Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
He has never heard Ice yell so loud. His anger is rattling the glass in the windowpanes and he’s frozen where he stands, his own hurt and anger at hearing Maverick admit to pulling his papers making him see red. However, his own anger seems redundant in the face of Ice’s incandescent fury. He’d feel bad for Maverick if he wasn’t so angry with him. However Tom’s anger is a sight to behold in its intense ferocity and Bradley shies away from it, steps backwards when his feet finally unstick from the ground.
“Do not leave…” Ice snaps at him.
“No sir,” Bradley responds without even thinking, head shaking in the negative, despite the urgent desire to flee. He has never called Ice sir before, but he’s also never had Ice use that tone with him and he guesses he understands a little now how and why Ice has progressed up the ranks, that voice does not leave any room for someone not obeying a direct order.
“And you, you sit your ass down right this second Mitchell. You have some explaining to do…”
“Ice… I can’t.”
“You can and you will. You will not test me on this. Our duty now is to Bradley, not passed friends…”
“I promised…”
“And I promised to look after Bradley, and you… so sit the fuck down.”
Mav slumps into a chair then, looking defeated and Bradley realizes there must be something more at play here. He can’t imagine what it is, but Mav looks close to tears and some of his anger seeps away or morphs into concern.
“What…?”
Ice is standing there, arms crossed and expression grim.
“Away you go Pete. Tell him.”
“But…”
“No. That was your choice. This is a consequence and you are facing this one. I will not let Bradley think that you care more about his dead parents than you do about him. His own happiness. His life. His choices.”
“I don’t!”
“Prove it.”
Bradley swallows, feeling sick. He doesn’t like them fighting. Doesn’t want them fighting over him. Wants to take back and fix whatever has caused this volatile rift between them. He hadn’t thought they were fighting over him, but it is definitely related to him, or rather Mav pulling his papers to the USNA.
“Your mom didn’t want you to be a pilot…”
“What?”
“Your mom… she asked me to stop you from becoming a pilot.”
“But… I…”
“I know you want to be a pilot Bradley…”
“But… just going to USNA doesn’t mean I’ll automatically become a pilot. I have to get accepted to flight school as well. After.”
“I’m aware,” Ice says dryly, eyes sliding to Mav who is looking embarrassed.
“I don’t even get to make a choice about that until the end of my second year…”
“You’re the son of an aviator. You’ll be selected if you apply for it.”
“Okay? Even if I don’t pass the requirements?”
“Hmm. Interesting fact, if there’s been a parent who is a naval aviator and the child applies, they’ve never been turned down. Hmm. That is… interesting. Shouldn’t stop you from paying attention and trying your best though…”
He feels shaky, like he’s been thrown from one extreme to another.
“This is your choice Bradley. Yes. The papers have been pulled. However I can have them reinstated just as easily…”
“You can?”
“Of course I can.”
So Ice pulls a few strings and his application is reinstated, as if it’s never been pulled. He is, of course, as Ice predicted, accepted. His relationship with Maverick feels a little tender, but Ice doesn’t let them fester over it. Sends them both on a camping trip into the desert and seems glad when they come back more at ease with one another. Bradley never takes being at USNA for granted, never complains first, although doesn’t hesitate to join in with the others when they’re grumbling. He makes friends with so many people, and he’d been worried about nepotism, but there are so many of the others who also have a parent who was an aviator, or grew up military that he doesn’t give it a second thought.
A few years later
Bradley starts his first deployment and he’s already good friends with over half of the squadron members. Knows them either from USNA or flight school or both. As he looks around the group he’s going to be part of for the next three years he wonders what everyone’s stories are. He knows his own of course, and it’s been a bumpy ride but he’s exactly where he always dreamed and wanted to be. Finally. And he knows Natasha’s especially well, having gone through USNA and flight school with her. Along with a few others. Some he likes more than others.
It makes their social circle pretty small, living in each other’s pockets and being aboard a carrier, no outside socialization happening. He settles into a routine, working out, flying, studying and then spending some downtime in the rec room with the others. They’re settling in with one another, watching each other carefully for slipups that might earn them their callsign. Everyone’s going by names for the time being, first or last depending on familiarity. As he settles into the beanbag beside Natasha he jerks his chin in greeting to the others, glad that they’re over their first shifts of practicing night-landings. He knows people think they’re fucking. They’d be wrong but he doesn’t stop. There’s simply something about Natasha that just makes him feel… at home. Always has.
“Where are you from originally Bradshaw?”
“That is a loaded question man, you asking where I was born, or where I grew up? Because I’m a Navy brat.”
“You and nearly everyone here…” Rueben mutters, throwing a cornhole sack at him which he catches easily and throws back with a little more force.
“I was born in Texas, raised in California, but have spent some time on most bases around the US…”
“Even though your dad…”
“My godfather was my other legal guardian, and my mom let me go and visit him all over when he was deployed.”
“Wow. That’s…”
He doesn’t mention that he was usually travelling with Ice; that Ice taking Bradley with him gave his mom a break, especially once she got sick.
“It was my normal, what about you?”
“Well, don’t know where I was born, but my adoptive parents are from Nebraska.”
“You were adopted?”
“Yep. Sure was.”
“Huh. Me too.”
“And me.”
“Foster care most of my life.”
Bradley frowns, because something seems off.
“Don’t your birth certificates have the birthplace even if you’re adopted?”
He gets several looks that tell him he’s clearly out of touch and he looks at Natasha, because he knows she’s adopted as well, and this feels like a weird coincidence that nearly everyone in the room is adopted. Then he’s hearing about how some of his squadron were left at naval bases and simply just turned up and…
“Holy shit… this is like… weird right?”
“Fuck off!”
“Speak for yourself!”
“It is a little weird that we’re nearly all adopted.”
“I’m not,” Seresin says, toothpick flicking around the words. “I mean. My mom met my step-dad when I was like, I dunno, a kid. He was always there. But he’s not my dad.”
“What the fuck… nearly all our squad is adopted?” he repeats, but the fact that they also somehow were all handed over to naval bases seems even weirder. Only three out of the twelve of them were raised by their parent or parents.
“Doesn’t make you special because you’re not Bradshaw. You’re the odd one out here.”
“Yeah. Sure. Because growing up an orphan was such a walk in the park.”
“Oh boohoo Bradshaw, cry me a river. You’ve clearly suffered.”
Bradley gives him the finger, because he wasn’t trying to make this about him.
“You don’t think it’s a little… odd?”
“What?”
“It’s… well. Just seems like a disproportionate number of people who have been adopted, or found at naval bases and ended up… here. Naval aviators. It’s… none of you think it’s a little unusual?”
None of them do and he shrugs internally, wonders whether Ice would find it weird and decides to ask him next time they talk.