Okay, this isn't the Mav/Nick thing I was talking about, but imagine - Tom Kazansky who used to be Nick Rivers. The Iceman who spent the seventies being a teenage popstar dancing on tables and draping himself over fake train tracks and making girls scream and pass out.
Insert some family tragedy or some shit, either way, he goes straight. Hides it. Doesn't tell a soul, not even Slider. Changes the station every time they play a Nick Rivers song on a Throwback Thursday and claims it's because he hates "that sugary poppy bullshit."
No one figures it out for years. He goes to Top Gun, he falls in love with Maverick, he starts spending the weekends and holidays and any time they want with him and the Bradshaws, and then comes Bradley. Little baby Bradley, who wasn't even fucking alive yet when Nick Rivers quit, is the first one to figure it out and it's all because the kid interrupts Ice's poor attempt at a good night story one too many times, so he gives up and tries to sing him a lullaby instead.
And instead of finally closing his eyes, Bradley gasps and sits up and says, "You sound like the guy on the radio!"
Internally, Ice freaks the fuck out. Outwardly, he smiles and winks and makes Bradley promise to keep it their little secret, in exchange for no more terrible good night stories.
And in the end, that's how Mav figures it out too. He overhears one day, pauses in the doorway to watch Ice stroking Bradley's hair and swaying to his own rhythm and leaves again before either of them can notice him.
In the morning, he hands Ice his coffee and asks him if he's ever been shopping at Macy's.
