Chapter Text
Maverick wasn’t ready for this, he had thought that today would just be a peaceful flight for him and Rooster. Some bonding time.
He just wasn’t expecting an enemy plane to appear out of the blue and shoot their engines. They were going down. Into the water. And Mav couldn’t do anything to stop it.
“Eject!” Maverick shouted over his shoulder, and Rooster reached for the handle and tugged on it.
His chair parted from the plane, and he was hoisted up and into the air, his breath being stolen from his legs and his stomach filled with butterflies. Then, his parachute opened up.
Maverick made sure that Rooster’s parachute had worked before turning back to the plane, his eyes on the air around him.
Maverick’s heart was pounding, to the point where he was sure that it would come exploding out of his chest any minute now. He looked around, trying to spot the plane, maybe he could shoot it. But it had vanished. It was a hit and run.
Knowing that Rooster was safe in the air, he pulled his ejection handle seconds before a show of red, yellow and orange light filled the sky accompanied with dark smoke.
The plane separated into a million pieces and the heavier prices started plummeting into the water below.
Maverick looked around for Rooster when suddenly something embedded itself into his thigh.
Thud.
That’s not good. He thought to himself and looked down to see a part of the plane sticking out. Shit.
With the adrenaline still pumping, he couldn’t feel it yet, but he knew it was bad. By the looks of it, he was already losing plenty of blood.
“Rooster!” He yelled, turning his head as far as he could to see the other aviator.
Nothing but clouds looked back at him, so he began to worry.
“Bradley!”
“Down here.”
He looked down, and there was Rooster, smiling up at Mav.
“Jesus. You scared me.” Maverick chuckled, the winced. Now he felt it.
His leg began aching tremendously, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to maintain his composure. His leg felt like it was being pulled off of his body.
But he couldn’t think about that right now, he had to get Rooster back home before anything. But how? He would have to come up with a plan. And a good one, too. If they wanted to survive.
They dropped into the cold water of the ocean, and they both took deep breaths before they were forced under.
Maverick came up for air, and looked around for Rooster, who popped up a second after him.
“Now what?” Rooster asked, panting as he scopes out the area around him.
“Uh.” Mav started looking around too.
“Wait, over there.” Rooster pointed to a piece of the plane that had been blown off. It was big enough to fit the two of them and work as a life raft.
“Good work, kid.” Mav patted Rooster’s helmet, and the two of them started pedaling towards it. Maverick swallowed his noises of pain that threatened to escape and be heard whenever he would kick his left leg. The pain was so bad he might have just been stabbed again.
Rooster reached the plane piece first, and Maverick helped him get onto it, and then Rooster turned around and pulled Maverick up.
Maverick looked hands with him and Rooster pulled him up, but his leg hit the plane part, and it shoved the foreign object in his thigh even further into his leg.
He couldn’t help but scream out in pain, and let go of Rooster, who jumped at the sudden outburst, “What happened?!” The first thing that came to his mind, was a shark was in the waters.
So, he reached down, grabbed Mav’s vest, and hoisted him up in one smooth movement. He laid Maverick down and looked at him. “Are you okay? What happened?!”
Maverick has his teeth clenched, his eyes were squeezing shut. He couldn’t answer him yet. It hurt too much.
Rooster looked down at his leg. And saw the blood.