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Ice always hated sending his husband away for missions, but this one was worse between the facts of their kid being involved despite the fact they had been slightly estranged and his recent health scare meant that he couldn’t be on the carrier.
He was brought the slightest bit of comfort by the promise of Hondo keeping him updated when Mav couldn’t and Slider keeping him company while Mav was gone. This mission also brought about the extra stress of the potential of neither of them making it home alive. Slider could obviously feel the tension rolling off of Ice if the eye rolls were anything to go off of.
“They’ll be fine. Shortrick could survive a nuclear blast if it meant proving someone wrong and making it home to you. Rooster… he’ll come around and he’s a tough kid,” Slider eventually said, fed up.
Ice shot a glare at his best friend before signing his response, “I know that, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. At this point, Mav isn’t as invincible as he used to be.”
“We both know that, but he won’t stop trying to get back to you until his body gives out for good. He loves you too much to not at least try,” Slider said gently.
“I know, I know. God I wish Mav hadn’t gotten himself put on this mission and, before you start, you know what I mean. I only meant for him to teach them and reunite him with Bradley, not actually FLY it,” Ice quipped right back.
“Hey! You didn’t know what I was going to say that!” Slider gasped, very obviously fake offended by Ice’s accusation.
When Ice shot him another glare, Slider responded with a toothy smile, knowing that he had at least partially distracted Ice. As the day progressed, Hondo (and to some extent Mav) regularly sending updates and Slider trying his best to distract him, Ice slowly got more resigned to the situation, knowing that Mav would make it home to him, one way or another.
Eventually, Slider and Ice settled down to watch a documentary about dinosaurs, Crow, Jay, Dove and Lark curled around them. At the bare minimum it kept him from obsessively checking for updates from Hondo, last updating being that they were prepping for takeoff.
About halfway through, Hondo sent a text saying that they were taking off, which made Ice’s worry skyrocket again. Now was when things could really start going wrong, potentially making him lose both Mav and, if they made up officially, Rooster again.
“Alright, I’m stealing your phone for a little bit because clearly having it is making it worse,” Slider said, fully fed up by this point, snagging Ice’s phone from him.
“Slider don’t you dare. What if something happens and I don’t see the update?” Ice asked, going for his phone, with a glare.
“If something happens, I’ll give it back, but for now it’s not doing you any good,” Slider responded keeping it out of Ice’s reach
Finally, Ice grumbled his agreement as he stopped trying to grab his phone back from Slider. Slider grinned as he led Ice back to the couch, both phones in his hand. It was clear after that neither of them were all that focused on the documentary, most of their thoughts on the mission going on and the people close to them involved in flying. Half an hour later a call popped up from Hondo that Slider immediately picked up, knowing that Hondo wouldn’t call unless it was important and involving Mav and/or Rooster.
“Hi, Hondo. I’m going to put you on speaker so both Ice and I can hear you,” Slider quickly said before putting the call on speaker.
“Alright, Slider. Am I on speaker?” Hondo asked and when he got confirmation he continued, “Now this hasn’t officially gotten out yet and I wanted to tell you before the reports got to you. Both Mav and Rooster went down, estats no longer sending signals, currently assumed dead, but knowing Mav, he’s probably still alive, but as of now they are assumed dead.”
Ice chocked out a sob, nothing else that Hondo and Slider saying really sinking in after that. All noise became muffled and the world seemed to be collapsing in on him, his husband and kid were never coming back to him. Sure, he still had Sarah, Slider and the rest of the class of ’86, but it would never be the same or whole with Mav and Rooster if they had made up again.
Slider came into his line of sight, apparently done with his phone call with Hondo, gently taking but none of the words seemed to make any sense. Sensing that Ice wasn’t really all there, Slider just pulled him into a hug, letting Ice cling to him, rears falling, his body shaking with sobs.
He just held Ice, gently comforting him, rocking them back and forth. Eventually the sobs seemed to slow allowing Slider to adjust their position so that he could see Ice’s face again. Ice’s eyes were red-rimmed, tear tracks evident on his checks and he was panting slightly from the exertion of crying.
“Hey, Ice. I can’t promise that it’ll be ok anytime soon, but I can promise that I’ll be here for as long as I possibly can, alright?” Slider gently asked, making sure Ice was looking at him.
When Ice nodded in acknowledgement with a whimper, Slider continued, “I’m sorry that you lost both Mav and Rooster, they would have never wanted to leave you like this because they love you too much. Let’s hope that in some sort of miracle that only Mav can pull off they are somehow alive and make it back to you, but for now we’re going to assume the worst. Now, Hondo arranged for up to get out to the ship to go over everything, so let’s head that way.”
Ice nodded again, more tears trickling down his face that Slider gently wiped off his face. Getting up off the couch, Slider grabbed a couple of bottles of water and the car keys, passing one bottle to Ice before leading him out to the car. The entire drive, Ice was completely silent, never complaining about Slider’s music choices or the route they were taking to the base.
This was really concerning to Slider because they would at least be arguing over the music but then again he had just lost his husband and kid. So Slider filled the usual silence by badly singing, hoping to even slightly distract his friend. When they got to base, Ice shifted into COMPACFLT/Iceman mode, many of the signs of grief and the earlier crying disappearing to the people who didn’t know him as well as Slider did.
It seemed like nobody outside of Slider noticed the extra tightness in his shoulders, the redness around his eyes or the ever so subtle tremor in his voice. Then again it was a possibility that they didn’t want to comment on it but it was a low possibility. Ice barely said a word outside of what was strictly necessary, voice hoarser than usual and Slider filling in more than usual. In short order, they were loaded into a helicopter and sent off to the ship.
The entire time Slider kept an eye on Ice who was staring off into the horizon, clearly picturing the sight of Mav’s plane coming into sight. At the very least there were no more tears falling, even if the silence was more terrifying than the sobs. It wasn’t until they were almost to the ship that Ice said anything and only then he only signed to Slider.
“I can’t stand the thought of losing them both, even if I knew that it was a possibility. I know Hondo said they had both gone down and they were likely dead, but I hope to whatever gods are out there that Mav’s luck kicked in for them both. I don’t want to bury two empty caskets,” Ice signed, still not meeting Slider’s eyes.
“Hopefully it did for both, but we don’t know anything yet. Soon enough we’ll know more and I hope you won’t have to bury empty caskets,” Slider signed back, making sure Ice saw what he said.
Ice let out a wet chuckle that the pilot and co-pilot tactfully ignored before responding to Slider, “If there was one time for his luck, it would be now. It has served him well in the past.”
“It really has, Shortrick has the most insane luck I’ve ever seen.”
At that point their conversation was interrupted but the announcement that they were going to be landing soon. Both of them looked out the windows to watch their approach to the ship where they could see a bit of a crowd forming on deck.
After landing, Warlock and Hondo greeting the pair before getting into the info they had received since the initial call. There had been no updates on Mav and Rooster’s status but the other planes had made it back safely with no major damage to them.
By the time they got to the comms center, they had been fully updated, just in time to see Rooster’s estat blip back up on the monitor and the notice that an F-14 was in the sky. While it was a relief, both Ice and Slider knew it was going to be a fight to get back, but it did mean that Mav’s luck had worked so far. At this point, Slider could see the cracks forming in the COMPACFLT mask Ice had been holding onto, the hope that they would make it back to the ship cracking it.
“I told you, Mav had insane luck,” Slider murmured in Ice’s ear which Ice chucked quietly, a light smirk growing on his face.
With everyone focused on the monitors, their little exchange went unnoticed especially with the launch of the spare to help them, not knowing what exactly the F-14 was equipped with. Even though he had seen it happen many times, both in the air and from the deck, Ice was still amazed by what Mav was doing to get himself and Rooster home. The fifth gen fighters were going down in a way that could only be his work, especially if he was trying to protect someone he loved.
Shortly after the second fifth gen went down, the crack of the F-14’s radio connected to the ship to the sounds of Mav and Rooster’s panic about the third plane, which broke Ice’s mask a little more. The fact that Rooster was yelling about how the releases wouldn’t pull was making it much harder for him to keep it together.
His mask fully broke at Hangman’s “Good Afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your savior speaking.” Ice’s laugh startled everyone except for Slider (who started laughing with him) and Hondo who had been around Ice more than pretty much anyone else there.
“That bastard, they made it,” Ice chuckled, throwing Slider a knowing look.
“Of course, they did, why wouldn’t they?” Slider quipped right back as a number of them made their way out to the deck in time to see Mav make his crash landing on the deck.
Ice, Hondo and Slider all hissed a little bit knowing that would hurt especially with any other injuries that they may have already sustained. With the rushing crowd to both extract and congratulate the pair, Slider and Ice held back until they say Mav pull out of the crowd after a little while.
At that point, Ice made a bee-line for his husband who had yet to notice he was there. It wasn’t until Ice had grabbed him by the shoulders of his flight suit that Mav noticed he was there and that was seconds before Ice pulled him in for a kiss distracting from the rest of the people on deck. A brief ‘what the hell’ was overheard from one of the other daggers before they pulled apart.
“What the ever-loving hell were you thinking, Pete? That was monumentally stupid of you no matter the circumstances,” Ice started in on him, relief transforming into anger, which seemed to surprise almost everyone there, except Mav, Slider, and Rooster already having heard a version of this lecture before.
“You already know the answer, Ice, plus, it was for Baby Goose,” Mav said, pulling out his signature all too innocent ‘Who, me?’ look, Ice was still weak for.
“Jesus Christ, Mav, you’re lucky that I love you, but you are not getting out of this. You either, Bradley,” Ice responded pinching the bridge of his nose.
This made Rooster freeze on his escape route, presumably to the med bay with the other daggers. He looked sheepishly at Ice while the rest looked absolutely petrified at the thought of getting in trouble with the COMPACFLT.
“For now, both of you, Med bay, NOW!” Ice commanded, admiral voice coming out in full force, causing Mav and Rooster to scramble that way followed by the other daggers.
“Well, I think you sufficiently scared them for the moment,” Slider announced slightly startling Ice who hadn’t realized that Slider had made his way over.
“Well they deserved it for what they did to me,” Ice snarked right back.
“True, at least Mav and Baby Goose made it back more or less safely with a couple of minor heart attacks and making you thinking they were dead. Just make sure that there is some left for me,” Slider said, slinging an arm around Ice’s shoulders.
With a chuckle, the pair of them made their way to the Med bay to make sure that both Mav and Rooster had actually made it there. Knowing Mav and with the daggers, Ice knew that there was going to be a lot more chaos coming his way, but for now he was just glad that Mav and Rooster had made it home safe.