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He was exhausted. He was pretty sure he’d never been so tired—but then again, he’d never been in such an adrenaline inducing situation before, either. Shooting down MiGs, racing after Ice and Sli— hearing the fear in their voice as they relayed that Hollywood and Wolf were shot down. Traveling through that flat spin, feeling like he was back in that plane, back with Nick —
Maverick shook his head, stumbling slightly as he did so. The motion sent him slightly to the side, bumping shoulders with a pair of sailors moving in the other direction.
“Oh, sorry—” he belatedly reached for one of the other people, hand outstretched to apologize.
“Watch where you’re fuckin’ goin’, Mitchell,” one of the men growled.
Mav felt his shoulders tense as he recognized the gruff voice.
Nolans, with Stevens no doubt—better to keep walking then.
“Where do you think you’re going, huh? You think you can just land back on this ship and blowing some assholes out of the sky will erase the fact that you’re a fuckin’ Mitchell— ”
He kept walking down the suddenly deserted corridor, hearing Nick’s voice in his head telling him to keep going, to not look back—
But suddenly there was a beefy fist snagging the back of his collar, yanking him backwards off of his feet.
“Hey—” he yelped, feeling the harness bruises he was still nursing flare up as he was dragged backwards.
“Now you’re just a fuckin’ murderer on top of bein’ a traitor—gonna pay this time, Mitchell. And this time—you’re missing your shadow. Where’s your protector, huh? Where’s the great Goose? Finally get sick of you? Decide he had someone better to hang with?”
Grief, sharp and hot suddenly shot through Mav’s midsection.
Goose .
“Didn’t you hear, Noles? Bradshaw’s gone—burned in with this asshole and he didn’t make it,” the other man jeered, snagging the left shoulder of Mav’s flight suit.
“Oh, so you really are alone,” Nolan grinned a bit maniacally, at least it sounded like he was, Maverick was a bit preoccupied with trying to regain his footing and pull out of the other men’s grasps.
This was really bad—
Why the hell wasn’t there anyone else around this ship? It had hundreds if not thousands of sailors but this corridor was completely bereft of anyone .
“Let me go—”
“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Stevens shook the shoulder he was holding a bit as they dragged him bodily down the corridor. “We have been planning something for you, Mitchell. Found a real nice place for you to hole up in for a while. Maybe somewhere to help you think about bein’ a fuckin’ traitor—”
“I’m not a traitor!” Maverick flinched as they turned down another pathway, this one dark.
“Sure are—just like your Daddio—”
“Am not —”
“Shut up ,” Nolan growled, lifting him up over a kneeknocker and throwing him into a dark, tight space.
Maverick yelped as he crashed into something hard and metal, scrambling to get his feet underneath him. He turned back around to the entrance of the small space just as a metal grate was slapped down over it.
“Hey!”
There was a sharp whine of a drill. “Get yourself outta this one, Mitchell— pretty sure I remember you bein’ rather fond of laundry, right?”
Laundry— he was in— he was locked in a panel, a service panel in the ship’s laundry—
“Holy shit—” Maverick whispered, hands moving towards the edges of the grated opening, searching for any lip of give he could feel.
Nothing .
This wasn’t good—he was barely able to sit up on his knees, the space was so small. He didn’t have to fear running out of oxygen, as there were openings in the vent, but he honestly wasn’t sure where he even was. Would have a hell of a time making it to the transfer tomorrow—especially since Nick wouldn’t be there to look for him. Nobody would be looking for him.
A tiny, horrible part of Maverick thought that maybe that was what he deserved.
****************
“Nobody’s seen the pipsqueak?”
“Nope,” Ice shook his head, absentmindedly twirling a pen around his fingers as he did another visual sweep of the mess hall.
“Wood and Wolf?”
“Nope.”
“Merlin?”
“Not since they left the jet.”
“Maybe he’s in his bunk?”
“Checked it twice.”
“Medical?”
The blond turned and raised a brow at his backseater. “Really? You think Maverick went voluntarily to medical? Or that they bothered to look after him if he had? You read the notes from Nick same as me, and heard from Carole after the crash—”
“No,” Ron frowned. “I guess that was a dumb suggestion, huh?”
“I checked it anyway,” Ice admitted. “No sign of him.
“Where the hell did he go then?”
“He wasn’t gettin’ his ass chewed,” Leonard popped up suddenly. “We popped by Stinger’s just to check but he wasn’t there either—”
“So, I’ll say it again—what the hell happened to the kid?” Slider crossed his arms, starting to feel concern growing.
“Big carrier,” Hollywood offered halfheartedly.
“Big ocean,” Tom echoed darkly, earning sharp glances from the other aviators.
“Shit, you don’t really think—”
“Kid was—he’s been spiraling a bit after Nick, but—”
“Adrenaline crash gone wrong?”
“Hell no—we just got the kid. Not goin’ out like that,” Rick shook his head. “We’re gonna find that punk and then yell at him for scarin’ us—”
“And then hug him probably,” Leo snickered.
“Yeah, probably.”
“So what do we do?” Ron leaned against the wall.
“Go in pairs, start aft and work our way through the ship,” Ice decided. “Sli and I will start as low as we can, you two start up on deck. Work back and forth—whoever finds him takes him to our bunkroom. We’ll check in when nearby.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Wolf nodded, heading off with his pilot hot on his heels.
“You don’t really think the kid jumped, do you?” Slider said softly.
“I—I don’t want to, Ron. I really don’t—but he’d been in a hell of a dark place. Wouldn’t be the first to walk off the edge,” Ice chewed the inside of his cheek. “Hope like hell I’m wrong though.”
***********
“C’mon— c’mon— you can do it, Mav—take a breath,” he muttered to himself, eyes closing as he tilted his head back to lean against one of the walls of the tiny space.
But he didn’t feel like he could .
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been shoved in the maintenance hatch, as he figured it was, but it had been long enough to realize wherever he was must be out of the normal thoroughfare. He hadn’t heard a single other person, at all . And there had been no response to him calling or knocking on the panel either—so obviously he wasn’t going to be easily heard either.
In short, Maverick was in a heap of trouble.
No one was looking for him. No one even knew he was missing. He was supposed to be transferred off tomorrow so he might not even be noticed as missing for a while, or he’d be labeled as AWOL—
He thunked his pounding head against the wall again, tears starting to sting the corners of his eyes. He was so tired, and everything was starting to ache again– his bruises reaggravated from the flat spin he’d been in hours earlier. Shit, the flat spin—
He never wanted to be in a flat spin ever again. Even thinking about it now made his hands shake and his arms feel numb—shit, even his legs felt numb now—
Or maybe that was because he had his legs folded up underneath him in this horrible, confined space—that probably wasn’t good—
“What am I s’ppose to do, Goose?” he whined tiredly, banging his fist angrily on the vented panel. “You—you’re not here and it’s—it’s my fuckin’ fault and I—God, I’m sorry—I wish you were here, more than anything I wish you were here—I—shit, I need you, Nick— I’m so sorry—-”
He didn’t notice his breath starting to come in shorter gasps, the tears streaming down his cheeks as his lungs started hitching sharply. It felt like he couldn’t inhale, like he couldn’t breathe —
***********
“Tommy, it’s been hours since we started searching,” Slider said softly, noting the tension in his pilot’s frame.
“Doesn’t matter,” the blond dismissed, moving through some of the empty, darkened areas quickly, RIO on his heels.
“It—Tom, we need to—”
The RIO was cut off with a short, indignant squawk as his pilot suddenly covered his mouth with his hand.
“Shut up— listen —” Ice insisted. They two men sat in silence, straining to listen to the various noises of the ship around them. “Hear that?”
“Hear what?” Slider whispered, tugging the blond’s hand away.
“ That —” Ice spun quickly, moving towards the vague metallic tapping.
“It’s—isn’t it just something in the ship?”
“No, that— that’s fuckin’ Morse code!” Tom realized, moving to put a hand on the wall.
“It is,” Ron’s eyes widened. “It’s—is it spelling out SOS? Where the hell is that coming from?”
“This way,” Ice took off at a faster pace, moving through the darkened hallways to a seemingly abandoned laundry station. “It’s— it’s here , right? Somewhere around here?”
“Ice?”
“Holy shit, Maverick?! ” Ice spun around the room, searching for the missing pilot. “Maverick? Where the hell are you?”
“Ice! Ice, I’m—help, I’m down here—” Maverick sounded wrong —all breathless and muffled.
“He’s in the wall —” Slider realized, pointing to a small panel in the corner of the room. “He’s in the fuckin’ wall—”
“See if you can find a tool or something,” Tom instructed, falling to his knees in front of the small door and trying to pry the panel open.
“Was—was drilled,” Mav borderline whined.
“We’ll get you out,” Slider swore, practically ransacking the other cabinets.
“How the hell did you get in ?” Ice frowned, managing to touch a few of the other pilot’s icy fingertips through the grate.
“I—”
“Mav?” Tom prompted.
“Nolan and Stevens—they’re not exactly fans of mine, and they—they heard ‘bout Goose I guess, so I was f-f-f-f-fair game.”
“They–they put you in a wall—” Tom’s voice was hard, drawing Ron’s attention. “Because they knew Nick wasn’t around to have your back—”
“Those fuckin’ bastards,” Slider growled, finally locating a pair of pliers. “God, Nick would’ve killed them, huh, buddy? Well don’t you worry—boys and I will take care of it for ya. Shits will think twice before ever messin’ with you again.”
“S’not—-s’okay Sli,” Maverick’s voice shook.
“Not at all, Shortstack, but it will be better. Gonna take care of it, okay?”
“S’not—-s’not just them.”
“Make me a list,” Ron challenged, grinning a little when one of the three bolts came away.
“S-s-s-s-slong list—-”
“Don’t care,” Ice poked one of his cold finger tips. “We don’t care who we have to put on the list, okay? You’re our wingman, you’re one of us— not gonna let anything like this happen to you again—”
“Just one more bolt, kid, hang on,” Ron promised, working on the last, pesky part.
“How long have you been here, Mav?”
“I–I don’t know what time it is, but they grabbed me after the debrief.”
“Damn,” the RIO growled, angrily yanking the final bolt out of the wall. “That was hours ago—”
Ice pulled the vent off of the wall with a bit more force than necessary, only to find himself with a sudden armful of Maverick—a shaking, crying Maverick.
The blond held him close, pulling his wingman into a tight hug. “You’re okay, Mav—I’ve gotcha.”
“M s’rry—”
“Nothing to apologize for, kid,” Ron reassured, running a hand over the dark hair. “You’re okay—”
“Let’s get him back to the bunkroom,” Ice decided. “Need to find Wood and Wolf and then—”
“Then I’m gonna find those absolute bastards.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Shut up, Pipsqueak,” Slider dismissed, standing and reaching a hand down to help the kid upright. He immediately had to grab the shorter pilot under the arms when his legs gave out. “Woah! What the hell?!”
“I—I can’t feel my legs—” Maverick realized with wide eyes.
“You— you were probably pretty squished in there,” Ice realized, sparing a glare for the small space as he climbed to his feet. “Cut the blood circulation off—”
“You’ll be feelin’ them again soon,” Ron winced sympathetically. “And that is not going to be pleasant—let’s see about getting you somewhere more comfortable, okay?”
Maverick let the two taller men support him as he slowly started to get more control over his lower extremities, grimacing as the pins and needles sensation started racing up and down his legs in response to the returning blood flow.
“Hang in there, Shortstack,” Ron soothed, taking him from Ice as they came to a narrower portion of the corridor. “We’re gonna get you somewhere in just a second—our room is right up here.”
“Oh thank God,” Rick spoke sharply from the other end of the hallway, jogging towards them, Leo close behind. “He okay?”
“He was drilled into a fuckin’ maintenance panel in a laundry room, so no —”
“He was what ?”
“We’re going to kill Nolan and Stevens,” Ron continued.
“Damn straight—”
“No,” Maverick shook his head.
“Uh, hell yes,” Rick growled. “Nobody gets to do shit like that, ‘specially not to you—”
“Don’t—don’t wanna be ‘lone,” Mav continued, letting Ron lead him into the bunkroom and settle him on one of the lower bunks. “Keep—keep thinkin’ I’m back in the jet ‘nd I hear you two get shot down and I can’t get to Ice and Sli and please—-please just stay here—”
The four aviators exchanged worried looks before nodding tightly.
“Alright, kiddo, you win,” Rick frowned. “For now — we will be dealing with this though.”
“Gonna tell Viper and Stinger for starters,” Ice promised.
“And I’m gonna have words with those idiots,” Ron swore.
“Me too,” Rick agreed.
“Not on your own, Mav, not anymore.”