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“How I always end up in these situations is beyond me,” Bradley Bradshaw mumbled to himself whilst walking along the side of a desert highway in the middle of nowhere California, “But I’m getting real tired of it.” He sighed, holding a hand out to signal to the oncoming driver that he was looking to hitch a ride. So far, four separate cars had already passed him up, he was hot and irritable from the sun, he was dehydrated and growing hungrier by the minute, and he was lost.
It was so strange. One minute, he’d been napping on Mav’s couch in the hangar like a cat basking in the late evening sun after a long day of working on the Mustang together, and the next, he’d blinked awake in the early morning hours of the day, finding himself in the same structure, only emptied. Gone were all of Mav’s toys and the airstream, his storage lockers and workbenches, and all of his furnishings, even the loft space was gone. All that was left was the open expanse of an ancient hangar shelter. And it was in terrible shape compared to the way Mav had shored it up after he acquired it (perks of having an Admiral for a husband, having access to decommissioned aircraft hangars out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with nobody around for miles to bother you).
Well, considering the drive from Bradley’s apartment on base out to the hangar could vary from four to five hours depending on the stops he made along the way, it certainly hadn’t been fun to start walking. Especially considering the first stretch for a while was just the lone, empty road leading off of the main highway all the way out to the hangar.
He’d walked throughout the duration of the day, thanking Naval fitness regimes for his endurance and the occasional tree for a reprieve. But damn if he wasn’t exhausted by the time he reached a road with passing cars, just as the sun started peeking back down towards the horizon. His watch was all out of sorts, considering it had read as three AM when he awoke that morning, but if his guesses were right, it was about five in the afternoon by the time a car actually stopped for him.
It was actually an eighteen-wheeler that stopped, but semantics.
Regardless, the man in the driver’s seat told him he was headed to a truck stop just outside the city, that he could drop him off there. Bradley agreed, more than ready to get out of the sun, and he hopped in. The man offered him some water, which he gratefully took and greedily drank. His skin was sensitive and hot in a way that told him he had a sunburn going and he could tell he’d not been far from passing out by the time the trucker finally stopped for him. So he thanked the man, eagerly once more, and then rode in silence the entire drive into San Diego, Glen Campbell and Dolly Parton singing them on the whole way.
It was past nightfall by the time they reached the truck stop and the trucker pointed him towards a diner near the edge of town, right down by the beach, that would have decent and cheap food available. It was also only a few miles trek and after the long rest in the air-conditioned truck cab, he felt mostly up for it. Once again, he thanked the man, left a twenty dollar bill on the seat when he climbed out, and began following the directions the man had given him.
He reached the diner in question just as the moon began cresting over the tree line. He stared at the front of the building in confusion for a moment. He’d lived in San Diego from the time he was four up until he was eighteen and he’d never seen this place, not that he could remember anyway. Why didn’t he remember it?
He happened to glance in the right direction and his eyes locked onto a very familiar little red Kawasaki Ninja parked beside…an even more familiar blue Bronco. Why the hell was his truck here, next to Mav’s bike? Nothing had made any sense since he woke up and it all felt like a fever dream but this detail specifically chafed him. After all, Mav couldn’t have driven both vehicles from the hangar by himself so how did they both end up here? But then that opened the door to about a thousand other questions that he was just too tired to contemplate for the time being so he shook his head and dismissed them, stepping past the threshold of the door.
A bell above his head jingled, signaling his arrival to the staff. A waitress passed him by, holding a full pot of steaming coffee in one hand and a plate of pancakes in the other, and she glanced at him as she went, “Just sit anywhere you like, hon, someone’ll be with you in just a few!” He nodded, watching her head over to a table with the plate, whipping into another booth to refill three cups of coffee with the carafe in her hands and then turning back to the sound of a ringing bell at the counter.
He zeroed in on a small table beside a window overlooking the beach and began walking towards it, only for his brain to short-circuit for a second when the chatter of the restaurant was briefly interrupted by a barrage of notes being banged out on an older, out-of-tune piano. He turned his head to locate the noise at the exact same time he recognized the song.
“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain!” A mildly off-key voice cried out, echoing throughout the restaurant and Bradley froze in his tracks. He was sent hurtling back to an old memory, one that was fuzzy around the edges and well-supplemented with his mother and Maverick’s recollection of it over the years on top of a few old photographs, polaroid pictures his father and mother had taken of an outing to a diner just like the one he stood within when he and his mother came to visit Mav and his father while they were at TOPGUN.
He hadn’t realized it when he walked through the neighborhood, but he’d made his way to Fightertown on his way to this diner.
He glanced at a calendar on the wall below the register as that same voice yelped out the rest of the lyrics, “Too much love drives a man insane! You broke my will, but what a thrill! Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!” The calendar was open to July of 1986. And so Bradley Bradshaw realized three things all at the exact same time.
He had somehow time-traveled back to the exact time and date when his father and his godfather were at TOPGUN. Both of his parents were alive once more and stood somewhere in this diner with him. And one of the very few memories he had of his father was underway at that very moment.
Sure enough, the closer he stepped to the sound, the more he recognized the voice. His mother really hadn’t been joking when she said that, as much as Goose loved music, he hadn’t been much of a singer. The voice in question was clearly not trying to be good, only singing for the fun of it. And then he heard the toddler’s voice mixed in, stumbling over the lyrics alongside him, and he wanted to fall to the floor in tears right there. “I laughed at love 'cause I thought it was funny! But you came along and you moved me, honey! I changed my mind, this love is fine! Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!”
His feet moved independently from the rest of his body, venturing closer and closer to the sound as the song continued, his father’s voice commingled with his own. He found himself whispering the lyrics to himself beneath his breath, chuckling to himself as his eyes welled when Goose got a line wrong or plucked a messy note. He wasn’t trying, he was simply enjoying himself, and that in and of itself was so unendingly endearing, especially when he finally peaked around the corner and realized that the entire endeavor was a manner of entertaining him.
Perched atop the piano, there he sat, toddler-sized and toe-headed with a cowboy hat perched on his head. If he thought about it hard enough, he could recall his mother saying a waitress had plonked it on his head because he was being cute when they ordered their food. And on the bench of the piano, there sat his father. Dressed in a shirt he’d seen most of his life because his mother had cherished it dearly, one of her favorite items of clothing from his father’s wardrobe, one she had preserved and revered, one of few that Bradley himself never wore. Bright blue with islands and planes all across it. His aviators on his nose, his smile bright and wide as he gazed at his son, grinning ear to ear.
One of the tears in Bradley’s eyes slipped over, trickling down his cheek. Movement behind the pair of them caught his eye and he glanced their way, seeing Maverick standing up from his chair, his mother watching with amusement and a whole lot of love in her eyes. Another tear fell as he watched a much younger, much happier Maverick approach where the pair of them were seated, “—mine, mine, mine, mine!”
Maverick howled, causing Goose to break rhythm for a second with a laugh, but together they continued, “I trim my nails and I twiddle my thumbs! I get nervous but it sure is fun! Come on, baby, you’re driving me crazy,” Maverick leaned up, setting his beer bottle down on top of the piano and playing with Bradley for a second, smiling at him as he sang along. Another tear slipped loose. Then he leaned back, tipping his and Goose’s heads together as they chorused out as loudly as they could, “Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!”
As his father started playing the break, the riffs messily being bounced over, notes being missed or mistimed, a smile never leaving any of their faces, his mother suddenly called out from their table, her voice bright and sweet, “Hey Goose, you big stud!”
“That’s me, honey!” His father called back to her, his eyes never leaving the keys as he laughed at himself, trying to both remember the sequence and keep up with it all at the same time.
“Take me to bed or lose me forever!” She yelled, her grin wide, her eyes just overflowing with love and adoration. God, they were soulmates. Bradley knew that, he’d always known that, but seeing it in action was certainly nothing like he could’ve ever imagined.
“Show me the way home, honey,” his father grinned lasciviously over his shoulder at her, turning back to the keys just in time for the lyrics to come back.
Maverick stared between the two of them, smiling wide as he sang along and his mother jumped from her seat, running over to join them, “Kiss me, baby!” His mother landed herself in his father’s lap, causing Goose to stumble over a key change with a laugh as he leaned forward, pecking her shoulder, “Oooh, that feels good.” Bradley couldn’t contain his laugh, even as more tears began to fall.
“Hold me, baby! I wanna love you like a lover should,” the trio chorused together, not one of their voices in tune or on key, singing without a care in the world, “You’re fine…you’re so kind, I’ma tell the world that you’re mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!” They all smiled at each other, Mav plucking little Bradley from his place atop the piano, carrying him on his hip, and bouncing with the rhythm of the song, “I trim my nails and I twiddle my thumbs! I get nervous but it sure is fun! C’mon baby, you’re driving me crazy, goodness gracious—“
“Great balls of fire!” All four of them shouted at the very top of their lungs, falling into laughter immediately thereafter. Bradley whispered the final line along with them, watching their immense joy and all of the love just swelling around them like a hurricane of emotion, his heart breaking open knowing that this was only a few days before the accident. That this family had absolutely no idea what was to come for them. And that’s what they were, a family.
Bradley watched as his mother took her son from Maverick, leaving the men to pick up their things from the table while she took him to the bathroom. Once she returned, the foursome departed. Bradley abandoned his venture for food, trailing out behind them. Unable to part himself with this memory he didn’t even really know he had until this very moment.
He stood back from a distance, hoping they wouldn’t notice him, as they all made way for the Bronco. The parking lot was empty and the road quiet so he could hear as they chatted on their way back.
“—I really wish they’d quit working you boys so hard,” his mother shook her head, “It’s inhumane.”
“It’s the Navy, Car,” Mav laughed, “What were you expecting?”
She snorted out a laugh, “Fair.” Then she sighed, “So when will the pair of ya’ be free again?”
“Hell,” Goose grimaced, sucking his teeth for a second, “Thursday evening? No class that day, just the hop, right, Mav?”
“Yeah,” Mav nodded, shouldering his messenger bag and slinging his jacket over his arm, “Last week is all flight training, no lectures, so we’ll be free earlier in the days starting Tuesday, but Tuesday night, we’ve got another volleyball game and we’ll never hear the end of it if we don’t kick Kazansky and Kerner’s asses—“
“What on Earth have those boys done to piss you off so bad, Maverick?” Carole laughed.
“Kazansky is a prick,” Mav practically growled, “And Kerner’s his lackey.”
“They really aren’t so bad once you get to know ‘em, Mav,” Goose slung an arm over his pilot’s shoulders, laughing, “Hell, I shared a room with Slider for over a year, we got along fine.”
“I reserve the right to my opinion,” Mav whirled around on his heel, pointing firmly at Goose, “They are assholes and I stand by it.”
“If you just explained the situation with Cougar—“ Goose started but Mav held a hand up so he stopped short, cutting himself off with a sigh and a shrug. He turned to Carole, “I tried.”
“Yes, you did, honey,” she laughed, “He’s as stubborn as a bull, you know that just as well as I did.”
“Well, you weren’t complaining about that last night, now were you?” Mav rounded on her, his grin bordering on suggestive as he leered at her jokingly.
She shoved him with her free hand, laughing, “Oh shut up, you!”
“He’s not wrong, honey,” Goose chuckled lowly, slinging an arm over her and pressing his nose to her cheek.
“Oh cut it out!” She laughed as she pulled the back door open, slipping little Bradley inside and buckling him in, “The both of ya’, always ganging up on me!” She shut the door, stepping back to look at them both.
“Well, we can’t help ourselves when you look at us like that, Car,” Mav teased, leaning back against the door and pulling her in by her waist. Bradley stared on with wide eyes.
Goose crowded in behind her, “How can we resist? You’re just too beautiful.”
She shook her head in exasperation, her smile still wide and bright as ever, “What ever am I gonna do with the pair of you?”
“Love us,” both men grinned, speaking in synchronization.
She smacked Mav’s chest, leaning down to peck his lips. Bradley gasped, covering his mouth in shock. “Go get on your death trap,” she shook her head at him, “If we dilly dally any longer, none of us’ll be getting any sleep tonight.”
“I thought you liked it that way!” Mav grinned, calling after her as she rounded the front of the vehicle. She just shook her head, a fond smile on her face.
“You be careful pushing her like that,” Goose chastised with a laugh, “You piss her off and we’ll both catch it,” he shook his head, smiling, “I don’t know about you but I don’t care to end up that sore the night before a hop.” Mav grimaced. Goose laughed again, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Alright, alright,” Mav grumbled, hiking the strap of his messenger bag a little higher.
“Go,” Goose urged, nodding towards his bike.
Mav shook his head fondly and then, in a display that shocked Bradley to his very core where he stood watching, placed both of his hands on his father’s jaw and yanked him down into a downright filthy kiss. It was risky as all hell, considering where and when they were, but this was Maverick after all. It lasted about thirty seconds of aggressive press before Mav pulled back, lowering himself back to flat feet. Goose stared at him, shell-shocked for a second before breaking out into a laughing grin.
He smacked Mav’s ass as he turned around and Mav only laughed in response, jogging over to his bike. Carole watched the whole thing, shaking her head with a fond smile.
Bradley watched them all drive off, his perspective on his family forever changed and his jaw on the floor.
Come to find out, he only had to fall back asleep in order to wake up back on Mav’s couch in the hangar, the man himself working on a bike in the corner, grease covering his hands.
And the first words out of his mouth when he registered his return and Mav’s presence were a frantic, “Did you fuck my parents?!”
Long story short, the pair of them had a very long conversation that night about the polycule that each and every one of Bradley Bradshaw’s parental figures were embroiled in in the 1980s.