Chapter Text
“Come catch me!” Maverick taunted into his headset.
“I'm coming, old man!” Rooster retorted back.
A minute later, Maverick spoke again, “Alright, I’mma pull some G's Roo”
“Copy” Rooster said, knowing he wasn't allowed to missile lock when he was following the captain.
Maverick checked behind him once more, making sure that the younger man was following in his jet.
Slowly, Maverick pulled back on his joystick control and added speed as watched his G meter rise.
“Three G's, Rooster”
“Copy”
The force was getting heavy now, but both planes remained the same.
“Five, you still with me Roo?”
“Right here Mav”
They were flying in perfect sync. Phoenix was watching from below, with Bob next to her.
“God, how the hell is Rooster gonna make ten G's without blacking?” Phoenix asked.
“He'll find a way. He always does” Bob said. Phoenix and Bob had been made aware that Rooster was doing ten G's. Rooster told them himself.
“Me and Mav are gonna do a G test. Up to ten”
After a few moments, the radio crackled to life yet again.
“Seven and a half Roo. You still here? Can you see?” Maverick asked.
“Yeah” Rooster strained out. It was getting hard for him to speak.
“Stay with me,” Maverick said.
Rooster said nothing.
After thirty more seconds, the ground pair heard the radio again.
“Nine point three G's Rooster” Maverick said, with the edges of his view beginning to darken. He pushed through.
“Copy” Rooster said, basically yelling to keep himself awake.
A few moments later, Rooster screamed into the radio with a tone of pure fear.
“Mav? Mav! Mav! My plane! MY WINGS! MY WINGS ARE GONE”
“ROOSTER! EJECT! EJECT! NOW!”
Rooster said nothing and pulled the yellow handles behind his seat. His canopy flew out from over him, his plane quickly falling from the sky. He rocketed out of the plane and moments later, his chute deployed successfully.
Maverick had slowed down severely in order to make sure that Rooster ejected okay.
“Shit! Bob! Rooster ejected! He's flailing everywhere! He's not in position! Mav!” Phoenix screamed with genuine concern in her voice. She knew Rooster had practiced ejection, but nobody on the team had to actually eject. In a moving plane. At nine point five G's.
“He's past the canopy....Goddammit! He's panicking! Phoenix and Bob, get a helicopter out here now! Bring medical equipment!” Mav said, his voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Phoenix noted it and started running.
“Shit, we gotta go Bob!”
They sprinted to the landing pad lines, passing Hangman and Coyote.
“Where the hell you guys going in such a rush?” Hangman yelled as Phoenix strapped into the pilot seat.
“Rooster's down!” she yelled. “Bob! Get ready!”
“Oh fu…” Hangman mumbled. He knew how protective Maverick was of Rooster. When Phoenix was driving a medical helicopter, he knew someone was going down bad.
Coyote and Hangman wordlessly ran to the radio station to make sure Rooster was okay.
Even though Hangman was a bitch to Rooster, he still cared for his teammate.
“Guys, I'm ejecting! I'll fly right where Rooster is and eject. My plane will autopilot” Mav yelled, a stressed tone in his voice.
“Mav! Why did you never tell us this!?” Phoenix retorted into the helmet, she had just gotten off the ground.
“I've never needed to. But now, I can get to Roo faster than you guys. He needs help. It didn't look like he was moving the last time I flew over. He isn't responding on radio either. I'm going down”
“Copy,” Phoenix said. She was scared of losing Rooster, but more scared of losing Rooster, Maverick, and Maverick's plane. She had to trust her captain.
Soon, all Bob and Phoenix could hear over their captain's radio was air chatter.
Phoenix was now flying towards the tracker location in Rooster's helmet. Bob was in the back getting all of the medical equipment set up for the worst possible scenario. There was a stretcher, extra blood, a mask, an IV, a defibrillator, and a bunch of bandages and pads.
“You ready Bob?” Phoenix asked; there were almost halfway to Rooster.
“Yeah. Hopefully it isn't too bad, I really don't want to have to use half this stuff” Bob replied.
The radio crackled to life yet again.
“Mav here, I'm on the ground with Roo. He's in pretty bad shape. He's losing blood in his arm and his head. His left femur/hip is badly dislocated. I gotta take off my helmet now”
“Copy Mav”
“BRADLEY!” Maverick yelled.
Rooster only groaned in response. His eyes were closed. Likely borderline unconscious.
Maverick took off his helmet and looked him over. Maverick shook him a bit, jostling him awake.
Maverick lifted Rooster's body and carefully slipped off his flight jacket and remaining layers of clothing until he was down to nothing. Rooster's bare chest gleamed back at him, wet with sweat from an eventful ejection.
He was in bad shape. His eyes were hyper-dilated and he wasn't focused on Maverick. The young pilot's chest was rising and falling too quickly for it to be safe.
I have to get him to focus on me.
“Bradshaw! Look at me!” Maverick yelled, he put his hands on either shoulder and shook Rooster.
Rooster trained his eyes on Maverick, trying his hardest to focus on his captain. It was hard, with all the pain around his body and light coming through his dilated eyes.
He tried to struggle against Maverick, but his strong arms held Rooster to the ground. Mav held him there for a good minute without saying a word.
Rooster seemed to slowly be coming back from his panic attack. His breathing slowed a bit, and his pupils were shrinking. He tried to speak. Maverick took arms off Rooster's shoulders so he could feel free.
“..It…hurts..” he tried to get out.
“Buddy, I know it hurts, okay? You'll be alright. Bob and Phoenix are almost here.”
On cue, Phoenix hovered right overhead.
“Can't…feel…anything…” Rooster strained out.
“Wha..What do you mean Roo?”
“Leg…..can't…feel”
“Which one?”
“..uh…Left”
“Ok, it's dislocated Roo. We'll get you back to surgery as soon as we get back to base”
Rooster only looked at Maverick.
“Hey,” Maverick started. He ran his hands through the injured's hair. He felt blood “You're gonna be alright, Baby Goose”
That name seemed to have touched Rooster. He suddenly became very calm and hyper-focused on Maverick’s instructions.
Ok, I got him back.
Phoenix had landed the helicopter a hundred feet from where Rooster laid.
“Bob! Get the stretcher!”
She was thankful that it was only sixty degrees, that would protect Rooster from hyper or hypo thermia. She unlatched from her seat and made her way back to grab the travel first aid kit Bob had set up.
Once Bob was by her side with the stretcher, they both hopped out of the copter and sprinted to the pair.
“Rooster! You good?” Phoenix yelled.
“He is definitely not good, let's carefully load him on the stretcher. Be careful with his head and left leg” Maverick instructed.
“Copy” Bob and Phoenix said in unison.
“Roo, we have to load you on the stretcher now. It might hurt a little bit, but we have to do this, okay?”
“Mhhmm” Rooster hummed. He wore a pained expression on his face. His mouth was open, breathing hard.
Maverick stood on one side of him, Bob and Phoenix on the other. The three squatted; Maverick grabbed his chest and hip, Phoenix got his neck, and Bob got his legs.
“Everyone lift on three. One, two … three!” Mav directed.
Bob tried to be very gentle lifting Rooster's left leg, but Rooster still screamed.
“AH! AH!”
Rooster's arms began to shake with pain. This startled Bob and Phoenix. Maverick sighed and gave Rooster one last shove on to the board.
“His body is overwhelmed. Just strap him in, I'll try to give him a relaxer when we get to the chopper”
Bob quickly strapped Rooster's body to the plastic board. There were three orange straps holding his body to the white board. One for his chest, one for his hips and wrists, and one for his ankles. The security of the straps seemed to calm his anxiety a bit.
Rooster groaned, eyes still laser focused on Maverick, who volunteered to carry the head part of the stretcher.
“I'll do legs,” Bob said.
“I'll stay on the left,” Phoenix said.
They picked up the stretcher, and Maverick started to jog. Bob turned around and shot Maverick a look of question.
“He's losing too much blood. We need to give him some once we get there” Maverick announced.
Rooster moaned again. His eyelids were growing closer and closer together.
“hhhhhhmmm…Mav…”
“You're okay, buddy” Mav comforted.
“mm not” Rooster strained.
“You're so strong Roo. You hold this team together. I would so much rather fly with you then with Bagman” Phoenix blurted while holdinf back tears.
“Th..thanks..Phe” Rooster said, as he tried to touch Phoenix’s hand through the straps.
She noticed and put her hand right with his. She looked at his pained face and gave his hand a squeeze. Rooster's eyes drifted back to Maverick, and he tried to squeeze the woman's hand back. He really couldn't that much.
“We are at the chopper now, Roo. We'll put you in and get you some blood” Maverick said.
Bob and Maverick carefully lifted the board into the body of the chopper. Phoenix climbed in the driver's seat.
As Maverick climbed in to sit on the left of the injured Lieutenant, he saw as Bob was grabbing a blood bank bag labeled “O NEGATIVE”.
“Bob! Stop! Rooster can't have that blood!”
“Wha..Why? It's universal donor!”
“He has rh-null!”
“What the hell is that?” Bob yelled, as the helicopter was getting louder for takeoff.
“He has no Rh antigens! His body will fight any other kind of antigen and he will be dead in a minute! He needs the reserve of Golden Blood!”
The thought hit Phoenix like a brick wall.
Damn…Rooster is worth so much, and here he is fighting for the US in the most dangerous way possible.
Phoenix got a weird feeling of pride and sadness that Rooster would rather defend the US than donate his blood. She loved beinf able to fly next to such an amazing person, but she knew how sought after his blood was. She could only hope that he donated as much as possible later in life.
“Mav…” Rooster said. He was losing his grip on consciousness.
“Rooster!! Stay with me! Bob is injecting blood right now!”
“mmmmmm..” is the only thing Rooster could get out. His eyes were open, but he was fading fast.
Phoenix was now ready to take off, and she did so immediately. Bob had cleaned his right wrist with a wipe, and now had Rooster's vein. He stuck the needle in and elevated the blood bag.
“Mav, this shit is just regular blood!”
“No, it's not! It's not actually golden Bob! It has zero antigens. There are like 50 people with this condition. Rooster just got lucky we had some on hand” Mav said. The helicopter was quieter now that they had taken off and the doors were closed.
“His parents both had the mutation I guess. His blood is extremely valuable, but he can't donate until he is out of the military” Maverick explained.
“Too much jet fuel runnin’ through my veins” Rooster said weakly.
Phoenix, Bob, and Maverick all chuckled.
“Feel a little better, Lieutenant?” Mav said.
Rooster only nodded.
Maverick loosened the chest strap and moved against the rear wall of the helicopter. He carefully raised Rooster's head to fit into his lap.
“I need to look at your wounds, Baby Goose”
“Mkay” Rooster said.
“HALFWAY!” Phoenix yelled back so everyone knew.
“You can rest now Roo”
Rooster's only reply was a deep sigh and the closing of his eyes. Maverick felt the release in his neck as Rooster's head relaxed into his lap.
Bob found a hook on the wall to put the blood bag and moved to gently inspect the wound on his teammate's left bicep. He rotated the arm just a bit. He rubbed a bit of water on it to clean some of the dirt, careful not to wake the exhausted patient.
“Bob, can I see that water bottle for a second please? His head wound is pretty bad”
Bob just handed the bottle to his captain and moved to look at the head wound.
“Damn..”
Once Mitchell poured water on the surrounding hair, the true wound was revealed.
Rooster had lost some of his hair on the back/top of his head from scrape damage. It was just a flesh wound, but it went considerably deep for a sand scrape. Maverick softly rubbed the back of Rooster's head. It was still bleeding slightly, so he poured a bit more water over the wound.
“That's gonna be a hell of a scar kid. Hell of a story too” Maverick said quietly.
“The medics are not gonna be happy with him on this one” Bob added. Bob had trained to be a military medic, but stealth piloting had his heart.
“Bob, you did great back there. Those medic skills might mean the difference between Rooster's life and death”
Phoenix gasped to herself.
Shit, I never even thought there was a chance we would lose him.