Chapter Text
By the end of Italy, Bob’s almost confident in the fact that he and Hangman are friends. To be fair, it’s hard spending almost every waking moment of half a year with someone and not becoming friends, even though they hadn’t been flying in the same plane.
Besides, it’s not like Bob’s only friend in Italy is Hangman. There’s his pilot, Manchester. His list ends about there, but it’s not like it matters. Two friends is enough, especially when one is Hangman, who fills every available silence with the sound of chatter. He hadn’t realised how much he’d become accustomed to the noise until he’s back in San Diego, on shore leave, in the quiet of his house. He hadn’t realised how much he’d miss it, either.
“You were Top Gun in your class, right?” Hangman asks, out of nowhere. There’s a slight static to his voice from the phone speaker.
“Um, yeah. Pilot retired, though.”
“Oh, okay. Speaking of Top Gun, I’m calling in my spot,” Hangman tells Bob. “Do you think Cyclone might retire soon? Probably not. But they’re desperate for people, I think. Who knows, I might be able to get something going.”
Bob waits. Sure enough:
“And…” Hangman drags it out. “They might’ve heavily implied that they wanted a WSO.”
Bob’s not sure what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that.
“And?”
“And…” Bob can imagine Hangman shrugging. “I thought maybe you might want to tag along.”
Bob doesn’t drop his phone, but it’s a close thing. “Me?”
“Yep.”
There’s something that doesn’t quite add up. “Who’s my pilot?”
“Oh, see, that’s the thing. I figured you probably wouldn’t want to be saddled up with some rando—” Bob doesn’t mind that much, to be completely honest. “—so… yeah!”
Bob feels like he’s missed something. “Huh?”
“You’re my new backseater.”
“I thought you didn’t fly with…?”
“I don’t. So is that a yes?”
“...Alright.”
“Cool, ‘cause I already said yes for you. Thanks, see ya.” Then the line goes dead.
* * *
Three weeks later, Bob’s back within the halls of Top Gun, trailing dutifully behind Hangman. The jarring quiet surrounding him is again filled with mindless talk, this time about lesson plans and misbehaving pilots who think they’re much better than them.
More specifically, misbehaving pilots who think they’re much better than Bob, because he’s a WSO, and frankly easy to pick on, if Bob does say so himself. It’s not like it doesn’t happen on a regular basis, so Bob’s not too bothered. It stings for about ten seconds, then he lets it go. No harm done. Hangman, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to think so.
“Who the fuck do they think they are? You’re a million times more useful in the air than they are.”
I’m really not, Bob tries to say, but Hangman continues his rant before he gets the chance.
“You’re Top Gun, and who the fuck are they? A bunch of random showboating pilots.”
“Technically—”
“People these days are really out here having no respect at all. Half of them won’t even make it out of here alive, who the fuck do they think they are?”
“You can’t fail someone just because they said some things about me,” Bob argues, weakly.
“I’m failing them for being shit fliers,” Hangman replies, without missing a beat. Then he turns serious. “You gotta have more confidence in yourself, Bob. People like that are literally what they advertise as. Pieces of shit. You can’t keep letting them trample over you like that.”
“I’m not,” Bob starts, but Hangman gives him a glare that could level a mountain. He changes course. “I mean, I don’t really mind. I have thick skin.”
From Hangman’s expression, his new course isn’t much better.
“I’m used to it?” Bob tries, unable to meet Hangman’s eyes.
When he looks back at him, Hangman’s glowering at everything and nothing. He doesn’t say anything, though, and they walk into the lecture hall together.
The next day, the lieutenant who’d laughed at Bob hurriedly hands him a letter and practically sprints off, leaving him dumbfounded in the middle of the hall. Hangman looks all too smug for someone who’d promised not to get involved.
“I don’t need you to defend me,” Bob mumbles.
Hangman squints at Bob. “Maybe I wanted to.” He grins, feral. “Did you see that new movie that just came out?”
* * *
Bob, for some reason, had always assumed that Hangman would be a quick worker. When doing paperwork, that is. Something about how he was good at everything and liked doing everything perfectly.
And Hangman was good at doing paperwork and being perfect. It was precisely because he was such a perfectionist— as Bob soon found out— that he kept falling behind on paperwork. He agonised over every sentence with painstaking detail, even when it was obvious— to Bob at least— that Cyclone wouldn’t so much as glance at the reports.
Bob, on the other hand, had no such qualms about being perfect. He liked being efficient and fast. Which leads to—
“Hangman,” Bob says, setting aside his last file of the day and glancing up at the clock. “Wanna go get lu—”
Hangman’s desk is completely covered with papers.
“Nevermind.”
“I can’t,” Hangman groans, glaring down at the scratchy handwriting on the pages like they personally offended him. They probably did. “Have to finish grading.”
“So you’re not going to get lunch?”
Hangman shrugs. “I’ll survive. You have fun, I think you get the rest of the day off.”
Bob opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again. “Okay,” He says instead. Then he grabs his jacket off the hook and heads off, leaving Hangman to struggle over grading essays.
Twenty minutes later Bob strides back into their shared office with two takeout boxes of curry from the Thai store nearby and sets them both on his desk. Hangman bobs his head in greeting.
Bob hovers over Hangman’s desk. Somehow, in the last twenty minutes, the stack has somehow gotten… taller. And messier. There isn’t a single empty space on Hangman’s desk.
Bob could do a lot of things. He could eat both takeout boxes and leave Hangman to his work— the curry is good. He could leave a box for Hangman and eat one, then fuck off to enjoy his first half day off in weeks. Or—
He haphazardly collects the papers strewn around Hangman’s desk and moves them over to his own desk. He takes one of the takeout boxes and dumps it onto the newly vacated space. “Eat,” He says, reaching out to take about half of Hangman’s stack to bring back.
Hangman startles. “Oh, you didn’t—”
Bob shrugs and turns away. There’s a lot , and he’ll have to get started as soon as possible if he wants to be finished by the end of the day.
“—thanks, Bob. Love you.”