Chapter Text
The Dagger Squadron found themselves all lounging around on the pool deck in Maverick and Iceman’s back yard when Payback looked up and over to where Phoenix was sprawled on the ground with her head in Bradley’s lap, “Hey Tash?”
She rolled her head to look at the other, “Yeah, Reub?”
“I’ve got a question. We know how a few of us got our call signs. But there’s a rumor that yours didn’t used to be Phoenix.”
She hummed, smiled and rolled her head back, closing her eyes before replying, “That’s because it wasn’t. It was Psycho.”
“Psycho?” She snickered at Fanboy’s obvious glee and concern all wrapped into one tone.
“Yup.”
“It’s true. She would pull maneuvers that I could only dream of doing at the time.” Everyone looked over at Hangman now and he smirked and shrugged, “Did y’all forget that she and I have been deployed together more than once?” His smirk turned to a light hearted grin, “Just because Javy is my main wingman doesn’t mean he always is.”
From his deck chair Javy snickered, “Are you suggesting that me and Roo are interchangeable for you and Phe?”
Jake tilted his head back on his towel and looked at Javy with narrowed eyes, “Why do you get to call him ‘Roo’ and I don’t?”
Javy cocked his head to the side and returned the same look, “I didn’t break his heart, Hangman.”
Bradley sighed and shifted his sunglasses down his nose to stare at Javy over them, “Let it go, Coyote.” This got a quiet snicker from Phoenix in his lap.
“He may be my best friend, but you are my brother. He fucked up. I will not let him forget it. Ever.” Javy’s tone was cold and hard. Like ice.
Phoenix giggled now and looked up at Rooster, “Gotta love when the baby brother gives Big Brother Energy.”
He looked down at her with a bland expression, “Like you have room to talk, Nat.” She just gave a big grin and stuck her tongue out at him while everyone else just got more and more confused.
“Wait, what?” A confused voice questioned now.
Playboy placed a hand on Fanboy’s shoulder, “Trust me, I’m going to get back to that, but I still want to know how Tash goes from Psycho to Phoenix.”
At this, Natasha gave a dramatic sigh and rolled her head to the side again as everyone just looked at her expectantly. With another dramatic sigh she sat up and stretched her arms over her head and let out a groan before dropping them to her lap and cocking her head to the side, “Y’all really wanna know?”
They all nod and Jake sits up from where he’d been sunbathing and says, “Actually yes. Because one day I see you and the helmet reads Psycho. And when I see you again the next week it reads Phoenix.”
She looks at him and narrows her eyes for a moment before answering, “Do you remember the joke you made?”
He nods, “What did you do, survive a fiery plane explosion?”
She nods once and grins, “What was my answer?”
He frowned now as he remembered that day, “You laughed and said ‘Yeah, something like that.’ Why?”
She looked at him with a raised brow, “Because it wasn’t something like that. It was exactly that.”
“Bullshit!”
She shook her head as she continued on, “I was asked to do a test flight on a plane and I was barely off the tarmac when it exploded around me and proceeded to crash 3000 yards from the end of the runway.” Everyone was staring at her with wide eyes- save for three members of the group- as she cleared her throat and grinned again, “And like a Phoenix from the ashes, I climbed out of the wreckage like nothing had happened. A bit of major bruising and some singing, but nothing broken and very much alive.” She shrugged her shoulders now and grinned brightly, “My dad gave me my new call sign.”
Bradley cocked his own head now and spoke, “I didn’t know that part.”
She looked at him with a kind of sad smile now, “You never asked. You asked about the incident, sure. But you never asked who gave it to me. So I just didn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t tell him what?” This was asked by Iceman as he and Maverick were coming back out to the pool deck with platters in hand and walking over to the grill.
Natasha looked over at the pair with her grin back in place, “How I got my new call sign.”
Iceman snorted and Maverick raised an eyebrow, “Oh we’re telling that story, are we?” Iceman’s snort turned into a snicker.
Yale’s curiosity was peaked now, “You know the story, Mav?”
Maverick looked at the male with a smirk then turned her head to look at Natasha, “Oh you haven’t told them all, yet.”
She smirked and shook her head, “Nope.”
Maverick’s head doesn’t move but her eyes track between Bradley and Javy, “Have you?” When they subtly shake their heads she smirks wider. Ice then clears his throat and adds in, “You should tell the whole story, Mav.”
Jake- being secretly in the know on what’s being asked- pipes up again, “Yeah, Mav. Tell the whole story. Some of us actually wanna know.”
She pins him with a look and he quickly tacks on with a big innocent smile, “Please?”
Maverick sighed, put her platters down by the grill and opened the grill to get it prepped, “What part did you tell them?”
“The condensed version, test flight and plane explosion.”
Ice snickered and moved around his wife to put his platters next to hers, “Ah, the Phoenix rising from the ashes part.”
Maverick snorted and shook her head as she continued what she was doing, “Got it.” She took a deep breath and started to tell the story.
“So you all know she was running a test flight. What you now need to know about that test flight is the reason she was called in was because their normal test pilot was unavailable. For two reasons, they were winged and couldn’t fly at the time. But also because they refused to run that test flight. The plane wasn’t ready. The thing that it did- you know, the exploding thing- was exactly what they said it would do.”
“But why would they ever listen to the expert?” Ice interjected here with a dark tone.
Bradley interjected himself now, “It’s not like they haven’t been flying planes since they were 14 or anything.”
Javy nods sagely, “I know, who do they think they are?”
It’s now Natasha’s turn, “It’s not like their whole life has been about being a Navy pilot or anything.”
Halo snickered and piped up here, “Hey Omaha, did that sound condescending to you?”
Her pilot snickered now and shook his head, “Not at all.”
“So we can assume from all of their reactions, that you may or may not have been the expert, Maverick?” This was from Harvard who was grinning at his teammate’s reactions.
Maverick sighed and grinned with a nod, “Yes Harv, I was that expert. Anyway.” She cleared her throat and continued to tell the story. “But because I was unavailable to do the test flight, which I told them not to do, they called in a one Natasha “Psycho” Trace.” She sighed now, “Maybe they figured that with a call sign like that she’d be just crazy enough to run the test flight no matter what the expert told them.”
Natasha spoke up here, “It should be noted that I was never told what the expert said, nor was I made aware of who the expert was until much later.”
Maverick nodded and continued with the story, closing the grill to allow it to come to temp, “So they called her in, told her what they wanted her to do, put her in a brand new prototype flight suit, and put her in the plane.” Her eyes turned a dark stormy green now, “I should mention that I got to watch the footage from this test flight, so everything I now tell you is 100% true.” She inhaled slowly and let it out slowly before continuing on, “The takeoff check went textbook. But what didn’t go text book, was everything else. The plane got off the ground and everything went tits up; one minute Psycho is reporting in and the next, static and cut plane feed as the backup wing engines and the jet engine behind her explode and the whole plane crashes 3000 yards from the end of the runway.”
Yale snorts, “So that wasn’t an arbitrary number?”
Maverick smirked here and shook her head, “No actually. There’re markings at the end of that runway at 1000 yard intervals. I may or may not be the reason for that as it became a running gag about how far the plane would get before I crashed it.”
“Which actually wasn’t often, but it did happen just often enough.” Ice supplied from where he was now lounging with a beer in hand. This got a round of giggles and snickers from all of the pilots and WSOs with Bob now asking a question.
“Hey, why were you winged?” Leave it to him to be stuck on that for a moment.
Ice outright laughed and Maverick joined him for a minute before answering, “So in plane crashes the most that happens to me at any given time is major bruising or some overnights in hospitals-”
“Save for that one time…” Ice comments in a subdued tone to which she reaches over to take his hand for a moment before looking back at Bob with her grin back in place.
“But I get into one car accident-”
“That wasn’t her fault at all actually.”
“And I get a dislocated shoulder and a fractured tibia.”
This had everyone snickering again, “But back to the story.” She settled on the edge of Ice’s lounge chair now and continued where she left off. “I watch the runway footage- about a week later, mind you- to see the crash in all its flaming glory and all of the sudden a grainy looking pilot climbs out of the inferno that is the wreckage, seems to check herself over, and then calmly walks back to the tarmac towards the flight crew and fire truck that are running her way. They stop moving as she reaches the end of the tarmac and stops, says something while pointing behind her at the plane- something I can’t hear obviously because there are no microphones out there, and the points past them, still saying something, and passes through them and walks herself away.” Maverick sighs and shakes her head, “I now know that she told them they should probably do something about the fucked up plane, and then told them she was going to Medical. Because the 10% of her that is very much her father’s daughter told her ‘I’ve been in a plane crash, I should probably go to medical.’ Because while she is 90% her mother’s daughter- and her mother owns that- there is a small part of her that usually wins out when it comes to getting hurt- and that’s because of her father.”
Javy and Bradley both snort, “Mostly.”
Natasha snickered and looked over at Javy now, “Hey, I got a busted lip and bruised knuckles that day. I regret nothing.”
Javy smiled softly and nodded once, “Best day of my life.”
“To be fair, it’s probably best I was the one to handle it and not him.” She jerked her thumb at Bradley who now had a very dark grin on his face as he gave an agreeing nod.
Maverick snorted and nodded, “Probably. She’s mean, but he’s got a vindictive streak.” She sighed and shook her head, “Now here’s the part of the story where we change points of view a little. I’d been home for maybe twenty minutes at most. I’d been in meetings all morning, one with my doctor, and then after like six with various members of the Brass. I was in the kitchen getting something to eat when my phone rang. I look at the caller I.D. and I recognize the number of the medical facility attached to the building where I work. As I’m answering the phone I’m thinking oh great, they’re probably calling me to tell me that the pilot they got to do the thing I told them not to do is hurt and I need to come in for a debrief. What I’m not expecting is the following conversation.”
“Mitchell.”
“Captain Mitchell, this is Nurse Shanon Montgomery. You’re listed as an emergency contact and next of kin for Lieutenant Natasha Trace, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Maverick feels her blood run cold.
“Captain, three days ago Lieutenant Trace was called in to run the test flight, and there was an accident. The plane exploded just as she was taking off. She’s-”
“Are you fucking kidding me, right now?” Maverick feels her blood pressure sky rocket as she cuts off the nurse. “What the hell happened? Where is she?”
“Captain Mitchell,” The nurse keeps her voice calm- like that’s going to help at all, “Lieutenant Trace is fine. She’s suffered some bruising but nothing is broken, and she’s alive.”
“And you waited three fucking days to call me?! I’m her mother for fucks sake- I know the fucking Navy has that on file! Not to mention I’m the expert on the program and you waited three fucking days to call me? After they were told not to run the test flight?”
“Captain, I’m just coming on shift, and this was the first thing I was told to do.”
Maverick growls down the line, “That’s not a damn excuse to use, Montgomery. I’m on my way.” Maverick hangs up the phone, grabs her keys off the counter and stalks from the kitchen tossing out an angry, “I’ll be back!” as she passes Ice’s home office before the front door slams behind her.
Ice clears his throat now, “I should point out here, that prior to this, I’d been on a conference call with three other members of Brass and I couldn’t really hear what was being said. All I actually hear is her tell me she’d be back, the front door slam, and her bike start and take off.”
Omaha now speaks, “I thought you had a dislocated shoulder? What were you doing riding your bike?”
“Don’t forget the fractured tibia,” Halo supplies with a pointed finger.
Maverick smiles, “The meeting with my doctor that morning was clearing me to be out of my sling and back on active duty.” She then continues the story, “So I proceed to speed through traffic to the base and stalk from my bike into Medical, and everyone got out of my way- something I didn’t actually notice until I was looking back on it all.”
“You’re terrifying when you're on the warpath, Mav.”
“That comes from years of being married to you, Love.” She gives him a grin and then turns back to look at everyone else, “I head straight for the Nurse’s station and calmly tell them who I am, who I’m there to see and they all immediately point to Natasha’s room. So I walk over, open the door, and that’s the moment I realized I was still in full formal uniform, because Natasha doesn’t greet me with ‘mom’ like normal.”
Maverick steps into the room, hand still on the door knob and sees Natasha standing in a relaxed, yet irritated, posture, her arms crossed over her chest, and talking to a medical person standing a few feet away. Natasha then spots her and immediately snaps to attention.
“Captain!”
Maverick takes in the switch and realizes she never changed clothes before leaving the house. She then looks at the woman Natasha had been talking to as she starts to speak now, “Captain Mitchell-”
Maverick cuts her off, “Get out.” Her tone is sharp and cold.
“Captain, I was just-”
She stops her again, her tone turning colder the longer she’s defied, “Get. Out. Now.” She takes in the woman’s uniform, spotting her rank and adds, “Commander.”
The woman’s face turns white and she clears her throat and nods as she shakily walks past Maverick into the hall. Once Maverick is sure she’s far enough away she steps fully into the room before closing and locking the door behind her.
“I won’t lie. As soon as the door was closed and locked, I had a fucking melt down.”
Natasha nodded, “She did. It wasn’t pretty.”
Fanboy stutters for a second, “Back up!”
Maverick and Phoenix both look at him and Maverick grins, “To which part?”
“She didn’t greet you with ‘mom’ like normal?”
Maverick grins and leans forward, propping an elbow on her knee and resting her chin on her fist, “Un-huh. Did you miss that part where I’m listed as her next of kin, and I told the nurse the Navy has it on file that I’m her mother?”
This had all of the Daggers- save for the same three and Hangman- looking at Phoenix with wide eyed shock. She grinned and waved at them all, “Hi. I’m a Navy Nepo-Baby.” She then points her thumb back at Bradley, “So is he.” She then points over at Javy, “And on a legal technicality, so is he.”
They all switch to looking at Javy now who shrugs a shoulder, gives a wry grin, and says, “I was adopted in ‘95.”
Everyone now looks at Halo who is cackling like a loon. “What’s so funny, Callie?”
She takes a deep breath and looks at her pilot with a mischievous grin, “I went to high school with Rooster.”
Fanboy leans forward and looks over at her in shock, “You knew this?”
She giggles then motions vaguely, “Not this whole story in particular, but yeah, I knew.” She gave him a smirk now, “My family moved here when I was in high school. So I met them around that time. So yeah, I knew.”
Hangman now pipes up, “This whole time, and you couldn’t clue a guy in?”
She snorts, “Relax, you knew too.”
“Not until recently! I met Maverick outside of all of this. And when you aren’t surrounded by them on a constant basis, Navy people look real different out of their uniforms! Maverick was just Pete then. Not Maverick!”
Payback then says, “Which brings up another question, why do people call you Pete?”
As Maverick snickers and Iceman and her children all grin, Halo answers, “It’s a nickname. For her actual name.”
Maverick picks up now, “Which is actually Russian. It’s Petra.”
Bob grins, “That’s pretty.” This gets him a smile and a wink from Maverick and a snicker from Fanboy.
“Suck up.”
Bob gave Fanboy a bland look, “Were you the one she was panicking over after a Bird Strike?”
Maverick snickered as Fanboy snorted, “Bitch, please, she was panicking because of her daughter.”
Yale clears his throat now, “Actually, if I recall correctly, she wasn’t panicking at all.”
“Oh no. No I very much was.” Maverick corrects as she stands up now and walks back over to the grill, “I’m just very good at hiding it.” She opens the grill now, “But I was very much panicking over all three of them.” She sent a smile Bob’s way again, “I’d met Bob a while prior to the mission.”
Fritz- who has been silent this whole time- now asks, “Do you know how he got his callsign? Any time someone asks he deflects.”
Maverick gave Billy her own bland look as she started putting burgers and steaks on the grill, “I know it’s in honor of his mother, and that’s all you’ll get. Now,” She looks around at them all with a delighted smile, “How does everyone take their steak?”
A new voice joins them all as Admiral Ronald “Slider” Kerner saunters through the backdoor, “And keep in mind, there is a wrong answer.”
As the Mitchell-Kazansky children happily greet the newcomer, everyone else stares in shocked silence before Fritz finally pipes up- not taking his eyes off Slider, “Mav, you can grill?”
Slider looks at the one that just spoke in minor surprise for a moment, then he looks over at Maverick with a little grin, “That seems familiar.”
She gives him a bright grin, “It’s kind of a new variation on the question.”
Bradley just grins now, “Oh, Mom can grill.”
Halo smirks from her lounger, “Mav can cook. ”
Slider, Ice, and Mav all share fond looks and Slider’s grin gets bigger, “Yeah, that seems very familiar.”
Fritz- who had been staring at Slider this entire time- finally breaks, “YOU KNOW THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS?”
Maverick cackled and as Ice grins over at Fritz now, “Yeah. He’s my backseater.” This answer has everyone of them all looking at the three of them with wider eyes than when Slider had walked in, while their own children just giggle and snicker and Mav just turns to begin putting steaks on the grill.
Later as everyone is sitting around the kitchen eating dinner Halo speaks up, “So I have two questions. One is for Hangman, and the other is for Javy.” She smirks now as she cuts a piece off of her steak, “Hangman, what was it like throwing your best friend’s mom out of the bar, and then finding out the next day that said best friend’s mom was gonna be our instructor?” This had everyone snickering, Slider looking at Maverick- who was grinning- with wide eyes, and Hangman looking like he wanted to run away. “But before you answer,” She looked at Javy now and grinned, “Javy, what was it like getting to throw your mom out of a bar?”
Javy laughed now and it took him a moment to collect himself before he could answer, “I admit that it was funny as hell, right up until I realized when we actually ‘tossed her out’ she was hurt due to the previous ejection less than 24 hours prior..”
Maverick nodded, “Yeah, what Hangman didn’t get to see was Javy seeing me getting up a little too slowly for him to be comfortable.”
“Yeah, that part? Not so much fun, Mom.”
“Yeah well, it was classified. So I lied.” She turned to grin at Hangman now, “But Seresin, tell us, what was that 24 hours like for you?”
Hangman cleared his throat and blushed heavily for a moment, took a sip of his sweet tea, and then finally answered, “So… getting to toss Maverick out of the bar? That part was amusing. I will say that as Javy, Payback, and I carried her to the door, I apologized for the fact that I was enjoying it far more than I probably should have.”
Javy snorted and nodded, “He did.”
Mav also snorted and nodded, “He really did.”
He cleared his throat again and the blush returned, “But the next morning when I found out who she was? The Maverick Mitchell, the very reason I became a fucking pilot in the first place, was our instructor! I nearly shit myself. I looked at Javy like he had betrayed me.” Javy giggled and nodded now as his friend continued speaking, “I felt terrified. I feared for several days that she now hated me and would hold me throwing her out of a bar against me for the rest of my life.” He paused here for a second before continuing on, “I’m actually not ashamed to admit that I feared for a solid two seconds that the reason she didn’t pick me to fly the mission was because of that fact.”
Maverick cocked her head to the side now and looked at Jake, “Do you want to know the honest to Gods’ reason I wanted you on Ready 1?”
Jake seemed actually shocked at the moment but nodded slowly, “Sure.”
“I didn’t need two of me up there.” Jake looked between her and Natasha now. Seeing that she shook her head, “Just because she flies like me most of the time, didn’t mean she would during the mission. As a matter of fact I knew she wouldn’t. But you would. And I didn’t need two of me up there. I needed me and Ice. But I couldn’t have Ice. Because Admirals don’t fly. So I needed Rooster.” She looked at Bradley now, “And I knew that when it came down to it, he’d hop off his perch - to borrow a phrase, and do what I needed him to do.”
This seemed to surprise every one of the Daggers now. Except for Jake. “That… makes sense actually.” He gave a smile now as he did really seem to understand the decision now. “I’m glad I know that. Thank you.”
Maverick, who was still looking at Bradley, gave her son a wink- that he returned- before looking over at Jake and nodded with her own smile, “You’re welcome.”
Slider snickered now, “Wow Mav, so you are capable of logical thought then?”
Maverick set her elbow on the table, then rested her chin on her fist, looked at Slider with a blank face and a raised brow, “Who is the one that has two Bachelor’s degrees for Dueling Majors in Engineering and Mechanical Engineering with Dueling Minors in Linguistics?” She then points at herself with her other hand, “Who did all of that in just three years?” Maverick then cocks her head to the side, “Need I remind you that I can do complex mathematical computations in my head in seconds flat while piloting a plane in the air, when all your job required was for you to look at a screen, flip a switch, and tell Ice where to go.”
The whole table was deathly quiet and kind of tense now as everyone looked between Maverick and Slider- who was now looking at Maverick like he was fighting hard not to laugh or apologize for his comment- it was unclear which at the moment. But it was Bob that started to break the silence.
“Um-”
Maverick quickly looked at him, “It’s a joke Bob. I promise, it’s a joke.” Everyone relaxed at that point, “Because trust me, I know it’s much more complicated than that.” She looked over at Bradley now, “Baby Goose, what was it like sitting in that seat?”
Bradley blew out a rough breath, “Complicated as fuck!”
Maverick nodded and looked back at Slider, “How many panels total did you have to handle? Side, foot, overhead, all of it?”
Slider smirked now, “Well…” He paused for a second to seemingly think about it, ticking off each one silently on his fingers, “12 panels total, give or take.”
Bradley snorted now and shook his head, “More like give.”
Maverick smirked as well now, “And if Bradley wanted to turn on comms and get radio active to call out, where is that switch.”
Everyone watched as Slider lifted his right arm to an exact position born of memory, “Right here.”
Ice snickered beside Maverick as she grinned now and asked, “And from that position it’s an extension of one finger to flick said switch before you’re back to facing Center, correct?”
Slider nods and lifts his glass to take a sip, “Yup.” He popped the ‘p’ with his own grin.
Maverick looked back over at Bob with a cool smirk, “I promise, I know it’s much more complicated than that. This was an old joke. But what I can also promise you is that if you put these two men,” She pointed at Slider and Ice now, “in a Tomcat then that man,” She points solely at Slider, “Can do your job,” She’s now pointing at Bob, “in his sleep.” She looks back at Slider once again, “But please don’t, because I’d like to have my husband in one piece and unbroken.”
Bradley, Javy, and Natasha all snicker now and Bradley clears his throat, “Hey Dad?”
Slider looks over at Bradley now, “Yes?”
The Dagger’s all look between the two in shock but Bradley ignores them all to continue speaking, “Can I just say, from the bottom of my heart, for those that fly with a backseater- and have temporarily been a backseater, I want to thank you and Dad for walking so the rest of us could run.”
Slider grins and gives a nod, “I think I can safely speak for Goose as well when I say, it was an honor.”
Fanboy is practically shitting himself now, “Dad?”
Natasha giggles and nods, “Here’s a fun fact for you; Brad-Brad has three dads and two moms.”
Javy and Bradley cackle and Bradley snorts out, “Way to make it sound like a polycule, Nat!”
Slider, Maverick, and Iceman are all three laughing as Slider hiccups, “It kind of almost was!”
Ice nods and starts having a coughing fit for a moment before he manages to collect himself and agree, “He’s not wrong!”
Maverick has to take several minutes to stop laughing before she can recover enough to explain to the Daggers. “Okay. So. For reference, Carole and Nick Bradshaw are Rooster’s biological parents. I am his aunt as his mother was my sister. I am also his godmother. Ice is his uncle and was made his godfather right after we got married. Slider here,” She motions to the RIO, “Was Nick and Carole’s boyfriend. They were a triad. That was a secret that was kept by a very select group of people for a very long time.”
“DADT.” Jake said those letters with a lot of venom in his voice.
It was Slider that looked over to calm him, “Something that thankfully none of you have to ever worry about now. But when Goose, Carole, and I got together it didn’t actually exist until December 21, 1993-”
Ice hissed out, “Just after we lost Goose.”
Maverick reached over to take his hand while Slider placed a hand on his other arm. The three quietly took a moment to say a prayer for their fallen loved one while Javy, Natasha, and Bradley did the same.
Slider sighed, “-but it was still illegal in the Military to be any form of gay.”
Maverick inhaled and let it out before she looked back at the rest of the table, “Anyway. Just under a year and a half after we lost Goose, Slider and Carole decided to get married. So Slider is Bradley’s step-father.”
Bradley shrugged now, “But ‘step’ is just a word. So he’s Dad. Has been for as long as I can remember.”
As everyone took in that information Maverick watched them and waited. She knew someone was going to back track and ask. It surprised her when it was Jake.
“So wait… how was it almost a polycule?”
Maverick and Slider laughed now as Ice sighed and decided it was his turn to tell the story.
“So what you have to know is this…”