Chapter Text
Rooster wasn't quite sure what he was expecting when he pulled up to Mav's hangar. What didn't surprise him was Mav in his tank top working on some ancient plane. Mav was full of surprises, full of quick maneuvers and fancy techniques, but about this Mav was as cliché as they come. He had once heard him say that being a pilot wasn't what he did but who he was and while normally Rooster would roll his eyes and call bullshit, he can't really argue that truth when it comes to Mav.
As soon as Mav saw him he dropped his tool and flinched a little, almost as if he was surprised Bradley actually showed up. And yeah, that hurt a little bit.
"Hey, Mav." He said putting his hands in his pockets. A small part of him thought of how ridiculous this was. He grew up with Mav, he lived with Mav, Mav was his legal guardian for Christ's sake, and yet this was awkward as hell...
Because it was the first time they had willingly and happily agreed to meet in fifteen years. A voice in the back of his head reminded him.
Mav cleared his throat. "It's really good to see you."
"It's good to see you too, Mav."
The two just sort of stood near each other for a second before Bradley decided 'what the hell' and went in for a hug. If Mav was surprised to see him, he was sure as hell surprised to get a hug from him.
When the hug broke apart after what Bradley determined was a good amount of time, the two still stood awkwardly. Thankfully Mav invited him to come sit on the couch and grab a beer with him. The two went from standing in silence to sitting in silence.
"So Mav-"
"Bradley I-"
The two started at the same time. They both chuckled and Bradley gestured for Mav to go first. "Please, you start."
Mav cleared his throat. "I just wanted to say that I am sorry for what happened between us. I'm not sorry about why it happened, but I'm sorry I didn't do better at being there for you."
"Mav-"
Mav put his hands up, "No I should have fought harder to be with you still. Fifteen years is far too long to go with talking as little as we did. I just... I never had kids of my own and I didn't know how to talk to you."
"You did a great job when I was growing up."
He smiled. "I appreciate that." His smile left. "This was different though." He took a deep breath. "This was... this was big stuff. This was stuff that some families don't recover from."
"I didn't exactly help with that either, Mav."
He chuckled. "You sure didn't, but I should have been better. I just didn't know how to talk to you when you were mad at me."
"Mav, I didn't let you. This is mostly on me."
"No, Bradley. You had every right to be mad at me."
Rooster shook his head. "I did. But not for as long as I did. I think after a while I just learned how to live alone."
Mav gave him a small smile. "I think we both did."
"I'm sorry." Bradley blurted out. "When you pulled my papers it just..." he ran his hand through his hair as he looked for the words to say. "It just made me so angry."
Mav leaned forward. "I know, kid."
"No, you don't. I mean... you do but, you don't. When you pulled my papers all I could think about was how much I let you and dad down."
"Oh, Bradley."
"I'm not looking for sympathy, Mav I just want you to understand how it felt for me. I mean, Christ I was just applying to school. I wasn't going to be flying combat or anything, just going to the academy and you shut me down before I even had a chance to try. I just felt like a failure."
Mav leaned forward and put his hand on Bradley's knee. "First of all, your parents are extremely proud of you, pilot or not. If you father was here to see the man you've become, not the pilot but the man, he would be beyond proud. And second it was never about you, Bradley. It was about me not being ready. I couldn't let you go. Not after your mom. I never wanted you to feel like a failure because you have never been one, not to me and especially not to your folks."
"How bout when I didn't talk to you for fifteen years?"
Mav chuckled despite himself. "Well, that did hurt."
Bradley managed a sympathetic grin. "Let's not let that happen again, okay."
Mav nodded and the two of them sat in a comfortable silence until Bradley broke it.
"I know it was mom who asked you to pull my papers." He said with a sip of his beer.
Mav whipped his head around at him. "What?"
"I'm not stupid, Mav. I know how much she was against flying. And I knew as much as she wanted you to admit otherwise you were excited to raise another Navy hellraiser like yourself. When she died I figured she told you to pull them, and that look you just gave me proves it."
"Why didn't you ever-"
"Say anything?" Bradley shook his head. "Because I never knew for sure. And either way it pissed me off. If it was true it made me angry that you didn't tell me and didn't think you could trust me. If it wasn't, well then it made me feel like I failed you." He took another sip. "Either way left me pissed. I think I wanted someone to be mad at, and I could never be mad at her, so instead I chose to be mad at you."
"You never failed me, and it was never about not trusting you. I didn't want you to be mad at your mom."
Bradley shrugged. "I know that now, but back then I was an angry eighteen year old who had just lost his mom."
"And now?"
Bradley thought. "And now I'm someone who doesn't want to have regrets, and I know that if we don't fix this it will be one of my biggest."
Mav smiled and nodded at him. For the first time in the conversation he leaned back comfortably in the couch at ease. He put on his best nonchalant face. "So how was your hospital stay?" He asked innocently.
Bradley almost spit out his beer. "Oh my God, Mav."
Mav shot up his hands in defense. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out? Phoenix messaged me as soon as you were admitted."
Bradley rolled his eyes. "Of course she did."
"Don't blame her. Hangman was acting all jumpy around me and I threatened him with disobeying a superior officer if he didn't tell me what was going on. He ratted you out in record time."
"I always knew he was a narc at heart."
"But seriously," Mav said changing his tone into something less playful but still light, "are you okay?"
"If I promise that I am will you drop it?"
Mav side eyed him from above his beer. "Yes... and because I already got access to your chart."
"Mav!"
~
After that conversation comes naturally to both of them. Soon it almost feels like it used to. Rooster logically knows that they will still have things to talk about, that they will still need to have some tricky conversations, but for now they both just relax in knowing that they're in one another's lives again.
"So," Mav starts as he hands Bradley another tool. "What's going on between you and Phoenix?"
Rooster tried too hard to not change his face, giving himself away entirely. "We're just friends. Why?"
"Well," Mav shrugged, "I just happened to notice that she stayed at the hospital the whole time you were there. She also drove you there and drove you home."
"How could you possibly know that?"
"Contrary to popular opinion Iceman wasn't my only friend in the government."
"Well did your contacts tell you that Hangman stopped by too? I don't see you quizzing me about him."
"Hangman isn't your type. Phoenix is. I saw how you two interacted at the Hard Deck the first night you got back."
Rooster stared at him. He could try denying it, but the bad part about someone knowing you your whole life is that they... well, have known you your whole life. Mav was right and they both know it. Rooster tried to brush it off with a shrug. "Nothing is going on, Uncle Mav now leave it alone."
Mav stops in his tracks. Rooster pretends like nothing happened.
Rooster looks at him, "We gonna fix this thing or just stare at it all day long?" He asks with a smile.
Mav breaks into a large grin. "Uh yeah. Hand me that." He says pointing at a discarded tool on the table.
Rooster comes back and the two of them work until all of a sudden Bradley turns and there is a small child in the workshop. He assumes she isn't Mav's - he doesn't think they had grown that far apart - but the familiarity in which she looks at him throws him. It's only until he turns and sees the woman by the car that it clicks for him.
"Holy shit. Is that Penny Benjamin?" Apparently he is louder than he thought he was because all of a sudden three heads turn towards him. Mav looks horrified, the kid looks amused, and Penny looks un-phased as she walks up to him and gives him - of all things- a hug. As they pull back she leaves her hands on his shoulders and takes a look at him.
"Little Bradley Bradshaw." She says with a small grin. "You were just four feet tall the last time I saw you."
"Grown a lot since then, ma'am." He said slightly nervous at the attention she was giving him.
"I met your dad and mom a couple of times. They were good people, and from what Mav has told me about you throughout the years I know you're good people too."
Rooster just nodded. "Thank you ma'am."
"Stop it with the ma'am stuff, you're making me feel old."
"Yes ma-" he stopped himself. "Sure thing."
She parted from him and turned to where the kid was still standing. "Bradley this is my daughter Amelia."
Rooster reached out his hand to her. "My friends call me Rooster." He said with a smile that he hoped didn't portray how uncomfortable he was. Kids were not necessarily in his area of expertise.
"My mom tells me you're one hell of a football player."
Rooster chokes a little and Amelia and Penny laugh. Mav walks up behind him and puts his hand on Rooster's shoulder. "Would you mind giving us a few minutes?"
~
Rooster can't help but smile at the photos on Mav's wall. He had seen the old ones before all those years ago, but his smile came from the ones he hadn't seen. His high school baseball uniform, his photo from the Navy. His mom gave Mav the baseball one and Rooster assumes Ice got him the other one. He picks it up slowly and stares at it. He was so proud that day, so proud but yet he had no one to share it with.
"Is that you?" A voice asked from behind him.
Rooster almost dropped the photo. He turned around and saw the kid - Amelia - staring at him. "Yeah, from the Navy."
"Cool." She said with her hands in her pockets.
Rooster looked around the warehouse. "Did Mav and your mom..."
"Leave? Yeah."
"They just left us here?"
"Mav said something about taking a joyride and then they just left."
Rooster frowned. "That sounds like a very Mav thing to do."
Amelia scoffed. "Tell me about it."
He side-eyed her. "So how long have you known Mav?"
"On and off my entire life."
"Really?"
"Yeah," She said standing next to him by all the pictures, "him and my mom were kinda on again off again until they went off for like five years. Now I guess they're... on again? It'll all a little confusing."
Rooster isn't sure what makes him ask the question. "And what do you think about Mav?"
This time Amelia looks up at him. "He broke my mom's heart." She said matter-of-factly. "But... he seems like a good guy. This time something is different. He's not as sad as he was before."
Rooster frowned. "What do you mean, sad?"
Amelia shrugged. "When him and my mom got together all those times before, there was something different about him. Almost like there was something missing. But now it seems like that thing is back." She looked pointedly at him. "He seems happier. I'm sure you had nothing to do with that."
Rooster just squints at the kid. "Has anyone ever told you you're too smart for your age?"
"All the time."
After the weird heart to heart the two had, Rooster has to admit that he likes the kid. The two of them eventually order a pizza with a credit card Mav left behind and swap gossip, Amelia from her high-school and Rooster from Top Gun and the pilots now. Over the course of the night not only did Rooster realize that high schoolers had gotten worse since he'd been in school and Amelia learned that people can be dramatic even as adults, but they also ended up not having as horrible of a time as Rooster thought he would being stuck in Mav's warehouse with the kid of the girl he is probably, at this point at least, dating. At one point of the night she assures him that she can leave, that she can in fact take care of herself, but Rooster knows better than to leave a curious kid around a half built plane and decides to stay.
Eventually Mav and Penny get back, and he's glad he stays because the crap that he and Amelia give Mav and Penny makes the entire thing completely worth it. Later Mav will say that he was disappointed to see how immature he was when Rooster joined in making kissy faces at them with Amelia, but Rooster will just call him old and embarrassed and the two will laugh it off.
Mav pulls him aside and thanks him for watching her and gives him another hug. "You know you don't have to drive all the way back tonight, you can stay here for a bit if you want."
"I don't want to impose."
Mav stopped him. "I already imposed when I asked you to come over. Stay a while. I'll make sure your briefings are postponed. We have a lot to catch up on."
"I don't have any clothes."
"There's a Walmart near me. Plus," He adds, "I still got some of your dad's old stuff laying around."
Rooster smiled. "Yeah, I would really like that."
"And it will give you time to rest a little bit."
"Mav, I told you I'm fine."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Mav said as he put his arm around Rooster's shoulders. "I know that, but as my kid it's my job to worry about you."
At one point Rooster would have heard that and shoved it back in Mav's face. He would have fought him on it or called him out on it. But now, Rooster just feels peace about it. He feels, for the first time in a long time, that a piece of him that had been missing is back now too. As he and Mav walk back to their cars, Rooster looks up at the bright stars above and he can faintly hear Mav's whispered voice.
"Thanks, Goose."