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1.
Lydia has worked in her field for a very long time and she’s used to most personalities in the children she works with. She’s used to loud and angry, she’s used to quiet and optimistic, she’s used to both naivety and jadedness, to children who know the cruelty of the world intimately at such a young age who all react differently. She’s used to skittishness, the defensiveness, all the coping mechanisms employed by young ad traumatized children who miss their parents and want to be anywhere but wherever she’s taking them.
Based on what she’d been told about little Pete Mitchell, she’d been expecting an abrasive and pissed-at-the-world teenaged boy. Rambunctious and free with his anger. After all, seated across from her is the same boy who’s run away from four different placements in the past year, who is said to be too snarky for the latest family who has surrendered him, who she can only assume put the bruise on his face that she can’t do anything about because the boy won’t talk about it.
No, she was not expecting reserved and shy from Pete Mitchell based on his record. And yet here he was, unable to meet her eyes and picking at a loose thread on his thin t-shirt while bouncing his leg restlessly under the table. His eyes track the cars passing on the road and out in the parking lot of the small diner she’s brought him to to settle the nervous energy he’d been wound so tight with in the car with her.
She watches as his green eyes lock onto a row of parked motorcycles where a small troop of Hell’s Angels had parked them, all seated in the corner of the diner together in their denim and leather. His eyes don’t go to the bikers, instead they study the bikes with enough intrigue that it makes Lydia wonder to herself if the boy’s father owned one. He’s shy enough that she knows he wouldn’t answer if she asked. So she doesn’t.
Instead, she wonders to herself what all of the families this boy has passed through since he found his mother dead by her own hand at only nine years old seem to find such fault with. What they do to turn him into the snarky, biting boy they all claim him to be, to make him too ‘difficult to handle’, to make this gentle wallflower before her pack a bag and run in the middle of the night, run with enough desperation to cross state lines and fight with vehemence when the police catch him.
She’s thankful that she knows the woman she’s bringing him to well and she can only hope that the thirteen-year-old can find an ounce of compassion and safety in Tracy Bardwell, a kind and laid-back free-spirit of a woman who never quite outgrew her hippie phase and has been nothing short of a calm oasis in the storm of every kid’s life that Lydia has sent her way.
Someone who won’t demand eye-contact or stillness or silence from the boy before her, who will see his interests as potential and not an unnecessary fixation. Who will not repay whatever the young boy did at the home Lydia has just pulled him from with a slap across the face. Who will allow him to breath freely rather than place him in a stranglehold.
Pete Mitchell wasn’t quite what she was expecting, Lydia admits that, but in her first day as his case agent, she wants nothing less than the best for this boy before her.
• • •
2.
An observant person by nature, very little passes Nick’s gaze unnoticed. Which is why he was so eager to offer his friendship the first time he laid eyes on Pete back in flight school. He saw how rigidly the man (then, still boy) sat in his seat and the way his eyes never met anyone else’s steadily without first clenching his jaw with resolve and the way he picked at the skin around his fingers until he bled and scribbled random math equations into the margins of his books for seemingly no reason.
Nick had never required an explanation for all that Pete was and for that reason alone, he was the first person that Pete ever felt safe enough around to let his walls down. Nick was surprised the first time his friend enthusiastically began to ramble about auto-mechanics and the differences and similarities between the engine of a motor-bike and the engine of a plane. But he smiled and listened and nodded along.
When Pete finished, he sheepishly apologized. Nick waved him off and that was that. The closer Nick grew to Pete, the more he came to realize that the difference between the Pete Mitchell the man chose to present himself as and the person he actually was were two wildly different concepts.
Nick was intrigued to find that he loathed the mask. As much as he understood why his friend placed his walls so high and slipped into a persona, he found that Maverick was someone he admired but from a distance, someone who pissed him off frequently, someone skilled and confident to the point of arrogance, someone Nick would never be friends with. But Pete? Pete was sweet and kind and endearing and loving and shockingly affectionate. Pete was Nick’s best friend. And Nick wished more people could see Pete instead of Maverick.
Nick was the first to notice how Pete’s wardrobe consisted of the same five outfits over and over again. When asked, Pete’s response was, “Because I like them,” and Nick never questioned it after that. Why did it have to be complicated? It didn’t.
Nick was the first to notice Pete’s restless fidgeting and he found ways to redirect him so he wouldn’t rip a hole in his favorite pair of jeans or make his hands bleed. Usually by giving him a piece of gum to chew on or one of Bradley’s baby toys to fiddle with. He never questioned the noises that his friend made mindlessly as he studied or worked on his bike or drove the Bronco, just listened as Mav popped his lips repetitively or clicked his tongue in a pattern or sung a chain of random harmonies under his breath. In his mind, Mav was full to the brim with energy and he had to put it somewhere, it only made sense that he would keep his mouth or his hands moving to dispel his restlessness.
Nick only chuckled when Pete mimicked Bradley’s newborn coos back at him. He kept an eye out when they went out because his friend had a penchant for speaking his mind without realizing when he was causing offense and ending up with a split-lip or a black eye if Nick wasn’t nearby. He understood the unspoken love when Mav made his morning coffee the right way or woke up with Bradley before either he or Carole could be drawn from their bed or ironing Nick’s clothes when he ironed his own, know that Mav wasn’t one to voice his emotions and instead show his love through action.
Where most people looked at his pilot and saw someone intolerable, a loud-mouth with a penchant for reckless stunts both in the air and on the ground, someone grating and restless and annoying, Nick could only see Pete and all the best parts of him that his best friend had offered up freely.
• • •
3.
It’s after the Layton Rescue mission that Ice and Slider first get a peak behind the curtain.
They’d both been a little stunned to find that the pilot their old buddy from the Academy had spoken so highly of was Maverick. Surely this wasn’t the man that Mother Goose entrusted his son with, entrusted his own life with. It didn’t make sense to them.
But then Goose died and Maverick nearly quit and they started to see the cracks showing through to the man underneath the walls he’d built around himself. And then they both owed him their lives because the other pilot had earned three air-to-air kills for them and they knew Nick would kill them if they didn’t make sure he shouldered that well, that he managed.
Slider also saw the tension that he really couldn’t place as conflict or sexual between his pilot and Mav for weeks fading into something softer as Ice became more and more endeared to the other pilot and he heaved a long-suffered sigh. He gave them a year when he watched them hug each other on the tarmac and he prayed their next assignment would have enough extra space for he and Ice to have separate bunks. Was he asking too much? Maybe. But a man could dream.
Either way, all of the flyboys were collectively concerned when they met in the mess hall for dinner and Mav was nowhere to be found. After all, adrenaline crash was a very real thing and Wolf and Wood had needed shock blankets and Gatorade to come back from the shakes when the excitement had worn off on deck. Ice and Slider both heard Nick’s scolding voice in their heads, chiding them for leaving him alone after they’d all been to the showers and they knew they had to find the pilot.
After checking his bunk, the tarmac, the locker room, and even outside of Stinger’s office, they decided to check the hangar-deck on a whim. They’d both seen the reverent way Mav’s hands caressed over his Tomcat on pre-flight checks. Maybe he’d sought solace amongst the planes.
Luckily, Ice’s guess was right. Unluckily, when they found him, he was crouched against the wall at the bottom of the stair-well to the hangar-deck, his head between his knees, his hands locked over his ears, and his entire body trembling. The pilot and RIO shared a glance and decided to approach slowly.
“Mav?” Ice called out softly. Mav flinched at the sound and Ice saw the puddle forming on the metal floor where Mav’s tears were pooling beneath him. “You need a hand, shortstack?” Slider called out, “If it’s a crash, I can go get the medics.”
Mav’s head whipped up and he shook his head frantically, his tear-filled eyes wide and panicked. “Okay,” Ice held his hands up to display that they meant no harm, “Okay, it’s okay, Mav.”
They finally approached and crouched to a knee before the pilot, who stared at them with distrust and fear in his eyes. “Just tell us what you need and we’ll help you, Mav, that’s all we want,” Slider offered gently.
Mav’s eyes flicked between the two of them, weighing his options. His body continued to tremble, his hands shaking worse than either man had ever seen from an adrenaline crash. Finally, he heaved a shaky sigh that might have sounded like a sob if he hadn’t calmed slightly.
“Planes,” he said, hoping they’d understand without his needing to explain. They stared at him in confusion until Ice asked, “Like, you want to be near them?” Mav nodded.
“Why?” Slider asked and his tone was just confused enough for Mav to flinch slightly and turn his head down, fisting his hands into his hair. “Okay, okay, hey, we’ll get you to the planes, I know you’re upset,” Slider held his hands up, “It’s okay, we just want to help, I’m sorry.”
Mav glanced at them through his eyelashes, his gaze skeptical. “I’m sorry,” Slider repeated with as much sincerity as he could possibly pack into two words.
“So you wanna go down to see the planes?” Ice asked and Mav nodded. “Too loud,” Mav tapped the side of his head and then pointed up, “Couldn’t make it.” Both men remained a little confused at the half-spoken responses but they were just glad that the other pilot seemed to be trusting them well-enough to respond at all.
“Okay,” Ice nodded, “We’ll need to get you up to get all the way down to the hangar but we can do that.” Mav stared back at him in response. “Can we touch you?” Slider hovered a hand over Mav’s shoulder and waited for Mav to nod before gently grasping the other men under his armpit, Ice following but on the other side, so they could pull him to his feet.
The held onto him, supporting his weight for the remainder of the way to the open hangar-deck. When they made it down, Mav had mostly taken his own weight back, and he led them to the edge, where the side of the carrier opened up to show the setting sun against the orange sky and the blue ocean waves. Mav settled with his back to the barrier wall and tipped his head back against the metal, closing his eyes. Ice and Slider sat at his side and patiently waited.
When Mav finally came back down, he explained that sometimes he got overwhelmed and it freaked him out, that the sound of the waves and the humming of the planes at rest and refueling in the hangar-deck relaxed him, the way that rainfall or birdsong soothed some.
It was not the last time either man ever soothed Mav through a breakdown of such a nature and they both took it in stride, learned the best ways to both prevent the meltdowns and how to soothe Mav once they happened. Mav always apologized after and they both assured him that it was unnecessary, that they helped him because they cared.
Neither of them ever questioned the phenomenon, just named it a quirk of Mav’s, one he held no control over, that they all tried their best to work around. And that was the end of it.
• • •
4.
Bradley had known all throughout his childhood that his Uncle Mav was a little different than most people. His family had explained in the most kid-friendly ways possible that sometimes, Mav’s brain attacked him and he got a little upset and it would be best for him to let them handle it until Mav asked for him (because Mav always wanted to see Bradley after a particularly bad day once he was calm).
Told him that certain things bothered his godfather that most people would never really pick up on in the first place, like loud and sudden noises or abrasive textures. That he was particular about his food and drink, certain within his daily routine, and he didn’t like these things being disrupted. But that he was always too scared of being a burden to complain, and his discomfort could build and build and build until he just couldn’t take it anymore.
When he was twelve, his mom explained the concept of PTSD to him and told him that while most of his uncles likely dealt with it in some respect, Mav was often the most overwhelmed by it for several reasons. The first being because he was the best, he often was sent on the most difficult missions and they didn’t always end well. The second being because so many little things could add up and overwhelm his brain on top of the nightmares and flashbacks and grief for fallen soldiers and guilt for taking another man’s life or being the one to make it out when other’s hadn’t. Explained how all of it added together to take a toll on his godfather and sometimes, Mav would snap.
More than once, Bradley had been ushered out of the room when Mav’s breathing became shaky and uneven or rushed, had watched Mav clench his hands until his knuckles turned white and his hands would be bleeding when he finally let go, had watched from around the corner as Mav tried to knock his fists into his own head and Ice restrained him from doing so, had seen as Ice would unfurl one of his hands and rest it over top of his own chest and whisper to Mav until his tears stopped falling and his body stopped trembling.
None of this had ever really been all that odd to Bradley. After all, Mav was different from most people in a lot of ways, why should Bradley question the way his mind worked? Especially because sometimes, it made sense to Bradley in a way his family didn’t understand.
Because sometimes, the scratchy tag in that one shirt that he always saved for wash day made him want to rip the fabric in half just to get away from the feeling. Sometimes, his mom overcooked the pasta for dinner and just one bite would make him want to gag. Sometimes, his brain was too loud and he couldn’t make it go quiet. Sometimes, he couldn’t sleep at night for the five or six overlapping trains of thought running past each other at light speed around his brain keeping him awake.
But he also related to Mav in other ways that his family didn’t get. Where his other uncles might get tired of answering questions about planes, Bradley could ask Mav one question and get an explanation that would spiral into a lecture worth the same amount of information as reading half of the NATOPS manual in one sitting. Mav could always see when the party was getting a little too loud and rowdy for Bradley and would take him out into the front yard for a moment alone. Mav wouldn’t complain the way his mother would when Bradley played his favorite song for the fifteenth time in a row on a road trip up the coast.
Mav would see him picking at the seams of his jeans or chewing at his fingernails and pass him a pen to disassemble and reassemble or a piece of gum to occupy his teeth. Mav understood his need to burn every last ounce of energy he had before bed and would find ways to roughhouse or run around the backyard together well into Bradley’s teen years, even when his mother complained that he would need another bath or was now ‘all riled up’ and get frustrated with his godfather’s antics. Mav also understood the nights that Bradley came crawling into the man’s bed when he still couldn’t sleep because it hadn’t been enough and just lifted the covers without complaint where his mother would’ve told him he was getting too old for that kind of behavior.
There were a lot of reasons why Bradley was so close with Mav growing up, but the commonalities that they each shared when no one else quite got it was a large part of why Bradley clung so tightly.
It was also why the pain of what Mav had done to him had stung so badly. Because Mav knew he didn’t take rejection well, never had. He’d always been insecure and required assurance so he wouldn’t run himself into the ground attempting to improve and that even constructive criticism needed to be delivered with a light hand so as to pass on the correct message and not damage his fragile self-esteem.
So to find out that his godfather, the one person who understood how his brain worked, pulled the rug out from under him with zero explanation as to why? It hurt. It hurt a lot.
And because Bradley had translated pain and fear and hurt into anger for so long, he went ballistic and essentially self-destructed what was left of his childhood in the years after his mother’s death in order to run away and start on a clean slate. It wasn’t rational, maybe, but if Mav was looking for rational, he should’ve sat down and had a conversation with him like grownups.
Either way, Bradley turned his back and as much as he wanted to, he never gave into the urge to turn around and make amends because he felt it wasn’t up to him to apologize. Not for reacting in a way so predictable for him to something someone else did to him. Out of spite alone, no matter how much it hurt and how much he missed his family, he never looked back.
When a random psychologist providing him with a psych eval following a difficult mission, his first special ops detachment, had asked him if he knew what ADHD was, a lot of things suddenly made sense. Especially when he visited another psychologist, who not only professional diagnosed him but placed him on medication, and his diagnosis was explained in depth.
The first time he took an Adderall and his brain went damn-near silent, he spared a passing thought to his godfather and wondered if perhaps this was why his family had never quite understood the two of them the way they had understood each other.
And when his therapist explained to him that caffeine often had the same calming effect for neurodivergent individuals, he recalled the way that he and his family could always tell when Mav was having an especially bad day based on the fact that he never went more than an hour without a cup of coffee in his hand.
Aside from that, however, he hadn’t considered much in the way of his godfather and his mental struggles in years until he looked as though he was on the verge of collapsing to the ground right then and there in the wake of words that Bradley hadn’t truly meant because he’d been three weeks without his meds because he couldn’t seem to get his prescription filled anywhere in San Diego and his best friend was in the very same hospital that his father died in and he was taking it all out on the nearest available target.
When Warlock interrupted their argument and said the words, “It’s Ice, Mav,” the look on Mav’s face made Bradley briefly recall the few times he had seen Ice be the only one who could calm Mav from the panicked state he would befall on his worst days. Remembered one time when Ice was deployed and Slider was halfway across the country visiting his family for Christmas and his mother didn’t know what to do while Mav was curled into the fetal position on the ground, pulling at his hair like he wanted to rip it out, and hyperventilating so hard that his entire torso was bouncing with it.
Recalled how he had been only nine or ten years old and while his mother was trying to get someone on the phone to tell her how to calm him down, he had gently approached his godfather, pulled his head into his lap, pulled his hands free of his hair and replaced the puling with his own soft stroking motions and began humming the lullaby his mother used to sing to him after a nightmare.
When his godfather’s breathing had calmed down from panicked to just ragged, he had offered a sour candy from his back pocket because it used to help quiet his mind when his thoughts were running a mile a minute, how Mav had accepted it immediately and was much calmer by the time his mother returned with a cold washcloth and a jar of Vick’s menthol rub.
Bradley somehow didn’t think he would be a calming presence for Mav in that moment. But then Mav clenched his fists until his entire hand was white and Bradley could see blood dripping from the furl of his fist and he swallowed thickly before following after the admiral without another word. And that was the end of it.
It was only after the mission, after Mav took a missile for him and Bradley shot down a helicopter and took one in return, after they yelled and argued for the umpteenth time, after they ran through enemy territory and tried to stay hidden in the forest together, after they stole a fight jet that was as old as Bradley (if not older), after Mav managed to take down not one but two fifth generation fighter pilots in an F-14, after Hangman saved their asses and they crash landed back on the boat because the plane was barely in shape to fly when they took off, let alone after the dogfight, after the whole damn crew had rallied around them with hugs and cheers and handshakes and tears of grief and joy all melded together, after they were finally urged to head on to medical for evaluation.
Only when they were halfway to the medical wing, escorted by two MPs, did the thought cross Bradley’s mind once more. Because Mav’s adrenaline crash hit like a bomb and leveled the man in seconds. In the blink of an eye, Mav hit the ground and Bradley felt like a child again, standing on the sidelines and watching his godfather panic. One of the MPs rushed off immediately to retrieve a medical officer while the other tried to help Mav into a seated position.
When Mav batted the MPs hands away and began to curl in on himself, Bradley’s brain kicked into gear and he hit his knees at Mav’s side. He turned to the MP, who was also beginning to panic, and he said, “Listen, get his husband on the phone, get something cold, some ice, a wet washcloth, anything,” as he pulled Mav’s phone from his front pocket, typed in ‘1986’ for the passcode, and handed it off, “If you can’t find that, see if the shop has some warheads or something, or some Vick’s, anything with a really strong taste or smell.”
The MP nodded and rushed off, phone in hand, towards the mess hall. Bradley turned back to Mav and saw the way he was already clawing at his scalp, so he moved to intervene, keeping his voice as low but stern as possible, “No, no, no, no, don’t do that, let’s not do that.”
He held his godfather’s hands in his own, feeling the trembles passing through them, to prevent him from pulling at his hair or tugging at his ears or reopening the scabs in his hands, instead letting Mav grip his hands until it was painful.
“Mav,” he tried, ducking to see how distant his godfather’s eyes were, “You hear me?” Mav didn’t respond, so he sighed, “Okay.”
Bradley felt his own panic rising, not sure how to combat this. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself, his voice watery and his own adrenaline crash settling in, his own hands shaking, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Squeeze my hands if you can hear me, Mav,” Bradley said, his voice trembling and cracking as his eyes welled with tears, “I don’t know how to help if you can’t hear me.” He breathed a long, relieved breath when Mav squeezed, tight.
Finally, he started humming the lullaby his mother used to sing him to sleep with on instinct. Mav began to rock himself back and forth in a self soothing motion to the melody, still clutching tight at Bradley’s hands and his green eyes unseeing, staring off into the distance.
So Bradley kept humming, squeezing Mav’s hands in a rhythmic pattern until Mav was squeeze back in time with him. Bradley heard footsteps and turned to find the MP rushing back, a cup of ice in hand and the phone held out on speaker.
“Ice?” Bradley took the phone from him and questioned shakily. “I’m here, baby bird,” Ice’s voice was deeper than when Bradley had last spoken to him, not just from age. He sounded raspy and shaky, just shot to hell compared to the smooth and light voice that used to read him the general NATOPS like a bedtime story when he was little. Bradley spared a moment to regret the time he’d missed with the only family he still had left, wondered what he’d missed that had happened to his uncle. An accident? Illness? Surgery?
But he didn’t have time to contemplate on that, not with his godfather barely able to breathe. So he cleared his throat and said, “Mav’s freaking out like he used to when I was a kid and I don’t-“ his voice broke, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Lean him back, set the phone next to his head where he can hear me,” Ice instructed sternly. Bradley nodded, even though his uncle couldn’t see him, and did as he was told. “Okay,” he confirmed once he’d laid the phone down, “He can hear you.”
Ice then began to speak to his husband in a low murmur but the phone was far enough away and Ice’s voice lacked enough volume that Bradley could only make out that he was speaking, not what he was saying. Instead, he turned to the MP and took the cup of ice with a shaky thank you, placing the cubes in the hands he’d been holding only moments prior the way Natasha had when he was 26 and he came back from a black ops detachment with blood on his hands and would randomly find himself unable to breathe.
Mav clenched his hands around the cubes, tight enough that Bradley knew it must be painful, but Bradley also knew how grounding the technique could be. While he waited to be sure Ice was still speaking and watched the water dripping from Mav’s hands to know when to replace the cubes, a part of him wanted to laugh that he’d asked the MP to bring him Ice and ice.
Finally, four ice cubes later, the glazed look in Mav’s eyes faded and his gaze locked onto Bradley’s face while he tilted his head to listen closer to Ice’s hoarse and hushed speaking. He was still shaking when he sat up, wiped his hands dry on his pants, and picked up the phone. He took it off of speaker and held it to his ear.
“Hey,” he said, his voice nearly as hoarse as his husband’s had sounded, “No, I’m… I’ll be okay, Ice, I’ll call you once we get done in medical… I know, I know… stop wearing your voice out- okay! Okay, I know… yes, love, I will behave,” he rolled his eyes, “I promise…” he glanced at Bradley, “No, we haven’t gotten to that yet… it’s in the plans, believe me… it’s been a long day, sweetheart, you’re gonna murder me when I get home… yes, it probably means exactly what you think it means,” an amused smirk crossed his face, “You’ll no doubt draw the whole debrief from me later- oh shut up!” He laughed, wiping at the tear tracks along his cheeks, “Okay, I’ll talk to you later… Ice,” his tone turned scolding, “Rest, before I call the nurses station and make them restrain you.”
A long pause was taken as Bradley watched Mav’s expression shift from concerned to endeared to apologetic, “I know, Ice,” his voice took on the hoarse quality once more, “I love you too, honey, I promise,” his voice cracked, “I’m okay,” he chuckled softly, “I wouldn’t lie to you right now, I know how much you worry, it’s not good for you- oh, you asshole!” He laughed, the sound echoing down the hallway, “Remind me why I married you?…” his smile turned from amused to endeared as he mumbled, “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Know-it-all,” he chuckled, “I love you, I will call you later, I promise, now get some sleep.”
The call lasted a moment longer as Mav listened and then pulled the phone back and hung up. When he stood back up, he was still a little shaky but they made it to medical successfully and once Bradley’d been given an Ativan to calm his nerves and an icepack for his bruised ribs, he was more worried about finding the right words for the incoming conversation with his godfather than thinking to mention his diagnosis to the man.
• • •
5.
As one might expect, it takes a group effort for Mav’s behavior to finally be called to attention beyond someone insulting him for being ‘weird’. Naturally, it’s the Daggers who are responsible.
It happens on a night out, a few months after the Dagger squad has been added on and stationed at North Island as a training and special ops reserve squadron. They’d established a tradition of going out for drinks together every Friday night after work, with the exception of holidays or otherwise special occasions, since their first week as a permanent squadron.
Not everybody has made it out for this particular Friday in question. Fritz is on paternity leave with his wife and their new baby. Harvard is halfway back to Boston for a class reunion two days before the Harvard/Yale game that the pilot and WSO have not shut up ribbing one another about for months. Speaking of Yale, he is on vacation to France with his parents, his sister and her husband, and his girlfriend. And Omaha flew back home for the weekend for his mother’s birthday.
This leaves Mav, Bradley, Phoenix, Bob, Payback, Fanboy, Hangman, Coyote, and Halo seated around their usual table at the Hard Deck, taking a withstanding break while they recover from the blows to their egos after all losing a turn (and a not insignificant amount of cash) at the pool table to Hangman and Mav, who will never be allowed to team up again. Both men insist it’s their own faults for not having learned better than to play against either of them by now, let alone leverage cash bets, to which they all grumble because they aren’t wrong.
Mav is peeling at the corner of the label on his beer bottle, following along with two conversations at once while sketching out random math problems on a napkin with a pen that Ice consistently scolds him for keeping in his jeans pocket, especially considering how picky Mav is with his choice in clothing, when Hangman finally notices that what he’s writing out is not just random idle doodles but complicated equations.
“Woah, Pops!” The pilot exclaims, tilting his head to read the blue ink scrawled across the thin surface of the bar napkin, “Those are more complicated than some of the stuff they had us doing in flight school.” This draws the remainder of the table’s attention.
When Hangman leans into his space, Mav moves his hand out of the way and backs his own body away a bit, allowing Jake to snag the edge of the napkin and draw it closer. He whistles lowly, “I mean, everybody knows you’re smart, Pops, but this is impressive.”
“He’s got a BA in mechanical engineering, Jake,” Bradley reminds, “Math is part of it.” Hangman chuckles lowly and then passes the napkin across the table to the other pilot, “You minored in engineering, right? That the type of shit you just sit and do on a random Friday night?”
Bradley’s eyes widen as he takes in the math written out and then turns to his godfather, “Why didn’t I go to you for help with my homework more often?” Mav has grown sheepish from the attention and is directing his eyes down as he shrugs. Bradley picks up on the change in demeanor and takes a softer approach as he questions, “Where did you learn how to do this? This is, like, calculus written out and solved on paper, which feels impossible.”
“One of my foster parents was an accountant, his only books were on math and books for little kids,” Mav shrugs, taking a sip from his beer, “I got bored and numbers just kinda… clicked for me, I’ve always been good at math.”
“This isn’t just good, Mav,” Bradley finally passes on the napkin to his other curious squadmates, who eagerly grasp at it to read the equations that have their fellow pilots so shocked, “I’m good at math, that, however, is on parr with NASA level engineering and I’m still 95% sure that the Space Force uses calculators.”
“They do,” Mav mumbles into his beer bottles, “I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, was part of why I spent so long focused on learning math,” he takes another sip, “I only decided to be a pilot in my first year of college.”
“You went through ROTC?” Phoenix asks curiously, “I always assumed you were an Academy graduate.” Mav shakes his head, “No, the Academy wouldn’t accept a Mitchell, wouldn’t even field my phone calls once they caught my last name, and I already had enough college credits to skip straight to junior year so,” he shrugs.
That is when they all turn to gape at him incredulously and he stares back in confusion, “What?”
“I’m sorry,” Halo holds a hand up, “How old were you when you graduated college?”
“Eighteen,” Mav shrugs nonchalantly again, “One of my social workers told me to try and get as many credits as I could, skip a few years in high school so I could finish college while I was still considered a ward of the state, cause they cover everything if you’re in college courses and still in the foster system.”
“I’m sorry, what?!” Jake exclaims, “Wait, wait, how old were you when you got your wings?” Mav hums, scratching his arm, “I think I’d just turned twenty? Or maybe my twentieth was right around when I got my callsign…” he tips his head in consideration, “Something like that.”
“Wait,” Coyote’s face scrunches in confusion, “So how old are you in the pictures from ’86, when you went to TOPGUN?”
“Twenty-three or thereabouts,” he wiggles his hand back and forth in a ‘sorta’ hand-signal. Bradley proceeds to place his forehead on the table and murmur to himself almost deliriously, “I barely made the age cutoff to get my wings and he was twenty-three at TOPGUN…” Phoenix rubs a hand over his back while taking another glug from her beer.
Bob is still holding the napkin and examining it closely when he finally speaks up, “Hey Mav,” and Mav turns to face him, “You said you’ve always been good at math… why do you think that is?”
Bob is currently reevaluating several traits he’s noticed in his CO, cataloguing his lack of eye-contact and his fidgety hands as he answers easily, “Cause numbers make sense.”
“What do you mean?” Bob asks, hoping to draw out a more clear explanation than that. He’s successful as Mav throws his hands up and begins talking, “Well, I’ve never really been great ta making heads or tails of anything that’s up for interpretation,” he takes another sip of his beer, “Math isn’t up for interpretation, math has rules that never change, they’re consistent, so it makes sense.”
“Wheras, say, literature doesn’t?” Bob poses, fully expecting the excited expression on Mav’s face as he points at him and says, “Yes! You get it.”
Mav takes another sip of his beer and then continues, “I don’t know, math just sorta clicked for me when I was, like, ten, and suddenly, I wanted to learn everything there was to know about mathematics,” he shrugs again, “I lost the intense interest in it when I was about thirteen or so but the skill itself never really went anywhere.”
Bob hums and shares a glance with Fanboy, who is the only other person at the table thus far who has caught on to where he’s going with this, and then says, “Right, and I’m guessing that thirteen or so was when another lasting interest of yours came about? Bikes or mechanics or something else?”
Mav furrows his brow and slowly lowers his bottle from his mouth, eyes still trained on Bob’s nose and not his eyes, and asks, “Yeah, my foster mother when I was thirteen was a mechanic, she’s the reason I can repair an entire engine block despite the fact that I’ve never owned a car, how did you know that?”
Bob inhales slowly and then says, “Have you ever heard the term ‘autism’ before, Mav?”
The whole table goes silent, all realizing where he’s going with this. You could hear a pin drop amidst the quiet. Mav furrows his eyebrows together even tighter, still not meeting Bob’s eyes, and he answers, “Maybe?”
“Okay,” Bob nods slowly, “You’ve read all of our files, right? You know some of us are medicated for mental health diagnoses?” Mav nods, so Bob continues, “Right, so do you know what ADHD is?”
Mav once again hesitantly nods, “I think?” Bob sighs, “Okay, have you ever heard the term neurodivergent?” Mav latches onto that and points at him enthusiastically, “I have heard of that!” Bob nods, “You know what it means?” And Mav wilts, “Well, not really, but I know it’s a mental health term, I’ve heard it attached to ADHD before.”
“Right!” Bob encourages softly, “So three of us on the team would be considered neurodivergent.” Mav nods to show he’s following.
“I don’t know if you know the specifics of our diagnoses according to the files, but Rooster and Fanboy both have ADHD,” Bob points to the two respective aviators, who nod in confirmation, and then points to himself, “And I have Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD as it’s commonly known now.”
“Back when I was diagnosed,” Bob continues, “It was known as Asperger’s Syndrome.” At that, Mav’s expression changes like he recognizes the term. “But it’s since been further studied and collectively added in as a type of Autism,” he concludes.
He takes a deep breath and then finally presents the point he’s been building to, “And considering the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you make direct eye contact with somebody,” he counts off on his hand as he lists the noticed symptoms, “You do that to every beer, soda, or water bottle I’ve ever seen you hold,” he points to the bottle in Mav’s hand, the label almost entirely peeled away, “You seem to have some type of sensory issues based on how particular you are with your food and your clothes,” his hand displays three fingers now, “You take things very literally most of the time,” at that, he gestures to Jake, who uses southern idioms all the time that Mav has been unable to figure out in the past, “You take specific and special interest in random things that you have not outgrown or lost any skill in since you first became interested in them like most neurotypical people do,” he holds the napkin up in his other hand and then restarts the count off on his hand.
“You stim, a lot,” when Mav’s face furrows in confusion, he clarifies, “Er, fidget, I guess would be the term you’re most familiar with,” and Mav nods so he continues, “You are a master at multi-tasking, which most neurotypical people struggle with,” a chorus of nods follow his words around the table, “You can sometimes be too blunt or direct for your own good,” he’s at eight, “You exhibit echolalia sometimes, or vocal mimicry, essentially, like mimicking someone’s accent on accident or completing call and response phrases by instinct,” nine, “And I’ve seen you decompress sometimes in a way that reminds me of what I do when I get home, with earplugs or headphones in your office, curled up on a chair, rocking back and forth,” he holds up ten fingers, both hands, and then drops them, “And those are just the symptoms I’ve noticed enough to name off the top of my head.”
Mav blinks a little incredulously at him and then asks, “What’s your point, Bob?” Bob sighs and sips at his soda, “If you’ve never been evaluated before… maybe look into it, that’s all I’m saying.”
• • •
1.
Three weeks later, Mav walks out of a psychologist’s office with a prescription for anxiety meds and a diagnosis for ASD in hand.
As soon as he’d gone home and talked it out with Ice, his husband’s eyes had shifted like the whole world suddenly made sense. And at first, Mav had been wary of it. Hadn’t wanted someone to tell him that something was, in fact, wrong with him. But then he’d started doing some independent research.
He found a community full of people who held all the same struggles he’d dealt with since he was a child, who related to his experiences and made him feel validated. He’d gone to ask Bob about the topic some more in private and the WSO had been happy to discuss it with him as well as give him his sister’s phone number, because she hadn’t been diagnosed until she was thirty because ASD and ADHD were largely under-diagnosed in women but over-diagnosed in men, so where Bob had been diagnosed as a kid, she could relate more to his experience going so long undiagnosed, spending years struggling with unrecognized obstacles that made zero sense to anyone else around you because they were in your own mind.
He finally made the plunge to schedule an appointment when Bradley softly pressed the issue, saying he could likely benefit from some variety of therapy or medication regardless due to his untreated PTSD.
But now? Now he feels vindicated because in his pocket is a piece of paper that says he’s not crazy, his brain just works differently to most peoples. That proves his string of unfortunate foster parents and degrading commanding officers over the years all wrong. He is not obstinate or difficult or strange or retarded or slow or whatever other word had been hurled at him. He’s just different. And as a bisexual man in the military during the 1980s and ‘90s, he’s not so unacquainted with different. His husband, he knows, can relate.
He spent so much of his life trying to learn how to pretend to be ‘normal’ (which, he now knows is known as masking by the autism community), when in reality, there was never a ‘normal’. And he is not ‘weird’, he’s just autistic.
It feels liberating to finally understand the way his brain works, to have a word for it that isn’t degrading. He spares a thought for all of the people who thought he was an oddball throughout his life, wonders if a single one of them ever considered this scenario prior to Bob’s revelation. He can’t wait to invite Slider to dinner later in the week.
So he returns home, now with the understanding that he is not strange or purposefully difficult or an annoyance (unless it’s on purpose, which it sometimes is).
No, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is autistic. And nothing else in his life has ever made more sense.