Chapter Text
The night was quiet, heavy with the soft hum of a ceiling fan and the faint sound of waves outside the window. The lamp on the nightstand cast a warm, amber glow across the room.
Maverick leaned in to check Tom’s bandages. The injury—a shallow cut from a recent training accident—was healing well. The doctor had reassured them it would leave nothing more than a thin scar. That was what Mav expected to see.
But as he carefully lifted Tom’s shirt, what he saw froze him in place.
Not the fresh wound. Not the neat gauze and medical tape.
The others.
Faded scars. Dozens of them.
Some straight, as if left by the same repeated stroke. Some crooked, others deep and jagged. Marks that didn’t belong to aviation, nor to combat. Lines that ran across his back like roads carved into stone. Thin cuts on his arms, circular dents on his ribs, ridges that looked as though they’d been left by belts, buckles… ropes.
Maverick’s breath caught in his throat.
—What the hell is this, Ice? —his voice cracked, barely a whisper.
Tom didn’t turn his head. His gaze stayed fixed on the wall, shoulders drawn tight, jaw clenched.
—It’s nothing. —His tone was sharp, flat.
—Don’t give me that. —Maverick’s voice rose, low but urgent—. These aren’t from flying.
The silence thickened. The clock ticked on the nightstand, a cruel reminder of time pressing forward while Tom remained locked in place, frozen. Maverick’s fists tightened. He wanted to demand answers, shake them out of him. But he stopped.
Tom wasn’t resisting because he didn’t trust him. He was resisting because the memories were still alive, raw beneath the skin.
And then, as if the years collapsed in on him, the past pulled Tom back.
⸻
Flashback I – The Belt and the Rag (8 years old)
The living room reeked of whiskey and stale tobacco. His father’s voice cut through the haze, rough and slurred with drink.
—Shut up already!
Tom was small, his eyes wide, brimming with tears he couldn’t hold back. His body shook with sobs.
That was the mistake.
His father’s chair scraped violently against the floor as he rose, belt in hand. The boy stumbled back, bumping against the table. A yelp escaped his lips—short, sharp.
It was enough.
The man grabbed a dirty rag from the floor, the smell of grease and dust filling Tom’s nose as it was shoved between his lips, gagging him. His wrists were yanked forward, tied with coarse rope to the leg of the table.
—Men don’t cry. If you cry, you’re nothing.
The belt hissed in the air before it struck his back. Pain exploded across his skin. He gasped against the gag, muffled, the taste of dirt burning his tongue.
Another lash.
And another.
The sound echoed through the room, leather striking skin, the muffled sobs of a boy silenced by cloth. His tears ran hot down his cheeks, but no one would come. No one ever did.
—Kazanskys don’t raise weaklings —his father roared, swinging again—. Cry, and you don’t deserve my name!
The boy clenched his teeth against the rag, eyes squeezed shut. Pain seared his body, but worse than the sting was the truth settling inside him: there was no rescue.
Freeze. Don’t cry. Turn to ice. If you turn to ice, it doesn’t hurt.
⸻
When the memory receded, the man he had become was trembling. Maverick felt it beneath his hand. It wasn’t from the healing wound—it came from deeper, from somewhere unreachable.
Slowly, Mav reached out. His fingertips brushed one of the old scars. The skin was cool, unyielding, yet fragile beneath his touch.
—God, Tom… —his voice was thick, almost breaking.
For a long moment, Tom said nothing. His jaw worked, eyes locked forward. Finally, with a voice like gravel, he whispered:
—My father.
Maverick blinked.
—What?
—He did this. —Tom drew a shaky breath, each word forced from deep inside—. Since I was a kid. Said he needed to forge me in steel. Said men don’t cry. Said weakness breaks you.
He paused, exhaling slowly, as if the air itself hurt. Then, with a bitter curl of his lips, he added:
—All he did was fill me with ice.
The words hit Maverick like a blow. His chest ached with fury and sorrow all at once. He couldn’t fathom the cruelty it took to leave scars like this—on a child.
Leaning closer, he didn’t let go of Tom’s skin. His hand stayed, warm against the cold map of his past.
—You should never have gone through that.
Tom turned his head at last, meeting his eyes. And in those blue eyes, Mav saw something he had almost never glimpsed before: vulnerability.
—But I did. And I survived.
Maverick swallowed hard. He wanted to speak—wanted to say something healing, something that could erase the belt and the rag, the silence and the tears. But there were no words.
There was only presence. Only the choice to stay.
The lamp cast its quiet light across the scars, the silence heavy with a truth too intimate to ignore.
And Maverick understood: this was only the beginning.