Author's Note: Ok, here I am. Wanna wrap up this mini arch before I play around in other fandoms. Enjoy!
Mayday
The Man Behind the Eyes
XxxX
Ripping down the highway after the strange hot thing ahead of him, Pete quickly realized he was a better navigator of the sky than he could ever hope to be on the ground.
Pummeling 80 miles an hour, they may as well have cut through the air like fighters. Highway beneath them was little more than a black streak. Peppered with yellow and white, street lines raced up to greet rubber tires biting at asphalt in such a way that, given a lingering attention, would've been dizzying.
He didn't care. Speed felt good—this was as close to flight as the ground allowed. He needed this. Erasing Goose, pushing Rooster out of his head, this mission had consumed his waking moments. Every pulse of blood through his veins turned over thicker, deeper responsibilities than a mere Captain should be responsible for.
This was the shit that created admirals, put stars on the jacket. This job shouldn't have fallen to him; a wash out with a dead-end career and commendations barely enough to resuscitate a bad reputation. It was thin—all of it was so, so thin. Anorexic, even. He could feel the proverbial ice cracking beneath his feet.
Back teeth touching, the muscle in his mandible fired off a hot twitch. He twisted the accelerator and fed the rocket more gas, hunkering lower across the seat. Wind ripped over his head, threatening to tear him right out of the leathers. Pop the clutch, get in behind her wake, streamline. Balance, his core was on fire, he couldn't stop the wicked grin and the pure joy of watching her curls madly dance from beneath her helmet.
He caught sight of her in the side mirror. Visor open, red lips nearly sparkling in fast fading sunlight. She was smiling. Teeth purer than snow, sapphire eyes alight with innocence he had forgotten existed. Young, she was so young, and bright; beautiful, a picture of what he and a thousand others like him and dedicated their lives to protect.
She was life itself. Thrown back a decade or two to younger and happier years, she reminded him of his own bad decisions and loves lost. All the things he should've had at this point in his life, career. His mind spun with visions of the nine to five, a home that wasn't a hangar, kids he could've had.
White picket fences and photo albums. A wife who maybe could've loved him, and the job. Charlie. Penny, even; Amelia would've been a spectacular stepdaughter. Mae, with eyes the color of fighters and a smile as bright as blinding sunlight.
Mae, whom he didn't even know the last name of.
"Get out of your head, Mav," he mumbled to himself. Checking the speedometer, 75.
Mae was a good stretch ahead of him. Fast, furious, beautiful, sunlight glinted off the metal flake spinning through blood red paint of the Indian. Rich exhaust slapped him sharply across the face, lighting up his senses. Barely able to hear above the scream of his own machine, Maverick somehow managed to hear her feed her beast more fuel.
Then, he watched her make a show of finding him in the side mirror. Smiling at him, wide and genuine, he could've sworn he saw her nose wrinkle up teasingly before pulsing vermillion lights lit up the rear end of her bike. She tapped the brakes. The engine bogged before she popped into a lower gear, gears leveling out. She swerved lightly, like a racer keeping tires on pavement.
He came up, fast.
Panicking, out of pure gut instinct, he didn't dare slow—instead, he punched the throttle and came up so close that his front tire nearly kissed her pipe. Wired and on edge, darting around her, Maverick smoothly took point. Now, Mae rode the wake his speedbike cut through the wind.
He was losing her, tapped his brakes and put the bike down five. Leveling out, he peeked at his own mirror—she was laughing at him. Full laughs that made her shake, made her an unsafe driver. Shit, she was stunning, almost take-your-breath-away levels of fresh and alive and pretty. His gut lifted a few inches against his ribs.
Just like flying, huh Mav?
She gave him the same feeling he'd had at Mach 10. Every stitch of him was alive. Not a place old or ragged. How he didn't know, he didn't even know her last name. But somewhere, seeing her beneath California sun, erased every trace of worry Rooster or the mission or Ice had dared stir up in his meatchest.
He was grinning as he realized he had no idea where she'd been leading him. He slowed down, signaling that she should come back around and pointman.
Zipping by him, Pete could've sworn he saw her wink. Didn't think much of it. Watching the moment she settled into the seat and into the rest of the ride, he got the sense there was a fair stretch of road left before them.
They drove like this for a while, flirting through mirrors and miles. He outpaced her only to wave her back in front. Maverick had never directly flirted with a woman pushing a hard 80 miles an hour, fast moving vehicles usually put the ladies on edge. Penny had been a breeze, all he had to do was smile and nod and get her into some trouble he'd already planned on kicking up. Charlie had been harder to impress, her and her math-and-all-logic brain. And all the other women, well—they were impressed with commendations and medals, rank and all.
But Mae didn't know he was a Captain. She didn't know what he wasn't. And, she didn't seem to mind—the Navy was his occupation. It wasn't him. What he gathered, she'd tasted her fair shake of rank and commendations and hadn't much enjoyed it. The service had robbed her of a life, much as it had taken from him.
He'd been willing to give his heart. Mae—the Navy had ripped hers from her hands and buried it six feet under.
That was the way of it, though. Give it all or it takes, takes, takes and takes….
Bradley snapped into his thoughts like a haunting phantom. Scarred, frightened childhood eyes before the cold, resentful eyes of a man bounced off his brain. Painful guilt, acidic shame flew down Maverick's throat like it was a runway. Rattling around his ribcage, memories of Nick pounded his heart like a volley.
Out of nowhere and too frequent, Rooster's face followed him like a lost puppy or a bad habit, whichever was worse. Seeing him push tar for two hundred rounds hadn't been how he'd wanted this to go—he'd been hoping they'd at least discuss this. But no.
Bradley never wanted to talk. Talking required being in-the-moment. Raptor-like reflexes, no time to think.
And Rooster was the kinda guy to use his head. Too much. Goose had been that way. Damnit.
Bradley had more of his father in him than he'd ever know. And that was leaving out his mother's catty, feisty gall. Together, they'd created a ticking time bomb of emotion, attitude, and wherewithal that had landed himself among the Navy's best roster.
Rooster had the guts of a phenomenal pilot. Makings of an admiral or a senator, even. Someday.
That is, if he'd learn to leave his head on the tarmac and actually listen.
Reality sank Maverick's gut into his knees like a hard stone. Rooster had a few problems, but his overthinking took the cake. By far and away Bradley Bradshaw was a skilled airman, the workings of a world-class fighter. Maverick could see it in his eyes—flying was in his blood. It fueled him as much as it did himself.
But the man behind his eyes….oof. He was as uncertain as the way a cat was about to pounce. On edge, overthinking, always trying to reason—the man behind Rooster's eyes kept him off the throttle, out of the moment. From taking risks that could make the difference.
Could kill him, if the timing was bad enough.
Every pilot had a man that hid behind his eyes. An Icarus that lived and breathed the sky. Who, when in flight, gave way to everything earthbound. Did nothing but drink the sun, inhale its light. Thin air bled through his veins, and he touched stars.
Feeling–just doing to stay alive–was all that mattered to every pilot's inner man.
He'd seen the man in his own eyes. Wild, reckless, happy.
In Bradley's. Hangman's. Even Phoenix, who was more of a dark horse than she let on.
But the man behind the eyes did not think. Thinking got you killed. You feel, you react— or, you die. It was that simple. Thinking engaged one too many fight or flight responses, and calculation cost time, fuel, ammo, or any combination of the three.
Luck only carried pilot's so far, and right now, Rooster had built his house on luck, circumstance, and chance.
Fate only played so many hands before she won the game.
Thinking had killed one too many talented pilots in Naval history. Thinking, and headgames. Ego was the next culprit, which every one of his asshat students possessed too much of. Two hundred pushups barely broke the ice. They'd need a flogging just to beat it out of them.
He'd needed a flogging to beat it out of him. Mostly. What remained was a healthy dose of confidence. So he liked to think, anyway.
Adrenaline was kicking against his breastbone like a mule, reminding him he was alive. Old aches broke in new pains down his back, living testament that this rig wasn't the young buck he liked to think he was. Feeling the heat from the engine ride alongside his leg, his gaze flicked down to the gauges on the bike, realizing that they'd slowed down just a hair.
Her lights flashed a bright vermilion, and she slowed enough to kick down the bike and baby-step it into a turn. Doing the same, Maverick noticed that she'd carried him well beyond the limits of Fightertown. Actually, there was no town anywhere—nothing but endless sky, horizon, desert. Dappled with the greens of brush and shadows of rocks and crags, sunlight continued to melt toward the earth. Magnificent tangerine and saffrons spun through sky, a haze of pink too brilliant to ignore watercoloring through golden clouds. He'd seen many a gorgeous setting of the sun, but none recently enough to remind him how gorgeous the view from the ground could be.
Tires on gravel and the loud shriek of a revved engine grabbed his attention. Mae flipped off the helmet, looped it through her arm, and gestured with her head to the massive gate. Topped with a huge set of mounted longhorns, faded and cragged by harsh sun, Maverick's eyes followed the immaculate fence lining the long drive.
Guesstimating nearly half a mile down, the ranch house crowning the drive was probably gargantuan. Had to be, he could see it clearly from here. It said one thing—money. History. Generational wealth. Mae was loaded? Or, more likely, her family was loaded.
Surprises, surprises, huh? Life was full of 'em.
Leading him through the gate with a smile and a plume of dust behind her, they parked in the figure eight that spun through the front yard. Swinging lazily off the bike, he noticed Mae's truck and trailer parked off the main drag. She lived here, this wasn't a joke.
Well, off to a good start, Mav…
Brushing the dust off of his jacket, he slid the aviator's up on his head as he watched Mae engage the kickstand of her Indian. She swung off easily, sauntering toward him with hands fisted in the pockets of her jacket.
She joined in him surveying trucks, machinery, all the workings of a living ranch parked around the massive house. Three barns not fifteen yards to the north, veins of fencing weaving them together like an intricate web. A large sand arena stood empty of life, nothing but training equipment swept into a small corner. Two large corrals, weathered from desert sun, baked in the heat of early evening.
Nobody was around. Could've been silent as the dead, save the baleful wail of cattle in the distance. Maverick could hear every one of the woman's breaths, watched her stare peacefully over the landscape. An amused quick lifted the corner of her lips.
Impressed, he lazily shuffled his feet across the loose stones of the driveway. Gauging the terrain, watching for signs of life. Nothing. She either lived alone, or the workings of this place were out. Animals could be pushed out over any number of acres along the horizon, though cattle were somewhere within earshot—a barn, most likely.
Direct movement from his 11 o'clock snapped his attention. A lone, tattered, orange-and-white windsock offered just enough of a flutter to stand out among the otherwise still landscape. His brows shot up in surprise, there was an airfield out this way? Beyond the trees and brush, perhaps. Even shielding his eyes and offering the this-is-supposed-to-enhance-vision squint, he didn't see tar.
Mae came sauntering up beside him, hands in the pockets of her jacket. He knew she saw the moment he made the connection. Smug, her eyes cut over to him when he looked at her, brow cocked suspiciously.
Sparkling sapphires lidded, her eyes nearly twinkled when he pointed to the marker.
His tilted head and cocked expression read all levels of, Really? before her lips twisted into a hardly-contained smile. Nose wrinkling adorably, she winked at him and gestured with her head downwind as her fisted hands sank deeper into her pockets.
Snorting when he grinned at her, their silent conversation drifted into words.
"Surprised?"
Maverick's fingers pinched together to indicate a small amount. "Maybe just a little," he gestured with a sweeping hand, "nice place you got here."
"Told you the pension was nice,"
He blurted out a full laugh, which almost doubled him over. Nothing about the Navy's pension was grand. Her light words indicated she'd been teasing. Pete couldn't have stopped smiling if he'd actually been trying.
Her head kicked back and she laughed, richly into the sky. When it bubbled into a little chortle, she stepped forward and turned on her heel, slowly marching backwards in the direction of the nearest barn.
Cocking his head curiously, he blinked into the sunlight she was backing into, watching. Shadowed by fading sunlight and the backdrop of one of the most magnificent barns he'd ever seen, she was almost aetherial. Like air the vision of her sultry, youthful face spun in and out of reality, making him question everything.
Somewhere, Mae was in some man's wildest dreams. He didn't think she was deliberately seducing him, but the Naval aviator had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn't trying that hard not to, either. Her booted feet scuffed against the gravel of the yard, kicking up little plumes of thirsty dust and dirt over her toes. For a moment he feared he was dreaming, and swiftly traced his tongue over his bottom teeth to stir some kind of moisture in the back of his throat.
She grinned at him brightly. "Come with me, Mitchell," she pointed to the ceiling of blue sky above them, rolling her eyes upward.
"Let's get up into some thinner air, shall we?"
Her eyes leveled on him like something from a dream, the breeze catching her hair over her shoulder. Withdrawing a hand from her pocket, she crooked a finger at him to follow. Turning sharply on her heel she spun to face the barn. Back to him, her pace became more determined before she rounded the corner of the building, Maverick hustling to keep up with her.
Like a lost puppy he followed her out to the airfield, which was farther from the homestead than it looked. Within moments he was pushing the massive door along the track, the mouth of the hangar opening wide to account for wingspan. Shadows revealed what appeared to be the chassis of P-51 Mustang, painted the same grayish blue of fighters, and Mae's eyes.
Numbly it sat, unmoving. Half tarped over the blades to keep the sparkling dust in the sunlight out, Mae ripped the canvas from over the propeller with a flick of her wrist. Cracking against the silent desert air, dust spun and swirled in a cloud, dancing across the air as he batted it away and took a slow, deliberate saunter around the machine.
Gorgeous, was too tame a word. Pristine and exquisite, a black and white set of stripes banded the nose. A star and banner, typical of military tradition and honor, rested toward the back. Light yellow and white pinstriping flew down the sides in perfect harmony, elegantly bending with each swell and dip of the machine's design.
One glance across the wing to Mae's inspecting eye, he realized it wasn't the only gorgeous secret this desert was gatekeeping.
Glossy and beautiful, the bird looked nearly mint. He couldn't see inside the canopy, but Maverick was a betting man toward its equally well kept state. Impressed, his head bobbed slightly with his saunter as he flowed around the plane's wing, finger lightly skipping over rivets here and there.
He spotted Mae glancing over the baby again. Brow furrowed slightly, inspective. Sunlight caught the highlight on her cheeks, nearly glinting out of azure, alive eyes. Stunning. The cavern of his cheeks went dry all over again.
He stopped at the swirling calligraphy of the name etched in fine arcs along the pilot's seat—Commander G. "Qwick" Swift.
Farther at the nose,"One Morning in Mae" spun in white, captivating pinstriping.
It clicked. Quickly. She's somebody's wife, Mav, and here he was, desperately trying not to notice her creamy, strong legs. Or the way she cut a sundress just so. Something in his chest kicked against his ribs, painfully. But in a good way.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" Reverent, her eyes lifted from the plane to him across the wing. The question was genuine. Like she really wanted his opinion. Almost like a child showing a parent a proud possession.
Giving her a cautious, sidelong look, Maverick wasn't entirely sure what foot to land on standing in the spinning dust and heavy humidity of the hangar.
Somebody's wife….
Uncertain of the ground he'd found himself on with the stranger, he couldn't shake the though that she belonged to someone. Young as she was, she'd been a wife. To a Commander. A lesser rank than himself, but a man of USN rank all the same. G Swift's wife, whoever that was.
Someone lost to history, to time. In an unreachable place at the back of his membrane he remembered her mentioning something of a dead husband. A pang of guilt reached up to swipe the air from his throat. Too young to be a widow, to beautiful to be unattached, Mae confused him even more. It didn't exactly compute standing in the shadow of someone's prized glory, as a P-51 was.
He leaned against the glossy-painted wing. How could something so beautiful belong to somebody who would never again use it to chase the sun? Eyes skipping down the length of the woman, how could somebody so beautiful be so alone? Trying not to think of his own loneliness and the bad hand love had dealt him, he pushed Penny and Charlie from his thoughts.
He could've been happy. Not once, but twice. And he'd chosen his career. Both times.
Wondering if Mae had been happy in her marriage, he didn't even notice her stop beside the wing. Mirroring his posture, her hand sank back into her jacket pocket as she smiled softly at him. Spinning a curl around her finger, she nodded to the canopy before her head tipped to the side.
"Think you can handle her?" Her voice was deep, tempting. Hot blood spun through his ears, looking for a place to go. His skin bristled, snapping him to attention. Unnerved, he swallowed thickly. He watched her notice.
Relax, Mav, "I can fly anything,"
"Oh?" she snorted. Was that disbelief? "Cocky, aren't you?"
His turn to smile in that teasingly sultry way. He stepped closer, looking down at her shorter frame. He wasn't a tall man but he shadowed her. Close enough to feel her hot breath, to smell mint and whatever flowery perfume clung to her skin. To see a sheen of fine sweat across her forehead, making her shine.
For a moment her walls built. A shadow of hesitance passed through her eyes before it blinked out of existence, overshadowed by the small lift of her brow and lift of her chin. She gently pushed off the wing, resting a steady hand against it. Other hand retreating from her pocket, she popped it on her cocked hip. Maverick saw the moment she summed up the air between them. It wasn't much.
His head cocked, "You trust me to fly your husband's plane." Her dead husband's plane. It was pressure he'd never thought to feel. He felt like a greenie all over again.
Lips curling into a twisting smile, she chuckled, "And if I do?"
"You barely know me," he didn't know why he was giving her room to back out of this, but, here they were.
Fiery sapphire eyes swept over him and there was a heartbeat of silence that bled between them.
"My husband wouldn't need to know you to trust you to fly a plane, Captain Mitchell." She fisted her hand and knocked it against the wing twice. "And it isn't his plane anymore. It's mine."
Finality filled her tone to the brim, leaving no room for argument. Without warning, she lifted herself onto the wing, walking across it easily to the cockpit. Managing the canopy, she wrangled out of her jacket and threw it inside.
Crouching she dipped in, and plucked out two headsets. Turning, she chucked one at him. He easily caught it before blinking at her, looking between the headset and the stranger for a few seconds. Standing, she smiled down at him lustfully, before she tied her hair back into a low tail.
"Waiting on an invitation, Maverick?"
He didn't need to be told twice.