Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maverick groans when his feet hit the hot sand, the sun beating down on him. The air smells salty and fruity, and although the beach is filled with screaming people, he can feel himself relaxing anyway. 

“I’ll give you that one, old man,” he mutters as he tries to find a good space to lay his things down. Viper was adamant about Maverick taking the leave and going somewhere warm, and he hates to admit that he was most likely right. He can’t remember the last time he went on vacation, and Hawaii might be a bit cliche, but it’s popular for a reason.

He spreads his newly bought blanket, pops up a small umbrella, and finally spreads beneath the hot sun, eyes closed behind his glasses. Phantom wiggles somewhere near his heart, the wolf’s visage rippling on his skin, and Maverick smiles.

“We deserve it,” he drawls. “Commander’s orders.”

Maverick isn’t one to obey orders, but if they were all like this, he thinks he could be convinced to do it more often. There are children screaming, but the sound of the waves crashing against the shore is still loud enough, and he feels the tension draining out of him slowly. There was never time or money for a vacation like this, and it’s still not Maverick’s style, but he can’t deny how nice it is anyway. He has three glorious weeks in paradise, before reporting back on duty, and he intends to use it well.

As he’s not one to sit still for too long, he finds himself itching for a swim maybe 30 minutes later and, after deeming his things safe enough to be left alone, Maverick jogs towards the water. It’s crystal clear and the most gorgeous blue, and he’s spent half his life surrounded by water, but it’s still just as gorgeous. It’s also deliciously warm for once, and he groans going deeper, before sliding under the surface.

It takes some time for Maverick to swim out enough not to be bothered, but it’s worth it. The water is clear, the fish are swimming around him, and Maverick can let go and relax. He knows he’ll start going stir-crazy in maybe two days, but for now, it’s nice. It’s a shame that Goose couldn’t come, but Maverick would never begrudge his friend for spending time with his family. It happens rare enough as is. 

He swims until he starts to feel the pleasant burn of his muscles, and then starts to make his way back to the shore. Maverick’s shaking his hair free of the water, before a shout grabs his attention. He looks up, just in time to see someone slam against a tall guy, sending him careening in Maverick’s direction. Before he knows it, he’s back underwater, a warm, large body pressing him deeper. 

It’s shallow enough that Maverick is able to lean back against his arms and pop his head out of the water, and he opens his eyes only to meet a stunning, bright blue gaze. Everything stops for a second, all sounds disappearing. Maverick swallows dryly, taking in the sight of a tanned, blonde man, his blue eyes so startling that his breathing stops momentarily. His jaw seems to be carved from marble, high cheekbones and a pouty lip that Maverick desperately wants to taste.

“Hi,” he says stupidly, because he’s nothing if not a disaster when faced with a pretty man.

“Hello,” the mysterious man replies, and fuck, even his voice is sinful. The way he’s staring at Maverick is doing wonders for his ego, though.

“That was graceful,” Maverick adds after another long moment of silence, and that seems to break the spell.

The other man groans and glares at whoever pushes him, before standing up and swiftly pulling Maverick with him. The effortless way he’s manhandling him is doing wonders for him. 

He needs to focus.

“Some people don’t know how to behave in crowds,” the mystery man drawls, his voice dripping with contempt. Maverick loves bitchy people. “Can’t say I’m upset, though, since it brought me you.”

Maverick laughs, startled and pleased by the immediate flirtation. It’s always a bit of a hit or miss - some people faithfully wait for their soulmate, some jump into relationships without a care in the world.

He likes to think he’s the latter. He’s secretly the former.

“Bold,” he drawls. “I like it. I’m Pete.” Maverick surprises even himself by introducing himself with his first name, but… He’s not Navy here. He can be free.

“Tom,” the other man says, shaking his hand, holding it just a bit too long. “My pleasure.”

“Oh, it certainly can be,” Maverick throws immediately. There’s something about the other man, something drawing him in like a magnet, and Phantom seems to agree. The direwolf doesn’t appear because he knows Maverick likes to keep his spirit animal close to his chest, but there’s something anyway. 

He knows better than to assume, though.

“I can show you many other things you’d like,” Tom purrs, and his voice is sin. Maverick shudders. “How about we get out of the water for that, though?”

He laughs and immediately nods, walking out. “You here with someone?”

“All alone,” Tom says, confirming Maverick’s theories. “You?”

“Me too. Want to join forces for a while?” He’s normally not so bold, but this is his vacation, and Tom is very clearly interested. Maverick always wanted a summer fling, and this is the perfect occasion.

“I’d love to.”

Tom comes back quickly, his things just as meager and new as Maverick’s, and he decides not to ask. They both avoid the subject of jobs, but the conversation flows anyway and, before he knows it, Maverick is leaning close to Tom, jabbing his finger into the man’s chest as he proves his point. It’s exhilarating, the way the other man matches him. He’s a bit of an asshole, curt and dry, a bit cold, yet he boils every time Maverick provokes him.

It’s addictive.

He can’t help but notice Tom’s spirit animal tattoo. The man hasn’t asked about Phantom, so Maverick isn’t asking either, but the huge silvery-white lion is impossible to miss. The animal stretches all over Tom’s right hip, side, and chest, the ears reaching up to his throat. 

“There’s no mane.” The words slip out without Maverick’s permission, and he freezes.

Thankfully, Tom just chuckles. “He’s not your ordinary lion.”

“That fits,” Maverick murmurs.

“You’re saying I’m not ordinary?” Tom drawls, his voice dropping into a purr. Maverick’s breathing speeds up.

“You know you’re not,” he says slowly. “You relish in it.”

Tom’s smirk is almost lethal. “Maybe.”

The other man is arrogant, but in a way that’s backed up by reality. It’s arrogance that comes from confidence, the same one Maverick carries, the one everyone hates. He knows he’s one of the best aviators alive, and he’s proud of it. It’s incredibly attractive to see this exact arrogance mirrored on someone else.

Maverick briefly wonders what Tom does for a living. He doesn’t ask.

It’s surprisingly easy to get lost in a conversation with Tom. Oh, they argue and bicker, and Maverick has never been more frustrated with someone in his life, but it’s fun. It’s making his blood pump faster. It’s not often that Maverick meets his equal.

“Where are you staying?” Tom asks once the sun starts setting, and both of their stomachs are growling.

Maverick shrugs. “It’s a little house by the beach, I don’t-”

“Great,” Tom interrupts. “You’re coming with me, then, we can wash up and go eat something.”

“You’re very bossy, you know that?”

“You like it.”

There’s nothing Maverick can say in his defence.

It ends up being a very romantic dinner, in a small pub right by the beach. Tom looks ethereal in the candlelight, his eyes bright and intense, his cheekbones tinted with red from the sun. Maverick wants to cup his face and feel the heat of his skin, taste those pouty lips.

He wants a lot of things.

They continue to argue. Normally, Maverick would storm out, frustrated beyond belief, but Tom makes it fun. They disagree, but it’s not that serious, and sometimes Maverick gets the feeling Tom is arguing just for the sake of it. Their legs end up tangled under the table, their hands straying ever closer.

“How about a drink?” Maverick proposes once the food is eaten, and they’re just gazing at each other. Something in him is itching to make sure he stays close to Tom.

“Oh, Pete, I’m not that kind of girl,” Tom drawls.

Maverick chuckles before tangling their fingers together. Those blue eyes snap to his, and he knows he wants it all. “Maybe I am, then.”

“Prove it.”

He’s never been one to back down from a challenge. They find a small place, away from the main beach, a place that mainly locals go, and Maverick shamelessly orders a colorful, fruity drink. He’s no Navy here, he can let go and flirt with Tom while drinking his pretty cocktail that has more alcohol than most people can handle. It’s insane, the electricity humming between them, and Maverick pushes away any thoughts of showing Phantom to Tom. He knows better - soulmates only complicate the situation, and there’s no reason to risk it.

It is, after all, just a summer swing. He knows they’re not going to last.

By the end of the night, they’re both way past tipsy, leaning against each other as Tom crows Maverick against the wall. It feels good. The other man can see his spirit animal, Phantom’s green eyes staring at him from Maverick’s collarbones, so he knows Maverick isn’t to be trifled with. Yet he looms, but in a way that makes Maverick’s blood boil.

He wants more.

They stumble into Tom’s room tangled together, and Maverick looks up at him, fingers tangled in those bleached locks.

“Are you going to kiss me?” he challenges.

“Do you want me to?” Tom counters.

Instead of replying, Maverick pulls, moaning the second their lips touch. It’s hot and electrifying, and his whole body is thrumming with energy when Tom pushes him against the wall, hands trailing fire when they push off his clothes. They fall into bed together, and it’s like magic. Like it was meant to be. Maverick gladly lets the flames consume him.

He wakes up with a slight breeze mussing up his hair, a wall of heat pressed against his back. Maverick opens his bleary eyes, pleasantly sore and tired, and covers the arm around his waist with his own. Tom tightens his hold on him, humming, and Maverick melts into him. It’s comfortable, in a way one-night-stands usually aren't, but they both know the goal here - it’s just a summer romance, and they’ll likely never see each other again. He’s more than fine with it.

“Morning,” Tom murmurs, voice deep and hoarse. Maverick shudders. 

“Morning,” he replies, pushing back against the firm chest. Tom pushes him flat against the bed, fitting between his thighs, and it’s like he was meant to he there. Maverick tries not to think too hard about it.

“Any plans for the rest of your vacation?”

“They’re pretty fluid,” Maverick drawls, arms wrapping around Tom’s neck. “Now? Spending time with this hot man in my bed?”

“You have a hot man in your bed? Dangerous… I can get jealous.”

“Oh, can you?” Maverick goads, delighted. “Prove it.”

Just as before, it’s the magic phrase. A solid hour later, he finds himself sweaty and breathless, wrapped up in Tom’s arms. He lets his trembling fingers trace all over Tom’s spirit animal tattoo, humming.

“He’s an American lion. Panthera atrox.”

“Exotic.”

Tom shrugs. “Just prehistoric.”

The words make him pause. Prehistoric spirit animals are rare, for whatever reason. People get all the spirit animals under the sun, each the perfect reflection of one’s soul, but prehistoric animals don’t happen often. Maverick always heard that it takes a special person to get a prehistoric spirit animal.

He’s inclined to believe.

“Mine is a direwolf,” he says slowly. “People often mistake him for a wolf.”

Tom hums, his hand a casual possession on his hip, right where Phantom’s side rests. “Stupid of them,” he says. “He’s nothing like a normal wolf.”

It sounds like a mindless compliment, but Maverick knows better. Everyone with a unique spirit animal did their research, and he can tell that Tom did too - prehistoric spirit animals are a well of information scientists are scrambling for, and Maverick spent untold hours studying all there is to read about direwolves. There’s not enough.

“Well, at least we match,” he dares to say. Tom just kisses him about it.

They don’t touch the subject again.

Instead, they eat breakfast naked, Maverick settled in Tom’s lap, basking in the attention and care, and they make love again, this time on the porch, with the waves as their background. It’s easy with Tom, in a way it’s never been, and Maverick, maybe stupidly, lets himself get lost in it.

They explore Hawaii, travelling between islands, swimming in the warm ocean, making love under the stars. It turns out they both enjoy hiking, so they end up on a tour into the wilderness, eyes wide as they witness the nature around them. The whole time, Maverick can feel Phantom purr.

Getting lost in Tom is almost effortless, for all they argue. They’re both stubborn and determined, and Maverick’s heart is racing every time they fight, because it always ends with one of them pressed against any available flat surface, their moans lost to the wind. Maverick forgets about the Navy, about his duty, his burden. Here, for Tom, he’s just Pete. He’s no one, yet the centre of Tom’s universe, and Maverick finds himself relishing in being worshipped. Tom doesn’t treat him like he’s delicate, a bomb about to explode if touched wrong, and Maverick lets himself relax. Not mellow down, never that, but he’s not waiting to be hurt. Tom is a bitch, his humour is cutting and harsh, and sometimes he’s almost as untouchable as a winter storm, but he’s still here. Warm hands, strong muscles, burnt skin turning dark red.

“You have freckles,” he says a few days later, careful fingers tracing Tom’s burnt back.

The other man grunts, not moving from his spot on the towel. “I’m not made for this sun.”

“Oh?” They don’t talk about anything personal, yet Maverick has never had deeper and more meaningful conversations with anyone before.

“Eastern European.”

“Oh.”

“I know,” Tom murmurs. “People have opinions.”

“People are stupid,” Maverick comments. 

“And you aren’t?”

“Not about this.”

Because Tom is special. He’s warm and all-encompassing, but also harsh and brutal, like a blade about to shatter in your hands. He’s bold, confident to the point of arrogance, but whenever he talks about himself, there’s a cold edge of frost in his words. He’s an enigma, and Maverick shouldn’t, but he wants to know it all. It’s supposed to be a summer romance, a quick comfort, but already he can tell there’s something else here.

“Hey, Pete?”

“Hmm?” He can tell it’s going to be a heavy question. They’re sitting on a cliff edge, the sea a void of darkness by their feet, the sky dark. Stupid, but Maverick feels alive.

“What do you think about soulmates?” He was right.

Maverick is quiet for a long while, and Tom doesn’t rush him. Soulmates are…complicated. His life is in the Navy, and the skies will always be more important than anything else. Maverick’s spirit animal is a direwolf, but he was made to fly, and he knows it. Yet…

“I don’t think about it often,” he says honestly.

“Me neither. Too busy.”

“Aren’t we all?”

Tom rolls over so that he can kiss him, deep and possessive, until they’re both breathless and flushed. He stares up at the other man, his burning eyes, tanned skin, bleached tips, a supernova against the black sky. He’s ridiculous, but Maverick wants.

“You make me wonder sometimes,” Tom says, because he’s braver than Maverick could ever be.

He still smiles, a bitter taste on his tongue. “We’re not made for it, Tom,” he says, because he knows. They’re both hiding away here, running from something they still desperately want, poison in their veins. Maybe that’s why they click so well.

“I know,” Tom says quietly, before kissing him again and again, slotting between Maverick’s spread thighs. 

“Here?”

“Where else?”

They make love under the stars, freedom spread beneath them, both unwilling to take the plunge. His life is the Navy, a jet heavy beneath him, and Maverick knows this is his fate. This is what he wants - to fly until he can’t, show everyone he is that good. He was made to trace the stars, chasing the feeling that nothing but flying at Mach 2 can match.

Sometimes, held tightly in Tom’s arms, he wishes he were different. 

“I always wanted to see the reef up close,” Maverick says one day, halfway through his vacation. Sometimes, especially with Tom pressed close to him, it’s hard to remember the world around them. It’s hard to remember that he’s a naval aviator, Lieutenant Maverick, instead of his Pete. Sometimes, with the fireflies above them, in the middle of the night, he wishes he could be just Pete.

He was made for different things, however.

“We can,” Tom says with a shrug. “I can book us a trip.”

“Will you?”

It shouldn’t even be a question. Sometimes, Maverick feels like there’s nothing he couldn’t ask about that Tom won’t give him. The rush of power is always tainted by longing.

The next day, they’re on a boat to see the reef. Maverick was made for the sky, but he listens to the instructions carefully, and steadily ignores Phantom’s whining about being underwater. The reef is worth it.

All the colors and all the life, and Maverick looks at it, stunned. Tom swims next to him, hands careful as they hover over the corals, and, just for a second, Maverick thinks he could be happy here, damn the skies.

A wave crashing over them quickly pushes the thought away, but it stubbornly returns the same evening. Tom is sleeping next to him, a naked study in the perfect male form, his spirit animal shifting on his skin. He doesn’t know the lion’s name, but he’s magnificent, with his grey eyes and dark silver mane, taking up all the space. A bit like Tom - larger than life, yet so secretive, commanding attention whenever he walks into a room, but quiet and stern. He immovable object to Maverick’s unstoppable force, or the exact opposite.

He’s not sure yet.

He traces shapes on Tom’s naked shoulders quietly, something thrumming under his skin. Maverick knows better than to tell the truth - people often turn weird when he tells them about his job, his calling. The military can be a tricky subject, and he likes how easy things are with Tom. He likes how the other man just understands him, yet pushes back, sometimes just for the sake of it, just to argue. 

He could spend the rest of his life with this man, and it scares him like nothing else.

They don’t even know if they’re soulmates. Maverick suspects they’re not - just because you click with someone doesn’t mean anything, and a soulmate bond often complicates everything instead of helping. It’s an added burden he doesn’t want hanging over them, even though Tom seems strong enough to shoulder it.

At the end of the day, Maverick is a coward. He likes being just Pete, and he likes knowing just Tom - no last name, no complicated past, no issues. Because even if, by some miracle, they’re soulmates, it doesn’t change anything. Maverick, before anything else, was made for the stars. His soul pulses stardust, always chasing more, the feeling of a jet around him, that illusion of having the skies.

At the end of the day, soulmate or not, his heart beats for the skies. He won’t subject anyone to this, especially not Tom. Tom, who walks on solid ground, who takes control as easily as breathing, who grasps everything in his hands and holds, because the world bends to him. Maverick isn’t made for that life.

Untouchable, so that no one can hurt him.

“You’re thinking hard,” Tom murmurs suddenly, startling Maverick out of his head.

He chuckles. “Can’t sleep.”

“I can help with that,” the other man drawls, his voice hoarse.

Maverick lets Tom push him against the pillows, lets him kiss him breathless because it’s easier than speaking, because they’re both hiding away from the world, because they’re both not really here, yet they’re more honest than ever.

Tom doesn’t know Maverick, but he knows Pete. He knows his fears and dreams, he knows the way his hands cradle Tom’s face, he knows the way Pete goes pliant whenever Tom kisses him. He knows nothing, yet he knows everything, all the things he was never brave enough to say. They’re so obvious here.

When they eat breakfast by the ocean, legs tangled together, Maverick can’t help but think about how it’d be in real life. Would Tom still smile at him so smugly, knowing Pete is about to go Mach 1? Would he understand the love he feels towards his service? Musings of a stupid man, but Maverick can’t help himself.

It’s so hard, yet so effortless with Tom. They argue, but eat dinners together. They play volleyball, goading each other until Maverick ends up pressed against random rocks, Tom’s warm body pressing him there. They drink, and they kiss, making stupid love under Hawaii’s sky full of stars, both of them holding something back yet more honest than ever.

Sometimes he wonders what Tom’s job is. He grows weak and thinks about real life, about what it’d be like to know Tom’s last time, stand by his side as he does his job. What it’d be like to kiss him by a fighter jet, knowing the other man understands Maverick’s drive. It’s pointless musings of a stupid man, but he can’t help himself.

It’s easy to get lost in the moment. Tom is a whirlwind, he commands attention, and he draws Maverick with him. They swim and laugh, make love, chase fruits on each other’s tongues. Before he knows it, the time passes. Maverick didn’t expect to be so lost in the moment, to enjoy himself so much. He finds himself in another pub, in Tom’s arms, slow music playing. He laughs when the other man drags him onto the dance floor, couples and spirit animals all around him. Phantom thrums under his skin, itching to be let out, but Maverick is a coward, and he’s not about to lose this.

It was supposed to be a summer fling, just something to occupy his time, but when Tom pulls him into his arms, Maverick melts and he dreams. He looks at all the other couples, their spirit animals tangled together, and he wishes he could let his direwolf out, finally meet Tom’s lion. 

Learn if they’re meant to be together. It feels like they are.

Maverick tucks his head into Tom’s shoulder, and he wishes things were different.

“Just relax,” Tom whispers, arms strong around his waist. “I’ve got you.”

He tightens his hold on him, and they both pretend they’re not running away.

They make love that night, the kind of earth-shattering, intense, intimate love Pete always thought belonged only in stories. He hides his face in Tom’s shoulder, hands caressing all over his spirit animal tattoo, and he lets himself wish, if only for a second.

When they wake up, they know it’s over.

“My flight is in 3 hours,” Maverick whispers into the space between them, as if sharing a secret. He’s already pushed it - the original plan was to come back a few days before his leave officially ends, have time to get his things in order, but he couldn’t force himself to leave Tom. Thus, he finds himself naked in bed with a man he thinks he loves, knowing he has to leave. “You have to let me go.”

And for all that Tom challenges the reality, his arms loosen, and Maverick is able to slip out of them. When he gets out of his shower, Tom is still in bed, still gloriously naked, the white sheets only accentuating his beauty. He glows.

Maverick has to go.

He perches on the bed, cupping the other man’s face, pulling him into a gentle kiss. “Thank you,” Maverick whispers. He feels like he’s telling a secret. “I’ll never forget you.”

Tom is woven into his very being, tangled in his veins, resting right by his heart. There’s not enough time, but Maverick suddenly wants to tell him everything.

“Good,” Tom murmurs, voice soft. His eyes are full of grief, and tears sting as Maverick fights himself. “You…”

’Could’ve been the great love of my life.’

Tom doesn’t say it, but Maverick hears it all the same. He wants to stay, he wants to drop into Tom’s arms and never leave, remain forever in this piece of paradise with Tom.

He can’t.

“You’ll be happy one day,” Maverick says, choking back tears, because what else is there to say? “Thank you.”

He walks out undisturbed. If there’s one thing Tom understands, it’s duty.

The taxi is just as generic as he expected, and he feels bereft as he’s driven to the airport. On the inside, Maverick wants. He wants to show Tom all the jets, the beauty of exploring the skies. He wants to sink into the other man’s arms, forget the world exists.

Life has never been kind to Pete Mitchel.

He goes through security, his bag perfect, and tries not to think about Tom. He fails.

Waiting is mundane as ever, and Maverick forces himself to think about Goose, about the family he’s going back to. It almost manages to make him smile, and he sighs when the sign for boarding sounds. And then, as if the word of an angel.

“Pete!”

He feels like he’s built to answer, and he’s whiling around before he can think about it. And Tom is there, gorgeous as always, yet his eyes full of heartbreak mixed with determination. Maverick waits, his body frozen, and Tom comes closer, the air around him shimmering.

Then, like in a story, a giant lion manifests, matching Tom’s movements perfectly. The first thing Maverick notices is that he’s huge.

Tom’s spirit animal takes up space like he was made for it, all graceful body covered in silvery fur, a dark grey shaggy half-mane making him look more menacing, shining silver eyes pinned on Maverick. His breathing hitches, and it’s without his knowledge that Phantom manifests, his dark fur silky under Maverick’s fingers.

“Pete,” Tom says calmly, and they’re both pretending he’s not panicking. “Meet Veles.”

Veles.

He’s gorgeous. He’s larger than life, and he immediately bashes his huge head against Phantom, and Maverick’s knees grow weak when their souls finally touch.

It’s holy. It’s like being hugged by the warmest, most secure arms, like waking up pressed against Tom, like Tom’s bright blue eyes looking at him like Maverick’s worth something. Their very souls wrap around each other, and he collapses into Tom’s arms, sobbing, pressing his face against the other man’s neck.

His soulmate.

The proof of everything Maverick never let himself believe in, the person made for him. He meets Tom’s eyes, and life finally has meaning.

“It’s you,” Tom whispers brokenly. Maverick never wants to hear him sound so heartbroken again.

“It’s me,” he replies softly. The airport around them disappears. Maverick has his soulmate in his arms, and it’s the man he spent the last weeks falling in love with.

“Hi,” Tom says.

Maverick has to kiss him about it, and they both taste like tears, like heartbreak. 

“Hi,” Maverick whispers. His very soul is currently melting into the floor, a huge lion wrapping himself around Maverick’s direwolf, trying desperately to scent-mark him.

It won’t last.

“Tom,” he utters, heartbroken.

“I know,” the other half of his soul whispers, their foreheads pressed together. “Pete, I love you. No matter what, I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Maverick replies immediately. There’s no other response - he was made for this man, and he fell for him without even knowing.

Maverick has to go.

“I know,” Tom repeats. “Pete, I’ll find you.”

It’s a vow. 

It’s stupid. It should be stupid, but Tom means it, and Maverick knows the other man will move the heavens to make sure he’ll find him. He wants to stay, desperately so, he wants to bask in his soulmate’s love, stay in his arms.

He can’t.

First and foremost, Maverick belongs to the Navy. Tom doesn’t know it, but he understands, and he kisses the breath out of Maverick’s lungs.

“I’ll find you and I’ll make you mine,” Tom swears. Maverick believes him - his soulmate speaks, and the world bends to his wishes.

They both hear the last call for boarding, and Tom squeezes his hips. It’s so stupid, in the middle of a random airport, saying goodbye when they just found each other.

“It’s okay, Pete, I promise.”

“Okay,” he soothes. Their foreheads pressed together, their spirit animals still tangled together, Maverick feels fuller than he’s ever felt in his life.

“I’ll find you,” Tom swears again.

Maverick walks away, Phantom brushing against his legs, and he feels like he’s leaving his heart behind, but he believes Tom. If there's someone to find him, it’s going to be his soulmate, and it’s going to be okay.

It's not until the plane takes off that Maverick realises he never told Tom his last name. _Of course_ he didn't. Of course. 

"Fucking figures," he murmurs, heart sinking down to his stomach. Even when he gets a happy end, Maverick is _too stupid_ to grasp it with both hands.

The flight back is a flash, as is the way to Top Gun. He knows he should be excited, or anything, really, but all he can think about is his soulmate, back in Hawaii. All he can think about is that Tom doesn't know his last name, doesn't know _anything_. He knows Goose worries, he asks and asks, but there’s nothing Maverick can say that will express that feeling of knowing his soulmate and losing him in the same moment. It's impossible to admit that he almost had him and then _forgot_ to share the most crucial information, and Tom promised, but how can he fulfil that promise? The country is huge.

Still, he pretends.

There’s nothing else to do. He dons his armour and does his best, flies like he always does, enters the bar and tries to pretend. He looks at the RIO Goose banters with, and tries to pretend. He tries not to think. And then,

“Mav, you want to know who the best is? That’s him - Iceman,” the blonde says, nodding towards someone.

Maverick looks, and the world stops again.

Tom.

It’s Tom, but in Navy whites, a pair of aviator glasses on his nose, perfect and untouchable, Veles just peeking from his clothes. Maverick watches, he watches Tom, Iceman, walk towards them. It’s the same swagger, the same untouchable aura as if no one can reach him, and the world bends to his will. So he stands there, dazed and stupid, watching his soulmate walk towards him, and he doesn’t know how he missed him before. Because it’s Tom, it has to be Tom, it’s him, here and there, an intense look in his eyes clearly visible the second he takes off his glasses.

Maverick stands there, looking up at the other man, and suddenly Tom is right there, in his space, those familiar hands cupping his face as Tom, Iceman, kisses him, desperate and determined. He gasps into the kiss, hand immediately going around the other man’s waist as he’s kissed and kissed, in the full view of everyone. Goose is saying something, but it doesn’t matter because Phantom is melting from his skin, Veles is immediately there to wrap himself around the direwolf. 

Tom found him.

It all suddenly makes perfect sense as Iceman kisses him. Here is the perfect Naval aviator, the perfect pilot, the unstoppable force that somehow got caught on Maverick, the only man Maverick could ever love.

They kiss and kiss, and he melts into the other man’s arms, finally whole. They pull apart only when air becomes a necessity, and Tom’s eyes are sparkling. Maverick can’t believe his luck - here is his soulmate, dressed perfectly in Navy whites, the only pilot to match him, his perfect second half to the storm that’s Maverick.

Tom’s eyes are sparkling when they pull apart, and it’s entirely Iceman, perfect and stoic, the pilot Maverick has heard legends about.

“I found you,” Tom whispers against his lips, voice shaking.

“You did,” he says, because what else is there to say? Tom promised to find him, and he did, and everything’s okay again. “I love you so much.”

Iceman laughs, and it’s like snow melting while spring comes. Pete looks up at him, and he’s in awe. “Marry me.”

It should be sudden. Goose’s sound of surprise is lost in the rush of Maverick’s blood, and there’s only one thing to say.

“Always.” It’s the two of them against the world.

And, at the end of the day, Maverick stands by his jet, Tom, Iceman, right in his space, arms around his waist, kissing him senseless. Their spirit animals are tangled together, Veles wrapped around Phantom in a way no one else could achieve, and they share this dream.

“Ice,” he whispers, and the word tastes sweet on his lips.

“Who’s the better pilot?" Ice asks, because he’s an asshole and Maverick’s soulmate, and he loves all parts of him.

Maverick smirks. “We both know it’s me,” he drawls.

Iceman laughs, and there’s a taste of Tom on his tongue. He’s somehow both - warm and overwhelming, but also frosty and structured, flying like no one can match him, two steps ahead of everyone who’s not Maverick.

“Catch you in the sky, Iceman,” he says, before climbing into his jet, Goose right behind him, like he should be. Phantom is thrumming under his skin, perfect and happy, and they finally found their place.

Iceman’s jet warms its engines, the sound akin to Veles’ roar. Slider is already working to get ahead, and he understands it - they both belong to the sky. Maverick is the fire, the lightning in the middle of a blizzard that’s Ice, his soulmate’s flying so perfect no one but Maverick can match him. They’re one and the same, yet so different, and they meet each other on the edge of the troposphere, flying loops, laughing as their souls light up with the same fire. 

His soulmates, his fiancé, his everything.

Unstoppable force meeting unmovable object, and they’re both, they’re neither. They kiss and the world fades away, they fly and the world is theirs. 

Just them as one.