Chapter Text
When Rooster blinked awake, the first thing he noticed was that he was hungry. Upon further reflection, he wasn’t sure when he’d eaten last, since as soon as they’d carted both himself and Mav into medical to get checked out after they landed, he’d fallen asleep pretty much immediately. Feeling another pang of hunger, he shifted and sat up slowly, mindful of the pain in his shoulder. It hadn’t been a smooth ejection, and he thought he remembered hearing something about a dislocated shoulder before he’d conked out.
With a grunt of discomfort, he sat up and looked over to see if there was any food anywhere, he practically launched himself out of bed by badly startling at the cool pair of ice blue eyes staring silently back at him in the darkness.
“Morning, Rooster,” Iceman Kazansky rasped.
Breathing deeply to get his heart rate back under control, Rooster settled back against the wall. “Admiral Kazansky, sir. Sorry, sir. Didn’t know you were here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ice replied, inclining his head to Mav sleeping peacefully in the bed next to Rooster.
And that was a good point. Rooster should have expected him to be there no matter what, even to have stayed the night. Though it didn’t look like that had been the case. Ice must have simply strong-armed his way in very early. Speaking of which…
“What time is it?” Rooster asked.
Ice flipped over his phone on his knee with his left hand, which allowed a little more light in the room, and illuminated his other hand, clasped firmly with Mav’s on the other bed. “Just after oh-eight-hundred.”
Rooster nodded. “Do you think they’ll bring breakfast, sir? I could eat.”
“I’ll flag down a nurse,” Ice said. “Don’t move, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ice leaned over and pressed a kiss to where his hand was joined with Mav’s and then stood and made his way to the door, cracking it open to step out, and then he closed it behind him.
Rooster let himself look around the room a little more in Ice’s absence. It was a pretty standard double, shades drawn on the window that would look out into the hallway, lights off. There was a door in the back of the room that he assumed led into an attached bathroom. And next to him, in the other cot, was Mav.
He was still sleeping peacefully, propped up slightly on a few pillows, hand now off to the slide clasping at air where Ice had been. He looked tired even in sleep, brow slightly furrowed. Rooster couldn’t spot any visible injuries, but that could be because of the light t-shirt he was wearing and because of the covers pulled up to his chest. He would get up to check the other man’s chart, but that would involve disobeying a direct order, which he was loath to do.
Ice chose that moment to come back, as if he’d sensed Rooster’s thoughts. “They’ll bring you something soon. Here’s water for the meantime.”
Rooster reached for one of the water bottles gratefully, chugging the whole thing in one go. “Thank you, sir.”
Ice nodded and resumed his earlier position with a sigh, opening one of the bottles for himself too. “So,” the Admiral started. “Lieutenant Bradshaw.”
Rooster swallowed. He knew that tone. And it spelled trouble for him. “Yes, sir?”
“You have to be aware that I am angry with you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not only did you say some rather rude things to your commanding officer, never mind that you have your own personal history, you should have known to keep it out of training. Also, you caused him to have a panic attack so severe it necessitated my own intervention. Is that much clear to you, Lieutenant?”
Rooster’s eyes tracked sheepishly to Mav sleeping in the other bed, “Yes, sir.”
The Admiral noticed the sideways look at Mav and interpreted it as concern. “Don’t worry about him waking up. They have him on the good pain meds and they make him drowsy. This is between you and me.”
Rooster just nodded again, silenced by the simmering anger beneath the words. The last time he had spoken for this long in person to Admiral Kazansky, it had been Rooster doing most of the talking…well. Mostly he was yelling. This discussion was a long time in the making, and there was nothing he could do about that. Somehow, the fact that Ice wasn’t currently yelling also made it that much worse. It was a reminder of how foolish Rooster had been that he had thought he needed to raise his voice to make the words hurt more.
“Now, I am not angry at you about your reaction to what Maverick did to you. It wasn’t handled well on either end, and we are at fault too for how it all ended up. But what you told Maverick last week is unrelated and was immature. You hurt him. And I can’t forgive you for that yet. I forgive you for everything else Bradley, but not that. I can’t, because I know he’ll dismiss it in a heartbeat, and someone needs to make it clear to you that it wasn’t okay, and that the fallout wasn’t something we could just smooth over.”
“I understand, Admiral Kazansky. I’m really sorry about what I said. I truly am, I need you to believe me.”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to, Lieutenant.”
And yeah, that was fair.
“I will. When he wakes up.”
Ice raised an eyebrow. “I’m holding you to that, Rooster. I’ll make it an order if I need to, but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.” He cleared his throat, drinking the rest of the water bottle. Rooster took the opportunity to observe the man he once called a second father figure. Ice was looking more drawn than he had before, likely due to his battle with cancer. Rooster still regretted not being there for both Mav and Ice during that time, but he had still been deep in his throes of anger, so he hadn’t gone to visit or be with them. It was not something he was proud of. And he intended on proving it a thousand times over. Otherwise, Ice looked about the same as he remembered, still standing tall and proud despite everything, still with that unshakeable conviction and belief in Mav.
With a sigh, Ice put the empty bottle down. He looked over at Rooster, meeting his eyes. “It is good to have you back, Bradley. I missed you, little goose.”
Oh. Suddenly it was very hard to hold back tears. “Ice, I—“
They were interrupted, of course, by the aide choosing that moment to open the door softly with a tray of food.
Both Ice and Rooster accepted it with silent nods of thanks, and then, once Rooster received the tray, they turned back to each other.
“I really am sorry to you as well, Ice. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“Bradley,” Ice soothed, “It’s okay. I can and have forgiven you for that. There was a lot going on for all of us then, and we all have our own ways to cope with those things. Especially you, considering what happened to your mother. And you were still hurting from what we did. It’s okay. Despite it all, I am very glad to see you, my little goose. Whatever you do, don’t mistake my anger for hatred. I could never, ever hate you, Bradley.”
Rooster choked on a sob, reaching over to put his tray down and pull Ice into a hug. The older man laughed, hands falling into their places below Rooster’s shoulder blades where they always had, and it was so familiar it ached.
He had no idea how long they sat there, only that it started to become uncomfortable in his lower back but he couldn’t bring himself to care because he was in Ice’s arms again, and there was nothing that could feel more right.
“Alright, kiddo,” Ice said, pulling back. “You need to eat.”
With a final clasp of Rooster’s (uninjured) shoulder, Ice sat back into his chair, and handed back Rooster’s tray of food. They lapsed back into what was now a comfortable silence as opposed to the tense silence of earlier, broken only by soft conversation and the tapping of the plastic cutlery.
After the visit from the now-christened dagger squad, which included the creation of a new group chat that included Mav, Ice returned from wherever he’d spent his time (he’d used the pretense of getting food but Rooster suspected he also felt like an imposition that didn’t allow the team to be their true selves…not that he was wrong. It was hard to ignore how much everyone had tensed up when they noticed him sitting in between the patients) and kicked the squad out so that they could attend to their own post-mission duties and so that Rooster and Mav could talk. With a final goodbye to the team, he then cleared out their various accumulated dishware and made himself scarce again. If Rooster was honest, he was surprised with how much time Ice had spent in their company already, since he probably also had his own post-mission responsibilities that were arguably more time-sensitive than anyone else’s. So if anything, he was glad to see him go, because it meant that it was still the same Ice, who enjoyed spending time with both himself and Mav, but not at the expense of the team as a whole. That had been a common theme throughout Rooster’s childhood, getting Ice’s whole attention for whatever time he had, but then watching him leave again with a strange sense of pride because even as a kid Rooster had picked up on the fact that Ice was important.
However, it was only once Ice left again with a final kiss to Maverick that Rooster realized he was really alone with Mav. At first, they were silent, and then Mav shifted, looking over at Bradley from where they were both sitting up against the wall.
“So, Bradley. Are you feeling okay?”
“I mean, yes? For having crashed technically twice.”
Mav barked a laugh, wincing a little. “Good. You know, I said we would talk. But from the way it shook out…Ice got to you first didn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
“He looked guilty,” Mav chuckled. “So, what did he tell you.”
“He just chewed me out for what I said to you after training. Speaking of which, Mav, I am so sorry. It was cruel, and I regret it. I regret it a lot.”
“Kid, it’s okay. Tensions were high, a lot was going on.”
“No, Mav,” Rooster insisted, mind on what Ice had said. “You’re not gonna deflect this one. I’m sorry. It was mean, and I shouldn’t have said it. It’s not true.”
Mav didn’t say anything, and Rooster had a horrible thought.
“Mav…you know it’s not true right?”
“Well yeah. I know,” Mav said with a nervous chuckle. “It’s okay though, really. I understand.”
Rooster frowned, unconvinced, and sat up further to sit on the edge of his bed and look Mav straight in the eyes. “I mean it, Mav. You didn’t deserve that from me, not then, not ever. And I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Gosling,” Mav sighed, a small ironic smile quirking the edge of his lips. With a groan, he shifted in bed too, making his way to similarly sit on the edge of his bed. “I never blamed you for it. Any of it.”
“But why, Mav? Why? I was the worst to you!”
“I love you, Bradley. Simple as that.”
Rooster had been holding back tears, but he couldn’t stop them then and they flooded down his face. Mav smiled at him again and simply opened his arms. Not bothering to wipe his face at all, Bradley launched himself across the gap between their beds and practically tackled his godfather back down to his bed.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he apologized shakily through his sobs after Mav let out a pained grunt, but Mav simply squeezed him closer.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Let it out kiddo,” Mav murmured, hands brushing down his back and up into his hair, the way he hadn’t done in years. When Bradley’s tears had dulled to small sniffles, Maverick finally stopped twisting hands in his hair and groaned. “Okay, kiddo. I’m not going to kick you out of this bed, but I need to move, okay?”
Bradley sat up in concern immediately, hands fluttering anxiously before he helped sit Mav up. “Did I hurt you?”
“No more than I already was. Don’t do as I do and eject twice in one month, okay?” He straightened his spine more with a grunt of pain. “Especially not when you get to be my age. It isn’t fun.”
“Wait…twice? Mav what were you doing before our mission that you had to eject from?”
“That’s classified, baby goose,” came Ice’s cool tones from the doorway, and Bradley was privy to Mav’s look of delight at his husband’s appearance as he finished propping him up on some pillows back against the wall at the head of the bed. He made to go back to his own bed, especially since Ice was approaching Mav’s too, but Mav smoothly prevented any sort of escape by pulling Bradley’s shoulders back down for him to rest on the bed between his godfather’s legs. With a smile, Bradley snuggled closer, head pressing slightly into Mav’s stomach as the man resumed gently carding fingers through his curls. He even felt Ice lean down to press a kiss into his hair after the one on Mav’s cheek.
“So,” Ice continued. “You two resolved your issues yet?”
“Yeah,” Mav spoke before Bradley could. “Our boy is back, Ice. For good, I hope.”
“You can count on that,” Bradley murmured. “As long as you don’t stop that massage,” he added teasingly, chuckling as Mav stopped his ministrations for a second as a joke.
“Well good,” Ice said, sounding relieved. “Because I didn’t have any more ideas for that front if this mission didn’t work.”
“Thomas Mitchell-Kazansky,” Maverick said in affront. “Are you admitting to plotting against me? Your own husband?”
Bradley didn’t have to be looking at Ice to picture his nonplussed look and wry smirk, but he turned his head anyway because he’d missed seeing it. Watching Mav and Ice bicker was like watching a TV drama play out in real life, always had been, and it never failed to entertain.
“Pete, my darling, my husband, eternal thorn in my side, of course I am.”
“This is what I get for the vows I made?”
“You’ve done this yourself by being a stubborn fool. I got impatient.”
“Well, I’m to blame too,” Bradley said, voice muffled in Mav’s shirt.
“Don’t worry, Gosling,” Mav murmured, “We’re all at fault, and we’ll all work towards fixing it. That’s what family does, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” Ice said, and his tone brooked no argument.
“Sir, yes sir,” Bradley and Mav chorused, breaking into chuckles at Ice’s longsuffering look.
Yeah, Bradley mused. They would be okay. After all, they were family.