Chapter Text
Maverick stumbled into his and Iceman's shared apartment, tripping over his feet much like a newborn lamb in the darkness. Ice must've already gone to sleep, then. He didn't blame him, it was so late that it was already considered as dawn in his opinion, despite it being only 3 in the morning.
Bone-deep exhaustion didn't even begin to describe the feeling of the awful heaviness in his limbs, the mind-splitting migraine he had or the way his body ached as he swayed towards their bedroom, wanting nothing more than to curl up in his fiancé's strong arms and sleep the next day away.
Unfortunately, there was no way Ice would allow him onto the bed in his current state, sweaty and grimy from the day's activities. Therefore, a shower was the main priority among everything else.
Maverick silently opened the old door to the one other room besides the bathroom and the storage closet, creeping inside. He knew that Ice was a very light sleeper and one wrong movement could get him a punch in the face and a broken nose if his aim was right.
Tip-toeing past his fiancé's sleeping form, he grabbed one of Ice's ratty old shirts and a pair of boxers from the drawers before going out the way he came and straight into the bathroom which was right across the corridor.
As Mav stripped out of his uniform and peeled his sweat-soaked undershirt off his body, all his muscles protested at the movement, twinging painfully and making him bite back a yelp. Despite that, he managed to pull off his undershirt entirely, toss it to the side, and get into the small, cramped shower, immediately switching it on.
Ice cold water attacked his warm body relentlessly and he didn't jump out of his skin per se, but it was fucking close to it. Fuck Ice and his freezing cold showers, couldn't he have turned the temperature back to hot afterwards? Now, Maverick stood as far away from the chilly spray as he could, waiting for it to warm up, even more miserable than before if that was possible.
However, as the water slowly warmed back up to a temperature he liked, he slid under it, sighing in relief and closing his eyes as the hot but not-so-hot water soothed his sore muscles, doing little but still doing something to relax them.
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The next time Mav opened his eyes, it was to a dishevelled Ice (dang, he didn't know his wingman could look so messed up unless it was above him) pacing the length of their tiny-as-fuck bathroom and yelling into the phone pressed to his ear.
He was not quite sitting yet not quite lying on the cold tile outside the shower cubicle, bundled up in what felt like a thousand fluffy towels and a blanket somewhere in there. His headache seemed even worse than before, somehow, having gone from a splitting migraine to the feeling of someone having stomped on his head ten times over and then ran it over with a truck.
As his senses came back to him at snail's pace, he could hear Ice's shouts echoing off the walls of the bathroom, "Ron, he was literally on the shower's floor, unconscious. He wasn't responding to anything!"
Slider said something inaudible in reply, which made Ice blow up even more, "The fuck you mean calm down, you try having your fiancé unconscious in the shower of all things. The shower, Ron!"
The man he so dearly called the love of his life groaned in frustration before tearing the phone away from his ear and roughly pressing on the screen, presumably having hung up on Slider without a care in the world.
Ice swivelled around to face Mav fully, and was taken aback to see him awake and aware, wriggling around in his little wrap of towels and blankets.
"Pete!"
He joined his fiancé on the floor, grabbing his face in his big, calloused hands and turning it side to side. After his once-over, he stared into Maverick's eyes, piercing pale blue meeting deep hazel brown and he lightly smacked the side of his head, "What were you thinking in that pea-brain of yours, hm? You scared the shit out of me, Mav!"
"Hnngrh."
"Don't 'hnngrh' me, you son of a bitch. Seeing your soon-to-be husband on the shower floor, unconscious, with a large ass bruise on the back of his head and a potential concussion is not something I ever wanna see again, you understand?"
"Hm..."
"Fucking hell."
They sat in silence for a while, Ice's hands having moved down to his shoulders and gripping them tightly.
Eventually, the blonde sighed unnaturally loud, and gently folded Maverick into his arms, "You're gonna tell me what went down in the shower later, but for now, let's get you dried off and into bed."
With a quiet grunt of exertion and upper body strength on Ice's part, the brunet was lifted into the air, leaning heavily against the other's broad chest as they made their way into the bedroom.
Mav was carefully settled onto Ice's side of the bed, sheets still warm to touch, as the aforementioned man went to go get another towel from an open drawer to dry his hair off.
Ice situated himself behind him on the bed and started to run the towel through his drenched strands, massaging his scalp with just the right amount of force not to aggravate his migraine-turned-concussion but enough to feel comfortable and relaxing.
Once Ice deemed his hair to be dry enough, all the towels (and blankets) came off and was replaced with clean boxers, Ice's prized hoodie from a thrift shop they went to a while back at the start of their relationship that was so fucking soft despite years of continuous use and some sweatpants.
Throughout this whole process, Maverick didn't say a word, too dazed and muddled to string together a sentence. Now, he whispered into the still night air quietly, "I'm sorry for scaring you, Tom."
If not for the nearly unnoticeable pause in his ministrations (which was fiddling with the stubborn sleeve of the hoodie Mav had on that just won't stay in its position over his knuckles oddly enough), the brunette wouldn't have thought that the other heard him.
"It's fine, Pete." Ice murmured back, finally getting the sleeve over his knuckles and secured, sitting back on his heels from where he crouched in front of Mav, "Let's go to sleep."
Maverick knew that the conversation and the inevitable lecturing that would come from his fiancé would happen sooner or later, but as he was wrapped up in Iceman's warm, muscled arms and back pressed against his chest, he couldn't care less.