Piece by Piece
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Mitchell!reader x dad!Maverick
series masterlist
my masterlist
a/n: I know, I know. Im starting a new series even though i haven’t finished by hunger games one, my clone wars one or my marauders one. I also have marvel series i started on ao3 that i haven’t updated in literally years.. and don’t even get me started on ted lasso.
I guess inspiration just strikes when it strikes.
anyway, here’s the fic
summary: Arrival to North Island means visiting the nearby Navy Bar, the Hard Deck, which is run by your dear friend Penny Benjamin. Of course, you’re not the only visitor that night.
warnings: verbal abuse, drinking, character death, trauma, unedited
It’s strange, how in just a few hours, your whole life can totally and completely change. In just a few minutes, the strangest things can happen - the worst and the best.
In the span of five minutes, you solidified your top spot in the top gun academy.
In the span of two, you ruined your relationship with your mom.
In the span of one minute and thirty seconds, Your best friend died because of a choice you made.
And within five minutes of that incident, you weren’t too far behind.
In one minute, sifting through a box your stepfather sent you, you find a picture you’ve never seen before: Your mother, wearing a smile you’ve never seen on her face before, wrapped in the arms of a handsome navy pilot, all teeth and jawbone and eyebrows.
And with thirty seconds of your arrival at the Hard Deck, that very same pilot comes waltzing in.
Penny pauses her conversation with you, about how you’ve been, what you’ve been up to, how sorry she is for you, and strikes up a very similar conversation with him.
They have history, you can tell.
Penny taps the counter over the barstool next to you - one of the only ones available in the crowded bar.
It only takes his polite smile to cement it in your head that this is him.
This is your father.
You don’t let anything show through, though. You stir up your shirley temple and smile, introducing yourself as majesty.
“Ah. I’m in the Navy, too, you know. I’ve never met a Majesty before, though.”
“Well, sir, this is a Navy bar… and I was on leave up until just recently. It doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t heard of me, since I was stationed in the Peninsula before , and everything there is pretty hush, hush.”
“Maverick,” he says, smiling again, but genuinely. He holds out his hand and you shake it. “Pleasure to meet you, Majesty.”
“likewise, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I finally see someone I know.”
You bounce off, holding your drink tightly, acting as if your whole life hasn’t just been shaken up by a chance encounter at one of the many Navy bars in North Island.
Approaching the group of other lieutenants, you steal a glance back at him grinning at Penny with the same stupid lovestruck expression that you saw in the photo.
Yep. That’s him.
Maverick watches Majesty’s retreating form before she disappears in a group of rowdy pilots, wondering where he’s heard that name before. Majesty.
He vaguely remembers some news from the peninsula about a year ago, but as the lieutenant had said, the news from there is very limited and very filtered. Something about a pilot whose call sign was Duchess…
“Uh oh.” Penny’s deadpan voice interrupts his thoughts. “You’re thinking. That’s never good.”
She slides him his beer and he laughs softly at her joke.
“You know that pilot- Majesty - well?”
Penny glances over to where she disappeared into the group of pilots. She’s laughing along with the group while playing pool. They watched her take a shot.
The first thing he thinks is, she sucks.
“Yeah.. She’s a nice girl.” Penny starts deftly making a drink with the confidence of someone who’s done it a thousand times. “She watched Amelia for me when we were going through a divorce. Truly a lifesaver for both of us.” Penny meets his eyes. “She’s had a hard life, that one, and she’s not really ever had a reprieve from it, either. It’s good to see her laughing again.”
He sighs, knowing there’s a lot of pilots who joined up to get away from difficult families.
He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t recognize Bradley Bradshaw himself walking in until he walks up to Majesty and plants a kiss on her cheek,
He raises a hand.
“Penny, check, please?”
You’re having a surprisingly fun time at the Hard deck. You haven’t been clubbing since before you were deployed, and certainly not to a bar.
Who would you go with?
but the pilots you’ve met - and the old friends you’re seeing again are nothing but kind. (at least, to you. It’s been five minutes and Rooster and Hangman are already going at it)
Phoenix introduces you to the pilots you don’t know, but there aren’t many. You swim in the same circles as most of them.
You line up a pool shot and slide the stick quickly, aiming the white ball at a general cluster of colored balls, and missing all of them completely.
“Now that,” a cocky voice begins over your left shoulder, “That was an astoundingly awful shot, your highness.”
You turn to face Hangman, who’s significantly taller than you, but you still stare right into his eyes.
“I’ve never played before,” you defend. “And it’s Majesty.”
“Sure it is, darlin’. Lemme show you how to shoot pool.”
You cross your arms.
“Are you going to mansplain eight ball to her, Bagman?” Natasha- Phoenix - juts in.
“Yeah, are you?” You ask, voice intentionally provocative, meant to make him splutter. Frustratingly, he doesn’t, only coolly lines up a shot - making it perfectly.
“No, I’m offering to explain how to play properly, so it’s more fun for the both of us.”
You can hear the smirk in his voice.
Before you can respond with another teasing comment, the music shuts off, making way for a loud, unhappy groan from almost everybody in the bar.
You hear the familiar intro to Rooster’s favorite song, (It’s the only one he learned how to play) and hand the stick off to Bob, whose wide eyes widen even further.
“That’s my cue to leave,” You announce to the group. “I can’t listen to this song for the fifty-thousandth time.”
You blow a kiss to Phoenix and wave to the rest of the pilots, hugging Fanboy, a close friend of yours, and bid adieu to Penny, slipping her a twenty.
“Thanks Penny. See you later, yeah?”
Penny winks at you and waves. You lean into the door and press out into the cool night air, the sound of the ocean suddenly the only sound you can hear - besides Rooster’s muffled voice and piano playing.
You walk around the bar, getting ready to head back to base. The last thing you expect is to meet eyes with Maverick, who looks like he’s seen a ghost.
“Sir? Are you okay?”
Your voice startles him out of his daze. He shakes his head slightly.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
His eyes drift to Rooster again through the window, a peculiar expression passing over his face.
“…Well, I’m headed back to base. Have a good night, sir.”
You turn around, hands in your pockets, beginning the short walk back to the barracks.
“Wait. Do you mind if I join you?”
You shake your head ‘no’ and stop to wait for him to catch up with you. How strange is this, the man you just realized was tour father walking with you back to the barracks.
You walk down the beach in silence, watching the waves crash on shore. There’s not much to say.
“Are you here for the mission?” he asks eventually, finally, one of you breaking the silence.
“I.. actually don’t know, sir. They didn’t tell us anything but the fact that we had to be in class tomorrow.”
You meet his eyes, briefly analyzing his face before turning your gaze back to your boots in the sand. There are some features, you suppose, that are similar in your faces. little things, but if he’s your father, you definitely take after your mother.
“So.. yes. Then you must be a damn good pilot. Penny seems to think so.”
You laugh.
“Penny has what I like to call ‘Mom goggles.’ She thinks everything I do is the greatest thing ever.”
It’s his turn to laugh.
“‘Mom goggles’? I’ve never heard of that.”
“Well, you’re not married. Give it time and you’ll figure it out.”
Maverick puts his hands up.
“Hang on. How’d you know I’m not married?”
You gesture to his hand.
“No ring on your finger. And by the way you were shamelessly flirting with Penny literally all night.”
“I was not!”
You shake your head, laughing to yourself.
This could’ve been us.
you clear your throat, looking out over the sea. The sun has fully set, now, and you’re getting close to base. You yawn, covering your mouth.
You turn up the path to the base, in a comfortable silence when the your phone rings. You fumble through your pants, unzipping the pocket where you’ve stashed you phone. It reads one word, one you’ve been dreading.
Mom.
You cast Maverick an apologetic glance and then take the phone call.
“Hey, mom. What’s wrong?” You can hear the resigned sigh in your voice. Captain Mitchell has stopped walking, waiting for you. You shoo him away, not wanting to inconvenience him more.
Your mother’s voice is unintelligible. Staticky and blurred.
“My baby!” she finally says in words you can understand. “Where are you? I came home and looked in your room and you were gone!”
You rub your eyes.
“Mom. You’re drunk. Where’s Kevin?”
Usually, by this point, Kevin, your stepdad would step in.
Maybe, you think, somewhat bitterly, he’s come to his senses and left the crazy lady.
“Out,” is all she says. “You’re not still running around with the Navy, are you?”
She’s says the word Navy like it’s a slur.
“Mom-“
“Because this is just a phase, (y/n). You’ll get over it and realize that I was right all along. You don’t belong on the battlefield, you belong in school.”
“Mom, as a matter of fact, i love my job and i’m not planning on leaving it anytime soon.”
This is a conversation you’ve had many a time. Almost every time she’s drunk she calls you up to criticize your life choices.
“Then you’re a failure.”
“Gosh, I really wonder why I left.”
That’s when you hang up, abruptly cutting off your mother mid sentence.
You make it all the way to the barracks before you angrily start punching things. The nice thing about living on base again is the free gym available to you, so you change into a ratty old shirt and shorts and go down to the officer’s gym, where punching bags are already hanging.
You do a quick job of wrapping your hands, then begin the assault on a bag, sending it swinging with a punch.
You keep going and going and going until your knuckles feel like they’re bleeding or broken or at least bruised, and all the stress and anger with your mother has burned off.
You hit the shower after the gym, then collapse into bed.
Your phone is lit up with four call notifications and twenty six text messages from your mom, which you promptly ignore, silence your phone and fall asleep.
“Duchess, fly away!”
“Get out of there!”
“It’s okay.”
“Majesty!”
Your eyes snap open, your back and arms are covered in sweat. You hold your breath in and let it out, trying to calm your heartbeat.
You glance at the clock.
Jesus Christ, it’s only three in the morning.
This mission can’t come soon enough.
—
btw i know nothing about north island or the navy