Just imagining, that in a scenario where Mav adopts Hangman or realizes that Jake is his son and takes him in. And it was rough at first as they get to know one another, the growing pains and all that, but they eventually found stability, strength, and love with one another.
But one day, Hangman did something that scared the shit out of Mav, that pissed him off so badly that he starts berating Hangman, shouting and all that. Hangman and the others have never seen Mav mad often, but Mav was just so terrified.
Jake just stands there jaw clenched, as he took it all. Scared that he fucked it up for good, putting his hands behind his back to make sure that Mav doesn't see them trembling.
Eventually Mav ends with a, "What can you say for yourself, Lieutenant Seresin!?"
And Jake opens and clenches his mouth shut, like a gaping fish, brow furrowed, but eyes looking straight forward, as if he was staring at nothing or at the wall behind Mav. Looking straight ahead, yet no where at the same time.
Everyone waits with baited breathe, waiting for Hangman to fight back, retort, or snap back with snarky comments because it's Hangman.
"I'm sorry, da-" Jake audibly snapped his jaw shut, wincing, "I'm sorry Captain Mitchell, it won't happen again." Jake paused, "I'm sorry." He said the added apology quietly, but it reverberated loudly throughout the room.
Mav took a deep breathe before dismissing all of them, leaving him in the empty classroom to collapse on his desk. Wondering if he had ruined the relationship with the son he just got. Thinking if he could have handled it better. Was his son scared of him, now?
Jake's limbs was heavy as he trudged back to his apartment. He was wracked with guilt, wondering why was he so abrasive, why did he always push, push, and push. Why did he fuck up so constantly. Why was he so Hangman and why couldn't he be better?
He went through the motions of cleaning himself up after he went home and curled up in bed to just, sleep the sadness away.
Mav lugged himself into Ice's office, where his husband was working on his desk and he moves behind his chair and wraps his arms around the man, burying is face in Ice's hair, as if to hide his shame.
"What's wrong, Mav?"
"I-I think I scared, Jake," Mav mumbled. "He couldn't even call me, dad."
Ice pulls the whole story out of Mav before he tries to comfort him saying that he and Jake will work things out. How fathers and sons always will have their ups and downs. Fathers are always scared that their sons will turn out too much like them, after all. Also, they are still captain and lieutenant, Jake was probably trying to keep rank.
The last part even Ice said hesitantly, Mav was never shy about letting his kids call him what they want. Neither was Jake.
"Oh god, I-I left him, Ice, I didn't talk to him, I--"
"Shh, maybe so, but you both needed some space, you can go to him, now, bring him home." Ice said, turning to pull Mav fully in his arms. "Everything will be fine."
Mav ends up outside of Jake's housing. Ice waiting in the car, he knocks. No answer. He knocks again. No answer. He gets worried, checking back to see if Jake's car really was there. He grabs a spare key and opens the door, the apartment eerily quiet.
He never notice how bare the apartment really was, Jake always took a lot of space.
His boots were there, though, so were his car and house keys.
He walked into his son's bedroom, softening at the sight of him curled up in bed. He moved closer sitting on the edge as he ran a hand through his son's hair, frowning at the warmth emanating from the boy's forehead. Although, he did see the boy's face softened.
Jake's eyes fluttered open, blearily peering up at him, "Dad?" He asked softly tugging at Mav's heart, inspiring him to lean down and kiss his forehead.
My son.
"Hey kiddo, you good?"
Jake blinked up at the soft kiss, before the day's events came rushing back to him, "Sir I--"
"You never have to call me, sir, okay? It's fine if you don't want to call me dad," Mav said, choking out the last part. "But, you'll always be my son, even when I'm mad, or even if you are mad, you will always be my son, unless you never want to be again."
Jake stared up, suddenly fully awake before jolting up and quickly wrapping Mav in a tight hug. The angle was awkward, but Mav didn't care. His son was in his arms.
Mav tightened his hold around his boy, cradling his head on the crook of his shoulder. Hushing him softly.
"I'm sorry, dad," Jake muttered.
"It'll be okay, we're okay," Mav muttered, holding his son a bit more tighter.
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Wrote an IRONDAD one shot for a small writing comp in a server! It’s 622 words.
In Another Life, Kid…
No trigger warnings? Just some crying and angst.
Peter Parker stood in the lab that previously belonged to Tony Stark. It felt so wrong, so empty, despite the tools and suits filling the room. Its warmth was gone, its energy depleted, and that spark that Tony brought into the lab, that spark of wonder, was gone.
Tony was gone.
Peter walked over to the workbench, his feet echoing against the walls of the glass-walled lab. He pushed papers aside, looking at what Tony was working on before everything happened, before the blip, before he was dead. A blue paper caught his eyes and he pulled it to the front. It was a suit. A spider suit. For him.
Peter’s eyes scanned over it, the blueprints of something that was going to be a gift, the blueprints that his mentor had planned on making a reality. Everything was set in stone, but it looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages. Nothing in here except for a single picture had been touched. The picture of Tony and Peter with Peter holding his internship plaque.
A sad smile crossed over the boy’s face as he stepped over and picked it up. He brushed it off. “Hey, Mr. Stark. I hope things are nice up there, you know? I hope you’re not in pain or anything, and I hope you’re finally able to say what you wanted to say to your dad.” He frowned. “Hey, maybe if you see my parents, you can tell ‘em I said hi?”
No response. There was never a response, there would never be a response again. Tony Stark was dead. Peter sat down in the chair that Tony once had and put on his headset. He spun around and began to work on things, projects that Tony left unfinished because he was trying to get Peter back. He was going to make that suit.
But something Peter couldn’t see was nearby. The ghost of Tony Stark, watching what he was doing, a frown on his face. “Yeah kid,” he responded. “No pain. No pain at all.”
Tony watched as Peter started to go into the files on the system. He watched as Peter pulled up the layout for the suit and as he froze. On the screen it said for my son, Peter. He forgot he’d written that. He watched as Peter’s eyes welled up and as the kid completely broke down, sobs escaping his throat.
Tony wrapped his arms around him, despite the fact that he couldn’t feel his comfort.
“Why- why couldn’t I- I- why couldn’t I save you Mr. stark? I should’ve done something I-“ he sniffled, looking back at the screen. “I miss you, sir. Dad. Tony, whatever the hell you want me to call you! I just- I miss you. I wish I could’ve saved you…”
Tony nodded in agreement, despite not being able to be seen. “I know, kid, I know. I miss you too.” He sat on the workbench.
“Maybe in another life we’re- we’re happy. You’re alive, you take me in and- and things are okay. Things are more than okay. I think- I think I’ll believe that.”
“Whatever comforts you, Pete.” He sighed. “But yeah, in another life, kid, in another life.”
Peter spent the rest of the day in that lab. It was time spent partially well? He was either crying or building. Peter stayed there until he fell asleep, just like Tony used to do. And Tony? Well, he stayed there too. He didn’t need to sleep anymore, that was something that he left behind with the mortal realm. So now, he could just watch and make sure the kid was safe.
And that’s what he did. Every day of his life. Tony stark just watched.
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:3
Cross posted on ao3 <3
Angst, grief/mourning, arguing, resolved argument, emotional hurt/comfort
1.9k words
≻───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────≺
Even Ice Melts☁️
third person
“You’re dangerous, Mitchell,”
Maverick exhales, but doesn’t look around to Iceman.
“You may not like the guys flying with you, and they may not like you, but what kind of excuse is that for what you just pulled up there?”
“I knew I could take the shot,”
“And leave Hollywood struggling in your dust like that?”
“Why are you doing this?” Maverick turns around to face him.
“What?”
“Pinning the blame on me?”
“Pinning the blame-?! It was your doing,”
“So why are you defending Hollywood?”
Ice looks incredulously at him. “Because that could have gone so wrong up there,”
“You don’t think I know that?” Maverick steps into Ice’s personal space, closing the gap between them.
“Of course I do,” Ice lifts his head up.
“Then why are you making an argument about this if your so sure it’s my fault?”
“Because I know it’s your fault,” his voice was cold.
Maverick was glad it was just them both in the locker room when Ice says the next thing.
“You don’t know that you’re dangerous. You don’t know how much trouble that could mean for anyone else, and you don’t care about the consequences for any of your actions because you never had anyone to teach you about them,” he says.
Maverick’s frown deepens. “Don’t bring that up,”
“Being dangerous up there only leads to crashing and burning on the way down. You’d know that if your surname wasn’t so infected by tragedy,” Ice had hit a nerve, and he was so full with concern for Hollywood and Wolfman that he didn’t care that he was pressing down on it harder than he should.
“It is not infected by tragedy,”
“It is, that’s why nobody likes you,”
Maverick goes silent, the anger inside him making his blood boil, and he didn’t want to escalate the tension in the room more by rising to Ice’s bait.
“No one will be there to mourn you when you crash and burn,” Ice hisses slowly.
Oh how he hated Iceman.
“Then let us hope I crash and burn tomorrow,” he says harshly, still somehow maintaining eye-contact with him.
Ice’s gaze was cold, freezing in fact, as he watches Maverick turn around and leave without another word.
~~~
Then the next day does come. Hop 31, and it would cast a shadow on Maverick for the rest of his life.
It all happened so fast, almost too fast for Maverick to comprehend. But he’s all too aware of the blood on his hands.
The blood that stains his flightsuit.
The blood that felt so hot compared to the salt of the sea water.
The blood of Goose’s that was all his fault.
He was in the water, holding him up, he doesn’t know how long for, but it was cold. It was so cold it seeped into his bones and felt like it was tainting the edges of his soul. Goose was gone, and it was all his fault. It was exactly how Ice had said.
The day before he was stupid, doing some risky manoeuvre that almost pushed Hollywood and Wolfman into a spin, and even though it didn’t, it gave them all a scare. And then now, today, he was too impatient, like he always is, he went to get the shot but at the cost of a flat-spin and the sickening noise of Goose’s head meeting the canopy roof as it failed to come off.
Maverick called for him to pull the handle because he couldn’t reach it, the gravity that shouldn’t have been there pushing him forward, his hands trapped under him.
And now he really didn’t have anyone to mourn him, since he’d murdered the only person who was his family.
He didn’t know if he was still in the water or in the stuffy helicopter. It didn’t make a difference.
Maverick felt sick, so sick, so numb and cold yet so hyper-aware of everything. The whir of the rotors, the blood on his hands that was still there, despite having his hands cleaned of it, the way his feet were soaked in his boots, the way the cupboard attached to the wall was ever so slightly open. The way a paramedic was trying to talk to him. The way the door was closed between him and Goose’s body. The way he could see his cracked red and white striped helmet through the slit of glass in the door.
~~~
That night he was sat on the bed in the hospital, and he didn’t know what he felt. He was cold, colder than he’d ever been in his life, and he regrets taking those two cold showers in a row; the night before and in the morning. The t-shirt he had on was too thin to do anything to his shivers, which were escalating each minute as the temperature outside dropped and as rain lightly pattered on the window.
It was July, late July at that, why was he so cold?
But he knows. It’s because the sea seeped into him. It’s because he killed Goose. It’s because he was alone.
But soon, way too soon, his thoughts switch on to that blue-eyed blond-haired pilot who he had that argument with yesterday. Iceman Kazansky. But despite the argument, despite the hard stares he’d give him, despite his frozen personality, he was the only person Maverick wanted to see. He knew that was going to be impossible unless he left the hospital and went to his house. Which he didn’t really want to do. Just by looking at the drizzle outside the window, Maverick knew it would only cool him down more.
But then again, he felt like a slave to the heart-wrenching feeling inside of him. He knew it would come for him like it came for him after his mother’s death, but he didn’t realise it would hit him this badly.
The grief felt like chest-ache and heartburn and seasickness all at the same time. It felt like his chest had been crushed. It felt like he couldn’t breathe.
He wanted to go to Ice. He didn’t know why, or even what he’d do if he did go to see him, he just knew he needed somebody. Somebody to hold him, somebody to sit next to, and somebody was better than nobody.
He didn’t care if they were frozen.
He was colder.
Iceman stands at his door, staring at the handle of it.
Go. Don’t go. Go.
Don’t go, he hates you.
Go, he needs you.
Don’t go. Go.
He doesn’t know what to do.
Ice sighs heavily, frowning at the door, wishing for his mind to say one thought to him. Wishing he could make a decision on whether to go and see Maverick at the hospital or stay at his house. Maverick hated him, he knows that.
Ice wishes he didn’t say what he did to him. He wants to turn back the clock and never even start to talk to him, never even have had the thought that said ‘tell him what he’s done’.
But Maverick is in the hospital, in a room, all by himself. He can’t even begin to imagine what was going through his head, what he was thinking; but Ice wanted to go and see him. To at least try to mend his mistake, to try to alleviate some of the pain Maverick must be feeling.
But Maverick hated him. He’d made sure of that when he’d said he would have no one to mourn him. When he’d said he had no one to teach him how dangerously he was behaving. When he had said all of the things he had.
He just wanted to fix what he’d said.
And suddenly they were face to face, the orange light from a lamppost above them illuminating the rain coming down on them.
Iceman stands there in front of him, and Maverick can hardly see his facial expression in the dark and through the rain, but most of all he doesn’t know why he’s stood there.
“I know what you said,” Maverick says quietly, clenching his jaw, trying to forget about the void inside of him and the rain dripping off his chin.
Iceman just looks at him, the rain making his hair shiny and dull at the same time in the light from the streetlamp.
“And now its true but- I just don’t know what to do,” Maverick stops himself there, if he let the words he wanted to say flow there’d be no stopping them.
Then Ice does something he wouldn’t have ever expected him to do; he steps closer to him and slides his arms around him.
Maverick was suddenly encased in the taller pilot’s embrace, and he suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe, or move, or do anything.
“Breathe,” Ice says quietly.
It wasn’t an order, but Maverick does so anyway, releasing the breath he’d been holding and sucking one in again, squeezing shut his eyes.
It’s only when his head meets Ice’s shoulder that the last lock on his barely-held-together floodgates breaks.
And he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about his reputation as the fearless pilot. He doesn’t care about the tears streaming down his cheeks and his sobs that he tries to muffle in Ice’s shoulder.
“Mav I’m so sorry,” Ice whispers against his head. The grief was choking him, so all Ice can do is hold him as tight as he possibly can, and pretend he wasn’t crying himself. The rain helps with that. He didn’t feel at all like his callsign and the personality it came with. He felt like Tom, like the kid who was nerdy and studied too hard and felt too many things until he’d made up Iceman to hide behind.
“Pete, you’re freezing,” He says once Maverick had stopped crying so hard against him. The shorter pilot was shivering, clenching his jaw to stop his teeth from chattering.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Lets go back,”
“D- don’t leave,” he stutters. He’d only sink back into the gaping hole in his chest if Ice left him now.
“I’m not going to, no way, not tonight,” Ice murmurs.
Maverick keeps himself as close as he can to him as they walk slowly back to the hospital and he leads Ice back to the room he was supposed to be in.
And he keeps himself there as Ice pulls a grey-blue, slightly scratchy woollen blanket around them both as he sits back on the bed with him. His shivers were diminishing the longer he pressed himself up against Ice, but he still felt cold inside.
“Maverick, I’m sorry,” he says after a few moments. “Yesterday, I.. I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t mean any of it,”
Maverick stares at his hand for a few seconds before he takes it. “I know,” his voice was gravelly as he pushes his fingers through Ice’s.
Ice looks at their hands, then at Maverick, leaning on his shoulder, looking so devoid of his normal aura of bright sunshine. “It’s not your fault,”
Maverick sniffs and keeps his eyes on their hands, half not knowing how to respond and half being too drained to do so.
Ice wasn’t expecting him to reply. He stays there with him the whole night, never once letting go, especially when the drizzle outside brings thunder and distant flashes of lightning. Or maybe Maverick was holding him at that point because he felt him tense up and flinch at the thunder.
Either way, maybe Iceman Kazansky wasn’t as cold as he seemed to be.
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