Chapter Text

“Kazansky,” Iceman answered his hotel room phone distractedly, looking at the pilots’ files in front of him. There was no way around it; Pete was going to hate him after this all came to light.

/Admiral? I know it’s technically after hours, sir, but Admiral Cain’s office left a message that the Darkstar Project had been updated. I believe you wished to be kept up to date on that?/

“Yes, thank you, Janice,” Tom frowned at his secretary’s tone.

The Darkstar, while technically out of his direct supervision, was something Janice knew he kept an eye on, especially as a certain wingman of his was a part of the project. Even now, halfway around the world for a NATO briefing, Ice knew today, or yesterday at this point, was supposed to be the Mach 9 test of the project. Had Mav not succeeded? Had he succeeded? Time seemed to slow down as he logged into the secure database. Selecting the Darkstar Project, he began scrolling, skimming the entries from the day’s test.

“Holy shit, Maverick,” he muttered, reading the specifics. Mav, his Mav, had flown at Mach 10.2! He was the fastest man in the world. Ice felt an overwhelming sense of pride, thinking about his partner, his wingman, succeeding at such a seemingly impossible goal.

Then he read the next line, and his stomach felt as though it fell out of his body.

[Critical Mechanical Failure sustained at hypersonic speeds. Explosion seen for miles. Loss of radio contact. Pilot Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell considered MIA since approximately 2130 hours PST]

“Oh God, Maverick,” Ice sucked in an impossible breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck, Pete, this can’t be real. You crazy son of a bitch, you can’t do this to me now.”

Why had he even been over mach 9? The test today was for 9! Despite what many people believed, Tom knew Maverick didn’t take reckless, unnecessary risks. He was a wildcard, undoubtedly, but he was also very capable. His green eyes were always calculating, assessing the situation around him. Mav knew he had things waiting for him on the ground.

Kazansky began frantically scrolling through the data, searching for more information; something to help it all make sense. He found the day’s transcript, his heart clenching as he read it. Nothing looked too out of sorts, up until the last bit before take off. Ice frowned.

WOC: You don’t have to do this, Mav. It’s not too late to stop. You know what happens to you if you go through with this.

CM: I know what happens to everyone else if I don’t.

What? What would happen? Oh, it would appear that Janice had asked the same question. His secretary’s timely email revealed a last minute memo announcing Cain’s intent to shut down the program as a failure to meet Mach 10. Naturally, it would appear that his partner had taken that to mean he should just jump straight to a Mach 10 demonstration to prove a point then.

Continuing to review the project and the transcript, Iceman let out a frustrated groan. Not to prove a point then, no; Mav had done this to try and secure the jobs of the nearly 140 people working on the project. And God wasn’t that just like Maverick? Adopting people that he thought needed his help? Just like when he talked Cougar down to land, or when he’d refused to leave Ice on that forsaken day above the Indian Gulf.

That infuriating, endearing personality quirk was one of the things he loved most about the man, despite the frustration it sometimes caused. In fact, it was exactly what Tom had been counting on for Mav’s next mission, knowing Pete would understand the importance of looking out for those kids. He shook his head lightly, as though to clear it. He was still counting on it, because MIA was an entirely different world than KIA.

There was no way, after everything they’d been through, that an experimental joyride was what would take Mav out. It just… it couldn’t. There was still too much to do. Mav had to train the kids for the bunker mission. He had to yell at Ice for letting Bradley be a part of it! He had to finally, finally, end the rift with their godson.

“Oh shit,” Kazansky paled, moving to grab his cell phone. Bradley. He was still listed as Next of Kin on some of Maverick’s paperwork. Pete had been MIA for over 12 hours at this point. Had they already called him? Where even was Bradley?

In a moment of very unIceman behavior, he couldn’t remember. Instead, he dug in his briefcase for the ridiculous pocket calendar Mav somehow always snuck in his gear. Flipping through the pages, he searched. Red ink indicated M was supposed to be testing Mach 9, blue showed his own NATO conference, and….ah there. There was the green ink showing B’s deployment. Bradley was stationed in Japan for another week. It would be… damn, close to 0100 hours there. If B had a hop the next day, he should already be asleep. Maybe the Navy hadn’t called him yet? Over the years, it had been a toss up as to which of them the Navy or hospital would notify about Mav’s mishaps. It had always made for an awkward encounter, but Ice liked to think it had helped bridge the gaps between his two idiots, at least a little.

But it had been 12 hours and no one had contacted him, which meant, more than likely, that someone had contacted Bradley. Thumbing through his rarely used messenger app, Tom shakily selected Bradley’s name. Deciding to stick with a simple message,he wrote:

Hey kid. Call me when you can. Stay safe.

Within a minute, his phone was ringing with a video call, the staccato vibration a familiar one, only assigned to two people in his life.

“Bradley?” he answered, only now noticing how tight his voice was.

The screen was suddenly filled with a very distraught Bradshaw, hair mussed from the kid constantly running his hand through it. “Ice! Oh God, is it true? Do you know? They told me you couldn’t be reached and I didn’t know if I could reach out or…. Oh shit, Uncle Ice, Mav.”

“Oh kid,” he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, heart wrenching at the tears he saw on Bradley’s face. “I don’t know, not officially. But I read the report when my secretary sent it to me a little while ago. Mav has been listed as MIA.”

“They wouldn’t tell me anything! Just that it was classified, he was MIA, and that they couldn’t reach you because of something else classified!” he was pacing at this point, breaths coming in small gasps.

“Bradley,” Ice said sternly, invoking a little more Admiral and a little less uncle. “You need to calm down. Mav is, or has been, considered MIA for about 12 hours now. But that’s not for sure. He’s been MIA before, kiddo. This may… he may turn up just fine.”

“Mav’s dad was dead! He was MIA on something classified but he was actually dead! Mav didn’t know for years. What if I don’t know for years? I don’t even know if he was stateside or deployed or…. And God, until they called me, I don’t even think I cared!”

“He was stateside,” Ice offered, wishing for the millionth time he’d locked the two of them in a room and ended this feud. “And I won’t let that happen, B². I won’t keep this classified from you if I can help it. From what I know right now, he was flying some, er, classified equipment and there was a critical mechanical failure.”

“Goddamnit, he exploded??” Brown eyes whipped back to the screen to meet his blue ones.

“I guess you’ve heard Mav say that before, too, huh?” Ice drawled humorlessly.

Bradley seemed to sit heavily on his bed, running a hand through his hair again. He appeared impossibly small. “If he was stateside and he punched out, why haven’t they found him, Uncle Ice?”

And right then, he was no longer Admiral ‘Iceman’ Kazansky. He was Uncle Ice, Mav’s partner, and absolutely helpless to assist either of his boys. “I… the plane was hypersonic when it was lost. Mav could be several states over.”

“Hypersonic?” he muttered disbelievingly.

“Listen, kiddo, as soon as I know something, I’ll let you know, I promise. We both know Pete’s too stubborn to go out like this.”

“God, I hated him. He… Mav may be gone and I… he thinks… Uncle Ice… I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry!”

Ice hung his head, no longer able to pretend Bradley wasn’t crying. “He loved you, B. He forgave you, I promise. We both love you and are so proud of you.”

“I… I love you both too. I–God as angry as I am, er was, I–I could never stop. I wanted to, but I just…I never could,” he wiped haphazardly at his tears. “I…I kept all of the cards. I was up for leave soon… on, uh…”

“The 23rd,” Ice smiled softly, a lone tear escaping.

Bradley’s head shot up. “Yeah? How did you… I mean I guess you’re the admiral right? Stupid question.”

“Actually, Mav made these little calendars,” Tom explained. “Kept track of you, me, even his uh, simulations and tests. We didn’t want to pry, but we were always aware, just in case you ever needed anything.”

“Am I… um, am I still green?” he looked so painfully hopeful, and yet so similar to the young boy that used to beg him for flights or sneak into their bed after a nightmare.

“You are,” he reassured, sending another tear down Bradley’s cheeks. There was obviously more to this than Ice realized.

“Mav– uh,” Bradley cleared his throat before offering a small, wistful smile. “Mav used to make them for me when I was little. He would track his deployments, my little league games, when you and Uncle Slider were deployed or due to visit. He even tracked mom’s appointments, later on. Before I could read, I knew that all I had to do was count the days between where I was and the little red M’s or blue I’s and I knew you guys would be back and I would… I would be okay again. Mav color coded it for me.I didn’t… I didn’t know he kept making them.”

Of course he did, Ice wiped another stray tear. Damn Maverick and his quiet dedication to those he loved. “Well, then I guess– I guess Mav figured he would do the counting for a little while, kiddo.”

“I–” Bradley looked away from the phone screen. “I had thought about coming home on my leave.”

Ice had to strain to hear the almost whisper. His eyes squeezed shut. “You still can, B². You will always have a place in our home.”

“Uncle Ice, I can’t, what if… God, I love you both and I am so sorry. I was so mad and I still don’t understand but I’ve been so lonely and I miss…I miss you both so much.”

“Everything is going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that!” They both froze a second, staring at one another. Bradley repeated it, softer this time. “You don’t know that.”

And he didn’t. Ice didn’t even know if Maverick was still alive, and that was just the first hurdle. If he was, then there was the matter of the mission; the one that may very well take both his partner and his son from him. And if either one didn’t return, he knew the other would never forgive him. Hell, Ice would never forgive himself! But they had a job to do, and Ice knew, he knew it had to be Maverick that trained these kids. Nobody else could get them to the level of flying they needed to be at. Nobody else would prioritize the kids all coming home.

“–Uncle Ice?”

“Shit,” Kazansky scrubbed a hand over his face, tired blue eyes meeting worried brown. “Sorry, Baby Goose. I, uh, I got lost in my head for a second.”

Somewhere, in his room on a Japanese base, Bradley realized that his strong, unflappable Uncle was starting to worry, and it shook him to the core. For years, he’d been able to lie to himself; to say they were better off without him, that he didn’t need them. His uncles, hell his parents, had always seemed so strong, real larger than life heroes. But now, listening to Ice trying to process that they may not ever see Mav again, now all Bradley could think about was how he couldn’t let Ice be alone too. He knew how it felt to be all alone and he’d be damned if he let one of the men who raised him be stuck feeling that way. Not if he could help it. The anger and hurt he felt over Mav’s decision faded to the back of his mind, reminiscent of the few hospital meetings they’d had over the years.

“Mav…Mav is probably hitchhiking his way back to you, right now.”

Tom snorted. “He’ll have a hell of a way to go, kid. I’m, er, overseas currently.”

“Ah, well that explains a lot then, doesn’t it?” Bradley tried to joke. “Mav always did some of his craziest stunts when you were away.”

“I used to try and keep my frustrations or homesickness to myself when I was deployed,” Ice agreed. “Just in case it would inspire the universe, or fate, or whatever the hell helps Mav to orchestrate a reason to get me home sooner.”

“You used to give me the same going away speech. ‘B², I love you. I trust you to look after Mav while I’m gone. If he even looks like he might be up to no good, I want you to remember three things.’”

“1) Give Mav a hug, he’s probably sad or anxious. 2) Get in touch with me, your mom, or Uncle Slider, but do not try to fix anything on your own. 3) If all else fails, stick with Maverick, because I know he’ll never let anything happen to you,” Ice recited from memory, offering Bradley a warm smile.

“If I get stateside before you, do you want me to enact the protocol?”

Ice snickered, despite everything. He pictured an estranged Bradley showing up at Mav’s hanger, wrapping him in a somewhat angry hug with the intent to keep him in one piece until Ice could return. God, Mav would absolutely die, flabbergasted and so confused as to how Bradley could possibly be there.

“Kiddo, you have no idea how badly I wish to enact protocol,” he revealed. “How much I wish all of this was different.”

“It will be,” Bradley promised, and he had never looked more like Nick than in that moment. All stubbornly set jaw and defensive posture. “We’ll fix it, all of it. We’ll get the moron back and…and then…”

“Everything will be okay,” Ice soothed as Bradley trailed off. “We love you, Baby Goose. That never changed.”

“I love you guys too. God, Mav better be okay,” he sniffed.

Before Ice could respond, his phone beeped, indicating an incoming call. He felt everything freeze as he read the unknown number. “Bradley? I’ve got another call, don’t hang up, please, okay? Give me a second…”

“Oh shit… is it? I mean…?”

“Hang on, kid.”

Falling back on years of icy professionalism, Tom swapped to answer the other line. “Kazansky.”

/Admiral? This is Hondo, er Warrant Officer Coleman, sir. I hope you don’t mind, but Captain Mitchell was insistent I call this number as soon as possible. We found him, sir./

“Thank God,” he sagged. “Is he okay?”

/Officially? He’s being cleared to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion and then frogmarched to Cain’s office, sir./

“Unofficially?”

/Maverick ejected at Mach 10.2, at approximately 110,000 feet elevation. He hiked to a diner and managed to call for help./

“Holy shit, Mav,” Ice muttered.

/I don’t think he’s as okay as he says he is, sir, but all he would tell me was to call you. He was reciting your number as if it was a social, kind of like the time he got pneumonia./

“I’m familiar with that quirk, Hondo,” Tom huffed fondly. “I really do appreciate the call. Please keep an eye on him for me? There are some changes coming down the pipe and Mav is going to need someone in his corner.”

/Shall I force him to medical, sir?/

“If he’s conscious and functioning, that won’t be necessary. I have a protocol specialist who will be rendezvousing with Maverick in a few days. He’s familiar with the captain’s… tendencies.”

/Very well, sir./

“And Hondo?” Ice added. “Please let me know if anything changes.”

/Of course, Admiral./

Without any further conversation, Ice switched back to the video call, mind reeling at what he’d just learned. Mav was still alive.

“Bradley? Still there?” Ice frowned as he noted the pilot’s phone was now propped on a bed, Bradley pacing relentlessly back and forth.

“Holy shit…Uncle Ice…” Bradley gasped, leaning back over the phone, voice tight and breathless.

“Hey, hey kid, breathe,” Ice commanded firmly. “They found him, he’s okay.”

“Mav?”

“He’s alright, B, I promise,” Kazansky reaffirmed, blue eyes carefully watching the tense frame in the video screen. Slowly, he talked the boy he raised down from hyperventilating. “Take a slow deep breath, there you go.”

“God, I was so worried,” his brown eyes wide. “I thought they were telling you he was gone and I just… I couldn’t breathe. Shit, he’d have died thinking I hated him… Oh God is he even alright? Ejecting is… and hypersonic? Shit…”

“Bradley, sit down,” he instructed firmly, waiting for the other man to comply. Once he was seated on the bed, Ice continued. “He was conscious and had to hike for a little ways, supposedly, so that’s all a good sign. The idiot was apparently rattling off my cell number like he was a POW.”

“He–he still does that?” Bradley inhaled shakily.

“Sometimes,” Tom revealed, smiling softly. “Usually when he’s sick or concussed. He hates thinking I’m worried about him.”

“Shouldn’t we be? I mean… you said he punched out at hypersonic speeds. Is he being treated?”

“His latest supervisor, Hondo, said he was being looked at for a concussion but then he has to report to Admiral Cain. My guess is that he’s hiding some other injuries.”

“But I guess he won’t want to go to medical until he has to,” Bradley rolled his eyes. “How typical.”

“Unless we enact protocol.”

Dark eyebrows raised comically high. “Oh, really? I mean, yeah, sure I can… uh I.. it’ll be about a week until I’m back but if I can find him, I’ll uh…”

“You’ll be receiving orders in a few hours, actually,” Ice explained softly. “There’s a, uh, classified mission and several Top Gun pilots and teams have been recalled. Maverick is meant to be your instructor.”

There was a brief silence on the other end and Ice worried this had all been a bit too much. He could see Bradley tip his head back, trying to process all of it. He looked so much like Pete in that moment, eyes moving from side to side as he mentally went through it all.

“This is big, isn’t it?” Bradley spoke suddenly, sounding pensive as he met Ice’s gaze. “Bringing Mav in to train us? Assigning the two of us the same posting for the first time ever?”

“It is,” his voice turned a bit steelier. “B², I really need to know that you two can work together. This is really important.”

“Does Mav know?”

“Not yet. Cain is probably giving him his orders as we speak, but he won’t know about you for another day or so.”

Bradley scrubbed a hand over his face. This had all been a rollercoaster he wasn’t aware he got on. First, the thought that Maverick was dead. That his dad, for all intents and purposes was gone, never to be seen again. That Bradley would never again hug him or fly with him or even hear him call him Baby Goose. It had seemed unfathomable, and yet that was the reality Bradley himself had elected to live for the last 15 years. But now, he had a chance to fix it. To go back and talk to Maverick and to maybe have a chance at figuring out what the hell all of this mess even was.

“Uncle Ice, do you know why Mav pulled my papers?”

“You know I do,” Ice sighed.

“I need to know,” Bradley decided. “If this mission is as serious as your tone and mannerisms are making it out to be, I need to know his reason. I can’t go into this with that in the back of my head. The little voices that say you both thought I wasn’t good enough. I can’t fly like that.”

“Bradley,” ice blue eyes zeroed in on his. “Bradley listen to me. That was never the reason. We taught you everything we could, we took you on flights from the time you were like 8 years old. It was never about if you were good enough. You have always been good enough.”

“Then why?”

Now it was Ice’s turn to pace, trying to determine if this was going to be yet another thing for Pete to hate him for. “Do you really want me to tell you? Will it help you to hear it from me, or do you want to hear it from Mav? Because you’re right, this is not a mission where either of you can be preoccupied with this shit and that’s why I need to know that you can work together.”

“Let me go home,” the younger man decided suddenly, offering a small smile. “I’ll enact that stupid protocol and see if I can get Mav to talk to me himself. If not, then I guess I’ll call you and at least hear it that way. I just… I just want this to be over, Uncle Ice.”

“You and me both, kiddo.”

“Will you be back stateside before the mission?”

“Even if I have to steal a plane,” he promised, sounding far more like Maverick than he should.

“Can I see you when you get back?”

“You are welcome any time, B²,” the corner of his mouth tipping up into a pseudo smile. Bradley had no idea how much his asking meant in that moment, especially because Ice knew the unfortunate reality of the mission ahead. It was probable that he would lose pilots that day, and God help him, Ice selfishly hoped it wasn’t this one. Neither he nor Mav would survive losing another Bradshaw. Bradley seemed to understand, smiling back a bit wistfully. “You know, I hate the circumstances that led to this call, but I … I’m really glad we had it.”

“Me too, kid,” Ice nodded. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to be the parent now, though, and tell you that at nearly 0200 hours, you should be heading to bed. Especially as I know you have some international traveling to do in the morning.”

“Yes sir.”

“But uh, B? You’re welcome to let me know when you get back stateside and stuff okay? Or if you need any help wrangling Mav.”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Ice,” he smirked. “Mav won’t know what hit him. It’s been years since I’ve had to enact protocol, and I’m much taller now.”

“He’s in for a world of surprises,” Ice laughed softly. “Stay safe kiddo.”

“You too, Admiral,” Bradley quipped, offering a two finger salute. “Love you, Uncle Ice.”

“Love you too, kid.”