Jitaeri

1) Injured Mav

Bradley has faint memories of running his hands through Mav’s long, silky hair as a child (which doesn’t make sense to him because he has never recalled Mav having long hair).

Turns out, there was a time shortly after Goose’s death where Mav was on leave for like 18 months due to injury recovery (and maybe in addition to PTSD, though it wasn’t all that recognized at the time).

He spent that time with the Bradshaws of course, because Carole wouldn’t have had it any other way. She fretted over Mav, who insisted he was fine but was initially confined to the bed for a week or two at first and he didn’t want to be a burden.

“I can’t do this to you and Bradley, Carole. You guys don’t deserve to be punished like this.”

Mav is still guilt ridden over Goose’s death and keeps trying to pull away from Carole and Bradley, but Carole won’t let him. He thinks about growing up in the foster care system and how most homes he stayed in treated him like a burden and all those lingering feelings of being unwanted resurface. Carole remembers Goose telling her that Mav wants to act like an old wolf sometimes that strays from the pack to die alone to prevent becoming a burden, but Goose saw him more like an injured bird that he has to carry carefully in his cupped hands: something fragile that just needs some gentle love, care, and affection before being released again.

“Everyone deserves to be taken care of when they’re sick or injured, Maverick,” Carole tells him and he just swallows his emotions because no one has ever said/done that for him before (outside of the Bradshaws).

Being injured sucked even more because Mav is just a fidgety person. He can barely stand the bedrest and being prohibited from flying and riding his bike (the horror!).

But the one great thing that comes from all that was spending an extended period of time with Carole and especially Bradley. To make it up to her, Maverick spends the majority of his time babysitting Bradley when he was no longer on bedrest and more able to help out while Carole goes back to work.

During his bedrest period, there was a lot of cuddling/naps with Bradley (which Carole discouraged at first arguing that Maverick didn’t need a 5/6 year old to hinder his recovery but eventually relents when Bradley’s tears became more disruptive than just letting him have his cuddle/nap with Mav). Once he was slowly getting up and moving again, he’s doing drop offs or pick ups for Bradley (sometimes with Carole or without) and he becomes a minor celebrity at school for being the handsome man that shows up to pick up Bradley lol. This is also doing housework for Carole and grocery shopping + a few special days with Bradley going to the movies or the mall or practice baseball in the yard or at the park.

When people think that Mav is his dad or Carole’s boyfriend and he gets mad at them because Mav is his Mav and he’s not any of those other things. Carole tries to teach him to call him Uncle Pete (to varying degrees of success).

Little Bradley also being jealous of men and women (who sees a handsome man taking care of a small child and swoon) trying to hit on Mav during their day to day lives lol.

Anyways, Maverick doesn’t cut his hair this entire recovery period until he was cleared to go back to work again.

Older Bradley finds the above picture and is instantly reminded of this time of his life again (from what little he can remember) and instantly gets a nosebleed from how hot Mav looked lol. The picture is from when a random photographer sees him on the street/at the mall and asks him to do a photoshoot for a luxury brand for something. Mav agrees to do it for some extra cash, but insists on wearing jeans and the photographer was like “ya know what, that’ll work”.

Mav’s one photo is used for in store poster/promotions and in ad campaigns in magazines for a year.

When he returns, the ‘86 crew tease him mercilessly when they randomly find his picture in a magazine and say that he didn’t mention becoming a model when he said he was recovering with Carole and Bradley.

Later on, the Dagger Crew finds this picture in Bradley’s things and tease both him and Mav again for it.