Power Ballad

***

Still, I rise. 

Maya Angelou

*** 

Pete Mitchell has one memory that never fades from his childhood, and he built all that he was around that memory. 

The gleam of metal, the scratch of paint, the blocky letters of his father's name below the clear cockpit. How high off the ground he was, sitting in his father's lap and touching all the gauges and switches while his father laughed and tried to explain what they all did to a child that couldn't yet sit still.

The sun was high, the air was warm, and his father's nightmares had stayed away the night before, so even his mother was smiling that morning. She sat on the grass next to the airfield with a book and a picnic and enjoyed the summer day while Pete's father let him walk on the wings and poke around in the engines.

His entire life is born from the memory of that day.

They never tell Pete how they brought his father down. Even Viper, years later, will only speak of his heroism.

Pete Mitchel has one memory from childhood.

Tom Kazansky has a lot and wishes he didn't remember any of them. 

A family of service. Blood as blue as the ocean they sailed and the skies they flew. Until the end of his days, Tom never knew if his father was born that way or if the military re-shaped him into the monster's mold. Kazansky Sr never talks about his life before the military, it didn't happen, he doesn't exist outside of the uniform and neither does anyone else.

Tom imagines he hatched from one of the bombs he dropped from his fighter in the jungles of Vietnam and crawled out of the burning vegetation, full-grown and angry.

He wants to get as far from that house and those people and those memories as he can, so he flies the fastest aircraft he can get his hands on. Flies so high the oxygen thins, and he call almost touch the stars. 

The pain fades, then.

And one by one, he replaces those old bad memories with new ones (It takes a long time to get them all, but he does it).

Pete is refused the first time he applies to the Naval Academy.

Tom gets his letter of acceptance before he's even submitted the application.

They both breeze through despite Pete's wildness and Tom's obsession with perfection and how it lets him create distance.

And their careers follow oddly similar trajectories but somehow never manage to cross for several years.

Not until Top Gun. 

Until then, Pete makes it his mission to push every boundary, outflying every pilot, instructor, and fear that takes to the air with him. He ignores the whispers from those around him, his father's name followed quickly by traitor. 

Do you know whose son he is? 

Surprised they let him in? 

Is he on our side?

Follows in his footsteps.

He's probably just like his old man, can't be trusted.

Pete makes sure he's alone, and the door is locked before he lets himself cry. Stuffs his face in his pillow so no one can hear and splashes cold water on his face so no one can tell.

He slips up at his second duty station, a carrier out in the middle of the fucking Pacific.

And who the fuck else is awake at this hour??

Nick Bradshaw is one of those people that seem too good to be true. Quick with a smile and slow to anger with love to spare. He makes a point to ignore Pete as he showers and shaves, but Pete didn't miss how he made sure to lock the door of the only bathroom on this level.

Some poor fucker's going to be stumbling up and down the stairs in the middle of the night, will probably brain himself on the handrail, and not be found for days.

When Pete points that out, the other man just shrugs. 

No point in dealing with pain that ain't happened yet. Also, my momma says cucumbers do wonders for red eyes.

Pete doesn't respond, but they end up walking back together in silence. At least until they reach Pete's door and Pete's man enough to say a quiet thank you, only to get an impromptu hug that turns into a wrestling match when the other guy refuses to let go, and they end up waking up most of the hallway.

Pete hasn't laughed that hard in a long time. Nick Bradshaw is long-limbed and scrawny and latches on like a leech to make up for the lack of hard muscle, and no amount of Pete's squirming can dislodge him.

The next day, he joins Pete for lunch and shoves a pile of sliced cucumbers onto his tray.

It's the closest Pete has ever been to true love.

Even getting written up for starting a food fight doesn't temper the elation bursting out of his chest.

After that, they're Pete And Nick, Maverick And Goose. By mutual agreement, Nick hops ship from his first pilot and becomes Pete's backseater. 

It's hard to find them apart after that. Even when Pete's moody and sullen and angry, Nick's calm and happy and can talk for hours. Pete isn't allowed to be withdrawn and quiet, and somehow, it makes it easier to deal with the whispers and the sideways looks and the lectures (although Nick and later Tom both insist those are entirely his doing, Pete disagrees).

Nick claims he got the callsign Goose after fighting a particularly violent Canadian goose (he's perfectly happy admitting he lost), but it's Tom who tells him where it really came from (back in the academy, Nick was everybody's mother, always keeping an eye on everyone, making sure they ate and slept, and laughed and hen just didn't have the same ring (They tell Bradley his dad won a fight with a flock of Canadian Geese)).

Maverick….well, everyone knows where Maverick came from.

The first time someone calls Tom 'Iceman,' he's still in the academy. He flies a perfect hop with an asshole instructor who tears him a new one for not making any mistakes, and he takes it, stone-faced and silent, and walks away with a smirk.

Like ice, they say, cold, untouchable. He shoots that instructor down in every hop they fly after that day. Only one of them lasts until graduation.

Tom is top of his class, duty station of choice and heads to the first war he hears about.

He meets Ron Kerner on his second deployment. The RIO slides into the empty seat next to Tom at a briefing and they find out a few minutes later they'll be flying together for the upcoming mission.

He slides everywhere Tom notices after. Somehow, the RIO manages to smoothly insert himself into pretty much any situation he wants. He has an ease Tom envies, even though he's just as much of a control freak. 

The first time they fly together, they surprise each other with their speed and instinct and how well-aligned they are. Their commander permanently assigns them together a day later.

It's a quieter friendship than some. Ice is so often in his head, would rather observe and plan than rage and brag. Ron likes to brag for both of them but very quickly picks up Tom's hard lines, so it works out. And sometimes, the admiration reminds him how far he's come from that house.

He never actually tells anyone what happened there, not yet anyway, in the years to come he opens up to a few (Pete, Bradley and Jake, Penny), but Ron somehow knows anyway. He never asks, which Ice appreciates more than he can ever say out loud, but he notices how Ice never calls home and never receives any mail, so he starts sharing his, puts Tom on the phone with his parents and his girlfriend of the week.

He doesn't even get that upset when a couple of them hit on Tom.

Over the years, Tom builds his reputation with the precision of a surgeon, the same way he flies. He's the best of the best, and there are very few that don't know it.

He meets Abby on leave. Ron's off with his lady of the of the week, so Tom wanders off base in Rota and follows his stomach. He ends up in a quieter part of the city, at a restaurant that seems authentic, as far as he can tell. Abby introduces herself by asking if she can have the empty chair at his table and ends up sitting with him instead of returning to her friends. 

She's a grad student, travelling for the summer, and thinks being a fighter pilot is thrilling. Tom enjoys talking to her so much that they meet up every day of his leave. When Tom returns to duty, she watches him fly from a hilltop overlooking the base and brings him food from the small towns she ventured out to during the day.

She has lots of questions about everything and can't seem to sit still no matter what they're doing, and Tom likes the distraction, likes how he has to focus so much on her that he can push away most everything else.

Ron doesn't like her. Mutters that she's demanding, immature, and flat-out an idiot after he overhears her opinion on world affairs.

Still, Tom stays in contact with her when they inevitably ship out, and she returns to school. They manage long distance for two years before Tom is assigned to Florida and she finishes school. When she mentions she'll be working in Tampa and hints at looking for something they can both commute from, Tom starts looking at rings.

She'd be a good wife, with a degree and a job she'd already be more impressive than most of his cohort's wives, who made being Navy wives their full-time job. She hadn't complained too much about long distance and his deployments and puts up with Ron even though they've moved from mere dislike to full on hatred of one another.

Abby didn't like how close they were, that there were parts of Tom that only Ron got to see. She wanted all of him, but Tom didn't want to burden her with the darker parts. Wanted to keep them locked away. Ron was there to catch them if they started to leak out and that was fine for Tom. 

It was madness to change it now when Tom was finally feeling comfortable and had managed to push thoughts of that house out of his head more days than not. Now he just had to give Ron a look and the other man immediately jumped into whatever would distract Tom any day when he couldn't manage it himself.

Still, he found a ring, big and classy, and did the expected thing. Proposing on the beach at sunset. It makes Ron roll his eyes and pretends to barf when Tom tells him about it the next day, but he keeps his mouth shut about her after that.

They're deployed again not long after, a special assignment, the likes of which are becoming more common as Tom's reputation grows.

They have the closest call of their respective careers during a patrol along the Black Sea. Three Russian Migs and Ice's missile system failed (Ron got his hands on the tech that fucked it up after they got back), but Ice outflew them all, damaging the SUs with the rounds he managed to get off and sending them running home billowing black smoke before his own damage turned him back to the carrier.

They landed to a standing ovation on the deck of the carrier, but Ice doesn't get the official kills because no one can confirm whether or not the Migs made it home or not.

It's when he mentions it to Abby that he learns why exactly Ron doesn't like her. Despite being happy he survived, she can't get past the fact that Tom did his level best to kill three people. Three enemies, he corrects over and over, who were doing the same to him.

But still, she persists. Couldn't you just have disengaged and run?

The word sends a chill down his spine.

Run?

Who runs? Not a pilot, not a soldier, and that who Tom is. What if they'd followed him back to the carrier? What if they'd achieved whatever mission his patrol had interrupted?

There would have been a lot more than three possible kills.

Their call ends on an odd note of happiness and doubt. Ron pulls Tom into the carrier's celebration after, and he completely forgets about the call.

That's what convinces him to end it a week later.

They talk a couple of more times between that call and his decision, but the conversations are colored by her disapproval at his ease with the violence of it all, and when he asks her why she only has a problem with it now, her only defense is that she didn't realize that it was there before.

You're a pilot. It's your job to fly.

I'm a fighter pilot; it's our job to fight and protect.

Well, I don't like that. I don't want my husband to kill people.

Tom hung up after that, because where's his argument? He's not going to say I want to because he doesn't do it because he wants to kill. It's an unfortunate weight he has to carry because of the career he chooses and because it's the natural companion of defending his country and his fellow soldiers.

Unpleasant but necessary. The weight all soldiers carry.

Ron never says anything, but he has an air of smugness whenever she comes up and isn't shy about counting down the days until they crash and burn.

It happens pretty quickly, considering Tom has never done anything without careful forethought. Abby emails him an article about the psychological effects of killing and it might be written by the best minds in the field, but it's just fucking insulting. Tom's never been compared to murderers and criminals before.

Ron offers to break up with her for him, but Tom's not a child.

He never gets the ring back and resigns himself to R&R flings.

Pete's never had a serious relationship until a few years into his Navy career. 

Penny Benjamin is a spitfire in the way only a child of a high-ranked military officer can be. Determined to be wild and free because she grew up in a cage of discipline and service and completely unapologetic.

They're a whirlwind together, moving so fast in so many directions that Pete can't actually tell where they're going or where they came from. 

Nick tells him to enjoy it while he cautions him to be careful. Admiral Benjamin is a force to be reckoned with and Nick just met a great girl and doesn't want to get sent to Siberia because Mav couldn't keep it in his pants.

Penny's got something to prove, same as Pete, and while it's nice to share that with someone, it makes them reckless. Pete serenades her at the bar with Nick's help and they spend the weekends on his bike trying to find places they've never been before.

The sex is great, but almost secondary. Pete's never had a woman he wanted to talk to so much, and for every hard thing he gets out, Penny gives him one to match. It's easy to confide in her, even about the Navy stuff, because as much as she hates it, she understands it and doesn't mind listening to Pete complain about feeling like he's been chained to the ground even though they let him fly.

Nick likes her, and she likes Nick, and when Nick meets Carole, they all double date, drink too much tequila, and sing the most ridiculous songs they can think of at the dive bar that lets them play the piano no matter what time a day it is.

Carole is the sister Pete never had. Loud and loving, just like Nick, more willing to call Pete on his shit than Nick is, but just as supportive. 

This is it for Nick, Pete realizes one night at the bar, watching Nick and Carole bust out Great Balls of Fire and…

Take me home or lose me forever.

Show me the way home, honey.

Pete and Penny share a grin, there's a wedding coming soon. A baby not long after.

They're still together for the wedding. A small impromptu gathering a Vegas chapel, with Pete as the best man and Penny playing witness. 

Carole announces she can't drink anymore because there's a bun in the oven, so Penny and Pete get wasted on their behalf and Nick and Carole spend their wedding night carrying them back to the hotel and taking embarrassing pictures while they're too drunk to make any sense.

Admiral Benjamin wins a week later, and ships Pete to god knows where to separate them, although it doesn't work completely. They talk on the phone often, but it quickly becomes clear that whatever romantic feelings they had were born of desperation and rebellion. They're friends, great friends, but neither of them misses the sex or the romance, and they mutually agree to remain best friends just to piss off the Admiral.

Carole sends updates on the baby, and Pete cries just as hard as Nick when the first sonogram arrives.

Despite the blame being squarely on Pete's shoulders, Nick never seems angry about the reassignment, and they spend most of their free time finding weird trinkets to send Carole and buying baby stuff before he even knows the gender.

Pete enters a weird lull in his life, a pause, a break, breathing room. He's not sure what or why, but it feels like something is coming. Something big and it makes Pete nervous, so he focuses on Nick and Carole and the baby that's going to be his godchild.

Their good behavior and the fact that Nick's just a good guy gets them back in time for the birth and though an army couldn't get Pete willingly in the delivery room, he's a room away when Nick's family is completed.

Bradley.

Bradley Bradshaw?

Yep, cute, ain't it?

How dare you, you want that kid to be picked on every day at school?

It's cute!

You're horrible parents.

And they just laugh at Pete's outrage. He's going to have to figure out a nickname for the kid and teach him self-defense.

Regardless, Pete cradles that tiny human being with more care than he's ever approached anything else in his life. Penny comes to visit, bearing bags of gifts and an engagement ring on her finger. Some LT in the Navy, so take that Admiral, and Pete's relieved to see her happy.

Pete moves in with Nick and Carole for the next year, doing his best to help, even as he and Nick get slammed at work and sent out on a series of special assignments before finally being assigned to a carrier for a short deployment. Carole's convinced she'll be fine, and Penny's nearby and pretty soon after expecting her first, too, so it'll work out.

Nick calls home every day while they're gone, and Pete's almost always on the phone with him. Sometimes, he worries that he's too invested; he's just the godfather, but Nick and Carole want him there, and baby Bradley, with the chubby cheeks and grabbing fingers, reaches for him whenever he's there.

It's the most peaceful, fulfilling time of Pete's life (to date), and he thinks this must have been how his parents were before he could remember. The urge to run, to fly, to race are still there, but they're settled, muffled by this little thing that has no survival skills and depends on Pete in a way that should feel like a yoke around his neck, but just feels thrilling in a different way.

He buys him a kid's piano (Carole's just thankful it's not a drum set), and he bangs away on it while Pete sings.

It chases away that feeling of doom that's been looming over him, the change that's coming that Pete can't see and keeps him up at night.

Maverick and Goose are shipped out to the USS Enterprise, and Pete wonders if this is it. He'll face whatever's coming and get through it, and then he won't feel this sense of foreboding, the tightening in his gut that he doesn't recognize and can't figure out.

Two Migs and an inversion later, and he's on his way to Top Gun, and that tightening in his stomach becomes a gaping maw of uncertainty and anticipation.

Iceman knows he's going to Top Gun well before they tell him. Seats for the next rotation are the subject of barracks gossip for months before they're actually assigned, and there's no doubt in anyone's mind that Iceman and Slider are going.

They get the official word on a Friday, get the weekend to make the trip. Ron breaks up with his girl that night, and they set out the next morning, arriving in balmy San Diego late in the afternoon. 

They stop by the beach and just look at Miramar. It's a legend in the Navy, and there's a buzz under Tom's skin, excitement, and uncertainty. Something is coming, something is here. Everything Tom has worked for could be derailed if he doesn't do well. Everything he wants could be achieved if he does do well.

Ron thinks it'll get them laid until the end of time and makes Ice put on his whites before they head to the Hard Deck bar.

~tbc~