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Ice groaned as he practically slithered out of bed, being an admiral usually meant he got to sleep in these days but of course Mav wouldn’t stand for that.
After he dragged himself out of bed and down the stairs he found Maverick already up and making coffee in the kitchen. Ice shuffled towards him, leaning heavily on his shorter husband’s back and wrapping his arms around him.
When he lowered his head to rest on Mav’s shoulder he found that he was wearing one of Ice’s old sweatshirts as a sleep shirt. Maverick saw the announcement as he scrolled through his gmail early one morning before work. Ice was sitting next to him on the stools pushed up next to the kitchen island and they each sipped their coffees silently, a little pre-work ritual they had.
Maverick’s eyes widened when he saw the announcement and he clicked on it to get more info, his eyes quickly darting towards Ice but his husband wasn’t paying any attention.
BRING YOUR SPOUSE TO WORK DAY, TOMORROW STARTING AT 0800
His fingers hovered over the mouse, did Ice know about this? He might not if it was so recent, and coming from Cyclone no less.
Maverick turned his computer towards his husband and gestured at the faintly glowing screen.
“Did you…” he trailed off, taking a quick sip of his coffee.
Ice shook his head, “no but apparently Cyclone did.” He sighed, putting his newspaper down because he was an old man, “do you think we have to go?”
Maverick nodded somewhat dejectedly, “yeah probably, I mean they’d definitely know if we didn’t show up.”
Ice hummed thoughtfully then asked, “do the daggers know?”
Maverick’s brows shot up into the air, he immediately knew what his husband meant. “Shit no they don’t,” he said, then he grinned, “no, they have no idea that we’re married.”
Iceman saw the look on his husband’s face and the evil grin spreading across his cheeks.
“Mav…” he warned, too accustomed to that look after all these years.
Maverick grinned, cackling, “don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” he chided, sounding almost giddy, “I’ll take care of it.”
Ice shook his head in defeat.
It turned out that Maverick’s version of ‘taking care of it’ involved waking Iceman up in the early hours of the morning to prepare the next day.
“Hi,” Maverick said, turning his head quickly to press a kiss to the side of Ice’s head.
The blonde hummed contentedly and found that he didn’t have it in him to take the sweatshirt back, they practically shared a wardrobe these days anyway.
Maverick pushed a cup of coffee into Ice’s hands and Ice detached himself long enough to sip it and feel his brain cells start to turn back on.
He plopped down on one of the kitchen island stools and asked, “So what's the plan for today?”
Mav smiled, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and spreading it open on the kitchen island.
“Well,” he said, “It looks like the event starts at 0800 in the hangers where the spouses can ogle all the planes since obviously you’ve never seen one,” he waved his hand in the air dismissively and Ice chuckled, god this was going to be fucking haliarious.
“Then it looks like you get a chance to compete against some other people in ‘spouse games’, whatever that is,” Maverick went on.
“And finally we end this lovely mandatory fun with a barbeque.”
Ice laughed, “I’d like to see Cyclone barbecue something.”
Maverick nodded, “something that isn’t our pilot’s self-esteem that is..”
After they got dressed, Maverick in his usual service khakis and Ice in his full dress uniform, medals and all because it wasn’t everyday that the COMPFLACT came to base, they met by the front door and headed out.
“You look great love,” Maverick murmured as they climbed onto his bike, Maverick steering and Ice on the back like usual because Mav has control issues.
Ice smiled, a faint blush warming his cheeks, god he was still so in love with this man even after all these years that admittedly hadn’t been too kind to them.
“You too,” he answered, his hands automatically holding onto Mav’s waist as they took off.
They pulled up to the gate just as it was opening to let the other service members and spouses through.
The gate guard squinted at them through his sunglasses, “ID?” he asked curtly.
Maverick reached into his pocket and pulled his out, Ice doing the same. The gate guard glanced down at both of their ID’s and his eyes widened.
“Thank you sirs,” he said quickly, rendering a salute. “Great to have you here.”
Mav nodded, driving the bike forwards and through the gate. Ice had never been a huge fan of the fanfare that people tended to make over him being the COMPFLACT and an Admiral but he had to admit that the jobs came with certain perks, like keeping Maverick out of trouble and employed.
Once they’d parked the bike Maverick hopped off and Ice followed suit.
“Ready?” Mav asked with a grin.
Ice reached out and took his husband’s hand, their matching wedding bands clicking together as he did so. “Of course.”
They strode hand-in-hand into the hangers where the other spouses and service members were gathered. The energy in the room seemed to freeze as Ice walked inside, the daggers and everyone else who worked on base recognizing him instantly as all eyes turned toward them.
The other spouses, all wives of the more senior instructors, chattered on obviously until they too stopped talking and glanced towards him.
Ice kept walking, his head held high and his hand clasped in Maverick’s. Never let them see you sweat, he thought to himself absently.
After a few steps everyone seemed to relax and they all carefully went back to talking when Ice didn’t immediately yell at them and/or fire anyone.
Maverick swallowed down a deep breath as he clutched his husband’s hand, this shit reminded him too much of the DADT days and he never wanted to repeat that. Eventually they made their way towards where the daggers were standing awkwardly clustered together in a corner.
The daggers stared at them with open mouths, gaping in awe at Maverick and his husband the COMPFLACT?! When had that happened?
Only Bradley knew the truth and he met Maverick’s eye with a sly grin, he hadn’t told anyone about his uncles/pseudo fathers of course.
“Hey guys,” Maverick greeted them cheerily.
He was met with blank stares and a few squeaks of “sir,” gestured towards his husband.
Maverick sighed, “this is Ice and he doesn’t bite, I promise.” Maverick smirked, “I mean unless you ask…”
“Mav-” Bradley protested, his cheeks turning pink at his dads being this impossibly embarrassing.
Maverick and Ice chuckled good naturedly and the daggers all seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
Hangman, always the bravest/most arrogant of the group, cleared his throat. “So you two are like…married?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“Yup,” Ice answered, popping the ‘p’ and making his tone quite clear. He’d heard a bit about this Hangman kid from Bradley and Mav and now he could see for himself that the kid was bold. “Any problems with that?” He asked.
Hangman shook his head quickly, “no sir.”
Ice nodded happily, a smile instantly returning to his face and his admiral-mode shut off for the moment. “Great! Let’s go do whatever it is that Cyclone wants us to do.”
The daggers followed along behind Maverick and Iceman like a pack of baby ducklings as they went to find Cyclone. Ice could practically hear them whispering incredulously to each other behind his back, “THE Iceman! Did you know?”
But he didn’t mind, their awe was kinda cute in a way and he could see why his husband was mildly obsessed with the tiny baby aviators.
Cyclone, very much over Mav and Ice’s bullshit by now, greeted them with a “hello.”
Mav grinned, basically bouncing up and down with excitement by now. “Hi Cyclone! We’ve got one spouse and a bunch of bored kids here wanting to know when the games will begin.”
Cyclone checked his watch with a frown and a sigh. “Twenty minutes.”
Mav smiled, “great, thanks!” Then he was off again.
A few minutes later the festivities started with Cyclone addressing the crowd.
“Good morning ladies and gentleman and a special welcome to all the spouses here today,” He said loudly. A cheer went up from the assembled crowd, most of whom were a lot younger than Ice and Maverick and predominantly white women in dresses holding babies with their husbands.
Mav glanced at Ice and their joined hands and smiled, it’d taken a long time to be here today but it was worth every moment.
“We’ll be starting our games in a minute here so if everyone could just form three lines…” Cyclone went on.
Mav, Ice, and all the kids got in one line and awaited instructions. It turned out that the game was pretty simple: pin the wings on the airplane while blindfolded. But the prizes for the games were the best part - contestants had the chance to win up to a $30 Starbucks gift card.
Fanboy grinned when he heard that, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “That gift card is so mine, I need my free caffeine,” he declared.
Maverick smirked, “we’ll see about that.”
Bob shook his head incredulously, “You guys know that it's just luck right? You can’t see anything.”
“Shh, it's funny,” Rooster mock-whispered behind Maverick’s back. Maverick slapped him gently and Bradley laughed, shoving his dad away.
When it was finally they’re turn Phoenix went first, trying and failing to pin the wings in the right place after intently staring at the poster. It didn’t work.
Coyote, Rooster, and Payback all went next and also epically failed. Then it was Maverick’s turn and Ice watched as his husband eagerly eyed the poster, his tongue sticking out in concentration. He leaned forward, squinting hard against the blindfold, and stuck the wings just a little too high up.
“Dammit!” Maverick exclaimed once he’d pulled the blindfold off.
Ice patted him on the back sympathetically, “You know that we can afford to buy coffee, right dear?” He whispered.
Mav nodded, “yeah but it's more fun this way.”
“Let one of the kids get it, they need it more than we do,” Iceman reasoned.
“Or, ya know you could pay us more,” Rooster interjected.
“Rooster!” Phoenix exclaimed in shock, her eyes wide,“you can’t just say that to the admiral!”
“Nah, it's fine,” Ice said, rolling his eyes. He flicked Rooster in the back of the neck, “How’s that for disciplinary action?”
Rooster just rolled his eyes, looking scarily similar to Iceman at that moment.
Bob went next as the last one to go and the pressure was on because so far everyone (including Ice, though he hadn’t tried very hard) had failed.
Bob tugged the blindfold on and Phoenix tied it behind his head for him.
“Ready,” he declared determinedly.
Bob took a staggering step forward, his hands swinging wildly towards the poster, and…pinned the wings exactly in the correct place.
“What! How is that possible?” Fanboy exclaimed.
Bob shrugged, smiling, “here,” he said, “you can have it - I prefer tea.”
“That’s very nice of you Bob,” Ice said, feeling oddly like a proud parent. Bob just smiled softly, his cheeks dusted with pink.
“Alright,” Cyclone exclaimed, “who's ready for the next game?”
Once again he was met with cheers from the assembled crowd and Cyclone grinned from behind his aviator sunglasses.
“Great,” He said, “next up is aviation trivia.”
The daggers all lumped together into pairs for trivia: Phoenix and Bob, Payback and Fanboy, Coyote and Hangman, and…Rooster the only one left without a partner.
Hangman cleared his throat awkwardly when he saw Rooster’s lost gaze glancing around the hanger. “You uh, can come play with us Roo I mean Rooster…” He babbled, quickly shoving his hands in his lap and staring down at the ground as he blushed furiously.
Coyote nudged his friend, muttering something and chuckling under his breath but Rooster didn’t pay Coyote any attention, he hurried over to Hangman and plopped down next to him.
Ice smiled as Cyclone started the game. “Reminds me of someone…” he drawled under his breath into Maverick’s ear (they were partners of course).
Maverick grinned, batting his hands away. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Once the game began however, the trio of Coyote, Rooster, and Hangman proved to be quite formidable. The other teams grumbled over both Ice and Mav being on the same team and then when it was clear that Rooster’s team was winning they grumbled over that.
Hangman had a competitive streak, that’s for sure. He held control of their team’s whiteboard and raced to write all the answers down as fast as he could while Rooster repeatedly smashed the buzzer button.
“Nice one!” Rooster exclaimed after they’d won once again, turning to smile at Hangman who was already staring back down at the whiteboard again with all the focus of a guy trying to win his girlfriend a stuffed animal at the carnival games.
Ice shook his head in fond exasperation and he and Mav settled down to watch their pseudo son and his maybe, possible, crush interact.
“And the winner is team SUPER AWESOME,” Cyclone declared, looking none too happy to be awarding his most troublesome students the prize of yet another gift card.
Coyote, Rooster, and Hangman cheered loudly and stood up to accept their prize.
“Wait, who's gonna get to keep it though?” Rooster asked after a minute of admiring the starbucks gift card.
Hangman shrugged, “guess I’ll have to take you out to coffee,” he replied smoothly.
Rooster choked on his own spit. Mav and Ice high-fived under the table. Coyote rolled his eyes but grinned.
“Ye-yeah ok,” Rooster muttered after a minute, his voice cracking.
Hangman smiled, “great.”
Around noon the festivities died down and Cyclone, along with the help of Hondo, dragged out a massive barbeque grill. The two men struggled to set it up while the daggers got roped into getting out the burger supplies and Ice watched it all go down.
After several moments of watching Cyclone discard burned burger patties he couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’ll be right back,” Iceman promised his husband, gesturing towards Cyclone vs the grill, “I gotta go fix that.”
Mav nodded, “don’t worry I’ll watch the kids.”
Ice shook his head as he walked away, mildly concerned about what that meant.
According to Maverick it meant simply watching as Rooster and Hangman attempted to flirt, Fanboy shot paper straws at Payback using a complex catapult device he built out of a plastic cup (putting his engineering and aerospace degree to good use), and Phoenix and Bob made out in the corner.
When Ice returned holding two plates of burgers for him and Mav he saw the chaos but smiled good naturedly.
“Kids,” he called out to get the daggers attention, the word coming to him like it was second-nature even though some of the other spouses stared at him, “go get some food!”
The daggers all rushed off to the grill, jostling for places in line and pushing each other around. (Ice thought he saw Hangman discreetly save a place next to himself for Bradley but he couldn’t be sure).
Iceman sighed contently, leaning gently against his husband’s shoulder as they watched the chaos ensue. Mav wore a similar look of happiness and relaxation and he tipped his head against Ice’s.
“We’re pretty lucky huh?” he exclaimed.
Ice nodded even though it wasn’t a real question, “yes,” he answered, “we are.”