FIC: Fleet Week (Top Gun/MCU, Ice/Maverick, PG-13)
TITLE: Fleet Week
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Top Gun, MCU
PAIRINGS: Pete "Maverick" Mitchell/Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau
SUMMARY:It's Fleet Week, which to Maverick just means Ice.
Written for the crossover challenge at Superhero_Land.
It was Fleet Week, and Maverick was at TOPGUN so normally that wouldn't mean much, except Ice was deployed and just happened to be docking in Southern California. Charlie was long gone, and things with Ice were… well, more complicated than that, but also more rewarding, and it was worth driving a few hours into the desert just to… just to see. And not just to see Ice in his dress whites, although that was reward enough, if Maverick was honest with himself, which generally he wasn't where Ice was concerned.
He hadn't actually told Ice he was coming. He'd heard everything through back channel gossip and more peeks at Ice's service record than was probably prudent. Ice wasn't chatty. He didn't write Maverick anything but the occasional foreign postcard with one sentence and his callsign on the back. It was frustrating, but it was also prudent, and Ice was careful. About everything, not just about sleeping with other servicemen, though that was an area where Maverick could've used prudence, too. The brass could ground them both. Maverick thought Ice might love him, but he was also fairly certain Ice would kill him if he cost him his wings.
Maverick found Ice in a dusty, nowhere desert town, in a rundown bar tucked away just off the main drag. He'd dressed in his whites, too, and part of winning this particular game of hide and seek was being an officer seamen were just too eager to help, and the other half was the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue he handed off to Slider.
"He met some girls," Slider said, examining the bottle, and Maverick shrugged it off, because he knew Ice better than that.
But Slider was telling the truth, it seemed. Maverick found Ice at the bar, tucked away in a booth in the back with two women, both of them wearing pine green flight suits.
"Are you fraternizing with Air Force pilots?" Maverick demanded. Maybe not the smoothest introduction, but the first thing to pop into his head, which was usually what he went with.
Ice lowered his aviators, regarded Maverick lazily from overtop the mirrored lenses.
"Did you drive that ridiculous bike two hundred miles just to see me, Maverick?" he asked, with the way he said Maverick's name that went straight to his dick, elongating and sharpening the last syllable way more than was necessary. "Can I get you a beer? Maybe some ice for your crotch?"
Maverick flushed. Ice smiled, and slid his sunglasses back up, and the girls laughed.
"Friend of yours, Tommy?" the blonde asked.
"Maybe," Ice said. "Sit down, Maverick. I'll buy you a drink."
Ice slid out of the booth, slid by Maverick close enough to make his pants constrict. He sat on the other side of the booth, next to the black pilot, whose patch gave her callsign as Photon.
"'Nother sailor boy, huh?" she asked.
"I'm a naval aviator, ma'am," he said. "We are the best pilots in the world."
Both women laughed. Maverick ground his back teeth together. "Why'd you let him pick you up, if you don't like the Navy?"
They laughed.
"He definitely did not pick us up," the blonde said. Her callsign was Avenger.
"I dunno," Photon said. "I think I'd let him pick me up."
"You're not his type," Avenger said, her eyes locked on Maverick.
"So you're not interested in him, and he's not interested in you," Maverick said sharply. "What are the three of you doing here?"
"Having a drink," Avenger said smoothly.
Maverick flushed some more. Photon laughed. "Carol, put the poor boy out of his misery."
She smiled, relented. "Tom is my cousin. He's the only person in my family I can stand, and it's not because he spends most of his time in the Gulf. We are the black sheep of the family. Me, because I'm a woman who does this, and him… well, I think you know why. I've heard a lot about you, Maverick."
Maverick had a thousand questions after that, but just then, Ice returned with several sweating bottles of beer, one for each of them, which he set on the table. He slid back into the booth, next to Avenger and across from Maverick.
"About time," Maverick said, and swallowed half his beer in one gulp.
The corner of Ice's mouth pulled up in a wry smile. "Are we not getting along?"
"No, we like him," Avenger said. "He's easy to get a rise out of."
"I like that about him, too," Ice said lazily, and she laughed.
"I didn't know you had family," Maverick said.
Ice raised a brow. "You think I was hatched?"
"Built in a lab," Maverick said. "For sure."
Ice looked a little hurt, but then Avenger leaned in close and whispered something in his ear. Ice bit his lip, and--Maverick had to be imagining this--blushed.
Avenger grabbed Photon's hand. "My darling, Pat Benatar is calling me."
They clambered out of the booth and up to the small stage to the right of the bar, where one of the bartenders was setting up for karaoke.
"So, I…" Maverick started, but then he wasn't sure where he wanted to go with it. He pulled at the soggy corner of the beer label with his thumbnail, watched Ice slowly remove his aviators, fold them up, and set them on the table. Ice looked at him, pale eyes reflecting the neon lights of the beer signs hanging on the walls, every color, dazzling, cosmic.
Maverick's mouth was dry. Ice's cousin and her friend were singing "Love is a Battlefield." He wondered what Avenger had whispered in Ice's ear.
"It's good to see you, Pete," Ice said, and smiled.