Chapter Text
It is a truth universally understood, that Jake Seresin is an asshole.
And that’s how Jake likes it.
Or so he’d like them to believe.
Years of rubbing people the wrong way takes its toll on a person. Making the effort and having everyone just read it… wrong.
Doing your best and still having them think you’re cocky little shit with a chip on his shoulder.
Eventually something has to give.
So he leaned into it. If people were going to think he was an asshole anyways, why not just be exactly what they expect?
And if you do it on purpose, you’re the one in control. You’re not the butt of the cosmic joke anymore. You’re the one telling the joke and if no one’s smart enough to be laughing well then that’s on them, isn’t it?
The one person who’s always seemed to see right through it was Phoenix.
It’s annoying, really. And why she seems to take it particularly personally when he pulls that shit around her. She knows he doesn’t have to be like that. She expects better. And lets him know in no unequivocal terms.
It’s why he’s never as harsh with her as he is with everyone else. She won’t goddamn stand for it.
Coyote doesn’t count. He doesn’t so much see through Jake’s bullshit as take it at face value and just… not take it personally.
That’s a superpower and if Jake could bottle it he’d be a billionaire.
And any time someone tries to talk Coyote out of being friends with Hangman, he just shrugs it off.
Yeah he’s an asshole, Coyote seems to say without ever speaking it aloud, but he’s our asshole.
And that appears to be the entire basis of their friendship. Or it is as far as Jake can tell. The man’s incomprehensible.
He tried to push him away a long time ago. Didn’t stick. Javy just laughed it off and bought him a beer.
They’ve been… friends? Ever since.
And at some point in time Jake stopped questioning it. It’s just a fact of his existence.
Getting called back to Top Gun is a pleasant surprise. Seeing Bradly goddamn Bradshaw again? Not so much.
Jake feels his smile go jagged, harsh enough to cut both its wielder and recipient.
Phoenix rolls her eyes so hard he can hear it. And much as he’d love not to, he feels that old super-asshole persona take over the moment Bradley Bradshaw (Seriously. Who names their child that. Did they actively hate the poor child?) enters the room.
The hate-flirting comes ever so natural for Hangman. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Rooster was flirting back.
It sounds like flirting. It looks like flirting. But Jake knows better, and has for years. Rooster either doesn’t have a clue (seriously? How???) or just doesn’t give a shit.
Same result, either way.
Just one more person who never cared to look deeper.
It rankles more than it usually would, that it’s Jake’s fault. That if he spent less time trying to be better than everyone else, this one may have actually stood a chance of wanting him back.
And in a way, amping up his armor to eleven is Jake’s own private little punishment for both of them. Don’t care to see what’s beneath? You don’t get to.
You get the version so sharp and poisonous you’d have to be a masochist to consider wanting the man beneath.
Rooster’s hardly the type.
And Jake still can’t figure out why the fuck his traitor heart would choose that overcautious, charming, ridiculous piano-playing moron to fall for.
Seriously. He’s back to feeling like the butt of that cosmic joke every time the fucker’s broad shoulders and stupid moustache enter a room.
If he’s a dick in the briefing room and in the air after hearing what the mission entails, it’s because he can’t stifle the panic that comes with knowing Rooster’s legendary caution and patience is guaranteed to get him killed.
If he’s willing to bring up the suspicion Maverick got Bradley’s dad killed, it’s just to get a reaction out of him. Any reaction. And maybe the realization that Maverick’s going to get Rooster killed too, drilled into that stubborn head of his.
He doesn’t care if Rooster’s pride is hurt as long as he taps out before the mission ends him for good.
The ground drops out between his feet when they nearly lose Javy to g-LOC. And then Phoenix and Bob.
Birdstrike. Such an innocuous term for what just about got them killed.
It’s even worse when Maverick does the unthinkable and names Rooster his wingman.
Jake feels like he’s drowning.
It’s only because he’s convinced Rooster’s not coming back, that he manages to say something decent before he goes off. It’s the least Jake can do for him. Stow his fucking ego and take his licks and know that being the best isn’t necessarily what this mission needs.
Or it only needs one Maverick, so Hangman’s superfluous.
Sitting on the deck in a parked plane, listening to Rooster fall farther and farther behind.
Knowing every second is another chance for the intercept to catch him. For them to take him out before he even gets the chance to fight.
And that’s when Maverick does the impossible. He talks Rooster into flying the way Jake’s always known he could.
He speeds up.
He eyeballs the shot when the laser fails, and hits it, bullseye.
Jake’s never been prouder.
Then everything goes to hell and Hangman forgets to breathe for full minutes.
Rooster! Evade! Evade!
I can’t shake them!
I repeat: Dagger One is hit! Maverick is down!
Of all the pilots in the air that day, he seemed like the most invincible. But Hangman knows what he heard. Maverick took the hit for Rooster.
Bandits inbound. One minute to intercept.
Hangman isn’t allowed to launch as backup. He just has to sit there and listen. Fucking helpless.
Maverick’s gone.
Bob’s not a particularly hateable individual, but Jake’s pretty sure he hates him in that moment.
The words feel cold. Calculating.
It’s not, Jake admits to himself later. It’s what he would have said.
Cut your losses.
Live to fly another day.
Don’t let his sacrifice be for nothing.
Dagger Two is hit.
And the bottom dropped out of his world.
After doing the impossible. After accomplishing the mission. Flying the best he’d ever flown, bar none.
He went back to save a man he hated.
And died for it.
Or so Jake thought at the time.
It felt like a part of him died with Rooster.
The only human part left.
…supersonic. Rooster’s transponder… F-14
Dagger Spare. You are clear to launch.
He doesn’t remember much after that. Or right before it, really.
Incredulity, mostly.
The sheer gall of the man, getting shot down and reappearing in a museum piece.
Can Hangman really be blamed for blathering on like an idiot after shooting down the bandit that was in the process of launching a missile at Rooster’s ass.
In any case, no one seems to blame him.
That moment and the ones that follow are the happiest of Jake’s life.
He can’t even pretend to not be affected, the razor blade grin entirely absent as he greets the man and his ridiculous moustache on the deck after.
It feels like his face is going to split in two.
He sneaks away from the crowd, not long after. Finds a hidden spot away from prying eyes and wedges himself in so he can have his panic attack in peace.
He was dead.
Bradley was dead.
Gone.
Evaporated in a cloud of heroics and wasted opportunity.
He would never know.
Jake would never have the courage to tell him.
But he’s not. He’s alive and breathing and grinning that beautiful fucking grin and even looking happy to see him.
It’s too much. All of it’s too much and the adrenaline crash has him rocking back and forth, hugging his knees somewhere in the bowels of the ship.
Phoenix still manages to find him, offering a single raised eyebrow and a hand up. No words of comfort or encouragement or even chastisement. She just stands there, holding her hand out to a man who’s hyperventilating on the floor, his face suspiciously wet.
He takes it.
“You’re still a dick,” she declares, and that draws something like a genuine smile from him.
Rare, and if she were a woman inclined in that direction, she’d be stunned by the expression.
Well she is stunned, if only because it’s the fourth real smile she’s seen from Bagman.
And she’s not inclined in that direction.
But she’d never stoop that low even if she was. Natasha Trace has standards.
“Glad to see your wit’s still intact,” Hangman fires back.
“Too bad I can’t say the same for you.” It’s not a judgement on how she found him. Just them being them.
Jake has the grace to appreciate that.
“How about I pour you into your bunk and we never speak about this?” she offers, an olive branch.
He huffs out a breath. “I’d appreciate that, thanks.”
“I meant it,” she says as she walks him into his quarters. “No one hears about this. It never happened.”
He nods. “Owe you one,” he says, words coming out soft.
The look she gives him is scathing. “No. You don’t. Call it even after what you did for Rooster today, Jake. Hangman. You did good today.”
True to her word, no one ever hears about him falling apart after the mission.
Bob, having watched the whole thing from far behind her, never speaks a word of it either.
***
Before they get the chance to return to their respective squadrons after the mission, someone from on-high makes an executive decision to keep them together. To form a new squadron. Based out of San Diego, for now. Ready to deploy to the highest risk locations at a moment’s notice.
The Dagger moniker from the previous mission sticks. It suits them anyways.
Maveric is named as their commander.
It’s effectively grounding him, for missions at least. But it keeps him close to the action, and he gets to keep an eye on ‘the finest pilots I’ve ever flown with’. (His words.)
It does have the unfortunate side effect of keeping Rooster nearby.
And no matter how happy Jake is that Bradley fucking Bradshaw is still alive and assaulting the ears of all those musically inclined, old habits die hard.
The brittle shell and jagged smile are back in place in no time.
And so continues the holding pattern.
Until it’s too late to change it.