Work Text:
Here, have my playlist of boppy 80s summer rock flyboy music: Maverick Unleashed Spotify playlist
I'm super proud of how well this playlist works for the fic, ngl. Not to pat myself on the back but it SLAPS.
~~~
In 1989, Cairns is one of the hottest, wettest, wildest cities in Australia’s northern tip. Everyone along the East Coast knows about Cairns, and if you run away from home to find a job, like Tanya did, you know it’s a place where you can disappear. Nobody asks your business so long as you can work, and work hard. It’s a place that expanded rapidly with the steel and sugarcane industries but it still has a cramped, colonial, Wild West feel. Miles of remote tropical scrub surround it, there's crocs in the creeks, and the only place you'll find anyone is in the liquor establishments. Tourists are trickling in after the Cairns international airport opened a few years ago, but for the most part it's been full of gangs, rough men, and very few decent girls. Tanya should know: she's been here nearly seven years.
So when Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell walks into town in his white Navy uniform and aviators, sporting clean-cut looks and a few medals and ribbons, it's not hard to imagine why he stands out.
He's hot, he's about her age, he can be a huge jerk and he's got an attitude bigger than the Pacific Ocean. He stands for everything a male is supposed to be in '89.
He's volatile, he's cocky, he's moody, he's loud. He's cheap shots and high-octane fuel and flashes of St Elmo's Fire, in a bar where there's ABBA and Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies" pulsing from the speakers. He talks about dogfights and angles and complex aerodynamics, and sings out of time and out of tune. He's a drug she's never tasted, and it doesn't make a difference if she fights it or not. She takes him to his first arcade; he takes her to her first game of beach volleyball; they ride their motorbikes over to the coast because that's what everyone does in Cairns.
For once in her life, Tanya is swept away in the moment without thinking of the consequences. There's scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, joyrides in just about anything with a motor, a beach hut for the middle of the week, the base parties on weekends, and Tanya's flat if they want something more quiet. They move non-stop, too fast to think or ponder, and she wants this sortof reckless joy — wants it so bad, like she's never wanted anything before. He calls her 'Tazz', 'Tim-Tam', 'Crazy Taze', and she bats away his ever-eager hands and tells Mav he's the crazy one.
But it doesn't last. The summons comes. They pack together in the hut, talking about how there's no future for us, after all. It was fun though! We had a great time! He gives Tanya a number, tells her to call it in six weeks, when he's back home. Like everything Maverick says, it's an invitation dressed up as a command.
She's left a mess. She phones a week earlier than instructed, and a dozen weeks after, but it's the answering machine every time. She leaves one last message, a repeat of all the rest: "Pete, I've been crying every night since you left. And I've realised I need you. It might sound stupid to say this so early but I love you. Please be safe out there. I hope you're... Oh, man, this sucks. I didn't know till you left and I … bloody hell, I don't think I'll stop crying until I see you again. You'd better be OK." Her voice grows small. "Don't do any of your stupid stunts. Call me."
She never gets a response. And that's it.
Twelve years of nothing.
Until suddenly two people find themselves staring at one another, at a bar in California.
Dread curls in Tanya's stomach. Her hands start shaking. Dizziness crashes through her. A jet of blinding white hope steeply shoots up before nosediving into an absolutely sickening spiral of death.
"Tanya?" The memories peel back years from both their faces. "Oh my God — Tazz! Do you remember me? '89? Australia?"
Tanya bites the inside of her cheek, where an old scar hurts the most. A scar from '89, from hitting the bed so hard she bit her cheek open and he couldn't wash the blood out of his white Navy uniform. "I remember! Pete Mmmm... Maverick?"
(She says it doubtfully, as though she never cried for three years over the name scribbled on the slip of paper with the phone number.)
"Yeah!" He hesitates, then jumps to correct her. He clearly hasn't lost much of that big ego. "Mitchell, actually. The call sign's Maverick.——Yeah. That's me." He takes a sip of his drink, looking at her with a queer expression, one she can't fathom.
"Of course, yes!" She tries to sound light-hearted. Why, oh, why does it hurt so deeply? It's not supposed to feel like this. Old, bad wounds are ripping open every time she risks a look at his face.
"Gee, that was a fun time." He shakes his head, grinning.
Yeah, she thinks, nodding. She knew it all along, really. Just another conquest for you, flyboy.
A splash of saltwater to the face. Her spluttering gasp.
His laugh. It's so alive that it surprises her every time it finishes.
Drips run down his taut, lean forearm, falling off the elbow, as his hand reaches up to brush her wet hair. It's an absent-minded gesture, one he does often.
"We got better beaches in the States."
"Not a chance," she quips, and splashes him back.
"You checked out any of our beaches? Malibu's just down the road."
"Yeah, I've been over here seven years now, so..." Tanya shrugs.
That old, puzzled microexpression of his — she'd forgotten it till now. His brows furrow instantly, his head giving a little jerk. "Well..." He lifts his eyebrows. "Why didn't you look me up?"
She came to the States with three bags and a tired heart. It had been five years, and she'd got so unbearably lonely. She came to see if she could find the boy she once knew.
She found him, alright. She walked away scrubbing her hands furiously through her hair, as though she could tear from her mind the image of the dolled-up blonde on his lap. The blonde's hands were in his hair, and he was smiling at his crewmates like nothing in the world could bring him down.
She promised herself, she wasn't ever going to see him again.
Clasping her hands, Tanya leans on the bar. She attempts joviality. "The thing is, Pete: you only gave me one number."
"You could've rung around."
"You could've rung back," she says, and she can't keep the shake out of her voice.
He lets out a short, understanding "ah". (Men do that a lot. Or he does. She doesn't have experience with many others.)
He sucks in a breath. "I don't suppose you'd let me buy you a drink?"
She laughs, and taps her glass. "I already have one."
He gestures broadly at it. "Yeah, but after that one." He sounds exasperated.
"Why?"
There it is, that everlasting spark of knowing brashness in his eyes and mouth. (A friend of hers once asked, 'tell me, is he terribly cocky and self-assured?' The answer is yes. He wouldn't be Pete Mitchell if he wasn't.)
Pete lifts a hand to his mouth, rubs his thumb musingly along his bottom lip. He lowers the hand — he's found the words he was looking for. "I get the feeling you're not quite ready to hear my side of the story, yet."
"And getting drunk will help with that?"
"Yes," is his immediate answer. They both grin, on the verge of laughter.
He signals a waiter. Tanya buries her hands in her hair. "Gah, I hate you."
"Hate me later," he says, nodding at her drink, and pops open a fresh beer for himself.
***
Two hours pass, spent over drinks, though she sticks to just two glasses, and he doesn't press her about it, which is a nice surprise.
They talk first about family and friends and work, trivial details. She's working in a telecommunications department. Turns out she's got a knack for computers, and she gives him a detailed rundown on the dot-com bubble burst still rocking the world. Maverick's still flying, he's now a Top Gun instructor with some extra decorations to his name for valour, and so on. And he's trying to stay involved in Bradley's life, in between tours of duty. No small task when Bradley is, like many a seventeen-year-old young man, hotheaded, emotionally inhibited, and furiously stubborn — and Maverick, chuckling, admits to Tanya's jest that Bradley does sound rather like a certain pilot she knows.
Maverick never told her about Goose when they were in Australia twelve years ago. But now, he outlines the broad details of the story. She can hear, in his voice, that he still loves Goose so much, with boyish adulation and deeply-fond memory. Underneath every word lies a profound sorrow he can't often give words or voice to, without pausing first to clear his throat.
After that, there's a lull in the conversation. They're each turning things over in their mind. She's the first to speak again:
"I thought you were dead, at one point."
"Might’ve been."
"No, seriously. I had to ring around to find out."
"So you knew where I was."
"Yes. On duty, mostly."
He abruptly shifts, leans forward. "When did you say you came to America?"
"It was July."
He sits back and takes a swig of beer. "July '94."
July '94, in the arms of a blonde.
"Uh-huh." (She knows he's filing back through his memory. She watches in painful eagerness for his realisation of where he was and with whom. But the realisation doesn't come to him, or if it does, his body doesn't tell her.)
She leans back to take him in for a minute. He has crows' feet and a certain weathered, craggy look. She's no spring maiden either: she has permanent grey circles under her eyes and her hair is dull and badly needs a fresh colour. But she's curled it for a night out and her lipstick is her favourite Earthen Red, and he's in his fantastic old bomber jacket with a white t-shirt. They catch each other making startled, interested glances. Even if they pretend it's only for the sake of comparing memories old and new.
"You still have expensive tastes in sports watches, I see."
He laughs, and offers her a closer look. His hands are as trim as the day she first felt them round her waist, brushing up against her short-sleeved cotton shirt.
His hands are clamped over her eyes. The sand is uneven, and she stumbles. His elbow jogs her shoulder. There's giggling, and panicked shouts.
No peeking!
I'm not!
Here. You can look.
The sea glitters, much bluer than it is where she comes from. There's a beach hut, and a volleyball net. A canoe lies bottom-up on the sand.
It's Paradise lost.
He stands up. Tanya stops rolling her empty glass between her hands, and sets it down.
"Got your story ready for me, Pete?"
They go for a walk on the deck outside the bar. She crosses her arms against the cold. It's not freezing, but nippy in a miserly way, like the air just couldn't be bothered to try for anything better.
"Did you get any of my messages?"
"Did you leave some?"
"Buckets and buckets."
"I guess not." He shakes his head.
"Oh, well," she trails off. She tucks her hands about herself more snugly.
"What'd you say?"
She visibly cringes. "Mostly talked about how much I was crying. And how I'd keep crying till you came back. It was pretty awful, hah."
He laughs with her, just to share the joke of how dramatic and clingy that sounds....
She dares to meet his eyes. Her breath catches in her throat. There's such a different expression there than the disgust or teasing mockery she'd half-anticipated. His brow is slightly furrowed, but mostly...he looks oddly uncertain, even wistful. Like he's waiting for her to make a move, instead of the other way round.
He half-smiles, and steps close. "Kinda wish I'd heard all that. It—it might have changed things."
Her thoughts screech to a halt, smoking rubber.
Tanya suddenly realises this isn't the person she's had fixed in her mind all this time. This isn't the boy she'd grown angry and jealous over, seven years ago. Pete Mitchell grew up a bit somewhere along the twelve years they spent apart. There's some humility there now, and gentleness. She doesn't know how she didn't see it earlier, under the old act.
Maverick lifts a hand, cautioning her. "Look, I don't expect you to believe all of my side of the story but—for what it's worth—:
"The thing is, I got transferred to a ship almost immediately after I got home. I'm talking days. I meant to write down your address while I still remembered it but...a lot happened. We lost some of the guys out there. And I forgot." He takes another step forward. His feet and hers are almost touching. Their breaths have quickened in unison. "That left me with nothing. No leads. You were gone. I kicked myself a couple of times that I'd given you my number but hadn't gotten yours."
"And life happened."
"Life happened." A pause. "After all, we agreed on that, didn't we?"
She quickly nods. "We did." Her hands are pressed together in a steeple against her mouth to stop it from trembling quite so violently.
"Maybe we..." He pauses to find the right words, shakes his head, his gaze a little far-off. "Did we make a mistake?"
"It's not like you were free to choose any different," she chokes out.
Their eyes meet. Slowly, he reaches for her hands and draws them to himself, up to his chest. His thumbs caress her wrists. She sways close, every inch of his body drawing her in like a magnet.
Her fingers play with the dog tags that hang from his neck. Like an embarrassed child, she confesses in a whisper: "I knew your last name was Mitchell."
"I know." He's all husky; she doesn't know whether to put it down to the night air or the drinks——
He moves his arms to tentatively put them around her. She slides into his touch, arms about his neck, and he relaxes. The hug is tenuous, loose enough that she can break away if she wants. But there's a slight pressure from his hands on her back, a small push that says 'please. stay.'
"The message," mumbles Tanya.
"Mmm?"
"The last message I left. About all the crying I would do until I saw you next."
His head sinks. His nose rests over her shoulder, and his mouth against her collarbone, like an undelivered, contrite kiss.
Low and warm, the words vibrate through the fabric of her sleeve, against her skin: "Missed me that much, huh?"
"I guess." (A sigh.) "I know you have a duty to your country and you love flying. I wouldn't hold that against you in a million years. But I really did cry for months when you left. It got better sometimes, on and off. I cried when I found out you were alive. I even cried two weeks ago!" (A rueful laugh.) "It's so long ago but—I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, it's just that I—I couldn't—"
Tanya lifts her head and takes a step back. His embrace loosens. They look at each other.
"I couldn't get over you, Maverick. Still haven't."
A wave of nausea runs through her. Disgusted in herself, she thinks: what kind of sick, obsessive ex-lover am I, hanging onto this for so long? She feels like she's about to shatter.
She lowers her head, and the motion makes her hair slide forward. His fingertips come to gently lift Tanya's hair like the parting of a sanctuary veil. They brush her mouth like a prelude to a prayer. And then his lips are there, hushing her fears, replacing them with sacred silence. Maverick's palm cups her cheek, lifts her face to his, as they kiss again and again. She's trembling, she's burning, she's his.
Maverick rests his forehead against hers. Faint smiles tiptoe across their faces. "It's getting cold," he says. "Where are you staying?"
"Not far."
"I'll drive you home."
***
The car ride isn't a long one. He's as smooth at the wheel as he is in his planes. Tanya sits with her eyes closed.
As the car glides round a bend, Pete says: "Where do we go from here?"
She smiles wryly. "In life? Or navigation-wise?"
He snorts with laughter. "No, I know my way around. I was just thinking..."
"You were never ready to settle, Pete."
He inhales with a sharp sigh. "Not then. No, I was...I didn't see the value of a lot of things."
"Do all your exes come back to haunt you like this?" Tanya taunts herself with her own words, fighting sudden, hot anger. "Pathetically turning up and winning a night with you for the price of a few tears?" It's a knife thrust disguised as a jester's quip.
Maverick would shout at her now — the old Maverick. He'd turn the radio volume to its loudest setting and yell at her and pretend she wasn't yelling back. They'd fight and go off pouting.
Only he doesn't do any of those things. Instead, there's silence. She draws a deep breath.
It's a forcible reminder that the Maverick of '89 is not the same as the guy driving her home.
"I'm sorry," she says, in a rush, "I didn't mean it that way. You're a pilot, and you belong to the Navy. You go where America calls you and you do what only those men like you can do. It's nonsense for me to think you have the freedom or desire to go racing about looking for a girl you once had a fling with in Australia. Yet here I am, doing just that…!"
He remarks, mildly, with a hint of teasing, "That's a lot of expectations."
"I know!" she agonises aloud. "I know. Ignore me, I'm a silly, miserable old woman. I suppose—" She looks out the window. Then over at him. "I'm just mad at myself for not being able to let go of you."
He looks into her eyes for a moment, his gaze flickering between his passenger and the road, searching for something. He turns back to the wheel. "It's much harder, isn't it," he says softly, like he's found the answer, "when someone's your first, but you feel like their throwaway fourth or fifth?"
Tears glimmer in her eyes. She nods.
"If I'd understood at the time... I can't say it would have turned out different, in the end. Words aren't my strength. Flying's what I do best. But I'd have tried to show you — I'd have made sure you knew, before I left." His voice is earnest. "You weren't just a throwaway to me, Tazz. That's why you haven't let go."
At this, Tanya breaks. Not prettily, either: a 39-year-old woman ugly-sobbing into a corner of her jacket never looks pretty. He stretches out to hold her hand in a warm, comforting grip.
"I'm back now," he says. "You found me again."
He doesn't say sorry, and she doesn't ask him to. He gets it. He knows. That's all she wanted.
She apologises for crying, for being such a mess.
"It's fine," he says. She squeezes his hand, and he continues: "I really thought we had something, once upon a time."
"I thought so, too."
He concedes this with a nod. "We got a little lost along the way, but — we can try again. If you want."
Tanya is quiet for a second. Struck to the heart by the incredible nature of second chances.
"Wow," she breathes.
"Only if you want to."
She feigns astonishment. "Are you ... actually asking my permission for something, Maverick?"
His grin is now as wide as it can go. "Yes ma'am."
She loosens her seatbelt and leans over to kiss his cheek. She brushes her fingers down the curve of his cheek, where the laugh lines run deep. "Yes. You can take me to Malibu. Fly me over it one day."
"Malibu and back, baby," he whoops. He cranks the car up a gear to speed down a long straight. The radio is blasting Smash Mouth's "All Star". They wind the windows down and yell like they're 20-somethings again.
"Remember that time..." Tanya shouts over the wind whipping in.
"Which time?" He breaks into the frank, high-spirited laugh that she's missed so much. "The time I buzzed the — what did you call the police?"
"The cops."
"Yeah! The cops."
His accent makes it sound even more ridiculous, and she loves it.
"Didn't I have to take you to the hospital so they'd actually believe you had a ruptured appendix?"
She nods, her head rushing with crazy happiness. "Too bad they didn't know I had it out at fifteen!"
***
"Thanks for everything."
He stuffs his hands in his jacket. "Wasn't much. It's good to see you." The words are simple but he says it like he means it.
"You too."
They kiss goodnight. She strokes his hair. His hands are anchored on her waist. His blue-green eyes are vibrant and tender, melting her inside. She has to hope, somehow, that he's here because he sees a similar spark in her.
"This wasn't how I expected this day to go…!" His voice is soft and breathless, almost giddy.
"Heh, I was just thinking that."
"Before we start over, I do have a confession to make." There's the beginnings of a very Pete Mitchell grin on his face. That you're-about-to-get-paid-out grin.
"Oh, dear," says Tanya, already flustered.
"I didn't want to tell you earlier, I didn't want to break the moment. But I was thinking about it in the car, when you started crying—"
"Nooo, I'm never living this down."
He's already snickering. "Kinda. And believe me, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but... I messed up the number. The phone number. That's why I never got your calls."
She stares. "You what? Oh, holy moley—"
"Two 0's. It should be Oh-Nine-Seven at the end. I told you Double-Oh-Seven. Remember how I made a joke about being Bond?"
Tanya covers her mouth.
He steps closer to her, arms spread out in the emphatic way he has, and he's trying to speak through fits of laughter. "I know! Some poor Texan guy, to this day, would be sitting on his front porch wondering what those strangely desperate and passionate voice messages were all about. I guarantee it."
She lets out a wail, but she's laughing, too. "Or, like, a DJ plays the recordings every Friday night to shift the mood, at some really dreadful nightclub in Frisco. It's probably been a regular part of their musical entertainment for the last decade."
"Oh yeah, for sure! People listen to it and the whole club’s sobbing," he says.
They run through several possible scenarios for who might have gotten her messages, before the fun dies out and is replaced by tiredness, and the awareness that, Baby it's cold outside.
"Night, Pete."
"Night. I'll be back."
"You'd better. You have my address now, no excuses. No, wait!" She digs around in her bag. "Got a pen?"
"You know me." He flourishes a pen, seemingly pulling it from nowhere, and clicks it.
"Bother, I don't have any paper. Here, give me the pen. And your hand."
"Geez, careful with that thing."
"You can put it on your headstone: 'Maverick, stabbed to death by a pen' ... There!" She releases his hand.
He peers at it, and catches on. He quickly writes a phone number on her hand, too. "It's new," he explains.
"Now we're set. You have my number, I have yours."
He opens the car door and slides into the driver's seat. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"Don't wash your hand, for starters."
"Yes ma'am."
Tanya waves him off, and goes upstairs to her bedroom with the memory of that smile. Part of her says she's stupid. That she's setting herself up to get hurt all over again.
But they're both different now. The world looks different, too. It's March 2001, it’s the end of winter, it’s a new era. The Matrix and The Phantom Menace came out two years ago, X-Men has revived the superhero genre, this year the world gets to see the first Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Friends has been running for six years now, and Ross still isn't with Rachel. Cell phones and personal computers are here, DVDs and CDs are taking the place of records and VHS.
People and attitudes are changing. And part of her is hoping that maybe, maybe this time it will work out.
Something hits her bedroom window with a *ting*. She jumps violently. It happens again, and again. She goes to the window, and there's Maverick, with a handful of gravel.
The window is flung open, and she pokes her head out. She gestures for him to stop.
His arm is drawn back to toss another tiny missile. He lowers it, his watch flashing in the moonlight.
"You always did make me do the darndest things to get your attention," he calls up.
"You idiot! Stop standing there grinning like a Cheshire Cat. There's a doorbell."
He scuffs up her hallway with his big boots and he brings a smell of engines and the crowded bar.
"Wash up first, please. There should be a towel on the rack — no, yes, the other door is the bathroom."
She sets the kettle to boil and fetches the manliest cups she has in the cupboard: a Snoopy mug and some football team she doesn't even follow. She puts out a mug with kookaburras for herself.
Tanya hums as she breaks the foil in the coffee tin, checks the fridge for snacks, tries to think what a grown man would want to eat after midnight.
She grins and opens a pack of Tim-Tams. Maybe this time it'll work out. She's been through years of pain and toil to carve a life for herself, and still only half-succeeded. All of us have scars. Everyone makes mistakes, says dumb things. She knows by now that life can't be perfect.
But maybe it could be everything it needs to be.
(And then some.)