Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It tastes like acid, itches, burns, when all he's done was swallow drily.

A cacophony of cries over the garbled comms.
Nagase. AWACS Thunderhead. Blaze screaming himself hoarse into the microphone, "Eject! Eject! Eject!"

But there was no parachute forthcoming.

Instead there was a black trail etched across the skies of a peace ceremony, and a plane hurtling down into the very heart of a circle of stars painted upon a gigantic Osean flag.

*

[A cascade of crackling flashing lights under the smoke and—]

*

“Sorry about the paranoia, but there’s no chance any of the systems, any of the parts of the planes have ever been sabotaged, you checked personally, right?” 

Pops peers at him through the steam from his mug, fingers curling around its base for protection against the dank cold of the morning.

"I maintain all my planes well. Are you doubtin’ my skills?"

"No."

"Then what is this really about?"

And Blaze counts his breath, turns his shoulders sideways to cut through the pulling winds to take a seat next to Pops and tells him—

*

It didn’t make any sense, what Chopper said.

[The words spun in his head over and over, glitching like a broken record. Moments before disaster, he'd heard—]

“The electrical system's all messed up. The canopy won't blow. The ejection seat's probably not working either.”

And before that,

just before that,

“I can’t.”

And—

*

It’s true

that the canopy must break away when you pull the ejection lever, to make a path for escape. When you pull that lever, not before, not unless you’re in a plane where the canopy is designed to jettison in one piece with limited force, and you’re stuck in a flat spin, plummeting straight down with no forward momentum [—a position which Chopper was decidedly not in], and wish to lower the risk of bumping your head onto it on the way out.

But there has never been a need to remove the canopy separately to make the lever work.

When the cartridges installed into the seat detonates, when the rocket motor under the seat fires, when the ejection system and pilot separate from the aircraft, it is exactly what it sounds like: an operation driven by explosives.

Initiated by explosives.

Not a failing electronic system.

No engineer worth their salt would ever design an emergency exit configured to work that way; one does not usually bail out of a perfectly responsive, fully operable plane.

Every pilot knew this. Wardog Squadron knew this. Chopper couldn’t have…just assumed it wouldn’t work, and refused to even try, right?

*

Could it have been his oxygen supply. Was it hit? Was he hypoxic?

Did he have a concussion? Was he lying when he said he wasn’t hurt?

Could he have not noticed? The symptoms can be subtle.

Confusion. Memory problems. Delayed responses.

Was it as simple as that, or was there something else that Blaze was missing?

[Something didn’t add up, why didn't it add up? Why—]

*

“Blaze,” Pop’s voice creaks around his shoulder like a cautiously opening door. "People panic and say all manner of things that don't make sense.

“We can practice all we want to steady our nerves, to increase the odds of keeping calm in an emergency.

“But the real situation's always different. There's no real, consistent way to perfectly predict how people will behave.”

His shadow, long on the tarmac even while he’s sitting purses its lips, blows on the coffee, and takes a sip—

Blaze startles. A wet nose nudges incessantly into the crook of Blaze's elbow, followed by the steady thwack, thwack of Kirk’s tail into an armrest. Blaze obligingly scratches the lab on the back.

Half distractedly, he says, "People panic and say all manner of things, like Nagase?" Except it comes out all in a rush, a harsh whisper, more bitter than he’d intended, because of course, it wasn't really her fault.

Pops squints at him, face completely nonplussed, "Say again?"

"No. Nothing, it's nothing. Forget it." Kirk whines under his grasp. Blaze realises he's held on too tightly to his fur for absolutely no reason, mouths "I'm sorry", and begins rubbing behind Kirk’s ears to make up for it in earnest.

"Either way, I suggest you stop speculating. He made his choices to protect as many people as he could. That's what we know, and other than that, we can't read minds.

*You'll drive yourself crazy if you try.”

*

[But now that he said to stop, it felt impossible, since you first had to register exactly what it was you were supposed to stop doing to know what to stop doing.]

[But stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. Stop.]

*

The dimensions of a football field:

Width: 160 feet.

Length: 300 feet.

Length including the end zones: 360 feet.

Diagonal Length including the end zones: 393.95 feet.

The height of November International Stadium: 170 feet.

* 

“The stadium, Chopper. Can you hear me? Drop it into the center of the stadium and bail out. Do you understand?”

*

Chapter Text

In an alternative reality,

the canopy of the Chopper’s plane fractures. It splits neatly into two halves.

At the same time, twin catapult ejection guns fire from his seat, propelling him upwards at a 60-degree angle. 

There is a mild two and a half second delay, and then the parachute opens, and the seat detaches and falls away to stop him from being all tangled up in its harness.

He lands.

He lands on a hill in the outskirts. Or in the lake in the middle of the city, or in the Gunnel River, and the automatic life raft inflates.

He stays afloat. Far, far, away from the stadium, its beer-stained stands, its blaring lights, and whatever synthetic plastic utter-nonsense they have on that field that passes for grass.

*

In an alternative universe, when Chopper says, “I ought to be able to keep this plane in the air a little longer. Besides, planes are expendable. Right, Kid?”

Blaze would’ve quoted Captain Bartlett directly, and told him “We can replace these things, but it's getting the crew back alive that counts.”

*

In an alternative universe, when Chopper says, “Kid, you see any place where I can drop this plane?”

he’d have been faster, he’d not have let Nagase cut him off. He’d raise his concerns better, thought about it some more, not let someone else do the thinking for him.

[But he’d remembered—]

*

“There’s nothing else but houses down there, I can't leave this plane yet.”

*

It didn't bode well for Chopper’s night vision score, but if it was that limited, and aiming for the most well-lit area of the city was what made him feel the most comfortable, then it made sense. It had to make sense. 

*

[And yet a selfish, cynical thought:

Who cares about the goddamn houses?

There was an air battle above the stadium!

Bright flares in black clouds. Echoing, thunderous roars. Metal bodies hurled into the air in bits and pieces of disintegrating wreckage.

While some stayed more intact than others.

Planes were spewing orange flames and spiralling out of the sky left and right, some streaking past like meteors on a night thick with stars.

Their fuel tanks were not depleted, their part-sawn wings were tearing off. Shrapnel, and looming fire hazards, and Wardog Squadron was responsible for putting them into the ground.

If these were the oversized hailstones they were authorized to let fly onto the city as acceptable collateral damage, what was one more act of irresponsible roadside littering to add to the pile?]

*

But it was an awfully small patch of grass, wasn’t it? Still filled with a lot of the crowd.

Why wait for them to clear out? Wouldn’t aiming for a larger body of water have been better?

*

Chapter Text

BASTARD.

Chopper had to have known he had other options. 

Even with a limping plane in the air losing thrust, he’d wanted to be a distraction for a little longer, the perfect sacrificial bait to make it easy for Wardog squadron to sandwich the planes on his tail.

He’d made a bullshit excuse to stay, and Nagase had opened her big mouth and immediately given him another.

*

Who needed him anyway?

Who even needed the reinforcements?

Blaze and Grimm and Nagase were doing perfectly fine on their own.

That stubborn, insane, idiotic–

*

Chapter Text

Within reach along Chopper’s final flight path and heading:

A river. Numerous freeways, and side city streets.

*

The crowd had cleared the field, but they hadn't gotten very far. Nor had they spilled onto every road; there wasn’t time for that.

*

The football field, it was an awfully small patch of grass.

The stands were tall.

Most planes would have to phase through the walls and the seats, and the fences in front of the seats, and then through all the other obstacles on the other side to conduct a feasible landing.

Perhaps if Blaze had had the foresight to assign Chopper the F-35C, built to be capable of launching off submarines like the Scinfaxi and returning to them in absence of a runway, he could’ve gotten into a hover and touched down vertically, assuming damage to the lift fan was minimal.

*

Perhaps, in an alternate reality, one where Chopper truly believed the ejection system wasn’t working [–having suddenly forgotten how it all functioned], he would’ve still gathered up some modicum of sense, gathered himself up to attempt a belly landing, and gone somewhere else.

*

It wasn’t without risks, but
he could’ve at least made an attempt.

He could’ve really at least tried.

Wasn’t he so enthusiastically pushing the limits before, while his plane was slowly cooking itself down to slurry?

*

But before that,

*

Well before that,

There was a grey sky, a dusky, slate-grey sea, rumbling engines in the coiling fog, and thick black plumes of smoke, surface roiling like the top of a porridge-pot, spilling over into the prowling waves.

There were men leaping from burning ships into oil-covered waters.

The slick glued them down while debris rained over Port St. Hewlett, trailing embers.

And Blaze,

Blaze had made the mistake of dropping down too low, his height in stories above the ocean measurable in fluctuating single digits.

In any other circumstance, it would’ve simply been good nap-of-the-earth practice.

In most other circumstances, he hadn’t been the flight lead. 

But now they followed him, and they, too, saw the bodies below, all twisted together like driftwood after a flood, next to ovens of overturned wrecks. 

Chopper, normally the most talkative of the bunch, couldn't even finish his sentences.

*

“So, you saw it too...that sea…”

He’d sounded so breathless.

*

Was it then that Blaze should’ve started paying attention?

Or was it in the scant minutes after, when Chopper’s tone had abruptly reverted into cheerful boasting, elated at the thought of reporting in to Captain Bartlett once again?

Or any other time since, from the long, unending wait for the captain’s return, to after the nuggets who couldn’t climb high enough, to after blame for “treason” befell them, or after…

Well, after Blaze had found it increasingly hard to look anybody in the eyes following each item on the list, [resorting to faking it by staring somewhere into the vicinity of people's nose bridges when he had to, and going vaguely cross-eyed from it,]

was there something he’d missed while he wasn’t looking?

*

“I feel like we’re being sent to die as some sacrifice!” said Nagase, turning a full right angle to get herself into the notch and begin firing chaff.

Reinforcements were allegedly less than four minutes away.

“Damn,” said Chopper, drifting into a non sequitur right when Nagase was on the cusp of feeling truly damned, “I forgot to keep track of how many planes I shot down.”

Except whatever competition he’d been trying to initiate to keep their minds focused was lost on Blaze, who’d lost track so long ago he’d started wondering if it was more sociopathy than a regular hardening of the heart into soldierly indifference.

*

[A paranoid thought; purely paranoia, nothing more:

Did it look like a rouge, the way Chopper wore levity and swagger?

Had he gotten sick of the shooting, of what he’d become, and simply looked for a way out that wasn’t desertion, plain and boring?]

*

"I'm glad there aren't any live people in these things, aren't you?” said Chopper, looking out at a sunny horizon lined with spy drones from a little over two months ago.

“No,” said Blaze, humans had more limits in how they could move, and besides, “bigger targets are easier to hit.”   
  
[But goddammit his sense of humour had been atrocious. Just what the hell had he been saying?]

*

It doesn´t matter what you say
It doesn´t matter what you do
It’s the same shit all the time
The face of the coin is everyone´s face

“Captain Davenport,” said Grimm, eyes wide, but bobbing his head minutely in errant twitches all the same, “it sounds a bit bleak, doesn’t it?”

“Really? You’re focusing on that and not the five part chorus? Come on.”

*

The signal light flashes. "Trust. Me. Bail. Out."

*

The wind has claws. Blaze's blood is freezing in his veins.

Briefly, [even if it’s ceased to feel so brief,] the rushing waves had plunged him below, fed him bitter brine, a deep aching down to his bones, and a sense of muffled, distorted, comparative quiet.

And somewhere at the spongy back of his brain, he’d heard a voice shivering through, calling him “Kid”.

*

He’d never earned his way to being Captain in Chopper’s eyes; his trash talk still wasn't any good, and his ability to lead was–

Well, he'd never catch up to Chopper’s fancy new rank either; he wasn't the kind of dead they'd promote.

Was it strange to find comfort in sharing a legal status? Ought he paint the underside of his wings white to reflect the light and rise from the grave on his behalf? 

He wasn’t sure there was anything solid about himself beyond being another number on a squad anyway. Surely, it’d be more honest.

*

Bubbles. A snarl from the mouth. Specks of distant gannets tucking in their wings, diving as arrows into the blue.

Now that he’s been displaced back to the surface for a breath, swept the fabric of the parachute and its many lines aside, he could swear the frigid sea feels warm compared to the air above.

Overhead, the thrumming and relentless ticking of the Sea Goblin helicopters are so loud, and remind him so sharply of some song about a coin with rapid-fire drum fills that he’s almost tempted to do his best to shove his head back under again.

But they’d all gotten out fine this time;

he’d seen good chutes, and someone out there was calling his name.