#he saved that for the F/A-18E/F NATOPS LMFAO

[adiduck]

(SO excited for the Groundhog au omg, I’ve been loving the snippets)

Guessing game: young Ice and Mav admiring 21st century fighter jets??? Give those guys some good plane porn time??? (That sounded a lot less weird in my head)

AHAHAHAHAHA this is actually semi-plot relevant. Here's the bit I think fits best with your prompt:

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“What made you think to fly close to terrain?”

“Maverick had a surprising amount of knowledge about SU-57 tracking capability,” Ice drawls.

“Excuse me, I had a normal and appropriate amount of knowledge about SU-57 tracking capability,” Maverick gripes. “We knew we might be going up against them! I looked them up.”

“You had a five minute monologue about them,” Ice says. “That’s a lot of looking them up.”

“Well,” Maverick says, casting about for a reason, “it did save our lives, so--”

“Lieutenant Kazansky,” the Captain says. Ice looks up. “I’d love to say that if I were pulled into the future for a potential suicide op, I would spend my time researching the mission and not the generation of fighter jets in use in the future. I’d really like to say that. The truth is, I would definitely not be researching the mission.”

Ice snorts.

“Hey,” Maverick says.

The Captain shrugs. “Make a note to the Groundhog techs: pilots from the past have personalities.”

“...Fair enough,” Maverick grumbles.

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