Chapter Text
It had been a joke at first. The day he’d been promoted over Maverick to Lieutenant Commander.
“Just don’t get into trouble, Lieutenant,” Ice said with a grin, as they were having a celebratory drink at the O Club later that night, after his pinning ceremony.
Mav laughed, but it was a hollow sound, and Ice frowned when Mav looked away. He clinked their glasses together, bringing Mav’s eyes back to his own. “Just a joke, Mav. Don’t worry about it.”
“‘Course. I can take anything you can dish out anyway, Kazansky,” Mav answered, jutting out his chin with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Ice let the whole thing go. He was hardly the ranking officer at TOPGUN, chances were that punishment duty would fall on anyone else when Mitchell did eventually fuck up. That, after all, was as certain as the sun rising in the east.
He shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, after he’d literally jinxed himself, when Mav let himself into their shared office after hours, not two weeks later, bearing one of those hated yellow forms in his hands. Ice stayed late every Tuesday to do his paperwork. Everyone else had already left, and he'd assumed Mav had too. Mav would sooner arrive an hour early to do paperwork than stay a minute late. Which meant he must have been just lurking behind somewhere, waiting for the opportunity.
Maverick actually stopped three paces from Ice's desk and saluted, as was appropriate for the occasion despite their being off-duty and indoors. Ice sighed as he beckoned him forward. Mav laid the single sheet on his desk in front of him and stepped back, snapping smartly back to attention. Ice ignored him and skimmed the paper.
Form 7362-O: Request for Punishment of Omegan Officer.
Reason: Disobeying superior officer during performance of duties in a training operation.
Signed by Air Boss Johnson. The punishment duty officer portion was confusing though. It looked like it had originally said Commander Mike Metcalf. But that was crossed out and Ice’s name was written in. Viper had signed it underneath, authorizing the change.
Maverick hadn’t said anything. He was standing on the other side of the desk, staring up into the air over Ice’s head, shoulders held stiffly back, with the flat, expressionless face of all junior officers about to get chewed out. Ice took a deep breath in through his nose, but it was impossible to get an accurate reading with the scent blocking patch on Mav’s neck.
Would it be worth asking what the Omega had done? Probably not, Ice decided. “Why the change in duty officer?” he asked instead.
Mav finally looked at him, before glancing down while he answered. “Viper knew my father. They were friends. He’s never felt it was… appropriate to punish me himself.”
Wait. Ice knew for a fact that Maverick had been served no less than three yellow slips during his time as a student at TOPGUN. It had been a bit of a joke, at the time, that Mav was doing it on purpose. “He always reassigns you?”
“No, he-” Maverick bit his lip, hesitating. Ice waited. “He would just give me a lecture, sign the form, and let me go.”
Ice stared at him. That was unheard of. And completely inappropriate. A lecture? For an Omegan officer charged with disobedience of a direct command? No wonder Mav seemed so lost at times. A sheep wandering the outskirts of the herd, tethered to the group only tenuously, at first by his friendship with Goose, and after that, possibly only by his burgeoning connection with Ice himself. “So what happened this time?” Ice asked, morbidly curious. “Why not another lecture?”
Mav's face changed, his lips pulling back into a brief grimace, before he smoothed over his expression again. "He was pretty unhappy. Said maybe the Navy was right after all, that I needed a stronger hand. He was-" Here Mav bit his lip and seemed to deflate a bit. "He was disappointed, I think. He didn't put it like that, but I know I let him down. Sir."
So Mav had gotten lectured and shamed by Viper, a man Ice knew that Mav deeply revered, nearly as a father-figure, but not the required correction. Damn him, pushing Mav off like that, and not for the first time apparently. Ice would say cowardly, except he knew the Commander was no coward. The man must have his reasons. He shook his head and blew out a deep breath. Okay, this wasn’t his first rodeo. Since he’d taken an instructor position at TOPGUN, he could finally count on more than one hand the amount of times he’d been the assigned punishment duty officer. Usually for an Omegan student in his chain of command. This was his wingman though, his brain screamed at him. A man who up until two weeks ago had been his equal. And now the task of punishment fell on him. The very literal version of putting an Omega into his proper place. He was thankful, now, that Maverick had chosen the evening to approach him, even if it meant he’d be leaving rather later than he intended. He could do this. He could help Mav in this way. He stood.
“Omega, you have been charged with disobedience to an officer superior in both rank and designation. According to the Naval Officer’s Code of Conduct Section 16, Paragraph 5, it is both the right and duty of said officer to administer punishment or delegate the task to a suitable replacement.”
Mav was staring right at him now, wide eyed. Right, it had probably been a while since he’d heard this, if Viper really was just letting him walk. And it was probably doubly strange hearing it from Ice, after the tentative friendship they’d struck up over the last few months. The words were really a formality anyway. Every Omega in the Navy knew them by heart, he was sure.
“The punishment for disobedience is mounting and knotting. The purpose of this punishment is twofold, both for correction and cohesion. You will submit physically and mentally to your superior, and relearn your role in the pack. You will find where you belong, and in doing so, find that you do belong."
Ice stopped. Maverick had lost his stiff composure, his face was raw and open, and Ice could see a slight tremble in his jaw. He could recite the rest of the section, but wasn’t required to. Trying to keep his own voice steady, he ordered, “Take off your clothes and come to me, please, when you’re ready.”
Maverick straightened himself up again, visibly willing himself to stillness. “No, sir,” he answered.
“No…?” Ice ventured, taken aback. The punishment wasn’t a choice, the alternative was-
“Code of Conduct Section 16, Paragraph 7,” Maverick recited. “An alternative punishment may be requested by an Omega, and applied at the discretion of his Alpha superior." Mav stepped forward, breaking his attention to actually hold his hands out towards Ice. "I’m requesting, Ice, please.”
Ice put his hands on the edge of his desk, looked down, away from Mav’s pleading eyes. It was hard to think reasonably about this, when it was his friend asking. Asking for something so absurd.
“You want me to… strike you,” he said, quietly, to his desk. The thought was unconscionable. Hit an Omega? Outside of actual combat? He’d never even thought of it. No Omega ever asked for the alternative. Lashings were for Alphas. Knotting was natural and proper. It was an act not just of dominance and correction, but love, to bring an Omega back into the sheltering safety of their pack. To teach them to trust, so that they could obey, when it counted. For all its codes and formalities, the Navy really was just one giant pack. But Maverick was asking. Rejecting his knot. Rejecting his leadership, his guidance, his place. He’d never left an Omega wanting on his knot. Never had a complaint against him. The act itself was healing. It’s not like it hurt. Why would Maverick prefer to be hurt?
Ice glanced over at the leather strap, hanging on the wall behind him. New, barely broken in. No more than 50, not less than 10, he recalled. He’d been on the receiving end of the strap twice in his career. He knew what it felt like. He couldn't fathom deliberately aiming to cause that pain to any Omega, let alone Maverick. Absolutely not.
He looked back up at Mav. The Omega opened his mouth, like he was going to say something. Maybe beg again. But then he closed it, eyes shuttering, looking for all the world like a prisoner being led to the block. Okay, for Maverick, for his friend, if that's what he truly wanted, he would do it.
“Pants down then. Bend over the desk,” he said quietly, unable to meet Mav’s eyes.
Maverick did it immediately without question, gratitude rolling off of him in a pleasing way. Okay, maybe this was the right decision. Ice moved a few of his stacks of papers to accommodate, and reaching over, guided Mav’s hands across the desk to grip the edge on his side. He let his hands stay on Mav's a second longer than necessary before walking around behind him. The Omega had left his underwear up, but Ice wasn’t going to complain. The last thing he wanted to see was marks on Mav’s skin, marks of which he would be the cause.
Mav actually seemed more relaxed now than he had a minute ago, before Ice had made his decision. His relief was palpable. He'd rested his head down on the desk, but lifted it up again when Ice ordered, “Count, Lieutenant,” and looked up at the strap that Ice had failed to retrieve.
“Aren’t you going to-”
Ice shut him up by letting the first strike fall, trying to gauge an appropriate strength, the flat of his bare hand making a muffled smack on Maverick’s cloth covered bottom. Mav drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t cry out. Good. He didn’t know if he could continue if the Omega actually showed any overt signs of pain.
“One,” Mav supplied clearly. Ice could practically hear the eyeroll. Okay, so he didn’t need to baby him. He increased his force on the second blow, getting a grunt out of the Lieutenant.
“Two,” Mav let out, on a strained breath. That seemed the right strength, so Ice continued in that manner, alternating cheeks until Mav ground out “Ten,” through clenched teeth. His knuckles were whitening where they clutched the edge of the desk. His face was tight, but he wasn’t crying or anything, thank God.
He put his hand on Mav’s shoulder. “You may stand now, Lieutenant.”
Mav looked back at Ice. “That’s it?” he asked, surprised. Ice nearly rolled his eyes. Of course Mav would have to question his punishment, after Ice had done exactly what he'd asked.
“That’s it," Ice confirmed. "Pull your pants up. Do you want to sit down?” The look on Mav’s face answered the question and Ice felt his cheeks flushing. Of course Maverick didn’t want to sit down after that. Ice was used to spending quite a bit of time settling Omegas down after a punishment knotting, sometimes keeping them for up to an hour afterwards. He had a whole routine for it. But Maverick looked composed. Unaffected, his brain supplied. What was the point of a punishment, Ice found himself wondering, a little bitterly, if it left no impression?
Ice found the yellow form and a pen that had got shoved aside on the desk, pulled it in front of him, and wrote ‘alternate punishment applied - 10 strikes,’ in the notes section, signed the bottom, and handed it to Maverick. “You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Mav did an abrupt about face and turned to go, but Ice called after him, “Mav,” and the Omega turned back, a little half smile on his face for Ice, one that Ice gladly returned. “Stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” Mav replied with a wink.
Ice sat back down heavily in his chair and let out a weary breath. Nothing had been achieved there, he knew full well. Somehow he'd been played. But at least he'd managed, he thought, to preserve the friendship between them. Maybe he'd have a talk with Viper about assigning any future punishments of Mav's to someone else, someone who wasn't too close to make an objective decision.