Chapter Text
Rooster listens to his alarm goes off and groggily thinks it sounds different before he reaches out his hand to turn it off and instead makes contact with a person.
He peaks an eye open and quickly realizes multiple things. One, he is staring directly at Mav, his eyes blinking at him confused as if he too just woke up. Two, the alarm Rooster thought was going off was not an alarm but instead his heart monitor. Three, his head was killing him. And four, heart monitor meant he was in the hospital which must mean-
Oh. It’s coming back to him now. The ladder, the argument beforehand, the anger and sadness.
And Mav. Who was now staring at him. “Bradley, how you feeling, buddy?”
As far as Rooster is concerned, the argument he had with Mav feels like seconds ago. He doesn’t know how long it’s been for everyone else, but apparently long enough to worry the hell out of him. Rooster figures he can put aside his anger for the sake of Mav’s nerves. And for the sake of his head which seemed to hurt more every second.
“Head.” Is all he manages to grit out.
“Yeah,” a voice says from his other side, “you gave yourself one hell of a concussion, Bradshaw.”
He turns slowly and sees Phoenix smiling over him. If she had been the first thing he saw when he woke up, he would have thought he died and went to Heaven.
She put her hand on his leg. “Gave us one hell of a scare.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” He groaned. He tried to sit up and ignored both of their worried expressions. “What’s the damage?”
“Concussion, sprained ankle and some pretty gnarly bruising. You’re gonna be sore for a while.” Mav answered automatically.
“It also means you won’t be shipping out any time soon. At least not until you heal up some.” Phoenix added sympathetically.
Rooster groaned. “Great.”
“On the plus side,” Phoenix added, “you get to spend more quality time with me and Mav.”
He squinted his eyes at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she began, “you’re grounded for the foreseeable future, I’m staying at Fightertown until at least the end of next month to work on some certifications and Mav… well Mav seems to always be there so I guess we’ll all be in your business for a little longer than expected.”
“Not that that’s a bad thing…” Mav left the statement open on purpose, waiting for Rooster. The one thing he both loved and hated about Mav was how much he respected how much he was feeling. If Rooster still needed time after their argument, even though it was interrupted, he would still give it to him.
“No,” Rooster said, managing a smile, “it’s really not.”
~
Jake Seresin had gotten himself into a lot of trouble over the years. He can still remember vividly the disappointed looks on his parent’s faces after the fiftieth time they were called into the principal’s office or called by an angry or concerned parent. His mom always said he was payback for all the trouble she had caused her parents, but Jake just considered it having a ‘rebellious spirit’.
He settled down a bit after Becca died, but he slowly regained a lot of what he had lost ‘rebellious’ wise when he discovered his love of flying… and his love of ragging on his team mates.
In all the years of trouble, fights, brawls, and yelling he’s caused, absolutely destroying Bradshaw’s apartment hit different.
It had taken him and Bob about twenty minutes to recover enough to actually get into a vehicle, but once the two of them did they didn’t even know where to start.
“I guess…” Bob started, “we could go to Walmart?”
Jake turned to him slowly. “Did you just say Walmart?”
“Yes?”
“How could you possibly hate yourself enough to actually step foot inside of a Walmart?”
“I feel like you just offended a large percentage of Americans. Besides,” Bob added, “we broke a table, a TV, and we need cleaning supplies. Where else can we go that has all of that?”
Jake frowned. “Can we do a pickup order?”
“No, we cannot do a pick up order.”
“Why don’t we go to-”
Bob interrupted him. “What do you have against Walmart?”
“I just… I don’t like it, okay?”
Bob just frowned at him. “Are you seriously this prissy?”
“Did you just call me prissy, Bobbert?”
“Yes I did and don’t call me that.”
“Fine. We’ll go to Walmart.”
“As soon as you tell me why you hate it so much.”
“Because I have principles.”
“So does Walmart.”
“No, Walmart does not have principles. Besides, it smells like a prison.”
“It does not smell like…” Bob turned to him. “How would you know what prison smells like?”
“I’ve had a long life.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, I’ve never been to prison. But I have been in a holding cell and every Walmart I’ve walked into smells eerily similar.”
Bob just eyed him. “You are a child.”
Jake ignored him. “Just start the car and drive, Bobbert.”
~
Thankfully after he woke up and Mav and Phoenix were given instructions on how to take care of him it was a relatively quick discharge. This was not Bradley’s first, and most likely will not be his last concussion and sprained ankle.
Despite it not being the first, he still was not thrilled about being back on the crutches, especially since his ankle had just gotten back to normal after his last life-threatening incident.
“At least it was the other ankle.” Natasha said as the two of them waited for Mav to bring the car around. “This way they’re even.”
Bradley chuckled. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.”
The two stood in silence before she spoke. “Listen Roo, I’m sorry. I-”
He put his hands up. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“No, I do.” She said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I knew what Mav was gonna do and we pushed you to do something you didn’t want to do. I’ve never lost anyone close to me like that, so I shouldn’t have done that.”
His voice was soft. “You weren’t necessarily wrong.”
She gave him a small smile. “I know that, but I shouldn't of lied about it. We should have been honest with you from the get go.”
“I appreciate that.”
She smiled back at him. “So I’m forgiven?”
He smiled wider. “Always.”
“Good, now do me a favor.”
“Pretty quick on the turn around.”
“Go easy on Mav. He just wants to help.”
Bradley sighed. “That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”
She shrugged. “Listen, I may have not lost anyone like you have, but I do have an overprotective father. Eventually you just have to learn to live with the fact that he’s always going to be there to help, even when you don’t want it.”
“Yeah but he’s my dad and my boss.”
She put her hand on his shoulder as the car pulled up. “Just gonna have to learn to live with it, Bradshaw.”
He smiled sarcastically. “What would I do without your words of wisdom?”
She shrugged. “Crash and burn.”
~
The Walmart trip was mildly successful and the trip to the painstore was even less so. Jake and Bob stood in front of the mountain of paint samples in disbelief.
“They don’t have the color.” Bob said quietly.
“It’s like the most basic ass shade of light brown.”
Bob held out his phone with the picture of the wall to the salesman, who looked at it disinterested while popping his gum. “Yeah, looks like we don’t have it.”
Jake frowned. “Well can you check the back.”
The kid stared at him. “We don’t have a back.”
“Can you call another store and ask if they don’t have it?” Bob asked.
“If we don’t have it, neither do they.”
Jake scoffed. “You can’t possibly know that.”
He seemed to smack his gum even harder. “I do.”
Jake scowled. “Do you have a manager I could speak to?”
Bob brought his hand to his face. “Oh my God.”
The kid just stared at him. “Bro, are you serious?”
“This is a US Navy matter and if you do not help I have no choice but to-”
Bob cut him off. “Okay, before you cause a brawl in a paint store,” he said glaring at Jake, “do you have any color similar to this?” He asked the kid.
For a second the kid just smirked at Jake before he looked down at the phone. “We have a darker brown.” He said. “It’s not the same shade, but it’s similar enough.”
The kid went to get a sample and came back. “Will this work?”
Bob and Jake stared at it. “I mean… how often does Bradshaw stare at his wall?” Jake asked.
“Probably not often.” Bob responded.
“Should we just go for it?”
“I say we just go for it.”
“We’ll take three cans of-”
“Woah, three?”
“We can’t just paint one wall.”
Bob narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you suggesting we repaint his entire living room?”
“Won’t that make it less obvious?”
“I don’t know if that’s genius or idiotic.”
Jake put his arm around Bob’s shoulders. “And that sentiment right there is normally how I got through life.”
~
“Are you sure about this, Bradley?” Mav asked as he carefully went down the ladder, skipping the broken wrung, with a box of stuff in his hand. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No,” He said, putting up his hands, “you guys were right. I can’t promise I can donate everything all at once, but I guess I can… get rid of a box or two every once and a while.”
“It’s progress.” Natasha said next to him with a smile.
“Slow progress,” Bradley added.
Mav smiled at him. “But progress nonetheless.”
“Speaking of progress,” Natasha added, turning to Bradley, “do you think you could stay out of the hospital for a bit? Keep this up and you’ll get a frequent visitor card.”
“Trust me if anyone would have a hospital punch card it would be Mav.”
“Bold of you to assume I actually went to the doctor after an injury.” Mav said.
Bradley frowned. “You’re a terrible influence.”
Mav shrugged. “In the old days we had a nasty habit of just shrugging things off.”
“Between the two of you, I don’t know who to worry about more.”
“Definitely him.” Mav and Bradley said at the same time, pointing at one another.
Natasha just shook her head.
~
By the time Jake and Bob finish, they both think Bradshaw’s place looks… how it should look. Unfortunately for them, the first thing Natasha says when she enters is “What the hell did you guys do?”
“Whatsoever do you mean Phoenix?” Jake asks. “Also, welcome back.”
She walked over to where Jake was sitting. “What did you do?”
Jake just shrugged. “Bob!” She yelled.
Bob came running out of the guest room. As soon as he saw her there he put up his hands. “We can explain.”
“Mav is helping Rooster get his crutches situated and-”
“Wait,” Jake said standing up, “what happened to Bradshaw.”
“Well, that’s what I was coming to warn you about. Roo fell off a ladder, hit his head pretty bad and sprained his ankle. What I want to know is why you repainted and redesigned his apartment.”
“We uh… we wanted to do something nice?” Bob tried.
“By repainting the walls? Getting a new table?”
“And a new TV.” Jake added.
Natasha put her hands on her hips. “Seriously. What did you guys do?”
“We sorta…” Jake began.
“We got drunk and trashed the place.” Bob blurted out.
Natasha looked back and forth between the two of them. “You,” she said pointing at Jake, “I expected this from. But you,” she said pointing at Bob, “I am highly disappointed in.”
Jake scoffed. “Oh lay off it. Fifty bucks says he doesn’t even notice.”
She tilted her head. “Fifty bucks?”
“Yep.”
“I’m in.”
Jake looked at Bob. “You want in?”
He wrung his hands together. “Should we really be betting on this? I mean we did cause all this.”
“Yeah and we replaced it. Fifty bucks you on him noticing or not?”
“He’s a highly skilled pilot in the Navy… I’m sure he’ll notice.”
“He’s also got a concussion and is on painkillers.”
“I’d like to change my bet to not notice.” Natasha said quickly.
Bob frowned. “I’m sure he’ll notice.”
Jake grabbed his hand and shook it. “You’ve got a deal.”
A new voice called from the doorway. “A deal for what?” Bradley asked as Mav helped him maneuver his crutches.
“A deal for how long you can keep your sorry ass from getting injured.” Jake covered. “Not long apparently.”
He just shrugged. “Job hazard.”
Bob squinted at him. “Didn’t you fall off a ladder?”
“Semantics.”
“Hopefully he’ll heal up and stay that way.” Mav added from behind him.
Bradley went to the couch and flopped down with a sigh. Natasha, Bob, and Jake all stared at him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Does it smell weird in here to you guys?”
“Smell like what, son?” Mav asked.
He shrugged. “Probably something wrong with the AC.”
He put his foot up on the table and opened his eyes. “Wait a minute.”
“What is it?” Bob asked maybe a little too eager.
“Did you guys move the table back?”
“Yes!” Natasha and Jake said at the same time Bob groaned. Bradley looked between them.
“What’d I miss?”
Bob frowned. “Literally everything.”