Chapter Text
Slider comes to the training and makes Mav human in the eyes of his students. And maybe he sets Rooster straight on a few things?
How can I teach him if he won’t even look at me? Maverick had been asking himself that question during the first few days of training.
Let’s not do it this way. He’d said, his stupid mouth not saying what he’d really wanted to say. Forgive me, please forgive me, I was wrong but I made a promise. That’s what he’d wanted to say, on his hands and knees if he had to, he would beg for Bradley to look at him with love and kindness once again. Don’t look at me with Goose’s eyes and reject me, please - I love you so much, Baby Goose, and your mother only loved you too!
But he says none of these things and the little flicker of hope Maverick had nursed in his heart became even smaller. Because Bradley wouldn’t even look at him. Years of military service had trained his godson to look into the middle distance and never meet an officer’s eyes if he didn’t want to.
I’m sending you a guest trainer, Ice texted him, Maverick’s phone buzzing just before he started the training for the day.
Guest trainer? Maverick really didn’t like the sound of that. But he soldiered on, like he always did, enduring Rooster’s passive-aggressive pushing of the boundaries and Hangman just ignored the rules all together. There was no way they were going to be a team, if they continued this way - no way they were all going to survive this Mission … and Maverick didn’t have room for another tombstone labeled ‘Bradshaw’ in his heart, nor did he want any of he Dagger squad's death's on his conscience.
When the classroom door opened, his back was to the room and he turned reflexively at the order of ‘Ten hut’ as Warlock escorted a very familiar hulking figure into the classroom.
“Pipsqueak!” Slider’s familiar voice boomed out, the Daggers looking up with obvious interest.
“Slider,” Maverick greeted, sounding a bit resigned to the inevitable, but he was also happy to see his old friend. (Honest.) Slider had made it to two star Admiral, just like a few others in the class of ’86 had, though it was Ice who had outshone when all, in the end. Not that any of them minded.
Addressing the Daggers, glad that Warlock hadn’t decided to call him out about not addressing Slider by his rank from the start. “Admiral Kerner, these are the Dagger squad, my current students.” Dutifully listing off names and callsigns for his old friend, though he’s sure the hulking man has already looked through all their files with Ice.
“I hope you’re all taking Captain Mitchell’s lessons to heart - he’s a bit of a Maverick, but he’ll get you home when it counts,” Slider told the Baby Pilots.
It’s Bob, of all people, who raises his hand. “Sir, are you training with us today?”
“I’m here to see that you’re the right people for this task,” Slider says bluntly. “While you have been pulled from the best graduates of the Top Gun program, if you can’t learn to work as a team,” Sending a pointed look Rooster’s way, “Then this Mission will be a failure from the start. While you are the best of the best - none of you, unfortunately, is irreplaceable. When this Mission was planned, the first goal on my mind and Admiral Kazansky, as well as Maverick here, was how to make sure as many of you as possible make it home.” Staring at Hangman, who still manages to look cocky throughout the spiel. “I’ll be listening in on the radio during the next couple of sessions to make sure our choices were the right ones.” Looking at them all, one by one, “Do you best. And your country thanks you for your service.”
Clearing his throat, Maverick could only follow up with a quick summary of their flying schedule for the day to practice the canyon run. The pairs had been posted on the board and he went to suit up, too. Slider followed after.
Rooster lingered in the hall, watching his uncles backs, wondering, for a moment, if this was another scheme of Ice’s to get him and Maverick to hash it out. If it was, he definitely wasn’t going to fall for it.
“You doing okay, Pipsqueak?” Slider asked with as much concern as he was capable of showing. “Ice made it sound like Rooster was still being an ass.”
“It’s not his fault,” Maverick says, though he knows the protest sounds weak.
“Bullshit - it’s been over ten years Mav. This is going to kill you - one way or the other!”
Hunching his shoulders, Maverick continues to silently get into his gear.
“Ice is all for getting you two to reconcile on your own, but I’ve always been a more hands on kind of guy.”
“Just leave it alone, Slider,” Maverick says, finally turning to face his old friend, fiddling with his helmet strap.
“… I’ll be in the radio room with Cyclone. Though if that stick up his ass was any further in —” laughing as Maverick smacked him on the arm. Turning serious again as they parted ways in the corridor. “Fly safe.”
“Don’t I always?” Maverick says, with the Look.
“Fuck off.”
————————————————-
Slider was well aware of the two young aviators standing in the corridor.
Letting them stew for a while longer, he went through the Hops of the day in his mind and what had happened in the briefings afterwards. Seresin had left his wingman behind — he was the most capable pilot of the bunch (reminding Slider a lot of a young Mav), but he was not fit to be part of the final team, despite that. He was reckless, and none of the others would want to fly with him. (Though Slider knew that, at the end of the day, orders were orders.)
Rooster (Bradley, Baby Goose) he’d made it through the simulation but he’d been too slow. The other aviators liked him and seemed to know that Rooster was willing to go above and beyond to keep them safe, making him an ideal candidate for Mission Leader — but he was slow, so they’d need to figure out how to set a fire under his tail feathers.
And then the whole debacle in the classroom had happened and Seresin would have deserved the beating that Rooster had been prepared to serve out. Slider had half a mind to smack him a few times himself, but that was unbecoming conduct for an officer so … and Ice had sent him here to do what he did best: namely, knock a few heads together. So putting the fear of god in the Baby Aviators (Seresin specifically) was first on the agenda.
“Enter!” He barked, loud enough for the kids outside the door at parade rest to come in. Watching as they entered. Seresin looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, while Rooster knew Slider well enough to look like he expected a proper dressing down.
Standing, Slider paced up and down behind his desk a few times, partly for dramatic effect, and partly because he needed to decide what he was going to say first.
“Lt. Seresin are you aware of the qualities of a good leader?”
The younger man blinked, looking a little thrown by the question but answering almost without hesitation. “Someone who gets the job done, sir!”
“Wrong!” Slider barked. “A leader is the one who keeps peace in the group, who deals fairly but with a firm hand, they’re the one who makes your want to put your best self forward - qualities which you do not seem to possess, Hangman.”
Looking like he wants to protest, Hangman stays silent, no longer looking as confident as he had when he walked in.
“Why are you here, Lt?” Slider asks. “What about your current performance during this Mission training so far would convince me to keep you on the roster?” Flickering eyes to Rooster, who merely stands stoically, though Slider knows the kid is listening intently. “Permission to speak.”
“Sir, I —” Hangman speaks in a burst and then bites his lip, lost for words for once, apparently. “I made the canyon run with the best time.”
“And left your wingman behind,” Slider said. “How is that a good thing? Explain that to me Lt. When this Missions’ success is dependent on all of the four planes cooperating as part of the overall plan — how is your performance today, as impressive as your flying was,” giving credit where credit is due, “reason enough for me to keep you in this training detachment?”
Swallowing, Seresin apparently has nothing to say. Somehow, Rooster manages not to look smug. Honestly, he just looks weary of the whole mess and like he’s rather be anywhere but in the office, as much as he’s probably satisfied with Hangman getting a dressing down.
Pushing on, Slider asks. “Beyond that stupid mistake, are there any other mistakes you would like to admit to, regarding your behavior today?”
Bristling, Hangman barks out, “No, sir!”
“No?” Slider raised an eyebrow, glancing over again at Bradley. “So bringing up your fellow trainee’s personal history was not a mistake?” At Hangman’s silence, Slider presses on. “Do you ever put any thoughts into your actions at all, Lt? Or do you just fly with your dick and not your brains? Because I’d like to think the Navy has taught you better then that.”
In the following silence, Slider watches as Hangman wars with himself, still standing at attention.
“By the end of tomorrow I will expect you to have made a sincere apology to Lt. Bradshaw and Captain Mitchell. You will also reflect on your own performance during training. If you do not figure out how to improve your performance and bond with your teammates, I will classify you as a liability on this mission and I will have Admiral Kazansky get you off the list if it comes to that.”
He only has one more thing to say before he lets the kid go. “Your an excellent pilot Lt., but you could be even better — great, even.”
Switching his attention to his honorary nephew, he finishes up that part of the little drama. “You’re dismissed. Bradshaw, you stay.”
Slider can only hope the kid takes his warnings to heart. But now he has even bigger fish to fry.
“Sit down, Bradley,” he tells the Baby Goose.
“I’d rather stand, sir.”
“Sit. Down.”
Bradley sits, though a bit of his mulishness (something Slider doesn’t think he got from his father) passing over his face before returning to a professional mask.
“Ice is dying, kid.” Slider rips off the first bandaid, watching a familiar grief rise in the kid’s face.
“But,” Bradley licks his lips, frowning, “I though he was in remission?”
“It’s back,” Slider tells him. “And they can’t operate this time.”
Giving Bradley a little bit he continues. “You know me — or at least you did, before you cut us all out of your life — and if you think you really want to know, I’ll tell you why Mav did what he did.” Holding up a hand to Forstall Bradley’s knee-jerk response. “Think carefully — the truth isn’t always what we think it’s going to be.” He’s spent literally years trying to get Maverick to tell the kid the truth on his own and now Ice is dying and Maverick almost got killed test piloting and now Slider is just tired of it all.
“I want to know, Uncle Slider,” Rooster declares.
Pulling off another bandaid. “Your mother made Maverick promise, on her deathbed, that he would stop you from flying.”
Frozen in his chair, Rooster’s eyes are wide and he stares at his uncle, the blood slowly draining from his face.
“Mav has only ever been proud of you, kid,” Slider says. “Ice has been telling him all about your achievements in the Navy since the beginning - he has a fucking calendar where he keeps track of your deployments, for Christ's sake. But Goose’s death killed a part of him too, and you're the only thing that Goose left in the world. You're special — and not only to him, you're special to all of us.”
Tears are trailing down Rooster’s face as he starts to sob into his hands, halfway through the speech, hunching forward in his chair.
“I warned you,” Slider says softly, placing a gentle hand on the kid’s back. “The truth isn’t always what we think it’s going to be.”