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Pete Mitchell doesn’t have a death wish— at least, he doesn’t care about his death wish. Not anymore.
His doctor, whom he meets periodically, says it’s fitting he’s become a fighter pilot.
Pete thinks it’s fitting as well, but doesn’t bother linking it to his missing heart or the very clear deadline traced in front of his life. He’s always been like this, adrenaline driven and hungry for life, even before the accident.
He knows Goose is counting; he has been since they met. Pete fought hard to hide the scar from him, but that was when he was naively thinking he could protect the people around him from his destiny.
When Nick sees it for the first time, in a locker room after a flight during the Academy, he can’t hide the horror from his face in his usual dramatic way.
How long, he asks, and Pete doesn’t answer. He lifts his chin high with a challenging look on his face and stares straight into Nick’s eyes. How long, Nick prods again and adds that they’ll be flying together from now on, and he needs to know how long he can follow his pilot. Three years, says Pete, and from that moment Nick starts to count backward.
They are 21 and stupid, and Nick is sure that Pete has all the time in the world to fall in love and hear the beating of a heart in his chest again. But Pete— Pete, who is stubborn and doesn’t have a father nor a mother, Pete who doesn’t believe in destiny and miracles but only in the cruel lessons that the world seems so desperate to throw at him every time it gets a chance— Pete Mitchell doesn’t care. So what if his life has an expiration date so clearly written on his chest. He intends to make the most of it anyway.
When he was 14, like many children before him, his heart was stolen.
It’s not his fault, really, and it’s not his mother’s fault that he is pulled into an alley after coming back from an afternoon stroll with his high school classmate. The three figures press a small cloth on his nose and whisper to him gently to relax, that everything will be okay, and he wakes up hours later without feeling any pain and a scar on his chest. He presses his hand there and doesn’t feel a heartbeat. He knows exactly what has happened.
Years later, at a support group his mother forces him to attend, they explain that the thieves knew exactly what they were doing; teenage hearts beat faster, stronger, priceless possessions for collectors, and he was coming back from a walk in the park with Steve and his heart was beating loud, proudly banging against his ribs. He was the perfect target.
Medicine has progressed nicely since the 50s when you had no more than three years to get your heart back. Now, with modern chemistry and surgery and all, his doctor tells him he has ten. You have plenty of time, young man, you’ll fall in love before you know it and you’ll feel the blush in your cheeks again, his doctor says.
But Pete Mitchell doesn’t care. He enlists right after high school and doesn’t look back, doesn’t share his worries with anyone, and stops checking for scars and bruises. He doesn’t fall in love.
He thinks about his mother often at first, and the illness that consumed her — very different from his own, no chance at stopping aggressive cancer, and all the love in the world could not save her.
Maybe that’s why he stops thinking about love as the cure. It wasn’t enough for those he loved, those he adored fiercely, so why should it be enough for him?
After the first year, he doesn’t think about his mother as often. He carries her on the left side of his chest with his father, snuggled in the free space where the heart should be, hoping that the memories can somehow beat in its place. They don’t.
He meets Nick at the Academy and wonders, he lets himself dream for a moment. It would be so easy to fall in love with him, but the universe is often cruel. Nick is charming, matches him beat for beat, snark laughter for laughter, tall and awkward and all-encompassing with his love, but Pete can only watch themselves blossom into the friendship that was always meant to be.
They are joined at the hip from the moment they shake their hands, and Pete instantly knows that this is not it. Besides, Nick’s heart belongs to Carol and years later to fearless Bradley, and without even noticing he gains a family and is surrounded by love and affection, just like his doctor says. This can be enough, he thinks. This will be enough. But it’s not the love his missing heart is looking for.
Maybe this is the problem, that he fits too well in this perfect nest of warmth that he found by chance and he doesn’t feel the need to look for anything else.
He craves the adrenaline, the feeling of flying, and he develops a perfect face and cutting smile and a taste for breaking the rules. Pure instinct, liquid bravado, and Pete stops thinking about falling in love. His regular check-ins with the doctor turn into an endless plea from the man to give it a chance, but Pete ignores any prayer and only thinks about flying.
Nick, now Goose to his own Maverick, is always by his side.
After two years, Pete gently asks Nick to stop counting. Nick patiently obliges, but can’t hide the worrying look on his face every time Pete takes his shirt off.
He wears his scar proudly, now, and doesn’t shy away anymore from curious eyes and the pity of others. He doesn’t care that there are five inches of scar tissue on the left side of his chest, long enough that his own hand can’t cover it even if he spreads his fingers wide, but he knows that Nick is monitoring it closely. Pete has accepted this, the unspoken agreement of Nick not voicing his concerns but watching the scar as it turns an angrier red and purple as the months passes. It’s the only way Nick allows him to not talk about it.
When Cougar gives back his wings after the MiG scare, Pete thanks his missing heart. He doesn’t have anything left to lose when Stinger sends him and Goose to TOPGUN, and even if Goose is not counting anymore he knows he has only a handful of months left.
At first, he thinks Nick won’t want to go because of Carol, because of little Bradley, but he’s forced to admit he’s wrong when Nick asks him if he wants to skip the training and retire and enjoy his last few months, maybe try to change the situation, to save himself. When Pete tries to protest, Nick gently lifts his t-shirt and traces the harsh lines of the scar and the blue veins around it, a constellation of lighting patterns that has spread all over his chest and is starting to take his left shoulder as well.
This is it, Mav, this is something you can’t ignore, he whispers, patiently waiting for an answer. It’s one of the few occasions where Goose doesn’t speak with sarcasm-heavy sentences and snark retorts but takes a look at Pete with heavy eyes. Talk to me, Pete, he pleads, let me help you figure it out.
Pete tells him he already made his choice. His chest burns every day with the ache of his missing heart and the need to be up there with the best of the best, and he cannot think about anything better for him than to prove himself until his last breath.
He doesn’t fear death. That’s what you get for a missing father and a missing mother. Death has never been a choice for those around him, nothing more than a cruel twist of fate, but he has this choice now. He holds it on the tips of his fingers and decides, I do not care. I just want to fly and feel the rush in my veins and redness on my cheeks, if not from a beating heart then from the Gs crashing into the back of my head.
He packs his bags with Nick at his side, and they can’t stop grinning for hours, days until they reach Fightertown. Pete brings the motorcycle and goes for a ride challenging the planes when they lift off. This fast, he can almost feel the ghost of his heart against his chest, but it’s a brief memory that he lets fade into the sunset.
Not having a heart doesn’t mean Pete’s blood doesn’t pump fast and angry into his veins; on the contrary, he senses the tip of his fingers tingle with rage and adrenaline the moment he sets foot in the training room and meets the gaze of ice blue eyes and god-forbid bleached tips. He sees the guys staring at him and thinks, this is something I’d like to break. This is who I’m going to prove myself to, and when he says he’s going to be the best he means it with his entire body. When the other man, Iceman, shows him that he’s going to match him word for word, beat by beat, Pete grins and tips the corners of his mouth up.
He’s going to show this guy who’s the better pilot like he did with all of them before. This guy has even got a heart (and Pete can almost hear it beating loud with pride in his ears), but Pete doesn’t. It’s going to be even sweeter.
He lets himself have some fun at the bar, serenading a girl and drinking and all that. He promised Goose anyway; when Pete Mitchell makes a promise, he follows through. Maverick doesn’t, he’s just pure instinct and bravado, but Pete does. Sometimes, when he’s lying awake in the middle of the night with a hand on his chest, he wonders if Maverick came to life after the incident and Pete died that day.
But he made his promise to Nick and Carole that he would still treat this like an ordinary detachment, and so he does.
The problem with Charlie, anyway, is that Pete almost allows himself to hope.
Nick falls into the trap almost too easily, with glassy eyes and sharp elbows on his side when he tells him he visited her. He doesn’t need to say it when he sees her orbiting in Pete’s direction every day a step closer, but Nick can almost taste the victory on the tip of his tongue. Pete is smarter than that: it doesn’t take him more than a fraction of a second to understand very clearly that he’s not going to fall in love with her, as hard as he can try.
He throws himself into training after that. Goose is not counting anymore, but the claws of the scar reaching for the junction between his shoulder and his neck are a cruel reminder of the months, weeks he has left.
One day, Pete wakes up and can’t catch a deep breath, his throat closing up at the last second and the tips of his fingers going numb for a few minutes. He sits up in his bed, closes his eyes, and tries his best. Goose is miraculously knocking on his front door and letting himself in when he doesn’t answer, joining him in his bed and stroking his hair softly until Pete can breathe on his own. Pete makes them a cup of coffee, looks Nick in his eyes with a soft plea, and they go on with their day.
Please, Mav, let’s just skip today, Nick begs him.
TOPGUN it’s not something you can skip, Mother Goose. We are so close to getting this. Let’s go and show them what we got. Let’s take this home.
The issue with taking it home is shaped like a tall and striking man that doesn’t like Maverick at all and makes no secret of it.
The first time Pete takes his shirt off in the locker room in front of the other pilots, he can feel half a dozen eyes burning into his skin, staring at the scar and its purple outline. He catches the pity, doesn’t miss the stupor, and feels Goose's protective stance behind him ready to shield him with his body if he needs it.
Iceman doesn’t even shake his head.
That’s where your death wish comes from, Maverick.
If you’re referring to my ability to fly, you should know I’m not in danger, or else I wouldn’t be here.
I’m not worried about you, Pete Mitchell. I’m worried about the lives you’re going to put at stake when you don’t have to factor in your own survival.
Pete grins. The words sting on his skin and he wants to taste blood, but he’s not going to give the man the satisfaction.
You are dangerous.
I am, Ice, I am. I’m just waiting to show you how much.
Pete shows him well enough every day when they are in the air.
A routine begins to form, a tether between the pair that threatens to make Goose lose his goodamn mind every time they hit the showers and fill the air with cutting words and grins and stares.
Get the fuck over it, Mav, you don’t want to lose the time that you have with this. If you don’t die from your heart, you’re going to end up between the mountains because Iceman looks like the type of guy that just knows how to hide a body.
Pete just laughs. He has no intention of ever stopping.
Ice, Tom, is probably the main reason he’s dragging the time he has left so well. He wants to beat him, wants to wipe the smirk off his lips with a fist, wants to be him and have him at the same time. He knows that the universe is cruel, he has a proven track record of this fact, and he can feel that he won’t have the chance of tasting the lips of the man on his before his time is up. Fuck it, he thinks again, and resorts to just wanting to steal the trophy from his hands.
During his third week, Pete wakes up and his left hand shakes so hard he can’t even lift it above his head. The reddish lines have progressed well past his elbows, he knows that very well, but he takes his pills and shakes it off. The hand stops trembling, and he drives to the training room thinking about the hoop he’s tackling in a few hours.
Nothing really changes, that day. They win the hoop, today’s standing seeing them a few points behind Iceman and Slider.
He’s covered in sweat, after, out of breath and limbs loose caused by the physical strain (and not the missing heart, Pete decides).
He finds himself in need of a second shower a couple of hours after training, and politely declines Goose’s proposal of getting shitfaced in a bar.
Wandering around the base corridor, he lazily enters the locker room turning on boiling hot water the minute he strips himself of his clothes. Pete lets the water run over his skin, soothing his aching muscles, and takes a moment to inspect the scar closely for the first time in weeks.
The purple veins paint an intricate picture on his entire chest now. He follows them with the tip of his index finger but doesn’t let his lips quiver at the sensation; he’s keen on not showing that he’s scared even to himself. Pete turns the water off, wraps himself in a towel, puts his dog tag secure around his neck and, for a brief moment, gets lost in his own head.
He has a vague idea of how it’s going to go down in a few weeks. He’s going to be increasingly tired and he’ll ask Goose to take him to the nearest specialized center; he’s going to be admitted and will be asked to say his final goodbyes — but he will just hug Nick and let him go; and then he’ll go to sleep, and—
His thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a thud on the floor, and Pete sees Ice’s duffel bag in front of him before he sees the man.
He scans him from the boots to the head. The composed shape of his body is stark against the neon lights of the room, white shirt clinging onto his chest and hair perfectly spiked up, like the villain from a movie or the hero of a novel. He looks beautiful like this, Pete thinks. When he meets his gaze, he finds pushed lips and wide blue eyes piercing through him.
What the fuck, man, Ice breathes out.
Pete is only slightly taken aback and challenges him with his chin up.
With two broad steps, Ice is right in front of him, and takes his wrist with his own hand to lift the arm. The touch of his fingers on the scar feels like a shock to Pete.
Are you hurting, Ice asks, without looking at him. He doesn’t let Pete answer and urges, how long do you have left.
No, you don’t have the right to know.
I saw your hand twitching today. It must be soon.
Fuck you, Ice, just let me go.
When Ice looks at him it’s with the eyes of a man standing in front of a puzzle trying to figure out the solution. His lips slightly parted, his hand still lifting Mav’s arm like a bridge between them, he takes a sharp breath through his nose and pushed Pete easily against the lockers.
Pete holds his breath when nothing happens, when Ice just stares at him like he’s not pressing his whole body on him and running his gaze from Pete’s lips to his shoulders and to his own hand against the deep valleys of the scar.
The clash of lips that comes when Pete leans forward leaves his throat dry like he’s been thirsty for years. There’s no affection in the hands that grip the hair and the muscles on his back, just mouths parting and sharing breaths. Ice pulls back after he finds himself pressing on the side of too hard on Pete’s arm.
Does this hurt.
It doesn’t.
Good.
Ice drops to his knees and sucks him off right there, wasting no time in teasing and pointless games leaving Pete with his mind empty, just an endless stream of what is happening and the realization that he has wanted this for so long.
Ice lets him come down his throat and Pete wraps a hand around his cock moments after. No words are exchanged besides gasps and encouragement; Pete leaves the room after carefully putting on his clean clothes.
When he goes back to his quarters, his hand is shaking a bit more quietly. He figures it’s the adrenaline easing his blood flow somehow.
The routine between them changes just slightly.
Maverick wakes up every morning, ignores the ticking bomb on the left side of his chest, dismisses Goose’s worrying looks, and tries to win the fucking trophy. If he acts even more deranged, even more on the darkest part of insanity and instinct, he feels comfortable enough to blame it on the expiration date of his life that’s fast approaching.
And then, and that’s the part that has changed, he finds Ice staring at him across the room or in the blue light of the bar, a stern and unreadable look that leads them to the closest room tearing their clothes apart at the nearest convenience, where neither of them talks too much.
He blows Ice in an empty office when the pilot beats him with ease during a hoop, and Pete lets him fuck him against his own kitchen counter when he steals the point right back the next day. After the second time he catches Ice inspecting the scar, he threatens to never take his shirt off again if he doesn’t stop. Ice dutifully complies like the good military man he is and pushes him on his hands and knees as revenge for the insolence. Pete gladly lets him.
He knows Goose knows. He doesn’t even let himself hope that he can get away with this without his friend knowing.
Nick just shakes his head with a smile and says, just leave some of them for the rest of us, man, no need to be so greedy.
Pete winks and shoves him without even looking back when Nick protests in pain with a loud moan.
When Carole visits, he serenades her for hours, finding himself distracted from his heart and his dubious daily catching up with Iceman while he gets lost in the giggles and warm hugs of little Bradley.
I adore you, Mav, Carole says at least ten times that day. I know you don’t let Goose remind you, but Bradley needs his godfather. Nick needs his pilot. You can still turn this around if you want, you know.
I don’t really see a crowd of potential suitors lining up, Carole, I’ve given up a long time ago.
Don’t think I can’t just see through you, Pete Mitchell. Don’t fool yourself into believing that Nick doesn’t tell me anything.
Pete shakes his head. He takes Carole's hand softly into his own and presses it onto his chest.
See, Carole, still empty.
Carole looks at her feet.
Pete thinks about Ice for a minute, and he remembers the still empty hole in his chest.
On the last hoop, their rivalry is mixed with jet fuel, foreplay and Pete’s irritation concerning his right leg that is not really responding to his own directions that morning. It’s the perfect recipe for a disaster.
When Pete feels the plane losing control under him, he prays and pleads Goose to eject while cursing the universe again for stealing his heart and stealing his body next and thinks don’t you dare take anything else from me again.
The universe seems to listen, this time, and Pete takes it as a gift when he’s standing at the edge of Nick’s bed waiting for him to wake up.
Ice is standing at the hospital room’s door and is staring at Pete with his mouth tense and eyes fixed on him.
Just go away, Ice, he pleads.
It’s not your fault, Pete.
I know. Doesn’t change it, though.
Ice takes a few steps towards him. Ice closing the distance seems to be a recurring theme of his recent life, Pete observes. He feels the heavy weight of a hand on his shoulders, fingers grazing the muscles softly. He sighs and closes his eyes.
The sound of Ice’s boots on the floor walking away makes his throat close up while he looks at Nick sleeping.
The doctors call it a miracle, explain that Goose’s collision with the plane during ejection should have caused him to die on impact, but when he wakes up after two days of brain swelling and manages to let out a few mumbling but coherent sentences they actually congratulate him on pulling through.
He’s going to be grounded for at least two months, will graduate TOPGUN from a distance, and will have to undergo some of the most straining rehabilitation programs if he wants to fly again. Pete has the feeling that Nick will run the fuck away from planes from that moment and find himself a job as an instructor from the way Carole whispers to him every night, but he can’t find himself caring. He’s euphoric.
He almost forgets about the handful of weeks he has left.
Before he’s heading towards the graduation ceremony, Nick pulls him towards the bed and presses a hand into Pete’s chest.
I know you don’t want to talk about this, he whispers, but I don’t give a shit anymore. I made it, I pulled a miracle, and it’s your turn now. You come back to me, ok Pete?
I don’t know how to do that, Goose.
Just let it happen, man, stop fighting this.
He’s not fighting it, he’s not. He can’t be fighting this—
You’ve accepted it too long ago and you’re not even trying anymore. Please, Mav, just let this be.
If you’re referring to—
Of course I am.
And then Pete leaves for the mission as a spare.
Pete wakes up on the carrier and feels like sleeping for the next few days. It must be close, he thinks.
He gets dressed, exchanges a few more words with the leading pilots, plays the briefing again in his mind and spends his time caressing the silhouette of his plane.
It’s a blur, after that.
When he gets launched into the air, with a clear objective of backing up the others in the air, he looks for the line of Ice’s helmet in-between the chaos.
He thinks of Goose back on land with his bandages and Bradley laughing in his lap. He thinks of Carole and her blinding smile, the warmth of her hug.
He thinks about Ice’s mouth, his lips on his throat, the weight of his body next to him in bed. He fires the shots and his mouth trembles while sweat runs on his temple.
His hand shakes until the last plane is down and sees Ice shouting loudly with adrenaline and relief in the plane below him. His hand is steady, now.
It’s a blur even back on the carries, with bodies compressing him and hands grabbing at him until he is back with his feet on the ground, standing in front of a man with piercing eyes and a smile that is all teeth and glory.
You can be my wingman anytime.
He’s pulled into a hug, the space closing, fingers on his back again.
His body feels light. The first thing he notices it’s the absence of pain. Then, the pull on his left shoulder is lifted like a blanket after a long night of dreamless sleep.
In the fraction of a second where he’s still engulfed in Ice’s arm, he feels a sharp tug in his chest and the thumping of a lively muscle in his ribcage.
He pulls away, sees the knowing look in Ice’s eyes, and he runs the fuck away.
Pete Mitchell is locked away in the bedroom filled with empty beds. Outside, he hears the screams of an ongoing celebration.
He’s curled up, fully clothed, in a bed that he doesn’t recognize. Hugging his knees tightly to his chest, he feels his beating heart like a foreign object he’s not familiar with.
The blood rushed loudly in his temple. His breath is stuck in his throat.
He hears a knock on the door, then another one, and a voice calls to him with urgency.
Maverick, let me the fuck in.
He doesn’t stand up.
Let me in or I’ll kick this door open, I swear to God.
Pete unlocks the door.
Ice is standing in from of him, hair disheveled and panting loudly like he’s lost his usual firm grip on reality.
Like a dance, Pete takes two steps back while Ice corners him against the bed. Pete’s knees threaten to give out at any point.
Ice lifts his hand and hesitates for a second like the air is burning hot, and then rushes to pop the buttons of Pete’s shirt open with urgency and desperation. He doesn’t even ask for permission while he presses a hand onto Pete’s scar and feels the steady beat of his new heart.
He looks at Pete in his eyes like he can’t believe what’s in front of him.
Pete swallows hard and whispers, I don’t know what to do with this.
You saved my life, Ice breathes out. He presses his hand harder. Does this hurt?
It never did, and it doesn’t hurt now.
When Ice kisses him, he does so slowly and patiently like he has all the time in the world. Pete figures that this is what changed, that now maybe he has the time that he wanted.
He kisses back with the push of a man who’s alive again, or who’s alive for the first time, who knows. He takes his time running his hands into blond hair, caresses a freshly shaven jaw and rough skin. He lets himself be taken apart on a small bed like a gesture of love, the word on the tip of his tongue from the time he’s being undressed to the minutes where Ice is pushing inside him mellow like honey and firm.
Months later, when he’s lying on his couch back home and he watches Ice sipping his coffee against the kitchen table, hair still damp from a shower, Pete catches himself forgetting he has a heart again until he feels his beating fast and fluttery like a bird in a cage.
Ice catches the thought like he can read his mind, and steps towards him with his ever-present hand against Pete’s chest.
Pete closes his eyes and breathes deeply into his nose. Thank you for reminding me, he says, grounded by the touch.
Thank you for giving this to me, Ice says, letting his fingers run against the fading scar.