Chapter Text
One.
The noise of the gathered crowd washed over Jake like a wave as the canopy of his F-18 opened.
It seemed like every person on board the carrier was clamouring around his plane, cheering and hugging each other, caught in the infectious joy of a mission gone right.
Jake could spot Payback’s tall frame over the sea of people, still dressed in his flight suit and dragging a grinning Fanboy under his arm, no doubt to tell their rendition of the story to an endless stream of admirers. To their left was Phoenix, smiling and elbowing people out of the way in a manner only she could get away with as she forged a path towards where he sat in his jet, Bob trailing behind her with an air of a WSO who didn’t want to be separated from their pilot for a good few hours yet.
Jake sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to unwrap his fingers from where he still had a white knuckled grip on the controls, willing his heart rate to settle. The mission was over, he had gotten to Rooster and Maverick in time. They were alive. He had done it.
Jake took another steadying breath and forced himself to climb out of his plane, swinging his leg out with a silent prayer that his knees wouldn’t give out on him as soon as he reached the solid deck of the carrier.
“If it ain’t Hangman,” Phoenix drawled as she reached him, in a facsimile of the way he had greeted her at The Hard Deck at the beginning of the mission training, except the warmth in her tone altered the greeting in a way that made something in Jake settle. The blinding smile she was directing his way made it easier for him to shut out the thoughts of gunfire and smoke in the air, pulling on the Hangman mask like a well-worn sweater.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll accept any and all forms of adoration and awe, but preferably in cash,” Jake snarked back, emphasising the Texan twang and shooting Phoenix a smile that tipped slightly too much towards relief for his liking. Phoenix eyed him knowingly as she pulled him in for a hug.
“Yeah, yeah Bagman, we get it. You’re a hero, etcetera, etcetera.”
Jake huffed a laugh into Phoenix’s shoulder, making eye contact with Bob from where he stood behind her. Bob shook his head wryly, adjusting his glasses from where they had slipped down his nose as he was jostled by the mass of moving people around him.
“Should’ve known you would only be in it for the money, Bagman,” Bob joked. “Can’t think why else you would waste precious fuel on playing savior to Maverick and Rooster.” Phoenix stepped back, grinning at her WSO as he continued eyeing Jake with a steady gaze.
Jake tipped his head back and laughed, thinking of how far the pilot had come from silently watching the squad playing pool on the first day to sassing him like it was nothing. “You know what Bobby, you’re not bad.”
Before Bob could open his mouth to reply, Jake felt a pair of strong hands grip his shoulders, shaking him back and forth.
Jake felt his smile widen into something truly happy for the first time since the start of the mission as he turned towards his best friend, melting into Javy’s waiting embrace. Javy’s familiar sandalwood cologne grounded him, calling forth memories of unwavering support and constant companionship. Javy had been the steadiest thing in Jake’s life since the moment they met in the second week at the Naval Academy, with Javy taking one look at Jake’s brash demeanour as he crowed about the rest of their class falling behind already and seeing through it in a way no one else had. The man had stuck by Jake since then, backing him up even as he winced at some of Jake’s less tactful moments, always waiting until they were in private to call him out.
“Jake, man, that was insane! I didn’t think you even had clearance to take off and you were already in the sky –”
“Come on Coyote,” Jake cut in, conscious of Phoenix and Bob standing next to them, and Fanboy’s excited voice getting closer with every second. “Why would I take off without Cyclone’s approval? That would be crazy, they could take my wings for that.”
“We were listening on the radio, we heard you get denied and then we didn’t hear the affirmative order go through?” Jake moved out of Javy’s hold, squeezing his arm meaningfully and trying to convey with his eyes that Javy should drop the subject.
“We were on a different channel. Now are you gonna waste time bitchin’ at me about this, or are you gonna celebrate with me?”
“Yeah, okay.” Javy brought a hand up to push Jake lightly on the shoulder, expression telling Jake he wasn’t done with this topic. Jake sighed. Years of being best friends also had its drawbacks, it seemed.
Fanboy interrupted Jake’s train of thoughts, having come to a stop at their small group. “This is going to be one hell of a rough landing.”
Jake followed the small WSO’s gaze up to the incoming F-14, the lack of landing gear becoming obvious as the beaten-up jet drew closer. Jake had returned to the carrier almost as fast as he had taken off, the adrenaline of the close call buzzing through his veins in a dangerous hum that signalled him needing to get out of the air as soon as possible. Maverick and Rooster had limped home a little slower it seemed if they were only coming in to land now.
Payback snorted, drawing Fanboy back into his side like it was second nature for the two to be attached at all times. “I’m sure the memory of the recent ejection over enemy territory will make this seem like a walk in the park.”
Jake felt his chest constrict, the panic he had felt earlier clawing its way back up his throat as he thought of how close Rooster was to dying today.
And Maverick, his brain reminded him a second too late. He was concerned for Rooster and Maverick, there was no reason to be concerned about the moustached pilot in particular. Hell, the animosity between them was notorious, and it wasn’t going to go away over one small save. Jake shut down that direction of thought, pinning his eyes back to where Maverick was guiding the F-14 into the waiting net on the carrier.
The plane hit the deck with a shower of sparks, shuddering to a stop far too close to the edge for Jake’s liking. He saw Phoenix take off at a run towards the plane, and felt Javy tug his hand in that direction as he breathed through the anxiety that was firmly making its home in his chest.
Jake felt a desperate need to see Rooster again with his own eyes, the memory of the man’s eyes crinkled into a smile across the sky as he had mindlessly prattled on about tray tables through the haze of adrenaline not seeming real to him now.
He needed to see him, alive and well, and then this strange sense of panic would leave. It must be because he had seen the missile almost hit their plane, he decided to himself, confused as to why he was getting so worked up about this. He was a naval aviator, for fucks sake. He could handle a near-miss. As he stumbled over to the relic of a plane, he watched frantically as Hondo worked to open the canopy, eyes roaming the smudged glass where he could see the bright red of Rooster’s helmet.
Finally, the canopy opened with a creak, betraying the age of the plane once again, and Rooster and Maverick came into full view.
Maverick was sat back with a stunned expression on his face, one hand rested of the controls of the jet, as if he were thanking it for a job well done. Rooster was already working off his helmet, clambering out of the cockpit with his long legs, and lowering himself into the waiting masses with a grin on his flushed and triumphant face.
Jake brought his hand up to scrub at his own sweaty face, exhaling harshly as Rooster’s – very firmly alive, thank you very much brain – presence began to register in his spinning mind. He watched as Phoenix immediately dragged Rooster into her arms, her own relief obviously pushing past her usually unflappable façade as she smacked him a couple of times on the chest before releasing him. Jake found his legs taking him towards the taller man, his overwhelming need to confirm he was okay winning out over any hope of hanging back and acting nonchalant.
Rooster met his eyes immediately, a broad smile stretched out on his handsome face in a look that Jake had never seen directed his way before. It felt nice, to not have Rooster sneering at him, or holding back barely veiled laughter at his expense. Jake rolled his eyes at his own internal monologue, cursing himself for sounding like a teenage girl the second a man smiled at him.
Keeping his gaze neutral, Jake held out his hand for Rooster to shake. He held his breath as Rooster stared at it for a second, before letting the Hangman mask drop to match Rooster’s grin as the man gripped his hand and shook it firmly, nodding his head in something akin to respect. Jake’s fingers seared where they met the bare skin of Rooster’s own through the holes in their flight gloves, the heat coming off the other pilot making him feel even more real.
“Chalked yourself another kill,” Rooster quipped, sounding steady and not at all like he had just hopped out of a plane that was seconds away from being blown out of the sky. Jake flinched internally at the reminder that he had taken yet another unknown life, but somehow the guilt didn’t hit as hard for this as it did for his last kill. Jake let Rooster’s deep voice wash over him, forcing his own voice into some semblance of calm and letting the brash confidence that was second nature to him take over as he replied.
“That makes two.”
Rooster’s brown eyes lit up with amusement, any annoyance at Jake’s typically arrogant response seemingly put on the back burner for now. He searched for anything to say, any way to continue the conversation with Rooster before the man of the hour inevitably got dragged off by another member of the squad. Jake felt like was running on autopilot, every one of his senses narrowed in on the delicate skin of Rooster’s wrist that peeked out between his gloves and his flight suit, centimetres away from where the tips of Jake’s fingers rested in Rooster’s warm hand. If he could just reach out and –
“Mav has five,” Phoenix cut in, never one to miss an opportunity to take Hangman down a peg. “Makes him an ace.”
Rooster looked over at Phoenix with mirth in his eyes, and Jake found his own eyes drawn back to the sliver of skin. As casually as he could, he shifted his hand where it was still held tightly in Rooster’s grip, inching his fingers forwards until they brushed against the exposed part of his wrist. Jake gently pressed the tips of his fingers down, searching with light movements until he found what he was looking for.
And there it was.
The soft beat of Rooster’s pulse thumped against the pads of his fingers, as slow and steady as the man approached every aspect of life. Jake felt the panic recede at once, the irrefutable proof that he had done it, he had saved Rooster, seeming to be enough for his brain to calm down.
Jake dragged his eyes back up to Rooster’s brown ones, raising his eyebrows in a copy of Rooster’s teasing expression. He let himself count one, two, three more beats of Rooster’s pulse before he tore his hand away, reaching up to smack at the man’s chest casually, as if he hadn’t been seconds away from a completely irrational spiral.
He turned away to hug Phoenix again, a tug of affection for the feisty pilot washing over him as Rooster made his way back towards Maverick. He could hear Javy behind him laughing with Harvard and Yale, the Ivy-league pairing chanting about going to The Hard Deck already, and he let himself release the last bit of tension he had been holding.