Chapter Text
If there’s one thing that Bradley knows (everybody knows) about Jake Seresin, it’s that he doesn’t do slow. Hates it. He’s an impulsive, full-speed-ahead, act first ask questions later kind of guy.
Another thing that Bradley knows (and a shockingly large amount of people don’t), it’s that Jake Seresin is a strategist. He’s smarter than people give him credit for, usually an easy ten steps ahead of the plan when he’s up in the air and simply lacking the patience to wait for the others to catch up and get on his wavelength.
So when Jake says they’re going to take things slow and then doesn’t let him do anything more than hold his hand the first few weeks, Bradley knows that he’s serious about this.
“You are still a flight risk, Bradshaw.” He’d murmured reluctantly after putting a hand against Bradley’s chest to separate them when the taller man went in to kiss him after the first week.
And well…it’s fair. It’s hard; because shit, they were together for two years and falling back into Jake’s orbit is as easy as breathing for him. But he gets it. Is willing to take whatever Jake is willing to give him.
So he waits.
Little by little, Jake lets him back in. Their back-and-forth bickering doesn’t go away, because that’s always been a part of them, but when Jake flashes that winning grin at him after a particularly witty quip, his smile is wide and genuine. His real laugh starts to creep out again and God, Bradley hadn’t realised how much he missed it until he heard it again.
They keep it quiet from the others, afraid to jinx whatever this is. He’s pretty sure that Phoenix knows; she did practically give him an intervention after all, but all she does is give him little knowing smirks when she catches him gazing at Hangman from across the room.
The first time Jake takes his hand first, slipping their fingers together without a word as they wander along the beach, Bradley feels like he could cry.
A week or so after that, when the younger man pulls him down into an endearingly gentle kiss, he’s pretty sure he does cry. Just a tear or two sliding down his cheek, swiftly followed by more when Jake wipes them away with his thumb and pulls back to press their foreheads together, softly lit by the setting sun in Jake’s doorway.
The first time they sleep together, it’s like they were never apart. They’ve been kissing languidly for a few minutes, hands roaming as the heat picks up. Bradley pulls away fractionally when he feels Jake’s hands drift to the buckle of his belt, blinks down at him with a breathless “are you sure?”
Jake just looks up at him with shining green eyes from where he’s lying pliant beneath him, smile curling up with a hoarse, “Take the shot, Roo.”
And that’s all it takes for Bradley to dive back down and claim the other man’s lips with his mouth, swallowing the absolutely gorgeous whine it draws out and shivering as Jake’s deft fingers make quick work of unbuckling his belt and jeans.
He takes him apart slowly that night, just letting himself feel the smaller man’s body against him again after so long. He watches in awe when Jake finally falls apart with a shuddering gasp, then buries his own choked groan of relief into the blonde’s neck when he follows.
After, when they’re clean and sated, Jake murmurs in a small, sleepy voice from where he’s tucked against Bradley’s side, “Last time I fell asleep with you like this, I woke up and you were gone.”
Bradley swallows down the rush of shame that he feels, stroking his arm soothingly down the golden skin of his lover’s arm as he reassures, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m never leaving you again…”
It breaks his heart a little when he sees the exposed relief in Jake’s gaze the next morning when he blinks open his eyes beside him, and the blonde wastes no time dragging Bradley back on top of him and kissing the life out of him.
Things begin to move a lot quicker after that, because they’re still pilots at the end of the day- speed moves a little different for them both.
They get bolder. Bradley teasingly brushes his hand over Jake’s thigh under the table one time in a debrief with Cyclone and the Texan takes it as a fucking challenge, sliding his own palm straight over Bradley’s crotch without taking his eyes off the presentation on the board and reminding him that on top of everything, Jake Seresin is a competitive little shit. Bradley tells him as much that night when he crowds him against his bedroom door. Jake just grins against his lips with a sly, “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Bradshaw.”
Bradley attacks his neck, mouthing at his pulse point and relishing in the way Jake jolts and gasps out a weak, “That’s cheating!”
Bradley just smirks and scrapes his teeth over the soft skin, feeling smug as Jake’s legs go weak and he has to practically hold him up against the door. He never said he didn’t have a competitive streak of his own.
And so it goes for weeks. Into a month. Just rebuilding.
“Earth to Bradshaw. Anybody home?”
A sharp shove to his shoulder has Bradley nearly spilling his beer, and he turns to level a glare at Natasha as the clamour of The Hard Deck comes flooding back into his ears because doesn’t this feel familiar.
“What the hell, Nat!”
Phoenix just quirks an eyebrow at him, “You’re just Mr.Daydream these days, aren’t you? Think we left your head in the clouds in the last hop.”
Bradley just rolls his eyes at her, shouldering her gently and leaning back against the bar, “Sorry. I’m paying attention, promise.”
Absolute bullshit. He has no idea what she’s been telling him for the past seven minutes, and they both know it.
But because she has the patience of a saint, and the killer instinct of a hyena, Nat just glances across the room to their teammates with a grin, “Wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain Southern Belle we both know and love?”
At the pool table (and really they should start letting other people have a turn before Penny gets sick of their hogging), Payback, Bob, Yale and Harvard are engaged in an intense doubles tournament. Halo is scanning the table with a calculating face, leaning across to hiss strategies and tips into Yale's ear that have him grinning like a shark. Meanwhile Fanboy rubs Bob’s shoulders like a boxing coach. Payback is practically sweating as he waits for Bob to make the next shot.
Hangman and Coyote are leaning on the next table in their own conversation, occasionally glancing back at the game to pull ‘bad move’ or ‘you’ve fucked it’ or ‘what the hell was that’ faces. Jake hisses between his teeth when Bob makes a frankly terrible shot, then smiles innocently when Rueben whirls around to fix him with the glare of a man who is taking this game very seriously.
“I’m going to get you an electric collar.” Nat’s voice cuts through his thoughts and Bradley can’t help but chuckle, hanging his head in faux shame.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I promise. Full attention starting now.” He even makes a point of swivelling his bar stool so that he’s fully facing her, beaming and leaning forward keenly.
Nat just scoffs and pushes him away, but her eyes are shimmering with delight, “Seriously. You finally gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Bagman?”
“Hangman.”
“Oh, you are inlove.”
Bradley rolls his eyes, tapping her on the chin when she drops her jaw dramatically, “Put your tongue away, Trace.”
He sighs when the little brunette just settles back into her seat more, eyeing him expectantly.
“We…we talked,” he explains, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, “And we’re giving it another try. It’s been slow going, but I think that’s for the best.”
Nat nods, face sobering, “You were engaged, Roo; It’s not like what you had was puppy love. That shit takes time.”
Bradley hums softly with eyes distant in thought, and Nat takes the moment to speak again, unusually hesitant, “You never did tell me what happened. How it went wrong. One night you were so inlove and then the next…”
And isn’t that the million-dollar question. He thinks of the whispers and rumours that had drifted around. Between Ice and Maverick and Jake it wasn’t long before it all got too much. He wrangled an assignment in Japan and ran away to the other side of the world, cutting off most everyone he knew. He was a mess when he arrived in Tokyo, and when he did return to US soil, his shell had hardened to ten times what it had been before. God knows what she’d heard while he’d been away.
“I fucked up, Nat,” he mutters, praying that she won’t look at him in disgust, “I really fucked up.”
Sensing that there’s something deeper, Nat grasps his hand on the bar tightly, any teasing gone from her face.
And Bradley tells her everything. He tells her about his rift with Maverick, Ice’s cancer, the voice message, how he’d looked at Jake and seen a million different ways he could lose him, how he’d driven off in the middle of the night without a word. The way his entire world had been flipped on its head and in a split second everything had looked different. How he’d been lost in his own mind and assured himself that Jake would find someone better in a month and forget all about him when he was shipped off across the Pacific. He hadn’t counted on people coming up with their own conclusions. Hadn’t been around to suffer the consequences.
“I threw in the bomb and left him to deal with the fallout,” he murmurs when he’s finished, eyes on the floor because he’s suddenly scared shitless to look Phoenix in the eye.
There’s a pause…and then,
“I never believed them. The things people said.”
When Bradley lifts his head, Phoenix has her own gaze fixed on their hands with a slight furrow in her delicate brows, “I knew something was off, more than just wounded pride. But after you left, he…he just wasn’t the same with me. He got cold. I tried, for a while, but he made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me.”
Bradley frowns, “You? Why?”
“Because you’re my person.”
Nat says it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, blinking up at him seriously, “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Roo, even when you’re being a dick.” she shrugs one shoulder, “If I’d been him, I wouldn’t trust me either.”
Oh.
Bradley’s eyes are starting to well up when there was a sharp pain in his shin.
“Ow, what the-“ he reaches down, rubbing tenderly at his leg where Phoenix’s boot has kicked him.
Nat just glares at him, “That was for being such an asshole to everybody who cares about you.”
Bradley winces as the pain dulls to a pulsing ache, “Yeah, okay fair, I deserve that.”
When he sits up he’s suddenly engulfed in two small yet surprisingly strong arms as Nat hugs him tight. Her subtle floral perfume clouds around him, and he sighs into her hold when she whispers in his ear, “I missed you. Both of you.”
“Love you, Nat.” he murmurs against her dark hair, and Phoenix sniffs against his shoulder.
Eventually she pulls back, eyes suspiciously shiny when she pushes off his chest like a springboard with a disgruntled, “ew.”
“Oh so you can get all sentimental but when I do it it’s ‘ew’?”
“I’ll kick you hard enough to send you all the way back to Japan if you’re not careful, Bradshaw.”
“Hey Phe!” Fanboy’s voice chirps from the pool table, putting an end to their bickering, “Come and rescue us, Bobby’s getting us killed over here!”
Bradley grins when Nat rolls her eyes at him, slipping off her bar stool and sauntering to the group where Payback looks like he was ready to commit murder or suicide while arguing with Bob about the importance of physics in the art of pool.
Chuckling, Bradley’s eyes drift up to see Jake looking at him with soft concern in his eyes. It occurs to him that the other man had potentially been watching his interaction with Phoenix for some time, and Bradley’s overcome by the sudden need to have the blonde in his arms.
Coyote has been engulfed into the fray now, head swivelling between Payback and Bob like he’s watching the world’s most entertaining tennis match, so Bradley seizes the moment and tilts his head to the door with a lifted brow.
Jake nods at him minutely, slipping away from the group and through the crowd.
Bradley follows on his heels.