Chapter Text
Rooster wasn't surprised when Phoenix and Hangman had showed up to the gathering, hand in hand, in fact, he had seen it coming, he just hasn't expected their relationship to be this far deep. He knew the two for quite some time, and could still remember the first day in the academy, when a cocky Hangman, then simply Jake Seresin, without call sign or anything, walked up to him with a smirk on his face, took one look at him and wordlessly walked away. He also noticed Phoenix, then Natasha Trace as she was the only female pilot in his class that year, and the way no matter what bull shit Jake pulled would faze everyone but her.
Rooster remembers the day they both got their call signs, the same day actually. Jake and Natasha had been paired up for a mission, and he left his wing woman, after which a bird strike happened and took both of their planes down, but while Jake was forced to eject, Natasha landed back on the carrier, unscathed, except for the one damaged left engine. She told him it was karma for leaving him behind, and as they continued in the academy, the story spread like wildfire and rumours twisted an turned it, until Natasha Trace became Phoenix, rising up from the ashes, and Jake Seresin, Hangman, always leaving you hanging. Rooster nearly bursts out into laughter when he and the other pilots were sitting in the common room the day of training where Maverick was up in the air with these two again, and Natasha told Jake the exact words he was known for.
It wasn't hard to tell something was going on between these two, any idiot would notice how much they just bantered and threw comments back and forth. But what no one truly noticed, not even Rooster was how these two kept one another and on their toes, the banter was what made their relationship exciting, what challenged them. Rooster knew that Phoenix and Hangman had hooked up once or twice in the academy days, he could occasionally hear it through the plaster thin walls of the bunks, or how they seemed more comfortable physically with one another while their tongues still laced with venom for one another. Anyone else would take a good look and call them best friends, and in a sense they would be the closest things to a pair of best friends at Top Gun. Rooster had assumed that the two were just screwing one another, on missions occasionally to relieve the stress that came with missions in a line as dangerous as theirs. So he didn't put any thought into seeing them together when they were on the carrier or whatsoever, getting exceptionally close and invading one another's private space many a times, because those were uncommon behaviours for Jake 'I don't like to work with others' Seresin, and Natasha 'I can do it by myself' Trace. But like everyone else, he chose not to question it. When he arrived at North Island for the special mission and caught them looking at one another once again at the Hard Deck, he had only assumed their arrangement was on again, but not in the way that they would be closer than he thought. He brushed their lingering stares off as paranoia, knowing he should not push them, because that would be the best outcome.
So yes, one could say he was surprised when the team and him eventually found out they were together, but he had seen it coming.