HEARTFIRST (Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader)

7.

Sitting up, fighting off sleep, you glance around the room, your eyes landing on a small, industrial looking radio sitting on a side table in the corner underneath the large bay windows overlooking the tarmac. The radio pops and cracks one last time before the voices on the other end come through loud and clear.

"Rooster, jesus, what the fuck were you thinking?" A man's voice you don't recognize comes through first, but your heart sinks at the mention of Bradley. Your eyes flicker to the clock – 8:52am. Flight training.

"Are you trying to get us killed?" Natasha's exasperated voice echoes through the room next. You can tell she's exhausted. They all are. It's clear that tensions are high.

"You told me not to think, Mav!" Bradley shouts, his voice crackling as it comes through the speaker.

"Same old Rooster," Hangman cuts in, scoffing. "Can't commit. Not to the mission, not on the ground."

You suck in a breath, wrapping the blanket around your shoulders and traipsing over to the radio. Looking out the window, you turn your face to the sky, wondering if you might see them, but the sky is empty. Something pulls at your chest and you wonder, for a moment, if the tug is from Bradley or Jake.

"Do you have something to say, Hangman?" Bradley's voice cuts in again and you turn back to the radio. You can imagine the look on Bradley's face now as he speaks, that defiant scowl present on his brow.

"Keep making your mistakes, Rooster. They only benefit me in the end." You can hear the smugness in Jake's voice, practically see his one-sided, prideful smile.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Lieutenant, enough," the unfamiliar voice warns.

There's a beat of silence.

"Fail this training and I get your spot on the mission. Keep fucking up on land, too, and you'll just push your girl right into me instead."

Your stomach drops as Jake speaks. The way he's using last night, everything you told him about your past with Bradley, to mess with his head doesn't sit well with you. You don't like being leveraged. Not as you were just beginning to think Hangman could be more than his callsign. Not when you were just starting to like him. Or, rather, admit to yourself that you like him. It's a punch to the gut, but a confirmation more than anything else – Hangman was just as cocky and self-serving as everyone made him out to be. Callsigns ring true.

"You son of a bitch," Bradley sneers.

"Lieutenant, I said enough."

"He's not cut out for this mission. You know it. You know I'm right."

"You're all dismissed."

The radio clicks off in the next second, dead air filling the room. You sink down to the floor by the window, tugging the blanket closer to your body, exhaling loudly. This is exactly what you didn't want. You wanted to be here for Natasha, see her again, have a little bit of fun. You didn't expect any of this, to become a distraction again, Bradley already loathed you for that. Sure, Bradley fucked up, you're upset with him, but his silence over the radio is deafening. If you know him, you know he's beating himself up right now, going into self-defense mode, throwing himself deeper into work as a way to escape, desperate to prove himself. And Jake. Fucking Jake. It was stupid, to have wedged yourself between the two of them, even if it was all accidental. Even if somewhere, in that accident, you'd developed feelings you couldn't name but wanted to follow. Not anymore, though.

You had to leave. It wouldn't do any good to stay, it's not your place. It was a mistake to stay as long as you did, to pretend like everything was normal in the midst of some of the most intense training of these pilots' lives. It was selfish, really, to assume you could be at the center of all of this. You'd collect your things and bow out before things got worse, you'd let Bradley and Jake make amends and refocus on their shared mission. They'd train, complete whatever this mission required, and make it back alive, that's what really mattered.