Chapter Text
"...a spin which was unrecoverable..."
"...there was no way Lieutenant Mitchell could see or avoid the jet-wash..."
"...not at fault in the accident..."
Maverick doesn't know how he ended up in the locker room but he blinks and there he is, having cleared out his own locker from his belongings almost completely. He is going to leave and never come back.
His head is suddenly pounding, and he would sit down but the locker room door opens then and someone walks in.
"Maverick?"
He can nothing but close his eyes, shield himself from the words of the last person he hoped to crash into at the moment. Iceman steps closer, standing on the other side of the bench that's placed between the lockers. Maverick doesn’t turn around to face him.
"Mitchell..." he starts again but stops just as abruptly.
Maverick can't stop his hand from shaking as he grips the side of his locker to keep himself from doing something he'd regret later.
"I'm sorry about Goose."
Maverick grips the locker tighter, presses his eyes shut so hard spots dance around his vision. He wants to turn around, to shout at Iceman to lose that name from his vocabulary and to get out of Maverick's sight. He stays still.
"Everybody liked him," Iceman continues. Maverick can hear the other man choose his words carefully, afraid to say the wrong thing. And somehow, he still messes up. "I'm sorry."
Maverick is over the bench and shoving Iceman into the lockers before neither of them even realize he's moved. "You're sorry? You're sorry?" He grips Iceman's collar tighter, shoves him a little more. "It's your fucking fault he's dead," Maverick hisses, voice full of venom.
Iceman grips Maverick's wrists but doesn't shove him away. Just like his eyes, his voice is infuriatingly calm when he speaks, "It was an accident, Mitchell."
"If you would've moved out of my way earlier, it wouldn't have happened!" Maverick is shouting louder and louder. "I had the shot, you didn't and yet you wouldn't move."
A flash of anger flickers in Iceman's eyes before it's gone just as fast as it appeared. "You would've ended up in the jet-wash, anyway."
It's a cold hard fact, and somewhere deep down Maverick knows it too. But right then, at that moment in time, it only feels like a calculated insult.
His fist is flying towards Iceman's jaw before he can even comprehend the movement of his hand. Even faster his wrist is caught before it has the chance to collide with anything that could give Maverick the satisfaction of pain shooting through the bones in his hand. Then, he's shoved chest first into the lockers, his arms twisted behind his back.
"Calm down," Iceman speaks steadily. It only makes Maverick more riled up. He twists and turns, trying to shake Iceman off him but the blonde man only presses himself tighter against Maverick's back, and makes it impossible for Maverick to move.
"Get the fuck off me!" Maverick yells, and tries to push the other man away. "He's dead, and it's your fault!"
Iceman doesn't say anything, he just keeps pressing Maverick into the locker in hopes of wearing him down. Maverick, realizing he isn't going to get his hands free, moves onto trying to kick Iceman instead.
"God dammit, Mitchell, stop!" Iceman yells, shoving his own leg between Maverick's to dodge the kicks. There was no way out now, unless Iceman grants him one. He's stuck. "Are you done?" Ice asks after a moment, voice even again.
"Go fuck yourself," Maverick tries to sound angry but there is little fire behind the words. He tries to twist free one last time, before he suddenly deflates, his forehead falling against the cool locker.
They’re both breathing heavily, the silence surrounding them almost as deafening as the scream that Maverick lets out a moment later. He begins to yell, not caring about people hearing him anymore. In fact, he’d like everyone to hear him. To hear the agony he’s in, to come and witness it themselves because he can’t bear being the only one carrying all the hurt he’s feeling inside him anymore.
Iceman tries to calm him down, his ice-cold facade almost dropping at the sudden outburst of anguish from the other man. He can take the blaming and the fighting but the sound that Maverick is letting out is something he’s never heard before, something that he won’t ever forget. He lets go of Maverick’s arms but the other man won’t move, just keeps crying out. Ice can’t take it, wrapping his arms around Maverick’s chest this time, enveloping him in a hug instead.
”I’ve got you, okay?” He murmurs in the man’s ear, turns them around so his back is against the lockers and lowers them to the floor.
It seems to shift something in Maverick because the man starts to struggle again. ”Stop, stop, it’s okay,” Iceman tries to keep the man close. ”You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
"Please," Maverick whispers, surprising Ice with his pleading. "Please, let go off me." Maverick sounds desperate, his voice hoarse from all the screaming but wet from the tears that are now threatening to spill over. Maverick presses his eyes shut. "Let me go."
And Iceman hesitates for a moment before complying to the other man's pleas. He slowly pulls his hands away from Mav's, waiting for the other man to bolt up and out the room. But Maverick never does.
He stays right there, slumped against Iceman's chest as tears finally start to slip from the corners of his eyes.
Iceman doesn't know what to do, so he just stays there, waiting. He listens as Maverick slowly starts to cry harder, whimpers turning into sobs. And when Maverick turns to bury his face into Iceman's neck, the man nothing but let's him.
And Maverick cries and cries and cries, and then, like it was the world’s greatest kept secret, he whispers, "He was the only one I had left and-, and now he’s dead because of me.”
And Iceman can no longer sit by and watch. He wraps his arms around Maverick's chest again – gentler this time – and slowly rocks them from side to side. For a moment Ice is certain Maverick's gonna tear his arms away and tell him to fuck off, but the aviator only grips Iceman's arms with his own as if they are the only thing keeping him from sinking through the floor.
"It is not your fault, Pete," Iceman murmurs into the man's ear, and Maverick turns his head away as if he can't bear to hear the words. ”Do you hear me? There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent what happened, and I won’t let anyone tell you otherwise," Iceman says, firmer this time. ”I’ve got you.” And god, he’s never meant any words more.