Chapter Text
Bradley groans as he collapses on his stripped bed. Packing up after one detachment was always simultaneously draining and exciting at the same time. As it is, he is already one of the late ones—all the rest had already bid goodbye days earlier, all of them eager to start their well-deserved shore leave.
Coyote, Payback, and Fanboy all had big families to go back to. Bob had his parents. Phoenix had excitedly sent him links about her solo backpacking adventure through the Rockies. Even Hangman had mysteriously left early, citing delayed leave plans—whatever those were.
Rooster was—well. Rooster was still caught up in the mission, and the landing on the carrier, the two hugs and the conversation that never really materialized in the whirlwind aftermath of it all. The whole team got their honors, and even Maverick was awarded—against his own will, it seems. Bradley got a kick out of watching him cross the stage like he had a rifle to his back.
They were okay, for lack of a better term. Near-death experiences would do that even to the most bitter rivals. They had hugged on the carrier, stayed with each other all throughout the medical checks, and Bradley could’ve sworn that those were tears in Maverick’s eyes whenever he looked at him. Mav had smiled at him on stage when they got their honors, had even given him a hug after the mandatory salute. Never mind that he had technically given hugs to everyone—Bradley thought that Jake looked a little misty-eyed after.
So that was that. They didn’t have any more arguments. There was nothing to argue about—even if Bradley had caught Mav’s eyes on him more than once during the multiple mission debriefings, where they told and retold their report so many times that Bradley could practically recite it in his sleep.
He zips up his bag and sighs. Mav didn’t even say goodbye—he had gone to his quarters on base intending to find some excuse to get over that promised talk, but no one buzzed him in. Eventually, Hondo found him waiting in front of the door like a kicked puppy and gently informed him that Mav had left earlier.
“He’s gone? Where?”
Hondo had just smiled sympathetically. “Back to his home base. His appointment at Top Gun has technically ended.”
“Oh.” Bradley looked at the door. Sure enough, the name plate was empty—ready for a new arrival. He had missed that earlier. “Thanks, Hondo.”
Bradley knew where Mav’s home base was, of course—that field in San Diego with his own hangar, the P-51 that never seemed to fly straight, serving as a project that never ended.
“I can’t believe you’re keeping this! Does it even fly?”
Mav grinned at the curious Bradley, running his hand along the chrome of the plane’s wings. “Sure does, kiddo. It just needs a little help.”
Bradley knew the drive there by heart, for all that he never came back. Mav had gotten that place when he was a teenager, just so they’d have somewhere else for their shenanigans that didn’t involve wrecking Carole’s house.
The thing was—he didn’t know if he’d be welcome. He’d declined all the invites from his friends to start their leave together, trying to muster up his courage to take that drive—but it was his last day at Top Gun, and he still felt like chickening out. Hangman could be right sometimes—maybe he was okay right here, on this comfortable perch of being neither here nor there with the man who practically raised him.
“Lieutenant Bradshaw?”
Bradley snaps up to see one of the dorm maintenance officers poking her head in. “Yeah.” He stands to gather his things, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Sorry. Give me a minute and I’ll be out of your hair.”
The officer smiles. “Take your time, sir. Just wanted to give you this. One of our staff found it during our general spring cleaning. Normally we don’t throw away clearly marked belongings, particularly gadgets, so it’s been waiting in one of our storage lockers. I recognized your name and thought I’d ask if you wanted it back.”
She holds out a clear plastic bag for Bradley to take. Inside it is a phone—an older model, severely outdated by today’s standards, with his last name and ID number hastily scrawled on a piece of masking tape stuck across the back.
He takes it. “Thanks,” he says slowly. “Not sure I’d ever see this again.”
“Things have a way of coming back here at Top Gun, sir,” the officer tells him brightly, before taking her leave. Bradley swallows a laugh. She had no idea.
The first thing he had bought with his meager allowance was a new phone with a new line and number. His old one had been on his mom’s plan, paid and kept up even after she was gone for sentimental reasons. Mav had been the one to pay it until the day he turned 18.
Unfortunately, that meant that the old man could still send him messages whenever he liked. Bradley had gotten tired of deleting and blocking every new number, every time. It seemed that Maverick had figured out his blocking game, and just found a way to get new numbers for every special occasion.
His birthday. Holidays. His parents’ anniversary.
The new phone was a dream, but the silence that came with the new number unsettled Bradley—even if he couldn’t admit it to himself. A new number meant that Mav wouldn’t be able to contact him even in an emergency; but a new phone with expanded storage meant that he could save each and every number that the old man had used to contact him.
For weeks, he’d toss and turn and wonder if the old man was still alive. Mav was invincible, he said to himself. Besides, he’s got Uncle Ice and everyone else.
He doesn’t need me.
I don’t need him.
The phone seemed to grow heavier in his hand as Bradley stared at it. He had driven out of the base and pulled over in a viewdeck area, still unsure of which road he would take.
The clear plastic bag held its charger too—the dorm maintenance was nothing if not thorough. Bradley chewed his lip as he brought out a spare battery and hooked it up, watching in disbelief as the dated screen lights up pixel by pixel.
”You’re kidding me,” he breathes, as the home screen appears. “It’s all here?”
Notifications pop up one after the other, so many that the phone hangs. Bradley sorts through all of them: most of the messages are spam, although his throat closes up a little when he reads a few coming from a contact simply labelled M.
17/08/2006 17:38:45 Happy birthday, Brad.
31/12/2006 23:52:21 Happy new year, kid. On a carrier now. Wonder where you are. Stay safe.
07/07/2007 12:11:91 Hope your summer break’s going well. Beach on North Island’s beautiful this time of year.
There are more, some out of the date order due to some glitch in the old phone that Bradley hadn’t been able to fix. But at some point, the text messages fizzled out. Guilt gnaws at him again; it had been years, of course even the indomitable Maverick had to give up at some point.
Still, it tears at him a little that the man had given up on contacting him. “You’re a stubborn fool, Bradley Bradshaw,” he whispered to himself, sniffling as he thumbed through the messages, mind flashing back to the first time he had seen Mav at Top Gun. He had hidden it well under the initial anger, but the first thing he had seen was the more prominent crow’s feet, the telltale strands of gray at the temples. Mav—his dad had grown old, and he hadn’t been there to see it.
He had spent years justifying his anger and his choices to himself, only for the man he hated to take a missile for him and save his life multiple times over. The shame makes him feel small inside.
A smaller disappointment grows as he reaches the end of the text messages with more spam than real messages, and thumbs over to the voicemail messages expecting more spam attempts.
His eyes widen as he scrolls down the list of voicemails from M, the earliest ones coinciding with the last text messages.
With trembling fingers, he clicks play and pushes the tinny speakers to max volume.
Hey, Bradley.
Mav’s voice is full of emotion, even through time and Motorola speaker quality. It makes chills run down Bradley’s spine.
I uh, I know you don’t use this number anymore but—but I kept it up, storage and all. I just—I just figured, maybe someday if we ever got around to talking again, you’d have this record to go through. If not, then at least it makes me feel like I’m still talking to you now. Sometimes it’s easier to call than text; I still get to hear your voice on the voicemail recording.
A sniffle causes static through the speakers, and Bradley closes his eyes.
Anyway, I figured I’d say congratulations.
Bradley jolts upright and double-checks the date, heart sinking further into his stomach when he realizes—
I tried to get in, you know, but apparently Navy connections don’t always work at civilian universities.
—it’s right smack on his UVA graduation, the bachelor’s degree he’d had to go through after his papers were pulled from the Naval Academy.
It’s fine, though, because I got to watch on the screen outside. Bradley Bradshaw, magna cum laude!
Bradley stifles a smile as Mav goes on to imitate the crowd going wild. Damn—always knew you were special, kid. You got your mom’s brains and your dad’s talent. I only wish they could’ve seen you up there.
Anyway, I—I got to go now. Love you, B. Always.
An automated voice comes on. “Playing. next. message.”
Hey kiddo. I’m on a carrier right now and don’t know if this’ll get through, but I figured I had to try anyway. It’s Father’s Day today.
Bradley’s stomach clenches. He had always spent Father’s Day dead drunk if he could.
A few of the guys asked if I had any kids. And—well, you’re not going to like it, but I said yes, I have a son. Bragged about you too, because one of the guys was trying to one-up everyone with his whiz kid’s achievements, but none of them come close to you.
A heavy sigh follows, so deep that Bradley feels the heaviness in his own chest.
I’m sorry. Even knowing he can’t see him, Bradley shakes his head. Maybe it’s for the best that you’ll never hear these messages, because you’d surely deck me for trying to replace Goose. Bradley feels his own breath stop.
I can’t lie, though—and Bradley can practically feel the fondness in his voice—I loved telling people you were mine.
Hi, Brad. Just calling to say you popped up on Ice’s radar today.
Bradley shifts in his seat. He checks the date, and knows immediately what this one’s about.
Said you were accepted to the academy with full course credit for non-military academic subjects, and since you kept logging flight hours by enrolling in evening flight school even while in college, you’re on track to graduate in 2 years instead of 4. Ice said it was an extremely rare case.
Bradley can’t place the tone of Mav’s voice: he sounds wistful and regretful and sad and happy, all at once. Another, younger and angrier part of him wants to say that the man he looked up to the most actually sounds disappointed. Disappointed that his whole master plan to keep Bradley Bradshaw from the skies had fallen through. Bradley knows slightly better now, knows that the man who chose and trusted him for a near-suicide mission must have had at least some faith in his skills—but still. He wonders.
I’m—Mav takes a deep breath before exhaling, and without realizing it, Bradley mirrors him.
I’m so incredibly proud of you, kid.
Bradley freezes. The twilight chill creeps into his window.
I know I don’t have a right to be–and doesn’t that feel like a knife in his chest—and you’d probably be disgusted if you ever heard this, but I am. More than you’ll ever know.
“Then why, Mav?” Bradley asks aloud, with no one around to answer. “Did you really think I wasn’t ready?”
When it’s my time to see your parents, Mav continues, oblivious to the chill that comes over Bradley with those words, then maybe I’ll just have to apologize to Carole. God knows–with those two, I have too much to make up for.
The words unsettle Bradley, planting an uncertainty in his head that grows into a full-blown field of questions.
“Mom?” he whispers, his grip around the phone tightening until his knuckles grow white. “What did you do?”
Anyway–Mav exhales–Ice also said your application floated to the top of the pile for Top Gun consideration. A bitter laugh comes through the speakers, and Bradley closes his eyes. He didn’t do anything, mind you. You were just that good, baby goose.
Bradley perks up a little at that, only to deflate at the next words he hears after Mav heaves another sigh that sounds terribly resigned. I guess I’ll be on my way to hell just for Carole to shoot me dead.
But that’s not going to be any time soon, Mav continues determinedly, a bit of fire coming back into his tone. I’ve got to see you get your wings, kiddo. Maybe–maybe share the sky with you too. Someday.
Bradley swallows. He’s suddenly overcome by a memory–him at six or seven, his mom deeply asleep after her work shift, him waking up in the middle of the night because Mav had come home and he had heard the screen door creaking. The two of them had unanimously felt that it was time for a midnight snack, with Mav regaling the kid with his latest exploits.
“So my wingman comes around and tries to get him off my tail…”
”What’s a wingman?” little Bradley had asked. Maverick had grinned and ruffled his hair. “A wingman’s like my partner up there,” he explains, pointing up. “They have my back, and we do the mission together.”
Later that night, when Mav tucks a sleepy and cookie-filled Bradley into bed, Bradley remembers saying something that now, looking back, seemed to tempt fate.
”Mav?”
”Yeah, kid?”
”When I grow up, can I be your wingman?”
Mav had smiled softly and leaned down to press a kiss into his hair. “Sure, bud. When you’re grown, we’ll take over the sky. Just you and me.”
Bradley blinks away tears.
I love you, B, Mav says earnestly as the message ends. And I know you don’t believe it, but I’m so proud of you. Feels like I haven’t said it enough, and this way of saying it seems particularly useless, but—well. I’ll keep an eye out for your wings, kid. See you out there.
Bradley pauses the messages for a bit and takes several deep breaths, trying to collect himself. He’s now eighty percent sure that his mom had a hand in getting Mav to pull his papers at the academy the first time around, just a few years after she had passed. The fact that Mav didn’t try to pull his papers a second time meant something.
“Oh, Mom,” he sighs, leaning against his car door and looking up at the sky. “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have made him do that—whatever it is he promised. I still made it here, and I’m still alive because of him.”
He plays through several more messages, hoping to get more information on whatever had gone down between Mav and his mom; but Mav never mentions it again.
The messages vary in length, spaced out weeks apart–about everything from the most mundane things like what he had for breakfast (pancakes, baby goose. your favorite, remember?), or the latest updates he had made to the plane that they had started working on together (she’s still a bit temperamental; must be something wrong with the engine). They’re dated during the months he was at Top Gun, finishing his belated Naval Academy credits and throwing himself into it, fueled by pure defiance at what he had once viewed as the greatest wrong ever done to him.
And then, he gets to a message dated near the end of his Top Gun tenure.
[Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to put the phone away.]
Bradley tenses as static comes through, as though the phone was being tugged away. The woman in the background sounds like a nurse.
Just a few seconds, please, Mav begs, and Bradley doesn’t like hearing it. The almighty Maverick never stoops this low. Just let me leave a message.
[We already tried calling your emergency contacts, sir. The first one—a B. Bradshaw? He didn’t pick up. The second one, a Mr. Kazansky, is already on his way.]
Bradley closes his eyes. He had never gotten those calls, having changed numbers. In retrospect, he realizes how incredibly stupid he had been—Mav could have been dying in a hospital or facility anywhere in the world, and he wouldn’t have known.
Please, Mav repeats, more desperate now. Just one message.
The nurse must have relented, because the sound picks up clearer, like the phone has now been placed next to his ear.
Hey, Brad.
Bradley’s heart threatens to pound out of his chest.
I’m fine, in case you heard any of that. I’m—ow, uh, a truck swerved into the wrong lane. Nicked my bike. Mav’s breathing grows labored before he takes a deep breath, and Bradley winces like it’s his own chest growing tight. Just—just a few ribs, B. Hurts like hell, though.
Bradley hangs his head. He hadn’t been there—not that time, or any of the times that followed. The few times he spoke to his Uncle Ice, he got the impression that the old man had taken the liberties of updating Mav’s emergency contact list himself, every time Bradley would change his number; but Bradley had gotten good at ignoring unidentified numbers throughout the years.
Anyway, I—I don’t know why I’m calling. Good thing you’re not hearing this, or else you’d probably think I was guilt-tripping you to come back.
Bradley leans back and bites his lip. Mav hadn’t been wrong; during those years, his younger self wouldn’t have taken well to that.
“How is it that even when we’re apart, you still know me so well?” Bradley whispers.
Yeah—I…ow, that’s it. I just wanted to hear your voice recording, son. Love you, B.
Bradley just barely catches his breath again when the next voice message plays.
Hey, Bradley. Ice said it might help to hear your voice on this call, so—uh, here I am again.
The tone is such a drastic departure from his usual that Bradley immediately sits up straight. Mav sounds dull, empty, drained—everything that his father figure was not.
I almost crashed a plane into a mountain side today, by accident. Rookie mistake. My ears are still ringing from Ice’s lecture.
Bradley’s heart beats faster. Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell didn’t crash planes on accident.
It was a close call, the voice continues, emptier than ever. For a second there, it got me thinking—what if I didn’t pull up and away? After all, I’ve already taken much more time here on God’s green earth–much more than I deserve.
“No,” Bradley murmurs, as though he could stop the Mav of years ago from going down that poisonous train of thought.
I always wished it was me instead of your dad, sweetheart. He wouldn’t have made a monumental mess of things like I have.
And that’s what gets Bradley. He almost covers his ears so as not to hear, leans his forehead on the wheel and breathes deep to calm his racing heart. He can’t imagine what his life would have been without Mav. Without the pancakes, and the mechanics lessons. Without the stories of his adventures, or the long nights spent bent over elementary math even if he had a detachment the next day. Without the silly stories he’d made up to get rid of Bradley’s nightmares, or the slightly off-key lullabies he’d hum under his breath to put him right back to sleep.
Bradley scrubs a hand against his face in a failed attempt to stop the tears from coming. An uncontrollable sob escapes his mouth as he tries to swallow it back down.
It was—it was scary, Brad. But the funny thing was, I didn’t feel scared. I thought—yeah, this feels right. I could just close my eyes, let go of the stick, and it’d all be over, you know?
Bradley shakes his head violently, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. “No, Mav,” he whispers brokenly. “You didn’t…”
I didn’t do it, the Mav of years ago answers, right on time. Bradley huffs wetly. I didn’t, B. I promise. I pulled up right at the last second, scraped the underside of the plane, and got home. Whatever you’re thinking, Ice has already shouted it in my face. Never seen him turn that shade of blue.
The levity does nothing to shake Bradley from the spiral those earlier words put him into.
Anyway, he—uh. He seemed to think that the catharsis of telling you about it would help, so. Yeah.
I miss you, buddy. A whole lot.
“I missed you too,” Bradley answers, for all the good it would do. “I missed you too, Mav. So much.”
Bradley takes out his current phone, scrolls to their latest picture, taken on the carrier deck when they had landed. They’re smiling at each other just after they’ve hugged it out, and the photographer took the opportunity.
He zooms in just to remind himself that Mav is alive, that they both are, that he hadn’t gone down in some freak accident on a mountain side, and that he hadn’t gone down in his F-18 after saving the most ungrateful kid who had ever lived.
He taps over to his contacts and hovers over Mav’s new number, before thinking the better of it and shutting his phone off. He exhales and leans back, swallowing the guilt. It burns on the way down.
The next voicemail message is dated a few months of radio silence later, and Bradley doesn’t want to imagine what went on in those months.
Hi, B.
Mav almost sounds sheepish. Um–I think I’m feeling better. Ice referred me to a new therapist–civilian, if you’re wondering.
A ‘new’ therapist. Bradley wonders how many they went through before they found this one. We talked about you today.
Oh.
Civilian means that work was off-limits, so I talked about the only other thing that mattered to me more than work.
Bradley screws his eyes shut tight, overwhelmed by the implications of those words.
I told her all about how cute you were, the way you’d run to me every time I opened that creaky screen door. Or how curious you were as a boy, climbing up every tree and jumping into every river, swimming headlong into every wave and giving your mother heart attacks. It took more than a Navy workout to keep up with you.
The tips of Bradley’s ears go red, just a little. He blames it on the wind.
She asked me what my happiest memory was. Some of that new headspace talk. Can’t say I’ve had a lot of happy moments in my life, but you know which one came to mind?
If Bradley had to guess, it would have to be Mav’s moments with Goose. Or maybe the time he downed those three MiGs in an F-14. Another one could be late night Fridays with the rest of the ‘86 boys—Bradley hadn’t stuck around long enough to actually be old enough to join them at the pub. But Mav had always been out-of-this world ecstatic after telling him stories of any one of those times. It must have been one of those.
Remember the time we went camping? Carole had a cold and you were driving her stir-crazy, so I packed us a tent and some supplies from the mess, and we just drove and drove until we could find a patch of grass?
Oh. Oh.
It’s too much. Bradley is just now discovering how much he meant to the old man—and what did he do as soon as he saw him? He bucked his authority, and challenged him at every turn, throwing his loneliness like a dagger, aimed right at the heart of the man who loved him more than life. Tears gather at the corners of his eyes.
The tent didn’t work, so we laid down in the bed of the truck and looked up at the stars, Mav’s voice continues, wistfully happy. You learned all the constellations so fast. I told you that there’d be stars wherever I went on assignment, so you could just look up and think that we were looking at the same sky.
Bradley snorts wetly. As if in response, the Mav of years ago chuckles through the speaker.
Yeah, you punched me after that line. A soft smile pulls at Bradley’s lips. It’s true—he remembers it now. That had been a really good day.
Then you fell asleep in my arms because it was cold, and of course we had forgotten blankets like the idiots Carole said we were.
Bradley doesn’t remember feeling cold that night. He had snuggled close to Mav, the two of them nestled together under Mav’s worn leather jacket. In the morning, he remembers having the jacket all to himself. Mav had gotten sick after that, proving Carole right—and Bradley was secretly overjoyed, because it meant that Mav could stay longer.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a happier day in my life. I told the therapist as much.
The tears come this time. Bradley doesn’t care about stopping them anymore.
Hey, Rooster.
Bradley exhales. The name change gives it away—he doesn’t have to check the date of this message to find out what it’s about.
I hope you don’t mind—no, sorry, I know you probably would, if you had known about it—but I pulled a few strings with your Uncle Ice to get a copy of your Top Gun graduation photo. He got it framed and everything.
I’m looking at it right now, Mav’s voice says warmly. And Rooster—you look just like him. You look just like Goose. I bet you’re a better pilot, though. Your dad would agree.
Damn. He hadn’t finished crying about the last message yet.
I talk to him every day, too. Kinda funny how you took after him—both of you don’t answer.
”Pretty dark, Mav,” Bradley whispers under his breath, but Lord knows he deserved that one.
Sorry about that—it…it’s just been a day.
The exact day, Bradley notes, double checking the timestamp.
I got in this time, no thanks to your uncle Ice. The Maverick name still opens some doors at Top Gun.
More like blasting them open, Bradley muses.
Don’t worry, I sat all the way in the back. Wore my dress whites to blend in. Didn’t alert any of the higher-ups, so I don’t think you were bothered.
He hadn’t been. Graduates with no family members in attendance was unfortunately a fairly common occurrence, and Bradley had just joined a group of nobodies like him who had formed a solidarity bar crawl after the graduation. He barely remembered getting his wings the next day. Somebody sober had placed them on his bedside when he woke up from the worst hangover of his life.
I saw you get your wings, Mav’s voice says, and Bradley doesn’t like the note of finality that creeps in. I looked up into the sky and apologized to your mom, but I think your dad and I would have been the loudest cheers in the room.
Bradley sobs, then. He had told himself then that all his hard work had been to prove Mav wrong—that he was ready, that he could do this, that he could live up to the Maverick and Goose, legends of the skies. He always thought that he would have the both of them there—with one man congratulating him enough for two.
In the end, he had done it alone.
Lieutenant Bradley Bradshow, callsign Rooster, Mav’s voice muses. Has a nice ring to it. Bradley agrees.
I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am, kiddo. There are no words. I only—I only wish I could tell you all of this so you could hear it. I’ll apologize to Goose when I see him again, because I’ve got to say this in this call or it feels like my chest will burst.
Bradley tenses, but the next words knock the air out of him.
I love you, son. I’ll see you out there.
There aren’t many messages after that one, and Bradley chalks it up to the Navy keeping them both busy during those years. The few messages are mostly birthday greetings or holidays, and Bradley plays them all in rapid succession, trying to keep the tears at bay by imagining where he had been on those dates when Mav had been trying to reach him.
Happy birthday, Rooster. He had just turned 27, off the coast of Portugal.
Merry Christmas. I made mac and cheese, just how you like it. He had been drunk out of his mind on shore leave.
I’m somewhere in the Pacific, looking at another carrier just a few kilometers away. Maybe you’re on it, baby goose. If you are, look up: it’s the Big Dipper, right above our heads.
He had been in the Atlantic, in a joint exercise with the Brits. The stars were different for him that night.
And then, the Motorola clunks into another long message.
Hey, Bradley. Mav’s voice sounds choked up, like he’s barely holding back a full-on sob. I—I’m right outside your hospital room, kiddo. Please, please pull through.
Bradley remembers that stunt. A dogfight gone wrong, and he had ejected over some rocky terrain. Search and rescue found him pretty quick, but he had also been pretty banged up. His first surgery—and his first citation, because he had gone down protecting a fellow squadron member.
Your Uncle Ice called me before the hospital did, Mav’s voice says, and Bradley can feel the worry bleeding through every word. But I—I didn’t expect to still be your emergency contact.
Bradley closes his eyes. He could have changed it, but he never got around to it. The navy kept him too busy—at least that’s what he told himself.
Your Uncle Ice saw your squad reports—you moved in front of your squad member and took the fire aimed at them. That—Mav exhales in resignation. Bradley braces himself. You’re not going to hear this anyway, but you’re not getting a lecture from me. Your Uncle Ice, though—consider this your warning.
Bradley winces. He never got the warning, but he did get a stern talking-to by his Uncle—who had by then earned his first admiral star. He remembers being laid out in his hospital bed and enduring said lecture, because his Uncle Ice (aka Admiral Kazansky) had groused that it was the only way to keep him in the room and listen.
B, you’ll have to forgive me, but it was killing me to see you alone in the room before your surgery. You were already out like a light, so I came in.
Bradley freezes. He thought he had hallucinated that, through all the painkillers that they had him on. He had berated his subconscious, that for all the years he had fought to define himself apart from Maverick, he still imagined him when he needed him. He didn’t need him.
The lie had been getting harder and harder to believe.
It was the first time I held your hand in more than ten years.
A sob escapes his throat before Bradley can stop it, and he thinks that the Mav of years past seems to be crying along with him.
It was only for a few minutes before they came to take you for your surgery. Now, you’re out of it—doctors say you’ll make a full recovery if you wake up soon.
Bradley remembers waking up and seeing harsh hospital lights, his uncle Ice sitting in the corner with his face contorted in stoic concern.
You better pull through, Bradley Bradshaw. I—I once told your dad that he was the only family I had. The same thing’s true for you, even if you won’t talk to me now.
It almost hurts physically, now. Bradley’s chest heaves as he shudders through choking sobs.
I don’t know what I’ll do if you—no. I can’t even say it, let alone think it. There’s no world where I live on and you don’t, son. I won’t allow it.
What would he have planned to do, Bradley wonders—and the rhetorical question gnaws at his bones when he remembers the voicemail message about crashing into a mountain.
So you’d better wake up, you hear me? That’s an order, Lieutenant.
Mav’s voice softens from his faux-commanding tone, and becomes a plea. Please pull through, sweetheart. And then when you wake up—Mav’s voice cracks—maybe you can come home.
He didn’t. Bradley had spent the weeks of recovery on base, and had shipped out to the next overseas assignment as soon as his stitches were gone. The message, like so many of the others before it, hadn’t reached its recipient at all.
Hey, Rooster. I saw you today.
By now, Bradley’s eyes are swollen from crying, and the tears have just about taken every part of him. He is exhausted, but this message seems to have been the last.
At the Hard Deck. It’s Penny’s bar now. I wasn’t following you, honest. I was there first. Saw you come in. You—you were wearing a Hawaiian shirt and aviators. Nice mustache and rendition of Great Balls of Fire, by the way—Goose would be so incredibly proud.
Met some of your friends but made sure you didn’t see me. Good thing too, because Penny cleaned me out and threw me overboard. Good thing you didn’t see that.
Despite himself, Bradley chuckles.
Kidding aside, seeing you again, being back at Top Gun—it feels like a dream. I’m almost afraid to go to bed and wake up.
I nearly collapsed when I saw your file up on the screen during briefing with the admiral, Mav admits. He mentioned–mentioned your dad, and what happened.
Bradley immediately tenses up. I’ve gotten used to a lot of comments about your dad’s death over the years, but I gotta admit–Warlock said I had been cleared, but the admiral asked about whether you saw it that way. And, Brad–that terrified me.
Bradley sucks in a breath. From when he was young, his mom had always drilled into him that what happened with his father hadn’t been Maverick’s fault–that it had been an accident nobody could control.
And honestly, Bradley didn’t have to blame Maverick for Goose’s death—Maverick did that all on his own.
And yet–he never made Bradley feel that he was an obligation, or a way to assuage his guilt. Bradley can remember birthdays, and Christmases, and random Saturdays with Mav as the happiest days of his childhood. Against all odds, he still had one.
Your mom—she always made a point of telling you what happened. I guess I never had to be worried before, Mav says ruefully. But with what happened, I—I’d understand if you want to hate me for that too.
God, Bradley wants to hug him.
You can do that as long as I get to see you, Mav continues, the abrupt change of tone jarring. I won’t need to be sending messages here anymore—and he almost sounds excited, Bradley thinks, happier than any of the past messages—because by tomorrow I’ll be able to talk with you face to face. You probably still hate me, but that’s okay. Bradley winces. I’ll take it, if it means seeing you up close. God, Bradley—I’ve missed you so much, kiddo. You don’t know how much.
Bradley swallows, remembering how that particular first conversation had gone on the tarmac, guilt turning his stomach inside out as he remembers all the little jabs he had thrown, not knowing how Mav had felt.
Mav had truly been a glutton for punishment, if this was how he had felt and he had endured all of Bradley’s snipes anyway.
Love you, son—Rooster. See you tomorrow, bright and early.
The call clicks off and phone beeps, signaling the end of all voicemails. For a moment, Bradley just sits, watching the sun set over the horizon, overwhelmed by the myriad emotions evoked by that little innocuous gadget.
He starts the car, and peels out of the viewdeck, setting a course for home.