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remember me

Auther: bradshaw-fanclub

The residual effects of anxiety and fear are still coursing through your system, just having watched Coyote plummet towards the ground while stuck in G-lock. You fly your F-18 to the left side of Maverick’s, Phoenix coming in on his right.

“That was close,” Phoenix’s voice comes over the radio and you nod, heart still beating too fast to really engage in conversation. 

You had never felt as helpless in your life as you did while you watched the pilot spiral towards his death during the mission simulation. Maverick says something over the radio, but you’re too focused on the memory of what he had told you at the start of training; this mission would push you and your jets to your breaking point. 

And you had just witnessed that. 

You’re startled back to the present, loud bangs landing upon the exterior of your combat jet and you vaguely hear Maverick yelling bird strike.

You flip into action too late, your jet jolting when two birds hit your engine. There’s yelling over the radio, Phoenix is hit too. You work in unison, both pulling your jets up to a higher altitude, Phoenix breaks right and you break left to put distance between the flaming engines. 

Bob sounds frantic over the radio. Maverick is yelling at them not to start their engine, yelling at you for an update. 

It’s chaotic. 

“I’ve lost my engine completely,” you tell him, voice strained as you try in vain to keep your jet in the sky. Maverick tells all of you to eject, you can still hear Phoenix trying to save her jet. 

Alarms sound through your cockpit, angry blinking lights warning you - 

“Oh, fuck,” you say, pulling your ejection. You’re launched from the jet, knocked breathless by the g-force. You feel the blast and the heat from your jet exploding in the sky before your vision goes black. 

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡

Bradley listens to the radio every time you’re up in the air. He claims he does it for everybody, but he knows he’s a little extra attentive when it’s his girl in the sky. 

The simulation had been going smoothly, until Maverick made an appearance as a bandit who had spotted the formation of pilots.

Everything went downhill after that.

If he found it hard to listen to the commotion as Coyote fell into G-lock, the panic in the voices of the other aviators as they tried to pull Coyote out of it, then the freezing feeling in his heart after the bird strike, when he heard you tell Maverick that your engine was out, could have ended him there. 

It seemed like his world stopped spinning, the blaring of your system beeping its warnings at you echoing through the radio.

And the last thing he heard from you was “oh, fuck” before an explosion sounded outside, loud enough to be heard from the training room. 

He thinks he may have called out your name, feet carrying him from the room that suddenly seemed too small. 

He could see the remaining smoke in the sky, but not your parachute. He doesn’t remember when he started running, only the feeling of arms stopping him.