Only the Good Die Young

***

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. 

Margaret Mitchell

***

Peter wakes up thirty-three days after Jake and Jordan get to the hospital. Just as they're talking to the doctor about pulling the plug.

Fucking showoff.

***

After a few days of ugly crying at the ranch and a screaming match between Jake and Peter where Jake loudly, unnecessarily loudly, demands he retire and stay safe at the ranch, and Peter screams right back how dare you ask me that? You have the same blood, you know why I can't! Jordan has to come down and bang their heads together to get them to stop.

And then they have to go to the hospital because Peter had a head injury a month ago, and Jordan is an idiot, and there's more yelling from Jake about how he's the youngest and shouldn't have to be the most mature and responsible, and they're both yelling back that he isn't.

The doctor threatens to sedate all three of them.

Ted Warren actually sends them to their rooms when they get back.

***

Three weeks later, Jake and Javy are back with the Vigilantes, and Cole looks close to tears when they first walk back into the hangar.

First things first, he destroys them in the sky because Jake's close to surpassing him but not quite there yet and then sits Jake down and offers him a deal.

Their XO can't come back full time, his new baby, born on deployment, has cancer, and they spend a manly moment trying not to cry in Cole's office.

Cole's trying to help him out by covering down as much as he can, but he's only one man, and he was already busy as the Squadron Commander. If he officially replaces him, the XO's career would be derailed, which wouldn't be good for his family, but there aren't a lot of people who would do the job for nothing.

Cole's deal, under the table, is Jake filling in for the XO until he can return, and then when the XO's actual tour is done, Jake will get the job officially, a year ahead of schedule and without requiring a change in duty station.

It will also set him up to take Cole's position when he eventually promotes out.

Jake takes it, obviously.

He's a bit more Earth-bound for the next six months. The senior core of the Vigilantes has been together a while now, and they know Jake, but the new kids are a mess, and more than a few of them are gunning for him after the first week of drills.

It's the unfortunate truth of military life that everyone moves on eventually.

Vixen and Fox rotate out, along with half the squadron Jake deployed with, and while he misses them, they stay in contact and meet up every once and a while to compare lives and commiserate about having to deal with nuggets fresh out of flight school.

Julie returned to her regular squadron after the deployment, and aside from an occasional friendly run-in, Jake never dwells on her. 

She does, however, give him the first news he's had on Bradley and Natasha in years.

Apparently, all three of them ended up at Top Gun one after another, and all three of them took the Trophy.

Jake does give in to the urge to snoop one late night at the office, working his way through a pile of personnel evaluations and abusing his access to the Navy's personnel tracking programs to look them up. 

Bradley's got a reputation as a stellar pilot, strong, steady, and accurate. Loyal to his wingman. Doesn't push limits. Callsign: Rooster, and where the fuck did that come from? Jake's dying to know.

Natasha's a superstar. Commendations up and down her file as a spot-on pilot who knows her aircraft in and out.

Her backseater, Floyd, Jake's surprised to see, has the same. Was with her at Top Gun, and they look like a pretty permanent team.

From the three of them, it devolves into looking up the rest of their cohort. Vikander has a commendation for bravery, and Callie for recovering an aircraft and saving lives. They're battling it out at Top Gun while Jake's looking them up. 

Fitch, Garcia, Lee, Avalone, and Lennox are all doing just as well. They've all knocked out Top Gun at some point, though Jake's ego is pleased to note none of them went as early as Jake and Javy.

And none of them are close to touching the records Jake set, smashing the long-standing numbers from one of the classes in 86.

Looking at their posting histories, it's clear they've all run into one another at least once or twice, and there are a couple of canceled postings to the Vigilantes themselves that surprise him, but Cole would have asked his opinion on them before blocking the posting so they never even made it that far.

Weird how that worked out sometimes.

But it gets pushed aside before Jake can talk himself into contacting any of them. He wants to make Squadron Commander by the time he's thirty-five. He figures that's the best age to aim for to ensure he gets it before he dies. 

It would also be nice to have a relatively stable home base while he was doing that. The Vigilantes are based in Lemoore, with a sister squadron in Texas. There isn't a better posting for Jake to be able to see his family as often as possible while still being able to take deployments and missions all over the world. 

In other words, Jake's not giving up the posting without a fight.

Which is why the orders to North Island, when they come on a warm summer morning, aren't all the welcome (they're pulling him away from the Vigilantes), but they aren't all that unwelcome either (it's not across the world for an unspecified amount of time).

It's not the worst timing either, Cole admits when Jake and Javy show him the orders. 

Aside from being furious at the blindside, he hadn't heard about the orders until they'd told him the XO's baby is finishing her last round of chemo and seems to be in remission. Her father's happy to start coming back so Jake can go. 

They all agree it's temporary, for whatever mission the Navy is so confident its regular squadrons can't handle.

It's exactly the kind of shit Cole hates. And Jake too, as much as his ego likes being chosen, he firmly agrees with Cole's assessment that every pilot should be capable of the most difficult missions instead of just elevating a few and lessening your overall combat power.

So, Jake and Javy cancel plans to visit Texas over the four-day weekend, and instead, they report to North Island and an Admiral none of them have heard of.

Admiral Beau 'Cyclone' Simpson.

***

Beau Simpson is a military legacy, and he can spot another one a mile away. Kids raised in those families have a certain air about them, and the ones that follow into the service even more so.

Beau went through his fair share of hazing about it during training and his first years in and it left him with thick skin and sharp teeth. He takes no shit and offers none. He likes to think he's a straightforward kind of guy, but he also values his career and wants to rise in the ranks, so he's learned to play politics well enough not to get himself blackballed.

It's given him a distinct distaste for things that are uncontrollable. Or people.

Like Captain Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell. Who manages to be the worst of both things, uncontrollable and a military legacy that you can smell long before you can see him.

Lieutenant Jake 'Hangman' Seresin is another military legacy who carries himself with an easy grace that bellies the violence underneath, and Beau can tell the moment he steps into his office. There are recruitment posters less put together than Seresin. 

He can vaguely remember the name Seresin from his early years in the Navy, and going by Seresin's age, his father or uncle or whoever it was within a year of Beau's own cohort. 

He wonders if Seresin's father was a good man or a bad one. It's hard to tell with children that follow their parents in.

Beau's own was middling, but then he joined for the steady paycheck, not to serve his country, and he doesn't understand Beau's own drive.

Seresin's the only pilot of his generation with a confirmed kill. It's a rare thing nowadays. Pitched air battles are a thing of the past, and the last few enemies the US has gone against haven't had an airforce worth noticing. 

That's going to change in the future, and Beau isn't the only one worried about what it's going to take to win.

Seresin's also the only one of his cohort who actually showed up and reported to Beau in person. The rest checked in with CQ and left to settle in, content to wait to be summoned.

Beau likes him.

Even though he ignores his 'it's classified' and asks questions, Beau refuses to answer anyway.

Beau's pretty much decided to make him team leader by the time he leaves, full of fake grace about not having his surprisingly educated questions answered.

It's the first hope Beau sees of this whole situation not becoming a shit show, and he makes a mental note to throw the Lieutenant at Admiral Kazansky when the man inevitably shows up to see how it's going.

That'll show the Admiral for refusing to answer Beau's questions.

And for sticking him with Mitchell.

***

Truth be told, Jake knows how to have a good time, but he's long past spending every evening at a bar like most of the aviators his age. It was a long drive, and Jake would rather jump on Facetime with the kids that go to the Hard Deck, but he gives in to the incessant curiosity to see who else got called in, and he and Javy head over after dropping off their bags.

Javy doesn't actually want to go. He's got a bad feeling and would rather wait, but Jake's always preferred to rip the band-aid off quickly, and he'd rather not face someone who could cause him to lose face in front of the brass on the first day.

And missions like this always have a lot of brass circling.

Turns out Javy was right to be worried.

And Jake was right to rip the band aid off early if the way his mouth runs away with him in the face of Bradshaw was any indication.

God forbid that happened in front of a bunch of Admirals. It's bad enough it happens in what seems to be their entire fucking cohort, who still remember the drama that surrounded their last few months and graduation.

Jake's an outsider from Natasha's 'Bagman' to Slow Ride and beyond.

Also, that crush he had on Bradley…not nearly as gone as he thought.

Javy stays behind while Jake takes a long walk on the beach to settle his nerves. Jake's always felt a bit guilty at how quickly Javy lost the rest of their cohort when he sided with Jake. 

But he's always going to side with Jake.

He texts Celia a warning, and she demands daily updates.

Ted texts him a few minutes later and reminds him to be an adult.

His remaining brothers think it's hilarious, and Jake thinks the others would have too if they were still around. Jake likes to think he's more mature than he is, but he's also aware that he's the baby of the family and his siblings have always spoiled him.

Just a little bit.

But he's definitely spoiled. 

And he's definitely not mature enough to handle being hated by the people that are supposed to be his peers. They're all supposed to grow together in their careers. And they were friends once. 

Jake's aware he's a bit much. He's an asshole, and it's only partially a defense mechanism. He's a private person; there have been so many people just interested in his family or their ranch, and the money they think is there that he's learned to be cautious. 

Seresins tend to be intense in anything they do. In work, where they die in uniform. At home, where they value devotion to family and the land above all else. In love, they only really ever love once Jake thinks. Doesn't know of a single Seresin that ever married twice. Or ever divorced. 

Even the ones that never married really only had one significant relationship in their lifetime. 

Look at Jordan. They'd never made it to marriage, but he was never going to date again. The one time Jake had been brave enough to ask him about it, he'd described it simply enough. The switch was off, and it wasn't going to come back on again. Even if Jordan turned out to be the one Seresin who made it past forty.

I could make it to a hundred, and there would still never be anyone else, baby bro.

Jake had cried for his brother that night. And then he'd cried for himself because he'd already been in his twenties, and half his life was already gone. 

Now he was closing in on thirty, and he had even less time, and he'd still never loved anyone like Jordan had loved her.

Like he still loved her.

Seresins only loved once.

Why waste time when you had so little?

***

Tom Kazansky was a survivor. Prided himself on being adaptable and tough. Smart enough and strong enough to survive being gay in the military in the era of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Adaptable enough to survive the love of his life being Pete Mitchell.

Only God knew the total amount of fast talking he'd had to do over the years to keep Pete out of trouble and in the military because as much as Pete hated taking orders, he loved the institution, and he wouldn't do well forced to leave it.

And he still looked fantastic in the uniform. On the rare occasions Tom could get him to wear it.

This mission had come down from halls even higher than the one Tom walked these days, and Pete had already been attached to it by the time Tom found out, or he would have put the kibosh on it long before Pete ever heard of it. 

There was still a chance that Tom could stop it, but it would burn every bridge that he had, and there was still enough hope that the pilots chosen could pull it off, enough to make him wait and watch. 

The pilots chosen were promising. 

Neil Vikander, callsign Omaha. Decorated for bravery and recognized by his fellow pilots as fun-loving but rock-solid.

Callie Bassett, callsign Halo. One of the most promising female aviators the Navy had ever had and fantastic at thinking on her feet.

Brigham Lennox, callsign Harvard after his alma matter, and the fact that you could tell he was East Coast blue blood the moment he opened his mouth. 

Logan Lee, callsign Lee. Second-generation American whose father had earned their citizenship through his own service. 

Billy Avalone, callsign Fritz. Friendly and well-liked, and reliable. He'd already completed a few special assignments, blessed with an ability to fit in on any team he joined.

Mickey Garcia, callsign Fanboy. Mr. Congeniality, well-liked and quick in the air. A rare breed of WSO that preferred that role to the front seat.

Reuben Fitch, callsign Payback. Matured and steady, didn't cause trouble, and could always be relied on. That went a long way with missions like this.

Javy Machado, callsign Coyote. His command hadn't wanted him to go, had fought the orders coming from Washington over him. His commander Houser, whom Ice hasn't actually met in person either, had clarified the assignment was temporary with capital letters in his email. 

Robert Floyd, callsign Bob. The stealth pilot. Everything about him screams unassuming, so Ice is assuming there's a lot more to him than it seems.

Natasha Trace, callsign Phoenix. Ice probably would have met her by now if he and Pete had handled things better back then. She was held in high regard by almost everyone she'd ever worked with, and those few who didn't, well, Ice could safely assume weren't worth listening to.

Bradley Bradshaw, callsign Rooster. That one hurt to look at. Ice knew exactly how great a pilot he could be and what exactly he needed to work on.

Jake Seresin, callsign Hangman. Ice has heard the gossip about where his callsign came from. The one about the drama around graduation and the one about his confirmed kill. He wants to meet him in person before he decides which one he believes. Houser had thrown an even bigger fit about losing Seresin, and Ice is very, very interested to see what the fuss is about.

God, they're all going to be giant pains in the ass. Like all promising pilots were. 

Pete's going to love every one of them.

***

It doesn't click until Ice is watching them gather in the briefing room through the glass window in the door because even Pete doesn't know he's here yet.

Seresin looks like his father.

Shit.

Davy Seresin's kid. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

Pete won't make the connection. He'd only ever met Davy Seresin in passing, and he had a bad habit of forgetting pilots who didn't give him a run for his money in the air.

But how interesting is it that Bradley is in the same cohort as Seresin?

Someone somewhere is laughing at Ice.

Ice feels bad, but Ice is also very, very smart. 

He's going to gut Seresin to save Bradley.

Hopefully, he gets the chance to apologize later.

***

Bradley Bradshaw has roots so deep nothing can move them. Not natural disasters, not the shifting of the plates, nothing. For a long time, while he was growing up, those roots were dug in with Mav and Ice and his mom and the memories of his dad and that little bungalow on the beach.

Then everything imploded the day he got the letter and realized Mav had torpedo'd his dreams.

He'd ripped his roots up himself, a feat even Mother Nature hadn't been capable of.

It had hurt more than he'd realized when he'd started, but he'd been committed and just so angry. There had been no turning back. 

Thankfully, he'd had the grades to get a scholarship and made friends in ROTC that had given him a couch to sleep on. 

He'd made it, eventually. 

Four years late, and those four years had been haunting him ever since. 

Four years was a long time when you were young, and it had made Bradley an outsider when he'd finally made it to the Navy. He'd managed to make friends, though, thank god, but even now, he still gets cracks about his age.

Seresin had loved to call him 'old man,' though Bradley knows it was a joke more than it was an actual comment on his age. Seresin's an asshole, but not about things like that.

Just flying skills, aviation knowledge, bar games, and the ability to pick up any girl around with just a smile.

God, he was an annoying prick for a while there. Until Bradley realized it was all mostly in jest, that Jake couldn't help himself a lot of the time. It was genuinely funny when it wasn't aimed at Bradley's weak spots.

And Bradley had considered him a friend until things had blown up. As much as he was furious at all of that, he never believed Jake was the one who reported them. 

If nothing else, he'd always respected Natasha too much to tank her career over something like that.

Bradley knows part of it was his own fault.

He'd been rootless then, aimless and floating even though he'd finally achieved his dream and all the angrier for it. Young and stupid and so caught up in finally getting what he wanted that he'd treated not just Natasha but Jake and Javy horribly. 

He'd have apologized to Jake's face if he didn't know Javy would kill him if he came anywhere close to Jake again. Is kind of surprised he made it out of the bar in one piece last night after their confrontation at the pool table.

People love with reckless abandon; his mother used to say, that's what makes it fun.

She'd always had more love to give than anyone Bradley had ever known. 

But it's also been years. Jake's clearly done well for himself, and Bradley and Natasha, after they crashed and burned under the stress of everything, had rebounded stronger than ever as friends.

Maybe that was what they were supposed to be all along, and they'd just been young and stupid and misunderstood.

That would explain why, objectively, Bradley thought Jake was hotter than Natasha. 

The fucker looked like a goddamn recruitment poster come to life, and he knew his shit. Natasha had once confided that she thought the same, though she'd had to get very drunk before she admitted it, and they'd both sworn never to let Jake know.

Years of Navy life, deployments and assignments, and moving from air station to air station, and now they're all back together for some special mission no one knows anything about.

Something about it has made Bradley feel uneasy since he got the orders. 

He's run into the others a few times over the years, all of them good enough friends to pick up where they left off but not to worry too much about staying in contact when they're separated. 

He'd thought about checking in on Jake and Javy every once in a while, especially after he heard about Jake's kill, and had been curious about why he'd never run into them, but he'd just been too afraid.

Jake's an asshole, but Bradley was, too, that night in the bar, and he likes to think he's a good enough guy to let bygones be bygones. 

There's no point in dredging up the past just to hurt people.

Javy is still at Jake's shoulder. The two of them front and center in the front row because, of course, that's where Jake would sit, and of course, Javy wouldn't sit next to anybody else.

They're ride or die, Bradley realized a long time ago when he was bleeding in that parking lot, and when he's really honest with himself, he's kind of jealous.

He thinks his parents were like that. His dad and Mav were for sure with the way Mav and Ice used to talk about him.

Ice and Mav are still like that.

It's unfortunate that all of them being young and stupid and emotional wrecked their friendship.

He gets completely derailed when Maverick walks into the classroom to Simpson's reluctant introduction.

Jake's eyes light up, and Bradley doesn't have to see them to know Jake had a list of the best pilots still flying in training. A list he wanted to fly against and beat. Maverick was at the top of the list.

And now Jake's going to get that chance because Maverick is the one training them for the super-secret mission. 

Maverick.

Someone should have warned him. They owed Bradley that much, and resentment flares, hot and heavy in his stomach. 

This is why he had a bad feeling about this assignment. 

Everything Bradley's been running from just got stuffed into a room with him because Ice is somewhere nearby. There's no way Pete and Bradley are getting reunited like this without Ice somewhere close to deal with the fallout.

Those fucking bastards, and suddenly Bradley is so angry. Again. Just like he was when he left. When he ripped up his roots so thoroughly that he's still bleeding from it, and all he can do is keep bleeding because if he lets it stop and scar over, there's a chance he'll forgive and forget everything, and he can't.

There's so many regrets in this one room it's suffocating. 

Mav manages to look cooly aloof, like an appropriate living legend. His eyes only flicker to Bradley once, and Bradley looks away rather than acknowledge the pain there.

Natasha and Bradley are friends now, but there's still the lingering regret of what could have been that will always tint their friendship, and it's only more poignant because she helped him pick up the pieces after Mav and they ruined things with two others in the room. 

Bradley knows where he stands with Javy, and no amount of regret is going to fix that.

Jake…well, Bradley mostly feels bad that he never apologized face to face, and their run-in at the bar last night proves he needed to. 

This mission is…Bradley can see why the Navy chose to handle it this way. At first glance, it's suicide. 

Between the canyon, the SAMs, the facility itself, and of course, whatever enemy fighters they encounter, there are a lot more ways to die than to succeed. 

It's just up Mav's alley, he thinks bitterly.

How did this mission even get approved?

Then Ice shows up after Simpson finishes briefing, and Mav gives a kind of half-assed pep speech, and everything Bradley and everyone else thought they knew goes out the window because Ice is very clearly only interested in one thing, and it's not Bradley, and it's not Mav, and it's not the mission.

Ice always had a way about him when he walked into a room, relaxed and confident, like there was no way he could take a wrong step.

"Lieutenant Seresin." Looking for tone.

"Admiral Kazansky." Jake drawls, dragging out Ice's name like syrup. Bradley hasn't heard that much Texas since that last night at the bar, where he offered something Bradley couldn't see.

"I've heard about you. You're supposed to be something else."

"I am."

"Gotta admire the ego, if nothing else," Omaha mutters and then falls silent when everyone realizes Jake and Ice haven't broken their staring contest.

"You're Davy Seresin's son."

And Mav's head spins so fast Bradley's convinced he wrenched his neck.

"I am."

"No shit," Mav looks thrilled in a way Bradley hasn't seen before.

Jake and Ice ignore him.

"I flew with your old man over the Gulf. Back in the days of limited autopilot and secret wars that actually stayed secret." 

"People are shit at keeping their mouths shut these days," Jake agrees easily, still sprawled out in his chair like he doesn't even have bones.

Bradley couldn't look that relaxed if he practiced every day of his life. 

"He went to Top Gun," Ice comments, eyes lidded and lips twisted. 

Picking a fight, Bradley realizes just as Mav does. And Mav looks ready to go right in after Ice, and Bradley thinks he might end up on Jake's side just because.

"He did."

"Failed out." Tone locked.

"Yep."

"Died in the air." Firing.

"Old news."

A fight Jake, for once, wasn't jumping in.

"Heard you two have been wingmen since the academy?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you're called Hangman."

"Javy can keep up."

Ice looked amused when his eyes finally flicked to Machado.

"You must be the only Naval Aviator without an ego."

And Javy just shrugged, "I only joined to follow Jake."

"What?!" Fanboy, sputtering, and he wasn't the only one.

But Ice just laughed. 

"Fair enough."

And then he'd stepped back, away, turned to Cyclone. "Sorry to interrupt. I'll be around if you need anything."

"Thank you, Admiral Kazansky."

And Cyclone looked as bewildered as the rest of them as Ice left.

But Bradley's only stuck on one thing as he watches Jake's face carefully NOT change.

He hadn't known Jake's father was a fighter pilot, too.

~tbc~