Cold As Ice

Fixing Things

"Hey, look who it is! The man who shot down enemy pilots!" Wolfman cheered when Ice slumped on the bench beside him with a plate with something that must resemble food in hand. He was not in the mood for eating, as, even after a full night of sleep and a day with doing nothing but sitting in a debrief room, he still felt like he would fall asleep immediately if he closed his eyes right now.

"You could've handled them yourself, man," Ice said with a tiny smile. Now that the Top Gun program had finished, he felt himself relax more with the men that were his adversaries just a few days ago.

"They were shot down and could enjoy the show from the water, Ice," Slider huffed when he plonked his plate in front of Ice's, making the table tremble.

"Hey, the water was freezing!" Hollywood whined and everyone burst into laughs. Even Iceman chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Someone entered the conversation before dropping on the bench next to Ice. He was so close! Ice could feel Maverick's body heat radiating of him and he froze from shock (luckily not literally) but relaxed when Maverick just grabbed his fork and delved into the potato salad that Ice had just been poking around for the past minutes.

"How can you eat thát?" Ice asked in disgust as Maverick kept shoving food into his mouth. He had just begun his beans and quickly swallowed his forkful to answer.

"Being the best of the best requires food, Ice," Maverick said and he winked to Ice, which made the blonde's heart do funny things when he heard the abbreviation, but Ice huffed and rolled his eyes.

"Do you need a reminder who won the Top Gun trophy, Mitchell?" Maverick looked at him with sparkling eyes, but his tone was surprisingly fond:

"Ok, Ice, you are not so bad yourself." He then bumped his shoulder jovially, which made a soft warmness spread through Ice's arm. Ice huffed but smiled at the smaller man.

"Sorry, but what is happening?" Hollywood broke the silence and Ice and Maverick turned their heads at the same time to watch the other man, who was looking at them with a frown. Hollywood looked at Wolfman who shrugged and hold up his hands to say that he didn't know. Hollywood turned to Slider beside him who just gave a blank glance. It was Maverick however who broke the silence.

"What is happening? Can't I be friendly with my wingman?" Maverick put down his fork and slung an arm around Ice's shoulder, pulling him closer. Ice froze at first but not as bad as the first time. Maverick seemed so at ease with Ice so close that Ice saw Slider sending him a confused look.

"Well, since you two gave the vibe of wanting to kill each other for the last month, I guess I was just surprised," Hollywood took his defeat, but Maverick went through with it.

"Oh, I certainly wanted to kill him a couple of times, but he isn't so bad at all actually. Aren't you?" Maverick directed the last bit directly to Ice by turning his head. Ice could actually feel Maverick's hot breath on his cheek.

"I am actually very bad. At pool," Ice joked and he saw Slider nodding enthusiastically before diving into a story to Hollywood and Wolfman about Ice's failed pool adventures in flight school. Mav was still watching Ice and grinned. His gaze shifted from Ice's eyes to a little bit higher and a mischievous spark burned in his eyes. He moved his other hand slowly.

"Don't you dare touch my hair, Mav," Ice said, trying to be serious, but he knew Mav would do it anyway so it came out less intimidating than he thought. A few moments later his hair got completely fluffed and made a complete mess, but Ice didn't really care. He took his revanche on Maverick immediately afterwards by ruffling the brunette's hair, but when he pulled his hand away, he couldn't prevent his fingers from lingering on Mav's very hot skin. Mav closed his eyes for a split second and leaned into the touch, but the moment got broken by a loud laugh from Hollywood, which made them startle and quickly shuffle apart. Ice felt his cheeks getting less cold (which meant he was blushing, dammit) and furiously tried to will the fuzzy feeling in his chest away while he ate his dinner.