Chapter Text
“Shit—we’re going in, Mav—6,000—5,000!”
“I’m pinned—I can’t—” the rest of Maverick’s statement was cut off as the pilot let out a sharp, pained whine.
“Mav?? Talk to me?” Goose urged, watching the altimeter plummet frantically.
“G’nna—g’nna Eject—” was all he could manage, fumbling to pull the handle between his legs.
There was a sudden explosion as the ejection sequence started, the canopy blasting off just before the seats were launched rapidly up into the air.
Maverick heard air rushing past him before he caught a glimpse of something shiny. He ducked instinctively but still careened hard into the canopy, the harsh edge of it biting sharply into the space between his head and shoulder.
Mav let out a strangled yelp as white hot pain exploded in his chest before everything went black and he hung limp in the rapidly expanding parachute.
“Mav! Maverick!!” Nick didn’t understand what was happening.
He turned frantically in his parachute, trying desperately not to lose sight of his pilot.
“Pete!!”
What the hell had happened? Had he hit the canopy?
Pete had been pinned. He’d been bent in half, yelling about being stuck—-but then there’d been that whine right before the ejection sequence. Pete had been in pain . What had happened? Had he hurt himself to reach the ejection handle?
Nick wasn’t really certain what had happened after that. The canopy had fired, shooting over their heads just before their chairs ejected from the box. Mav appeared to leave half a second before, and Goose had ducked his head to try and avoid the still lingering canopy.
There had been a sharp, loud cry from Pete, but before Nick could look up, he’d collided sharply with the canopy. His visor had shattered, pressing sharply into the bridge of his nose.
He’d lost precious seconds as his eyes watered, blood streaming from his face as the world spun around him.
By the time he was able to focus on what was happening around him, he realized that Pete was hanging completely limp in his parachute harness.
“Pete!!!” he roared, reaching ineffectively towards him as they slowly drifted towards the dark ocean below.
Silence was his only answer.
Goose barely remembered to brace himself as he plummeted into the Pacific, clawing frantically at his parachute, trying to escape the wet fabric as it did its best to drag him into the icy depths.
The life jacket did its job, helping Nick to remain mostly above the ocean as the liferaft inflated amongst the neon dye.
But none of it seemed to help Maverick.
The pilot was clearly still unresponsive as he did nothing to keep himself above the waves, the parachute tangling as the neon green mixed with the sickening scarlet.
“Mav!” Nick cried again, throwing himself towards the smaller man frantically. He managed to snag Maverick’s torn, deflated vest just before he slipped under the dark water, shaking him a bit. “Maverick!! C’mon, honey—-don’t do this to me—”
Nick felt his heartbeat thudding in his ears as he shakily looked his pilot over.
Maverick was unconscious, face ashen and limp. The entire left side of his frame was covered in blood, a large gash torn between his neck and shoulder. His left arm hung useless and at a wrong angle as well, sending more alarm bells through Nick’s already flustered mind.
It looked like the canopy had tried to cut Mav in half .
“Oh Petey—” he swore, reaching shakily towards his pilot’s neck. A thready thump beneath his fingers gave him a small amount of relief, confirming that Mav was, in fact, still alive. Now he just had to keep him that way—-
Nick made quick work of dragging the smaller man up onto one of the life rafts, clinging firmly to his tattered vest. He placed a firm hand on the worst of the gash, pressing hard against the sluggish bleeding.
Maverick finally reacted, jerking away from the touch with a whimper as his eyes weakly blinked open.
“Shhh— shh honey, it’s okay Petey—take a breath—”
“N-n-n-n-nick—”
“Everything’s going to be okay, honey—” Goose promised weakly, trying to keep them both afloat on the raft. “Stay awake, Petey—talk to me—”
Maverick whimpered, eyes opening a bit wider. “W—w–we—-I had to ‘ject—so s’rry—”
“Nothin’ to be sorry about,” the RIO dismissed easily. “We were going in, it had to happen. Glad you were able to eject us buddy, but that canopy sure made a shitshow of things huh? Not what they teach us in flight school, was it?”
Maverick seemed to focus a bit, grabbing Nick’s wrist with his right hand, alarm evident. “ Shit , Nick you’re—God, did you hit it? Your face—-”
“Easy, easy , Pete,” the mustached man soothed. “We both hit it I’m afraid. Busted my visor and I’m sure cut me up some. Probably a concussion too, but you— Jesus Christ Mav, you don’t feel anything right now?”
Maverick shivered and offered a halfhearted shrug, only his right side responding. “‘Drenaline, guess?”
“Must be a hell of a drug, kiddo, because you are sliced—” Nick cut himself off with an uncertain headshake, trying to gauge any other injuries on the pilot. “Let’s just—-let’s just stay here and try to keep talking, okay? I’m sure S&R will be here soon.”
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In the end, it took nearly two hours to find the floating aviators amongst the inky pacific waves, and Maverick had long since lost consciousness. Nick did his best to keep the pilot talking but something pulled the kid back to unconsciousness. Only unconsciousness, thankfully. He checked, frequently , to make sure Mav was still clinging to life as frantically as Nick was clinging to him.
The bleeding had nearly stopped, but Goose wasn’t sure if that was because he’d managed to stem it, or if Mav was actually running out of blood .
And wasn’t that a scary thought?
How much blood was even in a human body?
Mav would probably know—kid was full of crazy facts like that, always blurting them out whenever they hit his head like he couldn’t help it. Hell, he probably couldn’t.
If—no, when they got through this, Nick promised himself that he was going to let Mav talk about whatever he wanted whenever he wanted—and he’d never again get annoyed. Mav could steal all of his socks and buzz as many towers as he wanted if they flew again. He just needed the kid to stay alive .
Chopper rotors overhear startled the floating RIO, and he squinted up at the diver rappelling towards him.
“Sir, you’re going to have to let go of him,” they instructed.
Nick did his best, he really did, but he’d been clinging to Maverick for hours now, and his hands didn’t seem to understand how to let go. Distantly, he realized the diver forcing his fingers to unclench the torn life vest, to let Mav be bundled haphazardly into a basket and hoisted skyward. But all he could seem to focus on in that moment was the scarlet swirling through the neon green that still clung around his waterlogged frame.
He barely recognized that he was strapped into a harness and hoisted up into the helicopter, not until he was once again able to see Maverick.
The small, trembling form was wrapped in a silver blanket like some horrendous baked potato, and any other time Nick was sure he’d crack a smile.
But now, it appeared that the medic was trying very hard to determine just how alive Mav even was.
“He’s got a pulse,” Nick insisted over the blades whirring. “It’s weak but he—-he’s alive!”
“Blood pressure is in the tank,” the medic shot back, moving around the pilot as he strung up fluids. “Move it, Johnson,”
“He—he’s got a huge gash on his left side,” Goose explained to the medic suddenly in front of him. “Wasn’t—wasn’t moving his left side but he—”
“We’ve gotta worry about you now, sir,” the medic interrupted, flashing a penlight back and forth across his vision. “Samson’s taking a look at your pilot. We’ll see what we can do, okay? But you’re what’s important now—-”
“NO!” Nick roared, trying unsuccessfully to move closer to Maverick. “ He’s important—-he’s—Maverick is important —-”
“Easy, take a seat, sir— you have to let us work on both of you, okay? I’m going to make sure you don’t have any glass in these lacerations—-”
“How can you just—don’t dismiss him, he’s—” Nick trailed off in exhaustion and confusion.
How could they be so dismissive? Maverick was clearly not in good shape—oh God what if that was it? What if they thought he was in too bad of shape?!
Nick struggled a bit to get himself sitting more upright, intending to confront the medic again when the chopper suddenly started descending.
“Get him off the bird, Robbins,” Mav’s medic ordered. “Gonna need to get this guy in for triage but I’m not hopeful—losing responsiveness as we speak.”
“ Losing —-No! Mav!! PETE!!”