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The (now official, courtesy of Admiral Kazansky) dagger squadron had been spending much more time together since the uranium mission since they’d all become a lot closer (surviving a suicide mission together has a way of doing that.)
Today was just a regular Tuesday, well it wasn’t exactly regular since they weren’t at work. The higher ups had graciously given them two weeks leave after the mission before they were supposed to report back to TopGun for their first round of orders as a squadron. Rooster has been enjoying the peace and quiet and had also been making use of the time to make up with maverick and ice, it had been going good - he had been spending an increasing amount of time with both of them, so far he’d seen two movies in the cinema with maverick, only one of which maverick had managed to drag his husband to since ice wasn’t the biggest fan of going out anymore, and had spent the last week staying over in his childhood bedroom.
However Bradley’s daydreaming got unceremoniously interrupted when his phone started blowing up right next to his ear. Grumbling to himself he shoved the covers down from around his neck, reluctantly reaching for his phone knowing phoenix would murder him (and get away with it) if he didn’t at least read what was going on in their group chat which put an end to the long morning in bed.
Dagger Group Chat
08:42
Bagman: I’m bored
Phoenix: Tough shit
Fanboy: for once I agree with hangman, I am kinda bored.
Payback: me too
Bob <3: why don’t we go to the beach? It’s sunny and a Tuesday so there shouldn’t be too many people around.
Halo: this is why we love you
Fanboy: I’m so down
Payback: count me in
Bagman: and me
Phoenix: I’m not saying no to a beach day
Yale: neither, me n Harvard’ll be there.
Rooster groaned, it wasn’t like he didn't want to spend time with his friends, he did, he had just been enjoying his lie in more.
Phoenix: roo you comin?
Rooster -
yeah yeah, if only because it gives me another chance to beat Jake’s ass at dogfight football.
Bagman: you will not
Rooster -
bite me
Fanboy: keep the flirting to private dms PLEASE.
Rooster -
I wasn’t flirting!
Fanboy: you so were don’t even deny it
Omaha: hey should someone invite maverick?
Rooster -
I can ask him
Omaha: yeah okay
So Bradley dragged himself from bed, throwing a jumper on to keep at least some of his dignity intact and took a moment to just look at the hyper realistic f-14 mural he had had ice paint him when he’d been 5 and had stubbornly refused to let them paint over ever since. It was one of his favourite memories with his Pops, they’d spent a weekend going to the hardware store and looking at different paint samples and colour schemes until Bradley had finally picked out a blue he liked. (It wasn’t until he was much older and needed to paint his own apartment that he realised that he must have emptied ices bank account in paint samples alone) Then every day after school he’d come home to find the painting a little more done and had been blown away every time he’d stepped into the room. Rooster could remember demanding maverick come upstairs and admire ice's handiwork despite him doing his level best to shoo both of them away.
Realising he’d let himself get distracted again, rooster tore his eyes away from the mural and quietly padded down into the kitchen, assuming he’d find maverick in there, which he did, mav was sat on the counter bickering with ice who was furiously signing replies about - bradley took a moment to catch up - how much milk should go in coffee??
“Hey baby goose, enjoy your late morning?” Mav asked as soon as he saw him.
“Yeah thanks for letting me sleep in, oh my god is that pancakes?” Bradley answered, the smell of them hitting his nose as he ventured deeper into the kitchen, glancing over Iceman’s shoulder to look at them.
“Yes it is, we thought you’d like them, they used to be your favourite” ice said quietly, unable to speak loudly anymore after his most recent battle with cancer. He was lucky he was still alive honestly, but then again ice had always beaten the odds.
“Yeah they were weren’t they, still are.” rooster thought wistfully. Ice used to let him help make them every weekend to surprise maverick on Sundays, it had been one of their many traditions for whenever the two of them hadn’t been on deployments. “Can I help?”
“Knock yourself out kid” ice signed, having found out Bradley also understood the basics because he’d taken it upon himself to learn during flight school since he had some spare time and nothing better to do. (He had, it was called socialising, but flight school Bradley was still mad at the world and didn’t feel like making more friends outside of Phoenix and Hangman)
Beach invite completely forgotten, rooster set about getting extra pans out the cupboard for the sauce that went with the pancakes and helping ice with what he could, the muscle memory of how to make them slowly coming back to him and asking either maverick (who just shrugged and pointed at Tom, code for “the hell if I know, ask your pops”) or ice what to do when he forgot since a cookbook had never ever been used in the Mitchell-Kazansky Bradshaw household and they weren’t about to start now.
———
After breakfast Bradley was helping Maverick clear up the dishes, yet another tradition - Ice cooked and mav cleared up after - the taste of the pancakes still lingering on his tongue. His phone buzzed and he paused momentarily to look at it, grimacing when he saw a string of angry texts from Phoenix in his dms.
Phoenix -
09:12 what the fuck happened to you
10:05 surely it can’t take an hour to ask maverick if he wants to come to the beach.
10:07 Rooster
10:15 Bradley
10:17 Bradley “Rooster” fucking Bradshaw, answer my damn messages this fucking second or I will come to your house so help me god.
Rooster pulled a face at his phone and maverick must’ve noticed.
“What’s up with you?”
“It appears Phoenix is threatening me with bodily harm since I didn’t reply to her messages”
“You should know better than to ignore the woman by now”
“Good point, Nat can be scary when she wants to be”
“Then I’d hurry the hell up and answer her before she follows through with her threat”
Bradley picked up his phone again
Phoenix -
10:25 you have ten seconds to run the next time I see you.
Rooster -
10:26 Jesus Nat calm down
I got distracted by breakfast
Phoenix -
10:27 of fucking course you did.
anyway is our favourite CO joining us for our little beach trip?
Rooster -
10:27 hang on a sec
Phoenix -
10:27 YOU STILL HAVEN'T ASKED???!!
“Hey mav?”
“Yeah baby goose?
“You wanna go out with me and the rest of the daggers after lunch? They decided to go earlier this morning on a whim”
Mavericks eyes widened with surprise before closing again, “sorry roo, no-can-do I’m afraid, tell them I have prior commitments.”
“Copy that, you mind me asking what those prior commitments are?”
“Wolf, wood, Merlin, sunny, chip and slider are back stateside again for a few days so viper demanded we all go out together since he hasn’t seen us in quote, forever end quote. I quite literally saw the man last week so I don’t know what he’s on about”
Rooster snorted, it sounded like viper hadn’t changed a bit
“Yeah he’s seen you, not the rest of them”
“Okay fair point”
Rooster -
10:30 sorry mav has prior commitments so he can’t come
Phoenix -
10:30 I didn’t know he had a life outside of the navy
Rooster-
10:31 don’t let him hear you say that
Phoenix -
10:32 did he tell you what those prior commitments even *were*
Rooster -
10:32 nope
He knew he was lying about not knowing mavericks plans but something told him his dad would appreciate his personal life not being broadcasted to their entire squadron since it would just result in a round of twenty questions on Monday that would turn into something more like twenty thousand questions
———-
He was just pulling together his bag and rummaging around his room for his car keys he swore he’d left on the floor right next to the laundry basket but weren’t there anymore. It got to the point where he thought he was going crazy when ice appeared in the doorway, knocking on the wall twice to get roosters attention because he couldn’t sign if Bradley wasn’t looking at him.
If your looking for your keys I put them on your dresser last night since I knew you’d lose them
Trying to look somewhat offended that ice had no trust in him to not lose stuff, but couldn’t really since it was true, Bradley stood up and walked over to his dresser and lo and behold, the keys to his bronco were sitting on the top.
“Thanks” he grunted, slightly embarrassed he’d missed them just sitting there. Ice grinned at him before turning and going back to his bedroom, where mav was.
Bradley scooped the keys up, sliding the keychain around his ring finger before lifting the duffle bag that had about enough snacks to feed an entire aircraft carrier (maverick had bought a little too many when he went shopping earlier that week since he wasn’t sure that Bradley liked anymore, so he just got some of everything), spare clothes and a towel. He knew he wasn’t walking away from today without ending up in the drink. These were his friends we’re talking about right now.
After Ambling downstairs, Rooster was greeted with the sight of two more smaller bags of food, a note on the top next to them in Ices distinct handwriting,
Please take this, me and mav will never eat this much. It’s beyond me why he bought it.
He snorted, not entirely surprised. Maverick either bought next to nothing, or he bought out the entire shop. If you wanted a decent round of groceries ask Ice to get them for you, you’ll end up with everything on your list and money still in your bank account.
Besides, who was he to say no to free food? So like any true naval aviator, Bradley hooked the straps of the bag over his left hand, picking it up before calling out a goodbye into the house, he got a ‘bye, have fun’ yelled back from maverick and he smiled as he shut the front door behind him and loaded everything into the back of his car.
———— *** ————
Maverick had woken up at 06:30 hours sharp, just like every day. He didn’t even need an alarm anymore, it was just on for those ‘just in case’ days where he really felt like turning over and going back to sleep. Those days had increased in number ever since coming back to teach that mission at topgun thanks to the fact he fell asleep and woke up right next to Tom every morning and every night.
That morning he’d scrambled to shut the 06:35 alarm off at 06:34 without waking ice up because he said he was shutting it off for the week the previous night and just realised he’d forgotten to do so. His husband was still blissfully dead to the world and he never usually slept in, always waking five or ten minutes before maverick and just lying there with him until they absolutely had to get up. God knows ice needed the sleep, after everything with the cancer and then returning to his COMPACFLT duties so quickly, he’d never really left himself with much time to just do nothing. However, today was a perfect day to do nothing for a while. Maverick had basically bullied ice into taking the week off work to spend some leave together. Today however would be spent with others as well since their old topgun class plus Merlin had been ordered by (retired) Commander Metcalf, better known as viper or jokingly, ‘dad’ to their group, that they were expected to be turn up to the hard deck at 2pm sharp. (They were all going, it didn’t matter basically all of them were a higher rank than viper now, the man was still scary when he wanted to be and you just did not say no to Mike “Viper” Metcalf) In a way it was similar to the way maverick had become a ‘dad’ to the dagger squadron. Smiling at the thought, Pete rolled back over so he could bury his face in Toms shoulder, gently taking his hand and tracing pattens into the back of it.
When ice finally woke up at 07:30 on the dot, maverick greeted him with a cheerful. “Morning!”
“What time is it” ice groaned in a whisper, not wanting to let go of maverick to sign it. “I feel like I slept way longer than usual”
“Mm that’s cause you did, a full hour no less” maverick teased.
“Oh shut up Mitchell” ice snarked. “Why didn’t I hear your alarm?”
“I turned it off dumbass, remember I told you last night”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Yeah, right” maverick said and somehow got closer to ice. Taking a deep breath and relishing in the smell of wood, mint and something that was just distinctly Tom Kazansky.
After another half an hour of just dozing somewhere between the land of the living and sleep, maverick sighed. “S’pose we best get up and eat something since viper wants us at the hard deck at two”
Yeah good idea. Ice signed back, having woken up a bit more by now.
(Spoiler alert: it took the two of them another 25 minutes to actually make it downstairs and into the kitchen despite them both agreeing they really should get up)
Maverick took his place on the counter next to the fridge where he always sat whenever ice was cooking. Ice had tried many times over the last 36 years to make him sit on a chair and failed miserably every single time.
While Tom busied himself with making pancakes after a brief debate over what to have, maverick began just talking about everything from the latest gossip he’d heard from the scuttlebut to how much milk one should put in one’s coffee, (which had descended into another one of their little (good natured) fights with maverick whisper shouting so as to not wake up Bradley if he was still asleep and ice furiously signing like his life depended on it since mav liked it black while ice had to put an unrealistic amount of milk and creamer in it before he’d even touch the stuff) since he knew ice loved listening to him just talk while he worked, even if he couldn’t always reply for whatever reason.
It was during that fight their pseudo son walked into the room, looking half asleep and confused. They stopped their fight with a look on both of their faces that clearly read ‘we’ll continue this later’
“Hey baby goose, enjoy your late morning?” Mav asked somewhat cheerfully.
“Yeah thanks for letting me sleep in, oh my god is that pancakes?” Bradley answered, walking further into the kitchen to look over ices shoulder.
“Yes it is, we thought you’d like them, they used to be your favourite”
“Yeah they were weren’t they, still are.” rooster answered, Mav could swear he heard a hint of nostalgia in the kids voice.
“Can I help?” Bradley then proceeded to ask and maverick totally did not want to cry thank you very much.
“Knock yourself out kid” ice signed, happy to have Bradley back if the look Pete saw wash over his face was anything to go by. He wasn’t stupid, he knew Ice and Rooster used to make these for him together every Sunday as a surprise before the incident. He’d always pretended he was still asleep when little Bradley had come bounding up the stairs to wake him up, fooling the kid even if ice had seen straight through him every time.
Maverick continued with his gossip since they hadn’t been talking about anything particularly serious or classified before Bradley had entered the equation, however this time he had a sassy kid (“he’s not a kid anymore mav, he’s 32” “shut up Kazansky he’s still a kid to me”) to make sarcastic remarks as well that had all three of them doubled over laughing more than once. Mav had even fallen off the counter at one point which had just caused his son and husband to laugh more, much to his despair.
————
Breakfast was dished up at 08:57 hours, everyone taking their seats in the dining room, ice and maverick sat next to each other like always with Bradley opposite them just like it had been when Bradley was younger.
Maverick wolfed down the pancakes, savouring the taste that lingered afterwards, he loved Tom’s cooking. Bradley mirrored him, the two of them unable to make their breakfast last more than five minutes. Ice however ate at a much more respectable pace, but he didn’t eat as much so he just nudged the plate with the remainder of the food on it towards maverick and Bradley. This was how it had gone for ages, maverick would finish his meal, ice would eat as much as he felt like and then give the rest to maverick.
Afterwards Mav began clearing up the dishes, like usual when Bradley appeared beside him, helping clear up.
He watched his kid closely, immediately noticing the grimace on his face when he checked his phone, so he decided to investigate.
“What’s up with you?”
————
Rooster was just leaving the house as maverick got out the shower. He called his goodbyes just at the right time for maverick to yell “Bye! enjoy your day” back down the stairs at him.
Then they were alone, with an hour and a half of time to kill before they needed to be at the hard deck. Ice was sat up on their bed, blanket pulled across his lap and pillow placed on top which was acting as a stand for his book. He was currently reading ‘pride and prejudice’ for about the hundredth time but hey, who was maverick to begrudge him that, he himself had watched the same movie franchise about 600 times and Ice hadn’t complained once.
After getting dressed in a simple white shirt and jeans because he knew they’d be playing volleyball before the afternoon was over and he didn’t feel like getting the select few nice shirts in his possession covered with sand and ruined - Same seemed to go for his husband who had a simple long sleeve shirt and the black sweats that had been in his possession since their own stint at topgun all those years ago, with the scarf he always wore wound around his neck to cover the tracheotomy scars, despite maverick insisting he didn’t need to, because while ice may not be actually playing the volleyball, they both knew that slider would not hesitate to get his pilot covered in sand, even if he’d be too scared to get him wet. - he climbed onto the bed next to ice, resting his head on toms shoulder and taking his left hand in his own.
The two spent the next hour doing fuck all except sitting there and reading pride and prejudice until their phones buzzed simultaneously.
Flyboys 12:33
Hollywood wait when do we need to be at the hard deck for
Slider I told you this like six times how have you forgotten
Hollywood hey leave me the fuck alone
Slider but it’s no fun like that
Ice sli stop bullying our friends
Slider you’re supposed to be on my side!
Ice I thought you’d know I don’t take sides by now
Ice we’ve only known each other 40 years
Slider remind me to never be nice to you again
Hollywood ice, please for the love of god tell me what time I need to be at pennys
Ice 14:00 sharp, or face vipers wrath.
Hollywood I’d rather not thanks
Sundown I find it so funny we literally command the whole of the pacific fleet and basically half of the Atlantic fleet between us yet orders from viper are still a non negotiable matter.
Wolfman seriously sunny have you met the guy
Sundown fair point
Chipper I still stand by the fact ice is scarier
Ice I am not that bad!
Maverick …
Slider ice..
Chipper you made two lieutenants cry after you pointed them out for uniform inaccuracies.
Maverick I have seen admirals and ensigns alike run for the hills after you looked at them with even a hint of displeasure
Wolfman just accept it man, your scary
Ice whatever
Ice I’m going now because I’m actually a responsible adult with a sense of self preservation
Maverick guess that means I’m going too
Chipper yup me to!
Slider oh shit is that the time already
Hollywood HA! How’s that for karma
Slider oh fuck off Neven.
Maverick giggled while watching the exchange go down between Hollywood and slider on their group chat even as ice hauled himself up and put his book neatly on his bedside table. It took ice pulling on mavs shirt sleeve and glaring at him expectantly for him to put the phone down and get moving.
“I see why people run away after you look at them now” maverick grumbled and ice whacked him around the head, offended. “Just saying” he held his hands up in surrender “the glare is a little unsettling”
“Tough shit Mitchell, you better deal” ice shot back, quietly, but still sharply.
—————
After pulling their shoes on, maverick quickly dashed into the kitchen to collect some of the snacks, stuffing them into a bag quickly.
I still don’t know why you bought all that ice signed to maverick, who was currently running around the kitchen like a madman. It looks like we have more than the shop, you should just hold a sale for all of miramar.
“I told you, I didn’t know what Bradley liked!”
Ice merely rolled his eyes and went to fetch himself a book, realising he left it on the nightstand earlier.
————— *** —————
Entering the beach carpark, rooster pulled in next to what he recognised as Jake’s chevy since the others weren’t here yet, killing the engine and taking a moment to just look at the view.
His thoughts were broken by one Jake “Hangman” Seresin knocking on his car window and scaring the life out of him. Rooster jumped about two feet off his seat and hangman doubled over laughing at him. So in retaliation Bradley swung his door open and hit Hangman with a respectable amount of force but it seemed it was enough to knock him flat on his ass in the sand.
(They would both deny that it ever happened if asked.)
Soon enough the others began rolling in, Phoenix and Bob carpooling, followed by payback and fanboy then Halo and Omaha with Harvard, Yale and Fritz bringing up the rear.
“Let’s get this party started”
Fanboy announced as he got out the car, everyone nodding enthusiastically in agreement as they each collected their things from their respective cars.
“How much food do you have Roo?” Phoenix asked incredulously, peering into the trunk of the bronco, eyes widening with surprise when she saw the two bags that were practically overflowing despite everything being meticulously packed, courtesy of Ice again. Neither Mav nor Rooster could pack that nicely to save their life. Not that the others needed to know that.
“Let’s just say our favourite commanding officer went mildly overboard on his latest grocery run” rooster answered, the others knew mav was roosters pseudo dad so it explained why rooster was basically living with him. “So now we have lots of extra chow”
“A bit?” Hangman spluttered, looking over Phoenix’s shoulder
“Yeah man I think this is more than a bit” fanboy agreed “however I’m not going to turn down free food”
“Right back at ya” fanboys pilot agreed.
Rooster grumbled a bit but wasn’t really annoyed.
——————
After a fight over where they should set up camp, the aviators decided to put their blankets down not too far from the hard deck, there was space for a net to play dogfight football - the game maverick had introduced them too when trying to get them to work as a team - and it wasn’t a trek to Penny’s if they ran out of beers as well as being away from the few other civilians dotted around.
Soon enough there were complaints of “I’m starving” so Phoenix emptied the contents of roosters bags in the middle of their circle, grabbing her own things plus some for Bob before scrambling back to her blanket to avoid the mess that was the rest of them.
“Man Maverick knows how to shop” halo exclaimed, finding all the different kinds of snacks she loved and could usually never get. “Can you ask him where he shops”
“Ask him yourself on monday” rooster grumbled, already fed up of being the gofer and it had only been a week, even though he knew perfectly well every store Pete “Maverick” Mitchell has ever shopped in and what his favourites are.
“Fine, I will” halo complained but went back to her food anyways.
—————
Half an hour later, the contents of one and a half bags had vanished and they were starting to get bored. Bob had laughed at them and told them they should’ve brought a book or something similar to do.
For the fun of it, rooster and hangman decided to throw fanboy overboard, dropping the WSO in the ocean with much shouting in the form of protests. It led to Payback getting up to defend his best friend, throwing water over Bradley from behind while Hangman turned round to shove him under.
Behind them the other pilots and WSO’s were entering the sea to join the fight, picking sides with most taking Payback and Fanboys.
“This is unfair” rooster yelled as he wrestled with three other guys “I call no joy”
“Life’s unfair” Phoenix shot back, placing a well aimed shove to Fritz’s side, sending the man straight over face first. She’d teamed up with Rooster and Hangman because she’d found them dropping fanboy in the ocean funny and rooster wasn’t going to complain, Phoenix could throw a mean punch.
“It’s 3 against 7 phe, this is a little more than unfair”
Bob was the only sensible one of the bunch, still sat on the shore watching them. He was however taping the entire thing for blackmail purposes later, laughing to himself as Rooster, Hangman and Phoenix got obliterated by the others. He loved his pilot, he really did, but there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell that Bob was willingly getting in the middle of that.
—————
“Why don’t we play that football thing maverick showed us?” Payback suggested a while later once they were all lying down doing nothing in particular again, mainly drying off from the fight.
“Dogfight football?”
“Yeah that one”
“Okay yeah”
“Count me in”
“I’m down”
—————
“Harvard you go” Fritz had suggested
“Hell no you go”
“Fanboy”
“Not a chance in hell”
“For the love of god will you all quit squabbling like kids” Phoenix had glared at them all and they’d promptly shut the hell up.
There was one minor issue with wanting to play dogfight football and it was the fact you needed a football, grains of sand weren’t exactly going to cut it. So Harvard had used some of the supposed intelligence that had earned him his call sign and suggested they go ask Penny for one. That had been agreed on, but what they couldn’t agree on was who was going to go and actually ask.
“Why don’t we all just go” phoenix suggested to the rest of them. Everyone perked up at that, nodding their agreement.
“Great idea phe” halo answered, she linked arms with Phoenix before marching off, causing the rest of the daggers to scramble after the two women.
As a unit, they trekked up the beach towards the hard deck. The bar theoretically wasn’t open yet but they knew penny would be around since she lived there with her daughter and hopefully wouldn’t mind lending them a football.
“You know, I can’t wait to kick your ass at this as soon as we get the ball” hangman said to rooster, the two of them were walking next to each other, hanging slightly behind Payback and Fanboy.
“Who said anything about you beating me? I’m clearly better”
“No”
“Yes”
“No”
“Yes, my team won the game last time”
“Only because you had Mav and he knew all the tricks”
“Bullshit”
By then they were on the steps to the bar, Phoenix and Halo were at the front, Yale, Harvard and Fritz at the back, everyone else was somewhere in between. Natasha knocked on the door, which was shut with the ‘CLOSED’ sign hanging in the window.
Amelia opened the door, raising an eyebrow “uh, the bars shut today?”
“Wait what I thought it opened at 7?” Hangman asked, rooster elbowed him “not what we’re here for idiot”
“I was just askin!”
Amelia looked between them, not overly impressed, managing the bored look very well for a 14 year old faced with 12 aviators who were all at least double her age.
“Usually it does but moms got some friends over”
“Anyway” Halo said, pointing a glare at Jake, “we were just coming to see if your mom had a football we could borrow”
“I’m sure she has one somewhere, mom literally has everything. She produced a volleyball out of nowhere earlier, even I didn’t know we had that”
It got a round of laughs from the group on the doorstep
“Alright in you come” Amelia commanded, opening the door wider to let them in before shutting it behind them. “You can wait over there”
The gaggle aviators moved as one and ended up just standing awkwardly just inside the entrance, not entirely sure what to do with themselves.
Amelia had already disappeared, shouting for her mom and disappearing into a room at the back. The door was always locked whenever the bar was open and it just clicked with them that it must be because it leads to where Penny and Amelia live.
“So uh, what now?”
“Guess we just wait”
After about five minutes the group decided to go wait in the main bar area since it had seating and they could maybe convince penny to let them have a drink or two.
Upon entering the bar, rooster saw a short man with familiar jet black hair behind the counter. He was pouring drinks into glasses with his back turned to them, obviously having not noticed that anyone else was there.
————— *** —————
Ice was driving, having forbidden maverick from driving when he was perfectly capable of doing it himself since his husband had once broken three traffic laws and almost crashed the car with him in it and Ice firmly believed that if he was going to die in a car, then he was also going to be the one driving. Mav just called him a control freak.
“You know, we should have invited Bradley to this” maverick thought aloud “I’m sure everyone would want to see him again”
“He already had plans mav, he couldn’t have come even if you did invite him” ice tried, he knew maverick wasn’t entirely sure how to act around their pseudo-son anymore and was convinced he was messing up at every turn.
“I guess your right, why do you always have to be right?” Maverick sighed, staring up at the roof of the car.
Ice stayed silent, he didn’t really make small talk just to keep a conversation going anymore, happy to just sit in comfortable silence. That was only really silence until maverick turned the radio on.
Only, it wasn’t the radio that turned on, it was mavericks phone that was somehow bluetoothed to the car. Neither of them knew how in the hell that had happened nor how to unconnect it.
“What the fuck?”
“How’d that happen?”
“I don’t know, it’s your phone!”
“It’s your car!”
“Let’s just ask slider when we get there”
“Okay”
With that resolve, maverick decided to make the most of it and played the only album he had on his phone. Said album just so happened to be a collection of songs that he and ice had found and liked over the years so neither of them could really complain all that much.
Soon enough, great balls of fire came on and maverick started humming along, which turned into singing along. Ice simply smiled and occasionally glanced over whenever they hit a stop sign or a red light.
————
Upon arrival, it turned out they were the last ones there. That put ice in a somewhat salty mood since he hated being late to anything.
“Ice we’re not even late”
“It’s the premise of the thing mav, we’re last. That means everyone’s waiting for us.”
Maverick sighed and reached over the Center console to put an arm around ice. “Tom were still 3 minutes early, and it’s not even our fault, we got stuck in traffic.”
Ice made a non comittal noise, thinking about how they should have left earlier.
“Look, think of it this way” maverick began, he was not having his husband be in a bad mood all day because of some traffic. “If it were wood and wolf who were late because of traffic and not us, would you be mad at them?”
“Well .. no, but-“
“Ah, nu uh. None of that thank you very much.” Maverick said swiftly, putting a hand over ices mouth to shut him up. “You wouldn’t be annoyed with them over something out of their control so they aren’t going to be mad at us for the same reason”
Ice sighed, pulling mavericks hand away from his face “I guess you're right” he signed with resignation
Mav grinned like a Cheshire Cat at that.
————
Upon entry to the hard deck, maverick was swiftly drawn into many hugs from their friends, which he welcomed easily. The only person to get away with it with ice, other than maverick, was slider. Slider got special treatment because, well, he was slider. He and ice were basically brothers in every way possible except by blood.
“Aw c’mon ice please?” Wolf had whined at ice, who shook his head with a look that usually deterred people from pushing. Ice had however not factored in the fact that this was Wolfman, a man who would find a way to get what he wanted when he wanted it bad enough.
“I haven’t seen you in like, forever, please?”
Curse wolf and his guilt tripping, ice thought to himself as he gave in, letting wolfman draw him into a bone crushing hug. This however only served as an invitation for Hollywood to join in, which in turn caused sundown and chipper to enter the equation closely followed by Merlin, slider and finally mav, who was shouting “group hug!” at them.
Viper walked round the corner then, coming back from the bathroom and immediately took a snapshot of it on his phone, chuckling to himself. This picture would be ending up on Kazansky’s desk before the end of the week if he had anything to do with it. Actually scrap that, they were all admirals, (except maverick, who still expertly evaded promotion after promotion) it would be ending up on all of their desks before the week was done. He went and stood next to hondo, the only other sane person in this mess of a meet up it seemed.
—————
Once everyone had settled down, Mav and Ice together, Hollywood and wolfman together and the rest of them scattered about, it hit everyone they didn’t actually know what to talk about. So wolf suggested a game of volleyball, needless to say the suggestion was a hit and soon enough they were halfway down the beach as a group with a volleyball penny had produced out of nowhere.
There was a short disagreement about who would be on who’s team, it didn’t last long as their long suffering commander, Mike “Viper” Metcalf did it for them.
“Wolf, wood, sunny and chip go on one side, Mav, Merlin, Slider and Hondo go on the other.” He barked, everyone obeyed. Then viper left them to it, taking a seat on the sand next to Kazansky, who’d refrained from the game, opting to just watch instead.
“How’s everything going for you?” Viper asked, he’d always considered maverick like a son and eventually that thought extended to Ice and then the rest of the flyboys one by one over the years.
“Same old, same old. Some idiot creates a mess, I find a solution. And a bunch of other classified shit I would love to tell you about but cannot as it would result in a court martial with a dishonorable discharge as the cherry on top” Ice typed out onto his phone, passing it to viper. When viper took it and finished reading it he snorted. Somehow, even over text, ice managed to convey his message with so much sarcasm it was funny. However, this wasn’t entirely what he was asking.
“No I meant with you” viper emphasised after calming down again. If there was one thing he knew Iceman was good at, it was avoiding anything to do with the topic of feelings.
Ice was lost for words for a moment, not really knowing what to say to that. Viper waited patiently for an answer.
Slowly ice opened his mouth to speak but viper suddenly cut him off
“And don’t you dare say fine”
“I wasn’t … going to”
“You were”
“No comment.”
“So?” Viper prompted again, damn, I forgot how good this guy was at changing the topic. It had taken him a while to notice what ice was doing all those years ago, that whenever someone asked about him, he’d give a non committal answer about his job and switch the topic, but once he’d clocked it it had become something viper did regularly, checking in with Ice. Honestly he did it to all of them, it just so happened that Ice was his current victim since everyone else was chasing a ball around in the sand.
“Getting … better, I suppose. More … normal” ice sighed, who was watching the volleyball game with what could be described as a hint of envy in his eyes. Viper knew that he was wishing he could play again, even if it was just once. Viper wanted to hug Kazansky badly, but knowing Ice wasn’t keen on physical touch, he refrained. Even though he knew he could probably get away with it if he was quick, the first and last time they’d hugged was after a particularly bad training accident when he was teaching at topgun and Viper had found him in the bathroom having a panic attack. For the last five to six months they’d only communicated through text and online scrabble, so really this was Vipers first time talking with Ice since his second round of cancer.
“That’s good then” viper answered.
“You?”
If Viper assumed that ice was flipping the question back on him then he would be correct.
“It’s good, the grandkids are in Europe doing some fancy training thing. I’m not entirely sure what it’s about but they call and text me regularly so who am I to complain?”
Ice laughed
Leaving the conversation there, Ice and viper watched the game for about half an hour in companionable silence until the guys got thirsty and started complaining.
Soon enough Slider and maverick offered to go get some beers from the bar and everyone was in favour of that.
———
“So how’d you want to do this?” Mav asked his husbands former RIO.
“I’ll get the beers and you pour the wine that Ice and Chip like so much”
“Sounds good enough to me” mav replied, going behind the bar as slider disappeared into the next room to get the beers from the cooler.
Somehow slider was quicker and just ended up leaving with the beer before maverick was actually done with the wine. This left mav on his own.
Maverick however hadn’t even started pouring the wine. He’d got as far as opening the fridge before he realised he couldn’t remember what the bottle looked like. So he pulled out his phone and googled what he thought the name was. Bingo he thought when he got the right one and quickly set about getting the glasses, opening the bottle and beginning pouring.
After a moment he thought he could feel someone watching him, it was probably just an impatient slider who’d come back because he was taking so long so maverick paid it no mind.
However, that only lasted until he turned around to put glass one on the tray and opened his mouth to say something snarky to slider abou them having no patience but it was his dagger kids that were staring back at him. He promptly shut his mouth again. So this is what Bradley meant when he said the squad was going out. A beach day. Great.
————— *** —————
“MAV?!”
The man just looked at them in shock, holding a bottle of wine in one hand that looked more expensive than the jets they flew. It was indeed Maverick. So this is what his dad meant when he said Viper demanded a get together. Drinks at the Hard Deck. Shit was about to get interesting.
“What are you guys doing here?” Mav asked them
“We decided to come to the beach earlier, didn’t Roo tell you?” Phoenix answered, sending a sideways glare at rooster
“He asked if I wanted to come but he never said where you were going”
“Oh”
All of them just stared at each other across the counter for a few seconds.
“Rooster mentioned you having prior commitments, didn’t realise that meant bar tending in a closed bar” hangman joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“I-“ just as maverick began to speak, there was a shout from somewhere outside and footsteps getting closer.
“Hey Shortstack, what's taking you so long?”
Rooster groaned internally. That could only be slider, better known to his friends as Vice Admiral Kerner and someone to be afraid of.
As soon as Slider entered the room jaws dropped and people were quick to salute. Rooster raised a hand to muffle his laugh as a cough until Phoenix kicked him into what was probably his sloppiest salute ever.
“I see what’s taking you so long,” slider laughed, clocking Bradley’s sloppy salute almost immediately and deciding to take the piss out of him “sloppy salute there Bradshaw, I’d fix that if I were you” Vice Admiral Kerner said. Bradley could tell his friends were terrified for him. Not for long.
In one very practiced move, Bradley moved his left foot into his right a bit more, straightened his shoulders and snapped his left arm down to his side. However instead of moving his right hand into the salute position, he swiftly turned it around and gave Slider the middle finger, looking him dead in the eyes.
The daggers were somewhat mortified by this, never had they seen rooster have that much blatant disregard for a superior, maverick maybe, but not rooster, and because of this it earned him a sharp kick in the ankles from Hangman and a elbow from Phoenix simultaneously, which he ignored.
He and slider stared at each other for a solid minute, rooster held his position firmly the whole time, not wanting to be the first to give in.
“Oh you're good good.” slider eventually cracked up which left Bradley free to dissolve into his own fit of giggles. ”Mav you had him three weeks what the heck did you do” slider accused, flicking maverick round the head lightly
“Fuck you too slider, you think maverick taught me that?” rooster managed between fits while maverick squawked in protest, another reason for his squadron to be utterly mortified.
Eventually the three of them remembered other people were in the room, maverick and slider both making the gesture for the aviators to stand down, they fell into the regular ‘at ease’ stance, not entirely sure whether Vice Admiral Kerner would or would not bite their heads off if they did anything else.
“Uh so kids this is Slider, Slider these are the kids” maverick made the introductions quickly before it got any more awkward.
“So These are the kids you adopted yet none of us have met” slider turned on maverick who looked a little sheepish.
“Yeah”
Slider whistled. “Nice going on the plant guys”
Everyone was quick to state their thanks, in unison, as would normally be expected in the presence of a higher ranking officer. This only caused the admiral to laugh more. “Well at least mav only corrupted one of you”
More protests and a plastic cup was sent in sliders direction. Slider caught the cup and tossed it back, “just pour the goddamned wine Mitchell before our resident wine drinkers start getting pissy”
“Copy that captain” maverick drawled, purposely not using sliders actual rank to fuck with him.
Immediately, rooster knew they were talking about Ice and Chipper. For some reason the two of them had a select menu for what they drank in the terms of alcohol and neither wanted cheap bottled beer, and since vodka probably wasn’t the smartest idea, they’d settled on a wine they could both agree about being nice. It just turned out that said wine was probably the most expensive thing on the market.
After maverick had poured the wine to the correct point in two glasses slider had evidently grown bored “Alright that looks good enough” and with that, the admiral picked up the tray of drinks in one hand and their commanding officer in the other and marched back outside, somehow without spilling anything despite mavericks mildly violent protests to being picked up, leaving the dagger squadron standing aimlessly in the bar.
“Rooster what the fuck was that” hangman turned on him immediately, along with the rest of his squadron. He sighed, he should have been expecting this.
Before Rooster could answer, Amelia reentered the room, football in hand. “Was that slider I just heard?” The teenager asked them, tossing the football to hangman, who only just avoided it smacking him in the face since he was too busy staring at Bradley.
“Yeah that was the admiral, he um, ran off with our commanding officer” fanboy muttered.
“Shame, wish I’d seen that”
Amelia then left them, excusing herself to go outside looking for her mum.
“So what do you guys wanna do now?”
Rooster stayed silent for a moment, he wanted to go and see his uncles but equally he didn’t want to kill his friends with shock. Fortunately he didn’t have to answer since Jake did it for him.
“Well I want to go see what Mav turned down a squad beach trip for if nothing else”
“Ditto”
“Im down”
“Sure”
“Same”
“But I want beer first”
Rooster made his way outside before the others, who were currently raiding the beer cabinet after scraping together some cash to leave on the top. The first thing Bradley saw was a group of people playing volleyball on the beach, from where he was standing and the way the yelling travelled he could guess it was Hollywood, Wolfman and Sundown vs Mav, Merlin and Hondo with Penny and Amelia keeping score. He could just about make out Chipper off to the side with his wine, chatting to viper. Slider had disappeared. When rooster thought about it he also realised ice wasn’t there either.
Rooster was about to walk over to the volleyball game when his friends suddenly appeared behind him, shoving a beer into his hands and almost scaring the life out of him, causing him to jump two feet and fall sideways.
“Jesus guys”
“So where’s our captain” Omaha questioned, looking around before zoning in on the volleyball game, however unless you knew who you were looking at it was impossible to tell who they were. “My guess is over there”
Everyone else turned to follow omahas finger, watching a man with jet black hair and a height awfully similar to mavericks jump up and hit a ball before promptly falling back face first into the sand.
Bradley watched the ball fall down on the other side after who he thought was Wolfman failed to spike it back up. Merlin, who he could easily recognise since the man was about two inches taller than everyone else, yelled. “We won boys”
“Who’re the other guys?” Payback asked curiously
“no idea” Bob answered, squinting at the group through his glasses.
Rooster stayed silent, not wanting to admit he knew every person there just yet. They’d find out soon enough and he wanted to play oblivious for a little while longer. So the group stood awkwardly on the decking, unsure what to do. After a moment, rooster excused himself to go use the bathroom. (He just wanted to see if he could find Ice and Slider anywhere)
————
Eventually someone from the volleyball game needed something back up on the decking and came over. When they got closer the group could see the person had a questioning look on his face. Probably wondering who these people even were.
Phoenix, deciding to take charge of the group since nobody else seemed able to form coherent sentences, spoke first. “Hey!”
The mysterious man answered easily, even though there was a hint of suspicion in his tone “Hi, can I help you with something?”
“We were wondering if you might know where our captain could be?”
“I’m gonna need a bit more than ‘your captain’ if I’m to be of any use”
“Oh yeah right, sorry. He’s called Pete Mitchell, callsign-“ Phoenix started but before she could finish the man turned on his heels, (a perfect about turn if phoenix did ever see one. So this guys is likely navy then. Interesting), cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted “MAVERICK” down the beach. So the dark haired man playing volleyball was their captain then.
Maverick turned around when his name was quite literally, screamed in his general direction. When he saw the daggers he must’ve made some excuse to get out of the game and came running up the beach.
“Hey kids, what’re you doing here? I thought you’d have wanted to go back to, uh, whatever it was that you were doing before” Mav said as he came to a stop next to the man who’d shouted for him.
“We wanted to see what our captain turned us down for” Fritz answered first this time.
“Oh well, just a get together with some old friends”
“And your ‘old friends’ consist of high ranking members of the brass?” hangman asked incredulously, referring to the fact that slider had picked him up and effectively ran off with him earlier.
“Yeah, sorry about that shock.” Maverick said sheepishly, “I didn’t expect you to be here though.”
“We didn’t expect you to be here either!” Halo exclaimed.
The mystery man spoke up again “if these are your daggers then Mav, where’s the gosling?”
Gosling? Phoenix thought, what in the hell kind of name is that, there was certainly nobody with that callsign in their squadron so who could it be?
Maverick looked at the group again, now noticing that rooster wasn’t there. “Where’s rooster guys?” Oh what?.
“Said he was going to the bathroom”
“Mkay” Mav said, Natasha could tell he didn’t really believe them. Which confused her since what reason would rooster have to lie about where he was going? By now she had so many questions for rooster and she was going to get her answers.
—————
Bradley wandered out into the carpark, having not found ice or slider anywhere else. It was then that he noticed that Ice and Mavs Black SUV was missing. Ah, they’ve probably gone to get food then. Rooster thought to himself. He spun around and went back into the building, quickly making his way through the main bar and out back again, hoping he hadn’t been too long.
When he exited through the back doors, rooster saw his friends talking with Maverick and Hollywood. He guessed they didn’t know that Hollywood was also an admiral since they seemed awfully relaxed. Not wanting to be completely cruel to them, Bradley just decided to leave it and not fuck with them like he would have done if they hadn’t already met slider earlier.
“Hey Mav!” Rooster called as he walked over, waving.
“Hey Bradley!” Maverick called back.
“Do I not get a hello then?” Hollywood asked, mock offended when rooster was closer.
Unfortunately for his uncle, rooster had decided to play along with not knowing who he was.
“Wait, who are you?”
This caused maverick to bring a hand to his mouth to desperately stifle a laugh. Hollywood meanwhile turned to maverick with a glare “you put him up to this?”
“Why does everyone keep thinking it’s my fault?” Maverick cried
“Because you're you!”
Maverick visibly debated tackling Hollywood then and there.
Bradley meanwhile stared at Hollywood with a faux innocent expression, he was standing next to Phoenix and Bob, who were currently watching the exchange like a table tennis match, along with everyone else.
Wood was at a loss for words. “You got a concussion or somethin?” He eventually settled on
“No, I just don’t know who you are” rooster answered innocently, loving making his uncle look like a fool.
Hollywood took two steps towards him, looked him dead in the eyes since the two were about the same height, and whacked him (gently) round the head. “You say this like I don’t know shit on kid you”
Rooster immediately paled, knowing Hollywood could and would spill his embarrassing childhood stories.
“Yep sorry okay, hi wood” Bradley rushed through the words, forgetting to speak properly and let himself be drawn into a hug while maverick cackled off to the side.
He could feel the glares his friends were sending his way, they wanted to know who the fuck these people were and why rooster knew them.
Once Hollywood stepped back, maverick had regained some sort of composure.
“Kids this is Hollywood, Hollywood these are the kids” maverick introduced “I might as well tell you their names when I tell everyone since I don’t feel like sounding like a stuck record for a day”
“Hi guys” Hollywood waved “yall did great on the uranium mission by the way”
Collectively their jaws dropped, that was the second person to know about the mission.
“I- we, thought that was classified” payback stuttered
“It is” Hollywood answered simply “but let’s just say I have some sort of power in the navy and know how to get my hands on things”
Rooster snorted, ‘some sort of power’ and wood was a two star admiral along with Wolfman, the two of them worked closely together under the command of the Atlantic Fleet Commander and basically best friends with the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Everyone stood in silence for a moment, unsure how to continue.
“Get your asses up here you animals, we’ve got food!” someone suddenly yelled from behind them. Rooster spun around and saw ice and slider stood on the decking holding about 10 pizza boxes between them. He could guess it was slider who had yelled, especially since it was him with the shit eating grin and ice with the long suffering look.
Behind them, the rest of roosters uncles came running, except viper of course. He walked at a much more respectable pace for someone of a) his rank (even though he was retired) and b) his age. The rest of them had always and will continue to act like children no matter how high up the ladder they climb. Except for maybe Ice.
Wolfman rugby tackled Hollywood from behind, having not noticed the new people who had collectively moved to the side when Maverick went to go help with the pizzas.
Hollywood, having played Rugby for most of his life as a side hobby, managed to not fall over as Wolf virtually jumped onto his back with no warning. Rooster still found this impressive.
When wolf looked up again, he saw rooster standing there and jumped down from his partner before walking over and dragging him into a hug, which gave Wolf leverage to pick him up and unceremoniously drop him afterwards. Bradley had realised too late that’s what wolfs intentions were otherwise he would’ve gone and hid behind ice, who was watching from his position next to slider and maverick.
“Hey Wolf what the hell!”
“That was for not coming to see us sooner baby goose”
“Told you,” slider began again
The aviators snapped their gaze to slider again when he began speaking and each one almost had a heart attack when they realised it was the Commander of the Pacific fucking Fleet he was stood next to. Each of them snapped off crisp salutes, which Ice waved off immediately.
-they’re animals” slider grinned, elbowing ice, albeit gently, in the side “I don’t know why you bother to try and defend them”
Now, one would have to remember that these two were what one might consider brothers to not be mortified by the disrespect shown to the COMPACFLT.
Ice merely laughed and playfully shoved at his old RIO, who made a dramatic show of falling over into sunny’s arms
“You wound me iceman”
“shut .. up”
The fleet of admirals (And mav And viper) dissolved into a fit of laughter, leaving the daggers to look on in wonder, none of them sure whether to salute, sit down, fuck off or join in.
“Okay okay so” maverick gestured vaguely at the two groups “you finally meet”
‘“No thanks to you” one of Mavericks friends grunted, Phoenix wasn’t sure who. Now she was looking around she was noticing that almost all of these people were admirals. Nat then looked back at her friends and saw they were having the same revaluation as she was. Phoenix barely managed to resist just standing in a permanent salute.
“Piss off. So guys,” mav turned to face the daggers “that charming one there is Charles Piper, callsign Chipper”
The dagger stiffened immediately, they recognised that name. Admiral Piper was the second in command of the Pacific fleet.
However, Maverick was going to continue whether the daggers liked it or not.
“You’ve already met Hollywood, that’s his partner, wolfman”
“He’s a bitch” rooster grumbled from the side. Rooster was in so much trouble with Phoenix after this for not warning her who they were about to walk out to.
“Offended” wolfman protested while Hollywood laughed off to the side.
“That’s sundown over there” mav pointed at someone chatting with penny.
“This is merlin, my old RIO” poor merlin was walking past and got drawn into another side hug from maverick.
After a brief moment maverick went on to finish.
“I suppose you already know Slider from our earlier incident in the bar and the judgy ass standing next to him is my husband, Ice”
Phoenix looked back and forth between the Commander and their captain for a moment, processing what her CO just told them. Husband?! They didn’t even know maverick was married!
Hangman proceeded to remind everyone of his terrible foot-in-mouth problem and immediately asked “what?!”
Mav just laughed “37 years next month”
Everyone spluttered and it was a good thing no one was drinking anything at that current moment
“Well now everyone knows everyone what do you say we eat because I don’t know about any of you but I’m starving” maverick said after a moment of awkward silence.
That jumpkicked everyone back into their regular attitudes, however the daggers politely stood back as the ‘86 flyboys descended on the pizza stack first.
Phoenix watched as the tall guy, who she thought was Slider, grabbed two boxes, one for himself and presumably viper and the other for ice and mav, before moving out of the way quickly while Hollywood and wolfman claimed a box for themselves, stealing it off the top of the pile and moving, sundown and chipper doing the same, leaving the space clear for the daggers to descend on it next.
It was what could be called unorganised chaos as everyone fought over the pizza, but eventually the two groups were equally settled comfortably on the decking. Mav and ice watched as the kids and their friends began exchanging stories back and forth about each other, ice occasionally stopping eating to sign something to maverick because he couldn’t help but give a running commentary.
And that was how the newly christened dagger squadron found themselves with a dozen new pseudo uncles, the flyboys with a dozen new ‘kids’ and ice with a dozen more potential paperwork making machines. Not that he’d ever complain, especially knowing how much mav loved these kids, god he really needs to stop thinking about them as kids. He’d also never admit it out loud but Ice was already getting quite fond of the unruly daggers himself.
And Maybe, just maybe, he could relax knowing maverick wouldn’t go creating such a havoc that it ends up on the presidents desk whenever he’s away for conference now that his husband had a whole squad looking out for him permanently as well.