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Maverick didn't expect to survive the missile. Waking up in the snow with his body aching is a pleasant surprise even if it means he now needs to figure out a plan to get his happy ass back to the carrier. He wonders idly how many lives he'll spend to get there.
He relishes being alive for all of twenty seconds before he hears the helicopter coming.
Ignoring his body's protests, Maverick scrambles behind the first available cover, ducking his head down and flinching hard when sharp pain explodes in his side. He yelps and rolls back onto his haunches when the firing stops. The heli swings around. He's fucked, completely and utterly fucked.
Except....
Bradley Bradshaw.
His son came back for him despite hating his guts and doing nothing to hide it the last few weeks. A SAM launches within moments. Maverick's breath hitches when Bradley's F-18 is hit and spirals out of the sky. The first glimpse of the parachute forces him to his feet and he's running before he knows it, pain singing in his veins alongside the terror, gratitude, and joy he feels for Bradley's presence. On the one end of things, it's nice to know Bradley still cares regardless of what he said in the wake of his fear. On the other hand, Bradley Bradshaw is horribly, mortifyingly stupid for coming back for him and Maverick loves him.
Maverick runs hard, his heart pounding in his chest at a million miles an hour.
He pushes Bradley down and, unsurprisingly, Bradley is not impressed. "What the hell are you doing here?!"
"What am I doing here? I-"
Maverick barely hears the rest of their argument, his ears ringing. He shakes his head and heaves a few breaths. His chest hurts like a bitch. "We've gotta move."
"Mav, you're bleeding."
"I what?" Maverick lifts his arm at Bradley's direction. True enough, a small bloodstain managed to seep through the layers of his flight suit. Shit. "It doesn't matter right now. They're going to have patrols out here within minutes looking for us and we don't have time to mess around."
"Maverick-"
"I will hold, Bradley. We have to get out of here."
Bradley bears a rather mutinous expression, but Maverick tips his head back and starts walking in the same direction as the smoke from the base. His son's annoyance and quiet desperation are nearly palpable.
When he estimates them to be about halfway to the base, Maverick holds a hand up, sensitive ears catching a distant crunching despite the faint ringing. He abruptly pulls Rooster down behind a bush and starts covering him in snow. "Whatever happens, stay here."
"What the-? Maverick-"
"Quiet! Bradley, look at me!" Maverick hisses, hands still swiping snow on either side of his son. "They're coming. No matter what you hear, and no matter what you see, you have to stay right here. Don't move from this spot until I come back."
"What if they-"
Maverick thoroughly buries Bradley in snow, ensuring his hands are tucked under his neck where they'll stay warmer. "No buts, sweetheart. I'm serious. No matter what, you wait, understand? Do. Not. Move."
Bradley presses his lips together, obviously a protest, but he wordlessly nods and shudders when Maverick covers his neck and head. The foot patrol is getting too close for comfort, so Maverick does the only thing he can do; he runs. Knee-deep snow slows him down, metering his progress, and it takes no time at all for shouts to rise on the air. Maverick tromps a few more feet before the first warning shot whips past him. He halts, raising his hands in surrender.
A voice, gruff and angry, orders him to turn around and he does so. The patrol is four men, all of them holding weapons. Each of said weapons points straight at Maverick.
When ordered to his knees, Maverick goes, his heart racing when he realizes he's still in eyeshot of the bushes where he left Bradley. He stares dead ahead, praying to anyone who might listen for Bradley to close his eyes. There's no doubt in his mind that his stubborn son made a hole to see out of the second he left. Maverick doesn't dare turn his head that way to check. He would never give away Bradley's location like that.
The patrol doesn't ask questions.
They don't demand to know who he is.
He isn't supposed to be here, neither are they, and acknowledging his presence in an official capacity would be to admit to breaking the treaty. Maverick takes a deep breath, letting it out shakily. He's been beaten to death, drowned, died via blunt force trauma, and now shot in the side, but never once has he been shot in the head. He wonders if it really is painless, but, more than anything, he thinks of Bradley. Close your eyes, baby. Just close your eyes.
But he doesn't. Maverick knows it in his bones.
Then, he doesn't know anything at all.
Maverick comes to with a ragged gasp and a pounding headache, shaking in every limb. He feels sticky, and it takes him a few seconds to realize he feels sticky because he's covered in his own drying blood. Groaning low in his throat, Maverick rolls over. He gags when his hand comes to rest on a piece of squishy brain matter—his, of course. Who else's could it be?
Of all his deaths, he never actually had the displeasure of seeing parts of his organs on the outside of his body.
He only just thinks to check his watch when he remembers his son is supposed to be hiding in the bushes not fifty yards from him. Maverick darts to his feet, wobbling precariously but not giving a shit. He trudges through the snow and falls to his knees beside a snowy lump. When he hears the muffled, panicked breaths of his son, he nearly weeps in relief, uncovering him in a hurry.
"Bradley, come on."
Bradley flinches hard, rising out of the snow and scrambling away from him. "Who the-"
Maverick moves forward, eyes wild as he covers Bradley's mouth and presses a finger to his lips. "Easy, kiddo. Easy," he soothes. "Be quiet. There could be more."
The boy stares at him, tears still staining his cheeks. His chest heaves with a few fast breaths one minute, and in the next, he's throwing up in the snow. Bradley dry heaves a few times after, looking up at Maverick as though expecting him to have disappeared the second he looked away.
"We've gotta go, Bradley."
Bradley hiccups, shaking his head. "No, no, no. No, you're not- You can't be-"
"I am, Brad. I'm right here. I don't have time to explain it all to you, but I really am here." Maverick strokes Bradley's hair, gripping the shoulder of his flight suit and helping him crawl to his feet.
"This isn't possible- I saw-" Bradley chokes on a sob. "I saw you die. I saw it. I saw it."
Maverick sticks close to him, wiping the blood from his own face with his sleeve and grimacing at all the red that comes away on it. "I'm sorry you had to see that, sweetheart. I really am, but I promise I'm okay. You need to come with me now, all right?"
Bradley shudders. "Go with you where?"
"Same place we were going before, sweetheart. The airstrip. We need to get out of here and that's our best shot at making it in one piece."
Swallowing hard, Bradley nods, still seeming unsure as to whether or not he believes what he sees in front of him. Mav wobbles a few steps forward, determined to put as much distance between them and the patrol still searching for Bradley as possible. After a beat, Bradley follows. He loops an arm around Maverick's waist, leading him onward as gingerly as possible.
"Mav, you're-"
"Shaking. I know. It's normal after...." Mav hesitates. "I-It's normal. I promise."
Bradley wraps his arm a bit tighter. "None of this is normal, dad. Assuming I'm not hallucinating this whole thing, I really, really expect an explanation for-" His voice breaks and he sniffles. "Well. This."
"Now, kid?"
"It's not like the base is going anywhere," Bradley grouses.
Mav huffs a weak laugh. "Well, I suppose you've got a point. Um.... It's kind of a weird one to explain. Maybe I should just, uh... show you?"
Bradley pauses. "Show me what?"
Heaving a breath, Maverick continues trudging through the snow, but along the way, he shifts into his feline form. He hears the breath punch out of Bradley's mouth and stops, staring up at him with slitted eyes and a soft mew.
"I-I don't.... Miggy?"
Pete nods, his tired body singing with relief when his son picks him up off the ground. He purrs at the closeness. It's been so long since he's been able to show Bradley affection. The boy walks on autopilot, stroking Mav's soft fur while his breaths shake. Maverick noses him. In return, Bradley squeezes him tighter, issuing a quiet sob when Mav rasps his tongue over his temple.
"You were always there, weren't you?" Bradley croaks. "Fuck, Slider brought you everywhere and I didn't even-" He stops, hiccupping. "You saw me get my wings."
Purring all the harder, Maverick rubs his face against Bradley's cheek. He tries his hardest to convey unrestrained pride in his son, because seeing Bradley succeed always brought him joy, bittersweet or not. Even if Bradley didn't think so, he was always proud.
Bradley marches through the snow, his face pressed into Maverick's shoulders. After a few minutes, his tears taper off and he sniffs. "Hold on, then. That first night at the Hard Deck, you were so shaky...." He holds Maverick under the arms and out from his chest. "You said it's normal to be shaky after dying. Dad, did you...." Distress gleams in Bradley's eyes. "You died, didn't you? Just before you started teaching us?"
Maverick mews pathetically, refusing to look up at Bradley. He had a good reason, but that doesn't mean the accusation doesn't make him feel chastised.
Without warning, Bradley tucks Pete firmly to his chest, startling a mrrp out of him. He trudges on without a word, and Maverick swears he can hear the kid cussing him out for being stupid in his head but not daring to say it out loud. The trip down to the base trawls along at a snail's pace, but it's faster than it would be if Maverick had to walk himself. It's only when they get to the perimeter that Maverick wriggles to be put down and shifts back.
"So, the dying thing."
"Long story short, I'm a cat and I have nine lives. Well, I had. Not so much anymore. I'm at five right now."
Bradley gapes. "Five?"
"Yep. Come on. We gotta go."
The boy swallows back his protests and follows him to the F-14 in the hutch across the tarmac.
*******
"Bradshaw, you can't stay down here forever. It's been six hours."
Bradley looks up from Maverick's still body to Hangman where the younger aviator stands in the door to the morgue. "You gonna stop me?"
"No."
"Good. Because I'm not going anywhere until he's back, no matter how much Phoenix wants to drag me off kicking and screaming."
Jake's expression shutters and he works his jaw. "Bradshaw.... I know I'm not exactly a shining example of mental health, but even I know that you can't possibly think Maverick is just gonna wake up. Denial is one thing, but... this? This is going to kill you."
"He has five left," Bradley murmurs. "He said so. I'm not going to leave him."
"Roo-"
"I said no," Bradley answers, his voice deadly calm. "I'm not going anywhere. I left him once and it's not happening again."
Jake sits down, staring at the two of them in concerned silence. "Left him?"
"I was eighteen," Bradley says, leaning down to rest his chin on his arms as he watches Maverick's face. "Without Mav, I'd have been an orphan long before that. He's been my dad as long as I can remember. I mean.... I sort of remember Goose, like an echo of his laugh or how he tried to teach me my first chord on the piano. I couldn't do it because my hands were too small. Without pictures, I wouldn't even know what he looks like, but Mav.... Maverick is my dad in every way that counts. He taught me... hell, practically everything. My mom never said it when she thought she was in my earshot, but she was convinced she was raising a Mitchell in disguise."
"He didn't want to take you down with him today."
Bradley snorts. "No. No, he did not, and believe me, he made that clear when he found me." He toys with Mav's cold fingers, silently praying for a response. He knows what he saw earlier, and if Mav can come back from that, then he can come back from this, no problem.
Bradley's going to have nightmares about what happened for the rest of his life.
"But he did it anyway."
"Yeah," Bradley muses. "He did."
Hangman shifts in his seat, frowning. "Look, I.... I know it's not my business, but what happened between you two? I wanted to ask for a while now, and in class I.... Well, I wanted to ask the right way this time, is all."
"He pulled my papers from the naval academy. I was almost eighteen with more anger than sense, and I didn't get what I wanted." Bradley buries his face in his arms, shame flooding through him. "After all this, it feels so stupid. Fifteen fucking years of silence, and what was it even for? Being pissed at the one person who was there for me?"
"He couldn't have been there all the time, though," Jake ventures. He knows he's treading in dangerous waters.
Bradley lifts his head to glare at Jake. "He took a desk job at an airbase after my mom died. It was boring as hell, and I know that by the time I was gearing up to go to college, he was slowly going crazy from being grounded so long. Honestly, even though I was so angry, when I left, a part of me felt like-" The words choke up in Bradley's throat and he clears it with a rough sigh, fighting back tears. ".... like I was unburdening him by leaving. He clearly didn't want me to follow him into the sky, so why tie him down?"
"Well, that's horseshit."
Blinking, Bradley looks up at Hangman.
"Maverick, the best pilot in the whole damn Navy, took a desk job for you, you dumbass. He loved flying. Anyone with eyes could see that. If he let it go to sit at a desk and do paperwork, then I'm sorry to burst your bubble here, Rooster, but he loved you a whole hell of a lot more than he loved flying."
"I...." Bradley sniffles. "When I asked him why he pulled my papers, he said it was because I wasn't ready. I'd always thought he did it because I'd let him down somehow, but.... With how I reacted, maybe he was right, huh?" Throughout training, Bradley only ever spoke to Mav like an angry kid. The only reason Mav picked him was because he straightened out his attitude after Ice's abrupt hospital visit. Things got a little terrifying there for a second.
"Or," Jake drawls. "He was a scared parent, afraid to lose you, and it was as much about your family as it was about you. If you were as angry at the world as you think, you probably scared the hell out of him."
That's fair.
Bradley puffs out a weary sigh, squeezing Maverick's hand. "I told him right before Ice went to the hospital that no one would mourn him. That my dad was wrong to trust him," he manages.
"Doesn't matter. He loved you anyway. Proved it when he went down."
"He'd have done that for any of us," Bradley answers, not an ounce of doubt in his tone. "But, still. I just.... I need him to know that I didn't mean it, that I was just scared." Bradley swallows. "He's always been a soft target, and I knew-.... I fucking knew I could say anything to him and get away with it, because he'd never, ever fight back. On my flying, sure, but never if I went for where it hurts."
Jake lets out a long breath. "Well, I guess that is pretty shitty."
"I'm a bad son."
"Yeah, probably."
Jake's blunt agreement shouldn't be funny, but Bradley barks a laugh anyway. 'Bad' is an understatement when it comes to his behavior, especially in the first week of training. Maverick tried to be professional—at least, as professional as Maverick ever gets. Bradley was the one dragging their issues out into the light of day. That's the very reason that if Maverick was his biological parent, Bradley would never have been allowed to serve under him as a direct subordinate. Although, that's assuming Ice didn't pull a string or two to get them in the same place.
Bradley snickers to himself. "That would be just like him."
"What would?"
"I'm starting to get the idea that my uncle is even more of a conniving bastard than I thought."
Jake motions toward Mav. "Mav, or...."
"No. He's always my dad in my head. It's... another long story, and I'd hate for you to suddenly think you can't bullshit with me because of my uncle. You might get on my nerves, but at least you speak your mind."
The younger aviator arches a brow. "He's a big deal, I take it?"
Bradley considers, then decides Jake will be Jake no matter what anyone else says. He obviously didn't give a shit that Mav could make his life in the Navy hell for a good few years if he was feeling petty, so the COMPACFLT wouldn't be any different. "Uh.... Well, unless you've got SECNAV, SECDEF, or the president in your pocket, I'd say yes."
Jake's eyes go wide. "You're shitting me, right?"
"Not even remotely."
"Well, fuck, Bradshaw. Talk about keeping an ace up your sleeve."
"Nah. The only ace up my sleeve is Phoenix."
Jake opens his mouth, closes it, then glowers at Bradley. "That's a shit joke, and the Black Aces would be ashamed of you for making it." He shakes his head, then, after a few moments of comradery, lets his smile fade. "Still, though. Navy royalty, Roo. Hell of a secret. The COMPACFLT."
Bradley shrugs. "We were estranged."
"Does Phoenix know?"
Shaking his head, Bradley sighs. "No. I didn't tell her anything. I didn't want to be associated with Mav and my uncles after what he did." He huffs. "Uncle Sli is going to beat my ass for all the shit I've said to Mav over the years. It's not like I don't deserve it, and we both know Mav never would."
Jake opens his mouth to ask a question, but he's thoroughly interrupted by Maverick taking his first breath in over six hours. His eyes go wide. "What the hell?"
"Told you he'd be back," Bradley grumbles.
"But how did you-"
"After we crashed," Bradley says, his breath hitching. "We started toward the base. Unfortunately, we ran almost directly into a foot patrol. He hid me and led them off. They shot him," Bradley whispers, touching his forehead. "Right here. Came back and found me twenty minutes later."
Jake doesn't have anything to say to that.
Bradley stands, pressing Maverick's hand to his chest and leaning to cup his face. "Dad?"
Groaning faintly, Maverick blinks open tired eyes. He otherwise doesn't move, but undeniable warmth gleams in the old man's eyes. Bradley leans down to kiss his forehead. The contented noise Mav makes sends a fuzzy feeling straight into his chest.
"Holy shit," Jake whispers.
Amusement glimmers in Mav's eyes. Bradley can see it now; his dad is going to have way too much fun with this.