What Makes You Tick
If there was one thing Vi could rely on Ekko for besides his flying capabilities, it was him being up for a gym session no matter what time of day it was.
The gym was their neutral ground. Ever since they were old enough for memberships to the old-style meathead gym around the corner from their old Zaunite high school, it was their place of comfort, the place they would leave all their shit and baggage at the door of for two hours and just live in the moment.
For Vi, working out was so much more than something she’d incorporated into her routine early. It was the one time her head would clear fully – no matter what type of day she was having. Sad, angry, happy, bored, it all dissipated as soon as she wrapped her hands around a pair of dumbbells and hit the weights.
It was a comfort she’d missed sorely whilst being at officer school. Much of their programme included mandatory physical training, and she’d spent most of her evenings at bootcamp either too tired or too busy to use their on-site facilities. Phase two training gave Vi more opportunity for free-time activities, however after seeing how mobbed the gym got between 5 o’clock and 9 o’clock, she either ended up going super late in the evening or not going at all.
Both Ekko and Vi were thankful, at least, that there were adequate gym facilities on-base at Top Gun. It was late in the evening, with only a few aviators and soldiers scattered around the large room, and they both wanted to blow off some steam before their formation flying training the next day.
“I’m starting to think it was a mistake coming here, Little Man,” Vi grumbled as she stood over Ekko on the bench press. Her hands hovered around the sleek metal bar Ekko was gripping, ready to lift it up if he began to fail his set or drop it onto his head – whatever she deemed fit at the time.
Ekko grunted. “To the gym or to the programme?” he huffed between reps. The veins in his forehead pulsed rapidly.
“To Top Gun, asshat.”
He exhaled one last time as he pushed up on his last set, before sliding off of the bench and going around to the side to unload the plates for Vi’s turn. He left a 45lb plate on his side. “Navy don’t make mistakes,” Ekko retorted, mimicking what Vi had said to him on the mission that got them sent to Top Gun in the first place. “Besides, it was this or get kicked out.”
Vi hummed as she slipped underneath the metal bar. She deracked with a gruff and brought the weight down to her chest. “Wouldn’t be all that bad. There was that ad for truck drivers, you know, they make good money,” she commented breathlessly.
Ekko barked a humourless laugh. His eyes bobbed up and down as he watched Vi rep out the weight. “Please, you’re barely trusted to fly. And I’ve seen the way you drive, too.”
“Whatever.” She squeezed her last rep out with a growl of exasperation and reracked the bar before doubling over, panting. Beads of sweat dripped down the nape of her neck and stained her grey vest. “I’m just spitballing ideas. We’re going to have to do somethin’ when we get out.”
“Eh.” Ekko shrugged the idea off. “Cross that bridge when we come to it. You’re just mad that Piltie instructor is stickin’ it to you.”
Vi turned around. Slowly. She glared up at Ekko through her eyebrows, jaw feathering, and he threw his hands up in mock defeat with a tugging smirk at the corner of his lips.
A prolonged period of silence settled between them. Ekko carried on grinning while Vi tried to keep her best poker face on.
“She thinks I’m too egotistical.” Vi finally broke the quiet. She could never stay mad at Ekko for long, ever.
Sliding off of the bench again, she picked up Ekko’s weights and began loading them up, mumbling and muttering incoherently to herself. Her wingman’s smile didn’t swipe.
“And it’s stupid, making us do the formation flying shit tomorrow. I could fly with my eyes closed and I’d trust you to guide me to the end of Zaun and back. You’re better than the other muppet weapons operators in that class, and she knows it.”
“Uh-huh.” Ekko dropped back onto the bench. “It’s totally not because you’ve got that look in your eye.”
“What look?” Vi scowled and furrowed her eyebrows.
Swinging his head under the bar, Ekko reracked and began his set. “That look.”
“What fucking look?”
“Like you had with the medic at flight school.”
Vi’s hand flung out from beside her. She grabbed the weight bar, pressing down hard against it, knuckles going white. “I told you to never bring her up again,” she hissed furiously down at him.
Her wingman cackled a laugh, long and drawn out, before it quickly turned into a coughing fit as he fought against Vi’s grip. Eventually she let go.
“You’re an asshole,” Vi spat without much bite.
“Maybe, but you didn’t deny it.”
As much as she fought it, the pilot couldn’t help the dark blush slowly creeping up her neck.
***
Formation flying at speeds of one hundred and eighty miles an hour was an aspect of piloting that, when done properly and when each jet worked together like the parts of a well-oiled machine, was an effective and formidable force to try and stop in a live dogfight.
Unfortunately for that year’s Top Gun class, it had been a very long time since they’d all flown together (if they had at all). And they had the working dynamic of a tricycle on fire.
Suffice to say, when the first group of pilots went up into the air with Captain Kiramman taking the helm as team leader, she had landed back on the ground with a face like thunder and a small cloud following over her head.
“I understand that restricted vision is something you’re not used to,” she had growled at the trainees before storming off for an extended period of time, “but I expect you all to be smart enough as to not nearly go into the side of each other.”
Seeing the captain so angry made Vi nervous. Not because she doubted her ability, because she knew that both her and Ekko were more than capable of what they were being asked to do, but because there was an animalistic part of her that wanted to prove herself to Caitlyn no matter how hard she tried to tie it down and suppress it in a tiny box.
It was a tale as old as time. Zaun versus Piltover. Good versus evil, depending which history book you read. David versus Goliath. All their lives, the Zaunites lived in the shadow of the wealthier, flamboyant Piltovians, feeding off of the scraps they’d throw them in pity. A generational oppression Vi carried with her like an old beggar under a sack.
She had to prove that Caitlyn had got the wrong idea of her. That her rose-tinted glasses had only read her location of birth and jumped to a bigoted conclusion. That Vi was more than where she was from, and that she was perhaps a better pilot than the instructor herself.
That was the rational part of her brain’s reasoning for it anyway. But there was another motivation, another meaning behind her thoughts deep deep down that she refused to confront head-on.
The armoury had done an adequate job – if you could call it that - of restricting their field of view in the flight helmet. Strips of wide black electrical tape ran down either side of the small polycarbonate visors, leaving a singular slit down the middle for front view only. Vi wondered if the adhesive would even withstand the heat of the cockpits; it was like sitting in a sauna on some days.
Before they went up into the air, Captain Kiramman came in to talk to the next group again, seeming slightly more cooled down than previously but still agitated. She looked into each of their eyes as she spoke slowly and carefully.
“Your weapons operators are there for a reason,” she explained, rolling her own flight helmet between the palms of her hands as she spoke. A nervous trait, perhaps? “Use them. And for God’s sake, don’t fly so bloody close to each other.”
With one last harrowing look, she stomped off to her F35, the next trio of pilot groups following carefully – like one wrong footstep would set her off again.
***
The left hand finger four echelon flying formation was one of the first formations each pilot was taught during flight school. It consisted of one jet taking the lead at the front, with two hanging back either side, and one final trailing jet behind the middle row on the left side. Caitlyn hadn’t just chosen the first formation that sprung to mind; it was the best for giving all pilots a decent view of the landscape and provided an excellent field of fire should they come under attack.
As promised, Captain Kiramman took the reigns up front, with Vi and Ekko trailing on her left and Mel and Jayce on her right. Maddie and Loris took up the rear and would be the last line of defence if they were attacked mid-flight.
“Remember, we’re to stay in formation no matter where I take you,” Caitlyn repeated over their in-flight radio. Her voice sounded tinny and distant. “Maintain a safe distance, communicate with each other, and you’ll be okay.”
A ripple of “yes ma’am”’s and “aye-aye ma’am”’s rippled across the air.
Vi smirked and switched to the in-cockpit frequency. “Reckon they’ll let us take the front next, Little Man?”
“Just keep your eyes on the sky, Vi,” Ekko droned, his voice distorted. But she could hear the smile in his tone. He switched them both back to the regular frequency.
Vi couldn’t see Jayce and Mel to the right of her – the black rectangles clouding her vision made sure of that – but she could hear the roar of their F35 beside her, engine screaming and afterburners roaring as it tore through the sky in pursuit of the team leader.
Caitlyn’s jet began gradually veering to the left. Vi followed suit, tilting the control column lightly to the side, focusing only on the visible distance between hers and the captain’s jet. “Keep an eye on the others for me, Ekko.”
There was the sound of fabric shifting and rubbing against each other as Ekko craned his neck to check behind and to the right. “Distance is good. Looks like Mel and Jayce are fighting, though,” he added with a giggle.
Vi chuckled to herself and shook her head. She’d not met Mel before coming to Top Gun, but her dynamic with Jayce seemed awfully sibling-like – or like a very old, very tired married couple. She’d once walked in on them arguing over what colour pen to use for their post-flight report.
Suddenly, Caitlyn’s jet dipped again, the blazing orange of the afterburner dipping before re-appearing as she straightened up. As Vi followed, she realised that they were being taken back to the canyon they had their first training session in, and had just passed where the pilot had pulled a cobra manoeuvre on the instructor.
A knot of anxiety squeezed at the beating thing in Vi’s chest. Close quarters meant much more opportunity for things to go wrong, even with just a single jet.
But four flying side-by-side with restricted vision?
It was an accident waiting to happen.
Caitlyn wasn’t dropping her speed, either. It looked like she was starting to pick up pace.
Fat beads of sweat began forming on Vi’s brow, dripping down her temples and face and into her eyes. She swiped at the stray liquid with her sleeve. “We good for distance, Ekko?” Vi asked her wingman, doing her best to hide the nerves in her quivering voice to no avail.
“Shit, Vi, Nolen and Loris are getting close up our end,” he replied, head whipping frantically in the cockpit. “Jayce and Mel are veering left too. They’re practically in the captain’s afterburner.”
The pilot felt her stomach drop hard, like it was plunging in a rapid descent tailspin towards the earth, plummeting thousands and thousands of feet by the second.
“Vi, they’re gonna clip our wings!”
Vi wanted to rip the tape off. She wanted to descend and break formation, get Ekko away from the danger the other oblivious pilots were putting them in, tear off into the sunset and never step foot in Top Gun again.
“Fucking do something, Vi!” Ekko was screaming now, the cockpit shaking as he drove his fists into the back of her chair.
“The Hell’s going on back there?” This came from Caitlyn, who was still blazing full speed ahead, unaware of what was happening with the slowly deteriorating formation behind them.
Vi took a steady breath. You don’t think in the air. You just do.
She gritted her teeth. “Nolen, drop your speed and get out of our ass!” she shouted down the radio, an unsteady hand gripping the helmet’s mouthpiece as she bellowed into it.
The thundering roar of the rear jet’s engine grew quieter and dissipated into the distance as Maddie obeyed. “Sorry, Vanderson,” she mumbled sheepishly.
The apology fell on deaf ears. Jayce and Mel were still too close for comfort; Vi could hear their afterburner now, growling as they drew in towards her and Ekko’s F22. She could almost feel the heat of their engine on her face.
“Bank! Left, left, left!” Ekko’s voice, loud and desperate, roared over Vi’s headset.
She obeyed without a second thought, drawing her and Ekko within arm’s reach of the canyon walls. Her jaw clenched as she rounded them over the sheer rockside, the steady flashing lights of Jayce and Mel’s wingtips now appearing in her limited peripheral right where they had just been.
“Talis, get back on your damn side!” Vi howled. Every pore on her face was now sweating profusely, even as the protruding wingtips retreated out of her vision. “Fucking idiots! Fuck!” Her palm slapped against the control panel. “God, I hate this fucking job!”
“Alright, Vi, tone it down,” Ekko told her, his voice timid but steady. “They’re back in formation. We’re good, we’re good, okay?”
Vi exhaled a breath she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding. Her body ran cold as the adrenaline seeped out of her system. Taking a second to look down at her flight suit, she realised that the neck was stained dark with sweat.
Their captain’s voice finally sounded over the radio as they burst out of the canyon. “Alright, let’s take it home,” she commanded.
Vi took note of the worry in her voice, too.
***
The pilot didn’t speak to anyone when they touched down back at base. She ignored the apologies from the other aviators, stormed straight past the captain, even avoided Ekko’s eyes as she made a beeline straight back to the armoury.
It wasn’t Ekko’s fault. Given their dire situation, he’d done a stellar job, and Vi certainly couldn’t have done it without him. But her conscious weighed heavy with the fact that Ekko wasn’t just her wingman. They shared more in common than just the job that they did.
Vi and Ekko had been close their entire lives. In their youth, she spent a lot of time at his house, and vice versa. Through Vi, Ekko had met Powder, her younger sister, and their relationship had flourished in a much closer, much more romantic way.
Ekko wasn’t just Vi’s wingman. He was her damn brother-in-law, too.
And the father of her niece.
Vi remembered the conversation she’d had with Powder when she found out she was pregnant like it was yesterday. The worry in her sister’s voice as she questioned if she was right to be a mother, the fear as she cycled through baby names, the anxiety around how she was going to tell Ekko and how he’d react.
It was the conversation that played in her mind whenever they went up in the air. Another conversation played on loop, too, like a broken record always scratching back to the same part. A discussion that had never happened and Vi hoped with all her heart it would never have to happen.
The conversation every military spouse dreaded. A knock at the door. Five minutes between a spouse and a child not knowing why their husband or wife and parent weren’t home, to being widows and orphans.
Vi had nothing to lose. There was nothing waiting for her back home, bar a few house plants that were already withering and dying, their leaves tinging brown on her windowsill.
But Ekko?
Ekko had everything to lose.
And if they were to ever go down, Vi would spend the rest of her life knowing that there was so much more she could have done to save them both.
She slammed her helmet down at the armourers’ bench with a loud crack. She pulled a hand away from where she’d been gripping its cheek; sweaty fingertip stains stayed against the slick chrome surface.
“Planning your resignation?” a voice chided to the right of her.
Vi turned her head slowly. Captain Kiramman was standing there, flight helmet tucked under her elbow, leaning against the wall. She watched Vi with an intense curiosity.
Vi grunted a response. “Not in the mood.”
“You and Ekko did well up there.” Caitlyn pushed the conversation forward, coming off of the wall and placing her helmet beside Vi’s. “They listened to you. Had you not been there, they probably would have gone into each other. Then they definitely would have failed.”
The other pilot huffed a humourless laugh. “It was stupid. They could’ve gotten us killed. They weren’t ready for that, Cap. You should’ve seen that.”
Caitlyn cocked an eyebrow, piercing eyes meeting Vi’s gaze. “You’re all here to learn at the end of the day. They need to iron out the kinks in training so it doesn’t happen in real life. You should see that.”
“Me?” Vi barked. Her other hand slipped from her flight helmet and pointed four fingers at her chest, before jutting a finger in the general direction of the flight deck. “I could do that run with my eyes closed, Cap.”
“Is that a bet?”
Vi blinked once. Twice. Again. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, is that a bet?” There was the slightest uptick of a smile at the corner of the captain’s mouth. “There’s a flight simulator in one of the classrooms. It’s got the canyon mapped out virtually. Would you like to put your money where your mouth is?”
Vi tilted her head. “What’s in it for me?” she asked slyly. “What do I get if I prove you wrong?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know why you came back.” The officer folded her arms over her chest boldly. “I want to know what’s in it for you. Why you are the way you are. What makes you... tick.”
“Deal,” Caitlyn said firmly. “And if you lose, you have to listen to everything I say. First time, every time. That seems to be something you’re still struggling with, Lieutenant.” She stuck her hand out for Vi to shake it.
Vi looked down at her outstretched palm, before wrapping her fingers around the other pilot’s and shaking rigidly. “You got a deal, Cap.”
When Caitlyn’s hand finally left Vi’s, however, she couldn’t shake the burning yearning sensation of something that the captain had left lingering on her flesh.