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1.
Maverick woke up to the sound of someone screaming. Bradley. He jumped out of bed faster than he previously knew he could, and ran down the hallway to Bradley’s room.
He pushed the door open, and the light from the hallway behind him spilled through and into the bedroom. Bradley was tangled up in a mess of sheets, sweat and tears staining his face, his right-hand clinging onto his pillow like a lifeline, his eyes still closed and trapping him in a terrifying dreamland.
He was having entirely too many nightmares for someone who was barley eight.
“Bradley!” Maverick knelt next to the bed, reaching out a hand to hold the one Bradley didn’t have buried in the pillow, and using the other one to untangle the sheets enough that Bradley’s movement wouldn’t be as restricted anymore. “Bradley. Bradley it’s okay, it’s just a dream, it’s not real, I’m here. Bradley, kiddo, you need to wake up, okay? Bradley, you need to come back to me. You’re having a nightmare.”
Bradley’s eyes finally opened, and he looked around the dark room in a momentary panic. Maverick very quickly reached over and turned his bedside lamp on, basking the room in gentle yellow light.
“Hey, you’re okay.” He reached over, helping Bradley sit up against his pillows and moving to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. “It’s okay. It was just a dream. You’re okay.”
Bradley shook his head numbly. “Wasn’t I?”
“Huh?” Maverick tilted his head slightly, confused.
“The dream wasn’t about me,” Bradley explained. “Was about… it was about mom.”
Maverick immediately wrapped the kid in as big a hug as he could give. “Bradley, I…”
He didn’t finish that sentence. What was there to say that could possibly make this better?
So, he just hugged him, and sat there, and let Bradley soak the left shoulder of the old Fleetwood Mac t-shirt he had been using as a pajama top, and just sat there. He might have cried a little himself. He wasn’t paying attention to that right now, though. Right now, all he could pay attention to was making Bradley feel better.
“Can I… can I sleep with you tonight?” Bradley asked after he had finally stopped crying enough to speak.
“Of course,” Maverick answered, softly and immediately. It wasn’t even a question, really.
“Okay.” Bradley stood up with him, slipping out of his tangle of sheets and clinging to Maverick like a barnacle the whole way there. He was wearing the fire engine pajamas Maverick had gotten him as a birthday present last year. They were already almost too big for him.
Maverick shoved the fact that Bradley was going to be nine in November out of his mind, and focused on helping him get into bed, pulling him into his arms. Bradley buried his face in his chest and curled up, like a cat on a cold night.
Maverick just held him close and rubbed gentle circles in his back until Bradley’s breathing indicated that he was asleep, and only then did he let himself drift off too.
He knew he’d never be a perfect parent, but he also knew that he would protect this kid with his last breath.
2.
Bradley was eight years and one and a half months old, and he was standing in the TOPGUN officer break room watching the man from the picture that Maverick kept taped to their fridge walk around the room, making coffee.
It was fall break, and Maverick had to work, so he got to spend the week watching the planes take off from Mr. Viper’s office and read comics in the corner of the officer’s break room. Those were always his favorite weeks.
The man from the photo on the fridge looked a few years older than he did in the picture. His hair was a darker shade of blonde, and he was wearing a white shirt with buttons like the ones Uncle Mav wore at graduation instead of the flight suit he was wearing in the picture.
Bradley walked up to the counter next to him. “Are you the new instructor?”
The man from the picture looked over, his face showing the look of surprise you would expect of someone who is looking down at an eight-year-old in the break room of a military base. The look of surprise was quickly masked by indifference, and Bradley frowned slightly.
“I am,” The man from the picture put down the mug he had been making his coffee here. “Are you allowed to be in here? Where are your parents?”
“Uncle Mav is working this week, but I’m on break for the week, so Mr. Viper said I could come here if I was nice and I didn’t get in the way of anyone important.” Bradley explained.
“Uncle Ma- Wait, are you Bradley Bradshaw?” The man from the picture looked down at him, the shock on his face back again.
“Yup!” Bradley nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Iceman. Tom Kazansky.” So, the man in the picture was Iceman. That made a lot of sense. “Can I help you with anything?” He was talking like Bradley was an adult. Bradley decided he liked that.
“Can you get me the water and the tea? Uncle Mav said I could have some so long as it’s one of the ones without any caffeine.” Bradley pointed at the box of tea bags.
“Sure,” Iceman reached over and grabbed one of the tea bags and dropped it in a tea mug, and then poured the extra water from his coffee on top of it. “Make sure you wait for it to cool off before you drink it. You don’t want to burn your tongue.”
“Okay!” Bradley nodded.
Iceman grabbed his own coffee, handed Bradley the tea, and then walked out the door to go do whatever it was that the instructors did.
Bradley did not want to burn his tongue, so he waited for two minutes before drinking it.
3.
“Uncle Mav!” Bradley’s voice called out from behind him.
“What is it? Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?” Maverick whipped around. Bradley was not obviously injured, so that was a good sign.
“I want to be a wizard for Halloween, but all the costumes you can buy are blue, and I don’t want to be a blue wizard.” Maverick almost laughed out of sheer relief, but managed to stop himself.
“Right. Of course.” Maverick nodded. “We don’t want you to be a blue wizard. What kind of wizard do you want to be instead?”
“A green wizard,” Bradley answered, putting his backpack down on the kitchen counter.
“A green wizard.” Maverick nodded. “Okay. I’ll try to find a green wizard costume for you, then.”
“But what if you can’t find one?”
“Then I’ll find a way to make one.” Maverick was serious. He would get his kid a green wizard costume if it killed him.
As Bradley had said before, they did not sell green wizard costumes. They sold blue ones, and black ones, and even a singular red one if you looked hard enough. But there was never a green wizard costume.
What he did find, however, was a green robe and witches’ hat that looked exactly the same as a wizard’s hat, both in separate costumes and neither of them wizard costumes, as well as a bag of gold star patches in the arts and crafts store a week later. Maverick had always had a surprisingly good hand with a needle and thread, so he sewed the stars onto the robe himself in his free time between lessons. He’d gotten a few weird looks from Ice and Slider, but he wanted this to be a surprise.
The day finally came two days before Halloween.
“Hey, Bradley?” Maverick called from the kitchen.
“Yeah?”
“Can you come in here for a second? I have a surprise.”
There was the sound of footsteps, and Bradley came running down the hall from his bedroom. “What is it?”
“I made you a green wizard costume.”
Bradley’s eyes widened almost comically. “Really?”
Maverick held the robe up and put the hat down on the counter.
“Oh my gosh, thank you!” Bradley barreled over, nearly knocking Maverick over in a giant tackle-hug. “Thank you thank you thank you. It’s amazing.”
“I’m glad you think so, kiddo.” Maverick grinned and picked him up in a hug. “Would you like to try it on?”
“Yes.”
“Really? You didn’t sound very sure there,” Maverick asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I said yes!” Bradley yelled, practically vibrating in Maverick’s arms.
“Are you absolutely, one hundred percent certain?”
“I’m one million percent certain,” Bradley answered, entirely seriously.
“Well, I can’t argue with that kind of logic.” It’s not like that was a lie. He couldn’t.
4.
Ice hadn’t realized Bradley would be on base until the kid was sitting in the main hanger, writing at a makeshift desk one of the assistants had set up for him watching the planes take off.
“Hey, Bradley.” He walked up to him. When he wasn’t having a small heart attack about their being an eight-year-old in the breakroom, Ice was actually pretty good with kids.
“Hi, Iceman!” Bradley greeted, grinning.
“How are you doing?” He pulled an extra chair over and sat down.
Bradley frowned. “Not very well. My history is confusing me.”
“Really? What class is it for?”
“English. I have to write a short story about something that happened to someone else, but I don’t have any good ideas.”
“You don’t have any good ideas?” Ice raised an eyebrow. He was having trouble understanding that.
“Well, I have one, but I don’t think the teachers will like it very much,” Bradley admitted.
“Really? What is it?”
“I want to write about a fairy who makes friends with a human. But Mr. Harshith says that fairies are for girls.”
Oh. “Well, write it anyway. I promise that me and your Uncle Mav will talk to him if he makes a fuss about it. You can say that we both said it’s okay, and that you have our permission to write as many stories about fairies as you want.”
Something in Ice shattered a little bit, then. There was something about the fact that little boys still couldn’t like fairies that cut into a part of him he’d rather ignore.
“Really?” Bradley sounded skeptical.
“Really,” Ice assured him. “So, what’s the story about?”
“So, a fairy leaves the woods, because he wanted to see what the rest of the world was like, even though his mom told him not to, and he meets a boy, and they realize that the fairy has to hide, because there are fairy hunters that want to kill him and take his wings. So, they hide in the boy’s basement, and his dad helps them make a disguise. Then they go and see Star Wars- you know what Star Wars is, right?”
“I do,” Ice nodded. He knew what Star Wars was.
“Okay, good! So they go and see Star Wars, but when they get to the part where they’re blowing up the Death Star, but then the fairy hunters come in and they chase them up an alley and it looks like they’re about to get caught but then the fairy remembers a trick the Ewoks did when they were fighting the Troopers and so he rolls one of the bins down the alley and it knocks the hunters into a pile and they start arguing so they can escape and they go to the forest and the fairy shows the boy all his favorite spots and witch berries taste the best and then he introduces him to his mom and she realizes that not all humans are bad! Does that sound good?”
“That sounds amazing.” It did sound amazing. This kid's going places, he knew that much already.
5.
“Uncle Ice! Happy Hanukkah!” Bradley grinned as soon as he opened the door. Ice had invited them to his Hanukkah party, and Bradley had approached it with the same enthusiasm he took to everything he did.
“Hey, Bradley,” Ice grinned down at him. “Why don’t you come inside? I got you a present.”
Bradley’s eyes lit up even more at that. “Really?”
“Yeah! It’s in the kitchen, I’ll be down in a second to give it to you.”
“Are you really going to be in the kitchen in a second?” Bradley asked, skeptical.
Ice laughed. “Alright, I’ll be in the kitchen in two minutes, then. You can have a cupcake in the meantime.”
“Okay!” Bradley then ducked around his legs and raced off to the kitchen.
Ice watched him duck into the kitchen before turning back to Maverick.
“You’re really giving him sugar after five?” Maverick groaned.
“It’s Hanukkah, let him have fun,” Ice answered, before fully processing that statement and freezing. “Wait, is Pete Mitchell yelling at me for giving his child sugar after five? Fatherhood really has changed you.”
“Well, at least you’re still terrible,” Maverick grinned. Ice had always loved his grin. “Are you going to invite me in, or do I just have to stand out here in the rain?”
“It’s not raining, Mav,” Ice stepped aside so Maverick could step in. “Honestly, I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
Maverick let out an over dramatic sigh as he stepped inside and they started down the hallway. “It’s a figure of speech. I was being poetic.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re a pilot instead of a poet. Really saved a lot of people a lot of pain there,” Ice teased. He was smiling a little more dopily than he wanted to be, but Maverick was wearing a very similar expression, so he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Oh, shut up, Kazansky,” Maverick rolled his eyes. “I will let you know I am an excellent poet.”
“Yeah, sure you are,” Ice smirked.
“I will actually shove you into a wall.” Maverick threatened.
“That doesn’t feel like a very good example for Bradley, you know. I thought fatherhood changed you.” Ice then immediately dodged Maverick’s shove and ran the rest of the way to the kitchen, Maverick close on his heels.
--
Bradley watched his uncles from the kitchen with a strange interest. They looked like they were friends, but an off kind of friend. The love they looked at each other with was not friend love. It was another kind of love.
Then, about halfway through his cupcake, he had a realization. They liked each other. That was weird. Not bad-weird, though. Good-weird. He knew that boys liking other boys was not something the navy was okay with, but Uncle Wood and Uncle Wolf hadn’t been caught, and they had liked each other for the last four years. So maybe his uncles would like each other, too, if they didn’t get caught.
Then they came in and Ice showed him his present and Bradley forgot about the fact that they liked each other for a little bit.
“It’s to help you get places on time.” He explained. “The grown-up way, not the ‘when my uncle says to leave’ way.”
Helpful gifts were the best gifts, his mom had always said that. He tore it open, scattering bits of silver wrapping paper all over Ice’s pristine kitchen counter.
“Whoa,” Bradley started down, amazed. “This must be worth ten gazillion dollars.”
Ice laughed. His eyes were sparkling like Uncle Mav’s did when he was happy or he had an idea. “Something like that. Go ahead, try it on.”
Bradley picked up the watch gently, with two hands. It was golden, with a watch face that let him see all the cogs moving to make the hands tick. It was letting out a constant tick, tick, tick as the hands moved and showed him the seconds slipping by. It was beautiful.
Uncle Mav helped him clip it onto his wrist, and then mouthed something to Uncle Ice that he couldn’t hear. He didn’t mind, though.
Now he would always know the time, even if there wasn’t a clock or an adult to tell him. Helpful gifts were the best gifts.
+1
Uncle Mav was going to let him stay up until midnight. He had made him have a nap that afternoon, and also made him promise to have one tonight, but he was still going to get to stay up until midnight. Bradley was going to be awake when the new year came!
Bradley was so happy, he almost forgot about his plan in a sea of chocolate-covered strawberries and pop and potato chips. It wasn’t until he saw Slider that he remembered.
He just wanted to triple check he was doing the right thing, even though he was ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent sure. He still wanted to check on that point zero zero one percent, though, just to be safe.
“Uncle Slider?” Bradley asked, walking up to the RIO, who was standing in the corner, probably waiting for his girlfriend to get there. Her name was Kelly and Bradley liked her.
“Hey, Bradley,” Slider greeted with a warm smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Does Uncle Ice like boys?”
Slider looked like someone had just dumped a very large bucket of ice on his head. “What is he?”
“Does he like boys? I know that the military doesn’t like boys who like boys usually, but that’s stupid, so I have a plan, so I wanted to make sure,” Bradley explained.
Slider looked like a sputtering engine trying to find some way to start again. “I- Well- You see-”
“Just answer yes or no, I don’t need to know more than that,” Bradley assured him.
“Yeah, he does,” Slider sighed. “Why do you ask?”
“Uncle Mav and Uncle Ice have helped me a lot. I want to help them back,” Bradley told him, and then turned around to go find Maverick.
--
Maverick was standing on the upstairs balcony, the only part of Viper’s house that wasn’t full of people. He looked down at his watch. It was five minutes to midnight. He was about to reach for the drink he had left on the table, some kind of expensive champagne that Carrie Metcalf had given him, when the sliding glass door opened behind him.
“Hey,” Ice’s voice said.
He turned around a little more quickly than he would have if it was anyone else, but he wasn’t going to admit that. “Hey.”
“Happy New Year’s.” Ice walked over, dropping his own champagne glass next to Maverick’s and moving to stand at the railing next to him.
“Happy New Year’s,” Maverick echoed, smiling. His smile then very quickly morphed into a frown, though, when he saw Ice’s expression. “Are you okay?”
“Hm?” Ice looked up. “Oh, I’m fine. Bradley just said something to me that messed with my head a little bit. You know eight-year-olds.”
“I do know eight-year-olds.” Maverick’s smile came back a little bit. “What’d he say to you?”
For some reason, Ice blushed a little bit. It was a cute blush. “He told me I needed to do something.”
“Really? What is it?” Maverick raised an eyebrow. He knew full well that his godson was a menace, and he wanted to know what, exactly, it was that he was meddling in now.
“Oh, it’s not important.” Ice brushed him off, staring off at the ocean in front of them.
“Really?” Maverick raised an eyebrow. “Or are you just too scared to do it?”
“I-”
“Oh, you’re scared, aren’t you? I bet you can’t do it.”
“I have to wait until midnight to do it,” Ice turned back to him. “So, I’ll do it then.”
“Oh, this should be interesting.” Maverick grinned and checked his watch. “You have a minute in a half to prepare.”
“Yes, sir.” Ice gave him a two-fingered salute.
They stood there for a minute in a half, silent.
“It’s midnight. Happy New Year’s,” Maverick finally said, after what felt like several years. After what felt like several years to him, at least.
“Happy New Year’s.” Ice looked oddly nervous.
“Well? What did the menace tell you to do?” Maverick raised an eyebrow in challenge.
And all at once Ice’s hands were around his waist and his hands were on Ice’s chest and they were pressed together, and Ice was kissing him.
Ice was kissing him. Bradley had told Ice to kiss him. And Ice had listened.
The thought made Maverick smile and kiss him back. For someone called Iceman, he was surprisingly warm and soft, and he gave the kind of kisses that made you want to do it again like a kid who just got to the bottom of a waterslide. He tasted like champagne and chocolate and warm tea.
When they finally broke apart, they made eye contact for what was probably about half a second before bursting out laughing, still hanging onto each other like touch-starved koalas.
“You have a smart kid, you know that?” Ice finally asked once he’d stopped laughing enough to be able to string a sentence together.
“Really? I never noticed,” Maverick answered sarcastically.
Ice grinned. “So, what did you think?”
“I think I want you to kiss me again.”
So that’s what he did. It was just as good as the first kiss, too.
“So,” Maverick asked when they broke apart for the second time, “Would you like to get dinner with me sometime?”
“I’d love to,” Ice was smiling like an idiot. Maverick thought it was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen.
“Well, there’s an amazing Italian place downtown,” Maverick suggested, “Would you like to head down there around, let’s say, six pm on Friday?”
“That’s a little early,” Ice raised an eyebrow.
“I’m a family man, Ice,” Maverick said, somehow managing to keep a straight face. “I have a kid to think about.”
“And he thinks about you.”
“That he does.” They both grinned, and then they were laughing again. It was good to laugh like this. It was the kind of laugh that reminded him that he wasn’t alone.
--
“Did Uncle Ice kiss you?” Bradley asked from the backseat the moment they got in the car.
“Yes, he kissed me.” Maverick grinned as he pulled out of his parking spot and started down Metcalf's driveway.
“Yes!” Bradley pumped his fist in triumph. “I knew it would work.”
“What would work?” Maverick raised an eyebrow in the rearview mirror.
“My plan to pay you guys back!” Bradley explained excitedly. “You are always helping me with things, and now both of you needed help with something, so I decided to pay you back for all the times you helped me!”
“Oh,” Maverick smiled, biting his lip to keep himself from laughing. His godson was a genius. A maniacal, scheming, manipulative little genius. He was so proud; he didn’t even know where to start.
“Are you going on a date with him?”
“We are, actually,” Maverick answered, smiling back at Bradley briefly before turning back to face the road.
“Really? Are you going to the arcade?” Bradley asked, eyes wide with that wonder that only kids and dogs seemed to have.
“No, we’re going to dinner,” Maverick told him, and then watched as Bradley’s face looked into something utterly crestfallen in the rearview mirror.
“I think you should go to the arcade together,” Bradley said, like he was admitting to taking the last cookie to a teacher.
“Well, I’ll ask him. That does sound like fun,” Maverick promised.
“I know! That’s why I suggested it,” Bradley said, with an endearing amount of patience.
Despite the fact that it was nearly one am when they got back to their house, that night set a new record for how hard it was to get Bradley to bed.
--
“Kazansky speaking.”
“Hey, Ice.”
“Hi, Mav.”
“So, I was wondering.”
“You were wondering.”
“After our amazingly successful date tonight, I had an idea for a second one.”
“And what is that idea, exactly?”
“Would you like to go to the arcade with me?”
“This was Bradley’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was. He was very insistent that we go together.”
“I’d actually love to go to an arcade.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“So, we’re doing this, then?”
“Oh, absolutely.”