Chapter Text
I.
Tom knows about the crash hours before the call comes in to Central Command. The vision hits him without warning: one moment he is walking to his car on his driveway and in the next one he can see snow-covered mountains from the cockpit of an F-16. The sky is red over the mountains as the sun has already set. The view is mesmerizing, but the glass suddenly fractures, there is an explosion and fire, fire everywhere.
It takes him minutes to recover. He is sitting on the ground, next to his car, bewildered. He knows that the vision came through the half-ass bond he himself had created in the moment of craze a few months earlier. Ever since he has experienced similar visions a couple of times, all of which were the sensation of flying – flying over the Top Gun training fields in the California desert, above the Pacific Ocean and most recently across the Northern Caucasus. Those were the instances of happiness and peace, in sharp contrast with today, which was filled with terror and was cut off just as abruptly as it started.
He gets up and drives to work. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, captain of the US Navy Central Command, begins to make satellite calls and receives no immediate answer. It is 1991, the Soviet Union is crumbling, communication across the world is hard and the connection is unreliable. By early afternoon he is frantic; by the evening they get the call confirming that the F-16 with Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the cockpit was shot down over the border between an ally and a post-Soviet breakaway state.
II.
It is cold and everything hurts. He is lying on his side on the floor, but he has no idea what this place is. When the missile hit he was able to pull the ejection handle; his F-16 exploded immediately after. The parachute opened nevertheless, but the landing left him disoriented. There were militants on the ground and first he believed them to be allies. He was flying over friendly territory prior to the strike, miles south from the border. The militants wore no flags or emblems on their uniforms and they surrounded him in a matter of seconds, guns drawn, yelling something he could not understand. They blindfolded him right away and so he could not see the vehicle they put him in with his hands tied behind his back. It felt like a military truck as he laid flat on the floor and sometimes he felt boots touching his side as the vehicle moved across the mountain path.
After what felt like hours, the vehicle stopped and he was dragged outside. The air was chilly and Pete felt snow on his face. They dragged him inside a building and left him in what seemed to be a smaller, empty room. Before they left, they tied his legs together as well – despite the uncomfortable position Pete drifted off soon after.
The sound of the door opening wakes him up. Three or four militants enter; instead of taking off the restraints so he could walk, they simply lift him off the floor.
“Please,” he whispers. He feels sick from the crash and the ejection and dizzy from being blindfolded. He would throw up, would his stomach not be empty. After a few seconds Pete feels a hand grabbing his jaw and an open bottle touches his lips. The water is cold and fresh and he is forever grateful that they hold the bottle in a way that he can actually drink, instead of making him choke or taking it away after a sip. Before the soldier releases him, a thumb drags slowly across his face and the man tells something to the others. Pete wishes he didn’t understand what he was saying, but the word used is universal and the hands that are holding him upright tighten around his arms immediately.
There is another truck outside, a smaller vehicle than the one they used the day before; he can tell as much based on the sound of the engine and the seat configuration. Outside of the building Pete can hear men talking to each other before they put him on the back seat and the truck starts. He has no idea who these people are or where they are heading to, but during this trip he begins to think of the situation. Time is in his favor, Pete thinks, and the rescue team would eventually show up. The fact that he is still alive makes him think that whatever nation or faction these militants belong to, they are planning for a prisoner exchange. Either way he would be home soon. He is lying on the back seat and slowly calms down.
The vehicle stops and the jolt wakes Pete up. He must have dozed off again. The door opens and they get him out. The air smells different here; it is still an earthy scent, mixed with wood and grass, but not like it was at the other compound. The temperature is low; the sun must have set already. He wonders how long the trip has taken and where they are right now.
When they finally, finally remove the blindfold, they are inside a barrack. Pete is so sore from the events of the past twenty four hours that it takes him minutes just to be able to stand on his own. He is seeing stars from having his eyes covered for so long. They toss him in a lavatory and the door mercifully closes. Pete looks around. The bathroom is old, but compact with a working sink and toilet that flushes. He doesn’t know how much time he has, so he gets out from the G-suit and pulls off his t-shirt to clean up. He is barely finished when the door opens and two militants enter. Pete reaches for his shirt, but they grab him and haul him out and into a larger room.
His eyes flash across the maps and flag on the wall and his heart sinks; at one point during the car rides they must have crossed the border and he is now in enemy territory. Sure, the US is not actually in conflict with this country, but this land is ravaged by civil war, with warlords and oligarchs fighting for dominance and rather importantly, a good chunk of the Soviet nuclear arsenal is located here.
More than a dozen militants are in the room and they go quiet when their two comrades return with Pete. There is a massive pole in the middle of the room; one soldier is standing there with a pair of shackles. Nothing good is going to come out of this, Pete thinks and he drops to the floor. As expected, the downward pull surprises the soldiers and for two full seconds he is free. He manages to take one step toward the door before they are on him and he is so ridiculously outmatched that he is chained to the pole without being able to deliver a single punch or kick.
He looks at the militants. They are hardened mountain people, native to this land. They wear the military fatigues of the Soviet Union, pieced together with parts of armor and weapons that Pete knows to have come from Middle Eastern black markets. He also notices that these people are not the same group that captured him after the crash. Suddenly he wishes he would be wearing his shirt and would not be standing there dressed only in aviator pants and tactical boots.
One of the soldiers walks to him. Pete has no way of telling if he is the leader of this group. The soldier talks to him in English, yet it takes Pete a moment to understand what they want. He was told to give names, the list of locals working with the Americans just across the border.
Pete looks straight ahead. There are not many people he actually could name, but it will be a cold day in hell before he does. He reckons that these folks don’t care about the Geneva Convention all that much, but he gives it a shot anyway and answers with his own name, rank, service number and date of birth.
The militant backhands him so forcefully that his legs slip from under him and for a moment Pete is hanging on the chains before composing himself. The same question is being asked once more and when Pete remains silent, the soldier rips his dog tags off and puts them on a table, across the room. He does not return; another militant walks to Pete with a stick in his hand – and he realizes that it is not a stick but a cattle prod one second before he is being hit with the device.
The pain is so intense that he can’t keep silent even for a moment. His screams fill the room and his legs give in; he is hanging on the chains once more. By the time the device is switched off his throat is sore and his whole body is covered with sweat. There is an awful odor in the room: first he thinks that the prod burned him and he smells his own scorched flesh. But when he looks down he sees no visible damage and right away he figures that the smell is coming from the soldiers. Normally he would not be able to sense it, having taken his suppressants religiously, but now it has been two days since the last dose and he has been under constant duress ever since. The medication is now wearing off and the scent of pure alpha in the room is overwhelming.
The prod is shown in his side again and he is howling from the pain. This time the shocks last longer, but his strength runs out right at the beginning and he is hanging on the chains, making miserable, small sounds, with tears streaming down his face. When the pain eventually stops, he can no longer get back on his feet. The room stinks. The stench did not just become stronger, but it changed to aroused alpha. He chances a glance at them and then shuts his eyes immediately so that he doesn’t see how the prior businesslike interest changed into primal stares and how many of them are licking their lips. He can not hide his designation; his appearance, his short stature and wide hips are textbook omega. Even the soldier at the other compound was able to tell and did so merely by noticing the complete lack of stubble; and now without his shirt there is nothing to hide the absence of body hair either.
For the first time now he realizes that he will probably die in this room. Even if he survives the interrogation, they can just rip him apart, especially now that he is drenched in sweat. His body is pumping out pheromones that reveal his fear and… His eyes widen.
“No…,” he whispers. “No…”
The metal pole feels cold against his forehead. There are too many things happening at the same time for Pete to process as nothing makes sense anymore and the situation which was bad just a minute earlier, is now a complete disaster. His primal instincts are kicking in, demanding him to talk, to answer all the questions these soldiers have, to do everything to save himself and that other life inside his body of which he was unaware just minutes before.
With great effort he opens his eyes. The soldier that is standing over him with the cattle prod in his hand, is staring down at him for a long moment and then he turns away and says something to his comrades. The room goes silent. After a last fruitless attempt to regain footing Pete does the only thing in his power and he holds as close to the pole as possible. He knows what will happen now; as far as these combatants are concerned he is on their territory, carrying a rival alpha’s offspring. Pete can hear somebody in a pair of heavy boots approaching him slowly and he presses tight to the pole to protect his belly from the kicks and punches he knows are coming.
Pete closes his eyes shut once again. His instincts that have been suppressed by medication during the majority of his adult life have gone haywire and he can identify the pack leader alpha without looking. The soldier bends forward and puts one hand on Pete’s lower back and the other one on his belly. The alpha’s face is close to Pete’s neck, scenting him, but Pete can not bring himself to look at him. There is an inner fight that occupies his brain; his rational self, that knows that he will be dead in a matter of minutes and wants to tell these fighters to go to hell, is grappling with his terrified omega, which demands him to offer his neck to this soldier, to tell them that he will submit, that he will be good – that they don’t have to hurt him anymore. Pete bites into his lower lip and does nothing. What a sad, laughable way to die; he could only hope that back at home nobody would find out how miserably he went out.
The soldier takes his hands off of him and straightens himself. The chains rattle and the shackles are unhooked from the pole. Pete feels being lowered to the floor, but he can not open his eyes anymore. He instinctively curls up on his side, pulling his legs up and covering his belly with his chained hands before he loses consciousness.
III.
The room he wakes up in is dark and quiet. He is laying on his back on a camp bed with his still chained hands resting against his chest. There is a window with metal guard rails high above the bed; it is night and there is some scarce light coming inside that could be the moon and its reflection on the snow. The air is warm and dry.
Pete doesn’t try to move. There is not a single part of his body that does not hurt, but he focuses and he can feel that other one inside, safe and snug. He lets out a sigh of relief. He knows exactly how it came to be and that he will have a hell of a time explaining this once he is back home. It has been two months since he got irresponsible on the eve of the deployment and he never stopped taking the suppressants later, eliminating his ability to even recognize his own condition.
“Great, Mav,” he whispers to himself. “Real slick.”
There is a quiet chuckle and Pete gets startled. He looks to the right and he can see somebody sitting on the side of the other camp bed. It is too dark for him to clearly see the soldier, but he instinctively recognizes the pack leader. The soldier has been sitting there for God knows how long, watching him sleeping. Pete swallows hard.
For a few minutes there is silence. Pete turns his head and he looks at the dark ceiling. It will be okay, he tells himself, he will be home soon. He can feel the alpha’s eyes on himself, but there is no trace of immediate threat in the air.
“What would you do,” the soldier asks in English, with a heavy accent. “To save it?”
Pete turns his head back in his direction without searching for eye contact.
“I can’t give those names,” he says, very well aware that he might be spelling out his own death sentence. He perceives a small nod as a response.
“The people you are trying to protect,” the alpha says, “Are not exactly what you think they are.”
Pete looks back at the ceiling. He knows what the soldier is implying; he knows that the missile that took down his jet was fired from the other side of the border. He has a couple of ideas regarding the circumstances surrounding the missile strike, but he will share those with the Navy investigators at home instead of discussing it with this militant.
“You guys figure it out between each other,” he says. There is silence once more and the energy in the room slowly begins to shift. Pete can feel the elevated sense of danger and something else.
“Who is the father?” the alpha asks.
“I don’t know,” Pete replies without hesitation. The soldier lets out a short laugh and the reaction sounds honest and pleased at his willingness to degrade himself and to protect the other alpha. In the next moment the soldier is on his feet. With one large step he closes the distance between the two camp beds and he reaches out at Pete. He watches with eyes wide open: he has no idea what the alpha is about to do. He could choke him to death or break his neck with one move. The soldier puts one large hand on Pete’s chin and turns his head to the side to expose the jagged bite mark on his neck, which was clearly done with the intention to hurt.
“You are lying,” the alpha says. “But that’s okay.”
He grabs Pete’s chained hands and pushes them down against his chest forcefully. The soldier lifts one leg and a moment later Pete can feel a heavy knee settling against his lower abdomen. Pete is struggling to breathe and in the scarce light he can see the alpha for the first time now. Somewhat to his surprise he realizes that the soldier is probably the same age as Tom.
“What are you willing to give?” The alpha asks, snarling. “If I let it live?”
“Anything,” Pete blurts out and it is the truth. All the soldier needs to do is to press down with his knee and he will crush Pete’s abdomen.
“Your life, in exchange for that one.”
“What?” he asks, dumbfounded.
“I let you carry it to term. I will let you deliver it and then get it to the Americans. That is my part of the deal. In return you will do what I’m telling you, from this point on and when that pup is gone, you will carry mine. If you fight or try to run, I will rip this one out of you.”
Pete stares at him and he tries not to appear to be relieved in order to avoid pissing off the alpha. Does this soldier not know that Navy Seals will be kicking down the door in a matter of hours or the most, days? Does he really think that he has the power to detain an American for months, not to mention for years? Doesn’t he know that all he, Pete needs is to win some time?
“Deal,” he says. The pressure on his belly slowly goes away. The alpha puts his hands on either side of Pete’s head and he gets on top of him. He is heavy, but the sense of threat is diminishing with each passing moment. His legs slip between Pete’s thighs, parting them wide; then the alpha takes Pete’s chained hands and pins them over his head. The soldier ceases to move; his face is resting against Pete’s neck. Pete can feel the alpha’s lips on his own skin; sharp teeth are pressed against the healed bite mark. Pete’s heart is thumping fast from the fear. The alpha lets out a pleased groan and withdraws without biting. He gets up slowly, with his eyes on the omega. Only when the door is closed and locked behind him, does Pete let out a relieved sigh.
He is going home.