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It started after Goose.
They came and got him, pulled him out of the water. He wished they hadn't.
Viper showed up, after he'd been checked over, to tell him. He didn't need to hear it. He knew. He knew the second he saw what the impact had done to Goose's helmet, the second he saw the blood pouring out from under it.
He listened anyway. Listened to Viper say it, listened to Viper try to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that these things just happened—Christ, that it was going to happen again. That he would get used to it.
It was bullshit. He couldn't stand being asked to swallow it.
Then Viper walked out, and left him there.
"I'll be here if you need me, okay?" Charlie said, and then drove away and left too.
That was the end of that, apparently. It should have hurt.
It didn't.
Collecting Goose's things for Carole, it was—it was like it wasn't even him, like it was somebody else moving his hands. He did it in silence, and when it was over he almost couldn't breathe.
It wasn't enough.
The board of inquiry would be, though. If anything was going to be, surely it was that. In a numb, grim way, he was looking forward to it.
But it wasn't. They found him not at fault. Not at fault. They gave the sky back to him without even blinking. He couldn't make sense of it.
He walked out without speaking to anyone.
They put him in a plane again. He couldn't feel a goddamn thing.
That was what had always moved him, before. Feeling. He wasn't a tin soldier like the Iceman; he felt flying, deep in his gut, through to the marrow of his bones. He couldn't figure out how to do it anymore, like this: shocked insensible, disconnected from himself, indifferent and anesthetized.
He tried to focus. He tried to go through the motions.
He couldn't take the shot. He couldn't—he couldn't feel when to do it.
He broke off pursuit. He couldn't figure out how to explain it to them, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to. He wasn't even sure he could stand to.
For a second—
For a second, getting in Sundown's face on the tarmac, it probably showed anyway. That he was already over the edge, clinging by his fingernails. That he needed something nobody was giving him. He hoped dimly for a minute that Sundown might shove him off, shove him off or even hit him. He wanted to be hit. He wanted to bleed.
It wasn't going to be as much as Goose had bled. But it would be something.
But Sundown didn't do it. He let Maverick walk away whole. Just like Viper, just like Charlie. Just like Carole. Just like the board of inquiry.
Then, in the locker room after, there was Iceman.
I'm sorry about Goose.
Everybody liked him.
I'm sorry.
Maverick had been planning to leave. He'd been staring into his locker, ready to start packing up his things. He'd already changed into civilian clothes. He'd pack up his things, and then he'd go and tell Viper, Jester, and they wouldn't be able to stop him. That was the plan. He didn't have anywhere to go, didn't have a ticket to ride. It didn't matter.
But he stood there with the echoes of those words in his ears, and abruptly, overwhelmingly, he was—he was furious. He was scorched by it; it hurt.
He loved it.
He turned on his heel, sharp, and stepped over the bench between them, and shoved Iceman backward against the lockers behind him with a clang. "You're sorry," he spat.
"Mitchell," Iceman said, low, hands raised, palms out: like he was harmless.
But Maverick knew better.
He clenched his fists in the clean pressed front of Iceman's uniform and shoved him again, dug his knuckles into Iceman's chest so hard he hoped they bruised. "Go fuck yourself—"
"Maverick," Iceman said, and when Maverick swung a fist at him he caught it. Maverick pushed at him again, whole-bodied, twisted and jammed an elbow forward at his solar plexus, and Iceman made a bewildered, frustrated noise in the back of his throat and grabbed for Maverick's other arm, too.
Maverick thrashed in his grip, knocked him into the lockers again and then brought a knee up; Iceman blocked it with a thigh and twisted them both, grappled Maverick around into the next set of lockers over and pinned him there.
"Are you done," Iceman bit out, not really a question.
Maverick drew his lips back off his teeth. He wanted to spit in the Iceman's face. But he couldn't quite figure out how. His jaw was aching, working. His throat was so tight he couldn't breathe. His eyes were hot, and they stung, and for some reason Iceman's expression had softened, neutral, intent, gaze flicking back and forth over Maverick's face.
"Maverick—"
"No," Maverick gritted out, and struggled in Iceman's grasp again. He couldn't figure out whether he wanted it to break or not, until it didn't and he was dimly glad. "No, I'm not fucking done. Get the hell off me."
He twisted his arms in Iceman's hands, jerked his weight against that grip, tried to wrench himself free—not because he wanted to, but a test, desperate, to see whether he could.
Iceman held him, braced against him, and didn't let go. "Mitchell," he snapped, and something crossed his face that Maverick couldn't read; they were pressed up against each other, now, and Maverick scrabbled at Iceman's wrists with his hands, surged with his body, and Iceman just—just took it. Took it, contained it.
Maverick's eyes were wet. He squeezed them shut. He didn't know why that felt like such a fucking relief, that maybe Iceman was bigger, stronger, than the terrible numb silence that was trying to claw Maverick apart from the inside out right now. But it was, it was.
Nothing had been able to hurt him enough to drown it out. Nothing had been able to hurt him the way he deserved. Not yet.
But Iceman could.
Maverick swore at him again, kicked at him, used what felt like every muscle in his body at once to try to shove him away, and only ended up trapped closer, chest heaving, breath harsh in his throat.
Iceman was pissed, he could tell. But Iceman had earned his name—he got pissed slow, slow and cold. He didn't hit Maverick. He just held him there, sneering, pale eyes steady. He pressed Maverick back against the lockers and forced his arms together, so he could clasp both Maverick's wrists so tight in one hand that Maverick could feel bruises blooming under his fingertips, the hot ache digging itself in under the skin; and then he reached up with the other and brought it up under Maverick's chin, gripping his jaw, thumb pressing into one cheek and fingers curling against the other.
"What the hell is your problem?" he said, cool and level and quiet. "I said I'm sorry, asshole."
Maverick made a harsh, disdainful noise, and bared his teeth. "You know what my goddamn problem is," he spat, and he meant—he meant Iceman, he meant the world, he meant anything but what Iceman must have heard, because Iceman stopped glaring at him and was just looking at him instead, mouth flat and soft, anger seeping away.
"Look," Iceman said.
Maverick didn't want to hear it. He twisted, straining, writhing, and Iceman sucked in an irritated breath and used his whole body to hold Maverick still, and—
And he was hard. Only sort of, barely halfway there. Just from the sheer accidental stimulation, blood up from pinning Maverick and from being pressed up against. Not much. But it was noticeable anyway, a hot thick weight shoved into Maverick's hip so he could feel it even through his jeans.
Maverick went still, for a second.
He hadn't planned on that. But he hadn't planned on much of any of this. Iceman still wasn't hitting him, and probably wouldn't, no matter how angry Maverick made him. But if Maverick played his cards right, it looked like maybe Iceman would fuck him.
And that would work. In here, like this, rough, pissed off, Maverick pushing him to it and Iceman holding him down, making him take whatever Iceman wanted to give him—
Maverick closed his eyes, and breathed, and felt his own cock thicken, trapped in his jeans.
Yeah, okay. That would work.
He looked again, and Iceman was watching him, eyes hard and wary, face unreadable.
"Well, come on, then," Maverick said, hoarse.
Iceman's jaw worked. "Maverick," he said.
"Come on," Maverick pressed. He could hardly get it out; his throat was so tight. His eyes prickled painfully. He closed them again and shook his head, reveling in the alternating press of Iceman's thumb and fingertips tight against his jaw as he did it. "You've got to. You've got to give me something." He bit his mouth, the inside of his cheek. It wasn't enough. Nothing had been enough. "Please. Please. You've got to give me something."
"Shit," Iceman muttered, and leaned in so their foreheads touched. There was nothing sweet about it, nothing tender. Just a steady weight, a pressure, holding Maverick in place while Iceman decided. "Shit," he said again, after a minute, even softer. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"
That was a yes. It had to be. Maverick could have fucking cried. "Come on," he said, relieved.
"Shut the fuck up," Iceman said, very softly, and let go of his face to reach down and yank his t-shirt out of the waist of his jeans.
It was hard. Iceman didn't give Maverick any quarter, which was fine, because if he had Maverick would have thrown it back in his face.
Maverick pushed, and Iceman didn't let him get away with it, didn't give him an inch. He shoved Maverick's shirt up his chest until it caught under his arms, and then reversed course, unbuckled his belt one-handed, jerked the jingling ends apart and yanked his fly open, and shoved his pants and briefs down his thighs, both at once. Maverick twisted under his hands, tried to squirm away, panted in relief when Iceman wouldn't let him.
And then Iceman took him and grappled him around, and shoved him down on his back on the benches.
By then, Maverick was hard for real, the heavy weight of his dick bare and red, the head wet and shining, dripping a little. His jeans and briefs were still around his thighs, his shirt pushed up to bare his chest—he had to look fucking obscene. Iceman stared down at him coolly, satisfied, and Maverick felt heat rush into his face.
Iceman still had his wrists in one hand. Maverick tensed against that grip just to feel it tighten, just for the reassurance that Iceman wasn't going to let go. Iceman—
Iceman wasn't going to walk away. And he wasn't going to let Maverick walk away, either.
"Yeah, that's right," Iceman said, like he knew what Maverick was thinking. "I've got you." He looked Maverick up and down for a minute, and tilted his head. "You leave these—" He shook Maverick's crossed wrists just a little. "—where I put them. Understand?"
Maverick wanted to tell him where he could shove that.
But he accidentally panted out a trembling wordless breath instead, and when Iceman took his left hand and leaned down, pushed it behind him and under the bench, he wrapped it around the edge of the bench and kept it there.
"Good," Iceman murmured.
Maverick flinched a little, uncontrollable, startled. His face was hot. He couldn't look Iceman in the eye.
Iceman went still over him, for a second. And then he took Maverick's right hand, and did the same thing: bent down and pushed it behind Maverick where he was lying, so it was underneath the bench, so Maverick could close it around the other edge.
He let go of it, and touched Maverick's face. "Good," he said again, clear, deliberate.
Maverick gritted his teeth and didn't look at him. That wasn't—that wasn't what this was for. That wasn't what Maverick wanted.
That wasn't what he deserved.
Iceman reached down and touched Maverick's dick: just idly, running his fingertips along the shape of it, and Maverick swore at him and rolled his hips helplessly, and kept his hands exactly where Iceman had put them.
And then he leaned down over Maverick where Maverick was spread out for him, and bit Maverick's shoulder.
Maverick's shoulder, his collarbone; he pushed Maverick's head back and bit the column of his throat, too, while Maverick gasped and shuddered under him. He stood over Maverick and pushed his thumb and then his fingers into Maverick's mouth, and god, there was something about that, Iceman and his steady hands, Iceman letting Maverick suck on them, that got Maverick right where he lived—that made him eager for it, squeezing his eyes shut and working his tongue over Iceman's knuckles.
Iceman wouldn't—wouldn't fucking stop calling him "good", telling him how well he was doing.
But he made up for it, at last, by drawing his wet fingers out of Maverick's mouth and closing them around Maverick's cock.
It wasn't much distance, but Maverick's spit had already cooled on them, and against the heat of his dick it was stark; he shivered, cursing, and Iceman smiled that smug tiny smile of his and bent down, bit and sucked from the base of Maverick's throat and on down his heaving chest, leaving a path of flushed stinging skin in his wake.
Maverick could feel every fucking second of it.
Iceman jerked him slow, but hard—closed his hand tight, the friction deep, a flurry of sparks, even with the way he'd made Maverick lick him. Maverick sucked in air and shuddered, pressed up into it, and Iceman made him work for every inch. Iceman made it cost something, made it precious. Made it hurt.
By the time Maverick actually came, it was like it took his whole body to do it. His muscles ached and burned with the strain of chasing after it, his hands stiff where he'd kept them closed on the fucking bench the whole time; he tensed up from his scalp to his toes, desperate, practically sobbing—and then Iceman touched his face with one hand and said, "Good; you're so good," and stroked him hard with the other, and he was gone.
Iceman coaxed the aftershocks through him, dragged it out until he was gasping and then suddenly stopped. Maverick wanted to ask him why, but couldn't. His throat wouldn't work. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he was—
"It's okay," Iceman said, and gathered him up, and didn't seem to mind whatever it was that was racking its way through him. "It's okay. You're okay," and Maverick didn't know why he was so sure, but it seemed like it was going to be a lot harder to argue with him than it was to lie here and be held by him, so Maverick let him get away with it.
He touched each of Maverick's hands—released them, Maverick understood dimly, even though the only thing that had been holding them there was Maverick himself, and rubbed them a little, bending and rolling Maverick's fingers between his own until the ache in Maverick's knuckles eased. He ran a hand through Maverick's hair, over and over again. He worked Maverick's shirt back down over the marks he'd sucked and bitten into Maverick's chest, and then eased Maverick to his feet, steadied him, and helped him tug his briefs, his jeans, back up.
"All right?" he said quietly, when Maverick was as put back together as he could get.
"I," Maverick said. "Yeah." He wet his lips, and cleared his throat, and didn't meet Iceman's eyes. "You didn't, uh."
Iceman shrugged one shoulder, smooth, unbothered. "So you owe me one," he said, and Maverick had to look at him then.
"I owe you one," he repeated.
"Yeah," Iceman said.
So—so maybe it wasn't one-and-done. Maybe that wasn't all Maverick was ever going to get.
If he stayed.
He could, he thought. He hadn't given up his wings yet, not officially. He could stay a little longer, since he owed Iceman one.
"Okay," Maverick said.
He stayed.
He stayed, and they did it again. Again, and again, and again.
Iceman never started it. He always waited for Maverick to come to him, to force the issue—to get in his face. And then he made Maverick stop, got him under control, cool and uncompromising and Iceman through and through, and took him apart.
He liked it, obviously. Why wouldn't he? Of course he liked it, Maverick decided. Putting Maverick in his place, that was what it was. Of course he enjoyed it.
He liked putting marks on Maverick, bruising him up. He made Maverick suck him off, sometimes, or held Maverick down and rubbed himself off against Maverick, between his thighs or against his ass, without letting Maverick touch him. He bit Maverick's shoulders, his thighs, the nape of his neck; he let Maverick lick his hands, his fingers, while he jerked himself off, and then made him clean him up after.
Maverick didn't let him talk very much, before they did it—tried not to listen to him, during. Maverick wanted to feel something, wanted to be hurt; wanted to be punished, made to work for it, made to earn it. He didn't want to talk about it. Iceman mostly quit trying, after a while. But he still wouldn't shut up about how good Maverick was, how well he was doing, how much Iceman liked that. He had to be able to see the way it made Maverick flush, that Maverick couldn't look at him when he did that.
But he'd get a clue sooner or later. It wasn't worth the trouble, Maverick decided, to tell him to cut it the fuck out. It wasn't a big deal.
None of it was a big deal. It wasn't like Iceman actually gave a shit about Maverick. Why would he? Maverick was still flying, but he was still fucking it up, too—the one thing he'd ever been good at, the one thing he'd poured all of himself into, and now he was crashing and burning, flaming out for everybody to see, hanging on by a thread. He probably wasn't going to have to leave, after another week. They were going to save him the effort and kick him out, any day now.
There was no way Iceman wanted him for real. Not now, even if he might have before.
But he was willing to do it, willing to fuck around, willing to use Maverick to get off. He was getting something out of it. He had to be, or he wouldn't keep doing it.
He didn't always hurt Maverick very much. Maverick had to push to get him to, sometimes—had to do something he didn't like, piss him off, and even then he was careful about it, controlled. He didn't have to be. Maverick could handle whatever he wanted to dish out. Maverick could take it.
He deserved it.
After about the sixth time, he decided to try a different tack. He waited until they were in the middle of it, him on his knees pushed up against a wall in the showers, Iceman pinning his arms over his head and fucking between his thighs with long slow thrusts like he had all day. Iceman mouthed along the line of his shoulders, gave him a hint of teeth here and there but wasn't biting down yet, and Maverick closed his eyes and leaned into the feeling of cold tile against his cheek, and gritted out, "Come on. Come on, tell me what you really think."
Iceman slowed down even more, slid his free hand up Maverick's side and smoothed his thumb along the curve of Maverick's lowest rib, and said, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Me," Maverick said, as goading as he could make it. "Tell me. Come on."
"What I really think," Iceman repeated, like it wasn't obvious what that meant.
"Everything you've ever wanted to shout at me when I'm up there pulling some bullshit," Maverick said. "Every name you've ever wanted to call me when you were pissed."
Iceman was quiet for a second. "You sure?" he said.
"Come on," Maverick insisted.
"Shut up," Iceman said, switching gears as smooth as that: voice low, hard. "That's not what your mouth's for. You know that, don't you?"
Maverick shuddered, gut lurching. He didn't have to say anything. He wasn't supposed to, obviously, and then Iceman reached up and pushed two fingers into his mouth so he couldn't anyway.
"That's right," Iceman murmured against the back of his shoulder. "This. Just this. You can barely handle this much. But it's all you're good for, isn't it?"
Maverick squeezed his eyes shut. His skin felt cold everywhere Iceman wasn't touching him. His throat ached. Distantly, he heard himself make some kind of noise around Iceman's fingers.
"You're lucky you've got me," Iceman said evenly. "Aren't you? You're lucky there's somebody who's at least willing to fuck you. Willing to get some use out of you."
Shit. Shit—
"A real pilot, a real man, wouldn't let me do this to him. But you will, won't you? Because that's not what you are."
Maverick shook, and opened his mouth wider. If he bit down, even a little, Iceman would pull his fingers out, would ask Maverick if he was okay—would stop, if he thought for so much as a second that Maverick wanted him to.
But it was fine. This was fine. It was just the truth. Maverick wasn't so pathetic he couldn't handle being told things he already knew.
He couldn't be that pathetic—
"You'll let me do whatever I want. You'll take it. You'll beg for it. And if you do it well enough, then maybe—maybe—I'll let you suck my cock later." Iceman paused, like he was thinking. "Or maybe I won't. I haven't decided yet. I'm not sure you've earned it. You might have to work a little harder. Do you think you can manage that? I don't know. That might be too much to ask of you, huh?"
It was stupid. Obviously it was stupid. But he couldn't—this was the only thing he had, doing this for Iceman, letting Iceman do this to him. It was the only thing left that meant anything to him. That it could be withdrawn, that Iceman could just stop putting up with him, had always been true. But Iceman had never said it to him.
He broke.
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. Everything felt like it was a million miles away from him, like he was already gone. He'd screwed his eyes shut tight, but they were still spilling over; his lips were trembling where they were closed around Iceman's fingers. He was shaking, and he couldn't make it stop.
"Maverick," Iceman said, and then, sharper, startled, "Maverick—"
He pulled his fingers out of Maverick's mouth. Like this, that felt like punishment, too: he was doing what he'd said he would. Maverick hadn't earned him, and he was taking himself away.
Maverick recognized the pressure caught in his chest as a sob forming too late to stop it. He choked on it, ragged, chest heaving, and Iceman said, "Fuck," and reached up with both hands, drew Maverick's wrists back down from where they'd been pinned, and—
And didn't let go of them.
He was still half-hard, between Maverick's thighs, but he wasn't moving anymore. And then he was, shifting back, but he drew Maverick along with him as he did it, hands closing around the backs of Maverick's, arms around Maverick's shoulders. "Hey, hey, whoa," he said, soft, steady. "Breathe. Can you do that for me?"
Maverick did. He was fine, he thought. He was fine.
"It's fine," he heard himself say hoarsely. "Keep going. Keep going—"
"No fucking way," Iceman said in his ear, mild.
God. Maverick swallowed something that should have been a laugh, but probably wouldn't have been. It really had been the truth: even this was almost too much for him. Even this, he could barely handle—
"Whatever you're thinking, stop," Iceman said. "Breathe."
Maverick gulped in air, coughed half of it back out. Iceman was sweeping his thumbs over the insides of Maverick's wrists, curled around Maverick, solid and warm and inexplicably patient.
"Shit," he muttered into the nape of Maverick's neck, after about thirty seconds. "Fuck. Sorry. I didn't mean to push it like that. I didn't mean to make you think you couldn't tell me to stop—"
"I don't know why you did," Maverick said.
Iceman's hands went still on his wrists.
"You don't," he repeated.
"It was fine," Maverick said. "It was true."
Iceman was silent for a breath.
"No," he said at last. "It wasn't."
Maverick huffed an unsteady scoff. "Bullshit."
"Okay," Iceman said slowly, and pressed his thumbs up into Maverick's palms. "Well, how about this: even if it had been, you could still have told me to shut my fucking trap. You know that, right?"
Maverick blinked at the wall. He didn't know how to answer.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Iceman said. "I told myself we were going to do this your way, and in retrospect I don't know how I missed that that was going to involve the emotional equivalent of doing a 4-G inverted dive with a MiG just to see whether you can."
"I can do a 4-G inverted dive with a MiG," Maverick said, automatic.
And Iceman breathed out something that might have been a laugh, against the side of his throat. "Yeah, hotshot, I know you can." He paused for a second. "But you enjoyed doing that, right?"
Maverick let his eyes fall shut. "Yeah," he whispered. "I did."
"You weren't enjoying this."
Maverick swallowed.
"And if you're not enjoying anything—anything," Iceman said firmly, "then you get to tap out. Okay?"
"It's not a big deal," Maverick tried.
He felt better already. He was fine. But Iceman made a chiding noise like he didn't believe it, and then let go of Maverick's hands—pushed himself up, so he was over Maverick instead of behind him, and when Maverick looked up, Iceman leaned down and kissed him on the mouth.
Iceman had kissed him a lot of places, had run his lips and tongue and teeth all over Maverick's body, had done all kinds of things with them. But he hadn't really—they didn't usually bother to just kiss like this.
It was weird, Maverick thought, lying there, shivering a little. The whole point of this was for Iceman not to be careful with him.
He tried reaching for Iceman's dick; not even half-hard, now. That had to be the problem. He rubbed his palm along it, circled just under the head with his fingers, and was rewarded with an increasing heavy stiffness.
But Iceman didn't move into his hand, didn't roll his hips or thrust or anything. He held himself up over Maverick with one arm, and with the other hand he touched Maverick's face, and he kept kissing him. Not even all that hard, that deep. He caught Maverick's lower lip between his, slid his tongue inside the curve of it and swept it along the line of Maverick's teeth for a second. But that was it. He eased off, kissed Maverick closemouthed, and then—and then moved to his jaw, soft and careful. His jaw, his cheek, his temple. His brow was next, a long silent press of Iceman's mouth, and Maverick shuddered beneath it, eyes prickling, and didn't know why.
"What are you doing?" he said, thin, scraped. "Come on. Come on, let's just—"
"No," Iceman said, almost gently. "No. I don't want to. I want to do this."
"Ice," Maverick said, but his throat closed on the rest.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. Not like that."
Maverick closed his eyes. Iceman's mouth lifted away, and then brushed his eyelids, one and then the other.
"You're so good," Iceman murmured. "You're so good, every time—jesus, even when you're screwing up on purpose, making me keep after you, making me keep you in line—that's good, too. You let me, you want me to. It blows my fucking mind.
"There's nobody in the world like you. And there's nobody in the world who can keep up with you, but on a good day I can stick pretty damn close on your wing."
He stopped. Maverick could hear his throat click.
"I just need you not to leave me behind. Okay? I can't—I can't be your wingman if you leave me behind."
Maverick bit his lip.
And Iceman kissed the dent in it until he let it go, and then kissed his mouth again. Maverick realized, dimly, that all the time he'd been doing it a minute ago, Maverick had just been lying here letting him; he reached up blindly, now, and caught Iceman's face in his hands, and kissed back. It was clumsy, a little, but he discovered he didn't care.
He wanted it anyway. It didn't hurt—it didn't have to. He felt it: he felt opened up, raw and new, eager for it.
He felt alive.