Archive of Our Own

Logically, Ice knew a lot about avials. He’d spent a lot of time around them, considering they made up over half of the aviation wing of the Navy, and he’d done a lot of research because the Academy had hosted a class for humans who weren’t so familiar with avials in his first year.

He just didn’t realize he was being adopted into a brood until it was too late to go back.

The first time anything of note occurred was after Hop 31. After weeks upon weeks of antagonism and bickering between he and Maverick, a dam broke that day when he stood on the tarmac and watched Goose be loaded onto a stretcher, one of his wings bent awkwardly and his neck in a C-collar.

Then Maverick stepped out of the helicopter, his black feathers soaked and dripping water from where he’d curled them up against his back. He hit his knees, blood on his face and tears streaming from his eyes.

Ice had shared a look with Slider as Hollywood and Wolf shuffled in their stances at his side. The time for competition and rivalries and petty bullshit had passed. This moment carried far more weight than that.

After the medical team cleared Maverick, they sent him on his way. Ice and Slider followed him until they all three ended up in the locker rooms. He didn’t even seem to register their presence at first, just stripping out of his soaked-through flight suit with the typical level of efficiency, his eyes still freely streaming tears that he seemed almost content to ignore. Only once he was down to his undershirt and his boxers did Ice speak up, catching his attention.

“Mitchell,” he said gently, cringing as Mav’s back visibly tensed, his wings twitching.

He swiped his face dry and then turned around, seeing them both stood there with concerned looks on their faces.

“What?” He asked flatly.

“I’m…sorry,” was all Ice could muster.

Mav nodded at him, biting at his lip. His gaze fell to the tile beneath their feet and then he spoke, turning back to face his locker, “Yeah,” he shoved the door shut with a loud clang, “Me too.”

Ice grimaced, feeling as if he’d already put his foot in it, feeling the full weight of his guilt bearing down upon him. His own stubborn perfectionism had caused this. If he’d fired or cleared like Mav had instructed, this might not have happened. Goose wouldn’t be in the hospital, fighting for his life. Ice knew it was his fault, he just didn’t know how to fix it.

But thank God for RIOs because Slider spoke up, his tone far more gentle than usual, “Forgive me if this crosses a line somewhere, kid, but your wings…” Mav tensed again and Slider paused.

“Your feathers are all misaligned,” Slider exhaled gently, nervous to commit a faux pas. He was already doing better than Ice, though, since he’d had more experience with avials in general than Ice had. His baby sister was an avial, a rare happenstance of an avial born to human parents, and he’d shared a room with Goose for a year at the Academy.

Mav picked his head up and outright glared with all the fury of a drowned kitten, for how pitiful he looked. “Your point, Kerner?” He asked between gritted teeth.

“Well, you don’t wanna leave ‘em that way, right?” Slider questioned hesitantly.

“Carole’ll get her hands on them the second she sees them, it’s fine,” Mav sighed.

“But that could be hours from now, Mav, isn’t it uncomfortable?” Slider asked.

“Yes! It is!” Mav snapped, whirling around to face them head-on again, “But it’s not like I can ask Goose to fix it right now,” he ended the sentence with a sound that was very close to a sob, “So it’s fine.”

“I just…” Slider sighed, “My sister’s an avial, I’m not unfamiliar with preening if you need a hand.”

“Leave it, Kerner,” Mav’s voice bordered on broken, tears welling in his eyes that he hurriedly tried to blink back.

“I also roomed with Goose for a year, I helped him out a lot back then too,” Slider held his hands up in surrender, “I just remember how much he used to bitch and gripe when he’d left the feathers he couldn’t reach all twisted up all day, I’m offering a pair of hands if you need it.”

“I’m fine, Slider,” Mav answered between gritted teeth. Slider sighed as Mav turned around, heading towards a shower stall. But when he tapped his left wing against the lockers as he turned, one of the white feathers at the very tip of his wings came loose, drifting to the floor.

Slider sighed in exasperation, stooping to pick the feather up, “Mav, look, you’re molting, it’s really not a big deal, kid, I promise.”

Mav stared at him in trepidation for a moment, his expression blank as his wings flexed, spreading almost to their full wingspan. Even Ice could tell how messy the feathers looked, the black secondaries in the center of each wing especially dense and tangled together.

“Fine,” Mav shook his head, plopping down onto a bench in a manner that could almost be described as petulant. Further aided by the way he crossed his arms, staring straight ahead at the wall while spreading his wings out fully. All but bleeding exhaustion, simply too tired to argue.

Frankly, his wings were gorgeous. Ice had seen a lot of wings over his career, avials weren’t exactly uncommon after all, and most of them had been somewhere from cream to brown. Some were mottled or mixed in color. Some were downy, some were more sleek. For a long time, he’d thought that Goose’s elaborate brown and white speckled feathers or the one girl he’d met in a bar one time with cardinal-pink feathers were the prettiest he’d ever see. But trust Pete “Maverick” Mitchell to prove him wrong.

Maverick’s wingspan was wide, probably longer than Maverick was tall. His feathers were fairly sleek and all a rich black up until the very tips of his wings. Right at the tips, maybe four inches or so of his long primary feathers were all white. Pure white, too, not a shade of off-white or soft cream. Bright, pure white. And his wings didn’t curve out in an arc like Goose’s, not sharp or angular, just broad. Instead, they fell in a soft swoop, curving out slightly from where they sprouted from his shoulder blades and rounding out until the very tips ended in a slight flick up. Wings built for long-distance flight, the shape made for soaring through the wind.

Slider stepped forward and raised a hand, but didn’t yet touch Maverick’s wings. “You sure it’s alright, kid?” He asked, his tone much softer than it would’ve been under any other circumstance.

Maverick didn’t answer. His breath hitched, his wings twitching with the movement in his shoulders, and he dropped his head. But after a long moment, he finally nodded.

Slider reached out and raked a hand through the very top layer of feathers at the tip, where they turned white. Several came loose into his hand with every gentle pass he made and so he hummed worriedly, “You due for a molting, kid?”

Maverick, again, did not answer verbally. He shook his head, crossing his arms and drawing his wings up higher. Slider sighed, “I thought so,” he ran his hand over a row of eight feathers. Five of them came out into his hand, “Must be the stress.”

“This is gonna take forever,” Maverick finally said, his leg bouncing rapidly and tapping his heel against the floor.

“I mean, you’re losing a lot of feathers here, kid,” Slider clicked his tongue with concern.

“So then it’ll wait,” Maverick snapped, turning to look at him over his shoulder, “I cannot sit here and wait around while he’s in the,” his voice cracked, “Fucking hospital, okay? It’ll be fine.”

He went to stand but Slider put gentle hands on his shoulders and kept him from rising off of the bench with a sigh, “Hold on, kid, Goose is gonna be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Maverick’s voice wobbled.

“No, I don’t,” Slider admitted, “Maybe I’m lying to myself but the Nick Bradshaw I knew was far too much of a stubborn son of a bitch to go without a fight and leave you behind?” Slider shook his head, “Doubtful.”

Some of the tension in Maverick’s back eased, if only slightly.

“So sit down, be patient, I’ll show Ice how to do it, we’ll get you fixed up in no time,” Slider urged. Maverick stared at him skeptically for a long moment before finally conceding with a sigh and a nod.

“Alright, c’mere,” Slider gestured for Ice, who’d mostly just stood to the side fidgeting with his hands and watching on nervously. Give him a direction or a goal and he’ll be the calmest, most collected son of a bitch in the room, but lacking that? He wasn’t quite so ice cold all the time.

Slider raked a hand through the molting flight feathers, “You don’t wanna pull on them, just passing your hand over them will pull the ones that need to come off loose, you gotta be gentle, their wings are sensitive,” Ice nodded along as Slider continued, reaching over into a section of feathers much closer to Maverick’s back, “You see these?”

He gestured to a few spots where, against the dark black feathers, a line of white could be seen. Ice nodded again. Slider gently grasped one of the white lines, revealing the the shape was fairly similar to a very thin straw, and then he pressed down on the white part. It cracked open and Ice winced, but Maverick didn’t even twitch.

“These are pin feathers,” Slider explained, working his hand over the feather gently, “That means they’re new, when they grow in new they come in a sheath that has to be groomed off to reveal the feather,” he gently pulled the sheath off, revealing a thick and luscious black feather, “Again, gentle hands, but these need to come off.”

Then he reached for the feathers in the center, the long secondary that were all twisted up amidst each other and onto themselves. He ran a finger underneath one and then grasped it with barely-there pressure. He then righted it’s position, “That’s the easiest part, so long as you don’t pull, you can’t hurt him doing this.”

“Okay,” Ice nodded, taking everything he’d just been told into careful account.

“You get that wing, I’ll get this one, we’ll have him cleaned up in no time,” Slider pointed at Mav’s right wing while he himself moved back towards the tip of his left.

Ice started, like Slider had, with the molting feathers on the tips of his wings. Dense as his feathers were, the clumps coming out every time he raked his hand over the soft down seemed alarming, but the feathers still on his wings certainly didn’t look thin or haggard.

After forming a pile of molted feathers between both he and Slider that could fill a pillow, they both moved onto the pin feathers. This stoked Maverick’s first reaction, his shoulders tensing in the slightest bit when they both got ahold of a feather at the same time.

“These are real sensitive, Ice,” Slider murmured to him, “Be careful.”

Ice nodded again and with the sort of soft efficiency that only the infamous Iceman could have, he took it to heart. The pin feathers were fewer than the molting ones, but they were longer and Ice took his time on each and every sheath to be sure he removed it as gently as possible. By the time he finished, Slider was already halfway through detangling the mess of his secondaries with the ease of a lifetime as an exasperated older brother. So Ice quickly got to work there.

As he was setting the twisted feathers right, a hum began to build in Mav’s throat. He’d begun swaying slightly, his eyes closed as they pored over every inch of his wings, but the sound was new and it drew Ice’s attention immediately. When he glanced at Slider, he had an amused smile on his face.

Right as Ice was mostly just combing his hands through the long secondary feathers to ensure their placement was all in order, the hum broke off into a quiet twittering sound. Somewhere between a whistle and a keen, it was shockingly high pitched. Mav went red in the face for a second and Slider muffled a chuckle. The sound had bled of contentment. So Ice kept raking his hands over the feathers. Mav chirped again, before reflexively covering his mouth, letting the high sound drift back down into a throaty hum.

For all the time Ice had spent around avials, he’d never heard something like that before. But then again, he’d never been around when an avial had their wings preened either. Regardless, he found it endearing.

Slider clapped a hand against Mav’s back, “You’re good to go now, kid, everything’s back in it’s place.”

Mav nodded, standing from the bench. He gaped when he saw the pile of white feathers and then took a long, steady breath. Stress molting.

“You ever need anything like that again, Mav,” Ice spoke, “You let us know.”

He met Mav’s green eyes firmly and Mav stared back at him for a very long moment before jerking his head in a single, solid nod.

Afterwards, Ice assumed that first incident was a fluke. After all, so much had happened that day. They were all scared, stressed, and worried. They’d had their confidence rocked by their first real dangerous incident in the air. And Mav especially was going through a lot that day in the locker room, with Goose’s survival hanging in the balance. Ice may not have known Mav very well at the time, but he knew that he was close with his RIO. So he’d assumed that the stress of the moment was all that it would be chalked up to and he hoped that his gentle hands on sensitive feathers were a decent enough apology because Ice didn’t have a clue of what he would say if he tried.

But weeks went by, Goose pulled through, graduation happened, and then the Layton happened, and suddenly, Ice saw a lot more in Mav than he had before because the other man had saved his life. It wasn’t an easy thing, to wrack up kills the way he did that day, Ice knew, he had blood on his hands too. So knowing that Mav, after everything they’d all been through by that point, had not only pulled through but had shot down three enemy fighters for him? Well, that told Ice that his original assumptions about Mav as a person were a little skewed.

He meant it that day when he said “you can be my wingman any time.” He also didn’t realize how literal that phrase would turn out to be for the avial he said it to.

By the time they all got back to Miramar, Goose had healed enough that he was no longer in a brace and his fractured wing had fully healed. While settling into their posting as teachers, Mav one day up and turned to him in the locker rooms and said, “Hey, you wanna join us on the beach later?”

Ice was stunned by the question because, yes, he and Mav had progressed past their antagonism and he’d like to think they were building their way towards potentially being friends, the invite wasn’t exactly expected. After all, they spent all day together in the air or in a classroom. Ice didn’t think they were quite so acquainted for hanging out after work just yet but trust Maverick to prove him wrong.

“Us?” He inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, Goose’s doctor told him to start trying to stretch his wing a bit, make sure he doesn’t lose too much strength in it, so I was gonna join him, Carole, and Bradley out on the beach after dinner,” Mav smiled, “We won’t all be flying the whole time, I promise,” he chuckled, “Bradley’s too little and someone’s gotta watch him.”

“I didn’t know Carole was an avial,” Ice mused, “Of all the gushing Mother Goose does, I’ve never heard him mention her wings.”

“Yeah, she’s an avial,” Mav nodded, “So’s Bradley, he’s just getting his feathers, it’s the cutest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” he chuckled, “Point being, her wings are a little smaller so she can fly, technically, just not very well or for very long.”

“Huh,” Ice nodded, “What time and which beach?”

Sure enough, three hours later, he joined the Bradshaw brood plus Mav at sunset on a long, open stretch of beach. He’d never met Carole, much as he’d listened to Goose talk about her, and he was quite delighted to finally get to introduce himself. Her creamy white wings jutted out in a similar shape as Goose’s, only a little smaller and with much less dense feathers. They were beautiful, but clearly not built for long-term flight. On a bird? Sure. But not every avial could fly because not every avial had wings large enough to carry their body weight.

And Ice had never seen a fledgling before either, so seeing the small wings growing from the toddler’s back, covered in tan down feathers except for right at the end where a few proper flight feathers in a rich chocolate brown had descended through the fluff of his immature wings. Frankly, the child was adorable. And the little cooing trill he made after he introduced himself had the whole group of them laughing.

Once he sat down with Carole, they got to talking while Bradley toddled back and forth in the sand, playing with whatever he could find, and Mav and Goose both went up into the air. Getting to see their magnificent wings in action was awe-inspiring, truly, especially as they joked and jockeyed in the air just like they did over coms.

For a certain portion of Ice’s life, when he was a teenager who really just longed for a way out from beneath his father’s thumb if nothing else, he’d wished he’d been born an avial. Had seen people with wings on their back, these beautiful displays of feathers that stretched on and on, people who could jump and find themselves airborne in a matter of moments. He’d thought they had the world in the palms of their hands, they could go anywhere and be anything. He’d longed for the freedom of the skies.

And in the end, that had lead him to aviation because maybe he couldn’t soar through the wind with nothing more than the clothes on his back, but he could still fly. And fly, he did.

Flight school was where he learned that not every avial was quite so free as he thought. When he saw just how many of them wanted to fly fighter jets because their bodies were inherently inadequate so though they longed desperately for the skies, they were not able to flap their wings with enough force to fly. Instead, they took the same alternative he did.

Watching Mav’s dark wings cutting through the air with simple ease as he flew circles around Goose, lit by the soft glow of the sunset, Ice found himself longing once again, same as he had as a teen. Wished his back spouted feathers and he could fly with the same carefree attitude that Mav could afford.

To Mav, flying was as natural as breathing. And at first, Ice had taken that aptitude within him for a penchant for unnecessary recklessness. And sure, the avial was a thrill-seeker, no one could really deny that for the way he drove a sports bike with no helmet or pulled barrel rolls for the hell of it. But that ease, that was something that Ice envied. Deeply. He could never view flight like that. Which, he supposed, made sense. He hadn’t been flying since he was a toddler like most avials had. Instead, he had learned everything to the very letter and his brain constantly flicked through his late night memories of studying the NATOPs every single time he was in the air. He enjoyed it, of course he did, he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t, but it never came quite so easy to him. And so he was jealous of that.

He also longed for the camaraderie that avials seemed to so easily build with one another. They were a minority of the population, so it made sense that they formed community together so easily. But Ice had always envied the way avials could bond together in flight. The closest he would ever come to that would be his bond with his RIO. And he would treasure Slider until the day he died, Ice was sure, but it would never be the same. Watching Mav and Goose in the air together, he knew it would never be the same.

He was pulled from his melancholy musings by Carole, who nudged his shoulder. “You alright?” She asked, her drawl thick in the evening sun.

“Yeah,” he nodded, giving a half-smile for reassurance, “Just…thinking.”

“Nick says you do that too much,” she smiled cheekily.

“Mother Goose is one to talk,” he retorted, chuckling. She cackled, her wings twitching with her shoulders.

Bradley toddled over, plopping into his mother’s lap, “What’s so funny, Momma?”

“Nothing, baby,” she continued to laugh, swiping at the corners of her eyes, “Just something Ice said about Daddy, honey.”

“Icey?” The kid asked, turning to face Ice with the biggest puppy-dog eyes that Ice had ever had leveled his way. He felt a wealth of warmth wash over him. Slider and Sarah had never let him hear the end of it, but the elusive Iceman was a total sucker for small children.

“Yeah, honey, Ice,” Carole continued to laugh, now at the nickname.

“What’d Icey say?” Bradley asked and Carole laughed again, unable to answer. Bradley gave her a grumpy little stare and then stood up, making his way over to Ice. He sat down in front of him and crossed his little arms, “Well?” He raised an eyebrow and Ice had to conceal a snort because the kid looked just like Maverick when he did that.

“It’s hard to explain, Gosling,” he chuckled, “You know how we call your dad ‘Goose’?” Bradley nodded. “I gave him that nickname, it was a joke about that.”

“Ohhhh,” the kid nodded, as if that explained the inner-workings of the universe.

“Car!” Goose called from a good ways away, where he and Mav were both hovering over the ocean. Well, Goose was hovering, Mav was dive-bombing and then pitching back up over and over again, running his hands through the crests of the waves as he went.

Carole turned to face her husband, lifting an eyebrow in question.

“Come on,” he waved, “If I get too tired, I won’t be able to help you.”

She glanced between Ice, Bradley, and her husband for a moment, a complicated expression on her face.

“I’ve got him for a minute if you wanna go, Carole,” Ice smiled at her reassuringly.

“Are you sure?” She chewed at her lip nervously, fluttering her wings a little.

“Yeah,” he nodded, gesturing for her to go, “Me and Bradley’ll be fine, right Gosling?” He poked the boy’s stomach gently and Bradley giggled.

“Icey’s got me, Momma,” Bradley giggled and Ice just fucking melted where he was sat.

Carole gave a soft coo, and then she pecked her son on the forehead, “Alright, baby, you be good!” She pointed at him sternly. Bradley nodded solemnly, like she’d just entrusted him with a mission of great importance.

“Alright,” she sighed, standing. She raked a hand through Bradley’s straw-blond hair, “I’ll be back in a minute, baby.”

“Okay, Momma,” Bradley smiled and then plopped down in Ice’s lap because he wasn’t already endeared to the child enough as it was.

“Oh, baby,” Carole hesitated, her eyes flicking between Ice and Bradley like she was scared he’d make Ice uncomfortable.

“I’ve got him, Carole,” he smiled at her again, “It’s alright, go fly around with your husband for a minute.”

“Okay,” she nodded, then took a breath and repeated herself more surely, “Okay.”

With that, she took off into a jog and with a strong set of flaps, she lifted off of the ground just as her feet grazed the incoming wave.

Bradley giggled again, watching her propel herself up and into Goose’s arms. Goose caught her, flicking his wings to compensate for her momentum and the added weight, and they spun together in the air. Ice smiled at the sight. Not many people that he’d ever known were quite as infatuated with one another as the Bradshaws were, but damn was it a comforting thing to witness. He saw Mav had paused his fluffy of dips and dives to watch the couple necking around as well and though he couldn’t see his face, backlit in the sun as he was, Ice was sure that he too was smiling. Likely for the same reason.

Bradley’s little fledgling wings started flapping furiously at his back and Ice was briefly reminded of a dog hurriedly wagging it’s tail back and forth. The boy bounced a little where he was sat on Ice’s knee, “I wanna fly.”

“You will soon,” Ice reassured, “All this down fluff will give way and you’ll have feathers just like your dad’s, from the look of things,” he tapped a gentle finger to the few flight feathers that had grown in on the very tip. The same rich shade of chocolate as some of Goose’s solid feathers.

“I know,” Bradley sighed, sounding a little forlorn, “Just ‘cited.”

“I’m sure you are, kiddo,” Ice nodded, “I used to wish I could fly.”

“You don’t have wings?” The kid turned to look at him, glancing past his shoulders as if he’d missed something.

Ice sighed softly and shook his head, “No,” he scrubbed a hand down his face, “But I can fly now, even without them.”

“Like Daddy,” Bradley grinned, “And Unca’ Mav.”

Ice chuckled, “Yeah, Gosling, like them.”

“I wish I had real feathers,” he suddenly frowned, raking a hand over the little bit of his wing that he could reach.

“You do have real feathers,” Ice shook his head, “You just haven’t grown into them yet,” he stroked a gentle hand over the kid’s wings, from the sleek feathers at the very end to the fluffy, lighter ones at the base of his wings. A few of the softer feathers came off in his hands and he held the clump out for Bradley to see, “See? You’re molting, I’m sure your wings are about to look just like these,” he tapped the brown feathers at the end again, “You just gotta let them grow, gosling.”

“Let ‘em grow,” Bradley repeated with a gentle nod, “Okay, Icey.” As if Ice wasn’t already completely gone, would lay his life down in a heartbeat for this kid that he’d just met.

They both turned back when a chorus of laughter sounded from over the ocean waves, watching Maverick and Goose catch Carole in between the both of them, tickling her sides until her wing beats were damn-near at the speed of a hummingbird with the way she kept laughing.

From there, Ice raked some of Bradley’s loose down feathers out and onto the sand while they both watched the adults soaring through the sky with smiles on their faces that spoke of how there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

Now, after that, Ice and Mav were a little friendlier than before. It helped that Goose came back off of medical leave and was able to take up a position at Miramar as well. A desk, because he’d likely never see the inside of a cockpit ever again with the injury he’d carry with him for the rest of his life in his neck, but still. It was a miracle he’d survived and they all knew it. So with the three of them all working at TOPGUN, a tenuous bond began to form. Well, technically it had began to form on the tarmac of the USS Enterprise, but it truly strengthened as they became more friends than colleagues, slowly and not without effort.

A few more days out were had, ranging from hopping off base to have lunch together to spending the evening at an Officer’s Club after hours to more family outings with the entire Bradshaw family unit. Ice enjoyed every minute of it, much as he missed his RIO. Damn family emergencies.

But the friendship forming was still fairly tentative. Both he and Mav were too nervous to truly push the bounds, considering the way they’d acted toward one another at first. That only changed when Carole told Goose to invite Ice over for dinner at their’s one night because Bradley just wouldn’t shut up about him. Endeared by the sentiment and the adorable fledgling’s begging, he agreed.

It was a simple affair and very little occurred. He brought a bottle of wine over as a gift, Goose cooked while Carole and Ice talked and Mav played with Bradley, they all sat down to dinner with ease. Goose was as good a cook as Ice remembered from their Academy days, because if he could work a miracle in a dorm room then what was he capable of with a full kitchen? Clearly magic, as Ice protested the moment he stepped through the door and caught a whiff of it. They ate and they conversed and everything was so peaceful.

It was once they’d finished and then gone through half a bottle of wine that something happened. Ice stood up, volunteering himself for clean up duty since the Bradshaws had hosted and Goose had cooked. Carole and Goose tried to argue but Ice insisted. Mav stood, said he’d help, and Ice went to collect plates while Mav collected their wine glasses, Goose and Carole thanking the both of them the whole way.

Right when he picked up the last plate, Carole’s, his thumb slid through a remnant of sauce from the side of the ceramic and so his grip slipped. He lunged, trying to catch it before it landed on Carole, but instead he counterbalanced it and the plate ended up crashing to the floor. Shattering into shards that spread across the floor in a wide cascade of yellow glazed ceramic. Ice froze where he stood, staring at the mess.

“Oh, okay, whoa,” Goose caught Bradley by the shoulder from where he’d been about to run through to the living room before the plate was dropped, stopping him in his tracks, “Hold on, buddy, that’s sharp.”

“Oh dear,” Carole sighed, standing up, “Mav, get the broom.”

“Already on it,” came Mav’s muffled response from around the corner.

“I’m so sorry,” Ice whispered hoarsely, staring at the broken pieces in shock.

“Oh, honey, it’s fine—“ she waved a hand but froze when Ice flinched. His breathing quickened a little

“Ah hell,” Goose sighed, all too familiar with these old ingrained instincts of Ice’s from their days at the Academy. Ice had sure given him a reason back then to be a Mother Goose. “Kaz, bud, it’s just a plate, it’s fine,” he promised. He hadn’t called him that since Ice earned his callsign.

Mav rounded the corner, holding a broom and a dust pan, “Got it,” he proclaimed and then took in the sight of Ice still frozen in place, “Oh.”

“What’s wrong with Icey?” Bradley asked softly. Goose picked him up onto his hip and then stepped out into the kitchen, sharing a glance of understanding with Mav as he passed. Mav gave him a firm nod, a silent ‘I got it’. Carole stepped back from him slowly and then followed the same path as her husband. Mav approached, setting the cleaning supplies aside.

Ice continued to stare at the ground unseeingly, his breathing quickening even more. Rationally, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this was stupid. He hadn’t reacted to something like this in years but he’d also mostly been on carriers since flight school so the opportunity had rarely presented itself. “Ice?” Mav questioned gently, “You hearing me right now?”

Ice didn’t react. Mav exhaled softly, and then said, “Ice, it’s just a plate, really, no one’s worried about it, no one’s upset, it’s alright, accidents happen.”

He stepped closer and Ice flinched again, this one much more minute but still there. So he stopped. Ice still didn’t look up to meet his eyes, but Mav kept his hands up and in sight. He’d had a few of these freak-outs himself a time or two, he knew what it felt like. The look on Goose’s face had spoken words he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear. Perhaps the elusive Iceman and he were more similar than they thought. Regardless, he knew he needed to get the other man to calm down and soon. So he stepped forward again.

This time, Ice stepped back and then crouched to the floor in a motion so quick that Mav wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t cracked a bone against the hardwood. He started rapidly swiping at the shards, trying to rake them up by hand, and Mav hit his knees in front of him, “Woah, woah, hold on, Ice, you’ll cut yourself—“

Sure enough, Ice hissed as he caught a sharp edge over his palm, slicing the skin open and bleeding red onto the floor. But he didn’t stop. So Mav leant forward and grasped his wrists, wincing when he felt Ice go rigid all over and watched him clench his eyes shut, like he was bracing himself.

Mav walked on his knees, getting a little closer to his wingman, and then he let his wings unfurl. Slowly, so as not to startle Ice, he wrapped his huge, black wings around Ice and encased the pair of them in a bubble of warm, soft darkness.

He pulled Ice’s non-cut hand onto his own chest, “Listen to me, Kazansky, you need to breathe.” Ice shook his head. “No, Ice, you can, I promise, just try for me, it’s alright,” Mav coaxed, “Try to match me.”

Mav began taking exaggerated deep breaths until eventually Ice was matching him, shaky and uncertain but calmer than before. “Good,” he encouraged, “Keep going.”

Eventually, some of the tension in Ice’s shoulder bled out and he slumped into the floor. His breathing was still a little shallow but he wasn’t panting for air so Mav considered that a major improvement.

“You okay?” Mav asked.

Ice blinked for a minute, still coming back into his body properly, and then nodded, “Yeah.”

Mav didn’t believe him but he also didn’t voice it, he just stood up, slowly unfurling his wings to draw Ice back into the real world. “Alright,” he nodded, “Stay there, I’ll get this cleaned up, then we’ll,” he gestured to Ice’s cut hand, “Deal with that.”

Ice swallowed thickly and then stared at him in trepidation. Mav nodded at him reassuringly. So Ice nodded back. Mav quickly swept up the remnants of the plate and dumped them in the trash, then he hoisted Ice to his feet and led him to the kitchen where the Bradshaws were waiting with concern in their eyes.

“You alright, Kaz?” Goose asked, his voice soft. Ice crossed his arms and nodded again, trying not to get blood on his shirt. Goose just sighed.

“Ice, seriously, it was just a plate, it’s nothing to be sorry for,” Carole shook her head, “I promise, honey, nobody’s mad.”

“Nobdoy’s mad,” Goose and Mav echoed.

Bradley picked his head up off of Goose shoulder, “N’body’s mad, Icey.” That drew a proper smile onto Ice’s face again.

“C’mere,” Mav bumped their shoulder together, “Let’s clean that hand up.”

He pulled a first aid kit from underneath the sink and set about disinfecting the cut and staunching the bleeding. It wasn’t really much of a cut, just deep enough to draw blood and only an inch or so wide, so it didn’t take Mav long to slap a bandaid on it.

“Thank you,” Ice said, fidgeting with his hands.

“Anytime, wingman,” Mav smiled, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Anytime.”

And well…after that, some things changed. For the better. Ice became much more of a regular at the Bradshaw house and he and Mav specifically began to grow closer. Ice started to learn things he hadn’t known about avials, like the way they sometimes communicate with high trills, calls, or coos. Most often, he’d seen Bradley use them to talk to his parents but he’d also seen Carole use them to soothe her son after he scraped his knee up and Goose and Mav leaning into each other with teasing smiles as they made their bird-like noises until they burst out laughing. It was odd to him but not in an off-putting way. It more-so intrigued him than anything.

Ice had also been asked to help groom Mav’s wings a few more times since that first interaction. He’d learned a lot about the anatomy of Mav’s wings, specifically, from that. The bones were delicate but the muscles were strong and the feathers were all soft. He learned that Mav used special products for his wings despite using drugstore 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner for his hair in order to care for his feathers. More than once, Ice raked a wing oil solution through the feathers to help keep them soft after a shower on base.

Ice didn’t really realize how intimate of a show of trust that was until Slider said something and that sort of made him aware to how close he was growing to the Bradshaw brood. But he certainly wasn’t resisting it. Aside from Slider, Ice had never really known the feeling of having a happy or loving family. His mother was mostly indifferent growing up, right up until she died. And his father…his father was an angry, bitter man. Ice had been glad to leave the man in his dust the day he left home. Slider had become like a brother to him over the years but he’d never really had anyone aside from him. So to see the potential of a family, no matter how untraditional they were, on the horizon? He wasn’t going to shirk that.

Case in point, a month or so after the plate incident, Mav turned to him one day after a hop, “Hey, are you busy this weekend?” Ice wasn’t.

Mav sighed, “Okay, so Carole and Goose have been wanting to get out for the night for a while, I finally volunteered myself to watch Bradley last week.”

“Okay…” Ice trailed leadingly.

“Only problem is, all of his flight feathers have finally come in,” Mav chuckled, “And the kid’s taken to flying very quickly.”

He sighed, “And normally, that would be fine but then,” he gestured to the tip of his wing where it was wrapped to keep it immobile, “This happened.”

Ice grimaced. He’d sprained a muscle a few days prior in his left wing. He’d been mildly grumpy ever since.

“So I can’t exactly go up after him,” Mav sighed, “And…let’s just be honest here,” he tossed his arms out to the side, “I’m not exactly tall so…”

Ice stifled a chuckle, turning to face his locker to avoid the glare that may pointed in his direction.

“Point being,” Mav said between gritted teeth, “I would much appreciate a helping hand corralling Baby Goose this weekend so they can still go on their date.”

“Sure, Mav,” Ice easily agreed, “I’ll be there.”

Mav beamed at him, “Thank you, Ice, seriously.”

Ice, however, had no idea just what he was signing himself up for.

And the funny part was that it started off just fine! He got there and he was amazed at Bradley’s tiny little wings, all the same creamy white in the front that his mother’s were, while the back of his wings were that same chocolatey brown as Goose’s primary coloring, only with a patch of bright blue feathers in the very center of each wing, a feature entirely unique to Bradley. He complimented the boy’s wings with a ruffle of his hair and received a wide grin in response.

He and Mav played with the kid for an hour or so and then they had dinner and all was well. For four and a half, Bradley was fairly well behaved and he was pretty intelligent for his age. He was an easy kid.

The problems arose after dinner.

Because the boy had been so well behaved, Mav offered him a popsicle as dessert and once he’d finished that, and then had his shirt changed because the blue and white stripes were stained red by the time he finished, the kid ended up with a bit of a sugar high. So Mav suggested they go play in the backyard for a while to tire him out before bed, let him get some sun for the day before it set.

It took five minutes for Bradley to remember what his wings were for. And if you think corralling a hyperactive fledgling when both of you were grounded was easy, you would be sorely mistaken.

“Bradley! Not over the fence, baby, come back here!”

“Honey, you’re getting a little high, it’s making me nervous!”

“BRADLEY BRADSHAW! Get off of the roof!”

“Baby Goose, get down here!”

“Gosling, that branch is pretty high…”

“Bradley, your mother is going to kill me if she finds out how high you are right now!”

“I’m serious, Bradley, I want feet on the ground!”

“Kid, how do you have this much energy??”

“Look at me, Mavvy!” “It’s very impressive, honey, but it’s also terrifying, can you please come back down? For my sanity?”

“OH—! See, Bradley, this is why—get down here before you fall and hurt yourself!”

“Baby Goose, you realize you can practice flying without giving us a heart attack, right?”

“Icey, look! Look!” “Mav! He’s on the roof again!”

“How do Carole and Goose do this every day?” “I don’t know but I think they deserve this break cause I’m exhausted and it’s been an hour.”

“You realize that you are the one who taught him to be a little chaos gremlin, right?” “Shut up and give me a boost, Ice!”

Mav collapsed onto the grass with a full-bodied sigh, “I’m never spraining a wing again, this is ridiculous.”

“I think…” Ice paused, watching Bradley land solidly for the first time in two hours, “I think it’s over.”

“It better be,” Mav growled, heaving himself from the ground, “Bradley! Get over here!”

Suddenly cowed by the authoritative tone in Mav’s voice, Bradley’s expression turned sheepish and he reluctantly walked over, fidgeting with his hands behind his back. “Yes, Mav?” He asked shyly.

Ice and Mav shared a look and Mav guffawed, “We’re going inside, Baby Goose.”

“Okay,” Bradley agreed easily, likely recognizing his proximity to crossing the line from ‘on-thin-ice’ to ‘in-trouble’.

Mav heaved the boy up onto his hip and they went inside to give him his bath. As Mav got him dressed, Bradley started yawning, so they took him back to the living room to wait out the remaining hour before his bed time. They set him between them on the couch and Mav put a movie on. Ice was barely paying attention to it, even as Mav got up from the couch to get a bowl of popcorn and perhaps a bottle of wine if the wink he shot Ice’s way was to indicate anything. They certainly both deserved it after such a long day.

Bradley yawned again, wide and jaw-cracking and he leaned into Ice’s side. “You wanna go to bed early, Gosling?” Ice asked, stroking his hair. Bradley shook his head. “No?” He shook his head again.

“Want cuddles,” the fledging yawned around the words again, heaving himself up with the last of his energy to land halfway in Ice’s lap. Ice couldn’t even be mad at him anymore. What was he supposed to say to that?

Ice sighed, an exaggerated attempt at sounding put-upon that made Bradley giggle as he lifted him up, tucking the kid’s head into his neck. “Alright,” he sighed through the words, smiling when Bradley giggled again, “I guess.”

When Mav rounded the corner, clutching a large bowl with steam still coming off the top in ne hand, two glasses in another, and a bottle tucked into his arm, he scrunched his face like he didn’t know whether to cry or laugh and Ice glared at him. He then gave a coo, a sound that genuinely reminded Ice of an actual dove call, and he smiled something between teasing and endeared as he settled back into the couch.

The rest of the night was peaceful, as Bradley remained fast asleep when Ice tucked him into his bed and he slept all the way through until Carole and Goose found their way back home.

After that day, even Ice began accepting his role in the Bradshaw brood and the teasing from Slider and Wolf and Wood and all the other guys only made him smile because the truth of it was that being part of an avial family felt unparalleled to anything else he’d ever experienced. It was something he appreciated the chance to be a part of, even if he never voiced it.

The new-fangled dynamic also came with a few funny stories to boot. The funniest of which Slider and Goose still laugh about to this day. It had been one of the few days where the whole group of them were in the classroom for a lecture because Goose was preparing an aero-dynamics lecture while Slider was consulting for critique for their RIOs and Ice and Mav had put the whole class through their paces on a rather tough hop. Class went perfectly according to plan and Jester dismissed their students, leaving Goose, Slider, Mav, Ice, and Jester as the only people still in the review room.

Goose and Slider were discussing something random, Mav occasionally jumping in as Jester stood to the side, watching from the corner of his eye as he sorted paper work. Ice was ruffling through his messenger bag, searching for something he’d misplaced, when he felt it. He froze.

“Mav, what are you doing?” He asked. Mav didn’t answer, just hummed questioningly.

His question drew a glance from Slider, Goose, and Jester. Goose immediately burst into hysterics, his loud honking laugh echoing around the steel-plate walls. Slider followed him over the cliff shortly thereafter. Jester watched on with a mixture of bemusement and mild confusion. Of the whole human staff of TOPGUN, the three of them in that room probably knew the most about avials, given the fact that Jester’s wife was an avial, so it took absolutely no time for all of them to realize exactly what was happening.

“Mav,” Ice said again, trying to capture his friend’s attention.

“Yeah, Ice?” Mav replied, never breaking from his task.

Ice sighed, “What are you doing?” He asked with a shake of his head.

“Preening you,” Mav answered like it was meant to be obvious.

“Last I checked, I don’t have feathers, Mav,” Ice responded snippily. Mav’s hands froze in his hair.

“Oh,” Mav said awkwardly, furthering the howling laughter from their two best friends across the room, “Right.”

“I really appreciate the gesture,” Ice chewed at his lip, trying not to laugh himself a the absurdity of what had just happened, “But I don’t think it’s necessary.” Mav’s hands were pulled entirely from his hair and Ice ran a hand through it to smooth it back into place.

When Mav went back over to pick up his bag, his face was bright red.

“Shut up,” he hissed at Goose, kicking his chair. Goose just kept laughing, his head cradled atop the desk with his arms as Slider leaned into his shoulder, cackling.

As soon as he left, slamming the door behind him, Ice gave in and laughed right alongside his friends too.

Well, in the end, Mav got the last laugh about a week later.

Once again, they were in class with Goose and Slider. Jester had left them to their own devices for the day, so there was the grace of his absence, but the class hadn’t yet been dismissed when Mav hummed a sequence of low notes to Goose. Ice heard it as a plans for tonight? hum. Goose hummed one note back. Don’t know.

Mav trilled lowly, a smile on his face. The O-Club could be fun.

Goose hummed a longer sequence this time, sounding indecisive. I don’t know, it’ll be crowded.

Mav leaned over to stare at him for a second and then cooed questioningly. You miss Bradley, don’t you?

Goose trilled, a little higher than Mav’s trill had been, his lips quirking at the edges. It sounded cheeky. Maybe.

Mav pouted and chirped grumpily, crossing his arms. It was mostly for show, if the twitch of his lips was anything to go by. Fine. I guess I’ll go by myself.

Just as Goose went to respond, Ice spoke, “I’m not busy tonight, Mav, if you’re that concerned with being bored.”

Both avials turned to face him with confusion written across their faces. Slider picked his head up from the report he was working on, “I’m sorry, did you just understand them?”

“…Yeah?” Ice raised an eyebrow at his friend, “What, you can’t?”

“No,” Slider laughed.

“You’re telling me that none of that made sense to you?” Ice turned to face him, his eyebrows furrowed.

“No! They sound like birds to me, it makes about as much sense as listening to two crows cawing at each other,” Slider shook his head with another laugh, “I’ve listened to avials chirping at each other all of my life and never understood a lick of it, best I could ever tell was tone when my sister was mad about something.”

“I’m sorry,” Mav held a hand up, “You understood every word of that?”

“I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out,” Ice shrugged, “It’s like having a conversation through looks, it’s just context clues.”

“It’s…a little more intricate than that,” Goose said.

“Well, but still! I spend a lot of time around you two, it makes sense that I’d pick up on it, it’s like spending time with a bilingual person and picking words up from time to time,” Ice defended himself.

“If I may, sirs,” a student near the front rose a hand, one of the three avials in the class. His callsign was Shadow, on account of his all-black wings.

“Speak freely, lieutenant,” Goose permissed, the most superior officer of all of them because he’d somehow beat Ice to the punch for a promotion, the bastard.

“Humans can usually adapt to understand avial trills when they become part of a brood,” Shadow explained, “My mother was a human and she could understand my conversations with my father and my siblings almost to the letter.”

“…Well,” Mav sat back in his seat, crossing his arms, “That explains it.”

“Huh,” was the only thing Ice could muster. Something warm washed over him. To be accepted into an avial brood as a human was not easy and somehow…he’d managed it.

”Welp,” Goose laughed, leaning over to jostle his shoulder, “I guess you’re one of us now, Kaz.”

Ice gave a halfhearted glare but he couldn’t stifle the smile growing on his face, even as Slider leaned over into his face to tease him like the annoying asshole that he was.

All his life he’d searched for a family and now…now he’d found one.