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the-ace-with-spades · 9 months ago

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Someone posted about Jake having a sister who is deaf and uses ASL (I can't find it, sorry) and it woke up the fic idea I had some time ago from hibernation

An AU where shortly after Carole's death, Bradley starts losing his hearing. At first, Mav thinks it's just a lack of focus and him being inside his head too much (which, normal given the mourning/depressive state of Bradley's emotions at the time). But then he and Ice notice it only happens when they're on his right side and start to get worried.

A visit with a family doctor and a visit with an audiologist later, and they find out his hearing loss is expected to progress, they just don't know how far — it can stay mild, it can get worse over the years, or it can get worse quickly. It's probably been happening for some time already, they might have not noticed because so much was happening (which Mav will forever feel guilty about).

Mav and Ice are left to explain all that this implies to Bradley. Mainly that Bradley will never be able to become a pilot with hearing loss, even if it stays mild. And even at thirteen, almost fourteen, all he's always wanted to be was a pilot and they have to break the news to him — even if his hearing doesn't get worse, he won't be able to join the Navy in any deployable role.

Obviously, it doesn't go well. Bradley is in denial, rebelling against anything related to the hearing loss — won't go to the SLT, to the audiologist, won't wear the hearing aids.

Until he starts high school after the summer break and realizes he can't hear the teachers well — not in the front seat, not when the classroom is silent. Turns out, the hearing aids are not enough — he needs a new set up already.

Mav takes out a sabbatical and they start everything from the beginning. New audiologist appointments, new hearing aids, new ASL lessons for the two of them, and some extra ones for Ice as well, lip reading lessons, SLT. Bradley doesn't have a choice, his hearing is getting worse and either he will adapt or his life is going to get difficult — and they're in a good enough situation, financially, and with Mav and Ice caring enough, that he can adapt as much as possible.

By the time he's in junior year, his hearing loss is severe. Their options are either sending Bradley to a boarding school for deaf kids or having him have an interpreter at school. Bradley feels strange about the boarding school so he has an interpreter for the rest of high school — which doesn't get him many friends...

College-wise, he doesn't know what to do. There's a few colleges in California that offer programs with support for deaf students, but the degrees are limited. Eventually, he decides to enroll in the Rochester NTID for aerospace/mechanical engineering and it kinda changes his perspective a lot.

There are other deaf students on campus, some even on his course, and it shows him so many different ways life can be still okay — he's never met anyone deaf his age before and being friends with people who either lost their hearing like him or were born deaf and had been involved in the Deaf community for years is amazing eye-opening. He stops being so bitter about life, even if he'll never stop feeling sad about not realizing his dreams. It teaches him to not care about what others think he is capable or not capable of doing and just do his own thing.

The Institute also has great support, also including the newest hearing aid tech. Cochlear implants only became widely available when he was finishing high school and despite many people celebrating being Deaf on campus, there's many people who also opted to have surgery or implants to help restore or conserve their hearing.

By the time Bradley gets the cochlear implants (funded mostly by Mav and Ice), he's not that set on having them, actually, not as much as he was when he was seventeen and they just came onto the market for kids. In fact, he only wears them for the purpose of work (he gets a civilian contractor job for the US Air Force of all places...) and prefers to have them off when he's at home or around people who know ASL (which is most of their family now). Being deaf is part of him, a part that is bigger and more settled than the part that used to wish he was 'normal'.

He only swaps the implants for a newer model sometime around the early 2010s because they can actually meet the FAA regulations and at the age of twenty-seven, Bradley is finally able to get his pilot license and then a commercial pilot license.

Now the hangster bit...

TG:M happens — Mav is there with the team obviously but Bradley is kinda around him because he's been contracted by the Navy the past few years (kinda like Charlie) and working with Mav in China Lake before.

Bradley shares the office with Mav and they hang around whenever Mav isn't training the Daggers — the whole group is kind of speculating on who he is — and Jake actually meets him once when he's looking for Mav and comes to the office.

He makes an ass out of himself (because this is Jake Sersin we're talking about) and basically shouts at Bradley, who is not wearing his hearing aids at the moment (he's doing paperwork, near the airfield, it's easier to focus if he doesn't hear ever single aircraft taking off) and gets super humbled when Bradley looks at him and only then clicks his very visible external processor on, and then asks him if he needed something.

After the mission, Mav and the Daggers stay close, work and outside as well (trauma bonding, even though Bradley calls them his little ducklings). This means Bradley is around them a lot, too.

Around the Daggers, Bradley wears the cochlear implants almost all the time, just for the sake of being able to be part of the conversation and having a better grip on the background noise and to know what is happening around him.

Now, this is when Jake gets a little... enamored.

Bradley is objectively cool, okay? He's deaf, but he's a commercial pilot and a stunt pilot on the side, he likes to jump out of planes (for research), he volunteers as an ASL interpreter and is certified to interpret. He's hot as well and Jake's brain overheats anytime he answers his half-flirty remarks with the same, if not bigger, force.

And Jake is a bit smitten, but Bradley never really makes a move. He's obviously contemplating making a move himself — Bradley is chill, even if it was a no, he'd not make a big deal out of it — but he's also his CO's kid and the COMPACFLT's kid and like, Jake doesn't wanna be the one to cross the line.

It's Mav who tells him — when he notices him staring at Bradley playing piano (and isn't that super cool? he's deaf and he can play piano better than anyone Jake knows) — that if he wants it, he should go for it because Bradley is too shy to make the first move, ever.

So one evening when they're at a barbecue at Mav's, Jake stays late, basically the only one left, and he is helping Bradley bring the dirty dishes into the kitchen, and Mav leaves them alone (giving him a goddamn wink as he steps out...)

The second Bradley begins with, Look, I'm flattered, he knows he's in a losing position, but tries to negotiate anyway — because he can see Bradley does like him, and for whatever reason, he just needs to point out it's enough and that he can see they have some chemistry and he promises to treat him to a good time if he gives him a chance.

So Bradley tells him how it is — he hasn't dated anyone who isn't deaf/hoh since he was nineteen and he doesn't plan to. Jake is great and he's sure they'd have great chemistry, but he's not the type to do the casual bit and he's pretty sure Jake will never make the effort he needs him to make because he doesn't understand how big part of Bradley being deaf is.

Jake denies it — so Bradley starts signing at him the alphabet (the first thing people learn when they learn ASL usually) and Jake just blinks at him dumbly, proving his point.

Obviously, Jake doesn't get it and says exactly what Bradley expected him to say, Well, I don't really need to know it, you've got the hearing aids.

And to Bradley, it proves that he's either not thinking of them as something long-term or that he just doesn't get what Bradley being deaf means, long-term, for his life. You realize I don't wear them all the time, right? Not at home, not around family, not around most of my friends. Wearing them constantly is exhausting. What will you do when I take them off? Or do you just expect me to never take them off?

Jake goes home and that's it, really.

It's sometime later, a few weeks or a couple of months. Jake's never brought up going on a date again and Bradley made peace with that — he was right and Jake either didn't want to commit or the effort was too big and he's no longer interested in him. Shame, but it's not the first time it happened — mainly why Bradley doesn't date people outside the deaf/hoh community anymore, they don't understand, he's cured or acceptable kind of deaf to them, because of the implants but when they come off — he's deficient.

The Daggers are sitting down with Mav when Bradley comes home and they're in the middle of a conversation and Bradley doesn't want to interrupt Bob so he just asks Mav via signing if he ate dinner already. Before Mav answers, Jake says out loud, We ordered in, leftovers are in the fridge.

And fair enough, Bradley goes to the kitchen and he's unpacking gyro from the plastic container when it hits him — Jake just understood his signing. And like, what the hell.

He doesn't want to make a scene so he waits until Jake is a little bit more alone (not really possible with their group).

When Jake notices him staring, he just goes, Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?

And Bradley feels a bit stupid, but he signs the same thing he asked Mav before and waits for some kind of answer and Jake just says, Shit, and gets all red in the face.

So Bradley just starts signing. How long, why didn't tell me, what the hell, and all that. Because why didn't Jake told him he could understand, that he knows ASL?

And Jake just stares at him. You're going way too fast, I'm not that good at it yet

And Bradley stops and stares at him dumbly. Yet?

Sheepishly, Jake's face gets even redder, and he's avoiding Bradley's gaze as he says, I was gonna tell you once I can actually communicate and not just know a few words and phrases.

You know it's going to take months, right? I took me months and I was learning for hours every day and practicing with my dad all the time.

Well, I assumed you meant I need to know it if I want to take you out so, y'know...

And Bradley just looks at this dumb dumb man and just maybe falls in love a little bit. You don't need to be fluent in a whole new language to date me, just acknowledging you'll have to at least try is enough.

It's actually more than enough. Maybe Bradley is a bit fond of Jake, sue him, but it's more than enough to give him a chance.

Oh, is all Jake says, okay then.

And Jake clears his throat, steps a little bit away and takes a minute to revise in his head, and then signs,

DATE-YOU-WANT-GO-WITH-ME

It's a little clumsy and a bit slow, but Bradley takes his time to slow down and just signs YES in reply

#this would be better in a fic format but my energy is in the negative zones #im deeply fond of Deaf/HoH community #ever since middle school (where I learnt polish SL)#so my every fandom has to have at least one AU around it #(though I mostly met people who lost hearing rather than wear born deaf so the experience might be different)#tgm #bradley rooster bradshaw #mavdad #hangster

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