it didn't take too much convincing for Bradley to get out of there.

Which left just Ice and Mav in the room together.

Ice hasn't stopped thinking about his conversation with Bradley, the way he'd looked shell-shocked at the news of the wedding.

And, more troubling, the fact that Bradley had concocted a reason in absentia for Mav pulling his papers and landed on not measuring up.

A reason that hits Ice harder than any other assumption would have. It may have been a lifetime ago, but Tom still remembers the physical ache of knowing that no matter what he did, no matter how good or smart or successful he was, it would never be enough for his father. He and Mav had worked hard to make sure Bradley never even had that thought enter his head. Or he thought they had. Did Bradley get the reason out of nursing his hurt and letting it fester, or did he look back into his childhood and find examples to support that?

It's a concern that's going to keep him up at night. Had he failed, was he just like his father in the end?

"Hey, Ice," Mav mumbles, looking up at him, and Ice startles back into himself. He hadn't even noticed Maverick starting to move.

"Hey Mav," Ice says, reaching to cup his cheek. "How're you feeling?"

"Better when you're here," Mav replies, tilting into the touch, grinning sleepily up at him.

Ice's chest aches with warmth for this man. He adores him.

"Flatterer," Ice says, stroking a thumb under his eye.

"What were you thinkin' about?" Mav asks, gingerly reaching up to grasp Ice's wrist, wanting to touch him.

"Hmm?" Ice hums.

"When I woke up. You were somewhere," Mav murmurs.

Ice could play dumb, but he knows what Mav means. And they do need to talk about it, anyway. "I was thinking about Bradley."

Maverick's expression softens, something melancholic and warm at once. "What about him?"

"We need to tell him why his papers were pulled," Ice says, without hesitation.

Mav winces, and then grimaces as that sudden motion makes something hurt - his ribs, if Ice had to guess - and takes a second to settle. "Ice-"

"I know, Mav. I know why you don't want to. But did Bradley tell you what he thought the reason really was?"

"…I don't think so," Mav replies, frowning as he thinks back. It probably wasn't fair to ask him that when he's still recovering and only just woke up.

"He asked me if I thought he wasn't good enough 'too'." Ice exhales, meeting Mav's pained gaze, shoring himself up in the knowledge that it's something neither of them would have ever wanted Bradley to think. "I asked him if you told him that," to which Mav shakes his head once, hard, and Ice nods, knowing this already, "and he'd said no. But he believed it anyway."

"Fuck," Mav breathes.

"He deserves the truth. And no other reason will ever beat out the one he's given himself," Ice murmurs.

"Ice…I can't- I can't ruin Carole's memory for him too. I've already destroyed everything about his family." Maverick's voice cracks, his eyes luminous as he speaks.

"You didn't," Ice murmurs, soft but vehement, cupping his cheeks with both hands now. "You didn't. But he's not being helped by thinking his mom was perfect and you and I both thought he was a failure." Ice sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. "I can tell him. But I wasn't going to do it without talking to you first."

"Ice," Mav murmurs, eyes widening a little.

Ice hates that he's put that expression on Mav's face. He hates seeing Mav surprised that someone would respect his wishes, that someone would back him up. He hates that he can still surprise Mav like that.

"You promised to try and keep him out of the sky, and you promised to take care of him. You didn't promise to lie to him and never tell him who made you promise," Ice insists softly. "Let me tell him. Please," he asks, softer.

He could ignore Mav's wishes and force the issue and just tell Bradley in the hopes of fixing this. But he would never betray Mav like that, and he won't blindside him either. He'd already blindsided him once with Rooster being on the mission roster.

Mav takes a shaky breath, shallow and a little raspy. But he closes his eyes and nods, finally. "Okay. Yeah. Okay," he says, swallowing hard.

"Thank you," Ice murmurs. "I can't…I can't stomach the thought of him feeling the way I felt, growing up," he explains.

Mav's gaze snaps to his, sharp and alert, and horrified understanding dawns in his expression. "Ice. You're nothing like him," he insists. "I promise."

Ice isn't sure, anymore. And he hates that he doubts that about himself now. But he nods, schooling his expression. He wants to believe Mav, he just isn't sure he can, yet.

"Ice," Mav rasps, shaking his wrists lightly. "Tom, listen to me." He waits for Ice to meet his gaze again, the bright insistence in his eyes. "You have never been anything like him. Hell, you're a better dad than I ever managed to be. I couldn't have done any of it without you."

"You don't know that," Ice whispers, and he knows he should get a handle on this, that he shouldn't be needing Mav to hold him together right now, but he can't quite stop the words from coming out. "You were deployed so often, how do you know I didn't fuck up while you were gone?"

"Because I know you, Ice," Mav murmurs, soft and aching. "That kid means the world to you, just like he does to me. You were always so worried about raising him well, you were always aware of what you were saying and the behavior you were modeling. You always supported him, uplifted him. I promise, Ice, it's not you. If he thinks we thought he wasn't good enough, that's my fault."

"Mav…" Ice says, frowning.

"Don't- you know he wouldn't have ever doubted how we felt about him if I hadn't started all of this."

Ice sighs, but doesn't argue the point.

"Tell him," Mav says, a little more resolved. "If he's going to let me try to fix this, I want to fix it."

Ice nods, leaning in to press a kiss to Mav's forehead. "Me too," he whispers into his skin.

Mav just smiles up at him when Ice pulls away, small and tired, but there.

—

Of course, now that Bradley's been discharged, Ice has to go out and find him, now, if he wants to talk to him. The next time Mav dozes off, Ice gets up and goes to do just that. He stops by the mess to refill his thermos, ignoring the fact that he's intruding on the crew's mess.

They wouldn't dare shout at him the way they would another officer overstepping, and he has no intention of being there any longer than it takes to get hot water and a teabag.

He gets lucky - while he's there, he spots some of the detachment eating. He walks over, recognizing Phoenix, her WSO, Omaha, Halo, and Coyote. They startle when they see him walking over, and he waves them off before they can scramble to attention at their table.

"At ease, Lieutenants," he says softly. "Do any of you know where Rooster is?"

It's been a while since he's traveled without an aide that he could send off to do the hunting and fetching. It's an amusing turn of events - it's good to keep himself humble, he thinks, with wry amusement.

"Think I heard him say he was going to get some fresh air," Halo says, nodding to him with a little smile in greeting.

Ice returns the expression - he needs to get her something nice for aiding him during the shitshow that was the fallout of that mission. He'd have had a much harder time if he'd had to try forcing himself to speak, or turned to other tools. And then he may not have had a voice to command Hangman to launch when it mattered most.

"Probably by the elevators," Coyote offers, tipping his head in the general direction of the hangar.

"Thank you," Ice says. "As you were." And then he turns on his heel and walks back out of the mess, tossing the teabag out of his thermos into a trashcan as he passes one by the door.

He makes his way to the hangar, working out how he wants to approach the issue once he does find Bradley. And if he wants to get him somewhere he knows they won't be interrupted before he starts talking. Though he has a feeling that doing that would just spook Bradley before he ever said a word.

It's as he's thinking that that he reaches the hangar, walking along the edge to get to the jet elevators. He glances at the F-18s he walks past and, with a bittersweet pang, realizes this is the closest he's been to a fighter jet in years.

Ice tucks that thought away - it wasn't useful, and nostalgic melancholy wouldn't get him anywhere - as he turns the corner to the elevators.

True to Halo's word, Rooster is there.

So is Hangman.

They're standing close, ostensibly so they can talk without having to shout over the noise of the carrier. The sight of them like that, hovering close but not quite too close, reminds him a little too much of how he and Mav used to have to hide. Ice takes a step back around the corner to give them a moment and let them have their privacy.

Just as Ice is starting to wonder how long they plan on talking, he hears footsteps coming back his way, and he straightens up, walking forward like he'd just arrived.

It's Hangman who turns the corner, and he looks pensive, but not so deep in thought that he doesn't see Ice this time. He catches himself before he runs into Ice - again - and straightens up to attention with a bit of a smile. "Admiral Kazansky, Sir," he says.

"At ease, Lieutenant," Ice replies. "Have you seen Rooster?" He's both playing at not having spotted them, and testing Seresin to see his reaction.

Hangman, to his credit, doesn't get flustered. "Saw him taking a walk around here," he nods. "Think he's back that way," he says, gesturing to the elevator he'd come from.

"Thank you. As you were," Ice says, and carries on past him.

He can feel Hangman's gaze on him until he turns the corner, and he wonders, idly, if Seresin plans to stick around and try to eavesdrop.

Ice puts the thought out of his mind the moment he spots Bradley, leaning against the wall by the opening.

He's staring out at the water, unmoving, and doesn't notice Ice coming closer until he's coming at him from the side, so he'll see him in his peripheral vision.

"Ice-" Bradley says, straightening up in surprise.

"Bradley," Ice nods, giving him a little reassuring smile, trying to head off the fear that something's gone wrong with Mav.

Bradley slowly lets the tension drop from his shoulders, and his expression becomes more inquisitive than wary or worried. "What's up?" he asks.

Ice is achingly relieved that he's dropped the 'Sir's. It hits him harder than he expected it to. "Just wanted to check in on you, maybe talk a bit," Ice says casually.

Bradley's gaze snaps to his, searching his face, though he doesn't quite find what he's looking for, his own expression mildly confused. "I'm alright. What did you want to talk about?"

Ice looks out at the ocean, taking a moment to steady himself. "Your papers," he says softly, and feels the way Bradley snaps into tension, fight-or-flight instinct active.

"…What about them?" Bradley finally asks, warily.

"The truth," Ice rasps, turning back to look at him.

Bradley flinches. It seems that, as desperate as he was to know the truth, he's afraid, too.

"So Mav was lying?" Bradley starts, latching onto that. Trying to find somewhere he can pull anger from to cling to.

"Yes and no," Ice says, which he knows is the least helpful answer. "You know how Mav feels about promises, right?"

Of course Bradley knows. But he wants to remind him. "…That he'd rather die than break one?" he asks, his voice rough, barely even.

Ice hums in agreement.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Bradley's tension is slowly broiling over into anger at being strung along, at not knowing, at being certain Mav was lying to him and wondering why.

"When you were little, your mom made Mav promise to keep you safe," Ice starts.

"When she was barely lucid because she was actively dying?" Bradley asks, his voice rough, shielding himself in the hurt.

"No," Ice shakes his head, sighing softly. "No, it was a couple of years after we lost Goose. She was terrified of the same thing happening to you, of you dying young because you wanted to follow us into the sky."

"So she made Mav promise to do whatever it took to keep me from enlisting," Bradley sighs. "And Mav said yes." He reaches up to drag a hand through his hair, fisting it and tugging once he's gotten a good handful. It's a restless habit he picked up from Mav, Ice knows. He looks just like him when he does it. "Why-" his voice cracks. "Why the hell wouldn't he tell me that?"

"He didn't want you to resent your mom, Bradley," Ice says gently.

"She's my mom! I couldn't- I wouldn't resent her-" Bradley insists, frantic.

"Mav didn't know that. He saw how angry and hurt you were and was determined to take the brunt of it so you wouldn't think ill of your mother," Ice explains.

"So he let me lose the last parents I had left instead!" Bradley huffs, clearly trying to hold himself together and not quite succeeding.

"He thought that was a given already. He didn't think you would ever forgive him, even if he could get you on the phone. He saw just how much you hated him and didn't want to let any of that color how you felt about your mom," Ice says wearily.

Mav's reaction was understandable. He may have fucked up, but once he saw just how deep the explosion of Bradley's rage went, he pivoted to try and take the brunt of all the anger, tried to protect everyone else from it, even if one of those people was already dead, wasn't here to be protected.

"Fuck," Bradley says, soft and vehement and pained.

Ice concurs.

"I've blamed him all these years. I thought-" Bradley starts.

"I know," Ice murmurs. "I couldn't stand the idea of you thinking we thought you weren't good enough. You've always been good enough, Bradley," he rasps.

"Ice-" Bradley stalls, swallowing hard. "Can I-?" he looks at him, hesitant.

Ice thinks he knows what Bradley is asking. So he holds his arm out, an offering. And then suddenly has an armful of Bradshaw, and he wraps his other arm around him too, making sure the thermos is closed before he does. And then he just pulls him in and holds on tightly. "We love you, Bradley. We always have, and we always will," he murmurs into his hair.

"I'm sorry," Bradley rasps into his shoulder, his voice broken.

"I've got you," Ice assures softly. He doesn't say 'it's okay', because it isn't, yet. But it might be. They can get there.

They've taken the first step.

—

Ice is a master tactician, always has been. Always has known the shape of the board, the pieces, how to navigate the game. How to navigate the whole of it to get what he wanted without giving up his own advantage.

Part of it was necessity - there was no way he and Mav could have made it together through the last few decades if he didn't know how to keep them hidden. How to curry favor and make himself be liked and respected and revered, so much so that no one would even give a rumor a second thought.

Part of it was ambition - he had plans, and he needed every instinct honed behind the stick to navigate the world of politics, the brass, and the bullshit of bureaucracy.

All of that was to say that Ice knew when to strike.

And he's been holding this one, waiting for the perfect moment.

Waiting for Mav to be on the mend, to be lucid and awake more often than he's not, for him to start getting restless.

Mav's wary when he sees Ice with the mission reports in his hand. He's right to be - they'd been done with them for a couple of days already.

Except for one little thing.

"Maverick," Ice says mildly, flipping open the folder as he sits by his bed.

"Yeeeees?" Mav asks carefully. His gaze is confused, and he's clearly rewinding something in his head, trying to figure out what he's done wrong.

"When were you going to tell me that you somehow managed to get your physical from China Lake scrubbed?" Ice asks.

"Uh- what are you talking about?" Mav asks, looking surprised. Clearly he hadn't expected it to be something from before the mission.

"Your injuries from your most recent ejection are interesting," Ice says pointedly. Mav winces, and still looks like he's on the back foot. Like he isn't quite sure what Ice is talking about - or pretending not to be. But he's never been all that good an actor, especially not with Ice. "Curiously, you magically had some nearly-healed fractures in your ribs," he continues. "I wonder how you healed those ribs in the few hours between your ejection and getting to the carrier?"

"What- uh…what are you talking about, Ice?" Mav asks carefully.

"The physical they gave you when SAR found you," Ice says, not playing along. "What happened to it?"

Maverick frowns. "They didn't give me one," he says. "Cain basically had me dragged to his office directly from the helicopter," he adds.

Ice stares him down, his gaze narrowed and sharp. Cain was an easy target to throw under the bus, but Ice wasn't so easily distracted. "When they picked you up from that diner?"

"Since I'd walked myself there and was conscious and not bleeding, they said they'd wait till I got back to base medical," Mav says hesitantly. It takes him a moment to recall, but he's pretty sure that's what happened.

"And then when you landed, Cain intercepted you and brought you to an office. So you went to medical after," Ice continues. Because Mav had better have gone to medical.

"Uh…no," Mav says carefully. "He told me to get my ass to North Island," he continues.

"After stopping at medical." Ice's hands tighten on the reports. He can feel that glacial burn of fury starting to coil through him. He's still hoping that Mav had pulled some kind of shenanigans to get himself cleared to fly after clearly cracking a few ribs from ejecting at Mach 10.4.

"Ice…I never got to go to medical," Mav says, but the worry in his gaze is earnest.

He isn't lying.

Ice swallows hard, takes a slow, deep breath. The tension doesn't leave his shoulders, and his grip doesn't loosen, but he at least isn't wrinkling the papers in his hands.

"Cain didn't let you get examined by anyone?" he asks, one last time.

Mav shakes his head.

Ice is going to rip that motherfucker's stars right off his goddamn collar.

"I see." He forces himself to relax, because he can tell that Mav sees his fury, and he can tell that Mav thinks it's about to be aimed at him. "You shouldn't have been cleared to fly, Mav," he says gently. "You'd cracked a few ribs, and it's a wonder you didn't tear anything in your leg."

"I- huh," Maverick says. "I didn't- I mean, I was sore, but it wasn't anything excessive. I wasn't- I wasn't hiding anything, Ice, I swear," he says, gaze caught on his, desperate to be believed.

And Ice does believe him. They've long moved past the years when they'd hide their hurts and aches from each other. Namely after Ice's battle with cancer. But they didn't hide things from each other, they didn't try to put on a tough front. To the rest of the world, yes, but never to each other.

"I believe you," Ice murmurs, softer, because he thinks Mav might need to hear that. He reaches to cup his jaw, holding him, just drinking in the sight of him. Trying to push down the fact that it could have been so much worse. That Cain's uncaring brutality could have cost him his husband's life. "And I'm going to kill Cain," he adds drily.

Mav wheezes a startled laugh, tilting into the touch. "So I was right?"

"What?" Ice asks, surprised.

"When I said you were reviewing Cain's retirement announcement," he says, grinning, relaxing now that he knows Ice isn't mad at him.

Ice huffs softly, shaking his head fondly. "It doesn't count if you guessed it before it happened," he points out, quietly amused. "Are you into manifesting now?"

"When it comes to him? Sure, why not," Mav replies easily.

Ice sighs, the amusement slipping just a little, but it's enough for Mav to catch it.

"I'm alright, Ice," Mav murmurs, sitting up a little more, before he reaches up to wrap a hand around the back of Ice's neck, pulling him closer. Ice leans in, letting Mav maneuver him. Mav keeps tugging him in until their foreheads are pressed together. "I'm okay. I came back to you, like I always do. Like I always will," he murmurs.

"Thank you," Ice rasps softly, reveling just a little in the brush of warmth from Mav's breath as he speaks. "You know the deal. Just come home to me. I'll get you out of whatever trouble you're in, you just need to make it home."

"Always, Ice," Mav murmurs, and then he closes the distance, pressing a soft, careful kiss to Ice's lips.

Ice lets out a pained little sound, before he all but melts into the contact, into the solid, warm proof that Mav is okay. That he'll be fine. That no matter what he went through, he'd come home to him. Mav doesn't pull away, kissing him slow and soft and grounding, for as long as Ice needs.

Even though he can't quite catch a full breath with those ribs.

Ice pulls away when he notices the slightly pained wheeze, but he smiles at Mav, warm and fond. "I love you, Pete," he whispers.

"Love you too, Tom," Maverick murmurs, his green eyes bright with adoration, with devotion.

What had Ice done to deserve him?

He might never know, but he'd never stop trying to be worthy of Mav's love, all the same. For now, he just revels in the warmth of his presence, of his reassurance that he was here.

That he'd be okay.

Chapter Text

Phoenix thought being on the carrier before the mission was weird. After is that feeling turned up to a thousand. There's a strange mix of not having anything to do, coupled with reports to write, mixed in with celebration and a dose of hero worship, all at once.

All while the rest of the carrier continued on its merry way, like it was just another Tuesday.

They're heading east though, not north, so at least it seems they may not be forced to fly back from Alaska this time.

She supposed that made sense - they're not on a timetable anymore. The mission had been pushed up, too, so they're not expected back for another two weeks regardless.

Plus, she'd bet it probably looks good for international relations for them to pull a carrier strike group away from the nation they'd just bombed. It looked more like de-escalation than trying to start something larger.

Either way, they'd done their part. And once they got back to land, they'd…go back to their squadrons, and carry on like none of this had happened. Like they hadn't had their lives irrevocably changed by the past month, by the time spent training with each other, by the mission itself. By thinking their Captain and friend had died, only for the two of them to miraculously return, in nearly one piece, in a plane so ancient that only one country still had any airworthy ones left.

How was she supposed to go back to her revolving retinue of ever-changing backseaters? None of them got her, none of them clicked with her the way Bob had. None of them had stared death in the face and come out the other side with her.

She doesn't want to fly with anyone else. But that wasn't exactly up to her, was it.

Hell, she doesn't even know if Bob feels the same. She'd like to think he does, but it wouldn't be fair to assume.

In any case, there wasn't any point in borrowing trouble. They might as well enjoy what time they had left together before they were scattered across the globe again.

The first few days after the mission had been full of meetings, repeat debriefs, pointed questions, and mission reports.

Through it all, they hadn't let her go and visit Rooster. She'd been able to drop off his phone, but that had been it. Eventually they figured out - from Hangman of all people, what the fuck? - that Rooster and Mav had been put in a room together, and that's why Rooster couldn't have visitors.

Hangman wouldn't elaborate when pressed on how the hell he'd found that out, just looking smug about it instead. But it was a better expression than the haunted thousand-yard stare he'd had before, so Phoenix figured they could put up with it, just this once.

By the time they finally let Rooster go, she's debating plotting a break-in of the infirmary just to try and get eyes on him. He hadn't texted again since that first time when he told Fanboy he'd lost, and Phoenix is sure he probably has a concussion, because otherwise he'd almost certainly be texting them out of boredom. The only reason he wouldn't is if looking at screens hurt him.

Suffice it to say, when he finally surfaces, Phoenix is about ready to tackle him into the floor and send him right back in. She restrains herself, because she's a good friend like that, and instead just drags him in for a tight hug.

He looks surprised, but hugs her back, and lets her drag him to the mess where she's pretty sure the rest of their squad will be. They'll all want to see him.

"How are you?" she asks, as they walk.

"Fine," he says, and when she glares at him, he holds his other hand up in surrender. "I'll be alright," he amends. "Low-grade concussion and some bruised ribs. As long as I take it easy, they were willing to let me out."

Phoenix nods thoughtfully. "How's Mav?" she asks, softer.

"He's…in rough shape," Rooster says, looking away from her. The uniformly painted walls of the carrier are suddenly incredibly fascinating to him, apparently. "Think he'll be okay, but it was dicey for a bit. His ribs are a mess, and he got shot at some point, took a couple bullets that I think he then ran with."

"What?" Phoenix asks, stunned.

"I don't think he got hit during the dogfight in the end. I think he got hit right before I was able to blow that helicopter out of the sky," he sighs.

"What heli- okay y'know what, I'll do you a favor and only make you tell the story once. Let's go find the others," she says, shaking her head.

Now that she knows Mav will be okay, they'll all want to know the story of what had to be an absolutely unbelievable escape.

"So gracious of you," Rooster replies drily, though he's smiling.

"You know it," she says primly. "I'm generous like that."

Fuck, she missed him. She's so glad he made it back.

He snorts, and then she laughs, and then they're both laughing there in the hallway. At least until Rooster winces, wheezing, and has to stop himself so he doesn't hurt his ribs worse.

The other Daggers - and she's found they all call themselves that, even those who had been reserve and didn't actually fly the mission - are in fact in the mess, and she waves to them. She watches the way they all perk up at the sight of Rooster looming over her shoulder, and Fanboy and Payback leap out of their seats to come over to him.

"Rooster! You're alive," Payback says, grinning warm and wide.

"You already knew that," Rooster says, clapping him on the shoulder, grinning back.

"Could've been someone using your phone. No way for us to know it was really you until we saw you," Fanboy insists, very seriously, though he can't quite keep a straight face as he says it.

"And who would that have been?" Rooster asks, an eyebrow raised.

"Mav?" Fanboy offers.

"Mav has no idea about the bet," Rooster counters, crossing his arms.

Fanboy tips his head, conceding the point.

"I doubt he could've typed any coherent messages when I was texting you all, in any case," Rooster adds. He follows them back to their table, and Phoenix nods, dipping away to go grab some food for them both while Rooster goes and greets everyone.

By the time she comes back, two trays in hand - turns out being a local hero meant you could get away with taking an extra serving of food if you said it was for another of the heroes - they've all settled down from welcoming Rooster back. She sets the tray in front of him, noting distantly how Hangman keeps glancing at Rooster when he thinks no one's paying attention.

Phoenix is paying attention.

She's just biding her time for whenever she decides to strike about it.

"Go on, Bradshaw, it's storytime. What the hell happened out there?" Phoenix asks, nudging him with her hip, very politely not elbowing him in the ribs.

Rooster shakes his head, though it's more at himself than anything else. "I'm not even sure I believe it all. None of you will," he says, though his lip curls up at the corner in fond amusement.

"Try us," Phoenix replies. "You made it back in an F-14. We all saw it. Fill us in on the rest." They had to believe it, because they'd seen the reality of it.

So Rooster does, starting with the fact that he found a helicopter trying to turn Mav into Swiss cheese and going into how they just walked into an enemy base and took the F-14. Without any resistance.

In fact, the greatest resistance had been the towers that snapped their landing gear off - Phoenix had been curious about how they'd lost it. It seemed a strange thing to lose in a dogfight.

"He took off from the taxiway," Phoenix repeats, shaking her head in shock.

"Like an insane person, yes," Rooster agrees, wearily.

"How did he know he'd have enough runway with an F-14?" Fanboy asks, stunned.

"I don't think he did," Rooster admits. "The runways were fucked. We didn't really have any other options. And I got the feeling he'd rather plow into those towers than let us get captured," he says, a little softer, like he wonders about that, like he isn't quite sure.

"And then what happened?" Bob asks, giving Rooster a calculated out so he doesn't have to stew on that thought too long.

Rooster glances at him with a look of appreciation, straightening up. "Then those two bandits caught up with us," he says. "We pretended our radio was out, but Mav couldn't understand their hand signals, and I couldn't see them, so they started maneuvering behind us. And then I convinced him to turn it into a dogfight," he says, looking back down to his tray and taking a few bites.

"You convinced him?" Coyote asks, an eyebrow raised.

"He wanted us to eject. Didn't want to get in a dogfight with me in his backseat," Rooster says softly, and that seems to be all he wants to say on that topic.

"How the hell did Mav take down two SU-57's in an F-14?" asks Payback.

"Had the advantage of surprise for the first one," Rooster explains. "He shot the tail apart until it started going down, and then he used it as a shield when the other one shot a missile at us," he says, shaking his head like he still can't quite believe it. "Second one was harder. Mav dove us into a canyon he hadn't seen before, had to pull some shit to get behind the bandit, and took him out with the guns too."

"He flew blind through a canyon? At speed? In a fucking dogfight? In a thirty-year-old jet?" Each question is more exasperated than the last. Phoenix stares at him. They all knew Mav was on another level. This was- this was something else. Insanity wrapped around a set of instincts so refined that it was unheard of.

"Yeah," Rooster replies. "He did. We thought we were home free after that, but…"

"But there was a third bogey," Halo murmurs.

Rooster's gaze snaps to her in what looks like surprise, but he nods to that, too. "Yeah. And we were out of ammo. I heard tone the second before Hangman blew up that guy," he admits.

Hangman's gaze snaps to him, eyes widening. "Shit, Bradshaw," he breathes. "We cut it that close?"

"Yeah. Mav drew it out for as long as he could until we ran out of flares. He was trying to get us altitude to eject, but the handles were busted," Rooster says, his lip twisting a little.

"Fuck," Hangman says, very eloquently.

Phoenix agrees wholeheartedly.

"It's a good thing Admiral Kazansky was here, then," Halo murmurs, mostly to herself, but the rest of the table is quiet enough that they all hear it anyway. She looks up, surprised at everyone's attention on her, and then continues, "He heard 'Rooster's supersonic' and 'F-14 Tomcat' and got them to launch Hangman immediately. Like, instantly."

Phoenix swallows hard. If the COMPACFLT hadn't been there, if Mav's wingman hadn't known exactly what that meant, they'd have lost them both.

Rooster's smiling a little, though. It's haunted, and pained at the edges, but it's there all the same. "I swear, Mav's got more lives than a stray cat," he says, shaking his head in awe.

"Think I heard someone say one of the brass told him to his face that 'despite his best efforts, he refuses to die'," Yale snorts.

"Sounds about right," Rooster agrees, taking a sip of the still-warm coffee Phoenix had acquired for him. He looks gratefully over at her, and she smiles back at him. It's the literal least she can do for him, now.

"Lucky for us that that extended to you, too," Payback says, nodding seriously.

"Yeah, the secret was to just go along with his insanity," Rooster huffs a laugh. "I can't tell if it's just unbridled audacity, or the most unbelievably lucky set of hunches that just work out for him every time."

"Probably some mix of both," Phoenix decides. The others at the table nod in agreement.

They stop interrogating him, then, and settle in to enjoy a meal together, finally reunited.

—

It's been a little over a week before they hear where they're actually heading. Someone mentions that they'll be docking at Pearl, which on the upside means they're almost there. On the downside, it means they will need to catch a flight back to the mainland. But that's a hell of a lot closer than Alaska was, and just one flight, so Phoenix would take it.

She realizes it also means they'll be docking today, and part of her is relieved. The rest of her is melancholic - as soon as they hit dry land, it just brings them that much closer to losing each other. It's not the first time she's been reassigned, or had people reassigned away from her - like Rooster - but she hadn't quite been through something like this with any of her squads, either.

The closest was maybe the shitshow that got her her callsign. When she had landed (crashed, technically, since the plane was not good to take off again) and her landing gear snapped and started a fire. She'd been trapped in the cockpit, flying a single-seater, and the only reason she hadn't choked to death on the smoke was because of her mask.

By the time she'd gotten free, her flightsuit had been singed, on fire along the shoulders, and someone had called her Phoenix as she sat on the tarmac being checked over by the medics.

Obviously, it stuck.

She'd stayed close with that squad too, but even that wasn't quite the same as this experience had been. That fire had named her, but this mission had made them.

She hadn't realized she'd zoned out with her bag packed until Bob appears out of nowhere, tapping her shoulder with a light, "Phoenix?"

She nearly startles out of her skin, but that reaction happens mostly on the inside. "Hey, sorry, were you trying to get my attention?" she asks apologetically.

"Just checkin' in on you," Bob reassures. "You looked like you'd gone kinda far away."

"Just thinking," Phoenix says with a little shake of her head. "It's going to be weird going back to our squadrons as if none of this ever happened," she adds, quieter.

"Yeah," Bob agrees, giving her a little smile. There's something a little sad in his gaze, she thinks.

She decides to just be upfront about it. "Dunno how I'm gonna go back to flying with someone who isn't you in my backseat," she admits, searching his expression.

Bob's lips curl up in a small, gentle smile. "Yeah, me neither," he says. And while she hoped that was true, hearing it confirmed is a balm.

"Could always see about getting a transfer?" she suggests. "I'd much rather have you with me than anyone else."

Bob nods to the patch on her chest. "You're with the Black Aces, right?" when she nods, he grins. "That should make it easier, we're both at Lemoore."

Phoenix grins back at him, warm and wide. "Is that you saying you'd want to?"

Bob smiles at her, something fond. "Yes, Phoenix," he says, because he can tell she needs him to be clear. "That's me saying I'd want to."

"Fuck yeah," Phoenix grins, and drags him into a hug. He laughs, wrapping his arms around her, hugging her back tightly for a moment.

"I went on a suicide mission and all I got was this backseater?" he offers, teasing, as he pulls back.

She snorts. "Not even a t-shirt?"

"Bet we could make some," Bob muses, the mirth clear in his gaze.

Phoenix snorts. "We totally should. Who needs challenge coins when we can make dumb t-shirts for our squad?"

"Exactly," Bob nods sagely.

She laughs, giddy with the knowledge that even if their squad scattered to the winds (for now), she might get to keep Bob, at least.

—

They dock, and Phoenix wonders how much of the detachment have never been to Pearl Harbor before - she certainly hasn't.

She's just wondering if they'll be here for a little bit as they walk off the carrier when she sees Admiral Kazansky and Maverick standing by a couple of SUVs - clearly more than they need for just themselves. Warlock and Cyclone are there too, now that she looks closer. She glances over at Bob, who shrugs, and they both turn to go to them. Payback and Fanboy are already by the cars, waving them over.

Mav's standing on his own two feet, and Phoenix feels those last dregs of anxiety she'd been holding onto dissipating now that she sees the Captain. He doesn't look great, but he certainly looks a lot better than the near-death state Rooster had described when he'd first told them.

He spots them, and the grin that he aims their way is so warm that Phoenix is struck by it. He'd only been in charge of them for a little over three weeks, but he clearly cared about them a lot. Hell, she'd known that from the day he'd come to find them in the infirmary after their own ejection, when he'd come to check on them and seemed so relieved that they were okay. And that had been after just one week.

Admiral Kazansky is watching them as they approach, though he stands by Maverick in a way that makes it seem like he's ready to catch him if he so much as sways a little. Maverick either doesn't notice, doesn't care, or is used to this kind of hovering behavior.

From the COMPACFLT.

Phoenix is starting to be certain that her hunch had actually been correct, but she doesn't say as much, yet. She figures she'll get a chance to ask him directly with the whole squadron around at some point in the near future - at the very least on the last night they'll have together, where they'll probably end up at the Hard Deck to spend the evening.

Warlock and Cyclone nod to Bob and Phoenix as they get to them and stand to attention. "At ease," Warlock says, and he smiles at them, something subtle but real all the same.

"Are we going somewhere?" Phoenix asks, though it's more to Fanboy and Payback than anyone else.

"Back to the mainland, pretty sure," Fanboy replies.

"Air Force? Or commercial again?" she asks, just barely managing to keep her expression even. There were too many Admirals around for her to feel comfortable bitching about their trip up the first time.

Payback shrugs, and Mav looks at them with a little smile. There's a glint of mischief in his gaze, aimed directly at Phoenix, like he knows what she's thinking (and very professionally not saying).

"Captain Mitchell," she says, smiling warmly at him. "It's good to see you. How're you doing?" she asks. She's sure he'll get asked this at least four more times as the rest of the squadron disembarks the carrier. She has to stifle the desire to get closer and hug him - even if she's sure he'd be happy to give her a hug, she's not sure where or how he's injured. She'd rather not make anything worse.

"Still kicking," Mav assures her. "They're even letting me walk around," he adds, with what appears to be a playful roll of his eyes at his superiors.

Only Mav would try to get away with something like that - and succeed, apparently. But then, he probably figures he's gotten himself some immunity for the moment, on account of his injuries and his success with the mission. He's probably correct.

"I was starting to think you were going to break yourself out," Phoenix says with a grin.

Mav's shoulders twitch with a restrained laugh - Phoenix remembers doing exactly that when she'd bruised her ribs once - and he shakes his head. "My jailer was too on top of it to let me get away with that," he says.

Admiral Kazansky raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed, but doesn't say anything.

Phoenix wonders just how much shit Mav's pulled over the years to make the Admiral look at him like that. She'd bet her week's wages that he's done it more times than could be counted.

"Rest of the detachment on their way?" Mav asks, looking past them to the other disembarking sailors.

"Should be," Phoenix nods. "It's not like we were here long enough to really unpack and settle in," she adds wryly.

Fanboy tips his head in agreement, though he's pulling out his phone, and the group chat pings - in obvious fashion, because of the three synchronized alerts the rest of them get. Phoenix glances at her phone and sees it's just him badgering the others and telling them to hurry up.

In the moment of quiet before anyone else gets there, Phoenix spots it. The ring. The ring that started everything, the one she'd only gotten a glimpse of, that Yale had apparently seen on the beach. Maverick is wearing it, on his left hand, in the open.

It's more than just a silver ring, and catches the light with something glittering and black that Phoenix might not have expected from him.

Bob spots her staring and follows her gaze to see the ring too. She can feel his surprise next to her, small but there all the same.

She wonders why Mav is wearing it now, why he wasn't before. Surreptitiously, she glances over at Admiral Kazansky, but his left hand is bare.

Rooster arrives before she can ponder that too long, gingerly holding his bag at his side, and Phoenix curses herself for not checking in on him and offering to take it for him. He'd probably have said no, but he also wouldn't have been able to stop her if she moved fast enough and stole it. She should have tried, in any case.

Coyote and Hangman are just a little behind them, and they catch up by the time Rooster gets to the group by the cars. The three of them salute the Admirals (and Captain), before relaxing when told to. Mav's smiling at them, and even Admiral Kazansky has what looks like the ghost of a smile around the edge of his lips.

Phoenix remembers, suddenly, how Rooster called Admiral Kazansky Ice in the group chat. He never answered Hangman's question about it, either, and pretended not to have seen it. She knows he saw it. She's certain he put his phone down right then just to be a little shit about it.

While she knew now that Mav had kind of raised Rooster - and boy did that explain a lot - it doesn't explain anything about Admiral Kazansky. Unless. Unless Phoenix was right.

Jesus fucking Christ. If Maverick was married to Admiral Kazansky, does that mean Rooster was also raised by the COMPACFLT?

She's going to skin him alive for not telling her this.

There's no other way to describe the look she levels toward Rooster besides 'glaring daggers at him'. He has the audacity to look defensively confused at her, wondering what exactly she's mad at him for now. She shakes her head once - she'll corner him about it later. It's possible she's wrong, anyway. Maybe they weren't married and Rooster just knew 'Ice' (she can hardly even think the name without wincing) from growing up with Mav. It's clear, at the very least, that Admiral Kazansky had stayed close with Maverick throughout the decades.

By the time she's done interrogating Rooster with a silent glare (asking questions he doesn't understand and thus can't answer), the rest of the detachment, along with Hondo, has arrived.

"Load up," Cyclone says. "We have a flight to catch." He looks as serious as he ever does, which makes Phoenix think they're heading for the civilian half of the airport. When they stay on-base, driving out to the airfield, she amends that to Air Force piggybacking.

The cars don't head that way either, though. They pull up and park next to a private jet. A fucking Gulfstream G650 this time. "What?" she asks, looking to Bob.

He looks like he doesn't have a clue either, shrugging at her. "It must have been Admiral Kazansky in that G500 last week," he realizes.

"This isn't one of the Navy's, though. Neither was that one," Phoenix points out, confused. Because the Navy did have a couple of Gulfstreams (though they didn't call them that) for dignitaries and the highest echelons of the brass. Which Admiral Kazansky certainly qualified as.

Bob nods in agreement, because it's obvious enough just looking at it. It's lacking the Navy paint job, and looks way too new. "Maybe we're just dropping off Admiral Kazansky," he offers.

That's possible too, except she sees Halo and Omaha get out of the SUV with Mav and Admiral Kazansky up ahead. Warlock and Cyclone get out of the next car to park, and Phoenix reaches for her bag when they stop. She doesn't quite dare to hope they'll get to ride in that gorgeous plane, even if that's what it's looking like.

They get out of the SUV, walking up behind Hangman in time to hear him ask Coyote, "That guy look familiar to you?"

Coyote hums, and Phoenix spots who they're referring to - what must be the captain of the private jet, leaning casually against the stairs at the bottom. "He's tall as fuck," Coyote offers.

The man sees Admiral Kazansky and straightens up, moving for him and pulling him into a hug. He's not in uniform - or at least not a service uniform - but the Admiral hugs him back tightly and Phoenix thinks she even sees a smile.

They get close enough to hear them as the man lets go of Admiral Kazansky and reaches over to wrap an arm around Maverick's neck and drag him in.

"Are you still a fucking Captain, shortstack?" the man asks, and Maverick seems to be (mostly) playfully trying not to get choked to death by him. "I've been out for at least a decade and I still outrank you?" He's laughing, and honest-to-god drags his knuckles over Mav's hair, as if Mav were his little brother.

"Fuck off, Kerner," Maverick grouses, though his eyes are sparkling with mirth.

"That's Admiral Kerner to you, Trouble," the man counters haughtily, refusing to let him go.

"Holy shit," Hangman murmurs, clearly having recognized the name. Coyote glances over to him, though he looks reluctant to pull his gaze away from the show happening in front of them - Phoenix understands. She's only keeping a peripheral eye on Hangman. "That's Admiral Kazansky's RIO," he explains.

"Retired Admiral, in case you forgot," Maverick huffs, twisting to free himself. He evidently moves too quickly though, because his expression crumples with pain at the corners before he can reign it in.

"Shit-" the man says, letting go of him all at once. "You alright?"

"Fine," Mav waves him off, grinning again. "It's….mostly good to see you, Slider," he says.

Admiral Kazansky looks supremely unimpressed by the whole endeavor, raising an eyebrow at the two grown men acting like children. His stare is frosty, and Phoenix can see even Rooster straightening up at it, despite the fact that he isn't remotely involved.

"I can just turn around and take my jet back home if you don't want to see me, Mitchell," the (apparently retired) Admiral says. "I'm sure United will treat you nicely this time around," he says, a grin pulling at the corners of his lips. He'd clearly heard about their misadventures getting to Alaska.

Phoenix finds herself wondering if he'd been the pilot of the other Gulfstream too, but she has no idea how a retired Admiral would have gotten his hands on enough money to own (he'd called it his) not one but two multi-million dollar jets.

"You'd subject Ice to economy?" Maverick gasps, wounded. "You'd ruin these poor kids' day like that? They're heroes, Kerner," he says, very seriously.

"No, Ice can come with me. So can the kids. It's just you taking United," Admiral Kerner replies easily.

Admiral Kazansky has apparently had enough, judging by the quiet, "Ron," that he sighs.

Admiral Kerner grins, gesturing magnanimously to the staircase beside him. "Your chariot awaits, Admiral," he says, seemingly to Admiral Kazansky only.

Admiral Kazansky levels that frosty glare at Admiral Kerner next, but the man seems entirely unaffected, just grinning back at him. He sighs again, and turns to the detachment, who have been watching the whole thing like a tennis match, riveted. "Go on," he tells them, his voice low and raspy. "Leave one of the couches for Mav," he adds.

They seem to all realize he's serious at the same moment, looking at each other in shock. And then they've got their bags in hand are heading for the stairs - it's only the presence of four Admirals that keeps them from racing each other and shoving their squadmates off the stairs to get in first.

Admiral Kazansky had mentioned couches. Plural.

It doesn't quite sink in that this is real until she gets to the top of the stairs and steps into the nicest private jet she's ever seen. "Holy shit," she whistles, and quickly moves out of the way as Payback complains behind her for holding them up. She throws an elbow backwards at him before stepping in and staring like a goddamn tourist.

In a sense, though, she is. This isn't their world. The jets they flew may cost just as much as this one, but it was like the opposite side of a coin. Millions of dollars spent for lethality, not comfort. She feels out of place in her uniform, stepping onto plush green carpets with intricate patterns spanning the floor of the plane.

"Are we awake?" Fanboy asks, and it's a good question, honestly.

"My dreams don't generally hurt this much," Maverick replies wryly from over his shoulder - the only person in the squad whose shoulder Mav could speak over.

The squad moves to get out of his way, stowing their bags in the storage compartments that were apparently left open to make them easier to find. It's a good thing, too - once they close them, the panels don't look remotely like they're meant for storage, they blend in so well.

Coyote and Hangman nudge past her, dropping into the first gigantic plush chairs they come across. Phoenix debates, momentarily, shoving Hangman just for the hell of it, but she restrains the urge. There's tables between the seats, most of them singles, one set of doubles, and, just like Admiral Kazansky said, a couple of couches. They leave those unclaimed for the moment, remembering the Admiral's words and letting Mav take the one he wants first.

The Captain smiles warmly at them when he realizes this, and he moves to sit down on the first couch, the one near the middle of the plane rather than the one farther back. He grunts softly as he lowers himself down, and then it looks like he all but oozes into the cushions. "Damn," he breathes, laying his head back over the cushion. "This is how you flew up the coast?" he asks, his head lolling toward Admiral Kazansky, who's looking at him with the smallest smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

"Almost," the Admiral replies, setting his own bag down by the couch and tucking it into the storage compartment there, before moving to sit next to Maverick.

"Are we paying Slider for this?" Maverick asks, and that's also a good question.

"Ironically, it would be cheaper than flying our own C-37, even if that could fit everyone," Admiral Kazansky replies. "Rest assured, it's not coming out of your paycheck," he adds.

"Yeah, you can't afford this baby on that O-6 salary, Mitchell, even for a short hop," Admiral Kerner says from up front as the stairs close up behind him, the door sealing itself shut.

"Neither can you, Kerner!" Mav calls up to him as the man turns to head for the cockpit.

"That's why they pay me to fly her!" Admiral Kerner throws back, and then closes the door so he can get the jet prepped for takeoff.

"Remind me why I put up with you?" Admiral Kazansky sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, nudging his glasses up out of the way with the motion.

Maverick grins like this isn't the first or even the hundredth time he's been asked this. "Your life would be so boring without me, Ice," he says, with full confidence.

Phoenix does a double-take, but- no, she saw that right. Admiral Kazansky just rolled his eyes at Maverick.

She drops into one of the chairs at a table, sitting down next to Bob, who's already in the inner seat by the window. It just shows how roomy the whole space is - he'd barely fit in an aisle seat on their way up to the mission. Here, he could look out the window and stretch his legs out to his heart's content. Halo is in the other window seat, and Rooster's next to her, smiling up at them as they sit.

"Ever thought you'd like a window seat?" Phoenix asks Bob teasingly.

"I used to, before I hit my growth spurt," Bob replies. "But no, I didn't think I would again," he adds, answering her question with a smile.

"Don't you technically always have a window seat?" Payback asks, tossing it back over his shoulder with a grin. "You know, in the back seat? It's all windows in the cockpit," he says.

Phoenix rolls her eyes fondly. "You know that's not what I meant. Though there's probably not that much legroom back there either, is there?"

"Nope," Fanboy supplies helpfully.

"What would you know about legroom?" Coyote calls over from where he's sitting ahead of them in a solo seat facing Hangman.

Fanboy flips him off, grinning all the while.

"Think we'll get in-flight service?" Payback asks, twisting around in his seat again to look at them.

Phoenix raises an eyebrow at him. "You see any crew on this plane? Somehow I doubt Admiral Kerner is going to be mixing Bloody Marys for you," she points out with a laugh.

Rooster snorts, shaking his head, but he looks like he's starting to relax a little, finally. He's still holding himself carefully, clearly sore, but he doesn't look so on-alert anymore, leaning back into the seat as he faces them.

Admiral Kerner informs them that the jet is prepped a little later, telling them to buckle their seatbelts for takeoff. They all comply - even the couches have seatbelts tucked away in the cushions - as they start to taxi toward the runway. The jet turns onto it without pause, evidently already having clearance to go.

"Hey Mav," Rooster says casually, and Phoenix's attention snaps to him in surprise. There's no barb, no hidden layer of fury.

"Mmh, yeah?" Mav asks from the couch up ahead of them.

"This is what a runway looks like," he says, entirely deadpan, turning around to meet the Captain's gaze dead-on.

Maverick blinks in surprise at him, and then he wheezes a sharp laugh as the engines start to spin up. "Noted, thank you, Bradley."

"Just thought you could use the reminder," Rooster says haughtily, though there's a smile pulling at his expression.

Huh. Maybe they'd figured their issues out. Or started to, at least? Rooster isn't tense at all, turning back to face them with what looks like a genuine smile on his face.

Phoenix smiles back at him, small and encouraging. He meets her gaze with a grateful sort of look, and she just lightly kicks him under the table, reassuring.

A couple of moments later, they're off, tearing down the runway until their wings pick up the air and then they're airborne. If it weren't for the sudden acceleration, Phoenix almost might have not even noticed. It's so quiet in here.

"Holy shit," she breathes, stunned. It's as quiet as if she were wearing noise-cancelling headphones on a regular plane. She knows this jet has some monster engines - for the civilian world, in any case - and for it to be that quiet meant a lot of work had gone into engineering the cabin.

"I'm gonna have a hard time trying not to get used to this," Halo admits with a little smile, shaking her head in awe.

"We're being ruined for commercial aviation for the rest of our lives," Phoenix sighs in agreement. "This is cruelty," she adds, dramatically.

Bob snorts beside her, lightly elbowing her, and she just grins wider.

"Am I wrong?" she asks. His silence is damning - she's usually right. She decides to be magnanimous, and doesn't rub it in.

They all settle in as they reach cruising altitude, grabbing the unsecured wifi and relaxing with their phones in hand. There's plenty of personal screens around too - including a large one next to their table - if they wanted to watch movies. Phoenix is almost sad they're not flying in this from Alaska. The flight will be over in just a few too-short hours.

She's zoning out, reading a book she'd downloaded before they took off for this whole thing, when her phone starts going off.

Phoenix looks up before the image even has time to load. 'Holy shit' is right, she has to admit, when she takes in the sight.

Admiral Kazansky is sitting at one end of the couch, reading a book that he has splayed out over the arm, one hand holding it open. That's not the shocking part.

Her gaze drifts down, to where Maverick is laying. With his head in Admiral Kazansky's lap.

She has to just stare and process that for a minute. And then she sees Admiral Kazansky's free hand carding slowly, idly, through a dozing Maverick's hair. An unconscious action, something that clearly seems to be habit.

Rooster hadn't been on his phone, but when he feels the shift in the cabin, he looks up at her, and then, seemingly caught off-guard by her expression, turns to look over his shoulder at the couch, following her gaze.

He goes still, but he doesn't look shell-shocked enough for this to be an entirely new revelation, in her opinion.

She wants to shout, but she very much does not want to draw the Admiral's ire, and somehow she gets the feeling that he won't be pleased with anyone who disturbs Mav right now. So she glares at Bradley and pulls out her phone, typing out a message while staring him down, not looking at her screen except to check the message before tapping send. And then looking pointedly back at him, waiting for him to pull out his phone and read the text she'd sent him.

When he doesn't move to comply quickly enough, she kicks him under the table, aiming right for his shin. He grunts in pained surprise, frowning at her, until she gestures with her phone.

She stares at him in shock. Holy shit. Then she glances back at the two Navy legends cuddling on the couch. (They really are kind of cute, if she lets herself think about it, and boy is that a doozy of a thought). She starts typing again.

When she looks up from her phone again, Bob is watching her with a curious glint in his eyes. She tilts her head in silent question at him, and he pulls out his phone too.

She finishes that little conversation with Bob, shaking her head in disbelief, and feels like someone is watching her, so she looks up slowly. She expects it to be one of the guys up front, maybe Payback leaning over the back of his seat, so when her gaze casts around only to land on Admiral Kazansky looking at her, she jolts in her seat.

She's pretty sure she looks sheepish, or at least apologetic (she hopes), but he hasn't removed his hand from Maverick's hair, and he's watching her with a raised eyebrow.

Like he's all but daring her to ask about the fact that he has an ace in his lap, asleep. And he's petting him.

She really, really, wants to ask.

Mav stirs then, letting out a rough groan that doesn't quite sound human. Admiral Kazansky's attention is swiftly ripped from her, and he tugs lightly at Mav's hair, like he's trying to pull him back to him.

"Mmnh- Ice?" Maverick rumbles, and even though Phoenix can't see his face - since he's on his side and facing away from them - she can hear the warmth in his voice. "Where'm I?"

"We're almost home," Admiral Kazansky replies, letting his book fall closed and leaving it on the arm of the couch. "Should just be a few hours left till we get back to North Island."

"Nice," Mav replies, his voice still sleep-rough but steadier now. "Where's-"

"Everyone's here, Mav," Admiral Kazansky reassures, resuming that slow carding through his hair. Phoenix wonders, suddenly, if that's for Maverick's sake or his own.

The reality of being right is starting to set in. Not because she and Bob are about to make a pretty penny, but because she's suddenly realizing the gravity of what they just went through. The horror of the fact that Admiral Kazansky watched his husband die on a mission. And his son.

Holy shit.

She glances back to the table, and sees Halo watching the two with an equally stricken expression. She's sure they're both remembering that debrief where the Admiral had looked…unhappy, sure, but he hadn't remotely looked as devastated as she'd expect someone would when talking about the fiery demise of their partner. And child.

And Halo had been with him throughout the whole mission. What else had she seen? She looks shell-shocked too - just how much had Admiral Kazansky been through and managed to keep a straight face for, that she's as surprised as the rest of them that he's married to Maverick? They all knew his callsign, but she'd thought that was mostly about how he flew, the way he maneuvered in a dogfight. Not that he kept that same demeanor through the most horrifying moments a person could imagine having to listen to.

She reaches for her phone again, this time texting Halo, too curious to wait for a chance to talk to her alone - who knew when that would be?

Christ. The fortitude it must take to remain impassive and unaffected through all of that? Admiral Kazansky was a legend for hundreds of reasons, but Phoenix thought this might take the cake in earning her awe. He clearly wasn't unfeeling - she could see that in the gentle way he handled Mav, in the way he turned all his attention to him. That only left an ironclad control, one so fierce that he could tamp down any emotional reaction and allow a mission to continue as it should.

He could have ordered Hangman to launch and go back for them, and he didn't. Not until he had proof solid enough that they were still alive to make it worth risking another life.

Hell, he could have refused to let Mav fly in the first place. He could have vetoed his 'promotion' to Team Leader. That hadn't been the plan to start, and probably no one would have thought twice about Admiral Kazansky refusing to let him fly it.

She doesn't want to think about how that mission would have gone without Mav there. It may have been fine, but it may have gone much worse. They may not have succeeded at all. They may have all gotten shot down on the way out. She'd seen Mav swoop past some of the SAM launchers he definitely could have avoided. She hadn't understood during the flight, but at some point she realized he did it so that they'd launch missiles at him and hopefully not have any left to fire at the rest of the Daggers.

Admiral Kazansky had been willing to risk his whole family to protect the rest of them and to ensure the mission would succeed, to safeguard the world. Had been willing to send them somewhere he couldn't go, somewhere he couldn't protect them.

Phoenix isn't sure she'd be able to make the same call, in his place. She looks around the table, at the people she cares about, and she's actually certain she wouldn't be able to make that call. It was one thing to fly into hell with them, knowing she could do something at their wing to bring them home. Sending them off where she couldn't follow? That would be torture. And then having to listen to it all go to hell? An absolute nightmare scenario.

She lets her gaze drift back to the couch when movement in the periphery catches her eye, and she sees Mav has since rolled onto his back. He's gone no farther, still laying in Admiral Kazansky's lap, talking softly, moving his hands for emphasis. A flash of silver catches the light, drawing her attention to the ring she'd glimpsed earlier.

Phoenix frowns thoughtfully, looking at the Admiral again, but his left hand is still bare. There's no ring there.

What does that mean?

A flash of gold catches her eye then, on the hand Admiral Kazansky still has in Mav's hair. One is a USNA class ring, she can recognize that easily enough, worn on his middle finger. Next to it, though, is a ring that looks a lot like Mav's, only in gold.

Huh.

She's just debating looking up what a wedding ring (it has to be one, right?) worn on the right hand means when she sees Jake's chair start to spin toward them to face the rest of the plane.

"Hey, Maverick," he says, casual and at ease, his Southern accent spooling through.

"Yeah, Jake?" Mav asks, turning his head a little to look at him, though he doesn't move enough to dislodge Admiral Kazansky's hand.

"Were you ever going to tell us the COMPACFLT is your husband?" he asks, and Phoenix hides the little laugh that blunt question pulls from her behind a hand.

Admiral Kazansky raises an eyebrow at him, though there's a curl to the corner of his lip that makes it look like he's…amused?

Maverick grins, warm and mischievous. "What, and ruin your game?"

Whoever was pretending to not be paying attention to the conversation suddenly is, and Maverick has at least eight Daggers staring him down - everyone except the four stuck on the couch in the back of the plane.

"What?" Coyote asks, stunned.

Maverick snorts. "You kids aren't that subtle," he says wryly. "More than one of you tried to ask me about a partner back home."

Said aviators looked only a little sheepish - except for Bob, who just looked unsurprised. When Phoenix glances at him, he shrugs. He'd been the most direct when he asked, he'd wager, so he isn't surprised that if anyone else did, Maverick had gotten suspicious, clearly.

"So, did anyone win?" Maverick continues, curious. His gaze flicks over to Rooster, and Phoenix would bet that he's wondering how much Rooster played into the bet or not.

Does he even know Rooster had no idea?

"Phoenix and Bob," Fanboy supplies.

Maverick's smug grin turns to her, and he looks…proud? "Had a feeling you'd get it," he says, which explains absolutely nothing but makes her feel all warm inside anyway.

Mav props an elbow under himself and starts to lever himself up a little. Admiral Kazansky pulls his hand from his hair to help him get himself the rest of the way upright. He adjusts to sit next to Admiral Kazansky then, pressed up to his side and taking his hand.

Phoenix notes, then, that Admiral Kazansky's ring being on his right hand means that when Mav holds it, their two rings sit side by side, perfect complements.

"Go on then, what were the other bets?" Mav asks, grinning.

"Uh…" Payback says, and Phoenix can all but see the way he's furtively glancing around the cabin. He's probably trying really hard to not look at Warlock up front, or at where Cyclone is sitting in the back, behind a divider and at an actual desk.

Maverick's eyebrow arches, and he gets a look on his face that Phoenix can only define as 'trouble'. "This is gonna be good," he says, with a touch of unholy glee. "C'mon, what were the bets?"

Coyote clearly has his phone out, because he starts reading from the shared note they'd used. "Fanboy voted for Penny," he starts.

Maverick chokes on a snort. "What?" he laughs. "Why?"

Fanboy stalls for a moment with a wordless sound. Phoenix peers around her seat to see him glancing around the room, likely wondering if the statute of limitations was up on Mav's joyride. But then, he'd (maybe) stolen an F-18 literally a few days back, so it's probably fine. "She told us you took her in up in an F-18 when we asked her for stories about you," he finally says.

"Of course she did," Maverick snorts.

"Wait-" Payback says. "She'd said you didn't need her help because you 'already had a guardian angel of your own'," he says, looking curiously to Admiral Kazansky.

Maverick's grin turns all fond and warm. "Yeah, I do. Don't I, angel?" he asks, tipping his head back and up to look at the Admiral, who is managing to keep a straight face, though something softens in his gaze when it meets Mav's.

"You're welcome," Admiral Kazansky says drily, squeezing his hand.

"Omaha, Halo, Harvard, and I voted for Hondo," Coyote continues after a moment, sounding a little sheepish when Hondo, who'd been sitting across from him, whips around to look at them all.

"What- me?" he asks, stunned.

Maverick looks like he's having the time of his life.

"You showed up to North Island with him," Coyote shrugs. "And you helped arrange our beach excursion. You also didn't look surprised when he showed up to fly the course himself that day."

Hondo tips his head in concession, though he looks over to Admiral Kazansky with a private, knowing smile. "I've been watching Mav's back for years."

"You can just say you're my handler, Hondo," Mav fires back, grinning warmly at his friend. "Wasn't hard to figure out Ice gave you that job after you followed me to a second posting," he says, with an amused roll of his eyes.

Admiral Kazansky doesn't look fazed by the accusation. "I wanted someone who I knew would have your back with you when I couldn't be," he says simply, and they all get to watch as Maverick almost literally melts. "And someone who would call me when you did something stupid so I'd find out before someone came to bitch at me about it," he adds wryly.

Maverick snorts, but he looks a little more centered after the second half, like this is a well-known fact, and probably the reason he'd been given in the first place.

"Who else, Coyote?" Maverick prods.

"Yale, Payback, and Fritz voted for Warlock," Coyote continues, ducking behind his phone.

Maverick just stares. So does Warlock, once Phoenix gathers the will to look up toward the front of the plane.

Yale and Fritz are on the couch in the back of the plane, and therefore not close enough to defend themselves, which just leaves Payback. He clears his throat nervously. "The other options didn't sound quite right. Warlock was cheering for you when you ran the course," he adds.

Maverick looks surprised to hear that, though Warlock doesn't deny it.

"That's not much to go on," Maverick points out.

Payback shrugs. "It's not like you were giving us any better hints," he counters.

Coyote saves him from having to further explain by throwing his best friend under the bus. "Hangman and Rooster voted for Cyclone," he pipes up.

Rooster seems to have forgotten he'd done that, because he flinches, his shoulders bunching up defensively by his ears.

"Cyclone?" Maverick asks, sounding startled enough that the Admiral himself peeks around the divider with a scowl.

Cyclone doesn't even look at Maverick for answer, glancing at Admiral Kazansky instead. The COMPACFLT simply shakes his head once. If Phoenix had to guess, she'd say that meant 'you don't want to know'. Cyclone stares for a little longer in consternation before he goes back to whatever he was doing back there - probably working.

"What, were you trying to throw them off the scent, Bradley?" Maverick asks, once he's no longer in danger of choking on his spit.

"Uh-" Rooster says, and Phoenix wonders why he’s hesitating. "Not exactly," he says.

Maverick's face does something complicated, then, his gaze troubled. "What?" he asks, softer.

"I was still kinda mad when we put votes in," Rooster says, looking at the wall behind Maverick. "Just threw a vote in wherever."

"You didn't feel like winning for free?" Maverick asks, a furrow in his brow.

Admiral Kazansky squeezes his hand again, and it pulls Mav's attention. The look on his face gets a little more unreadable.

"Ah…" Rooster looks like he's debating grabbing a parachute and going skydiving rather than being in this conversation any longer. Especially with the audience they have.

"You…didn't know?" Maverick asks, looking to Admiral Kazansky. The man doesn't outwardly react, but Maverick seems to find his answer anyway. "But you were invited-" he starts, and cuts off when Admiral Kazansky squeezes his hand a little tighter.

Rooster is looking back at the table, away from Maverick, his hands curling into tight fists.

Shit.

Phoenix should have seen this minefield coming. She hadn't realized that Maverick assumed Rooster knew.

Maverick clears his throat, and when Phoenix looks to him, he has his usual grin plastered on his face, easy and light. "You grew up in a house that Ice and I shared, raising you together, and you never looked back and thought we might not be straight?"

"Seriously, Bradshaw?" Hangman asks from up front, and Phoenix would bet that that's as much a chance to dig at Rooster as it is a chance to divert from the fact that he'd also voted for Cyclone.

"What? They had separate rooms!" Rooster defends himself, twisting his chair around to look at Hangman. Seresin continued to be the one who could get out a reaction out of Rooster the easiest, besides Mav himself.

"'Yeah I'm just raising a kid with my straight best friend, in a house we both share, very straightly,'" Fanboy says, grinning.

Rooster's never going to live this down.

"I can't believe you thought I'd marry Cyclone," Maverick says, shaking his head. He leans in a little, conspiratorially. "If anything, he hates me because he's the one with a crush on Ice," he stage-whispers. "I can hardly blame him," he says with a shrug and that crooked grin. "So'm I." He aims that last line toward Admiral Kazansky, who actually smiles down at him, just a little. There's a gentle warmth in his gaze, and it steals Phoenix's breath to see it.

She feels like she's gotten to see something incredibly precious.

In a way, she has. Just how much had these two gone through to be together? If they were together even when Bradley had been a kid? They'd had to hide for decades, and that hadn't stopped them, or made them quit the Navy, like so many had. They'd stuck through it, made it through, together.

"Rest assured, you're it for me," Admiral Kazansky murmurs, his voice a low rasp, clearly not really meant for their audience. They only hear it because they're in such a quiet cabin.

"I know," Maverick beams up at him, warm and bright. "You're it for me too," he murmurs, lifting their joined hands and pressing a kiss to Admiral Kazansky's knuckles, just above that golden ring.

Phoenix can only hope she'll be that lucky someday, to find a love like theirs. To make one.

Chapter Text

It's a bright Saturday morning, and the weather is so perfectly pleasant that Mav had to open the garage door so he could enjoy it, bask in the blissful breeze, while he worked on his latest bike. It's still early enough that the rest of the world hasn't quite woken up yet, the ambient birdsong not yet drowned out by suburbia's weekend activities.

Ice is in the garden, he thinks, but it's a toss-up as to whether he's actually relaxing with a book or if he started responding to emails again. He'd dodged the question when he came by a little ago to bring Mav a fresh coffee - and collect a kiss in payment.

Mav makes a note to himself to get the next coffee refill so he can actually pester Ice into relaxing. They didn't have any plans for the day, but maybe he'll suggest lunch on the beach.

He still isn't used to just how much time he gets to spend with Ice now, even around their working hours. He spends less time in the hangar, and definitely doesn't spend the night there anymore unless Ice is with him.

Still, he doesn't take it for granted. It's a gift, and he loves exploring the area and finding new restaurants that even Ice hasn't tried yet. It's a bit of a game of theirs, and sometimes it results in failure, but they've only gotten food poisoning once, so he's still counting it as an overall win.

It's just as he's wondering which restaurant to suggest that a delivery truck stops by the sidewalk at the bottom of their driveway. He only notices because he happened to be musing while he sipped at his coffee instead of actually working on his bike.

He doesn't think they're expecting anything, but they might just be stopping there and dropping things off at their neighbors' houses.

The delivery guy - one Maverick recognizes, because he has had the unfortunate luck of having to haul heavy parts up the driveway before - climbs out of the back of the truck with a large rectangular package under an arm. He does start to walk up their driveway, even waving at Mav when he spots him. Maverick toasts him with his mug of coffee, and steps away from his project to go meet him.

"Hey, how's it going?" Mav asks as he gets close, greeting him with a smile.

"Pretty good, how about you? That a new bike you've got going?" he asks, glancing past his shoulder.

Maverick laughs, though he's nodding. "Yes, I'm still going through cataloguing what I'm gonna need to replace," he says. "Heavy packages in my future probably," he adds apologetically, though he's grinning.

"I'll make sure to keep my dolly in working order," he snorts. "Need a signature real quick," he adds, setting the package down gently as he pulls his scanner out. He scans the tracking number and then turns the device to Mav, who 'signs' it with the worst single squiggle of the stylus he can bother with.

"Thanks," Mav says, reaching down to pick up the package, and straightening up in surprise at how light it is for the size.

"Any time. Have a good weekend!" the man says, turning to head back down the driveway and off to the rest of his deliveries.

He only has one hand to carry the package with - on account of his almost-empty coffee in his other hand - so he doesn't look at it closely, just taking the box in to the kitchen and setting it on the dining table as he passes it. He starts up the espresso machine, getting a couple of shots going, before he actually swings back around to look at the label.

In sharpie, above the printed label from the shipping service, is

To: Admirals Mitchell & Kazansky

From: LCDR Bradshaw & VFA-141 Daggers

Mav perks up once he realizes who it's from. "Hey Ice!" he calls, heading for the open sliding door to the backyard. "You busy?"

Ice has turned in his chair to look back over his shoulder at him with a soft, indulgent smile. The answer is, of course, always yes, but Ice takes special care to put aside whatever he's doing when it's their weekends, when they're both together. "What is it?" he asks.

"C'mere, we got a package," Maverick says, tipping his head back toward the dining table behind him.

"We did?" Ice asks, looking surprised. "From where?"

"The kids," Maverick says wryly, knowing they are very much not children. Even less so now, but old habits die hard. It's hard to look at any young aviator and not see them as kids after everything he's seen.

"Were we expecting something?" Ice asks as he stands, setting aside his book, his place saved with a little metal bookmark.

"Not as far as I know. I haven't opened it yet," Maverick explains, waiting by the door for him. "More coffee? I started another round of shots before I saw who the box was from."

"If I say no you'll just drink them both," Ice replies drily, amused. He isn't wrong about that.

"Let me go fix those up then," he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of Ice's lips before he darts back into the kitchen, pouring milk into the steamer and the shots into their mugs. Ice's mug isn't here - it must still be outside with his book - but he'd given Mav one of the two '2ND BEST PILOT' mugs they own, so Maverick retaliates and pulls the other. The milk is frothed in short order, and he reaches to fill their mugs, only to be surprised with Ice's arms wrapping around him from behind.

"Hey there," Ice murmurs, tucking his chin over Mav's shoulder and squeezing lightly.

"Hey yourself," Maverick replies, turning to press another kiss to his cheek. "Couldn't wait for your coffee?" he teases, as if Ice doesn't know just how much he loves that they can do this now. That they have the time to.

"Mm. Couldn't wait to have my husband in my arms again," Ice corrects, though he reaches past Mav to pluck his mug up off the counter, before stepping away.

"Who knew you were so easy to please?" Mav grins mischievously, knowing he's signing up for trouble later.

"You might be the only person on this planet who thinks that," Ice huffs with a little laugh.

Maverick's smile softens a little, fond and adoring in one. It's a privilege, he knows, to get to be that for Ice. To get to bring him joy almost as easily as breathing. "An honor I treasure, I assure you," he says.

"What do you think that is?" Ice asks, refocusing them on the task at hand, and the reason Mav pulled him from his book in the first place. He's pulled a pair of scissors from the drawer where they live, moving back to the dining table.

"Dunno," Maverick says. "It was lighter than I thought a box that big should be, though," he adds.

Ice hums, setting his mug down on the edge of the table and slicing through the tape holding the edge of the box shut. He untucks the flap, pulling it free. Then he pulls a sheet of thin styrofoam out, tossing it aside. Maverick moves to stand beside him, setting his own mug down just in time to see the edge of the item in the box.

It looks like…canvas?

It is canvas, he confirms when he lends a hand to Ice pulling it free from its cardboard prison. Canvas stretched over a frame, wrapped in another large sheet of styrofoam. The empty box lands on the floor with a light thunk, and they're left holding a…painting?

No, not a painting. Ice tugs aside the last layer of styrofoam to reveal a photo.

A photo of them, taken on their flight home from the Mission From Hell. Clearly neither of them knew they were being photographed - hell, Mav hadn't known any pictures were taken at all - given how they're looking at each other like no one else exists. They might as well have been alone in the plane, honestly, if Mav's remembering that moment correctly. The only evidence of the ordeal they'd just been through is the bandages peeking out from under the edge of Mav's shirt.

Silence has reigned for a few long moments, as they both took in the photo. It's Mav who speaks, finally. "Huh," he says softly. "Did they include a note?"

Ice turns the canvas, and there is, in fact, a note taped to the back. That's Bradley's handwriting, Mav thinks. It reads, 'Hey Dads. Coyote mentioned this pic one night while we were having drinks and we thought you might like to have a copy. Obviously you need more decorations for your living room (though you can always put it up in the hangar if you've run out of wall space).'

Maverick tries not to let himself get overwhelmed just two words in, but it's a battle. The fact that Bradley felt like he could call them that again strikes right into his core, and touches him almost more than the gift itself.

"We should thank them," Ice says softly, pulling the note carefully free and setting it aside. It'll probably end up on the refrigerator, pinned under a well-loved magnet, if Mav had to guess.

"Should," Maverick agrees. "Bet I can find a spot on the wall for it," he adds, glancing around the kitchen, Ice humming in agreement. Maybe on the wall by the edge of the bar, or behind the dining table. He steps away from Ice to go back to the garage for a moment, just to grab a hammer and an angled wall-hook.

His phone starts going off by the time he returns, and he pulls it out to check the notifications. He huffs a soft laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.

Of course Ice couldn't thank them normally. His penchant for finding mischief wherever and whenever he could was too strong. Mav smiles to himself as he returns to the kitchen, warm and content.