III. AN APPLE A DAY ...
HARD DECK
a top gun: maverick fanfiction
CHAPTER THREE: AN APPLE A DAY ...
Summer's least favorite part about being a doctor was all of the goddamn paperwork. Every little thing needed to be properly documented, not only because she was a doctor and was treating patients, but also because she worked for the United States Government.
She was working on logging all of the notes from the health assessments, reviewing the notes from the ones that she did not perform herself. The pilots were all in peak physical condition, as she expected, but it was still important to check them over before they hit the skies. They were the best of the best, and being the best required you to be extremely fit, both in body and mind. And they were. They most definitely were.
She was just wrapping up on completing the files when there was a soft knock at her door. She turned around to see Lucas, one of her nurses, standing sheepishly outside. Lucas wasn't a civilian, he was Navy, but he was just about one of the sweetest kids Summer had ever met. He didn't belong in a hardened place like the Navy.
"Dr. H?"
"Come in," she said, kicking the door open with her shoe.
"We've got a ... uh, situation."
Summer's eyebrows went up curiously. "And what's that?"
"A fight broke out in one of the classrooms today. We've got some patients to tend to," Lucas said.
Summer let out a stuttered laugh. "A fight in a classroom? Last time I checked, I wasn't a nurse at a middle school."
Lucas chuckled. "No ma'am. But unfortunately, some of our pilots seem to have about the same maturity level."
Summer laughed again and stood, pushing her paperwork aside. She'd have much more paperwork to fill out after tending to the wounded rabble rousers.
"Murphy and Palewski are tending to Hangman and Fanboy, but Rooster requested you," Lucas said as he walked alongside Summer to the med bay.
"Really?" Summer said, a smirk filling her face. "He did?"
"Yes ma'am," Lucas replied before zooming off, not wanting to face the brunt of Summer's irritation at being summoned from her office to treat a few fight wounds.
She entered the examination room to find Lieutenant Bradshaw, call sign Rooster, seated on the examination table, a bloodied handkerchief in his hand.
"Lieutenant Bradshaw," Summer said as she entered the room, slamming the door behind her. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Certainly you can imagine I have better things to do with my time than being requested to attend to your playground injuries."
A smirk befell Rooster's bloodied face, and he lowered his handkerchief to reveal a nose that was still gushing with blood. He tilted his head up, in an attempt to stop it from running down his face as he talked to Summer.
"I was just worried my nose was broken. Figured I should get the best opinion, and seeing as you're the doctor, your opinion is probably the best," he said.
Summer rolled her eyes. If this was an attempt to flirt with her, she wouldn't have it.
She grabbed a pair of gloves and slipped them on, then reached forward and carefully moved his head back to its normal position.
"Rule number one of bloody noses. Don't tilt your head backwards," she said, digging in a drawer to find some clean gauze.
"Why not?" Rooster asked, eyeing her carefully.
"Because you'll swallow the blood, and then you'll throw up, and no one wants to clean up bloody puke," she said, examining his nose with a small flashlight. "That, and it could aggravate the source of bleeding again. Then we have to start all over."
She provided him with clean gauze and threw away the bloodied handkerchief. Who knew where it had come from in the first place, and she doubted it was clean.
"What did you do to deserve this?" She asked, leaning closer to inspect the nose to see if it had been broken in the altercation.
"More like what did Hangman do to deserve what I did to him," Rooster replied.
Summer had come to learn that Hangman was the cocky son of a bitch who had first propositioned her at the bar. He was equally as annoying to his comrades, it seemed. His cocky attitude was further bolstered by the fact that he was an incredible pilot.
"Right," Summer said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Wasn't it always the other guy's fault?
She began to attend to the other injuries on his face, like bruises and cuts.
"So, when did you join the Navy?" He asked as she patched a cut above his eyebrow.
"I'm not in the Navy," Summer replied. "I'm contracted in."
"Really?" He asked. "So why work for the Navy?"
She shrugged. "Government gives decent benefits."
He chuckled. "That they do."
"When did you join the Navy, Lieutenant?" She asked, stopping to check his nose again. It was still bleeding, though a little less than before, so a clot was forming somewhere up there. His nose didn't appear to be broken either, so that was a good sign.
"I applied to the academy my senior year of high school, but ... well, let's just say I didn't get in," he said, suddenly serious, and a bit angry. "That set me back four years, but I eventually got in."
Summer could sense it was a sore subject, and certainly not one she had any business asking about. "I see."
She was fine to sit in silence, but apparently, Lieutenant Bradshaw had other ideas.
"So, where're you from, Doc?" He asked.
"You know, it would be easier to patch you up if you stopped opening your mouth," she replied.
While she was applying a bandage, she felt his face move beneath her gloves as he smiled.
"Just trying to learn a bit more about the person who's responsible for my health for the next three weeks."
Summer smirked and rolled her eyes, letting out a sigh as she rolled her chair back, away from the pilot's face. "Oklahoma."
Rooster's eyebrows went up. "Really? You don't sound like you're from Oklahoma."
"Well, Oklahoma by way of Colorado, Vermont, and Michigan."
"Military brat?"
She shook her head. "No, just the daughter of an alcoholic who got bored easily and had difficulty holding down a job."
He nodded. "I see."
"Spent my first ten years moving around Michigan. Then two years in Vermont, four in Colorado, and finally Oklahoma, 'til I came out here for college."
"Let me guess," Rooster said, feigning thinking. "Stanford?"
Summer smiled, her nose wrinkling. "How did you know?"
He shrugged. "You just seem like a Stanford girl, that's all."
She laughed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You know, you seem all smart and shit. Plus, you're seemingly well-versed in dealing with douchebags," he chuckled.
"That I am," she said in agreement.
They shared a smile for a moment before Summer turned away, tossing her bloodied gloves in the biohazard trash. "Alright, Lieutenant. I think you're good. Just go easy on that nose for a bit. And maybe don't get in any more fights. This isn't recess, and Lieutenant Seresin didn't steal your favorite kickball, okay?"
Rooster chuckled. "But he would, if he knew I had a favorite kickball."
She sighed. "Doctor's orders, no more fights. I don't want to see you in my office again, unless you've got a broken limb or food poisoning, got it?"
He laughed. "So in order to see you again, I have to break a bone or eat rotten food?"
Summer felt her cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink, but before she could let Rooster see, she turned around. She'd endured the relentless flirting of so many pilots — Lieutenant Bradshaw wouldn't be any different.
"Correct. Now go fly some planes."
Rooster smirked, his eyes locked on the back of Summer's head, as she was still turned around, busying herself with paperwork so she wouldn't have to look at him.
"It'd be my pleasure, Doc."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ author's note ✫・゜・。.
OMG! first of all, i wanted to say THANK YOU for all of the attention this book has been getting. i only published it a few days ago and it already has almost 1k reads?? like that's insane. that's more than some of my books that have been out for months! (ps you should go check those out if you haven't already, lol)
also, i just CANNOT stop writing for this story! i am eat-sleep-breathing summer & bradley at the moment. my notes app is littered in scene ideas and quotes i've come up with. i cannot wait to show you what's in store! believe me, it will be a rollercoaster.
anyways, what did you think of this chapter? we're finally getting to see a bit of summer & rooster's dynamic, which i love so much. i think they have great chemistry ;)
also i'm officially declaring that their couple ship name is hackshaw, and you cannot stop me.
THANK YOU FOR READING, and please don't forget to vote and comment!
xx,
madi
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