Chapter Text
Ejecting from an exploding plane at Mach 10.4 isn’t something Maverick can just walk away from unscathed. Reconciliation fic: because at the beach Rooster gets an eyeful of his godfather’s bruises and has a change of heart. Cue Rooster angst and Mav being a stupid self-sacrificing idiot.
By the time he’s gotten all the kids on the beach and explained the rules, it was too late for him to rethink joining them.
Ice had been telling him for years now that he was getting too old for this shit, and until his ejection last week, he hadn’t given it more than a passing thought. But the bruises on his torso say otherwise. Ejecting at Mach 10.4 has been heart stopping and he could only thank his lucky stars that nothing worse had happened to him. Thanks to the engineers who’d designed the Dark Star, he knew, grateful that they’d taken his concerns into account. Given his history with canopies he was always aware of the thin line he walked between life and death.
But it didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun with the kids. Even if Rooster was still ignoring him, he could still try to have fun. At least he’d be giving them a way to blow off some steam at him without risk of getting court-martialed. (Because knocking your commanding officer on his ass was a quick ticket to a dishonorable discharge.) And maybe, the small traitorous part of his heart whispered, this could be a step toward reconciling with Rooster.
So when the kids egged him on, he stripped off his tee-shirt and joined a side. Aware of, but ignoring, the startled looks he got from them.
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To Rooster, Maverick had always appeared larger than life. And now, seeing him again after 13 years of radio silence, it was strange to realize how small the man was. But for a small man, he thought bitterly, he still had a lot of power of Rooster’s future.
The bitterness was mixed with grudging admiration - the man living up to the legend as he flew circles around the younger pilots, making them pay for their mistakes with the pushups that Payback had stupidly proposed as punishment for loosing. He was going to be buying drinks for everybody for a long time for that stunt.
Well, at least if it taught them anything, it taught them that even if they were the best, there were always bigger fish in the sea. And they knew that with the development of drone programs, their jobs might eventually become obsolete, but damn if they weren’t going to showboat for as long as they were able.
When they’d gotten the text to meet at the beach for ‘alternative training exercises’ he’d been hesitant to interact with Mav outside of the carefully coded atmosphere of the base. He didn’t want to give Maverick any room to try to play nice. He’d been holding onto his grudge for so long that he could barely even consider letting Mav explain why he’d pulled his papers. His heart whispered that Mav had to have had a reason. But he was a grown man now, older than his father was when he died, and he deserved a decent explanation.
He was just so sick of Maverick lying to his face.
Let’s not do it this way.
He snorted internally, as if he’d been the one to start all of this!
Keeping Mav in his peripherals, pointedly not looking as the older man took off his shirt, he was startled by Hangman’s low whistle.
“Damn, what happened to him?”
Snapping his head around to see what had prompted that comment, he saw the bruises. Maverick was covered in them, the distinctive lines of a harness showing against taut muscle. And if that didn’t prove to him that his uncle wasn’t invulnerable, nothing would. Looking to Hondo for his reaction, having seen how close he was to his godfather, he saw the absence of surprise. Hondo must’ve already known about this godfather’s injuries.
“Damn,” Payback whistled right back. “Must hurt to fly like that.”
And Bradley could imagine it, up in the air with his godfather. It was already hard to breathe sometimes with the amount of Mach speed they pulled in their aircrafts on the daily, but to go through that with a compromised torso. That took a strength and a resilience that only Maverick was capable of.
I’ll only retire when I’m dead, kid , He remembers Maverick saying late onc night when his mother had gone bed, and he’d been two beers in, inebriated enough to be honest enough with his godson. There’s nowhere as free as the sky. You’ll understand, once you’re old enough.
And he understood now, that feeling you had up there, flying at thousands of miles an hour with your wingman at your side. But that’s what had made Maverick pulling his papers all the more devastating - Maverick had sung the praises of being a Navel Aviator, and just when Bradley was so close to the sky he could taste it, he’d pulled the rug out from beneath his feet.
The bruises looked even more painful up close. Without realizing it, he’d moved closer to the older man, practically touching him as he examined the abrasions. And the old man was looking up with that half hopeful expression of his, like a kicked puppy who wasn’t sure if he should try to jump for the toy he was getting taunted with.
He'd been about to reach out, but pulled his hand back at the last moment, not breaching that last barrier.
“What happened?” He asked curtly, watching as Maverick buried his hope, trying to put on an air of carelessness.
“My last assignment I was test piloting. One of the planes had … issues with the speed limit I broke.”
Hondo rolled his eyes behind Mav, looking ridiculously fond and exasperated. Likely the heavily redacted version then.
“Sure you wanna play, pops?” Hangman spoke having joined the others who’d gathered round.
“I think I can keep up for a few rounds,” Maverick grinned, cocky, putting on his aviators. The glimpse he’d had of his godfather’s true feelings hidden again.
However much Rooster told himself that he didn’t care if Maverick hurt himself, he still found himself guarding his godfather as they played, having ended up on the same team. Making sure the Old Man wasn’t jostled too much. Though he did let the others get a few shots in, fair and square, appreciating that they had to be feeling frustrated about how their training was going as well.
But then, Maverick fell, knocked over in the general enthusiasm, Payback crowing about the tackle executed by Fanboy. However, Rooster’s ear had caught the older man's groan as he lay there, not attempting to get up.
“Mav?” The nickname slipped out as he hurried to kneel beside his godfather in the sand. “You okay?”
“I think Ice was right,” the older man groaned, apparently forgetting about their audience. “I’m getting too old for this.”
Rooster snorted, despite himself. He heard Fanboy stage whisper in the background, obviously confused.
“Who’s Ice?”
That was when Maverick seemed to remember their audience and his eyes flew open, going to sit up, falling back with a pained groan. Then Hondo was there, kneeling across from Bradley on Maverick’s other side.
“Let’s get you to your chair, Mav,” The black man said, giving Rooster a look.
A look which Rooster chose to interpret as a request to help him move Maverick to his chair. So he did, trying to ignore how brittle Mav’s bones seemed to be, nowadays, like he was a bird with hollow bones that had run into a glass door, like in those YouTube videos. He hovered as Hondo puttered around, making sure Mav was comfortable, giving Rooster a look again, when Mav waved him off, back to the others who were still milling around the beach, not having started the game again yet.
“So,” Rooster decided to break the semi-awkward silence. “This plane you ejected from …”
Maverick shifted, expression hidden by his aviators. “It’s classified.”
“I guessed that,” Rooster said, pointedly not rolling his eyes. “That how you ended up back here?”
“… Ice might’ve called in a few favors.”
Pushing aside the old resentment he felt from that statement, knowing that Ice had to have had some hand in pulling his papers, all those years ago, he studied his godfather again, truly looking at the bruises. He’d never had to eject, himself — not yet, anyway, though with his job it was bound to happen eventually. They looked painful.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
His uncle laughed, shaky, like he wasn’t sure if it was allowed. “I’ve uh, I have been told that.”
The knowledge settles on his shoulders like a blanket. “My dad ever tell you that?”
A genuine laugh and a small smile. “Yeah.” Maverick shifting in his chair, “Though, after he’d said it, he’s say; ‘Let’s go ballistic, Mav!’”
Its’ Roosters turn to laugh. And then he falls quiet, both of them watching the others horse around, the rambunctious aviators eventually tackling Hondo under a dog pile.
“I’ve missed this,” The words are ripped from him, the longing cutting through him. Even behind his aviators, he can tell Maverick is shocked by his bluntness. “I’ve missed you, Uncle Mav.”
Maverick turns to him, letting Rooster take off the glasses so they’re looking each other in the eye.
“Please.” And he’d sworn he’d never beg - not from the man who’d destroyed his life, but here he is, “Please tell me why .”
Maverick swallows but doesn’t look away.
“You can’t go to your grave and leave me hating you like this,” Bradley adds fuel to the fire and he can see he’s almost convinced Maverick to tell. “You’re not gonna live forever. You should know that, more than most.”
And that a bull’s eye.
“I promised your mother that you’d live longer than Goose.”
Rooster can’t even begin to unpack that sentence, so he’s silent as Maverick rambles on. A slow horror growing in him as he realizes that all he’s built his resentment on is a lie. So he cuts Maverick off as he rambles on about his parents, as much as he loves to hear about them.
“It wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough?” He blurted out, gripping Mav’s arm. “You never thought I couldn’t make it?”
Maverick looks startled, like he’d never have expected Bradley to think that he’s pulled his papers because he thought Rooster didn’t deserve to be a pilot. That he wasn’t good enough. But, Rooster thinks semi-hysterically , what did the man think would happen? He’d been so impossibly young and had the rug pulled out from under him. All he’d ever wanted for as long as he could remember, was to be up in the sky - close to his father, both his dead father whose voice he barely remembers, and his surrogate father, who’s currently looking devastated.
“God, no,” Maverick whispers, cupping Rooster’s face. “You’re a damn good pilot -“ Rooster sucks in a wailing breath, breath punched out of him, finally receiving the praise he’d always wanted. “Did you think - “ Mav’s putting it together. “Did you think I thought that?”
“You always said,” Rooster choked out, vision dimmed with growing tears. “That you talked to - talked to dad when you flew. And I wanted that too, I wanted to talk to him and then - you’d been so excited! Helped me with the application. And then - and then-,” He remembered the shouting and angry words and the absolute devastation and betrayal when Maverick had refused to give him the real reason behind his actions. “Ever since I got to flight training, all I’ve done is fly to prove you wrong - to prove that I had what it took, that I was worthy of -,”
He’s cut off by Maverick’s pulling him close, hugging him fiercely, feeling the matching shaking of the older man’s tears.
“God, Bradley,” Maverick whispers into his hair. “I didn’t mean that at all.”
Bradley’s lost, his world rocked, and, once again, all he has is Maverick. Who holds him like he’s the most precious thing in the world, like he’s five again and finally realizing what it means when the grownups say that his dad is gone.
It feels like home.
“I’m sorry!” He wails. “I’m so, so sorry! I never hated you, not really.”
“I love you, Bradley Bradshaw,” Mav tells him, not letting go. “I’ve always been proud of you. And your mom and dad would be proud of you, too.”
That was when the last puzzle piece falls into place. And Bradley smiles.
They would be alright now.