TGM on social media domestic hangster but like, still unhinged pt. 1 | pt. 2

extra on Jake's private story:

When we meet him in the bar, he (Coyote) seems to be a long-time friend of Hangman (Glen Powell). What else do you know about the road to that point?

Tarzan: So Hangman and Coyote are best, best friends. They both graduated from TOPGUN together as the number one and number two combo. It’s like a Shaq and Kobe dynamic. That’s how we like to look at it. So he is a person who deserves to be where he is. [More under cut about everyone else’s relationships.]

“Again, Miles and I had a great thing, but it’s weird because we’ve actually never talked about any of that. We just sort of moved on from that entire experience, which was probably for the better.”

don't take the bait, bob. hangman's just projecting. he's hated his call-sign, ever since rooster gave it to him.

Slider has known him long enough that he understands what he's trying to say and just nods along, he basically has A1 level Polish at this point, and he's helping Mav learn all the Ice-isms.

Ice who swears in Polish when the situation really calls for it. One time, a lieutenant walked to his office and overheard him muttering God knows what - didn't understand a word, only that it sounded so fucking angry that he figured his request can wait.

Ice who, as is the age old curse, forgets words sometimes, and Mav would never dare make fun of him for it, unless he's really desperate for something to deflect with.

Like when Ice is yet again lecturing him on how he should drive his own damn bike, except this time it's kind of different, because Ice sounds genuinely worried, more than before, and it's a hell of lot harder to just dismiss him.

But then Ice shuts up in the middle of a sentence. He's taken a quick breath to continue angrily, says, "You need-!" and then nothing. He opens his mouth on a word that isn't coming and Mav really needs a way out of here, so he dares to smile.

"I need to what?"

"Odpierdol się," Ice mutters, which is a phrase Mav is more than familiar with. Fuck off.

A saving grace, for both of them, probably, comes in the form of Slider casually strolling through the door. He lifts an eyebrow at the two of them standing in the middle of the room, and Ice huffs as he gives up on trying to remember the word he wants on his own.

"Slider," he says, still somehow keeping up the exasperated tone he was using on Mav. "Kask."

Slider grins wide. "He's yelling at you to wear a helmet again, huh?"

Ice throws his hands up. "He might not be so lucky the next time he crashes!"

"You crashed?"

Oh no, this is not working out the way Mav wanted it to, at all. "I didn't!" he tries to defend himself. "I just got scraped!"

"You fell off the bike!" Ice reminds him rudely. "You need to wear- the goddamn thing!"

Mav grabs onto the slightest hesitation in his voice like a drowning man scrambling for the last inch of the rope. "You mean the helmet?"

"Yes! The fucking helmet!"

Jake and Bradley got married impulsively in 2012, DADT had just been repealed, and they’d been spending shore leave in Hawaii when one night, they got drunk. They didnt’ tell anyone, and the secret kept it sexy for a time, then when the relationship got rocky, the secret made the separation much simpler.

They’ve already been divorced for seven months by the time Jake has his first air-to-air kill.

When Jake wakes up from his nightmares he usually goes to the gym or for a run, he does something that will tire his body enough to quiet the mind. But tonight he can't do that. He can't go anywhere because he's deployed again after his short leave, he's on a carrier and can't let anyone know he's gone a bit crazy. In moments like these he wants to call his mom, missing her like a phantom limb ever since she cut him out of the family for marrying Bradley.

They haven’t talked in months, not since the divorce was finalized, but he finds his thumb hovering over Bradley’s phone number. Bradley was always there when he had a bad night. Before he had much time to second guess himself he hit the dial tone.

He has no idea what time it is right now in Japan. Last he heard from a buddy Bradley was stationed at Yokosuka. By the third ring he starts to pray Bradley won’t pick up. He can just leave a voicemail and move on. Calling your ex husband to cry is a new level of depressing Jake can't face.

But Bradley answers. He always does. He asks what's wrong and Jake sobs. He killed someone, he ended a life and all anyone around him wants to do is celebrate. His COs and his peers clap him on the back. He's been added to a list of an elite few who did what he did. But the praise makes him taste bile. He can’t stop dreaming about it either. The image of the jet going down and the pilot that was inside of it terrorizes him every night. He wakes up in a cold sweat with his heart racing more nights a week than he doesn't.

Bradley listens, his voice calms Jake down. His heart steadies and his breathing evens out. Eventually Jake falls back asleep with the sound of Bradley telling a story about his time in Japan.

A year later, when they're called to Top Gun. Surprised to see each other and trying to act normal. Failing to appear friendly, as their old arguments resurface, everyone can tell there is a history between them. What that history is the daggers seem to disagree.