Chapter Text
You’re exhausting!
We all suck it up, why can’t you?
Eddie’s words from the grocery store several weeks ago echoed in his head and as hard as Buck tried, he couldn’t get them to stop. He knew the team was going to be mad about the lawsuit, but not like this. Buck hadn’t thought…
He hadn’t thought they’d hate him.
Even though Bobby was mad, Buck had stupidly assumed Eddie would still be on his side. They were best friends, partners. And on a warm fall night over a year ago, they’d promised to always have each other’s backs.
Apparently, promises meant nothing to Eddie Diaz.
And now, Buck couldn’t even see Christopher. He wasn’t invited to hang out with the team, hell, they barely spoke to him. Even Maddie barely talked to him anymore, not wanting to risk rocking the boat with Chim.
He wanted to be surprised but deep down, he wasn’t. Buck was always the one getting left behind, even by his own sister. As much as it hurt, as much as it felt like a knife was repeatedly stabbing his heart over and over again, Buck knew he’d expected it deep down. Whether a side effect of the way he’d been raised or just a consequence of his life, Buck had never been very good at trusting his relationships with other people. Even if they swore they’d always be there, he couldn’t help but wonder when they were going to leave. He couldn’t help but wonder when the other shoe would drop.
And it always dropped.
Every single time.
It still hurt though. Hurt like his heart had been ripped right out of his chest and stomped on. The only thing that made it worse was the fact that it had been stomped on by people he had trusted. People he had loved. His family. And now he had no one. Not one single person. As much as he hated to admit it, Buck was alone in this fight. He was alone in everything.
Grabbing his mail on the way up to his apartment, Buck only stopped outside his front door for a brief moment so he could unlock it. His apartment, per usual, was empty. Honestly, the only reason he’d even gotten it was because Ali had liked it. Well, and the fact that Maddie was getting tired of him sleeping on her couch. And yet, barely a few weeks after he’d signed the lease, Ali had been gone and Buck was left trying to hobble up the stairs with a crippled leg.
In hindsight, getting a loft apartment definitely hadn’t been one of his best ideas.
Dropping his keys on the counter, Buck quickly flipped through his stack of mail. At first, it was nothing special. A few bills here and there, along with junk mail. But then he came across the letter he’d been dreading since the day he finished his last deployment. It was such an innocent envelope, looking as harmless as it could be. And yet, Buck knew what was going to be inside.
Sure enough, once he ripped open the envelope, he came face to face with what had been one of his worst nightmares up until a few months ago.
The Navy was calling him up and pulling him out of the reserves.
It wasn’t that he hated the Navy and, compared to most guys, he was fairly untraumatized by his time fighting. But he’d always been terrified of being called back to duty. Of leaving the family that he’d made to go fight again. Except that family was gone. Eddie had made that pretty clear in the grocery store. There was nothing keeping Buck in LA, not anymore.
Everyone at work ignored him unless it was absolutely necessary. They shot glares at him, scoffed when he tried to make small talk. He wasn’t even allowed to sit and eat dinner with them anymore, at least based on the anger in their eyes that appeared whenever he tried to sit down with them. So, he kept his head down. He did all of the scut that they didn’t even force probies to do and he ate alone in the locker room.
And no matter how much it hurt, he didn’t complain. Even if the team was starting to make him feel like he was some little kid stuck back in his parents’ house, where all they did was ignore and insult him. But at least he was used to it. He’d stupidly assumed the team would never treat him that way but he was wrong. Maybe he was the problem. After all, he was the one who’d started the lawsuit. He should’ve just given up once the team made it clear they didn’t want him back.
And suddenly, the thought of going back to the Navy, of being surrounded by guys who would have his back no matter what, seemed like a much better alternative to staying alone in LA.
Buck skimmed the letter again, having not read past the first sentence the first time. He frowned slightly upon reading where he was being sent.
Top Gun.
No one was ever sent to Top Gun twice. It just didn’t happen.
Buck could still remember the first time he’d gone to Top Gun. He’d never been happier a day in his life. For as long as he could remember, flying had been his dream. Most little kids wanted to be a firefighter or an astronaut, but Buck had always wanted to be a pilot.
He wanted to fly far, far away from home, where his parents’ comments that might as well have been slaps for how badly they stung couldn’t get to him. Flying was his way out. His escape. If he was thousands of feet up in the sky, way up with the clouds, then his parents couldn’t touch him. No one could.
The fantasy he’d had as a little kid – or as his parents liked to call it, a phase – became a goal when he was in middle school. That was when he actually started trying to figure out how to make his dream a reality and he’d quickly learned that being a naval aviator was far better than being a pilot in the chair force. Well, at least that was what Will, his best friend’s brother who had gone to the Naval Academy, had told him. So, by the time Buck was a senior in high school, when all the other kids wanted to go to Ivy Leagues, Buck had his eyes set on the Naval Academy.
His parents had, of course, been furious. Apparently, Buck being in the Navy was something they thought was beneath their son. Buck could still remember the sound of them yelling at him as he packed all of his belongings and shoved them into the Jeep before heading to Annapolis.
He hadn’t looked back.
No one on the team knew, not even Eddie. Hell, Maddie still thought he’d dropped out of the academy. He hadn’t wanted to lie to her but it just seemed easier that way. She felt guilty enough having missed so many years of his life, Buck didn’t need to add onto that by telling her what he’d gone through while she wasn’t speaking to him. She didn’t need to know about the graduations where he had no one waiting for him, or the intense training he’d had to finish. Or the times he spent in the hospital after getting injured one way or another.
He didn’t want to worry anyone. Didn’t want to be a bother like he always was.
So, whenever anyone asked, the lie just slipped out. He’d gone to the Naval Academy and then he’d dropped out. It just hadn’t been for him. And of course, Maddie had believed it. Buck hadn’t exactly been the most committed guy in the world so why should anyone expect him to sign his life over to the Navy?
Buck knew that he could probably try and get out of it. He could claim he wasn’t fit to fly. That his leg was still bothering him – which it technically was but no one needed to know that. But he had no reason to. Not really. No one would miss him if he left. Not his team, not his sister, not Eddie.
That was by far the worst part of it all. The guy that Buck had fallen for, the person he was so madly in love with, the man whose smile – his real one, not the one he used to placate others – made him go weak at the knees, didn’t love him back. If that wasn’t bad enough, he hated him.
Eddie Diaz hated him.
And if Buck didn't even have Eddie, then what was the point in staying in LA?
His home was gone. His family had left him.
Buck’s phone buzzed on the counter and Buck reached for it, naively hoping that maybe Eddie or someone else on the team was texting him to hang out. Bobby and Athena were hosting a team dinner at their house and although Buck had overheard several people talking about it, he hadn’t been invited. Instead of being disappointed though when Eddie’s name didn’t appear, he found himself smiling at the familiar name that had popped up on his phone. Although considering the orders he’d just received, he supposed it should have been expected.
Rooster: See you at Top Gun, Buckley
Buck had learned long ago not to question Bradley Bradshaw’s sources. If the guy wanted information about someone in the Navy, he’d get it. Then again, he supposed that was one of the many advantages of the COMPACFLT basically being your dad.
And even though Buck still felt that stabbing pain in his heart, he found himself smiling a little. Even if he didn’t have his team anymore, he still had his wingmen. He still had Rooster and Phoenix, along with the other friends he’d made through his time in the Navy. At least they would have his back.
Sighing, Buck went to grab a familiar khaki uniform out of the back of his closet, along with a duffle bag.
It looked like he was going back to Top Gun.