NJ

During Top Gun:

Maverick and Goose have been piloting StrikerFlyboy for two years and are ranked second among the US Jaegers, just behind GoldenWing.

It breeds a bit of "healthy" competition between Maverick and Iceman, while Slider and Goose just stand by, watching and amused at the two.

Goose keeps telling Mav that there's something there, but Maverick chooses to ignore it.

"C'mon, man, Iceman? No way. Even I'm not hot enough to thaw that frozen heart."

Except... Ice is interested.

He's captivated by Maverick's carefree smile, the easy way that he and Goose walk in near-perfect sync, and how sometimes they'll grab breakfast trays and trade food like they'd forgotten what was meant for them and what was meant for the other while picking.

Ice doesn't bring anything into the drift. He chooses not to.

He was one of the first pilots to run solo Jaegers before the government realized the effects it could have on the pilots, and he'd been forced to pair up.

Slider was the first to volunteer to try a neural handshake with him, and they'd worked well together. There hadn't been a need to try another pilot.

They don't have the kind of link that Mav and Goose have, though; they can't, not with how Ice operates.

Maverick gets tipsy one day and asks Slider about what it's like having a link with a block of ice.

"It's wild, he's there, but he's not. No rabbit holes, nothing--it's like it's just me, except it isn't"

Maverick calls bullshit and almost gets hit in the face for it.

Goose asks him later what the hell he'd been thinking, and Maverick brushes him off.

Mav knows deep down it's because he's curious. Because as much as Mav denies it, he might just want Iceman a little bit too.

But he doesn't need anyone else except Goose, so he doesn't think about it more than he should.

And then there's a category III Kaiju coming in from the breach, the first of its kind, and StrikerFlyboy is the initially deployed Jaeger.

They weren't expecting it. It's too much. Maverick and Goose's Jaeger is being practically torn apart, and then they're underwater.

Mav is begging for Goose to eject, to get the hell out of the Jaeger, but something's wrong, it's not working, and Maverick isn't going to leave him to drown in the Jaeger by himself.

It doesn't matter. The Kaiju is dragging them back up. Its claws ripping through the side of the Jaeger, Goose's side, and Mav feels the moment that Goose realizes he's about to die.

The last thought that Goose sends to him before the neural link is broken, torn out of his brain as the Kaiju, JetWash, gets him in his grip, is "take care of my family Mav."

It's dark, lonely, and empty, and Maverick is screaming himself raw from the pain but also from the nothingness left behind by Goose.

Maverick doesn't even remember arming StrikerFlyboy's canon and blasting a hole in the side of JetWash's neck, practically decapitating it, but he'd done it.

GoldenWing drops in not 5 seconds later.

5 seconds and Goose might have lived.

When they finally pull Maverick out of the wreckage of StrikerFlyboy, he's practically catatonic.

He's cleared by medical a week later.

There's none of the pain remaining, but there's that bleak emptiness in the corner of his mind, and Maverick tries to fill it with anything he can, more training, booze, anger.

Nothing works.

They try to get him into a Jaeger again, but he refuses.

No one will be able to have a stable handshake with him; he believes that more than anything else. How could they? They aren't Goose.

Slider gets hurt in a training exercise, and they're down a pilot. It's not a problem. Not really.

Not until there's breach activity, and they need a Jaeger in the air now.

The only available pilots are Maverick and Iceman, and Mav is going to fight; say no, but then Ice is grabbing him.

They don't have a choice. They can't lose the North Pacific Shatterdome, and is that would Goose would want? For Maverick to roll over?

Maverick remembers Goose's final thought and the rumor that Ice doesn't take anything into the drift with him, and while he doesn't think he can do it, maybe if he can sink into the loneliness of the drift without the fear of losing his co-pilot, he can.

He and Ice suit up, and Maverick is sweating bullets, but he gets into the pilot's seat without throwing up, and then it's time to try a handshake.

At first, Maverick fights it because the sensation is the same every time, and it's almost too much, but immediately he feels a cool sensation of someone with him, and like a reflex, Mav is reaching for it, for Ice.

It's not intentional, but Maverick is sucking them into the memory of losing Goose, of him being ripped out of StrikerFlyboy by Kaiju claws, and he's going to lose it again; he's not going to be able to make it back this time, until there's the cold sensation again, hands over his shoulders, a whisper in his ear.

Ice is calling him back, opening himself up, and Maverick can feel the hesitance, the fear, but also the desperation of Ice pulling him into his brain instead, and it's everything.

Suddenly that empty space is gone, and it's all Ice, and Maverick can feel him.

His thoughts are tidal waves, his emotions are like a second heartbeat, and Maverick lets himself be pulled back.

There aren't any words, not verbally, but somehow he hears it, Ice's intentions, the reason that he'd dragged Mav back into a Jaeger.

"There's nothing more wrong in the universe than Pete Maverick Mitchell not being in a Jaeger."

He'd done it for Maverick, not for the North Pacific fleet, hell, not even for the people, but for Maverick, and he can feel it. He can see himself through Ice's eyes, and it's like he's been reinvented from Ice's image of him.

And then they're locked together. Neural handshake complete. Holding firm.

They are one.

The Kaiju doesn't stand a fucking chance.

Afterward, it's all debriefs and comedowns, and when they have to disconnect for the Jaeger, Maverick is terrified that Ice is going to be gone too, out of his head, and he'll be alone again.

He's not. He's still there. Mav can still feel him, and it's a shock but a relief all at once, and he can't stop looking at the blonde.

They have to separate eventually, and it's hard, but it also isn't, especially since there's still a whisper of Ice in his brain.

Indulgent, but when they unlock from the straps, they're pulling their helmets off and reaching for each other, pressing their foreheads together in celebration, in revelation, and it's over too soon yet goes on for hours.

And when he walks away, a part of Ice will whispering in his thoughts; Maverick tries to convince himself it's just a drift echo, that it'll be gone soon; it always is.

After Top Gun:

By the time 1am rolls around, it's still there, and Mav can't lay down any longer.

He goes to the Jaeger bay, letting his legs dangle over the railings, staring down at GoldenWing.

He raises his hand and almost feels like he's still connected to that same arm on the Jaeger.

"Talk to me, Goose."

Ice comes and sits down next to him instead.

Mav isn't even surprised cause he felt him there.

They don't speak for a while. They don't have to. Just staring at the place where they'd become each other and one and the same simultaneously.

Mav: "You're in love with me." Ice: "Yeah."

And Ice can feel it, the moment that Maverick is blooming under the easy admission, because what's the point in lying? But Iceman still could have, and he'd known that Maverick wouldn't have called his bluff.

Ice feels it through the drift that's still interlocking them together so strangely strong, when Maverick falls as well.

It's all warm and calm and a non-spoken "oh."

It's 2am, and Maverick has lost his best friend, but he's not alone, he's not, and for now, that's all he needs.

When he reaches over to pull Ice down into a kiss, the blonde is already matching him, like a mirror, and the second that their lips touch, it's like they're back in the Jaeger again, in the drift, chasing each other's rabbits until they're just one person, sharing memories like they're sharing breaths between kisses.

After that, they're inseparable.

They have the strongest neural compatibility that the US Shatterdome has ever seen, and even Slider admits that Mav and Ice work seamlessly together. Hence, there aren't any hard feelings about having to find another co-pilot.

They aren't perfect outside of the Jaeger, not at first.

There are misunderstandings and raw feelings.

Mav is still dealing with the loss of Goose, and it's hard, but Ice never tries to take his place; he just sidesteps into Maverick and creates a new, non-Goose shape from the emptiness left behind.

Eventually, after a handful of hops and a couple more kills, they move together outside of a direct drift link like they do inside of it.

It kind of freaks people out, the way that Maverick and Iceman don't need words to communicate, how when someone says Ice's name, there's a good chance that Maverick will turn to be addressed instead and vice versa.

It's not normal, the bond that they have.

The military wants to study them, the way they move together without the drift. They want to take it away. Because what happens if they lose either pilot outside of a Jaeger? It'd be like losing both of them.

In no uncertain terms do both men say over their dead bodies.

It's a stalemate that's only broken when Iceman's solo piloting finally catches up to him, and he's getting sick.

It's a mutual choice not to pilot anymore, and it kills Ice that he's taking Maverick out of the Jaeger seat, but Maverick makes it clear he'd rather always have his feet on the ground than lose Ice in the drift.

They teach incoming pilots instead, run drift and battle sims, and even without the direct neuro-link, they're still in each other's heads, have been for years, and probably always will be.

Maverick manages to get Bradley's application to the Jaeger program stalled.

He's too good of an applicant to get it pulled completely, but Mav still forced Bradley's career back four years.

Maverick just hopes it's enough for Jaeger and drift technology to get safer.

It costs him his relationship with his godson, and Ice holds him through the night as he cries when Bradley tells him that Maverick is as good as dead to him and means it.

Ice feels that heartbreak in his own chest.

Bradley trains at the Hong Kong Shatterdome and meets Natasha and Bob while he's there until they're all reassigned back to the US front.

Since he's not a student, he's able to avoid Maverick fairly easily but not Ice.

It's hard for all of them.

When RiseAndShine gets their first kill, Maverick wants so badly to congratulate Bradley, but he can't, so he sends Ice to do it instead, and through the link, he can feel the pride in Ice's chest over Bradley, and it's enough. It has to be.

It's like that for a few years, different Jeager teams being deployed to different places around the world until, eventually, something in the breach brings the top US teams back to the North Pacific Shatterdome.

During Top Gun: Maverick:

Hondo is our Tendo replacement. He operates and keeps the Shatterdome running and monitors the neuro-links.

RiseAndShine, TexasThunder, and HorizonGuardian are recalled back to the NPS for a top-secret mission involving the breach.

Training begins immediately, and it's fast-paced and dangerous.

The Shatterdome is anticipating at least two level III Kaiju, and they are trying to seal the breach as well, so they need to perfect a maneuver to keep the Kaijus busy while a third Jaeger delivers the payload.

Training is interrupted by an unanticipated Kaiju attack. TexasThunder and RiseAndShine are deployed.

Phoenix and Bob are taken out of commission during the skirmish.

The Kaiju takes out both sets of RiseAndShine's right arms, the arms that Bob and Phoenix are operating.

They are able to disconnect from Bradley quickly enough that it doesn’t affect him, but neither can use their arm until they come back from the drift more fully, and RiseAndShine is inoperable for the time being.

TexasThunder is able to land the killing blow, but not before Coyote is shaken loose inside the Jaeger and is also out for the count with a minor spinal injury.

After RiseAndShine and TexasThunder are out of commission, the Shatterdome doesn’t have enough teams to run the breach mission, meaning there needs to be another compatibility testing.

Bradley and Jake go head to head, and they are, by far, the most compatible pair.

While everyone is watching, Ice and Mav are supervising.

Ice: “Remind you of anyone?” Mav: “Don’t even think about it…” Ice: “If I was thinking about it, you were too.” Mav: Can’t prove that.”

The look that Iceman gives Maverick makes him blush even though Mav isn’t looking back at him.

He doesn’t need to be.

An injured Phoenix from the other side of the room stage whispers to Bob, “can they please stop flirting in the background? I have money on whose going to earn the last point.”

It’s Hangman, and even though it loses Phoenix ten bucks, she wins it back on the compatibility bet she’d made with Fanboy and Harvard.

...

Even though Bradley and Jake are the most compatible pair out of everyone, they refuse to work together.

They're forced to try a neural handshake, and it goes terribly.

Bradley sees a hint of one of Jake's rabbits, and then they're practically being thrown out of the drift and away from each other.

As compatible as they are, the drift won't allow them if they don't actually try, and now, with the Kaiju emerging in minutes, there's not enough time to try again.

There are not enough pilots; Maverick knows it, Ice knows it, and whoever is going to operate GlacierPayback is likely walking headfirst into suicide.

Mav knows before Ice even steps forward what the other man is going to do.

He can't even stop him, can't even argue, because he's already in Ice's head; he already knows why he's telling Cyclone and Hondo that he'll lead the strike with GlacierPayback.

"I've had you for years, Mav. It's Bradley's turn now. He needs you."

No one is expecting Jake to step forward to pilot with him, but he does.

Ice doesn't fight him on it. He just takes Jake aside to explain to him how the drift is going to work as they get suited up, how he won't bring anything with him, and that Jake won't have to worry about chasing someone else's rabbits.

At first, Jake's insulted; he's too good to chase, "what makes you think you'd be compatible with me anyway?"

Ice just levels Jake with a look, and after a moment, he gets it and feels himself flush. Equal parts embarrassed and flattered.

Ice is all but telling Jake that he's like Maverick and that there won't be a problem; that Jake's mind is a kind he's stepped into before.

There's something staggeringly amazing about that because Maverick is a legend, and Jake has hardly been known in the way that the drift allows, especially outside of it.

He feels seen by Ice even before they step into their Jaeger.

Maverick wants to fight, to refuse to let Ice go off without him, but he can't because Ice has made up his mind.

There's no time, and if he doesn't go with Bradley, someone else will, and in Mav's head, that's just as good as a death sentence.

At least if he's with his godson, Mav can keep him safe, even if Bradley still hates him.

Ice pulls Maverick to the side before they have to get into their Jaegers to kiss him long and slow and deep, a kiss that can't promise forever but reminds them of the lifetime they've shared together.

"You can always find me in the drift."

It's a fight for Maverick not to break down in tears right then. There's just no time for it.

As promised, Ice doesn't take anything into the handshake between him and Jake, but Maverick? He takes everything with him, and so does Bradley.

At first, no one thinks the link is going to connect. They aren't stable, and their lines are everywhere, but somehow it works, and the connection stabilizes.

All the technician team sees are percentages and readings, but Bradley and Maverick? They're seeing Goose.

It's their connection, their round circle, and with a snap, they're coming together.

When they come back to themselves, they're both crying.

"It was him-" "I know, son, I know."

And it's not just Goose that's got Bradley crying, because he gets it now, what Maverick was thinking, feeling, when he paused Bradley's papers, and it's like a wound inside his chest is healing with the understanding he'd always wanted but could never make himself work out.

The mission goes tits up pretty much immediately, and Maverick can feel it the second that Ice makes the choice to sacrifice himself.

Even connected to Bradley directly, Ice is there.

Ice doesn't even tell Jake he's going to activate the younger man's escape pod, and Jake, still not used to the link, is too slow in stopping him.

Ice gives him one last smile and disconnects their neural-link to save Jake from having to be connected when he goes down with the breach.

The moment that Ice detonates GlacierPayback’s core, Mav can feel it.

Ice disconnecting from the drift, from Mav, is nauseating.

Immediately Maverick is chasing after him, allowing himself to sink back into the drift and away from Bradley, just for the chance of keeping Ice with him, keeping the endless, blank loneliness from snapping in, as it had with Goose.

Bradley can also feel the loss of Ice because he’s still linked with Mav.

It’s like a room tone suddenly not being there. Its presence is under conscious thought, but its absence is distractingly notable once it's gone.

Rooster chases after Maverick because he knows if he doesn’t, the other man won’t come back, and he can’t pilot the Jaeger alone.

Once they're back at the NPS and disconnected from the pilots' seats, there are no jubilant celebrations. Maverick and Rooster are collapsing in on each other.

Suddenly there's time now to weep, to mourn, to remember. And it's too much for either of them.

Maverick still has to be there for Bradley, though, and he wraps him up in his arms.

"I've got you, son. It's okay. I've got you now."

Rooster: "It's like they're both alive there, in the drift, like they never left." Mav (fighting back sobs): They are, they haven't."

If he says it enough times, Maverick thinks he might believe it too.

After Top Gun: Maverick:

Maverick, after The Mission, to end all missions, retires for good this time.

He’s the only pilot to have lost 2 people in the drift before, and even though he and Ice weren’t neural-linked at the time, it’s just the same; it feels just as bad, and everyone knows it.

It’s a half-forced, half-voluntary retirement.

He doesn’t know what he can do with his life outside of a Jaeger, without Ice, but regardless of Bradley being with him, he doesn’t think he can go back into the drift again.

He’d never leave.

Even though he can still feel Iceman in the back of his mind, like a phantom, it will never be enough, and if he lets himself go back to where Ice is strongest, a hundred thousand memories of him between himself and Bradley, he’ll die like that, just so he can stay there with the love of his life and Goose.

Bradley doesn’t want him to retire because the Shatterdome is ending tri-Jaegers, and there’s no way that he could come between Phoenix and Bob. There’s no one left for him to pilot with if Mav is gone. And with Mav out of the drift, he’ll never be able to experience his dad or Ice again.

It’s a selfish desire, but ultimately Mav can’t.

Not just for himself, either. Because when Bradley went into the drift to save him, to save them, it almost cost him his life. And Maverick isn’t about to risk Bradley even if it means he can keep doing what he was made to do. 

In hindsight, it was like Goose all over again, and Maverick can’t.

Not after having just lost Ice. 

There are too many rabbits for Maverick to chase now and at the end of the day, grounding himself to keep Bradley safe is what Goose would have wanted, and grounding himself to keep himself safe, is what Ice would have…

Maverick does mention, however, that there is someone in the Shatterdome he could drift with, someone who could get him back into a Jaeger.

Rooster knows who Mav is talking about, but… it’s been a few months already, and Hangman still isn’t cleared for piloting, and Bradley… knows that the other man wouldn’t want to drift with him even if he could.

Since the breach is closed, technically, there’s no need for the Jaeger program anymore.

But the military understands that if one breach can be opened, so can others, and they aren’t going to risk being unprepared again.

Mav stays on to teach new pilots again, but he can be found every night sitting either by the ocean or in the Jaegar bay, where he and Ice first kissed.

Bradley finds Mav there more than once and just asks if he's talking to him, and Maverick's reply is "Always."

It doesn't matter whether they’re talking about Iceman or Goose because they’re both there for Mav.

Maverick finds himself still making his coffee in the morning to Ice's taste because that's just how they were, overlapping and making things to the other's specifications.

He drinks it just to feel closer to Ice, and eventually, he just keeps doing it.

Hondo and Bradley notice, but neither say anything.

...

Mav can still feel Ice. It’s faint, hardly a whisper, but once he’s convinced himself that it’s just an echo, something his feelings have created.

He learns to ignore it on his good days.

Sometimes, even when he’s not trying, Maverick finds himself chasing rabbits outside of the drift.

He’s been piloting for so long and had such a deep connection with Iceman that he doesn’t need it.

It gets so bad sometimes that Mav doesn’t know if what he’s chasing is real or if he’s just learning to cope with the loss of his other half.

He wakes up, feeling Ice in his brain like he’s never left, and it almost drives him crazy.

Rooster can pull him out of it when he goes far off into his own head by saying the right thing, holding Mav just the way Goose or Ice might have.

It’s just enough to bring Maverick back.

Sometimes, Mav catches Bradley and Jake talking or arguing out of the corner of his eye, and it almost pulls him down because, for a brief moment, it’s not his godson and the co-pilot he doesn’t know he has yet, but him and Ice, young again, bickering as they had done so often.

Maverick isn’t the only one who feels the ghost of Iceman.

Hangman feels him too, and he shouldn’t because he and Ice only linked once, and even then, Ice disconnected from Jake before jettisoning him from the Jaeger, but he does.

When he catches a look in Maverick’s eyes, he knows that the other man is feeling it too, but he’s not confident enough to bring it up.

He doesn’t have the right.

It’s also the reason that he can’t get back into a Jaeger.

The only person he’s compatible enough with is Bradley.

Javy is still injured and not cleared for sims.

Jake can’t neuro-link with Rooster. Not with Ice still in his head.

Of course, that’s not what Jake says to him, though.

The Shatterdome staff tells Rooster and Hangman that they need to try a neural handshake, and Jake is immediately against it.

Bradley is willing to try, but Jake pulls out every nasty thing he can say to make sure Rooster won't want to, either.

"I don't want to because you've got some real shit going on, Bradshaw, and it's not my burden to carry." And what can Bradley say to that?

It's true; it's what he's thinking. And it's almost more terrifying than the words themselves, Jake pulling the thoughts out without a handshake between them.

Of course, Jake doesn't mean it like that. He's projecting. His whole head is a mess, and the mere idea of Bradley seeing that? No, thank you.

What if he's not enough? He hadn't been enough to save Ice, had hardly helped, and Bradley would see that too if they linked together, just how useless Jake is.

And even though he'd piloted solo before, his co-pilot lived; what if Bradley didn't?

Jake doesn't think he could survive with both Iceman and Rooster in his head. He doesn't know how Maverick manages it with two ghosts in his brain since he can hardly handle the one.

Bradley can't even reply because, fuck, who even says that, and also, because he believes it, what else is there to add?

Jake's read him to filth. There's no point arguing.

Eventually, Rooster goes to Maverick because Jake's words sting, and shouldn't they work well together? Their compatibility test shows it, so why can't he and Hangman seem to get on the same page?

Maverick tells Bradley about him and Ice.

"People talked about how us drifting so much made us know each other inside and out--but that's the thing. We were like that before we ever put on the helmets."

It's frustrating because Jake's not exactly giving Bradley the chance, not that he blames him, but still...

Little does Bradley know that Jake goes to Maverick too.

He tells him his worries that he's too much.

Javy's been the only person who could handle him, and it's because Coyote takes so little with him, just good feelings and a wave of calm, and as much as he cares about Rooster, they all know he's scrambled eggs, too, just like Jake.

And maybe that's why they're so compatible, but it's like mutually assured destruction instead of salvation.

Mav tells him it's a leap of faith, a show of trust, he'd had to do it once before, and he thinks that Jake is strong enough to do it too when the time comes, even if he doesn't see it yet.

Ice Lives:

One day, almost a year after they’ve closed the breach “for good,” Maverick wakes up with his heart in his throat and throbbing at the base of his skull because Ice is there.

Not just the echo of Ice but him.

He’s up and out of bed and rushing to get to Hondo because he needs a Jaeger now.

Cyclone is called in because Hondo’s got a frantic and honestly feral Maverick telling him to get him into the pilot seat now.

Cyclone makes Maveric explain what the hell is going on, and most of the other pilots have filed in at this point since the commotion has drawn attention.

Hangman looks white as a ghost, and Bradley goes to his godfather.

“He’s alive,” and none of them need to ask who Maverick is talking about because, well, it could only be one person.

No one says it, but they’re all thinking the same thing, that Mav’s finally lost it; he’s chased the Ice shaped rabbit so far that he’s gone ass over teakettle insane.

But Rooster… he knows better. Mav would never lie about this, insane or not.

He has to calm Mav down, telling him to breathe, and finally, that he believes him.

That’s what gets Maverick to finally take a breath, his knees going out from under him because fuck, Ice is alive.

No one knows, because Jake is still pale in the corner of the room, shaking slightly, that he believes Maverick too.

Only he didn’t need to see Mavfor the belief to be there. Because the second he’d woken up that morning, he’d felt it too.

The part of Ice in his head had risen to the surface, distorted, like being seen through a screen of static but there.

It takes some convincing from the other pilots for Cyclone to allow for a sweep, anything.

It’s clear he’s not expecting anything to show up but... there’s a signal.

It’s as shocking as it is scary because they’ve got their sensors set to pick up on Precursor actively, and now it’s there, faint, so faint that they’d had to go looking, and suddenly the Shatterdome is on high alert.

Maverick gets back to demanding to be put into a Jaeger, and he’s fighting for it, but Rooster knows, can feel the anguish almost like it’s in his own chest, that if Mav gets back into the drift, it might be too much now that Ice is there again.

...

Instead, Payback and Fanboy in HorizonGuardian, along with Phoenix and Bob in a remodeled RiseAndShine, are deployed to the signal, while Maverick, Rooster, and Hangman stay on the carrier plane on standby.

It’s hours of hovering above where the Jaegers have been dropped.

Mav is tucked under Rooster's arm, Hangman pacing in a tight path directly behind them, when finally, Phoenix’s voice crackles over the comms.

“It’s him.”

She doesn’t sound sure; she sounds almost sick, but all Mav cares about is that it’s him, it’s Ice.

Mav stands up, and it’s Hangman who’s catching him up in a crushing hug.

They don’t need to talk about it because Mav knows that Ice is there for him, too, in Jake’s head. Not in the same way that he’s in Maverick’s, but it doesn’t matter.

The problem is that when they fly down to get Ice, it’s not exactly him.

He’s discolored, grey instead of pale, the veins under his skin more blood than they should be, and his eyes, half-cracked, unfocused, are practically all black.

It’s clear that he’s been on the other side of the breach and that while he’s back, Ice is some kind of partial Kaiju, no longer fully human, Precursor DNA running through his veins.

Cyclone wants to exercise caution and keep Ice quarantined away from the Shatterdome, but no one is willing to leave him, they want to take Ice home, and against his better judgment, Cyclone can’t make himself put his foot down.

Maverick holds Ice’s hand all the way back to the Shatterdome, and Rooster keeps Jake company, their shoulders pressed together, grounding him.

It takes days for Iceman to come around, and when he does, he’s not all there. Side-effects of being in another dimension for a year it seems but it’s still Ice and Maverick can feel him again.

When he’s finally dragged away from Iceman, Mav finally breaks down.

At first, it’s just tears and relief, and then it’s a full-blown panic attack, and it’s Hondo who talks him down.

Iceman does his best to tell them all what he’s seen, but he admits that he doesn’t even know how long it’s been.

Everything was in and out; he didn’t know what they’d done to him.

It doesn’t take long for everyone to realize that Ice isn’t just himself, that he’s still linked to the Precursor world, a conduit of some kind now.

Still a prisoner.

Maverick has another panic attack when they use Ice as a mouthpiece because he can feel Ice slipping away even though he’s looking directly at him.

It’s sickening.

Maverick is suddenly alone again, and his brain doesn’t understand it.

Hangman is having similar attacks, but not as bad because the guilt of having been Ice’s final sacrifice is no longer there, but it’s almost worse, knowing what has happened to him in the meantime.

...

The scientists have an idea, a theory, of how to break Ice away from the Precursors, but it’s dangerous, and Cyclone won’t sign off on it.

Someone needs to link with him and break the Precursor hold from the inside out. 

Maverick immediately volunteers.

He wants to tear himself out of his own skin, the need to get back into Ice’s head so strong, just to prove that the man is actually there. But Bradley won’t let him, and neither will anyone else.

It’s too dangerous. Mav and Ice are too unstable. There’s no guarantee either of them will come out of a neural-link of this kind whole again.

Jake makes the choice himself later that night. He has a debt to repay.

With the help of the scientists, he gets Ice hooked up for the link, and right before he goes under, Jake sees Bradley round the corner, shouting something, but it’s too late; he’s careening backward into the drift to chase after Ice.

Bradley had worked out Jake’s plan right before heading to bed because the scientist had said someone who’d linked with Ice before needed to be the one to link with him again.

He doesn’t think Jake will do it, but then he puts the pieces together, understands that Jake must have been caught in the same drift echo as Mav all this time, and then he’s rushing to get to the medical bay.

Rooster is a second too late.

Jake is activating the link right as he’s getting into the room.

All he can do is hold his and Ice’s hands and wait.

If he’s trembling, so fucking scared out of his mind that he’s about to lose both of them, that’s between himself and the scientists who are pointedly not looking at him.

Cyclone finds them pretty much right away, and by the time he’s done yelling at the science staff, working out that it’s more dangerous to try and pull them out than let them go through with it, Maverick is there in the med bay too.

Somehow it works

Jake is able to pull them through, breaking free of the Precursors.

He and Ice are left with matching fucked up left eyes, a dark ring of blue around the original iris, and terribly bloodshot.

It’s, unfortunately, not all rainbows and champagne after that, because as soon as both men are no longer bleeding from their noses and able to speak again, they’re shooting up from their chairs.

The Precursors are coming, and they’re bringing something that the world has yet to see

They need to be ready.

It hardly matters because the moment that Ice is looking at Mav, sharp and clear and all there, he’s got Tom in his arms, almost bowling the taller man over.

Bradley is taking a hesitant step towards Jake because they’ve been in limbo for a year, moments between them where Bradley thinks they might tip over into an understanding, into something more before Jake is pulling back, but he’d been worried, dammit.

That is, of course, the moment the sirens go off.

...

It’s a breach, and suddenly, there’s no time to prepare.

There are also not enough Jaeger pilots on standby.

Mav and Ice are grounded; there’s no way in hell Cyclone is going to let them into the pilots' seats.

The only other options he’s got are Jake and Bradley, but he’s also remembering the last time he tried to get them into a neural-link.

Jake steps forward, looking at Bradley from the corner of his eye. “We’ll do it.”

Rooster doesn’t get much of a chance to disagree because there’s no time, not really, and he’s racing with Jake, still a little shaky at the knees, to the Jaeger bay.

Eventually, as they’re suiting up, he’s able to ask because, up to this point, Bradley’s been pretty convinced that Jake would rather try and link with Bob than try again with him, but Jake just looks at him and passes Bradley his helmet. “I’ll see you in the drift.”

And when they do neural-link, when it actually sticks this time, no more resistance from Jake, no more guilt over Ice’s death hanging over his head and keeping their minds away from one another, Bradley gets it.

He sees everything, and suddenly, he knows what Javy meant that time that they all got drunk, a week or so before The Misson.

Jake had been up, getting drinks, and Rooster had been a little too curious, a little too tipsy to stop himself from asking what linking with Jake was like, not able to comprehend how anyone could do it, especially Javy.

The other pilot had just sighed and said, “It’s like you don’t even get the chance to chase your own rabbits because Jake’s got plenty of his own.”

Bradley hadn’t understood, had thought it was some dumb ego trip, and forgot about it, but now he’s completed the handshake with the other man, and he gets it.

He follows Jake's insecurity, the rabbits that lead him around a Texas homestead filled with just as much yelling as it is with laughter. A first kiss that didn’t feel quite right, a second that had felt perfect but earned him a black eye and belt across his back. He follows Jake through the first neural handshake he’d ever completed, Javy and Jake’s first Kaiju kill, the first time he’d seen Bradley, and… oh, that failed linking only a year ago, all those scared twisted feelings inside Jake’s head.

He understands so much more, and it’s that connection, that similar sensation, and experience, that full-circle feeling that drags them both to the surface together.

“Neural handshake complete and holding strong.”

Jake and Bradley look at one another even though they don’t need to because they’re there, in each other's heads, but Bradley says it anyway, for comfort.

“I was scared too,” and Jake just smiles, real and perfect.

He nods. A silent ‘I know,’ because he does.

They kick Kaiju ass together in a remodeled/recommissioned StrikerFlyboy and are able to close the breach again, leaving no option for the Precursors to come back a third time.

They have to abandon StrikerFlyboy since they use the rest of its core to complete the mission.

Bradley is the first one out of his escape pod because Jake has been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and Bradley is left to get him out of it.

There’s a moment of worry that something went wrong in the pods, but Jake is blinking up at Bradley, weird eye and all, and Rooster can’t stop himself from gathering the blonde up in his arms, nearly squeezing the life out of him.

Jakes makes a joke about Rooster taking him on a date first, and then they just laugh.

It feels like the most natural thing, floating together in ocean water stained with Kaiju blue, to pull Jake into a kiss, so Bradley does, rescue chopper inbound to pick them up.

Even with the Precursors gone, that doesn’t mean the threats are.

Ice (still recovering) and Mav teach at the Shatterdome.

Bradley and Jake bicker.

Now it’s like they’re finishing each other's thoughts, however, before hopping into Jaeger sims, linking up, and smoking rookie pilots together. 

And somehow, it’s all okay.

Shifting his feet, he let his gaze drift over the courtyard, the dappled shadows, the rustling of dead leaves caught in the wind. It was peaceful here, spiritual. Usually, Tony got agitated at sitting still for too long, but he could see himself waiting here with a good book, maybe a coffee if he could convince Stephen to put a decent coffee machine in his study.

He was trying to distract himself from the small, but steadily growing louder

voice that was feeding him self-doubt. What if Stephen had changed his mind? What if he was avoiding him? Maybe he was coming on too strong? He hadn’t done taking it slow regarding relationships, hell, he hadn’t even done relationships.

‘Maybe it’s time to go,’ he told himself, groaning as he got to his feet, patting himself free of leaf debris. It was when he was looking for the magic door that would take him back to New York that he heard it, a scrabbling across the stone floor.

Stephen would’ve told him if there were any dangerous magical beasts in the Sanctum…wouldn’t he?

Crouching low to the ground, he peered around the brick wall, creeping forward with his legs towards the corner of the building, knowing that he was going out of sight, that he was giving the creature ample cover to devour him, but his curiosity got the better of him.

It was a dog.

‘Hey there, you lost?’ Tony asked, staying crouched down as the scruffy thing cocked its head. ‘Are you like, an actual dog? You’re not a magician or a monster, are you?’

‘He’s a regular dog.’ The voice came from somewhere above him, and Tony had to crane his head back to look at Stephen silhouetted by the setting sun.

‘Well, hey there, handsome,’ Tony told him with a wink, smiling when he got the blush he was after. ‘Who is this?’ He turned back to the dog, offering his hand for a sniff.

‘I wondered where you’d gotten to,’ Stephen answered, crouching down and accepting the scruffy mutt’s headbutt, its wagging tail pummeling Tony’s shoulder.

‘I was on my way home, but then I heard you, yes I did,’ Tony told the dog, scratching his head and then along his spine. ‘See, I’m much better than a grumpy old sorcerer, yes I am, who’s a good boy?’

‘You were going home? What, why?’ Stephen genuinely sounded shocked, and Tony stopped his petting to look at him, frowning at the stricken expression on his face. ‘Our date,’ he suddenly whispered, sitting on the ground now, head in his hands.

‘Hey, don’t worry about it. We can reschedule, it’s not a-’

‘How long were you waiting?’ His words were muffled through his hands.

‘About an hour I think.’

Stephen didn’t say anything after that, so Tony turned his attention back to the dog, stroking his thumb over his ears now, looking into his brown eyes, laughing when the lolling tongue came out.

‘Who do you belong to?’ Tony asked, searching for his collar.

‘Me, in a way,’ Stephen murmured.

‘Since when do you have a dog?’

‘When I first came here I found him on the streets. He was limping, and I helped fixed his leg. Dog took a liking to me after that.’

‘Seriously, you named him Dog?’ Tony said, leaning against Stephen’s side.

‘He was my first patient after my accident.’ Stephen’s voice was infused with melancholy, and Tony could see it, a desperate Stephen Strange having lost everything, his compassionate side never wavering even when everything else was lost to him.

‘What?’ Stephen asked, sensing Tony’s gaze.

‘Nothing, I’m just reminded why I like you,’ Tony told him honestly.

‘I’m not sure why, I keep messing our dates up,’ Stephen answered, allowing their hands to touch through Dog’s fur, entwining their fingers.

‘It’s alright you know, if you’ve changed your mind. I mean, I’d understand,’ Tony whispered.

‘Get up.’ Stephen told him, rising to his feet and holding out his arm.

‘What?’

‘Get up. Dog probably needs a walk, so it can be our first date. I’ll buy you coffee and breakfast.’

‘Breakfast?’ Tony asked in bewilderment, bypassing Stephen’s hand entirely to grab his elbow, feeling the muscles in Stephen’s arm tense as he pulled him to his feet.

‘It’s evening here, but it’s morning in New York, come on. Dog, let’s go for a walk.’

Tony’s confusion didn’t abate as Dog barked in agreement, stretching down on his forepaws in a play bow before leading the way.

‘Let me make it up to you?’ Stephen pleaded, offering his hand again.

Tony took it in his own this time. He knew there was a reason he’d always liked dogs.