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If Jake bites it out here, he's gonna have some very pointed words with whoever is in charge of this mess, because it was looking more and more likely that his daring rescue is going to end in an inglorious death.
He hadn't exactly planned ahead when he went back to rescue his wingman, nothing beyond the ice-cold certainty that Rooster was not allowed to die. Not as long as Jake was in the air. He knew he was probably going to get shot down by the SAM's without any flares or chaff left, but he also knew he made the right call, especially as he banked a hard left and saw the attack helicopter bearing down on the tiny figure in green, Jake seconds away from being too late.
(When the SAM had hit and he'd been forced to eject, his adrenaline-soaked mind had spit up the idle though that he's taken Pop's repeated insistence of 'Don't Think, Just Do' a little too to heart.)
Looking up as he stowed his chute, he sees Rooster pelting full speed at him through the snow, and he's about to fire off one of his patented quips when he's suddenly staring up at the treetops, a solid ache in his chest from where Rooster had slammed into him.
"What the HELL, Bradshaw?!"
"The FUCK are you doing here?!"
The shouting match that followed was probably a horrible idea, what with them being behind enemy lines and all, but when all was shouted and done, Rooster had bent over, panting with his hands on his keens, before he managed to straighten with a laugh.
"Didn't know you had it in you, Seresin."
"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." Jake scooped his helmet up from the ground, brushing off the snow with a chuckle, "One time show, no repeats." He stretches backwards until his back pops, the ache of ejection already making itself known, before shooting his mustachioed comrade an arch look. "So....got a plan?"
The side eye Rooster shoots him says volumes, and Jake's not sure he likes what it's saying.
Rooster has his mini scope trained on the only miraculously intact hutch on the enemy airfield, a satisfied smile making it's way on to his face, before passing it over. "There's our ticket out of here."
Jake trains the scope on the hutch, only to have his jaw drop as he sees the jet in question. "An F-14!? No, no way we can..."
"I can fly it."
Jake looked at Rooster in disbelief, finally tearing his eyes away from the bucket of bolts that might be their only way out of this mess.
"That piece of shit is older than both of us, Bradshaw, how the fuck are you going to even get it started? 'Cause I sure as hell don't know the startup sequence. We don't even know if it can fly!"
Rooster turned and gave him a crooked smirk that seemed both out of place and horribly familiar.
"Let's find out."
Jake could only gape as Rooster, reserved, stuck on his perch Rooster, started marching straight across the cratered tarmac.
"Roost.....! Fuck." Scrambling down the embankment, Jake quickly caught up to Rooster's determined stride. A frantic glance across the ruined airstrip had him counting way more enemies than he would ever be comfortable with, and he was beginning to feel like that one time back on his pa's ranch, when he got caught out in the scrub with a hungry pack of coyotes yipping all around him.
(And no, the irony of his best friend bearing the name of his second most traumatizing childhood memory is not lost on him.)
The hair-raising thirty seconds it took to get across the tarmac felt like an eternity, but they made it safely to the Tomcat that would hopefully get them out of there.
Scrubbing the frost from the aircart's gauges, Rooster flipped a switch, "Okay, we've got power. Once I give you the signal for 'air', I need you to hold this switch until the needle gets to 120. Once I start the engine, hit this button to stop the air feed, then pull all the pins and disconnect everything, got it?"
"Yeah, but you're explaining everything once we get back to the boat."
Rooster shot him that same strangely familiar smirk as he hit the button to start the airfeed, giving a little cheer when it did so without a hitch, "Sure, man. Stow the ladder once I'm up!"
It took less than a minute to get the old Tomcat ready for takeoff, Jake running about the air frame pulling pins and closing hatches. The turbines spat out a worrying amount of ash as they spun up, but there was no time to be concerned as Jake used a handy munitions crate to climb up and over the wing, settling into the back seat with a groan.
"Holy shit, this thing is older than Pops."
"When we get back, I'd pay actual money to see you say that to his face."
When. Like it was foregone conclusion that they would get out of here alive. Jake almost envies his confidence.
As they taxied out of the hutch, canopy sealing over their heads, Jake saw the next obstacle.
"The runways are wrecked! How are we gonna get this museum piece airborne?"
No response. Then...
"Uhhhh, Roo? Why are the wings coming out?"
Silence from the front seat.
"Rooster, this is a taxiway. This is a VERY SHORT taxiway, Rooster."
Jake felt the rumble as the afterburners wound up, "Shortest takeoff distance ever achieved by a Tomcat was 1,400 feet without a catapult, just hold on."
Jake didn't get a chance to say anything to that as Rooster released the brakes and the old jet rocketed forward, hurtling towards the fuel towers in front of them.
"Roo..."
"Needle's alive, c'mon sweetheart..."
The towers were getting closer at an alarming rate.
"Rooster..."
"Almost, almost...."
Closer still.
"Rooster!"
"Hold on!"
With a gut-wrenching lurch, they were airborne, Jake absently noting the jolt of their front landing gear getting torn away as he activated his ESAT.
"Hoooooly shit."
"Yup."
"If we get out of this alive, I'm gonna kill you, Roo."
"That's fair."
Rooster leveled them out above the mountains and pointed their nose eastward, "How's it look back there?"
"Radio's out, RADAR's out, whole array is dead back here. Any more bright ideas in that bag of tricks, Roo?"
"Shit...uh, look in the recesses beside your seat, there should be a shitton of breakers."
"Ugh, yeah, like 300 of them."
"Poke around a bit; if everything's dead, its gotta be a popped breaker, but I can't tell you any more than that."
"I'll figure it out." Jake ran his hand along the breakers, feeling for any raised ones, before spotting something that made his blood run cold. "Rooster, tally two, five o'clock low."
He sees Rooster twist in his restraints, laying eyes on the two fifth-gen fighters creeping up behind them.
"Any ideas?"
"....We're in an allied jet, and they haven't engaged. They must not realize we're not on their side. Put your mask on and just wave. It should buy us some time."
It works, for all of a minute, is the really crazy thing. Jake feels cold sweat trickle down his collar as the second fighter moves into weapon's envelope, not buying Rooster's repeated 'No Comms' signal. "Now what?"
"Up above your head, those loops? Those are the ejection handles. I'll get us some altitude, then pull them the second I tell you."
"We're above the mountains, Roo; we've got a better chance against 5th gens than safely ejecting again."
"We're in an F-14, we'd never outrun them."
"So it's a dogfight."
"Those 5ths will blow us out of the sky."
"Fancy planes got nothing on a TopGun pilot."
"Hangman..."
"Don't turn chicken on me now, Rooster. What's Pop's go to? Don't think, just do."
Silence from the front, then...
"Hey Hangman? Brace."
Jake watches the with disbelief as Rooster flies like he never has before, slinging the old jet around like gravity and air resistance are mere suggestions. The sucker punch of a gun sweep that took out the first fifth gen only the start of his insane plan.
"Tell me when you see smoke in the air!" Jake twists in his restraints just in time to see the enemy plane launch its first missile.
"Smoke in the air! Smoke in the air!"
"Brace!" Rooster slung the jet in the opposite direction, curving down and around the burning fifth gen. The missile slams into the damaged airframe, blowing it to hell instead of tracking them around its heat.
"YEAH, splash one!"
"Flare control to your left, get ready!"
"On it!" Jake twists again, trying to keep eyes on the trailing jet without the benefit of the RADAR and IFF systems to help him. "Smoke in the air!"
Rooster hauls back on the stick, "Flares, NOW!"
The missile impacts a dozen feet behind them, then suddenly the sky and ground switch places as Rooster attempts to bring them into weapon's envelope.
"Gimmie tone, gimmie tone.....firing!"
Jake....isn't sure what happens next. One second the missile is tracking the enemy jet, then the next it's blowing past as the fifth gen's pilot pulls some Matrix level bullshit that turns his plane into a sail, swapping their positions with insulting ease.
"What the FUCK was that!?"
"Don't know, I gotta get low! It should confuse this guy's targeting system!"
"SHOULD!?"
Rooster dives, weaving in between the mountains with an ease completely at odds with his difficulties during training, the fifth gen seconds behind them.
"He's still on us!"
Bullets start pinging off the sides of the canyon, Rooster just barely keeping them away. A few lucky shots tag the wings, and Jakes sure that if his array was working, he'd have warnings flashing at him all over. "We took a hit!"
"Fuck!"
"C'mon, Rooster, do some of that pilot shit!"
"Hold on!" There's a mechanical whine, then suddenly their nose is pointed at the sky, wing fully extended.
"The hell are you doing!?"
'What' becomes fully apparent as Rooster must push the stick full forward, the F-14 hanging weightless at the top of its arc for a hair of a second, Jake only stopped from bumping into the canopy above him by his harness. The enemy pilot shoots by underneath them, reflexes just a hair too slow to counter Rooster's cobra. The high-pitched tone of missile lock rings in the cockpit.
"Fucking flares. Outta missiles, just the gun left!"
"Focus, Roo, Focus!"
Rooster keeps them tight to the back of the fifth gen, bringing the gun to bear and firing off a volley after volley. A handful of shots find home but its not nearly enough.
Rooster swears from the front seat, "Last chance!"
"You got this, Roo!"
"C'mon you bastard..."
Whatever god that looks out for mad pilots must be with them, because that last volley sweeps clean across the fifth's engines, sending it crashing into the canyon wall.
"SPLASH TWO! SPLASH TWO!"
"Hoooooooly SHIT!"
"Fuck me."
And suddenly they're laughing, the euphoric rush of survival making them giddy as Rooster redirects them towards the ocean.
Jake runs his hands along the breakers, using the breathing room Rooster earned them to try to get the RIO systems up and running.
"Any luck?"
"Not...quite...c'mon..." Finally he feels a raised breaker in the middle of a line of engaged ones. "Got it!" The RADAR screen lights up, and then the radio squeals some feedback at him. "Radio's up!"
"Awesome, get us in touch with the boat!....huh?" A rapid beeping sounds in their ears.
Missile lock.
Jake could go the rest of his life without hearing that sound again.
"Where is this guy!?" Jake looks frantically around, trying to spot the enemy that has tone on them.
"He's on our nose." Rooster sounds exhausted but grimly determined. A clicking noise echoes from underneath them. "Dammit, out of ammo. Smoke in the air! Hangman, flares!"
Jake's gut lurches as Rooster pulls a frantic aileron, his thumb holding the flare toggle desperately, the missile blowing scant feet away, "We're outta flares!"
"Dammit dammit DAMMIT." Rooster breaks left, narrowly missing the enemy fighter as it whips past them.
Jake gapes as the fifth gen practically skids into line behind them, "Jesus, he's already on us!"
"Fuck!" Rooster swung them into a tight zigzag, desperately trying to keep the bullets now zinging past from finding their mark.
"We took another hit!" Rooster growls in frustration, still frantically avoiding the pursuing fighter.
"Goddammit! We gotta eject!"
"What!?"
"No ammo, no flares, and the engines are overheating, we don't have fucking choice!" Rooster points the Tomcat's nose skyward, "Eject eject eject!"
Jake reaches up and yanks on the ejection handles. Nothing happens.
"What are you waiting for!?"
"Its not working!"
Tone echoes in the cockpit again, and Jake could have gone his whole life without hearing Rooster whisper that broken apology; "I'm sorry, Jake."
Jake knew his luck would run out eventually, but a miracle isn't luck.
It's been a day for miracles.
So it's only fitting that they get a final one in the form of the man who taught Jake to believe in them.
The final fifth gen detonates into a massive cloud of smoke and shrapnel, the missile it was in the process of launching caught in the explosion. And through the smoke, like an avenging angel, comes an F-18 with three kills painted on it's nose.
He's gonna need another one now, Jake thinks in dazed relief.
"Greetings aviators, this is your Captain speaking;" Comes Maverick's voice, and in that moment it's the most beautiful thing Jake's ever heard, "We apologize for the rough flight as we did encounter some unexpected turbulence, but it seems to have passed so please just sit back, relax, and prepare for landing."
Maverick pulls his F-18 into wingtip with them, tossing them a cheeky salute. Rooster's relieved laugh echoed in Jake's ears, "You always did have the best timing, Dad."
"You two good?"
Jake can't help it, "Sir, we are too good to be true." He quips with a laugh.
Maverick lets out a cackle, "That's what I like to hear. I'll see you boys back on deck." With that, he breaks right, peeling off to land before they inevitably ruin the flightdeck.
"Rooster is downwind, no front landing gear, no tailhook. Pull the cable and raise the barricade."
They're circling the carrier as the barricade is deployed when the old Tomcat shudders and jerks.
"Did...did we just lose an engine?"
"Uhhh, maybe?"
"For chrissake..."
"Guess it's a good thing we're already planning on crashing."
Rooster is lining them up when his words to Maverick really register. "Wait, did you say dad!?"
And then they're smashing into deck.
The barricade does it's job, catching the F-14 and halting it's skid. Jake rips off his mask as the deckhands hose them down with flame retardant, then the canopy is popping open and sound crashes over them.
The whole crew seems to be there, cheering for their miraculous survival and triumphant return. Rooster hops down first and is immediately pulled into a crushing hug by the good captain, his broader frame practically swallowing the older pilot as they cling to one another. Jake jumps down as well, and is immediately accosted by Coyote, his best friend hauling him into his arms.
"Don't you ever fucking do that to me again, you dick." Jake magnanimously ignores his wet cheeks and squeezes him back.
"Never, Javy." He pulls back, and there's the rest of the Daggers, cheering along with the rest of the crew, and Jake's never felt more like a part of a whole than he does right now.
He turns to see that Rooster and Maverick have finally separated, grinning at each other without a care, and Jake knows he needs to say something to the man who saved his life.
"Chalked yourself another kill, old man." Maverick's grin gets impossibly wider.
"Not bad for a fossil, huh, kid?"
That cracks Jake right up, remembering his ill-informed banter from their first day of training, "Not bad at all, Sir."
Maverick claps him on the shoulder, then looks thoughtfully up at Rooster. "I'm not the only one, you know."
Jake turns to him too, and grins up at the slightly taller man, "See what happens when you get off your perch, Roo?"
Rooster tilts his head consideringly, "You know what? Yeah, I do." And then he grabs Jake by the harness and reels him in, and he's being kissed within an inch of life. Wolf whistles erupt around them and he definitely hears Maverick's cackle somewhere off to his right.
"GET A ROOM BAGMAN!"
Jake flips Phoenix the finger as Rooster grins into their kiss and thinks, yeah, I could get used to this.
Later, much later, after they make port and are dismissed for a month of promised medical leave, after Jake and Bradley have reacquainted themselves without the stain of 'Rooster and Hangman's' messy history, Jake will bring up their daring escape.
"I figured it out, you know."
Bradley grins down at him from where he's propped up on the headboard, his curls and mustache a riotous mess from the last couple rounds, "Figured out what?"
"Where that damn smirk of yours came from."
"What smirk?"
"Then one you gave me every time you were about to do something insane" Jack pushed himself up from where he was curled around Bradley's hip, straddling his lap so he could look his lover in the eye, "You got it from Maverick, didn't you? Stole the crazy right off 'im."
Bradley cocks an eyebrow at that, smoothing his big paws up Jake's thighs to rest on his waist, "One, can you please not bring up my dad when you're naked in bed with me," he says with a dramatic shudder, "And two, I didn't steal his crazy, I just... borrowed it for a while."