#bradley mf bradshaw

[topguncortez]

whatever you do… do not think about Bradley playing the piano with his baby on his lap. He plays some small tune and looks down at his lil one, who’s got the same big brown eyes and is like:

“i’m gonna teach you a song your Grandpa Goose taught me how to play.”

okay… GOODNIGHT 😴

[roger-that-cap]

delicate

bradley bradshaw x fem!reader

warnings: cheating (it’s not bradley who does it but it is on the reader), slight emotional cheating, alcohol use, uh that’s it really! unedited as always!

word count: 4.4k

summary: bradley bradshaw has a best friend. he is also in love with his best friend. it’s a shame that everything’s just a little too delicate to mess with.

the way that i’m actively participating in this fandom is literally so funny to me considering i swore off posting my work in any fandom in like 2022 but here we are. my obsession with the white man with the mustache cannot be thwarted by words of the past. or the man with the cute glasses. or the cocky one with the toothpick. but we’ll take it one day at a time

also this is inspired by delicate by taylor swift ofc 🤪 this is for all my lover girls/boys/friends who want hot guys to dream of them. we are cut from the same cloth and we are two sides of the same coins.

Bradley Bradshaw was an outgoing guy. He was the guy that stopped the music just so that he could put on a show of his own. He was the guy that walked in late, expected attention, and got it. He was the guy that took other people out of their shells. He was confident in a way that was endearing. He was steady on his feet and he never faltered.

Until he met you.

The first time he saw you at the Hard Deck, he was intimidated. You were having so much fun on your own with your little group, clearly civilians who ended up in a bar full of sharks in uniform. That first night, all he did was look from afar.

The second time he saw you, your group was a little smaller, but you were still sporting that same smile. He was close enough to hear you turn a few men down over the course of the night, and that was enough to throw him off again. If it was meant to be, he’d see you again, he thought to himself.

And then he saw you again.

It was the night Penny finally put a karaoke machine in the bar. Bradley managed to convince all of the squad to come, simply because he scheduled himself for at least 3 songs. So they all showed up, and just as he was about to start thinking of what his opener was going to be, the bar music stopped and the karaoke machine started playing, accompanied with girly laughter.

There you were. Standing right at the front of the room with sunglasses over your face and a mic to your lips, fighting a smile as you started a one woman rendition of “End Game” by Taylor Swift.

It was clear by the grin on your face that you were doing it purely to make your friends laugh. He watched you in awed silence, dancing all over the small space and laughing when you took a misstep.

“She’s more ballsy than even you, Bradshaw,” Hangman said, nodding up to you dancing. “Or maybe the word is obnoxious.”

“She’s so cute,” Natasha said, laughing. “I love it.”

“Big reputation, BIG reputation,” you were saying into the mic, leaning halfway over.

“I’d have to be so drunk to do that,” Bob muttered to himself, but even he couldn’t deny the guts it took to go up there even as a joke.

The song ended, and you kindly handed the mic to the man standing at the machine, a sheepish look on your face until you were surrounded by your laughing friends.

“You gonna top that, Bradshaw?” Jake asked, and then Bradley looked over at you again, still smiling.

“I’ll let the bar cool down and prepare for me,” Bradley said, still looking over at you. It was then that Jake caught him.

“Why don’t you go talk to her?”

“Huh?”

“You should talk to her,” Jake repeated, and Bradley frowned at him. “She's pretty. Looks nice enough.” There was a pause, and then that ever-mocking smirk that came to haunt everyone’s dreams. It meant Jake was up to something. “Or I will.”

So, he did. He walked up to you, thinking it couldn’t possibly be that bad. The worst thing you could do was say “no”, and he would take that in stride. He never had to before, but he would if it meant he could just talk to you. Just see.

He was walking up to you, coming from behind, and then it was like you knew he was coming, because you whipped right around. And then he caught your eyes and all he could say was, “I love your hair.”

He kicked himself in that moment, but he realized afterwards that was probably what saved him. It was a strange comment, but it was better than a sleazy one. It was probably the only reason you didn’t tell him to leave you alone right away.

“Thanks!” You looked him up and down, but it wasn’t super flirtatious- you were just looking, like you were searching for a genuine compliment to give him. You just looked so sweet. “That mustache and shirt combo is awesome. I wish I could pull off colors like you.”

And that was the story of how you and Bradley became close friends. In the beginning, he told himself that he was okay with being just friends with the pretty middle school teacher. He was totally okay with you having a boyfriend, because he was your friend, and only that. But every time he saw you smile and laugh or how passionate you were while creating your lesson plans, he couldn’t help but know that he was lying to himself.

It didn’t help that your boyfriend was a piece of shit. Originally he wasn’t one outright, it was just the little things. He walked on the wrong side of the sidewalk. Bradley witnessed him make you split the tab at the bar. He had a wandering eye. He touched you only when another man got close, almost like he was guarding a treasure rather than protecting the love of his life. It was all wrong, and it all left a sour taste in Bradley's mouth.

The sour taste only got worse when five months into knowing you, that same good for nothing boyfriend of yours got another girl pregnant.

Bradley could have sworn that he was going to get discharged for beating up an enlisted man the first time he heard the news. You were crying, bawling your eyes out over the phone in the middle of the night, crying so hard you were nearly throwing up. You told him that you were calling him because you had nowhere to go and you had to get out of your house. He didn’t blame you. In fact, he had never driven so fast.

So, you stayed at his house that night. One night turned into three, and then three nights turned into a week, and it snowballed from there. At first, it was easy to hide his feelings. You were sad, and making a move was the last thing on his mind. All he wanted was for you to feel better, and soon you eventually did. But his selfish mind almost wished that you never had, because the second you started smiling again in his house, in such close quarters to each other, he felt his resolve slipping.

He felt the words coming on the tip of his tongue every morning. You left earlier than him to go to your classroom and set up, and you always left coffee out for him. Sometimes you made his eggs if you had enough time. You made dinner more often than not, insisting on doing that if he wasn’t going to charge you for staying with him. And then you would pick the best movies and you liked the ones he picked, too. You sang in the shower and the bathroom you used always had makeup and face wash and a comb in it, but you still kept it neat. The words were close to escaping his mouth, but when he clamped his teeth down and held it in, it made that same sour taste that your boyfriend did.

That very sour taste in his mouth was there at the bar when he realized he was watching you far too often for it to be friendly. The last thing he wanted to do was make it seem like he was trying to make a move on you while you were clearly still trying to get over what your ex had done.

“You’d better get your girl, Bradshaw,” Jake drawled, and Bradley rolled his eyes.

“She’s not my girl and she’s a grown woman, she can do what she wants,” he said tiredly, his voice so monotonous that the words sounded rehearsed. He knew that all his friends knew that they were, and it seemed like everyone but you had caught on to the hopeless romantic act he was hiding.

“Well, she never drinks and she doesn’t look like she’s handling it too well.” And then Bradley’s head whipped to the side, just where he knew you were.

Just as Jake said, you were walking up to the karaoke machine, an equally drunk Natasha by your side as you looked through the selection, no doubt about to pick something obnoxious. You weren’t as alert as you usually were, and it worried him. You hated being out of it, that’s why you never drank. He walked up to you quickly, knowing that if you started a song there was no taking you away until it was over.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Bradley said from behind you, and he saw your shoulders tense. “I think it’s time to wrap it up.”

“Wrap it up?” You slurred, looking up at him with those pretty eyes that always made his heart skip a beat. “Wrap it up?!” Natasha grimaced at you and then at him, already knowing exactly where it was going. “You know who didn’t wrap it up-”

“It’s okay, that’s not what he meant,” Nat rushed out, turning to look at Bradley. Natasha was one of those that could be four times over the legal limit and no one would no. He envied her in that regard. You were clearly the opposite.

“I just wanted to sing a song,” you said, poking Bradley’s firm chest. “You gonna let me sing a song, Rooster?” There was something about the way you said his callsign that had his cheeks going red. You always called him Bradley, except for when you had that one look in your eye, the one that really had him biting his tongue. “You gonna get off that perch and sing with me?”

“I think it’s time to drop you off at your place,” he assured you without even thinking, but he immediately wanted to swallow his own words when Natasha shook her head rapidly.

“I got kicked out,” you hiccuped, giving him a pointed look. “I sleep in your bed, remember?” You had no idea how much he wanted that to be true.

“Not in my bed,” he corrected quickly when Natasha’s brows shot upward. “In my house.”

“Well, you should probably take her home before she starts a song,” Nat whispered. “She was about to pick “Cowboy Casanova”, that was going to be a disaster.”

He chucked a bit as he touched your arm, his heart fluttering as you looked up at him with your pretty, expressive eyes. His laugh died in his throat. “A-are you ready?”

“Do I get a Bronco ride?”

“You sure do,” he said, and then you two were walking out in the night.

It was easy to get you in the car. You were an easy drunk, just loud. He buckled you up easily and shut the door as you started your own rendition of some Taylor Swift song you had probably told him to listen to.

After your song ended, the ride was quiet. He was happy with the quiet. He was happy because that meant he didn’t have to open his mouth to talk, which meant that he could physically roll his lips shut. Closed lips meant that there was no possibility of him saying something and fucking up a good time. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that you were grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re all smiles now,” he couldn’t help but point out, and he saw you turn towards him.

“You make me smile,” you said easily, still drunk, but it made his heart skip regardless.

Once again, the ride was quiet besides the purring of his Bronco and the occasional blinker noise. Even the music was turned down, but your head was bobbing to some imaginary beat. He couldn't help but make himself see this as a nicer moment than it really was, as a sweeter moment. In reality, he was taking you home because you were about to drunkenly sing a Carrie Underwood song that was going to have you feeling humiliated by the morning. In his mind, he was simply taking you home and making sure you got inside safely. In his mind, it was a simple night, free of drama. There was certainly no cheating boyfriend and no tears.

“What do you dream about?”

Your quiet yet certain tone broke the tension in the atmosphere of his Bronco. “What?”

And then you spoke again, somehow sounding completely sober. “What do you dream about, Bradley?”

“Uh,” he said, feeling his cheeks get a little pink. “I guess it depends.”

“Sometimes I can’t help but wonder-” a small burp escaped your lips— definitely drunk—, “do you ever dream of me?”

His heart stopped. He was so glad you were drunk. There was no way you were going to be able to remember the way he uncharacteristically stuttered or didn’t respond for a few seconds. There was no way you’d remember the flush of his cheeks under the bright light.

“W-what?”

You seemed deadly serious. “Do you ever dream of me?”

“I…” almost to his place. Almost to his place. “I think about you a lot,” he settled on saying, his voice much higher than usual.

“Thinking is nice. I can take thinking as the answer. At least thinking is on purpose,” you reasoned with yourself, seemingly to have forgotten he was even there to begin with. “But dreaming is different.”

He was intrigued. His heart was racing, and his hands felt sweaty on the steering wheel. “How so?”

“Dreaming is you being unable to escape a thought,” you said, and he wondered just how you were managing to get your point across so easily while being so smashed. “Dreaming of someone would mean that you think of them even when you’re not thinking. Your subconscious mind lies with them. It’s deeper.”

You were right. He hadn’t thought about it that way, but you were right. There were plenty of things that he swore he was over that he still had nightmares about and every time they happened, he had to face the music.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really hope you think about me enough to see me in your dreams.”

He couldn’t say anything. What was he supposed to say? That he certainly did, and that every free moment his mind had meant that it was a free for all full of you and everything about you? Hell, he had once even thought about what your next classroom theme could be. You were that embedded into his mind.

“Wait, is it cool that I said all that?” You asked, blinking up at him slowly as the car came to a stop in your driveway. “I just get really in my head sometimes, sorry if I ruined tonight,” you said, shaking your head with a huge smile, as if you didn’t just rock his entire world in a ten minute drive. “Okay, goodnight.” And then you were jumping out of the car.

“Woah,” he called, racing around from his side and picking you up off the ground. You were laughing, clearly not aware that you had just fallen all over the cement of his driveway. You held onto his arm as he walked the both of you up to his front door, and you almost tripped on a crack in the cement.

“My keys.” You had them in your hand, and for a second, he just watched you calmly struggle with that stupid little smile on your face, like you had all the time in the world as the key kept missing the hole that it didn’t even belong to. “Maybe it’s the wrong door.”

He couldn’t help but laugh when he took the keys from you, already halfway forgetting your conversation from earlier. He held onto your keys as he unlocked his door with his own. He opened the door easily and let you in, prepared to tell you goodnight and go right to his room and try to forget the other was right on the other side of the wall, like you two had done so many times before.

“Where ya going?” Before he could even answer, you frowned at him. “You’re ditching me?”

He turned back around. “Do you need help?”

“I’m a big girl, I can take my dress off,” you said with a grin. “But I- I don’t know. I don’t wanna be alone yet.”

“Okay,” he breathed out. “Okay, you don’t have to be alone.”

And so you weren’t. He stood at the doorway of his guest bathroom, the one that had the makeup and pink towel and even a pink rug. He had given up the space to you without second thought, and as he watched you dart around in it and start to take your hair down and take your makeup off, he couldn’t help but feel his heart swell. You looked so comfortable in his house. It was all he ever wanted wrapped up in just one moment.

“Do you wanna know what broke me the most?” You asked out of the blue as you started to wipe your lipstick off, eyes connecting with his in the mirror. You took a deep breath to wind up for the next round of words even without his response. He knew that you were going to talk regardless. It was one of the things he loved about you.

“I wasn’t even sad about the fact that he cheated. I was happy.”

He was thrown on his ass again by you. You had a habit of taking his breath away more than once a day, probably once every two hours or so to be exact, but this was different. You were pulling no punches. You were throwing hand grenades in the form of words tonight, and he wasn’t even sure you were aware of it.

“It gave me an excuse to leave him. But then there was three or so moments and I realized the reason I was okay with it was because I was finally free of guilt, because the whole time I was with him- I’m an awful person,” you started sobbing and you let yourself sink to the floor, sitting on the pink rug. His brows lifted to his forehead for a split second before he went right down to the ground with you, and his hand found your skin and your back soothingly.

“You’re not a bad person, not even close.” He shook his head. You were an angel. He was genuinely convinced of that.

“I wanted you the whole time.” you slurred, eyes wide but not as present as he wanted them to be. Not while you said the exact words that he had been harboring since what felt like the beginning of time. “Almost ever since I met you. And I can’t help but feel sick when I think about how what he did is my karma.”

He was in shock. He didn’t know if he was more surprised about the fact that you were being so open about something that he was so hush-hush about, or about the fact that you said you wanted him. You wanted him. This was something out of his wildest dreams- just as you had predicted. And then he crashed back down to reality and realized you were drunk off your ass in a party dress, so fucked up that your legs were going every which way and your lipstick was smeared.

“Nothing happened, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he said quietly, ignoring the fact that his stomach felt like it was doing a Simone Biles level floor routine.

“But I would’ve,” you admitted, “if you had given me the sign.” Your bottom lip wobbled, and then you were full on sobbing. “I’m a disgusting person. Awful. Oh my god,” you whined, hands over your face as you hyperventilate on his wooden floor.

You were fucked up.

You were so gone, there was no denying that. He forced himself to let the words go in one ear and out the other, and when he took a few deep breaths of his own, he realized that you were still crying.

“You’re not a bad person, I promise.” You didn’t say anything, but after a few moments, he was sure you weren’t going to change your mind. “I think you’ll feel better if we cleaned you up.”

Your mascara was running, your lipstick was still smeared, and you kind of looked like a hot mess, but you were still gorgeous to him. You always would be. You didn’t say anything, and he took a makeup wipe from the counter and without a word started to wipe your face.

It was a silent exchange. Probably because the both of you were too scared to say much else. You let him wipe your face off and then he helped you stand. You let him take your heels off for you. He left for a few seconds and came back with some of your clothes, the nice pajamas he knew you liked to sleep in, and then started the shower and left. You were in and out.

When you were all done, he was sitting at the table. It was late, but he was drinking a beer with his back turned to you. He heard you clear your throat, and he had to stop himself from jumping.

“Goodnight,” you said quietly, and when he said it back, he heard you turn around and walk back to the room he had given you, and the door hut.

He wasn’t going to sleep well at all.

§§

It was Sunday morning. The worst morning for this situation to be happening. If it was a weekday, you would’ve already been gone, at least. He would have had the whole day to think about how to go about it. But it was Sunday morning, and neither of you went to church. You were stuck.

He didn’t expect you to be up. He knew that he could probably walk to the kitchen and be in the living room for most of the morning without you coming out. Your hangover had to be awful. So, he padded out of his bedroom, rubbing his face and going straight to the coffee pot.

That already had coffee in it.

“Hi.” His entire posture changed.

How he had entirely missed you sitting at the table, he didn’t know. But there you were, a cup of coffee in your hands and a small smile on your face.

You were beautiful. He didn’t know how you didn’t look like you were hit by a bud considering how messed up you were last night, but how could you ever? You always looked so out together and so cute. Of course you could smile with a hangover.

“Good morning,” he said, his raspy voice coming out surprised. He was looking at you cautiously, not quite sure if you remembered what happened. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” you said, now you were grinning. “It was so nice. Peaceful.” He decided that you definitely didn’t remember a thing, and he relaxed.

He ignored the wave of sadness that came with the loss of tension.

“What about you?” You asked, genuinely wondering, and he sighed. “You have any dreams?” He took a look at you from over the coffee mug he was drinking from. “You know I minored in psych, I love dreams.”

“No, no dreams,” he said, trying to shut out that whole conversation from last night. “I just can’t believe you’re waking up so… happy. Everyone but me and Bob was so drunk.”

“I had a rough night? I cried a lot, huh?” You asked, and he almost laughed in wonder. How did you not realize that he was literally in love with you? How could you forget that the words you said last night were probably the most important ones he had ever heard?

“Yeah, but it’s okay. Everyone has a rough night every once in a while. I’m surprised you don’t have a headache or anything.”

“Yeah. It’s probably canceled out because of the lack of stress I feel now,” you said, and he nodded his head when he assumed that you were talking about shedding the skin of the man that was holding you back. “It was real nice to get all that off my chest.”

He froze.

You were just drinking from your mug, making annotations in your book. He was staring at you with wide eyes as he tried to understand what to make of what you just said. “Thanks for taking my makeup off, too. That would have ruined my skin progress.”

Holy shit, you remembered everything. “What?”

You had to be playing with him. There was no other way. You finally shut your book, and then you leaned forward on your hands and looked at him with your eyes, one of his biggest weaknesses. “I meant everything I said, Bradley.”

“You remember?”

“Yeah, I always do,” you said, shrugging your shoulders. “That's why I don’t drink. I do things I normally wouldn’t but I never have the luxury of forgetting, so I always wake up embarrassed.”

Did you realize that you were holding his heart in your hands? “Are you embarrassed now?” Please don’t be embarrassed that you said those things. Please don’t be embarrassed because they’re not true. God, let it all be true.

“Only if you want nothing to do with me,” you said softly, looking at him with such vulnerability that it made his heart skip a beat.

“Are you kidding?” He finally said, and he knew then that you were right about letting the feeling lift off of his chest. “You’re in my dreams almost every night, that’s gotta count for something.”

You made the first move to get to him. He realized then that you were a master at making the first move- he had only done it once (after striking out twice) but you had done it twice in two days. And then you were all in his space, breaching it with a certain confidence that made him weak in the knees. It made him want to hold you and hold onto you.

“Almost?” you asked, and as he looked down at you from so close up, he knew what he had already suspected to be true; he was a goner. “I want every dream.”

“Who would I be to deny you?” And then he made a move of his own, kissing you and effectively tying the score 2-2.

*******

AH

[swiftsgirlfriend]

i think he knows his hand around a cold glass make me wanna know that body like its mine…

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: let’s have some happiness around these parts for once!!

[nanazillastic]

Am i using one of my weirdly seen posts to try and manifest a stupid crossover into existence? Well yes indeed, hear me out: 👐Hangster x Much Ado About Nothing👐

I was watching for the 5665667th time Much Ado about Nothing, and the vibes between Bradley/Jake and Beatrice/Benedick are UNCANNY! Embittered exes who are seeing each other after a considerable time apart and trade sassy barbs without missing a beat every time they share the same space and (as in the general fandom consensus regarding TGM post canon and headcanon) get together thanks to hijinks and the meddling of their friends???? Immaculate, perfect, no notes, chef kiss.

Mind you, i'd never write it, but i would die laughing if i ever see this fanfic out there in the wild.

[kloofspeaks]

Something about Rooster and Phoenix teasing Bob about his sight brings me life.

"Why are you actually super blind?"

"Because- my eyes failed the eye test."

"See, this is why we shouldn't call people with glasses smart- THEY FAILED THE EYE TEST"

"You know, I think Rooster has a point-"

"Bob, you can't say anything about a grown man yelling about eyes while he's also wearing lightning mcqueen crocs."

"What can I say? Everyday we stray further and further from God."

*Phoenix face palming while Bob and Rooster continue to talk about the eye test*

[lnfours]

blurb night to celebrate my reputation era

[bradshawsbitch]

Calling Bradley “chicken man” is something I will never recover from LMFAO

hehehe yes, I love the notion of calling Bradley 'chicken man' when you're a bit peeved at him and he's acting a fool! 😈

and on the other hand on the spectrum, I love the thought of affectionately calling him your 'baby chicken' whenever he's being a sweet little Rooster!🥹💕

[minilpark]

electronic lover by breathe electric blasting in the ford bronco while you and rooster go for a joyride wearing matching aviators

[supernaturaldawning]

He’s so pretty 😍

I should be focusing on work but instead my mind is on our fine ass gentleman here 💛

[topguncortez]

Partition by Yonce is Bradley coded.

oh fuck yeah it is. I'm thinking of Bradley with a younger girl (maybe 22-23), she's very eager and sometimes can't keep her hands to herself. Bradley of course does not do a thing to discourage this (occasionally he'll tell her to stop and keep her hands to herself) but most of the time. . . she's got him wrapped around her finger.

Imagine being at the Hard Deck, you and Bradley have both been drinking, and Jake offers to drive you home (for whatever reason, let's say his parents are flying in tomorrow he's not drinking). Bradley knows that when there's alcohol flowing through your veins, you get even friskier.

So you two are sitting in the back of Jake's truck, and you've got your hands all over Bradley. You're kissing him, touching him, palming him through his jeans. Bradley has your legs over his lap, one arm around your back and his hand gliding up your thigh. Jake looks back at you in the rearview and is like

"Y'all better not fuck in my backseat. I just got Baby detailed," and you flip him off cause you have every intention of fucking Bradley wherever you can.

Bradley takes Jake's words to heart (kinda) and pulls away from you which makes you whine audibly, "You heard him, honey, no fucking in the backseat." You pout and cross your arms over your chest, pushing your tits up in your tank top which makes Bradley look directly at them, "Don't pout, we'll be home soon."

But then you get an idea and Bradley watches as the gears in your head start to turn and a smirk rises on your face. He watches you as you pull your hair into a ponytail and move a bit in your seat so you're eye level with his crotch.

"Honey," Bradley warns, as your hands go to his zipper.

"It's not fucking," You whisper and Bradley has no other choice but to lift his hips as you pull down his pants and boxers, his hard dick slapping against his lower stomach. You lick a stripe from his balls to his tip and he groans, throwing his head back. You giggle before you spit on his dick, using your hand to lube him up. You take his tip into his mouth and his hand goes to your hair, wrapping your ponytail around his hair and guides your movements up and down his shaft.

Bradley can't hide his grunts and moans, which causes Jake to look through the rearview, seeing his friend getting sucked off.

"Really?! You couldn't wait?!" Jake rolls his eyes as he comes to a stop at a red light.

"It wasn't me," Bradley shrugs as you gag on his cock, "She can't keep her hands to herself."

"Yeah sure," Jake rolls his eyes and looks back at the red light. But like a car accident on the freeway, Jake can't help but take a glance into his backseat again.

"Hey, eyes front," Bradley says, kicking the back of his seat.

"eYeS fRoNt" Jake mocks as he continues to drive back to Bradley's house. Bradley looks down at you, smirking as you look up at him, your mouth full of his dick.

[bradleysweetheart]

thinking abt what bradley’s reaction would be to my mom since she is literally meg ryan’s doppelgänger 😭😭😭

[lovingjakeseresin]

IM IN DESPERATE NEED OF TOP GUN MOOTS HERE PLEASE HELP ME!!

[compacflt]

Okay maybe I totally missed it in the story, but I’ve gotta ask: how did Jake find out about Ice and Mav?? I know there was a line about “figuring out who Bradley’s dads were” in Debriefing, and it seems like Jake definitely knows by the carrier for the mission, given how he reacts when Bradley says he’s gay and that they “hate him for not being able to hide it like them”, but when was the discussion about exactly what Ice and Mav are to each other? At what point did Bradley tell him, and how long did Jake spend staring at a wall and saying “huh” in a dazed sort of way???

i admit i made it confusing on purpose and i admit there isn’t much of jakes reaction but yes

it’s the third “he was my dad.” specifically about ice. whereas the other two are about goose & mav. because, you know, there are three of them. dads, that is. ice just happens to be the third

Jake canonically doesn’t know what’s up with the holy dad trinity because he doesn’t even react to seeing goose btwn ice (fucking cdr of the pacflt) and mav (his fucking CO) in that old top gun photo —only cares about goose. clueless-ass mf. and the homosexual little “what is with these two!” during the first practice dogfight.

but i bet there were clues. a lot of little things that eventually came together.

a.) scrolling through the navy times on his laptop in bed cause he’s bored one night, tilting it over so bradley can see the screen and read the headline, ‘RADM tom Kazansky named pacific fleet commander,’ just randomly asking “whaddaya make of this guy?” and next to him bradley freezes and almost refuses to speak and then snipishly says, “he’s gay.” / “what?” what a wild thing to say! / “i just know it. he’s gay. look at him. hiding it like that.” / “what a weird fucking thing to say about a guy you’ve never met, bradshaw!” / and bradley going all silent and sullen the way he does sometimes and saying “well i don’t think anything of him. whatever.” / and then both of them put it from their minds and never talk about it again.

B.) all the quiet little dad-related breakdowns over the years. Father’s Day is never happy when bradley’s around. jake made the mistake of asking him why, once. he said something to the effect of “well with three of them you’d think id be statistically likely to get a dad who wasn’t unbelievably fucked-up or dead but nope! it’s three times as bad as usual!” and refused to elaborate. bradley is often annoying this way.

c.) the fact that capt mitchell, maverick, who looks like a gracefully-aging movie star, is by all accounts nice and charming and mostly-ish respected, and yet apparently chronically single, a confirmed bachelor for as long as most officers can remember. hondo knows something, clearly, but he’s being very cagey about it, apparently out of loyalty to maverick. even on day ONE of the special training detachment at Top Gun, there are rumors. Some more mean-spirited than others (looking at you, harvard) which Jake tries to shut down, because he remembers being on the receiving end of mean-spirited rumors like that, and rumors about a guy like maverick probably aren’t true. ‘I’ve heard about him. Whispers. Watch him the next time we hit the Hard Deck. He’ll flirt with Penny the bartender, and she’ll flirt back, but he sure as hell won’t take her home. You know what I mean.’ Yeah right. dangerous to make comments about a man like maverick. jake keeps his mouth shut.

d.) but then there’s the way bradley acts around him. They’ve met before and they know each other and there is not only bad blood between them, it’s blood that’s been simmering for a while and just now boiling over. Three dads. the maverick-related rumors. hmm…

e.) that picture of goose and mav and ice. OKAY. Now we’re getting somewhere. Bradley’s dad… LTJG nick bradshaw… FLEW with maverick. Looks up the obituary online and reads the news reports he can find in the archives. Maverick was behind the stick when goose ate it. Okay. Two out of three dads found and accounted for. (Because they’re broken up, and because jakes still heartbroken, this fact will be used as ammunition. “Or that maverick was flying when his—“ “YOU SON OF A BITCH!” et cetera et cetera.)

f.) on the flight deck shaking hands with the commanding officer of every commanding officer jake has ever dad—admiral tom kazansky, come to wish the aviators good luck, and to sanction their attack. this is, like, a big deal. like a really big deal. like, makes you wanna stop and ask him for a selfie to post on your LinkedIn to advance your career kind of big deal. but out of the corner of his eye… jake’s noticing Bradley on the verge of a dad-related breakdown. bradley doesn’t seem to care how much of a big deal it is to have the privilege to shake the hand of the commander of the pacific fleet. isn’t even looking. something big and hateful between them. something like bad blood. oh oh oh. wait. It’s coming together.

g.) poking fun at him. psyching him out. what’s a little pre-suicide-mission hazing between exes? what is with you, bradshaw? you’re, like, freaking out over here..! —and Bradley, looking for someone—anyone!—to trust, tugging him into his cabin on the aircraft carrier and bursting into tears and crashing down onto the linoleum into jake’s arms and saying “he was my dad…!”

h.) bingo.

[stillsaltyaboutmcr]

Top Gun Masterlist

Series:

Jake Seresin

I will always be here for you- COMPLETED (for now)

part one

part two

part three

part four

part five (finale)

Hangover- in progress

part one

part two

part three ****

****(reader discretion HEAVILY advised, contains heavy and dark themes, and is NOT needed to read to understand part 4 when I release it.)

Bradley Bradshaw:

The Crash- in progress

part one

part two

part three

part four

One Shots:

Jake Seresin:

Pain in The Neck

-in which the Dagger Squad find out why you always call Jake a pain

Voice of an Angel

-you go to Jake’s side for Christmas and he hears you sing for the first time at a church service

Badass with a Stuffy

-in which Jake finds out you still sleep with a stuffed animal

Bradley Bradshaw/Bob Floyd:

Ace of Spades

-during the uranium mission, you show them how you got your call sign

Bradley Bradshaw/Jake Seresin:

They get like this when they’re drunk

-in which you get stuck taking care of the boys when they’ve had too much alcohol

If it’s all the same to you (18+)

-you see Bradley show up with another girl to Natasha’s birthday and you decide to get even with none other than Jake mf Seresin

If only you had stayed (18+ perferred)

-You met Jake the summer he got into Top Gun. It was a whirlwind romance that ended as quickly as it begun. You didn’t think anything of it until two pink lines appeared and he was suddenly hard to contact. Now, 7 years have gone by and you’re blessed with a little girl that unfortunately reminds you too much of her dad. Somewhere in those seven years, you met Bradley who stepped in to help without a word. Now you’re engaged and happy living your life as a family, until Brad gets a call that relocates you all to where it began.

[sunlightmurdock]

Okay so I have some head cannons for a fic I literally will never write and they’re bouncing around my head so here’s one! It’s basically part of the classic “younger reader, working at penny’s before getting a big girl job, sexual tension ect ect”

rooster like paying for you to get your nails done when he’s away on deployment. You don’t know he’s done it and it’s cute that he thought about it and you get a nice lil reminder that he’s thinking of you and taking care of you even when he’s not physically there. You send him photos each time you get them done, and maybe sometimes they’re titty pics or sometimes it’s a lil message about how you can’t wait to run your fingers through his hair. For the last ones before he comes home, you decide to get his initial and you text Phoenix if you should get an R or a B. She replies “R will make him hot, B will make him mushy”. You had been thinking B for Bradley but you realise it could also be Bradshaw and that implication of branding yourself not just has his girl but his wife, his family, is where Phoenixs mind jumps to. He’s all pumped up on like macho military juice when he comes home anyway, high off the successful missions and ego stroking so going for the call sign will just play into that. He doesn’t notice you have a small R on your right hand ring finger at first, too caught up in the big reunion to notice small details. Maybe at dinner or something he sees your hand wrapped around your wine glass and notices it. Maybe it’s when you’ve got your hand wrapped round his dick or pressing up his chest when you go down on him. Either way he loses it. His girl telling everyone she’s his.

I never have my nails done bc my neurodivergent ass can’t take it but fuck me

The R on your thumb when your hands are around his dick????

His girl telling everyone she’s his????

I’m feral. I’m losing it. Rooster would lose it. You’d be in the backseat of that bronco so mf fast.