Chapter Text
‘Last call for Flight 206 to Austin, Texas, Gate 88.’
Jake got up from his seat and grabbed his bag, feeling like his gut had dropped very low. He showed his ticket and passport before boarding, and as he sat down on this very uncomfortable flight home, it was like he was leaving a part of himself behind.
Which he was, in a way.
If only he was actually brave enough to face the truth.
It was near impossible, in fact, to imagine that he’d already been in the air a few hours prior, grinning from cheek to cheek and feeling like his heart was going to explode from too much happiness.
All it’d taken for it to go to shit had been landing, and letting Bradley help him down the ladder.
When their eyes had met, Jake had known that he had no other option than to run.
And considering he was heading thousands of miles away, he could say he’d succeeded in running very far away indeed.
Idiot.
A few weeks earlier
That day had started quite well for Bradley, all things considered.
It was a sunny day, he’d gotten a discount on his favourite latte and the subway had been relatively quiet.
The only thing he could say was a bummer was that he’d forgotten his wallet in his jacket back home. Thankfully, you could do wonders with a banking app nowadays.
As he entered through the massive glass doors of the building he’d been working at for the better part of ten years now, he waved at Hondo, the concierge, who was dutifully sat at his desk and answered in kind. He swiped his badge to call in the lift, and got his tablet out of his satchel to do one last check on the day’s plan.
Bradley Bradshaw, affectionately nicknamed ‘Rooster’ by his godfather because he was the earliest bird you’d ever encountered, worked at Mitchell’s as said godfather’s P.A.
Pete Mitchell, who everyone called Maverick because he was one crazy SOB, had founded a little business back in the 80s by buying old planes, cars and motorbikes and repairing them before selling them back for a profit.
30 odd years later, they had a whole floor dedicated to their business in New York, and Bradley had fifteen coworkers, although none of them was quite as important as him.
It wasn’t arrogant of him to say, not at all. After all, he was the only one in the whole building to know Mav’s allergy to pumpkin seeds, his preference for graphite pencils, the way his washed jeans had to be pressed, and…his birthday. Or rather, his birth year.
Because Pete Mitchell hated to be reminded that he was getting old.
So Bradley had been asked, aged 25, to stop calling him ‘Dad’ and start calling ‘Mav’, in the hopes that people would think they were brothers instead of father-figure and son.
The old dingus was lucky Bradley loved him.
His ride to the 14th floor was over far too quickly, just as he received yet another email from their mechanics out in New Jersey, those who actually got their hands dirty and worked on the priceless machines Maverick found all over the globe.
Or Mav’s employees found, but same difference to the man.
Bradley sighed as he read what Reuben, their head mechanic, was writing. Another delay in the Cessna C-34 that was already slightly overdue.
Mav wasn’t going to like it.
As any good P.A. though, Bradley dropped his stuff at his desk - a very nice desk he’d decorated with an actual live plant and a little statue of a rooster that his flatmate Natasha had gifted him for his 30th - and went to knock on his godfather’s office door.
This early, he knew the man was bound to be in a bad mood, especially if he hadn’t drunk the two liters of coffee he usually swallowed before 9am.
As expected, it was a grunt that answered him, but Bradley knew he could get in without fear of being thrown a dangerous object. Unlike some of his innocent colleagues.
“Morning Mav,” he greeted, chuckling to himself as he saw his godfather slumped in his office chair, feet on the desk and his leather jacket thrown over his eyes. “Late night?”
“Don’t shout,” came the groan immediately after.
Bradley was used to this and rushed to a cabinet to get an Advil and a glass of water that he plopped onto the desk. The jacket lifted and he heard Mav gulp down the water before disappearing again under leather.
“Push whatever meeting I got back,” Mav groaned a minute later.
Bradley, who’d been typing on his tablet already, nodded. “Already done, boss.”
There was a silence, and then green eyes peeked from under the jacket before Mav’s entire face was revealed to the light of day. He immediately pushed his trusted aviators onto his nose, and frowned. “What are you still doing here? Haven’t you got a job to do?”
“Reuben Fitch sent me an email this morning. Another part for the Cessna came in defective.”
Maverick swore. “The fuck?! Isn’t he supposed to check before he orders in?? It’s the third time this month.”
“I don’t think he can’t do much about it, Mav. I think we should change supplier instead.”
“That’ll push us back another week at least, and the Cessna was supposed to be done last week, Bradley.”
Despite the glasses, he knew the glare that was being thrown his way. Thankfully, he’d had years of practice. He knew how to navigate angry Pete Mitchell.
“Actually, according to my calculations, it would set us back only-” he typed a few times more on his tablet, “-four days. I’ll have Neil and Callie look into that vendor in Maine that I’ve been talking to you about. Shouldn’t take long to strike a deal with them.”
Mav groaned again. “You’re not leaving until this is resolved, Bradley. I mean it.”
“I know, boss. Drink another glass, it’ll help.”
He exited the office by dimming the lights and lowering the blinds. As usual, his godfather didn’t thank him, but he didn’t expect him to.
Instead, he moved to the open floor and hoped that Vikander and Bassett had their negotiation voices on, because they couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
He also hoped this would be done by 6pm at the latest.
Wishful thinking, he knew, but he’d promised Nat to be home early, as she had something important to tell her BFF over dinner. Whatever that was.
@friskyfritz Another day another rescue. Mr Socks has been delivered safely back home, belly rubs optional.
Jake smiled to himself before clicking the ‘heart’ button beneath the tweet and retweeting it with the caption ‘my boyfriend’s a hero’. He stared a bit longer at the picture of Billy cradling a tabby kitten to his chest, his firefighter uniform pushed off his shoulders and showing the muscle underneath.
He was lucky to have bagged that. And reminded Twitter and Instagram of that fact any time he could.
“Seresin!”
Jake winced and dropped his phone, checking if his earpiece was still in place before standing to make the three paces between his desk and the door to his boss’s office.
Tom Kazansky, whom everyone called Iceman because of his sunny disposition, was the greatest plane designer of this century. If any celebrity wanted a special type of jet; if a national airways company wanted a geeky design on their aircrafts or if anyone wanted to rethink the shape of their planes, he was the man.
Jake Seresin had been his Personal Assistant for a year and a half - give or take a few days - and as much as he revered the man and wished he could be half as talented, he also was scared shitless of him.
Hence why he was always heading inside the office with a pinched smile and a toothpick between his teeth to gnaw his anxiety on. “Sir?”
Blue eyes lifted from a professional tablet and stared hard at him. “I’m going to draw all day. Don’t let anyone disturb me and push back the British Airways meeting to tomorrow morning.”
“Will do, Sir.” Jake tried an easy smile, one that was, as usual, totally ignored. “Think we’ll be out of here for dinner, Sir? I’ve got a date. You know, with my boyfriend. He’s-”
“A fireman, yes, the whole building knows, Seresin.” The infamous icy gaze was settled on him. “We’ll leave when I’m done. I’m sure your perfect boyfriend can wait for you to have dinner.” He then dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and Jake backed away, clicking the door shut behind him.
He sighed, groaned, even.
And then he picked up his phone and typed a quick text to his significant other.
Jake: dunno if i’ll make it 4 dinner. wait 4 me. love u. xx
A few hours later, as the sun set; as Jake’s colleagues all filed out for the night and as his boss still refused to call it a day, he received his answer.
Most Perfect BF <3: I’m knackered. Let yourself in whenever it is the Admiral lets you go. I’ll be sleeping.
So much for quality time with his boyfriend…
It wasn’t the first time that Bradley was waving his colleagues off for the night while he remained, waiting for Mav to be done negotiating with the other side of the world and/or bickering with yet another potential buyer because he couldn’t just not say whatever came through his mind.
He’d spent more nights on this 14th floor than he’d done at home, at this point. But he loved his job, and he loved the man, so he just…tried to make the most of it.
He’d already texted Nat to tell her that her big news would have to wait a couple of hours, but his flatmate was used to it and besides, her significant other had just come home from work, so she had someone to entertain her in the meantime.
As he often did on those evenings where he was done with his job and was just…waiting, Bradley opened Tinder and started swiping left and right.
He’d rarely managed to keep a steady relationship for longer than three weeks - his personal record back in 9th Grade - and he suspected his godfather’s influence was the culprit in that. But it didn’t stop him from looking for a good time.
He swiped left on a man whose profile pic was of him in what looked like a firefighter uniform, open down the front, zoomed in on his abs with the very short caption ‘Come and stoke this fire’. No thank you. Conceited douches weren’t his cup of tea.
Instead, he swiped on a couple of nerdy guys, one of which immediately matched and DMed him about his favourite rock band; as well as a cute barmaid from down the street.
When he checked the clock after his quick dive on the world’s most famous dating app - even if dating wasn’t what he was after - Bradley sighed and went to knock on Mav’s door.
The man was still on the phone, yelling at whomever was his contact in Beijing, so Bradley opened the Notes app and scribbled ‘Dinner?’ before showing it to the incensed man walking laps around his desk. Mav sent him a thumbs-up and Bradley wrote ‘Burger?’ next, to which he received a double thumbs-up.
He was quick to go back to his desk and order one burger - extra cheese, extra onions, extra beef - for Mav and one halloumi salad for himself - he was trying to eat more healthy after a cholesterol scare last time he’d done a physical.
After seeing that he had to wait for twenty-three minutes more, he logged back onto Tinder and answered the cute nerd’s earlier question with a ‘Led Zeppelin. Duh.’ which struck up a conversation that could potentially lead up in a nice night together sometime soon.
“Jake?”
Kicking his feet off his desk before his boss’s greying blonde head appeared at the door, Jake sat straighter and placed his hands on his keyboard, as if he’d been working and not liking every photo Billy’s fire station had posted today on Instagram. “Sir?”
“I’m almost done but I could do with dinner. Try and get me something new, that pasta place last time was awful.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Jake saluted, you know, like a moron, before Kazansky turned back into his office, looking exhausted. Price of genius.
“Thanks, Jake.”
Yeah. After the sun had set, he usually went from ‘Seresin’ to ‘Jake’. Didn’t know if it was because the old man was mellowed by the disappearance of the sun; if the lack of caffeine in his blood made him nicer; or maybe only because he could show he liked his P.A. once the rest of his jealous coworkers had fucked off home.
Probably a mix of all three.
It took Jake exactly twenty-five seconds to realise that, if he wanted to get his boss dinner, he had to be very quick, because most places were closing down in the next eleven minutes.
With a string of curses that his ranch-owning grandfather would have been proud of, he grabbed his phone and ran to the elevator, trying to coax the thing to drop the 8 floors down faster, just fucking faster.
As it turned out, maybe Lady Luck was on his side that evening.
When he reached the lobby, he noticed two things - well, two people, no need to be rude, Seresin. One was a delivery guy wearing a fluorescent vest and arguing with a guy who looked like he was out of an eighties magazine.
He was tall - perhaps taller than Jake though he couldn’t tell from a distance - with a mop of curling brown hair, eyes that looked hazel from afar and a fucking pornstache. He was wearing a nondescript pair of black slacks and a really awful Hawaiian shirt over it.
And yet, it fucking worked.
Jake was certain he’d never seen him in his life, because he’d have never forgotten him, but right now, his argument with Delivery Dude was his saving grace.
He ran to the two and slid to a stop, fast enough to catch that the issue was that Pornstache didn’t have cash on him, and Delivery Dude only took cash.
So he grabbed his wallet and waved it in the air. “I’ve got cash! I can pay!”
Those eyes were hazel, good job, Seresin, but they were quizzical once they settled on him. “You’re paying for my boss’s dinner?”
“Nope, I’m paying for my boss’s dinner!” He grinned at Delivery Dude. “How much?”
“30$.”
“I’m giving you 40$ for the trouble.”
Pornstache was not having it. “You’re seriously gonna steal my dinner? I ordered that, man!”
“And if I don’t bring that food to my boss, he’s gonna kill me! Or worse: fire me!”
The man crossed his arms, frowning. “Weird priorities. But this is mine.”
“Technically,” Delivery Dude piped in, pocketing the two twenties, “it’s his now.” And he grabbed his foldable bike to leave as if he hadn’t started World War III in that lobby.
“You’re not taking that food, man,” Pornstache said again, trying to grab the paper bag Jake had picked up from the floor.
Jake tugged it closer. “I paid for it.”
“And I ordered it.”
Both men started on a weird and childish tug-o’-war until the paper bag gave up and ripped, making the two neatly wrapped boxes drop to the tiles, thankfully without spilling their contents.
Jake groaned. “Okay, tell you what. What’s in there?”
“Burger for my boss and a salad for me.”
“You’re a big boy, you’ll live without eating grass for another few hours. Let’s make a deal. You get the burger so you don’t get fired, and I take the salad so I don’t get fired.”
“And what do I get from this…deal?”
“Dude, I paid for the food. I’m legally not obliged to give you anything.”
Those hazel eyes were piercing and intense. But after a moment of silence, Pornstache relented. “Fine. Take the salad.”
Jake grabbed the appropriate box and ran back to the elevators, turning around to smirk at the other man and wave. “Pleasure doing business with you, Stache-Man!”
He reveled in the eye-roll he got for his effort, and pushed on the 8 button.
He wasn’t getting fired tonight; and he met someone whose personality was perhaps as interesting as his style was horrendous.