Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

[Thirty Years Ago]

“Hold on,” Maverick gasps, pushing at his chest. Tom hums, grazing his teeth along the column of his throat, darting his tongue out to collect some of the sweat collecting on his skin.

It’s intoxicating.

“’m serious,” Maverick protests, pushing a little firmly.

Tom sits back on his heels, his knees still holding Maverick’s hips locked into place. Maverick is breathing hard underneath him.

“What?” He frowns, resting his hands on his thighs, not sure what to do with them now that they’re not pinning Maverick’s wrists up by the sides of his head. “You having second thoughts?”

He says it with a teasing lilt, but feels a pit of worry open up in his belly. This isn't the first time they've done this, but it's the first time they've done it sober, and there's something about that that changes things.

“God, no,” Maverick says quickly, reaching to grip at Tom’s hips, thumbs resting just above the waistband of his jeans, but never breaking eye contact. “I just think maybe we should set some… rules of engagement, if you will.”

“Rules of engagement,” Tom echoes, raising an eyebrow. “What, so you can turn around and break them?”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Maverick deadpans, knocking Tom’s leg out from under him with his knee, and seizing the moment he stumbles off balance to flip their positions, so that he has Tom caged beneath him. “I just mean, I don’t know, thought it would be smart.”

Tom takes pity on him. And- he has a point. This really is reckless. Breaks all sorts of rules Tom had carefully constructed over the years. Some… expectations… wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Alright, fine,” he glances up at the ceiling, suddenly a bit nervous. They haven’t talked about it, before. It’s uncharted territory. “Well, for starters, obviously, we tell no one, even when the other pisses us off.”

“Well, duh,” Maverick scoffs, rolling his eyes, before spitting defensively: “What, you think I’m going to roll up to Viper and go, ‘hey, I have it on good authority that Iceman Kazansky is a cocksucker, seeing as he was sucking my cock.”

Hearing it said out loud, and so crudely, sends a burning anger through him. Tom jams his knee up into Maverick’s crotch, not hard enough to cause any real damage, as that would really hurt Tom more than it would help him, but enough to elicit a pained groan. “Hey, fuck you, you’re the one who wanted to do this.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Maverick sits heavily on his thighs, blocking Tom from doing that again. “Okay. One, mutually assured destruction,” he waggles his eyebrows, clearly pleased with his own joke. “Two: no marks. Can’t be explaining to Jester in the locker room why I look like I’ve been mauled by a tiger.”

Tom grins wickedly. “What, Charlie’s not a biter?”

“Fuck you, asshole,” Maverick leans down, until he and Tom are sharing the same few inches of air. “Not my fault you can’t keep those teeth to yourself.”

He punctuates it with a bruising kiss, which turns into a smile against his lips when Tom’s hips buck up involuntarily, and his ears burn.

God, he’s fucked.

“Okay, three,” he gasps, needing them back on even ground. “No sleepovers. And don’t you dare park your bike in my driveway.”

Maverick pouts. “Then how am I supposed to get here?”

“Walk, I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Maverick rolls his eyes, and then pitches his hips forward. “Four,” he says, as Tom squirms beneath him, “this doesn’t change anything at work.”

“Easy,” Tom agrees. “Five- condoms. Always.”

“Really?” Maverick whines. “For everything?”

Tom stiffens, sobered. “Don’t tell me you don’t read the news.”

“Right,” Mav averts his gaze, looking genuinely apologetic. “Right, sorry.”

He realizes, then, that it’s different for him and Maverick. He’s aware that Maverick has relationships with women. He’d watched his whole display with Charlie, back when they were students. Tom keeps up appearances. He flirts at bars, occasionally making a point of visibly escorting a girl out the door, into his car, just to drive her home with an empty promise to see her again when they’re both more sober, intentionally getting a digit wrong when giving her his phone number. It’s a routine he’s been practicing since his Academy days.

No wonder Maverick doesn’t think too hard about protection. Maverick doesn’t fuck men. At least, not exclusively. At least, not men other than Tom.

Now that’s a thought.

It must be showing on his face because Maverick leans down, kisses him probably a little too softly, but it’s comforting, so Tom can’t feel too off put.

He tries not to read into it too much.

“Okay, satisfied?” He asks, when they part to breathe. “Mission parameters up to snuff?”

“Ha-ha,” Maverick rolls his eyes, but his hand is trailing down to Tom’s fly. “Yup. Just time to establish the hard deck.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

[Present Day]

“Honey, I’m home!” Pete calls from the entryway.

Tom rolls his eyes, but smiles. He’d gotten in last night, hadn’t been home in nearly a month before that. It’s nice to be back.

He stirs the onion where it's browning in the saucepan one more time before dropping in the ground beef, which sizzles satisfyingly as it hits the hot oil. Pork tastes better, but beef is leaner and has higher iron, and they’re both on strict diets, if for different reasons.

It’s only just past five, but Pete must be starving and exhausted, and Tom selfishly wants dinner done and out of the way so they can spend their time together taking care of other, more exciting, appetites.

He hears Pete set his bag heavily in the doorway, before wandering over to plaster himself to Tom’s back, arms wrapping around his belly, kissing the side of his neck once, twice. Tom pushes back into the contact, relishes in the warm firm press of his chest. It’d taken him a while to warm up to easy intimacy like this, and now he finds he can’t live without it.

“Smells good, whatch’ya making?” Pete mumbles into the junction of his neck and shoulder, lips pressing into the collar of his shirt. 

“Pasta.” It’s the whole wheat kind that’s supposed to be better for you. Tastes alright with enough sauce.

“My favorite.”

Tom’s lips quirk. Pete likes pasta, sure. He also likes burgers, and stir fry, and steak, and salmon. He doesn’t particularly care for stew, but he’ll take it happily over a salad. “Everything’s your favorite.”

“Only when you make it,” Pete says, trailing his hands up Tom’s chest, fingers tugging at his tie.

Tom half-heartedly kicks his shin. “Go shower. It’ll be ready by the time you’re done.”

“Okay, okay,” Pete laughs and drops his hands, but kisses the back of his neck again, for good measure. 

By the time Tom has dinner on the table, Pete is back, looking a little goofy with his wet hair dripping down the back of his sleep shirt. Tom is still in uniform, save his coat. They make a shocking contrast, the two of them.

“So, lay it on me,” he says, as he swirls some spaghetti onto his fork. It’s their anniversary on Sunday, and Pete always goes all-out. Last year they hadn’t been able to celebrate on the actual day, thanks to a last-minute visit to Pearl by the CNO. Tom didn’t have much of a choice- he had to be there- but still, Pete had taken it personally. This year, Tom made a point of blocking out the leave far and well in advance, giving them the whole weekend together. It's a big one, after all.

“Okay,” Pete says, excitedly, “here’s what I’m thinking. It’s been a while, so I thought we could head up to the hangar, spend the afternoon working on the Mustang,” Tom pours him a little more wine (not strictly advisable, on their diet, but, well, it’s a special occasion!), “thank you- and we could buy some nice steaks or something from that butcher in Victorville on the way- I know, I know, it’s not on the way, but you know what I mean- and you could grill those while I, get this, set up the tent.”

Tom’s hand freezes, his fork inches from his mouth. He shuts it and licks his lips. “The tent?”

“I’m taking you camping, Ice,” Pete says, very seriously, as if he’d just offered Tom a private jet, or a new Rolex.

Which is weird, because, “I hate camping.”

“You’ve never been camping,” Pete grins, taking a sip of his wine. “You think you hate camping. There’s a difference.”

“I like the Airstream,” Tom argues. “That’s basically camping.”

“Basically camping and actually camping are not the same thing.” 

“I’m- I’m too old to sleep on the ground,” Tom protests.

“Don’t worry about that, I got some very cushy sleeping pads at the REI.”

“I- why?” He whines, actually getting a little annoyed. Of all the ways he imagined spending their thirtieth anniversary, sleeping on the hard ground outside their hangar was not on the list.

“So you wouldn’t bitch about your hip,” Pete explains.

“No, I get that,” he rolls his eyes. “I mean, why camping?”

Pete’s smile goes a little crooked. “Just trust me. I think you’ll like it.”

Tom wakes to his phone vibrating incessantly on the nightstand. He blinks blearily at his alarm clock, glares at the angry red block numbers reading 0435. Too early, even for him. He stretches his legs under the sheets, wincing when his knees ache in protest, moves to shift out of bed.

From somewhere behind him, Pete reaches out, fingers closing sleepily around his arm. Tom shakes out of his grasp, maybe a bit too aggressively, but in his annoyance, he can’t bring himself to care. He blindly searches the surface of his bedside table for his cell phone, which hasn’t stopped vibrating, and his reading glasses before stumbling to the bathroom. When he finally gets the door shut behind him, he slips on his glasses, blinking as he focuses on the screen. He sees he has a dozen new emails in his inbox, including one from his contact at the White House, and a couple missed calls from his chief aide.

Shit.

A rushed shower and efficient change of clothes later, he’s in his study, scrolling through the unread messages. By five, he’s setting up a secure line, something which he’d been given the technology to do sometime after getting his third star.

He looks at the encrypted email in his inbox, puts in the code for a video call.

“Admiral Kazansky, sorry for the early wake up call,” says the president’s Chief of Staff, a woman whom Tom has gotten to know quite well over the past year. She looks wary. “We have a situation.”

He’d assumed so. He tightens his jaw, prepares for the worst. 

“I’ll cut to the chase,” she continues, tone grave. “There was a strike, on one of your carriers, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, two weeks ago.”

“Why haven’t I heard about this?” The question is out before he can think better of it. He feels a prickle of anxiety. He was under the impression that he ran a strong command. In fact, he prided himself on ensuring he was personally in contact with each of the ships in his fleet. When he himself was a captain, he remembered feeling unsettled by the lack of attention the brass extended toward daily operations, which were of course, the backbone of the institution. Even then, for him to miss something like this would be a gross oversight, a massive failure. He’d be made to resign, at best.

“We locked down communications on the ship as soon as it happened,” she explains, still professional but a little sympathetic. “CIA has been mimicking normal communications through the chain of command to avoid suspicion.”

Tom keeps his expression neutral. He should settle, if only a little, at the knowledge that he didn’t know because the Commander in Chief ensured he wouldn’t, but his mind is still reeling. He’s been aware that their government possesses the ability to do something like this, had been briefed on it when he’d been promoted, but he’d never expected to see it in action. That’s because there’s only a handful of reasons they would take such measures, none of them good.

The Chief of Staff, as though reading his mind, says: “We have reason to suspect that it was friendly fire.” 

And well, that explains it.

Tom nods, takes a deep breath to steady himself.

“We got these from the Hawkeye,” she continues, as she opens a handful of aerial shots of the career and a schematic, shares them to his screen. The images show the Roosevelt, black smoke pooling out the side, obscuring the flight deck. The schematic shows an impact site, below the third level on the port-side, right around where the repair bay would be. 

“Submarine missile?” Tom guesses, based on the diagram. A surface to air wouldn’t make sense, given the fact that the Roosevelt should still be on its way back from the Pacific Rim exercises, and the angle looks like it extended in and upward, making it unlikely it came from an aircraft. 

“Yes, that’s what we think.”

“Origin?” Tom asks.

“None of our subs were in the range.”

That gives him pause. “Then why do you believe it was one of our own?”

She grimaces.

“Weapon fragments say the ordinance was American made, though, as you know, that doesn’t mean much. The impact was large enough to affect surrounding spaces.” She points to the schematic with her cursor, circles it around the lower officer’s quarters. “The affected area, including here, had been cleared. According to our experts, the evacuation order had been given before the missile would have even been launched.”

Tom’s eyebrows flit up. That’s definitely suspicious, but on its own it certainly isn’t enough to insinuate foul play, at least not by one of their own. It can’t be the only reason they have.

“There’s more,” Tom prompts.

“There is,” she agrees, ghost of a smile on her lips, “but you’ll just have to take my word for it, for now.” 

Tom nods in understanding. Some matters are too sensitive even for secure lines and encrypted emails.

Treason is one of those.

“You said the area had been cleared,” Tom says, steeling himself. “No casualties, then?”

“No fatalities, just some injuries,” she confirms, sympathetic. “Nothing life threatening, as far as we know.”

“Good,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief. 

“We need you here, at your earliest convenience,” she continues. “DoD will send transport your way.”

Tom thanks her, and then the line goes dead. He immediately sends the flight details along to his chief aide, a Lieutenant Seresin. So much for a weekend off.

He starts the agonizing but practiced process of arranging for his own last-minute departure. He should have internet on the flight, but he’s learned the hard way never to assume. His inbox is still receiving a steady influx of encrypted communication, but he ignores it for now in favor of immediate logistics- confirming the hotel, cancelling this week’s appointments- the kind of thing that he’ll forget to do later. He’s about to arrange a grocery order for Pete when there’s a soft knock at his door. A glance at his watch tells him Seresin will be here to pick him up in half an hour.

“All clear,” he calls, hitting send on the last email- the one to his oncologist, asking to reschedule their next scan for a later date- and shutting his laptop.

The door creaks open, and Tom turns in his chair to watch Pete, bleary-eyed and wild-haired, pad into the room.

He leans his hip against the desk, clearly taking inventory- making note of Tom’s uniform, his packed briefcase, not even a cup of coffee on his desk.

“Briefing at the White House,” he explains, hoping his tone is sufficiently apologetic.

“When do you head out?” Pete asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Wheels up at seven.”

Pete winces. “Bad?”

Tom shakes his head to the side.

“Right,” Pete drags a hand down his face. “Don’t tell me. It’s fine.”

Tom fights the prick of annoyance. He still doesn’t really understand why Pete gets so worked up about this. Ever since his promotion, he’s been twitchy about things like this- work matters- in a way he hardly got before.

“Don’t, Maverick. Please,” Tom sighs. Don’t pick a fight, is what he’d almost said. Instead, he decides to follow his own advice. Maybe it’s worth being the bigger person, sometimes. He reaches out, takes Pete’s hand, runs his thumb along the ridge of his knuckles. “You know I can’t. But what I can tell you, is that I really hope whatever it is gets sorted quickly, so that I can come back home soon.”

Pete glances at him, a little wary. “Jeez, Ice. Kinda sounds like you love me, or something.”

“I do love you,” he says, very seriously, pulling Maverick closer, holding his hip with his free hand. He shrugs, smiles up at him, “or something.”

He always keeps a bag packed, for situations like these, so all he has to do is throw a few things that he doesn’t have multiples of into his briefcase- his medications, his passport, all his credentials. Even though they never leave his person, he double checks he has both of his phones, work and personal, charged and easily accessible.

He’s straightening his tie in the mirror, making sure he doesn’t look as harried as he feels, when his work phone buzzes on the counter, a message from Seresin, saying he’s outside with a car.

He finds Pete in the kitchen, still looking a little worse-for-wear, making him a cup of coffee, pouring a little milk into a travel mug.

“Fly safe?” He says, pushing the cup into his hand, along with a protein bar.

Tom deposits them back onto the counter in favor of gently pulling Pete towards him. He wraps both arms around his shoulders, holds him close. Pete moves his arms to wrap around his waist, a little reluctantly at first, but then squeezing him back just as tightly. Tom drops a kiss into his hair, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo, pulling away only to duck his head to meet his eye. “I will. You too, okay?”

Pete smiles crookedly. “Always.”

The flight to D.C. is comfortable enough. He and Seresin spend the first few hours of the trip making sure all his usual day-to-day responsibilities are completed and ensuring those he won’t be able to attend to are appropriately delegated.

When they’re somewhere over Missouri, Seresin wanders to his seat, hands him a tablet with a document requiring his signature, and boldly suggests he takes the rest of the flight time to rest. Normally, Tom would protest, but he imagines they’ll be up all night with this.

He doesn’t quite sleep, but he shuts his eyes, distracts himself from the apprehension of what’s to come by thinking through how he’ll make it up to Pete, when he gets to come home.

A non-descript government SUV takes them to the White House. When they get there, he and Seresin are cleared by security and then ushered into a conference room by a staffer who looks young enough to order from the kid’s menu. The SECDEF and the SECNAV are already there, sitting at the far end of the table, their staff hovering at the back wall. The CNO isn’t here yet, which Tom finds a little suspicious. Regardless, he greets them both in turn, politely asks after their families, answers vaguely when they ask him about his. They all have more pressing matters to discuss.

The room quiets when the POTUS walks in, flanked by his Chief of Staff and the Vice President.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” the President says, shaking each of their hands.

They all sit, as the Chief of Staff hands them each a dossier.

“I trust you are all up to speed? Good. Here’s the situation,” she starts, deadly serious. “Intelligence came across a set of coded messages that were being transmitted from the Roosevelt to an unidentified submarine vessel. We haven’t been able to work out the details of the transmissions, but the timing suggests they have something to do with the strike.”

Tom looks at the file in front of him, flips through until he finds the comms log in question. Most of it is blacked out, but the time stamps are visible. Put side by side with the timing of the deck communications and strikes on the ship- the sudden and unexplained evacuation, the time of impact of the missile- it paints a striking picture.

“What’s going on there now?” Asks the SECNAV, a man who, despite his rather impressive resume, had a relatively meager Naval career, only serving two years before turning to politics. This doesn’t really bother Tom, but it gets him some heat from other Flag Officers.

“The situation is purely need-to-know,” the Chief of Staff explains. “As of now, communications between the Roosevelt and the outside world are completely restricted. We are intercepting all incoming and outgoing transmissions. The Commanding Officer, a Captain Simpson, is the one who tipped us off that something was amiss. We don’t think he’s involved, but as you can imagine, we’ll be waiting until we have all the information before we clear anyone.”

“Are we sending support?” The SECNAV asks.

“We can’t,” Tom shakes his head, addressing the President. “Not until we know who did it.”

The SECNAV frowns. “There are almost fifty injured service men-”

“I know, believe me,” Tom says seriously. “I’d love to send Seventh Fleet, but we don’t know what we’re dealing with, here. Who gave the order to evacuate?”

“Ah, the obvious suspect,” the POTUS grins wryly, “this is where things get weird.”

“According to the deck logs it was a Lieutenant Commander Rodgers, but there is no record of a man,” says the SECDEF. He glances at the Chief of Staff, adds: “or woman, of that name on the ship.” 

Tom’s frown deepens. “That doesn’t make sense,” he looks at the pile of evidence in front of him. “There are three reasons someone would order a strike on their own ship. The obvious one is that it’s a hit, designed to take out some personal enemy. But seeing as the warning call kept anyone from getting fatally injured, that’s not the case.”

“So, whoever did it didn’t want anyone to get hurt, just wanted to play hero,” says the President.  

“Sure- that’s the most logical explanation for an officer to coordinate a strike like this,” Tom nods, “But in that case they would want us to know their name.”

“So why the fake name?” The SECNAV asks.

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out,” Tom shrugs.

“What’s the third reason?” The President asks.

“Well,” Tom removes his glasses, wipes the lens on his shirt sleeve. The immediate aftermath of an attack like this is well-known: widespread panic and finger pointing. “If it’s not to hurt a specific target, or to play hero…”

He trails off, not wanting to be the person to speak it into the room.

“Terrorism.” The SECDEF concludes, grim.

He and Seresin don’t arrive at the hotel until just past two in the morning. After establishing tomorrow’s schedule, they go their separate ways. Once Tom makes it to his room, and the heavy door clicks shut behind him, he finally takes a deep breath.

He removes his suit jacket and loosens his tie before searching his bag for his personal cell phone.

“Hmm, hey,” Maverick’s voice comes through the line, rough from sleep.

“Hey yourself,” Tom puts the phone on speaker and starts on the cuffs of his shirt. He hangs his coat in the bathroom, hoping the steam from his shower will help with some of the wrinkling. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Don’t be, I’m glad you called,” he says, sounding marginally more awake. “It’s late for you- or, early, I guess. Long day?”

“The longest,” Tom sighs, shucking his trousers. “How was yours?”

“Good, fine. Decided to go up to China anyway, spent the day working on the Suzuki.”

“Oh yeah?” Free from his uniform, Tom wanders to the bathroom, starts the shower. “How’s she looking?”

“Pretty close to done, just gotta find a,” – a yawn – “a compatible secondary throttle valve.”

“No luck with your guy?” Tom steps into the shower, phone carefully balanced on the far ledge, outside of the spray.

“Not this time.”

A comfortable silence extends as Tom washes the day off himself. If he thinks about it too hard, it makes him a little uneasy, how codependent he and Pete have gotten. But then again, he couldn’t see it any other way.

He shuts off the water, dries himself off. He fetches his toothbrush from his toiletry kit.

“How’s tomorrow looking?”

Tom spits toothpaste into the sink. “Not great. Back-to-back meetings, 0700 start,” Tom sighs, fills a glass of water. “I don’t think I’ll be back until next weekend, if then. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, that’s not what I meant,” he can hear Pete’s exasperated smile. “I just hope you remember to take care of yourself.”

As if on cue, his stomach growls- a horrible sound. He’d forgotten dinner.

“See what I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tom grumbles, searching through his bag for a protein bar, or something.

Pete, with his inhumanly attuned senses, chimes in: “I bet that fancy hotel they put you up in has room service, even at, what, three in the morning?”

Tom glances at the paper menu on the desk. He’s right, they have a limited list of entrees available around the clock. It’s overpriced, something Tom would never consider, usually, but he has to admit that it sounds better than whatever he could scrounge from his luggage.

“Ah, fuck it,” he sets his cell down and dials four on the hotel phone. “Hi, yes, sorry- could I get, uh, a burger?” – “Yes, everything on it,” – “Fries would be great.” – “Room 1412. Could you just leave it at the door?” – “Wonderful, thank you.”

“Look at you, Kazansky. Fries? Really letting loose.”

He practically collapses on the bed, legs splayed, stretching on top of the crisp sheets.

“What can I say, I’m feeling wild.”

“How wild?” Maverick purrs.

“Not that wild,” Tom says dryly, but still, he smiles. “Anyways, I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

“Ah, don’t worry about me. I’m not the one who’s gotta be up at the ass-crack of dawn again.”

“Ugh, shit, don’t remind me,” Tom groans, pushing the heel of his hand into his eye. He’ll only get two hours of sleep- three, if he’s lucky.

They exchange easy stories about their respective days. Pete tells him about the new fender he installed on the bike, how the chrome of it is so shiny it nearly blinds him when the sun hits it. Tom half-makes up some story about one of the White House staffers spilling coffee on the SECNAV- it was water, really, but coffee raises the sakes, a little.

“Oh, uh, actually, there was something I wanted to ask you,” Pete starts, after the conversation drifts back towards upcoming plans: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years. Who invited who where; how can they manage a few days together somewhere in between.

“Shoot.”

“Have you heard from Bradley, lately?”

“Uh, no, not since he left,” Tom frowns, a little embarrassed. But it’s not unusual, with what they all do. Bradley left for his most recent sea tour a few months back.

“Huh. Okay, me neither. It’s weird- I tried sending him a letter, but it got bounced.”

Tom’s blood runs cold.

“Mav- Pete, remind me, who is he flying with?”

“He’s back at VFA-25. I think his CO’s name is, I dunno, Logan? Loman? Something like that.”

VFA-25, the Fist of the Fleet, Ice’s old crew. They’d also been added to Simpson’s command following noise about potential need for a strong strike team near the Bering Sea, after they finished the summer’s training exercise. “The Roosevelt.” 

“Uh, yeah. What- is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Tom forces himself to keep his voice controlled, measured. He feels a prickle of guilt over how good he is at this, the compartmentalization of it all. It is what earned him his callsign after all, nearly forty years back. “Fine. I’ll see if I can’t get someone to check in on him for you.”

“Thanks, Ice.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“That’s my food,” Tom stands on shaky legs, bringing the phone close to his ear. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Sure, yeah,” Pete agrees easily, albeit a tinge confused. “Talk to you tomorrow. Love you. Oh and- try to get some sleep, okay?”

“I will. Love you, too.”

He hangs up, puts his face in his hands.

He’s fucked.

After hanging up the phone with Pete and bringing in his dinner, which will end up forgotten, anyway, Tom scrambles for his briefcase. With trembling hands, he pulls out the dossier, leafing through for the page with details about the state of the crew. According to the record, forty-one sailors sustained injuries, none of which were considered critical. He breathes a sigh of relief.

Still, the danger is not gone.

It’s all he can think about as he sits across from a few agents from the CIA, one impossibly young, nervously pushing paper after paper in his direction, the other much more confident, interrupting the younger one’s mutterings occasionally to clarify terminology or emphasize an important point.

“Here’s the sum of it- we know they were communicating, but we don’t know who, or with what,” the older agent- Park, he thinks- explains. “We have some scattered information, and I was wondering if you could make sense of any of it.”

“I’m happy to take a look, though I can’t say I’ll be of much help,” Tom fishes his readers out of his breast pocket, accepting the file being held out to him. “I don’t have much experience in the way of intelligence.”

“Well, I do, and I can’t make sense of it,” Park shrugs.

“So I’m fresh eyes,” he says, amused.

“You’re fresh eyes,” she nods, lip quirking up a little.

Tom scans the page. It’s a dozen or so rows of number sequences. At first glance, they mean nothing to him, but still, the way the digits are arranged is familiar.

“Seresin,” Tom summons. He steps up from where he’d been hovering by the door. “What do these remind you of?”

“Uh,” Seresin accepts the file. He’s a good kid, whip smart. Outwardly, he can be brash- a side of which Tom doesn’t see much himself- but truthfully, he lacks somewhat in confidence. Tom is committed to changing that. “Kinda looks like… lat/long? And speed?”

“Coordinates,” Tom agrees. “And trajectory, if you translate the last figure into nautical miles.”

“The difference between the coords becomes smaller row to row,” Seresin points out, dragging his finger down the page. “If each odd row is Vessel A and each even row is Vessel B, then the difference gives you their relative positions.”

“How far the Roosevelt was from the sub,” Park surmises.

“Possibly,” Seresin nods.

“Does this help?” Tom asks, directing his attention to the agent.

“Maybe,” she shrugs. At Tom’s affronted expression, she laughs, a little. “Welcome to intelligence, Admiral.”

Yeah, he supposes it makes sense. Usually when information about targets passes by his desk it's been confirmed, to an extent.

“Could you draw us up a key? Dummy proof it, if you can,” she continues, nodding appreciatively at Seresin as she hands him a piece of stationary. “Then I’ll take this to my colleagues, who’ll see if it helps fill in some gaps.”

Seresin looks at Tom, who nods.

The door opens behind them.

The Chief of Staff pops her head in.

“Kazansky, a word?” She asks.

“Excuse me,” Tom stands, shaking each of the agents’ hands, before turning to her.

“Call coming through for you, it’s urgent.”

Tom frowns. If a call was coming for him, why wasn’t it going through Seresin, or directly to him?

He follows her to an empty conference room, where a video call on a secure line is set up on the far wall.

She nods at him, shutting the door as she leaves.

Tom clicks accept.

The screen fills with the familiar backdrop of a carrier command room. In the center of the frame, Captain Simpson stands at attention.

“At ease, Captain,” Tom says.

“Admiral Kazansky, sir,” Simpson nods, grim. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. Forgive me, but things being as they are, I need to speak with someone I know I can trust.”

Cyclone was one of Tom’s last Top Gun winners during his tenure as head instructor, nearly two decades ago, now. He knows Simpson holds him in high regard, but still, the words hit Tom hard. He wonders what he means. The implications are clear: not all can be trusted.

“I understand, Captain,” Tom settles into the empty chair at the head of the long oak table. “What can I do for you?”

“Sir, I know this sounds hard to believe, but I have reason to suspect that the mole, whoever it is, is not one of the men on my crew.”

Tom feels a surge of sympathy. He remembers being a Captain, the first real command he’d held. The feeling that every subordinate was his responsibility and his alone.

After terrorism was put on the table as a possible motive, the Department of Homeland Security started a parallel investigation with the NSA. He knew Captain Simpson was at the top of their list.

“Cyclone, if you’re worried about prosecution, you’ve been very forthcoming.”

“Respectfully, sir, that’s not what I’m worried about,” Cyclone interrupts, expression pinched. “I’ve been going through the deck logs, and noticed something odd.”

He reaches for a paper, one that Tom knows he has a copy of, somewhere, and holds it up to the screen. His finger is under a line of values.

“You see this? This is the transcript from the communications room. This line here? This represents the order to evacuate.”

The screen is fuzzy. Tom can't really make out what it says. “Okay?”

“It’s- it’s missing! Don’t you see? The rest of the transcripts are precise- words, abbreviations, values. The order to evacuate is missing. It’s just- static.”

Tom frowns.

“Cyclone, excuse me for a moment, will you?” 

He mutes and deafens the video call, minimizes the screen. He swiftly makes his way back to the room he’d been in with the agents and Seresin. Seresin is still decoding the submarine coordinates.

“Seresin?”

Seresin stands, meets him in the doorway.

Tom shields his face, says lowly, “I need the dossier with the incident details. The deck logs, specifically. And don’t give them the coords just yet. Stall, if you need to.”

Seresin gives him a quizzical look, but to his credit, doesn’t say anything, just goes to retrieve the file.

Tom nods at the analysts, who are looking at him with an air of suspicion. He knows better than to assume he can hide from them, but he hopes they don’t sense his unease.

“Thank you,” he says, accepting the file.

He strides back to the conference room, ensuring the door is locked behind him as he resumes the call.

“Alright, I’m back,” Tom glances up to where Cyclone is nervously pacing on the screen. Tom fishes the deck log from his own file, scans it. “Fucking shit.”

“What,” Cyclone demands.

Tom holds his copy up to the camera, finger under the line in question.

“Evacuate third deck portside,” Simpson reads. “Oh, Jesus. You see? That’s what I thought. This- this is…”

“Cyclone, listen to me,” Tom lowers his voice slightly. It’s unnecessary, seeing as the room is soundproofed. And if it is bugged, it’s too late to matter. “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to make a list of everything you’ve told the SECDEF, the POTUS, the VPOTUS- anyone else you’ve been in contact with here. From now on, that’s all you tell them. Repeat the same lines. You can include status updates on injured personnel- clearly the intention wasn’t to hurt anyone. Everything else- any other new intel- goes through me and me only.”

“How am I supposed to contact you?” Cyclone asks, a little helpless.

Tom doesn’t envy him.

“Let me worry about that. You’re under my command, it makes sense I’ll want regular contact.”

Cyclone nods, still uneasy but somewhat appeased. “Thank you, sir.”

There's a knock at the door.

It's the Chief of Staff.

She cracks it open. “Kazansky? We’re all meeting in conference room A, if you could join us?”

“Yes, of course,” Tom nods, “one moment.”

She shuts the door, Tom directs his attention back to Cyclone.

“Cyclone- one last question,” Tom lets himself shut his eyes, just for a moment. “A Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw is riding with you. Is he- is he alright?”

When they get to the hotel, Tom touches Seresin’ elbow, a silent ‘follow me’. He goes to the front desk, smiles placidly at the distracted young woman at the desk who straightens up and sets her cell phone down harshly at the sight of them in uniform. 

“Hello, Miss,” he glances at her name tag, “Chelsea. Could you direct me to your business center?”

“Of course, right this way,” she steps out from behind the desk and leads them to the elevator, which they take to the second-floor mezzanine. She scans a key card to the door of an empty conference room with glass walls and a large wooden table. “It automatically locks after eight,” she explains, handing him a slip with the internet information and instructions on how to use the projector. “If you need to step out, I recommend leaving something to prop the door open.”

“Thank you, Chelsea.”

She leaves, and he turns to Seresin.

“Give me your phone,” he asks, reaching out an expectant hand. Seresin quirks an eyebrow, but hands him his cell. And then, for good measure: “Your bag, too.”

Tom puts his bag, along with his own, and their cell phones, on the ground just outside the conference room. He shuts the door.

“We’ve got a problem,” he tells Seresin, who is trying and failing not to look exhausted. “I spoke to Captain Simpson. I’ve got reason to believe that someone is feeding us false information.”

Seresin blinks, absorbs the information.

“Us as in you and me or us as in the White House?”

“That, I don’t know yet,” Tom admits, pacing as he thinks it through. The Chief of Staff is the one who gave them the files, but she didn’t necessarily doctor them. It could be CIA, could be someone on the Roosevelt (admittedly, less likely, given Simpson’s tight hold on the communications channels). “All I know is that Simpson’s deck logs look different than our deck logs.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Seresin rub his eyes, tiredly.

“Until we know more, there’s nothing we can do,” Tom continues, stopping his pacing. “Which means, for now, we have to be very careful with our intel. Paper copies only, nothing gets sent over government or personal channels.”

“Sir, if I may, that’s going to be very difficult.”

“I know,” Tom sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “God. Okay. Anything they send us, obviously, is fine. Because they already touched it.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“White House, FBI, CIA, NSA. Whatever other alphabet soup agencies get involved in this.” Tom thinks. “For now, I only know for sure that Simpson isn’t involved. Tomorrow we can go through potential others- Bates, Cain maybe- see what they know.”

Seresin writes this all down, in a carefully composed shorthand that would mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. It’s one of the habits he’s adopted from Tom, who’d picked it up after he caught Pete snooping in his office one too many times.

“And Jake?”

“Sir?” Seresin looks up, alert.

“If at any point, you get a bad feeling, I trust you’ll let me know?”

“Um, of course, sir.” He’s frowning, like he doesn’t understand. 

“Sometimes, in situations like this, loyalties become split,” Tom explains. “I don’t expect you to choose me, if it comes down to it. But I hope that I have proven to you my commitment to my country, above all.”

Seresin’s eyes widen, as though the seriousness of this is occurring to him for the first time. “Of course, sir.”

“Good.”

“Hello, handsome,” Tom says, picking up the phone. His take-out sits abandoned on the desk of his room, getting cold. “Happy Anniversary.”

“Hey, that’s my line,” Pete jokes. He’s smiling, crows feet crinkling and eyes sparkling. In general, Tom doesn’t love video calls, but he certainly doesn’t mind the view. “Happy Anniversary to you, too. Thirty years. Can you believe it?”

“Not for a second,” he murmurs. He’d expected Pete to still be up at the hangar, and from the looks of it, he’s lying on their couch at home. “How are you?”

“Ah, feeling a little under the weather, actually,” he admits, running his free hand through his hair. “Think maybe I caught a cold testing out that tent last night.”

Tom frowns. For Pete to admit to feeling ill, it would take more than a sniffle. It does explain why he’s in San Diego, though.

“Have you been staying hydrated? And make sure you eat something- I know Lockheed has you on that crazy diet but-”

“I’m eating, I’m drinking- and not the fun kind,” Pete cracks a smile. “Don’t worry about me. How are you?”

Tom hates FaceTime.

Still, he manages to keep his expression controlled as he answers. “Good, fine. Well- at least as good as it can be.”

He’d considered, on the way up, whether he should loop Pete in. He doesn’t have the authority to officially read him in, nor can he think of an excuse to suggest such a thing to the White House (not that he particularly wants to, anyway).

Though their relationship effectively spanned the whole duration of their careers, it’s still very much something they keep under wraps, for both of their sakes. It’s been a good five years since the DADT repeal was officially adopted as policy, but it doesn’t mean that him being in a relationship with a man wouldn’t hurt Tom’s political career. As for Maverick’s, well- Tom suspects that public knowledge of their relationship would make those favors he constantly cashes in on to keep him in the air look less like him having his wingman’s back and more like a scandal.

He trusts Pete. He knows that if he did tell him, under the table, that he would keep the knowledge to himself. But then he thinks of Bradley, lying unconscious in the Roosevelt’s sick bay, and thinks better of it.

“It’s really bad, huh,” Pete frowns. Tom opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Pete raises a placating hand, says: “You don’t have to tell me- I just- promise me something?”

“Hmm.” It was naïve of him to believe that Pete couldn’t see through his stoicism. Fortunately, it seems like he is still impervious to the magnitude of it all.

“Whatever it is, don’t let it stress you out too much, okay?”

Even though he’s been in remission for over a year now, Pete’s been extremely protective, since he first got sick. Although Tom was adamant that it didn’t make a difference, Pete held that if Tom worked less he’d maybe have noticed the symptoms a bit sooner.

But this wasn’t that. Their kid was hurt, and he couldn’t even tell Pete about it.

“I promise,” he says, though he’s not sure he can.

“Good,” Pete nods.

“Talk to me,” Tom says, as they walk shoulder to shoulder through the lobby to the entrance of the hotel, where the White House will have sent them a car.

“I set up a series of calls with some of our guys- Bates, Cain, Johnson, Nevin,” Seresin hands him a piece of paper. “I thought it through. I figure, if you ask these questions, their answers will tell us a lot without showing our hand.”

Tom looks at the list. It’s a clever strategy: questions that he’d probably ask anyway, mundane things about ordinance counts, personnel status. But if they stutter or sweat, he’ll notice.

“This is great, really great, thank you,” he nods emphatically, carefully folding the list and tucking it into his inside jacket pocket. Hell, maybe after this, there’s a career for Seresin in intelligence.

“Uh, Admiral Kazansky?” Seresin’s gaze falls over his shoulder, and Tom turns, follows it to where a grim looking man is hovering by a vehicle pulled to the curb. He lifts his hand into a funny little wave.

Tom squints, then his eyes widen when he recognizes who it is.

“Wolf?” He asks, walking over, not bothering to mask his surprise. Wolfman’s not in uniform, but he still straightens up and goes to salute him. Tom shakes his head, offers a hand to shake instead. “How are you? It’s been a while.”

They stayed in contact, the lot of them, but only really saw each other every few years. 

“Hey, Iceman,” Leo takes his hand, shakes it firmly. “Have a minute?”

He signals for Seresin to go ahead, and then joins Leo in the backseat of his sedan. He feels a bit like the lead in one of those spy movies Pete likes so much.

“What are you doing in D.C.?” Last he’d heard, Leo was working as an instructor down in Pensacola. It didn’t make sense for him to be away, not with it being the start of the new rotation.

“Had a meeting at the Academy, heard you were in town,” Leo says, a little meek. Tom raises his brow. “Slider gave me your location, hope that’s alright.”

Tom would have to speak to Ron about tracking his cell later.

“Annapolis’ is still a good hour’s drive,” Tom says, suddenly concerned. “What’s going on, man? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Oh, God no, yeah, I’m fine,” Leo waves a hand dismissively. “Look, I don’t mean to worry you, but I got a really weird email, and I thought maybe you should see it.”

He accepts the proffered cell phone, reads the email carefully. It’s encrypted, and has a lock on it, indicating it cannot be forwarded, copied, or printed.

“I don’t understand,” he frowns, scrolling through. The language is vague: something about an NCIS investigation, but it’s not clear against whom. Very bizarre, indeed. “What’s this about?”

“Doesn’t say,” Leo shrugs. “But this here is what has me worried.” He taps the screen, clicking on an attachment which opens a document: a long-winded paragraph asking the reader to be prepared to answer questions about the following people, and then a list of about two dozen names. Junior, senior, and flag officers alike, all of which Tom knows personally, many to whom he owes his career. Tom’s name is absent, but the one at the top makes his heart sink in chest. Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

The dots come together, suddenly. The list of names- all of them are men and women under Tom’s command, but more than that, they’re people he considers friends, allies: Simpson, Bates, Nevin, Seresin, Bradshaw. Mitchell. 

The investigation is against me, he realizes, horrified.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, okay,” Tom breathes. It occurs to him, suddenly, that Wolfman is risking a lot, showing this to Tom. He catches his eye. “Thank you, Leo. You’re a good friend.”

“What should I say?” Wolf asks, chewing on his lip nervously. 

Tom’s hand stills on the door handle. “Excuse me?”

“When they ask me about Maverick,” Leo’s speaking lowly, as though Tom is a spooked horse. It’s unnerving. “What do you want me to tell them?”

“The truth, Leo,” Tom says, warily, glancing out the window to where his car is still waiting.

Leo levels him with a look that’s equal parts pitiful and unimpressed.

There are only three people in the world who he knows know about him and Pete, and Wolfman is not one of them. He is struck, suddenly, by his own naïveté. He wonders how many other people know, or at least strongly suspect, about the true nature of their relationship.

“Tell them the truth,” Tom says, more firmly this time. “Captain Mitchell is a good friend of mine, and I greatly respect him.”

He gets out of the car without another word, ignoring Leo’s half-hearted plea to just wait a second, fighting against the impulse to loosen his tie.

He strides across the pavement, hastily joins Seresin in the back seat of the SUV.

“Everything alright, sir?” Seresin asks, brow furrowed.

“I hope so, Seresin,” he sighs, fumbling for his phone. “I sure hope so.”

When it rains it storms, he supposes.