#pilotsandgays

[pilotsandgays]

just wanted to come on here and say i miss Tom "Iceman" Kazansky very much

[derpinathebrave]

ICE -In Case of Emergency ~ IceMav

READ ON AO3

So I got the brainworms again. This time from @pilotsandgays and now I've started a chaptered fic of Ice and Mav being exes (slightly nasty exes) but Ice is still listed as Mav's emergency contact.

I'm posting the first chapter here but the rest will be only on AO3 unless ya'll really want it on both

SUMMARY: "I'm your emergency contact. You know, you're supposed to take that out when you leave someone." Commander Tom "Iceman" Kazansky has spent five years trying to forget Pete Mitchell ever existed let alone walked out on him. Everything is brought to a boil when he is called after Pete is in a serious accident and Tom is the emergency contact. Now Ice has to face up to some tough questions; why did Maverick walk out on him without a goodbye? And why is he helping the man that destroyed his heart?

TAGS: Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Sarah Kazansky, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Exes to Lovers, Hospitals and Medical, Whump, not much beta we die like goose, Canon Compliant, mostly canon compliant anyway, Period-Typical Homophobia, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Mention of Aids crisis, characters being added later

WORDS: 3059

Chapter 1: A Ringing Phone

The phone was ringing. Commander Tom “Iceman” Kazansky could hear it through the front door as he struggled to juggle his paperwork and get the key working in the lock. 

It was still a little strange to have his own phoneline after living so many years from carrier to carrier and sharing with literally everyone else. Every time it rang he jumped at the noise and then rushed to pick it up. Usually it was Slider, his mum or Sarah. They were the only people that really knew he was in a permanent residence again, and the only people he really cared enough to give his number to. 

The sticky lock finally gave and Iceman shouldered his way through the door. He would need to fix that soon, the way the door jammed in its frame and the lock took a specific wiggle to get the key to turn. 

He tossed the paperwork down onto his coffee table as he strode to the kitchen. The phone fell silent as he reached out to grab it from the wall. He pulled it to his ear anyway, haring the dial-tone. Rolling his eyes, Tom set the phone back in the cradle. 

The house was small, single story and sparsely furnished. He walked back to the front door and pulled his boots off, setting them in place on the shoe rack. The door opened into the living room, a couch long enough to fit him on it lying down, a coffee table and a TV on a chest of drawers. He had bought two low bookshelves to line the wall beneath the window that looked out to his neighbours fence, but they were currently rather empty. His Top Gun trophy was propped up on top of the one to the right. Sarah kept threatening to come and decorate for him, but her work hadn’t allowed for that yet. 

Ice moved through the living room and down the short hall to his bedroom. This was marginally more comfortable. He had a queen bed with a crocheted blanket his mother had pressed upon him when he had let her come and see his new place. It was a mixture of blues and greys and made him think of the ocean. Beyond the bed, he had matching nightstands with lamps, a laundry hamper and a winged arm-chair (another addition from his mother). He mostly just tossed clothes onto the armchair until it annoyed him enough to put them away in the cupboard.

As he was unbuttoning his shirt, the phone began to ring once more. He went to answer it.

“Hello?” He said, resisting the automatic urge to add “Commander Kazansky” as he had to at the office. 

“Hello, is that Tomas Kazansky?” A feminine voice said. 

“Speaking.” Ice frowned. He didn’t know this voice. A simmer of anxiety settled in his chest. 

“Mr Kazansky, my name is Maria, I’m a nurse at Holy Spirit Hospital. You were listed as the emergency contact for Peter Mitchell?” Maria said. 

Tom’s anxiety shot straight to a boil. His hand gripped the phone tight, his heart pounding loud enough to drown out the crackle on the phoneline. He realised she was waiting for an answer.

“Yes. Uh,” he blinked and shook his head a little. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Kazansky, he’s been in a serious accident and is currently in emergency,” Maria carried on in a solemn voice.

“What type of accident?” Ice forced out. 

“He had a pretty serious collision on a motorcycle.” Maria said. “He’s stable for now, conscious but in pain, and he’ll be going in for surgery this evening. If you wanted to come down and see him, you’re welcome to. He’ll need a change of clothes and some toiletries.”

Ice turned and pressed his forehead against the kitchen wall beside the phone. He took a long, slow breath in, held it a moment and then let it slide back out just as slowly. 

“Thank you,” he said, hating himself, “I’ll be there in about an hour.”

“OK. Just let our Emergency receptionist know you’re here to see Peter and they’ll let you through. I will let you know he can only have one visitor at a time, so if you plan to bring other people, they won’t be able to come in with you,” Maria said.

“Thank you,” he said again. 

“No problem. Thank you.” The phone disconnected. 

Iceman placed the phone back with extra care. As much as he wanted to smash it to pieces, that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He did allow himself thirty more seconds of pressing his face against the wall in despair.

Heaving a sigh, Ice straightened once more and headed back to his bedroom. He filled a backpack with sweatpants, a soft t-shirt, boxers and socks. He moved to the bathroom, taking a disposable razor and spare toothbrush from beneath the sink. 

As he straightened, Ice caught his own face in the mirror. His blue eyes were slightly wild.  He could not go into that hospital room and let Maverick see him like that. He paused, staring himself down until the startled expression had settled back into his trademark detachment. He toyed with the idea of a shower but decided it would only amp him up more if he had to wait longer. May as well just get this whole thing over with. He buttoned his uniform back up, tucking it in once more. 

Ice let himself have one more second of hesitation before he grabbed the backpack, pulled his boots on and relocked his janky front door. 

 ===

His jaw ached, knuckles white on the steering wheel and shoulders tense. Ice negotiated traffic with extra care. He was desperately trying to stay calm. His ice-cold facade was slipping and melting every time he remembered where he was going and why. 

The sun was closing in on the horizon by the time he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Tom followed the signs for Emergency, completely unable to calm the thundering of his heart or the urge to bite at the inside of his cheek. He took up a soft mantra that everything would be fine, he would be A-OK and this would be fine. 

The lady at reception gave him directions down to the bay that Maverick was in. Hefting the backpack, and giving one last attempt at masking his anxiety, Ice headed for the bed. 

When he peeked through the curtain the bay was empty. No bed at all. After a moment he noticed the motorcycle helmet and boots thrust out of the way under a bench and he knew he was where Maverick had been at the very least. He slipped into the bay, leaving the curtain open. 

Ice took a deep breath. He gripped both fists together and then shook them out. It made him feel a little better. He did it again. 

With his body slightly calmed, he bent to look at the helmet. It was a mess. Deep gouges ran across the left side, the visor had been torn away completely. Ice swallowed. 

“Excuse me, sir?” a man said from behind him. 

Ice straightened quickly and spun. A tall, orderly in orange scrubs stood at the gap in the curtain. 

“Can I help you?” The orderly said. His eyes scanned Ice, taking in the shiny wings on his uniform. 

“Uh, yeah, the man that was in this bay, Pete Mitchell, where is he?” Ice said

“Are you the next of kin?” The orderly said, eyes narrowing a little. 

Ice hesitated for a split second. “Yes,” he said. 

“He’s been taken up to surgery. They’re prepping him now,” the orderly gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’re in the wrong place. If you want to grab those things I’ll give you directions to surgery.”

Ice nodded in reply, pulling the corners of his lips up but not really smiling. 

He grabbed the helmet and boots, following the orderly back to the crossroads of the hallways. After extensive and confusing instructions, Ice ventured back to the elevators and headed up to the surgery wards. 

Stuffed into the back corner of the elevator, a small kid with a very broken arm in a bed taking up the majority of the room, Iceman chewed on his cheek once more. Of course it hadn’t been as easy as bringing Maverick clothes and organising him a ride home. Of course the idiot needed surgery.

He squeezed out of the elevator on the floor he needed and followed the signs through the labyrinthine corridors. Finally he came upon another nurse’s station. 

“I’m here to see Peter Mitchell,” Iceman said, resettling the boots in his grip. 

“Let me see,” the nurse focused on her computer for a moment, tapping keys slowly. “Sure, he’s just gone in with Doctor Yanch. The surgery is set to be a minimum of two hours. You’re welcome to wait in our relations room, or head down to the cafeteria and come back closer to his end time.”

“Thank you,” Ice said, despite wanting to slam his head into her counter. “I’ll head to the cafeteria.”

The nurse gave him a nod and turned back to her work. Ice made his way back to the elevators slowly.

As he was sitting in the cafeteria, ignoring the stares of civilians because he was still in his khakis, Ice questioned his sanity. Only Pete Mitchell brought this side of him out. The side that questioned what the hell he was doing. 

He ate a truly awful sandwich and drank worse coffee. The helmet was set on the table in front of him and Tom found his eyes straying to it every few seconds. The paint had once resembled Maverick’s flight helmet, the white and red lines leading over the back and “Maverick” stamped across there rather than the front. The eagle on the side was almost completely destroyed, gouged and scratched into an amorphous red and white blob. 

If he had not seen the state of the helmet, he probably would have already gone. It was only the deeply unsettling scars on the helmet that kept him in the cafeteria, drinking awful coffee and waiting two hours. 

When the time was up, he stood, stretched and headed back to surgery. His heart took up a new tattoo of anxiety in his chest as he drew closer to the ward. The nurse directed him down to recovery and warned him that Pete was recovering and the anaesthetic was going to linger for a while. 

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell was pale, lips a little purple on the edges. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be asleep. He was shirtless but mostly covered with a paper gown. His left arm was in a sling, securing his wrist up by his right collarbone. As Ice followed the arm to the shoulder there was large bandages covering from his bicep to the rise of his neck. Mav’s lower body was covered with a hospital blanket. He was still hooked into a drip of fluids and a second of blood. 

Tom’s chest squeezed, all air escaping at the sigh of Maverick. It was much worse than he had expected. A weird mixture of relief and irritation washed through him. He set the backpack down in the corner, out of the way, and turned back to find a doctor pushing into the room. 

“Hello, I’m Doctor Yanch, you are?” The doctor said, eyes flickering over Ice’s uniform. 

“I’m Tom Kazansky, his—“ Ice almost said wingman, aborting at the last second and amending it to “— next-of-kin.” 

“Ah,” Doctor Yanch nodded. “I was just coming to do my post-surgery assessment. I was Peter’s surgeon.”

A nurse in teal scrubs bustled in, ignoring them both and heading straight for Pete.

Ice glanced at Pete but he hadn’t moved and his eyes were still closed. “OK.” He said to the doctor, “can you explain his injuries to me? I haven’t had a chance to hear the damage.”

“Oh,” surprise flickered across the surgeons face before he spoke once more. “Pete sustained a proximal humeral fracture dislocation. Meaning that his upper arm fractured and dislocated at the same time. I’ve set the bone with screws and relocated the joint through surgery. He was also brought in with rib fractures and a haemothorax, blood in his chest cavity that had collapsed his left lung.”

Tom realised he wasn’t breathing and inhaled through his nose, waiting for the doctor to continue. 

“His lung has reinflated and we’re confident the internal bleed has stopped. He will be receiving blood for another few hours and fluids.” The Doctor gave a tight smile to show he was finished. 

“Thank you,” Ice said, voice a little hoarse. 

“Not a problem.” The doctor turned away and began scribbling in Pete’s chart, mumbling to the nurse. When he was done, he hung the chart back at the end of the bed and walked out. 

Ice watched as the nurse leaned over and took Maverick’s right hand from under the blanket. She began squeezing it and calling his name. His heart began a horrid tap dance on his nerves once more.

“Peter?” The nurse called again, a little louder. 

“Try Mav,” Ice said, stepping a little closer and immediately regretting it. 

The nurse looked at him in surprise. 

“His nickname, its Mav or Maverick, try that,” Ice explained at her expression. “He hates Peter.”

“Mav?” She called, “it’s time to wake up now.”

Slowly, Mav’s eyes flickered and opened. He frowned at the nurse and began to move. She pinned him down with a firm hand, clearly practised at this. 

“No, no, no moving, Mav,” she said to him. “You’ve been in surgery. We fixed that shoulder up for you. Are you in pain?”

“No,” Mav mumbled. “Yes.” 

The sound of his voice sent fresh spikes through Ice but he remained still and silent in the background. 

“My chest hurts,” Mav said, his voice slurred. 

“Yes, you’ve got some fractured ribs. Can you squeeze my hand?” She placed her fingers in his left hand and nodded when Mav obeyed. “Good. Alright, I’m going to let you wake up a little more and then I’ll be back to run some more tests. You can chat to your friend but don’t move too much, OK?” She said.

“Mm-hmm.” Mav gave a tight nod already closing his eyes again. 

The nurse shot Ice a tight smile and bustled back out into the hall. He merely watched her go before turning back to where Maverick was laying. The other man had his eyes closed again but there was tension through his forehead, showing Ice that he was still awake. 

Ice gripped his fists, ignored the nausea that was rising and falling in his abdomen, and sat on the uncomfortable armchair by the window. When he glanced at Maverick his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. They shifted, catching Ice’s and holding for a protracted moment. Pete blinked, shook his head a little and closed his eyes once more. 

He didn’t open his eyes again for another fifteen minutes. Ice was watching, cataloguing the way Maverick’s tension would sink out of his body as he slipped into sleep and then rise again as he woke once more. 

The second time Maverick opened his eyes, he whipped his head over to stare at Tom with wide eyes. He blinked. 

Tom gave him the most mild expression he could muster.

“Fuck, you’re actually here,” Maverick said, voice less slurred now. 

“I’m your emergency contact,” Ice said blandly, determined to not let Maverick see the agitation going on in his body. “You know, you take that out of your wallet when you leave someone.”

There was a beat of tension and Maverick turned away to stare at the ceiling. 

“Flattered you came,” Maverick said, wincing a little. 

“Mm-hmm,” Ice drawled at him. 

Internally Tom was beginning to suspect he needed to visit the cardio ward and have his heart checked. It had been hammering a harsh rhythm in his chest for the last twenty minutes and showed no signs of stopping now. 

“Why did you come?” Mav asked, voice strained. 

“I knew no one else would,” Iceman shrugged. He almost regretted the words as pain flared and died on Maverick’s face. “Should I call the nurse? You look rough.”

“I was hit by a car, Kazansky, of course I look rough.” Pete was clearly trying to sound snappish but there was too much pain in his voice for it to carry. 

Ice sighed and stood. He moved to the side of Mav’s bed and found the call button. 

“Don’t you touch—“ Maverick didn’t make it to the end of the sentence before Ice pushed the button for him. “Go away, why are you here?” Maverick groaned, face growing steadily paler. 

Ice didn’t bother to reply but simply returned to the uncomfortable armchair. He willed his heart back to a regular pace and when it refused to comply, he settled for fishing his gum out of his pocket and beginning to chew on a fresh piece. 

The same nurse returned, took one look at Maverick’s face and launched into action. She set up his pain medication, teaching him about the button to let it release. She then began conducting the promised tests from earlier. Ice sat in the chair and watched, eyes roaming Maverick as he did. When the nurse pulled the gown down to attach patches to Mav’s chest, Ice couldn’t drag his eyes away. He knew he should, but the horrific red and maroon patches that spread from beneath Mav’s arm to the middle of his chest held him transfixed. 

The doctor had said words like “collapsed lung”, “fractured ribs” and “bleeding into the chest cavity” but hearing about it and seeing it were vastly different things. Ice found his breath was caught in his chest once more. He tried to breathe, working hard to stay perfectly still. 

As much as he wanted to deny it, Ice made a snap decision in that moment. He knew he would regret it later. He knew that it would cause him such intense pain that it would rival Maverick’s. But Tom also knew he couldn’t leave Maverick alone to deal with this. 

He was still his wingman. Whether Maverick wanted him to be or not.

[pilotsandgays]

surprise, and merry christmas :)

[pilotsandgays]

btw i deleted drunk on love (SORRY) cuz im gonna be rewriting it. not sure how long it'll take cuz i'm currently working on other icemav fics but i promise it will be rewritten and yall will like it 🙏

[pilotsandgays]

just wanted to let you all know i'm working on a long ass extremely heart-wrenching icemav fic

[pilotsandgays]

i'm sorry my writing is taking so long y'all i keep procrastinating even tho i want to write 😭😭😭😭 and i'm. a fucking perfectionist

i PROMISE i will get my shit done!! it may be sooner or later, but i won't leave my fics to die no matter how much i procrastinate. i love icemav too much to do so

[pilotsandgays]

thank u guys for 700 followers <33

[pilotsandgays]

SORRY FOR NOT BEING ACTIVE IVE BEEN REALLY BUSY

part 2 of the icemav fic will be up soon! i'm working on it dw <3

[pilotsandgays]

just reread this while looking for a post jesus fuck i'm heartless

while I like to think that the scenes of maverick mourning ice are just not shown in the movie, i want to make everyone's day miserable today: what if maverick was still so preoccupied with goose and rooster that he never… noticed ice. mav never fully realized ice was the one pulling all the strings to keep him in the navy. when people told mav he had a guardian angel, he always assumed it was goose, and that ice just was a supportive friend but he never did anything behind the scenes for mav, because after all the rejection and loss mav went through, mav was still in denial; why would someone care about him enough?

he never realized who was actually his guardian angel. therefore, mav never really gave ice the appreciation he deserved. mav never realized how much ice loved him…until it was too late.

and ice? oh, he knew. he knew he would never get the fairytale ending of his dreams. he wanted maverick to bond with rooster so, unlike him, mav would have someone to “mourn him when he burns up”. sure, ice at least had sarah, but it was not the same. maverick was the one he loved so fiercely, but mav was just out of ice’s reach.

ice knew that he would die alone, his contributions to mav’s life still unknown to mav. so, when the time came, he wasn't scared; he wasn't angry. he was just sad. sad because destiny did not smile on him and his lover. he wished mav could've noticed. he wished mav could've really been his wingman. but what was done is done, and fate had already woven it’s deadly threads.

ice decided to pick up his phone. with a shaky breath, he decided to give himself one last shot. he would not hide in the shadows any longer. he typed in maverick’s name on his phone. he sent his wingman one last text:

i love you.

as ice closed his eyes for the last time, in his room, alone, his final thought was of what could've been. oh, what ice would've given to have mav by his side at his last moments. a tear rolled down his cheek, and ice took his final breath, letting himself lose the battle against cancer.

after all, ice saw no reason to staying alive if mav wasn’t alongside him.

[pilotsandgays]

what puts a smile on my face is seeing the tags people put when reblogging my stuff especially my angst, everyone's reactions are so funny i love this fandom fr 😭