When Slider First Sees Bradley, He Doesnt Make The Connection That He Is Goose's Son, And Instead Thinks

When Slider first sees Bradley, he doesnt make the connection that he is Goose's son, and instead thinks he is Ice's son.

Then comes the realization that he shovel-talked Mav for no reason

"Toma Mikhailovich Kazansky you tell me right now why you never told me you had a child-"

Slider doesnt realize/accepts that Bradley is Goose's son until Carole physically comes and confirms it, with birth certificate and everything, "Because its easy to have some sort of extra-marital affair Goose, you should talk to her about that, not to tear you apart but Bradley and Ice look exactly alike-", and she thinks its the funniest shit-

Also because as a child Bradley looks EXACTLY like Carole Bradshaw, who is also a (bleached?) platinum/light blonde ("and the blonde has to come in SOMEWHERE Goose-"), in all honesty you couldn't fault Slider for not making the proper connections

"YOUR son? Yeah right Goose, I wasnt born 2 minutes ago, Im not stupid, you and Baby Ice look nothing alike"

" Baby ICE?? IT SHOULD BE BABY GOOSE-"

Goose thought it was funny to begin with but now 3 different squadrons and several of the higherups, INCLUDING VIPER OF ALL PEOPLE, believe that Bradley is Ice's son

("Kazansky"

"Yes sir?"

"You be sure to bring that boy of yours around more often, clear?"

".. Yes sir")

It doesn't help that Bradley absolutely ADORES Ice, and where Ice is, Slider is surely to follow with his Baby Ice Agenda-

"Listen, unlike you, Goose, there are only 2 platinum blondes I have ever known that have some sort of connection in the Navy, Bradley and Ice, its a logical explanation okay-"

Adding onto the entire situation, Bradley misheard Ice's callsign, and thinks his callsign is IcePOP, instead of IceMAN, and just starts calling him Pop/Pops

Maverick finds the entire situation hilarious, until he realizes that his throne of Favourite might be taken by Ice and starts going absolutely feral over trying to "win" Bradley back

Bradley just loves being around everyone, and has no favourites (unless bribed to say otherwise)

Bradley is just happy to see his Dad, and Pops, and Uncle Mav, and Uncle Sli, and Uncle Wood, and Uncle Wolf, and Grandpa Viper-

Older Brother!Slider with Baby Brother!Ice

Okay, so another contribution rant to the Top Gun Fandom:

Big Brother Slider, but ONLY, ONLY to Ice. And not the generic sibling relationship, no, but Ice is his Baby Brother.

For any who don't have that 'Baby' Sibling, as an eldest child, let me explain: A sibling is a younger, less better, version of yourself because your parents were a bit delusional and now there is Another™.

HOWEVER, a Baby Sibling, a BABY Sibling? No, they are essentially your own child, typically the youngest, they are your pride and joy, and when I tell you that with a Baby Sibling you become so protective over them you would commit horrible crimes for them- literally becoming an attack dog on a leash held by said Baby Sibling, that is a true Baby Sibling/Older Sibling relationship. The minute they are born they're just, your child, like so what the birth certificate says that their parents are my parents, that's obviously a lie. They legitimately become your child in more ways than one, whose only role in life is to be happy and loved. And this is SO the relationship between Slider and Ice.

Ice is the Baby Sibling™, with Slider as the protective older brother. Slider makes sure that Ice is happy, and cared for/loved, protected, everything for the Baby™. I cannot explain enough how much I love this head-cannon, and all the proof I'll ever need to explain it is this one GIF;

Look at Slider, the protective arm around the shoulder, the glare, the judgement in his very being, the way his jaw tenses-, compared to Ice, who is just sitting there, not even noticing, focusing on something else all happy like (Or as happy as Ice can get while in Ice-man mode (Or as happy as one can get when translating languages, if you saw my other post about Russian!Ice ;D)).

Slider nearly getting kicked out of the Top Gun program due to beating a fellow pilot unconscious because he DARED shit talk Ice

So they never gave Slider a DOB/specified age in Top Gun, but his actor, Rick Rossovich is 2 years older than Val Kilmer, so that only furthers the point of Slider's Older Brother Agenda

One time Goose was showing Ice how to cartwheel after Ice was interested in how he did it on the deck of the ship they were stationed on and Slider refused to allow Ice to do it because "What if he falls and cracks his skull open on the tarmac Goose!"

When reassured that Ice cracking his skull open isn't going to happen, and Goose was only going to demonstrate, Slider still wont budge on it. Ice never learned how to do a cartwheel to this day

Ice's foot getting caught in the track and wheels of a stationary, not turned on/working tank on accident and one singular, quiet, whispered "ow" after pulling it out of said track/wheel, was all it took to have Slider screaming his head off carrying Ice into medical absolutely positive that Ice just "Broke his own god-damn ankle, GET A MEDIC-"

Someone shoving past Ice on their way to the mess hall in a rush, causing Ice to stumble back literally 2 steps, and Slider getting in their face, slamming them into a wall with a "I swear you put your hands on Ice one more time, your not gonna have hands AT ALL"

He then slings his arm around Ice's shoulder and directs him to the mess hall, glaring at any poor soul who dared look in Ice's direction

They were at the bar and a woman started to approach Ice, who, of course was not noticing (he only has eyes for a 5'7" gremlin named Mav), and Slider shuts that down REAL QUICK. Like, no, not today Lilith, pick a different naval guy-

Give Mav The Talk when he notices Mav giving eyes to Ice, and Goose because Slider can never be too sure, and everyone observing this is sitting there like 'what the actual fuck' after Slider threatens to, and I quote, "French braid your fuckin' nervous system you shitty dwarf" towards Maverick amongst other colorful threats

It gets to the point where Slider is so protective over Ice, people don't ask Ice anything without looking to Slider for some kind of acceptance or denial, like;

Hollywood: Hey Ice do you wanna- Slider, the coldest look ever seen, actively dropping the temperature in the room while promising a slow and tortuous death: Hollywood: -help me figure out this trajectory angle equation for this [classified] mission? Ice, absolutely oblivious to the entire situation: Sure? I guess?

Its single-handedly the funniest and most terrifying thing to ever happen in Top Gun history, aside from whoever decided to put Maverick Mitchell in a plane

And the cherry on top is that Ice DOESN'T HAVE A CLUE at the entire situation

When someone tries saying how terrifying Slider is to Ice he just brushes it off, like, "Oh Slider? No he's very nice, he even walks with me wherever I have to go in the day. He's all bark and no bite"

And everyone in the immediate vicinity just looking at Ice either with pity or like he's stupid because he doesn't know

He never figures it out either

(This overprotectiveness doubles, if not triples when he meets baby Bradley Bradshaw, and Slider just cant compute because now there is another person who has my undying love and protection-)

(Goose once lost Bradley on a very important, very large Naval destroyer and the entirety of the Top Gun Class of '86 is frantically searching the entire ship before Viper finds out and one of them just stumbling into Slider sitting on a couch with Ice and Bradley just absolutely passed out, sleeping like a brick, essentially using him as human furniture, and the look Slider gives them promises a 100 years of death if they wake either of them up-)

(After Goose's death when baby Bradley lives with IceMav, he just clings onto Slider whenever he's over because "I feel safest with Pops, but Pops feels safest with Uncle Sli', so I'm safest-est with Uncle Sli'")

(Mav doesn't know whether to cry because that is so cute- or be annoyed that Slider is preferred over himself)

(After Bradley reconciles with Mav, he's caught sleeping(read absolutely dead to the world) on Slider's chest like when he was as a child and no one knowing what to do because "Rooster that is a 2-STAR ADMIRAL OF THE US NAVY-" Slider is just like "I'm safest-est", and Bradley sleepily chiming in with a "safest-est" and deciding to just go back to sleep like nothing happened)

I know its not art, but here is my contribution rant to the Russian!Ice HC:

His Name; So normally just naming your kid 'Tom', as an American, even now, is pretty unusual- its mostly Thomas that then gets shortened into 'Tom' or another nickname. HOWEVER, in Russia there is a name Toma, Toma traditionally (from my family's regional background atleast) it means 'twin', which would also push for the Sarah Kazansky is Ice's sibling HC as well.

During the immigration process, especially during the 80s or before, many times due to not having immediate translation available, names were translated based on sound. For example: My grandfather who immigrated in the 70s has a different spelling for his last name than my great-uncle who immigrated at the same time, so things like this happening in immigration offices isnt inaccurate

Therefore; its perfectly realistic that at an immigration office, when Ice said his name was Toma, based on the regional dialect, it could have easily sounded like Tom, hence his full name being 'Tom' (with Sarah's being the equivalent to Sasha, or even a more Russian pronunciation of 'Sara')

Not only that, but the Russian origin could explain why he appears so standoffish, and a little out of the social loop- with Slider acting as some sort of protector. They would have been in the height of the Cold War with rising tensions, so of course Ice would've wanted to hide that portion of him, but America is also a HUGE culture shock to even some Americans. So you have Ice who is attempting to assimilate, but still doesn't understand to the fullest, and English is hard, so it makes sense for Sliders protectiveness/defense and Ice's distant social ability.

His Call Sign; so we know Ice got his Call Sign due to being an 'iceman' up in the air, and while this is true for some pilots, if Ice is from Russia, the most likely chance is he is trying to remember how to actually fly the plane/jet, because American aviators and Russian aviators don't learn on the same aircraft, they're notably different- ESPECIALLY in the 80s- so his 'ice cold' persona in the air could most likely be him concentrating to the best of his ability to keep both him and his RIO alive.

Plus, the last name 'Kazansky' is incredibly popular in Russia, so even if Ice isnt from Russia himself it isnt inaccurate to say that he had Russian/Slavic ancestry

( Ice teaching Baby!Bradley Russian when watching him and Bradley remembering/becoming slightly fluent- can understand perfectly has trouble speaking- because kids pick up languages like sponges to water)

(Ice telling Mav how much he loves him in Russian)

(Ice making delicious traditional Russian/Slavic food for him, Mav, and Bradley)

If I missed any please let me know!

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JiuJiu and his A-Ling, Click on the image for better quality!

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