FIC: Gravity (Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick, PG-13)
TITLE: Gravity
RATING: PG-13
FANDOM: Top Gun
PAIRING: Iceman/Maverick
SUMMARY: Maverick has never been that good at the physics part, but that’s math he can do.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for slashthedrabble challenge #89: hurt/comfort, via challenge #290: Past Prompts Revisited.
Force is equal to mass times acceleration.
If mass equals 5,000 pounds (which equals 2,267.96 kg) and acceleration equals 650 mph (1046.073 km/h), then force equals . . . a fucking lot. A fucking lot of force. Maverick has never been that good at the physics part, but that’s math he can do.
Jesus, so much force.
Listing another airman as your emergency contact is just asking for trouble, so Maverick has to hear third or fourth hand that Iceman is in the naval med center after being shot out of the sky. Maverick has enough clearance to pull Ice’s file without more than an arched eyebrow from his secretary, and he finds out that Slider’s got a concussion and some second-degree burns, and Ice broke a collarbone and took two full days to wake up. Slider had to pull him from the wreckage, and Maverick imagines Ice’s body, like dead weight, bobbing in the briny ocean, the hours Slider had to hold onto him to make sure the current didn’t carry him out to sea.
Maverick decides he owes Slider a drink.
Maverick tells his secretary he is taking a long lunch, and then stops two steps out the door and goes back to tell her he is taking the rest of the day off. She just nods, the corner of her pink-lipsticked mouth curled in knowing amusement. Maverick is annoyed, but she keeps his secrets, so the only thing in danger of injury is his pride, and that’s seen worse wars. He swallows his sharp comment and heads to the med center.
Ice is awake when he gets there, sitting up in bed. The television is off, the room strangely silent, and Maverick rolls his eyes, because of course Ice is above pedestrian things like mid-afternoon soap operas even when he’s loopy with morphine.
Ice is naked from the waist up except for the sling and bandages for his broken collarbone, and he’s sunburnt everywhere that would have been exposed to the harsh, mirror-shine brightness of the sun shining off the ocean. He looks tired, the lines on his face more pronounced, but lucid. Ice’s clear blue eyes light on Maverick in the doorway, and the ghost of a smile haunts his face.
“Mitchell.”
Maverick briefly checks the hallway behind him for medical personnel, and then closes the door behind him, shutting them in alone. He presses in the lock with his thumb and then checks the knob to make sure it won’t turn.
Ice watches him with muted curiosity.
“It’s not like you to be so careful,” he says.
And Maverick just lets the rib slide off him, because in this moment there is only gravity, the immutable magnetic force pulling him toward Ice. Maverick’s hands close around Ice’s shoulders, gentle with the injured arm, and he kisses him like CPR, like he was the one to pull him out of the water. Beneath him, Ice tautens and sighs, a gentle moan tearing from his throat. Maverick pulls back, removes his hand from the arm in the sling.
“Don’t . . .” Ice says, his voice soft, like he doesn’t have the strength to speak louder. Maverick pulls back; Ice’s fingers thread through his hair. “. . . stop.”
Maverick grins, and brings their mouths together again, his hand resting on Ice’s chest, just above his heart.
Maverick feels the soundness of Ice’s flesh beneath his hands, feels the familiar beat of his heart, the familiar rise and fall of his chest with breath after precious breath. And Maverick feels himself relax, and falls into Ice’s embrace.