Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The hop was over. Maverick had actually pulled off some spectacular flying with a minimum of showboating. All Goose wanted was to shower, pull chocks, sit on his couch, and review some pubs with a baseball game playing in the background. But he couldn’t do that. Because…

Maverick and Iceman were bickering again. If that’s what you wanted to call it. Bickering, taunting, posturing, getting in each other’s faces, thisclose to coming to blows (as it were).

If the locker room had been dark, Goose was pretty sure he would have seen sparks, like when you bite into a Wintergreen Lifesaver. Was it possible that Mav didn’t feel it? Or maybe that’s why they kept going at each other like that, because maybe what was making Goose wildly uncomfortable, like an actual electrical shock, was somehow pleasant or pleasurable like— eugh. He quit that train of thought pretty quick.

And how had no one else noticed this? Everyone else just laughed, Iceman and Maverick at it again, and kept showering and changing like nothing weird or uncomfortable or erotically charged was happening. It boggled the mind. No one saw this?

He took a discreet look around the room. Well, okay. Someone else noticed it. Someone else was wearing the twin expression of incredulity and revulsion that Goose wore, only it wasn’t aimed at Maverick. It was aimed at Ice, because, naturally, it was Slider.

Their eyes met, and it was. Whoa. There was that Lifesaver spark again. Only this time it was him and Slider, and it wasn’t sexy (not like it was sexy to see Mav and Ice go at it — not “go at it” like that — it was just obviously sexy for them — god, this tension was really screwing with his brain), it was the recognition of a kindred spirit. Someone who was totally aligned with him on a psychic plane. Someone else who could see that their respective pilots were behaving absolutely out of pocket.

Goose raised an eyebrow at him. It meant: are you seeing this shit?

In return, Slider shrugged his shoulders, with so minute a movement you would miss it if you weren’t looking for it: of course, but what am I supposed to do about it?

Goose raised both eyebrows this time: we have to do something before we lose our minds and/or our jobs.

Slider tilted his head slightly to the door: make an excuse and meet me in the empty classroom down the hall after this, sans pilot.

Goose nodded: roger, out. Then he turned to his locker and busied himself putting his clothes on. No one had noticed their silent interchange, just like no one noticed that Maverick and Iceman were at all times 30 seconds away from getting in the kind of fight where someone got shoved aggressively against a wall and it wasn’t clear if the next move would be violent or sexual or possibly both.

The back of Maverick’s neck was red and he was loudly flinging his bag around, slamming his locker door, and huffing under his breath. “He is such an asshole.”

No need to ask who. Goose just said noncommittally, “Yeah.”

“Can you believe how arrogant he is? What a prick.”

“I know.”

“And he has the audacity to criticize me. As if we don’t have more points than them.”

“Mmhmm.”

Maverick hefted his bag and finally looked at Goose, with concern. “Something on your mind, Goosey? You seem preoccupied.”

I seem preoccupied? Goose wanted to protest, but instead he said, “Nah, it’s just I think one of the collar pins fell off my khakis. I’m gonna go check the head, then maybe the hangar.”

“You want me to wait around?”

“Well, if I don’t find it here, I’ll have to buy a new set. I’ll just see you later. Dinner?”

“Sure, see you.” Maverick took off with a little salute. Goose shut his locker and grabbed his bag. He went into the head for a few minutes just in case, but when he left the p-way was clear and he ducked into the classroom where Slider was waiting.

“Took you long enough. Were you jerking each other off?”

“Dude!”

Slider put up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, force of habit. I’m not used to humoring my incompetent inferiors—”

“Hey, asshole. I thought we understood each other, but if you’re gonna be a real dicksuck, I’m not gonna sit around just to be insulted.” Goose paused. “And we have more points than you.”

“No, you’re right. We have a common purpose: to get Ice and Mitchell to stop going after each other like there’s some trophy for king of the fucking locker room. And only one more point.” Slider sat on a desk and put his feet on the chair. “I really thought today was the day Ice was gonna take a swing at him.”

“Yeah? Because I thought this was the day Mav was finally gonna give it to him.” Goose leaned disconsolately against the wall. “But, you know, in an aggressive way. Not a sexy way.”

Slider buried his head in his hands. “So you see it too.”

“See what?”

“That it’s not just… competition. There’s something else there.”

“When you say something else…”

“Dude, you just said it yourself. You had to clarify that Mitchell was gonna go at him, but not like that,” Slider said, doing air quotes.

“Well, yeah. Not like that.” Goose also did the air quotes.

“So why is that even in the conversation? Why is it in the realm of the possible?”

“Because… like…” Goose threw his hands up. “You know why! They’re in each other’s faces--”

Slider gestured between the two of them. "We’re in each other’s faces.”

“Not the way they are.”

“That’s right. That’s why we both know something is going on.” Slider took a deep breath. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think there’s another way. What if they break the tension—”

“No.”

“—not by fighting, because that’s just making everything worse, but—”

“Don’t say it.”

“—if it’s sexual tension, then the way to end it is—”

“Please stop.”

“—if they actually. You know.” He looked distressed. Goose awaited the next word like he was bracing for a physical blow. “Fucked.”

“Nooooo,” he said, in a quiet moan, like a dog having its toenails clipped.

“I’ve got a question for you, Goose: how much does Mitchell talk about Ice when you two are just hanging out?”

“Not that much. Just…” He thought back to the weekend, when he and Mav settled in with a few beers to watch baseball. We had the shot on them, you know/should we be starting crew rest a little earlier? You think Kazansky quits drinking by four?/did you hear him tap his ring over the comms? what an asshole/I can’t believe he drives a Jag… “Every two sentences or so.”

Slider groaned. “Same. All day, it’s ‘Mitchell’s such a cocky little shit,’ ‘Mitchell must have a Napoleon complex,’ ‘can you believe Mitchell pulled that stunt at the O Club? There’s no way chicks like that,’ until I wanna scream.”

“Well, chicks don’t like that stunt. I haven’t seen him hook up with anyone for a couple of weeks. Maybe longer.”

“Yeah, Ice has been the same way.” They caught each other’s eyes and shared distraught frowns. Slider buried his face in his hands again. Goose let his head fall back against the wall, where it hit with a surprisingly painful bang. It did not help dispel the mental image of his best friend and his best friend's hated rival getting it on, although in the mental image they were in the locker room and still both wearing flight suits and yelling at each other. If that was gay sex then they’d pretty much been doing it for weeks now.

Slider sighed deeply, like what he was about to say next was painful and loaded with gravity. “Full disclosure: in the year I have flown with him, I have not actually seen Ice… pick up a chick. And he definitely could. I mean, look at him.” Then he turned red, like he was embarrassed to admit it, but there was no getting around the fact: Iceman was a really good-looking guy. If he wanted to get laid, it would be easy. Unless he didn’t want to… for some reason.

The admission gave Goose the courage to marshal this thoughts, and call to mind a memory he had suppressed for months. Slider had taken the leap first and he deserved to be met in kind, even if it felt like the worst kind of betrayal to Maverick. It was all in pursuit of a higher cause, he convinced himself.

“Okay, so full disclosure: in the year that I have known him, I have seen Maverick pick up… a person. Who-was-not-a-chick.” He forced the last words out in a rush, afraid he had signed Maverick’s death warrant. He was putting a huge amount of trust in Slider, whom he had not been on great terms with before this very day. But it had been Slider’s idea in the first place, that they needed to “break” the tension. You couldn’t have it both ways. Now it was just mutually assured destruction.

Slider hopped down from the desk. “It sounds like we’re on the same page. What’s the plan?”

“Okay,” Goose clapped his hands together, “brunch at ten tomorrow.”

“Uh. What?”

“Come over to me and Carole’s. We’ll do brunch. Hash out a plan.”

“And some browns?”

“What?”

“Hash out some browns?”

“You’re uninvited. Brunch is canceled.”

“Fine. I apologize. I would love to hash out a plan over brunch.”

They shook hands solemnly.

Chapter Text

Goose’s house was a little out of the way, probably inconvenient for the stupid hours TOPGUN was making them work, which is why on the daily he was living with Mitchell in Navy temporary accommodation on base. Still. Slider would have gotten up at 3 to make the night flights in time if he had the option, and a hot wife. Maybe not so much an annoying kid.

He was on the Bradshaw family doorstep promptly at 10 with a box of donuts to be a good guest or whatever. Goose may have been a dickhead he felt free to offend, but that was no reason to be rude to Goose’s wife.

Goose answered the door wearing an apron and carrying a bowl of pancake batter. “Good morning, Slider! Welcome to my castle.” He clapped Slider on the shoulder, leaving a floury handprint, then gestured extravagantly for him to enter. Slider rolled his eyes and handed over the box.

“I hope you like Dunkin.”

“Dunkin sucks. But thank you. Have you met my wife?”

“When would I have met your wife?”

Goose’s wife was small and charming and currently pouring hot coffee into mugs that had been washed within the last decade, which made her an angel as far as Slider was concerned (he had the barest hint of a hangover-related headache). Goose put the batter and the donuts on the counter and took a sip from one emblazoned with the words “The hardest job in the military is a Navy WIFE!”

“Slider, this is Carole. Carole, this is Slider. Or Ron. Whatever.” They shook hands.

“Slider? Were you a baseball player?” Carole asked brightly.

Slider felt himself turn red. Normally he owned it, like, fuck you, he was meant to be in the air, not on the sea. But also normally people didn’t start with this line of questioning until they were all pretty drunk, and normally it wasn’t the very pretty blonde wife of someone with whom he had only a tenuous détente who would definitely use the information against him. “Uh, no.”

“Hey, I haven’t heard the story either.” Goose propped himself against the kitchen counter and rested his chin on his hands. “If it’s not baseball… does it have to do with burgers?”

Slider sighed. “Yes.”

“Are you gonna tell us or…?”

“Are you gonna be an asshole about it?”

Goose grinned. “What do you think?”

“I hate you and I wish we’d never agreed to this stupid scheme together.” Goose tapped his watch. “Fine. The first time I went underway, I got really seasick. And I threw up in the wardroom. During lunch. That’s it.”

“And… it was Wednesday?”

“Yeah.”

“So the carrier — the carrier — bothers you, but Ice pulling huge negative Gs and wild spins and going inverted, that’s fine?”

“Well, he doesn’t do as much of that shit as Mitchell does. But yes, plane good. Boat bad. End of story.”

Goose cackled. “Bro, that sucks. I would just lie. Go with a baseball story.”

“Where’s Goose come from? You’re loud and you shit everywhere?”

“Hey, I’m housebroken.” He handed a mug that said “I got crabs in Annapolis, Maryland” over to Slider. “I saw unknown hostile aircraft incoming. Called it away.” Goose shrugged. “Turned out to be birds.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Well, you’re a pussy. Seasick on a carrier, gimme a break.”

Carole sliced the air between them with a spatula. “Boys, behave. Slider, you want pancakes?”

The bickering stopped immediately. “Yes, I do.”

She poured batter into the pan warming on the burner, and Goose pulled butter, syrup, jam, orange juice, and the other trappings of breakfast out of the fridge. Slider gave himself a refill from the coffee pot.

“This coffee is great. You ever think of upgrading, Carole?”

“Don’t hit on my wife in front of me. Anyway, I made the coffee.” Slider spit it back into his mug. “You’re such a child.”

Buoyed by the coffee and pancakes, the backseaters were able to put their issues behind them and start to scheme in earnest.

Slider opened with: “Get ‘em drunk.”

“They get drunk all the time,” Goose argued.

“Ice doesn’t. He’s actually pretty uptight.”

“Okay, so what would make this different? He’ll make a move?”

“Or be susceptible to one.”

“Are you trying to tell me Mav isn’t aggressive enough? That can’t be right.”

“It’s not like he’s throwing himself at Ice. He’s got to be obvious but still circumspect, or else he’ll scare Ice off. Is there any more coffee?”

Goose poured. “What is that, an SAT prep word?”

“Shut up. Ice isn’t a risk-taker like Mitchell.”

Carole looked up from the Sunday crossword, which she had discarded in favor of this conversation, which was shaping up to be bizarre even by Bradshaw family standards. “Umm, boys? What are you talking about?”

“Iceman is Slider’s Maverick,” Goose explained. “And they, uh… do not get along. Which is causing us problems. And consternation.”

“Who’s doing SAT prep now?”

“Have you even read a book since--”

Carole cut in again with, “Is this the same Iceman that Mav has a huge crush on?”

They both turned to her with incredulous expressions.

“What?” Goose squeaked out.

“Oh, it’s all he talks about. Ice this, Ice that, all I want is for Ice to pay attention to me.” She sighed and folded the paper. “Just this Tuesday he stopped by to pick up some tapes, and he mentioned Ice about sixty times. I thought he wanted something to drink at first. But I couldn’t figure out how the blondness figured into it...” She took a sip from her "World's Greatest Grandpa" mug.

“…yeah, that’s him.”

“Thank god you two are helping him out. He’s going to drive himself crazy if he doesn’t figure it out.”

“And take us with him,” Slider added.

“Is Iceman doing the same thing?” Carole asked.

A montage played through Slider’s mind. The detailed rant about Mitchell’s dangerous behavior with descriptions that bordered on the erotic; the furious glares at Mitchell on his death-trap motorcycle that didn’t end until he had stripped to his t-shirt and briefs in the locker room; the fact that they went to the O Club a few times a week now even though Ice hadn’t been a big drinker prior to TOPGUN, and every time they went to the O Club it happened to be on a night Mitchell was there as well…

Slider sighed. At least he had made friends with the bartender. “Can you hand me that?”

Carole passed him her half-finished crossword and pen. In block letters, Slider wrote GET THEM DRUNK in the margin. “What else?”

“How about an anonymous note?” Goose mimed writing. “‘Dear Ice, do you like me? Check yes or no.’”

“More like, ‘Ice, wanna bang it out in the supply closet?’”

“Suppo would kill him.” They paused to imagine the mild-mannered Supply Officer going ape shit on their pilots. He did issue all the knives.

Carole leaned over the newspaper Slider was writing on. “Drunk hook-ups and fooling around in a supply closet? You two are not romantic at all.”

“This isn’t romance,” Slider protested. “This is primal.”

“This is match-making!”

“It’s not match-making. It’s… conflict resolution!”

“Well, it calls for someone with more delicate sensibilities than you two Neanderthals. I’m making a mimosa. Slider? Nicky?”

The mimosa was usually too girly a drink for a badass lieutenant (junior grade), but it was also part of the Morning Drinking List of Exceptions: Bloody Marys, Screwdrivers, Mimosas, and Hair of the Dog (which allowed for finishing any glass that had sat on a table overnight in the hopes it would stave off the incipient hangover).

“I’ll have one if Nicky has one.”

“I’ll have one if it doesn’t give Ron the spins and make him ralph all over our kitchen.”

With their creative juices stirred by mimosas and the additional brainpower of Carole, they were able to concentrate even more on the issue at hand. The bubbles really did seem to inspire a gentler sensibility. It led them to revise “strand in TJ” to “strand in Hillcrest,” although you could walk back to 32 ^nd Street from there if you really wanted to, which made the consequences less dire. It opened a discussion on the possibility that Maverick and Iceman had deep-seated psychological issues, which they agreed were above their paygrade to try and solve.

It also led to Carole saying, decisively, “Poetry.”

“Worst yet,” Slider said, also decisively.

“No, the worst was ‘faking a terrorist attack in the hopes that a life or death scenario would make them reconsider what was most important in their lives.’” Goose rapped his knuckles on the paper. “Write it down!”

In Slider’s terrible-yet-better-than-Goose’s handwriting, the following list was produced:

• Get them drunk
• Anonymous note
• Lock in supply closet
• Strand in the desert TJ Hillcrest
• Therapy? (Not practical Carole noted next to it)
• Poetry (Slider only wrote it down begrudgingly)
• Having a loud conversation about how one was secretly in love with the other (Goose’s sarcasm and exasperation had really gotten the best of him at this point)

“These are all godawful ideas,” Slider commented. “Besides getting them drunk.”

“Are any of them worse than going through the rest of the program with them at each other’s throats? Could you stand listening to any more about how Ice must waste a lot of time at the gym in order to have such big arms?”

“Christ, he isn’t really saying shit like that?”

“And that’s before his first drink.”

Clearly they had no time to lose. They would start with their strongest idea: getting their friends drunk and, well, the rest wasn’t quite fleshed out yet, but a) there was a chance the lowered inhibitions would make it happen naturally, or b) they would come up with a great idea while they were at the bar, which is traditionally where great ideas came from anyway.

“See you tomorrow,” Goose said, staggering slightly as he held the door open for Slider. “Drive safe.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Slider fumbled through his pockets for his keys and got them into the lock after only three tries. He backed out of the driveway, then rolled down his window and yelled, “Nice to meet you, Carole! Brunch was lovely!”

“He seems sweet,” Carole said after Slider drove away.

“He’s not.” Goose sighed. “But he’s the only person who understands.”