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Ice isn’t supposed to be here. Hadn’t told him he was coming. Shouldn’t be standing there in the squadron’s hangar, larger than life after six months of appearing only as a voice over the phone from far away Monterey. That’s Maverick’s first thought, stupid, and sharp, almost childish, and futile in the extreme, because of course, Ice is allowed to be wherever the Navy sends him. He’s allowed to walk into the hangar in perfectly pressed uniform, half the command staff trailing after him as if it’s old times. He’s allowed to look rested and polished and unfairly untouched by the last six months, like the time away has smoothed him clean around the edges while deployment has left Maverick feeling as though he’s worn down to exposed wire.
But, as Ice steps closer towards him, coming better into view, for one second, none of that matters because Ice is here, in the room, not miles away out of reach as he has been for over half a year. For a moment, the relief hits so hard that Maverick almost laughs from it. Something in his chest loosens all at once, sudden and dizzying. He’d thought about this moment too many times somewhere over the Pacific at two in the morning, exhausted and aching and furious at the entire world. Imagined Ice meeting the carrier when they got back. Imagined finally getting him alone somewhere quiet.
He’d imagined finally feeling like he could breathe. Instead, Ice is halfway across the hangar beside Commander Harris, listening to the CO talk with the focused expression he wears in briefings.
Maverick slows. The feeling doesn’t vanish exactly. It just twists strangely inside him, leaves him with a sense that this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
Ice glances up then, the look in his eyes telling Maverick that he’s finally spotted him across the crowded hangar floor, and the sheer familiarity of him lands like a physical blow. The pale light from the open hangar door catches the edge of his shoulders, the rigid posture that somehow still means safety to Maverick after all these years.
Maverick’s stomach flips hard enough to hurt. For a moment, he thinks Ice might cross the floor toward him.
Instead, Harris says something at Ice’s shoulder, gesturing toward a couple of the older aircraft parked along the far side of the hangar, and Ice turns slightly to listen.
And all at once, Maverick becomes horribly aware of the last six months. Not in flashes exactly. More like a slow, sickening collapse inward.
The arguments in their ready room at department heads' meetings. The simmering tension that had settled over parts of the deployment as they, he, adjusted to the new chain of command. The lecture from the air wing commander after Maverick pushed too hard during that storm approach and scared the hell out of half the wing, even if he had brought the aircraft down safely in the end. The way some of the younger pilots had started watching him carefully afterward, uncertain which version of him they were going to get from one day to the next.
Ice knows pieces of it already. Not all of it. Not the whole shape of it. But enough. There had been snatched phone calls over bad connections at odd hours, the rare moments they managed to line up schedules long enough to talk before one of them got dragged away again. Maverick had known then that Ice was hearing things secondhand. Knew the squadron grapevine and official channels alike were probably carrying stories back faster than Maverick could explain them. But it had still felt distant then, manageable. Like something he could sort out once they were in the same room again.
Because in Maverick’s head, there had always been time before this part.
Time to get Ice alone first. Time to explain the deployment in his own words instead of through after-action reports and irritated senior officers. Time to tell him which calls had looked worse than they were and which ones really had gone bad, that had really been his fault and not just a clusterfuck of things happening faster than he could react to. Time to make Ice understand that some days the carrier had felt like it was holding itself together with duct tape and caffeine and sheer bloody-mindedness, and maybe Maverick had been doing the same thing.
But now Ice is standing beside the command staff, already folded neatly into their conversations, and Maverick has the awful feeling that the story has started without him.
One of the department heads waves him over from across the room, and Mav’s feet start moving towards them before he really has time to process what he’s doing. All too soon, he’s walking up to the knot of senior officers who break their tight circle to accommodate him.
Ice looks up fully when Maverick gets close enough, and the expression that flickers briefly across his face — relief, maybe, or something close to it — hits Maverick hard enough that for one dangerous second he almost forgets everything else.
Then Commander Ellis glances between them and grins. “Look what the cat dragged in Mav!”
The words are warm, teasing, clearly expecting Maverick to be pleased, and he is. God, he is. Which is probably exactly why the first thing out of his mouth is a quip that doesn’t quite land.
“They throw you out for terrorizing the other graduate students, Kazansky?”
A couple of the officers laugh softly.
Ice’s mouth curves immediately, automatic and familiar. “Something like that.”
But the smile doesn’t quite look right. Too tight around the edges to be entirely genuine, as if Maverick’s tone has confirmed something Ice had already been quietly suspecting since he walked into the hangar.
Before Maverick can decide whether he’s imagining that or not, Harris cuts back in easily.
“No, actually,” he says, glancing between the two of them, “Kazansky volunteered to come sit in on some of the deployment review while he was in town. Figured we might as well put all that education to use.”
There’s another round of mild amusement from the group.
“Thought maybe he could explain to the rest of us how to manage aviators without strangling them,” Harris tacks on dryly.
The comment is light, barely targeted at him. Unfortunately, Maverick suspects exactly who they spent most of the deployment trying not to strangle, and heat rises immediately into his face before he can stop it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Ice glance at him again, quick and assessing.
“Sounds productive,” Maverick says, aiming for casual. It comes out flatter than he means it to.
Harris either doesn’t notice or politely pretends not to. “Actually was, far as that goes.”
“Mm,” Ice says quietly.
And there it is again, that careful tone. Neutral on the surface, but attentive underneath it in a way Maverick suddenly does not like at all.
The conversation stumbles onward after that, or maybe only feels that way to Maverick because he can’t quite settle back into it. The others keep talking around them — deployment schedules, changes to training rotations, some story Ellis is telling about one of the junior officers embarrassing himself in front of an admiral — while Maverick stands there trying not to feel like he’s being quietly evaluated in real time.
Ice, meanwhile, slides back into the rhythm of it all with irritating ease. From the outside, he looks perfectly relaxed, like he’s never been gone at all, like six months haven’t interrupted his place in the squadron in the slightest.
Every so often, though, Maverick catches Ice looking at him. And each time, he gets the distinct feeling Ice is waiting for something.
Eventually the strain of standing there pretending everything is normal starts to crawl beneath Maverick’s skin.
He shifts his weight, glances toward the hangar doors, then back again. “So,” he says lamely into the small lull that opens in the conversation, “how’ve you been?”
It is, immediately, the wrong thing to say. Ice’s eyes settle on him fully, and for one beat he says nothing at all.
Then, very evenly, ignoring his stupid question altogether, “I’d like a word, Mitchell.”
The surrounding silence lands almost comically fast.
Harris suddenly finds something deeply interesting happening farther down the hangar. “Right,” he says, clapping the officers next to him lightly on the shoulder. “We should probably go check on maintenance before somebody sets something expensive on fire.”
And just like that, the little knot of officers begins dissolving around them with the brisk efficiency of men who absolutely know when two people need to be left alone, and have no interest whatsoever in being caught in the middle of whatever’s about to happen. Lucky bastards, Maverick thinks sullenly.
Ice waits until the others are far enough down the hangar to be properly out of earshot, then nods once towards the adjoining building.
“Walk with me.”
Maverick goes automatically, falling into step beside him as they leave the hangar floor behind.
The silence settles almost immediately, and Maverick finds himself growing more irritated with every passing second of it.
They head out for the hangar, across the tarmac, and back into the admin building, then march straight past Ice’s old office towards a row of offices that have stood empty as long as he’s been stationed here, a faded space where a nameplate would usually sit. Ice opens the door and reveals a room full of battered standard-issue furniture, a packing box on one of the chairs, but otherwise uninhabited.
Ice steps inside and glances around briefly before looking back at Maverick.
“Close the door.”
Maverick does, a little harder than necessary, he has to admit, the sound of the latch echoing around the small empty space.
Ice leans lightly against the edge of the desk, studying him with that same careful attention he’d had in the hangar, and Maverick can already feel himself starting to fidget in place, their old dynamic settling over him alongside a faint feeling of resentment.
“What do you want?” he says sharply.
Ice’s expression shifts slightly. “You’re tense,” he says, making it sound somehow like a warning, one Maverick doesn’t heed.
“Great observation. They're teaching you psychoanalysis now?”
Ice uncharacteristically ignores the jab, which somehow only irritates him further.
“Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?” Ice asks.
His tone is so blatantly full of concern that Maverick feels something defensive and ugly twist tight in his chest. It’s like Ice has already walked into the room expecting to find him halfway to falling apart. He can only imagine the stories Harris and the others have been regaling him with while he was at a safe distance.
“Nothing,” he says sullenly, looking past Ice toward the blank wall behind him. “I’m doing just fine.”
“Mm,” Ice says. “So I’ve been hearing.”
His tone is mild, and not particularly accusatory, but something in it makes Mav’s temper flare hot. “Oh, really?” he snaps before he can stop himself.
Ice’s expression tightens slightly, like he realizes a fraction too late how that sounded. “That isn’t what I—”
“No, go ahead,” Maverick cuts in, the resentment he’s been trying to sit on finally starting to leak properly into his voice. “Harris give you the full briefing already? Get all caught up on how difficult I’ve been?”
“Maverick.”
“What?” He throws his hands out wide. “You walk in here after I haven’t seen you for months, and before I even know you’re on base, you’re sitting in on a deployment review with the CO all afternoon. Forgive me if it feels a little like everybody got their version in first.”
Ice goes very still at that. He doesn’t look angry, though, if anything, the opposite. Like something about the way Maverick says it finally lets him see the shape of the problem in front of him.
“Mav,” he says, his tone softer, more careful, like he’s afraid Mav will turn tail if spooked. “I talked to Harris for less than half an hour, most of which was not about you.”
“Well, it was long enough apparently,” Mav mutters, the words sounding sullen even to him
“Maverick,” Ice says, a warning in his voice now, quiet but unmistakable.
That should probably make Mav want to back off. Instead, it just makes the resentment under his skin flare hotter, because Ice still sounds calm. Controlled. Like he’s already standing outside the situation, looking in rationally while Maverick’s been stuck inside it for six exhausting months.
“You know what,” he says finally, “forget it. Clearly, you’ve heard it all already. I don’t even know why we’re—”
“Maverick.”
“Oh no, it’s fine.” The words start coming faster now, rougher around the edges. “I mean, why wouldn’t Harris talk to you first? You all speak the same language anyway.”
Ice’s brows furrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Maverick shrugs, feeling restless energy bleed into every movement now. “Come on, Ice. Academy guys, command track guys, all you people who actually know how to play this game properly.”
Ice stills.
“Mav—”
“No, seriously,” he starts pacing again, unable to stop himself from moving. “Do you know something like half of naval aviators still come out of Annapolis? Half. Everybody acts like it’s a coincidence that all the department heads and future admirals somehow magically know each other already before they ever hit the fleet.”
Ice watches him carefully now, all traces of earlier irritation replaced by what looks like concern.
“And then there’s me,” he continues with a short, humorless laugh that he can’t seem to stop. “Surprise, outsider who never learned how to talk like the rest of you. So of course, Harris sits you down the second you get here to explain how Mitchell’s being difficult again.”
“Maverick,” Ice says more firmly this time, “that is not what happened.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
The certainty in Ice’s voice should probably settle something, but it doesn’t. “You fit right back in,” he says, finally deciding that perhaps he should just put words to the problem, the thing that’s been eating him up since Ice got here.
Ice blinks once. “What?”
“It’s like you never left,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the corridor outside, hoping Ice will follow what he means. “Harris, Ellis, all of them. You slide right back into their conversations and their jokes, and everybody listens because you belong here.”
Understanding flickers slowly across Ice’s face now.
“And you think you don’t?”
Maverick lets out a sharp laugh. “I think I spent the last six months getting lectured by people who graduated from the Academy about professionalism.” The words slip out before he can stop them, and he watches as Ice’s expression turns darker.
Before he can think on what he’s just said for any longer, Ice seems to come to a decision, and before Mav really knows it, Ice has crossed the room, taken hold of his bicep to turn him over, and landed a sharp volley of swats to his upper thighs.
He jerks half a step forward, rubbing at his behind with his free hand, and glowers up at Ice. “Hey—”
“Enough,” Ice says, dropping his arm and leaning back against the desk. The word isn’t loud, but it lands with his particular brand of authority all the same.
Maverick opens his mouth again, furious and embarrassed all at once. Ice doesn’t let him get going.
“You are exhausted,” he says, voice lower now but no less firm. “You’ve had a brutal deployment, you walked into this conversation already feeling defensive, and now you’re trying to convince yourself this is about Annapolis because that’s easier than admitting you were upset I talked to Harris before I talked to you.”
He pauses, gaze fixed steadily on Maverick.
“And,” he adds, tone hardening slightly, “from what I’m hearing, those lectures about professionalism were sorely needed.”
The accuracy of it lands hard enough that Maverick feels himself go still, a hot flush creeping up his neck.
Ice takes a breath, watching him carefully. “For the record,” he says more quietly, “I have spent the last six months worried sick about you. So maybe stop acting as if I walked in here looking for reasons to take somebody else’s side.”
Mav opens his mouth, but Ice barrels on before he can get a word in.
“I was on my way to surprise you after I finished up the semester early, Harris got hold of me and nearly talked my ear off before I could make an excuse to leave.”
“Oh,” Maverick says quietly.
The word comes out small enough to irritate him on principle.
For a moment, neither of them says anything.
Then Maverick clears his throat awkwardly and shifts his weight, some of the fight abruptly draining out of him now that the shape of the misunderstanding has become clearer.
“Well,” he says, trying for something lighter, “in that case, maybe we can both agree this whole conversation’s been a little dramatic—”
“No.”
The single word cuts across him cleanly, silencing the fumbling excuses he’d been about to drag up.
“I’m not interested in squadron gossip,” Ice continues evenly, pushing himself up off the desk. “But when multiple people I trust independently tell me you’ve been reckless, combative, and apparently one bad day away from biting someone’s head off for half the deployment, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t hear it.”
Maverick looks down at his shoes, unable to meet Ice’s eyes.
“And before you say it,” Ice says, tone sharpening just slightly again, “yes, I know deployment is hard. I know command transitions are difficult. I know you’ve been carrying more than you should have had to.”
He takes a step closer.
“But none of that explains half of what I’ve heard, or the way you’ve been speaking to me since I walked into that hangar.” Ice says, and Mav feels himself flush. “I am getting that you felt blindsided, but I expect you to at least get the full picture before you decide I’ve betrayed you.”
The bluntness of it knocks the breath out of Maverick a little.
Because the worst part is that Ice isn’t wrong, and he feels some of the fight go out of him in a way that must be visible, letting his shoulders slump as he looks away toward the far wall.
“I didn’t think you betrayed me,” he mutters.
Ice waits, as if he knows Mav won’t leave it there.
Maverick scowls. “Okay, maybe a little. For like thirty seconds.”
This admission earns him the ghost of a smile, brief enough that he nearly misses it, but real all the same. Then Ice sobers again.
“Mav,” he says quietly, “Harris didn’t bring you up because he’s sick of you, or thinks you’re a problem. In fact, he called you a gifted aviator who’d probably have his own command someday if he could only settle down a little.”
Maverick snorts automatically at that, but despite himself, he can feel something awkward and warm unfurling low in his chest at the secondhand praise, the feeling embarrassing enough that he immediately wants to deflect from it.
“Wow,” he mutters. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
Ice’s mouth twitches faintly. “Well, I might be paraphrasing a little, but I can read between the lines. You do have a real gift for pissing people off and inspiring loyalty all at the same time.”
That almost pulls a real smile out of Maverick before he catches himself.
“He’s worried about you, Mav,” Ice continues more quietly. “Said some of your more recent exploits looked less like your usual confidence and more like you not particularly caring what happened to you.”
Maverick’s gaze drops immediately to the floor because that, unfortunately, hits close to the truth. There have absolutely been moments over the last few months where exhaustion and anger and sheer relentless pressure had hollowed him out enough that consequences stopped feeling entirely real.
Ice seems to read at least part of that off his face, because when he speaks again, his voice is gentler.
“Mav.”
“I wasn’t trying to get anybody hurt,” Maverick says quickly, acting defensively on instinct even now.
“I know.”
“And I wasn’t suicidal,” he adds more sharply, the thought suddenly occurring to him.
“I know,” Ice repeats calmly. “But there’s a very large stretch of ground between suicidal and taking care of yourself properly, and from what Harris described, you haven’t been anywhere near the second one for a while now.”
Mav looks down at his feet, unable to draw up a response. A dull sort of exhaustion is settling over him now that the adrenaline of the argument is finally starting to ebb.
“Yeah,” he admits after a long moment, the word again coming out quieter than he intends.
When he finally glances back up, the look on Ice’s face makes heat crawl immediately up the back of his neck. There’s concern, yes, but threaded through now with something firmer that makes Maverick abruptly too aware of the small office, the shut door, and the fact that he has spent the better part of the last half hour acting like a hostile teenager.
“When’s the last time you slept properly?” Ice asks finally.
Maverick groans under his breath. “Oh, my God.”
“Maverick.”
“I don’t know.”
Ice just stares at him.
Maver throws his hands wide in frustration, knowing Ice isn’t going to like the answer. “I don’t know, okay? Weeks ago, maybe? Nobody sleeps properly on deployment.”
“You did when I was with you,” Ice says firmly, steel back in his tone, “and you knew perfectly well I expected you to try your best while I wasn’t.”
Well, you weren’t here, Ice,” Maverick mutters before he can think better of it. “And I managed just fine even if I didn’t get eight hours of fucking shuteye.”
The second the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s crossed a line.
Ice goes completely still. Not angry in any loud or explosive sense. Worse than that. The kind of stillness Maverick remembers from briefing rooms right before Ice verbally eviscerated someone, or from the numerous times he’s found himself turned over a propped-up knee in the blink of an eye.
“Maverick,” he says very quietly, “watch your tone.”
A familiar jolt goes straight through Maverick’s stomach, but he keeps on going anyway. “Oh, come on, this isn’t that–”
“No.” Ice takes another step closer, and suddenly the office feels much smaller than it did thirty seconds ago. “I think you’re long overdue for a reminder of how this works between us, and what I will and will not accept when you’re upset.”
Heat flashes across Maverick’s face.
“And,” Ice continues, voice lowering further, “a reminder that you are not alone, no matter how determined you seem to have been lately to act like you are, or no matter how hard you try to push me away.”
Maverick swallows, the realization of exactly what is about to happen dawning on him with slow, sinking inevitability. Damn.
Somewhere deep down, he thinks he knew a long conversation about the deployment itself had probably been unavoidable from the moment Ice walked into that hangar and took one look at him. There was no universe in which six months of reports, strained phone calls, and Maverick very obviously running himself into the ground didn’t end in a reckoning eventually. But this part was probably avoidable.
Ice lets the silence stretch just long enough that Maverick feels every inch of it, feels very, very noticed for the first time in months. Then he turns, pulls the chair out from behind the desk, and sits down, looking at him expectantly, as if Mav is supposed to give up the ghost and go quietly to his doom.
Which, when Ice holds out a hand, is exactly what he does.
Maverick’s face burns as he steps forward and takes it, allowing himself to be drawn closer until he is standing between Ice’s knees. Close enough to see the faint crease between Ice’s brows, see the worry on his face.
“Someone will hear,” he protests, a last-ditch effort to delay this.
Ice’s mouth twitches, but stays stern. “If they do, it will hardly be the first time, will it?”
Maverick opens his mouth, indignant on principle, but Ice is already reaching for the fastening of his khakis.
“Ice—”
“No.” Ice’s voice is quiet. “You have talked yourself in circles since I got here. You are done talking.”
Maverick makes a strangled sound of protest as Ice gets his khakis open with briskv efficiency, sending them and his underwear down to pool around his knees before he can do more than grab uselessly at Ice’s wrist.
“Iiiiice,” he says, the vowels dragging out into something that sounds far too much like a whine, even to his own ears.
Ice looks up at him and raises an eyebrow.
Maverick shuts his mouth.
“Good,” Ice says, and pulls him down.
There is no dramatic struggle. That might be the worst part. Maverick goes because Ice tells him to, because Ice’s hand is firm at his wrist and his other arm is already guiding him across his lap, and because some deep, traitorous part of him recognizes that he needs this, has been asking for it even.
Still, when he’s over Ice’s knee, bare backside exposed to the cool air, he sharply regrets the many choices that took him here.
“Oh my god,” he mutters, “I’m sorry, okay? I was being an ass, I—”
Ice’s palm lands hard across the center of his backside, cutting him off.
“I know you’re sorry,” Ice says. “But this is to make sure you remember it the next time you decide hurt feelings give you permission to lash out. I’ve never accepted that from you, and I’m not about to start now.”
Maverick bows his head, knowing Ice is right, but hating it all the same.
“’M sorry,” he mumbles again, shorter this time.
“Apology accepted,” Ice says with a sigh, his hand settling briefly at the small of Maverick’s back. “But I’m going to make good and sure, and then we can put this part behind us.”
This part does not sound promising, but Maverick decides he has more than enough to worry about without borrowing trouble from whatever Ice intends to do afterward.
Especially when Ice’s palm lifts again.
The next swat lands hard enough to make him jerk, heat blooming bright and immediate across already-stinging skin. Before Maverick can do more than suck in a breath, another follows, and then another, Ice settling into a steady, punishing rhythm that makes it very clear he is done debating.
Maverick presses his head into his arms and tries not to squirm.
He fails almost immediately.
Ice says little at first, which somehow makes it worse. He only keeps him pinned there with one arm firm across his waist, his other hand coming down again and again with awful, controlled precision, steady and certain, like he has all the time in the world and every intention of using enough of it to make his point.
The sound of it fills the little office. Sharp, embarrassing cracks of palm against skin, far too loud in the enclosed space, each one making Maverick flinch and tense and then hate himself for doing both.
“Ice,” he grits out after a particularly hard one catches low enough to make his breath catch.
“No,” Ice says simply. “You earned this.”
His hand comes down again before Maverick can gather an answer, then again almost immediately after, hard and fast and horribly efficient. There is no space to argue. No neat little pause where Maverick can catch his breath or arrange his dignity around him. Just the sharp crack of Ice’s palm, the hot burst of sting, the next one landing before the last has finished blooming.
Maverick chokes on whatever he means to say.
It is too much, too quickly, which is probably the point. Ice is not giving him room to be clever, or wounded, or sharp, or impossible. He is not giving him room for anything except the reality of being held firmly over his lap,
The first few he can count, but after that, he gives it up as impossible and stops trying.
His backside quickly begins to burn, heat spreading fast under Ice’s hand, each new swat lighting up skin that has barely had time to recover from the last. He jerks despite himself, trying uselessly to shift away from the worst of it, but Ice’s arm is locked across his waist.
Maverick makes a furious, strangled sound into his sleeve, because apparently even that has been anticipated.
Of course it has. Ice knows how long Maverick can hold himself rigid out of pride, exactly when he will start trying to twist away, exactly how to keep him there without even seeming winded. It is awful. It is unfair. It is somehow, despite the awfulness, exactly what he needs.
Another flurry lands, quick and stinging across both cheeks and the tops of his thighs, and Maverick’s knees jerk against the carpet.
“Ice,” he gets out, rough and thin.
Ice still doesn’t answer, just brings his hand down again and again, nothing interrupting his steady cadence, methodically painting what feels like fire across the entirety of Maverick’s backside.
He shuts his mouth with a bitten-off gasp. Right. Fine. Message received.
The silence is worse than scolding would be. There is no lecture to brace against, no argument to start and immediately lose. Just Ice’s hand on his ass until the sharp edge of Maverick’s temper has nowhere left to go. Every clever thing he might have said turns into a hiss, then a flinch, then nothing at all.
Only when Maverick feels as if this has gone on forever, and will go on forever, when he’s sore and wrung out and sorry, does Ice begin to slow his hand and finally speak.
“You have been spoiling for a fight since the second you saw me.”
Maverick shuts his eyes.
The next swats land firm, but not as hard as before, as if Ice is giving him space to breathe now. Space to take in what he is saying.
“You were hurt, and embarrassed, wrung out from a long deployment, and instead of saying that, you decided you were angry,” Ice says, his palm still falling in slow, steady swats that are still quite sharp enough. “You saw me with Harris and decided I had already chosen a side before I had said a word to you. Before you had asked me what happened. And then you made me answer for something I had not done.”
Maverick swallows hard, throat tight.
Ice’s arm stays secure around his waist, but there is less force in it now. Less restraint, more steadiness. As if Ice knows Maverick is no longer really trying to get away.
Which is true, humiliatingly enough.
The next few swats are softer still, though far from token. They land across skin already hot and aching, enough to keep Maverick in the moment, enough to make sure he cannot wriggle away from the words any more than he can wriggle away from Ice’s hand.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says, voice rough.
“I know,” Ice says, and his hand settles for a moment at the small of Maverick’s back, warm and steady, before lifting again. “But you did. And whether you meant to or not, you know better than to take your hurt out on me just because I’m the safest person in the room.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”
Ice’s hand settles against his back again, and when it stays there Mav lets out a sigh of relief that makes Ice chuckle softly.
“Not quite,” he says. “I know you’re sorry, and I know you mean it. But I’m going to give you a last bit to think on.”
Maverick barely has time to groan before Ice’s hand lifts again.
The last round is nothing like the first. But it is still firm. Still steady. Still enough to make Maverick drop his head back into his arms with a miserable sound as Ice finishes the point properly, his palm falling fast over skin already hot and aching, with that same awful certainty that says Maverick is not getting one inch less than Ice has decided he needs.
The sting flares fresh again, softer than before but somehow harder to take now that he has stopped fighting it. Maverick shifts once, helplessly, then gives up almost immediately when Ice’s arm holds him close.
And then, finally, Ice stops.
His palm rests warm against Maverick’s sore backside for a moment before moving up to his back, rubbing once between his shoulder blades.
“There,” Ice says quietly. “Now we’re done.”
Maverick lets out a breath that shudders a little on the way out.
“You with me?” Ice asks.
Maverick swallows, and nods, words difficult to find.
“Good.” Ice’s voice softens. “Come on then, lets get you up.”
Mav pushes himself up slowly, letting Ice help him pull his underwear and khakis back into place, wincing as the fabric makes contact with punished skin. He tells himself he is standing because he is a grown man with some dignity left.
The fact that he immediately steps into the space between Ice’s knees and lets Ice draw him close is nobody’s business but his own.
Ice’s arms come around him, one hand settling at on his back.
For a few seconds, Maverick stands there stiffly, but when Ice starts rubbing small soothing circles, he gives in.
He exhales hard and drops his forehead against Ice’s shoulder.
Ice doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to, it’s clear he knows perfectly well that Maverick no longer feels like he’s trying to climb out of his own skin.
“You were mean,” Maverick mutters into his shoulder, because it is the only scrap of protest he can find.
Ice huffs softly. “Yes.”
Maverick lifts his head enough to glare at him. “You’re supposed to deny that.”
“I’m not about to start lying to you now,” Ice says dryly. “You needed exactly what you got.”
“Could’ve done without all of that,” Mav grumbles, rubbing tentatively at his sore backside.
“Hm,” Ice says. “I’m not so sure.”
“Could’ve been worse, I suppose,” Mav muses, because apparently his mouth has recovered faster than the rest of him. “No paddle. You might be getting soft.”
Ice goes still just long enough for Maverick to realize his mistake.
Then Ice’s eyebrows lift.
“I thought my hand would drive the point home quite well enough,” he says. “Besides, we still have to have a rather lengthy conversation about the last six months, and I would not recommend giving me ideas before we get to it.”
Maverick’s hand drops abruptly from his backside.
“Right,” he says. “Noted.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Maverick looks away, face heating again, though there is not much real fight left in him now. “You know, most people say hello before threatening a man with future consequences.”
“I tried hello,” Ice says. “You all but accused me of defecting.”
Maverick grimaces. “In my defense—.”
“In your defense,” Ice says, tugging him closer again, and giving his behind a warning pat, “you were exhausted, defensive, and hurt. That explains it. It does not excuse it.”
Maverick lets his forehead drop back against Ice’s shoulder with a groan. “I know.”
Ice’s hand settles at the back of his neck, thumb moving once against the tense muscle there. “Good.”
For a moment, neither of them says anything.
Maverick can feel the rest of it waiting. The deployment. The reports. The calls in which he said he was just fine, a voice that apparently fooled Ice for a second. All the things Ice has not brought up yet only because he had decided, with terrible accuracy, that Maverick needed to stop fighting him before he could hear any of it.
But Ice is here. That matters more than everything else for the moment.
Maverick exhales slowly, the last of his resentment going with it.
“I did miss you,” he says, quiet enough that it is almost lost against Ice’s shoulder.
Ice’s hand stills, and his arm tightens around him.
“I know,” he says, softer now. “I missed you, too.”
Maverick closes his eyes and luxuriates in this moment of being held close, of having Ice right here all to himself. Whatever terrible reckoning is still to come can wait.