Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sky opens before him in an endless blue expanse. Cold, still. Brittle enough to crack. Below, the snow-drenched mountains blaze a blinding white.

For a single, infinite second, Maverick hears nothing but the sound of his own breathing, crackling through his mask quick and controlled. His heart thuds, once, twice, echoing in his ears like the beat of the ocean surf. Adrenaline arcs hot and sharp through his stone-steady fingertips. The chatter of his comms recedes into deathly silence.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“Shit, I’m out of flares!”

In the end, it’s easy.

He jerks back the control stick, inhaling through the sudden, brief nausea as he drifts up and over, as he slams his fist into the switch. Flares fire behind him in swathes of scarlet light and white smoke; Rooster shoots by underneath, a flash of sleek gunmetal. Always, always safe, under the shadow of Maverick’s wings.

Rooster, and safe. That’s all that matters, and for a moment, it really does seem like his stupid stunt succeeds, no harm, no foul.

Looking back, if he’d had the chance, Maverick would’ve told Rooster that he meant it. We’ll talk, he’d said. After, he’d said. Because finally, finally Rooster had been willing to listen, and suddenly Maverick needed more than anything to explain, needed more than anything to make him understand; needed, with an almost suffocating desperation, to recover something he’d thought irrevocably lost. Especially—especially now that—

It’s time to let go. And Maverick had meant it then, too, sitting in that sunlit office with its dust motes dancing in the air, with its four-star flag billowing just beyond the window, Ice gazing at him with calm eyes gone gentle with age. “I don’t know how,” Maverick had rasped, and not just about Rooster, or his career.

It’s Ice he thinks of now, as the explosion rocks the airframe. Rooster gives a strangled shout of his name over the radio, one that Maverick barely hears over the blaring alarms, the frantic beeping, the roar of flames.

He thinks of Ice. And then he thinks of Goose, his genial grin thirty years lost, his laughter muted and faded sepia in the fringes of Maverick’s memory.

Maverick yanks the ejection handle. The canopy pops with a hiss; every bone and fiber in his body lurches violently as he’s catapulted into the bitter cold. Did I do good by you?

Maybe, he thinks, as his vision goes black—he’ll finally find out.

He jolts awake.

Hands, check. Helmet, check. Mask on, legs strapped in. Upright, sitting.

No.

Upside down.

“Watch the birdie!”

The air punches out of Maverick’s lungs. He rights the jet on instinct, levels out. What the—

Snap.

“This is a great shot, Mav. I should be a photographer.”

—fuck?

“Mav?”

His hands are trembling.

Maverick has been flying for thirty-five years, and his hands are trembling.

“Cougar,” says Goose, because it is Goose; it’s his voice, crystal clear like it hasn’t been in Maverick’s memories, in his dreams, in decades. “MiG One’s bugged out; nothing to it, you’re good to go. Hey, Mav, what’s up? You went quiet.”

“I’m fine,” says Maverick. His voice comes out hoarse. He clears his throat. Wills his hands to steady, and takes a deep breath. In, out.

He looks down. The instrument panels, the consoles—he looks about—the whole damn cockpit is different. Older. Much, much older: buttons, dials, radars. Sorely familiar. It’s been, he thinks, incredulously, hysterically, a long ass time since he’s been in one of these.

It’s a dream. It has to be a dream.

His pulse thunders in his skull, drums insistent white flashes behind his eyelids. He blinks hard. Beneath him, the jet rumbles and vibrates. Around him, the clouds glide past.

Focus, Maverick. You’re in the sky. Dream or not, you can’t lose your shit now.

“We’re running low on fuel,” says the ghost in the backseat, says Goose. He still sounds concerned, but he doesn’t pursue. “Let’s head home.”

Sure. Okay. Just.

Give him a second.

But his hands know exactly what to do. It’s been twenty years since Maverick’s last handled a Tomcat, and his eyes still know exactly where to look. So, so familiar, everything, all of this. Like a fragment of yesterday sliced straight out of the dearest corner of his heart. His fingers curl around the control stick between his legs.

Merlin speaks. His voice sends another jolt through Maverick’s gut, another strum through the strings in Maverick’s closet, stirring up a cloud of dust. “Hey, Cougar, man, you alright?”

Suddenly, Maverick remembers.

“Cougar,” he says.

“What was that?” says Goose.

“Cougar,” Maverick repeats, over Goose. Keep your shit together, Maverick. “What’s your status?”

No response. A heavy breath, perhaps.

“C’mon, Mav,” says Goose. The fuel indicator beeps incessantly in Maverick’s ear. “We gotta head back.”

Maverick swallows. What happens if he does? Would it disrupt the dream? Fuck with his memories enough to wake him up?

What would happen to Cougar? Does it matter? This isn’t real. It can’t be real. Maverick’s lived his entire life already, over thirty years of service demarcated by Before Goose’s Death and After Goose’s Death, Before TOPGUN and After TOPGUN, Before Ice and After Ice. Whatever this is—no matter how solid the stick feels under his palm, no matter how his sweat stings his eyes—this isn’t real, and neither are the consequences.

(Thirty years ago, Cougar abandoned his wings for the sake of his family. Maverick ran into him by chance ten years after that, eating lunch with his teenage kid at a corner cafe, glasses on his nose and laugh lines around his mouth. They’d smacked each other on the shoulder and chatted a bit and then Maverick had continued on his way.)

No. Maverick won’t leave him.

“It’s fine,” he tells Goose. “We can make it. Status, Merlin.”

“I dunno,” says Merlin. “I think that MiG fucked him up. We’re runnin’ low on gas over here, too.”

“No worries,” says Maverick, eyes ahead. He blinks again, lowers his shoulders, then straightens up. “We’ll take you back. Nice and easy.”

They land. Cougar comes in too low, wobbling dangerously, but he gets his shit together long enough to raise the nose and hook the cable. Then Maverick lands, and he hooks the first cable, not the third. Acceptable, but not perfect; perfectly rusty, in fact. Strange, in an unreality. You’d think that his subconscious would have him land like a pro, no matter what.

And then they’re taxiing down the flight deck, getting chained down. The canopy opens. Maverick checks the instruments, the console. Unstraps himself one harness at a time, slowly, deliberately. Lifts his helmet with white-knuckled hands.

After that, there’s nothing left for him to do but turn around.

In his dreams, Goose’s face is an undefinable blur. Always has been, since his death; recognizable only by the vague pitch of his voice, the hazy sound of his laugh, Maverick’s deep, visceral knowledge that yes, the man standing next to him is Goose, his long-departed friend.

But here—here Goose looks up at him as he removes his helmet, too, his hair askew, every feature rendered in high definition down to the bristle of his mustache and the creases in the corner of his eyes. There’s a deep furrow between his eyebrows, and the padding of the helmet has left pale indents against the flushed red of his temples.

Maverick staggers.

“Whoa, Mav!” Goose exclaims, reaching for him, but they’re too far apart. “Seriously, man, are you okay?”

Maverick is not fucking okay. “Goose,” he croaks. “Hey, Goose.”

“Do you need a medic? We should bring you to the sick bay,” says Goose. He’s already scrambling for the ladder as the flight crew surrounds the jet. “Can you climb out on your own? Hold on.”

Maverick pinches his forearm. Pain flares in a sharp sting. Nothing.

The world is crystal clear around him, from the various aircraft parked on deck to the jagged protrusions of the bridge spearing the sky. The air smells like salt and jet fuel and the thick refuse of the galleys. The ocean waves crash against the hull far below, a steady, rhythmic rumble amidst the clamor of the activity above.

Maverick raises his head to the clouds, dark and wispy over a horizon gone tangerine-orange against the setting sun. The wind chills the perspiration dripping down his hairline. He shivers, then startles, badly, when a warm hand wraps around his wrist.

“Mav,” says Goose gently. “Come down.”

Maverick stares at him.

He has photos of Goose tacked all over his workbench, back at his hangar. Goose with Bradley, Goose with Carole, Goose and Maverick yelling themselves hoarse into a wide blue yonder. Awake, Maverick has never truly forgotten his face, but—

Goose looks so young. The realization hits him like a blow. Rooster is older than Goose is now.

Goose pushes forward. He tugs on Maverick’s arm, insistent, so comfortable and easy in Maverick’s personal space.

Maverick comes down.

“Easy,” says Goose. He hovers anxiously until Maverick’s boots touch the deck, then hovers anxiously some more. “Easy…”

“Don’t worry,” says Maverick, through the lump in his throat. “I’m fine. Just got a little woozy for a second.”

“‘A little’?” Goose shoots him an incredulous look. God, when was the last time Maverick’s seen that? “You looked ready to faint. Are you hurt?”

He doesn’t remember this part. “Right as rain. Really.”

Goose’s frown deepens. “If you say so,” he says, but it’s apparent he’s unconvinced. He continues to shoot glances at Maverick as they make their way down the flight deck, but Maverick doesn’t acknowledge him. Can’t acknowledge him. They lay below, their boots thundering down the rickety metal grates of the ladder.

Maverick fights to stay calm. Even the track of his footsteps is clear-cut, logical, sequential, distinctly un-dreamlike. The ship rattles around them. They pass through the plethora of claustrophobic passageways bristling with unconcealed pipes and ductwork, narrow and humid, the maze-like layout slotting like a long lost puzzle piece in Maverick’s head. If he’s not mistaken…

Ah. There he is: an LTJG, who stops them at the door to the ready room. He redirects them to Stinger’s office.

Just like last time.

Maverick inhales. It lingers in his lungs, suspends tight, dizzying. Goose nudges him with his elbow, another unfathomably solid touch, and Maverick flinches again.

“Mav?”

Maverick moves forward. Don’t think.

Stinger’s office is just down the passageway. The door swings open just as they make it to the threshold; Cougar steps out.

“Thanks, Maverick,” he says, and Maverick barely manages a nod before he pushes past them.

(Just like last time.)

“What the hell’s going on?” says Goose.

I’m having the most lucid dream of my life, thinks Maverick. That’s what’s going on.

“Maverick, Goose,” comes Stinger’s voice from inside, and fuck if that isn’t just as nostalgic as Cougar and Merlin. Maverick hasn’t seen Stinger in twenty years. Last he heard, the old coot retired as an O-6 to the coast of Florida. “Come in.”

Goose waits just behind him. Maverick can feel his worried eyes on the back of his neck.

Alright, Mav. Just follow the motions. They’re going to walk in there, and Stinger’s gonna send them to TOPGUN. No reason to believe otherwise.

His heart shivers.

Maybe this is where the dream ends. Any time now, he thinks. Maybe in an hour, when Maverick crawls into his rack and lies there rocking back and forth with the slow sway of the ship. He’ll wake up, and he’ll be lying facedown in a snowfield, and it’ll be cold and wet and uncomfortable. He’s probably dying of hypothermia right now, actually, so if he wakes up faster that’d be fantastic, thanks.

Stinger does choose them for TOPGUN. Time marches forward. Afterward, Maverick stands before the tiny mirror in the head, toothbrush hanging from his teeth. Never mind Goose being young; every single line on Maverick’s face is fucking gone. The persistent ache in his knees is gone, too, now that he’s paying attention.

“Don’t freak out,” he mumbles to the stranger in the mirror. Hysteria threatens the edges of his vision. He quashes it forcefully. “It’s fine.”

“Huh?” says Goose, from two fixtures down.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Maverick.

Like he predicts, he crawls into his rack within an hour. Lies awake, waiting for the inevitable. It takes another rebuttal before Goose finally leaves him alone, God bless him, and his concern squeezes Maverick in a carved-out space where he never thought he could be hurt again. Despite this, Maverick desperately needs to be alone.

He checks on Goose one more time, nevertheless. He’s already asleep in the rack below, blankets twisted between his legs, chest moving up and down, up and down.

What was once so commonplace sits oddly in Maverick’s brain. He’s always remembered Goose’s sense of humor, his easy charm, because everyone else remembers that, too. It’s the mundane things, like Goose snoring in that steady soft wheeze, like the way Goose looks to him for their next step, always, full of trust—that Maverick forgot, that Maverick took for granted.

He pulls himself back from the edge and stares up at the scratched underside of the rack above him, tries to focus on the cacophony of the ship around him instead of the uncertainty growing like a cyst between his ribs. The longer he lies there, the more real it feels. He spreads his hands over the threadbare, scratchy bedding, then rolls over on his side. The pillow is equally scratchy and pitifully flat beneath his cheek.

Is this reality, then? Was the past thirty plus years of his life the dream?

How the fuck is that possible? It can’t be. Maverick remembers too much. Maverick knows too much.

Fuck. He hopes everyone got back to the carrier. He hopes Rooster got home safe.

“God, Goose,” he murmurs. “If only you could see him now.”

If only, if only. The hurt jabs his heart. The tightness grows. The darkness amplifies the throbbing of his blood, hollow and all-encompassing, crescendoing into something rapid-fire and panicked.

Rooster had been right, that day. Maverick has always been alone. He’s never held onto anything serious, in the decades after Charlie. It was something he’d never minded, not with the sky above him and the world spread far below, not when he had Carole to think about, and Bradley. Not with Ice always at his back, after TOPGUN, after the Gulf; after Carole died, after Bradley left. After Ice himself was married.

But oh, God, did he yearn, sometimes. If only to relieve that aching, piercing loneliness that rears its head in the dark of night, that slithers into Maverick’s dreams in the form of a small, warm smile, of steady, sure arms around him, nebulous and fragile like smoke. And maybe Penny could’ve been that—would be that, if Maverick does in fact wake up in the reality he knows, fully understands. But she isn’t here now and a part of Maverick—a part of Maverick actually shies away from it, because—because here—

Here, Goose is alive. Goose is alive. And if Goose—who has been dead for thirty years, who Maverick remembers only through murky impressions and old, faded emotions, can be here, tangible, the contours of him bold and real and warm, then—

Ice. God, Ice. Ice is alive, too. Maverick lost him only three days ago.

The pain that strikes him is as sharp and sore as it was the moment Warlock broke the news. So what if Ice had married, had started his own family, had never known the shape of Maverick’s deepest, quietest truth? Ice had never once left him behind. Had never once left him truly alone—not until now. Maverick misses him like death.

Footsteps clatter on the deck above. The ocean waves swell and break in a low cadence outside.

“Talk to me, Goose,” he whispers.

A snore answers him. But that’s okay, because it’s an actual fucking answer, and Maverick laughs quietly to himself, shoulders shaking, heart lurching, and the tears he’d thought himself empty of finally come.

Chapter Text

Somehow, Maverick falls asleep.

Then he wakes. His eyes blink open to the abused underside of the rack a mere foot above him.

A rack? he thinks. Wasn’t I in a plane?

So it goes.

Without portholes, there’s no way to check the time. Maverick feels around for his phone—then pauses, as rational thought finally breaks through his grogginess, as the events of the day before crash back into his head, as he remembers why his eyes feel gummy and swollen.

His body goes cold. He stares blankly at his outstretched hand, its outline barely visible in the cloying darkness. The mission. Rooster. Waking up in a fucking F-14, with Goose in the backseat. Goose! Maverick scrambles to the edge of the rack and whips back the curtain, peers over the siding. It creaks loudly under his weight.

“Hmm?” mumbles Goose, half-asleep, and Maverick’s fingers clench as he rides out a ruthless stab of emotion. “What time izzit.”

Maverick exhales. He digs out his watch from under his pillow. It’s old but polished, well taken care of, the first object he bought with his own money. It feels strange to have it in his hand again. He squints at it. “0430,” he says, which is normal for him these days.

Definitely not normal for Goose, who groans. There’s the sound of blankets rustling and a body shifting. “Wake me up before reveille.”

“Sure,” says Maverick softly.

He winds the watch back around his wrist, clasps it in an automatic motion practiced for years, then lies back onto his pillow. Closes his eyes. Focuses on his breathing again, deliberate, steady.

What in the fresh hell is going on? He fell asleep, clearly, and woke up still here, thirty years in the past. The dream theory’s quickly suffering a rapid fucking death, though it was already on decline the moment Goose touched him and Maverick felt it. But that just stirs up even more questions, and who the hell can possibly answer them?

Don’t freak out, he thinks again. Freaking out does fuck-all. Maverick knows this from experience.

Maybe this is a death hallucination. Maybe this is the afterlife. He almost laughs. Imagine that! An afterlife where you relive your life from some stupid arbitrary point, in which you suffer all the same misfortunes, all the same traged—

His heart stutters. No. He can’t let himself think about it. He can’t…

Would the universe truly be so cruel? Yes, whispers the voice in his head. Maverick has fifty-seven years’ worth of memories, and each subsequent act has only been crueler than the last. All that he loves are ashes; meanwhile Maverick lies here, strong as can be, a goddamn cockroach.

(“Despite your best efforts, you refuse to die.”)

He lets out an amused, bitter huff. And just when it seemed like he might finally set something to rights.

Sorry, Bradley.

Maybe he’ll still wake up in that snowfield, wet and shivering and hypothermic. Maverick isn’t afraid of it. He’d survive. He’d still go back, despite everything, despite it all.

Maverick owes it to him. To Bradley. To come back; to come home.

Unless, of course, it wasn’t real. Unless all of it was the work of Maverick’s overactive imagination, his greatest fears and greatest desires manifest. There’re stories out there of people who’ve lived out their entire lives in a single night, or in a coma. It’s not outside reality.

But back in Stinger’s office, Maverick had mouthed Stinger’s words alongside him almost verbatim. Sir, he’d almost forgotten to say.

Maverick opens his eyes. They’ve adjusted fully to the dark, now, and he can make out the dim pale outline of his wrist with ease, the black band of his watch around it. Goose is snoring again. Funny how loss changes your perspective. Anyone else, and it would have been annoying, not a relief.

Maverick sighs. There’s little he can do but continue on as is. There’s no one to tell. No one who’d believe him.

What happens, then, if he goes completely off-script? If he really did abandon Cougar and Merlin? If he does tell someone? If they think he’s crazy? If he’s medically discharged?

What if—

What if he—

Does he dare?

His spontaneity used to drive Ice insane. But Ice—Ice could actually keep up with him. Out of everyone Maverick has ever met, after years of cycling through RIOs and playing wingman to other hotshots, Ice was the only one who could ever match him beat for beat, step for step, and reprimand him all the while, as if Maverick’s simply missed a suspense date for the latest bullshit DoD form instead of, you know, gone and pushed a billion-dollar defense acquisition to its destructive brink.

Maverick has a tendency to listen to him, is the thing. Respects—respected him too much not to.

He curls into himself. Listens to the even tempo of Goose’s snoring.

In an hour, he’ll rise. In an hour, he’ll dress himself in his khakis, comb his dark, undyed hair in the mirror, touch the foreign suppleness of his cheek, stare again at that young, baby-faced stranger looking back. Feel his heartbeat quicken, and swallow it down again. Disassociate.

In an hour, Goose will notice, and Goose’s expression will twist once more with concern, but he won’t ask, because Goose has always been that way: understanding, respectful, adaptable around Maverick’s many volatile moods. Instead, he’ll pull out the Polaroid he took of the MiG, its edges white and crisp, pristine; the same one that’s still pinned to Maverick’s locker back at the hangar, faded yellow with age—and Maverick will eke out a smile, just for his best friend.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going to TOPGUN,” says Goose, as he tucks the photo away. “Of all the luck!”

“Yeah,” says Maverick, watching him, his frenetic energy, the excitement that makes him glow. His heart beats in his throat. “Of all the luck.”

Maverick takes the transport flight with Goose back to shore and calls to get his bike picked up. It takes a while; one, because he can’t fucking remember where he stored the bike thirty years ago, and two, because he forgets again that cell phones aren’t a thing. Then, in base housing (the same assignment), receiver in hand, he realizes he doesn’t know any fucking numbers, and the house is distinctly lacking in yellow pages. So he goes to the Exchange.

If only Ice could see him now, he thinks, leaning against the blue payphone box inside the Miramar NEX, black plastic receiver tucked between his ear and shoulder, flipping through the giant ass book bigger than his head.

Jesus. The surrealness of the situation keeps slapping Maverick in the face. Even the streets are different, with its chunky traffic lights and equally chunky cars, with all the people walking around in big hair and colorful leggings. Retro, as they say. The passage of time has never been so apparent. It stabs like a rusty old hook in Maverick’s chest.

Even pulling out his leather jacket earlier had felt strange. It’s too… new.

Finally, call made, Maverick buys a stupid phonebook and returns to his housing assignment. He closes the door behind him. Leans against it, and slumps, heavily.

Goose should be unpacking right about now. Maverick’s tempted to check in on him. He’s always tempted to check in on him, he finds. The moment Goose leaves his sight, it’s like Maverick suddenly loses all sense of object permanence.

Goose is fine, he tells himself, trying to ignore the needle of uncertainty piercing his lungs. Right now, he’s fine.

Instead, Maverick gives the living room a perfunctory once-over: the ratty DoD-issued furniture; the ancient, clunky CRT television; the ceiling fan going round and round above his head. Then he sets the yellow pages atop the back of the couch, kicks the duffel he’d set by the entryway closer to the wall, and heads deeper to the bedroom.

He sheds his jacket and lies down on the flimsy bed. Pulls his dog-tags off from around his neck. He doesn’t wear them anymore, in the future. (His past.) The weight is unfamiliar, cold, uncomfortable; he strokes a thumb over the raised letters of his own name, and recalls what it felt like when those letters had instead been Nick Bradshaw.

Tomorrow: the first day of TOPGUN.

Will he finally wake up, after all?

It would certainly follow his life’s usual trajectory. Here’s Goose, bright and real and alive, impossibly revitalized in Maverick’s memory; here's several extra days spent with him, with his companionship, his humor, his care. It's more than Maverick could ever ask for. It's more than Maverick knows what to do with.

It’s only right, then, that Maverick gets yanked out of this absurd fantasy before he gets the same of Ice.

“Please,” he says, to no one. Doesn’t continue. Can’t continue, his throat constricting, his heartbeat accelerating, tattooing sharp, pointed anxiety behind his sternum.

He’s being juvenile. There’s no one here to hear him. But it’s still hard to admit, even to himself; has been, for decades.

His fingers close in around his tags. When he finally finds his voice again, it comes out thin, threadbare. The barest whisper of breath.

“Let me see him.”

—

There’s something wrong with Maverick.

Now, Goose is not a naturally nosy person. Carole? Yes (sorry, honey). But Goose? Goose is the kind of guy who’ll hear juicy gossip in the far corner of a busy bar and forget about it between one sip and the next. Then Carole’ll ask about it, and Goose will go huh?, and Carole will sigh, and pat him good-naturedly on the arm, and call him silly.

But Goose does, in fact, pay attention. He’s good at it, actually. Can’t be a decent RIO otherwise.

So he knows, as certainly as he does that the sky is blue and the grass is green and San Diego gets ten inches of rain a year, which is a damn shame, by the way, because wow is the grass very brown and very sad over here—

There is definitely something wrong with Maverick.

If this was just a one-afternoon, one-day thing, Goose probably wouldn’t have even noticed. One and done. Maverick’s always been a bit moody, to be honest; not that Goose minds. But this isn’t moody. This is… weird.

It’s not like… it’s not like Maverick is sulking, or angry, or annoyed, per se. He’s amicable as ever, actually, attentive to Goose, smiling at his jokes, sticking to him like glue. He’s just…

Different.

He no longer looks Goose in the eye, for one. Goose isn’t even sure if Maverick himself realizes it. It sits lopsided in Goose’s stomach. Every now and then, it’s almost like Maverick’s looking through him. And not just at Goose. At everyone. Everything.

He’s doing it now, as they stride through the hallowed halls of TOPGUN. Bizarrely quiet, his expression strange, closed off, far away.

Only a week ago, Maverick had been bursting with energy, boisterous, uncontainable, thrumming with determination. “We’ll make it,” he’d promised, the conviction in his voice as sure as steel. “Stinger’ll choose us. We’ll get there, Goose.”

And then they’d actually been chosen, and Goose’s breast had been near bursting with exhilaration as they stepped out of Stinger’s office—but Maverick had only looked at him, and looked away.

Something must have happened. Something big. Goose just can’t figure out what. Maverick would’ve already told him if it was serious, right? But he’s keeping mum, so it can’t be that bad. …Right?

There’re other students here already, milling about the classroom. Goose recognizes some of them—Hollywood, Chipper, Sundown, fellow graduates from USNA, right around the time Goose was there. Incredible that they’ve all been selected at the same time, for the same class. Seriously, what are the chances?

Man. Goose is so ready.

“Wanna sit up front?” he says, even though he already knows the answer. Maverick always wants to sit up front, where he’s noticed.

This time, though, Maverick shakes his head, his hand already on one of the leather seats in the very back.

Oh-kay. See? See? Goose bites the inside of his cheek.

Different.

“Sure,” he says.

They sit down, Maverick closest to the aisle. He’s tense, tenser than Goose thinks he’s ever seen him, even tenser than that one time Admiral Benjamin caught Maverick flirting with his daughter at the O Club, which is just. Absolutely insane. Goose knocks their shoulders together; Maverick immediately relaxes, just a smidgeon.

Okay. Cool. Nice, Goose. You’ve still got it. Maverick tamer, a-go.

“C’mon, Mav,” he says. “You’re not allowed to have nerves.”

The corner of Maverick’s mouth quirks. “Nerves?” he says airily, and yes, good, that’s more like the Maverick Goose knows. “What nerves? You must be mistaken.”

Goose pinches his arm. This time, Maverick’s flinch is totally warranted. Goose is satisfied. “You can’t fool me. Remember that time you went after Penny Benjamin and the admiral was sitting right there?”

“I forgot you had good memory,” Maverick mutters, rubbing his bicep.

Before Goose can respond that yes, he does, indeed, have very good memory, thanks for remembering—Maverick stiffens again. Goose feels it, this time, the way Maverick’s shoulders go rock-hard, thrown back, his spine ramrod straight. Watches in real time as Maverick’s features lock into something unerringly, uncharacteristically blank.

Baffled, Goose looks up just in time to see another pair of familiar faces pass by them in the aisle. Slider, and—

Oh, wow. Iceman’s in their class, after all. If that’s not one-in-a-million, Goose doesn’t know what is. He’s three years their senior, and definitely should’ve made it to TOPGUN much, much earlier, by reputation alone. Must have been a timing thing.

…Is Maverick even breathing?

“Mav,” he says. “Hey, Mav.”

Maverick’s ensuing exhale is oddly shaky. “Yeah?”

Goose gives him a look. Maverick blinks back to awareness, the fog in his eyes dissipating. He relaxes again in increments, a clear, deliberate effort.

“It’s nothing,” he says, predictably. Again.

Sure, Mav. That explains the tremble in his voice. Goose looks back to Iceman, who’s settled down in the seat two rows up and across the way. “Nerves,” he says.

“Nerves,” Maverick repeats. He smiles. It’s strange, crooked.

Goose turns this new development round and round in his mental hands. He glances at Maverick one more time from the corner of his eye, only to find Maverick’s gaze hasn’t left the back of Iceman’s head.

Do they know each other? Is this what this is? Goose can’t imagine they would. Three years ahead means Iceman graduated from USNA after Goose’s first year, means Iceman breezed through Pensacola years before Goose and Maverick could even sit for the ASTB.

Nevertheless, he supposes it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

The class commences. As LCDR Heatherly—Jester—takes them through the introduction, shows them the tape, and introduces CDR Metcalf—Viper—to the floor, Goose watches Maverick. If Maverick notices, he doesn’t mention it.

Goose can’t fucking shake it. Something is wrong. Off. And yeah, okay, Maverick isn’t obligated to tell Goose every little thing on his mind, and Goose doesn’t expect him to, either, but—

It’s unsettling. Raises the hairs on the back of Goose’s neck, if he’s being honest, which is crazy. Maverick is his best friend; they’ve known each other for years. Went through FRS together. Goose has never once been unsettled by him, for whatever reason. Exasperated, sure, long-suffering, definitely. But uncomfortable?

Maverick’s eyes keep flicking back to Iceman, who’s spinning a gold pen between his fingers, lazy and practiced. It’s kind of hard not to notice, even if Goose tries. Not to mention it’s ballsy as fuck when their CO is literally standing right there.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

Maverick freezes. Slowly, his head turns back to the front. “I’m…” He pauses.

He continues that pause for a very long time. Goose is almost convinced he won’t finish his sentence when he finally says: “Scoping out the competition.”

…Uh huh.

Maverick remains firmly faced forward, afterward, unmoving even as Viper strides up and down the aisle. He reminds Goose a little bit of Bradley, when Bradley knows he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, like that one time he sneaked a cookie from the cookie jar before dinner and spilled the entire thing onto the kitchen floor, scaring the crap out of all of them.

(“It wasn’t me!”

“Baby,” says Carole gently, “if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me or Daddy, then who could it have been?”

“Uncle Mav!” says Bradley, full of confidence.

“Huh?” says Maverick, from where he’s picking cookies off the floor.)

The thing is, Bradley is four, and Maverick very much isn’t. Goose has so many questions, but he knows Maverick won’t answer them, not when he’s like this. Maybe when he’s ready. He has to know that Goose will always listen.

“In case some of you wonder who the best is, they’re on this plaque,” says Viper, jerking his head toward the back, where the esteemed plaque hangs on the wall overtop a gigantic American flag. “The best driver and his RIO from each class has his name on it.”

His eyes sweep around the room. For a moment, they seem to linger on Maverick, but Maverick says nothing. Doesn’t even look at him. Viper’s gaze moves on.

“Dismissed,” he says.

Pens clatter and clothes rustle as everyone rises to their feet. Goose rises, too, but Maverick lingers, one second, two. Long enough for Iceman to pocket his pen, to stand, to turn around, and it’s like this that Goose bears witness to the most confounding event of the day:

Their eyes meet, and Maverick goes sheet-white.

Iceman smiles. It’s not a very nice smile, close-lipped and nonchalant, borderline cold. Then it’s gone, and he brushes past them both as he leaves the classroom. Slider follows, ever two steps behind him.

Once they’re gone, Maverick exhales sharply and ducks his head. His hand curls into a fist atop his thigh.

“What was that?” asks Goose, floored.

A muscle jumps in Maverick’s jaw; his fist loosens. “Beats me,” he says, casual as can be, like he doesn’t know what Goose is talking about, like he doesn’t realize he’s acting beyond bizarre. He gets to his feet, avoids Goose’s eyes as he brushes invisible dust off his khakis.

The classroom’s almost entirely cleared out. A couple students linger around in the plaque in the back of the room, murmuring with excitement. Its sparkling nameplates glint in the sunlight, tempting, challenging. Before—before these past few days, before that incident with Cougar—Goose knows for sure Maverick would’ve aimed for it like nothing else mattered.

But Maverick barely spares it a glance before he turns away. “C’mon, Goose,” he says. A bead of sweat trickles from his hairline. “Let’s go.”

“Right,” says Goose. He stares after Maverick’s retreating back.

Eventually, he follows.

Chapter Text

There’s loss, and then there’s loss.

Maverick can barely see two steps ahead of him. Fucking—California. Bright as the surface of the fucking sun, not a single cloud in the vast azure sky, but the haze in Maverick’s head renders him near blind. He can scarcely breathe, his lungs squeezed inside an iron fist, tied in a fucking Celtic knot around his heart, wrapped five times around his throat.

Maverick had thought himself prepared. Had expected this. Had thought, with the way he handled Goose, that he could properly brace himself for Ice.

You never really know yourself, he thinks wildly. Maverick is fifty-seven years old. You think you can handle something because you’ve handled it once before, and then it actually fucking happens and you just goddamn lose it.

Maverick remembers his first meeting with Ice as clearly as he can recite the F/A-18 preflight inspection checklist. The way Ice had slowly raised his hand, his pen gleaming between his dexterous fingers, just long enough for his crystal-blue USNA ring to catch the light. The way he’d snagged Maverick’s eyes and smiled, mild and composed, how badly it’d pissed Maverick off, and, God—how unimaginable, how mortifying it would’ve been, for the Maverick of then to discover just how much he would come to respect him. Rely on him. Adore him.

It hasn’t even been a week. Since Ice—his Ice—since he—

Here, Ice is young. Just like Goose. Tall, proud, his posture impeccable, his eyes pale and gray and as piercing as they’ve always been, his face marble-smooth and statuesque. It’s the Ice of thirty years ago, the one captured forever in the framed photo hung on the wall of TOPGUN, the one Maverick fell in love with at twenty-four and never fell out; even when Ice grew ill, even when Ice diminished, even when Ice could no longer keep up.

He can’t do this.

He has to. He has no choice.

(Yes, he does. If there’s one thing he’s learned about life, it’s that there’s always a choice.

But he can’t leave Goose.)

Jesus. Goose. Goose must think he’s crazy. Maverick certainly would, in his shoes. He can’t figure out if he wants to look at Goose forever or never look at him again, and he knows Goose has noticed.

He has to get his shit together. Find his zen. Go with the flow.

How the hell does he do that?

“Mav,” says Goose, from behind him. Case in point. Goose is dead. Goose is dead and Maverick’s shouldered that anvil for over half his life, had slogged through each day for months afterward with a body like lead. Only duty and the blunt blade of responsibility had kept his head on straight, had forced him to direct one foot in front of the other.

Maverick is losing his mind.

“Mav,” says Goose again. He sounds hesitant. “We parked over there.”

Maverick stops. Takes a deep breath. Veers left. “Right.”

They continue walking. Above them, the canopy of palm trees sway in the gentle breeze. The sun beats scorching hot on the back of Maverick’s exposed neck, aggravates the throbbing in his skull.

“Surprised you didn’t bring your bike, to be honest,” says Goose, after a moment.

“It’s on its way,” is all Maverick can say. Like hell is he telling Goose he forgot where he stored it.

“I see,” says Goose. They pause in front of his rental car. It’s the same one Goose used in Maverick’s memories, a baby-blue, boxy Chevrolet. Goose digs out his keys, then looks at Maverick from across the roof. “Hey,” he says. Still hesitant. Unsure.

Maverick’s hand tightens around the door handle. Goose should never feel unsure around him. “Yeah?”

“Just… if something’s going on, you know you can talk to me, right?” says Goose. He busies himself with unlocking the door. “I’ll even promise I won’t go on a tangent about Carole. Or Bradley,” he continues, with a tinge of humor.

“Goose,” starts Maverick. Guilt stirs in nauseating circles in his gut. He may be losing his mind, but the least he can do is be a better friend. “Yeah,” he manages. “I know.”

“Mmhm. As long as you do.”

“You know I don’t mind when you talk about Carole,” says Maverick. “Or Bradley. Talk about them all you want.”

Goose looks up and grins. “You’ll regret that.”

Oh, Goose. If only Maverick could tell him about all these years: about how Carole would finally perfect her gingerbread recipe, and how Bradley would come to love baseball and play in the Little Leagues; about the time the three of them went to Disneyland together, and how it was the first time the two of them saw little Bradley laugh after Daddy never came home.

He cracks a smile. Goose looks relieved to see it. “I could never.”

They seat themselves in the car. “So,” says Goose, as he starts the engine, “down for the O Club tonight? I figure everyone oughta be there, early night and all.”

Maverick closes the door. He looks out the window at the cloudless sky, the palms, the black asphalt glittering under the sun, and thinks of Charlie, sitting alone at the bar. They hadn’t stayed in touch, after she went to DC. He’s no idea what became of her, though he suspects that someone of her caliber would’ve gone on to have a distinguished, lucrative career.

“Sounds good,” he says.

Officers’ clubs vanished sometime in the 90s. To be honest, Maverick can’t remember the last time he’s been to one; it’s a layer of surrealist frosting over a surrealist cake to be standing before one now with its dim lights and low music, with the Animal Night sign propped by the door, patrons flowing in and out dressed in fashions Maverick hasn’t thought about in years.

He feels unequivocally out of place, not too far off from when he’d sat at the bar of the Hard Deck, watching his future protégés shoot pool and exchange snappy quips.

“Well?” says Goose, as they make their way to the bar. “How’re the prospects?”

“The prospects?” Maverick repeats.

“The prospects,” Goose confirms. He grabs them both a beer and leans an elbow on the table, his eyebrows raised, jerking his chin like he wants Maverick to look around the room. “Y’know.”

Oh, right. He did used to do that, didn’t he? “I dunno, Goose,” he says. “Maybe I just want a quiet drink tonight.”

Somehow, Goose doesn’t look surprised. He makes a sound low in his throat and takes a pull. “You do you, man. If that means I don’t get the shit embarrassed out of me for once, it’ll be a good night.”

Maverick laughs. “You’ve never said no to my shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans,” Goose echoes, like he’s feeling the word around in his mouth. He nods. “Yup, that’s a good word for it.”

Maverick covers his smile with the stem of his bottle. His fingers tap restlessly against the glass. If he looks just ahead, he knows…

There she is.

“Looks like someone’s caught your eye, anyway,” says Goose.

Maverick turns away from Charlie, who’s sitting alone at the bar like he knew she’d be. She’s just as stunning as he remembers, her platinum-spun hair shining in the neon. “What,” he says, even as he takes another measured breath. Calm. He’s calm. “I’m not allowed to just look?”

“Maverick.” Goose eyes him, dead serious. “You never ‘just look’.”

Try him. Maverick takes another sip of beer. “First time for everything, my friend.”

“Confident enough to bet on it?”

Maverick closes his eyes for a brief moment. “Yes.”

“Twenty dollars, then,” says Goose. He clinks their bottles together. Droplets of condensation wet Maverick’s fingertips. “That you'll go after someone you see in this bar tonight.”

“Deal.”

Goose grins. “Easiest twenty bucks I’ll ever make.”

They drink. Maverick plunks the beer bottle back on the counter and keeps himself angled toward Goose.

“Say, Mav,” says Goose, looking up over the bar and across the pale-blue tower of illuminated glasses. “You know Iceman?”

It’s only through sheer force of will that Maverick’s hand remains steady. He keeps himself loose. Relaxed. He doesn’t follow Goose’s gaze. “Can’t say I do.”

“Oh.” Befuddlement flashes across Goose’s face. “Huh. Okay.”

“Heard of him, though,” says Maverick, before he can let himself regret it. “Who hasn’t.”

The confusion clears slightly. “Right,” says Goose. “They do call him the best of the best, after all. He’s the one to beat, if you want that trophy. Flies ice-cold. No mistakes.”

(Ice laughs. “Wasn’t so ice-cold when I was dodging five MiGs.”

“You held out for almost two minutes,” says Maverick. “Anyone else would’ve shit their pants. Besides me,” he adds, with a grin.

“Fair point,” says Ice, and looks immensely pleased.)

“So they say,” murmurs Maverick, aching.

He catches a flash of white in the corner of his eye. Keeps his attention firmly focused on his drink.

His recollection of this evening is vague at best. Charlie, because it was the first time he ever saw her. Singing his lungs out, because Maverick only tried that tactic twice in his life and both times crashed and burned. Slider and Ice, though he no longer remembers their back and forth; only Ice’s too-handsome face, too close and smiling with disdain (who’s the best pilot?), the very first time Maverick’s heart hiccuped oddly and never quite returned to pace.

Funny, how memory works. Images, impressions, mostly. A phrase. The ruthless, serrated edge of an unforgettable emotion.

This meeting was inevitable, if they showed themselves in the O Club tonight. Now, Maverick wonders what would have happened if he’d told Goose no.

“Hey, hey, Slider,” says Goose, stopping that tall flash of white before he can pass them by. “Thought you wanted to be a pilot.”

Maverick tilts his beer from side to side, sloshing the insides. Slider did become a pilot, in the end. A commercial one, and damn proud of it, too.

“Goose, you’re such a dickhead,” says the Slider of now, three inches taller and five times less gray. “Whose butt did you kiss to get here?”

Goose proffers a cheeky grin. “The list is long but distinguished.”

“Yeah?” says Slider derisively. “So is my johnson.”

“So you’re flying with Iceman, now?”

Slider sneers. “That’s Mr. Iceman, to you.”

It’s a hit of deja vu. Like clockwork, Maverick’s heart rattles the bars of its cage as Ice appears in his periphery, not a hair out of place and resplendent in his pressed summer whites. He’s a lion in the low light, golden and graceful, comfortable in his own skin and well aware of the effect he has on others.

As it was. As it always should be.

Then he speaks.

“Hey, Mother Goose,” he says, in a voice like the drape of a velvet curtain, smooth like river rock; a voice as ingrained into Maverick’s being as the wind on the tarmac, as the thundering of a jet catapulted into the endless sky.

Maverick hasn’t heard it, unaltered, in—in—

“How’s it going?” Ice continues, loose and smiling.

“Can’t complain,” says Goose, then turns to Maverick, whose beer quivers in his hold. “Tom, this is Pete Mitchell. Tom Kazansky.”

Maverick forces himself to turn as Ice’s gaze flicks to him. He’d already known it, but seeing it again, the polite indifference on Ice’s face—

“Congratulations on TOPGUN,” says Ice, reaching past him for the bowl of bar nuts, and Maverick stills as his arm brushes past him. His cologne is a spark of the past, subtle and heady, a clean, fresh scent that blows dust off Maverick’s dearest memories. “Sorry to hear about Cougar. He and I were like brothers in flight school. He was a good man.”

“Still is,” Maverick says. Remembers saying it, even as it comes out of his mouth.

“Yeah,” says Ice. His eye contact is resolute, unmoving. “That’s what I meant.”

Maverick swallows. “Sure.”

“Lucky, aren’t you?” says Slider, and Maverick is grateful to turn his attention away. “First the MiG, then you slide into Cougar’s spot.”

“Hey, now,” interrupts Goose, affronted. “We didn’t ‘slide into Cougar’s spot’. That spot was ours.”

Ice pops another peanut into his mouth. He always was a compulsive snacker, Maverick thinks, with a stab of fondness. “Cougar’s one of the best I know,” says Ice. “You’ve got some big shoes to fill.”

“Oh, I think we can manage it,” says Goose.

“Oh, yeah?” Ice smiles again, his teeth white and straight, all hard edges and no warmth. “Looking to the trophy, Mother Goose?”

“What else are we here for?” says Goose, raising his bottle. “You’ll have your work cut out for you, Iceman. Mav here’s no slouch.”

Damn it, Goose. Ice looks to him again, gray eyes dark and tinted blue in the ambient light, and Maverick hides behind another pull of beer. Braggadocios, all of them. He’s forgotten how cocky they’d all been—just like the twelve kids Maverick had been in charge of training. Thirty years, same hat.

“Are you, now,” says Ice softly.

“You could say that.”

Ice scrutinizes him. “You know,” he says, “I’ve heard some things about you.”

“Yeah?” Maverick checks his bottle; it’s only got a couple of drops left. Christ. He needs something way stronger than cheap-ass Budweiser. “Tell me the good stuff first.”

The corner of Ice’s mouth tilts. He draws back, a shot in his hand. “Nah. I think we’ll all see for ourselves soon enough.”

“Don’t hold out on me,” says Maverick, with some humor. “You can’t just say that and think I won’t be curious.”

“It’s in your callsign, isn’t it?” Ice throws back the shot, baring the long, elegant line of his neck. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows; he sets the glass back with a clink on the counter. “Maverick,” he says.

(“Maverick,” says Ice, in that peculiar way he’s always said it, with the drawl of the first syllable and snap of the last. His exasperation filters through Maverick’s phone, as dear as the wings pinned to Maverick’s uniform. “What have you done now?”)

Maverick’s breath hitches. “Can’t argue with you there,” he says. “Better get used to it.”

Ice blinks slowly. The affability seeps out of his posture as he straightens to his full height. His face goes cool and unsmiling. “I see,” he says.

No, you don’t. The vehemence of the thought nearly knocks Maverick flat, drops his stomach down to his feet. An acrid, blistering frustration carves itself into his ribs, intertwines with a grief so sudden and fierce it wells in his eyes and strangles his throat. You’re not him.

Through the fog, he vaguely registers Goose stepping between them. “We’ll see you around, Iceman, Slider,” he says, his voice brooking no argument, muffled behind the dull roar of blood in Maverick’s ears.

Ice looks at him for a second longer. “Sure,” he says, after a beat. “See you around.”

“Hey,” says Goose, once they’ve gone.

Maverick stares stubbornly at the bartop, willing the prickle of tears to recede; willing the dark, contorted edges of his vision to clear. The neon blue lights spin and wobble and burn into his retinas. His heartbeat is the thud of a gong inside his head.

He feels a weight below his nape. “Let’s go,” says Goose, from a thousand miles away.

“Go?” he echoes. It comes out thick, muddled.

“C’mon,” says Goose. He uses the hand between his shoulder blades to direct him gently through the mingling crowds. “Let’s get some fresh air, huh? I think it might do me some good.”

“You need fresh air?”

“Yeah,” says Goose quietly. “I need fresh air. Easy, Mav.”

“Wait,” says Maverick, twisting around, searching for Charlie—then stops. Why does he need to search for Charlie? He doesn’t. This—all of this—it’s new. He’s no longer following the script. He doesn’t even remember the script.

Nothing came of it, anyway, with Charlie. Only Maverick; outsmarted, outgunned, abandoned.

“Did you forget something?” asks Goose.

Maverick turns back to the entrance. “No,” he says. His breathing comes harsher, faster. “No, I…”

Goose puts his hand back on Maverick’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says, and God bless him, he doesn’t even know what’s wrong. “One step at a time. We can come back later. Let’s just go outside for now, alright?”

There’s nothing Maverick can do but nod. They make their way out into the night. The brisk air cools the sweat studding Maverick’s temples, stings the corner of his eyes, and Maverick looks up to the shadows of clouds and the faintest glimmer of stars in the sky. A roaming red dot flickers high above, an indistinguishable aircraft. Behind them, the clamor of the club ebbs into white noise.

“Do you want to go home?”

Maverick exhales. “Yeah.”

Goose is silent all the way back to housing. Just as well, because Maverick barely recalls the walk; focuses instead on the lights shining through the windows of the facilities in their path, the way this old, forgotten world spreads out around him in detailed, tangible form. The way the breeze ruffles his hair, the sound of his footsteps on the concrete, the dark shapes of cars blowing past, models that Maverick barely recognizes anymore.

They stop outside the quaint little house with its quaint stucco walls and quaint asphalt roof, one of a hundred just like it along the street.

Goose speaks.

“Can we talk?”

Maverick rummages in his pocket for his key. His hand trembles as he pulls it out. “Sure,” he says.

“Okay,” says Goose. “I just—you know, I was thinking to myself that I’d wait, whatever it was, and I really would’ve, Mav, but back there—”

“Yeah,” says Maverick, cutting him off. He opens the front door. “I know, Goose.”

“Okay,” Goose says again.

They shuffle inside into the darkness, and Maverick pops on the light.

Goose’s gaze sweeps around the living room, still bare of anything personal. Maverick relocated his duffel to the bedroom the night before, and that’s about it. To be frank, he doesn’t remember what he even brought with him the first time around, bar the photographs of his family he always kept taped to the wall of his rack. He’s long since learned to travel light.

“You haven’t unpacked yet?” asks Goose.

Maverick shrugs. “As unpacked as I’ll ever be.”

Goose wanders into the tiny kitchen and peers into the fridge. “You don’t even have a six-pack in here.”

“Gotta keep trim somehow,” says Maverick dryly. Old habits die hard. At fifty-seven, alcohol goes straight to your waistline.

Also, it puts you to sleep.

Goose closes the fridge and turns around to face him. He’s always had what Maverick once called a ‘resting goose face’: always a little baffled, even when he was being serious. Goose couldn’t act threatening to save his life, his callsign besides.

He’s wearing it now, that resting goose face.

“Talk to me, Mav,” he says. “I know something’s not right.”

Maverick leans against the back of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Are you okay?” says Goose. “Like, physically? You’re not sick, or?”

“I’m okay.” Maverick’s lips curl. “Better than I’ve ever been, if you’ll believe it.” Not a single ache or creak to his name.

Goose doesn’t look appeased, his frown only deepening. “I’m just—” He pauses. “I’m just a little worried about you. I know the MiG messed Cougar up, and I was thinking—I don’t blame him, y’know? I have a family too, and—well, I guess what I want to say is if it’s that, Mav, I’d never think less of you for it.”

Jesus. The lump in Maverick’s throat only ever seems to be getting larger. “Of course you wouldn’t,” he says. “It’s not that. Trust me.”

“Then what is it?”

Ain’t that the question.

It’s tempting to tell him. It is, truly, if only—if only to have a confidant, someone he can talk to about all this absurdity, talk him through it. But what the hell does he say? Goose, I think I traveled back in time. Yeah, I’m from the 21st century. Yeah, apparently time travel does exist. Fucking wild, right? Guess what? I’m an O-6. Ice made O-10. Bet you knew he’d do that. You’ve been dead for thirty years, by the way.

Also, your son hates me.

Uh-huh. That’d go over well.

“Goose,” Maverick begins. He’s agreed to this conversation, but now the words are stuck to the roof of his mouth. There are words, he realizes. Words he’s been wanting to say for years, for decades; so many that each long-winded thought has long since become indistinct from the next, a perpetual tangle in the back of Maverick’s head.

“Goose,” he tries again, thickly, and realizes with horror that the lump in his throat has swelled all the way up, rising with the inexorable tide of emotion. He averts his gaze to the scuffed floor, tries breathing through his mouth to quell it, but the tears still come. This time, they spill over.

“Maverick?”

“Sorry,” says Maverick, wiping bitterly at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Goose sounds alarmed. “Hey, Mav. Whoa. It’s fine, okay?”

“It’s not,” Maverick rasps. “God, Goose. I’m so sorry.”

Goose shifts closer. “Talk to me. What happened?”

“I can’t say.” Maverick’s entire body feels shaky. Numb. Not his. “I can’t say it. I’m not ready. I’m sorry.”

“Well, alright.” Goose rubs him awkwardly on the back. Pats him a couple times, stilted. Miraculously, it jolts a chuckle out of him; that’s Goose, always trying his best. He knows, in that moment, exactly what are both of them are thinking:

Damn, I wish Carole were here.

But if he knows anything about Goose, she’ll be hearing about it soon enough.

Maverick gives another watery laugh. That’s right; Carole, too, is alive. Here, in this present, Maverick has his family back.

“Whenever you’re ready, then,” says Goose. He continues patting Maverick’s back like he would a hiccuping newborn. Then he falters. “Uh, just so we’re clear, it’s not like… bad bad, right? Like… keep-me-up-at-night, bad? Maybe-I-should-keep-a-baseball-bat-under-my-pillow bad? You didn’t get caught up in anything illegal, right?”

For God’s sake. “Nothing like that.”

“Good, ‘cause I kinda like my job.”

Maverick smiles wanly. Losing his job should be the least of Goose’s worries.

“Do you have any tissues around here?” asks Goose, swinging his head from side to side, before he straightens up and heads deeper into the house. “Why don’t they provide Kleenex? Jeez. You do have paper towels, right? No? Christ. Aren’t you taking the bachelor’s lifestyle a little too seriously? How are you even functioning? We’re going to the commissary after this.”

“Sure, Goose,” says Maverick quietly. “You’re the best.”

Goose returns with a wad of toilet paper. He offers it to Maverick, who accepts it with wet amusement. “Sorry, Mav,” he says seriously. “I’m taken.”

“Damn shame.”

Goose gives him a minute to collect himself, and Maverick does, wiping his eyes and his nose and feeling far too young for his age. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he says afterward, leaning an elbow on the backrest of the couch, “does Kazansky have anything to do with it?”

“Ice?” says Maverick, looking up—and immediately realizes his mistake.

Another wrinkle forms between Goose’s eyebrows. “Do you guys actually know each other?”

Maverick crumples the toilet paper in his hand. He thinks about the apathy in Ice’s eyes, and the fondness that used to light them when Maverick made him smile.

“No,” he says.

Not in a way that matters. Not anymore.

“He reminds me of someone I used to know,” he says.

“Oh.” Goose considers this for a moment. “Sorry I asked.”

Maverick lowers his head. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been acting weird, I know.”

They continue to stand there against the back of the couch, silent, mired in their own thoughts. Then Goose punches him, lightly, in the bicep. “Just so you know, what I said before still stands. I’ve got an open door policy.”

Maverick gives him a small smile. “Don’t worry, Goose. I’ll figure it out.”

“You sure it’s nothing I can help with?”

“Trust me,” says Maverick. His hands clench into tight, painful fists. “It’s on me.”

Chapter Text

“What she said about the MiG technically wasn’t accurate.”

“I know,” says Maverick.

“She said it won’t do a negative G pushover.”

“Yep.”

“We definitely saw it do a negative G pushover.”

“Yes.”

“Should we have said something?” says Goose, looking particularly disgruntled.

“It’s alright, Goose.” Maverick’s eyes track Charlie as she approaches from down the hallway, her curls bouncing, her heels clicking on the LVT. He shushes Goose with a quick flutter of his hand. “Might wanna let sleeping dogs lie. Ma’am.”

“Lieutenants,” she says, as she passes them.

They both wait till they’re sure she’s out of earshot. “That was her in the bar last night, wasn’t it?” Goose whispers, after another beat.

“Sure was,” says Maverick.

“Yikes.” Goose peeks again. “Good thing you just looked. That would’ve been aw-kward.”

If only he knew. “Don’t hurt yourself. Also, you owe me twenty bucks.”

Goose makes a face. “I think there’s an argument to be made that yesterday doesn’t count.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to get yourself out it.”

“How dare you besmirch my honor.” Goose places his hands on Maverick’s shoulders and steers him toward the stairs. “Now, we’ve got a hop to get to and some fish to fry. We can discuss the semantics later.”

“I won’t forget.”

“I can’t hear you,” Goose singsongs, as they make their way up.

Abruptly, Maverick comes to a stop.

The memory hits him like a truck: Ice, lingering within the shadow of the column, winding his watch. The silvery catch of his eyes in the light, tinted olive from his Nomex flight suit. The phantom feeling of Maverick’s spine straightening, his chin rising beneath that calculating gaze.

Now, the space beneath the column is empty. Maverick’s eyes dart about, searching for someone who isn’t there.

That’s right, he realizes, unbalanced. He didn’t pursue Charlie last night. He hadn’t disrupted the session earlier, nor tried to correct her in a self-assured bid to impress her. Nobody knows about their little stunt, so Ice is paying him no mind.

His stomach drops. His hand finds the railing.

Every morning is a new day, and his recollection of Rooster, of Penny, the mission, the last time he saw Ice, his Ice—continues to fade, to drift away like ether, their faces rippling around the edges and their voices only a distant impression. This is his reality, now. He realizes this. But it’s only been a couple of a days; how are things already so different?

What else can change? What else will change because Maverick can’t remember everything he’s said, or done, because he can’t remember the behaviors and decisions of his twenty-four year-old self, because he can no longer muster the same drive, the same resolve to prove himself to—who, exactly? Himself? The Navy?

He’s seen movies like this. Changing the past will change the future, etcetera, etcetera—but it’s not like he ever expected it to happen to him.

“C’mon, man,” says Goose. “No stopping in the middle of the stairs.”

Maverick shakes his head. With great deliberation, he uncurls his fingers from the railing. “Just walk around me if I’m too slow for you.”

“Too slow? Perish the thought.”

Later, they gear up: one strap over another, G-suit, harness, raft, vest; all muscle memory at this point. Maverick lifts his helmet from the hook and runs a thumb over the unscuffed stripes, their colors bright and unfaded. These will be updated, too, eventually.

He sneaks a glance at Goose, who’s disinfecting the inside of his oxygen mask with an alcohol wipe.

Thirty years is a long time, and Maverick might not remember everything he’s ever said, or done—but right now, that’s the least of his concerns. He hasn’t properly flown a Tomcat since the 90s, and snapping awake in one a week ago doesn’t count. He hasn’t had a backseater, either, ever since.

Of all places to relearn decades-old habits, it had to be at TOPGUN.

Well. Never say he’s not up for a challenge.

On a warm, sunny morning a few days before the glorified suicide mission, Maverick bared his heart to the only person alive who truly understood him. It’s not what I am, he said. It’s who I am. And as his voice broke, as he looked away to wipe his eyes, his dearest person gazed solemnly back at him, sympathetic but unwavering.

Maverick has always found solace, up here in the clouds.

When he was younger, he never stopped long enough to think about it. Go, was what every nerve ending, every fiber of his being sought instead. Just go. Don’t think, just do. It was always simple. So, so simple, to the Maverick whose eyes had been pinned so ruthlessly on outrunning his father’s legacy that he’d forgotten to look behind him.

Then Goose died. And here’s the deal, about getting older, about watching the years pass you by: you start to reflect on things. Like how every year, every new pilot Maverick meets looks more baby-faced than the last; like how a four-year old kid will shoot up like a beanstalk, faster than Maverick will ever be ready for; like how, in the liminal moments between pissing off yet another admiral and Ice saving his ass, Maverick will find himself once again standing at the threshold of the hangar overlooking the flight line, wondering if this, finally, is the last time—and be at a loss.

But up here now—in that very same sky, with his long-lost, oldest friend sitting behind him—Maverick thinks about something else, too: the cost of his ego.

His hands are steady again, his tempo long since regained, but his pulse still quakes beneath his skin, hasn’t stopped quaking since they took off. Not since the first time he said, mindlessly: “Talk to me, Goose,” and Goose responded: “I’m looking, I’m looking!” and it screwed Maverick up so bad his hands almost slipped off the stick.

Don’t let it get to you.

But there’s exhilaration, too. The nostalgia of the rumbling machine around him, the way she maneuvers just as Maverick remembers it; how much bigger, grander, faster she is in the sky. The swoop of his stomach as they barrel through the clouds; the way the sun blazes through the canopy, searing his cheeks even through the cockpit’s frigid A/C system.

Sure, the F/A-18 is technologically superior, easier to fly, cheaper to maintain. But fuck if piloting an F-14 isn’t like getting the chance to ride your favorite rollercoaster again, long after you’ve forgotten what it felt like to do so.

This, too, is another second chance. Flying. The uranium plant would’ve been Maverick’s last flight, whether he survived or not; he knows this as indelibly as he knows his love for Bradley, for Ice. Now, it’s only one flight of many, once more.

Ahead of them, Jester dives.

Goose’s voice crackles over the radio. “He’s going for the hard deck. Let’s get down there first and nail him!”

Maverick inhales sharply. He remembers this—the same way he remembers flunking his first driving test after failing to come to a full stop.

“On it,” he says, automatic, reflexive. Immediately maneuvers them into a dive, vision tunneling down to the fighter dancing just outside his crosshairs. Behind him, Goose whoops.

20,000.

15,000.

11,000.

“Just a little more, Mav!”

Maverick jolts.

The hard deck is not a rule, it’s a law. As immutable as gravity.

He pulls up. Hard. Blasts them both backward against their seats, guts lurching, helmets pinned to the headrests; Goose exclaims into the comms, barely audible through the tight, controlled wheeze of Maverick’s breathing, the sizzle of static in his head, the relentless yank of gravity bearing down upon them.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Goose swears, once they’ve both regained their bearings. Then he groans. “Aw jeez. You definitely could’ve got him.”

“We’d have broken the hard deck,” says Maverick. His chest heaves. Jester’s a tiny dot in the distance now, already looping back up in a spectacular display of skill.

What the hell was that? Instinct. A little more.

A little more had gotten Goose killed.

“Gotten our asses roasted,” he continues. Breathe, Maverick. Breathe. “Don’t you worry, Goose. I’ll get him.”

Goose clicks his tongue. “No points for second place.”

“I’ll get him,” Maverick says again, his heart and lungs chilled stone-cold.

“No question about it,” Goose agrees, and from the distracted way he says it Maverick knows he’s already whipping his head around, seeking visual. Always reliable, Mother Goose. “I see him! On our six!”

Maverick veers.

They do get him in the end, green diamond bled crimson, tone blaring away. Might’ve hurt Maverick’s pride, otherwise, but that’s also something he’s better at handling these days. You never stop learning, after all. Sometimes, from the most unexpected of places.

“Great balls of fire!” Goose hollers, and Maverick grins despite himself. They blaze past the tower with a deafening roar, rattling it to its very foundations.

The locker room afterward is cacophonous with activity and just as nostalgic as everything else, from the shitty crooked locker doors to the damp, musty smell. Hollywood and Wolfman are there as they were before, already showered and digging through their personal effects. In another aisle, Sundown and Chipper’s voices bounce off the tile floors.

For just a moment, it gives Maverick pause.

He’d only really kept in touch with Ice, after TOPGUN. And Slider, too, if he was being generous, because Slider always clung to Ice like a comically oversized limpet and never ceased doing so until Ice got himself promoted out of the sky. They never really became friends, per se, but sometime in their thirties Slider stopped calling him a pipsqueak and Maverick figures in some universe that’s probably considered a good relationship.

But Hollywood, and Wolfman, and the rest of them? Before—before, with Goose, Maverick hadn’t needed anything else but Charlie’s attention and his name on the plaque. The rest of their cohort had left the both of them well enough alone, watching them from the sidelines like guests at a zoo while Maverick flew selfishly like nothing could ever touch him.

And after… it’d hurt, seeing them. He’d shut his ears to their condolences, their well wishes, the look of pity on their faces. Everything hurt, really; every little thing that reminded him of what he’d lost. They’d left him alone then, too.

Except for Ice.

Ice, who became such a steadfast, indomitable fixture in his life that for the longest time, it was unimaginable to think Maverick could ever lose him.

“No way,” says Wolfman, shutting his locker with a resounding clang. “Y’all won too?”

“‘Too’?” says Goose, and Wolfman nods his head to where Ice and Slider are busying themselves in front of their own respective cubbies. Slider glances over his shoulder and flings them a cocky grin. “Alright, alright. But didn’t we all?”

“Are you kidding?” Hollywood groans. “We got our butts kicked.”

“Took him thirty seconds,” says Wolfman. “We went like this, he went like that. I say to Hollywood: ‘Where’d he go?’ Hollywood says to me: ‘Where’d who go?’”

“And he’s laughing at us. Right over the radio. Laughing.”

“Fucking congrats, man,” says Wolfman, raising his hand, and Maverick balks for only a second before he remembers to clap it for a high-five. “I don’t think anyone besides you and Ice won. The hell’s up with that? We were like sitting ducks up there.”

“Top 1%, my ass,” says Hollywood. “How d’you suppose they’ll score it? You think it’s a tie?”

Slider snorts. “Not a chance.”

“Better watch out,” says Goose. “The worst thing you can do is underestimate us.”

“Ooh, I’m shaking in my boots.”

“C’mon, guys,” says Hollywood. “Friendly competition, remember?”

“Aw, Wood, they’re just shit-talking,” says Wolfman, adjusting the towel around his waist so it sits more securely. “Or flirting, either or.”

“Excuse you! I’m married!”

Maverick almost smiles. His eyes drift over to Ice, who’s been silent this whole time—only to startle when he finds Ice looking back at him.

It’s still disorienting. The Ice Maverick knows—knew—was tall but slightly hunched, his face weathered with age, his laugh lines and crow’s feet starkly apparent. A face that gentled whenever Maverick entered the room, that spread into a smile both indulgent and exasperated, beautifully unchanged across years and years.

Maverick had taken it for granted. The memory fades into the Ice standing before him: young, strong, and unreadable.

Maverick meets his eyes. “Can I help you?”

Ice assesses him. Then he snaps his gum and flashes a smile, serene. “Not at all. Congrats on the win.”

Maverick blanks.

“Oh,” he says dumbly. “Thanks.”

The corner of Ice’s mouth tilts again. He turns away, continues changing as if nothing had interrupted him, disinterest written in every line of his body. Maverick watches his back for a second more, brow furrowing. Unease brews in the quiet, perpetual hole between his ribs.

I don’t like you. You’re dangerous.

Goose, Slider, and Wolfman continue chattering in the background. Hollywood peers into the tiny mirror on the inside of his locker door and fiddles with his hair. Somewhere in the back room, a locker clangs and a shower squeaks on.

Maverick tears his eyes away.

Once upon a time, this had been business as usual: the swaggering around, the chests inflated like pigeons, the ribbing and shit-talking and thinking they were all hot shit. Slider would jab at Maverick’s height, his skills, his ill-fated dancing around with Charlie, and Maverick would jab back wherever he could reach (not much). Hollywood and Wolfman would trade innuendoes every other sentence, and then there was Chipper, who would smuggle Playboys into his locker and read them in secret during class, and Sundown, who would try to discourage him before he inevitably gave in and joined him.

And Ice, of course. Ice, with his pointed words and simmering irritation, and Maverick would do his damnedest to pretend the unsolicited criticism wasn’t getting under his skin.

It’s like recalling embarrassing memories in the middle of the night, except Maverick gets to witness them again in 4D, 4K. A bruised kind of wistfulness stirs deep in his bones.

—That’s right, Iceman. I am dangerous.

Ultimately, Ice and Slider win the points. Faster time, Viper explains during the debriefing, and the aggrandizing look on Slider’s face is just as punchable as it was all those years ago. Beside him, Ice only smiles, in that same cool way he does when what he’s hearing tracks with what he’s thinking. His pen spins in his hand, round and round, flashing in the sunbeam that’s shining through the blinds.

“Maverick, Goose,” says Viper, as everyone rises. His voice carries over the screech of metal chairs scraping the floor. “If you would remain behind.”

The two of them exchange vaguely bewildered looks. “Sir,” says Maverick. He remains firmly faced forward, even as he’s hyper-aware of Ice’s gaze on him on the way out.

Viper waits till the classroom is empty. “Gentlemen,” he says, and meets their eyes with the kind of implacability that comes with years of dealing with cocky brats. Never did lose that, Viper. Did a full thirty years of service, then another ten more as a civil servant. Maverick still receives Christmas cards from him, every year.

Viper continues. “That was some good flying out there. I have it on good authority Jester was impressed.” He pauses. “Reluctantly impressed.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But I had a complaint cross my desk, just now. An emphatic one. Perhaps you’re familiar with Commander Johnson.”

“...Yes, sir.”

“Hm. I would imagine so. He was just made Air Boss of the Enterprise.”

Heh. Yeah, Maverick remembers him.

Viper’s voice remains perfectly mild. “If I catch you buzzing any more towers while you’re on this installation, you’ll have another write-up in your personnel file before you can even blink. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

They shuffle out the door. Once they’re clear, Goose sighs and slumps against the wall. “Jesus,” he says mournfully. “I hate it when they call us out. You know I get stage fright.”

Maverick supposes he’s got a little more experience in that department, now. The Navy’s resident Pain in the Ass, as Ice used to say. Before he can give himself the chance to hesitate, he pats Goose on the shoulder.

Slightly bony, warm, and still totally solid. Someday, Maverick will get used to this. Surely. “You just gotta let it slip right off you,” he says. “Oil and water.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Goose groans. “Truck drivers don’t ever get put on the stand.”

“You’re telling you’d rather live out of truck stops?”

“Look. I just wanna make it every day without breaking out in cold sweat.”

A pang. Every fucking time, without fail. Maverick smiles through it. “What’s life without a little bit of cold sweat?”

Goose gives him a look. “You’re right. This is what I get for being your RIO.” He presses the back of his hand to his brow. “Alas! At least everyone knows my name.”

“You don’t need me for that, Mother Goose.”

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with being well prepared.”

Still bickering, they step out of the building and into the late summer sunlight.

It’s really, truly not a dream. Maverick still can’t seem to process it correctly no matter how many days pass, no matter how much sensory proof hits him in the face, no matter how much he tries to act normal, stay present, aware, engaged.

“Question for you,” says Goose, as they make their way once again to Goose’s rental Chevy.

“Shoot.”

“Do you want the trophy?”

Maverick falters. He looks out to the old cars on the lot, then untucks his sunglasses from his collar and puts them on.

“I mean,” Goose continues, when the silence between them lasts a moment too long. “I just figured it would be something you wanted.”

Christ. For over half of Maverick’s life, Goose existed only as a construct of his regrets, a back in the distance that Maverick desperately willed to turn. Now it does. Now he finally does, and he sees through Maverick like his skin is made of glass.

Goose backtracks. “I’m fine with it, by the way. Either way.”

“No,” says Maverick. “You got me.”

“Oh. Really?”

I don’t know, Maverick thinks.

The trophy was perched on Ice’s bookshelf when Maverick visited last. He’d been galled to see it again, that very first time after TOPGUN; had flushed hot and cold all at once, his wits scattered with guilt and shame. Ice had noticed, of course. It’d taken all of Maverick’s dignity not to shrink away from his concern.

But that was a long time ago. The trophy no longer brings back the nauseating tang of salty water, the vivid wash of absinthe-green dye. Nor Goose’s rapidly cooling face, slick with blood.

Maverick looks away. “Well. It’s just a trophy.”

“And an invitation to teach at TOPGUN,” says Goose. “And our names on the plaque. People remembering us forever. The whole ten miles. You know.”

“Uh-huh. You think I’m suited for a teaching job?”

Goose considers this, as they climb into his car. “I don’t think it’s about being suited for it,” he says eventually. “I think you just really gotta put your mind to it.”

Maverick lets his head fall against the passenger window. Outside, the seagulls soar against a backdrop of burnished gold, looping around in lazy circles, hunting for inattentive passerby. He thinks of Bradley. “Were you always this wise?”

“Rude!” says Goose, but he looks pleased. “It’s called ‘being a father’. I think having a kid changes your brain chemistry.”

“No doubt about it,” says Maverick softly.

They glide down the street, almost leisurely. For all Goose used to egg Maverick on in the backseat of the Tomcat, Goose himself was—is—the safest, slowest driver Maverick has ever known.

(Carole, meanwhile, drives like a localized Category 5 hurricane.)

Hopefully his bike gets here soon.

“To be honest,” says Goose, as they roll to a stop at the next red light, “I’m kind of relieved.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. You know… when we first got here, I actually did want it. The trophy, I mean. Even just this morning, I wanted it.” Goose’s hands tighten briefly around the steering wheel. “But I’ve been thinking about Cougar a lot, lately. Why he left. And I—I get it.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m not too sure if I wanna be taking risks, either. Especially if it’s just to win.”

“Goose,” says Maverick immediately. “You’ll graduate. I swear it.”

“Oh, jeez.” Goose laughs, a touch nervously. “It’s not that serious.”

Maverick would swear it ten, a hundred, a thousand times more. “I hear what you’re saying,” he says, and means it. Oh, God, does he mean it, and his heart begins to race, and his hands twitch in his lap, and his sight funnels down to the long, seamless row of palm trees flying by. “No more stupid shit. I promise.”

Goose’s face flickers with surprise. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks, Mav.”

“Sure,” says Maverick. He feels more than sees Goose glance at him from the corner of his eyes, but Maverick has nothing more to say.

His heart continues to thud. Words have rarely done him well. Thirty years ago, he’d promised Goose the same. Thirty years ago, he’d broken that promise, just like that.

“Where are we going?” he asks instead, when they turn into another parking lot.

“The commissary,” Goose replies staunchly. He parks the car with a decisive jerk. “Carole would have my hide if she knew how I’m letting you live.”

Maverick kicks the door shut behind him. He tosses his keys onto the counter, rifles his wallet out of his back pocket, puts his groceries in the fridge, and tosses the plastic bags into the pantry.

Then he sinks down onto the couch. Bows his head, elbows on his knees.

The wood flooring beneath his feet is scratched and scuffed, beat up from years of use. Outside, the sound of a car engine rumbles past.

He’ll get used to this, he thinks, for the umpteenth time. He must.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he says into the silence, as if speaking it aloud will make it happen.

It’s unbelievable. He has everything back. All of his loved ones are alive and well, and he’ll see Carole again soon. Bradley is four and none the wiser. Flying is once again in Maverick’s future, years and years of it ahead of him. But—

But.

Maverick drops his face in his hands.

Somehow, he’d gotten himself a second chance. A chance to be better, to change outcomes; a chance to avert the mistakes that have haunted him his whole life. A chance to save Goose. Carole, too. A chance to make her aware, have her take preventative measures, get early check-ups. Maybe Bradley can finally have two parents to love him, something he’s always deserved. Maybe—maybe Maverick can—

But what if he can’t? What then? Things are changing. Things have changed. Goose probably thinks he’s going through a depressive episode, with the way he’s been mother-henning Maverick within an inch of his life. Charlie’s eyes pass over him as smoothly as they do everyone else, now, never lingering. And Ice—

(But.)

Ice doesn’t care. No criticisms, no scrutiny, no sharp words or even sharper smiles. Only an aloof, nonchalant congrats, and Maverick’s uncertain, feeble thanks.

That’s fine, Maverick thinks. It’s fine. Ice was always going to be fine. He’s destined to climb his way to the summit, with or without Maverick; destined to live a fulfilled and happy life, cut too short only at the end. He’ll still get married, still have kids, still sit atop the entire Navy with star-studded sleeves and a star-studded flag, poised and adamantine behind that opaque smile.

The important thing is Goose, and Carole, and Bradley. The family Maverick loves. The one he’s fucked up, over and over. They deserve better. They deserved so much better than what they got.

(“It’s not your fault, Mav,” says Ice, with great care, with quietness, with kindness. The hand on Maverick’s shoulder is grounding and firm. “It was never your fault. You’ve always done the best you could.”)

Fuck. Fuck. It’s not fine.

“Fuck,” he spits.

Two minutes in hell together. That’s all it took, and then Ice was there, always, through thick and thin, across oceans and timezones and the widening gap between their ranks. He bore witness to Maverick’s greatest triumphs, his most embarrassing failures; celebrated with him during his highest of highs, endured the flagellating spiral of his lowest of lows. Judged him no more or less for either, and never stopped vouching for him, even at great risk to his own career. Shielded him, too, from the brass, from Maverick’s own stupidity. Believed in him, for some inexplicable reason.

It was just like Ice to take bullshit, you can be mine like a personal fucking challenge, and leave Maverick scrambling to keep up.

Maverick can’t fathom a future without him.

Maverick doesn’t want a future without him.

And sure, Maverick can wait until the Layton mission, can wait and see how it all plays out, stay a passive observer to this movie reel of memories. But what if? What if the mission doesn’t happen? What if they’re no longer assigned to it?

Maverick will save Goose. This, he will never concede. But once he does—

All these minor changes, the small things that don’t fit quite right, Maverick can navigate just fine. But saving Goose? That’s big. He doesn’t need an MS in rocket science to realize it’ll knock everything he knows off course. Beyond it, he’ll be flying blind—just like everyone else.

Christ. Even with a metaphorical cheat sheet, he can still get everything wrong. How fucked is that?

“I should have memorized some baseball scores,” he says to his old, worn-out coffee table. The latest issue of Reader’s Digest mocks him from where it’s been haphazardly tossed in the corner. June, 1986. “At least I could’ve been rich.”

He sags back against the couch. Tilts his head up against the backrest, stares at the scattered bumps in his popcorn ceiling, then closes his eyes.

“Okay, Maverick,” he whispers. “Now that we’ve got that established. What are you going to do?”

Chapter Text

The days pass.

Now, Goose isn’t in the habit of doubting his friends. Especially Maverick, who can tell Goose that there’s gold at the bottom of the San Diego Harbor and Goose would dive right in to get it, no questions asked.

Okay. Maybe a couple questions.

But Maverick isn’t in the habit of lying to him. That’s what Goose chooses to believe, anyway, and he’s never been steered wrong, besides the occasional—frequent—reprimands that just seem to go hand-in-hand with putting Maverick in the cockpit of a $30M military asset. That’s just who Maverick is, and to be honest, a part of Goose loves it. Flying with Maverick is a little bit like unchaining yourself from the fetters of the real world, a little bit like outrunning all your worries, a little bit like handing Maverick an egg (or your life) while he’s balanced atop the tallest peak in the world and hoping he doesn’t drop it.

That hasn’t changed.

What has changed: Maverick’s listening to him.

Not that he never did before; he hears Goose, certainly. Acknowledges his opinion, definitely. But in addition to being the honest sort, Maverick’s also the headstrong sort, the I’m-gonna-do-it-myself sort, the my-way-or-the-highway sort, and no matter what Goose has said to him before, he’s never quite been able to wrangle Maverick’s decisions into something that hasn’t ultimately resulted in their asses in the fire, again.

Not anymore. I hear what you’re saying. Cuff him in the head, ‘cause Goose hadn’t really believed him, and now he feels kinda bad about it. Just one more small thing on the list of small things Goose catalogs as they rise each day, as Maverick regains his precious bike (that he hadn’t brought with him immediately! What!), as they take to the sky and Maverick doesn’t try anything cute.

Even so, they’re neck-and-neck with Iceman and Slider in terms of points. Maverick keeps at it with laser-eyed, almost dogged determination, and that, at least, is expected behavior.

The days pass.

Maverick jokes with him, teases him, laughs with him, and bit by bit Goose gets used to his new quirks. Sure, something may have happened, but a Maverick who’s a little quieter, a little steadier, a little more thoughtful, is still the same Maverick he’s always known.

Except—

“I’m telling you, Mav doesn’t even have a woman here!”

“Yeah,” says Carole, her voice a doubtful crackle over the line, “he’s probably got eight.”

But that’s just it—Goose isn’t lying. “I’m serious! Plenty of pretty ladies here, but he’s got no one. It’s mental.”

“Pretty ladies?”

“Objectively, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’m just saying,” says Goose hastily, “TOPGUN’s no joke. They’ve got us dragging our asses like tired old dogs. Day in, day out, it’s classwork and then flying and then meetings and then even more classwork… then I get home and study all night. My brain’s like mashed potatoes.”

Carole’s voice is sweet and sympathetic. “Are y’all at least eating right?”

“It’s okay,” says Goose pitifully.

“Please tell me you have more than just beer and eggs in your fridge, Goosey.”

“I buy groceries,” says Goose, even though he’s only got beer and eggs in his fridge. “Mav goes to the galley every day. He’s the one who only has an open carton of milk.” Maverick doesn’t even keep beer anymore, which makes watching baseball in the evening exceedingly dull.

Carole clucks her tongue.

“I’m telling you,” Goose repeats. “We need you here. Just for a couple of days. Also, any longer and I’m afraid Bradley will forget who I am. Please?”

“Oh, stop it,” says Carole, but she giggles. “He asks after you and Mav every day. I’ll come, but only because you asked so nicely. And because I miss you, you silly man.”

Goose pumps his fist with a silent, triumphant yes. “I miss you too, honey.”

They discuss a suitable time and the potential hit to their budget, followed by the amount of PTO Carole has left and Bradley’s incoming first day of kindergarten. Then, as their chatter winds down, Carole pauses, and asks: “About Maverick. Has he said anything? Is he doing better?”

Goose reassures her, but he thinks about it, after he hangs up. Casual and cheeky as her earlier remark had been, Carole made a good point: usually, by now, Maverick would’ve damn well tried to have at least one gal hanging off his arm, often to his own detriment. Penny Benjamin comes to mind. Boy, had that been a ride.

It’s not like he’s totally lost interest. Goose does catch Maverick looking at Charlie, sometimes, while they’re working on the materials in class. Then again, half the guys in the cohort have their eyeballs glued to her: tall, confident, crisply dressed, her hair spun like golden clouds. (Goose isn’t one of them, thanks! He’s a kept man!) But she’s definitely Maverick’s type—which is to say, way out of his league.

Despite that, Maverick never does anything, never says anything. He doesn’t even try to make eye contact; looks back down at his papers, instead, when she turns about in the aisle and passes by them in a whiff of floral perfume.

Maybe a demon came in the night and finally injected some sensibility into him. Dating their instructor? Unthinkable! …Except Maverick would totally do that.

As it happens, Charlie isn’t the only one Maverick looks at.

“Hey! Goose, Maverick,” says Hollywood, when they reconvene in the locker room at the end of the day. He turns to them with his arms raised and his undershirt still only half-on, which he struggles to tug down. “You know the volleyball court by the barracks? We’re meeting down there at 1600. You up for it?”

“He’s looking to get his ass beat in the air and on the ground,” says Slider.

“Your opinion is duly noted. Also, wrong.”

Goose glances over at Maverick, who’s facing his locker and unzipping his flight suit with barely a peep. “Sounds good to me,” he says. “You?”

“Sure,” says Maverick. “Lookin’ to get punished that bad, huh, Wood?”

“Worry about yourself.” Hollywood looks him up and down. “Can you even jump past the net?”

“Wow, low blow,” says Goose, pointing an affronted finger on Maverick’s behalf. “I’ll have you know having one of him is worth two of you. All five-foot-seven of him.”

“Thanks,” says Maverick dryly, as the others chortle around them.

They file out one by one with a slam of the cheap locker doors and shuffle of footsteps. Goose pays them no mind, tugging his shoelaces tight and tucking them in before he straightens on the bench. “So Carole agreed to come,” he says, and it’s only because he raises his head to actually look at Maverick that he catches Maverick’s attention elsewhere.

“Did she?” says Maverick, after a pause. His gaze slips away from where Iceman’s just disappeared around the corner.

Hm.

Goose had thought it was a temporary thing, initially. A one-off, oh, yeah, he reminds me of someone, like Maverick said, but… it’s been over a week, and Maverick’s eyes still catch on Iceman every time he’s in the room like a fish on a hook. Now that Goose has noticed, it’s impossible not to.

He really doesn’t want to continue prying, but there’s gotta be some history there. Or, maybe… He adjusts his angle of approach. Hm.

“Goose? Earth to Goose.”

“Sorry,” says Goose. “Say that again?”

The wrinkle between Maverick’s eyebrows smooths over. “I asked when she’ll be flying in.”

“A week from now. Next Friday.”

“That’s good,” says Maverick. He smiles, a genuine one, his eyes curving into crescents. “Real good.”

“She’s bringing Bradley, of course,” says Goose. “You know he’s already four? He starts kindergarten in September. God, time flies. One day he’ll be off to college and you and I’ll be old farts yelling at kids to get off our lawns.”

Maverick is silent. He finishes changing and closes his locker door with a gentle snap, a marked difference from their classmates. “Hey,” he says, his hand lingering on the latch, his voice calm. Measured. “Have you ever thought about sending him to Annapolis?”

“Sure, sometimes,” says Goose, no hesitation. “I mean, he doesn’t have to go, and I wouldn’t make him. But if he wanted to, hell yeah.”

Maverick’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Follow in your footsteps, huh?”

“Only if he wants to.”

“You buy toy planes for him every Christmas.”

Goose shrugs. “So do you. Besides, he loves them.”

“Yeah,” says Maverick. “He sure does.”

“Still got fourteen years.” Goose rises to his feet and smooths out his shirt. “A little weird to think about—Bradley all grown up.”

Maverick’s hand slides off his locker. “Like you said, it’ll happen sooner than later.”

“I refuse. He’ll be my adorable little boy till the day I die.”

Maverick smiles again, close-lipped and reticent. There’s something a bit mellow about him, these days. Goose doesn’t know how else to describe it.

They stop by lodging so Goose can grab something more suitable for PT (“You’re not going to change?” says Goose incredulously. Maverick looks down at his t-shirt and jeans. “It’s fine, isn’t it?” “No, it’s not fine!” “It’s fine.” “Sweating in denim is fine to you? Who’re you trying to impress?” “Goose, it’s fine.”) before they jog on over to the court a couple blocks down. Hollywood and Wolfman are already there, passing a volleyball back and forth over the net.

“Slowpokes!” Wolfman calls. “Best of three till Ice and Sli get here?”

“Why are we the slowpokes if they’re even later than us?” Goose shouts back.

Hollywood spikes the ball in their direction. Maverick immediately leaps forward to intercept it, limbs akimbo as he sends it straight up in the air. It’s like a flip of a switch; Goose finds his legs moving before he even gives himself a chance to think about it.

“Jesus! Give us a second!”

Hollywood grins. “It’s called situational awareness.”

“It’s called cheating,” says Goose, passing the ball right back to Maverick, who slams it down across the net. Hollywood eats sand. “Never mind, that counts!”

“It absolutely does not!”

“Wood!” Slider, from the bleachers. Looks like they made it. “I thought you had something to prove!”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Best of three,” Goose parrots. “Wanna split up and join or wait your turn?”

“We’ll take the winner,” says Iceman, settling back on the bleachers. The metal seats are positively blinding underneath the harsh sunlight of mid-afternoon.

Maverick must think so too, because he slides on his sunglasses. Damn. Goose forgot his own pair on the counter back home. “Isn’t that an unfair advantage?”

“Why?” Iceman smiles, a flash of tooth. “You also got something to prove?”

Maverick mirrors his expression. “Not a chance.”

“Suit yourself,” says Wolfman. Hollywood tosses him the ball. “Eyes forward!”

Sand flies. Between points, they kick off their shoes, shed their shirts in the scorching heat, except for Goose, who tucks his tags into his collar to prevent them from slapping him in the face every time he jumps. The others don’t clue in on this. In fact, Maverick’s tags hit him so hard in the nose they nearly knock off his sunglasses.

For all Hollywood roasts Maverick’s height, he ends up face-first in the sand three more times courtesy of some well-aimed strikes. Iceman watches from the sidelines, lounging like a smug, insufferable king, while Slider hollers relentless abuse beside him.

“Okay,” says Wolfman, straightening up to place his hands on his hips, panting. “I say we tag them in. Yay or nay.”

“Yay,” Hollywood grumbles. He swipes sand off his front and lobs the volleyball over to Iceman, who catches it with a deft swipe of his arm.

“Suckers!” Goose laughs, then laughs harder when he receives the bird in return.

Iceman serves, and the game’s on. There’s definitely a disadvantage, whether or not anyone acknowledges it—Goose is panting too, soaked in sweat, and Maverick looks no better, sand sticking to him like a second layer of skin, his dark hair thoroughly speckled with it. But if Goose thought Maverick was set on winning against Hollywood and Wolfman, then against and Iceman and Slider it’s like he goes zone 5, full afterburner: skidding, diving, kicking up clouds every which way, single-mindedly focused on the ball the same way he chases after Jester in the sky.

Goose isn’t about to be left behind. Maverick’s energy has always been contagious, when he really puts his mind to something. It’s why Goose’s followed him for so long; why he’ll probably follow him forever, if he can.

The ball bounces sideways off Slider’s arm and lands out of bounds. Slider swears.

Goose whoops. “Seems like you’re the one who’s gassed, Slider!”

Iceman places a hand on Slider’s bicep before he can respond, hooks his attention back and away. They huddle together on the other side of the net, whispering furiously, and Goose turns to Maverick to offer up a well-deserved high-five. He stops short, instead.

“What’s with that look?”

“What look?” says Maverick, turning his way, the neutral line of his mouth slipping back into a smile. He gives Goose that high-five, solid and firm, but Goose continues to squint at him. Maverick eventually concedes. “I normally have plans on an afternoon like this.”

“Gee, thanks,” says Goose. “What am I, chopped liver?”

“Don’t worry.” Maverick’s smile grows. “No place right now I’d rather be.”

“You’re getting sappier by the day.”

“Must be the weather,” Maverick deadpans, and shoots another glance across the net.

He must think he’s being subtle. Goose follows his eyes to their opponents, who’ve pulled apart from their little strategy meeting with a bump of their fists. Maybe he is being subtle, to everyone else; Maverick is, contrary to his larger than life attitude, pretty good at hiding his feelings.

But not to Goose, who knows exactly what longing looks like on Maverick’s face.

—

A long, long time ago, Maverick had checked the time on his watch with a distracted, nervous focus; then, shamefully, still ended up late to his appointment. He didn’t think anything of it at the time. It was just one more point, one more game, because Ice got to him, like no one else, from the very first moment they laid eyes on each other. Charlie could wait, if only Maverick could have one more second, one more opportunity to put Ice in his place—an impulse that simmered low and burning between his ribs, that never quite died out, even after Maverick figured out its true nature and silently, stoically came to terms with it.

In the dry heat of the Californian summer, with a breeze whipping through his hair and the sun beating a searing line across his shoulders, a part of Maverick feels young again. Perhaps, more accurately, he finally feels right in the body he’s in, his thighs burning with exertion, denim sticking to his skin, scratchy with the sand—and yes, Goose, he knows he was being a blockhead, but Maverick’s never owned more than what he needs and he isn’t about to stuff himself into his PTU unless strictly necessary, so Maverick takes the discomfort in stride. Barely notices it, in fact, too busy marveling at the physicality that’s been returned to him, the lack of aching, the full range of motion in his shoulders and hips and knees.

Maverick grabs Goose’s proffered hand and uses it to pick himself up off the court, brushing sand off his chest and arms, righting his aviators. He doesn’t realize he’s grinning again until Goose grins back, and for an instant it’s Bradley he sees, tall and broad with a smile just like his dad’s, helping him up despite everything.

“What’s this I see?” Goose jokes. “Happy we’re losing?”

“It’s not over yet.”

“You’re right,” says Goose, then calls across the net. “One more game!”

“That’s the third time,” Slider shouts back. “Just take the loss!”

“Yeah!” Wolfman hollers from the sidelines. “Tag us back in!”

“For the love of—just join us, genius!”

Wolfman hooks an elbow around Hollywood’s neck and shakes him like a rattle. “I ain’t leaving my pilot,” he says, even as Hollywood taps him rapidly on the forearm to get him to loosen his grip.

“Don’t be a baby,” says Slider.

“Oh yeah?” Wolfman points at them. “One of you change out, then.”

“I’ll do it,” says Maverick, without missing a beat. Goose squawks; even Slider looks surprised, eyebrows rising up to his considerably high hairline. “That do it for you, Wolf?”

“Betrayal,” Goose gasps.

“What if we don’t want you?” says Slider, but Ice interrupts, the smile on his face almost wolfish in its interest, strikingly familiar.

“Let him. We’re all on the same team, after all.”

“I can’t believe this,” says Goose, as Maverick ducks under the net. “Where’s the loyalty?”

Hollywood puts a sympathetic hand on his shoulder as Wolfman goes to retrieve the abandoned ball. “We’ll be your new friends.”

“See?” says Goose to Maverick. “I already have new friends!”

Maverick throws back his head and laughs. So this is what he’d missed back then.

He and Charlie—they’d burned so bright together, and yet so blisteringly quick. She’d been worth it, for the month he had her. Then she’d gone, and left him completely bereft.

Ice stood behind him then. Ice stands behind him now, and maybe he doesn’t know Maverick the way he used to, and they’ve barely spoken at all this past week, but it doesn’t matter. Maverick loves Goose—will always love him, incomparably, for pulling Maverick up by the bootstraps, for straightening his collar and changing his life—but the way Maverick loves Ice is set in granite, stalwart and unassailable across decades. It feels right.

“Blasphemy!” Goose exclaims, when Maverick scores the winning point. “Sacrilege! Heresy!”

“Suck it up, Mother Goose,” Slider crows.

“I thought you didn’t want him!”

They squabble. Maverick watches them, fondness prickling the edges of his amusement. He pulls away only when he glimpses a figure come up beside him.

“Not bad,” says Ice. The low sun streaks golden light over his glistening skin, the delicate chain of his dog-tags gleaming silver against his collarbones. He’s smiling, his hand raised, and for a good two seconds Maverick is struck stupid.

“Thanks,” he manages, and accepts the high-five. A key turns and unlocks in his chest. “Not too bad yourself.”

The corners of Ice’s eyes crinkle. Maverick hasn’t seen that since he’d last stepped foot in Ice’s office—since the very last time Ice pulled him into his arms.

It’s a bullseye hit, straight to the throat. He smiles back, nevertheless.

They quit the court and, at Wolfman’s cajoling, head for the galley for dinner. The sky’s grown dusky in the impending sunset, brushed blue and pink and rich orange between limned clouds. Cars putter to and fro down the street, wheels churning over sun-warmed concrete and headlights yellow and bright.

It’s an evening far removed from anything Maverick can remember, here at Miramar. The relentless crawl of time blends everything together into formless soup, specific dates lost to him despite those sparks of clarity, but Maverick knows for certain that he never did anything like this: taken a step back, and simply hung out with the guys.

Where had Hollywood and Wolfman ended up, he wonders, as he watches them sling themselves over each other’s shoulders, laughing and arguing over the street noise.

“So, Mav,” says Wolfman, blinking Maverick out of his reverie. “All those stories about you—how much of them are true?”

“Stories?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Hollywood. “Heard you’ve done some ballsy shit. Made a pass at an admiral’s daughter, did an unauthorized fly-by in front of an O-7, did a couple of loopty-loops around some MiGs. How the hell are you still here, by the way?”

“About those MiGs,” Wolfman interrupts. “You didn’t actually engage them, did you?”

“You had to be there to believe it, buddy,” says Goose, slapping Maverick solidly on the back. “We were inverted.”

“Oh, hell no,” says Wolfman.

“Horseshit,” says Slider, craning his neck around from where he’s walking up ahead.

“It’s true,” Goose insists, and relays the whole sequence of events: the 4G negative dive, the inversion, their cheeky little sojourn into foreign relations. Wolfman oohs at all the right moments while Hollywood shakes his head in disbelief and Slider scoffs—but it’s Ice who has Maverick’s attention, the way he doesn’t look back at them, the way his spine straightens almost imperceptibly. Silent, but listening.

“Okay,” says Hollywood. “Say I believe you. But there’s no fucking way you actually flipped them off.”

“I’ve got the Polaroid on my nightstand, my man.”

“You’re bringing that in on Monday,” says Wolfman.

“Well, you can’t really see Mav…”

“You saying you don’t have it?”

“Oh, I got it,” says Goose. “You’ll see. 100%, bona fide upside-down.”

“And while you were doing all of this,” says Ice casually, still facing forward, “who was covering Cougar?”

Their voices die off. Three sets of eyes swivel around to Maverick, who resolutely keeps his focus on the back of Ice’s head. “He seemed fine,” he answers, because at that moment he’d been twenty-four, unbridled and tactless, and hadn’t yet suffered the consequences for it.

Ice stops and turns. Like the flow of the tide, the rest of them stop to match him, apprehensive and wary. But Maverick continues before he can speak; confronts head-on the thinness of Ice’s mouth, the dispassion in his gaze, and bites his excuses back. “Not my brightest moment, I’ll admit.”

Ice’s eyes narrow. A car passes by, its headlights throwing their faces in sharp relief, all odd angles and crooked shadows.

“...Maybe a little bright,” says Goose, cutting through the silence. “I mean, no one got hurt, and we did get a one-of-a-kind photo out of it.”

Another beat. Maverick exhales through his nose. Ice blinks once, before he physically and conspicuously retreats. It takes no time at all for Hollywood and Wolfman to push forward in his place, filling the air once more with their clamor.

“Aw, jeez, Goose. I’m not believing a word till I see it.”

“Where the hell do you keep a camera in your seat?”

“Wolf’s right—you’re not afraid it’ll smack you?”

Maverick takes another breath. He falls back when the others continue on, a gut instinct that proves correct when Ice falls back with him.

They look at each other. Ice’s hair has become a mess since the afternoon, dark with dried sweat and tousled by the tumbles he took on the court earlier, but he’s still striking. Will never not be striking, especially now: unbeholden to illness, to all its terrible sacrifices, his future still a long, gilded path before him.

“It’s nothing against you,” he says, abruptly.

Maverick knows. “I think it’s a little against me.”

“There’s a lot of hearsay going around.”

“There’s always a lot of hearsay. How much of it do you believe?”

“Does it matter?”

Yes, Maverick thinks.

“I guess not,” Maverick says, instead. He puts his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, and, with some exasperation, finds them gritty with residual sand. “I’ll let my flying do the talking for me.”

Ice’s stare is unrelenting. It’s sharper than Maverick remembers, but his Ice hadn’t looked at him like this in a long, long time: unabashedly calculating, trying to figure him out.

“Fair enough,” he says.

Maverick’s mouth tugs. He cocks his head. Tries something else. “Still waiting for you to give me a run for my money, Kazansky.”

It works. The hard edges of Ice’s features diffuse; he looks amused. “In case you haven’t noticed, Slider and I are ahead of you.”

“Next hop. You’ll see.”

“You’re on,” says Ice, and warmth leaks into Maverick’s heart, fills in all the cracks with glowing gold veins.

“Hey, Ice! Mav!” Wolfman shouts, from all the way down the block, right outside the galley doors. “The hell’s the hold up? I’m starving.”

“Do you need our permission?” Maverick retorts. “You’d think he was about to die,” he says to Ice, who breathes out a laugh.

“Fuck you, Maverick,” says Wolfman.

They catch up to the others beneath the canopy. Slider slings an arm around Ice’s shoulders and guides him inside, Hollywood and Wolfman hot on their heels.

Maverick snags the open door after them. He waits for Goose, then looks back when no Goose is forthcoming.

Goose is watching him. There’s a slight furrow between his eyebrows.

“What’s with that face?”

“Excuse you.” Goose finally steps forward. “I was born with this face.”

“Uh-huh. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” says Goose. “Don’t let me be tempted by the cake, alright? That stuff never sits right with me after 1800.”

“Right,” says Maverick. He lingers at the door, watches Goose go.

He’d looked concerned. Thoughtful, even, like Goose had been rolling something over and over in his head. Maverick is sure of it—as sure of it as he can be, anyway. Sometimes it feels like Maverick doesn’t know Goose anymore. He supposes that’s to be expected, after so many years.

It’s still somewhat unnerving—off-putting—to be standing here, in an era long since relegated to rose-tinted nostalgia. It’ll probably always be. But the world continues turning, the sun continues shining, and the people around him continue breathing, adapting, changing, all of them the protagonists of their own lives, ignorant of Maverick’s dilemma and subsequently unaffected by it.

There’s no use in obsessing anymore. Maverick, too, continues on.

Chapter Text

“Hey.”

Maverick’s eyes jerk up from the soda cup in his hands.

Goose peers at him, frowning. “Mav?”

“Whoops,” says Maverick. He swallows. “Sorry. What were you saying? Carole’s new volunteer gig?”

“That’s right.” Goose continues to peer at him. “She’s working with old K9s. You know, finding them new homes once they’ve retired.”

“Sounds great,” says Maverick. His fingers tap an uneasy rhythm on the plasticky table between them. “She has time for all that?”

“See, that’s exactly what I said! And you know what she said back? Oh, Goose, of course you’d think that. You’ve never got time for anything except sports and planes.” Goose sits back and huffs. “Well, it’s not like we’ve got anything else to do in the middle of the ocean.”

Maverick cracks a smile. “No kidding.”

“Anyway,” says Goose. “I really played it up, you know? Told her we’ve aged ten years in ten days. Told her I had to see Bradley again before my body gave out.”

“It’s not that bad,” says Maverick, even though it kind of is. At least for Maverick, who remembers maybe 20% of what’s in the NATOPS F-14A. He'd just spent a week skimming an extra 400-odd pages late into the night, in addition to the giant binder of study materials Viper dropped on their desks the very first day.

What a pain in the ass. How the hell did anyone get anything done prior to Ctrl+F?

“That’s the one,” says Goose suddenly, his eyes on the window, and grabs the rose off the table. He’d bought it at the flower shop on the way to the airport.

Maverick’s heart skips three beats. No more distractions.

They toss out their trash and make their way outside the terminal. Passengers have just begun to disembark from the plane, ducking their heads out the rounded door and squinting against the onslaught of sunlight. Heat rises off the concrete in wobbly, undulating waves.

No one yet. Maverick’s vision begins to swim. His pulse hammers in his ears, like the roll of drums, the crash of cymbals. A whole goddamn orchestra, echoing around an empty hall.

He can do this, he thinks.

Oh, God. He can’t do this. He’s not ready.

“Goosey!”

Goose rushes forward.

Carole bursts out of the crowd, arms outstretched, her peach-colored dress a flurry about her legs and her hair sparkling gold. Maverick almost doesn’t recognize her. She leaps into Goose’s embrace with a shriek of delight, and he spins her round and round, laughing.

Maverick watches, chest tight. The two of them are a brilliant splash of color amidst the murky gray of old memories. He looks to Bradley—a tiny child with short legs and fat, flushed cheeks, who waddles up to his dad with his hands clenched hard around a plastic model of an F-14—and feels that tightness pinch so hard his next breath barely makes it out.

“Maverick!” shouts Carole, drawing his attention back. She waves wildly. “Don’t be shy! C’mere!”

Maverick steps out from beneath the shadow of the eave.

“Hey,” he croaks. He clears his throat. Tries again. “Hey, Carole.”

Carole looks him up and down. Her face softens. “Oh, Maverick,” she says. “You look like you’ve been run over by a trailer.”

“Thanks,” he says, and lets himself be drawn into her arms.

She’d been his friend for so very long. Even after everything, after Goose, she’d never forgotten about him, never turned him away, always welcomed him into her home no matter how far away she moved or how much time had passed. Never blamed him, never resented him, even though they struggled, she and Bradley—Maverick knows they did, no matter how much he had tried to help them, to be there for them.

It’s been almost twenty years since Maverick saw her for the last time, pale, quiet, weak on the hospital bed. Promise me, she’d said, and Maverick would’ve done absolutely anything for her. All that time, all that he owed her, and she had never asked him for anything else.

“You’re okay,” she says in his ear, and it’s only because she says it that he realizes he’s begun to shake. “Shh, it’s okay.”

Reluctantly, he pulls away. Says, unable to meet her gaze, “It’s good to see you.”

“You’re acting like it’s been years,” Carole replies kindly. Genuine concern lingers on her features, widening her big, expressive eyes. Over her shoulder, Goose carries a similar expression, even as he bounces Bradley in his arms. Guess it’s true that couples start acting alike, over time.

“What,” says Maverick, injecting a note of humor into his voice, “I’m not allowed to miss you?”

Carole beams and threads an arm through his. She pats his bicep. “Good ol’ Maverick. You sure know how to flatter a gal.”

“Hey, now.” Goose sidles in. “Honey? Hello.”

Carole clucks her tongue and switches arms. “What are you worrying about, silly?”

“Uncle Mav,” says Bradley. He leans backward out of Goose’s grasp, and once Goose has knelt again to set him down, he immediately rushes at Maverick’s knees, a little bowling ball of enthusiasm. “Hi, Uncle Mav. Do you remember me?”

Bradley hasn’t called him Uncle Mav in decades. Maverick exhales a laugh, even as his ribs continue to constrict around his lungs. He squats down to meet Bradley eye-to-eye. “Of course I do, kiddo. You’ve grown, haven’t you?”

“I have,” Bradley announces proudly. “I’m going to kindergarten.”

“Kindergarten! That’s for big kids.”

Bradley giggles, and reaches for him. What comes next is automatic, reflexive, a motion he’s done a hundred times before: Maverick reaches back, hikes him up as he straightens, and Bradley clings to his neck with a delighted yelp, settling back happily in the crook of Maverick’s elbow. He’s so warm, like cradling a puppy, his hair silk-soft against Maverick’s cheek. It’s hard to resist squeezing him, hard to resist holding him close.

When Maverick looks back, Goose is grinning broadly at him. “Shame on you. First my wife, then my kid.”

“What can I say? I’m a charmer,” says Maverick, even as his eyes prickle, even as his heart thumps, thumps, thumps.

“Leave some for the rest of us.”

“Aw, don’t worry,” says Carole to Goose. She leans in close and shoulder-checks him; he stumbles. “You’re a charmer in my heart, Goosey.”

“I’d hope so!”

Carole laughs and smacks him with a kiss. Maverick shifts Bradley’s weight and watches them affectionately. They make their way back inside toward the baggage claim, dodging other reuniting couples and errant travelers.

She rounds on him, then, as they’re waiting for the conveyor belt to start, spinning the thornless rose between her fingers. “So,” she starts, sly, and Maverick braces himself. “Goose tells me you’re out here wasting away, single and lonely. Tell me he’s wrong.”

“‘Wasting away’?” says Maverick. “‘Single and lonely’?”

“I didn’t say it like that,” says Goose.

Carole bats her eyelashes at him. “You sure did. And in the heart of Southern California, to boot! Not a single soul’s caught your eye?”

“We’re pretty busy,” says Maverick.

“See?” Goose nods. “We’re suffering.”

“Well, according to Goosey, that’s never stopped you before.”

“According to Goose, huh?” Maverick repeats again. He raises his eyebrows at Goose, who wraps himself around Carole’s shoulders, slightly behind her, like she’s a human shield.

“Don’t look at me like that! Honesty and openness breeds a happy, healthy marriage.”

“Of course it does.”

“So it’s true?” says Carole, heedless. “Never thought I’d see the day. Maverick Mitchell, free of womanly wiles. Or is it vice versa? A shame! I always liked to hear the stories—they’re better than my soaps, sometimes.”

“Am I really so bad?” asks Maverick, thinking back.

Goose scoffs. “Am I really so bad, he says. Remember the Bisquayne sisters? One right after the other, then both at once when they figured it out!”

Okay, he remembers that, sort of. The escapades of his youth—live and let live, right? He hadn’t thought of them in a long time. Not since before Ice; since before he knew what love really was.

A memory comes to him then, unbidden: the dim ambience of a bar, a feminine giggle in his ear and a soft hand on his forearm. A conversation, vague, unimportant. Maverick thinking, sure, why not, just before he turns around and catches Ice watching him, face still, fingers on the rim of his glass. Their eyes meet. Ice smiles, and knocks back his drink in one go.

Goose is still talking. “Not to mention Penny Benjamin. That gal had you wrapped around her pinky finger. Didn’t she almost convince you to steal an F-14? Can you imagine the complete, utter shitshow that would’ve been if you’d actually done it?”

…Yes. She’d succeeded, actually, years later, with the F/A-18. Only the stars on Ice’s collar had gotten him out of that one.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “You’ve made your point.”

“Damn straight.”

“I guess he’s right, then,” Maverick says solemnly to Carole. “It’s been all work, no play. We’re dying without you. Please help us.”

Carole rolls her eyes, but her cheeks flush with pleasure. She rests her head against the curve of Goose’s shoulder. “Alright, I get it. No need to be so dramatic. I’m here already, aren’t I?”

“God bless,” says Goose, and kisses her again.

Bradley tugs on Maverick’s sleeve, drawing his attention back to him instantly, like it always has. “You doin’ alright, buddy?” he asks, and Bradley beams at him, thrusting his toy jet forward.

“Yeah! Uncle Mav, look at this. I got it for Christmas.”

Maverick inspects it, its glossy wings and sloppily-drawn seams. It tugs an insistent thread in the back of his brain. Where has he seen it before? “That’s really cool. You know what kind of plane that is?”

“It looks like a bird,” says Bradley.

“It’s called an F-14.”

“An F-14…”

“That’s right,” says Maverick. “You know your dad flies in one of those?”

“A bigger one?”

“A very, very big one.”

“Does he go fast?” asks Bradley, eyes going big and curious. He clutches the toy back close to his chest.

Maverick grins. “Very fast. Faster than the speed of sound.”

“Now now, Mav,” says Goose, grunting with effort as he heaves Carole’s first suitcase off the conveyor belt. “Let’s not give him larger-than-life expectations. As much as I want my baby boy to think I’m the coolest person ever, you’re the one going fast. I’m just along for the ride.”

Next to him, Carole smiles. Her eyes sparkle with the honesty of it, a luster that had quickly disappeared the first time Bradley spoke of his dreams. Maverick averts his gaze. “He loves that thing, you know. Never leaves the house without it.”

“My boy has good taste,” says Goose, then continues, voice pitching into a whine, “but it should’ve been my gift. It’s soft and easily packable.”

“Yes,” says Carole. “That’s why the neighbor’s dog liked it, too.”

Goose grumbles something about a hole in the fence, stuffing, and dog slobber, and Maverick realizes, abruptly, where he’s seen the toy before: sitting on the bookshelf of Bradley’s room, back when he was a teenager and Maverick had still been welcome. Old and worn, the plastic wings slightly bent, gray paint gone dull and scratched and peeling around the cockpit, its mechanical landing gear long since snapped off. Well-loved.

Maverick had gifted it to him. 1985. A windy fall day out east in Oceana, rainwater and fire-red maple leaves pooling in the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Under the cool white fluorescents of the NEX was an aisle filled with model airplanes, and Maverick had reached out with a single, distinct thought: Bradley would love this.

They sold the house after Carole died, and shortly after, Bradley cursed him out of his life forever. The plane’s probably sitting in a landfill now.

“I’m glad he likes it,” he says.

Goose retrieves the last suitcase, checks the tags, and straightens. “I can’t believe I’m competing for my own son’s attention. Did you see they already released some F-18 Hornet models? Those toy companies are on it.”

“I’m sure he’ll love anything you give him,” says Maverick. “Do you want an F-18, Bradley?”

“Say no,” says Goose seriously. “Those things are pieces of junk. Remember what Merlin said? Landing gear failure all the time. Tomcats for life, man.”

“Hm,” says Maverick. “Tomcats have their own fair share of problems.”

“They’ve had years to iron those out.”

“18 is bigger than 14,” says Bradley. “That means it’s better.”

“You’re right,” Goose gushes immediately. “Bradley, you’re so smart!”

“Why don’t you take him off Maverick’s hands,” says Carole, as Maverick chuckles. “Mav, help me with the suitcases, why don’t you?”

They do as they’re told, and while Goose hefts Bradley into his arms again, cooing, Carole steps closer to Maverick’s side. “Tell me the truth,” she says, passing him the handle of the larger dark red suitcase. “How are you?”

“Did Goose talk to you?”

Carole slants him a look. “You already know the answer to that.”

Maverick smiles wanly and says, “I’m alright. Doing better. Really.”

“Maverick,” says Carole. She places a gentle hand overtop his on the handle. “I know we’re always joking around, and teasing, and it’s not always easy to talk about yourself. But we’re here for you, alright? If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all…”

The urge to tell her swells like a balloon in his throat. But Maverick stopped telling Carole things a long time ago. He couldn’t. Not when she had so many struggles of her own; not when Maverick was partially responsible for those struggles. It was Ice he turned to, instead, that first time when the world became too cruel and overwhelming, and it was Ice he turned to from then on, all the way to the end.

She doesn’t have any of those struggles now, says the voice in his head. Tell her.

“Thanks,” he says instead. “I appreciate it.”

Carole’s lips purse. She squeezes his hand. “You’re family. I just want to make sure my boys are happy.”

“I am happy,” says Maverick, and it’s true. Happiness, sadness—no emotions are strictly exclusive. His heart beats a spreading garden of warmth beneath Carole’s concern, Goose’s kindness, and Bradley’s laughter. The three of them are together again, finally, bright and whole, blissfully unaware of how fragile that is. Maverick is a shadow in their wake. It’s all he needs.

The low mountains of Miramar blur past in a wash of copper and gold, scraggly and uneven under the unending sky, dappled dark by dry vegetation and wispy white clouds. The F-14 to their left catches the light, gleaming like an oil slick, the decals of Hollywood and Wolfman’s helmets behind the canopy crisp and sharp in the calculated distance between their wings. Ahead of them: two bogeys, three miles, ten o’clock.

A new voice filters through their radio, wry and casual. “Good morning, gentlemen. The temperature’s 110 degrees. Another beautiful day in Fightertown, USA.”

“Holy shit,” Wolfman exclaims. “That’s Viper!”

(“Shit, it’s Maverick.”

“What the hell is he doing here?”)

Maverick huffs a laugh. “Wonderful.”

“Wonderful?” says Goose. “I don’t think you know what that word means.”

Hollywood’s voice crackles with static. “Mav. Got my eye on the northern bogey.”

“Roger. Got my eye on the southern guy. Stay on him, Wood. You lead, I’ll cover.”

“Ten-four.”

“There goes Viper,” says Goose, as one of the two A-4s peels away in a hard right. The other breaks left. Hollywood stays with it and Maverick hangs back, stays with him.

“Tighten your turn, Wood.”

“I know, I know.”

“Imagine nailing Viper,” says Wolfman. “I’d get so shit-faced I’d drop right out of the program.”

“Sounds like your standards are too low,” says Goose, laughing.

“Let’s focus, guys,” says Maverick, even as he lets himself smile. “Your six is clear. Stay with him.”

“Got visual on Viper?” asks Wolfman.

“Negative,” says Goose. “I’m looking—Mav! Three o’clock high, on our nose!”

Maverick glances up, jerks the stick. Viper blasts by, a narrow pass.

Goose whistles. “Jesus.”

“Keep an eye on him, Goose,” says Maverick, leveling out.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“It’s Maverick, actually.”

Goose snorts. “Just make sure to stay with Wood.”

That’s right. It was this hop, wasn’t it? Never leave your wingman. A lesson bluntly learned, never forgotten.

A lesson he’d had to teach to another piece of work, too, not too long ago. He hopes the words stuck. Maverick shoves the thought aside. He can’t think about it. Whatever happened to those kids—Hangman, Phoenix, Rooster—it’s out of his hands, now.

“No need to tell me,” he says.

There’s a pause. “You’re right,” says Goose. He sounds a bit surprised. “I guess not.”

Bogey One ascends, then swings around and dives. Hollywood sticks to him like a bloodhound; not quite as finessed, but obstinate and determined. It’s Wolfman this time who shouts, “Maverick, he’s behind you. Eight o’clock low!”

“I see him. Breaking left,” Maverick clips out. He does, and Viper once again streaks past; disengages, disappears behind a bronze-burnished mountain.

“Is he trying to bait you?” There’s an incredulous note in Goose’s voice.

“Good thing I’m not that dumb,” says Maverick. “Wood?”

“Almost,” says Hollywood, voice strained. “He’s fucking slippery, man.”

“Viper’s coming around again,” Goose warns.

“I’ll get him off your tail.”

“Twenty seconds,” says Hollywood. “Then I got him.”

“Roger that.”

They split. Maverick only distantly remembers what it felt like to fly against Viper: the thrill of the chase, the steely knowledge of Viper’s skill, the raking of burning coals that the thought evoked. He’d wanted so desperately to beat him, to pin him in his sights like a butterfly, as if that would’ve actually proved something.

He still feels it, even now. Maybe it’s the context; maybe it’s because back at the hangar, Maverick has a photo of Mike Metcalf and Duke Mitchell tacked to his wall. Come and get me, old man, he thinks, then bites back a guffaw. Maverick is older than him.

“Talk to me, Goose,” he says.

“He’s right on our six,” is the instant reply. “Better do some of that pilot shit!”

Later, the locker room is uproarious.

“Hoooly shit,” says Wolfman. “That was awesome.”

“I can’t believe we actually nailed him!” Hollywood exclaims, and their subsequent high-five rings off the chipped wall tile, loud and startling against the usual commotion of metal doors and squeaky pipes.

“Congratulations,” says Slider, rolling his eyes. “You got him for the first time. Now put on some pants.”

“Sounds like you’ve got sour grapes, my dude.” Wolfman grins at him, then yelps when Slider whips his behind with a still-damp towel. “Hey, watch it!”

“Aw, lay off, Slider,” says Hollywood. “Let us have this. It’s not every day we beat out Iceman.”

“Must be a blue moon,” says Wolfman, gazing at the ceiling, closing his eyes. “Is this what it feels like to be top dog?”

Chipper’s voice resounds from the aisle over, muddled with laughter. “Don’t let it get to your head, Wolfman. He’s still ahead of you by what, ten points?”

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like you’re any better!”

“If anything, Maverick should be the one celebrating,” says Sundown. He peeks his head around the lockers. “Weren’t you only a point behind?”

“That’s right.” Goose looks at Maverick too, realization dawning on his face. “Viper got Ice. We’re number one.”

Maverick slowly buttons up his khakis. Behind him, Ice is quiet, but Maverick can feel his presence like pressure on all sides.

Maverick has never beaten Ice before, not at TOPGUN. He’d always been just a little too free-thinking, a little too spontaneous to ever score ahead of Ice’s lightning reflexes and immaculate technique, even though he’d been damn close, plenty of times. They either both lost, or Ice won.

So he’s changed something again. His fingers tremble on the last closure. He clenches them quickly, wills it to subside.

The silence continues. When it’s clear everyone’s waiting on his two cents, Ice says, without turning around, “Took you long enough. Here I was, wondering if you were all bark, no bite.”

It’s perfectly adequate, perfectly unconcerned. But Maverick knows Ice, so Maverick hears it: that pause between sentences, just a second too long. The flatness of his tone beneath a delicate film of nonchalance.

Ice has never, ever liked to lose.

Maverick breathes out. Lowers his shoulders, steadies himself. It is what it is. “You wish, Kazansky.”

With that, everyone returns to their business. A sink faucet creaks on. Someone turns on a blow dryer, and the roar of it instantly blankets the resuming chatter. Sundown hollers at Wolfman to turn it off, for which he receives a very emphatic fuck off.

“Don’t get too relaxed, pipsqueak,” says Slider, once the hubbub has died down. “Your lead’s tenuous at best.”

It’s far, far too easy to slip into old habits. “Wow. You know that word?”

Slider flips him off. Maverick responds with a mocking smile.

Ice shuts his locker door. The pointed, punctuating click draws both of their attention back to him, but Ice only has eyes for Slider. “I’m heading back first.”

“Eval’s in fifteen,” says Slider, but he doesn’t pursue the topic, only tilts his head in acknowledgment.

Goose is not quite so tactful. “You know you don’t get points for being early, right?”

“If only,” mutters Hollywood.

Ice ignores them. He leaves, and Maverick watches his back retreat around the corner. An ache starts deep in his ribs, scrapes sore and raw into tender marrow.

He turns back to his locker. The interior of the door is too Spartan, too empty. He wishes he could’ve salvaged a photo or two, at least, from his own locker back home. Recalls, then, the one framed in a pristine, looming lobby; the one perched atop a handcrafted oak shelf, glass wiped free of dust. The smiles caught within: warm, honest, and euphoric. Frozen in time, forever.

He grabs something off the bottom shelf, stuffs it in his pocket, and slams the door shut. “Don’t wait up,” he tells Goose. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay?” says Goose, but Maverick is already gone, out the door, striding with purpose.

Ice hasn’t gotten far. The corridor is long and narrow, almost claustrophobic, with a low drop ceiling and closed doors dotting the off-white walls on either side. Maverick streaks past bulletins cluttered with newspaper headlines and inspirational quotes and text-wall SOPs that nobody ever reads.

“Ice,” he calls, when he’s close enough.

Ice stops, turns partially around. The glass doors at the end of the corridor shine brightly behind him, haloing the tips of his hair in platinum light.

“Maverick,” he says shortly. “Can I help you?”

Maverick catches up. “Walk with me,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to the same place.”

Ice eyes him, his mouth a thin line. He used to look at the other flag officers like that, whenever Maverick had the dubious privilege of outbriefing them. “I’m not good company right now.”

“I can tell,” says Maverick. “You’re a sore loser if I’ve ever seen one.”

Ice’s face goes even colder. “You tryna start something, Mitchell?”

Maverick raises his chin to meet his eyes. For all of Ice’s unflinching self-possession, Maverick’s also intimately familiar with his temper. It mellowed as the years went on—but perhaps mellowed isn’t the right word. Turned glacial, really. Like his name. Slow to start, catastrophic to end.

But not yet. The Ice of now is whip-quick, smooth and scathing. Maverick knows this, too.

“No,” he says. “We’re all sore losers in this building, aren’t we? Means we care.”

“About our own egos.”

“Peas in a pod,” Maverick agrees. He nods his head back toward the locker room. “Let them gloat. It’s not like they have much else going for them.”

“Are you trying to placate me?”

Maverick reaches into his pocket, pulls out the pack of gum, and offers it forward. “Is it working?”

Ice stares down at the package. It’s covered in white bubble letters and vibrant blue curlicues. His eyes are gunmetal gray under the incandescents, like a fighter jet, like the wings of an F-14. They flicker back to Maverick’s face, keen, shrewd. He reaches forward and accepts a piece. The inset sapphire of his class ring glitters ocean-blue.

“What flavor?” he asks.

“Peppermint.” Ice’s favorite.

“Seems pretty basic.”

“Can’t always be exciting,” says Maverick, amused. Are you calling yourself basic? he doesn’t say. “Then everything becomes mundane.”

“Wise words for a man named ‘Maverick’,” says Ice. He unwraps the foil and pops the piece of gum into his mouth. Considers him, then, as he balls the wrapper in his fist, and says, “You let Hollywood take point.”

“Would’ve done it myself,” Maverick admits. “But there’s no way Hollywood could’ve handled Viper.”

“So you did,” says Ice. “You took care of Viper.” His gaze falls away to the end of the hallway, to the glaring sunlight beyond the glass door. His birthmark is stark against his pale-golden skin, the cut shadow of his angular jaw.

Maverick can barely take his eyes off him. He doesn’t know how he used to. It’s like looking at a ghost, a phantom, drawn forth from the deepest depths of Maverick’s dreams, manifested from years and years of yearning. He’s younger—they’re both younger—but everything else is the same. It feels the same.

It takes him a second to realize Ice is looking back. His heart jumps. He offers a small smile, and is rewarded with a reciprocal flicker at the corners of Ice’s mouth, the hard edges of his expression easing.

It hurts again, suddenly: all that Maverick has lost. The people, the history. All these relationships, razed to their foundations. There’s a frightening possibility that old wounds won’t heal over the same.

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost confidence,” he says, just light enough to soften the blow.

The flicker of Ice’s mouth turns haughty. “Because of Hollywood? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Because of me,” says Maverick.

He expects a scoff, maybe an irritated dismissal. But Ice only looks at him thoughtfully. The muscles in his jaw work as he chews his gum, unhurried and deliberate; like a show, like a flourish in his act of casual indifference. It should have been obnoxious. Instead, Maverick finds it charming.

“You’ll have to try harder than that.”

Maverick relaxes. “Oh, good.”

“What’s your deal, anyway?”

“My deal?”

“Uh-huh.” Ice jerks his chin. “Following me out here. Talking to me like my feelings got hurt. I’m a big boy, Maverick. I don’t need to be appeased.”

I can’t stand to see you upset, is all. “Sure,” Maverick concedes blithely. “But you’re my only real competition. What’s the fun in winning if you’re not at your best?”

“Is that what this is to you? A game?” says Ice, cutting through the bullshit, perfectly incisive. Maverick sobers.

“No. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Ice nods, accepts his honesty for what it is. “I’m fine,” he says. And he must be: pissed off, probably, and beating himself up over whatever minor slip-up got him under radar lock, but fine. Ice has never wavered. It’s Maverick who’s always swayed back and forth with the waves, who can’t ignore his own fears.

“Good,” Maverick repeats, a bit rueful, a bit fond. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re a damn good pilot.”

Surprise blooms across Ice’s face, and—shit. Maverick’s collar prickles.

“We all are,” Ice says, after the longest pause of Maverick’s life. “It’s why we’re here.”

Consummately diplomatic, for someone who had ascended, easy as breathing, to the zenith of Navy command. Ice had not just been tolerated, but truly admired by his peers, and Maverick had watched it all from below, more black spots on his record than mold spots in a barracks ceiling.

“Sure,” he says. He thumbs the pack of gum in his pocket, musters up another cheeky grin. Then adds, thoughtlessly, “But the jury’s still out on who’s the best.”

He immediately realizes his mistake. The movement of Ice’s jaw stills; Maverick tenses. His heart throbs, swollen and bruised.

Who’s the better pilot—you, or me?

Only one man with that memory now.

But then Ice smiles back: properly, fully, a honed glint in his eye and his teeth bared. “We’ll see,” he says, in a voice whetted with challenge, and it’s so nostalgic, so fiercely known, that it settles something deep within Maverick that he didn’t realize was unsettled; clicks something missing right back into place.

He feels Ice’s eyes on him for the rest of the afternoon. He feels Goose’s eyes on him too, but Goose’s eyes are always on him, lately, so it’s easier to ignore as Viper dismisses them, as they rise from their seats. Maverick ducks his head as Charlie strides past him, careful not to catch her attention. Habit, even though she’s yet to pay him a second glance.

Goose starts shoving his binder into his bag. “Carole and I are going down to that seafood place by the beach, later,” he says. “Wanna come?”

Maverick waves him off. “Are you kidding? Enjoy your date, Goose.”

“You sure? You know you’re always welcome.”

“I’m sure. Do you need me to watch Bradley?”

Goose blinks. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah.” Maverick looks up from his own bag. “Of course I would.”

“He can come with us,” says Wolfman, bounding up from behind them, resting his elbows on each of their shoulders, radiating nothing but good cheer. “We’re going to that Mexican cantina down the street. Baby Goose can hang out with the boys.”

A funny look crosses Goose’s face. Honestly, Maverick can’t blame him. “That’s a no,” says Maverick.

“Hey! We’re respectable!”

Every line of Goose’s body emanates doubt. “If you have to say it…”

“What about you, Slider?” Hollywood asks. “Ice?”

“Nah,” says Slider, grinning smugly. “I’ve got a date.”

“I’ll pass,” Ice says too.

“Y’all are no fun.” Wolfman spins around to face Hollywood. “C’mon, let’s blow this joint.”

“Are you sure, Mav?” Goose asks again, once they’re out of the classroom, falling behind everyone else on the way out of the building. “I mean, I was already planning to bring Bradley with us, but now that I think about it, Carole and I haven’t gone out in a long time…”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Maverick. “I’ll drop by.”

Goose looks profoundly touched. Has Maverick never offered before? Probably. He’s never been too good with kids. Still isn’t. Guilt was what had driven him into Bradley’s life, and look how that ended.

Maverick won’t make the same mistake twice. This time, he’ll do better.

They run into Ice and Slider, who’ve both stopped short at the door, conversing in low voices. Ice glances up just as Maverick pushes on the crash bar.

“See you boys tomorrow,” says Goose, shooting them a two-finger salute.

Slider responds with a dismissive gesture, but Ice says, “See you” —and smiles, slight but real, and Maverick’s heart stutters to a halt before his brain has the wherewithal to process it.

He steps outside, face warm. Oh, what the hell. He’s seen that smile thousands of times; how does it still do this to him?

The door swings shut behind them. The daylight is blinding, as usual, the meager clouds from earlier dissipated into nothing. The air smells like burnt rubber. Simultaneously, they reach for their collars and slide on their sunglasses.

“So,” says Goose. “You talked to Tom, then?”

“Why do you ask?”

Goose shrugs. He follows Maverick to where the Kawasaki sits, her crimson paint job spotless and sparkling instead of scuffed and well-loved. “He seems to be in a better mood.”

“It’s been a couple hours. Who’s to say it was me?” says Maverick, feigning obliviousness, swinging a leg over the seat.

“I dunno, Mav,” says Goose. “Seems to me like you went after him. Not that it’s a bad thing. I thought you guys would get along.”

That’s news. They’d been two inches from biting each other’s faces off the first time around. Maverick remembers it fondly. “Oh, yeah?”

“Sure. You’re both crazy about flying, aren’t you?”

“That’s all?”

“What more do you need?” says Goose. “It’s not every day you come across someone with your same brand of insanity.”

Maverick digs into his pockets for his key and pulls it out, his knuckles brushing against the pack of peppermint gum. Key in, front wheel straight, kickstand up.

“You’re not wrong,” he says, and hits the ignition. The bike roars to life. “I’ll see you at your house.”

“Watch the speed limit!” Goose calls over the noise.

“What did you say?” Maverick calls back, then tears out of the parking lot before Goose can answer, smiling against the wind.

Chapter Text

Maverick jerks awake. The room is pitch dark, silent but for the hum of the ceiling fan above his head. Sweat soaks his back into the sheets below. Sluggishly, his eyes adjust to the nicks and bumps of the popcorn ceiling.

Popcorn ceiling. Right. He’s in his housing unit at Miramar, not his trailer in the Mojave. It’s 1986, and Goose is alive. Alive. No clammy skin, no blood, no frigid water surging into Maverick’s face, souring his tongue with salt and rust.

Maverick brings his hands to his face. The room is dead silent but for the ragged sound of his gasps. Dread is like slush in his gut, slow to recede back into the void.

Miramar, he thinks. 1986. 14 July.

14 July. Two weeks left—but that’s only if events play out the same.

He needs to be careful. Needs to stay focused. The trophy—respect—clout—it’s all stupid. It’s all trivial. Even Ice. Competing with him, taunting him, beating him, for what? Pride?

Maverick stands over the graves of everyone he’s ever loved. What has pride ever done for him?

He’s been falling right back into old habits, old mannerisms, old longing, grasping for Ice’s attention like an abandoned child. Maverick can’t afford this. It’s Goose that matters, not Maverick. It’s Goose living to see his son grow up that matters.

He can still taste the salt of the ocean in the back of his throat, curdling his teeth and scraping perilously close to his gag reflex. He hasn’t had that nightmare in years. Hasn’t slept well in a long time, testament to his age—but his tossing and turning had been dreamless then, at least. Now he’s twenty-four again, out like a log each night but with Goose’s dead face seared into the back of his eyelids.

He rolls onto his side and checks the time. 03:42, the clock reads, the dim red digits setting the smiles of his father and Goose and Carole aglow in the frame next to it.

He sighs, tosses his blanket aside, and pads carefully into the head, doesn’t bother with the light. Twisting on the faucet, he dips his hands into the icy water. In the mirror, the barely-there light that slips through the curtains renders his features in grotesque shadow.

He looks back down and splashes his face.

Tighten up, punch it down, persevere.

Maverick will work a miracle if it kills him.

“Whoa, man,” says Goose, when they meet up in the lobby. He points to the soft skin beneath his own eye. “Late night?”

“You could say that,” says Maverick.

Goose clucks his tongue sympathetically. “Well, don’t go falling asleep in the middle of class. Remember the way Charlie reamed Psycho the other day? It was like watching someone flay a dog. Poor bastard.” He shudders. “Don’t let that be us, Mav. I like my hide.”

“You bet.”

Goose continues his chatter as they enter the classroom and take their usual seats: about Bradley watching the baseball game with Goose on TV; about Carole wanting to try a diner out by the beach tonight, and demanding Maverick join them this time. Maverick listens and nods along and agrees to Carole’s request, and for a while lets the bright sound of Goose’s voice envelop the lingering disquiet pockmarking his heart.

He looks up only when Ice and Slider take the seats directly across the aisle. It’s become normal, now, for Ice to meet his eyes, whether it’s across the aisle or across the room, to greet them as easily as Hollywood and Wolfman do in the morning. The yawning chasm between them doesn’t feel quite as yawning as it did a month ago, and Ice’s gaze no longer so piercing.

It should bring relief. This is something he’d wanted, after all: the rekindling of their friendship, a reaffirmation of their mutual respect that Maverick’s always leaned on like a crutch. But it tenses something within him, instead; leaves him with something cold and leaden in his belly, like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Jester calls the class to order, and time immediately slows to a crawl. Thirty years from now, these tactics are near obsolete. Thirty years from now, the Tomcat will have been long since retired, her pilots long since grounded, the baton long since passed. It makes Maverick think of ADM Cain. The old codger’s out there somewhere, too, in this era—except as a young codger.

Weird to imagine. Maverick’s always suspected the good admiral crawled out of the womb with a scowl on his face and his brow carved up like the Grand Canyon.

The thought of Cain leads to Hondo. Then to Warlock, and to Cyclone, and then to the detachment, unavoidably, again, their young faces looking to Maverick for guidance when Maverick never expected to guide anyone ever again. The five lives that had been at risk that day. Had they all made it back? Had Rooster?

Maverick’s never been a pious man, but he hopes to God. Maybe he’ll finally know, in thirty years.

He spares a thought for Penny, too, and Amelia. Wonders if he’s been classified MIA, or KIA. Wonders if they’re grieving, and lets his stomach be dragged to his feet at the thought of it. They’d deserved better.

Maverick sets down his pen. It’s Charlie speaking now at the front of the room. He breathes in deep, then lets it loose, soundlessly. There’s no point in worrying, he reminds himself. No point in wallowing. Let go—isn’t that what Ice had said? But not even Ice could have predicted the plight Maverick’s found himself in.

He snaps back to the present as the class rises, the silence of the classroom giving way to murmuring voices and the squeal of metal chair legs scraping the floor. Beside him, Goose straightens a couple of papers on the desk before rising himself. Maverick follows suit.

“Better not slow us down, Mav,” says Slider, as their colleagues pass between them.

“Worry about yourself,” says Goose.

Maverick’s brow furrows. “Come again?”

“Someone’s been sleeping with his eyes open.” Slider flicks his eyes up and down, the smirk on his face not necessarily unfriendly but definitely not impressed, either. “Late night, huh?”

“We’re paired for the hop today,” Goose supplies, jerking his thumb toward the front. Maverick tracks it to the whiteboard hung on the wall. Sure enough, their names are bracketed together in lurid red marker.

Alarm slices through him. His hand lands on the desk, palm suddenly sticky with sweat.

This can’t be right. It’s too early. The first time Maverick ever flew with Ice—

Did he get the date wrong? No. It’s the one date forever scorched into Maverick’s memory, hot and painful as a brand. But everything else has been changing, hasn’t it? Nothing’s been following the rails since—

Slider’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yo, what the hell? What’s up with you?”

“Mav?” Now Goose is the one who looks alarmed, and it grabs Ice’s attention too from where he’s winding his watch next to Slider. Maverick struggles to school his face. From the expression on Goose’s, he’s not completely successful.

“Late night. Like you said. Give me a second.”

“You good to fly?” asks Ice, and oh, there it is again—that lance of a stare, like a bullet between the eyes.

“Always,” says Maverick, gritting his teeth past the cold crush of panic. In, out.

Breathe.

“I say it’s about time,” says Wolfman as he heads up the aisle toward them. “You two up in the air together? That’s a sight I’ve wanted to see since week one.”

Hollywood’s head appears over Wolfman’s shoulder. “You won’t be seeing them anyway. We’ll be out there with Cowboy and Psycho.”

“I know,” says Wolfman, aggrieved. “Wonderful. Ice, let’s switch.”

Ice doesn’t even glance his way. “Take it up with the CO.”

“Take what up with me?”

“Sir!” As one, they snap to attention. Viper waves them off. His gaze skims over all of their faces, before finally settling on Maverick.

They haven’t spoken, which is probably for the best. Maverick hasn’t found himself under Viper’s radar since the flyby—already a significantly less amount than he recalls. But who knows. It’s all blurred together. He’s had plenty of chats with Viper, whether as a student or as a fresh-faced instructor, and rarely for good reasons.

“Take what up with me?” Viper asks again.

“Nothing, sir,” says Wolfman, expression stiff as a board, clearly uneasy. He and Hollywood make room for him to pass. “Just joking around.”

“I see.” Viper takes the offer. Maverick’s probably the only one who notices the way his lips twitch. “I wouldn’t linger if I were you. Good luck, gentlemen.”

“You knew he’d hear that, didn’t you,” Wolfman accuses, once Viper’s out of earshot.

Slider snickers. Ice shrugs and rolls a challenge coin across his knuckles. It flashes with the movement, one side glazed Navy blue, the other side carved and golden. “Pays to be vigilant.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Wolfman glowers at him even as Hollywood shoves him out of the classroom.

“Nice coin,” says Goose. Ice tosses it to him, and Goose inspects it with interest. “Never figured out how you do that. Bet Bradley would find it cool.” He gives it a valiant attempt, completely unembarrassed even when he fumbles and almost drops it, and the stone in Maverick’s stomach fades unceremoniously into fondness.

“Your family’s here, then?” says Ice.

“You bet.”

“How long?”

“Till graduation, if I’m lucky.” Goose tosses the coin back, and Ice catches it without blinking. “Alright, we’ll see you guys in two. Slider, watch your head on the way out.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

They leave too, but not before Ice slants Maverick one more indecipherable look. It’s fine. In the intervening minutes, Maverick’s heart rate has settled, his cold sweat receded. He’s calm. His chest feels like it’s being squeezed inside a gigantic fist, but he’s calm.

“‘Watch your head’?”

“Yeah,” says Goose. He smirks. “You know how it is. Old buildings all around. Smaller doors. Saw him hit his head a couple days ago on a doorframe.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Cross my heart,” Goose says solemnly. He faces Maverick fully. They’re alone in the room now—typical Goose, conscientious as ever. “You don’t have to fly. You know that, right? We’re allowed to request a day of leave. They said so on the first day.”

Maverick’s mouth tastes like ash. “I’m alright. Didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.”

“If you say so. Just wanted to make sure. I can cover for you, you know?”

“I know.” But like hell is Maverick going to dodge this, and like hell is Maverick going to let Goose fly with someone else right now. “C’mon, Goose. This is normal. Since when are we not sleep-deprived?”

Goose snorts. “When we’re on shore leave.” He looks both ways. Then he says, “Ice looked worried, too.”

Maverick’s heart lurches like a fish yanked out of the water. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He might give you shit for it,” says Goose, his expression unexpectedly shrewd. Then he claps Maverick on the shoulder. “Well, when does he not give people shit? Ready when you are, Mav.”

Out on the flight line, Ice and Slider are circling their jet, half-hidden under the stark shade of her wings. Maverick lets himself notice this for only a second before he returns to his own preflight inspection. His hand grazes the fuselage, just this side of too hot from baking under the sun.

There’s comfort in routine. A month ago, it was easy as anything to settle back into the cockpit of an F-14. Today is no different. The world doesn’t give a damn about your anxieties, about what keeps you up at night, about loss that runs you through. The sun rises, the flags are raised, and the fighters are fueled and ready for flight. The day marches on, whether Maverick wants it to or not.

The Pacific Ocean glitters like diamonds scattered beneath the waves. Today, their flight path takes them away from it.

“See anything?” asks Slider. Goose gives a negative. “As long as you’re awake.”

“Shut up, Slider. We’re fine. How’s the concussion, by the way?”

“Peachy, thanks for asking.”

Maverick tunes out their banter. Ice is quiet, too.

The familiarity frays at his nerves. He still remembers the last time they were ever up in the air together, the only time they ever served on the same carrier. The clouds had whipped by in a white sea below, the datum line between sapphire ocean and powder blue sky like the stroke of a pen down the edge of a ruler. Ice’s voice had filled his radio then, warm and steady. They’d been alone out there, just two pilots and their birds.

It was a height of happiness Maverick never reached again. Ice married a few months later, and Maverick stood next to Slider and watched on with a smile and a toast and a speech as if his stupid damaged heart hadn’t crumpled to his feet again in so many years.

Ice had once called him brave (and reckless, and dangerous). But with Ice, Maverick has never been any of those things.

“Contact,” says Goose. “Bogey to the east, three miles.”

Maverick glances to the right. “I see him.”

“I see him too.” Ice. “Taking the lead.”

“You gonna let him do that?” says Goose, as Ice bears down toward the lone F-5.

“Why not?” says Maverick, and follows. It doesn’t even sting. There’s a certain freedom that comes with letting things go.

“Careful.” Slider’s voice is wry. “At this rate you’ll be handing us the trophy.”

Goose groans. “Please don’t let us hand this guy the trophy.”

There are more important things than a trophy, Maverick wants to say, but keeps his lips pressed together instead. Goose already knows.

It’s almost laughably easy. The F-5 sees them and breaks hard left, but three turns in and Ice remains on his tail like a missile. There’s always been something ruthless in the way Ice gets things done—intense, unswayable, and interminably patient. He’s the same in conversation, and it used to shake lieutenants and captains alike down to the bootlaces.

“Splash one,” says Ice. He pauses. “Sir.”

A swear crosses the frequency. The F-5 pulls out.

“Tally, Maverick, eight o’clock!” shouts Slider, as Ice sweeps around. “Found his partner! Break right!”

Maverick listens without hesitation. His stomach swoops with the abruptness of the turn. “I see him,” Goose announces. “He’s right on our tail. Let’s lose him!”

“Fight’s on,” says Maverick, like the grass is green, the sky is blue, and Maverick is a naval aviator, born to sail the clouds. He rolls—turns—reverse-turns—a veritable circus act in the air, the familiar pull of Gs like a hook dug into his insides, the hot surge of adrenaline that rides alongside it an old, dear friend.

Goose’s continuous exclamations behind him confirm the position of their pursuer. “He’s almost got us!”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad?”

“Brace yourself, Goose,” says Maverick, swinging their nose around to face the sun. Don’t knock a trick if it works, he thinks, then shoves the throttle.

They blast upward, gravity pinning them to their seats like pianos dumped on their chests. Maverick squints through the white-hot glare of the canopy, the padded edges of his helmet dampening with perspiration.

Behind him, Goose wheezes. “Uh, Mav? I can’t see for shit.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

“Who said I was worrying?”

He can hear Goose’s grin in his voice, and it inadvertently pulls the muscles of his own cheeks. But it’s not over yet. “Ice,” he says into the radio. “What’s your position?”

“Bearing zero-six-zero at two-five miles, flight level one-five-thousand. I see you, Mav. On course to intercept.”

“Oh,” says Goose.

“Keep on him,” says Maverick.

“Roger.”

“He’s breaking off,” Slider crows, moments later. “Too little, too late. Splash that sucker!”

“FOX-2,” says Ice, his voice mild as autumn. “I’ve got tone.”

And that’s that. Maverick exhales, long, shaky, and deep. It’s an anvil lifted from his shoulders. Today isn’t the day, after all. It’ll never be, if Maverick has any say in the matter. The real date still looms over the horizon, red Sharpie pressed brutal and bleeding into the glossy cardstock of the calendar hanging next to his bed—but today, Maverick can breathe.

He rolls in toward Ice from up high. They level out together as they RTB, close enough for Maverick to catch the blue thunderbolts striking through the silver of Ice and Slider’s helmets.

“Can’t say I expected that from you.”

Maverick blinks the sweat from his eyes. “Really? What were you expecting?”

“Oh, you know. That we’d get at least one of them for ourselves.”

“Are you angry?”

“C’mon, Mav,” says Goose. “You know me. As long as you’re okay with it, I’m cool too.”

Maverick’s gaze flicks back over to the glint of Ice’s helmet just ahead. “I’m okay with it.”

Goose makes a noise of acknowledgment. “Then I’m cool, too.”

Back on the tarmac, they find Hollywood and Wolfman climbing down from their own jet, helmets off and hair windblown, clearly having just finished their own hop. “So?” Wolfman calls from across the way, jumping the last step with a grunt. “Down early, aren’t ya? Blown out of the sky?”

“Hell no,” Goose calls back. “We got ‘em both.”

“What? That fast?”

“Seriously?” Hollywood smacks his forehead. “Jesus, someone just fucking take back my wings.”

“You don’t mean that,” says Wolfman, slapping him between the shoulder blades. He looks back to Maverick and Goose. “We totally didn’t get blown out of the sky, by the way, in case you were gonna ask. Also, it was Viper on our ass again. I swear that man has it out for us.”

“Could’ve used you, Mav,” says Hollywood.

Maverick waves them off with amusement, but stops short the moment he catches sight of Ice standing by the door next to the closed hangar bay. The parapet wall of the flat roof offers absolutely no shade; he waits there, plain as day, still geared up, helmet dangling by his fingers and hair dark and flat with sweat. His eyes are hidden behind his aviators but are unmistakably pointed in their direction.

Goose bumps Maverick in the spine with his second knuckles. The cotton shirt beneath his flight suit sticks to where it presses against his back.

“I think he’s waiting for you.”

Maverick unglues his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I figured that, thanks.”

He can feel every muscle in his legs as they make their approach, his body stoked from the inside, steaming, suffocating. It’s strange. He’s loved Ice forever but the flare of attraction had faded years ago, gone from painful and all-consuming to a red-orange glow of coals. Warm, quiet, undying. He can’t even recall the last time he blushed—yet here he is, a hair's breadth away from it.

“Hey,” he says, very eloquently.

“Hey,” says Ice. His lips quirk. “Nice flying out there.”

“Naturally.” Maverick returns the smile. His fingers curl around the edge of his own helmet, hot and damp. “You, too.”

“Naturally,” Ice echoes.

Silence settles between them, awkward, off-beat in a way that Maverick forgot was possible. Over Maverick’s shoulder, Goose clears his throat and sidles around them. He fumbles for the handle of the heavy steel door. “Well,” he drawls, “I’m sweaty and uncomfortable and in desperate need of a shower, so I’m just gonna…”

“Right,” says Ice, stepping out of the way. “Go ahead.”

Goose pushes down on the handle, then pauses. He turns back around. “Wait—before I forget. You free tonight, Iceman?”

Maverick’s gaze snaps back to Goose. The question marks in it appear to slide right off Goose’s guileless veneer; he doesn’t even glance back, just continues to look at Ice expectantly.

Ice looks just as surprised as Maverick feels. “Maybe. Why?”

Goose shrugs. “Mav, Carole, and I are going to that diner out by the beach tonight. Ruby’s, or something? You’re welcome to come. Maybe you could show Bradley that coin trick of yours.”

“Yeah?” Ice’s eyebrows stay raised.

“Oh, yeah,” says Goose. He finally looks at Maverick, a twinkle in his eye, and Maverick—Maverick’s gut swoops instantly, blood shocked cold in his veins. “Don’t be shy. Besides, Carole wants to meet you. Can’t imagine why.”

“Sure,” says Ice. “Why not.”

“Great,” says Goose cheerfully. “1800 hours. We’ll see you there.” He shuts the door behind him.

Maverick stares at it, wide-eyed, his entire body plummeted from feverish to frozen in an instant.

Goose knows. Goose knows. He must. It’s the only explanation. He—Maverick’s been too obvious. Gotten complacent, in a whole nother way. Here, Maverick knows Ice, but Goose knows him. He’d forgotten. Gotten too used to—

Fuck. Fuck.

“Why would his wife want to meet me?” Ice sounds bewildered.

Because she knows, too. “Kazansky charm, maybe,” says Maverick numbly.

Ice tilts him an odd look. “You saying that Goose talks to his wife about me?”

“Forget it.” Maverick rubs his face with his free hand. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. New sweat prickles his hairline. His knees feel like jelly. He needs to talk to Goose. He needs to— “Was there something you needed from me?”

The trace of confusion in Ice’s features recedes into his usual scrutiny. “You don’t look well.”

“I don’t feel well,” Maverick mutters. “Save it,” he says, before Ice can rag on him about flying in his condition, or whatever other overbearing thing that’s come to mind. “I was fine earlier. I’m fine now. Just… just let me sit down.”

Ice presses his lips together, clearly displeased. It overlaps with a thousand other moments of Ice doing the exact same thing—except older, his hair peppered with silver, glasses perched on his nose. Fuck, but Maverick misses him. Ice is standing right in front of him but Maverick misses him—suddenly, desperately, viscerally, bleeding glass shards within his ribcage.

Voices behind him: Hollywood and Wolfman, bickering as they’re wont to do, done loitering and now heading in their direction. Cowboy and Psycho ought to have taxied in by now, too.

Ice pulls the door open himself. “Maybe you should stop by the clinic.”

“I’m not sick,” snaps Maverick.

He regrets it immediately. Ice withdraws, face shuttering. “Fine,” he says, calm and cool again. He swings the door wider. “After you.”

Maverick steps through. His knees hold, thank God, and his body doesn’t even shake. But Ice doesn’t follow; he keeps the door propped open, instead. His gaze tracks Hollywood and Wolfman, even though they’re still at least thirty seconds out.

Maverick swallows. None of this is Ice’s fault. When will he learn? “Ice.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Ice faces him then, his expression smooth as stone. “Don’t be. I overstepped.”

“No,” says Maverick, recognizing, now, Ice’s clumsily concealed concern. His hackles lower the rest of the way. Grief flushes him hot again, sinks talons into his tender undersides. “You didn’t. Thanks, for… thanks. See you later?”

“Sure,” Ice replies quietly. Maverick nods. He lingers, but Ice returns his attention to the blanched-white tarmac, to the laughter drifting closer and closer. A breeze rustles his royal blue collar, sifts through his blond-tipped hair. Maverick turns away.

He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Goose. The locker room is as rowdy as usual, and the afternoon session that follows is long-winded and involved. But Goose doesn’t act any differently. He still digs his elbow into Maverick’s arm when Maverick spirals too deep into his own racing thoughts, still mumbles some wry commentary whenever Charlie makes a remark that sends the rest of the class tittering.

He runs out of the classroom as soon as they’re dismissed, citing that he has to go notify Carole, and Maverick watches his back disappear out the door, tension coiled tight as a wire between his neck and shoulders.

Goose never knew. He’d died long before Maverick understood exactly what it meant for his pulse to thunder, for his heart to ache, for his head to go dizzy and light in Ice’s embrace. Maybe Carole had. She’d met Ice, too, in that previous lifetime. She’d met all of them, actually: Slider, Hollywood, Wolfman, Sundown. But she’d liked Ice the best—the man who never failed to stop by that quaint two-bed, two-bath house in Suffolk even years later, the man who never failed to have a souvenir for Bradley on hand. If she knew how Maverick felt about him, she never said a word.

It’s not 2020 anymore. Times have changed. Time has rolled back, and Maverick doesn’t know where Goose stands. But he can’t possibly mind it, whispers the voice in his head. Not if this is how he’s treating it. And Goose is kind. He’s the kindest person Maverick knows.

“Maverick!” Maverick jerks out of his reverie to find Wolfman peering at him, his elbows on the backrest of a chair in the row ahead. “You really oughta come out with us. I haven’t even seen you at the O Club. Even Charlie comes out to the O Club.”

“‘Even’, Lieutenant?” says Charlie from where she still stands at the front, organizing a sheaf of evaluations.

“Aw, you know what I mean.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” says Hollywood. He drags Wolfman back like one would an errant puppy. “You know how he is. Foot’s always in his mouth.”

“Hm.” Charlie looks up with a smile. Her eyes are that bright, crystal blue, and her lips that same rich red that had devastated Maverick once before. “Then you’d better not choke on it.”

Hollywood and Slider roar with laughter. Ice cracks a smile. Wolfman’s spine remains ramrod straight, but Maverick sees the tips of his ears light up pink. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, shooting a glare at his guffawing friends. Then he spins back around. “Well, Mav? Whaddya say?”

“No dice, Wolf,” says Maverick. He even feels a little sorry. “Rain check. I actually do have plans today.”

“Not today, then,” says Wolfman. “Friday.”

“Alright. Friday.”

“Nice,” says Wolfman, and reaches out with a fist. It takes a moment for it to click; when it does, Maverick bumps him knuckle-to-knuckle.

Ice is already on his way out. Slider catches up with him in two long strides; Maverick trails after them, twenty steps behind, and watches them talk between themselves. Slider slings an arm around Ice’s shoulders, like it’s nothing. It is, for Slider. The two of them remained friends for the rest of Ice’s life.

In another time, another dream, Maverick would’ve interrupted them, would’ve squeezed himself in and laughed off Slider’s annoyance. He wouldn’t even have needed to; Ice would have waited for him. He used to always wait for Maverick, and for a long time it had helped curb the pain of Goose’s loss.

Now, Maverick walks out alone, starts his bike alone, and pulls out of the parking lot alone. He goes home and changes out of his khakis, shoves on jeans and his usual white tee. You boys lose all sense of fashion the moment you sign up, he remembers Carole saying, a long, long time ago. It’s like looking at a time capsule.

That’s what happens when they make you wear the same thing every day, Goose had replied, and kissed her hair.

He finds them sitting in the corner booth of the diner, heads bowed together, hands intertwined, and whispering furiously. The sun sits low in the sky in the window behind them, an hour or two to the left of twilight. Bradley’s next to Goose, a crayon fisted in both hands as he concentrates on the coloring page set before him.

“Hey, Mav!” says Goose, waving him over. “You’re early.”

“Not too early, if you’re already here,” says Maverick. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hi, Uncle Mav.” Bradley kicks his feet and looks up from the table. Some of his crayons have rolled up against Goose’s glass of water. There’s one on the floor next to him; Maverick reaches down and sets it back on the table. He ruffles Bradley’s hair, and Bradley grins up at him. “Thanks!”

Carole immediately leans into him when Maverick scoots into the booth next to her. He lets her. She smells like sunshine and the ocean breeze; he wonders if she took Bradley down to the beach, today.

“So,” says Goose.

“So.” The tension in Maverick’s chest coils tighter. He falters. A waitress stops by and sets down another glass of water.

“Boys,” says Carole, exasperated. She pats the back of Maverick’s hand. “How was your day?”

Maverick focuses on the weight of her touch. “All right.”

“Good.” Carole pats him one more time. “Have you been eating well? Sleeping well? You look a little tired.”

“I’ve felt worse,” says Maverick, and, well, at least he’s being honest. His gaze flicks back to Goose, who’s fiddling with one of Bradley’s crayons, peeling the orange-colored wrapper off the wax. “Hey, Goose. About… ”

Goose raises his head. He doesn’t look upset; just intent, patient. But Maverick can’t continue. He’s never told a single soul. This… this single secret, the lockbox around it—he’s never opened it. Ever. His tongue stays heavy and unmoving behind his teeth.

Miracle of all miracles, Goose seems to understand. “I figured it was something like that,” he says finally. “Was I right?”

Maverick inhales. He looks down at the table. Then he nods, once.

Carole squeezes his hand. Goose puts down the crayon and says, “Okay. Cool.”

Bradley snatches the crayon back. Maverick breathes out.

Of course. Of course. This is Goose.

Goose reaches for his glass of water for need of something else to fiddle with. “Terrible taste, though,” he remarks, apropos of nothing. Carole slings him a sharply disapproving look. “Uh. I mean, you do you, man! But as your best friend, I totally reserve the right to give you shit about it.”

Maverick’s never received the privilege. His lips twitch. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Goose repeats, before he grins widely, shit-eating and mischievous. He leans in closer till he’s pressed up against the table. “By the way, you totally owe me twenty dollars.”

“What?” Maverick blinks. Then it comes back to him. “Who says? It’s been weeks.”

“It’s all semantics.”

“I haven’t even done anything.”

“Not yet,” says Goose, and Maverick stills. “We’ll see.”

There’s nothing to see, Maverick thinks. There’ll never be anything to see.

“Oh, is that him?” says Carole suddenly, shooting up in her seat, nearly colliding with Maverick’s chin.

Sure enough, Ice stands at the door. He cuts a tall, eye-catching figure in his civvies, all broad shoulders and thin waist and perfect posture. He catches sight of them quickly.

As he approaches, Carole elbows Maverick in the side. “Great taste,” she whispers, and then sticks her hand out over the table as Goose squawks and Maverick almost chokes on his water. “You must be the purported Iceman,” she says, chin raised, and if Ice is startled by her forwardness, he doesn’t show it.

“Tom,” he says, and accepts the handshake. “You’re Carole?”

“The one and only,” says Carole. “Nice to meet you! And this is Bradley. Come out, sweetie.”

Bradley’s making a valiant attempt to hide behind Goose’s arm, but there’s no such thing as hiding behind Goose’s arm. He peeks an eye out. “Hi,” he says shyly.

Ice kneels down to Bradley’s eye level. “Hi,” he says too, and smiles. Maverick’s stomach does a fucking somersault. “I’m Tom. But my friends call me Ice.”

“Ice? Like an ice cube?”

A huff of air escapes Goose’s nose. Ice ignores him. “Yeah, like an ice cube.”

“Why do they call you an ice cube?”

“I don’t know,” says Ice dryly. Now he looks up at Goose and Maverick. “Why do you call me an ice cube?”

“Because you’re ice cold, no mistakes,” says Goose, his voice thick with barely suppressed laughter.

“What your dad said,” says Ice, before he straightens up and takes the last empty seat next to Maverick. Bradley regards him with fascination; Maverick can relate. Ice is sitting just close enough for Maverick to catch the clean, unobtrusive fragrance of his cologne.

“I’m surprised you came,” he says.

“Are you.” Ice reaches for one of the laminated menus.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not glad.”

Ice glances at him sidelong. Then he smiles again, and looks back to the menu.

The evening passes with more ease than Maverick expected it to. The food is good, and Goose and Carole are raucous as ever, so full of adoration for each other that it makes his teeth ache. Ice doesn’t seem to mind. He entertains Bradley with his coin trick just like Goose asked of him, and within the hour Bradley’s crawled over to Ice’s side of the booth, watching intensely as the quarter rolls back and forth, back and forth across Ice’s deft fingers.

It leads to Ice attempting to teach him. There’s no way a four-year-old could master that kind of dexterity, and they all know it—but Ice doesn’t seem to mind that, either.

Emotion brims in Maverick’s throat, staggering.

“Hey,” he says, catching their attention, Ice and Bradley both. “Scoot over for a second. I’ll be right back,” he adds, once they’ve let him out. He heads for the door without looking back.

The night air slaps him in the face like splash of cool water. The diner is so close to the beach that he can hear the roar of the surf above the growl of car engines, can taste the salt that clings to the wind. The sun’s just set and the horizon’s still alight with it, the slowly dimming golds and pinks framed by looming bluffs falling off into the abyssal black of the ocean.

The parking lot’s shoved up right against the sand, merged with the narrow strip of parking that hugs the stretch of coastline. There’s still one or two cars parked there, one or two figures frolicking in the waves. Everyone else has gone home.

The Hard Deck doesn’t exist yet, Maverick thinks. If it does, it’s currently something else.

Maybe he ought to check. Maybe he oughta take a ride all the way down I-5, or even stop by Coronado. See what’s still there, and what isn’t. Maybe after TOPGUN. Maybe after he fixes what he fucked up thirty years ago.

The door opens behind him.

“Daydreaming, Mitchell?”

Maverick closes his eyes. Exhales. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s call it that.”

Ice steps up beside him, illuminated by the ocher light of the vestibule. Maverick looks him up and down, then turns back to the waves. “How’s the lesson going?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

“I dunno,” says Maverick, tucking his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Bradley’s pretty clever for a four-year-old.”

“Bradshaw’s got his hands full,” Ice agrees, but not unkindly.

Maverick feels his mouth tug. “You got kids at home?”

“A nephew. ‘Bout Bradley’s age.”

That’s right. Ice has a sister. Maverick met her only once—at Ice’s wedding. His smile falls, too fragile to begin with. He shifts his weight to the opposite leg.

“Did you ask Carole why she wanted to meet you?”

A beat. “No,” says Ice. He follows Maverick’s gaze to the beach, to the rapidly darkening sky. The rest of his words are slow to come. When they do, they’re quiet.

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

The waves surge over the sand. Seafoam leaves white, bubbling ribbons in its wake, splitting between glistening tangles of kelp. The seagulls are still out, of all things. They circle overhead, searching for unsuspecting bystanders or dropped crumbs in the dunes. That’s one thing Maverick didn’t miss, out in the middle of the desert. Seagulls are assholes.

“Yeah?” he says. “How do you figure?”

This time, Ice doesn’t respond. He pulls out his challenge coin instead, plays with it between his palms. It’s bigger than a quarter—bigger than a dollar—and much heavier. Once upon a time, Maverick thought Ice just liked to show off. All the things he did with his hands—pretentious tricks for a pretentious facade.

Turns out, even Ice needs an outlet for restlessness.

“Did Goose send you outside?” asks Maverick, when Ice continues to make no indication of replying.

“He says he’s got the check.”

Another non-answer. Maverick sees Ice turn toward him in his peripheral vision. His gaze prickles the hairs of Maverick’s neck, and Maverick’s fingers curl into fists in his pockets. He turns, too, to meet Ice head-on.

“Guess I owe him,” he says.

Ice searches his face. It feels different than before; less calculating. More inquisitive.

Maverick’s not sure what happened. Not sure when—when Ice started looking at him like this. Like Maverick’s something curious, like Maverick’s something fascinating. Like he’s someone Ice thinks about when Maverick’s not around. Like—

—like seeing the bruises under Maverick’s eyes, the shake in Maverick’s hands, and stopping at the door to wait for him. Like seeing Maverick leave for fresh air, wordless and troubled, and following him out to make sure he’s okay.

The thing is, Maverick’s seen this look before. He’s seen it tens, hundreds, thousands of times, fleeting as the sea breeze. Thirty years worth of it, flashing like a rotoscope behind his retinas.

The realization rises slow and heavy, viscous like syrup.

It can’t be. It can’t be. Maverick’s overthinking it, wishing it into being. Ice has never looked at him differently. Ice dated and married ten years after TOPGUN, and Maverick still remembers meeting Sarah for the first time, how lovely she’d been. The hand she’d tucked into Ice’s elbow, the way it fit. The way Ice had smiled at her, like she lit up his whole world.

And later on, his kids—they’d been the suns to his stars.

Ten years. Maverick’s overthinking it. He has to be. Ice doesn’t just let things stand. Ice always tells it straight, no meandering, no bullshit. Ice goes after things, just like Maverick does, straightforward to the core. Ice would have said something.

Ice would have said something.

But Maverick’s never said anything, either.

The door opens again, and Maverick startles. He and Ice turn in tandem.

“Uncle Mav!” Bradley shouts.

“Slow down!” Maverick hears Goose call from inside, but he may as well have whispered it for all the good it does. Bradley bullrushes headfirst into Maverick’s stomach, knocking the breath clean out of his lungs.

“Whoa, there. What was that for?”

“Daddy said I could play on the beach,” says Bradley, his arms around Maverick’s waist like a monkey. He tilts his chin up so he can breathe, his hair in wild disarray. “Let’s go!”

“Ask first, Bradley,” says Carole, laughing as she emerges from the diner. “Nicely.”

Bradley pouts. “Uncle Mav, can you please play with me?”

There’s a balloon rising in Maverick’s ribcage, clogging his esophagus. His chest rises, falls. He swallows it down. “Sure, kiddo. Lead the way.”

“Yes!” Bradley pulls back, only to grab his hand. He yanks forward. “This way!”

“Careful!” Goose exclaims, poking his head out the door.

“It’s alright,” says Maverick. He allows himself one more glance over his shoulder, just before Bradley drags him off.

Ice is watching him. He’s always watching him, now. His face is gentle.

Chapter Text

Bradley falls asleep against Maverick’s shoulder, his slow, soft breaths tickling the side of Maverick’s neck. Maverick carries him back over the sand, the amber streetlight outside the diner the only source of light beyond the sliver of moon that hangs in the sky. Goose and Carole await in the parking lot, their fingers laced together.

Ice left a half hour before. Maverick is glad for it.

It’s—it’s like his whole world’s shifted five degrees on its axis, so slight but utterly astounding. Maverick’s knocked flatter than a fucking pancake. It puts everything into question. Everything. Every word Ice ever spoke to him, every look Ice ever gave him, every action Ice ever took to protect him. To—

To keep him happy.

How could he have been so blind? How could he have missed—?

Doubt pounds at him. Hope swallows him. Grief is like the tide beneath his feet, swelling and ebbing with each whirling thought, surging and breaking back down to foam. Maverick is lost in the eddies. This can’t be real. He can’t be right. He…

He’ll never know. Ice is dead. Ice took his answers to the grave.

Besides, he moved on, clearly. Met someone else, found happiness elsewhere. It makes sense. It’s pragmatic. Ice has always been pragmatic. Maverick can’t fault him for it. He would’ve done the same; tried to do the same, even. But sometimes things didn’t work out, and sometimes Maverick’s reputation preceded him, and sometimes Maverick needed to be in the sky far more than he needed to be on the ground, far more than anyone else could have understood.

Ice had been the closest. Then Penny. Figures the universe would throw him for a loop right after.

Goose takes Bradley off Maverick’s hands. Bradley snuffles and shifts to get comfortable, but otherwise doesn’t wake. Carole reaches over to brush his straw-blond hair off his forehead, her features tender with love.

“Look at him,” she murmurs. “Not a worry in the world.”

“I dunno about that,” says Goose, rocking Bradley in his arms. “Remember the dinosaur toy he broke yesterday? You’d’ve thought the sky fell down.”

Carole giggles. While Goose carries Bradley to the car, she steps back to smile at Maverick, her skirt rippling in the breeze. His heart clenches, dropping like a landside off the side of a cliff.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Don’t be coy,” she says, taking his arm between her hands, smoothing his leather sleeve with her thumbs. “I know what I saw.”

“And what did you see?”

She tilts her head. Her eyes are very blue under the moonlight. “Maverick,” she says gently. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Maverick’s gaze drifts to the sand scattered across the asphalt. For all of Carole’s boisterousness, she’d always been just as perceptive, unfailingly kind. A force to behold, truly, hand-in-hand with Goose; they’d plucked him straight out of flight school and made him their own, a ragtag kid in his early twenties who’d forgotten what it meant to have a family. Even now, he marvels at their compassion.

“What do you want to know?”

Carole brightens. She sidles closer. “I’ve never seen you look at someone like that.”

Maverick’s ears grow warm. Jesus. It’s harder than he thought to hear it out loud. “Really.”

“Really,” she says. “But I suppose I’ve rarely met any of your partners, have I?”

“He’s a friend,” Maverick corrects. He works to relax his stiffening shoulders. “That’s all, Carole.”

“For now.”

“For always,” says Maverick.

A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows. Maverick still can’t fully face her, swerving to watch Goose instead as Goose wrangles with the car seat in the back of the Chevy. Bradley snoozes peacefully against the upholstery, his head tilted at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Only Carole’s soft oh—the barely-there tightening of her grip on his arm—brings his attention back to her, to her sad regard.

“If it helps, it seems mutual,” she says.

It definitely doesn’t help. It—it crushes him, again, strikes him right where it hurts most. His breath draws up quick, overstrung.

So many years. So many goddamn years, lost, wasted, looking past each other instead of at each other. All those nights when they’d meet at the O Club, at a bar, shoulder-to-shoulder and ceaselessly gibing, all those times he’d sway into the glitter of Ice’s eyes and the fullness of his mouth, the angle of his jaw, the graceful line of his throat—so tempting that Maverick could fucking combust with it, could blaze and blister and burn right the fuck up in the middle of the floor, to hell with it all—all those those fucking times, only to shake it off. Talk himself out of it. Wrench himself away, and hasten off with someone else.

…and hasten off with someone else. No wonder Ice never said anything.

But who cares? What does it matter, if Ice, if he ever—

Maverick missed his chance. He missed it a month ago, when a dark lacquered coffin sank into the earth with Maverick’s heart pinned at its foot. He missed it twenty years ago, amidst flower petals and flutes of champagne and a ring that shimmered like sunlight.

Distantly, he feels a slender pair of arms wrap around his ribs. His own come up automatically, enveloping Carole’s shoulders. Her hair brushes his chin.

“You’re shaking,” she whispers.

“It’s cold,” he says, even though he’s wearing a jacket. Even though Carole’s shoulders are bare. He wipes the dampness from his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Oh, Maverick.” She doesn’t look up, allowing him what little privacy he has. She squeezes him tighter. “I think you should go for it.”

“No.”

Carole makes a distraught noise. “Why not? Chase your happiness, like you always do. You know we won’t say anything. We’re on your side.”

“I know.”

“Are you afraid he’ll say no?”

“Isn’t everyone afraid of that?” says Maverick. He pulls away, and she reluctantly lets him go, her arms slipping to her sides, her fingers flexing against her skirt. “You know why. It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I hate to see you so unhappy. We both do.”

“I’m not unhappy,” says Maverick, but it sounds feeble even to his own ears. “Well,” he amends. “It’s nothing that won’t go away.”

“You don’t have to sit and endure it,” says Carole. She reaches forward again and tugs on his sleeve, insistent. “We can help you. We can find out for you, if you want. I’ll tell Goosey to be discreet.”

“No,” says Maverick, aghast. “Don’t you dare. It’s fine.”

“There has to be something we can do for you.”

“You’ve already done more than enough.” Maverick removes her hand from his sleeve and grips it. They’re almost of a height, but hers is so much smaller. “Trust me, Carole. You don’t need to mind me.”

“I’ll always mind you, silly,” says Carole. “You know how they say youth is wasted on the young? It’s certainly never been wasted on you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Good,” says Carole. Her voice softens. “You’re one of a kind. I’m sure your Iceman sees that, too.”

Maverick smiles. His Iceman is long gone, a spark of the past, so much stardust. But this Iceman—this Iceman’s still got his whole life ahead of him, a life with a large, beautiful house, a beautiful wife, and beautiful kids, their faces bright and joyous. A family he starts, a family that he’ll adore with all his being. Maverick made peace with that years ago. He’d never, ever take that away from him.

He’s missed his chance. And maybe he hasn’t made peace with that part just yet, but he will, one day. Just like he has with everything else. Just like always.

They head back over to Goose, who’s waiting for them with a hand on the open car door, his whole demeanor just one big, concerned frown. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” says Maverick. “Doing alright. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Counting on it.” Goose looks to Carole, who only shakes her head. “Okay. See you.”

Before she climbs into the passenger seat, Carole reaches over and squeezes Maverick’s arm one last time. “I like him, Maverick,” she admits, her eyes big, honest, and limpid. “I hope you change your mind.”

Of course she does. She’s always liked him.

Maverick watches the baby-blue Chevy recede into the distance, tail lights neon red, tail pipe puffing smoke. Only when it disappears around the bend does he turn back to the waves.

—

It’s weird again. Or maybe it’s always been weird, and Goose just stopped noticing after the third week. But as the month draws to a close, as graduation looms closer and closer, the unsettled jittering in Goose’s gut becomes full-on trepidation.

Maverick’s retreated. There’s no other way to describe it, the faraway look in his eyes and the uneasiness in his silence, the way his posture stoops when he thinks no one is looking. He brushes off Goose’s inquiries and goes out for drinks with their classmates, but instead of gallivanting around and stirring up a general ruckus, he sits at the bar and keeps to himself.

The Maverick Goose knows demands attention. The Maverick Goose knows saunters into every room brimming with confidence, that crooked half-smile on his face like he’s God’s gift to mankind and he’s gonna prove it, father’s reputation be damned. This Maverick walks in and sits quietly in the back. This Maverick lets himself fade into the background, no better than a ghost. This Maverick relinquishes the lead again to Iceman, and laughs it off when Wolfman gives him shit for it.

Goose still sees flashes of it, sometimes. Old memories, old expectations. But only up in the sky, where Maverick’s hands remain as sure as ever, where Maverick’s decisions are quicker than a snakebite and staunch with certainty. And Goose… well. Goose has never felt safer in the cockpit. He supposes it could be worse.

Speaking of Iceman. If Maverick notices that Iceman’s got a new penchant for locking on the back of his head, he doesn’t acknowledge it. After that evening, they don’t speak nearly as much as Goose expects them to.

Un-fuckin’-believable, really. Somehow, they’ve managed to come full circle.

But Maverick said no. Carole said Maverick said no. Goose gets it, even if he doesn’t like it. He honestly can’t imagine Tom would react poorly; he was always the reasonable type, after all, rock-steady and unfazed. But Maverick said no, and it’s not Goose’s decision to make.

Of course, there’s two sides to that equation.

“Mother Goose,” Iceman says one day, as they’re collectively rising for their lunch break. “Got a moment?”

Goose exchanges looks with Maverick, who appears equally startled. “Sure,” he says. “How can I help you?”

Iceman’s expression is perfectly unreadable. “Alone.”

Maverick considers him, but Iceman gives nothing away. “Meet you outside,” he says to Goose, before he follows everyone else out of the classroom.

“Way to make a guy feel special,” says Goose, leaning against the side of the table. “What’s up?”

Iceman glances at the door. Ensuring that nobody is lingering, no doubt. Oh boy, thinks Goose.

“About Maverick,” he starts, but that’s as far as he gets. He hesitates. Somewhere in the distance, a jet engine roars to life.

Goose waits for it to pass. When silence falls and nothing else is forthcoming, he says, “What about him?”

“Is he alright?”

Hm. “Why not ask the man himself? He was just here.”

Iceman is slow to respond again. The pen in his hand clicks against that horridly expensive class ring that Goose couldn’t afford, teetering back and forth along his middle finger. “I did. He deflected.”

“Hm,” says Goose.

“I figured you know him better,” says Iceman, his confidence building. “What’s going on with him?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” says Goose. He sighs. “And even if I knew, you’re still asking the wrong person.”

“Not gonna make this easy for me, are you?”

“Not a chance,” says Goose. “But keep trying. If there’s one person he’ll listen to, it’s probably you.”

“Why?” says Iceman, his face going still, carefully flat. The pen stops clicking. “His bravado seems to hold up with me the most.”

Talk about attention to detail. “I dunno. You ever wonder about that?”

"Say what you mean, Bradshaw.”

“Look,” says Goose. “If you’re worried about him, just tell it to him straight. Carole and I probably hound him too much, and he probably doesn’t want to worry us. He’s like that. Besides,” he adds. “It’s pretty clear he thinks highly of you.”

Something flickers across that still lake of Iceman’s face. Goose doesn’t know him well enough to guess what it means; only that it happens, and that after a moment, Iceman relents.

Maverick’s leaning against the wall in the corridor, searing holes into the Teamwork inspirational poster tacked to the wall across from him. As Goose emerges, he looks past him into the classroom, but only briefly, like he’s only sparing the quickest of sips. Then he cocks a questioning eyebrow Goose’s way. “What was that all about?”

“You know what,” says Goose, as they fall into step with one another. “I’m not too sure myself.”

Maverick’s brow furrows. Goose swears there’s a wrinkle or two that wasn’t there before, stamped in by the air of obvious stress that clings to Maverick like a shroud.

Something’s gotta give. Whether that’s Maverick, or Iceman, or Goose shoving them into the nearest broom closet together and locking the door, only time will tell.

“Goose,” says Maverick suddenly.

His voice is stark, wrought, unlike anything Goose’s heard from him before. It yanks over Goose’s undivided attention like a wicked sharp hook.

“Yeah?”

“About this afternoon…”

They stop. Seems like Iceman isn’t the only one having speech problems today. Maverick’s jaw clenches. A muscle twitches in his cheek. He seems to be searching for the right words, which only happens when he’s about to be excruciatingly honest. The anxious knot below Goose’s sternum tugs itself tighter.

At last, Maverick sighs. “Never mind.”

“Hey, now,” says Goose, now near vibrating with apprehension. “You can’t just start like that and say ‘never mind’. What’s going on, Mav?”

“It’s nothing,” says Maverick. “I’m serious,” he adds, when Goose gives him his most dubious look. “Forget I said anything.”

“Is this something that’ll bite me in the ass if you don’t tell me now?”

“You? No.”

“And you?” Goose presses. “C’mon. I’m here, I’m willing to listen. What’s going on this afternoon?”

“The usual, remember?” says Maverick, and since when did he become so goddamn good at hiding things? “Afternoon hop.’”

“Right,” says Goose slowly. “With Iceman and Slider.”

Maverick nods. His lips curl, and despite all the weird things going on with him lately, the disquiet, the tiredness, the smile reaches his eyes, inscribes crow’s feet at their corners where Goose knows they’ll be permanent in a couple years. “Don’t worry, Goose,” he says, practically his mantra nowadays, and does Maverick realize the more he says it, the less Goose believes it? He extends his hand forward, palm up. “I’ve got this handled.”

Goose worries, and worries, and worries. “You always do,” he says instead, and meets his high-five in the middle.

He was right to worry.

Not about the hop, no—honestly, nothing goes wrong, even though every inch of Maverick’s body language seems to expect it. He barely acknowledges anyone on the way to their assigned jet, not Hollywood, not Wolfman, not even Iceman. Just silently conducts their preflight walkaround once, twice, three times, circling around and around until Goose has to call his name, shake him out of it.

The expression on Maverick’s face as he climbs into the cockpit stays with Goose for a long time afterward: intense, focused, and grim. All dark, slanted eyebrows and sea-glass eyes. Goose has never seen Maverick look so deathly serious in the four years he’s known him. It’s a little unnerving.

But nothing goes wrong. They fly in formation over the gleaming, vast Pacific, a sea of clouds parting before their noses. Iceman leads the way. Slider pokes and jabs as he always does over the radio, and Goose does the same. The bogeys spear through the sky and Iceman and Maverick coordinate in tandem to deal with them just like before, no breath wasted. Maverick’s voice reveals nothing. If Goose didn’t know better, it’d feel like any other day.

And it is, at first. Nothing goes wrong. But then they land, rough and jostling on the landing strip, and then they taxi back onto the flight line, and then they shut everything down, and then Goose opens the canopy and Maverick doesn’t stand up.

“Mav?”

Over the steep rise of the center console and the yellow handle of the canopy jettison, Goose can just barely make out the red, white, and blue of Maverick’s helmet. He doesn’t react. He seems frozen.

Goose clambers out of the cockpit. The pit of dread in his stomach fissures into stabbing panic. “Maverick,” he calls again, stepping onto the ground only to go right back up the pilot’s ladder. His hands shake in the rungs. The fuselage is ice cold.

As he peeks over the edge, Maverick jolts. His head turns. He’s white, his skin gleaming with sweat. “Oh,” he says blankly, like he’s just realized he left the oven light on. He fumbles with his myriad of straps and buckles. “Right.”

Goose descends again. Maverick swings himself over onto the ladder and follows suit. Goose watches on, and he’s glad he does, because the moment Maverick’s feet touch the ground—the very instant his rubber sole hits the pavement—his knees start to tremble, his body begins to sway, and the rest of him just continues—sliding down, like fucking—progressive collapse—and before Goose can react, before Goose can even take a single step, Maverick crumbles to the concrete with a loud, painful-sounding thud.

“Fuck,” Goose exclaims, diving to his side. “Jesus Christ, Mav, what the hell is going on?”

Maverick hasn’t even removed his helmet. He claws at it now, clumsy and uncoordinated, and when the strap finally clicks open, he rips it off his head and lets it clatter to the ground.

“Goose,” he rasps.

“Yeah, that’s me,” says Goose, fighting to keep his voice level. Fear skitters up and down his spine, piercing his lungs like needles. He lays a hand flat on Maverick’s back, and nearly recoils at the feel of Maverick’s heart thundering like a drumroll beneath his fingertips. “You’re alright, right? Are you alright?”

Maverick’s fingers twist into Goose’s vest. He doesn’t acknowledge the question. His breathing comes hard and fast. Goose can hear it even over the wind, over the shouts carried over from a couple hundred feet away.

“Goose,” he says again.

“I’m here, Mav,” Goose replies helplessly.

Footsteps, loud and hurried. Not a heartbeat later Iceman falls to a knee beside them, windblown and disheveled. Slider leans over his shoulder, eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” says Goose. “I don’t know what happened.”

“I’ll get Jester,” says Slider, before he runs off.

“Slider!” Goose hears in the distance. Hollywood. “Is that Maverick? Is he okay?”

“Sorry,” Maverick manages. His chin dips and his grips tightens, pinching the skin beneath Goose’s harness and flight suit. Goose flinches. “Shit. Sorry, I just need a second.”

“A second?” Goose says incredulously. “I think you need more than a second.”

“It’ll pass,” Maverick insists, but he doesn’t let go, and his breathing doesn’t ease, instead growing more and more erratic the longer he huddles there, curled in and closed off.

“Mitchell,” says Iceman, at once steady and even. How the fuck does he do that? Maverick’s gaze instantly darts up to him, to Goose, then back, his pupils dilated, visible even under the shadow of the Tomcat’s wing. A drop of sweat slips down his temple. But Iceman stays calm, and doesn’t look away.

“Breathe,” he says. “In and out. Slowly. With me.”

Maverick’s eyes focus. He does. Pins all of his attention on Iceman, the fluid movement of Iceman’s hand, the glint of that ostentatious ring as it follows the unhurried, deep rhythm of his diaphragm. Seconds pass, what feels like minutes, hours. The death grip Maverick has on Goose’s harness gradually loosens.

“That’s it,” says Iceman. Low and gentle. “Easy.”

“Shit,” breathes Maverick, more exhalation than coherent word. His shoulders slump—no, his entire body slumps, like all the tension’s gone out of him, like he’s been hanging by a rope and someone’s finally cut him down.

Nevertheless, he sets his hands down on the concrete and tries to rise. Goose shoots Iceman an uneasy look, but Iceman’s attention doesn’t stray from Maverick. They both hover silently as Maverick struggles to his feet—then jerk forward simultaneously the instant Maverick stumbles.

Bracing his weight between them, they lower him carefully back to the ground. “Stay down,” says Iceman. The brusqueness in his voice churns like butter in Goose’s gut, magnifying his own distress tenfold. “We’ll wait here.”

“It’s just a bit of dizziness,” says Maverick, stubborn idiot that he is. His head lolls, like it’s fighting a battle against gravity.

Gravity wins, of course. When his forehead thunks on Iceman’s shoulder, no one comments on it. Goose, however, gets a front row seat to the way Iceman goes stock-still—then the way he relaxes, little by little. The way his expression goes mellow.

Sirens whir in the distance. Maverick flies back up, his face as white as the clouds overhead. “Goose,” he says, his voice high with dismay. “Still there?”

“Yeah, Mav,” says Goose. He swallows the lump in his throat. Reaches out again, and grips Maverick’s shoulder.

“I’m here.”

—

He thought it’d be fine, to be completely honest.

Maverick trusts his skills. Has always trusted his skills, even in those harrowing, fraught days after Goose’s death, even when hesitation superseded his instincts and had him pulling back instead of diving forward. His hands know what to do. His head knows what to do. He knows every instrument, every button, every lever, knows exactly where to reach and when to reach for it, knows every step for every maneuver up there in the sky while at the mercy of Mother Nature. Three decades of experience. It’s ingrained in him.

What he lacked, back then, was judgment. And perhaps he’s sorely lacking in it even now; the proof is there, after all, in—or was there, anyway, in an electronic personnel file now lost to time. Over thirty years of his service record, erased, just like that. Unless, of course—Maverick thinks with some amusement—it was all just a dream.

Just his usual disclaimer on life, now. But Maverick knows it wasn’t a dream, just like how he knows the life he lives now is as real as the bruises on his knees.

The room he’s in for observation has four beds, but the other three are empty. The ugly beige curtains are spread open and the ebbing daylight pours in, reflecting off the shiny LVT flooring. Maverick loosens the watch around his wrist, runs over the leftover indentations in his skin with his fingertips. His hands hurt, his fingers hurt, and his knees will probably never forgive him, but Goose is alive.

Goose is alive. It’s the afternoon of 29 July, 1986, and Goose is alive.

No competition. No sticking his head up his own ass. Maverick had flown as calmly and steadily and patiently and expertly as he’s always done, and just like that, absolutely nothing had happened. No jetwash, no spin, no halting one-two step of the canopy blasting upwards instead of backwards. No sickening crack.

Goose is alive.

Goose is also sitting in the creaky plastic visitor’s chair at his bedside, staring at him. He’s changed out of his flight gear, testament to the hours that have passed, to the fact that Viper and Jester had corralled everyone back into the classroom to finish the session regardless of the fact that Maverick had scared the wits out of everyone. The fact that he’s still in his khakis, though, means he’s yet to return home.

“How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, actually,” says Maverick. Besides the bruising and the lingering embarrassment. He doesn’t recall much; just Goose’s face, gray and clammy with fright, halfway swallowed by his tunneling vision. The unbearable weight of his gear. The heat of the concrete beneath his palms. And Ice, too, close and warm; the calmness of his voice through the static, an anchor point.

“That’s good,” says Goose.

“Yeah.” Maverick’s cheeks twitch upward. Goose just continues to stare at him, his hair a bird’s nest atop his head. Or maybe a goose’s nest. Almost like he’d been running his fingers through it compulsively.

Oh, God. Goose is alive. What now? What happens now?

Goose’s face changes instantly. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” says Maverick quickly. “Just… sorry for worrying you.”

“You’re worse than Bradley,” Goose replies frankly. “I don’t know how you manage it.”

(“You,” says Ice, pinching the bridge of his nose, “are going to give me a heart attack before the age of fifty.”

“Aw, Ice. You love me for it.”

“It’s a goddamn miracle,” says Ice, and Maverick had thought nothing of it.)

Familiar pain blisters through him. Perhaps it’ll always scorch him, now.

“It’s a talent,” he says, sighing, leaning back against the upraised bed. “Though Carole might have something to say about that.”

“You bet your ass she does. Or will. Once I get around to calling her.”

“Goose…”

“She’s gonna be furious,” Goose continues, huffy and puffy like he’s been waiting for hours to let loose. He probably has. “You practically fainted on me. What happened out there? What did the corpsman say? Are you not taking care of yourself? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Simple exhaustion, was what the corpsman said. Sleep deprivation. Stress. Go home tonight, get some rest, take some Motrin if your knees hurt. RTD in the morning.

“I knew I could do it,” says Maverick. He follows the speckled patterns of the drop ceiling with his eyes. His next smile is wider than the first. “I knew it.”

“Do what?” Goose sounds both confused and wary. “Why are you smiling like that?”

Maverick turns his head against the standard-issue pillow to face him. The case is rough and scratchy on his cheek, but weirdly comforting at the same time. Same old shitty military quality.

“Nothing,” he says.

Goose is alive. But for how long? The thought strikes him like a thunderclap; his smile falls. The future is uncertain. The future will always be uncertain. Goose is alive today, but what about tomorrow? Who’s to say nothing will go wrong on the next sortie? Or the next, or the next? Or even just on the road one night, driving home?

This is where Maverick’s foresight ends. He knew this, but now it’s reality. Unease blooms again, a flash fire in the pan. He shoves it down.

For now, Goose has another hour, another day. For now, Maverick’s averted his biggest mistake. For now, focus on that.

“‘Nothing’,” grumbles Goose. “It’s always nothing.” He squints at Maverick. “Does it have anything to do with this morning?”

“This morning?”

Goose visibly hesitates. Then he soldiers on. “Yeah,” he says. He wrings his hands. “It was almost like… I dunno. Like you were expecting something to happen today. Something like that.”

Maverick takes a deep breath. Suddenly, he can’t stand the thought of lying down, of staying still, of Goose eying him like that. With a burst of effort, he straightens up from the bed—and for a brief, dark, utterly tempting moment, he imagines telling Goose everything.

You died, Goose.

It’s over. Goose is alive.

Why not?

Why not, except that Maverick has no proof, no justifications, no nothing. Only the memories of a previous life, quickly fading, a future of vague knowledge and indistinct impressions that Maverick’s bound to also forget, now, just like all other points in the past. So fucking fallible, the human memory. So selective in what it chooses to cling to. Birthdays. First meetings, heartbreak. Death dates.

What would it be like, he wonders, to be told one day that you were supposed to die? To be told how? To be told how much time, exactly, you have left?

Maverick looks at Goose, who’s fine now, whose thread Maverick has finally managed to extend, spooling on and on into the unknown. Goose is blissfully unaware, full of love, full of happiness; still so optimistic about life, about the world. Still so young, just like Carole.

Why on earth should Maverick burden him?

When the time comes, Maverick will take care of it.

“Maybe,” he admits. “It’s going to sound stupid.”

“That’s nothing new from any of us.”

“Really stupid.”

“Try me.”

“Alright,” says Maverick. “I’ve been having nightmares.”

It’s not a lie, technically. Goose sits back in the creaky little chair. It groans under his weight, proving its namesake. “Oh,” he says. “Oh,” he says again, softer. Understanding. “Are they that bad?”

Maverick’s gaze falls to his lap. He thinks of thirty years of coping. Thirty years of a ice-cold chains wrapped around his heart and head alike every time he looked Bradley—older, broader, angrier—in the eye. Let go, Ice had told him—but Maverick hadn’t known how. Still doesn’t.

“Yeah,” he says, and pretends his voice doesn’t crack.

Goose does, too. “Well,” he says. “It’s not stupid, that’s for sure. If it makes you feel any better, I had one too the other night. Except mine was definitely stupid.”

“You think?” says Maverick.

Goose tips his chin, looking a bit bashful. “Definitely. It was something about Bradley. But—uh, a giant version of him. Like… Empire State Building-sized. He was chasing me. I think I ate his last cupcake. He kept telling me he wanted to fly a plane, but you know. He was the size of the Empire State Building, so I had to keep telling him no. Then he started crying. Mav,” he finishes gravely, “I don’t even like cupcakes.”

Maverick chokes out a laugh. “I don’t know, Goose. Seems fairly reasonable to me.”

“You weren’t the one being chased around by a giant crying child,” says Goose. “Maybe it was because of all the toy planes lying around the house.” He shifts, and his chair squeaks again ominously, but he doesn’t appear to notice. He seems lost in thought. “Should I buy him some stuffed animals, instead?”

“And have giant teddy bears chasing after you?”

“When you put it that way…”

“Don’t think too hard on it,” says Maverick. “Bradley idolizes you. He’ll be a pilot.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

Goose scratches his cheek, clearly pleased. “I guess we’ll see. But yeah, Mav. My point is: don’t feel bad.”

Maverick can't help but smile. How had he ever lived without Goose? It’s only been a month and he can hardly bear the thought of his old life, devoid of a snarky voice beside him and a partner-in-crime ready to prop him up through thick and thin. “What about you?” he asks, the words rising suddenly in his throat, unbidden. “Have you ever thought about it? The future?”

Goose blinks. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

“What do you see?” asks Maverick. “What do you want? Where will you be?”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down. What is this, a job interview?” Goose scratches his cheek harder. “Okay, so I haven’t thought about it that deeply. I’ll probably stay in, to be honest. Try to make O-6—or just make it to twenty years and get that sweet, sweet retirement pension.”

“Not adventurous in the slightest, huh?”

Goose snorts. “Not everyone can be like you, Mav.”

“You’d be surprised,” says Maverick. “So no Admiral Bradshaw?”

“You must be joking,” says Goose. “That’s an Iceman thing, not a Goose thing. Do you have any idea how many briefings admirals have to attend? All you do every day is sign memos, listen to people, sleep, listen to people, eat, listen to people. I’d die of boredom.”

“Some people would consider that fortunate.”

Goose harrumphs. “It’s starting to sound like you want to be an admiral.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“You sure? Just think” —Goose flourishes a hand before him, like he’s revealing something wondrous— “all the things you can do with an O-10 salary.” He pauses. “…Probably not fly, though. I bet that’d instigate a debate over national security.”

“Nah,” says Maverick. “I think I’m good.”

Goose sets his hand down. “Alright, that tracks. So what do you want, then?”

Maverick looks directly ahead. There’s nothing but an empty bed pushed up against the scuffed drywall, but it’s easier to look at than Goose. “You know what,” he says. “I haven’t really thought about it, either.”

“Well,” says Goose, after another pause. “It’s not like we have to decide now. Still got plenty of tours to go. But I do hope we keep getting shipped off together.”

Maverick’s heart skitters. “You want that?”

“What?” Goose looks at him strangely. “Of course. Did you fall on your head, too?”

Maverick sags. “Would explain a lot, actually.” When Goose’s strange look persists, he squirms, and adds, “Don’t you have a wife to call?”

Goose checks his watch. “Oh, fuck. You,” he says, and points. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back after I find a phone.”

“Where would I go? I left my bike at the building.”

Goose lets out a long, beleaguered sigh. “Remember the time you got the flu?”

“No,” says Maverick honestly.

“Yeah,” says Goose, “‘cause you blacked out the moment you tried to walk home from medical. You had a 104 degree fever. 104 degrees. I’m not letting you go anywhere alone.” He stands up from his seat with an exaggerated stretch; his back cracks uncomfortably loudly. Then he stops. His features take on another suspicious squint. “Mav…”

“Hm?”

“You’ve got that look again.”

Maverick bets he does. For once, everything feels properly aligned. The world is glowing in the sunlight, straight lines hazy and dreamlike. The joy in his heart is a candle lit in the darkness, popping, crackling, threatening to burst.

“Too bad,” he says. “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

Maverick dozes. The corpsman wasn’t wrong; he’s fucking exhausted. It’s like he’s in his fifties again, world-weary and etched in granite, every muscle stiff and protesting. Even now, his subconscious refuses to release him entirely; Goose vanishes out the door, and the minutes tick past, and once again the doubt invades the empty space he leaves behind.

Maybe Maverick will never be free of it, this underlying current of fear. Something new to spice up the perpetual longing, he supposes.

A brisk knock on the door yanks him back to awareness. “Took you long enough,” Maverick calls. “What, did you get lost on your way back?”

The door swings open, but it’s not Goose who appears. “Charming,” says Ice. “But it’s not like I come here often.”

Maverick shoots straight up. “Ice. What’re you doing here?”

“To give you a ride,” says Ice. He’s in his khakis just like Goose was, all smooth fabric and ironed edges, hair combed, not a strand out of place. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I ran into Goose in the lobby. He said his wife needed him for something.”

Oh, that bastard. “No need,” says Maverick, swinging his legs over the bed. “I can get back myself.”

“You and what vehicle?” Ice remarks, amused. “Housing is across the base, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Maverick rises to his feet. “I’m not incapacitated,” he grumbles, just in time for vertigo to strike him over the head. The room somersaults. He staggers, knees bowing like jelly, and braces himself against the bed.

“Could’ve fooled me,” says Ice.

Maverick waves off Ice’s outstretched hand. White and black spots dot his vision. He grits his teeth, presses his fist to his forehead, and wills them away. “I stood up too quickly. It’s fine. Don’t bother.”

“Maverick.” Exasperation filters into Ice’s tone, now. “Just take the assist. I’m offering it.”

Goddammit. It’s not that he doesn’t want Ice’s help. It’s never… Maverick’s spent a good two-thirds of his life needing Ice’s help, leaning on him, relying on him. It’s status quo at this point. It’s just…

He was so oblivious. Absolutely, utterly gormless. Blinded by his own feelings, by the uncertainty they caused, the self-pity and loneliness. If at any point—if, miraculously, Ice had truly reciprocated, and Maverick wasn’t just hallucinating things, overthinking it all—if Ice had truly reciprocated and in all his moping and wallowing Maverick had just simply, stupidly, witlessly missed it—

It’s galling. Completely fucking embarrassing. Maverick’s never felt so mortified in his life.

Not that this Ice would know it. He does a cursory sweep of Maverick’s little corner of the room; then, finding nothing in the manner of personal effects, directs his attention back to Maverick. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”

“Who asked you?” says Maverick, but nevertheless trudges out of the room after him.

He sees no hide nor hair of Goose on the way out of the clinic, not even by the row of payphones situated in the waiting room. Of course he doesn’t. Goose knows what’s good for him.

“Over here,” says Ice, leading them across the parking lot to a sleek black Oldsmobile—and wow, Maverick thought he was done with blasts from the past. Ice slides in and reaches over to unlock the passenger door for him. It’s such an easy thing, so mundane, but Maverick is abruptly, keenly aware of his pulse in his ears.

He’s not nervous. He can’t be. It’s Ice. He’s known Ice for…

He steels himself. Climbs in.

The drive is mostly quiet. Ice doesn’t say much, and Maverick doesn’t have anything to fill the silence, either. It was easier before, back when he could view Ice as something unattainable. Just another dear friend lost and impossibly regained, bickering and flying and blowing everyone else out of the water, doing what he’s always done best.

Maverick had just wanted to keep Ice close. He hadn’t been able to stand the thought of Ice disliking him, of going through that whole cycle again after so many years of beloved camaraderie. But now…

Hindsight is 20/20. This Ice doesn’t truly know him. Will never truly know him, not anymore. Maverick can’t fathom telling him the truth. Goose, at least, has known Maverick for a couple of years at this point, can read him and take his words at face value. But Ice—this Ice—has only known Maverick for a couple of weeks at best.

Wishful thinking. All he’d wanted was some semblance of familiarity, of comfort, anything to stem that gaping hole of loss. Now they’re on opposite ends of a tightrope, and the air is filled with smoke. It’s only a matter of time.

Ice turns them into the housing block, filled with low one-story buildings and immaculate rows of palm trees. “What unit?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Across the street from the captains, huh,” says Ice. They pull up to the correct address. “Tough luck.”

“Haven’t seen any of them in the wild yet.” Maverick reaches for the door handle, near desperate for it. All he needs is to get out. Go home. Put some distance in between them, just for one more day.

“Wait,” says Ice.

Maverick stops. He closes his eyes. “Yeah?”

Ice exhales, his gaze fixed straight ahead. Despite the careful evenness of his expression, the evenness of his voice, it’s that, specifically—the subtle shakiness of it, the slowness of it—that clues Maverick in: Ice is nervous, too.

“I was thinking,” Ice begins, then halts. Maverick’s heart throbs. A beat later, he starts again. “Tell me if I’m wrong. If I’m overstepping again.”

“Ice—”

Ice pushes through. “I’ve seen you looking.”

Oh, no.

Ice faces him. Even in the twilight, he’s pale gold and breathtaking. His eyes reflect the sky, its waning navy blue.

Maverick has always loved his eyes. Has always loved their ever-changing shade: pale as mist, gray as the arctic sea, sharp as a honed edge but just as easily gentled and patient. Has always loved the lines at their edges, which bring so much warmth to his smile.

He’d lied to Goose earlier. He’s thought about what he wants. He thinks about it every single day.

Ice’s eyes crinkle. “You’re doing it again.”

“Ice,” Maverick whispers. His pulse is deafening now. He can barely hear his own thoughts over the roar of blood.

He’s wanted this for so long. Dreamed about this for almost as long as he can remember, what it might be like for Ice not to just drink with him, to fly with him, but to also take him home, to embrace him, to kiss him, to laugh and murmur with him into the night, sharing heat, sharing breath, sharing love. He’s wanted this for so long, and maybe he’d have gotten it if he’d only just—sucked in his courage, gathered his wits, taken his own advice, stopped thinking. If he’d only been brave enough to take that single step forward.

To take the same one Ice is taking now.

But—

Why now? Why now? Why not back then, when—when Maverick could have said yes?

Here, Maverick is displaced. Here, Maverick isn’t twenty-four anymore—hasn’t been twenty-four in over thirty years.

Ice doesn’t know that. Ice can't know that. And he doesn’t know, either, that in nine years’ time he’ll fall in love regardless; that in ten he’ll marry, that in thirteen he’ll cradle his daughter in his arms for the very first time. That in seventeen years, he’ll have a son, too.

He doesn’t know that, and maybe he never has to. For a single, glistening moment, Maverick dreams of endless possibilities, of a brilliant happiness he never thought he’d have within his reach. Of an open door he’s only ever dared look through in the deepest, quietest hour of night.

But then the world comes back into focus: the sun-warmed seat, the rumble of the engine, the redolent smell of a new car. And Ice, waiting for him.

He’s missed his chance.

“You’re mistaken,” he says.

Ice recoils. It’s remarkable how quickly his face goes blank, wiped clean, all traces of affection withdrawn behind steel doors in a blink of an eye.

This is the right thing to do. It is. But it doesn’t prevent Maverick’s breathing from going shallow, nor the anguish that spears his lungs. The pain is brutal, unforgiving, and fully deserved.

“I see,” says Ice, calm. Implacable as always. But Maverick can see his hands clench, white-knuckled around the steering wheel. “In that case…”

“It’s fine,” says Maverick, rushing to reassure him. “Really. It was… an honest mistake.”

Ice’s jaw goes tight. “Right. Listen—”

“I know.” Maverick finds the door handle for the second time. His fingers quiver when they curl around it. This time, Ice doesn’t stop him from stepping out. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t—you have to trust me.” His chest begins to heave. His vision blurs. “Thanks for the ride.”

Ice looks at him for a long, long moment, inscrutable. It feels like forever. “No problem,” he says, before he finally averts his gaze. “Get some rest, Mav.”

“Thanks,” Maverick says.

Ice nods. He doesn’t look at Maverick again. He drives off without another word.

Maverick heads up the front stoop, fumbles his key into the lock. Pushes open the door, and slams it shut behind him. The world continues to spin, so he drops himself down on his ratty old couch, and it damn near collapses under his weight. He turns on the television. A disorienting mishmash of colors and muddled sounds rattle around in his brain.

It’s for the best, he reminds himself.

It’s for the best, he reminds himself again, two hours later when he’s crawling into bed, alone and shivering.

It is. It has to be.

Chapter Text

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Viper rounds his desk and takes a seat. The half-closed blinds behind him glow a dim orange. Sunlight slits through the cracks, falling in uneven bars over the mess of paperwork heaped on the mahogany surface.

It’s unexpectedly nostalgic. There’d been many a time back in his LCDR and CDR days in which Maverick would spend all morning cleaning off his desk, dumping out months-old memos and outdated briefings and signed copies of various forms, only to have to deal with an even larger, even more haphazard mess by the end of the week. He’d never quite figured out how Ice kept his office so tidy; he probably threw everything out as he received them, though Ice never once admitted to it.

Viper moves some papers aside. “Graduation’s in three days,” he says. “I’m conducting individual performance appraisals. It’s a good opportunity to exchange feedback.”

“Sir.” Maverick’s never undergone this. Then again, he’s never been present for the last few days of the program.

“Let’s begin.” Viper plucks a green manila folder off the top of the corner stack. He opens it to a pile of populated forms and redlined assessments, the handwriting in each box cramped and nearly illegible. “You’ve done well, Maverick. Good instincts, good strategy. Seems like you get along swimmingly with your cadre. Great teamwork. Their performance improves when you’re on the field.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Maverick.

“You’ve got a knack for leadership,” says Viper. “Keep it up and it’ll take you far.”

Well. This is surreal.

The pages are bound together by flexible gold clips. The sheets crackle in the silence as Viper flips through them; Maverick recognizes Charlie’s angular, looped script. “As for your technical knowledge,” he continues, “it’s exceptional. A bit unorthodox at times, but Ms. Blackwood has made herself very clear.” Then he closes the file, leans back in his chair, and says, “Your performance here contradicts the record we have on you. Your CO was emphatic despite his recommendation. What changed?”

Maverick holds himself stiff. “Nothing, sir. Grew up a bit.”

“As do we all,” says Viper. “What would you say you’ve learned here, Lieutenant?”

“All that you’ve said,” says Maverick. “Tactics. Teamwork. Leadership. Sir,” he adds.

“And what do you think of the Top Gun trophy?”

Maverick falters. Viper regards him evenly from across the way, elbows on the armrests of his chair and hands interlaced in his lap.

“It’s a goal to strive for,” says Maverick.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir,” says Maverick. His jaw works.

Viper stands, turns around to face the window behind him. His straight-backed figure overlaps with a dozen other commanding officers in Maverick’s memory, pacing, scowling, tense with frustration as Maverick stood for the umpteenth time before their desks. But Viper is relaxed, shoulders down.

“Tell me. When you’re up in the air, what matters to you most?”

“My team,” says Maverick, without hesitation. “Coming home.”

“And the mission?” Viper presses.

“My team,” says Maverick again. “Coming home.”

Viper makes a noise of acknowledgment. “I’ve been here a long time, Maverick. I’ve seen a lot of young hotshots come and go. You come here with big heads and inflated egos thinking all the world of yourselves, convinced of your invincibility. You come here to learn, and you come here to win.”

He turns back around. “You lack that. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Maverick stares straight ahead. His folded hands tighten their grip behind his back.

“I’m sure you know you haven’t won the trophy,” says Viper. “Though you could have, with the skills and instincts we’ve seen you display.”

“Life isn’t all about winning, sir.”

“You’re not wrong,” says Viper. “And in our environment, cooperation is far more valuable than ego. But you need to help yourself, too. Reach for opportunities as they come.” He regards Maverick neutrally. “Stay too selfless and you’ll be a doormat before you know it.”

Maverick maintains eye contact. “Sir.”

Viper sits back down with a creak of the leather chair. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well,” says Viper. “Take care of yourself, Lieutenant. No one owes you that but you. Dismissed.”

Maverick steps out of his office. He releases a breath, and takes a second to gather himself, standing there in the windowless hallway. Viper’s never failed to make him feel hapless and young. Funny, that. Technically, Maverick’s the older one now, and yet…

He raises his head to the click of heels down the hall.

“Morning, Lieutenant,” says Charlie, sharp and splendid in her bespoke suit, as always. A black leather binder is tucked snugly in the crook of her elbow.

Jesus. She’s still a sight to see. Two months of it hasn’t made it any easier for him. “Morning, ma’am.”

Her head tilts. “Well, don’t you look down. That bad?”

“Not at all. Nothing but compliments, in fact.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “...Yes, clearly.”

“I heard about your job offer.” Because of course she got that again, no matter how much of a potential mess Maverick’s made of everything else. “The Pentagon, right? Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” says Charlie graciously. “It was time to move on.”

“Good luck.” Maverick offers her a small smile, which she returns. “But you probably won’t need it.”

“You too, Lieutenant. With your capabilities, I fully expect to see your name in the newsletters one day.”

“See, more compliments. You’re making me blush. What am I supposed to do with myself?”

Charlie chuckles, and knocks on Viper’s door. “See you later, Maverick.”

“See you.”

Maybe he will, this time around.

Graduation day dawns like any other, sunny and warm, palm trees rustling in the light, cool breeze. Maverick stands on Goose’s front porch, the collar of his dress whites starched and constricting around his throat, the lip of his cap shading his eyes from the glaring, clear sky. His nerves spark and crackle under his skin.

Ever since that day, each new morning has been an exercise in crippling, merciless panic, in self restraint, lying there soaked in cold sweat and paralyzed by fading memories that slice through the softest parts of him. It feels like it did at the very start, like Maverick will wake up at any moment, like all it’ll take to shatter this fantasy is the briefest blink of an eye. Each new morning, he can’t find peace until he sees Goose bounding up the parking lot, cheerful and smarmy as ever.

Now, it’s the last day. The baby-blue Chevy’s parked in the drive, Bradley’s car seat still strapped in the back. He can hear footsteps and bustling behind the front door: Goose’s half-asleep grumbling, Carole’s muffled laughter. Every clue points to Maverick being silly. Being paranoid. But today is the last day. Today feels more like a dream than every day before it.

After another minute, the doorknob clicks and turns. “Hey, Mav,” says Goose, yawning. He steps outside and puts on his cap. Behind him, Carole beats the last bit of lint off the back of his uniform. “Oof. Thanks, honey. That’ll set my back straight.”

There’s a very loud, very excited shout from the depths of the house. “Uncle Maaaaav!”

Carole whirls around and grabs Bradley before he can steamroll past her. “Careful! Uncle Mav is all dressed up—you wouldn’t want to make a mess!”

“Oh.” Bradley clutches the skirt of Carole’s sunflower-yellow sundress. His voice hushes, as if his shouting was the problem. “Sorry.”

Maverick leans down to ruffle his hair. “No worries, B. I’ll pick you up later, okay?”

“Okay,” says Bradley shyly, before he sprints past them for the car, clutching his toy F-14.

Maverick looks back to find Carole grinning at him. “Look at you,” she says, reaching out to straighten Maverick’s collar. “Not too shabby, you big stud.”

Goose scoots in. “Honey? We’re wearing the same thing.”

“Oh, I know you are.” Carole stretches up to her tiptoes and kisses Goose’s cheek. Goose beams like he just got straight-up injected with sunshine.

A needle digs itself into Maverick’s chest. He’s glad for them, so fiercely glad. The gratitude he feels can barely be measured in words—for once, he’s actually fixed something. For once, he’s actually perpetuated something good. He wouldn’t trade it for anything.

But.

The venue is the same one that Maverick remembers, set up just outside the base gymnasium, chairs and podium laid out before the pool. A sea of dress whites reflect like snow in the sunlight. Cameras are already flashing. Carole and Bradley split off to join the group of other families, and Goose waves enthusiastically at them, as if he’s worried they’ve already lost sight of him in the ten seconds it took to pick their seats. Maverick faces forward; his eyes catch instantly on Ice.

He’s shaking hands with the instructors, shadowed by Slider, his posture straight and tall, the lines of his uniform impeccably crisp. The smile on his face is even and professional, a weapon he’ll soon hone to perfect sharpness. Maverick lingers for only a second. Then, without a word, he moves on.

When the ceremony begins, speakers take to the podium. It’s the same spiel over and over, unchanged across decades: excellence, leadership, Navy tradition. The sun beats down on the lot of them, merciless and unforgiving. At last, Viper gives the closing remarks; Jester hands him the Top Gun trophy, with its glossy lacquer and golden mounted miniature F-14, and Ice and Slider are called to the stand. Handshakes are exchanged, thanks are given, and photos are snapped.

“Somehow, I’m not surprised,” Goose grumbles, though good-naturedly, as he and Maverick clap alongside everyone else.

Maverick shrugs. “What can you do.”

“Should we go up?” asks Goose, nodding toward the front. Hollywood and Wolfman have already bounded ahead, practically climbing over each other in their haste to congratulate the two winners. Slider laughs and cinches an arm around Ice’s neck. Ice, too, is smiling, toothy and wide, his face scrunched with rare, honest joy.

Maverick’s next breath shakes out of him. “Sure.”

Upon noticing them, Slider’s arm slips off Ice’s shoulders. Ice’s smile dims, forms itself back into the polite, guarded tilt of his mouth that Maverick saw him give to Viper.

Maverick meets his eyes. “Congratulations,” he says, extending his hand.

“Thank you,” Ice replies coolly, professionally. He accepts the shake without hesitation. His palm is so warm. Maverick lets go.

“You too,” he says to Slider. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Mav.”

“Man,” says Goose. “We were so close.”

“One more week, and who knows,” says Ice, ever the diplomat.

“No use dwelling on it.” Goose shakes Ice’s hand, too. “Congrats, y’all. I hope we at least gave you some challenge.”

“Not even in the slightest,” says Slider with a grin, at the same time Ice says, “No doubt about it.”

“So, Mr. Iceman, have you thought about it?” asks Wolfman, sticking his head between them, an elbow hooked around Hollywood’s neck. “The Top Gun and his RIO gets to stay here as instructors, right? Think you might take up the billet?”

Maverick fiddles with the cap under his arm. Ice’s answer is smooth and succinct. “Too soon to tell. We’ll see.”

Slider snorts. “Are you kidding?” he says. “Dealing with people like us, day in, day out? With our ranks? It’d be like herding kindergarteners. I might go crazy.” He slaps Ice between the shoulders. “This guy would definitely go crazy.”

“It’ll build character,” says Hollywood sagely. “Think about it.”

“Promotion’s just around the corner,” Wolfman agrees, with equal gravitas.

Chipper’s voice rings across the crowd. “Ice! Slider! Yo! Congratulations!”

Maverick watches them get pulled away with the tide. Chipper and Sundown burst into view, followed soon after by Cowboy and Psycho, Flex and Boom. If there was ever a popularity contest, Ice would win it, hands down.

Goose follows him to the nearest buffet table. “So what’s the deal, huh?” he says, swiping a hors d'oeuvre off one of the silver platters laid out in droves.

“What do you mean?”

Goose inspects the layers of cracker, cream cheese, and pink fish carefully. “What do you think this is?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for Maverick to respond; just stuffs it into his mouth. “Salmon,” he mutters, muffled, then jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “You know. With you and—”

“Nothing, Goose,” says Maverick.

“I know,” says Goose. “But I thought you guys were getting along.”

“We do.”

“Hm.” Goose plucks up another salmon-topped cracker. He seems pretty taken with it. “So what now?”

Isn’t that the question.

Maverick searches the sea of people, all of them milling about, chatting, laughing, mingling, their shoes and pins shined to perfection. The pool behind them glimmers turquoise blue. He prays, silently, that he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

But he does.

Viper and Jester stand in the back under the checkered shadow of a white trellis, a distance away from the hubbub. Their heads are bowed together, deep in conversation. There’s a clipboard in Viper’s hand, thick with clipped paperwork. The tension that’s been chasing Maverick all morning draws taut.

“Look over there,” he says.

Goose complies, cheeks round with more crackers. “What’s there? Oh. What’re they doing?”

“Orders,” says Maverick.

The hope that this wouldn’t happen again had been marginal at best. A slurry of nausea and anxiousness churns in his stomach.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if he’s saved Goose. It doesn’t matter if he’s changed the trajectories of the Bradshaws’ futures, or affected, if briefly, the lives of his friends, acquaintances, associates. In the end, Maverick is only one person in a world of billions; in the end, his influence is the ripple of a single raindrop in an unimaginably vast ocean.

Viper strides out into the center of the crowd. “Gentlemen,” he calls.

Goose swallows. “Well,” he says. “This doesn’t bode well.”

Viper waits until he has everyone’s attention. Conversation dies out quickly in the face of his grave expression. “Much as I hate to break this up, there’s work to be done. Some of us have to depart immediately. We have a crisis situation.”

He hands the clipboard to Jester, who rattles off the names, unclips the papers.

Iceman, Slider.

Hollywood, Wolfman.

And finally—

Maverick, Goose.

The cold dread in Maverick’s gut solidifies to ice. When he doesn’t move, Goose accepts the sheet in his stead, scanning the damning black text with a frown.

Maybe this is it, Maverick thinks. If it was just him again—he’d manage. Three kills. It wasn’t—it wasn’t just a miracle, or an extraordinary stroke of luck. Maverick can prove it. He can do it again. Survive again.

But now the parameters are different. It’ll be Goose in the back, not Merlin. And what about Hollywood? Wolfman? They’d been shot down last time, recovered unharmed. Was that not luck, too?

What about Ice?

Goose hands him the orders. Maverick takes it between numb hands.

He’s kidding himself. The world doesn’t run on fate, or absolutes. Chance is paramount. Who you’re born to, what country you’re born in, the people you meet, the network you build. The decisions other people make around you. Every choice is a road with a thousand divergences; every decision is a gamble of outcomes, a roll of the dice. Even in do-overs, there are no guarantees.

Goose sighs. “I guess that answers that. I should go tell Carole.”

“When’s she due back again?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“Sorry, Goose.”

“Why are you apologizing?” says Goose. “It’s not your fault. ‘Scuse me.”

Maverick folds the sheet of paper in half. Then in fourths. Viper is speaking again to Jester, eyebrows knitted together and mouth downturned behind his mustache. For the briefest of moments, Maverick seriously considers going to them. Asking them to reconsider, to assign Goose elsewhere.

But that would be stupid. It’s not their call to make. It’s not Maverick’s, either. They’ve all signed up for this; it’s the life they’ve all chosen to lead.

He senses a pair of eyes on him. But when he glances up, Ice has already looked away.

Twenty-four hours after the graduation ceremony, they’re across the world and on the water. Stinger stands at the head of the ready room, short-tempered and severe as he’s always been, flanked by his XO, a giant running fan, and at least three gigantic American flags. The room is sweltering even with the token attempt at air circulation, soaking everyone in sweat as Stinger outlines the mission, the risks, the bullseye. They’ve probably collectively totaled four hours of sleep from transport to transport. Maverick’s eyelids feel like lead.

Mercifully, Stinger keeps it short and to the point.

“Ice.”

“Sir,” says Ice.

“Maverick.”

Maverick jolts. Beside him, he feels Goose stiffen. “Sir.”

“Sector two. Hollywood, you and Wolfman back them up on Ready Five.”

“Yes, sir.”

Maverick’s hands clench in his lap.

Twenty-five hours after the graduation ceremony, Maverick finally catches up to Ice in the equipment compartment. The waves batter the hull outside, a dull roar, almost comforting in its familiarity. Conversations murmur all around them through the bulkheads, punctuated by the thud of footsteps above them. On the opposite side of the compartment, Goose, Slider, Hollywood, and Wolfman dig through their own gear in nervous silence, permeating the thickened air with loud clattering, rustling, clicking.

“Hey.”

“What is it?” says Ice, as he shrugs on his harness. His movements are efficient, quick, well-versed. Competent and sure.

Maverick catches himself watching and distracts himself with his own equipment. “Let’s not leave it like this.”

Ice doesn’t even pause. “Like what?”

“Ice…”

“Maverick,” says Ice. He clips one more buckle closed and glances at him sidelong. “We’re fine.”

Maverick bites the inside of his cheek. They don’t feel fine. How is he always so bad at this? Ice doesn’t look or sound angry, or bitter, or resentful, but gazing at his closed-off face, the aloofness there—the chasm between them feels insurmountable. It’s worse than being a stranger.

“No, we’re not,” he says.

Ice lifts his helmet off the hook. “Does it matter?”

Does it matter? he’d asked, weeks ago, after their volleyball game. Yes, Maverick had thought then, even though he’d said no.

“Yes,” he says now. “It does.”

Ice turns his head to regard him fully. “It won’t affect my performance.”

“I know it won’t.” Frustration yanks the knot around his throat tighter, near suffocating. “That’s not why. Ice, come on. We need to talk.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this is a bad time,” says Ice. He’s still steady, placid, but his knuckles bleed white around his helmet.

Maverick sees Goose peek around the center rack of hanging flight gear, concern creasing his features. He shakes his head, the slightest twitch; Goose flicks his eyes from Maverick, to Ice, then back again, uncertain and hesitating. Then he mouths okay and retreats from sight.

“After, then,” says Maverick. “Once this is over.”

(“We’ll talk,” says Maverick, over the ear-splitting roar of the engines. “After.”)

Ice is silent for a long time, no give in his expression, eyes dark and colorless as an overcast sky. “Fine,” he says. “After.”

(—and Rooster just looks at him, forehead damp with perspiration, mouth trembling. It’s clear he doesn’t want to wait. It’s clear he’s expecting the worst.

He nods, nevertheless.)

Ice brushes past Maverick as he heads for the door, dotting a period at the end of their first conversation in days, but Maverick can’t fucking resist. The words burst out of him, overflowing from an airtight container crushed under pressure.

“Be careful.”

Ice pauses. His face doesn’t change even as he throws Maverick another look over his shoulder. “Worry about yourself,” he says, before he steps out. Slider pops out from behind the rack; he shoots Maverick a pair of raised eyebrows before he hurries out after his pilot.

“Wow, weird energy,” says Wolfman. Hollywood elbows him in the ribs. “Ow, fuck, what was that for?”

Maverick turns back to fixing up his gear. His ears burn. He hears Wolfman and Hollywood shuffle out shortly after, muttering amongst themselves. Then it’s just him and Goose left in the compartment, and Maverick sees Goose come up from behind in his periphery; he braces himself, but whatever it is Goose thinks of the earlier display, he keeps it to himself.

“You ready to go?”

Maverick sighs. “Yeah,” he says, and picks up his helmet. The red and white decals shine almost garishly under the fluorescent light overhead, all too vivid against the almost-black body.

Goose doesn’t respond for another beat. Then he points to a spot on his own torso. “You missed one.”

Maverick looks down. Goose steps forward. “Here. Let me.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Goose buckles the loose strap. Pats him on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“No,” says Maverick, for once. Everything hurts, squeezed to a pulp on the inside. He imagines this must be what a juiced orange feels like. “But I will be.”

Goose nods, like he expected this answer. “Need me to punch someone? Tall? Blond? I’m taller than him, you know. I’d have a height advantage. Though I suppose Slider might be a problem…”

Maverick breathes a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re the one being ridiculous. Don’t let him treat you like that.”

“It’s not on him,” says Maverick. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

The flight deck is a cacophony of noise and frenzied activity. The elevators on either side of the carrier are already lowering, the grinding of their mechanisms nearly drowned out by the crash of waves. Around them, the flight crew rushes to and fro, a sea of white cranials and colorful shirts overtop the dark non-skid coating.

They’re led to their assigned fighter. Ice and Slider are already climbing into the one just up ahead, helmets on and expressions dire.

Maverick makes his rounds. When he emerges from under the shadow of the Tomcat’s wing, he finds Goose with his hand raised.

“For good luck,” Goose shouts, over the clamor and wind.

“Think we’ll need it?”

“Really, Mav?” says Goose, instead of answering him. “You gonna leave a guy hanging?”

Maverick gives him the requested high-five. Goose grins, face shining with perspiration and hair askew, all steadfast trust and unwavering confidence. Maverick’s heart squeezes again, so, so fucking tight it hurts. Merlin was—and is—great, but this is how it’s supposed to be. How it should have been. Maverick and Goose, against all odds.

Maverick would do absolutely fucking anything to protect him. It’s the same rabid instinct that blasted through him up in the air with Rooster, in a distant, faraway memory—scarlet flares lighting up the snow-capped summit, blinding gold flames consuming the canopy.

What’s one more flight, one more mission? This is what Maverick’s always done best.

They take to the air with a hiss of the catapult and the thunder of engines. The ocean becomes a sheet of blue crystal beneath them, swept dark by the shadows of the clouds above. The carrier strike group disappears quickly from sight, gray-blue grains of sand among foaming dunes.

For a while, there’s nothing to see, just a jewel-blue sky and wispy clouds, the steely angles of the Tomcat to their left catching the light. Maverick’s fingers flex against the stick. He keeps his breathing measured and even behind his mask.

Ice’s voice breaks through the radio. “Mustang, this is Voodoo One. We are on station.”

“Voodoo, this is Mustang. Copy. Standby.”

It only takes moments. “Never mind that,” Goose announces. Maverick’s grip tenses. “Contact. Got ‘em on the radar. Two bogeys, two o’clock, twelve miles and closing.”

“Tally,” Slider confirms. “Two MiGs, two o’clock low. Doing 500 knots.”

Maverick glances down. They’re in his line of sight: two menacing shapes just below the cloud cover. Only two. “Goose,” he says. “Check again.”

“Uh, sure.”

The two MiGs drift lazily, then all at once ascend vertically, together in formation. It’d be almost beautiful, if it weren’t so deadly.

“What are they doing?” asks Slider.

“Never mind that.” Goose’s voice comes back alarmed. “I’ve got four on radar.”

“Copy,” says Slider quickly. “Two MiGs coming in at four o’clock high.”

The MiGs fall in together, box formation, just above. Maverick thumbs the trigger. A hot flash of adrenaline’s already beginning to take root in his veins, raising the fine hairs of his arms like the harbinger of a lightning strike.

“Mustang, we’ve got four contacts,” says Ice. “Request you launch Alert Five for support.”

Make that five.

“Wait. There’s five!” Goose exclaims. “Five, Ice! Five bogeys!”

Maverick taps in, whip-quick. “Don’t take your eyes off them, Goose! Talk to me!”

“Wha—break right! Flares!”

The Tomcat’s radar warning explodes into wild beeping only a second before Goose’s shout. Maverick obeys purely on instinct. He lurches them sharply right, and Goose must punch the flares—an explosion detonates behind them, rattling the airframe, followed by a dazzling flash of light in the corner of Maverick’s vision.

Ice’s voice goes brisk and harsh. “Mustang. Request permission to fire.”

“Voodoo, this is Mustang. Cleared to fire.”

“Roger,” says Maverick. “Engaging. Ice, let me take the lead.”

A pause.

Any other time, any other person, and Maverick may have let it get to him—the insidious doubt, the disquiet. May have tried to justify himself, to fill the silence, even when no one’s asked him to—God knows he’s done it before, laid out his disagreements without thought in front of the brass, had a number of throats cleared and elbows dug into his side to shut him up. But he knows Ice. Wherever they stand, whatever Ice thinks of him—

“Roger, Mav.”

—it’s trivial, paltry, at the end of it all. Ice will listen to him. Ice always has.

“Where’s the backup?” asks Goose.

Maverick exhales static. “We can’t afford to wait,” he says, and turns their nose into the fray, taking solace in the lurch of Gs and the glint of steel behind him.

The rest comes in snapshots.

One kill later, Ice gets hit. He’ll restart the starboard engine with rapid efficiency to the mantra of Slider’s hasty reassurances, and Maverick will shut out the panic, ignore the unraveling edges of his concentration in favor of focusing on Goose’s voice, his nonstop updates. When Ice finally levels out, both engines burning, the relief will nearly stop his breath.

Three kills later, Maverick runs out of Sidewinders. A MiG races after him, hot on his tail until Ice rolls in behind them both, deadly and intent. The second Maverick breaks away, Ice will fire.

Four kills later, and the remaining bogeys bug out. Goose will holler and shout and Ice will join up right beside them, snidely ask them if they’re still in one piece, and Maverick will laugh just a little bit too shakily, a little bit too loudly, and on the way back he’ll request a flyby just for old time’s sake—

—and he’ll be denied, of course. Up until Maverick looks to the right, and finds Ice smirking, looking back.

With an earth-shattering shriek, they’ll blaze past the tower. And later still, as the flight crew cheers and whoops around them, Wolfman will barrel into Maverick on the flight deck, swearing and apologizing in equal measure as Hollywood curses the faulty catapult, and Maverick will continue to laugh, and pat him on the back, and give him shit for it.

When Wolfman finally releases him, Goose is there. The hug is way too hot and way too sweaty to be comfortable, but Maverick clutches him back nevertheless; fiercely, vehemently, loathe to let him go.

“Holy shit, Mav,” Goose wheezes. “How in God’s name did we pull that off?“

“Lots and lots of skill,” says Maverick. He pulls away, grasps Goose’s biceps on either side of him. “And maybe a little bit of luck,” he admits, and Goose guffaws. He yanks Maverick back in and squeezes him silly one more time.

The elation is dizzying. It could fuel Maverick forever—this buzz of surviving impossible odds. And Goose, too, here with him, alive, unwittingly escaped from the jaws of death not once, but twice, and always, if Maverick has anything to say about it.

“Don’t look now,” says Goose, low enough for only Maverick to hear, “but there’s an idiot over there who’s been staring since Wolfman tackled you.”

Maverick stills. “Goose.”

“What?” says Goose innocently. “I’m just stating the facts. Are you sure you don’t need someone to punch him? FYSA, Carole’s given me express permission.” He takes a moment to think about it. “Though I think I’d feel bad, now. Is there such thing as survivor solidarity?”

“Let me go,” says Maverick, and Goose snickers, but obliges.

He’s not wrong. The crowd’s shaking up Ice, too, clapping him on the back and shoulders and generally causing a great commotion, but Ice remains rooted to the spot, as dug in and unmoving as the gaze he has on Maverick. Every step Maverick takes toward him is another step taken into what feels like a bubble of stillness, of isolation; another step taken into a windless, soundless lake. Blood roars in Maverick’s ears.

Eventually, they stand before each other.

“Not bad at all,” says Ice.

Maverick manages a crooked smile. “Is that the only thing you ever have to say?”

Ice’s lips twitch, barely noticeable. “I don’t know, Mav. Overuse the compliments, and they quickly become meaningless.”

“Alright, sheesh.”

In a different time, a different life, this had been one of his dearest memories. He’s long since abandoned any sense of shame for it, the way he’s replayed it over and over in his head, across hundreds of quiet, lonely nights, across hundreds of quiet, lonely dreams. There was Ice’s smile, so warm, so heartfelt, the first time Maverick had ever seen it as such—immortalized forever in a photograph, never letting Maverick forget. There was the strength of Ice’s arms around him, safe and sure. And then there was the thawing of Ice’s distrust, the budding seed of a relentless loyalty, and that had been the most priceless thing of all.

You can be my wingman anytime.

Ice, now, doesn’t give him that smile. He doesn’t give him that hug. Instead, he extends his hand for a handshake, the same way he did the day before, at graduation. And once Maverick takes it, grips it firmly, Ice lets go, gives him a nod, and steps back, and walks away.

The deck sways beneath his feet. Maverick blinks hard. Then there’s an arm wrapping abruptly around his ribs, lifting him clean off the ground, and Maverick blinks again to find Slider in his face, beaming as he shakes him like a ragdoll.

“Careful, careful!” Goose calls, from somewhere in the mess of things. “You better not drop him, ya big tree!”

“Have some faith, Mother Goose!”

“I’ll have some faith when he doesn’t look like he’s gonna puke on you!”

Slider promptly sets him down. “You alright, Mav?”

“Peachy,” says Maverick, stumbling against him.

Goose shoves his way over to his side. He and Slider exchange glances. “Come on,” says Goose. “We’re all exhausted, and we still have to sit through a debriefing. We should lay below.”

The throng surges around them as Goose and Slider help Maverick steady himself. The celebration recedes into a hollow echo in Maverick’s ears, distant and sonorous like he’s stuck his head into an empty pot, submerged beneath the violent throb of his pulse.

It’s fine, he repeats, again. And again, and again. This is what he asked for. This is what he’s decided. He can’t possibly blame Ice for keeping his distance. Maverick doesn’t regret this. Can’t afford to regret this. He’ll be fine.

Fake it till you make it. Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll come true.

Fortunately, the debriefing goes by just as quickly as the briefing. Maverick’s always liked Stinger—he never minces words, never wastes too much breath, and it allows Maverick to slip out the hatch before Goose even gets the chance to turn, before Ice and Slider and Hollywood and Wolfman even think to notice. He ducks past the LSOs waiting by the Greenie Board, and ignores their irate calls until they fade into the din of the ship around them.

Below the perilous drop of the elevator, the sea roils in white-limned ripples, deep and dark and streaked with cerulean. The sun’s still out over the horizon, a couple hours past its zenith but still scorching the non-skid beneath its unforgiving heat; the cool, gentle breeze brings with it the sharp redolence of jet fuel, salt, and steel. He can hear footsteps scurrying about behind him, the light whirr of machinery, and idle chattering, voices unintelligible over the crash of waves.

Goose finds him there after half an hour. Maverick doesn’t realize he’s there until he speaks.

“Stinger’s looking for you.”

Maverick just about jumps a foot in the air. “Jesus,” he says, clutching his chest. “Warn a guy before you sneak up on him, will you?”

“That’d defeat the whole point of sneaking,” Goose replies matter-of-factly. He mirrors Maverick and angles himself to face the horizon. “Iceman is looking for you too, just so you know.“

“Oh. Thanks.”

“I thought you wanted to talk to him?”

“Yeah,” says Maverick. “I will. Later.”

“Well, don’t wait too long. The rest of them probably only have another day or two on here. Special contingent, all that. You know the drill.”

“I do.”

“Mav,” says Goose, sounding rather exasperated now. “Talk to me.”

Maverick breathes out. “Sorry, Goose. I’m just trying to get my head on straight.”

The wind picks up. There’s nothing but sea for miles around; if Maverick draws himself back enough, it almost feels like they’re alone in the world. Just the two of them, standing on an enormous gray nuclear-powered machine out in the middle of God-knows-where, untouched by politics, fate, the judgment of others. Untouched by the consequences of their choices.

“What happened between you two, anyway?” asks Goose.

But the reality is they’re not alone. Maverick checks behind him. Then, assured that no one’s paying them any mind, he resumes his vigil over the water. Says, “I said no.”

Silence.

“So he—?”

“Yeah.”

“And you—?”

“Yes, Goose.”

“Huh,” says Goose.

Maverick’s patience wears the slightest bit thinner. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I guess it’s just not what I expected.”

“I live to be unpredictable,” says Maverick tiredly.

Goose softens. “Well… it’ll be okay, you know. There’ll be others.”

Without warning, Maverick’s breath hitches. His next exhale escapes his throat in a strangled gasp, rasping, stuttered; to his horror, his eyes go hot.

“Hey,” says Goose. He grabs Maverick’s shoulder. “Hey?”

“There won’t be anyone else,” says Maverick. “God, Goose. I fucked up.”

“Okay. That sounds ominous. Maybe you should go have that conversation, then?”

Maverick scoffs. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can. We’re all adults here.”

“I can’t. It’s better this way.”

“No offense, Mav,” says Goose calmly, “but I wouldn’t consider ‘trying not to cry on the elevator of an aircraft carrier’ as ‘better this way’. Look,” he adds, as serious-looking as his amicable face can ever look, “the truth is, I’ve seen how you act around a lot of people since we’ve met. Like, a lot a lot. A truly insane number, for real. People you’ve all taken home. But I’ve never seen you act around anyone the way you do around him.”

“I love him.” The words rip out of Maverick. Ragged, mangled, bleeding at the edges, set free at last. “It’s not the same.”

“Well, duh.” Goose releases him to put his hands on his hips, huffing. “You used to take so many dumb chances. Shaved years off my life. So why not this one? Besides, it sounds like you’ve already got it in the bag.”

“Things change.”

“Not this much,” says Goose. Then he stops.

“Oh,” he says suddenly. “Oh, shit.”

The alarm in his voice triggers immediate DEFCON 1 in Maverick’s brain, sets off every blaring siren. He spins around, and—

His heart plummets to his feet.

“Hey, Tom,” says Goose.

Ice doesn’t respond. He seems to have ossified on the spot, face pale, frozen, frighteningly opaque. Just like the both of them, he’s yet to clean up and change, still geared up in his flight suit, his hair in complete disarray. The bustle of the hangar continues on behind him, a blur of coveralls, uniforms, and crates between giant wheels and tucked wings.

Maverick clenches his teeth. Panic crawls syrupy slow up his throat, floaty and removed, like it’s coming from a thousand miles away.

Goose shifts. “How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it,” says Ice. His eyes don’t leave Maverick, who swallows thickly.

“It’s okay, Goose. You can go.”

Goose makes a disgruntled, uncomfortable sound. He eyes Ice warily for a second, before he appears to come to a conclusion; tucking his shoulders back, he straightens up and looks around. “Sure, alright. But I wouldn’t talk here. I mean…” He gestures vaguely, sheepishly. “Case in point. Maybe… uh. Our berthing is empty right now.”

“Good idea,” says Maverick, and wills his legs to move.

Against all odds, they do. He slips past Ice’s granite stillness, their arms millimeters apart, and leads the way back up to the crew quarters.

They proceed in silence. The world closes in on Maverick in the cramped passageways, boxed in so completely from the sky. Everything feels remarkably numb, from his frozen thoughts to his tingling fingers to the heavy trudge of his boots. Ice’s stare burns into the back of his skull the entire way.

How could he have been so stupid?

To be fair, Goose had warned him. The only person worse than Ice finding him spilling his guts on the elevator would have been Stinger. It’s far easier not to think about it. Far easier, too, not to think about how easy it’d been to be so careless—thoughtless. Despite everything, Maverick was lucky it’d been Ice. Ice, who reciprocates. Ice, who gathered his courage and took a gamble and lost it when Maverick couldn't meet him in the middle.

In the berthing compartment assigned to Maverick and Goose, the two curtains are drawn back to empty racks; Maverick’s duffel is still slumped atop the bedspread where he’d dropped it there hours earlier, and Goose’s duffel takes up the entire surface of one of the small, fold-up desks.

Goose falls back. His eyes dart between them one more time. “I’ll… uh. I’ll stay out here. You know. In case someone comes looking.”

Then he closes the door, and they’re alone.

The overhead thuds and rattles as a fighter breaks the deck directly above them. Maverick shoves his bag aside and sits down on the lower rack. Even though there are two empty chairs, Ice remains standing. The space is tiny. His presence is oppressive.

Ice speaks first. “I don’t understand.”

“That tracks,” says Maverick. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Did you mean it?”

Someone up there must be laughing at him. The only time Maverick’s ever said it out loud, and the last person he ever wanted to hear him hears him. The words catch in his throat, jagged as broken glass. It still hurts to say. “I did.”

Ice’s eyebrows draw together. The line of his mouth presses straight and tight.

Maverick can’t read him. It’s nothing new—the last two weeks have been an exercise in floundering in the dark, in trying to figure out where they stand. The hate he feels for it is visceral.

“Ice,” he says. “Let’s just move on from this.”

Now Ice scowls, pissed off, plain as day. “Is it really that simple for you? You drop a bomb like that and—what, exactly? Expect me to ignore it? Walk away, pretend I never heard it?”

“What else is there to do?” Maverick retorts. “Speaking of which—eavesdropping? Really? Not a good look.”

“You were in the middle of a public space,” says Ice coldly. “I’m not going to announce myself everywhere I go. Maybe you should be more aware of your surroundings.”

Maverick deflates. “I’m not trying to start a fight.”

Ice exhales through his teeth. Finally, he pulls out the chair tucked into Goose’s desk and takes a seat. The silence between them extends again, so thick and viscous Maverick feels swamped in it. It’s clear neither of them really knows what to say, or how to continue.

If only Maverick could walk away. If only he could accept the idea that maybe this time—in this lifetime—Ice isn’t meant to stick around long-term. If they can’t salvage this—if they can’t even be friends—

“What is it, really, Maverick?” Ice asks, his anger receding into resignation. “You’re afraid? It’s not worth it to you?”

The question punches the breath straight out of his lungs. “No. I didn’t say that.”

“Then what the hell’s the problem?”

Maverick’s fingers dig into his thighs, creasing the Nomex of his flight suit with angry wrinkles.

The problem is he’s tired. So fucking tired, and sore, and frayed, and overwhelmed, worn down to skeletal remains. Like a pile of dust, a single errant breeze from scattering.

The problem is he misses Ice, so badly sometimes that everything tunnels in on it, so badly that his thoughts go blurry in the spaces between, drowned by that silent, desperate mantra, a call for help, for comfort, for a wall to stand his back against when the world churns and crashes around him.

There’s only so much more of this he can take.

“You’ll find someone else,” he hears himself say.

“What?”

“You’ll find someone else.” Maverick’s voice gains strength. “A couple years down the line. Whatever this is—it won’t last.”

Ice bristles again. His voice goes sharp. “You really think so little of me?”

“Ice,” says Maverick. His heart thuds a rapidly accelerating drumbeat in his ears, immense and deafening, second only to the resonant hiss and boom of another catapult releasing steam. “Let me explain. Please.”

Ice glares at him, but then he sits back, his expression smoothing over, so very like the way it would later in life while rigid, fast-talking senior officers rattled off the latest sitrep. Maverick’s stomach skitters with nerves. Even now, there are few things more unsettling than briefing the Iceman, awaiting his judgment.

He’s always looked out for him. Even if—even if it’s absolutely insane, completely inexplicable—even if this Ice isn’t precisely the same as that Ice—

Maverick’s exhausted. He can be honest with him. He owes him that much.

“It’ll sound crazy,” he begins.

Ice says nothing.

Maverick wrings his hands together. They’re feverishly hot. He lowers his gaze to the scuffed floor.

“My memories are all screwed up,” he says, barely louder than a breath, and the porcelain tiles don’t respond. “I remember things that haven’t happened yet. The future, I guess. A… a different life. And it’s not a dream, not with the accuracies. I’ve lived this before. All of it.”

Ice is silent for a moment longer. When Maverick doesn’t continue, he says, “If you’re gonna bullshit me, you’re better off not insulting my intelligence.”

“I’m not bullshitting you,” says Maverick immediately. His hands twist harder around themselves, nails raking white furrows into his skin. “I know it sounds crazy. I know it doesn’t make sense. But I swear it.”

“Shit like that isn’t real.”

“I know.”

“But you’re going to double down on it?”

“I’m telling the truth,” Maverick insists. “I wouldn’t make this up just to lie to you.”

“Fine,” says Ice. “I’ll humor you. What does this have to do with us?”

Us. Maverick’s throat closes at the word. You-and-me. Me-and-you. “We were friends,” he says. “You were… my best friend. Ever since—” He manages a short, wry laugh. “Today, I’d say. The whole mess with the MiGs. I backed you up after Wood went down.”

“Wood wasn’t out there today.”

“Yeah.” Maverick falters. “It’s not all the same. I chose differently, sometimes. And I don’t remember everything. It’s changed things.” He meets Ice’s eyes again, their steely cold gray. “We were rivals. You really pissed me off—you were always on top, like it was nothing to you. And you were always criticizing my attitude.

“But you had my back, in the end. And I tried to have yours.” Maverick’s voice lowers. He scratches at a hangnail on his thumb; the sting of pain grounds him. “I can prove it, sort of. Not physically, but…” He braces himself. “It’s mostly about you.”

Ice continues to look at him. A muscle twitches in his cheek. Maverick can’t tell if he believes him, but at least he’s not laughing, or storming out. When he doesn’t interrupt, either, Maverick takes it as his cue to continue.

“You were born in Pearl Harbor-Hickam—Pearl Harbor, I mean. Sorry. Air Force and Navy went joint base there in 2010. Your father’s Navy; he hasn’t retired yet. I know he was stationed OCONUS in the 80s. You entered USNA to follow in his footsteps.

“You have an older sister, and she’s Air Force, which really pissed him off. Right now she’s either down in Barksdale, or up in Mountain Home—I can’t remember. But you call her once a pay period, if you can, because you two have always been close.”

Ice speaks up now, tone dry. “You stalking me, Mitchell?”

“How, exactly?” says Maverick. He smiles humorlessly. “You told me she adopted the family dog right out of USAFA. Named him BUFF, after the B-52, ‘cause she’s always wanted to fly one of those monsters. When your mom found out, she had a conniption and started calling him ‘Sandy’, but he still only answers to BUFF.

“I met her once. Your sister, I mean. She said she taught you how to swim, because you fell out of a boat in Minnesota and almost drowned. It took her years to get you back in the water again—then, funnily enough, you joined the Navy.”

The overhead thumps again.

“I can go on,” says Maverick, but his voice wavers.

“No,” is the instantaneous response. “Don’t.”

For once, Ice is the one who looks unnerved. He sits straight-backed and still in the desk chair, shoulders taut, jaw working. There’s a slow, gut-wrenching realization dawning on his face. It eviscerates Maverick’s heart.

“You said 2010.”

“I did.”

“Say I believe you,” says Ice. “What’s the last year you remember?”

Maverick bows his head. It doesn’t even occur to him to lie. “2020.”

“Mav,” says Ice. “Look at me.”

Whatever anger that had hardened his face is gone. Ice gazes back at him patiently, the tensed corners of his eyes gradually easing, and asks, “In the car. Why did you tell me no?”

“Technically,” starts Maverick hoarsely, “you didn’t actually ask.”

Ice doesn’t budge. Maverick breathes in deep, and lets it go.

“You got married in ‘96,” he says. “Started a family. Your wife—her name’s Sarah. Eventually you had kids, and they’re both so fucking smart, Ice—and you had a big house, too, the biggest one on base, at the very top of the hill. You know what I mean. You grew old there. And you were—you seemed happy.”

Ice takes a second, two, three, to process this. His fingers drum against the desk.

Then he says, “Is that all?”

Maverick snaps. “What do you mean, is that all? I’m not going to get in the way of that. Those are people I knew. Real people, real lives. Your wife’s out there right now—I know I can find her. I know it was real. You don’t have to believe me, but I know.”

Ice weathers his outburst dispassionately. “So what? Maybe it was real. Maybe you’re psychic, or you traveled back in time, or you’ve watched Back to the Future one too many times and your brain’s all fucked up. So? It hasn’t happened here.”

“But it could.”

“Anything could happen,” says Ice, this time with a touch of impatience. “That’s life. We make choices, and we deal with the results. Everyone’s always one decision away from change.”

“I don’t want to be the reason for it,” says Maverick. “I can’t be the reason for it.”

Ice’s expression darkens again like a thunderhead portending a storm. “That’s not how it works, Maverick. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Who are you to make decisions for everyone else? You’re not responsible for their choices. You’re not responsible for mine, either.”

“I can influence them—you don’t get it. I know what happens.”

“You just said things have changed,” says Ice. His tone drips with derision. “How much of it has gone the way you thought it would? Are you omniscient, now?”

“I saved Goose.”

“Speak up.”

“I saved Goose,” Maverick says again, louder; his breathing comes faster, harder. “He was supposed to die.”

Ice considers him. He doesn’t soften, per se, but his words lose their aggressive edge. “What happened?”

“Accident,” says Maverick. “Officially, anyway. I flew—I flew through your jetwash. Engine stalled, put us in a flat spin. When he ejected, the canopy was still above him. He hit it headfirst.” His nails bite into his palms. “It was Hop 31.”

He can tell Ice is thinking back. He can tell, too, the exact moment Ice realizes what day that was. “I wondered about that.”

“About what?”

“You said I was your best friend,” says Ice, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Can’t imagine that’d be true if Goose was around.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.” Maverick’s shoulders slump. “But Goose is my family. I had to save him.”

Ice softens now, at last. His features diffuse into kinder angles; his voice goes calm and slow, like waves washing up on the shore. “I don’t get what you’re so hung up about,” he says. “Seems to me like all you do is good.”

Maverick feels his face crumple, completely out of his control. “You can’t just say that.”

“Why not?” says Ice. “I may not have known you for thirty-four years, but it doesn’t take a genius to read you.”

“Thirty-four years,” says Maverick softly. “That’s a long time.”

“Sure,” says Ice.

“That’s a really big fucking difference, Ice.”

“It is,” Ice agrees. He rises to his feet, and for an instant Maverick is convinced that that’s the end of that, that Ice has said and heard what he’s needed to say and hear, and now there’s nothing more for him to do than be on his way.

But Ice doesn’t leave. He closes the distance instead, sits back down on the single-man rack next to him. Their shoulders knock against each other; their thighs press together.

“The way I see it, this is a two-way street,” he says. “All the things you think I should do—because of this, because of that. Right now, they’re hypotheticals. I’m not gonna be railroaded just because some other me you might have known made a different choice.

“It’s my life. Let me make my own choice.”

The ship thunders around them. Another hiss, another thud. Shouts and footsteps filter through the bulkheads, muffled and distorted. Goose’s voice greets someone outside, bright and cheerful as he ushers them along.

“You’ve always been too reasonable,” Maverick whispers.

Ice turns around to face him. He raises his hand. When Maverick doesn’t flinch, he reaches forward, brushes away the tear rolling down Maverick’s cheek. The pad of his thumb is rough with calluses, but unerringly gentle.

Maverick sways in. He feels Ice’s arms come up around him, warm and solid and steady as a rock, just like they’ve always been.

“Don’t worry about it, Mav,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

The dam breaks. Maverick buries his face into Ice’s collar, and lets himself cry.

Chapter Text

In a way, the world stops.

The sobs that wrack him shred through everything on the way out, scoring him red and raw like the craggy edges of a fresh wound. They rip out the tar fossilizing his grief with savage teeth, leaving behind nothing but that ruthless emptiness, those giant fucking holes the shape of gravestones, so many of them lined up one by one in the marrow of Maverick’s bones.

Ice holds him through it, mostly silent, mostly still, his jaw soft against Maverick’s hair and his arms mooring Maverick to the earth. His chest rises and falls in the warm, dark space between them, the quickness of it belying his resolute grip, and when his sobs finally die, when his grief finally ebbs, Maverick slams his eyes tightly shut and presses his forehead to that reassuring, unbroken beat.

They stay like that. Slowly, the clamor of the ship filters back into Maverick’s consciousness, followed by the scratchy feel of Ice’s name-tape scraping his nose; his humid, clogged breathing; the wondrous sensation of Ice’s hand rubbing circles against his back.

He never thought he’d have this again. After what happened topside, after Ice walked away, he’d been certain of it. Serves to show how much he knows.

“You’re taking this too well.”

Ice is silent for a moment longer. His movements don’t subside. “It’s a lot to process.”

“Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s all right,” Maverick murmurs.

“Is it, really?”

Maverick draws back. Ice has always been good at hiding his thoughts, and now is no different. But his hands are still on Maverick’s shoulders, grounding him, and Maverick is no longer afraid.

“I can barely believe it myself,” he says. “It’s not something I can explain. I was there one moment, and then” —Rooster was shouting and fire was erupting all around him, white-hot against his face— “I was here. And Goose was alive, when he should’ve been…”

He wipes away the last of his tears. “Maybe I’m crazy. Wouldn’t be anything new.”

“You’re surprisingly sane for what you’ve described.”

Maverick smiles a little, at that. “Hang around me long enough, and you’ll eat your words.”

Ice is unimpressed. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“There’s more,” says Maverick. He pulls back further, and Ice lets him go. “About—there’s more you should know.”

Ice’s jaw locks. “The past is past.”

Maverick looks away. “Not entirely,” he says, and recalls the fear, the hopelessness, the shake of Sarah’s voice over the line, the sterile white floors that reeked of industrial cleaner. After all that they’d gone through, it was Ice’s own body that had betrayed him in the end. No matter what Ice says, some things aren’t up to chance. Even if they were, Maverick could never risk it.

But Ice is unflinching. “I don’t want to know.”

“Ice—”

“Is it important?” says Ice. “Right now?”

Maverick hesitates. Ice takes his hand. It distracts him instantly—the feel of skin on skin, the softness of Ice’s palm, the immediate, overwhelming heat. Blood rushes to his face so fast it chases the words right out of his mouth.

If Ice notices, he doesn’t comment on it. His thumb smooths over Maverick’s flushed, scratched knuckles; his nails are kept short and even, his cuticles neat and untouched, a far cry from Maverick’s own. “Tell me later,” he says, and Maverick almost doesn’t hear him past the echo in his ears.

“Okay,” he concedes. His face could probably smelt steel. “Sure. Of… of course.”

The corner of Ice’s lips twitch. “So we were only friends, huh?”

“You married,” says Maverick again. You met her down in Corpus Christi, he doesn’t say. I was in Lemoore. I didn’t meet her for months. I didn’t want to.

“In ‘96,” says Ice.

“In ‘96.”

“You remembered the date?”

“I have a photo of your wedding.”

Had. It was taped inside his locker door between a cluster of other old candids, of Goose, of the Tomcat, of various squadrons Maverick had flown with, its corners glossy and free of fingerprints. Maverick had glanced at it every day for years, enough to memorize the scarlet date stamp in the corner.

Ice notices his reverie. He finds the gaps between Maverick’s fingers, light and gentle.

Despite all of his excuses, Maverick can’t resist. He lets his hand tilt; their fingers intertwine, and Maverick grips tight, accepting the comfort for what it is.

“You’ve said a lot about me,” says Ice, cutting through the silence. As silent as it could possibly be, anyway, with all the rumbling and clanking and thudding undercutting Maverick’s dire thoughts. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Everything.” Ice’s expression is cautiously curious. “You know all this about me, but I can’t say the same.”

Maverick bows his head. “There’s not much to tell. My life didn’t really start till NROTC. Goose and I got selected for TOPGUN after Cougar lost his nerve.” He gaze drifts over to the door, outside of which he knows Goose is probably pacing, pretending he’s not guarding anything. The thought brings with it a brief bloom of affection. “After Goose died, I went back to teach. Didn’t last long—got in too much trouble. Went on a couple of cruises, took some overseas billets. Got in more trouble.”

“I’m starting to sense a pattern.”

“Half the time you were the one getting me out of it.”

“So you stayed in?”

“Never thought twice,” says Maverick. His hand is trembling; Maverick wills it to still, and Ice squeezes it tighter. It has the double effect of squeezing Maverick’s heart. “It’s what I know. It’s who I am.”

“Never settled down?”

Maverick laughs. “Have you met me?”

“Have I?” says Ice, and Maverick stops short, realization dousing him cold with dread.

That’s right. This Ice doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the Maverick who hopped from bed to bed freely and without concern, who relentlessly pursued who and what he wanted, who sought and sought until he lost sight of what truly mattered. The one who lost everything in a fit of pique. The one who would spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it, only to keep losing, and losing, and losing.

It must show on his face, because the moment Ice sees it, he says, “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.”

“You’re right,” says Maverick. The words scrape. He doesn’t want to say it, but he has to. “You haven’t. I feel like I’m deceiving you. Even if you don’t believe me, I’m not actually…”

Ice looks at him. His eyes flick back and forth as he searches Maverick’s face, for the lines Maverick knows aren’t there yet, the looser skin and weathered texture, the wiry gray hairs Maverick dyed black from the first moment he glimpsed them in the mirror. Ice will find nothing. There’s nothing physical left of that man; only decades of quiet grief that have eroded all of Maverick’s roughshod, diamond-pointed edges.

But Ice just continues to look. “Maverick,” he says. “You’re the only you I know. It doesn’t change anything for me.

“But I get it,” he says too. Through his stunned silence, Maverick feels Ice’s grip begin to loosen, his fingers begin to slide away. “If this is off-putting for you, then I get it.”

Maverick clamps down, trapping Ice where he is. They glance down in tandem at their clasped hands. Ice smiles, slow and tentative.

This is real. This is…

He can’t—

“What about your kids?” he asks.

Ice’s smile fades as he considers this. It’s an endless miracle that he’s even considering Maverick at all. The pad of his thumb grazes again over the knobbly joint of Maverick’s own, a comforting, circular pattern that soothes Maverick’s nerves as much as it must soothe Ice’s own.

Eventually, he reaches a verdict. “They’re not real to me. I can’t even imagine it.”

“They are to me.” Maverick’s stomach lurches as their round, grinning faces flash across his mind’s eye. It’s a different kind of sorrow, thinking about them now. “I can tell you.”

“No,” says Ice sharply. “I’m not going to let some distant possibility change my mind. I know what I want.”

“Then what does it matter?” Maverick retorts, instinctively rearing up to meet him. “Let me tell you. Leaving it like this doesn’t feel right.”

But he wavers the second he realizes Ice has tensed, his posture rigid and his bared forearm stiff where they touch. Ice isn’t as unaffected as he seems. Of course he isn’t. How can he be? Listening to Maverick spout on and on about a future that Ice will likely never see for himself, about people who likely won’t exist anymore, who Maverick insists he loves, who Maverick keeps using as excuses, over and over. It’s fucked up. It’s cruel.

So Maverick retreats. It’s his turn to squeeze reassurance into both their bones. “Alright,” he relents. “Not unless you want me to.”

Ice is still tense, still taut, but he squeezes back. “Maybe someday.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

Ice’s temper sparks again. “Who’s to say it can’t be with you? News flash, Mitchell. That guy in your head? I’m not him. I don’t want or need Cliff Notes on how to live my life.” Then he pauses. A bitter understanding seeps into his inflection; his voice coils up like smoke, jagged edges fizzling into nothing. “Is that what’s going on here?”

“What?”

“You see him,” says Ice. Flat, calm. “Not me.”

“I see you both,” says Maverick, gutted. “You share everything that matters.”

You’re not him, he remembers thinking, brittle and resentful when he’d first been met with Ice’s indifference, with the fangs in his grin and the cold coruscating silver-blue of his eyes. But it hadn’t been true. Ice is Ice. Maverick knew him from the moment he saw him spinning that godforsaken pen between his fingers—all that brilliant confidence and perspicacity and glittering charisma, woven layer by layer over a steadfast, loyal heart.

Maybe Ice senses his honesty, because he averts his eyes. “Then give me the same respect.”

Beyond the berthing, Goose’s voice sounds again, loud and muffled. It brings Maverick back to the compartment, to the ship, to the thudding rhythm of the jets hooking the three-wire directly above their heads, nothing but a single layer of steel between them. Reminders that they’re not alone.

“Okay,” he whispers, at last. A promise, a reassurance, a concession. It hurts to breathe.

Ice’s shoulders finally fall. “Good,” he says simply, and bumps their knees together.

It’s such a casual, comfortable motion that it rattles like a marble in Maverick’s head. He can’t remember the last time his tongue felt so clumsy, too big for his mouth. “You’re sure, then?”

“Do you need it in writing?”

Maverick shoulder-checks him. “It’ll be risky,” he says.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten this morning.”

“I mean it.”

“I do, too.”

“It’ll be difficult.”

“Yes, because that’s why I became a naval aviator. I like things easy.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

He focuses on keeping his breathing level. It stings like hell. If Ice is already so assured in this after only a couple weeks of knowing him, then the Ice Maverick left behind—those ten years—

If only, if only. So many missed opportunities. So many chances, wasted.

The truth is, Ice already hit the nail on the head: Maverick had been afraid. Goose’s death only exacerbated that fear. He’d just… he’d had so much to lose—not just Ice, but his career, his passions, his way of life, his very identity. Everything that made Maverick Maverick.

It’s not what I am. It’s who I am.

But then time had passed, and with it had come change.

And suddenly, furiously, Maverick hopes he isn’t wrong. That he’s not actually insane, that the life he once lived was real and true, a premonition of the future. Because despite his personal tragedies, despite all his troubles, his self-inflicted personal hells, the years he’d trudged through in fog—

Not everything had been bad. Not everything was good, either, and Jesus, there’ll be so many worse things, so many more insurmountable tragedies Maverick can’t even begin to process, to shoulder, to alter, not the same way he’s altered this, the same way he’s altered Goose’s fate—but not everything had been bad. There were victories, too. Victories that shouldn’t be forgotten. Victories that still lay in wait, just a couple of years around the bend.

Ice takes stock of Maverick’s silence. He backtracks. “I’m sure,” he says, solely for Maverick’s benefit, even though he doesn’t have to.

Something inside him rips loose. “Ice,” Maverick manages. “I’m a mess. I haven’t done anything right in years. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop thinking about what could have been.”

“Then we’ll work through it,” Ice says, matter-of-fact, without hesitation. His eyes are piercing under the light, cool and placid as a mountain lake. Then he says, “Let me be your wingman,” and it punches a hole clean through Maverick’s ribs.

How lucky he is, that Ice hasn’t laughed him to the brig. How lucky he is that even without their many years of history, Ice would still sit down, and listen, and not give up on this slight, fragile thing between them. That somehow Ice would still know exactly what to say—that he’d still know exactly what Maverick needs to hear.

Maverick’s next exhale comes out tight and tremulous. “Only if you let me be yours.”

This time, when Ice tries to slip his hand away, Maverick allows it. His blood pounds in his temples. Goosebumps run up and down his arms, stippling his skin with a cold deluge of uncertainty, yearning, dizzying fear.

But Ice doesn’t move back any further than that. Instead, he reaches forward, sliding his palm against the side of Maverick’s neck, his long, deft fingers encompassing his nape. The watchband around his wrist glimmers silver-bright in Maverick’s periphery; his thumb caresses the underside of Maverick’s jaw, presses solidly against the thin skin of his pulse, and Maverick’s next exhale quavers as all his senses abruptly come alive: the rustle of his flight suit, the tackiness of dried sweat beneath it, the vibrant taste of salt in the corner of his mouth from tears and perspiration alike.

“Ice,” he whispers.

“Mav,” Ice says back, and it’s remarkable how his whole face gentles as he says it, his signature aloofness completely absent from the contours of his smile, like armor melting off a sunlit core. Maverick’s almost forgotten how it looked. Relief floods him. His heart beats in answer.

And just like that, in a burst of static, the PA system comes on. “The following individuals report to the CAG office. LT Mitchell, callsign ‘Maverick’. LTJG Bradshaw, callsign ‘Goose’.”

At the same time, a knock rattles the door. Ice sighs and withdraws, taking with him his weight and warmth. Cool air rushes in to replace him; Maverick resists a shiver.

They’re both on their feet by the time Goose pokes his head in. The furrow in his brow eases once he sees Maverick’s face; he pokes his head back out, shuffles around, and thrusts two plastic water bottles into their hands.

“Slider stopped by,” he says, like that explains anything. Overhead, the announcement over PA system repeats itself. He groans. “Hear that, Mav? Do the briefings never end? What does Stinger even want from us?”

Ice twists open the cap of his bottle while Maverick sets his on Goose’s desk. Shifting gears is jarring, but somehow, Ice manages it just fine. “Sounds like TOPGUN’s got you spoiled, Mother Goose.”

“Spoiled?” says Goose, aghast, hand over his heart. “Spoiled? Did you see the binders they gave us? Excuse you, Iceman! I’ve never worked so hard in my life. Mav, vouch for me.”

“Well,” Maverick begins, trying and failing not to be distracted by the way Ice drinks his water, the way he tips back his head, infuriatingly graceful. “You did spend an awful lot of time with Carole…”

Goose gawks at him. “Oh,” he says, and huffs, settling back on his heels and crossing his arms. “I see how it is. This is the thanks I get.”

“Goose,” says Maverick, laughing, but Goose dismisses him, retreating back into the passageway from whence he came.

“Yeah, yeah, save it. C’mon, before Stinger’s shiny head cracks like an egg.”

Maverick makes to follow him. He’s got one foot over the threshold when Ice stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

Ice waits until Goose is out of earshot. “Have you told him?” he asks, and Maverick stiffens.

“That’s a no.” Ice’s gaze is shrewd. When Maverick doesn’t respond further, his touch falls away. “Some other time, then,” he says, and it’s so unexpectedly understanding that it lands a hammer straight through the worst of Maverick’s unease.

Maverick looks back at him. Goose’s reentry had rendered Ice smooth and unknowable once more, but fondness still lingers in the angles of his expression, if only because Maverick knows where to find it. It quickly dissolves into amusement when Ice notices him staring. His dark eyes gleam; his teeth flash white.

“There’s that look again.”

“What look?” says Maverick lightly.

But Ice only gives him another smile. His palm catches Maverick in the lower back on the way out, broad and warm and almost tender, and for a solid second afterward all Maverick can do is watch him go, red to the very tips of his ears.

“Congratulations,” says Stinger, cigar clenched between his teeth, arms crossed as he leans back against the edge of his desk. Despite being a full two heads shorter than Goose—shorter than Maverick, even—his presence is a thing to behold: 90% disgruntlement, 10% pride, just enough to get people to listen to him. “Even if the other side’s already denying the incident.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Maverick, struck with an intense case of nostalgia. The last time he was in here, he’d been utterly beside himself with bewilderment, Rooster still clinging to his racing thoughts while Goose stood impossibly, terrifyingly right next to him.

That’s where Goose still is, weeks later; still alive, still breathing, and looking just as unnerved as he always does when he’s face-to-face with their cranky chimney of a CO.

“The brass are giving you two your choice of duty station,” says Stinger. “Can you believe that shit? Any idea where you want to go?”

Ah, hell. Maverick wishes he’d remembered to talk to Goose about this. He wishes he’d remembered to think about this at all.

“Sir,” says Goose, and Maverick starts. “I was thinking of becoming an instructor.”

???

Stinger is equally incredulous. “Going back to TOPGUN?”

“Yes, sir.”

Stinger’s eyes flick to Maverick. “Alright,” he says slowly. “And what about you, son? Do I even need to ask?”

“No, sir,” says Maverick, because it’s a no brainer. If Goose is going back to Miramar, then so is Maverick, spotty history as an instructor be damned.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t done too poorly with the special detachment, had he? Not near the end, at least. Maverick had grown almost fond of them all. Remove the terrible dread of an impending suicide mission, and he can almost imagine being fond of the job, too. He can handle it. Especially with Goose at his side.

He shoves down a momentary flicker of grief. He’ll have Goose, but not Ice. Last time, Ice had continued his deployment. Maverick hadn’t seen him again for months.

“God help us all,” says Stinger, puffing smoke directly in Maverick’s face. “The two greatest pains in my ass teaching the top 1%.” He shakes his head. “This whole institution’s gonna burn to the ground before I retire, isn’t it.”

“Have a little faith, sir,” says Maverick, fighting off a smile, knowing that it would piss Stinger off. Stinger used to treat Maverick like a stray cat on a good day. It reminds him a bit of Cyclone. Or is it the other way around?

Unsurprisingly, he receives a stink-eye. “You’ve got two days to change your mind,” says Stinger. He puffs another irritable cloud of smoke before he shoos them away. “Now get your butts outta here. The amount of fucking paperwork this is gonna be…”

Maverick rounds on Goose the moment they’re in the clear. “TOPGUN?” he asks, and Goose rubs the back of his neck.

“Yeah… well, Carole really liked it there. I figured that if I can get assigned there for three or so years, she and Bradley can PCS out of Texas and join me.” He pauses. “You don’t have to follow me if you don’t want to.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m coming with you.”

Goose beams. “We’ll have a good time,” he says, and his obvious happiness first tightens, then loosens the knot within Maverick’s chest.

Still alive. Still together with Carole and Bradley, and now they’ll have the opportunity to stay together for a couple years, a whole and complete family.

Yes, Maverick thinks. Going back to TOPGUN is the right choice.

A couple of lieutenants edge past them through the passageway; both Goose and Maverick press themselves against the off-white walls, giving them space. When the group is two watertight doors down, their voices fading into the perpetual noise that surrounds them, Goose speaks up again.

“Sorry about earlier, by the way,” he says, just in time to be punctuated by another resounding thump above them. “On the elevator. I didn’t know he was behind me. I shouldn’t have said all that.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Maverick to blame him. “Don’t worry about it. It worked out.”

“Still,” says Goose. They make their way in the opposite direction, squeezing in a single line past more groups of tired-looking sailors. “Carole told me to be more discreet… I’m not too good with discreet.”

“You’re good enough,” Maverick promises.

Goose takes a couple seconds to respond. One of the overhead lights flickers, and a fan whirs loudly in one of the insulated ducts wound above them. “I’m glad it worked out,” he says eventually. “You deserve good things, Mav.”

Maverick almost stops in his tracks. Embarrassment unfolds bright and hot inside him, curling its way up into his face. He makes sure not to look back. “Thanks.”

“Besides,” says Goose, “this means I don’t have to punch him anymore.”

“You were never going to punch him.”

“Oh, yeah? How would you know? I can totally take him.” Goose puffs out a sigh. “Though I guess I’d be running the risk of Slider charging in and popping my head off like a Barbie doll.”

Maverick chuckles. Now that everything is finally behind him, the weariness of it all threatens to drag him straight down through the decks below. Every limb feels like it weighs a thousand pounds; his head feels stuffed with cotton. Compounded with an absolutely ridiculous amount of jet lag, it’s a goddamn miracle he can even keep himself upright.

“Maverick! Goose!” They turn just in time to see Wolfman tumble out of an adjacent passageway. Clearly since the mission he’s had time to change, dressed as he is in his khakis, his hair combed just so. Hollywood follows not long after, grinning. “Glad we could catch you. What did the old guy want?”

“I dare you to say that to his face,” says Goose instantly.

“Hey, now,” says Wolfman, affronted. “I do have some self-preservation instincts, you know.” He hesitates. “Unless…? Maybe for a fifty…?”

Hollywood cuffs him in the shoulder. “They’ve got us booked on the transport already,” he says. “We’re flying out on Friday. Just wondering if you guys are coming with us. Scuttlebutt’s going around that you two get to pick your next duty station.”

“Already?”

Hollywood snorts. “You know how it is.”

Maverick does. Close quarters, trapped together out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere? The number one commodity is, of course, gossip.

“We’re heading back to TOPGUN,” says Goose.

Wolfman’s eyebrows shoot up so quickly that for a moment they’re in danger of flying clean off his forehead. “No shit? Ya’ll wanna be instructors?”

“Why not?” Goose grins. “Better than being out at sea for another four months.”

“Well, more power to you,” says Hollywood. He extends his hand, and they all exchange handshakes and additional grins. “If we don’t catch each other again, good fucking luck.”

“And keep in touch!” Wolfman adds, before slinging an arm around Hollywood’s neck. The two of them bid their goodbyes, before shoving each other playfully into the bulkheads and bickering their way out of sight.

“And now everyone will know,” says Goose, once they’re alone again. “I give it one hour.”

“Thirty minutes.”

Goose looks at him thoughtfully. “Wanna head to the mess?” he asks. “I’m starving.”

Now that he thinks about it, Maverick is, too. They haven’t eaten since the early morning, only an hour after arriving on the flight deck, an entire day’s worth of travel behind them and their sleep schedules already irreparably fucked.

He checks his watch. He’d adjusted it this morning, synced it up with the clock in the ready room. Down in the bowels of the boat, there’s no other way to check the time. It feels like midnight. It’s only 1600.

“Sure,” he says.

He wishes he could find Ice. Ask him what his plans are. He should’ve asked back in the berthing, back in that small, secret space where everything had felt good, and calm, and safe. Not that it matters, because Maverick will follow Goose regardless, but…

It’s like Goose can read his thoughts. “Maybe Iceman and Slider will take up the same billet. I mean, positions are open for them, aren’t they? As Top Guns? That’s what Viper said.” He hm’s. “You don’t suppose they’ll rotate people out to fit us in?”

“Not if Ice and Slider don’t go,” says Maverick. “I doubt they’re interested.”

“That’s right, Slider said he didn’t want it.” Goose frowns. “Sorry, Mav.”

“Don’t apologize,” says Maverick, returning Goose’s frown with a smile. “It is what it is.”

“Well,” Goose announces, “I still don’t like it. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you putting me first again. You’ve been doing it way too much lately. It’s weird! Go do what you want to do.”

“You’re my family, Goose.” Maverick reaches forward and pats him on the arm. “I want to stick together.”

All of Goose’s bluster whistles out of him like a squished balloon. He goes rosy beneath his mustache. Scratches his cheek. “Fine,” he says, resigned, as if he’s giving Maverick begrudging permission. “If that’s really want you want.”

“It is,” says Maverick, and means it.

It’s a moot point, in the end. Maverick finds out from Goose, who finds out from Hollywood, who finds out from Wolfman, who finds out from Slider—Ice has decided to return to TOPGUN.

There’s not a single lick of privacy to be had on a carrier, not unless you’re an officer with a stateroom or an officer with a particularly accommodating bunkmate. Maverick’s got the latter, but no way is he exiling Goose again for the second day in a row, so instead he corners Ice on the nearest sponson. They’ve got maybe five minutes. Sponsons are popular, too.

They’re standing a good four feet apart, perfectly appropriate. Before them, the ocean sloshes against the painted hull, a rhythm so particularly ingrained in Maverick that he can hear it in his sleep, even when he’s onshore.

Ice chews peppermint gum and eyes him calmly. When Maverick struggles to find the right words, he says, “I take it you didn’t expect this.”

It elicits a surprised, rueful chuckle. “I should have.”

“I did tell you,” says Ice. “You can’t control what others decide.”

“This might change your whole career.” A different CO means a different recommendation, different opportunities, different challenges. A completely new path.

Ice only snaps his gum. “Good. Maybe then you’ll stop worrying about it.”

“So this is for my benefit?”

“Nah,” says Ice. His hair flutters in the breeze. “It’s for mine.”

Maverick breathes in deep. “Do you even want to be an instructor?”

“Despite what Slider says, I can think of worse things.”

“Don’t do this just to follow me.”

“Aren’t you doing this just to follow Goose?”

“That’s different.”

“It’s splitting hairs.”

Maverick shakes his head helplessly. His fingers curl and uncurl at his sides.

He can’t believe that Ice is pursuing him. That Ice wants to pursue him. It’s unfathomable. All his life, Maverick had been the one doing the pursuing: Charlie, Penny, all those hookups taken home from the Club, from civilian bars during liberty, CONUS, OCONUS. No one’s ever…

And it’s not just anyone. It's Ice.

Ice, who he’s only ever watched from a respectable distance. Ice, who used to pick on him and bitch at him, only to drop everything to make time for him. Ice, who he’s loved for so long that Maverick barely knows who he’d be without him, whose loss had felt like a savage amputation of Maverick’s left arm.

Maverick’s heart beats wildly in his chest. Ice gives him a beatific smile; it’s more a baring of teeth.

“Scared, Maverick?”

“Maybe a little,” Maverick admits, and Ice softens, relaxes, and Maverick hadn’t even realized he’d been tense.

“That’s okay.”

I am too, Maverick hears, and maybe someday Ice will be comfortable enough to say it out loud.

“Last chance, Kazansky,” he says.

“For what?”

Maverick turns his head, gazes out over the water. Past the swirling waves, the violent eddies, the stormy froth of breaking seafoam, the ocean is serene. It sparkles like the surface of a mirror, a deep, resplendent blue. Maverick closes his eyes to it, and feels them sting.

“If you do this,” he says, “I’m never going to let you go.”

When he opens them again, he finds Ice looking back. The deck above them casts a deep, angular shadow over his face, his shoulders. His watch sparks with light when Ice raises his wrist to adjust it.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to bear the consequences.”

His hand lands on Maverick’s shoulder when he passes him by, a wordless farewell. Ice likes to touch him. Maverick will have to get used to that.

Distantly, he’s aware of the chime of voices in the background, raucous laughter, the clunk of rubber soles against the steel deck. The phantom weight of Ice’s hand lingers long after Ice’s footsteps fade away.

Maybe this was inevitable. Maverick’s old life began slipping through his fingers the moment he woke up in the inverted cockpit, and now there’s only the ghost of it left. He has no idea what will happen next—not to him, not to anyone he loves. Only the broader strokes of history remain, and even those memories are scattering like leaves on the wind.

He should probably feel more jarred about losing this argument. Maverick’s supposed to be the one with more life experience, after all. But he isn’t. It’s freeing, in a way. Sometimes, all you need is a sounding board. Sometimes, all you need is a different perspective.

He raises his head to the sky. Today, not a single cloud interrupts the sight line. It truly is a limitless blue.

NAS Miramar is exactly how they left it, sprawled out in a sea of beige, white, and gray within the low golden mountains of inland California. The only green to be seen is in the palm fronds arching over the wide asphalt streets, swaying with the wind. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has; last time, Maverick came back alone. Last time, Goose was six feet under; this time, Goose walks just behind him.

“I’m going to the Club,” Goose declares, once they emerge from the housing office. “You with me?”

“Aren’t you tired?” says Maverick, whose own eyelids feel like stone. He squints at the low sun, then down at his watch. He’s getting real tired of resetting the damned thing.

“C’mon,” says Goose. “We haven’t really celebrated, you know? I mean, our faces are on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and we haven’t even gotten drunk yet to commemorate it. It’s been relentless.”

“Don’t remind me,” says Maverick. The housing lady had asked them to sign the inspirational poster hanging on the waiting room wall. “I’m about to sleep for a week.”

“C’mon, Mav.” Goose adjusts the strap of his duffel. “Who knows, maybe Iceman got back before us.”

They’d all gone their separate ways upon being transported off the carrier. A new three-year assignment called for new orders, for out-processing, for PCSing, and while Maverick had little in the way of belongings, Goose had required an extra two weeks to organize the logistics of moving his family across four states. Carole and Bradley would arrive by the end of the month, after an extended stay with Carole’s parents. So would their things.

Maverick sighs. “You don’t have to use Ice. You’re right, we should celebrate.”

Goose brightens. “Great! Just let me call Carole, and then I’ll meet you.” He points at Maverick. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Maverick bats his hand aside with a grin.

It’s dusk by the time they make it to the O Club, the streets around them awash in buttery tones of gold and orange. Goose chatters the whole way about everything and nothing, from the latest photos he’d taken of Bradley to the newest movies releasing in theaters. Maverick listens with one ear, his mind far away, but content.

It isn’t until they approach the bar, lit up in a vivid glow of blue and magenta, that he remembers.

“What’s up?” asks Goose, when Maverick digs into the pockets of his khakis, and then bursts into wild laughter the moment Maverick slaps a twenty on the bartop. “Why, thank you, sir! What did I tell you!”

“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.”

Goose slides the twenty down the counter in exchange for two beers, then pockets the change. They toast amidst the clattering of glasses, the low buzz of conversation. “Everything still going well, then?” he asks.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been with you the whole time,” says Maverick, taking a pull. The beer goes down mild and smooth, cold and refreshing. “There’s not much to say.”

“There’s always more to say. Not that I’m sure I want to hear it.”

Maverick huffs with amusement. He thumbs at the label of the bottle, already damp from condensation, and thinks back to the handshake they’d exchanged before they parted, how it’d lingered, and the easy warmth in Ice’s eyes. Maverick misses him. But Maverick misses him even when they’re together. It’s always been like that, even back then.

“Look at you,” says Goose. “I feel bad just mentioning it. It’s like I’m kicking a puppy.”

“Have you seen yourself with Carole?” Maverick fires back.

“Oh, so you admit it.”

“I admit nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Just please keep the sordid details to yourself,” says Goose. He makes a face. “I’ve known Iceman longer than I’ve known you. That is weird.”

“You’re the one who keeps asking about it.”

“Hey! I have your well-being on my mind, that’s all.” Goose takes a very emphatic sip. “Also, Carole wants to know.”

“I figured,” says Maverick, brimming over with fondness.

They chat for a couple more minutes. It’s so nice, so easy, the coziness of it almost dreamlike. Even after all this time, a part of Maverick still can’t believe Goose is here with him, still beside him, still making those silly faces and terrible jokes, still going on wild tangents about his family’s adventures. Joy simmers within him, threatening to overflow. It’s almost frightening. For the first time in a long while, he feels like everything will be okay.

Goose’s eyes flick over Maverick’s shoulder; he gives a beleaguered sigh. “Hm. Well. Guess who was totally, absolutely right,” he says, and Maverick turns around just in time to see Ice step into view, tall and proud and stunning beneath the dimmed lights, a shot of vodka in one hand. It’s deja vu, so piercing that Maverick’s breath catches.

“Fancy seeing you here,” says Ice.

Goose raises his beer. “Always gotta be first to everything, huh, Iceman?”

Ice shrugs. “Not always by choice,” he says, then focuses in on Maverick. Radar lock, tone. A smile spreads slow and sweet across his features, and Maverick flushes hot all the way down to his toes.

Goose makes a muffled noise of despair. He faces the bar. “I knew it.”

“Goose…”

“Go on, get outta here, git.” Goose flaps his hand with mock disgust. “Gimme your beer. We’ll finish this celebration later. In fact, let’s just wait till my wife gets here. Then it’ll be perfectly symmetrical. No third wheeling here, no siree.”

“I’ve been the third wheel since I met you,” says Maverick dryly.

“Nonsense!” Goose exclaims. Then he leans back against the bar, a wrinkle between his eyebrows, and appears to think on it.

Ice throws back his shot—remarkably straight-faced—and pops a couple of candied bar nuts into his mouth. He crunches on the nuts, angles his head toward the exit, and, with another quicksilver smile Maverick’s way, disappears back into the crowd.

“Congratulations,” drawls Goose. “Don’t die.”

Maverick punches him in the shoulder. “See you later,” he says, before he slips away, chasing Ice out into the evening. The sun’s just set over the horizon, and in typical Southern California fashion, the temperature’s subsequently dropped at least ten degrees. There are cars still pulling into the parking lot and patrons still trickling in, men in uniform and women dolled up in sleeveless dresses, but even in the darkness Maverick finds who he’s looking for within seconds.

“Where’d they put you?” Ice asks, when Maverick approaches.

Maverick tells him. Ice makes a considering noise, and says, “Mine’s closer.”

“Lead the way.”

Walking with Ice should feel no different than walking with Goose, but it does. Shifted perspectives, without a doubt; it feels like everyone is staring at them, though Maverick knows that isn’t the case. Gradually, the strumming of the O Club’s music dwindles down to nothing, till the only sound left is that of their footsteps and the low growl of car engines in the distance.

“I’ve been thinking,” says Ice, after another minute of quiet walking.

“Shoot.”

Ice eyes him sidelong. “If you’re from the future, just how many flight hours do you really have?”

Maverick ignores him in favor of watching a pair of headlights come their way. “A helluva lot more than you.”

“That goes without saying.” Ice sounds amused. “What’s the number?”

“Well over 6,000,” says Maverick. When Ice’s eyebrows rise, he elaborates, “Not all of it was in a fighter. You kept me in the air longer than most.”

“Were you going easy on us?”

“How do you go easy on someone in the sky?” says Maverick, without missing a beat. “I didn’t fuck up deliberately, if that’s what you mean.” He offers Ice a ghost of a grin. “But who knows. Maybe I didn’t try too hard, either.”

It’s difficult to gauge how Ice feels about that. He makes another low, thoughtful hum.

“You won the trophy the first time around, too,” says Maverick. “By the way.”

This time, Ice’s pleasure is plain. “Naturally,” he says, and all Maverick can do is laugh.

Ice’s house on base is only another two blocks away. Maverick lingers on the first step of the porch as Ice unlocks the door. There’s something unnervingly final about that simple, sharp click, which at this point is just profoundly silly. What else is there to be afraid of? He’s long past the point of no return. It’s just Ice. He’s been alone with Ice hundreds of times.

Even so, his heartbeat picks up.

“Trying to become a fixture in my lawn?”

“What lawn?” says Maverick automatically. “We’re in the desert.”

But he accompanies Ice inside.

Ice flicks on the nearest light. He shuts the door behind them before turning around to lean against the paneled wood, watching Maverick quietly. Maverick takes a cursory glance around, but absolutely none of it registers; his brain is dead-set on noticing nothing but the inescapable feel of Ice’s eyes on him.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many times they’ve been alone together. This is the first time Maverick’s been alone—truly alone—with an Ice who knows exactly how he feels. Here, no one will interrupt them.

“What do you want to do?” asks Ice. So goddamn considerate, even now. Maverick can’t believe he used to think Ice was an asshole.

“You invited me inside without a plan?”

Ice rolls his eyes. Maverick steps closer.

“Are you really okay with this?”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” Ice’s voice brims with exasperation. “I like you, Maverick. I don’t care what version of you you are. You’re the one I know, you’re the one I—”

Maverick kisses him.

To Ice’s credit, he stills for only an instant. Then his hands clamp down on Maverick’s waist and he’s kissing back, fiercely, pushing them until Maverick hits the nearest wall, mouth opening against his. He tastes like alcohol and hazelnuts, and fuck, yes—Maverick never, ever thought he could have this, have them, and somehow the visceral ache in Maverick’s chest is both euphoric and heartbroken.

“Fuck, Mav,” Ice rasps. “Finally.”

“Finally,” Maverick echoes, and kisses him again, and again, thirty years of missed chances pouring out of him all at once, thirty years of love and longing and living with his heart outside his body, of fear, of loss, of loneliness—and then he can’t keep it together anymore. He throws his arms around Ice’s neck, shoves his face into his shoulder. Ice returns the embrace, solid and warm.

“How long?” he asks in Maverick’s ear, his breath a featherlight gust against Maverick’s fevered skin. He smells like pine, woodsy and subtle, the same cologne he’ll still use decades later. Maverick trembles, and clutches him tighter. “How long have you…”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Maverick, and pulls away to kiss him one more time. Ice bites him, because of course Ice is a fucking biter. Maverick hadn’t known, and now he does. He licks his lips, and Ice’s eyes go void-black against a glittering gray corona.

Maverick smiles. “I have you now, don’t I?”

“You do,” Ice answers, his voice so very soft, and when Maverick rises up again, Ice leans down to meet him.

Chapter Text

The sand is warm as hell between Goose’s toes as he makes his way up the strip of beach. The granules twinkle under the dazzling sun like the glitter that decorates Bradley’s kindergarten crafts, and it’d be kind of nice if, like the glitter, it didn’t get goddamn everywhere, sticking to his wet ankles like Elmer’s with every step he takes.

He’s still brushing it off himself as he approaches the circle of shade beneath Carole’s big red umbrella. Carole herself lounges in a low beach chair in a light summer dress and a gigantic sunhat, her cheeks rosy and her grin wide and teasing. She tilts her equally gigantic sunglasses down her nose. “Tired already?”

Goose collapses on the towel next to her. “The water was cold.”

“Of course, honey,” she says, and looks back in the direction of the surf, where Maverick is gently bracing Bradley’s inflatable inner tube. Bradley splashes around like the little goblin he is, drenching Maverick’s hair and face with much gusto. “Not everyone can brave the cold as well as our four-year-old.”

“You’re right,” says Goose gravely. “He’s a tough one, our Bradley.”

Carole’s grin goes sweet and fond. Life is good, Goose thinks. He’s got at least three years on shore, which means he gets to see his family every single day. Not to knock his job or anything, but if Goose could bring Carole and Bradley with him everywhere he goes, everything would be perfect.

That, and if he could take a month-long vacation every year. That’d be nice, too. Viper had wasted absolutely no time at all in briefing them the standard operating procedures and requirements for their new jobs, and boy, Goose had thought being a student was tough…

“Where’s Tom?” he asks, abruptly noticing a distinct lack of Mr. Tall and Blond where he’d been sitting next to Carole not too long ago.

“Oh,” says Carole innocently. “I asked him for a Pepsi.”

Goose swipes more sand off his t-shirt, then processes her tone. His head whips back around. “What did you do?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Goosey!” The grin is back, and definitely self-satisfied. Carole reclines back on the chair. The gossamer skirt of her sundress rustles with the slight breeze. “We just talked about Maverick, that’s all.”

“Just like that?” says Goose, mortified.

“You left us alone. What did you expect?” She shrugs. “I told him he’d better take care of him, or else.”

“Of course you did.”

“Seemed to me like he was expecting it, though.” She taps her chin. “Maybe someone got to him first?”

“No idea what you’re talking about,” says Goose, and pretends his neck isn’t going warm. A tell-tale sign of sunburn, if anyone asks.

“Uh-huh,” says Carole. She rests her elbow on the armrest of her chair and cups her cheek. “You didn’t tell me.”

“We agreed never to speak of it again,” says Goose solemnly. He leans in to give her a peck. “Besides, you’re much better at this kinda stuff.”

Seriously. His conversation with Iceman had mostly amounted to: I know where you live, and Duly noted. Plus some awkward standing around. They’d both been very uncomfortable.

But it was warranted—even if it was a bit weird, since Goose has known Iceman longer than Maverick. He’s honestly never seen Maverick so hopeless. And, well. Just like Maverick said, they’re family. Gotta look out for one another, all that.

“Without a doubt,” says Carole, then goes back to watching their errant friend, who’s taking his chaperoning duty very seriously. Goose can hear his laughter all the way from here.

Carole smiles. Her face is radiant even under the shadow of her sunhat, even half-hidden behind her sunglasses. “This is nice,” she says.

It is. Despite their workload and Viper and Jester’s distinct lack of sympathy for their overworked asses, it’s like a weight’s been lifted off of Maverick’s shoulders. He looks happier these days. That’s all Goose had asked for, really. It’s a relief.

Carole thinks there’s more to it. She’d told him once that Maverick seemed sad, and the moment she said it, Goose had known deep in his gut that she was right. It’s obvious, in retrospect; sometimes, he still catches Maverick lost in thought, his expression drawn and weary. But Maverick’s troubles could amount to anything, and considering the new… thing… (“It’s a relationship,” says Carole sternly) he’s got with Iceman, he’s got no shortage of things to worry about.

That’s life, for you. Even someone as hard-headed and impulsive as Mav’s gotta worry about something. But that’s what Goose is for. Alleviating his worries. Having his back, no matter what.

Carole puts a hand on her hat as the breeze picks up again. She angles her head at Iceman when he reappears, dressed down in a t-shirt and shorts, with, true to her word, a can of Pepsi and a couple of bottled waters in hand.

“Thanks!” she chirps, plucking up the can. “And it’s cold! You’re a keeper.”

“You’re welcome,” says Iceman, and are Goose’s ears deceiving him? The esteemed Iceman Kazansky sounds almost wary.

Goose relieves him of the rest of his burden, sticking the bottles into the sand beside the beach towel. “Isn’t this supposed to be my job?”

“You’re free to take it off my hands,” Iceman remarks dryly.

“Like you didn’t jump on it to run away from my wife.”

“Can it.”

“Not so cool now, huh?”

Carole slaps Goose’s shoulder, her hand cold and damp from the Pepsi. “Oh, shush,” she says. “He wouldn’t be so uncomfortable if he didn’t care so much about what we think.”

Fascinating. Apparently, Iceman is capable of blushing.

“Besides,” Carole continues, “aren’t you two friends? Don’t pretend you don’t approve of him, honey.”

Fantastic. Now Goose is blushing, too. Iceman gives him a smug smile, which makes him look extremely punchable. Doesn’t matter what Maverick says—Goose would absolutely sock him in the face if he wanted to. So what if Iceman’s got twenty pounds on him? Goose can take him! Probably.

The crack and hiss of a soda can interrupts them. Carole rolls her eyes. “Men,” she says, taking a sip, before waving her free hand in the air. “And here come the rest of my boys. Bradley, sweetheart, are you having fun?”

Bradley comes hurtling up the beach, kicking up wet sand everywhere. “Yes!” he shouts, before—oof—he collides straight into Goose, knocking them both backwards.

“Great,” Goose wheezes. “Bradley, what did I tell you about slowing down before you accidentally hurt someone?“

“Sorry,” says Bradley sheepishly.

Maverick appears in his swimming vision, aviators shoved up into his dripping hair, the kid-sized inner tube tucked under one arm. He drops it next to the rest of their things. “Sorry,” he says too, but he’s very clearly smiling. “Coulda grabbed him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I didn’t,” says Maverick agreeably, before he turns to Iceman, and ooooh Jesus, what is with those eyes? No way does Goose look at Carole like that. Gross.

“Daddy?” says Bradley. “You’re squeezing me.”

“Whoops.” Goose releases him. “Are you thirsty?”

Bradley shakes his head. “I want a popsicle.”

“I’ll get one for you,” says Maverick immediately. “There’s a vendor right over there.”

Goose stops him with a raised hand. “Now, now, Mav. You’re not the one who has to deal with a hyperactive four-year-old later.”

“It’s okay,” says Carole, beckoning Bradley closer. She pulls a bottle of sunscreen out of her bag. “He’ll be all tuckered out by the time we get home. Won’t you, sweetie?”

“Uh-huh,” says Bradley, obediently subjecting himself to the sunscreen. He raises soulful eyes up at Goose. “Pretty please?”

Lord have mercy. Goose is powerless. “Alright.”

“Grape, right?” asks Maverick, as he shoves his shirt back on, yet another one of his infinite number of white tees. One day, Goose really oughta invade his closet. You know, just to count them.

Bradley nods. “That’s my favorite,” he says to the ground.

Maverick ruffles his hair. “I know.”

He leaves, and like a magnet, Iceman follows. They walk closely—but not close enough to touch—as they weave their way past other beachgoers and towels laid out in the sand, heads bowed toward each other, speaking quietly. From here, they look a bit like they exist in their own world. Goose can still see the scrunch of Maverick’s smile.

Jesus. At least the obsession is mutual. Goose knew from the start they’d get along, but nowhere to this degree. He should have bet on it.

Carole pauses slathering Bradley long enough to look up. “They’re sweet, aren’t they?”

“Eugh,” says Goose, turning his back on them.

Carole laughs. “Don’t be like that. You wanted this more than anyone.”

“Don’t say it like that,” says Goose petulantly. “Turn around, buddy,” he tells Bradley, who acquiesces; Goose helps smear the rest of the sunscreen across his shoulders. “I was rooting for my friends a normal amount.”

“Of course you were,” says Carole affectionately.

Goose snatches up one of the water bottles. He taps Bradley gently atop the head. “Even if you’re not thirsty, you should drink,” he says. Once Bradley grumbles and accepts it into his grubby little hands, Goose allows himself a peek over his shoulder.

Okay, fine. He’s happy for them. So what?

Life is good.

—

They bid farewell to the Bradshaws late in the afternoon, the incandescent sun now a luminous disc behind dusky blue clouds. Just as Carole predicted, Bradley is near insensate with exhaustion, already half-asleep by the time Goose buckles him into the carseat.

Somehow, in the intervening years, Maverick forgot Goose’s actual car had been a Chevrolet. It’s the same model as the one he’d rented over training, except red, just like Maverick’s Kawasaki. Carole had driven it till it died one day in the middle of an intersection. She’d purchased a used Buick, after that.

The memories are less bitter than they used to be. Probably because they feel further away.

A couple of stragglers still walk the beach, shoes in hand as they leave footprints in the sand. The surf makes quick work of them, washing up threads of white foam and knots of coppery kelp before receding back into the next bubbling wave. A couple of gulls hop between dried tangles of seaweed.

Ice waits against his own car, which he’d parked next to Maverick’s bike, arms crossed and head turned toward the steady rhythm of the tide. They’d both rinsed off at the showers and changed back into their clothes from earlier that day. His gaze flicks over when Maverick approaches; he opens the back door without prompting, and Maverick tosses his spare bag inside.

“What now, hotshot?”

“Thinking about taking a ride,” says Maverick. “How do you feel about motorcycles?”

Ice eyes him. He shuts the door. “I feel that I have a perfectly fine vehicle that seats five people.”

“Fair. But only I know where I want to go.”

“You can drive.”

“I haven’t driven a stick shift in twenty years,” says Maverick, swinging a leg over his bike. “Pick your poison.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” says Ice. “Do you need me to come?”

Maverick pauses. He shifts around to face him. “You don’t have to,” he says, and that’s true. Maverick has done many things alone, and at this point he hardly expects that to change. It won’t hurt him, because it hasn’t hurt him in a long time. And yet— “But I want you to.”

Ice exhales. He locks his car and climbs on behind him.

“Hold on to me,” says Maverick, and a moment later Ice’s arms slide around his waist. He’s a strong, sturdy line against Maverick’s back, the heat of him seeping through Maverick’s thin t-shirt and warding off the chill of the encroaching evening.

They peel out of the parking lot. Ice’s arms tense almost instantly; for his sake, Maverick rolls off the throttle, wordlessly easing him into leaning with the bike. Unsurprisingly, Ice takes to it quickly.

There’s something about going fast that just stays with you, whether you’re up in the air or on the ground. There’s something about Ice’s obvious trust in Maverick’s skill that stays with Maverick, too, when Ice’s vise-like grip gradually loosens, and Maverick feels him slowly begin to relax.

The ocean flies by in an endless sheet of gold-dappled blue before it disappears behind low, colorful buildings and scraggly trees. The traffic this way isn’t as bad as Maverick remembers, though the urban sprawl remains just as dense. Even still, some things haven’t changed, cycling behind Maverick’s vision like a steady reel of then-and-now: the airport is still there, and so is the Bay, filled to the brim with sailboats of all sizes, a sea of white masts spearing the sky. A commercial plane descends directly overhead with a roar, lights blinking as it skims eerily close to the high-rises downtown.

The bridge, too, is the same, a sweeping curve of concrete and steel from the mainland to Coronado, to North Island.

Ice is quiet throughout, even when they stop at traffic lights, even when the wind dies down and the car engines around them rumble low enough for them to hear each other’s voices. But Maverick never forgets he’s there. His hold is an anchor. His chest is a solid wall to lean against, if Maverick so chooses. He doesn’t, but it’s nice to have the option.

It isn’t until they roll up to the westernmost edge of the island, the iconic red roofs of the Hotel Del Coronado a distant shadow behind them, that Ice breaks his silence.

“Another beach?”

Maverick hits the kill switch. “Another beach,” he confirms, and sits up. The sun’s still out, though the bottom of it is already dipping into the ocean.

Ice looks north. “I know a couple folks stationed here.”

“Yeah? I probably do, too. I wouldn’t know anymore.”

Ice hums. He swings himself off the bike. Headlights flash by, illuminating his broad shoulders and all his arresting angles. “Why are we here, Mav?”

Maverick props his leg up atop the seat of the bike. He gestures to a building standing amidst the dunes. It’s a diner, standing all by its lonesome, its shingled facade newly built and its white trim freshly painted.

“That, over there,” he says. “I wanted to see if it was still here.”

Ice looks to Maverick instead. His scrutiny is an almost tangible weight against the side of Maverick’s face.

“It’ll become a bar in a couple years,” Maverick continues. “Owner was a friend of mine.” Well. He supposes they’re still friends now, too, if a bit less amicable. If he looks closely, he can almost see where the sign will be, with its slanted, neon red font. The Hard Deck. “Her name’s Penny. She got me into more trouble than anyone else. Her father’s an O-8.”

“Sounds like a history.”

“You could say that. I spent a lot of time here.” Maverick’s mouth curls. He points farther out into the sand. “Got thrown overboard a couple times. Couldn’t pay the tab. My back still hurts thinking about it.”

“This is a rousing image of yourself you’re putting in my head,” says Ice.

“Shame. Having second thoughts?”

Ice knocks their shoulders together. He’s still slightly taller than Maverick, even when Maverick’s propped up on his bike, and his hair is more tousled than usual, windblown from the ride over. Paired with a simple blue button-up open at the collar, he looks remarkably at ease. “Don’t be stupid.”

Maverick laughs. He returns his attention to the diner, its silhouette growing darker and darker against the backdrop of the fading day. Light pours from its windows and door glazing.

He’d watched Rooster sing and play piano through one of those very windows. It’d been the first glimpse he’d caught of him in over a dozen years, and the very thought of it still creases uncomfortably in Maverick’s chest, a phantom desolation too powerful to forget.

Things will change. Carole’s fears will likely never manifest, now that Goose is alive and well. Bradley will grow up to be who he wants to be, whether Maverick stands in his way or not. And Maverick will always be proud of him.

It’s almost funny—absolutely ridiculous, in hindsight. Despite that excruciating lesson, despite all those years of self-flagellation, he’d nearly gone and made the same mistake again. Ice is right. Who is he to decide for anyone else? He should have talked it out with Bradley before he pulled his papers. He should have talked it out with Bradley when he still had the chance.

There’s nothing he can do about it now. Keep moving forward, he supposes. Try to support Bradley in all his endeavors, this time. Look toward an unknowable future, just like everyone else.

When he glances back at Ice, he finds Ice watching him again. Just like always.

Their hands bump against each other. Ice threads their fingers together, hidden safely in the shadows between them. His Academy ring is iron-hard and cool, a stark contrast to the feather-soft warmth of his skin.

His voice is a balm. “You good?”

“Yeah,” says Maverick. He closes his eyes, breathes in the salty tang of the ocean. Then he squeezes Ice’s hand. “Let’s go.”

The hangar rises like a behemoth over the flat horizon, a singular structure looming atop a vast expanse of concrete out in what feels like the middle of fucking nowhere.

How in the world had Maverick gotten permission to squat in this thing?

It’s a secret, he can almost hear Maverick say.

Iceman, huh?

Maybe, Maverick would have said, and that has always been as good as yes.

The bay doors are still cracked open. So not only had Maverick been squatting in a military facility, he’d been leaving the damn thing open for literally anybody to wander in and discover he’d been squatting in a military facility. Alright.

Behind him, Phoenix whistles. “Look at that,” she says, and Rooster follows her gaze to the P-51 Mustang sitting prettily and 90% assembled in the middle of the concrete floor. “Where on earth did he get that?”

“Beats me,” says Rooster.

He can’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. Phoenix considers him, before she retreats behind the Mustang. That’s why he’d only asked her to come: she knows when to stop asking questions. Still, for a moment, he feels a pang of remorse.

Maverick’s workbench is laid out on the far side of the hangar, cluttered in a way that screams of organized chaos, tools hung neat and organized on the wall but everything else fair game to the whirlwind Maverick had been. A thin layer of dust has settled over it all, including the helmet kept like a trophy in the corner.

Rooster’s heart lurches. There are photos everywhere. Of Maverick, younger and grinning rakishly, of someone who must be Maverick’s father—but mostly of Rooster’s dad, his mom, the resplendent happiness on their faces, their arms wrapped tight around each other. And of Rooster himself, as a boy, as a young man, and the first official portrait he’d been forced to snap, when he hadn’t been sure what expression to wear for the camera.

He loved you, Penny had told him, on no uncertain terms, and it bleeds out in Maverick’s wall of memorabilia, bleeds out in the years of missed calls Rooster never returned, the voicemails he’d deleted the moment they’d appeared in his inbox.

“You said we’d talk,” he says, to Maverick’s carefree grin.

Instead, Maverick died protecting him.

Rooster had circled back, despite his radio clamoring with shouts not to. But he’d found nothing, not even debris. It’d earned him a mighty reprimand from Cyclone afterward, and Phoenix had punched him so hard in the shoulder Rooster’s certain she almost dislocated it. Even Hangman had looked upset.

In the end, they’d buried an empty casket.

In the end, Maverick had chosen him for the mission. In the end, Rooster hadn’t been able to save him.

I’m sorry for your loss.

It never stops hitting like a truck.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, only that Phoenix eventually reappears by his side. “We can come back,” she says, her voice soft, like it hadn’t been a five hour drive from the city to get here.

Rooster shakes himself out of it. “No,” he says. Then, determined, he peels the first photo off the wall: one of his dad and Maverick, arms slung across each other’s shoulders. Then another: his dad and Maverick, hollering at the ocean. Then another, and another. Phoenix gets the gist immediately; she carries a couple boxes in from the Bronco, and helps him clear the whole wall until all that remains are pinholes.

Then goes the helmet. The class photo of TOPGUN 07-86. All of the framed photos of Rooster. The drinking glass brimming with challenge coins. Every single fucking patch, exchanged throughout thirty-something years of service. Awards and plaques. A photo of Iceman and Maverick in dress whites, possibly at a wedding. It’s methodical work, mindless.

Fucking hell. Why are there so many photos?

“They’re almost all from the 80s and 90s, aren’t they?” Phoenix observes.

“Looks like it,” says Rooster, crouching in front of one of the boxes. He glances down at the Polaroid he's holding. Maverick’s looking off-camera, his eyes hidden behind his aviators, a four, maybe five-year-old Rooster in his arms. The color’s all washed out, blanched. He wonders if his dad took it.

There’s a toy model of an F-14 clutched in Baby-Rooster’s hand. Incredibly, Rooster recognizes it. He’s had it for fucking forever; it’s the first thing he remembers loving desperately, and it’d stayed with him, for some reason, even after PCSing out of the country. A lucky charm, in a way.

Well. Now he knows he’s had it since at least 19—

He squints at the nearly illegible date. 1986.

Phoenix rises and wipes her brow. She casts a long look around the hangar, at the golden-orange beam of sunlight slicing across the Mustang’s glossy fuselage.

“I think we’ll need more help,” she says.

Rooster follows her gaze. They’ve barely made a dent so far. He grimaces.

“C’mon.” Phoenix’s voice is gentle, but firm. She crouches again beside him, elbows on her knees. “Everyone’s here till the end of the week. Let them help. We can get this place cleared out by tomorrow.” She eyeballs the Mustang. “Except for that.” Then the myriad of motorcycles, parked on the ground and, inexplicably, on some shelves. “And those. What the hell are you gonna do with those?”

Rooster can’t meet her eyes. He looks back down, inexorably pinned to the photo in his hand, staring at the unfamiliar contours of Maverick’s youthful face. There’s a part of him that’s feeling possessive, he realizes. Which is fucking stupid, because Maverick hasn’t felt like family since Mom died. And now, suddenly, he does?

Who the fuck is Rooster kidding. Of course he does. Maverick’s always been family. That’s why it hurt so much, back then. That’s why it hurts so much now.

“Fine,” he says. “You’re right. At this rate we’ll be stuck here till Christmas.”

Phoenix fires off a text in the group chat before he’s even finished his sentence. It takes all of two seconds for a resounding series of vibrations to respond. Rooster’s own phone, tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, vibrates enthusiastically with notifications.

Rooster takes one last look at the photo, before he slips it in with the others.

I wish you’d told me, he thinks.

Penny had looked at him so sadly. After Iceman’s death, she’d probably been the only friend Maverick had left. It was your mother’s last wish, she’d said. He didn’t want you to resent her.

I don’t resent her, Rooster had replied, once his tears had finally dried, once his voice had stopped trembling long enough for him to speak. And he’d decided right then that he no longer resented Maverick, either.

Grief carves him hollow. All that’s left are the ghostly dregs of old memories.

He closes the box. Phoenix straightens again, her normally serious face sympathetic and kind.

“Up and at ‘em, Rooster,” she says.

Rooster nods. When she offers him her hand, he reaches out to take it.