Chapter Text
Bradley Bradshaw had been best friends with Natasha Trace for a very long time, like so long it made him feel old if he thought about it too much. They’d met in flight school at Lemoore Air Station when he was 26 and she was 22, him being one of the oldest of their peers due to the unforeseen circumstances that kept him out of the Naval Academy and set him back in his career four years. But that was another thing he couldn’t think about too much. They’d become almost instant friends, it was inevitable with how similar their personalities were in certain ways. Both of them had come to flight school with their walls up, guarded by hardass personas that weren’t at all accurate to who they really were, and they’d broken each other down by the end of the first day. They balanced each other out in a lot of ways too. She always kept him on his toes and out of his own head, but when he still managed to get broody, she was always there to listen. That was one of his favorite things about Nat, she never pried, never wanted more than what he was comfortable giving. He made her loosen up and not take life too seriously, which had been a big problem for her initially, especially when they’d been called to North Island after graduating flight school. Being a woman in a man’s world meant that she was always ready on defense, primed to emasculate any guy who belittled her, either verbally or through her sheer talent.
As their luck would have it, they’d been assigned to squadrons on the opposite ends of the continent after leaving Top Gun, with Nat going home to Lemoore to fly for the Black Aces, and Bradley being sent to Oceana with the Golden Warriors. Neither of them had been entirely happy about it, but as Nat suggested, “the Navy simply couldn’t handle the two of us together”. Despite spending every holiday and joint leave together that they could, their relationship had remained undoubtedly platonic for almost a decade, both too focused on their careers to consider dating anyone at all. She’d been his best friend (and nothing more) until a year ago. They’d spent their joint leave together in Greece after their squadrons had been assigned to exercises in the Mediterranean, and at some point, there had been this invisible shift. Nat had been far more affectionate with him than in the past, resting her head on his shoulder during dinners along the coast and linking her arm around his while they strolled through white stone villas. Bradley wasn’t entirely stupid, so he’d be lying if he said that those feelings for her hadn’t been locked away deep inside his chest, but he’d never let the thought of them get too far along for the fear of losing her. He wouldn't let himself fall for her if it was just going to be a lost cause, so he made sure never to let himself go. But she'd opened those floodgates and God he’d fallen hard.
Bradley had never believed in things like fate or destiny, but they seemed the most plausible they had ever been when he returned from leave to the news that the Golden Warriors had been moved to Lemoore indefinitely. When they returned home, things were perfect. They shared meals, watched movies, and he played piano for her during their free time. Things between them moved slowly, but Bradley had always liked taking things at a comfortable pace. For once in his life things finally seemed to be going right, but of course, he’d had to go and fuck it up.
Natasha’s father died of a sudden heart attack 6 months and 3 days into his posting at Lemoore. Bradley had been close with Nat’s parents for almost as long as he’d been close with her, as they’d insisted she he bring to their home in Fresno for Thanksgiving during their first semester in flight school after Nat had let slip that her new friend would be spending it alone. That was how she’d found out both his parents were gone, and how he’d gained two surrogate ones within a matter of days. Chip and Maria Trace had treated him like their own from the second they met, welcoming him into their home with open arms and food that could (almost) rival his mom’s cooking. He’d been particularly close to Chip, who had helped him fix up his dad’s old Jeep during his off time from school. Nat had leant a hand in the process when she felt like it, and when she didn’t, she’d always be parked nearby in a lawn chair with a lemonade for “moral support”. They’d been his only parental figures in a long time, and he relied on their emotional support throughout the years a lot more than he’d like to admit. So when Chip passed, the pain of missing his father went from a dull ache to the acute pinched nerve kind that left you gasping on the floor. He’d kept it buried though, which was something he’d been so used to over the years. He and his mother had been each other’s only solaces, aside from a few family friends for a while, so Bradley had always felt he had to stay strong for her. It had been easier then, as his father had died so early in his life that he’d sort of grown around the pain, but this time it wouldn’t be possible. He’d held it together for Nat for as long as he could, limiting the tears he shed at the funeral so she felt like hers could flow freely into his chest, and being the stone fortress she could take solitude in at night when her brain had unlimited time to think about how much she missed him.
He’d made it three weeks without breaking until Nat came into the guest room of her childhood home one night, where he’d been staying to help her and her mother since the funeral. He could tell she’d been crying, but was holding it back for the time being.
“He left this,” she’d said, holding out a rectangular box to him as he perched on the edge of the bed. “For you.”
Bradley could already feel the stinging of tears behind his eyes at the simple prospect of Chip caring enough to will something to him, but he was managing to hold back. He lifted the lid off the box to reveal a very familiar gold watch with an Italian leather band. He’d never forgotten about it, how could he? He’d complimented Chip on it during that first Thanksgiving dinner, and he’d told him with pride about how hard he’d worked to afford it during his twenties, pulling countless extra shifts at his second job just to get himself something nice. Bradley thought about how much it had embodied the person Chip Trace had been, hard-working, never flashy, and proud of all he had accomplished.
He ran his fingers across the perfectly polished watch face and it felt like something inside him shattered in an instant. He began to sob and Nat was instantly at his side, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head into his shoulder. He was numb to anything but his own grief for only god knows how long, just letting it spill out because he knew there was no way to put it back in. That was until he became aware of Nat’s tears soaking through his cotton t-shirt. Fuck.
The guilt set in almost instantly. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, she wasn’t supposed to be comforting him about the death of her father. Natasha’s grief was the only thing that managed to staunch his own because the thought of his making hers worse outweighed anything he was feeling. And the guilt didn’t stop after her tears ceased, or after she’d put the watch on his wrist and given him a kiss on the cheek goodnight, or the next morning when he arrived to base. He felt like he was locked in a mental death spiral all day until his Commander intercepted him on his way out to inform him that the Navy was taking pilots to combat the current Taliban offensive in Afghanistan and that he thought Bradley would be a good fit for the assignment considering his previous tours in the area. He hadn’t even hesitated in telling the Commander he wanted to go, knowing deep down that surely Nat would be better off if he were gone for a while. He thought he couldn’t let himself make things worse for her, but through his self-sacrificial bullshit, he would.
She’d been fairly composed when he broke the news to her that he was leaving a few days later.
“Oh,” she’d responded, masking however she was truly feeling. “How long are you gone?”
“Until they’ve decided they’re done with me, I guess, but I don’t think it’ll be too long,” he replied, having left out the part where he volunteered for the posting.
“Okay, well,” she said forcing a tight-lipped smile, “Come back safe, alright?”
“Yeah,” he choked out, his throat getting tight now that he was actually having to face her. “Yeah, you know I always do.”
Without even thinking about it, he pulled her into his chest like he had so many times before in the past few weeks. Her arms wound tightly around his waist as he rested his chin atop her head. He held her tightly, knowing just how badly he was going to miss her.
“Call as soon as you can,” she eventually said, her words muffled by his pectoral muscle.
“I will, I promise,” he replied, planting a kiss on her head before releasing her.
He turned to leave, knowing if he didn’t now, it would be all that much harder.
“I’ll see you on the other side, sailor,” she called after him.
He turned back to look at her one last time, taking in as much of her as he could in a short moment. The corner of his mouth upturned as he nodded his head, and with that, he was gone.
It didn’t take him long to realize how badly he’d fucked up by leaving. He thought he’d been doing a valiant thing, something noble and worthy of respect for once in his fucking life, but he hadn’t. Instead of giving Nat her space to grieve without him in the way, he’d abandoned her out of the blue with pretty much zero support aside from her few good friends on base at Lemoore. They were only able to talk on the phone every so often, especially once the decision came down that the US military would be leaving Afghanistan entirely, but he could tell she was struggling. She tried to hide it, that’s just who she was, but Bradley could read her better than anybody, and the guilt was eating him alive. Once he had to start flying air support for the C-17s that were evacuating refugees, the calls stopped. He only had enough time to get a few hours of sleep, eat a meal, and send the occasional “I’m still alive” text message, and he supposed that made running from his mistakes easier.
He’d arrived in Afghanistan at the beginning of June, and at the very end of August, he was finally recalled to his aircraft carrier. His last text to Natasha had been a few days prior, and the final US plane leaving Afghani soil was the biggest topic on every news station in the world, so he was sure she knew he was safe. He told himself that that’s why he never texted her and told her he was coming home, he’d just do it when he got back to Lemoore and not have her hopped up on anticipation. Except he wasn’t going back to Lemoore, as the ship’s Captain informed him. He was to stay at Oceana, where his squadron had been reassigned to during his time overseas.
Whether it was selfishness, guilt, cowardice, or all three, Bradley didn’t know, but the text to Natasha was never sent. He arrived back to Oceana and threw himself back into his training exercises in an attempt to forget all about the harm he’d done. He was so fucking ashamed of running, but after all this time, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her he was home. Hell, she was probably better off without him, and that’s what he reminded himself when he got the call to return to North Island for the first time since they’d graduated together.
He didn’t know what the special detachment was about, he was told he’d be briefed before training began and that was enough for him. He thought it could be good for him, give him time to reflect on everything, and maybe if he could work up the courage to do it, go see Nat afterward and beg for forgiveness.
What he hadn’t prepared for, however, was to hear the most familiar voice in the world call out his name as he walked into The Hard Deck on a Friday night.
“Bradshaw, is that you?” Nat called out from the pool table, knocking the wind out of his lungs. A quick scan of the area in front of him told him that multiple of their fellow Top Gun graduates had been recalled as well.
Pulling himself together, he sauntered over, maintaining the smooth persona he was known for.
“This is how I found out you’re stateside?” she asked, her tone jovial but the bite was still there. She was mad, but she wasn’t mad enough to slug him in front of the entire bar, so that was a good sign at least.
He could see Payback and Fanboy looking at him from their stools, so he nodded his head in acknowledgment, reinforcing in his mind that he needed to act casual, and not like he’d majorly fucked over the one person in this world he cared about most.
“Yeah, I just thought I’d surprise you,” he quipped as she bent over to take a shot. That earned him a pool stick to the gut, the force of which had him doubled over.
“Guess I surprised you back,” she replied, gracefully turning around to face him. Yeah, she was pissed, but at least she didn’t hate him.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, looking up at her with a smile. It was true, as guilty as he felt about everything, it never stopped the ache of missing her.
“It’s good to see you too,” she responded, ceding a small smile as well. It was just like old times, huh?
He patted her on the arm, going to talk to some of his old friends from Lemoore in order to keep the attention off of them, despite having so much more he wanted to say. Of course, Hangman had shown up, and he’d brought the same old bullshit as always along with him. They squabbled, and he could see Nat in his peripheral, watching and waiting to step in if need be, like she always did. Once a team, always a team, Bradley supposed.
He might not have if Bagman hadn’t finished his dickheaded tirade with some remark about loving the song that was playing, but Rooster suddenly remembered the piano. Without a word, he walked over to the jukebox and pulled the plug, eliciting groans from everyone in the bar. He made his way to the piano from there, toying with a small melody on the keys to warm his fingers up, and catch everyone’s attention. Natasha was by his side in a matter of seconds, clearly willing to let his transgressions go for the time being, and he couldn’t have been happier about it.
Like his dad, Bradley had a natural gift for the piano, although his mother had signed him up for lessons early on in order to help his skills progress, so he’d gotten really good at it. Some of his only memories of his dad were sitting on a piano, his dad and estranged “uncle” singing loudly to whatever song they could come up with, although his dad’s favorite was Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis. No surprise that it had become his favorite as well, and he’d made Nat love it too over the years. Playing the piano was his favorite thing to do for her, and he’d learned all of her favorite songs that could be played on the instrument, her top hits being Zanzibar by Billy Joel and Waterloo by ABBA.
He glanced up at her with a grin, and she returned the favor as he began to play the first notes to Great Balls of Fire. Cheers and whoops came from across the room as he began to sing.
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will, but what a thrill,”
The entire bar joined in with him.
“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!”
Nat leaned closer to him as she sang along, and he felt the warmth of her presence wash over him, not having realized until then how cold he’d become without her. God, he’d missed her so much.
The crowd at the bar began thinning out after the song had ended, but Nat had stayed, eventually sitting down next to him on the bench as he played some of her favorites. A few more drinks and several cheesy 70’s hits later, she finally got him to play Honky Cat by Elton John, a personal favorite on their playlist. The song wasn’t a duet, but they’d always turned it into one by alternating lines. Everything had been going just fine until he looked up at her from the keys.
“Until I saw your city lights, honey, I was blind,” she sang, her eyes closed with passion. She looked so happy it made his chest hurt, and he could’ve sworn something inside him broke again.
Muscle memory kept his fingers playing the melody, but no words left his mouth. Nat turned to look at him, about to playfully berate him for missing his line until she saw the look on his face that he wasn’t able to conceal any longer.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, quirking a brow as he stopped playing the song.
“God, I’m so fucking sorry,” he sighed, the liquid courage in his system making the words spill right out.
He could see the change in her face when she realized what he was referencing, and she suggested they go outside to talk instead. He nodded and allowed her to lead him outside onto the beach, stopping about 200 yards from the water before they sat down. The nearly full moon was all the light they had, but it made her gentle features glow even more than usual.
“Nat, I’m so sorry,” he repeated, forcing himself to man up and look her in the eyes.
She took a deep breath in and out before she responded. “I just want to know why you volunteered to go, and why you never even texted to tell me you were back?” she asked, the hurt on her face painfully obvious. He didn’t know how she’d found out he volunteered to go, and he probably didn’t want to.
“Your dad was the closest thing to a parent I’d had in a really long time, and losing him felt like losing my dad all over again,” Bradley explained, his throat tightening up. “I wanted to be there to support you but after you gave me that watch, I felt like it was the other way around, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you comfort me over the death of your dad, and the guilt was eating me alive, so when I found out they were looking for pilots, I thought I’d do you a favor and leave. But I realized pretty quickly that I’d only made things worse.”
“You think?” she chuckled bitterly, and it was obvious in her voice that she was getting choked up too. “I needed you. Whatever we were both going through, we could’ve gotten through it together, but instead, we had to handle it alone.”
He nodded and tried unsuccessfully to clear the raw emotion from his throat before continuing, “I know. After a few weeks over there, the guilt had gotten too hard to deal with so I just used the busyness of it all to run from it, and by the time I got back, I was too ashamed of what I’d done to face you.”
“Did you ever plan on telling me?” she asked, far more hurt than angry.
“I would have eventually, I just didn’t know how to say it.”
He watched as her eyes finally softened a bit, shifting from sadness to fondness, “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”
“Yeah,” he said, the corner of his mouth gently upturning. “Me too.”
They sat in silence for a few moments before he finally worked up the courage to ask her the question that had been eating at him.
“Look, Nat…” he trailed off a bit. “We had a really good thing going before I went and fucked it up, and I was just wondering if there was any way we could try again?”
The look in her eyes shifted and he watched her bite her lip in the way she only did when she was thinking hard or trying not to smile, and he couldn’t tell if it was one or both of those things.
After a pause, she said, “Yeah, I’d like that. But,”
He let out a comedic sigh and rolled his eyes, “It’s always a ‘but’ with you.”
Nat chuckled and continued, “You have to ask me in the morning when you’re actually sober.”
Alright, I can work with that, he thought.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied.
Still grinning, she checked her phone and realized that it was almost 1 am, and their first day of training was tomorrow. She’d ridden over with Payback and Fanboy, but they had left a while ago, so she offered to drive the both of them back to base since he was in no condition to do so.
“Sure,” he’d told her, albeit a bit reluctantly.
“Probably don’t regret teaching me to drive stick after all, huh?” she said, grabbing the keys from him. Bradley had been personally offended that one of the Navy’s most elite fighter pilots didn’t know how to drive manual, so he’d taught her.
“Yeah,” he replied climbing into the passenger’s seat. “Despite you almost burning out my clutch multiple times.”
She laughed as she reached into the console for a CD and retrieved Billy Joel’s 52nd Street Album. Nat popped it into the player before putting the Jeep in reverse. She still wasn’t the smoothest driver when it came to shifting, but thankfully base was only about 15 minutes away, even with the security checkpoints.
He felt a newfound sense of peace while they walked back to the barracks since the weight of his guilt was no longer weighing on him. Not only that, but Nat had agreed (under one condition) to try what they had again, so he really couldn’t have been happier with how things had turned out.
“Night, Phoenix,” he said with a small smile when they arrived at the door to his room, as they rarely used callsigns when it was just the two of them.
Nat then did the unexpected, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek before walking away.
“Night, Rooster,” she called over her shoulder as she headed down the hallway.
Yeah, he thought, definitely the best possible outcome.
- - - - - - - - - - -
The next morning Bradley felt like he was on top of the world. That confidence and bravado he normally carried himself with were back, and he let it show as he walked into the chow hall at 7 am. He spotted Natasha in the corner, which he was expecting, as she’d always liked getting up early for breakfast. It was now or never.
“Hey, Nat,” he called out, unable to contain the grin as he walked over to her table. “I have a question for you.”