This isn't everything I have ever written on here but it is all the new stuff! Requests are always open and are encouraged!
In The Works! (WIPs)
JAKE 'HANGMAN' SERESIN
Him Him Part 2 Him Part 3
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader / Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: “You’re with him and not me! You’re in love with him and not me!”
I love you and I hate this
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: In which Hangman gets called back to Top Gun, but Y/N can't handle him leaving again
Nightmare
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: In which you were in an accident during a mission, have a nightmare that night, but Hangman is there to help and finally confesses his feelings
Lost in Thought
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: In which, you and Jake have known each other for a long time, comfortably saying ‘I Love You’ Platonically for years, until one night where you finally get to the point where you mean it more than friends.
Paris Rain
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: Based off of the song IDK by Haley Joelle
In which they leave you with a letter and no answers
The Risk and The Reward
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: "You could've died you know"
In which you pulled a dangerous stunt and Hangman confronts you about it
Always wanted it to be him
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: You always wanted it to be him, The only problem: he lied.
Like I Was Yours
Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x reader / Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x reader
Summary: You and Jake were explosive. Fuel to each other's fire, but you were each others’. Until you weren’t. Bradley was the rain, cool and collected. He was a constant that you always failed to notice until you did.
In Time
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: They called you Bear—fierce, loyal, impossible to ignore.
Flying was freedom. Family. Fire.
But the sky takes as much as it gives.
And Jake Seresin learns that some ghosts don’t let go.
Independent With You (Coming Soon)
Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader
Summary: You’ve built your life on independence, swearing never to lose yourself in someone else’s shadow. Then Jake “Hangman” Seresin shows up—bold, controlling, magnetic. You clash, but he’s the first who doesn’t want to ground you, only fly beside you. The question is whether you can let him in without losing yourself.
BRADLEY 'ROOSTER' BRADSHAW
Always Been Her
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: In which, Bradley hurts you more than ever, along with your best friend, Phoenix
All The Things We Never Said
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: Bradley was your superior, so why did he almost cross the line? How will that affect everything you worked so hard to build?
Flying Above You
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: Promoted to XO under Maverick, you rise higher while Bradley Bradshaw lets pride and bitterness tear your almost-relationship apart. He tried to make you feel small—now he’ll spend his career chasing your shadow.
Same Room (Coming Soon)
Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader
Summary: The same rooms hold you and Bradley together, bound not by words, but by the ache of what remains unsaid.
ROBERT 'BOB' FLOYD
Single Man
Robert 'Bob' Floyd x Reader
Summary: You are insecure but Bob is there to reassure you
Inspired by ‘Single Man’ by High Valley
DAGGER SQUAD
A Place To Land
Dagger Squad x Reader (Platonic Fluff)
Summary: You had been searching so long for a home, turns out it was a group of chaotic naval aviators you were looking for.
CLARK KENT/SUPERMAN
Too Human (Coming Soon)
Clark Kent x Reader
Summary: After a brutal fight, Clark is badly hurt and hides it. You find him bleeding in his apartment, terrified at how fragile he really looks despite being “Superman.”
Summary: You almost die when you fall from a rooftop but Superman saves you. Well, Clark saves you.
Trigger Warnings: near-death experience, emotional breakdown, panic, fear of loss, mild trauma response, angst with comfort. UNEDITED
and maybe unorganized?? idk I don't like how this turned out so we'll see how long it stays up tbh
A/N: First superman fic??? Sorry it's been a little bit without posting but I've been super busy and it only gets worse from here. I'm starting out very light with terrorizing the superman community with my angsty fits but don't worry, they're coming. As always, requests are open!!
{NOT MY GIF}
It was gloomy and rainy but the mist in the air was something that welcomed you. The weather outside matched how you felt inside so you found yourself on the roof of your apartment building.
Your hair plastered to your face, wind tugging at your clothes. The city glowed beneath you, a blur of headlights, neon, and motion. Somewhere below, car horns echoed like distant thunder.
The day had been chaos. Breaking news, deadlines, the kind of pressure that made your head pound. Perry had been on your back about the investigative piece on LexCorp’s new satellite program, and Clark. The sweet, infuriating Clark, had disappeared mid-interview again leaving you to cover for him.
You’d laughed it off, like always. Clark’s mysterious “disappearances” were the stuff of newsroom legend. But lately, you’d started to notice the pattern. He’d vanish whenever something catastrophic hit the news cycle. Fires, explosions, rescue missions. He’d come back rumpled, breathless, with that nervous little smile that said don’t ask.
You always wanted to. Always wanted to know what was going on, but you never did. You didn’t have the heart to.
Because deep down subconsciously, you already knew.
You closed your eyes, tilting your face toward the wind, letting the city roar beneath your feet. For one suspended second, you felt infinite. Untouchable. Free.
You weren’t up there to die. You were up there to breathe.
But just then, you heard metal clanking and next thing you knew, there wasn’t anything under your feet. Before you knew what was happening, you were free falling through the air and the roof of your apartment building seemed like a distant memory.
Falling doesn’t feel like dying. Not at first.
It feels like forgetting.
Like your body no longer belongs to you, like gravity has decided you’re hers now, and she’s greedy about it. The air claws at you as you tumble, every second stretching long enough to think, to regret, to remember. The world rushes past in shards of light and glass, each one flashing an image of what you’re about to lose.
Your breath rips from your lungs, soundless in the roar of wind. Your stomach lurches up into your chest. The city below isn’t a place anymore, it’s just color and motion and certainty. You know, in some small, detached way, that this is how it ends. That you are seconds away from nothing.
But then, there’s a moment right before panic becomes peace, where everything slows.
The world narrows to the space around you: the slipstream of air, the heartbeat pounding in your ears, the sharp scent of rain. You can almost see the edges of time itself. You realize how small you are, how fast you’re moving, how beautiful the sky looks when it’s the last thing you’ll ever see.
And in that heartbeat before impact, that impossible, fragile pause, you don’t think about death.
You think about him.
About Clark’s laugh in the newsroom, soft and startled. About the way his hands always tremble when he hands you your coffee. About how he looks at you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.
And maybe that’s what makes the fall so terrifying.
Not the end, but the thought that you’ll never get to tell him.
You fall with your eyes shut tight. You’re not sure if you’re even screaming, or accepting defeat in silence. The wind is screaming, that’s all you know.
The roar of it swallows the city, drowns every thought until there’s only noise and motion and a single, bright streak of terror. You don’t even have the strength to open your eyes anymore; the world is spinning too fast, and you don’t want to see what’s waiting for you below.
Then everything changes.
A jolt runs through you, a force that stops the fall but doesn’t hurt. Your stomach lurches, your heart slams against your ribs, and then there are arms around you. Warm, solid, shaking. You can feel a heartbeat under your palms, frantic and uneven.
For a long moment you stay like that, suspended somewhere that isn’t sky or earth, air still rushing past your face. You can’t bring yourself to open your eyes. You’re afraid the illusion will break; that you’ll find nothing there and start falling again.
“Hey…” a voice says, rough with panic. Close. So very close. “Hey, you’re okay. I’ve got you.”
You don’t move. Your body’s still locked in that last second before impact.
He lands and you can feel it in the way the air changes, in the faint tremor through the ground beneath your shoes. Stone, not sky. Rain hitting pavement instead of your skin. You’re standing now, but still held up by those arms, still unable to see anything except the inside of your eyelids.
And then the voice again, quieter this time, shaking apart at the edges.
“C’mon, baby… open your eyes.”
Something in the way he says it breaks through the fog. You know that voice. You’d know it anywhere.
You open your eyes.
The city lights are blurred by rain and tears, but he’s the first thing you see. A face you’ve looked at a thousand times across a desk, across a morning coffee. Clark. Hair wild from the wind, glasses askew, chest rising too fast. His expression wrecked and terrified and alive. He looks at you like he’s still not convinced you’re real.
Relief floods through his features the second your gaze meets his. His mouth opens like he’s about to say something more, but the words won’t come. He just exhales, a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob and lets his forehead fall against yours for a heartbeat.
Then he pulls back, eyes still wide. “I just-I need to go.”
Before you can speak, before you can ask why or how or even what just happened, he’s gone. A rush of air, a blur at the edge of sight, and the space where he stood is empty.
You stand there on the rooftop, shaking, rain dripping from your eyelashes, heart still trying to catch up. The ground beneath you feels steady again, but everything else, the sky, the city, your own pulse, is still falling.
You don’t remember getting home.
Not the elevator ride, not the keys in your hand, not even unlocking the door. Only that somehow, your legs carried you here, to the stillness of your apartment which was too small and far too quiet, every sound swallowed by the walls.
You sit on the edge of your couch, palms pressed flat to the cushion to keep yourself from shaking. Your heartbeat thunders in your ears, the echo of the wind still alive in your bones.
You try to piece it together like fragments of a nightmare.
The fall.
The rain.
The wind tearing at you.
The sudden warmth, the jolt of being caught midair.
Clark’s arms around you.
Clark.
You whisper his name into the emptiness, like it’s a spell that might summon him back, but it doesn’t.
Hours slide past, blurred and heavy. The adrenaline burns itself out, leaving behind something colder, an exhaustion that feels like grief and shock braided together. You want to cry, to sleep, to scream, to do anything to dislodge the image of his face from your mind.
But you can’t.
You can still feel his hands on you, trembling where they pressed against your back. Still feel the solid weight of his chest under your palms. Still feel the way he had said it- “C’mon, baby, open your eyes” like a plea, not a command.
Your breath catches. Baby. Clark Kent, the man who always called you by your name, by “hey” or “you,” or once “partner” when he was teasing you in the newsroom. Never “baby.” Until tonight.
And his voice when he said it, it wasn’t Superman’s booming certainty, or even Clark’s shy warmth. It was raw, unguarded. Desperate. Like he was begging for something he couldn’t bear to lose.
You press your hands to your face, but it’s no use. The memories keep coming.
How he hovered for a second before landing, holding you as though you were the only thing tethering him to the ground. How his forehead touched yours. A fleeting press, damp with rain, a gesture so intimate it made your chest ache. How his eyes had looked in that moment, wild and glassy, not with fear of being found out, but with something deeper.
It hadn’t been fear that you’d seen him. It had been fear of losing you.
And now, sitting in the dim hush of your apartment, the pieces start rearranging themselves. All those unexplained disappearances, the rumpled shirt and loosened tie when he came back late, the way he’d sometimes stare at you like he was memorizing your face. The way his hands shook sometimes when you brushed too close to danger.
It all makes sense now.
Clark. Superman. Both, always both.
But somehow that’s not what’s making your heart twist. It isn’t the revelation, the “he’s Superman” headline screaming in your head. It’s the look on his face when you opened your eyes. That wild, shattered relief. That broken sound in his throat.
He hadn’t been scared of being exposed. He’d been scared of losing you.
You curl your knees up to your chest, eyes staring at the dark TV screen like it might hold answers. But all you can see is him, rain dripping from his hair, his hands trembling as he held you, the word baby caught in his throat like a prayer.
The apartment feels too small for it, for the enormity of what just happened, for the weight of what you now know. You hug yourself, trying to steady the tremor in your hands.
He’s gone now. He said, “I just need to go” and then he vanished like he’d never been there at all. But you can still feel him. His warmth lingers in your skin, his voice echoes in your ears.
And under all the confusion, under all the fear, there’s something you’re almost afraid to name.
You whisper his name again, just “Clark,” soft and shaking, and it feels like both a question and an answer.
Still, the room stays silent.
And you’re left alone with the echo of a fall that never ended.
You don’t remember falling asleep.
At some point the exhaustion must’ve taken you under, still sitting upright on the couch, a blanket half-draped over your lap, the faint hum of the city leaking through your windows. When the knock comes, it’s soft, almost uncertain, like the person on the other side is afraid of being turned away.
For a moment, you think you dreamt it.
Then it comes again. Three quiet knocks. Hesitant. Familiar.
You drag yourself to your feet, every muscle stiff, your head still fogged with the memory of wind and weightlessness. You pull the door open, heart stuttering and there he is.
Clark.
Not Superman. Not the Daily Planet news reporter. Just Clark Kent.
His clothes are damp from the drizzle outside, hair flattened in odd directions like he’s run his hands through it too many times. There’s a faint scrape on his cheek, a tear in his sleeve. He looks… human. More human than you’ve ever seen him.
But it’s his eyes that stop you cold.
They’re wild and red-rimmed, glassy and terrified.
“Clark,” you breathe, the word trembling out of you like it hurts to say.
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at you like he’s making sure you’re real. His chest rises and falls unevenly, every breath shaking through him. Then, suddenly, his hands are on you, gentle, reverent. One on your cheek, one clutching your shoulder like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers, voice cracked open. “God, I thought-”
You freeze. His thumb brushes your jaw, and he laughs, quiet and broken. “You don’t understand, I- I heard you scream. I heard you, and by the time I got there…” His voice catches, and he has to stop, dragging a hand through his hair like he’s trying to shake the memory loose.
“Clark,” you try again, but he just shakes his head.
“I saw you fall,” he says hoarsely, eyes darting like he’s still watching it happen. “I was too far. I wasn’t fast enough. I almost-” He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. “If I’d been one second slower-”
You reach for his hand, gently prying it from your shoulder, just to hold it instead. His fingers are cold, trembling against yours.
“But you weren’t,” you say softly. “You caught me.”
He exhales, a sound that’s almost a sob. “Yeah. Barely.” He looks down, his eyes wet. “You weren’t moving at first. You didn’t open your eyes, and I-”
“I heard you,” you whisper. “When you called me baby.’”
That makes him freeze. His gaze flicks up to yours, startled.
For a long moment, neither of you speak. The only sound is the quiet patter of rain outside.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he murmurs. “I wasn’t thinking. I just-”
“You were scared.”
He nods once, sharply. Then again, slower. “Yeah.” His voice breaks around the word. “I was terrified.”
You take a step closer, until you can see every tear track on his face. “Not because I knew,” you say. It isn’t a question.
His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t deny it. “No,” he admits quietly. “I don’t care that you know. I just… I couldn’t-” His voice falters again, his throat working. “You don’t know what it’s like to hold the whole world in your hands every day and still feel like the one thing you can’t lose is slipping away from you.”
“Clark…”
He takes a breath, eyes flicking away. “I never wanted you to find out this way,” he says quietly.
You let out a strangled laugh that dissolves into a sob. “You’re Superman.”
He winces at how it sounds from your mouth, like a betrayal. “I’m still me,” he says gently. “Still Clark.”
“You let me worry about you. Every time you disappeared. Every time you ran off, I thought-” You stop yourself, shaking your head, your voice breaking. “And all this time, you were saving the world.”
“I was trying to keep you safe,” he murmurs.
The irony stings. You take a shaky breath. “You kept me safe by keeping me in the dark?”
His shoulders slump. He looks so small suddenly, not the invincible figure that caught you from the sky, but a man who’s been quietly tearing himself apart under the weight of his own lies.
“I thought I was protecting you,” he says. “If people knew how much you meant to me…” He trails off, then shakes his head. “I didn’t want anyone to use that against me. Against you.”
You close your eyes. You understand it but it doesn’t make it hurt less.
“I would’ve understood,” you whisper.
“I know,” he says softly. “But I wasn’t ready to risk it. Not you.”
For a long time, you both stand there in the doorway, two people who’ve always been so careful, so measured, and now every truth sits raw between you.
He looks at you like he’s memorizing you again, like he still can’t believe you’re standing here.
You reach up and touch his face, fingertips brushing the edge of his glasses. He leans into it, eyes fluttering shut like he’s been waiting for that touch all night.
“You didn’t lose me,” you say, voice barely audible. “I’m right here.”
He breathes out, a trembling, shuddering sound. His forehead drops to yours again, the same as it did on the rooftop.Though this time slower, steadier, the weight of it heavier somehow.
You stay like that for a long time, just breathing. His hands still shake where they rest on your arms, but they’re warm again.
When he finally speaks, it’s so quiet you almost don’t hear it.
“I don’t know what I’d do if I was too late,” he says.
You don’t answer, because there isn’t anything to say. You just stand there, letting him hold on, feeling the heartbeat under his ribs start to even out.
Outside, the rain keeps falling, soft and endless.
Inside, the world feels like it’s stopped spinning, just for a moment.
He stays longer than he should.
After the tears, after the trembling stops, after you’re both too exhausted to say another word, he still doesn’t move. He helps you to your room, his hand hovering near your back like he’s afraid to let go. You don’t fight it; you’re too tired, too raw.
When you lie down, he lingers in the doorway, a shadow caught between leaving and needing to stay. You can feel his gaze even with your eyes half-closed, the weight of it, heavy and unyielding.
“Try to sleep,” he says softly.
You nod, barely. “You’ll stay?”
He hesitates. Then, quietly, “Yeah. I’ll stay.”
And he does.
You drift in and out of sleep to the rhythm of his breathing somewhere near the edge of the bed. At one point, you feel his fingers brush your hair back from your face, the lightest touch, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he presses too hard.
He studies you the way someone studies proof like he still can’t quite believe you’re real, that he really caught you, that he didn’t dream it.
He memorizes everything, the curve of your lashes, the slow rise of your chest, the faint scar on your temple, the way your lips part when you breathe. He commits it all to memory because for a few terrifying seconds, he thought he’d never see any of it again.
When you finally fall into a deep, steady sleep, he lets out a breath he’s been holding since the rooftop. He leans forward and presses his forehead to your hand, eyes closing as if in prayer.
“Still you,” he whispers. “Still here.”
And then he leaves, quiet as he came, the air in your room still rippling faintly in his wake.
You wake up to sunlight.
For a disorienting moment, everything feels normal, the city hum outside, the smell of rain still lingering in the air, until you sit up and remember. The fall. The catch. The voice that begged you to open your eyes.
Clark.
The memories don’t hit all at once, they seep in slowly, piece by piece, until your chest aches with the weight of it. He was here. You remember his hands, his voice cracking, the look in his eyes when he said he almost lost you. You remember how human he looked when the world wasn’t watching.
And then you remember how he left quietly, carefully, like if he stayed, he might never find the strength to go.
You spend the rest of the day in a fog. Work emails pile up untouched. You make coffee and forget to drink it. Every sound feels too sharp. Every silence feels too loud.
When night falls again, you’re sitting on the fire escape, legs pulled up to your chest, staring at the lights below. You half expect him. Half dread it.
He comes anyway.
No thunderous landing, no streak of light across the sky. Just a quiet thump behind you. The kind that belongs to him, not Superman.
You don’t turn around right away. You don’t have to. You feel him there, the warmth, the stillness, the quiet gravity of him.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says softly. His voice is hoarse, hesitant.
You shake your head. “You didn’t.”
There’s a pause. Then, “You’re sure?” He can hear your heartbeat.
You turn to look at him. His glasses are gone. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, damp from the mist. His eyes find yours, still carrying that same hollow guilt that hadn’t left since last night.
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” you admit.
“I wasn’t sure I should,” he says. “But I couldn’t… not.”
You nod, glancing out at the city again. The lights blur in your vision. “I always knew you’d save me one day,” you say quietly. “But I didn’t think it’d be like that.”
He lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, broken, disbelieving. “Yeah. Me neither.”
You look down at your hands. “All this time, you were right there. Clark Kent, my friend, my…” you trail off, the word lost somewhere between your teeth. “And you were him. All along.”
“I never wanted it to be a lie,” he says. “I just- every time I thought about telling you, I saw a hundred ways it could put you in danger.”
You nod slowly. “You heard me,” you say after a moment. “When I fell.”
His jaw tightens. “I always hear you,” he says quietly. “I can pick out your voice in a crowd without even trying. It’s like my brain… it finds you.”
That confession hangs heavy in the air. It feels like too much and not enough all at once.
You swallow. “So you knew.”
He looks away, shame flickering across his features. “Not until I heard you scream. I wasn’t listening before then. I should’ve been.”
“Clark,” you whisper, the word breaking halfway out.
“I could’ve lost you,” he says. “You don’t understand. There was nothing else in the world, just the sound of you. And I ran, I ran like the world was ending because it felt like it was.”
You don’t say anything. You just reach for his hand, the way you did the night before. His fingers curl around yours instantly, like muscle memory.
“You didn’t lose me,” you say. “You got there.”
He exhales shakily, staring at your joined hands. “This time.”
You squeeze his hand tighter. “Then next time, you will again. But hopefully there won’t be a next time.”
He looks at you like he wants to believe it, like it’s the one truth holding him together.
For a long while, you sit there in silence, the city stretching beneath you. The world keeps spinning. Sirens, headlights, the hum of life, and the two of you sit above it, a quiet orbit of your own.
When he finally speaks, his voice is steady again. “You scared me,” he says softly. “More than anything ever has.”
You smile faintly, eyes on the horizon. “Guess we’re even, then.”
And he laughs, quiet and raw, the sound shaking something loose inside him. For the first time in two days, the tension in his shoulders eases.
“I need you to come with me somewhere.” You said quietly, breaking the comfortable silence between you.
Clark looked up from where he was staring out into the city, the lights flickering in his eyes. “Where?”
You hesitated, your pulse quickening. “My rooftop,” you said. “Where I fell off.”
His brows pulled together, worry etching deep lines into his forehead. “That’s not a good idea.”
“I know,” you said, shifting slightly, “but I need to go there. Please.”
Something in your tone must have softened him, because he nodded after studying you for a while, though his jaw stayed tight. “All right.”
The wind was stronger than you remembered when you reached the rooftop. The repaired railing glinted faintly under the city’s glow.
Clark stood beside you, he didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there, eyes sweeping over the edge to the spot where he’d caught you midair.
You took a slow breath, stepping closer. “You can’t spend your life being afraid of losing me,” you said gently.
He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound heavy. “That’s the problem,” he murmured. “I already am.”
The confession lingered between you. Heavy and raw and human.
You looked over the edge, down into the dizzying sprawl of the city below. “Are you sure you’re ready to be here again?” he asked, voice low.
“I need to see where it happened,” you said softly. “Where you caught me.”
He swallowed, gaze flicking back to that same spot. “I- I don’t know…” he whispered trailing off, guilt threading through the words.
You turned to him, your voice steady but kind. “I need to. Please Clark.”
That pulled his eyes back to you, and for a moment he just looked like he was trying to memorize you again, make sure you were real this time.
You reached for his hand. “Come on,” you said quietly.
He followed you without a word, lifting you gently as he took off, carrying you through the air to the rooftop where he had landed that night after catching you, the one where he begged you to open your eyes.
The world blurred by beneath you, but when you landed, your breath caught. The memory hit you like a physical object.
“C’mon, baby, open your eyes,” you heard his voice echo in your head, desperate and trembling. You could still feel the way his hands had shaken against your face, the way his chest had heaved with fear.
You looked over at him now. He stood a few feet away, looking wrecked all over again. His shoulders tense, eyes fixed somewhere distant.
“You called me ‘baby,’” you said softly, trying to tease, to break the heaviness hanging in the air.
That got his attention. His lips twitched, but only faintly. “I did,” he admitted.
“Didn’t think Superman used terms of endearment,” you teased gently. “Kind of breaks the mysterious hero image.”
He huffed out a weak laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing just a little. You stepped closer, brushing your fingers against his, and when he didn’t pull away, you slipped your hand fully into his.
“You can stop thinking for five minutes, you know,” you murmured. “The world’s not ending right this second.”
He smiled, a small, sad, beautiful thing. “You have no idea how hard that is for me.”
You squeezed his hand. “Then let me help.”
For a while, neither of you spoke. The city stretched below, the hum of traffic distant, the night air cool against your skin. You could feel his heartbeat through his palm, steady and grounding.
When he finally spoke again, it was quiet, almost uncertain. “You know… I’ve replayed it a thousand times. The fall. The sound of your voice. I didn’t even have to listen for it. I just knew. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
You turned to him, eyes soft. “You shouldn’t,” you said. “It’s proof that you found me.”
Something flickered in his eyes then, relief, affection, fear, all tangled together. He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from your face, and for a moment, it felt like the world went still.
Then, slowly, reverently, he leaned in.
The kiss wasn’t urgent or desperate. It was a quiet, soft, lingering touch that spoke of everything unspoken: gratitude, fear, love, relief. The feeling of falling, and being caught, all over again.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead stayed pressed against yours, both of you breathing hard, the night air cool between shared exhales. His hands were still cradling your face, thumbs brushing gently over your cheeks like he was making sure you were still there, still warm, still alive.
“You’re safe,” he whispered, voice breaking on the word. It wasn’t reassurance; it was a prayer. A promise. A confession of everything he’d been too afraid to say.
You closed your eyes for a second, letting the sound of it settle deep into your chest before answering. “I know,” you breathed. Your voice was barely a whisper. “Because you’ll catch me.”
That pulled a quiet, small smile from him. His brow pressed more firmly against yours, his nose brushing your cheek. He looked at you like you were something he’d almost lost and somehow found again, fragile, miraculous, his.
You lifted your hand, tracing the edge of his jaw, the soft tremor still lingering in his muscles. “Clark,” you said softly, his name grounding you both.
He didn’t look away this time. His eyes met yours, steady and full, blue and unguarded in a way that made your chest ache. “I’m never going to let you fall again,” he murmured, more to himself than to you.
“I know,” you whispered again, and he closed his eyes like that simple faith might undo him.
And for a long, quiet moment, you just stood there together. Two heartbeats syncing beneath the weight of the city and the stars, the echo of fear fading into something softer, something that finally felt like peace.
guysssss
guess who's still alive!! and who has a new fic for everyone 👀
Something new, not a Top Gun fic but a Clark Kent one! Here's the snippet to hold you off till I can finalize it all, hopefully by Monday!
(if its not out by Monday afternoon please someone remind me because I have the memory of a goldfish that is worked to the bone rn)
Your breath catches. Baby. Clark Kent, the man who always called you by your name, by “hey” or “you,” or once “partner” when he was teasing you in the newsroom. Never “baby.” Until tonight.
And his voice when he said it, it wasn’t Superman’s booming certainty, or even Clark’s shy warmth. It was raw, unguarded. Desperate. Like he was begging for something he couldn’t bear to lose.
How his eyes had looked in that moment, wild and glassy, not with fear of being found out, but with something deeper.
It hadn’t been fear that you’d seen him. It had been fear of losing you.
Summary: You had always been looking for a family subconsciously, turns out you found it. The Dagger Squad.
Trigger Warnings: Drinking, cursing (?) Unedited, pure fluff and platonic vibes
A/N: Hey guys! I've been super busy and will be for the foreseeable future but I've had this one in the drafts for a minute so I figured I'd put it out. It super short sorry for that but hopefully this week and over the weekend I'll have time to finish 'Flying above you' which is another fic in my WIPs. Anyways lmk how y'all like the fluff and platonic vibes! It's not my usual thing as y'all know, but I'm trying something new, hope it works out @littlebitb
{NOT MY GIF}
Your house was loud—chaotic in that way it always was when the squadron piled in without hesitation. Laughter spilled from the living room, echoing off the walls as though the very foundation of the house had learned how to breathe along with them. There were shoes kicked haphazardly by the door as they almost forgot your no shoes in the house rule, jackets thrown across chairs, half-eaten pizza boxes stacked on the counter. Someone was yelling about picking the wrong movie, and someone else was insisting the volume was too loud even though nobody reached for the remote. Probably Payback finding something to complain about.
You should’ve been irritated. You should’ve been worrying about stains on the carpet or the fact that your couch was seconds away from collapsing under the weight of four aviators piled onto it. But instead, you leaned against the doorway, watching the chaos unfold with a kind of quiet awe.
It hit you, suddenly and all at once, how full the space was, not just with people, but with life.
There had been a time when nights were empty like this. When silence pressed so heavy against your ribs that it was hard to breathe, and there was no one to call, no one to lean on. Loneliness had been your closest companion, and the thought of belonging somewhere had felt like a fantasy you weren’t meant to touch. You had spent more time alone than with anyone else, never feeling like you had a home.
But here they were now. A family you hadn’t been born into but had been given all the same. A family stitched together by chance and long days in the cockpit, by victories and bruises, by the unspoken promise that no one was ever truly alone anymore.
A laugh tore through the room, Rooster’s, loud and unrestrained, as he shoved Coyote for trying to balance a soda can on his head. Phoenix smacked Fanboy with a pillow, and Payback howled like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Jake yelled something about house rules that didn’t make sense, and no one listened to him. Everyone was just being unapologetically themselves and you loved every second of it. It felt good to be in a room where embarrassment wasn’t even a thought.
You smiled without meaning to, your chest tightening at the sight. For a moment, you let yourself step back and simply feel it: the warmth, the belonging, the rare and fragile gift of having a place to land.
“They love you, you know.”
The voice was soft, quiet enough that you almost thought you imagined it. You turned, startled, to see Bob beside you, half-hidden in the hallway’s shadow with a soda cradled in his hand. He hadn’t announced his presence, just slipped in like he always did, steady, grounded, seeing everything that others missed.
His words caught you off guard. You blinked, unsure what to say. Love? That felt too big, too unbelievable. You were the host, the one who made sure there was food and enough blankets, the one who held the chaos together, but love? That wasn’t something you thought you’d earned.
You must not have hidden the doubt well, because Bob tilted his head slightly, his expression impossibly gentle. “You’re home to them,” he said.
And just like that, your heart cracked open.
The tears burned before you could stop them, a lump rising sharp in your throat. You pressed your lips together, trying to steady yourself, but Bob’s words clung stubbornly to the quiet corners of your soul.
You thought of all the nights you used to spend in silence, the ache of wanting to belong somewhere, the hollow weight of loneliness. And then you thought of this night, of laughter spilling over like it couldn’t be contained, of pizza crusts and mismatched socks and the feeling that if the world ended tomorrow, you would have lived something worth remembering.
Your heart felt full in a way you couldn’t put into words.
You glanced back toward the living room, where the movie had finally started, though no one was really watching. Rooster had stolen all the pillows, Jake was heckling the opening credits, and Phoenix had her feet tucked under her like she’d already claimed her spot for the night.
And suddenly, you knew. Bob was right. They weren’t just friends. They weren’t just coworkers or teammates. They were home.
And they had made you theirs, too.
Without another thought, you pushed off the doorway and jogged straight into the chaos. “Make room for me!” you called, your voice cutting through the noise as you launched yourself onto the couch.
The entire pile of aviators groaned at once when you landed squarely on top of them.
“Jesus Christ—!” Rooster wheezed, trying to push you off as he flailed for air.
“You’re crushing my vital organs!” Fanboy shouted dramatically, though he made no move to actually escape.
“Get off me, or I swear I’ll—” Phoenix tried to sound intimidating, but she was laughing too hard to finish the threat.
Jake, of course, only smirked. “Finally realized where the party was, huh, darlin’? Don’t worry, I saved you a spot.”
“Saved me a spot? You’re sitting on half the couch!” you shot back, elbowing him until he nearly toppled into the beer bottles littering the coffee table.
“Worth it,” he said with a grin that earned him a throw pillow to the face that remained even after it ricocheted causing you to let out an unfiltered laugh.
Bob, still leaning in the doorway, shook his head with a quiet smile. And then, just as quickly, he crossed the room and claimed the only free armchair, sipping his soda like he’d planned it all along.
Within seconds,it all turned into an all-out wrestling match over the last remaining blanket. Coyote tried to yank it from Payback, who retaliated by pulling you into the scuffle for some reason unbeknownst to you. Phoenix ended up flat on her back, laughing so hard tears rolled down her cheeks, while Fanboy yelled that he was Switzerland and refused to get involved.
You laughed until your sides ached, caught in the center of it all, your voice mixing with theirs in the kind of harmony you never thought you’d have.
When the dust finally settled, and everyone was tangled in one giant heap of limbs, someone hit play again, and the movie flickered across the TV. But no one cared much about the screen.
Because this, this was the whole point.
You sank back against the cushions, squished between Rooster and Phoenix, the blanket finally thrown over half of you, and let the warmth of the moment wash over you.
At some point in the night, the movie droned into background noise. Laughter softened into mumbles, mumbles into silence, and one by one, they all slipped into sleep.
You woke before the sun, stiff but warm, sandwiched between Rooster’s arm draped heavy across your shoulder and Phoenix’s head resting against your knee. The TV glowed faintly, cycling through previews again.
Carefully, you slid out of the pile without waking anyone. The floor was a minefield of empty soda cans, crumpled napkins, and popcorn kernels that had somehow made it halfway across the room. You smiled at the sight, shaking your head, and started cleaning quietly, stacking boxes, gathering cups, straightening blankets. Normally this would’ve sent you into overdrive but something about how happy everyone was last night erased that from your mind. It was worth it.
By the time the kitchen counters were cleared, you had eggs cracking in a pan, coffee brewing, and the first hints of morning light spilling through the blinds.
The smell must have done the work, because the first shuffle of footsteps behind you made you glance back.
Bob was the first to appear, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. He leaned against the counter, watching you cook. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
You shrugged, smiling. “Didn’t want everyone waking up to a disaster zone.”
He gave one of his small, quiet smiles. “You’re good at taking care of people. Just… don’t forget you’re allowed to let us take care of you, too.”
Your chest tightened at his words, but before you could respond, another voice broke the quiet.
Rooster, hair a complete mess, stumbled in with a blanket still draped over his shoulders. “Tell me that smell is coffee and not me hallucinating.”
You slid him a mug without missing a beat. He grinned sleepily, the kind of grin that made you think of sunshine, walking over to where you were cooking and leaned his head on your shoulder for a second and muttered, “Knew I loved you.” He stood up and took a sip, burned his tongue, and swore under his breath, which made you laugh.
Phoenix wandered in next, stretching her arms high above her head. “If you’re making eggs, I call dibs on the first plate.”
“You called dibs last time,” you reminded her.
She smirked, sliding into a chair. “Yeah, and it worked then too.”
You just smiled at her over your shoulder as you continued your task, “Cheese?” you asked and everyone collectively hummed in agreement.
Coyote shuffled in behind eventually, yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. “Dibs on the first plate,” he announced before plopping into the seat across from Phoenix.
“Too late, I already called it” Phoenix narrowed her eyes at him, “and if you try and take my plate I’ll ‘accidentally’ drop hot sauce in your eggs.”
Their bickering picked right back up as if they hadn’t slept at all, and it made your kitchen feel alive.
Fanboy and Payback showed up together, still half-asleep but already arguing over whether they’d actually finished the movie last night. Payback insisted he’d seen the ending; Fanboy swore they both passed out twenty minutes in. You slid them plates just to stop the debate knowing they didn’t last 10 minutes into the movie.
And then, of course, Jake strolled in last, shirtless, hair a mess but confidence still intact. He leaned against the doorway like he was posing for a magazine cover.
“Darlin’, I’ve gotta say,” he drawled, “waking up to the smell of breakfast in your kitchen might be the highlight of my week.”
You rolled your eyes, shoving a plate at him. “Sit down before I throw this at you.”
He smirked, taking the plate anyway. “See? That’s why you’re everyone’s favorite. No one else would feed us after the mess we made.”
Soon, your kitchen was full again, the clatter of forks against plates, the scrape of chairs, the rising hum of voices.
You stood for a moment, leaning against the counter, just watching them.
The aviators, your squad, your family. Sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, teasing each other between bites of food, laughing through yawns.
And as your chest swelled with something that felt dangerously close to tears, you thought: this was everything you’d ever wanted.
Your thought was cut short when Jake and Bradley started throwing bits of scrambled eggs at each other from across the kitchen.
Summary: Promoted to XO under Maverick, you rise higher while Bradley Bradshaw lets pride and bitterness tear your almost-relationship apart. He tried to make you feel small—now he’ll spend his career chasing your shadow.
Trigger Warnings: toxic relationship dynamics, sexism, gaslighting, public humiliation?? Alcohol, cursing, angst, no happy ending, unedited, major navy inaccuracies
A/N: I would just like to say this is extremely unedited and fucky so just bear with me here. I have been stretched thin at work lately and working out of town at that. I've had this in the drafts for a good minute so it is a little out of left field for the happy stuff I just put out but with all the great responses to that dagger squad fic, I'm probably gonna see if I can get another one of those out! As always keep an eye out on my WIPs post as I just updated it!
{NOT MY GIF}
The announcement came in the ready room. Maverick stood at the front, arms crossed, that half-smile that was equal parts proud and amused as he laid it out: the Navy had decided to keep the detachment on permanently.
That announcement led to cheers from the whole room. Fist bumps and claps on the shoulders filled the room with the widest smiles they had all seen in a while. The air was electric, for a moment.
But with a permanent detachment came a new command structure, new responsibilities. And with him still serving as CO, they needed an XO.
Maverick called for the room to settle down and everyone quieted, letting him speak again.
Your name was echoed across the hanger.
You didn’t even process it right away. Just heard it, like a far-off echo, and then the weight of every eye in the room turned to you.
Your excitement faltered for a split second, shock waving through you before the excitement returned. You hadn’t asked for this. Hell, you hadn’t even thought it was an option. But there it was,Maverick said it out loud, and the decision was final.
Bradley was the first one to move. He clapped you on the shoulder, the sound sharp against your flight suit. His smile was too tight, his jaw flexing as though he was forcing it to stay in place.
“Congrats, XO,” he said. The words were right. The tone? Just this side of mocking.
You met his gaze, searching for the warmth that had always been there,the soft edge, the quiet understanding you’d come to depend on. But his eyes slid past yours, already on someone else, and the hollowness of it settled in your chest like a stone.
The others cheered. Phoenix gave you a genuine grin. Bob’s smile was easy, proud. Fanboy slapped the table, shouting something about “drinks on you tonight.” But underneath the noise, you felt Bradley’s distance like static in the air.
His congratulations felt rehearsed, shallow. And while the squad noticed, their glances sharp between you and him, you brushed it off.
Because what else could you do? You hadn’t asked for this. You hadn’t stolen it from him. But something in his sharp clap, his forced smile, told you he thought otherwise.
That night, after the announcement, you expected the knock at your door.
With Bradley, there had always been a rhythm to things. He’d show up late, lean in your doorway like he hadn’t made up his mind about staying, then end up stretched out beside you hours later. He never asked if he could crash. You never asked if he’d leave in the morning. It just was.
You weren’t together, not officially. But you weren’t apart, either. No one else called you the way he did. No one else made him laugh in the middle of the night when the world was quiet. His shirts were folded into the corner of your drawer, and your favorite coffee mug had migrated to his kitchen. Unclaimed, undefined,yet undeniable.
You’d always balanced each other, even when you didn’t mean to. He was sharp when you were steady, quick when you were thoughtful. He’d barrel into things headfirst, and you’d catch him with the calm that made him slow down. He teased you for overthinking; you teased him for jumping without looking. And it worked, somehow.
But now… now you outranked him.
The word hung heavy between you, though neither of you said it. XO. It tilted the fragile balance you’d lived in for so long. The rhythm that had always felt natural suddenly seemed precarious, like one wrong move might send it toppling.
He knocked later than usual. Two short raps, then silence. When you opened the door, he was standing there with a six-pack dangling from his hand and that practiced smirk you knew too well.
“Brought provisions,” he said, holding it up. “Didn’t want your new XO paycheck going to waste on cheap beer.”
“Funny,” you muttered, stepping aside. He brushed past you like always, but something about it felt… different. Less easy.
He dropped onto your couch, kicked off his shoes, and flipped the cap off a bottle with the edge of his ring. “So,” he said, the word sharp, deliberate. “Big day.”
You grabbed a bottle too, settling beside him, close but not quite touching. “Didn’t feel big.”
His brow twitched. “It looked big.”
You searched his face, but he kept his eyes on the TV. You hated when he did that,like he could hide in the glow of something neither of you were watching.
“Bradley,” you said softly, “are you-”
“I mean,” he cut in, voice too casual, “XO. That’s a hell of a title. Gotta admit, I didn’t see that coming.”
There it was. The first cut, hidden behind a half-smile.
You set your bottle down slowly. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“Didn’t have to,” he said, finally turning his head, his eyes catching yours just long enough to sting. Then he looked away again, reaching for the remote. “Guess they just knew you were perfect for it.”
The sarcasm was thin, but sharp enough to cut.
You exhaled, forcing steadiness into your voice. “If you’re upset, just say it. Don’t- don’t do this thing where you pretend it’s a joke.”
“I’m not upset.” His laugh was short, brittle. “Why would I be upset? You outrank me now. That’s… awesome.”
You stared at him, the distance between you louder than the TV. “Bradley, you’ve been here a hundred times. You’ve never sat this far away from me.”
That made him glance at you, jaw tight. He shifted, closing the space, letting your knees brush. But it felt wrong,like he was moving out of obligation, not instinct.
“Better?” he asked, dry.
You didn’t answer.
The silence stretched until it pressed against your ribs. Normally, silence with him was easy. Comfortable. Tonight, it was a stranger sitting in the room with you.
You finally asked, “Are you staying?”
His shoulders stiffened. Usually, he’d already be halfway to your bedroom by now, some offhand joke about stealing your pillows. Tonight, he just picked up his bottle, rolling it between his palms.
“Not tonight.”
The words landed heavier than they should have.
You blinked at him. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.” His voice was low, unreadable, and you almost missed the way his throat worked when he swallowed after. Regret? Anger? You couldn’t tell.
You waited for him to soften, to reach out, to undo the damage with a smile or a kiss. He didn’t. He pulled on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door.
“Bradley.” Your voice cracked just a little. He paused, hand on the knob, shoulders tense. You wanted to tell him to stay, to stop acting like this, to admit what was gnawing at him. Instead, you only managed, “Goodnight.”
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t give you the comfort of his eyes.
“Goodnight, XO,” he said, the title like a curse. Then the door clicked shut behind him.
The movie droned on. The beers sweated on the table. And for the first time in a long time, your bed was empty.
Saturday morning felt wrong from the start.
You woke up early, sunlight spilling across sheets that were too neat, too untouched. Normally, Bradley would be there,spread out across your bed like he owned the place, hogging the covers, arm slung lazily across your stomach until you shoved him awake. But today, it was just you and the silence.
You made coffee, checked your phone once, twice. Nothing.
By noon, you’d convinced yourself you were being dramatic. He’d been quiet before, sure, but Bradley wasn’t petty. He wouldn’t still be holding onto that promotion announcement like it was a personal insult. He was probably busy,errands, base stuff, whatever excuse he’d give with that sheepish smile.
So you texted. Lunch? My treat.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. A minute later: Can’t. Got plans.
Plans. He didn’t say what kind. He didn’t offer to reschedule.
You decided to run your own errands to keep your mind busy. Mindlessly shopping and looking at everything on the shelves like they were interesting but your mind wasn’t there at all.
By the evening, your apartment felt too small. You walked the beach, let the salt air sting your skin, tried to remind yourself that this was just… a blip. A misstep. He wasn’t mad,couldn’t be mad,because what did you really do? Take a promotion you hadn’t even asked for?
Sunday started with another text.
Coffee?
He took almost an hour to reply. Already out. Next time.
Next time.
You stared at the words, reread them until they blurred, and told yourself it wasn’t deliberate. He wasn’t pulling away. You were overthinking. You always did this,built storms out of clouds that weren’t there. He’d show up, same as always, when he was ready.
Still, the hours dragged. You cleaned your kitchen, folded laundry, reorganized your dresser,anything to fill the space he usually filled. Every mundane task reminded you of him: his shirt still tucked in your drawer, his mug in your sink, his cologne lingering in your sheets.
By late afternoon, your phone stayed stubbornly silent. No knock on your door. No last-minute invite. Just the steady hum of your thoughts, circling tighter and tighter until they were a noose around your throat.
When the sun went down, you sat cross-legged on your bed, phone in your lap. Your thumb hovered over his contact. One call. That was all it would take.
Do you want to come over?Are you mad at me?Please don’t shut me out.
The words formed and dissolved in your head, too raw, too desperate. You knew how it would sound,clingy, insecure, like you couldn’t handle one weekend apart.
So instead, you set the phone down.
He needed space. That’s what you told yourself. If you pushed, it would only drive him further away. If you waited, he’d come back around.
Still, when you turned off the light, the silence beside you was deafening.
Monday morning, the hangar felt louder than usual.
You walked in with your cover tucked under your arm, the smell of jet fuel sharp in the air, voices bouncing off the walls. The squad was gathered by the whiteboard, coffee cups in hand, trading stories and laughter like any other day.
And Bradley was in the middle of it.
He leaned against the table, arms folded, his smile easy and bright as Phoenix ribbed him about something. He laughed, head tipped back, that same unbothered, charming sound that had filled your apartment a hundred times before. Like the weekend hadn’t been hollow. Like nothing had shifted.
For a moment, you just stood there, watching. You wanted to believe the distance had been in your head, that maybe you had overthought yourself into a corner. That this,him, relaxed, casual, at ease,was proof everything was fine.
But he didn’t look at you. Not once.
Before you could cross the room, Maverick caught your eye and waved you over. XO duties. A briefing to prep, paperwork to sign off, details to run down before the day’s flights. You nodded, slipping into the office behind him, throwing yourself into the role because that part,at least,felt solid.
By the time you rejoined the squad, they were still clustered around, coffee mostly gone, laughter simmered down into easy chatter. Everyone greeted you as if nothing had changed. Bob handed you a fresh cup without being asked. Payback leaned over the table to fill you in on the joke you’d missed. Phoenix gave you a smile, warm and effortless.
Everyone except him.
Bradley didn’t look up when you approached. Didn’t shift to make space, though there was room beside him. He sipped from his cup, eyes fixed on the whiteboard like it was more interesting than anything else in the room.
You forced yourself to focus, setting your cup aside, pulling the paper from your folder. “Alright,” you said, voice even. “Orders from Mav. We’ve got a sim run this afternoon, full team. He wants pre-flight prep done in pairs, one senior and one junior. Phoenix with Halo, Payback with Bob, Fanboy with Coyote,”
You hesitated, just slightly, the paper in your hands heavier than it should’ve been. “Bradley, you’re with me.”
That got his attention. He finally looked at you, but it wasn’t the look you’d been waiting for. No warmth, no spark of recognition that you’d once been his safe place. Just the faint curl of a smirk, sharp around the edges.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, the words clipped, biting, perfectly polite on the surface,but you felt the sting underneath.
The squad glanced between you two, tension just sharp enough to notice. You pretended not to feel it, flipping the folder shut with steady hands.
“Good,” you said evenly. “Then let’s get to it.”
The prep bay was quiet compared to the buzz of the hangar. Just you and Bradley, side by side at the table, spreading out checklists and diagrams. Normally, this kind of work was easy between you,fluid, unspoken, a rhythm you didn’t have to think about. Today, it felt like moving through water.
You scanned the sheet, marking assignments. “You handle the systems run, I can take pre-flight checks.”
“Of course you will,” he muttered, eyes still on the page.
Your pen froze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He gave a little shrug, lips twitching like he was holding back a smile. “Just,XO makes the rules, right?”
You stared at him, searching his face for the softness you were used to finding there. But he didn’t look at you, didn’t give you that. He just kept working, his tone light, casual, as if he hadn’t just jabbed you in the ribs with words.
You set the pen down. “Bradley, is there a problem?” You weren’t trying to sound authoritative, just genuinely confused.
“No problem,” he cut in, finally glancing up. His expression was all smooth edges, the kind of practiced calm that only made the tension worse. “Just following orders. Like everyone else.”
The emphasis landed heavy between you.
You bit back a sigh, forcing yourself to move on. “Fine. Systems run. Make sure your calibrations are double-checked,we don’t need Mav breathing down our necks for sloppy prep.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said again, the title thick with irony. His salute was sharp, mocking, before he turned back to the checklist.
It was subtle enough that anyone else would’ve missed it. To anyone else, he looked like he was just being himself,sarcastic, easygoing, the same Bradley they always knew. But to you, the digs were impossible to ignore.
And they kept coming. Little things. Questioning why you marked a task one way instead of another. Pointing out details you “might’ve overlooked.” Correcting you once,just once,on a stat you already knew by heart, his grin tight when you didn’t argue.
By the end of the prep, your jaw ached from how hard you were holding it shut.
When you signed off the checklist, he leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “See? Smooth as ever. Guess being in charge doesn’t suit you that bad.”
It was meant to sound like a joke. It didn’t. Not to you.
You tried to tell yourself it wasn’t a big deal.
It was just Bradley being Bradley,sarcastic, quick with a joke, always poking at you because he could. That was what you told yourself, over and over, as you double-checked the flight plan. The little comments,“XO makes the rules,” “Just following orders”, they weren’t daggers, not really. Just… his way of adjusting. Right?
But the more you thought about it, the more it pressed down on you.
Maybe you were being too sensitive. Maybe you were reading into every twitch of his mouth, every clipped “ma’am” like it was a personal attack, when really it was just his sense of humor. He wasn’t mad. He couldn’t be. He’d never be that petty.
Except,he hadn’t stayed over. He hadn’t grabbed lunch. He hadn’t called. Every excuse over the weekend had stacked higher and higher until it was impossible to ignore. And now, here he was, standing just close enough to remind you of everything you’d been, but far enough that you felt like you were standing on the other side of a line you couldn’t see.
You rubbed your forehead, willing yourself to focus. The last thing you needed was to let your thoughts eat you alive right before a sim.
Bradley glanced over. “Everything good, XO?”
You looked up, caught the faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. The question sounded innocent enough, but the way he said XO,sharp, deliberate,knotted your stomach.
“Fine,” you said, a little too fast. “Just running through the sequence.”
“Right,” he said, leaning back against the table. “Wouldn’t want to mess up. Wouldn’t look good if the XO tripped over the basics.”
Your jaw tightened. You wanted to snap at him, tell him to cut it out, but the words stuck in your throat. He was needling you, yes, but not in a way anyone else would notice. If you called him on it, it would sound petty. Like you were overreacting.
So you forced a thin smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep up.”
“Good,” he said, already turning away. “Wouldn’t want to have to slow down for you.”
The words lingered longer than they should have, echoing through your head as you made your way to the flight line. You strapped into the cockpit, fingers tighter than they needed to be around the harness, and tried to shake it off.
It was just Bradley being Bradley. Just him adjusting. Just you overthinking.
The sim ran smooth enough. Mostly.
His voice crackled through comms, sharper than usual. “Check your six, XO.”
You frowned, glancing at the radar. “I already have,”
“Guess not, or I wouldn’t have to remind you,” he shot back.
You bit the inside of your cheek, swallowing down the retort. He was supposed to have your back, not undermine you mid-flight. But you said nothing, adjusting as he suggested, because the alternative was giving him the satisfaction of knowing he’d rattled you.
Later, when you called out an adjustment for his angle, he came back with, “Copy that, boss,” the word boss dipped in mockery, dripping through the comms for everyone to hear.
Not enough to spark suspicion. Just enough to sting.
By the time the sim ended, your hands ached from clenching the stick. You landed smoothly, logged the time, went through the motions. Outwardly, everything looked normal.
Inside, your thoughts were a snarl.
Maybe he hated you for this. Maybe the promotion had ruined everything. Maybe this was the beginning of the end.
And maybe,just maybe,you were imagining it all, building ghosts out of shadows because you were terrified of what the silence between you really meant.
Monday bled into Tuesday, Tuesday into Wednesday. Each day Bradley found a way to make you question yourself without ever saying anything outright.
Little things.
“You sure that’s how Mav wanted it?” he’d ask, eyebrows raised.
“Guess it’s your call,” he’d add, voice flat, the words barbed.
He’d laugh with the others, loud and easy, and go quiet the second you joined the circle.
You kept telling yourself not to read into it. You were overthinking. He wasn’t cruel, not really.. Maybe you’d thrown him off. Maybe he just needed time. At least that’s the mantra you kept repeating in your head.
But the silence between you stretched wider every day, and the edges cut deeper every time he called you XO instead of your name.
By Thursday, it was too much.
He pushed too far.
You’d given a clear order before the training run,tight formation, keep the angles clean. And Bradley, in front of everyone, had challenged it.
“Don’t you think it makes more sense to break earlier?” he asked, casually, like you hadn’t already explained, in great detail even, why.
“Negative,” you said firmly. “Stick to the plan.”
He didn’t argue outright, but in the air, he broke early anyway.
It worked, technically. But it wasn’t the plan. And it wasn’t his call.
The squad went quiet in the hangar after everyone landed, watching the two of you like they could sense the crack in the foundation. Bradley laughed it off, shrugged, acted like it was nothing.
But you couldn’t let it go.
So when the others filtered out, when the sound of boots on concrete faded, you cornered him.
“Bradley.”
He turned, still in his flight suit, sweat lingering at his temples. “Yeah, XO?”
“Don’t,” you said sharply. “Don’t do that.”
His smile flickered, quick and sharp. “Do what?”
“Undermine me. In front of them. Out there.” You kept your voice low, steady, even as your chest felt tight. “I didn’t ask for this promotion to hurt you. Hell, I didn’t even ask for it.”
His jaw worked, the smile gone now. For a moment, you thought maybe,maybe he’d soften, maybe he’d admit what you already knew.
Instead, his voice dropped.
“You didn’t have to,” he said, and it was worse than a yell. “Just being better than me was enough.”
The words hit harder than you expected. You felt the air leave your lungs, felt your stomach twist. But before you could respond, he pushed again,this time cruel, calculated.
“You’re not here because you’re the best pilot.” He stared at you, eyes dark, and then spat it out like poison. “You’re here because they needed a poster girl.”
The silence afterward was brutal.
Even he looked like he wanted to take it back the second it left his mouth, his lips parting like he was about to say something else.
But you didn’t give him the chance.
You didn’t cry. You didn’t yell. You didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you break.
You just gave him a slight nod, turned, walked away, and let the echo of your boots on the concrete carry you out of the hangar.
Giving him the satisfaction of seeing that he got to you wasn’t something you were interested in doing today.
By Friday you buried yourself in the work. Up before dawn, in the hangar before anyone else. Reviewing flight footage, combing through tactical reports, drafting patterns Maverick hadn’t even asked for yet. You weren’t just filling the XO role,you were exceeding it.
Because Bradley might have believed you were just a poster girl, but you knew better. And you were determined to give everyone else no room to doubt it.
So when the briefing rolled around, you were ready.
The squad filtered into the ready room, coffee cups in hand, still buzzing from the last run. You stood at the head of the table, charts and flight paths laid out. Maverick leaned against the wall behind you, letting you run point.
The room was alive with chatter until you stood in front of the projector. You didn’t bother raising your voice; you didn’t need to. They leaned in for you.
“Based on yesterday’s numbers,” you said, gesturing at the chart, “the left side of the formation is bleeding time. Too much drag, too wide of a roll. My recommendation is a thirty-degree cut here,” your pen tapped the point,“which should shave seconds off and tighten us back into rhythm.”
You scanned the room. Nods. Phoenix scribbled something in her notebook. Fanboy murmured a quiet “makes sense.” You had them.
And then Bradley’s voice cut through, quiet, lazy and sharp:
“That’s cute. But maybe let the real pilots plan this one.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Every head turned toward him, then back to you. It was the kind of silence that demanded a response.
You felt it, that familiar sting,his words were meant to diminish, to remind you that in his eyes you weren’t enough. For a moment, the old instinct rose: let it pass, keep the peace, don’t push him further away.
But no. Not anymore.
You set the pen down, lifted your eyes, and met his head-on. Your voice was calm,deadly calm.
“Funny. I didn’t realize ‘real pilots’ were the ones breaking formation because they couldn’t follow a simple order.”
The squad blinked, some of them shifting in their seats. Bradley stiffened, but you didn’t let the silence linger,you pushed the knife in deeper.
“And if you think being a ‘real pilot’ is about rolling your eyes at your XO in a briefing, then maybe you need to rethink what real leadership looks like.”
The words landed hard.
Phoenix’s eyebrows shot up, a slow grin tugging at her mouth before she hid it behind her coffee cup. Bob ducked his head like he’d just witnessed a car crash. Even Payback leaned back in his chair, muttering under his breath, “Damn.”
Bradley froze, caught completely off guard. His jaw worked, but no words came. For once, he couldn’t spin it into a joke or a dig. He looked over at Maverick, maybe trying to see if he would be reprimanded, or maybe even to see if he would but Maverick had a faint smirk on his face.
Maverick, from where he leaned at the back of the room, cleared his throat pointedly and said, “She’s right. The adjustment stands.”
That was it. Settled.
You turned back to the projector like the exchange had never happened, finished the brief crisp and steady, and closed with, “Any questions?” Staring particularly at Bradley.
No one had any.
Bradley stayed silent the rest of the session, his posture stiff, his gaze fixed anywhere but on you.
And when the squad broke for the day, their eyes didn’t linger on him. They lingered on you. Respect. Quiet, sharp, and undeniable.
The ready room emptied fast, boots thudding against linoleum and laughter echoing down the hallway. Plans for the Hard Deck buzzed in the air,Fanboy and Payback already arguing about pool, Phoenix casually announcing she was going to drink everyone under the table.
You stayed behind.
The projector hummed quietly as it cooled, your shadow stretching across the table piled with mission reports, readiness logs, and requisition forms. Paperwork wasn’t glamorous, but it kept your hands busy, your thoughts sharper than they wanted to be.
Bradley’s words still echoed: that’s cute… let the real pilots plan this one.
You signed another form. Clipped it into a folder. Tried to focus.
But the silence pressed in, and your mind filled the empty space with every insecurity he’d dragged to the surface. Maybe you were chosen for the wrong reasons. Maybe you weren’t enough. Maybe he’d never see you as more than the girl who got lucky.
You hated how much space he took up in your head. How he could be both the comfort you craved and the wound you couldn’t stop reopening.
The squad had begged you to come out tonight. You almost said no,God, how easy it would’ve been to stay home, to let yourself drown in reports and line items, to avoid the looks, the laughter, the chance of seeing him.
But then you caught sight of your reflection in the dark screen at the front of the room: squared shoulders, tired eyes, the faintest curve of determination at the corner of your mouth.
You weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing you sulk. Not tonight.
An hour later, the Hard Deck was warm with neon glow and the steady hum of the jukebox. The smell of salt, beer, and worn leather wrapped around you like something almost familiar.
“Hey, XO!” Payback grinned the second he spotted you. He raised his glass in salute. “Didn’t think we’d actually drag you here.”
“I needed proof this place still exists outside your bragging,” you shot back, sliding into the space Phoenix made for you at the high-top table.
Bob looked up from his beer, polite smile tugging at his lips. “Glad you came. It’s not the same when you’re not here.”
That softened something in you. Bob never said things like that unless he meant them.
Phoenix shoved a tequila shot into your hand before you could respond. “No brooding allowed,” she declared. “We’re not on base, you’re not XO here. Just one of us. Drink.”
You clinked the rim of your glass against hers and downed it, wincing at the burn. Phoenix cackled.
“That’s my girl.”
From there, the night loosened around you.
Two beers in, you were leaning against the high-top, laughing as Fanboy swore he’d take everyone’s money at pool.
“Your confidence is adorable,” Phoenix deadpanned, arms crossed. “Can’t wait to watch you crash and burn.”
“Care to bet on that?” Fanboy challenged, wagging his cue stick.
You raised your hand like you were swearing in. “My money’s on Phoenix. No offense.”
“Offense taken,” Fanboy huffed, though his grin betrayed him.
For a while, you forgot. Forgot the ready room. Forgot the paperwork. Forgot the way Bradley’s silence weighed heavier than his words.
The music was too loud, the drinks strong, and the squad was laughing in a way that tugged you along whether you wanted it or not.
It felt good.
Almost normal.
Until you checked your watch out of habit and noticed who still wasn’t there.
Bradley was late.
And that old ache, the one you thought you’d drowned in tequila and laughter, flickered back to life in your chest.
The pool table was quickly in chaos. Fanboy had just sunk the cue ball for the second time in a row, and Payback groaned like it was a personal offense.
“Man, I told you not to call your shots. You’re cursed when you do that.”
“Cursed? Please.” Fanboy leaned on his cue, smug grin plastered across his face. “That was a warm-up.”
Phoenix crossed her arms and tipped her beer bottle in his direction. “You’ve had three warm-ups, and the only thing you’ve sunk is your own pride.”
That got a laugh out of you, the sound surprising in its ease. You felt lighter, almost. Almost.
“XO’s with me, right?” Phoenix asked, glancing at you like she already knew the answer.
You smirked, leaning back against the bar. “Oh, definitely. You’re the only one here who doesn’t play like the cue stick’s a lightsaber.”
Fanboy gasped, clutching his chest theatrically.
“I just call it like I see it,” you teased, taking a sip of your drink.
Bob chuckled softly from his stool nearby, always the quiet spectator until someone drew him in. “I don’t think she’s wrong.”
“Traitor,” Fanboy muttered, though his grin never faltered.
The jukebox switched to something upbeat, bass thumping through the floorboards. Natasha grabbed your wrist, tugging you toward the pool table.
“C’mon, you’re breaking.”
“I didn’t agree to play,” you protested, though you didn’t fight her grip.
“You don’t get a say.” She shoved a cue stick into your hand, eyebrows raised. “Captain’s orders.”
You bit back a smile. “You’re not my captain.”
“Tonight I am.”
The rack broke under your shot, scattering the balls in every direction. A couple even sank, and Phoenix let out a low whistle.
“Damn, remind me never to bet against you.”
“Beginner’s luck,” you said lightly, though the warmth in your chest lingered.
You let yourself enjoy it,the laughter, the teasing, the drinks that burned less with each round. It felt good to just be, not the XO, not the weight of a promotion you never asked for, not the one carrying Bradley’s silence like a bruise.
But even in the warmth of it, your thoughts drifted. Every time the door swung open, every burst of laughter near the entrance, you caught yourself looking. Expecting. Hoping maybe?
And he wasn’t there.
Phoenix caught you staring toward the door once, too quick to pretend otherwise. She didn’t call you out, though,just bumped your shoulder with hers, offering a small smirk that didn’t press too far.
Another round came, and you raised your glass when Payback shouted for a toast.
“To surviving another week of Maverick’s insanity!”
Glasses clinked all around.
You smiled with the rest, the sound of it echoing in the back of your throat. But as you set your glass down, your eyes flicked to your watch again.
And even surrounded by laughter, you couldn’t shake the way the absence dug at you.
The night had settled into a rhythm,music humming low, glasses clinking, the occasional whoop from the pool table. You’d almost convinced yourself to let go, to stop waiting for the door to swing open.
Almost.
Because then it did.
Bradley Bradshaw walked in like he always did, larger than life without even trying. Aviators tucked into the collar of his shirt despite the fact that it was long past sundown, sleeves rolled to his elbows, an easy smile ready-made for a crowd.
The shift was immediate. You felt it before you saw it. The way conversation hitched, the way Phoenix’s grin softened, the way Payback tossed him a salute with his beer bottle.
“Bradshaw! About damn time,” Coyote called across the bar.
Bradley’s smile widened, that familiar charisma unfurling like a flag. “Had to make an entrance.”
It was loud,his arrival always was. You told yourself you were imagining it, but it felt like even the jukebox turned itself down for him.
Your grip tightened on the glass in your hand. You’d been laughing minutes before, but now the sound felt caught in your throat.
He made his way through the crowd with practiced ease, shoulder claps and quick handshakes pulling him in different directions. He belonged here, and everyone knew it.
Everyone but you.
Or maybe that was just the way his eyes skipped past you when they finally made it across the room. He didn’t stop, didn’t nod, didn’t let anything flicker across his face. Just carried on, sliding into the warmth of the squad like nothing had ever cracked between you.
Natasha caught the shift in your shoulders. “You okay?” she asked under her breath.
You forced a smile, lifting your glass in a mock toast. “Peachy.”
But your pulse was drumming too fast, anticipation curdling into something heavier as Bradley laughed at something Payback said, clapping him on the back like the last week hadn’t happened.
You told yourself to breathe. To let it go. To not give away how much his silence pressed down on you even in a room this loud.
Because if he wanted to act like nothing had changed, then maybe you’d learn to do the same.
“Just need a drink” You added, looking at Phoenix who quickly nodded and you two scurried away to the bar.
You caught a breath you didn’t know you needed. Natasha didn’t say anything, just handed you another shot of tequila and you two silently took them together.
“Alright, time to keep having a good night, you deserve it!” She exclaimed over the growing crowd and loud music.
She was right, you did deserve it.
You shook it all off and grabbed your new beer, making your way back to the group and pretending like nothing was tearing you up inside.
You found your spot back at the table, beer in hand, laughter washing over you in waves that almost drowned the knot in your stomach. Phoenix was elbow-deep in a debate with Fanboy over some impossible pool shot, and Bob and Payback were leaning into a shared joke, their heads bent together as if the world outside the Hard Deck didn’t exist.
You let yourself sink into it for a minute, letting the chatter fill the empty spaces inside your chest. Almost.
Then he was there.
Bradley slid into the high-top chair beside you like he’d always meant to, like there was a space reserved just for him. His presence hit differently now,he wasn’t just late, he wasn’t just distant,he was Bradley, the one you had spent the weekend and the last week spiraling over, and suddenly the room felt tighter, louder, and somehow smaller all at once.
“Miss me?” he asked lightly, voice carrying that familiar smirk that could’ve softened anything.
You caught yourself tensing, a reflexive shift toward steel you didn’t need in front of the squad. “Something like that,” you said, letting your words hover just out of warmth. You were on edge, waiting for a jab or blow to sneak its way in.
He leaned back, pretending casual, but the weight in his gaze told you he’d noticed how carefully you’d avoided him all night.
“Looks like you’ve been having fun,” he said, nodding toward the group.
“Always,” you replied, raising your bottle in mock salute. “Someone has to keep them in line.”
His smirk widened, and you felt it,the tiny pull of ease that came with him. But it was tentative, quiet, as if he was testing the waters, seeing if you’d let him back into your space.
The hour of avoidance had stretched long, but now here he was. Close, yet measured, leaving all the space for you to choose whether to engage,or to keep the night steady, pretending nothing had shifted inside you.
You met his eyes, caught that flicker of recognition that maybe he was treading carefully, and for the first time that night, you allowed yourself a small, controlled exhale.
Because despite everything, you were determined to have a good night.
The night had finally started to feel manageable. You let your guard down slightly, leaning back in your chair, laughing with Bob over some ridiculous thing that Coyote and Payback were doing, and sipping at your beer. Bradley had joined the table an hour ago, but the tension had softened into a tentative truce,you weren’t walking on eggshells, but you weren’t engaging either.
He laughed at some joke Payback told, tossing back a drink a little too quickly, the liquor loosening the edges of his control. And then it happened.
A jab.
“You know,” he said, voice deceptively casual, “this whole promotion thing… kinda feels like a joke. Some of your ‘tactical decisions’ yesterday? Straight-up laughable. Or maybe they just promoted you because you smiled at the right people.”
The room went cold.
Laughter died mid-air. Forks paused. Even the jukebox seemed to fade into the background.
You froze, staring at him, the words twisting like a blade.
Bradley’s smirk faltered for half a second when he realized what he’d just said, but he didn’t take it back.
You didn’t know what to do, what to say. Internally, you were already sobbing, your heart shattering because you foolishly let yourself think for a split second that he had gotten over it. That Bradley had dropped the whole thing and maybe he even missed you.
You were beating yourself up for even thinking that it would go back to the way it was. You and him, your undefined relationship, even your friendship.
Phoenix slammed her palm on the table, standing with a ferocity that made the entire booth shift in their seats. It startled you out of the spiral you were going through in your own mind.
“You want to say that again?” she snapped, voice cutting like a scalpel. “Do you really want to reduce everything she’s done to a smile? To some token gesture?”
Phoenix’s voice cut through the Hard Deck like a whip, sharp and merciless. Every word she threw at Bradley landed like a hammer. You could feel the eyes of the squad on him, on her, and yes,on you.
Bradley opened his mouth, and Phoenix cut him off before he could flinch.
“You think because she outranks you, because she has outflown you in every simulation, because she’s out-disciplined every last one of you, that you can belittle her?” Her eyes burned into him. “Do you hear yourself, Bradshaw? You’re embarrassing yourself. You hate her because she’s everything you wish you were, and deep down you know she earned this. You just can’t stomach that it wasn’t you.”
The words slammed into the room like a bomb. Everyone leaned forward, watching him shrink under the truth Phoenix laid bare.
Your hands gripped the edge of the table. You weren’t crying, you weren’t yelling, but the heat of it all,the vindication, the guilt, the anger,settled heavy in your chest.
“Rank, respect, skill,none of that is handed out because you showed up with Maverick in your pocket and an attitude,” she continued, voice slicing clean. “She earned this. Every single second, every flight, every decision. And if you can’t stomach taking orders from someone better, maybe you should rethink why you even signed up. Maybe you should pack your bags and stop dragging your ego around while pretending it’s someone else’s fault.”
Phoenix’s words continued, and you let them wash over you. You weren’t smiling, not yet, but you felt the edges of a grin starting to form, the kind that comes from standing in your own light for the first time in a long while.
Her hands were on her hips now, towering over him figuratively if not physically. The squad was silent, the weight of every word settling like dust in the air.
Bradley’s jaw worked, words fumbling in his throat, the confident mask he wore for weeks cracking under the heat of Phoenix’s truth. For once, there was no clever comeback. No sarcasm. No smirk.
Just silence.
The room stayed silent long after Phoenix’s words hit.
Fanboy’s jaw was slack, cue stick dangling from his hands. Payback leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, his usual smirk nowhere to be found. Natasha had her arms folded, nodding subtly as if to reassure herself that yes, this was exactly how it needed to go down. Bob just stared, lips pressed tight, taking it all in.
You felt your shoulders shift, tension slowly leaking out. You had been holding your breath, bracing for Bradley’s inevitable retort, but it never came. You let your hands drop onto the table, gripping the edge, knuckles white at first, then relaxing as the fire in your chest cooled into a steady burn of relief and pride.
Your pulse was still high, heart hammering with adrenaline. You weren’t sure what from though. Embarrassment? Anxiety of what was going to come next? Hurt?
Bradley sat frozen, jaw tight, eyes wide. Not blinking. Not speaking. The mask he usually wore, flippant, teasing, unshakable, was gone. For the first time in weeks, everyone saw the weight of his own insecurity press down on him.
Just as he was about to say something though, Coyote stepped forward, moving behind him like a shepherd guiding a wayward sheep. “Alright, enough,” he said quietly, voice low. “Come on, let’s take a walk outside.”
Bradley hesitated, still staring at you, but finally allowed Coyote to steer him toward the front door, leaving the tension and the silence behind him.
Bob leaned toward you, voice soft but firm. “You and Phoenix, back deck. Now.” It wasn’t a usual tone for Bob so you and Phoenix stood up blindly.
You glanced at Phoenix, who was already moving, smirking just slightly, and the two of you followed Bob out through the side door, the dim lights of the bar fading behind you. The night air hit you, cool and grounding. You let your shoulders sag as the tension bled out of your body.
Phoenix pulled off her jacket quickly like she was heating up from the anger that was still coursing through her body, tossing it over the bench beside her, and gave you a pointed look. “That’s for you. Don’t let him get to you anymore.”
You swallowed, blinking against the cool night air. “I… I don’t even know what I feel right now,” you admitted, voice tight. “Relief? Anger? I don’t know if I should feel proud or just exhausted.”
Phoenix stepped closer, nudging your shoulder gently. “All of it,” she said. “All of it is valid. And don’t pretend like you don’t know it. You earned every bit of what just happened back there. Every flight, every decision, every drill you nailed. None of it’s a joke, and you know it. Don’t let him make you question that, not tonight, not ever.”
You let out a shaky laugh, trying to loosen the tension in your shoulders. “It’s just… watching him squirm like that, hearing him say something so cruel and having someone stand up for me, I don’t know if I should feel satisfied or…”
“Or what?” Phoenix prompted, folding her arms and giving you that steady, unwavering look she had when she was done letting you play games with yourself.
“Or guilty,” you admitted quietly. “Like, is it wrong to feel some satisfaction? Or like it’s finally… fair?”
Phoenix’s smirk softened into something gentler, almost like pride. “No. Not wrong at all. You’ve been holding so much in for weeks, letting him push, letting him doubt you. Tonight? Tonight it’s all yours. And yeah, he deserves to feel it.”
You let your head tilt back against the railing, exhaling slowly as the night air hit your face. “Thanks,” you murmured. “I just… needed someone to say it out loud.”
Phoenix gave a small, approving nod. “That’s what I’m here for. And don’t you dare let him take another ounce of your headspace. Not now, not ever.”
“You would’ve stood up for any one of us if we were in the same position,” Bob chimed in, “We weren’t sure why you weren’t standing up for yourself but your squad will always be here for you.”
You felt the tight coil inside you loosen just a little, the weight of the past few days settling into something steadier. For the first time since the promotion, since the hangar confrontation, you felt like you could breathe without thinking about him.
Phoenix clapped your shoulder lightly. “Now,” she said, voice lighter, “let’s go get another round before he has a chance to sulk his way back inside. You’ve earned it.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one who earned it.” You laughed, letting her lead the way back to the bar, a small but solid spark of joy warming you from the inside out.
The night slowly settled into rhythm. With Bradley gone, Coyote insisting he needed to be “escorted home before he embarrassed himself further” the squad finally loosened completely.
Laughter and music filled the Hard Deck, unfiltered, easy. Fanboy finally moved onto darts after losing repeatedly at pool, Payback was arguing with Phoenix about strategy in a game that didn’t matter, and Bob was quietly cracking jokes that had everyone snickering. You moved through it all like you belonged, your shoulders finally light, your chest finally unclenched.
No one mentioned Bradley. No one needed to. The tension he carried for weeks had evaporated from the room, replaced by warmth and camaraderie. You poured yourself another drink at the bar, clinking bottles with Phoenix, then leaning into the group, letting their energy wash over you.
It was good. Pure, simple, and unbroken by passive-aggression or lingering resentment. For the first time in days, you felt like yourself.
Hours passed like minutes. You laughed until your ribs ached, took ridiculous bets at the jukebox, and for a while, you forgot about the promotion, the hangar confrontation, the weekend spirals.
Eventually, the bar started to quiet. People were leaving in drifts, saying goodnights, sharing hugs and handshakes. You hugged Phoenix last, silently thanking her again.
“Good night,” she said, smirking. “Remember this feeling. You earned it.”
You nodded, smiling genuinely. “I will.”
By the time you got home, exhaustion hit you like a freight train. Boots off, jacket tossed aside, you collapsed onto the couch, curling into yourself. The quiet of your apartment was almost shocking after the roar of the Hard Deck, but it was exactly what you needed.
And then the weight of the week caught up.
You thought about Bradley. About the interaction earlier tonight, the way you’d let your guard down around him for a fleeting second, the way that almost-unspoken tension had threatened to undo the calm you’d been building. You thought about the hangar, the promotion, Phoenix ripping him apart for what you hadn’t had the courage to say yourself.
Your chest tightened as you realized it: you hadn’t stood up for yourself. Not fully. Not in the moment that mattered most.
How did it get this bad? you wondered, heart hammering. How did I let it get to the point that the squad had to defend me? That I couldn’t even protect myself without someone else screaming it to the world?
Your fingers curled into the cushions. You overthought everything: every subtle jab Bradley had thrown, every passive-aggressive glance, every word you thought you could ignore.
And yet, beneath the anger and frustration, a spark of resolve grew.
Never again.
You would never let yourself be caught off guard like that. You would never let anyone, not even Bradley, undermine your accomplishments or your confidence. You would be sharper, steadier, stronger. And if he wanted to challenge you, to act out of jealousy or insecurity, it wouldn’t touch you anymore.
You sank deeper into the couch, letting exhaustion wash over you fully, feeling the adrenaline fade and the muscles unclench.
Tonight you had survived. Tonight, you had won in every quiet, personal way that mattered.
And tomorrow, you would rise, and nothing, no one, would make you doubt yourself again.
The apartment was quiet. The night stretched out around you, soft and empty.
And for the first time in days, you felt unshakable.
The morning light cut through the hangar windows in sharp, gold slashes, reflecting off the polished metal of parked jets. You moved with purpose, boots clicking against the linoleum in measured cadence, files tucked under your arm. The familiar hum of activity, the chatter of mechanics, the faint whine of engines starting up, grounded you. Today, there was work to do, and you wouldn’t let lingering tension from the weekend slow you down.
The ready room was already half-full when you arrived. The squad filtered in, some yawning, some sipping coffee, all focused. You cleared your throat and began the pre-flight brief, voice calm, controlled, precise. Charts were spread across the table; flight paths, roll pitches, alternate approaches, all organized meticulously. The eyes on you were attentive, some scribbling notes, others nodding quietly.
A few clarifying queries, answered concisely. No hesitation. No distractions.
When the briefing concluded, you dismissed them with a nod, letting everyone filter out to prepare for the exercise only needing to come back for pair assignments. You lingered, tidying the whiteboard, straightening charts, clipping completed checklists into binders. Every movement was precise, almost ritualistic, a way to keep the stress at bay.
Bradley was still there, still seated, clipboard in hand, pretending to review data, but you could feel his gaze like a weight in the room.
Phoenix was the last to leave, pausing by the door. Her eyes flicked to you, sharp and perceptive. You gave her a small nod, it’s okay, I’ve got this, and she finally stepped out, the click of her boots fading into the hallway.
Now it was just the two of you.
You didn’t acknowledge him. Not a word. Not even a glance. You went on collecting your files, stacking charts neatly, lining pens up in the holder. Every movement deliberate, controlled, keeping your mind centered on work rather than the tension coiling in the room.
Then
“Listen,” Bradley started, his voice softer than you expected, almost hesitant. “I was out of line. At the bar. Before that too. I know I hurt you. I didn’t mean-” He cut himself off, sighed. “No, that’s bullshit. I did mean it. But I regret it.”
You didn’t look up. Your hands stayed steady on your files even though your pulse was anything but.
When your silence stretched too long, he grew restless, voice sharp around the edges. “You could at least give me something back. A chance to explain, to-”
The door swung open again and the rest of the squad trickled back in, still chatting from the locker room. Bradley snapped his mouth shut, but then, almost desperately, he turned to them.
“Guys, come on. Someone’s gotta talk to her. She won’t even look at me.”
Bob froze mid-step. “Bradley…”
“Just- tell her I’m not the bad guy here,” Bradley rushed out, eyes flicking between them. “Tell her I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean what I said. She respects you guys. She’ll listen if it’s not from me.”
Coyote dropped his bag on the table, jaw tightening. “Don’t drag us into this. You screwed it up, you fix it.”
Bradley’s hands went to his hips, exasperated. “I’ve tried! She won’t even give me the time of day.”
“That’s not her problem,” Payback cut in, arms folded. “That’s yours. You think respect is automatic because of who your dad was? Because of what you’ve done? You burned it. You earn it back, or you don’t. But none of us are running interference for you.”
Fanboy’s tone was quieter, but sharp as glass: “You really don’t get it, do you? You made her feel small in front of us. In front of her squad. And now you want us to make her hear you? That’s not how this works.”
Bradley opened his mouth to argue, but Phoenix’s voice cut through the room like a blade. She’d slipped back in without either of you noticing.
“She doesn’t owe you forgiveness, Bradshaw.” Her gaze was lethal, steady. “You want her attention? Stop begging us to clean up your mess. Stand up, own it, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll decide you’re worth her time again.”
His shoulders slumped under the weight of it. For the first time in days, he looked… small. And against your will, your heart squeezed in your chest.
Maybe I should hear him out, you thought. Just for a second. He looked so lost, so unlike himself. The Bradley you knew, the one you trusted, the one you cared for, flashed through your mind, almost enough to tip you.
Almost.
But then you remembered the bar. The hangar. The jabs. Poster girl. The sting of it lanced through your ribs, fresh and raw.
Your decision crystallized.
Finally, he dropped the clipboard onto a chair with a soft thud that echoed faintly in the room. His eyes flicked to yours, searching, pleading even, but you remained calm, steady, unflinching.
Your fingers lingered on the edge of the files as you adjusted them, the only sound the rustle of paper and the faint hum of fluorescent lights above, everyone else still. Inside, your mind was a controlled storm: the anger, the resentment, the memory of his jab at the bar, of every jab thrown your way honestly, the frustration from it all. But you pushed it down, focused on the rhythm of the work in front of you.
Because he had no power here. Not anymore.
You turned to collect the last of your preparation files, glancing at your watch. Flight gear awaited, jets awaited, the day awaited. Bradley could stew in his guilt or frustration all he wanted. You were already moving forward. Already handing out assignments.
The silence stretched between you, taut and heavy, but you didn’t flinch. You didn’t answer. And that, more than anything, let him know: nothing he said, nothing he tried, would break your focus,not today.
You didn’t slam the door when you left, you didn’t need to. The silence that followed was louder than anything you could’ve said.
Out in the hallway, your footsteps echoed against the concrete, steady and sure. But inside, your thoughts churned.
He tried to make me small.He tried to make me doubt.He thought I’d fold just because he said the words.
Not anymore.
You straightened your shoulders, walking faster now, like every step was an oath.
I’ll always be one step ahead. One rank higher. One more medal. One victory greater.
Not just for yourself. Not even for the Navy.
For him.
So that every day, every deployment, every debrief, Bradley Bradshaw would be reminded of the truth: he had tried to cut you down, and instead, you would always be the one towering over him.
If he ever doubted me for being a woman, I’ll make sure he spends the rest of his career chasing my shadow.
And for the first time since the promotion, you felt steady again. Not healed, not free of him, but steady.
Because spite had its own kind of power.
Years blurred together in the rhythm of deployment, detachment, and training. Faces came and went, squadrons shifted, COs rotated, but one truth never changed: you kept climbing.
Lieutenant Commander. Commander. XO turned CO. Each pin, each stripe, each medal was earned with sweat and hours and sacrifice. You bled for them, fought for them, proved yourself a hundred times over until no one, no man, no doubt, could ever reduce you to a poster girl.
And always, just behind, was Bradley.
He never fell. He wasn’t the kind of man to fall. He was solid, capable, decorated in his own right. But he never quite caught you, either. At every ceremony, every promotion, every time your name was called before his, he clapped with the squad, wore the smile, but his eyes always gave him away. A flicker. A shadow.
Regret.
You saw it when he thought no one was looking. When the crowd’s cheers covered the silence between you. When the medals shone too brightly against your chest.
There was a time you would’ve wanted to comfort him. Would’ve wanted to close that distance, bridge the gap, tell him it didn’t matter who outranked who. That was another lifetime. Another you.
Now, you only met his eyes long enough to remind him: You tried to make me small. And look at me now.
The squad never forgot either. They carried that night at the Hard Deck like a story told in glances and unspoken loyalty. They never let him rewrite it, never let him downplay what he’d said. And in their silence, in their steadfast support, you found a kind of family he had squandered when he tried to undermine you.
Years later, standing at a podium with another bar added to your uniform, you scanned the crowd and caught him watching. Not angry, not jealous, just hollow. Still one step behind.
You squared your shoulders and let the vow echo again, not bitter anymore, not cruel, but steady.
If he ever doubted me for being a woman, I’ll make sure he spends the rest of his career chasing my shadow.
And he did.
Always one step behind. Always looking up. Always remembering the day he tried to cut you down, and instead, gave you the fire to rise higher than he’d ever reach.
── . ✦ ♯ 𓊆 SUMMARY 𓊇 part ten ( jake's pov ) ─ in which jake learns that you are holding in more than he realizes.
possible trigger warnings .ᐟ lowercase intended!!!! ◞ pictures for aesthetic only!!! reader is NOT described ◞ mention of deteriorated hearing ◞ self harm ( in the terms of not wearing the hearing aids ad causing further damage ) ◞ dirty talk ( mention of boner and fem!masturbation ) ◞ angst ◞ unedited ( re-read like onece lmao ) ◞ wc 3.9k
the sketchbook ᝰ✍︎ dividers by @uzmacchiato + @dollywons
jake had been up since before sunrise. the morning had started like all the others. early and quiet.
he wasn’t built to sleep in—never had been, even on weekends—but something about the way this house creaked in the morning made it easier to rise early and stay moving.
sweat already clung to jake’s collar. the texas sun wasn’t even fully up, and the barn air was thick with dust, humidity, and wood stain. he’d been at it since dawn—measuring trim, rearranging lumber, sanding until his knuckles ached. movement helped. silence helped more.
it was the thinking that didn’t help.
every time he paused to sip water or wipe his brow, his mind wandered straight back to you. the hallway when you had almost kissed. that goddamn sketch. that smile. that look.
he raked a hand through his hair and bent back over the table saw.
he wasn’t running from anything. he just—needed time to think. figure out how to say the right thing, do the right thing. hell, even breathe the right way around you. because if he wasn’t careful, he was gonna blow this whole thing apart at the seams.
he heard the screen door creak open.
“jake seresin!”
he straightened, fast. wiped his hands on his jeans.
your father’s voice carried across the yard like a shotgun blast. “you better get your ass in here and grab some grub before you work yourself to death, boy!”
jake blinked, startled. that was friendlier than usual. sure you father was always friendly and polite with jake. but he was still a man in his fifties. he still had the generational grump attached to him like a leach.
he jogged up toward the porch, slowing just as he reached the steps. her dad was framed in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, spatula in hand, grinning like someone who’d already had three cups of coffee and was damn proud of his breakfast spread.
jake scratched the back of his neck, sheepish. “was just trying to get a head start on the trim, sir.”
“well, trim’s not goin’ anywhere,” the man said. “c’mon now. food’s hot and ready.”
jake offered a nod and stepped inside.
the kitchen smelled like sausage and butter and something fried. bacon probably. your dad moved with practiced ease—flipping pancakes, tapping the coffee pot, humming some country radio tune under his breath. it was so normal, so quietly domestic, it made jake feel like an intruder in his own life.
he hovered awkwardly near the dining room table, waiting.
and still wondering—where the hell were you?
he hadn’t seen you all morning. not even a shadow of her in the hallway. no sound from her bedroom. no teasing voice or bare feet on hardwood or morning grumble about the barn being too loud. just absence.
if jake didn't know any better, he'd of thought you'd skipped town. gone back to your big city living and left him, your fathers best friend and a man nearly fifteen years your senior, in the dust.
jake sat slowly, heart low in his chest.
he liked sausage, and bacon, and eggs and everything that your father had piled on to his plate and set in front of him. but still he picked around the food like it was poisoned. as if your giant teddy bear of a father could ever even think of something so malicious. you mother on the other hand was a different story.
what he didn’t like?
the empty seat at the kitchen table.
or the way the old man beside him kept glancing toward the hallway like he expected his daughter to appear at any moment.
jake wrapped his hands around a hot mug of coffee and tried not to think too hard. not about your texts last night. not about the the way you asked for dimensions. not about how you had said please when he asked if you wanted a nude. the way you had begged just enough to make his heart stutter.
“boy like you should eat more than toast,” your father said suddenly, stabbing at a plate stacked high with bacon and eggs. “there’s sausage, too.”
jake smiled a little. “i’m pacing myself, sir.”
the man huffed. “you’ll never keep up with my girl on an empty stomach. she’s usually in here by now. you’d think she was powered by coffee and stubbornness.”
jake nodded but didn’t speak.
he noticed it, your glaring absence. and as if answered by the gods. he heard it. the soft padding of bare feet on carpeted stairs. the faintest rustle of linen or cotton. the kind of sound you only caught when you were listening for it. and god help him, he was always listening for you.
he turned his head just in time to catch the briefest flicker of motion.
there—by the back hallway—her nightshirt flashed into view, a slip of pale blue and bare skin disappearing around the edge of the doorframe like a mirage. you were already in the kitchen by the time he blinked, gone before he could call out or clear his throat or find a reason to follow.
jake’s chest pulled tight.
you knew he was here. you'd seen him. he knew you had. you'd moved too fast not to. and that meant you were avoiding him.
the mug in his hand suddenly felt too warm, too heavy.
there was something about this morning—about you—that felt off. guarded. like a storm was building under her skin and he was too stupid to feel the barometric shift until it was pressing against his ribs.
jake stood up.
casual. easy. not suspicious at all.
he lifted the mug toward her father like a peace offering.
“mind if i top this off?” he asked, gesturing toward the coffee pot in the kitchen, even though there was a pot in front of him that was half full. he'd lie and say he wanted some of the hot coffee straight off the press if your father mentioned it.
his voice cracked halfway through the sentence, and he swallowed hard to cover it. thankfully your father was so lost in the morning paper that he didn't notice. “knock yourself out, son.”
jake nodded once and stepped towards the kitchen, letting the swinging door close on its own.
the moment he stepped through the door and saw you—bare legs, sleep-wrinkled nightshirt, hair a mess, already reaching for the honey like you hadn’t just driven him halfway out of his damn mind the night before—jake nearly forgot how to breathe.
he didn’t even try to be subtle about it. his eyes dropped, dragged, took in every inch. that damn shirt barely covered your ass. your thighs were soft, bare, shifting slightly as you stood there with your back to him.
the same hands you used to text him those filthy questions were now delicately cradling a coffee mug, and jake’s brain short-circuited with the image of those fingers somewhere else. the way you’d sounded when you begged. the way you’d stammered please.
his dick twitched in his jeans. no surprise there.
he kept his voice casual, as casual as a man with a loaded gun in his pants could manage.
“mind if i get a refill?”
you jumped like you’d been caught stealing. the mug in your hand jolted, sloshing a bit. the room tightened.
god, he could feel the shift in the air—how your body stiffened, how you froze like prey, and he didn’t even need to see your face to know your cheeks were heating up.
yet, you didn’t turn.
you didn’t have to.
and the next words that came out of jake's mouth might as well damn him to hell. “did you come on your fingers yesterday after lookin’ at that picture i sent you?”
he saw your shoulders snap straight, head whipping around, that mug nearly slipping again. you looked scandalized, slightly furious, and absolutely and completely fucked.
jake could’ve kissed you. right then, right there. he can't even fathom the idea that the two you haven't even properly kissed yet.
“what the fuck? are you insane? my dad’s right there. he could hear!” you were whisper-shouting, panicked, eyes wide as you glanced toward kitchen door like your dad might materialize from thin air.
jake didn’t flinch.
he just stepped closer.
didn’t touch you, just stood there, a couple inches away, voice low and sinful. “didn’t ask where your daddy was. i asked if you came. on. your. fingers, darlin’.”
he watched it hit you. your breath caught. your thighs shifted again—squeezing together like you needed to, like you were fighting instinct, fighting him.
“stop fucking saying that,” you hissed. “you’re disgusting.” you spat but the grimace and glare on your face was betrayed but the way you pushed your thighs together, shamelessly at that. like you didn't even realize you were doing it.
jake grinned.
“yeah?” he said, cocking a brow. “if i remember correctly, you were the one beggin’ for vein placement like it was a damn anatomy test. you even said pretty please.”
he wanted to see if you’d deny it.
you didn’t.
you just gripped the counter, breathing harder now, face flushed. jake took a step closer. still no contact. just pure heat. “i’ll ask again real slow, honey.”
he leaned in, voice near your ear now, eyes on the way your breath hitched. “did. you. slip your fingers inside that sweet perfect little pussy and think about my cock while your daddy was asleep down the hall?”
your whole body went tight. your thighs clenched, knees wobbling just a little. you moaned—faint but unmistakable—and that sound nearly undid him.
from the dining room, “you okay in there?” jake stepped back half an inch, smirk already curling at the edge of his mouth. “yeah, everything’s great,” he called, pitch too high.
you muttered your own answer under your breath, then just for you, he muttered, “just hope it was as dirty as i imagine.” and he turned. was about to head out, give you some space to combust—when you grabbed him.
your hand curled around his wrist, tight and shaky. the heat of your skin against his made him stop cold.
he turned. he saw your face. saw the fire in your eyes and the flush on your cheeks and the way your chest rose and fell in tight, shallow breaths.
then you tugged.
hard.
jake didn’t fight it. he didn’t hesitate. he let you pull him until he was back in your space, until you were the one trapped now, back against the counter, chest nearly brushing his.
he braced his arms on either side of you, eyes dark, mouth parted. but he still refused to touch you. “i wanted to,” you said.
jake blinked. his stomach dropped. “what?” he knew. but god, he wanted to hear it. “last night. after your picture.”
“yeah?” his voice dipped. “you touch yourself, baby?” you shook your head. you looked wrecked. apologetic, like you’d failed a test.
“i wanted to so bad, jake, i swear. i was interrupted.”
his jaw clenched. fuck. that image—you in bed, picture in hand, maybe your legs spread, fingers curling into the hem of your panties—only to be interrupted?
he swallowed hard.
“and if you weren’t?”
“then i would’ve.”
jake stepped closer. close enough for your thighs to brush his. your fingers were still in his flannel sleeve, holding on like a lifeline. “and what would you have thought about, angel?” he asked. “the picture?”
you nodded slowly. deliberate. eyes lidded, lips parted. “i would have thought about you. what you'd’ve said to me.” then you stood on your toes. whispered like sin in his ear, “and it wouldn’t have been the first time either.”
jake stopped breathing.
his brain emptied. his body locked. every nerve ending was screaming. he leaned back just enough to look at you. really look at you.
you were temptation and innocence and hunger all rolled into one.“jesus christ.” he didn’t mean to say it. it just fell out of him. then his gaze dropped. your mouth was so close. your nightshirt nearly translucent in the light. no bra. no shame.
“do you touch yourself a lot thinkin’ about me?” he asked, casual as hell—like it wasn’t killing him.
you stammered. tried to speak. failed. he stepped in again. “asked you a question, baby.” he needed to hear it. he needed to know if he was alone in this obsession ( as if he didn't already know. as if you weren't spending all day and night sketching his cock. )
“i—i don’t—”
“ain’t a hard question,” Jake said. “either ya do or ya don’t.”
you looked like you were drowning. “no,” you whispered. “it was just the one time.” jake's chest burned. not with disappointment, but with something worse. something deeper.
the way you curled inward. the way your voice softened. it was the the atmosphere changed gears. “i just . . . i thought about you,” you said. “but it—it wasn’t like weird or anything. i didn’t mean to—”
“you didn’t mean to finger yourself or you didn’t mean to picture it was me instead?”
“either, both. i—are you . . . mad that i did?”
jake stopped. stared.
mad?
you thought he’d be mad?
you thought—you were still talking. apologizing. rambling something about your mom. about girls who weren’t supposed to want things. who weren’t supposed to say things like that.
jake’s hand lifted on instinct—hovering, not touching. “you thought i’d be mad because you touched yourself thinkin’ about me?”
he could barely believe it. his chest hurt. you thought he’d reject that? his voice dropped, low and rough. “darlin’,” he said, “i ain’t ever wanted anything more in my whole fuckin’ life.”
and he meant it. every word.
jake’s hand was still hovering—close enough that you could feel the heat of it radiating over your hip, but not touching, not yet. like he knew if he did, he’d lose the last sliver of restraint he had.
your back was against the counter now—chest rising and falling so fast it was almost embarrassing, cheeks so hot you could feel the heat radiating off them in waves.
your heart thudded against your ribs. loud but dull and frantic rhythm. and then he began again. “next time you do it,” he murmured, “i want you thinkin’ about how i’d talk you through it." he kept going, filthy, like he was barely hanging on himself, “tellin’ you you’re doin’ so good. tellin’ you how wet you are for me. how warm. how tight.” your knees damn near buckled.
“i want you thinkin’ about my fingers." he added, darkly amused now, “sliding in slow, crookin’ just right. how i’d curl ‘em like this—” he held his fingers up, pantomiming the motion. “—until you cry.”
your lips parted but no air came out. “wanna be the reason your sheets are a mess. the reason you bite your lip when you’re tryin’ not to moan. the reason you shake when you come.” your pulse went wild.
“next time,” he said, “i want you thinkin’ about ridin’ my thigh ‘til you soak me through. real slow too, honey. just your panties between us, all wet and messy and desperate. i’d hold your hips and make you work for it. want you picturin’ me sittin’ back with my arms folded, watchin’ you grind your sweet little pussy against me ‘til you can’t take it anymore,” he leaned in, lips brushing your ear, breath hot enough to burn.
“i want you sayin’ my name while you do it.” that’s when you broke. you sucked in a breath, shaky, sharp and your thighs clenched instinctively.
you couldn’t speak. you couldn’t think. everything inside you had gone molten—slick heat coiling low in your belly, heartbeat pulsing between your legs.
you twisted toward him, throat tight. “next time?” jake just smiled. “baby,” he said, looking at you like you were already undone, “there’s gonna be a next time.” your breath hitched.
you didn’t move. you couldn’t. jake looked down at you, his head cocked slightly, eyes hooded and heavy with want. “next time,” he said, slow and deliberate, “i’m gonna watch you.”
you blinked. “what?”
“when you touch yourself,” he murmured, voice like warm honey sliding over gravel, “i want your legs spread open for me. shirt pushed up. nothing on underneath.” your back arched subtly against the counter, body reacting before your brain could catch up.
“i wanna see how you do it,” he went on, “how you play with that sweet little pussy when no one’s watchin’. if you go fast or slow. if you tease yourself. if you moan my name when you’re close. i gotta make sure your treatin' her right, baby.”
your mouth had gone dry and you knew your thighs had gone slick. “and maybe,” jake added, leaning in like he was about to confess a sin, “if you ask real nice—” is lips brushed your cheek, the ghost of a kiss that didn’t quite happen. “—’ll touch you.” you gasped.
actually gasped.
jake chuckled low, lips still barely grazing your skin. “just my fingers at first. one hand on your hip, the other between your thighs. i won’t go deep, not yet—just enough to make you beg.” our knees buckled. again. “beg me to fuck you,” he finished, pulling back just an inch, “right here in your daddy’s house.” you stared up at him, wrecked. ruined.
your brain scrambled, your body traitorous. jake tilted his head, lips parted like he was still tasting you, even though he hadn’t laid a finger on you. “i’d do it, too,” he added softly.
“if you asked. if you looked up at me all needy like this? i’d fuck you stupid on this counter.” you nearly whimpered. from the other room, “jake? you get lost in there?”
jake didn’t move, didn’t look away. “better go ‘fore he thinks i died,” he whispered, eyes still locked on yours. “you comin', darlin’?” you mouth moved before your brain did and you let out a breathless, "no!"
he grinned. cocky and devastating. "comin' to the dining room, baby. your dad made breakfast." he turned but then stopped, hand just short of the handle. "i know you ain't comin' right now. not til i say so." you made quick and shook your head no.
and with that, jake seresin turned around and left you in the kitchen legs shaking, panties soaked, and jaw slack like he hadn’t just promised to ruin you.
jake stepped out of the kitchen like nothing had happened.
like he wasn’t rock-fucking-hard in his jeans.
like he hadn’t just whispered filth into the ears of a girl whose daddy was waiting in the next goddamn room.
his boots hit the floor harder than he intended. his jaw locked tight enough to ache. his dick—jesus christ, his dick—was so hard it felt like a loaded weapon, straining against denim that had absolutely no chance of containing it.
he’d barely made it ten steps before he had to drag a hand through his hair, tug at the back of his neck, and pray the goddamn denim didn’t split in half.
he could still feel you.
that trembling breath. that wrecked expression. the way her thighs squeezed together like she was seconds from coming right there on the fucking tile—
he hissed quietly under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he paused behind your father, still in the door frame of the kitchen.
he was so hard it hurt. not even metaphorically. physically. painfully. the zipper on his jeans might as well have been a bear trap, and he was a hair’s breadth from groaning out loud like some hormonal teenager with a death wish.
"was that my girl i heard in there?" your father asked.
he whipped his head up, straightened his spine—forced his mouth into a tight, neutral smile—and took a step forward. big mistake. the friction from the movement nearly made his knees buckle. his cock was pulsing, aching, pressing hard against the seam of his fly like it wanted out.
he grabbed the back of a chair, grounding himself in the wood, and muttered quickly, “uh—yeah. she, uh, she said she was gonna shower real quick.”
he didn’t mean for it to come out strangled, but it did. your father raised a brow. jake cleared his throat, tried again. “y’know. said she needed a minute. woke up late.”
still not great. still definitely suspicious. but your dad seemed satisfied enough to turn back to the paper, muttering something about the damn egg price inflation.
jake sat down slowly, very carefully adjusting his jeans under the table so he didn’t explode in his wranglers like a fucking volcano of shame. he could still smell your shampoo on his shirt. could still feel your breath on his neck.
and now he had to sit here. across from your dad. with a hard-on from whispering filth into your ear. jesus take the wheel.
he drummed his fingers on the table once. then twice. then again.
his jaw was tight. his throat dry. your father sipped his coffee, leaned back in his chair. “don't think she didn't sleep well last night. heard her pacing.” jake felt something shift in his chest.
the man sighed. “she gets that from her mother. brain never really quits.” jakes coffee soured in his mouth at the mention of your mother but he didn’t comment. he set the mug down, suddenly not thirsty anymore.
then—more quietly, a little more hesitant—the older man added, “i’m startin’ to get a little worried, to be honest.”
jake’s eyes lifted as he cleared his throat. “how so?”
your father hesitated, as if he was thinking twice about airing your personal business to a man you had known less than two months. “she hasn’t been wearin’ that hearing aid. the one for her left ear.”
jake stayed still.
“she thinks i haven’t noticed,” the man went on, “but i have. she tilts her head when i talk now. like she’s trying to make out every word. and its not just on that side anymore. it both.”
jake’s fingers curled tighter around the mug.
“i think the good ear’s startin’ to go too,” her dad said, voice lower now. “not that she’d admit it to anyone.”
jake swallowed, jaw clenching. “she’s proud. always has been,” the man said. “doesn’t like feeling weak. especially not around me. or her mother.”
that last part was said offhand. unknowing. as if your father was truly oblivious to the way your mother thought about you, nay treated you. jake’s chest ached with restraint.
“if she says anything 'bout it to you.” her dad trailed off. “i’d be grateful to know. i know your not all that close, hell you just met. but part of me thinks she might open up to someone who doesn't have such a personal stake in the matter.”
jake met his eyes. “of course.” your father gave a grateful nod and went back to his breakfast.
jake stared straight ahead, the only sound in the room the soft clink of silverware and the dull thrum of guilt building in his chest.
you weren't here. you had fled the kitchen just moments prior and he was starting to wonder if it was purely because of how he had flustered you. but now all he could think about was the fact that you felt like you couldn't share your pain with anyone in your life.
warnings .ᐟ 18+ mdni. sharing gum. mentions of sex. established relationship. makeout sessions.
summary .ᐟ big meanie scott miller sharing his gum with his sweetheart of a girlfriend :0 (+ the 1 time you share your gum with him).
acknowledgements .ᐟ gif creds: @/corensweat
the first time scott does what you’d previously thought of as disgusting and revolting, was during one of your regular storm chasing afternoons.
back then you were just fuck buddies, keeping each other’s beds warm without the commitment, something scott was open about to you when it first started—at first it broke your heart but you learnt to live with it and accept it.
the day wasn’t going as expected, your hair sticking to your skin with rain, the data you were supposed to be collecting coming out all wrong, the storm seemingly disappearing right before your eyes—everyone was on edge.
your chest huffed as you looked down at your reports, the numbers not adding up to the measure you needed them to, only furthering you into an overthinking mess.you’d been chewing chunks out of the inside of your cheek, the the dried skin on your bottom lip not any better as your teeth scraped them off with with each nibble, the stress of the day urging you to nervously gnaw on something.
scott noticed; of course he did, he noticed every little thing about you— from the way you’d nervously tick when anxious, to the meticulous morning routine you had after each and every single one of your rendezvous.
he smacked his gum, scratching at the stubble growing on his jaw as he eyed you, the clipboard with data in his hands at the back of his mind now, too proud to admit with his full chest that he worried about you when you’d get like this, “you good?” he finally spoke up, voice gravelly, his nose twitching as he sniffled, the edge of the clipboard digging into his abdomen.
you looked up from the tablet in your hands, eyes wide as saucers; “what?” you asked, the assault from your teeth onto your already bleeding bottom lip, halted for a moment.
“i asked if you’re good, you’re uh, you’re doing that thing,” he paused, gesturing to your lips, his blue eyes pierced as he studied you, his eyes raking over your almost trembling with anxiety, figure.
you could taste the metallic twang from your bleeding bottom lip, lifting the pad of your fingers to touch it, looking down at your blood stained fingers as you swallowed, his voice echoing in the background as he called out your name.
you cleared your throat, your tongue darting out to wet your lips before humming, “yeah yeah—i’m fine, just really frustrated i guess—i uh-you got any more gum?” you finally blurted out, hoping to stop the assault on your bruised and bleeding bottom lip by chewing some gum.
scott looked at you, passing off the clipboard to someone walking by before checking his pockets, patting himself down. he realised slowly that the one he was currently smacking on was the last one he had, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek as his gaze zeroed in again on that anxious tick of yours, looking around to check if the rest of the team were looking before stepping forward, his face stoic, not at all giving away what he was about to do.
his large hand reached your jaw first, calloused palm tender against your skin before he bent down to accommodate your height, your brain catching up with your body slower than what you’d want it to, lips parted as his other hand moved to the belt loops on your jeans, hooking his index finger into one of them to pull your closer to him.
in a flurry his lips were pressed to yours, your breath catching in your throat as you kissed him back almost instantly, your lips moulding to the shape of one another’s, your body responding to his all too familiar touch as you melted into his embrace, your legs like jelly, the only thing keeping you grounded being his hand on your belt loop.
your skin prickled with goosebumps as your colleagues began staring, but you couldn’t find it in you to care, not with how his tongue prodded into your mouth with urgency, your head spinning as you angled your head so he could have his way, the kiss growing a tad desperate, completely oblivious to how he was manoeuvring the piece of minty fresh gum from his mouth into yours, his hand that had been on your jaw having slid down to the base of your throat, sitting loosely around the delicate skin there.
your eyes shot open as you felt the piece of gum in your mouth, your first instinct being to spit it out immediately, brows furrowed at the soft material on your tongue, until your eyes caught his, the emotions he couldn’t convey with his words shouting out to you from the windows to his soul, blinking as his stare willed you to keep your mouth closed and keep the piece of gum, his gum between your chapped lips.
without even realising you’d begun chewing it, the taste of the gum paired with that distinct taste that was scott miller, making your breathing falter, your cheeks warm as you kept chewing, blowing a bubble before looking over to your colleague’s, some of them mortified from the public display of affection, especially from someone like scott; others who’s motel rooms were right next to yours, having heard every little moan and breathy whimper you made when scott’s cock was buried deep inside, not surprised at all, and javi? poor javi was as confused as ever.
you swallowed, your eyes never leaving scott’s as you chewed on the gum, the anxiety you’d been experiencing seemingly leaving your body. wordlessly he straightened up, lifting his signature blue peak cap from his head, smoothing down his hair as he placed it atop your head, another public claim on you, unconsciously letting everyone know you were his; his eyes speaking to you again, reassuring you.
a classic “mean to everyone but you” scott miller move you guessed.
with a pat to your shoulder he left, busying himself with work as he usually did, leaving your mind (and cotton panties) a mess, smiling to yourself at his display of affection, the gum between your teeth a sweet reminder to it.
the second time he does it is roughly a month later, your relationship public and solidified, the office at stormpar’s headquarters coming to know you now as scott miller’s too sweet girlfriend, often wondering how your dynamic worked seeing as scott constantly looked a grumpy mess.
“god damn it i asked for it to be done today! why can’t anyone get this shit right?!” you heard him yell from down the hall, some intern scrambling back to their desk, scared as a mouse, scott’s presentation for his uncle and a couple of investors in about thirty minutes.
you stood from your desk, downing the rest of your water as you met him outside the boardroom. “you okay? can see the steam blasting from your ears from a mile away,” you attempted to joke, smiling up at him as your hand reached for his, his jaw working as he chewed his usual minty gum.
“fuck—nothings going how i wanted it to go, and those god awful intern hire’s are useless-“ he huffed, running his hand that wasn’t holding yours down his face.
your brows furrowed, picking up on his frustration, “breathe, you’ll be okay - seen you give mean presentations a thousand times before, with a damn good poker face too; this is nothin’ scott,” you hummed, letting his hand fall for a moment to smooth down his collar.
he nodded, about to respond when the intern from earlier scrambled back toward him, apologising profusely as they handed him the correct material, that hard, quite frankly nerve wracking stare of his piercing their skin, the terrified look on their face making you snort, trying your hardest not to laugh as they scurried away.
you shook your head, looking down at your shoes before sighing, “you’re too scary sometimes y’know? gotta be nicer baby,” you giggled, his nervousness disappearing for a moment.
he shook his head, dimples announcing themselves to the world as he smacked his gum, “only person i need to be cordial to is you, fuck the rest of em” he huffed, looking down at his digital watch, that grumpy look you’ve come to know and love back on his face.
you rolled your eyes at his words, looking down at your own watch to see that it was time for him to go; “you’ll do amazing i know it—fore’ you go in there munching away, gum—“ you paused, holding your hand out, palm to the sky as you waited for him to spit out his gum into your palm, so you could dispose of it.
he simply shook his head, smirking briefly before pressing his lips to yours, his kiss hasty but chaste, his tongue prodding into your warm mouth as he passed his gum to you again, already becoming all whoozy at the action.
he pulled away hastily, clearing his throat as he smiled at his handy work, the sight of you chewing his gum always working wonders for his ego—becoming his second favourite thing in the world (first place was loving you of course).
with a soft slap to your ass he entered the board room, the door closing softly with a click. you smiled to yourself as you hovered outside, bowing a bubble as a throat clearing from behind you, disturbed your moment of tranquility, your head snapping to find javi with a disgusted look on his face, only giggling in response.
“you two are disgusting, truly,” javi remarked, grimacing at the idea of you chewing someone else’s gum, his words however, holding no real malice to them.
“don’t knock it till you try it javi,” you giggled, running after him to piss him off further as you held your fingers crossed that scott’s proposal would go well.
the first time you pull his signature move on him is as you’re getting back from the grocery store, his strong arms carrying the multiple bags into the kitchen of your shared apartment, closing the door behind him before locking it as he set the bags down onto the counter.
he went through them, the bubble you’d blown with the last piece of gum you had, popping, masking the sound of his grumble as he sorted through the bag.
“ah fuck,” he mouthed, looking over his shoulder as he watched you pack everything that needed to be chilled, into the fridge.
“we forget somethin?” you hummed, placing the punnets of blueberries and strawberries into the crisper. “yeah—forgot my gum, can you believe it?” he huffed, muttering another “fuck” under his breath as he crossed his arms over his chest, the man not able to function without his preferred brand of gum, only realising then that you’d been smacking on some gum the whole time.
“you got any left sweetie?” he hummed, walking across the kitchen to where you stood, his large hands smoothing around your waist from behind, turning you around in his arms as he smoothly closed the fridge door behind you, softly pressing your back to it.
this was all normal for you, him manhandling you whenever and wherever, your body pliant under his grasp. “mhm? got any left of what?” you furrowed your brows, doing a mental checklist of what you could’ve forgotten.
his hands smooth down from your waist to your ass, squeezing and massaging the flesh as he gestured to the bubble you’d just blown with a nod, effortlessly lifting you up into his arms.
you mentally “ohhhh’d”, prepared to watch disappointment overcome his handsome features as you readied yourself to shake your head, the word “nope” on the tip of your tongue before you remembered you’d been chewing on a piece of gum yourself.
with a smile on your plush lips you pressed them to his, smiling into the kiss as you felt him move you over to one of the counters, the marble countertop cool against your skin, your lips moving languidly against his as you tried to control the pace of the kiss, your body’s urge to let him do whatever he pleased, fighting against the idea you had.
as your arms moved around his neck, deepening the kiss as your tongue danced with his, moving the gum into his mouth, your saliva mixing oh so erotically with his, the gesture making his jeans tighten, your panties no doubt flushed with wetness as he seemed to only grow hungrier now with your gum in his mouth.
he pulled back after a moment, a string of saliva connecting your swollen, kiss bitten lips, his dimples showing cockily as he chewed the shit out of (your) his gum.
“using my own tricks on me now are you? thank you baby,” he guffawed, smirking as his hands moved to the hem of your shirt, goosebumps prickling your skin as he moved his calloused hands over the soft skin of your belly.
you only shrugged, satisfied with yourself as you surged forward to press quick little kisses to his lips, smiling as he continued smacking the gum regardless.
Summary: You had always been looking for a family subconsciously, turns out you found it. The Dagger Squad.
Trigger Warnings: Drinking, cursing (?) Unedited, pure fluff and platonic vibes
A/N: Hey guys! I've been super busy and will be for the foreseeable future but I've had this one in the drafts for a minute so I figured I'd put it out. It super short sorry for that but hopefully this week and over the weekend I'll have time to finish 'Flying above you' which is another fic in my WIPs. Anyways lmk how y'all like the fluff and platonic vibes! It's not my usual thing as y'all know, but I'm trying something new, hope it works out @littlebitb
{NOT MY GIF}
Your house was loud—chaotic in that way it always was when the squadron piled in without hesitation. Laughter spilled from the living room, echoing off the walls as though the very foundation of the house had learned how to breathe along with them. There were shoes kicked haphazardly by the door as they almost forgot your no shoes in the house rule, jackets thrown across chairs, half-eaten pizza boxes stacked on the counter. Someone was yelling about picking the wrong movie, and someone else was insisting the volume was too loud even though nobody reached for the remote. Probably Payback finding something to complain about.
You should’ve been irritated. You should’ve been worrying about stains on the carpet or the fact that your couch was seconds away from collapsing under the weight of four aviators piled onto it. But instead, you leaned against the doorway, watching the chaos unfold with a kind of quiet awe.
It hit you, suddenly and all at once, how full the space was, not just with people, but with life.
There had been a time when nights were empty like this. When silence pressed so heavy against your ribs that it was hard to breathe, and there was no one to call, no one to lean on. Loneliness had been your closest companion, and the thought of belonging somewhere had felt like a fantasy you weren’t meant to touch. You had spent more time alone than with anyone else, never feeling like you had a home.
But here they were now. A family you hadn’t been born into but had been given all the same. A family stitched together by chance and long days in the cockpit, by victories and bruises, by the unspoken promise that no one was ever truly alone anymore.
A laugh tore through the room, Rooster’s, loud and unrestrained, as he shoved Coyote for trying to balance a soda can on his head. Phoenix smacked Fanboy with a pillow, and Payback howled like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Jake yelled something about house rules that didn’t make sense, and no one listened to him. Everyone was just being unapologetically themselves and you loved every second of it. It felt good to be in a room where embarrassment wasn’t even a thought.
You smiled without meaning to, your chest tightening at the sight. For a moment, you let yourself step back and simply feel it: the warmth, the belonging, the rare and fragile gift of having a place to land.
“They love you, you know.”
The voice was soft, quiet enough that you almost thought you imagined it. You turned, startled, to see Bob beside you, half-hidden in the hallway’s shadow with a soda cradled in his hand. He hadn’t announced his presence, just slipped in like he always did, steady, grounded, seeing everything that others missed.
His words caught you off guard. You blinked, unsure what to say. Love? That felt too big, too unbelievable. You were the host, the one who made sure there was food and enough blankets, the one who held the chaos together, but love? That wasn’t something you thought you’d earned.
You must not have hidden the doubt well, because Bob tilted his head slightly, his expression impossibly gentle. “You’re home to them,” he said.
And just like that, your heart cracked open.
The tears burned before you could stop them, a lump rising sharp in your throat. You pressed your lips together, trying to steady yourself, but Bob’s words clung stubbornly to the quiet corners of your soul.
You thought of all the nights you used to spend in silence, the ache of wanting to belong somewhere, the hollow weight of loneliness. And then you thought of this night, of laughter spilling over like it couldn’t be contained, of pizza crusts and mismatched socks and the feeling that if the world ended tomorrow, you would have lived something worth remembering.
Your heart felt full in a way you couldn’t put into words.
You glanced back toward the living room, where the movie had finally started, though no one was really watching. Rooster had stolen all the pillows, Jake was heckling the opening credits, and Phoenix had her feet tucked under her like she’d already claimed her spot for the night.
And suddenly, you knew. Bob was right. They weren’t just friends. They weren’t just coworkers or teammates. They were home.
And they had made you theirs, too.
Without another thought, you pushed off the doorway and jogged straight into the chaos. “Make room for me!” you called, your voice cutting through the noise as you launched yourself onto the couch.
The entire pile of aviators groaned at once when you landed squarely on top of them.
“Jesus Christ—!” Rooster wheezed, trying to push you off as he flailed for air.
“You’re crushing my vital organs!” Fanboy shouted dramatically, though he made no move to actually escape.
“Get off me, or I swear I’ll—” Phoenix tried to sound intimidating, but she was laughing too hard to finish the threat.
Jake, of course, only smirked. “Finally realized where the party was, huh, darlin’? Don’t worry, I saved you a spot.”
“Saved me a spot? You’re sitting on half the couch!” you shot back, elbowing him until he nearly toppled into the beer bottles littering the coffee table.
“Worth it,” he said with a grin that earned him a throw pillow to the face that remained even after it ricocheted causing you to let out an unfiltered laugh.
Bob, still leaning in the doorway, shook his head with a quiet smile. And then, just as quickly, he crossed the room and claimed the only free armchair, sipping his soda like he’d planned it all along.
Within seconds,it all turned into an all-out wrestling match over the last remaining blanket. Coyote tried to yank it from Payback, who retaliated by pulling you into the scuffle for some reason unbeknownst to you. Phoenix ended up flat on her back, laughing so hard tears rolled down her cheeks, while Fanboy yelled that he was Switzerland and refused to get involved.
You laughed until your sides ached, caught in the center of it all, your voice mixing with theirs in the kind of harmony you never thought you’d have.
When the dust finally settled, and everyone was tangled in one giant heap of limbs, someone hit play again, and the movie flickered across the TV. But no one cared much about the screen.
Because this, this was the whole point.
You sank back against the cushions, squished between Rooster and Phoenix, the blanket finally thrown over half of you, and let the warmth of the moment wash over you.
At some point in the night, the movie droned into background noise. Laughter softened into mumbles, mumbles into silence, and one by one, they all slipped into sleep.
You woke before the sun, stiff but warm, sandwiched between Rooster’s arm draped heavy across your shoulder and Phoenix’s head resting against your knee. The TV glowed faintly, cycling through previews again.
Carefully, you slid out of the pile without waking anyone. The floor was a minefield of empty soda cans, crumpled napkins, and popcorn kernels that had somehow made it halfway across the room. You smiled at the sight, shaking your head, and started cleaning quietly, stacking boxes, gathering cups, straightening blankets. Normally this would’ve sent you into overdrive but something about how happy everyone was last night erased that from your mind. It was worth it.
By the time the kitchen counters were cleared, you had eggs cracking in a pan, coffee brewing, and the first hints of morning light spilling through the blinds.
The smell must have done the work, because the first shuffle of footsteps behind you made you glance back.
Bob was the first to appear, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. He leaned against the counter, watching you cook. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
You shrugged, smiling. “Didn’t want everyone waking up to a disaster zone.”
He gave one of his small, quiet smiles. “You’re good at taking care of people. Just… don’t forget you’re allowed to let us take care of you, too.”
Your chest tightened at his words, but before you could respond, another voice broke the quiet.
Rooster, hair a complete mess, stumbled in with a blanket still draped over his shoulders. “Tell me that smell is coffee and not me hallucinating.”
You slid him a mug without missing a beat. He grinned sleepily, the kind of grin that made you think of sunshine, walking over to where you were cooking and leaned his head on your shoulder for a second and muttered, “Knew I loved you.” He stood up and took a sip, burned his tongue, and swore under his breath, which made you laugh.
Phoenix wandered in next, stretching her arms high above her head. “If you’re making eggs, I call dibs on the first plate.”
“You called dibs last time,” you reminded her.
She smirked, sliding into a chair. “Yeah, and it worked then too.”
You just smiled at her over your shoulder as you continued your task, “Cheese?” you asked and everyone collectively hummed in agreement.
Coyote shuffled in behind eventually, yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. “Dibs on the first plate,” he announced before plopping into the seat across from Phoenix.
“Too late, I already called it” Phoenix narrowed her eyes at him, “and if you try and take my plate I’ll ‘accidentally’ drop hot sauce in your eggs.”
Their bickering picked right back up as if they hadn’t slept at all, and it made your kitchen feel alive.
Fanboy and Payback showed up together, still half-asleep but already arguing over whether they’d actually finished the movie last night. Payback insisted he’d seen the ending; Fanboy swore they both passed out twenty minutes in. You slid them plates just to stop the debate knowing they didn’t last 10 minutes into the movie.
And then, of course, Jake strolled in last, shirtless, hair a mess but confidence still intact. He leaned against the doorway like he was posing for a magazine cover.
“Darlin’, I’ve gotta say,” he drawled, “waking up to the smell of breakfast in your kitchen might be the highlight of my week.”
You rolled your eyes, shoving a plate at him. “Sit down before I throw this at you.”
He smirked, taking the plate anyway. “See? That’s why you’re everyone’s favorite. No one else would feed us after the mess we made.”
Soon, your kitchen was full again, the clatter of forks against plates, the scrape of chairs, the rising hum of voices.
You stood for a moment, leaning against the counter, just watching them.
The aviators, your squad, your family. Sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, teasing each other between bites of food, laughing through yawns.
And as your chest swelled with something that felt dangerously close to tears, you thought: this was everything you’d ever wanted.
Your thought was cut short when Jake and Bradley started throwing bits of scrambled eggs at each other from across the kitchen.
Summary: They called you Bear—fierce, loyal, impossible to ignore.
Flying was freedom. Family. Fire.
But the sky takes as much as it gives.
And Jake Seresin learns that some ghosts don’t let go.
Trigger Warnings: Character death, aviation accidents, grief, self-destructive behavior, PTSD, survivor’s guilt, mental health, alcohol, cursing, anger, violence (?) death mentions, Navy inaccuracies, funeral, so much angst, very unedited!
A/N: It’s been a little bit so I had to come back full force obviously. Thank you for sticking around while I figured out my life lol. I recently went through a death of a good friend and it kind of inspired this very loosely. This one made me tear up a little bit so I'm sorry! I think my next work is going to be a bit more happy so stay tuned for that one. I honestly pull a lot of my life to get ideas for a lot of my fics so I gotta be having a good time to get a happier fic out and lately life's been looking up so hope it continues! @littlebitb
[NOT MY GIF]
Jake Seresin knows what it looks like when a pilot comes apart.
He’s seen it too many times. Eyes too wide behind the visor, hands too tight on the stick, flying like the only thing scarier than crashing is slowing down long enough to feel something.
He did it himself once, years ago, when the world went sideways and the only thing he could control was altitude.
But this time, he’s not the one spiraling.
It’s you.
And he can’t do a damn thing to stop it.
You used to fly with control. Grace. Purpose. Like you understood that the sky was an extension of yourself, not something to conquer but to move through.
Now?
Now, you fly low. Fast. Dangerous. You chase Gs like they owe you something. And Jake watches, helpless, as the light in your eyes shifts from precision to recklessness.
To everyone else, you're just "pushing yourself." Ambitious. Sharp-edged. Dedicated.
But Jake knows better.
He knows grief when he sees it.
It started after the accident. The one that took Smoke and Bishop and left you standing silent on the edge of the runway with clenched fists and blood in your palms from your nails digging into them.
You had trained them. To you, they were the closest to siblings you would ever get. The ‘Disaster Twins’ You would call them, you loved them more than you thought you could love anything.
You didn’t cry.
You didn’t talk.
You just got in the air again.
And you never really landed after that.
It happened fast.
Too fast for anyone to stop it.
Too fast for comms to catch it.
Too fast for a damn Mayday.
One minute, they were just dots against the blue horizon, steady and smooth, slicing along the coastline in perfect tandem. Smoke and Bishop, running a standard low-altitude pass, a formation they’d flown so many times it was practically instinct. They moved like one body in two aircraft, precise and clean.
Jake had flown the same run with them more times than he could count. It was a routine drill, textbook.
Until it wasn’t.
Until the wind shifted, sudden and sharp, a crosscurrent that wasn’t there five seconds before.
Until Bishop’s engine coughed mid-turn, just a hiccup, just a half-second stall, but that’s all it takes at low altitude.
Until Smoke, flying just off his wingtip, banked instinctively to adjust, too fast, too tight, the timing just off.
Until metal met metal.
Until the underside of Smoke’s fuselage clipped Bishop’s wing, snapping the formation like a bone under pressure.
One jet spiraled left.
The other rolled hard, nose-down.
No warning.
No words.
No time.
And then—
two flashes.
Two slashes of water kicked up like missiles hitting the sea.
Two plumes of smoke curling into the sky like a goddamn funeral pyre.
For a split second, the whole base held its breath. The tower fell silent—no chatter, no coordination, just dead air and wide eyes as they watched the impossible unfold.
Then the alarms started blaring.
Emergency sirens. Rapid deployment calls. Scramble orders. Voices tripping over each other in the headset as the reality caught up to them.
But Jake didn’t wait.
He was already moving, already halfway to the hangar before the first alarm finished sounding.
Helmet in hand.
Visor down.
Boots pounding the concrete like gunshots.
He knew how much they meant to the team, how much they meant to you. He was going to bring them back.
He launched with the search and rescue team less than five minutes later.
The sky blurred past as he pushed the throttle wide open, cutting through the air like he could undo time with speed alone.
Come on, come on, give me something, he prayed, eyes scanning the endless blue, ears tuned to every crackle of the radio.
But there was nothing.
No flares.
No beacons.
No parachutes.
Just twisted fragments bobbing on the surface.
Just a sick, oily smear staining the ocean.
Just silence.
They circled once. Twice. A third time.
Still nothing.
No sign of Bishop. No sign of Smoke. Not even a shadow beneath the waves. Gone like they never existed.
You waited.
You didn’t remember walking to the edge of the runway.
Didn’t remember setting your helmet down on the concrete or unclipping your gloves.
All you remembered was watching them disappear.
One second, Smoke and Bishop were just ahead of you on the flight line joking about dinner, shit-talking each other over coffee like they hadn’t done the exact same run a hundred times before.
The next, the radio was screaming static, the sirens were blaring, and your lungs were empty.
You didn’t cry.
Didn’t scream.
Didn’t fall to your knees.
You just stood there, staring down the horizon like you were waiting for their jets to rise back up out of the sea.
You knew they wouldn’t.
You knew.
But you couldn’t move.
Not when the search and rescue teams launched.
Not when Jake ran across the tarmac, helmet already on, jaw set and eyes flashing with something equal parts fear and fury.
Not when he locked eyes with you for the briefest moment before climbing into his jet and disappearing into the sky.
You still didn’t move.
Because some small, delusional part of you, some desperate, aching scrap of hope—believed if Jake found them, maybe this wouldn’t be real.
You trusted Jake.
If there was even a flicker of a chance, he’d bring them home.
So you waited.
You counted every minute he was gone, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Your fists stayed at your sides, nails digging crescent moons into your palms. The wind picked up and whipped at your flight suit, but you didn’t flinch.
The whole base moved around you, noise and chaos, medics and techs and officers coordinating in a frenzy, but it all blurred into a dull hum.
You only listened for one thing:
The sound of engines returning.
When Jake finally landed, you watched him climb out of the cockpit, his face ghost-pale, his body moving like it weighed twice as much as it should.
You didn’t need to hear the words.
Didn’t need to see the wreckage.
You saw it in the way Jake’s shoulders didn’t square up like they usually did.
You saw it in the way he didn’t make a beeline toward you, he just stopped and stared, like he didn’t know what to say.
Like he didn’t know how to look at you.
And maybe that was the worst part.
Because Jake Seresin was always the loud one. The smooth one. The one with the right thing to say even when it pissed you off.
But now?
Now, he was just as quiet as you were.
And in that silence, everything settled.
Smoke was gone.
Bishop was gone.
And Jake. Jake had gone looking and came back with nothing.
You turned and walked away.
Not because you didn’t care.
But because you did.
Because if you stayed one second longer, if you met Jake’s eyes, if you let yourself feel all of it at once,
You knew you wouldn’t come back from it either.
So you shut down.
You moved like muscle memory: locker, shower, bed.
You didn’t speak.
You didn’t cry.
You didn’t sleep that night. Or the night after.
But what you didn’t know, what you couldn’t see from behind the wall you were building, was that Jake never stopped watching you.
That while you were trying to disappear into your grief, he was quietly anchoring himself to you.
He didn’t push.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t pry.
But every coffee on your desk, every rookie who didn’t approach you, every squad laugh that just happened to break the silence, he made that happen.
Because he couldn’t save Smoke.
Couldn’t save Bishop.
But maybe, just maybe, he could save you.
And that’s when he saw you.
Standing alone, just past the edge of the landing strip. Still in your flight suit, hair wind-tossed, face blank.
Not crying.
Not moving.
Just… looking.
Like you’d seen it the second it happened.
Like you’d felt the moment they hit the water deep in your bones.
Helmet clutched in one hand. Fingers trembling just enough for him to notice. But your jaw was set, mouth drawn tight, eyes locked on the empty sky.
It hit him harder than the wreckage did.
Because he’d seen grief before. Messy, loud, violent.
But this?
This was something else.
This was grief frozen mid-air. Grief turned to stone.
And Jake didn’t know what to do with that.
Didn’t know how to fix it.
Didn’t know how to walk up to you without making it worse.
Didn’t know how to tell you that you could break down, that you should break down.
So he stayed where he was, boots rooted to the ground.
Watching you.
Heart in his throat.
Helpless.
And in that moment, Jake Seresin made a silent promise.
If he couldn’t stop the sky from taking people,
he’d at least try to keep it from taking you.
He didn’t know how to talk to you about it. Not without making it worse. Not without risking that you'd shut down completely.
So he didn’t.
Instead, Jake Seresin did what he always did when he didn’t know how to say the right thing—
He worked behind the curtain.
He made sure your locker was always stocked. That the coffee machine in the hangar bay was never empty of the kind you liked, even if it meant driving across base at 5am.
He kept rookies from asking you questions like “Were you close with them?” or “Did you see it happen?” with one look and a cold voice that said don’t. He had Hangman-level charm, but none of it touched his eyes when it came to you. That was reserved.
He asked Maverick to keep you off the flight schedule for a few days, not out of pity, but to buy you space and time.
He knew you'd hate it if you found out it came from him, so he had Phoenix submit the request. Made it look like it came from the squad.
He didn’t tell anyone why he started carrying two coffees to the briefings. One always ended up on your desk, steaming and untouched until it cooled.
When you skipped meals, he casually "forgot" his lunch too, so you'd both end up in the kitchen, picking at whatever leftover crap someone brought in.
When you didn’t speak, he made sure the others kept things light around you.
“Movie night?”
“Cards?”
“Beer run?”
Never how are you doing?Never are you okay?
You weren’t.
Everyone knew.
But they didn’t say it.
Because Jake made sure they didn’t have to.
He watched you fly harder after that.
Sharper.
Lower.
Like you were daring the sky to push back.
Like maybe, if you could fly fast enough, low enough, you could outrun the ache hollowing out your chest.
Maybe the faster you moved, the quieter the memories would get.
Maybe, if you pulled enough Gs, it would drown out the silence that followed Smoke and Bishop’s names.
Jake didn’t say anything at first.
Not when you cut a corner dangerously, close to a stall, or when your afterburner roared a half-second too long.
Not even when you started volunteering for every high-risk sim that came through rotation, even the ones that made the newer pilots flinch.
Because he got it.
Because he remembered what it felt like to be halfway to falling apart and terrified someone might notice, sometimes flying was the only thing that kept the screaming quiet.
And he also remembered what it felt like when no one noticed, no one pulled you aside.
When everyone just called it “pushing your limits.”
So he noticed.
Quietly.
Faithfully.
Desperately.
He kept track of your flight paths, your fuel consumption, the way you gripped the stick too tightly when you thought no one was watching.
He covered your six in the air, kept an eye on you in the hangar, rerouted other pilots to less intense sims when he knew you’d sign up for them instead.
But he let you fly.
Because he didn’t want to be the one who took the sky from you.
He didn’t want to clip your wings just when they were the only thing keeping you above water.
Until the first time you scared him.
Really scared him.
It was a Wednesday. Sim run. Standard maneuver set.
Jake was watching from the tower, arms folded, comms in his ear, tracking your jet on the screen as you dove into a wide turn.
Then, suddenly, you rolled.
Hard and fast.
A barrel roll that was too low and too sharp.
The clearance window you left was barely a breath wide.
You skimmed the danger zone like you wanted to brush it.
His heart stopped.
“Holy shit,” Phoenix muttered beside him.
Jake didn’t say anything for a second. He couldn’t.
Just stared at the screen, fists clenched, jaw locked.
When you landed twenty minutes later, you moved like nothing had happened.
You climbed down from the ladder, peeled off your gloves, tugged your helmet off like it wasn’t soaked with sweat.
But Jake saw the way your hands trembled when you thought no one was looking.
He saw the adrenaline twitch in your jaw, the heat on your neck, the way your chest rose and fell too fast beneath your flight suit.
He walked toward you, heart still hammering, words coming too fast to filter.
“Trying to get yourself grounded, sweetheart?”
He meant it as a joke.
Meant it as a jab, something light, something familiar to break the tension.
But the smile never reached his eyes.
And yours didn’t even flicker.
You didn’t answer.
Didn’t pause.
Didn’t blink.
You just brushed past him, helmet tucked under one arm, sweat darkening your flight suit like blood.
And Jake stood there.
Watching you disappear again, a little further this time.
A little faster.
And he felt it. Deep and quiet and awful, the creeping edge of fear.
Because that wasn’t just recklessness.
That was grief with a death wish.
And now?
Now, he wasn’t just worried about you, he was terrified.
Because if Smoke and Bishop had been the beginning of the storm,
you were the lightning strike chasing the wreckage.
He still didn’t confront you.
Not yet.
Because he knew the worst thing you could do to someone barely holding it together was to shove a mirror in their face.
So instead, he doubled down.
He made sure your flight reports stayed clean. Quietly rewrote your more aggressive runs with phrasing that made them sound “ambitious” instead of “dangerous.”
He kept the instructors off your back. Ran interference when anyone got too close.
He adjusted his own sim rotation to match yours, so he’d always be in the air when you were.
You never asked him to do any of it.
But he did it anyway.
Because Smoke and Bishop were gone.
And Jake was still here.
And you were still here.
And Jake Seresin didn’t have many promises left to keep in this world.
But he made one that day, standing on the tarmac, watching your silhouette retreat into shadow with grief stitched into your spine like steel:
He would not lose you too.
Not if he could help it.
Not without a fight.
Not without trying.
Even if you hated him for it, even if you never knew.
Eventually it got worse though.
Jake started losing track of how many times he stopped breathing in the control room.
You flew like there was a countdown running out in your head.
Split-second maneuvers that left barely enough room to recover.
Tight turns that scraped stall limits, your nose dipping just low enough to set off alarms in the tower.
You flew into turbulence like you were daring the wind to try you.
Every time he thought you'd pulled the worst stunt you could, you'd top it.
Every time he thought maybe you were easing off, you proved him wrong.
And Jake started feeling it, not just in the pit of his stomach, but in his bones.
That dull, persistent ache of helplessness.
He tried subtle things first.
Quiet. Careful. Didn’t want to spook you. Didn’t want to push.
So he’d wait until the others were gone, and cue up your sim footage, frowning like it was purely tactical.
“That’s not how we trained it,” he’d say casually, motioning to your line across the screen.
You barely looked up from your water bottle.
"You got a better way to stay alive?" you replied, voice flat but sharp.
And that was the thing, it wasn’t even defensive anymore. Just tired. Like you’d been living in this constant buzz of danger long enough that it didn’t even register as risk.
It was just normal.
Jake’s jaw would tighten. His lips would part like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. Not then at least.
Because there was still a flicker in your eyes when you said it.
Still something that looked like fight.
But it didn’t stop.
You just kept pushing.
Every flight more aggressive than the last.
Every line crossed with more confidence than the one before.
Eventually, subtle stopped working.
So Jake tried direct.
Cornered you after a particularly dangerous night op, both of you still peeling off your gear in the hangar.
He tossed his gloves on the bench harder than necessary.
“You’re not bulletproof, you know.”
You froze for a second, just a second, before you looked over your shoulder at him.
And you smiled.
But it wasn’t warm and it wasn’t teasing. It was sharp and small.
A blade, not a joke.
“Neither are you.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because he knew they were true.
Because the way you said them didn’t sound brave.
Didn’t sound like a challenge.
It sounded like a warning. Like a confession.
Neither of you were bulletproof.
But one of you had stopped caring about the impact.
Jake stared at you, throat dry, chest tight.
You turned away before he could say anything else, grabbing your helmet and heading for the locker room like the conversation didn’t matter.
But it did.
It mattered so much it made his hands shake.
Because that wasn’t just grief anymore.
That was detachment.
That was the kind of recklessness that didn’t have a future in mind and he was running out of ways to bring you back from it.
Then came the day you almost didn’t pull up.
Training op. Ocean run. Another routine flight.
At least, it should have been.
The weather was clean, visibility was good, comms were clear. It was a straightforward loop-and-return exercise, no surprises, no complications.
Until the final turn.
You banked too hard, fast, and too low.
You dove like you were chasing something only you could see, something far beneath the surface of the ocean, something you had no business following.
The warning blared in Jake’s headset.
A shrill, gut-twisting scream that shot through his spine like ice.
“altitude, altitude—”
His blood went cold.
He watched from the second jet, powerless. All he could do was scream into the comms.
“Pull up Bear— God, pull up!”
And for a second—
just a second—
he thought you weren’t going to. Maybe you thought the same thing.
Then your nose jerked upward, your jet climbing hard, engines shrieking from the strain.
You cleared the water by less than a heartbeat.
Jake’s hands didn’t stop shaking the entire way back to base.
You landed like nothing happened.
No hesitation in your steps. No stutter in your breath. Helmet tucked under one arm, visor still streaked with sweat, flight suit clinging to your body like a second skin.
This time he didn't see the slight tremble in your hands, the little bit of hesitation in your eyes. That terrified him more.
Jake was already crossing the tarmac, boots slamming the pavement so hard it echoed.
“Hey!” he barked, grabbing your arm just before you passed him.
You jerked back, your voice low and cold.
“Let go, Seresin.”
He didn’t.
His hand tightened around your sleeve like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to the ground.
“No,” he snapped. “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
Your jaw clenched.
“I said let go.”
“You almost died out there,” he hissed. “And you’re acting like it was a fucking training glitch.”
“It was fine—”
“You call that fine?”
You tried to pull away again, but he stepped into your space, his voice shaking now but not with anger, with fear. Raw, wide-eyed, real fear.
“I watched you drop out of the sky,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I thought you were gone. I thought I was going to have to circle back and—”
He stopped, voice catching in his throat.
You looked away.
He caught your chin gently, not forcing, just enough to get you to meet his eyes.
“Don’t do that,” he whispered. “Don’t shut me out. Not with this.”
You didn’t say anything. Not at first.
Just breathed.
Just blinked.
Just stood there like you were trying not to crack in half.
“I can’t lose you,” he said. “I can’t. Not like that. Not like them.”
Your face twitched.
He saw it, the shift. The smallest flicker in your expression.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
A crack in the dam.
And then—
You broke.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just… empty. Like the fight drained out of your body all at once.
Your shoulders dropped. Your eyes glassed over, far away.
“Do you know what it’s like,” you whispered, “to be the only one left?”
Jake stared at you like his heart was ripping in half.
“I do,” he said softly. “I fucking do.”
You looked up at him, blinking slowly, like you couldn’t quite believe him.
But you didn’t speak again.
You didn’t cry. You didn’t fall into his chest. You didn’t let him hold you.
You just pulled your arm free.
And walked away.
He sat outside your door that night.
Long after the lights went off.
Long after the base had gone quiet.
Long after the rest of the squad had moved on to the next thing, the next day.
He sat on the floor, back to the wall, your door a few feet away, hands clasped in front of him like he was praying for something he didn’t know how to name.
Because he was praying.
That you’d open the door, you’d come outside, and you’d say something. Anything.
But you didn’t.
And he didn’t leave.
Not for hours.
Because if you weren’t going to pull up—
He was going to sit right there and wait for the crash.
He tried everything after that.
Every conversation felt like a minefield. Every flight you took chipped something off of him.
After every sim, he was there, waiting for you before you could vanish behind a shrug and a halfhearted debrief.
He’d corner you just out of sight of the others, voice low, like if he said it gently enough you might actually hear it.
“That’s not who you are,” he said once, motioning toward your sim playback. The screen still glowed behind him, frame by frame of you flying like you had nothing left to lose.
You didn’t look at it but you also didn’t look at him.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” you murmured, eyes distant, your voice paper-thin.
Jake felt the words hit like a punch to the chest.
Because he remembered who you used to be.
The fire. The laughter. The way you used to grip the throttle with certainty, not desperation.
So he tried harder.
He begged.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he whispered one night outside the locker room, after you came back from a solo flight dripping sweat and silence.
“You’re already enough.”
You didn’t answer. Just walked past him like the weight of his words was too much to carry, too real to acknowledge.
He followed.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me,” he said, not caring if anyone else heard this time. “You think I don’t see it? Every time you dive like that, every time you push it past where it should go, I feel it. I feel it in my goddamn bones.”
There were moments, tiny, flickering moments, when he thought he got through to you.
When your hand would hover over the throttle just a second too long.
When your shoulders would stiffen before a maneuver.
When your eyes would meet his across the hangar, wide and flickering like they used to be.
He saw it, the hesitation.
The part of you that wanted to stop.
But you didn’t.
You couldn’t.
You were chasing something that didn’t exist.
Or maybe… maybe you were trying to outrun something that did.
The ghosts, the guilt, the silence after the crash of Smoke and Bishop.
The empty chairs. The quiet locker.
The memory of a split-second decision that stole two lives and left you behind.
Jake knew that kind of pain.
The kind that makes your skin feel too tight.
The kind that turns the sky from freedom into punishment.
But watching you live it, watching you bleed out midair while everyone else called it discipline or drive, it made him feel helpless in a way he wasn’t used to.
So he did what he could.
But he knew those were just sandbags in a storm.
Because you weren’t staying grounded.
You were slipping, and he was running out of ways to catch you.
The day you died started like any other.
A little too bright. A little too warm. The kind of Southern California morning where the air clung to your skin and the salt from the ocean stuck to your tongue.
Jake got to base early, like always. He liked the stillness before the noise, the hum of the hangar when the world hadn’t quite started moving yet. He liked knowing he’d see you walk in.
And you did.
Flight suit slung low on your hips. Hair twisted back with no real effort. Laugh curling out of your mouth like nothing was wrong.
You tossed a granola bar at Phoenix and made some offhand comment about how she flew like a drunk pigeon in the last sim. She flipped you off. You grinned.
And Jake, god, Jake wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe you were clawing your way out of the dark, that maybe you’d finally reached the edge of whatever cliff you’d been balancing on for months.
You winked at him across the flight line.
It was small. A flash of the old you.
He gave a half-smile back, like maybe the world was tipping in the right direction again.
But still, something in his gut twisted.
It was in the way your hands trembled just before you zipped up your flight suit.
The way you lingered by your locker, staring at the photo of Smoke and Bishop like it was the last anchor holding you down.
The way you said, “Catch you after,” when you walked past him.
Not when I get back.Not see you soon.
Just after.
It was subtle. It was nothing.
But it gnawed at him.
He followed you down the hangar, cutting around one of the jets. His boots echoed.
“Bear” He called your name.
You turned.
He hesitated. “You good?”
You tilted your head, smiled too easily. “I’m fine, Jake.”
He frowned. “You sure? I can talk to Mav, get you off this run. You look like you didn’t sleep.”
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t start.”
“I’m serious.”
Your expression faltered, just for a second. But then it was back. Bright and sharp.
“I said I’m fine.”
And like an idiot, he nodded and let you walk away.
He let you climb into that goddamn jet like everything was normal.
You took off third in line.
Jake launched two birds behind you.
He didn’t know when exactly it happened. One second, the run was smooth, coastline just a smear of green and gold below, comms clear, air steady. You were in the pocket. Flying great.
Jake’s last transmission from you was a clipped laugh. Something about Coyote nearly overshooting the turn.
The moment the warning tone hit his headset, Jake’s blood froze.
The stall alert blared across the channel. A brief, high-pitched whine.
And then the quietest kind of terror.
Nothing. Just static.
“Bear, confirm location.”
Silence.
“Bear, you copy?”
Still nothing.
He didn’t even realize he was screaming until Phoenix’s voice broke through, tight and panicked: “Hangman, what’s your position?"
He didn’t answer. Just shoved the throttle forward like he could outfly what he already knew.
He scanned the sky, the sea, the clouds, anywhere for a chute.
There was none.
Just smoke. Just debris.
The ocean below churned like it had teeth. And you, your jet, was already disappearing beneath the waves by the time he got just close enough to see the color of the wreckage.
He circled until his fuel started to run low.
Listened to the silence in his headset like it owed him an explanation.
There was no Mayday. No goodbye.
Just a flash of metal, a smear of black, and you, gone.
The recovery team brought back a scorched flight helmet and a piece of your tail fin.
They told him it was mechanical failure. Sudden. Nothing you could’ve done.
But he didn’t believe them.
Because you’d stalled.Not because of a system fault. But because you’d gone too low.
Too fast.
Too far.
Again.
And this time, you didn’t pull up.
The rest of the squad landed light.
Two birds short.
The wheels hit the ground harder than they should’ve. Rooster’s hands were shaking on the throttle. Phoenix didn’t even taxi all the way, just left her jet near the edge, like getting out faster would somehow make a difference.
The tower confirmed what they already knew.
No contact.
No chute.
No signal from Bear.
And still, they waited.
Some engines idling, heartbeats holding and all eyes locked on the sky.
Phoenix was the first out of her cockpit, helmet half-removed, eyes scanning the horizon like maybe you’d swing in late and make some crack about being fashionably behind.
You didn’t.
Rooster pulled his helmet off with shaking hands. His lips were moving, murmuring something over and over, words Phoenix couldn’t hear. A prayer. A denial. Maybe both.
Bob’s face was bloodless. He stood on the concrete, hands limp at his sides, like he’d left part of himself up there with you. When Payback asked him if he was okay, he just shook his head once, sharp and fast, and turned away.
Coyote slammed his helmet into the side of the ladder. The clang echoed across the tarmac.
“Fuck!”
The word was raw. Desperate. Like if he yelled loud enough, it’d pull you back.
Then the call came in.
Jake hadn’t found you.
No signal. No debris. Nothing but open water and too much sky.
Phoenix crumpled. Bent over like someone had punched the air from her lungs. Rooster caught her, arms around her back as she sobbed into his flight suit.
The rest of the squad fell silent.
Waiting. Watching.
He didn’t remember turning back.
Didn’t remember landing.
Didn’t remember the tower calling him home, voice clipped and grim:
“Hangman, RTB. Repeat—return to base.”
He didn’t respond.
Just obeyed.
Autopilot might as well have flown the damn jet. His hands weren’t steady. His eyes didn’t focus. His breath came in short, sharp bursts, like if he let himself inhale too deeply, he’d drown.
The moment his wheels hit the tarmac, everything went quiet.
He pulled the throttle back. Shut everything down with muscle memory alone it was all a blur.
His helmet was still on when the canopy opened, the air too hot, the sky too bright. Too normal.
The squad ran across the tarmac like their legs didn’t quite work right, like maybe if they moved fast enough, they’d change what happened. Like maybe you were still out there, just waiting to be found.
But you weren’t. You were gone.
And Jake— he didn’t move.
He sat in the cockpit, visor down, heart silent. Not numb. Not yet.
Just…blank.
He finally climbed down when the ground crew started gathering, murmuring. Their expressions cracked and someone was crying.
He took one step. Then another.
And then he saw the others.
The squad, your squad, huddled in a loose, broken half-circle near the hangar doors.
Bob had both hands on his knees, like he couldn’t breathe. Fanboy was pacing, mumbling something under his breath over and over again. Phoenix had her back to everyone, shoulders shaking, fists clenched so tight her knuckles were white.
And Coyote—Coyote was shouting.
“What do you mean she didn’t eject?!” he barked at one of the commanders.
“She knew better, she—she wouldn’t just—she had time!”
“No chute.”
That’s all the officer said. Voice like concrete.
“There was no chute.”
Jake stopped a few yards away. Helmet still in his hand, fingers curled around it so tightly the plastic creaked.
He didn’t speak..
The others noticed him then. Bob straightened. Phoenix turned, red-eyed and furious.
But no one said a word to him.
Because Jake Seresin, Hangman, the one who always had something to say, was silent just standing there. Staring at all of them like he didn’t recognize the world anymore.
Like he’d stepped off that jet into some alternate reality where you didn’t exist.
He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t yelling, he just looked lost.
Like every second that passed was another brick on his chest.
Like the scream that had torn out of him over the ocean had taken everything else with it.
Maverick approached at some point. Said something about debriefing, command, protocol.
Jake didn’t hear it.
His ears were ringing. His heart was shattered.
He watched the team come apart, one by one. Phoenix broke down more, like it just hit her harder, biting her knuckle to stop from sobbing. Fanboy tried to comfort her, but his hands were shaking too badly. Coyote threw his helmet again like it owed him something. Bob sat on the pavement like his legs had stopped working.
And Jake just stood there. No tears. No sound.
Just the sick, slow understanding that you were really gone.
And he hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.
He hadn’t grabbed your arm that morning or said don’t go. Hadn’t screamed loud enough for you to pull up and now he had to live in this hollow, echoing space you left behind.
A place where the squad looked to him for something, anything, and he had nothing to give.
He was supposed to be the one who caught people before they fell.
But this time, he hadn’t been fast enough.
And now, the only thing left was silence.
He replayed it in his head every night after. The moment he almost stopped you. The things he could’ve said. The way your voice trembled when you told him you were fine.
He should’ve known.
He did know and he let you fly anyway.
Now he sits on the tarmac after dark. Same spot where you stood after Smoke and Bishop crashed. The cement still smells like jet fuel. The wind still tastes like salt.
He knew exactly how you felt in that moment. The moment where you stood still, hoping, wishing that the sound of their jets would fly overhead signifying their safe return home. Except, now, he was wishing that it was the sound of yours. The same one that now laid hundreds of miles below the surface of the sea.
That unforgiving sea.
Your locker is empty now.
Your name is etched on a wall that no one looks at for too long.
And Jake Seresin, cocky, fearless, unshakable Hangman, hasn’t truly smiled in weeks.
He talks less and walks around like there’s a weight tied to his ribs.
Because the truth is, he tried, he really tried, but it wasn’t enough.
And now, he can’t hear a warning tone without his heart stopping, can’t close his eyes without seeing the smoke trail vanish into the sea, can't fly without looking to his right and expecting you to be there.
And the worst part?
It's that you almost came back.
You almost got better.
You almost stayed.
But almost doesn’t count in the sky.
Five days.That’s how long he lasted before it broke him.
Jake Seresin had always been good at compartmentalizing. At shoving the worst of it into neat little corners of his mind and slamming the door. Smile. Breathe. Get in the cockpit. Be the one they can lean on.
The others had taken time.
Phoenix went home for a bit. Bob disappeared into his books. Coyote started running ten miles a day like if he stopped, he’d feel something.
But Jake?
He stayed.
He flew every day.
Trained. Reviewed flight logs. Filed reports. Kept the wheels turning because someone had to.
Because if he stopped, he’d have to think.
And if he thought, he’d have to feel.
But it caught up to him in the locker room.
It was late. The hangar was quiet, humming with the silence that only came when everyone else had already gone. Jake had just flown a textbook sim. No mistakes. No risk.
Didn’t matter.
Your name wasn’t on the board anymore, your gear had been packed up, your locker cleaned out.
Only the dent in the wall where you’d once kicked it in frustration remained.
Jake sat down on the bench in front of his locker and stared at the empty space beside him.
The one that used to be yours.
The helmet you always left crooked.
The smell of your perfume.
The goddamn sticker you stuck on the door even after someone told you not to.
Gone.
His chest caved in before he knew what was happening.
Everything shattered.
He slammed his locker shut.
Then again.
Then again.
Harder.
Bang. Bang. BANG.
He grabbed his helmet and hurled it across the room. It cracked off the wall with a thud, then rolled.
“You weren’t supposed to go!” he roared.
Voice hoarse, shaking, broken wide open.
His fist collided with the locker door. Once. Twice. The skin split.
“You stupid, reckless—”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He slumped to the floor, knees pulled to his chest, knuckles dripping red, head pressed against the cold metal.
The sob that came next didn’t sound human.
It tore through him like shrapnel.
And then—
“Jake.”
A voice. Low. Familiar.
Jake didn’t look up. Didn’t have to.
He knew that voice.
Mav.
Maverick stood just inside the doorway. Not moving. Not speaking.
Just…there.
Jake laughed. It was a horrible sound, wet, sharp, bitter.
“You here to tell me to suck it up?” he asked, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“No.”
Jake finally looked up.
And what he saw in Maverick’s eyes wasn’t pity.
It was grief.
Deep. Quiet. Lived-in.
“I should’ve stopped her,” Jake choked out, voice cracking. “That morning I knew something was wrong. She smiled at me like nothing happened, but it wasn’t real. I saw it, and I just let her go.”
Maverick walked in, sat beside him on the floor. Slow. Steady. Didn’t touch him.
Jake shook his head, hands clenched. “I told myself she was getting better. I wanted to believe it. She winked at me, man. Like she was okay. Like she was still her. And I let it fool me.”
“You loved her,” Maverick said, gently.
Jake’s breath hitched.
“Of course I did.”
He dropped his head back against the locker. Eyes red, throat raw.
“I should’ve pushed harder. Stayed grounded with her. Screamed. Dragged her out of the damn cockpit. I knew she was burning out, and I let her fly anyway.”
Maverick was quiet for a long moment.
“There was nothing you could’ve done.”
Jake flinched like it physically hurt.
“No. Don’t—don’t say that.”
“You think I haven’t been there?” Maverick said quietly. “You think I haven’t watched people I love fall apart right in front of me and been powerless to stop it?”
Jake didn’t answer.
“You could’ve chained her to the floor and she still would’ve found a way into the sky,” Maverick continued, voice even but soft. “Because that’s who she was. That’s who you all are. You burn bright. You push limits. It’s why you’re the best. And sometimes…”
He trailed off.
Jake finished the sentence himself, voice shaking.
“Sometimes you don’t pull up in time.”
The silence that followed felt sacred.
Then Jake said, barely above a whisper:
“She wasn’t supposed to die.”
Maverick nodded. “No one ever is.”
They sat like that for a while.
Jake’s shoulders slowly uncoiling.
The quiet wrapping around them like a shroud.
Eventually, Jake stood.
His movements stiff. Exhausted. Wrung out.
He picked up his broken helmet, looked at it like it was something sacred, then set it gently on the bench.
He didn’t say goodbye to Maverick.
Just paused in the doorway, stared out at the tarmac, dark, silent, familiar, and whispered:
“Miss you, darlin’.”
And then he walked out, the echo of your loss still stitched into his spine, but his heart carrying it now, instead of trying to outrun it.
He’d never stop missing you.
But maybe now he could finally let himself grieve you.
The memorial was held eight days after they pulled the last piece of wreckage from the ocean.
Everyone came back.
No one had to be asked.
Dagger Squad scattered like the wind after it happened, everyone trying to make space for the ache, trying to survive the silence you left behind. But when the word went out: full honors, ocean burial. They all came home.
Even those who never stayed anywhere long enough to call a place home came back for you.
You were that kind of person.
The kind who made everyone else feel like they mattered.
And now they were standing on the edge of the sea, dressed in formal whites, eyes shaded by Aviators, watching your casket-draped in the flag you never stopped fighting for and 13 wings stamped into the wood- be dropped into the salt and foam.
It didn’t escape them that it was completely empty except for the scorched helmet they recovered, masked with your callsign in your favorite color and a picture of your squad tattered and torn on the inside.
Jake didn’t blink the whole time.
He stood rigid beside Maverick, jaw clenched so hard he thought it might crack. He didn’t cry. Didn’t move.
The only sign that anything was wrong was in the white-knuckled grip he had on his gloves.
Then came the flyover.
The Missing Man Formation.
Four jets cutting across the blue, one banking away in perfect symmetry.
The symbolism hit like a gut punch.
Phoenix stiffened beside him. Bob flinched. Coyote’s hands trembled.
Jake didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
Because that was your seat.
That should’ve been you in that jet.
And now you were the one missing.
When they folded your flag and handed it to Maverick, the world didn’t stop.
But for Jake, it might as well have.
That night, the Hard Deck was closed to the public.
Penny kept the lights low and the jukebox off.
No one laughed loudly. No one danced.
The whole bar felt like it was holding its breath.
Only Dagger Squad was there. Just the ones who knew you best.
There was a picture of you behind the bar.
You. Smoke. Bishop. Jake.
Your smile was so wide it made his chest ache just to look at it.
He remembered the last time everyone had been here, so happy, so oblivious to the world.
It was hot. The kind of blistering, salt-stained heat that made your flight suit cling to your back by the time you stepped onto the tarmac. But no one cared.
Because the mission was clean.The sky was yours.And for once, everyone came home.
Smoke was still laughing about his own dramatic radio call, some ridiculous Top Gun style line he swore sounded cooler in the moment. Bishop was teasing Bob for still calling you ma’am even after two deployments, and you had your boots kicked up on a case of Gatorade in the shade, sipping the red one Bishop always saved for you.
Jake had landed next to you. Smooth. Confident. Not showboating, for once, just glad to see you already on the ground, safe and whole. You waved at him from the hangar steps, hair windblown, grin easy.
That was the kind of day it was.Easy.
Maverick made a rare appearance in the ready room and brought ice cream sandwiches for everyone like some kind of weird, retired squad dad. Phoenix raised a brow but took one anyway. Coyote challenged everyone to darts at the Hard Deck later, and Bishop had already started trash-talking.
“Loser buys the first round,” he said, pointing between you and Smoke.
“I’m not losing to either of you,” you shot back, stretching with a groan. “Not after today. That formation loop? Art.”
“Oh, it was art?” Smoke teased. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Because I distinctly remember someone pulling a maneuver that nearly made me lose my lunch.”
Jake chuckled, slinging an arm over your shoulder from behind. “You sure it wasn’t just your age catching up to you, Smoke?”
“You’re barely three months younger than me, Hangman,” Smoke deadpanned.
“Still younger.”
Everyone groaned in chorus.
That night, at the Hard Deck, the lights were too bright and the jukebox was broken in just the right way cycling between classic rock and some 2000s playlist Bob had programmed weeks ago.
You sang along with Phoenix to some Avril Lavigne song. Bishop had one arm around Smoke and the other around Jake, slurring off-key lyrics like his life depended on it. Coyote and Payback had bets going on who would fall off the barstool first.
It was loud. It was messy. It was good.
And it would be the last time the whole squad was together like that.
But no one knew that yet.
No one knew that in two weeks, there’d be black ribbons on helmets and a moment of silence before flight briefings.
That night, there were just drinks and music and laughter.
You’d leaned over to Jake somewhere near closing time, voice low but honest.
“I hope we get a hundred more nights like this.”
He’d smiled, not knowing that would be the one that haunted him most.
Phoenix raised a glass and said your name first.
“To Bear,” she said, voice thick. “Our girl. Our favorite pain in the ass.”
A few people chuckled at that.
“She once threatened to break my kneecaps for taking the last cup of coffee,” Coyote added, lips quirking faintly. “Swear to God, I was scared.”
“She carried four of us off the tarmac once when we were heat exhausted,” Bob said. “All five-foot-seven of her.”
“She growled at a three-star once,” Fanboy grinned. “They backed down.”
More laughter.
It was soft. Careful. Like someone had cracked a window in a smoke-filled room.
“She was Bear,” Phoenix smiled sadly. “Called that because she bit off the head of anyone who messed with us. Our squad mom. Our enforcer. Our home.”
They all nodded.
Jake said nothing.
He sat at the far end of the bar, fingers wrapped around an untouched beer, staring at the wood grain like if he looked up, he might see you across from him again.
Phoenix slid into the seat beside him after a while.
Didn’t say anything at first. Just sat. Let the weight sit with him.
Then, softly: “You know she wouldn’t have listened to anyone, right?”
Jake’s throat worked. He didn’t answer.
“I tried too,” Phoenix admitted. “We all did. You just… you saw it first.”
Jake’s eyes stayed on the bar. “Doesn’t make it hurt less.”
“No. It won’t. But Jake…”
She waited until he looked at her.
“She’s flying with Smoke and Bishop now. Giving them hell, just like always.”
That was what cracked him.
Just a flicker. A corner of his mouth tipping upward. Barely there.
But it was real.
“She probably made it to the gates and tried to file a maintenance report,” he muttered, voice hoarse.
Phoenix snorted through a sob. “She probably kicked the gates open.”
That almost did it.
Almost.
Jake took a deep breath, finally lifted his glass, and clinked it against hers.
“To Bear,” he whispered.
And this time, his voice didn’t shake.
He sits on the dock most nights now.
Long after the sun’s gone down.
Long after everyone else has gone home.
Your dog tags are a permanent fixture in his hand, wound through his fingers like prayer beads, like a tether, like if he lets go for even a second, you’ll disappear completely.
The sea is quiet, endless.
So still it feels wrong. Like the world forgot to grieve. Like it’s daring him to remember alone.
Some nights, he talks to you.
Not out loud. Not exactly.
But the words form anyway, clogging his throat, settling in his chest like salt.
"You'd hate this place without you. It’s too damn quiet. Too clean."
"Phoenix still gives me that look. You know the one.""Bob leaves coffee on my desk now. Yours was better.""I miss your laugh. God, I miss your laugh."
He never says the one thing that sits deepest in his bones:
I should’ve done more.
Because if he says it out loud, it becomes real. Permanent. A scar he can’t hide.
Every now and then, up in the air, he hears your voice in the headset.
Not clearly.
Just a flicker of static.
A phantom "Seresin, get your head out of your ass" at the edge of a barrel roll.
A laugh in the clouds when he hits a clean break turn.
Sometimes, he swears he sees your jet, just a flash, tucked in tight at his six.
But when he turns, there’s nothing. Just sky.
Just air.
Just loss.
When people ask about you now, he says the same thing every time.
“She was the best.”
Then he swallows around the lump in his throat and adds:
“She burned too bright.
She was more than what they’ll remember.”
Because that’s what hurts the most.
Not the way you went.
But the way they talk about it now.
You became a cautionary tale.
A story whispered to fresh-faced pilots on their first day at Top Gun:
"Don’t fly like she did.""Don’t chase the edge like it owes you something.""Don’t lose yourself in the sky."
Jake hates it.
You weren’t a warning.
You were alive. Loud. Stubborn. Brilliant.
You loved the sky too much and it loved you back, until it didn’t.
He still flies. Of course he does.
But it’s not the same.
He doesn’t look for you in the locker room anymore, doesn’t expect to see you barefoot on the bench, peeling off your flight suit, smirking like you just rewrote the laws of physics.
But the ache doesn’t go away.
You’re everywhere and nowhere.
A ghost at his six.
The wind on final approach.
The silence after comms go dead.
The echo in the hangar when no one else is speaking.
And on the nights he can’t stand the weight of your absence, when the grief feels too sharp to breathe through, he sits on the dock, your tags clinking softly in his hand, and watches the sky.
Waiting for one more flash of silver.
One more glint of sunlight off a canopy.
Summary: They called you Bear—fierce, loyal, impossible to ignore.
Flying was freedom. Family. Fire.
But the sky takes as much as it gives.
And Jake Seresin learns that some ghosts don’t let go.
Trigger Warnings: Character death, aviation accidents, grief, self-destructive behavior, PTSD, survivor’s guilt, mental health, alcohol, cursing, anger, violence (?) death mentions, Navy inaccuracies, funeral, so much angst, very unedited!
A/N: It’s been a little bit so I had to come back full force obviously. Thank you for sticking around while I figured out my life lol. I recently went through a death of a good friend and it kind of inspired this very loosely. This one made me tear up a little bit so I'm sorry! I think my next work is going to be a bit more happy so stay tuned for that one. I honestly pull a lot of my life to get ideas for a lot of my fics so I gotta be having a good time to get a happier fic out and lately life's been looking up so hope it continues! @littlebitb
[NOT MY GIF]
Jake Seresin knows what it looks like when a pilot comes apart.
He’s seen it too many times. Eyes too wide behind the visor, hands too tight on the stick, flying like the only thing scarier than crashing is slowing down long enough to feel something.
He did it himself once, years ago, when the world went sideways and the only thing he could control was altitude.
But this time, he’s not the one spiraling.
It’s you.
And he can’t do a damn thing to stop it.
You used to fly with control. Grace. Purpose. Like you understood that the sky was an extension of yourself, not something to conquer but to move through.
Now?
Now, you fly low. Fast. Dangerous. You chase Gs like they owe you something. And Jake watches, helpless, as the light in your eyes shifts from precision to recklessness.
To everyone else, you're just "pushing yourself." Ambitious. Sharp-edged. Dedicated.
But Jake knows better.
He knows grief when he sees it.
It started after the accident. The one that took Smoke and Bishop and left you standing silent on the edge of the runway with clenched fists and blood in your palms from your nails digging into them.
You had trained them. To you, they were the closest to siblings you would ever get. The ‘Disaster Twins’ You would call them, you loved them more than you thought you could love anything.
You didn’t cry.
You didn’t talk.
You just got in the air again.
And you never really landed after that.
It happened fast.
Too fast for anyone to stop it.
Too fast for comms to catch it.
Too fast for a damn Mayday.
One minute, they were just dots against the blue horizon, steady and smooth, slicing along the coastline in perfect tandem. Smoke and Bishop, running a standard low-altitude pass, a formation they’d flown so many times it was practically instinct. They moved like one body in two aircraft, precise and clean.
Jake had flown the same run with them more times than he could count. It was a routine drill, textbook.
Until it wasn’t.
Until the wind shifted, sudden and sharp, a crosscurrent that wasn’t there five seconds before.
Until Bishop’s engine coughed mid-turn, just a hiccup, just a half-second stall, but that’s all it takes at low altitude.
Until Smoke, flying just off his wingtip, banked instinctively to adjust, too fast, too tight, the timing just off.
Until metal met metal.
Until the underside of Smoke’s fuselage clipped Bishop’s wing, snapping the formation like a bone under pressure.
One jet spiraled left.
The other rolled hard, nose-down.
No warning.
No words.
No time.
And then—
two flashes.
Two slashes of water kicked up like missiles hitting the sea.
Two plumes of smoke curling into the sky like a goddamn funeral pyre.
For a split second, the whole base held its breath. The tower fell silent—no chatter, no coordination, just dead air and wide eyes as they watched the impossible unfold.
Then the alarms started blaring.
Emergency sirens. Rapid deployment calls. Scramble orders. Voices tripping over each other in the headset as the reality caught up to them.
But Jake didn’t wait.
He was already moving, already halfway to the hangar before the first alarm finished sounding.
Helmet in hand.
Visor down.
Boots pounding the concrete like gunshots.
He knew how much they meant to the team, how much they meant to you. He was going to bring them back.
He launched with the search and rescue team less than five minutes later.
The sky blurred past as he pushed the throttle wide open, cutting through the air like he could undo time with speed alone.
Come on, come on, give me something, he prayed, eyes scanning the endless blue, ears tuned to every crackle of the radio.
But there was nothing.
No flares.
No beacons.
No parachutes.
Just twisted fragments bobbing on the surface.
Just a sick, oily smear staining the ocean.
Just silence.
They circled once. Twice. A third time.
Still nothing.
No sign of Bishop. No sign of Smoke. Not even a shadow beneath the waves. Gone like they never existed.
You waited.
You didn’t remember walking to the edge of the runway.
Didn’t remember setting your helmet down on the concrete or unclipping your gloves.
All you remembered was watching them disappear.
One second, Smoke and Bishop were just ahead of you on the flight line joking about dinner, shit-talking each other over coffee like they hadn’t done the exact same run a hundred times before.
The next, the radio was screaming static, the sirens were blaring, and your lungs were empty.
You didn’t cry.
Didn’t scream.
Didn’t fall to your knees.
You just stood there, staring down the horizon like you were waiting for their jets to rise back up out of the sea.
You knew they wouldn’t.
You knew.
But you couldn’t move.
Not when the search and rescue teams launched.
Not when Jake ran across the tarmac, helmet already on, jaw set and eyes flashing with something equal parts fear and fury.
Not when he locked eyes with you for the briefest moment before climbing into his jet and disappearing into the sky.
You still didn’t move.
Because some small, delusional part of you, some desperate, aching scrap of hope—believed if Jake found them, maybe this wouldn’t be real.
You trusted Jake.
If there was even a flicker of a chance, he’d bring them home.
So you waited.
You counted every minute he was gone, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Your fists stayed at your sides, nails digging crescent moons into your palms. The wind picked up and whipped at your flight suit, but you didn’t flinch.
The whole base moved around you, noise and chaos, medics and techs and officers coordinating in a frenzy, but it all blurred into a dull hum.
You only listened for one thing:
The sound of engines returning.
When Jake finally landed, you watched him climb out of the cockpit, his face ghost-pale, his body moving like it weighed twice as much as it should.
You didn’t need to hear the words.
Didn’t need to see the wreckage.
You saw it in the way Jake’s shoulders didn’t square up like they usually did.
You saw it in the way he didn’t make a beeline toward you, he just stopped and stared, like he didn’t know what to say.
Like he didn’t know how to look at you.
And maybe that was the worst part.
Because Jake Seresin was always the loud one. The smooth one. The one with the right thing to say even when it pissed you off.
But now?
Now, he was just as quiet as you were.
And in that silence, everything settled.
Smoke was gone.
Bishop was gone.
And Jake. Jake had gone looking and came back with nothing.
You turned and walked away.
Not because you didn’t care.
But because you did.
Because if you stayed one second longer, if you met Jake’s eyes, if you let yourself feel all of it at once,
You knew you wouldn’t come back from it either.
So you shut down.
You moved like muscle memory: locker, shower, bed.
You didn’t speak.
You didn’t cry.
You didn’t sleep that night. Or the night after.
But what you didn’t know, what you couldn’t see from behind the wall you were building, was that Jake never stopped watching you.
That while you were trying to disappear into your grief, he was quietly anchoring himself to you.
He didn’t push.
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t pry.
But every coffee on your desk, every rookie who didn’t approach you, every squad laugh that just happened to break the silence, he made that happen.
Because he couldn’t save Smoke.
Couldn’t save Bishop.
But maybe, just maybe, he could save you.
And that’s when he saw you.
Standing alone, just past the edge of the landing strip. Still in your flight suit, hair wind-tossed, face blank.
Not crying.
Not moving.
Just… looking.
Like you’d seen it the second it happened.
Like you’d felt the moment they hit the water deep in your bones.
Helmet clutched in one hand. Fingers trembling just enough for him to notice. But your jaw was set, mouth drawn tight, eyes locked on the empty sky.
It hit him harder than the wreckage did.
Because he’d seen grief before. Messy, loud, violent.
But this?
This was something else.
This was grief frozen mid-air. Grief turned to stone.
And Jake didn’t know what to do with that.
Didn’t know how to fix it.
Didn’t know how to walk up to you without making it worse.
Didn’t know how to tell you that you could break down, that you should break down.
So he stayed where he was, boots rooted to the ground.
Watching you.
Heart in his throat.
Helpless.
And in that moment, Jake Seresin made a silent promise.
If he couldn’t stop the sky from taking people,
he’d at least try to keep it from taking you.
He didn’t know how to talk to you about it. Not without making it worse. Not without risking that you'd shut down completely.
So he didn’t.
Instead, Jake Seresin did what he always did when he didn’t know how to say the right thing—
He worked behind the curtain.
He made sure your locker was always stocked. That the coffee machine in the hangar bay was never empty of the kind you liked, even if it meant driving across base at 5am.
He kept rookies from asking you questions like “Were you close with them?” or “Did you see it happen?” with one look and a cold voice that said don’t. He had Hangman-level charm, but none of it touched his eyes when it came to you. That was reserved.
He asked Maverick to keep you off the flight schedule for a few days, not out of pity, but to buy you space and time.
He knew you'd hate it if you found out it came from him, so he had Phoenix submit the request. Made it look like it came from the squad.
He didn’t tell anyone why he started carrying two coffees to the briefings. One always ended up on your desk, steaming and untouched until it cooled.
When you skipped meals, he casually "forgot" his lunch too, so you'd both end up in the kitchen, picking at whatever leftover crap someone brought in.
When you didn’t speak, he made sure the others kept things light around you.
“Movie night?”
“Cards?”
“Beer run?”
Never how are you doing?Never are you okay?
You weren’t.
Everyone knew.
But they didn’t say it.
Because Jake made sure they didn’t have to.
He watched you fly harder after that.
Sharper.
Lower.
Like you were daring the sky to push back.
Like maybe, if you could fly fast enough, low enough, you could outrun the ache hollowing out your chest.
Maybe the faster you moved, the quieter the memories would get.
Maybe, if you pulled enough Gs, it would drown out the silence that followed Smoke and Bishop’s names.
Jake didn’t say anything at first.
Not when you cut a corner dangerously, close to a stall, or when your afterburner roared a half-second too long.
Not even when you started volunteering for every high-risk sim that came through rotation, even the ones that made the newer pilots flinch.
Because he got it.
Because he remembered what it felt like to be halfway to falling apart and terrified someone might notice, sometimes flying was the only thing that kept the screaming quiet.
And he also remembered what it felt like when no one noticed, no one pulled you aside.
When everyone just called it “pushing your limits.”
So he noticed.
Quietly.
Faithfully.
Desperately.
He kept track of your flight paths, your fuel consumption, the way you gripped the stick too tightly when you thought no one was watching.
He covered your six in the air, kept an eye on you in the hangar, rerouted other pilots to less intense sims when he knew you’d sign up for them instead.
But he let you fly.
Because he didn’t want to be the one who took the sky from you.
He didn’t want to clip your wings just when they were the only thing keeping you above water.
Until the first time you scared him.
Really scared him.
It was a Wednesday. Sim run. Standard maneuver set.
Jake was watching from the tower, arms folded, comms in his ear, tracking your jet on the screen as you dove into a wide turn.
Then, suddenly, you rolled.
Hard and fast.
A barrel roll that was too low and too sharp.
The clearance window you left was barely a breath wide.
You skimmed the danger zone like you wanted to brush it.
His heart stopped.
“Holy shit,” Phoenix muttered beside him.
Jake didn’t say anything for a second. He couldn’t.
Just stared at the screen, fists clenched, jaw locked.
When you landed twenty minutes later, you moved like nothing had happened.
You climbed down from the ladder, peeled off your gloves, tugged your helmet off like it wasn’t soaked with sweat.
But Jake saw the way your hands trembled when you thought no one was looking.
He saw the adrenaline twitch in your jaw, the heat on your neck, the way your chest rose and fell too fast beneath your flight suit.
He walked toward you, heart still hammering, words coming too fast to filter.
“Trying to get yourself grounded, sweetheart?”
He meant it as a joke.
Meant it as a jab, something light, something familiar to break the tension.
But the smile never reached his eyes.
And yours didn’t even flicker.
You didn’t answer.
Didn’t pause.
Didn’t blink.
You just brushed past him, helmet tucked under one arm, sweat darkening your flight suit like blood.
And Jake stood there.
Watching you disappear again, a little further this time.
A little faster.
And he felt it. Deep and quiet and awful, the creeping edge of fear.
Because that wasn’t just recklessness.
That was grief with a death wish.
And now?
Now, he wasn’t just worried about you, he was terrified.
Because if Smoke and Bishop had been the beginning of the storm,
you were the lightning strike chasing the wreckage.
He still didn’t confront you.
Not yet.
Because he knew the worst thing you could do to someone barely holding it together was to shove a mirror in their face.
So instead, he doubled down.
He made sure your flight reports stayed clean. Quietly rewrote your more aggressive runs with phrasing that made them sound “ambitious” instead of “dangerous.”
He kept the instructors off your back. Ran interference when anyone got too close.
He adjusted his own sim rotation to match yours, so he’d always be in the air when you were.
You never asked him to do any of it.
But he did it anyway.
Because Smoke and Bishop were gone.
And Jake was still here.
And you were still here.
And Jake Seresin didn’t have many promises left to keep in this world.
But he made one that day, standing on the tarmac, watching your silhouette retreat into shadow with grief stitched into your spine like steel:
He would not lose you too.
Not if he could help it.
Not without a fight.
Not without trying.
Even if you hated him for it, even if you never knew.
Eventually it got worse though.
Jake started losing track of how many times he stopped breathing in the control room.
You flew like there was a countdown running out in your head.
Split-second maneuvers that left barely enough room to recover.
Tight turns that scraped stall limits, your nose dipping just low enough to set off alarms in the tower.
You flew into turbulence like you were daring the wind to try you.
Every time he thought you'd pulled the worst stunt you could, you'd top it.
Every time he thought maybe you were easing off, you proved him wrong.
And Jake started feeling it, not just in the pit of his stomach, but in his bones.
That dull, persistent ache of helplessness.
He tried subtle things first.
Quiet. Careful. Didn’t want to spook you. Didn’t want to push.
So he’d wait until the others were gone, and cue up your sim footage, frowning like it was purely tactical.
“That’s not how we trained it,” he’d say casually, motioning to your line across the screen.
You barely looked up from your water bottle.
"You got a better way to stay alive?" you replied, voice flat but sharp.
And that was the thing, it wasn’t even defensive anymore. Just tired. Like you’d been living in this constant buzz of danger long enough that it didn’t even register as risk.
It was just normal.
Jake’s jaw would tighten. His lips would part like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. Not then at least.
Because there was still a flicker in your eyes when you said it.
Still something that looked like fight.
But it didn’t stop.
You just kept pushing.
Every flight more aggressive than the last.
Every line crossed with more confidence than the one before.
Eventually, subtle stopped working.
So Jake tried direct.
Cornered you after a particularly dangerous night op, both of you still peeling off your gear in the hangar.
He tossed his gloves on the bench harder than necessary.
“You’re not bulletproof, you know.”
You froze for a second, just a second, before you looked over your shoulder at him.
And you smiled.
But it wasn’t warm and it wasn’t teasing. It was sharp and small.
A blade, not a joke.
“Neither are you.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because he knew they were true.
Because the way you said them didn’t sound brave.
Didn’t sound like a challenge.
It sounded like a warning. Like a confession.
Neither of you were bulletproof.
But one of you had stopped caring about the impact.
Jake stared at you, throat dry, chest tight.
You turned away before he could say anything else, grabbing your helmet and heading for the locker room like the conversation didn’t matter.
But it did.
It mattered so much it made his hands shake.
Because that wasn’t just grief anymore.
That was detachment.
That was the kind of recklessness that didn’t have a future in mind and he was running out of ways to bring you back from it.
Then came the day you almost didn’t pull up.
Training op. Ocean run. Another routine flight.
At least, it should have been.
The weather was clean, visibility was good, comms were clear. It was a straightforward loop-and-return exercise, no surprises, no complications.
Until the final turn.
You banked too hard, fast, and too low.
You dove like you were chasing something only you could see, something far beneath the surface of the ocean, something you had no business following.
The warning blared in Jake’s headset.
A shrill, gut-twisting scream that shot through his spine like ice.
“altitude, altitude—”
His blood went cold.
He watched from the second jet, powerless. All he could do was scream into the comms.
“Pull up Bear— God, pull up!”
And for a second—
just a second—
he thought you weren’t going to. Maybe you thought the same thing.
Then your nose jerked upward, your jet climbing hard, engines shrieking from the strain.
You cleared the water by less than a heartbeat.
Jake’s hands didn’t stop shaking the entire way back to base.
You landed like nothing happened.
No hesitation in your steps. No stutter in your breath. Helmet tucked under one arm, visor still streaked with sweat, flight suit clinging to your body like a second skin.
This time he didn't see the slight tremble in your hands, the little bit of hesitation in your eyes. That terrified him more.
Jake was already crossing the tarmac, boots slamming the pavement so hard it echoed.
“Hey!” he barked, grabbing your arm just before you passed him.
You jerked back, your voice low and cold.
“Let go, Seresin.”
He didn’t.
His hand tightened around your sleeve like it was the only thing keeping you tethered to the ground.
“No,” he snapped. “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
Your jaw clenched.
“I said let go.”
“You almost died out there,” he hissed. “And you’re acting like it was a fucking training glitch.”
“It was fine—”
“You call that fine?”
You tried to pull away again, but he stepped into your space, his voice shaking now but not with anger, with fear. Raw, wide-eyed, real fear.
“I watched you drop out of the sky,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I thought you were gone. I thought I was going to have to circle back and—”
He stopped, voice catching in his throat.
You looked away.
He caught your chin gently, not forcing, just enough to get you to meet his eyes.
“Don’t do that,” he whispered. “Don’t shut me out. Not with this.”
You didn’t say anything. Not at first.
Just breathed.
Just blinked.
Just stood there like you were trying not to crack in half.
“I can’t lose you,” he said. “I can’t. Not like that. Not like them.”
Your face twitched.
He saw it, the shift. The smallest flicker in your expression.
Not all at once.
Just enough.
A crack in the dam.
And then—
You broke.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Just… empty. Like the fight drained out of your body all at once.
Your shoulders dropped. Your eyes glassed over, far away.
“Do you know what it’s like,” you whispered, “to be the only one left?”
Jake stared at you like his heart was ripping in half.
“I do,” he said softly. “I fucking do.”
You looked up at him, blinking slowly, like you couldn’t quite believe him.
But you didn’t speak again.
You didn’t cry. You didn’t fall into his chest. You didn’t let him hold you.
You just pulled your arm free.
And walked away.
He sat outside your door that night.
Long after the lights went off.
Long after the base had gone quiet.
Long after the rest of the squad had moved on to the next thing, the next day.
He sat on the floor, back to the wall, your door a few feet away, hands clasped in front of him like he was praying for something he didn’t know how to name.
Because he was praying.
That you’d open the door, you’d come outside, and you’d say something. Anything.
But you didn’t.
And he didn’t leave.
Not for hours.
Because if you weren’t going to pull up—
He was going to sit right there and wait for the crash.
He tried everything after that.
Every conversation felt like a minefield. Every flight you took chipped something off of him.
After every sim, he was there, waiting for you before you could vanish behind a shrug and a halfhearted debrief.
He’d corner you just out of sight of the others, voice low, like if he said it gently enough you might actually hear it.
“That’s not who you are,” he said once, motioning toward your sim playback. The screen still glowed behind him, frame by frame of you flying like you had nothing left to lose.
You didn’t look at it but you also didn’t look at him.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” you murmured, eyes distant, your voice paper-thin.
Jake felt the words hit like a punch to the chest.
Because he remembered who you used to be.
The fire. The laughter. The way you used to grip the throttle with certainty, not desperation.
So he tried harder.
He begged.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he whispered one night outside the locker room, after you came back from a solo flight dripping sweat and silence.
“You’re already enough.”
You didn’t answer. Just walked past him like the weight of his words was too much to carry, too real to acknowledge.
He followed.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me,” he said, not caring if anyone else heard this time. “You think I don’t see it? Every time you dive like that, every time you push it past where it should go, I feel it. I feel it in my goddamn bones.”
There were moments, tiny, flickering moments, when he thought he got through to you.
When your hand would hover over the throttle just a second too long.
When your shoulders would stiffen before a maneuver.
When your eyes would meet his across the hangar, wide and flickering like they used to be.
He saw it, the hesitation.
The part of you that wanted to stop.
But you didn’t.
You couldn’t.
You were chasing something that didn’t exist.
Or maybe… maybe you were trying to outrun something that did.
The ghosts, the guilt, the silence after the crash of Smoke and Bishop.
The empty chairs. The quiet locker.
The memory of a split-second decision that stole two lives and left you behind.
Jake knew that kind of pain.
The kind that makes your skin feel too tight.
The kind that turns the sky from freedom into punishment.
But watching you live it, watching you bleed out midair while everyone else called it discipline or drive, it made him feel helpless in a way he wasn’t used to.
So he did what he could.
But he knew those were just sandbags in a storm.
Because you weren’t staying grounded.
You were slipping, and he was running out of ways to catch you.
The day you died started like any other.
A little too bright. A little too warm. The kind of Southern California morning where the air clung to your skin and the salt from the ocean stuck to your tongue.
Jake got to base early, like always. He liked the stillness before the noise, the hum of the hangar when the world hadn’t quite started moving yet. He liked knowing he’d see you walk in.
And you did.
Flight suit slung low on your hips. Hair twisted back with no real effort. Laugh curling out of your mouth like nothing was wrong.
You tossed a granola bar at Phoenix and made some offhand comment about how she flew like a drunk pigeon in the last sim. She flipped you off. You grinned.
And Jake, god, Jake wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe you were clawing your way out of the dark, that maybe you’d finally reached the edge of whatever cliff you’d been balancing on for months.
You winked at him across the flight line.
It was small. A flash of the old you.
He gave a half-smile back, like maybe the world was tipping in the right direction again.
But still, something in his gut twisted.
It was in the way your hands trembled just before you zipped up your flight suit.
The way you lingered by your locker, staring at the photo of Smoke and Bishop like it was the last anchor holding you down.
The way you said, “Catch you after,” when you walked past him.
Not when I get back.Not see you soon.
Just after.
It was subtle. It was nothing.
But it gnawed at him.
He followed you down the hangar, cutting around one of the jets. His boots echoed.
“Bear” He called your name.
You turned.
He hesitated. “You good?”
You tilted your head, smiled too easily. “I’m fine, Jake.”
He frowned. “You sure? I can talk to Mav, get you off this run. You look like you didn’t sleep.”
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t start.”
“I’m serious.”
Your expression faltered, just for a second. But then it was back. Bright and sharp.
“I said I’m fine.”
And like an idiot, he nodded and let you walk away.
He let you climb into that goddamn jet like everything was normal.
You took off third in line.
Jake launched two birds behind you.
He didn’t know when exactly it happened. One second, the run was smooth, coastline just a smear of green and gold below, comms clear, air steady. You were in the pocket. Flying great.
Jake’s last transmission from you was a clipped laugh. Something about Coyote nearly overshooting the turn.
The moment the warning tone hit his headset, Jake’s blood froze.
The stall alert blared across the channel. A brief, high-pitched whine.
And then the quietest kind of terror.
Nothing. Just static.
“Bear, confirm location.”
Silence.
“Bear, you copy?”
Still nothing.
He didn’t even realize he was screaming until Phoenix’s voice broke through, tight and panicked: “Hangman, what’s your position?"
He didn’t answer. Just shoved the throttle forward like he could outfly what he already knew.
He scanned the sky, the sea, the clouds, anywhere for a chute.
There was none.
Just smoke. Just debris.
The ocean below churned like it had teeth. And you, your jet, was already disappearing beneath the waves by the time he got just close enough to see the color of the wreckage.
He circled until his fuel started to run low.
Listened to the silence in his headset like it owed him an explanation.
There was no Mayday. No goodbye.
Just a flash of metal, a smear of black, and you, gone.
The recovery team brought back a scorched flight helmet and a piece of your tail fin.
They told him it was mechanical failure. Sudden. Nothing you could’ve done.
But he didn’t believe them.
Because you’d stalled.Not because of a system fault. But because you’d gone too low.
Too fast.
Too far.
Again.
And this time, you didn’t pull up.
The rest of the squad landed light.
Two birds short.
The wheels hit the ground harder than they should’ve. Rooster’s hands were shaking on the throttle. Phoenix didn’t even taxi all the way, just left her jet near the edge, like getting out faster would somehow make a difference.
The tower confirmed what they already knew.
No contact.
No chute.
No signal from Bear.
And still, they waited.
Some engines idling, heartbeats holding and all eyes locked on the sky.
Phoenix was the first out of her cockpit, helmet half-removed, eyes scanning the horizon like maybe you’d swing in late and make some crack about being fashionably behind.
You didn’t.
Rooster pulled his helmet off with shaking hands. His lips were moving, murmuring something over and over, words Phoenix couldn’t hear. A prayer. A denial. Maybe both.
Bob’s face was bloodless. He stood on the concrete, hands limp at his sides, like he’d left part of himself up there with you. When Payback asked him if he was okay, he just shook his head once, sharp and fast, and turned away.
Coyote slammed his helmet into the side of the ladder. The clang echoed across the tarmac.
“Fuck!”
The word was raw. Desperate. Like if he yelled loud enough, it’d pull you back.
Then the call came in.
Jake hadn’t found you.
No signal. No debris. Nothing but open water and too much sky.
Phoenix crumpled. Bent over like someone had punched the air from her lungs. Rooster caught her, arms around her back as she sobbed into his flight suit.
The rest of the squad fell silent.
Waiting. Watching.
He didn’t remember turning back.
Didn’t remember landing.
Didn’t remember the tower calling him home, voice clipped and grim:
“Hangman, RTB. Repeat—return to base.”
He didn’t respond.
Just obeyed.
Autopilot might as well have flown the damn jet. His hands weren’t steady. His eyes didn’t focus. His breath came in short, sharp bursts, like if he let himself inhale too deeply, he’d drown.
The moment his wheels hit the tarmac, everything went quiet.
He pulled the throttle back. Shut everything down with muscle memory alone it was all a blur.
His helmet was still on when the canopy opened, the air too hot, the sky too bright. Too normal.
The squad ran across the tarmac like their legs didn’t quite work right, like maybe if they moved fast enough, they’d change what happened. Like maybe you were still out there, just waiting to be found.
But you weren’t. You were gone.
And Jake— he didn’t move.
He sat in the cockpit, visor down, heart silent. Not numb. Not yet.
Just…blank.
He finally climbed down when the ground crew started gathering, murmuring. Their expressions cracked and someone was crying.
He took one step. Then another.
And then he saw the others.
The squad, your squad, huddled in a loose, broken half-circle near the hangar doors.
Bob had both hands on his knees, like he couldn’t breathe. Fanboy was pacing, mumbling something under his breath over and over again. Phoenix had her back to everyone, shoulders shaking, fists clenched so tight her knuckles were white.
And Coyote—Coyote was shouting.
“What do you mean she didn’t eject?!” he barked at one of the commanders.
“She knew better, she—she wouldn’t just—she had time!”
“No chute.”
That’s all the officer said. Voice like concrete.
“There was no chute.”
Jake stopped a few yards away. Helmet still in his hand, fingers curled around it so tightly the plastic creaked.
He didn’t speak..
The others noticed him then. Bob straightened. Phoenix turned, red-eyed and furious.
But no one said a word to him.
Because Jake Seresin, Hangman, the one who always had something to say, was silent just standing there. Staring at all of them like he didn’t recognize the world anymore.
Like he’d stepped off that jet into some alternate reality where you didn’t exist.
He wasn’t crying, he wasn’t yelling, he just looked lost.
Like every second that passed was another brick on his chest.
Like the scream that had torn out of him over the ocean had taken everything else with it.
Maverick approached at some point. Said something about debriefing, command, protocol.
Jake didn’t hear it.
His ears were ringing. His heart was shattered.
He watched the team come apart, one by one. Phoenix broke down more, like it just hit her harder, biting her knuckle to stop from sobbing. Fanboy tried to comfort her, but his hands were shaking too badly. Coyote threw his helmet again like it owed him something. Bob sat on the pavement like his legs had stopped working.
And Jake just stood there. No tears. No sound.
Just the sick, slow understanding that you were really gone.
And he hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.
He hadn’t grabbed your arm that morning or said don’t go. Hadn’t screamed loud enough for you to pull up and now he had to live in this hollow, echoing space you left behind.
A place where the squad looked to him for something, anything, and he had nothing to give.
He was supposed to be the one who caught people before they fell.
But this time, he hadn’t been fast enough.
And now, the only thing left was silence.
He replayed it in his head every night after. The moment he almost stopped you. The things he could’ve said. The way your voice trembled when you told him you were fine.
He should’ve known.
He did know and he let you fly anyway.
Now he sits on the tarmac after dark. Same spot where you stood after Smoke and Bishop crashed. The cement still smells like jet fuel. The wind still tastes like salt.
He knew exactly how you felt in that moment. The moment where you stood still, hoping, wishing that the sound of their jets would fly overhead signifying their safe return home. Except, now, he was wishing that it was the sound of yours. The same one that now laid hundreds of miles below the surface of the sea.
That unforgiving sea.
Your locker is empty now.
Your name is etched on a wall that no one looks at for too long.
And Jake Seresin, cocky, fearless, unshakable Hangman, hasn’t truly smiled in weeks.
He talks less and walks around like there’s a weight tied to his ribs.
Because the truth is, he tried, he really tried, but it wasn’t enough.
And now, he can’t hear a warning tone without his heart stopping, can’t close his eyes without seeing the smoke trail vanish into the sea, can't fly without looking to his right and expecting you to be there.
And the worst part?
It's that you almost came back.
You almost got better.
You almost stayed.
But almost doesn’t count in the sky.
Five days.That’s how long he lasted before it broke him.
Jake Seresin had always been good at compartmentalizing. At shoving the worst of it into neat little corners of his mind and slamming the door. Smile. Breathe. Get in the cockpit. Be the one they can lean on.
The others had taken time.
Phoenix went home for a bit. Bob disappeared into his books. Coyote started running ten miles a day like if he stopped, he’d feel something.
But Jake?
He stayed.
He flew every day.
Trained. Reviewed flight logs. Filed reports. Kept the wheels turning because someone had to.
Because if he stopped, he’d have to think.
And if he thought, he’d have to feel.
But it caught up to him in the locker room.
It was late. The hangar was quiet, humming with the silence that only came when everyone else had already gone. Jake had just flown a textbook sim. No mistakes. No risk.
Didn’t matter.
Your name wasn’t on the board anymore, your gear had been packed up, your locker cleaned out.
Only the dent in the wall where you’d once kicked it in frustration remained.
Jake sat down on the bench in front of his locker and stared at the empty space beside him.
The one that used to be yours.
The helmet you always left crooked.
The smell of your perfume.
The goddamn sticker you stuck on the door even after someone told you not to.
Gone.
His chest caved in before he knew what was happening.
Everything shattered.
He slammed his locker shut.
Then again.
Then again.
Harder.
Bang. Bang. BANG.
He grabbed his helmet and hurled it across the room. It cracked off the wall with a thud, then rolled.
“You weren’t supposed to go!” he roared.
Voice hoarse, shaking, broken wide open.
His fist collided with the locker door. Once. Twice. The skin split.
“You stupid, reckless—”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He slumped to the floor, knees pulled to his chest, knuckles dripping red, head pressed against the cold metal.
The sob that came next didn’t sound human.
It tore through him like shrapnel.
And then—
“Jake.”
A voice. Low. Familiar.
Jake didn’t look up. Didn’t have to.
He knew that voice.
Mav.
Maverick stood just inside the doorway. Not moving. Not speaking.
Just…there.
Jake laughed. It was a horrible sound, wet, sharp, bitter.
“You here to tell me to suck it up?” he asked, wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“No.”
Jake finally looked up.
And what he saw in Maverick’s eyes wasn’t pity.
It was grief.
Deep. Quiet. Lived-in.
“I should’ve stopped her,” Jake choked out, voice cracking. “That morning I knew something was wrong. She smiled at me like nothing happened, but it wasn’t real. I saw it, and I just let her go.”
Maverick walked in, sat beside him on the floor. Slow. Steady. Didn’t touch him.
Jake shook his head, hands clenched. “I told myself she was getting better. I wanted to believe it. She winked at me, man. Like she was okay. Like she was still her. And I let it fool me.”
“You loved her,” Maverick said, gently.
Jake’s breath hitched.
“Of course I did.”
He dropped his head back against the locker. Eyes red, throat raw.
“I should’ve pushed harder. Stayed grounded with her. Screamed. Dragged her out of the damn cockpit. I knew she was burning out, and I let her fly anyway.”
Maverick was quiet for a long moment.
“There was nothing you could’ve done.”
Jake flinched like it physically hurt.
“No. Don’t—don’t say that.”
“You think I haven’t been there?” Maverick said quietly. “You think I haven’t watched people I love fall apart right in front of me and been powerless to stop it?”
Jake didn’t answer.
“You could’ve chained her to the floor and she still would’ve found a way into the sky,” Maverick continued, voice even but soft. “Because that’s who she was. That’s who you all are. You burn bright. You push limits. It’s why you’re the best. And sometimes…”
He trailed off.
Jake finished the sentence himself, voice shaking.
“Sometimes you don’t pull up in time.”
The silence that followed felt sacred.
Then Jake said, barely above a whisper:
“She wasn’t supposed to die.”
Maverick nodded. “No one ever is.”
They sat like that for a while.
Jake’s shoulders slowly uncoiling.
The quiet wrapping around them like a shroud.
Eventually, Jake stood.
His movements stiff. Exhausted. Wrung out.
He picked up his broken helmet, looked at it like it was something sacred, then set it gently on the bench.
He didn’t say goodbye to Maverick.
Just paused in the doorway, stared out at the tarmac, dark, silent, familiar, and whispered:
“Miss you, darlin’.”
And then he walked out, the echo of your loss still stitched into his spine, but his heart carrying it now, instead of trying to outrun it.
He’d never stop missing you.
But maybe now he could finally let himself grieve you.
The memorial was held eight days after they pulled the last piece of wreckage from the ocean.
Everyone came back.
No one had to be asked.
Dagger Squad scattered like the wind after it happened, everyone trying to make space for the ache, trying to survive the silence you left behind. But when the word went out: full honors, ocean burial. They all came home.
Even those who never stayed anywhere long enough to call a place home came back for you.
You were that kind of person.
The kind who made everyone else feel like they mattered.
And now they were standing on the edge of the sea, dressed in formal whites, eyes shaded by Aviators, watching your casket-draped in the flag you never stopped fighting for and 13 wings stamped into the wood- be dropped into the salt and foam.
It didn’t escape them that it was completely empty except for the scorched helmet they recovered, masked with your callsign in your favorite color and a picture of your squad tattered and torn on the inside.
Jake didn’t blink the whole time.
He stood rigid beside Maverick, jaw clenched so hard he thought it might crack. He didn’t cry. Didn’t move.
The only sign that anything was wrong was in the white-knuckled grip he had on his gloves.
Then came the flyover.
The Missing Man Formation.
Four jets cutting across the blue, one banking away in perfect symmetry.
The symbolism hit like a gut punch.
Phoenix stiffened beside him. Bob flinched. Coyote’s hands trembled.
Jake didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
Because that was your seat.
That should’ve been you in that jet.
And now you were the one missing.
When they folded your flag and handed it to Maverick, the world didn’t stop.
But for Jake, it might as well have.
That night, the Hard Deck was closed to the public.
Penny kept the lights low and the jukebox off.
No one laughed loudly. No one danced.
The whole bar felt like it was holding its breath.
Only Dagger Squad was there. Just the ones who knew you best.
There was a picture of you behind the bar.
You. Smoke. Bishop. Jake.
Your smile was so wide it made his chest ache just to look at it.
He remembered the last time everyone had been here, so happy, so oblivious to the world.
It was hot. The kind of blistering, salt-stained heat that made your flight suit cling to your back by the time you stepped onto the tarmac. But no one cared.
Because the mission was clean.The sky was yours.And for once, everyone came home.
Smoke was still laughing about his own dramatic radio call, some ridiculous Top Gun style line he swore sounded cooler in the moment. Bishop was teasing Bob for still calling you ma’am even after two deployments, and you had your boots kicked up on a case of Gatorade in the shade, sipping the red one Bishop always saved for you.
Jake had landed next to you. Smooth. Confident. Not showboating, for once, just glad to see you already on the ground, safe and whole. You waved at him from the hangar steps, hair windblown, grin easy.
That was the kind of day it was.Easy.
Maverick made a rare appearance in the ready room and brought ice cream sandwiches for everyone like some kind of weird, retired squad dad. Phoenix raised a brow but took one anyway. Coyote challenged everyone to darts at the Hard Deck later, and Bishop had already started trash-talking.
“Loser buys the first round,” he said, pointing between you and Smoke.
“I’m not losing to either of you,” you shot back, stretching with a groan. “Not after today. That formation loop? Art.”
“Oh, it was art?” Smoke teased. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Because I distinctly remember someone pulling a maneuver that nearly made me lose my lunch.”
Jake chuckled, slinging an arm over your shoulder from behind. “You sure it wasn’t just your age catching up to you, Smoke?”
“You’re barely three months younger than me, Hangman,” Smoke deadpanned.
“Still younger.”
Everyone groaned in chorus.
That night, at the Hard Deck, the lights were too bright and the jukebox was broken in just the right way cycling between classic rock and some 2000s playlist Bob had programmed weeks ago.
You sang along with Phoenix to some Avril Lavigne song. Bishop had one arm around Smoke and the other around Jake, slurring off-key lyrics like his life depended on it. Coyote and Payback had bets going on who would fall off the barstool first.
It was loud. It was messy. It was good.
And it would be the last time the whole squad was together like that.
But no one knew that yet.
No one knew that in two weeks, there’d be black ribbons on helmets and a moment of silence before flight briefings.
That night, there were just drinks and music and laughter.
You’d leaned over to Jake somewhere near closing time, voice low but honest.
“I hope we get a hundred more nights like this.”
He’d smiled, not knowing that would be the one that haunted him most.
Phoenix raised a glass and said your name first.
“To Bear,” she said, voice thick. “Our girl. Our favorite pain in the ass.”
A few people chuckled at that.
“She once threatened to break my kneecaps for taking the last cup of coffee,” Coyote added, lips quirking faintly. “Swear to God, I was scared.”
“She carried four of us off the tarmac once when we were heat exhausted,” Bob said. “All five-foot-seven of her.”
“She growled at a three-star once,” Fanboy grinned. “They backed down.”
More laughter.
It was soft. Careful. Like someone had cracked a window in a smoke-filled room.
“She was Bear,” Phoenix smiled sadly. “Called that because she bit off the head of anyone who messed with us. Our squad mom. Our enforcer. Our home.”
They all nodded.
Jake said nothing.
He sat at the far end of the bar, fingers wrapped around an untouched beer, staring at the wood grain like if he looked up, he might see you across from him again.
Phoenix slid into the seat beside him after a while.
Didn’t say anything at first. Just sat. Let the weight sit with him.
Then, softly: “You know she wouldn’t have listened to anyone, right?”
Jake’s throat worked. He didn’t answer.
“I tried too,” Phoenix admitted. “We all did. You just… you saw it first.”
Jake’s eyes stayed on the bar. “Doesn’t make it hurt less.”
“No. It won’t. But Jake…”
She waited until he looked at her.
“She’s flying with Smoke and Bishop now. Giving them hell, just like always.”
That was what cracked him.
Just a flicker. A corner of his mouth tipping upward. Barely there.
But it was real.
“She probably made it to the gates and tried to file a maintenance report,” he muttered, voice hoarse.
Phoenix snorted through a sob. “She probably kicked the gates open.”
That almost did it.
Almost.
Jake took a deep breath, finally lifted his glass, and clinked it against hers.
“To Bear,” he whispered.
And this time, his voice didn’t shake.
He sits on the dock most nights now.
Long after the sun’s gone down.
Long after everyone else has gone home.
Your dog tags are a permanent fixture in his hand, wound through his fingers like prayer beads, like a tether, like if he lets go for even a second, you’ll disappear completely.
The sea is quiet, endless.
So still it feels wrong. Like the world forgot to grieve. Like it’s daring him to remember alone.
Some nights, he talks to you.
Not out loud. Not exactly.
But the words form anyway, clogging his throat, settling in his chest like salt.
"You'd hate this place without you. It’s too damn quiet. Too clean."
"Phoenix still gives me that look. You know the one.""Bob leaves coffee on my desk now. Yours was better.""I miss your laugh. God, I miss your laugh."
He never says the one thing that sits deepest in his bones:
I should’ve done more.
Because if he says it out loud, it becomes real. Permanent. A scar he can’t hide.
Every now and then, up in the air, he hears your voice in the headset.
Not clearly.
Just a flicker of static.
A phantom "Seresin, get your head out of your ass" at the edge of a barrel roll.
A laugh in the clouds when he hits a clean break turn.
Sometimes, he swears he sees your jet, just a flash, tucked in tight at his six.
But when he turns, there’s nothing. Just sky.
Just air.
Just loss.
When people ask about you now, he says the same thing every time.
“She was the best.”
Then he swallows around the lump in his throat and adds:
“She burned too bright.
She was more than what they’ll remember.”
Because that’s what hurts the most.
Not the way you went.
But the way they talk about it now.
You became a cautionary tale.
A story whispered to fresh-faced pilots on their first day at Top Gun:
"Don’t fly like she did.""Don’t chase the edge like it owes you something.""Don’t lose yourself in the sky."
Jake hates it.
You weren’t a warning.
You were alive. Loud. Stubborn. Brilliant.
You loved the sky too much and it loved you back, until it didn’t.
He still flies. Of course he does.
But it’s not the same.
He doesn’t look for you in the locker room anymore, doesn’t expect to see you barefoot on the bench, peeling off your flight suit, smirking like you just rewrote the laws of physics.
But the ache doesn’t go away.
You’re everywhere and nowhere.
A ghost at his six.
The wind on final approach.
The silence after comms go dead.
The echo in the hangar when no one else is speaking.
And on the nights he can’t stand the weight of your absence, when the grief feels too sharp to breathe through, he sits on the dock, your tags clinking softly in his hand, and watches the sky.
Waiting for one more flash of silver.
One more glint of sunlight off a canopy.
Summary: He was your superior so why did he have to cross that line? He was everything to you but you still had to leave.
In which Bradley was your rock and mentor during your first deployment but he crossed a line. You loved him, but not in the same way and there was lots of hurt and loss but you will always need him.
Word Count: 13.5k
Trigger Warnings: Emotional cheating, navy inaccuracies, military related injuries, implied PTSD and grief, mental health issues(depression, identity loss, burnout, emotional collapses), fights, yearning, emotional isolation, cursing, unedited asf, if i miss something Im sorry and please let me know!
NOT MY GIF
You met Bradley Bradshaw during your first joint deployment. He was already established, reliable, and confident in his career, in a way that made everyone else in the room seem like they were just playing pretend. You, on the other hand, were still new enough to triple-check everything. You didn’t mind. You preferred knowing your place.
What you didn’t expect was how quickly he would become your person.
It started innocently—shared coffees in the morning, swapping notes on readiness reports, late nights on the flight deck under too many stars and not enough sleep. Somewhere in the shuffle of time zones and turbulence, you stopped keeping count of the moments that made up a friendship and started realizing they all led back to him.
You didn’t know when you began to depend on him like that.
He was never anything but kind. Always looked out for you. Let you vent when things got heavy. Kept you sane when the command lost its mind. Taught you so many things. And somewhere along the line, he started sitting next to you in every briefing, waiting for you after every training evolution. It was just easier that way.
Everyone joked about it. Called him your shadow. Your tether. Your protector. Your other half.
You’d laugh it off, even when it felt uncomfortably close to the truth.
You told yourself it wasn’t like that.
You saw him as your ‘boat dad’ , someone to lean on in tough times. Someone who had all the answers because he had done this a time or two before.
Because he was married.
And because he loved her.
But sometimes, in the quiet space between professionalism and something deeper, you caught his eyes lingering too long. Or his voice softening when he said your name.
You told yourself it didn’t mean anything.
And when he started to mean everything—you stopped telling yourself anything at all.
There’s a difference between boundaries and denial.
You learned that the hard way.
It started with the way he looked at you during a late-night briefing, the kind of look you’d only ever seen people give when they’re trying to memorize a moment. Like he was afraid to blink and lose it. You felt it in your chest—sharp and heavy and unbearable.
You avoided him after that.
You stopped waiting for him after flights. Took your coffee alone. Volunteered for shifts you knew he couldn’t take. Because you couldn’t breathe with the weight of almost between you.
Because you weren’t sure where it stopped being friends, co-workers, someone to lean on, and when it started becoming co-dependent, needed, yearning.
Soon things died down, things went back to normal and you started right back at the beginning. As much as it all scared you, losing him was scarier.
He guided you through this point of your career. Being your superior, he had been in your shoes before, done the things you are doing, jumped through the same hoops you were.
Even if he hadn’t been in the same exact position, navigating the Navy through a female perspective, he did his best to understand and help guide you through it. That’s all you could ask for.
You called him your boat dad, someone you looked up to, someone you wanted to be because he made this service a better place than it was before he got here. He did everything he could to take you under his wing and make you love your job again. No one had done that in the year you had been stationed there. No one believed in you, and no one wanted to put in the time and effort to make you better. They walked past you, didn’t look back.
They didn’t care if you passed or failed, if you were happy or on the edge. They only cared about the work list and if you were causing ripples in their calm pool of toxic masculinity.
But Rooster did.
He saw you. Your potential, your drive, who you wanted to be and who you could be. He taught you more in the three months since he reported than anyone had in the year prior. And no one liked that.
They swore you got special treatment. Because being a woman close to a man—especially one of higher rank—meant one thing in their eyes: you must be getting something in return. You must be doing something behind closed doors. Because how could a man and a woman just be friends?
That’s why the hotel rooms and the quiet, drunken nights inside became a Port Call tradition.
No outside eyes. No forced distance. No pretending like there was nothing there.
Not that you minded. You could spend hours talking to him. It was like speaking to a mirror. You two were the same person: trauma holding you back, relationship issues never fully resolved, hopes and dreams that had been ignored by everyone—until now.
You were each other's biggest supporters. And that was enough.
Or it should have been.
But he had someone waiting for him at home. A wife. A cat. A life.
And yet, the line was crossed. Quietly. Subtly. A look held too long, a touch on the shoulder that lingered. Then one night, laughter turned to silence, silence turned to something heavy, and then—his confession.
You told yourself it was just the alcohol. Just the pressure. Just the loneliness.
But it wasn’t.
And when the sun rose, and neither of you acknowledged it, the silence was an answer neither of you wanted to face.
You both acted like nothing happened. Like the night before didn’t change everything. Like the alcohol had erased your memories. But it didn’t. Both of you painfully remembered the words spewed out onto the floor, and no one made an effort to collect and hide them.
The deployment dragged on, painfully long. But you still worked together, still ate together, still found comfort in one another during quiet watches and chaos alike. You laughed at his dumb jokes. He helped you fix comms when no one else would. And if your fingers brushed too long, no one said anything. But it was never truly the same. It couldn’t be.
But then came the mishap. A report no one would ever want to see come across their desk.
It was supposed to be routine. A standard offload—tight window, moderate sea state, nothing you hadn’t done a hundred times before. You were directing from the flight deck, barking clearances into the wind, your voice hoarse through the comms, the salt air sharp in your throat.
You weren’t even supposed to be there. Just lending a helping hand to the crew who seemed to be running on empty.
You were a pilot, not part of the flight deck. You were only supposed to fly the planes, not direct them.
You didn’t even see the cable snap. Didn’t hear the crack over the roar of the ocean and the hum of engines. One second you were pointing toward the next pallet, the next—
A deafening snap.
An unsecured crate lurched.
And then impact.
Your body hit the deck hard, all breath torn from your lungs like a vacuum had emptied your chest. You didn’t register the pain right away—just the sudden, terrifying absence of air. The world spun, a high-pitched ringing echoing between your ears.
Then it all crashed in at once—pain searing through your ribs, blooming white-hot and immediate, radiating down your side. Your shoulder screamed when you tried to push yourself up, and the world tilted sideways.
Voices blurred together.
Shouting.
Boots thundering across steel.
But one voice cut through it all—raw, panicked, cracking like something inside him had just broken.
“*Don’t move— don’t move, I’ve got you—!”
Then he was there.
Bradley.
When did he get here? He wasn’t supposed to be here.
On his knees beside you, sliding across the deck in a heartbeat. His hands hovered over your shoulders, not touching, shaking—trembling. His eyes searched yours, wild with fear and something deeper, something primal. You’d never seen him like that. Not even under fire.
"You're okay. You're gonna be okay. Look at me, alright? Just—just breathe with me."
But you couldn’t.
You couldn’t breathe.
Your vision blurred. Every inhale was fire in your ribs. You gasped, tried to speak, but only a whimper came out. His hands moved to cradle your head, steadying you as you writhed.
“Hey. Stay with me. Stay with me.” His voice was breaking. “Help’s almost here. Just—God, just don’t close your eyes, alright? You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
You blinked up at him. He was too close, too steady, too him. You wanted to apologize. To joke. To tell him it wasn’t that bad. But your throat closed, overwhelmed by pain and the way he was looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.
The medics finally shoved in beside him, barking orders, pushing him back. He didn’t go far.
He crouched nearby, one knee bloodied from the skid, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. And he didn’t take his eyes off you. Not for a second. They were frenzied, wild and crazy but they were glued onto you.
When they slid you onto the stretcher and started moving, he followed without permission, one hand brushing your wrist, barely-there contact like he didn’t want to let you go.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he kept whispering, like he could will it into being. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
But the truth was—it shattered something in him that day.
Not just the fear of losing you.
But the realization of how much losing you would’ve wrecked him completely.
And you saw it. Even in your haze of pain and panic and oxygen masks—you saw it in his face.
How much you meant to him.
How much he wasn’t ready to say out loud.
Not yet.
Not then.
But everything changed that day.
For both of you.
You finally realized that you meant more to him, in a way that you would never be able to give him.
You were confined to medical for three days.
Cracked ribs, bruised lung, a dislocated shoulder. The kind of injuries that could've been so much worse—but still felt like they cracked open something deeper than bone.
Bradley never left.
Not really.
He was there when you woke up the first night, sitting stiffly in the corner chair, still in his flight suit, his face haggard from too little sleep and too much worry. He jolted awake the second you stirred, moving to your bedside with that same urgency he’d had on the deck.
"You scared the hell out of me," he said, voice hoarse.
You gave him a tired smile. “Sorry.”
He sat down beside you. “Don’t be sorry. Just—don’t do that again.”
You meant to make a joke, something to break the tension. But the words wouldn’t come. Your chest hurt too much—not just from the injuries, but from the weight in his eyes.
He looked at you like he'd almost lost the most important thing in his life.
Because maybe he had.
That night, you let him hold your hand.
Not because you loved him like he wanted you to.
But because you needed him.
You always had.
And maybe that was the cruelest part—because you could feel his fingers tighten around yours in ways that said more than words ever could. And you didn’t pull away.
Because the thing no one told you about a bond like this—platonic soulmates—was that it could look and feel a lot like love.
It doesn’t come with anniversaries or “I love you”s whispered in the quiet. There are no kisses pressed to foreheads or fingers laced together in the dark. There’s no wedding to plan, no shared bed, no promises of forever in the traditional sense. But it still exists. Loudly. Quietly. Always.
Being platonic soulmates is like finding the other half of your heartbeat in someone who will never be yours the way the world says they should be.
It’s knowing someone in the marrow of your bones. Not just their favorite color or the way they take their coffee—but the way they flinch when they’re lying. The sound of their laugh before it leaves their chest. The exact words to say when their world is crumbling—and being the only one who can see them. It’s looking across a room and hearing everything they can’t say in the silence between you.
It’s a connection that doesn’t make sense on paper. You aren't lovers, but you know their body language like a second language. You aren’t dating, but you love them so deeply that it aches when they hurt. You aren’t theirs—but god, sometimes it feels like you should be.
And that’s the cruel part.
Because the world doesn’t make space for what you are. There’s no map for how to grieve when they fall in love with someone else. No guidebook for how to let go of something that was never really yours, even if it always felt like it was. No one tells you how much it can break you—loving someone this deeply with nowhere for the love to go.
But some days it wrecks you.
Because loving someone platonically doesn’t make the love any smaller. It’s still fierce. Still consuming. Still a wildfire in your chest.
It just has nowhere to burn.
The weeks that followed were slow.
He stayed with you for every follow-up appointment. Sat outside physical therapy. Carried your bag without asking.
He somehow pulled rank to keep you on the carrier. Something you would never understand.
He was quieter than usual—more careful with you, like he was afraid one wrong word would break whatever fragile peace you’d both built since that day.
And still, he never said anything.
Not about what he felt. Not about what he wanted.
But sometimes, in the quiet moments—when you caught him looking at you with something raw in his eyes, or when you leaned against him without thinking and felt the hitch in his breath—you knew.
You just couldn’t give it back.
So you said nothing, either.
And you kept moving forward—side by side, like always. Him loving you quietly.
And you loving him in the only way you could.
Like a lighthouse.
Like gravity.
Like home.
But not like that.
Never like that.
It felt cruel. To keep letting him be there for you the way he was. Knowing you couldn’t give him what he wanted, but you knew that it couldn’t be that way.
Bradley had a wife who was his whole world. You heard him go on and on about everything about her. You loved the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his small family back home, his wife and cat.
You loved it for him because he was happy and it never made you feel weird or less than. You thought he saw you the same way you saw him, a little family dynamic, a home away from home. You didn’t think he would see it as more than that and it terrified you.
You felt so incredibly selfish for keeping him around though. You needed him. You didn’t think that you could get through a deployment, let alone the Navy without having him by your side, so you let him go with whatever narrative he built inside his mind.
Because having him this way was better than not having him at all.
You stared at the orders for a long time before you moved.
Reassignment. Stateside. Different command. A fresh start, wrapped in bureaucratic language and digital ink. Words that would haunt your dreams for some time to come.
It was what you’d been working toward—what you were told was a good thing.
It felt like a funeral.
Not the kind with flowers and eulogies, but the quiet kind. The kind that comes when you realize a chapter is closing and there's no fanfare. No proper goodbye. Just an email, a signature, and a ticking clock counting down to the day you pack your things and leave behind everything that made you you here.
Your chest felt hollow reading the words. This was what all the long nights, impossible flights, and impossible choices were supposed to lead to—progress. But it didn’t feel like progress. It felt like grief.
Because this place, for better or worse, had become your entire world. The ready room laughter, the long walks back from the flight deck at sunset, the quiet moments between chaos when someone reached out a hand and reminded you that you weren’t alone. The ghosts you hadn’t quite let go of yet. The people you didn’t know how to leave behind.
Him.
Especially him.
You remembered all the times he told you that you were meant for more. That you were going to outrank him someday. That he couldn’t wait to salute you with that stupid little smirk of his.
But now that it was real—now that it was happening—you felt untethered. Like maybe you’d grown roots without meaning to, and now you were ripping them out just to move forward.
You closed your laptop and sat there in silence, surrounded by familiarity that was already starting to feel like memory.
And for the first time in a long time, you weren’t sure if moving on was the same as moving up.
You found him in the hangar after hours.
The sun had dipped low, casting long shadows across the floor. Most of the carrier had gone quiet, save for the distant echo of boots on metal and the hum of machinery winding down. But there he was—alone, sleeves rolled up, grease on his knuckles, bent over the intake of his jet like it was the only thing in the world that made sense.
Soft music drifted from a battered radio perched on the wing. Some song that the two of you had listened to a million times, dissecting every lyric and putting a meaning behind them.
You watched him for a beat too long. Memorizing the curve of his shoulders, the way the light caught in his hair, the quiet way he moved—like he belonged here. Like he’d been built for this life in a way you sometimes wished you had been.
When he finally noticed you, something in his expression shifted. Concern first. Then something softer, deeper. A tension in his brow like he already knew why you’d come.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag as he approached.
You didn’t speak. Just held out the orders.
He didn’t take them.
He looked at you first—really looked—and then his eyes dropped to the paper. You watched him read the lines, the standard Navy jargon that somehow said everything and nothing all at once. And then he looked back up.
There was a pause. Long enough to feel like something cracked.
“They came through,” you said, and even to your own ears, your voice sounded distant. Controlled. Like you were trying to hold it together with duct tape and a steady jaw.
He nodded slowly, like he’d been waiting for this. Like he’d known, deep down, the moment would come and still hadn’t figured out how to brace for it.
“How long?”
“Three weeks.” Your throat tightened. Deployment ended in two.
He said nothing.
You leaned against the side of the jet, folding your arms, trying to keep your hands from shaking. The ache behind your ribs wasn’t from the old injury—not this time. It was something else. Something heavier. The weight of leaving before you were ready, of growing out of a life you weren’t ready to shed.
“I worked for this. It’s the right move. The right timing,” you said, voice clipped. Like stating facts would protect you from the feelings.
“You don’t sound happy.”
“I don’t know how to feel.”
He looked down at the hangar floor like it might hold the answer. Then, after a beat, he stepped closer.
“Can I say something selfish?” he asked.
You didn’t move. Couldn’t. Your heart was a bruise in your chest.
He spoke anyway.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Your breath caught hard in your throat.
Not because it surprised you—he never hid it, not really—but because you couldn’t say it back. Not without unraveling everything you’d spent months stitching together.
“I know,” you whispered. “But I have to.”
“I know you do.”
He didn’t touch you. Didn’t reach for your hand. Didn’t pull you into one last hug he knew you’d fall apart inside of. He just stood there, the two of you separated by the length of breath, both of you pretending it didn’t feel like a goodbye.
“I’m proud of you,” he said, after a moment. “I hope you know that.”
You nodded, eyes stinging. “I’m trying to be proud of me too.”
He almost smiled. Almost.
“You should be. You went through hell for this. You clawed your way here, tooth and nail. And you didn’t let any of it break you.”
You let out a shaky breath. “That’s the thing, though. I think it did. I just haven’t figured out how to put myself back together yet.”
Something in his expression flickered—grief, maybe. Or guilt. You couldn’t tell.
“I wish…” He stopped himself. Then shook his head like he could force the thought away. “Never mind.”
“No. Say it.”
He looked at you then, eyes tired in a way that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
“I wish I’d been enough of a reason for you to stay.”
The words hit like a gut punch. You flinched without meaning to.
“You were a reason,” you said, barely above a whisper. “You still are. But this… this isn’t about you.”
“I know.” He smiled, bitter and aching. “But it still feels like losing.”
You turned away then, blinking fast, trying to keep your composure. You’d always been good at walking things off—injuries, heartbreak, disappointment. But this one stuck like a splinter under your ribs.
“I thought this would feel like winning.” You admitted, voice raw.
“And it doesn’t?”
“No,” was all you said. All you could say.
You looked back at him finally and the look on his face was something you will never forget. It will forever be engraved into your brain, begging to be front and center once again when replaying the most heartbreaking things in your life late at night.
You stepped away first. Because if he did, you weren’t sure you’d survive it.
You didn’t look back until you were at the hangar door.
He was still there. Watching you go. Hands in his pockets. Mouth set like stone.
You waved once.
He didn’t wave back.
But he stayed.
And maybe that was the worst part. Knowing he would’ve kept staying. As long as you needed him to.
When he got here, to your unit, you weren’t expecting him to become the most important thing in your life.
You expected him to just be another person in your chain of command. Someone cold and distant, someone who could care less about you let alone your career, just as long as you didn’t cause him problems.
You didn’t expect the quiet steadiness he carried with him like second nature. Or the warmth that bloomed in the corners of every room he walked into. You didn’t expect the way his smile could undo the worst kind of day, or the way his voice—low, calm, certain—could talk you down from a spiral with just a few words.
You didn’t expect him to become your lifeline.
Bradley Bradshaw had this way of making you feel seen without ever needing to say it out loud. Broad-shouldered, sun-kissed, with eyes the color of something older than time—kind, but sharp. You didn’t know, when you first saw him leaning against the nose of his jet like he’d been born there, that he’d reflect every version of yourself you were too afraid to look at.
He was composed, but not cold. Loud when it mattered, silent when it counted. He listened like it was a form of love. He cracked jokes that broke tension like glass. And when you laughed—really laughed—it was always him at the center of it.
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear you’d known him your whole life.
There were no empty silences. No awkward beginnings. No feeling each other out. You met him and it felt like stepping into a memory you didn’t know you had. Like picking up a conversation that had been paused for years, not starting a new one. It was easy. It was natural. It was terrifying.
Because for the first time in a long time, you weren’t alone in this.
He was, is, your best friend. The kind of person who makes you want to get up in the morning and do the job right—not because you owe it to the Navy, but because you owe it to him. He made you fall in love with your work again. With flying. With leading. With staying.
But with that came pain.
Because Bradley also reminded you what it would cost if you ever had to leave it—or worse, if you lost him.
He made staying easier, and leaving unbearable. He was both the reason you still wore your uniform and the weight that made it harder to put on some mornings.
Bradley Bradshaw became your why.
And even if you could never find the words to say it, even if you never told him in a way he could fully understand, he saved you. Again and again. Quietly. Completely.
And there will never be a way to thank him enough for that.
You didn’t cry—not until you were alone in your bunk that night, orders folded on your chest, already memorized.
And when he knocked quietly on your door two days later and asked if you wanted to go for one more flight—just the two of you—you said yes.
Because it was always going to be the lasts that broke you.
Not the goodbyes.
You knew once you left, for good, you wouldn’t turn back. You couldn’t. Because if by chance you did, gave yourself a split second to think about what could be, you wouldn’t leave.
You couldn’t come back to him, for him, because he wouldn’t let you go. And you wouldn’t fight him. You would cave and stay and it would be catastrophic.
All the unspoken words between the two of you, it would ruin everything good and you would rather leave, be the one to step away, than be the one to break everything.
The sky was clear that morning—blindingly blue, the kind of light that made the ocean below look impossibly still. Perfect flight weather.
You didn’t say much in the ready room. Didn’t need to. The pre-flight checklist had become second nature, a rhythm you and Bradley had long ago fallen into without trying. It had always been like that with him—easy.
You walked to your jets together, helmets tucked under your arms, side by side like always. His shoulder brushed yours once, and neither of you pulled away.
There was a tightness in your chest that had nothing to do with the flight.
Once in the air, everything else fell away.
Just the hum of the engine. The crisp calls over comms. The way your jet cut through the sky like it belonged there—like you belonged there.
He was on your wing the entire time. Steady. Close.
You ran through formation drills, then looped into some aggressive maneuvers just for the hell of it—just to feel again. To burn it all off at Mach speed.
There was laughter over the radio.
“Still flying like you’ve got something to prove,” he teased, voice warm.
“Maybe I do,” you shot back. “Maybe I don’t want to forget how this feels.”
A long pause.
“Then don’t.”
You looked over, he was already on your wing looking at you through his cockpit.
Silence again—except for the engine, the wind, your own heartbeat.
Something tugged at your heart. Something telling you that this was the very last time the two of you would fly together. That you would be this close.
You wanted it to be wrong, that later down the road, you would be together again, when you both grew older and wiser but you knew. Deep down in the hidden part of your chest, you knew this could never happen again.
You didn’t say anything else until you were back on the tarmac. You climbed down, unbuckled, pulled your helmet off with shaking hands. Bradley met you at your ladder, glasses pushed to the top of his head, a soft look on his face.
“That was a good one,” he said, voice low.
You nodded, throat tight. “Yeah. It was.”
He hesitated, then offered his fist.
You bumped it, like always.
But then his hand curled around yours and he pulled you into a hug before you could think.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t polite. It was everything that had gone unsaid for months.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmured into your hair.
He didn’t know it, but that meant so much more to you than he could imagine.
It was everything you had been chasing your entire life. For someone you looked up to, to be proud of you.
It wasn’t the first time he said it to you, but this time, it meant so much more than anything else.
It was like he knew it too. This was the last flight together.
You pressed your forehead to his shoulder and let yourself feel it all—the grief, the pride, the weight of this final ritual between you.
When you stepped back, you smiled, eyes rimmed with tears you didn’t let fall.
“So that’s it,” you whispered.
He nodded. “That’s it.”
And when you turned away—helmet under one arm, boots heavy against the concrete—you didn’t look back.
Because you knew if you did, you wouldn’t be able to leave.
The two weeks finally came to an end. Deployment over. The roar of jet engines and the endless ocean faded into something distant—almost unreal. The aircraft carrier felt like a ghost ship now, drifting in the back of your mind. And everything that had happened—every moment of joy, exhaustion, pain, and connection—became a dull memory you tried to bury deep.
But it always came back.
In quiet flashes. A smell. A sound. The echo of boots on steel. His voice in your ear through comms. The way your ribs still ached sometimes in the cold.
You had one week left before your reassignment orders took you somewhere new—somewhere he wouldn’t be.
The first few days back, you spent in the hangar back on base. The same place that had once felt like home. Now it felt clinical. Temporary.
Your locker was the first thing to go. You peeled off old photos and sticky notes, tossed worn gloves and half-empty notebooks into the bin. The coffee mugs—the ones you'd insisted on keeping at work, the ones people used to tease you about—were wrapped in paper and tucked gently into a box, labeled in your handwriting: Virginia. Your new home. Clear across the country.
The desk drawers followed. Empty now. Stripped of anything personal. It was as if you were erasing yourself from this unit, from this life—as if you had never been there in the first place.
And people noticed.
There were quick goodbyes in the hallway. Hugs that lasted a beat too long. Promises to keep in touch, to grab drinks, to visit on leave. Most of them wouldn’t pan out—you knew that. But the intentions mattered.
It was bittersweet. The way chapters always are when you know they meant something.
And then there was Bradley.
He avoided you.
Not in a cruel or deliberate way. Just in that careful, quiet kind of distance—like a wound still healing, too tender to touch.
You didn’t seek him out either.
You could’ve. You knew where to find him. The hangar. The gym. His favorite bench by the seawall.
But you didn’t.
Because if you saw him—really saw him—you weren’t sure you’d be able to leave.
You passed each other once. Just once.
He was coming in as you were walking out, your box in your arms, sunglasses perched on your head, hair pulled back the way it always was when you were trying to stay composed.
You both paused.
Just long enough to register each other’s presence.
He gave you a small nod. A quiet acknowledgement.
You returned it, clutching the box tighter.
Neither of you said a word.
Because there was nothing left to say that wouldn’t hurt.
And so, you kept walking.
Right past him. Right toward the next life waiting for you.
It hurt, but it was what needed to be done.
You wanted to tell him so many things, how much he helped you, but you weren’t sure if it was welcome, if it was necessary. He should know how much he meant to you but deep down he probably already did.
Your bags were already in the car.
The sun was low, bleeding gold through the blinds of your quiet, mostly-empty apartment, spare the bags that would make it down with you on the final trip to your car. The air felt still. Like the world was holding its breath.
You stood in the doorway of the bedroom—bare walls, clean floors, memories still clinging to the corners—and checked your phone one last time.
Bradley: Meet me at the spot. I need to see you.
You stared at the message, your heart a lead weight in your chest. The spot. Your spot. The bench by the hanger. Quiet and tucked away, breeze reaching it just right and it carrying the sound of the ocean just down the path.
A second message followed.
Bradley: I talked to the XO. There’s a way. I can pull rank. I’ll talk to the detailers, the skipper—whoever. I can fix this. Please just come back.
Your fingers hovered over the keys.
You: If I come back, I won’t leave.
His reply was immediate.
Bradley: Then don’t. I’ll say whatever I need to say. I’ll do anything. Just please—don’t go.
Tears slipped down your cheeks, unchecked.
Bradley: You’re not just some pilot to me. You’re everything. You know that. You’re the only reason I made it through this tour. You saved me in ways you’ll never understand.
You read the messages over and over, sobbing quietly in the dim light of the empty apartment.
You wanted to go to him. God, you needed to. But you couldn’t. If you walked onto that base and saw his face, heard him say your name—you’d break. You’d stay.
And staying would destroy you.
So you did the only thing you could. You picked the sharpest knife in your arsenal, and drove it through both your hearts.
You: Go home to your wife, Bradley.
You watched the typing bubbles appear. Then vanish.
Again. Appear. Vanish.
And then—nothing.
But your phone rang.
You answered, barely able to breathe.
"Don’t do this," he said. His voice was broken, like gravel underfoot. "Please. Just talk to me. Just tell me the truth."
You squeezed your eyes shut. "I am."
He didn’t believe you. You could hear it.
"You think I’m just going to go home like none of this meant anything? That I’ll forget the way you looked at me? How you held me when I thought the world was caving in? Don’t do this. Don’t lie to me."
You pressed a fist to your mouth, biting back a scream. "I’m doing what I have to."
"No, you’re not. You’re running. And I get it—I do. But I love you. I can’t pretend I don’t. I don’t care about the rules. I don’t care about the fucking chain of command. I just want you."
Silence.
Then:
"Please," he whispered. "Let me see you. One last time. Please."
Your body curled in on itself like it was trying to protect your heart. You couldn’t say yes. You couldn’t see him. Because if you did, you would never walk away.
So you reached again for the cruelty.
"I don’t love you, Bradley. I never did."
There was a pause.
Then he exhaled. One long, devastated breath.
"Okay."
You heard him swallow hard. "Then I won’t stop you."
You hung up.
You stared at the dark screen, at the silence that followed, and let the tears fall as you picked up your bag and walked out the door.
And you ran.
Not looking back.
He will never know how much it killed you to say that. How you went against everything in your being just to let him go. How much it pained you to hurt him like that, but there was no other way he was going to let you leave.
You left and boarded the plane and didn’t look back. You clutched your orders to your chest like a shield, and told yourself it was the right thing. That this pain was better than the alternative.
But it didn’t stop the ache. It didn’t stop your body from remembering his arms, your heart from beating for someone you couldn’t have.
And in the quiet, you whispered a truth he’d never hear:
"I love you. That’s why I had to go."
The weeks after you left felt like breathing through gauze.
Everything was dulled. Muffled. Distant.
Sunlight seemed weaker. Food had no taste. Your limbs moved like they were full of wet cement, dragging your body through each day in a fog that refused to lift. People spoke to you and you nodded. Smiled, even. But the words rarely registered. Your eyes never quite focused.
You reported to your new command with your head down and your mouth shut, slipping into the flow of a new unit like a ghost. No one questioned it. Everyone was too busy, too distracted by their own routines to notice the way you kept your distance. How you sat in the back of every room. How your smile didn’t reach your eyes.
No one asked why you flinched when the sound of F-18s tore overhead.
No one asked why you slept with your phone on the loudest setting, or why the screen lit up every few minutes from you checking it—out of habit, out of hope.
No one asked why, after three weeks, your ringtone for Bradley still hadn’t been changed.
You told yourself it would pass. That the ache in your chest would dull with time. That your hands would stop shaking during briefings. That the hollow feeling would ease with enough distance.
You told yourself you were fine.
But you had lost your best friend.
And the silence was louder than any voicemail could be.
He didn’t call.
He didn’t write.
He didn’t try to find you again—not after you told him no, not after you told him to go home to his wife.
He respected the wall you’d built, even if it destroyed him to do it.
And you… you tried to move on.
You filled your days with checklists and qualifications. Training junior pilots. Fixing inventory issues. Staying late in the hangar so you wouldn’t have to go home to the quiet. To the space where his absence clung to every corner like dust.
You got good at faking it.
Smiling when they handed you your new flight status.
Laughing at the right jokes in the ready room.
Taking on more shifts. Volunteering for more work. Earning respect quickly—more quickly than you'd expected—but it all felt paper-thin. Hollow.
Because none of them had seen you when your hands were shaking in medical.
None of them had held your arm while you tried to stand.
None of them had found you crying in the hanger after a bad op and simply sat with you in silence until your breathing evened out.
None of them called you kid. Or trouble. Or the strongest damn pilot I’ve ever met.
None of them were him.
And that, more than anything else, made the silence unbearable.
Because for the first time in years, you weren’t just lonely.
You were alone.
And the one person who’d seen you—really seen you—wasn’t there to see you anymore.
It started with the new batch of pilots.
Fresh-faced and green, wide-eyed and cocky in equal measure, they stepped onto the tarmac like they had something to prove—and no idea how to prove it.
You saw yourself in them. And you saw him.
You remembered the way Bradley used to steady you without making you feel small. The way he challenged you with sharp wit and a warm smile. The way he knew when to push, when to pause, when to just be there. You remembered the way he taught you that strength didn’t always come from barking orders—it came from knowing your people, from standing beside them, not in front. Or the way he also taught you that you didn’t always have to be strong. That you could lean on someone and let them hold you up sometimes.
So that’s what you did.
You didn’t walk into their lives like a storm. You settled in. Quiet at first. Observant. But always present. At morning briefings, in the sim rooms, late nights at the hangar.
You called them out when they slacked. Praised them when they improved. Backed them in front of higher-ups but gave it to them straight behind closed doors.
They started coming to you more and more.
At first, it was the small stuff—questions about qualifications, help interpreting flight data, tips on getting ahead in training.
Then it was more.
“Ma’am, I—I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”
You found a young lieutenant sitting alone in the hangar one night after hours, uniform stained, eyes bloodshot from trying too hard for too long. Neither of you supposed to be there this late, but also there for the same reasons.
You didn’t say much. You just sat beside her and handed her a bottle of water. You waited until her breathing calmed before you spoke.
“You are,” you told her gently. “And I promise—if you weren’t, I’d be the first one to say so.”
She broke down then. Right into your shoulder. And you let her.
Because someone once did that for you.
Another time, you stepped in during a check ride when a junior pilot panicked mid-air and nearly aborted the maneuver. Your voice over comms had been calm, grounding, measured.
“Breathe, kid. You’ve done this in the sim a hundred times. Fly the jet, not your nerves.”
When he landed, shaking, you were waiting with a hand on his shoulder and a half-smile.
“You good?”
He nodded. “Thanks. I—how did you know what to say?”
You didn’t answer. Not directly.
You just said, “I had someone once who knew exactly what I needed to hear. I’m just paying it forward.”
They started calling you “Skipper” even though you weren’t their CO. It wasn’t about rank. It was about presence.
You became the one they called when they didn’t know what else to do. When things got hard. When the weight of being a Navy pilot became too much to carry alone.
You were the one who checked their gear twice, not because you didn’t trust them, but because you did.
You were the one who reminded them to call home. Who knew the birthdays. Who showed up to the memorials when one of their own didn’t make it back.
You were the one who showed them what strength really looked like.
And maybe you didn’t realize it until much later, but somewhere along the way—you became for them what Bradley had been for you.
Their rock.
Their compass.
Their boat dad. Or mom in this case.
Even when your own heart still ached.
Even when you still woke up reaching for a name you didn’t allow yourself to speak aloud.
Even when you missed him.
You carried him with you—not as a ghost, not as a regret—but as a legacy.
One he helped shape in you.
And one you now carried forward in everyone you helped.
It had been a long day.
You were still in your flight suit, hands smudged with grease from helping troubleshoot a maintenance snag after your last hop. The hangar had thinned out, golden hour bleeding through the open bay doors, casting the metal jets in warm light. You were packing up your helmet when you heard soft footsteps behind you.
“Ma’am?”
You turned.
It was Lieutenant Reyes.
She looked different from the last time you’d seen her cry alone in this very hangar—shoulders straighter, eyes clearer, uniform sharp. She had that look of someone who’d just flown a clean sim and knew it.
But there was something tentative in her expression, a hesitation that had nothing to do with flight maneuvers.
You gave her a small nod. “Hey, Reyes. What’s up?”
She walked closer, holding something—a folded piece of paper—and stopped just in front of you. Her hands fidgeted at the edges.
“I’ve been meaning to say something,” she started, voice quiet but steady. “I didn’t really know how. Or when.”
You tilted your head. “You can say anything here. You know that.”
She swallowed. “That night… when I said I didn’t think I was cut out for this—”
“You were overwhelmed,” you said gently. “Everyone hits that wall. It doesn’t make you weak.”
“I know.” Her voice cracked. “I know that now. Because of you.”
You stilled.
“I don’t think you understand,” Reyes continued. “That night, I was ready to quit. I’d already drafted the paperwork. I was going to turn in my wings.”
Your breath caught, heart dropping. Those words bringing you back to your very own once.
“But you didn’t say anything flashy or fake. You didn’t try to fix it or talk me out of it. You sat with me. Like it wasn’t shameful. Like I wasn’t broken.”
She looked down at the folded paper in her hand, then held it out.
“I wrote this a few weeks ago. After I passed my quals. After I finally flew a solo op and didn’t freeze up. I wasn’t going to give it to you. But… you deserve to hear it.”
You took the note carefully, fingers brushing hers. She stepped back as you unfolded it.
It was handwritten—shaky, emotional. Personal. A thank you, plain and raw and vulnerable. A confession that without you, she might’ve walked away. That your strength, quiet and steady, had anchored her when nothing else could. That you reminded her it was okay to hurt and still stay.
You looked up, eyes stinging.
It reminded you of the countless notes you had written Bradley, saying damn near the same thing Reyes had written you, the only difference, you never had the guts to give it to him.
You always wrote it down when you had no idea how to say the words out loud.
“Reyes,” you whispered.
She smiled. “You were my lifeline, ma’am. I don’t know how you did it, but… you saved me.”
You blinked hard, lips parting to speak—but nothing came out.
Because the truth was, you had been barely holding it together yourself when you held her. And maybe in saving her, you’d saved a little part of yourself too.
You folded the note gently, pressing it to your chest.
“Thank you,” you said hoarsely. “I needed that more than you know.”
Reyes nodded, stepped forward, and to your surprise—hugged you.
It was quick, respectful, but full of something heavy and real.
And for the first time in a long time, you let yourself lean into it.
You weren’t just surviving anymore.
You were leading.
“I’m so proud of you kid.” You told her the words you had always needed to hear the most.
You were carrying his legacy forward.
And someone had finally told you: you mattered too.
2:13 AM.Your phone buzzed on the nightstand.
You groaned, half-asleep, squinting at the screen in the dark.
“Bradley Bradshaw” lit up in bold white letters.
Your breath caught in your throat. You were wide awake now.
You hadn’t seen that name flash across your screen in a long time. Not since your last conversation—the one where you had said everything you didn’t mean, just to make sure he’d let you go.
You hovered over the answer button. Hesitating.
And then you picked up.
“…Hello?”
There was a pause. Then his voice—so achingly familiar it made your chest hurt.
“Hey.” A quiet chuckle. “Did I wake you?”
You sank back against your pillow, heart pounding. “It’s two in the morning.” But all the sleep had left your voice.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t think I’d actually do it. I just hit call.”
Silence stretched between you for a moment. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was warm. Gentle.
“Still can’t sleep without three pillows and a sound machine?” he asked softly, like no time had passed at all.
You laughed, the sound cracking a little at the end. “Still wake up before the sun and hate the world for it?”
He hummed, and you could almost see the smirk on his face. “Some things never change.”
And just like that, you fell into it again—conversation like a soft blanket pulled over old wounds.
You talked about everything. The new duty station you’d transferred to last year. How much you hated the weather but loved the CO. He told you about a hop he had just done where one of the junior guys accidentally locked himself in the cockpit for half an hour.
“I swear, I almost cried laughing. The kid was sweating like it was SERE school.”
You told him about the time your wingman forgot to remove a gear pin before takeoff.
You both laughed until your stomachs hurt.
He asked how you were liking your new rank. If the new squadron treated you right. If they knew how damn lucky they were to have you.
“You always did love bossing people around,” he teased.
“You loved being bossed around,” you shot back.
His laughter faded slowly, and then the silence returned. Not awkward. Just… heavy.
When he spoke again, his voice was low. Steady, but different.
“I told her.”
Your heart stopped.
You didn’t say anything, but he went on.
“I told my wife about… all of it. About us. About what I felt. About how it wasn’t you—it was me. That I leaned on you in ways I shouldn’t have. That I crossed lines I didn’t even see until they were behind me.”
He swallowed, the sound audible through the phone.
“She asked if I was in love with you.”
You exhaled slowly. “And what did you say?”
“I said I didn’t know what to call it. Just that… I’d never felt that close to anyone before. Not like that.” He paused. “And she forgave me.”
You didn’t know what to say. So you didn’t.
“She and I… we’re okay now. It’s not the same, but it’s honest. We’ve been rebuilding.”
You blinked up at the ceiling, your throat tight. You never wanted to be the cause of their problems.
“I just needed you to know that I’m sorry,” he added. “For all of it. For making you carry the weight of everything. It wasn’t fair. You were just trying to survive. And I put my heart in your hands like it was your job to keep it safe.”
He sighed. “I knew what you were doing that night. When you said you didn’t love me.”
You closed your eyes. “Bradley…”
“It was the kindest lie anyone’s ever told me,” he said softly. “Thank you. For saying it. If you hadn’t—I never would’ve let you go.”
Your heart broke all over again.
“I loved you,” you whispered. “I still do. Just… not in the way you wanted.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
And somehow, that made it worse.
Tears welled in your eyes.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said, voice cracking. “You’re doing everything we used to talk about, everything you dreamed of. You’re… you’re incredible.”
You smiled through the tears. “You taught me how to believe I could be.”
He was quiet again, but you knew he was still there.
“Thank you for picking up,” he finally whispered.
“I’ll always pick up,” you said. “Even if it’s two in the morning.” And that wasn’t a lie. No matter where you were in the world, where you were in life, you would always pick up.
A soft breath from him. A peace offering. A memory.
There was no more contact after that night. Not for a long time.
There were so many times where you reached for your phone wanting to call him, shoot him a text.
Quiet at night when a storm rolled through and the power flickered. It reminded you of the storm on the carrier, one where you talked about how they were peaceful to you but terrifying to him.
At the time, it was funny how a fighter pilot, a scary looking man himself, was scared of thunderstorms. You wanted to call and ask if he was okay but then you remembered.
You were across the country, he was working, and you two weren’t talking.
Another time: There was an incident during a hop. Not life-threatening—but close.
Engine failure.
Brief freefall.
You fixed it. Landed smooth. No one even knew how close it got.
But later, alone in the locker room, your hands shook.
You bit your lip until it bled, trying to remember how to breathe.
You needed someone.
You needed him.
The way he used to sit beside you in silence until the adrenaline bled out. The way he never asked, just stayed.
You opened your contacts.
Scrolled to his name.
And then you closed your phone.
Again when you got the email flashing across your screen.
The subject line said: “Recommendation Approved – Commander.”
You stared at the screen, jaw slack, eyes wide.
You wanted to tell him.
Because he always told you this would happen. Because he believed in you even when you didn’t.
You wanted to hear his voice say, “I’m proud of you, kid.”
But instead, you hit archive. It wouldn’t happen for a while anyways.
You sat in that fluorescent-lit office, quietly trying to breathe through the lump in your throat.
Little did you know though, he did the same thing.
When he made Captain, the silver eagle being pinned to his collar.
The pinning ceremony was loud—applause, photos, laughter. His wife kissed his cheek. His CO gave a speech.
But when the noise faded and the room emptied out, when he was alone, he stood alone in front of the mirror in his dress whites.
And all he could think was: You should’ve been here.
Not to celebrate him—but because he would’ve given anything to celebrate you.
He picked up his phone.
Scrolled to your name.
Typed: “Made Captain today. You called it.”
Then deleted it.
And tucked the phone away.
Again when a new transfer came through.
She was sharp-tongued and quicker on the stick than most of the pilots on base.
Reminded him of you from the second she opened her mouth.
The way she smirked. The way she fought for respect.
One day, she got knocked down in a debrief, unfairly so.
And all Bradley wanted was to call you.
You would’ve known what to say. You would’ve reminded her why the job mattered.
He sat in his truck that night, fingers tapping the steering wheel, phone in the passenger seat.
But he didn’t call.
Because maybe you didn’t want to be reminded of him.
On the anniversary of your transfer.
The day that that call went through and broke him more than he cared to admit.
The day you left.
The day the hangar went too quiet.
He remembered the date without meaning to.
He stood on the tarmac, same place you’d last stood when you told him goodbye.
And he remembered everything: the weight of your silence, the way you didn’t say you’d miss him. The way he’d said, I don’t want you to go, and you still did.
He opened his phone.
Typed: “Been a year. Miss you more than I should.”
He stared at it for a long time.
Then locked the screen.
And walked away.
No matter how many times the two of you played phone tag without actually tagging the other, neither of you willing to break the everlasting silence, both of you would answer in a heartbeat.
And one night, he did. It seemed like it was without hesitation, only letting the phone get through one ring before you could hear his steady breath on the other side of the line.
You had the resignation paperwork open on your screen.
And you’d called him.
It had been the end of an awful deployment. The one where nothing could go right. Training mishaps, stateside accidents that took away your closest friends, the CO screaming more than he led and everyday felt like trying to fly with your wings clipped.
You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
“Hey, it’s late over there,” he said gently. You didn’t reply right away, and that silence must’ve told him everything. “What happened?”
You broke.
In a voice barely louder than a whisper, you told him everything. The burnout. The failure. The guilt. The fear that you weren’t cut out for this anymore. "I can’t do it anymore, Rooster," you’d said through tears, the old nickname slipping out like instinct.
You told him you had the paperwork open.
“Don’t you dare,” he said.
You swallowed hard, throat raw and voice splintering like glass under pressure.
“I’m tired, Bradley.”
It came out as a whisper, but it cracked something wide open inside you. “I don’t even know who I am out here anymore.”
The words barely got past your lips before the sobs followed—ugly, full-body sobs that racked your chest and made your shoulders shake like you were coming apart at the seams. You clutched your phone with both hands, white-knuckled and desperate, like it could anchor you to something solid when everything else felt like it was slipping through your fingers.
“I’m not strong enough,” you choked out, and it hurt to say it. Not just because of the truth in it, but because it was you saying it. The one everyone relied on. The one who always kept it together.
The line went quiet for a second.
Then:
“You’re the one who told me this job doesn’t get easier. We just get stronger. You remember saying that?”
You shook your head, even though he couldn’t see you. Tears were sliding down your cheeks, soaking into your collar. You were sitting on the cold tile floor of your office on base—away from anyone, away from the noise. Just you, your phone, and the sound of his voice threading its way through the static like salvation.
He sighed, and you could hear the weight in it. Not frustration—heartache.
He kept going.
“Listen to me. You’re not alone. I know it feels like it. I know it feels like no one gets it and everything’s on your shoulders, but you’ve got people there. You’ve got me, even if it’s just through a damn phone.”
His voice cracked a little, and that somehow broke you more.
“And you’re not quitting. Not like this.”
You pressed your fist against your mouth to keep from crying out.
“I don’t know who I am when I’m not flying,” you admitted. “But I’m also starting to hate the person I am when I am. I just... I feel lost. I’m not even sure I love it anymore.”
He didn’t rush to fix it. He let the silence hang. Let you breathe. Let your words settle between you like broken pieces on a floor he was too far away to help you pick up.
“You don’t have to be strong,” he said, finally. Gently. “Not every day. Not right now. You just have to remember why you started.”
"And if I can’t?”
Your voice cracked mid-sentence, trembling like the rest of you.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Then borrow my reason until you find yours again.”
And that did it.
That broke you.
You let the sobs come, louder now. No longer trying to hide them. Because something about the way he said it—so simple, so sure—made it feel like the ground beneath you hadn’t disappeared after all. Like maybe you weren’t drifting aimlessly, even if it felt that way.
“I don’t deserve you,” you whispered.
“Yes, you do,” he said, without missing a beat. “You do. And I’ll keep saying it until you believe it again.”
You cried harder—not because you felt weak. Not because you were ashamed.
But because he still believed in you when you didn’t. Because his faith in you was louder than the fear inside you. Because this wasn’t just a pep talk—it was a lifeline.
And because, for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like you were drowning alone.
“I miss you,” you whispered, raw and broken, and it hurt more than anything else you’d said. For once, being the first to admit it.
There was silence on the line. But not the empty kind. The full kind. Like he was holding his breath.
“I miss you too,” he replied, quiet, breaking. “But I’d rather miss you from a distance than watch you throw away everything you’ve built.”
And you cried harder—not because you felt weak. Not because you were ashamed.
But because you missed him so much it ached. Because part of you still lived in the spaces where he existed—in phone calls like this, in late-night flight line walks, in every moment you didn’t have to be strong because he was there to hold you up.
Because he still believed in you when you didn’t.
And because, for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like you were drowning alone.
You didn’t resign. You made it through. Barely. But you did.
And you owed that to him.
Soon the silence stretched between the two of you again. Aside from the very brief, very formal phone call two days later, a ‘wellness’ check he called it, just making sure you had made it home that night and were as okay as you could be.
The call couldn’t have been longer than 5 minutes and a handful of words shared before the radio silence had consumed the two of you again.
A few short weeks later, it had finally been your day. One that may not have come if it weren’t for Bradley.
Commander.
Your promotion ceremony was small, understated—just how you preferred it. A few rows of metal folding chairs arranged with crisp precision in the squadron’s ready room. A podium no one bothered with. A backdrop of American flags and weathered flight logs, the scent of old coffee lingering in the corners. There were polite smiles, firm handshakes, a few claps on the back, and the muted click of cameras capturing a moment that felt too big to be contained in a frame.
To most in that room, it was a ceremony like any other—a well-earned advancement, another officer climbing the ranks. They didn’t know. Not really.
They didn’t know that you had almost walked away from it all. Twice. Maybe more. That there had been a night where you sat with your resignation letter open on your desktop, cursor blinking like a countdown. Nights when the silence in your home was deafening, when the grief of lost teammates and the grind of endless deployments wrapped around your chest like a vice.
They didn’t know how much it had taken just to stay.
You stood at attention as the silver oak leaves were pinned to your collar. You didn’t blink. Didn’t move. But inside, everything was shifting. The weight of years pressed down on your shoulders—and lifted in the same breath. The Navy had hardened you—yes. It had taught you how to survive. But it had also carved you open. Hollowed you in places. Smoothed you in others. Like stone worn down by salt and wind and time. Every deployment had taken something. Every debrief had demanded more than you thought you could give. Every letter home that never got answered, every name read at memorials, every inch of rank you fought tooth and nail for—it all lived inside your bones now.
You should’ve quit a hundred times. You could’ve.
But he hadn’t let you.
You saw him in the back of the room—Captain Bradley Bradshaw now. You didn’t know he was coming. He didn’t RSVP. Didn’t call ahead. But there he was. Standing in a row of people, sharp and quiet and watching you like the years hadn’t passed at all.
He looked the same. Mostly. A few more lines at the corners of his eyes. A little more silver at the temples. New ribbons on his chest. But the weight he carried—that was unchanged. It matched yours. Always had.
Your breath caught for half a second.
You hadn’t seen him since that last deployment. The one that changed everything. The one where you left. Where he let you go, even though it broke something neither of you could name. The one where he whispered, “I’m still so damn proud of you,” like it hurt to say it. And it had. For both of you.
You remembered calling him weeks earlier, barely able to breathe through tears, ready to give it all up. He had answered on the first ring. Talked you down like old times. Told you the world needed you more than it needed your resignation. Reminded you of the rookie pilot you were and the force of nature you’d become.
Now, as you stood in front of your peers in full dress uniform, the insignia warm against your collarbone, you allowed yourself to meet his eyes.
He didn’t smile.
He just looked at you the way he always had—like he saw every version of you at once. The nervous ensign. The fearless aviator. The friend he’d loved too much. The one who never quite let him go. Like he was so proud of everything you had become.
And you felt it—that deep, steady ache of something unfinished. Not regret, exactly. Just history. Shared, sacred, scarred.
You lifted your chin.
Not for him.
For you.
Because you had earned this. Every hard-fought second. Every sleepless night. Every mission you flew with your heart in your throat and his voice in your headset, telling you to keep going. To hold on. To fight.
The applause started as your new rank was announced. You stepped back, saluted. And in the quiet just after, as the room filled with small talk and shifting feet, you saw him move.
Bradley stepped forward—not to speak, not to make a scene, but just enough that when you turned to leave, he’d be there.
Waiting.
After a while you excused yourself and found him in the hallway, in front of the ready room like he gravitated towards it unknowingly.
He was leaning against the wall, dress whites sharp in the fading afternoon light, arms loosely crossed like he’d been waiting for you.
You stepped into the quiet like it was sacred ground.
"I didn’t know you were coming," you said softly, eyes tracing the silver eagle insignia on his collar.
He looked up, gaze searching yours. “Figured you might tell me not to.”
“I might’ve,” you admitted.
A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. “You earned this. I wasn’t gonna miss it.”
You looked away, throat tight. “Still. It means something… that you came.”
“Thank you,” you murmured. “For everything. You… you kept me in this. Every time I almost left, it was your voice in my head. It still is.”
His eyes softened. He looked at you the way he always had—like you were something rare and fragile and impossibly strong all at once.
“You kept me in it too,” he said, voice barely above a breath. “Just in a different way.”
There was a pause, thick with unspoken things and memories that still lingered between you like smoke.
"Do you ever regret it?" he asked after a moment, like the question had lived in his throat for years and finally slipped free.
You looked down, fingers curling at your sides. Thought of the late nights, the hellish ops, the way your hands used to shake when you walked off the flight line—until his voice steadied you through the headset or a late call. Thought of how it had all come undone slowly, then all at once.
“No,” you said truthfully. “But sometimes… I miss what we had. Before it got messy. Before I had to leave.”
Bradley nodded, pain flickering across his face like a ghost.
“Me too.”
A silence followed, heavy but not sharp. You shifted your weight.
“I almost called,” you said. “So many times.”
He nodded. “I would’ve answered. Every time.”
“I know.” You added, recalling the time when he did answer.
You looked at him then—really looked. And you saw all the miles, the years, the unsaid apologies tucked behind his eyes.
And then, a pause. He looked down and cleared his throat.
“I kept tabs. Transfers, evals, awards. Every time you moved, I looked you up. Not because I didn’t trust you. Just because I wanted to see you make it. I felt—proud, I guess.”
You blinked hard. “Why?”
He hesitated. Then:
“Because I loved you,” he said simply. “Not in a way that tried to hold you back. Just… in a way that always believed you’d fly further than I ever could.”
The breath left your lungs.
“And you did,” he added, softer. “You really did.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he added. “Even when we weren’t talking.”
Tears pricked at your eyes before you could stop them. You looked away, brushing them aside with the heel of your hand.
“Bradley…” you started, but didn’t know how to finish.
He stepped closer, just enough for you to feel the warmth of him.
“I know what we were. What we weren’t. I made peace with it. But today… I just needed to tell you that I’m proud of you. That I always was.”
You looked up at him, heart thudding painfully in your chest.
In that moment you weren’t the one telling your junior pilots that, not the one being their rock. Instead you were transported to the younger version of you, the one that needed to hear that so bad. Even now, even in your new rank and current positon, you still needed to hear it.
You believed him. And for the first time in a long time, you let yourself feel that comfort.
“You looked strong up there today,” he said. “But I saw it. The part of you that remembered everything it took to get here.”
You swallowed, the burn behind your eyes rising again. “I should’ve quit a hundred times.”
“I know,” he said gently. “But you didn’t. You fought for this. You made it.”
He looked at your collar—at the silver oak leaves that gleamed under the fluorescent lights—and back up at you with something like pride, something like heartbreak.
“You earned this,” he said. “Every damn bit of it.”
You smiled, even as your throat tightened. This time, it reached your eyes.
“Thanks, boat dad.”
His laugh burst out, unguarded and choked and real. “God, I missed that.”
You stood there a moment longer. No big goodbye. No long, lingering looks. Just a squeeze of your shoulder and a whispered, “I’ll see you around.”
And somehow—after all these years, after everything unsaid—
To: Boat DadFrom: Your favorite pain in the ass pilot(Written some time after you got orders and left)
Bradley,
I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe because there’s too much I didn’t say when I left. Or maybe because silence feels heavier than words lately. Maybe it’s guilt. Or grief. Or maybe just the way your name still lives in my chest like a steady drum I never learned how to quiet.
I walked away. I know that. I disappeared without warning—like I could outrun the part of me that ached when I looked at you. And maybe that makes me a coward. I don’t know. But I want you to know—I never stopped carrying you with me. Not once. Not even on the loneliest nights.
You were the first person who ever made me feel like I could be more. Not just another name on the flight schedule or a body in a uniform. You made me believe I could be someone good. Someone capable. Someone worth following. You saw something in me before I ever had the courage to look for it in myself.
I used to watch you when you weren’t looking. How you moved through the world like it couldn’t touch you, even when I knew better. How you led without ego. How you listened like every word mattered. How you flew—God, how you flew—with this quiet conviction that made the rest of us believe we could too.
And I thought: That. I want to be that. I want to be him when I grow up.
You never knew that, did you?
You probably thought I was just the stubborn girl who talked back in briefings and always had something to prove. But I was learning, Bradley. Every second. Every mission. Every time you chewed me out and still stood by me afterward. I built myself out of all the things you never even realized you were giving.
You changed my life. Not in some dramatic, movie-score kind of way—but in the small, quiet moments that built a foundation under my feet. And I think I loved you for it. Not in the way you wanted, maybe. Or not in the way either of us knew how to name at the time. But I did. I still do, in a way that exists beyond explanation.
And maybe I left because it scared me. Because I didn’t know where you ended and I began. Because I needed to prove that I could be strong on my own. That I could carry my weight without leaning on you like a crutch I never deserved.
But if I’m being honest… most nights, I wasn’t strong. Most nights, I sat in unfamiliar quarters on bases that didn’t know me and stared at my phone, thumb hovering over your number. Just to hear your voice. Just to hear you. Because you were the one person who always brought me back to myself.
You would’ve been proud of me last week. I led a strike through absolute hell. I brought everyone home. Every single one. They clapped me on the back and told me I saved their asses, but all I could think about was you. Your voice in my head. That old line you used to say when I got in my own way:
"You’re tougher than this. You just forgot for a second."
I miss you, Bradley. Not just the calls. Not just the way you steadied me. But you. The way you saw me. The way you believed in me when I didn’t. I miss you in the kind of way that feels like a bruise when I laugh too hard. That dull, familiar ache that reminds me of everything good I left behind.
I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re still flying like a meteor and pretending you don’t care when someone calls you the heart of the squadron. I hope you’re still teaching the kids the way you taught me—quietly, fiercely, without expecting a damn thing in return.
I hope you know what you meant to me. What you still mean.
I wanted to be you when I grew up.
But now… now I just want to be someone you’re proud of.
To: KidFrom: Bradley(Written two days after your call)
Hey,
I didn’t sleep after you called.
I just laid there, staring at the ceiling like it could answer any of the questions spinning in my head. I tried to pretend I wasn’t shaking. I tried to pretend I didn’t hear the way your voice cracked—how it broke apart and carried something with it I wasn’t ready for.
You’ve always been the strongest person I know. Always. Even when you didn’t think so.
Hearing you like that… it scared the hell out of me.
Because you don’t cry. Not unless it’s already too far gone. Not unless you’ve been bleeding in silence for days, weeks, months.
And the worst part? I didn’t even know you were drowning.
You said you had the resignation forms open. You said you were done. That you didn’t even recognize yourself anymore.
God.
Do you know how hard it was not to beg you to come home? Not to get in my truck and drive to whatever godforsaken base they’ve stuck you on and pull you out of there myself? I would’ve. Without hesitation.
I still would.
Because this job—this life—it doesn’t get to take you. Not like that. Not after everything you’ve given it.
You don’t get to forget who you are.
Because I never did.
I watched you fight for your place in rooms that weren’t built for people like you. I watched you carry the weight of every failure that wasn’t yours. I watched you show up when you had nothing left in the tank—because your people needed you.
And you never let them down.
Not once.
You think you’re weak now?
Let me tell you what I see:
I see someone who was brave enough to admit they were hurting.
I see someone who’s still here, even when they didn’t want to be.
I see someone who’s survived more than anyone should ever have to.
And somehow—you still care. You still show up. You still lead.
Even when your hands are shaking. Even when your heart’s breaking.
I would’ve walked through fire for you.
Hell—I have.
And I would again, without a second thought.
Not because you’re just a damn good pilot.
But because you’re you.
You are not just a name on a roster. You are not just a uniform. You are not just the rank stitched above your heart.
You’re the person who once stood in front of a room full of rookies and told them, “We fly together. We fall together. No one gets left behind.”
You’re the person who reminded me what it meant to believe in something again.
You say I pulled you out of the dark once.
But the truth is—you did the same for me.
I don’t think you ever knew what it meant to me when you stayed.
When you laughed with me after flights.
When you argued with me like I was worth arguing with.
When you told me I was wrong and still followed my lead anyway.
You grounded me. You made me better.
And I don’t think I ever told you that.
You told me you missed me.
What I didn’t say—what I couldn’t say—was that I miss you every day.
Even when we talk.
Even when you’re across the room.
Even now.
Because part of me will always miss what we had before it got messy. Before we both learned the hard way that some kinds of love don’t come with a roadmap or a finish line.
I’m still in your corner.
Always have been.
Even if all I can do is hold the phone while you cry.
Even if it’s from across the country or across the goddamn world.
You’re not alone.
Not now.
Not ever.
– B.D
P.S
As much as I hated you calling me your boat dad, I miss it every damn day.
Below is sneak peaks at my 3 upcoming fics, all works in progresses but I think the first one should be coming out around Monday? TBD but Enjoy!
If you want to be tagged just let me know!
In Time (Jake Seresin x Reader)
“You’re not bulletproof, you know.”
You froze for a second—just a second—before you looked over your shoulder at him.
And you smiled.
But it wasn’t warm. It wasn’t teasing. It was sharp. Small.
A blade, not a joke.
“Neither are you.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because he knew they were true.Because the way you said them didn’t sound brave.
Didn’t sound like a challenge.
It sounded like a warning. Like a confession.
A Place To Land (Dagger Squad x Reader)
You thought of all the nights you used to spend in silence, the ache of wanting to belong somewhere, the hollow weight of loneliness. And then you thought of this night—of laughter spilling over like it couldn’t be contained, of pizza crusts and mismatched socks and the feeling that if the world ended tomorrow, you would have lived something worth remembering.
Your heart felt full in a way you couldn’t put into words.
You glanced back toward the living room, where the movie had finally started, though no one was really watching. Rooster had stolen all the pillows, Jake was heckling the opening credits, and Phoenix had her feet tucked under her like she’d already claimed her spot for the night.
And suddenly, you knew. Bob was right. They weren’t just friends. They weren’t just coworkers or teammates. They were home.
And they had made you theirs, too.
Flying Above You (Bradley Bradshaw x Reader)
“Bradley.”
He turned, still in his flight suit, sweat lingering at his temples. “Yeah, XO?”
“Don’t,” you said sharply. “Don’t do that.”
His smile flickered, quick and sharp. “Do what?”
“Undermine me. In front of them. Out there.” You kept your voice low, steady, even as your chest felt tight. “I didn’t ask for this promotion to hurt you. Hell, I didn’t even ask for it.”
His jaw worked, the smile gone now. For a moment, you thought maybe—maybe he’d soften, maybe he’d admit what you already knew.
Instead, his voice dropped.
“You didn’t have to,” he said, and it was worse than a yell. “Just being better than me was enough.”
TAGS: no use of y/n, established relationship, angst, character death
request from @rinaarlert
hi jaden! i really admire your writing and was wondering if you’d consider writing about sad jake's seresin. You know how the scene in Top Gun: Maverick, where Rooster said 'Hangman the only place you'll lead anyone is an early grave' and you can see everyone in the room got so tense like something did happen.
what if like you know hangman's wingman, a girl, who he loved, but then she died during their mission together and jake's felt like it was his fault and it should have been him that died. when he heard rooster's comment maybe he got angry at him for mentioning it and about to lashed out at rooster but were hold back.
and when he comes home, he like have a beer in his hand and he like for the first time in a while cried, and maybe there are some flashbacks of their memory.
Of course, no pressure at all—just thought I’d ask!
A/N: thank you so much for the request! as i said in the reply this fic has been sitting in my drafts genuinely for forever and the fact you clocked me with a request basically identical to what i was cooking up is insane to me haha :) it's a little different but i hope you enjoy!
WORD COUNT: 930
masterlist || request box <3
If there was one thing that everyone in the room could agree on, it was that Jake Seresin was an asshole.
“We call him Hangman because he’ll always leave you out to dry,” was the famous story Phoenix spread around about the origins of his callsign, telling anyone who would listen. Was the general premise true? Maybe. Was it really how he got the name Hangman? Far from it, but he’d given up on sharing the real story a long time ago. There wasn’t a point after all, not after you’d gone. He’d learned his lesson with you. Jake Seresin wasn’t allowed to have nice things. So he played along. Build up a reputation. You can’t lose anyone if you don’t have anyone, right?
“Hangman, the only place you’ll lead anyone is an early grave.” Two years. Two years without you. Whoever came up with the phrase “Time heals all wounds” lied.
As he rounded the pool table, he glanced at Natasha and remembered where he was—that there were three other pilots staring daggers into the back of his head that didn’t know the hushed history the rest of them shared. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to mask the way the man before him managed to shatter his heart into pieces across the floor of the Hard Deck. He’s not even really sure what snarky quip he managed to come up with before he walked off. And when Penny rang the bell, he wasn’t even sure what he said to the man he threw onto the sand.
When he shut the door behind him to see the state of the bar, it was as if his heart had been ripped out his chest, his throat suddenly tightening. Bradley had found his way to the piano—as he usually did anywhere he went—with the whole bar practically gathered around him.
Make no mistake, he wasn’t jealous that Bradley had stolen everyone’s attention. He could care less, especially in his current mental state. No, it was the way Natasha fell so easily back into her place next to Bradley, cheering him on. The way Bob and Payback gently swayed along to the music, smiling at Fanboy in the place he and Javy used to take up. The way Fanboy stood behind the piano in front of Bradley, jumping in excitement and coaxing Bob to join him just as you had used to do with him. “Come dance with me, Jake!”
The memory made him flinch, and without missing a beat, he made his way through the crowd and out of the front door. He doesn't really remember the drive home, or him walking to the fridge to grab the beer he was now nursing as he stared at the wall in front of him, his brain having gone on autopilot. Taking a long swig, he sighed and leaned his head back and shut his eyes.
“Jacob Matthew Seresin, I hate you so much.”
Sitting on the couch across from where you were standing with a Nerf gun in his hand, the smile on his face kept growing bigger and bigger by the second. “Sweetheart,” he gasped, feigning offense to her statement. “Don’t you think hate is a strong word?”
Stepping towards him, you asked, “You think this is funny, do ya?”
“I think it is very funny. Wait- why’re you…” Before he could finish his sentence, you charged at him, Jake jumping from his seat on the couch and sprinting off towards the foyer before you could pounce on him.
“Where’re you going, babe? I thought it was funny!” The chase around the house lasted for what felt like forever, now finding yourselves wrestling on the kitchen floor with whipped cream everywhere. “Babe,” he whined. “Now we’re both dirty.”
As you pried yourself off of him, you giggled. “It’s called payback, cowboy.”
Sitting up from his position on the floor, he watched as you wiped the residual whipped cream off of your face with a paper towel. “Now, I know Mama Seresin taught you that staring’s rude,” you remarked, making your way back to where he sat and bending down.
“You got a little something,” you trailed off, leaning closer to his face with the paper towel in your hand. At the last second, you pulled you hand back and grabbed his neck, licking a stripe of whipped cream off of his cheek before running off, Jake right on your tail.
At the feeling of something wet falling into his ear, his eyes shot open, and he sat up. “Fuck,” he hissed to himself, wiping the tears from his face.
No amount of time could possibly pass to heal the wound left by you. Bradley might as well have punched him in the face earlier. He of all people should have understood the weight that a sentence like that could have. Not just because he understands the risks that come with their line of work, but because of who he used to be to Jake—who he was to you.
He and Jake were best friends in flight school. Then he met you, and the Bradshaws became more. They were family. When you died, it tore everyone apart. Jake couldn't blame Bradley for the hate he now held for him. He had promised to keep you safe. It should have been him that day not you but orders were orders. Now you were six feet under, and all he had left was an ache in his chest and an empty space next to him in the shape of you.
Driving home tomorrow (8 hrs away) give me some songs to listen to that Clark Kent/David Corenswet would listen to on a road trip (please I need to fill my delusions, ill be by myself the whole time straight after work)
you guys better believe that when my life stops falling apart completely in every single way possible, its over for the superman community.
I watched it recently and I have a new hyper-fixation and a new fandom to terrorize with angsty heartbreaking fics. I'll let y'all live peacefully for a little longer tho
