Work Text:
2000
Coming home from the hospital feels like a balm for Tom’s tired soul. Exhausted doesn’t begin to cover how he feels but there’s just something about falling asleep on his own bed again after a week of nurses invading his room at every hour of the day, of flavorless varied broths that all virtually tasted like nothing and of Maverick sleeping curled up into a lumpy couch looking like an injured animal and then arguing with Bradley about going home or not.
In fact, Tom is so very, very happy to be back home.
The next five days silently go by without much ado. Iceman sleeps through most of them, resting, waiting for the brain fog to lift.
It starts getting better on a Tuesday afternoon that he finds himself finally properly getting up to a quiet bedroom. His days had never been this quiet before, between Maverick and Bradley, he never seemed to get a minute of silence.
And for as much as Iceman thought he was tired of the noise, the silence was much, much worse. It got on his nerves, now. No loud music from anywhere in the house, no arguing, no bantering, no random stupidities thrown into the wind. It almost made Tom feel guilty over the fact it was his illness that had brought all this silence in.
Invited it like a vampire into the house, sucking all life and joy and brightness and music from his days.
Wrapped in his plush and exceedingly soft blue robe, Tom finally gets up, frowning a little. He knows Maverick has been on leave for a moment because of him so he should be somewhere around the house. And it’s well past school hours, nearing Summer break, Bradley should be there too.
But the house is so painfully silent.
Afraid of disturbing said silence, Tom paces barefoot against the hardwood flooring, hesitating in disturbing the silence as if breaking it in any way would somehow break the spell of feeling better. There is always that one floorboard that creaks when stepped on, right outside the staircase and then finally a sound is made.
Followed by hushed whispering. He blinks, surprised and glad that his hearing is in fact intact and following the shushing sounds to the kitchen, hiding a bit in the shadows, curiously looking in without being perceived.
Maverick and Bradley are sitting by the kitchen aisle, hunched over what seem to be a bunch of books, papers and the portable little TV that usually inhabits Mav’s workshop… with a paused vhs tape on. Mav is, as usual, in jeans and a shirt, covered in grease so he’d been out at the workshop sometime. Bradley, still in his letterman jacket from school, clearly hadn’t gotten home too long ago.
He stares a little longer and has to frown as his eyes fall on the fact both Maverick and Bradley have silver tape pieces over their mouths. What?
Tom watches them, bent over their papers and then pointing something at each other. They looked mischievous and at the same time a bit wild. He’d seen Pete try to help with Bradley’s homework a few times through the years but his husband was so bad at it their boy had given up on asking him and gone straight up to him.
Now that Ice couldn’t help, had he gone to Mav?
The two seem to exchange a look over the papers and then click play on the tape… and it’s the droning of an instructional video. A woman patiently going over: This is the sign for ‘Hello’, followed by ‘How are you?’. Now repeat after me.
And Tom watches as the two boys painstakingly repeat the gesture. Maverick looking cocksure and relaxed and Bradley frowning so deeply he could be staring daggers at the TV. They repeat a few times and Bradley slaps Maverick’s hand, gesturing something else.
They start a silent argument that brings silent laughter tears to Tom’s eyes – one slapping the other’s hand and making their own practice iteration of the signs on the screen. Then Bradley reaches over and simply rips the silver tape from Maverick’s mouth, producing a painfully loud ripping noise.
“Ow!!! What the fuck!” Pete snaps back, keeping his voice hushed low and then reaching forward and ripping Bradley’s silver tape with the same noise. Tom ‘oofs’ silently as it pretty much rips on the boy’s thinly existing mustache.
“OW!!!” It hurts Tom’s recently operated throat to hold back the laughter as he watches them argue with each other like their own silly fight is a secret. “You’re doing it wrong!!! You’re not going to teach him shit like this!!!”
“And you are?!”
“At least I’m picking it up!”
“I don’t care about hellos!!!”
“Mav you suck SO MUCH!”
The angrily whispered words force Tom to do a double take, blinking ever so slowly in disbelief.
They weren’t doing some school homework thing. Oh. No. They were learning sign language for him. To help him. In what was probably the funniest and most Maverick-Bradley possible way, silver tape and bickering included.
Iceman. Ice cold, no mistakes, Tom Kazansky, feels the presence of his loved ones on every inch of that house. That home. And he watches them bickering at the kitchen aisle, now shoving papers on each other’s faces, he feels like crying happy happy tears.
In fact, the feeling bubbles through and spills around his eyes. Warm and gentle, so full of reverent love for those two people.
He was wrong. He hadn’t invited silence in. He had invited just another type of noise.
And couldn’t be happier for it.
2001
“Hey,” Ron plants himself unceremoniously right into the chair across from Tom, at his very office, much to his surprise. “What’s my sign?”
“Huh?” Tom isn’t just surprised but confused at once as his former RIO plops down and leans over his desk, frowning some, looking entirely unamused. “What are you on about?”
His voice hasn’t returned quite right. Not entirely, at least. And speaking for too long hurts. It’s been a year and all Iceman wants is to return back to normality – still coming to terms with the fact that this just might be his new normal.
“ ‘ight so, I’ve been kinda trying to learn ASL, shut up I know I’m late–” Ron grunts and Tom blinks again. He wasn’t going to say anything but it’s touching and sweet all the same. Slider could be so sweet when he wanted, away from most people’s eyes that was a given but he still was.
“ – and here’s the thing, the girl that’s been teaching me said most folks who use it don't really spell out people’s names, right? Like, they don’t just go around letter by letter whenever they’re referring to someone unless they’re actually spelling the name for writing, they’ve got an assigned sign, so what’s mine? Because!” Slider folds his arms almost angrily over his chest. “I just know Maverick is talking shit about me and I need to know when he does.”
The sudden rant has Tom staring back at his friend over the rims of his glasses… and then laughing. It’s not a particularly sensitive day so it doesn’t hurt but it does delve into a coughing fit as his throat catches so he’s left wheezing and coughing at once.
Ron glares so hard back for only a few seconds before he joins in on the laughing. They laugh together for a few seconds before the man is getting up and fetching a glass of water from the pitcher that sat on the piece by the door, head shaking.
“See? This reaction only tells me I’m so fucking right, what kind of malicious intent sign did your horrible gremlin of a husband came up with, huh? And as your brother and best friend, how dare you not have told me yet?”
Slider inquires with a half-amused huff, setting the glass down but it’s the fond smile that tells Tom there’s no real harm done.
“You’re wrong,” Ice finally manages to croak out, still staving off some coughing. “I was the one to give you a sign.”
It’s a simple one, too. Hand open, fingers pressed, palm facing the inside and sliding a thumb with two fingers up from the chest out through the palm. Brother + sliding + from my heart.
“That’s you.” Tom says categorically with a half smirk, repeating the gesture. “Slider.”
It sure was easier when people had callsigns to go by but there’s just that glint in Ron’s eyes that tells him his friend got exactly the meaning of his sign. To which Slider gives him a long, pensive look before smirking back.
“Teach me everyone’s signs, boss.”
2014
Running TOP GUN had been a part of his reassignment after the year-long leave and recovery from the, hopefully, last bout of his returning cancer and surgeries. But mostly it meant Iceman was all too eager to simply be back to work.
And more than that, eager to deal with more than “just getting better” as his family kept insisting.
Though right now that meant dealing with a pilot that made him feel like being thrown into a time warp and landing right in front of a twenty-six year old Maverick only instead of a short spitfire he had an almost mirror image of himself. Blond, tan and with those same challenging green eyes ready to bark at him and say yeah, I’m dangerous.
Only he doesn’t.
He stands there, shoulders squared at attention, lips pressed so tightly into a thin line they’re disappearing. And Tom vaguely remembers this same blond when he was just a boy. Some Flight Academy brat who’d walked right up to him and said he’d join him in the ranks of legends.
Well, there he was.
“You know, Lieutenant,” Iceman begins speaking and realizes this is not a good day for lectures. The same lectures he’d become a bit infamous for that became so painful. His voice cracks and there’s no running from the fact it’ll never properly return. But he’s Iceman and won’t backtrack.
Despite wincing, he does not move or hesitate, leaning back into his chair. “You might be,” It has to be drawn out slowly, the words themselves weigh in on his tongue and coat his throat like steel wool. “One of the best, if not the best pilot I’ve seen in a generation… but like the other great pilots I know, with a tendency to fly over your own head.”
Hangman’s stare is unreadable for a moment. He wears the same smirk Tom himself would but doesn’t have half of the challenge Maverick would put. He returns Iceman’s piercing stare with one of his own, analytical, like he’s a flight map ready to unfold.
The coughing fit hits before Ice can do or say anything else, causing that clicking noise in his ears and dragging the pain on his throat. He keeps composure as much as possible, anger flaring up. Hand coming up with his handkerchief to cover his mouth not just out of politeness. He can feel the bitter metallic taste of blood dripping at the corner.
From the corner of his eyes he watches Hangman scrunch up his nose, much to Tom’s momentary confusion.
“Don’t speak.”
Hangman signs and it stuns Iceman in place for a good few seconds. He’s not expecting it. It’s drawn out, clearly rusty. The man across from him hesitates before doing so and his signing is obviously uncertain, much against the personality that filled spaces just like Maverick’s.
He wants to think of the young pilot as a boy, barely in his mid twenties, but it would be unfair to do so, wouldn’t it? Trying to stifle his coughing, he misses when Hangman moves around and produces a water bottle, putting it over his desk then moving around it.
He hesitates again before signing, slowly, punctuated, like someone trying to remember pathways of an old village they knew once.
“Sign. You know. Right?” Pause. Hesitation. A playful smirk on his mouth. “Boss.”
Ice wants to laugh. He doesn’t, instead picking up the water and nodding at the pilot that then simply sits on the ground by his side, like a guard dog, maybe a little too comfortable around an Admiral and his direct superior officer nonetheless.
Really, just like Maverick.
(An all-too-caring bastard that acts like he doesn't care.)
“You’re out of practice.” Tom finally manages to sign back when the coughing subdues and after placing the cold bottle down.
It takes Jake what feels like a solid moment before he’s smiling, understanding what he’s signed.
“Teach me. Then.”
2022
“You know, I don’t want to hear it ever again you’re too old for anything.” Penny chirps all too loftily, coming up with three beer bottles and landing them on the counter. Maverick can’t help but bark out a laugh.
“Yeah, I think he just about destroyed that excuse for me.”
He leans over and Penny turns around, her back resting against said counter, the two of them overlooking the one occupied table in the distance. It’s a Thursday afternoon and the Hard Deck is mostly empty at this time. Soon the TOP GUN cadets and Navy hopefuls will pour in, even the Dagger squad might show up.
But for now, they watch Amelia and Viper interact.
Viper, ninety years old, smiling all too broadly as sixteen-year old Amelia repeats the same gestures over and over again. Maybe Maverick shouldn’t be surprised by how fast of a learner Viper is. The man had smoked him a good couple times up until his retirement.
Who’d have guessed he’d turn out just the same but older?
“Hey Mav!” Amelia calls out from where they’re both sitting, drawing his and Penny’s attention. “What does your sign mean? Viper wants to know!”
A slight blush crawls up his neck but he still sighs in resignation, being nudged by Penny and walking towards the two, grabbing his beer and taking the third seat at the table.
Foolhardy. Pete signs. Lovable.
“Oh,” Viper laughs loudly enough that he can hear Penny echoing from behind his back. “Sounds about right.”