Pete and Charlie break up on a Tuesday. A job offer in DC more than enough to pull her away from Miramar and him, and after she leaves, Pete finds himself at loose ends. He enjoys teaching, but he's terribly lonely, even with Viper there.
Ice is god knows where. He won't tell Pete whenever they talk, and neither of them can screw up the courage to say what they want now.
They're at an impasse, balanced on opposite edges of a knife, and they'd both rather lean dramatically over the edge instead of taking the step to meet in the middle.
It's driving Slider up the wall, who never hesitates to text Maverick that he's an idiot at least once a week. He starts sending him pictures of random guys he's going to hook Iceman up with, a desperate attempt to get Pete to grow a pair and say something.
It doesn't work.
Not for a long time, because Pete will not be intimidated or blackmailed or bullied (So fuck you, Slider, make Ice do it).
But Ice won't. Pete knows that. Ice took his step already, and Pete couldn't meet him toe-to-toe, and now he's lost his chance.
The schoolhouse reminds him of Nick more and more each day. Sometimes, he looks up during class and sees Nick sitting among his students, and he loses his train of thought, struck dumb by the pain of it still.
Carole and Bradley are still nearby, still in too deep with the house and hesitant to leave the last place Nick lived. Pete spends the night there more often than not, something else that was a problem for Charlie, who didn't want kids and never got along with Carole as well as Penny or Tom did.
Carole didn't like her either, and Pete suspects that helped Charlie's decision on DC.
He knows Carole and Bradley talk to Tom every week, usually more. He makes sure to call every Thursday evening, but inevitably, whenever Bradley has something to tell Uncle Pete, he has to tell Uncle Ice, and there are very few things that bring Mav to his knees like watching Ice, decked out to fly and about to climb into his plane, video calling with Bradley and making faces at him from the other side of the world.
Carole, sweet, beautiful Carole, is the one who tells him to go. It's painful, she says, to watch Pete die a little bit more inside each day. (You better not be staying for us, asshole) and then Viper agrees with her, and Pete's gone the next week.
A deployment, a patrol rotation, and a test pilot assignment follow in rapid succession.
It comes to a head the day Pete learns Tom has been shot down.
He hears a few days after it actually happens through the rumor mill because god knows no one has any reason to tell him.
Three enemy fighters and Ice went down in the mountains. Gossip put the mountains in multiple different countries, and it's not until Ice talks about it years later that he learns what country it actually was.
For now, all Pete wants is to know Tom's alright, and apparently, it's the one thing he can't out from Navy gossip.
Which is terrifying and makes his palms sweat and his heart race. He's useless for the three days before he's called into his commander's office and chewed out.
He gets out some excuse about Carole and Bradley and ends up with a week of leave and a warning to get his act together.
Carole says she hasn't heard from Ice in a week, he missed his last Thursday night call, and Bradley was inconsolable.
Pete eventually breaks down and texts Slider, properly freaking out in the hour it takes him to respond.
All Ron will say is that they're back at base, on the east coast in Virginia, and Pete books the next flight out.
He doesn't stop to get a hotel, just books it to the address Slider gave him; they won't let him into the hospital if he's not family anyway, and he barely remembers to stop and knock before bursting in.
It's a toss-up which one of them is more surprised when Ice, spotless, gorgeous, un-injured Ice, answers the door.
If Pete had been capable of noticing anything else, he'd have caught the smug look on Ron's face and the stunned expressions of Hollywood and Wolfman. All of whom slipped out a side door while Pete and Tom stared at each other in the doorway like fools.
They kept doing that, too, until Ron dashed back from his car and shoved Pete through the doorway and into Ice, and pulled the door shut behind them.
Heat.
That's the first thing Tom registers when he touches Pete for the first time since the deck of the Enterprise.
Pete always did run hot, and now he was clutching at Tom with a grip so powerful he already knew it was going to bruise.
I thought you were hurt.
I'm not; I'm fine.
I heard-
They exaggerated. It wasn't that bad.
You said that about the Gulf, you asshole, and you almost died.
You saved me. I'm still here, Mav. I can't believe you came.
I couldn't. I was fucking useless, Ice. I couldn't think about anything but you.
He pulls Tom into bed, and Tom lets him.
Let's Pete spread him across the sheets and re-learn every inch of his body. Doesn't stop Pete from searching out the few bruises and tender spots left from the flight. Revels in the pressure of the other man's lips and tongue against his skin.
They end up spending the weekend in bed, and he returns the favor.
At some point, Ron drops off Gatorade and Pop-Tarts, his idea of sustenance, and apparently, Pete agrees. Shocking, Ice thinks, they have the taste buds of teenagers.
Ice has already planned what restaurants they're going to by the time they finish the last of the Gatorade and pop tarts.
After that, and a long shower where Ice nearly breaks the door when Mav drops to his knees behind him, they stumble out to a surf and turf place Ice loves and stuff their faces. Slider, Hollywood, and Wolfman show up and make Mav pay for lunch for interrupting their party.
He gives in with little fight, and for an afternoon, it's easy to forget that Pete didn't pick him, that they should have been doing this all along.
Hollywood and Wolfman are careful not to bring up anything that happened at Miramar except to ask after Carole and Bradley and to coo appropriately when Mav shows them pictures of Bradley on his bike.
They end up distracting Ice while Slider pulls Mav aside and chews him a new one.
Ice pretends not to notice, already knows he and Pete are going to have it out when they get back to his place.
And they do.
And it's hard.
Brutal really. Ice spent the last year convincing himself there was no hope, and he was very good at it.
Mav was doing the same thing and making himself the martyr. Typical.
What do you want, Pete?
You.
It's not that simple.
The hell it isn't. I want you. You want me.
Relationships take more than that. There are so many risks.
There are always risks, Tom. It's not worth giving up just because of them.
What about our careers?
I just want to fly, and I can do that wherever you are.
And Christ, Tom has to kiss him after that.
And naturally, they end up distracted for the rest of the day.
As far as Pete's concerned, the discussion is over; Tom knows this. He's a stubborn, impulsive fuck who only has memories of the loving family he lost and not the horrible, trust-breaking family whose calls Tom still refuses every year.
There's a small knot in Tom's chest. Fear. That they would jump into this and end up right where he came from.
Tom is still angry, still hurt, and it makes him cruel.
Crueler than Pete will ever manage (only Jake ends up coming close. He's actually crueler than Ice, Tom realizes later. Where Tom turned it inward and became stone, Jake Seresin turned it outward and became a blade. Tom doesn't blame him after he learns.)
It takes a while.
In truth, it takes a long while, but Pete doesn't mind. He requests reassignment from Tom's bed, and despite being told he's going to have to finish out his current assignment first, Pete starts taking steps to sell his house.
Tom never says anything about it, but he watches with guarded eyes and hopeful hands, and Pete's going to spend the rest of his life making sure Tom never looks that unsure of anything ever again.
Pete doesn't like his house, but he never says anything. Shoves the few material things he doesn't want to get rid of into a storage unit and contorts himself into the spare spaces Tom left. It's not as hard as he was expecting, not anywhere near as difficult as it was with Charlie. Pete figures he should have known then, but hindsight and all that.
He won't make the same mistake twice.
He scares the shit out of Tom a few times, flying and once on his bike, and the absolute fits of rage-filled worry assuage any doubts Pete might have.
His current assignment ends within weeks of Tom's, and it kicks off their first real fight as a couple. Neither of them wants to be selfish in requesting their next assignment, so they each angrily demand the other make a decision and then stop talking when they each refuse.
Ron learns very quickly not to bring the subject up in front of both of them, even though he also never hesitates to tell them both they're being stupid and complains to Hollywood and Wolfman about it all the time. There's a short period where Ron's more invested in the relationship than either Tom or Pete and doesn't that kick off a row that almost turns bloody.
It comes to a head so quietly that Pete almost misses it entirely.
Tom's mother calls, leaves a message inviting him home for the weekend, and Pete's excited to meet her. Enough that he doesn't notice Tom's putting it off until the third time they reschedule. He never once thinks it's because Tom's hiding their relationship; one of the guys in Tom's squadron called them out already, and Tom, Don't Ask, Don't Tell be damned, had a private conversation with the guy that resulted in his immediate request for a transfer. Tom cares about his career, but Pete knows, deep into the marrow of his bones, that he cares about Pete more, and Tom's good enough at his job to get away with it. Pete might have to be more careful, but that's on his reputation and attitude, he knows, and he's working on it.
Pete answers the phone one day to find it's Tom's mother.
I'm going to be in the area, so I thought it might be easier if I just came by instead of making you boys come all this way.
That'd be nice, ma'am, just say when, and we'll fix up the spare room.
Oh, no, don't worry about me. I already have a hotel.
It seems a little off. Pete thinks his mother would have always preferred to stay at home instead of a hotel. Nick and Carole's parents always timed their visits so they could stay with them without overloading the house, and they'd rather put off the trip than stay in a hotel, but he let it go. He doesn't have a great understanding of the house Tom grew up in other than rumors and the complete lack of information. He knows Tom had a difficult relationship with his father, that he struggles to understand Pete's hero worship of his own.
He only really starts to wonder when Tom agrees that his mother would be better in a hotel, and he suggests they go out to dinner instead of having her at the house. He goes with it, of course, and ends up falling silent during the most uncomfortable dinner he's ever been present for. And that includes the dinners with Penny's father after he found out they were dating.
Tom is more professional with his mother than he is with their Navy superiors.
His mother runs through the standard list of questions for a parent visiting their child but never once inquires about anything deeper. Pete tries once to share a funny story from Top Gun about the party Nick had thrown where a bunch of grown men lost Bradley for an hour, and it barely results in a smile.
Even Pete's Captain, who didn't like him at all, had laughed at that story.
Tom's mother wants him to visit for the anniversary of his father's death and a small ceremony with family and old colleagues, and Pete has never felt Tom go so still.
He stays that still during her entire speech.
It's a celebration of his life, his achievements. He did great things in the military, and they want to remember that. His only son should be there, especially since you followed in his footsteps.
I'm nothing like him.
Tom says it with such venom that the table falls into an awkward silence that lasts until the waiter brings the check. She tries to bring it up once more as they walk her to her car, but Pete's had enough of the stillness and makes an excuse about having to work. She doesn't like it and doesn't hide that fact, but she leaves without too much trouble, and Tom holds Pete's hand so tightly on the drive home that he thinks he might actually fracture something.
Pete stays quiet in a way Tom would never have thought he was capable of when they first met. Going through their nightly routine without a word about what happened. It lets Tom relax, shed some of the tension before he knows they have to have the conversation. He even gets a few hours of sleep before he wakes Pete up in the darkness of two am and manages to force out the words.
Words about his father and his standards and his rage. About how he was always angry and nothing Tom did was ever good enough.
How the anger became more physical the bigger Tom got.
How he learned to hide the bruises to protect his father's reputation.
How his mother turned a blind eye to it all, too enthralled with being an officer's wife.
Tom's never going back to that house. No matter what.
Doesn't want his mother at his home now, doesn't want her infecting what he's built with that darkness.
She's never apologized, never acknowledged that Tom was hurt, still holds his father on that pedestal, and refuses to see anything other than what she wants. She invites Tom to the memorial every year, calls him every holiday to reminisce about his father.
She stops after this dinner, but it takes Tom a few years to notice (to realize that Pete starts screening her calls, making excuses, and ensuring that Tom never learns she even called. (She pushes Pete on it once, years later, and Pete gets so angry and asks her why she never did anything to protect Tom, and then she never calls again)).
Later, when they're working on adopting, they list Ron and his wife in place of any blood relatives.
Pete loves loudly, like the roar of a jet engine.
Tom loves silently the only evidence the jet wash left in his wake in the sky, but it's there all the same.
They're balanced on one another's wings now, matched in every way Pete didn't think was possible when they first met. It's like he's got two more legs, two more arms, another heart that are all part of him but inside someone else.
Like Plato's mythos of soulmates, rent asunder by a jealous god and left to search for eternity with no guarantee of success.
Pete's going to find that God one day.
Tom starts climbing the ranks, Pete dutifully following along. They start looking to the future, and it's one of the most thrilling things either of them have ever done.
They settle on California. They both have friends there, and Carole and Bradley are still in the same house. There's enough of a Navy presence that they're guaranteed to return there multiple times in their careers, and there's always the instructor slots at Top Gun.
Carole invites them to live with her, and they have a long conversation about it, but in the end, they don't. They're both very distinct people and Carole and Nick were Carole and Nick and Pete and Tom don't want to destroy the mausoleum of the couple that their house has become. They rent a place a few houses down, close enough for Bradley to walk to without an adult (IT WAS THE 80s!!)
For a little while, it's perfect.
Pete and Tom are both stationed in San Diego, Ron joins them not long after, and they spend their days at work trying to outfly one another and their weekends taking Bradley to the park and the beach.
It's the most settled either of them has ever felt.
And that's when Carole is diagnosed.
Cancer.
Tom goes with her to the appointment while Pete takes Bradley to the beach and does his best not to cry in front of the eight-year-old, who's definitely smart enough to realize something is wrong.
And at first, not much changes. It was caught relatively early. She has a few years, the doctor thinks, though his opinion is suspect because Tom definitely wasn't happy, and he can be somewhat intimidating when he's unhappy.
Carole is so exhausted from the news that Pete and Tom sit Bradley down and do their best to explain what's happening. Pete thinks he understands the basics, but there's a difference between understanding and UNDERSTANDING. Knowing and KNOWING. Hearing and LISTENING.
He's only eight.
And Pete worships the ghosts of his family, while Tom would spit on the graves of his the first chance he got. They are not the best people to be explaining to a child that his time with his mother is limited.
Especially when they were both there for the death of his father.
Someday Bradley's going to be old enough to understand everything that happened, and Pete and Tom are both terrified he'll never speak to them again.
But the chemo works for a time, so they have time. They take as much of the work off Carole's shoulders as they can, and Bradley starts referring to them as his fathers to his friends.
Pete has a minor freak-out about that, apologizing to Nick's grave before Tom and Carole drag him home and put him to bed, and try to convince him that Nick would be thrilled.
Privately, Pete has doubts, can't quite bring himself to call Bradley's son because he's Nick's. The spitting image of the first person who loved Pete outside his parents. His father's legacy. It feels like a betrayal to claim him.
Tom feels differently. Has been thinking of Bradley as his for a while now, though he'd never say that out loud without express permission from Carole and Bradley himself. He loved Nick, still does, considers him one of the best people he knows, it's his honor to help raise his son now that he's gone. It doesn't change the fact that Nick is Bradley's father if Tom thinks of him that way, too.
Pete comes around to it eventually.
And Goose, well, Goose is gone, so he doesn't have his own story anymore.
But his little boy, cherub-cheeked Bradley Bradshaw, who giggles when Mav sings to him and clutches Ice when he's scared and will only cry in front of his mama, he'll have a story to tell in the decades to come. Pete wants to be there for it and wants Tom at his side when he does.
He has no idea how hard it will be (but on his worst days, when Bradley screams I hate you and won't answer their calls, and Tom says they made the wrong decision, they knew better and let a mother's fear make their decision for them, Pete still thinks it was worth it, and someday he's going to tell Bradley that).
Bradley's callsign is decided on long before he joins up. Pete's pretty sure no child is supposed to want to be up that early, but the kid doesn't sleep past sunrise. Ever.
Even on weekends, he spends with Pete and Tom so Carole can rest. He runs into their room and pulls all the blankets off the bed in an attempt to climb in (although there's a few times he does it because he's mad at them, Jake loves those stories, and it's revenge for all the times Mav catches them making out in his hanger).
Maybe he'll sleep in when he's a teenager, Tom always mutters.
He never does.
They start talking about adoption. Tom screws up his courage and leaves a few brochures lying around. They can't marry, and it'll be an uphill battle for a single man to adopt a child, but it's possible.
Pete finds he loves the idea. Despite the need for speed and the calling of the endless blue, Pete loves the idea of a child with Tom.
Although he's a brat about it and lets Tom stew for a while because he's an asshole like that and winding Tom up usually results in a delicious punishment, and it's been a bit since they did that.
It works out just the way Pete planned, and Tom's not even mad about it.
They get ignored by the first few adoption lawyers they talk to for various reasons that all boil down to they're assholes, and apparently, it's more beneficial for a child to be raised by a mother than a father (watching that change when Bradley and Jake are looking at their options is one of the most satisfying things Tom has ever experienced).
It takes Carole making friends with an adoption specialist and bringing her around to watch Pete and Tom with Bradley (without telling them first) for them to get a serious sit-down. She's kind and honest, but she also thinks there's hope, largely due in part to Tom's career (she tells Pete not to mention his, and Tom nearly falls off his chair from laughing so hard).
Carole takes it as her final mission, though she never tells them that. They don't find out until they're packing up her things and they find the files. She gets sworn statements and testimony from friends (Ron's is hilarious and also completely made up) and puts together enough support that the adoption specialist moves Tom's application forward, and he's so excited he's fit to burst, walking around with the biggest grin on his face, despite knowing it's going to take years before it actually happens.
Carole's in remission, but Bradley is becoming a teenager, and isn't that a fun time? Tom fights to stay patient and understanding every day, and he ends up being more successful than Pete, who ends up in a few screaming matches with the teenager before he realizes when he needs to walk away.
Bradley spends more and more time at their house, saving the small part of himself that doesn't want to be an asshole for when he's home with his mom. Carole tries to help them through it, but she mostly thinks it's hilarious that Bradley's worst years are when he's most like a mix of Mav and Ice, and don't they both go off and sulk after she tells them that.
Carole's cancer comes and goes, and each time, she's slightly more tired than the last. She knows what's coming before Pete or Tom are ready to admit it and puts on a brave face when they both ship out for deployments.
Bradley's the nicest he's ever been when they get back, hugging them both tightly, slightly grown up from the bought of cancer she had while they were gone and not there to shield him.
He starts asking about their families and Pete's easy, they were there, and then they were all dead, and now it's Pete and Tom and Carole and Bradley.
Tom is a bit harder.
Do you want to visit your parents? I think Viper's getting sick of us dropping by.
Only if we're going to spit on their graves.
Bradley looks a bit wide-eyed and scared at that, and Tom remembers that he's only told Pete the darkest parts, why he can't, won't ever go home to that shitty house or that neatly trimmed military cemetery in Florida.
Don't worry about it, kid. We're not close.
Bradley drops it, but there's a shadow in his eyes for days. Like he's realized for the first time that not all families are broken apart by uncontrollable tragedies. Sometimes, they leave each other because it's better to be apart than together.
It's not a realization Tom ever wanted Bradley to have, but Pete thinks he needs to grow up at some point. Needs to learn that not everyone is good. It's funny that Pete's turning into that parent while Tom wants to keep Bradley wrapped in delusion and bubble wrap.
Then the cancer comes, and Pete has never been so scared. His hands shake, and he can't sleep because every time he closes his eyes, he sees Tom in a hospital bed.
It gets worse. Tom can stay in; the cancer is treatable, but he'll never fly a Navy aircraft again.
Carole and Bradley arrive the next day. Followed closely by Penny and Abigail. Slider and his girlfriend the day after. Because he's too stubborn to give up, and really, whoever thinks Pete is the stubborn one of the two of them knows nothing. Tom, Ron, and Penny have a strategy session on the couch on where to take Tom's career now while Carole and Ron's girl man the kitchen, making enough food to get them through what seems like the next year.
Pete gets banished to the kitchen after one measly suggestion about a retirement flight and a stolen F-22. Bradley follows him, all nervous teenager energy and not mature enough to understand just how much things are changing.
Pete sits down with the adoption specialist while they're all still there. He wants to get it over with, do it so Tom doesn't have to.
She's so kind she makes it worse. She won't pull their application just because of the cancer. It's beatable, but she does lay out the cost of raising a child and the cost of cancer treatments, and the time they both take, and Pete already knew in his heart that this was over.
She insists she'll keep their application open for as long as they'd like, but Pete knows it's not going to happen.
So does Tom. Pete doesn't even have to say anything when he gets home because he's only ever managed to be a few seconds ahead of Tom, never a complete step.
Carole offers to give them Bradley and the teenager is torn between outrage and delight.
It turns out Tom's cancer is more survivable than Carole's, and they bury her on a bright summer day of Bradley's senior year, right next to Nick. Ron flies out with his new girlfriend, who, despite not knowing any of them, picks up the mothering space now left empty without pushing hard enough to make anyone angry. She's a good woman, and Tom and Pete adore her, holding out hope that Slider might finally put down roots amidst the slow-moving tragedy they all knew was coming.
Bradley turns sullen and angry, Tom's so tired from the chemo, and Pete's fraying at the edges because it all happens at once. That's life, and it's a bitch, and they only find out after he's sent the application in that Bradley's applied to the academy.
Tom is at the hospital for treatment the day Bradley finds out Pete pulls his application. He tried to talk Pete out of it, but Carole's last wish got him too, and he never did stop Pete.
By the time Pete brings Tom home from the hospital, Bradley's gone. It takes a few weeks for Tom to get his strength back and for Pete to tell him exactly how badly the discussion went. How Bradley called him a terrible parent who shouldn't be allowed to have kids, and Pete told him to grow up. How Bradley wished he was dead, and Pete refused to talk again until he apologized.
Pete cries when he tells Tom about it, and Tom doesn't blame either of them.
Neither of them really expected how long Bradley would be angry.
Two years later, on another Tuesday, Ron dies. A drunk driver going the wrong way on the highway kills Ron and his girlfriend, the one Pete and Tom liked, and six other people before he finally flips his own car and kills himself.
It's a good thing he died in his own accident because Tom (and a good number of other Navy personnel) would have done much worse to him had he lived.
Pete leaves Bradley a voicemail about the funeral, but he never shows up (he visits years later with Jake and Javy and apologizes, but he thinks Ron, of all people, would have understood).
Tuesdays are officially Pete's least favorite day of the week.
They're still morning Ron (they always will be, in a way, one of the last people who was there when Tom and Pete first met) when they learn through old connections that Bradley gets into the academy without them. That he feels four years behind his peers, but he's settling in okay.
He's got a pretty strong rivalry with another student, who's described as beyond gifted in the cockpit but troubled on the ground.
Pete, still wrapped up in Bradley's hate, doesn't notice that part, but Tom does.
And he starts to keep an eye on Jake Seresin.
It doesn't take much for Tom to start noticing similarities in the houses they grew up in, but he stays quiet. Seresin is clearly a survivor, made it out, and thrived by himself, and it's not Tom's place to be telling stories that aren't his.
He thinks this might be it for Bradley, but it feels like bad luck to say it out loud, and honestly, cruelly, a part of Tom wonders if Bradley is ready for that. For the work it takes to be with someone who survived something like that. Pete still struggles sometimes, though he's learned to talk honestly about it to Tom instead of trying to deal with it by himself.
Pete was driven by love to change and adapt, so was Tom, who would never have talked about half of what he talks about to Pete with anyone else, but that doesn't mean it was easy. They had to want it. He doesn't know if Bradley does.
When the dagger mission comes around, Tom's the COMPACFLT, and Mav's bouncing around to test flight assignments. They both know without speaking that this mission is a bad idea, and it's only solidified when they see the list of pilots called back for assessment.
Simpson and Bates are good officers. Pete likes Bates even though he buts heads with Simpson, but they both respect Tom enough to keep him in the loop. Even more so when he shows up paying more attention to Seresin than to Pete or Bradley.
Tom tries to stay out of it. Listens patiently to Pete's desperate plans to talk to Bradley and waits for it all to implode in their faces.
It does the night before the mission launches.
Mav wants to go to Rooster that night before the mission, but Ice stops him.
Someone else is taking care of him.
And Mav doesn't get it until he sees Rooster's stunned face as Seresin storms out.
I've loved you since the first time I saw you.
Until he's faced with a younger, blonder version of himself, and god, was he really that bad? Ice just laughs hysterically in that way only Pete gets to see.
It's all fucking karma.
Asshole.
They talk once about Pete's decisions on the mission. In private.
Then Tom steps away to gather himself and check on Jake and tries to see the way forward for all of them.
It becomes clear relatively quickly, though Tom knows it will take a while to implement. He's gone as high as he ever wanted to career-wise, and Pete will follow him out the same way he followed him across the country for twenty years.
If Tom has to retire to keep Pete from going down again, it's a small price to pay.
Thankfully, Pete is distracted with Bradley, who's finally grown up enough to have an honest conversation about what happened all those years ago and whatever Bradley has going on with Jake, so Tom can put the pieces into motion without much fuss.
He comes home one night to find Mav pacing in the hanger, eyes wild, and he learns that Bradley and Jake might have just figured things out.
So, Tom tells him why he's been taking Jake to therapy, what he thinks happened in that house he grew up in, and what it means for Bradley. What it means for them. How it would have been better if Nick and Carole and Ron were here.
How cherub-cheeked (not so much anymore) Bradley has a callsign and a boy with bright eyes and a sharp smile and so much pain that Pete has to lock himself in the bathroom and breathe through it because he didn't see it. He missed it when he was supposed to be teaching them, helping them.
Pete missed it like he missed it with Tom, and how does he keep letting people down? He's trying so hard, watching so closely, but it's not working.
But that boy smiles for Bradley, his eyes crinkle at the corners the way Tom's do when Pete sings to him. He throws his head back and laughs with his whole body when Javy teases him like Pete used to do with Nick. He winks at the women who hang around the Hard Deck looking for pilots, tall, statuesque in his uniform and blond, blond, blond, like Tom that first night Pete saw him. He buys a few drinks, shares a few smiles, and always goes home with the boy singing at the piano.
Pete has a minor panic attack when he realizes that he's looking at an updated version of himself, and he remembers all the pain and challenges yet to come.
Pete didn't handle them well.
There's another boy too. Coyote with gleaming eyes and sharp teeth and a fast jaw, and a pack at his back. A guardian always circling, always watching. Pete likes him. He reminds him of Goose, he confides to Ice one night. His wife reminds him of Carole, and they cry together in the bed they've shared for decades.
The less said about Seresin Sr's visit, the better.
He has 'there are no happy endings here' tattooed over his heart, Bradley tells them after, and Mav's heart shatters in a way it never has before because being unable to help is its own kind of suffering.
But there's so much love, too, now. Bradley's eyes light up every time he looks at Hangman. Tom watching over both of them like the father he was always supposed to be, and Pete's going to love that man for the rest of his life.
Jake talks about it with passion, which surprises Pete until he realizes it's another way for Jake to win. To survive and triumph. To not be afraid.
Pete's never admired someone's strength so much, except Tom's, of course.
And that little shit has designs on Mav's godson and his damn plane. Well, Maverick Mitchell has never gone down without a fight, and he loves this fucking brat, but he isn't going to make it easy.
He hasn't had this much fun since he was fucking with Goose while he wooed Carole.
Jesus Christ, how are the two of you on the same maturity level?
Shut up and get in the damn plane, Ice. They're not beating us.
How old do you think we are? Did you take up yoga while I was gone?
Get in the plane, Tom.
They manage it, although there are a few bruises and sore muscles after. It's all worth it for the times they ended up gasping and moaning and giggling like kids because it's been a while since they did anything this silly just for the pleasure of it.
Ice is a mean bastard. He was made that way, learned. Just like Jake, he's just had longer to hone it.
Ice is the meanest of them all, for all Mav likes to think he's scary, and Bradley likes to think he's tough. Jake sees it, recognizes it, because he's got it deep inside too.
Javy is too much like Nick. A defender to the core, violent in defense of what he loves, what he thinks is right. A great and terrible violence, but never violence for violence's sake. Never violence toward the undeserving.
Coyote is Goose.
Coyote is Goose? Coyote is Goose!
And Mav turns to Ice in disbelief. How the fuck did I end up the you in this situation?
That's why Ice is the one who deals with the Seresins. Slipping away one night and borrowing a plane because he's the fucking Admiral, and no one questions a nighttime flight.
He lands in the fucking backyard of that shitty house Jake grew up in. It looks just like the one Ice grew up in, and for the first time in a long time, the anger ebbs away, floating off into the ether.
Because death is a cop-out. The easy way. No more worry or fear or pain. It's all gone in death. So, Ice isn't going to give them that peace. He's going to do something much worse.
He knocks on their door and tells them he knows; tells them he's coming for them until the end of their days. That he's going to make sure the whole world knows what they did before he finally decides to end them.
Then he walks away.
He retires the next day. Pete follows a few days later and even shows up at one of the celebrations the upper ranks throw.
Then they're out, and it feels like they've stepped into a new world. They keep waking up at the ass crack of dawn and then realizing they don't have to be up.
There hasn't been this much morning sex in their lives ever before.
It feels like a new lease on life. And entirely new life. A younger one where they work on Mav's plane and explore and travel and host family dinners with Penny and Amelia and Bradley and Jake and Javy and Celia and everyone else that's a permanent part of their lives now. They help Penny out at the bar sometimes, and sometimes they accept contracting work for defense agencies, nothing permanent or long term, but enough that they're comfortable that Tom's chemo and Pete's long list of injuries is easily taken care of.
And that plane that Jake buys Bradley.
Speaking of which, it takes Jake asking when they got married to realize they never did.
They're too old for the nonsense of a ceremony, and neither of them are sticklers for tradition. They sign the papers and throw a party that ends up being much larger than expected. Old comrades take them out to dinner throughout the year, and they get gifts in the mail from people they never thought would have cared but apparently do.
It's nice, and despite it feeling weird to have a ring constantly on their fingers (and remembering to take it off and put it back on when they're working on the planes), it feels like the last piece of the puzzle of Mav and Ice.
At least, it did….
One morning, several years later, Pete jolts awake at a wave of freezing air and the feeling of the blankets being ripped away.
Tom groans and mutters something about being too old to deal with this, and they both glare blearily at the end of the bed, expecting Rooster and getting a grinning Jake Seresin instead.
Mav should never have told him all those stories.
You're a dead man, Seresin. Bradley will forgive me eventually.
No, he wouldn't. Get up, old man. It's time to celebrate. You're officially going to be grandfathers.
It takes a few seconds for it to sink in. Jake films it so they know exactly how long it takes before Pete and Tom hurtle themselves out of bed like teenagers.
Amelia's in the kitchen with a pregnancy test and a crying Penny, and a suspiciously wet-eyed Bradley.
Guess who's carrying a little baby chick!
And then there's a lot of shouting and crying, more than any of them are willing to admit to after.
Tom's hands shake the first time he holds Nick Jr (no one is calling him junior, Gramps).
Pete should have punched the kid when he had the chance.
Now there's a wedding. Another Nick and a newer generation of Carole with a flower for her name. Pete and Tom got to help raise them.
There's Jake with just as many stars on his shoulders as Tom once had, and Javy is still right next to him.
There's Bradley running the schoolhouse and leaving a mark the way Pete never could.
(They didn't have a ceremony either because Bradley has OPINIONS on modern families and traditions, and Jake still has a lot of anger with nowhere to go, so he aims it at whatever is pissing Bradley off that week.)
That night Pete and Tom sit together on their porch and watch the sunset, and all that pain and suffering and tragedy gets carried away by the desert wind.
Tomorrow, all the kids are gone, off to their honeymoon and work, and Pete and Tom have plans to take the Mustang out to watch the sunrise from the sky.
It's a good life.
~fin~