Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Iceman Kazansky has confidence in his routines, even if they are no longer what they used to be. Five days ago, his routine consisted of getting up, showering, breakfast, papers, out the door. Today, his morning consists of yelling at Mitchell to quit sleeping in, yelling at Mitchell to brush his teeth properly, yelling at Mitchell not to make a mess in the kitchen and for God's sake close the fridge door and don't leave that gap. 

But still, it is a routine in and of itself. If Ice needs double his usual amount of coffee to deal with it, then so be it. At least it's what happens daily, every day. 

Or so that's what he thought. 

He's only midway through buttering his toast when there comes a knock at his door. Again, at seven AM in the morning. 

He can't help it; he starts and jumps a little in his chair. He grimaces when the oldest Maverick chuckles. It's his fault that Ice now has a very specific complex to knocks on the door. Ice glares half-heartedly at the man; he gets a fork wave in reply towards the direction of the door. 

He's cleaning up the eggs dripping on the table, Ice grumbles. But he gets up and tries not to dread too much what's going to happen this time. (If it's fifty miniaturized Sliders, he's going to throw himself off the beach pier and not resurface.) 

Ice opens the door, tries to school himself for the worst that's going to happen... And sees himself. From almost ten years back. 

And it really is him, dressed smart-casually in polo and jeans, hair longer than military regulation allowed. There are no frosted tips- no hidden edge of rebel beneath that demeanor. Simply one teenager who looks about as confused as he feels. 

"Excuse me, is this... The Kazansky house?" Oh god, his voice is still cracking on the last word, Ice blinks. Was he ever this short? He mentally re-evaluates the short jokes he likes to fling in Maverick's face every one in a while. 

"Easy, it's as much as it is your house as it is mine," Ice says, his voice dry as the desert. 

"It's your house?" he asks, incredulous. Yeah, Ice thinks. Does he still expect this to be his parent's house? He can mentally hear himself think- only old people complain about mortgage and home owner's associations at the dinner table. Ice wants to roll his eyes- that'll be him one day. Old his ass. 

"Yeah kid, it's mine," he says. His younger self frowns at being called a kid. Joke's on him, that frown's nowhere at the level his is. "Drag up a chair before you fall over." 

He has some idea why he's here for; another so called "glitch in this Matrix" or something of the like. Or perhaps they're still working with the one. 

The kid version of him does as he's told; Ice looks him once over. Leaves the shoes at the door, good. He looks maybe about sixteen max, so probably about the same age as the brat Maverick over there. Still objecting to his orange juice with pulp and still trying to steal eggs off the other Maverick's plate. Maybe they're from the same universe? Ice wonders. 

He stops at the doorway, much like Ice did the first time he took a tour with the real estate agent. Only instead of assessing, the expression on his face was one of growing horror and a bit of pity as he looks at Ice's new breakfast routine. 

"This..." 

Is a mess? A disaster? Yes. Half the time Ice doesn't know why he willingly puts up with this, and by the look on his younger self's face, he can't figure it out either. 

"Is some sort of interdimensional accident," Ice sighs. 

"You're kidding," the teenager can't help but blurt. 

"You're the one who's not supposed to be here- you tell me if you're the one who's kidding around," Ice crosses his arms. That shuts the kid up. 

"I didn't want to," young Tom Kazansky mutters. "Some formal looking person just pulled me out of class and told me to come here." 

Huh, they must be truly desperate to come to him for help, Ice thinks.

"Oh hey, Ice-" 

("Ice?" Tom makes a face. "What kind of a name is that?"

Iceman ignores him.)

Maverick pauses, the two eldest ones having turned their attention to the newcomer since before Ice even answered the door. You can take the man out of the military, but you won't take the military out of the man. 

"Is that Baby Ice?" the eldest Maverick asks with way too much interest and curious glint in his eyes. He's practically cooing over the kid, goddamit. 

Camo Maverick- now dressed in only a very distracting wife beater- starts humming something extremely off tune. What in the world is "Ice ice baby?" Whatever it is, it's probably no good news, Ice thinks.

The two Mavericks get up, the elder one in lead and the other one slightly more sedated, and they crouch (he's short enough Maverick needs to crouch, Ice thinks with embarrassment. Logically, he knows that he hasn't had his growth spurt yet and that no one's born six foot tall, but damn how short does he have to be to be shorter than Maverick post Mach 10.4 ejection?) 

His miniaturized self takes the scrutiny with as much dignity as it deserves, which is none at all. He bristles, all defensive and not yet his ice cold self, and he scoots on closer to Ice. 

"I suppose you would know something about this, Mitchell?" Ice asks the oldest one who looks about two seconds from pinching Ice's cheeks. Try it and find out when his biting habit started. (Joke's on him, he never grew out of it from his toddler days, and his parents have the pictures to prove it.) At the word Mitchell, his younger self perks up- good, at least someone debriefed him on who he's here to find and didn't just lift him out of chair and dump him in a future universe to flounder around. 

"Is this the Tom Kazansky from his world?" Ice jerks his head to the teenager Maverick, who looked up at being addressed. His gaze locks onto Tom's, and he grins, wide and sunny. He leaps up, runs around the table, and hugs him tight.

Tom catches him two steps backwards and a bewildered "oof". Save me, his wide gaze seems to say to Ice. Sorry, kid, you're on your own, Ice thinks. Surely someone so spry and young can save themself, he snorts. 

It's entirely the other Mavericks' fault for filling that young one's susceptible mind with tales of what future Ice will grow up to be one day. Fuck, even Tom didn't know his own future- not that he wants to, with how shaken his Maverick became when he got told. But still, the future's a bit too heavy of a burden to place on a sixteen  year old him yet, he thinks. Especially since he hasn't even lived up to the expectations he has at home. 

"Ice!" the kid shrieks, all of five years old again. 

"What- You're Pete Mitchell?" Tom Kazansky asks incredulously. You've got to be kidding me, he mouths to his older self. Ice shrugs. 

("Ah, love at first sight," Maverick grins, gamely refraining from day drinking.

"He's lucky to meet his Ice so soon," the oldest Maverick says wistfully. "He's going to have so much more time with him," he says softly. 

The war torn Maverick looks uncomfortable at that, a look of indecision fleeting over his face, and he takes the other Maverick's hand in his, brushing his fingers over that golden ring, tarnished and loved. 

Ice wonders- not for the first time- if he really dies in the future. How much time he has left with his Maverick, for only the oldest one to look at him with loss in his expression. Wonders about his death. Would he fight it?  Would he die in a great ball of fire, his wings stretched wide in the skies? He doubts it- if his life plans come to fruition. He prays he doesn't die with regrets; it's as much as a military man like him can ask for when he signed over his body and soul to the Navy.)

If he's actually dead anyways. There's a half half chance he might be alive, if the other Maverick didn't faint at the mention of his name like he did Goose, if he didn't collapse crying against Ice. He doesn't want to know- he really doesn't, because he's not sure which is worse, dying or living with something of a very significant loss. His imagination overtakes him, and he thinks he's better off not asking.,

"Yup! I'm going to be your best friend from now on," Maverick grins and tries to pick up Tom by the waist. He fails. Instead, Tom tries to pry Maverick off him to no avail. The boy's closest relative is a barnacle, Ice thinks uncharitably. A very cute and sunny barnacle. 

"What- you're crazy," Tom splutters. He's still wide eyed, looking a bit like a startled horse- all gangly limbs and not much muscle on his tall frame. And biting at the reins to get the fuck away, Ice looks on with amusement. 

Yeah, that'd be Maverick alright, Ice thinks and barely blinks an eye. It has simply become a new normal, a planet in his closely curated orbit of people whom he allows near. 

His Maverick elbows him, and Ice tilts his head just the slightest bit. "So this is what you looked like before "ice cold, no mistakes" happened. You don't even have your bleached tips yet," Maverick observes. 

"Didn't get them until I graduated school," Ice shrugged. That's no secret. His parents wouldn't stand for it otherwise, really. His mom put her foot down at frosted tips in his graduation photo. And really, he didn't need Iceman Kazansky at that age. He wasn't flying planes at that age; he doesn't need to mind making mistakes when they're not going to blow up in his face (quite literally). 

His Maverick hums a bit, still grinning at the teenage disaster unfolding before him. "You didn't tell me you were so adorable at that age," he teases, smiling up at Ice. 

"Don't you start on the baby pictures, Mitchell" Ice rolls his eyes. Maverick chuckles. 

"It's not a bad thing to let down your hair- pun very much intended- and be that Ice sometimes too, you know."

"Oh, shove off, Maverick," Ice grumbles.

It takes a bit to shove the two teenagers out the door (gently that is, once they're done clinging or prying each other off- respectively). 

"Are they are going to make it back alright?" Ice asks the oldest Maverick. He shrugs. A patch over his shoulder slightly detaches from the jacket; a loose thread, he thinks. That'll have to be fixed. 

"All the past cases seem to solve themselves when another person from their universe comes back to guide them back to their home multiverse, so to speak. They open a one-way passage way when they go through, and sending someone else over and then back with them closes it. Loops it back on itself." he muses. "I presume whoever pulled that Tom Kazansky out of his multiverse is from my universe and knows all this, which is why they pulled Tom out of class. The agency in charge of fixing this mess has really had a tough time handling all the interdimensional hiccups. I'm not surprised they took so long to come over." 

Ice nods, a part of him relieved that there's protocols for this somewhere, that somewhere someone's in charge of reversing this. Classified, probably, but they exists. And that the kids will go home okay. That's really the most important part, he sighs. Though why it has to be a teenage Tom Kazansky and say not some government official, he doesn't know. 

He can't help but miss that little gremlin teenager, all uninhibited stupidity and sunshine in equal measures. He takes one last glance at the two of them, Maverick waving back cheekily and yelling his thanks as Ice closes the door gently at his back. He'd miss him more if he didn't have to keep an eye on his alcohol all the time around him. 

Ice spots something glint silver in the morning sun; he bends down to pick up a familiar bunch of house keys. He blinks; those are his house keys- or at least the ones to his parents house. Teenage Tom must have dropped them when the smallest Maverick tackled him, Ice muses. (Maybe he dropped his brain too, he thinks. It's an all too common reaction to Maverick related shenanigans, and Ice didn't bother wasting his breath warning him. He'll figure it out soon enough.) 

He opens the door, fully intending to throw him the set of keys- only to see empty air and no sign that the two kids were anything but an elaborate hallucination. 

"Ah," he says eloquently.

"They work fast," middle aged Maverick says, apparently not in the dark about this mysterious organization at all. Whoever these men in black are, Ice thinks. Whose very existence is probably above is pay grade. 

"Don't worry, I taught the kid how to pick locks," his Maverick grins from behind him and wriggles his fingers, hands empty and a small screwdriver in his hands the next. 

He didn't, Ice groans to himself. "Mitchell," he growls. Maverick wriggles his eyebrows and starts twirling that damned screwdriver in his hands. "Quit being a bad influence on minors!" 

The other Mavericks only laugh openly at him, with the party animal one even going as far as clapping him hard on the back as if Ice had said something funny and not in the least reasonable. 

Fuck, why does he even bother? Ice pulls a face. 

Ice thinks that it's not his fault he starts sleeping a bit easier with the baby Maverick gone. Especially not if he was sharing a room with a drunk and horny older version of himself. And he really didn't want to do their sleep arrangements like that, but his Maverick had called dibs on Ice's own bed (even going as far as glaring down his other selves and squishing Ice close), and the he didn't trust the drunk one with open access to the kitchen at night. The youngest one isn't used to sleeping on bedrolls even if he can fit on the couch... So it's a shared bed it is. 

The last two are perfectly fine with theirs hell, the one on active duty even mentioned that the carpet was comfortable compared to what he's used to- and will he stop stressing about this already. 

But still, Ice worries. Especially over the youngest one. 

"Seriously, just how low do you think I'd go, Ice," Maverick rolls his eyes at Ice when he mentions his worries one day quietly, really not at all comfortable with how that Maverick sneaks his arm too close to the small one's hips. He glares at the hand resting on the dip of the teen's waist. Maybe he can set it on fire if he tries hard enough. 

"I don't know, Mitchell, you tell me." 

The oldest Maverick strolls over, taps him on the head and says, "Trust me when I say they'd both rather jump your bones than jump each other." He  laughs when Ice turns a bright red, the flush riding high on his cheeks. He chokes a little at the words. That's. Not what he expected. (It is probably true, a part of him thinks, given what he knows of his Maverick.)

"Hey, get your own dammit," his Maverick snarls, all bristled fur and the offended sensibilities of a chihuahua. 

"I have my own," Maverick snorts. "With some luck you might even get to meet him." 

Now that's a thought, Ice thinks, willing his heart to calm down. He'd really like to grill that Ice on everything that has- will- happen. Shake him down for all the knowledge he needs to make sure the future doesn't turn into what he sees now. 

"Fuck it, then hands off already," Mav grumbles, brushing pieces invisible lint off of Ice's shoulder. Ice doesn't mind, not really. Of all the Maverick's the oldest one's the calmest and easiest to wrangle. Some days he thinks that Maverick's probably just humoring him, letting Ice dictate what he'd do and not do. 

But that was the end of that conversation, shoved in a corner of his mind and never to be revisited on the pains of death because the thought that there are five of his quasi-love interest and only one of him-

Well, he can save that thought for a rainy day after they're gone. All five of them. 

And so he sleeps soundly, halfway through hell week and already feeling five years older than when he first started. 

He slept soundly, that is until a thump wakes him up. He startles, jostles the Maverick snoring like an engine in his arms. He quietly uncurls his arms and winces when his left arm starts getting the pins and needles. Damn, it's always like this. But he can't help it, having Maverick curled up next to him in a ball- if there's ever a person built to be the little spoon, it's him.  

An intruder? A burglar? Ice thinks once he gets the feeling back in his fingers.

(Who in their right minds would break into his house- this house? Anyone with more than a singular brain cell would run away screaming, Ice thinks. Maverick, the world's most efficient security system, defending Ice's abode with the infinite force of entropy. Now there's a thought.) 

Another thump- louder this time- has Ice on the edge. He quietly slips out of his sheets, still sleeping naked as always, and edges his way towards the door. He's good enough in hand to hand combat that he has fair confidence he can hold out until the other Mavericks get with the program. If they're not up already at the noise, Ice figures. 

A third thump and then- Ice thinks his ears are hearing something wrong. 

Is that a moan? He blinks and presses his ear to the wall again. Scratching of rough cloth, and uneven footsteps. 

Just what is going on here? 

"Ice...?" Mav's sleepy voice drags his attention back for a split second. Ice waves him down and shushes him. 

"What's going on?" he asks, awareness snapping into him with an efficiency that can only be military-grade. Ice never shushes him like that, like there's something urgent going on and he needs someone urgently on his six.

"I dunno," Ice murmurs, waving Mav over; the other man crouches with him in the darkness of the hallway. He sees Ice flinch slightly and wonders. 

"I heard something that woke me up," Ice says. He swallows, now having gathered more data, more sounds to process and oh god what are they doing downstairs? 

It's not a burglar. Ice wishes it was a burglar. 

"Uh, should we still be standing here and not-" Maverick pokes Ice in his side- right between the ribs where he knows he's sensitive, and Ice flinches and twists his side away from him. 

An even louder moan interrupts them. A quiet shushing sound, then a breathier gasp. 

"Oh." 

"Yes, oh," Ice says, wishing that he could bleach his brain like he bleaches the tips of his hair. He didn't need to know this. Didn't need the thoughts and the possibilities. How many of them are there? One? Two? All three? He thinks half hysterically. 

"So, should we still be standing here and not-" Maverick continues, and this time Ice can hear the grin in his voice, can practically see the mischief painted on his face. 

"Oh my god, no!" Ice hisses, his face flushing red with his embarrassment. He thinks his face is radioactive. And visible from space. It must be by this point. 

"Awww, come on, Ice," Mav whines when Ice goes back to bed, a wobble in his step that he doesn't have the clothes to hide. He doesn't bother replying his wingman, doesn't say anything but also leaves his half of the sheets open. 

"But you know, I could really help you with that-"

"Hands to yourself, Mitchell. I still have that extra bedroll in the closet. Don't make me go get it." 

He wakes up with a raging hard on and wisps of a dream explicit enough to blow a porn shop out of business. It's all Maverick's fault, Ice thinks and tries to take a deep breath, tries to will away his morning wood with all his might. He drags up memories of the worst possible things he can think of. 

It doesn't work. 

"Well, good morning to me," Maverick grins when he blinks awake and sees Ice shifting on the bed, curling up and obviously hiding something. "Sweet dreams?" He asks, all faux-innocence and green eyes blurry with sleep. He stretches, all sharp lines and the curving arch of his back. 

Ice thinks he has some words for him about just how good his morning is- sees if he likes his coffee pitch black- when Maverick sneaks a hand across his side of the bed, across the blankets covering them, and squeezes. 

The sharp retorts stop dead in Ice's throat, and what crawls out instead is a low moan, breathy and straight from his subconscious. 

Sometimes he forgets with the age difference that all Mavericks are... Still just Maverick. And different as their universes are, some things always stay the same. 

Pete chuckles at the reaction, gently taps Ice's thighs apart, and he has the audacity to wink before his head disappears under the sheets and -oh. 

Ice honestly can't remember what he was going to say. He's sure it was't all that important. 

"Good morning!" His Maverick walks downstairs, smile bright as a midday sun. He's grinning like the cat who caught the canary, Ice notes. He follows Mav down, a pair of navy issue sweatpants covering the telltale bright red marks of their morning's business. 

If he's only a little limping and slightly more subdued, well no one makes a mention of it other than a wordless request for coffee and a flick of the newspaper. 

It's a momentary lapse of attention on his part that he misses what's already on the table. There's a large, gold-foil covered bottle of champagne smack dab in the middle, like the world's most ostentatious table piece. 

"What? Why is there a bottle of champagne on the table?" Ice blinks. Fuck it all, how? No one has any money to go shopping, nothing's open in the dead of the night. It's definitely not Christmas. The eldest Maverick only looks amused- if strangely relaxed- and the wrinkles on his face crinkle, and he nods at the table. "You're a smart boy, I'm sure you can figure it out. Look again a bit closer." 

Ice shakes his head, walks up to the table and picks up the bottle. He turns it around, wondering what is it this time- God's way of congratulating him for making it more than halfway through the worse week he has had? 

His fingers brush past a piece of tape, a rectangular box attached to the back of the frankly astonishingly large bottle, and when he saw it... He darn near dropped it. 

"Fuck, where's that damn Maverick?" Ice scowls, his face once again bright red for the third time in the past eight hours. This is all his fault, he knows it. That specific one. It'd be just like him to materialize champagne out of thin air with desperation alone. 

"Ice?" his Maverick raises an eyebrow, wondering what any one of them did to piss him off. Ice thrusts the bottle at him, and he mustn't have been all that careful, because a couple of foil packets bump their way out of that box, and Mav blinks. Bends down and  picks them up, reads the back. Then looks back at Ice- still not meeting his eyes- and back down at the bottle resting innocently in his hands. Or not so innocently. 

"Well, at least he has good taste? " he shrugs and puts the condoms back. "Oh good, he  got the right size." 

"Mav!" Ice hisses and snatches the bottle back. Puts it back on table, and pretends to forget ever seeing it, but he can't quite put his dignity back on the table quite that easily.

"Home," the older Maverick shrugs when Ice starts asking just where that Maverick has disappeared to this time. 

Home? Ice blinks. And he didn't bother to say goodbye? Well. Maybe it's good riddance. Maybe. 

"Surely you didn't think it was just us downstairs," the last Maverick raises an eyebrow, a soft look and small smile playing on his lips. "Or that we slept through all the noise." 

"Oh we heard it alright, " Maverick laughs and flicks his paper again. 

His Maverick looks at the other two, shrugs as if to say- fair's fair, and then peers back into the box. Ice looks on in horror. Not just the three Mavericks, then who- 

Then, he remembers what the oldest one said, when the younger one was getting picked up- and suddenly he doesn't have to guess who it was that entered his house quietly past midnight.

"Hey did he use all of them or what-"

God, he doesn't even want to know what his other self is even thinking, walking in like this and leaving a box of opened condoms on his breakfast table. (And probably leaving a lot more, if he's completely honest. He didn't plan on cleaning the entire house from top to bottom, but now he doesn't think he have enough bleach on hand. He doesn't ask and they don't tell but well, if they all decide they've had enough protein for breakfast, they don't mention it.) 

He grumbles his way around the table, still not even touching that bottle- not without wishing his hands right after- and goes back to denying its existence. 

"Well, don't be so hard on yourself- or him, I suppose," Maverick shrugs when he sees the murderous look still on Ice's face. He's digging into his eggs quicker than the others- as always. "He was drunk." 

"Turn of the millenium party and all that," he adds. 

"Still," Ice insists. "At least have the decency not to do this in the middle of the night in someone else's house. And there's no way I get this drunk." Not drunk enough to forget his upbringing, not drunk enough to forget "ice cold, no mistakes" that has been written in him in all but blood.

"Oh you do," that Maverick says, cocking his head. "You can and you will," he says with a surety that doesn't comfort Ice at all. 

"Would you rather he do this in broad daylight then?" the middle aged version of Maverick chuckles. "I have no complaints either way," and winks at Ice. 

He pinks and clears his throat, pretends he doesn't feel his Maverick hooking a leg around his ankle under the table. Or that he lets him keep the foot where it is. "Or he could not do this at all. Sit down at the table like a normal person and have breakfast. Like a decent human being who wasn't raised in a barn."

His Maverick unhelpfully adds, "He did have breakfast at yours, Ice. He just got his to-go." He looks almost put-out that he missed the fun. Please, it's not his house getting defiled, Ice thinks. 

That's not what he meant, Ice groans and thinks he knows when defeat stares him in the face when the two elders just laugh at his misfortune.

While he'll never admit it, but he spends the rest of his day waiting on baited breath for the next disaster to unfold, waiting for the next thing that comes ringing his doorbell. 

If his Maverick notices his nervous tics, he doesn't mention Ice. Ice barely pays attention to the man as he talks with his older counterparts. 

But he does notice the smile and happiness radiating off him like the sun's rays, the contentment and sense of surety that was missing before. It must be nice to know that you make it in the future, Ice thinks with a bit of wistfulness. He knows bits and pieces- knows he's an admiral and is Maverick's "guardian angel", as the oldest one says. But he's not actually here in the flesh- not actually real before his eyes. Just wisps of a ghost of future past and barely the side character to a grand tale. 

He's not real, not like the two Mavericks are. If he squints, he thinks the Mavericks can pass as his Mav's uncles. Fathers, maybe. (He remembers hearing about Duke Mitchell's name whispered down the navy grapevine, remembers that none of it was any good or worth mentioning, the tales that you hear and wish you would forget. Ghost stories. Of a person who could be any of them.) 

When his Maverick didn't have a single father, suddenly life hands him two. Of a sorts. 

His Maverick's too busy to even look at Ice, enamored with staring his future in the eyes, but the other two Mavericks aren't so laser-focused on one target alone. 

Ice tries to busy himself with making lunch, he really tries. He slices the cheese and butters the bread, starts browning the tomatoes on vine in the broiler. But he can't hide the way his body's angled towards the hallway leading to the door, can't hide the twitch that his shoulder makes when Mav's mug makes a sound against the tea table. 

Maverick- not in gear anymore but never really quite relaxed- glances at him, a small quirk on his lips. Ice sees the amusement in his eyes, the way the dark green of his iris lightens up to something that's more like spring green and less forest green, sees the small furrow between his brows disappear. He tries not to look annoyed; so what he's twitchy? Anyone would be. And he didn't sleep well. No thanks to them. 

The oldest Maverick distracts the younger one, giving him his time and his space with as much grace as possible. But he can't pretend to ignore the small pointed look of concern, the way his eyes linger on him and slides off barely seconds later. 

"Lunch," Ice says when he's done with the grilled cheese and all three Mavericks have unconsciously migrated to the kitchen. In this aspect, Goose is wrong. Maverick doesn't live his life between the legs; he lives his life by his stomach. 

They pull up a chair between their chats, eyeing that bottle of champagne still there, unmoved. Not one of them try to reach for it. As for Ice? He pretends it doesn't exist. 

He gets the plates of grilled cheeses- three sandwiches per plate, buttered and grilled to gooey perfection, and the large shared bowl of tomato soup. The plate's barely on the tablecloth for a second before Mav is already reaching for his, ravenous as always. 

The other two aren't any better, really, Ice thinks. They just hide it better. He supposes table manners are expected if he's sitting down with the brass. 

"You're the best, Ice," Mav says around his mouthful of grilled cheese, words slightly muffled. The look on his face is almost indecent; Ice can't bring himself to look away. 

"Still the best grilled cheese I've ever had," Maverick smiles, his smile lines around his eyes and corner of his mouth framing his amusement. 

Ice clears his throat. Caught. "It's my grandmother's recipe," he says and takes a sip of his soup. Hopefully the rim of the mug will hide his face. 

"The one she brought from Poland, right?" the third Maverick asks quietly, a peculiar wistful tone to his voice. 

"Yes," Ice says, a bit curious what brought on the nostalgia. Did something happen to his grilled cheese in the future? It seems a bit facetious to ask about the future of his grilled cheese sandwich recipe of all things, but he knows Ice- the him of another future- he wouldn't pull out the grilled cheese unless it's for really trying times. 

"It's good," his Maverick says, actually slurping at the soup. And loudly at that. Jesus Christ, Maverick, if you can't grow some inches at least grow some manners, Ice thinks. 

"She left us all her recipes when she passed a long time ago. I've never met her in person, but I suppose it's nice I can still get to know her in a different way," Ice muses. Sarah for one, deeply appreciates it. So does her boyfriend, of course. 

Mav looks at him with a tilt to his head, a slight pause in his campaign to devour the most territory of grilled cheese in per square inches. "You can still get to know her, huh..." 

The other two Maverick seem to understand something by the way his looks to be on the edge of an epiphany. "You know, you should go talk to Viper more some time, Junior," the oldest Maverick says. 

"He used to fly with our father," the other one elaborates when Ice wonders out loud what Viper has to do with his dead grandmother's grilled cheese recipe. 

"Really?" Ice feels both of his eyebrows raise in unison. Really? Now that's news to him, but in hindsight it makes so much sense. A lesser man would have kicked Maverick out a long time ago for his stunts, a normal man would have just let him quit in the wake of Goose's death, but Viper didn't. And Maverick miraculously appeared at their graduation. 

 "Yeah, he's our godfather," Maverick says with a sad smile. 

"But you didn't get to know him?" Ice blinks. 

"No, the system wouldn't let him take us," he shook his head. Ice tries to imagine a Maverick raised by Viper- if that multiverse actually existed. The first thought that flies through a head is that Maverick can't grow a mustache to save his life. Seeing five clean faces of all ages just proves that hands down. 

"He's got a lot of stories to tell you," the older one continues and slowly sips his soup. Ice thinks it's probably wiser that way; his Mav probably burnt his tongue on the scalding liquid (but he can kiss it better, Ice's mind pipes up. If Mav asks really nicely. Maybe.)

"He has pictures too, actually," the other Maverick points out, gesturing with a half bitten corer of grilled cheese. He flicks his tongue, tugging at the cheese pull. Ice marvels at the dexterity, knowing full well just how flexible a tongue is, in particular Maverick's tongue. 

"Yeah, albums full of them, " the older one concedes. "But there's no real hurry. Viper doesn't burn in- he retires and has eight grandchilden. As far as I know he's still sitting on his old rocking chair in the middle of bum fuck nowhere Tennessee." 

Ice snorts, almost choking on his soup. A rocking chair in Tennessee. Man, he can't wait to tell Slider when all this blows over. But it strangely suits the man, a life of peace and quiet after spending his golden years defending the very tranquility that he now gets to enjoy. 

"Just... Have a talk with him when you feel comfortable." 

"If Ice cooks like this all the time, I don't think Viper will turn down a dinner invite," his Maverick points out. "This is miles better than mess food." 

Hell, a dandelion salad picked from the front lawn would probably be better than mess food, Ice can't help but think. But what works- a man's got to eat one way or another, and with his exacting standards being what they are, it's easier for all parties involved if he just cooks his own damn food. 

And well, if Maverick also benefits from that, well that's just a fortunate side effect. 

After lunch (and a stolen half sandwich that Ice pretends not to see disappearing from his plate), they leave the dishes to Ice- or at least his Mav and the slightly older one. As usual, the eldest Maverick walks over to help him with the chores. He's the only one who bothers most of the time, but Ice doesn't mind the small quiet in his day.

"Hey, are you okay?" Maverick lays a hand on Ice's arm. His hands are very calloused, Ice thinks. Calloused where he holds the joystick, from years of experience in the air. 

Ice takes a deep breath in through his mouth and exhales through his nose. Is he okay? No, but he will be, he thinks. He better be, when all this blows over. "I'm fine," he says with a tilt of his chin up. Ice cold, no mistakes he reminds himself. 

If he's honest, he's straight up exhausted. Who wouldn't be? God bless Maverick's mother, Ice thinks not for the first time. (He grew up in the system, Ice noted with a small amount of horror at their casual mention of it over lunch. No wonder Maverick grew up to be well... So much of a maverick. An orphan with no adult figure and a chip on his shoulder. He thinks he understands a bit more, sympathizes a little bit more.)

The look Maverick gives him tells him he's fooling absolutely no one. He thinks he's seen himself in the mirror look less piercing than this version of Maverick who has known him for thirty years four years and counting. 

Ice muses over his next words, scrubbing at the cheese stuck on the plate. "Mav's future's set," he says at last. "That's nice to see." A relief he thinks. Even if it's not a future that's shared, it's his future and not their future, he only wants the best for Maverick. Never anything but, no matter his personal feelings on it. 

"So is yours," Maverick points out, placid. "You becomes the Commander of the Pacific Fleet."

Ice doesn't think he gets surprised often, but... COMPACFLT. That's higher than even his own expectations. Four stars. Two more than he ever expected for himself. 

It's strange, he thinks. That when he knows his future logically, when he processes it cerebrally, he doesn't feel proud. Doesn't feel accomplished (what for? It's not his accomplishment, not really. Hasn't happened yet.) Instead, he waits on baited breath, pausing on one question that hangs in the air but goes unvoiced. This future that's set... Is Maverick in it? 

"What do I look like?" he asks instead, trying to envision a future that doesn't manifest before his eyes. Trying to make it real, at least in his own mind. 

"Well, for one you lose those frosted tips," Mav teases. Then, he smiles, calmly. Gently. With a softness that belays his age and his love. "Your hair turns grey, but you keep gelling it. You're fit- still work out with me every morning, just not so much. Says you have to keep me in line, can't let me run literal circles around you." 

That sounds like something he would say, Ice thinks. There's a steady thumping in his chest. A twisting motion that hurts more than it does not. Indigestion maybe? (Or not. Or not, his mind tells him.) 

"You wear these colorful scarves, and you wear them proudly." 

"Scarves?" Ice asks. Here, Maverick hesitates, his hand gripping the washcloth tightly. "Yeah. To... Cover up your tracheostomy scar." 

A trach- Ice thinks and inhales sharply. 

'So that's it then- I lose my voice?" Ice says finally. The man he loves will never be able to hear him speak again, Ice thinks. How long did it take for him to say out loud to Maverick that he is loved? Those three words that he doesn't say- how much longer does he have to say them? How long until it's not his choice but one of God's? 

"Not completely," Maverick says firmly, a familiar fire burning in his eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw. He can see his future self minding this issue a lot, arguing in whatever capability. Hiding. Hiding what he really feels at having a disability. Of being a cripple amongst hyenas. 

"You don't need to baby it," Ice shrugs, going for nonchalant. He's not sure if he manages to pull it off. His voice doesn't stay steady for all he tries. "Just tell me what happens to me." Please. And if you'll be there for it. And if you'll stay by my side through sickness and death and everything in between. 

The kindness in Maverick's eyes isn't pity. It's the warmth that melts him, takes away all his sharp edges and erodes them down to softness. It's the peace that disarms his sharp words and fangs, more than he'll ever know. 

"Ice, it's okay. I'll be there," Maverick says. "I don't leave. Not unless I have to. You can't get rid of me even if you want to," he jokes. 

Ice doesn't want to. Not now. Not ever. But just the one- not all five. 

Maverick pauses, lost in his memories for a bit as the water starts turning lukewarm. "You get laryngeal cancer- from the smoking and the alcohol. But mainly the smoking; cancer doesn't run in your family. You caught the flu, and then the sore throat that came with it stayed for along time. We didn't think much of it at first, but then there was a lump in your neck one day and your voice started getting hoarse." 

"How bad did it get, Mav?" Ice asks, for once calling the older man by the pet name that he whispers so often in the middle of the night. 

"Stage three," Maverick closes his eyes. "They took out your vocal cords, and you had to get chemoradiotherapy for it. The scarves... They're to hide the skin that got pulled tight because of the treatment." 

A chill slides down Ice's spine. Radiotherapy. Chemotherapy. All things he can't image, can't even begin to fanthom at his age. How he doesn't even consider it, he doesn't know- he stares death in the face for a living, for Christ's sake. But he doesn't consider his own mortality, doesn't think that one day he'll pass like his grandmother and leave behind nothing but imprints of a fading past. Doesn't think that his time clock is always on countdown, not when there's so many seconds left to spare that it might as well be infinite. 

"The fault, dear Ice, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves," Maverick murmurs, his words caressing Ice more gently than any other touch. 

"Quoting Shakespeare on me now, Mitchell?" Ice scoffs. Maverick, a closet romantic. Who could have guessed? 

"Something like that," he quirks a smile and shakes his head. Guess it becomes famous in the future then, Ice thinks. Probably pop culture; Mav wouldn't know Shakespeare if it bit him in the ass. 

Then, Maverick stops the tap. Puts down the wash cloth and dries his hands. He grips Ice by the shoulders, turns him around and ignores the soapy drops of water dripping off the plate. He stares at Ice- stares up at him for all his presence seems larger than life- and says seriously. 

"Ice, promise me you won't smoke. Never again. No matter what happens in the future- between us... Between you and your Maverick. Those years in between- during the war... I wasn't there to tell you to stop, but I can tell you now." He says, dead serious. More serious than he's in the air and fighting for his life against MiGs. He's fighting for Ice's life, against Ice himself. (Ice doesn't think that's more important than MiGs. Doesn't think his life is more important at all.)  "Promise me, Ice, please." 

"Okay, Mitchell, I won't. I swear it," Ice vows, and he means every word. 

Ice thinks it's a cosmic joke that he waits an entire day for something to happen, and the one moment when he's preoccupied with his own impending doom is when the actual doom comes a-knocking on his door. 

Or rather, it's his doorbell. The one he didn't even know he had until earlier this week when it all started. The bell rings only once, but once is all Ice needs to startle and nearly stab himself in the foot with the knife.

"Easy there," the active duty Maverick says with a laugh from where he's being a couch princess, just watching Ice dice the block of pancetta. 

Ice glares ignores the flush that works its way up his neck. He's slipping so far from his persona it's not even funny. "Go make yourself useful and get the door," he rolls his eyes and picks up the knife again. He chops the block of meat with a bit more force than before. 

"If I must," the man sighs gustily and gets up, stretching out his back with a pop and a moan that sounds way too indecent for him to  be in any amount of pain. He pops his neck- Jesus, how many joints is he trying to pop, all of them? Ice thinks- and he hears the heavy footsteps move towards the door. 

And then strangely, nothing after that. 

Ice stops and pokes he head into the hallway. Did Maverick kill whoever's at the door? Did they kill each other? No blood on the porch, Ice thinks, or he's making the man clean it up himself. He's got enough on his plate (literally) without having something like this to add to it. 

Then, he sees who's actually at the door, sees the person over Maverick's head, and he pauses. Blinks. "Oh," he says eloquently. 

It's him. From more than twenty years in the future, if he's from the same universe as that Maverick. He's older, Ice thinks. Weary and bone tired (even more than him, but he at least still has the energy to be exasperated, still enough to be annoyed. This version of him looks hollowed out, like someone scooped out his insides and left him with an empty heart and an emptier conscience.) 

His older self breaks the staring contest with Maverick and looks at his younger self, then down at the blade still in his hand, the old apron given to him by Sarah as a move in gift still tied around his neck and waist. He raises an eyebrow. 

Ice almost rolls his eyes- it's a close thing. For fuck's sake he's not going to stab him in the face. His Maverick might, but he won't. 

"So you're the version of me dealing with the lot of them this week," Ice snorts, all bitter humor and acrid smoke. "My sympathies."

"It was my pleasure, actually," Ice replies cooly. He doesn't say anything else, doesn't rise to the bait. Just moves up, stands behind Maverick and gently grasps his elbow and pulls him in towards him. Towards a version of Ice who isn't that, whatever that is. 

Not for the first time, he sees the broken pieces of Maverick there, on his feet but shattered beyond repair, shaking ever so slightly but still strong on the outside, and he thinks... He doesn't want anything to do with this version of him. Isn't him- not really. Not while he still has the chance to grow into everything he's not. 

He doesn't look at his older self, just remains fixated on Maverick, on guiding him inside and sitting him back down on the couch. The knife in his hand stays, gentle in his grasp and pointed up. The sharp edge catches light in the living room, and Ice carefully takes the knife back and away from Maverick. (He doesn't see the other man without a shirt often, not really, but he thinks that those scars are in all the wrong places for a harness and pretends not to see.)

Ice doesn't offer his older self a seat. Doesn't even offer to pull up a chair or even acknowledge his presence. Instead, he sets the kettle and gets Mav a cup of hot chocolate, with real milk and real chocolate, cinnamon and extra large marshmallows. The man looks like he could use some. He opens the fridge and pours himself a glass of vodka with ice. Only one cup of vodka with ice. 

He stands a respectful distance away, in front of the counter and close enough in case he needs to break them apart, and he can see the oldest Maverick there, leaning on the wall and observing it all with sad green eyes, as if he knows this song and dance inside out, as if he's lived it before and remembers every second of it. He pulls Ice's own Maverick back, keeps him unusually quiet. Sometimes he forgets how small Maverick can be, how unobtrusive when he's not making an absolute menace of himself. 

"Maverick," that Ice finally says. The way he says it is all wrong, all stilted and strange and it doesn't fall off his tongue at the end of the syllable like it used to. 

"Admiral Kazansky," Maverick says stiffly and doesn't solute. Ice has never heard a title so awful before; two words that feel like a stab in the back, a betrayal of his dreams and everything he's worked so hard for... And it's not even what's important to him in the end. He's on a highway to hell, a highway to nowhere except for a lonely and voiceless death, and he can't be bothered to stop and smell the flowers on the way.  A man who cannot stop for death can't live for life itself, not even if it looks him in the eyes and smiles. 

("Maverick. I've heard that about you- you like to work alone."

He's wrong- so wrong. Maverick isn't the one let go of his hand in the end. He's the one who came back for him. Wingmen for life.) 

The oldest of them closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Ice can see the way his grip is white knuckled around the worn leather jacket, around the evidence of the time they shared and missed together, through two generations and counting. 

They don't say anything, merely stare at each other, an entirety of unsaid words and backed up feelings filling the room between them. The silence- the tension- doesn't break until the kettle whistles, until Ice hands Mav a steaming up of hot cocoa half filled with marshmallows and Mav takes it, puts it down- and crosses the room between them in three easy steps. 

One. Two. And a third, and he throws his arms around Admiral Kazansky and cries. 

He cries, not at all softly (never softly for Maverick, Ice thinks), big and ugly splotches on his face, snot dripping down and his body curled up as much as it can. He cries great heaving sobs, his breath trying and catching on nothing. He shakes, even more than he did, but his grip remains tight. He doesn't let go. 

His Maverick looks like he's seen it coming already, like it's Ice's fault that this Maverick's heart is breaking in real time. Which in all probability, it is. 

Admiral Kazansky stiffens, takes a deep breath and seems almost at lost at what to do  with a sudden armful of sobbing Maverick, before he gingerly curls his own arms around Maverick's smaller form and starts rocking them ever so gently. He holds him tight, grip equally strong as if he could disappear at any second. 

The tobacco stains his nails a dark grey, Ice thinks. He's gaunt, like he hasn't slept in a week. His lips are a dark purple, his skin no longer so pale. He smells- not of peppermint gum and aftershave- but of sour smoke. The wrong kind of smoke, not one of jetfuel and adrenaline, but of a slow torturous death that he crawls towards inch by inch. 

But Maverick doesn't care. Doesn't smell the stink, doesn't see the skin and the nails and everything else that's so, so wrong with him. Doesn't care that he's a shadow of the man he used to be, one stuffed in a shiny new suit with shiny new stars on his shoulder collaring him to the only thing left that keeps his bed warm at night- ambition. 

But Ice doesn't think he could care either about the shadows in Maverick's eyes, the scars on his arms and the screams that sometimes wakes up the whole house. He doesn't care that the man startles or gets lost in his own mind and ghosts from the dead. He won't care- not if he can just have him back. 

"Maverick," Kazansky murmurs over and over again, each iteration more reverent and more right, more color reverting back into his world and his axis tilting back towards the right angle. His highway slowing down, pausing, then turning. Stopping and instead going down the unbeaten path, the off road that leads to everywhere he's never dreamed of. 

"Ice, Ice," Maverick whispers, equally reverent. He's lost, coming home like a sailor on a ship to moor. He's found his compass, his north star. His direction- he's found it again. 

"Maverick, I'm here to take you home," the Admiral says at long last. "Let's go home, Mav." 

"Yeah. Home sounds just perfect, Ice," Maverick says, closing his eyes as his tears trickle to a stop and the sniffling abates. He collects himself, as best as he could, but even then he can't hide the newfound shine in his eyes, the life that was so  glaringly absent before. 

Admiral Iceman Kazansky takes a deep breath, his head buried in Maverick's head, holding him close. He only pulls away for a short while- as if only registering the other occupants of the room standing there all along. He's not embarrassed, not like Ice would be if he was caught the same- crying like a baby. Instead, his gaze sweeps across the room, commanding. 

He sees the oldest Maverick, and something like curiosity appears in his expression, and he looks at him with a hunger, with a desperation as if searching for a specific something. Maverick smiles at him, sadly and waves them a fond goodbye. His hand stays up, the gold ring on his finger catching light, and he nods fondly towards his hand. Pointedly, even. To his side, the youngest Maverick outright glares with a ferocity that would put the fear of God in a lesser man. He glares and glares some more and crosses his arms, sneers and shakes his head. As if he can't believe this Ice is getting a second chance. 

(Just what happened? Ice has a sneaking suspicion that Maverick would put a stop to it prematurely, kill the problem and bury the body before Ice even knows it exists.

Say what you want about the flying, but the man is efficient when he puts his mind up to it.) 

The Admiral's gaze hardens, determination evident in his form. He nods- a bit gratefully- and turns to the other side where Ice is still standing there, apron tied and a bit greasy from the pancetta. His expression blank, and just looking on as if this happened every day. Which, for the past week, technically it has. 

"You," he says, voice strict and so much like his father's that it gives Ice flashbacks to rougher days when he'd bring home less than optimal grades. Kazansky detaches his arm from Mav, reaches up and yanks out the stars on his left shoulder. They detach with a plop and leave behind frayed holes. He doesn't care. 

"You go take these, Boy, and give them back to me when you've earned them," he says coldly and throws them at Ice. 

Earn them fair and square like I didn't. Earn them with Maverick by his side like I didn't. Earn them but don't forget who they're for. Not like I did. 

In his shock, Ice almost misses the throw. He blinks. He's holding them, his dreams and his ambitions in real form. His stars. His two stars, everything he's ever wanted- been spoonfed to reach for in his entire life. They're his stars. 

He takes them and puts them down on the table. 

"Don't you worry, I'll do that and get two more," he says, not at all arrogant, just sure in his future. 

I'll do better than you. I am better than you. 

He can hear the oldest Maverick snort and shake his head, muttering something about youth. The admiral doesn't pay him any attention. 

"You go do that Boy," he scoffs and quirks a smile, a soft hint of the face he sees in the mirror emerging beyond the shadows. He shakes head and gently rests his head on Maverick, who slowly starts to move. Sluggishly at first but like butterfly from a cocoon, he wakes from a long dream. 

They take their steps, their foot falls still in sync with each other and their hands entwined. 

"Let's go home, Mav," Ice says again gently. 

"Come home with me?" Mav asks back. "Stay." 

"I'll stay as long as you'll have me, Love," Kazansky whispers. "For as long as you'll have me." 

That's three down and just the last one left to go, Ice thinks. He's almost sad to see the oldest Maverick leave, and seeing the droop in his own Maverick's shoulder, he's sure the sentiment is shared.

The man in question looks peaceful and at rest, sitting down on Ice's couch with his legs spread wide and his hands crossed on his lap. 

"Well, there's that," he says at last. His eyes don't leave Ice's face, drinking in his youthful features with a hunger that he had carefully hidden throughout the week. He drinks in the sight as if it won't last, not really, and for once Ice wonders if Maverick cared about the way his appearance changed, about the skin that's no longer smooth and supple, the muscles that waste to nothing, the hair that turns from pale blond to white. 

"His Ice better treat him right this time," his Maverick says, rolling his eyes and huffing. He elbows Ice, as if he's the one somehow at fault. 

"Not my problem, Mitchell," Ice says pointedly and elbows him right back.

"Children," Maverick shakes his head and smiles. "They would have sorted it out by themselves anyways. It just would have taken longer." 

"How did that Ice get his head unstuck from his ass?" Maverick asks curiously, blunt and casually unkind in that way of his.

Maverick tilts his head, shrugs. "There was this mission he gave me- assigned me really. I didn't think it was a good idea at the time- not enough intel. But he told me to go anyways, pulled rank, and I got shot down in Yemen." 

Holy shit, Ice thinks, his eyes wide. He feels his nausea creeping up on him, finger by finger easing his throat into its stranglehold. 

"Holy shit," Mav whispers, voicing out Ice's own thoughts, He doesn't look any better either, Ice thinks. "How the hell are you not dead?" 

Yes, that's the precise question Ice asked on a daily basis at Top Gun. Still asks on a daily basis, practically every day since he's met Maverick. 

Maverick snorts. "By the skin of my teeth and some banging luck. My plane crashed into the mountain, and I managed to eject, but I knew there wouldn't be a search and rescue team heading out for me when I wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place. Actually a young village girl was nearby picking herbs and found me, helped me back to her place and patched me up. As much as she could anyways."

"Let me guess, you charmed the pants right off her?" Ice says, his voice dry. It would just be like him to walk off an ejection and start flirting a mile a minute.

"Actually, no. Her father almost shot me in the face because he thought I actually did something to her, but the mother stopped him," Maverick laughed. 

"I helped out the youngest a bit with his schoolwork, and they smuggled me into the city with their next produce the next time they headed to the marketplace. From then on I managed to get in contact with base and they arranged for someone to pick me up," Maverick summarizes. 

Maverick has the luck of the devil, Ice thinks. Thank god, a part of him sighs in relief. 

"Oh yeah, then how did your Ice take it?" Maverick asks.

"He was busy arranging the funeral and had a meltdown when his underling told him they found me. Threw a paperweight at his face and kicked out everyone."

That's- well, he can't say he doesn't know his own temper when pressed into a corner, when pressed past a breaking point, but to display it so openly is a bit crass. 

Then, Maverick pauses. "He was there at the airport. Rescheduled a big meeting with the brass and waited three hours for my flight. Was waiting with a hot thermost of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich." He smiles and fiddles with the ring on his finger, turning it over and over again. 

So that's what happened to my grilled cheese recipe, Ice thinks. Then, he swats at the thought. Focus. 

"It won't be long now until my Ice comes to pick me up," that Maverick smiles sadly. "Seems like this interdimensional rip is healing up. About time, actually."

Ice swallows back his words, doesn't think of what would happen if he asked the man to stay, stay and be the anchor for the two of them, selfishly be the father that Maverick never had. 

"Thank you for putting up with us, Tom," Maverick says softly and looks him in the eyes. "I really appreciated your patience with me- us. I'm sorry this happened to you of all Ice's, but thank you nonetheless." 

"Don't say that," his Maverick insists. "Don't say that like you're leaving." 

"But I am leaving," his older reflection points out placidly. "I should be. I have to get back to my own Ice; wouldn't want to hog yours," he points out. 

He's not a tug toy for children, Ice thinks. Not a favorite plush or action figure to fight over. 

But Maverick hesitates, grumbles a bit and shifts on his feet. "It's fine," he says at last. 

Charitable, Ice thinks. Must have cost him his left arm to share. (Not that he's property belonging to Maverick to be shared.)

The older one laughs lightly and shakes his head. "There's only so much I can change, and you know that. Not that I'm complaining, but you've got your Ice, and I've got mine. I  wouldn't leave mine alone like that, let's not ask that of me," he berates gently. 

But it's the last day with him. One last day, perhaps not even one last meal, Ice thinks and sits down next to that Maverick. He sees his own Maverick sit down on the other side, sandwiching the oldest of them. He immediately sticks close, plastering his body to his own older frame. 

It's odd, seeing his Maverick lay his head on the older one and the older one leaning right back. A physical manifestation of the grace of time, an embrace crossing eternities and futures. Ice wishes he had a polaroid in his hands at that very moment, wishes he could copy what his eyes see and his brain feels and preserve it forever in a glass frame. Immortalize it, for things that don't last.

He doesn't want Maverick to sleep alone in the cold living room, not tonight, Ice thinks. He tries to hide it, but Ice knows some of those screams aren't from the active duty Maverick. As much as they try to collude and pin it only on the one Maverick, Ice knows it's not the case. And he doesn't want to leave the man to his own demons, to whatever he hasn't talked about waiting for him in the future. 

"Come sleep with us tonight?" Maverick asks, his eyes closed. The words are barely a murmur. 

"Are you propositioning me, Pipsqueak?" the oldest one teases, reaches up a hand and start patting the chestnut brown strands of his younger self. 

"You're all the same height," Ice deadpans from the other side. 

"Rude," they both say in unison, and the younger one hides a sniff and the older one chuckles. The vibration across his chest warms Ice. 

"Ice, can we?" he asks. Ice closes his eyes, the last defense against those damnable puppy eyes of Maverick's. But truly, it's not like he needed much convincing to begin with. 

"Sure, Mitchell," he says, and he means both of them. "If it helps you sleep better," he snorts. (As if you didn't want the exact same thing, a part of him whispers. Don't you go pinning this on him now.)

"Well, if that's what you want, I'm not opposed to it," the oldest one says, his tone light but loving as if he's only humoring his children. "You're good kids, both of you," he murmurs and continues petting them. 

It's the best sleep Ice has gotten this week, he thinks. He wakes up warm, wakes up late, really. For the first time in a while, he didn't want to get out of bed. He notices however, that his alarm is already off; he didn't hear it ring, but he thinks he doesn't care, not at this particular moment. 

"Mhmph..." His Maverick grumbles sleepily and smooshes his face into Ice's chest, his arms curling around him like a koala and holding even tighter. "Wazza' time...?" 

"Too early," Ice mutters. "Back to sleep, Mitchell." 

He hears a third voice chuckle, older and wide awake. He's the one who turned off the alarm, Ice thinks. Maybe even turned it off last night after he set it, the sneaky thing. 

"Rise and shine, Kiddos," he says gently and shakes them, casually pries Maverick away from Ice. He immediately curls up into a ball of blankets and leaves Ice blinking at the cold air suddenly hitting his naked torso. 

"No." His Maverick says, his voice angry and muffled by the blankets. 

Please, as if he wasn't already in the cuddle pile from last night, Ice thinks with a sigh and gracefully surrenders his blanket. Somedays he wonders why he even loves this man, then takes one look at the tuft of brown sticking up and remembers. 

He looks at the older Maverick, laying on his side with an arm propped up, one of Ice's old sleeping shirts hanging on his frame. He looks on at, amused and exasperated in equal measures at the younger version of him. 

"Was I ever like that...?" Maverick wonders. 

Ice shrugs. "Welcome to my life, Mitchell," he says and shrugs on a T shirt himself. As much as he hates to leave the warmth of his bed (and the warmth of the two pieces of his heart beside him), someone has to cook breakfast.

"One egg or two?" 

"Three," two voices say together. 

What, do they think he grows chickens in the backyard or something? Ice rolls his eyes. 

It's over breakfast and their second cup of coffee when the dreaded knock finally comes. Ice puts down his spatula, takes the pan of eggs off heat and checks if he still has enough pancake batter left for another serving. He does. 

He distracts himself as much as he can with the food and doesn't exactly hurry to go get the door. He doesn't see his Maverick rushing either, he thinks, and he's doing absolutely nothing. 

The last one sighs and gets up, working out the stiffness in his back, and slowly walks to the door. 

"Good morning, Love," Maverick says when he opens the door. 

It had better not be the mailman he's talking to, Ice thinks. But he knows it won't be. He takes a deep breath, tries to steel himself as much as he can and turns around. 

Oh thank heavens he brought groceries, Ice thinks automatically when he notes the multitude of paper Harris Teeter bags in the older Ice's arms. Finally, someone with an ounce of sense who won't eat him out of a house and home. 

Then, he really takes a look at his older self, looks him up and down from lightly gelled hair to scarf to the woolen coat and slacks. And then does it again for good measure. His older self takes the inspection with good grace, doesn't say anything but just raises an eyebrow and lets him look. 

"Hello, Love. Did you have fun?" 

Oh god, his voice, Ice thinks and all the air leaves his lungs. His voice. He reaches up with his own fingers, presses the same spot on his throat where his older self has a hole. He brushes his fingers across smooth skin, looking for a plastic box that's not there. Not yet there, hopefully never. He can see his Maverick glancing at him with concern, stepping closer to him. Ice doesn't pay him any mind, just stays rooted to where he is. 

"Oh lots," that Maverick grins. It's like seeing the face of God, Ice thinks. The love pouring out from this man... There's devotion and faith, and then there's this. Peace and the tranquility of the morning, a quiet timeless love that endures past ages. He gets to have this, maybe, Ice thinks. Just maybe. 

"How fucked did you get?" that Ice says, his sense of humor apparently staying the same. 

Maverick rolls his eyes and adjusts Ice's scarf, twisting the knot closer to center and leaving the dip of the scarf under the box on Ice's throat. 

"How fucked did you get?" he shoots back. 

"My office is all cleared for once," Ice says, not missing a beat. Then he chuckles and pulls Maverick close. 

'I missed you, Mav,' Ice can see the man murmur, the reedy voice turning into barely a rasp as soon as the hand on his throat moves away. He sees the man mouth those words and thinks, the shape of their lips look the same saying those words, at thirty, forty, sixty. All the same. 

"I missed you too, Ice. I missed you so much," Maverick whispers back just as fiercely. 

Ice swallows and looks away, notes that his Mitchell is now standing almost uncomfortably closed, a little bit teary eyed even at the reunion going on before them. He doesn't say anything, just turns away from the scene and gives them some space. Instead, he goes back to the kitchen, starts plating up the eggs and cooking the pancakes, slides on a couple strips of bacon and pours a cup of coffee. Black, of course. 

By the time he's done and has breakfast on the table- extra chair as well- the two older versions of them have let go of one another. 

"So this is him- the version of me stuck with five of you for a week," Ice says, looking at himself. "Nothing's on fire. The cul-de-sac doesn't have a stolen F-14 parked in it. Your house is standing. You did a good job, Son." 

At that even Ice chuckles, and his Maverick snorts. 

"Oh for- it was that one time, and you know I had to at least get Bradley out-" 

"Yes, Rear Admiral Mitchell, I should hope you're not looking to steal another F-14 now that you're in a time where there's plenty of those around," the COMPACFLT says.

"What the fuck?" Maverick whispers. Apparently that got lost in the translation. Or the promotion was just deemed completely insignificant by the oldest Maverick and never mentioned. 

"If you're gonna steal another F-14, steal the one with your  name on it," Ice adds, poking at his bacon. He's a bit surprised that the oldest Maverick doesn't even seem to like his promotion- the notion of turning down achievement a strange one to Ice- but he thinks he probably would if it means keeping his wings. He looks at his older self's shoulder, if perhaps a bit wistfully. Four stars. He really makes it. Really is the COMPACFLT. And he's still arguing with Maverick at breakfast over his antics. 

"And you disclosed classified information," the Admiral adds, already on a roll with the number of infarctions and rules that Maverick has broken this time. That at least sounds familiar to Ice. He doesn't notice Ice's staring, or if he does, he doesn't comment. 

"It's not classified if it hasn't happened yet, Ice,"that Maverick argues back, no longer the oldest and most responsible adult in the room. 

That gives the admiral a pause. "While that is technically true, you didn't think things through when you disclosed the next fifty years of events to four separate timelines, Mitchell." 

"It's Mitchell-Kazansky, thank you," that Maverick says automatically. Ice looks- really looks- and sees the exact same golden ring on his older self's finger. Over the hand that's now drumming on the table with a bit of irritation, casual and at ease in the way that belays how big of a miracle this is to Ice. Like it's simply the truth that he wakes up to in the morning and goes to sleep at night thinking of. 

"Mitchell-Kazansky," his Maverick whispers and takes Ice's hand in his, his calloused ones brushing over his bare ring finger. Both of their hands, bare. 

"It has a nice ring to it," Ice agrees quietly.

The Admiral reaches over to his plate, nodding at Ice with thanks, and starts from the eggs. Eggs, then pancakes, then bacon, in that exact same order. 

For a while neither of them say anything. Ice doesn't eat; he's lost his appetite, choked with his own emotions and thoughts. He doesn't mind when Maverick's fork sneaks in from the edge of his plate and drags away one slice of bacon then two.

"Let the kid eat his own food," the Admiral says, amused. "I forgot how much you did that. God knows where Bradley get his breakfast habits from."

"It's fine," he shakes his head. He doesn't mind, and he can always cook up more. 

Ice thought for sure they would leave after the food, be the last pair out the door, and then his world will right itself back on the axis it’s supposed to be on. Quiet and unassuming. Top gun day in and day out, only suddenly schooling a bunch of rookies seem almost boring in comparison. 

 Only they don’t. They don't disappear that is. They clean up- Ice at dishwashing duty and the older Maverick at the drying one, and Ice can't help but think that it's the last time they're going to do this. 

"You could always rope your Mitchell into drying the dishes for you," Maverick hums when he notices Ice's mood. 

Ice shoots him a look. "How long did it take you to do start doing dishes?" 

Maverick grins sheepishly and admits, "A while." 

After cleaning up, they grab their coffee and join the other two, lounging on the couch. The Admiral has a hand over Pete's thigh, Ice notices. He doesn't snarl- get his own, he thinks- but it's a near thing. 

It's eerie, really, how much this man looks like his father. Only his father had never looked like that, never so warm and relaxed. Never so at peace with his own mortality and mistakes. Never so in love. Maybe never even been in love to begin with, Ice thinks uncharitably. 

Maverick plops down his usual chair by the table, sips on his coffee, and he shares a quiet look with his Ice. Thirty years of marriage, and some things go unsaid, didn't need to be said. 

"Well, we do have the day off," Maverick suggests, having come to a shared unknown thought with his husband. "Why not?" 

The Admiral rolls his eyes, presses a finger to his throat and says, "The President told me not to come back before I fix this mess." 

Just what are they going on about? Ice blinks, frowning in confusion. He turns to look at his Pete, wondering if he had the slightest clue. 

Only to find Maverick grinning like a loon. The hair on the back of Ice's neck stands up. I don't like that look, he thinks, warning bells ringing in his mind. That's the look he had when he pulled an inverted dive on a student. 

But that smile- all pearly teeth and that one crooked one poking out. Ice doesn't notice anything else, doesn't particularly care about anything else in small liminal moment of time when his world narrows down to that one smile. It's all trouble but damn does he not fall for it every single time.

("You're a sucker for a cute face, Kazansky," Slider had told him once when he noticed Ice staring at that very same mischievous  grin.

"I dare you to call Maverick that to his face," Ice had grumbled. )

“What do you say we take this as a vacation? The multiverse doesn’t need to fix itself today.” 

“You’re a bad influence, Maverick.” But the Admiral very carefully doesn’t disagree, just looks to his younger self. 

Ice shrugs. "I'm fine if you want to stay." He doesn't voice out how much he doesn't want them to leave- either of them. He hasn't had his chance to ask his questions yet. Hasn't had enough time with them. And well, they did pick up a week’s worth of groceries for him (two bottles of bleach with that and also an extra carton of milk), and he has the spare bedroom free. 

"As long as there's, it’s fine. Spare bedroom's free anyways." Out of all the mavericks, that one’s the easiest to deal with. 

He sees the Admiral raise his eyebrows, look at him like he's missing something very important or just spaced out on his briefing. And Ice really wonders just what exactly he's missing in this situation. He again turns to his Maverick who winks at him and puts his fingers together. Huh, he only does that when there's something he wants, Ice thinks. 

“Excellent,” Older Maverick grins, finishes his coffee in a gulp, and snags the box of condoms on the table- champagne included. His Iceman follows suits, snorts when he sees that bottle of champagne. (Why in all heavens does he still recognize that bottle in thirty years' time...? Ice wonders with a bit of trepidation.)

Maverick gets up and makes a left turn up the stairs to Ice's bedroom. 

His Ice chases him there, hot on his heels but regal and proud- as if he's the one who owns the damn house. 

A part of Ice thinks, technically he does own the house. He's sure he's paid off his mortgage by then. 

"Maverick," Ice growls- at himself? At the older one? The younger one? He doesn't know. Doesn't know if it's to keep him from reaching out or to contain his own thoughts. 

His Mav pauses, looks at him, face heating up and his lips dry, his hair ruffled and ungelled, and grins. A smile so warm, so wide, and so full of love. 

"Well, You comin'?" He asks, his smile turning cheeky, and gives him a two finger salute before disappearing around the bend of the stairs. 

Ice stands there, quietly stunned into silence both by the smile he'll be forever weak to and also by the truth of the matter that finally reaches his brainwaves. He doesn't notice when he burns his tongue on the coffee as he chugs it down but Ice can't find it in himself to even are at this point. The only he knows is that he wouldn’t miss this for the world.