#mav thinking about him and ice

[nowayhomebucky]

timeless and icemav

[stopthatfool]

Currently trying to understand and pinpoint Ron "Slider" Kerner. Who are you Slider... what are your motivations... what are your goals... what is your favourite colour... why are you in the navy...

if anyone has any concrete thoughts about slider... please share them with me... who is this man... do you think he listens to nickelback? or does he think Metallica is the greatest band of all time?

[pollyna]

au in which Mav has Ice always sitting on his right side or in front of him and he always puts people he doesn't want to listen to his left side. It always makes Bradley giggle because not many people know Mav is deaf from that ear. Once they all had the pleasure to see an Admiral spending an hour talking basically to himself with Mav barely even registering, he was there because he was too intent staring at Ice staring back at him.

[compacflt]

So one of the things that made me cry (and laugh) the most, when reading the whole series was in Debriefing when Ice has surgery and Mav kisses him on the forehead, then Ice types out “I am cured” with like no punctuation. (Because of course Ice is the punctuation man 99% of the time.)

One, Ice is actually so fucking funny with the “I am cured.” Like no one would believe how funny he actually is. (And I headcanon that Mav knows this, of course, but almost no one else believes him. Which drives him up the wall.) Two, that exchange was so simple but so loving??? Foaming at the mouth here. Especially after those crazy 30 years. So my question is, what are Ice and Mav’s kisses of choice? Forehead, cheek, regular ol’ lips, the world is their secretly sappy oyster.

I haven’t read that chapter of debriefing since fucking last October! Whoa! not sure how i feel about it .

regular ol’ on the lips :) it means something more than all the rest, it’s romantic in a way none of the others are (which is why it’s so dangerous)

okay yes re: ice being funny yes. wait wait wait let me find it in my doc hold on

here!

[nade2308]

"I like to dance"

@thethistlegirl @malewifebillcage here have some more Stacee

[coridotmp3]

i'm always thinking about jake as ice's son btw

[looney-just-like-her-tunes]

photos in mav's hangar; maverick & baby goose

[forsty]

ice <3

[whohasthecards]

Bring your grandpa/dad to work day, but Jake got attached to this old man named Tom.

Tom was some old guy he snarked off at a coffee shop once and was pleased when the older man calmly gave a witty retort.

He keeps on bumping into the man in the same coffee shop, but he bumps into the old man at the park and grocery place at well.

Surprisingly they hit it off, and Jake looks forward to seeing Tom even though he'll never admit it. Tom's getting fond of the boy. Especially when he realized 3 months in that this was the same Jake "Hangman" Seresin who saved his husband and Baby Goose.

One day there was a bring your dad/grandpa/son to work day. Jake was talking about it to Tom, sad that he doesn't really have anyone to bring and was planning to call out because even tho Mav is great and Javy's family always welcome him, he feels like an outsider in those events. Tom hesitantly offered to come, not wanting to overstep, and Jake looked overjoyed.

Tom comes to the event and Jake was showing him around the base, and the shenanigans he gets into with his squad (Tom is delighted to gain some more blackmail against Mav). He also starts introducing Tom around, and some people are staring wide-eyed or straight up choke when they see Tom.

Why the fuck is the COMPACFLT here and in civvies!??? AND HANGMAN IS CALLING HIM, TOM???

Iceman makes sure to give his trademark glare to everyone who even thinks about mentioning his title or saying something to Jake. Everyone just snaps their mouths shut and smiles awkwardly.

It continues with Jake dragging THE ICEMAN around like an excited puppy, and Tom looking fond and ruffles Hangman's hair every few minutes. The base didn't realize how young Hangman really is until that day.

Eventually Tom and Jake run into Mav and Bradley and both have their mouths wide open as Jake introduces Tom to them.

Eventually ends with Mav saying, "Hey! I adopted him first!" While pouting.

"He takes after me more," Ice says giving Mav a grin as he slung an arm around Jake's shoulder to pull him against his side.

[the-ace-with-spades]

A sitcom-like/humour fic AU where Bradley's papers haven't been pulled and he does land in USNA but he's doing everything and anything not to be labeled as the nepo baby even though he definitely is a nepo baby

This would include:

- Bradley knowing things he isn't supposed to know as a first year (plebe?) because he had inside sources (Ice and Slider) and things didn't change much

- Every single person from the personnel knowing who he is and Bradley ditching attempts to use him as a stepping ladder to meet Ice and/or Mav

- Having to listen to his crush (Hangman) making whole odes about his old man (either Mav or Ice, you pick)

- Pretending he doesn't know Slider when he comes to visit as a 'guest speaker', including when Slider tries to speaks to him, making Slider seem crazy

- Lying to everyone that he had a family emergency and that's why he was gone the last two weeks of summer training when in reality Ice pulled him out because he wanted to take him and Mav to the seaside somewhere in Europe

- When they get an opportunity to get a pilot licence along their studies, he fakes ignorance and signs up again (despite already having a pilot licence) and then demolishes everyone and gets banned from flying in the training group (*cough* Mav's influence *cough*)

- Doing the craziest mental summersaults and pretending he didn't know who Ice was when he was driving him back to the Academy and talking to him at the meet point and people saw ("Oh was that Admiral Kazansky? I thought he'd be taller")

- Hangman: So what your parents do for a living? Rooster: My dad works admin (there's a lot of paperwork when you're an admiral) and the other one is switching to research (testing planes kinda is research)

- After Ice's impromptu visit (poor Ice has the empty nest syndrome...) - some of his classmates gossiping: Did you hear that apparently the Iceman is gay? Bradley, with a fake pikachu face, even though he had literally helped Mav choose the engagement ring for Ice: Nah, not possible.

- Also, Bradley knowing that telling Jake would impress him so much but feeling absolutely physically ill whenever he thinks why and ending up not telling Jake for years (like, up until a dinner before graduation when Jake the Boyfriend gets asked to dinner and brings the Iceman a discounted pot plant that's half dying as the meet-the-parents gift and promptly has an anxiety attack on the front porch when Bradley does tell him)

- Bradley making elaborate excuses why Mav and Ice can't meet his academy friends when they're staying close to their home, to the point Mav starts thinking he's embarrassed by them

There was something else that I'm forgetting rn so might add more later

[bo0tleg]

One thing I like about Top Gun (1986) is how believable the development with Ice and Mav's dynamic is.

I've seen a lot of the "Rivals suddenly become buddies after traumatic event together" in media, but I don't think I've seen it done better than in Top Gun. Mostly, I attribute it to how much build up it has.

Most of the time, the 'Rivals' hate each others guts throughout the entire movie/series and then they go through an extremely traumatic event that binds them for life and shifts their entire concept of each other. Ice and Mav never once changed how they saw each other, it just changed their understanding of it.

Ice saw Maverick as dangerous and Mav saw Iceman as stuck-up and commanding. And they weren't wrong, by any means.

From the beginning, they have tension between them because of how different they are. And it ends up in the audience seeing Ice as the 'Antagonist' because that's how Mav sees it, and we're seeing it from his perspective as the protagonist. But Ice was never inherently wrong, in fact he was right.

Other than his first scene, Iceman always has a point in what he's saying. He's criticizing Mav, not insulting him. Sure, he does it in a brash way because masculinity, but he's not trying to insult him, he's trying to knock him down a peg and wake him up to reality. All Ice wants is that he starts to act as a team player, start caring about everybody's safety AND his own, rather than being reckless for the sake of being reckless. But Mav sees it as an insult because he can't process criticism in a healthy way (due to how he grew up). The same thing happened with Charlie, for the record.

And so the strife between the two begins. What I like about it is how it bleeds out of them over time, becoming more settled as the movie goes on. In the locker room "You're dangerous" scene, the tension is palpable. It's obvious they're agitated by each other, and feel the need to prove they're the correct one.

If you pay attention, this whole... demand for superiority goes away as time progresses. They're fine with each other's presence, it's not like they're constantly at each others throat all the time. In the shower scene, Ice dropped all of the aggression and competitiveness from his tone and is instead just laying out what he thinks. He's not undermining Maverick, he's not lecturing him like a child. Iceman is just telling Maverick exactly how he sees the situation in hopes that it would make him realize what the fuck he's doing, but with little hope that it'll actually work.

That doesn't mean Ice is always correct either, he doesn't understand why Mav acts the way he does, thus fails to take into consideration the emotional trauma behind it. Which only causes even more strife.

The entire time, Iceman isn't being a dick for the sake of it, he just wants Mav to stop being stupid (by his standards). And Maverick doesn't understand it because all he gets from what Ice says is insults.

Maverick isn't good at understanding what people mean to say if it's implied, you need to say it to his face. This is the reason he stayed quiet in the shower scene, because Ice finally laid everything out in simple words that he can understand without making it sound like a dick-measuring contest.

Thing is, the tension mellows out. At the beginning, you could see the tension and cut it with a knife. By the middle you can see them getting used to each other without jumping to constantly trade jabs (namely: the volleyball scene, it's just a bunch of guys being dudes, and the scene where Charlie says that Mav flew recklessly in front of the whole class, Ice doesn't comment on it in any way). Over time, they've settled down into their tension without needing to address it all the time.

Then Goose dies.

And the tension between them is still there.

Just because Goose isn't there anymore, doesn't mean their whole dynamic vanishes all of a sudden. You can see their hesitation towards each other (especially Ice), and that's great! It demonstrates that Goose dying doesn't magically resolve their problems with each other in solidarity.

Ice tried to give his consolations to Mav, and is awfully awkward about it. You can see on his face that he wants to say more, but doesn't because he knows it's not his place given their history. And not much is said, but a lot it communicated. (Val Kilmer is a killer actor for this, OH MY FUCKING GOD BLESS THAT MAN)

Even in the graduation scene you can see how out of their depts they really are with each other. A stilted congratulations, that was it. But they're trying, and that's what matters.

A scene I think gets overlooked a lot is the scene right before the Layton, where Ice expressed his worries about Mav to Stinger, and Mav heard him. Because I feel like that was a shift that was more drastic than the Layton itself for them.

What Ice was doing in that scene wasn't doubting Maverick's flying abilities, it was his mental health. Sure, he passed the psych eval, but that means next to jack shit when in a real combat situation so close after his backseater dying. And Ice might be worried that he's gonna be left hanging, but with the way he was speaking I'm more inclined to believe he was more worried about Maverick's wellbeing than himself. Ice almost looked resigned. He knew it was gonna get dismissed because that's the military for you, but he still wanted to try to vouch for Mav to stay groundside, if only to keep his mind at bay.

But Maverick heard him, and as usual, he read it as an insult. He wasn't wrong to assume Ice didn't believe him capable of flying the mission, which wouldn't be a lie, but failed to realize that he had more than one reason to want Maverick on the ground rather than in the air. And for the first time, Maverick believes him.

Up until this point, Mav dismissed all of Ice's so called 'insults' because he was certain in and of himself. But now he isn't anymore.

And it affects his performance in the air. I'm not saying he was as shitty as he was at the start of that combat because of what he overheard, but I am saying that it certainly didn't help matters in the slightest.

So their weird 'stepping-on-eggshells' situation is all over the place by that point. Because they started to care about each other despite not being what one would call proper friends yet. It's establishing a potential friendship by implying that 1. Ice cares about Mav's wellbeing and 2. Mav cares about what Ice thinks.

On the ground, they have the wingman exchange, and their suddenly buddy buddy. Thing is, it wasn't sudden at all.

They've been setting this up the entire fucking movie.

Going back to what I said at the beginning: Ice thinks Mav is dangerous and Mav thinks Ice is stuck-up and controlling. After the Layton, they still think those things because they weren't wrong to begin with. What changed was that instead of seeing it as something that pitted them against each other, it was seen as something that simply was about the other, and that there was no changing it. It could be good.

Mav being dangerous could be good and Ice being stuck-up and controlling could be good, because those were just traits of who they were. By the end of the movie they didn't change how they saw each other, just how they interpreted each other.

And it was built up during the entire fucking movie.

There was a reason to why they acted the way they did with each other because of the stilted interpretation they had of each other. From rivalry to friendship (and perhaps more later down the line), it's glaringly obvious throughout that it wasn't a sudden shift, it was exponential.

That's why I think it was so well developed, because you could see it coming.

[maverickazansky]

thinking about kid logic and how to kids, everything is black and white for the longest time. they don’t have critical thinking skills and its easy for them to just accept things because they have no reason to question it. 

therefore, thinking about bradley’s family realising it one day when he’s with carole and maverick, and bradley just pipping up with,

“uncle mav, when you marry uncle ice, does that mean you’re gonna be maverick man too?”

and (after maverick’s brain stops short circuiting because marry ice marry ice marry ice marry ice marry ICE?!) he just calmly swallows, and asks in an incredibly high pitched voice because he’s still in shock,

“why would i be maverick man?”

and bradley, giving him the obvious look of ‘don’t be silly uncle mav…’ tells him, “well if uncle ice’s surname is man, when you marry him, you gonna be like momma and copy his name. like how momma is momma goose. and i’m baby goose. so you gotta be maverick man like uncle ice is ice man.”

and naturally, once carole and maverick have caught on to his child logic, carole is just cackling in the corner, and maverick is incredibly red because he’s still not over bradley’s incredibly calm assessment that his uncle mav and his uncle ice are going to get married one day (they’ll save explaining why that won't be happening (anytime soon) until he’s older), and maverick has to explain that uncle ice’s surname is actually kazansky and his full callsign is iceman, not just ice. they just call him ice because it’s easier, like how bradley calls him mav because its easier than maverick. 

carole is still no help because she’s already planning the icemav wedding in her mind because ‘excellent idea baby goose!!!”, and maverick then has to explain that actually, bradley’s surname isn’t goose, it’s bradshaw. and momma and daddy’s names aren’t momma and daddy goose, it’s carole and nick bradshaw. 

bradley’s exclaimed shock of WHAT still echoes in maverick’s ear 30 years later whenever he thinks about how he had to explain to a 5 year old bradley that his surname isn’t a cool one like goose, but rather just a normal surname like bradshaw, and that momma and daddy have different names. 

rumour has it adult bradley is still feeling betrayed to this day. 

(slider exclusively refers to maverick as mr man once him and ice do get married purely to be annoying for a long time.)

((maverick does kick him in the shins at least twice.))

[pollyna]

2020!Ice back in '86 would tell Mav about the hop, or at least try to make him understand to take caution against jet washes even if it cost him to come back to an empty bed and a life without Maverick in it.

[compacflt]

what dog would icemav get?

im guessing no mangy devil chihuahuas or rescues (compacflt can't be seen with anything but a purebreed) golden retriever might be too on the nose, how about a malinois or a german shepherd maybe an english bulldog (ugly)

idk. i don’t really have a dog in this fight (i don’t care) (pun intended). but it definitely would have to be like a Real Dog. yeah nothing smaller than 70 lbs. a Real Dog. other than that i don’t have any opinions. could be a mutt or a rescue! but it would have to be, you know, handsome and upstanding and like, a Real Dog that you can, like, do stuff with. it is very cliche and on the nose and maybe im only saying this bc i, like, don’t care at all about dogs but ice does seem like the white lab/golden retriever guy and mav strikes me as a german shepherd guy. there are many reasons i don’t think they would ever have a dog (what would they do with the dog?) but not being able to agree on the breed might be one reason they never get a dog. arguing and bickering etc

[k9effect]

I thought about Mav passed out at his work desk with headphones on and it spiralled into this whole thing

Mav always felt a little lonely.

Even when he had people around him who loved him, he always ended up on his own one way or another and felt that loneliness seeping in. Goose was the first to notice. Before Goose's trips back to Tennessee to see Carole included Mav, he would come back to base to hear about how his pilot had lost a bit of his shine while he was away.

That's when Goose started making the recordings.

It was a small gift, but it meant the world to Mav. A brand new walkman, headphones and all, and a single cassette tape. This tape didn't have music on it, no, it contained a three hour recording of Goose reading though the F-14 Tomcat Flight Manual and adding in his own comedic commentary.

He wasn't sure what Mav would think of it, but when he returned home from another trip and found his pilot curled up asleep on the lounge, headphones on, walkman clutched in his hands, the tape run through, he realised he had made the right decision. Once Mav stirred, realising Goose had returned, he pulled the RIO onto the couch and thanked him for how thoughtful and considerate of a gift it was. That it made him feel less alone.

Goose continued the recordings. They were simple things he could make while completing other work. An hour recording here of Goose rambling while he completed chores, half an hour recording there of Goose muttering while he completes some paperwork. Even after Mav started joining him on his trips to Carole and they inevitably became attached at the hip, Goose continued making recordings. They grew more sincere over time, telling Mav that he was loved and he was strong and could get through anything.

Maverick was very glad he continued making them. It was a piece of Goose he could always carry with him.

Because one day, Goose wasn't there anymore.

Ice was never quite certain why his wingman was always listening to music on a busted walkman, but he never questioned it.

That was until he was packing Mav an overnight bag after an accident and Mav had specifically requested the walkman. Ice had taken a closer look at it and seen the writing on the cassette.

‘GOOSE - 12’

Curiosity got the better of him and he pulled on the headphones and pressed play.

“Y'know, Mav-” It was Goose's voice, Ice realised with a pang deep in his chest, “- I'm pretty sure, by like, most, if not all, the laws of aviation, you should have broken our Tomcat's airframe several times over. I honestly don't know how she's still together-” There was the clinking of dishes and sloshing of water along with the distinct sound of a bristly, sudsy brush scrubbing metal. “- What sort of demon did you make a deal with to manage this? I'm not arguing, I'd rather not face a board of inquiry again, but I'm curious.”

Ice paused it.

He realised very quickly what the cassette was and that, judging on the number, there were more of these.

Mav was always listening to Goose talk.

He packed the walkman into the overnight bag with much more care than he offered possibly anything.

Mav stared.

He blinked once, then twice. But it changed nothing.

There was a cassette sitting on his bed. On it, was scribbled a name and a number.

‘ICE - 1’

Beneath it was a small, simple note.

‘Listen to me.’

Mav pushed the cassette into his walkman and, sitting down, let it play.

“Hey, Mav. Sorry if this is weird for you, it sure feels weird for me. I- uh- I realised what the walkman is for. I'm sorry I teased you for it, it's not dumb and old. I know Slider thought you were pretty cool for having one. He's got one too. But anyways, I found a recording of Goose and I realised why you have this so I thought, y'know, maybe I could make you some new ones? To make up for the teasing at least. I mightn't be as good as Goose but I'll give it my best shot. I've got a book here, I'm just gonna read it out loud for a while, okay? Okay. Here we go…”

Mav listened to the whole thing in one sitting. It was long and sweet and Mav felt something aching inside him, something that hadn't ached in a long time.

Every week or so, Mav would find another cassette in his room with an increased number on it. It was just Ice for a while, but then he found one labelled ‘SLIDER - 1’. Then another a few months later labelled ‘HOLLYWOOD - 1’, then ‘WOLFMAN - 1’. His collection grew as more people helped continue Goose's legacy.

The day he found ‘VIPER - 1’ he felt like he was five again. Viper's recording was two hours worth of him recounting childhood stories of Mav, stories of him with his parents, of just his parents, and deployment tales of his dad.

Once Mav buys his first proper home, an old hangar out in the Mojave Desert, he builds a small shelf to hold all of his cassettes instead of keeping them in a bag or a box. It's then, when they're all neatly organised together, that he realises just how many he has.

The original thirty-one from Goose.

Three from Carole.

One short one from Bradley.

Seventeen from Iceman.

Ten from Slider.

Seven each from Hollywood and Wolfman.

Four from Chipper.

Three from Sunny.

And, so far, Two from Viper.

He doesn't feel so lonely anymore. Everyone he loves has put time and effort into making sure he doesn't feel alone. That instead, he feel loved.

And he sure does.

Even now, years down the track, Ice will stumble upon Maverick passed out at his work desk late at night ontop of a half finished project, with his old walkman next to him, headphones on, listening to Goose laugh his way through the Tomcat manual.

[emmedoesntdomath]

ok, but imagine young bradley repeatedly getting pissed when people don’t seem to understand that uncle (dad) mav loves uncle (pops) ice.

a coworker when they see him in public: *to ice and mav* it’s nice that you guys get along for young bradshaw here

bradley, squinting at this man like he’s stupid: but they always get along?

mav, snickering: thanks

-

a classmate when he has to do a family tree: wait so why are they next to each other again?

bradley, who had watched this same kid give a presentation with the same lines with his aunt and uncle: …because they are? why wouldn’t they be?

classmate, even more confused: but-

-

a teacher when he first goes to the academy: maverick is a brilliant pilot, but you shouldn’t try to be like him. the only reason he still has a job is because he’s friends with admiral kazansky

bradley, with the most deadpan look on his face: friends? really? they’re friends? is that it?

the teacher, absolutely appalled: bradshaw, that’s not how you talk about your superiors-

-

jake, thinking he’s funny: *talking about their “friendship”* c’mon, rooster, a good ol’ rivalry never hurt no one. look at maverick and iceman. legends.

bradley, over this shit: THEY’RE GAY YOU DUMBASS. IN LOVE. THE MOST HOMOSEXUAL SHIT YOU’VE EVER SEEN. THE ONLY RIVALRY THEY HAVE IS OVER WHO HAS TO DO THE DISHES.

jake, who still thinks he’s funny: …your point being?