Chapter Text
Pete Mitchell had always been good at pretending. Pretending he wasn't nervous before a hop. Pretending the instructors' lectures rolled right off his back. Pretending he didn't care what anyone thought. The last one had never been true. It was simply easier if people assumed it was.
Top Gun wasn't exactly the place to admit you cared. Caring made you predictable. Predictable got you killed - or at the very least knocked down a peg by every hotshot pilot convinced they deserved your place. So Pete smiled.
He joked.
He flew.
And when the day was over, he slipped quietly through the side entrance of the barracks instead of the front. No one questioned it. Maverick wandered. Everyone knew that. Only one person knew where he always ended up. The hallway outside Tom Kazansky's room was empty. Pete knocked twice. Then once. Their knock.
Three seconds later the door cracked open. Blue eyes met his. "You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago."Pete grinned. "I was busy." "You stopped to talk to Goose." "I did." "You also stopped for a soda." "...Maybe." "And according to Slider, you somehow found time to argue with Hollywood about whether F-14s are prettier than A-4s." "They are." Tom sighed like the weight of the world rested squarely on Pete's shoulders. "You are impossible." "You still opened the door." "I made several poor decisions today." Pete slipped inside before Tom could change his mind.
The door clicked shut behind him. The second it did, the tension melted. Tom's shoulders lowered. Pete's grin softened into something real. No audience. No rivalry. No pretending. Tom reached up and fixed Pete's crooked collar. "You look ridiculous." "I always look ridiculous." "That's the problem." Pete caught Tom's wrist before he could pull away. Neither of them spoke. For a long moment they simply stood there. Hands touching. Breathing the same air. Pete leaned forward just enough that their foreheads brushed.
"...Hi."
Tom smiled. It was tiny. Barely there. Almost nobody ever saw it. Pete loved that smile more than anything. "Hi."
Their relationship had started by complete accident. Or maybe by complete disaster. Pete still wasn't sure. He'd shown up at Tom's room one night after a particularly brutal day of training. Mostly to prove a point. Mostly because he couldn't stand how calm Kazansky always looked. He'd expected another argument. Instead… They'd talked. For hours….About flying.Families.Music.Goose.Slider.Everything except themselves.
The next night Pete had come back. Then the next. Somewhere between stolen conversations and shared cups of terrible Navy coffee… Rivalry had become friendship.Friendship had become something neither of them had expected.The first kiss had happened after Tom had won an argument. Pete still insisted that had been unfair.
"You hungry?" Tom asked. "I'm always hungry." "I noticed." Pete looked around the tiny room. Everything sat exactly where Tom always left it. Books stacked neatly on the desk. Flight manuals arranged by size. Boots polished. Uniform hanging perfectly straight. Pete wandered over to the bed. "You made this." "Yes." "Why?" "So I can sleep in it later." Pete immediately flopped face-first onto the blankets. "There." Tom stared.
"...Pete." "What?" "I literally made it five minutes ago." "Mhm." "You are getting boot polish on my blanket." Pete spread out farther. "It needed character." Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old." "I've been told eleven." Without another word Tom grabbed Pete's ankle and tugged. Pete yelped as he slid halfway off the mattress. "Oh, so we're choosing violence today?" "I chose violence the moment I let you inside."
Pete laughed. A real laugh. Loud enough that Tom instinctively glanced toward the door. Walls were thin. Always had been. Pete noticed. His laughter quieted. "Sorry." Tom shook his head. "You don't have to apologize." “I know." Still… He kept his voice lower.
Keeping a relationship secret wasn't glamorous. Movies lied about that sort of thing. There were no dramatic rendezvous. No sweeping declarations. Just schedules.Excuses. Planning. Pete had become surprisingly good at knowing which hallways stayed empty after lights-out. Tom knew which officers skipped evening inspections. They met late. Left separately. Never touched outside closed doors. Never looked at each other for too long in public. Sometimes Pete hated it. Sometimes it felt like enough just to have this. Tonight… Tonight it felt enough.
Tom disappeared into the tiny kitchenette. Pete listened to cabinets opening. Pots clattering. "You making dinner?" "I'm attempting to." "Attempting?" "I have you to distract me." "I inspire greatness." "You inspire migraines." Pete smiled into the pillow. "You like me." "I tolerate you." "Liar." Silence. Then-
"I do."¨
Pete rolled onto his back. Tom rarely said things like that aloud. Not because he didn't feel them. Because saying them made them real. Pete watched him move around the kitchenette. Sleeves rolled to his elbows. Hair still perfectly combed despite spending the entire afternoon wearing a flight helmet. Everything about Tom looked controlled. Measured. Even the way he stirred canned soup. Pete couldn't cook to save his life. Tom couldn't understand how Pete survived adulthood. It worked. Somehow.¨
"You stared for thirty-seven seconds." Pete blinked. "You counted?" "You were making it obvious." "I was appreciating the view." Tom rolled his eyes. "You are unbelievable." "You like it." "I tolerate it." Pete snorted. "Liar." Tom looked over his shoulder. For just a second. Long enough for Pete to catch another smile. There it was again. That tiny one. Reserved only for him.
Dinner consisted of canned tomato soup and grilled cheese. Pete declared it gourmet. Tom informed him he had no standards. "I grew up on military bases." "That's not an excuse." "It absolutely is." Tom cut his sandwich neatly in half.
Pete tore his apart with his hands. "You are making crumbs." "I know." "They're on my floor." "They're your crumbs now." Tom stared. Pete grinned. "You really enjoy being annoying." "It's my love language." The room fell quiet. Pete hadn't meant to say it. The words had slipped out before he could stop them. Tom looked down at his plate. "...Mine too." Pete's heart squeezed painfully. Moments like this always caught him off guard. Tom wasn't loud. He wasn't dramatic. When he loved… He did it gently. Deliberately. Like every word mattered. Pete wasn't sure anyone had ever loved him that carefully before.
Later, they sat on the floor with music playing softly from an old cassette player. Pete leaned against the side of the bed. Tom sat beside him reading. Or pretending to. Pete watched him instead. "You've read the same page four times." "I know." "So you're distracted." "I am." "By me?" "...Yes." Pete smiled smugly. "I win." "This wasn't a competition." "Everything's a competition." "That explains so much." Pete nudged Tom's shoulder. Tom nudged him back. Eventually Pete rested his head there. Tom didn't move. Didn't tense. Just quietly shifted enough that Pete was more comfortable. No words. None needed.
Sometimes Pete forgot how strange this would look to everyone else. Maverick and Iceman. The two pilots who spent every briefing trying to outdo one another. Who argued over procedures. Who competed over scores. Who could barely make it through a debriefing without exchanging sarcastic comments. Nobody would ever guess. That was the point. They had built an act so convincing that sometimes Pete wondered if they believed it themselves. Then Tom absentmindedly reached over and threaded their fingers together without looking away from his book. Pete smiled to himself. No. This was real…The rivalry...That was the performance. And somehow, that thought made him happier than it had any right to. He had no way of knowing that, by the end of the week, the performance would be the only thing anyone believed.
Morning came fast at Top Gun. It always did. Pete had stopped being surprised by it weeks ago, the way darkness in Miramar never really felt like rest - just a pause before someone started shouting about engines, formations, or the eternal importance of not dying in a training exercise. He rolled out of bed late. Not his bed. Goose’s bed. Which meant Goose immediately threw a pillow at him the second Pete opened one eye
“Get up, you freeloader.” Pete caught the pillow without looking. “You’re welcome for my presence.” “That’s not how rent works.” “I bring emotional support.” “You bring chaos.” Pete grinned and sat up, hair sticking in every direction. Goose paused mid-shoe-tying and looked at him. “…You sleep somewhere else again?” Pete didn’t miss a beat. “No.” Goose narrowed his eyes. Pete stretched like he had all the time in the world. “I slept here.” “You are a terrible liar.” “I am a very confident liar.” Goose didn’t press it. But he didn’t stop watching him either.
Breakfast was loud. TopGun pilots treated the mess hall like a second briefing room, except with worse manners and better insults. Slider was already talking when Pete walked in. Which meant Pete was already late. Which meant Pete was already in trouble.
“You know,” Slider said, not looking up from his tray, “some of us actually sleep in our own beds.” Pete slid into a chair. “I support your lifestyle choices.” Hollywood snorted. “Your lifestyle is showing up late and pretending it’s a personality.” “I have many personalities.” “That explains the confusion,” Wolfman muttered. Pete leaned back. “Confusion is my brand.” Across the table, Tom Kazansky didn’t look up from his coffee. But Pete noticed. Of course he did. A single glance. Just long enough to check if Pete was intact. Then gone. Like it never happened. Pete’s chest tightened slightly in a way he didn’t acknowledge.
Instead, he kicked Tom’s boot under the table. Subtle. Private. Tom didn’t react. But his knee shifted half an inch closer.
Training that morning was brutal. Dissimilar air combat drills. Everyone paired off. Everyone against everyone. No trust. No mercy. Just jets and reflex and ego. Pete and Tom were not paired together. They rarely were. It was an unspoken rule among instructors- keep them competitive, keep them sharp, don’t let them start cooperating too obviously. Pete hated that rule more than most things. Because it meant hours of watching Tom in the sky and not being able to touch the pattern they flew in.
He took off third. Tom took off first. Of course he did. Of course he always did. Pete watched his F-14 cut into the sky like it belonged there more than anything else in the world. “You’re staring again,” Goose said over comms. “I’m not.” “You absolutely are.” Pete adjusted his throttle. “I’m assessing.” “You’re pining.” “I do not pine.” Goose laughed. “Sure.”
The drill was supposed to be simple. Merge. Engage. Break off. Reset.
But nothing about Top Gun was ever simple when Pete Mitchell was involved.He broke formation early. Slipped under Hollywood’s wing. Rolled hard enough to force Wolfman into defensive maneuvering. Someone shouted his callsign over comms. Someone else swore. He grinned. He could feel the rhythm of the sky the way some people felt music. And somewhere in the chaos-
He saw Tom. Clean. Controlled. Perfect. Not engaging. Just watching. Waiting. Like he always did. Like he was waiting for Pete to make a mistake worth correcting. Pete banked sharply. Went vertical. “Show-off,” Slider muttered. “Thank you,” Pete replied. But his eyes stayed on Tom.
Always on Tom.
Pete found him where he always did when he needed space. Edge of the base. Wind off the runway. Sky turning orange like it was burning out slowly. Tom stood with his arms folded, staring out at the airfield. Perfect posture. Controlled stillness. Like nothing in the world could move him unless he allowed it.
Pete slowed as he approached. He already knew this wasn’t going to be a normal conversation. “Hey,” Pete said. Tom didn’t turn immediately. “…Hey,” Tom replied after a beat. Pete stepped up beside him, hands in his jacket pockets. “You’ve been off today.” “I’ve been the same.” Pete shook his head slightly.“No. You haven’t.” Tom finally looked at him. Not defensive. Not irritated. Just waiting.
Pete exhaled through his nose.This was harder than he thought it would be. That surprised him. “You ever think about what happens after TOPGUN?” Pete asked. Tom blinked once. “…That’s what this is about?” “No,” Pete said immediately. Then hesitated. “Yes. Kind of.” Tom turned fully toward him now.
Pete hated how steady he looked. Like nothing could shake him. Like nothing ever had. Pete nodded once like he was organizing his thoughts. “I’m not good at… sitting still,” he said. “You know that.” “I know.” “And you are.” A pause. Tom didn’t react to that. Pete continued. “I think we’ve been trying to make two different things fit into the same space.” Tom’s expression tightened slightly. “I don’t follow.” Pete looked away for a second, then back. “I care about you,” he said. “That’s not the problem.” Tom didn’t speak. Pete swallowed once. “The problem is I don’t think this works outside of here.” Silence. The wind picked up slightly between them. Tom’s voice came low. “…What are you saying?” Pete nodded slowly. “I’m saying we should stop.”That landed heavier than anything else. Tom didn’t move. Didn’t react immediately. Like his brain was still trying to translate it into something else. “…Stop what,” he said finally. Pete looked at him directly. “Us.” The word hung there. Too simple for how much it changed.Tom stared at him. For the first time, something cracked in the control.Not anger. Not panic.
Disbelief. “…No,” Tom said quietly. Pete shook his head. “I’m serious.” Tom took a step closer. “You don’t mean that.” Pete held his ground. “I do.” Silence again.
Longer this time. Tom searched his face like there had to be something missing. Something incorrect.Something that made it make sense again.“You’re doing this now?” Tom asked.
Pete’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.” Tom blinked once. “And you decided that alone.” Pete didn’t answer. That was answer enough. Tom’s voice lowered. “So that’s it.” Pete looked away briefly. Then back. “I’m not good at this,” he said. “That’s not an answer.” “It’s the only one I’ve got.” Tom went still. The wind hit harder for a second. Pete ran a hand through his hair, exhaling. “This isn’t working the way it should,” he said. “And I don’t want to drag it until it breaks in a worse way.”
Tom’s expression tightened. “So you break it first.” Pete nodded once. “Yeah.” A beat. Tom looked at him like he didn’t recognize the logic. “…That’s cowardly,” he said quietly. Pete flinched slightly at that. Didn’t deny it immediately. Then he shook his head. “Maybe.” Silence. Tom’s voice dropped. “Is that really what this is?” Pete didn’t answer fast enough. That hesitation said more than anything else. Tom stepped back slightly. Just a fraction. Not retreating. Recalibrating. “…Alright,” he said. Pete looked at him sharply.
Tom nodded once. Controlled again. Perfect again. “If that’s your decision,” Tom said, “I won’t argue it.” Pete swallowed. He hadn’t expected that. Not like this.
Tom held his gaze for a moment longer. Then turned back toward the runway. Like it was already finished. Like it had always been temporary.
Pete watched him for a second. Then looked away. “I’m sorry,” Pete said quietly. Tom didn’t turn around.But he stopped for half a second. Then kept walking. And didn’t look back.