Chapter Text
Mav gets news of the assignment when he’s coming off a 72-hour patrol over enemy airspace.
To make matters infinitely worse he hasn’t had a single bit of sleep for any of those hours- nada, zip, zilch. He’s running on the last dregs of his fuel, the only meal for the day being a ration bar he’d decided to chow down on during one of the few piss breaks he’d been given.
As a consequence, he’s quite literally staggering down the hallway of the carrier back to his bunks like a drunken foal that’s reworking his legs, either ready to pass out or die when the courier comes up to him and hands him the letter, not even giving him the courtesy of looking apologetic.
“You’re kidding me,” Mav says flatly, as he unfolds the letter. Details are startlingly and yet unsurprisingly scarce- he’s been called back to TOPGUN for mission training, and the actual thing is in three weeks. More at ten, or whatever. “I can’t even sleep?”
“Briefing’s tomorrow morning,” the spotty kid says, now at least looking slightly terrified, as if he thinks Mav might deck him for committing the simple crime of giving him a bit of bad news.
Mav’s honestly not gonna put it past himself, so he decides to stomp on his latent rage and attempts to send the kid a genial smile. The kid just grows more terrified instead, and Mav gives it up as a bad job, storming towards the bunks to pack his shit up.
It’s not much shit, anyway. He’s been at the U.S.S Hamilton for six months, looking at his deployment as temporary instead of permanent. The only thing he’d taken out of his duffel bag was a crumpled up picture of himself with Carole and Bradley, both of them kissing his cheek on either side. All Mav has to do is shove it back into the bag, and then he’s good to go.
He reaches Miramar late, getting a burrito on the way and dirty looks from the taxi driver as he does so. Focusing on how tasteless the burrito actually is, he doesn’t even realise he’s reached until the driver announces, “We’re here.”
Craning his neck up and staring at the nondescript walls of the buildings, the rows upon rows of jets along the runways, Mav can’t help but feel the exact same sense of excitement he always feels when stepping into the place. That’s the thing about having that one true love eclipsing everything else- anywhere connected to it is bound to bring you right back to where you belong. Home.
And yet, there’s something just slightly different about it- something different about the quiet hallways with few aviators roaming them at this time of the night, the receptionist yawning as she brings up his details. Mav can’t quite put his finger on it, not until he’s ushered to his new quarters and realises this is the first time he’s truly, well and completely alone. No Goose. No Iceman.
There’s no point in hanging around. No point in looking at the corridors, thinking of how he used to stroll around here with Goose at his back, on top of the fucking world- and then later with Iceman, teetering slightly on his pedestal in the wake of an earth-shattering jolt but still standing.
No point ruminating about those hellish weeks following Hop 31, when Mav couldn’t get a wink of sleep without seeing Goose’s body floating in a sea of green ink in the middle of the ocean, when Iceman would hover around him like a worried nanny fretting over a sick kid, all intense eyes and frowning mouth. No point recalling those two teaching sessions after the Layton rescue, ready to follow Iceman to the ends of the earth and beyond, everything be damned.
TOPGUN is his favourite place on earth but it is also a mausoleum of memories, haunting and dogging Mav with every step. As he traces his steps down the familiar corridors he thinks that really, he must be suicidal for returning- that, or eager for a death wish. Following orders, sure, but returning all the same.
Entering his quarters feels no better. Mav sets down his duffel bag and looks over to the opposite bunk bed, thinks of the numerous conversations he’s had with Goose in a room exactly like this one. Thinks of Goose showing off pictures of Bradley, teasing him about Charlie, rattling off less than flattering comments about Slider. Thinks of Iceman, after- straddling him on the bed, overbalancing, both of them laughing and bumping their noses together, jubilant.
Memories upon memories upon memories, all of them threatening to drown Mav with their weight. He gives up the ghost and stands up abruptly, shucking off the uniform in favour of civvies.
The Hard Deck it is, then.
*
The dead of night is when the Hard Deck truly thrives, lights turned down low to cast a dizzying shine on every single person dancing the hours away. Aviators resplendent in their uniforms lounge about, jeering at each other and posturing for the local civilians. It’s laughably easy to pick the green-behind-their-ears recruits from the experienced pilots, that specific sort of arrogance coming solely from experience and trauma carried around by the latter.
Mav steps over the threshold, already a tiny bit annoyed by the inner on-goings of the bar. Rewind to five years ago and he’d be excited to take part in the revelry, plugging in the juke box and tricking someone into paying for everyone’s drinks. He’d be at the counter with Goose, both of them acting like their ego was way too big to fit in through the door, on the lookout for the next poor girl- or guy- to try losing his loving feeling on.
Hitting thirty shouldn’t make him feel this fucking exhausted. He is though, a raw and gaping hole throbbing away in his heart, for more reasons than just one.
One drink, Mav thinks, pushing past sweaty aviators and simpering women, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket and ducking his head. One drink, and he’s going to head outside for a walk to clear his mind. Clearly, something must be in the air at Miramar to make him turn maudlin thoughts over and over in his head like this.
And then the night promptly takes a turn for the worse when a voice that’s haunted his dreams for the better part of the past two years calls out, “Maverick?”
His shout is loud, confident and sure. It rings across the space of the bar, cutting right to the point and seating him through. Dangerous, no matter how much he likes to pretend otherwise. Mav closes his eyes, exhales, and turns.
There, leaning against the pool table with the cue in hand, is Iceman. He’s in the brown fatigues of the academy because of course a man like him can’t be seen popping down to the local bar in civvies. His hair’s coiffed to perfection, soft to the touch and gorgeous, crystal-clear blue eyes piercing as always.
The rest of the ‘86 squad is right there with him, the posse of idiots in perfect alignment. There’s Hollywood and Wolfman off to one side, heads swiveling between them as if they’re at a tennis match. Slider, who’s leaning against the window with a gaze narrowed in suspicion. And then there’s Chipper with Sundown in the corner, warily taking stock of the situation.
No question as to who won their friends in the breakup. Somehow, Mav had always had an inkling of how it would end- how he and Iceman would have parted ways, inevitably. And yet, being in a moment he’d been anticipating for years feels even more awfully painful than he’d expected. What a fucking joke of a situation, he thinks as he gingerly but dutifully picks his way over the shattered glass and beer on the floor, answering Iceman’s siren cal like a panting dog returning to their owner.
Iceman eyes him up, pool cue in hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Was called back,” Mav says shortly. “You?”
Hollywood and Wolfman are still watching them, mouths slightly open in unison and leaning against each other as they do so, elbows and knuckles in constant contact. They’re the perfect pilot and RIO duo, the magazine ready example of two people who managed to make it work, right next to the other two people in their squad who very ostensibly didn’t.
Next to them, Maverick and Iceman are pretty much failures. The men who fell short of each other, magnificent in the air but breaking apart into shattered pieces on the ground. The men who were fundamentally mismatched when it came to love, one of them head over heels in it and the other one always far, far out of reach.
“Same,” Iceman says after a while, his eyes somehow even more inscrutable than ever. He holds himself with this easy confidence, though, his limbs loose and lax as if their time apart had built him up into greater heights- a new look on him.
Then again, after two years of separation everything about Iceman feels new. Undiscovered, all the old patterns and tics Mav was once familiar with gone in the wind. Vanished, never to be revealed again. Certainly not to someone like Mav, anyway. “What use could they have for you?” Iceman continues- a little rudely, in Mav’s opinion.
“Hey, that’s mean,” Hollywood interjects, breaking the strange stalemate to come over, slinging a heavy arm around Mav. He’s got this purposefully cheerful grin playing on his lips, gripping the neck of his beer bottle with his other hand. “Only pilot with confirmed air-to-air kills, isn’t he?”
“Don’t sweat it,” Mav says, and snatches Hollywood’s bottle out of his lax hands, inhaling a long sip and ignoring his protest. Avoiding Iceman’s gaze is a feat but he manages it, giving the bottle back and sending Wolfman a wink who rolls his eyes, exasperated but fond. “Ice has a little problem with his memory. He tends to forget who had his back during Layton.”
A ringing silence echoes in the wake of his words, thunderous and pertinent. After all, Mav’s always known where to hit Iceman the hardest, where to get him where it hurts.
And then Iceman steps closer, his eyes sharp as glass and his hands wrapped around the pool cue. Hollywood instantly releases Mav, because he’d be a lunatic to keep clinging onto him in the face of that- two fucking years of pent up rage, and resentment, finding a release in this bar at the side of a dusty town where both of them found each other and came together in ways they never thought would be possible.
“I remember all right,” Iceman says slowly, dusting off invisible lint from Mav’s shoulders, before fixing him with his usual intense stare, the thousand-yard one that Mav loves to pretend doesn’t make him go fully weak in the knees. “It was a bit of a fluke, though- wasn’t it, Mitchell? You don’t have a great track record with backing people up out there.”
Because of course, just like Mav knew where to hit him to make it hurt, to make it ache- Iceman knew it, too.
Wolfman lets out a hiss at the words as Hollywood’s jaw drops, stare switching between them like he’s at a divorce hearing or something. Chipper’s even whispering, his voice carrying over the silence of this corner of the bar. “What the fuck actually happened between these two?”
Iceman’s still glaring at him, mouth a thin line and knuckles showing up bone-white on his skin. His eyes rove all over Mav’s skin, going from the tip of his forehead right down to his boots and then back up again. Two years ago it would make Mav feel hot under the collar, force him into pushing Iceman’s buttons to get Iceman to push back.
Now, of course, Mav knows better. He knows Iceman is just looking for a weakness, an opening to get Mav while he’s down. He holds Iceman’s gaze and gradually, lets the corners of his mouth lift in a smile- showing off every bit of the confidence he really cannot feel the slightest bit of.
“So intent on getting the last word in,” Mav says softly, before nodding at the others, taking a step back. Here’s something else that’s different about Mav too, after the two years spent apart- he knows how to pick his battles now. He knows when to wait for a win and when to accept the loss. “I’ll leave you boys to yourselves. Gotta get that beer before they run out.”
There’s a flicker of panic in Iceman’s eyes at his retreat, as if he hadn’t actually expected Mav to concede defeat. It’s strangely satisfying to see, although Mav doesn’t feel at all comforted by the fact. “Wait-”
“See you tomorrow, Ice,” Mav says flatly, before nodding at the rest and turning on his heel, marching over to head out the door. As it turns out, he’s much, much more in need of that walk than he realised.
When he leaves the bar, piercing blue eyes follow his trajectory over the threshold and out into the cooling, desert night air.
Mav doesn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back.
*
Here’s the thing- it was good at the start. It was real good.
The start of it is the aftermath of the Layton rescue, every single one of them high off the success of the mission. Many, many things happen, some due to the euphoria of the successful mission and others due to things sliding into place- a broken down machine finally working, operating with some sense of normalcy.
There’s the celebrations, Mav throwing caution to the wind and kissing Ice when he’s dropped off outside his assignment, expecting a punch and then getting kissed back with equal ferocity. There’s the routes they all take after, Mav getting into his head that he wants to teach at TOPGUN and Ice clearly thinking him to be a lunatic of the worst sort but following him anyway, arguing with him and clashing with him on every single flight tactic and strategy, eyes flashing and lips curled into a smoking hot grin.
It was fucking sublime. They’d alternate between staying over at each other’s assignments- never for more than two days in a row, you never knew who was peeping through their windows like a fucking creeper or whatever it was that Ice liked to say. They’d watch bad TV at night and get takeout from the Chinese place in the corner, Ice having sardonic commentary and Mav throwing a pillow at his face to get him to shut up.
Ice would leave little notes everywhere with curling calligraphy, calling Mav darling and baby and sweetheart, tuck it into his pockets and the front of his shirt and the inner lining of his flight suit, to be discovered in a quiet place with a blushing grin. Mav would get him flowers from the corner shop, tiny rhododendrons and dandelions and roses, hide them in his office and around their apartments as a little treasure hunt of sorts. Find me, Ice, and keep me forever.
Falling in love was a foregone conclusion. Mav practically dove into it as each day went past, drunk with the force of it, drunk on adoring and loving the living daylights out of his contrary, tortured, beautiful wingman.
It was fucking exhilarating. Ice was getting the itch of staying in one place and applied for a transfer to the U.S.S Apollo and like a loyal puppy Mav transferred as well, yapping at Ice’s heels and refusing to let go. They got the weird looks from Viper, the strange analytical stare that meant he was on the cusp of figuring something out but couldn’t quite get to that last step but Mav didn’t care. Mav was in love, baby.
And it didn’t just end there. They worked seamlessly in the air too, a goddamned pair of fucking conjoined twins, in complete harmony with each other, protecting and guarding and flying with dedicated ferocity. Other lieutenants stationed at the Apollo began to suspect they were telepathic or living in each other’s heads the whole time, that was how good they were. They rose to greater heights, formidable as a single entity of MaverickandIceman, and fuck if Mav wasn’t so fucking addicted to the reputation that specific power brought him.
Things weren’t too perfect, though, they never were. He still saw Goose in his sleep, haunting and tearful with that nightmarish blood all over his face, backlit by the green ink of the ocean, the weight of him carved like a bloody wound into Mav’s arms. Ice still refused to stay in his assignment or kip in his quarters for more than two nights in a row, forever convinced someone was keeping watch on them and was this close to signing them up for a handy-dandy court martial. They called each other baby and darling and sugar but they refused to call each other boyfriend and lover and partner, not even if it was just the two of them all alone.
Or maybe it was Ice who refused to call him that. Refused to put a label on it because when it came to Ice, Mav favoured the bliss blindness gave him. Pulled the rose-tinted glasses on willingly, sinking deeper and deeper into the chasm of ignorance love gave him. Even now, going over the muddied details of their affair together, those love-soaked memories- Mav tends towards forgiving Ice for every sin. Favours gathering more of the blame towards himself.
All that aside, it was still excellent. It still made Mav feel on top of the world, invincible. It still got Mav, stupidly enough, thinking that it would never get better than this. That it could never possibly get better than this.
Here’s the thing about meteoric, excellent highs. The better the rise, the harder the inevitable fall.
*
Mav, extremely shockingly, is the first one to the briefing room tomorrow. The entire expanse of the hall is empty, Viper the only one present as he rifles through a sheaf of dossiers and looks unnaturally stressed, lines around his eyes tight with tension and lips pressed together so rigidly they’ve gone completely white.
The stress very unflatteringly increases the second he catches sight of Mav and actually drops the dossier, his jaw falling open. Which is reasonable, seeing as the only one who’s in the damn room is Mav. Back during his days teaching at TOPGUN, they’d had a bet going on whether Mav would be ten minutes late, twenty minutes late or thirty minutes late for each class, lecture, briefing.
No doubt as to which option won, every single time. Mav stomps uncharitably over to the front row of seats, slouching down and stretching his legs. “Don’t look so surprised,” he says.
“My god, Maverick,” Viper retorts in response, instead of saying he’s happy to see him like a normal fucking person. “Are you possessed?”
Really. “Maybe I just wanted to be a good little pilot for once,” he says archly, craning his neck and staring at the dossiers. The first one is his, a rather ugly picture attached to the top back when he thought having a unibrow was the peak of fashion. Everyone made mistakes, and all that. The ones right next to his are Iceman’s, Wolfman’s, and then Chipper’s. “Ever thought of that?”
Mav waits for the laughter to die down, Viper practically wiping away his tears, before nodding towards the files. Seeing the names had made an uncomfortable weight form in his stomach, the solid press of it crushing his insides. No wonder he’d seen his old squadmates at the Hard Deck. “So what’s the mission for? Who’s gonna be with us?”
Viper drums his fingers against the counter, looking at him serenely. The weight of his gaze is unbearable and Mav shifts, almost wanting to look away. Against his will, his attention gets caught by the files, Iceman’s image showing up clearly against the transparent case- picture perfect and unfairly handsome.
Mav leans forward and braces his elbows on his knees as the door to the room swings open, other aviators trickling in. “You should have told me,” he hisses, heedless of the way Viper arches one eyebrow, incredulous. “You know we don’t fly together anymore, you should have said-”
“Is it going to be a problem?” Viper asks, cutting straight to the point. Mav can make out Hollywood’s laughing voice, Wolfman’s dulcet tones going shrill as he yells at him for something or other.
Mav leans back in his seat, and fumes at nothing in particular. “I’m the best fucking pilot in the room right now,” he snaps, “so no, sir. No problem.”
Viper doesn’t rise to the bait, grinning instead at the alacrity and venom in his tone. There’s no more time for Mav to express his dismay, not when Hollywood’s sliding in to sit next to him, scuffing the back of his neck with his knuckles as Wolfman slumps down on the seat the other side of Mav, clearly still suffering the last dregs of a murderous hangover.
Iceman is in the room too- Mav can tell, just by the way the nape of his neck prickles, a peculiar heat focused on it with laser sharp accuracy. He knows if he turns around, he’ll see the other aviator glaring right at him, Slider the ever protective bodyguard in the seat next to his.
He doesn’t turn. He can’t exactly afford to, anyway, not when Viper’s back to looking unnaturally stressed, lines of tension crinkling his weathered features as he shuffles through the dossiers again. This time round, there’s two admirals in the room- Jester, who’d finally accepted the promotion while Viper had resolutely turned it down, and Admiral Smith, who keeps sending Mav dirty glances.
Fair, considering Mav had once disobeyed his direct orders to return to base on board the U.S.S Yorktown to help a fellow lieutenant in the midst of a panic attack, having narrowly missed a bird strike.
Without his intervention the lieutenant would have burned in, and the Navy would have had to answer for yet another avoidable death by training accident. That certainly hadn’t made Admiral Smith hate him any less, though, shipping his ass off to bumfuck, nowhere in Siberia for three months right after.
Even without the foundational loathing, though, there’s still something off about the whole briefing. For instance, Viper doesn’t hang around and crack jokes with his former students, tense and worried. There’s Jester and Admiral Smith hanging around in the front, their heads bent together and eyes occasionally scrutinizing the lot of them like they’re lambs for slaughter. Something in the way even the other aviators are quiet, the usual barbs and jokes that would be present missing.
It takes a while, but Mav manages to put his finger on what the atmosphere feels like. Doom.
When everyone’s filed in, Chipper the last of them, Viper straightens up and stares at them all. “You all sit here before me as the cream of the admittedly abysmal crop the Navy has to offer,” he announces, clasping his hands together as he stares at them all. His eyes are full of this strange sort of emotion, the kind Mav’s never seen on the man before. As if he’s violently pushing away the nostalgia he feels, refusing to bask in it. “I should know. I trained you all.”
Mav can’t stand the oppressive, heavy quiet of it all. For fuck’s sake, it’s not as if they’re about to be court martialled into hell and beyond. “Preach,” he calls out loudly, just to hear everyone else break out into poorly disguised snickers and Admiral Smith to frown viciously, shaking his head as if that might get him to behave.
Viper finally cracks a smile at that, also shaking his head but with an air of fondness. He always did let Mav get away with anything. That’s what Ice used to say, back when they were together- slinging his towel around Mav’s neck and drawing him close, Mav stumbling towards him with the stupidest of grins as he skates his fingers up Ice’s muscled sides. He’d let you escape with murder if he could, he’d murmur, in a tone that spoke of understanding.
“You- all of you are here only because you are the Navy’s best and brightest,” Viper says. His voice wavers, and Mav frowns at the uncharacteristic sight, sitting up straight from where he’d been slouching. From the corner of his eye he sees Hollywood take down that infernal cowboy hat for once, gaze similarly full of alarm. “It is for this reason that you’ve been chosen for this mission.”
He goes on to describe the parameters of the mission, and each word makes Mav’s eyebrows shoot up higher and higher into his hairline. No one’s even remotely grinning anymore- Wolfman looks properly stunned, openly gaping at Viper, and Hollywood hasn’t been able to pick his jaw off the floor for a good few minutes, staring between Jester and Viper as if he expects either of them to stop the briefing and announce its all an April fools’ joke. Mav doesn’t need to turn back to see what Iceman looks like- he can already see it in his mind’s eye, his face wiped off all emotion the way it goes whenever he’s had the stuffing well and truly knocked out of him.
How else can you react when you’re told that you’re going to be sent on a covert mission to Russia to shoot up a facility full of uranium with two missiles, right in the middle of highly guarded enemy territory, all sides of the freezing terrain covered in heat-seeking missile launchers armed to shoot and kill when pointed?
Viper ends his spiel by saying there will be three weeks of training, and he shoots the admirals a glance before looking back at the aviators before him. “Questions?”
“Yeah,” Mav says loudly, not bothering to raise his hand as he sees Hollywood frantically gesture for him to shut up. He’s not going to, not when he sees his fellow aviators freaked out to hell and back, Viper physically torn apart at having to narrate the gruesome parameters of the mission.
He turns in his seat to look at Jester who’s already got a long-suffering glare fixed on his face. Whatever he says next, he knows Jester will get him off the hook for it. That’s the sort of man Jester has always been, the kind to let his subordinates shoot fire at him as he takes it. So very different from men like Admiral Smith, Admiral Benjamin… Admiral Cain. It’s with confidence that Mav raises his chin and says, “Sir- this is a suicide mission. Isn’t it?”
The briefing room goes bone-chillingly quiet, and he sees Viper close his eyes, a look of pain crossing his features. Jester doesn’t answer for a long while, staring at Mav half in resentment and half in resignation, as if he thinks he should have seen this coming. Then he sighs and shakes his head, a rueful smile crossing his lips.
“Remember your duty to your country, lieutenant,” he says in what has to be one of the most infuriating non-answers Mav has ever heard, and then he’s sweeping out of the room, Admiral Smith on his heels. Viper’s scurrying after them with nothing more than an apologetic glance sent Mav’s way. An absence of noise follows in his wake, all of them far too shocked at what they’ve just been ordered to do.
Then Mav’s jumping up as well, a fire set alight beneath his feet. “Sorry, excuse me,” he says breathlessly, dodging around the other aviators and rushing down to follow the admirals out. He doesn’t pause to see if the others are also dogging his steps, booking it out of the room and praying he hasn’t lost the admirals and Viper already.
Sure enough, they’re walking down the hallway in a tight-knit group, discussing something in low tones- how much of an insubordinate idiot Mav is, probably. “Admiral Heatherly!” Mav shouts, dashing forward until he’s sliding to a stop in front of them.
When Admiral Heatherly turns it is with a warning look in his eyes, his lips pressed together in disapproval. Viper shakes his head minutely, a warning for him to go back. “Maverick, you’re overstepping.”
“I know- I know, I’m sorry,” Maverick breathes, bending over to catch his breath, bracing his palms on his knees. His heart is racing as he considers exactly what he’s about to ask. It’s a risky question, letting on things he’d rather not let on. And yet- he has to know. He has to know, because he knows exactly whose purview missions in Russia fall under.
“Who- who will be overseeing the mission?” Mav asks, and waits with bated breath.
This time it’s Admiral Smith who speaks up. “Myself, Admiral Heatherly and Admiral Cain,” he says warily, and the last name lands like a blow to the heart, punching him through and leaving him gasping and gagging on his own blood in the aftermath. “Any more questions, lieutenant?”
“No, sorry sir,” Mav manages to choke out somehow, and then the three officials are gone and Mav is left in the empty hallway, turning the words over and over in his head, trying to suppress the quickly rising panic in his chest- and failing.
“You shouldn’t have asked that,” a voice suddenly says, and Mav spins around to see Iceman glaring at him, arms folded as he leans back on the balls of his feet, hand playing with the silver wrist watch he’d gotten from his father. In the suddenly empty and bereft hallway he fills it up entirely with his presence, eyes as hard and flinty as ever with his cold veneer drawn around him like a razor-sharp shield. “You always did ask way too many questions. Smith’s going to be on your ass from now on.”
“He’s always been on my ass,” Mav retorts, rolling his eyes as he approaches closer. Typical of Iceman to chase him out just to chastise him, rattle off a list of things he’s constantly fucking up. “Take it easy, Iceman. Not like I can make it any worse than us heading into Russian territory just to get shot down, right?”
Iceman doesn’t flinch at his words, not even the slightest bit. Instead, he keeps gazing at Mav, ten mile high walls firmly up and warding everyone off from getting a sneak peek beneath. If there’s something itching to break out from behind them, Mav wouldn’t fucking know. He lost that privilege two years ago, when he made the mistake of thinking the Iceman could ever love him back.
“Navy’s best and brightest,” he says instead, “sent to die.” He pats Ice on the chest and then pushes past roughly, shoulder knocking into his before heading down the hallway- away from the sting of Admiral Cain in his ears, away from Ice, away from the mission hanging over his head like a sudden death threat.
*
Once, Ice had surprised Mav with a reservation at a charming restaurant three towns away from Miramar.
He’d quite literally kidnapped Mav, snatched him away on a three hour ride the second shore leave had started, refusing to take no for an answer as he’d straddled Mav’s Kawasaki, seizing the reins for once and making Mav ride pillion. It was a trip that had turned Mav’s ass numb, his cheeks completely frozen from the chill of riding fast with the windows completely down. Still, he wouldn’t have traded the trip for anything, spending it clinging to Iceman with his face pillowed in the middle of his shoulder blades, holding on tight to his waist and feeling the muscled tone of his stomach beneath.
The restaurant was a nice Italian dive, full of a homely atmosphere that Mav hadn’t even known existed in America. He’d been pleasantly surprised, even more so when Ice had given him a bouquet of flowers, turning a little red as he did so. Flowers, after all, were Mav’s thing.
They’d gone to a seedy motel that was nearby that night, Ice breathing into his ear that he’d sworn the receptionist to secrecy with a good enough bribe. “Who would he have told?” Mav had muttered as Ice had kissed down his chest, and then he’d reached the zipper of his jeans and it got a little hard to pay attention after that.
As they’d laid down on the bed, Ice idly tracing patterns on Mav’s back while their sweat cooled down in the frigid chill of the room, Mav had propped himself up on his elbow and made the mistake of voicing out his thoughts, distracted by the pretty cornflower shade of Ice’s eyes. The thought that DADT should not be a thing so that they didn’t have to do things like sneaking to a town three fucking hours away just to have a nice date.
“You regret our date?” Ice had asked, frowning, and then they were off.
Mav explained that all he meant was that he just wanted to be out and open with Ice. Ice, eyeing with Mav in increasing alacrity that only came from grievous misinterpretation, retorted that he went to the lengths of finding the perfect restaurant, the perfect motel and the perfect town just for Mav to end up regretting it all. Mav sighed and threw his hands up, exclaiming that Ice was looking at this the wrong way. Ice said, in a quiet voice that spoke of the hurt he’d felt by Mav’s poor decision of voicing out his stray thoughts, that it felt like Mav was seeing them in the wrong way, too.
By this point, the night was over. The pleasant mood was over, the afterglow of their lovemaking disappearing as fast as anything. Mav was standing up, naked as the day he was born near the dresser, the chill of the motel room causing goosebumps to rise on his skin. Ice was sitting up on the bed too, not even eyeing Mav up like he did whenever they argued with each other whilst not wearing a single stitch of clothing, too furious by the dispute at hand.
“I like you,” Mav had said then, not yet shouting but close to it, folding his arms and glaring at Ice from where he was pacing near the dresser. “Is it so bad that I want everyone else to know it too?”
Here’s where he and Ice differed, fundamentally- where the true root of their conflict grew and took shape. Maverick had his head in the clouds, full of dreams and wishes and desires which just refused to fade into the background. Iceman, on the other hand, was mired in reality, ice cold about the on-the-ground truth of their situation- just like his callsign.
What Ice wanted never mattered to him, not like it mattered to Mav. The reality, which was all that was important, was this- they could never kiss on the porch of their shared assignment in full view of their neighbours lest they get a court martial, and the way things looked, that was the way it was gonna be for a long time.
And as much as Mav liked to pretend otherwise, subterfuge was not a good foundation for a relationship. Refusing to put a label on a good thing going was not a good foundation for a relationship. Letting things unsaid sink into the space between them, ignored and suppressed, wasn’t a good foundation for a relation. It wasn’t for the Iceman, and it wasn’t for Maverick.
All Ice does is stare at him in response to his words, the cold weight of them making it’s uncomfortable presence known. “Don’t be so infernally fucking stupid, Maverick,” he’d said, voice frozen over and calm with the heat of his frustration- a strange, beautiful oxymoron. “No one can know about us, so it doesn’t fucking matter.”
Their argument hadn’t been resolved that night. Nor the next day, or the day after, or even an entire month later.
Especially not one and a half years later, during that fateful rainy night on the front porch of Mav’s assignment, when Mav told Ice he loved him and Ice recoiled from him instead, eyes widening with barely hidden fear.
*
They don’t even get time to bask in the fact that their next mission is most likely going to be their last. An hour after the briefing, Maverick gets down to the lobby to see a roster of hops already put up, his squadmates gathered around it and pointing out the different assigned partners. The clock has started ticking, after all, and as Viper had put it yesterday in the middle of the briefing- if they don’t shape up fast, they’re mincemeat.
The first hop of the day after goes to Hollywood, Wolfman and Maverick against Viper. It already starts out pretty shitty when Maverick wakes up late, sleeping through his alarm like an idiot recruit on the first day of class. He’s forced to hop around the bunk while cramming his feet into his boots, calculating how much time it would take to pop by the mess hall for some toast.
He ends up not going at all, fully sprinting across the tarmac on the runway while shoving a half-baked, probably expired granola bar into his mouth.
Goose had been the one to introduce him to the magic of granola bars. He’d put them into his own pockets and Maverick’s as well, beating into him the power of nutrition. “It’s important to keep your stomach full,” he’d warned, properly earning the nickname of Mother Goose as he put back the bars whenever Maverick tried to take them out. “Not too full, but full enough. What would I do if you fainted in the middle of a dogfight?”
“That would never happen,” Maverick would retort with no small amount of petulance, before conceding and letting Goose shove pieces of perishable and non-perishable food onto Maverick’s clothing- he’s an equal opportunist.
When it came to Goose, Maverick was always quick to admit defeat. Partly because they were best friends, partly because rebelling against everyone else was exhausting and he wanted at least one person he could listen to without calculating how reliable they would be when it came down to it, and mostly because he just whole-heartedly, faithfully trusted the man. Had so, ever since Goose had jumped into a fight to defend him against four guys thrice his size in the locker rooms back at his first deployment.
Point being, as Maverick makes his run while frantically chewing and swallowing bits of granola bar, he sends up a spare bit of thanks to Goose. He arrives at the jet to see Hollywood and Wolfman already there, strapped in and ready to go.
“You’re late,” Wolfman calls down, leaning his head over the side of the jet. In the seconds before actually starting his flight, Hollywood was always strung so tight he refused to speak to anyone. When he actually did do so, it was with one syllable grunts and barely inhuman growling. These moments would force Wolfman to become his spokesperson, cheerfully forming his sentences for him.
“Had a rough start,” Maverick says shortly, finishing off the bar and wiping the crumbs down, ignoring the look he’s getting from the tech. He’s about to jump up to strap himself in when he realises that Wolfman’s gone strangely silent.
Looking up, he sees Wolfman stare at him- or more accurately, at his jet. The single seater of his jet, the Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell splashed in incriminating black font across the side. “You’re flying solo?” he asks, a weird tone to his voice.
Maverick stiffens at the question. “Yes,” he says curtly. “That a problem?”
Wolfman must have a death wish because he just keeps staring at the single seater in Maverick’s jet, at the clear absence of an RIO on the vehicle. It must be startling, Maverick thinks, to anyone who hadn’t stayed after the Layton rescue- especially when Wolfman had witnessed the camaraderie between Merlin and Maverick.
But the simple matter of that fact was this- no RIO has come close to Goose. No RIO, in fact, will ever come close to Goose, to his razor sharp eye and calm demeanour in the heat of battle, the way he’d acceded to Maverick’s lunacy and actually encouraged it on certain occasions, his presence at the back of Maverick haunting him like an omen.
Even if Maverick had wanted another RIO, he couldn’t. Goose stopped him, the memory of him laughing and cheering in the backseat, the memory of him lifeless in the middle of the ocean, cradled in Maverick’s arms warm as anything.
“I mean, no,” Wolfman says hesitantly, “but-”
“I’ll cover your six,” Maverick barks, cutting him off abruptly because he doesn’t exactly have the patience for it. Wolfman looks hurt at the interjection but he seems to realise now’s not the time or place to question the exact extent of Maverick’s trauma resulting from the death of his best friend. Instead of replying he gives a sharp nod, and then they’re setting off down the tarmac, Hollywood on Maverick’s tail.
The hop starts like this- Viper cuts in from behind them, scaring the shit out of Hollywood who begins shrieking curses and making Mav nearly choke himself up from laughing. He tells them the objective is to get a radar lock on him, and because Mav has never known how to keep his mouth shut he retorts that it’s not gonna be any skin off his back to get a lock on an old timer like Viper.
The thing about Mav is that he’s a pretty infectious guy. His sorrow, glee and grief are like uncontrollable weeds, spreading out to everyone in sight, affecting them with the slightest touch. Goose had realised this, and instead of acting like a minder he’d decided to entertain Mav to the fullest capability- yes, Mav, let’s buzz the tower, yes, Mav, let’s put a whoopie cushion in the commanding officer’s seat, yes, Mav, let’s defy direct orders because we know what’s best for us.
Hollywood’s no exception to the rule. Buoyant on the hilarity of Mav’s taunts, he makes it significantly worse by asking to put some skin in the game. It’s all a big, dumb game, after all- not worth playing unless there’s some stakes.
Viper is silent for a long time, during which Mav levels a glare at Hollywood and Wolfman rips off his mouthpiece to mouth an apology at him right back.
“If I get a lock on you, you do 400 push ups,” he finally says, and Mav nearly balks at the words, about ready to plead for forgiveness and push all the blame to Hollywood. “Vice versa for me. That’s enough for you bastards?”
“More than enough,” Hollywood squeaks, sounding a little wary now as he speeds off after Viper, chasing him down the terrain.
The last time they’d flown together like this in a simple hop was during training in ‘86. Back then, Mav remembers being a trigger happy idiot of a pilot, dead set on the end goal with no focus on what he did to get there.
By the looks of it, so do Viper and Hollywood. They all see Layton as a one-off and as Iceman had so eloquently put it, a fluke. They have no idea of his deployments afterwards, what he’s gone through to protect his squadmates, to make sure they return to base safe and sound.
It’s not so much a motivation by the memory of Goose as it is an innate calling to be a better person for himself, afford himself dignity and respect by also co-incidentally proving everyone else wrong. A drive to prove that he isn’t being a Maverick for rebel’s sake. That there’s a reason he’s a Maverick.
So when he cuts Viper off sharply from getting a lock on Hollywood and gets targeted by Viper for all his trouble, he knows he’s just stunned them all speechless- Viper, Hollywood and Wolfman. But they’ve wised up at last, realised he did some growing up in the five years apart and more importantly, that Layton wasn’t a one-trick pony but in fact, a sign of greater things to come.
And thus, when he eventually sets down on the burning tarmac and does his pushups in the middle of the sweltering desert heat, nose to the boiling ground and skin crackling under the force of the sun, he does it with a grin on his face.
When Viper stops by, he doesn’t speak, just standing and watching as Mav huffs and puffs with sweat rolling down his face. Hollywood and Wolfman had dropped by to apologise for the bait and switch, for which he told them to fuck off. There had been a newfound trust in their eyes, though, one Mav had been heinously triumphant to see.
“I don’t know what I expected, Mitchell, but it certainly wasn’t that,” Viper finally says, his lips breaking into a grin. “What number are you on?”
“Two fifty,” Mav grunts out, his biceps straining as the sun beats down mercilessly on his back. He can see passing aviators throw him strange glances, bending their heads together to whisper at the sight of him on the tarmac, sweat drenched and red in the face. He must make quite the view, jumpsuit tied off at his waist and skin even more tanned than before from the sun, dripping in perspiration.
“Keep it to three hundred, you did good today,” Viper says. And then he leaves with a flourish, Mav gaping after him in astonishment. Viper never skimps on his punishments, ever.
Except when it comes to Mav, apparently.
“I knew I was always your favourite!” he calls out from between wheezes, grinning as Viper flips him off in vague irritation.
The next hop is Chipper and Sundown, Iceman and Slider against Viper. Hollywood and Wolfman, pleased with their non-success of the hop and also avoiding the pain of 400 push-ups, turn up the communications on the radio to shamelessly listen in. Cooling off next to one of the only working fans in the entire academy, Mav does an admittedly piss poor job of not listening to the sounds of everyone shouting orders to each other as they attempt to get a lock on Viper, Iceman’s low growl standing out to Mav almost singularly.
Viper’s the first ever guy to become Top Gun, and he was their instructor to boot. He’s not just good, he’s a goddamn phenomenal pilot- but by no means invincible. Getting a lock on him is possible, and as the communications filter through Mav expects Iceman to get it done quickly enough, tongue poking out from between his teeth with that gorgeous look of concentration marring his features, razor sharp glower affixed on his face.
Which is why it comes as such a shock when Viper gets a lock on first Chipper, Iceman failing to protect him. The entire room goes silent, right before Hollywood scoots his chair forward, turning the dial on the volume of the radio all the way up. Mav abandons the breezy comfort of the fan as well, getting up and leaning over the radio. He braces his weight on his palms and closes his eyes, focused almost entirely on Iceman’s voice- deadly accurate, not betraying a single hint of panic.
“Come on, Tom,” he mutters, ignoring the looks sent his way by both Hollywood and Wolfman, tapping his fingers on the counter. “Go get him.”
As if his words were some sort of fucked up weapon personally hand-delivered by God, Viper announces, “That’s a lock. Back to base, Iceman.”
To his credit, he at least manages to a little bit of surprise in his tone. Iceman, after all, is the same aviator who’d managed to get a lock on his instructor his very first hop in the academy. The same one revered for his chilling intellect, his tendency towards no mistakes, his deadly accuracy in flying. The same one on route for a promotion within the next two years or so, a letter announcing him as Captain about to be stamped for approval.
As Iceman acquiesces with a terse, unhappy reply, Hollywood shuts the radio off and turns to Mav. “What the hell happened to you two?” he asks, sounding amazed. “That was some shit flying from him.”
He phrases it as if it’s Mav’s fault Iceman had a bad day in the air and is now suffering on the tarmac because of it. And despite the ridiculousness of the statement, he’s right. When they’d been together their flying had been immaculate, perfect to the tenth degree. It was as if tripping up on each other’s presence and love constantly had somehow beefed up their communication until they’d become a two-man wrecking crew in the skies.
With Maverick on his tail and vice versa, Iceman hadn’t just flown like the king of the skies, he’d flown like the entire galaxy was pinned under his thumb. A god, and all that came with it.
And now here they are, Maverick protecting other aviators and Iceman getting the shit end of the stick for it.
There’s no way of giving a proper, believable answer to Hollywood’s question without revealing how utterly wrong things went between them, how devastatingly unsuited he was for Ice. Hollywood, six years into a very healthy and stable relationship with his RIO, certainly wouldn’t get it- wouldn’t get the exact way Maverick and his former wingman had fallen apart, had shattered out of shape and out of pattern with each other, their feelings so far from alignment it was a little bit comedic. A right fucking sitcom, all hands on deck for a killer show funnier than Seinfeld.
“Nothing happened,” Mav says, avoiding their incriminating gazes and staring out of the window at the tarmac. The jets have landed, all four aviators out in the simmering heat dutifully in the midst of their push-ups, Iceman’s gaze focused on the hulking jet in front of him. Even exhausted and skin-burnt, red from the heat and disheveled from having spent the better half of an hour in the cockpit, he looks beautiful. Like something Mav wants to preserve on a glass pedestal, cherish the image of it forever.
“We just realised we were better off separate,” he says, and then pushes past them to head over to the mess hall.