Chapter Text
Bob came to slowly.
He was slumped over some sort of ledge—metal, maybe, cold and jagged against his ribs—but his addled and pounding brain refused to process where he was exactly. So he lay there—for seconds? Hours? Time was slurring together, loose and meaningless. Blood was rushing to his head, and his arms and fingers were getting a tingly feeling.
That’s when the pain hit.
Bob gasped as a fire lit up in his side. It bloomed white-hot, like someone had stabbed a burning blade between his ribs and twisted. Panicked, he tried to draw in a breath (had he been breathing before?) only to get a lungful of smoke and debris. His body spasmed, as he hacked, tears forming in his eyes as the jarring movement worsened the stabbing pain in his side.
The ringing in his ears grew louder as he desperately fought to keep back the nausea that was slowly building up. He tried to focus, tried to move, but his limbs felt like rubber—weak and uncooperative. The nausea swelled as he fought desperately to stay awake, his thoughts slow and sluggish.
The attack on his lungs had already exhausted him. His eyes slipped closed. Maybe he was dreaming. His mind drifted, becoming hazy and far away. Distantly, he thought he could hear someone shouting. Yes, that must be it. A bad dream. They had been getting worse lately—more vivid, more realistic. Ever since the mission with Maverick four months ago. When they’d-
No. No, this wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t be.
(He wouldn’t be in this much pain if it was, would he?)
Even as he thought that, his mind became fuzzy again, the pull of unconsciousness threatened to pull him under. Reality slipped and slurred. Somewhere in the swirling gray static of his mind, he thought he heard a shout. Distant. Faint. He couldn’t make out the words.
Any second now, his alarm would go off and he’d wake up to the sun through his blinds, groggy and safe. Any second now, Phoenix would call for their weekly FaceTime, and he’d be laughing and smiling like only she could get him to.
Phoenix.
Bob’s eyes snapped back open with a start.
Memories came crashing back, assaulting his already pounding brain—the briefing, the helicopter, the mission. Phoenix. Her voice clear in his headset and then suddenly cutting off. The radio malfunction. He remembered tapping the side of his comms in a panic, trying to reestablish the link. They were flying blind . Then the sudden tilt. The sky spinning. Alarms blaring.
He’d blacked out.
They’d crashed.
He had to find Phoenix.
Bob lurched to his feet, ignoring the screaming in his side. The buzzing in his ears pulsed like a warning light, but he pressed on. His legs buckled beneath him as he forced them to move, trembling and uncooperative. He had to find Phoenix.
The world around him was an indistinct blur. Smoke hung thick in the air, curling through broken beams and torn wiring. Something hissed nearby—fuel? Steam? He couldn’t tell.
“Bob! ”
He whipped his head towards the sound, which proved to be a bad idea as his headache flared up to an impossible degree, black spots crowding his vision. Panicked, he tried to take a step forward, only to realize that his legs had had enough. He only barely registered the world tip around him as everything went dark.
Bob stifled a yawn. It wasn’t that he hated reviewing flight logs per se, but well, he could certainly think of more interesting ways to spend his time. He understood the value, appreciated the structure, and even found some peace in the methodical nature of it. But after hours in the cockpit, followed by hours on his feet in the sun, the sterile hum of the debrief room and the endless scroll of data on the screen were enough to lull even the most caffeinated pilot to sleep. And Bob wasn’t caffeinated—he generally preferred the energy that came with appropriate hours of sleep, something he’d been lacking lately.
He checked his watch. 1600. Another hour before he could officially clock out and go home. He wasn’t currently deployed, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t find the days full of training (and sometimes worse, social interaction ) draining.
It was hot and humid. For some unknown reason, the debrief room had no functioning air conditioning. Or maybe it had had A/C once, but it had given up long ago and no one had the energy or initiative to fix it. They’d had a long day of flight training—everyone was exhausted and practically melting into the floor.
Atom, his commanding officer, clicked through the screens, droning lowly. Bob tried his best to pay attention, but his mind began to wander. He’d picked up some new manuals earlier that looked like an interesting read. Older editions. The kind of thing most people would toss in a secondhand bookstore bin, but not Bob. He loved that stuff. Loved seeing how things evolved. And who knew—maybe some old tactic might come back in vogue someday. History was weird like that.
Another 30 minutes passed as they methodically reviewed the reports. When they got to his and Blaze’s flight, he sat up straighter. There were several things the could have gone better, including a radio malfunction that Bob wanted to make sure was addressed.
Performed 3 intercept engagements, all within acceptable envelope. Yep. He wouldn’t consider acceptable good, but at least they had completed the challenge.
Intermittent radio failure from 0913Z to 0917Z. Unable to transmit on primary UHF-1. Switched to UHF-2, comms reestablished. No flight safety impact. Logged for comms maintenance review. Good. Bob shuddered at the idea of the radio possibly going dead while deployed, imagining the same failure happening during an actual op. Not being able to call out in the middle of a live engagement? The thought turned his stomach. Radio silence in training was annoying. In combat, it could be fatal.
Debrief: Recommend additional practice on post-merge comm brevity. He sighed. Well, then again, maybe it didn’t matter if they just didn’t want him to talk.
As they moved on, Bob couldn’t help but reminisce sitting next to Fanboy, listening to his random, and sometimes out of pocket comments during debrief. A fond smile twitched at his lips. The way Payback would quickly shush him, eyes darting to Maverick, as if worried that his WSO was about to be dropped from the mission. But Mav would always just chuckle and continue highlighting areas where flight maneuvers could have been improved.
There had been serious moments too. Bob shivered as Mav’s “ Why didn’t you anticipate the turn? You’re briefed on the terrain. Don’t tell me, tell it to his family.” echoed through his head. There was a weight to Maverick’s words that couldn’t be ignored. A gravity. He pushed them to be better because he believed they could be. Because the stakes were never hypothetical with him. And even on the rough days, when morale dipped or tensions ran high, Maverick had a way of bringing everyone back together. Refocusing them.
It was times like these, in the hot, humid heat, surrounded by half awake pilots and a commanding officer who didn’t seem to care that attention was slacking, that Bob truly missed Maverick.
“Lieutenant Floyd.”
Bob jumped in his seat, pen clattering to the floor. Atom was standing over him, eyebrows raised.
“S-sir.” Bob glanced around, suddenly hyperaware that seat once filled with melting pilots were now empty…how long had he…? At some point, the others had been dismissed, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m assuming you don’t want to sit here by yourself in the heat, so go home and get some rest,” Atom said firmly, but his eyes were soft.
“Yes sir,” Bob answered, the tips of his ears turning red. Here he was thinking about how the others were slacking and he himself had just been caught spacing out. He felt miserable.
Atom shook his head and went to shut off the screen as Bob hastily gathered his things and half-jogged out of the room, mortified.
He evidently hadn’t been sitting there by himself with only Atom in the room for that long (another flush crept up his neck) as the rest of the pilots were still in the hall.
“Bye Bob! See you tomorrow,” Meerkat called, interrupting her conversation with Havoc—something about a black ops team out in the mountains. He gave a small wave back. She had always been nice to him. Meerkat was like that with everyone—friendly, open, always making sure people felt included. Bob appreciated it, even if he didn’t always know how to respond.
He gave a small, awkward wave and continued toward the exit, eager to disappear into the sanctuary of his apartment. A shower. A change of clothes. Maybe a snack. Then he could finally dive into those manuals-
Except, of course, that didn’t happen.
By the time he’d rinsed off the sweat of the day and changed into a loose t-shirt and sweats, a thick mental fog had settled in. He stared at the spine of the manual on his desk for a long moment, then sighed, shut off the light, and collapsed onto the couch instead.
Bob yawned and turned on his phone. He smiled as he noticed the Dagger group chat alight with life. Hangman was arguing with Coyote over which place made the best tacos, using his southern upbringing as his main argument. This…really could’ve been done without spamming the group chat—not that Bob minded. He snuggled under his covers and turned his attention back to the screen, content with this evening’s entertainment.
This wasn’t the same as those days back on the carrier. And Maverick wasn’t here to yell at them for sloppily flown approaches or turn them into better versions of themselves.
But they were still here. Still friends. Still making time for each other.
And for tonight, that was enough.
“And then , he was just like, well, if we were just 10 seconds faster, we would have made it. I’d say that means we were pretty successful. Hello? Hate to break it to you, but if we were 10 seconds late, we were not successful,” Phoenix said with a scoff, animatedly waving her arms around. “Idiots. All of them. Man, I’d love to see them in a classroom with Mav…he’d set them straight. And fast.”
She reached for her water bottle, taking a long sip like she’d just run a marathon of indignation. Her camera dipped slightly with the motion, giving Bob a brief upside-down view of her kitchen ceiling light before it settled again.
Since the mission with Maverick, they’d decided to keep in touch, calling at least once a week. They were both incredibly busy people (as those in the navy tend to be), so it usually ended up being 10 minutes on a Friday morning, but they had yet to miss one—no matter how brief.
Bob was currently sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d gotten up earlier to study the new manuals, but now they lay discarded on his desk along with a now lukewarm cup of tea. The moment his phone buzzed with Phoenix’s name, he’d dropped everything.
“So how’s it been for you? With the Screaming Eagles, ” Phoenix asked, recovered from her rant. She snorted and then coughed a little as she choked on her water. “Out of all the names out there…”
Bob rolled his eyes. “ Excuse you . I happen to think that it’s a very honorable name. Really strikes fear in the hearts of our enemies.”
“Is that so?” Phoenix asked, with a cock of her eyebrow, a faint smile pulling at her lips.
“...Okay, maybe not. But you imagine a screaming eagle coming at you. What would you do? Run away!”
“Oh, shut up.” The camera shook as Phoenix laughed. Bob now had a wonderful view of…her hairline?
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he challenged with a grin.
She pulled away and playfully swatted at him through the screen. “The Black Aces is always going to sound cooler.”
“...I guess I can’t really argue with that.”
There was a beat of quiet where they both just smiled at each other through the screen, comfortable in the shared pause. Then Phoenix leaned forward again, eyes narrowing slightly.
“But come on, really. Are they still ignoring you? Do I have to come over and slap some sense into them?”
Bob’s stomach did a weird little flip. He shifted on the bed. “Okay, first of all, they don’t ignore me. I never said that. And second, no. No-no slapping people?! You don’t have to worry about me Phoenix, really.”
“What? Can’t a pilot be protective of her WSO?” she replied sweetly, blinking innocently—but her gaze held a weight behind it. That was something Bob had learned about Phoenix: beneath her teasing was an intense loyalty, one that didn’t waver easily.
“But you’re not my pilot.”
The words left his mouth before he could fully think them through, and he immediately regretted the tone—bitter, raw, a little more broken than he wanted to admit. His throat tightened. Embarrassed, he dropped his gaze and began pulling at a loose thread in his bedsheet.
He exhaled. “I know it’s stupid. We only flew together for what? Three weeks?” He gave a small laugh, trying to brush it off, but his voice cracked a little at the end. “But I don’t know. Those three weeks…they felt different. I felt different. Like I actually fit .”
There was silence on the other end of the camera. Phoenix wasn’t saying anything. But she wasn’t cutting in, either. She was just there. Listening. Waiting. Letting him talk. That was one of the things Bob had always appreciated most about her—she never rushed him. She always made him feel more confident. He powered on.
“I like my squadron. I do,” he continued. “They’re good people. And I’ve flown with most of them for years. We’ve been through a lot. But something’s…missing. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I’m back to being the weird one. The outsider. Everyone’s nice, but no one really sees me. Not the way you did. Or Mav did. It’s all surface-level stuff now—rank, record, mission debriefs. But with you…” He hesitated.
“I felt like a real part of the team. I didn’t have to prove anything. I could just…fly.”
The silence stretched out again, and Bob finally dared to glance at his phone screen. Phoenix’s expression was unreadable—still, focused, and maybe a little softer than usual. It made his chest ache.
“I miss flying with you,” he said, barely above a whisper. “And I kind of wish I still was.”
The silence after his finished stretched on, and Bob felt the tips of his ears heat up. His stomach twisted a little at his confession. Did he really just admit that he would rather fly with Phoenix, who he had know for a mere three weeks, than with Blaze who he’d spent the last five years growing and training with? He frowned. If anything, Bob was always honest—he’d been told that that was one of his most admirable qualities—but that didn’t mean he had to like how it made him feel. The silence was becoming unbearable, and he halfheartly wondered if her internet had cut out. He risked a glance up back to his screen.
“I miss flying with you too, Bob,” she said. Her voice was steady. Warm. Real.
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she added quickly, trying to lighten the mood. “Mav might have trained us within an inch of our lives, but you? You kept me sane . You never panicked, never hesitated. Even when the rest of the squad was losing it, you were just—solid. I trusted you completely.”
Bob didn’t quite know what to say to that. He smiled faintly. “I trusted you too.”
“Of course you did,” she smirked. “I’m awesome.”
He laughed, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.
“But seriously,” Phoenix added, settling back against her couch, “that wasn’t just some one-off mission, Bob. You were my WSO. And it wasn’t just three weeks—it was three of the most intense, terrifying, amazing weeks of our careers. That stuff sticks.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. It does.”
The two of them sat there for a moment, the connection between them humming in the silence, comfortable.
Bob reached off screen and took a sip of his now-cold tea, grimacing.
“You still drinking that garbage?” Phoenix teased.
“It’s not garbage,” he said, defensive. “It’s herbal.”
“Even worse.”