GoofyElbow

He knows how Ice gets pouty when he's tired, how Ice's eyes will sparkle a brilliant white-blue in the sun, how Ice prefers peppermint tea because then his 'mouth wont be sweet', he knows that Ice's hair is naturally that light blonde- its just the style that makes the ends look frosted, he knows that Ice gets sun-freckles in the summer because he goes out surfing.

Another thing Slider knows about Ice is that he stutters.

It was something from when Ice was little, a stutter that developed that never got the chance to be fixed because Ice's father was a right bastard who refused to get his son any type of help, and just pressured him to fix it himself.

Slider knows that Ice never could fix it, because he'd get in his head and his anxiety would spike and the stutter would just get worse. A twisted feedback loop at its best and the quickest way for Ice to not talk for days at its worst.

Slider knows that Ice takes a while to respond, and normally in short sentences, because he's trying not to stutter, or have words get stuck halfway in his throat. Slider knows that Ice's glare is more frightened than furious when hes having a bad day- but no one else can decipher the glint in his eye on which one is which.

Slider knows that at the end of a bad day Ice gets so worked up his hands shake to the point he couldnt even hold a pen. That Ice cant get out barely half a sentence because his anxiety is high.

Thats why Slider knows to make sure to stick by Ice's side, hand around his waist or thrown over his shoulder, to answer questions when Ice cant. Why Slider makes sure to bend his head down so that Ice doesn't have to speak louder than a whisper, whilst making sure no one can actually see Ice's mouth move and form the letters and words he'll surely stumble over. Why Slider never rushes Ice when hes trying to speak, just simply pulling his pilot into his side.

He "doesnt like the sound of them clinking together", so he keeps them on his keys. No one buys it. Because Slider doesnt mind the sound of Ice snapping his gum, or playing with his pen, or tapping his fingers. Slider himself makes noise, hes loud and works to be louder if he likes pissing you off.

No one really knows why Slider doesnt like to wear his dog tags. But they see Slider run a finger along the nape of Ice's neck, underneath the chain of Ice's dog tags. Hear the click-click-click as Slider slides the chain back and forth between his fingers.

No one knows why Slider doesnt like his dog tags but always has a hand by the nape of Ice's neck playing with his.

and them slowly realizing, bit by bit, interaction after interaction, that Hal somehow isn't treated the same as the rest of them

Barry gets hissed at when he hands out bottles of water to the survivors of a Poison Ivy attack. Hissed at. By a human. Genuinely hissed at-

Arthur is generally more accepted because he's around more often, but a group of teenagers still accidentally spill their milkshakes over his entire suit. The entire thing. Not a single inch is milkshake free. Arthur is so tired of this city.

Clark gets bodily injured. (Not really, even Gothamites can't physically hurt him, but man can they try) Superman is the most loathed hero in Gotham. They throw shit at him. They try to trip him when he's walking past. Someone actually managed to lasso him once and hang him from a roof for a short period before Clark recovered from the shock and remembered he could fly

Even Diana and J'onn get distrustful looks and scoffs and cold shoulders thrown their way.

But Hal?

Hal is standing against the wall casually chatting with a couple he just rescued. Hal is playing soccer in the street with the kids that just called Barry a 'wannabe Signal' even though they're nothing alike. Hal is hugging a teenager and offering to walk her home after Clark 'made' her cry.

teenagers citing his videos and data as primary sources on their school projects (how do you make an mla citation for a home video filmed in space?)

grace's final goodbye to earth getting billions of views on youtube

sexy edits of grace ALL OVER tiktok and instagram

grace becomes a whole scientific field unto himself. teams of scientists dedicate their lives to the study of his research and his contributions. maybe some of those scientists were his students once upon a time.

grace x rocky ALL OVER ao3

books on eridian language and culture hit the shelves and sell out immediately

eridian culture reignites conversations about the construct of gender, eridians become nonbinary/agender symbols

space is suddenly back at the forefront of the public mind. space-travel units are introduced to grade school science curriculum worldwide. entire classes are taught solely on grace and his scientific discoveries. EVERYONE wants to be an astronaut

of course, hollywood makes a big-budget Dr. Ryland Grace biopic. it's a box office hit. a huge online movement results in ryan gosling playing grace, and everyone agrees the likeness is uncanny. stratt is the villain of the story.

a series of heartfelt videos from grace to stratt, in which he says hello and goodbye and i hate you and thank you and i miss you, are found in the database and reposted online. there's suddenly a massive outcry of support for her, which results in her release from prison. some youtuber makes a gritty but surprisingly touching short film about her story

people coming together to make earth better. trying to repair the damages from the sun's dimming, trying to repair the environment, trying to repair global relations. they want to be an earth worth saving, an earth that grace would be proud of

space travel becomes a huge global priority, the nations of the world pool resources and there are huge advances in technology (especially with scientists studying xenonite!)

the project hail mary launch date becomes a huge global holiday. there's a parade in almost every city all over the world in honor of the hail mary. people lay candles and flowers at memorials for yao, ilyukhina, annie, and dubois. murals of grace and rocky cover building sides. people gather in the streets and remember those who saved them, and banners that read "grace rocky save stars" flutter in the wind above the crowds.

coca cola airs a VERY insensitive commercial with some low quality eridian puppets. the commercial is slammed online and company stocks plummet

There is no greater authority in their relationship, it's sniping at each other for fun and becoming avoidant when there's a genuine source of conflict.

Maverick does have a cheat sheet.

If Tom goes to bed angry with him, waking up a little earlier and making bacon in the morning can calm the Iceman's ire.

Waiting to react to something instead of losing his head becomes a practised habit. If Tom's hand is still flexing by his side and the blonde won't meet his eyes, he's trying to articulate a thought further and it saves them from arguing if Pete misunderstands him.

Accusing Tom of being a heartless prick while drunk will always haunt him, not for the honesty behind his words in the moment but for the horrible silence that followed in which Tom made no move to deny it. He'll never voice it, not Ice, but Pete knows he internalised the belief and it took a lot of work to convince him that he's a man capable and worthy of love.

If Tom is neglecting his health for the sake of the job, Pete says nothing. Instead, he calls in the big guns and watches Ron Kerner tear Ice a fucking new one. They'll argue until they're blue in the face, Tom will glare at him like he wants both Mav and Slider to drop dead at his feet. Yet, he always falters against Ron because Ron's leading argument is, "I love you, and you're being a stubborn prick about this." Never but, it's always I love you, and.

Arguing about their taste in pets will never get them anywhere, every time it ends with Ice calling him a mutt and Mav retaliating with calling him a pussy.

If Ice is in a Hell of a mood around lunch time, throw snacks and water at him like you would with a toddler. He's downright nasty when his blood sugar is low.

Iceman has his own cheat sheet.

Wear those old grey sweats that hang low on his hips and don't tame his bed head if Pete wakes up angry about something awaiting him later in the day. The man will stop every time to catch a look at him looking vulnerable, as he likes to call it and it calms his temper just a little. Don't kick him when he makes a comment about melting the Iceman either, even if it's infuriatingly unfunny.

It Mav is hung up about his place in the navy, fall back on calling him Mitchell. The reminder of his namesake is sometimes just enough to kick his ass back in gear, and remind him who he's flying for.

Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is susceptible to bribery via cinnamon roll. Use sparingly to divert suspicion about the sudden acts of kindness, and that is coincides with his smoking habit picking up again.

Don't expect any leftovers to survive Pete when he's has a few drinks, there is no stopping him. No matter how many times Tom tells him to leave his leftover chow mein alone, sober Pete always promises not to touch it and drunk Pete always ends up sitting on their kitchen floor eating it.

Ignore any attempt to bait him into an argument in the week approaching the anniversary of Nick's death. Pete wants the fight because it'll prove that every negative thought he's ever had about himself is true. Have a drink in honour of Mother Goose alone in the week after the anniversary, he can help carry Pete's grief but his own will stay with him.

It all starts with Hangman sending a selfie of him at the dinner table with icemav to the group chat captioned "just got adopted", but Rooster is nowhere to be seen.

After that it's an all out war:

Phoenix taking Maverick to an airshow,

Fanboy going with Mav to see the latest Marvel movie,

Halo going with Ice on a trip to act as his Mandarin translator,

Harvard going fishing with both of them,

Coyote fixing up Mav’s motorcycle with him,

Yale going out for coffee with Ice to talk about some book he recommended,

Omaha playing football with Mav,

Fritz cooking his mother’s recipes with Ice,

Payback taking them bowling (and getting absolutely crushed).

Meanwhile Bob's secretly winning because of his weekly dinners with the two of them.

Rooster loves the idea, but is not too pleased that he needs to schedule time with his dads.

!mature!

In alpha x alpha Icesli, Ice is the biter, and anyone who catches Slider with his shirt off on the wrong day assumes he got into a pretty nasty fight. It makes his life significantly harder, especially with communal showers, but it makes other things hard too and, well. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t keep Ice's knot warm as well as he does.

Sometimes it's Ice knotting him, and sometimes it's Slider stuffing him full while making sure to keep a tight, warm grip around his knot. Ice is always pressed so close to him, nipping and licking at his neck and digging his nails into Slider's shoulders, and every time Slider squeezes or clenches up around him, Ice sinks his teeth into the skin in appreciation.

Slider rarely passes up the opportunity to grumble about the fresh marks in the morning, but he's really only complaining because he has to hide them (and because it's such a pain in the ass). In truth, he loves being marked by Ice, adores Ice laying his claim on him like this, and he just wishes he could show it off.

In a world where soulmates have their own language, Top Gun officially bans its use during training exercises in 1985, after a soulmate duo wins and some people - the bitter runner-ups - argue that they had an unfair advantage.

Ice is pissed about this, not because he thought it could've helped him win, but because he's used to talking to Slider in the air with that kind of privacy. But now when he wants to complain about their wingmen not being up to snuff or take the opportunity to rant about Maverick, he has to just huff and keep his mouth shut.

And maybe also because Slider's picked up a habit of talking dirty to him in the air and Ice misses it more than he's willing to admit out loud.

Slider knows anyway. He takes care to always make it up to Ice before the Hops and never fails to deliver afterwards.

But at Layton? They say more to each other than they do to anyone else, swearing and complaining and worrying as if they're trying to make up for the whole eight weeks in one flight.

If he's standing in a position that makes him taller than Iceman, he'll call him Icicle. They all get a kick out of calling Wolfman a pupdog whenever he's a little too whiny. Hollywood gets woody when Mav thinks he's acting like a dick.

He calls Slider by his legal name just to annoy the other man, stops briefly after Ron declares him St. Peter, saint of the heightless. Proceeds to ask the man if huffing the clouds counts as a substance abuse.

But his favourite nicknames are the ones he uses behind closed doors. Calling Tom "sweetheart" for the first time and watching him go red from the tips of his ears down to his chest, swearing to call him it at any given opportunity.

Getting swatted whenever he calls Tom "baby", because the man thinks it's corny and juvenile, but Pete keeps calling him it long after his hair greys.

Avoiding Tommy because that's Ron's nickname for Tom, and Pete understands, more than most, the importance of nicknames between close friends, what and when they can represent. Iceman might be Pete's sweetheart, but he's Ron's Tommy.

The fond mutter of Ice calling him an asshole, because if he was truly angry, he'd call Maverick a "little prick". To express his ire and make a dig at Pete's height all in one, Ice is good at multitasking like that.

"Second-best pilot." He's less fond of that nickname; it stays in continuous use. The first time Ice uses it, Pete has a psychosexual reaction that he would prefer to never remember again, which, coincidentally, Ice loves bringing up.

Slider originally starts doing it to mock the two, calling Iceman sweetheart, baby, princess and the like when they're alone. Ice throws it back at him with handsome, hot stuff, Romeo and his personal favourite, lover boy.

It's inherently funny, calling out to his pilot only to see Tom peek his head out from around the fridge door, bat his lashes and purr, "What was that, hot stuff?"

They keep it behind closed doors, they're close enough for people to side eye and they don't need the extra attention.

Then he walks in a room to find Iceman, and he shouldn't be Iceman. They're at home, he's supposed to be Tom. His jaw is clenched, eyes narrowed and his left hand is trembling. He's the picture of cold and detached, he isn't the Tommy that Ron knows.

"What happened?"

Tom's hand flexes by his side as he thinks through his words, he's emotionally conflicted. Ron isn't sure if Tom is aware of the tell, but he'll never tell the man. It's enough for him to wrap an arm around his pilot's shoulders and rub his thumb under that one spot below his ear.

"The Admiral is dead."

The Admiral. Admiral Kazansky, a man known for anything but his good parenting. Ron has never had the displeasure of meeting the man but he knows enough, Admiral Kazansky is cruel. He doesn't care for his children as anything more than mere objects to further his image, nothing is good enough.

Tom doesn't talk about the man, but Ron knows a man who shuts down and becomes a scathing shell of himself when he's upset is not a man who experienced a happy childhood.

Ron is the one and only person who could afford to make the move he does without getting thrown to the side, pulling Tom into his arms and rubbing a hand between the man's shoulder blades like he's comforting a child.

"I'm not upset, I should be upset."

It's gut wrenching, to hear a man like Ice so painfully confused.

"S'alright, baby. You don't have to be."