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compacflt · 10 months

Note

For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father.

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life.

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots.

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.”

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.”

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation.

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.”

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.”

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is.

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie.

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm.

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well.

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady.

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.”

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.”

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider.

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens.

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

#happy Father's Day!#some light discussion of religion in this one but u should be used to that with me #this one is long bc it hits a LOT of prompts sry it took a minute #going thru my inbox: for this anon obv #and FTAW (for the anon who) wanted more competitive icemav #for the FOUR anons who wanted ice and bradley to talk about queerness in the navy #FTAW wanted rooster to explain how hangster came to be #FTAW wanted more ice breaking the rules (‘management tier asshole’ lol)#for the THREE anons who wanted more soft 90s icemav #which is hard for me to write bc those years are kinda boring #it’s literally just: they wake up together. Go to work together. raise their kid together. eat dinner together. fall asleep in the same bed #occasionally fuck. Keep it a secret. don’t talk about it.#for 5 years. like… narratively speaking it’s v boring but yeah they’re happy :)#FTAW wanted more of ices prenavy backstory (this isn’t really much but…)#FTAW wanted icemav’s relationship with religion #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun maverick #top gun #icemav #top gun fanfiction #you guys sure love ur anonymity don’t u #i wanna know who’s sending in asks!!! my dms are open!!! Please come say hi!!!#there are some timeline issues wrt Carole in this one sorry. u can deal.

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pippytmi · 9 months

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spy!au + meet messy + you never saw me ? If not that's fine, I just thought it would be cool. :)

spy!au + meet messy + you never saw me

“So on a scale of 1-10, how much do we hate the fiancée?”

A wry laugh escapes before Kara can even try to quell it, and she briefly removes the unlit cigarette from her mouth to muse, “You know, I've heard a saying that goes ‘never judge a book by its cover.’ Fascinating stuff, I might have to send it to you.”

“Ugh. Journalists—so idealistic.” But Nia is grinning as she snags the barstool at Kara's right. “Where is the elusive Lena Luthor anyway? Do we finally get to meet her?”

Kara shrugs. “Beats me,” she says. “Last I heard, she was running late.”

“Late to her own engagement party? Finally, someone I can get along with,” Nia says. Before Kara can even get a word in, Nia's attention is immediately stolen by the bartender coming over. “Hey M’gann, can I get an amaretto sour?”

“Sure thing,” M’gann says absentmindedly, her gaze otherwise zeroing in firmly on Kara. “Danvers, you better not smoke in my bar.”

“I won't,” Kara swears, raising both hands in a show of innocence, and M'gann rolls her eyes.

“Journalists,” she echoes Nia's earlier sentiment, but with an entirely exasperated deeper meaning. “I'm putting Nia's drink on your tab.”

“Well in that case…” Nia twists around, already waving her hand as if to beckon someone over. “Make it two, Kara's buying a drink for the bride to be. Alex! Don't—I know you can see me, come here.”

For as much as Alex stressed the importance of everyone showing up tonight, she doesn't seem very…well, happy. And while Alex is not typically one to gush, Kara had expected at least a smidgen of joy on her sister's face, not the harried expression she's currently sporting.

“What?” Alex asks, eyes them both suspiciously while fidgeting as if she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Um, hello to you too,” Nia says. “Clearly, you need this. Where's your soon-to-be better half?”

Alex accepts the drink when Nia presses it in her hand but frowns, however slight, at the question. “She's—on her way,” she says, pausing to take a sip from her glass before her gaze falls on her sister. “Oh, gross, Kara. Since when do you smoke?”

“I don’t!” Kara pouts, feeling like a broken record. “Can’t I be edgy and have a cigarette to look cool?”

“That’s the most pretentious thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Nia says, delighted, while Alex just groans.

“Come on, Kara, not tonight. Just be normal for once in your life,” Alex sighs, already distractedly glancing back to the front door like she is willing her fiancée to just walk through any second.

“You guys don’t understand the intricacies of being a method actor,” Kara argues, waving her cigarette in the air to make her point. (And also, because it is kind of awkward to keep it in her mouth without doing anything with it, not that she’ll admit that). But it’s clear she only has half the audience she had a second ago; Alex is half a world away the second her phone starts to ring.

“I’ll be back,” Alex says, handing off her glass to Nia who is more than happy to finish it.

Kara dejectedly puts the cigarette back in her mouth. “I just realized something.”

“What?”

“I don’t actually know how to smoke. What if someone expects me to, like, smoke with them?”

Nia presses a fingertip to her chin and ponders the question seriously. “Either you're screwed, or they will just think you're a dork. The reaction will depend on the person, really.”

Kara's shoulders slump. “So I won't be cool?”

“Journalists generally aren't cool,” Nia unhelpfully offers. “But I'm sure you could make it work for you. You'd be like…one of those grizzly story-seeking sleuth journalists.”

Kara groans, thumping her forehead on the bartop. “That seems more like a private investigator thing,” she says. “Darn it. I'm going to have to start from scratch.”

“I'm all in favor of quitting method acting for one night,” M'gann chimes in, still eyeing Kara's cigarette distastefully. “Now do you need a refill or are you going to fall asleep here?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kara says, lifting her head in order to sheepishly push her emptied club soda over. “Pour me a double.”

That joke never lands—M'gann just rolls her eyes and refills the glass, wiping her hands off before moving down to another patron. Nia scoots her stool closer to Kara once she's gone to reassuringly say,

“I like the pretentious cigarette. It makes you look like a hipster…they’re coming back into fashion, you know. Just like leg warmers.”

Kara wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think anyone really liked leg warmers.”

“That’s how I know you were unfashionable in high school,” Nia says. Then, apparently already bored with the topic at hand, she turns around in search of their former company. “Hey, where did Alex go? I haven’t even bought her a round of shots yet!”

“That’s a good question,” Kara says thoughtfully. “Maybe Lena showed up?” But when she swivels her chair to aid Nia’s search, she can't spot her sister either; considering Al’s Bar is a hole in the wall with not many patrons, that can only mean Alex has stepped out. “I'll go find her.”

All things considered, the night is pleasant—when Kara emerges without her jacket, the air isn't quite cool enough to make her go back in to retrieve it. She walks around the corner to the alley where everyone goes to smoke, but Alex isn’t there. Alex is also not in the 7-11 across the street, nor is she two doors down at the diner. (Kara orders a donut to go just to be 100% sure Alex won’t emerge from somewhere inside, of course, like a diligent sister).

Eventually, her pointless search leads her right back to Al’s. Nia has apparently had enough alcohol to drag Kelly to dance; Winn and James have begun a spirited game of pool; Querl has commandeered the jukebox and is studiously adding 80’s dance music to the queue. Alex, however, is still notably missing.

With a groan, Kara collapses at the bar again. “Can I get a water, M’gann?”

“You got it,” M’gann says, filling a fresh glass from the tap. She moves on immediately after to another customer, and Kara’s question about whether M’gann has seen Alex dies before it even forms. Kara sighs, takes a much-needed sip of her water, and resolves to just melt into her stool when all of a sudden she hears:

“Is this seat taken?”

It should be noted that, in the past, Kara has encountered situations far worse than this one. Moments where her life was in danger, even. She likes to think she has mastered the ability to remain unfazed in the face of the worst surprises at this point of her career.

But then again…she’s never actually met her sister’s fiancée before. And in a truly horrific turn of events, Kara ends up spit-taking all over her shoes.

“Oh crap, I am so sorry,” Kara says, making a mad grab for napkins off the bar and crouching down to pat at Lena’s heels. “Are you—okay, can I get, er, anything—” She doesn't even know how to apologize at this point, so tongue-tied she is just about to offer her own shoes off her feet.

Lena Luthor doesn't answer right away. She takes a delicate step down, and her hand covers Kara's in order to make her pause. When Kara musters the nerve to cautiously meet her eye, Lena gives her a small smile.

“It's fine.” Lena looks much more <i>vivid</i> than the photographs. Everything about her is sharp; the angles of her jaw, the eyeliner she wears, the intensity of her green eyes when they're trained on Kara. Even her voice edges on the sharper side, not quite cold but almost. “Kara, right? I recognize you from Alex's pictures.”

Kara barely remembers to nod. “Yes, I…recognize you too,” she says. “It's nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Lena draws her hand away immediately after, and Kara hastily rises up in order to put some space between them.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Kara asks quickly. “M'gann makes a great…sour.” She cannot for the life of her remember what it is that Nia ordered, and from the strange look on Lena’s face, she has 100% gotten the name wrong. “I don’t really drink.”

Somehow, that awkward confession makes Lena’s face twist, like she is trying not to smile. “Alex mentioned you’re sober,” she says. “I hope it’s alright, that she did.”

“No, yeah, it’s not a secret,” Kara says, but in her mind she’s thinking Alex and Lena talk about her? About what? Hopefully not embarrassing stuff. Shoot, knowing Alex, it’s 100% embarrassing stuff. “And I wouldn’t expect you to have any secrets with Alex either way, so.”

“Right.” Lena takes a careful seat besides Kara, her expression since gone entirely blank. She orders a scotch, Kara sticks to water, and they immediately maintain an awkward silence that M'gann raises a judgmental eyebrow at Kara for.

Kara clears her throat, desperate for any attempt of making nice she can muster. “So have you seen Alex?” she says.

“Today?” Lena has her glass raised to her lips, but she doesn't drink. “Not yet.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sure she's around here somewhere,” Kara says, and tries not to find it weird that Lena and Alex did not see each other at all today despite apparently living together.

This time Lena takes a long, thoughtful sip of her drink, and she turns her head to regard Kara silently. “Kara,” she says, as if testing the name all-too-carefully, practiced and halting like she wants to call Kara literally anything else. “Would it be a fair assessment to assume you don't like me?”

Kara’s grip on her glass falters in a single blink-or-miss-it second before she manages to control her surprise. “What?” she says weakly. “I know we don’t know each other, but, if Alex likes you of course I like you.” Flustered, she backtracks to say, “I mean Alex loves you. Obviously.”

Lena doesn’t put Kara out of her misery. At least, not right away. No, she just smooths out the imaginary wrinkles of her form-fitting dress that she has chosen to wear to this dive bar, drums her fingertips against the sticky wood of the bar counter, and gazes pensively beyond her company in a way that can only be described as lost. Then,

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant to be an accusation,” Lena says. “What I meant is, I'm sure you must despise the idea of me.” An attempt at a smile crosses Lena’s lips, but it’s a sad one. “Today was mostly about putting your mind at ease over any misconceptions you might have.”

“Well, I’ve only known about you for like a week, but I can honestly say I have zero thoughts about you,” Kara says quickly. Then frowns. “Wait. That was supposed to sound reassuring. Can I start over?”

The engagement ring on Lena’s finger shimmers even in the poor lighting, and she rests her cheek against her palm, gazing at Kara with a curious, half-amused kind of look in her eyes. “The floor’s yours.”

“I’m not the kind of person who assumes the worst about other people,” Kara says, reaching for her water again, if only to tip it towards Lena reassuringly before taking a quick sip. “And if you make Alex happy, then I can only assume you’re a good person. Also, you might be a saint to even put up with her.”

Lena’s mouth twists into a proper smile, however small. “The way you two talk about each other is so…” She shakes her head as if she can’t quite finish that thought. “You two are clearly very close.”

“Unfortunately, yeah, I'm stuck with her,” Kara quips, and that at least feels normal—talking about Alex is a safe topic. Even if she hasn’t bothered to come back to her own engagement party. “Do you have any siblings?”

“A brother.” Any semblance of a smile vanishes entirely at that, and Lena hastily finishes the remainder of her drink.

Kara gets the feeling she has said something horribly wrong. “And are you two also…close?” she finishes her train of thought awkwardly, even if she already knows the answer.

“No.” The stony way Lena clenches her jaw suggests that Kara isn't winning any brownie points, here, and she has to bite her tongue to stop from pushing on. “Excuse me, can I get another?” Lena beckons M’gann over when she has a second, and M’gann gives Kara another questioning look but doesn’t say anything to her directly.

“I’m sorry,” Kara feels the need to say. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Oddly enough, I believe you,” Lena muses. “You did mention your sister has hardly talked about me.”

“I'm sure she would've,” Kara tries to reassure her. “I just don't see her too much nowadays, with my work.”

“Mm. You’re a journalist, right?” Lena asks, and there is something in her gaze that makes Kara feel hot under the collar. “Or was it a kindergarten teacher? I know you and your sister have an affinity for switching careers.” Something about the calculated way she pauses to take a sip of her drink, gaze expectant over the rim, causes Kara's heart to plummet into her stomach.

Kara, in turn, promptly chokes on air. “What? You—you know? About—” She stops. “I’m not sure Alex was allowed to tell you that.”

“Not even if we're going to get married?” Slowly, Lena begins to smile. It's a real smile, one Kara hadn't realized Lena was capable of until now. “Your sister might be the most by-the-book person I've ever met. Unfortunately for her, I was able to connect the dots about you myself.”

“Ah.” Kara drums her fingertips against the bar counter, feels her cheeks warm slightly with embarrassment.

Lena places a hand on Kara's forearm—a warm, gentle heat Kara can feel through the thin sleeve of her T-shirt. “That was no fault of yours,” she says reassuringly. “She slipped up talking about your job. It was fairly easy to connect the dots.”

Somehow, that does nothing to dissolve the dread slowly building up in Kara’s chest. Alex never slips up. Kara is the resident Danvers sister fuck up (Alex’s words exactly), and all at once Alex’s disappearance tonight becomes decidedly unsettling.

“When did she tell you about my job?” Kara blurts out. “Do you remember?”

“Yesterday, I think,” Lena says, and she regards Kara questioningly. “She was telling me about everyone who was going to be here today and what your friends do for work. Why?”

“Was she working? Looking at her computer or her phone or anything?”

“Yes, that’s all she ever does.” But it’s odd, the way Lena says it, like she’s not bothered in the slightest.

It could be nothing. It probably is nothing. But Kara still scans the bar with a renewed vigor in search of that familiar scowl that she cannot find. “She was just here,” Kara mutters aloud. “She wouldn’t have left without telling someone.”

“Alex?” Lena watches Kara carefully, no doubt trying to decide what to say. “Has she not told you if she’s running late?”

“No, she was here already,” Kara says. “I don’t think she would have—” She shakes her head to herself, cursing inwardly. She can’t assume that Alex has been dragged away for a work reason. Maybe it has something to do with Alex getting cold feet. Either way, telling her sister’s fiancée that the woman she’s supposed to marry has abandoned her engagement party doesn’t seem like it would do Alex any favors. “I’m sure she’s just in the bathroom or something. Uh, I’m going to just…” She pulls out her cigarette in a poor cover and says, “Go outside, for a smoke break, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Lena says. Then, “Would it be alright if I joined you?”

If Nia knew that Kara’s stupid cigarette would have led to this moment, she would laugh her ass off. Repeatedly. Kara supposes it’s a small mercy that Nia is still dancing with Kelly, so she is spared of any and all jokes at her expense.

It’s not until they’re outside that Kara sheepishly confesses: “So full disclosure…I don’t actually smoke.”

Lena doesn't look particularly surprised at the fact. “It's an odd thing to lie about,” she says, and tilts her head, surveying Kara with a sharp look. “Oh,” she says afterward. “I’m sorry. Clearly, you lied to get away from me, and here I am following you around.”

Kara swallows. Hard. “It’s not that,” she says, even though it kind of is.

“It's okay.” Another touch, this time gently to Kara’s shoulder. Lena has a strange, half-wistful look on her face. “Take your break. I’ll go inside…I should introduce myself to Alex’s friends and keep it convincing.”

That is such a peculiar way to phrase an otherwise normal statement, and Kara feels her brow furrow subconsciously. “What?”

But Lena has turned away by the time Kara even forms the word, and Kara watches, bewildered, as Lena takes two steps forward before immediately whirling back around. There is no other way to describe it, but—Lena has gone sickly pale in the moonlight, as if she’s seen a ghost. Before Kara can ask what’s wrong, Lena has hurriedly bridged the gap between them and grasped Kara’s face with cold, shaking hands.

“Can you turn around?” Lena asks quietly.

Kara does, but she knows her cheeks have gone hot and red by now, so unaccustomed to both the proximity and the specific person before her. “Lena, what’s—”

“I have something very urgent to ask you, and please don’t overthink it,” Lena rushes to say.

“Okay.” Kara tries not to fidget; she has had a gun held to her head several times before and yet, this is the most overwhelmed she has felt in years.

“Can I kiss you?”

Kara blinks. “What?”

“Please,” Lena adds on, as if that makes the question any saner.

And maybe it’s the desperation in Lena’s voice, in her eyes, in the way she keeps on trembling, but Kara recognizes someone in danger. She doesn’t understand what on Earth is going on, but she slowly nods, and trusts that if Alex kicks her ass later it will be for a good cause.

(Kara is not, however, prepared for Lena to immediately kiss her like she’s starving, hands still tight against Kara’s cheeks, dragging Kara so close that Kara is essentially caging her against the wall).

It feels like forever, but not in a bad way. Kara hasn't kissed someone in so long that she feels clumsy, almost like she is outside of her own skin, hands falling against the gravel of the bar’s outside walls in order to stop herself from grabbing at the inviting curves of Lena’s waist.

When Lena gently pushes her away, Kara hastily steps back, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from doing something dangerous (like reaching back in). Lena looks as if she's calmed down enough at least; she blushes when she meets Kara’s eyes, glancing down at the floor for a brief moment.

“Thank you,” Lena says. “God, if I was recognized out here of all places Alex would have lost it.”

“Recognized?” Kara echoes. She follows the way Lena jerks her head to the right, where the shadow of a man is disappearing into the alleyway. “I…don't follow.”

“That man used to work for my brother,” Lena sighs. “I don’t know if he would have remembered my face, but better safe than sorry.”

Kara opens her mouth, pauses, and then shuts it when she realizes she has no clue what to say. Her phone buzzes in an all-too-welcome distraction, but her blood runs cold when she sees it’s from Alex.

SENTINEL:

Can you tell everyone the party’s cancelled? Lena’s sick. Also let the cat back in before the night’s over.

“Shit,” Kara involuntarily curses when she sees that familiar code phrase. Suddenly everything makes sense: the secrecy, the mysterious brother, the fact that Lena cannot be recognized in the streets outside of a dive bar used as a front for the average spy (or average drunk that security allows in for the cover). “Lena, are you in witness protection?”

Lena squints at Kara like she is the one dropping a bombshell. “Yes? Did you not know that?”

“No! What the—why would Alex bring you here?!” Kara frantically texts her insane sister back.

SUPERGIRL:

Is there a curfew?

SENTINEL:

The sooner the better. I’m at Dad’s house right now or else I would do it myself.

That next coded message makes Kara exhale, finally, to at least know Alex is safe. Something big must have happened if she is dragging Kara into this without so much as a briefing, sure, but Kara also knows that Alex would not have trusted her with anything less.

“Lena,” Kara says, “can I ask you something urgent now?” She pauses when she immediately remembers the firm pressure of Lena’s lips, and quickly adds, “It doesn’t involve kissing.”

“Fair enough,” Lena says, enough amusement coloring her tone that Kara briefly flushes all over again.

“Can you trust me to get you home tonight?” Kara doesn’t wait for an answer before she goes on: “I know you don’t know me. But you know Alex. And I swear on my life, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Alex, and by extension that means there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Lena nods along with every word slowly. “You take your job very seriously.”

“I do,” Kara says firmly. (And, hopefully, comfortingly).

“Then I trust you, Kara Danvers,” Lena says. “If that’s even your real name.”

And for a brief moment, Kara’s not a spy fighting a clock on a mission she knows nothing about; she is, instead, a normal person who is capable of seeing the humor of her almost-sister-in-law who definitely knows more than she has clearance for.

“It is,” Kara says—even deigns to smile before she can quell it. “By choice.”

“That sounds like there’s a story somewhere.”

“I’ll tell you all about it sometime,” Kara promises. “Maybe even tonight, if in exchange you tell me your real name.”

“Unfortunately, Lena Luthor is my real name,” Lena says. “Alex said it was fine to tell her friends, so, this party was her idea. She even came up with the marriage idea so when my last name is changed, no one will care.”

The cogs finally start turning in Kara’s head far slower than she cares to admit. “Hold on. So you and Alex aren’t actually engaged?”

Again, Lena stares at Kara like she’s grown two heads in the last thirty seconds. “No. You seriously didn’t know? I thought you were just being weird, Alex says you get really into your method-acting stuff.”

“No.” Strangely, the first thing Kara feels is relief; she doesn’t have to actually tell her sister that she kissed her future wife. The second thing is, quite reasonably, alarm. “Okay I don’t know what the hell is going on with your case, but you mentioned someone who used to work for your brother, right? How bad is the threat?”

Lena hesitates. “It’s…kind of a long story.”

“So really bad,” Kara fills in the blanks. “Crap. We need to go.” She quickly shrugs off her jacket and presses it into Lena’s hands. “Put this on. There are no cameras in this area, but we’re going to hit some when we get to the parking lot.”

“Is everything okay?” Lena asks, though she hurriedly does as Kara says.

“I’m sure it is,” Kara tries to assure her. “But it’s just a precaution until we can reunite you with Alex and confirm.”

Lena doesn’t seem like she believes Kara entirely—or at least, the way her expression remains a fraction confused definitely indicates as much. But at the very least, she does not argue, though she does make a point to ask, “Where is Alex?”

“She just got tied up at work.” Kara leads the way to the parking lot, careful to hover at Lena’s side on the off chance any threat might materialize. “I don’t know where your current safe house is or if it’s been compromised, so I’m going to take you somewhere else. Is that okay?”

“Not like I have any choice,” Lena says wearily. “So am I not allowed to know when everything’s gone to shit? Or will everyone just keep telling me it’s okay when it’s not?”

Kara swings open the passenger side of James’s car (he’ll forgive her for this later) and waits for Lena to sit down. Lena doesn’t. “It’s—complicated,” she says.

“How so?” Lena crosses her arms and still does not move. Kara is still holding onto the car door, inadvertently standing too close; she feels strangely helpless when Lena looks right at her with eyes dark and determined.

“Full disclosure,” Kara reluctantly admits, “I…have no clue what’s going on with your case. I’ve been in the dark and Alex can't exactly share the details through a text, so, the truth is I have no idea if everything has gone to shit. I know that is the very last thing you want to hear since I’m supposed to be protecting you, but—”

“Actually,” Lena says, and her look has softened, “that makes me trust you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I appreciate that you will tell me upfront you don't know,” Lena says. She sways slightly closer, enough that Kara stiffens, but it's only to duck into the car after all.

Kara shuts the door only after a very brief pause. This should not be as hard as it feels. For a week she has been associating the idea of Lena Luthor as her sister’s fiancée and it’s tough to wrap her head around the fact that the opposite is true.

(And it has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive Lena is. Or that kiss. For the record.)

The dashboard of James’s car reads 7:19 PM; his radio is playing a news station; the gas tank is half full. Kara makes note of everything and decides she will drive as far as she possibly can before it hits empty.

Lena is quiet, at first. And while there is nothing special about the bumper-to-bumper traffic or the hazy street lights or the clouded night sky, Lena keeps her gaze trained outwards, head resting against the tinted window.

But then, “My brother killed twenty people.”

Kara grips onto the wheel and tries not to outwardly react. She has, of course, always had a terrible poker face. “Oh.”

“It gets worse,” Lena says uneasily. “I designed the technology he used to kill them.”

There is no possible response Kara can imagine which might be appropriate. In the end she settles for: “That actually doesn’t seem like a long story after all.”

“I assumed Alex would have told you that, at least.” Lena begins to drum a pattern with her fingertips against the center console. “Do you think the worst of me now?”

“I guess that depends,” Kara says slowly, “on whether you designed that technology for the purpose of killing people.”

Lena gives a curt, kind of disbelieving half-laugh, half-scoff. “They were nanobots,” she says. “I was trying to use them to cure cancer. But my brother…well, he didn’t see half the potential I did.”

Kara casts a quick glance at Lena, finds her staring straight ahead with a stony expression on her face. “Lena,” she says gently, “that doesn’t sound like it was at all your fault.”

“Everyone tells me that.” More rhythmic drumming, each beat more hesitant than the last. “I don’t know when I’ll start to believe it.”

When she was a kid, Kara had been thrown into the foster system with little more than heartache and a wish to find the cousin she never would. She had never felt so helpless—so unsure—and something about Lena’s guilt right now brings her right back to that moment. Like she’s just a little kid, knees pulled up to her chest, waiting for a sign that would never come.

“It’ll be hard,” Kara says softly. It has begun to drizzle rain, and she mindlessly sets the wipers, watching them flick back and forth as they wait for the light to turn green. “But it will get easier. I promise.”

“Odd thing to promise,” Lena notes, but Kara can feel her gaze burning against the side of her head, and Lena sounds…lighter, somehow. “Can I change the station?”

“Sure.” James will hate it, but Kara doesn’t mind. Lena chooses a jazz station that frequently breaks with static, and it’s by far the most peaceful hour-long drive Kara has had in a while.

They pull up to the safe house when the clock reads 8:34 PM and the rain has petered out; the air feels damp and thick with residual humidity, but otherwise, the tranquility of the quiet gives Kara a good feeling. Lena has fallen asleep in the passenger’s side, and Kara softly nudges her awake.

“Here,” Kara says, handing her James’s emergency bag once they make their way up the house steps. “This should have a change of clothes. They’ll be too big, but better than your dress at least…if you’re hungry there will be granola bars in the pantry. We can’t risk ordering anything else right now, unfortunately.” She digs into her pocket for the batch of safe house keys she has on all times and locates the right one, pressing it surely into Lena’s hand. “Until we know for sure if I’ll be briefed on your case or not, just…assume you’re going to be moved tomorrow. Also, you never saw me. Like, officially.”

Lena wipes at her eyes with her palm, absentmindedly smearing her mascara. “You’re going to leave me here?” she says, hugging James’s bag to her chest.

“No, of course not. I’m going to be sitting in the car, out here,” Kara says. “I just mean like in general, you know, if I don’t end up getting briefed on your case it would be all kinds of not-allowed to be talking to you. So if anyone asks…”

“Ah,” Lena says, “right. I’ll just make up a cover story for my cover story.”

“Yeah, you know, we need to protect the bureaucracies and all that,” Kara says. “If I'm even using that word the right way.”

“And you're supposed to be a journalist?” Lena smiles ever-so-slightly. “Good thing you're decent at your day job.”

“Only decent?” Kara feels her own mouth twitch with the promise of her own smile.

“I'd give you five stars on Yelp,” Lena says confidently, and Kara laughs, unable to stop herself from full-on grinning.

“Well if you need anything,” Kara says, and gestures over her shoulder to the car. “You know where I'll be.”

“Thank you.” Lena places a hand over Kara’s wrist, and just squeezes there briefly, her hand slightly cold but her touch overwhelmingly gentle. “Um. Would it be—would it be allowed to ask if you can stay with me inside, instead? I don't really want to be…alone.”

“That would make plausible deniability much harder to fake,” Kara tries to protest, but Lena is biting her lip and looking at Kara underneath mascara-smudged lashes and really, there is no other option but to cave. “…but I guess I could break a rule or two. Or twenty-seven.”

Lena smiles fully this time with obvious relief. “And here I thought I'd have to work harder to corrupt you.”

Kara pushes her glasses up her nose and says, “I’m a little concerned you were planning to corrupt me, but I mean. It’s one night.” She follows Lena inside when she opens the door, surveys the untouched room with a quick, satisfied glance. “Just as long as you don’t get me into trouble.”

“I’ll try my best not to,” Lena says, making a beeline for the couch to inspect James’s emergency bag; she pulls out an oversized T-shirt with an exhausted sigh. “Can you unzip me?” Already she’s pulling her hair off her shoulders, exposing the graceful slope of her neck, and Kara almost forgets to lock the door behind her.

“Y-yeah,” she stammers out, once again fiddling with the glasses that she doesn’t need, and she knows it right then and there: Lena Luthor will undoubtedly get her in trouble. And judging by the way Lena gazes so shyly at Kara over her shoulder, she knows it.

(But, well. In the grand scheme of things, Kara figures a little trouble never hurt anyone).

#vaguest storyline but i was getting TOO invested in the plot for a oneshot omg i had to stop myself #i just have a lot of feelings about this AU okay #supercorp #supergirl #book-nerd1216 #i need a fic tag #occasionally i finish prompts <3 yknow

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