#altitude (oc)
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Huh??? Where did these guys come from... (hides my drawing tablet behind my back)
the list!
Oysterpaw (they/them), a water-type abra. They are based on rili orange shrimp because shrimp are cute
Altitude (any pronouns), a water type eevee designed by WhippieKippy. They's a rogue and are very scared of the clans, but they're decently well-known amongst outsiders bc they will heal pokemon in need
Ferris (he/him, they/them), a slime eevee! He is a very spoiled baby
Locustpaw (he/him, they/them), a funky zorua who can change color. He's a medic apprentice :] and yes he always looks somewhat sad
Second palette for Locustpaw because I couldn't decide
Galepaw (he/she/they), a squawkabilly that doubles as a living tornado terrarium. He bullies Sesamepaw and Maskpaw but grows up to be way more mature and mellow
Blotpaw (she/her), a slup (fakemon) found by Pheasantpaw! They have an older/younger sibling dynamic. Also Blotpaw has a habit of climbing up stuff and getting stuck
#raintailed's art#pokemon#pokemon oc#my ocs#oysterpaw (oc)#altitude (oc)#ferris (oc)#locustpaw (oc)#galepaw (oc)#blotpaw (oc)#reference#so many blorbies...#im trying to catch up on making refs for all of them
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Thanks to your reblog, I went digging for your OC blog + list that I vaguely recalled seeing before, because I somehow missed the fact that you also have an OC named Zenith.
Tell me more about this little sparkling with a most excellent name :D
GLADLY :D
Zenith is a curious little thing, a newspark that was forged in a post-war Cybertron and spared all the trauma and hardships everyone else has been through. It lives a comfortable life as the mentee of both Azimuth and Exopulse and as the sibling of the adolescent Sparkeater twins Munchy and Chomper.
Its friendly nature makes it easy for Zenith to befriend others, a quality Azimuth is trying to erase because that also makes it more susceptible to abuse, betrayal and the likes. He and the twins argue about this often. Azimuth should never be given the sole custody of a child. Ever. But Exopulse is also there and has to play the negotiator. Zenith has come to like Exo a little more than Azimuth and it kills him inside. He's trying to teach all three mentees about life in the only way he knows, but his rigorous mental gymnastics exercises might not be the perfect mentor-student bond building activity. Some of his teaching sticks but it doesn't make him more popular with anyone.
As the student of a ship technician and a professor of mathematics it's not a surprise when Zenith starts showing interest in the more technological side of science. The next part is the least thought-out section of its story and likely to change. Zenith changes its mind later when it realizes how the twins must mask themselves in order to pass in society. Sparkeaters aren't welcomed by everyone on Cybertron and for a very good reason. Most humans wouldn't want to have zombies in their vicinity either. But Zenith wants to change the people's perception of them and goes into sociobiology.
A sketch of Zenith going on a walk with Munchy and Chomper where Zenith is holding their servos.
*Background information that may be good to know:
Many years ago, Munchy's and Chomper's underdeveloped yet infected protoforms had been extracted from an abandoned neutral outpost by Decepticon researchers. Early on, they noticed that their newest test subjects were docile (unless provoked) and so they decided to run a little experiment and try to assimilate the two Sparkeaters into their ranks. Each chose a mentor to learn from, but they never finished their education. Even as their frames stopped in their growth and hardened out into their adult forms, they were not yet mature by Cybertronian standards. When the rogue Sparkeaters attacked their ship and hunted down every spark on board, the twins hid and waited for help to arrive.
[The rest of the story was part of a fun RP I did with @cyber-streak-2 (who I also share creative custody of Munchy and Chomper with, they're its OCs as much as they're mine).]
Exopulse and Azimuth found the two in the wreckage of their home, a Decepticon research vessel that was now overrun by those hostile Sparkeaters. They helped the twins fend off the other Sparkeaters and took them back to Azimuth's ship. Azimuth and Exopulse became their new mentors, teaching them about life and telling them stories of their achievements. Then they landed on Cybertron and with the war over and the Quintessons defeated, everything seemed to go back to how it was before (that's both a good and a bad thing). The twins now have to mask their ghastly features with kibble that Azimuth has kept, which once belonged to his brother. They visit higher education, as does Exopulse (who has been constructed during the war; he is a technician but he wants to become a mechanic too for which he needs a different skillset), while Azimuth goes back to teaching mathematics at a university.
But the twins aren't quite as happy as they hoped they would be. They ask their mentors if they can have a little sibling and after a while they agree on the terms that they take care of it for the most part. So the four of them go to the Well of All Sparks together. Azimuth and Exopulse harvest a developing spark, picking it right out of its orbit, while Munchy and Chomper gather enough metals that the spark can bind to itself.
Zenith looks nothing like its mentors and siblings. However, it looks a lot like Altitude 😏 That's merely a coincidence, I just thought it would be funny to have it resemble Azimuth's long dead brother for no particular reason.
#thanks for the ask!#novafire-is-thinking asks#oc stuff#transformers oc#aecho's art#zenith#munchy#chomper#zenith is a good name. what more can I say#and it fits into the coordinate system naming trend that azimuth and altitude have going on#no. I didn't wake up earlier than usual just to sketch them before the day starts (<- lying)
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🤍 Altitude Sickness in Whump 🤍
Altitude sickness occurs when ascending to high elevation, especially when it is done too rapidly or by a person who is physically weak. Low pressure at high elevation causes low blood oxygen levels and other very unpleasant effects on the body. In general, altitude sickness occurs in three stages:
Stage 1: AMS - Acute Mountain Sickness. Symptoms: headache, lack of appetite, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and vomiting.
Stage 2: HACE - High-Altitude Cerebral Edema. Symptoms: above symptoms plus altered mental status, ataxia, confusion, and drowsiness. Coma can occur within 24 hours of onset.
Stage 3: HAPE - High-Altitude Pulmonary Edema. Can occur after AMS/HACE, or by itself. Symptoms: chest congestion, cough, exaggerated dyspnea on exertion, decreased exercise performance, and coughing blood. Can be rapidly fatal.
Why a character might ascend too quickly:
Being on the run/desperate
Being forced to do so as part of a task or game
Being forced to do so as deliberate torture
Being overly eager to reach the goal
Scenario ideas:
Whumpee starts to develop symptoms while separated from the group or lost
Whumpee tries to hide symptoms to prove they're strong enough to endure the climb
Whumpee forced to do heavy physical labor at high altitude
Whumpee panics, making breathing even more difficult
Caretaker desperately calling for an airlift
Caretaker carrying whumpee down the mountain
Caretaker is also altitude sick, but must carry whumpee anyway
The information comes from the CDC, where you can also find more about treatment, risk factors, etc.
#So did anyone notice that my oc The Elder lives on a mountain? Teehee...#altitude sickness whump#medical whump#whump#whump prompts#whump ideas#whump scenarios
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sofmack where she waves a little Canada flag at him on Fourth of July or buys him one bc he’s not from the US
bye that’s so cute and silly!!!
thinking about his big grin when she hands it to him with a kiss on his cheek and a little giggle. “get it? cause it’s fourth of july and you’re…” she trails off, a little shy, “i dunno i think it’s funny” and really, someone else could say it isn’t but it wouldn’t matter bc mack laughs at every joke sof makes 🥹
#macklin celebrini x fem!oc#macklin celebrini x oc#mack + sof#double dates & double dares au#letters [asks]#my cabinet [mutuals]#tumblr sister [sonia]#altitude warning [🍃 posting]
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So, you want to know about the star-people. Well, you came to the right place! My name is Rigel, and I’ll be your guide to the Stellaman species!
Stellamans are roughly 4 times the height of an average human. They are mechanical beings, robotic creatures powered by an artificial star in the place where a human head would be anatomically positioned. We are known by many names, not just the Stellamans. Star-people, the Occult Stellaris Gods(or the OSG) , the Andruids of Space, and the Flame Beings are all names that our ragtag group has gone by.
There are only 12 of us in total, due to the fact that we aren’t natural beings. We all live on a spaceship called the Altitude. It is a large, sphere shaped spaceship with a single dome shaped thruster on the side. The ship is equipped with some really neat technology, which helps it do things that most starships can’t even dream of doing.
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Unanimous doodle dump
#i scream#my stuff#original character#tristen bluere (oc)#moqs (oc)#raven scout (oc)#brittle (oc)#altitude curtain-call (oc)#esrig pietersite (oc)#buttercup (oc)#pink madness (oc)#cadence machine (oc)#i am on a roll tonight folks#don’t worry you’ll see them in cards soon
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cool about it
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summary: in which, what lando thinks was a bad race and a bad weekend, couldn't be more different in the eyes of his favourite person.
content: the fluffiest fluff ever, negative thoughts, self-doubt, crying, insecure!lando, poor mental health, mclaren slander, cuddling, shared showers (non-sexual), lando 'heart-eyes' norris!
pairing: lando norris x fem!oc
rora's thoughts: i am actually distraught after the saudi arabian grand prix weekend because what do you mean lando was crying in the car after qualifying? what do you mean he thinks that he's the problem? i can't keep seeing mclaren fuck him over because i am going to crash out harder than max when esteban took him out that one time. and to clarify, i am not an oscar fan - yes he's unproblematic, and i used to like him - but after hungary, monza and australia, i cannot bring myself to support a driver who's so willing to fuck up his teammate's race with no care for the result, especially when mclaren claim to be such a well-organised team with great relationships within it.
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SHE KNEW HE WASN'T going to be happy.
the way he looked at oscar with subtle resentment as he patted him on the back, the way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes in his sky sports interview, the way his shoulders slumped when he was asked what happened in the fifty laps of jeddah - they were all tell-tale signs, easily picked up his best friend.
lando breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he stepped into the mclaren motorhome, the team debrief having drained him. he wasn't jealous, he wasn't angry, he was just longing.
longing. longing for self-validation, longing to be appreciated by the team, longing not emotionally manipulated when he was at risk of death from crashing. it took his mind back to hungary last season, will's words that still frequently echoed around his head, and how sick he'd felt when those sentences crackled into his ears.
"the way to win a championship is not on your own," will had told him. "you're going to need the team, you're going to need oscar."
he knew he was spiralling, thoughts swirling into one big pathetic mess. the tears were creeping up on him, like a slow and agonising death - he couldn't cry, he did well right?
the world was static around him, all the noise and bustle of saudi arabia blending into a mushy blur as his breathing picked up a little. his lower lip was squat between his teeth in a desperate attempt to stop it from trembling and the reality of the situation sinking in.
they just seemed to look past the previous years lando had spent with the team, the four gruelling years of finishing out of the points, watching teammates come and go, not being the number one driver, lando was there through it all, loyal to the papaya team when they directed their energy into other parties, just as was happening now - the only exception being when it was mathematically impossible for oscar to win the twenty-four drivers' championship.
"lando?" a soft voice called, after a knock on the door the driver had failed to notice. "please, let me in."
he tried to hum, but the words caught in his throat, dying along the redness of his neck. so instead, he stood up a little too quickly, mind reeling from the change in altitude and the thoughts torpedoing through it - and he opened the door.
lily stepped forward, wrapping her arms around his torso and squeezing him tight, while kicking the door shut behind her. he was sweaty, dripping with the liquid that he believed should have been champagne - instead replaced with fatigue and frustration.
"i'm sorry."
could he sound any more pathetic? he was a grown man for god's sake, practically sobbing into lily's shoulder as his hands rested on her lower back. this wasn't the mentality of a world championship - the critics had said - he needed to have a 'fuck you' attitude - as will buxton had claimed in a recent podcast - lando was never going to be world champion - that's what social media had told him.
"don't be," she said, voice laced with sorrowful affection. "you have nothing you could possibly be sorry for, you drove incredibly today, lan."
"no i didn't, i didn't get a podium, and i've lost the championship lead," lando began, sighing into her skin. "and i'm so fucking tired of the team telling me to wait it out, when their letting oscar win and overtake me and all this stupid fucking papaya rules—"
"—lando." lily said firmly. "you're spiralling, take a breath."
"i want to go home." he murmured, a singular tear dropping from his eye and onto her shoulder.
"i know, but our flight isn't until tomorrow," she told him quietly, placing a hand on the back of his neck. "is the hotel okay?"
a broken hum left his lips, and she cupped his jaw, lifting his head from the crook of her neck and making him look at him.
"i hate seeing you like this, you know?" the model whispered. "you are so incredible, and it kills me that you can't see yourself in the same way i do."
lando just sighed, breath crackling in his throat as he stared down at his lifeline, holding him so affectionately and telling him everything he needed to hear.
"i love you so much," a small smile broke onto his face as more tears dropped from his eyes, to which she responded to by wiping them away with her thumb.
"i love you too, lan." she replied, nodding her head as she internally relaxed upon seeing the crease at the corner of his eyes matching the display of genuine joy on his lips.
• • • •
THE DRIVE BACK was quiet, filled with the hum of the engine and the rolling of tyres on tarmac. the windows were sealed up, air-conditioning on full blast — in an attempt to gradually bring lando's body temperature back to a normal after the ice bath he'd had around thirty minutes ago.
his head rested lazily on her shoulder, lulling a little as they encountered speedbumps in the black suv — driven by the chauffer mclaren had hired for the british driver.
lando's curls were damp and a few were sticking to his forehead, his eyes were half-lidded and tired, and he still smelt of burnt rubber and sweat, coated in the aroma from the time he'd spent in his black fireproofs. he felt pliant, out of control in the softest way possible, gentle and affectionate and sleepy.
she'd swiped the key card across the pad on the door, a quiet, positive-sounding beep coming from the device. before he knew it, he was inside the cool room, eyes almost shutting as the perfect temperature of the area enveloped him.
"shower?" lily tilted her head, walking toward the bathroom and flicking the light on.
"too tired." lando groaned, stumbling toward the bed.
"you smell like barbequed human, shower."
he sighed, padding over to the en-suite slowly, steps heavy and long.
"shower with me?" the words slipped from his mouth with no afterthought, too tired and achy to realise what he'd just asked.
and for the first time, her words faltered, snagged in her throat as the weight of his words settled in her chest. so, instead of verbally replying, she simply grabbed his swim shorts from her suitcase and handed them to the man, gesturing for him to go and get changed in the bathroom.
a subtle smile graced his expression, and he walked into the bathroom, closing the door and stripping off at his own pace.
lily changed into the bikini she'd accidentally left in her suitcase from their bahrain trip the previous week — quickly wiping her makeup off with a wipe and taking down her hair from the half-up-half-down style she'd previously donned.
"lan, can i come in?" the girl called through the door softly.
"yeah," he replied, stepping into the shower, basking under the hot water that poured over his skin.
she opened the door, walked in, and left it open, hoping the steam would drain out of the bathroom once they'd finished together.
after picking up the washbag from the countertop, lily slid the glass shower screen across and joined him, placing the bag down once again and letting the water wash through her hair and over her body.
"i love you," lando sighed, puffing his lips out a little as he gazed down at her. "so, so much."
"i love you too," the model smiled, the corner of her eyes creasing as she looked up at him. "more than you know."
it was intimate, her hands were all over him in the most wholesome way possible. her slender fingers massaged the hair food into his scalp, paying attention to the curls poking out at the nape of his neck, taming them with her skilled digits. her palms flatly rubbed circular motions over his shoulder blades and spine, the smell of vanilla filling the shower along with the steam around them.
she'd even gotten lando his usual sleepwear, an old pair of black quadrant shorts that had now been discontinued, and a clean pair of boxers, of course.
lily had gotten ready for bed in the bathroom, dressed in her black silk pyjama set, skin a little red from the products she'd scrubbed into her pores.
lando was sat on the bed, zoned out and looking sleepy. she walked over to him, standing directly between his legs, causing him to look up at her. their height difference meant that his chin rested directly on her sternum, just above her boobs, when he made eye contact with her.
the girl had started affectionately rearranging his unruly curls, tucking in soft strands of hair here and there, pulling some others more outward from his scalp.
meanwhile, he was blatantly staring at her like a lost puppy — pupils dilated, eyebrows slightly arched, lower lip caught between his teeth. he was the definition of heart-eyes, a man who only had eyes for one woman and one woman only.
his arms wrapped snugly around her waist, keeping her against him as she fiddled with his mullet — which had been her idea in the first place, claiming it was a birthday treat for her last june. lando admired the way her hair was back in a tight, low bun, not tight enough to be described as sleek though, as there were a few stray strands — or 'duck strands' as she liked to call them — at the sides of her face and by her ears. the way her skin looked a little pinker than usual because of her meticulous skincare routine, the way her skin smelt like shea butter and papaya fruit — which was the scent of the body lotion she was currently using.
it was when they were in bed together around ten minutes later, lights off, room lit by the moonlight, that he knew.
he knew because of how relaxed he felt in her grasp. he knew because of how her arms felt like home. he knew because of how soft her lips felt against his temple when she mumbled goodnight.
lando knew he was going to be okay.
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i do not give permission for my works to be re-written, re-published, or published on any other platform.
© norrisjpg 2025
#formula 1#formula one#f1 fanfic#fanfiction#f1 2024#lando norris#lando norris one shot#lando norris x you#lando norris x reader#lando norris x oc#lando norris smut#lando norris fluff#lando fluff
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HIIII, I was wondering if you could write something with the whitebeard pirates (specifically Marco and maybe Thatch or also Ace bc I love them sm) with child! winged! Reader. I was thinking of Marco teaching the reader how to fly because he has experience and he's basically a bird. Maybe also add a part where the reader finally learns and starts bothering some members or pranking them. Thanks for reading, this is my first time asking for a story, but please feel free to ignore this.
Leaving the nest ft Marco
A/n Okay I do admit this one is kinda weak, and I also din’t get to the pranking but I still wanted tk get this out. I ‘m not sure what it is about this one I don’t think it is hitting as hard as other pieces : /.
Reader here is replaced by Dokucha which stands for reader in japanese for the enjoyment of reader and oc character readers alike!
Dokucha’s lip trembled as they took a peek off the crow’s nest and took in the high altitude they and Marco were currently in
“Marco-nii, it’s too high; what if I fall?” They question, turning to him as they gasp, another thought occurring to them: what if I fall AND you don’t catch me?! “ they cried
Marco shakes his head, eyes filled with mirth at the child’s ramblings as he kneels down to be at their level
“Hey, Hey, first of all, you will do great using your wings and won’t fall-yoi; even if you did, all you have to do is open your wings and glide down,” he reassures them, ruffling their head as they talked
“AND even if you do fall AND your gliding fails, I will be there to catch you-yoi, AND if I by some impossible reason happen to miss you, Pops is down there ready to catch you,” he piped in, Answering all of their ifs before they had the chance to voice them ending by gesturing to Pops who had a similar amused expression on his face as he watched the two.
“Now, then, are you ready to try?” he asked, smiling as he watched them nod hesitantly.
“You don’t look too sure, baby bird. Would you like a hug first?” He offered, opening his arms wide for them, letting out a chuckle as they threw themselves into him as soon as he did. He hugged them tightly until they felt them relax, after which he released them, backing away slightly as he asked them once again if they were ready, this time satisfied with the somewhat more confident affirmation they gave him
“Alright-yoi, let’s start by stretching out those wings, alright?” He called as his hands slowly transformed into his Iconic flaming wings, which began stretching out as he had instructed
Dokucha stared at his wings with awe and then looked at their smaller pair of wings, and back to Marco’s as a confused look appeared on their faces.
“But how?”
“Remember, your wings are another extension of you, moved by muscles just like the ones in your arms and legs-yoi. You have to visualize yourself moving them and then put the muscles to work. Try stretching your hands out wide.”
“Like this?”She questioned, opening up her arms
“Yes, see how your muscles respond how you want to? Your wings are the same just a different muscle-yoi. Try it”
“Okay,” they muttered, glancing at their wings, their tongue stuck out and eyes narrowing in concentration as they tried to follow his words, letting out a laugh as their wings finally followed their will and opened up.
“Marco-nii, I ‘m moving them!” They excitedly hollered
“Good Job-yoi. Now try moving them up and down,” he called as he followed his words and began flapping his wings, watching as the child did the same
“Harder, this is the most important-yoi.”
After repeating this for a while, Dokucha let out a whine, and their wings began to cease moving.
“It’s not working, Marco-nii,” they pouted, letting out small huffs as they kneeled down, holding their body with their hands against their knees as they tried to recuperate, letting out a small squeak as they were picked up
“Let’s try something different-yoi,” he called, placing them on the railing only to wrap his hands around them as they threw themselves into him.”
“Do-
“It’s too high!” They cried, clinging to him
“Alright, Alright,” he sighed, a small chuckle escaping him
“Don’t laugh, you jerk!” They grumbled, giving them a weak punch that only pulled another chuckle from the man.
“My bad-yoi, but remember what I told you before?”
“Let’s try something different?” They questioned, only to receive a huff
“About you falling, Dokucha.”
“That you and Papaw won’t let me fall?”
“And have I ever broken a promise to you?” He mused
“No,” they mumbled sheepishly
“Today is not different-yoi. Now, close your eyes. Here is what I want you to do,” he began as he turned them around so that they could face the outside of the nest.
“Feel the wind in your wings-yoi,” he continued as he helped them stretch their wings out, smiling as the child began flapping them soon after.
“Good job-yoi” Marco proudly stated, catching the attention of Dokucha. As their eyes snapped open only to let out a gleeful laugh as they noticed that their feet were no longer touching the wooden railings and rather had managed to go airborne.
Elated, they turned around and once again crashed into the doctor, who gave them a laugh in return.
“I did it! I did it!” They cheered
“You did,” he affirmed, a gentle but proud tone in his voice as they sat there for a while, basking in the small success they had managed to accomplish
“Ne, Marco-nii, when I get better at it, can we fly together?” They asked, looking up at the man
“Of course-yoi.”
“I will beat you! I will fly so fast you won’t see me!” They exclaimed, animated gestures accompanying their words.
“Ha! You can try, baby bird, but you are a hundred years too early to even come close to beating me,” he called with a mischievous grin on his face as he ruffled their head, much to the latter displeasure as they tried to swat the phoenix's away.
“Now that got started, you want to scare Ace a little?”
After this I plan to prepare a jujutsu kaisen one followed by a fairy tail update and then I got another one piece idea
#one piece#one piece x reader#one piece imagine#whitebeard pirates x reader#marco x reader#marco x you#reader x marco#marco op#one piece marco#marco#marco the phoenix x reader#marco one piece#marco the phoenix#whitebeard pirates x oc#whitebeard x reader#whitebeard crew
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Six | Stakes
I want to know Everything about you that I've had to dream about Every single almost that we've been dancing around I want to know Who we are when we can stop pretending we're just friends Let's go to those places that we've never been
The Way I Wanna by Max McNown
pairing: jake “hangman” seresin / ofc (top gun: maverick)
rating: 18+ (minors dni)
warnings/triggers: 🔥smut in overall series, p in v sex, fingering (lmk if i missed any!)
word count: 8,518
summary: ellie realizes that she needs to swallow her pride as the stakes are upped in a significant way.
A/N: i think i have some of the best readers on all of tumblr, if not all of the internet. so, since you’ve been so patient with me and i've been torturing you with all the sexual tension...
my biggest apologies for leaving you guys hanging! lots of illness and #toughlifeshit going on, but all is looking up.
for those of you looking forward to the glen powell/f!writer oc fic "i can do it with a broken heart," my lovely betas and i are cooking up the launch.
there are a few tag requests that don’t have tumblr usernames attached in the tag form. If you requested a tag and you don’t see yourself tagged, let me know and I'll tag you right away and add you to the tag doc!
allons-y!
❥ playlist ♡ masterlist ♡ taglist ♡ glossary of terms ♡ previous chapter ♡ next chapter ❥
The data was in the red again.
Angry, relentless, it seeped across Ellie’s screen in jagged lines and pulsing errors. When she closed her eyes, to sleep, to blink, under the spray of a hot shower, she could see it still, just behind the quiet in her mind, burned into her retinas.
Error.
Failure.
Danger Ellie Rigby, danger.
Was it irrational to think that numbers could taunt her? Because it sure felt like they were.
She’d been at this for hours—no, days. It was days, now. Days that bled together with routine and numbers that didn’t act the way they were supposed to.
A symphony of chaos orchestrated by Jake fucking Seresin.
Pulling flight data, filtering telemetry, layering Jake’s flight logs over top of every other pilot’s log in the system, from testing and from mission training (because why stop with just Rooster and Teak) always resulted in the same findings.
Jake’s data showed the same maneuvers.
Same wind shear.
Same altitude drops.
Same variables, same route, same conditions.
But his data didn’t bend like Rooster’s or dip like Teak’s. It broke. Every. Damn. Time.
She muttered fuck and I'm going to murder him under her breath, dragging the cursor through the heatmaps, watching his flight path curve and zip, carve through her projections and predicted variables like a scalpel through paper. A hot knife through butter.
It didn’t make sense. Nothing she wrote could predict him. Nothing she coded could contain him.
No matter how often she adjusted the parameters, no matter how often she read his data and shifted her tech to catch him where he’d dodged, the same red numbers filled her screen.
It was as if he studied her data sets during pre-flight briefings and quickly noted how they could be shattered until they were unrecognizable. She was almost certain he did, she could practically see it, his eyes, mischievous and fucking twinkling, catching hers as he strode past her toward the tarmac.
Not even the Anti-Seresin protocol she coded after that first test flight disaster made her feel better when it popped up on her screen. Instead, it made her something that teetered between frustrated and livid.
If the time constraints weren’t impossibly tight to present something functional, stable and reliable, she might have been impressed. Might have been.
If it’s not ready... Mav had mentioned, again, just the other day as he dragged her out of the office to get some fresh air and a coffee, almost prying her rigid fingers from the edge of her desk ...we can defer to next quarter.
It took every ounce of patience she had left to keep her hand from crushing the disposable cup in her grip, to keep her gait even as they walked. She responded as she had before: No, it’s ready.
Deferring now felt like admitting that she wasn’t cut out for this, and by birth, she knew in her goddamned bones, she was. Even if she didn’t like acknowledging it, she was Rick Neven’s daughter, a top class, damn good Top Gun pilot. Raised on the shoulders of quasi-uncles like Iceman and Mav, Wolfman and Slider. That meant something.
It had to.
She leaned in closer to the screen, as if proximity might change what she was seeing before she leaned back in a huff, combing a hand through her hair.
Nothing held him.
Not her algorithms.
Not the predictive modeling.
Not even the black box diagnostics that she’d demanded access to from the higher ups.
He was effectively a ghost in the system. Untouchable. Untraceable. Un-fucking-reasonable.
And yet, all of it would have been easier to deal with if he wasn’t also (unfortunately) the last person she wanted to or should have been thinking about late at night.
It would have been so much simpler if she didn’t remember the sound he made as he finally gave her what she was begging for and pushed inside her, a low groan against the shell of her ear. It would have been less complicated if she didn’t still dream about his fingers in her hair and the scrape of his teeth against the hard edge of her collarbone.
She couldn’t fucking think straight anymore.
It was as if when he was undoing her, with his mouth, with his hands, with the way he moved inside of her like he knew what would set her alight, he’d quietly rewired her brain. Remapped neural pathways until they all led back to him. His smell, his taste, the sound of his voice and the way it hit deep parts of her, so her mind thrummed like a tuning fork.
Sometimes, more so now after the night she left him at the Hard Deck a week ago, there was very little between her and the overwhelming need to satisfy herself. In a bathroom stall, in the quiet of her office, after hours with the door locked, biting hard into her bottom lip as she came with the thought of him on her mind.
Nothing ever quite satisfied that need for him though. The pinch of desire still lingering just out of reach, building until she next had to ease the pressure of it.
Every time, on the come down, she pushed away the suffocating thought that she’d never remembered a time when she’d felt like this. Simultaneously smoldering and yet, burning.
“You wanted me?”
Her spine straightened sharply, his voice hitting her like heat. It was something she felt in her stomach. A flop. A flush of liquid warmth that pooled a little lower than her bellybutton.
She didn’t hear the knock if there had been one. Just that familiar drawl curling through the air, low and casual, laced with something just beneath the surface.
Ellie looked up fast, heart kicking against her ribs. Across the room, Jake stood in the doorway, tall, golden, and infuriating—his flight suit still on, the zipper tugged halfway down like if was nothing, like he didn’t know what that did to her.
Except he did—he had to. The night they’d met, when he’d looked at her over the rim of his beer, the same easy confidence in the way he presented himself, the same suit clinging to his body like a second skin.
She gave a curt little nod toward the chair opposite her desk. Her mouth was dry, and she swallowed hard, hoping the thick, hardwood between them would be enough of a buffer. Enough distance so he couldn’t hear the erratic beating of her traitorous heart as loudly as she could.
When he stepped into the room, he shut the door softly behind him and moved toward the chair. He didn’t sit, instead choosing to hover near it, hands planted on his hips, a trademark smirk exposing dimples.
“You still chasing my numbers?” he asked, eyes flickering to the screen in front of her.
“Depends, are you still screwing mine up?” She shot back easily, second nature, but her voice didn’t quite carry the edge that she’d meant it to.
“Told you I don’t play by the rules, Ace.”
Admittedly, it was to be expected. Rules and Jake Seresin never did play nicely.
If she ever had to determine who amongst them had been body snatched, the first sign she’d look for was a version of Jake that toed the line and didn’t fall back into his usual penchant for getting under her skin. No pun intended.
He smirked, but there was something else in his eyes. Something darker. Pupils blown wide, eclipsing his beautiful green eyes with something hungry. And when his gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered, she felt her stomach flip.
“Maybe your system just can’t keep up with me.” He continued, his voice dipping lower still.
Her pulse stuttered. She looked away—only to find herself looking down. Below the waist, his flight suit clung to the shape of him, already hard and her mind betrayed her.
Flashes. The way he took her apart without hesitation. The filthy things he’d whispered in her ear like promises of what was to come as she writhed beneath him.
Hands dragging her hips to the edge of the bed. His mouth tasting her like he was starving.
The way he looked up at her as she looked down, gripping the headboard and rocking against his mouth, greedy for the next crushing, shuddering wave of orgasm he pulled from her.
The hot weight of him stretching her open, filling her when she’d begged, desperate, for the kind of release only his cock could provide.
It was the memory of a night she’d tried to bury in mountains of logic and equation. Tried to shrink into boxes with labels and cautions. Yet, it managed to crawl back up every day when she saw him, every moment he smirked at her with that shared knowledge. It brought back with it the feelings and the swift, intense ache of needing him, a body no grave could hold down.
She wanted him again. God, she fucking wanted him.
“You’ve been thinking about it too,” she said then, breaking the silence. It had meant to be a question, but it came out as a fact, low and raw.
“Every damn night.” The gravelly sound of his voice was all she needed to hear. He never lied to her.
Then, between them, it was as if something snapped.
Ellie stood and stepped around the desk, and he stepped forward to meet her there, hands sliding to her hips. She didn’t stop him. Couldn’t anymore. His touch burned through the thin slip of her shirt, and he kissed her, tongue already in her mouth, like they picked up where they had left off.
Yet, it wasn’t clumsy or rushed. It was a rhythm—one she remembered just as she knew to breathe. Without instruction, he knew where she wanted him to touch her, how to make her gasp into him without guidance. Responding to her thoughts as they passed through her mind.
His mouth moved to her neck, his hand under her shirt, deftly undoing her bra before he palmed her breast, pinched her nipple sharply until a muted moan parted her lips and her knees threatened to give way. She could feel his smirk against her skin as she clutched his shoulders, holding herself upright.
He didn’t even need to be inside of her, she thought, she’d come just like this, gripping him as the world melted away while he nipped and sucked where the hickey he’d left that first night had been. If he wanted to mark her, reclaim her as his, she’d let him.
She stumbled slightly as he pressed her backward until she hit the edge of the desk, breath ragged as he lifted her up onto it like she weighed nothing. She hit the desk with a soft gasp, papers fluttering to the floor, test results and calibration logs scattering like leaves as her hands swept back to brace herself.
She wasn’t in complete control of her words when they started to come out, unedited, spilling, “You remember—” she began, already breathless, her chest heaving as she tried to find the next word.
Jake’s voice came out rough, hazy. “I remember every sound you made. Every time you said my name, like you couldn’t help yourself. Begging me to—”
He was working the button on her jeans now, one handed, as he reached up around the back of her neck and pulled her toward him, his lips crashing to hers like a diver surfacing for air. The button released and he dragged her pants off sharply, pulling her closer to him with the motion.
Ellie broke the seal of their lips first, tipping her head back a gasp moving through her as his fingers dipped beneath the waistband of her panties and found her clit, swollen, pulsing. She instinctively clenched around nothing as his thumb brushed her, slick. She watched, entranced as he swallowed thickly, she’d come for him, as many times as he let her.
“Jesus,” he said it like he had to hold himself back, like the part of him that wanted this to last and the part of him that wanted to fuck her, warred. “You’re still so fucking wet for me...” it came out as a growl, primal.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, rocking against his hand as he slipped two fingers inside of her, his thumb still moving in lazy circles, just behind the first orgasm waiting to fall out of her.
Where Jake didn’t like to follow rules, he followed instruction well.
He didn’t stop.
Fingers working her just right, like he knew her body better than she did. Like he owned it.
She was already so close, and he knew it, so when she arched against his hand, the papers still beneath her crinkling and stuck to her skin, he slowed, moving up her body dragging her shirt up to pinch her hard nipple between his teeth.
“Jake��” she breathed, her brow scrunched.
Ellie whined as he pulled his fingers out with an obscene, slick sound. When she propped herself up on her elbows, her hand trailing down to fill to void of pleasure, Ellie watched as he pulled the flight suit down, leaving only a white undershirt and his dark blue tented boxers.
In the light of her office, taking him in, she could see the patch of material dampened with pre-cum. Something in her spiked, her fingers picking up speed as she chased the edge of her ending.
“Not yet,” he huffed out a breath, his eyes glazed and wild all at once, grabbing her wrist, prying it away. He bent to kiss her clit carefully, reverently, the slightest flick of his tongue and the smallest bit of suction when he came away almost sending her off the cliff face into a freefall.
Her legs roped around his waist in response as he straightened, holding him to her.
She was wet and needy and already so close she was shaking from the anticipation of it. It was like muscle memory—he knew her. Knew exactly how to unravel her.
His eyes caught hers, his hand carefully pulling himself out, the tip already slick with his want. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he stepped closer and dragged the tip of his cock through the mess between her legs. The bump of him on her clit had her hips moving forward, chasing it as a moan escaped her lips. In her ears, she could hear the wetness of herself, could feel her empty cunt clenching around nothing.
“Jake—” his name was breathy on her lips, a whispered prayer, “—please.”
Her legs tightened around his lower back, trying to pull him forward closer as he slid himself down toward her opening and he hissed something that sounded at once close and far away.
“Fuck, Ellie—” He breathed out her name and once it fell from his lips, she wanted to hear him say it again. He spoke her name like he was trying to center himself, trying to regain control of a situation he himself definitely didn’t have control over.
Ash in the wind.
“I’m never going to get enough of you,” he groaned, resting his tip just at her entrance. When he pressed forward, pushed into her, the gasp that tore from her was involuntary. She swore she saw fucking stars as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she closed them into darkness.
Then—nothing.
She jolted upright.
Ellie's skin was slick with sweat, sheets twisted around her thighs, skin flushed and pulsing with the echo of a climax that hadn’t really happened.
Dark room. Her bed. Alone. No Jake. No desk. No hands. No mouth. Not one inch of his cock inside of her.
She withdrew the hand between her legs, the wet heat pulsing, aching and unsatisfied. The glow of her phone on her nightstand a beacon in the still darkness: 3:41 AM.
Her head fell back against her pillow with a loud groan.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Ellie threw off the headset, the clatter as it hit her laptop and then the floor almost inaudible over the loud groan that fell from her lips.
Today’s test flights had been a disaster.
Just like the test flights from Monday and Tuesday.
Just like every test flight since the first when Hangman had dismantled her tech without a care in the world.
When she screwed her eyes shut a headache thrummed steady, just out of the reach of the Tylenol she’d popped an hour ago. Mashing the heels of her palms into her eyelids, she pressed until starbursts of white erupted in the blackness.
Maybe she had a tumor.
It was the only logical explanation, right?
Maybe her dreams about Jake in the night and the way they clung to the very corners of her thoughts in the day was her body telling her there was a foreign mass lodged in a cortex. She made a mental note to do some spotty research on where she could get a CAT scan in a half-assed attempt to troubleshoot, likely ending with one Google search before being forgotten.
Until her brain reminded her during the night by way of a (reoccurring) fantasy where Jake, hands placed firmly on her hips, bent her over a pool table and fucked her, wet panties pushed aside haphazardly because he couldn’t waste another second not being inside of her.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
She was in the middle of typing “sex dreams and constant headaches correlation to brain tumors” into a new tab when a gradient of blue and white filled her phone screen and Mav’s name flashed, bold and white.
When she answered, she was flushed, embarrassed as though he had the faintest idea of what she’d just searched, raw dogging it in a non-incognito browser.
“Mav?”
On the other end of the line, there was a bluster of air, a scream of a jet ripping down a runway, the unmistakable sound of it taking to the sky. “We’ve got a problem.”
The problem, as Mav delicately explained, was “monumental”—the Mount Everest of hurdles. It was to their project what the iceberg was to the Titanic: catastrophic and unavoidable. Not enough lifeboats. Women and children first.
Ellie only half appreciated the candor as she watched Mav pace the length of the P-51 Mustang, a WWII era relic he always seemed to be fixing up, sitting in a hangar he’d somehow managed to hijack for personal use.
She was sure there was a metaphor mixed in there, for how it looked perfect to her but whenever she asked Mav, it always seemed to need one difficult to find piece or another. Always a work in progress. Never complete.
“Stark is demanding answers.” He huffed, paused. Paced some more. Kicked a loose nut he came across in his path. Ellie listened to it ting and clatter off something else metallic, lost. “Didn’t say why, but it can’t be a coincidence that some of the Admirals are sitting down with the Office of Naval Research end of next week.”
Fuck.
How many 'fuck' moments could she have in one day?
Her count was already up to three, before 11 AM.
“Okay.” Ellie stepped up to the table of blueprints, drummed her fingers on top of Mav’s flight helmet sitting on a side table, absently.
The Office of Naval Research meeting was next week. Stark sitting down with her now meant, she hoped, that the Rear Admiral hadn’t completely given up on the tech’s potential.
The single word response earned Ellie a hands-on-hip eyebrow raised look from Mav as he stopped pacing. “Oh, you have those answers then?”
“Depends on the questions she asks.” Ellie could feel her pulse pounding in her ears, magnifying the headache exponentially. “When?”
When was the hour of their greatest need? When was the march to the gallows? Prayers, prayers, sorrows, sorrows.
Mav huffed a laugh before he glanced down at his watch. “Now.”
The conference room was colder than Ellie expected, the air conditioning hummed softly in the background, the shades drawn across the large picture window at her back.
The ominous feel of doom did not escape her, creeping up the back of her neck as she fought back a shiver. The walls were bare except for the Navy insignia hanging behind Rear Admiral Stark, who sat at the head of the table, expression unreadable. The small, beige timer she’d wound and set on the table, front and centre, ticked away: seven minutes.
Ellie sat across from her, back straight, hands folded in her lap to keep from fidgeting. Mav was beside her, silent—for now, his posture a bit more relaxed than Ellie’s rigid one, but she could see the seriousness in the straight line of his mouth, the hard furrow of his brow.
When Ellie had appeared, Mav at her side, RADM Stark had granted him a seat at the table, despite the way her lips pursed as if she’d sucked on a lemon. He’d been granted permission to sit in on the firm condition he “kept his mouth shut”, a fact Ellie could tell he clearly wasn’t happy about.
Rear Admiral Stark exhaled, fingers drumming against the table for only a moment before she broke the silence. “Let’s not waste time, Ms. Rigby.” She nodded at the ticking timer before she leaned forward, her hand waving over the spread of papers Ellie had provided. Her eyes didn’t shift down to the reports, the meticulously gathered documentation, charts and data. “With the meeting coming with Navel Research and the Secretary of Navy, the test results your tech are putting up aren’t where they need to be.”
Ellie nodded, forcing herself to hold the woman’s gaze. “I’m aware, ma’am. But I can assure you, they are improving. We’ve been within two percent of the projected margin for the last three simulations. If we then adjust for environmental factors, the success rate is—”
“I don’t want excuses,” Stark interrupted smoothly, her gaze sharp and unrelenting. “You’ve had weeks. You have some of the best pilots in the world at your disposal. And yet, somehow, we’re looking at numbers that still don’t meet expectations.”
Ellie swallowed, pulse drumming at the base of her throat. “I understand, ma’am. We’re working on recalibrating the—”
Stark cut her off with a sharp look, her long finger tapping the paper closest to her. “Ms. Rigby, woman to woman—” her gaze didn’t slip to Maverick once, “—don’t bullshit me and I won’t bullshit you. I’m not interested in projections; I’m interested in results. The results aren’t good enough. Does sixty percent truly look like progress to you? You want me to sit in front of that stuffy old bastard Quigley and tell him as much?”
Ellie’s mouth pressed into a thin line. She could feel Mav shift beside her. She didn’t need to look at him to feel the energy rolling off him. As agreed, he hadn’t spoken outside of professional pleasantries, but she could feel the barely restrained tension pooling in his aura as he silently fought for his life to hold back the words surely backing up in his mind, just on the tip of his tongue, like a jammed printer.
Part of her wanted to reach under the table to grip his arm, tell him to relax, that she had this under control, but she wasn’t sure she believed that herself.
“Moreover, do you think pilots are going to be okay flying with tech that gives them a forty percent chance of being scattered over the ocean or enemy territory?”
“No, ma’am. But—”
Stark held up a hand again. She leaned back in her chair, assessing Ellie for a long, drawn-out moment, the silence only filled in by the ticking of the air conditioning and the timer. Ellie didn’t shift, didn’t shrink under the weight of it.
“Do you have any idea what this project is to me, Ms. Rigby?” she sighed, voice even but tinged with the weight of her position as she glanced at the timer ticking away. “It’s my last vote for funding approval. My final act on paper before I turn in my stars in the spring. I have given the Navy everything, sacrificed and borne the weight that comes with my rank. I won’t go out on a sour note. I won’t attach my name to a failure.”
Stark let it breathe, let it sink in, watching Ellie with a measured look. Then, as if on an afterthought, she exhaled deeply, shifting slightly in her seat.
Of all things Ellie had expected, it was a dressing-down. But it wasn’t until the Rear Admiral’s lips curled into something resembling a smile, nostalgic, that Ellie realized she may have underestimated just how hard this meeting was going to hit.
“I know you know what the Navy takes from a person.” Stark’s voice was even, neutral. “Your father was one hell of a pilot. Not one person can question that. But make no mistake, that doesn’t mean I’ll cut you any slack. If this doesn’t work, I back the pulling of the plug. And when I walk away, I walk away clean.”
Ellie stiffened. Her hands slipping off the table and clenching into fists in her lap before she forced them flat again, her fingers still trembling, clammy. Of course. She should have seen it coming.
Stark’s gaze flickered over her reaction, assessing, as if she were waiting for Ellie to break—waiting for some sign she’d struck a nerve.
Ellie made sure to give her nothing.
“I wouldn’t expect you to, ma’am,” Ellie said, tone steady, even if her stomach was twisting itself into knots.
Mav shifted beside her, the first movement he’d made in minutes. Ellie didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to. She knew the expression he’d be wearing. The barely restrained frustration on her behalf as his mouth opened and snapped shut again just as quickly.
Mav had always let her fight her own battles; she was sure he knew better than to step in now.
“Then tell me, ten words or less, why I shouldn’t recommend Research pull funding and scrap this right now.”
Ellie inhaled sharply, Stark’s words a kick to her stomach. “Because it’s not going to fail.”
Stark sat back, skeptical. “I wanted to back a woman in the field. Thought it was time for a shift, time to show that women could lead the future of aviation tech, plant the seed for after I’m gone.” She exhaled slowly. “Maybe that was a mistake.”
Ellie stiffened. “No, ma’am. It wasn’t.”
“Good,” Stark said simply, then leaned forward again, folding her hands atop Ellie’s reports. “The Secretary is meeting end of next week to go over our funding. If you can’t prove to me that this program is worth the resources the Navy is putting into it, I will recommend we pull the plug. And I don’t care whose daughter you are.”
Ellie nodded once, firm. “Understood.”
Stark studied her for another beat, as if trying to decide whether she believed in Ellie’s resolve.
Finally, she gave a curt nod, seemingly decided. “You have one week. If I don’t see substantial improvement by the time the Secretary marches his short ass onto this base, it’s done.”
Ellie inhaled slowly, measured. One week wasn’t much time. Frankly, it wasn’t nearly enough. But it was better than nothing. One week was better than having her funding pulled today, here and now.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Stark glanced at Maverick then, just for a second. “Captain Mitchell,” she acknowledged before rising from her seat, straightening out her uniform. “You’re both dismissed.”
Ellie stood, reflecting Mav’s formality at her side, but she didn’t relax until Stark left the room, the door clicking shut behind her.
Only then did she exhale, her shoulders sagging.
Mav allowed a hand to scrub his face before he let out a long breath, a single word evacuating him on it. “Jesus.”
Ellie forced her hands to stay still on the table, even though every nerve in her body was screaming at her to move. To act. To do something. Plan.
Instead, she turned her eyes to Mav, “well, I think that went super well, don’t you?” The dry smile that pushed up the corners of her lips didn’t reach her eyes.
Mav just shook his head. “You okay?”
Ellie nodded, because what else was there to say? She didn’t need Stark to cut her any slack, in fact, she preferred it that way. As it was, she’d be picking the thorn of Hollywood’s legacy out of her side until the week was over.
“What’s our next move?” Mav was already starting for the door, motioning for Ellie to follow.
Ellie swallowed, squaring her shoulders. “We prove her wrong.”
“Sounds like you have a plan.”
Ellie chewed her lip for only a moment. “I might have one.”
Ellie hadn’t told Mav exactly what her plan was, only that she had one.
The fact that this was her only plan at the moment wasn’t something she had wanted to divulge, because this plan in particular may just come back to bite her.
Ellie leaned against the concrete wall outside the locker rooms, hugging her tablet to her chest. When she’d reached the end of the hall, she waited, timing it just right—most of the pilots had already filtered out after mission training, and she just needed a few minutes to firmly swallow her pride and get a moment alone with Jake.
Coyote strolled past her, chatting animatedly with Fanboy, giving her a tight nod.
Fanboy, however, slowed as he took her in, assessing—his eyes flicking quickly to the tablet she hugged and then to the way she shifted from one foot to the other. His head tilted slightly, the beginnings of a smile curling the edges of his mouth.
“Rigby!” Fanboy held out his fist.
Ellie hesitated, then tapped her knuckles against his. It was enough to make him grin while Coyote rolled his eyes. “Garcia.”
“You coming out tonight?” Fanboy shifted the flight gear bag on his shoulder, lifting it higher.
The look of confusion on Ellie’s face must have been enough, he didn’t miss a beat. “Hard Deck. A bunch of us are going.”
“Oh.” It took her a moment to force a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe.”
Fanboy nodded, but the look of mischief that crossed his face told her he could see past her attempt at indifference. “You should. You always look like you could use a drink.”
Coyote scoffed. “Jesus, Fanboy. Drag her, why don’t you. Just say she looks stressed and get it over with.”
“C’mon man,” Fanboy groaned. “What I’m saying is kick back. Relax a bit.”
Ellie shifted her weight, her eyes flickering to the locker room door as it swung open and a few more pilots–Harvard and Fritz–slipped out.
It would have been fair to say she wasn’t entirely focused.
“Yeah. I mean, maybe?”
Fanboy looked triumphant, providing a quick, almost reflexive double thumbs up as Coyote grabbed the strap of the bag slung over the Wizzo’s shoulder and tugged.
As they walked away, Ellie could have sworn Coyote murmured something to Fanboy that sounded a lot like ‘why are you so goddamn weird, dude?’
Her face was already in her phone, pulling up her browser where her last search stared back at her, the results mocking her:
Reddit – r/AmITheAsshole - Thinking about fucking my co-worker – AITA?
Can Frequent headaches and vivid dreams be a sign of a brain tumor? - WebMD
Tumors & Sleep Disturbances: When Should You See a Doctor? – Mayo Clinic
Headaches and Sex: Could It Be a Neurological Disorder? – VeryWell Health
Urban Dictionary: “Brain Tumor Horny”
Ellie’s scoffed, but her thumb hovered over the first result.
Thinking about fucking my co-worker – AITA? – Posted in r/AmITheAsshole
The absurdity of it almost made her laugh. Almost.
If it weren’t for the pounding in her skull and the realization that this was, in fact, her reality, she would have. Laughed, that is.
Instead, she found herself very seriously debating on whether or not to tap into the rabbit hole and ask Alice.
The sound of the locker room door swinging open and slamming shut barely registered in the background. She heard the boots on the floor moving in the opposite direction, followed by a laugh that sounded like Yale or Payback. When she glanced up, she saw them disappear around the corner at the far end of the hall.
She returned to the glow of the phone for only the briefest of moments when a voice, too close for comfort, cut through her focus.
“Didn’t take you for a Reddit girl.”
Ellie jolted. The phone nearly slipped from her grip as she jammed the lock button and dragged her eyes up, stuffing the device into her pocket.
Teak.
Of course it was fucking Teak.
He, like the presence of a rash of questionable origin, always showed up at the worst possible times.
“Didn’t take you for a Reddit girl,” He repeated as if Ellie hadn’t heard him. She hated the way his eyes traveled from her hip where she tucked her phone away, back up to her eyes, slowly, measured.
“And I didn’t take you for someone who sneaks up to read over shoulders.”
Teak clicked his tongue, shrugged. “Didn’t have to sneak. You were pretty distracted.”
The breath that left Ellie was sharp, fighting against the urge to let him know how annoying and pretentious and pig-headed she thought he was.
Instead, she watched as he shifted, a hand combing through his short, still damp hair before he used it to brace against the wall beside her, head tilted like he was about to deliver the sagest of wisdom. If a tree falls in the forest.
“You know, it must feel fucking terrible,” he mused, and Ellie didn’t miss that his tone dripped with mock sympathy. “Being just... bad at the one thing you’re telling everyone you’re good at.”
Her grip on the tablet tightened. She didn’t blink.
If being a prick was an Olympic event, Nathan Hughes would take the podium. Medal in every event. 10 out of a possible 10 asshole points across the board.
It took her a half second to recover.
“It’s funny you should mention that.” Her voice was smooth, schooled. “I was about to say the same thing to you. I’m glad you brought it up.”
Teak’s expression, shit-eating, faltered for the briefest of moments, before he recovered. But Ellie had seen it.
“If you want to talk about failures, we can,” she continued, her voice level. She barely restrained the sing-song lilt hanging just off stage as she tapped on the screen in her arms. “I have your individual test results right here. Won’t be able to cover it all, of course. But I’d be happy to give you the abridged version.”
Teak’s jaw ticked. Tightened. Relaxed. When his grin returned, it was razor sharp instead of easygoing, fun. “You’re awful cute when you’re defensive, Rigby.”
If looks could kill, Teak would have spontaneously combusted. Reduced to a cancerous ash.
“So, what’s the deal?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the locker room door before his gaze was back on her.
“You lookin’ to corner Seresin? Plan to share some of those search results with him?” His blue eyes flicked toward her hip again, the shape of her phone in her pocket. She wondered if the way his tongue swiped his bottom lip was intentional, his gaze lingering longer than she would have liked. “Or were you hoping to find another pilot?”
He let the insinuation hang between them, watching her, waiting. She felt like a fish in a tank. Teak tapping a finger against the thick walls beside a sign that told him not to. No flash photography. No tapping.
I’d rather eat broken glass.
I’d rather listen to Fanboy explain the plot of every single Fast & Furious movie in excruciating detail, complete with Vin Diesel impressions.
I’d rather spend the next five years in a sensory deprivation tank.
I’d rather let Rooster give a masterclass, step-by-step breakdown of his skincare routine, including optimal moustache grooming techniques and his thoughts on the benefits of double cleansing while properly incorporating retinol.
She’d have to workshop her comebacks.
“Careful, Hughes. Sounds like you’re dangerously close to the neighbourhood of jealousy.”
Teak didn’t waver, but she saw the moment his eyes sharpened.
“Nah,” he drawled, lazy, assured. “I think I’ll let Hangman take the ‘L’ on this one. I like my women a little more—”
Stupid.
Compliant.
Broken.
When he moved, his fingers reaching out to brush the strand of hair that had fallen across her vision, Ellie had already reflexively taken a step back. Oil to his water. If her reaction bothered him, he didn’t show it, instead, his fingers curled back before his hand dropped.
When the locker room door squealed open, it shook Ellie out of survival mode for just long enough. When she tilted her head past Teak’s shoulder, a pilot, bag slung over his shoulder, glasses held in his grip, stepped into the hallway.
Bob.
Relief flooded her, flushing out the cold pit in her stomach.
Thank fuck for Bob. She’d owe him a beer. Or twenty. She’d never been happier to see him.
When he placed the glasses on his face, lenses wiped clean on the hem of his tan uniform shirt, Ellie watched his expression shift from easy to something more guarded when he saw her and then Teak, still braced on the wall, too close.
The door snapped shut before he spoke.
“Hey Rigby.” His tone was cautious, his gaze cutting to her, his eyes locked on hers as if to say, blink twice if you need help.
He pushed the glasses up on his nose. “Everything... good?”
Ellie didn’t hesitate. Didn’t allow Teak, who had already turned and opened his mouth, to speak for her. She imagined he’d tell Bob everything was great. Nothing for him to be concerned about.
The scorpion ferrying across the river on a frog’s back. If Teak spoke first, he’d smooth this over. Shoo Bob away.
“Where’s Seresin?”
Bob blinked as her abrupt tone settled between them. If he picked up on it, he responded anyway. “Still in there. He’s always the last one out.” Bob motioned to his hair with an eyeroll.
Perfect.
Great.
Private conversation. Away from Teak.
Ellie pushed off the wall, ignoring the knowing look Teak shot her as she brushed past him and smiled at Bob.
Right now, Teak and whatever it was that he thought of her was a backburner item.
The heat of the locker room, thick with steam and the scent of soap hanging in the air, hit her hard as the heavy door swung shut behind her.
The staccato rhythm of her heels clicking on the damp tiled floor was punctuated by the slam of a locker.
When she rounded the corner, her fingers a white-knuckled grip on her tablet, it didn’t take long to spot Jake.
Standing near his open locker, towel slung low on his hips, droplets of water still clinging to his skin.
He was rubbing another towel through his hair, oblivious to her presence, the deep cut of his muscles on full display, the ‘v’ of his abs disappearing behind the hem of the cotton at his waist. The dog tags on his bare chest caught the dim light overhead as he dried his hair, and Ellie felt the weight of her shifting thoughts before she could stop them.
Jake, behind her.
One hand gripped tight on her hip, fingers digging into her soft curve, bitingly painful and firm in a way that sent pulses of pleasure rippling straight to her core.
Dog tags dragging across her bare back as he leaned forward to sink his teeth into her side, nipping and teasing as he guided himself to her aching, waiting—
No. Nope.
Clearing her throat, Ellie knocked on the locker closest to her.
The last thing she needed to do was watch him take off the only thing wrapped around his waist with her standing there.
She repeated it to herself until she was convinced it was the last thing she wanted.
Jake turned, one brow arching as he took her in, his eyes sweeping her from head to toe. His smirk was slow, knowing. “Rigby.”
She ignored the way her pulse kicked up at the sound of her name in his mouth. The way it rolled off his tongue, light, airy.
“I need you,” she started, quickly adding an addendum when she noticed how his eyebrow quirked, “your... help.”
The word weighed a metric ton. The vowels and consonants tasted bitter and acrid on the way out.
This was her reality now: asking Jake Seresin for help. Her Hail Mary in the dying seconds of the half. Or was it quarter?
“Well,” he paused for a moment, tossing the towel he’d been drying his hair with to the bench, “this wasn’t on my bingo card for the month.”
“Don’t start.” She warned, her eyes reflexively rolling.
“Start what?” Jake’s hands were in the air now, submissive, nonthreatening, but his lips were already curved into the beginnings of a smirk. “Just... I think I might be hearing things. Sometimes the Gs, they mess with your head...”
She tried to ignore the way his muscles moved beneath his skin as he shrugged, tugging at his ear as if it were waterlogged.
Ellie huffed out a sigh, pulled from deep in the core of her being.
Why had she thought this was going to be easy? Why had she thought Jake would have let her get away with asking him for help without a mild ribbing?
Working past the pride lodged in her throat, actively fighting the part of her brain urging her to turn right around and walk out of here, Ellie forced herself to stay. “I need your help.”
Nope, saying it didn’t get easier the second time around.
Jake blinked, hands finding his hips as he assessed her, his tongue pushing against the inside of his cheek.
Was he—? Did he just flex? Ellie’s eyes flicked to his chest for a fraction of a second and she knew he’d seen it.
“Are you going to say something, or—?” Ellie’s hands flew up before they fell again.
“Just really didn’t see this coming...” he feigned shock, sucking his lip in, biting down.
Ellie let out a strangled groan.
She was going to leave here and tell Mav that her plan had backfired and then she’d take it to the grave of her career as RADM Stark threw a handful of dirt onto the casket.
Here Lies Eleanor Amelia Rigby Neven’s potential.
Foolish enough to ask Jake “Hangman” Seresin for help in her hour of greatest need.
The obituary would request hope and prayer for the career of other women in aviation technology in lieu of flowers.
“Don’t make me regret this, Seresin.”
He grinned but, to her surprise, didn’t push. Instead, he stepped in beside her in a fluid motion, his shoulder nearly brushing hers as he tilted his head to get a better look at the screen.
From the corner of her eye, heart beating erratically at the base of her throat, Ellie watched as his expression shifted, the teasing edge in his eyes giving way to something sharper, more focused.
“Alright,” Jake nodded once toward the tablet in her hand, “show me what you’ve got.”
Ellie hesitated for a moment before swiping, pulling up the parameters she’d been tweaking earlier.
She paused to flex her fingers mid-swipe, the clean, masculine scent of his soap clinging to his skin enveloping her. The awareness of him, his shoulder brushing hers, jarred her concentration, a kite whipping in the wind of a tornado.
He smelled like that stupid candle she’d been conned into buying years ago at the Irvine Spectrum Center Yankee Candle.
Mountain Cabin? Or maybe it was Mountain Lodge?
Tumblr says it’s what the perfect boyfriend smells like! Like, remember that scene in the Avengers movie where Captain America just like, rips apart the log— the sales associate had slipped into a tangent as Ellie carefully placed an overpriced glass jar full of scented wax into her basket.
Now, she wondered whether or not she still had it, packed away somewhere.
By the time she found her way back to her winding train of thought, remembered what her voice was again, Ellie had to clear her throat.
“The system’s good,” she admitted, nudging the data sets around on the screen. “But it’s rigid. It doesn’t account for pilot instinct, for the way you—” she stopped herself for a half beat, “—for the way some pilots push beyond textbook expectations.”
Jake’s gaze shifted, glanced at her, lips twitching. She heard the teasing edge in his voice and didn’t need to look up to know the twinkle was back in his green eyes. “See, was that so hard to say?”
He was enjoying this far too much. Smug jerk.
And yet, Ellie couldn’t help but shake her head, trying to hide a smirk of her own.
“Excruciating.”
And yet, she didn’t want to crush up broken pieces of lightbulb and add it to her morning smoothie instead of sharing space with him.
She didn’t want to listen to Rooster talk about niacinamide as the alternative to being in Jake’s orbit.
The laugh that rumbled in his chest, a genuine, almost surprised sound, made Ellie’s stomach flutter. Caused her skin to prickle as she fought the shiver edging up her spine.
She’d have to add another symptom to her ongoing research (Google search) on tumors, because she definitely didn’t want to unpack that right now.
“Alright, let’s start here,” Jake reached across her, his finger hovering over a spike in the telemetry readings just before a telltale stream of data indicated a system overload redline. “You’re focusing too much on the failsafes—they’re throttling responsiveness.”
He swiped up, his fingers brushing hers as he manipulated the screen and pointed out another less-than-ideal reading. “See, it’s here too.”
Ellie frowned, but as he pointed out another, third data spike, explaining where she needed more flexibility, she saw it—saw the gaps she hadn’t considered, the places where the tech needed to adapt instead of restrict, open up instead of close down.
How had she missed that?
If it had been difficult for her before, to insinuate that Jake’s flying skills were above average, stellar, if she were being completely honest, her next words weren’t any easier.
“Fine. Can you show me how you’d fix it, if you were me?”
When she looked up from the data streams on the screen, Ellie swore she saw Jake’s focus flick up from her lips to her eyes.
“Yeah, I could.”
He shifted beside her and Ellie’s thoughts drifted back to the stupid candle, which she’d (embarrassingly) bought three of. Perfect boyfriend, Mountain Lodge. She hadn’t even burned the thing, just opened the lid and huffed it before squirreling it away again.
“Hard Deck, then? Tonight?”
At least then she could disguise meeting with him as coincidence. They’d both been invited by Fanboy, part of the “bunch of us” collective, she’d say.
Jake was already shaking his head, even before she’d finished.
“Nah. Got a better place in mind.”
“Where?” She was frowning, her brow scrunched together.
“I’ll text you the address.”
Ellie was about to remind him that she hadn’t given him her number, but he was already moving. She felt the coolness of the air in the space he created between them and Ellie stepped forward almost reflexively, chasing the warmth of his presence.
She watched the bands of muscle in his arms, a magpie distracted by a shiny coin, as he reached into his locker and pulled out his phone. In a moment, it was in her hand, the screen opened to a blank contact card. She punched in her contact information and handed it back.
“See you later, Rigby.”
As she turned to leave, Jake grabbed the hem of his towel, tugging it until it fell away, everywhere except for where his hand hovered, just over....
Ellie caught the movement in her periphery, but she kept her eyes forward.
“I’m still here,” she pointed out, pausing near the corner of the bank of lockers.
Jake hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t stop, moving behind the open door of his locker and depositing the phone on the upper shelf.
Ellie swallowed tightly. She was certain—certain—that he could have waited until she left, but he hadn’t. He wasn’t in a rush to cover up or dismiss her. If anything, it felt deliberate. An almost wordless invitation: you can stay if you want to.
She clenched her jaw and forced herself to look away.
“Text me,” she waved her hand dismissive, and without waiting for a response, she strode out the door, her pulse hammering in her throat, the small, steamy room suddenly short of oxygen and far too hot.
Behind her, as the locker room door swung shut, Ellie swore she could hear Jake chuckle.
Hours later, back in her office, Ellie was pouring over the data sets Jake had been pointing out, making quick notes on the data spikes when her phone buzzed against the desk. A new message from an unknown number stared back at her when she flipped it over.
Hope you’re hungry.
Below the text was an address. She frowned as she pulled up the map app and punched it in. When the location popped up, she groaned, scrubbing a hand over her face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
a/n: i am pumped for the next chapter. the tides are changing for ellie/jake. anyone want to take any guesses as to where jake suggests he and ellie meet?
also, the mountain lodge candle theory is real. no, as a canadian, i have not been able to find one. 😫
if you love this series, reblog, comment, like!
tags: @hookslove1592 @mrsevans90 @avengersfan25 @jbennsquared @dempy
@obsessed-fan-alert @djs8891 @lunatygerqueen @khouse712 @alipap3
@yuckosworld @marvelouslyme96 @luckyladycreator2 @lovelylndskies @cardi-bre91
@whatislovevavy @qutequeersstuff @tgmreader @writergirl28 @literal-tv-menace
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@malindacath @b8211na
taglist if you want to be added/removed!
#glen powell#smut#jake seresin fanfiction#jake seresin#jake hangman seresin#jake seresin smut#top gun hangman#top gun maverick#hangman smut#hangman x oc#top gun fanfiction#tom iceman kazansky#rick hollywood neven#(i love you) it's ruining my life#jake hangman seresin x you#jake seresin x reader#bradley rooster bradshaw#rooster top gun#jake seresin fic#jake hangman seresin x oc#jake seresin x oc#jake hangman fic#enemies to lovers#forced proximity#pete maverick mitchell#maverick#found family#slow burn
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New OC, Aethra the aerial jet robot! ✈️✨️
(Lore dump ▼)
Aethra is C.O.R.E’s all-new airborne droid that specializes in defending the skies of planet Nebulous as high up as the stratosphere.
She is the last addition to the Special Service droids and is the most powerful of her two sisters. Being able to exert a force of up to 500,000 N from her legs alone, and has an ultimate stress tolerance of 90,000 PSI when airborne. She is equipped with eight miniature, environment-friendly plasma thrusters that enable her to travel at speeds of up to 10,000 km/h efficiently.
She is one of the strongest droids ever created by C.O.R.E., and is the only droid to be fitted with long-term flight technology, rather than the temporary altitude boosts equipped on the Defense Droids.
I had tons of fun developing her. She was quite difficult to design, so I hope you guys like her! And I wish you all a wonderful Friday! 💙
#art#artists on tumblr#illustration#digital art#oc artwork#procreate art#procreate#robot oc#robot art#robot ocs#my oc art#my oc stuff#myocs#aeromorph#reference sheet
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#ironwing (oc)#ft. altitude. carbonlight and helios#oc stuff#transformers oc#wow! it's in color. sorry I don't have time for polished drawings rn so this'll have to do
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Bewitched - Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Part 1)
Part 1.5 | Part 2 (coming soon)
Summary: After two years since they last saw each other, Bradley and Sadie cross paths again. What started as a heated rivalry turned into something more, only for Rooster to walk away, leaving Sadie with nothing but a voicemail. Now, assigned to the same mission, tension lingers between them.
Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female! OC
Warnings: Just some cursing and fighting. It will contain a lot of smut, angst, jealousy, mention of death, PTSD and panic attacks. It also contains spoilers for the Top Gun movies.
Word Count: 4.4k
Song: Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift / right where you left me by Taylor Swift
Author's note: This is a re-upload of an old fic/idea I posted months ago and rewrote. I've been diving back into writing and decided to write a few parts for this idea. If you have any requests for anyone in the dagger squad, request are always open! Also, this is pure fiction, this isn't going to be 100% accurate and it's just for fun. Enjoy!
-
Someday, when you leave me I bet these memories Follow you around
The tension in the room was suffocating. Sadie felt it when she walked in, but it wasn't from the mission.
It was him.
Bradley Bradshaw.
His gaze was on her, sharp and unreadable, and his jaw locked tight as Admiral Solomon introduced her as the leader. She refused to let her expression waver and acknowledged how her stomach twisted at the sight of him after all this time. Instead, she stood tall, arms folded behind her back, nodding once when Solomon finished speaking.
Her eyes flicked over the group. Phoenix, Hangman, Coyote, and some familiar faces. But she kept coming back to him.
Bradley
She hadn't seen him since—
No.
Not now.
She shoved the thought away as Maverick stepped forward, taking over the briefing. He explained the flight drills, the schedule, and what was expected from them. Sadie barely heard him. She felt Bradley's stare like a weight pressing against her ribs.
She last heard his voice through the voicemail he left her two years ago.
"I can't, I—" his voice broke.
Sadie gripped her phone tighter, pressing it against her ear.
"I'm sorry, Sadie."
And then it cut off. No explanation. No closure.
Maverick's voice pulled her back.
"You all have ten minutes to gear up and meet me on the runway. That includes you, Captain Kazansky."
Sadie nodded, the movement sharp. She turned on her heel and headed for the lockers, blocking out the murmurs behind her. She could feel Bradley watching her go.
It wasn't until she was halfway into her flight gear that it hit her all at once.
The past.
The mission.
The accident.
Him.
Her fingers fumbled with the straps. Her breath came too fast, too shallow. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn't stop them, no matter how hard she tried.
The walls of the locker room blurred at the edges, narrowing into a tunnel.
Not now. Not now. Not now.
She braced herself against the bench, head lowering between her arms. She needed to breathe.
She needed to focus.
But all she could hear was her plane screaming warnings at her—
"Low altitude. Low altitude."
She could feel the violent shake of the controls as she tried to regain control: the sharp snap of the eject handle beneath her fingers, the deafening rush of wind, the crack of her body hitting the ground, the suffocating weight of her helmet pressing against her skull, and the rotor wash of the recovery chopper.
And underneath it all—
"I'm sorry, Sadie."
The voicemail looped in her head like a cruel echo, like a broken record.
A hand landed gently on her shoulder, interrupting the voices in her head. "Sadie."
She jerked up, gasping, eyes wide. Maverick was crouched beside her, concern all over his face. Behind him, Coleman stood near the doorway, arms crossed, observing her.
"It's okay," Maverick said, voice low. "You're okay."
She wasn't.
Coleman exhaled. "You can't fly like this, Captain."
Maverick's hand cradled the side of her face, grounding her. "Watch from the ground. Just for today."
Sadie opened her mouth to argue, but Maverick shook his head.
Her jaw clenched, but she gave a slight nod after a moment.
Maverick pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "I'll handle the others."
When they left, the silence was suffocating and lonely.
Sadie sat back down, pressing the rough skin of her palms into her eyes.
And then—
The past came rushing in.
Two Years Ago
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon when Sadie stepped onto the carrier's deck, the scent of salt and jet fuel thick in the air. She barely had a moment to process the rush of adrenaline still coursing through her before the roar of an approaching F/A-18 forced her to shield her eyes.
Rooster's jet.
Her grip on her helmet tightened. Rooster's wingman had already exited his aircraft, rolling his eyes—annoyed by the situation that could have been avoided.
Out there, the team had to work together. If they wanted to come home alive—and not in a casket—there was no room for mistakes.
She had flown many missions and led countless pilots, but something about this one had her blood running hot. Sadie was used to being undermined by men, used to the names they called her and the rumors that followed. But not once had someone outright disobeyed her orders during a mission.
He was infuriating.
She waited long enough for his wheels to hit the deck before turning sharply and heading toward him. The moment he climbed out of the cockpit, she was there.
"Lieutenant Bradshaw." Her voice was steady and clipped, but a sharp edge was beneath it.
Rooster barely spared her a glance as he pulled off his helmet. "Captain."
Sadie narrowed her eyes. She knew that tone—disinterested, almost dismissive, like she wasn't worth the respect of her rank like she was just some nepotistic baby-playing soldier.
She wasn't in the mood.
Sadie squared her shoulders, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. He towered over her, all broad shoulders and cocky, but she didn't intimidate easily. His chest was puffed out—just like his ego.
"You left your wingman," she said, stepping closer. "You were given a direct order, and you ignored it."
Rooster exhaled sharply, running a hand through his damp, sweaty hair. "I was covering you. You were caught too close to the enemy."
"I was baiting them," she snapped. "That's the point of the maneuver. When I give an order, it's because I know what I'm doing out there. I didn't need saving from you."
His jaw clenched. "That maneuver was reckless."
Sadie let out a humorless laugh. "Reckless?" She took another step toward him, close enough to feel the heat rolling off his flight suit. "You ignored a direct order and left your wingman vulnerable because you thought you knew better."
Rooster's eyes darkened, but he didn't back down. "You could've been shot down."
Sadie tilted her head, studying him. He wasn't entirely wrong—what she did was dangerous. But it was also calculated. Controlled. And it worked every time. She wouldn't pull that maneuver if it put her or, more importantly, her team at unnecessary risk.
"You don't know me, Lieutenant," she said finally, her voice quieter but no less sharp. "And you sure as hell don't know how to follow a simple order."
He scoffed, shaking his head. "I know your reputation."
There it was.
Sadie felt the slow burn of anger in her stomach, but she refused to let it show. Usually, comments like that rolled right off her. She didn't need to prove herself to men who already made up their minds about her. She knew what kind of leader and pilot she was. But something about this—about him—struck a nerve.
"You don't have to like me," she said simply. "But you will follow my orders, or I'll report you. Not just for disobeying a superior but for disrespecting me as a female pilot. If I were a man, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?"
Rooster's throat bobbed as he swallowed, but he said nothing.
Sadie let the silence stretch, letting the weight of her words settle between them. Then, with a steady, unblinking gaze, she added, "You are dismissed, Lieutenant."
His jaw tensed. Sadie could see the fight in his eyes—the urge to argue, to push back. But he couldn't. Because she outranked him.
Rooster exhaled sharply through his nose before muttering, "Yes, ma'am."
They had an audience—of course, they did. She was constantly being watched, waiting for her to falter or overstep. But that wasn't going to happen. Sadie didn't break. She didn't have meltdowns—not like the men did.
Rooster turned away first, gripping his helmet as he stalked off the crowded tarmac. Sadie's gaze flicked to the group of men who had been staring. They quickly pretended to be busy.
She could write him up, but that would mean a lot of paperwork. And she already had enough to deal with, thanks to Rooster's hiccup of leaving his wingman alone.
…
Being on the aircraft carrier always felt like a buzz. Sadie was most alive when she was in the air with her jet. It was thrilling and euphoric. But there was something about being back at base that brought her peace.
She had her family, the new house she'd already moved into. A white corner-lot home with blue shutters, small but hers. But instead of spending the night there, she was going to the bar after a long day catching up on work.
The Hard Deck felt alive with the low hum of conversation mixing with the crack of pool cues and bursts of laughter while the jukebox hummed a rock' n' roll tune. The scent of sea salt and beer lingered in the air, the warm California night spilling through the open doors.
Sadie barely spared the crowd a glance as she stepped inside. She didn't need to—she felt their attention snap toward her the second she walked in. Part of it was her name, her reputation. The other part was the way she looked. There was no denying her effortless beauty. Light brown curls hung loose over her back, starkly contrasting the tight bun she always wore at the base.
As she passed the pool table, movement caught her eye. A group of lieutenants stood around the table, sticks in hand, easy banter flowing between them.
Rooster was among them. She didn't acknowledge him.
Instead, she headed straight for the bar, spotting her friend Mia, a Navy medic, already waiting with a beer in hand.
"You're late," Mia teased, pushing the cold bottle toward her.
Sadie smirked, shrugging off her jacket as she slid onto the barstool. "Had to finish up reports. You know, actual work."
Mia scoffed. "Please. Like you weren't just busy terrorizing another group of pilots."
Sadie clinked her bottle against Mia's glass. "It's both a curse and a gift."
Behind them, Rooster stepped away from the pool table, offering to grab the next round for the group. He didn't have to stand near Sadie, but gravity pulled him there against his will. The bar wasn't packed like usual—he could've ordered from the other side.
But he didn't.
He placed his order and waited, close enough to hear Sadie laugh with her friend.
"It was horrible. The worst lay," she said, laughing as she sipped beer. "And then I had to go on a mission for months with that disappointment."
Mia nearly choked on her drink. "Please tell me you didn't let that man leave without knowing he couldn't fulfill."
"Trust me, I didn't. I told him he could fuck off." Of course, she had. Sadie Kazansky was opinionated and ensured people knew how the fucked up.
Mia cackled, shaking her head. "A good deed for the women's community."
"Karma better pay me back for my good deed soon, please."
"I have a feeling good karma is around the corner for you, babes," Mia said, sliding off the stool. "I gotta hit the bathroom. Be right back."
Rooster clenched his jaw, fingers flexing around his glass.
He wasn't sure why it bothered him—why the thought of her in bed with some guy who didn't know what the hell he was doing got under his skin—but it did.
He didn't know what possessed him to move, but he pushed off the bar, forgetting the round for the guys.
Rooster hovered close behind her, his broad chest brushing against her back as he leaned in, lips just by her ear.
"Is that why you're always cranky? No one can make you come?"
Sadie choked on her beer.
His grin was slow, lazy, dripping with amusement. "Save the choking for later, sweetheart."
She wiped her mouth, whipping her head around with wide eyes. "What the fuck, Bradshaw?"
"Cranky Kazansky," he mused, grabbing the round of beers. "It flows off the tongue so easily." He winked at her before turning away and walking toward the pool table.
He didn't need to look back—he could feel her eyes burning into him.
She didn't mean to. Didn't want to.
But the way his arms flexed as he lined up his shot, the way his fingers curled around the wooden stick, steady and precise—it held her attention longer than she'd like to admit.
How would it feel to have those fingers—
Sadie cut off the thought the moment she felt the heat rise.
Then, Rooster caught her staring.
Mid-shot, he glanced up, his mouth twitching into a knowing smirk. Slowly, he dragged his gaze over her summer dress, showing off her toned calves and thighs. His brain flooded with images of what it would be like to have his head buried between them.
The thought lingered as he went back to his game.
That should've been the end of it. She was his superior. They worked together.
Their thoughts alone weren't professional.
"I'm gonna call it a night. I'm getting too old to be out of my house after eleven," Mia yawned. "Want to ride-share?"
"No, I don't think I'm ready to call it a night." Mia gave her a look but hugged her goodbye anyway.
Sadie leaned against the bar, an almost empty beer bottle dangling from her fingers, waiting for the bartender to finish up with another customer. The young and eager bartender rushed toward her, handing her a fresh bottle with a grin that was too enthusiastic.
Rooster shouldn't care. He shouldn't feel anything about a guy flirting with her.
But the way she laughed at his probably terrible joke, the way she blushed when he refused to take her cash for the beer she shouldn't have been paying for in the first place—
Someone like Sadie shouldn't be wasting her time with inexperienced boys.
"Another game?" Coyote asked, lining up the colored balls on the green table.
Rooster tore his gaze away from Sadie and looked at Coyote instead.
"No, I'll give you a break so you can beat someone," Rooster teased before finishing his beer.
He was about to offer to grab another round—maybe as an excuse to be near Sadie—but he saw her heading toward the bathroom.
"I'll be right back," he said.
Coyote, oblivious to where Rooster was looking, scoffed. "Sure, you're just lucky. I can beat you at this stupid game."
Rooster tossed his empty bottle into the trash and strode after Sadie. She didn't hear his approach over the music, but suddenly, he grabbed her arm and pushed her against the wall in the dimly lit bathroom hallway. His palm braced the back of her head, protecting her from hitting the hard surface, while his other hand gripped her waist.
"Are you going home with him?" His voice was low, rough—more desperate than he intended.
Sadie's breath hitched, her eyes widening in shock at how quickly he had her pinned. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"The bartender." Rooster's grip on her waist tightened slightly. "Don't go with him."
Sadie stared at him, her lips slightly parted, but the bathroom door creaked open before she could speak. She shoved Rooster off, making him stumble back just as a drunk old man staggered out, barely sparing them a glance.
When he was out of sight, Sadie grabbed Rooster by the front of his shirt and pulled him into the small bathroom. She shoved him against the worn-out door, locking it in the process.
Rooster barely had time to react before she yanked him down into a messy, desperate kiss. She took control immediately, tugging his unbuttoned shirt over his shoulders as their mouths warred against each other. His large hands settled on her waist, pulling her flush against him.
Sadie moaned at the feel of him hardening against her through his jeans. He let her think she was in control—until she started unbuckling his belt. That was when he decided he'd had enough.
In one swift motion, he spun them around, pressing her back against the door before dropping to his knees. His hands skimmed up her thighs, pushing the skirt of her dress higher.
Then, with a flick of his fingers, he slid her underwear down and tossed it over his shoulder carelessly toward the sink.
Neither of them spoke. Their heavy breathing filled the small space, the air thick with anticipation.
Rooster hooked his hand under her thigh, lifting her leg to wrap around his waist. Sadie leaned in, biting down on the skin of his neck, impatient, rushing him.
He let out a low groan, his grip tightening on her as he lined himself up at her entrance. His hand slid up to wrap gently around her throat, forcing her eyes to meet his.
"Eager, are we, Captain?" he rasped, sliding into her.
Sadie parted her lips to retort, but her words never left her tongue. Instead, her head fell back against the door, pleasure crashing over her.
Rooster watched her—the way her head tilted back, lips parted in a silent gasp—the way her walls squeezed around him, and she wasn't even full of him yet. His grip on her thigh tightened as he thrust into her, slow at first, letting her adjust, savoring every second.
Sadie clawed at his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, desperate to ground herself. Fuck. Her breathless curse barely passed her lips as her hands tangled in his hair.
Rooster groaned, low and guttural like he hadn't expected this to feel so damn good. He'd told himself this would be a one-time thing, a way to fuck out the steam and tension between them. But the way she squirmed beneath him, the way their bodies moved together in sync—he knew it was going to take more than walking out of this bathroom to let her go.
And they had barely even started.
"Shit, Sadie," he muttered, his forehead dropping to hers as he tightened his grip on her waist, pulling her impossibly closer. He was holding back, trying to make the feeling last—for her, for him.
He couldn't lose control. Not yet.
Sadie's breath hitched, her fingers slipping down to the open buttons of his Hawaiian shirt, fisting the fabric. "Harder," she pleaded, chasing the coil tightening inside her.
Rooster cursed under his breath, his restraint slipping, and obeyed, driving into her with more force. His hands gripped her like he was molding himself to her as if he wanted to carve this moment into his memory.
Sadie's head hit the door, lips parting in a sharp gasp. She wasn't quiet—he should've known she wouldn't be.
"Shh," Rooster hushed, his voice edged with amusement. "You don't want the whole bar knowing what I'm doing to you, do you?"
Sadie huffed a breathless laugh, her grip tightening around his shoulders. "Then show me how a man really fucks," she challenged, her voice dripping with defiance.
That was it. That was the moment he lost himself completely.
With a growl, Rooster lifted her higher, pressing her against the door. He felt her shudder, her fingers threading through his hair. Then her gaze flickered behind him, and he followed it—to the mirror on the wall, perfectly angled so she could see everything.
A wicked smirk spread across his face. "That's right," he murmured, voice rough, his lips brushing against her jaw. "Watch yourself while I fuck you."
Sadie whimpered, her nails digging into his back as the sight of them—of how perfectly they moved together—pushed her over the edge. She bit down on his shoulder, muffling the sound of her moan as she shattered around him.
"Bradshaw," she whimpered, breathless, and the way his name tumbled from her lips was all it took to send him spiraling after her. With a sharp curse, he buried himself deep, his forehead pressing against hers as the aftershocks ran through them both.
For a long second, neither of them moved. Their heavy breathing filled the small space, mixing with the low music hum and the bar's distant chatter beyond the door.
Rooster watched her—how her chest rose and fell, her hair clinging to her damp skin, the faint blush on her cheeks.
That was his doing.
Slowly, he eased back, his hands still firm on her waist, careful with her.
Sadie finally opened her eyes, glancing toward the door. Without a word, she smoothed down her dress, already putting herself back together. But when she caught her reflection in the mirror, her cheeks darkened further, and her lips curved slightly as she tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.
Rooster hesitated, buttoning his jeans and tucking himself away. There was something in the air between them—something neither acknowledged.
He decided to keep it light. "Ladies first, Captain." He opened the door for her when she was ready.
Sadie shot him one last look, searching his face as if trying to read his thoughts, but she said nothing. Then, without another word, she slipped out.
Rooster leaned against the wall for a moment longer, exhaling as he ran a hand through his hair. He turned toward the sink—and that's when he saw them.
Her lilac lace panties were neatly abandoned on the counter.
A slow smirk curled at the corner of his lips.
That's my sign.
He swiped them off the sink and stuffed them into his pocket before slipping out of the bathroom minutes later.
His eyes scanned the bar for her, but she was already gone.
"Hey, the guys are calling it a night. Are you good?" Coyote's voice broke his thoughts as he nodded toward Rooster's untouched drink.
Rooster blinked, then forced a smirk as he pulled out his wallet. "Yeah. Just tired."
He tossed some cash onto the bar and downed the last drops of his beer, but his fingers brushed against the lace in his pocket as he walked out into the night.
Yeah, he had a feeling this wasn't the last time.
Present
The locker room was empty. Bradley assumed everyone had gone back to their assigned living quarters. The dim overhead lights flickered and hummed, casting uneven shadows against the metal lockers. Rooster's jaw was tight, his flight suit half unzipped as he tore off his gear, muttering under his breath.
"Stupid. Fucking stupid," he hissed, barely registering his own voice. He was thrilled to be at TOPGUN, following in his father's footsteps, but he had to go and fuck everything up. He had to let his emotions slip earlier that day with Maverick. His fingers curled into a fist before he slammed it into the locker beside him. The sound cracked through the room, echoing off the walls.
A sharp inhale from across the room made him freeze.
He wasn't alone.
His eyes flicked up, breath still heavy, and landed on her.
Sadie stood on the other side of the room, her hand clutched to her chest like she had jumped at the sound. Her eyes were wide, guarded—but only for a split second. Then, just as quickly, her expression smoothed into something unreadable.
"Sorry, Captain," Rooster muttered, turning away, focusing on peeling off his flight suit like she wasn't there. Like she didn't matter.
Sadie exhaled sharply through her nose, shaking her head. "What you and Maverick did up there was reckless."
He looked at her, debating if he had the energy to defend himself. She couldn't even begin to understand how Maverick had set him back.
"If you want to go to that assignment, you must keep your recklessness in check, Bradshaw. I can't have you flying if you can't control your emotions and put the rest of the team at risk."
Rooster let out a sharp laugh, humorless, bitter. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."
Sadie looked up from her zipped-up bag, her jaw clenched as her eyes locked onto his, filled with anger and—sadness?
"You don't understand what I've been through," he continued, voice rough, turning toward her now. "Especially with him. You don't know what it is to struggle, to grieve—"
"No, you don't know what I've gone through," Sadie cut in, her voice echoing through the locker room, her eyes still locked onto his. "And the weight I carry every single fucking day."
Something flickered in Rooster's expression, but she didn't stop. He hadn't seen her like this—not like before.
"You knew a version of me that no longer exists," she said, quiet but firm, slicing through him like a knife. "The person you're looking at is a version that doesn't have you in it."
Rooster's heart ached—it had never stopped, not since the moment he ended that voicemail years ago. He thought that at some point when they met again, she would have moved on. Maybe married and had a kid—a thought that haunted him for years. Deep inside, he hoped it hadn't come true.
He looked at her for the first time since she walked in. Really looked at her.
He had noticed it before when his eyes landed on her earlier that day. She looked different. She was still Sadie Kazansky—shoulders squared, confidence unwavering to the average person. But he had seen it, just for a second. A slip.
After he got grounded and did his push-ups for Coleman, he noticed her hands shaking. He sensed it. Something about her was different; he couldn't pin it down yet.
Rooster's lips parted, his hand aching to reach for her, but Sadie didn't give him a chance to respond. She grabbed her bag, threw it over her shoulder, and walked past him without another word.
The door swung shut behind her, leaving Rooster alone in the locker room—heart pounding, jaw clenched, and the weight of her words pressing against his chest like a vice.
A version that doesn't have you in it.
Sadie held her breath as she walked down the corridor toward her car. She left the base, desperate to get home—to her safe place—but the moment the wheels of her Jeep crossed the gate, her vision blurred with tears.
She swerved into her driveway, slammed the Jeep to a stop, and punched the wheel, her screams ripping through the silence.
All day, she had been holding it in. And being in that room alone with Rooster had nearly made her break. It nearly made her scream, letting everything out.
But he had made his choice.
He didn't want her in his life, and he made it clear when he left her stranded at the gala.
And she wouldn't allow him to witness the broken version he left behind.
#Bradley Rooster Bradshaw x OC#Bradley Bradshaw fic#Bradley Bradshaw fanfic#Bradley Bradshaw imagines#bradley bradshaw fics#bradley bradshaw smut#top gun maverick imagines#top gun imagines#top gun maverick fics#Miles Teller fics#Miles Teller Fanfics#Bradley Rooster Bradshaw#Bradley Bradshaw#Rooster Bradshaw Fic#Rooster Bradshaw imagines
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na’vi oc im working on hes a high altitude/mountain na’vi which reside on the floating islands which is why they look different they are built for lower oxygen and withstanding cold (by having higher metabolisms) im planning on making more types of na’vi and building more lore with them! this guy will either be called Thorn’khet or Fior’lan
#na’vi oc#navi avatar#na’vi art#na’vi clan#na’vi avatar#navi oc#avatar the way of water#avatar 2009#avatar frontiers of pandora#oc art#original character#my ocs
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🫵 GET FANART-ED
Altitude (Alti) belongs to me
Solaris belongs to @bunningchaos
Ya-yeet! A 'Varient' of a Swap Skele!
Imsosorrybutthemispellingistoofunny
Alti, belongs to @neverniko101 !
Solaris belongs to me ^^;
#solaris sans#altitude sans#utmv#swap sans#art#my art#artwork#digital art#sans#sans undertale#underswap#undertale oc#alllll the tags#neverniko101#undertale#krxken!tale
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Breaking Altitude
Pairing: Natasha ‘Phoenix’ Trace x Female OC (original Character)
Summary: When talk show host Graham Norton accidentally reveals the secret marriage between Oscar-winning actress Manisha Klementieff and Navy pilot Natasha “Phoenix” Trace on live TV, the world is stunned—especially Natasha. Thrust into the spotlight without warning, the couple must confront the fallout.
Word Count: 2.6k
Tags: wuh-luh-wuh (wlw), soft Natasha, soft oc, fluff, angst with a happy ending, fake Instagram post
Warnings: Angst, swearing, argument (only slightly), forced coming-out, forced relationship exposure, switching POV throughout the fic.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not claim to know any of the people involved as they are fictional characters.
Note: Hi everyone! I’ve been obsessed with Phoenix since Top Gun: Maverick was released. I’ve also realised that she doesn’t really have many fics so I’ve decided to rectify that lol.
I’ve not really written angst before so I hope you all like it 😬
I decided to use Pom Klementieff’s last name for my OC because I can lol. Feel free to insert a different name when you are reading it tho!
I hope you all enjoy reading it and feel free to comment/ ask any thoughts, feelings and opinions



Manisha Klementieff was one of the most sought after actresses in Hollywood. She has starred in major blockbuster movies such as, Wicked as well as having a recurring role in the Marvel franchise.
The cab pulled up in front of the house. The sky was completely pitch black, not even a light on in any of the houses on the street. She thanked the driver and grabbed her suitcase from the back of the car. She walked the short distance from the curb to the front door of the house.
Manisha unlocked the door and hauled her suitcase inside, trying to be as quiet as possible. She knew how late it was and she knew that no one in the house would be awake at this time of the night. Perfect, she thought, a small smile appearing on her face.
She left her bags by the front door, toed her shoes off and started making her way up the stairs, towards her bedroom. The door to her bedroom was shut. She carefully, and quietly, prised the door open and stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her. She immediately noticed that the Tv that was on the wall opposite the bed was still on, volume turned down low. She saw that her interview from The Josh Reynolds talk Show was playing on the tv. The interview she had just returned home from. She started walking towards the bed, gingerly peeling back the covers so that she could slip inside. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was out like a light.
“Oh my god”
Manisha was awoken by a very bright light, and a very loud voice. She opened her eyes, squinting slightly. She turned her head to see that one of the lamps that were placed on the bedside tables on either side of the bed, had been turned on. She turned her head more and saw Natasha stood at the side of the bed, shock covering her face.
“Oh my god what?” Manisha mumbled, turning back to press her face into her pillow once again.
“Your back!” Natasha said, excitedly.
“I know.” Manisha mumbled, as she tried not to slip back out of consciousness.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” Natasha whispered, still standing at the edge of their bed.
“I wanted to surprise you” Manisha stated, eyes drooping once again.
After a beat of silence, Manisha spoke once again.
“Can we talk tomorrow? Come back to bed?” She reached out an arm, grabbing Natasha and pulling her towards the bed. Natasha flopped onto the mattress with a soft thump. Manisha pulled the covers over the both of them and pulled Natasha close. Natasha instantly relaxed and curled into Manisha, practically lying on top of her.
The next day Natasha had to get up early for work and she was seriously contemplating calling in sick, not that she would get away with that, she literally worked for the US military. She reluctantly pulled herself out of bed, giving Manisha a forehead kiss before she left for work.
After the mission, all of the Dagger Squad had been asked to stay at Top Gun and complete the missions that no one else in the Navy was skilled enough to complete. Meaning that Natasha, and the rest of the Dagger Squad, could stay in San Diego without fear of having to move to a different part of the country.
“Hey Phoenix” Bob called, running up to her.
“Hey Bob. How was your evening?” She asked.
“Good. Good. I’m not even going to ask how yours was. I’m sure you’ve already seen it” Bob said laughing.
“Seen what?” Natasha’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
Bob opened his mouth to speak but before he could answer, they ran into Rooster and Hangman.
“Hey Phoenix. How was your evening?” Hangman asked, teasingly.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Natasha was now very confused. She looked to Rooster for clarification but got none in return.
“Oh my god. You haven’t seen it?”
Great, now Coyote and Fanboy were getting involved. Natasha rolled her eyes slightly.
“Haven’t seen what?” She asked desperately.
Bob pulled her to the side, away from the rest of the squad.
“You really haven’t seen it?” He whispered.
“No!” Natasha shook her head.
Bob pulled out his phone and started typing. He then handed the phone to Natasha. She slowly looked down at the screen before looking back at Bob. The thumbnail of the video was a photo of Manisha on the Josh Reynolds talk Show. Natasha had tried so hard to stay up late so that she could watch the interview live but as soon as she got into bed to watch it, she fell asleep, completely missing the interview.
Natasha pressed play on the video.
*The Video*
“Hello everyone! Welcome back to the Josh Reynolds Show! Now, Manisha, you have never been on the show before” Josh Reynolds said energetically, whilst pointing at Manisha.
“No I have not. Which is quite shocking to be honest” Manisha laughed.
The video then cut to later on in the show when Reynolds was asking Manisha about the new movie that she had written, starred in and produced.
“So, what did your family think of this movie? Because you took them to a local cinema to watch it with them” A photo of Manisha outside of a movie theatre with her parents and her brother came up on the screen.
“Yeah I did! They couldn’t make it to the premiere so I took them to a cinema so that they could watch it with me and it could be our own little premiere for the film” Manisha stated, a slight blush on her face.
“Aww that is very sweet!” Reynolds said.
Natasha was confused as to why she was being shown this video. She didn’t see anything wrong with the interview.
Before that thought could even fully form in her mind, her stomach dropped.
A photo of Manisha and Natasha came onto the screen. In the photo, they were inside of the theatre, kissing in front of the poster for the movie. Natasha’s heart stopped. She watched Manisha’s smile drop slightly, before she quickly recovered, clearly remembering that she was being filmed.
She laughed. “Wow! Where did you get that photo from?” She tried to play the question off as a joke but she was clearly irritated. Irritated that someone had shared this photo, the photo that she posted on her private instagram. Irritated that Josh Reynolds, a queer man, would do something like this with the knowledge that Manisha wasn’t even out yet.
“Wouldn’t you like to know” Josh joked, his smugness practically covering his face.
“Who is that?” He pressed.
“The person in the photo?” Manisha asked, pointing at the photo. Natasha watched as Manisha’s hand shook slightly.
“Obviously” Reynolds laughed, jokingly rolling his eyes. The rest of the audience did too.
“That’s my wife” Manisha said. Clearly Josh was not expecting her to say that. He spluttered out incoherent words, clearly shocked at Manisha’s forwardness.
The video stopped.
Natasha looked up from the phone in shock. Her hands were shaking as she handed the phone back to Bob.
“I have to go!” Natasha managed to get out before she practically ran down the corridor, away from the rest of the squad.
She ripped her own phone out of her pocket, coming face to face with the photo on her Lock Screen, the very same photo that had been shown on the video. A photo that usually brought her so much comfort and joy, but in the moment, only made her feel more nauseous than she already did. She shook her head, unlocked her phone and immediately dialed Manisha’s number with shaky hands.
The phone rang twice before Manisha picked up.
“Hello?” She said, voice groggy, clearly having just woken up.
“What the hell?!” Natasha practically shouted. She caught the eye of someone passing her in the corridor and stormed into one of the empty classrooms that she was passing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She was clearly upset.
Manisha shot into an upright position, having previously been lying down.
“Shit” she mumbled. She immediately knew exactly what Natasha was talking about.
“ ‘SHIT’ IS EXACTLY RIGHT! Is this why you came home early without telling me?” Natasha’s voice cracked slightly.
“No. No. No. No that’s not why I came home early” Manisha said rapidly.
“Okay maybe it is. But I did it because I didn’t want you to find out from the internet. I was going to tell you, I promise. I was supposed to get back home this morning, not last night, and I was going to tell you everything when we were both awake and we could talk about it properly” Manisha explained, voice going up an octave or two.
“You- you- I can’t believe you! I can’t believe this situation. How could he do that? How could you do that?!” Natasha was at a loss for words.
“How could I do that? What are you talking about? I had no other choice. It’s not like you didn’t want our relationship to be public so I don’t know why you are getting upset.” Manisha said defensively.
“I-ugh I’m not upset with you. Of course I wanted our relationship to be public. I’ve wanted that for so long, to be able to hold your hand in public and go on dates with you but this is not how it was supposed to go. I’m upset with that- that man. How could he do something like this?!” Natasha said aspiratedly.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how he found out but he did and now everyone knows” Manisha couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
“Stop laughing” Natasha snapped, she was laughing slightly too.
“I already asked my manager to hire a lawyer as soon as I got out of the interview last night. Don’t worry, go back to work, I’ll handle everything.” Manisha reassured. The knowledge that Manisha would sort it all out, and had already taken action to do so, seemed to calm Natasha’s nerves slightly. Her breathing had returned back to normal, having gotten more and more laboured the longer she talked about the situation.
“Okay. Okay. I will.” Natasha sighed, her hand scraping over her face.
“I love you” she whispered.
“I love you too. Don’t you about a thing. I will sort everything out. Just focus on being the most talented pilot in the Navy” Manisha whispered back, trying to make Natasha smile. Which she did.
Manisha knew that Natasha was trying to be strong for her. Natasha had only just found out but Manisha had already had time to think about and process the situation. Manisha wanted to let Natasha know that she didn’t have to be strong for her, that she could break down and Manisha would be there to pick the pieces back up.
“Are you okay?”
Natasha turned around and saw that the entire Dagger Squad was stood in the doorway of the classroom she was in.
“Yeah I’m okay” Natasha roughly wiped her face.
“It’s okay if you're not.” Rooster said softly.
And that was the rain that caused the dam to break.
“I just don’t understand” Natasha sobbed.
She felt two arms wrap around her, and then another two arms, and then another. She opened her eyes and saw that the entire Dagger Squad had moved from the doorway and had wrapped their arms around her in a comforting, and slightly suffocating, embrace. It warmed her heart to know that she had people that she could lean on during a situation as horrible as this one.
Manisha’s manager had already emailed her the night before with the list of high profile lawyers. Manisha had already contacted the most experienced, and therefore the most expensive, attorney on the list.
Manisha had decided to make a statement online addressing what had happened. She made sure to express her anger and her determination to not let this behaviour stand. The responses that she received were overwhelmingly supportive which only reinforced her confidence in the decision to sue.
ManishaKlementieff



🩷 💬 📩
26 million likes 120 thousand comments 456 shares
Guess the cat is out of the bag.
Never in my life did I expect that I would not be the one to announce my own relationship, yet here we are.
I am disgusted at how this news has come out. Whilst I am obviously delighted that I can now post my gorgeous wife and show my love for her publicly, I am horrified that this news was published without my knowledge or my consent or my wife’s. We have absolutely no idea how the photo was even found but we ask for you to not share, repost or interact with the photo as it was and continues to be, a massive invasion of not only my privacy but the privacy of my wife too.
There were many reasons as to why I did not share the knowledge of my marriage or share my wife’s face and we both ask that people respect that.
We are still in shock that this has happened. We will be dealing with this accordingly as this should not still be something that happens to anyone, no matter if they are a public figure or not.
This is a completely shocking situation especially when so many people who were, and still are, involved in the situation were part of the LGBTQ+ community. We, as a community, should be empowering each other and supporting each other and yet neither of those things have happened to us in this situation.
Naturally, I will be taking a break from social media as well as any public appearances until this situation is dealt with.
Both me and my wife thank those who HAVE been supportive and have been respectful and we appreciate how kind you have been!
Thank you.
Mishi
Comments
User1: omg congrats! I can’t believe that this has happened to you. Sending you love through my prayers
User2: I’m reporting any posts of the photos
User3: YOUR’E GAY?!!
User4: WOW CONGRATULATIONS! THIS IS AMAZINGGGG
User5: OMG NOW I HAVE A SHOT WITH HER 🫶🫶 jk congrats on the announcement! That man was completely out of line
User6: I can’t believe someone as respected as Josh Reynolds would do something like that on LIVE television. I was in complete shock when I was watching it. Wishing you and your wife all the best!
User7: that Josh Reynolds she be sacked! That is completely unacceptable
User8: I expected better from a queer man. That is not how we treat others in the community. I have never liked Josh Reynolds
User9: Josh Reynolds is a nasty piece of work. How does he even have a platform???!!!!!!

Almost three years later, Manisha and Natasha had won the lawsuit against Josh Reynolds and the Josh Reynolds talk Show. The show had ended up getting cancelled by the streaming network as a result of the lawsuit and the actions of people involved with the show.
The couple had decided that even though their relationship was now public, they were still going to keep their relationship private.
The women had decided that even though their relationship had been exposed without their consent, it may have actually been a good thing. It only seemed to bring the two of them closer together. It also happened to open up a whole new perspective on life for the two of them, as well as new priorities. They had adopted a daughter, Jinni, over two years ago, and were moving on with their lives.
They couldn’t be happier with the life and the family they had built together.
#x reader#natasha trace#natasha phoenix trace#Phoenix trace x reader#Natasha phoenix trace x reader#natasha trace x reader#phoenix trace#top gun maverick#top gun fanfiction#top gun fandom#top gun movie#top gun 1986#top gun x reader#bradley rooster bradshaw#bradley bradshaw x reader#bob floyd#bob floyd x reader#Natasha trace x you#Natasha phoenix trace x you#jake hangman seresin#top gun phoenix#top gun bob#top gun iceman#top gun hangman#x oc#female oc#wuh luh wuh#wlw post#wlw#wlw love
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Glossary of Terms linked to (i love you) it's ruining my life - jake "hangman" seresin x f!oc
Ace (Flying Ace or Fighter Ace) = Military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat.
Avionics = Advanced processors and networking systems to fiber optics and conformal wideband antennas, etc.
Bandit = an aircraft identified and verified as enemy.
Bogey = radar or visual contact whose identity is unknown and not yet verified as an enemy. Bogey can also be a friendly once identified.
Break (right/left) = when an aircraft is instructed to sharply turn left/right, essentially "breaking" away from its current flight path to the left/right side
HUD = "Head-Up Display," for fighter pilots is a transparent screen in the cockpit that projects critical flight information directly into the pilot's line of sight, allowing them to view essential data like airspeed, altitude, heading, and weapon targeting details without needing to look away from the outside environment, maintaining situational awareness during flight operations.
Lt. = Lieutenant (rank)
Lt. Cmdr = Lieutenant Commander (rank)
LTJG = Lieutenant Junior Grade (rank)
Preflight checks = a thorough inspection that pilots perform on an aircraft before each flight, meticulously examining its exterior, systems, controls, and documentation to ensure it is in a safe condition to fly, identifying any potential issues that could compromise flight safety by checking for damage, fluid levels, proper functionality of components, and reviewing necessary paperwork.
Qual(ification) hop = refers to a flight performed by a pilot to demonstrate proficiency in a specific skill or maneuver required for certification or qualification. In the military aviation world, pilots must complete these hops to be officially qualified to perform certain missions, fly specific aircraft, or execute advanced tactics.
RADM = Rear Admiral (rank)
RIO = Radar Intercept Officer (now known as WSO)
SAM(s) = Surface to Air Missile(s)
Splash = typically refers to the moment of impact when a bomb or missile hits its target, essentially signifying the detonation or "splash" of the explosive upon contact.
Tally = communication used to tell a controller they are about to engage enemy aircraft. Also used to announce to the squadron leader (or other person of command in the flight) the spotting of an enemy aircraft.
Telemetry = the collection of data from a remote and usually fast-moving device for measurement purposes. It is used in aircraft/missile testing to track moving objects in action or collect data provided by instruments and sensors on the test object.
Tone = fighter pilot speak for a missile or weapons lock. When a pilot is tracking a target the computer will beeping as it acquires a lock-on, which changes to a continuous tone when lock is established.
VFA = Strike Fighter Squadron
Weapons envelope = the area around the bandit where your missiles or gun can be effective.
WSO = Weapons System Operator (formerly known as RIO)
NATOPS F-18 Manual
Am I missing any? Send me an ask!
#jake seresin#glen powell#jake hangman seresin#(i love you) it's ruining my life#top gun hangman#rooster top gun#top gun maverick#top gun#dagger squad#smut#jake seresin fanfiction#jake seresin smut#hangman smut#hangman x oc#top gun fanfiction#tom iceman kazansky#rick hollywood neven#jake hangman seresin x you#jake seresin x reader#bradley rooster bradshaw#jake seresin fic#jake hangman seresin x oc#jake seresin x oc#jake hangman fic#enemies to lovers#forced proximity#pete maverick mitchell#maverick
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