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Bradley hurries through the hospital corridors, heart in his throat.
Room 302, honey. I thought I recognized him, but you’ll have to let me know for sure.
He spots the caller standing in front of the room. “Nurse Abby?” he pants. “Where is he?”
“Bradley,” the old nurse smiles. She saw him as a child, when his father figured in the accident that immortalized the name Bradshaw in the Miramar hospital; and later saw him through his mom’s treatments, sneaking him candy caramels wrapped in wax paper. “He’s right through there.”
Bradley looks through the small panel window, and his heart stops.
“That is him, isn’t it,” nurse Abby says softly. “I wasn’t sure. My eyes aren’t what they used to be—I’ll be retiring tomorrow. You’re lucky I caught him.”
Bradley turns around to give her the biggest hug. “Thank you,” he whispers. “He–he’ll be okay?”
“A little worse for wear,” the nurse tells him wryly. “His car was hit by a reckless driver at an intersection. Miraculously he’s gotten away with mostly minor lacerations, and the bruising will be bad. You see the cast and sling, but mostly the docs are concerned with his head injury. Looks like he hit his head on the window upon impact, and the airbag didn’t help.”
Bradley sucks in a breath and looks through the window again.
“Go on in,” the nurse says softly. “I told them I’d find you.”
Bradley thanks her profusely, wishes her well on her retirement, and opens the door.
“Sir, this is your next of kin. Bradley Bradshaw. He came as soon as we called.”
Mav makes a distressed noise as his eyes turn to Bradley. “No, no, this isn’t him–”
“Mav."
Mav shakes his head, his eyes empty of recognition as he stares at Bradley like he’s a stranger, scooting back across the bed to stay farther away. The bandage on his head is unnerving. Bradley’s heart falls as his dad looks up at him with scared eyes.
“You’re not him,” Mav whispers, strangled. “You’re not my baby.”
Bradley’s pretty sure his heart cracks audibly at those words.
“Can you describe your next of kin, sir?” the doctor prompts beside Bradley, and Mav immediately looks worried.
“He’s–Bradley’s just eighteen, he just left home but he won’t speak to me, please, please tell me you’ve found him, he’s just a kid, please—”
A lump forms in Bradley’s throat. He reaches out a tentative hand to place on top of Mav’s. “I’m right here, dad–”
“No,” Mav hisses, pulling his hand away from Bradley’s touch. “You’re not him, get away from me!”
“Mav–”
“Mr. Bradshaw.”
“Bradshaw?” Mav whips his head back to Bradley, eyes blown wide. “Goose?”
Bradley throws a pleading glance to the doctor, to no avail. “Mr. Bradshaw. Why don’t we leave Mr. Mitchell to rest. Let’s talk outside.”
Bradley nods reluctantly, but before he turns around to follow the doctor out, he leans down to leave a quick kiss on his dad’s head, before the older man can pull away. Mav stops and blinks, his indignation giving way to a sad and lost confusion that pulls at Bradley’s heartstrings.
“See you later, dad,” Bradley says softly. “Everything’s going to be alright.” His voice breaks a little as Mav just stares at him, uncomprehending. “I promise.”
“Head wounds can be…unpredictable,” the doctor cautions. “In cases of short-term amnesia, some patients find themselves reliving extremely traumatic events, as these are the ones that their subconscious remembers.”
Bradley inhales sharply as he turns to look at his dad through the hospital door window. Mav looks despondent, eyes listless as he gazes down at sheets.
“His most traumatic memory,” Bradley whispers under his breath.
Bradley’s just eighteen, he just left home but he won’t speak to me, please, please tell me you’ve found him, he’s just a kid, please—
Oh. He knows exactly where his dad’s head is at, and it tears at him on the inside.
“I assume you know what he’s thinking of,” the doctor says gently.
He would have thought it might have been Goose’s death, or even Ice’s death, or losing his own dad at a young age and getting unjustly side-eyed by the Navy for the rest of his career—but of all the trauma-inducing events in Mav’s life, his dad’s subconscious somehow zeroes in on Bradley’s leaving. If they hadn’t already talked about all of this, Bradley would be curling into himself out of shame.
“I do,” he says sadly. “I’ll take care of him, doctor.”
“Goose,” Mav breathes, eyes blown wide again at the sight of Bradley entering the room. Bradley keeps his mouth shut, tries his best to follow the doctor’s orders as he moves closer to Mav’s bed.
“There’s no need to agitate him further. His mental state may change by the day or hour. Just—try to make him comfortable. Go along with his memories if need be. Our priority for now are his physical injuries from the accident.”
“Hey, Mav,” Bradley says uncomfortably. If he’s honest, the most he has of Nick Bradshaw are vague memories, stories from his mom and Maverick, and the assurance that his father loved him. It’s enough for Bradley, but he isn’t sure if it’s going to be enough to inhabit his father’s persona for Mav’s addled mind. He resolves to keep quiet as much as possible.
“Goose,” Mav’s face crumples as his hands reach for Bradley, and Bradley can do nothing else but catch his hold, heart thumping in his chest as Mav curls his fingers in a hold that obviously speaks to some sort of secret handshake that Bradley doesn’t know. He goes along with it anyway.
“I’m so sorry, Goose,” Mav says, bringing their entwined hands to his forehead. His voice shakes with every heartbroken syllable, head bowed and pleading. “I’m so sorry, buddy. I failed you, I failed Carole, god—”
“What are you talking about?” Bradley asks suddenly, too agitated to keep quiet. What could Mav possibly be apologizing to his parents for when he’s done everything , hell, he pulled Bradley’s papers to respect his mom’s wishes, so what could he—
“I pushed Bradley away,” Mav says, agonized and strangled. “He’s gone, Goose. He’s gone because I fucked up, Carole asked me to make sure he didn’t fly but I did it all wrong, and now he’s gone and left and I don’t even know where he is, he could be dying and I don’t…”
Suddenly Mav’s spine goes rigid and he sits upright, alarm in his face. “I can’t stay here, Goose, I’ve got to find him!”
“Okay, no,” Bradley says firmly, pushing the call button as he puts his hands on Mav’s shoulders, “you’re not doing that.” He tries to imagine how Nick Bradshaw must have felt and sounded, after years of reining in Pete Maverick Mitchell’s shenanigans. “You’re literally in the hospital, Maverick—”
“You don’t understand,” Mav shakes his head as he tries to throw off Bradley’s grip, and god damn it he doesn’t want to hurt him but the tiny aviator is strong for his size, even when bruised and battered. Where the hell are the nurses?
“He’s your son, Goose, and Carole told me to take care of him and I can’t—I can’t lie here while he’s out there. What if the Bronco crashes? What if someone takes all his cash and ropes him into a gang, or a drug ring? God, Goose, I have to find him!”
“He’s fine, Maverick!” Bradley finally says, out of ideas but desperate to make his dad keep still. The machines hooked up to him are beeping in alarm now, and the nurses must be on their way, but somehow Bradley doesn’t like the idea of them sedating Mav and forcibly putting him under. He’s got to calm him down himself.
Mav pauses in his struggle. “What?”
“Look, Carole and I–” Bradley’s voice breaks a little, but he hopes Mav won’t notice, “—we’ve been looking after him too, and I can tell you he’s fine. Kid made his way to UVA and he’s probably enrolling for college, like Carole wanted.”
Mav blinks, and a sort of pained relief comes over his face. He stills and relaxes a bit more back onto the bed, and Bradley shakes his head at the nurse who comes in right that moment. He’s got it now.
“He–he’s fine?”
“He is,” Bradley says in a voice that he hopes is soothing. “Now you’ve got to rest, Mav. For him. It won’t do him any good if you’re all banged up, y’know?” Bradley swallows. “Take it easy,” he whispers. “Carole and I’ve got him until you can get back up on your feet.”
Mav suddenly looks exhausted, and Bradley takes the opportunity to make him recline a bit more, disentangling the IV line from the sheets that had been rumpled in his dad’s struggle. “Don’t–don’t leave me,” Mav whispers, pitiful, his hand not leaving Bradley’s, still curled in that secret way that Bradley doesn’t know and will never know for sure. “Goose, I’m sorry, please–”
Bradley gets up and leans over his dad, pressing a kiss in the middle of his forehead, betting on the fact that the mustache he’s currently sporting must bring back some sort of tactile memory.
He must be right, because Mav relaxes further as Bradley’s heart cracks a little more. “Shhh, Mav. Go to sleep,” he murmurs. “I’m–I’m not going anywhere.”
“If it weren’t for Bradley, I’d ask you to take me with you,” Mav says sleepily under his breath, his eyes already closed, but the words make Bradley’s blood run cold. “Bet you’re having a blast with Carole, huh? Give her my love.”
It takes an eternity before Bradley can make his vocal cords work again, and by that time Mav’s already drifted off to a fitful sleep. He doesn’t say anything, just presses a kiss to the back of Mav’s hand still curled in his, and the tears roll down his cheek slowly as he does his best to keep them quiet, muffling his sobs in Mav’s shoulder.
“You can’t have him yet,” Bradley says childishly to his parents’ ghosts, praying for them to understand. “Please, he’s all I have, please…”
The steady beeping of the machines is his only reply.
His uncles arrive the next day, and Bradley practically collapses into his uncle Slider’s embrace.
“Hey, Bradley,” Slider says, squeezing. “How’re you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” Bradley sniffs.
“Yeah, you don’t smell okay though,” Wolfman says, wrinkling his nose even as he reaches up to ruffle Bradley’s hair. “Why don’t you go home, kid? Take a shower, a nap–”
“No!” Bradley says immediately. “I’m not–I’m not leaving him. I–I can’t.”
Knowing looks pass between his uncles as they leave the subject alone and take their spots around Mav’s bed. Said pilot slumbers on, unaware.
“Don’t wake him up,” Bradley says softly. “He–the doctor said he needs all the rest he can get.”
“What about you, kid?” Slider asks softly.
“I’m fine,” Bradley repeats, but somehow he knows his uncle–Vice Admiral, at that–is referring to something else.
“Kid, we know you ran here from deployment,” his uncle Hollywood says, a bit uncomfortable. None of them were particularly comfortable with pulling rank over Bradley, even during those fifteen years when he went out of his way to treat them like any other commanding officer if they crossed paths. “Make it back now and if you’re lucky, you’ll get out of it with a reprimand.”
Bradley shakes his head vehemently. “No. I’m staying here.”
His uncle sighs. “Look, I hate to be this blunt, but the Navy doesn’t owe you any favors—”
“Well they sure as hell owe him some!” Bradley almost shouts, gesturing to his dad on the bed. “He–he needs someone in his corner.”
The ghost of Tom Kazansky hovers over them all.
“We’re not exactly chopped liver, kid,” Wolfman pipes up from the corner, arms crossed. “We’ll be here for him.”
“Mav wouldn’t want you to give up deployment; or, hell, your career, for him,” Slider says quietly. “He’s always been your biggest fan, Bradley.”
“I know,” Bradley chokes out, collapsing into the chair by his dad’s bedside. “God, I know.”
If the many tearstained talks they had weren’t enough, the veritable wall of photos and mementos at the hangar had told him all he needed to know.
“I can’t leave him, uncle Sli,” he says pleadingly, looking up at the vice admiral. “I can’t. Not again.”
Slider softens. “The most I can get you is a week, Bradley. After that, there’ll be consequences.”
Bradley nods but just re-positions himself closer to his dad. “I don’t care.” He puts his hand on top of Mav’s limp fingers. “I’m not leaving him.”
His uncle sighs and puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll pull through, kid. He always does. He’s hell-bent on not leaving you too.”
“I know,” Bradley sniffs. “I know.”
The next time Mav wakes, he mistakes Bradley as a nurse.
“Excuse me, do–do you know if they’ve found him yet?”
Bradley steels himself. “Who?” he asks, as nonchalantly as he can.
“My kid,” Mav says desperately. “Bradley Bradshaw.”
Bradley blanches. There really isn’t any right answer to that.
Thankfully, Mav takes his silence as some sort of answer as his face falls and he makes a pained noise as he looks away.
“I miss him,” Mav sniffs. “He—I miss him so much. He’s my whole world, you know. I’d do anything for him.”
Bradley swallows hard and blinks back the tears. “He knows,” he says softly. “I’m sure he knows. You’re—” he clears his throat. “You must be a good dad.”
Mav snorts derisively, waving a hand as if to wave away Bradley’s words. “I’m not. I’m not his dad. Goose—Nick was his dad. Nick and Carole, his real parents. I—” and then a grimace comes over his face, pain as real and tortured as Bradley had ever seen. “–I took that away from him too,” he finishes with a shudder.
Bradley really wants to cry, now.
“Please, you’ve got to find Bradley,” Mav starts begging again, clutching desperately and tugging at Bradley’s sleeve with his one good hand The pitiful sight pulls at Bradley’s heartstrings. “He may not be my son but he’s my kid, my baby, and I would never be able to live with myself if something were to happen to him, please—”
The machines start beeping a warning as Bradley stands to try and calm his dad down, even as his own heartbeat pulses in his ears.
The nurses rush in before he can do anything more, and the last thing Bradley sees before he’s pushed out of the room are his dad’s pleading eyes, mouthing his name.
Bradley scrubs a hand across his eyes tiredly as he waits for his vending machine coffee. The days are starting to blur together, and he’s halfway convinced to call his uncle Slider for a reprieve (just for a shower and change of clothes, 45 minutes tops), when he walks back in his dad’s hospital room to find him awake.
“Bradley? Sweetheart, is that you?”
Bradley bounds across the room, setting the paper cup of burnt yet bland coffee water down on the bedside table. “It’s me, Mav,” he says breathlessly. “It’s me. I’m here.”
But when he comes into the light, Mav’s face falls upon seeing him fully, dissolving into a resigned look. He still offers Bradley a wan smile.
“Oh, I see. I’m dreaming again.”
Bradley shakes his head vigorously as he comes closer, close enough for his dad to reach out and touch him. “No, dad, you aren’t. It’s me. I’m here.”
“You’re not,” Mav smiles sadly. “Ice said you enrolled at UVA. All the way on the other side of the country.”
Bradley swallows but stays quiet.
“If I’d known it would take you so far away from me, I’d never have given you Goose’s Bronco.”
Something on Bradley’s face must have changed, because Mav chuckles immediately. “Kidding, sweetheart. Goose would’ve wanted you to have it. And we had some good times fixing her up, didn’t we?”
Bradley blinks hard to keep the tears at bay. They had. Saturday and Sunday afternoons, just him and Mav and the old Bronco. Bradley used to joke that he could get a mechanic’s license along with his pilot’s license, seeing as he put in so many hours alongside Mav, oil grease slicked up to their forearms.
“Man, my subconscious must be getting old along with me, baby goose, ‘coz you’re not looking like a baby anymore,” Mav chuckles, but Bradley can detect a hint of sadness in his tone. “My baby’s all grown up.”
Bradley looks away, holding his breath.
“God, I wish Goose and Carole could see you right now,” Mav continues as Bradley turns back to him, staring through Bradley like he isn’t even there. “So tall and strong. You’ve got Goose’s height, but Carole always said you got her eyes.”
“Mav,” Bradley interjects, his voice shaky. “That’s enough. You’ve…you’ve got to rest.”
“If only…” Mav trails off, shaking his head mournfully. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You needed a father. You needed a mom. You deserved to have all of the time in the world with your parents. And all you got was me.”
Bradley’s jaw falls open at the scale of Mav’s—of his dad’s self-loathing. Mav’s head hangs low now, not even bothering to look up at the Bradley he thinks is an apparition. “They loved you so much, Bradley. They would’ve given anything to be here. I would’ve given anything for them to be here.” He raises his face, tear-stained now. Bradley’s heart breaks all over again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re not even here, because I messed up and drove you away, and I should be driving you to college and helping you move in and sending you home cooked meals but I can’t, I can’t and it’s killing me, Brad—”
The monitors beep in warning. Bradley leans in closer, touches his dad’s face to shake him out of it, strokes through his hair gently, but nothing works. “Mav. Hey, hey, I know, I know, but you’ve got to calm down, okay? Please—”
Mav just shakes his head, more agitated as his hands come up to grasp Bradley’s wrists. “No, no, it was all my fault, you left and I don’t even know if you’re safe, god, I don’t know where you are—”
“I’m right here, Dad,” Bradley’s voice cracks. “I’m right here.”
“Can you come home, sweetheart?” Mav looks up at him pleadingly, even though Bradley knows he’s just being looked through, and he shudders to think of how many times Mav pleaded with his ghost, all the dream-figment-Bradleys that Mav begged to come home, for fifteen years. “Please, I–I’m sorry, we can talk about the Navy, all of it, I just–I just want you to be safe, baby, please, I know you’re angry and want nothing to do with me—”
Bradley shakes his head and turns his hands to hold tightly on to his dad’s shaking fingers. “I’m not, Dad. Not anymore. I’m coming home with you, okay?”
“You–you are?” Mav asks, trembling. “Yeah, Dad,” Bradley says softly, rubbing Mav’s arms in what he hopes is a calming movement. “You’re in the hospital, but I’m right here and I’m going to bring you home, okay?”
Mav blinks slowly, as if suddenly sleepy. “No, you–you’ll be gone when I wake up. You always are.”
He says it so matter-of-factly that it stabs at Bradley’s chest. Bradley doesn’t want to know how many times Mav woke up hoping after a night of dreams, only to be greeted by an empty house.
“I won’t be,” Bradley swears. “I’ll be right here, Mav. I promise you.”
Mav just smiles sadly at him as he leans back into his pillow. “It’s okay, baby goose. You–you can go. You were always meant to fly.”
Bradley chokes back a sob, forcing the same smile on his face as he interlaces his fingers with his dad’s wordlessly. Quiet tears run down Mav’s face again as he looks down at their entwined hands. “I love you so much, sweetheart. I know you aren’t—really mine,” Mav gulps a shuddering breath, “I know I don’t have any right to you…”
And that makes a small hurt whine escape Bradley’s mouth in protest.
“But I hope you know that…that I love you more than you’ll ever know. I’m sorry it’ll never be enough.” Mav’s breath hitches as he curls up smaller, his head hanging low, muttering apologies under his breath. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry….”
Bradley leans in and presses a kiss to his dad’s head as his heart breaks. “I know, Dad,” he says, bringing a hand up and cradling his dad’s head to his shoulder. Mav’s shoulders don’t shake, but Bradley feels the wetness on his shirt anyway. God, what else had his dad gone through to make him cry so quietly?
“I know you love me,” Bradley murmurs brokenly. “I love you too, okay? A whole lot. You can go back to sleep, Mav. It’s okay. You can,” he sniffs, “you can stop apologizing, okay? Shhh…”
It takes a few long minutes for Mav’s sniffling to quiet as he drifts off to a fitful sleep, and Bradley gently lays him back down, taking a tissue to wipe away the last tear tracks on his dad’s cheeks.
He presses a kiss to his dad’s forehead and tries to soothe away his furrowed brow, but the anxious pall of Mav’s expression remains, even in sleep.
“You’ve got to understand, Mr. Bradshaw. Your father might not recover his memory at all—head trauma is unpredictable especially for older patients, who have more complicating factors due to age.”
Bradley swallows. “What—what are his options?”
“Long-term care,” the doctor says gently. “I understand you’re in the Navy, so you might want to look into assisted living facilities.”
Bradley swallows. “Thanks, doc. But I’ve got him. I’ll take care of him.”
“Mr. Bradshaw,” the doctor begins, “you’ll have to be with him 24/7, if it comes to it. That means—”
“—that I’ll be out of the Navy. I know, doc,” Bradley says roughly, part of his gaze trained on Mav sleeping peacefully in the bed. “I know. But he’d give up anything for me; I—I want to be able to do the same for him.”
The doctor eyes him for a long while. “Son, I’m telling you this as a parent myself. No decent father would want his kid to give up anything for him, and especially not his life’s work.”
Bradley stays quiet, watching the rise and fall of Mav’s chest. “Think about it,” the doctor says, leaving Bradley with the weight of decisions. “We’ll heal his physical wounds first, and then we can revisit this at a later time.”
After the doctor leaves, Bradley spends a long time holding his dad’s hand. “How’d you like me to take care of you, huh Mav?” Bradley says softly, brushing an errant hair from his dad’s forehead, making sure the bandage is undisturbed. “It’ll be just like old times,” his voice breaks. “You and me, dad. Whaddaya say?”
Mav, of course, doesn’t answer; Bradley sighs and leaves a kiss on his dad’s cheek as he settles in for another long night.
Mav groans as he blinks his eyes open.
“Mav?” Bradley jolts awake and leans in closer as his dad’s eyes flutter open.
And wonder of wonders, Bradley sees the moment a soft spark of real recognition enters his dad’s bleary gaze, and the tension bleeds out of him as a soft smile touches his lips. “Hey, baby goose. Whatcha doin’ here?”
And that, after days of agony, is what causes the dam to break.
Bradley’s tears well up immediately as his sobs choke out of him (loudly, this time, no longer repressed or quiet) and he slumps down by Mav, tipping forward and pillowing his forehead on his dad’s good shoulder, one hand curling up in the fabric of Mav’s scrubs.
At this display, Mav grows ever more alarmed. “Sweetheart? Bradley, what’s wrong?”
Bradley just shakes his head against his dad’s shoulder, his tears still coming as he tries to swallow his sobs. Ever the comforter, Mav twists to hold him more fully, grunting in frustration when the cast stops him, his good arm still pinned under Bradley’s chest. He settles for nuzzling Bradley’s hair and pressing more soft kisses there while murmuring comfort. Bradley exhales sharply as he desperately tries to keep his wailing in check.
“Hey, hey, shhhh, it’s alright. Let it out, kiddo. It’s okay.”
Bradley feels a soft kiss pressed to his hair, and loses it even more. He brings up one arm to circle around his dad’s torso, mindful of the sling on the other side.
Distantly, Bradley knows Mav shouldn’t be exerting himself this way, but he can’t bring himself to care. Suddenly, he feels all of six years old, wanting to jump in his Uncle Mav’s bed after a nightmare.
And what a nightmare it’s been.
He pulls back, and Mav’s worried face fills his vision. “Bradley? Baby, what’s wrong?”
Bradley takes a deep breath, his voice shaky. “Are you seeing me, Mav? Really seeing me?”
Mav’s eyebrows furrow as he blinks, confused. “Of course I am, kiddo. Who else would I be seeing?”
“You’re not–” Bradley takes a deep breath. “You’re not seeing my father, or me at eighteen?”
Mav blinks several times more before understanding steals over him. “Oh. Oh, sweetheart, no.” One calloused hand comes up to hold Bradley’s face, thumb gently wiping away his tears. “I promise. I’m only seeing you now, all thirty-six years of you.”
Bradley snorts wetly. “I’m thirty-five.”
“Not in two more months,” Mav grins back. “I rounded up.”
“Mav.” Bradley dives forward again, tucking his head under Mav’s chin. “I missed you.”
A wet laugh echoes from above him as Mav’s one arm wraps around him as well as he can. “I’m right here, kiddo. Been here the whole time.”
Bradley snorts at the reference to their training for the uranium mission, but the levity quickly disappears as he remembers the last few days. He stays in the hug for a while longer, until he knows Mav’s ribs must be strained, but he knows his dad won’t say anything.
“I need to call the doc,” Bradley sniffs, pulling back. “They’ll want to know you’ve got your memory back. How do you feel?”
“A little sore, but I’ll be okay,” Mav says. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember the accident, then just bits and pieces of being in the ambulance and waking up here. Kinda like a movie cut scene,” Mav admits. “I remember you, though. How long have I even been here, kiddo? How long have you been here? You look like shit.”
Bradley huffs a wry laugh as he runs his hand through his (admittedly greasy) hair. “I’ve been here a few days,” he says vaguely. “You really don’t remember?”
Mav shakes his head no. “Not really. I remember waking up a few times and seeing you, but that’s it.”
Bradley stares at him a few more moments before nodding. “Okay, fine. Guess the doc can tell us more.” He stands and presses another kiss to his dad’s temple before he can stop himself. “Love you, Dad. Glad you’re okay.”
And then he rushes out of the room, leaving a confused Mav in his wake.
The doctor puts Maverick through his paces, and is reasonably pleased with how his memory has returned, and he tells Bradley so.
“He’ll be sore for a couple of weeks,” the doctor notes, “plus he’ll have to keep himself out of a plane until we can be sure that there’s been no spine or neck damage from the crash impact and whiplash. The leg and arm will take time, but as far as we can see they’re both clean breaks. All things considered, I’m happy to release him to your care for home observation. Wound care instructions and instructions for the cast and sling will be given to you by the nurse.”
Bradley nods, but when he gets the papers to sign Mav out—
“Who are you calling?” Bradley asks absentmindedly as he rifles through his wallet for his ID to fill up the forms.
“Sli,” Mav says after a beat. “To see if I can stay at his place. If not, I’ll manage—”
“Nope,” Bradley says immediately. “I’m bringing you home, and I’m staying.”
“Sweetheart, I know you rushed here after they called you,” Mav says understandingly. “You can get back to base. I’ll be fine—”
“Well, I won’t be,” Bradley interjects, brutally honest. It makes Mav snap his mouth shut in surprise. “Please, Mav,” Bradley begs. “I–” he runs a hand over his face. “Just–just for two weeks. One week, even, if you really don’t want—”
“Stop. Of course I want you home, kiddo. I’ll always want you near me,” Mav says softly. “But I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” Bradley states, signing the forms and arranging them all in a neat pile. “This is my decision, Mav, and I’m deciding to stay. Please.”
Mav’s eyes search him for a few seconds longer before his dad sighs and nods in agreement. “Okay, baby goose,” Mav murmurs, “You can stay. Looks like we’ve got some things to talk about, huh?”
Bradley stiffens. “Uncle Sli told you?”
“Only the barest details,” Mav assures him. “That and he texted me just right now to make sure that I talk with you or else.”
Bradley snorts and rubs the back of his head nervously. “Yeah–um. I guess we could talk. You were pretty out of it, but—you said some things.”
Mav’s watching him quietly as he fumbles over the words. “No wonder you were so shaken up when you thought I finally recognized you,” his dad says finally, reaching for Bradley’s wrist. He’s wearing the Allenbach watch Mav gave him for Christmas, and Mav’s hand joins it to encircle his wrist in a grounding hold. “Was it that bad?”
Bradley takes a shaky inhale. “Uh…maybe at home, Mav? It’s just–here, I can’t–”
Understanding blooms across Mav’s face immediately. He knows Bradley hates hospitals. “Right,” Mav nods as he pushes himself upright. “Home, then.”
After Bradley checks his wound dressings for the nth time and plumps up the pillows around Mav for the third time, Mav’s had enough.
While it’s a marvel to have the kid here at all— Mav missed him terribly, when did deployments get so long?—Bradley won’t look him in the eye, even as he handles Mav like Carole’s fragile glassware.
When Bradley tries to make an excuse of making dinner, Mav’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist. “Uh uh, baby goose. Slider texted me that they’re going to drop off takeout on the porch in thirty minutes.” His gaze softens. “Talk to me, kiddo.”
Bradley exhales heavily, caught between wanting to run away and dive into his dad’s arms. Given his injuries, he really can’t do either, so he has to content himself with sitting on the floor, leaning his side against the couch so that his hair is conveniently within stroking distance. It makes him feel like a cat, but the feel of his dad’s gentle hand on his head is grounding.
It’s convenient that like this, he can keep his gaze on the floor as he works through the complicated emotions. “You–you were most lucid three times,” he recounts, “once, you saw me as Goose; the second time, as a hospital staff; and the third time, I thought you recognized me but–but you saw me at eighteen years old.”
He hears Mav make a small mournful noise. “I’m sorry,” his dad says immediately. “Whatever you heard, whatever I said, sweetheart—I’m so sorry.”
Bradley shakes his head even as he pushes it closer to Mav’s side, careful of the torso bruises. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers.
“Still,” his dad asserts, “it wasn’t fair to you.”
Bradley swallows. “I handled it.”
His dad makes a small noise, tapping Bradley on the shoulder to make him look up. “Come on up here, baby goose,” his dad says softly, and Bradley really doesn’t want to injure him further but he obeys, perching gingerly on the side of the sofa. Mav leans forward as much as he’s able and plants a kiss on his forehead. One gentle hand comes up on Bradley’s nape. “You’ve had to handle so much in life,” Mav murmurs. “Even if you’re grown, I still wish you didn’t hear those things if they hurt. You’re still my kid, I still want to pro–”
“Am I?” Bradley interrupts, something wild and desperate in his eyes. “When you thought it was me at eighteen, you–you said—”
I know you aren’t really mine. I know I don’t have a right to you.
“You said I wasn’t yours, that you didn’t have any right to me, that you weren’t my dad and I just—” Bradley’s eyes fill with tears. “The doctor said it came from your subconscious, so if you really think those things, Mav, I—I don’t know what to do.” He scrubs a hand across his eyes. “Where does that leave me?” he asks pitifully. “I’m sorry my parents aren’t here to take me off your hands, and maybe I’m much too old to care, almost two decades late, but—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Mav says, firm but gentle. “Look at me, please.” When Bradley shakes his head, too ashamed, Mav repeats himself. “Please, baby,” he says softly, smiling when Bradley looks at him. A gentle hand wipes away his tears. “There you are. Listen to me when I say this, alright?” When Bradley nods, he takes a deep breath.
“Of course I’ll always wish you had your parents. I wish they were here everyday to see you grow up, to love you like they did every day of their lives here on earth,” Mav’s voice cracks a little, but he soldiers on. “They will always be your parents, and you will always be theirs first. Always, baby goose,” he says firmly, making sure Bradley understands. It isn’t hard for Bradley to nod in agreement to that. Looking back over his childhood, he realized in retrospect how Mav always put Goose and Carole and their memories first for Bradley, over and above himself. It puzzled Bradley, sometimes, the way Mav would almost consciously distance himself from Bradley even as he gave him his best memories of his parents, trying to erase himself from the narrative, as if the Bradshaws had always existed without a Mitchell around to soil the story.
But Bradley knew better. All his best memories had three parents, and it didn’t take a psychic to see how Mav gave all of himself for Bradley, placing Bradley as his top priority even as he placed himself last in Bradley’s heart, as though it were a competition. The irony of it all makes Bradley’s chest squeeze with gnawing guilt and an overwhelming awe, of being the object of such sacrificial love.
Of course, the kicker is that Bradley realized all of this after fifteen terrible, lonely years; but hopefully, not fifteen years too late.
“But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t the most precious person in the world to me,” Mav continues softly, one hand fondly cupping Bradley’s face. “When you were born, the day Goose made me your godfather was the most nerve-wracking day of my life.”
Despite himself, Bradley snorts. “Really? Out of all the missions you’ve flown and the stunts you’ve pulled?”
“Yes,” Mav answers seriously. “Because I understood that Goose and Carole were entrusting me with the one person they loved most in all the world, and when I held you in my arms, I knew I was no different.” He smiles at the young man in front of him, remembers for a moment the baby who slept on his shoulder. “You may not be my son by blood, but I told you—I’ve always thought of you as mine.”
“So when I left,” Bradley swallows, “it hurt you that badly.” It’s a declarative statement, not a question. He’s seen for himself the scars his actions have left on his dad’s psyche.
Mav offers him a sad smile. “I thought I’d broken the most sacred promises I made to your parents: to love you and protect you and give you a safe and secure home.”
Bradley slides back down to the floor so that he can lay his head on Mav’s arm. It’s barely enough; he’d like to cuddle close, but the brace and bruised wounds on his dad’s upper body are less than forgiving.
“I love you, Mav,” Bradley whispers, so lowly that at first Mav thinks he mishears. “And—and I think you’re mine too.” He lifts his head to look Mav in the eye. “I love my parents. I do. But maybe I’ve never told you how I love you just as much.”
There’s a slight horror that enters Mav’s eyes at that, and Bradley recognizes it for what it is: horror that he would ever be placed beside Nick and Carole Bradshaw on the pedestal of Bradley’s heart, as unworthy as he views himself to be.
“Bradley…”
“No,” Bradley shakes his head. “All my life, Mav, you were there. Even when I thought–I tried to pretend that I didn’t want you, but you were still there. You’re still here. And you still try to…” he swallows a sob. “You’re still trying to step back, and I know it’s not because you don’t want me because you’ve made the opposite abundantly clear, but it’s because you think I don’t want you.”
Mav blinks at him, wide-eyed as though unbelieving, and Bradley wants to cry.
“I’m right, aren’t I,” he continues quietly while Mav stays silent. “Well, I’m telling you now, Mav,” he takes his dad’s bruised hands in his, “what I should’ve told you many times over. You’re my Mav, my Dad.” He brings those hands up and presses a kiss to those bandaged knuckles as Mav makes a small noise. “I love my father. I love my mother. And I love you, Mav,” Bradley says sincerely. “God gave me three parents. Good thing too, with how I turned out,” he smiles, a touch bittersweet. “I needed all three of you. And I had you, Mav. I have you.”
His dad’s painful words in the hospital resurface in his mind. I’m sorry, sweetheart. You needed a father. You needed a mom. You deserved to have all of the time in the world with your parents. And all you got was me.
“I had you,” Bradley’s voice trembles. “And it was the saving grace of my life. I could’ve—could’ve gone to a stranger’s home, or in the system, but I didn’t. I didn’t, because I had you. Even when I didn’t deserve you.” He looks straight into his dad’s eyes, which are slowly filling with tears.
“You’ll always have me, baby goose,” Mav says roughly, leaning forward so that their foreheads touch. “As long as you want me.”
Bradley’s words soothe a wound in his heart that had always been there, even if he liked to pretend it didn’t exist, that it was right for the kid he loved more than life to love only his parents and nobody else, that it was a blessing to be allowed in the Bradshaw house at all. He should’ve realized, he thinks ruefully, what it meant when Bradley got shot out of the sky for him, or when as a kid, Mav had turned into Dad , even as it took all of Mav’s strength not to to initially recoil, to say that that title should be Goose’s and only Goose’s, when Bradley had offered it so freely.
“And I’ve got you,” Mav whispers, reciprocal in every way except he’s reasonably sure that he’ll give up everything for this kid and more, because he draws the line at Bradley risking anything at all for him, because seeing his plane get shot out of the sky is enough to haunt Mav for the rest of his life. “Always.”
Bradley tucks Mav in bed later that night after their takeout dinner, something that Mav protests no end.
“It’s barely nine pm, baby goose,” Mav whines, to which Bradley sniffs. “Good pilots take their medicine and go to bed on time,” he says mock-sternly, and he looks so much like Carole, like Goose, standing over him and fussing, that it knocks the breath out of Mav’s lungs.
He takes his medicine without complaint, and it only takes a few minutes for his eyelids to droop.
“Good night, Mav,” he hears, as a soft kiss is placed on his cheek. It makes him smile drowsily. “Go to sleep. I’m right here.”
Mav wakes at midnight, or so the blinking digital clock on his bedside table tells him. Contrary to a medicine-induced haze, he comes awake quickly, suddenly alert like there’s something wrong.
His injuries have receded to a dull ache, and Mav takes a few seconds to lay there and just breathe.
And then, it hits him. “Bradley,” he whispers under his breath, pulling himself upright with much effort as his stitches protest. Bradley, where—
The moonlight streaming through his window suddenly illuminates a head of hair beside his bed, and Mav relaxes minutely, relieved. His kid is sitting on the floor, back slumped against his bed frame, head turned toward Mav, neck uncomfortably lolling against the edge of the mattress.
Like this, he’s close enough for Mav to stretch out with his good arm and stroke his hair. “Sweetheart,” he rasps out, and that’s enough for Bradley to blink his eyes open. There’s a twinge in Mav’s chest as he thinks about how attuned his kid is to him, choosing to stay by his bedside because his mother goose senses are probably going haywire. Part of him hates to worry him so; another part of him warms at the care. So like his parents, this one. Mav’s saving grace.
“Dad?” Bradley scrambles awake, his long limbs groggily moving him further upright as he scans over Mav’s battered body. “What’s wrong? Anything hurt? I–”
“I’m fine, kiddo,” Mav reassures him. “I’m okay. What about you? Why aren’t you in your own bed?”
Bradley stretches his neck from side to side slowly as he yawns. “Uh–”
Mav watches him fondly as his thirty-something year old kid tries to string together a coherent sentence while half-awake. “Why don’t you come on up here, Brad?”
Bradley blinks slowly as he tries to process what Mav just said. “Come on, sweetheart,” Mav coaxes. “There’s enough room.”
“Your injuries—”
Mav shakes his head. “I’ll be okay. Come on, indulge your old man, hmm? Besides,” he grins, “if you sleep there the whole night, someone’s going to be whining tomorrow, and it’s not going to be me.”
Bradley huffs but obeys without protest, laying as far away as he can from Mav, giving him as much space as possible. Mav takes it upon himself to pull Bradley closer, his functional arm circling around those broad shoulders. The kid outright refuses to lay any weight on Mav’s healing body, but he cuddles close to his side anyway, arms curled to his chest. Like this, with Mav’s bandaged hand laying on top of his shoulder, it could have been any night from twenty years ago, a patched-up Maverick on medical leave, a worried teenager making sure his dad was still breathing.
The comfort of having Bradley close is better than any sleeping pill. Bradley seems to fall back asleep immediately, his soft snores huffing out and tickling Mav’s ribcage. His kid must be exhausted, looking after him. Slider’s texts said as much. It’s the least Mav can do to offer him some rest in return.
“Sleep tight, sweetheart,” Mav mumbles as his own eyelids begin to slide shut. “I’m here. I love you.”
He hears an answering love you, dad, whispered against his ribs, and falls asleep with a smile on his face.