Top Gun Imagines

A Promise [Maverick X Reader]

Note: This story originated from my 30 Days of Writing Prompts challenge book!

Prompt: Nightmare

Title: A Promise

Fandom: Top Gun (1986)

Warnings: Mentions of death, loss, grief, vivid nightmares.

Word Count: 2,372

Author's Note: I literally made myself cry while writing this - hence why it may struggle in some spots. Do you know how hard it is to type with a blurry gaze? Also: have a listen to Memories by Harold Faltermeyer from the original soundtrack. It's a masterpiece and brings all the feels.

Synopsis: After a close call during a training flight, RIO Y/N L/N finds herself inviting her longtime friend and now pilot over for dinner, having heard and now witnessed her friend's evidently suffering state. Will she finally come to realize just how much the one they call Maverick has been suffering since the loss of his dearest friend?

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A Promise

You'd heard what had happened.

You knew right well that things might be rocky with your new assignment and the pilot you're now flying with.

But not this rocky.

"Mav! You can drop down and take the shot! It's wide open!" You practically scream at the pilot sitting in front of you, his gaze darting to yours in the right hand mirror, a rather haunted glimmer in his usually determinedly optimistic gaze.

"It's no good," He states firmly, his tone drifting into a mumble. "It's no good."

All you can do is watch as the F-14 you're sitting in begins to bank hard right, away from the other, smaller jet you'd been after as a training exercise - those have been far more routine since the ever looming threat of the Soviet Union throughout this prolonged period of utterly Cold War.

But almost instantly, a panic overtakes you.

Twister was on our wing.

"What the hell are you doing, Mav?!" An utterly bewildered and alarmed tone sounds from your wingman, who's canopy is quickly getting closer and closer to your widened eyes.

"Shit!"

And in a heartbeat, you're slammed against the back of your seat as the fighter goes vertical, gaining altitude up and away from where you'd been, mere seconds away from a collision.

Silence.

Utter silence as you sit there, the crisis narrowly averted.

All you can hear is the constant, steadily slowing down heartbeat pounding the blood in your ears, adrenaline thrumming through your body.

You're utterly shocked.

Maverick nearly got the both of you, and your wingman, dead.

Taking a deep inhale of the crisp oxygen your mask provides before exhaling it heavily, you lean forward in your seat, peering at the man in front of you through the mirrors mounted above and on either side of him.

"You good, Mav?"

It had been a stupid question.

And as you sigh heavily, gaze surveying the bleak looking skies now above you, your feet now back on the ground, a pang of sorrow ripples through you.