Chapter Text
The night before he's called back to Top Gun, Pete has a recurring dream he hasn't had in years.
It's always the same — it's more a memory than anything else, really. Sitting next to Nick on a blanket on the sand, watching Carole and Bradley as they run toward the ocean. When the water hits Bradley's feet, he squeals, jumping and clinging to Carole's thigh as she spins slowly with him.
"What's it like?" Pete asks, looking over at Nick. "Do you really see it? Your bond with her?"
Nick doesn't look away from Carole, fingers twisting his wedding band as he nods. "Yeah. It's really what everybody says it is — just, a tether showing me where she is. Almost like a compass pointing north, y'know?"
Pete doesn't. He hasn't had The Touch despite how much he craves it. "It doesn't — I dunno. Get in the way?"
"I see just fine from the backseat, don't I?" Nick teases, finally meeting Pete's eyes. "No, Mav, it doesn't get in the way. It's — translucent, almost. And when you've had it a while, it's just like background noise. Always there, but not distracting."
"Does it — tug you around?"
"Did at first," Nick replies quietly. "But now, no. Like I said, background noise, Mav. Just always tells me where she is."
Pete hums. "And it happened the second she touched you?"
"Yeah," Nick says, nodding. "For me. She touched my arm and that was it. When I touched her back, she could see it, too."
The sound of Bradley squealing again from the water distracts them both. Pete watches as Bradley races toward him, curls bouncing as he grins and skids to a stop against Pete's shins.
"C'mon, Uncle Mav," he insists, grabbing at Pete's hand. "Come play with me."
Pete stands up, swooping Bradley up onto his shoulders. "Alright, kiddo, c'mon. Let's go!"
In his memory, he turns back at the water's edge and sees Nick sitting with Carole snug against his chest.
In the dream, he turns back and Carole's alone, staring up into the sky.
Pete wakes with a gasp, sweat tacky on his skin. His hands are shaking as he rubs them over his face, trying to will away the phantom scent of salt on the air.
In moments like these, when he remembers how haunted Carole was, he's grateful it never happened for him. Watching Carole lose her tether — it's a burden he doesn't think anyone should ever be forced to carry.
By the time he's crash landing somewhere in the pacific northwest, the shaking in his hands has long stopped. Cain telling him he's headed back to Top Gun, however, starts the tremors all over again.
//
Being back at North Island, back around pilots who know they're the best of the best and aren't afraid to flaunt it— it's comforting in a way that Pete doesn't think would make sense to anyone else. Penny says as much, commenting on the fact that North Island is the last place she expected to run into him. If Pete's being honest, he didn't think he'd ever come back this way, either. Now that he knows the mission parameters and what's being expected of him, who he's being expected to teach — he's surprised he hasn't turned tail and left already.
Watching them all interact, though — seeing the rivalries, the ribbing; the blind bullseye at the dartboard, the blind shot at the pool table. Seeing Bradley again. The coy "Much appreciated, Pops." In the weirdest way, it's like being home.
Until Penny hands him his card and says, "It's been declined."
Pete shakes his head, brows furrowing despite the way he grins in response to Penny's shrug and smirk. "You're kidding."
He starts to hear cries of overboard from the bar and he snorts out a laugh, barely looking over to the pilots who've come to collect him. "Really?" he asks, holding Penny's gaze.
It's all so perfectly normal. He's laughing as Penny gives the pilots a nod, feels arms locking with his to haul him up and away from the bar —
And then there's the barely-there brush of skin against his hand and the world tilts.
Pete's still trying to find his bearings as he's gently thrown to the sand, breath caught in his chest as he reels from the knowledge that he's been touched. Touched in the way Goose always talked about, the way that everyone always talks about, and it's so much more overwhelming than he could have imagined.
The pilot standing on the patio, name badge reading Seresin, has his hand drawn up in a lazy salute against his brow as he says, "Come back any time!"
Mav realizes he can see it — the barely-there string between them, that goddamned tether he's been so afraid of finding. He looks down to the inside of his wrist, convinced he'll see Seresin's thumbprint against his skin like a brand, but there's nothing. Outwardly, there's nothing.
Inside, he feels like his soul's on fire. It feels like ejecting at Mach 10.
Pete makes it one mile from the bar on his bike before he pulls over, vomiting onto the pavement and shaking out his hands. He runs his palms over the fabric of his jeans repeatedly, slowly catching his breath and keeping his eyes closed.
When he opens them again, it's still there. He's still tethered to someone else.
What a horrifying, beautiful thing.
//
He lies awake for hours that night.
This mission is a suicide mission. He knows as much — felt it the moment he went over the parameters with Warlock and Cyclone. If he's only there to teach, and if someone isn't coming back from this, then —
"Fuck," he mutters aloud, rubbing a hand over his face.
Bradley's here. His soulmate is here. And Pete's going to be expected to train them both to fly an impossible mission.
When he finally manages to drift off to sleep, he dreams of standing on a carrier, watching two jets take off, and then looking straight up to the sky.
//
Flying with Jake — no, with Lieutenant Seresin, callsign Hangman — proves to be more affirming than even the Touch at exactly why they're supposed to be soulmates.
Hangman meets every move Mav has and manages to surpass it. Flies with an ease that Mav recognizes, one that means the jet is simply an extension of him. The moment Maverick gets Hangman to race up toward the sun is the moment he knows he has him — wouldn't need the tether between them to know the kid's falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
It's the oddest sensation, too. Feeling the slight tug in his chest when Hangman's jet twists and turns in directions that Mav isn't anticipating. Pete's learning to fly against that tug in real time, forcing the tether to become background noise as he focuses on teaching what needs to be done.
He manages to avoid touching Hangman throughout the rest of training. Even when Goose is brought up and Bradley lunges for him during a debrief, Mav keeps his hands on Bradley and lets the others hold Hangman back.
"You know I'm right," Hangman insists, his eyes meeting Maverick's dead-on, and Maverick feels his throat go dry.
Hangman's unrepentant. Maybe that's why they're meant for each other.
"You're all dismissed," Pete rasps, and pretends he doesn't feel an ache in his chest as he turns away.
//
It's time to let go.
"I don't know how," Pete whispers, blinking through the tears as his vision starts to swim. He knows Ice is right, Ice is always right, but this mission — it's different. There's so much on the line, so much that Mav can't control.
"The Navy needs Maverick. The kid needs Maverick," Ice insists.
Pete smiles sadly, letting out a breath as he looks down. Quietly, he admits, "It's not even just about Bradley, Ice. It's — I met…"
Pete sighs, wiping at the tears on his cheeks and looking back up. "It happened. The Touch."
Ice's eyebrows lift. "Here?" he mouths.
Pete nods. "The day I got back to North Island. It's so fucking terrifying. None of you ever talk about how scary it is."
Ice smiles at that, his gaze softening. When he sits back at his desk and turns to his keyboard, Pete watches him type — Because after the fear, the joy starts.
If anything, it only makes the anxiety worse. There's a good chance Mav won't ever experience the joy after the fear, either because the mission will ruin their chances or because Mav won't ever allow himself to pursue it.
"It's a suicide mission, Ice," Pete whispers. "They'll be treated as though they're expendable. And I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to handle that."
Ice reaches forward and squeezes a hand over Pete's knee. "You do," he insists, voice rough. "And you will."
//
Even during dogfight football, Maverick manages to keep his distance from Jake.
From Lieutenant Seresin. Damn it.
It's not without difficulty — Hangman's just as agile on the sand as he is in the air. Maverick finds himself watching the way he moves often, realizing he can anticipate some of Hangman's moves simply because he feels the tug before it happens.
Whenever Hangman's close enough to touch, however, Maverick does his best to twist and turn the opposite direction. There's a moment of panic when he hits the sand, worried that the hand being offered to help him up is Hangman's, but he's relieved to find that it's Bradley's.
At the end of the afternoon, while he's headed back to the Hard Deck, Pete feels the clap of a hand over his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt.
"Good game today, Captain," Hangman says, shooting him a bright grin. "Hell of a way to spend an afternoon."
Maverick fights the urge to reach out and touch. Smiles back, instead, and shoots Hangman a nod. "Hope it was helpful."
"Oh, I'd say so," Seresin replies, wink obvious even behind his sunglasses. "Enlightening as hell in more ways than one."
Hangman takes off at a jog when Coyote yells from up ahead. Mav watches him go, eyes following their barely-there tether the whole time.
//
The night after Ice's funeral, Mav falls asleep with an unopened bottle of scotch in his lap.
(Ice's favorite. He's never had a taste for the stuff.)
He dreams again, back at the beach with Carole and Bradley. The landscape is the same, but Bradley's an adult this time, walking slowly through the water as the tide comes closer and closer to where Mav and Carole are sitting.
"He'll be okay," Carole assures him, her hand squeezing Mav's elbow. "You've always looked out for him. This isn't any different."
"It's much different," Mav insists, watching him. Mav feels like there's someone else in the dream with him, someone standing behind them, but he won't let himself turn around. "This is all so much different. And now it's just — I'm alone. None of you are here."
"Of course we're here," Carole replies, her arms wrapping tight around his shoulders. "We're always here. Tether or not, you're tied to us for good, Pete Mitchell."
The presence behind them steps closer, a shadow casting itself over Maverick's shoulder. "Is it worth it?" Pete asks, meeting Carole's eyes. He realizes there's a presence behind her, too, one that's so comforting and so familiar. "Having him even though you had to spend so long without him?"
When she smiles, it's the way she used to smile — back before Goose's death, back before she got sick. "Sweetheart," she murmurs, thumbing affectionately over his cheek. "Stop worrying about the time you won't have before you miss out on all the time you do."
The shadow over his shoulder gets closer and he closes his eyes — feels the feather-light press of fingers against the back of his neck and shivers down to the very core of him.
Pete wakes with the taste of sea salt on his lips and the scent of Seresin's cologne on the air.
//
Proving that the mission can be flown is a risk, but it's one that pays off. He can feel it, the way the energy on base shifts to something optimistic. Even Warlock is grinning, not really trying all that hard to hide his smile behind his hand as they walk to Cyclone's office.
He's expecting to be dismissed, but instead, he's given the chance to fly with them. To lead them.
To be the one that's expendable.
He laughs manically the entire drive home, nerves frayed and somehow soothed all at once.
Carole was right. Bradley will be okay. They'll all be okay.
Mav will be sure of it, even if it's the end of him.
//
"Talk to me, Goose."
It's Warlock's voice that answers, but Pete knows it's Goose's soul all the same.
"You're where you belong. Make us proud."
//
"And your wingman?"
Maverick's jaw clicks, his gaze shifting toward Bradley the moment before he says his name. He chooses Rooster because of course he does, he always would have, even if Jake wasn't his soulmate.
Not Jake. Hangman. Lieutenant Seresin.
Bradley's the pilot that both Foxtrot teams trust. He's the wingman that Maverick knows he can trust, and there isn't a tether complicating his vision whenever he looks at him. Still, he can feel the weight of Hangman's disappointment and reminds himself that this is what's best. This is the choice that had to be made. Hangman's going to be Dagger Spare, and in a mission like this? Pete's confident he'll be most useful there.
"Captain Mitchell?"
Pete turns, facing Hangman and steeling himself for whatever response he's going to get. Anger, confusion, anything.
What he isn't expecting is Jake's hand to extend toward him as he nods, voice firm as he says, "Wanted to wish you good luck out there. I'll be on your wing if you need me."
It's selfish, Pete knows, to take Jake's hand. It's saddling him with the knowledge that he has a soulmate moments before a mission Pete's assuming will be his last.
Stop worrying about the time you won't have before you miss out on all the time you do.
"I know you will," Pete says, his voice rough. "I hope you understand."
He takes Jake's hand, squeezing it, and watches Jake's eyes widen in response.
The tether between them strengthens — Mav feels it like the twisting of a sharp knife in his gut.
"You," Jake whispers, eyes narrowing. "You're — "
The corner of Pete's mouth tips up sadly. "I'm sorry, Jake," he says, and it isn't for choosing someone else as his wingman.
He turns and heads toward the deck without a look back.