Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

SAN DIEGO, CA
February 1987

Maverick’s heart was pounding as he read through the report. Cancer, stage four, no viable treatments left —he eventually could read no further and realized it was because his eyes were burning and blurred with tears. 

With extreme effort he yanked his eyes from the report up to Carole who was watching him with heartbreak in her eyes. 

“Carole—” he rasped. “What—”

“I want you to promise me that you’ll take care of him, Pete,” Carole told him evenly. There was an ocean of grief and heartbreak in her eyes as she spoke. She leaned forward, curving her warm hand along the slope of his cheek. “I don’t have any family and Goose didn’t, either. You are our family, and Bradley is the one thing in the world that means more to me than anything else. I want you to promise me that you’ll do right by him.”

Maverick closed his eyes and struggled to breathe through the lump in his throat. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt her warm forehead press to his.

“Pete,” she whispered, and he yanked his eyes open again to meet her gaze. “Pete, please. Promise me. I need you to promise me.”

“Fuck, Carole, I promise, of course I promise,” he told her fiercely, enfolding her in his arms and tucking her into his chest, hugging her tightly as she broke apart like a plane of glass and sobbed into his shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” he told her fiercely as his own tears streamed down his face. “I’ve got you, Carole, you’re not alone.”

He hugged her tightly, rocked her from side to side, and for one brief fleeting moment, thought to himself, Goose, I’m so glad you don’t have to be here for this , because if the accident hadn’t killed his best friend, this sure as hell would have.

/

USS Enterprise
April 1987

“Sir,” Maverick said, to Stinger. He was back on the Enterprise but not for long. His shaking fingers were clutching his transfer request; he’d already spoken with Viper and Jester; he'd expected an immediate no—teaching hadn't exactly gone well the first time—but had been pleasantly surprised when they'd agreed to let him back to TOPGUN immediately and without a second's hesitation. All that was left was Stinger.

Stinger looked up from his desk. “Maverick,” he said with a smile of greeting as he stood. “I just spoke with Viper. Come in, son, sit.”

Maverick obeyed. It felt weird to be sitting instead of getting reamed out but so many things had changed since his last time on the ship. “Sir, I’ve requested a transfer back to the mainland,” he said; if Stinger had already spoken to Viper, this wasn’t news to him. “Sir, Goose’s widow has cancer. They have no living relatives. I’m to be Bradley’s guardian and the courts won’t—”

“Pete,” Stinger said, and hearing his name was so startling that Maverick clicked his mouth shut on reflex. The man’s bald head gleamed in the light of his stateroom but his eyes were as sharp and keen as ever. “I’m pissed as hell that TOPGUN is getting my top pilot back, but I understand, son. Goose was a good man. What you’re doing… what you’re doing is a good thing, Maverick, and I’m damned proud of you.”

He blinked, feeling his face flush from the praise. “Uh—t-thank you, sir,” he spluttered, not sure what in the hell else to say to that . “Once I’m settled, I hope to see combat again, but—” he trailed off with a weak shrug.

“I’ll miss you, kid,” Stinger admitted. He stood and stuck his hand out. “Good luck at TOPGUN, Lieutenant Commander Mitchell, and godspeed.”

Maverick shook his hand, saluted him, and turned on his heel sharply to leave the office.

He’d thought that it would be harder to leave combat, but he could see Bradley in his mind’s eye and it was a surprisingly easy choice to make.

/

MIRAMAR, CA
August 1987

The day of Carole’s funeral was bright and sunny. Bradley clung tight to his hand the entire time and he didn’t have the heart to pry his hand off even though he was in uniform.

Nobody at the service had the gall to reprimand him for it, no doubt due to Bradley’s little tear-streaked face as he leaned into Maverick’s thigh for the second funeral in less than a year. The boy was barely five and already an orphan.

It was a small service. Maverick was there with Bradley, a few of Carole’s friends from work, Jester and Viper and the other instructors, and those from his class of ‘86 who were in or near Miramar. Wolfman and Hollywood were somber and Sundown clasped Maverick’s shoulder throughout the service which in hindsight was probably the only thing that kept him from losing his shit completely.

Bradley was bawling when Carole’s casket was lowered and he looked up at Maverick, one hand clinging tight to his uniform, and Maverick decided fuck it and picked him right up. He knew at once this had been the right choice because Bradley buried his face in his neck and didn’t let go.

Maverick was the most terrified he’d ever been in his goddamn life, up to and including the plane crash, because he wasn’t a parent but now he was all Bradley Bradshaw had in the world.

Chapter Text

“You look like shit, Mitchell.”

Maverick blinked slowly and then looked up to find Jester sitting across from him. He blinked again, because he didn’t remember the man knocking nor did he remember watching him enter or sit, but he assumed one of the three of these had probably happened due to the look the Captain was giving him.

“Sir?” he said tiredly. He’d been staring at essays—or at least, he thought they were essays; his eyes were blurry and he had no fucking clue what he’d been reading—for the better part of two, maybe three hours. 

“I said,” Jester repeated patiently, “That you look like shit, Lieutenant Commander.”

Maverick bristled slightly but then he remembered to take a deep breath. Yes, he was exhausted; yes, he was short tempered; yes he’d absolutely lost his shit at a cocky little upstart earlier and bellowed himself hoarse in front of half the class. He hadn’t slept in a month, not really. He’d been struggling to balance Bradley and work and decorating his new four-bedroom house off base to feel like a home and failing miserably at all three. The two of them had such terrible nightmares that sleeping just for a handful of hours was a miracle for each of them.

“Bradley is having nightmares,” he confessed. Jester was a parent and he desperately needed his advice. When the older man nodded he barreled on. “He’s scared I’m going to die and leave him like his parents did. Honestly, sir, I’m not much better.” He rubbed a hand through his hair and breathed deeply through his nose. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not a parent.”

“I remember you telling me you weren’t a teacher, either, when you tried being an instructor at TOPGUN the first time last year,” Jester said and his tone was so gentle Maverick almost didn't recognize it. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the door. “Those men out there love you, kid. Your teaching style is unorthodox, I’ll give you that, but we’ve never had less problems with cocky upstarts since you started. You balance them out well, Mitchell. There’s going to be growing pains for you and for Bradley but you’ll both adjust. Just give it time.”

Maverick puffed out his cheeks and nodded. “Sir,” he said, and Jester reached over to clap him on the shoulder before standing.

“Get some fucking sleep,” he said over his shoulder as a farewell. “The last thing we need is an instructor crashing a plane, Maverick.”

He snorted and waved his hand, watching the man retreat, before he sighed, rubbed his eyes, and went back to his paperwork. (They weren’t essays).

/

It did get easier. Sort of.

Sort of not, really, but Maverick was trying and so was Bradley. It was summer which meant no school; Bradley would start Kindergarten in the fall but in the meantime he was relying on daycare during his work hours. It was just so fucking hard ; like for example: today.

“No, no,” Bradley was sobbing, clinging tightly to Maverick’s jeans and refusing to let go. He’d barely slept all night and had tear streaks down his face; his eyes were red and swollen, and his nose was bright red from all the crying and tissues getting rubbed on it. “No, Uncle Mav, please, I wanna go with you!”

“Bradley, hey,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice as he crouched before the boy. The daycare teachers watched with judgy expressions. Other parents were starting to drop their kids off and the last thing he needed was a rumor going around base that he couldn’t handle his kid. “I gotta go to work, bub. I’ll be here at five just like I always am, I promise.”

“No,” Bradley insisted as his small hands curled into the neck of his shirt and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the kid to let go. “No, no! Please Uncle Pete, please— please.”

Good days and bad days, Maverick reminded himself, good days and bad days. Today was apparently a bad day. He took a deep breath and tried desperately to remember what the therapist had told him but he’d slept so little he could barely remember his own name.

“Okay, alright, you’re coming with me then,” Maverick sighed and picked him up. His eyes burned for a brief moment when the boy shuddered in relief and pressed his wet, sticky face into his neck as he clung to him. “But just this once, okay, because if I don’t have this job I can’t be here to take care of you. Do you understand that, Bradley?”

“Yeah,” the boy croaked into his neck. “I just—I had a dream you crashed again, and were gone, like daddy and mommy.” He whimpered and tried to press closer. “I was so scared,” he whispered, voice hitching twice, and it was everything Maverick could do to not burst into tears right along with him.

Maverick sighed and leaned his head on Bradley’s. “Okay, come on,” he murmured as he carried him back to the Bronco. When they got there Bradley stubbornly refused to let go. “You gotta let go so we can go to TOPGUN, bud.” Bradley finally allowed himself to be pried off into the car and was asleep the moment he was buckled in.

The drive to work was quick and uneventful. Maverick lifted Bradley out without issue due to how deep he was sleeping and carried him into the locker room. He laid him as gently as he could on the bench. The boy didn’t stir while he changed into his uniform and stayed knocked out as he picked him back up and strode down the hallway towards Viper’s office. A few of the trainees were already there and did double-takes at the view of him carrying the sleeping boy but he kept his eyes forward and ignored them as they saluted him.

“Sir,” he said, rapping on the doorway with his knuckles once he got to Viper’s office. 

“Come in,” he invited with a wave, his eyebrows in his hairline when he saw what was in Maverick’s arms.

“Sir, I know I have a hop today,” Maverick began, one hand absently rubbing Bradley on the back. “Bradley had really bad nightmares last night. He wouldn’t let me drop him at daycare and I was too frazzled to think to call, sir, but I’m requesting my afternoon off. I’m going to take him in to see his therapist after lunch.”

Viper stood and moved around his desk to get a better look. There were dark circles under Bradley’s eyes as well as Maverick’s. The young man was pale and wan and his face was thinner than it had been when he’d returned to TOPGUN two months ago; he made a mental note to tell his wife, Carrie, that they should probably bring some more food over to help Maverick get through this. “You two look like shit,” he observed but it was sad, not amused. “Take whatever time you need, Pete. Has he been doing any better?”

“The children’s trauma therapist says it will get worse before it gets better,” Maverick told him grimly. “It has been getting better, though, sir. He — he had a session yesterday. It sometimes makes his nightmares worse, after.”

A year ago he couldn’t have imagined having these conversations with Viper and Jester of all people, but he found himself discussing Bradley with them often. He was a new parent and they were seasoned veterans and on top of that, they were both very fond of Bradley and doted upon him whenever Maverick had to bring him along. Both had been incredibly gracious about the whole thing, actually, and he was deeply, truly thankful.

Viper’s hand settled gently on Bradley’s back. “This is one tough kid,” he told Maverick, his tone serious. “He’ll get through this, Pete.”

“I know he will, sir. Thank you for being understanding, sir.”

“After what happened to Goose, we all feel responsible,” Viper confessed with a half-shrug. “Just don’t make a habit of this, Lieutenant Commander. We don’t need the higher ups asking questions. A military base is no place for a child.”

“I know, sir,” Maverick said. “I’ll go lay him down in my office and try to make a dent in this paperwork.”

“I’ll see you for your hop,” Viper told him with a half-smile. “Don’t worry about your class this morning—I’ll cover it.”

Maverick blinked. “Thank you sir,” he said, and meant it.

He really was behind on his paperwork.

/

Carrie Metcalf had shown up at his house the last day of the current class—his fourth, including his own class at TOPGUN from June to July of ‘86 and his brief stay from August to September of ‘86 for his first class as an instructor after the Gulf and before he’d thrown in the towel and gone back to the Enterprise —and told him in no uncertain terms that Hollywood, Wolfman, Sundown, and Slider were all waiting for him at the O Club, that she could perfectly well handle a five year old who was already deeply asleep, and that he needed to take some time to himself before he lost his mind.

She’d delivered this speech in his kitchen with her hands on her hips while he had a spoon of cereal in his mouth and stared at her in dumbfounded astonishment because he wasn’t quite sure how the hell she’d gotten in his house.

“Mike gave me a key,” she said, clearly reading his expression, as she jingled the keychain in his direction. “We’re worried about you, sweetheart. When was the last time you had a beer with your friends?”

Maverick thought hard and shrugged. “Before Carole,” he said, and realized it was true. He’d barely had time to sleep let alone go to the O Club to get shitfaced. Not that he had wanted to get shitfaced, per se, when he was so tired he often had trouble seeing straight.

“Pete, go take a shower,” she told him gently and he realized she’d taken the spoon from his limp fingers and put it back in the bowl. “Go on, sweetie. I’ll clean up down here.”

“Where are Lilly and Chris?” he found himself asking as he stood up.

“Mike has them,” she said as she put the bowl in the sink. He realized then that she’d carried some bags in with her and they looked suspiciously like groceries.

“Ma’am,” he said because he really really wanted to go to bed. He was fond of his friends, sure, but he was definitely more fond of his mattress and his soft pillows at that exact moment.

“Shower, O Club, then bed,” Carrie said firmly and that was the end of that. His feet were halfway up the stairs before his brain had processed the order.

Somehow he managed to make it to the O Club without crashing into anyone or anything. The cold air on his cheeks actually helped wake him up and when he parked and strode into the O Club, there was a roar of greeting from a table in the back.

Maverick cracked a grin and veered towards them. Lots of the kids from the class where there and called out cheerful greetings that he returned as he got a beer from the bar and then slid into the booth beside Hollywood, who was wearing his stupid cowboy hat and immediately slung his arm around his neck and squeezed good-naturedly. 

“Hey, boys,” he greeted them warmly, clinking his beer glass with theirs in the middle of the table. It was a nice change of pace from the first day of TOPGUN all those months ago. Once Ice had accepted him the rest had done the same. It had been jarring, at first, how these men had come right along with Ice and just inserted themselves into his life like they’d been there the whole time.

Jarring, but nice.

“Haven’t seen you around much, Mav,” Slider told him, chipper as ever as he reached over to flick his ear and laughed at Maverick’s curse. “How’s the kid?”

“Good,” he said and hoped his tone didn’t invite more conversation. It seemed to do the trick but he caught Sundown and Hollywood exchanging looks as Wolf hid his expression behind his beer glass. “What have you guys been up to?”

“Oh, come on, give us the down and dirty about this pack of idiots,” Sundown said, tilting his head at the drunk and rowdy pilots that he was quite honestly relieved to be rid of. “Surely you’ve got some stories.” They all watched as one of the pilots—aptly named Klutz—tripped over a barstool and took three of his fellow aviators to the ground with him in a drunken heap.

Maverick laughed and took a sip of his beer. “This crop was definitely interesting,” he mused, and at Hollywood’s nudge in his side, he relented and told them a few stories that had them laughing uproariously. 

That of course switched to stories of their new duty stations. Slider was with Ice on the Enterprise, who’d apparently been pulled to replace Mav temporarily. Slider was here because he’d fucked up his shoulder somehow and needed some recovery time. Sundown was on the Nimitz and Hollywood and Wolfman were still on the Roosevelt but on shore leave.

“Is Ice here?” Mav asked, looking around even though he knew the other man wasn't present. He’d have spotted him immediately.

“Said to tell you hi,” Slider said with a half-shrug. “He’s busy training my replacement. Ice was sure in a pissy fucking mood when he realized I was leaving him there with the idiot.”

They all chuckled at that because Ice’s default mood was pissy and everyone knew it.

“Can’t he fly with Merlin?” Maverick said, confused, because his RIO should have still been on the Enterprise.

“Merlin’s wife went into preterm labor and almost died,” Hollywood told him gravely. “He’s back in Texas.”

“Shit, I didn't realize,” Mav said as he squeezed his glass hard and made a mental note to call him. He hadn’t spoken to him much lately. “Is she okay?”

“Touch and go,” Slider said with a little wag of his hand. “The baby, a little girl, is doing better, though; got to leave the ICU last week. Named her Alice.”

They cheered Alice with a clink of their glasses and switched to lighter topics. Maverick leaned into Hollywood who hadn’t removed his arm from around his neck and was busy regaling them with the latest shipboard gossip when he yawned so hard his jaw cracked.

“You’re turning into a lightweight, Mitchell,” Hollywood teased as he cut his eyes sideways to Maverick who yawned again and reached up to rub his eye.

“Sorry,” Maverick muttered with another yawn that made his ears pop that time. “Long week.”

Long month, long year, he left unsaid, but the men around the table heard it without him having to.

“Go home, Mav, get some sleep,” Sundown told him softly, sliding Mav’s empty beer glass towards himself. “It was good to see you. Don’t be a stranger, alright?”

“Yeah, alright,” Mav yawned again, sliding out of the booth. “See you guys later.”

They bid him farewell and watched him walk away.

Hollywood whistled when the door swung shut behind Maverick and there was no danger of being overheard by the shorter pilot. He took his hat off to scratch his forehead and met Wolfman’s worried gaze. “He looks like shit,” he told them as they watched through the window as Mav got on his bike and drove off.

“I’ll call Ice,” Slider sighed, rubbing his face. Across the bar, Jester made eye contact and tilted his head in the direction that Maverick had just gone. He nodded and made the motion for a phone call and Jester saluted him with his beer bottle before turning his attention back to the bartender.

“There’s always something,” Sundown mused, sipping his beer thoughtfully.

“There’s always something,” Hollywood agreed as he watched Slider slip out the back door to the payphone.

/

Bradley was in daycare for the day and Maverick felt like an ass for lying to him, but he had the day off and he really needed to talk to Ice. He knew he was back in town and they’d stayed close after the Gulf; spoke weekly, in fact, sent letters so frequently none of their friends were even amused by it anymore, and he’d been keeping it to himself how much he was struggling but he’d seen Hollywood, Sundown, Slider, and Wolfman two weeks ago at the O Club and he’d looked like shit and nobody gossiped like Hollywood did.

That, of course, meant Ice knew. Since he hadn’t called him out on it in their two phone calls since, that meant he was waiting for Maverick to come to him.

He knew Ice had the day off (the bonus of having Slider’s weekly phone calls, he supposed, along with the man’s surprisingly amusing commentary and whip-sharp sense of humor), and went straight to his house on the motorcycle. It was such a relief to ride it after months of having to use a car due to Bradley, but he couldn’t resent the little boy, not really. God, he’d missed his bike, though.

Ice’s car was parked in the driveway when he got there. He parked his bike next to it and jogged to the front door, rapping on it strongly with his knuckles.

It opened shortly after to reveal Ice who looked the same as ever: no hair out of place, blue eyes assessing him, one eyebrow arched in superiority. He was in a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and socks, and it was so unlike his usual crisp uniform it briefly threw Maverick through a loop.

“Christ, Mav, you look like hell,” Ice said as a way of greeting, effectively breaking off his rambling train of thought.

Maverick opened his mouth for a sassy response but found the words wouldn’t come. His eyes were burning and he realized with dawning horror that they were filled with tears, and his chest felt too tight and Ice’s expression had gone from teasing to true alarm in the space of a heartbeat.

“Hey, Mav, holy shit,” Ice said as he tugged him inside by the neck of his shirt and closed the door. “Hey, what is it? Is it Bradley?”

“You said you were my wingman,” Maverick managed to croak, batting the other man’s hands aside. “Did you mean it?”

Ice bristled, shoulders going straight and his eyes narrowing. “I don’t say things I don’t mean, Maverick,” he said coolly. He rolled the name in his mouth the way he did when he was angry; three syllables, each drawn out, rolling the rick, like he had when they'd talked about Cougar at TOPGUN last July.

“Okay,” Maverick said, taking a deep breath. He found he couldn’t say the words when looking at Ice’s concerned face so instead he looked at the ceiling and willed his eyes to stop burning, his chest to stop aching, his hands to stop shaking. “Okay,” he repeated, swallowing hard, before closing his eyes and croaking, “Ice, I need help. I can’t fucking do this, I can’t fuck up Goose’s kid, I need Carole but she’s not here, Goose isn’t here, I have no idea what I’m doing—”

His voice got less and less coherent and he realized his eyes were streaming, breath coming in short gasps, entire body shaking. Ice’s face swam in and out of focus, his expression alarmed and then softening, his arms coming around him and holding on tight.

Maverick sagged into the offered comfort. Ice was big, bigger than him; broader, more solid, and it was so fucking nice to let someone hold onto him for a change. He just buried his face in Ice’s shoulder and sobbed out everything he’d been holding in since Carole’s funeral, since the first anniversary of Goose’s death days before her own death when Carole had been so out of it on chemo medication she’d barely remembered who he was, until he felt wrung out and useless.

“Christ, Mav, you don’t do things by half measures,” Ice murmured, and Maverick realized vaguely that he’d breathed it into the side of his head, over his ear, and that his breath was warm and his hands were gentle where they swept up the ridges of his spine.

“I fucked up your shirt,” he rasped in return. He didn’t unlock his arms from around Ice’s waist and the other man didn’t let go of him, either.

“I don’t give a fuck about my shirt,” Ice said with a sigh. “How long have you been holding that in?”

“Too long, probably,” he mused, sighing and feeling his entire body for the first time in what felt like years. It was aching with exhaustion. He pressed his cheek to Ice’s chest and just breathed.

“When was the last time you slept more than six hours at a time?”

“Before Carole's diagnosis,” he said honestly. “I get a few hours here and there.”

“Christ,” Ice muttered again because that was months ago. He stepped back but kept hold of his wrist. Then, he was tugging at him. Maverick followed blindly, too tired to do much more than blink and trust Ice to lead him somewhere safe.

“Why are we in your bedroom?”

“You’re really fucking stupid when you’re sleep deprived, Mitchell, has anyone ever told you that?” Ice said conversationally as he stripped him of his jacket and made him sit on the edge of the bed so he could tug off his boots, one after the other.

“I dunno,” Maverick shrugged. He would have studied the room—Ice rarely let him into his more private spaces—but he was too busy studying the man instead: the slope of his shoulders, the curve of his neck, the concentration on his face as he reached for one of his socked feet. Ice was kneeling in front of him and peeling off his socks and it was intimate, his bigger hands gentle on Maverick’s ankles, thumb sweeping along the top of his foot as he withdrew. He swayed when Ice urged him to stand and stood there dumbly while the other man undid his belt buckle and then tugged his pants down his hips.

“Step,” Ice ordered, and Maverick obeyed, putting his hand on Ice's broad shoulder for balance and lifting one foot and then the other. It left him in his white T-shirt and his underwear.

“Ice—”

“Shut up, Mitchell.”

“Tom.”

Ice looked up at him then and his eyebrow was arched again. Maverick was seized by a sudden intense urge to reach out and touch that eyebrow for himself and then Ice's hands were on the back of his knees, his world tilted suddenly, and he struggled to process what had just happened. 

Maverick blinked in confusion and realized he was laying down on a soft surface an instant before a blanket was pulled up to his shoulders. “What?” he said, stupidly, blinking at Ice again. He shivered when Ice’s big hand slid through his hair, smoothing it back off his forehead.

“Just let someone take care of you for a change,” Ice suggested mildly. “Where’s Bradley?”

“Daycare. I have to pick him up at five.”

Ice nodded. He was still crouched next to the bed and it left them nearly at eye level. His hand was still smoothing through Maverick’s hair and he made no effort to tell him to stop as his eyelids drooped lower and lower.

“Ice,” he tried, again, desperate to tell him something but unsure what that something was, just that it was important.

“Sleep, Pete,” Ice told him quietly, his eyes soft, hand stilling as his thumb gently traced one of his eyebrows. “You need it.”

Mav awoke confused. He was face-down in a soft pillow and the scent around him was so familiar it was tantalizing. It took him a moment to register it as Ice, and then he remembered: he was in Ice’s house, in Ice’s bed, and Ice was not in the room with him.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. A quick glance at the clock told him it was three thirty-seven, which meant he’d slept for six hours straight. It was amazing how clear his head felt. Yawning, he stretched his arms over his head and slid from under the covers in search of his wingman, pausing to yank his jeans back on before leaving the room.

Ice was on the couch reading a book about flight tactics, of all things, but at the creak of the stairs he looked over and smiled. “Hey,” he said, not moving from his spot but settling the book on his chest. “How do you feel?”

“Human,” Maverick grunted. He opened his mouth to apologize, suddenly realizing he’d cried all over Ice and probably got his shirt all snotty (Ice was in a black shirt, and he distinctly remembered he’d been wearing white this morning), but the other man cut him off with a pointed look.

“I’m your wingman, Maverick, if you say a word I’m going to have to kick your ass.”

Maverick clicked his mouth shut and nodded. If Ice didn’t want to talk about it he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up again. He moved to the recliner and settled in it. “Thanks,” he said. “I do feel better.”

“Amazing what decent sleep can do,” Ice drawled.

“Fuck off, Kazansky.”

Ice just laughed and went back to his book. Maverick laid there quietly looking up at the ceiling until Ice clearing his throat pulled him from his reverie. 

“You hungry?”

“I could eat,” Maverick said, sitting up and closing the recliner. “Why? Are you offering to cook, Kazansky?”

“I’m a good cook,” Ice told him mildly as he set the book on the coffee table and leveraged himself upright. He stretched his arms over his head with a pleased hum.

Maverick focused instead on the kitchen. It was small, utilitarian, but functional. “So what’s for lunch then, hotshot?”

Grilled cheese, as it turned out, with soup. Ice hadn’t been lying; he was a good cook. Maverick ate it like a starving man. He’d never actually eaten breakfast before dropping Bradley at daycare. Ice ate with him and then just studied him from across the table.

As per usual, his blue eyes all but bored into his very soul.

“Spit it out, Ice,” Maverick drawled, mopping up the last of his soup dredges with the crust of his sandwich. He was trying very hard to pretend his cheeks weren’t pinking under the intense scrutiny. A part of him wondered when the other man would ask him about Charlie; everyone from his class was clearly dying to ask the question but none had broached the subject with him yet.

“How are you holding up, Mav?”

Maverick blinked at him, because he’d expected a question about Charlie or Bradley. “Splendid,” he said sarcastically.

“I mean it,” Ice insisted, folding his arms on the table. His chair creaked as he leaned forward but Maverick kept his eyes on his soup bowl. “How are you? How’s Bradley?”

He opened his mouth to respond and then thought better of it, pondering the question. How was he? “Not great,” he admitted, because this was Ice.

Ice knew him better than just about anyone except for Bradley and the more time they spent together the more he’d be able to see how not-okay he was. He knew he could tell Ice anything and knew it wouldn’t ever leave the confines of this room and still he hesitated.

Ice just looked at him and there was no judgment in his face. His expression was soft and open, his lips curled in a half-smile of encouragement as he nodded for him to continue.

“Bradley has nightmares,” he confessed but couldn’t quite admit that he did, too. “It’s been getting a little better but it’s fifty-fifty for good nights and bad nights at this point.” He cleared his throat and met Ice’s gaze briefly; what he saw in them made his stomach flutter and his skin feel too tight so he stared instead at his water glass. “I’m so fucking tired, Tom,” he added in a murmur, squeezing his eyes shut.

Ice’s larger hand curled around his wrist where it rested on the table and squeezed once. “Hey,” he said into the sudden quiet as his thumb traced gently over Maverick’s jumping pulse. “It’s gonna be okay, Pete.”

Maverick tried to believe him and was thankful Ice hadn’t called him out for not answering the question in any detail, or called him out for not talking about Charlie at all. I’m not okay, he thought to himself in the quiet of the kitchen, but I’m trying to be, for Bradley.

He was equally grateful that Ice didn’t push him for answers and instead just kept quiet while Mav flipped to a random baseball game and tried his damndest to focus on it and not the tight feeling in his gut as he felt Ice studying him periodically over the top of his book.

Somehow, he just knew Ice could tell the extent of how not-okay he was just from looking at him and it was freaking him out that Ice wasn’t challenging him on it; that he was letting Maverick pretend when he’d never let him do it before. Their whole relationship so far had been mostly antagonistic until that day over the Indian Ocean, when it had simmered into something equally intense but way less hostile. 

Ice loved nothing more than to call him on his bullshit, square off with him, challenge him, push him to be better. Those weeks together on the Enterprise after their dogfight had been exhilarating and they’d never been more than a few steps away from each other, cementing into… whatever the fuck they’d become, once he’d told Ice he could be his wingman anytime.

So, Ice's pointed and still somehow soft silence was a bit jarring. Maverick just ground his teeth together and wished he had the energy to push, to pry, to shout in Ice’s face and make him explain what he was thinking, what gears were turning behind his icy blue gaze, but he was just too fucking tired to force the issue.

Ice wasn’t far from his thoughts in the days that followed and he’d struggled to name the feeling until he realized he was fucking pissed; pissed at Ice for not pushing, because he wanted someone to push so he wouldn’t have to be the one to open up. He wanted someone to challenge him on his constant I’m okay claims, wanted someone to see through his fake smiles and bravado; wanted someone to see him for him, really see him, pain and grief and all: see him like Charlie hadn’t, like she’d been unable to, frustrated with his grief and his nightmares and his mood swings and his single-minded determination to not fuck up Bradley Bradshaw. 

Maverick visited Goose’s and Carole’s graves a lot that week after his talk with the Iceman, taking Bradley with him, and they quietly sat and told them how much they missed them.

Neither of them were able to avoid crying, holding each other tightly, but he’d held Bradley while he dozed off in his arms leaning against Goose’s tombstone with his free hand resting on Carole’s, watching the sunset over Miramar with a chest that didn’t feel crushed under the weight of the world for the first time in days. 

What did rest on his chest was his entire world: windswept blond hair, impossibly long eyelashes, steady quick heartbeat against his ribs, tiny little snores so much like Goose’s each made his heart ache sharply. He bent his head and pressed a tender kiss to the spot between Bradley’s eyebrows, breathing in his clean scent and wishing Goose and Carole were here.

“Talk to me, Goose,” he whispered to the wind, closing his eyes and basking in the warmth of the sun on his face and Goose’s son asleep on his chest.

There hadn’t been an answer—he hadn’t expected one—but he and Bradley had both slept through the night.

/

Maverick was at a staff meeting a week after his visit with Ice, not really listening to Viper and Jester spar over whatever it was they were arguing over that week. Those two had a friendship similar to his and Ice’s, as it turned out, as weird as it was to realize over a year out from his TOPGUN graduation. Just with much more betting. He was starting to wonder if they both nursed secret gambling problems. 

It was nearly September already, their next class was starting soon, they were short a civilian contractor and an instructor for their next class, and he was quietly panicking on the inside over Bradley’s looming start of Kindergarten the week after Labor Day.

“Mitchell,” Jester’s voice said, and he jolted as he realized the bickering had stopped and the office was quiet, looking at the two men who were watching him with exasperated expressions.

“Sirs?” he said, sitting up straighter in his chair. He’d been sleeping somewhat better but it still wasn’t consistent and the haze of exhaustion was starting to feel frighteningly permanent. 

“I said, we need you to go over the applications for the vacant teaching position,” Viper said, clearly repeating himself for the second or third time if the overly patient tone was anything to go by. They’d been having a hell of a time filling said position; so far, every person they’d tried had clashed horribly with Maverick’s teaching style and given he’d been there first he had a superior ranking despite what his actual military rank was by comparison. He and his current co-instructor, Lieutenant Simpson aka Hurricane, didn’t exactly see eye to eye and he was leaving after this class was over. “Bring ones that sound like a good fit to our meeting in the morning. Jester and I will do the same.”

Maverick nodded. “Will do, sir,” he said. He accepted the large stack of files Jester handed him without further comment and in doing so missed the knowing look the two older pilots shot each other.

The morning was filled with two training hops which unfortunately included two stupid idiots nearly getting in a collision, which had allowed him to shout out all his frustrations. He’d felt a little better afterwards but desperately yearned for a nap. Instead he sighed and pulled the stack of files across his desk and flipped open the first without looking at the name.

A photograph was pinned to the inside of the file and it startled him so much he nearly fell out of his chair. Then he started laughing and found he couldn’t stop laughing—this was probably a bet by Jester and Viper and he had no idea who was going to win more money but he didn’t need to read the rest of the files. He flipped it closed and left his office with it in his hand.

He knocked at Viper’s door frame. Viper and Jester both looked up; Viper was at his desk and Jester was lounging in the chair across from the desk, his booted feet stacked on the desk’s corner.

“I don’t need until tomorrow, sir,” he told Viper with a smile, stepping forward and setting the file in front of his commanding officer.

Viper leaned back with a smirk and stuck his hand out to Jester without looking at him. Jester just groaned and dug his wallet out of a cargo pocket, peeling off two twenties and slapping them into the man’s waiting palm.

“We look forward to it,” Viper said with a shark-like grin as he flipped the file open, glancing briefly down at Tom Kazansky’s unsmiling service photograph. “It’ll be damn good to see you two working together again, Maverick.” His eyes twinkled when he added, “If you’d like to go tell him in person you can take lunch off-base, Mav.”

/

Halfway through his drive to Ice’s house he realized he was happy (of course he was, he was getting his fucking wingman back), but he was also a little bit pissed off. He’d talked to Ice twice since he’d seen him—sure, he’d dodged the How are you really doing Mav and Are you ready to talk about it yet or are you going to keep pretending Charlie never happened questions and Ice had still fucking let him even if he’d sighed irritably over the phone—but he’d not said a goddamned word about TOPGUN or requesting a transfer.

It hurt a little. They were supposed to be wingmen. Ice was supposed to have his back, he was supposed to tell him shit; but, he supposed, that wasn’t really fair, either. He wasn’t telling Ice everything, and he knew that Ice knew it, and Ice knew that he knew he knew it, and the whole thing was just a confusing fucking mess compounded with his sort temper and exhaustion.

Maverick wished he could get his shit straightened out as he kicked his bike stand down with more force than necessary and stomped to Ice’s front door. He wanted a word with him and was trying to remember to be calm as he banged on the door.

“Kazansky, you son of a bitch,” he said, with feeling, as the door swung open and all that anger came rushing back like a tidal wave because calm was not his superpower. He wasn’t even really sure what he was angry about, just that he was.

Tom stood in the open doorway of his rental home and raised an eyebrow. “Good to see you too, Mitchell,” he drawled, waving him inside and closing the door behind him. He looked him pointedly up and down, taking in his flight suit, windswept hair, and furious scowl, and said, “Aren’t you supposed to be on duty, Lieutenant Commander?”

“Aren’t you?” Maverick shot back with his hands on his hips. It hadn't escaped his notice that while he'd taunted, Ice hadn't been surprised to see him in the slightest which meant he'd expected him to show up like this in the middle of the goddamned day. It really pissed him off sometimes how well this asshole knew him after such a short time period. “I thought you were going back to the Enterprise.”

“I’m on shore leave,” Ice said blandly. He was as unruffled as ever and Maverick had never wanted to hit somebody so much in his life; he'd never wanted to get a reaction out of someone so badly it burned in his bones until this ice-cold asshole had sauntered into his life. “I requested a transfer.”

“You’re coming back to TOPGUN,” Maverick said shortly as he shoved a frustrated hand through his hair and ignored Ice’s pleased little smirk of triumph. “We just approved your transfer. Why didn’t you fucking say something, you asshole?”

Ice was staring at him like he thought he was an idiot. Then he remembered his words, even through his absolute exhaustion that day in Ice’s entryway, this exact entryway, to be precise—I need help, Ice.

Fuck.

Fuck, he’d actually said that out loud.

He’d practically begged Ice to do this which was probably why he was staring at him like he thought he was as dumb as a bag of rocks.

“I’m your wingman, dumbass,” Ice said as if that explained everything.

Much to Maverick’s irritation, it did. He threw his hands in the air and opened his mouth to say something through the embarrassment spreading through his body at the realization he’d begged this man for help and he’d done it without asking any questions and he didn’t know what to fucking do with that.

“Ice—”

“No,” Ice cut him off, stern and unsmiling. All trace of mocking was gone and he was every inch his call sign as he stared him down across the short distance, shifting closer, and their size difference had never been more apparent to Maverick than in that moment. “No, Pete. You’re not okay and I’m sick to god of you trying to pretend you are.”

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth as his pulse kicked up at the use of his given name. Ice had started to wield it as a weapon to get his point across and he hated how effective it was becoming. He clenched his hands into fists and tried to breathe through his nose and calm down to mixed success.

“You’re not,” the taller man said in a tone that was cold and final. “You’re not even close to okay. You’re not sleeping, you’re barely eating, and for some godforsaken reason nobody is calling you on your bullshit which means it falls to me. I call bullshit, Mav. You’re not fucking fine.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted but it was weak because Ice was right. He wasn’t fine. He was light years away from fine, and he was so tired of pretending he was; relieved that someone had finally noticed, that somebody cared.

“You’re a mess,” Ice countered, ruthless now, getting right in his face. “You’re out of control, Mav; you’re spiraling.”

“I’m—” he stopped, abruptly, gnawing his lip as the anger returned, churning in his chest. The urge to slam his knuckles into the perfect arch of Ice's cheek was so strong it made him dizzy and he snarled. “I don’t need your pity, Kazansky, I don’t need a fucking babysitter. I’ll figure it out. I don’t need you.”

Ice didn’t even blink, he only leaned in closer until the tips of their noses were touching. “Tough shit,” he said flatly through his own bared teeth in an eerie echo of that locker room at TOPGUN months ago, “You have me.”

They stared at each other for a long, long moment, neither of them blinking.

Mav disengaged first for what was arguably the first time in his life, leaning backwards into the wall and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard he saw stars. Fucking hell, Ice was serious; he was actually fucking serious, and his body felt too hot and too cold at the same time, sweat prickling on the back of his neck.

Ice didn’t move, he just stood there in the same position watching him. He could feel the weight of his gaze on his skin.

“Okay,” he said, quietly, and took a deep breath. He nodded, once, and dropped his hands to see Ice scrutinizing him with an expression he couldn’t read. He stomped to the door, throwing it open with feeling because it was easier than facing down whatever the fuck that look was.

“I’ll see you on Monday at 0800, dickwad,” he said over his shoulder and then pointedly slammed the door behind him, because having the last word was definitely one of his defining character traits.

Chapter Text

Thomas Michael Kazansky had built a name for himself as someone who wasn’t easily rattled. He couldn’t be bribed, intimidated, outflown, harassed, or bullied. When he was a kid and the eldest of five siblings he’d figured out that patience was the most effective weapon of all and he excelled at turning it against his opponents.

Pilots were easy. Pilots were gung-ho, cocky, and impatient. Or at least, most of them were. It was easy as hell to just wait them out and stay rock-steady until they got bored and then did something reckless.

It worked every single time.

Every single time, that was, until Peter Motherfucking Mitchell.

/

During the TOPGUN class of ‘86, Ice had taken it upon himself to refer to Mav as Pete Motherfucking Mitchell in the privacy of his own head. No matter where he was he’d turn around and Mitchell would just… be there. Right there with Goose who had a hell of a knack for muttering quiet and hilarious commentary under his breath to those sitting around him during briefings.

Pete Mitchell was everywhere and Ice couldn’t get a fucking break from him.

Right there. In his face, in his space, in his way. It was fucking aggravating, was what it was. He knew Slider was getting a hell of a kick out of it but he ignored him and put everything he had into being better, faster, stronger, smarter.

Pete Mitchell pushed him to be better in a way nobody ever had before. It was the first time in his life he’d ever had legitimate competition in the air and goddamn it all, Mitchell knew it, too. It was thrilling, to be honest, as much as he despised the guy.

Ice wasn’t a fan of having his cage rattled. Pete Mitchell excelled at rattling it. In fact, he didn’t just rattle it; he fucking shook it like a dog and then jumped all over it. Worst of all he seemed to think it was fun.

It was fun. Not that Ice would ever admit that out loud, even upon pain of death, not even to his own mother.

Rivalry was good for the soul, at least in their profession. Mostly. Sometimes it got heated but for the most part they were neck-in-neck all the way through the competition.

And then… well.

July 29th was notorious. 

He tried not to dwell on it.

/

Only, he did. He did dwell on it. Ice laid in his bunk at night staring up at the ceiling fan unable to sleep. In his ears he could hear the phantom echo of Maverick and Goose talking to each other. At the time he’d been focused on relaying information back to base with his heart in his throat, trying to help however he could and knowing there was nothing the other team could do but eject, but he hadn’t realized those would be Nick Bradshaw’s final words in this life.

And he'd sounded scared. Really scared. They both had.

Ice had never heard Mitchell sound scared before.

Goose, I’m pinned forward, I can’t reach the ejection handles —

I’m trying, Mav, I’m trying —

Eject! Eject, eject, eject — watch the canopy —

When the brass had told them Goose was dead the class had just sat there in stunned silence. Ice knew he’d never forget it. He’d been standing there still in his flight suit holding his helmet in a white knuckle grip and staring down at the cement floor of the hangar with tears burning in his eyes that he refused to let fall. Slider’s hand gripping his shoulder like a vice was the only thing that kept him from falling apart altogether.

His plane. His jet wash.

If he’d just — if he’d been faster, taken the shot, not been cocky and just let Maverick take the damn shot—

That was a line of thinking he knew wouldn’t get him anywhere so he’d shut it down ruthlessly. At night, though, it always resurfaced. 

Pete Mitchell blamed himself for what had happened to Goose.

Trouble was, he’d never have been in that position in the first place if it wasn’t for Ice. If it wasn’t for him, standing in his way. 

The TOPGUN competition seemed so fucking stupid, now. Goose was dead and the whole thing just seemed pointless. Logically Ice knew that Maverick couldn’t have seen his jet wash or predicted it, just as Ice knew it wasn’t his fault, either, not really; these things just happened, sometimes, and no matter how much training you had there wasn’t much you could do about it.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but somehow, it still felt like it was his.

Ice hung around the locker room of the medical building later having been grilled by the brass on what the fuck had just happened; had ignored the quiet intense looks Jester and Viper shot him when he insisted it hadn’t been Maverick’s fault, that there was absolutely nothing the pilot could have done to save that flat spin once the engines stalled; fuck, he’d watched them flame out himself, had pretty much got a front row seat to the whole fucking disaster and if he was honest with himself his hands were still shaking. 

He stared hard at the closed door and knew Mitchell was in there. No matter how hard he tried for the first time in his life the words wouldn’t come. The cool and collected persona he’d perfected all these years was just… gone. Gone, and washed away by saltwater and jet wash and a flat spin out to sea.

No matter how hard he tried he couldn't get his feet to move. He was paralyzed just staring at the door like a fucking moron. Nothing he could say would ever, ever make it better for Maverick; nothing he or anyone else could do would ever change what happened, and no matter what anybody said, Ice understood Maverick the way nobody else seemed to.

Maverick would blame himself for this until the day he died. Ice knew it like he knew the sky was blue, his jet was gray, and the Navy was the best branch out of the five services.

So what would be the fucking point? Nothing he would say would matter. Not really.

He still felt like he had to say something.

“Go home and get some sleep, Kazansky,” a soft voice said and he jolted, nearly hitting the man beside him with the helmet he was still clutching in his left fist.

Viper was standing there watching him with quiet, sad eyes.

“Sir,” he stammered, and he realized his cheeks were damp. “I—”

“Tom,” Viper said, stepping closer and putting a heavy hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t his, either. Let it go.”

Ice opened and closed his mouth a few times, took a deep breath, and said, “Sir… with respect, I don’t know if that’s something I’ll ever be able to do. Sir.”

Viper’s mouth twitched into a faint smile. “Try,” he advised. “These things happen. Fly long enough and you’ll see it again. Remember what happened today and try to prevent it from happening again, as much as you can.”

He nodded because what else could he say? Viper nodded back, squeezed his shoulder, and stepped through the door into the room.

Maverick was somewhere beyond.

Ice wondered if he knew Goose was dead, yet, and then realized he would have known. It took the Coasties an hour to fish them out of the drink and rumor on base was that Maverick hadn’t let go of Goose until forced and hadn’t said a goddamned word since.

A small, cowardly part of him was so fucking glad he didn’t have to be the one to break the news. He didn’t know what he would have done when he saw Mitchell’s face but it probably would have embarrassed them both.

Ice shoved his free hand through his sweaty hair, spun on his heel, and walked back the way he’d come.

/

Ice watched in the days after the accident. He watched closer than he probably should have, to be honest, but Maverick just wasn’t… Maverick. Goddamn it he was worried about the cocky little bastard.

The spark that had made Mav so fun to spar with was just… gone. He was like a hollowed out shell of a man and it was so unlike him it was freaking out the entire TOPGUN class. They’d had a hushed discussion over beers at the O Club the night before and tried to figure out what they could do to help him.

Fuck all, had been the consensus. None of them could help Mitchell but they’d collectively decided they would at least try.

Ice leaned back against his plane four days after the accident and watched as Maverick rounded on his RIO, screaming words in his face that he couldn’t hear, too far away and with jet engines muffing the words. The body language was clear enough and he glanced sidelong at Slider who just frowned and shook his head, shoving a frustrated hand through his own hair.

“Fuck,” Slider muttered, rubbing his forehead and watching as Mitchell stalked away. The instructors were watching him, too, and they looked just as grave as Ice felt.

They’d all tried to get Mav to engage. He just wouldn’t. He flat out fucking wouldn’t, or maybe he couldn’t, but did the difference even fucking matter?

“He’s going to quit,” Ice predicted softly as he leaned more heavily against the jet behind him.

“Maverick? Quit?”

“You didn’t see his face,” Ice told Slider softly, meaning the disciplinary hearing. He’d seen it; they’d been waiting outside sweating their asses off in the humid summer ocean air, hoping beyond hope that the Navy didn’t take flying away from Maverick so soon after he’d just lost nearly everything that mattered to him. It had been a goddamned accident and they all knew it to the last man. 

Maverick had brushed right past him without seeing him, looking like he was moments away from vomiting all over his own shoes. He’d walked down the hall so quickly he hadn’t had time to call after him. “Can you blame him, Ron?” he added, quietly, as he stared hard at the back of Maverick’s sweat drenched head.

Slider looked at him for a long moment and then shook his head. He knew, like they all knew, that losing a teammate was like losing a limb and none of them would have been okay after. The kicker was less than half of them were as close to their teammate as Maverick had been to Goose, and if they’d be that fucked up over a friend, the level of fucked up Maverick felt over his family was pretty damn apparent.

/

Maverick was going to quit. He hadn’t said so, of course, not to any of them. But none of them got to where they were by being dumb.

Tom squared his shoulders because he needed to be Tom for this, not Iceman. He walked into the locker room with purpose and was aware that Wolfman was watching him with his eyebrows in his hairline but he shot him a glare and then pointedly ignored him. 

(They’d set up a system, hours after the accident, that Maverick wasn’t to be alone on base. It rotated and they all took turns but if it had happened to them, none of them would have wanted to be alone, so they figured it was the least they could do to try and help Mav. Today was Wolfman’s turn).

Maverick was fiddling around in his locker with his back to the door. Tom took his chance to get closer and pretended to be doing something in his own locker before he decided, fuck it, and turned around.

“Mitchell,” he said, addressing Maverick’s back. He was in a white T-shirt and jeans, his customary after-work outfit. At the sound of his voice the shorter man stopped moving, one hand braced inside his locker, but he’d turned his head just slightly so he was at least listening.

That was more than he’d done to any of them for days so Tom plowed on. It was now or never.

“I’m sorry about Goose,” he said and he put every ounce of emotion into the words as he could. “Everyone liked him,” he added, mouth stumbling around the other words he wanted to say, the words that wouldn’t come— I know he was your family, I’m so sorry it was my fucking jet wash, you don’t have to blame yourself it was my fault not yours, don’t quit you’re a damn good pilot — and said instead, “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough; he knew it, Maverick knew it, but the other man didn’t turn around so he exhaled hard through his nose and left him in peace.

/

Maverick quit.

None of them were surprised.

/

At graduation Tom looked around even though he knew Maverick probably wasn’t coming. He'd scored more than enough points to be there even if he'd missed the last nine hops; hell, the next-closest person in the class (Hollywood) was still off by eleven points. Still, though, he hoped.

They all hoped. It hadn’t escaped the notice of the brass that they were looking around as if waiting for Mav to leap out of a nearby palm frond and join them in his seat.

In the row in front of him Chipper leaned to Sundown and said, “Where’s Maverick?”

That was the question of the hour and Ice ignored how Slider bumped his shoulder and looked pointedly at the entrance to the pavilion where Mav had yet to appear. It was their graduation. It was supposed to be happy . Their families and friends were there to cheer them on and clap for them but Ice knew he wasn’t the only one who felt like it was hollow.

Goose’s chair had been left open out of respect and Maverick’s sat empty next to it. Despite the air of celebration the pilots were struggling to muster happy feelings.

Ice was proud of the trophy, of course he was, it just… it wasn’t the same. Maverick hadn’t been there in the end and it had been too easy to win it.

Most things were too easy without Maverick around. Nobody was even close to being on his level and he’d actually been bored without the challenge. He’d usually felt guilty after realizing he was bored because Maverick was clearly struggling and it wasn’t fair to resent the guy for not being in their flight classes anymore.

Then, just as suddenly, Maverick was right in front of him and he almost dropped the trophy right on his goddamned foot.

“Congratulations,” Maverick told him and he actually sounded genuine. He even managed a handshake.

Ice was fucking floored. “Thank you,” he said back automatically and opened his mouth to say something more — what, he had no fucking idea, but he had to say something to keep him there—when they were interrupted by the brass.

A mission in the Indian Gulf.

How was that for timing?

/

Ice was sweating through his uniform. Hollywood had just gotten shot the fuck down and he was alone up here with Slider.

“Maverick is supersonic, I’ll be there in thirty seconds,” Mav told him over the radio.

“Move your ass,” he barked back. It was everything he could do just to evade. “Get up here I’m engaged with five repeat five I’m in deep shit!”

When Mav went through the jet wash he thought well fuck this is it then , but Mav surprised him. It was the most exhilarating and terrifying two and a half minutes of his life until they switched from defense to offense.

Merlin was yelling that Maverick needed to break, they needed to evade, but it was Maverick’s turn to be cold and steady.

“I can’t leave Ice,” Maverick was saying to Merlin, and Ice felt shame curl in his gut because mere moments ago, comparatively, he’d been telling Stinger he didn’t want him up here, didn’t want to fly with him; had implied in the ready room that he didn’t trust him and worst of all Maverick had heard every fucking word.

Merlin sounded desperate, now, “He’s coming around, he’s coming around—”

“I am not leaving my wingman,” Maverick said, firmly, and that was when Ice knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d made a mistake and he’d never been happier to be wrong in his entire fucking life.

Ice’s heart was pounding but he’d never felt safer, or freer, than that moment high in the clouds with Maverick’s unshakable faith and determination on his wing.

/

MiGs shot down, legend made, Ice landed on the carrier and felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. 

Completely drenched in sweat and surrounded by the cheering crew, Slider, Hollywood, Merlin, and Wolfman, he pointed at Maverick and bellowed, “You!”

Maverick looked at him and the spark was back in his eyes. Ice was so fucking relieved to see that cocksure grin back on his face he would have cried if he wasn’t, well, Iceman.

“You,” he told the dark-haired pilot, “Are still dangerous.”

Maverick opened his mouth to say something sassy, no doubt, but Ice beat him to it. He couldn’t help but grin, a real grin, the kind that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “You can be my wingman anytime,” he laughed, shaking his hand, and Maverick smirked back.

“Bullshit,” Maverick called over the roar of the crowd, “You can be mine!”

Ice just laughed and pulled him into a hug, slamming his fist once on Maverick’s shoulder, and he was still grinning when Slider picked Maverick straight up off the ground and swung him around.

The crew cheered them off the deck and Ice slung his arm around Maverick’s neck. The shorter pilot grinned up at him, aviators back in place, as Hollywood ruffled his hair and Wolfman howled and jumped on all three of them.

Ice knew he’d been wrong about this man. So, so wrong. He could see now why Goose had had such constant, unwavering faith in him. Maverick was brave, fearless, loyal. He learned from his mistakes and yeah, sure, he was still a hothead and he flew like a madman, but as he watched Maverick cracking up at something Wolfman said (obscene, no doubt, knowing Wolf) he promised himself that Maverick would never be without a wingman ever, ever again.

/

Mav lasted as an instructor for one Top Gun class in ‘86 before he was back and was exhilarating to be his wingman again, however briefly, before he was reassigned back to the USS Roosevelt. They’d started up weekly phone calls and a ridiculous number of letters between them that Ice couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed about.

Maverick didn’t have any family. He’d had a family—Goose had been his family—and now he just had Bradley and Carole Bradshaw. If he didn’t have any family Ice would do his damndest to fill that gap and make sure he got mail just like everyone else. It didn’t seem like much, he knew, but he also knew Maverick would appreciate it.

Then, a few letters and a handful of months later, Ice sat up so quickly he nearly brained himself on the bunk. Mav had been back on the Enterprise for about a month but was headed back to dry land to settle a custody issue with the courts.

“What?” Slider murmured sleepily from the bunk beside him.

“Carole Bradshaw has cancer,” Ice told him numbly, eyes tracing over the shaky words Maverick had written. The words were barely legible and he swallowed, hard, when he realized the blotches weren’t water but tears. “It’s terminal. The docs give her less than six months to live. She’s making Mav Bradley’s legal guardian.”

It was Slider’s turn to nearly brain himself as he sat up quickly. “What?” he spluttered, because they’d seen Carole Bradshaw after their Top Gun graduation and again a few times in Miramar with Maverick and she’d been healthy, alive, full of life even if it had been tampered with sadness and grief over losing Goose.

It was March and this letter was from February. He dug through his pile of letters to check for any unopened ones but found none. Frustrated, he chewed on his pen cap and tried to decide what to do. 

In the end, all he could do was write a letter and remind Mav he was his wingman and he’d be there for him no matter what. He tried not to take it personally when Maverick didn’t respond to that one and was relieved when he answered the phone for their weekly phone call.

/

Carole Bradshaw died in August of 1987, a year and a handful of days after Nick Bradshaw had died in the training accident, nearly five months after Maverick had officially transferred off the Enterprise and back to TOPGUN. Ice clenched his hands on the letter so hard he crumpled the edges and hurriedly smoothed them again, looking down at the hastily scribbled words in the short letter Maverick had written him.

She died on August 10th and I think I’m probably going to hate this stretch of days forever, Ice. Goose has been gone a year and then it’s the double whammy of Carole less than two weeks after him. Poor Bradley. His birthday is the eighth; he barely turned five right before Carole passed and he understands way too much about what’s going on. He just keeps asking me if I’m going to go with his mom and dad and I don’t know how to tell him I might; I fucking might, Ice, because I’m a fucking fighter pilot and it’s not a safe job. 

Anyway, Carole’s with Goose, now; I put them together, and they’ve got a nice view of the sea. It just seemed right and it was what she wanted. Bradley isn’t doing super great but I guess that’s to be expected. Sleeping is hard for us both right now, and I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m trying to figure it out. I’m fine, Ice, I can feel you worrying all the way from Miramar. Jester and Viper have been great. Thanks for your last letter — tell Slider that last joke was really fucking lame and I’m embarrassed for him. Hope everything is good on the Enterprise and you’re giving any MiG’s you see hell.

Mav

He traced his finger over his wingman’s name and sighed heavily, wanting nothing more than to be on dry land with his wingman (his friend) and not on the Roosevelt .

“How’s Mav?” Slider asked as he braced himself on the wall next to Ice in the officer’s mess hall.

“Not great,” Ice murmured. “He doesn’t say so, but he’s a shit liar. Says you’re shitty at jokes, too.”

“I am shitty at jokes,” Slider snorted with a shrug of one beefy shoulder. “Sucks, what happened with Carole. Kind of a rough start to life for little Bradley, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Ice murmured, tracing his thumb absently over Mav’s scrawled signature. 

/

Slider fucked up his shoulder and they were sending him back to Miramar. Ice was a little pissed because his replacement RIO was a fucking dumbass, but that was beside the point.

“Ronnie,” he said as he barged his way into sickbay, knowing the visiting hours were almost up and the transport helicopter would be there soon to get him. He needed minor surgery that they couldn’t give him here on the ship.

“What’s up, Tommy?” Slider grumbled from where he lay on a cot, half-drugged and sleepy from the looks of it.

“Give this to Mav,” Ice instructed, folding a letter into his hand. “And Sli, keep a close eye on him, will you? Something’s wrong, I can feel it.”

“Yeah, yeah, mother hen,” Slider rasped. “I’ll keep an eye on him for you, don’t worry.”

“He doesn’t have a wingman out there, Sli,” Ice reminded him with a huff. “Just—just make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Slider snorted hard enough to rattle his cot. “Maverick is stupid, Ice.”

“Blow me, Kerner. You knew what I meant.” Ice flicked Slider on the cheek and strode away, wondering what it was going to take to get a seat at Top Gun. He remembered the words Jester had said— Any of these men have an open invitation to come back and teach here, if they should so wish. He stopped walking abruptly, considered it, tilted his head to one side and chewed his lip in thought.

Maverick was teaching at Top Gun, so how hard could it be?

/

Slider got a hold of him relatively easily a week later, Ice making his way to the phone to answer the call. It was during his allotted window so he pressed it to his ear and said, “Ice.”

“Hey, Ice,” Slider said, and he sounded a little drunk but mostly normal. “You were right. Mav is fucked.”

“I fucking knew it,” he hissed, knuckling his eyes with a frustrated huff. “How bad is it?”

“‘S pretty bad,” Slider murmured. “Looks like he’s half dead, pale as shit, he’s lost weight. Jester says he’s not flying like himself, that he’s shaky and reckless and he zones out a lot because he’s so tired. They’re trying but they’re not getting through to him.”

Maverick’s hands were never shaky and he loved nothing more than flying. Ice clenched his hands into fists and exhaled a slow, long breath, because that had been him for a month after the Gulf, after he was split off from Mav, when the nightmares started.

Maverick never had been able to lie to him; if they couldn't get through to him, maybe he could.

It was time to go back to Miramar.

“I’ll put my transfer request in today,” he said to Slider with a note of finality. He knew the other sailors were looking at him in surprise; he was a legend, a fighter pilot, squadron leader, why would he want to leave?

His commanding officer asked him the same thing and he gave him some bullshit excuse about wanting to have a crack at training new pilots, passing on what he’d learned in combat, blah blah blah. Even mentioned that his old wingman, the other half the legend, was teaching there, and wouldn't that be such a treat for young, up-and-coming pilots?

The captain ate it up, signed the request and reminded him it was up to the instructors to choose his application, but Ice’s throat burned from the lie because that hadn’t been why at all.

Peter Motherfucking Mitchell, that was why.

/

Ice probably should have told Mav he’d put in for the transfer and he did mean to tell him. Really, he did; he’d meant to tell him as soon as he’d seen him, but then he’d opened the door to see Mav standing there, and all thoughts had fled from his mind because it had taken him over two weeks to get to this point and he’d forgotten, okay.

He’d forgotten in his distance from the other man how magnetic his presence was, how green and clear and bright his eyes were. It hadn’t been long at all but he’d apparently forgotten, too, the effect Maverick Mitchell had on him just by existing and swallowed in a suddenly dry throat as he thought oh no, oh fuck, because he’d just realized what this fucking was and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Maverick looked like absolute shit and he was a little pissed because Slider had been too casual about it. There were dark circles under his eyes; he was pale; his cheeks were hollow and he seemed to have lost his general shine. He looked like a hard breeze would blow him right over, like he’d been diminished or dimmed somehow.

“Christ, Mav, you look like hell,” he blurted, because it was true and very, very alarming as he privately wondered how in the fuck anyone had let it get to the point without interfering. Were they blind? Where the fuck were Viper, Jester, his supposed girlfriend, Charlie? It hadn’t escaped his notice that Mav had stopped mentioning her a few months before Carole died.

He reached out, unable to resist any longer, and was stalled when Maverick opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. His eyes were beginning to water and he realized with a dull sort of horror that clearly, nobody had been checking in on his wingman at all, because Maverick was two seconds away from a full-scale breakdown on his front porch in front of god and everyone and he had to get him inside right fucking now.

Snagging his shirt he did just that, tugging him inside to shut the door and demanding, “Hey, Mav, holy shit,” as his hands hovered over Maverick’s shoulders, unsure what to do or if he was allowed to touch. “Hey, what is it? Is it Bradley?”

Ice had a dull ping of horror over that sentence because if Maverick lost Bradley on top of everything else he knew he would never, ever recover; that Mav would sink into himself and cease to exist, to be.

Mav slapped his hands away clumsily and seemed to be pulling himself together, somewhat, as he rasped, “You said you were my wingman. Did you mean it?”

And that, see, that cut like a fucking knife and straightened his spine because of-fucking-course he’d meant it, and he icily pointed out, “I don’t say things I don’t mean, Maverick ,” unable to keep his frustration from his tone or his mocking scorn from the last syllable.

“Okay,” Maverick said then, and Ice realized that he was shaking and longed to reach out and hold him but wasn’t sure if he’d get laid out for it so he just stayed where he was with his hands twitching at his sides. “Okay,” he repeated, sounding shredded, his eyes filling with tears and spilling over as his breaths quickened, mouth opening and anguish spilling forth in the words, “Ice, I need need help,” cutting him straight to his core, just like that, and Ice swallowed, hard, and reached for him, “I can’t fucking do this, I can’t fuck up Goose’s kid, I need Carole but she’s not here, Goose isn’t here, I have no idea what I’m doing—”

Maverick was really sobbing now, his entire body shaking, so he tucked him tightly into his chest and held on; stroked hands up and down his back, across his shoulders, nuzzled the side of his head, rocked him from side to side, as Maverick let out all the grief and pain and fear he’d clearly kept bottled up since that fight over the Indian Ocean, maybe even before then, he didn’t fucking know. He just knew Mav felt right there, against his heart, and he was never going to let him go again if he could help it; knew without a shadow of a doubt he’d made the right choice asking to transfer because Mav clearly needed him.

He spoke to him, tried to be comforting, and led him to the bedroom because it was blatantly and clearly obvious that Maverick really needed to sleep. 

Mav asked him what he was doing and he couldn’t help but snort.

“You’re really fucking stupid when you’re sleep deprived, has anyone ever told you that, Mitchell?” he drawled as he reached for his wrists, because why the fuck else would he lead him to his bedroom when he was in this state? 

Mav just shrugged at him so he stripped him of his jacket and nudged him to sit on the edge of his bed, kneeling before him to tug off his ridiculous cowboy boots, peeling off his socks and seeing Pete’s delicate ankles, the arches of his feet. Rubbed his thumb across one before he could stop himself, shook himself out of it, motioned for Pete to stand so he could undo his belt because sleeping in jeans was uncomfortable as fuck.

Pete’s hand was like a brand on his shoulder as he lifted one foot and then the other and he was being eerily quiet, even as he kept saying his name, softly, over and over. Ice, Ice,Tom.

He curved his larger hands over the back of Pete’s knees, feeling the muscles flexing in his thighs and his hamstrings as he struggled to stay standing, his body swaying with obvious exhaustion and his blinks slowed as his eyes unfocused. With a gentle tug he pulled his knees forward to unbalance him, watched as Pete hit the bed with a soft oomph of surprise blinking up at his ceiling.

Pete didn’t seem to notice him sliding his arm gently under his shoulders, feeling the planes of his scapula against his fingers as he half-nudged, half-lifted Pete up to his pillow, clenching his jaw because Pete shouldn’t have been this light. He cupped his knees from beneath and lifted his legs onto the bed, tucking them under his comforter and pulling the blanket up to his shoulders.

“Ice,” Pete was saying, muzzily, blinking up at him slowly and with such bafflement on his face Ice couldn’t help but crouch and reach out, running his fingers through his hair to see if it was as soft as it looked. The urge to press a kiss to his forehead was so overwhelming he had to dig his fingers into his own thigh to stop himself.

His hair was softer than it looked, it turned out, and thick between his fingers. He ran his hands through it gently watching Pete’s eyelids flicker, grow heavy with sleep. This was how his mother got him to sleep and it had been a safe bet to assume it would work for Pete, too.

“Ice,” he said again, the edge of something in his voice.

“Just let someone take care of you for a change,” he said, keeping his tone level and calm. “Where’s Bradley?”

“Daycare,” Maverick responded promptly, voice slurring over the words. “I have to pick him up at five.”

Ice nodded and kept stroking his hands through Maverick’s hair, watching his eyelids droop lower and lower, wondering if Maverick was conscious of how he turned his head to press into the contact.

“Ice,” Maverick whispered, his eyes nearly closed now, the word more of a breath.

“Sleep, Pete,” he whispered back, stilling his hand to stroke one of Maverick’s eyebrows with a gentle thumb. “You need it.” You’re safe here, he left unsaid, watching as Maverick’s eyes finally closed and his breathing evened out almost immediately, face slackening with sleep. Nobody is going to hurt you, he also didn’t say, feeling a protective feeling crawling up his chest.

He watched Maverick sleep for a few moments, lifting his hand away. When he didn’t stir from a nightmare he stood and tucked his hands in his pockets.

It was time to make some pretty goddamned huge life decisions.

/

The first scream jarred him from his reading less than an hour later and he sprinted for the stairs. Maverick was twisted in the blankets, tossing and turning, face screwed up in agony.

“Goose,” he was rasping, hands clenching and unclenching in the sheets. “NO, no,” he moaned, trying to kick his feet out and failing.

“Mav,” he whispered, coming from the side and knowing to watch his fists closely as he reached out to settle a soothing hand on his head, slipping his fingers through Mav’s thick hair. “Mav, it’s okay, it’s just a nightmare,” he whispered, over and over again, stroking his fingers until Mav’s expression smoothed and his fists unclenched from the sheets, his breathing slowing and evening out.

Slider had done the same for him that first month, and Ice had only startled awake to hit him once. When he was sure Maverick was deeply sleeping again, he gently untangled the sheets and re-tucked them around his wingman’s shivering frame.

The second time was worse, leaving him with sweat on his brow but Ice smoothed the expression back to normal with soft murmurs and a softer touch. Even in his sleep Mav turned to him, into the contact, letting out a shaking sigh as the tension bled, and he had to blink his burning eyes because for Mav to be this touch starved he’d clearly been suffering longer than even he’d realized.

He didn’t wake again after that and Ice checked on him every hour or so, finding him sleeping peacefully on his stomach with his arms tucked up under Ice’s pillow. His mouth was partly open and he could only see his profile but his expression was smooth and impossibly young looking asleep.

Trust Mitchell to not even snore, the perfectly handsome bastard, he mused, and went back to his book.

The man himself came down the stairs six hours after he’d first fallen asleep, looking bleary-eyed but more alert than he’d been at the door this morning. Even sleep-rumpled with creases on his cheek he was beautiful and Ice watched him struggle to say thanks.

“I’m your wingman, Maverick, if you say a word I will kick your ass,” he warned, because honestly, he felt like he’d done the bare minimum.

When Pete had practically inhaled the lunch he’d made him, Ice had forced himself not to outwardly react, but if he was this excited about Pete eating he must have subconsciously known things were bad before he’d seen it for himself. He was already plotting ways to get some calories into Mav; the gauntness of his cheeks really was alarming, and when he moved his arms he could see the too-sharp lines of his collarbones through his shirt.

Their conversation went about as well as Ice expected. Pete dodged the questions about himself and focused on Bradley. He had a feeling this had been the pattern of Pete’s life since Carole’s death: focusing on Bradley and ignoring his own needs.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as Pete told him about the nightmares, leaving out his own (typical, really), and admitting, “I’m so fucking tired, Tom.”

Reaching across the table he curled his hand gently around Maverick’s too-thin and bony wrist, squeezing once. His skin was cool to the touch but his heartbeat was steady and strong. Unable to help himself, he stroked his thumb along that steady pulse, a reminder that Mav was still here, he was still with him.  He hoped in turn that his presence reminded Mav he wasn’t alone in this and that he still had his wingman.

“It’s gonna be okay, Pete,” he whispered, watching as Mav’s shoulders slumped. I’m going to take care of you, he left unsaid, whether you like it or not.

Pete would figure it out for himself soon enough.

/

It took a week for Maverick to be back on his doorstep again. It was a Friday and he knew the next Top Gun class started on Monday. It was the end of August and Viper and Jester sure were taking their sweet goddamn time picking him as an instructor.

He couldn’t think of another reason for Mav to be here; he’d thought he was going back to the Roosevelt and Ice hadn’t corrected him because he’d been too busy renewing his lease on this house, ordering extra furniture, getting his car back from his parents in San Clemente, and getting his affairs mostly in order.

“Kazansky, you son of a bitch,” Maverick greeted him, and he was puffed up and angry, his eyes flashing, and Ice had a moment of sheer, knee-weakening relief.

Maverick looked alive. Tired yes, but, he looked like himself, like the Maverick of Before.

Their argument was a short one and Ice spent most of it biting his tongue to keep from asking the real questions—what the fuck happened with Charlie, how long have you been having nightmares, why did you wait so long to ask me for help—and instead butted heads with Maverick like old times, watched as Maverick’s eyes flashed and his mouth snarled and his fists clenched at his sides, the subdued exhausted Maverick gone for the time being to be replaced, at long last, by his wingman.

“Why didn’t you say something, you asshole?” Maverick growled at him, and from the look on his face he wanted to hit him.

Ice would have taken it, probably. Swayed towards him instead and just stared at him because asking that question had been an insult to more than just his intelligence. He kept on staring, watching as the gears turned in Maverick’s head, his eyes briefly going far away and eyes tracking to the spot slightly to Ice’s left where he’d cried all over his shoulder a week ago.

The flush in Mav’s cheeks a few heartbeats later meant he’d finally registered the words he’d babbled in his overly-exhausted delirium. Ice, I need help, he’d said; it had been a plea as much as a prayer. Maverick’s expression twisted, mouth curling downwards, breath stuttering in his chest as his fists clenched. His uniform was shoved up to his elbows and it made his forearms flex as he breathed deeply and finally, finally, looked at him.

Ice held his gaze patiently.

“I’m your wingman, dumbass,” he said matter-of-factly. You asked me to come, he left unsaid, left it unsaid too that he’d been coming anyway and that sentence had just cemented his plans into finality. They were wingmen and if Mav hadn’t figured out that he’d do anything for him he’d get it eventually. God willing, he had his whole life to prove it.

Mav predictably puffed up like an angry kitten, all growl and no bite. His words were equally meaningless and more knee-jerk than anything; his claims of I don’t need you rolled off Ice like water over rocks because he’d already said he did and it was too late to take it back. This was Maverick frustrated, embarrassed, trying to save face.

He didn’t have to be embarrassed and he’d figure that out soon enough, too.

Ice closed the distance between them because he needed to feel the other man’s warmth as a reminder that he was still alive. He stared into Maverick’s eyes and saw all his fears and regrets shining in them; saw his embarrassment, his exhaustion, his sheer unfiltered desperation. 

“Tough shit,” he said, and he bared his teeth and pressed their noses together, breathed in Maverick’s scent as the words pulled from the bottom of his soul, “You have me.”

He just watched with quiet amusement as Maverick called him a dickwad and stomped out, slamming the door behind him hard enough to make the window panes rattle. Couldn’t help cracking a grin at getting under Maverick’s skin because it was something.

Tom didn’t want to go through life without Maverick, was the thing, and he figured Mav would figure that out soon enough, too.

Chapter Text

Maverick had once relished lazy Saturday mornings and getting to sleep in. It wasn’t like him—the Navy didn’t exactly breed laziness—but his first stint in Top Gun had taught him the beauty of a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 life. It was different, sure, and he missed ship life sometimes, but it definitely made childrearing a hell of a lot easier.

Lazy Saturdays had ceased to exist the moment Bradley Bradshaw became his sole responsibility, however.

His door flew open at 0559, bouncing off the wall as a streak of blond hair made a beeline for his side of the bed. Maverick groaned before Bradley even made contact, his bony knees digging into Maverick’s ribs as his head thunked heavily against his shoulder.

“Good morning Uncle Pete!” Bradley said in a too-loud, too-cheerful voice.

“Morning, baby Goose,” he mumbled, squinting one eye open to confirm that it was, indeed, 0600 on the dot. Bradley was nothing if not punctual and he’d woken him promptly at six every morning since he’d moved in after Carole’s diagnosis. 

“Can we have pancakes for breakfast?”

“I’ll try,” he groaned, tugging the boy down under the covers with him and tucking him against his chest. “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah,” Bradley said brightly as he snuggled happily up under his chin. Maverick buried his nose in his fine blond strands; he smelled like baby shampoo and home and it immediately put his mind at ease. “I had a dream that I was a butterfly. It was awesome .”

“Sounds fun,” he murmured, pressing a brief kiss to the top of Bradley’s head. “What do you want with your pancakes?”

“Can we get sausage?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, stretching with a theatrical groan that made Bradley giggle. “We’ll have to go to the store, though. Why don’t you go brush your teeth and get dressed?”

“Sure!” Bradley chirped, somehow managing to get his ribs with both elbows and his knees into Maverick’s hip on his descent down the bed.

“Christ almighty,” Maverick muttered to himself as he heaved his tired body out of bed. He’d been up late the night before going over the files of the incoming pilots and while Bradley’s nightmares were becoming less and less frequent it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to the boy climbing into bed with him. He usually waited for him to go back to sleep and carried him back to his own bed at the advice of Bradley’s therapist. 

It had been his own nightmares that haunted him that night, shaking him awake in a cold sweat and leaving him gasping for air over and over again. The ocean’s cold grip, the silky feel of the parachute, the green dye, Goos —he swallowed hard and pushed the thought viciously aside, wishing he could see something else, anything else, every time he closed his eyes at night.

He could hear Bradley thumping around in the room he’d claimed as his own and could only hope he wasn’t strewing clothes all over the floor again as he tugged on some clean jeans and a plain white T-shirt.

“You ready, Bradley?” he called, and the boy stumbled out of his bedroom. He’d managed to dress himself just fine and scampered into the bathroom to brush his teeth which reminded Maverick he needed to do the same.

The car he’d purchased was a basic Ford Bronco, nothing special, but it had a backseat for Bradley and wasn’t a deathtrap like his motorcycle. Bradley buckled himself in and they were off to the store.

“Stay with me,” he told Bradley, grabbing a basket and making a beeline for the back. It was early and nobody else was in the store, yet, a fact he was thankful for. This grocery store was just off base and was a mix of civilian and military shoppers and he’d hoped to avoid the military kind as long as he could. Nothing was more awkward than running into someone who wanted to talk about the Gulf dogfight, he’d quickly realized, and made a point to shop either very early or very late.

“We’re low on milk Uncle Pete,” Bradley reminded him as he walked along happily beside him. “And can we get more Cheerios?”

“Not until you finish your Frosted Flakes,” he said absently as he tugged a carton of milk and dropped it in the basket. “Do you want more bananas?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright, go grab some then,” Maverick said as he ruffled Bradley’s hair, nodding towards the shelf a few feet away with bananas and oranges on it. He kept one eye on the boy while he grabbed some sausage and the vanilla yogurt he usually packed in Bradley’s lunches for daycare.

“Well isn’t this domestic,” a too-familiar voice drawled from directly beside him. Maverick nearly jumped out of his skin and turned his head to see Ice standing there with a basket of his own. His aviators were tucked into the front of his shirt, not a hair was out of place, and he looked unfairly put together for such an early hour. But then again, Maverick mused, he didn’t have a five-year-old.

“Ice,” he said, surprised. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Shopping,” Ice deadpanned. He snorted as he dodged the kick Maverick aimed at his ankles.

“No shit, smartass,” Maverick said with an eye roll as he watched Bradley finally pick a thing of bananas and get distracted by the oranges. “I mean what are you doing here this early?”

“Last time I came here in the afternoon and got stuck talking to people,” Ice confessed. “I shop early or late now. It’s a little awkward to be asked about the Gulf over a carton of eggs if you get my drift.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Maverick muttered. “I couldn’t show my face here for weeks after the incident and those newspaper articles. I wore my sunglasses and hat inside. It made me feel like a total asshole.” He watched as Bradley picked up an orange and called, “Bradley! If you want an orange, pick two and then bring them here.”

“Okay!” Bradley called back without looking at him, proceeding to get as close as he could to each orange, inspecting it like it held all the answers to life in the universe.

“Bradley,” Ice repeated, his blue eyes flashing to the boy and studying him with interest. He smirked and bumped his elbow against Maverick’s as he added, “Well, he’s clothed and he looks clean, so that’s something, Mitchell.”

“Shut up, Ice.” Maverick slapped him half-heartedly in the ribs, smiling when Ice snorted at him and ducked his chin. “I can take care of a five-year-old. Mostly.”

Ice hummed, clearly unconvinced. His sharp eyes settled on Maverick’s face instead and he was suddenly very aware of how close they were standing. He could feel the warmth of Ice through the thin material of his T-shirt. As usual it left him feeling stripped bare, those goddamn blue eyes looking right into his soul.

“You look tired, Pete,” he said in a murmur so quiet Maverick had to strain to hear it. “Are you sleeping?”

“When I can,” he said shortly, shifting backward to get a better look at Bradley. He cleared his throat. “Bradley,” he said, louder, and the boy looked over at him. “Get a move on, baby Goose, I’m hungry.”

“I like these ones,” Bradley said proudly as he marched over with the bananas and two oranges cradled gently in his hands. He noticed the taller man standing beside Maverick and suddenly got shy, one hand curling around Maverick’s thigh as his fingers bunched in the material of his jeans.

“Bradley, this is Tom Kazansky, also known as Iceman,” Maverick said, reaching up to smooth his blond hair off his forehead. “He flew with your daddy and me at Top Gun.”

“Hi,” Bradley said shyly, peeking out around his leg and taking in the aviators, Ice’s charming smile, and his civilian clothes. “Are you going to be a teacher at Top Gun too?”

“Sure am, Bradshaw,” Ice said gently. “I’m going to keep your Uncle Pete here from being an idiot.”

Bradley cracked a grin at that. “Mommy always said Uncle Pete is an idiot a lot,” he giggled.

“Your mom was a smart woman,” Ice sniggered as Maverick made an offended noise.

“I’m standing right here, you traitors,” he said, but he was amused as he lowered the basket so Bradley could see. “Do you need anything else, kiddo?”

The boy peered into the basket and then looked up at Maverick. “We’re gonna need more sausage if Ice is coming for breakfast,” he said in a loud whisper, looking up at the other man. “Is he coming to breakfast, Uncle Pete?”

Maverick took a deep breath and cut his eyes to Ice, who was smirking at him with amusement dancing in his blue eyes. “I dunno, Ice: you coming for breakfast?”

“I’d be delighted,” Ice said, reaching down to ruffle Bradley’s hair. “Can he actually cook?”

Bradley looked between them with a wicked little smirk of his own as he said, “Sometimes.”

“Betrayal,” Maverick deadpanned, but his heart felt as light as a feather to see Bradley giggling and leaning into his leg, his eyes—Goose’s eyes—crinkling at the corners. When he laughed, really laughed, his nose bunched up like Carole’s always had and it made a pang of longing strike him right through the heart.

Something must have flashed across his face because Ice’s hand landed on his shoulder, his thumb stroking across his collarbone as he ducked his head slightly to make eye contact and Maverick breathed in once, deeply; held it, let it out, and Ice offered him a soft smile and tilted his head in invitation as his hand slid down his arm and away.

/

Maverick managed to not burn the pancakes and what had started as an exhausted morning led instead to the most fun he’d had in a long time. Ice helped him cook which cut the work in half, and he also helped him clean up after. He didn’t even insult Maverick’s somewhat-too-done pancakes and ate them without complaint, asking Bradley about daycare and baseball and anything else the kid wanted to happily chatter to him about.

They’d run around Maverick’s yard for a while and then Bradley had dragged them upstairs to his room.

“Can I put a plane on my wall?” he begged Maverick, his little hands tucked up under his chin, and fuck.

Fuck .

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised the boy. “Do you still want to paint it?”

The room was bare aside from a bed frame he’d gotten the boy when he’d moved in and the comforter he’d had in his old house. His garage was full of storage boxes from Carole and Goose’s home that he hadn’t had the stomach to go through yet; he hoped one day soon to pick through the boxes and give Bradley some familiar items in his new home. There was a blue lamp on his bedside table to match the comforter and his favorite dinosaur toy was tucked in between the pillows.

Ice snapped his arm out and looked at his watch. “We’ve got time to get to the hardware store,” he said, a sly smile curving his lips as he winked at Maverick over Bradley’s blond head.

“Can we?” Bradley said excitedly as he grabbed both of their hands and looked between them.

“Sure,” Maverick shrugged. Not like he had anything else to spend his hard-earned money on, and besides, if Bradley would keep smiling like that he would agree to do just about anything no matter how ridiculous.

Ice joined them on their adventure to the hardware store. He helped pick out the color (blue) and then quietly added a few smaller containers of black, grays, and lighter blues to the cart. When Maverick asked him what for he just smiled secretively and wandered off to get some pencils and paint brushes.

That somehow led to them stopping by the actual store to get Bradley a bedside table and some new toys which Ice paid for and refused to take no for an answer.

“I’ll fight you right here in this aisle,” Ice threatened mildly as Bradley grabbed a wooden toy model plane and turned to look at them with pleading eyes. “Go ahead, baby Goose,” he told the boy fondly as he pushed the cart closer so Bradley could reach it.

Bradley set it gently in the cart with a grin and then wandered off again to pick a few more toys—nearly all dinosaur or plane themed, he couldn’t help but notice. There was a rug with a dark blue background and multi-colored planes on it in the rugs section and he didn’t even have to open his mouth before Ice was reaching for it. Maverick didn’t even fight this time, he just set it in the cart with a wry shake of his head. 

“You’re spoiling him,” he told Ice mildly as the taller man had to go get a second cart for the dresser (also blue) and some kind of cube thing to hold the kid’s toys.

“Am not,” Ice countered without missing a beat. “Besides, he’s a good kid. Look at him.” He gestured to where Bradley was peering at the Lego collections but not putting anything in the carts.

Maverick made sure to take note which ones Bradley lingered on the longest. Christmas was coming up quicker than he’d care to admit and he’d love to get him something he’d really like.

Ice had banished him and Bradley to the ice cream shop next door at the registers—no doubt to avoid Maverick trying to pay him back, which was fine, he already planned to stuff a wad of cash into his flight suit on Monday morning anyway—so they got him a double rocky road as a thank you. They ate their ice cream in the truck on the way back to the house, their windows rolled down and the ocean in the distance listening to rock songs and singing along to the words they knew.

Bradley did his best to help them build the furniture but he mostly just got in the way and decided to go play in the backyard instead.

“He’s a good kid, Mav,” Ice told him as he paused in building the dresser to watch Bradley run past the open back door with his arms stretched wide making airplane noises at the top of his lungs. “A really good kid.”

“He is,” Maverick agreed. It came out muffled around the screws he had clamped in his teeth but he flashed his wingman a crooked grin anyway. “Thanks for doing this,” he added, waving a hand at the furniture and somehow managing to encompass the whole day. “I bet you’d rather be at the O Club.”

“Nah,” Ice said without breaking eye contact, his eyes soft, “I’m right where I want to be.”

Maverick felt his neck flush his face go hot, ducking his chin to his chest. When he risked a glance back up Ice looked very pleased with himself and was humming under his breath as he built the shelf thing for Bradley’s toys.

They let the five-year-old boss them around as they rearranged his bedroom furniture to his liking. The therapist had told Maverick it was good to give Bradley some control to help him feel more secure and the least he could do was let the kid decide where he wanted his bed to be. 

“Not bad,” Mav panted with his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room with Ice bent over with his hands on his knees beside him. The damn dresser had to weigh at least a hundred pounds and was a bitch to move without a decent handhold but they’d managed together.

Bradley had opted for his bed to be right under the window. It needed some curtains but for now it looked nice with the blue nightstand and his lamp. They’d put a framed picture of his parents and him on the nightstand beside his nightlight. The dresser was on the opposite wall with the rug between it and the bed and it definitely felt more like a room now.

“You like it, Bradley?” Maverick asked the boy, glancing to where he was sitting cross-legged on his new rug.

The five-year-old in question was busy organizing his toys into the shelf Ice had built for him and didn’t look up at the question but he did nod enthusiastically. He had a plush dinosaur in each hand and was currently trying to decide… something, a little frown on his face as he looked between them.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Maverick snorted as he wiped his face with the hem of his T-shirt. He could feel it sticking to his abs and back and desperately wanted a shower. “I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner.”

Ice followed him out of the room. “I’m not sure which, Mav, but one of those dinosaurs is going to help him achieve world domination,” he joked in a low voice as they walked down the stairs.

Maverick snorted. “He’s into dinosaurs, for sure,” he agreed. “That and planes.”

“Pretty normal obsessions for a five-year-old.”

He glanced at the taller man with a smirk. “Are you an expert on five-year-olds now, Iceman?” he teased.

“Might be,” Ice teased back with a grin.

Maverick realized then that having Ice there had soothed the nonstop churning anxiety in his gut for the first time since Carole’s diagnosis. He swallowed hard in a suddenly dry throat and looked at the blond who was busy scrubbing a wet paper towel over his sweaty neck and face at the sink. His white T-shirt was clinging to his back.

“Hey, Ice,” he said as he leaned against the counter and the blond turned around to face him, “You like burgers?”

“Depends,” Ice shot back without missing a beat as he wadded the paper towels in his hand. “Are you cooking them?”

“I’m not much of a cook but I can barbecue.” Maverick rolled his eyes. “Are you staying or what? Do you need an engraved invitation?”

Ice flashed him a crooked smile. “I’ll stay. On one condition, Mitchell,” he said gravely. “I need a fucking shower.”

“Well, I’ve got a shower,” he smirked, “But I don’t think it will fuck you.” He was already ducking the paper towels he knew Ice would launch at his head and couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him.

“You’re a fucking menace, Mitchell,” Ice said with a shake of his head. “Let me get my gym bag.”

Maverick had managed to prove that he did, indeed, know how to cook burgers and the three of them had had a great time chatting over dinner and dishes. They’d played a board game until Bradley was yawning every other breath and then Ice had bid them goodnight and gone home, ruffling Bradley’s hair as he did so and clapping Maverick on the shoulder.

“Uncle Pete?”

“Yeah, bud,” Maverick said as he sat on the edge of Bradley’s bed and smoothed a gentle hand through his wild blond hair. Bradley was in his plane pajamas and sleepy, dark eyes blinking trustfully up at him.

“Is Iceman going to stay for a while?”

“I think so, Bradley,” he murmured, sweeping his thumb gently across Bradley’s brow. His skin was soft and warm and he couldn’t resist bending to press a tender kiss between his eyebrows. The boy wrinkled his nose at him and giggled and he couldn’t help but smile back. “I hope he stays around.”

“I like him,” Bradley said sleepily, tiny fingers curling around his thumb and holding on tightly. “He makes you smile. He seems mean at first but his eyes are kind.”

“Yeah,” Maverick agreed; he’d spent way too much time thinking about those piercing blue eyes lately; had a sudden sense-memory of the way they’d shone as he smiled and said I’m right where I want to be . “Yeah, I guess they are. Go to sleep, baby Goose.”

/

Later that night in the darkness of his room he struggled to banish the sea and its icy grip from the edges of his awareness. He was taking big deep breaths in an effort to calm his racing heart and nearly had a heart attack when the phone rang on his bedside table.

It was only nine, which wasn’t too late, but the people who could be calling him wouldn’t usually be doing so at this hour since they knew he had a kid now and he had work at the same time every morning. All the same he scooped it up and rasped, “Hello?”

“You’re supposed to be reading to him,” Ice said, apparently eschewing a greeting, and boy was it telling that he knew him by voice, now. Said voice was slightly muffled and it reminded Maverick of all the times he’d spoken while chewing on his pen in class at Top Gun.

“What?” he said blankly, blinking up at his ceiling fan.

Ice made an impatient noise. “To Bradley, you idiot,” he said and Maverick didn’t think he was imagining the fondness in the tone. “You’re supposed to be reading to him.”

“I do read to him,” he said, confused.

“We should get him a library card,” Ice hummed. “The book says the best way to ensure academic success in Kindergarten and beyond is to start with a solid foundation of nightly reading, Mav.”

“Ice, did you check out a fucking parenting book?” Mav said incredulously, fighting back the urge to laugh because it honestly was exactly what he’d expect from by-the-book Tom “Iceman” Kazansky.

“The librarian recommended it,” Ice said, his voice casual. It wasn’t muffled so he must be spinning the pen around his fingers now and Maverick had the sudden image of Iceman sitting up in bed with a parenting book in one hand and a notebook on his lap, writing down advice. “She also suggested some books he might like.They’ve got some really cool ones about planes and dinosaurs and all kinds of shit.”

Maverick opened and closed his mouth and couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “Okay, I’ll take him after work on Monday.”

“Hmm,” Ice agreed. “Next weekend we should take him to the zoo. They don’t have dinosaurs but elephants are pretty cool, or so I hear. I’ve never actually seen one in real life before. There are supposed to be some cool fossils, though, and there’s the La Brea tar pits and the Discovery Science Center if he’s going to really go all-out for this dinosaur obsession. They’ve got some neat museums in LA, too.”

He took a deep breath and let it out trying to figure out what the fuck was happening and failing miserably. “I think he’d like that,” he said, his voice coming out a little rougher than he’d intended and he swallowed in an effort to clear it. With everything going on he hadn't even though about doing things with Bradley outside of Miramar.

“That is of course assuming we don’t kill any of these idiots on Monday,” Ice mused and there was definite amusement in his tone, now. “You read their files, right?”

“Of course,” he snorted. “Always do. We’ve got a few with track records that look like mine. Should be interesting; Jester loves to fuck with people like me, I’m convinced it’s his favorite past time.”

“Jester likes to push buttons,” Ice agreed. “Tell me honestly, Mav: how satisfying is it to get a missile lock on a cocky little shit?”

Maverick grinned in the darkness. “Pretty goddamned satisfying,” he promised. “Just you wait, Ice, it’ll be the music to soothe your grumpy soul. Bring some cash Monday, too.”

“What? Why?” Ice said, surprised at the request. “There aren’t going to be strippers are there?”

“Are you kidding, Viper would kill us,” Maverick said, unable to keep himself from cracking up at the mental image. “Nah, we take bets on who we think is going to make it to the plaque. We all usually put in fifty; the winner takes the pot and doesn’t have to give a speech at the end of the class.”

“Well shit,” Ice mused. “Yeah, I’ll bring it. Do I need to bring anything else?”

Maverick had a sudden image of Ice and his pen and he said, “Pens,” before he could stop himself, flushing a little at Ice’s surprised snort.

“Have they told you yet which of us they bet on?” Ice asked and his voice sounded muffled again. 

“The way Viper aggressively changes the subject every time I bring it up I get the feeling one of them picked me and one of them picked you,” he said, wryly, shaking his head even though Ice couldn’t see him. “I just can’t puzzle out which is which.”

“You tried getting them drunk yet?”

“Didn’t work,” he said glumly. “They just started waxing poetic about the best pilots they’d flown with and then started singing sea shanties.”

Ice’s startled bark of laughter made him grin. “Now that I’m having a hard time picturing,” he mused.

“Trust me, you’d need to scrub your ears with a wire brush after, those two can’t sing for shit it was like two cats caterwauling to a backdrop of nails on a chalkboard.”

Ice laughed softly and then went pensive. The other side of the line was quiet for a few long moments other than Ice’s breathing. “Hey Mav?”

“Yeah, Ice?” he murmured, feeling his eyelids getting heavy. He was warm under his blanket, the coldness of the sea long forgotten.

“This is going to be fun,” Ice promised. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You too,” he said around a yawn and slid the phone back into the cradle before he thought to mention that tomorrow was Sunday, not Monday, but the thought slipped away like sand in a sieve. He rolled over and let his eyes slide shut, and when he finally fell asleep, his dreams were full of elephants and dinosaurs.

Chapter Text

Sunday morning dawned just as brightly as the others. Maverick blinked up at his swirling ceiling fan and realized he’d slept right through the night. He wrinkled his brow and tried to remember his dreams but they were hazy and already fading, but he knew for a fact they hadn’t involved an ocean of any kind.

He… wasn’t sure what to do with that, a pang of guilt striking him because he should be thinking about Goose, he should be missing him—

“Uncle Maverick!” Bradley cheered a heartbeat later as the door bounced against the wall and he landed smack on top of him, knocking  the wind out of his lungs.

“Bradley,” he wheezed in return, gently rearranging Bradley’s limbs so bony knees were no longer digging into his kidneys. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Good!” Bradley beamed. “My new room smells like wood. I like it. Are we gonna paint today?”

“We can,” he murmured into Bradley’s hairline, hugging him tight. “Let’s get breakfast first and then see where the day leads us. You still want to go get a baseball mitt?”

“Yeah!”

“Alright,” he yawned. “C’mon, up. Cereal is calling our name.”

Bradley cheered and charged downstairs. By the time Maverick made it down to the kitchen the boy had poured two bowls of frosted flakes and set the spoons and milk carton on the table.

“Thanks kiddo,” he said, smooching him loudly on the top of the head. “So what’s your vision for your room, huh?”

“Blue!” Bradley said excitedly around a mouthful of Frosted Flakes. “And maybe a mountain.”

“A mountain,” Maverick repeated with his eyebrows in his hairline. “I’m not much of an artist, kid, but I’ll try.”

“They’re triangles, Uncle Mav, how hard can it be?”

They were interrupted by a knock at the door.

Bradley and Maverick looked at each other, then at the door, then back at each other again.

“Are you expecting company Mr. Bradshaw?” Maverick teased, as Bradley shook his head. His cheeks were puffed out comically as he tried to chew quickly and then swallow. “Stay there, I’ll get it,” he added, setting his napkin down and wandering to the door, wondering who would be knocking so early.

Maverick swung the door open and immediately realized he should have known. Tom Kazansky was standing on his doorstep in ripped and faded jeans and a black T-shirt. 

“It’s six in the morning,” he said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe with a grin. “What if I’d been asleep, Kazansky?”

“One, you’re in the Navy,” Ice told him as he tucked his aviators into the neck of his t-shirt. “Two, you’ve got a five year old.”

“So I do,” he agreed with a smirk. “Can I help you, Lieutenant Commander?”

Ice just looked at him with a flatly unimpressed expression. “Are we painting this kid’s room or what, Mitchell?” he demanded as he nudged Maverick out of the way and strode into the house.

As it turned out Ice was good at art just like he was good at fucking everything . He’d taken Bradley upstairs after breakfast and asked him to explain what he wanted his mountains to look like. By the time Maverick shoved the dishes in the dishwasher and jogged up the stairs, Ice had a pencil in his hands and was sketching directly on the wall.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded blankly, watching as Ice’s hands swept the pencil across the white wall in graceful arcs as Bradley tracked the movement with his mouth hanging open.

“Sketching,” Ice deadpanned and Maverick wanted to kick him but refrained because Bradley was in the way. He was halfway through a second mountain range. “Like this, Bradley?”

“Yeah! Can you draw a plane?”

“What kind of plane would you like?” Ice asked with a grin, his eyes fixed on the boy.

Maverick could only stare at the pair the two made. Ice was twirling the pencil around his knuckles just like he’d done with those damn pens in their Top Gun class, his graceful fingers spinning it without looking. Ice glanced up at him and he smiled. He had a dimple in his cheek and his eyes flashed with amusement as he continued to listen as Bradley frantically explained all the planes he wanted.

“How about just one F-14 to start,” Ice told Bradley without taking his eyes off Maverick.

“Is there anything you’re not good at, Kazansky,” Maverick asked rhetorically with a head shake as he moved up to bump shoulders with his wingman.

“What can I say, I’m a marvel,” Ice smirked, returning his attention to the wall.

Bradley eventually got bored and wandered away. They left Ice to do his sketching. The blond just waved them away absently, absorbed in… whatever the hell he was drawing.

Maverick was told in no uncertain terms if he touched the wall Ice would kill him. “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” he sighed, rolling his eyes at the blond. “I just want to help.”

“I got it,” Ice promised, going back to the wall. “I had a job painting when I was in high school. It’ll go faster without you getting in the way.”

“Really feeling the love here, Ice,” he snorted, as Bradley screeched downstairs. “Are you okay,” he bellowed out the open door.

“There’s a BEE!”

“Good grief, Bradley, it’s just a bee,” he shouted back.

“HE’S SO CUTE! CAN WE KEEP HIM?”

Maverick smacked himself on the forehead as Ice laughed. “Shut up,” he muttered to his wingman before hurrying out of Bradley’s bedroom and down the stairs. “Where is it?”

Bradley pointed out the open doorway. “Can we go get baseballs now?” he begged, tugging hard on the pocket of Mav’s jeans.

They sang rock songs all the way to the sporting goods store for a baseball mitt and a tube of baseballs. After about ten minutes of arguing in the children’s sports aisle he agreed to a T-ball stand with a sigh and tucked it under his arm, resigning himself to a future of not being able to say “no” to Bradley Bradshaw and his lethal puppy dog eyes.

He did stop in the volleyball section and got himself a net and a few volleyballs, his cheeks feeling warm as he remembered the last time he’d played with Goose, Slider, and Iceman. He hadn’t touched a volleyball since the accident but knew in his heart of hearts that Goose had loved the sport and would want his son to love it, too.

When they got back an hour later Ice’s Jeep was still in the driveway. Maverick pointedly ignored the relief that flooded through his system and focused on getting Bradley in the house before he was talked into some other adventure.

Maverick dumped the baseball things in a pile in the backyard and wandered back inside. Bradley was shouting excitedly from upstairs but he couldn’t make out the words as he climbed the steps. It smelled strongly of paint even though every window in the house was open to let in the salty summer breeze.

Ice had some paint splatters on his pants and had covered everything in the room with dropcloth. The things he could carry he had set in the hallway. One of the walls—the one that Bradley’s bed rested against—was now a deep, dark blue. Ice was once again living up to his reputation as someone who was efficient to the point of ruthlessness; they’d barely been gone an hour.

The mural was taking shape; there were three layers of mountains. The foreground was black, the same dark blue as behind the bed was in the middle, and lighter blue in the back. Ice had a paintbrush in his hand and was busy making some trees in black on the first mountain range, tongue sticking between his teeth as he concentrated.

“Damn, Iceman,” he whistled, as he looked up and saw the plane he’d drawn. There was a sketch of a damn-near perfect F-14 in what would be the sky. The detail in it was incredible even just with pencil lines. “That’s amazing.”

“It’s the coolest!” Bradley cheered, jumping around Ice’s knees with nothing but glee. “Thanks Mr. Ice!”

“Sure thing, little Bradshaw,” Ice snorted, tweaking his nose with his free hand. “Now scram. I don’t want you to get paint on your clothes.”

Bradley obeyed with another shouted thanks, crashing into Maverick’s knees. “Can we play baseball?” he pleaded.

“I’m going to help Ice, kiddo.”

“The hell you are, Mitchell, you’ll just mess it up.”

“I resent that,” he said to Ice who just winked at him.

“C’mon, Mav, please ?” Bradley begged, his eyes shining bright.

It was the brightest and happiest he’d seen Bradley in months so Maverick had no choice but to nod. “Yeah,” he said, scooping the boy up and kissing him loudly on the cheek. “Yeah, come on, kiddo. I’ll teach you how to use a mitt.”

“This is the best day ever ,” Bradley beamed, looking between the two men who shared quiet smiles.

“Go teach him a decent fastball, Mitchell, I’ll finish in here. I do demand lunch, though, I’m starving,” Ice said distractedly, the majority of his attention focused on the wall.

“You got it, Iceman,” Maverick said. “C’mon, little Goose, let’s go.” He set Bradley down and could only marvel at the energy of youth as Bradley charged towards the backyard with a whoop.

Mav felt a little bad for leaving Ice to do all the painting but for one, his wingman was a stubborn bastard of a control freak, and for another, Bradley was sweaty and covered in grass stains but his eyes and his smile were bright, the summer sun bringing color back to his cheeks.

Bradley tired out before him—thank god for small miracles—and was whinier than usual which usually meant he was hungry. Maverick let the boy drag him into the kitchen by his wrist and was glad to be out of the sun.

“I want hot dogs, please,” Bradley said as he made a beeline for the cabinet. He emerged a moment later shaking a box of macaroni in his hand and running to the stove. “And this,” he said, shoving them into Maverick’s hands.

“You got it,” Maverick told him cheerfully. Boiling hot dogs and cooking pasta out of a box was definitely in his cooking repertoire. “Go tell Ice I’m making lunch.”

“Okay,” Bradley beamed as he raced off at mach ten. His feet pounded up the stairs making enough noise to be compared to a herd of stampeding elephants. A heartbeat later there was an excited screech and shout of, “ICE THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!”

Maverick winced as Ice’s laughter drifted down the stairs. He dumped the hot dogs in the pot of water and made a pact with himself to stop swearing so much in the kid’s earshot.

/

Every fan in the house was in Bradley’s room on full blast. It sounded a bit like being on a commercial airliner but none of them minded as they spent the afternoon playing baseball, setting up Bradley’s comically small T-ball stand, and then having burgers for dinner. Bradley begged for another board game so they played Trouble.

Ice was as ruthless with Trouble as he was flying and beat the pants off both of them. Bradley didn’t seem to mind, though, he was too busy giggling over how frustrated Maverick was by losing.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Mitchell, just admit I’m better than you,” Ice grinned around a toothpick.

“Take a walk off a cliff, Kazansky,” he shot back, gently pinching Bradley’s cheek when he fell over into his lap giggling up a storm. “What the hell is so funny, baby Goose?”

“You are,” Bradley said, grinning up at him. He sat up and looked between the two men. “Thank you for my new bedroom,” he told them, the mirth fading to be replaced by seriousness. “I really love it. This was the best day ever .”

“You’re very welcome, Bradley,” Ice told him softly, reaching over to smooth his hair, which had fluffed up in the back and made him look a bit like a baby duck, albeit an adorable one. “I’m glad you like your plane.”

Bradley crawled right up in his lap and hugged him tight, tiny arms locking around his neck as he pressed his cheek to Ice’s. “I love my plane,” he promised. He yawned at the end, so hard his little jaw cracked.

“I’m glad,” Ice whispered back, his big hands holding Bradley so gently that Maverick felt a smile twitching his lip. 

Ice played a round with him one-handed. Bradley was still in his lap, facing him, tiny knees on either side of his hips and head lolling on his broad shoulder as he struggled to stay awake.

“Bedtime, I think,” Maverick snorted as soon as Bradley’s eyes slipped shut for the fourth time, scooping the boy off Ice’s lap and into his arms and choosing to ignore the boy’s sleepy grumble of displeasure. “You can sleep with me tonight while your room dries, buddy.”

“Mmkay,” Bradley yawned again, nuzzling his face into the juncture of Maverick’s neck and shoulder.

Maverick set him on his feet gently. “Go get your PJs on and brush your teeth,” he said as he dropped a kiss to the top of his head.

Yawning again the boy obeyed. He didn’t sound like a herd of stampeding elephants this time. The sudden quiet of the downstairs was evident.

“Hey, Ice,” Maverick said as he watched his wingman picking up the pieces of the game and putting them back in the box. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say it; maybe it was daring, or sleep deprivation, or simple curiosity. “You sure you don’t wish you were at the O Club?”

Ice slid the lid of the box back on and sat back on the couch, rolling his head to look at Maverick with one perfect eyebrow arched imperiously. “I told you already, Mav,” he drawled. “I’m right where I want to be.”

He exhaled slowly around the lump in his throat. “Ice,” he murmured, not sure what to say or even how to say it. “This weekend—it was,” he trailed off, waving a hand helplessly. “It’s the most I’ve seen Bradley smile in… weeks. Hell. Months .”

“Hmm,” Ice agreed as he shifted closer. He propped his elbow on the couch so he could rest his chin on his fist. “I like making him smile,” he said with a half-shrug. “He’s a good kid. Reminds me a lot of his dad.”

“Yeah,” Maverick whispered through a tight throat as his eyes burned. “Yeah, he really does.”

“Uncle Mav,” Bradley shouted from upstairs. “I’m ready!”

“I’ll be right back,” Maverick promised, heaving himself up off the couch. Upstairs he found Bradley already in his bed, as promised, arms tucked around his favorite dinosaur and halfway to dreamland.

“Hey, buddy,” he greeted the child as he pressed a soft kiss to the side of his head. “Did you have fun today?”

“Yeah,” Bradley whispered, yawning. “Can we keep Ice forever?”

Maverick snorted. “I’ll see what I can do, Bradley,” he murmured, kissing him again and tucking the covers around his impossibly tiny shoulders.

“Love you,” the boy murmured.

It made his heart feel like it was about to squeeze out of his chest as he whispered, “I love you too, kiddo. Goodnight.”

“Why do you look like you got electrocuted?” Ice’s amused voice asked him when he returned to the couch. His expression was relaxed and curious.

“Just Bradley,” he shrugged as he dropped back to his spot on the couch with a heavy sigh. “I hope he sleeps well tonight. The first day with a new class is always interesting. Did you have a chance to go over all their files again?”

Ice nodded. “They seem pretty by the book for the most part,” he shrugged. “I’m sure it will be fine. Tomorrow is just a test run, right?”

“Right,” Maverick grinned. “Put them through their paces, see—”

“—what they only think they know,” Ice finished for him with a matching grin. “Yeah, I figured. So tomorrow you and I get to show them what we’re made of.”

“Yeah.” He grinned at the thought, remembering how cold and laser-focused Ice had been throughout their competition. “Those poor bastards have no idea what’s about to happen to them.”

“Sounds fun,” Ice said with a grin that could only be described as wicked. 

“I thought you were a rule follower,” Mav teased him tiredly, leaning his head back on the couch and turning to smirk at the blond.

“I’m feeling the need to remind you that I also buzzed the control tower after the dogfight,” he sniped in a tone as dry as the Sahara that made Maverick laugh so hard his stomach cramped.

“Fuck, I forgot about that.”

“My ears are still ringing from Stinger’s reprimand. He was pissed .”

Maverick clutched his stomach and laughed harder. “God, he’s such a tightass,” he chortled as he leaned into the back of the couch and closed his eyes. “Good commander, though.”

“Yeah, he’s alright,” Ice laughed, reaching over to pat Maverick on his chest. His hand lingered for a heartbeat before he withdrew it and sat forward. The sudden quiet made his skin prickle but he kept his eyes closed.

“Take a picture, Kazansky, it will last longer,” he murmured, cracking one eye open to see Ice giving him that look again.

“You look less tired today.”

“I feel less tired today,” Maverick told him with a slight yawn, knuckling his eye absently.

“I have nightmares, you know,” Ice said into the quiet and the sentence was like a gunshot. His entire body tensed as he opened his eyes and looked over at Ice suddenly feeling wary at the knowing way the other man was watching him. “About that day,” he clarified, just in case Maverick had missed it the first time, which he sure as hell hadn’t.

Maverick’s hands curled into defensive fists, but apparently Ice wasn’t done.

“I see you spinning out to sea,” he whispered, his eyes tracking across his face. “I hear you over the comms, I hear him . Sometimes at night when I close my eyes it’s all I can see, Mav.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he said through numb lips but he already knew the answer. He already knew ; he knew Ice could see right through him, had always seen right through him, had known this entire time that Ice had figured out the true reason for his continued exhaustion and it wasn’t just Bradley.

“I just wanted you to know you’re not alone,” Ice murmured, leaning closer. He lifted a hand, hesitated, and settled it back on his own thigh. “It’s not the same, I know it’s not the same; it’s not even close, Mav, but it’s something . You’re not alone. You know that right?”

Maverick opened and closed his mouth as he tried to find the words, because he hadn’t known that. Had never known that. His parents had left him; one for glory and protecting his comrades, one from grief. Goose had been wrenched from him by a freak accident, Carole not long after from a cruel stroke of fate, Charlie immediately after that because she couldn’t handle how much he was struggling. So far the only person who hadn’t left him was Bradley and that was a sad state of affairs because he figured it was only a matter of time: the kid wasn’t going to stay five forever, he was going to grow up and become a teenager and run screaming in the other direction.

“You’re not alone, Mav,” Ice repeated and his tone was soft. He did reach out this time, fingers trailing down the back of his head to curl around his neck, warm and solid, grounding him to reality, to earth. “You don’t ever have to be alone again.”

He swallowed in a dry throat and nodded, wishing he could say something, anything, but Ice just pulled him forward by the hold he had on him, guiding his head into the juncture of his neck and shoulder and hugging him like his life depended on it.

It managed to squeeze some of his broken pieces back together again and Maverick exhaled, leaning into the hold and closing his eyes and hoping, because what else could he do. Ice had been saying we since he’d come back to Top Gun, and he was starting to get the feeling it would be we for a hell of a lot longer than he’d ever imagined.

“I’m not Charlie,” Ice added, soft and quiet against the side of his head. “If you want me here, I’m here, Mav. I want you to know that.” I won’t abandon you , hung in the air between them, heavy and intense, and Maverick swallowed down whatever the fuck he was feeling because he’d had enough of crying for the foreseeable future. Trust Ice to have figured that out, too, like he’d figured out fucking everything.

“Thank you,” he said into the meat of Ice’s shoulder because he couldn’t think of anything else to say that even remotely covered the feelings swirling in his chest at that moment. “For everything, Ice, just—thank you.”

“You never have to thank me,” Ice promised as he pulled away. His lips curled into a sad smile as he looked at him and Maverick took a deep breath to keep himself from doing something stupid. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m right here.”

Maverick nodded, not trusting his voice, and watched as Ice stood and straightened his shirt.

“Alright, Mitchell, it’s been fun. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“0700,” he confirmed as he followed him towards the door. “And Ice? Thanks again.”

Ice pulled him into a one-armed hug, his large hand spanning his shoulder blade before he stepped back. “I’m your wingman, Mav,” he reminded him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Come ready to kick ass,” he called out the door after him, watching Ice walk to his car and throw his dirty clothes in the passenger seat. He stayed long enough to wave goodbye and then closed and locked the door. 

If he could feel the imprint of that warm hand against his chest for hours, well, that was just between him and the almighty, wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Maverick woke on his own at 0545 and it took him a long, long moment to realize why he felt out of sorts. His arm was asleep and that was what had roused him; it was currently pinned to the mattress by Bradley William Bradshaw, whose breath was warm and damp on the skin of his pec.

For once, he felt well rested—he hadn’t been shaken from his sleep by one of his own nightmares ( the sea, always the sea, Goose’s dead weight heavy against him ) or by Bradley’s. The boy was sleeping soundly against him with his mouth open, snoring softly.

He shifted Bradley’s weight more center on his chest to give his arm a break and winced at the immediate feeling of blood rushing back towards his fingertips. In the interim he looked down at Bradley: the wild tangle of his blond hair that was all Carol; the cupid’s bow of his lips that was all Goose; the sharp bridge of his nose that he could already tell would be an echo of his late father’s. 

Looking at Bradley hurt so damn fucking much sometimes it took his breath away. Hurt so much because he looked so much like the friend he had loved and lost, and hurt even more because he loved this kid so much he didn’t know what to do with it; with the warm, heavy feeling in his chest every time he looked at Bradley, with the knowledge he would do absolutely anything in the whole entire world to see him smile. 

Mav loved the way Bradley laughed with his whole body; loved his sheer fucking stubborness that was so unlike his easygoing parents; loved his obsession with glittery art projects that made a goddamn mess. He loved the boy’s independence streak and the fact he needed a forehead kiss before bed; loved how Bradley wanted to cuddle during morning cartoons and then insisted he was a grown up.

He had so much love in his heart for this kid he didn’t fucking know what to do with himself. He took a deep breath, let it out, and repeated it. Bradley was still warm and asleep against him, snoring softly, his little nose wrinkling at the change in his position as he wiggled in his sleep so his cheek was pressed solidly against the top of his shoulder. His breath evened out again, eyelashes fluttering, and Maverick curled an arm around his back, stared up at the ceiling, and prayed to any god that existed that he wouldn’t fuck up this whole being a parent thing.

Maverick watched him and marveled at his magical internal clock that had Bradley’s eyes blinking open at six in the morning, squinting up at him in confusion. Normally he moved the boy back to his own bed, but hadn’t this time because of the paint and honestly wondered why he’d moved him back every time in the first place if both of them had slept through the night.

Maybe the therapist was full of shit.

“Morning,” he greeted Bradley with a smile, nudging his forehead with his chin. “Ready for some breakfast?”

“Hmph,” Bradley said, yawning right in his ear and then snuggling closer. “I don’t wanna go to daycare,” he whined as he tried (and failed) to pull the blankets back over his head.

“Well,” Maverick mused as he watched the ceiling fan spinning in slow circles. “Ice and I want to take you to the library after I pick you up today.”

Bradley’s head shot up. “Ice is coming?” he said with a clear effort to stamp down his own excitement.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Maverick said as he rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Have I been replaced?”

“No,” the boy giggled, smooching him on the face clumsily. “But Ice drew me a plane , Uncle Mav.”

“Oh, well, if he drew you a plane , I guess you can just go live with him then—”

“No!” Bradley said, still giggling, clinging with all his limbs as Maverick pretended to try and get out of the bed. “I’ll go, I’ll go, I promise,” he said, burrowing into Mav’s neck, “ if we go to the library after.”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Bradley William Bradshaw,” Mav sniggered as he dug his thumbs into the ticklish spots up Bradley’s side. The screech in his right ear was worth the wild laughter, even as a flailing knee narrowly missed his crotch. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Frosted Flakes!”

“I’m worried you’re going to turn into a frosted flake, kid,” he snorted as he dumped Bradley back on his pillow. “Come on, up and at ‘em.” His eyes sparkled when he threw the blankets on top of Bradley’s head with a cry of, “Race ya!” to the five-year-old's shouts of betrayed indignation.

/

Bradley couldn’t find his dinosaur (it was, apparently, Bring Your Favorite Stuffed Animal to Class Day and he had a feeling the kid was pulling his leg but didn’t have the heart to say no) so he was running a little late and threw on his uniform before leaving the house.

If he was late on Ice’s first day, he would literally never hear the end of it. 

“C’mon, c’mon,” he said, scooping Bradley up under his arm and jogging for the door of daycare as Bradley screeched and clung to him as best he could. His favorite dinosaur toy, a triceratops stuffy he’d decided to call Spike, was clutched tightly in his arms.

“Uncle Mav,” he complained as Maverick shouldered the door open and set him on his feet in the lobby.

“Okay, be good, I love you,” Maverick told him, straightening his clothes and handing him his backpack. He crouched in front of him and smooched him on both cheeks, blowing a raspberry on his neck just to hear him giggle. 

“Library after?” Bradley begged with Spike clutched so hard to his chest Mav was slightly worried the stuffed animal’s head was going to pop off.

“Library after,” he promised, nudging him in the back towards his daycare classroom and smiling at his teacher, Miss Pam. “Good morning, ma’am,” he greeted her with a sunny smile. “Bradley, I’ll be here at five. Think about what kind of books you want, okay?”

Bradley’s eyes were watering so he dropped one last kiss, a promise that Ice would be there, too, since the man had said we and he assumed that meant Ice intended to come along anyway. With one last smile he jogged back to his Bronco and did his best not to look back to see Bradley standing there clutching his dinosaur to his chest and watching his taillights get smaller and smaller.

/

Maverick didn’t run into the locker room but it was a close thing. He shoved his jacket and his bag in haphazardly and then sped walked— not ran —to the conference room Viper and Jester liked to use for their morning pre-briefs, because his life now revolved around pre-briefings for their pre-briefings with the kids.

The kids who were, at best, two years younger than him. Some were even older. But it was damn hard to think of them as anything but kids. Cocky, idealistic, foolhardy kids, at that.

“You’re late,” Viper said conversationally as he sipped his coffee from the head of the table, where a stack of files was waiting.

“It’s 0700 right on the dot,” Jester told him over his own mug of coffee as he winked at Maverick. “Saved me five bucks kid, appreciate it.”

“You’ve got a gambling problem, sirs,” Maverick told them both with an eye roll and a grin.

Ice was already sitting at the table with the seat next to him open. There was a steaming mug of coffee in front of it and Mav slid into his seat with a sideways glance at his wingman, who was watching him with definite amusement in his eyes.

“Thanks, Ice,” he said gratefully as he took the first sip and then glanced sidelong at Ice suspiciously, wondering how in the hell the man had known he liked it black with just a little sugar.

“Lucky guess,” Ice said under his breath as Viper clapped his hands together, once.

“Gentlemen, we’re pleased to have you both with us for this session and hope you last longer than the others, Lieutenant Commander Kazansky,” Viper said, glancing at Maverick who made sure to shoot him a winning grin that made Viper smile into the rim of his coffee mug. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“The business of betting,” Jester boomed with a grin. “Who do you think are going to be the trophy winners, boys? You’ve got until the end of the day today to make your choices. Winner takes the pot and doesn't have to give a speech. Buy in is fifty bucks.”

Maverick and Ice both took out their fifties and smacked them on the table in eerie unison and with twin wolfish grins.

“You’re going down, old man,” Maverick said with a wicked grin.

Jester smirked and slapped down his own fifty. “You’re on, Mitchell.”

/

Maverick leaned against the back wall of the hangar and watched their newest crop of naval aviators arriving in the room. Ice was at his shoulder, eyes shielded by his aviators, toothpick rolling between his lips. It was too damned hot to use the classroom so they’d switched here as a temporary measure. It also allowed for keener observation of which groups avoided each other and which gravitated towards each other.

It also allowed for voices to carry, which was an added bonus none of them had realized until the first time they’d used the space.

“Shit, Puma, I think that’s the guys from that picture in the front,” one of the taller aviators, Riot, was saying, gesturing not at all subtly to where Ice and Maverick were standing. Ice had crossed his arms and braced one foot on the wall, the picture of nonchalance, while Maverick pressed his shoulders into the wall and marveled, for the first time in a long time, at how much he didn’t currently long for a nap but wondered if he could get away with closing his eyes for a while since nobody could actually see them with his mirrored aviators on.

“Shit, that’s Maverick,” the shortest aviator murmured. “Merlin flew with him in the Gulf, say’s he’s brilliant but fucking nuts.”

“Isn’t he the one who — ?”

“Yeah,” the first pilot cut him off, “Lost his RIO.”

“Kazansky is the blond one,” Puma said. “The Iceman. My old wingman flew with him, said he’s a cold sonofabitch who never makes mistakes.”

“Come on,” another aviator, Jaguar, scoffed. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Iceman doesn’t,” Puma insisted.

“Iceman does,” Ice said, so lowly only Maverick could hear him.

“Not often,” Maverick murmured back, flashing Ice a grin at his surprised head tilt. He only knew it was surprised because he’d spent so much time with him; otherwise, it would just look like he was turning his head to hear better. “Don’t get too excited, Kazansky, or your helmet won’t fit.”

Ice grinned around his toothpick and shook his head. “You’re an idiot,” he said, but it sounded suspiciously fond.

“Oh, right, cuz I’ve never been called that before,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, smirking when Ice kicked his heel with the foot he’d had braced on the wall.

“Attention on deck,” Jester barked from the door, and Viper strode into the room. Eyes tracked him in awe. Viper was a legend in himself and everyone in the room (including Viper) was perfectly aware of that fact. 

Ice and Mav listened to the speech (remarkably similar to the one they themselves had heard a year ago, and yet slightly altered).

“With us for this session as instructors are two naval aviators who have become legends of their own,” Viper said, officially veering completely off course into uncharted territory as Ice and Mav’s shoulders straightened. “You may have noticed their picture on the way in,” he added, as all heads turned to look at the back of the room where the two aviators stood. “Their exploits last year in the Gulf have turned them into living legends. Both are graduates of this school and have flown with the highest honor. They possess the only modern-age, real-world experience in dogfighting in the United States Navy. I give you Lieutenant Commander Kazansky, callsign Iceman, and Lieutenant Commander Mitchell, callsign Maverick.”

Ice and Maverick strode up the center aisle and turned on their heels in synchrony to face the class. They’d practiced it after their mini-briefing this morning at Ice’s insistence, because behind his icy exterior, it turned out Tom Kazansky was a fucking dork. 

“Good morning,” they said, together. 

“Welcome to Top Gun,” Maverick added, looking out at their faces. “You’ve been told you’re one of the best for your entire careers, gentlemen, but that doesn’t negate the fact you’ve never had real-world dogfighting experience. By the end of this eight week session, you will be as prepared as we can make you.”

“To start,” Ice said smoothly, crossing his arms, “We’ll go over what you only think you know. For our first exercise, we’ll be splitting you into two two-man teams against the teams of myself and Maverick and Viper and Jester. Your task is to try and get a missile lock on one of the instructors.”

“Sir,” one of the aviators interrupted, “Shouldn’t we be doing this in two teams of two?”

“Ice and I fought two against six a year ago in the Indian Gulf,” Maverick told him point-blank. “This is us going easy on you, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant, Hank Reuben callsign Hopper, sank a little in his chair with a scowl as his RIO leaned over and hissed, “That’s the Maverick who has three confirmed kills, dumbass,” while the aviators around them muffled their sniggers.

“If you can get a missile lock on one of us,” Viper added with his trademark first-day-of-new-gullible-idiots smirk, “You’ll get double the points for today’s session. If you fail to get a missile lock, you get zero.”

It was a test of their patience and teamwork and always served well to highlight who in the class were showboaters, and who stuck to the accepted practice of fighting with a wingman and not as a solo. With the points in mind nearly all of them would make stupid choices during their hop.

So far, none had ever come close to getting a lock on them, and Maverick knew today would be no different.

“Good luck,” Ice added, in that dry way that meant he was actually laughing at people but they were too slow on the uptake to realize it.

“You’re gonna need it,” Maverick added under his breath just for Ice and was rewarded with Ice’s boot thunking against his in a silent reprimand as his lip twitched dangerously close to a smile.

/

In that week after the Gulf, Maverick and Iceman had flown two patrols a day with the rest of the squadron. They’d always gone up together and it had been fun — they’d gotten to see how the other flew in the real world and by the end of that week had been so in-sync with each other that Slider and Merlin had cussed up a blue steak because they’d started doing maneuvers with no warning, all but bouncing their RIOs off their canopies before they could brace.  

Maverick knew this would be no different today as he slid into the cockpit of his F-5, conscious of Ice doing the same next to him. They made eye contact and flashed each other the okay sign. 

He clipped his mask in place and lowered his visor as the canopy lowered and locked into place. By the time he was in the air he was feeling good and wiggled his wings to get his nerves out. 

“Gentlemen,” Viper said over the comms, “Your objective is to get a missile lock on one of the instructors. You are not to go below the hard deck of five thousand feet and doing so is an automatic failure and grounds for insubordination.”

Mav banked right and glanced over to see Ice already there on his wing. He looked up to see their first set of pilots above them, arranged in two sets of two. 

“Fights on,” Jester said, as he and Viper shot up out of the canyon and scattered the younger pilots to furious swearing over their radios. 

Mav looked over to Ice, whose attention was directed upwards. He must have sensed his gaze because his head turned and just like that he knew Ice was with him.

In unison they pulled up, hard, and hit the throttle, nearly parallel to the Earth as they shot by Hopper and Skip, who were swearing.

“Where’s your wingman, Hopper?” Maverick said cheerfully as he rolled over the top of his canopy, inverting and looking right down at the other aviator who was staring up at him in astonishment. He waved at him and rolled away because Ice had already moved into the firing position and gotten a missile lock.

“Fuck!” Hopper swore over the radio, banging a fist on the window and thumping his head back as he descended back towards the tarmac.

“Too easy,” Maverick said, as Ice snorted into the coms. They shifted their attention downward, to where Jester was drawing in the now team of three by slowing down.

“Mav, like Jericho,” Viper said, and Maverick dove immediately, spinning to be partially inverted as he shot by the pair in between them. The surprised jerk to the left from the aviator was enough for Viper to get a missile lock, as Ice again moved into firing position and got his wingman, too, leaving one man against four.

The sun was shining brightly, the clouds puffy and white in the morning sky, and Maverick didn’t think. He just moved, hands sure and steady on the controls, a grin fixed on his face with Ice right there on his wing. This class had twenty students and by the fourth group of four, none had even gotten close to offensive maneuvers and the longest had lasted two minutes.

Group Five was a little more promising, in the teams of Hunter and Echo, Slip and Vas, Jaguar and Wink, and Bolt and Twitch.

His money was on Bolt and Twitch and they proved it a moment later by deploying some defensive flying that was pretty goddamn impressive, forcing him and Ice to shift their flight pattern just so; Slip and Vas stuck tight to his wing and they were talking to each other.

“Mav, seven o’clock low,” Ice warned.

“I see them,” Mav promised, looking down to see the other two teams on approach. Viper and Jester were too low for radar and probably wanted to watch the show, the old bastards; they did this to him every time and he should have expected it by now. “Hey, Ice, just like with Merlin,” he said, referencing gonna hit the brakes, they’ll fly right by an instant before he pulled the brake, Ice swearing in his ear at the sudden deceleration.

There was a heartbeat of difference but Ice also yanked up hard and hit the brakes, the two F-14’s shooting by below them a little closer than was probably comfortable with furious swearing and yelling as Mav shoved the throttle forward and aimed down, getting a target lock on Hunter immediately and then rolling into a steep vertical dive to put distance between him and Jaguar who was already coming around.

“How far,” he barked, to Ice, pointing his nose into the sun. 

“Closing fast on your six,” Ice said immediately, not even sounding fazed.

“C’mon, Jag, come and get me,” he murmured to himself, as Slip swore over the coms as Iceman’s latest victim.

“Tell me when Ice,” he said, hands ready on the controls, sensing more than seeing the F-14 closing behind him, and when Ice’s voice barked the word he pulled hard left and around into an inverted dive, getting clear of his wingman as Ice got the target lock.

“That’s a wrap,” Viper’s voice said with a definite air of amusement. “Echo Team, that’s a failure, return to base for your debrief.”

“Yessir,” four sullen aviators said over the radio, already descending into their landing patterns.

Maverick looked out his canopy at Ice, who was shaking his head as he reached up to unclasp his oxygen mask.

“An inverted dive, Mav, seriously?” he said, dry as the desert, and Mav just shoved his visor up and winked at him.

“I’m still dangerous,” he teased and rolled away into another dive, ready to put his feet back on the ground.

/

They reconvened in the same hangar they’d met in an hour ago, still in flight suits, most with helmets still on laps as they sat in the same chairs they’d occupied earlier. The instructors remained standing as Viper strode to the front of the group with Jester on his heels.

“Don’t be too mad at yourselves,” Viper said cheerfully as he leaned against the blackboard with his flight helmet still under his arm. “We do this exercise with every class and swear them to secrecy when they go back to their squadrons. It’s how we learn your flying style, gentleman. Take comfort in the fact you never had a snowball’s chance in hell.”

There were a few good-natured grumblings but the aviators all nodded.

“Earlier, Lieutenant Commander Mitchell told you that we’re going to spend the next eight weeks doing everything we can to prepare you,” Viper continued, looking out at them calmly. “To do that here at Top Gun, we do a lot of self reflection. So, who can tell me why you failed?”

A few of the teams leaned together and some murmuring broke out before a few hands rose.

Viper pointed at Bolt, who cleared his throat and said, “Sir, we were so focused on getting the points most of us abandoned our wingmen.”

“Correct,” Jester allowed with a wolfish grin, chewing on his own toothpick as he listened. “Many were quick to abandon their wingman for a shot that looked easy. Where is the folly in this?”

“They were traps, sir,” Jag piped up from the back. “Lures. It looked like an easy kill so we got excited and went for it, leaving our wingmen undefended.”

Viper nodded and motioned for another aviator, Lime, to answer.

“Sir,” the RIO said quietly, “Most of the teams also neglected to communicate.”

“All of this is true,” Viper told the room at large. “You’ve known each other less than a day and flown together less than an hour. Part of being an aviator, especially in a dogfight, is being able to fly with people you’ve never flown with before and still being able to come home. The biggest key to that success is communication, gentleman.”

“Communication is the difference between life and death,” Maverick spoke up, tapping his fingers idly over the helmet that said MAVERICK across the brow. “You’ve got to talk to your wingmen, always.”

“The one with the most points gets to be Top Gun,” Ice added gravely, “But never forget: you’re still on the same team.” He cut his eyes sideways to Maverick, who met his gaze and then looked away, the sudden memory too much for either of them to bear.

“We’ll work on it,” Viper concluded, slapping the top of his thigh. “This will be like a normal training school, of course, but what we want you to learn isn’t just dogfighting. Failure is a part of life,” he added, looking each aviator in the face. “Learn from it, change from it, but don’t let it buckle you.”

He stood and the room stood with him, snapping to attention.

“Our next hop is tomorrow morning,” Viper told them. “You’re due in the classroom in twenty minutes. Dismissed.”

/

The first day was always boring and had lots of tests and things to see what exactly aviators knew prior to tweaking the lessons for maximum efficiency. Maverick mostly taught tactics, but he also had a theory class and spent nearly an hour answering questions about the MiGs the best he could given most of that mission was still classified to hell and back.

He took lunch in his office and tried to keep up on his paperwork. That morning he’d made a pact with himself that he wouldn’t get so behind this class.

Ice hadn’t been around and he hadn’t made much of an effort to find him; the campus was huge and he didn’t have time to wander around looking for his missing wingman. He’d forgotten to ask him if he wanted to come to the library and was debating making it an order by the end of the day because the last thing he needed was Bradley to be upset by a broken promise.

Viper came by at five to tell him their day was over and to go home. “Nice flying today, Mav,” he said, leaning on the doorway. “That inverted dive was particularly risky.”

“I was in complete control, sir,” Maverick promised, smiling his very best winning smile. “Hey, have you seen Iceman?”

“He was headed to the locker room last I saw, got caught having to answer questions about MiGs before he banished the kids and told them to stop asking about classified stuff,” Viper said, knocking on his doorway. “Shower and go home to your kid, Pete, the paperwork will still be there tomorrow.”

“Yessir,” he promised, standing and shoving the papers back in the files with a sigh. “See you tomorrow, Viper.”

Viper waved over his shoulder and disappeared.

A quick sniff confirmed Viper was probably right and he should shower; the base was hot as hell and the air conditioning was shit so they generally sweated like hookers in church all goddamn day. According to Jester fixing the AC unit wasn’t high on the Navy’s to-do list which was just typical, really.

It would be nice to not have an office that reminded him not-too-fondly of the pit of hell, but he supposed it would be better once the weather cooled down. He grabbed his wallet (he’d put the fifty on Bolt and Twitch) and wandered to the locker room hoping to catch Ice.

The door swung open and he stepped into the room with relief because it was cooler in here due to the lack of windows. He moved into the room and saw his wingman at his locker, shoulders tense and expression hard to read.

“Hey, Ice─”

“Maverick, what the fuck was that this morning with that fucking pull the brakes shit?”

Maverick grunted as Ice shoved him bodily against the wall, pinning him there with a scowl on his face. “Fuck off, Kazansky,” he snapped, trying and failing to twist free.

“What the fuck was that, Mav? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“It worked, didn’t it?“

“ That’s not the fucking point ,” he hissed, backing off slightly to shove a hand through his hair. 

“Then what is the point?!”

“The point,” Ice said with visibly forced calm, “Is that you take unnecessary risks—”

“Bull shit ,” Mav cut him off with a snarl of his own, pushing at Ice’s chest and realizing he was heaving for breath he was so pissed off. “You were right there with me.”

“And if I hadn’t been?” Ice challenged coldly. 

“I would have done something else, you fucking prick,” he growled, twisting his hips and trying to use his shoulder to get distance; Ice grunted and shifted his own weight, one leg sliding between Maverick’s and pressing him harder into the harsh tile, and the sudden press of him warm and hot against his front from neck to knees made his mind temporarily blank. 

“It was stupid, Mav,” said Ice but his voice was quiet now, expression fixed in hard angles, jaw clenched and eyes blazing. “Stupid and dangerous.”

“Says you,” he said stiffly, his eyes on Ice’s lips, the harsh frown, the way his jaw moved as he furiously chewed his gum. 

“At least warn me better next time.”

“Like hell. Learn how to keep up.”

“You’re so fucking irritating,” Ice told him, and it struck Maverick like a bolt of lifitning that he wasn’t looking in his eyes. 

Mav sucked in a few deep breaths and felt like he was tingling all over. Ice was solid and warm, his hands bracketing his shoulders. He swallowed, hard, and Ice’s eyes flicked downward to track the movement of his Adam’s apple. 

“Mav,” Ice said, his voice low and rough. His hand came up to cup Maverick’s jaw, long graceful fingers tracing the line of it. 

The urge to shove him away was as strong as the urge to pull him closer and Mav was frozen, heart pounding a frantic rhythm, breathing in Ice’s spicy, heady scent. The rules, the fucking rules—

Ice looked long and hard, nodded at whatever he saw in his face with a flicker of something in his too-blue eyes (something suspiciously like resignation, maybe hurt), and leaned back and away.

But Maverick had rarely followed the fucking rules and he wasn’t about to make a habit of it, now. 

Before his brain registered the movement he fisted his hands in Ice’s flight suit. One sharp yank pulled Ice back right where he’d been; he heard a faint whisper that might have been thank fuck but didn’t honestly fucking know because Ice’s mouth crashed down on his. 

It was harsh and rough, teeth clacking, until Ice’s big hands framed his face and tilted it, and then he was glad for the wall at his back because he basically fucking melted . Ice kissed like he did everything else: with ruthless fucking efficiency, taking him apart in what felt like no time at all. 

It was different and also really, really, not; other than tilting his head up ( why did he have to have be so fucking goddamned short, fuck ) the basic principles were the same. Catching up only took a moment and then he used the fists still holding Ice’s suit to flip their positions, grinning at Ice’s grunt as he was the one leaning against the wall. 

Mav didn’t give him a moment to recover and cupped the back of his head, dragging him down and sucking his lower lip, delighting in the surprised moan that punched out of the taller aviator; his hands slid around to Mav’s back and pulled him closer, wandering lower. With his fingers in Ice’s hair he jerked his head back, roughly, and finally got his mouth on the smooth column of the man’s gorgeous goddamned neck, sinking his teeth in and smiling at Ice’s muffled gasp of surprise, the way he twitched against him, hands tightening so much on his hips he’d have bruises tomorrow.

Then the bastard picked him up by his ass and spun him to the lockers, and Mav’s mouth opened in a surprised shout as he was slammed against them with a literal wall of lithe muscle pinning him in place. Ice took immediate advantage, their tongues sliding together, the pattern of the lockers digging into Mav’s skin as he clung to Ice’s shoulders for balance, legs locked around his hips, his flight suit suddenly way too fucking tight.

They were on level, this way, and he slid his fingers up into Ice’s soft hair. Ice tasted like mint from his maddening chewing gum habit and he relished in it, sucked his bottom lip, got lost in the warmth and the solidness of him; in the contradiction of his cold codename and the heat of his skin, his mouth, his hands; marveled at how soft his lips were.

Maverick tilted his head back when he got dizzy, panting up at the ceiling as Ice, undeterred, kissed along his jaw, down the curve of his neck, mouthed gently at his Adam's apple, tongue flickering out to trace his pulse, the tendons in his neck, mouth closing briefly on the hollow of his throat.

“Fuck,” he rasped, feeling simultaneously too hot and too cold all at once, very conscious of Ice’s hands mapping the planes of his back, his ass, his hips, his flanks. He clutched one hand in Ice’s flight suit, ran the other one gently from Ice’s temple to the short hairs at the nape of his neck, down his stupidly solid neck to the curve of his strong shoulders.

“Yeah,” Ice murmured into his pulse and then lifted his head, blue eyes meeting green. His hands had stilled on his hips, helping to support him, and he was looking at Mav like he was something precious, something worth having.

“What was that for, Kazansky?” he murmured, just to be contrary and because he needed something to say, something to help temper the furious beating of his heart, the confused swirl of his thoughts that had evaporated the second Ice’s lips touched his.

“I need you to be more careful, Pete,” Ice told him, hands sliding pointedly up his flanks, sliding around to his lower back.

Mav sighed and let his head thunk back against the locker, felt Ice nuzzle up under his chin, press a soft kiss to the hinge of his jaw. “I’ll try, Tom,” he rasped because he’d never been someone who flew by the book. It just wasn’t him and he wouldn't promise it was. “So long as you keep up.”

Ice sank his teeth into his neck for that, making him jerk and curse, hand spasming on Ice’s shoulder as he soothed the sting with his tongue and a kiss.

“You fucker,” he accused, pushing at him. “Let me down.”

“I think I like you like this,” Ice murmured, definite amusement in his eyes now. Maverick briefly felt like he couldn’t breathe, he was so taken by the sparkle in Ice’s blue eyes, the flush in his cheeks, his kiss-swollen lips.

“Anyone could walk in,” he protested, but it was quiet. They’d hear the door open long before anyone could see them and this was the locker room for the instructors, not the kids. Viper and Jester had both already left. Ice’s face shuttered slightly, his shoulders kicking up a notch, and he sighed and pulled him close by the back of his neck, pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek, the corner of his mouth, the bridge of his nose: just because he could.

“What was that for,” Ice asked with a snorting laugh, his eyes crinkling.

He had no fucking business looking that good. Maverick shrugged and smiled. “Will you let me down now?”

“Your legs gonna support you?” Ice teased, already shifting back so Mav could lower his legs.

He opened his mouth to make a sassy comment but the instant his boots touched the ground his knees forgot that they were knees and he wobbled. When Ice laughed at him he scowled, which just made the man pull him closer with another snorting laugh, pressing a lingering kiss to his mouth.

“You should probably go take care of that,” Ice told him as he pulled away, definitely amused, and his eyes flicked to the tent in Maverick’s flight suit that mirrored his own.

“Are you seriously leaving me hanging right now, Kazansky?”

“I draw the line at jerking you off at work, Mitchell,” Ice told him casually, as if he didn’t look kiss-drunk and fucking gorgeous, mouth curled in a genuine smile and eyes bright.

“I always knew you were a dick,” Mav grunted, stalking to the showers with all the dignity he could muster with Ice’s laughter trailing after him. He stopped and turned, already stripping his flight suit to his waist, and when he looked Ice was unashamedly looking at his ass. “Are you fucking coming or not?” he said irritably when the man’s feet didn’t move, the challenge clear in his voice and his eyes.

Iceman had never been one to back down from a challenge.

Maverick didn’t think about it as he stripped, because if he thought about it he was going to freak out, probably, but he could feel Ice’s eyes on him as he cranked the water to lukewarm and stepped under the spray. The shower stall wasn’t exactly huge and Ice —Tom— wasn’t exactly small. 

“Pete,” Ice murmured, and he sounded so close; the heat of him seeping into his back but not touching.

Pete stared at the tiles of the shower and swallowed because if he turned around there was no going back. There was no going back.

“Pete,” Ice repeated, his hands coming to rest on the tiles, his biceps brushing the outside of Pete's shoulders.

Pete stared at the strong lines of his fingers, the dusting of blond hair across his knuckles, a faint scar near his right thumb; at his tanned and muscled forearms, the soft paler skin at the inside of his elbows. Something small and cold brushed his back and he realized a heartbeat later it was Ice’s dog tags. His body was bracketing him, boxing him in, but Pete knew if he said the word Tom would let him leave and never speak of this again.

Taking a deep breath he turned around, lifting his chin defiantly to find Ice —Tom , he wasn’t going to call him Ice if they were doing this— already watching him.

“Tom,” he said back calmly, and then looking pointedly down at both their dicks standing at attention.

Tom’s eyes were shining with amusement and something decidedly dangerous that made Pete’s toes curl in anticipation. He leaned into his hands and it made his biceps flex deliciously, briefly distracting him, until Tom’s hand cupped the back of his head as a cushion a heartbeat before Pete's head thumped into the tiles.

Tom leaned down to kiss him long and languidly, taking his time, learning his mouth. It have him the opportunity to map out the planes of his chest, his back, his shoulders, and he took it eagerly. Mav was panting by the time he pulled away, feeling a little dazed and a lot turned on.

Fuck, he was already breathing hard and the stupid beautiful idiot had barely even touched him. It made him conscious suddenly of the urgent throbbing between his legs that he’d been trying to ignore. He reached a hand down but Tom’s fingers curled around his wrist and stopped him.

“Turn around,” Tom said quietly, voice a low rasp, and Pete was looking at the tile before he’d even processed the words. Tom pressed up against his back and guided his hand to brace on the tile. Pete locked his elbows automatically and bit back a groan and the long, warm line of heat that was Tom along his back, smooth skin sliding against his.

Tom kissed him across his shoulders, lingering at the top of his spine, hands sliding down his flanks and around, tracing the jut of his hip bones, the crease of his thighs; tickling over the line of his abs.

Pete jerked when Tom rolled his left nipple in his fingers and rasped, “Are we going to stand here all night or what, Kazansky? I’ve got places to be.”

“Bossy,” Tom murmured into the junction of his neck and shoulder, biting with his teeth just enough for him to feel it but not to leave a mark, soothing with his tongue and laughing at how Pete jerked in his grip and cursed under his breath.

“I’m — ” the breath punched out of him when Tom’s hand closed around his dick with no warning; he sucked in his breath through his teeth and tipped his head back. It landed on Tom’s shoulder and he kissed along the column of his neck with a pleased hum, hand tightening and stroking him once from root to tip, the water slicking the way. “Oh fuck,” he rasped, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing his hips to not jerk forward, trembling with the effort.

“That’s the idea,” Tom breathed into the shell of his ear, shifting his own weight. The heavy line of his dick nudged the cleft of his ass and made Pete jerk, body going cold, but his wingman had something else in mind and settled instead with his dick between his legs, the tip bumping his balls.

“Oh fuck,” Pete repeated, fingers clenching uselessly on the tile for purchase as Tom nudged his feet closer together, trapping his dick between his thighs for more friction. “Tom —”

Tom stroked him again, thumb swirling over the tip, and Pete’s mouth dropped open. He focused on not being loud because they were in the fucking showers at fucking work and if anyone caught them they’d lose their jobs and get slapped with dishonorable discharges, but all that fled from his mind when Ice did it again, and again; his hips snapped forward helplessly into the circle of Ice’s strong fingers and he whimpered at the feeling of the head of Tom’s cock bumping his balls, everything so sensitive that he felt like he was on fire, knew his entire upper body was probably flushed but didn’t care.

“That’s it, Pete,” murmured Tom and he sounded absolutely fucking wrecked , free hand tracing along every bit of Maverick he could reach as the other set a steady rhythm that was unpredictable, squeezing and twisting at random intervals. His thumb swept over his slit and Pete whimpered, precum helping to smooth the way as his hips jerked forward again, Tom’s dick heavy and warm between his thighs and leaking, everything hot and slick and fucking perfect.

Pete was biting his lip in an effort to stave off his noises. Tom’s thumb trailed across his lip, tugging it free, sliding into his mouth to pry his mouth open as a helpless moan was dragged from deep within his chest, echoing off the walls around them.

“Fuck, Pete, you’re so beautiful,” Tom said reverently in his ear, pressing hot open-mouth kisses along his neck, his jaw. His abs were flexing against Pete’s back as he thrust and it was a counterpoint to Pete’s hips twitching forward helplessly into his fingers, leaving Pete trapped between his fingers and the hot, heavy side of his dick, nudging his balls on each stroke.

There wasn’t much leverage in this position but he tried his best, chasing that feeling as his toes curled and he squeezed his eyes shut; he was so fucking close, he could feel it —

“Tom,” he whimpered, blinking his eyes in the spray, “I — I —”

“I know,” Tom said, “I got you, Pete, it’s okay,” he whispered, twisting his wrist just right and squeezing and Pete’s entire world whited out as he came, arching his back against Ice with a cry, fingers spasming on the tiles. Tom buried his face into his shoulder and groaned, long and low, as wet heat spread between his legs and dripped down his thighs.

Pete was glad for Ice at his back and panted up at the ceiling of the showers, his vision feeling a little fuzzy. Ice was stroking his hands over his chest idly, long sweeping movements that were soothing and grounding as the water rushed over them both and washed everything away.

“Fuck,” he said, again, because he’d always been eloquent, apparently, even as he felt lighter than he’d felt in months; hell, in over a year. “Tom, we definitely need to do that again,” he rasped, turning his head to nuzzle his nose into the hinge of Ice’s jaw, since his wingman was now hugging him from behind, arms strong and warm around him.

The taller man snorted out a laugh and lifted his head, looking at him with fondness in his eyes. He kissed him, slow and sweet, and when he pulled back there was mischief in his eyes instead. “That’s the one and only time I’m jerking you off in the work showers, Mitchell, so don’t get used to it,” he murmured, turning him so they were chest-to-chest and reaching for the shampoo bottle.

It should have been awkward, probably, Maverick realized. But it wasn't. Not even a little bit.

“What are you doing?” Mav asked him amusedly, watching as he squirted out some shampoo and rubbed it between his hands.

“Washing your hair, moron,” Ice told him with an eye roll, sliding his fingers into Pete’s hair to do just that, and it surprised a moan out of him. “What,” Ice teased, “Has nobody ever done this for you?”

“No,” he rasped, leaning into the feeling with a pleased hum because it felt fucking amazing, sliding his arms around Ice’s narrow waist because he could and nobody and nothing was there to stop him.

“You’re like a fucking cat,” Ice sighed, but his fingers continued to scritch his scalp, hands gentle as he tilted his head back. “Close your eyes,” he murmured, and Pete obeyed without thinking, letting the water wash over his face.

When he opened them again Ice was watching him with that fucking look again. He smiled at him and was relieved when Ice smiled back with a fond half-shake of his head.

“You’ll have to do your own conditioner,” Ice told him, “If you want to be there to pick up Bradley on time.”

Mav jerked at the reminder and rushed through the rest of the shower, cheeks warm as Ice laughed at him, but feeling better than he had in ages, anyway.

/

Bradley was decidedly not amused when Maverick parked the Bronco right in the front row for the first time ever, given he was ten minutes late and trying really hard not to feel guilty about it. The five year old was standing with his forehead against the window and had a spectacular scowl twisting his face. With a theatrical flair he flung his naked wrist out and looked down at it as if checking the time in a move so similar to how Ice did it Pete nearly tripped over his own feet and into the flowerbed from laughing so hard.

Maverick waved to him as he jogged up and couldn’t help but laugh again at the way Bradley tried to hold his scowl and failed miserably because a bright sunny grin took it over instead as he raced for the door to his daycare room.

“Sorry, buddy, it was a long day,” he said, scooping him up into a hug and smooching him loudly on his neck, delighting in Bradley’s giggle as he squirmed. “Are you ready for the library?”

“Miss Pam helped me make a list!” he said excitedly, leaning away from Mav and trying to get to his backpack which he was still wearing. His elbow nailed Maverick on the brow and he winced, nearly dropping him as he grabbed for the flailing limb with the arm not holding Bradley. “Oh, sorry Uncle Pete. Hey where’s Ice?” he asked, looking around for Ice’s Jeep and not seeing it.

“He’s meeting us there,” he promised, setting Bradley on his feet and going to the clipboard to sign him out. He rubbed his eyebrow hard as he did so and hoped it wouldn’t bruise because if it did Jester would never let him hear the end of it. “Thanks Miss Pam,” he called, waving to the teacher who was talking to another parent and smiled and waved as they left.

The door swung shut behind them and Maverick breathed in the salty summer air and smiled down at Bradley, who was skipping along beside him humming under his breath.

Bradley slipped his hand into Maverick’s and swung them as they walked. “How was the first day of Top Gun?” he wondered, looking up at him.

“It was fun,” he said, squeezing Bradley’s hand. “Ice and I made a pretty good team. Viper and Jester kicked some butt too, of course,” he allowed.

“Of course,” Bradley agreed, grinning. He let go of Maverick’s hand to climb into the Bronco and dug in his backpack while Mav pulled out onto the road. “I want dinosaur books and planes books and maybe a volcano book, Uncle Mav, we did a volcano today at daycare. It exploded everywhere. It was so awesome, and did I tell you we gotted a lizard? Because we did, and I wanted to name him Spike like my Spike but the other kids said no─”

Maverick kept up the idle chatter all the way to the library, learning they now had a pet lizard name Larry in the five-year-olds daycare room and apparently the volcano had exploded before it was supposed to, and that Von Hershey not only had an unfortunate name for a small child but had also apparently gotten stuck in the toilet somehow and they’d had to call the fire department.

“Sounds like you had an eventful day,” Mav laughed as he parked next to Ice’s Jeep in front of the local library branch. It was a severe-looking single-story building with a dark facade and not much landscaping and Bradley hesitated at the sight of it. “Get your list, c’mon, I’m starving.”

“Can we have burritos?”

“I will give it my best shot, kiddo,” he promised.

“I’ll ask Ice if he knows how to make burritos,” Bradley sighed, hugging the list to his chest with one hand and holding Maverick’s hand with the other. The instant they were inside and he saw Ice he let go of Maverick and ran at him with an excited cry.

“Ice! Do you know how to make burritos!?”

Ice scooped him up immediately, swinging him high and making him laugh. “Hey, baby Goose,” he said cheerfully, settling him on his hip and taking the paper from him to read the list. “I do know how to make burritos and I also know right where these books are,” he promised, walking off without even looking to see if Maverick was following.

It gave Maverick a reason to ogle his ass in those tight jeans so he wasn’t complaining, exactly, though he did quicken his step to walk beside them.

“The fire department had to pull him out of the toilet?” Ice was saying, sounding astonished. All his attention was on the boy in his arms and so he was missing the hungry looks two suburban soccer moms were giving him as they perused the cookbooks section but Mav noticed and hid his grin by ducking his head. “How did he even get stuck in there?”

“It’s a mystery,” Bradley said gravely. He shrugged. “I wasn’t very surprised. He’s the same one that got the dice stuck up his nose.”

“Oh, I remember that,” Maverick snorted; it had been about four months ago, right around the time Carole had started getting sicker by the day. “Wait, hold on. Didn’t he get a car stuck up his nose too?”

“Yeah!” Bradley whisper yelled as he spun around to Maverick and nearly took out Ice’s nose in the process, sounding scandalized, “A whole hot wheel! Up his nose! And he did it twice , Uncle Mav!”

“You’d think he’d have learned after the first time,” Ice said out of the corner of his mouth to Maverick, who sniggered into his hand because they were in a library and therefore supposed to be quiet. He saw a sign on the end of a stack and paused, looking at it and seeing some Saturday craft activities and some guest reader stuff that Bradley might be interested in. He took one of the fliers and folded it as he walked after Ice and Bradley who had made it to the children’s section.

“You get to pick ten,” Ice said, as Bradley ran his fingers reverently over the titles of the dinosaur section. “You have to bring the books back in four weeks, too.”

Bradley looked up at them with wide eyes. “What if I finish before then?” he whined.

“Then we come back and get more, baby Goose,” Maverick told him with a shrug. “Go on, pick which ones you want. We can come as often as you’d like after work and daycare, promise.”

The boy wouldn’t let them help pick books so they sat on a comically small bright orange child’s couch, their thighs pressing together as they watched Bradley agonize over which books to choose. Their knees were almost to their chins but there wasn’t any other seating nearby.

“You know,” Maverick said, watching as Bradley struggled to choose between a book about Velociraptors and a pop-up picture book about Triceratops, “We could just check out ten each for him.”

“I was waiting for him to figure it out,” Ice murmured, bumping their shoulders together. He was warm and solid and Mav resisted the urge to lean on him fully because they were in public. “Besides, do you really want to read thirty dinosaur books over the next two days?”

“Not exactly,” Mav snorted, “Although, it would be more interesting than the essays we’re about to have to read.”

Ice grimaced. “Fair point.”

“You can go check out more parenting books over there,” Mav teased, pointing at the section in question and glancing at Ice sidelong. He sniggered when Ice shot him a predictably pissy look and flipped him off by scratching his eyebrow.

“Maybe you could benefit from one, Mitchell,” Ice deadpanned, nudging him so hard in the shoulder he nearly fell off the couch.

“Hey,” he protested, pinching Ice on his side and making him muffle a yelp.

“Can you hold these?” Bradley interrupted, holding a stack of books out like an offering.

“Yeah, kiddo, of course,” Maverick said as he set them on his knees and counted them. “Well, you’ve got six here. How many do you have left?”

Bradley furrowed his little brows and looked down at his hands.

“Here,” Ice murmured, showing him how to fold his fingers down. “One, two, three, yep, keep folding until you get six. How many are left?”

“Four!” Bradley said, looking up at them with a grin. “I’m gonna get a volcano one!”

“Those are over here,” Maverick told him as he heaved himself upwards with a grunt. Ice sniggered at him and he rolled his eyes. “That’ll be you in a minute,” he promised, his eyebrows arching, as Ice just waved a hand at him and took the pile of books. He led Bradley to the V’s and pulled out some volcano books for him to look at.

“So cool,” Bradley said, hugging all of them to his chest. With some prodding he picked four and set the others back.

“They’ll be here next time,” Mav promised him, resting his hand on the boy’s head as his stomach rumbled. “Now c’mon, baby Goose, there’s a burrito at home calling my name.”

“Can you even make a burrito Uncle Pete?” Bradley said skeptically.

“I’m just blown away by your trust in me, Bradshaw,” he drawled, pinching Bradley’s nose as Ice heaved himself up off the couch and Maverick laughed at him.

“Shut up, Mav,” Ice sighed, handing the stack of books to Bradley who balanced them carefully in his arms. “Come on, you get to get your own library card and everything.”

Bradley cradled his library card in his hands like it was a newborn the whole drive back to their house, his stack of library books on the bench seat next to him. He kept running his fingers over and over his name.

“Keep that safe,” Maverick told him as they went inside and Bradley ran upstairs to his room with the books clutched to his chest like he was afraid someone was going to try and take them away. He shook his head and closed the door but kept it unlocked for Ice.

Ice wandered into the kitchen by the time he was pulling chicken out of the fridge and trying to decide what else would go in a burrito.

“Mav it’s a burrito, not rocket science,” Ice snorted, nudging him aside with his hip. “My mom made them for us all the time I’ll show you. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.”

Mav wouldn’t exactly call it easy but it definitely wasn’t rocket science. Burritos had officially been added to his cooking repertoire and he tried not to kick Ice under the table when he complimented him over dinner about it not being out of a box.

“This is good,” Bradley beamed, biting into it and getting it all over his face in the process. “Thanks!”

“It’s how my mom makes them,” Ice told him warmly, thumbing away some sauce off his cheek with a chuckle. “Mav can make them for you now, I showed him how.”

“You’re the best, Ice,” Bradley hummed, his eyes twinkling at the way Mav scowled and rolled his eyes. “Is your mom close?”

Ice nodded. “San Clemente, which isn’t too far north of here, actually.”

“Do you see her lots?”

“Not really,” Ice shrugged. “I was on ships most of the time before Top Gun. She wants me to come up for dinner this weekend, though. She’s making some pie for my grandma’s birthday which is on Sunday.”

“Is she nice?”

“Most of the time.”

“Is she pretty?” Bradley wondered, setting his burrito down. “My mommy was pretty.”

“Your mommy was very pretty,” Ice told him gently, his eyes flicking to where Maverick sat frozen staring at the burrito falling apart in his hands.

“I miss her.” Bradley ducked his chin to his chest and sniffed. Ice settled his hand gently on his back and rubbed in soothing circles. “Uncle Mav, can we go visit mom and dad this weekend?”

“Yeah,” Mav said, his voice coming out shredded as he tried to focus on the conversation and not an ocean and green dye. “Yeah, of course, Bradley. Any time you want.”

“ Any time?”

“Well,” he amended quickly, knowing perfectly well if you gave Bradley Bradshaw an inch he took ten miles, “Not during school or work, but yes, any time other than that.”

“I want to tell them about school,” Bradley murmured, picking at the half of the burrito still on his plate. “I’m kinda scared,” he added, his little cheeks pinking as he kept his eyes firmly on the tortilla. “What if nobody likes me?”

“Hey,” Mav murmured, scooping him out of his chair and onto his lap so he could hug him tight. “You don’t even need to worry about that, Bradley. It’s going to be okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he murmured, kissing his brow and rocking him. “I’m going to be freaking out more than you, I think.”

Bradley giggled at the mental image, nuzzling his nose into Mav’s chest. “It’s just school ,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I hope my teacher is nice.”

“I’m sure she’ll be very nice.”

“What if she’s an ogre?”

“I don’t think she’s going to be an ogre,” Ice said from across the table with a snort. “Kindergarten teachers are usually very nice. Bubbly. My brother married one and she’s always happy.”

“Always happy?” Bradley said suspiciously, peering around Mav’s arm at him. “But what does she do when she gets sad?”

“I haven’t any idea, kiddo,” Ice said with a one-shouldered shrug. “My nephew and nieces adore her, though, so.”

“I think it’s okay to be sad sometimes,” Bradley whispered, pressing his cheek against Mav’s bicep. “I’m sad sometimes and Mav says it’s okay.”

“It is okay, Bradley,” Mav promised, pressing a tender kiss to the top of his head. “I’m sad sometimes, too.”

“Me too,” Ice promised with a smile. “You gonna finish that burrito, baby Goose, or can I have it?”

“I’m eating it,” Bradley insisted, scrambling back to his chair and tugging his plate away from Ice’s creeping hand, shoving it back in his face as both men hid their grins behind their own burritos.

“Thanks,” Mav mouthed to Ice, who just nodded and took a comically giant bite of his own burrito and bumped his nose on Bradley’s as the boy giggled and copied him, both their cheeks puffed out like chipmunks.

/

Hours later they were shaking their fingers out from the pop of the trouble button while Bradley got dressed for bed in his room that finally had dry paint and a very kickass F-14 on the mural wall.

Mav seized his moment and scooted until he was pressed against Ice’s side, relaxing when his heavy arm settled around his shoulders and Ice pulled him close so he could kiss his forehead. “Thanks for today,” he murmured, hugging him around the chest and breathing him in.

“So polite,” Ice laughed. “You gonna thank me every time I touch you?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he muttered, rolling his eyes and shoving at him, “That’s not what I fucking meant and you knew it.”

“Yeah, well,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to his hairline. “Couldn’t resist.”

“Tom,” he murmured, hiding his face in the soft fabric of his T-shirt because it was easier than looking at his face, fingers idly rubbing on the hem. “Seriously.”

“I already told you you don’t have to thank me, Pete,” Ice sighed, letting his head fall back against the couch.

They listened to Bradley banging around upstairs.

“Will you stay?” Mav murmured, listening to Ice’s heart beat in his chest, to the whoosh of his lungs filling and refilling.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, nosing at his throat. “Stay. I’ll sleep better, I think.”

“Okay,” Ice said, hand sliding under his shirt to sweep up the knobs of his spine.

“We should also probably talk about this,” Mav sighed into his pec, “But I’m too fucking tired to do it today.”

“Don’t go getting mature on me now, Mitchell,” said Ice, but his tone was soft, his fingers gentle as they smoothed over his lower back.

“Oh, fuck off , Kazansky.” His body shook as Ice laughed quietly, folding his arms around him and keeping him right where he was, their hearts pressed together.

“UNCLE MAV,” Bradley bellowed from upstairs.

“Coming, baby Goose,” he called back, pulling away from Ice reluctantly. It at least made him feel a little better that Ice looked equally reluctant to let him go.

Bradley thundered down the stairs and flung himself onto Ice on the couch, making the blond grunt and gently rearrange his knees. “Can you read me a dinosaur book?” he begged, tiny hands holding Ice’s face immobile.

Ice’s eyes flicked up to Pete who was trying not to laugh and failing miserably, his shoulders shaking even though he was muffling it with his hand. Ice was a total sucker for the kid and it was one of his greatest joys in life.

“Of course, Bradley,” Ice said, standing with the boy still in his arms, holding him close. “I want to see how the plane turned out too.”

“It’s awesome ,” Bradley gushed, hugging him around the neck. He grinned at Mav over the top of Ice’s shoulder and for one fleeting moment Mav wished he had his polaroid camera to capture it forever.

/

Much, much later, when Maverick jolted awake with terror in his throat and tears in his eyes and the phantom echo of Goose’s voice in his ears, Ice pulled him into the warmth of his chest and held on tight, let him cry, rubbed his back until he relaxed with his cheek pillowed over his heart.

“It’s going to be okay, Pete,” Tom murmured, tugging the blankets back up over them both as Maverick was helpless to do much more than shiver, his teeth clacking together from the adrenaline and spike of terror from his nightmare.

Mav just burrowed closer and breathed him in, centered himself in his room and his bed very far away from the ocean and its icy grip. Tom’s arms around him were like anchors, far too warm to be anything but reality, reminding him that the ocean didn’t have him. His eyelids were dropping as his heartbeat settled.

“You alright?” Ice murmured, fingers tracing idle patterns along the back of his neck and his shoulders.

“No,” Mav rasped, wishing his voice didn’t sound like he’d been screaming (he probably had been), or full of tears, which it definitely had been.

“You will be,” Ice promised, pressing one last kiss to his hairline and settling.

Mav drifted back to sleep hoping Ice was right.

Chapter Text

Maverick woke confused, blinking up at his ceiling fan in what was starting to become an odd pattern of his life and feeling like a whole-ass person for the first time in… way too long. He reached a hand out blindly and connected with something warm. The relief that slammed into him would have made his knees buckle if he was standing and he looked at the clock — 0503 — and rolled over gracelessly.

Ice was dead to the world flat on his back. His breaths were slow and even, his dog tags a faint glimmer on his chest as he slept. The sheets had migrated down towards their knees during the night, leaving the long lean lines of him on full display.

He scooted closer and tucked himself under Ice’s arm, one hand trailing across his chest to feel his heart beat.

What the fuck were they doing, was the thing, because this? This definitely wasn’t allowed, not according to the Navy, and if anyone —anyone— got suspicious, it would mean investigations, awkward questions he might not be able to answer, potential court martials and dishonorable discharges, and then what would happen to Bradley?

The worst part was he didn’t fucking care. Not a bit. Not about what the Navy thought, not about what people thought, but he needed to care, he had to care, because Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would ruin his and Ice’s lives in ten seconds flat.

Ice’s arm curled around him, suddenly, partially pulling him onto the plane of his chest as the man himself rasped, “Quit thinking so hard, Mitchell, it’s too fucking early and you might hurt yourself.”

“Shut up,” he murmured, a little abashed but not actually guilty. “We never talked last night about Bradley.”

“I’m not jumping out your window,” Ice warned sleepily, nuzzling into his hairline. “What time does he get up?”

“Six on the dot.”

Ice yawned so hard his jaw cracked and rubbed his face with his free hand. “Alright,” he groaned, heaving himself upwards and leaving Mav to thump back onto the mattress, “I’ll shower and head out, then.”

Maverick watched him strip off his gym sweatpants and briefs, eyes trailing over the lean hard lines of him appreciatively. It was something he’d been thinking about on a loop since that volleyball game, honestly, and he wasn’t ashamed of it.

“Take a picture, Mitchell, it will last longer,” Ice smirked, his eyes sparkling.

“Fuck off, Kazansky,” he said reflexively as his wingman laughed quietly and strode to the shower.

He left the door open.

Maverick was out of bed before he’d made the conscious decision, stripping and following Ice into the warm spray of the shower in some bizarre game of one-upmanship he had a feeling was never going to end.

Ice was just watching him with his too-bright blue eyes, one eyebrow arched, and Mav couldn’t have that so he pushed him back against the tile wall and smirked. He pointed the showerhead more towards the wall and Ice swallowed, throat bobbing loudly in the silence interrupted only by the rush of the water.

“My turn,” he smirked, sliding his hands down Ice’s chest to his ridiculous abs, the sharp V of his hips, the strong lines of his thighs, following the path of his hands with his mouth. When he glanced up Ice had his fist in his teeth to muffle any noises, locking his knees with a breathed out curse as Maverick went ever lower, until he was on his knees.

He looked up and took a moment to appreciate the view. Ice was beautiful, in literally every way, flush high on his cheeks. Tom’s free hand landed on his shoulder. He was already hard, curled up towards his belly. 

Tom Kazansky was gorgeous and he swept his eyes hungrily up the miles of tanned, smooth skin. 

“Pete,” Tom whispered, “You don’t have to — ”

“I want to suck you off,” Pete murmured, curling his hands around Tom’s hips. 

“Jesus fuck,” Tom swore as his dick twitched. “Pete you can’t just say shit like that.”

“Can I?” Pete murmured, sucking a hickey onto Ice’s hipbone as Ice cursed above him.

“I’m clean,” he rasped, his hand gripping tight to Pete’s shoulder, which wasn’t a no .

Mav hummed, sliding his hands around to cup Ice’s glorious, glorious ass, squeezing it just to hear Ice’s bitten-off curse, and he realized it was a heady kind of feeling. Watching Ice fall apart was going to be incredible, he decided, and blinked up at the taller man with a smile.

He curved his hand around Ice’s dick to hold it steady, stroking it idly as Ice’s abs clenched and his thighs trembled, not letting himself thrust, allowing Mav to get the feel for him.

He would be a gentleman , Mav thought to himself, which really shouldn’t have surprised him. Ice felt good in his hand; smooth and warm, slightly curved, not too big and not too small. He had a gorgeous dick, actually, which was unfair because there just wasn’t anything wrong with the guy.

Tom opened his mouth to say something else and he cut him off by sucking on the head of his dick, swirling his tongue over the slit and delighting in the salty taste and the way Ice aborted his hip thrust forward with a curse. He used the water to help smooth things along, stroking what part he couldn’t reach with his mouth with his hand.

Above him, Tom was staring down at him with his eyes blown wide and dark, only a sliver of blue around the pupil. His hand was helping to muffle his sounds, the other gripping Pete’s shoulder but not directing him or pushing him in any way. Just holding on, a point of contact, and Pete recognized it for the surrender it was.

He’d been a curious teen who liked boys as much as girls, okay, and he knew his way around a blowjob. It was sloppy but he didn’t care, bobbing his head and taking him a little deeper every time, tonguing along the vein, pulling back to breathe when needed before diving back in.

Ice was moaning above him, muffling it still with his hand, and the sound of it was like a bolt of lightning straight to his dick.

Maverick squeezed his hand around his own cock at the base; it was rock hard and throbbing but he wanted to do this for Ice, bobbed his head up and down faster. He rolled Tom’s balls in his fingers and Tom cursed, loudly, his hips jerking forward.

Mav just pulled him closer by his ass, encouraged it, not gagging because this wasn’t his first rodeo.

“Jesus fucking christ, Pete,” Ice whispered, voice sounding shredded as his hand lifted to curve over his jaw, his cheek, “Your mouth ,” he moaned.

Mav winked at him and Ice groaned, his head thumping back against the tiles, and he hummed. The vibration made Ice’s entire body jerk, his hips thrusting forward again; Mav was ready for it, had expected it, and just swallowed around him, fingers curling into his ass cheeks to keep him there until his eyes were watering and his head felt light.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Ice was gasping, his hand settling on Pete’s head now, curling around the back of his skull; not pulling or pushing, just resting, fingers holding tight to his hair but not yanking. His abs flexed with aborted thrusts and it was clear he was focusing all his energy on not thrusting, so Pete decided to up the ante, twisting his hand around the base and sucking in earnest. One of his hands trailed closer to Ice’s crack, fingers sliding with the aid of water, and pressed his thumb gently against Ice’s hole, rubbing in a circle as Ice’s dick twitched in his mouth and he thrust forward so hard Pete choked a little, tears streaming down his face.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ice moaned, his entire body shaking now as he pushed weakly on the top of his head, trying to warn him, “Pete, I - I’m gonna -”

Pete just looked up at him, blinking away the tears to see Ice’s face, and pulled him closer, pressing hard with his thumb, watching as Ice’s entire body went rigid and he threw his head back as he came with a muffled curse.

He swallowed every drop and pulled off with an obscene, wet pop, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, uncaring that there was spit on his chin and neck and that his jaw muscles were aching fiercely.

Tom was breathing like he’d just run a marathon, both hands on his shoulders for balance, blinking down at him like he’d never quite seen him before. There was a gorgeous flush up his chest to his cheeks and gooseflesh on his arms.

“Pete,” Ice murmured, hands cupping his jaw and then tracing the planes of his face, thumbing at the side of his mouth before he curved his hand around the back of his neck and pulled him up.

Mav winced a little as his knees cracked and allowed himself to be pulled forward into a filthy, open mouthed-kiss, moaning into Ice’s mouth when their tongues slid together. His dick bumped the jut of Ice’s hip and he whimpered.

“Want to blow you,” Ice murmured against his neck as he turned him around, pressing Mav’s back to his chest, “But want to make it last so we’ll save it for another time,” he added, sucking at the hinge of his jaw as Pete muffled his moan into his own bicep, his dick twitching at the words. He was rock hard to the point of it being almost painful and wanted to reach for himself as much as he wanted to see what Ice would do, letting Ice guide him so he was braced on the wall with Ice at his back in an echo of the locker room the day before.

Mav braced his weight on his forearm and breathed loudly into the crook of his own elbow, knowing he had to be quiet and shivering at the warm water that cascaded over his shoulders and didn’t hold a candle to the searing heat of Ice’s skin. With his free hand he reached back, grabbed Ice’s ass and pulled him closer, holding on for dear life. He shivered in anticipation as Ice’s hands traced from his pecs to his abs to trail back up his flanks, sliding along his skin as if re-learning the planes of him before one hand hugged him close into the solidness of his chest and the other curled around his dick.

The moan he let out was equal parts relief and desperation, hips twitching forward into the circle of Tom’s hand, already feeling his orgasm building low in his gut, his toes curling and fingers and toes tingling.

“Tom,” he rasped, wincing at how his voice sounded; he’d definitely not thought that through, given he’d have to teach today, but was helpless against the heat of those clever fingers, panting as Ice’s hand stroked him hard and fast, calluses catching at all the right places, just the right pressure-

He moaned into his elbow as his balls drew up and his orgasm washed over him, hips jerking forward helplessly as he painted the wall with ropes of white, until the pressure was too much, his skin too sensitive and he whimpered, trying to draw back, conscious of Tom kissing across his shoulders.

“You’re amazing,” Tom murmured, nipping at the nape of his neck once before turning him around to cup his face. “Good morning, Pete.”

Pete grinned at him. “Liked that, huh?” he rasped, nudging their noses together and tilting his head in silent invitation. Ice bent his own head to kiss him, long and slow, uncaring at all that they both had morning breath.

“Yeah, you idiot,” Tom murmured, pulling away and reaching for the shampoo bottle, “I liked it, if you couldn’t tell.”

“I could tell,” Pete teased, stepping so their hips pressed together and he could kiss across Ice’s chest, nestle his nose into the spot between his pecs right above his dog tags, curve his arms around his waist and trace the knobs of his spine, palm his ass just to hear him snort.

Ice lathered his hair up in silence, fingers sure and steady and so soothing Pete felt like he could fall asleep right there. “Close your eyes,” he murmured, another echo of yesterday, and Pete did so immediately and let his head be tipped back.

When he opened them, there was that look again, and he stood on his tiptoes to kiss his wingman, smiling when he felt Ice smile, too.

“Let me,” Pete insisted when Tom reached for the shampoo bottle again, and the taller man relented, watched as he rubbed the shampoo against his hands and then into his hair, blue eyes vanishing as he closed them with a pleased hum and pressed into the massage. “Now who’s the cat,” he teased, but he pressed a kiss to Ice’s jaw because he could.

It was really fucking domestic and should probably have freaked him out, but it didn’t; he just tipped Ice’s head back into the spray and marveled at the total trust.

“Are we going to talk about it now, Pete?” Ice murmured, blinking water out of his eyes and adding conditioner to his own hair, handing Mav the bottle so he could do the same.

“We definitely can’t be together every night,” Pete told him softly, running his fingers through the wet strands of Ice’s hair as the man watched him quietly nodding in agreement, his hands resting on Pete’s hips and holding him close. “This is dangerous, Ice.”

“You like dangerous,” Ice murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his brow. You are still dangerous, he'd said, once, on a carrier on a day that felt like a million years ago.

“This is, like, career-ending dangerous,” Pete whispered, swallowing. “You want to go all the way to the top, Tom, you’ll be bored to death if you do anything else.” If Ice was surprised he’d figured that out already, he didn’t show it on his face.

He left it unsaid that Tom couldn’t go anywhere if he got a court martial, which he definitely would get if anyone ever caught the man naked with him. Or kissing him, or holding him, or even just touching him in a way that was anything more than friendly.

“We’ll be smart about it,” Tom said, one hand sweeping up his back, the other cupping the back of his head and tilting it so he could press their foreheads together. “I want to try, Pete.”

There was something pleading and desperate in Ice’s eyes and Pete swallowed again, curving his hand around Ice’s jaw because he felt it, too; wished things were different, wished they weren’t men; hell, that nobody gave a fuck who fucked who, but that wasn’t the world he —they —lived in.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Ice murmured. “You’re my wingman, Pete.”

“Yeah, Tom, I am,” he agreed, closing his eyes and tucking his face into Ice’s neck to breathe him in as the water washed over them; as Tom shifted his weight to help support him, as Tom’s arms came around him as tight as he was clinging to the taller man. “Let’s try and see what happens.”

This was probably the stupidest fucking thing he’d ever done, but Pete didn’t care, because he had Tom Kazansky in his arms and a peace in his heart he’d never felt.

/

Pete was whipping up a hard-made breakfast (cereal) when he heard Bradley thumping down the stairs.

“Morning, baby Goose,” he greeted the five-year-old in a voice still a little raspy, who squinted at him in confusion and shuffled across the floor to press his face into his hip.

His stomach dropped a bit as he palmed the back of Bradley’s head, tilting it so he could press the back of his fingers against his forehead. He wasn’t overly warm but he did look a little muzzy around the edges.

“You weren’t in your bed,” Bradley mumbled, turning against his head to bury his face in his hip again.

“No, I was hungry,” he told him softly, bending his knees to scoop him up. Bradley burrowed immediately into his neck and he rubbed his back as he hauled the gallon jug of milk out of the fridge. “Did you sleep?”

Bradley shook his head and kept his face pressed into Pete’s neck. “I had weird dreams,” he rumbled. “There was one with my teacher as a dinosaur.”

“Was she a nice dinosaur?”

“She ate me,” Bradley whined, trying to burrow further into his neck and making him grunt a little; his chin was pointy and digging into the sensitive skin at the top of his collarbone.

“I could see how that would be traumatizing,” Mav said, biting back a grin. “Sounds like you’re nervous about school, champ.”

“A little,” Bradley admitted, lifting his head finally to squint at him. “Is Ice gonna come over today?”

“I’m not sure, buddy,” he admitted, lifting his shoulder in a shrug. “I know his mom wants him to come help with something tonight.” 

Ice had said as much as they dressed after their shower, hips bumping together as they brushed their teeth at the sink and went over their day in quiet voices so as to not wake Bradley. When their mouths were fresh and minty, Ice had pressed him back against the door and kissed him like his life depended on it, before strolling out with a wink that left Pete’s insides feeling like melted goo.

“That stinks Uncle Mav,” the boy sighed, thumping his head back on Pete’s shoulder.

“Well we’ve got lots of library books to read tonight,” he promised, rubbing his back and carrying him to the table. “Frosted Flakes or Cheerios?”

“Cheerios,” Bradley told him promptly as he settled into his chair with a yawn. “So I don’t turn into a frosted flake.”

“Good man,” Mav teased, ruffling Bradley’s fluffy blonde hair and smiling when the boy squawked at him and swatted his hands away. “You really do need that haircut, kid.”

He promised himself he’d get it done after he finished school shopping today.

/

Pete stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ice and was so, so glad for his mirrored sunglasses, because they were hiding the rising panic in his throat.

They were standing in the San Diego Target, it was their lunch break, and there was a literal explosion of school supplies.

Well. Maybe not a literal explosion, but he’d never seen this much school shit in one place in his entire life. The colors, patterns, and displays were a little overwhelming and he didn’t even know where to start, let alone what Bradley actually needed (or wanted) and he started to wonder if he should have waited to do this this weekend with Bradley instead.

Ice had warned him this weekend would be even worse, which was what had led to this exact situation.

“We can do this, Mav,” Ice said from beside him, one hand on his hip, the other clutching the pastel yellow piece of paper the school had given Mav last week at lunch when he registered him for school. The top read SUGGESTED SCHOOL SUPPLIES and the list was—well.

It was a list all right. He had no idea what Ticonderoga was, or why the brand of eraser mattered, or why he needed the 12 pack of crayons and not the 24. 

“I don’t even know where to start,” Mav admitted weakly, looking around. There were some moms and dads shopping but it wasn’t too busy given it was the middle of the week, and the Target itself was busy but not many people were in uniforms so of course lots of people were staring at them, which just made him feel more tense.

“I say we start at the top and work our way down,” Ice suggested, because he was by the book.

“As opposed to starting at the bottom?” Mav drawled, making his voice as dry as he could, because fucking with Ice was his default and he hoped it would make him feel a little less like he’d just ejected from his F-14 without a parachute.

He was rewarded by Ice sliding his sunglasses down to shoot him a pissy glare. “You’re a smartass, Mitchell,” he drawled, voice equally dry, as he flicked his glasses back up and looked at the list. “The first thing is crayons. That’s easy enough.”

It was not easy enough. There were four different brands and ten different options, from an eight pack all the way to over a hundred.

“What’s the difference?” Mav puzzled, holding a box of Crayola’s in one hand and a box of Roseart in the other.

“If you love the kid at all,” Ice sighed, “Give him Crayolas. Trust me on this, I took art. Roseart is trash.”

“You have very strong opinions about crayons, Kazansky,” Mav grinned, but he tossed the Crayolas in the cart.

“Believe me, his teacher will too,” Ice promised. “He already has a backpack, but it says here he needs—wait, what the hell does a five year old need a two-inch binder for?”

“Projects?” Mav shrugged. “Just grab him a blue one,” he muttered, poking Ice on the hip and steering the cart out of the way of an elderly woman who was giving them curious looks given they were in their flight suits. “I said the blue one,” he repeated, rolling his eyes, because Ice was comparing the binders with pockets to the binders without.

“They’re both blue,” Ice said distractedly. “Does it matter?” he muttered to himself. “ I would want the pockets, but he’s five, so he’s probably going to rip them, Mav.”

Mav rubbed the bridge of his nose. He already had a headache and it had barely been two minutes. “We only get thirty minutes for lunch and it took eight to drive over here,” he reminded his wingman. “Maybe we should just split the list and meet in the middle.”

“Viper knows what we’re doing,” Ice said with a distracted wave of his hand. “He said we could take as much time as we need, they were planning on canceling the afternoon hop because of the wind.”

“Giving us more time to be stuck in this torture chamber,” Mav sighed, side-eying a display of gluesticks of varying sizes. “I don’t want to come out of here filing for bankruptcy, Kazansky, we’re sticking to the damn list.”

“I’m getting the binder with pockets,” Ice shrugged, tossing it in the cart and sliding the plain one back on the shelf. The list flicked back up again and his brow furrowed as he scanned it. “He also needs two folders for some godforsaken reason, a pencil bag or a box, and a ream of paper.”

“Did we have this much stuff when we went to school?” Mav mused, tossing a blue pencil box in the cart and then on a whim grabbing a sheet of dinosaur stickers as Ice reached for the planes. Their hands brushed and they grinned at each other.

“Probably, we just don’t remember,” Ice said as he dropped the plane stickers on top of the dinosaur ones. He tossed in a ream of paper even though they probably could have stolen one from work—they had so much paper it wasn’t even funny, he was running out of places to shove it in his office.

“Does it say anything about lined paper?” Pete asked, glancing at the different types. College ruled, wide ruled, some weird horizontal brown paper with really thick lines on it.

Ice shook his head and showed him the list. “It just says ‘paper, one ream’. How helpful,” he drawled, rubbing his ear and wincing a little as they passed an extremely sparkly section of stickers and glitter.

“Big bad Iceman, brought down by Target,” Mav drawled, grinning from the safety of behind the cart as Ice glanced up and down the aisle to make sure they were alone before flipping him off. He cackled and pressed the cart forward, bumping it into Ice’s ass.

“Ow,” Ice said grumpily, shoving the cart away. “He needs colored pencils, two packs of regular pencils, two glue sticks, a glue bottle, and a pencil sharpener.”

There were apparently a million different types of pencils, it turned out, and they stared at the display dumbfounded.

“They’re pencils ,” Mav hissed, affronted at the different brands. “It’s a stick with graphite in it, why can’t it just be simple?”

“Capitalism,” Ice sighed. 

Half the brands claimed they were AMERICA’S #1 PENCIL. He found himself longing for the simplicity of the Navy; if he asked for shit, they handed it to him and he used it, no complaints.

“My sister-in-law suggested Ticonderoga,” Ice added, lifting the green box and wiggling it, and Mav supposed he had his answer for whatever the fuck a Ticonderoga was (pencils, apparently). “Claims they’re the cadillac of pencils.”

“There are different classes of pencils?” Mav said, amused.

“Evidently,” Ice shrugged, throwing the box in the cart and adding two more for good measure. “Do we get him the princess pencil sharpener or the green one,” he deadpanned, scowling down at the little boxes of plastic sharpeners.

“Green one,” Mav said, tossing it in with everything else. “He also needs a lunchbox so they’d damn well better have one with a dinosaur or I’m going to riot.”

They did not have one with a dinosaur, but they did have one with a plane.

“It’s an F-15,” Ice said and he sounded so enraged by the fact that Mav almost started laughing.

“Just put it in the cart,” he sniggered.

Ice stared at him like he’d just suggested they run naked through the aisles. “Mav,” he hissed. “It’s an Eagle , we can’t send him to school with an Air Force jet on his lunchbox, he’s a Navy kid.”

“It’s a plane ,” Mav insisted, because Ice looked like he was about two seconds away from a stroke in the lunchbox aisle and it was fucking hilarous, even though he silently agreed. Like hell would Bradley go to school with the USAF on his lunch box, no sir.

“No,” Ice said, firmly, shoving the lunchbox back on the shelf. “No, Mav, I’m putting my foot down. He’ll have a plain blue one and he will be happy about it.” He jerked the blue one in question off the shelf and tossed it in the cart with a murderous glare. “An F-15,” he muttered, shaking his head. “As if the F-14 isn’t the most popular mainstream aircraft.”

“We can iron some patches onto it,” Mav said with overexaggerated sympathy, patting him on the shoulder.

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day,” Ice muttered, rubbing his forehead. “I’m getting a fucking headache, is this almost over with?”

“We’re barely halfway through the list.” Mav took it from Ice’s hand and scanned the contents. “Next up is scissors.”

“I hate this so much,” Ice sighed, but he followed him, anyway.

/

Later, Viper came into the instructor’s lounge and snorted at the sight of them, pouring himself an afternoon pick-me-up of coffee. The entire excursion had taken them thirty-six and a half minutes, which was impressive by any measure, but especially impressive because he’d never set foot in a Target and spent less than an hour there in his life. 

He’d also won the bet with Jester, so there was that, too, the crisp twenty already folded into his wallet.

“You boys look rough,” he teased, his mustache twitching.

Mav was sprawled on his back on the couch, his paperwork spread out on the side table half-heartedly because the headache behind his eyes was still pounding furiously. Ice was on the couch across from him with a wet towel over his eyes.

“That place is a hellmouth,” Ice declared without lifting the towel or moving a single muscle in his body. “Sir, I’m pissed that you didn’t give us better warning than that.”

“I told you it would be a nightmare,” Viper laughed, leaning against the counter and sipping his coffee as he watched the two men clearly regret all of their life choices. “Carrie could have gone for you.”

“Hindsight is 20/20, sir,” Mav drawled, smiling at him. “God, my head hurts. Why are there sixteen different types of pencils, Viper?”

“Capitalism,” Viper shrugged, as Ice shot Maverick finger guns without moving the washcloth and Maverick just rolled his eyes. “Carrie does all the shopping. I saw an F-15 Eagle on a lunchbox last year and not a Tomcat in sight and almost lost my shit in front of everyone. Haven’t been back to Target since.”

Mav glanced at Ice, knowing what was coming, as his wingman peeled the washcloth off his eyes with a triumphant expression and pointed at him.

“ See ,” he said, loudly, “I fucking told you, Mitchell, sending him to school with that lunchbox would have been a goddamn disgrace.”

“I wasn’t going to send him to school with an F-15 on his lunchbox, Kazansky, untwist your panties,” Mav shot back without missing a beat, bunching up his napkin and throwing it across the space at him.

Ice batted it aside with a scowl and dropped the washcloth back over his eyes. “Sir, if you’ve got any extra patches laying around, we were thinking we could put some on Bradley’s lunchbox for him to spruce it up a bit.”

“I’ve got more than I know what to do with,” Viper said. “Make sure you get that paperwork done, boys.”

“Yessir,” they echoed in unison, slumping back into their positions, and Viper managed to hold in his laughter until he was most of the way to his office.

/

Bradley had terrible nightmares that night and it left them both cranky. Mav had to drop him off at daycare while he was still crying and felt like a total asshole about it.

In the locker room he pressed his forehead to his locker and just tried to remember how to breathe through his headache and heartache both.

And, because the universe hated him, apparently, that was how Tom found him.

“Hey,” he said, voice uncharacteristically quiet as he dropped to the bench beside him, braced his elbows on his knees, and bumped their shoulders together. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” he retorted without moving a muscle or opening his eyes. He could feel Ice’s eyes on the side of his face but was too tired to do much more than just sit there. The locker was cold and it felt good on his forehead. “If you say I look like shit, I’m going to hit you,” he warned.

“I wasn’t going to,” Ice murmured, sounding amused.

“You’re lying.”

“Prove it, Mitchell,” Ice snorted. 

His hand landed heavily on Pete’s upper back and started rubbing in soothing circles. He shivered at the feeling and exhaled, shoulders tightening just a tad as he looked over his shoulder towards the door.

“Relax,” Tom murmured, and when Pete looked at him his expression was soft and open, “We’re the only ones in here. Viper and Jester are arguing over what coffee to use.”

“Typical,” he muttered, turning so he could bury his face briefly in the side of Tom’s warm neck. The taller man’s arm curled around him, fingers tracing gently up and down his bicep. “Bradley had nightmares all night about school. One of them features his teacher turning into a dinosaur and eating him.”

“Are you going to take him to therapy?”

“Probably should,” he sighed into Ice’s skin. “I’m fucking exhausted. Felt like he was up every hour on the hour.”

“And your nightmares?”

Pete squeezed his eyes shut and briefly hated the knowing tone, but Tom was right. He had had nightmares, and most of them had featured his continuing hell loop of Goose in the sea with him. His silence must have answered his question because Tom turned his chest towards him fully and wrapped him in a strong hug that briefly robbed him of breath.

“Well,” Tom murmured into the hair at the side of his head. “Guess I’ll just have to come cook you boys dinner then. Do you like steaks?”

“Who doesn’t like steak?” he asked, muffled into the fabric of Ice’s uniform. His cheek was pressed on a patch, the material scratchy on his skin and yet oddly soothing, probably because it was attached to the man currently hugging the shit out of him.

“That was a yes or no question,” Tom said, pulling back to look at his face and dropping his arms. “Six work?”

“Sure,” Pete yawned, rubbing his eyes and sitting upright. “I can make some potatoes to go with it if you want. Bradley fucking loves potatoes.”

“He’s got good taste,” Tom said with a grin. “My mother would insist upon something green to go with it. Will he eat green beans?”

“As long as they don’t come out of a can, yeah. Kid is picky as hell about his canned foods.”

The locker room door swung open with a faint bang and neither of them moved, because they weren’t touching anymore and each had a knee on the bench with bodies towards each other. They silently watched as Viper and Jester strolled in, arguing the merits of blonde roast over medium roast.

“Blonde roast has more caffeine, sir,” Tom said, inserting himself into the argument.

Pete smirked as Viper threw his hands in the air and Jester grinned triumphantly because he’d always known Ice was secretly a little shit at heart, but this was further proof to support his point.

“That’s what I said,” Jester said, shoving at Viper’s shoulder. “I’m here to get caffeine, Metcalf, not doze off in the nonsense these kids think are essays.”

“Well, then, tomorrow, you can make the blonde roast,” Viper said back pissily, shoving Jester’s shoulder in turn and switching his attention to the younger aviators. “What’s this I hear about being picky as hell?”

“Bradley,” Mav explained. “He hates canned green beans.”

Jester pulled a face. “That’s because canned green beans are disgusting,” he said matter-of-factly. “Are you saying you like that trash, Mitchell?”

“I’m not saying shit, sir,” he snorted.

“I’m saying that green beans and potatoes go great with steak,” Ice cut in, smirking, “And that we’re doing a barbeque at Mitchell’s on Sunday, and you should come too, sirs.”

Pete swung his head to glare at his wingman because that was the first he’d heard of that. Ice’s smirk hadn’t faded in the least. “Dude,” he said, because he’d lived in California long enough for the word to be an essential part of his vocabulary, “You can’t just invite people over to my house.”

Ice shrugged and grinned a shit-eating grin. “I just did. Slider’s in town and so are Wolf, Wood, Chip, and Sundown. They’d love a break from the O Club.”

“That sounds great, actually,” Jester said enthusiastically. “My wife makes a killer strawberry salad, I’ll call her at lunch and ask her to bring it, too. Might even be able to get my sullen teenage offspring to pull himself out of his heavy metal bands long enough to enjoy a meal.”

“Carrie will be glad to come along,” Mike said, clapping Pete on the shoulder. “She harangues me constantly so it’ll do her good to see that you are, in fact, still alive.”

“Debatable,” Ice deadpanned and Mav shoved him so hard on the shoulder he nearly fell off the bench, and then nearly fell off anyway because he was laughing so hard.

“You’re a fucking bastard, Kazansky,” he complained, rubbing his eyes as Ice’s laughter simmered down to his shoulders shaking, hand muffling the sound. “Fine, okay, whatever. Barbeque at my place Sunday, last hurrah before school starts. Bring the kids, sir, Bradley’s been asking if they’re around his age.”

“They bracket him,” Viper said, his mustache twitching at their antics. “Chris is six and Lilly is four and a half.”

“Perfect,” Mav said. He frowned for a second and then tacked on, “Hey, do you think Carrie could give me advice on this whole starting Kindergarten thing? Like, what the hell is Back to School Night and do I actually have to take him to it?”

“Kid,” Viper said as he tugged Pete up to standing and slung an arm around his shoulders, “I haven’t the faintest fucking idea. Come on, let’s go kick some ass.”

“Just as long as you don’t make me bet on it, Viper,” Mav said, grinning sidelong at his boss.

“No promises, Mitchell.”

/

Friday afternoon, he and Ice got off work and changed back into their khakis. Carrie Metcalf had said in no uncertain terms that Back to School Night was a requirement and would help Bradley feel less nervous, because he’d get to meet some other kids and the teacher before school started Monday.

“You sure about this, Pete?” Ice pressed, smoothing his hair as he looked in the mirror.

Pete shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “It takes a village, right? Besides, you’re the one who’s been reading all those books about Kindergarten or whatever. You’re my wingman, remember?”

Ice flipped him off for his teasing tone and clicked his locker shut. “Well come on, let’s go get Bradley then,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “I want to talk about those stupid fuckers the whole way. That maneuver below the hard deck today was fucking stupid —”

True to his word, Mav got his ear talked off about their current class the whole way to daycare. They’d carpooled that morning for this exact purpose and Mav tried not to feel warm about it, he really did, but Ice was gesturing out the window with one hand and his eyes were flashing, and he just looked really fucking gorgeous.

“Pete,” Ice said, giving him a look . “Eyes on the road.”

“Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all, and switched his attention back to the blacktop.

“You didn’t listen to a word I said, did you?”

“Hopper is driving you nuts, and you’re impressed as hell but trying not to be that he almost got a missile lock on you this morning,” he parroted, obediently, giving his wingman a wink.

“The point is to teach them how to fight their enemies,” Ice reminded him, sighing and leaning his temple on the headrest, blue eyes watching him closely. “A missile lock on one of us means we’ve done our job, it doesn’t make us any less of good pilots. Especially because we fly with the tactics of our enemies to try and teach them.”

“Hey, Ice?”

“What?”

“I know. I teach there, too,” he reminded his wingman with a wink, as Ice flipped him off again. “This class has been interesting, for sure.” They parked and he got out to get Bradley, who was beside himself with nerves.

“It’s just to see your classroom,” Pete promised him, scooping him up. “Ice is coming with us.”

“Are you scared too?” Bradley whispered, tucking his little face into Pete’s neck.

“Yes,” he said, at once, because it was true. He was terrified to send this little boy off to school without him, terrified of him growing up and not being who he was right this second.

“Okay,” Bradley whispered. “If Ice is with us we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, we will,” he agreed, kissing the side of his head again as Ice waved from inside the Bronco. “Come on, baby Goose. We got this.”

Bradley told them stories of daycare on the way to the school but he was more subdued than normal. When they parked in the parking lot, there were other parents and kids milling about and he and Ice weren’t the only ones in uniforms.

“Come on,” Ice soothed, holding his hand out to Bradley who took it gratefully and squeezed it hard if the slight wince on his face was anything to go by. Pete rested his hand on Bradley’s head and ruffled the blond strands gently; he looked so damn grown up with his haircut.

The school was two stories and brown brick, nothing special. Teachers and signs were everywhere so they followed them, pausing to look at places like the library—which Bradley immediately loved —and the lunchroom.

“I guess this is okay,” Bradley said, still holding tight to Ice’s hand.

“It’s nice,” Pete agreed, but didn’t really feel it, aware of Ice’s shoulder bumping into him and his eyes on the side of his face. “Come on, baby Goose, Kindergarten rooms are this way.” He pointed at the sign where a kind looking middle aged woman was standing.

“Can I help you find a room?” she said with a soft smile, looking down at Bradley who waved at her nervously. “Are you going to Kindergarten, sweetheart?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bradley said, his voice wavering. “I have Miss Anderson.”

“I’ll walk with you,” the woman said. “I’m Miss Smith, I’m one of the secretaries. Is your dad in the military?” Her eyes flicked up to Ice.

“He was,” Bradley said. “This is my Uncle Tom and my Uncle Pete.” He gestured to Pete, who held his hand out, recognizing the quiet panic building in Bradley’s face.

Bradley grabbed his hand, too, and held on tight.

“Okay,” Miss Smith said, looking between the two men with a confused frown, “Your room is this way, honey.”

She left them at the doorway and Ice thanked her quietly.

There were people inside, and a young blonde woman in a pink sundress who was smiling and getting on her knees to speak to all the children. She was pretty enough and looked kind.

“Come on, baby Goose,” Ice murmured, tugging gently. “Better to rip it off like a bandaid, get it over with.”

Pete squeezed Bradley’s hand because his throat was too tight to speak. He squared his shoulders and walked into the room. 

“Hey, at least Chris will be here too,” he told Bradley gently, looking around. The room was bright and cheerful and the other kids looked just as nervous.

“Yeah,” Bradley gulped. The teacher had spotted them and walked over with a smile, kneeling in front of the boy. 

“Hi there, I’m Ms. Anderson. What’s your name honey?”

“Bradley Bradshaw,” he said, trying to be brave even as he leaned hard into Maverick’s thigh. “It’s real nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Well aren’t you polite, Bradley,” she said, shaking his hand gently. “I’m so excited to have you in my class this year.” She looked at him for a moment and then whispered, “Can I tell you a secret?”

Bradley nodded nervously, glancing up at Ice and Mav who were just watching quietly. 

“I’m scared too,” she whispered, patting him on his shoulder. “It’ll get better, honey. Everyone is scared the first day. Even me!”

“Really?” he breathed. 

“Really,” she promised. “But I get to meet twenty new kids, and you get to make nineteen new friends.”

Bradley nodded and she straightened back up to standing. 

“Pete Mitchell,” Mav said, letting go of Bradley briefly to hold his hand out. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

Miss Anderson smiled and nodded, then glanced at Ice with a confused furrow between her brows. 

“Tom Kazansky, ma’am,” Ice said formally, holding his hand out for a shake that she accepted. “I work with Pete. We were both friends with Bradley’s dad.”

“I see,” she said but clearly didn’t, her brows still furrowed. 

Ice looked at him and tilted his head quizzically, and Mav knew like he knew how to breathe that Ice was offering to distract Bradley while he explained their unique situation. 

Mav nodded, once, and knelt before Bradley. “Hey buddy,” he whispered. “I’m going to talk to Miss Anderson for a second, okay?”

Bradley nodded, chewing his lip and looking at where other kids were exploring the room. 

“Ice,” Bradley said, looking up at him. “Can we go look at the books?”

“Sure, baby Goose,” Ice said as Mav stood and he led the boy a few steps away. 

“I’m Bradley’s legal guardian,” he told the teacher in a low voice because this was important for her to know but none of the other parents needed to. “I’m his godfather. His parents are both gone, ma’am.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she whispered, looking at Bradley again, at the way he was inching towards the equally nervous other kids but not letting go of Ice as the other two children held tight to their parents as well. “Was it recent?”

Mav nodded. “Little over a year ago for his dad, and his mom passed from cancer in early August.”

The teacher nodded. “Thank you for telling me.” 

He nodded, relieved to have it over with. “Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”

“Do I need to worry about deployments?“

It was a good question, a question someone who worked with military children would ask. “Not anytime soon,” he said. “I’m an instructor at NAS North Island. They’ll keep me around for a while.”

Miss Anderson looked at him with surprise; he could tell she was shocked at his youth. He wouldn’t be twenty-six for another four months. 

“Has he spoken to anyone about it?” She wondered. “We have counselors.”

“He goes to therapy once a week but that’s not a bad idea,” he mused. “He’s working on regulating his emotion but he’s making great progress.”

“I’ll refer him to our counselor Mrs. Lake,” she promised. “We can just set up check ins but I don’t think it will hurt.”

“Sounds good, ma’am. It was nice to meet you. Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for trusting me with your godson,” she said with equal frankness and the best he could do was smile. 

“Mav!” Bradley interrupted, grabbing for his pocket. “There are dinosaur books !”

“If you’ll excuse us,” Mav said with a snort, scooping Bradley up because he wanted to hug him. “Direct me baby Goose.”

Bradley was giggling but pointed to where Ice had sat himself on a teeny, tiny blue chair and was discussing a dinosaur toy with a little girl with pigtails and horned rimmed glasses. 

“I think I like this room and Mrs. Anderson,” Bradley told him in a whisper, pressing their cheeks together and looking over Mav’s shoulder to where Miss Anderson was watching them. “She’s not a dinosaur and I don’t think she’ll eat me.”

Maverick’s laughter was loud and bright but he didn’t care, he just settled the boy back on his feet and let himself be led to the bookcase. 

/

Sunday further proved his hypothesis that Ice was an alien or made in a lab, because Ice barbequed like he did everything else—fucking perfectly, as if there was any other option—and held court at the grill like he was some king of this backyard kingdom.

The backyard kingdom that actually belonged to him , but whatever.

“One of these days, Kazansky,” Pete told him as he handed him the plate of seasoned raw steaks, ignoring how much he wanted to kiss that stupid smirk off his face because Jester, Slider, and Viper were standing three feet away nursing beers, “I’m going to find something you’re shit at.”

“Good luck,” Tom smirked, accepting the plate with a quiet thanks and turning back to the conversation he’d been having with Jester, Slider, and Viper. 

Chris, Lilly, and Bradley were busy near the back fence, doing something with a dinosaur costume and a baseball bat that he elected to ignore because they were having fun and it had taken them approximately half a second to finish each other’s sentences.

“Pete, sweetheart, could I get a hand with this?” Carrie Metcalf shouted from inside where she was struggling at the front door, her arms full of bags.

“Sure, Mrs. Metcalf,” he said, jogging to get there quicker and scooping half the bags up. “What is all this?”

“I made you meals for the week, sweetheart,” she said, patting him on the cheek. “And please, call me Carrie. I also made some things that you can pack in Bradley’s lunch, if he’s anything at all like Chris he’s going to hate cafeteria food.”

Pete swallowed around the lump in his throat and glanced down to see tupperware containers of cooked chicken, noodles, and vegetables. “Thanks, Carrie,” he said. “That was really sweet of you. I — well, I kind of have no idea what I’m doing.”

Carrie looked around the living room, at the toys stacked neatly in storage bins (at Ice’s insistence), at the fuzzy blanket on the back of the couch, at the scatter of photographs he and Ice had framed and hung last weekend of the Bradshaw family and some of Mav and Bradley, and one memorable shot of he and Ice and Bradley after they’d gotten ice cream on the pier last night, cheeks pressed together so they’d all fit in the polaroid, Bradley with rocky road ice cream all over his face.

The house was clean, warm, and inviting. They’d gotten some throw pillows and added some of the furniture pieces from the Bradshaw house that still smelled so much like Goose he couldn't sit on them without getting choked up, but it felt a lot more like a home. Bradley’s latest art project was perched on the console table by the front door, sparkling in the afternoon sunshine from the unholy amount of glitter they’d put on it.

“I’d say you’re doing just fine, honey,” she told him, and smiled like she meant it as a slight flush pinked his cheeks. “Are his nightmares better?”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile, stacking the tupperware in the fridge. “He’s getting there. He’s scared for tomorrow. Thanks for helping me distract him.” He waved a hand to encompass the barbeque, watching as Wood and Wolf stumbled over the threshold with cheery hellos, waving at him as he waved back. “Better go make sure they don’t burn the backyard down,” he added, and she smiled as he left the room.

“How the hell are you, Mitchell,” Wood greeted him, slinging his arm around his shoulders. “How’s Bradley?”

“Doing better,” he said, grinning up at the tall blond. “You ever going to get tired of that stupid hat, Wood?”

“Fuck off, Mav,” Hollywood snorted, shoving him away and snagging a beer from the counter, heading towards the voices in the back.

“Viper and Jester drinking beer with us, now that is fucking weird,” Wolf said, shaking his head and popping the top off his own beer.

“You get used to it,” Mav promised, as Wolf handed him the beer and cracked a second one for himself.

Wolf slung his arm over his shoulders and dragged him to the door. “Update me on this Top Gun shit, one of the baby pilots in the class right now is in my squadron and he’s a fucking moron.”

Mav led him outside and towards the other pilots. He tugged Wolfman to a halt as Bradley went by with a war cry, chasing Lilly who was dressed as some kind of dinosaur with Chris right behind them.

“Wait a second, I thought you only had one of those,” Wolf said, staring down at the three kids racing by. He dimpled a grin at Maverick’s unimpressed look. “That was a joke,” he added, and Mav rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Mitchell, lighten up. You’re such a fucking princess.”

“Fuck off, Wolfe,” he said, rolling his eyes and shoving him at Ice and Viper, who greeted him cheerfully.

“Mav, Mav,” Bradley said as he skidded to a halt in front of him, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. Chris was panting beside him and he was like a mini-Viper, grin on his face, while Lilly looked like she’d run through a bush at some point and had leaves all in her hair. “We need a T-Rex!”

Slider and Ice were at the grill watching the scene unfold with definite amusement; the tall dark haired RIO had glommed onto Ice like glue the minute he appeared and Mav had left them to catch up. 

Mav handed his beer to Ice since he was standing right next to him by the grill, who took it and set it on the side of the BBQ with an amused shake of his head, but Mav was already turning back to the three kids staring up at him hopefully.

He lifted his hands in claws and unleashed his best roar, trying not to laugh as the three kids screeched and scattered, and he charged right after them, joined by Hollywood who had abandoned his hat to Wolf and was too busy cracking up to be able to roar, even as he scooped Bradley up and tucked him under his arm like a football, Bradley’s screeches of laughter filling the warm summer air.

/

Ice was walking around the backyard with the recycling bin tucked against his side, dropping in beer bottles.

“Bradley, make sure you put your costume back in your room,” he told the five-year-old, who was gathering all his outdoor toys and putting them in the plastic bucket by the grill.

“I will,” Bradley promised, grinning up at him. There was chocolate sauce on his cheek and his hair was a mess but he looked happy.

“Did you have fun today, kiddo?”

“Yeah! Chris and Lilly are awesome. Wood and Wolf are fun, too, and Slider’s jokes are really dumb but he’s nice.”

“Yeah, they’re alright,” Ice snorted, grabbing the last three beer bottles from the top of the grill. “Come on, baby Goose, shower and then bedtime.”

Bradley chewed his lip as he dropped his last football into the bucket and hugged his dinosaur costume to his chest. “Hey Ice?” he murmured, looking up at him, and Ice just scooped him up in his free arm and hugged him close. He curled his arms around Ice’s neck and held on tight. “I’m scared for tomorrow.”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Tom promised, pressing a quick kiss to the side of his head. “School is fun , remember? And you met your teacher. She seems really nice.”

“Yeah, I guess,” the boy whispered, fiddling with his shirt. “What if she hates me?”

“She won’t hate you,” Ice promised, thinking of the woman’s wide eyes looking between them in their uniforms, the way her cheeks had pinked when Mav spoke to her.

“What if I cry?”

“I’ll cry with you,” Ice promised. He’d meant it as a joke but it was honest. “Mav will probably cry too.”

Bradley’s voice was hopeful when he said, “You’re coming with us?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, buddy.”

Mav had heard the entire exchange from the kitchen through the open window and was admirally trying to pretend his heart didn’t feel like it was about to burst right out of his chest. 

Ice set Bradley down and he raced off to shower. 

“Hey,” Mav said as Ice shut the back door and put the recycle bin back. 

“Hey,” Ice returned, stepping close and curling his fingers in his belt loops. “That was fun.”

“Don’t be insufferable,” he teased. 

“It’s not insufferable if I’m right,” Ice pointed out with a smirk. “You had fun. So did Bradley. I’ll call that a win.”

Mav just rolled his eyes and yanked him down into a kiss, lingering for a moment before pulling back. “Wanted to do that all day,” he confessed. 

“Hmm,” the taller aviator agreed, grabbing him by his hips and lifting him up on the counter. 

The display of strength should have irritated him but it really, really didn’t. It was hot as fuck. Mav spread his knees and tugged Ice close until their chests pressed together. 

“Tom,” he whispered, cradling his face, thumbs stroking the curve of his cheeks, his jawline, his lips. 

Tom just stood there and let him. They were nose to nose this way and he could see the flecks of green and brown in his blue eyes. 

“Pete,” he whispered back, pressing their foreheads together. 

“Stay?” He said and hated that it came out as a beg, hands curling around Ice’s ribs. “Please stay.”

It broke their rule, technically, to not spend more than a night in a row together, but he didn’t care. 

“Well,” Tom murmured, tilting his head to kiss him, long and deep and slow. “Since you asked so nicely.”

A part of him still expected a no, and his brain was feeling a little addled, which was why he blurted, “Really?”

Ice was staring at him again but it as a frown, his head tilted to one side as if putting the last few pieces of a puzzle together. 

“Pete,” he asked slowly, “what happened with Charlie?”

The words were like a lightning rod, snapping his spine straight and tensing every muscle. Tom just stayed where he was, hands flat on the counter on either side of his hips, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to shove him away or not. 

Maverick felt too tight for his skin and tried to roll his shoulders; it didn’t make him feel any less tense, and he violently hated how Ice tracked the movement with his brows furrowed.

“What did Charlie do to you, Mav?” he wondered, and wasn’t that just fantastic.

“Nothing,” he bit off, hackles rising, not wanting to talk about Charlie, ever.

“She clearly did something.”

“Would you fucking leave it alone, Kazansky?” he demanded, and his voice cracked like a whip in the kitchen. He sighed and pressed his knuckles into his eyes, because it wasn’t Tom he was mad at, not really.

Tom said nothing and it just made him feel more guilty; he’d been patient, all this time. Helping him, reaching his hand out for support, never asking for anything in return.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, quieter. “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Tom said, and his voice was frighteningly even.

When Mav dared to look Tom’s face was blank and cold like it had been that first day of Top Gun and his stomach churned. He swallowed, hard, and wished — hell, he wished a lot of things.

They stayed right where they were staring at each other until Mav’s shoulders slumped. “You can go, if you want to,” he whispered, closing his eyes because he didn’t want to watch him walk away.

“Do you want me to?”

“No,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation, opening his eyes again to look at Ice in the face because it was the very least that he deserved. “No, I don’t want you to go, but I’ll understand if you want to.”

Ice’s brows furrowed as he sighed. “You’re a fucking idiot, Mitchell,” he said evenly, and then he turned on his heel and headed for the stairs.

Mav hopped down and followed behind him, a little confused, and found him already in his blue henley and tugging on his sweatpants. His gym bag was tossed next to the bedside table. “What are you doing?” he asked quietly, feeling a little sad that Ice was covering up all that lovely tanned skin with fabric.

“Going to bed,” Ice said shortly, bending to fish his toiletries out of his bag and giving him a lovely view of his ass.

“Okay,” Mav said, confused, because Ice wasn’t looking at him as he strode to the bathroom. It was a similar pattern to their nights together but also — not. Off. He followed behind him and wasn’t all that surprised when the blond wouldn’t meet his eyes in the  mirror.

Trusting his gut, he stepped up until there was barely a hairsbreadth between them and slipped his arms around Ice’s waist to hug him from behind, locking his hands together over his belly. He pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades and then turned his head to press his cheek there, very conscious of how still Ice had gone.

“I’m sorry,” Pete murmured into the soft fabric of the henley that was as blue as Tom’s eyes. 

“You don’t have to talk about Charlie if you don’t want to,” Tom said evenly, and then resumed brushing his teeth but one of his hands curled over Mav’s hands, so he supposed that was as much of an acknowledgement as he was likely to get.

Mav still felt off, a little twitchy, as he went through his own nightly routine. He put a very sleepy Bradley to bed and felt fondness swelling in his chest at the way he was almost asleep standing up and how he passed out the second his head hit the pillow. 

Every time he turned to see Ice still there as he showered and brushed his teeth he hated the surprise that swelled in his chest.

“Stop staring at me like you’re afraid I’m going to vanish,” he demanded, finally, as Pete settled beside him under the covers. “Why are you all the way over there?”

“I — don’t know,” Pete said lamely, realizing he’d settled himself on the very edge of the mattress, so far over he was nearly off the bed and there was enough room for two people between them.

Ice sighed up at the ceiling and held his arm out away from his body. When Pete didn’t move he made an impatient noise and glanced at him sidelong. “Come on, Pete,” he said, and his voice was soft. “I promise not to bite you unless you ask me nicely.”

“Very funny, Tom,” he retorted, but he scooted across the bed anyways, feeling like his world was upside down and sideways when Tom turned on his side, rolled him so his back was to his chest,  and curled an arm around him. “Aren’t you mad?”

“No,” Tom said, pressing a kiss to the back of his head and turning out the light. “Go to sleep.”

Tom did, quickly, but Pete stared up at the ceiling for what felt like hours. A glance at the clock told him it had been one hour and thirteen minutes, but he was still wide awake, his heart pounding, an uneasy feeling churning in his gut.

That blank face had been fucking horrible , was the thing, because he recognized it now for what it had been all along: a shield. Retreating behind the Iceman facade was what Tom Kazansky did when he was feeling big things and didn’t want people to see, just like he retreated behind his cocky mask when he was trying to hide his own feelings. 

And he’d fucking put that look there.

“Tom,” Pete whispered, rolling over to face him and shaking him gently by the bicep. “Hey, Tom, are you awake?”

“I fucking am now,” Tom grumbled into his pillow in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a growl and almost made Pete laugh. Almost, but not quite, heart pounding wildly in his chest like a jackhammer. “Are you okay?” he tacked on, squinting at him in the darkness. 

“I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about earlier. About Charlie and what she said.” Pete swallowed, watching as Ice's eyes widened, the sleepiness faded somewhat as he rubbed a hand furiously over his face and lifted his head off the pillow to look at him with both eyes. “Charlie — she, uh, she was there at the beginning. She got a front row seat to the disaster that is me.” He waved his hand at his own chest.

“Stop calling yourself a disaster,” said Tom.

“I was a disaster,” he pointed out. “I still am, actually.”

“You’re grieving,” Tom corrected. “It’s not the same.”

“She told me I was—she told me—”

Ice watched him quietly and then sighed, rolling him again and pulling Pete back into his chest, tucking his knees up behind and hugging him tight.

“I hate being the little spoon,” Mav whined, wiggling a little in an effort to get free but in actuality pressing closer, turning his cheek into Ice’s bicep and pressing a kiss to the soft skin at the inside of his elbow.

“No you don’t,” Ice hummed, definite amusement in his voice, and Mav would have elbowed him but… he wasn’t wrong. He kind of loved being the little spoon. “What did Charlie tell you, Pete?”

Mav chewed his lip and stared hard at the alarm clock. Ice was patient at his back, his hand idly stroking nonsense swirls and symbols across his chest. It was nice. “We had a huge fight. I said some things I’m not proud of, either, but. She told me I was pathetic,” he admitted, deciding to just rip it all off like a bandaid. “And that real men don’t cry this much, and that if I was that gay for him I should have just fucked him before he died.”

Saying it was like popping a balloon; his chest instantly felt ten times lighter and he shuddered at the feeling, gasping in a breath and squeezing his eyes shut because he’d been trying to forget those words for months and they were always there, at the back of his mind.

Ice’s hand stilled, palm pressed over his heart. He was quiet for so long Pete was a little afraid he was going to pretend he hadn’t said anything.

Hands flipped him so quickly he yelped at the sudden change in position, finding himself nose-to-nose with Iceman, who was glaring and curled an arm around his hips to prevent a backwards escape.

“First off,” he said, the tone bitten off, and Mav realized he was pissed . “You’re not pathetic, and if I ever see that bitch again, I’m going to rip her a new asshole.”

Pete blinked and opened his mouth to say something, but Ice pressed his hand over it.

“Let me finish,” he insisted. “Mav—you loved Goose. I know it, our entire class at Top Gun knew it, everyone on the Enterprise knew it, hell, the sun and fucking stars knew it. He loved you just as much, okay? You can love someone and not want to fuck them. I know he was your family, I know he meant the whole entire world to you. I know you blame yourself for what happened and nothing will ever change that. What she said was really shitty; she shouldn’t have said it, and she shouldn’t have made you feel guilty for your grief, or like you have to put some arbitrary fucking timeline on not being sad anymore, because that’s just fucking bullshit.”

Mav reached up to trail his fingers gently from Ice’s temple to his jaw, smoothing his thumb along the curve of his cheek.

“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” Ice sighed irritably, and then blinked and realized he was still pressing a hand to his mouth because Mav was laughing into his palm, breath hot and wet on his fingers.

“Kinda hard to speak with your hand on my face,” Mav teased, brushing their noses together. He went quiet, chewing his lip, and whispered, “You really mean that, Tom. You don’t think I wanted to fuck him.”

“ Did you want to fuck him, Pete?” Ice said tiredly, tugging him a little closer and tracing his back with his palms.

“No,” Pete said with a full-body shudder of horror. “No, he was like my brother.”

“Okay then,” Ice murmured, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Do you think I want to fuck Slider?”

“No,” he snorted, trying not to laugh at the mental image.

“Yeah, cuz he’s like my brother,” the blond said with a hmph and a grimace. “Come to think of it, I actually like him more than my real brothers, who are dicks by the way.”

“A family trait, I’m sure,” Mav said with faux graveness, cracking a grin when Ice pinched him on the ass.

“I’m a delight,” Ice drawled.

“Yeah, a really pissy one,” Mav teased, sliding his arm around Ice’s waist and kissing his shoulder. “But you’re alright, I guess.”

“Such high praise.”

“I live to please.”

“You mispronounced ‘rebel’.”

“I mean,” Mav shrugged as Ice shoved a knee between his to make their position more comfortable, tangling their legs together, “My codename is Maverick.”

“Trust me, I’m aware,” Ice promised as he smoothed a hand through his hair. “Can we go to sleep now, or do you want to have another deep emotional conversation?”

“You’re kind of a dick,” Mav sighed, rolling his eyes.

Ice smiled at him in the darkness. “It’s fun,” he murmured, bumping their noses together. “Getting a rise out of you.”

“Right back at you, Iceman.”

“Go to sleep, moron.”

“So bossy,” Mav whispered, but his eyes were sliding shut as his heartbeat calmed, the anxiety bleeding from him and letting his shoulders settle.

“Always with the last word,” Ice snorted, kissing him quickly, chaste and warm. “Go to sleep.” Another kiss, soft, pressed to his hairline, with a quiet, “Thanks for telling me, Pete,” and then Pete knew no more.

/

Pete hit the ground and woke all at once, his chest heaving for breath and mind a confused swirl. He could hear a voice, someone talking, but he was trapped; trapped in the icy grip of the sea, trapped with Goose whispering this is your fault, it’s all your fault , staring up at the rotating rotor blades of the helicopter that had come and ripped Goose away from him for the last time, forever; and he scrambled backwards until his back hit the wall, breath coming in short gasps as his vision blacked at the edges.

He tried to fist his hands and couldn’t, was losing feeling in his feet, could feel his chest burning and his eyes streaming, as much as he felt detached from it all, the pressure increasing in his chest, stars dancing across his eyes.

Every breath was like dying, burning his throat and his lungs; he was dying, he was sure of it: this was it. He was going to forget how to breathe in, and his vision was going to black, and —

“Pete,” a voice said, directly in his ear, high and panicked; warmth bled into his cheeks, jarring him from the icy grip of the sea. “Breathe, goddamn you, breathe! In, come on, you can do it, please, Pete, please ,” the voice begged, and there was different pressure on his chest, now, knuckles digging into the spot between his pecs.

Pete sucked in a breath through his teeth and it burned; it burned , but the voice begged him to do it again so he did, and then again, and the stars started to fade a little, the blackness receding; every muscle in his body shaking.

He blinked his blurry eyes and then could see a little better; blinked them again, choked on a sob, and looked into Tom’s panicked blue eyes.

Tom. Of course it had been Tom — as if it could have been anyone else.

“You with me?” Tom whispered, and his lower lip trembled, his hands shaking on his cheeks.

Pete nodded, or at least tried to, and watched as the taller man sat back on his heels.

“Just keep breathing,” Tom ordered, chewing his lower lip so hard it bled. “In and out, Mav, you can do it.”

He could do it, he realized; he breathed in, held it, breathed out, his eyes on Ice’s chest watching as it expanded and contracted, copying the movements as the blackness on the edge of his vision faded completely.

“Pete,” Ice said with a tone of obviously forced calm, after a handful of minutes of breathing, maybe; could have been hours, Pete didn’t fucking have a clue. “You’re okay. You’re not in the ocean. I’m right here.” He gestured at his own chest as if to demonstrate.

Logically, Pete knew that—he did. He really, really did; he could feel Ice’s body heat inches from his own, could smell his aftershave, see the way his blue eyes were watching everything with the same sharpness they always did.

All he could focus on, though, was the crushing longing in his chest, the grief that robbed his breath, the pain that lanced his heart even still.

“I want him back,” Mav breathed into the space between them, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see whatever Tom’s face did at the words; he knew that Tom knew he had nightmares about Goose constantly, but he’d never shared this, not with anyone, not ever. “I just want him back. It’s all I think about every morning when I wake up, and it’s one of the last things I think about when I fall asleep. I see him in my dreams, in my nightmares. I can’t—I’m so—I’m so tired, Tom,” he said, his voice cracking multiple times as tears choked his throat. “I wish it had been me. God help me, but every day, I wish it had been me .”

“Pete,” Tom whispered, and his voice cracked on the word. “Pete, hey. Can I touch you?”

Mav ducked his head and wiped his streaming nose on his shirt with a watery laugh. “Why are you asking?”

“I read a book,” Ice said quietly, inching closer and shifting onto his knees. “Pete, hey. I’m going to touch you, okay? On your shoulders.”

Pete watched his hands approach with a sort of detachment. When his fingers made contact the heat was so intense it was like a brand and he flinched backwards slightly in surprise, his head thumping against the wall hard enough to bruise.

“You’re freezing ,” Tom whispered, sliding his hands around to his shoulder blades under his shirt. “Can I hug you?”

“Yeah,” he hiccuped, his limbs still shaky and not cooperating; his hands still felt a little numb and when he tried to curl them into fists they only closed an inch or so. “I don’t think I can move, though.”

“I’ve got you,” Tom promised, setting his own back against the edge of the bed and tugging him forward with sure and steady hands.

Mav was helpless to do anything to stop him, not that he wanted him to stop, and just closed his eyes as Ice pulled him back into the solid line of his chest. His knees were bent and bracketed him on either side, closing him in. Instead of making him feel tense it helped to bleed some of the tightness from his shoulders, his rapid breaths starting to slow in response to the feeling of Ice’s chest inhaling and exhaling against his back.

Ice wrapped his arms around him, tucking Mav’s arms in as well in a sort of double hug. Then, he squeezed, and Mav let out a sound that might have been a whimper and might have also been a sob, he wasn’t sure; all he knew was his heartbeat was finally slowing and he could finally feel his toes.

The next thing he registered was the ceiling. Someone — Ice, it was not like anyone else was in the house except for Bradley — had turned off the ceiling fan. Warm lips were trailing up his neck to his ear, and then to his temple and back down, over and over again. He finally felt warm, sort of. For a man nicknamed Iceman, his body heat was ridiculous, seeping into every part of him.

“Better?” Ice murmured into his neck.

Mav just grunted and exhaled on a shudder, breath skipping in his chest, but his ribs still expanded fully and he held his breath just to remember how to. Then he let it out slowly through his nose. It helped, a little.

“I was dreaming of the ocean with Goose. I was so cold I couldn’t move,” he whispered into the darkness, still blinking up at the ceiling. “I couldn’t move, and then I couldn’t breathe.”

“You had a panic attack, Pete,” Tom murmured, kissing him on the neck again. “It happens. You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

“I know you do,” he whispered, letting his eyes slide shut and suddenly feeling so goddamn tired, his muscles aching, letting his head fall naturally inward so his forehead was pressed to Ice’s jaw. “Did you read this in a book, too?”

“Yeah,” the taller man admitted, tone a little sheepish. “I had one, once, and it really sucked. I wanted to know how to stop it if it started to happen again so I read about them when I was in high school.”

“Did it happen again?”

“Just once,” he whispered, hands trailing up and down his forearms in an attempt to warm his skin. “After—after you—in July,” he said.

Pete just nodded because he didn’t trust his voice not to crack again. His eyes were burning but he didn’t blink them, let his vision blur as the ceiling lost focus like he was underwater in the pool.

“I’m really glad it wasn’t you, Pete,” Tom admitted as his breath hitched. Pete felt him press his entire face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, body curling around his smaller one and holding him so tightly it was hard to breathe for a moment. “God help me, god forgive me, but I’m so glad every day that it wasn’t you.”

Chapter Text

Being back at Top Gun with Maverick at his side had been… an experience. There weren’t many words Tom could find to describe it, but he’d spent most of the first day as an instructor trying to get his bearings and also studying Mav, because something had changed. 

He wasn’t quite sure, what, exactly, but when Mav pulled the yank the breaks shit and nearly got them into a collision (possibly, okay, it wasn’t a by the book maneuver and it had been fucking dangerous and stupid) he’d seethed for most of the day.

It was very unlike him, Iceman, to seethe. He had his nickname for many reasons, least of all being his unruffled attitude. Seething wasn’t something he did, nor was it usually a word he used, but all through those first classes waving off questions about the MiGs and the Gulf while privately wondering if the collective IQ of naval aviators had dropped ten points since he’d been in flight school, he’d been seething, there wasn’t any other word for it.

Tom had a bit of a reputation as a cold-as-ice asshole, was the thing. He’d worked hard for it; crafted most of it himself, really, from the time he was in high school and realized two things: he looked at boys the way boys were supposed to look at girls, and the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to join the Navy, which was a real big fucking problem because the Navy didn’t want men like him. 

The boys thing, well, it was easy to hide. He knew what he looked like and how to flirt, made out with a few girls just to keep up appearances. Laughed with the boys and made sure to never, ever lose his cool. 

His high school sport of choice, as a bonafide red blooded male raised in beautiful Orange County California, was water polo. It wasn’t a huge sport but it was extremely physically demanding (read: violent) and taught him the beauty of keeping how he really felt off his face. 

You’re as cold as ice, Kazansky, his water polo teammates had always told him. Lighten up.

The boy thing he got good at ignoring and hiding, shoving it down deep inside himself and striving to prove to everyone he was the best even though society told him he wasn’t, couldn’t be, because of who he felt attracted to. The best water polo player, the best team captain, the best score on state assessments, the best in all his classes, the best son, the best brother (though his siblings were four extremely sharp pains in his ass). 

When he’d told his dad he wanted to go to Annapolis, The Colonel had reacted as if he was a moron for even saying it out loud because of-fucking-course he was going to Annapolis, just like his old man, and he would be a Marine, just like his old man, and he would rise through the ranks, just like his old man.

Tom wasn’t someone who rebelled (Maverick was always telling him he stuck strictly to the book and never wavered from it, which was “boring” and “uninspired” which he usually brought up after Maverick was getting reamed out for doing the exact opposite of what the book said).

When it came to Annapolis, though, he’d rebelled and rebelled hard. Not on the coursework (top of his class) or the fitness requirements (top of his class) or his likability (people thought he was a cold bastard but they obeyed him without hesitation whenever it was his turn to be the leader, and none in his class had been surprised when he’d been chosen as Brigade Commander).

Where he had rebelled was knowing deep in his heart that the absolute fucking last thing he wanted to do on planet earth was be a Marine.

The sea and the sky called to him more than anything else ever had. He’d basically been a fish growing up and given San Clemente was so close to the ocean, he’d practically been raised in it. Hell, his grandmother was always telling him he secretly had gills and swam with the mermen at night while they were all sleeping.

Flying was a bit like the ocean: vast and blue and open. Most importantly, it was free: free of expectations, free of reality, somewhere he could let his heart soar and a grin stretch over his face, let joy infuse every cell in his body, because up here nobody cared about if he was the Iceman or not; it was just him and the clouds and the dull roar of the F-14’s engines behind him, Slider at his back and the whole world spread out in front of him.

So, the Navy. They let you choose in Annapolis which branch you were more interested in. When he’d told his dad he’d opted to be an ensign in the US Navy and wanted to fly fighter jets, his dad had almost had a stroke right then and there.

The Colonel had threatened, screamed, raged, and eventually resorted to bribery, but Tom had gripped that ice-cold demeanor as hard as he fucking could and stood his ground to the old man for the first time in his life; they hadn’t spoken in five years after that conversation, but it had been so fucking worth it.

Flying was the one thing he had that was his and his alone, and it allowed him to make a name for himself separate from his father. Nobody in the Navy gave a damn his dad was Colonel Kazansky; few even made the connection, despite how uncommon their last name was.

So the Navy it had been and he’d found that flying was what really made his heart sing, especially because it involved landing on aircraft carriers that were surrounded by that endless blue that he found soothing whilst others found it frightening.

He'd been the only pilot in his squadron not to loose his lunch the first time he'd landed on the carrier in the dark (which was absolutely fucking terrifying in a way words couldn't describe accurately), and his instructor had just shaken his head and said, "You really are made of ice, Kazansky."

He was still Iceman, and he’d earned that nickname officially in the Academy before he even set foot in a cockpit for the first time. Being the best had taken so much work but then he was up there and realized it was lonely and boring. Nobody was even near his level, his skill, his passion, his drive.

Nobody, until Peter “Maverick” Mitchell.

Being around Maverick was like flying. His presence was so magnetic, his eyes so green, his smile infectious, his approach to life so carefree and open that he’d envied him ten seconds after meeting him. He’d wanted to hate him; had tried so unbelievably fucking hard, but he couldn’t help but admire the way Mav flew: like there were no rules, no laws, no restrictions; like he was some kind of god and the world was his playground. At some point he’d stopped finding that cocky attitude irritating and found it endlessly charming, instead.

He’d spent literal weeks (months, nearly a year) after the Gulf wanting to kiss that stupid cocky grin right off his face but he’d held back and kept his cool. Let himself bask in Maverick’s warmth, in the way he melted his icy exterior, the way he made him want, want for the first time in his life, long for something that wasn’t the endless blue of the sky and instead for the sound of another’s laughter, to see him smile, to hold him close.

Nobody else ever saw it, of course. He let his true self out with Slider, sure; with Wolf and Wood, sometimes, with their squad from the Gulf often, but he never let out his actual true self until it was just him and Maverick.

Maybe it was because Maverick was like a sun, or maybe it was because after the Gulf, Maverick was the person he trusted more than anyone else in the world.

Or maybe it was because Maverick looked at his lips as often as he looked at his face, and wasn’t that something, to be wanted back.

So, Tom’s reputation: a pissy, uptight, cold as hell asshole who was as ruthless as he was efficient, who was so damn good in the air nobody could fault him (and many an instructor had tried, to no avail), who was so steady and even keeled and calm and unrattled that even people like Maverick Mitchell looked to him for direction without seeming to realize they were doing it.

That reputation he’d held onto for so long (clung to) had fucking cratered the second Maverick’s lips touched his, burned away the ice from the inside out, melting it away with every brush of his hands, every press of his mouth to his skin bringing him back to life when he hadn’t even realized how much he’d felt like he was dying all those long years he’d worked for perfection.

/

The thing was, Maverick wasn’t the only one who melted his ice-cold exterior with the force of a flamethrower. Bradley Bradshaw was pretty efficient at getting him to smile, to laugh, to reach down for hugs, to do silly things and play silly games and read silly books. His laughter was like the feeling of blowing bubbles, and his smile was like sunshine, and the longer he spent in Bradley’s company the more he realized he would do literally anything, anything, just to see him smile.

That night in the library had changed something and he couldn’t quite put a finger on what, exactly, it had been, which was a feeling he didn’t enjoy and was starting to make him feel a little irritated because he made a point to know his own mind.

Pete had curled into him on the couch after the library and dinner after a brief hesitation, as if worried Tom would push him away: as if he could ever push him away, would ever push him away. Thanked him like it was some kind of burden to stroke his dick (it definitely hadn’t been) or to spend time with him and Bradley (it was the best time of Tom’s day, if he was being honest with himself).

“Will you stay?” Pete had asked, as if dreading the answer, his cheek pillowed on his chest and body a lean line of warmth down his side.

Tom wouldn’t have been able to leave if he’d tried; his traitorous body had kept him right there, his arms around this man who had blown up his entire life that fateful day in July of 1986, had blasted it to bits and changed it forever the second he saw those aviators and that stupid smirk in the bar and had shoved peanuts in his mouth before he said something stupid in front of Goose, Slider, and everyone else.

Then, Bradley had impacted his chest, his tiny heart rabbit-fast against his ribs, small hands curling around his cheeks. They’d been slightly sticky and he’d met Bradley’s earnest eyes and done his best not to melt into a puddle.

By the way Maverick looked at him, he’d failed miserably, but that was neither here nor there.

“Will you read me a dinosaur book?” Bradley begged, tiny lip sticking out in a pout as he glanced up at Maverick to find him smothering his laughter in one hand, his eyes bright with amusement. 

“Yeah, of course,” he had told Bradley, folding his arms around the boy instead of flipping Maverick off like he wanted to and standing. Bradley was light in his arms, warm like a heater, and smelled like shampoo and something sweet he couldn’t put his finger on.

Bradley’s arms had curled trustingly around his neck, tiny cheek pressing to his, and it had struck Tom down to the very bottom of his heart with an emotion he didn’t know how to name; frightened and humbled him as much as it filled him to the brim with joy, because Bradley was clinging to him like a monkey, trusting and open.

Pete had stayed downstairs to clean up as he headed up to Bradley’s room.

“The plane is so cool,” Bradley gushed, one arm flung out to trace it with his tiny fingers. “Can you put daddy’s name under the RIO?”

“Sure,” Tom murmured, settling the boy in one arm and looking. The plane did look pretty cool, he agreed, and he’d left the name blank because with helmets on the pilot and the RIO could have been anyone.

“And Uncle Mav too?”

“If that’s what you want, Bradley,” he promised, turning to the boy’s bed and dumping him in the middle of it with a grin as the boy giggled.

“Which dinosaur book is it?” he asked, looking at the stack on the bedside table and watching as Bradley dug one out of the middle. It was about triceratops who befriended a T-Rex and Bradley snuggled up under his blanket and fluffed his pillow, scooting to make room for him. He patted the bed with a tiny hand and Ice sat there, leaning his back against the headboard and accepting the book Bradley handed him.

He cleared his throat to read and tried not to be startled as Bradley wiggled around until he was half in his lap, leaning on his chest so he could see the book better. 

Nobody outside of his family (and Slider) had ever touched him like Bradley and Pete did, was the thing. His ice cold exterior tended to warn people off, but these two just leaned right into him like it was their personal mission to melt him into a puddle of goo and he was powerless to do anything about it. Wondered, late at night, if the two of them even realized they were doing it.

As he read, Bradley would turn the page, mouthing some of the words along with him, grinning up at him every now and then as Tom’s voice had filled the room, doing comically deep voices for the T-Rex and making the boy giggle into his armpit, reaching up to smack at his face gently with his sticky little hands.

Tom laughed. “You like the voices?” he teased, poking him in the side as Bradley squirmed and giggled again.

“You do them like Daddy did,” he said, happily, reaching over to pat Goose’s face in the frame beside his bed in a move that made Tom’s throat tighten.

“Well,” he murmured, brushing Bradley’s bangs off his forehead, “I guess that’s a compliment.”

“Do the voice again,” he begged, and Tom was powerless to deny him.

Pete still hadn’t come up so Tom finished the book with a flourish, glancing down to see Bradley half-asleep already, fingers curled into his shirt, little smile on his lips, head a heavy weight over his heart. He gently untangled Bradley’s fingers and smoothed his fluffy blond hair off his forehead, bending to press a soft kiss there.

Bradley smiled up at him sleepily and murmured, “Love you, Ice,” and it had been like a switch going off in his head, because oh.

Tom had a name for that feeling, now, the one that had felt so huge and overwhelming as it swelled in his chest, stroking his hand through Bradley’s soft hair as the boy’s eyelids drooped and his face relaxed into sleep.

He’d reflect, later, that it was kind of astonishing how hard and how fast he’d fallen for this kid. Somewhere between watching him shopping for bananas with Maverick and taking him to the library, the kid had wandered into his life and straight into his heart.

Tom swallowed in a tight throat. “I love you, too, Bradley,” he whispered, pressing another kiss to the top of the little boy’s head.

Ice smoothed the hair back off his forehead one more time and stood, amending his wingman statement to include this little kid, too.

On a hot July afternoon his jetwash had inadvertently cost this sweet little boy his daddy and cost Maverick his best friend. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw had a family. A small family, yes, but still a family.

He’d take care of Nick Bradshaw’s kid if it was the last goddamned thing he did.

/

Tom spent the next morning in their pre-briefing doing his best not to look at Pete’s face, because the man was chewing on a pen in a way he damn well knew was distracting as all hell. Pete would wink at him every time he made eye contact and Viper and Jester weren’t paying attention. It was only his ice-cold demeanor that kept his cheeks from pinking because looking at Mav’s lips usually led to remembering the shower this morning, because hooooly shit was Pete Mitchell good with his mouth.

So, he ignored him. Or at least tried to, and was relieved when Pete backed off a bit because one, they were at work, and two, he knew better than to be too obvious in front of Viper, who was arguably the most observant person either of them had ever met.

It definitely didn’t stop him from pressing Pete up against the wall in the instructor locker rooms, though, knowing that Viper and Jester were already airborne for the first hop of the day, and relishing in the way Pete’s breath whooshed out and his eyes widened, hands gripping his hips and body going slack against his.

“Stop it, Mav,” he told Pete with a warning in his tone, being sure to press Pete’s body with as much of his own as was physically possible which wasn’t actually that hard because he was a lot bigger than the dark-haired aviator.

“But distracting you is so fun,” Pete shot back. There was a breathless quality to his voice that made Tom smirk, though, and his eyes were locked on Ice’s mouth, not his face.

“We’re at work,” he reminded his wingman, licking his lips just to be an asshole and watching Pete’s eyes track the movement. “Behave yourself.”

“Mmm, hard to do around you,” Pete murmured, hands tracing idly up his flanks. “But I’ll try.”

Tom gazed at him suspiciously because nothing was that easy with Mav, ever. He shifted his weight back, still frowning, and surprise jolted low in his stomach when Pete reached up to cup his jaw and pull him back down. 

“I promise to keep my hands to myself,” Mav said solemnly, “At least until we’re not at work.”

Ice snorted and turned his head to kiss the heel of Mav’s palm. Then, on a whim because they were alone, he bent his head briefly to kiss Mav, a there and gone press of his lips.

“I promise to stop pinning you against walls at work,” he said, in the same solemn tone Mav had used a moment ago.

Mav pouted. “I like it when you pin me against walls,” he said.

Ice smirked, remembering the shower both times, and drawled, “I know.”

Pete’s cheeks immediately flamed under his tan and Ice laughed at him, palming the side of his neck and pressing their foreheads together.

“Dick,” the shorter man snorted, shoving at his chest to get him to back up so he could move towards the door. “See you up there, Iceman.”

“Count on it, Maverick,” he said, trailing after him and trying hard not to grin his ass off for the rest of the day every time he looked in his wingman’s direction.

/

They washed off in the showers at the end of their day, drenched in sweat like always given the air conditioner situation. They kept their hands to themselves and stayed strictly professional, going over the hops of the day together as they rinsed off in the lukewarm spray in stalls next to each other.

Pete was just tall enough that Ice could see his nose over the barrier and it allowed them to have a conversation, of sorts, voices echoing in the large tiled room.

“I still think Hopper is going to get it,” Ice told Mav as he wrapped a towel around his hips because Mav had left a hickey on his hip in the shower that morning and headed for his locker.

“It pains me to say it but I think you might be right,” Mav sighed as he followed after him scrubbing a towel through his hair, uncaring about his nakedness. Jester was finishing up getting changed and Viper was flipping through a small journal at his own locker, looking deep in thought.

“Did you just admit to being wrong?” Ice teased as he combed his hair. “Alert the media and mark your calendars.”

“Shut the fuck up, Kazasnky,” Mav snorted, whipping at him with his wet towel and making his wingman laugh and dodge the blow. “I said you might be right, Hopper still has a while to prove himself.”

“What’s this about Hopper?” Jester inquired, lacing up his shoes and glancing up at them. “Christ, put a towel on, Mitchell.” 

Mav flipped him off idly and dug around in his locker, still naked as the day he was born with his towel around his neck, unselfconscious as always, and Tom was suddenly grateful he hadn’t actually sucked any hickies onto him last night because that would have been awkward to be present for. 

“Tell me you’re not still on about Hopper, Kazansky,” Jester added, boot thumping back to the cement floor as he put his fists on his hips.

“I made my choice,” Tom hummed, his eyes on the mirror in front of him as he combed his hair how he wanted it. “Time will tell if I’m right, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. So, which one of you clowns picked me?”

Viper dropped the journal and bent immediately to scoop it up again, shooting Jester a look that Tom couldn’t read.

“You know, getting us drunk didn’t work,” Jester said with an amused grin in Maverick’s direction, who made a face and mimed plugging his ears. “Guess that’s a secret I’ll just have to take to my grave, Kazansky.”

“You’re no fun, Heatherly,” Tom said, tossing his comb in his locker and dragging out his clothes. “I’ll get it out of you some day, old man.”

“I live to disappoint, boys,” Jester cackled, clapping Viper on the shoulder. “Hey Metcalf, you’re still coming to the O Club right? Boys?”

Maverick was shaking his head as he tugged on his jeans while Viper nodded that he would be there. “Bradley wants to do an art project tonight,” he said with a half-shrug. “I think that’s what he said, anyway, who knows. He’ll probably change his mind four times before we get home.”

“And you?” Viper pressed, looking at Tom.

“I’ve been summoned to San Clemente by my mother,” Ice said dryly, pulling his shirt over his head, his voice briefly muffled by the dark fabric. “It’s my brother’s birthday tomorrow and she wants to celebrate by making me drive to San Clemente and back tonight, apparently.”

“Have fun with that traffic,” Mav teased, combing his own hair.

“Kill me, I beg of you,” Ice deadpanned, spreading his arms wide as the three of them laughed at him. “You’re all dicks.” He clicked his locker shut. “Enjoy the O Club, sirs, Mav. See you tomorrow.”

“Night, Ice,” they all chorused.

Ice held the door open for his superiors who walked out deep in conversation about some restaurant their wives wanted to drag them to, and he briefly looked back over his shoulder to see Mav seated on the bench tugging on his boots. They made eye contact and grinned at each other.

Since Viper and Jester were still within earshot, he mimed holding a phone, and Mav nodded at him, understanding he meant he’d call him tonight when he got home.

He let the door swing shut behind him and headed for his Jeep, rolling his eyes at the way Viper and Jester were still arguing between their cars.

The whole drive north to San Clemente, he wished he was going the other direction, to Mav’s house off base. He was pretty sure which art project Bradley was going to do; he’d been talking about painting the wooden planes they’d bought him.

Tom would have much rather been painting with Bradley than dealing with his family, but it was what it was. He parked in the driveway of his childhood home over an hour later and killed the ignition with a sigh, briefly leaning his head back against the headrest and attempting to summon the energy he would need to get through dinner without swearing at any of his siblings or pissing off his impossible-to-please father.

A knock at the window made him open his eyes to see his sister Sarah standing there with her arms crossed looking at him expectantly, her dark hair in braids and one eyebrow arched. 

It was time to face the music, then. He motioned for her to move and opened the door, slamming it behind him and looking at her with one eyebrow raised, a mockery of the same expression she’d flashed at him.

“Hey Tommy,” she greeted him, holding her arms out for a hug that he stepped into.

“How are you?” he asked her, kissing the top of her head, squeezing her hard before releasing her. She was almost finished with nursing school at UCLA and looked tired but happy.

“Fine,” she shrugged. “It’s so weird to see you this much, I’m not used to it anymore.” She linked their arms and dragged him towards the porch, smiling at the way he dragged his feet. “How’s your first Top Gun class going?”

“It’s alright, I guess,” he said with a half-shrug, walking up the brick steps with her to the imposing dark green door and its big brass knocker his dad insisted on polishing every Saturday morning. The American flag was snapping in the breeze to the left of the door as always, lit as regulations required, and the yard was as immaculate as ever. “Haven’t got going much, yet, still getting to know them.”

“Aren’t you back with your wingman? The one from the Gulf? Maverick.”

“Yeah, Maverick,” he told her with a noncommittal hum, holding the door open for her because he’d been raised to be a gentleman and ignoring the dig for information because he’d mentioned Mav in every single letter he’d sent her, which had been a lot. “How’s dad tonight?”

“Fine,” Sarah promised. “Come on, mom’s in the kitchen and she promised you a cookie.”

“Thank fuck,” he murmured to himself, because a cookie was the least of what he needed to get through this. There was a reason he’d accepted two posts in the Pacific straight out of flight school, and it started and ended with getting a reprieve from his family whom he loved dearly but who drove him up the fucking wall whenever he was around them for longer than a few hours at a time.

Well, that, and it had been awkward as all hell because his dad had pretended he was invisible for five years at every family function.

His mother, Eleanor Kazansky, was indeed in the kitchen, her graying brown hair pulled back into a tight bun like always, blue eyes sharp when she looked at him, a veritable feast spread out on the counters and stove top around her. She’d always loved through food and service to others, his mother.

“There you are, Thomas, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” she chided gently, but she pulled him into a hug anyway and kissed both his cheeks.

“I get off at five, mom,” he reminded her, relishing in her warmth for just a moment, letting her tuck her head under his chin like she’d started doing as soon as he was tall enough for it.

“You’re so skinny, honey,” she murmured, pulling back and looking at him closely. “You don’t look tired, though, so you must be sleeping alright.”

Tom smiled at her. “I’m fine, mom, really,” he promised. “Right as rain. Normal work hours, you know.”

“Rare for a military man,” his father’s deep voice said from behind him, and Tom turned to see the Colonel there.

“Sir,” he greeted him formally, shaking his hand, because that was how it worked in the Kazansky family. At least he was acknowledging his existence.

Even for a man who’d retired the year before, he still looked every inch the Colonel he had been, and none of his five offspring called him dad to his face, always Colonel or Sir, always with a capital. It had been a hell of a strict upbringing and his deployments had been a relief, most of the time, because they’d had a chance to relax when he was gone doing whatever it was Marine Colonels did.

Bill Kazansky wasn’t a small man; he was an inch or so taller than Tom, broader in the hips and shoulders, his hair the same blond shade as four of his five children and graying at the temples. His eyes were green, unlike his five offspring who had inherited the icy Sinclair-blue eyes from their mother. As many people had pointed out over the years, his face was an older sterner mirror of Tom’s with few laugh lines.

There was no slump whatsoever in his posture and he was as clean shaven and neat as ever, wearing a vest like he was at some kind of dinner party, hair perfectly within Marine Corps regulations, shoes shined to perfection, slacks creased expertly, not a hair out of place.

His father never really had fully adjusted back to civilian life. As he had done for thirty years in his beloved Corps, he was up with the sun to exercise, and then running his household with the same military precision he’d used to run battalions.

It had been a fucking relief go to go Annapolis, quite honestly, and Tom had spent most of his time there absolutely appalled that his classmates had no idea how to function in polite society, let alone in the military. If nothing else this man had prepared him for that part of the Academy; he’d never had an issue with inspections, the physical demand of the job, nor had he flinched when people screamed in his face calling him a pussy.

Business as usual, was all he’d thought, and let it wash off him like water over rocks, because his father had told him much the same thing most of his life.

The Colonel grunted and turned to Sarah, his whole face softening. “Sarah, baby, I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” he told her, holding his arms out and she stepped into them and he hugged her tightly, smooching her on the top of her dark curls.

“Surprise, daddy,” she told him with her bright, tinkling laugh, and Tom swallowed hard because his father had never hugged him like that, not once, not as long as he could remember.

Beside him, his mother squeezed him into her side, hand patting his hip gently, and he smoothed his expression before his father looked at him again.

“I'll be in the sitting room,” the Colonel told him shortly, and left the kitchen without another word.

Tom closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and let it out slowly through his nose. He’d gotten into Annapolis on his own merit, graduated top of his class, survived a dogfight, was one of two living people in the military with confirmed air-to-air kills in his generation, and still, he wasn’t enough.

 When he opened his eyes again his mother and sister were watching him closely. “I can take it,” he promised, dry as he could make it, and tried not to feel too fond when Sarah shook her head and hugged him tightly, anyway.

“I’m really fucking proud of you, Tommy, even if dad will never say it,” Sarah whispered into his chest, and he remembered all at once why she was his undisputed favorite.

“We all are, honey,” his mother agreed, patting his back. “Here, have a cookie. I made your favorite.”

“Thanks, mom,” Tom told her, accepting the chocolate chip cookie and biting into it happily. “As good as ever.”

“You’re coming for Thanksgiving, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he promised, and then paused. “Could—I mean, would it be okay if I brought a friend?”

His mother and Sarah both stared at him, astonished, because he’d never once asked that.

At the sight of his mother’s eyes gleaming, he held up a hand. “Not a woman,” he said, quickly, because his mother had been harping on him for ages to get married and start popping out grandchildren because it was his duty as the eldest, or something (he’d been really fucking relieved when his next-eldest brother, John, had gotten married and promptly popped out two children, because she’d relaxed a little). “My wingman, actually, and his…uh, well, his son, I guess.”

“Maverick has a son?” said Sarah, tilting her head to one side. “You’ve never mentioned that.”

“He’s not actually his son,” Tom said, shoving the rest of the cookie in his mouth to buy some time and cursing his tongue because now he had to explain, and he hated it when his mother and sister looked at him like they could see right through him. “Do you remember last year at Top Gun, when my classmate died?”

“Yes, honey, of course,” Eleanor said, panic flashing over her face at the reminder, because Tom knew he’d been a fucking mess, in the days that followed, as much as he’d tried to hide it. “Nick, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, looking hard at the tile floor and not meeting either of their eyes. “He had a wife, Carole, and a four-year-old son named Bradley.”

“Had?” Sarah said, her tone suspicious.

“She died of cancer in early August,” he murmured, still staring down at the tile. “Mav’s his guardian, now, and they — I mean, Pete’s an orphan, they don’t have any family, really, mom.”

His mother was looking at him knowingly and he swallowed.

“I’d love to meet them both,” she said, and meant it, wiping her hands on the apron that said WORLD’S #1 GRANDMA and already bore the handprints of his niece, Ellie, and nephews, Jack and Henry. “They’d be more than welcome to join us for dinner if you want to ask him.”

“I’ll ask,” Tom said, hating how his shoulders slumped in relief, because the thought of Mav and Bradley spending Thanksgiving alone after the chaos of the last year filled him with a pang of sadness so acute he wanted to cry a little just imagining it.

“Ask, then, sweetheart,” his mother said, and patted him on the chest, turning back to dinner.

“Do you need help, mom?”

“Why don’t you help Sarah set the table?”

“Sure,” he shrugged, reaching for the plates as Sarah reached for the napkins and utensils. The front door opened and closed and he heard his brothers call out, as well as his other sister, Rachel.

“Mom,” John bellowed, punctuated a moment after by a high-pitched giggle that could only be Ellie, “We’re here and we picked up some smelly idiots on the side of the road!”

“Fuck off, John,” Tim’s voice said, cracking like a whip, and several voices overlapped shouting about tiny ears and ending when the Colonel bellowed for them to stop swearing in his foyer in front of his impressionable grandchildren.

Tom met Sarah’s eyes and tried not to laugh, heading to the dining room to get a reprieve for however brief a moment.

“You seem good, Tommy,” Sarah said, eyeing him speculatively.

“I’m good,” he promised, laying the plates out with the same precision in which he did most things. “I’m very good,” he added, winking at her. “The best, you could even say.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “I have no idea how your fat head fits in that flight helmet, you big dummy,” she snorted.

“Perfectly,” he smirked, wishing he could linger longer in the dining room but knowing his father would demand his presence momentarily over a glass of whiskey, because that was how his father rolled.

His father was already in the study and he could hear Rachel and John’s wife Maggie in the kitchen talking to his mom and Sarah. He turned sharply towards the study in question and kept his shoulders square when his dad scowled at him from across the room, perched in his usual spot next to the fireplace which was crackling despite the fact it was a million fucking degrees outside.

Tim and John were on their usual chairs, already nursing their own whiskey, and saluted him lazily with their glasses. Tim looked tired, bags under his eyes; he’d just come back from deployment to Germany the week before and was stationed at Pendleton with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. 

John’s white-blond hair had grown out, flopping over his forehead, out of military regulations and his dad said nothing, because as per usual, his younger brothers weren’t held to the same standards. There were the beginnings of a mustache on his lip and it made him look older, more like the Deputy Sheriff he’d become and less like the boy he’d been in the Marines.

“Johnny, Timmy,” he greeted them, pouring himself his own glass of port and occupying his usual armchair closest to the fireplace. He could feel the heat of it on his bicep and shin and wished he could move the chair but wouldn’t dare move anything in his father’s study, even upon pain of death.

“What’s new, flyboy?” Tim teased him, his blue eyes shining in the firelight. At nearly twenty (his birthday was tomorrow), Tim was the baby and his father had been upset when he decided to forgo college and enlist instead, but he’d naturally gotten over it. 

In large families, the baby tended to get away with murder, Tom had learned very quickly. He was expected to be perfect, as the eldest, The Example. Next-eldest John was allowed to toe the line; the twins Sarah and Rachel could do whatever they wanted because they were daddy’s princesses; and Timmy, well. Timmy was spoiled-fucking-rotten, but they all loved him anyway.

Most of the time.

“Not much,” he answered his brother, taking a sip of his drink. “Being an instructor is a little different, but I like it so far. I get to do about four hops a day, so that’s been fun.”

Tim snorted into his whiskey. “I don’t understand why you love that shit,” he said, shivering, because he was Infantry at heart (like their father) and believed feet belonged firmly on the ground.

“He’s crazy,” John supplied with a hum, swirling his whiskey in his glass. “Always had a few screws loose, Tommy-boy, our resident adrenaline junkie.”

Tom just flashed a grin and winked. “It’s fun,” he shrugged, like he hadn’t sobbed into John’s shoulder for twenty minutes the day after he got back from the Gulf because he’d killed two people. 

John, bless his heart, had never told a soul.

Sometimes he liked his brothers a lot, okay. Other times he wanted to kill them. It was one of the perils of having siblings that any sibling could related to; he’d kill for them in a heartbeat, but he also fantasized about murdering them often, particularly when they were tap dancing on all his buttons.

“Hey I got asked about you yesterday,” Tim said suddenly, looking at him brightly. “Some flyboy in the Marines wanted to know if I knew you when he saw Kazansky on my chest. Thought he was going to cream his pants when I told him you were my brother.”

Tom hummed, noncommittal, aware of his father’s grunt at the fireplace and the fact he hadn’t said a fucking word since he walked in.

“You’re some kind of legend, man,” his little brother went on, because he’d never been able to take a hint in his entire fucking life. “His entire squadron came over to grill me about you, asking me if I knew anything about the Gulf. I told them no, but they were still pretty excited.”

“Our brother the legend,” John said, his grin wolfish, winking at Tom across the room.

If his father hadn’t been standing there, he would have flipped him off. Instead, he just took another sip of whiskey and glared at Tim in an effort to tell him to shut up with his mind.

 “I don’t know that your brother is the model to strive for,” the Colonel said gruffly, staring into the fire, “He should have been an aviator in the Corps.”

“Give it a rest, Sir,” Tim said sharply, because he was suicidal, apparently.

John was drinking whiskey like his life depended on it, eyes cutting to Tim, and Tom had forgotten he was glaring and was instead staring at Tim like he’d lost his mind.

“He’s one of two people on active duty across the entire military with air-to-air kills," Tim said pointedly, "And he graduated top of his class from fucking Annapolis, which I will now point out: he’s the only one who was smart enough to get in in the first place, sir.”

“Watch your language,” the Colonel growled, and Tim clicked his mouth shut.

“Sorry sir,” Tim growled back, not sounding sorry at all and stubbornly turning his eyes back to Tom. “That entire squadron seemed to think you were a God, Tom, so clearly, you’re doing something right.”

Tom had never wanted to kiss his brother’s stupid face so badly. He nodded once in thanks, glanced briefly at his father who was scowling into the fire, and then looked back at his brothers.

He appreciated the effort, he really did, but he could single-handedly save the entire world from impending doom, and still his father would do little more than grunt at him. It was just a fact of life.

John sighed into his whiskey and shook his head, and Tim just looked murderous, glaring at their father’s back and squeezing the glass so hard Tom was a little afraid it was going to crack between his fingers.

“Dinner,” his mother called, and Tom knocked the rest of the whiskey back to hide his relief at getting to escape whatever in the hell this conversation had been.

He was the first out of the room and tried not to feel too emotional about it when John caught up to him and knocked their shoulders together.

Sometimes, he really liked his brothers.

“Fucking uptight asshole,” Tim muttered from directly behind them, sounding murderous. “I wasn’t kidding, Tom, they wouldn’t stop grilling me for twenty fucking minutes. My Sergeant had to come save my ass with a fake emergency just to get them to leave me alone.”

Tom snorted at the image and shook his head. “It’s not that big of a deal,” he murmured.

“Uh, yeah, it fucking is,” John snorted, flicking his ear. “Dumbass.”

“Prick,” he shot back, punching John’s hip and making him grunt, because that was mostly how he and John showed affection; a side effect of them being barely a year apart.

Tim grabbed them both in headlocks that made them swear and nearly stagger into the small table in the foyer, their identical shouts of “Tim for god’s sake!” making everyone in the kitchen come to the doorway.

“Boys, cut it out,” their mother said sharply, hands on her hips, from her realm of the stove where she was overseeing food being put into serving dishes. “Come help us move all of this and make yourselves useful.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the chorused, flashing identical grins at her, and she just rolled her eyes and tried to hide her smile.

“You weren’t kidding mom, Tom actually is here, I was beginning to think he’d left the family forever,” Rachel drawled from her perch on the counter where she was plunking rolls into the basket. “Still with your stupid frosted tips, I see.”

“Still with your stupid face, I see,” he shot back without missing a beat, reaching over to tweak her nose because she’d always hated it and making her squawk and slap at his chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Hands off, you ugly fucker,” she hissed, shoving at him hard enough to make him grunt. “I still am in school, dumb fuck, I just get a long weekend that’s why I could come home.”

“Such language,” he drawled, taking the basket from her with a wink and folding the napkin over it.

“You’re so annoying,” Rachel observed furiously, turning instead to the mashed potatoes with a shake of her head.

“Not as annoying as you,” he promised, taking the platter of chicken in his other hand and heading to the dining room where John was already sitting next to his wife, Maggie, who was cradling his sleeping baby nephew Jack and berating three-year-old Ellie for getting out of her seat.

“I WANNA PLAY,” Ellie was bellowing, because she was a Kazansky and Kazansky’s were loud as all hell.

“After dinner,” John promised, sounding exhausted by the conversation already.

“I’m not hungry!” she shouted directly into his face, as Maggie rubbed her forehead and Jack kept right on sleeping because this clearly happened often enough to not disturb him.

“She’s definitely yours,” Maggie told John dryly, who flipped her off by scratching his eyebrow.

Ellie spotted him and stood so quickly she nearly toppled her chair backwards and was saved only by John’s quick reflex to grab the back of the chair. “UNCLE TOM!” she screeched, her tiny hands held up towards him making a grabby motion.

“Hey Ellie-girl,” Tom said with a laugh as he leaned over her chair to set the rolls and chicken down and then scooped her up, “We can play hide and seek after dinner if you promise to stay in your chair.”

Ellie squinted her blue eyes suspiciously and said, “Pwomise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he said back just as solemnly, smooching her little cheek and returning her to her chair with a wink.

“Okay,” she said happily, and didn’t fight her parents on the seating anymore.

“Thank you,” John mouthed, and Tom just grinned at him and shrugged.

“I’m the favorite,” he said smugly, because it was true; Ellie lost her little mind whenever she saw him and glommed onto him like glue whenever they were in the same room. It was sweet as hell and he adored her back just as much.

“Smug asshole,” Rachel muttered from across the table, rolling her eyes, but she was smiling so he didn’t take offense.

“Would you watch your language,” the Colonel said as he took his spot at the head of the table, as if every other word out of his mouth when children weren’t present wasn’t “fuck”.

Rachel batted her eyelashes. “Sorry daddy,” she said, and didn’t sound sorry in the least, which prompted the three boys to exchange looks and roll their eyes.

“Let’s say grace,” the Colonel said gruffly, and they all held hands and bowed their heads.

/

Tom volunteered to help with cleanup after dinner and cake to celebrate Tim’s birthday but was waved off, which left him time to run around the house chasing Ellie and trying to remember he was actually happy with his life, ignoring his father’s eyes boring into his back.

Sarah joined in the game, as did Tim, and the three of them had a grand old time. They looked forward to when Henry and Jack, still babies, could join in the fun.

He secretly hoped Bradley could join in, too, because Bradley deserved a family. His wasn’t perfect, but he was willing to share, and he hadn’t missed the excited gleam in his mother’s eyes at the prospect of another kid to smother in her love, biological or not. It was possible he’d played up the whole “orphan” thing for that exact reason and suspected she’d smother Maverick just the same once she met him.

Of course, he wasn’t perfect, and he let his guard down for just a split second, squeezed into the small space between a bed and the wall with Sarah, who was covering her mouth and giggling at the way Ellie was stomping around loud enough to wake the dead.

She was really fucking adorable, and they loved doing this with her because she always looked so pleased when she found them.

“You look happy, Tom,” Sarah whispered, reaching down to smooth her fingers over his forehead because it was right beside her hip.

“I am happy, Sare,” he promised, and realized it was true; he had a full belly, his siblings were (mostly) awesome, his mom loved him, he loved his job, and he had Maverick and Bradley.

“Hmm,” Sarah said, and she reached down further to poke him on his bare hip because his shirt had ridden up during his wiggle on the floor to get to his current position, bunched up under his shoulder blades and baring his navel to the world.

Tom squirmed at the contact, feeling a sharp pain, and squinted up at her in confusion.

“Wanna explain that?”

He looked down, and shit, Mav had sucked a hickey on his hip in the shower this morning and he’d completely fucking forgotten it was there. Sarah was staring down at him with her eyebrows in her hairline and he felt his face getting warm.

Sarah grinned knowingly. “Holy shit, you met someone,” she breathed, hands coming up to cover her mouth, eyes shining in excitement.

“Sarah,” he hedged, squeezing his eyes shut and suddenly wanting to cry, because what was he supposed to fucking say? I met someone, they make me happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and oh, by the way, they are a man?

“Tommy,” she whispered, sounding surprised, and he realized there was a tear leaking from his eye and reached up to wipe it away, angrily, because this as a part of himself he’d vowed to hide as long as he could; a part of himself he could only let out around Maverick, because the world didn’t accept it.

“Please don’t ask,” he said, staring hard at the wall and not looking at her. “Please, Sarah, please.”

“Oh, Tommy,” she whispered, and her hand cupped his jaw gently, fingers stroking over his cheek. “You’re not getting married for a long time, are you?”

“No,” he breathed, still not looking at her even as she tried to turn his head. Part of him wanted to leave their hiding spot, leave her warm touch, pretend this never happened and never bring it up again, but another part of him longed for it, for her love and acceptance.

“Tom, look at me,” she whispered, and he closed his eyes, unsure if he could without losing his shit. “Thomas.”

He did look at her then, because she never, ever called him Thomas.

“You’re my big brother,” she said, as firmly as she could given they were whispering as Ellie stomped around looking for them. “You’re my big brother, and I love you more than words could ever say, no matter what, you big, stupid, perfect moron. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, Sare,” he murmured, turning his face into her thigh and pressing hard as her hands carded through his hair gently. “I understand.”

She pressed a warm kiss to his temple and he hugged her around the knees, fighting back his tears, and wished for a better world than the one they were in right that moment, a world where Bradley, Ellie, Jack, and Henry could be whoever they fucking wanted to be without the fear that clawed at his throat every single day, the same fear that drove him to be perfect in the vain hope that maybe, if he was, the world would accept him.

/

After dinner and his conversation with Sarah he’d been too wound up to go home, so he’d headed to the O Club instead of his house, wishing he could just go to Maverick’s but he’d agreed that every night wasn’t a good idea if they wanted to keep this on the down low so his brain had overrode his heart.

“Why does your face look like someone pissed in your cheerios, Tommy?”

Tom looked up to see Slider standing there with two beers, one of which he slid across the table to him. He accepted it wordlessly and took a sip so he’d have time to formulate his answer.

“This is just my face,” he decided, because it was neutral, and he tried very hard to ignore the way Ron’s eyebrows lowered and his mouth turned down at the corners in the way that had always read target acquired .

“So how fucked is Maverick?” Ron said pointedly, and Ice resisted the urge to kick him as hard as he could in the balls, because Ron Kerner had never been subtle a day in his life. “I haven’t seen him since that one night he came out to drink with us when you were still on the Roosevelt.”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, watching as the door to the bar swung open. Hollywood came in followed closely by Sundown, who was arguing with Wolf, the trio trailed by an irritated-looking Chipper, whose call sign had been awarded to him because of his near permanent bitchface.

Ice waited to answer until everyone was around the table because he knew they’d all want to know. 

They proved him correct a heartbeat later when Chipper took a swig of his beer and said, “So, is Mav alive or what? I haven’t seen him anywhere.”

“He’s alive,” Ice confirmed, taking another sip of his beer and ignoring a woman at the bar who was trying to make eye contact. He was definitely not in the mood for faking it, not tonight. “Tired, stressed, still a fucking moron, but he’s alive.”

“Is he sleeping?”

“Define ‘sleeping’,” Ice sighed as he rubbed his eye. “It’s a little better, though.”

“So is Maverick not why you called us all here tonight?” Hollywood said in his best fake gangster voice, even though Tom had done nothing of the sort; it was a weeknight and they were all in town and he’d known they’d be here, because they weren’t ever anywhere else.

“You’re an idiot,” Slider snorted, flicking Wood’s ear and making him yelp and sock him on the shoulder.

“Blow me, Kerner,” Wood retorted, cheerful as ever.

Sundown leaned forward in between the bickering duo with an eye roll. “Stop it, you dumb fucks,” he ordered, turning his attention back to Tom. “What’s with Mav, then? Is it the kid, Kazansky?”

“Listen,” Ice said to the men grouped around his table who had become his brothers, in bond, blood, sweat, whatever. They all stopped and gave him their undivided attention. “Listen, Goose has a kid.”

“We know,” Slider deadpanned. “We’ve met him.”

“That’s not what the fuck I’m saying,” Ice cut him off, “Let me finish. Goose has a kid. Goose died on our watch, and now his mom is gone, and Bradley’s just got Maverick left and he’s only one person.”

Every man around the table exchanged looks and then nodded as one, managing to read between the lines to what Ice was really trying to say: Goose couldn’t be there to raise his kid, and neither could Carole, so somebody else was going to have to step up and fill that gap; several someones, because it took a village. 

“Goose was a good guy,” Chipper said, unusually grave, staring down at the grain of the table. “I still can’t believe it happened. Or that the poor kid lost his mom so soon after.”

“All he’s got left is Maverick,” Ice told them quietly, trailing his finger around the rim of his glass. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

They all stared at each other over the top of their beer glasses.

Wolf was the first to break the silence, scratching his chin. “It would be the least we could do,” he said, quietly. “I respected Goose. We all did. Everybody liked him, and he didn’t make it a secret how much he loved his boy.”

Nick Bradshaw had waxed poetic about the boy to whomever he could get to sit still long enough to listen. That person had usually been Maverick, but each of them had been subjected to Goose’s my kid is the best kid on the fucking planet speech too many times to count. Hell, they could probably all recite it word-for-word.

“He wants to start baseball,” Ice told them with a slight grimace; he’d never liked the sport, but Mav and Pete practically salivated over nightly games on the TV and were planning on going to some games locally after school started and things settled down. “We already bought him a mitt and a bat. A little T-ball stand, too.”

“We could sign him up for a little league,” Slider said, sipping his beer. “All pitch in to pay for it. Doesn’t he start school next week, too?”

“Monday,” Ice confirmed, realizing the swooping feeling in his stomach was nervousness at the thought. “We’re going school shopping tomorrow at lunch. Back to School Night is this Friday.”

“He’ll need school supplies,” Wood said, digging his wallet out of his back pocket and then staring at the bills in his hand with his brows furrowed. “Fuck, what do you even buy to send a kid to kindergarten? Pencils, right?”

“Probably,” Sundown agreed, peeling off his own money. “Crayons, does he have a backpack?” He glanced at Ice, who nodded. “He does, okay. Uh — paper. Probably paper?”

“Paint…?” Chipper said, scratching his chin. “Let me call my sister tonight and ask,” he sighed. “My niece is supposed to start Kindergarten this year and she’d know better than us who spend most of our time in the middle of the ocean and have zero children between us.”

“One child between us now,” Slider corrected. “I’ll call my sister-in-law, my twin nephews are in first grade. She’ll know some things he might need. I’ll make a list and call you in the morning. Hey, Tom, can he write his name? I remember the boys having to learn how to do that.”

“Of course Bradley can write his name, Kerner, he’s not an idiot,” Wood said drily, and Ice snorted because how the fuck would he know, he’d never interacted much with Bradley, even if he was correct and Bradley could write his name.

Ice just smiled into his beer as his friends (brothers) descended into bickering, gesturing at each other with twenty dollar bills and trying to decide how much everything would cost, trying not to laugh at the pissy look he knew Maverick was going to give him in Target tomorrow when he pulled the bills out to pay and explained where they came from.

It would be an equally pissy look when these idiots started popping up everywhere helping him do things. They meant well, but they were insane.

For Bradley, though, it would be worth it. 

Bradley William Bradshaw would want for nothing. Not for playmates, not for encouragers, not for family, friends, love, affection, adventures.

It was the least they could do.

/

Target had been a fucking nightmare (he was going to be mad about the Eagle forever, probably, and was collecting patches to iron onto Bradley’s blue lunchbox because it would make it way cooler looking anyways), but Maverick’s pissy look in the checkout line when he’d pulled out nearly three hundred dollars in twenties and explained where they’d come from had been totally worth it.

Back to School Night had been worth it, too, and settled some of the low-churning anxiety deep in his gut, because Bradley had been smiling at the end of it and Maverick no longer looked like he was being walked to the gallows. Even if he didn’t particularly enjoy the way the teacher had looked at Maverick like he was a snack, no matter how hard she’d tried to hide it, and was glad only that Maverick (as per usual) was dense as hell and hadn’t even noticed.

Ice had. He’d noticed, and was pretty sure Miss Anderson had noticed him noticing if her flush at his raised eyebrows had meant anything.

It was fine, really, because at the end of the day he was the one in Pete’s bed.

/

“A barbecue at Mav’s place, Tommy?”

Ice looked up from his grocery list at his best friend who was sitting across the table from him in his house with that target acquired look locked and loaded, because he couldn’t leave well enough alone and had followed him home after the O Club, because tonight was a No Maverick night and he was a little pissy about it, but trying his best to deal. 

“Yeah,” he said neutrally, because it wasn’t like he could say anything else. “You like barbecues, asshole.”

Slider’s brows furrowed and he gave him the look that suggested he was being a moron. “So how much time are you spending with him? I’ve barely seen or spoken to you since you switched to Top Gun.”

Tom’s heart skipped in his chest. “A lot,” he said, cautiously, setting his pencil down, because the answer was pretty much every other night and usually every day on the weekends. “I went with them to Back to School Night last night.”

Ron just kept right on staring and Ice made an irritated noise. He hated it when people turned his own tactics against him.

“What,” he said, impatiently, waving his hand to suggest Slider spit it out already. 

“You’re forgetting how well I know you, asshole,” Ron said calmly. 

Tom bit back his groan because it was true. Ron had known him since the Academy; had changed his mind about being a pilot because he’d wanted to be his back seater instead. Had been the most loyal friend he’d ever had and had never told a soul he’d seen him making out with a man off base their freshman year; had instead fashioned himself like an overprotective watch dog and helped him keep up the ruse of being straight so he didn’t get kicked out. 

“Yeah, probably,” Tom agreed, rolling the pencil across his knuckles. “Say what you want to say, Kerner.”

“Does he know you’re in love with him?”

The pencil clattered to the table and he scooped it up immediately, his face flushing and his eyes flashing in a glare. 

“I’m not—”

“Tom.”

Ron was looking at him, still, and his expression hadn’t changed. Tom swallowed, hard, and resisted the urge to roll the pencil across his knuckles again. It would betray his nerves, even as he knew Ron could see right through him and had always been able to. 

“No,” he said, quietly. “He’s a little slow on the uptake.”

“You’ve never known how to love someone subtly, Tommy,” Ron reminded him with a sigh, shoving his hands through his hair. “You’re all in or you’re all out.”

Tom flushed a little but it was true. He’d always kept his emotions close to his chest for that very reason and he trusted people rarely. Ron and Pete were the only people he let see his whole self for multiple reasons. 

“Hey,” Ron said, reaching forward to grab his hand and squeeze it. “I’m happy for you, man.”

He didn’t trust his voice so he just nodded. “This is probably a bad idea, Ron,” he said quietly, staring at Ron’s fingers over his own without really seeing them. “I’m risking my career. His career.”

“Some things are worth the risk,” Ron reminded him, drawing his hand back. “I think he’s a cocky little bastard, but what I think doesn’t really matter. Do you think he’s worth it?”

Tom thought of the way Pete curled into him, the way he smiled at him, the way he cradled Bradley so gently in his hands. Thought of the pain he tried to hide, the way he looked at him sometimes like he didn’t think he was real and couldn’t believe he wanted to be there, wanted to touch him. 

Thought of how Maverick had looked that first night in the O Club, eyes flashing and mouth smirking with Goose at his elbow, devastatingly handsome and eyes tracking his movements as he munched on peanuts to distract himself from how badly he’d wanted to kiss him, even then, moments after speaking to him for the first time. 

“Yeah,” he whispered to the tabletop, because talking louder was impossible around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, Ron, he’s worth everything.”

“Okay,” Ron whispered back, reaching across the table and squeezing his hand one more time before withdrawing. “Then he’s it, then, and we’ll figure it out.”

Tom really didn’t deserve Ron, was the thing, but he was glad for him, anyhow.

/

Tom had known Pete was a little fucked up, after Goose. Knew about the nightmares; hell, shared nightmares of his own (always featuring both of them crashing head-first into the canopy, featured Pete’s face covered in blood the same way Goose’s must have been, his skin cold and clammy and blue).

The librarian had just tutted at him when he asked for books on helping with trauma, and directed him to more resources than he knew existed. He’d poured over them on the nights he wasn’t next to Maverick; learned how to help calm panic attacks and anxiety, in a deeper sense than his own research as a teenager after he’d experienced one himself.

Once, in the Academy, he’d gone to a therapist off base and paid for it in cash. She’d told him he bottled everything up and would experience more panic attacks if he didn’t find an outlet.

He’d found an outlet—flying and intense exercise—and never gone back to her, but her words had haunted him ever since. Tom didn’t know how not to bottle things up, because perfection was all he’d ever known and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do if he wasn’t perfect, because he’d always been perfect and worked his ass off to be it.

Or at least, nearly perfect, he was at least self aware enough that he knew not everyone was perfect. Knew, too, that it probably wasn’t healthy how much pressure he put on himself but in his darkest hours he could hear his father’s voice calling him weak, useless, and many other things he didn’t like to think about, and it just made anger burn in his gut and his drive to be perfect even stronger.

So, yeah, trauma. He wasn’t a stranger to it; his trauma was just a different kind.

Pete had snapped when he’d asked about Charlie, and it had cut deep, even as he recognized it as a basic defense mechanism. Knew Pete wasn’t mad at him, hadn’t meant to snap at him, but it didn’t make it sting any less.

He’d figured Pete out, over the long months of knowing him, and knew Pete’s biggest fear was everyone leaving him behind. Unfortunately life had shown him he had a reason to fear it, because he had been left alone with only Bradley in his little family unit.

And Ice, if he played his cards right, but that would take time.

He really had meant it when he said he wasn’t mad, though, even if it had been partially a lie. It wasn’t Pete he was mad at.

Reading was different than seeing, and when Pete was in front of him turning white and gasping for air, the panic had clawed up his own chest, because for a moment there, he’d actually been afraid that this was it and he was losing Pete forever.

“Breathe,” he’d begged him, pressing knuckles hard into his solar plexus as the book suggested, watching as Pete wheezed in one breath, and then another, and kept on begging him to breathe as he cradled his face between his shaking palms, knowing this would be added into his nightmares, because seeing Pete white-faced and blue-lipped shaking uncontrollably and struggling to draw breath had easily been in the top three most terrifying moments of his entire fucking life.

Pete’s face had been as cold as ice and he’d trembled in terror as he struggled to draw in breath after breath, even as he watched the pink flood back; watched his blue lips turn back to pink, a flush come back to his cheeks, his tear-filled red eyes refocus and look at him.

The confession that Pete had wished it was him and not Goose hadn't surprised him; he’d known Pete felt like Goose’s death was his fault, probably wished every day that he could make some kind of deal and switch their places, but Tom was selfish.

He was selfish, and God could be mad at him (he was already going to Hell, according to people who followed the good book, anyway, not that he believed in that shit) but he was so fucking glad that Pete was there, in his arms.

Trembling, shaking, crying, yes. But alive, so wonderfully alive, his cold skin warming under his hands, his wheezing breaths calming to a normal pattern, forehead solid against his jaw.

Tom buried his face in the crook of his neck and curled around him, squeezing him as tight as he dared, and just breathed with him and tried not to cry, whispered his own confession into Pete’s skin and prayed to whatever god was listening or cared that the other man wouldn’t hate him for being glad he’d survived when Goose had died.

Pete shifted in his arms and he let him, released his hold. Pete rolled over in his arms until they were chest to chest. Those gorgeous green eyes just looked at him for a long, long moment, and he couldn't resist cradling Pete’s face and pressing their foreheads together.

“Come on,” he whispered, shifting a little more upright and hugging Pete to him loosely. “Let’s get back in bed, sweetheart.”

If Pete objected to the term, he didn’t say anything, he just allowed himself to be leveraged up and back under the covers.

Tom curled around him, pulled him close, and was relieved when Pete’s hands clutched at his sides hard enough to bruise.

“I’m not going anywhere, Pete,” he promised, nuzzling the side of his head, wishing he could take away Pete’s pain. The best he could do was hold onto him, though, and hoped Pete knew that.

“I’m starting to get that,” Pete rasped into his neck, releasing his death grip and smoothing the T-shirt back over his hip. “Tom, I,” he trailed off, swallowing a few times, and his voice sounded thick with tears.

“Don’t,” Tom said, kissing the corner of his jaw, the curve of his cheek, his temple. “It’s okay, Pete. I’ve got you.”

“Tell me a story,” Pete whispered, still shaking faintly. “Anything.”

Help me forget, was what he was really asking, and Ice shifted slightly, sliding his hand under Pete’s shirt to feel his skin.

“Well, I’ve got four siblings,” he said to the ceiling, “And none of us get along all that well when together, but we love each other, you know? We just drive each other nuts. My dad is a hardass, always has been, and he’s like the Colonel around us, doesn't really know how to treat us because he missed most of our childhoods on deployments all over the world so he treats us like subordinates.”

Pete hummed, and was clearly listening, because his fingers were trailing absent patterns over his hip and side.

“My youngest brother, Tim, gets away with the most, and one day, he decided he was going to stick it to dad for being so mean all the time,” he continued. “I think he was maybe five? Anyway, the Colonel hates frogs, right? Despises them, and Tim gets it in his little head to go frog hunting, and we helped him because we had no idea what the little shit was planning.”

“Frogs are cute,” Pete said, and his voice sounded more normal even if he didn’t lift his head.

“Not to the Colonel,” he snorted. “We must have caught fifty of the things in the little river that runs through the base.”

“He put them in your dad’s underwear drawer, didn’t he?”

“Not quite,” he snorted, running his fingers through Pete’s hair and smiling to himself when Pete went boneless with a sigh, because he hadn’t been kidding when he teased the man for being like a cat. “We hear dad bellowing from his study after dinner, and lo and behold, every single goddamn frog was in that room. The little bastard had tipped the bucket over under his desk and they were hopping all over the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. The Colonel was so pissed and none of us would fess up to doing it, so he made sure we ate gruel for a week, but it was totally worth it.”

“Thought you were a rule follower,” Pete murmured, pressing a kiss over his heart, and Tom smiled up at the ceiling at the gesture.

“I’ve been known to break the rules on occasion,” he said.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, one control tower buzz does not a rule breaker make.” Pete yawned and snuggled closer. “Your family sounds nice.”

“Yeah, they’re alright I guess,” he muttered. “Meddling assholes, the lot of them, but I love them.”

“Your dad kind of sounds like a dick, though.”

Ice hummed, because it was true. “Yeah,” he agreed. “To me, especially, but it’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Mav lifted his head to squint at him in the darkness. “Well, I happen to think you’re pretty great,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’d’ve been wasted in the fucking Marines.”

Tom smiled and cupped the side of his face in the near-darkness, murmuring, “My thoughts exactly, wingman.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I almost got court martialed?”

“No,” Tom said, rolling his eyes, “But I bet that’s a hell of a story.”

“Well, it involved an admiral’s daughter and an F-18,” Pete said with a small, bashful grin, and Tom just groaned. 

“You,” Tom said slowly, shaking his head, “Are insane.”

Pete just hummed and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s been said before,” he said, loftily.

“Jesus fucking christ,” the blond muttered, because this was his life now, and he had the feeling he’d be pulling this idiot’s ass out of the fire for the foreseeable future.

“Well, it started, as most things do, with a bet,” Pete began, talking a little louder over Ice’s loud groan because he’d had about enough of betting since he came back to Top Gun, and settled back down on Tom’s chest to finish the tale.

Tom held him while he dozed off halfway through the story that made him seriously question Mav’s self preservation skills (because taking an F-18 up unauthorized was fucking crazy, especially with a goddamn civilian in the back seat, and especially when said civilian was Penny-fucking-Benjamin, daughter of Admiral Benjamin, fuck), feeling sleepy himself, and made a mental note to check out more books about trauma and possibly a self-help book about What To Do When Your Partner Is Insane, if one even existed, before he nodded off, too, Pete’s breath warm on the side of his neck, heartbeat steady against his side.

Chapter Text

A light tickling sensation on his flanks pulled him from a deep, dreamless sleep, and for a moment he was confused about where he was; then, he realized hands were skating along his sides, warm like brands, fingertips trailing over sensitive bare skin.

“That tickles,” he mumbled without opening his eyes, even as he pressed into the touch; felt Tom snort out a quiet laugh and press a hot, open-mouthed kiss over his heart, between his pecs, over his right collarbone, mouthing at the shape of it under his skin. “Mmm, I could get used to this,” he added, reaching up to card his hands through Ice’s soft, soft hair, blinking his eyes open to see his wingman looking down at him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Tom said quietly, smiling at him in the semi-darkness of his bedroom. “How’d you sleep, you rule breaking psychopath?”

That startled a laugh out of him. Trust Tom to crack a joke to lighten the tension after last night. He didn’t really want to talk about his panic attack; they’d talked it out already, and he really did feel okay, mostly, shoving the dark memory down as far as it would go to deal with at a later time. Healthy? Probably not, but necessary, if he was going to get through this morning and the challenge it presented. 

“I’m not a psychopath,” he retorted, stretching his arms out with a yawn and delighting in the way Tom propped himself up on his elbow to better see the play of his muscles under his skin. “Penny enjoyed herself.”

“Oh, I’m sure she did,” Tom muttered, ducking his head to bite at his nipple and making him jerk in surprise, letting out a gasp and shifting his hips, feeling Tom hard against him.

Pete bick back a moan at the sensation, even through the fabric of their boxers, and felt gooseflesh rising on his arms and across his chest as Tom grinned down at him, wolfish, and rolled his hips deliberately.

“Jesus fuck,” he whined, arching up into the feeling, hands spasming on Tom’s lower back. “What time is it?”

“Five,” Ice hummed, pressing lazy, open-mouthed kisses across his chest, rolling his hips again and grinning into his skin at his choked-off gasp. 

“You fucking asshole,” Pete complained, even as he grabbed two handfuls of Tom’s glorious, gorgeous ass to pull him down harder.

“Mmm.” Ice clamped his mouth over his nipple, swirling his tongue in a circle, and Pete nearly shouted, clapping his hand over his mouth just in time; shocked at how sensitive his skin was. “Interesting,” the blond mused, and then did it again, adding his teeth, and it was everything Pete could do to shove his knuckle in his mouth to muffle his shocked moan. “Very interesting.”

“Knock it off,” Pete rasped, knee jerk, shoving at his shoulder even though he really didn’t want Tom to stop. “‘m not a girl.”

Ice snorted surprised laughter into his side and looked up at him. He arched an eyebrow and reached down to palm his dick through his boxers, drawling out a deliberate, “I’m perfectly aware of that, Mitchell.”

“Fuck me,” he muttered, arching his hips up into the heel of Tom’s hand, trying to breathe steadily as the man’s fingers traced along the waistline of his boxers.

“Hmm, we don’t have time for that,” Ice murmured, fingers slipping under the elastic, tracing everywhere but where he actually wanted them.

Pete’s breath stuttered because that was not what he’d meant; he’d meant it more as a “goddamn it” in Ice’s general direction, but the spike of want that arced through him was like a livewire and his hands spasmed, hard, on Ice’s ribs, unable to stop the whimper that passed between his lips.

Ice had stilled his hand and was watching him, intense. He murmured, “Interesting,” again, fingers sneaking lower. “Would you like that, Pete?”

“I,” he stammered, feeling his face heating up. “I don’t know,” he whispered, because while he’d had… encounters… with other men in his youth, they’d never, ever done that, not fully. He shrugged one shoulder, a little self conscious, and muttered, “I like it with girls.”

“You can like sex with both boys and girls, you know,” Ice murmured, sinking his teeth into the meat of Maverick’s pec just to hear his surprised yelp because he was an asshole and immediately soothing it with his tongue. “It is something that exists.”

“Do you,” Maverick gasped as his hands sank into the soft strands of Ice’s hair. “Like both?”

“No, Mav,” he whispered, peppering kisses across Maverick’s frankly obscene abs (he knew they were obscene, he worked his ass off for them, because it was worth it when people checked him out but it was really worth it when Tom looked at him like he was doing currently), tracing his tongue between the grooves and making Mav bite his lip hard enough to bleed as he shivered. 

Mav looked down at him, and knew what Ice was thinking as that stupid smirk came back; knew he probably looked like a mess; his cheeks were flushed, his forehead was sweaty, his hair was an absolute wreck from sleeping.

He privately thought to himself Ice had never looked better, eyes bright in the predawn semi-darkness, all lean hard lines of him, hair a mess from his fingers; warm skin pressed to his, fingers driving him absolutely fucking crazy.

“No?” Maverick murmured, trailing his fingers along Ice’s strong jaw.

“No,” he repeated softly, turning to press a kiss to the center of Mav’s palm, and the gesture was so tender that Mav had to swallow in a tight throat, because no one had ever been so soft with him.

“I think I do like both,” Mav admitted. Ice’s pupils were blown so wide that all he could see was a thin rim of blue as the man met his gaze and nodded, no judgment in his expression. “But mostly, I just really fucking like you.”

Ice grinned at that, trailing kisses ever lower, his hands roaming along Pete’s strong thighs, the delicate curve of his calves, the soft skin at the back of his knees, before he sighed and shifted so they were chest to chest again, brushed their noses together. “We can stop if you want, Pete,” he said, and while he was obviously very turned on if the hard dick against his hip was anything to go by, he also clearly didn’t want to push him.

And listen, he’d had a panic attack, okay, and it wasn’t that big of a fucking deal. He was fine, but more importantly, he was alive, and few things made him feel as alive as when Tom was touching him like this. 

Tom’s chest was pressed to his, trapping his dick between their bodies, and it was a heady feeling; pleasure burning down his spine, hips twitching upwards for friction, unable to help it. His dick was telling him he’d better do something about it right-fucking-now, so he took a deep breath and stared his wingman down, appreciating his restraint but it was the exact opposite of what he wanted right this second.

Mav’s hands sank back into Tom’s soft hair, holding tight, as he managed to rasp, “You’d better fucking not leave me hanging, Kazansky.”

The blond pressed his laughter into Mav’s pec—equally as ridiculous as his abs, really—and lifted his head to look Mav in the eyes. 

They were still clear, Mav knew; still bright, and burning with determination, because if he didn’t get an orgasm out of this he was going to be spectacularly annoyed with his wingman. 

“Or what, Mitchell?” he murmured, nosing along his jaw, sucking on his pulse point just because he could but letting go before he left a mark.

Maverick squirmed beneath him with a huff, biting back another moan because the way he shifted pressed their dicks together through their boxers and it felt fucking amazing, and now he was pretty sure Ice was just fucking with him, so he grabbed at Ice’s hips and took matters into his own hands.

A surprised oof left Ice when Maverick switched their positions, looming over him with his eyes flashing. He paused there as their breaths mixed before one hand reached up to trace gently over his face.

“You’re so beautiful, Tom,” he murmured, because it was true and he couldn’t not tell him when Ice was literally plastered against him, pressed together from chest to knees.

“You’re not bad yourself, Pete,” he said with a laugh, sliding his hands up Maverick’s sides and down again, lingering over his ass, fingers slipping under the waistline of his boxers leaving his skin tingling in their wake.

“Tom, we’re wearing too many clothes,” he whispered, ducking his head to suck at his pulse point.

“Yeah,” Ice agreed, shoving him off gently, and they wasted no time kicking their boxers off, Ice’s hands reaching for him almost before he’d gotten the damn thing off his foot. It sailed somewhere across the room and he didn’t care; let Ice pull him back where he’d been, looming over him.

Ice’s hands on his hips shifted Mav’s weight and he spread his own legs a little so Pete’s knees slid between his, and they both let out groans at the sudden friction of their dicks sliding together. 

“Whoa,” Pete rasped, his hands on either side of Ice’s shoulders as pleasure zinged up his spine and his arms prickled with gooseflesh. 

“See,” Ice teased, rolling his hips experimentally and watching the high flush on Mav’s cheeks, his eyes fluttering closed and mouth dropping open as a moan punched out of him. “It’s not so different,” he murmured, doing it again and biting back his own moan, eyes intent on Pete’s face.

“It’s different,” Mav rasped, unable to stop the rolling of his own hips, desperate for friction of any kind, dick leaking precome. It’s better, he tried to say, but all rational thought fled when Tom’s fingers finally, finally, closed around them both, and he had to bite hard into Tom’s pec to muffle the obscene moan he let out at the feeling of their dicks sliding together, slicked with precome, and Tom’s dick jerked against his at the sound.

“Quiet, Pete,” Ice said, and if he was aiming for amusement he missed, his voice rough like he’d been gargling rocks.

Pete wanted to close his eyes and just be in the moment when Tom started to stroke them both, but he wanted to see him, so he balanced his weight on his elbows and lifted his head to look at Tom’s face, curling his hand in the hair at the top of his head and holding on, his other hand cradling the man’s face, watching how Tom’s eyelashes fluttered.

God, Tom was so fucking beautiful like this, was the thing, flush high on his cheeks, pupils blown wide, lips bitten red as he held back his sounds as best he could.

They were rutting against each other without much finesse but neither of them cared, chasing that heady feeling, mouths open and panting, Tom’s free hand grasping hard at his ass to help guide his movements. Pete’s biceps were burning but he ignored them, ducked his head to suck Tom’s lower lip, bite it with his teeth, muffle his moans in the other’s mouth as they made out sloppily, the rhythm of Tom’s hand stuttering for a moment and Pete knew he was close, could feel his own orgasm building low in his gut.

“Come on, Tom,” he whispered, panting into his cheek, muscles in his back and ass burning in the best workout imaginable, using his chin to turn Ice’s head so he could suck on his pulse point and Tom moaned beneath him and arched up, hard, as he came, warmth splashing across both their chests; it added more slickness and Tom’s hand didn’t stop, and Pete thrust into the circle of his fingers, grunting when Tom’s thumb swirled over his tip, pressed firmly, and he had to muffle his shout into Ice’s neck as he came, trembled hard as Ice stroked him through it until the blond whimpered, oversensitive, and Pete stilled his hips.

“Jesus Christ,” Pete rasped into Tom’s sweaty skin, biting gently and smiling when Tom jerked beneath him with a grunt and wiped his hand on the sheets. Yeah, he definitely had a thing for his neck, and Tom didn’t seem to mind it one bit because he was tipping his head back to give him better access.

His biceps felt like they were on fire and he couldn’t really hold himself up any longer, had to lower himself. It pressed their chests together, and it was a little disgusting with the wet sticky feeling but he didn’t care at that moment because Tom’s mouth was closer like this and he could kiss him easier, sliding their tongues together.

“You’re really hot,” he told the blond as he lifted his head, and grinned when Ice rolled his eyes and snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. “That was fucking awesome.”

“Yeah,” Ice agreed, lips curling in a pleased smile as his hands palmed his ass, sliding up to his lower back to press his thumbs into the dimples at the bottom of his spine. “But if we don’t move right now we’re going to get stuck like this,” he warned.

“You’re ruining the afterglow, Kazansky,” Pete murmured, but he couldn’t stop kissing him; pressed his lips to every inch of Tom he could reach, like this, licked sweat off his skin because he could, because Tom was warm and alive and content beneath him.

“You can kiss me in the shower, c’mon,” Tom insisted, nudging at him to get him to move and yeah, okay, Pete kind of got his point because when they peeled apart it was definitely sticky, but he didn’t really fucking care, trailing after his wingman to the shower.

Pete did kiss him in the shower, pushing him up against the tiles after they’d rinsed off, trailing his hands over every inch of the blond.

“What’re you doing,” Ice murmured, hands palming his shoulder blades, but he wasn’t protesting.

“Mmm, I want to lick you all over,” he confessed, because it was true.

“You do have a bit of an oral fixation,” Tom snorted.

“Like you have a leg to stand on,” Pete shot back, glancing up at him with an eyebrow arched. “Mister I-chew-on-pens-obscenely.”

Tom shrugged and shot him a bashful grin. “We all have our quirks.”

“I know what you were doing,” Pete told him, kissing him over his heart, tracing his spine with his fingers and then turning him so he could follow the path his fingers had just taken with his mouth and tongue.

“And what’s that,” Ice challenged, leaning his elbows on the tile and curving his back to give him better access to all that gorgeous tanned skin, muscles flexing deliciously, the knobs of his spine standing out in stark contrast with the strong curves of his shoulder blades.

“You’re trying to distract me from Bradley’s first day of school.” Pete mapped the sharp wings of his shoulder blades with his tongue, traced his flexing trap muscles with his mouth, slid his hands down his flanks to his hips, fingers bumping over his ribs. “God, you’re so fucking gorgeous,” he added in a mutter, shaking his head in disbelief, because someone like Tom Kazansky shouldn’t be real, it just wasn’t fair.

“Hmm,” he murmured, shifting back into his touch and ignoring the second comment, “Is it working?”

Pete kissed between his shoulder blades and turned his head to press his cheek there, hugging him hard as Tom straightened, a little, let him plaster along his back, and a part of him wished they could go for round two as his dick twitched in interest but knew they didn’t have time.

“Yeah,” he confessed, letting the water pounding on his shoulders warm his back as Ice’s fever-hot skin warmed his front. “I’d say so.”

“I live to please,” Tom joked, but it didn’t actually sound like much of a joke.

When he turned Tom in his arms his wingman was giving him that look, again, his eyes soft and fond, hands coming up to curve around his jaw, fingers sliding into his hair, and he didn’t say anything, just looked at him as Pete hugged him around his lower back, pulled him close.

Pete looked right back, hummed, pleased, as Ice’s fingers slid into his hair, and closed his eyes when Ice pressed a tender kiss to his brow, right between his eyebrows, in what he was starting to suspect was one of Ice’s favorite spots.

“Let me take care of you?” Tom asked, reaching for the shampoo bottle with slight hesitation, as if Pete could say no.

“I fucking love it when you wash my hair,” he said eagerly, pressing his chin into Ice’s chest just over his dog tags to grin up at him.

Tom just snorted at him, but he did what he’d asked, anyway, and nearly put him to sleep with his fingers, nails scraping gently over his scalp and making him all but purr like a damn cat, because apparently orgasms and Tom’s company put him in a really great fucking mood despite the early hour and the looming start of school in a little over two hours.

He washed Tom’s hair in turn, and neither of them spoke as they went through their morning routine, shoulders brushing at the sink as they cleaned their teeth and styled their hair. They dressed in silence, too, and a quick glance at the clock reminded Mav they had about four minutes until Bradley was up and ready to go.

“Hey,” Ice told him, as he reached for the door handle of his bedroom, turning him gently and pressing him up into the wood, and Pete let out his breath in a whoosh at the feeling of him pressing against him.

Pete hadn’t been kidding, alright, he fucking loved it when Tom pinned him against things. He smiled and looked up at him. “Yeah?” he whispered, and Tom chewed on his lip for a moment in thought and then he was kissing him and hooly mother of god, his pants were already getting tight.

Tom pulled back before it got too hot and heavy, pressed another kiss to his lips, lingering, and then pulled away, one hand cradling his jaw. “Today is going to go fine,” he said, soft and gentle, pressing their foreheads together. “We’ve got this.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, squeezing his arms around Tom’s hips and forcing himself to calm the fuck down. “Yeah, we do.”

There was a thump from Bradley’s room and they pulled apart.

“I’ll make waffles,” Tom told him, ducking down for one last kiss before he nudged Pete out of the way so he could open the door.

“You’re my favorite,” Pete said to his retreating back, and grinned at the way Tom nearly tripped on thin air, admiring the way Tom filled out his jeans and shirt until he was out of sight down the stairs.

“Hey, baby Goose,” he said cheerfully as Bradley’s door swung open to reveal the boy, squinting up at him with pillow creases on his cheek, hair a wild messy tangle.

“I have school today,” Bradley said, and didn’t sound particularly excited, but he also didn’t sound terrified. He was clutching Spike in one arm and looked apprehensive.

“Yeah, you do,” he said, and tried to keep the cheer in his voice. “Half day, just like we talked about, and then the van will take you to daycare with Miss Pam and me and Ice will be there to pick you up and take you to dinner to celebrate.”

Bradley frowned at him. “Can we get burgers?” he pleaded.

“Hamburgers and fries and a milkshake,” Pete promised, scooping him up and holding him close, because he hated the look of uncertainty on Bradley’s face.

“Okay,” Bradley whispered into his neck. “Where’s Ice? He promised he’d be here today.”

“He’s making waffles,” Pete told him, carrying him down the stairs. “Just for you, buddy, because they’re your favorite.”

“With strawberries?”

“You bet.”

“And whipped cream?”

“Absolutely,” Pete promised, smooching him on the cheek and smiling when Bradley giggled.

“He makes them better than you,” the boy told him. “You burn them sometimes, Mav.”

“Hey, I try my best,” he whined, but smiled again at Bradley’s giggle.

“Yours are still yummy,” Bradley told him loyally, and squirmed to get down as soon as they got to the kitchen so he could run for Ice instead.

“Hey baby Goose,” Ice greeted him with a fond grin, abandoning the waffles for a second to lift him into a hug, rubbing his back.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Bradley whispered, pressing his face into Tom’s neck, and Mav leaned against the counter and watched Ice’s eyes shine in the way that hinted he was trying not to cry.

“Me too,” Ice whispered, kissing the side of his head and holding him with one arm as he finished the waffles. “You’re going to rock your first day, Bradley. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

“Mav said we can go get hamburgers,” Bradley told him as he pulled back out of his tight hug and looked at the blond, who was splitting his attention between him and the waffles.

“Well if we get hamburgers we gotta get a milkshake,” Ice told him with a smile.

“A big one?”

“The biggest one they’ve got, with extra cherries.”

“I love you,” Bradley declared, hugging him around the neck again with a happy sigh, and he grinned at Mav over Ice’s shoulder.

Pete swallowed at the sight they made and couldn’t resist moving forward, putting his hands on Tom’s hips and leaning up on his tiptoes to kiss the tip of Bradley’s nose.

“It’s okay to be scared, right?” Bradley whispered to him, hands spasming in Ice’s shirt.

“Absolutely,” Ice and Mav said in unison, Tom glancing back over his shoulder at Mav.

“You’ve got this,” he promised Bradley, reaching up to smooth his hair down, his other hand trailing up Ice’s side, smiling at the way Ice pinned it there with his arm since his hands were full and he couldn’t squeeze it.

/

“I don’t got this, Tom,” Pete whispered frantically as he closed the Jeep door after Bradley and turned to Ice, who had his hands in his pockets. Bradley had eaten his breakfast and was obviously trying to be brave but he could see the fear hiding in his eyes, the way he chewed his lip like he did when he was nervous, hugging his backpack to his chest.

“Breathe,” Ice reminded him out of the corner of his mouth. “If we freak out, he’s going to freak out.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his face and reaching for the door handle. “Fuck, okay. Okay, we got this. I’m so fucking glad you’re driving I don’t think my hands are going to stop shaking.”

Ice rubbed his shoulder. “Breathe,” he repeated, and headed for the driver’s side.

Pete took deep breaths the whole way to the school, and tried to tell Bradley everything he remembered about his first day of kindergarten which admittedly wasn’t very much. Ice chipped in with his own stories, adding some about his younger siblings since he remembered those a little bit better.

“What if I cry,” Bradley wailed, hugging his backpack like a lifeline.

“You won’t be the only one if you do,” Pete promised, silently hoping against all hope that he wouldn’t because if Bradley cried he was going to fucking cry and not stop crying for hours, probably.

“We’ll cry with you,” Ice promised, reaching across the center console to squeeze his thigh just above his knee and it grounded him, sort of, his expression clearly reading take a fucking breath, Mitchell, before you pass out.

Right, breathing. He needed to be doing that, so he took a deep breath and turned around to smile at Bradley. “It’s just for a few hours,” he reminded him fake-cheerfully. “You’ll see us again before you know it!”

“Why can’t I just be homeschooled,” Bradley pouted.

“You liked Miss Anderson,” Ice reminded him, not unkindly. “And Susie will be there, remember her, the little girl with glasses? She likes dinosaurs just like you do.”

“I do love dinosaurs,” Bradley said with a huff. “And she was nice.”

“See? Look at that, you’ve already got a friend.”

Pete didn’t have any more time to panic because they were parking and the lot was an absolute disaster.

“Wow, this is going to be a nightmare every morning,” Ice muttered, because they were ten minutes early and the lot looked like everyone had simultaneously forgotten how to drive all at the same time.

By the time they found a parking spot, Bradley had gone silent and Pete wasn’t much better. They got out of the car and Bradley clung to Pete’s hand like a lifeline.

“I love you,” Pete reminded him softly, squeezing his little hand. “We’ll have dinner after we pick you up, and then you get to pick which patches you want for your lunchbox, okay?”

Bradley just nodded and looked up at him with tears in his eyes. “I wish mommy and daddy were here,” he whispered, voice cracking in the middle.

“Here,” Pete said, dragging out his dog tags and crouching before Bradley, undoing the clasp and sliding off one of the two tags he carried that had Goose’s name. “Here, buddy. Take a piece of your daddy with you for today.” He closed Bradley’s fingers around it softly and squeezed. “I’ll even get you a chain for it if you want.”

“Can I take you, too?” Bradley begged, and Pete glanced up at Ice, who was already tugging out his own dog tags and sliding them off his chain.

“Here, I’ve got an extra one in my locker at work,” Ice told him gently, handing the chain to Pete who slid Goose’s tag on and then added one of his own.

“You too, Ice,” the boy whispered, clutching at the knee of his jeans like his life depended on it.

Ice crouched, his and Pete’s shoulders brushing, and slid one of his own tags on, not caring that it was against regulations, technically, because they could make him fake ones later. Right that second it was important to Bradley.

“You have to promise to keep these safe,” Pete told him, using his pocket knife to cut the chain and sliding it over his neck. “They’ve got important information on them and you can’t lose them.”

“I won’t,” Bradley promised, tucking them under his shirt and pressing his hand over them, a calmness coming over his face that hadn’t been there before. “I promise.”

“Alright,” Pete said, tugging him into a tight hug and kissing the side of his head. “Come on, baby Goose, let’s get this over with.”

“Okay,” Bradley agreed, grabbing both their hands and taking a deep breath, pulling them towards the sidewalk.

Miss Anderson was standing on the blacktop inside the gate with a sign. “Hey, Bradley!” she called out to him with a happy wave.

“Hi Miss Anderson,” he said back, not releasing his hold on Ice or on Mav as they walked towards her. There were a few boys in his class there already, and two girls as well as Susie. “Hi Susie!”

“Hi Bradley!” the little girl with pigtails and glasses said happily, waving at him and coming over to hug him, dragging the woman in glasses who must be her mother behind her. “I’m glad I have a friend.”

“Me too,” Bradley said, letting go of Mav and Ice to hug her back before clutching at their hands again. “These are my Uncle Pete and Uncle Tom,” he added, looking up at the men in question.

“Hi!” Susie greeted them with another wave. “This is my mommy.”

“Kate Michaels,” she introduced herself, shaking both of their hands. “It’s so nice to meet you. My husband told me Susie made a friend named Bradley at Back to School Night and I’m so glad she has someone she already knows.”

“Us too,” Pete told her with a friendly smile, squeezing Bradley’s hand. “They’re both pretty big fans of dinosaurs, so I hear.”

“I LOVE dinosaurs,” Susie said enthusiastically, “I want to be a paleontologist!”

“Cool,” Bradley beamed. “I’m gonna be a fighter pilot.”

“Cool!” Susie beamed at him, as Miss Anderson called out for them all to get in a line.

Bradley’s face flashed in panic as he looked up at both of them.

“Hey,” Pete murmured, crouching again and pulling him into a tight hug. “You’re going to be okay, I promise. I love you, baby Goose.”

“I love you too,” Bradley sniffled, and wiped at his face before turning to Ice, who was already crouching to hug him just as hard.

“We’ll see you at five,” Ice promised, kissing him on the forehead and cupping his face. “Be brave, baby Goose, you’ve got this.”

Bradley nodded, looked at them one last time, and then squared his little shoulders, grabbed Susie’s hand, and walked over to stand in line.

They watched with all the other parents—some who were openly sobbing, and honestly, Mav could relate—as the blob of a line disappeared through the doors.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Susie’s mom said, her voice wavering, “It was so nice to meet you both, but I need to go cry in my car for a bit.”

“Yep,” Mav said, his own voice thick with tears, as he and Ice turned and headed back for the Jeep.

He managed not to lose his shit until he was in the passenger seat and then sobbed like his life depended on it as Ice wordlessly handed him napkin after napkin.

“Wow, that really fucking sucked,” he rasped, scrubbing his face, and glancing at Tom whose eyes were just as red. “Like, really sucked.”

“Yeah, it fucking did,” Ice agreed, turning the key in the ignition. “I’m proud of you for not crying in front of everyone, Mitchell.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he muttered, but it had no heat because he was already smiling at Ice’s soft laugh.

/

If asked, Mav would not have been able to recall a single fucking thing about any of his four hops, nor what he taught in his classes, because his brain was solidly with a little boy on his first day of school and hoping it had gone well.

The school hadn’t called him which was a good sign, according to Ice, because they only did that if something went wrong. They were in his office finishing off their paperwork while Viper took the kids up with Jester for the last hop of the day.

Scratching pens on paper was the only sound in the office aside from their breathing, which was why he nearly choked on his own spit when his phone rang a little after three. Ice looked up, sharply, and Pete stared at the phone like it was a live grenade.

Ice made the choice for him, picked up the phone, pressed it into his hand with a pull yourself together look.

“Lieutenant Commander Mitchell,” he said, pressing the phone to his ear, trying to adopt his neutral military voice.

“Hi, Mr. Mitchell, this is Ms. Anderson,” a warm female voice said, and he gripped the desk so hard he swore he heard the wood crack as Ice stood up in alarm, bracing his hands on the desk, eyes intent on his face, because he was pretty sure it had just gone straight to sheer-fucking-panic.

“Is everything okay?” he blurted. “Did something happen with Bradley?”

“No, no, he’s great,” she soothed, sounding guilty. “I’m so sorry, I should have told you at Back to School Night, I always call families on the first day to check in, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“He’s okay?” he pressed, aware that Ice was squeezing his wrist and frowning.

“Bradley did wonderfully,” she soothed, and he felt his shoulders slump in relief. “He’s very kind and extremely polite, and was very eager to help other students when they didn’t know how to hold pencils. You have a very tenderhearted godson, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Thank you,” he said, relieved beyond words, “Yeah, he’s pretty great.”

“I can tell you work with him a lot at home.”

“Yeah, we try,” he said, relaxing, easing into the conversation now that his heart rate was returning to normal. Ice had pulled the legal pad towards himself and was scribbling something on it that he couldn’t see yet. “We read, and we practiced his name and all that stuff, he knows his letters and most of the sounds, he can count, you know, all the basic stuff the book said to work on.”

“I’m not worried about him academically at all at this point,” the teacher said, her voice still warm. “I just know how families worry, and I just wanted you to know he did seem like he was going to cry at first, but he warmed up right away, and I think he and Susie are going to be very close friends.”

Mav smiled despite himself, relieved, because Bradley needed some kids his age. “I’m so glad to hear it, she seems like a really fantastic kid.”

Ice held up the legal pad and he read the note, gave Ice an unimpressed look, and rolled his eyes when Ice threw his pen at him.

“Do you need any snack donations or anything like that? Supplies?” he asked her, not sure why the fuck he was asking, but Ice seemed serious about it. “He’s got a lot of uncles eager to support his education, so to speak.”

“I never say no to snacks,” the teacher told him, sounding surprised, even pleased. “Preferably something already packaged, if manageable. Fruit snacks, gold fish, applesauce. Things I can pass out easily and that they already know how to open, stuff like that. Supplies are always welcome, especially paper, we never seem to have enough of it.”

“I think we can manage,” he promised, eying the growing tower of paper next to his copy machine. “I’ll send him to class with some things on Friday.”

“That’s very kind of you, thank you so much.”

“Yeah, of course, thanks for calling. I appreciate the update.”

“You have a great day now.”

“You too,” he said, and dropped the phone back down.

“Well?” Ice demanded, staring at him intently. “What the hell was that all about? Did she ask you out on a date?”

“No, you moron,” he snorted, crumpling up the note with Ice’s scribbling on it and tossing it across the desk at his wingman, who was sniggering at his own joke, because he thought it was hysterical that Bradley’s teacher had a crush on him. “Just wanted to update me on his first day. He did great, made some friends, and was very kind.”

“See,” Ice said, smugly, settling back into his chair. “I told you he had it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mav sighed, rubbing his eyes. “I’m so excited to pick him up, though.”

They settled on The Friendly for dinner, a kickass burger place that Ice had found by accident the first time he’d been stationed at NAS North Island for Top Gun, one of the nights he’d been tired of the O Club and craving good old greasy food. It would be a bit of a drive, but they didn’t care; it was a beautiful day out and they could roll the windows down on the highway.

Mav was literally shaking by the time they pulled up to daycare and was out of the car before it had even fully stopped moving, and Bradley was sprinting for him with his arms outstretched, Miss Pam in the doorway behind him.

“MAV!” he screeched, leaping for him, and he scooped him up, clutched him to his chest, and breathed him in.

“I missed you,” he murmured, kissing Bradley on the cheek. “How was school?”

“It was awesome,” Bradley gushed, nuzzling his face into his neck and waving bye to Miss Pam as Mav carried him to the Jeep. “Ice!” he said, excitedly, as the man himself walked around the front of the car with a smile.

“Hey, kiddo,” Ice murmured, lifting him easily from Pete when Bradley stretched his arms towards him, hugging him tight. “I hear you were a rockstar today.”

“I almost cried,” he confessed, pressing his face into Ice’s neck, “But then Susie held my hand, and I felt better, and another boy, Patrick, needed help, so I just tried to help him and not think about missing you, and then I got to make a dinosaur out of playdoh, and it was actually pretty fun.”

Ice laughed and set him down, ruffling his hair. “Tell us about it on the way to burgers,” he suggested, helping him climb into the car.

“We better be going to The Friendly!” he hollered through the closed door.

“Give me a break, Bradley,” Ice joked as he got back in the car, smiling across the center console at Mav. “As if I’d take you anywhere else.”

“In’n’Out would be good, too, I guess,” Bradley shrugged. “But I want a Friendly.”

“Anything for the man of the hour,” Mav said, warmly, and definitely bought him the biggest milkshake on the menu that took all three of them to finish, but the smile on his face had been totally worth it.

/

Bradley being in school seemed to make time zoom by in a way it really hadn’t since Carole’s funeral. 

September came and went, and on the first day of October, they donated a frankly obscene amount of snacks from Costco to Bradley’s class (they’d had to roll it up on a wagon, feeling totally ridiculous doing it, because the boxes were taller than Bradley, but each of his damn “uncles” had insisted on contributing their own box, and Ice had caved to avoid a fistfight on Mav’s front lawn).

That had apparently accidentally ignited The Great Snack War because parents from Bradley’s class retaliated with ever-growing towers of snacks, until Miss Anderson had to beg them by the third day to stop because she had no place to put it all.

Bradley wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween, and then a fighter pilot, and then a fighter pilot dinosaur, and then an elf for whatever fucking reason, before going back to fighter pilot, so they’d ordered him a tiny helmet and flight suit and gone to town with patches, making it as accurate as possible, and Bradley loved to wear it around the house pretending he was getting into dogfights.

It would go great with his lunch box which had so many fucking patches on it it was starting to look like Mav’s jacket.

Mav also got really good at driving Ice crazy with his mouth, and vice versa, even as they tried to stick to their not-nightly rule. He kept up his weekly phone calls with the Squad, as he called them in his head, sent letters to Slider on the Roosevelt , and finally checked in with Merlin, whose wife was going to be fine and whose baby girl Alice was growing like a weed.

His life took up a comfortable rhythm: breakfasts with Ice and Bradley, then flying and teaching, then dinner with Bradley and sometimes Ice, and then sometimes really, really great sex with Ice, and other times long phone conversations until they were both almost falling asleep.

Hopper was going to win the trophy, much to his irritation, but it was fine , really, even though Ice was going to be smug about it for-fucking-ever.

Their final hop, he slid his helmet onto his head and dropped into the cockpit, going through his preflight checklist, when Ice’s voice crackled over the radio.

“It’s showtime, gentlemen,” he smirked. “The points are in, Hopper is ahead by one, this is your last chance to catch him, Jag, so make it count.”

“Cute,” Mav muttered, because he didn’t have his radio on, yet, looking sideways at Ice who was still on the deck next to him and who smirked and shot him a wink before clipping his oxygen mask over his face.

His wingman, everyone, yes, I know he’s a dumbass, thanks for noticing.

Mav did what he could, he really did, but Hopper ended up winning, and he swallowed down the sour taste in his mouth because overall this had been a really great class. They’d come a long fucking way from the first day, and seemed genuine when they shook his hand at the graduation ceremony and thanked him for his lessons.

He wasn’t sure he’d actually done much, really, but he made it through his speech in one piece, picked up Bradley from the Metcalfs, and then, after dinner, put Bradley to bed (who was exhausted from both school and T-ball practice and running around with the Metcalf kids, asleep before he was even fully laying down) while Ice was brushing his teeth.

“Toldya,” Ice smirked at him, striding back into the bedroom, insufferable as always, and, well, Pete couldn’t have that.

“I want to blow you,” he told him, point blank, pushing him backwards towards the bed, already jerking at the waistline of his sweats as Ice landed on his back with an oof, long limbs sprawling.

“Is it my birthday?” Ice grinned, lifting his hips to make it easier, and of course he wasn’t wearing his boxers, already half-hard.

“No, but it’ll get you to shut up,” Pete murmured, sliding his hands up his thighs, breathing in his musky scent, sliding the tip of his nose down his shaft that was rapidly hardening. “Someone is excited to see me,” he smirked, and waited for Tom to open his mouth to say something sarcastic before curling his fingers around the base, stroking him lightly, teasing.

Tom wasn’t able to do much besides moan, after that, fingers carding into his hair as Pete sucked him down without preamble.

Pete didn’t pin his hips, instead, curled his fingers around his ass cheeks, encouraged him to fuck upwards, into his mouth, and hummed happily when Ice cursed and did just that, panting like he was running a race.

“Fuck, Pete,” he rasped, thumbs pressing into his cheeks, feeling the bulge of his own cock in Pete’s mouth, “Fucking hell, you’re so fucking gorgeous.”

Tom was doing too much talking, was the thing, so he hummed again, swirled his tongue, and Ice was incoherent in no time, until Pete pinned his hips with his forearm and with one long, hard suck, paying special attention to the sensitive bundle of nerves just under the head with the tip of his tongue, Tom shuddered and came.

Pete pulled off with a pop and wiped his mouth, grinning, but didn’t get to be smug for too long because Tom tackled him backwards, onto the bed, both of them laughing breathlessly as Tom wrestled him out of his jeans, barely getting them down his thighs far enough to free his dick before his mouth was on him, and then he made good on his threat to make it last, pulling Pete to the brink and back four times before letting him come so hard his vision whited out.

“Do I get that when I win next time?” Tom murmured into his cheek, later, after they’d showered and changed into their boxers and T-shirts, tangled together in Pete’s bed that was starting to permanently smell like them both.

“You cocky fuck,” Pete snorted, pinching his ass, laughing at the way Tom jolted and retaliated by pinching his nipple. “What makes you think you’re going to win next time?”

“Statistics,” the blond grinned, thumbing fondly at his chin, kissing him, long and slow. “We get two weeks off,” he added, sliding his fingers through his hair, fingernails scraping gently over his scalp, and Pete was half-asleep so it took a minute for it to register.

“Hmm?”

“We get two weeks off,” Tom repeated, still scratching at his scalp, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead.

“Can’ think when you do that,” he slurred, and the fingers stilled their movements, curled around the back of his head, instead. “We should take Bradley to the beach, teach him to play volleyball.”

“You know, if you want to get me sweaty and naked, Mitchell, you can just ask.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snorted, laughing despite himself, palming Tom’s back under his shirt. “I think he would like it. He loves the beach, and I haven’t taken him much since his mom passed.”

“The beach could be fun,” Ice murmured, back to scratching gently at his scalp. “We could invite the boys, make a day of it. Sli is still at sea, but Wood and Wolf are here, and I think Sundown and Chip get back this week, they’ve got some kind of training detachment in Seal Beach.”

“Hmm,” he agreed, letting the words wash over him, his scalp tingling pleasantly and limbs loose and relaxed from his orgasm and Tom’s warmth.

/

Viper knocked on his door three days into break, and Pete answered it with a towel over his shoulder and spatula in hand, because he’d been in the middle of making breakfast for Bradley who appeared at his hip with a cheerful, “Hey Viper!”

“Hey kiddo,” Viper said, smiling down at the boy and his dinosaur pajamas. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course,” Pete said, a little surprised, but waving him over the threshold so he could shut the door, privately so fucking glad it had been a No Iceman night, because it was barely seven in the morning. “I was just making him some eggs, sir, if you’re interested. There’s coffee in the pot.”

Viper poured himself a cup, watched him putter around the kitchen, especially the way Bradley stayed glued to his hip happily chattering.

“And then, I’m gonna ask Wolf if I can ride on his shoulders. Do you think Ice would let me ride on his shoulders? Is he taller? Or is Chip taller? Slider is the tallest but he’s not here.”

“I think Ice is the one a little taller that Wolf, kiddo,” Pete told him, ruffling his hair, smiling over at Viper. “Why do you want to ride on their shoulders, anyway?”

“So I can get the ball easier, duh,” said Bradley, rolling his eyes, sticking his nose back in his volleyball book. “I don’t really get how you do some of these, though, when the net is so tall. And why doesn’t anybody wear a shirt? Do I have to take my shirt off Mav? What if I get sunburned?”

“You do not have to take your shirt off if you don’t want to,” Pete promised, adding some cheese to the eggs and then dumping them on the plate. “Here,” he added, handing him the plate. “Go eat these on the coffee table while I talk to Viper, okay, and for the love of god don’t spill milk all over the rug again.”

“It was an accident,” Bradley whined, but he took the plate and went as asked.

“He seems good,” Viper observed, watching the boy settle happily in front of his morning cartoons.

“He’s better,” Pete smiled, rubbing at his nose. “What’s up, Viper?”

“I just wanted to come by and see how you were doing, son,” he said, sipping his coffee, watching how a faint pink tinged his cheeks, and then looking at the beach towels piled on the kitchen table, the open canvas bag, the goggles and sand toys scattered across the wood. “You boys going to the beach today?”

“Yeah, in about an hour,” Pete said, checking the clock. “The whole class is going to come, well, except for Slider, anyway, he’s back on the Roosevelt. Probably going to be the last warm week before it starts to cool down.”

Pete just watched Viper watching him and tried to figure out a nice way to ask him what the fuck he wanted at seven in the morning, but he was only one cup of coffee in himself and not firing on all cylinders, just yet. Predictably, Viper beat him to the punch.

“Carrie also sent me on a mission,” Viper admitted, and Pete relaxed a little, because that made a little more sense, given his boss had never once come to his house unless invited to do so. “She wants to know if Bradley could come home with her after school, instead of daycare, because Lilly has been begging her, and while it will also give Lilly someone to play with and my poor wife a break, it would also save you some money.”

Pete blinked. “She’d do that?” he said, surprised and pleased, warmth spreading through his chest.

“We love Bradley,” Viper reminded him, not unkindly. “And you,” he added, pointedly, grinning when Pete blushed scarlet.

“Sir—”

“Look, Pete,” Viper said, setting the coffee cup down and crossing his arms. “I’ve been dancing around it for months, because I’m not really sure how to say it, so I’m just going to take Carrie’s advice and spit it out. Your dad was the best friend I ever had, the bravest man I ever knew, and — look, I knew your mom, alright, wasn’t surprised at all by what happened, and when I tried to come get you, the state wouldn’t let me.”

Pete leaned back against the counter, absolutely fucking floored, and stared at him in stunned disbelief. “You — I mean, you tried to… come get me?”

“Yeah,” he said, simple, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “My best friend’s son was an orphan, and I’d promised him I would take care of you. A promise I couldn’t keep, because he didn’t put it in writing before he died, and — and the state, the state gave you to those awful people instead of me, and I’m so sorry about that, Pete.”

The thing was, he remembered Viper, a little, from when he was a little boy. He hadn’t had a mustache, then, had laughed a lot freer, brighter. Had swung him around and let him pretend he was a plane, arms outstretched, and his eyes flicked to Bradley, considering, because — because he could have had what Bradley had, if the state had followed his father’s wishes.

“Oh,” he said, very quietly, swallowing in a tight throat, looking at Viper who was watching him with calm, patient understanding, and all their interactions — every single one — suddenly made a hell of a lot more sense, because anyone else would have given up on him.

But Viper never had. Give me a call, I’ll fly with you.

“If that makes you uncomfortable, I understand,” Viper continued, looking uncomfortable himself, now, mustache twitching. “It — it took a long time, for Chris, and for Lilly, but — but, in another world, they’d have been your family, too, Pete, but I’m offering my family right now, if you want it.”

Pete swallowed, set his spatula down, and wished he knew what to do with his hands, or the feeling of his chest splitting open, because he was pretty sure Viper was telling him he loved him like a son, and he really wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say in response, because he’d been quietly wishing since the first time he’d realized who Viper was to his dad that he’d had Viper as surrogate dad; he’d loved his dad, he really had, and he missed him every fucking day, but—

“I’d like that a lot, Mike,” he said, quietly, and swallowed, meeting Viper’s eyes.

“Alright then,” said Viper, picking his coffee cup back up again, taking a sip. “Carrie and I would love it if you came over, every once and a while, if that’s something that sounds good to you.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Pete said, knee jerk, but it was true.

Viper smiled at him. “What do you need me to do to help you get ready for the beach?”

It was almost worth the awkwardness, afterward, as the two tried to figure out this new dynamic now that Mike had spoken it into existence, to see Tom’s gobsmacked expression when he threw the front door open shouting about beach towels to see Viper standing calmly in the foyer sipping coffee and holding Bradley’s tiny goggles while the boy crammed things into his beach bag, Tom’s face clearly screaming what the fuck as he cut his eyes across to Maverick, who shrugged helpless and held his hands up to his shoulders.

Wood appeared at Ice’s shoulder and said, “Oh hey, Viper! Uh, sir, isn’t this a little far from your house?”

They packed the car for the beach, shoving in an easy up, a cooler of drinks and another of food, all Bradley’s requested beach toys, towels, sunscreen, and about a million other things, and then piled into the two cars for the drive, waving bye to Viper as they went.

“What the fuck, Pete,” Ice hissed at him as soon as Bradley was engrossed in his book and no longer paying attention, cutting his eyes across to Mav.

“So apparently Viper feels about me how I feel about Bradley,” Mav told him, shrugging helplessly.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Ice muttered, rubbing his eyes, “You are the most complicated person I’ve ever met, Maverick.”

Mav just grinned at him and squeezed his thigh, cranking up the rock music for the short drive to the beach.

Bradley loved volleyball and did get his wish of sitting on Wolf’s shoulders. It got a little competitive, and lots of random people stopped what they were doing to watch them play, but Mav figured that was probably because they were six young, healthy, red-blooded males who were currently shirtless and in board shorts (Maverick, Ice had drawled, if you wear jeans to the beach, I'm never having sex with you again), flinging themselves around in the sand getting hot and sweaty with a screeching five-year-old cheering them on.

Ice was laughing through most of it, because Wolf was staggering around carefully, one hand steadying Bradley, and definitely got smacked in the face with the volleyball more than once because he was trying so hard to make sure it didn’t hit the kid.

“Just put him down,” Ice urged, reaching up for Bradley, scooping him up under his arms and swinging him back to the sand, and on the next play he lifted Bradley so he could spike it and everyone cheered when it sailed down.

Wood made absolutely no true effort to get it, but Bradley didn’t need to know that, he was too busy screaming like a lunatic.

“This is awesome,” Bradley gushed, until they were all overheating and dripping sweat and he begged to go swimming, instead, so they waded into the surf and tossed him around between the six of them like a football, until Bradley was giggling so hard he could barely breathe.

“Cutest football there is,” Mav told him, fondly, blowing a raspberry on his stomach and then tossing him to Sundown, who set him on his shoulders and danced a little jig, singing Walking on Sunshine at the top of his lungs with Chipper, both of them way off key but Bradley sang along anyway.

Wood grilled up some hotdogs, and Ice made some magical salad with watermelon and mint that was amazing, and they all collapsed on the sand tired and a little sunburned and salty but happy to watch the sun go down.

Bradley fell asleep in Chip’s lap, tiny cheek pressed over his heart, and Chip just shifted his knees up to keep him closer and tucked a towel around him to keep him warm, laughing at an obscene story Wood was telling about someone on base getting caught making out with a civilian, and Mav started a little when Ice bumped their shoulders together.

“We should do this more often,” he murmured, hitting their water bottles together, because they’d mutually decided to switch from their beers over an hour ago to be safe to drive home.

“Yeah, like, at least once a week,” Wood said sleepily from beside them, where he was stretched out on his damp towel halfway to dreamland with his cowboy hat on his chest. “Hey, we should take Bradley camping.”

“Or boating,” Ice suggested, grinning around his water bottle, “My parents have a house in Lake Havasu.”

“Oh my god, you’re such a fucking Orange County snob, your parents would have a fucking house at Lake Havasu,” Wood snorted, dropping his hat over his eyes, because he was from West LA and the rivalry was real. His dumbass fellows in flight school hadn’t actually known were Hollywood was when they gave him his callsign, because he was from Brentwood, which was abso-fucking-lutely-not Hollywood, and Ice was a bastard who had never actually helped to correct their mistake before the callsign had stuck. 

“I’m sorry, you’re from Brentwood, and I’m the snob?” Ice snorted, shoving at his shoulder.

“Dude, Brentwood isn't that nice.” He lifted his hat to scowl at Ice. 

“Uh, yeah, it really fucking is, you closeted trust fund baby.” Ice threw his water bottle cap at Hollywood, who smacked it aside with a scowl.

“So,” drawled Wood, pointedly changing the subject as his cheeks pinked, because Mav was looking at him curiously at the trust fund comment. “What kind of boat is it? No, wait, let me guess. A wake boat.”

“Malibu,” Ice confirmed, sniggering as Wood groaned and pressed his hat harder into his face, and Mav just looked between them, amused, because he’d never really understood the whole LA vs. Orange County thing and felt like he’d just missed something, but whatever.

Mav, Ice, and Bradley fell asleep on the couch together that night, damp from their showers, fitting together like bookends.

/

Ice came over two days after the beach with a big stack of files tucked under his left arm, aviators perched on his nose, and grinned at him over the kitchen island.

“That,” Pete said, pointing at the files with his spatula, because this was his life now, “Looks like work.”

“It is,” Ice said as he dropped the files with a loud thunk. “Upcoming class, I wanted to get a head start on reading.”

“You’re a freak of nature, Kazansky,” he snorted. “You want some eggs?”

“Sure,” he murmured, stepping up behind him, folding his arms around him, nuzzling into the side of his neck. “Good morning,” he added, pressing a kiss to his pulse point and breathing him in.

“Morning,” Mav returned, leaning back into him, stirring the eggs one-handed. “Bradley is upstairs currently trying to decide which of his dinosaur books he’s sacrificing to the Library Gods.”

“Oh good,” he snorted, rocking them gently from side to side, and Pete hummed in contentment. “He’s not going to keep checking out the one about the triceratops who befriends a T-Rex, is he?”

“I’m thinking we might just need to buy that one,” Pete sighed, because Bradley made them read it to him every night; he seemed to have figured out the pattern, because he was waiting with his book and brought it to whoever's turn it was to read it: Ice on the nights he was there, and Pete on the nights he wasn’t.

“Can we bury it in the backyard instead,” Ice whispered, because he was so fucking tired of doing the dinosaur voices, but he did them anyway because Bradley absolutely loved it.

“He’d find it. He’s on a paleontology kick, Susie’s mom got him a little kit where he could unearth his own fossil in her birthday bag from school yesterday and he lost his little mind. Don’t look at the backyard,” Pete warned, “It will just upset you.”

Tom groaned. “There’s holes everywhere, aren’t there?”

“Everywhere,” Pete said, exasperated. “I had to stop him from digging up the rose bushes.” 

He laughed into Pete’s neck, because Bradley was something else, and pressed one more kiss to his pulse point. “I’ll go survey the damage,” he snorted, “And try to talk him out of that book.”

Bradley did not want to be talked out of the book, insisted on checking it out once again, and stacked his returns neatly on the small table by the front door before crawling in Tom’s lap on the couch for a morning snuggle with Spike before school started.

“You tried,” Pete told him, mock seriously, patting Tom on the chest and laughing when Tom just flipped him off behind his head where Bradley couldn’t see.

Tom dropped Bradley off at school, and when he came back, Pete was flipping through some of the files at the island, sipping his coffee, barefoot and still in his sweatpants.

“Are the snack wars back?” Pete hummed as Tom came up behind him, hands sliding around to his chest, tipping his head back and looking up at his wingman who bent to kiss his forehead.

“No, thank fuck,” he snorted, moving to the barstool beside him and tugging a few files over. “I saw Viper in the office this morning. He said to tell you we’re getting Benjamin’s son in the next class.”

Pete nudged the file he’d been looking at towards Ice. “Tex,” he said, nodding down at the picture; he was like a younger, more insane looking Admiral Benjamin. He had crazy eyes, definitely, but then again the good Admiral wasn’t exactly known for his sanity.

“Yeah, he was two years below me in the Academy,” Ice muttered, flipping through the pages, and the picture it painted wasn’t pretty. “I remember him from his plebe summer. He knocked a kid out and gave him brain damage and they didn’t kick him out for it, which the upperclassmen were pissed about. I didn’t have to deal with him much, but the encounters I did have weren’t pleasant.” He kept reading, flipping through the comments from all his performance reviews, seeing phrases like unchecked temper, unsteady, and borderline defiant disobedience. “Reads like he’s skating through because his daddy’s a two-star.”

“Pretty sure that’s exactly what’s happening.”

“Insubordination, insubordination, insubordination, christ, how many of these does he have in here,” he said, incredulous, flipping through the pages and shaking his head. “Well, this is going to be super fun, Mav.” He closed the file and shoved it away from himself with a huff. “He’s coming to a school with four instructors who have no patience for bullshit.”

“And, unfortunately, no rank to back it up,” Pete muttered, rubbing his eye. “Guess we’ll just have to tread carefully, do what we can.”

“Ugh, nepotism at its finest,” Tom muttered, shaking his head.

Pete just stared at him incredulously, and when Tom looked up, his expression read what before he realized what he’d said and grimaced.

“Hey, I got into Annapolis all by myself,” Tom said, a little defensively. “I’ll even show you my high school transcript if you want. My dad did not help me in that regard, not in the least.” He flicked Tex’s file with his finger. “This is the worst kind of nepotism, Mav. I don’t understand how in the fuck he even passed flight school, let alone Night Trials.”

“Not much we can do about it,” he reminded his wingman, settling his hand gently on his knee and squeezing. “So why stress?” He set his coffee down, slid his hand pointedly up Ice’s thigh, grinned at the way he went very, very still and watched him.

“I can think of a way to destress,” Ice said, his voice husky, and Pete grinned because he had him hook, line, and sinker.

“Only one?”

Chapter Text

Pete had dragged him to bed, stripped him, and then they’d made out sloppily like teenagers, hands roaming everywhere, the sun shining bright through the window that had the white curtains pulled across it.

“You’re so blond,” Pete was whispering, hands sliding all over him, hyper-focused on the chest hair that dusted across his pecs and the trail that led from his navel to his dick, the hair as blond as the hair on the top of his head. 

“Hmm, difficult to see in the dark,” he murmured, fingers sliding through Pete's hair, thumbs tracing the delicate curves of his ears and smiling at the way Pete twitched and snorted because it tickled.

He pushed Pete over and pinned him, mapping the lines of him in the sunshine; it was different, like this, somehow more intimate and also not, because Pete couldn’t hide from him. Pete’s face hid nothing he was feeling and it was refreshing to see it without shadows, the way his green eyes shone.

“You’re gorgeous,” he murmured, nipping at his jaw, nuzzling into his pulse point where he smelled the strongest, and then shoving him over onto his front before Pete could say something sassy.

“Hnnng,” Pete grunted, approximately, when he sank his teeth into the perfect round globe of his ass cheek and then did the same on the other side, nudging his knees apart slightly so he could settle between them and press his mouth to every single vertebrae. 

“Pete,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into the center of his lower back, right between the dimples of his spine as he palmed his ass cheeks. “Do you trust me?”

Pete lifted his head and gave him an incredulous look over his shoulder, flush high on his cheeks and eyes bright. “Tom, I’m naked in bed with you,” he said, shaking with quiet laughter. 

He rolled his eyes and scraped his teeth on Pete’s left ass cheek, smirking to himself at the high-pitched whine that escaped the smaller man’s throat and the way he twitched forward into the sheets with a whimper when he brushed a thumb over the tight pucker of his hole.

“We have time and I want to fuck you,” he said seriously, lifting his head so he could see Pete’s expression clearly, marveling at how different he looked in the sunshine. He wanted to see any trace of uncertainty or fear. 

Pete swore and shifted, grinding into the bed and then trying to roll over. Tom sat back on his heels and let him, hands sliding up his thighs and studying his expression closely.

“Then fuck me,” Pete rasped, pulling him down by his dog tags into a kiss that edged on desperation. 

“If I do something you don’t like, or if it hurts even a little,” he murmured as he leaned down, dipping his nose into the hollow of Pete’s throat, “Tell me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he panted, grinding up into his hip in a desperate search for friction. 

“Pete,” he chided softly, holding his face between his hands and making eye contact, because his first experience had been a little intense and a lot painful and he’d be damned if he would do the same to Mav. “Tell me. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Pete whined, squirming underneath Tom as the blond reached for the lube and slicked up his fingers. “Get to it, Kazansky, I’m dying over here.”

“You’re so fucking bossy, Mitchell,” he murmured, circling Pete’s rim with his index finger, teasing.

Pete panted into his mouth, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He opened them again to glare when Tom didn’t do anything else, just rubbing, watching the way his eyelashes fluttered.

He smiled and then kissed Pete, deep and hard, sucking his tongue to distract him as he slowly and carefully sank his finger to the knuckle.

Pete panted and squirmed, his eyes squeezed shut, flush high on his cheeks, expression caught between pleasure and pain. 

Tom couldn’t look away as he withdrew his finger, added more lube, warmed it, and sank it back into the tight heat of his body, watching Pete shiver, his pretty mouth dropping open, eyelashes fluttering, and kept doing it until his finger slid easily into that tight, wet heat. 

“Okay?” He murmured, nipping at Pete’s jaw. 

“You planned this, you asshole,” Pete moaned, breath punching out of him as Tom slicked his fingers again and added another, scissoring them. 

“Yeah,” he admitted, dropping his head to kiss Pete again, fucking him steadily with his fingers. “I’ve been dreaming about this for months. How you’d look, what sounds you’d make, how well you’d take my cock,” he breathed into the skin of Pete’s neck, sucking on his pulse point as his fingers found what he’d been looking for and pressed against the bump confidently. 

Pete arched his back so hard he nearly came off the bed, a strangled shout of surprise in his throat, hands scrambling at Tom’s shoulders as he fucked himself down on Tom’s fingers. His dick was leaking precum all over his abs, the head flushed red.

“Tom,” he begged, writhing and mindlessly jerking his hips up in search of friction, sinking back down on his fingers every time, face flushed, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, “please, please, please—”

“Not yet,” he murmured, adding a third finger, taking his time stretching him, rubbing his prostate as Pete moaned and shuddered, hole fluttering around his fingers. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt him. “Almost, sweetheart, almost.”

Pete felt fucking amazing; tight and hot, his reactions earnest, the pleasure written all over his face. He was loud, too, without Bradley to worry about, responding enthusiastically, and Tom accepted the fact he’d been ruined forever for other men. 

“Hurry up,” Pete demanded after long minutes, reaching for him and pulling him down into a sloppy, open mouthed kiss as he fucked himself onto his fingers, “Please, Tom, come on.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he chided, because his dick was a hell of a lot bigger than his fingers and he was familiar with the way it burned the first time. In hopes of distracting him he focused on sucking a hickey into his hip that made Pete twitch and curse, his cock leaking a blurt of precum, and tried to ignore the sharp ache in his wrist. “Let me finish, Pete, you’ll thank me later.”

“I feel like I’m going to fucking die, Tom, fuck me already.”

He was so fucking bossy, Tom mused, surging up and sucking a hickey into his collarbone where it could be hidden by his shirt because they didn’t have work for days and he finally could.

“Tom,” Pete said, and it was almost a sob, fingers yanking hard on his hair, hard enough that it made his eyes sting and his dick throb.

“Fuck, okay,” he said, withdrawing his fingers, wiping them on the sheet, and wasting no time putting on a condom.

Pete whimpered at the loss, eyes blinking open. He tried to roll over and Tom stopped him with a hand on his knee. 

“I want to see your face,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest and slicking himself up, rearranging Mav’s limbs and poking a pillow under Mav’s hips for better support. 

He paused for a second, hand idly stroking himself from root to tip, admiring the view. Pete was flushed and sweaty, his hair a disaster from having fingers run through it. There was a pretty flush all the way down his body, from his cheeks to his toes; his heaving breaths accentuated the miles of lean toned bronze muscles. 

“Tom,” he whimpered, hips twitching up so that his dick slapped against his belly.

“Yeah, I got you,” he promised, propping himself on one elbow and lining himself up. “You ready?”

“Yes, fuck , come on—”

Tom laughed a little at the mix of cranky and desperate in Pete’s tone but he pressed his hips forward, the head of his dick meeting resistance for a heartbeat before it pressed through his tight ring of muscle. 

They moaned in tandem, Pete’s arm curling around his shoulders and holding on for dear life, the other fisting in the sheets.

He was so tight and hot and fucking incredible; Ice bit back another moan and tried to focus through the intense sensory overload because it wasn’t about him, not right this second.  Pete’s eyes were squeezed shut, breaths gasping.

“You okay?” He whispered, kissing him, sucking his lower lip into his mouth, nibbling at it with his teeth to distract himself from the primal urge to jerk his hips forward and claim him. 

“Just— gimme a sec, Tom, holy fuck,” Pete panted as he adjusted. “Feels weird, ‘s all.”

Tom did his best to keep still, kissing Pete lazily, until the shorter man twitched his hips experimentally and moaned loudly into his mouth as he took him deeper. 

He took it as the cue to continue, rocking his hips forward, continuing to kiss him senseless. Pete kissed him back, fingers relaxing their death grip on his shoulder to trace over his skin instead, flicking his nipple, trailing over his ass, his back. 

It took everything he had not to slam his hips forward; they both moaned into each other’s mouths when he bottomed out, hips pressed flush to Maverick’s. 

“Oh god, oh god,” Pete panted, knees clamping hard to his sides, fingernails biting into his shoulder.

Tom withdrew slightly and pressed forward again and watched as Pete’s entire body shuddered, a high whine leaving his throat as his eyes rolled back, muscles clenching tightly around him, and Tom had to stop for a second so he wouldn’t come just from that, breathing deeply through his nose.

“Good?” He checked in, nosing at Pete’s cheek. 

“Harder,” Pete rasped, fingernails raking up his back hard enough to sting. 

He grinned and did it again, watching Pete’s face carefully with each slow and steady stroke, until he was snapping his hips forward in a steady rhythm. Pete met him, let go of his shoulders to cling to the headboard for better leverage, and it wasn’t long until he was shaking, neck tensed and straining, his panting breaths a continuous moan. 

“Tom, Tom, oh fuck—”

“God you’re fucking perfect, Pete,” he breathed into his cheek, pressing an uncoordinated kiss there as Pete sobbed his name with each thrust of his hips, the headboard banging rhythmically on the wall. 

He could tell Pete was close and felt his own orgasm building low in his gut. Bracing all his weight on one elbow, he reached between them and flicked his thumb over Pete’s swollen, oversensitive slit.

Pete shattered with a cry and arched up against him, coming so hard it splattered across his chest, some of it hitting the underside of his chin. 

Tom lasted two more strokes, pressing into the intense clench of Pete’s body with a desperate moan as his own orgasm washed over him. 

He fucked Pete through it, ran a gentle hand through his sweat-matted hair, pressed tender kisses to the corner of his eyes to wipe away the tears. 

Pete whimpered, his entire body twitching and shaking from over stimulation, and Tom stilled his hips. Pete just buried his face in his neck, breath hot on his sweaty skin. 

They panted together for a long, long moment, until Tom pulled back and cupped his face, tilting it up so he could see his expression. 

“You good?” He murmured, kissing every inch of his face he could reach, because Pete hadn’t opened his eyes. 

“I think you broke me,” Pete said in a voice rough from yelling after a really long pause, blinking his eyes open slowly and releasing his death grip on the headboard to reach clumsily for his hair. There were tears clumped on his lashes and Tom brushed them away with a gentle thumb. “You broke me with your dick, you ass.”

“You loved it,” he grinned, smoothing Pete’s hair off his forehead so he could press a kiss there. 

“Yeah I did,” Pete agreed, shifting slightly and then biting his lip, his eyelashes fluttering, because Tom was still half-hard inside of him. 

“I’m going to pull out, okay?” He waited for Pete’s nod and did so as gently as he was able but they still both winced slightly. He pressed a kiss to his heart in apology and tied off the condom, standing on slightly wobbly legs. 

Tom had to stop, for a second, leaning over him to admire the view, drinking in his sweat-sheened skin, the pretty flush, the contrast of his dark eyelashes against his cheeks. He looked debauched; lips swollen, come splattered over his belly, muscles still twitching with tiny aftershocks, dog tags tangled up behind his shoulder, the chain digging into his neck.

He tugged the chain so it was looser, not choking him, and pressed a kiss to the hollow of Pete’s throat.

“Where’re you going?” Pete murmured, sounding halfway asleep already, limbs limp and boneless. 

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, bending to kiss him before heading to the bathroom to toss the trash, splash off in the fastest body shower of his life, and grab a warm washcloth.

Tom wiped him down reverently, pressing kisses into his warm skin, sucking a hickey gently into the thin skin of his opposite hip so he had a matching set and then tossing the rag into the bathroom. 

Pete hadn’t moved from his spot and he settled beside him, turning him with gentle hands until he was tucked up against him, breath warm on his collarbone.

He watched the dark-haired man start to doze off, struggling to keep his eyes open even as Tom rubbed his back, even though it was barely nine in the morning and they had the whole day and a bunch of files to read but neither of them particularly cared, right that second.

“So does this mean we can do this for the rest of our break then,” Pete asked, muffled into the skin of his chest.

Tom laughed; couldn’t help it, threw his head back and shook with it, and Pete was grinning up at him. “I’m not opposed to that idea,” he said, thumbing Pete’s chin. 

“Hmm, so much better than awkward college fumbles I had with dudes,” he sighed, tucking his hand under Tom’s ribs.

“We’ll see what you think when you’re sore tomorrow,” Tom said, rubbing his back in a quiet apology, watching the ceiling fan spin in slow circles and surprised to find himself a little sleepy, too, despite the fact he hadn’t napped during the daytime since he was a small child.

“Worth it,” Pete decided, dropping his cheek heavily back to his chest and wiggling half on top of him to get more comfortable. “I say it’s nap time.”

“Pete, you should probably shower. Bradley gets out of school,” he glanced at the clock, “In a little over three hours.”

“Nap time,” the dark-haired man repeated, pressing his weight down pointedly, “You’re ruining my afterglow, Tom. I demand cuddles.”

“Moron,” he snorted, but he hugged him close, anyway, and actually managed to doze off with him.

Tom blinked his eyes open and squinted in the sunshine, momentarily confused, until he remembered: he was in Pete’s (their) bed, and the man himself was a warm weight all the way down his left side, one hand stroking across his abs and ribs, fingertips gentle.

“You don’t even snore,” Pete murmured, his hand not stilling its gentle movements over his abdomen and ribs. Tom felt a little drunk from it, from being touched so much and so often, because he’d gone without it for so many years, enough that Ron labeled him touch starved and had pinned him to beds in flight school when his thoughts were spiraling or he was being an idiot and just clung to him like his life depended on it.

Pete touched him constantly and it was a little frightening how much he’d come to expect it, how much he touched back, and not just sexually. It was getting harder and harder to sleep well, their nights apart, because he’d grown so accustomed to Pete’s weight and warmth on him.

“Hmm?” he yawned, turning his head to kiss Pete’s forehead because it was right there and he could.

“I said,” Pete repeated, patiently, “You don’t even snore, you perfectly handsome bastard.”

“I snore when I’m really tired,” he said, sliding his own fingers up the knobs of Pete’s spine. “And when I’m sick, especially if my nose is stuffy.”

“‘s not fair,” Pete told him, but he sounded amused. “You ever get tired of being perfect all the time?”

Tom stared up at the ceiling and tried not to sigh. He’d heard various versions of that most of his adult life, hell, all the way back to high school, if he was being honest. Pete hadn’t meant anything by it, but he’d learned to hate those words over the long years of loneliness that had come from pushing himself so hard to be the best all the time, and it hurt a little to hear them from Pete of all people.

“Yeah,” he said, seriously, as his breath stuttered in his chest. “It’s fucking exhausting, Pete.”

There must have been something in his tone, because Pete’s hand gently curved around his cheek and turned his face so he could see his expression better. Pete had a small furrow between his brows and his mouth was turned down at the corners.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Why do you push yourself so hard, anyway? What are you trying to prove?”

At his silence, Pete just seemed to get more curious. Tom didn’t even know how to answer that, let alone how to formulate a response, and just stared over Pete’s shoulder at the wall with his brow furrowed trying to put it into words. How was he supposed to explain his childhood of never feeling like enough?

Pete’s frown deepened as he ducked his head to try and meet his eyes, thumb tracing his lower lip. “It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

“Is it that obvious?” Tom drawled, turning his head away from Pete so he could look at the fan and ignore the way his eyes were burning, because he forgot sometimes: Pete knew him just as well as he knew Pete.

Pete shifted, knees bracketing his hips, leaning over him and not letting him escape because Pete Mitchell was a stubborn bastard when he wanted to be. He braced his elbows beside Tom’s ears, and Tom had to swallow, because having Pete this close, in his space, was intoxicating and very, very distracting.

Pete smiled like he knew exactly what Tom was thinking and kissed the tip of his nose. “No, it’s not obvious. I like to think I know you pretty well by now, is all, and you tend to dodge the subject every time your dad comes up and it made me wonder why.”

“My dad’s kind of a dick,” he murmured, sliding his hands up Pete’s bare thighs for something to hold onto to ground himself and knowing Pete wouldn’t let it go now that he’d asked, and that he probably owed it to him to explain if they were going to make this work. 

Trouble was, their respective childhoods were landmines of shit that went wrong and navigating it was going to be painful and potentially deadly.

Even so, he took a deep breath and admitted, “Nothing is ever good enough for him, not from me. No matter what I do.” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug and lifted a hand to rub his eyes. “It is what it is. I live with it. Probably should have given up years ago, but…”

“I get that,” Pete said, thumb idly tracing the curve of his jaw and taking a deep breath like he was bracing himself for something painful. “Goose asked me once if I was flying against a ghost of my father every time I’m up there, if that’s why I take so many risks.”

Tom stared up at Pete, a little surprised, because it wasn’t a secret that Duke Mitchell was a bit of a sore subject where his wingman was concerned. “Is it?” he whispered, because a part of him had always been curious.

“Maybe a little,” Pete murmured, looking a little uncomfortable himself now at the topic of conversation but with a determined glint in his eye. “Every time I’m up there, Tom, it’s like — it’s like they’re always comparing me to a man who’s been dead for almost twenty years.”

Tom hummed, because he could relate — his whole time at the Academy, he knew they’d been watching him because of who his dad was. He tugged at Pete a little, lifted his thigh to tip the dark-haired man towards him, and rolled them so Pete wasn’t looming over him anymore and they were face to face on the same pillow.

Pete had said he wanted to cuddle, after all, so he slid his leg between Pete’s knees and pulled him close.

“No matter what I do, I’ll never be Duke Mitchell,” Pete said, wry and maybe a little sad, not fighting Tom’s hands in the least. In fact, Pete pushed into them, slid his own around Tom’s back to hug him, his mouth pressing a chaste kiss over his heart, because Pete Mitchell was a cuddler.

“You don’t have to be Duke Mitchell,” Tom reminded him, because it was true. He wasn’t Duke Mitchell, and it was never fun being compared to a ghost.

“No, but I have to be better.” Pete inhaled through his nose, frustrated now. “It’s never good enough, Tom. No matter what I fucking do—it’s just not enough. Being Duke Mitchell’s kid kicks me in the nuts every fucking time, because of what they think he did.” He laughed humorously. “It’s why they denied my application to the Naval Academy.”

Tom bit his lip because that definitely explained a few things. “That’s fucked up,” he said softly, meaning every word. “You shouldn’t be held accountable for what your dad did or didn’t do.”

Pete grimaced. “Tell that to the brass.”

“Don’t think they’d listen, but I’d try,” Tom said, smiling a little when Pete snorted out a laugh, his eyes crinkling.

“Brass doesn’t listen too well, especially when it means admitting they’re wrong.”

“No, they don’t,” Tom agreed, because his dad was one of them. “My dad doesn’t either,” he added, because Pete was still looking at him. “It’s fine,” he promised, running a hand idly through Pete’s dark, thick hair. “I’m used to it.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to be,” Pete muttered, seemingly cranky on his behalf. “Guess we both have fucked up relationships with our dads, huh?”

Tom hummed in agreement, smoothing Pete’s hair out of its wild tangle and back to normalcy. “Looks like.”

Pete bit his lip. “I hope Bradley never feels like this,” he whispered, and then winced. “Sorry, that’s not— I mean—”

“I know what you meant,” Tom murmured, pressing a kiss between his eyebrows. “Bradley knows you love him, Pete, and no matter what happens, you just have to hope he always will.”

Pete swallowed and it was loud in the sudden silence.

Tom frowned in puzzlement, looking at the conflicted expression on Pete’s face and trying to figure out why his words had made that expression appear. Then it hit him and he felt a sharp ping of nausea, because for fuck’s sake please no, and asked, “Did you ever doubt your dad loved you?” 

“I—yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. Pete's eyes were getting shiny and Tom felt like a total dick for saying the words out loud, an uncomfortable feeling churning in his gut because this conversation was taking a turn towards the category depressingly familiar. “Yeah. Every day, honestly, after he didn’t come home. I used to—I used to ask my mom why he loved flying more than he loved us, and then she was dead too and I was alone.”

He flinched and hugged Pete tighter because fuck. Doubting a parent’s love wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to him, either, and it really sucked.

“I didn’t understand until I sat in a cockpit the first time, Tom,” Pete said into his shoulder. “I didn’t get it. Viper— I mean, he told me— my dad—” he swallowed, hard, hands clutching at Tom’s ribs. “He didn’t leave them to die. He went back for them, even though he was hit.”

Even though he didn’t have to, Pete left unsaid, but Tom heard it anyway. That meant Duke Mitchell had gone back for his wingmen knowing full well he was probably moments from orphaning his son and leaving his wife alone. It also meant that Pete had been right all along—his old man was a damn good pilot, an honorable man, and a fucking hero, besides, and the fact Viper had told Pete meant he was either there with him when he died or he’d known someone who was.

Given the whole he loves me like a son thing that he still hadn’t fully processed or figured out how to ask Pete about, that likely meant Viper had been there. Not only had he been there, but he’d told Pete the truth, despite the official story never being shared due to its classified nature.

Fuck.

“I understand him better now,” whispered Pete, “Because I would’ve done the same thing.”

Tom just stared at him, his heart feeling heavy, because when they’d launched off the carrier that day in the Gulf, he’d—he hadn’t trusted Mav, not like he did now. Had wanted to kiss him, sure; been distracted by him, absolutely. But he hadn’t trusted him and Pete had known that and launched anyway.

“Even then?”

“Even then,” Pete confirmed, resolute. “And especially because it was you.” A wry grin twisted his lips. “I was determined to prove you wrong even if it killed me.”

Tom’s heart stuttered in his chest because it almost fucking had . His fucking ego —

“Fuck, Pete,” he whispered, because he’d never actually apologized for what he said that day—what he’d implied. He’d basically implied he was like what everyone assumed of his father, like Duke, and fuck — “Pete, I’m sorry, I didn’t — I was wrong.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Tom said, sharper than he meant to, pushing Pete away enough so he could hold his face and look into his stupidly green eyes. “I was wrong,” he repeated, making his voice as firm as he could. “I was wrong, Pete, and I’m sorry for saying it.”

“Thank you,” Pete said, softly, and he tried to smile but his bottom lip was quivering too hard.

Tom ducked his head to kiss him, a there and gone press of his lips.

“Tom, since we’re on the subject of fathers,” Pete whispered, thumbing at his chin. “I’m sorry your dad is so hard on you.”

Tom nodded his thanks with a faint grimace and let Pete change the subject because he looked about two seconds from bursting into tears. “It’s just how he is. I think he loves us, he’s just—not very good at it.”

“The whole treating you like a subordinate thing?”

He laughed humorously. “Yeah,” he muttered, and for the first time in his life, the words came easily, probably because Pete’s gorgeous green eyes were watching his face with nothing but patient curiosity, and the words he’d had a hard time finding a few minutes ago rushed out of him like a waterfall. “He never really tells us what he wants, he just expects us to figure it out, or he thinks it’s so obvious he shouldn’t have to say it in the first place. It was always hard when he was home because we all tried so hard to make him happy, but—” he trailed off, thinking back to his childhood, when he’d been small and eager to please his father, to get even just one smile.

A smile that had never come. The only love he’d known from a parent had been his mother, and she’d tried to make up for it by loving the hell out of all five of her children, but it just wasn’t the same.

“I guess, in a way, I’m chasing my own ghost,” he whispered, conscious of Pete’s eyes on his face but unable to make eye contact, staring instead at the bow of his upper lip. “The ghost of who I think my dad wants me to be, only I have no idea what that even is, so.” He shrugged again and huffed out a frustrated breath. “I went into the Navy because halfway through the Academy I realized it didn’t matter what I did, it’d never be good enough, and at least this way I’m not in the Marines and he can’t control me.”

“Your dad sounds like a real piece of work,” Pete said, reaching up to stroke his jaw.

“I wish I knew how to be what he wanted,” Tom muttered and felt a little raw for saying it because he’d never admitted that out loud to anyone; had sheltered it for long years in the bear trap of his own mind and never let it go, but Pete Mitchell had pulled it out of him without even really trying. “But the bigger part of me fucking hates the guy and wants to prove him wrong.”

“Well, I’m with you on that one,” Pete mused. “You’ve got people in your corner, at least.”

“Yeah,” Tom murmured, because he did —not a lot of people, but they made up for it with their fierceness and devotion to him and he to them. He knew there were bets from his Academy class on how long it would take him to get to the top, how fast his star would rise. It had been inevitable and just another way he was chasing his own ghost.

“Slider told me a little bit about what you were like in the Academy.”

It was another abrupt change of topic, Pete’s eyes intent on his face, and he almost thanked him but held it back as his tense shoulders loosened, because he didn't really want to talk about his dad anymore, either, knew his eyes were shiny because they were burning, and wanted to kiss him but knew if he did that he wouldn't stop and Pete still looked like he wanted to talk. Pete might have been an impulsive idiot, sometimes (most of the time) but he was decently good at reading people and getting better at reading him every damn day which was a little concerning but also… relieving, in its own way.

Tom side-eyed him as the words themselves registered and alarm bells went off in his head. “I thought you two just told each other corny jokes,” he deadpanned.

Pete grinned, boyish and bright, and poked him in the ticklish spot on his side, laughing like a bastard when he squirmed and let out a high-pitched squeak. “We do,” he said, winking. “We also talk about you a lot.”

“Great,” he drawled, because the last fucking thing he needed was his best friend and his wingman ganging up on him. Worst of all, Slider was about as subtle as a brick to the face. “Did he tell you I gave him his callsign when he slipped on the grease at the end of our plebe year and almost broke both our faces?”

“He sure did,” Pete promised, but he was still grinning that handsome, deadly grin, until it faded slightly and his eyes flashed with pain. “Mostly, though, he tells me stories about Goose.”

Tom sobered abruptly at that, looking down at him quietly. “Yeah,” he said, carefully, because talking about Goose with Maverick was always a little bit like holding a live grenade. “We were in flight school with him.”

“Did you really give him his callsign? You called him Mother Goose, that night in the bar—I’d never heard anyone call him that, but Hollywood said it was how his nickname started before it shortened.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, relieved, because this would be an easy story to tell, and while he felt okay about talking about his dad at least with Pete, he was really glad for a change of subject. “Did Nick never tell you the full story?”

Pete shook his head and bit his lip. “Just that he got it in flight school, and that some uptight blond asshole gave it to him. Will you,” he said with a brave attempt at a grin, even as his voice cracked. “Will—will you tell me?”

“Yeah, Pete,” he whispered, hugging him close and feeling his heart ache sharply in his chest, for all these pieces of Nick that Pete had never had a chance to gather for himself. “Yeah, of course I’ll tell you. It started with a granola bar, actually, or maybe it ended with one? Hard to say; Sli says I had my nose in a book for most of it.”

At least Pete was laughing at the end of the story. Tom was nice enough not to mention how he was crying; just thumbed the tears away and kissed him, hard, his way of reminding him I’m still here.

/

His weekly phone call with Slider was altered from their usual opener when Tom drawled, “So you two talk about me, huh?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Slider’s voice said, sounding cranky and far away like it was down a tunnel. It was more or less in a tunnel; the phones were in a hallway with no window and doors in the middle of a carrier, so. “We tell each other stupid jokes, too.”

“Mav said you told him about Goose.”

“Yeah, so what? He asked, so I told him. Figured it was good that he was asking, y’know, didn’t even sound like he was trying not to cry this time. Even laughed a little, when I told him of that time Hollywood overslept during our first week of training and Nick used a sharpie to draw a mustache on him—”

Tom leaned his head back on his pillow and listened to his friend chatter, smiling faintly to himself. Ron sounded tired but like himself, despite their distance.

“Earth to Thomas.”

“What?” he said, blinking, not realizing he’d zoned.

“I said,” Ron repeated, sounding amused, “Have you dropped the L word yet, moron.”

“It’s been three fucking months, Ronald,” Ice bit out, knee-jerk. It had been three months, but he also was dreading this conversation, because Ron was like a dog with a goddamned bone on the best of days. “I’d rather not invite a flat sprint to the hills.”

“That would have already happened by now,” Ron said, and Tom could hear him rolling his eyes even if he couldn’t see it. “You even talked about your dad, right? That’s fucking huge, man. You barely talk about your dad with me and I’ve known you for seven fucking years.”

Tom grunted, because he didn’t really know what to say. He hated talking about his dad but it wasn’t as difficult when Maverick asked. Probably because he understood complicated relationships with your father, better than Ron or any of his other friends did.

“I think you should, Tommy.”

“Three months, Ronald. Months.”

“What are you so scared of, anyway?" Ron scoffed, sounding like he couldn't believe his ears. "You’re already in. You’re all in, because I know you, you stupid bastard. There is nothing on this earth you do halfway. You’re in or you’re out, always, and you’ve been fucking in since that day in the bar in July of 1986. I saw your fucking face when you went for those peanuts, Thomas. You’d have kissed in front of God and everyone, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

Fuck. “Ron,” he muttered, helplessly, rubbing his eyes.

“No, you do not get to Ron me in that tone, you uptight piece of shit. Listen. Just fucking say it, yeah? Get it out there, in the open, because the two of you are like opposite sides of the same fucking coin, only it’s the idiot coin and neither of you actually know how to talk about the feelings that actually matter, so here’s me doing my best friend duty for the fucking week. Say the words, you asshole, or I’m going to come over there and make you.”

Tom rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Ron,” he complained, huffing out a slight laugh at the mental image. “I don’t think—”

“If you say the words not ready I’m going to strangle you, Kazansky.”

“I meant I’m not ready,” he said, grumpy now.

Tom was balanced on the metaphorical precipice, his toes on the edge. He did love Pete, even when he was being stupid and reckless ( especially when he was being stupid and reckless). Loved his smile and his unfairly green eyes and his laugh, the way he tucked his hands under his ribs to cling to him as tight as he could every night they were together, the way he sassed Jester nonstop until the commander threw things at him, loved how he flew like nothing could touch him even though it stressed him out.

But saying it out loud? That was a whole other ballgame.

“Tom, for fuck’s sake,” Slider grunted. “I will kill you. I will actually wrap my fingers around your neck, it's not like I have to reach up, you stupid short moron—just fucking say it , where’s the big bad Iceman now, get a fucking grip , man—”

“Ron,” he cut him off because he loved him, he really did, but he’d had about enough. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Don’t you dare—”

“Be safe,” he said, loudly, over Ron’s protests. “I’ll take your advice under advisement.”

“You fucker!”

“Talk to you next Wednesday,” he said, sweetly as he could, and dropped the phone back in the cradle with a groan, because he was fucked.

He was head over heels in love with Peter Motherfucking Mitchell, and if he didn't figure out a way to say it, Ron absolutely fucking would.

/

Six days into break and Tom was pleasantly sore and very content, sprawled on his stomach in what he thought of as their bed with Pete on his side next to him, their legs tangled together. Bradley was at school and the house was quiet and peaceful and it gave him all the time he could ever want to just drink Pete in.

“What’re you thinking about, Tom?” Pete whispered, smiling at his expression. “You’re giving me that look, again.”

“It’s just my face,” he whispered, grinning at him in return, but realizing his expression had done absolutely nothing to hide what his heart was telling him with every fucking beat.

I love you, I love you, I love you, it said, and Tom just tugged him close and kissed him, long and languid, because they had all the time in the world. Pushed him on his back, pinned him to the mattress with his bigger body, and nuzzled his nose right over Pete’s heart.

“Tom,” Pete whispered, and he sounded wrecked, fingers sliding into his hair. “God, I wish you could see yourself, sometimes. I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut up,” he said, mildly, pushing up to knock their noses together. “You do too. What makes you think you don’t?”

“I just,” Pete stuttered, arms curling around his shoulders to keep him in place, because Pete absolutely loved it when Tom laid on top of him even though he couldn’t do it for long without squishing him because of their size difference. “I don’t—good things…don’t happen. To me.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “And, what, I’m a good thing?”

“The best thing,” Pete said, immediately, like he didn’t even have to think about it, and Tom’s heart skipped in his chest. “Well,” he amended, a little bashful. “Besides Bradley, of course.”

“That’s because Bradley is the best kid,” Tom agreed, grinning down at him, cupping his face in his hands. “Hey,” he added with a concerned frown, gentle, because Pete’s eyes were shiny, now, and he was biting his lip hard. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I keep waiting for you to get tired of me,” Pete admitted, like the words had been dragged from the bottom of his fucking soul, and Tom bit his lip to keep his first three responses to that to himself.

If he ever saw Charlotte Blackwood again, he was going to kill her.

“Pete,” he whispered, pressing their foreheads together and knowing he had to be very, very careful of what he said and how he said it. Pete’s abandonment issues cropped up occasionally, but this was the first time he’d actually vocalized them.

I love you, he wanted to say, but knew Pete wouldn’t trust it. Not now, not after what he’d just said, so he kissed him instead, tender.

“That’s not going to happen,” he whispered, pulling back but not far, their breaths mingling. “Don’t think it will happen ever, actually, even when I inevitably get pissed at you for doing something reckless and you get pissed at me back for shouting about the stupid rule book and not following my gut.”

“Tom—”

“You said you talked to Slider about me,” he interrupted, his eyebrows arching pointedly. “Did you talk to him about this?”

“Yeah,” Pete admitted, his cheeks pinking. “I didn’t—he asked me, outright, how long we’d been fucking.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m sorry, he has no filter some days,” Ice winced, vowing to kick his ass about it later.

Pete grinned a little, and said, “His shovel talk was pretty impressive. Something about a bear and a saw and how he was a country boy from good ol' Wyoming who could make it look like an accident.”

Tom groaned and dropped his forehead to the pillow beside Pete’s head, even as his wingman just laughed like an asshole and pressed a kiss behind his ear.

“He said I shouldn’t worry, because you kind of—stick. To your people. Like… I think he said, a barnacle?”

“Last time he said I was a fungus, so he’s getting better with his similes,” Ice snorted, propping himself on his elbows so Pete could breathe easier, even as the smaller man snuck his fingers under his shirt and traced the planes of his lower back.

“Sli said you don’t have as many people as one would think, but the people you do have, you stick with.”

Ron was a meddling asshole and he made another mental note to kill him the second he stepped off the Roosevelt. Tom shrugged one shoulder and nodded because it was true. He didn’t let many people through his armor (could count them on two hands, not including his siblings), but once they were in: that was it.

“You’re going to hate me, one day,” Pete predicted, biting his lip and looking pained.

“I really fucking doubt that,” said Tom, point-blank and deathly serious, because he knew nothing could make him hate Pete Mitchell, not really, not even if he broke his heart.

Pete’s expression was mulish, now, his chin jutting out and eyes flashing, trying to make some kind of point. “I’m going to disappoint you.”

“Probably,” he agreed calmly.

“I’m going to piss you off. A lot. A whole fucking lot, because I’m impulsive and reckless.”

Tom just arched his eyebrows, because was that supposed to be news to him?

“I’m going to hurt you,” Pete said, and his voice cracked. “I’m going to hurt you, Tom, and I’m going to fucking hate myself for it.”

Tom curved his hands around Pete’s jaw, thumbed his cheeks, and tried to decide how to say it without actually saying it. 

“Pete,” he murmured, chewing his lip for a second to organize his thoughts. “I’m an asshole. I can be cold, and distant, and even cruel. I’m a neat freak to the point of insanity, I've got an ego the same size as yours, and I always think I’m right, I—I’m not perfect despite how you and others like to tease. I’m going to get mad, and I’m going to get frustrated, and I’m going to be disappointed, sometimes.” But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, he wanted to say; instead, he sighed, “That just makes me, us, human.”

Pete opened his mouth and he covered it with his hand.

“No.” He pressed a kiss to his forehead, and continued. “All of that is normal. We’re going to fight at some point. Kind of astonished we haven’t really, yet, actually,” he added in a mutter, “But it’s normal and healthy, or whatever.”

When Pete sighed in irritation, his breath was damp and warm on his fingers. He jerked his chin and Tom released him. 

“Kind of feels like we’re fighting right now,” he grunted.

Tom sniggered. “Arguing, maybe,” he teased.

Green eyes flashed up at him. “I’m being serious.”

He sobered abruptly and sighed. “I know,” he promised, thumbs stroking Pete’s cheeks. “I know you are, Pete, and that you think you have to warn me off you, or whatever, but you really, really don't.”

Pete sighed in frustration and shoved a hand through his hair, squinting up at him suspiciously, his expression clearly screaming why even if his lips stayed mulishly clamped shut.

Now or never, he mused, and propped his chin on his fist, looking down into Pete’s green eyes and hoping this was going to be as obvious as he was attempting to make it. “I told you already, Mitchell,” he drawled, pointedly releasing some of the weight off his arms so that he sank down a little more, pressing their chests together, listening as Pete’s breath whooshed from his chest, even as his hands clutched at his lower back. “I’m right where I want to be.”

Hopefully one day soon, he left unsaid, as Pete pulled him down so he could hide his face in the line of his neck, You’ll believe me.

/

Halfway through their break between classes, Tom was making waffles when Bradley wandered into the kitchen. There were pillow creases on his cheek and his wild blond hair was sticking up in all directions; his dinosaur pajamas were twisted slightly around his hips and he was squinting up at him with sleepy, dark eyes.

“Hey, baby Goose,” he greeted the boy, warmly, and scooped him up into a hug because he looked like he’d just woken up. A quick glance at the clock confirmed it was five fifty-nine, so Bradley was right on his usual schedule.

“Where’s Mav?” he mumbled, into his neck, hugging his arms around him tightly and hanging on.

“Shower,” he said, holding him easily in one arm and pressing a kiss behind his ear. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” Bradley muttered. “What’re we doing today?”

“Mav was thinking about maybe going to a museum,” Tom told him, flipping the waffle out of the waffle maker onto a plate and pouring batter for the second. He stuck the plate in the microwave to keep it warm and stirred more waffle batter one handed. “The Discovery Science Center in Orange County is pretty cool. We could go to the Long Beach Aquarium, if you’d rather do that instead.”

“So a road trip?”

“Yeah, get out of San Diego for the day,” he murmured, bouncing him a little just to hear him giggle. “You okay, buddy? You’re quiet this morning.”

“Yeah, ‘m just sleepy,” Bradley said, punctuating it with a yawn directly in his ear. “Can I go running with you?”

Tom’s hand faltered on the spoon. “You want to go running with me?” he said, surprised, because he’d offered multiple times with Mav and the man had just muttered something about torturing myself before dawn is not my idea of a good time, Kazansky, before rolling over and going back to sleep once he realized Tom was more interested in exercise of the outdoor variety.

“I like running,” Bradley said simply, pulling back and rubbing his eyes with a second sleepy yawn. “My coach says it’ll make me a good baseball player, too.”

He dropped the spoon in the batter bowl and ran a hand gently through Bradley’s wild blond hair. “Sure, you can come running with me if you want to,” he said with a half-smile. “You’ll have to get up early, though.”

“Really?” Bradley seemed more awake now, eyes shining in excitement. “You’ll really let me come even though I’m just a little kid?”

He would sneak this kid into the cockpit of his fighter jet if he could get away with it, Tom mused, and just kissed him on the cheek. “Anything for you, kiddo,” he said seriously. “We’ll go get you some good running shoes today. Maybe we can get Mav to go with us.”

Bradley grinned. “Mav hates running,” he sniggered.

“He sure does. Might go with us, though, if we ganged up on him.”

The boy held out his finger in a pinkie-promise, his latest thing he’d learned from school, and Tom snorted and hooked their pinky fingers together, rotating his wrist so he could press a kiss to Bradley’s tiny fingers and grinning when the boy copied him, looking very pleased with himself.

That started their morning tradition of running. Tom didn’t let him go every morning, though. He was only five , and he cut back the mileage because, again, the kid was so little it took five of his strides to meet one of Tom’s. He had to more or less lightly jog so that Bradley could keep up but he seemed to enjoy it, chattering at him about school and his friends (Susie, and another boy he’d gotten close to in class named Patrick).

When Bradley got too tired, he’d just put him on his back and run with him like the bounciest, giggliest backpack in the whole world. It was good exercise because he couldn’t swing his arms, and Bradley weighed about fifty pounds.

“You don’t run as far, do you?” Bradley asked him, two mornings after they’d started their new tradition. “I could get a bike and go with you on the long ones.”

Tom glanced at him over his shoulder and grinned. “You want to come that badly, huh?” he teased, tickling the back of his knees with his fingers and laughing when Bradley screeched in his ear and wiggled so hard he nearly dropped him. Bradley got his revenge by hugging him so tight around the neck he wheezed for a second and missed a step.

“It’s fun,” Bradley shrugged. “I wish Mav would come too, though, even though he says riding his motorcycle is more fun than getting all sweaty.”

“You and me both, baby Goose,” he promised, swinging the boy down at the doorway to Mav’s house and pushing it open.

“I’ll get him,” Bradley promised, racing off up the stairs, leaving Tom to get himself a cup of water and slow his breathing back to normal.

“You two all exercised out?” Mav asked a moment later, coming into the kitchen with Bradley in his arms. He was still in his pajamas and looked sleepy. “I was trying to get my beauty sleep, you freaks of nature.”

“Rise and shine,” Tom teased, poking at the coffee pot to get it to turn on, because Pete was generally incoherent before his second cup in the mornings.

“Did you not go riding?” Bradley asked, innocently, and Tom made eye contact with Pete and sipped his water to hide his grin.

They’d gone riding, all right, just not the kind Bradley was thinking of, and Tom laughed a little at the way Pete’s cheeks pinked and he glared at him over the top of Bradley’s head.

“Not today, baby Goose,” Pete said, pointedly, and dropped him back on the floor. “What’s it going to be, kid: the science museum, or the aquarium?”

Bradley tilted his head to the side and thought about it for a moment. “I want to see a jellyfish,” he decided. “Did you know they don’t have a brain? Ms. Anderson was talking about them this week.”

“I didn’t know that,” Pete said, turning to look at Tom with a questioning tilt to his eyebrows. At his knee Bradley did the same and the two of them looked so similar Tom almost laughed at the sight.

“I did,” Tom shrugged. “I grew up in southern California, we learn a lot about the oceans at school here. This winter I’ll take you whale watching, Bradley, we might see an Orca or some whales. Saw humpbacks, last time I went, just off Catalina Island.”

“Really?” Bradley breathed, his mouth hanging open in awe. “Was it huge?”

“Enormous,” Tom said, gravely, spreading his arms wide. “As big as a school bus.”

“Did it breach!?”

“One of them did,” he laughed, scooping Bradley up because he'd launched across the kitchen and was trying to climb him like a tree. “You want to go see for yourself?”

“Yeah!” Bradley said enthusiastically.

“Hmm, we could even make a weekend of it, maybe,” he said, looking at where Mav was by the fridge watching them with a little smile on his face. “They’ve got campgrounds on Catalina, so we could take Wood and the boys, too. And we could snorkel.”

“What if I’m bad at swimming?” Bradley whispered, chewing his lip. “I’m not very good at it, Ice.”

“Well, you’re looking at one of the fastest swimmers from San Clemente High School,” he told Bradley with a smile. “I can teach you. It’s easy, once you figure it out.”

“You were a swimmer?” Pete interrupted, surprise coloring his tone, eying him like he was picturing him in a Speedo and Tom had to fight the urge to preen.

“Played water polo, actually,” Tom admitted, grinning wryly. “We swam in the off season because our coach insisted it would keep us in shape.”

“What’s water polo?” Bradley asked, curiously, looking between them.

“No idea, baby Goose,” Pete shrugged, sipping his coffee.

“Well, I’m going to have to fix that,” Tom vowed, a little offended on his sport’s behalf. “We’ll have to go watch a game, they play in the winters in my old district. I’ll see if my mom can get the schedule. I didn’t play in the Alumni game this year, I was underway.”

Pete looked amused, now, and drawled, “They have Alumni games?”

“Does your high school not do that?” Tom teased, settling Bradley on the counter and getting the milk from the fridge, as the boy opened the cabinet to grab his favorite cup (blue, with a dinosaur).

“Nope,” Pete said, shrugging, “But I played baseball, so.”

“Of course you did,” Tom muttered, tweaking Bradley’s nose as he poured him a glass of milk one-handed. “He’s already corrupted you, baby Goose.”

“Baseball is fun!” Bradley said, grinning up at him with a milk mustache. “My daddy played it, and volleyball, too.”

“Don’t worry, B, we’ll make sure you can do both,” Ice promised, rubbing the top of his head fondly. “Let’s get some breakfast and then go stare at some fish, yeah?”

/

The best nights, Ice had long ago decided, were the ones he spent curled on the couch with Bradley a warm weight on one side of him and Mav a warm weight on the other, tired from their daily adventures and just basking in each other's presences. It had been nonstop these days, because without Top Gun, they could pick Bradley up at twelve and spend the whole afternoon with him and it was wonderful. Bradley loved to snuggle up between them and tell them about his day.

“The amount of drama in a kindergarten classroom is unparalleled,” Tom murmured in Pete’s ear as Bradley, who was plastered along his left side, gestured with his little hands about a fight two of his classmates had had over the last blue block when they were building a tower that had somehow ended in a trip to the nurse’s office and an accidental butterfly release. Bradley’s story kept getting off track and going on tangents so they weren’t sure what the actual connection was.

Or, truth be told, if the story was ever going to end.

“I feel like it’s kind of like teaching Top Gun, except they have no impulse control,” Pete murmured back, one hand idly stroking along the planes of his stomach under his shirt. They were both under a blanket with Bradley and it was nice; cozy, even.

“You say that like our pilots have impulse control,” Ice teased, nuzzling the top of his head.

“Are you even listening?” Bradley sighed, his little face suddenly right there between theirs with an exasperated look. “I was just getting to the part about the butterflies!”

“We’re listening,” Pete and Tom promised in unison, tugging him so he laid half on each of them, launching into a scattered description of the tower falling (how was unclear), a boy’s nose bleeding (presumably from the fight), and the bookcase wobbling so that the butterfly enclosure (which neither of them had known was a thing that even existed until this story) had popped the lid off and one of the monarch butterflies had escaped out the window.

“Three of them are on the ground of the butterfly enclosure now,” Bradley concluded, his little brows furrowed, as if his story had made any kind of linear sense whatsoever, which it most certainly had not. Tom shared a bemused look with Pete and tried not to laugh at the way Pete bit his lip hard to keep from laughing out loud. “I hope they still hatch. Miss Anderson says they probably will, but we won’t know if they won’t or not yet. I’m gonna be real mad at Jimmy if he killed our butterflies!”

“Jimmy the butterfly killer,” Mav snorted into Ice’s pec.

“Mav,” Bradley whined, little hands shoving at his face. “It’s not funny .”

“I know, I’m sorry,” he soothed at once, one hand smoothing his hair down. “You need another haircut, baby Goose.”

Bradley grinned deviously and looked between them. “Can I get frosted tips?”

“No,” Pete said, over Ice’s loud laughter, the force of it shaking them both like an earthquake, as Bradley beamed at him with amusement in his eyes.

“But they look so cool on Ice!”

“I draw the line at frosted tips,” Maverick insisted, and Tom was still laughing but hugged them both close anyway.

Pete pinned him to the bed after Tom had put Bradley to bed by reading that dinosaur book he was starting to have dreams about seeing on fire, tucking the child in with his new jellyfish toy on one side and Spike on the other because Pete Mitchell was a sucker for Bradley's puppy dog eyes.

Pete's eyes were bright and he looked down at Tom like he wanted to ask something but wasn't quite sure how to phrase it.

"Spit it out, Mitchell," he drawled, stacking his hands behind his head and grinning at the way Pete's eyes traced his flexing biceps hungrily before he shook himself and refocused.

"How far down your list are we?" he asked, sliding down a little to get his mouth on Tom's chest, mouth open and hot as he latched on and sucked, hard, the sting of it making him jerk.

"What list," he grunted, hands going to his head to grip his hair as his dick twitched in interest, a forgone conclusion with Pete Mitchell straddling him naked and warm and gorgeous.

"For Bradley's adventures," Pete clarified with a wicked little smirk, before ducking his head to resume sucking a mouth-sized bruise right over his heart.

"Not even a quarter of the way," he admitted, humming, because the mix of the sting and Pete's hot mouth was definitely doing it for him; they'd avoided hickies, mostly, for obvious reasons, but these past days they'd not been shy and Pete definitely liked to mark him, yet another mark in the 'oral fixation' category.

"Hmm," Pete mused, propping himself up on his elbows to study his handwork, smirking. "Well, I guess that'll keep us busy into the new year, at least."

"At least," he agreed, sliding his hands up Pete's bare thighs to his hips. "There a point to this conversation, Mitchell?"

"I have a list," Pete shrugged, still smirking, sitting up straight and making his abs flex with the movement. Tom stared at him hungrily, couldn't help it, and just smiled innocently when Pete watched him knowingly. "I'm curious by nature, you know, and I like to try new things."

Tom nodded because he'd had a front row seat to Pete's curiosities and they were endless (and really hot). "I'm aware."

"I like it when you pin me to things, for example," Pete said, conversationally, like his dick wasn't hard and flushed already. "I really, really like it."

"Again," Tom drawled, inching his fingers slowly towards where Pete was hard and aching, as if he hadn't noticed over these weeks that Pete went boneless whenever he used his body to press Pete into things, "I'm aware."

"Hmm," Pete said, grabbing his hands before they got to their destination and putting them back on his thighs, pressing Tom's hands into his skin. He leaned down and put his mouth at Tom's ear, teeth just nibbling the edge, as he murmured, "How would you feel about pinning me to the mattress and fucking my brains out?"

Tom flipped them easily, using his chest to pin Pete in place, and grinned at the way Pete's eyes blew wide and his mouth dropped open in surprise, how he rolled up into him instinctively. "You'll have to be quiet, Pete," he said, directly into his ear, before latching onto the hinge of his jaw with his mouth, because there was a reason he didn't fuck him at night: Pete was loud.

"I can be quiet," Pete gasped, hands curving around his shoulder blades.

"Alright," Tom said, calmly, as if this wasn't affecting him at all even as it felt like there was a vice around his chest with how much he wanted wanted wanted. "Roll over," he told him, softly, leveraging up to his knees and elbows and laughing at little at how quickly Pete turned over, dragging a pillow over near his face, throwing a happy grin back over his shoulder.

He started at the top of his spine, took his time, marking across his shoulders because they still had time for the marks to fade before the class started and Pete moaned and squirmed under him, already panting. At the breach of his first lubed finger, Pete moaned again from deep in his chest, shockingly loud in the quiet of the room, and Tom tutted and stopped moving his fingers.

"Quiet," he reminded him, sinking his teeth into the back of Pete's shoulder as Pete nodded frantically and shoved his face in the pillow, twitching his ass back in a silent order to move.

Tom took his time prepping him because he was a stalwart believer that sex wasn't supposed to be agonizingly painful, despite Pete's protests that it was tantamount to torture because he was a dramatic little shit, and grinned to himself at the way Pete twitched and shuddered and shook.

"Love how responsive you are, Pete," he murmured, pressing the words into Pete's back, sucking idly at one of the freckles that dotted his skin and tracing it with his tongue, removing his fingers and sliding on a condom, slicking himself up one-handed.

Pete reached back and grabbed onto his elbow, tugging hard, lifting his head to glare at him. "Tom," he whined. "'m ready, c'mon."

Tom seriously doubted that but he didn't resit the pull, rested on his elbows to nose at the side of Pete's head, hesitating for only a moment because in this position Pete had no leverage and would have to just take it and they'd never done this before and he needed to say something no matter how turned on he was.

"Pete," he whispered, pressing a gentle kiss behind his ear and waiting for him to blink his eyes open. "If it gets too intense, tell me to stop and I will."

"I love your hyper focus on safe sex, I really do," Pete groaned, "But please, just fucking get a move on before I die from anticipati—"

Pete's voice cut out abruptly, mouth dropping open, entire body shuddering as Tom slid into him in one long, smooth stroke. He paused with their hips pressed together, getting his bearings and sliding his arms under Pete's shoulders to hang onto him, giving him a second to adjust and then settling his weight so that his chest pinned Pete to the bed.

Tom breathed, slowly, trying to calm his pounding heart, as Pete went boneless beneath him, hands clutching the sheets, mouth open and panting, and he realized fuzzily that Pete probably wasn't going to be able to talk.

"Hey," he said, nuzzling the back of his neck and shifting a little so he could slide his left palm under Pete's, "Grab onto my hand, Pete."

Pete did so, locking their fingers and pressing their palms together.

"Squeeze three times if you want me to stop," he said, starting to shake himself from holding still for so long, his cock throbbing as Pete's walls fluttered around him. "Practice," he ordered, gently, kissing the back of his neck and waiting for Pete to squeeze his hand three times, hard, before he was satisfied.

"Please, Tom," Pete rasped, squeezing his hand hard, and Tom was powerless to deny him and rolled his hips, watching the breath punch out of Pete as he moaned, biting his lip to keep the sounds back as best he could.

It was really fucking intense and so, so good, Pete panting beneath him and hanging onto his hand for dear life, the little punched-out sounds from his mouth driving Tom insane.

"God, Pete, look at you," he murmured, nuzzling into his shoulder, unable to stop himself from pressing hot opened mouth kisses to every part of Pete he could reach, his abs starting to burn from the roll of his hips but determined to go as long as he could, watching Pete's eyelashes flutter, the pink high on his flushed cheeks. "So fucking gorgeous," he added, biting the back of his neck, Pete twitching beneath him with a moan. "So fucking gorgeous for me, Pete, fuck."

Pete was moaning, fingers flexing around his as he blinked his eyes open, a half-smile curving his lips.

"You are," he promised, hugging himself to Pete harder, snapping his hips and grinning at the way Pete trembled and slammed his eyes shut again, choking back a cry. "So gorgeous," he breathed, tucking his forehead to the back of Pete's head, panting onto his neck, "I want to do this all the time, Pete, I never want to stop."

"Me too," Pete sobbed, releasing his death grip on the sheet with his right hand, fingers blindly reaching for his side for the contact, grabbing onto his hip and holding tight enough to bruise.

Tom never stopped the roll of his hips, grunting with the effort, sweat dripping down the bridge of his nose, feeling like he was on fire. He picked up the pace, cuing into the desperate edge that had crept into Pete's voice as he moaned, the way he was trying to twitch into the sheets for friction even though he didn't have any leverage. With a slight grunt he shifted, changed the angle, and Pete cried out and arched up as much as he could, hand like a vice around his.

"There is is," Tom said, smug, and did it again, beyond the point of caring that Pete wasn't being quiet anymore, nailing his prostate on every thrust if the way Pete was shaking beneath him was any indication; he buried his face in the back of Pete's neck and gave it to him as best he could, the wet sounds of their connection overly loud, small grunts punching out of him from the effort, even as he felt his orgasm building. "So good for me," he whispered, pressing a kiss to Pete's skin, "So good for me, Pete."

There were tears leaking out of Pete's eyes that were squeezed tightly shut and he shifted his hand from Pete's shoulder, trailing it down between the bed and Pete's body to roll his nipple as he sealed his teeth on the back of Pete's neck and sucked; Pete clenched around him, hard, and came with another cry, turning his face into the mattress to muffle himself, and it dragged Tom right over the edge with him, vision briefly whiting out as feeling fled from his limbs.

Tom came back to himself an unmeasured amount of time later, still heaving for breath and drenched in sweat, Pete still and breathing shallowly beneath him because his entire body was pressing him down. Both their bodies were shaking with small aftershocks and he cursed quietly, tried to blink his brain back on straight, even as he felt like he'd just been kicked in the head, he'd come so hard. He pushed up to his elbows to let him breathe, watched Pete's chest expand and contract; his eyes were closed and he was breathing just as hard, cheek pressed to the mattress, eyelashes clumped with tears.

He pulled out and Pete didn't react. It was quick work to tie off the condom; they'd long ago moved the trashcan right next to the bed.

"Pete," he whispered, shoving himself up to his knees and rotating so he was pressing his shoulders to the headboard. With sure hands he turned Pete over and half-lifted him up like a small child, cradling him to his chest, pressing kisses to his forehead, the bridge of his sweaty nose, his temple, his heart still pounding and breaths still coming fast because shit fuck and damn, that had been amazing and also a whole hell of a lot to process. "Hey, you alright?"

Pete just nodded, not speaking, and turned his face into his chest, fingers weakly gripping his ribs as his breath evened out.

Tom bracketed him with his knees and stroked his hands over his back, up his neck to the back of his ears, and down again, over and over as his own heart rate calmed and the sweat started to cool on his skin. His breathing was calm, now, and Pete shivered slightly in his hold.

"Pete," he whispered, pressing his thumb to the mark at the back of his neck and smiling a little at the way Pete's entire body twitched and he gasped, "Hey, I'm going to need you to say something."

Pete blinked his eyes open and smiled up at him. "Sleeping sounds better'n'talking," he mumbled, his eyes sliding shut again, nuzzling his face into his neck. "'m gonna need you to do that again, Tommy."

Tom laughed, soft and fond, cradling his head to his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of his head uncaring of the sweat.

"Makes my head quiet," Pete admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, sliding his arms around his chest with more coordination, now. "When you pin me to things," he clarified, punctuating it with a yawn.

"Hmm, given the way you tend to go boneless, I figured," he whispered back, no judgment in his voice, even as he kept sliding his hands everywhere he could reach.

"'s weird, isn't it?" Pete whispered, his eyes open now and squinting up at him, unsure, biting his lip, and Tom's heart hurt to see it.

"No," he promised, nuzzling his forehead, pressing a soft kiss to his skin once, twice, three times, burying his nose in his sweaty hair and breathing him in. "It's not weird."

Pete relaxed, breath whistling out his nose, and tucked his face back into his neck. "I liked it," he admitted, like it was some great secret, like Tom hadn't been right there with him through it all.

"Me too," he smiled, shifting upwards to sit up straight so that Pete was straddling his waist with his arms around his chest, because he could feel his legs now and they needed to shower. "Come on, sweetheart, let's shower, then we'll change the sheets and sleep."

Pete still had his arms around his neck and seemed reluctant to let go of him, so Tom sighed and swung his legs off the bed, standing with Pete clasped securely to his chest.

"That's really hot," Pete said, lifting his head out of Tom's neck to kiss him, grinning cheekily. "It does it for you, doesn't it, being all Neanderthal and lifting me all over the place?"

"You love it," Tom reminded him with a wink as he walked to the shower, pressing a kiss to Pete's neck, his jaw, his lips.

"Yeah," Pete snorted, his eyes crinkling, "I really do."

/

Tom liked to run on the mornings he wasn’t with Pete and Bradley; it was an outlet for his energy, but it also made him feel good and like he’d accomplished something long before most of the world was even awake.

It also let him work through things he was thinking about, usually. Cleared his head. He’d been playing what Ron had said in his head on repeat, trying to decide how you told someone you loved them, especially when that someone was Pete Mitchell and he had major abandonment issues and was also crippled by the death of his best friend in the entire world.

Pete still had nightmares often, though they weren’t as bad as they once had been. He wondered how their nights apart went because Pete always looked tired, those mornings, but stubbornly avoided the questions, and he’d just relented and did his best to make sure Pete was exhausted by the time he fell asleep on the days they were together, be it from exercise or going on adventures with Bradley or sex ('fucking my brains out', as Pete liked to call it, which honestly made him so stupidly fond of the annoying fucker).

Complicated would be putting it mildly.

He jogged toward his house after a four-mile loop down the beach and his step faltered when he saw the extra car in his driveway. A quick glance at his watch and, yep, it was definitely barely seven and he was expecting no one . 

Then he got closer and recognized the car and tried not to groan out loud because while the run hadn’t helped to clear his head much, he still felt a little too on edge to deal with his mother before the sun was even up when he was having an existential crisis about being in love with a man. 

“Mom,” he called irritably as he shoved the front door open, uncaring that he was barely clothed and literally dripping with sweat. “I gave you that key for emergencies, not so you can barge in whenever you feel like it.”

“Good morning to you, too, Thomas,” his mother called from the kitchen and he could hear her sarcasm clearly. 

“Mom,” he complained again, shoving into the kitchen to find his mom and youngest sister present. “Oh, lovely, you brought Rachel.”

“Nice to see you too,” his sister said pissily, scowling at him over her orange juice.

“I saw you last week,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead and wiping the sweat on his already sweaty running shorts. “Mom, what the hell.”

“Watch your language, Thomas Michael,” she warned from the stove because his mom didn’t know what to do without a cooking utensil in her hand. 

“Don’t you have school today?” he said to his sister in the same tone she’d used earlier. 

“No,” she sneered. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a ship or something?”

“I’m an instructor, stupid,” he reminded her. “As per usual you don’t listen to shit.”

“Thomas,” his mother warned. 

“I already had breakfast plans, mom.”

“With who?!”

“My friends,” he emphasized, but what he really meant was Maverick. He’d promised to make Bradley waffles, and a quick glance at the clock told him unless he got his mom out of his kitchen in the next four minutes (unlikely), Bradley would not be getting his waffles this morning and he felt like a total dick about it already.

“Where have you been, anyway?”

“Jogging,” he sighed, resigning himself to his fate and ignoring the pointed look Rachel was giving him, because her eyes were telling him to run for it but his mother hadn't raised a quitter. Might as well engage and get this over with as quickly as possible. “Why are you in my house if you knew I wasn’t here, anyway?”

“All your work things are by the door,” his mother told him. “I knew you’d be back.”

“So you staged an ambush,” he finished for her, rolling his eyes. “Mom if you’re trying to get me to leave the Navy again it’s not going to work.”

“I tried to talk her out of it,” Rachel said dryly, idly stirring her straw in her orange juice. 

“Thanks,” he muttered. 

“I’m worried about you, honey. You’ve barely been home since you were stationed in Miramar,” his mom said as she handed him a plate of bacon and eggs he had absolutely no intention of actually eating.

“Mom, I’ve been home at least once a week,” he sighed irritably, rubbing his forehead with his free hand and grimacing at the sweat, looking around for something to wipe it on and accepting the paper towel Rachel handed him without comment.

“I guess I just thought I’d see you more, that's all.”

“Mom, I’m busy ,” he said, hanging onto patience by the skin of his teeth. “It’s not an easy job and after pulling G’s all day, the last thing I want to do is drive north in a car for two hours in gridlocked traffic, okay? I’m trying, here, but I’m out of the habit of going home.”

His mom sighed and put her hand on his chest, uncaring of the sweat. “I’ve just missed you, baby,” she whispered. “I feel like I’ve only seen you once a year since you started at the Naval Academy.”

“That’s because you have, mom,” he told her, gently, kissing the top of her head. “It’ll take time for me to readjust. And dad—” he let the sentence hang with a grimace. “It’s been hard, with dad.”

“I know, honey.” His mom looked pained, pressing her other hand to her mouth and closing her eyes. “Your dad is so stubborn. He loves you kids, but he’s been struggling since he retired. It’s been good for him to spend more time with Ellie and the boys, he’s—he never really got to see you a lot, much, as babies. He was gone so often—”

“Mom, you don’t have to make excuses for the Colonel,” he said, feeling every inch of his twenty-five years, as Rachel made a sad noise and sipped her orange juice.

“Thomas, honey, I’m just—I just want to know that you’re okay. Are you? Okay?”

“I’m okay,” he promised, and it was true. These last months he’d been the most okay of his entire life and he owed it to the man and child who were probably wondering where he was by now.

“Alright, then,” his mom nodded, stepping back and letting her hand fall. “You should shower, honey, you’re really sweaty.”

“Clean up when you’re done, would you?” he asked her as he handed the plate of food to Rachel and wiped the paper towel over his face and neck, tossing it in the trash on the way to the door.

“Where are you going?” his mother called after him. 

“For breakfast, I’ll see you at dinner in a couple days,” he shouted back, swiping his ID and car keys off the table in the landing and slamming the front door behind him. 

He didn’t get to make Mav and Bradley breakfast, but Mav asked him to bend him over the kitchen counter and take him apart, so, he supposed that was a pretty good end to the morning, all told.

/

Tom had read Benjamin’s file front to back, top to bottom, and he really didn’t like the picture it painted. He and Mav had only discussed it briefly before Pete had (predictably) distracted him. 

Not that he was complaining, of course.

Admiral Benjamin had been there at their sea trials during the Academy, and not only had he been a colossal fucking prick, but he’d succeeded in making them all feel like they were about an inch tall and as dumb as a bag of rocks.

Only the Academy ring on his finger had answered the question of how in the hell he’d gotten so far up in the ranks despite clearly being a goddamned moron.

So, he knew Admiral Benjamin, and he knew that Mav had done something to piss him off involving his daughter.

Throwing his clearly volatile son into the mix and then shaking it at 5Gs was not something Tom was keen on, so, he skipped his run on a non-Mav day and decided to go pick the brain of Commander Metcalf, instead, because he was going to need some kind of backup and Jester was a little too much like Mav to be of much use, which left Viper.

He knocked on the door three times, precisely, and waited.

Carrie answered the door in an apron with flour on her hands and looked surprised. “Hello, Tom,” she greeted him, with a smile. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder briefly and she added, “No Pete?”

“Not today, ma’am,” he said, because he was here to talk to her husband about Pete and he could hardly do it with the man himself standing there shouting about how he didn’t need help solving his own problems.

Pete was going to be pissed at him if he ever found out he’d done this, but Tom found he didn’t fucking care, because someone had to protect Pete even if Pete himself wouldn’t do it.

“Are you coming to dinner with him and Bradley tonight?” Carrie asked as she waved him in. “I’m making lasagna. You’re more than welcome to join us, I know it’s a drive up to your family in San Clemente.”

“Thanks for the invitation, ma’am, but if I don’t make it to dinner tonight my mother will kill me,” he joked, smiling at her as Mike came down the stairs.

“Tom,” he greeted him, warmly, shaking his hand. “You better not sir me on our days off.”

“Right, s-uh, Mike,” Tom corrected himself, feeling supremely uncomfortable with it but doing as ordered. “Sorry to bother you on a day off, I just—do you have a second to talk?”

“Of course,” Mike said, easily, exchanging a knowing look with his wife and waving him into his study.

Tom got briefly distracted by the pictures and the awards as his boss closed the door, because Mike Metcalf’s career in the Navy had been a thing of fucking beauty and he’d always idolized him more than a little. There was a very familiar-looking face in one of the frames and he frowned at it, recognizing a younger Mike, and—

“Duke Mitchell,” Mike said from beside him, fingers reaching out to tap the frame with a fond look on his face. “Best pilot I ever knew. The things he could do in a plane.” He shook his head and tucked his hands in his pockets. “Only person I’ve ever seen come close is his son.”

He hummed, because that wasn’t something that required a response, and shifted his feet as he tried to put it into words. “Viper,” he addressed him, because calling him Mike was really fucking weird. “I’m worried. About Benjamin’s kid.”

“I figured,” said Mike as he sank into one of the chairs and motioned him into the other. “You’re not the type to come by for a social chat, Kazansky. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Benjamin is volatile and unhinged and his son is just as bad,” Tom said, point-blank. “Have you met him? The Admiral?”

“Unfortunately.” Mike grimaced. “Not my favorite person.”

“He was there for our sea trials in the Academy, and Viper, it was horrible. The shit he said, hell, the shit he did —” he trailed off, swallowing hard. “Sir, I’m pretty sure it’s why they took him out of the Fleet and slapped him on a land office. He’s borderline insane on power.”

Mike just nodded and folded his leg over his knee, spinning his wedding ring around and around on his finger.

“You read his son’s file?”

Tom nodded. “Having him in our class is going to be rough,” he predicted. “He’s going to buck our authority at every turn and we’re not going to be able to do anything about it because his dad will just smooth it over. His whole file reads like a textbook on my daddy fixes all my problems go suck a dick because you can’t do a thing to me. Sir,” he tacked on, belatedly, cheeks pinking a little because he’d just sworn multiple times in front of his commanding officer and shit talked an Admiral and his son while he was at it.

“I don’t disagree with your assessment, which is on the nose, as always.” Mike smiled at him. “Admiral Benjamin isn’t the only one with friends in high places, Tom. Now. Who you’re really worried about is Pete.”

He winced, because if Viper had noticed, he’d been really obvious about it. “Sir,” he said, keeping his voice level, “He’s barely coping with Goose. It’s getting better, and so is Bradley, but—”

“Pete Mitchell will always be impulsive, daring, and reckless,” Viper finished for him with a sad little smile. “He gets all that from his dad, you know.”

Tom sat back in his chair because Mav didn’t talk about his dad very often.

“Benjamin is going to push his buttons,” Mike continued, serene, “And we’re just going to have to be there to pull Pete back off the ledge, Tom, even if it takes both hands.”

He swallowed and nodded because that was his full time job anyway, talking Mav out of the crazy shit he was always wanting to pull on the kids during their hops. Even though Mav listened to him most of the time there was only so much he could do.

“You’re a good friend,” Mike added, smiling at him, and there was something about his expression that made Tom's heart freeze in his chest, but it was there and gone again in a heartbeat and he wondered if he'd seen it at all. “I’m glad Pete has you in his corner. He’s a good kid and he’s grown up a lot the last two years.”

Tom nodded woodenly, because they both knew how much losing Goose had changed Pete forever. He wasn’t a cautious flier, not by any means, but he wasn’t as reckless either, not with Bradley to think about.

“Sir,” he said, trying to find the words and drumming his fingers on his knees. “If he—I’m going to try, sir, but if Benjamin pushes all Pete’s buttons like I think he’s going to, I can’t— he listens to me, sometimes, but not always, and—”

“Tom,” Viper interrupted him, and his voice and expression were warm as he leaned forward to grab his knees and squeeze them. “Listen to me, son. I take care of my people. I’m going to need you to trust me for the next eight weeks. Think you can do that?”

“Absolutely,” Tom said immediately because he’d trust this man with anything.

“In case you didn’t realize, you’re one of those people,” Viper continued, patting his knee and pulling his hands back. “I’ve got it covered. You just focus on keeping Pete from doing something stupid and I’ll do the rest.”

“I’ll try my best, Viper,” he said, dry as the desert, grinning when Mike laughed outright. And then, because he was a little shit at heart and he couldn’t resist, “Can’t help that your kid is an idiot, though.”

“Yeah, well, a man can dream,” Viper snorted, rubbing his chin and not arguing, which threw Tom briefly through a loop because holy shit Pete hadn’t been kidding. “Come on. Are you hungry?”

Tom was a young man who worked out frequently and whose pastimes included flying around in very fast planes pulling Gs that would have most people passing out, so the answer to that question was always yes and he gave Viper a flat look to convey this.

“Come on,” the older man snorted as he stood and opened the office door. “I’ll make you a sandwich and you can tell me all about Benjamin’s kid in the Academy and everything that didn’t make it to his file. I read your file, kid, so I know you were the Brigade Commander your last year at the Academy, which means you have all the scuttlebutt.”

“Sure do, but you’re going to need a damn big sandwich for me to get through it all,” Tom said wryly, grinning as Mike dragged him down the hallway.

“I’ll tell you what,” Viper said, his grin devious, “I’m going to give you an assignment.”

“Does this involve a bet, sir?” he said dryly, as he let Mike push him down onto one of the bar stools.

“Not exactly, but I want it to stay between us,” Mike said as he handed him a beer even though it was barely ten and then cracked one for himself. “I want you to find as many of Lieutenant Benjamin’s metaphorical buttons as you can.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Tom said, taking a sip of the beer and letting it burn down his throat before continuing. “If he’s anything like his dad getting him to fly off the handle will be easy.”

Mike nodded and clinked their beer bottle necks together. “You just find them, son, and I’ll let you know when I’m ready for you to press them.”

Tom’s eyebrows rose at that, but he felt understanding dawning and peered across the island at his boss with a new light. “All this betting is always your idea, isn’t it, Viper,” he said, carefully, squinting at the man and realizing he’d just been fucking had, because Viper clearly already had a plan of attack and was setting it in motion days before Lieutenant Benjamin even got to NAS North Island. A plan of attack that included him as a key game piece, and he hadn’t even fucking realized it until the board was already laid out in front of him and Viper was nudging him into his metaphorical spot on the board.

Viper hadn’t even been surprised to see him, had set him down in his office like he’d been waiting for it to happen, and—fuck, Viper was him, in twenty years, and he felt a little bit like he’d just gone into a flat spin in his F-14, because holy fucking shit.

He was good. He was very, very good, and from the smug look on Viper’s face, he knew it, too.

“Makes life interesting,” Mike said with a little grin and a wink, because he’d watched the last minute of Tom’s face going through the realization that the board was already in motion. “We got a deal?”

“Yeah, sir,” Tom said, shaking his head in disbelief and wondering what this little plan was and what he’d just gotten himself into, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Excellent. What kind of sandwich do you want?”

/

Their break was over and the dreaded day had arrived, much to his aggravation. Mav had been a ball of nerves the whole day prior, and in an effort to help him calm down, he'd enjoyed himself seeing how many times in a night he could bring Pete right to the edge before backing him off it, making use of his famous self-control to help it happen.

Turned out that answer was a lot, and Pete had come so hard he'd been sobbing and then slept so solidly he hadn't even moved, so Tom counted it as a success story because Mav looked well rested and alert today which was exactly what he needed his wingman to be if they were going to make it through this shit show unscathed.

Ice had adopted what was his new first-day position against the back wall of the hangar. He’d crossed his arms and braced one foot on the wall, chewing his gum and observing quietly as the newest crop of aviators came into the hangar and jostled for seats.

Mav was quiet at his side. His feet were braced shoulder length apart and he’d propped his hands on his hips.

“Here we go,” he murmured quietly, just for Mav, watching the aviators notice the two of them in the back and start to point and whisper as if they couldn’t see or hear them.

“Every fucking time,” Maverick snorted. He pitched his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “Ten bucks says the next class Jester has us betting on how long it takes for them to point.”

“I’m not taking that bet,” Tom snorted, popping his gum, listening to the pilots exclaim holy shit it’s them, the ones from the Gulf and the picture in the hallway, Maverick and Iceman.

Ice spotted Tex with another aviator at his shoulder, Nut. The two of them zeroed in on he and Mav immediately and he sure as fuck did not like the gleam in Tex’s eyes. It was way too similar to Admiral Benjamin’s when he was moments from going on a warpath, something he’d experienced exactly once at the Academy during their sea trials and wasn’t keen to experience ever again.

There was a reason Admiral Benjamin had been shifted to shore leave and removed from the Fleet, and it wasn’t because he was good at his job, or so the scuttlebutt at the Academy had said.

Tom shifted his head slightly to see Viper already watching him. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses so it was easy to see where his eyes were, and they were focused sharply on his face.

Viper nodded, once, and Tom nodded back.

Showtime.

It was going to be a really fucking long eight weeks.

Chapter Text

They had five more days until class resumed and reality returned. Bradley was already at school, and Tom should be here soon even though he’d said he would come make breakfast and then never showed up, and Pete felt like he was going to fall out of his own skin because he was so nervous about having Benjamin’s borderline psychotic kid in his class.

He needed a break from thinking about it. Hell, he needed a break from thinking about anything, and the easiest way to accomplish that was to either get drunk, which wasn’t going to work (not at nine in the morning on Tuesday when he had to pick Bradley up from Kindergarten at twelve) or, alternatively, to have Tom fuck his brains out.

The second option was much more viable. For one, he wasn’t sore anymore after their last round two days ago (even though he’d fucking loved the feeling; every time he’d moved, he’d remembered, and fuck, it was really fucking hot). For another, Tom never seemed to get enough of touching him which was a feeling he could relate to because it was difficult to go very long without touching Tom in return.

Going back to work was going to be an exercise in his self control. He felt like an addict, high on the feeling of Tom’s skin against his, and having to go back to being polite and physically distant coworkers was going to suck major ass.

At least in eight weeks, he’d get Tom to himself for another two weeks. It would be a small consolation prize, he mused, even as he watched the man himself shoulder through the front door still sweaty from his run and looking agitated.

“Hey,” Tom grunted, in greeting, dropping his keys on the table by the door. “Sorry. The jog took longer than planned. I know I missed breakfast and drop off, I’ll make it up to both of you.”

Pete swallowed at the sight of him, because those tiny running shorts left very little to the imagination and he was bare-chested and glistening with sweat, backlit by the morning sun that was haloing his blond hair, and he was both astonished he hadn’t caused any car accidents swanning around outside dressed like he was as much as by his sudden urge to climb him like a tree. 

“You alright?” he asked, mostly to distract himself from wanting to touch.

“Yeah. My mom was at my house.” Tom rolled his eyes as he balanced on one foot to yank his shoes off and toss them on top of the rack by the door. “She came when I was out running and made me fucking breakfast and wanted to interrogate me on all my life choices, and she even brought my youngest sister Rachel with her.” 

Tom glanced around at the kitchen as his voice trailed off, frowning a little, because all the curtains were drawn and, listen, Pete was not subtle at all, never had been, and he’d left the box of condoms and the bottle of lube right there on the kitchen counter, because he couldn’t wait long enough to go upstairs and he really wanted his giant blond whatever-they-were (boyfriends? wingmen? wingmen) to bend him over the counter and make him forget his own name. 

Pete couldn’t resist any longer and grabbed his hips to pull him closer.

“I’m all sweaty,” Tom warned, and then inhaled sharply, because Pete ducked a little (not far, Tom had a good four almost five inches on him though he’d never admit it out loud), and licked a line up his abs with a happy little hum.

Tom’s hand curled into his hair on reflex and he grunted, “Well, good morning to you too, Pete.”

“We can talk about your mom later,” he promised, nosing into his sternum and palming his ass, walking him backwards towards the kitchen island.

“Okay,” Tom said, sounding amused even as he let Pete pull him flush so their chests stuck together. “I really should shower—”

“You’re just going to get all sweaty again when you fuck me anyway,” he said, pointedly, as he slid his hands under the waistband of Tom’s shorts and groped the firm muscles of his ass, grinning up at him with a wink.

Tom grinned at him. “You’ve got my attention, Mitchell,” he teased, already half-hard in his running shorts, hands tugging at the waistband of his sweatpants.

Pete helped him by stepping out of them and then he was naked in the kitchen with Tom staring at him hungrily, hands sliding from his shoulder blades to his ass. He swallowed, hard, and watched Tom’s face as he spread his legs to make it easier for Tom to get what he was looking for.

Even though he’d gotten used to it over the last week, he still twitched and bit his lip when Tom stroked a gentle thumb over his hole.

Tom went very still and inhaled sharply. Sharp blue eyes looked down at him, his brows furrowed, and Pete felt his face getting hot because he’d fingered himself to be ready, not in the mood for the way Tom loved to torture him with just his fingers.

“I was impatient while I waited for you,” he rasped, his voice sounding like he’d been gargling nails, and then he moaned and jerked forward into Tom’s chest when his thumb pressed in, in, in—

“Jesus fucking Christ, Pete, you’re going to kill me one of these days,” Tom said, and it made Pete feel a little less embarrassed, because Tom’s voice was just as rough as his was. “What do you want?”

“You,” Pete said, because it was true, even as Tom’s hands turned him towards the island. He was stepping out of his running shorts, fully hard now, and Pete shivered in anticipation.

Tom was a hot line against his back, body curving over him, forcing him towards the countertop. He went with little fuss, gripping the edge of it with his fingers to ground himself. 

“How do you want me?” Tom murmured, sucking hickies across his shoulders and making his toes curl from the heat and the sting.

“Right here, like this,” he rasped, spreading his legs further in invitation and pushing his hips back, moaning as Tom’s index finger pushed easily into the slick heat of his body and curled expertly, finding his prostate on the first try, because he was a fucking perfectionist to the tenth goddamned degree and it was the best thing ever.

“I’m never going to be able to look at this counter the same way again,” Tom said, quietly, withdrawing his finger. 

Pete made an impatient sound at the loss, hips twitching back, and was only mildly mollified when Tom stroked a hand up his spine with a soothing murmur, because he could see Tom reaching for the box of condoms. He shivered as he tore the condom open and rolled it on, Tom’s free hand stroking all over him, clever fingers rolling his nipple and making him whimper at the shot of desire straight to his throbbing dick.

“Put this on,” Tom ordered, waving the condom packet in front of his face, “Or we’re going to make a mess.”

“I love making a mess,” he muttered, but he obeyed, biting his lip as his fingers brushed his cock.

There was no warning, this time, no gentle rocking; Tom was suddenly there, pressing in, the stretch and the sting of it taking his breath away. He clutched at the countertop edges until his fingers ached, moaning through it, the steady, intense slide, until Tom bottomed out and stilled for a heartbeat.

He was so fucking full; his toes curled into the tile and he pressed his hips back, a silent demand, as Tom’s hands curled around his hips and held on, tightly enough that he would bruise, withdrawing and pausing, the head of his dick holding him open, and then he slammed his hips forward and Pete saw stars and shouted but Tom just paused there, their hips pressing together, and Pete tried to breath through the feeling of Tom in him, around him, holding him, because it was overwhelming in the best way.

“This on the list, Pete?” Tom breathed in his ear, chest pressing into his back but not pinning him, fingers sliding between his on the countertop and squeezing.

“Yeah,” he rasped, turning his head a little to smile at Tom, who smiled back and ducked his head to kiss the top of his shoulder, his cheek, the shell of his ear. “Are you complaining?”

“Definitely not,” Tom hummed, smirking, “Though it does make me wonder what else is on it.”

Pete opened his mouth to respond but moaned instead, because Tom withdrew, agonizingly slow, and then snapped his hips forward again, and he cried out and pressed his palms flat to the countertop for leverage, rocking back into the feeling.

“Not even,” he gasped when Tom did it again, tried to focus on his words even though he had a hard time talking when Tom was doing this to him, “A quarter, of the way,” he pressed his forehead to the tile, hard, and trembled when Tom’s cock brushed his prostate, trying to remember what he’d been talking about and then remembered the list, managed to gasp, “ Through.”

Tom’s breath was hot on the back of his neck as he pressed a kiss there, mouthing at the fading mark from two days ago, and Pete could feel the curve of his smile, tried to focus on something other than the feeling of Tom inside him and failed miserably because his nerve endings were tingling.

“Don’t think I’ll ever, hnng,” he trailed off, because Tom had apparently decided he was done teasing and was snapping his hips forward, hands on his hips now pulling him back into each thrust, and Pete pushed up onto the balls of his feet to help with the leverage.

“Don’t think you’ll what?” Tom asked, mouthing at the back of his shoulder, now, teeth sinking in and then soothing with his tongue.

“Hmm?” he rasped, a little annoyed, because Tom’s pace was slowing and he tried to press back but Tom’s hands tightened on his hips and stopped him, held him in place, biceps flexing, and Pete felt hot all over because fuck, he loved how big and strong his stupid wingman was, okay.

“Don’t think you’ll what,” Tom repeated, grinding his hips forward.

Pete desperately tried to remember what he’d been fucking saying and it took an embarrassingly long stretch before he was able to recall, grabbing Tom’s hands and pulling, until he was pressed up against his back fully. The countertop was digging into his stomach but he didn’t care at that moment, because Tom’s mouth was pressing open-mouthed kisses along the column of his neck to his jaw as he waited.

Tom was very patient and he was very, very not, and he was also aware enough that Tom wasn’t going to fucking move until he answered.

“Don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this,” he admitted, tugging at Tom’s right hand so that it was across his chest in a sort of bear hug, rolling his wrist so he could press a tender kiss to the back of Tom’s hand.

“Hmm,” Tom agreed, kissing the side of his head and pushing upwards again, and Pete was relieved because he was moving again, shallow thrusts that were little more than teasing and made him hiss in frustration.

“Tom,” he whined, trying to press back and increase the pace, but Tom’s hands curled around his hips again and he made a frustrated noise and pressed his forehead into the tile, chest heaving.

Tom sounded amused when he drawled, “What, Pete?”

It made Pete want to hit him, a little, but he really wanted him to move faster, because he was never going to come at this point unless he did all the work himself —

“Come on,” he complained, voice a hoarse rasp, “Stop teasing.”

“Tell me what you want, then,” Tom ordered, mouthing at the knobs of his spine, fingers digging in hard at his hips and preventing him from moving even as he tried to push back, keeping up the shallow thrusts that were slowly driving Pete crazy because they weren’t enough.

“I want—” he trailed off, cheeks flaming, because he didn’t know how to phrase it, and Tom wasn’t stopping, just rocking into him steadily, slow and measured. 

“Yes?” Tom pressed, hands sweeping up his side. “Come on, Pete, what do you want?”

“I want,” he said through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as Tom’s hand slid down his chest, tugged him away from the counter just enough for him to get his hand on his dick, fingers wrapping around it loosely, and he whimpered and fucked forward into the loose circle of his hand.

It still wasn’t enough, and he hissed in frustration.

“You asshole,” he muttered to the tile, because Tom was fucking enjoying this, he just knew it. “I—” he trailed off again, biting his lip, because Tom’s hands had tightened on his hip and his dick and pulled him back as he thrust forward, hard, cock brushing his prostate, fingers sliding up his shaft just right. “That,” he gasped, almost sobbing with relief because it felt so good, “I want that.”

“Gonna need to be a little more specific, sweetheart,” Tom whispered in his ear, releasing his dick and going back to his shallow rocking thrusts, and Pete banged his head on the counter twice to try and focus. Tom stilled his hips, kissing across his shoulders, and whispered, “What do you want?”

It cleared his head, a little, and he took a deep breath and wrenched his mouth open by sheer force of will to rasp, “Pin me, take me apart,” he begged, closing his eyes and feeling his face burn in embarrassment, because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how Tom had pinned him to the bed, how he’d had to just take it, how quiet his head had been after. “Hard, Tom, please, make me forget.”

“Pete,” he whispered, tugging him up off the counter altogether, back against his chest, kissing his cheek, his jaw, his pulse point. “Look at me.”

Pete’s face still felt hot but he obeyed, turning his head and looking up at Tom, who cradled his face in one hand. He swallowed down his embarrassment and tried not to shake too badly because like this Tom was everywhere, buried deep inside him, hot on his skin from the back of his neck to his ankles; focused instead on Tom’s blue eyes, watching him tenderly, and it made his eyes burn a little.

“It’s okay,” Tom murmured, kissing him, teeth tugging gently at his lower lip, “To ask for what you want.”

“I just did,” he pointed out, wishing his face would cool down.

“Don’t get embarrassed now, sweetheart,” Tom said, but his tone was soft, hands sweeping up his flanks, and something in Pete settled, his face feeling less warm. “You sure?” He tilted his head at the countertop and Pete was nodding eagerly before he’d even finished talking.

“Okay,” Tom laughed, kissing him one more time and guiding his hands to hold the edge of the countertop. “Okay, sweetheart, if that’s what you want I’ll give it to you.”

Pete was trembling, biting his lip as a strong hand settled between his shoulder blades and pressed him down, down, down, until he was bent at the waist and his pecs were flat on the countertop, and then his cheek was pressing the tile, the small white squares cool on his flushed skin, the rough texture of the grout grounding him.

Tom’s hand curled at the back of his neck, firm, thumb stroking his hairline, and Pete shuddered and slammed his eyes shut.

“Is this okay?”

Pete nodded, unable to speak around the lump in his throat; Tom was the first partner he’d had who checked in regularly during sex to make sure what he was doing was okay, who would stop at the first sign of his discomfort or pain, and it made his heart feel too big for his damn chest every time the beautiful bastard did it. Made him feel safe, the way nobody else ever had; reminded him, every time, that Tom didn’t want to hurt him.

“What’re you doing?” he muttered, cracking his eyes open to peer over his shoulder at Tom, who was just watching him, after a stretch of heartbeats where Tom didn’t move a muscle.

Tom flashed him a half-smile. “Admiring the view,” he drawled, sliding his free hand up his side and squeezing the back of his neck hard with the hand still curled around it, “Giving you a second.”

“I don’t need a second,” he complained, “I need you to fuck me, Kazansky.”

Those beautiful eyebrows arched as Tom pointedly rolled his hips, making him gasp because his cock brushed his prostate with just enough pressure to tease, and drawled, “I already am, smartass.”

Pete opened his mouth to say something sassy, though he didn’t remember what an instant later because the hand at his side shifted to between his shoulder blades and pressed, hard, fingers squeezing at the back of his neck pressing his cheek to the cold tile, and his mouth dropped open as he moaned, loudly, because his head felt muffled, all of a sudden, thoughts quieting until all he had was sensations; Tom’s hands hot like brands on his skin, sweat rolling down his sides, off his temple, down his nose; Tom filling him up, hips snapping forward with abandon, the friction of it overwhelming, the grout scraping his nipples and sending a tingle of arousal straight to his throbbing dick that was bouncing with the force of Tom’s thrusts.

Tom was talking but he had no idea what he was saying, his ears ringing, fingers digging into the countertop edge.

He unclenched his fingers from the counter, reached down, whimpered when the hand left his back and grabbed hard at his wrist and Tom’s voice snapped into focus with a firm, “No. You’ll come like this, Pete.”

Tom’s pace didn’t even falter as he settled his hand back, squeezing the back of his neck, hips slamming into his hard enough to bruise, and he scrabbled desperately at the tiles until Tom shifted his hips, the suddenness of the head of his cock brushing his prostate with each forward thrust enough to punch the breath from his lungs.

Pete’s face felt damp, his throat burning and tight at the same time, every muscle tensing and releasing from the onslaught, barely enough pause between for him to breathe; dick throbbing, so close, so close, not enough—

Tom’s hips stilled and he grinded his hips forward, rolling them but not withdrawing, the tip of his cock massaging his prostate relentlessly without pausing.

Pete was shaking so hard he felt like he was coming apart at the seams, balls drawing up tight, it was so good, so so so fucking good, and then the wave crested and he sobbed in relief, curling in as he clenched hard on Tom’s cock and came untouched with a shout, vision whiting out, his orgasm rendering him briefly blind and deaf and dumb.

The cold counter on his cheek was the next thing he registered, body shaking uncontrollably, breath burning in his lungs. His face was wet, from tears and sweat, and his brain felt fuzzy, even as he registered a broad, warm palm sweeping up his side, across his shoulder blades, a warm mouth and hot tongue tracing random patterns. A strong arm was around his waist, holding him upright because he’d gone completely limp, and Tom was still buried deep inside him.

“You with me, Pete?” Tom whispered, nuzzling his shoulder, pressing a tender kiss there.

“Yeah,” he rasped, forcing his aching fingers to relax their death grip on the edge of the counter and trying to get his hands under him. His arms weren’t cooperating so he gave up momentarily, just breathing as the aftershocks zinged down his limbs. “Tha’was intense.”

“I’m gonna pull out, okay?”

Pete just nodded, twitching when Tom brushed his prostate as he withdrew, but it didn’t hurt, just left him feeling empty. He pushed his forehead to the tile and tried to breathe through it, through the feeling of longing that always struck him in that moment because a part of him wished they could stay like that, connected, forever.

Tom’s hands were gentle when he slid the condom off his cock but he whimpered anyway, the skin so sensitive it was borderline painful, and Tom just pressed gentle kisses to his spine in apology.

“C’mon,” Tom whispered, “Shower. It’ll help the feeling come back.”

Pete lifted his head to see Tom smiling at him knowingly, a little smug, and he just dropped his cheek back down with a sigh. “How can you even stand,” he slurred, because his knees were still shaking so hard he couldn’t lock them.

“I’m always shaky after I get fucked too, if it makes you feel better,” Tom said, his voice amused, hands turning him and lifting him and Pete should have expected it by now.

He gave Tom a sassy look even as he wrapped his arms around his neck and held on.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you want to walk instead, noodle limbs?” Tom drawled, hands sweeping up his back, eyes sparkling.

“Asshole,” he mumbled, tucking his face into Tom’s neck and not really meaning it, because Tom had been really fucking great to him a few minutes ago and given him exactly what he wanted and he wasn’t about to complain if Tom wanted to carry him around afterwards.

That, and the thought of not touching Tom right now made him want to cry a little, because the press of his warm skin was as soothing as it was grounding. They were quiet as Tom climbed the stairs and Pete just rested there, feeling his heart rate finally settle.

“Do you like to?” he murmured, when the words from downstairs registered better in his foggy brain, keeping his face pressed to Tom’s neck because lifting his head right now took too much effort even as the blond turned on the shower spray.

“Like fucking you?” Tom asked, amused, and Pete could feel the vibration of his voice against his jaw, in his chest. “I’d have thought that would be obvious by now, Pete, given how I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.”

“No,” he clarified, rolling his eyes but still not lifting his head even as Tom stepped under the warm spray still holding him close. “Catching, instead of pitching, I guess.”

“You would turn sex into a baseball metaphor,” Tom snorted, hand sliding into his hair to tug his head up, hand curling around his jaw to help support and keep it there. “Hi,” he added, warmly, and kissed him tenderly enough it briefly robbed Pete of breath.

“Hi,” he returned, a little shy, resisting when Tom tried to put him down because he really didn’t think his knees could take his weight yet.

“You’re not exactly small,” Tom hummed, but didn’t protest, just reached for the shampoo bottle one-handed.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out.

“You didn’t ask me a question, Pete.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “Do you like getting fucked or doing the fucking?” he said, point blank, because that was about as obvious as he could make it.

“Both,” Tom said idly, apparently deciding to forgo formalities and just drizzle the shampoo straight on the top of his head, the cold on his scalp making his shoulders twitch up and his nose wrinkle as Tom grinned at him. “I prefer to give, though, rather than receive, but I’m open to switch if you want to.”

Pete bit his lip at the thought and considered it and, yeah, he would like to make Tom fall apart, actually. He knew his own skillset and he’d been really damn good at giving it to women, so it shouldn’t be that hard to do it with Tom.

“Hmm, that’s a new expression,” Tom mused, thumbing his chin, and then nudging him down so he was forced to stand. “I’ll take that as a yes. Add it to your list, then.”

Pete grinned and kept his arms locked around Tom’s waist because his legs felt a little disconnected, still, but sighed happily as Tom washed his hair and then scrubbed the loofa over the parts of him he could reach, wanting to say something, his chest feeling tight and light at the same time.

“Tom,” he breathed, eyes burning, pressing the word to the center of his chest, just over his dog tags, arms tightening at his waist, because he’d realized what he actually wanted to say was, I think I might love you. His gut clenched at the realization that he was capable of causing this man so much hurt and pain if he wanted to, blurted instead, “I don’t deserve you.”

“Hey,” Tom said, firm, pushing him away to hold his face in his hands and peer down at him, the water cascading down his sharp cheekbones, his eyes so, so blue in the sunlight shining through the small window above the shower. “We’ve talked about this, Pete. I’m right where I want to be, remember?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, turning his face to kiss Tom’s palm, hoping the water would hide the tear that slipped out of his eye; knowing it hadn’t, when Tom’s thumb swept it away, his expression caught between that look he was always giving him and confusion.

Tom’s stomach growled, shockingly loud, and Pete couldn’t help the laughing snort that escaped him as the blond’s cheeks pinked. “Did your mom not feed you?” he asked.

“It’s possible I ran away before I actually ate anything,” Tom shrugged with a self-conscious grin, scrubbing his own hair quickly and Navy-efficiently. “Did you eat?”

Mav shook his head. “Bradley wanted Frosted Flakes again, and I’ve had just about enough of that sugary shit.”

Tom laughed and shut off the water, reaching around the shower curtains to snag two towels. “I’ll make you breakfast, then,” he murmured, kissing the top of his head, “But you’ve gotta let go of me first so we can dry off and put clothes on. I draw the line at lounging around naked all day.”

Pete did so, reluctantly, hating how cold his skin felt, but he got some really fantastic waffles out of it. He still felt a little too big for his skin after loading the dishwasher and studiously not looking at the counter Tom had just bent him over because it would get him all hot and bothered; he was already sore, knew he'd feel it for a couple days.

“Hey,” Tom said, hand sweeping up his spine, palm warm even through the fabric of his white T-shirt, and he sounded worried, now. “You’re being really quiet, Pete. Did I hurt you?”

“Not in the least,” he promised, smiling up at him to soothe his worry but chewing his lip because he still felt like—like he needed, something , and then he remembered how he’d felt in the shower, how cold he still felt, and felt his cheeks pink and Tom just watched him with his head tilted curiously to one side. “Can you—I mean. Will you—” he stopped, struggling.

“Pete,” Tom said, slowly, hands sliding up his chest to cup his neck, thumbs pressing to the hinges of his jaw, skin so warm against his it was like touching the sun. “Are you absolutely sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“Yes, stop, it was perfect,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “I just—will you—can you hold me,” he blurted, finally, hating that his cheeks flamed hotter but feeling better, already, less like he was crawling out of his own skin, shifting his feet.

“Of course,” Tom said, immediately, already tugging him towards the couch, and Pete’s shoulders slumped in relief that he wasn’t asking for any kind of explanation.

“Can,” he trailed off, holding Tom’s wrist as he went to sit, feeling his cheeks redden still further as Tom’s blue eyes watched him closely, because his face felt like it was on fire. “Can I—I want to feel your skin,” he said, forcing the words out, hating how small his voice was as he added, “Please.”

Tom stripped his shirt off in one smooth movement, reaching for the hem of his, and Pete just lifted his arms and let him tug it off, hands grabbing his waist and pulling him backwards, laying on his back propped up on the couch pillows and pulling Pete down on top of him.

The relief of it made his breath catch and he pushed his face wordlessly into Tom’s neck as the man himself wrapped his arms around him tightly, pressing a kiss to the side of his head, just behind his ear. He didn’t feel cold anymore, felt his muscles relaxing; focusing on the steady beat of Tom’s pulse in his throat, the thump of his heart against his chest, counted his steady breaths.

He hugged Tom around his chest, tucking his hands under his ribs, timing his own breathing to counter Tom’s, and was a little shocked at how quickly it was difficult to keep his eyes open, eyelids closing seemingly against his will.

Tom wordlessly tugged the blanket off the back of the couch, tucked it around his shoulders, and then went back to holding him, fingers tapping idle patterns on his ribs.

Pete was asleep before he even knew what hit him.

Pete jerked, gasping, heart pounding and trying to remember why, but the dream was already fading from his consciousness, the cold of the ocean, maybe, or a flare of green dye, or maybe even nothing at all other than the vague feeling of terror.

It was difficult to hold onto it because he was so fucking warm, Tom’s skin like a furnace against his, arms tightening around him.

“Nightmare?” Tom guessed, palming the back of his neck, and Pete just shrugged because he wasn’t sure.

“Don’t remember,” he rasped, honestly. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long,” Tom said, thumb stroking idly along the muscles of his neck, pressing briefly into his pulse. “Maybe ten minutes. Do you feel better?”

Pete nodded, hugged his arms around Tom tightly for a second and then released them, pressing a kiss to the spot just below his collarbone because it was closest.

“I’m content to stay like this as long as you want, Pete, but I’ll at least need a book. Let me up for a second?”

It was the least he could do so he relented, letting Tom slide out from underneath him and wander to the bookcase that Pete realized in surprise was twice as full as it had been last time he looked at it, which meant Tom had probably been sticking his books on it when he finished.

Tom read a lot of books, more than only Bradley, really.

He came back with a novel that had a black cover and a picture of a Roman statue bust.

“What’s that?” he asked, curiously, sitting up so Tom could lay back down, and settled back into his spot with a happy little hum, wiggling to get comfortable as Tom curled an arm around his back.

“Meditations,” Tom said, flipping the book open expertly one-handed, thumbing to the right page.

Pete tilted his head to squint at the cover and snorted. “Marcus Aurelius?” he said, dry as the desert. “He’s been dead for a few thousand years, Ice, you really need advice from him?”

Tom pinched the back of his neck, right over the mark he’d left there a few days ago, and Pete’s entire brain went blank for a second, body twitching. “It’s a good book,” he said, smirking down at him, and Pete retaliated by pinching his sides where he knew Tom was ticklish, the blond twitching and swatting gently at the back of his head to get him to stop. “I keep up on the Academy’s reading lists.”

“Hmm,” he mumbled, already feeling sleepy again with how warm Tom’s bare chest was against his. “Read it to me, then.”

That time, he dozed off to Tom’s voice rumbling in his chest beneath his ear, fingers massaging the back of his neck, and realized the feeling in the shower and hadn’t been a fluke, because the same peace and contentment was washing over him now: he was in love with Tom Kazansky, and wasn’t that a hell of a fucking thing, he mused, even as he dropped off to sleep for the second time.

/

As it turned out, Carrie Metcalf was a really amazing cook. He’d eaten a lot of her food after Carole’s death, but he didn’t really remember it because everything had tasted like ash in his mouth back then. Memories from that time were kind of fuzzy, actually, like a camera out of focus; his brain hadn’t been able to focus until a certain tall blond asshole was standing in front of him and making him do things like eat and sleep and drink something besides coffee.

But that was beside the point.

“This is amazing, Carrie,” he said, and meant it, glancing sideways at Bradley, who was eating his lasagna so enthusiastically most of it was on his face. He snorted. “Bradley, slow down,” he muttered, “You’re acting like nobody ever taught you table manners.”

Bradley grinned at him and mumbled, “But ‘s so good!”

“Close your mouth,” he groaned, as Carrie and Mike shared a laugh at his expense. 

At least Bradley obeyed, rolling his eyes and clicking his mouth shut, chewing noisily and pointedly in Pete’s direction with his nose wrinkled.

“That sass is unnecessary,” he deadpanned, poking Bradley’s nose gently with his fork.

If they hadn’t been sitting at Carrie Metcalf's kitchen table, he was about ninety-eight percent sure Bradley would have stuck his tongue out at him.

“Sorry about him,” he said, to Carrie and Mike, rolling his eyes. “I promise I do actually teach him table manners and we eat with utensils because we’re not savages.”

Mike just laughed into his water glass and Carrie smiled at him.

“Bradley, if you’d like, I can send you home with some leftovers,” she told the blond boy warmly, reaching over to ruffle his wild blond hair, tugging gently on his forelock with a fond smile.

Bradley dimpled a smile at her and nodded eagerly, because he’d gotten really close to Lilly and Carrie since he spent the afternoons with them when he was at Top Gun, now.

Pete privately wondered if it had all been a kind of elaborate plan of Viper’s, because he had to see him a lot more often given he was picking Bradley up at his house five days a week. They’d talked a lot more than they used to, still trying to figure out their new dynamic. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to him much since the beach because they weren’t working, right now, but knew he’d have time to talk about it later.

“Is lasagna your favorite?” Lilly asked Bradley innocently from his left, where she was sitting on a bunch of cushions so her little chin was above the table.

“I’m fond of it,” Pete told her, winking, as Chris nearly knocked his water glass over across the table and Viper caught it just in time.

“Sorry daddy,” Chris said, wincing, pushing the glass up away from his plate. “Can I have some more bread?”

“Pasta first,” Viper told him in a no-nonsense tone, eyeballing him, and Chris rolled his eyes and took a pointed bite.

It was all very domestic.

“Can you guys come over more?” Chris said, directing the question to Pete but glancing at Bradley. “Lilly gets to play with Bradley all the time, and I only get to see him sometimes, since I’m in stupid first grade—”

“I thought you liked first grade,” Carrie said mildly, raising her eyebrows at her eldest offspring who colored and dropped his gaze.

“It’s okay, I guess, but—it’s so long , mommy.”

“I don’t wanna go to school all day,” Bradley agreed, grimacing at the thought. “I’m so tired all the time. Thinking is hard.”

Pete snorted and nodded in agreement. “You’ll get used to it, kiddo.”

“Ugh,” Bradley whined. “I don’t wanna, besides, what am I even supposed to do there all day?” He seemed baffled by the very concept, frowning down at his lasagna. “Is there really that much to learn?”

“So I’m told,” Viper deadpanned. “Reading, writing, math. All important.”

“You don’t even need that to fly daddy,” Chris said with a sniff.

“Oh, but you do, darling son,” Viper countered, pointing at him with his fork. “I do so much math every day it would make your head spin.”

Chris grimaced. “I hate math,” he muttered, little shoulders slumping.

“Just practice,” Bradley suggested, innocently, “And try your best! That’s what Miss Anderson says all the time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Chris sighed as he took another bite of his lasagna.

Pete watched the interaction, his chest feeling warm, because he hadn’t realized how much time Bradley had spent exclusively with other adults until he’d gone to Kindergarten. Bradley’s vocabulary was pretty impressive and he could already read, which according to Miss Anderson was a Pretty Big Deal and made Ice preen every time he mentioned it as the big idiot pulled out his notes from all the parenting books he’d read, citing parts to him about how important literacy was to academic achievement.

Goose would have been shoulder-to-shoulder with Tom, was the thing; he’d started reading to Bradley the day he was born, and Carole had collected a really impressive collection of children's books they’d unboxed in September to fill Bradley’s shelves with. 

It kind of irked him that he heard Ice’s voice in his head every time Miss Anderson mentioned Bradley’s high reading scores, to tell the truth, even as he knew Carole and Goose were both probably laughing at him.

“Are you excited to go trick or treating?” Viper said, interrupting his thoughts and directing the question to the kids, who all nodded eagerly and began to excitedly talk over each other about their costumes: Bradley, a fighter pilot; Lilly, a cowboy dinosaur; and Chris, an astronaut.

“We can trick or treat together with Susie, right?” Bradley said, looking from the Metcalfs to Pete and back again. “And with Ice, right, Mav? He promised .”

“Ice never breaks his promises,” Pete soothed, rubbing the top of his head and ignoring the significant look Carrie and Mike shared, praying his tan hid his pink cheeks. “Besides, he’s the one that ironed all your patches on, so you gotta take him with you or he’s going to be mad at you.”

Bradley giggled. “Does Ice even get mad?” he asked curiously, peering up at him.

“Everyone gets mad silly,” Pete reminded him, poking his side with a wink. “He doesn’t get mad like I do, though. I yell. He just stares.”

“It’s spooky,” Viper agreed breezily from across the table, his eyes twinkling as he winked at Bradley’s gobsmacked expression. “Kazansky has the death glare down pat. It’s a beautiful thing when he turns it on cocky trainees.”

“That it is,” Pete agreed with a snigger, lifting his water glass to clink it to Viper’s when he lifted his own with a smirk. Jester and Pete were definitely the hotheads in their trainers camp, that was for sure.

“He’s never glared at me,” Bradley said, puzzled. “Mostly he just smiles.”

“Well, yeah, he likes you,” Pete said with a grin.

Bradley shrugged. “I like him too,” he said, seriously, turning to Lilly. “Are you really going to be a cowboy dinosaur? How does that even work?”

“I’m gonna wear a cowboy hat on top of my dinosaur costume,” Lilly told him, in a tone that heavily implied she thought he was stupid and made the adults dive for their water glasses to muffle their laughs.

“If you say so,” Bradley said, not sounding convinced at all. “You’ll match Hollywood, at least. And hey we get lots of free candy,” he added, brightly, punching his fist in the air. Chris copied him from across the table.

“Alright, less talking more eating,” Viper announced, peering at all three children and smiling at how they immediately shoved a bite in their mouths.

“The quicker you eat, the more time you have to play before Pete and Bradley have to go home,” Carrie added, serene, smirking a little at how the kids dove into their dinner with a gusto that had been absent moments before.

“You’re very good, ma’am,” he complimented her, impressed, because some nights at dinner he felt like he was in a gladiator ring with Bradley and they were about to fight to the death over Bradley eating his last bite of macaroni.

Carrie winked at him. “And don’t you forget it, hotshot.”

Dessert was apple pie and then the kids were off like three shots from a cannon, pausing only long enough to wipe their faces off with wet paper towels and then diving into the backyard with battle cries.

“Ah, to be young again,” Viper mused, snorting. “Never thought I’d be a dad this old, but here we are.”

“Michael, you’re forty-two,” Carrie told him dryly as she flicked him with a towel.

“And when he’s twenty, I’m going to be almost sixty,” he pointed out, jerking his thumb at the door in Chris’s general direction. “That’s old, love.”

“Well, at least you’ve already got a son grown,” Carrie announced, kissing Pete on the cheek and patting his chest fondly. “I’m so glad you came over, honey, please do it at least once a week if you can. We just love you.”

Pete’s face felt like it was on fire but he cleared his throat and smiled. “I will,” he promised, feeling the dimples in his cheeks from the force of his smile. “Bradley and I, we—we love you too, Carrie.”

Carrie smiled at him and left them at the kitchen table with coffees, heading to the backyard to investigate the sudden and suspicious silence. The sun wasn’t quite down yet, and he just caught a glimpse of a boy running with a red towel tied around his neck like a cape before the door clicked shut.

“So, Pete,” Viper said, pointedly casual, and Pete resisted the urge to clutch his coffee to his chest like a shield. “How has your break been? You finally lost those dark circles. I assume that means you’re sleeping better.”

“Trying to,” Pete said, noncommittal, sipping his coffee and avoiding eye contact, because the sole reason behind that was a certain tall blond naval aviator who didn’t put up with his shit and pinned him to flat surfaces and made him sleep whenever the circles got too dark, and clearly didn’t buy his I don’t have nightmares when you’re not around bullshit, because he was way too smart for Pete’s peace of mind.

He’d spent nearly every morning of their break taking a nap on Tom’s chest. Not that he was complaining. The haze of exhaustion had faded, somewhat, and his thoughts were clearer. He was excited to get back in the cockpit because his brain didn’t feel like it was trapped in molasses anymore.

“Carrie says Bradley talks about Ice all the time,” Viper said, still in that forced casual tone, and Pete forced himself not to react.

“Mike,” he said, staring down at the rim of the cup he was holding, one of the many collected over the man’s multiple tours of duty, this one from the USS Kitty Hawk . “Before he got here, I was…” he trailed off, swallowed hard, and tried to find the words but it failed him.

“Drowning,” Mike supplied, gently, tapping him gently on the top of the hand with his own coffee mug, the warmth of it pulling him out of his thoughts. “You were drowning, Pete.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I was. I asked him for help, and, well.” He shrugged, waved a hand around as if to say here we are, and still stared at his coffee with his brow furrowed.

“Pete,” Mike said, chair creaking as he leaned forward. “Listen to me. What you and Tom went through, up there. What you experienced. The terror, the almost dying, the fighting, the killing — it’s okay to have nightmares about it. Took me fucking years to figure that out myself, and a certain blonde bombshell of a woman to beat it into my thick skull, but I’m glad he’s here.”

“Me too,” Pete said, with feeling, finally meeting Mike’s eyes because he forgot, sometimes, that men from the previous generation understood what it felt like to come home from a dogfight. 

“The bonds you form with people in combat are intense,” Mike continued, clearly speaking from experience here, his blue eyes full of so much sympathetic understanding that Mav had to swallow hard in a tight throat. “Your wingmen become your family, your reason for getting out of bed, the thing that keeps your terror at the brink so you can focus because you consider their life more important than yours. So I get it. I understand what Tom Kazansky means to you, kid.”

Pete almost laughed, almost, because Mike was close but also so fucking far off because Tom Kazansky wasn’t just his wingman, or his friend, or the person he trusted at his back more than anyone else in the world. Tom was his—fuck, his everything along with Bradley, so ingrained in the fabric of his life now that he didn’t think he’d ever get him out (and didn’t really want to anyway); that terrified him, more than anything else ever had, even becoming Bradley’s guardian, because Tom had been in his life a year and a half and he couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without him in it, now, because Tom was such a huge part of it.

Understood, in a small locked up part of him, that even if he broke Tom’s heart, even if he shoved him away, even if —Tom wouldn’t let him go. Would hold on tight with both hands, bully himself into his life in any way Pete would let him and in many ways he wouldn't. Their lives had been tied together permanently that day in the Gulf, would stay that way until one or both of them died, maybe even after, and there just weren’t fucking words to explain that to someone.

Judging by the look on Mike’s face, though, he knew the man understood at least a little. He’d loved and lost too many wingmen to count and one of those he’d lost had been his own father.

Pete swallowed and nodded, sipping his coffee again because he didn’t have words to say it and was thankful that Mike didn’t seem to expect them.

Mike was still watching him. “I want to ask you something,” he added, tapping his mug idly on the tabletop. “Before I do, you don’t have to answer. This isn’t on the record, or me asking as your superior. It’s me asking as your friend.”

Pete’s heartbeat skipped and then pounded twice as fast, fingers clenching on the mug handle, because oh shit. “Okay,” he said, cautiously as he dared, staring at Mike a little afraid he was going to leap for his throat or start yelling about how liking men wasn’t allowed in the Navy.

“What actually happened with Penny Benjamin?”

The relief would have knocked him on his ass if he’d been standing, but he was aware of his shoulders dropping. “Uh,” he said, clearing his throat and wincing a little. “It’s possible there was… a bet, uh, on base. Sir. That I won.”

Viper’s mustache twitched, eyebrows climbing, but he waved the mug as if to say go on.

“Penny bet us—that is to say, my VF-1 squadron— over darts at the Hard Deck that we wouldn’t be ballsy enough to take her up in an F-18,” he said, with a little half-shrug. “Whoever won got the honor.”

“And you won,” Viper concluded, tapping his mug again. “So it was a bet?”

Pete nodded. “It was… we were all a little drunk and it was probably kind of stupid,” he admitted with a grimace. “Since it wasn't my F-18, but, uh, she’s—um, she’s really pretty, sir, and we just—couldn’t. Uh. Help ourselves.” He coughed, feeling his cheeks flame pink, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Pretty sure the only reason I didn’t get court martialed is because she put in a good word for me with her dad and told him the whole thing was her idea. The good Admiral raked the whole squadron over the coals for it.”

“Hmm,” Viper said, noncommittal. “It’s not in your permanent record.”

“I would assume I have Penny to thank for that as well, sir,” Pete said quietly. “And my Lieutenant at the time, Warlock—uh, sorry, Bates. Tried to talk me out of it, almost succeeded, but Penny talked me right back into it. Insisted on it, actually, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and uh—I’m weak for a pretty woman, I guess?”

Pete coughed awkwardly, because he’d been twenty-one and really fucking stupid, fresh out of flight school and eager to prove himself. It had been dumb. But it had also been really fucking fun, and Penny Benjamin was a great kisser, and he didn’t regret it since he’d didn’t actually get court martialed by the grace of Penny, apparently.

“Did you ever meet his son?” Mike asked him mildly, tracing the rim of his coffee mug with his index finger.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and relieved that they were done talking about Penny. “Ice knows him, though. He was two years below him in the Academy.”

Viper nodded like this wasn’t new information to him, and Pete supposed it probably hadn’t it been. Tex’s Academy years were in his file, as were Ice’s in his own file, and Viper was smart enough to put two and two together.

“He’s Penny’s half-brother, technically,” he added, with a small cough. “Uh—the Admiral. Um, just between us, sir, because Penny made me promise not to tell anyone. He had an affair, at least according to Penny. Broke it off with Penny’s mom, because his mistress was pregnant, and married her instead. Penny was five.”

The way Viper looked at him, he knew that wasn’t common knowledge, which was a miracle of itself given how people in the Navy gossiped. The world of the Navy was actually pretty small.

“That could be helpful,” Viper hummed, tapping his fingers idly on the table, now.

“For…what, sir?” Pete asked, curiously, because this conversation had not gone at all where he thought it was going to. He’d expected some kind of reprimand but this felt more like a fact finding mission.

“Nothing in particular.” Mike smiled and his mustache twitched. “I want you to try and hold your temper. Sounds like this kid might have it out for you.”

“Yeah, him and the rest of the universe,” Pete muttered into his coffee cup, because until Tom had come along, he just couldn’t fucking catch a break from the shit the universe was dumping on him seemingly nonstop.

Viper stared at him, the look pointed and somehow still exasperated, so much like Tom for a second that it threw Pete through a loop. “Try,” he repeated, his tone firm.

“I’ll try,” Pete said, shoulders hitching up. “I’ll try,” he repeated, because Mike was still staring at him. “You look a lot like Tom when you do that, you know.”

“Tom looks like me when he does that,” Viper corrected, primly, “Because I am older than him, Peter.”

Pete snorted out a laugh and Viper grinned, shaking his head and knocking back the last of his coffee.

“Hey,” Viper added as he stood, grasping his shoulder in a grip that was warm and firm. “It’ll be okay, kid. It’s just eight weeks, that’s all. Only eight weeks.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, even as his voice rang hollow, “Eight weeks. Right.”

/

There were two nights left until the class started, and Mav felt like he was going to vibrate straight out of his skin.

He’d talked to Tom for over an hour. By now he knew what his wingman sounded like when he was starting to nod off so he’d let him hang up and sleep even though he’d been desperate to ask him to come over.

Instead, he’d said goodnight and let the phone fall back in the cradle, and then tossed and turned fitfully.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, then, when his dreamscape evolved. The sequence was similar; the flat spin, the jet wash, only it was a different voice behind him.

Not Goose.

Tom.

He was pinned forward, he couldn’t reach the handles, he could hear Tom’s voice, high and panicked behind him—and this time, when he heard the crunch of the canopy, he didn’t react with numb shock. Instead he sobbed and it felt like it was tearing his throat open, his eyes streaming, because it was Tom, TomTomTom—

The ocean was as cold as he remembered, his hands frantically clawing at that familiar strong back, so still, facedown in the murky blue waves tinted with fluorescent green dye. When he flipped Tom over his face was covered in blood, just like Goose’s had been, his beautiful eyes shut—

Pete woke up sobbing brokenly, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

It took him a frankly ridiculous amount of time to remember how to breathe; his limbs were still shaking and he felt woozy, like he might be sick. Clutched his pillow to his chest and tried to time his breathing like Tom had showed him so many times. This time, though, Tom’s warmth was absent from his back and it was reminding him of that fucking ocean, of it’s cold grip—

“Talk to me, Goose,” he whispered, clutching his dog tags in his hand, feeling the tag with Goose’s name on it digging into the edge of his palm.

He already knew what Goose would have told him; it helped to calm him a little, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to picture Goose’s face from when he was alive and full of life and not covered in blood and dye and death.

Stop being stupid, Mav, Goose would have said, and his mustache would have twitched, probably, as he tacked on, Tom’s fine, he’s at his house, you’ll see him tomorrow.

“I miss you,” he whispered to the darkness as he squeezed the metal so hard his palms stung, because it was the first time in too long he’d thought of Goose for comfort; the first time in a long time he’d had a reprieve from watching the best friend he’d loved so much die right in front of him, even if it had been replaced by something equally terrible. 

He reached out to the frame he’d put on his bedside table, the one of he and Goose in front of the jet with their thumbs up, so young and naive of the pain that would follow a scant handful of years later. It was difficult to see it in the dark but he knew it like the back of his own hand, knew exactly where Nick’s face was, because he’d traced it in this image so often he had to clean the glass daily.

“I think I love him, Goose,” he whispered, touching his finger to where he knew Goose’s face was and wishing, not for the first time, that Goose was there with him, and not just because he didn’t have anyone else to talk to about this.

Fuck, but he missed him.

/

Tom took one look at him when he came into the kitchen the next morning and promptly froze, his eyes narrowing and mouth downturning, opening his mouth to say whatever he was going to say.

Pete beat him to it. “Make us waffles,” he said, quietly, reaching out to touch Tom on his hip as a reminder that he was actually warm and alive and standing there and not just a figment of his overactive imagination. “Then we can take him to his playdate at Susie’s house. Then, I promise, I’ll take a nap.”

“You look like you barely slept,” Tom told him, hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, tone full of nothing but concern.

“I didn’t really,” he admitted, because he was too tired to not tell the truth. “Please, waffles, I beg of you.”

Tom smiled. “You don’t have to beg me for waffles,” he murmured, tugging him forward by the back of his head to press a fond kiss to his lips. “I like making them.”

“You like spoiling Bradley, you mean,” he murmured, rolling his eyes and going for the coffee pot as Tom snorted and Bradley came careening into the kitchen at Mach 2.

“ICE!” he screeched, leaping on the blond, giggling when Ice blew a raspberry on his neck. “Do I get waffles?”

“Well, it’s Sunday,” Ice told him, as if it were obvious. “So, blueberry or strawberry today?”

“Can we try funfetti?”

Ice’s brow furrowed. “Like…cake?”

“Yeah,” Bradley said eagerly. “With sprinkles. I saw it in my cookbook.”

Bradley’s latest obsession was cookbooks, specifically, baking and breakfast foods. It had forced Pete to actually become somewhat decent at making cupcakes, mostly because Bradley had so much fun getting flour all over everything.

If anyone in his old squadron saw or heard about it, Pete would never live it down.

“Go get your cookbook,” Tom sighed, setting the boy back on his feet, as Bradley took off at a dead sprint. “God, I wish I could bottle his energy,” he added, shaking his head as he eased around Mav to get the stuff he needed out of the cabinet.

Pete took a moment to lean back into his solid chest and close his eyes with a contented hum; further proof that Tom was right there with him. “You want some coffee?” he murmured, as Bradley came into the kitchen and slipped in his socks, sliding across and clutching the counter for balance.

“Nice save,” they told the boy in unison, before Tom added, “Yeah, lots of cream, maybe a little sugar today.”

Pete raised an eyebrow.

“I guess I’m living on the wild side if I’m eating straight sugar for breakfast,” Ice said with a grin, taking the cookbook Bradley handed him, already open to the correct page. “These are for cupcakes, kiddo, but I think I can modify it a little.”

“For science,” Bradley said serenely, grabbing his apron from the pantry. Ice had gotten it for him at the mall; it was child-sized and had dinosaurs on it, because Tom was on a mission to make himself the favorite, apparently.

“For science,” Tom agreed, bumping his hip into Bradley’s and grinning at Pete. “Go lay down on the couch, Pete, we got this.”

“Please don’t start any fires,” he sighed, but he happily curled up and took a cat nap under the fuzzy blanket, listening to the two of them giggling and probably making an enormous mess as he did so, the smile feeling like it was fixed on his face.

The funfetti waffles were delicious. Horrifyingly sweet, but delicious. Pete dropped Bradley off at Susie’s house and chatted briefly with Kate, before promising to pick Bradley up at lunch. The two kindergarteners had some kind of grand plan for the Halloween parade at the end of the month that was top secret.

Kate also reminded him about parent teacher conferences, which were that upcoming Friday.

“Hey, Bradley’s parent teacher conference is Friday,” he said as he shouldered into the house with the mail and locked the door behind him. “Ice, what the fuck is a parent teacher conference?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s where they tell you how he’s doing in school,” Ice shouted back from the kitchen, where he was almost done cleaning. He was sliding the last dish into the dishwasher when Pete came into the kitchen.

“Lovely,” Pete sighed. “Apparently I’m supposed to sign up for a time with a form coming home tomorrow. Given how stressed I am, maybe that should be your job.”

Tom raised his eyebrows. “Are you asking me to stay two nights in a row?”

Pete bit back his first response to that, which was, I want you to stay all nights in a row, but that was far too obvious. Instead, he said, “Yes. Please. If you want.”

“I always want,” Tom murmured, pulling him in by his hips, sliding his arms around him in a hug just tight enough that Pete sighed and nuzzled his face to his chest and hugged him back. “Why didn’t you sleep, Pete?”

“Nightmares,” he mumbled, into the soft fabric of the black Henley Ice was wearing today. It made his hair look almost white, his eyes shockingly blue.

“Ah, so you finally admit it,” the blond drawled, but it was gentle, not mocking.

“Too tired not to,” said Pete. “Can we lay down?”

“You just want me for your human pillow,” Tom snorted, but he was already releasing him, sliding their fingers together to hold his hand and tug him for the couch.

“You’re pretty damn comfortable.”

“Shirt on or off?”

Pete smiled at him, because he loved that Tom asked that, now; that Tom didn’t think it was weird he liked to cuddle partly naked. It was comforting, and Tom had said he agreed, so he was trying really hard to not feel self conscious about how touch starved he was all the time. “Off,” he requested, already tugging his own shirt over his head, reaching up to smooth his hair back down.

He’d dressed comfortably today in sweatpants, and Tom was the same, because they had no plans to do anything today except hang out at home.

Home. With Tom.

Pete studiously did not freak out over that little slip and instead settled between Tom and the edge of the couch, cheek pillowed over his heart, the fuzzy blanket already settling over his shoulders. “What’re we reading today?” he asked, already half-asleep, watching as Tom reached for the stack of books he now kept on the side table on that end of the couch for this exact reason.

Pete wasn’t sure why Tom liked to lay around letting him sleep on him for several hours at a time, but he wasn’t going to bring it up just in case Tom decided he didn’t want to do it anymore.

“Pride and Prejudice,” Tom said, brow furrowed as he flipped one handed to the page he’d left off on. “Rachel and Sarah told me if I don’t finish it by Wednesday night dinner they’re never talking to me again.”

“Hmm, I’ll believe that when pigs fly,” Mav snorted, because based on what he’d heard, it was very clear that Rachel sassed the shit out of Tom, and Sarah teased him mercilessly, but they both loved him to death.

Tom’s fingers were sliding through his hair as he started to read—Bingley had just abandoned Jane for London—and Pete let it lull him to sleep, because if he had that nightmare again, he knew as soon as he woke he’d realize it was just a bad dream, because the man he was so scared of losing was right there against him.

He didn’t have a nightmare, but he did sleep solid until Tom shook him awake apologetically and said they had to go get Bradley. 

The further on the night went the more anxious he felt, because tomorrow he was going to have to deal with Tex and his bullshit, and probably have to try not to yell, and his thoughts started to spiral into keyed up territory, every muscle tensing.

Tom had gotten good at reading his spiraling thoughts, had basically taken over for the night to cook dinner (burgers) and run the board game (Life) and then read the dinosaur book to Bradley because it was his turn to put him to bed, and then he’d nudged Pete through his nightly routine until he’d realized it was futile.

“Mav, how do I help you sleep,” Tom said, sounding a little desperate himself, because Pete was as keyed up as he’d been before dinner and the clock was edging towards eleven.

Pete wordlessly reached for the lube, pressed it into Tom’s bare chest.

“I’m not pinning you when you’re feeling this anxious, Pete,” Tom said, his voice firm, because that was not something they’d talked about and Pete hadn’t expected him to. “Have you felt like this before?”

“Before the first Meatball,” he rasped, taking them both briefly back to flight training. “The night Bradley was born. The first night after Goose died. The night after Charlie said that shit to me and I couldn’t sleep.”

“So, when you’re super stressed,” said Tom, idly passing the lube bottle between his hands. “Pete, if you really want me to, I can pin you, I just,” he bit his lip and shook his head. “I don’t think you’d be able to tell me to stop.”

Pete knew that; knew he had a hard time talking, that being pinned made his head quiet. It had never happened with girls (they weren’t big or heavy enough) and he’d had it once, in college, for a one night stand and hadn’t trusted anyone else to do it until Tom came along.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be pinned, right now, as much as he wanted to forget his worry; he didn’t want to forget where he was, or that Tom was there with him.

“I slept really well that one time you gave me a blowjob,” he murmured.

“I’ve given you lots of blowjobs,” Tom snorted. “Do you mean when I edged you?” His voice was amused because he was always reading and knew all kinds of obscure shit. At Pete’s confused look he shoved a hand through his hair and elaborated. “As in, when you kept almost coming but not quite?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, some of the tension leaving him, because that had been pretty fucking awesome even if he’d hated Tom a little bit there in the middle.

“If that’s what you want, sweetheart,” said Tom, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest, just below his solar plexus. “ That, I can do.”

/

Maverick was making two cups of coffee in the teacher’s lounge area the morning their new class was set to begin, the one space in the school aside from offices and their locker room where they got a break from thinking about the particularly obnoxious group of trainees that would be starting later that morning. He’d slept like the dead after Ice had deployed all the tricks and he’d come so hard his abs and back were still a little sore from the muscle cramps. On the upside, he’d had zero nightmares and felt pretty good, ready to tackle his day.

Ice had seemed pleased that morning, too, smiling at him and being slightly handsier than usual.

He was humming under his breath as he made their coffee. To his cup he added a spoonful of sugar (Bradley Bradshaw was a terrible influence and had helped him develop a hell of a sweet tooth); to the other, a heavy splash of cream and nothing else.

“You look good, Mitchell,” a voice said behind him, startling him so that he nearly spilled coffee all down his uniform.

“Sir,” he said, mopping up the spill quickly with a napkin and wincing at the new sting in his scalded fingers. Jester was standing beside him with his own empty cup. “Uh, thank you sir.”

Jester was looking at him closely with his head tilted slightly to one side. As usual his expression was kind and he was struck, again, at how this man’s support and advice meant the world to him, at how whip-smart and sassy Jester’s sense of humor was.

“I’m feeling pretty good, sir,” he told him honestly.

Jeter’s mouth twitched as he looked at the two mugs clutched in his left fist. “It’s been good to have Iceman here,” he said casually as he poured himself a cup. “You’ve seemed lighter.”

“He’s my wingman, sir,” Maverick told him quietly as his heart started to pound. Had he been obvious? Had he let something slip in his expression when he looked at Ice sometimes? He didn’t think so, he’d been so careful—

“I know he is, kid,” said Jester as he stirred his coffee absently. “You look like you’re getting a lot more sleep and regular meals. Is Bradley doing better with his nightmares?”

“He is, sir, yes. They’re pretty rare now, thank god.”

Jester nodded, took a sip of his coffee. “How is he liking school?”

“Still loves it,” Pete said honestly, and smiled a rueful smile.

“Good, I’m glad. They grow up fast,” Jester told him, and there was something about his tone that made Mav look at him in confusion, but the other man didn’t elaborate. Jester reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder right at the junction of his neck and shoulder, squeezed once, released him. “Hang in there, kid. It’s just eight weeks.”

“Uh,” said Pete, really baffled by this entire conversation because most of his interactions with Jester were parenting advice or shooting the shit, “Right. Eight weeks. Yep.”

Why did everyone keep saying that to him? Ice had said it this morning before they’d left, held his face immobile and kissed the shit out of him. Tom had then told him it was just eight weeks and promised to rim him until he came untouched if he could keep his temper in check for that entire stretch of time.

Apparently, the captain didn’t feel like elaborating, because Jester just stood there for another handful of heartbeats, the steam from his coffee rising into the air between them.

Jester’s eyes flickered down to the two mugs of coffee still clutched in his hand and his smile widened. “Better get that to Ice before it cools too much, Maverick. I’ll see you in class. Remember: it’s only eight weeks.”

“Sir,” he said as the man retreated and he followed after him, making a beeline for Ice’s office.

“Mav, how the fuck did they put up with us,” Ice said without looking up from his desk. He somehow always managed to know it was Maverick without looking and he’d been trying to figure out how he did it but so far no dice. There was an open file on his desk and Tex’s service photograph was staring up at them. 

“I have yet to figure it out and remain convinced they consumed an unhealthy amount of whiskey,” Maverick told him as he nudged his hand with the coffee mug.

“Thanks,” Ice said absently as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead, cradling the mug in his hands. “Tex is going to be a problem and so is Tiny, and this other kid, Nut. They’re like us only without respect.”

“You were an ass to me, Kazansky,” Maverick drawled as he made himself comfortable in the chair across from Ice’s, thunking his boot heels heavily on the corner of the desk next to a glittery, accurately if somewhat clumsily painted model of an F-14 made by Bradley that Ice kept next to his name plate. He sipped his coffee and smirked at Ice’s scowl and the way Ice nudged his boots away from the little sparkling plane model. “I was to you, too, of course.”

“I thought you were dangerous, Mitchell,” Ice told him flatly. “There was never a time when I didn’t respect you. The shit you do in a plane,” he shook his head. “Sometimes, Mav, I wonder if you’re actually insane. You fly like you’re unafraid of death.”

Mav shrugged one shoulder. “It comes for everyone,” he said quietly, leaving it unsaid that Ice’s flying style was becoming no less rigid but was still deadly. They were examples of the two extremes when it came to pilots: one, ruthless and efficient and patient as all hell; the other, unpredictable, daring, fearless. It was part of what made them such an effective team in the air. These days not even Viper or Jester could get a lock on either of them without significant effort on their part.

Ice was looking at him over the rim of his coffee mug. “I don’t want it coming for you for a long time, Pete,” he said as he took a sip of coffee, not breaking eye contact.

Maverick felt his collar going warm and hid half his face with his own mug, suddenly feeling too big for his skin. He’d been feeling that swooping in his gut a hell of a lot, lately, whenever Ice looked at him like that. “I’ll do my best,” he muttered because he knew better than to not respond to Ice.

“See that you do,” the other man hummed, and when he looked back at him, Ice winked.

That bastard. Maverick got the impression he knew exactly what the fuck he was doing and he angrily sipped his coffee while glaring at his wingman who had the audacity to fucking laugh at him, shaking his head fondly and giving him that look , and Mav really fucking wished he understood what it meant but was too fucking stubborn to ask.

/

Tex gave him the evil eye pretty much the second he walked into the hangar. Mav felt anxiety churn in his gut and wished he could find it hilarious, because it kind of was, actually.

The whole thing was really stupid but nobody had gotten hurt and he hadn’t gotten a permanent mark in his record. Admiral Benjamin could have taken his wings and hadn’t; had instead sided with his daughter, slapped him with a reprimand and extra duty and a shit assignment in the fucking desert for eight months, but it hadn’t ended his fucking career.

This kid, though. Fuck. 

There was a gleam in his eyes that made Mav want to shift his feet. He planted his heels, instead, focused on counting Tom’s breaths beside him because it was something else to focus on.

It was Jester and Viper’s turn to do the entire spiel, so he leaned back against the wall beside Ice and wished he could press their shoulders together but didn’t dare. 

He turned his attention to the other aviators. Interestingly enough few were near Tex; just his RIO, Nut, and the other problematic pilot, Tiny, whose RIO was called Dunder, presumably because he was as stupid as he looked. 

The rest were spread through the rest of the chairs and a few in the group seemed to know each other if their ease of contact was anything to go by. Most eyes remained respectfully on Viper and Jester as they spoke, and most seemed very eager to prove themselves, even though a handful were painfully young.

There was one woman in this group, a young Lieutenant called Bounce, and she’d been ignoring them. Was, in fact, the only person who hadn’t turned to stare at them and instead kept her attention focused on Viper and Jester.

Keep my temper, he reminded himself, as his eyes skimmed over Tex again to find him still fucking staring. Stay cool.

Staying cool had never been something he excelled at, was the problem. He tended to act first and think later which worked great in a dogfight. It did not work great in the ultra-regimented world of the United States Navy, and it particularly did not go over well with Thomas Kazansky, who’d never met a rule he wanted to break (except for that control tower that one time, but he remained convinced Tom had been temporarily insane on endorphins from surviving, not that he’d actually wanted to do it).

Mav figured it was enough that he could feel Ice’s warmth, even through their flight suits; could smell his aftershave. He could also see Tom’s eyes flicking at him from under his aviators from this angle, knew Tom could see his eyes, too, and tried to smile but didn’t dare because there were eyes on them.

“Get a load of this old man,”  Nut had muttered, to Tex, in what he must have thought was a quiet voice but which carried to most of the ears in the room.

Tex had barely looked away from him and Ice in the back, even with Viper pointedly clearing his throat and asking him if he was bored.

“Oh, no, sir,” Tex had drawled just on the edge of a mocking tone, looking at him just long enough for Viper to stroll back down the aisle, before returning his gaze to Mav and Ice at the back.

“This kid is an ass,” Tom said out of the corner of his mouth, hands briefly tightening on his flight suit sleeves.

“Hmm,” Pete agreed, straightening from his slouch because Jester was going over the rules of engagement for their first hop of the day.

“You do not go below the hard deck of five thousand feet,” Jester was saying, his voice dry as the desert, “Anyone who gets a target lock on an instructor gets double points for this hop only, but I will warn you a second time: breaking the hard deck is a one-way ticket out of Fightertown. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the room chorused, the eager pilots already shifting in their seats.

“Very good. Your pre-flight briefing begins in five minutes in Classroom 9 with Lieutenant Commander Kazansky and Commander Metcalf. Dismissed.”

Mav stayed right where he was on the back wall as Ice shoved off it and through the door towards the classroom where he and Viper were going to lead them through the standard equipment checks now that they’d switched to this training detachment.

He watched the aviators walk by him without uncrossing his arms and studiously ignored how Tex stared right at him the whole way past. There was an itchy feeling between his shoulder blades that meant the man hadn’t looked away and was still watching him through the window in the door.

Jester strolled up the aisle to him. “What do you think?” he asked, tucking his hands in his armpits and chewing his lip thoughtfully.

“I think I’m going to need a hell of a lot of whiskey to get through this, sir,” he sighed, sliding his aviators off of his nose.

“Hmm,” Jester agreed, pulling straws out of his pocket and clutching them in his left fist, each tip level. “Draw one,” he invited.

“What for?” he snorted, tugging one out of his grip; the straw was long.

“For the honor of taking down Benjamin’s kid first, of course,” Jester said, like this was perfectly normal. He tugged three straws out of his opposite pocket and laid them across his palm. “These were Viper and Ice,” he said, pointing at the shortest two. “This one is mine,” he added, pointing to one slightly smaller than Pete’s.

Pete groaned. “So I have to wait and go last?” he whined, letting Jester take the straw from him.

“Look on the bright side, Mav,” Jester told him cheerfully as he snagged his flight helmet and led him out towards the tarmac so they could get airborne and warm up before the kids. “It gives you some time to see what we do, pull out all the stops on him.”

“You want to make a point,” Mav corrected, because they rarely ganged up on one aviator, let alone took turns shooting them out of the sky. Generally they worked as a team to create openings and then whoever had the best angle took it. There was no set rule to who fired.

Until today, apparently.

“He’s a cocky little shit,” Jester said as he began to whistle, heading towards his A-4 Skyhawk. “See you up there, kid.” He paused, turned back, and grabbed him by his shoulder harness. “Don’t do anything stupid, Pete,” he added, his tone and eyes serious.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that,” Pete said through gritted teeth.

“Your callsign is Maverick,” Jester reminded him with a grin. “Just making sure you remain self-aware, that’s all.”

Maverick jammed his helmet on his head instead of answering and climbed into his cockpit to start his own pre-flight check, muttering to himself about his stupid team the whole time because he knew perfectly well he had a dead mike.

/

Pete loved watching Viper do his thing. The only thing he loved more than Viper doing his thing, though, was watching Iceman do his thing.

Both of them were such technical fliers; it was a thing of beauty, it really was, the way they knew exactly what their planes could handle and pushed it just to the brink but not beyond.

Tex had launched in the first group, had dove for Jester towards the hard deck, and Viper had moved so quickly and so decisively that he’d put him down in four seconds flat.

“Not bad, for an old man,” Viper had said in a calm and even tone as he rolled and climbed upwards to engage another aviator.

They’d barely even started the exercise, and Tex was swearing up a blue streak.

Mav grinned. Maybe this would be okay, after all.

That had been wishful thinking. The second hop, it had been Ice’s turn, and he hadn’t even bothered to say a word; he’d just maneuvered behind Tex expertly and shot him down without a word, rolling away to engage Bounce, who gave him a solid run for his money before he got her in the canyon.

Each consecutive group wasn’t much better, but Tex and Tiny were furious on the tarmac after they landed, screaming at each other in full view of everyone.

The rest of the class at least found Tex and Tiny wanting; they avoided the two explosive aviators and that spoke of at least a modicum of common sense on their parts.

“Maybe Viper can get through to him,” Maverick mused as he tucked his own helmet into the crook of his arm, watching Tex stalk towards the hangar for debriefing.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath, Mav,” Ice drawled, chewing the toothpick furiously and watching Tex and his RIO, Nut, shouting at each other as they walked. “He’s a cocky little fuck whose daddy has allowed him to skate along this far. I don’t think we’re going to, and it’s going to be damned difficult to graduate him from this program if he keeps up that fucking attitude of his.”

“Yeah,” Mav agreed, sliding his own aviators back on his face with a feeling of unease, because something in Tex’s eyes had told him this was personal in a way he didn’t yet understand. He felt like he’d gone down the stairs and skipped a step; felt like he was missing something really important, but no matter how hard he puzzled over it, the pieces wouldn’t click together.

The thing was, the look in Tex’s eyes had been surprisingly like hate, and he couldn’t fathom why because he’d never even met the guy until this morning.

“Who can tell me what went wrong?” Viper said to the room at large during the debrief of the second hop, as the aviators nearly to a man stared at the ground in stony silence.

“Sir,” Bounce piped up, ignoring the dark looks several of the men sent her way, “Not a single one of us communicated on comms, sir.”

“Incorrect, Lieutenant,” Ice chipped in from the back, where he was in his usual spot with his foot on the wall, gum popping, Mav at his side. “You attempted to engage Lieutenants Benjamin and Gorski and were ignored.”

“As I said, sir,” Bounce said, barely even blinking, even as others sank in their chairs, particularly Gorski, callsign Tiny. “There was a failure of communication, and not just in my group.”

“As we tell every class,” Viper said and looking very tired all of a sudden, “You didn’t have a snowball's chance in hell. This is our way of gauging your skill to see what you know.” His eyes landed briefly on Tex. “Harebrained maneuvers and dangerous flying aren’t going to get you far in this program. We’ve got two more short hops this morning, basic fighting maneuvers. Show us what you’ve got.”

What they had was fuck all, apparently, because Jester took Tex out in less than a minute. When it was Mav’s turn, at hop number four with these kids still not communicating over their radios, his heart was beating unsteadily.

They were in the canyon, just above five thousand feet, and Mav felt exhilarated. He could feel his grin in his mask as he chased Bounce, because damn, she was really good. He was a little pissed that Ice had called dibs on her after the first hop in their instructor huddle before the debrief, to be frank, and had settled instead on a quiet aviator with intense focus called Bear, who he knew wasn’t going to win but would probably finish top four, at least.

“Lieutenant Benjamin, you are flirting with the hard deck,” Ice’s voice said, over comms, his tone cutting. “Climb immediately.”

“I’m not below it,” Tex’s voice crackled back; he was currently evading Viper, who was just having fun with him at that point, because it was Mav’s turn to shoot him down and he was otherwise occupied with Bounce at the moment.

“You’re good, Bounce,” Mav told her, over the comms, unable to keep the happiness from his tone. “Who trained you?”

“I’m told there’s a bet and not to get involved, sir,” Bounce said back, no evidence of strain in her tone even as her evasive maneuvers took on a slightly erratic edge. “Tex, some backup would be great, Bear and I are losing ground to Maverick and Iceman.”

“Busy, princess,” Tex said back, “Figure it out yourself.”

“Cute,” Bounce said dryly, even as she attempted a roll, but she wasn’t going fast enough and Mav got her in a target lock and Ice got Bear.

“That’s a lock,” he told her, apologetic, because she’d given him a run for his money there, for a second. “Great job, Lieutenant. Return to base.”

“Sir,” Bounce said, her jet peeling off back towards Miramar, as Jester and Viper dropped back from Tex to instead go after Tiny, now that Bounce was out of the picture. Jester baited Tiny, and for the fourth hop in a row, Tiny fell for it.

This whole double points thing on the first day really did make aviators stupid, Mav mused; maybe Tom was onto something. As soon as points were mentioned common sense seemed to go right out the damn cockpit.

It left him with Tex, and he found it appallingly simple to chase him.

“Where’s your wingman, Tex,” he said, making sure his tone sounded as unimpressed as he felt.

“Don’t need him, shorty,” Tex said, the cockiness audible even over comms, as Tiny swore because Viper had gotten a target lock.

They were almost to the mountains, now, the peaks looming, and Mav made sure to pay the fuck attention because they were closer than they looked, and Tex was flying between them.

“Lieutenant Benjamin,” he ordered, pulling his jet up to avoid them with an eye on the gauge that told him they were only three feet over the hard deck, “Pull up immediately. You’re barely above the hard deck.”

“What, are you scared,” Tex taunted, his jet skimming so close to one of the peaks that the shadow was nearly as large as the plane.

“Lieutenant Benjamin,” he barked, real fear clenching his heart, because holy shit this kid was crazy, “That was an order.”

“Come and get me!”

“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Mav muttered, to himself, as he hit the accelerator and closed the distance. He could hear Nut squawking in alarm, watched as Tex tried to evade and nearly smacked a mountain again, and figured getting it over quick would at least let them rip him a new asshole back on planet earth and not over a closed casket when he crashed headlong into a fucking mountain and died.

The sharp tone of a target lock was all he had to say, pulling up to climb clear of the mountains, looking down to make sure Tex was doing the same.

“Back to base, Lieutenant Benjamin,” Viper said, and he sounded pissed.

“Sir,” Tex responded, sounding just as pissed, even as he did as he was ordered.

/

Later that day in class, Maverick was attempting to get across to this room full of fucking kids how important it was not to abandon your wingman. That morning’s hops had been, in simple terms, a fucking disaster. Not for him and Ice or Viper and Jester; they’d gotten missile locks on their students so fast that he’d almost been embarrassed for them.

Almost.

Four of them seemed to think wingmen were a waste of space and time and had broken off to do their own thing to the detriment of both, performing dangerous maneuvers that had very nearly resulted in a collision with a fucking mountain because they’d been flirting with the hard deck and dead set on winning points instead of keeping their RIOs and themselves alive.

“You have to fight together,” he said, firmly, as Ice and Viper lounged in the back of the room. He doubted the kids had heard them come in; they’d been too focused staring at their desktops and listening to Maverick rip them new assholes, even after Jester had just finished doing so on the tarmac for ten solid minutes, making himself so hoarse he’d just wordlessly pointed for them to get the fuck out of his sight at the end of it. 

“You can’t fight alone up there.” He jabbed a finger at the sky. “Up there, all you have are your wits, your plane, and your wingman.”

“We almost had you,” the cockiest of the bunch, Tex, said in a growl.

“Almost is not close enough in a dog fight,” Maverick growled back. “You left your wingman undefended and easy for Commander Metcalf to pick off, which in turn allowed my wingman Lieutenant Commander Kazansky to immediately turn his attention to you the moment your wingman was out of play. At that point it was two-on-one with superior pilots in better firing positions. That’s why you lost this morning, Tex, all four times.”

“It’s not like you’re all that great at being a wingman yourself,” Tex growled and the room went tense at the borderline insubordination.

On the back wall, Viper straightened so suddenly Mav was surprised he didn’t hear his back crack, and Ice turned his attention to the back of Tex’s head with such intent he knew he was glaring behind his mirrored aviators.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant?” Maverick said coldly, staring the taller man down from his place at the podium.

“Everyone on the Enterprise knows what happened with Cougar,” Tex sneered. “You’re hardly one to be lecturing on not leaving your wingman. Cougar turned in his wings because of you.”

Maverick felt white-hot rage course through him in an instant. He fucking hated that incident and what people had taken away from it. If he hadn’t done what he’d done, Cougar would have ended up in the ocean or worse; he’d been so fucking panicked he could barely fly his plane to land it, let alone have the mental capability to pull his ejection handles. He wasn’t going to fucking leave him up there and had disobeyed a direct order because it had been the right thing to do.

“Cougar turned in his wings,” he drawled with a tone as cold and hard as a glacier, remembering Ice’s face this morning pleading with him to try and keep his temper, “Because he couldn’t handle the stress of being a pilot, Lieutenant, and if it weren’t for my actions, he and his RIO would have had to ditch in the ocean because he was too fucked up from an enemy missile lock to land his plane.”

Most of the kids shrank back in their seats at the cold rage radiating from Mav’s stiff posture. He wasn’t known for being the angry one; knew the aviators from the last class had returned to their squadrons with stories of how he and Jester were the more lighthearted ones to Viper and Ice’s cold and intense focus.

“That’s not what I heard,” Tex sneered.

“Well,” Mav snapped, “Seeing as how you weren’t fucking there, I’m not sure how you think you know what happened, Lieutenant.” Ice’s head turned towards him and he took a deep breath, held it to the count of six, and let it out through his nose. It didn’t help much but it at least kept him from saying something stupid.

Tex crossed his arms and leaned back, the picture of insubordination, and Mav briefly wondered how in the fuck this kid had made it through training with this attitude and then remembered who his fucking father was, because that could literally be the only way. “I heard enough.”

“Shipboard gossip is notoriously inaccurate,” Ice snapped from the back, his voice making several of the aviators jump and turn in their seats, paling at the sight of him and Viper shoulder-to-shoulder along the back wall. 

Tex set his jaw. “Mitchell—”

“That’s Lieutenant Commander Mitchell to you,” Viper said calmly, stepping forward once. The whole room shrank except for Maverick who was watching this unfold with a furrow between his brows. “Quit running your mouth about things you don’t understand and pay attention to what we’re trying to teach you, Lieutenant Benjamin. The purpose of Top Gun is to teach you dogfighting, so I’d advise you to focus on that.” 

Mav just shook his head and sighed because this was going to be the longest fucking eight weeks of his entire life. “Without a wingman, Tex, you’re as good as dead,” he said, and meant every word. “Try to remember that next time we’re shooting you out of the sky.”

Tex was still glaring but he mumbled out a tense, “Sir,” before swiveling his eyes in Viper's direction, his eyes then cutting back to Ice.

“Gentleman, lady,” Maverick said to the room at large, trying not to snort at the look of discomfort on Tex’s face at the way Viper and Ice were watching him coldly with crossed arms. “You’re expected in Classroom 7 with Commander Heatherly in ten minutes for the beginning of your intro assessments. Dismissed.”

They shuffled out of the room without further comment and it didn’t escape Maverick’s notice how many of the pilots gave Tex a wide berth and didn’t even look at him.

“I can fight my own battles, you two,” Maverick told him, rolling his eyes at Viper and Ice once the kids were gone. “It’s appreciated but unnecessary. People have been talking shit about me for years, it’s not exactly surprising.” 

“Insubordination doesn’t fly in the Navy,” Viper said easily, “And especially not at Top Gun, no matter who your father is.” He gave him a pointed look and then spun on his heel to leave after the kids.

“Any of these pilots would be lucky to be one tenth the pilot you are, Mav,” Ice told him seriously, flicking his aviators off his face to tuck them into his flight suit pocket. “You don’t have to listen to that shit. Now come on. Let’s go plot more ways to shoot these cocky little fuckers out of the sky. We don’t have our assessments until this afternoon.”

“Yeah, alright,” Pete muttered, sliding his own aviators off and following Ice to his office.

/

Day two wasn’t much different, in all honesty, and a very basic extremely boring hop with no drama—Viper’s threat to bust their asses back to plebes was sticking, for now, if anyone even dared approach within one hundred feet of the hard deck—which was good for the kids, he supposed, but very boring for him.

Most of them were solid pilots; talented, smart, and clearly they belonged.

Tex, on the other hand, well. He was keeping his temper in check thus far, but that was probably because his ass had been in the classroom all of yesterday afternoon and would be in a classroom nearly all of today, taking the required assessments to check skill levels in order to tailor instruction in dog fighting.

Jester walked up next to him as he was finishing his pre-flight check and he glanced at the other man.

“What’s up, sir?” he said, cheerfully, because their hop that morning had been boring but he and Jester were going to do their own hop to practice some of the maneuvers they wanted to train before doing it with the kids.

Jester nodded at something over Pete’s shoulder. “What the fuck do you think they’re doing?”

Mav squinted in the sunshine, but was able to make out Ice and Viper, standing close to Ice’s jet with their heads bent together in some kind of deep discussion. Their words were lost to jet engines, most likely by design, and while they didn’t seem upset, they definitely looked tense.

More along the vein of plotting something than upset, though, because he’d spent enough time around Bradley, Lilly, and Chris to know what plotting looked like.

“Uh,” he hedged, because by the looks of it, Ice and Viper were planning something. “I don’t know, sir—should we, uh, should we go over there?”

“Hell no,” Jester said, shaking his head. “I’ve known Mike long enough to know better than to get involved, kid.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “Plausible deniability. Remember that.”

“Right,” Mav said, faintly, because he had no idea what was happening.

They stared for a minute or so, watching as Tom tugged something from one of his pockets and started scribbling on it with a pen.

 “Um, Jester—”

“Let’s go fly, Mav, come on.” Jester was already sliding his helmet on his head, turning away from him towards his own jet.

Mav felt relief, glanced once more at Ice and Viper who were holding a paper now, gesturing at it, and he decided he didn’t want to know and followed Jester’s lead.

The sky was calling, as it were.

/

Two days later they’d mapped out most of their flight plans and what maneuvers they were going to train. The kids had been kept busy with their routine physicals and basic flight checks, as well as simple maneuvers, just to get their feet wet and check their technical skill in the air. There were no points involved and it had been fantastically dull. Points would start officially on day five once all the assessment scores were in and they knew exactly where each aviator was, and then they’d keep track until the second to last day when they’d tally for the trophy.

Pete squinted at the plan, seeing a complete lack of imagination and a whole lot of by-the-book, and tapped it impatiently where it rested on the corner of Tom’s desk in his paper tray.

He took a deep breath and said, “Can we just—”

“No,” Ice said without looking up from the paper he was grading.

“But,” Mav whined, “This class has been so boring.”

“This class,” Ice said with that insufferably calm tone he was so fond of and which made Pete want to punch him every other minute, “Is three days in and going to be by the book, Mitchell, because the last fucking thing we need is for Admiral Benjamin to have more ammunition.”

Mav’s shoulders slumped at that and he groaned theatrically, flinging himself backwards in the chair with every ounce of drama he could muster and kicking hard at the leg of Tom’s desk. “Just one inverted dive—”

Ice’s glare cut him off mid sentence. “No,” he said, enunciating the word, slow and to the point. “And if you go off and do it anyway like I know you’re thinking of doing, I will kill you, and Viper will absolutely help me hide your body.”

He couldn’t help the betrayed scoff that slipped between his lips anymore than the half-whine, kicking at Ice’s desk again. “I’m so bored,” he complained, petulant, crossing his arms and glaring at the ceiling. 

Ice rubbed his forehead and exhaled in that way he did when he was annoyed and trying really hard to reign in his temper before he said something cutting.

They’d been doing boring as hell hops this entire time and hadn’t done anything risky or off the books since that first day of hops, when they’d gone to town shooting Tex’s ass out of the sky four times in a row. They’d shot down everyone else’s, too, but given the kid’s attitude, they’d quite literally drawn straws on who would do the honors of shooting him down first.

Mav still insisted they’d rigged it somehow, and that’s how Viper had won, but Jester and Ice were both being tight-lipped bastards about it, and he’d had to go last.

“Go do your evaluations,” Ice told him, pen scratching on the report as he crossed something out and scribbled a note in the margins.

“I don’t want to do the evaluations,” he muttered.

“Then go grade essays.”

“I don’t want to do that, either.”

“Then quit fucking whining in my office,” Ice said blandly, glancing up at him and raising a sardonic brow. “It’s distracting me. You’re acting like Bradley.”

Mav pointed at him with a scowl. “That,” he sniffed, “was uncalled for.”

“And yet, not inaccurate,” said Ice, rolling his eyes and going back to looking at his report.

“It makes me want to gouge my eyes out,” he admitted, watching as Ice scratched something else out and wrote another note. “They’re so stupid.”

“The collective intelligence seems to go down a few IQ points with every class,” Tom agreed with a hum.

“And their tendency to shit themselves at the sight of you goes up by degrees,” Mav sniggered, because Ice had built himself a reputation in the Navy for a reason and the squadrons sending their baby pilots to Top Gun had clearly warned them of Kazansky. 

So far, the only aviator not scared to bits of Ice was Jenna Murphy, callsign Bounce, and there had been some kind of bet placed because nobody on the teaching team would let him look at her file to find out why. He only vaguely remembered skimming it before the class had started and getting the impression she was competent and knew her shit.

Ice had voted for her as the class winner, and so far (much to Mav’s irritation) he’d been right. It had only been three days but Bounce was shockingly efficient, almost to Ice’s level, her flying style slightly less rigid but no less technical.

Almost like they’d trained together, but Ice hadn’t admitted it, even with the promise of a blowjob, and had insisted there was money involved and he was staying firmly out of it.

“Mav,” Ice said, breaking into his thoughts, and he looked up to see the blond watching him. “Hey. It’s only eight weeks. Forty-two more days.”

“Is that all,” he drawled, rubbing his eyes and sighing. “I’m trying.”

“I know you are,” Tom murmured, and he sounded genuine. “Hang in there.”

“Ugh.” He stood, stretched, and felt relief as his back popped. In a low voice, even though he knew the kids were in class and Viper and Jester were occupied with them at present, he muttered, “Make it up to me, Kazansky.”

Tom’s eyes were warm when he leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Anything you want,” he promised, throwing in a wink for good measure, and Pete hated (not for the first time) that he’d promised to keep his hands off at work because nobody had the right to look that good in a fucking military-issued office chair grading fucking papers.

“The zoo. This weekend.”

“Done.”

“Something off my list.”

Tom leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of his desk and folding his hands together. “Okay,” he agreed, easy as pie. “On one condition. Bradley has his parent teacher conference this Friday. I want to come.”

Pete frowned, because he’d just assumed Tom was coming, anyway. “I already told her you’d be there,” he confessed, because he’d put both their names down for Bradley’s paperwork, and added all the flyboys, too; had even made sure Ice was his backup emergency contact for Bradley, just in case.

“The boys want to come, too,” Ice said, grinning like the cat that caught the canary when Pete groaned.

“Oh, great, the aviator clown car,” he sighed. “Alright, fine, but you’re doing the thing.” He pointed, raised his eyebrows, and Tom’s grin widened. “And I’m making steaks.”

“I’m almost always down to do the thing,” he promised, rolling his eyes, because he’d told Pete it felt silly to call it the thing instead of pinning you but they were in public at work, so. “And steaks sound great.”

“Okay then.”

“Three more days this week. You can do it,” Tom snorted, giving him a sarcastic thumbs up. “You’re doing great so far.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m five,” Pete sighed, rolling his eyes and heading for his own office, as Tom called after him.

“Maybe stop acting like it then!”

Pete huffed out a laugh and shouldered into his own office in hopes the paperwork would keep his brain occupied from Tex’s bullshit.

Chapter Text

Tom led the trainees to the first classroom, very conscious of Viper’s presence on his left shoulder.

Showtime, he thought to himself, even as he led the pilots through the first of their preflight checks and assigned them to their groups, grabbing his own gear and keeping one ear on the kids. Viper had already gone to the tarmac to begin his own inspections; he liked to rise from the canyons with Jester and was usually the first in the air to get a superior position on the kids.

He heard Bounce’s voice and paused, listening hard, catching, “―like that, wouldn’t you, Benjamin? Too bad your scores speak for themselves.”

“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Tex’s voice growled, and he heard a few bangs that sounded like fists on lockers, followed by a deeper voice.

“Back off, Benjamin,” the deep voice said.

“You back off, Severide―”

“Enough,” Bounce interrupted, her tone irritated. “Let’s just go fucking fly. Christ. Men are so fucking stupid.”

Bounce emerged first, followed closely by her RIO Trip and the quiet aviator known as Bear, aka Lieutenant Max Severide, with his own RIO Loopy hot on his heels.

“Sir,” they all said as they passed him and headed for the tarmac to begin their inspections. Those not in the first group peeled off to the ready room to find good spots by the radio, looking equal parts nervous and determined as they cradled their helmets.

She avoided eye contact with him but he followed behind her, watching as she peeled off to the ready room with Bear still on her heels. Shaking his head, he went for his own jet to start his preflight checks and wished he didn’t already have a headache building behind his eyes.

The first round went about as well as expected. Viper got the honors of taking down Tex first given he’d drawn the best straw. Jester drew him in with a dive for the hard deck― which Tex fell for, as most aviators tended to do the first time before they learned better― and set it up so that Viper took out Tex in what felt like no time at all. 

He silently wondered to himself who had trained these idiots and why they seemed to forget wingmen, good sense, and radios, but it made his life as an instructor slightly easier.

It would be easy enough to break them of the habit of running off on their own. Except for Tex, maybe, but his volatile temper was well known already. Mav was pretty quiet on the coms, sulking because he had to go last, but Ice didn’t really care. He focused on working with Pete to take out the rest of the group and it was easy.

Too easy.

Far, far too easy for the so-called best of the best.

“Not bad, for an old man,” Viper drawled over the radio, voice as dry as the Sahara, and Tom had to muffle his snigger because they’d all heard Tiny call him old during the intro speech.

In debrief, Viper lounged against the back wall and idly chewed some gum as he listened to Ice pick apart every single mistake the kids had made. Jester and Mav were out helping to organize the refueling for the next round.

So far, the record was one minutes and eleven seconds against the instructors before being shot down. Not bad for a dog fight, but still pitiful that it was that easy to shoot them down. None of the kids had managed to score a hit yet and he doubted they would.

“At which point,” Ice continued, holding the model of an F-14 in his right hand as he copied the maneuver that Tex had taken and allowed for Viper to shoot him down, “Lieutenant Benjamin had no other options open to him and was shot down.”

“Oh, and what would you have done, Kazansky?” Tex sneered from the front row as he surged to his feet, arms crossed tightly across his chest and expression mulish.

Ice stared Tex down, and to his own astonishment as well as everyone else’s, the kid slowly sank back into his chair. They hadn’t broken eye contact and neither of them had blinked.

Tom somehow got the feeling this had just fucking started and it was eight in the goddamn morning on day fucking one.

“You will address me as sir,” he told Benjamin, flatly, as if they were discussing the weather and his voice was not as frigid as a glacier in the Arctic in January, “Or you will not address me at all, Lieutenant.”

Tom let it hang there, the atmosphere seeming to plummet into the single digits, temperature wise, several of the pilots shifting in their seats and staring at their knees as if hoping the ground would swallow them whole.

“Your first hop,” he continued, settling the F-14 model on the podium and folding his arms behind his back to scan the room. Most were slowly getting the nerve to look back up at him now that he was no longer speaking to Tex. “Was an absolute disaster. I expected better from the so-called best of the best.”

Several gulped, and he saw Mav slip into the back beside Viper, hair mussed from the wind and aviators hiding his eyes. The more he spoke the harder the shorter man stared, and he realized Maverick couldn’t stop staring, because these kids had never, ever looked at Mav like they were looking at him right now. 

Tom knew how they were looking at him. The same way they looked at Viper: awe, disbelief, respect, and a whole hell of a lot of jealousy. Except for Tex of course who was still glaring at him but was at least taking a break from blatant insubordination.

“Here at Top Gun, our objective is to teach you how to survive in a dogfight,” Ice said, slowly walking up the aisle. “Forget everything you think you know, because I can personally guarantee you: you don’t know jack shit.”

Several of the students shifted, expressions going mulish, but Ice was just getting started as Mav leaned back into the wall next to Viper to make himself comfortable as Jester slipped into the room to stand beside Viper and paused for a moment. 

Normally Viper was the one giving this speech. A quick glance at Jester found him staring at Ice with the same perplexed expression that was mirrored on Mav’s. Viper nudged him a little and motioned to his face as Jester quickly schooled himself, the look in his eyes calculating now, as if he was trying to figure out their game plan.

Mav was just staring, still, but Viper was at least conscious that the kids could turn around to look at them.

Tom doubted they would; they were hyper focused on the Iceman, at present.

“We are Naval aviators,” Tom continued, strolling back up the aisle the other way without looking at any of them. “We are expected to do things most people shudder at. We routinely land jets at fast speeds on postage stamps in the middle of the ocean in the dead of night in pitching seas. There is very little we cannot accomplish when we put our minds to it. I encourage you to check your egos at the door. If you want to learn, really learn, what we are here to teach you, it will require you to listen. Humble yourself. Acknowledge your own shortcomings and use them to make yourself a better aviator.”

“Oh yeah?” Tex’s voice said, and Tom almost scoffed outright at the fucking audacity of this kid, holy shit. “And what are your shortcomings, sir?”

Tom was staring at him again, his expression admirably blank. Viper at least recognized the target acquired look in his eyes (and Mav did too judging by the way he rubbed his chin and ducked his head down) as he rocked onto the balls of his feet and put his hands on his hips.

Tex’s tone was borderline insubordinate and he’d been here less than a morning.

It was no longer a mystery why the kid’s file was so damn thick.

Nobody in the room was breathing, Tom was pretty sure, himself included.

“I am a steadfast perfectionist, Lieutenant Benjamin,” he said, dry as the desert. It was true and what his mother loved to call his fatal flaw. “You, on the other hand, are cocky and insubordinate and you clearly have astonishingly poor impulse control based on the fact you broke the hard deck less than a minute into your first flight at Top Gun.”

There were a few sniggers at that, and Tex’s face went very red but he said nothing, just clamped his mouth shut and scowled, hate swirling in his dark eyes.

“Then again,” Tom drawled because he’d expected the kid to explode at his button being metaphorically hit with a large hammer, “Maybe you can learn, Lieutenant, look at that. Gear up,” he ordered the room at large, his voice a bark. “Your next briefing is in five minutes. Make the next hop better. The first one was embarrassing.” He scanned each face, eyes lingering on Tex and Tiny a heartbeat longer than the rest. “If any of you break the hard deck, you do push ups until you puke. Dismissed.”

The second hop went better, surprisingly, for everyone but Tex. He didn’t even bother to speak over the coms; he just looked at what Tex was doing (the same maneuver from before, which he’d anticipated) and got into position to take him out a mere thirty seconds after the exercise began. Tex’s cursing in his ear was music, as far as he was concerned, as the cocky little shit peeled off back to base. 

Bounce was still as good as ever but he got her in the end.

“Goddamn it, Kazansky,” she said over their internal comms, as her RIO looked between them curiously, his head moving like he was watching a tennis match.

“Gotcha, Murph,” he snorted, unable to keep the fondness from leaking into his tone. “You’re still too predictable.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she sighed. “Who bet on me?”

“I did,” he said, smug as hell as he pulled up level with her jet and shot her sarcastic finger guns one-handed, the other steady on his controls. She’d been the last one standing for this exercise. “Try not to disappoint me.”

“Tall order,” she scoffed, flipping him off and clicking off the internal com as she peeled away and returned to base as ordered.

“At least I’ve got her,” he murmured to himself with a sigh, because the rest of the class weren’t exactly impressive.

It ended up being the bright point of his day, his flight with Bounce, because Tex Benjamin was a moron.

/

Tom slipped into the O Club in his civvies and made his way for the bar and a vodka soda, eyes scanning the crowd. He felt exhausted from all the bullshit of the day; they were only two days in and he was already over this class because of Tex. After this he would head to Pete’s (it was his turn to read the dinosaur book, after all), but Pete had encouraged him to head to the bar for a bit and have a drink for him since he wouldn't normally be going to Pete's house.

He'd rather be at Pete's, but he'd relented, because Pete had looked so earnest he hadn't been able to tell him no.

“Hey T,” Bounce greeted him as she came up beside him and bumped their elbows together.

“Murph,” he returned, fond, nodding at the bartender in thanks as he took his drink and tilting his head towards one of the tables at the back. “Come on, let’s go catch up.” At her quirked eyebrows he grinned. “As a friend and not an instructor. Cross my heart.” He did so and she just rolled her eyes and followed him, her RIO coming seemingly out of nowhere to join them.

“Ice, this is Trip,” she introduced them. “Trip, Ice.”

“Jenna, he’s shot us down four times, I know who he is,” Trip said, dryly, as he settled beside her on the opposite side of the table. “Good to meet you formally though, I guess, sir.”

Tom nodded and took a sip of his vodka soda, his eyes flitting between them. “Three times, actually, one of those times you got shot down was Mav. Where’d you pick him up, Murph?”

“Pensacola,” she responded easily, twirling her straw in her own drink, a Mai Tai from the looks of it. “He was the only one willing to be my RIO.”

“Coulda taken a single seater,” he pointed out, taking another sip of his drink and studying Trip.

“She’s a damn good pilot,” Trip said, his tone defensive. Tom didn’t take offense, he just studied the man curiously. He knew damn well that Bounce was a good pilot. “Plus she was one of the only ones who wasn’t a racist piece of shit about my skin color, so. It works out.”

“Indeed,” Tom agreed, because he was all too aware of the battles Sundown still had to fight, even as a thrice-decorated aviator and graduate of Top Gun. He watched as Trip’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and Bounce looked between them, amused.

“It’s okay, Robby,” she promised, knocking their shoulders together. “Ice here was the only one who would fly with me in flight school at least at first. The rest of his little posse fell in line eventually.”

“They’re not my posse,” Tom said mildly, taking another sip of his drink and reaching for the small bowl of peanuts. “They’d have flown with you if I hadn’t beat them to it, Murph, give them a little credit.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she snorted, still twirling her straw. At Trip’s confused look, she elaborated, “I was one of the first women in the Academy. Class of 1981. Tommy here,” she gestured at him and he idly saluted Trip with his vodka soda, almost laughing outright at the way the man's eyes bulged at the casual nickname, “Was in my Academy class with me and one of the only ones to not be a giant dick about my lack of penis.”

“I’m secure enough in my own skills to not be threatened by you,” he told her matter-of-factly. He winked. “I am, after all, the better pilot.”

“For now,” Bounce said stiffly.

“Challenge accepted,” he mused, clinking their glasses together. 

“Plus, I owe your dad,” Bounce said quietly.

“You don’t owe that asshole shit,” Tom corrected. “He didn’t do it for you.”

“Maybe not,” Jenna shrugged, “But I benefited from it regardless.”

Trip looked between them. The curiosity was open on his face but he clearly didn’t want to ask until he visibly worked up the courage and blurted, “Benefited from what?”

“Iceman's dad is a Marine Colonel.”

“Retired,” he said idly, twirling his glass to focus on his ice cubes and how they clinked together and not on Jenna’s face.

“He was one of the brass who insisted on lifting the restrictions on women in combat,” Jenna explained, to Trip, who hummed in acknowledgement. “Pretty sure he’s the reason I was able to secure a congressional appointment to the Academy, actually. One of his own Academy buddies became a Senator from my state.”

Tom didn’t know any of this for sure, of course, it was just speculation. His sister Rachel was insistent upon joining the Marine Corps as soon as she graduated college and she had her heart set on flying fighter jets. She’d decided this when she was twelve and while his dad might find him wanting, he’d all but bent over backwards to help accommodate his daughter’s dream.

Even if it involved harassing Senators, the higher ups, and anyone else who would listen to him to get the rule changed. The Colonel didn’t like being told no and had gotten enough people on his side in time for Rachel to be able to apply for Annapolis if she’d wanted (not ready for that much testosterone yet, dad, but I appreciate it, she said at the time).

The asshole had even given a speech to Congress and they’d lauded him as some kind of hero for being both a career Marine officer and pro-women in combat, but in reality, it had just been because it was something his daughter wanted and generally Sarah and Rachel wanted for nothing because they were his princesses.

The Colonel had done it to get Rachel into Annapolis, regardless, and had been pretty upset when she’d gone to a civilian school instead. She’d soothed his ruffled feathers by promising to attend OCS when she graduated and the Colonel had chosen her as the one to pin all his hopes and dreams on, all but chucking Tom to the side once he’d proved to be nothing but a disappointment in the final hour.

But that was family drama and he didn’t need to unearth it here at the O Club where anyone could overhear so he cleared his throat.

“So how’d you get the name Trip anyway?” Tom said to his glass to change the subject before redirecting his attention to the RIO who was watching him far too closely. Navy callsigns were notorious for being uncomplimentary; his own was meant as an insult, even if he personally found it kind of cool. He was aware most of the squadrons he’d flown with had found him to be a complete and total asshole. “Did you trip over something?”

“Yeah,” Trip muttered. “First day of my first squadron. The other option was Klutz but a guy in my squadron already had that one. My actual name is Robert White, but you already knew that, sir.”

“Just Tom is fine for tonight,” he promised, gesturing at their civilian clothes. It was a weeknight and there were many from the class present but not as many as would have been there on a Friday. Plus there was some kind of pool competition at the Hard Deck so a lot of the regulars were missing.

“Plus, he’s trying to needle us for information,” Bounce said knowingly, sipping her Mai Tai and giving him a significant look. At his mock-wounded expression she snorted and shook her head. “I know what you look like when you’re plotting something, Kazansky, I learned that by the second year in the Academy. Is this about Tex?”

“Hmm,” he said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing and studying the pair intently.

“If you want some dirt on him, talk to Bear,” Bounce advised. “He was in flight school with him.”

“If I wanted information from Bear, I would have asked Bear,” said Tom. He kept his tone calm and took another sip of his drink, staring her down across the table.

“Tom here was the Brigade Commander,” Bounce continued, staring right back, undeterred by his icy blue stare and clearly unimpressed by it. “He turns that stare on you when he wants something, Trip, or when he’s trying to break you and get you to blabber whatever it is he wants to hear. Don’t fall for it.”

“Easier said than done,” Tiny said, a little weakly, shrinking slightly in his chair. “That shit is terrifying, sir, respectfully.”

“They—that is to say, our class—used to wonder what to do with a man like him,” Bounce continued, sipping her drink pointedly and neither breaking eye contact nor blinking. “It was decided by consensus that eventually they’re going to have to give him a Fleet so he can focus on that instead of on us.”

Tom grinned because he was all too aware; he’d heard all that, and more, in his years at the Academy. Pete had definitely had him pegged when he claimed he wanted to go all the way to the top or he’d be bored to death. “What can I say, I’m efficient,” he shrugged. “Now spit it out, we don’t have all night.”

“He’s irrational,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “And impulsive. Pressing his buttons is easy enough but his reactions are unpredictable.”

“Something I don’t know, Murph, come on,” Tom cut her off, twirling his finger in a circle. 

“He hates Lieutenant Commander Mitchell’s dad,” Trip offered. “Heard him telling Tiny in the locker room this morning before our first assessment.”

Tom furrowed his brow. “Why?” he wondered, tilting his head to one side.

“Something about leaving people behind to die.”

“Everyone in the Navy knows that story,” Bounce interrupted, rolling her eyes. “And if it’s true I’ll eat my flight helmet. It’s classified, Trip. Nobody knows what actually happened and every time I hear it the story gets more outlandish. If he really was a traitor, somebody who was there that day would have confirmed it, but none of the survivors have said a thing. That tells me they’ve been ordered to zip it by the higher ups.”

“Even legends are based in fact,” Trip pointed out reasonably, shrugging one beefy shoulder. “I’m just saying what I heard. Nobody likes him, sir,” he added, looking back to Tom, his dark eyes serious. “We all hate him, actually.”

“Except for Tiny,” Bounce interrupted.

Trip tilted his head in agreement. “Except for Tiny, yeah.”

“You’re still not telling me anything I don’t already know,” Tom pointed out idly, twirling his ice cubes in his now empty glass.

“They keep passing him around,” Bounce told him, matter-of-fact. “They’re just sending him through Squadrons until he pisses someone off and he gets transferred to a new one. But you already knew that if you’ve seen his file.”

Tom nodded because he knew the kid’s file from front to back. He’d been in six squadrons in two years; unheard of, in the Navy. His dad was most likely bouncing him whenever a commander got pissed off and sending him to someone who didn’t know any better yet. Eventually the Navy would wise up and either promote him to get rid of him and make him someone else’s problem or push him out.

Unfortunately in his experience the Navy almost always opted for the first option, which was precisely how they’d ended up with Admiral Benjamin. The Academy ring opened doors as much as it prevented them from being slammed shut on people who deserved it.

“You won’t have to do much, Ice,” Bounce told him seriously. “Just nudge him this way and that. He won’t score well—fuck, he’s nowhere near the level of most of us. RIOs could fly a jet better than he can. Be patient. I know you’re good at that.”

Tom nodded because he was very, very good at being patient. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Goose,” he said, very quietly, and Jenna sobered immediately and set her glass down. “He’s going to get someone killed, Murph.”

“Not if you can help it,” she promised, reaching across the table to pat the back of his hand. “He’ll get himself kicked out eventually. Remember what he did in the Academy?”

He shuddered and nodded. The person Benjamin had attacked was a vegetable kept alive only on life support and the whole thing turned his stomach. Ted Smith had been a hell of a recruit and likely headed for top of his class before he’d been laid out by Benjamin after an argument where Smith had been intervening on him being a sexist piece of shit to one of the women in his class.

Tom was still mad he hadn’t been kicked out for it and it had been years. Smith didn't deserve that. Hell, nobody deserved that.

“Like I said,” said Bounce with a knowing waggle of her eyebrows. “You just sit back and watch. He’ll blow up his life all by himself.”

“Thanks,” he nodded, tapping his glass on the table and standing. “See you two tomorrow. Come ready for some intense PT. Viper’s still pretty pissed off.”

“Great,” Trip groaned, but Bounce was laughing as Tom walked away and returned the glass to the bartender.

The problem with Bounce’s advice, he mused as he drove to Maverick’s, was that Maverick was solidly in Benjamin’s crosshairs for reasons he didn’t yet understand.

/

Four days in and Tom was ready to throw in the towel and go back to the Roosevelt. For one, keeping Maverick from doing something stupid was practically a full-time job, and for two, he knew for damn well certain that there was something Viper wasn’t telling him about the weird dynamic between Tex and Maverick.

“I can’t make this work if I don’t have all the pieces, sir,” Tom said under his breath to Viper as they strolled out to their planes for the first hop of the fourth day.

“You have the pieces you need, Ice,” Viper told him flatly, his tone suggesting Tom let it go.

Tom didn’t curse but it was a close thing. If he slammed his helmet onto his head with more force than was strictly necessary then, well, that was something nobody else needed to know.

Predictably, Tex broke the hard deck diving after Maverick. Viper’s voice was literally shaking and Tom was forcing himself to take deep breaths because he knew as well as Viper, Jester, and Mav did that there was nothing they could do about it. Sending him back to his Squadron would have Admiral Benjamin so far up their asses they’d have to start charging him rent.

Debrief was brutal for the sheer fact Tom had to force himself to stay calm. Jester was absent, as was Mav, the two of their tempers far too short for this conversation. Each aviator was in their chair with their helmet between their booted feet, and with the exception of Tex, each of them looked deeply uncomfortable because they knew what was coming.

To punish one was to punish all, at least in this case, because Viper had threatened and so had Ice and they had to hold to it or these kids wouldn’t ever take them seriously.

“Line up,” Viper ordered, and they did so silently, abandoning their helmets in the hangar to line up on the tarmac in the hot sun. Most were already peeling off their flight suits and tying the arms around their waists in preparation for the push up position. “Down,” he barked, and they obeyed without a sound.

Tex was the last to get into position.

“I warned you what would happen if you broke the hard deck,” Viper said, his hands on his hips. “Down,” he barked, and Tom counted the number until sweat was pooling beneath the aviators.

Tom was on two hundred and eleven when Tiny shuddered and puked on the deck, the muscles in his back clenching as his knees dropped to the cement.

Down the line the aviators were shaking from the effort of staying in the high plank position. None had breathed a word of complaint, nor had they looked at Tex, the one responsible for their current torture.

“That’s enough,” Viper said, quietly, as the line sagged to the deck with one huge gust of relief, sprawled and panting in the hot sun. “Get drinks and go inside to cool off. Benjamin, you stay here at attention,” he added, as Tex made to go with them.

Tex set his jaw but obeyed, until it was just the three of them. Viper nodded and walked off after the class, leaving Tom and Tex staring each other down.

“I want you to listen to me, Lieutenant,” Tom said mildly, aware of his own sweat on his neck and face which paled in comparison to Tex who was dripping with it, red faced and defiant. “I feel like I’m wasting my breath but I’m going to try anyways.”

Tex opened his mouth, but Tom cut him off.

“I’m still talking,” he said, coldly, and Tex snapped back to attention. “Imagine, if you will,” he said, keeping his tone as cold as he could make it, “A world where Admiral’s sons are held to the same standard as everyone else’s. If that world existed you wouldn’t be standing here and yet, here you are. Your daddy has stars on his shoulders and now we here at Top Gun get to deal with your bullshit.”

The stupid little idiot opened his mouth again.

“I’m. Still. Talking,” he said flatly, getting right in Tex’s face. “You think you’re the best but you’re not. You’re not even in the same zip code, kid. Everyone is too afraid of your dad to say it but I’m not. I’ve seen thimbles with more talent than you. If it weren’t for your last name you wouldn’t even be here.”

“What, like your wingman?” Tex snarled, his eyes flashing, and Tom had to force himself not to smile, because it seemed like he’d located a button.

His father. How…predictable. He’d also deflected by attacking his wingman which was both predictable and pathetic.

It took little effort to keep his face neutral. This kid had nothing on Admiral Benjamin or on the Colonel, and thus, the insult barely even registered. “My wingman’s service record may not be the most decorated,” he said evenly, “But it boasts three more kills than you have, Lieutenant. Maverick has earned his place here and he’s got a lot to teach you if you’re willing to learn.”

Tex’s sneer at that implied he’d rather learn from anyone else, so Tom just shrugged.

“Your loss,” he mused. “His style is unorthodox, and yet somehow, it works.” He tilted his head to the side, watched as sweat slid down Tex’s ruddy face. “You, on the other hand, are dangerous.” He sniffed and inserted as much scorn into his voice as he could, looking Tex up and down and making it very clear he found him wanting. “I feel offended on behalf of whichever actually talented aviator lost their place in this class because of you. You’re going to get someone killed, Tex, and that person is most likely going to be you or, god forbid, your RIO.”

“Maverick already managed to do that,” he growled, body snapping out of attention.

Tom kept his hands folded behind his back and stayed stock-still, staring the younger man down. Second button: located. Implying this kid was less than Maverick apparently pissed him off.

“Attacking a dead man to deflect your own shortcomings is pathetic, Benjamin,” he told him flatly. “I’d recommend some self-reflection, as I’ve already told you once. Find your own shortcomings, acknowledge them, and then try to strengthen them and make yourself a better aviator.” He hummed and shrugged at Tex’s murderous expression. “Or keep insulting aviators who are and always will be better than you while blaming your failures on anyone else, that’s your prerogative. Your points will speak for themselves.”

Tex’s shoulders were shaking, his hands balled into fists, expression twisted into one of abject fury as his eyes visibly watered. “Fuck you, Kazansky.”

Tom shrugged. “One of these days, Benjamin, you’re going to do something your daddy can't smooth over,” he said matter-of-factly. “Until that day, I’ll try to keep you from killing someone. Dismissed.”

Tex stalked off before the word had fully left his mouth, breathing like an angry bull with tears on his cheeks, and Tom grinned at his retreating back.

It was progress.

/

Thursday night found him at Maverick’s, again, his shoulders loose for the first time in days listening to Bradley chatter about his week. They’d ordered pizza and were waiting for it to be delivered, the three of them sandwiched together on the couch as Bradley’s little hands moved with such intensity as he spoke that Tom wondered if there was an Italian somewhere in his pedigree.

“And then,” Bradley continued, giggling, “Susie put the glue on his chair, and Jimmy sat it in, and Miss Anderson got real mad but Jimmy leaves her alone now, so me and Susie and Patrick decided it was mission accomplished.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing about that at parent teacher conferences tomorrow,” Pete muttered, and Ice shot him a sidelong grin over the top of Bradley’s head.

The doorbell rang and Pete heaved himself up to go pay for it, leaving Tom and Bradley on the couch.

“Hey Ice?” Bradley whispered as he crawled onto Tom’s chest and clung to him, snuggling into him with a happy sigh.

“What’s up, baby Goose,” he murmured, running gentle fingers over Bradley’s scalp as his arm curled around him in a hug.

“I want to come to the conference tomorrow if all my uncles are gonna be there,” Bradley told him. “I can call them my uncles, right?”

“Sure you can,” he promised, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. “They’d love it if you did, probably.”

“I miss Slider.”

Tom smiled at him. “Me too, kiddo. I’ll have him call here next time so you can talk to him, if you want.”

Bradley brightened. “Really?”

“Sure,” Tom shrugged. “You can write him letters too, if you want. He’d love it. He doesn't have very much family, just me and the boys and his dad, really. His mom died when he was little and he has a way older half brother he doesn’t know very well.”

“Can you show me how to send it to him?”

“Sure, baby Goose,” he promised, kissing his forehead. “And I’m sure you can come tomorrow if you want, but it probably won’t be very fun.”

“No,” Bradley agreed, “Probably nod. But there will be burgers afterwards and that will be, especially at In-n-Out!”

Tom grinned and shook his head. “You’ve got Hollywood down pat, kid,” he snorted. Hollywood’s appetite was the thing of legends and there were few things he loved more than In-n-Out. “I’ll talk Mav into it.”

“You’re the best,” Bradley beamed, kissing him on the cheek. “Hey Ice?”

“Yeah?” he said, patient as ever, looking down at Bradley who was chewing on his lip.

“Could I—I mean—do you think Mav would be mad if… if I called him dad? Sometimes?”

Tom stilled for a heartbeat and then kept  stroking fingers through his hair, because holy shit, talk about a minefield. “Why do you want to call him dad?”

“I know he’s not really my dad,” Bradley promised, looking conflicted. “But mommy is gone, and so is daddy, and… and we’re doing this family thing at school, only… I don’t have a mommy or a daddy anymore.” His lip wobbled. “But… I do have Mav, and I have you. I do have you right?”

“You have me,” he promised, hugging Bradley tight to his chest, kissing his forehead. “You’ll always have me, baby Goose, no matter what happens.”

Bradley was frowning. “What can I call you, then?”

“Call me whatever you want to call me,” he murmured, feeling a little choked up. “As long as it’s okay with your Uncle Pete.”

Tom glanced at the doorway but didn’t see Pete. How long did it take to buy a damn pizza?

“Miss Anderson is reading Little House on the Prairie to us after recess,” Bradley said, suddenly, his little brows furrowed. “They call their dad Pa. I don’t really like Pa, but I’ll think of something better.”

“You can call me whatever you want,” he repeated in a whisper, sweeping Bradley’s unruly blond hair back off his forehead, “As long as it’s okay with Uncle Pete, baby.”

“Okay,” Bradley whispered back. “I’ll ask him. Can it be a secret? Just for now? I wanna surprise him.”

“Sure, baby Goose,” he murmured, as Pete appeared with a stack of plates and napkins on top of two pizza boxes.

“Hope you two crazy fools are hungry,” Pete said brightly, and then saw their expressions as his brows quirked upwards. “What are you two whispering about out here?”

“Nothing,” Bradley and Tom said in perfect unison, glancing at each other and then breaking into giggles.

“Right,” Pete drawled, dropping the pizza on the coffee table and rolling his eyes. “Totally not suspicious at all, not even a little. Who’s turn is it to pick the movie?”

“Mine!” Bradley cheered, scrambling off Tom and making him grunt when tiny knees impacted his stomach and intestines, thankfully missing his dick, as the boy dove for the row of VHS movies on the bottom of the bookshelf.

“That was close,” Pete mused, patting Tom’s groin with a wink. “I need that later.”

“Behave,” Tom said flatly, batting his hand away and reaching for a plate. “I hope you got something besides cheese this time, you freak.”

“Cheese pizza is delicious,” Pete argued, knocking their shoulders together.

“Just peel the pepperonis off then,” he laughed, rolling his eyes.

“It’s not the same,” Pete whined, as Bradley nearly slammed the VHS case he was holding into his nose. “The Great Mouse Detective again kid, really?”