SOMETHING BIGGER THAN ME 2

Part 2 of The Lies We Told Each Other

Famdon: Top Gun (Movies)

Relationships:
Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw/Original Female Character(s), Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell

Characters:
Ron "Slider" Kerner, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Original Female Character(s), Natasha "Phoenix" Trace, Robert "Bob" Floyd, Original Male Character(s)

Additional Tags:
Secret Identity, Angst with a Happy Ending, Secret Relationship, DADT Repeal, September 11 Attacks

Summary:
Bradley wakes up with a cramp in his right arm. He growls and tries to turn but can't. He opens his eyes and sees Blue sleeping in the passenger seat with his arm as a pillow. He becomes aware of the incongruousness of the image and looks around. The park is empty, and a few meters away, the road bustles with morning traffic. He shakes her shoulder.
"Wake up." Blue pushes his hand away and continues sleeping. "Blue, wake up! We fell asleep in the park! We have to go."

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Chapter 2: 2001, September 

One Monday night, they go to a midnight screening of "Tombstone" with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. Brad tears up at Doc Holiday's death scene. Blue tries to calm him down, and he confesses that his mother died of cancer. It feels intimate.

They fall asleep to the cooing of the crickets.

Bradley wakes up with a cramp in his right arm. He growls and tries to turn but can't. He opens his eyes and sees Blue sleeping in the passenger seat with his arm as a pillow. He becomes aware of the incongruousness of the image and looks around. The park is empty, and a few meters away, the road bustles with morning traffic. He shakes her shoulder.

"Wake up." Blue pushes his hand away and continues sleeping. "Blue, wake up! We fell asleep in the park! We have to go."

Blue stands up in one fluid motion and looks around with wide eyes. She swallows dry.

"What time is it?" she asks fearfully.

Bradley looks at his watch as he starts the car.

"Eight in the morning." He leaves the park and goes to the university, cursing that he can't speed up in the heavy traffic. "I have class at nine, and you?"

"Tuesday, Tuesday…" Blue removes her wig and exposes her shiny black hair, cut in a military style. "I also have class at nine, but," she looks at her clothes. "I can't go like this. I can't go to my bedroom during the day either looking like this," her tone acquires a hint of panic. "They kill me, B, they kill me."

She begins to cry. Bradley squeezes her shoulder.

"No one is going to die, okay? Nobody. You come to my bedroom, Travis has class at eight, so he's already gone."

"Travis?"

"My roommate."

"What am I going to do in your room?"

"You can call a friend to get you other clothes."

"No," Blue denies. "nobody can enter my room. It will not work."

"Then you can wear something of mine. When they ask you, you say that… I don't know! Someone poured coffee on you when you were walking to class, and the asshole offered you a change of his clothes so you wouldn't walk around campus like that."

"Yes, yes, that can work. Wait! Do not go that way." she shrinks in her seat. "Follow straight to the other street."

Bradley complies. At the door of the building they avoided, he sees two grumpy-looking security guards. Finally, they arrive at his residence. Blue puts her wig back on and pushes her hair forward to hide her features. They reach the service door and run down the stairs.

"It's eight-thirty. We can do it," Bradley says over his shoulder as he searches for some clothes that could fit Blue. Maybe he can give her Mav's sweater? He brought it to feel close to his father, but this is an emergency situation. They are roughly the same height, although Maverick is much stockier.

He turns with the sweater and gym pants in his hands and finds Blue studying his nightstand.

"Is your family?" She asks in astonishment.

Her reaction is logical, Brad thinks bitterly.

She is looking at a photo they had specially taken so that he would have the entire clan with him without arousing suspicion. It's in the style of formal Navy portraits, but with more people than usual: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell and Tom "Iceman" Kazansky are in full regalia and with all their medals, Sarah between them, Sean in her arms, the cekpápi, and Bradley himself on the sides. You don't have to know much about military ranks. That accumulation of stars and medals is impressive.

"Yeah. My father is an aviator, Navy captain, and my," he almost says até but stops himself. "My uncle is a Rear Admiral Upper Half. Sort of like a two-star Navy general."

Blue looks at him as if she is seeing him for the first time. Her eyes are no longer tender but calculating. Bradley holds up a hand, placating.

"Blue, you don't have to tell me anything about yourself if you don't want to. I understand that this is not what you wanted from our relationship. Just change your clothes, I'll drop you where you need to be, and then you decide if you want to see me again."

Blue thinks about it for a bit and nods. Bradley give her the clothes and points to the bathroom door.

"Take a shower, okay? I can still feel the perfume you used last night."

With running water in the background, Brad gets some things out of the fridge and puts together a hasty breakfast. He then goes back to his closet. When the bathroom door opens, he is already half naked and has his clean clothes in hand.

"Eat something," he orders and runs in to shower too.

At eight-fifty, they are leaving the dorm building. Blue is wearing a pair of Travis's sneakers. Bradley gave her a pad and a couple of pens to take notes until she is able to get her own things. The wig, clothes, and heels from the night before are in a locked bag tucked deep into Brad's closet.

"Where should I drop you?" the blonde asks as he starts the car.

"At Jefferson and Ruppel."

Brad does some mental math and nods.

"We can be there in five," he puts reverse and begins to leave the parking lot when four black cars appear and block the two exits. "What the hell?"

Blue sees them and sinks into the seat.

"They found me, they found me," she repeats in a panicked voice. "They're going to kill me," she growls. "They're going to kill me," she repeats in pain. "They're going to kill me," she says again with an empty, resigned voice. Then she looks at Brad with a defeated expression. "Just stay in the car and don't intervene, okay?"

She goes to open the door, but Brad stops her.

"No one is going to kill you, I already told you. Take it easy." Bradley's cell phone rings with a text message alert. "Code Blue" reads.

At the same time, the cars open up, and a squad of recruits from the university's ROTC battalion fan out into the parking lot. Their weapons are not pointed at the car but around.

"Those soldiers are coming for me," says Bradley.

"Actually, we're here for both of you," interrupts a man in army captain's insignia who has stopped next to the car. "Mr. Bradshaw," he puts two fingers to his forehead in greeting and looks at Blue. "Prince Adib, what happened to your cell phone?"

Blue...

No.

Adib.

Prince?

Prince Adib looks at the captain with fear, but it's not the same fear as when he thought they were specifically coming for him. Like Bradley, Adib understands that there is something bigger afoot.

"The battery died."

The captain nods.

"In that case, I tell you verbally: we are in code blue. Get out of the car, put down all electronics, and come with us, please."

Typically, the drive from Charlottesville to Norfolk Naval Base is two hours. They do it in an hour and fifteen. That's plenty of time for Bradley to ponder what this situation reveals about Blue... No! About Prince Adib. He knew they were hiding key elements of their lives, but a prince? Only he goes to a party and hooks up with a member of a foreign country's nobility. His até Ice will laugh for days. Because there is no way to hide it now: how and with whom they found it will be part of the report to Rear Admiral Upper Half Kazanky. He has no idea when he will read it because if the country is under attack, there are other priorities, but he will read it eventually. At least it will be a secret report. Sarah and the sunkaku will not be able to find out.

He looks at the seat beside him, where Adib sits upright and respectable. He hasn't said a word to him since they got into this black car with tinted windows, and Bradley suspects he's figuring out how to handle the compromising situation they found them in. Even without a wig or heels, he still spent the night outside his bedroom -he now remembers the security guards- and was found in Brad's car, wearing Brad's clothes. His family would have a good laugh at this rom-com situation, but judging by Adib's comments —suddenly those "they're going to kill me" sound less exaggerated— his family won't see anything funny in the situation.

Because DADT policy only governs the Department of Defense, but that does not mean that the rest of the world is understanding and friendly.

Bradley has volunteered for two weeks at a shelter for homeless queer teens. It has been another "crash course" in the crueler dynamics of the civilian world. He can't believe that someone throws a thirteen, fourteen year old out of his house for being gay or trans, even on suspicion that they are. He teaches them self-defense. He feels that it is not enough, but he can see how his students' self-esteem grows in just two or three classes.

He looks back at Adib and wonders if his training as a prince included using weapons. His hands are so delicate, there's no way… Well, Sarah doesn't have calluses, and she packs some impressive punches. "The key is to use plenty of moisturizers," she explained.

But that doesn't matter, he remembers bitterly, because his relationship with Blue is over.

The base is on combat alert. They pass three successive security points before they are ushered out of the car and into a building. Bradley sees other people coming in with similar expressions of concern. He recognizes a couple of students he has met at conferences or events at the university and… Is that the aerospace professor!? How many "code blues" are there at UVA? Once inside, they take an elevator to sublevel three. They end up in a conference room.

It is clear that they prepared the place in haste: there are still traces of blue marker on the edges of the whiteboard. The tables were pushed against the wall to make space in the center. A buffet with water, coffee, pastries, bagels, disposable packets of cream cheese and ketchup, and plastic cutlery is in one corner. There are no napkins.

Bradley is itching to know what caused the code blue, but he doesn't have his cell phone, which wouldn't work inside this military bunker.

He only knows that it is 10:30 a.m. on September 11, and somehow the United States is under attack.

Where are his parents?

Mav reported for sea duty right after drop him at college. He left from Norfolk Naval Base as a squadron leader on the USS Enterprise and headed for the Persian Gulf.

Ice is in Washington, DC. He had a week of meetings on military intelligence —and that's why Brad and his sunkaku are part of the Code Blue plan— and he promised to come down to Virginia for lunch on Saturday.

Suddenly, he becomes aware of the meaning of Washington DC. The country is under attack, and his até is in the capital. Of course, the San Diego Naval Base would also be an important target, but... is Ice safe? If he had been hurt, would they tell him? Legally he is not… The real possibility of the fact takes his breath away.

Blue's voice takes him out of his depressive reflections.

No, he forces himself to mentally rectify it while he locates him with his eyes.

Prince Adib's voice brings him out of his reflections. Brad can recognize his annoyed and impatient tone, even though he's almost across the room. He sees Adib standing stiff, hands clasped behind his back. He faces another man, a little older, maybe in his late twenties. Bradley goes to them without thinking.

"Adib, dude, what´s up?" Upon reaching his side, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the other with disdain. "Is this guy giving you trouble? You know? I can ask the soldiers to take him to an uglier cell."

He's trying to channel Travis's condescending attitude, and it seems to be working. The stranger looks at him in surprise. Adib changes his belligerent expression to something between exhausted and amused as if he's used to Brad's arrogance.

"It won't be necessary."

"I don't see why he gets involved in a family matter…" the man begins to say, but Adib interrupts him.

"This is Bradley Bradshaw, adopted son of Rear Admiral Upper Half Tom Kazansky, Chief of the US Navy Intelligence." The guy closes his mouth, and his contemptuous attitude evaporates. "Brad, this is my cousin, Prince Reda. Since he's older than me, he thinks it's his duty to watch me while we're in America."

Bradley smiles, nods exaggeratedly, and continues his role as the arrogant nepo baby.

"Oh! I get it." He slaps Reda on the shoulder. If it's so hard that Reda hisses in pain, well, Brad was just being overly friendly. "That happens to me too. Everywhere I go, there is some military police colonel. I always tell them, "Chill out, man. I'll be official anyway". But my uncle is worried about appearances."

"Yes, appearances," Reda intervenes with his right forefinger raised. "precisely. You can't disappear for a whole night, Adib."

"Disappear?" Brad repeats in his best tone of incomprehension.

Adib rolls his eyes.

"My cousin wants to know where I was last night. He thinks I should have a solid alibi in light of current events. This is ridiculous! Our family would never get involved in an attack on America. We're allies!"

"Last night?" Brad raises an eyebrow and smiles again. "Oh! Chill out Feda."

"Reda." rectifies the other.

"That's right. Chill out, cousin Leda. Adib was with me. I'm, like, the most reliable person to establish an alibi, right?"

Reda looks him up and down, clearly skeptical.

"And what did you do all night? Mr Bradshaw."

"You do not know? Adib here is an ace in French and has been helping me with my homework." He leans conspiratorially and lowers his voice a bit. "Don't tell anyone, but my French is AWFUL. We're not in the same class, but Adib approached me one day in the library and offered to tutor me."

Bradley can see in Reda's eyes that distrust is giving way to greed. He is sure any suspicion of inappropriate behavior has disappeared to make room for a slight admiration toward Adib. He knows how interested Prince Adib's offer looks: to befriend the not-so-bright son of a man who walks the halls of power. To reinforce the effect, Adib adds.

"Yes, we have become very good friends in these weeks, right Brad?" and pats him on the shoulder with a condescending look as if he can't believe how innocent he is.

Bradley nods with an idiotic grin as the bile rises to his throat. How easy it is to lie about what they did and feel. Turn everything into lies and greed. How can Ice and Mav keep up this comedy when they meet in public?

"Mr. Bradshaw," a soldier calls from the doorway. "The vice admiral wants to see you."

"Oops!" He makes a gesture as if the attention bothers and amuses him. "What did I tell you? VIP treatment. See you soon. Remember, I have an exam in a week, dude."

As he walks to the base chief's office, Bradley runs a hand over his face several times, trying to let go of his self-loathing. As soon as the door closes behind him, Vice Admiral Kerner approaches him with a weary look.

"Little Goose, what a relief to see you," he hugs him. "Ice was about to send an expeditionary force to UVA when they didn't find you in the building where you had classes."

"I fell asleep," Brad explains without leaving his uncle. "Is he…? I know Ice arrived in DC yesterday."

Slider pulls back to look at his face.

"Don't worry, Ice was on the opposite side of the Pentagon when everything happened. He doesn't have a scratch on him, he's just very, very enraged."

"On the opposite side of the Pentagon? You mean they attacked the Pentagon?"

Kerner looks at him, surprised.

"Don't you know what happened?"

"No. I got the "code blue" text message at eight-fifty. A captain showed up with a squad of ROTC students more edgy than someone with a date with Princess Leia, and they brought me here."

His Uncle Slider sits on the edge of his table and raises an eyebrow.

"They brought you here? Alone?"

Brad feels himself turn red.

"I mean, yes, they brought me and a... friend. The point is that they put us in that room without any explanation. We don't know what's going on!"

The brief smile fades from Kerner's face.

"What's going on…" he sighs. "Right now, Congress and the White House have been evacuated, and we are preparing to send missile-armed destroyers to New York."

"What? But you said it was at the Pentagon. Or is it a just in case?"

"Wait, wait. I'll tell you in order."

Although he is sure he is being given the public version, the facts shake him to his core. This can't happen, repeats a voice inside him. The world just doesn't work like that. Right?

Slider notices that the shock is setting in, stops, goes to his table, and returns with a glass containing a finger of an amber liquid.

"Drink, Baby Goose, today you need it."

Brad obeys him. The burning of the whiskey makes him cough but also react.

"Has anyone claimed responsibility for the attacks?"

"No. Although it's totally the style of those Islamic Holy War nut cases, I'd rather wait for the FBI and Justice Department to tell me who to shoot."

The young man looks at his uncle curiously. He knows that the bond between Slider, Ice, and Mav was cemented during the "Layton Affair" -the most well-known secret event in the Navy-, and that they returned after bringing down four Soviet MiGs. To bring down, Mav clarified to him one day, is a fancy way of saying "killing people" on air. Then there were other missions, some official, some secret. The fact is that none of them talks about flying in the same tone that they talk about dogfights.

"That being said," Slider makes an awkward face. "it does have the style of a jihadist attack, and you spent the night with Prince Adib?"

Brad looks down at his hands, uncomfortable. Did he spend the night with the prince? He really doesn't think so. He might recognize Blue's features in the man who emerged from his bedroom bathroom in the USNavy sweater and olive sweatpants, but the attitude, hand movement, and soft eyes of the person he'd known for six weeks were gone. Blue is dead, and it's his fault.

Would Slider interrogate him if Adib was called Arthur? Probably not, but Brad already knows that life is rarely fair. He's not going to fight about this. It is not worth fighting for a relationship that no longer exists.

"We went last night to see the midnight show of "Tombstone" in Emancipation Park. We fell asleep in my truck and woke up at eight today."

"How long have you known each other?"

"Six weeks."

"Has he tried to obtain information about you or your family…?"

"Adib didn't know my last name until this morning," Brad cuts him off, annoyed. It's one thing to answer routine security questions and another to let them stain what he had with Blue. "We agreed not to reveal anything about our families. What we had was ours, only ours, uncle Slider and now…" he feels wet cheeks and has no idea when he started crying.

Kerner puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"It's not the end of the world, Brad. You just started college, you will meet other people."

"I know, but nothing will be like this."

As he feared, Bradley sees him for the last time when they are returned to UVA. Adib gets into a car with his cousin, and Bradley goes into another with a drama student who turns out to be the niece of the United States Attorney General. Amid the Islamophobia sparked by the claim that al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, many foreign Muslim students left the country in the following weeks.

Brad can't find the courage to get rid of the wig, clothes, and shoes. He knows it's the rational thing to do, but he can't let it go. So he goes to a friend studying at the Fralin Museum and explains that he wants to keep them. A week later, they gave him back a sealed transparent package. Inside there is no air, but nitrogen, which will keep those objects in stasis until he decides to open it. When he returns to San Diego for Thanksgiving, he asks Sarah to put it away safely. She, bless her soul, doesn't ask questions.

At Thanksgiving dinner, Ice loudly complains about hysteria and prejudice. He makes it clear that he will not tolerate derogatory comments about Muslims in the house since he has had enough of the harassment to his Muslims and Arabic-looking subordinates and the invasion of Afghanistan, where Maverick leads a suicide squad through the gorges of the Caucasus. "Your father is going to give me a heart attack," he tells Jake very seriously. To which the boy responds with a hug and an absolutely Mitchell reply, "My father always comes home, don't worry."

Back at UVA, Brad decides to follow Ice's lead and do something. He joins a network of support and protection for Arab and Muslim students. Between classes, escorting around campus, and teaching self-defense at the queer teen shelter, he's exhausted enough not to think about Blue.

In the fall of 2003, it starts to look like the war on terror will last forever. Bradley Bradshaw concludes that, despite the DADT, he wants to be an aviator like his parents and enrolls in the AVROC program. He spends the summers of 2004 and 2005 between sweaty and gorgeous bodies, but it's easy to reign his desires with the simple invocation of Blue's lips. After studying engineering at UVA, courses in aerodynamics, aircraft engines, and air navigation are relatively easy. He enjoys reading military legislation and thinking about how to manipulate it.

Bradley gets his letter, calls Maverick to tell him he's been accepted to Pensacola and doesn't look back.