CINEbration

You glanced back to your girlfriends, noted how their gazes swept the room for the faces they liked the most. One of them elbowed the other as Rooster strode up to the bar.

“Him?”

“How doesn’t love a thick neck and a mustache?”

Your nose wrinkled. “Sometimes I forget you grew up watching Magnum, P.I.”

“Short shorts needs to make a comeback, that’s all I’m saying.”

Shaking your head, you glanced back at him. “He’s okay. “ You effected our best Mr. Darcy impression. “‘But not handsome enough to tempt me.’”

“You never know, maybe he’ll surprise you.”

“Doubtful.”

And then Rooster walked over to the piano and sat at the keys.

That caught your attention immediately. Pianists had always been attractive to you, not least of all because you happened to be one yourself. Leaning back in your seat, you waited for the show to begin, half hoping he would be terrible just so you could laugh about it and not have to reevaluate him.

The first chord struck, and he was off, fingers flying over the keys with the passion of someone who truly enjoyed music. To your dismay, he wasn’t half bad.

And then he started belting out a song.

“Oh dear Lord,” you muttered, turning away from the performance. Your chest constricted with the strength of the cringe you felt.

“I don’t understand you,” one of your friends said. “You can’t even handle it when people sing in movies.”

“It’s just so…” You waved a hand vaguely. “The cringe is strong, ladies. I’m dying here.”

“Then go shut him up.”

Frowning at her innuendo, you twisted your lips at her in a mock sneer and physically cringed again as you listened to Rooster crow. He sang well, but it didn’t change the fact that you wanted to flay the skin off yourself and flee the room.

Clearly you had to shut him up.

Shoving back hard from the table, your chair scraping loudly against the floor, you strode over the piano, interrupting Rooster’s serenade as you hip-checked him across the bench to make room for yourself. His fingers faltered on the keys, the song dying in his throat.

“Hello?”

“I thought you might like a challenge,” you answered, gently shaking out your wrists. “An improvised duet.”

His eyebrows rose. His friends that weren’t already circling the piano drew closer, a quiet “Ooooo” echoing in the background.

He laughed. “Dueling pianos?”

“Well, we only have the one, unfortunately. So it’ll be a fight for keys and elbow space.” You flashed your teeth at him, more challenge than smile. “If you think you can handle yourself.”

A chorus of “Oooos” swelled around you.

Hangman leaned his forearms on the top of the piano. “Let me give you a tip, beautiful.” He cast a sidelong glance at Rooster. “He has a speed problem.”

“Oh?”

He turned back to you. “He’s too slow.”

“Ohhhhh.” You nodded sagely. “So, he can’t keep up.”

“No, ma’am, he most definitely cannot.”

You watched the muscle in Rooster’s jaw flex.

“Let’s find out, shall we.” And you let loose on the keys.

Jaws dropped as your hands moved with an almost preternatural speed, coaxing surprising melodies from the ivories. You lost yourself in the music, in the feel of your fingers creating and maintaining rhythm. For a moment, you forget it was a competition, that even Rooster was sitting beside you on the bench.

A deeper harmony swelled up alongside yours, not quite as fast but still acting in concert with what you were putting down. You risked a glance at Rooster, jolted out of your musical trance, and saw him fixated on the keys, concentration write large on his expression.

A smirk tugged on your lips.

Your hands flew faster.

Roster increased his pace, sweat dotting the hairline on his forehead. To your surprise, you found yourself straining too, putting your all into the piece, throwing complex melodies at him in the hope he wouldn’t keep up, that he’d get up and leave you alone at the piano.

Yet he persisted, his elbow jostling yours as he laid down a heavy rhythm almost in harmonious counterpoint to yours.

He glanced aside at you, his gaze meeting yours. Despite the furrow in his brow, his eyes were bright, joy and excitement vibrant within them.

You brought the piece to a sudden crescendo and a resounding ending, Rooster echoing it with a few final chords.

You were surprised to find yourself breathing heavily, sweat trickling down the back of your neck in a tiny rivulet. Rooster’s chest heaved beside you, his face flushed with the exertion.

“Well,” you managed to say, your voice thick, “aren’t you full of surprises.”

“Surprise is my middle name.”

Hangman snorted and pushed himself away from the piano, shaking his head.

Rooster leaned forward into your space, as though drawn into your orbit. Surprise flooded through you as his nose nearly touched yours.

You slid off the bench, narrowly missing the kiss. He looked up with a frown.

You turned to leave, then hesitated. Snatching up a napkin, you scrawled across it. “If you want to duet again sometime, here’s my number.”

A stupid grin unfurled across his face.

“I like a man with good rhythm,” you murmured, and you returned to your table of friends, ignoring their snickers.

“See, he did surprise you,” one of them said.

“Shut up,” you groused, but a smile played on your lips.

Maverick leaned back in his seat and took stock of you, the furrow in his brow deepening. You wore a black shirt, your flight suit unzipped and tied around your waist. He couldn’t read your expression as you met his gaze.

“I need help in dogfighting,” you said, as though picking up that his appraisal was over. “You’re the best dogfighter here.”

Maverick couldn’t help the faint smile that touched his lips. “I just have experience.”

“Hence why I’m here asking.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m allowed to do one-on-ones.”

“I could get Admiral Simpson’s authorization.” You glanced over your shoulder at the crashing waves along the shoreline. “Although I doubt he’ll like being bothered with this.”

Anything with Maverick’s name attached was likely to stick in Cyclone’s craw, that much was certain. Maverick followed your gaze out over to the surf, attention arrested occasionally by the swoop and dive of seagulls.

“You’re not part of the team,” he stated carefully.

“Not right now, no. But getting trained by a legend would certainly help that.”

Nodding, Maverick pushed himself out of his chair. “Why the hell not? I haven’t been up in the air today yet.”

A sharp smile spread over your face, the kind Maverick had seen on some of the most eager pilots—himself included. He smiled back, crossing the sand with you wordlessly.

This will be fun, he thought.

~~

Forty minutes later, you both were up in the air. Maverick stayed low and behind you, glancing up through the cockpit to see your bird’s silhouette up against the bright blue sky.

“Are you a book learner or a hand’s on learner?” he asked.

Your voice came through the headset with a faint metallic background. “Sir?”

“Is it better if I talk you through it or if I show you?”

A few seconds of silence.

“Show me,” you answered.

Maverick swore he heard a challenge in your voice.

Alright, you asked for it.

Pulling hard on the throttle, Maverick climbed hundreds of feet through the air, bee-lining straight toward you.

He streaked past your wing, the sudden displacement of air nearly sending you rolling.

“Fight’s on,” he declared, swinging back around.

“Clearly,” he heard you mutter over the radio.

He chuckled.

Maverick moved to get behind you. You veered off, slipping just out of his targeting system.

“Not bad,” he said. “But I was going easy on you.”

“Oh, really?”

In answer, Maverick accelerated, the jet screaming as it followed his lead. He whipped around, his nose almost aligned with you. His targeting system fought hard to center on the box.

You pulled up hard, flying straight into the sun.

A smirk pulled at his lips. Not bad at all.

He caught you decelerating and dropping altitude in an attempt to slide under his belly and come out behind him. Mirroring you, he fell back behind you, the targeting system once again searching frantically for the box on your back.

You dropped out of the sky.

“Holy shit.” Maverick craned his head through the window of the cockpit, trying to catch you beneath him. “Haven’t seen that in a while.”

He pulled up sharply, looping back to force you ahead of him and to give him a chance to glimpse you in the sky. You were just underneath him, almost down to the hard deck. He gunned the throttle as you zipped forward, bringing his nose around.

You rolled.

The dogfight lasted for twenty minutes before Maverick finally got tone.

“Gotcha,” he murmured, smiling into his mask.

You slowed down in defeat, the radio silent on your end.

“How was that?”

“Informative,” you answered.

He frowned and watched you break off, heading back to base. A moment later, he followed.

~~

Maverick crossed the tarmac to you as you climbed out of the cockpit and tore off your helmet. It was jet black, angled away from him so he couldn’t see if you had earned a call sign yet.

“That was good,” he said. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“I never said I hadn’t done it before,” you answered carefully. “I just needed the practice.”

“Well, you’ve got a pretty strong foundation, I’ll give you that.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, I have a demonstration tomorrow morning. Me and another TOPGUN hotshot are gonna show the rookies how it’s done. You should come watch, maybe learn a few things.”

He held his breath.

You flashed a smile at him. “I’ll be there.”

“Great.”

Nodding, you waved goodbye and strode off in the direction of the hangers. Hondo crossed the tarmac in the opposite direction, heading to Maverick. He paused as you passed him, exchanged a few words and a laugh.

Maverick frowned.

“You know her?” he asked when Hondo could hear him.

“Sure, that’s Reaper.”

“Reaper?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d she earn that name?”

“You never see her coming until it’s too late.”

He thought back to the dogfight. “Doesn’t seem too accurate.”

“Were you guys planning for tomorrow?”

Maverick faced Hondo. “What?”

“For tomorrow’s demonstration.” Hondo’s eyebrows knitted together. “You know you’re fighting her tomorrow, right?”

Maverick’s gaze whipped across the tarmac to you as you disappeared into a hanger. “She was testing me,” he muttered. “She probably wasn’t even really flying.”

“What?”

Trying to quell the mounting panic in your chest, your skin suddenly unbearably itchy as sweat broke out beneath your armpits, you forced yourself to stay calm.

He stopped at the bar and leaned his forearms against it. “Two beers.”

He flashed a pearly white smile.

You felt as though you’d been punched in the stomach. Nodding jerkily, you faced away from him to find two beers and pop off their tops, your face burning.

He didn’t remember you.

You handed him the beers and wordlessly took the money he slapped down onto the countertop, everything within you screaming as you fought back the hot tears pushing insistently at the back of your eyes.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said, winking. “What’s your name?”

You quietly gave it to him. A faint crease rumpled his smooth brow.

“Don’t I—”

“Can I get two beers and a boilermaker?” another patron asked, raising their voice over Jake’s.

“Sure thing,” you answered with false cheer, scurrying away with relief to fetch the man’s drinks.

As Jake walked away to join his buddies, he glanced back over his shoulder as though to catch your eye, but you studiously avoided his gaze. Bitterness and pain flooded you as you kicked yourself for being stupid enough to think that working in a bar that catered to Navy pilots wouldn’t make you cross paths with him again.

Maybe, you realized, you had wanted to this happen. Maybe you had wanted the chance…

~~

When you first met Jake, he was fresh out of flight school and hadn’t earned his call sign yet. You hadn’t recognized that his confidence was arrogance and his ego was outsized even for an Navy pilot. You couldn’t see past the charm, his grin, and the mischievous green eyes.

You never expected Jake to even look at you. He seemed to like girls faster than the jets he flew, and you were decidedly not one of them. As you once half-heartedly joked with your mother, you were invisible, particularly to anyone who looked even half as handsome as Jake.

So when he approached you one night, teeth gleaming and eyes glittering in the soft lighting of the bar, cozied up to you, and invited you out to dinner, you could hardly believe your luck. You pinched yourself more than once through the night, so surreal it all felt.

He took you to a middle-grade Italian restaurant that was better than getting pizza and beer but not very extravagant. You didn’t mind, preferring the food to the heavier, richer foods of high-end restaurants. The conversation was stimulating, Jake’s charisma out in full force and the banter crisp and light-hearted. You had never quite so clicked with anyone as you did with Jake that night.

As the evening wound to a close, you were excited to see him again. Before you could say as much, he leaned in toward your ear and whispered, “Why don’t we get out of here?”

Your heart plummeted. Swallowing thickly, you pulled away and muttered, “I’m not…I don’t think so.”

He frowned. “Why not? I thought we were getting along great.”

“We were—are. But…not on a first date.”

He stared at you, the glimmer in his eyes fading. Shaking his head, he exhaled heavily. “You’re too slow for me, sweetheart.”

And he left you standing there, cheeks burning and your stomach roiling.

You hadn’t eaten Italian since.

~~

The night crawled. You exerted all of your energy trying to avoid looking in Jake’s direction or focusing on his voice as he crowed with his friends over winning shots at the dartboard or the pool table. You served drinks and faked smiles at everyone else that came up to the counter.

When the evening waned into the early morning hours, all that remained were Jake and his friends. You could hear the individual tick of the second hand of the clock over their laughter and raised voices, itching for it to be two a.m. so you could kick them out.

“Last call,” you finally yelled with relief.

Jake immediately sauntered over. You wanted to kick your own teeth out.

“Last round of beers for us,” he said, leaning against the counter.

Nodding, you counted heads and proceeded to collect the beer bottles.

“Don’t I know you?”

You froze, your heart thumping painfully in your chest. “No,” you answered. You popped open the first beer.

“Nah, I definitely know you”

You tried to pop off the caps faster, working furiously to hand them to him.

“Wait a minute…” He leaned forward, scrutinizing your face as you handed gave him the last of the beers.

“That’ll be thirty dollars.”

“You’re that girl. Italian dinner, no after party.”

Your cheeks burned. Ducking your head, you tapped the bar. “Thirty dollars.”

“Where’re the beers?” one of his friends called. “Hurry up, man!”

“How’ve you been?” Jake asked, frowning slightly as he dug around for his wallet.

“Why would you care?” you muttered, snatching the money from his hand. You scurried away from him to the opposite side of the room, hiding behind chores.

The group left before you had to kick them out at two. Relief made you slump into a chair with your head in your hands, your stomach slowly relaxing and releasing the knot it had been holding for hours. Somehow, Jake remembering you—or rather, how he had remembered you—was worse than him not recognizing you at first.

You took your time wiping down the tables and booths, stacking the chairs atop them so you could run a quick vacuum over the floor. The chores helped relax you, though bitter sadness lingered tartly in your mouth.

You locked up, debating how to tell Penny that you were quitting, and strode across the sand to the parking lot—where Jake and his friends had set up a stunt course with orange traffic cones, daring each other to do better as they screeched through the obstacle course. Cones went flying as each one clipped corners too hard or fumbled gear changes, the clutch grinding like a creature in the throws of pain.

You hesitated as you watched them, as you watched Jake laughing at his friends’ failures. Leaning against your car, you watched waited for his turn.

Climbing into the car, he revved the engine like he knew what he was doing and took off, burning rubber on the asphalt as he navigated the course. He clipped one cone, then two, before spinning out as a third snagged in the wheel-well.

Everyone laughed and talked shit as Jake climbed out of the car with a sheepish grin on his face. He shrugged it off and said, “Nobody can make this course, man.”

You pushed off your car, tossed your purse into it, and strode across the asphalt to Jake. He sobered as you approached, wariness diminishing the humor in his expression. You held out a hand for the keys.

“I wanna try,” you said.

A quiet ooooo rippled through the group.

“No offense,” he began.

You tore the keys from his hand.

“Uh, knock yourself out, I guess.”

“No way,” someone else said, shaking his head as you passed him to the car. “What’s a civilian gonna do? Total our car!”

You slipped into the driver’s seat and adjusted it before slamming the door shut, blocking out the naysaying crowd’s voices. Inhaling deeply, you glanced at the obstacle course, committing it to memory.

How’s this for fast? you thought savagely.

Kicking the car into gear, you shot forward into the opening of the track. With practiced hands, you shifted seamlessly through gears, the clutch almost purring with relief at not grinding. Coming up to the first pinched turn, you tore around it easily, the rear bumper of the car missing a cone by mere centimeters.

The thrill of the speed rushed through you, making the crowd and the circumstances drop away. You tore around the next turn, looked ahead to see that two scattered cones were a threat to your wheels.

Without hesitation, you slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a slide. Yanking the gear shift into reverse, you pivoted the car into another 180, sliding through both cones and whipping around to finish the last leg of the course.

You streaked through the other side, not a single cone touched in your wake.

Cheers thundered in the silence of the night as you killed the engine and exited the car.

“Un-fucking-believable!” someone shrieked. “Did you see that!?”

The only woman in the group was grinning, a “Niceeeee” hissing past her lips.

Jake trotted up to you. “That was—”

You tossed the keys at his chest. He had to scoop them off the asphalt as you strode across the parking lot to your car.

“Hey, wait a minute.” He hurried to your side. “I want to talk to you.”

“What for?”

He blinked. “I want to buy you a drink, catch up.”

You stopped abruptly, adrenaline still flooding your veins. You stared him directly, the first time you had been able to meet his eye all night. He took a step back under the force of your gaze.

“Why?”

“Because…you’re interesting.”

“I was always interesting, dipshit. You just didn’t stick around to find out,” you snarled.

He tried to let his professional façade relax a fraction. He was just as elated as the flyboys at the success of the mission—more so, considering he had known the full ramifications of the crisis should they have failed. His relief was as palpable as the strength of the relieved expression on Warlock’s face.

Sipping his beer, he scanned the room, lips bearing the faint ghost of a smile as he noted the euphoric faces of his subordinates. Beyond the core group clustered around the pool table, several pilots sat or stood in scattered groups, elbowing each other and laughing, beers in hand.

Beyond them, in the far corner beside one of the windows overlooking the beach, you sat at a table, a half-filled glass in front of you. One foot propped up on the chair across from you, aviators hanging from the collar of your blouse, dark jeans, and ankle boots the same color of brown as your faux leather jacket, you had the same easy confidence tinged with a hint of arrogance as Maverick, of all people.

Cyclone stared.

“Cyclone? Beau?”

Cyclone’s attention snapped to Warlock. “What?”

“Are you really so incapable of enjoying yourself?”

He frowned. “What?”

“You really weren’t listening.” Warlock shook his head. “We’re here to relax and enjoy the win.”

“There are too many other things to win,” Cyclone countered. “This is just one.”

He glanced at your table.

Your seat was empty.

Cyclone straightened in his seat, scanned the room. The flyboys blocked his view, flaring his irritation as he strained to see past them.

Nothing.

Cyclone ground his teeth in disappointment.

“What’s the matter?”

He shook his head, biting back the retort surging through him: You let her get away. Again.

“Nothing,” he muttered. He sucked on his beer, the taste of it flat on his tongue. “Nothing at all.”

~~

A week and a half later when Cyclone had finally succeeded in pushing away the frustration and disappointment, he sat in a war room across from his counterpart in the Air Force, a man he begrudgingly respected not so much for his track record as for his personality. The man had managed to rise with a stellar career through the Air Force without turning into a total asshole.

Seated at the head of the table, the Secretary of Defense, a retired general of significant pedigree, intoned in a deep, buttery voice, “The mission requires a joint operation between the Air Force and the Navy. The Commander-in-Chief is demanding that it be done quickly and with such precision that it would make a neurosurgeon eat his shirt.”

General Charles Mcloughlin chuffed a quiet laugh. “The neurosurgeons I know would never.”

Unamused, SECDEV continued, “This mission is top priority. I don’t need to remind you that we need top-level talent and genius thinking to get this done. So do it.”

With that, the man left the room, his aide scurrying after him like a remora trying to keep up with a shark. Cyclone turned to Mcloughlin, who returned his hard stare with a heavy calm, unaffected gaze.

“I take it you heard about this beforehand,” Cyclone noted, inclining his head at the folder in front of the other man. “You already have a plan?”

“A semblance of one,” Mcloughlin demurred. “I already have two pilots selected from our end, the real crème-de-la-crème of the entire Force.”

Cyclone sighed. “But?”

“We need to use F-22s.”

Raking a hand over his face, Cyclone leaned forward, forearms digging hard into the table. “F-22s can’t land on aircraft carriers.”

“No, but the carriers can launch support for one.”

“Why would an F-22 need support from anything? No other aircraft matches it.”

“Because we’re going to crash it.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

Mcloughlin shook his head. “They’re being phased out by the F-35s. This mission requires us to complete the objective and then make it look like our aircraft can’t handle it anymore.”

“And you want my men to, what? Take enemy fire to make your crash look good?”

“Something like that.”

This job is going to give me an ulcer. The muscle in his jaw jumping, Cyclone stretched out a hand. Mcloughlin placed the folder in his palm. Leaning back in his chair, Cyclone flipped it open.

Your eyes stared at him from the first page. The ghost of a smirk played on your lips, the lens flare in your eyes a mischievous glimmer.

Cyclone swallowed thickly, his heart flinging itself against his ribs. Carefully, he flipped past your dossier, spent as many seconds on the second one as he had on yours.

He snapped the folder shut.

“When do I meet them?”

~~

Cyclone’s general dislike for the Air Force stemmed from a well-hidden jealousy. He had always wanted to get his hands on an F-22 Raptor, but the Navy didn’t use it. Even in his flyboy days, he hadn’t even been able to share the same airspace as one. He had never seen one in person, grounded or airborne.

Standing in a hanger on the Pearl Harbor-Hickam base in Hawai’i, Cyclone could barely contain his excitement and awe as he took in the F-22 Raptor standing but a few yards away. It took all of his control to keep his expression an impassive, unimpressed mask, even with only the general and Warlock in the hanger with him.

“Couldn’t bother to do this back on our home turf,” Warlock muttered to him, shaking his head as he stared up at the fighter. “No, they want to rub it in our faces.”

Cyclone made a noncommittal noise in his throat, then added, “Our pilots could use the humbling.”

“Nevertheless.” Warlock shook his head again.

Mcloughlin stood behind a small podium they had set up off to the side, a number of seats arrayed before it. The TOPGUN pilots and the two Air Force ones were yet to arrive to fill them. With each passing minute, Cyclone felt his heartrate kick up another notch. He ascribed it to the proximity of the stealth aircraft he had once dreamed of being close enough to touch.

It wasn’t until the soft tread of several booted feet scuffed over the cement floor that the blood roared through his ears. Woodenly, he turned to face the assembled pilots taking their seats. Despite their newfound friendship, Rooster sat in the row behind Hangman with Phoenix and Bob, the latter two taking surreptitious glances at the two Air Force pilots. Fanboy and Payback were the least discrete, staring both at the F-22 and the Air Force pilots in turn.

You sat at the back, dressed in a flight suit not dissimilar to the ones the TOPGUN pilots used. The two bars signifying your rank as a captain gleamed sharply in the light streaming through the open hanger doors.

You met Cyclone’s stare. One eyebrow rose up your forehead.

Hands clasped behind his back, Cyclone fought to keep his eyes ahead as Mcloughlin outlined the mission to the pilots. Your stare was magnetic, the pull of it almost irresistible.

By the time he stepped up to the podium, his wrist ached from squeezing it so tightly.

“This mission is a joint Navy and Air Force mission,” he reiterated, his throat straining not to give his nerves away. “That means General Mcloughlin and I retain the same authority.”

Sweat collected beneath the collar of his uniform. He glanced at the Air Force pilot leading the F-22 mission, a Daniel Hummel.

Your stare burned fire through him from the back of the room.

“If you don’t play nice with my men, if you are insubordinate in any way, you are off the mission. The general won’t listen to any appeal.”

His gaze shifted to his own men and women, careful not to pass over you.

“The same holds true for you.” He made a point of looking at Hangman. “There is no inter-branch rivalry here. We’re all on the same mission, which means you have to trust each other. If you don’t play nice, if you are insubordinate in any way, you are off the mission.”

His hands gripped the edges of the podium hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

“Is that understood??”

A chorus of “yessirs” filled the room.

“Dismissed.”

He risked a glance in your direction as you stood to file out with the others. The ache in his hands hardly matched the one in his chest when you didn’t look back.

~~

Rage burned in Cyclone’s veins. It would be one of his own men that instigated the fight during training for a mission crucial not only to the objective but to strengthening Navy-Air Force relations.

He could already hear the Air Force brass whispering up the ladder about the lack of discipline in the Naval Air Forces.

Nerves buzzing, he felt like pacing and screaming at the two troublemakers standing in his office. Instead, he sat rigidly behind his desk, a glower on his face as he stared at Hangman and Rooster. Both men barely met his eye, their postures just as rigid, hands clenched behind their backs.

“What were you thinking?” he asked, the steel in his voice dangerous.

“Nothing, sir,” Rooster answered.

“We were being challenged, sir,” Hangman answered.

Cyclone clenched his teeth. “Did I or did I not say to play nice?”

“Yessir,” the men agreed in unison.

“Then why is Captain Hummel in the hospital?”

“Airmen are made of weaker stuff,” Hangman quipped.

Cyclone’s jaw audibly popped. The faint smirk on Hangman’s face evaporated.

“Thanks to you, the primary on this mission can no longer serve on the mission. We don’t have the time to train another pilot to act as this mission’s secondary, so you both are relieved of duty. I can’t risk you injuring the other pilot. Dismissed.”

Both men shouted “sir, yessir” and filed out of the room so stiffly they threatened to snap their spines. Cyclone passed a hand over his face, releasing an explosive sigh when the door swung shut. His stomach spasmed as he thought of you taking Hummel’s place on the mission. The mission was dangerous as it already was, given the enemy aircraft that were likely to be encountered, but to deliberately trash a fighter in the middle of potential dogfighting another layer of suicidal to an already insane mission.

He hadn’t even spoken to you directly yet. The opportunity hadn’t yet arrived.

There’s no point, he thought to himself. You aren’t built for…anything but this job. It is your only mistress.

His nails dug into his palms.

Now he might never have the chance to find out otherwise.

~~

Chaos reigned on the aircraft carrier. The last of the F-18s had yet to land, instead doing circles above the aircraft. The enemy fighters had disengaged when the carrier had come into view, but not before launching a missile that hadn’t been intercepted.

It hit your win, as you rolled, sending you into an out-of-control spiral. Your engines clipped the edge of the aircraft carrier, a quarter-of-a-mile off your intended target.

The crash had been real, taking a section of the landing strip with it.

The urge to vomit overwhelmed Cyclone. Breathing shallowly through his nose, he waited. He waited an eternity for the final F-18 to touch down, Phoenix and Bob climbing out of the cockpit with unsteady legs. He waited an eternity for the rescue team to launch out after you, your parachute a clear beacon on the choppy water.

He waited an eternity for you to be brought onboard. Another eternity for the medics to flock to your side, surrounding you like vultures around carrion.

His stomach dropped when the chopper lifted off, carrying you to the nearest base for emergency medical assistance.

He slumped in the chair of his tiny office onboard the carrier. Numb, he reached for the phone already connected to General Mcloughlin’s line.

The general answered immediately.

“I heard,” he said.

The silence felt like a vacuum sucking out Cyclone’s breath.

“You ever bring a mission like this to my table again,” he hissed, “I will make you eat the proposal.”

He slammed the phone back in its cradle. Stared at it.

Picked it up again and slammed, slammed, slammed it against the desk until it shattered in his hands. A roar filled his skull.

Anything not bolted down smashed across the room, tore in his hands. The rage and despair gripped him in a dark whirlwind that violence didn’t satisfy.

He sunk back down into his chair, slid off it in a heap as its broken leg gave way.

Warlock found him sitting up against the wall, shirt unbuttoned, hair a mess.

“She’s back at Pearl Harbor,” he said simply.

“Get me there.”

When he arrived, you were out of surgery and recovering. Forced to wait half a day before he could see you, Cyclone diverted all his calls to Warlock and delegated everything else. He sat statuesque in the waiting room, consuming nothing but bitter, thick coffee that made his stomach burn.

You were awake when the nurses let him into the room. Bruises mottled your face, your broken arm in a cast.

He almost couldn’t bear to look at you.

You tilted your head to better see him. A faint smile split your cracked lips. “Did that catch your attention?”

He choked on his tongue. “What?”

“I’m glad to see I’m important.”

Cyclone gently grabbed your hand. “You were always important.”

You laughed brokenly. “Come back when I’m not hopped up on meds. We have a lot to talk about.”

He promised quietly to return the next day.