Work Text:
1989
“Can’t resist anything sweet, can you, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing’s sweeter than you, Betty.” Maverick flashes a honeyed smile.
Viper’s secretary keeps the candy bowl on her desk stocked with a rotating variety of seasonal treats. She’s a more reliable indicator of the passage of time than the temperate coastal climate. This week, she’s replaced gold- and silver-wrapped chocolate bells and snowflakes with a pastel rainbow of candy hearts, each one stamped with a corny message.
Never one to pass up a free offer, Maverick reaches in and scoops up a generous handful.
“Not too many! You’ll ruin your appetite,” Betty scolds, but her eyes twinkle fondly.
“I’ll eat all my veggies later, I promise!”
He catches up with Ice in the hallway.
“Want some? The red ones are cherry-flavored. I think. Maybe strawberry?”
Ice recoils like Maverick’s offering him a palmful of glowing radioactive waste.
“Chalk. They’re all chalk-flavored, Mitchell.”
“Fine. More for me, then.” Maverick grins cheekily and pops the candies down the hatch.
“Now you have pink dust smeared all over your mouth.”
“Where?” Maverick swipes at his cheeks and chin. “Here?”
Ice’s fingers twitch.
“Show me where. Here?”
Ice rolls his eyes and brushes past him.
“You coming for drinks later?” Maverick calls.
Ice doesn’t turn around. “Mmm, maybe.”
Maverick doubles back and helps himself to another handful of candy hearts.
There are still four days left in January, but the O-Club’s already decked out for the upcoming holiday. The vintage model planes dangling from the ceiling jockey for space among crepe paper hearts and cardboard cupids, spinning lazily in the air currents and aiming their foil-tipped arrows in random directions. In the background, Madonna croons Crazy for You.
Maverick’s unmoved by the festive atmosphere, too preoccupied imparting valuable life advice to his new buddy Edsel.
Ever since Edsel came on staff last fall, Maverick’s openly thrilled not to be the most junior instructor anymore. (He and Ice had started at the same time, so theoretically should be on the same level, but Ice graduated top of their cohort and Maverick came in dead last. So.)
Edsel’s someone he can mentor; someone who looks up to him. The kid’s not wise in the ways of the world, and needs all the help he can get.
“Hey, check out the brunette in blue and her redheaded friend. They’re both total babes. Be my wingman, Mitchell? I’ll help you out, too. You want to find a girlfriend in time for Valentine’s Day, right?”
Maverick chokes on his beer. “Are you outta your mind? Absolutely not. We are deep into the danger zone, my friend.”
“What do you mean?”
“How’d you make it through flight school with that shit sense of timing? You do not want to find yourself intimately entangled three weeks before V-Day, son. You start romancing a girl now, the pressure’s on. She’ll expect the full production. A dozen long-stemmed red roses. The two-pound, heart-shaped box of See’s Candy. Jewelry or perfume, and not the cheap kind, if you value your life. She’ll want you to take her out to a nice restaurant with cloth napkins and an expensive wine list.”
“Damn.” Edsel sounds considerably more sober than he did three minutes ago. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“And that’s the easy part. Those are just the material investments. What’s worse is, pretty soon, she’ll want to start having conversations. ‘What are we doing? Where are we going? Where do you see us in six months?’”
The poor kid’s practically turning green. Maverick moves in for the kill.
“Think about it this way, Edsel. Right now, every store in the country’s selling heart-shaped candy at jacked-up prices, but on the 15th, whatever’s left on the shelf will be 75% off, at minimum. It’s the same deal with women. Every single chick who had to watch her friends get taken out for roses and champagne while she sat home alone, will be ready to fall at the feet of any guy who gives her the time of day. And every lady whose boyfriend failed to meet expectations will be out prowling for an upgrade. That’s when it’s Open Season again. Until then, stick to one-night stands only.”
“You’re a regular Prince Charming, Mitchell.”
Maverick leans back on his barstool to glare at Ice, nursing his drink two seats over.
“Please enlighten us, Professor Kazansky. What are your Valentine’s plans?”
“I’m taken.” Ice holds up his left hand and waves it languidly. The heavy sapphire winks in the dim light.
Maverick turns back to Edsel in triumph. “I rest my case. Who are you gonna listen to, me, or Mr. I’m-Married-to-the-Navy over here?”
“One thing I can’t argue with, Edsel.” Ice pats him on the shoulder. “Mitchell’s advice is worth every penny you paid for it.”
He fishes the lime wedge out of his empty glass and pops it into his mouth, sucking the pulp clean off the rind.
Maverick jerks his eyes away, face hot and prickling, and glances around surreptitiously; doesn’t anyone else think Ice deserves to be charged with public indecency for doing that in a crowded bar? No, just him? Fine.
“I’m out.” Ice stands and tosses cash on the bar. “See you Monday.”
“Yeah, have a good one,” Maverick echoes, and turns back to Edsel. In his peripheral vision, he watches Ice walk out the door, reflected in the mirror behind the bar. “Any further questions, Grasshopper?”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” Edsel mumbles, and wobbles off his barstool, paler than the half-eaten mozzarella sticks abandoned on his plate.
“Be smart, man! Keep your head screwed on straight until the 15th, and then you’re home free.”
Maverick scavenges Edsel’s leftovers, downs another beer, and wins two games of darts before strategically losing the third. By this point the crowd has turned over by half, and he pays his tab and slips out without saying goodbye to anyone.
Then he’s free, racing through the night, wind tousling his hair, Kawasaki purring between his thighs.
Maverick had not lied earlier. He does not, strictly speaking, intend to get tangled up with a girlfriend right now.
He’d gone whole hog for Charlie in their first— and last— Valentine’s Day together. They were already sliding into freefall and he’d sprung for a grand gesture like a man groping for a ripcord, praying the chute would keep him above the waves, knowing it would only delay the inevitable splashdown. A dozen roses; four-course dinner with champagne; a night at the Del Coronado.
And, well. Like he’d warned Edsel. That was the easy part; the administrative stuff. After that came the whole What are we doing? and Where are we going? conversation.
Charlie ended things two weeks later, probably delaying out of pity.
He’d been pretty wrecked at the time, but from a distance of almost two years, he gets it. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice her career for the life he was prepared to offer her. And he sure wasn’t about to hang up his flight suit and follow her to Washington to schmooze with politicians all day.
All they were ever going to do was disappoint each other. Who needs that kind of pressure?
No, he’s not looking for commitment right now.
But he’s not exactly sticking to one-night stands only, either.
Maverick brainstorms talking points as the road rolls away beneath him. “About what I said earlier…” “I didn’t mean it like…” “What I really meant was…”
He cuts the engine at the usual corner and walks his bike to its customary parking spot. He continues on foot two blocks west and three more north, deftly circumventing streetlights, checking that the neighborhood is quiet and no one’s around. (There are procedures to follow.)
The house is dark. On the steps to the front porch sit three potted aloe vera plants. Maverick casually tilts the middle pot and runs his hand underneath.
Every time he does this, his stomach goes weightless, and not in a good way, like when he angles his jet into a dive. What if the key’s not there?
(The key is there.)
He lets himself into the house. Just inside the doorway, there’s a low table holding incoming mail and a souvenir mug from the San Diego Zoo giant panda exhibit. The key goes inside the mug. (This is important.) He pulls off his shoes and tucks them under the table.
The walk over gave him time to clarify his opening statement, and now the words are neatly lined up, ready and waiting at the back of his tongue. “Hey, about what I said earlier, what I meant was—”
He rounds the corner and there’s Ice standing in the hallway, clothed only in dog tags and shadows.
“Hey,” he says, his voice soft and low, and every other thought flies out of Maverick’s head.
It comes back to him a couple hours later, lying in the dark with his ear pillowed on Ice’s navel.
Spending the night is a fairly recent development. Maverick used to slip out in the small hours of the morning, while Ice was sleeping (or faking it well enough that they could both claim plausible deniability). They’ve never discussed the arrangement, beyond its bare logistics. They never waste much time on discussion. Maverick reasoned that leaving early seemed like the tidy thing to do. He assumed Ice would appreciate being spared the inconvenience of having to deal with him in the daylight.
Then one night he dozed off and slept clear through to 0900; woke to sunshine filtering through the blinds and breakfast sizzling in the kitchen. He’d been mortified, but Ice just poured him orange juice like it was no big deal and cracked some snide joke apologizing for wearing him out the night before.
Since then, he’s had a standing invitation to sleep over. Or, anyway, he stays, and Ice doesn’t tell him to leave.
Maverick’s developed an… appreciation, let’s say… for prickly Ice, snappish Ice. He’d get bored without a worthy challenge, and navigating Ice’s sharp edges and unpredictable cold fronts keeps him stimulated.
But he might like this Ice even better— relaxed, sleepy-eyed, even… cozy. If Maverick had known it was so easy— and entertaining— to mellow him out—
That’s the reason why he’s confident in his timing. This feels like a good moment to get the conversation part out of the way; then they can segue into Round Three.
“Ice.”
“Mm.”
“What I said earlier—”
“Don’t say you want it faster unless you really want faster.” Ice sounds pleasantly, deceptively drowsy.
“I’ll handle anything you can give me, and more, Kazansky,” Maverick snaps.
“I know.” Ice chuckles softly, sending waves of resonance vibrating under Maverick’s cheek. He trails his fingertips lightly across Maverick’s scalp.
Maverick grits his teeth. He can stay focused long enough to get through this.
“I meant, what I said before. At the bar.”
Ice sharpens to full awareness. “You realized I’m right about Beignet and Rodeo beating out Scooby and Wingnut? Because if you think you’re squirming out of our bet now—”
“Not that. When I was talking with Edsel.”
“Yeah, you scared him so bad he’s probably running off to join a monastery as we speak. That’s on you, so don’t expect me to help you pick up the slack with his paperwork.”
Maverick snorts. “Funny. I meant the thing about.” He pauses, a beat too long. “About not having a girlfriend.”
There’s a brief silence.
That stretches into a longer, more precarious silence.
It’s the same feeling as when you’re dogfighting Ice and he vanishes on you, and you’re swiveling your head like a fucking bobblehead doll, until suddenly—
“What. You met someone?” Ice’s voice takes on a dry, distant quality, like he’s just zipped up to 10,000 feet.
“No, but…”
The thing is, he will meet someone. Eventually. After he’s not on the rebound from Charlie anymore, he’ll get serious about finding Ms. Right. Or Ms. Next, anyway. That was the lesson he’d learned with Charlie; never jump in too deep with anyone too fast. He’s young; he should have years of playing the field before he settles down. Wouldn’t kill him to be single for a while.
You’re single now, he reminds himself.
The nocturnal activities at Ice’s are purely for the sake of convenience. He’s blowing off steam with someone who can keep up with him, someone trustworthy; no complications of the variety he’d warned Edsel about, and no risk of long-term entanglement. He’s not a terminal case like poor Ice, who’ll probably still be pulling this “hidden key” routine when he’s old and gray.
The thought pulls him up short. Ice doing this with other guys. Stands to reason Maverick wouldn’t have been the first? And surely Ice’s bed won’t stay cold for long after Maverick moves on to greener pastures?
It’s never crossed his mind before.
“Oh, you meant that’s your plan. Open Season starts February 15th. You’re gonna hook yourself a Miss Lonely Heart?”
This is Ice at 20,000 feet.
“Hey, I wasn’t talking about me, personally. I was just trying to stop Edsel from making a critical mistake. I only meant— Never mind. It’s stupid; forget about it.” He nudges Ice’s foot. “Are we going again, or do you not have the stamina?”
Ice rolls abruptly onto his side. Maverick’s head bounces on the mattress.
“I guess not.”
A tingling chill floods Maverick’s veins. Only a month ago that stamina jibe would have ended all further conversation until daybreak. And not because of Ice sulking.
“If you have better prospects, don’t let me get in your way.”
30,000 feet and climbing.
“I mean I wouldn’t expect you to— I wouldn’t stop you from seeing other people.” Maverick would rather be flying without instruments, at night, in zero visibility, with both engines dead, than be trapped in this conversation right now. “Are you?” His voice cracks awkwardly.
“Yes. Dozens.” Now entering the stratosphere. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed; the line usually wraps around the block on weekends.”
If Maverick’s learned one thing since he first met Ice, it’s when to bail out of an unrecoverable spiral.
“I should probably…” He slides out of the bed and haphazardly yanks on his clothes.
Ice doesn’t budge, withdrawn into himself, turned toward the wall as silent and rigid as a marble statue guarding a tomb. When he gets like this there’s no point trying to reason with him. It’s like free-climbing a sheer ice wall; you’re not gonna get anywhere but sprawled on your ass.
On his way out the door Maverick realizes he pulled his shirt on backwards. Too late to fix now. The tag scratches his throat the whole ride home.
Ice didn’t even warn him to be careful leaving.
Monday morning, Ice acts as if nothing out of the ordinary happened over the weekend. Which is typical. They keep their extracurriculars strictly off-campus.
But… today feels different. A cold front markedly chillier than the 60-degree weather.
Maverick struggles to focus during the morning staff meeting, hyper-aware of Ice sitting beside him. Some days, Ice’s foot settles against his under the table; others, his knee brushes Ice’s thigh. (It’s mostly accidental. The conference table really isn’t big enough.)
Today, they both rigorously maintain their own personal space.
When he fled Ice’s place on Friday night, was that the last time?
This thing between them always had an expiration date, anyway. He has no illusions Ice would be willing to keep it going if Maverick found a girlfriend. When he finds a girlfriend. Ice won’t stand to be anyone’s side hobby. He’ll appreciate a clean break.
After the meeting, Maverick absentmindedly grabs another handful of candy hearts as he passes Betty’s desk, irked when Ice lingers in the conference room talking with Limbo.
Are you deliberately avoiding me, you slippery bastard?
Alone in their shared office, he entertains himself tossing candy hearts in the air and catching them in his mouth. He misses on his last throw. The heart skitters across the floor under Ice’s desk.
Maverick slouches grumblingly over to retrieve it, and turns it over in his hand. It’s a little pink thing, the two-word message boldly emblazoned in red.
Footsteps approach the door.
Maverick operates by instinct in the air. If you have a fraction of a second to make a decision, you commit, and you act.
By the time Ice strolls in, he’s bent over his desk, diligently filling out his weekly report like a model citizen, watching from the corner of his eye, so he can catch the exact moment when Ice picks up the morning memos from his inbox and spots the pink candy heart underneath.
HEY CUTIE
Ice freezes for a second, then swivels to shoot Maverick the Patented Iceman Death Glare.
No one else is around, so Maverick waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
Ice coils up menacingly and Maverick straightens in anticipation; Ice looks ready to lunge across the three feet separating them and cram the candy heart down his throat so far—
“Gentlemen.” Jester gives a ‘courtesy tap’ on the door before barging in, much the same way California drivers give a ‘courtesy tap’ to the brakes before cruising through a stop sign.
Without batting an eye, Ice cracks open his desk drawer and flicks the candy heart into it, out of sight.
And that’s it. The moment’s gone.
The aftertaste of sugar turns bitter on Maverick’s tongue.
Yeah, Friday night was probably the end of that sweet deal, Maverick thinks as he leaves work that evening. Certainly won’t be the last time he fucks up a good thing he had going. Sure as hell isn’t the first.
That’s when he notices the mint green candy heart propped against his odometer.
BE GOOD
Maverick laughs out loud and reflexively scans the parking lot. Ice’s car is already gone.
He throws his leg over the bike and revs the engine.
Game on, Iceman.
The next morning, Maverick finds an excuse to loop by Betty’s desk and resupply on candy hearts. He picks through his haul and selects a blue one.
WHO ME?
He nestles it inside Ice’s left jacket pocket, the one where he keeps his keys.
The day after, Maverick arrives at the office to find Ice powering through his paperwork like an automaton, Icebot-2000, ignoring him in a way that’s a little bit too conspicuous.
He catches a flash of pale yellow tucked beneath the receiver of his phone, and fishes out the candy heart.
CALL ME
Flushing, he picks up the receiver and stabs in Ice’s intercom code. Ice’s phone buzzes. Ice turns to Maverick and holds his receiver in the air, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“You sadistic prick,” Maverick seethes. “I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head for the next three days.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ice says archly.
If Maverick has to suffer, he’s not going to suffer alone. That afternoon when he and Ice are in the air together, he flicks on their private radio channel and warbles:
“‘Call me on the line, call me, call me, any, anytime.’”
He’s mostly hitting the notes. Close enough, anyway.
“You sound like a gull with indigestion,” Ice complains.
“‘Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any daaaaayyy-AAAAYYYY!’”
Later, while Ice hangs back on the tarmac talking snap rolls with Beignet, Maverick pries off the cap to Ice’s hair gel and delicately lays a purple candy heart on top of the aerosol button: WINK WINK
He finds a pink heart fixed to the corner of his bulletin board, cradled in a frame of thumbtacks: SAUCY BOY
He drops a heart in the bottom of Ice’s empty coffee mug: HEAT WAVE
The inevitable response arrives via styrofoam cup, lying on a bed of crushed ice: CHILL OUT
It’s Friday. If Maverick hoped his friendly candy challenge with Ice would reset the balance between them, he’s S.O.L. Ice doesn’t come to the O-Club as per usual. Maverick wouldn’t dare show up at his door, not without a guaranteed welcome. He has his dignity.
Instead he sits at the bar watching Edsel turn a cold shoulder to any woman who shows him a hint of interest.
Maverick can’t finish his drink, and goes home early.
Come to think of it, he should probably quit hanging around the O-Club so much. The chicks who go there are all tag chasers, or else daughters of people you do not want pissed off at you. (Another lesson learned the hard way.) But then again, those girls know what they’re getting into, theoretically; know they’ll always come second to the flying, to the brotherhood. Simpler than trying for a civilian.
Either way, he’d be a fool not to follow his own advice and avoid any entanglements this delicate time of year.
Maverick breaks down and buys a bag of candy hearts (full price!) at the commissary, so he won’t arouse Betty’s suspicions loitering by her desk to review his options. Besides, he needs the weekend to strategize. Overkill for a stupid prank war, but when you’re up against Ice you have to go all out just to stay in the game.
Hard enough trying to get inside his head in the air. Unless he wants you to. When they fly as wingmen, instead of adversaries, it can be so smooth, so natural, it’s like they’re sharing a brain.
Sometimes it’s like that in bed, too.
But on the ground, in the light of day, it’s another story.
Maverick starts eating the hearts with slogans he and Ice have already used.
What happens after they end this little competition? Things settle down and they pick up where they left off? Or they go their separate ways? So then what’s he going to do, hang out in the O-Club every Friday until Ice leaves, and obsessively monitor everyone else who walks out the door for the next 45 minutes?
Maybe Ice already found someone new for his weekend slumber parties. Maybe that’s why he didn’t come to the bar on Friday.
The sugar sours in his gullet.
He sifts through the candy bag and settles on: LET’S RIDE
Yeah, that’s a good one. Double entendre.
Monday during his lunch break, he jimmies open the driver’s-side door to Ice’s car and perches the candy heart carefully over the ignition. Added bonus; it’ll drive Ice nuts wondering how he got it inside.
Maverick’s pulling on his flight glove when his third fingertip jams into something hard and dense. He yanks off the glove and a candy heart tumbles out.
HIGH FIVE
The blood vessels in his brain fizz like he’s twisting in a cobra roll. The glove was inside his personal locker, secured behind a combination.
This is starting to feel like it’s not a mindless prank anymore. What’s the endgame?
Maverick gulps back a grim laugh.
Hey, Ice? What are we doing? Where are we going?
Maverick dumps the bag of candy hearts on his kitchen table to sort through them. He is running out of viable options. Most of the messages he and Ice haven’t used yet are… unsuited to the tone of the game.
ADORE ME
MARRY ME
BE MINE
Hadn’t he said that to Ice once? You can be mine?
And of course there’s the cliché message; the obvious one you’d expect to see stamped on a candy heart.
Maverick carefully sequesters the OFF-LIMITS hearts away from the others, so they don’t get mixed up by accident.
Time to up the ante before Ice has the chance to do it first.
KISS ME
He tucks the heart inside Ice’s F-14 NATOPS, right in the middle of the chapter on fuel injection.
During the Friday afternoon training exercise, Maverick hovers on Ice’s wing, clinging like a shadow.
“Maverick, lead Camino off to the southwest; get him to chase you. I’ll come up from behind and we’ll trap him.”
It’s a solid idea. But Maverick’s feeling twitchy, disagreeable, and the sound of Ice’s bland monotone makes his flesh prickle. It’s a full day since he planted the KISS ME heart, and Ice has neither acknowledged nor reciprocated.
Maybe he hasn’t found it yet?
Or maybe he thinks Maverick went too far.
Fuck that. Ice knows who he’s dealing with; he shouldn’t expect Maverick to pussyfoot around.
“Is that an order or a request, Kazansky?”
“It’s a strategy.”
“Here’s a better one. You be the decoy. Get him to fly into the sun. I’ll drop out of that cloudbank and surprise him.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s smart enough to notice we pulled the same trick on Scooby this morning.”
“Right; he won’t expect us to do it twice in a row.”
“I’m not doing it twice in a row.”
“Then go hide in the clouds and plot your strategy while I smoke the kids. That’s not an order, by the way. It’s a suggestion.”
“If you want to waste time arguing, I will ditch your ass.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Just a friendly warning.” Ice rockets up vertically.
“Didn’t think you could shake me that easy, did you?” Maverick jerks back his joystick and speeds in pursuit, chasing him in and out of the cloud cover. “How’s your strategy working out now?”
“Exactly as planned, thanks. I knew you’d take the bait. You can’t help yourself.” Ice hits the brakes and dives.
Maverick curses his way through a hairpin turn to get back on track.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Kazansky. Someone’s gotta keep you humble, and these kids aren’t up to the task.”
“And you think you are?”
“We both know I am. That’s why you’re running scared; you don’t have the stones to meet me head on.”
“Thought you would’ve caught up already, hotshot. You’re lagging.”
“I didn’t want to humiliate you in front of the students by taking you out too fast, but if you’d rather not prolong the agony, that’s fine with—”
The flatline tone of missile lock fills his cockpit.
“Shit!” Ice peels off, cursing a jagged streak in Maverick’s ear.
“Gotcha, Mav!” Camino zips past, laughing.
Maverick hangs there in mid-air, stunned and blinking, until he stalls out.
Ice holds off the students as long as he can, but without a wingman watching his back it’s only a matter of time before they organize and chase him down. All Maverick can do is circle helplessly, a dead man flying, until Jester orders them all back to the hangar.
Maverick makes it to the instructors’ locker room first.
Ice storms in behind him, sweaty and disheveled in the way he only looks after flying. Or sex.
“What’s the matter, Kazansky? Can’t handle a flock of rookies?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll hang you out to dry, and we’ll see how well you do on your own.”
“If you’d been watching my six like a good wingman, I would’ve survived long enough to help you. Do you get how that works?”
“Maybe if you’d been focusing on the students like a good instructor, which is our actual job, you wouldn’t have made yourself a sitting duck.”
“Maybe next time I have a brilliant suggestion, you’ll shut your mouth and fall into formation. Or admit I’m out of your league.”
Ice fumbles in the chest pocket of his flight suit and whips out the KISS ME heart.
“What about this, Mitchell?” He brandishes the heart in Maverick’s face. “Is this a suggestion? Or a request? Maybe an order?”
“It’s me calling your bluff, Kazan—mmph!”
Ice grabs him by the front of his flight suit and yanks him in.
Ice is no cold fish in the bedroom, but this kiss is ravenous on a level Maverick’s never seen from him before. It’s like getting steamrolled by a rogue wave. At first he’s hanging on for dear life, but then he gets his feet under him and gives back as good as he’s taking it.
If Ice thinks this will win him the upper hand, he’s got another… another… fucking… Fuck.
He’s internally combusting from the heat rolling off Ice’s body; it’s cooler inside his F-14’s engine. The taste of cinnamon Trident and paraffin floods his mouth.
Any second now, Maverick’s going to deck him for his audacity.
Any second… in a second. Or five.
The locker room door crashes open.
“What the hell was that just now?” Jester demands, pulling off his helmet in disgust. “You two looked like fucking amateurs up there.”
Maverick snaps to attention and aims his eyes a thousand yards in the distance; eighteen inches away, Ice does the same. The trick with Jester is to let him talk himself out; show you’ve been properly chastised. Ice offers a few placating explanations at appropriate intervals. He’s good at that. Maverick keeps his mouth shut and nods along. Usually his best contribution in these situations is to avoid making things worse.
By the time Jester stalks off to the showers, mollified, the mood in the locker room is chillier than a barnacle hitching a ride on the hull of a ship sailing the Bering Strait.
“That… shouldn’t have happened.” Ice’s voice wavers slightly, like he’s asking a question.
“Right.”
Maverick can’t bring himself to look Ice in the eye, and he can tell by Ice’s posture the feeling is mutual. They’ve never crossed the line at work before, no matter the temptations of post-flight adrenaline, exposed flesh, and scratchy government-issued towels that never cover quite enough. They’ve always kept THE THING strictly off-base. It’s two different people who meet at that house in the dark of night, people from a different world, and never the twain shall meet.
Maybe they fucked up the boundary with a bridge of pastel hearts.
Maverick skips the O-Club that night; he’s not in the mood. He paces back and forth in front of his kitchen table, poring over the candy hearts like an Admiral in his war room.
Now he’s really running out of ammunition, but no way in hell he’ll be the one to swerve first.
Your move, Iceman.
He ponders his remaining hearts, trying to predict which one Ice will use next. The playful options are dwindling fast.
SWEET TALK, maybe? WHY NOT? FAX ME? Ice wouldn’t pick that one; he already did CALL ME.
He carefully avoids looking at the OFF-LIMITS pile.
Maverick hadn’t noticed how accustomed he’d become to the regular sleepovers at Ice’s, until he skips a second weekend in a row. Hadn’t realized he’s spent the last— how many months?— living for the one or two days a week he doesn’t wake up alone.
That kiss in the locker room runs through his head on a loop. He’s worked himself into the worst kind of state, all tanked up with his afterburner firing, trapped on the flight deck with nowhere to go. In days past a good jerk-off session would have solved the problem, but now he’s frustrated just thinking about it, knowing the results will be lackluster compared to what he’s missing.
Maverick’s man enough to admit there are certain areas of expertise in which Ice outclasses him. Delayed gratification, for instance. Ice is a champ at drawing things out, knows when to push forward, when to throttle back, so when he finally nudges Maverick across the finish line, it’s like being flung out of a catapult.
Even more intense when Maverick returns the favor. Ice lets him do that; lets Maverick be the one to dismantle his carefully constructed camouflage piece by piece until there’s nothing left but him, bare and vulnerable, and that means something.
Even better afterward, when they’re draped over the bed together, Ice dragging long fingers slowly through his hair, their frenzy ebbing away into a comfortable drowsy silence.
The shift in Ice’s breathing when he drops over the edge of sleep.
The way his fingers flex in his dreams, like he’s working a phantom joystick.
Where are you flying, Ice? Am I there on your wing?
Laughing together in the kitchen on those lazy mornings after, Maverick swathed in one of Ice’s old t-shirts, fabric worn soft as a caress, Ice casually hip-checking him when they get in each other’s way.
Or the mornings when they stay in bed and lie chest to chest, like they’re nestled in a lifeboat rocking gently in a tranquil sea.
Maverick rolls over and slams his fist into the mattress.
“Fuck,” he tells his pillow.
He’s distracted at work on Monday. He’s avoiding Ice; or is Ice avoiding him? It’s not until he’s wrapping up to leave when he notices— he hasn’t encountered a rogue candy heart all day.
There’s nothing in the office. He checks the break room, the locker room; even the ready room.
No heart.
If Ice hid it in a common area, someone else might have picked it up or thrown it out. And he won’t realize because he’ll assume Maverick found it, so now he’ll think Maverick’s the one stalling—
No. Ice is too careful for that.
Ice is fucking with his head. Playing some kind of sick mind game. He wouldn’t just give up. The Iceman never backs down from a challenge.
Unless he hid his heart so well, Maverick can’t find it. A thought that pisses him off even more.
Or maybe Ice opted out entirely. He’s bored; he’s above this juvenile bullshit; he’s waiting to see how long it takes Maverick to figure out his wingman left him twisting in the wind. Exactly the kind of psych-out that would turn that fucker on, to silently ditch the game and laugh to himself, watching Maverick drive himself crazy searching for something that isn’t there.
Fuck that. The next heart has to be here somewhere; Maverick’s just overlooked it.
He returns to the office and searches with renewed vigor.
“Lose something, Mitchell?” Viper leans in the doorway, frowning.
Maverick holds up the first object his hand touches— a staple remover. “Never mind! Found it!”
Viper shoots him an odd look, but mercifully moves along.
Maverick’s coming up empty, until finally, in desperation, he rifles through Ice’s desk and spots a telltale flash of pastel.
“Jackpot.”
He frowns. The hearts look familiar.
HEY CUTIE
WHO ME?
WINK WINK
HEAT WAVE
LET’S RIDE
KISS ME
These are the candy hearts he gave Ice. Lined up neatly in a drawer.
He kept them all. At work. Where anyone could find them.
Maverick shuts the drawer very softly and puts the office back in perfect order before leaving.
Tuesday is Valentine’s Day.
Maverick stares at the candy hearts spread over his kitchen table.
It’s still Ice’s move, so he won’t be the one to break first.
That doesn’t mean he can’t think ahead.
Maverick operates by instinct in the air, and it’s by instinct he reaches out, plucks a pink candy heart from the OFF-LIMITS pile, and slips it in his pocket.
Work is uneventful. He and Ice shoot down every student team so efficiently Viper claims they’ve shattered a TOPGUN speed record, but otherwise don’t speak. They’re still studiously avoiding each other, like there’s a magnetic force field keeping them apart.
“Lost your sweet tooth, Lieutenant?” Betty teases when Maverick passes by her desk without stopping. There are only a few handfuls of hearts left, scattered loosely across the bottom of the candy bowl. His stomach turns over.
“I’m watching my boyish figure.”
“Hot date tonight?”
“You know you’re the only girl in my life, Betty. When are you going to stuff Viper’s paperwork up his nose and run away with me?”
She pretends to consult her calendar. “We’ll have to wait ’til next week. Ray made reservations for Anthony’s Fish Grotto tonight, and our middle granddaughter has a dance recital on Saturday.”
Maverick claps both hands to his chest and staggers backward. “Another bullseye for Miramar’s most ruthless sniper! I’m going down in flames!”
Betty shoos him off, laughing.
Maverick’s ultimate karmic punishment arrives in the form of Edsel, chipper and chatty and bearing a drugstore bouquet of daisies, prepping for an evening out with his new girlfriend. They’d run into each other, literally, jogging in Balboa Park over the weekend.
“Nothing against your advice, Maverick. I know you said it was horrible timing, but Lisa and I really hit it off. We’re not making a big deal out of Valentine’s Day; just taking things slow and easy for now. Guess I got lucky!”
“Glad it worked out for you, Edsel.”
Maverick goes home alone.
He’s still carrying the pink heart in his pocket on Thursday.
At the commissary, Valentine’s candy is almost gone, what little’s left marked 80% off. Maverick walks past the cleared-out shelves without pausing, sick in every cell of his body.
He shows up to the Friday staff meeting to find Betty’s candy bowl brimming with chocolate coins and shamrocks, wrapped in gold and green foil.
At the O-Club, the hearts and cupids are gone, replaced by crepe paper clovers and cardboard leprechauns clicking their heels.
Maverick slides onto the barstool next to Ice’s. They don’t look each other’s way.
“Heard Edsel didn’t take your advice,” Ice says eventually.
(Edsel’s not here tonight; he’s out on the town with his new squeeze.)
“Good for him. It was shitty advice.”
“Looks like your economic analysis was right on target.”
Among the clientele, there’s a notable increase in singles eager to mingle, while the sound system blasts Starpoint’s Object of My Desire.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll finally have a shot at the Nobel this year.”
The two of them drink together silently.
The heart is a live ember in Maverick’s pocket. It’s going to burn right through the fabric, then the floor, then the earth’s crust, and then he’ll drop directly into a lake of fire.
“Find any hot deals on leftover candy?” Ice stares into the bottom of his glass like he can see a cauldron of leprechaun gold down there.
“Nah.” Maverick’s voice rasps in his ears. “Changed my mind about that. Turned out I already had everything I wanted.”
They lapse into silence for a few more minutes.
“I’m leaving.” Ice tosses back the dregs of his drink, throws cash on the bar, and cuts his eyes sideways. “You staying late?”
“Oh. Probably not. Bye. Drive safe.”
Maverick tracks Ice’s departure in the mirror behind the bar. He orders another beer, but can’t manage to swallow a sip.
Limbo, already several drinks in, sidles up and hooks an elbow around his neck.
“Maverick! I owe you big time. Edsel passed along your advice about the post-V-Day scene. You were right, man! It’s like fish in a barrel tonight. What’re you doing sitting on the sidelines? Come get in on the action! I’ll be your wingman.”
“Thanks, but I have someone waiting on me.”
Is it still true?
Maverick gives what he hopes is an appropriately lecherous wink, though his insides are churning. “Actually—” he checks his watch, feigning surprise. “I gotta get going.”
“I should’ve known! You stud!” Limbo thumps him on the shoulder and beelines toward the curvy blonde eyeing him from across the room.
Minutes later Maverick escapes, the Kawasaki carrying him into the night.
He didn’t wait long enough before leaving the bar, but he doesn’t care. He’s waited too long already. He’s waited his entire life.
The kitchen light is on when he climbs the front steps, which has never happened before. Probably a sign he should turn tail and run. It doesn’t matter, because the key won’t be there. He’s only here to confirm that Ice is done with the game, done with him.
Feeling like he’s standing under a searchlight, Maverick nudges up the aloe plant and runs his hand underneath. The key isn’t here and he’ll turn around and ride home and on Monday he and Ice will show up to work and pretend none of this ever happened.
His fingertips brush cold metal.
He finds Ice sitting at the kitchen table, fully dressed. He looks washed out, almost sickly, under his tan; hands steepled on the table like a cage. Maverick spots a flash of pastel pink through his fingers.
Endgame.
Ice lifts his eyes when Maverick steps over the threshold; fixes him with an unreadable look.
“You got something for me, Kazansky?” Maverick croaks like he’s straining to speak through 5 g’s. “Show you mine if you show me—”
Then his voice chokes off in a strangled hiccup, because Ice pulls his hands away from the table and sits back, leaving his heart lying there.
The ocean crashes inside Maverick’s chest; the lake of fire yawns beneath his feet.
He wants to laugh; wants to scream; puke; rocket through the ceiling.
“How about that.”
He pulls out his own heart. It’s crumbled at the edges from living in his pocket the past few days, but the words are still legible.
“To win the game, we had to come up with a matched set.”
He slams his heart on the table like he’s throwing down a winning poker hand. Jackpot.
Ice turns paler. “Now what?”
He looks angry, which means he’s scared. He hates not having a strategy; always wants to be planning three moves ahead, but now he can’t see the gameboard.
“I’m all out of candy. Guess I’ll have to come up with words on my own now.”
Maverick takes a ragged breath and opens the throttle before his brain can get in the way.
“I don’t want anyone else but you.”
There’s a pinpoint flare in the center of Ice’s pupils, and then the words detonate. His lips tremble, but he doesn’t speak.
Maverick teeters over the void. “What do you want, Ice?”
“You. Here with me. Every night. Every morning.”
Maverick laughs, a wild, mad cackle, bouncing off the kitchen walls. “Sounds like another matched set. Two of a kind.”
“This isn’t a game anymore.”
The way he’s trying to be stern right now, the way he thinks it’s still somehow an option, is so fucking endearing; Maverick’s farther gone than he thought.
“No shit. Hasn’t been for a while.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too, Kazansky. Don’t I look serious?” If he grins any wider, the top of his head’s going to split off.
“You know what’s at stake. What we stand to lose—”
“Ice, when we fly together? As a team? We never lose.”
“Maverick—”
“You know we’re unbeatable. You know we can make it work. I’ll convince you if it takes me all night. If it takes the rest of my life.”
“Maverick—”
“I’ll bring you full-price candy, because you’re worth it. I’ll bathe you in champagne. I’ll cover your bed in red roses and pull out the thorns with my teeth. I’ll fill every pocket of your flight suit with diamonds. I’ll—”
“Shut up.”
Ice surges up from the table. The chair smacks into the floor behind him.
“Shut up, Maverick. You talk too damn much.”
The conversation continues after that, but they don’t speak again until sunrise.