Chapter Text
ICE POV
Cocked hip and squared shoulders, head tilted back just that much for Ice to feel it when he crowded the shorter man, their chests almost touched but not quite. They swayed ever so slightly in their stance but still they didn’t touch.
Up in his face like this, taunting him, looking up through his eyebrows at him. Like they were equals and there weren’t blatant discrepancies between them, each of them unwilling to flinch first and find out which ones hurt the worst. They had a lot to lose, they shouldn’t let men who fought like cats behind the stick of 30 million US dollar aircrafts.
Maverick grinned up at him, brushing off his shoulder.
Ice’s nostrils flared, proud and stuck up, with that big iceberg chip in his shoulder, simmering under the surface, he was very much the Navy Alpha from the posters. Daddy’s approval, warts and all.
Maverick was not. He was something more wicked. A Beta with respect for no one except his partner in crime, they were loyal to a fault. Loyal to the cause of stupidity.
They wouldn’t be allowed in the air if it were up to Iceman. They wouldn’t be allowed within 100 yards of him if he could any wish in the world.
And maybe it’s this entitled superiority that nudged him to try put Maverick in his place. Maybe it was the tension between them that suggested to something more elusive and sticky, but he leaned in, blindly suffused by Maverick’s infectious temperament and bullied into it. He was fully aware of what he was doing and why, when he did it. His mind was perfectly clear, in a rare moment of raw lack of inhibition, he closed the small distance between their heads from where Mitchell’s tilted up at him from the side, mouth open all teeth— he leaned in and bit down hard on the juncture of his neck, the implication all too vivid for everyone paying attention.
Saying, look— you’re my bitch.
Saying. You want me so bad, it makes you look stupid.
Something twisted inside him, wanting to demand that he be the one who satiates any desire or whim Maverick possessed.
It was the most disrespectful and demeaning and embarrassing thing he could’ve done short of pulling his dick out and pissing on his leg.
Heat flooded the skin on his face, worse than the steam of the room.
He blinked. He hadn’t meant to bite quite as hard as he did, never intended to break skin, that would be insane. He wasn’t a feral toddler. It was like something took over inside him, sick glee and satisfaction, it was just too good. It didn’t make sense to him.
As he pulled away, that’s where time went a bit foggy. He could see Goose’s expression of fury in suspension of disbelief and blinked, his attention flickering back to the man he’d assaulted.
He should’ve just punched him, he realised desperately, seeing the way Maverick had gone slack jawed and limp, the dark, red imprint of his teeth on the tender flesh of what he knew to be the neutral scent of pack-bonded Beta.
Like honey coming out of a jar, a thick skim that didn’t separate until it thinned and dropped that big fat stinking glob, thinly trickling, lightning quick and everywhere— it was everywhere in the room. One big glob of Maverick, his neck, his skin flushed and eyes wide and unfocused, needy and waiting to be bred.
The well-worn familiar scent of cocky Beta was gone, just a stale memory. Because it was like that, it dissipated quicker than the breeze when the source disappeared. But Maverick was standing right in front of them and then, it all clicked into place.
Omega.
Heady and electric in the air like a car crash, great elation and terrible destruction.
Ice stepped back in shock, glancing around the room wild like a trapped animal.
What did he do?
Slider was there at his back in a second, arm around his neck and bracing his collar against his own chest— whether to hold him up or hold him back he’s not sure. He wasn’t not sure whether he should be grateful or not either. Out of his periphery he saw Goose get close to him and started sniffing and scenting him with a disgusted confused look on his face like he couldn’t believe what was right in front of him.
Then another starts approaching him, an intrigued Alpha. But he gets too close and Maverick whines, leaning into Goose slightly and now it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the attention is rapt with the knowledge that there is an unmated omega in cloudy pre-heat among them, making sounds, and looking like that.
For a collective moment, a split second, all of their instincts are provoked. It’s suddenly not their fellow pilot among them.
Simultaneously growls erupted in their chests and throats in different cadences.
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MAV POV
Simultaneously growls erupted in their chests and throats in different cadences.
Goose, the closest to him, was high on defence, he could feel it in the way he tensed around him, wrapped around him. He closed his eyes around the shakes in his muscles and leaned his face into the cool, sweaty press of the tense bicep in front of him. The touch was nothing short of blissful relief, the biochemistry of his newly erupted system in hyperdrive and feeding off the contact with the protective Alpha.
The panic, the guilt, the shock, disbelief, confusion, wariness. The smell of real fear was awash, all of them and some of them more than others reeking of it as they came back to reality after losing control for a brief second.
Hadn’t they progressed past Omegas being breeding stock? It was the new world.
Post-modern times, anti-war rallies, liberation and democracy.
They didn’t live in that world, they were in the Navy.
They flew planes that went thousands of miles an hour with missiles and bombs and a trigger smaller than their fingernail under their thumbs.
They thought about Omegas the same way they thought about civilians, something other that they could never understand, something distant that they were abjectively protecting. If they joined to protect at all. Maverick knew plenty of officers and commanders who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word protection and thrived on that.
And he could feel the difference in himself, he was an Omega. His entire life was one big glass house and Iceman had been the stone thrown at it.
It should’ve been a prank between men.
But now, losing his senses in the amalgamation of overwhelming emotion of the situation, he knew it was so much bigger than that. He grasped onto Goose’s arm and hung tightly to it, shutting his eyes against the onslaught of light suddenly stabbing a pick through his brain. He took small jittery breaths in and out as his entire nervous system seemingly stood up and shifted places slightly to the left, leaving him shaking and jelly-footed.
His nostrils flared and he whimpered unbidden, all he could focus on was the raw Alpha scent around him. Scared, he knew what this meant.
How was he going to get out of this one?
“Goose, we have to get out of here, I can’t—”
He heard a heavy step taken in his direction and flinched, backing up the wall of lockers behind him. His neck ached, and so did his back, and his legs, and all he wanted to do sleep off the sudden overcoming feeling and needing to be fucked. Immediately.
Wet warmth gathered in between in legs at the base of his cock, the sensation shifted. He was so sensitive. He rubbed his legs together as the feeling expanded and he clenched around nothing in a place in his body he’d never felt existed before.
“Goose—” His voice betrayed any kind of covert communication he was attempting, his panic obvious. His eyes were still clenched, just like his fist on his friend’s flightsuit.
He heard the shuffle that had approached him move away until the creak of the locker room sounded and the footsteps rapidly flew away from them.
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ICE POV
“An official investigation has begun as of right now, Lieutenants. Any interference will result in an immediate dismissal from the Navy. Provisions will be brought and guards are posted nearby but they are ordered not to interfere. Gentlemen, this is above our intelligence, stand by for further instruction.”
“With all due respect, this is a crisis situation, you can’t just leave us here—” Hollywood protested as Wolfman exaggerated a head roll and flopped himself against the opposing wall.
The lock turned and the sound dropped in the room like a rock to the bottom of the ocean. Finality set in.
A beat. No one spoke for a moment of cool dissatisfaction.
“You shouldn’t even be here, Wood,” Slider remarked not unkindly.
The Beta glared at him, “Maybe it’s for the best I am, someone has to keep their head.”
Sundown scoffed, spewing some forgotten shaking cream onto the floor beside him.
They all turned to look at him where he’d claimed a space of wall himself, resting his forearms on his knees. He aimed a scornful look at them both. “What, you’re gonna throw yourself down in front of him if it comes to it, Neven?”
Hollywood faced him from where he’d been torn between gazing through the heavy set fire-door’s small grid-patterned window, and confronting them. He crossed his arms and spread his stance in resolution.
Puffed up with disdain creasing his mouth in deep lines, “Yeah, if it comes down to it. I will.” No hesitation in his tone.
Someone in the room released a breath of relief.
“It’s not going to be like that, he’s going to be fine,” Goose stated unwaveringly.
The man in question is tucked under Goose’s arm in the opposite corner, as far away from the rest of them as they can physically put themselves.
Ice and Slider catch each other's eye and a look passes between them before going back to studying their hands.
“Just put us all out of misery then, Goose,” Sundown complains again, missing tact by a mile.
“Fucking what did you just say?”
“If no one else will say it, I will. We could solve all this right now if only someone would step up.”
“Step up to do what? Assault their teammate, more than he already has been?”
Something big and unpleasant sits uncomfortably in Ice’s stomach at that, rolling around at its own volition.
Ice took in a sharp breath and regretted it immediately, it painfully highlighted the vulnerable Omega’s presence, trapped with them.
“I’m sorry, Mitchell. I didn’t know.” He said over the bickering that had descended on them. He didn’t look over.
An unspoken ring of law settles among them, a higher, deeper power compelling them all to obey what was now accepted as the end of line. Maverick is theirs to protect.
“So, what’s going to happen to us?” Wolfman spoke up. He was fingering his bracelet restlessly.
“We control ourselves, all of us,” Goose replies icily. “It’s not his fault.”
“Is he going to lose his wings?”
Nobody replied.
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GOOSE POV
There was silence again for a long time, until the sun set in the small windows lining the top far wall. Despite the heat, Maverick lay shivering with gritted teeth, curled up behind Goose’s back in the corner in the other man’s flightsuit. The hyper-exhaustion hit him all at once and he was helpless to change it. Bone-deep restlessness with no relief and a lack of nest or climate control, only cold tile greeting him. He slumped into the warm back caging him in and sighed into the meagre body heat that was being exuded. He let himself drift off into it.
Goose paid no mind initially to the Omega cuddling against him, it was only natural and it satisfied a deep rumble in his chest as an Alpha to protect him, for him to be safe with him. All his attachment to Maverick as the man he’d been before today only made him feel more strongly now that biology was compelling him to act. It was no different to him really, in the logical part of his brain.
Maverick was in trouble, of course he’d help him. He monitored his condition absentmindedly, more focused on the other men around him. He noted that since dusk the room had just begun to lighten, everyone cooling down without the blistering heat, but he felt it when the Omega’s body temperature started dropping dangerously, “ Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” someone asked.
“He’s going to drop,” Ice warned.
“He’s going what?”
“Drop, it’s when an — Omega, ” someone whispers, “goes into heat without proper care. It’s a bitch to come out of, Sandy told me.”
Goose scrambled around and caught him by the shoulders. Maverick only blearily blinked at him and slumped more into his arms. He cradled him to his chest and tried to think.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this but Wood I need you to get over here.”
Hollywood jumped to action, “Yessir,” he quipped to lighten the mood.
Wolfman groaned, “You’re evil, you know that? I hate you.” Beside him Slider banged his head against the concrete wall behind him. Thump, thump, thump.
“Take off your shirt, give it to me—” Hollywood unzipped his flightsuit with efficiency and tore his undershirt off without a second thought. Goose did the same and together they got them on Maverick with little hassle. He was mostly a dead weight like this and Ice was right— Fuck, Mav was going to drop soon if they didn’t do something.
“He’s cold, we need to warm him up and keep him awake.”
With them sitting on the ground like this with the prone man between them, the solution seemed obvious. They moved around until they’d settled him on his side with Hollywood tucked into the corner, his arms around Maverick and Goose at his back, rubbing his side and leg, trying to get some blood flowing in him.
It wasn’t a nest but it was better than being alone.
The others are in quiet conversation with each other in the other corner while Goose scents Mav’s neck comfortingly, his forehead pressed snug into Hollywood’s chest. Neither of them minded, well aware that they were not a priority in this scenario, Mav and his well being were.
A soft thud hits Goose in the back, he reaches around and finds a bundle of clothes. The stench of their owners was unlikely to help, it would only confuse the Omega but they were desperate.
He could feel Mav shivering again, a good sign, and he cautiously made space between them to pass the clothing to him. Sock’s and t-shirts and even someone’s jeans.
Goose tossed the words over his shoulder without looking, “Are you guys naked over there or what? Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
The denim ended up padding the floor beneath them and the tshirts were wrapped around Mav’s shoulders. The socks garnished the pile of laundry that was three desperate men.
Maverick opened his eyes with creased brows, nose curiously sniffing the khaki polyester tucked around his neck. Goose’s gaze snapped up to Hollywood’s as they watched Maverick betray them— he moaned, “Ice, ” into the fabric, pulling it closer until his face was buried in it.
“Oh God,” Wood’s eyes shut and he inhaled sharply around a grimace, “Mav you owe me so many beers for this,” as the middle man squirmed fruitlessly against the Beta. He yelped when his hips struck true, heavy breathing panting in his face.
“It’ll be over in a few hours,” Goose mutters. “Presenting this late? It’s scientifically unproven. Mine was pretty bad and I was only 12, I didn’t even care about mating. I can only imagine…”
“But didn’t he present as a Beta? It’s so mild, maybe he didn’t notice?”
“Who knows, let’s just get through this, yeah?”
“Do you mind if I pass him back to you? I need to tap out for a moment.”
There was little fuss from Maverick as he made himself at home on Goose’s chest instead. Hollywood carefully rearranged the clothes around them in a crouch before leaving their line of sight.
Maverick shuddered at the loss and tucked his face into the Alpha’s familial familiarity. The comforting scent of pack .
“Jesus Christ, Neven. What’s your excuse?”
Hollywood groaned in deep annoyance and sat down on one of the ‘waiting’ chair’s they’d been allotted. “Fuck you, man. Whimpering in my ear all like that and rubbing himself all over me. I can’t even really smell him and—” he voraciously complained.
“Shut up, Wood. You’re not making this any easier,” Ice’s commanding tone cut through like metal.
He had the humility to show remorse at least, shutting his mouth with a clack .
“Sorry, Ice.”
The apology is quickly back-tracked over with a 16-wheeler.
Their prison blues careful barrier of normalcy was threatened and broken by the simple thing of Wood being the voice of reason, getting distracted. He had set the example of what they should do. Backed up by Slider and even Ice, in his silent acquiescence. They should all protect their fellow pilot. Obviously. Not so easy when their instincts so usually relied on and trusted, were telling them to do everything to the opposite of that effect.
True chaos was when Wolfman stuck his hand down Hollywood’s pants.
They did nothing but listen and watch it happen. Sex in the air, Hollywood gasping not nearly as quietly as he thought. Everyone and their arousal came back with ten tonnes of force.
Painfully straining against the seam of his flightsuit, Slider’s breathing grew ragged.
Ice’s fists were clenched outside his thighs. Sundown wasn’t as strong, slowly moving his hand back and forth over his bulge, pain visible on his face and sweat dripping down his forehead.
Hollywood came with a strangled wail that caught in his throat no sooner than it began. They all heard it nonetheless. Wolf was petting him and nuzzling his neck while the other man slumped to the side and let himself be taken care of.
Ice moved his feet under him and pushed off the ground. Slider in the chair beside him jumped up and wrapped a strong grip around his bicep without skipping a beat.
“I’m getting us some water,” he raised an eyebrow at him, trying to shake off the unwelcome restraint. “Get off me, Slider. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, this is all your fault! Now sit down and don’t move.” Slider glared down at him but Ice wasn’t so easily intimidated.
Slider could stand up to the biggest of them, he was an Alpha, a part of him knew it was his responsibility to be the muscle of the resolve. He was made big by God for a reason and right now it was to protect Maverick Mitchell from his pilot.
Ice squared up to him, there, a flicker of hesitation. Was Slider really prepared to take him out if it came to it?
It didn’t matter. Iceman was ice-cold, no mistakes. He knew the parameters of this mission and he wasn’t going to let anyone get hurt.
“Move out of my way, you overgrown puppy,” he bared his teeth and the beginning of a low growl originated in his chest, arms tensing.
Ice rolled his eyes and yanked his arm free, watched Slider slowly back down, seating himself once again. He was all bark, no bite. “You don’t have to worry, I’m in control.”
Slider exhaled and nodded, gaze down, neck tilted ever so slightly to the side. Submission.
The insinuation of a pack hierarchy was lost on them all but the effects from which would affect them hugely in the coming days.
The night dragged on like a body in the desert, but they did get water and cafeteria food which they scarfed down. All anticipation of the situation had disappeared, they were just animals in captivity, lambs for the slaughter.
Waiting.
The fate of their careers rested in the hands of US Navy brass in offices around the country.
A funny thought came across Goose’s mind, “Do you think they told the President?”
Sundown napped peacefully with an arm thrown over his eyes, barring the obnoxious fluorescents.
Slider and Ice were in quiet conversation with each other, distracting themselves.
Mav huffed a laugh from his lap and it rocked them both in a way that fondly reminded Goose of Bradley.
“He wishes he could get a piece of this ass,” he mumbled into his neck, his smile sticking to his skin all teeth when Goose’s resounding honk exploded from his chest.
“What did he say?” Slider asked, poking his head around Ice’s shoulder.
“He said the President is lusting after him all the way in the White House,” Goose announced with a hint of pride and affection.
“It sure feels like he could be,” he responded good-naturedly.
“If you wanted in my pants, you could’ve said something before today, Sli,” Mav called out thinly but through a smile. He was having more and more moments of lucidity as the night progressed into day again. If he followed the average trajectory of heat presentations they’d be out of the woods by lunch time.
The gang minus Sundown who didn’t show any signs of disturbance gave a round of light chuckles at Slider’s blushing, ducked-head expense.
Ice ran his hand over the back of his RIO’s neck, his thumb finding purchase under the corner of the man’s jaw, a gentle, reassuring embrace.
Their attitude had changed drastically since the previous day. Coming to terms with the situation meant realising they were all each other had. The US Navy was a formidable enemy and this was unprecedented, undocumented.
Unthinkingly, they’d all thrown their towel into the ring with Maverick just as easily as they’d all agreed to keep him safe at his heightened vulnerability. They wouldn’t leave him behind, and until someone told them any– any thing— they wouldn’t know what they’d signed up for, but it didn’t really matter.
Not to Ice, who was responsible in some small part, who had maybe learned the most of what it meant to swallow his own pride in the face of his mistake. And not to Slider, who had already signed up to follow his pilot to the ends of the earth. Not to Goose, or Hollywood, who’d been willing to die upon principle of not allowing their friend to be raped in front of them and by proxy Wolfman, who would’ve defended his pilot and friend.
In this denial of instinct, stronger than Maverick’s system-shock induced heat-brain calling out to them with every available biochemical weapon, and the mixture of close quarters scents, a channel in their systems opened up to each other and latched on. Biologically clung onto one another.
Half-formed a pack bond fueled by the satisfaction of Alphas defending their Omega and their Omega going through hell for being denied but high off the connection to a pre-existing family pack bond. There was just one chain link missing, mate.
All of them refused to fulfil the position on the principle that their friend was more than his unfortunate biological situation. He had been something to them before it, and he was something to each other.
The concept of human rights didn’t occur to any of them. They weren’t the intellectual kind, with theories and analyses. For any of them to break the picket-line of abstinence was for anarchy to descend on all of them.
Maybe more among them than they thought were afraid of who’d they be if it came to it.
Viewing or treating Mitchell differently would threaten their way of life, it wasn’t an ideological decision. This would never fly with the brass, they knew.
“Can someone call my wife? Shit. She’s probably worried sick.”
“I’ll let them know,” Ice said as he approached the door and rapped on the door window. He stepped out briefly, the door locking behind him as he conversed with the armed guards outside. The sun that was creeping over the mountains sent a single sliver of light through his eyes as he returned through the door.
“They’re going to call her. We’re not allowed to speak to anyone, they made it sound like they didn’t even want us speaking to each other,” he shook his head. “How’s Maverick?”
“Alright. Not dropping anymore. If I could get some more fluids into him it would be better.”
“They’re sending in another meal soon,” he added helpfully. “He can have mine, whatever we get.”
“Iceman— you don’t need to do that.” Goose admonished him half-heartedly. It would help a lot actually.
He waved him off with a shrug, “I can miss a meal, I’m just sitting here,” he awkwardly admitted. “I’m just trying to help.”
“He’s not yours to look after.”
Ice raised his eyebrows in reply, but backed down, grumbling under his breath.
Another spike took hold of Maverick and Ice shuddered, gripping his knees at the effort to keep the blood from rushing back to his groin. He couldn’t help it, the Omega gushed another wave of slick, pheromones dripping off of him, roused by the conversation or the gust of air or who knows —
Iceman was struggling, politely keeping his eyes off the other men in the room who all stank of a similar predicament.
“Why do I feel like I’m at the weirdest doctor’s appointment ever?”
It sliced through the tension, a profound camaraderie had been forged between them from the night before. Ice released his grip and leaned back in his chair.
“God, you guys are too easy,” Mav chuckled weakly at them, bicep shaking from the effort of holding his upper torso up so he could address them.
Slider snorted but didn’t reply.