#same mistakes

Tomorrow, Mav would pick who would fly this mission. Tomorrow, five of them would be sent to what could only be assumed as certain death. 

Mav had left them an hour ago, meaning to talk to Cyclone before the mission. He’d left the pilots in their own thoughts with a worn smile and a squeezing hand to his daughter’s shoulder. 

He couldn’t shake the way Mav’s eyes had lingered on him before he’d left. 

Somehow, you’d end up sitting across from him. Not quite directly, just adjacent to his left. Squished between Coyote and Fanboy, your eyes stay on the food in front of you. You’ve only picked at it, but it doesn’t seem like you’re lacking in company – Fanboy is staring at his peas like they just might tell him how to survive this. 

He grips his fork tighter as he chokes down a few more bites, the food leaden in his stomach. 

The two of you haven't talked. 

He knows Coyote has asked, knows he’s continued to push you towards him. He knows of his own conversation with Nat, the way her brown eyes said more than her words ever did. 

He thinks about what comes after. If by some miracle, you all survive this, and you all come home. 

He thinks of the childhood fight that had left you like this, of the lie that had taken so much from the both of you. 

He thinks of if you would talk about it, if you would fight it out like you used to, flailing limbs and gut punch insults, like you’ve both been known to do. 

He wishes- 

He wishes- 

God, he has so much regret. 

It’s the hum of the aircraft carrier again now. 

For a ship so large, he knows there’s always noise. Yet it seems like that falls silent in the face of what comes tomorrow with the sunrise. Like the ship itself doesn’t know how to exist in the face of what it’s taking them to. 

The hallway is empty somehow, the both of you here together now. 

He wonders if you could ever love him again. 

The hum of the ship rushes in his ears as he makes an aborted step towards you. Your tired eyes flicker up to him. 

He wishes you could know him. Know the him he is now, the grown man with years of accomplished Navy service, with a penchant for live music and a personality entirely his Dad’s. No longer know him for the angry teen consumed by grief. 

He wishes he could know you. You’ve always been hard to read, at least for anyone that wasn’t him, but you’re so much more difficult to know now. You’ve ensured it would be that way, especially with them, and especially with him. 

He wishes he could tell you he loved you, wishes you would say it back. He wishes he could say that he was sorry. 

He doesn’t know how, not now. 

But if the two of you could make it to the other side of this, if both of you could come home alive, then he’d like to think he could. 

He could find a way. 

He says your name, your real name, voice rough with grief and fear. Your eyes, so much like your father’s, look up at him. 

“If we make it to the other side of this, if- if we come home-”

You shake your head. “Bradley-”

“No.” He pleads, voice cracking. “No, if we come home, if we survive, if you wanna talk it out over a beer, if you wanna take a fist to my face, if you-” 

If you want to let me come home. 

He swallows those words. 

“I’m willing and able.” 

A door clangs, interrupting the charged energy of the moment, disrupting the steady hum of the carrier, and both of your heads swing to see Bob and Fanboy, looking like they’d been caught in their fear. 

The four of you stand there for a minute before Bob nudges Fanboy, moving him away from the conversation they all know has been long overdue. 

You go to move past him, back down towards where he knows your bunk is. His body moves of his own accord. 

His hand finds your forearm, grip firm.

“If you want to lay it all out on the table and leave it there, I’m- open. I’d be willing and able.” 

There was once a time where he could read your face. Could look at you and know a single thing you thought. He would’ve been able to decipher the look in your eye in a single second. 

But he can’t now. 

All he can do is think about why. 

His hand slides down your arm, lingering just around your wrist. His thumb brushes over your pulse point, feeling the steady beat. You’re alive. 

For now.