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Everything about the place felt wrong.
The air was too clean, sterile in a way that made Natasha’s skin itch. Everything around her was whitewashed - white walls, white sheets, and white light, as if the world around her had been drained of color. The heart monitor beeped steadily beside her, a metronome of proof that somehow, she was still alive.
Before the doctor left her room, she’d nearly begged him to mute the sound. He gave her a look she didn’t like, something that felt too close to pity, and without a word, silenced the machine and shut the door behind him as he departed.
Her ears were still ringing from the ejection and the boom of her jet going into the side of a mountain. As she carefully shifted, pain flared along her ribs and shoulders, and she could already feel the bruises blooming. Slowly, she closed her eyes and curled in on herself, trying to find some position that hurt a little less.
The door creaked open. She didn’t bother opening her eyes; it was probably just a nurse coming in to investigate the sudden silence from the heart monitor. But the quiet stretched too long. No footsteps, no clipboard, no rustle of scrubs. Just stillness.
Someone was there. Watching. Waiting. Saying nothing.
She slowly opened her eyes to glance at the figure in her doorway. Bradley stood there, his face unreadable as he stared at her. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe - he only stared, looking at her like she might disappear if he blinked.
A small smile moved across her lips. “Hey, Roo.”
He remained quiet, watching her. The tension that radiated from him sucked all the moisture from her mouth.
Natasha sucked in a quiet, slow breath as she repositioned to straighten herself in the bed. She tried her hardest to hide the wince that was bubbling to the surface at the movement. “If you’re here to critique my exit strategy, I’d like to point out I stuck the landing… mostly.”
He didn’t even blink.
Her smile faded. “Okay. Not in the mood. Got it.”
Still nothing.
“Hey,” she tried to ease the tension. “Bob and I are fine. It was a standard ejection -”
Rooster’s eyes flared. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with more force than necessary. “Those are two words I never want to hear you say again. Are you fucking joking?”
Natasha blinked. “What?”
“Standard ejection ?” His voice was sharp. “Do you even hear yourself? You punched out of a burning jet. You could’ve broken your neck. The chute could’ve failed. The birds, the engine…” he inhaled sharply. “You don’t get to tell me that was standard.”
“I followed protocol,” her argument was soft. “It wasn’t exactly my first time in this scenario, Roo. We practiced it countless times in the sim.”
“This wasn’t a sim!” He snapped and immediately looked away, dragging a hand through his hair. His feet moved, and he paced across the room, refusing to meet her gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “This wasn’t a sim, Nat. I heard you scream. You disappeared off the radar. You went dark. I thought…” His voice drifted to a halt.
Natasha didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until her lungs gasped for air. She had never seen him like this. He wasn’t just upset; he was rattled.
It only took a heartbeat for her to realize the piece that had been missing - and suddenly, understanding hit.
This wasn’t just about her.
“Your dad,” she said quietly.
He stopped pacing.
“That’s what this is,” she added. “You thought what happened to him happened to me.”
Rooster didn’t answer, but the silence said enough.
Natasha softened, guilt blooming in her chest. “Bradley…”
“He trusted the system,” Rooster said, voice low. “He trusted that protocol would save him, and it didn't. He was gone the moment he hit the canopy.”
She didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a correct response.
He moved again and sat down slowly on the bed, his eyes slowly rising to meet hers. He reached out to take her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. The radiating tension was gone, replaced by a deep, quiet sadness.
“I know it wasn’t your fault,” he said finally. “But don’t tell me it was standard. I can’t hear that and not think about how it ends.”
Natasha swallowed hard. Her throat was tight. “Okay. I won’t.”
“I can’t lose you, too.” He dropped his head to rest on their attached hands. He inhaled a shuddering breath slowly, his face hidden in the white sheets. “God, Nat.”
Natasha had known Bradley for years - before the mustache and the inside jokes - but this was the first time she had seen him like this. Shaken. Beside himself. Lost.
Before she could stop herself, she spoke. “What’s going on, B?”
“Besides the fact you nearly died a few hours ago?” He grumbled into the sheets, not raising his head to look at her.
“I feel like there’s something else,” she sighed. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
Slowly, his head raised, and he leaned back in his chair, his head and eyes glancing upwards toward the ceiling. He was quiet, his hand still gripping hers like it was the only thing keeping him together.
“Ice is gone,” he finally said, almost too quiet to hear.
She blinked. “Ice?”
“Iceman. Admiral Kazansky. He died this afternoon, right before the bird strike. I found out right before I came here.”
“Oh.” Her breath caught, her mind fumbling with what else she could say.
Rooster nodded once. “Yeah.”
Natasha watched him for a long moment before speaking. “You knew him?”
His head lowered and his eyes flicked to hers.
She continued gently, “You called him Ice. That’s a pretty casual way to refer to the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet.”
He looked down, his thumb brushing over her knuckles once before he drew a breath.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know… I knew him.”
She stayed silent, giving him space, and after a few seconds, he leaned back in the chair, staring at a spot on the far wall. His grip on her hand tightened.
“My dad was in the same Top Gun class as Ice. Him and Mav. They weren’t all best friends or anything. Mav and Dad were so different from him - they were on the wild side, but Ice? He was the guy who did everything by the book with no room for mistakes.” Fondness rested on the edges of his lips as he gently smiled. “Turns out, that’s exactly the kind of guy you want around when everything falls apart.”
“After my dad died, Mav disappeared for a while. But Ice didn’t. He showed up at the house. Sometimes with Sarah. Sometimes alone. Once, he mowed our lawn without even knocking. I watched him from the living room window. I was ten, maybe? I didn’t understand what he was doing then, not really. But now…” Rooster’s voice drifted off, and he blinked fast. “Now I get it. He didn’t know how to carry us through the loss, but he carried what he could.”
“He showed up,” Nat’s voice was quiet. “Sometimes, that’s the best thing a person can do.”
“He never tried to replace my dad,” Rooster said, “Neither did Mav. But I feel like every time Mav saw me, he saw my dad. Ice saw me, though. I wasn’t just Goose’s kid to him. And when I joined the Navy, he showed up again with quiet support. No fanfare. Just a ‘good luck’ text before a big eval, or food delivered when he knew I was too busy studying to think about eating. Stupid, sentimental shit that somehow made it all feel less lonely.” His voice broke, just enough for her to notice. His eyes were glassy. She blinked hard at the sight, her own tears lodged in the back of her throat.
“I never thanked him,” he whispered. “I owed him more than I ever admitted. And now he’s just… gone.”
Natasha reached up with her free hand and gently touched his jaw. His cheek instinctively pressed against her open palm. “He knew, Bradley. You didn’t need to say it. You honored him in every way that mattered.”
He let out a laugh - one that seemed bitter and utterly exhausted. “And then I almost lost you the same day. If I’d lost both of you…”
“But you didn’t,” she assured him, her thumb gently rubbing his face as she cradled it. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere.”
His head gently shook from side to side, his expression guarded. “You can’t promise that, Nat.”
“No,” she agreed quietly. “But I can promise that I’ll fight like hell to come back every time.”
Bradley’s eyes slid shut, his cheek wedging harder into her hand. They sat like that for a while - it could have been thirty seconds or it could have been thirty minutes, she wasn’t sure. She just sat, watching every twitch and movement of his face as he pressed against her palm.
The gentle cough he let out brought her back to reality. She blinked, watching his head rise and look towards her. His eyes were glassy, and a sad smile crept across his face. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to come in here and unload. I just…” he paused. “I needed to see for myself that you were okay. I’ll let you get some rest now.”
He stood up from his chair and let go of her hand, and just that movement made her chest feel tight and her body ache. She tried to breathe in through her nose, her stomach immediately becoming queasy at the thought of him walking out the door.
“Wait,” She reached for him, grabbing hold of his hand before he could take another step. She wasn’t sure what she was more surprised at - her reaction to his departure, or the look on his face as he glanced down at their hands and back up at her.
“I…” She wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence she had attempted to start in the first place. She swallowed, eyes glancing down at the sheets covering her legs. “I don’t… can you…?”
“Yeah,” there was relief in his voice as he sat back in the chair, never letting go of her hand. “Of course I will.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, swallowing again to fight back the emotion that was doing its best to bubble to the surface.
“Close your eyes,” his whisper was gentle but insistent. “You need to rest.”
Natasha didn’t realize the extent of the exhaustion she felt until she closed her eyes and her body immediately felt heavy. Maybe it had just been from the day, or perhaps a little help from the pain medication the nurse had given her. She could feel Bradley’s hand on hers, gentle enough not to disrupt her but with enough force to let her know that he wasn’t going anywhere. Her head lulled to the right, her face turned away from Bradley, and her mind grew foggy with sleep. She wasn’t asleep quite yet, but close enough that her body refused to move.
For a while, the room was quiet. She would’ve thought that maybe he’d fallen asleep next to her if he hadn’t been for his thumb brushing lightly along her knuckles, steady and gentle.
“I don’t wait to live a life where you’re not in it,” Bradley’s murmur suddenly filled the air. “When you went down today… It felt like the sky collapsed with you. Like everything that kept me steady just vanished.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was even quieter. “I can lose a lot of things in this world… Hell, I can lose myself. But not you. Never you.”
He let out a long sigh, and she felt his forehead bow to rest on their joined hands. “I’ll never be able to say this to your face,” he mumbled against her skin. “But you’re everything I don’t know how to ask for.”
His admission punched the air from her chest. If her body hadn’t been so heavy with exhaustion, she might have turned, might’ve said something - anything. But her body betrayed her, words refusing to form the words that raced through her head. After what felt like ages, and long after she heard his breathing even out and his body sag into sleep, she let out a short, quiet whisper into the whitewashed room as her body drifted to sleep:
“Me too, Roo.”