Chapter Text
Somehow, she lands the jet.
Of course she does. She’s trained for this a hundred times before, over and over, couldn’t have gotten her wings without catching that fucking wire with pinpoint precision every single time. Doesn’t matter when or where, day or night. Doesn’t matter if the blood thundering in her ears almost drowns out her comms, if her heart’s fallen stone-cold into her stomach. Doesn’t matter if one of her closest friends just got himself shot out of the fucking sky.
She lands the jet.
It isn’t until Bob’s quiet, “Phoenix?” behind her that she realizes her hands are trembling. That she hasn’t moved. She yanks off her helmet as the canopy lifts, scrambles to unbuckle herself, quickly turns around.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” says Bob. His face is pale, his glasses slipping down his nose from a sheen of sweat. He looks just as shaky as she feels.
They climb out. Her knees are always wobbly after a carrier landing, but now it feels like the slightest breeze will bowl her over. Her fingers fist so tightly around the ladder rungs that she has to forcibly uncurl them when her boots finally touch the flight deck.
The crew surrounds the jet, a sea of somber, windblown faces. She catches sight of Payback and Fanboy down the line, drifting their way toward them. Payback looks at her and his normally open face is so still, so brittle, like if he allows even a trace of expression through, he’ll crack apart. Fanboy just looks sick.
Cyclone is a granite statue during post-mission debriefing. Mission success, he says, voice as stiff as his spine. Then something about sacrifices. Heroes. The inevitability of loss. His words pass through her ears as transient as fog. She can still hear Rooster’s scream, can still see the way Maverick’s jet exploded in smoke and blazing light every time she closes her eyes.
Maverick wanted them to come back alive. That is mission success, he’d said, not out loud, but in the singular way he’d pushed them all to their limits and then well over, each and every single day.
In her periphery, she catches Hangman’s jaw twitch, like he’s gritting his teeth behind closed lips. Around them, everyone is silent, their chins raised but their gazes misty and far away.
Finally, Cyclone lets them go. Warlock reminds them of the services provided by the chaplains on board. They’ll be stuck on the carrier for just a little bit longer, he tells them, until all the i-s are dotted and the t-s are crossed; there’s paperwork to be done and emails to write and calls to be made. Then they’ll all be transported back to shore, sent back to their squadrons, and it’ll be like the past two weeks never happened. Like Maverick didn’t teach them to fight for every millisecond, every mile, every searing breath; like he didn’t hone their skills dagger-sharp and silver-bright. Like Rooster is a temporary gap in formation easily filled by another warm body eager for the skies.
Afterward, they sit in the ready room, all eleven of them that are left.
She doesn’t know who first breaks the silence; it’s so quiet for so long, and she’s staring down at her hands, limp and numb in her lap. It’s the smallest, tiniest sniffle, almost drowned out by the ever-present rumbling and clattering of the behemoth around them.
It doesn’t matter who, in the end. Suddenly they’re all wiping their eyes, breaths rapid, and it’s Fanboy who excuses himself first, and Payback’s wrapping an arm around his shoulders. And then they’re filtering out, one by one, until it’s just Phoenix, and Bob, and Hangman, who lingers for a moment longer, his handsome face twisted so close to something like frustration, like regret. He opens his mouth, then stops.
“Good job,” he says instead.
“Thanks,” says Bob, hollowly.
Silence continues to hang heavy over their heads. Hangman’s throat works. His hands clench, unclench at his sides. “Do you think… is it possible…”
“Maybe,” says Phoenix. There’s a lump in her own throat that’s only growing larger and larger; she hears her voice go thick with it. “I didn’t see Maverick eject. But maybe…”
“Either way,” says Bob quietly, “there’s nothing we can do about it, now.”
She gives a sharp nod before he even finishes his sentence. He’s right. There’s nothing they can do. There was nothing they could do, not back there with bandits fast approaching, not when she had a backseater whose life she was responsible for. Not within the claustrophobic mission parameters, the millimeter-slim margin for error.
But it doesn’t settle the anvil in her chest. Doesn’t settle the sudden tide of grief she feels for Rooster’s laughter, Rooster’s singing, Maverick’s amused little grin as he watched them all tumble up and down the beach; for the knowledge of two lives gone in a split second—right before her eyes. It doesn’t settle the tight knot of what-ifs in her head, one loose thread from coming apart and breaking free.
She thinks of Rooster, ejecting into the snow. Middle of nowhere behind enemy lines, possibly injured, out of reach of feasible rescue. A lone dark figure against a vast white field. Maybe, if there truly is someone up there, a guardian angel watching over them—maybe Maverick is there, too. God. If Rooster is alive, she hopes desperately that he’s not alone.
Hangman catches her eyes, gaze steady, red-rimmed. Something like understanding passes between them. At the end of the day, despite everything, they’re all on the same side.
“I would’ve gone back for him,” he says.
He doesn’t need to tell her. She heard the order.
“I know,” she says.
—
Iceman sighs. Through the arched window before his desk, the day is impeccable: clear, idyllic blue sky, as far as the eye can see. Sunlight washes the room in warm, bright tones. It glitters off the slender gold pen in his hand, shines off the deep black of new ink on a crisp white page.
Maverick gifted him the pen years ago, back when joke gifts had just begun to turn into serious ones. Iceman can still remember the way he slid the sleek wooden case across the desk, the sheepish curve of his smile, his hasty reassurances that it wasn’t expensive—just take it, Ice, I got it for you. There was hardly a stress line on his face, then; only the quiet happiness of a man who had someone to care for, and knew he was cared for in return.
The pen flips over Iceman’s fingers in an old, familiar routine. Finally, he sets it down. The stack of memos before him is a lost cause, today.
He stares out the window, watches the flags outside billow. He has no room to complain. When he called Maverick back to North Island, he already knew, deep down, that it would inevitably come to this. For all his carefree demeanor, Maverick throws himself into everything he does—flying, teaching, loving. He accepts nothing less than giving all that he is.
It’s why he was the right choice. The only choice, as far as Iceman’s concerned, despite the dread between his ribs. Only Maverick could teach the best of the best. Only Maverick could teach them to fly harder, fly faster, and come home.
Knowing this doesn’t make picking up the phone any easier, when the call finally comes.
He lays the receiver back on its cradle. He looks up, looks around. The office is serene, caught in a halcyon limbo. Specks of dust drift in the brilliant rays. Birds chirp outside. A car engine rumbles in the street below.
Iceman rises. Closes the door, and locks it. Sits back down.
He puts a hand against his temple, head bowed, and just breathes for a minute. Focuses every atom of his being on just breathing, because if he doesn’t, he might just fucking stop.
Tom has always been pragmatic. An ice cold bastard, they used to call him, and still do, just never within earshot anymore. Cold and immovable, a mountain lake smooth and undisturbed like a sheet of glass laid over crystal waters. It was easier, when he was younger, to stay that way; to not to let anything disturb that placid surface.
Now, he wraps himself up in that same pragmatism, that same dead calm. Over and over, like it can protect him, protect that fragile fucking heart dripping blood in his ribcage, the same heart Maverick picked up between gentle hands all those years ago and kept safe ever since.
Wraps himself up, as if it can subsume his anguish.
(“When I said it’s time to let go, this isn’t what I meant,” says Iceman.
Maverick mouth tilts. He shrugs, insouciant, but there’s something truly apologetic in the tension of his shoulders. “Are you going to stop me?”
Iceman closes his eyes briefly. For a moment, he imagines it; imagines making the call, giving the order. Keeping Maverick to himself, ensconced within four walls, his feet safely on the ground but his eyes turned skyward to the pilots he trained with blood and sweat and no little bit of desperation. The shadow of grief and regret in the tired lines of his face when one—or all—of them don’t return.
Iceman sits back and lets himself exhale, long and rueful. “You know I won’t.”
“I know you won’t,” murmurs Maverick. He leans in from where his hip is propped against the desk, knuckles trailing over the fine mahogany. Looks down at him with those blue-green eyes, the defiant sparkle in them unchanged even after all these years.
Iceman fists a hand into the lapel of his jacket and pulls him closer. Their foreheads touch.
“Come back, then,” he says.
Maverick smiles. The crow’s feet around his eyes speak of years of joy through the peaks and valleys of their life together.
“Yes, sir.”)
—
It’s freezing.
If only he were twenty years younger, Maverick thinks forlornly. There was a time he could trudge through mud and snow and sleet, bruised all over, without feeling every kink in his joints, every crack in his knees. It’s taking longer and longer to get back to sorts with every ejection over the years. Not that it happens often; but now he’s done it twice in less than a month, and boy is he fucking feeling it. Thankfully, his flight suit’s already dry despite the snow pile he landed in, but goddamn he finally understands why people his age always complain about the cold.
“Mav?”
Maverick spins around. It’s like a vacuum blast in his head, the way all thought immediately sucks away in favor of the man behind him. “What’s wrong?”
“Ah. Nothing’s wrong,” says Rooster. There’s something gangly and awkward about the way he holds himself, like he’s still skinny and sixteen instead of thirty-four and a head and a handspan taller and broader than Maverick is now. “I just…” He flounders.
They trudge on. Maverick allows Rooster his silence; he’ll talk when he’s ready. In the meantime, they need to get to that base, and quickly. Daylight is burning, and the longer they spend out here, the less likely they’ll make it back home.
Home. Something sharp and tight squeezes in Maverick’s chest, pushes the breath straight out of his sternum. He has to get them back home.
The miles stretch long and arduous ahead of them, but the sirens are getting louder. They’re heading in the right direction, at least. Maverick can only hope they’ll get there before dark. Can only hope this crazy fucking idea he has has traction, that it might actually work. Miracle number four. Too many goddamn miracles needed for this mission.
“Mav,” Rooster says again, and this time his voice comes out stronger, surer, though he’s panting with exertion now.
“Yeah?” Maverick is even more breathless. Treading through snow in full gear, banged up and tired, with their helmets tattooing a fresh new bruise against their thighs—it’s no joke. Also, Maverick’s on the wrong side of fifty. He thinks he deserves some slack.
“If… I just need to say it. Just in case,” says Rooster.
Maverick thinks he knows where this is going. “It’s alright, Rooster.”
“It’s not.” Rooster’s voice goes stubborn, the same stubbornness that put him through flight school and got him through TOPGUN on his own two feet. “I said things, a lot of things, before, and I just… I didn’t mean them. I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean them, okay? I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do,” says Rooster. “I… I looked up to you, you know. When it happened, when you did that, I thought maybe… maybe you didn’t think I was good enough. To be like you. Or Dad. And it hurt me. I just—I wanted to hurt you back. It was uncalled for.” He pauses a moment, catches his breath. “But you picked me anyway.”
The words settle, disturbed only by the distant sirens and the sharp crunch of snow beneath their boots.
“I did,” says Maverick softly.
“You said I wasn’t ready.”
“I did.”
“What changed?”
Maverick pants a cloud of condensation into the frozen air. He thinks to a warm, bright study; sunlight streaming through open curtains; heavy, ornate shelves lining pale walls, filled to the brim with books, awards, certificates, a dusty thirty-year-old trophy. A framed photo on the desk, a pen and case next to it that cost Maverick an arm and a leg. It’s time to let go.
He thinks to the Hard Deck, Penny leaning against the bartop, gazing inward as she says, I realized I needed to trust her.
“There was something I had to accept,” says Maverick, finally. “It just took me awhile to get there.” He slows, just long enough for Rooster to catch up, so they’re side-by-side. “It wasn’t you. You were always good enough. It was me, thinking too much.”
Thinking too much, he sees Rooster mouth to himself, brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
Maverick’s mouth curls at the corner, wry, ironic. He slaps Rooster in the back, prods him onward. Miracle of miracles, Rooster doesn’t complain. And God, what a feeling it is, for Rooster to be looking at him with something other than betrayal writ in his face—seeking, finally, to understand. And Maverick, finally able to find the words.
“I was afraid,” he says. “I always knew you were gonna be a pilot. But knowing it and seeing it happen—God, I don’t know. It flipped a switch in me. This—fear switch. Anything could happen.” Another breath. “Trust me, Bradley, it wasn’t about you, or your ability. All those years of taking you up in planes, and then—and then, when it became real—I was suddenly terrified of losing you.”
He did lose Bradley, in the aftermath, but not in the way that haunted Maverick’s dreams. Not like Goose. For the longest time, that was enough.
Bradley doesn’t say anything. They continue on. A whiff of smoke breaks through the stinging cold. Closer, ever closer. Despite his perspiration, Maverick’s teeth have begun to chatter. He clenches them to keep it at bay.
“And now?” says Bradley, several hundred footsteps later.
“In the end, you got where you needed to be,” says Maverick, eyes past the tree canopy above them. “Without my help. You’re a damn good pilot, Roo. I’m proud of you.”
Bradley sniffles. Maverick’s head snaps around again, as automatic now as it was thirty years ago when Bradley was four and tripped over a curb and scraped his knee. Even now, he can hear the echo of Goose’s laughter. Can still see the way Goose knelt and picked little Bradley up, cooing his reassurances, teasing Maverick for his worry. And they call me Mother Goose!
The memory dissipates as quickly as it came.
Bradley wipes his eyes and nose angrily. “Sorry. I don’t know why—fuck, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” says Maverick again, his heart rabbit-quick against his ribcage, his lungs squeezed inside two fists. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too, you know. I’m sorry I made you doubt yourself. I never meant it like that. I should have explained.”
“You tried.” Bradley breathes in quick succession. In and out, in and out. “I just ignored every call.”
That’s right. Every week on a carrier, or at home, dusky orange twilight casting long shadows at his feet as the phone rang endlessly in his ear. Ice at his back, solid and steadfast as ever. Maverick eventually learned to stop calling. Sixteen years later, and it still stung.
He smiles, regardless. “Well, it took a couple of years, but I think we finally figured it out. Chin up.”
Bradley inhales sharply. “Mav, when—when your plane went down, I—”
Maverick comes to a full stop. Bradley follows suit, cheeks ruddy with cold and exertion and wet with tears, his gloves stained dark with them as he furiously smears them away. “Hey,” says Maverick. “Bradley—”
“I’m so fucking mad at myself, you don’t understand—”
“Look, it’s fine—”
“It’s not!” Bradley shouts. Then he crouches, elbows digging into his knees, fists clenched, head ducked. Gasps for air, sweat dotting his hairline. “God, fuck, all I could think was—this is it, here’s the end, Rooster, you dumbass. There he goes, your last fucking family, and you told him—”
No one to grieve you, when you burn in.
“—and now we’re stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere and who knows if we can even still make it back. I wasted so much time just being—just being so goddamn mad. If I had just—”
Maverick chances a hand on his shoulder, clutches it tight when he isn’t shrugged off. “Bradley,” he says. Swallows past his constricted throat. His voice softens. “Water under the bridge. We’re okay; let's not keep dwelling on the past. We’ve still got time.”
“You say that now.”
“We do,” says Maverick firmly. “But we can’t stay here. We have to keep moving.”
“I know,” Bradley chokes. He takes a deep breath, wipes his eyes one last time, then rises again to his full height.
Maverick watches him. Reaches out to him, grips his arm, squeezes again before letting go. “Believe me,” he says abruptly, fiercely, overtaken by a sudden surge of blazing, incandescent conviction. “I’ll get us back. I’ll get you home. I swear it.”
Bradley looks back at him.
“I know,” he says again.
Then, softer, “I believe you.”