Work Text:
1987
"Ice! Yooo hoo!” Carole Bradshaw’s voice lifts high above the others right along with her waving hand, beckoning Ice out of the crowd of other naval personnel disembarking from the carrier. He heads right towards her and in a move that always catches him off-guard, immediately gets wrapped up in a warm hug.
“Welcome home, Tommy,” Carole sighs into his ear. She pulls back and places a loving hand on his cheek, patting it once before stepping away, careful not to trip over Bradley, glued to her side like always.
“Welcome home!” Bradley gleefully repeats, clinging to Carole’s sundress even as he beams up at Ice. He doesn’t ask to be picked up, thank goodness, because Ice doesn’t quite trust himself that much with Bradley just yet. His hand clenches around the strap to his seabag in the hope that it will be clear that he has got his hands full.
"Hey, Bradley,” Ice says, giving the kid a big smile. That seems like more than enough for the kid, who perks up at being acknowledged.
That’s when Ice hears the motorcycle. An engine revving not too far behind them and Ice is treated to the scene of Bradley covering his ears, glaring all the while at his godfather, little eyebrows pitted against each other.
Carole rolls her eyes and puts a hand on Bradley’s back, keeping him close.
“Hiya Kazansky!” Mav calls from the bike. There's a sideways grin on his face that should be illegal in public. God, Ice has missed him.
“You still putting up with this guy?” Ice teases, asking Carole as he starts following her to the car. He ignores the strong urge to climb on the back of Mav’s motorcycle and wrap his arms around him, even if he would have to deal with the noisy bike itself.
"He's going to follow us home."
“You mean he can’t fit us all on that death trap?” Ice asks grimly, but it’s so fond that Carole can’t help but smile.
She knows that they want to have their own private reunion. Ice even looks more settled, just at the sight of Mav, which she cannot imagine gets said by a lot of other Navy personnel when it comes to Pete Mitchell.
“As if I would even let him try it with Bradley.”
“I won’t get on it either,” Ice confides in her.
“I can still hear the two of you,” Mav complains.
“Oh, we know,” Carole says cheekily, tossing him a wink for good measure. “Even over all that racket.”
“Can you believe this, Bradley?” Mav asks his godson.
For his part, Bradley just goes, “Uh-uh.”
His hands are still covering his ears, which is making him a bit unsteady on the walk to the car. Ice isn't actually sure that he even heard the question, let alone understood it.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Very helpful.”
“Come on, let’s get you boys home.”
Home.
What a novel idea. Ice hasn’t had a real one of those in years. The Bradshaw house isn’t very big; it’s a tight squeeze for the four of them, especially with Bradley growing. However, after plenty of conversations between Ice and Carole, she finally convinced him that she likes the company when she’s able to have it.
“It isn’t like you’re ever around too long,” Carole had pointed out, not to be cruel, but just honest.
So when Ice is around, he tries to make it count. Not that Carole lets them help with the mortgage or anything. Or at least, she doesn’t let Ice help. Mav has been mum on the topic. But Ice pays for groceries and if he slips some cash into Carole’s emergency stash when she isn’t looking, no one can prove it.
It would be a shorter ride if everyone else and their loved ones were not also trying to leave the docks, but it can’t be helped. Ice just unbuttons the top collar of his whites and takes a breath. He cannot wait to get out of them.
Maybe Mav can even help him.
It’s a nice thought, even though he knows that the evening will be taken up by mostly being together with Carole and Bradley. Ice cares, he does, but not as much as he would have thought. They’re Mav’s family, and they’ve become his too.
That doesn’t mean he’s not eager to get Mav alone, but it means that he’s willing to wait.
Carole pulls into the driveway and Ice sees that Mav has already directed the motorcycle out to the garage that’s attached to the backyard. It’s where his bike lives when Mav is out on deployment and Carole has joked more than once about charging him rent.
There he is, leaning against his bike, backed against a perfect blue sky and smiling at Ice as though he’s the best thing Mav has ever seen.
Idle thoughts go through Ice’s head as Carole lets Bradley out of his car seat, even as the toddler insists he can do it himself. Carole rolls her eyes indulgently and hovers close as he climbs down to the pavement.
Once satisfied that her child isn’t going to hurt himself, Carole turns towards Mav, still posing against his motorcycle and hoots at him. She grabs the Polaroid camera out of the backset of the car and shouts, “Hold it!”
Mav obeys, even if he does smirk at her. Carole presses down and the shutter clicks, the camera quickly spitting out a photo that Ice wishes he could carry around with him on his next deployment.
He can’t wait any longer and Ice finds himself taking long strides and making it to Mav in record time.
“Hi,” he whispers, leaning in close but not kissing him. Not yet.
Mav grins at him and Ice isn’t sure if it’s his impatience or just Mav’s willingness to take what he wants, but he closes the distance between them without a second thought. Ice gets with the program quickly, kissing Mav back, pressing him into his bike.
“Hold it!” Carole says again, but this time, she waits for the two of them to look at her.
“Carole,” Mav groans and Ice is glad he’s said it. Ice is painfully aware that he’s still in uniform and even though he can’t see anyone around, photographs are a whole other danger.
“I don’t have to, but you two…You just look so happy,” Carole says, and there’s something in her tone that Ice can’t quite detect. He thinks Mav does though. “It’s only Polaroids. They’ll develop right here and I’ll even lock them up in my desk until you’ve got your own place to lock them up.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Bradshaw,” Mav tells her. Then he lowers his voice and asks Ice, “What do you think?”
Ice really does think about it and it scares him how much he wants it. He loves the idea of having a photograph of him and Mav together like this almost as much as he’s terrified of it. One wins out over the other and instead of answering Mav, Ice just kisses him again.
He hears the sound of the Polaroid camera at work as Carole takes a photograph, hooting all the while. She shakes it a bit, hand on her hip as she watches them with a smile.
“Up, Uncle Ice. Up!”
“I’ll get you up, Bradley,” Mav promises and the toddler just pouts at him, even as he’s hoisted into Mav’s arms. He makes himself comfortable there anyway, cradled against Mav’s chest and frowning all the while.
Mav points to Ice’s uniform and Bradley tilts his head at him, not unlike a puppy.
“Uncle Ice has a lot of buttons and medals right now. He’ll hold you once he gets changed, right?” Mav punctuates the question pressing his nose to Bradley’s and rubbing them together.
“Right,” Ice agrees, mouth dry, like it normally is whenever Mav talks sweet to his godson. It’s been so long that Ice feels as though it’s affecting him more than it used to.
“Fiiiiine,” Bradley huffs, drawing out the word to an impressive extent. Ice can’t help but laugh and Mav laughs with him, tickling Bradley’s tummy as he does it, all three of them completely missing the whirr of the Polaroid camera.
May 2, 2016
r/FoundPhotos
salvagefiend435
I found these old photographs locked in the top drawer of a desk that I purchased at a vintage shop. I was hoping that this community would do its thing and help me track down the people in the photos so I can return them to their family! Maybe even the kid in the last photo! Myself and the vintage shop are both located in San Diego and there’s plenty of military people around here, but I don’t know enough about them to identify the uniform. Thanks in advance!
[The first Polaroid features a white man with short brown hair. He’s in aviator sunglasses and leaning against a motorcycle. The handwriting on the bottom of the polaroid says, “Look how cool you think you are”
The second one is the same location but another man joined the first one, tall and blonde in his white military uniform, gold wings clearly visible on his chest. His face is only partially visible, because he’s leaning down to the kiss the other guy. This one says, “Homecoming” on the bottom, punctuated with a little heart.
The third is a little blurry, with the two men laughing so much that it seems they could not even stop long enough for the photographer to capture the moment. There’s now a blond toddler in the arms of the brunette, in a striped shirt and overalls, beaming at them.
“He missed you both so much!” says the handwriting.]
sleepy_hacker
You can't just say, "Polaroids" and expect us to narrow down the year without seeing the full photographs front and back. There should be a code on the back.
amiablesyndicate
It looks to be from the 70s.
sername
No way, that style is the mid- to the late 80s, for sure.
barnprowler
Not a photo guy but I am a motorcycle guy and that's a Kawasaki GPZ900R, so this is after 1984, for sure.
irrigationstation
Fastest of its time. Great bike. His helmet better be just out of frame.barnprowler
Guy like that? No way is he wearing a helmetirrigationstation
They don’t wear helmets in the Navy? Look at all those patches on his jacketbarnprowler
Every navy man I know is a damn fool about safety
up_a_wall
The kid’s shirt is from the oshkosh b’gosh line from 1986 and I’m betting the overalls are too. My mom was obsessed with putting me and my twins in their opposing stripe shirts and overalls and saved them all. No complaints in the end, I love hand-me-downs and the overalls held up great.
brothboy
We just don’t make quality clothes anymoreup_a_wall
so true brothboyreadilyforked
That’s the actual name of the brand??up_a_wall
Do you not remember the commercial? I feel like the jingle has been stuck in my head for decades
private_alligator
Not this guy trying to out servicemen
salvagefiend435
What do you mean? They already got rid of that don’t ask don’t tell thingsquarecemetary
Oh god how old are you?mixedmanufacturer8
You deserve all the downvoteswildtedbaboon
Open the schoolsaccomplises
I’m sure it’s fine. The guy is probably dead by nowsillyquaygel
They both better be dead. The guy on the motorcycle is wearing some specific patches. They’re both Navy. Without a doubtcondomillenium
do you guys ever think about dying?wildtedbaboon
HI BARBIE
Bradley Bradshaw is trying to do anything except join in with this squad, all crowded around Gridlock’s phone and pointing at something. Last time he made that mistake, it was a kind of porn he could never unsee and still haunts him to this day.
He misses Nat. God, he even misses Hangman, which is how he knows that he needs a new assignment. The squadron is fine for all the prestige that comes with being on loan, but there’s something about being in California and knowing that Ice is somewhere on base at any time that makes him anxious. Sure, Bradley grew up here, but why face his childhood trauma when he could, instead, be with his friends in Tokyo.
“Yo, Rooster. You gotta see this!”
Bracing himself, Bradley heads over to the other side of the table, playfully nudging Sesame out of the way so he can get a look at whatever is on Gridlock’s phone. The orange banner of the Reddit website doesn’t exactly fill him with confidence but he starts reading anyway.
Or at least, he tries to, but the scanned Polaroids underneath of the text from the post catch his eyes right away.
The first thing Bradley sees is Mav. Three images of Mav, with the first picturing him leaning against his prized Kawasaki, wearing the same aviators that Bradley used to steal even when they were too big to stay on his face.
He barely has time to recognize his mother’s handwriting when he sees Ice, in his whites, tall and looking as clean as he always did. His Uncle Ice hated his whites and probably still does; Bradley doesn’t have any reason to think that’s changed.
When Bradley received word that Ice had reached the admiralty, the first thing he thought of was how much Ice probably hated staying in his whites for that long. No doubt he stays in the flight suit still as much as is allowed.
The second thing at the time that came to Bradley’s mind was wondering if Mav was there too, just out of frame of the official rank ceremony photographs, proud but pretending to be just Ice’s wingman.
Well, Mav certainly is in frame here in these photographs. His mother always griped about how his father would steal her Polaroid cameras, when she was the one who had The Eye™ as she called it.
Bradley isn’t a complete idiot. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell may be buried, but it’s only just under the ground. Plenty of people are keeping in the closet for safety and job security alike, and he can’t imagine anyone high-ranking would come out of their own free will.
This looks to be one of those situations, with Ice and Mav clearly kissing, seemingly without a care in the world, smiling against each others’ lips.
Then Gridlock scrolls down and Bradley sees the third photograph.
“Shit,” he says under his breath, practically snapping up straight, even as he’s unable to take his eyes off of the screen.
And god, Bradley has missed them so much. He’s sure he missed them back then too, even if he doesn’t remember it. Seeing his mother’s handwriting for the third time in just the last minute sure seems to confirm this.
He missed you both so much!
Horrified, Bradley realizes that his eyes are welling up a bit with tears. He turns away from the phone, committing the subreddit to memory.
R/FoundPhotos.
He can just bring it up on his own phone. He doesn’t have to watch everyone from this squad watching him.
“Wild, right?” Gridlock asks and Bradley forces himself to nod.
“Wild is right,” Gator adds, leading to the whole squad chipping in.
“They’re trying to ID them.”
“They shouldn’t be; they should be leaving them alone.”
“Some people can’t help themselves.”
“Come on, there’s no way they’re still around.”
Bradley thinks that he manages to get away with the rest of them distracted, already gossiping about how old the photographs are, and the possibility that maybe the men are out of the Navy, or dead.
“Rooster?” A voice comes from behind him and Bradley turns to see Billy Avalone, watching him with concerned eyes.
“Yeah?”
Fritz is keeping a distance from Bradley, not in a wary way, but in a respectful one.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Fritz is the de facto leader of this squad and Bradley is going to leave California having learned a ton simply by being near him. Unfortunately for Bradley, Fritz’s skills of observation in the air are just as strong on the ground.
Bradley looks over at the table to see that no one else has noticed Fritz has walked away to join him. They’re all still bickering about the photographs.
"Shit,” Bradley says, mostly to himself. His mind is so scattered that he can’t even think of an excuse to why he walked away. Not without accidentally having Fritz think he’s homophobic or worse.
"What's up with you?" Fritz asks again. His tone is still gentle, but Bradley knows from experience that if he thinks one of his squad is in trouble, it won’t stay that way for long.
“It’s me,” Bradley says, so quickly that Fritz misses it entirely.
"What?" His eyebrows furrow and he moves closer to Bradley, who opens the Reddit app on his phone.
It doesn’t take him long to navigate to the subreddit and find the post. It’s trending and right at the top of the community. He clicks on it and tries not to focus on the first two photographs, because if he stays on them for too long, he won’t be able to look away.
He stops on the third photo, clicking on it so the polaroid fills the whole screen. He tilts the phone towards Fritz.
"The little kid in the third photo. That's me,” Bradley repeats again, like he can’t quite believe it. He doesn’t even think about it before saying it. He can’t help himself.
He’s seen a ton of photographs of himself from that time period, of course. There are a few he has with him and even a couple that either Ice or Maverick sent to him during his first carrier deployment. He was grateful for it, even if he never responded to thank them.
All that is to say that Bradley doesn’t remember this day, not really. But he wishes he did.
There are fuzzy splotches of memories from the time, but Mav and Ice were in and out of the house so much in the late 1980s that Bradley isn’t sure if he’s thinking of the right day. He remembers that he would occasionally be in a rollaway cot in his mom’s room while Mav and Ice took over the second bedroom. It was like that for a while until Carole had finally found cheap pullout couch.
These photographs had definitely been missing from Ice’s leave but there had been others in the Bradshaw photo album, ones that were…less incriminating for the latter half of the decade.
“You used to be blond?” Fritz looks up from the phone to Bradley, as if trying to picture it.
“That’s your question?” Bradley laughs in disbelief.
“I figured it was the easiest one,” Fritz admits. He looks back down at the phone and thoughtfully adds, “The rest of it isn’t any of my business.”
Bradley rubs his hand over his face, trying to give himself a little time. He knows what he has to do, but it is not what he expected from his day. Even with his eyes closed, he still sees the Polaroids in his mind, the flashes of Ice’s whites and Mav’s jacket. His mom’s handwriting with the delicately drawn heart. Even himself, so pleased to be around his favorite people.
“I need to go,” Bradley finally says. He looks at Fritz and before he can even ask, his squad leader nods.
“Yeah, okay. Go on, I’ll cover for you.”
SteadyCrocodile
What a happy family!
strong_as_an_ox
That's one lucky kid.
whalefall_tourist
I bet he's still around even if the older guys aren't.
supremetourist
The photographs are from the mid-80s. How old do you think those guys are that they're not around anymore?whalefall_tourist
Wow, let me think hard about the statistics of two gay men in the 1980s and why they wouldn't be around anymore
Bradley hasn’t ever been in Admiral Kazansky’s office.
Well, not since he was sixteen and the office in question was on the first floor of the house they all shared. This current office on base is temporary, so he’s been told, and in the back of Bradley’s mind, he’s treated the whole area like a video game map he hasn’t yet unlocked. The mental map of the base in his head is blacked out when it gets to the hallway leading to Ice’s office.
It’s dangerous to go alone, Bradley thinks to himself. Take this with you.
He looks down at the phone in his hand. There is no reason Ice would want to see him after all these years of radio silence, certainly not out of the blue, Bradley is sure. But he’s hoping that he’ll understand the urgency given the situation.
There’s still the administrative assistant to get through, who eyes Bradley with suspicion that seems to miraculously fade when he and his uniform come close enough for her to read his name tag.
"My name is Lieutenant Bradshaw, ma'am. I was wondering if the Admiral had a spare minute." He gives her a smile, but he can’t speak to how impressive it is. There is a very good chance that it looks like more like a grimace than anything else.
"Bradshaw?" She checks, making sure that she heard him properly, her demeanor changing.
He pulls out his ID, as if that’s the issue and she does examine it with what Bradley thinks is more scrutiny than the situation requires, but then again, he did not think he would get to even this point so he can’t complain.
He thinks about the last time he was in Ice’s office. It was not a common scenario, even before leaving the house. But Mav’s project of week had taken over the kitchen table and Bradley just needed to finish his calc problems. So with Ice working at his desk and Bradley taking up the rest of the floor, textbooks spread out around him, Bradley managed to finished his assignments with the two of them in companionable silence.
It’s been years, decades. He’s a long way from calculus homework.
But Bradley knows that the time has come.
"Right. Go on in, Lieutenant."
Bradley is so surprised by the request being granted that he blinks at her first, wondering if he heard incorrectly. Then he looks towards the door, where Ice is waiting behind it.
"Thank you,” he manages. His fingers tighten around his phone, reminding himself why he came here in the first place. Still, he manages to pry them off the case and use a hand to open the door to Ice’s office instead.
There, behind an impressive mahogany desk, computer monitor off to the side so Bradley can look right at him, is Ice.
His Uncle Ice. Though Bradley takes a lot of umbrage with the word. The title is not nearly enough for who Ice was to him during his teenage years. His third father.
If his image as the COMPACFLT had not been framed right where Bradley walks into the base everyday, he would have seen surprised by the gray hair now in front him. Same steady smile though, and just as broad as Bradley remembers. Though, Ice always seemed larger than life to him.
It is quite a difference from the pictures now loaded on Bradley’s phone.
For his part, Ice looks as bewildered as Bradley feels. Even though Bradley’s first instinct was to run right to Ice, right to the location he knew for sure housed one of his dads, he did not think past that plan.
"Bradley?"
Ice looks worried, which is more than fair. Bradley closes the door behind him and takes a deep breath. He gets ready to salute, but Ice waves him off before he even gets that far.
Bradley’s shoulder slump and once again, he rubs his hand over his face.
"Ice,” he gets out, wondering where the hell he should start. He still can’t believe he’s in Ice’s office in the first place. Bradley did not wake up this morning thinking he was going to have an audience with the COMPACFLT.
"Is everything okay?" Ice’s voice is too gentle, but Bradley can’t bring himself to be furious about it. If he can’t even get a handle on his own mind, there is no way he can even imagine what is going on in Ice’s.
"She just...let me right in."
Which isn’t what Bradley wanted to say, but it’s what came out of his mouth.
"You're on the list,” Ice says simply and Bradley looks up at that and meets those eyes. Full of concern and worry and holding Bradley in place as he asks his next question.
"I am?"
"Of course you are."
It’s not said to placate Bradley, nor is it full of pity. It’s just matter of fact. That’s how he’s able to break himself out of this spell. He starts pacing and biting his lip, feeling like a sixteen year old again in Ice’s office.
Bradley is nervous in a way that Ice hasn’t seen him since the Clairemont High School Junior Prom.
Not that Ice has seen much of Bradley anyway, at least, not in a situation where Bradley knows he’s watching. Ice has never felt guilty about keeping tabs on his own kid, but to think that Bradley came here without even knowing if he would be granted an audience with Ice, well, that hurts. Ice swallows it down, focusing on the problem at hand.
Which is still a mystery to him.
“Bradley, are you all right?” He asks, cataloging Bradley’s current squad in his mind, his CO, the leader. If any one of them could have possibly done something to Bradley in order to get this kind of reaction out of him.
"I don't know,” Bradley tells him as though he’s admitting some secret. And then, seems to change the subject entirely. "Do you know what Reddit is?"
"Vaguely,” Ice tells him, trying not to show how confused he is by the question. “It’s a website, correct?”
“Yeah, and people share all kinds of things on it,” Bradley explains and he fidgets nervously with his phone as he continues to talk. “They want to share stuff with other people or sometimes they want answers to questions.”
Ice wishes he would get to the point, but he doesn’t want to spook him. Instead, he goes for honesty.
"Bradley, you're terrifying me, kid. What's wrong?"
The last part Ice says in his Admiral voice, which always worked whenever Bradley was a teenager and Ice was only just a captain.
It works now too.
Bradley takes a deep breath and finally starts telling Ice why he showed up in his office after years of radio silence.
"Earlier today, someone made a post on Reddit asking for help identifying anyone in a couple of old Polaroids he found in a desk that he bought at some antique store."
"I'm listening,” Ice says slowly, not entirely sure where Bradley is going with this, but he’s willing to hear him out. Frankly, he isn’t entirely sure that he’s not still asleep and dreaming. He wishes Mav were here, but then Bradley definitely wouldn’t be.
"Someone in my squad showed me the post, because one of the men is clearly in the Navy." Bradley takes a breath and then keeps going, "In one of the photographs, the man in uniform is kissing the guy who is in civvies."
“Okay…” Ice doesn’t rush Bradley, he can see that he’s doing his best to figure out his words. He is starting to think that Bradley must have hoofed it here from his own spot on base right after seeing the post.
“Now everyone online is trying to figure out how old the men are and…”
“Ah,” Ice thinks he knows where Bradley is going with this, even if the photographs are recent enough, it could still affect the careers of any servicemen if the publicity gets to be too much. Why Bradley came to him however, is another mystery, but Ice can focus on one thing at a time.
"What year was this?" Ice asks, pulling his notepad towards him so he can make notes.
"Well, I look around four years old, so maybe 86? 87?” Bradley tells him, thinking aloud and looking at his phone, as if he’s trying to confirm it.
"You look around four years old," Ice repeats unthinking.
And then his brain catches up to what he just said
"You," Ice says again, this time with more stress on the word. “Oh, shit.”
Bradley’s expression towards him is apologetic, tight eyes and a grimace, and Ice feels like an idiot. Now he knows exactly why Bradley came to his office, right to the source.
He holds out his hand and without another word, Bradley puts his phone in it. Ice only glances at it, before going to his computer in order to pull up the Reddit page on his monitor so he doesn’t have to squint at the smaller screen.
There, in the filtered color that only Polaroids could provide, is himself, Maverick, and Bradley. Almost certainly back in 1987, right after Ice’s first deployment after Top Gun. He had come home to the Mav and the Bradshaws.
“My god…” Ice says, mostly to himself.
Bradley invites himself around his desk to see a larger version of the photographs and Ice unconsciously shifts the chair for him.
It’s different, seeing them on Ice’s monitor. The three Polaroids are organized in a straight line, one right after the other, creating a line of memories Bradley can’t quite recall.
His mother’s handwriting, with the same little heart she would write on his notes for his first day of school each year. He doesn’t have any of them. Bradley never saved them, even hid them from other kids most of the time. But there it is, clear as day in front of him.
Quickly, before he does anything else, Bradley unlocks his phone again and presses his thumb against the image of the photographs, saving them to his phone just in case the original posters decides to delete it on a whim.
Finally, Ice says something.
"He found them in a desk?" He asks, even as he rereads the post again.
“He says they were stuck in the drawer, apparently. It was locked and the key wasn’t sold with it.”
“Of course,” Ice breathes.
Unlike Bradley, Ice has no problem running through memories the exact day, and Carole’s insistent promise.
"I remember…” He murmurs aloud so Bradley can hear it.
If Ice thinks about it enough, he can feel the sun on his face in that backyard. How thrilled he was to squeeze into a full size bed with Mav in a house with no real privacy. Just because they knew that the two of them were safe with the Bradshaws.
"I don’t,” Bradley confesses to Ice. “Not really.”
"Your mother took these photos. God, that's her handwriting."
“I know,” Bradley says quietly. He wishes he could remember. He wants to ask Ice about the day, and maybe he’ll get a chance to do so.
"She told us she was going to lock them up for us until we could lock them up for ourselves."
That makes more sense than anything Bradley could have come up with on his own. He remembers even when he lived with Mav and Ice, any kind of photographs that could be construed as incriminating were stored in the fireproof safe. It made him furious sometimes, for himself and for them.
More than that, if anyone asked, Ice was only staying with them in the in-law suite that Mav built just for the story, changing around the entire first floor of the house to accommodate the plan.
"The guy is getting destroyed in the comments,” Bradley tells him, indicting that Ice should scroll down. He doesn’t though and honestly, Bradley can’t blame him. “Half the people are arguing about privacy and the other half are talking about how Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone and it shouldn't matter."
Ice snorts at that. If only things were that easy in the Navy.
"I thought about messaging him and asking him to take the post down but it's spreading to other sites now anyway so"—
"It won't be long before someone identifies me and Mav," Ice finishes so that Bradley doesn't have to. “It will hit some local news sites too, no doubt.”
"Sometimes that happens, yeah,” Bradley murmurs and wonders if some bored feature reporter isn’t already on it.
"Jesus Christ,” Ice mutters, not knowing where to start. He feels like Bradley looked when he just came into his office just five minutes ago. It feels like hours ago.
"I know."
"Not that I'm not pleased to see you here, kid, but shit,” Ice laughs at that and god, it is a blessing that Bradley does the same.
"It's good to see you too," Bradley nearly sobs out his laugh. "I've been, well, I've been thinking about you both." Bradley's mouth stays open like he's about to say something else, but nothing comes out. Ice can guess though.
We’re always thinking about you, Ice doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want to scare Bradley away. Not the grown man who is also the little boy in the Polaroids still on his computer monitor.
“Mav is out at China Lake most of the time, but he’s in town right now, as it happens.”
Bradley's eyebrows pinch together, but he doesn't ask. Mav is a ghost to most of the Navy, with the name Maverick popping up in flight classes and the occasional mention if anyone is interested in being a test pilot.
He's not surprised at all that Mav is still flying, but he and Ice might be the only ones.
"Test pilot stuff," Ice says with a sigh, waving his hand as if the one gesture encompasses all he wants to say. Bradley supposes that it does.
He has never been much for test piloting, and not just because there was a higher chance of him running into Mav. He prefers being with a squadron, getting that tight-knit group that Bradley can pretend is akin to a family.
Jesus, he really does have to take Nat’s advice and start talking to someone again. He can’t keep letting being loaned out be an excuse.
Ice interrupts his thoughts, thank goodness. He’s looking at the post again, but not the images this time. He’s scrolling through the responses with pursed lips.
“And I don't particularly just want to wait until someone makes a comment saying that it's the COMPACFLT."
“Can’t blame you there,” Bradley murmurs and Ice goes back to the top of the webpage.
"Those sunglasses were mine too. Asshole,” Ice says with a smile.
Bradley looks at the images again and tries his best to remember what it felt like being held by Mav as if he would protect Bradley from the whole world.
"I look so tiny here,” Bradley says, mostly to himself.
"Growth spurt really didn't hit until you were twelve," Ice murmurs, remembering the groaning from a preteen and the lack of leftovers for everyone else. "You grew into a fine man, Bradley. We're proud of you."
There’s silence after Ice’s declaration as Bradley does his best to swallow over the lump in his throat. Staring at the pixelated versions of his mother’s Polaroids doesn’t help.
He’ll never be that kid again, but he can have his family back. If he wants. If they want. If Mav is willing to talk. If Bradley can reconcile his anger and past with the man Ice thinks he currently is.
"Thank you,” Bradley says instead, quiet and grateful, not taking his eyes off the computer screen.
Ice remembers Carole’s promise. She had locked up the photographs, but between one thing and another, he and Mav had never gone back for them. Everyone had forgotten about them.
Thank god the drawer had not been broken into until now. Ice closes his eyes thinking about it. Carole would have never forgiven herself if they had been unearthed while Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was still in place or before it went into effect. Even now, she would be blaming herself, Ice just knew it.
“What do you want to do?” Bradley asks and for a second, he sounds like the same kid in the photograph, lost and waiting for a grown-up to make a decision.
Ice examines him. He had not been lying when he said that Bradley grew into a fine man, and that they are proud of him. But still, it is one thing to be reuniting, potentially building their relationships back together if that's what Bradley wants, with time and probably more talking than any of the three of them are comfortable with.
It is another thing to be involved in a decades-old scandal about to be brought to light.
“I want to help,” Bradley adds, nearly insists, just in case Ice hadn’t been sure about his allegiances.
That is exactly what Ice had been worried about, because for all that Bradley has run away from them for years, for better or worse, he is Mav’s kid.
“Like I said, Mav is in town. We’re going to need to go get him.”
“Now?”
Whatever bravado Bradley managed to scrounge up for himself seems to leave him.
“No time like the present. It’s just luck he’s here this week,” Ice says, only sounding a little bit bitter at the fact that he and his husband usually work with a whole ocean between them. “And you know why we have to go to him. Even if I called him, he’s probably working on something else and won’t hear the phone.”
“Safety ear muffs."
Bradley remembers. He can picture it now. Mav working on his bike or something else and his phone vibrating off of the table and onto the floor, not to be found for hours. It was a flip phone when he left and Bradley assumes Mav has updated since, though it does make him a little disappointed to imagine.
“Fritz— Lieutenant Avalone said that he would cover for me but I think he just meant for like, an hour— not for…”
Whatever this is, Bradley doesn’t finish.
“I’ll take care of it,” Ice tells him and picks up his desk phone without a second thought. “Connect me to Simpson, please.”
Bradley watches him, fully knowing that his mouth is open, but he doesn’t close it. He can’t, because one of his dads is acting as though he’s just calling the principal to take him out of school for the day to play hooky instead of taking him off of the flight plan for the afternoon for a squad to which he’s on loan.
“Lieutenant Bradley Bradshaw will be unavailable for the rest of the day. My assistant will send you the necessary the information and approval forms.” Ice makes a few humming noises, but Bradley can tell he isn’t really listening to whatever Admiral Simpson is telling him considering that his eyes are still trained on the computer monitor. It is another minute or two of the same noises before Ice finally loses his patience and ends the conversation, hanging up the phone as if the whole exchange meant nothing to him.
In the grand scheme of Ice’s daily life, Bradley realizes, it didn’t. He leans forward, elbows on his knees and rests his chin against his upturned palm. He can’t help the smile that comes over his face.
"So when you said you were going to take care of it, you really meant you were going to tell the Air Boss that you were stealing me.”
“Yep,” Ice says simply.
Bradley knows his smile is soft, but he can’t help it. Ice is still larger than life and in control, just like he remembers him being when he was a kid. Ice gets up and starts to pack up and Bradley just watches him go, delighting in the smirk that gets sent his way.
"You know, we've had such rules about asking and telling that I guess I mixed them up."
"You're enjoying yourself,” Bradley realizes.
"It's certainly the most interesting day I've had in a while,” Ice admits "Besides, Beau likes me. It drives Mav up a wall."
Beau. Admiral Simpson. Cyclone. Of course.
Bradley shakes his head and follows the COMPACFLT, the Admiral, his dad, out of his office, catching the car keys that come his way. He looks down at them, eyes wide, and sees the familiar keychain, the mascot from Bradley’s elementary school, worn but still intact, right next to the house key, as well as a couple Bradley doesn’t recognize. He looks back up at Ice, who grins at him and Bradley doesn’t know why everyone thinks that Mav is the only wild one.
“Hope you still have that lead foot, Lieutenant.”
Darkjones
I know the motorcycle guy. He crashed a plane in my town a few years back and came out of the woods with his parachute hanging off of him.
almostfrench
Okay grandpa, let’s get you to bed
playfulful
My dad was in the Navy in the 80s and says that the uniform the one guy is wearing makes him an aviator. You can see his gold wings.
Big_Mayhem
That narrows it down for sure
elasticwaistcoast
This is why people need to date their polaroids and put names of people on the back
ultrapoultry
They were in a locked drawer and so I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason the photographer didn’t ID the guyschrissyp988
No identity and they were locked away. God, that hurtsRarelyRound
THIS. I hope they're okay.
Bradley keeps his hands on the wheel at ten and two as if he’s fifteen and only just got his permit, with Ice is being extremely patient with him in the parking lot of an abandoned mall. The second he thinks that he wants a way to break the ice, he makes a face at his own unintentional pun.
“So, how is Japan?” Ice asks, ignoring all pretense that he might not have been keeping up with Bradley and his career.
“It’s great. It’s a nice break being home for a bit, but kind of odd, knowing I’m about to be right back there in a few weeks.”
“I feel the same being here instead of Harbor-Hickam, but it’s nice being so close to Mav for a change, getting to stay in our house.”
Ice knows he sounds wistful but he doesn’t try to hide it. They’ve never tried to hide from Bradley. It took a lot of explanations and tantrums when Bradley was a kid, but Ice supposes he might not need to hide from anyone ever again.
What a thought.
“So you’ve been separated?” Bradley asks. He knew that, somewhere in his mind. There aren't many test pilot facilities in Hawaii and the COMPACFLT is based out there.
“Not like that,” Ice assures him. “We take turns and you know we’re used to it. It took a while after my…”
Bradley’s hands tighten around the wheel and he knows exactly what Ice isn’t saying. His cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
“I heard about it. I tried to…”
“My sister told me you called,” Ice puts him out of his misery. Frankly, he doesn’t have time for anything else, and he would like them all to never have to experience it ever again. He isn’t naive, but now that he’s got Bradley with him, a Bradley who came to him, he doesn’t plan to let him go.
It’s not an apology and it’s not a forgiveness either.
Hearing that Admiral Kazansky had come back to California for cancer treatment had nearly kicked Bradley into gear. He suspect it might have fully if he had been stationed in the US at the time. Aunt Sarah had been a godsend, even if she did insist on regular weekly calls to keep up with him. Now Bradley knows why.
“He stuck to me like glue for longer than either of us had ever managed before,” Ice tells Bradley. “Through the treatment and everything. This project of his is only for a few months and it’s close to his hanger in the Mojave, so it works out and I get him home when I need to be in California.
“His hanger?” Bradley waits til the car comes to a stop at a red light to look over at Ice, making sure he heard correctly. "A hanger," Bradley repeats. "He's living in a hanger?”
"A trailer inside the hanger," Ice corrects, realizing that doesn't sound much better and oh, how he remembers that expression of skepticism.
Bradley definitely inherited that from Goose.
"It's a long story that I am sure he'll be thrilled to tell you. It’s not my favorite, but it’s better than him having just the Airstream out there by itself.”
Mav will just be thrilled to see Bradley in general. It isn’t going to take much, but having his son as a captive audience again, a willing one at that, is going to be huge.
"I missed a lot,” Bradley murmurs and Ice thinks that he’s mostly talking to himself. That isn’t going to stop Ice from injecting himself in the conversation.
"You were pissed, and with good reason to be."
"I..."
"Mav will tell you the truth if you let him."
"The truth?" Bradley stares straight ahead at the road, no traffic light in sight. "He told me I wasn't ready."
"There's more to it than that,” Ice sighs and Bradley wonders how many times he and Mav have argued about this.
Even though he’s confused, Bradley agrees. After all, he’s come this far.
"All right. I'll talk to him then, after all this, if he wants." Bradley says it with such conviction that he can’t help but believe it himself.
If he wants, Ice thinks.
As if this isn't all Mav has wanted for years-- Ice and Bradley in the same place as him at the same time.
"Kid. Bradley," Ice corrects himself. "This is going to be Christmas morning for your dad. Even with the potential of the two of us getting court-martialed. He isn't going to give two shits."
Bradley laughs at that, but it sounds uncomfortably close to a sob.
Ice notices that he's not angry anymore. Not just at him and Mav, but in general. He’s something else though, hesitant maybe, after being away for so long.
That was one of Ice’s biggest fears. He didn't agree with Mav pulling Bradley's application, but a few heart-to-heart conversations before or after wouldn't have killed either of them.
Not like the decision to pull his papers ended up doing.
He takes advantage of Bradley being at the wheel to examine the young man he's grown into. Tall and with a godawful mustache that Ice hopes was only grown for a bet and not out of some obligation to Nick Bradshaw. Still, he looks good and Ice mourns the curls that have been tamed by the gel that keeps them in place and within uniform regulations.
"I wanted to come back, after a while. I just..."
“It was a long time for anger to fester,” Ice finishes, understanding. “The distance felt like too much.”
“Yeah,” Bradley says, mouth dry. He fidgets a bit, thinking about how the last time he drove Ice’s car, he still had to adjust the driver’s seat. He doesn’t need to do that anymore. He and Ice are the same height now.
"It hurt," Ice fills in. "I know. And I’m sorry," he adds, for what it's worth.
"I think it always will. Even if..."
"Actions have consequences."
“You sound like my therapist,” Bradley murmurs, thinking he should see if he can get an emergency appointment this weekend.
"Oh?" Ice says, trying to sound delicate and not like someone who just solved a puzzle in his mind
"God, no. Not a Navy shrink. Can you imagine?"
Ice hadn't thought so. It makes sense. Still, he wishes he and Mav had been there for that too.
"I can't, Bradley." He shoots a sideways grin Bradley’s way.
Bradley just shakes his head, but he’s smiling and he likes that he’s smiling.
"Any new comments on the post?" He asks, gesturing to where his phone is in Ice’s hand.
fasterhigher
I swear to y'all, that looks like the current COMPACFLT
almostfrench
the who?fasterhigher
Navy acronym. Commander of the Pacific Fleetalmostfrench
Does he still have bleached tipsfasterhigher
Silver fox, according to the Navy's website. I think the noses matchnumberoneshoplifter
Wow the Navy website is full of helpful photographs[Layton mission image]
[Layton caption]
almostfrench
I think we solved it, ladsonerecipe
Well, shit. Now what?RarelyRound
Hope you're happy, assholes[deleted]
Comment removed by moderator
The house looks the same as it did when Bradley stormed out all those years ago, and during the few times he drove by it, unable to help himself. He pulls into the driveway and doesn’t think about the fact that Ice and Mav always kept this as their home base. Even with Ice being in Hawaii and Mav having his hanger and the two of them being placed all over the country in the past decades, they kept the house where the three of them became a family.
He wonders if Ice had to have conversations about it being a listed as his permanent residence or if he wasn’t the first COMPACFLT to do something similar. It’s also possible there was some leeway given considering the cancer treatments. Bradley shakes his head. He can’t do anything about that now. He can only be here, in the house with Ice.
And Mav.
They walk in through the front door and there he is.
Mav is just sitting there, on the carpet in the living room, with a dozen folders and even more technical drawings spread out on the coffee table.
Same old Mav. God forbid he use a real table or chair.
“Honey, we’re home,” Ice says dryly.
“We?” Mav asks without looking up.
Ice huffs and gestures to Bradley to take it away.
“Hi,” he says simply, wondering if he should add anything else, torn between using Mav or Dad, just leaves it at that.
It turns out that he doesn’t need anything else.
"Bradley?" Mav’s head snaps up from where he had been looking at whatever paperwork is spread out in front of him.
Bradley gives a wave that he almost immediately regrets, but strangely enough, it helps that Ice laughs at him. He actually might be laughing at Bradley and Mav.
Mav stares at Bradley for far too long, and he knows it too, but he likes to think that he can grant himself a minuscule amount of grace.
Bradley looks everything and nothing like the photograph stapled to his file. One that Mav has caught himself sneaking a peek at more than once over the years, each time it got updated. He’s taller than Mav too, which, in fairness, happened when he hit age fifteen, but there’s still a part of Mav that pictures him as an eight year old, two front teeth knocked out by a baseball.
He supposes that’s always been one of their problems: Mav forgetting that Bradley was more than just Carole and Nick’s kid.
“Are you”—? Mav looks between the two of them, confused, finally tearing his eyes away from Bradley. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“No one is dead or dying,” Ice tells him and the tension goes out of Mav that easily.
Bradley is impressed that he managed to do that just with one sentence, and then stricken. How many times has Ice had to start a conversation with Mav like that? He looks over at Ice, worried, but he doesn’t turn to look at Bradley. He’s far too focused on Mav, as if he’s trying to convince him through sheer force of will that everything is all right.
“Then why the hell are you both here? Not that I’m not happy to see you,” Mav adds quickly, scrambling to get up off of the floor. “The two of you, but…”
“Then you should have considered answering your phone,” Ice tells him.
Mav looks around at that, but the aforementioned phone is nowhere to be seen.
“I suppose this is a conversation better done in person anyway. Mav, can we use the computer in your office?” Ice asks, but he’s already walking away, which is par for the course, in Bradley’s memory.
Bradley looks around, wondering where Ice thinks he’s going to find an office that isn’t his own, but he follows Ice to a small room that used to be the downstairs study, but has been renovated to look like a respectable office where Mav could take video calls if he had to.
Even then, every available surface is still covered in motorcycle, car, and even plane parts. Bradley can picture Mav turning off his camera during a meeting and completely focusing on cleaning gears during the call instead.
“Yeah, this is exactly what I expected,” Bradley mutters.
“He hasn’t changed,” Ice says, a promise and a warning. He goes around to turn on the computer and makes a show of blowing non-existent dust off of it.
“Ass,” Mav says fondly. “I still say you could have tried calling the house phone.”
Bradley knows that he’s talking to Ice, but he actually couldn’t just call. He deleted Mav’s number years ago, in a teenage fit of rage. He would have had to call Sarah who then would have called Ice. Bradley wonders if he would have chickened out then, just like he had when hearing about Ice’s treatment.
“Bradley, show him the website,” Ice says quietly, abandoning his quest to turn the computer on so Mav could see the images larger just like he had done. He supposed that there would be plenty of time for that.
Mav is careful not to touch the screen as he takes the phone from Bradley, but not before giving Ice another suspicious look.
He doesn’t read the text, he goes right to the image of the Polaroids and can’t take his eyes off of them. His fingers hover over the screen, but he still resists touching it.
“Oh. That’s…that’s us,” Mav finally says, barely above a whisper.
There’s a significance in the word. The us of it all, that Mav hasn’t thought about in years. The three of them as a unit. Something he desperately wants again, but never lets himself think about.
It almost feels like that right now, in his office. In another time, another place, Ice and Bradley playing hooky to come visit him just because would have been the best thing Mav could have thought of.
He looks up at the two of them and then back down to Bradley’s phone, pulling himself away from the image to read the post.
The desk. God, Carole’s desk. Mav can’t remember what happened to it. She must have sold it, or maybe her sister did.
“We never took the photos from her,” Mav says, recalling Carole’s words so clearly.
He keeps scrolling to see what people are saying, unable to help himself.
“Oh this is…a lot of comments.”
“Mostly positive ones. A lot of people are worried about the two of you,” Bradley tells him.
Mav points to one of the comments, “This guy identified my bike properly.”
Ice rolls his eyes and grins when he realizes that Bradley did the same. Of course that is Mav’s main focus.
“Yeah, I think people got more worried when they realized the year from the bike,” Bradley says, speaking directly to Mav to the first time in ages and trying to act as though it isn’t a pivotal point in his life. “Not just because of the military, but because of HIV and everything else going on the 80s.”
“Everything else,” Ice repeats, like Bradley didn’t just distill down fifteen years of pain and suffering and death and fear into a single phrase.
“We lived,” Mav sighs, like he’s reminding himself. “God knows how.”
“God had nothing to do with it,” Ice says. “Mostly a lot of dumb luck.”
“We were smart about some stuff,” Mav insists. “Affection is our best protection,” he recites from memory, but does not elaborate. Bradley makes a mental note to look it up later.
“We were less smart about others.” Ice taps the top of the phone so he doesn’t hit the screen. “We promised Carole we’d take the photographs from her once we had a safe of our own.”
“I had completely forgotten about them,” Mav says honestly as the rest of the memories come back to him. “Not the day though, it was a great day.”
“It was,” Ice agrees. “Bradley doesn’t remember it,” he says casually, throwing Bradley a wink.
“I was a kid,” Bradley defends himself with a smile on his face, the tension in the room broken. “I recognized Mav and the bike before I realized he was holding me,” he admits.
“Christ, you really are his kid sometimes,” Ice mutters, barely loud enough for any of them to hear, but they still manage.
“Well, yeah,” Bradley says, some kind of desperate laugh coming out of him as he straightens up a bit. He seems surprised at his own response, but he doesn't take it back.
Mav beams at Ice and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, the three of them can handle this.
"Oh god, someone found the photo from Layton Mission. That was fast,” he says, scrolling through the comments and clicking on the image to enlarge it. He holds out the phone so Ice and Bradley can see it.
"We look great in that photo,” Ice says with a grin.
"Not the point”— Bradley starts with a laugh, but then cuts himself off, like he’s not quite sure how to address him. “Uncle Ice,” he tries, caught up in his own confusion. He even seems a little embarrassed by his inability to catch himself.
Ice just hums with a content smile, as if he hadn’t noticed Bradley’s hesitation at all. If he’s willing to ignore it, then so is Bradley. At least, for now.
“The real question is now, what do we do?" Ice reaches over. He doesn’t take the phone from Mav, but he scrolls up to the comment that clearly identifies him as the COMPACFLT.
“Our friends already know we’re together,” Mav points out. “But…”
“The rest of the Navy…not so much,” Bradley finishes, understanding.
“They’re about to find out. I'm sure it's already circulating outside of this site. The Layton photo next to the Polaroids is..pretty damning." Ice pushes his glasses up his nose and Bradley realizes he’s been wearing them for the whole day, with the exception of a portion of the drive where he swapped them out for sunglasses. He wonders when Ice started wearing glasses full time.
"They can't kick us out for being gay, but they can go over everything we've ever done together,” Mav says aloud for Bradley’s benefit.
"Scrutinize every decision." Ice is surprised it took his headache this long to start. He can't imagine it is going to go away anytime soon.
“Find out we’re married,” Mav points out.
“You’re married?”
Bradley straightens up, squaring his shoulders to look at the two of them. His eyes slide down to their hands, but there is only Ice’s Academy ring, the same one that Bradley used to idly spin around his finger when he was a kid, dreaming of the day he would get his own. Mav’s fingers remain devoid of any kind of jewelry.
“I always wondered if you…”
“Confidential license,” Ice tells him. “Just us. Felt wrong to do a whole ceremony with…everything else going on.”
Without you there.
They all hear it, but Bradley braces himself before acknowledging it.
“I’m sorry I missed it, but I’m glad you did it. You deserve it. Thirty years this year, right?” Bradley does the math in his head and nods to confirm it for himself.
“Well, maybe you can help me convince Ice that we need a party now.”
Mav’s glare at Ice indicates that this is an ongoing argument, but Mav is also smiling as he does it, still loving to push his husband’s buttons three decades later. Ice huffs and shakes his head.
“I’m sending this to the guys.” Mav decides. It takes a few passes around the room, but he finally spots his phone on one of the bookshelves and swipes it.
“The guys?” Bradley asks, alarmed.
“Group chat, obviously. With your uncles.”
Mav saying the phrase group chat has Bradley mouthing the words to himself. He suddenly wants to hear Mav say the Merriam-Webster word of the years for the last few years so he isn’t caught off guard in the future.
“Obviously. They'll get a kick out of it."
Mav
[Reddit link]
Wolfe
Who are those handsome devils?
Hollywood
You let somebody take physical evidence back then?
Mav
Perhaps a poor judgement call from Mister Ice Cold No Mistakes and myself
Slider
This is why Stinger didn’t like you two flying together
Mav
Cry about it, American Airlines
Sunny
Looks like someone ID’d you two pretty quickly
Cougar
It was only a matter of time. Ice, are you in touch with Navy Comms and JAG about this? I can be on base in thirty.
Ice
Obviously
Hollywood
He speaks!
Ice
Bradley says he recognized Mav and his bike before me or himself
Wolfe
Way to throw the kid under the bus when he's not even in the chat to defend himself
Wolfe
Wait-- You talked to Bradley???
Ice
[Image of a bewildered Bradley in his khakis, caught off guard by the camera, with Mav beaming next to him]
They are all staring down the barrel of a long weekend where Bradley’s only plans originally had been to catch up on a television show he couldn’t watch while in Japan.
Instead, now he is watching his parents argue about whether they should both head back to base. Ice wants to go right now and has no interest in stalling. Not with the Layton photograph already out there.
Bradley feels fifteen again, listening to them needle at each other in a way that he did not realize was foreplay at the time, but now can’t unsee.
It isn’t that Bradley exactly wants to drive back the base after coming here with Ice, but there’s a part of him that worries. The irrational part of his brain that says if he leaves this house again, he won’t step back inside of it for another fifteen or so years. He lets them make the decision though, thinking that as long as he’s with Ice and Mav, he doesn’t care where he is, which is a strong shift from his mindset just yesterday.
He feels like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, more accurately, waiting for him and Mav to actually have a real conversation.
It’s taken Bradley a while to realize that Ice had nothing to do with pulling his papers and judging by the hints from his Aunt Sarah, the whole incident seemed to almost tear the two of them apart. Bradley wishes he had known, but he’s not sure what good it would have done.
Frankly, he wishes for a lot of things and when Mav insists on Ice going upstairs to grab their lawyers information if they should need it, all three of them see right through it.
“Your mother told me she didn’t want you to fly. I shouldn’t have”— Mav breaks off from his own blurted-out explanation and Bradley sees how he almost crumbles.
The one thing he’s been keeping inside all this time and it’s finally out there and it might have been holding Mav together.
His Mom though.
Bradley feels like he should be more surprised, but he’s really not. She really never had been pleased anytime Mav and Ice or any of the flyboys offered to take Bradley to an airshow or even up in one of their personal planes. She rarely flew commercial, only when she couldn’t make the road trip back home to Tennessee.
“The way you two talked, I think she hated flying almost as much as you love it,” Bradley says quietly, letting Mav gather his thoughts.
“She made me promise,” Mav admits, sounding choked up. Bradley doesn’t want to look at him, because he’s already feeling the same.
“Jesus, Mav,” Bradley breathes out.
He wants to be furious and he is, he really is. But he sees a defeated man in front of him. One who swore to the woman who was like his sister, a promise that her son wouldn’t become like his father or godfather. She must have looked Mav dead in the eye while saying it too, for him to have pulled this off.
I don’t want my kid to be anything like you.
“Mom really always was your one weakness. She knew how to dig into you.”
Mav flinches at that, but Bradley knows he’s not wrong. Still, no matter where this conversation goes, he is always going to wish that Mav had just talked to him. That they could have worked something out, no doubt with Ice as a mediator.
“Well, you’re not wrong, but that doesn’t mean that I was right,” Mav says, each word feeling the full weight of his emotional apology. Bradley wonders if he practiced it over the years. “I am sorry, Bradley. I should have talked to you about it, figured out a way to honor her memory with you instead of against you.”
Bradley slowly digests all of this and he knows they aren’t done yet, but for right now, he wants to be. He isn’t sure what Ice and Mav are going to be dealing with once they get back to base, but Bradley is with them. He’s on their side and he needs Mav to know that.
“I wish I remembered the day,” Bradley says quietly, raising his eyes to meet Mav’s and seeing sparks of relief and gratitude. “Can you tell me about it?”
Mav nods and moves so he’s sitting next to Bradley on the couch. Bradley holds out his phone, but Mav waves him off, letting him hold it.
“We actually took your bed. You slept in with your mom until we got you a cot, and it was a pretty full house. Every once in a while you’d have an uncle or three taking up the couches too and well, your mom never had to clean out her own gutters, that’s for sure.”
There are flashes of that in Bradley’s memories. None of his uncles were a permanent fixture until they had either scored a three year post or left the Navy, the first ones achieving the latter being Wolfe and Hollywood.
“I’m always going to regret my actions and I’d never ask for your forgiveness, but I want to be a part of your life again, if that’s something you think that you…” Mav starts strong, but towards the end of his statement, he falters. He takes a deep breath and Bradley lets him finish. “Ice and I would both love to have you back in our lives, in whatever capacity you want.”
“Yes,” Bradley says, so quickly that he thinks Mav gives himself whiplash when he turns to look at him. “I’ve missed you both and I’m tired of being pissed off. Of punishing the two of you and myself by staying away. Aunt Sarah told me that he’s been in remission and I just”—
“You’ve been talking to your aunt?” Mav interrupts him in surprise, but Bradley quickly has a matching expression.
“Ice didn’t tell you?”
“He didn’t,” Mav says grimly. “We really did have our worst fight after you left. I hadn’t told him and he was furious, but”—
“I had already blocked both of your numbers,” Bradley says aloud. He knows that part and he doesn’t particularly want the reminder.
“Well, that’s when I bought the hanger and the Airstream.”
Ice had made it sound like the hanger was happenstance, closer to the job, but he mentioned he hadn’t liked it either. Bradley thinks maybe that’s how they both try to reason it now.
“You ever think that that’s why he hates it and doesn’t want to sleep there?” Bradley offers, already imagining the workarounds Ice has taken to avoid the place.
“Fuck.” Mav blinks at Bradley and then groans. “All right, well, I’ll start house hunting for a hanger closer to home.”
“Is there a Zillow for airplane hangers,” Bradley wonders aloud. “What do you even keep in there besides the trailer?”
“Oh, Bradley,” Mav says wickedly. He picks up his own phone and scrolls through a few photographs before turning it towards Bradley.
Pictured in what must be Mav’s hanger is a gorgeous P-51.
"Holy shit."
"I got it for him for our twentieth anniversary,” Ice says from stair landing.
“And you call me a wildcard, Kazansky,” Mav says, so fond and sweet that Bradley’s teeth hurt.
“Pretty great gift.”
“I thought so,” Ice says mildly. “He’ll talk your ear off about it if you let him.”
Bradley is thinking that he might let Mav do just that.
“I’m not sure how long this is going to take, or the can of worms we’re going to open by acknowledging this ahead of time. We might need to request that the squad you’re with now keep you a little longer. With your permission, of course,” Ice adds.
To his surprise, Bradley laughs, shaking his head. “I’m game to stick around as long as you want me to.”
It seems like a weak excuse to say that he wants to stay with them just because he’s in a single one of the photographs. Bradley knows that it’s not about him, but it is about his dads and he wants to be there for him in whatever way he can, even just by showing up and staying.
“Don’t tell him that, kid. He’ll change your whole deployment schedule,” Mav says knowingly and winks at Ice.
“Would you also…” Bradley stops and thinks for a moment. “We’ve talked a lot, but would you be willing to talk to a professional with me?”
“Family therapy?” Ice asks and Bradley nods. “Of course," he agrees immediately, like it is the easiest ask in the world.
“It’s been a long time. I want to do this right. I don’t want to…”
“You won’t,” Mav tells him. “I won’t”—
“It’s not just you, Mav. As much as I thought otherwise when I was eighteen, you’re not the cause of all my problems,” Bradley says wryly and Ice has to try very hard to bite off a cough of laughter as Mav just blinks at their kid.
“I’m in too, then.”
“It can’t be that easy," Bradley mutters.
“I won’t be,” Ice promises. “But coming together is a hell of a first step.”
r/FoundPhotos
This post has been locked by the community moderators. New comments can no longer be added.
“Yeah, that’s the two of you,” Cougar confirms, peering over the table, glasses perched on the end of his nose.
Ice only manages to resist rolling his eyes due to many years of being in the Navy, including a large chunk of it having involved Mav. He feels like he should be more anxious and maybe if it was ten years ago, or even five, he would be. Now, he’s got his son in the room with him and he’s survived a cancer diagnosis. The Navy can try to throw whatever they want at him. Ice isn’t worried.
“We already knew that, asshole,” Mav says, forgoing all sense of decorum.
“You’re welcome, Mav.” Cougar taps the printed images of the Polaroids. “You still have this bike?”
“Please, for the record,” Captain Harper insists, gaining the attention of the room. Normally Ice loves watching people try to not lose their patience around himself and Mav while still being respectful. Now, it feels like he is hearing circus music accompanying the whole meeting.
Captain Harper has the distinct displeasure of being in a room while being outnumbered by an elite group of men who have taken their Naval connections to a whole other level. Even though Cougar never attended Top Gun in 1986, he’s a member of the flyboys just like the rest of them. Especially given how many times he’s used his law degree to assist them. Still, Captain Harper isn’t quite sure how a single Top Gun class managed to produce three admirals and one Maverick. It doesn’t seem quite fair.
“Images are circulating around the internet of myself, Captain Mitchell, and Lieutenant Bradshaw from 1987. Three polaroids, to be precise,” Ice needlessly explains, gesturing to the images on the conference room table in front of them.
Captain Harper takes the introduction and runs with it.
“One of them includes Admiral Kazansky and Captain Mitchell in an intimate position, which is the reason we are here today. As we all know, at the time of the photograph, there was a ban on LGBTQ service members. If anyone had found out about them or the images, they would have been subject to a court-martial or worse.”
Ice doesn’t particularly like the addition, but it’s not incorrect so he doesn’t argue the point.
“And Lieutenant Bradshaw is…the child,” Captain Harper says aloud, as if he’s trying to convince himself of the fact. He looks across the room to where Bradley is standing, doing his best to blend into the wall. It isn’t working, since the man is no longer the small toddler from the Polaroid, but it’s a valiant effort.
“Yes, sir. Captain Mitchell is his godfather."
Ice knows that is definitely not in Bradley’s file. There is no mention of a connection to Maverick, and even if he had gone through the Academy, there still wouldn’t have been. Not by Bradley’s choice at the time, but Mav’s, who did not want his kid running into the same discrimination he had as a young recruit.
Mav might be one of the best test pilots in the Navy, but he has a whole host of other reputations that cover that run the gamut.
“Well, you never come to me with anything boring, Ice,” Cougar tells him. “I’ll give you that.”
“I do my best.”
“There are books written about queer men in the Navy. A whole history of it. You two are a part of that. So the real question is what do you want to do.”
Captain Harper seems offended by the fact that Cougar is even asking, and Ice has a feeling that they are all going to be called into different meeting all too soon, especially once Cain hears of the situation.
“Well, Mav is my husband and Bradley is our kid. We’re a family and frankly, I don’t care what anyone thinks.” Ice makes sure to maintain eye contact with Captain Harper the entire time, just to really get his point across.
“Thattaboy,” Cougar hoots.
“Captain Cortell, please. Why are you even here?” Captain Harper asks, pinching the bridge of his nose and sounding like he wants to see if he’s already eligible for retirement.
“Moral support,” Cougar says like it’s obvious. Then, Ice’s words catch up with him. “Wait. You’re married?"
"Confidential marriage license. Just the two of us,” Ice explains. “After my cancer diagnosis, it seemed necessary."
Ice doesn’t even so much as look at Captain Harper for this part. He isn’t sorry for what and Mav had to do to keep themselves and their friends safe. He’s sure that the group chat will hear about it soon enough and frankly, now that Bradley is with them, is home, they can throw whatever kind of party Mav wants.
"And I wanted to lock all that down," Mav adds, unhelpfully, gesturing to Ice. “Can you blame me?”
Bradley whispers a Jesus Christ under his breath, but Ice sees that his secretary still notes it in her transcription of the meeting. Good. That was going to be a treat to read back later. Maybe even at the party, backed by that aforementioned circus music.
“I don’t intend on retiring anytime soon, nor will I be denying questions about my identity in the photograph if asked.” Ice nods to Maverick and Bradley as he continues talking, gathering the photographs on the table and tucking them away into his briefcase. The future investigation board that will no doubt be assigned to this case can print their own copies. “If the Navy wants to discharge us or try to push us out after nearly forty years of decorated service, I’d be happy to have them discuss it with Cougar or our lawyers as I take my husband on a well-deserved vacation.”
Captain Harper straightens up as he begins to understand exactly the purpose of the meeting. The last half hour has just been a courtesy, nothing more, nothing less.
“Duly noted, Admiral."
Ice walks out of the room, quickly followed by his family and Cougar.
"Great speech. You practice that?" Cougar asks.
"That obvious?"
"Nah, it was great."
"Think they'll investigate?"
"God, who knows." Cougar shoots a worrying glance back at the room. “If it gets up to Cain, like you think, then maybe yes. But it would be hard to prove anything really. The Navy has other things to worry about, or at least they should.”
Ice takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. Bradley takes the suitcase out of his other hand so he has one less thing to worry about.
"I'm not even sure what they'd find at this point,” Mav tells Cougar. “It’s been two long careers.”
"Me neither. That's what makes me worried,” Ice interjects. “It won’t just be us either. It will be the whole group of us. Everyone knows that we’re…”
“A clique,” Mav supplies helpfully and Bradley is unprepared for the glare Ice sends towards his husband.
“You know I hate that word. It makes us sound like high schoolers.”
“Still accurate.”
“Also, married?” Cougar raises his voice, not bothering to stay quiet. They’re nearly out of the building now anyway and Ice isn’t looking forward to experiencing the volume he knows Cougar can reach.
“You can be the one to break the news. It was just the two of us and the witnesses were the couple waiting after us,” Mav tells him. “We only got the one picture.”
“So we’re throwing a wedding and a homecoming?” Cougar asks, addressing the Bradley of it all in the room, who just gives him a smile that had a past life as a wince.
“Let’s make it through this first,” Ice says, laying down the law.
Cougar
[Image of Cougar with his arm thrown around Bradley’s shoulder]
Wolfe
Not fair!
Cougar
You’ll see him at the party
Sunny
What party?
Cougar
The wedding reception
Hollywood
WHAT
Cougar
Turns out that these assholes have been married for three years
Wolfe
What??
Sunny
EXCUSE ME?
Chipper
The hell, guys
Slider
I fucking knew it
It feels surreal going back to his squad after the weekend he’s just had with his dads, the word rolling around in Bradley’s mind. He didn’t exactly move into their house again, but he did have dinner with them twice.
And lunch.
And okay, maybe he stayed in his old room one night.
Mav had insisted! Which meant Bradley got to experience Ice’s blueberry blintzes again, practically a religious experience.
Fritz seems relieved to see him when Bradley sidles up alongside him in their ready room. He gives him a nod and hopes that it conveys his promise to explain himself later.
“Rooster! You missed it!” Gridlock crows at him.
“Missed what?” Bradley asks warily, sliding down into the seat next Sesame.
“The Reddit post.”
"Yeah, I saw. You showed me.”
“No, no.” Gridlock waves off Bradley. “I heard it's Kazansky."
Thankfully Bradley doesn’t need to weigh in because the rest of the squad is already taking care of it. He just tries to keep up as they run through an account of what Bradley has been living.
“The COMPACFLT?”
"No kidding? Who is he kissing like that?"
"Maverick."
"No shit! Pete Mitchell?"
"I heard that they're married too."
"That's...amazing. Jesus, the COMPACFLT,” Sesame sounds wistful at that and Bradley tries to keep his expression blank as he watches him.
"Feels good, right?" Gridlock nudges Sesame, who lets a huge grin come over his face.
“Yeah. It does. God. I never thought." Sesame shakes his head and the rest of the crew starts agreeing with him.
Fritz raises his eyebrows at Bradley, who is still trying not to give himself away as they keep talking.
"I know.”
A WSO called Titanic leans in and comically, the rest of the squad follows, as if they’re all not already shouting in the ready room with its thin walls and unlocked door.
"Stacy over in admin says she's gotten a few requests for info, internal and external, looking into their records. Cain wants to make sure everything was above board.”
“What an asshole,” Gator hisses.
"Shit."
"So much of it is classified, you know?” Titanic says with a wink.
"Even the internal requests?"
"We protect our own, you know that,” Titanic insists with a sly grin.
"Working in our favor for once,” Gridlock adds.
"Exactly."
"Remind me to buy Stacy the biggest iced coffee next time we need to go to admin."
Bradley's heart swells as he listens to the group keep talking. This is exactly what Ice hoped would happen. He and Mav are far from the only queers in the Navy. To hear that other people know, that other queers know, and are protecting them is the best possible outcome.
"It's kind of amazing, but"—
"Yeah, I don't think they're out. Or they weren't."
Bradley listens and thinks that he can do this for his squad, for his uncles.
"Oh, Ice already threatened to fight any repercussions,” Bradley says casually, as if it is a normal thing for a lieutenant to be on first name terms with the COMPACFLT. “I think he’s been looking for an excuse to convince Mav to retire, but not like this.”
Almost as if in slow motion, the squad turns to look at him. Even Fritz has his eyes wide, not expecting this from Bradley.
"What?" Gridlock finally asks, speaking for the whole group.
"You don't recognize me, Grid?” Rooster asks. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and brings up his camera roll, where the saved images are favorited. He taps on the one where he’s in Maverick’s arms and holds it out to the squad.
"Holy shit."
"You used to be so cute, Rooster. What happened?" Titanic asks, breaking the ice. Bradley laughs at that one, feeling some remaining tension leave him as the rest of the group claps his shoulder and leans in to look at the photograph again.
"Should you be telling us this?" Fritz asks and Bradley thinks he might be the best squad leader he’s ever had. He misses his old crew, but he hopes he’ll get to work with these aviators again.
"I talked to Ice about it. Plus, you all already know. They aren't planning to lie about. They've been together since 1986 and got married a few years back.”
“Ice, he says, casually,” Fritz mutters. “Christ, Rooster.”
“1986?” Gridlock asks.
“They really are married?” Titanic follows up. "That's amazing." She says, wistful and in awe.
"What about everyone above him?" Fritz asks, worried. “Maybe he can handle Cain, but how about SECNAV?”
"Ice really does not care,” Bradley assures him, which isn’t an answer, but he has the kind of trust in Ice that he had when he was a kid. Unwavering and nearing unreasonable.
"Fuck, that's cool."
"I think he's been saving it up for a couple decades,” Bradley shares. “Just waiting for his moment.”
"And Maverick?”
Like a lot of other aviators who Bradley has worked with, Sesame says his name like he’s some kind of unnatural being. Bradley minds it less now than he had previously.
“He loves watching Ice stand his ground, so, they’re ready for a fight,” he promises. Especially because Ice knows that the fight isn’t just about him and Mav. It’s for Navy personnel like Titanic and Stacy and Gridlock and every other queer person who has ever enlisted.
Phoenix
I knew you were a nepo baby.
Rooster
That’s what you have to say? After all this?
Phoenix
No
Phoenix
Will you stop being such a sad sack now?
Rooster
Working on it.
Phoenix
<3 good
Phoenix
But I’m definitely telling Hangman
Solomon places a whiskey in front of Beau and settles down in the chair next to him, ready to enjoy their evening after an exceptionally long week.
"How's that hero worship?" Solomon asks slyly, seeing that Beau still has the article open on his phone. There’s three photographs accompanying the headline NAVY’S FINEST. A copy of the original Polaroid of Iceman kissing Maverick, their famous Layton photograph, and another that must have been supplied by the COMPACFLT. It is the couple in suits, wedding rings clear as day, and beaming at the camera.
"Maverick?" Beau says, and not for the first time since this whole fiasco started."Did you know?"
Solomon shrugs and that's all the answer Beau needs. He downs his whiskey in one go.
Clark is doing a pretty good job at sticking to the promise he made to himself about never going on the internet ever again, but he couldn’t avoid the email from a United States Navy address. Still, when he opens his front door, he just stares at the man in front of him.
He almost looks the same.
“Oh my god, it’s you,” Clark manages to get out.
“It is. Pete Mitchell. Maverick,” he adds at the end. “Nice to meet you.”
Clark is barely involved in the handshaking, but Mav kindly doesn’t mention it.
“I really thought this was going to be some kind of practical joke,” Clark keeps going like Mav hasn’t said anything. Mav plucks the envelope full of Polaroids out of his hand without a second thought.
“It is not,” Mav confirms, checking inside the envelope and smiling at what he sees. “My husband would have come with me, but he is a little too busy managing the Pacific Fleet. My son is the one who emailed you though. Thanks for responding.”
“Jesus.”
“I appreciate this. My kid doesn’t have a ton of his mom’s handwriting. You take photos a lot of photos and you sometimes forget the other little things,” Mav keeps talking, ignoring Clark gaping at him. "And sometimes you forget the photos too.”
“Your kid.” Clark’s brain manages to come online long enough to ask the question.
“Bradley.” Mav taps on little blond Bradley’s face. “He is the one who showed us the Reddit post in the first place.”
Right. The Reddit post. Clark swallows and comes back to himself, realizing this is the only chance he’s going to get to apology.
"I hope I didn't cause too much trouble. I really did think that photographs were older"--
"Or that we're both dead,” Mav says brightly. “Ice thought that might have been the case.”
"For what it's worth, I'm glad you're not. And I’m sorry,” Clark tells him, as sincere as he can manage.
"Me too, kid. Thanks for the Polaroids."
Mav walks away without looking back at Clark, which is when he realizes that the guy is still riding the same motorcycle from the pictures. What a trip.
“Wolfe thinks we should recreate the photographs and put them online as a kind of thanks,” Ice tells them.
The three of them are at the kitchen table, with the Polaroids spread out in front of them, looking so much smaller than they feel. Bradley reaches out and rubs his thumb over Carole's little heart before looking up and smiling at Mav.
"I don't think Mav can pick me up anymore."
Mav squints at Bradley, eyeing him up and down, like surely that can't be true and how dare Bradley even think it, let alone say it out loud.
In the end, they recreate all three photographs and Ice hangs up all six in the living room.
Bradley is the one who uses his reddit account to post it as an update in r/FoundPhotos
Things aren’t perfect now, but he’s reconciling what feels like his teenager self, his current self, and the person he wants to be going forward. Thankfully, he’ll have time to do so since Ice already told him he’ll be sticking around a little longer for a special detachment. He’s not sure what it’s about just yet, but Mav doesn’t seem to pleased about it. Bradley is sure that he’ll find out eventually.
u/roostinggg
me and my dads, original photos taken by my mom
[Six Polaroids, all framed, the three original to the first Reddit post above, with three new ones of the subjects recreating the images below them.
The first new Polaroid looks almost identical to the original. Same motorcycle and aviator glasses. The jacket on the man has a few extra patches, but he still really does look effortlessly cool.
The second picture matches the original in pose, but the subjects’ faces are both clearly visible to the camera this time. Both men are smiling and the grey hair of the man in his Navy whites is shining in the sun, chest full of far more metals than he had thirty years prior. Wedding rings are clear on their hands
The third new image features all three of them laughing, with the brunette trying his best to keep hold of the kid in his arms, who is now clearly a grown man with curly brown hair and a mustache. The man now identified as the current COMPACFLT is looking at the two of them fondly]
almostfrench
Oh god, I am going to die from how cute this is
ultrapoultry
my cavities!
RarelyRound
The definition of thriving. Glad to see you’re all doing well
up_a_wall
their kid! i love that they found him a new striped shirt to match the old one even if he didn't commit to the bit with overalls.
sillyquaygel
the COMPACFLT??!
wildtedbaboon
have you been living under a rock?salvagefiend435
you should definitely read their wikipedia pagessillyquaygel
REPORTEDLY FASTEST MAN ALIVE?? I am filing a FOIA request rn
private_alligator
Two dads and one mom. Greedy much?
barnprowler
wow, that one guy really took care of his bike. it looks great
chrissyp988
congrats to the ultimate DILFS