Chapter Text
The moment the last few notes of Great Balls of Fire faded from the beer-sticky air of the Hard Deck, Bradley pushed back from the piano and shot Natasha a smile as he made his way through the crowd.
She watched him go, waiting for him to snag a beer and loop back around, or maybe grab a girl and offer to teach her how to play, as she’d seen him do once before.
But he slowed to a stop near the pool table, where Hangman and Coyote were still standing. Bradley said something briefly to them, his mouth tense, before he strode towards the door and walked out of the Hard Deck, tugging a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Natasha rolled her eyes—she’d tried to tell Bradley that smoking just when you’re drunk and out at a bar still counted as smoking and still fucked up your lungs, but he maintained that one or two cigarettes a month was equivalent to having a Diet Coke every time you happened to end up in a diner, which was her own personal guilty pleasure.
Hangman shook his head as he and Coyote hung up their pool cues. Natasha started towards the door to harangue Bradley about tobacco usage when Hangman left Coyote with a casual pat on the shoulder and ducked out the same door Bradley just left through.
She walked to the window close enough to see the two silhouettes outside. A cigarette glowed between them, and she watched as Bradley offered it to Hangman, who threw his head back and laughed at the gesture.
She stepped closer to the window, leaning against the wall casually and shrugging when Coyote raised his eyebrows at her.
She could almost hear clearly; their voices only a little muffled by the screen and the slow buzz of conversation that was starting to pick back up inside.
“Been a while,” Bradley was saying.
“You could say that,” Hangman replied easily, and Natasha adjusted her position, leaning more casually to look out into the bar while they continued talking outside.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
There was a beat of silence before Hangman sighed.
“You could’ve told me where you were going,” Hangman said. “Or warned me you were going radio silent.”
“Oh, yeah, because we left on such good terms,” Bradley snarked. “You could’ve, I don’t know, not been a colossal a-hole and then maybe we could’ve been penpals while I was in Japan, or we could’ve actually stuck it out in Corpus Christi.”
“Right. It’s my fault you fucked off to Ayase.”
“Well, we were supposed to be partners,” Bradley said tightly, and Natasha turned to look towards them again, craning her neck to see them. Bradley’s arms were crossed tightly, the cigarette limp between his fingers and slowly burning at his side.
“You weren’t ready,” Hangman said, and he leaned closer, tipping towards Bradley with his chin lowered. Bradley stiffened, leaning away, and Hangman straightened up. “And you still aren’t.”
“Grow up, Hangman,” Bradley said.
“Grow a pair, Rooster.”
Bradley tossed his cigarette butt towards the sand and stalked towards the door, and Natasha swung away from the window, picking up a half-empty beer on a nearby table to pretend to nurse as Bradley stomped past, headed straight for the bar.
Natasha stared at him, then back out the window. Hangman was sitting on the deck outside now, elbows propped on his knees and the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. If she didn’t know better—and, now, she wasn’t sure that she did—she would think that they were jilted exes, forcibly reunited and stiltedly having it out.
Hangman rubbed at his face with both palms before abruptly standing and walking inside, the swing of the door nearly hitting Natasha.
“I’m out, Javy,” Hangman said loudly, and Coyote glanced up from a game of darts that Bob seemed to be steadily destroying him at.
She watched Hangman vanish from the bar—and watched Bradley watch him, too. He leaned on the bar, eyes trailing Hangman across the room. He shifted restlessly, fingers tapping against the wood, and Natasha couldn't shake the feeling that he was trying not to go after Hangman as he shoved through the door to the parking lot.
She set the decoy beer back down and crossed her arms as Bradley waited for Penny to get his drink. As soon as he had the glass in his hand, he headed over to Natasha, but glanced back no fewer than three times towards the door on the other side of the bar that Hangman had just disappeared through.
“So,” Natasha said as soon as Bradley leaned against the wall beside her. She could feel the broodiness from miles away, but up close it was like a buffeting gale force wind of angst. “You and Hangman.”
Bradley scoffed and took a deep gulp of his beer before rolling his eyes. Natasha grinned, turning to lean her left side against the wall so she could see this head-on. Maybe she was right—maybe something had happened. Maybe they had been something—and it had ended.
“Were you together sometime between when we trained with him and now?”
Bradley huffed. “Yeah, in Corpus Christi.”
“No shit? What happened?”
“He was the same old Hangman,” Bradley said. “Reckless, self-centered, cocky as shit. We weren’t compatible, and he was just going to hang me out to dry, so I left first.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“That’s when you went to Japan?”
Bradley nodded sharply.
“I didn’t know,” Natasha said carefully. She wanted to add an addendum: I didn’t even know you liked men, but she had suspected that about Bradley since they’d first met Hangman and she’d watched Bradley’s gaze trip clumsily, syrup-slow down to the blond’s feet and right back up again.
Bradley’s neck was splotchy red and Natasha eased back, figuring she ought to give him a break. He wasn’t exactly the type to enjoy sharing personal information.
“Must be weird to be around him again,” she said.
“Sucks ass,” Bradley said. “He drives me nuts.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time,” Natasha hedged.
“There’s no ‘this time,’” Bradley said, his knuckles going white against the glass of beer he held. “He’s a terrible partner. I’m not going to let anyone get hurt.”
Bradley pushed away from the wall and walked over to the darts, where Bob was standing looking part-lost, part-eager with handfuls of darts and no partner.
Not going to let anyone get hurt. Natasha mulled the words over in her head. It was a typically-Bradley way of avoiding the truth—that it was him who’d been hurt, and it was him who stood to get hurt again. She reached for the half-drunk beer she’d picked up earlier, which she now was certain was abandoned by its owner, and drained it. If she had anything to do with it, Hangman wouldn’t be hurting Bradley this time around—because there was a ‘this time,’ as much as Bradley refused to admit it. She’d seen how close they’d gotten earlier, when Hangman was taunting Bradley about his flying style—which she now suspected was really about something else entirely. She’d seen the way Bradley’s eyes had flicked to Hangman’s mouth for a long moment as he listened to that bullshit. She’d seen them out on the deck; seen the way Hangman had leaned in hungrily, like he was daring Bradley to .
They were exes, alright. And they had better stay that way.