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twosroos · 2 years

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hello, nurse!

chapter five: slowly, then all at once

( bradley “rooster” bradshaw x oc, eden benjamin )

(previous chapter) (next chapter)

Hangman's a dick, Penny's keeping secrets, and Eden just wants her pilots to survive this mission. But, the ice finally cracks, and Eden goes under.

word count: 4332

notable characters: penny benjamin, pete “maverick” mitchell, bradley “rooster” bradshaw, jake "hangman" seresin

tws: cursing, shouting, physical fights

ao3 link! (features authors notes :D!)

Penny manages to escape Eden all weekend. This is weird, but unsurprising when a call from Maverick brings the team to the gym every day– Eden included to make sure everyone's doing their reps of every sort of training exercise possible. She knew they needed to be in top shape, but not this much.

She’s also surprised with how much Bob can deadlift. It’s scary.

But Monday rolls around with little to no enthusiasm, and No Penny as evident by the still packaged chicken in the fridge and Eden suddenly regrets her attempts to push her mother into talking. Amelia’s seen Penny more than Eden has and when she does, Penny says she’s just working a lot. Maverick pulls the same lame excuse as to why he doesn't show up at training– on the gym or the tarmac. Eden tries to not let it bother her, but it does. People are keeping secrets from her, usually, it doesn’t bother her but when it’s her own mother hiding her only other living family– she gets a little upset.

Monday’s class goes horribly, even though no one crashes, it’s like the team decided to hate each other overnight. Though she expects it from Hangman because he’s always a dick. But now, everyone's fighting everyone else and she thinks it’s finally the breaking point she’d subconsciously seen building up. Though they get through training fine, but when they can’t perform up to Maverick’s standards, it starts a fight. Maverick isn’t helping either, he’s pushing them into the right and pushing them harder and harder with training. Eden knows it’s because of his desperation to have everyone come home safe— but not even she escapes his snappy comments.

Though, things hit a head, as they always do. Eden’s not even entirely sure what happened, considering she’d been sitting and contemplating calling her mom and telling her they didn’t have to talk about her dad. She’s too wrapped up in her own thoughts to do her usual of diffusing the class. And it’s obvious because they’re getting more and more upset at the moment. But if Eden had been paying attention, she would’ve been able to stop them. Or, hindsight is 20/20 and she knows she couldn’t have done a thing.

“We’re going into combat, on a level that no one has ever seen before. Not even him. And we need pilots who are able to handle it.” Hangman’s voice drones in Eden’s ear. She tries to tune him out, but she can’t do it for long.

“And I know I'm not the only one who knows Mav flew with Rooster’s old man.” Hangman comments and Eden feels a chill run down her spine. She sits up straighter, head lifting from her notes about the mission details, eyes narrowing as she watches as the room tenses and she realizes just how much of the conversation she’d missed. Maverick goes to open his mouth to comment, but quickly shuts it.

“Shut up.” Bradley bristles and Eden stands sharply from where she sits at a desk behind Maverick when she notices Bradley scoot forward in his chair. She eyes Bob and Payback, who are behind Rooster, and they nod to her as if they understand– ‘I’ll grab him if it goes south.’

“And I know, I’m not the only one who knows,” Hangman stands up and Eden takes a step closer to him as if trying to force him to back down. He doesn’t. Noticing this, Maverick moves a bit closer too and the room shifts, everyone is expecting something to happen, who moves first, though, is the question.

“Watch it, Seresin,” Eden calls, Maverick steps closer again, now between Eden and the pilots. Eden shifts, her shoe squeaking, and Maverick’s arm swinging out to sit protectively in front of her.

“Enough.” He snaps through his teeth, eyeing Hangman, but why would Jake listen to anyone but himself?

“Maverick was flying during the training exercise that killed–” Hangman can’t even finish whatever bullshit he’s going to spew because Bradley’s launching across the room and shoving him. Shouting erupts from the hanger, Eden goes to grab Hangman’s arm and is shoved back from an elbow to her nose that immediately burns in pain, but she doesn’t falter. Bob, Coyote, and Omaha get a good grip on Rooster, but he breaks free of it and is punching Hangman in the face only a second later, and narrowly avoiding also hitting Maverick who’s tried to shove himself between the two of them.

“Stop!” Eden shouts, trying again to shove Hangman away from Bradley when he beats her to it, trying to move her out his path he ends up sending her falling over. She collapses onto her back, thrown away from the group as she looks up and watches as Hangman swings and manages a pretty good uppercut on Rooster. In a panic, and now in pain, Eden scrambles back as she shakily stands and holds her head and under her nose, cursing to herself as she watches red blood drip into her palm. She moves away from the fight as the two are ripped apart and Maverick moves to stand between them.

“Cool it!” Maverick demands and Hangman laughs, a bloody nose complimenting his flushed face as he pants with a sick satisfied grin.

“I’m cool, I’m fucking cool.” Hangman shakes off Halo and Phoenix, who both roughly shove him as he tries. Something flashes across Phoenix’s eyes, as she turns towards where she had last seen Eden and doesn’t see her there anymore. But her eyes catch Eden’s phone, which was tucked neatly in her front pocket, lying face first on the floor.

Hangman continues his just downright awful tirade, “He’s not cut out for this mission– look at the aggression, Maverick! He’s not .”

“Cut it out, Seresin!” Maverick steps closer to him.

“Fuck you!” Bradley roars, trying to move forward again, but Bob’s grip on his shoulder is unrelenting as the rest of the pilots move forward to push him back again.

“You know I’m right, Maverick,” Hangman says, turning to leave when he stops dead in his tracks when he catches Eden’s eyes. Tucked away behind Maverick’s podium, Eden holds a hand to her nose, blood gushing out and pooling on the concrete beneath her. It looks like a crime scene, but somehow nothing is on her clothes.

“ Shit . Eden, I–” He says and that's when Maverick snaps.

“Get the fuck out of this hanger and go to the Admiral's office, now, Seresin. Bob, Coyote, accompany him and make sure he gets there. I’ll meet you there.” Maverick points and Bob is quick to move from Rooster's shoulders to Hangman’s side with a glare. Without hesitation, Coyote does the same.

“Phoenix, Halo, walk Eden to the medical tent. Payback, Fanboy, take Bradley too.” Maverick crosses his arms, “No one is to leave their post until I see you personally and say you can come back to the hangar to either be dismissed or to continue classes. If I didn’t send you somewhere, you stay here.”

As the pilots disperse, Eden’s unsurprised when Bradley hands her napkins for her nose with no comment. He can tell by his posture he’s seconds from yelling at someone, so she thanks him with a nod of her head as she takes them and presses them to her face. She looks behind her at the other Lieutenants who are idle as they speak in hushed tones, and then she makes eye contact with Maverick, whose jaw is set. And she turns to lead Bradley out the door.

The walk to the Medics is uneventful, though she can hear Hangman shouting in the distance– quickly matched by Maverick– and she wills herself to walk faster. Bradley steps closer to her as if trying to calm her down, but it only makes her feel more anxious. While they’re sitting and waiting, Bradley bumps Eden with his shoulder and she looks over as she wipes some dried blood off her face with her thumb. It’s already started flaking.

“Do you think Hangman was right?” He asks, and when Eden looks confused, he continues, “about me being unfit to fly? I just… we talked about it last night and—”

Eden shifts, turning to grab his jaw with her non-bloody hand as she forces him to look at her, “I think he’s a dick , Bradshaw. That’s what I think . He’s prodding you with something that's clearly gonna upset you, and he fucking knows! That’s his thing! He’s an ass! You can fly this mission just as good– or even better, than him! He’s just a fucking– fucking stupid – I don’t even have words I’m so pissed right now.”

As the silence envelopes, the room all that can be heard is their breathing. They sit alone in the sterilized waiting room of the infirmary, the other pilots standing outside the door for privacy reasons. Eden finds herself staring at Bradley as he flushes. He bits his lip, eyes flickering down for a moment, before meeting her gaze again. She draws closer subconsciously. Then, a nurse clears her throat, “Uhm. I can look at you now, Eden, Miss Adeline is gonna take Bradshaw.”

“Oh.” Eden flushes, leaning back from where she finds herself inches from Bradley, she stands, “I’ll see you back in the hangar, Bradshaw.”

As she turns to leave, catching up with her colleague, Bradley watches her with a far-off look in his eyes. And from the doorway, Halo slips Phoenix a twenty-dollar bill.

She ends up not having anything broken but is sent back with an ice pack for her bruising nose after cleaning herself up with the help of nurses. She’s also told no one else broke anything, but there would be significant bruising, so her job was to make sure that they took care of their injuries. Eden internally wondered if she should just let Hangman suffer. But that felt too mean, so she elected to also bring him back an ice pack compress. She sees Bradley, who’s been forced to sit in one of the furthest seats from Hangman, and Phoenix gives her a sad smile when she walks in.

“Here, dumbasses.” Eden tosses an ice pack to each of the boys, crossing her arms as they catch them, “Now shut up, stay seated, or I’ll double whatever punishment you both are getting.”

She gives a nod to them, before slipping behind the podium where an Admiral waves her over. As she meanders over, she notices all of the Admirals overseeing the mission plus Hondo are standing there and whispering to each other.

“Admiral Cyclone,” Eden says softly, keeping her voice gentle. He nods, and motions over to Hammer who gives her a tight handshake and a nod. She shakes hands with the other two Admirals and Hondo before Hammer clears his throat.

“Eden.” He says sharply, a voice commanding attention, “I need you to know we’re indefinitely grounded Maverick from this mission and I will be taking over the teaching.”

“What?”

“The way he is running this is too messy, and it's dangerous for our pilots. We’ve decided to drop the time to five minutes and raise the altitude–”

“-- Admiral, with all due respect, that’s impossible–”

He scoffs, crossing his arms, “I don’t care what you think, Benjamin. I just need you to keep the pilots calm for the rest of our time here.”

“Are you serious?” She asks, catching Hondo’s apologetic gaze, but she doesn't have time to say anything before the Admiral brushes past her and to the podium. Her stomach falls to her feet as she gapes, turning to watch Hammer as he presses his hands onto the wooden surface of it. Her brain reels, thinking about how Bradley was right, this was a death mission now. Before they had a chance, albeit a slim one, but it was a chance. Now? Eden wasn't sure, it didn’t seem possible they’d make it out alive. They’d get killed by the SAMs if they flew at the level the Admiral had decided on. If they took five minutes, they had to dodge the enemy pilots.

Her heart ached as she watched the pilots' responses to the new parameters, their questions only making her ache even more because she realizes that they know it too– they know it's a death trap, and she tries to ignore the way they stare at her, pleading for some sort of change she can't give them. She’s not a military officer, sure she’s technically a lieutenant because she’s a flight surgeon or something along those lines, but god dammit she’s not high enough to help now– when it matters. As she bites her lip, trying to ignore everyone, she catches Bradley’s gaze. He softens at her shocked and hopeless expression, turning to whisper to whoever’s next to him. She doesn’t look long enough to see what he says, she feels dread in her gut that’s almost making her sick. She swallows to keep it down.

Then– “Hondo, this is Maverick, inquiry if the taxi is clear?”

“What is he doing?” Coyote laughs, incredulously.

“The taxi is clear, Maverick, but you don’t have a slot–”

“Thanks, I’m going anyway.” He says, and Eden doesn’t miss when Phoenix murmurs a soft ‘nice’ to herself before he continues talking “Eden, on the podium, set the mission time to two minutes, fifteen seconds..”

Eden gawks, “Two- fifteen ? You’re losing it, Mav, it can’t be flown in that small amount of time! Two-thirty pushed it !”

“ Trust me, Edes .” He says soft, and she nods, rushing away from beside Hondo to the podium, gently moving the Admiral out of her way as she grabs the little tablet they used and she plugs in the time before pinging the connection to Maverick’s jet and the beginning of the training course.

“You’re set.” She says with a soft laugh, knowing that unless Maverick can pull this off, he’s done, “Fly like hell.”

And he does. There's no hesitation in his movements, and he weaves through the course like an expert. Slowly, the team rises to their feet, Hondo and Warlock watching with tints of excitement in their gaze as the jet zipped through the air on their radar. Eden bites her lip, feeling their presence approach before they both pause behind her, watching the screen.

“The first miracle,” Eden says softly as Maverick approaches the drop sight. He hits it square on and she finds herself grinning in excitement, her ice pack long forgotten as it melts in her hand. The numbness does not bother her at all as the pilots murmur amongst themselves. She turns to look at Bradley, who is staring at the screen with such an intense gaze she finds it hard to look away.

“Second miracle.” Hondo chimes from behind Eden and she nods, watching as he climbs and climbs… and climbs… and he does it. There’s a round of laughter, clapping, and soft gasps that fill the hangar. Genuine shock at what they had just seen. Hammer is more than pissed, and Eden instinctually takes a step back, Hondo quickly noticing and stepping so he’s between them. Eden has no idea how he can just tell, but she's thankful for it nonetheless. She turns to him, whispering,

“No one flies like Maverick, huh?”

–

She’s in Maverick’s office, tucking away her notes when the door clicks open. She turns to see Maverick, who freezes at the sight of her, laughs, and then relaxes.

“Well?” She chimes, “fired yet?”

“Promoted, kinda.” she grins and Eden finds it impossible to not laugh. Maverick was definitely some sort of legend around here. She had no idea how he even managed to get away with everything. He sets his hand on his desk, pausing deep in thought for a moment, before turning to Eden.

“How can we make this squadron… get along?”

Eden hums, turning so her back is against some framed photo behind her back. She didn’t ever really look at the pictures in Maverick’s office– since she was never in here for long enough to.

“I’m not sure, Maverick.” She hums and he huffs, burying his face in his hands as he sits down and suddenly the oh-so-amazing Ghostrider feels much much smaller than his reputation. She finds herself drawn to his desk, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she murmurs gently, prodding him to open up. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms before he blinks up at Eden.

“My wingman has cancer– Iceman. Admiral Kazansky, they’re not sure how much time he’ll have left.”

Eden nods, recalling hearing the name a few times in her few short weeks with the Navy. It had been hissed from Hammer to Maverick one day when he wasn’t really doing as told and the two had been pulled into the office. She knew she wasn’t supposed to hear it. She pretended not to remember, for Maverick's sake.

“He told me that I’m needed for this mission, that I need to get this team to work together, but I have no ideas. I’ve tried everything.”

She pauses, then murmurs, “I played soccer in high school.”

“How is that helping?”

“Patience.” She smiles, stepping back from his side to wave her arms out as she talks, “We did a lot of team bonding– going out to dinners, cooking challenges, and such, but something that always worked was when she’d have us all do a team bonding game. Something where everyone has to be involved. Like… red rover, or puzzles, or– I don’t know, but you get it.”

“I have a stupid idea.” He says and Eden grins, crossing her arms.

“You only have those– and I do not like that smile, Mitchell.”

“It’s my only smile–” he barks out a laugh before his smile grows even wider, “Dogfight football. Offense and defense, at the same exact time. Everyone’s on a team, and they have to play either way.”

Eden pauses, contemplating it. These people were athletic, and she could easily tell some of them had to play sports in college– and she knew Hangman and Payback followed college football, so it wasn’t far off. If anything, it was the tamest way Maverick could get it done. And, it would probably work.

“Sounds good to me.” She smiles.

After planning, and convincing Hondo, Eden makes it home close to six. A good four or five hours later than usual. She’s got a few texts asking to meet at The Hard Deck, but one steals her to go home. One from her mom reads two words, ‘let’s talk.’ She walks in, her boots scuffing dirt on the white tile as she kicks them free from her feet, the laces being undone while she was driving. The fuckers hurt her feet, but she had to wear the khaki uniform to match.

“Eden?” Penny calls and her stomach flips, pressing a hand to the fabric covering her stomach to calm herself, Eden walks out to the kitchen.

“Hey.” She murmurs, walking to her chair at the counter, the one that was more so in the corner than the rest of them. Hot tea is pushed her way, and Eden thanks her mother as she brings it to her lips. It’s perfect, the exact way she liked it made.

“Uhm. I owe you a lot of explanations.” Penny sighs, carding a hand through her hair, “I’m sorry I bailed on the conversation, I should’ve just gotten it over with but I just… couldn’t do it. I distanced myself for no reason other than fear and that wasn’t fair for you or Amelia. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted, only because I did the same thing years ago.” Eden attempts to joke, but Penny frowns.

“Eden, baby, you had no choice. He–”

Eden waves a hand to dismiss it, “This isn’t about Andrew, this is about my father.”

Penny nods, “I met your father before he went to Top Gun as a student and we hit it off instantly. He was… everything my father told me to ignore, and I didn’t care. I let him take me out multiple times, and when he left, I missed my period. I figured it was because I’d changed my diet recently. But then I missed another, so I bought a test. It was positive. It was too late for me to tell your father because he was well into his time at Top Gun and I’d lost contact after my Dad had found out. And if I thought finding out I was pregnant was hard, telling my parents was harder. Nana disowned me for a good year and a half, but Pops helped me every step of the way which is why we lived with him here in San Diego.

I was maybe… seven months pregnant when I moved, and while I was at The Hard Deck– before I bought it out, I met Miss Carole.”

Eden reminds herself internally that that’s Bradley’s mother.

“She was my manager at the restaurant, and she immediately offered me a helping hand, knowing I was pregnant. She let me do a lot less than the other girls because of it,and I think she kinda had an inkling of who your father was– apparently he talked about me all the time. When you were born, she brought her son to the hospital room when she visited me and the two of you became friends immediately. Little five-year-old Bradley wouldn’t put you down for hours.”

“Bradley Bradshaw, right? Rooster?” Eden murmurs, trying to clarify, and Penny nods.

“Yeah. He was… such a sweet kid.” Penny smiles absentmindedly, and Eden chuckles softly as she nods along. ‘He’s even sweeter now,’ she wants to say, but she keeps her lips quiet to allow Penny to continue.

Penny does, “Carle tried to convince me multiple times to reach out to your father, he visited San Diego a lot, but I was so stressed over raising you and doing my job right and keeping us afloat that I never did. I never could work up the nerve. He had a girlfriend, or a fiance, every single time. And I couldn’t ruin that for him.”

Eden nods, she understands. She wouldn’t want to be in her mom's shoes either. What Eden doesn't expect is a small picture book to be slid her way.

“Carole stopped babysitting you when you were nine, because of Amelia’s dad being around for a few years. Then she got sick. But she gave me a few small scrapbooks and picture books for you. I put the rest in your room.” Penny sighs and Eden finds herself staring at a picture of her and young Bradley at a baseball game, and her stomach flips.

“What does this have to do with my dad, though?” Eden murmurs and Penny sighs, flattening her hands out onto the cold tile.

“I used to keep tabs on Top Gun and the Navy through my father. He was involved in an investigation of a training accident that happened on July 29th, 1986 that involved your father as the pilot of the jet. I didn’t get to know any of the details until years later. But uh, the backseater had been killed in an ejection failure, which happened after Iceman’s plane turned, catching the other jet in its— turbulence or whatever and causing the engines to break and the plane to spin out.”

“What does that have to do with who my father is, Mom?” Eden presses her mother, leaning forward on her hands as she stares the woman down across the counter. She can see the dread in her mother's eyes as she looks from side to side before saying.

Penny tries to buy time, “Your father would want you to know about Goose.”

“Who is Goose?” She demands, rising from her chair, “What’s his actual name?”

“Nicholas Bradshaw,” Penny whispers as if it’s poison on her lips and Eden feels time around her stop. The whole house falls silent and Eden bites her lip as she pales. Goose was Bradley’s father, who had died in a plane with Maverick– and it wasn’t like you could die twice, and if Maverick had been the pilot that Penny mentioned being investigated then that meant that–

“Maverick’s my dad,” Eden whispers, her hands coming to her face to cover her lips as she sputters.

“You… you fucking knew this whole time. You encouraged me to go through with this, knowing Maverick was my father. How dare you not fucking tell me the second you saw him ! You served him at The Hard Deck! Multiple times ! You’ve seen me with him!” She cries, now screaming as her voice breaks, “You never told me!?”

“Eden, please, your sister’s upstairs–”

“No! No , Mom!” Eden brings her hands to her head, laughing as tears trickle down her face, “This… I need to be taken off this mission– I have to get to the base.”

“Eden, he needs you!”

“ And I’ve needed him my whole life! ” Eden screams, slamming her hands down onto the counter as her tears drip and splatter on its white marble, “I’ve needed him and you kept him from me!”

“I’ve told him too, Eden, he knows I’m telling you tonight.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Eden wipes her face, grabbing the picture book and holding it in her hands, her heart aching as she stands there, mouth dry and hand shaking as she bites her lip, “I need to go.”

“Go where, Edes?” Penny stands and Eden finds herself retreating to the stairwell behind her, bringing the book to her chest.

“Anywhere but here– any– anywhere else!” Eden shouts before running up the stairs. She feels like she’s overreacting but her stomach feels sick as she runs up to her room, and the face she has to compress her sobs by holding her hands over her mouth, tells her otherwise. She scrambles, grabbing her phone to text the only person she knows she can trust right now.

‘Brad. Need help.’

#top gun #top gun maverick #bradley rooster bradshaw #top gun: maverick #bradley bradshaw #top gun fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x oc #the hello nurse verse

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solacestyles · 2 years

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ꖛ ─ 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐘’𝐬 𝐑𝐄𝐂 ❜ post 1

*- personal favorite

…- unfinished

─ 𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐆𝐔𝐍

ʙʀᴀᴅʟᴇʏ ‘ʀᴏᴏsᴛᴇʀ’ ʙʀᴀᴅsʜᴀᴡ

do you regret it?

ᴊᴀᴋᴇ ‘ʜᴀɴɢᴍᴀɴ’ sᴇʀᴇsɪɴ

save a jet, ride a pilot

ice, ice, baby*

all this time

they all know, he’s in love with you

secret girlfriend

hangman being caught leaving your room

we used to be in love …

gravedigger’s daughter* (chapters)

ʀᴏʙᴇʀᴛ ‘ʙᴏʙ’ ғʟᴏʏᴅ

the captain’s daughter

of gym buddies and overlapping schedules, part 2*

with certainty

baby on board

─ 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

ᴊᴀᴍᴇs ᴘᴏᴛᴛᴇʀ

how you get the guy

summer revelations*

invading my senses

what great men say

that’s what friends do

cake, part 2

sɪʀɪᴜs ʙʟᴀᴄᴋ

your dog

i always was

cause i don’t want you like a best friend

a moment

ʀᴇᴍᴜs ʟᴜᴘɪɴ

spilling beer and secrets, dear!

an inappropriate incident*

that cursed, darned b-word

ʜᴀʀʀʏ ᴘᴏᴛᴛᴇʀ

two losses that earned

chasing pavements

just like them

howlers*

ʀᴏɴ ᴡᴇᴀsʟᴇʏ

your lover

ɢᴇᴏʀɢᴇ ᴡᴇᴀsʟᴇʏ

little miss perfect*

ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏ ᴍᴀʟғᴏʏ

i kissed you dumbass

you think so?

skin*

boggart*

promised

resistance, part 2

a love like in the tales, part 2

in love*

you have a beautiful smile

sʟʏᴛʜᴇʀɪɴ ʙᴏʏs

the only heaven i’ll be sent to

never have i ever

guilty pleasures*

cursed feelings

most beautiful time of the year

crystal talk*

bleeding hearts, part 2, part 3*

strings, part 2

invisible string*

august, part 2*

new year’s day

ᴏʟɪᴠᴇʀ ᴡᴏᴏᴅ

paranoia

from eden

ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴡᴇᴀsʟᴇʏ

will you paint my nails?

another howler

tolerate it

ᴠɪᴋᴛᴏʀ ᴋʀᴜᴍ

not named (1)

not named (2)

─ 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐎𝐍

ᴀɴᴛʜᴏɴʏ ʙʀɪᴅɢᴇʀᴛᴏɴ

right in front of me*

illicit affairs

not so bad

ɢʀᴇɢᴏʀʏ ʙʀɪᴅɢᴇʀᴛᴏɴ

blotter

ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇ ғʀɪᴇᴅʀɪᴄʜ

the queens plan

amore e psiche, part 2, part 3

woven in the stars

─ 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒

ᴇᴅᴅɪᴇ ᴍᴜɴsᴏɴ

opposites attract

dealers choice, part 2, part 3

you made me hate this city

the metal head and the material girl, part 2

hellfire baby*

kiss me

─ 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐋

sᴛᴇᴠᴇ ʀᴏɢᴇʀs

no questions asked

coward

─ 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐘 𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒

ᴛᴏᴍᴍʏ sʜᴇʟʙʏ

‘til summer comes around

─ 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒

ᴛᴏᴍ ʜᴏʟʟᴀɴᴅ

meet me halfway

i swear to god i never fall in love

ceo!tom

broken hearts and empty cups

torn leaves, broken hearts*

the fame game*

ʜᴀʀʀʏ sᴛʏʟᴇs

reasons to hate you

#hendallreunited

famous harry x influencer reader, part 2

sorry to bother you*

#darcyrec

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youbetterworkcovergirl · 5 years

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2020 Movies

Batman: Under The Red Hood

Pump Up The Volume

A Country Wedding

Cool As Ice

Surprised By Love

Life With Mikey

True Romance

All of My Heart: Inn Love

Absentia

Dream/Killer

Tell Me Who I Am

Sweetheart

Growing the Big One

All Things Valentine

Step Up All In

Love On A Limb

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twosroos · 2 years

Text

hello, nurse!

chapter three: hard decks and rock bottoms

( bradley “rooster” bradshaw x oc, eden benjamin )

(previous chapter) (next chapter)

Eden might just start to find her footing along the aviators, but one mistake after another leaves her reeling and waiting for answers.

word count: 6760

notable characters: penny benjamin, pete “maverick” mitchell, bradley “rooster” bradshaw, natasha “phoenix” trace, jake “hangman” seresin, robert "bob" floyd

tws: cursing, drinking/drunkenness, excessive flirting, near-death experiences, talk of past injury

ao3 link! (features authors notes :D!)

When Eden gets home, she plops her books on the counter and rushes upstairs to grab her notebook. She’s determined to get this shit done, after promising Warlock he’d see her tomorrow at the base. She sprawls the books out, eyes scrutinizing every document. Each book or file was between forty and a hundred pages, and she knew it would take her some time to read through them all, so she tried to figure out exactly which one felt the most important. She settles on the medical book since it’s what she’s there for. As she reads about g-force, and engines, and does some Googling for words she doesn't exactly know, she slowly fills up a notebook with page after page of information. Figuring she’ll organize it later.

She manages to work for a solid few hours, considering it's only about one o’clock by the time she gets home. Amelia won’t be back from classes until three, and who knows where her mom ran off to. After a while, the silence of the house gets too much, and Eden has to turn on music to make herself feel a bit better. Then, suddenly and with a slam of the door as it shuts, Penny comes home. Eden pauses her music and turns her chair, causing it to squeak as she tries to see her mother come out and towards the kitchen where Eden sits.

“I hate him,” Penny growls from the foyer, her heels being thrown off before she’s making her way into the kitchen. She physically jumps seeing Eden.

“Hi, mom.” She laughs softly and Penny lets out a surprised breath as she places her hand on her chest,

“I thought you’d be at the bar.”

“Nope. Just finishing up this chapter of this Flight Surgeon’s guide before I get ready.” Eden leans on her elbows, “Maverick said he’d see me there, so I want to at least be able to tell him that I studied a good amount.”

Penny pales at the mention of her daughter's instructor, “Eden, honey, why don’t you stay home instead of going to the bar? You only have, what, three weeks to the mission?”

“Tomorrow they’re doing more flight training, the same as today I think, but with the pilots trying to catch each other instead of Maverick catching them?” Eden hums, pulling out a little calendar that Maverick had given her so she’d be on track, “I’ll just study then.”

“Are you sure? I’m not gonna be at the bar tonight, I have to do scheduling and such in the office.” Penny seems to really not want Eden to go, which is odd because Penny has always let Eden go places and make her own mistakes. She tries not to think about what that might exactly mean.

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” Eden laughs, gently shutting her notebook as she begins to pack her items up from where they lay across the kitchen countertops, “It’s not a huge deal, the only one I really need to look at is the medical guide and I already know the majority of this from my USMLE testing days.”

Penny lingers, but sighs, and says a soft okay. As Eden thanks her, she stands, gives her mom a one-armed hug, and slips up the stairs and to her room. She took a world record time shower, but then spent an hour brooding over what to wear. She knew pretty much everyone would be out of uniform tonight, since they weren’t coming straight from the base, and she wanted to wear something a bit less formal than her pink suit and the other various suit-like outfits she would wear to the base in the upcoming days.

Eden ended up picking an item she adored, a white-based sundress with a garden scene-based corset top. She paired it with all gold jewelry and tied her hair up in two half-up pigtails with golden-colored hair ties, and some simple tan sandals. Her make-up was quick and easy, considering it was just The Hard Deck, and when she was finished spraying herself with enough perfume to last the night, she remembered the one item besides her wallet she was supposed to bring. And It might be a stupid decision for Eden to do, but she slides on Rooster’s jacket over her dress. It’s big on her, definitely, and when she stands in the mirror she can't help but adore the way it lays on her smaller frame. She gives herself a little twirl, runs her fingers along the patches she doesn’t recognize, and double-checks to make sure she has everything in her crossbody bag before she’s heading out the door.

The drive to the Hard Deck is only, maybe, fifteen minutes and when she’s walking in, there’s already a hustle and bustle of people there. She ducks through the crowd and makes her way back to the pool table, where she can see Maverick expertly conning Hangman out of a winning game. Eden chuckles to herself, adjusting the jacket that she now just rests over her shoulders, as she walks up to the crew.

“Hello, Aviators!” She calls with a goofy grin across her lips, “This is your captain speaking, buckle your seatbelts, and get ready for a pool table ass-whooping.”

“Oh? Bradshaw, huh?” Maverick leans back from where he’s bent over the table, setting up the billiards, an almost protective look flashing across his eyes as they narrow. Noticing it, Eden flushes, stammering a bit as she shuffles in place as the other pilots make various noises and comments.

“Relax, guys. When I got sick last night, he brought me home and left his jacket in my room by accident.” She shakes her head in disbelief at their assumptions of more… intimate relations.

Coyote snickers, grabbing a cue for himself after passing one to Hangman and Payback, “It’s not like the two of you don’t flirt excessively already. Who are we to assume you haven’t done more?”

“It’s all jokes, plus I’ve only known him for a day, what would I have done?” Eden clarifies, feeling her cheeks redden even more than before, “are you jealous or something, Coyote?”

“I’ve got my own relationship issues to worry about,” He waves a hand, “But thanks for the offer.”

Eden huffs, rolling her eyes as she slips into the crowd of pilots, grabbing a cue as well, “And for that comment, you’re going down.”

The squadron whoops, laughing as Coyote takes the first hit, sending the billiards ricocheting across the table in various directions. Eden waits, watching before she bends (happy she decided at the last minute to wear shorts under her skirt), and immediately whacks a striped billiard into a hole.

“Oh, shit,” Hangman expresses, and Payback whistles as she turns, and manages to get another ball in easily, though as she's bending for the third (which she knows she has to rebound across the wall,) someone leans across her and shifts the cue an inch or so to the left.

“There,” A voice purrs behind her, undoubtedly Bradley’s, “Try now,”

And she does, and it works, making Coyote yell something intelligible. Eden stands after Bradley does, and she grins, “Go ahead and start, Coyote, I feel a bit mean.”

He does, and Hangman walks over, slinging an arm around Eden and making her lips pull taught and she glares up at him, “now, that’s something to brag about.”

“Get your paws off me, Bagman.” She complains, and when he doesn’t move, Bradley steps in, grabbing Hangman's arm and lifting it up and over her head. The two don’t speak, just exchange various glares and hand motions, before Hangman walks away with a slouch, and Phoenix snickers from where she’s next to Bob and Payback.

“Thanks from all of us, Rooster!” She calls as she points across the bar, and the waitress there wastes no time ringing the bell on Hangman, who groans. With a loud laugh, Payback is quickly asking what everyone wants to drink while Fanboy rushes up to grab another one for free.

“I’ll have a shot of Tito’s!” Eden calls and Payback quickly writes it down on his phone, Bradley watches as Coyote hits another ball into the hole and cheers, another pilot– Omaha, slapping him on the shoulder in congratulations.

“I’ll just have a Corona for now.” Bradley says when he’s asked, then he’s enveloping an arm around Eden's shoulders, leaning close to her ear, “Y’know what they say about a woman wearing her man’s jacket?”

“ Her man's jacket ?” Eden replies as she leans back against the pool table, eyes rolling to look at him, “enlighten me, Bradley.”

He grins, letting his lips graze her ear as he talks, eyes fluttering up to Maverick, who watches the two with a calculated gaze, “Well, he has to take her to bed.”

“Oh no–” Eden moans as leans back on him, dramatically fanning herself. The aviators look over and notice her relaxed pose, and how she's making him laugh by doing it before she yells, “take me to bed or lose me forever, Bradshaw!”

Bradley freezes, his hand on Eden’s waist as his lips hover by her jugular, and she can practically feel the heat radiating off his face. He stutters a bit, before opting to keep his mouth closed as the pilots laugh at the scene around them. Hangman is practically on the floor laughing at this point, Phoenix shaking her head at him as he wheezes dramatically, and Maverick claps, standing.

“Alright. Let’s move on from… whatever that just was.” He says, not without Eden noticing an odd strained rise in his voice, and the team agrees, not without some mindless jabs from Coyote, something about Rooster’s callsign not being far off from the truth. Unsurprisingly, Coyote gets a whack aside the head from Payback (who’s returned with most of the liquor), and Eden begins to take off the jacket when Bradley stops her, a hand coming to her now bare shoulder as he leans down again, closer this time, so close she can feel his lips brush her ear before he even whispers to her, breath hot on her skin.

“Keep it. I like seeing my last name on your chest.” He grins before he’s striding away, calling the first shot at another pool table. It takes her a second to refocus, then she's standing back up from her position of leaning on her backside the table, absolutely flushed from head to toe. A second passes, then, Coyote taps her shoulder.

“Your turn, Mrs. Bradshaw,” he says and she whacks his shoulder, cursing at him while he cackles, a Michelob Ultra in hand.

“Not surprised Bradshaw’s found a new girl to flirt with.” Another pilot says before he turns to her, “Sorry, I’m Omaha, Neil Vikander.”

“I always forget there's a bunch of you,” Eden comments, whacking another billiard perfectly, “How’re you feeling after those two hundred pushups?”

“Like shit.” He chuckles, watching as Eden stands up, he’s definitely ogling her, and she tries not to think about it as she has to move closer to him for a hit.

“Leave her alone, Omaha!” A girl hollers as she walks up with two other pilots behind her. After Eden hits the billiard and narrowly misses the hole, she turns to look at her. The name tag on her flight suit reads Halo, and behind her are Yale and Harvard– ironically Harvard is Yale’s WSO if Eden remembers correctly. The only person she doesn’t remember is Omaha.

“Lieutenant Callie Bassett, Halo.” She says, “And this is Brigham Lennox, Harvard, and Logan Lee, Yale.”

“Nick to meet you all, formally.” Eden smiles, “Eden Benjamin.”

“Oh, are you Penny’s?” Harvard asks as Yale waves before practically being tackled by an already drunk Payback who shouts,

“Where’s Fritz? He owes me a beer!”

“Yeah,” Eden laughs at Payback's antics, “I’m her eldest.”

“Weird.” Halo comments, “I could've sworn you were Maverick’s.”

Eden scrunches up her face, narrowing her eyes in confusion and almost disbelief, “Maverick’s?”

“You look a lot like him.” She continues, “Phoenix and I thought you were his when he made that Hello Kitty comment this morning.”

“I mean, there’s surprisingly not a lot of white people here with black hair and green eyes.” Coyote comments from the pool table, “but I dunno, Maverick would have to have been pretty young if he’s the age I think he is.”

“That’s true.” Harvard states, “Whatcha think, Omaha?”

He flirts, “She's pretty, but I don't see the relation to Maverick.”

Eden sighs, sending Phoenix a look for help, causing her to butt in, “This is just a weird conversation.”

Payback slips over to hand Eden her shot, which she takes without hesitation or a wince, and turns back to the others, “I agree with ‘Tasha over there.”

“What’s weird?” Payback asks, taking her shot glass as he hastily writes down more drink orders for his friends, his eyes narrowing as he struggles to spell Michelob right for the fifth time in a row. Behind Eden, Coyote manages to get two billiards in the hole, making it Eden’s turn again. Somewhere behind Coyote, Maverick watches the team interact, noticing who doesn’t talk to who, or who completely isolates themselves. They need to be a team– hell, a family event–

“--I don’t look like Maverick, dude.” Eden’s whining after Harvard says it again, “I don’t even know who my dad is. My mom refuses to talk about it with me.”

Over Eden’s shoulder, Rooster watches as Maverick winches, before slipping away into the crowd. It’s bizarre, and Eden notices him looking perplexed, so she quickly ends the game of pool and tells Hangman it's his turn before she crosses the bar to where Bradley lounges.

“What’s the matter over here?” She purrs, sitting down on the couch next to him. He hums, leaning his head on her shoulder, a half-finished drink swirling in its cup as he shifts to be more comfortable.

“Tired.” He says, and for once it's truthful, before he grins sloppily, “I wonder if it would be easier to sleep with you by my side?”

“Does the only thing your mouth knows how to do is flirt?” She says, rolling her eyes with a goofy smile as the rest of the aviators move around them as if they aren’t even there. It’s like a perfect moment of respite, Bradley’s soft laugh only adding to it in Eden’s opinion.

“Well, it knows how to do much more, if you’re interested.” He states and she ooh’s before delving into a soft laugh as she bumps her head against his before he sits up with a very obvious flush on his cheeks.

“I’m gonna grab a refill, do you want anything?” He watches her face as she bites her lip, smiling softly as she thinks.

“Uhm… a lemon drop, in a tall glass, with extra lemon, please.” She smiles.

He pauses before smiling a bit bigger than before, “Ah, a martini girl?”

“Of course, my Momma raised me to have an expensive taste.”

“Good thing I have a big paycheck then, yeah?” He stands, and Eden gets up immediately after, making her way over to the new jukebox she had insisted her mother get put in. It was a digital one that updated monthly with new songs, so Eden thumbed through them absentmindedly. Until she settled on ‘Boyfriend’ originally by Dove Cameron, but this was a cover because– well, it was easier to get covers on something like this. She grinned, swiping her credit card, and selecting the song to play after someone's selection of an old Kenny Rogers song.

“Found you.” Bradley says, passing her a yellow shaded drink with a soft smile, “Just as you asked, your mom was behind the counter.”

Eden blanks, “That’s weird. She didn’t want me coming tonight because she wasn’t gonna be behind the bar. I guess plans got changed.”

Bradley shrugs, then offers his cup toward Eden, “a toast, to the newest member of our little ragtag squadron.”

“Aw, how sweet.” Eden smiles, clinking her drink to Bradley's, and taking a sip, before hissing about how strong it is, making Bradley’s face light up in a happy laugh as the two hide off in the little back corner of the bar. Though, not all goes unnoticed, because Eden can see her mother lean over the bar to whisper something to Maverick, who (after a beat) glances at Eden. Something crawls in her stomach, a sick subconscious realization she can’t quite place yet, and she turns back to Bradley who’s now taken a spot on the wall next to her.

“Why the hell does my mom treat Maverick like he’s the best thing since sliced bread.” Eden huffs, rolling her eyes as she breaks Maverick’s eye contact. Rooster hums, taking a decent-sized gulp of his drink as he sighs out.

“Well, they are both single.”

“Ew!” Eden laughs, shoving Bradley, who stumbles a bit as he holds his hands up in mock surrender. The two chuckle a bit before the fake Dove Cameron voice comes over the small speakers, which are easy to hear in this mostly vacant corner, and Eden starts to softly sing along. Her real voice this time, and Bradley looks floored, he smiles and hums along to the chorus.

“So this is how you really sing, Benjamin?” He questions and she giggles, rolling her weight across her shoulders and to her side as she leans on the wall, now facing Bradley. She catches Maverick staring at the two of them again, this time with daggers in his eyes, and she bites her lip. Well, she knows one way to make someone look away– make them ashamed for even seeing what they’re watching.

“If I could give you some advice,” She sings along to the song as she places her hand on Bradley’s chest, leaning in close to him and pressing her stomach against his leg that’s propped up so she’s standing between his legs. His whole face flushes a bright red as she leans in, bringing her face close to his as she whispers– not sings, the lyrics, “I would leave with me tonight.”

She winks, stepping back as she drags her hand down his chest, before she taps the embroidered ‘Bradshaw’ on her jacket and spins, making her way further into the dinner crowd that swarms in through the side door from the beach. She knows it takes Bradley a second to follow her because there's a pause before a hand is on her waist. As she stops a foot or so away from where Bob and Phoenix watch Payback and Fanboy attempt a “world record pace” game of eight ball, Rooster tilts into her.

“This is the game we’re gonna play, Benjamin?” He practically growls, as if it's irritating him. She was surprised she was able to get him this hot and bothered on the second day of knowing him, but she should probably tone it down. There was a pretty inflexible no fraternization rule for a reason.

“Sure.” She smiles, leaning her head back to look up at him, “I think I'll win.”

“In your dreams.” He says, and even though Eden’s not really sure what the two of them are competing for, she knows she made Maverick and Penny finally stop staring, so that’s good enough for her.

A few hours later, Eden finds herself outside, helping out a sick Bob who got stuck doing shots with Fritz. It hadn’t ended well for Bob, who wasn’t a drinker in general. Plus, Fritz had willingly chosen Southern Comfort. Which was… terrible , frankly.

“Poor Bob,” Phoenix says, setting a water bottle next to her WSO. Eden slaps his back as another round of… whatever he’d eaten this morning comes out. Once he’s finished, Phoenix nurses him to a water bottle while Eden shuffles around in her bag for painkillers she knows she has. Though she keeps finding Benadryl, which is great, though she’s not having an allergic reaction right now.

“Where’s my fucking Ibuprofen?” Eden clamors, “I don’t want fucking Nyquil!”

Phoenix snorts, patting Bob on the back as he bends over the railing again, “Do you have a whole pharmacy in there?”

“Pretty much– Aha!” Eden holds out the almost empty bottle and makes a mental reminder to buy more soon, “Here you go, Bobert . And I have some Pepto Bismol.”

He smiles, wiping his lips with a towel Eden had found in the kitchen, “You’re literally an angel.”

“Let’s get you feeling better,” Eden opens both bottles, taking out a capsule of Pepto Bismol, and two tablets of Ibuprofen. The three of them laugh when Eden nearly drops it, Bob whining about how he needs the medicine now or he’ll die. Seconds later, Phoenix is nearly spitting out her own water when she watches through the window as Hangman falls and eats the floor while trying to dance on a chair.

“I think Maverick’s gonna hate us tomorrow, we’re all gonna be hung over.” Eden looks back through the window where Halo sings dramatically with her arm draped over Coyote’s shoulder, “And I’m running out of medicine by the end of the week if you all keep being idiots like this.”

“Oh, definitely.” Phoenix giggles, “but I’m glad we can all let loose a bit, even if it takes alcohol for that to happen.”

Eden laughs too, a bring smile on her lips as she hopes– no, prays, that this all works out because never in her life has she so easily slotted into a group like this. Something about these pilots was new, different from her ex. And It made everything feel so… new. For once, Eden was breathing oxygen after being submerged in a frozen lake. Or like she was seeing the world through new glasses lenses.

Maybe it was just the alcohol talking though. She hoped not.

“Alright, if he’s got medicine in him, I’ll take him back to base,” Bradley said as he stepped out of the back door with his car keys in hand. He’s only had two drinks in the five or so hours they’d been at the bar, so he, Phoenix, and Eden had become the designated drivers.

Eden nodded to him, setting her bag by her feet as she started to tug off Bradley’s jacket, “Give him like ten minutes to take the meds, just so his stomach settles. And here, this is yours.”

“You can keep it, honestly, I don’t mind.” He laughs as he stares out the outstretched jacket, “It’s not uniform or anything.”

Eden holds it out to him, shaking it now, “Yeah, but it’s the summer in San Diego– it’s burning hot, and if I show up wearing this again I’m afraid Hangman will buy me a pregnancy test with genuine intentions.”

Phoenix barks out a laugh from where she stands, holding the pills for Bob as she rubs his forehead in pain, but a small smile at Eden’s comment creeps across his lips. Bradley takes it, throwing it over one of his shoulders as he smiles.

“Did you spray it down with roses or something?”

“My perfume,” Eden laughs, “I forgot it was on my bed and sprayed a bunch of perfume on me before leaving. The poor jacket was behind me, it must’ve picked up quite a bit.”

“Just enough.” He murmurs, watching as the night stars dip through the waves only say a hundred or so feet away from where they stand on the deck. High tide comes in slowly as time ticks by. And though he stares out at the beautiful scenery as Phoenix announces seven minutes until Bob can take his medicine, Eden finds herself being unable to look away from him. The curve of his jaw, the scarring on his skin, the way he’d pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, so now they served as a makeshift headband.

Maybe now she hoped the alcohol was talking, but god, he looked good.

The next day, Tuesday, training goes by without a hitch, Eden completes most of her studying and manages to stop at least ten different arguments. Even though the group acted like best friends when liquored up, the second they weren’t under the influence Eden felt like she was stuck in the world's most annoying dick measuring contest. Hangman was antagonizing everyone, and he’d probably gone close to five hundred push-ups today as punishment for his antics. Bradley had flirted with Eden every chance he had, mostly because he’d realized how much it irritated Maverick. Everyone else had behaved, for the most part, and Eden went to sleep with a new group chat blowing up her phone.

Wednesday starts the bomb-drop training. Which wouldn't usually scare Eden, since her ex’s best friend had almost died in G-Loc. So, when Maverick mentioned how possible it was to happen today, she’d been practically sweating bullets. The first few hours of tests are fine, then Maverick goes to fly it with Coyote, and shit goes so wrong so quickly. One second she’s standing next to Fanboy and Phoenix, watching as Coyote hits the mark perfectly, then the next second she’s screaming at him as he falls unconscious and his plane starts to drift down.

“C’mon!” Maverick yells over the comms, “Wake up, wake up, Coyote!”

Eden wasted no time throwing herself out of the chair to scramble over to her medical equipment. She worked with bated breath, fear making her hands shake ever so slightly as she dug out the little guide and re-read what procedures she needed to do for G-Loc events. Everyone relaxes the second Coyote’s able to right his plane with a panicked breath as Maverick softly directs him, voice stern but gentle as he runs Coyote through the entire touchdown process Eden was sure the both of them could do in their sleep by now. Once Eden snaps herself out of her anxiety-filled trance, she throws a bag over her shoulder and grabs another bag at her feet, tearing out onto the tarmac as she radioed in.

“Miramar Central, this is Doctor Benjamin with ID-1301,” Eden says as she watches Coyote's plane make a shaky landing, bouncing way more than his usual, and she just knows he’s out of it.

A woman’s voice comes across her walkie, “Benjamin, this is the central dispatch for Miramar.”

Eden watches as Maverick lands behind Coyote, and the second the two are parked, he’s climbing out hastily as Coyote stays put, “I need the other medic for ID-1301 to Taxi G-0, one of our pilots just came out of G-Loc.”

“I’ll send Doctor Bianco.” The woman on dispatch says, and soon steps are brought to Coyote's jet so Eden can make her way up to him in the cabin as quickly as possible. Aka, she's running up before they’ve locked the steps in place.

“Hey, Javy,” Eden calls as she kneels on the top step, she can hear Maverick coming up behind her. He pauses once she sees Eden beginning a concussion test by having him follow her finger, tell her the answers to simple questions, and by checking his pupils. When everything looks good, she has him stand up and exit the jet. As the two make it down the steps, a male doctor steps off a golf cart and tsks.

“What are you doing?” He shouts at Eden, “You were told to wait until I got here!”

“I wasn’t told anything, and my concern is the pilot who just blacked out for thirty seconds in the air!” Eden snaps back immediately, her eyes narrowing at her so-called co-medic. Without having ever met Doctor Bianco before, Eden already knew the two of them wouldn't get along. He seemed to be more fact-oriented, whereas she was more heart oriented (which was probably bad for the Navy) and she was sure they’d rip each other's heads off at some point.

“I– god, you’re fucking hopeless . Give him here–” Doctor Bianco goes to grab Coyote, who leans onto Eden harder in protest. As his knees nearly give out, Coyote’s whining about his head pounding with all the yelling, the rest of the team watches anxiously as Eden leads him to the medical cart, having him sit down so she can continue the assessment, ignoring the other doctor as he complains.

“Hey,” Maverick comes up beside the two, “Relax, she’s doing just fine. Better than most medics we get out here on the tarmac.”

“She's not a real flight surgeon!” Doctor Bianco cries, “She’s gonna get you all killed!”

“Full offense,” Phoenix cuts Maverick’s comeback off, “I’d trust Eden with my life a million times before I’d trust you.”

And when Doctor Bianco turns around to snap back at Phoenix, he can see the whole team behind Phoenix watching him with quite a few confused and concerned looks. He huffs, not liking the fact he’s being pushed against, clearly evident by the way he crosses his arms and huffs again as he turns to where Eden does another round of tests on Coyote.

“We’ll get him an MRI.” Eden turns back to face him as she speaks, “because of the loss of oxygen and the rush of blood pressure to his brain, plus his reactions are a bit slow and his breathing is slightly off.”

“Fine.” Doctor Bianco says, not even being able to argue with Eden’s point, and he drives away with Coyote now in the passenger's seat as he pages an on-base ambulance to transfer him to a local hospital just ten minutes drive away. Unluckily, because her name tag and such were still being processed, Eden was unable to follow him due to security reasons. It was annoying, but she was glad those security measures were in place. Just in case.

“Well, Warlock and Hammer want us to end for the day.” Maverick sighs, Eden had never noticed he had slipped away for a moment. The pilots all murmur amongst themselves before they start to split off. Watching them go, Eden wraps her arms around herself and shakes her head as she takes a swallowing breath.

“Hy, kid, are you alright?” Maverick asks, grabbing her shoulder and squeezing it.

Eden sighs, “Yeah, sorry, it just freaked me out, being all... in the moment– baby’s first medical emergency.”

Maverick laughs softly, watching Eden with a fond look in his eyes as he brings a hand up to tousle her hair a bit, “You’ll get used to the emergencies, it comes with the job.”

Eden finds herself nodding in agreement, even though she personally doesn’t really think that she’s cut out for it as she shifts from foot to foot, watching as the pilots softly converse amongst themselves, cliqued off, as they pack up to leave.

“Hey, Eden!” Halo calls, “Can you text us when they update you on Coyote?”

Eden smiles, “The second I get a message, y’all will know.”

The pilots yell various thank yous, and Maverick nods in thanks as he splits from the group to leave, and Eden finds herself clicking on her phone to see if there’s a message. When she doesn’t see one, her anxiety spikes with the fear of never getting a message from the hospital. It comes faster than she thinks it will, three hours later as she’s cooking, her phone idly vibrating on the counter while Amelia plays some song on her violin. She answers the call, a nurse named Violet telling her the instructions for Coyote’s next few days, and when she ends the call she finds herself relaxing for the first time since three o’clock that afternoon.

iMessage: ID-1301: The Best of Top Gun

Bagman : ‘Let’s play 8-ball!’

Fanbo y: fuck u bags

Bob : no one wants to play 8-ball, ever.

Phoenix emphasized ‘no one wants to play 8-ball, ever’

Eden Benjamin : Hey crew

Eden Benjamin : Good news, Coyote is a-ok. No concussion or anything, but he’s off of screen time for the rest of the day while he gets some rest. You can visit him if you want, but I’d call and ask beforehand. He won’t be flying the next few days, but will be attending class, be nice, and don’t smack him about while he rests up.

Eden Benjamin : And now I'm putting this chat on do not disturb because I’m about to beat my sister’s ass in Mario Kart. Call me with serious questions ONLY. If someone is not dead or dying I don't wanna know.

Jacket Giver (Bradshaw) : Yes Ma’am, thank you, Ma’am.

Halo, Phoenix, Harvard, and three more emphasized, ‘Yes Ma’am, thank you, Ma’am.’

Eden sits at the hanger the next morning, staring at the ceiling as she takes a slow breath. They were doing the same drill again, this time Coyote joining her on the ground. They’d been going at it all day, paired with a break for lunch at a local deli, and a momentary switch to the drill they’d done Tuesday that Eden decided to dub Cat and Mouse. But for now, Hangman and Halo were running through the bomb drop and massive climb drill Eden still hadn’t named. So, Eden and Coyote sat in the safe shade of the hangar, Coyote writing a letter to his youngest niece (who just turned eight) as Eden worked quietly on her books.

Luckily today she’d decided to brush up on everyone’s medical history, and pretty much everyone had clear histories. Except for Phoenix, Maverick, Rooster, and Coyote. Surprisingly, Coyote’s was the most detailed on a severe injury to his left wrist after a dogfight left him with bullet metal in his wrist. Not bullets, ‘bullet metal’ was how it was written. Meaning the bullet had broken, most likely.

“Hey Coyote,” Eden says as she looks up, “You and Rooster were involved in the same accident?”

“Our first deployment, we got in a dogfight with the enemy. He had to eject, I stayed in to cover his parachute before I ejected myself. We were stranded in a desert for a few hours before we were found by a rescue team, which, ironically, Doctor Bianco was a part of when he first started.” Coyote explains as if the idea of near-death doesn’t scare him in the slightest, “Did you get to his file yet, I think it explains it more?”

“Uh…. not yet.” She says before she’s flipping through and finding Rooster’s file. There, it reads that he’d ejected after his engines had been shot by an enemy pilot. He’s hit his shoulder on the canopy, dislocating it and breaking his clavicle, making him unfit to fly for four months. As she read through the file, it also detailed a ‘severe psychological break’ that resulted in his prolonged absence from flying.

“Yeesh.” Eden murmurs, thumbing through the rest of the file, observing the photographs of his X-Rays on his shoulder.

“Not a fun time.” Coyote sits up, eyes glancing over at the screen with a confused look. He sets his pen down, standing up now, and making his way over. Eden ignores him for the time being, scribbling down to check Rooster’s shoulder before they get flown out to the carrier in two weeks' time.

“She hit a bird,” Someone says, and Eden perks up to see Halo rushing into the room, “Eden, Phoenix, and Bob hit birds.”

“Is she able to extinguish the engines and glide?” Eden closes her notebook as she stands, idly making her way over to where the rest of the group is beginning to hover around the computers. This was the last test of today. Why did something have to go wrong like yesterday?

“She's trying, but it's not working well.” Harvard calls and now Eden’s grabbing the headphones– a new addition as of this morning, to listen in to the comms. As soon as she’s on them the first thing she hears is Maverick yelling, and Phoenix uncharacteristically panicked.

“Phoenix, Bob, eject !”

The whole team freezes, except for Eden, who’s ripping the headphones off of her head and running to grab her medical equipment. She nearly slips and falls on someone's discarded water that had spilled in the rush to the computers, but manages to right herself with a jump as she stands to rush out of the hangar, there’s already a helicopter warming up and she’s not sure who exactly told them to get ready to go and retrieve the pilots.

“We’re gonna follow Maverick’s location on his plane,” one of the flight members says and Eden throws on a spare headset as she buckles in.

“How far away?” She asks.

“Ten minutes if we leave now.” The other pilot says and Eden nods, the helicopter taking off before she can even begin to logically think. She should have Doctor Bianco with her, she should have at least another medic, but she doesn't find it in her to care. She told herself she was going to be the best and this right here is the only way to really know. As they fly dead forward for ten minutes, the other two passengers– two retrievers as she’s heard Hangman call them once or twice, scan the area for flares or parachutes. Luckily, they’re in the desert, so it's easy to find two identical parachutes with a jet making circles a few thousand feet above them. The two other passengers drop down and bring Phoenix and Bob into the helicopter, they look relatively okay, save for Phoenix’s bloody nose, so Eden moves across the seats to begin assessing them.

“You both scared the shit out of me.” She says softly, handing Phoenix wipes for her nose while she gently shifts it around. Luckily, nothing is broken, it will most likely just bruise a bit.

“Sorry,” Bob says softly and Phoenix shakes her head.

“It’s my fault, Bob, I should’ve been watching.”

Eden watches the two as they look at each other, a sad conversation passing with glances– something Eden’s realized only backseaters do with their pilots before Phoenix turns back to Eden so she can hand her an ice pack and a bottle of water. She hands Bob the water as well. She begins to do simple assessments, checking for concussions, reflexes, taking blood pressure, and such. Everything she does, she does with confidence. She does assessments and teaches assessments a thousand or more times, her hands don’t shake, and she works with the efficiency of every great doctor she’d seen in her life.

“We’re gonna go land at the hospital so they can do assessments,” the pilot says, “Plus, it's mandated for every ejection too.”

“No worries,” Eden says as she sits back, going to ask Bob a question when she sees him lull forward as if he’s passing out, “Okay, a little worry, speed up.”

“Bob?” Phoenix looks over and he coughs, bringing a hand to his head and Eden’s unsure if the painkillers he’d asked for this morning for his headache are wearing off, or if it’s serious. Internal bleeding, or a broken bone, maybe punctured lungs? Nothing she can easily assess now.

“Bob, what hurts? Talk to me.” Eden sits up, using her leg to drag her medical equipment a bit closer as she grabs a stethoscope that's basically useless in the air, but she's gonna fucking try anyway.

“I… my rigging for my parachute was pulling on my side, it burns now. My whole chest and stomach just hurt a lot.” He says and unluckily, Eden can't undo the top of his uniform without removing the whole thing, so she has to just hold out on the flight to the hospital.

“Just breathe, okay? Try and stay awake.” She speaks, trying to hide the tremor in her tone, “did either of you hit anything on ejection?”

“No,” both pilots echo.

Eden nods, listening to Bob’s heartbeat the best she can through his flight gear. It's strong enough for her to hear it, and from what she can hear it sounds perfectly fine, “Then we most likely only have to worry about the change in altitude, okay?”

The two pilots in front of her nod before the helicopter is slowly descending over the hospital. Eden scoots back, holding onto a handrail as they land and nurses and doctors begin to swarm the helicopter with wheelchairs and gentle reassurances as they guide the aviators into them. Almost immediately, Eden is grabbed by a nurse and she’s asked to explain the symptoms she’d been able to gather from both pilots, but soon they’re moving them down into the hospital, and Eden has no choice but to stand in the waiting area and wait for someone to tell her what’s going on.

And she finds, for the second time, that she abso-fucking-lutely hates waiting.

#bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #top gun #top gun: maverick #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #natasha phoenix trace #jake hangman seresin #pete maverick mitchell #penny benjamin

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twosroos · 2 years

Text

hello, nurse!

chapter four: let's talk.

( bradley “rooster” bradshaw x oc, eden benjamin )

(previous chapter) (next chapter)

Phoenix and Bob's crash brings out a lot of emotions and conversations, as well as one that's been years in the making. Eden visits her class's graduation during the mayhem, as well.

word count: 6247

notable characters: penny benjamin, pete “maverick” mitchell, bradley “rooster” bradshaw, jake "hangman" seresin

tws: cursing, drinking/drunkenness, experiences, talk of past injury/death,

ao3 link! (features authors notes :D!)

Not even twenty minutes later, the squadron finds Eden in one of the first waiting rooms they plow through. The whole room smells like iron and bleach, the whiteness of everything making Eden want to curl up in a ball and cry. She hates it and all of the things in her past this place reminds her of. She thinks of a kind EMT who held her in his arms as she sobbed, or of the two nurses who helped her contact her mom again after losing her phone. Even as her hands shake, she sets her jaw and crosses her arms, trying to look unbothered. All she can do for now is stand there, biting her thumb as she thinks to herself about everything she might have messed up, or things she should’ve told the doctors, or how she’s going to explain the incident to the board if there’s an injury–or even worse, death.

Ten minutes ago, the receptionist had already told her Phoenix was almost clear, with just two more tests to do, but she would be staying overnight to be watched as per protocol for the base. Bob was still being looked at, and that terrified Eden, what if she had missed something? How was she supposed to know what else to do, she did all of her assessments? Had she fucked it up? There was no way for her to know.

The first person to approach Eden is Bradley, while the rest of the squadron swarms the poor receptionist as they all stand behind Maverick as he asks for updates on his pilots. He ends up having to flash his ID twice to the receptionist for her to accept it. When he approaches Eden, he clears his throat a good five feet away, before softly speaking once he’s within arm's distance.

“Hey,” He calls, watching her jump a bit, “How’re you feeling?”

“I haven’t stopped shaking.” Eden laughs softly, tilting her head to the side as she casts a weary glance toward Bradley. He gives her a soft smile, gently squeezing her shoulder, and she can see it in his eyes when he notices her face contorted in stress.

“It’s okay, you did everything you could’ve done,” He wraps an arm around her shoulders, but is surprised when she turns and bruises her face into the fabric of his flight suit. There’s a beat where Eden thinks he’s going to push her away before he wraps his arms tightly around her, pressing his cheek to her hair as she grips the back of his suit.

“Sorry.” She whispers, her voice breaking with just one word. It makes his heart ache to see her so afraid, and he brings one hand up to hold the back of her head. Behind him, the squadron approaches slowly, boots scraping across the tile as they notice the twos embrace not far away from them.

“Never be sorry for feeling emotion.” He whispers, his voice taught, “My mom used to tell me that all the time.”

Eden nods, an unspoken comfort spreading across her body as she leans into him with a more relaxed pose for a moment, before stepping back and using her thumbs to blot under her eyes as she huffs, “I tried not to cry onto your uniform.”

Bradley chuckles, stepping back and grabbing both of her upper arms to look at her bleary eyes as she sniffles, turning her head down so as to not meet his gaze– embarrassed by how she looks. He lets go of her arms.

“It would be fine if you had.” He murmurs, acknowledging the rest of the team with a simple head nod. Coyote gives him a head tilt in response, trying to ask how Eden is, but Bradley’s answer is cut off.

“So,” Maverick walks over, staying a few feet back from everyone, “Phoenix just got out of her testing, they said she’s all clear. Bob’s going to get an x-ray on his ribs, but they assume everything is fine. It’s just for precaution.”

“How long are they out for?” Eden asks, stepping up to be between the aviators and Maverick, who shifts from foot to foot awkwardly, refusing to meet Eden’s eye.

Maverick shoves his hands in his pockets, “They should just stay overnight, but we’re called off from practicing tomorrow anyway– which I guess is good for you, Eden.”

“Yeah,” She chuckles, “God, my kids are so excited to see me.”

“You’re a mother?” Hangman asks and Eden turns to him with an incredulous look in her eyes, blinking slowly as the rest of the group watches her face. She then realizes, internally, that she’d never told any of them much about her. Not that anyone had done the same.

“I’m a teacher, Seresin.” Eden says, and the squadron bursts into laughter at Hangman’s soft, “oh…”

“My students graduate tomorrow night, so I had to take off for the day anyways.” Eden explains to the still slightly confused group, “you guys can come if you’d like, I’m making a speech since in the class advisor.”

“We’d be honored, Miss Benjamin.” Coyote gives a dramatic bow, making the team laugh sparsely as Eden rolls her eyes as she blots under them once more before crossing her arms with a satisfactory grin across her lips.

“I’ll send details in the group chat.” she laughs, “but uh, yeah, I’ve been a teacher for about three years now.”

“Nice.” Someone says and Eden huffs, shifting from foot to foot with the awkwardness of everyone watching her movements before Maverick claps.

“Even though we have off, and will most likely be going to Eden’s classes graduation tomorrow, I still want you guys to exercise for the mission. We’ve got a reservation for the gym seven on base tomorrow morning, seven in the morning, sharp, okay?”

As the pilots groan, complaining about wanting and/or deserving a day off, Maverick motions for Eden to come with him through the chaos of his students. She hesitates, leaving Bradley’s protective bubble for a moment to see what is going on. He brings her over to a window where Phoenix laughs at Bob as he explains something to her, a goofy grin on his lips as the two relax.

“They’re okay. You did a good job, you kept them calm as best as you could, and they arrived in one piece.” He says, “You did everything right.”

Eden laughs softly, “Thank you. But… why are you..?”

“Well, I don’t know if it's the fact I know you’re nervous with everything going on, or if I remember what it was like during a bad ejection I had during my time as Top Gun…” He pauses for a moment, blinking back towards the pilots before turning back to Eden, “But I thought you’d wanna see them, breathing, laughing, and such.”

She smiles, wiping the stray tears that drip down her make-up-covered cheeks, watching the two pilots interact in the small hospital room, “Thanks, Mav.”

“Of course, kid.” He squeezes her shoulder.

“I’m home!” Eden shouts, kicking the door shut with a miserable groan as she trudges into the kitchen. With a flop of her bag on the floor, she throws herself onto the couch where Amelia idly sits and writes something down on her laptop.

“How bad was today?”

“Two pilots nearly died,” Eden murmured into the pillow, scrunching her face against its fabric when Amelia uses one hand to pat her head as she shuts her laptop with her other.

Penny comes in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a cloth with a confused look on her face, “Wait, what?”

“Phoenix hit birds, she couldn’t extinguish the engines and she and Bob had to eject,” Eden starts to explain as she sits up, moving to the middle cushion so her mom has a spot, “Bob had some rashes from his uh– parachute gear because It got caught at a weird angle but he should be fine. Payback, Fanboy, Harvard, and Yale stayed back with them in the hospital. They offered to send us updates on them while we wait for their discharge tomorrow, I think Coyote said he was picking them up from the hospital in the morning.”

“So they’re okay?” Penny sits down next to Eden, carding a hand through her daughter’s hair, leaning in to wipe something off Eden’s cheek.

“Mhm. I cried twice, once to Bradley and once to Maverick. Embarrassing. Might have to quit now, I can’t face anyone after crying to them.” Eden laughs, fluttering her eyes open so she can see her mom, who gives her a soft smile.

“What’s with you and Bradley?” Amelia asks and Eden begins to chuckle, kicking her boots off so she can stretch out her feet a bit, which are killing her from standing for a long time.

“Well, a certain someone wouldn’t stop staring at me last night,” Eden sends her mom a look that has her laughing, “so I decided to double down on the flirting.”

Amelia hums, “Did he take his jacket back?”

“His what?!” Penny exclaims, and her two daughters find themselves laughing so hard their response to the conversation is lost as they nearly hack up their lungs laughing. After a quick explanation of why she had Bradley’s jacket, and her mother telling her to tone down the flirting in public, Eden made her way upstairs with one thing in mind– sleep. She slips into her room to grab pajamas, and then into the bathroom to change and wash her make-up off, it comes as no surprise to her to hear her phone ringing as soon as she’s started– but what she doesn’t expect is the caller– Bradley. She’d been expecting to hear from Fanboy, since he’d promised to call her the second Phoenix and Bob got cleared for their release tomorrow. So as she dabs her face dry with a towel, she picks up the phone and presses the answer button.

“And why do I have the pleasure of speaking with you, Bradshaw?” She smiles, grabbing her toner and using one hand to put it on a cotton pad before swiping it across her skin and noting parts of her face where she had a bit of irritation or acne.

“I didn’t really know who else to call,” He laughs over the phone, “kinda lost in my thoughts right now, wondering if you’d be willing to help me out.”

She hums softly, throwing out the cotton pad, “Well, of course. What’s on your mind, then, Rooster?”

“The mission, mostly. I just… I don’t know. After seeing both of the incidents the past two days it made me weary of going on this mission. What if someone dies, you know? I think the admirals know very well how unlikely it is for us to come out of this mission alive– they picked us because we’re the absolute best they’ve got… but I don’t wanna end up like my dad, Eden.”

While he talks, Eden makes her way into her room, setting him on speaker as she lays down on her bed, curling around the phone as she lifts her blanket up to her neck. She opts to Facetime him, trying to see if he’ll pick up to see her all bundled up in blankets she’s had for as long as she can remember– a Hello Kitty one she’d gotten on her fifth birthday, and a gray one that was so fluffy she slept with it every night. After a beat, Bradley does pick up, though he’s in a much different state than her. He’s sitting in what looks like either a kitchen or a bathroom, up against the cabinets, and on the counter, she can see a half-drunk bottle of Fireball.

“Christ, Bradshaw,” she murmurs, sitting up and watching as he laughs, tilting his head to the side as he glances up to the half-finished liquor bottle behind his head.

“Today…it's the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death.”

“What happened? If you can tell me, grab yourself some water.”

“Alright, Mom.” He teases, standing up and stumbling a bit as he walks to a fridge– so it is his kitchen, to grab a bottle. After, he sets Eden up on a counter and sits on the one adjacent to her so she can see him as he talks.

“My dad died in a failed ejection, the jet suffered a flameout of both engines ending in a flat spin. His pilot ejected, but when my dad did-- he was the backseater, he hit the canopy.” He explains, “When Phoenix and Bob ejected… I just… panicked. I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Bradley.” She whispers, “I can't imagine how hard that was.”

“The half-finished liquor should tell you.”

She scoffs, “You can’t resort to alcohol.”

“Now you really sound like my mom.”

“Maybe she’s right.” Eden hums, cuddling into the blankets as she props her phone up on her window sill, watching him with tired eyes as he chugs half the water instead of responding. She wants to tell him to sip instead, but half the bottle is gone before she even thinks to say anything, so she elects not to.

“But about the mission,” Eden murmurs, “I know it looks super bleak right now, but maybe there's something we’re missing here. I know you seem to be a bit weary of Maverick– oh don't give me that look, I see you in class– but I trust him. His records are nothing short of impressive, not to say the rest of you don’t blow me out of the water with your achievements. They picked the right pilots for this, it seems like a mission where you’re gonna have to push the limits as much as possible.”

He bites his lip, looking down into his water bottle like the answer to his troubles floats in the water, “I’m sure he’s got a good plan, my mom used to tell me all the time about how good of a pilot he is and all, and I trust his ability to fly a plane for crying out loud. I just… I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do know.” Eden eyes him over the phone, “why don’t you trust Maverick, what do you have against him?”

“He pulled my papers from the Navy. That’s really it. All the other shit he did my Mom made sure I’d never hate him over before she passed.” He buries his face in his hands, “He’s my godfather, did you know that? If I die on a mission, he’s the first person they’ll call. I wouldn’t want him to know.”

“You guys have a history, then?” Eden finds herself leaning closer to her phone.

“He raised me basically, he and my dad’s graduating class. Ice, Charlie, Merlin… they all stepped in when needed.” He laughs, “If my mom needed a babysitter she had about twenty people ready to go, but Mav… he was always there. Every baseball game, every graduation ceremony, every birthday I got a letter… he was there, don’t you remember?”

“How would I remember your childhood, Bradley?” Eden smiles, sloppy from exhaustion hitting her as the moon begins to crest into her room– it’s almost eleven, then.

“Miss Carole..?” He chimes and Eden blinks, then her eyes widen.

A flash of an older boy teaching Eden how to ride a bike, how to spell, and how to play the beginning of some song on piano flashed through her eyes. Memories of cowboy hats, her mom laughing with a blonde woman standing next to her, memories of Eden climbing out of the dugout with Big Chew stuck to her pink Uggs and dirt on her jeans, and she gasps, “You’re that Bradley! That’s why– augh that’s why you were so familiar when I first met you! God, when did your mom stop babysitting me?”

“I was… thirteen.” He hums, “So you were… about nine, I think?”

“I can't believe I didn’t remember you.” Eden scoffs, rubbing her face, “I think if I’d sat down and actually talked to you and the other cadets, I would’ve found out so much more.”

“Well, a lot is happening at once, I usually suck at remembering things when I’m busy, so I wasn’t gonna hold it against you.” He chuckles, “Also, your mom told me not to say anything about this– so, maybe don’t bring this up.”

“What?” Eden blinks, “Why would she say that?”

“I dunno.” Bradley shrugs, then he yawns excessively long, making Eden yawn in response.

“Maybe we should go to bed.” He says and she nods.

“Do you feel any better, though?” He shrugs and Eden sighs, “Then we’re still talking.”

Bradley groans dramatically, popping off the counter to grab his phone and retreat into his bedroom. Eden grabs her phone and adjusts it so she’s laying down, watching as Bradley just throws himself down onto his bed, grunting as he does.

“Talk to me,” she says softly and he huffs, watching her for a moment before he starts talking.

“My mom was there when I started flying, and when I went through Top Gun. She was the one who cheered me on. But she used to always warn me about being reckless, so every time I see the way we have to fly– it makes me think of her saying ‘Bradley, you can’t fly like that. I can’t lose both of my boys' and it makes me wanna stop flying altogether.” He speaks quickly, as if dwelling on the topic will genuinely kill him, but his voice drops as he murmurs, “I can’t meet her again so soon, Eden.”

“I’m sure she’d want you to do the best you could on this mission though, and people have successfully done chunks of the mission. Next week is about putting everything together, seeing who can do what, and I’m sure she’d want you to do this mission how they’re asking.” Eden says, “If I remember Carole, she used to also say ‘do what you can do, the best you can do it’ and Bradley, you can do this, easily, you just have to actually apply yourself to doing it.”

“But why would Maverick trust me for this mission if he didn’t trust me for the Navy years ago?” Bradley asks and Eden finds herself stuck.

“Well, assuming he knew your dad pretty well, maybe he was afraid you’d end up having an accident like his?” She suggests, “I don’t know much about Mav, but from what I can tell, he wanted you to thrive. He could’ve just left you after your dad’s death, but he stayed, and there had to be some sort of care coming from him when he pulled your papers.”

“I don’t know.”

Eden sighs, “You know a lot more than you let yourself believe, that’s your issue.”

He goes to answer but notices Eden nodding off, yawning into her hand and he smiles, “We can finish this conversation when we’re both not moments away from passing out.”

“Tomorrow? After my graduation?”

“Nah,” He chuckles, “let’s let tomorrow be a happy day.”

“I could use one of those,” Eden murmurs, her face smushed into her pillow. He slyly takes a screenshot and grins as she continues to talk, now fully incomprehensible as she’s falling asleep.

“Good night, Edes.”

She mumbles something, he assumes it's goodnight, and he hangs up with a content smile on his face.

Eden rolls out of bed at ten with a dead phone she has to plug in and a sore back from whatever weird contortionist position she decided to lay in. She has to check her watch for the time and then remembers she has to be at the school at noon for the preparatory ceremony. So, with socked steps, she makes her way downstairs and into the kitchen. The coffee maker is already on, courtesy of her mother seemingly running out early to go do something– or maybe Amelia’s classes starting early, but Eden doesn't mind as she grabs herself a little Keurig pot and pops it in the top of the machine. She grabs her favorite mug, a ramen noodle-themed mug that says ‘send noods’ on the inside of it, and puts it on the little stand as she closes the lid.

The front door closes, and in walks Penny with a small bag of groceries. “Oh, morning, Edes.”

“Morning, whatcha get?” Eden asks, grabbing the cream and sugar from their respective spots in the kitchen.

“Mostly just restocks of stuff.” Penny says, “and some chicken for dinner Saturday, are you getting ready now?”

“Yep. I promised my classes I would bring them donuts at noon, so I gotta get going.” Eden pours a– probably overkill amount of creamer and sugar into her coffee before giving her mom a one-armed hug as she makes her way up the stairs and to her bathroom. The benefit of being the eldest was that she got her own bathroom, Amelia shared both bathrooms but mostly used her mom's since the shower was better there.

It only was that way because they had to replace the entire bathroom due to a leak and mold infestations, but that didn’t really matter in the long run.

Taking the quickest shower of her life, praying her coffee wouldn’t get too cold by the time she was done (the mug was thermal, it would be fine) Eden got out and dried herself off, simply wearing a towel as she takes her coffee into her room and sets it on her vanity after a big gulp of the drink. She checks her phone– no new notifications, and makes her way into her closet. She already knew which dress she was wearing, a light pink, floral printed lantern-sleeved dress. It was frilly, and lightweight, with a puffy skirt and sleeves. It was off the shoulder, with ties to keep the dress from slipping, with Eden loved, and it came to about mid-thigh. The tag said Organza, she didn’t know what that meant.

Once the dress was on and tied, Eden made her way to her vanity. She knew exactly how she planned on doing her makeup, light with a lot of warm tones to match her dress, and it only took her twenty or so minutes, and a full cup of coffee, to finish the look. Then, she made her way back across the hall to do her hair. This was the part that always took the longest.

While she’s doing her hair– halfway through curling the long, now mostly air dried, black strands with a curling iron, her mom walks over to stand in the hallway where she can see Eden in the mirror.

“How are you feeling? I know last night you were a bit all over.” Penny asks, picking at her fingers.

“I’m a bit better now, I talked with Bradley last night. Kinda came to the realization that these pilots are the best of the best, the absolute best in the country– I mean, Phoenix is one of the top pilots we have, these mistakes are nothing but that– mistakes.” Eden hums, putting the curling iron in the sink as she grabs another section of hair and parts it, “They’re all human, so mistakes are bound to happen. What’s gonna matter is how they react after the mistakes.”

Penny hums, “and do you like teaching with Maverick?”

“It’s interesting. I don't do much teaching, mostly redirection over comms when the pilots decide to argue.” She chuckles, picking up the curling iron again and beginning to curl the pieces around it. She’s almost done now.

“Do they argue a lot?”

“It’s mostly Hangman riling everyone up. He’s really good at that. He’d get along with Amelia.” Eden smiles, “Oh! And remember Bridget Seresin? The girl in my class who came to The Hard Deck around Christmas to give me a gift?”

“Yeah, she was so sweet.” Penny smiles and Eden turns as she drops the curl from the iron.

“Hangman’s sister. They’re complete opposites.” Eden turns back to the sink, dropping the curling iron in it again as she sections off one of the last pieces she has to curl. Penny laughs softly, listening to Eden as she compares the two siblings, and Eden isn’t afraid to rant and rave about the absolute stupidity of the rest of the group when she gets off track. Penny just watches her green eyes shimmer in the mirror as she laughs, her face brightening up as she drops the last black-haired curl on her shoulder and lets it bounce free before she grabs her hairspray and encases it. The conversation falls silent there, Eden waiting for Penny’s response, which she doesn’t get after a few moments.

“God. You look just like your father.” Penny whispers from the doorway, watching as her daughter sprays a bit more hairspray in one stubborn flyaway's direction with an almost angry look. After a moment, Eden sets the hairspray down and whispers.

“Was he a good man?”

“He was.” Penny laughs softly, “A bit of a rebel, which is why your Pops hated him, but he was… gorgeous, he was so kind and so respectful… every day you remind me more and more of him as you grow up.”

“Mom… do you ever wish you stayed in contact with him?” Eden can’t help the nervous edge in her tone, like some sort of bomb is going to drop because in Eden’s twenty-four years of living– her mother had never spoken this much about her father.

Penny sighs softly, crossing her arms as she leans on the doorframe again, “Back when you were born it was harder to, I hadn’t gotten his email or a home phone number or anything. Plus, after he was in Top Gun he got deployed a few weeks later. It wasn’t even really worth it trying to keep in contact. He wouldn’t have watched you grow.”

Eden shifts, adjusting her necklace and grabbing a small pin to pin the back of the necklace’s chain to the back fabric of her dress so it doesn’t slide around on her neck during the day. She can’t find her voice, despite really wanting to, and it pains her inside to know this is where the conversation might just end.

“I wish I had.” Penny continued after a moment, much to Eden’s pleasure, “He would've loved being your father.”

Eden nods, glad to at least know her dad seemed like a pretty good guy, “is he still around..?”

“I saw him not too long ago.” Penny says, nervously rocking from foot to foot, “but— I couldn’t get the nerve to ask him about anything. He was with friends and I was working… it wouldn’t have worked.”

“Why didn’t you try..?” Eden turns trying to not cry and she takes a deep breath before speaking, “Mom, this is my father. I don’t even know his name! I’ve never seen him, and you have, recently!”

“Eden. He works a high-stress job, I can’t be throwing wrenches in his plans— and now with you at Miramar, it’s worse—“ Penny stands up, throwing her arms down in surrender.

“— What do you mean?” Eden pauses from where she’s gone to pick up her makeup brush to touch up her eyeshadow, her hand hovering just above its handle.

“No, forget it. We’ll have this conversation after your graduation.” Penny waves a hand, but Eden’s not done. She slams her hand down on the bathroom counter, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

“Mom. Who’s my dad?” She says, voice way too calm for the emotions stirring in her chest, “Why does it matter now that I’m at Miramar?”

“Ede, please .” Penny whispers, a hand under her eye to catch her tears, “We’ll talk when you get home tonight. I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“Why do you always deflect? He seems like such an amazing guy, but every single time I bring him up you shut down!” Eden turns to face her mother, “I’m almost twenty-five, Mom.”

“I know, and I’ll tell you.” Penny sighs, “But I can’t ruin your graduation, okay?”

“I…” Eden pauses, lips open, but she huffs, “Fine. But we are talking about this.”

“Of course,” Penny murmurs, and that’s the start of the cracking in the ice. The way Penny’s gaze hardens immediately and her cocky smile fades into nothingness. If Eden knew then, she would’ve stepped back, and waited with bated breath for after the mission.

But she prodded the cracked ice with a stick, thinking it was solid, and stepped out onto it anyway.

The bakery two blocks away from the school happily takes Eden’s order, the woman running the register catching up with Eden after a week or so of not seeing her. Every person who worked in this restaurant knew her by voice at this point, not even by her face because every Friday she would come in during her lunch break and get four dozen boxes of donuts, a jug of apple juice, coffee, and tea, with loads of sugars and creamers, before leaving to go back to school. And, because she got coffee there every morning.

What she wasn’t expecting, though, was to walk into a full classroom.

“Miss Benjamin!” A student screamed and the whole class was filled with clamoring, students rushing over to help her put stuff on the designated breakfast table that they’d already put a cloth over, or just welcoming her back.

“Guys, chill out, okay?” She says, and they keep clamoring, so she sighs and shouts in her best “drill sergeant’ voice as her students called, “One two three, eyes on me!”

“One two three, eyes on you!” the students echo and she laughs.

“Alright, grab your donuts, your drinks, and do all that jazz.” She sighs, walking back to her desk– which is now mostly vacant thanks to her students packing away her things. She didn’t have anything super important that they shouldn’t see– all her important stuff was at home, so she felt comfortable enough with them looking through it all.

“Thank you guys for the warm welcome back,” Eden laughs softly, pushing her chair to the center of the room where she usually puts it. She watches her students move around her, a few students complimenting her dress. Once everyone’s settled, and Eden’s halfway through her coffee, she finally has a chance to speak.

“So, let’s play a bit of catch up, yeah?” She hums, leaning back in her chair, “So a little over a week ago, I got– I guess you could say drafted, into the Navy. I’m working on-base as an on-call nurse for a mission at the base in Miramar. I’ve been learning so much recently and it’s been absolutely amazing to be able to work with them. I work with a set of pilots, there is… Rooster, Phoenix and Bob, Payback and Fanboy, Hangman, Coyote, Fritz and Halo, Yale and Harvard, and Omaha. The ones I grouped together ride together, so Bob’s Phoenix’s backseater, Fanboy is Payback’sbakcseater, Halo is Fritz’s backseater and Harvard is Yale’s. Oh, and all the names I’m calling them are their callsigns, not their actual names or anything if you were curious.”

“I also work with Maverick, who’s the instructor, and Warrant Officer Hondo, and Admirals Cyclone, Hammer, and Warlock.”

Bridget raises her hand and Eden nods to her, already knowing her question.

“Has my brother annoyed the shit out of you yet?”

“Very much so,” Eden says and the class starts laughing. Eden ends up regaling some stories of the cadets, mostly the drinking ones, as the rest of lunch blends into graduation practice and then into the end of the day. She waves goodbye to her students as they leave to get ready for graduation, and she grabs some empty boxes from her car to pack up her room since this really is the only day that she can.

And that packing takes her all the way to when she has to walk onto the field.

–

Her speech is a little sloppy, but she tries her hardest to speak clearly. She can’t really see any of the squadron in the blistering sunlight anyway, and as she tries to look she finds herself just looking stupid. So she focuses her attention on speaking, enunciating, and making herself not look like a fool.

“It is with the utmost honor that I get to speak once more about the incredible, selflessness of the class in front of you. I have had the honor of teaching the majority of this class, whether it was study halls, physiology anatomy, medical sciences, or whatever it was, I know every single one of these students by name and that's something I’m proud of. This class has truly grown into something incredible, from their first moments as nervous fifth graders— to the hard-working seniors you see sitting in front of you. It’s hard for me to say goodbye, even though I jumped into this role of class advisor late, and during my first year with no prior experience, but every single student here has made it an incredible ride.

One thing these students have helped me with is reigning in the crazy. This comes in handy when you randomly get asked to go teach at your dream job– which ends up mostly being corralling twenty and thirty-year-olds into giant fast jets and praying no one kills each other– or themselves, while in the air. It’s, surprisingly, easier than calming a gym full of students during a pep rally or calming down the homecoming game stands. And that job is also the reason I never finished this speech, I never wrote anything else down, as I usually do. But I can tell you– off script, these students are the best thing to have happened to me. Every single day they would lift me up, help me when I was lost, or even just sit in my room playing annoying sound effects until I kicked them out so I could grade during prep periods. These students are amazing and so smart. I cannot wait to watch them all from afar, as they continue to grow. All of that, and more, is why I, Eden Benjamin, happily hand over the microphone to our class president, Bridget Seresin.”

And if Eden couldn’t see Hangman before, she can definitely hear him now.

It’s still blazing hot, as it usually is in California. The sun burns into her shoulders as Eden takes pictures with a few of her newly graduated students. She talks to parents, laughs at stories, and signs plenty of yearbooks as the time ticks on. By now, she's unsure if the pilots came to see her at graduation, but she doesn’t find it in her to care. She’s just happy to see her students.

Then, “Eden!”

“Hangman,” Eden turns, watching him walk up in his dress whites, she laughs but cannot help the genuine thought of ‘he cleans up nice’ that slips through her brain.

“All dressed up, I see?”

Hangman laughs, motioning to the sea of white-clad people approaching, Maverick at the front, talking idly to Halo, “Mav asked us to.”

“Really?” Eden raises her eyebrows, waving hello to the group as they finally meet up with her. Everyone looks amazing all dressed up and groomed to the stars, she shakes hands and laughs, posing for a picture with Bridget and Hangman their parents ask for– what she doesn’t expect is his other seven, yes, seven, siblings to squish in. She laughs, bright-eyed, and that's when she notices Bradley staring out of the corner of her eye.

And if Hangman looked nice, he looked even better.

Once the Seresins move on, and Eden says goodbye after trying to decipher his mother's insanely thick Texan accent, she turns to Bradley who smiles.

“You clean up nice, Benjamin.”

“Could say the same to you, Roos.” Eden grins, and she watches as his mouth falls slack, his cheeks redden, and he clicks his jaw shut.

“Say, we’re all getting drinks later,” he changes the topic immediately, “Phoenix is driving a bunch of us but we need another ride, you wanna go?”

Eden hums, not really wanting to go, but knowing she should– for morale and whatnot, “Who else?”

“Pretty much everyone but Hangman. He’s got some stick up his ass again.”

Eden sighs, “I’ll go for a little bit. I still have to talk to my mom tonight.”

Bradley grins, stepping closer to tuck a small piece of hair behind her ear as he murmurs, “Then I’ll see you there..?”

“Just tell me who I’m driving.”

And she goes, an hour later with Coyote, Halo, Fritz, and Yale in her car. She says she’ll only stay for three rounds, and doesn’t notice as the fifth is placed in her hand. The bartender– a nice older woman named Angela, orders them all rideshares and sends them home with promises to sober up. When Eden makes it through the door, it's around three am. She’s lucky they don't have classes on the weekends. With drunken determination, she makes her way to her mom's room, but stops outside when she hears soft snoring. Penny is knocked out cold, and Eden would feel stupidly mean waking her up. So she slips into her room, peels off her dress, and decides to just sleep as is. Makeup on, hair still pinned up, and in literally only her undergarments.

She’ll deal with the hangover, and her mother, in the morning.

#bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #top gun #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick

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twosroos · 2 years

Text

hello, nurse!

chapter two: welcome to the danger zone

( bradley “rooster” bradshaw x oc, eden benjamin )

(previous chapter) (next chapter)

Admiral Solomon makes a visit to Eden's home and she ends up witnessing the genuine stupidity of some of America's finest.

word count: 5403

notable characters: amelia benjamin, pete “maverick” mitchell, bradley “rooster” bradshaw, solomon “warlock” bates, natasha “phoenix” trace, jake “hangman” seresin, mickey “fanboy“ garcia, reuben “payback” fitch

tws: cursing, near death experiences, self-doubt, arguments

ao3 link! (features authors notes :D!)

Sunlight burned against Eden’s eyelids, waking her sharply as she whined, rolling to the side and hiding her face in her pillows as she squirmed down into her blankets. She grunted, mewling sharply at the headache rumbling behind her eyelids and thrumming against her eyes. As she sat there, she contemplated what the hell she’d done last night. She’d only had a few drinks, and she was very much not a lightweight, so she had absolutely no idea what type of beer Hangman had given her that had knocked her out so quickly.

She also hadn’t been watching her drink very well.

“Fuck.” That was probably it. She moaned, sitting up slowly so as to not throw up as the world spun for a bit. Once it stopped, and she felt a bit more normal, she looked at her bedside table. Hastily, she grabbed the lukewarm cup of water that was there and going to drink it, before her eyes caught on something small and oblong behind it, and a pink post-it note on the table. She blinked a few times against the harsh sun, bringing a hand up to block it as she leaned down to read the note.

‘Nice guy brought you back last night, I gave you some painkillers and Amelia left you a Gatorade in the fridge. I’m cooking breakfast downstairs, or lunch depending on when you wake up. Leaving for the bar at two just an FYI. Love you, Ma.’

Taking the pills in her mouth, she chugs the cup of water and takes a deep breath as she goes to stand up– and then spots something that makes her head physically tilt. A jacket lays on her wooden floor. She slowly stands, still wearing her jeans and t-shirt from the night before, and she leans down slowly to pick it up as her head pounds from her hangover. As she stands from bending down to grab the jacket, she slowly unfolds the leather jacket and she thumbs across it, realizing it's a Navy Aviator's jacket. She’s seen them a thousand times at The Hard Deck, so she hopes she's right as she flips it to the front to find the engraved name tag.

‘Bradshaw’ it reads.

“Fuck!” She exclaims, bringing a hand to her head when it pounds from her volume, “There’s no way.”

Three knocks hit her door a minute or so later as she stands there, stunned, “Eden?”

“Amelia–!” Eden rushes over to her door, swings it open, grabs her sister's hoodie, and rips her into her room before shutting and locking her door immediately. Amelia stumbles around a bit, turning to her sister with an irritated look before seeing the bewildered yet apprehensive look on Eden that makes her stop in her tracks.

“Hi?” Amelia says, blinking away her confusion as she stands in the middle of the room, “Good morning, or something?”

Eden laughs, “Yeah, good morning, uhm– I might have slept with someone last night.”

“Uh… too much information.” Amelia sits down on Eden’s bet, “I was home all night, and it didn’t happen here–”

“Now that’s too much info for me, but kinda reassuring..?” Eden chuckles, turning to grab her deodorant and her perfume, beginning to apply both excessively, afraid she smells like alcohol, before she grabs a new shirt from her closet Amelia covers her eyes and waits as Eden throws on a new outfit and kicks the old one into her hamper across the room, “I mean, I should get my period within the next like two weeks or something… so I’ll check then.”

“That’s great, totally a wonderful plan,” Amelia rolls her eyes with a soft laugh, “And Eden, you couldn’t have waited for me to leave to change?”

Eden nearly trips as she shoves a pair of pink dress pants on, and she turns back to Amelia with an incredulous look, “If I’m in bed later than noon, Mom’ll yell at me.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but it’s only like seven-thirty. What do you remember from last night?” Amelia asks, before pausing when there's a harsh but firm knock on the front door. It doesn’t take an idiot to realize that whoever’s knocking means serious business, and it makes Eden’s stomach drop. Would Bradley be upset about his jacket? No, there's no way. She stands up, buckling her pants and adjusting them before she turns to Amelia.

“Nothing much,” Eden huffs, grabbing mints and popping them in her mouth, “who’s here? Amelia – peek out my window.”

“Uh–” Amelia crawls across the bed, her hair bouncing in its ponytail as she lifts her head up high enough to see. Eden moves across the room to her vanity, quickly shoving concealer over blemishes, smacking setting powder on top, and hastily applying her blush before Amelia can see out the window.

“Mom already invited him in.” Amelia sits down on the bed and not even a moment can pass, though Eden has enough time to start her eyeliner before there are soft knocks on the bedroom door.

Penny speaks in a very, very delicate tone, “Eden, honey, I know you’re awake… Uhm, a nice man from the Navy is here to talk to you?”

“I’ll be right down, Mom!” Eden calls back and Penny says okay before she's quickly rushing back down the stairs and asking whoever’s there if he wants something to drink. Amelia grins with a dorky smile, quickly slipping out of the door and making her way down the stairs as Eden rushes to finish getting herself ready at her vanity, rubbing her hand against its chipped painted surface and huffing under her breath when she feels like her mascara just looks off but not knowing how to fix it. She opts for curling them one more time and pushing them around with her fingers until they look decent enough she feels confident to leave her room and face whoever is in her living room.

Though it's not someone she knows, and he stands with a gentle yet rough around the-edges smile and states, “Doctor Benjamin, it’s an honor. I’m Admiral Solomon from Naval Air Station in Miramar.”

“I– the honor is all mine, sir!” Eden beams, shaking his hand and he laughs.

“A firm grip.” He comments, “Come sit, I just have a few questions for you, miss.”

Eden nods, quickly taking a seat in the plush chair she can remember watching hundreds of movies in growing up. Though now, her stomach twists in anxiety. Had she done something wrong by flirting with Bradley? Was she in the wrong by even trying to befriend the Naval Pilots? She hopes not, they’d all been really nice, even whilst drunk. But her stomach plummets at the fact that there is currently a Naval Air Pilot’s jacket laying on her bed, and she’d probably accidentally sprayed it with her perfume while getting ready.

Oh god, had Bradley gotten hurt or something? Was she the last person to talk to him?

“So, I heard from a few different cadets who made their way back from The Hard Deck last night that they’d met quite an interesting teacher..?” He hums, folding his hands neatly in his lap like he had absolutely nothing to worry about. It’s clear that he’s in complete control of the conversation here, but his light tone makes Eden even wearier. What the hell was even going on?

“That’s most likely me, I ran into Bradley Bradshaw quite a few times that night–” She stuttered, trying to think of a way to derail the conversation from Bradley, “But, uhm, how can I help you, sir?”

He communicates plainly, “Have you ever thought of having another job?”

“No– well, sorry–” Eden sits back, letting herself fall into the safety of the old couch cushions, “Sir, I just– I’m a teacher at Point Loma, and my kids just turned in all of their end projects which I’ve been working hard on helping them with, so I’ve been stuck in teaching mode for the past few weeks. I couldn’t just get up and leave now.”

“Point Loma is one of the most highly regarded schools in the area.” Admiral Solomon drones, “didn’t you have to submit a bunch of references and portfolios?”

“Yeah, I had to submit multiple references from old teachers, my resume, letters from old teachers and bosses, and I had multiple interviews and they had me do a practice lesson with their faculty, twice.” She explains, “and then drug tests, state testing I have to pass, and a lot of teachers sitting in and observing my class and reporting any issues to my superintendent.”

“So, you’re obviously a wonderful teacher, Miss Benjamin. Which is why I’m here,” Admiral Solomon straightens up, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing before opening them, “The Navy is offering you a position to teach and be a nurse at Top Gun.”

“What?” She blanks. Admiral Solomon sighed gently, sitting back against the plush cushions fully, giving himself a more relaxed posture.

“The Navy needs a real teacher to help one of our more… Rowdy pilots wrestle and teach a group of pilots for an extraordinarily important mission. It’s very rare for us to outsource like this, but we are genuinely in need of some help, miss Benjamin.” he folds his hands, “do you understand?”

“Sir, do you not have other nurses or teachers? I just… my students are really counting on me.” He slides a file towards her as she continued ranting, “I’ve applied to Miramar a few times, but I haven't been accepted yet. What… what changed it?”

“We didn't need a Flight Surgeon for any missions at that time-- but now we do. You’ll be paid our yearly salary in a few months, and if we decide to keep you employed we will continue to reward you handsomely. You’ll be able to live on base for free, or be provided with free transportation to and from the base…” He continued to list all of the too-good-to-be-true benefits of the job and Eden sits there, biting her nails and twiddling her thumbs. When Admiral Solomon notices, he gives her a gentle look before resuming his tangent.

“How about I bring you to the base so you can see what it’s all about, and we can let you pick from there?” He leans so his elbows rest on his knees, “They’ve started their first day, and I would like to bring you down so you can look. From there, you can talk to Maverick– the instructor, and maybe some of the students, since they’re closer to your age.”

She nods, recognizing Maverick's name as the first guy she'd talked to at the bar last night, “I’ll try it, sir, but there is no promise that I’ll stay.”

“We can sort it out later, and there’s no commitment that needs to be made now.” He stands up, wiping his hands off on the fabric of his pants as if he’s sweating, then he holds out a hand for a handshake, which Eden accepts as she stands up.

“I understand, Doctor Benjamin, why don’t you come with me, then?”

The base was oddly hot, probably from the sun beating on the black runway, which made Eden kinda wish she had worn a dress instead of her pink and white suit (Her students loved the outfit, which was probably why she put it on as a first impression.) They walked calmly across the base, her white heels clicking against the concrete in a quicker beat than the soft scrape of Admiral Solomon’s shoe soles, he was much taller than her anyway so she wasn't surprised she had to speed up a bit.

“Here’s where you’ll find the classes.” He says, finishing up his little tour. When Eden looks across the small hanger they walked into, she can see various students all listening intently to the man— Maverick, who’s teaching upfront, or more so instructing about how if they fuck up this mission they’ll probably die. From either missiles that will automatically lock on to kill them, or other planes in the air, or by crashing in the ravine they need to go through.

So… that’s promising, she assumes.

She takes a moment to study each student and realizes that they’re all the pilots from the bar last night. Phoenix sits next to Bob with Fanboy and Payback behind them, and Coyote behind Fanboy, then Hangman sits across from Rooster, and some other students that she can slightly remember the names of, and some she’d only seen in passing last night. Not that she even remembers all of last night anyway.

“Excuse me, Captain Mitchell, if I may interject.” Admiral Solomon announces, making his way over with Eden in tow. They walk through the lines of tables, and Eden tries to keep her gaze level, not looking around at… pretty much everyone she’d been drunk with at the bar. And now they’re all sitting there and staring at her.

“Who’s that with you, Hello Kitty?” Maverick comments, a confused look in his eyes as he lowers his hand from whatever he was explaining about a high climb out of some ravine.. Or maybe it was a crater? She wasn’t paying attention, she probably should be.

“I’m Doctor Benjamin.” Eden steps up to stand next to Admiral Solomon, sliding her sunglasses on top of her head, “what stick do you have shoved up there, Mitchell?”

The cadets behind her laughed and Maverick grinned, a sort of playful ‘oh fuck off’ smile on his lips. But also a recognition, like Eden had passed some sort of unknown test. Admiral Solomon laughs, placing a hand on Eden’s shoulder lightly, before squeezing it, and now she feels like she definitely passed some sort of like… mini-hazing ritual or something. What the hell was this all about? Genuinely?

“Doctor Benjamin here is going to be observing your first day of lessons, and if she chooses to, she will be joining Captain Mitchell in teaching you guys for the mission.” Admiral Solomon walks her up to the podium where Maverick stands next to a large board with a video of a plane flying up. Maverick grins with a slight bite to his lip, and Eden doesn’t like the face he’s making immediately.

“Welcome to the team, Benjamin.” He says.

After the debriefing ends, the pilots are instructed to go up into their planes and essentially try to lock onto Maverick before he could get a lock on their jet. At the base, Eden was to watch from the ground, just in case there needed to be any sort of medical assistance, and just to see what piloting was all about. She hoped there wouldn’t be a need for medical assistance. She didn’t really wanna have to be operating or anything on them their first day. So she just stood there, her hands on her hips, watching as Maverick took off with the first set of pilots. The way the jets moved was fascinating to her, and she’d love to take some sort of joy ride in one, but she was sure she’d get in trouble for that. She wasn’t about to risk this opportunity that just so happened to tumble its way in front of her.

“Alright, we’re up.” Phoenix states, her voice crackling over the speakers, “Bob, keep an eye out, for me, ‘kay?”

“Will do.” He says, and all Eden can hear is the sound of jets zooming around as Phoenix and Bob talk amongst themselves in the air. Eden tilts her head as she hums ‘Great Balls of Fire’ softly, crossing her arms before she hears someone coming up behind her with their boots scuffing the concrete. She turns, a soft huff out of her nose when she sees Hangman wave.

“What do you want, Hangman?” she asks, placing her palms on the desk and watching the little trackers run around on a screen as the planes zoom around in the sky as she hears Natasha and Bob’s conversation upgrade to yelling over the comms. The clock that beeps tells her it only took about two minutes and thirty seconds for Maverick to lock onto them. It makes chills break across Eden’s skin, she assumes it's good by the way Fanboy curses next to her asking Payback, “How can someone be that good?”

“Well, I wanna know what you’re doing here,” Hangman says, leaning onto the table next to her with a soft smile and she laughs, rolling her eyes.

“Do you not listen?” Eden says, “Besides, why does it matter?”

“You’re not with the Navy, Benjamin.” He bends down uncomfortably close, “What makes you think you belong here with us? Huh? Running with the… big dogs, the best of the best, what makes you think you’re even cut out for that?”

Eden turns her head over her shoulder, momentarily ripping her gaze from the screen in front of her, “I think I’m cut out for anything I’m put through, Jake.”

“Oh?” He said, giving her a brazen grin as he rolls his toothpick against his teeth with his tongue, “I’m not too sure about that, Eden.”

“Wow, are you this pissed because I beat you at eight ball?” Eden counters, trying her hardest to not let it be obvious that Hangman’s words stung her already slightly fragile confidence, “Well, I was picked to come here, so they’ve gotta think I’m gonna be some asset. Plus, I’m not here to fly, idiot. I’m a fucking nurse , Hangman. That’s what I’m here to do, so don’t bite the hand that’ll feed you on your deathbed sometime, yeah?”

Payback laughs, Fanboy grinning from behind his helmet as the two pass Eden and Hangman and make their way to the tarmac where their respective planes sit idly, gleaming in the sun.

“Shouldn't you be getting ready to get your ass kicked, Seresin?” Eden says, but as his last name leaves her mouth a face flashes in front of her eyes– a kind-hearted blonde girl who sat in the front of her classroom in her Anatomy and Physiology class. At that moment, all she can see in that girl– Bridget Seresin’s face, is Hangman and she can't stop herself from blurting out, “Shit. You’re Bridget’s brother.”

Jake’s very obviously taken aback, “How do you know my sister?”

“She’s the star student in my Anatomy and Physiology class.” Eden crosses her arms, giving Hangman a confused look, “How the hell are you two related? You act nothing alike, case one, she’s actually nice.”

“Shit!” He shouts, a sudden realization leaving him without a comeback, “You’re Miss Benjamin!”

“We just covered that.” Eden states, very obviously agitated at this point because– duh, she just fucking said that Hangman, “Now go think about how you were just a dick to your sister's favorite teacher while Maverick kicks your ass in the air.”

Hangman rolls his eyes but bites his tongue as he turns to leave and go do whatever final checks he had to do before climbing into his plane. So now, it’s just her and one more person in the hanger-turned-classroom. Whoever it is, they’re hastily putting on their flight gear, muttering under their breath about papers or something. Eden spares a glance over to see Bradley looking like his vest had done something to personally piss him off. She rolls her eyes with a tiny smile, and she watches the screens flicker around until she hears Bradley’s footsteps walk up to her.

“Eden Benjamin.” He says softly and she turns, giving him a soft smile through her pink-lined lips as she leans onto the table a bit more with her hands as she tries not to think about the fact that Bradley looks really nice in the sunlight. Or how it really shows the color of his eyes or the definition of his cheekbones. She bites her lip absentmindedly as she thinks of exactly what to say, should she throw some sort of quip his way? Should she apologize for the jacket?

“You okay over there?” She asks instead, giving him a soft chuckle as he adjusts part of his uniform she assumes she’ll eventually learn the name of. She doesn’t ask him about the uniform though, not feeling like starting some sort of argument because he looks like he’s pissed at the thing that currently sits on his chest.

“Well, I’d be better with my jacket.” He leans one hand onto the table beside her, looking over at her with a gentle gaze with some sort of admiration. She has to look over her shoulder to see him, so she can't catch a good glance at his facial expression. He keeps talking though, leaning in a bit closer, but keeping her personal space intact, “you should’ve worn it, the dark leather would probably bring out your eyes. I’ve never met someone with eyes as light green as yours.”

“The only person I’ve ever met with eyes like mine are Mavericks.” She comments, looking up at the screen as Hangman’s caught by the aforementioned pilot, and she tries to ignore the way she can visibly see Bradley’s gaze harden and his shoulders tense, “But, maybe I didn’t wanna wear your jacket, maybe I’m saving it.”

“You’re saving it? For what?” He instantly unwound as he laughed softly, a grin breaking across his face as he tilted his head with a playful sort of chuckle rising from his throat after his laughter subsided.

She turns so that they’re face to face, making herself a bit closer to him, and speaking in a lower voice as she looks at Bradley through her eyelashes, “A special occasion. Say, bring yourself by The Hard Deck tonight and I’ll personally return it.”

“Well, I’d love that.” He leans in a bit closer before Maverick’s voice comes across the speakers.

“Rooster, you’re up.” He says and Rooster smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes as it had before, she pretends not to notice the odd behavior whenever Maverick comes up, “I’ll see you around.”

Eden gives him a small salute, internally cursing at herself for how stupid she probably looks, “Have fun getting your ass kicked by Maverick. Two hundred pushups seem like torture to me.”

“It’s nothing to me, promise.” He grins, returning the little salute (which makes Eden feel better) before he’s walking over to his jet and scooping up his helmet from a desk. Eden, now alone at the computers, drags a chair over to sit down. Eventually, once Rooster’s in the air, Phoenix joins her at the screens with Admiral Solomon and another man Eden hasn’t met yet, standing behind them.

“Warlock,” Phoenix turns, catching the attention of Admiral Solomon, “Can we talk to them over these microphones?”

“Yes, you can do so by pressing the call button right here,” He points to a small black button right next to Eden’s elbow and she internally prays that she didn't accidentally press it while arguing with Hangman or flirting with Bradley– again . Then someone says something about Maverick and Rooster being stupid. So Eden glances up to see the two dots swirling around each other as they begin to plummet, lower and lower, and then a moment later, Phoenix is slamming her hand down on the microphone and screaming, “Rooster! Pull up! The Hard Deck!”

“The bar..?” Eden murmurs as some siren begins to beep– loud and clear, and Admiral Solomon’s eyes harden as he watches, before Bob, Fanboy, Coyote, and Payback come running over with confused looks on their faces, Phoenix turns and shouts to them,

“I don’t know what the fuck Rooster’s doing, it’s like he’s trying to beat out Maverick– or something–?”

“He’s too low, he has to pull up!” Coyote exclaims, bringing his hands to his head where fresh sweat glistens from his push-ups. Hangman crosses his arms, watching with a curious look and almost no care in his eyes. Which, for some reason, ticks Eden off a lot more than it should. Though Eden can't even think about it before Phoenix calls for Rooster again, telling him to pull up, this time with a few curse words littered in– before one of the Admiral steps in and tells him to pull up too. She can even hear Maverick yelling at him over and over again to pull up and then she thinks– why doesn’t Maverick just lay off? He’s leading someone to their fucking death! Eventually, Eden realizes Bradley’s not listening, and she starts to think of what medical supplies the Navy might have, and what equipment she might need– before Rooster sharply pulls his jet up after he must realize that death is the only other option, just to be caught by Maverick a second or so later.

“What the hell was that, Bradshaw?!” Maverick roars with clear agitation in his tone, “Go land. Do your push-ups. That’s not me asking, that's an order as your instructor.”

Even though Bradley doesn’t answer, his plane moves to land anyway. And not only does the other instructor– Hondo she thinks he’s called, go to see Bradley's push-ups, Admiral Warlock and the other Admiral follow him. Leaving the rest of them alone, by the computers, and in silence. It’s at this moment Eden wishes she could shrink away because every pilot behind her and the small group she’d amassed around the computers begins talking amongst themselves sharply. Even if she can’t hear their words, she knows what they’re asking. Why? And who does he think he is?

“Is he trying to get himself killed?” Hangman sounds and Phoenix tuts, tilting her hands on the back of Eden’s chair. Turning slowly, Eden sizes him up, and all she can read across him is agitation. Beside him, Phoenix looks anxious, Bob’s practically ready to bolt, Coyote bites his lip, and Fanboy just watches with a tense look as Payback slips over to stand beside him. The other pilots are either still doing pushups, chatting behind them, or have slipped back into the classroom to hide from the anger of a now hollering Admiral Solomon. Bradley’s definitely in deep shit for that. Maverick probably is too.

Phoenix speaks after a beat of silence, “He’s got some sort of vendetta against Maverick.”

“Who cares what he has,” Payback critiques from beside Fanboy as he casually slides his phone back into his pocket, “He’s gonna get us all killed if he’s put on a mission acting like that.”

“Stress hormones can damage critical neuronal connections,” Eden mutters softly, when she realizes everyone stops to listen, she raises her voice a bit, “it’s the first day of some crazy mission, maybe he’s trying to show off, or seem better than he thinks he is. But it’s probably just a stress reaction or something along those lines.”

“Sorry, I don’t speak medical.” Hangman snaps with clear snark that Eden wants to oh so badly rip off his stupid tanned face.

Coyote shoves him, without much malice, “You have an issue with everyone, Bagman, fuck off.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Hangman raises his hands after he notes the clear concern of his fellow pilots, and he ducks under a tarp to slip into the classroom with Coyote, Fanboy and Payback silently stumbling away behind him. Eden’s glad Hangman goes because then he can’t piss her off anymore. She’d like to be his friend, as he’d never done anything horrid or vulgar to her besides his crude comments, but some of what he said wasn’t as bad as what some of her students had told her. But, it didn’t matter now, she’d personally decided to avoid Hangman and probably shit-talk him with his sister on Friday when she was able to return to her classroom. She was happy the Navy had agreed to let her go back the last two days to see her seniors out for graduation.

“What’s Hangman’s fucking issue?” Eden questions, crossing her arms and trying to ignore the weird inkling of protectiveness she feels in her gut– so she starts to try and reason it, “He’s been a dick to me all day, and now with that whole near-death thing? Shouldn’t we be worried about Bradley, not angry?”

“Hangman’s ego is so fucking large he can’t even contain it.” Phoenix begins taking off her flight suit, clicking off some sort of vest and shimmying out of it as Bob opens his mouth to speak, pauses, and then decides to speak.

“As long as I’ve known Seresin he’s been this way.” Bob expresses softly, leaning onto the desk where the microphone sits, “I think he’s like… insecure and trying to suppress it.”

“That would frankly make a lot of sense.” Eden sighs, but before she can continue, Maverick announces they’re done for the day and the conversation gets yielded in the bustle of people packing up and departing. Resting her head in her hands, Eden wheezes out a long sigh– how the hell was she going to be cut out for this? On her very first day, one guy nearly drives himself straight through the ground like a drill.

She still needs to go through the stupid aviator's medical training too, if she’s gonna be joining the other medic for their mission with any sort of dignity on her shoulders. Before she can control herself, she's spiraling. Asking herself, was she even cut out for this? Was she a hazard to the team? What if she ended up getting someone hurt because she didn’t know the right procedures to do? Or what if someone died in her care? How was she supposed to justify that to someone’s parents? Their children? Did any of the pilots other than Hangman have siblings? How would she explain that to them?

“Excuse me, Dr. Benjamin?” A voice calls and Eden pivots, trying to wipe the sorrowful look off her face as she’s met with the hard gaze of none other than Maverick. Pete Mitchell, she remembers him introducing himself as. Admiral Solomon had called him Captain Mitchell at one point too, so she assumes she should follow his lead with the honorifics.

“Captain Mitchell.” She stands, giving him a nod of respect which he returns after a beat– as if he wasn’t expecting it. Eden realizes she’s leagues out of it.

“What is the Super Hornet?” He asks unexpectedly and Eden stutters for an instant before spitting out, mentally swearing at herself for not being able to think of her feet as quickly as others.

“The planes being used for the mission, sir.” She declares, “They’re the technologically advanced models of the F-14s.”

“What else do you know about them?” He asks and even though Eden rakes her brain, she’s unable to come up with anything, which makes Maverick sigh as he watches Eden’s very visible internal panic.

“They set you up for failure, kid.” He declares, grabbing a chair and pulling it up next to Eden, “I’m not expecting you to know much, and honestly there’s not much more we’re gonna be teaching these pilots. Every single one of these pilots knows their planes inside and out, and they know their wingmen better than they know anyone else. Some of these pilots know each other from other squadrons, some of them went to college together– like Hangman and Bob. They’re pretentious as hell, but all of them are amazing pilots for their age– Eden, you’re close to their age, right?”

“Yes, actually, a week before the mission I’ll be turning twenty-eight.” She says softly, idly picking at her nails again as she keeps Maverick’s gaze, watching a world of emotions flicker through his eyes before he huffs and murmurs something to himself before hastily reaching in his bag and pulling out a few small books as he stands up and nearly trips over his chair in his sudden hurry. It makes her think, why had he pulled out a chair if he was just gonna leave a few seconds later? Had she said something to upset him?

“Just look through these, it’s information on the planes and the one that’s stapled together is the information for our mission. The red one is a book Warlock– Admiral Solomon, gave me for you. It’s a guide to Aviation medication and has information on past injuries of our pilots, so you can keep those in mind for the mission.” He pats her shoulder before leaving, “See you at the Hard Deck tonight, but get some studying done before you leave, kid.”

“I– Okay, thank you, Maverick!” Eden calls after him and then idles for a moment, extremely confused as to why he was surprised when she clarified what he had thought– that she was the same age as the pilots. What about her age freaked him out? Had he thought she was older, he knew she was Penny’s daughter, and her mom was only around Eden’s age when she’d had her. She didn’t get it, and she wondered if she ever would.

But Admiral Solomon offered her a ride home and on the way, she held the books in her lap with a newfound determination. She was gonna do anything she could to be the best flight medic in the entire fucking Navy.

#bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley bradshaw #top gun maverick #top gun fanfiction #top gun

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