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Ice stares at the image before him in confusion, his RIO at his side looking just as confounded. Before them, pillowed on Goose's duffel bag in the locker room, is Maverick. He lays on his side, curled into a tight ball.
"Is it wrong of me to think he's fucking adorable?" Slider whispers. "He's so tiny."
Slider isn't wrong. Ice creeps forward a step, tilting his head to get a better look at Maverick's face. The younger pilot sleeps on, unaware. He already appears young simply due to his height and rounder features, but with his expression slackened like so, he looks outright childish. It stirs something protective in Ice's chest.
Mav would hate that, but it's not like Ice can help it. When the tiny pilot shivers, he screws his face up in his sleep. Ice shrugs out of his bomber unthinkingly and lays it on top of Mav. A few minutes pass while they wait for the wrinkle in his brow to smooth.
"Now, what?" Slider asks.
"I don't know. He probably fell asleep waiting for Goose, so.... Leave him? I guess?"
A door opens nearby and Slider and Ice dart for the opposite end of the locker room. Goose's familiar humming echoes off the walls as he meanders down the hall toward them. He comes inside, his hums pausing as he settles down on the bench next to Mav.
"Hey, buddy. Wake up. It's time to head home," Goose murmurs, his voice soft—softer than it usually is, even. "You look cozy. Guess somebody must've gotten cold, huh?"
Mav rouses with a sleepy and inquisitive moan. "Mm?"
Ice glances at Slider. Yes, Mav is younger than any of them, but he never sounded as much until now.
"You're covered in Ice's jacket."
There's a pause, a shift, and then Mav's quiet voice saying, "I mean.... I was a little cold, but I didn't do this. I don't know where it came from."
"Well, we'll leave it for him. Come on."
Mav follows. When Slider and Ice dare to peek around the corner again, Goose, Mav, and the duffle are all gone and Ice's bomber sits folded neatly on the bench. The patches on the back stare up at him innocently.
The event sticks in his mind for the next couple days, to the point that while they're all studying in the library, Ice notices Mav lightly rubbing at his arms. He nudges Slider and motions to Mav with a slight jerk of his head. It doesn't take long for the RIO to catch on.
"You cold, Mav?" Slider asks.
The tiny aviator glances up from his work with suspicion in his gaze. "Why?"
"You can have my coat if you are."
Mav blinks. "Did you wash it first?"
Slider barks a laugh and starts shrugging out of his hoodie. "Still stuck on that, huh?" He tosses the article over the desk. "I promise, it's clean. Although, how you're cold when it's like a thousand degrees in here is beyond me."
Confusion flickers across Mav's face as he holds the hoodie in his hands. He scrutinizes the RIO and his pilot for several seconds, as though searching for a punchline, before slipping it over his head. It dwarfs him, fabric bunching around his wrists and pooling at his waist. Slider stifles a coo into his fist like a yawn, because holy shit the kid is fucking tiny.
"Thanks, Sli."
Ice can't help but feel like the gratitude is a victory. He also thinks he's experiencing what his girlfriend Sarah calls "cute aggression" for the first time, seeing as he wants to crush Maverick in a hug because he's so fucking adorable.
He never understood that before now.
For sure, Maverick would turn violent if Ice or Slider ever attempted it, but the temptation is very real. Across from them, Ice sees Hollywood and Wolf trying their best not to stare. It's a useless effort.
Goose reappears from the restroom and settles in the desk beside Mav, shooting him a sideways glance. "It's like a million degrees, Mav."
"Still cold."
"Cold-bodies. I swear, you're aliens walking among us."
Mav is a cold-body? Ice tucks the information away for later. He then proceeds to question everything about his life when he realizes he's starting to monitor Mav a whole lot like Goose tends to. Mav is supposed to be his competition, not his little brother.
Too bad his brain didn't get the memo.
"This thing is like seven sizes too big for you."
Mav stifles a yawn into his mitted free hand, sniffing a little and rubbing his face. "Only three. An' s' Sli's."
Goose arches a brow and shoots Slider a look. He and Ice both shrug, feigning innocence. The reaction makes Ice wonder, though. It can't be often that other people do nice things for Maverick if both of them reacted like that. Mav was suspicious. Goose was surprised, perhaps even cynical.
Was it really so rare?
After the fact, Ice and Slider have a brief discussion over what to do about it. Maybe Mav will get along a bit better with them if he feels included. The tiny aviator takes no notice of Slider and Ice suddenly wearing an extra unnecessary layer around base. Goose, on the other hand....
Ice will say he never felt particularly threatened by Goose in the past, but when he ends up back first against a wall with flinty brown eyes staring him down, he realizes Goose might not be as docile as he seems when it comes to Mav. They don't speak for the longest time. Ice sees Goose's gaze flicking over him, calculating and dangerous. If he wasn't currently being glared at by a very real Nick Bradshaw, Ice would hardly believe this version of him exists. He keeps his hands raised against the brick in surrender.
Nick pulls away and suddenly the ever-cheerful Mother Goose is back. He starts laughing. "You poor bastards fell into the damn trap, didn't you?"
"What trap?"
Ice watches Goose walk away, still laughing so hard he wipes tears from his eyes. He stares after him for several minutes, long after the door is closed and Goose is far, far away.
Did Ice imagine this whole thing?
Whatever the hell that was about, Ice couldn't say. It would've been nice if Goose elaborated a bit. Oh, well. As long as Ice didn't somehow make himself public enemy number one on Goose's shit-list, —honestly, Ice wouldn't think he had one if not for this—he's cool with it.
Ice finally pulls away from the wall, massaging the back of his head where it hit the brick. He didn't hit it very hard. Goose just wanted to get his attention, apparently.
Slider finds him in their shared barracks an hour later, an F-14 NATOPS spread out on his bed while he studies. "Hey."
"Hey, Sli. Good day?"
"Yeah, pretty good." He tosses a bag of take-out onto the bed. "Been thinking, though."
Ice smirks. "Sounds dangerous."
"Well, you know how Mav always seems so confused when we offer him things? Maybe we can.... I don't know, get him a little more involved, but in a subtle way. Maybe if we get Goose to join us on things first, Mav will tag along."
"That's a good idea," Ice answers, a bit distracted by the mention of the RIO. "Oh, about Goose...."
Slider pauses in the middle of opening up a box of teriyaki chicken. "What about him?"
"I think he thought we were trying to mess with Mav, not help him out." At Slider's confused look, Ice puffs out a nervous laugh. "Goose blindsided me about an hour ago. Pinned me up against the wall, but he didn't say a word. Just stared at me."
"We're talking about the same Goose here, right?"
Ice huffs. "Yeah. At least, I think so. It'd have to be a pretty damn impressive imposter otherwise. He held me there pretty easily, then-" Ice snaps his fingers. "Bam. Like flipping a switch, Mother Goose was back and laughing at me, saying we'd fallen into some kind of trap. I asked him about it, but he didn't give me an answer."
Slider shrugs. "Eh. If he was in a good mood about it, it can't be a big deal."
"True. Goose isn't the malicious type."
So, they let it go.
Ice catches Goose's eye more than once in the following days, but he gives no indication of anything. Instead, he goes along with it when Slider and Ice start asking them to hang out. Hollywood and Wolf catch on when they start sharing sweaters with Mav when he needs them. Chipper and Sundown keep snacks in their pockets after they discover Mav is practically always hungry. Anyone else would get fat from the amount of food he indulges in.
Slowly but surely, he stops looking so confused when they offer to share with him. He turns less standoffish with them. Or, Ice supposes, they turn less standoffish with him. Mav stays relatively the same.
And, on a calm day after their hops, they hang out on the beach as a group. Slider and Mav play in the water, Mav riding around on Slider's back when the water gets deep. Hollywood and Wolf pry him off, hooting and howling when Mav spits curses at them for dunking him. It's all good-natured, of course. Ice sits with Goose on their beach towels.
"I know I laughed before, but.... This is what I was talking about, you know," Goose says.
Ice glances at Goose.
"It's not a trap in the sense most people think of it. It's just...." A deep, contented sigh leaves Goose's mouth. "You catch him in a moment of vulnerability, and you realize that he's still so young, so small, so.... Well, he'd hate the description, but fragile. Suddenly, you'd do anything to keep him safe, to make him feel good, to let him smile and be free. 'Maverick' is as much his mask as 'Iceman' is yours. The difference is that you wear yours by choice. His, he wears out of necessity."
"What're you saying?"
"Mav's sharp, you know? Aggressive. That kid out there?" Goose motions to Mav where he plays with the others, now perched on top of Slider's shoulders with a wide smile on his face. "That's Pete, and you're seeing him right now because at some point, you got a look behind 'Maverick,' and decided you liked what you saw. Unlike every other shithead to decide they knew him based off his reputation alone, you guys cared about him."
Ice considers the information, watching the young pilot topple over with a holler when Slider lets go of his legs. Hollywood catches him, keeping his head above the water while he giggles from the sudden rush of adrenaline.
"How long did it take you to see him? Pete, I mean."
Goose chuckles. "Me? I knew the second I saw him for the first time. He was even smaller then, fifteen years old and scuffed up from a tussle. Took me an hour to convince him to let me clean him up and treat him so he wouldn't get an infection. Flinched every time I made a move, expecting me to turn on him at any second. I hated that. Even after my parents decided to take him in, I spent a good couple months watching him wait for the other shoe to drop, eyeing me, shifting around when I'd get into his blind spot." Goose sniffs and scrubs a hand through his hair. "I hated that shit so fucking much, because who the hell knew what everyone else was doing to him, you know?"
"What changed?"
"He got sick. Raging fever, vomiting, cold sweats, the whole nine yards. He.... Fuck, he lost so much weight so damn fast. You can imagine what dropping even ten pounds would be like to a kid his size. We took him to the hospital, and I stayed with him the whole time. When he woke up, coherent for the first time in two days, he saw me and just started crying because he finally figured out I wasn't gonna leave him alone."
Ice can't imagine. He can't imagine what it must've been like for Mav- for Pete to be so alone that having even one dependable person in his life was a fucking miracle.
"But look at him out there, Ice," Goose murmurs, a faint smile growing on his face. "Look at him being wild and happy and tell me that's not the most beautiful damn thing you've ever seen?" A warm laugh leaves his throat when Maverick tackles Wolfman into a cresting wave. "He's a damn brat. Trust me, I know better than anyone, but that right there is the most loyal kid I've ever met. He's my brother."
Loyal.
Ice isn't sure it's a word he would've applied to Maverick before now, but why should Mav be loyal to a group of people who jumped to the same exact conclusions as everyone else? They're aviators. A lot of big egos collide at Top Gun. Loath as Ice might be to admit it, Mav has a right to his. He's a damn good pilot, and from what Goose said, a damn good person underneath all that bluster, too. He needs a little support, not... whatever the hell Ice's attempt at a lecture counts as.
"Well, don't I feel like an asshole, huh?" Ice mutters.
"You are one."
A laugh barks from Ice's throat.
Goose smirks at him. "What? Were you expecting me to disagree with you?"
"No. No, not really." Ice's lips tip up as he watches Slider pluck Mav out of the surf with one hand, one tiny aviator squirming and complaining all the while. "You're honest, and I appreciate it."
"Do let me know when you get out of the 'he's so fucking cute' stage and into the 'this little shit' stage, would you?" Goose huffs out a laugh. "Once you get to that one, you'll have spent long enough catering to him that it'll be pretty hard to tell him no. I love the little shit, but sometimes his self-preservation is a little lacking."
Ice hums. "We've noticed."
For the next hour, Ice and Goose watch over the group while they play, and when they come out of the water, Goose is already waiting for Mav with a towel. He admits Mav into the protective circle of his embrace, wrapping him up in warmth while the sun dips below the horizon.
"Did you have a good time?"
Mav tips his head back and smiles up at Goose. "S' a good day. Should do it again, sometime."
Tom has been distinguished on paper several times already, but those soft words, sleepy and content, are the highest praise he can imagine. If learning to look out for Maverick was a trap, then it's one Ice and the rest of them are happy to be caught in.