Chapter Text
April 2022
18 months after Dagger
Lemoore Golf and Country Club
Lemoore, California
Nat could smell the booze on Bradley’s breath when he got out of his car over an hour late to meet her for brunch.
She wasn’t stupid, she knew Irish coffee from last night’s hangover.
Shit.
“Give me those,” she snapped, taking his keys. She dragged him towards her tiny Honda, her firm grip on his jacket keeping him aligned. “Get in, we’re leaving.” She’d already lost her reservation and her appetite. The waitlist wasn’t long but there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d be seated with him in this state.
Bradley looked like he didn’t even know what a shower was.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning, the last day of her two-week leave, and all she’d wanted was a nice brunch and a mimosa, another chance to be more Natasha and less Phoenix. The terrace dress code had given her an excuse to treat herself. She’d pulled out the floral cocktail dress she’d worn to SciBorg’s wedding, clipped her hair up in that fancy updo again and God help her, she’d even had fun trying that make-up tutorial Halo had flipped her from YouTube.
Bradley crashed into someone’s side mirror. He flinched at the dark look she shot him. “What crapped in your corn flakes?”
Bitterness always did make her mouth taste funny.
She should have just gone to brunch with Jake as planned instead of letting Mav push her buttons this morning, talk her out of her plans and into his.
“Get in the damn car. Now.”
Guilt and loyalty and love and resentment weaponized like tangled-up Christmas lights.
“Fine, okay, jeez, Madame Trace.” It took him two tries to grab the handle and push the latch.
“Seatbelt!” Nat got in, slamming the door. “You’re drunk and you drove here?” God, his eyes were so bloodshot they looked like radar charts.
“I’m not drunk, I was out last -.”
“Don’t you dare bullshit me, Bradley!”
The rest of the drive back to his ranch house on the outskirts of Hanford passed in absolute silence.
When he’d first sauntered into the Hard Deck, she’d been so happy to see him. It had been a long time and he’d looked like Bradley, the Bradley she remembered, happy and social. It brought her a peace she hadn’t known she needed, a pardon emails and the occasional phone call couldn’t grant.
Then the demons started to crawl out and into the mission, the envies and the resentments and that fucking chip on his shoulder that made him so damn hard to be around.
Bradley’s transfer from Oceana to North Island had been approved just before they’d docked in San Diego. Mav had been delighted. The news just left an icy, sick weight in her stomach. She’d been anxious, skittish, vigilantly anticipating chaos and wondering what face he’d wear.
Unravelling years of work.
Mav had kept his almost-son close by after they’d returned from the mission, knitting their torn fabric back together with time spent at his hanger east of the Canyon, time that soothed Bradley. He was less tense, his volatility watered down, at least. Bradley was the type of man who needed family and he finally had that back, with someone he trusted and heard and respected.
Nat had bolted back to Lemoore as fast as she could the first chance she got.
A reprieve from a hostage-taking.
It hadn’t taken long for Bradley to butt heads with his abrasive squadron leader, Backflow, despite Jake’s email counselling patience and advice on how that man could be managed-up. But he’d known better, as usual. He had mulishly stood his ground only to be bulldozed into it by the demanding, officious commander and exiled to Lemoore with a formal letter of reprimand in his jacket and a stalled career.
Mav’s terminal leave assignment with the Murder Board in Fallon only had him passing through Lemoore once a week but she knew even if he had been here 24-7, there was no way he could have held Bradley together.
He couldn’t even admit to himself Bradley was falling apart.
Nat had always had the courage to build boundaries by burning bridges.
She’d laughed and laughed when her class had finally decided on her callsign.
Sometimes, she allowed herself to take the occasional midnight call to remind her of the whys. Some random bartender fed up with the atonal clanking and belligerence. Rides ending with a stumbling, bile-spewing mess left on his front walk, shutting her out.
That insatiable appetite for destruction. Nothing was ever enough.
Dark circles wrote libraries about melancholic sleep.
The starving darkness inside him took everything Bradley felt about his conflicted family legacy, the chasing of death at supersonic speeds, the future and loss and the butcher’s bill for all of it, and remade him into a toxic, compulsive disaster hating good.
Nat was good at keeping secrets. She could airbrush reality like she was birthing a new universe.
But she had spent a lot of money on very expensive therapy to convince herself she was allowed a life of dignity, of respect and happiness and positivity. A life where she mattered, where her needs counted. Where she didn’t have to be in control and on constant guard, bear the overwhelming responsibility of managing everyone and everything. Where she could rely on people and expect them to live up to their commitments to her, where intimacy and vulnerability didn’t terrify her, where she didn’t have to suffer because of the actions or reactions of others.
Where she didn’t have to rescue anybody but herself.
The silence in the car was oppressive as she pulled into the space in front of his home. Her stomach was churning hard from the triggering stink of the booze he was sweating out. She barely had the time to shut off the engine before he jumped out and headed through the gate for the house.
Did he forget I have his keys? Where the hell did he think he was going without them? She shoved past the unkempt privacy hedge flanking the gate, grateful for the privacy the bushes would provide. She followed him around the side of the garage towards the porch, not bothering to run.
Either Bradley listened or he didn’t. Either way? She was getting off the bridge before all that was left of it were cinders.
He was waiting at the door. “Gimme my keys.”
“We need to talk,” Nat said as calmly as she could manage. “Let’s go inside, okay?” She winced at the noise coming from the construction site down the street.
“No. I want my keys. Then go, Nat. Just go.”
She struggled to keep her voice soft, reasonable. “You need help, Bradley. It’s barely past noon and you’re completely hammered.”
“I am fine, I told you I went out last night.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Nat stared at him. “I’m not your enemy and I don’t want to do this out here. Come on, let’s go talk.” She tried to take his arm.
Bradley shook his head in disgust, stepping back fast. “About what? How un-fun you are? Stuck-up? I’m fine!”
“You are not fine!” Tears pricked the edges of her eyes, frustration making her agitated. God, this was like the worst rerun ever.
“Why are you being like this? You act like I’m hurting someone!”
“You are so drunk you can’t walk straight but you drove to meet me! You are going to kill yourself or someone else if you don’t stop!”
“Oh, I’m a threat again. Here we go.” He turned his back to her.
At least she knew which face he was wearing.
“When you drink like this and get behind the wheel, yes, you are!”
Hands waving between them, Bradley let out a curse, his voice gaining speed and a frantic, ragged edge as he ranted, “You know this is always a bad week for me!”
Her mind hit the mute button as he rambled through his justifications.
Bob’s shattered face when he got the call about his younger brother flitted through her mind, leaving a trail of acid in its wake as a reminder that not everyone left scorch marks behind them while grieving.
“And now Hangman's fucking me over because I was a little bit late off the mark during drills and my roll time was off and the Air Boss wants me in his office tomorrow at 0800 because of that Texas shithawk! All I wanted to do was blow off some steam with you today but I’m the only one you ever think needs their balls twisted in your vice. I am damn tired of the judgment you and frankly everybody else hurls down at me just because I like to have a good time!”
Nat fell back one, two steps, queasy at the unfamiliar rage etched into his face. “You’re not having a good time, you’re using whiskey as anesthetic. Bradley, you aren’t sleeping. You’re all twisted up like, like -,” she searched for it, “Like cold spaghetti in a pot.” She took a deep breath as her throat ached, clenching and unclenching her shaking hands. “I’m trying to help you. We all are trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help!” She flinched, her gut leaping up her throat before crashing back down again to squash a buried memory. “I had one little glitch in the air and it’s suddenly a goddamn felony to be a little tired? Even though I’ve never so much as taken a fatigue day? But hey, you weren’t there and you still know better, right?”
They looked up as jets roared in low overhead; the Top Hatters were running ground pacing drills today without him. Bradley tensed and twitched at the repetitive howling thrum of the jets, pacing further away from her. He was sweating hard as he stripped off his jacket, tossing his G-1 issue over the porch rail.
“You know better, too! God, Bradley, do you actually think Jake is happy about this? You *terrified* him. You left him no choice! There is no way there weren’t going to be consequences! A full medical is the least worst thing you could be facing right now!”
“Oh, of course, he couldn’t wait to tell you!” Bradley crowed in the ugliest way, wagging a jerky finger at her. “I knew it! You two are as thick as thieves these days, BFFs!”
“Look at your hands - you’re shaking like a loose screw, you couldn’t complete a dinner roll right now! That’s why Jake reported you, to help you, not hurt you.”
“Oh, bullshit, he’s never not had it in for me!” Scorn and aggrieved contempt screwed up his features into something ugly. He paused for a moment, considering her. Suddenly, he gave her a terrible smile.
“Wait. Is this how he finally gets into your panties, Nat?” He motioned at the dress, smirking. “This your version of gift-wrap? Gonna finally let Hangman fuck you? Getting to dick you down his reward for being your good boy and doing your dirty work?”
There was something feral about how he leaned into her space, pure snake oil labeled friendly concern while he made her feel grubby. “Does he get to do you bare if this gets me dismissed and out of your life for good?” Nat felt her breath hitch as his words landed like haymakers. His brown eyes gleamed with the slick ice of spite, grin a weapon of malicious destruction as he crooned, “It must be eating Hangman fucking alive knowing I had you first. And often.”