#NOTHING BURNS LIKE THE COLD { ICEMAN; IN CHARACTER }

[theyoungblooded]

❄️ — Iceman

#THE KILLER IN THE MIRROR { ICEMAN; VISAGE } #ICE COLD SKIN & A DARKNESS IN YOUR EYES { ICEMAN; BODY } #ALL BLACK EVERYTHING { ICEMAN; WARDROBE } #BAPTIZE YOUR THIGHS ‘TIL IT HURTS { ICEMAN; DESIRES } #MISERY IS THE VENOM IN MY BRAIN { ICEMAN; MUSINGS } #AIN’T NO REST FOR THE WICKED { ICEMAN; HEADCANON } #OF WHISKEY & CIGARETTES { ICEMAN; AESTHETIC } #ANYTHING CAN BE A WEAPON { ICEMAN; SKILLSET } #ORDERS FROM THE BOSS { ICEMAN; ANSWERED } #NOTHING BURNS LIKE THE COLD { ICEMAN; IN CHARACTER } #{ INFO } #{ TAGS }

[topgun-imagines]

Day 3: No Mistakes

Character: Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky

Warnings: parental abuse, alcoholism, abuse, mentions of cheating, mentions of death, injury, blood, wounds, & burns.

Word count: 1.5k

Iceman was a well-known name in the Naval Academy. He was top of his class and a brilliant pilot. One that everyone could say they were certain would go on to do amazing things. Iceman did everything by the book; it was just how he lived his life. Important decisions were only made after careful consideration of the pros and cons. That’s the way it had been since he was a child. Iceman was cold and calculating. He showed next to no emotion and never allowed anyone to understand how he was truly feeling, quickly earning him the reputation of ice cold, no mistakes. Many people knew Iceman, but almost no one knew Tom Kazansky.

From a young age, Iceman was taught to conceal his emotions. He knew that there would be repercussions if he didn’t, which is why even as an adult, the pilot never opened up to people. He preferred to keep things closed down, hidden away to maintain his perfect facade. No one could ever know how he truly felt. No one would know the thoughts that ran through his mind when he was alone. And no one would ever know the tricks his mind would play when he heard a door slam or someone raise their voice.

The story of why Tom Kazansky became Iceman was a tricky one. He couldn't really pinpoint when exactly he became so cold. If he had to guess, it would probably be when he finally realized what was wrong in his home. Although, he wouldn’t really call it a home. Not when the walls were void of any sort of sentiment. That rickety old house had never seen an ounce of love. Not from his mother, and surely not from his father.

Growing up, Tom thought that it was normal that his parents were the way they were. Sure, he knew his dad drank more than normal and he knew his mother was hardly ever home, but every family had their differences. Right? That’s what he would tell himself when his mother showed up in the early hours of the morning, smelling like something a young Tom Kazansky couldn’t quite place. He would repeat that thought when he heard his father stumbling around the kitchen in search of another bottle.

However, to the outside world, his family was perfect. No one ever heard the degrading comments his father would make or saw the harsh looks his mother sent him whenever something wasn't just so. That house may have been a wreck on the inside, but his mother made damn sure it looked perfect to everyone else.

The first thing that showed Tom what his parents were really like was when he failed a test in the ninth grade. He had tried to study the whole week, but it was hard when the sounds of his drunk father shouting slurs at his mother could be heard through the paper-thin walls. Their marriage had been rocky lately. Tom now knew that his mother came home nearly every night smelling like cheap booze. It had finally reached the point where his father accused her of cheating.

Honestly, Tom wasn’t all too surprised when she revealed that she was. She left later that night, leaving nothing behind but a wedding ring.

When Tom failed that test, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting, but it sure wasn’t what happened. His father found the test paper lying on the kitchen table. Tom had never heard the man yell so loud before, which was truly saying something. He had stumbled down the stairs, trembling with every fiber of his being. But when he saw the belt in his father's hand, he froze. An agonizing twenty minutes later, he stumbled back up the stairs. Only this time, it wasn’t out of fear but of pain. That night, Tom knew that the second he could, he was leaving.

They lived in a small town, so the word of his mother's disappearance spread fast. His father had ignored the rumours, choosing instead to tell people that they had simply needed a break, nothing more, nothing less. Tom knew that no one believed him. He could see the sympathetic looks the older women in the town would give him. None of them changed a thing. No matter how much they felt for the boy, they couldn’t bring his mother back.

His father's actions continued. In fact, they only got worse over time. Tom found himself wearing more and more sweaters to cover up the cigarette burns on his arms. The excuses for why he was always so covered began flowing easier, rolling off his tongue as if they were the truth. No one ever noticed. And Tom was perfectly fine with keeping it that way.

Eventually, he found ways to cope with his home life. He knew he couldn’t fix his broken home. So, he decided to fix something else. Tom bought his first car the day after his seventeenth birthday. It was a beater in desperate need of some TLC. Now, instead of spending his nights afraid of his father bursting into his room, he could work on that old car. That car wasn’t anything special, but it would be what took him away from that god-awful house in just over a year. But for now, that beat-up car was his saving grace.

For the next year, Tom was just trying to survive. He did his best to avoid his drunk of a father at all costs, even going as far as staying at a friend's house for the majority of that year. Not that his father ever noticed, of course. Tom’s friends never wondered why he was so keen on staying away from that house and he never told them. Why burden more people with his problems?

Everything was somewhat alright for a while. And then all hell broke loose. One night, Tom returned late from a friend's house where he was studying. It was well past midnight which meant that his father should have been passed out on the couch hours ago. Only, the living room light was still left on. The harsh orange light could be seen shining through the stained white curtains from blocks away. And for some reason that the boy couldn’t quite place, that formed an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Tom thought he had seen the worst of his father's anger. After a belt, cigarettes, and bottles smashed over his hands, he wasn’t sure there could be much more. Oh, how wrong he was. The second he walked through that door, he was met with the sight of his enraged father. Sure, Tom had felt pain before. Numerous times, in fact. But it was nothing like the feeling of his father beating him within an inch of his life.

The man had gotten drunk. So drunk, in fact, that he didn’t know when to stop. When Tom finally stumbled up the stairs, he had numerous gashes on his legs and back, pieces of shattered glass were stuck in his skin on various parts of his body and his left eye was so swollen he could hardly see out of it. Almost blindly, he had pulled out a homemade first aid kit from under his bed and began to nurse himself back to health.

When he woke up in the morning, the house was silent. So eerily silent that it was more scary than calm. Now, Tom finally had the chance to think about what had changed so drastically for his father to respond in such a way. Within seconds he found the answer. Tom had graduated a few months ago and his eighteenth birthday was in less than a week. His car was already mostly packed with everything that he would need. Unbeknownst to his father, Tom had applied to the Naval Academy a year ago. The second he was eighteen, he was leaving that town and never coming back.

And that’s exactly what he did. There wasn’t a single part of his that felt bad for abandoning the old man. With everything that he had put his own son through, Tom was confident that he could take care of himself. If not, no one would miss the rotten man anyway. As the small, barren town became smaller in his rearview mirror, Tom felt that familiar pit in his stomach dissipate. For the first time in a long time, Tom Kazansky finally felt a small sense of peace.

Now, instead of the scared little boy he once was, Tom Kazansky was a man. Forced to mature at a young age, he put all of that behind him the second he entered the academy. Here, he wasn’t just ‘Tom’. He was Iceman. Cold, calculating, with no mistakes.

a/n: Thank you for reading! Join the whumptober taglist! ☺️

Tagging: @xoxabs88xox @ohtobeleah @els-marvelvsp @kmc1989

#top gun #top gun fanfiction #top gun x female reader #top gun x reader #top gun maverick #tom iceman kazansky #top gun 1986 #iceman fic #iceman x reader #iceman #iceman top gun #iceman kazansky #tom kazansky top gun #tom kazansky #tom kazansky smut #tom kazansky imagine #tom Kazansky whumptober #whumptober #top gun whumptober #top gun movie #tom kazansky fic #tom iceman kazansky x reader #tom kazansky x reader #tom kazansky x you #tom iceman kazansky fanfic #Tom Iceman Kazansky angst #top gun angst #top gun iceman #iceman whumptober #iceman val kilmer

[derpinathebrave]

Finders Keepers - IceMav SpyAu Part 1 - Finding

READ ON AO3

So I got the brain rot again! We were talking SpyAu and IceMav dads on the discord and now this. Don't take it too seriously, this is 100% just me dicking around and making myself happy.

SUMMARY: “Don’t get attached, Mitchell,” Ice said, mumbling soft enough that the kid wouldn’t hear but the words were piped through the earpiece to Mav.

Maverick gave him a look of mild disinterest before returning his attention to the kid. Just because Ice was a cold-hearted bastard, didn’t mean Maverick had to be. There was nothing wrong with being kind to a child that they had rescued from a house of traffickers. It wasn’t like he was about to adopt it...

TAGS: Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, OC Child Character, Ron "Slider" Kerner, Nick "Goose" Bradshaw, Bill "Cougar" Cortell, Mike "Viper" Metcalf, Rick "Jester" Heatherly, Fluff, Family Fluff, Literally found family, MavDad, IcePops, SpyAU, Very Mild Violence, Spycraft innacuracies, Mild mentions of human trafficking, Selective Mutism, No Beta we die like goose.

WORDS: 7808

PART 1 - PART 2

Minor Content Warning: NPC death, mild violence, minor mentions of trafficking, minor mentions of kidnapping.

There was a lingering smell of smoke, ash and charred flesh in the air. Mav had thought that after ten years of doing this, he would be used to it. Now he was starting to suspect it wasn’t something you got used to. 

With a sweep of his eyes he scanned the room. From the busted window he had come through, across the shattered television and half-broken half-burned pinewood dresser, to the other side of the room where the bed was spattered with blood and still smouldering a little. Mav used one of the pillows to beat the embers out. There was no movement. The body at his feet thoroughly incapacitated. 

“Mav, why do I smell smoke?” Ice’s voice cut into his head through the earpiece. 

“Not your concern, Iceman,” Mav replied, tossing the cushion down and pulling his shotgun back to his shoulder.

“You loaded incendiaries, didn’t you?” 

Maverick could practically see the scolding expression on Ice’s face. He rolled his eyes as he carefully picked his way across the room the the door opposite. 

“That’s none of your concern either,” Maverick said quietly.

He stepped around the doorframe, clearing the room shotgun-first. It was a hall. He had stepped into it near the end. To his left he could see the darkness of stairs descending. To the right were more doors. Four more, to be exact. All of them closed.

Mav paused, listening. There was a shuffling and a rapidly muffled voice. Both noises gone too quick for him to nail down which door they were behind. All he could gather was it was the opposite side to where he was lingering. 

He stepped into the hall heading for the next door, only a few paces from him. 

“It concerns me if the house burns down around my ears,” Ice said after a long pause, sounding slightly more strained this time. 

“Relax,” Mav said, barely moving his lips as he spoke in an effort to stay undetected as he sassed Ice back. “I put out the fires I start. Mostly.”

“Minsk.”

It took more than a little effort for him to suppress the startled laugh that threatened. Mav placed his ear to the door and listened. Silence. He pushed the handle down and pushed it in, whipping the shotgun into place and stepping back and to the side. 

Nothing happened. It was a bathroom. An empty bathroom.

“I said ‘mostly’,” Mav replied. 

He stepped back into the hall. 

There was the distinct pop of a suppressed gunshot beneath him. Another two followed it in quick succession. Mav paused. Waiting to hear anything else. 

After a long silence, Mav continued down the hall. He paused at the next door.

A creak of wood was the only warning he got. 

The door exploded outward in a spray of woodchips.

Mav dove to one side, tucking and rolling. His gun was back up and pointed at the destroyed door before he really caught up to what had happened. 

The hinges screamed as the wrecked door was opened. Mav took a long, slow breath in. His eyes were locked to the edge of the doorframe.

The black barrel of a shotgun appeared first. It was swiftly followed by the man wielding it. 

Maverick didn’t think. He pulled the trigger. 

Fire spattered across the man’s chest and the rest of the hall. 

There was a startled shriek, there always was. The man dropped his gun, frantically slapping at the flames on his clothes. 

Mav pulled his pistol out, shooting to kill. The gun was back in his holster before the body hit the floor. He stepped forward, still leading with the shotgun. He checked the room quickly, finding it empty. 

With that done he turned to the body and muffled the flames with the hall rug. 

“Ground floor, clear,” Ice spoke into his head again. 

“Two rooms to go,” Mav said, straightening and heading into the cleared room. He stepped onto the creaky floorboard that had saved his life and smiled a little. 

“I’ll head up.”

The room was another bedroom. It was easy to clear as it was bereft of any real furniture. There was no bedframe, only a single mattress on the floor and the remnants of takeaway food. A closet door set into the wall on the right.

Maverick stilled. There was one other thing in the room. A set of shackles. The chain was looped around the bars of the radiator on the wall, the cuffs empty on the mattress. 

“Ice,” Mav said, staying quiet. “Remind me what we were sent in here to retrieve.”

There was an irritated sigh before Ice replied. “We’re looking for a hard-drive of names and locations.”

Mav turned to face the closet door. His gut began a distracting churn but he pushed it away. 

Ice was still speaking, “The agency got word this was a subsect of the trafficking ring we’ve been hunting for the better part of six months. Do you actually listen when we’re being briefed, or do you just wing everything you do?” Ice’s voice was snarky.

“Thank you, asshole,” Mav remained solemn, unable to rise to Ice’s bait. He approached the closet door. Each step was slow and measured.

He slung the shotgun onto his back and unholstered the pistol. 

The faintest sound of a whimper reached him. 

Maverick winced. He lifted the pistol and pulled the closet open.

A body crashed into his middle. 

Mav went over backward. His training kicked in as he hit the floor. He used the backward momentum to pull the body off him and tumbled it into the far wall. 

There was a pathetic noise of pain.

Mav scrambled back to his feet, his shotgun in his grip again.

Movement in his peripheral caught him. Mav spun, aiming. 

Ice, tall, broad and blond, glared back down the sights of his Ruger. 

They turned simultaneously. The body was still crumpled on the floor against the wall. It resembled a bundle of rags more than a body. If he hadn’t felt the force of it and the bony protrusions, he wouldn’t have recognised it as human. 

He bent and retrieved his fallen pistol. Ice’s weapon now trained on the lump of clothes. 

“The other two rooms aren’t clear,” Mav said, slinging the shotgun behind him again. 

Ice disappeared without a word. 

With a silent sigh, Mav approached the body. He squatted down a few feet from it, pistol casually aimed with one hand as he placed his elbows on his knees. 

“Alright,” he said, voice tired. “That wasn’t enough to knock you out, I know you’re faking.”

Nothing happened. He watched, a wry smile on his face as he noticed the rags rise and fall with breath. Maverick reached out and nudged the closest bit he could. It felt like an arm underneath the folds of grey knit. 

“House is clear. I found the drive,” Ice reported.

Mav nudged the body again. “C’mon, let’s hurry this up.” He sighed shortly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I might even get you out of here. But you have to cooperate.”

The mass of grey shifted. A small, grubby face peeked out from between the arm Mav had poked and what was clearly a hood of a sweatshirt four sizes too big. Brown eyes, wide with fear, locked into his own. The limbs shifted, curling tight and shrinking the size of the human to almost tiny. 

His heart stammered and slammed hard into his sternum. This wasn’t just a trafficking victim. This was a kid. He bit into his inner lip. What the hell was he supposed to do now? This was not how it was supposed to go.

“Hi there,” he said after a long moment. “You ready to get out of here?”

“They aren’t the mission, Mav.” Ice cut through his uncertainty with one sentence. 

“Fuck the mission, Ice,” Mav snapped, sliding his eyes away from the kid. He holstered his pistol. “I’m not leaving them here.”

He glanced back to find the kid pulling the hood back over them. 

“Hey, no, don’t hide. We have to go,” Mav said, softening his tone once more. 

Footsteps announced the arrival of Ice. Mav glanced up long enough to find an exasperated expression on the other man. He turned back to his quarry with a small smile. 

“I’m going to have to pick you up if you won’t walk yourself,” Mav said, still gentle. 

His heart hammered again. He had no idea what he was doing. Somehow having Ice watching him was only making him more aware of that fact. 

There was a long pause. He was about to give up and man-handle the kid out, when the legs unfolded once more and the face appeared among the grey fabric again. 

“Ready to go?” Mav smiled with relief. 

The eyes snapped to Ice. They were still wide with fear. 

Mav could understand. Ice was nothing short of intimidating. His black turtleneck straining over his broad chest and muscled arms. He was still wearing his pissy expression and hadn’t holstered his pistol. There was a back-up strapped to his thigh over his cargo pants and his combat boots were laced with military precision to mid-shin. 

“Don’t mind him,” Mav’s smiile grew. “He’s not as scary as he thinks he is.”

Ice rolled his eyes but kept his reply to himself. 

The brown eyes found Mav’s again. 

He held his hand out. “Ready to go?”

He was given a small nod. Good enough for him. He reached out and pulled the small body to its feet. There was a small squeak of surprise and then silence. 

“Can you walk?” Mav asked, astounded at how little they weighed. 

Another nod. 

“Good.” Mav nodded to Ice. 

The other agent turned on his heel, raising his gun once more and leading the way out of the room. 

Mav took a single step, watching closely as his new charge stumbled and sprawled onto the floor. He winced. 

“Alright, I’m going to carry you. Just until we’re out and in the car, OK?” Mav said gently. He bent and scooped the kid up. The pants dangled almost a foot beyond the end of their legs and the hoodie rucked up unevenly, everything was far too big.

He tossed them a little, resettling his grip more securely. With another small squeak, the face turned and buried itself into his shoulder. Mav ignored the odd sense of affection it gave him. He followed Ice out into the hall. 

They remained quiet, moving swiftly down the stairs and through the ground floor. There were three bodies sprawled on the floor. Mav was glad that his charge had elected to hide their face. 

Mav was growing increasingly alarmed at how little the child in his arms weighed. It barely affected his ability to keep up with Ice as they jogged across the lawn and down to the back street where they had left their vehicle. Ice pulled the door open without a word, waving Mav in. 

He considered depositing the kid and climbing into the front, but at the last moment, he simply climbed into the SUV child and all. Ice swung the door shut behind him. 

“Alright, we’re safe,” Mav whispered. “We’re safe now.”

Ice climbed into the drivers seat, still conspicuously silent. As they set off, Ice driving quick and clean, Mav attempted to put the kid back down on the seat beside him. Small, strong hands had laced themselves into his webbing though, and they were resisting fiercely. He gave up with barely a fight. Instead he shifted the shotgun out from behind his back and leaned more comfortably into the seat. His arm came naturally back around his charge, holding them to his chest once more.

“What’s the plan here, Maverick?” Ice said at last. There was a brittle edge to his voice and Mav felt the kid tense against him.

“Calm down, Ice,” Mav said, voice even. “You aren’t helping by being pissy.”

There was a strangled noise of anger from the front seat but Ice remained silent once more. 

“You’re alright, don’t worry about him,” Mav mumbled down at the kid. 

He was rewarded with the small face appearing once more, staring up at him. Now he wasn’t trying to get them out of a potentially hostile situation, Mav could spend some time looking. The face was small, a pointed chin, grubby cheeks with a dusting of freckles underneath and a mess of mousy brown hair that looked long enough to brush their chin. 

“I’m Mav, by the way,” he said with another smile. “What’s your name?”

The little mouth opened, revealing white, straight teeth. No sound came out and the lips snapped shut once more. 

Unconsciously, he gave the kid a squeeze of affection. “That’s alright, take your time.”

He looked up to find Ice watching him through the rearview mirror. 

“Don’t get attached, Mitchell,” Ice said, mumbling soft enough that the kid wouldn’t hear but the words were piped through the earpiece to Mav. 

Maverick gave him a look of mild disinterest before returning his attention to the kid. Just because Ice was a cold-hearted bastard, didn’t mean Maverick had to be. There was nothing wrong with being kind to a child that they had rescued from a house of traffickers. It wasn’t like he was about to adopt it. He would pass the child over to the agency and carry on with his assignments as normal. 

Things weren’t quite so simple. Maverick sighed as he sat on the hospital bed, the kid still clinging to his chest. Nothing ever was simple, he should know that by now. 

Ice had disappeared to report and debrief as soon as they had made it back. Mav, unable to detach his passenger, had headed to medical. Dr Bill “Cougar” Cortel was standing across from them, arms crossed and a slightly bemused look on his face. 

“I really need to put you down, kid,” Mav tried for the third time. “The doc just needs to make sure you aren’t hurt and that you don’t need anything.”

The little hands on his webbing tightened again. Mav sighed and shook his head at Cougar. 

“That’s alright,” Courgar shrugged. “I’ll just try again in a while.” He shook his head a little before wandering off to sit at his desk and tap rapidly on the computer. 

“I’m not going anywhere, kid,” Mav mumbled. “I’ll be right here. I won’t leave you. I’ll even hold your hand while the doc does his thing.”

He felt the kid twitch but not relent. 

“I’m just worried you’re hurt. Can you just help me out this one time? Let the doc look you over for me?” It was a gamble, who was he to this kid, what right did he have to ask for anything, but he was running out of ideas. Not to mention time before Jester stormed into medical and ordered him to report in. 

There was a small sigh and the fingers loosened off. Mav slid the kid off his lap and onto the bed beside him instead. 

“Cougar,” Mav called, excitement obvious. 

The doctor was back in a heartbeat, stethoscope already in his ears. 

Mav looked away as Cougar did his examination, attempting to give them a little privacy. They were mostly done when the door to the infirmary opened and noise arrived. 

“Shit, it’s true!” Slider boomed, laughing loudly. 

The kid let out a muffled sound of fear and leaped straight back into Mav’s chest. Bony knees caught him in the stomach and he grunted with pain. Without hesitation he wrapped his arms back around the kid. 

“Slider,” Cougar snapped, frowning at the taller man. “This is an infirmary, not a circus. Shut up.”

Slider was still chortling, eyes taking in the scene. He finally settled down, wiping at his eyes a little. 

“Sorry, doc, I had to come and see if it was true. The infamous Maverick suckered in by a sprog,” Slider grinned, still laughing a little. 

“Did you see Ice?” Mav asked, exasperation clear in his tone. 

“I did,” he said. “He passed the drive off to Goose already. We should have everything extracted by tomorrow morning. And you need to get your ass up to Viper’s office and report.”

“I kind of cant now.” Mav nodded, gesturing the best he could to the kid on his chest. “Thanks to you and your natural ability to scare children.”

Slider laughed again, the insult rolling right off his too-wide shoulders. 

“Go away, Kerner,” Cougar sighed, looking up from a folder. “I need to get this kid into come clean clothes and maybe even a shower. You aren’t helping.”

“Sure thing, doc,” Slider shook his head a little as he looked at Mav once more. “Have fun, Mav.” It was meant as a playful jab, but Mav found himself more defensive than usual.

Sure, they were a group of hardened spies that were tasked with grisly jobs more often than not, but that didn’t mean they had to be heartless. He was allowed to enjoy playing the hero for a while. He was allowed to want to do a good deed.

With Slider gone it took another fifteen minutes of gentle coaxing and blatant bribery to get the kid back off Mav’s lap and into the small shower cubicle on their own. Mav stood outside the door, chattering away so the kid could hear him the whole time. He stared hard at the ceiling as he spoke, desperate to avoid seeing the way Cougar was shaking with laughter in his peripherals. He was starting to become concerned that Cougar would throw a rib out when the door finally opened again. 

Now that they were showered and dressed in better fitting clothes (the smallest scrubs they had, cut down to fit), they looked less scrawny. Their hair hung to the jaw and was cut straight with a flat fringe over their forehead. The freckles on their cheeks now much more obvious.

“Alright, I just need to ask a few questions,” Cougar said from his seat at the desk, his voice a little hoarse from stifling his laughter. “Can you answer a few easy questions for me?”

The kid nodded. 

“Are you a girl or a boy?” Cougar tried. 

There was silence. The kid backed up until they were leaning into Maverick heavily. 

“That’s alright, you’ll find your voice again. How about for now you just nod or shake your head,” Cougar was smiling but Mav could see the tension around his eyes and lips. None of them were prepared to deal with kids. 

The kid nodded. 

“Are you a girl?” Cougar paused.

Another nod.

“OK.” He made a note. “Do you know how old you are?”

Another nod.

“Show me?”

Slowly, hands shaking a little, she raised her hands to show 10 fingers.

“Ten?”

Nod.

“OK. Do you know where your parents are?” 

Automatically, Mav placed his hands on her shoulders and held her tight against him. 

She shook her head before turning and burying her face in his stomach. 

The door of the infirmary slammed open. Mav had her in his arms in an instant. He should probably be concerned how attached he had already become, but he was ready to take a bullet to protect this little girl. 

“Mitchell!” Jester didn’t raise his voice but you could always tell when he was shouting at you. “Get your ass up to the office and report, immediately.”

“Respectfully, sir, I can’t at the moment.” Mav snapped to attention, arms holding his girl to his chest. “As soon as I am able, I will report.”

Jester’s mouth fell open before he snapped it shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then spoke again. 

“Maverick, stop playing around down here and get up to the fucking office,” Jester said. 

“Unless I can take her with me, sir, I cant.” Maverick’s heart thudded once before he settled himself into the detatched place of his brain that he always retreated to when he was doing stupid, risky things.

There was a pregnant pause. Jester opened his mouth. Mav watched him gulping in a lungful of air, about to let loose properly, when Ice stepped into the infirmary as well. 

“I’ll take her, Maverick,” Ice said, voice calm despite the electric feeling of tension in the air. “Give her to me, go report, then you can come back and get her.”

Mav glanced at Jester. The man’s jaw was shut but ticcing with effort as he waited for a response. 

“Will you go to Ice for a while?” Mav asked, mumbling to the girl. 

She stared at him, terror in her eyes again and skin pale beneath the freckles. 

Ice walked over, movement slow and measured. He paused a few feet away and folded his arms behind his back. 

“You know Ice, he helped get you out,” Mav tried, ignoring the other men watching him like hawks. “I’d trust him with you.”

The fear softened a little. 

“I won’t be long. Maybe half an hour. You can stand half an hour with Ice, right?”

She bit her lip a little. Maverick felt like an asshole but forged on. 

“I know he’s a mean looking bastard, but really, he’s a softie. He’ll probably even let you hold his hand if you’re scared.” 

Maverick might have heard the small scoff from Ice and the snort from Jester, except he was completely enraptured by the girl in his arms. Her brown eyes were flooding with tears but she gave a shaky nod. 

“Brave girl,” he whispered to her and gave her a squeeze. “I promise I’ll be as fast as I can, and I’ll come straight back.”

She slithered out of his arms and onto her feet. Mav took her hand, small in his. He was convinced she was still too small for a ten year old. 

He jerked his head at Ice, signalling him to approach. 

“Squat down, asshole, you’re too tall,” Maverick muttered as Ice towered over the girl. 

“Fuck you,” Ice snuck out the corner of his mouth before he obliged. He gave a terse smile and held his hand out to her, palm up. 

Hands shaking again, the girl folded her fingers around his palm and held on. Ice’s smile shifted to genuine and he huffed a little. 

Mav gave her skinny shoulder a squeeze before he stepped around them and headed for the door. 

A small squeak made him turn back as he made it to the door. She was reaching for his with her free hand, face twisted with pain. 

“I’ll be back, honey, just half an hour. Stay with Ice,” Mav said, his own heart breaking a little. 

The last thing he saw was Ice folding himself onto the floor in a tailor seat and the girl clinging to his hand.

The trip up to Viper’s office was torture. Jester was hot on his heels, clearly concerned that Maverick would turn-tail and go back to his girl. He wouldn’t. He knew his duty. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t counting down the minutes until he could. 

Viper’s office was near the top floor, a beautiful view of the city lights in the heavily reinforced windows. Everything was dark wood and green suede leather, luxury and expensive without being ostentatious. The man himself was willowy, with an impressive moustache that was a little more salt than pepper and chill eyes. Eyes that locked onto Mav with radar precision as he entered the room. 

Jester moved to stand to one side, his usual position as the agents reported, were briefed or reprimanded. Maverick almost smiled, he was probably about to get all three in one go. 

“Good of you to fit me into your schedule, Mitchell,” Viper said, voice dry as the desert.

“I apologise, sir.” Maverick pulled his shoulders back. “I had a situation I couldn’t abandon.”

There was a ghost of a smile beneath the moustache for a bare instant. Viper gave a slow nod and folded himself into his desk chair. He gave a languid motion with one hand, inviting Mav to begin. 

With more brevity than usual, Mav recounted his part of the mission. Going in the upper window, dispatching two enemies, finding a small child in a closet with evidence of kidnapping, convincing the child to leave with them while Ice completed the mission. The last 45 minutes of the infirmary. 

Viper listened without expression. None of it surprised him, Ice had already told him most of it.

Maverick fell silent. He itched to get out of there, checking the clock swiftly. He had fifteen minutes before he was a liar. 

The silence dragged. Viper was sitting, a finger stroking his moustache idly. 

The seconds ticked by. Maverick’s itching increased. He fought the urge to squirm. 

“So,” Viper began at last. “Now we have a charge that, by all accounts, is unreasonably attached to you.”

There was another silence. Maverick didn’t bother filling it.

“We will need to contact a foster service, it’s currently Saturday night. I doubt any action will be taken until at least Monday.” Viper fixed his grey eyes onto Maverick’s. “Are you prepared to take responsibility for this child until that time? You won’t be sent on assignment until this matter is resolved.”

He almost laughed. He could tell they were testing him. Maverick was the cockiest, most outspoken agent in the company. He knew he was. He lived for the job like no other. With the exception of Iceman. He knew they expected him to cave at the idea of having no assignments. At the idea of Ice getting ahead of him in their stupid competition of who was the best agent. But he didn’t care. 

The appeal of a silly competition paled next to the appeal of seeing if he could make that little girl smile, laugh or even talk. From the second Slider had scared her back into his arms, Maverick wanted nothing else but to climb that new mountain. 

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

There was a choked off noise of surprise from Jester. Viper’s expression didn’t shift, but Maverick thought, just for a second, he saw a flare of pride in his eyes. It might have been wishful thinking though. 

“Fine,” Viper said, curt, “see to your charge. You’ll be provided a safehouse, we will be in touch with details from the foster home. You are dismissed agent.”

Maverick nodded to them both and strode from the office without a backward glance. He had 4 minutes to get downstairs. 

He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, urging the elevator to move faster, when the doors opened to reveal Goose. Mav smiled, feeling it tight and abnormal on his face. 

“Hey Mav,” Goose said in his easy way. He stepped into the elevator and pressed for the doors to close. “How’s the kid?”

Of course he had already heard. The gossip in this place moved faster than Mach 10. If it was anyone else, Maverick would have lied, but this was Goose. His recruiter. His best friend. A man that had his own wife and kid. If anyone was going to get it, Goose was

“She’s half-starved and completely terrified,” Mav sagged a little. “She won’t even speak. All she seems able to do is squeak.” 

“She’ll be OK,” Goose patted him on the shoulder, rubbing his upper arm a little. “Kids are tough. They bounce back better than we do.”

“You sure?” Mav’s brow peaked and furrowed with fear. “What if I fuck her up more?”

Goose laughed. He dragged Mav into a proper hug, slapping him on the back firmly before releasing him.

“Yeah, that fear never fades. But you’ll do fine,” Goose said, grinning. “Just call me or Carole if you get really stuck.”

A small kernel of anxiety shrivelled and died in Mav’s chest. It was only one less thing to worry about but he was grateful nonetheless. 

“Thank you,” Mav smiled.

The elevator doors opened again. Mav checked his watch. He had 45 seconds. 

He took off at a dead sprint, vaguely aware of Goose calling his name with a laugh. 

He skidded to a stop in the middle of the infirmary, out of breath from his bolt through the hallways. 

The girl was sitting in Ice’s lap, his hand still in hers and his sleeve pulled up to expose his watch. She snapped her eyes to Mav, a powerful frown on her brow.

Maverick laughed between gasping breaths. “I have fifteen seconds left,” he argued with her glare. 

“By my watch you’re fifteen seconds late,” Ice said mildly. His blue eyes were dancing. 

“Your watch is wrong,” Mav complained. 

“Excuses, excuses,” Ice tutted. 

“Shut up, Kazansky.” Mav turned to where Cougar was snickering quietly at his desk. “Is she all good to go, Cougar?”

After a moment to compose himself, Cougar cleared his throat and nodded. “We did a few more tests while you were gone. She needs a decent meal and some fluids but not badly enough that I want to give her the trauma of an IV.” Cougar stood he waved Mav over. 

With a smile at the girl, still ensconced in Ice’s lap, Mav moved to stand at the desk with Cougar. 

“She hasn’t been assaulted, Mav,” Cougar said quietly, his face turned away from the pair on the floor. “She let me ask her a few questions while you were gone. She didn’t speak. But she let me know they didn’t assault her.”

Another seed of anxiety shrivelled and died. Maverick almost fainted from relief. 

“She does have a few bruises that are healing. Some newer than others. But mostly she’s just starved and traumatised,” Cougar sighed. “Just. As if that isn’t awful in and of itself.”

“Thanks, Cougar,” Mav said, voice a little rough. “Its better than I expected.”

“Yeah,” Cougar sighed again and gave a nod. “Alright. That’s all. You can take her now.”

Mav smiled. The anxiety he was nursing flooded higher, battling for dominance over a warm happiness that took him by surprise. He was terrified. This was all too fast. He was delighted. There was something special about this fierce little girl. 

He turned back to her with a smile.

“Alright, kid, doc says we can go.” Mav walked over and bobbed down to speak to her face to face. He realised now he had seen Goose do this with Bradley. His confidence grew just a little. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded, eyes growing wide again.

“We’re going to a safehouse. You and me,” he said, holding out his hand. 

After a pause, a small wrinkle appeared in between her brows. 

“What’s the worry?” Mav asked, voice gentle. “I’ll be right there with you the whole time. They’re working on finding your parents. You’ll be safe.”

The wrinkle didn’t move. She pulled Ice’s hand to her chest and clung tighter. 

He would be lying if he said that didn’t hurt a little. He had only been 15 seconds late and she already preferred Ice? As if Mav didn’t feel completely out-done by Ice in all other aspects, even his kid preferred Ice. 

“I mean, we can ask Viper if you can go with Ice, but it’s already set up for it to be me,” Mav said, attempting to hide his hurt. 

Her small hand reached out and tangled into Mav’s webbing. She looked at him, then at Ice, then back to him again. The same concerned expression on her face. 

Oh. Maverick grinned his shit-eating grin. She didn’t want to replace him. She wanted to take Ice with them. 

That sparked a fresh cacophany of emotions in Mav. He would love to fuck with Ice, take him out of assignments so their score would remain stagnant, he would love to watch the tall, blond idiot attempt to relate to a child. But he also didn’t particularly want to live in a safehouse with Ice and a ten year old. He didn’t really want Ice to see him out of his agency persona. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to see Ice out of his persona. The idea was a little frightening, but Mav wasn’t quite sure why.

“You want Ice to come too?” Mav clarified with her. 

She nodded, face flattening out of the fear. 

“I’m not sure—“ Ice started but immediately stopped when she turned to gaze up at him. 

Maverick pressed his lips tight together, biting down on his laughter. 

“Well, I think that’s decided. Let’s go, I’m tired.” Mav straightened and stretched. 

There was a heavy sigh but Ice stood, carrying the girl on his hip with ease. She had slung her arm around Ice’s shoulder and gripped the fabric of his turtleneck tight. Maverick allowed himself one smile at the picture they made before he turned and led the way toward the exits.

Getting her into the car in the garage was an exercise in patience. She was still clinging to Ice with fierce determination and despite his repeated attempts to pry her off, the girl would shimmy around like a monkey and find a new hand hold. It probably would have been easier if Maverick had actually helped. Instead Mav stood back and giggled like an idiot the entire time. 

With a ten year old half-choking him from behind and bony ankles digging into his hipbone, Ice gave up. He heaved a sigh and looked over his shoulder at his passenger. She was scowling at him. 

“Alright,” he said, scowling right back, “you win. Come here so we can get in the car.” Ice patted his chest with one hand. 

Her eyes turned suspicious but after a moment she levered herself around his torso. Ice wrapped his arms around her and climbed into the backseat. Maverick swung the door shut behind them without a word. 

With Mav driving, Ice and the kid in the backseat, they pulled out of the garage. Ice checked his watch. It was close to 2am and he was beginning to feel it. His eyes were itchy and tired, his body beginning to protest the various spikes of adrenaline and activity he had forced it through for the day.

“What food do you like, sweetheart?” Maverick asked, eyes flickering to them in the rearview mirror. 

Ice watched as her mouth opened, eyebrows crowding down over her eyes in a frown. Nothing came out. She closed her mouth again and he felt more than heard the small sigh of frustration. 

Without thinking, Ice rubbed slow circles on her back. She pressed her cheek into his chest.

“That’s OK,” Ice mumbled to her. “It’ll come back when you’re ready.” 

When he looked up, Mav was watching with concern through the mirror. Ice gave a subtle shake of his head. 

“How about this, if you want pizza raise Ice’s right hand. If you want burgers, raise Ice’s left hand.” Maverick’s voice was cheery, no sense of frustration at all.

Her small strong hands gripped his right arm and lifted it. Ice couldn’t stop the flare of tenderness it caused in him. He was beginning to understand why Mav was ready to lay his career on the line for this kid. 

“Pizza it is,” Mav said happily. 

The rest of the drive was quiet. Ice watched the city lights slide by the window, one arm still encircling the girl and the other still clutched in her hands. 

It was just for that night. Ice had a life and a job to get back to beyond this. He was only here because it was easier to go along with this kid than fight. He sighed internally at that thought. He was more than proficient at hand to hand combat, he was exceptional at shooting and tactical analysis. He could pick almost any lock, if given enough time he could crack a safe, he could even, with help he’d admit, hack into simple security systems. The one thing he couldn't do, apparently, was say no to this kid.

They had to stop to get the pizza. It was spy-craft 101 to avoid giving a safehouse location to anyone, even a pizza delivery guy. As Mav got out to go and order, the girl set up a fuss. A quick series of squeaking noises sounding and she began to thrash around. There was more than one near-miss of him getting nutted as the kid attempted to keep sight of Mav. She wouldn’t stop until Ice pushed the door open and called Mav back to the car.

With a confused face that quickly jumped to guilt, Mav jogged back to them. As he did, the girl settled down immediately. 

“Sorry,” he smiled at her kindly. “I have to go and order. Stay here with Ice. I’ll come back and wait with you guys, OK?”

She was frowning again but gave a slow nod anyway. Mav reached out and gave her shoulder a squeeze. It seemed to help her relax back down against Ice once more. In turn, Ice relaxed back into the seat. 

They sat in comfortable silence. Both gazing out the window at the pizza place across the carpark. Mav returned relatively quickly, the line probably wasn’t huge at 2am. He passed a  bottle of water to the kid.

“Drink, kiddo,” he said, a distinctly paternal tone in his voice.

She hesitated. 

“Just three mouthfuls and I’ll be satisfied.”

Ice was surprised at how effortless it seemed to be for Maverick. How did he know how to do this? 

The little girl unscrewed the bottle and took three obvious sips. Mav beamed at her. Ice gave her an encouraging squeeze as well. The affection was contagious. 

They waited in silence. Mav leaning against the car in the opening of the back door. Slowly, eyes darting from Mav and out to the carpark and back, the kid sipped more water. Ice didn’t know shit about kids, but he was going to take that as a good sign. 

This time, Mav turned and let her know he was leaving before he went to collect their food. There was no fight or noises of distress. She simply clung onto Ice a little harder until Maverick returned. And if that made Ice’s heart melt a little more, then that was just between him and whatever power observed the universe. 

The safe house was standard fare. A small house in a quiet suburb. Someone from the agency kept the lawn clipped and the cupboards stocked. Mav pulled into the garage and the three of them waited until the door was closed before they made a move. It wasn’t that they felt pursued or unsafe, it was merely habit.

When they stepped into the house, Ice moved to lower the girl to the floor but she let out a loud squeak. 

“OK,” Ice sighed and pulled her back onto his hip again. “But you can’t stay here forever. I’m going to need the bathroom eventually.”

Her look was somewhere between annoyed and expressionless. Ice shot her a teasing smile. 

“How about this, squeaker, I’ll walk the house with you while Mav gets the food ready. When we’re done, you have some time on on your own. Once you’ve eaten you can use me as a jungle-gym again.” Ice attempted to hold onto his fraying patience. 

There was a long moment, her brown eyes pensive as she considered his offer. After a short sigh she gave a nod. Ice nodded back. 

He carried her through the house. It was small. An open plan kitchen, dining and living area, a bathroom and two bedrooms and a patio out the back. He crossed each bedroom and opened the wardrobes to let her see they were empty of anything but spare clothing and equipment. 

They were back in the kitchen as Maverick was placing plates of pizza on the bench. Ice stopped at one of the stools. 

“We had a deal,” Ice said, eyes firm. “Sit on your own stool and eat.”

He waited, watching her closely. It took a long moment but she gave a nod and released her deathgrip on his shoulders. Ice set her down on the stool. He backed away with measured steps. When she didn’t begin thrashing and squeaking once more, he let his shoulders sink a little. 

Maverick pushed a plate of pizza in front of her. He stood on the opposite side of the bench, munching away at his own piece. Ice, a churning uncomfortable sensation in his stomach, stepped to the end of the bench and snagged his own piece to eat. He didn’t particularly want to play happy family. He wanted to go home to his own bed. 

All it took was another look into those brown eyes and Ice was gone again. Yeah, he didn’t want to be there. But he wasn’t about to be anywhere else if she needed him. 

With food finished the kid stood, hopped precariously from one stool to the other and then onto the bench proper. Ice had his mouth open to scold her for acting like a delinquent when Maverick let out a loud laugh and plucked her up easily. He cradled her into his chest with a practised ease. It was hard to think she wasn’t actually Mav’s daughter with the way he had taken to her so quickly.

“Alright, you,” Mav said, wandering out of the kitchen area. “It’s time to sleep.”

Ice busied himself with packing the left over food into one box and stowing it in the fridge. He could hear Mav mumbling away from the lounge area. When he turned back, the pair of them had disappeared. Ice felt a weird surge of panic before he heard Maverick’s voice again and it settled once more.

They were on the couch. Mav was tucked up between the arm of the lounge and the back, his feet on the floor, his girl was snuggled into his chest, her knees hooked over Mav’s thigh. Ice couldn’t stifle his smile. He was still smiling as Mav’s eyes opened and looked up at him.

“Do me a favour, Ice?” Maverick said, his eyes soft and happy.

“Depends,” Ice smiled back in spite of himself.

“Can you take my boots off? I forgot.” 

Ice rolled his eyes, biting back a nasty refusal. He bent and unlaced Mav’s boots with quick movements. With the laces loose he pulled them off and set them by the couch. As Ice looked up he found Mav looking back once more. Another swoopy sensation of delight hit him. 

“There,” Ice said and cleared his throat. “I’m going to shower and change. And then I’m going to sleep.”

“Sure,” Mav nodded. His green eyes were yet to leave Ice’s. The longer they stayed the warmer Ice was feeling. 

Stiff and awkward, Ice straightened and marched off to the bathroom. 

The one special talent Ice had that he hadn’t worked his ass off to attain was his ability to sleep anywhere. He showered, changed, climbed into one of the beds and dropped off almost immediately. He dreamed, as always, of colours that were too bright and loud. The pressure of a crimson, the weight of a purple, the violence of a yellow, all the colours and actions of his dreams assaulting him as he slept. 

He woke with a low groan of discomfort. His head spinning and the ghost of an ache threatening his forehead. If he laid there and ignored it, it would be a pounding misery by breakfast. Ice heaved himself up and shuffled to the kitchen. 

Maverick was passed out on the couch, his arms hanging limp either side of the kid. She was sprawled on him, face finally slackened out of the perpetual fear. Ice shook his head at them and carried on to search the cabinets for the first-aid kit. 

With two pain pills swallowed down, Ice did a better inventory of their supplies. He made a small list of what needed replacing and what they needed to source all together. With that finished, he made some coffee, collected a cleaning kit from the bedroom, and padded past the sleepers onto the back patio.

Ice spread pieces of his Ruger out onto the rickety outdoor table. Working with methodical precision, he disassembled the gun and began the calming process of cleaning it. 

Somewhere around when he was oiling the barrel, the kid appeared in the frame of the back door. Ice gave her a smile before returning to what he was doing. She approached him, eyes scanning the whole area and his face on repeat. Her eyes flickered over the pieces of pistol as she came to a stop beside his elbow. 

Ice paused to look at her once more. She tugged at his elbow before climbing beneath it and into his lap. Ice chuckled, powerless to stop her. 

“Did you sleep OK?” He asked, returning to his task once she was settled. 

She gave him a nod. 

“Good.”

They sat in companionable silence. Ice could feel her watching his hands. Her own reaching up onto the table before retreating again. On the third appearance of her hands Ice set the frame of the pistol down. He wiped his hands off and set the box of bullets out of her reach. 

“Alright,” he said, voice quiet. “First we need to make sure our magazine is empty.” 

With more patience than anyone had ever bothered to give him, Ice went through all the pieces of his gun. He named them, explained what they did and where they went. He let her touch them, feel their weight and showed her where they would connect back into the other pieces. 

He loved his Ruger. It often felt like a puzzle-box he had become an expert at. Slider thought he was crazy; the mess of pieces it became when he had to clean it, the fact that at times Ice needed to hit it with a hammer to reassemble it, the fact that if you missed one small step the gun would be irreparable. But that was why they were best friends, Slider liked his guns big and simple. Ice preferred something more subtle. 

When he was finished labelling and explaining, he walked her through the assembly. Mumbling the steps and instructions as he worked. With the whole thing back together, he looked down at her. 

She was staring up at him with a rapt expression. He smiled, and gave her a quick hug. The bubbling relief at seeing something other than fear and sadness in her eyes was a heady thing. 

“You want to try?” Ice asked. 

He was given the most enthusiastic nod he had seen yet. 

“Alright, then I’ll teach you how to take it apart too.”

And he did. 

#icemav #top gun #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #an oc child character #ron slider kerner #nick goose bradshaw #bill cougar cortell #mavdad #found family #fluff #fanfiction #spyau

[boasamishipper]

Ethan and Iceman for the character asks?

*arrives to this ask fifty years late with Starbucks*

Ethan Hunt

Why I like them: he’s just so genuinely kind and good and cares about humanity and his team and the world so much. also yes he is the living manifestation of destiny and very intelligent and capable in the field, but he’s also a dork and a nerd and his very seriously asking benji in the middle of the RN car chase if he had his seatbelt on basically endeared me to him forever.

Why I don’t: n/a - but also, like. ethan, PLEASE take care of yourself.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): tie between the opening of RN where he literally clings to the side of a plane as it’s taking off and his wedding to julia in mi3, if only because he looks so happy and it makes me so happy for him in turn. (also him awkwardly apologizing for disrupting that funeral in Fallout in the middle of the chase scene was just. Peak Comedy.)

Favorite season/movie: Fallout.

Favorite line: tie between “mission accomplished!!! [surprised pikachu]” in Ghost Protocol, “we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it” in Fallout (bc mood), and just ethan’s entire expression after benji is like ‘yeah you can hold your breath for three minutes, that’s nothing!’ in RN.

Favorite outfit: 

OTP: julia/ethan, benji/ethan, luther/ethan, hunley/ethan, brassel/ethan, ethan/jack

Brotp: ethan&luther, ethan&benji, ethan&jane, ethan&ilsa, ethan&jack, ethan&lindsey

Headcanon: ethan has a heavy midwestern accent that only slips out when he’s drunk or tired.

Unpopular opinion: he is NOT a generic action movie protagonist with no personality (glares at Screenrant)

A wish: let him be happy and alive at the end of mi8

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: mcquarrie if i have to watch ethan hunt die onscreen i will hunt you down and beat you up in the paramount parking lot.

5 words to best describe them: kind, determined, loyal, empathetic, clever.

My nickname for them: n/a

Iceman Kazansky

Why I like them: i love his hair and his face and his very pretty eyes (whose color i can STILL not discern after many rewatches) but more than that, i love that despite his absolutely warranted confidence in himself (and as a pilot), he still appreciates mav’s outside the box thinking - he specifically calls mav out for being unsafe, and never accuses him of being a bad pilot - and he’s got a big heart (as evidenced by the ‘i’m sorry about goose’ scene which gives me All The Feels to this day) behind those ice cold walls.

Why I don’t: n/a

Favorite episode (scene if movie): tie between the entire ‘i’m sorry about goose scene’ and his introduction in the O Club. the #bde was through the roof. (also Why Were You Wearing Sunglasses Inside, Ice. Was That All Part Of Your Plan.)

Favorite season/movie: Top Gun and TG2 if they don’t kill him

Favorite line: “You can be my wingman anytime.”

Favorite outfit: gotta love how the only times he’s seen in in the movie, he’s either in uniform or shirtless and/or only in a towel lmao. (not that i’m complaining.) my favorite outfit of his is probably this though:

OTP: iceman/maverick

Brotp: iceman&slider, iceman&goose

Headcanon: ice has an older sister who’s an air force pilot and five inches taller than him (and never lets him forget it).

Unpopular opinion: iceman kazansky is jewish, i don’t make the rules.

A wish: i’m always out here wishing for canon icemav, but @ mcq please just let him and mav be friends (and have a wingman hug).

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: as much as i don’t want to see ice die, i don’t want canon to clint barton him and randomly give him a wife and children and a farmhouse even more. ALSO i have been hearing speculation that hangman in tg2 is ice’s son, which. PLEASE don’t let that happen and let hangman be a rival to bradley in his own right.

5 words to best describe them: confident, loyal, intelligent, disciplined, caring. (bonus word: dramatic)

My nickname for them: ice.

send me a character!

#top gun #iceman kazansky #mission impossible #ethan hunt #thanks for asking! #vegetarianvampireduck

[jejublr]

frost | k.mg

The Snow Queen AU

Character(s): Iceman!Mingyu x Snow Queen!Reader

Words: 773 words

a/n: Happy belated birthday to @yueliangs-wonderland! Thank you for being there for me, for being an amazing human being and an even more amazing friend! I’m sorry this took so long to finish TT But I hope you like it!!! I love you, bean!!!

“What is it that has been bothering you?”

You had found Mingyu at the library, sitting next to the window as he gazed upon the endless white outside. His expression somber and the usual playful glimmer in his eyes gone and you worry for what could’ve happened that had made him so down.

It reminded you of the first days he had stayed in your palace. He wouldn’t eat the meals given to him nor did he come out of his room at all. He had every reason to hate you for keeping him a prisoner but he should’ve known it was the consequence for trying to harvest ice from your sacred lake.

It wasn’t until you had ordered your servants to drag him out to have dinner with you that he finally spoke to you. Under the generous condition of finishing his sentence by being your servant throughout the rest the winter months, you will let him go home to his village.

And it would be an understatement to say that you’ve grown very fond of him very quickly over the course of those few months.

“Nothing,” he looked away, slightly embarrassed that you’d caught him being in one of his moods. “I just miss my mother.”

Something very ancient that you’d thought you lost a long time ago panged within you. You realized that the man must’ve had a family back home. Your selfishness wanted to keep him for yourself yet you couldn’t bring yourself to do so with him looking so sorrowful.

“Come.” You beckoned him out into the long, twisted icy hallways. You led him into your room and further inside. Mingyu shivered at the sudden drop of temperature. Outside was cold enough but your room was another thing entirely.

Despite the urgency of the situation, he couldn’t help but marvel at the snowflakes that seemed to suspend mid-air and the way ice seemed to frost over every inch of the room.

You motioned an icy arm towards an intricate mirror at the corner of the room by the window. “Speak of what you wish to see and the mirror will show you what you seek.”

He looked uncertain at first but in a grim tone finally said, “Show me my mother.”

Nothing seemed to happen at first but the next moment, the mirror freezed over and then slowly but surely, the cloudiness retracted to show the image of an aging woman. She was lying limply on a rickety bed, with only a flimsy blanket as a shelter against the cold. She looked sickly, her eyes hollowed up as she rasped the same thing over and over again.

“Mingyu…” her frail voice trailed off.

“Mother!” Mingyu exclaimed, hands clutching the edges of the mirror, wishing somehow that it would transport him right to his mother.

“Mother...” he trailed off, eyes turning watery.

“Here. Take this with you.” You produced to him a vial filled with luminous blue liquid. “You only need one drop to cure any illness. Use it wisely.”

He looked at you in surprise. “Wait, you’re letting me go?”

“Your mother needs you.”

Your words floored him. Time and time again, you surprised him and proved his assumptions wrong. Yes, the legends really did her justice. She’s dangerous, powerful—terrifyingly so—but if he was being honest, he would say that you were only lonely. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but pick up the beauty hidden within the frost.

And it had made him stay.

“I will be back,” his hand caressed the side of your face, his fingertips burned slightly for the cold but he reveled at the sensation. “I promise.”

You melted at his touch—an irony, really, for someone like you.

Someone who shouldn’t have gotten used to warmth.

“Go,” you ushered him, eyes pleading. Because if he doesn’t, you don’t think you could let him ever again.

It was hard for him to do so but Mingyu raced out of the palace and found that someone had prepared his horse in the courtyard. He knew it was your doing despite not remembering you giving specific instruction towards your servants but he was grateful nonetheless.

You came out just in time to see him hop on the saddle and rode through the snow. Halfway through the lane, he slowed down.

Through the snowy haze, Mingyu took a glance backwards towards the icy palace that had became his home and spotted your figure transfixed at the very spot he’d left you, rooted and unmoving in the blizzard. Through the snow, you caught his gaze, his eyes filled with the promise that he will return.

And you believed him.

#mingyu #mingyu scenarios #mingyu fic #mingyu imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fic #seventeen imagines #seventeen #seventeen drabbles #mingyu drabbles #HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOO #I HOPE U LIKE THIS IM SO SORRY

[velocitycomics]

Hey! There was something glitchy going on with our newsletter this weekend... if you haven’t received it, here it is!

Hello, all--

After chewing on it for a few days and deciding I like the way it tastes, we’re going to go ahead and have a SALE on Labor Day! Discounts all over the darn place! To find out how low we’re going, you’ll just have to come in and see. I think you’ll be pretty into it. We’ll only be open truncated hours, from 10-3… plenty of time to set you up with some amazing reads.

LAST CALL! Tell me if you want them now, subscribers. That way I order enough! My orders lock on these soon-to-be-shipping titles Monday:

BATMAN: THE MERCILESS (DC)  A METAL tie-in! Featuring the evil, other-universe Batman/Wonder Woman hybrid!

INFINITE LOOP: NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (IDW) Sequel to the initial hit mini! Great-looking art.

GENERATIONS: CAPTAIN AMERICA (Marvel) Sam and Steve, time travelin’ pals.

GENERATIONS: SPIDER-MAN (Marvel) Miles and Peter, time travelin’ pals.

FU JITSU (Aftershock) This looks pretty fun. Fu Jitsu is an unaging genius adventurer, who counts Einstein and the Wright Brothers among his friends,  who exiles himself to Antarctica to get over a bad break-up. That’s just bonkers enough to be amazing.

CAPTAIN KRONOS (Titan) European-styled, good ol’ fashioned vampire hunting!

SHIPPING! Here’s what’s coming to you WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH:

4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK #5  3.99

ADVENTURE TIME #68   3.99

ALL NEW GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #9 3.99

ALL NEW GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #9 ROCK N ROLL VAR  PI

ALL NEW GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #9 VENOMIZED EGO VAR   PI

ALL STAR BATMAN HC VOL 02 ENDS OF THE EARTH    22.99

ALL STAR BATMAN TP VOL 01 MY OWN WORST ENEMY   16.99

AMORY WARS GOOD APOLLO #6 (OF 12)  3.99

ANIMAL JAM #3 (OF 3)   3.99

ANIMOSITY THE RISE #3 3.99

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3 3.99

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3 DAVIS CHARACTER VAR  PI

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3 GREENE VILLAIN VAR  PI

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3 KEOWN VAR  PI

ASTRO CITY #47 3.99

BABYBEL WAX BODYSUIT (ONE SHOT)  6.00

BANE CONQUEST #5 (OF 12) 3.99

BATMAN #30 2.99  From Elmer Fudd and Swamp Thing to Catwoman proposals, Tom King is electrifying audiences with his thoughtful yet dark approach to ol’ Pointy Ears. Right up there with those treatments is his take on Kite-Man. Amazing. Here is part 2 of his ballad.

BEAUTIFUL CANVAS #3  3.99

BEAUTY #13   3.99

BEIRUT WON’T CRY GN   30.00

BLACK BEETLE KARA BOCEK HC   12.99   Francisco Francavilla’s excellent pulp hero returns!

BLACK BOLT #5 3.99

BOMBSHELLS UNITED #1 2.99

BORUTO GN VOL 02 NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS    9.99

CHAMPIONS #12 SE 3.99

CLOUDIA & REX #3 (OF 3) 3.99

CRIMINAL DLX ED HC VOL 01 49.99

CRIMINAL DLX ED HC VOL 02  49.99

CYBORG #16 3.99

DAREDEVIL #26 3.99

DAREDEVIL #26 VENOMIZED TYPHOID MARY VAR   PI

DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY #1 (OF 6) 3.99  Garth Ennis writing an update of these weirdo Hanna Barbera characters? Yes, please!

DEATH NOTE SLIPCASE GN ALL IN ONE EDITION   39.99

DEATHSTROKE #23 3.99

DOCTOR WHO 9TH DOCTOR YEAR TWO #1   3.99

DOOM PATROL #8   3.99

ELSEWHERE #2  3.99

EXTREMITY TP VOL 01 ARTIST 16.99   Catch up on one of the best Image debuts of the year! With their track record, that’s really saying something.

FANTE BUKOWSKI GN VOL 01   12.99

FLASH TV FLASH PX BUST  59.99

FRUIT NINJA #1  3.99

FUKITOR GN    30.00

GARTH ENNIS RED TEAM TP VOL 02 DOUBLE TAP  24.99

GENERATION X #6 3.99

GENERATIONS IRON MAN & IRONHEART #1 4.99

GENERATIONS IRON MAN & IRONHEART #1 COIPEL VAR   PI

GENERATIONS IRON MAN & IRONHEART #1 KIRBY 100 VAR   PI

GENERATIONS IRON MAN & IRONHEART #1 RUDY VAR   PI

GIANT DAYS #30 3.99

GREATEST ADVENTURE #5    3.99

GREEN ARROW #30 2.99

GREEN HORNET 66 MEETS SPIRIT #3 (OF 5)   3.99

GREEN LANTERNS #30 2.99

GRUMPY CAT GARFIELD #2 (OF 3)   3.99

HARBINGER RENEGADE #7   3.99

HARLEY QUINN #27 2.99

HAWKEYE #10 3.99

HULK PLANET HULK OMNIBUS HC 100.00

HUNTING ACCIDENT HC GN   34.99

ICELAND GN 15.00

ICEMAN #5 3.99

INCOGNITO CLASSIFIED ED HC  44.99

INHUMANS ONCE FUTURE KINGS #2 (OF 5) 3.99

INHUMANS ONCE FUTURE KINGS #2 (OF 5) ROCK N ROLL VAR    PI

INHUMANS ONCE FUTURE KINGS #2 (OF 5) STELFREEZE VAR    PI  

INJUSTICE 2 #9 2.99

IRON FIST #7 3.99

IRON FIST TP VOL 01 TRIAL OF THE SEVEN MASTERS 15.99

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #72   10.95

JAZZ MAYNARD #4  3.99

JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS MISFITS INFINITE #2 (OF 3)  3.99

JESSICA JONES #12 3.99

JOHNNY APPLESEED HC    19.99

JOURNEY SW LAST JEDI CAPT PHASMA #1 (OF 4) 3.99 How did Phasma survive the events of THE FORCE AWAKENS? I guess you’re gonna have to read this in-canon miniseries bridging the two movies.

JOURNEY SW LAST JEDI CAPT PHASMA #1 (OF 4) HOMAGE VAR   PI

JOURNEY SW LAST JEDI CAPT PHASMA #1 (OF 4) MOVIE VAR  PI

JUDGE DREDD BLESSED EARTH #5   3.99

JUSTICE LEAGUE #28 2.99

KINGSMAN RED DIAMOND #1 (OF 6)    3.99 Just in time for the movie!

KINGSMAN RED DIAMOND #1 (OF 6) RETAILER APPRECIATION VAR   PI

LAST GIRL STANDING SC TRINA ROBBINS  19.99

LAZARETTO #1 (OF 5) 3.99  Man, Richmond expat Clay McCleod Chapman is all over the place these days. Just did a great Edge of Venom-verse issue last week, not this new horror-tinged mini from Boom!

LOVE & ROCKETS LIBRARY JAIME GN VOL 01 MAGGIE MECH 19.99

LUCY & ANDY NEANDERTHAL HC GN VOL 02 STONE COLD AG 12.99

MADE MEN #1 3.99

MAN-THING BY R L STINE TP VOL 01 15.99

MANIFEST DESTINY TP VOL 05 MNEMOPHOBIA & CHRONOPHOBIA  16.99

MIGHTY JACK GN VOL 01  14.99

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING GN VOL 02 GLORY OF THE LOS 12.95

MOTOR CRUSH #6   3.99

MOUSE GUARD ALPHABET BOOK HC  16.99

MY LESBIAN EXPERIENCE WITH LONELINESS GN  13.99

MY LITTLE PONY LEGENDS OF MAGIC #5   3.99

MY LITTLE PONY MOVIE PREQUEL #4    3.99

NANCY DREW HARDY BOYS #6 (OF 6)  3.99

NIGHTWING #28 2.99

ONE PUNCH MAN GN VOL 12    9.99

OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA #30  2.99

POPPIES OF IRAQ HC 21.95

POSTAL #22  3.99

PREDATOR HUNTERS #5   3.99

PUNISHER BY GARTH ENNIS OMNIBUS HC NEW PTG 100.00  

RETREAT GN     14.95

ROCKET GIRL #9    3.99

ROYALS #7 3.99

SAVAGE THINGS #7 (OF 8)  3.99

SCALES & SCOUNDRELS #1 3.99  High fantasy fun from the writer of Shirtless Bear Fighter!

SEVEN TO ETERNITY #9    3.99

SHADE THE CHANGING GIRL #12  3.99

SHERLOCK THE GREAT GAME #2 (OF 6)  4.99

SLAYER REPENTLESS HC 19.99

SPIDER-MAN #20 3.99

SPIDER-MAN DEADPOOL #21 3.99

SPIDER-MAN DEADPOOL #21 VENOMIZED ITSY BITSY VAR  PI

STAR TREK ORIGINAL SERIES ADULT COLORING BOOK TP V 14.99

STAR WARS ADVENTURES #1   3.99 All ages SW action! Looks great!

STAR WARS ADVENTURES #1 1:10 COPY VAR   PI

STAR WARS ADVENTURES #1 1:25 COPY VAR   PI

STAR WARS ADVENTURES #1 1:50 COPY VAR   PI

STAR WARS DARTH MAUL TP 16.99

STAR WARS DARTH VADER #5 3.99

STAR WARS DARTH VADER #5 DODSON VAR  PI

STAR WARS DARTH VADER BY GILLEN AND LARROCA OMNIBUS   100.00

STAR WARS ROGUE ONE ADAPTATION #6 (OF 6) 3.99

SUICIDE SQUAD TP VOL 03 BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE    16.99

SUPER F*CKERS FOREVER TP  17.99

SUPERMAN #30 2.99

SWEET TOOTH BOOK 01  24.99

SWORDQUEST #3   3.99

THOR & HULK DIGEST TP 9.99

UNHOLY GRAIL #1   3.99

USAGI YOJIMBO #161 3.99

VENOMVERSE #1 (OF 5) 4.99 We’ve been on the edge, now we’re diving in!

VENOMVERSE #1 (OF 5) CRAIN CONNECTING VAR  PI

VENOMVERSE #1 (OF 5) TORQUE POISON VAR  PI

VENOMVERSE WAR STORIES #1 4.99

VENOMVERSE WAR STORIES #1 LIM VAR  PI

WALKING DEAD #171  2.99

WHAT IS A GLACIER (ONE SHOT)  6.00

WICKED & DIVINE #31  3.99

WICKED & DIVINE HC VOL 02  44.99

WOODS #35 3.99

X-MEN GOLD #11 3.99

X-MEN GOLD #11 DEL MUNDO ROCK N ROLL VAR   PI

X-MEN GOLD #11 VENOMIZED OMEGA RED VAR  PI

ZITA THE SPACEGIRL  12.99

That’s it for now, see you soon!

PKG/VC

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[greggsdiabetes-blog]

The Science Behind Miracles

New Post has been published on http://www.greggsdiabetes.com/the-science-behind-miracles/

The Science Behind Miracles

Imagine a man who could endure near-freezing water for 45 minutes at a stretch. Imagine if that same man could run a barefoot marathon in the Arctic or swim 50 meters under the ice of a frozen lake. Imagine that man said the secret to his abilities not only allows him to climb Himalayan mountains wearing shorts, but also eases everything from chronic pain to Crohn’s disease and even Parkinson’s. What would you call that man? A savant? Guru? Prophet of God, maybe?

That’s the character Scott Carney describes in his new book, What Doesn’t Kill Us, about legendary survivalist and icy-water swimmer Wim Hof. The 57-year-old Dutchman, often referred to as the Iceman, has devised a series of breathing techniques and conditioning exercises—mostly various types of hyperventilation and other ways to purge the body of CO2—that he credits as being the key to his extraordinary abilities. Hof, for his part, sees the whole thing in a much more spiritual light—getting back to a purer, more primitive version of ourselves.

The book is a fun read because, at first glance, Hof does seem superhuman. He claims that by slowly conditioning oneself to low-oxygen states (through breathing exercises) or extreme cold (through full-body muscle-clenching exercises), one can channel their spiritual energy and tap into all kinds of hidden powers. Carney is at his best when he tries to explain Hof’s abilities through science. For instance, he suggests that Hof has tapped into a specific type of fat cell called brown adipose tissue that is found in human babies but mostly disappears in adulthood; through his body training, it’s possible that Hof has encouraged this vestigial fat to play an increased role in trapping heat. But the tone of What Doesn’t Kill Us occasionally implies that we should worship the guy. And honestly, it’s hard not to.

Hof is one of those extraordinary characters who pops up occasionally throughout human history seeming to be nothing short of miraculous. For thousands of years, humanity has occasionally glimpsed man’s capacity to do the seemingly impossible or the miraculous using only force of will: walking on burning coals, healing the sick, enduring lethal temperatures for hours. And for all that time, we have been left to our own devices in guessing how such things are possible.

But today, modern science has revealed a number of fascinating mechanisms for how the brain influences the rest of the body, forming a string of enticing bread crumbs leading toward a more satisfying understanding of some of the limits of the human body—and how people like Hof cheat them.

Take one fascinating lead: the effect certain expectations have on bodily functions. The mind has a propensity to make predictions, and then ensure those predictions come to pass through internal “pharmacies” that, when lumped together, are also called placebo effects.

In my book, Suggestible You, I talked to scientists around the world who investigate placebos, internal pharmacies, hypnosis, and the power of belief on the body and mind. One of my favorite quotes came from Alia Crum, a psychologist at Stanford. “I don’t think the power of mind is limitless,” she said. “But I do think we don’t yet know where those limits are.”

In his book, Carney points to Wof’s ability to heal things like Parkinson’s, asthma, chronic pain, and digestive problems, giving us the impression that the mind can do anything it wants. As it happens, all of these diseases are also highly susceptible to the influence of placebo. Contrary to popular belief, not all placebo effects are the same, and not all conditions respond to them equally. That’s because a big part of placebo effects are chemical, employing things like dopamine, endogenous opioids, serotonin, and an untold number of other chemicals your brain idly keeps on hand in case it needs to adjust what’s happening in the body.

That’s what’s at the center of almost every “miracle” I’ve encountered: chemicals that have incredible effects but still follow the rules of biochemistry, even if we don’t yet fully understand what those rules and mechanisms are. Hof claims that one of the secrets to superhuman strength and healing is specialized breathing techniques. Fair enough. But I can introduce him to a healer in Beijing who says it’s about balancing spiritual heat with cold or a witch doctor in Mexico who says it’s about channeling spirits. What do they all share? The chemistry of expectation and belief—which, writ wide, is the world of placebo. A better definition for placebo might be to call it a measurement of the effect of one’s belief on their body.

Belief and placebos don’t just affect disease. They also boost athletic performance, as Hof demonstrates when he swam under 50 yards of ice. This is where scientists have begun asking some really interesting questions.

Placebo effects have long been studied in medicine, but Christopher Beedie, a sports psychologist at the Canterbury Christ Church University in England, is among the few scientists who study it in athletics. His work often examines how elite athletes perform under intense fatigue when they think they have some kind of performance enhancement. The interesting question for Beedie isn’t what can the human body do,but rather, what more can the human mind add to that?

“I don’t think there’s anything surprising about people who exist at the end of continua,” says Beedie. “[Hof] is an extension of the classic example of a unique athlete optimized on nearly all variables who’s also probably learned to capitalize on every component of placebo responding he can.”

One of the most studied mechanisms of placebo in medicine is that of pain relief. Scientists have documented an extensive network of self-medicating pathways in the brain involving internal opioid stores that kick into gear when our bodies expect a treatment—from aspirin to acupuncture—and don’t get one. And there’s a lot of overlap between pain and athletic performance. Because what is intense exercise but extended pain resistance? In fact, pain relievers like morphine are strictly regulated in athletics for their performance-enhancing powers.

In addition to painkillers, there may be a whole network of internal chemicals our bodies can dip into for increased performance. In one mind-boggling study from 2008, legendary Italian placebo scientist Fabricio Benedetti told weightlifters that they were getting performance-enhancing drugs when they were actually getting placebos and, secretly, lighter weights to lift. Once they believed the drugs were working, as perceived by the lighter weights, the loads were surreptitiously returned to their normal weight. The force the athletes were able to produce with their muscles increased while perceived fatigue stayed the same.

Beedie has done a lot of similar placebo performance experiments—consistently demonstrating their ability to give an impressive edge to cyclists, runners, and many other athletes—to the point where the athletes at his school don't always believe what he says. He claims belief taps into “headroom” that every athlete has in their potential—or the idea that that athletes can push themselves to operate between their perceived maximum execution and the maximum that physics and their bodies will allow. By either removing energy-wasting anxiety or tapping into chemicals like opioids or as-yet-undiscovered internal performance drugs through one’s expectations, the brain can coax the body into that magical zone.

In fact, Beedie is convinced this headroom is the same space filled by performance-enhancing drugs. (Indeed it’s not even clear that some banned drugs, like erythropoietin, can outperform placebos.) He’s just finished the largest (not yet published) placebo study ever done in athletics—600 subjects in all—and found that the people most likely to respond to placebo were the ones experienced using supplements. Perhaps the previous supplements the athletes had taken primed them to have a placebo response. Perhaps people who naturally respond to a sports placebo are also likely to have taken performance enhancers. Either way, it suggests that artificial boosted performance and boosted performance from expectation produce similar effects.

“This [whole idea of expectation-based bodily responses] is an evolved mechanism that allows us to capitalize on untapped resources at critical points in our existence,” Beedie says. Belief is belief, so it’s possible that drugs—real or placebo—fill the same space that superstitious baseball pitchers fill by wearing mismatched socks or dirty underwear and the same space filled by Hof and his breathing methods. None of this is to say Hof isn’t incredible. His feats of endurance are astounding and perhaps even scientifically significant, like his ability to control his body temperature so well. But he’s not magic, and we should be careful about trusting important health decisions to any belief-based technique—even one that allows a person to swim under ice.

Perhaps the most interesting question is what can people like Hof really tell us about the effect of our mind on our bodies? Scientists already know that Parkinson’s disease, pain, and depression all respond very well to all kinds of beliefs, whether through special breathing, secret pills, or magic crystals. But could that same belief fuel unprecedented feats of athleticism? Beedie says that, especially for elite athletes, there’s a limit to the benefits of both psychological and pharmacological performance enhancers, so why not just use belief in place of drugs?

“We’re trying to educate athletes into the idea that the headroom is there to be filled, and drugs are not necessarily the only way of filling that headroom,” he says. “Confidence is the drug of champions.”

Erik Vance is the author of the new book Suggestible You. Reporting for this project was supported in part by the Pulitzer Center.

Original Article

[greggsdiabetes-blog]

The Science Behind Miracles

New Post has been published on http://www.greggsdiabetes.com/the-science-behind-miracles/

The Science Behind Miracles

Imagine a man who could endure near-freezing water for 45 minutes at a stretch. Imagine if that same man could run a barefoot marathon in the Arctic or swim 50 meters under the ice of a frozen lake. Imagine that man said the secret to his abilities not only allows him to climb Himalayan mountains wearing shorts, but also eases everything from chronic pain to Crohn’s disease and even Parkinson’s. What would you call that man? A savant? Guru? Prophet of God, maybe?

That’s the character Scott Carney describes in his new book, What Doesn’t Kill Us, about legendary survivalist and icy-water swimmer Wim Hof. The 57-year-old Dutchman, often referred to as the Iceman, has devised a series of breathing techniques and conditioning exercises—mostly various types of hyperventilation and other ways to purge the body of CO2—that he credits as being the key to his extraordinary abilities. Hof, for his part, sees the whole thing in a much more spiritual light—getting back to a purer, more primitive version of ourselves.

The book is a fun read because, at first glance, Hof does seem superhuman. He claims that by slowly conditioning oneself to low-oxygen states (through breathing exercises) or extreme cold (through full-body muscle-clenching exercises), one can channel their spiritual energy and tap into all kinds of hidden powers. Carney is at his best when he tries to explain Hof’s abilities through science. For instance, he suggests that Hof has tapped into a specific type of fat cell called brown adipose tissue that is found in human babies but mostly disappears in adulthood; through his body training, it’s possible that Hof has encouraged this vestigial fat to play an increased role in trapping heat. But the tone of What Doesn’t Kill Us occasionally implies that we should worship the guy. And honestly, it’s hard not to.

Hof is one of those extraordinary characters who pops up occasionally throughout human history seeming to be nothing short of miraculous. For thousands of years, humanity has occasionally glimpsed man’s capacity to do the seemingly impossible or the miraculous using only force of will: walking on burning coals, healing the sick, enduring lethal temperatures for hours. And for all that time, we have been left to our own devices in guessing how such things are possible.

But today, modern science has revealed a number of fascinating mechanisms for how the brain influences the rest of the body, forming a string of enticing bread crumbs leading toward a more satisfying understanding of some of the limits of the human body—and how people like Hof cheat them.

Take one fascinating lead: the effect certain expectations have on bodily functions. The mind has a propensity to make predictions, and then ensure those predictions come to pass through internal “pharmacies” that, when lumped together, are also called placebo effects.

In my book, Suggestible You, I talked to scientists around the world who investigate placebos, internal pharmacies, hypnosis, and the power of belief on the body and mind. One of my favorite quotes came from Alia Crum, a psychologist at Stanford. “I don’t think the power of mind is limitless,” she said. “But I do think we don’t yet know where those limits are.”

In his book, Carney points to Wof’s ability to heal things like Parkinson’s, asthma, chronic pain, and digestive problems, giving us the impression that the mind can do anything it wants. As it happens, all of these diseases are also highly susceptible to the influence of placebo. Contrary to popular belief, not all placebo effects are the same, and not all conditions respond to them equally. That’s because a big part of placebo effects are chemical, employing things like dopamine, endogenous opioids, serotonin, and an untold number of other chemicals your brain idly keeps on hand in case it needs to adjust what’s happening in the body.

That’s what’s at the center of almost every “miracle” I’ve encountered: chemicals that have incredible effects but still follow the rules of biochemistry, even if we don’t yet fully understand what those rules and mechanisms are. Hof claims that one of the secrets to superhuman strength and healing is specialized breathing techniques. Fair enough. But I can introduce him to a healer in Beijing who says it’s about balancing spiritual heat with cold or a witch doctor in Mexico who says it’s about channeling spirits. What do they all share? The chemistry of expectation and belief—which, writ wide, is the world of placebo. A better definition for placebo might be to call it a measurement of the effect of one’s belief on their body.

Belief and placebos don’t just affect disease. They also boost athletic performance, as Hof demonstrates when he swam under 50 yards of ice. This is where scientists have begun asking some really interesting questions.

Placebo effects have long been studied in medicine, but Christopher Beedie, a sports psychologist at the Canterbury Christ Church University in England, is among the few scientists who study it in athletics. His work often examines how elite athletes perform under intense fatigue when they think they have some kind of performance enhancement. The interesting question for Beedie isn’t what can the human body do,but rather, what more can the human mind add to that?

“I don’t think there’s anything surprising about people who exist at the end of continua,” says Beedie. “[Hof] is an extension of the classic example of a unique athlete optimized on nearly all variables who’s also probably learned to capitalize on every component of placebo responding he can.”

One of the most studied mechanisms of placebo in medicine is that of pain relief. Scientists have documented an extensive network of self-medicating pathways in the brain involving internal opioid stores that kick into gear when our bodies expect a treatment—from aspirin to acupuncture—and don’t get one. And there’s a lot of overlap between pain and athletic performance. Because what is intense exercise but extended pain resistance? In fact, pain relievers like morphine are strictly regulated in athletics for their performance-enhancing powers.

In addition to painkillers, there may be a whole network of internal chemicals our bodies can dip into for increased performance. In one mind-boggling study from 2008, legendary Italian placebo scientist Fabricio Benedetti told weightlifters that they were getting performance-enhancing drugs when they were actually getting placebos and, secretly, lighter weights to lift. Once they believed the drugs were working, as perceived by the lighter weights, the loads were surreptitiously returned to their normal weight. The force the athletes were able to produce with their muscles increased while perceived fatigue stayed the same.

Beedie has done a lot of similar placebo performance experiments—consistently demonstrating their ability to give an impressive edge to cyclists, runners, and many other athletes—to the point where the athletes at his school don't always believe what he says. He claims belief taps into “headroom” that every athlete has in their potential—or the idea that that athletes can push themselves to operate between their perceived maximum execution and the maximum that physics and their bodies will allow. By either removing energy-wasting anxiety or tapping into chemicals like opioids or as-yet-undiscovered internal performance drugs through one’s expectations, the brain can coax the body into that magical zone.

In fact, Beedie is convinced this headroom is the same space filled by performance-enhancing drugs. (Indeed it’s not even clear that some banned drugs, like erythropoietin, can outperform placebos.) He’s just finished the largest (not yet published) placebo study ever done in athletics—600 subjects in all—and found that the people most likely to respond to placebo were the ones experienced using supplements. Perhaps the previous supplements the athletes had taken primed them to have a placebo response. Perhaps people who naturally respond to a sports placebo are also likely to have taken performance enhancers. Either way, it suggests that artificial boosted performance and boosted performance from expectation produce similar effects.

“This [whole idea of expectation-based bodily responses] is an evolved mechanism that allows us to capitalize on untapped resources at critical points in our existence,” Beedie says. Belief is belief, so it’s possible that drugs—real or placebo—fill the same space that superstitious baseball pitchers fill by wearing mismatched socks or dirty underwear and the same space filled by Hof and his breathing methods. None of this is to say Hof isn’t incredible. His feats of endurance are astounding and perhaps even scientifically significant, like his ability to control his body temperature so well. But he’s not magic, and we should be careful about trusting important health decisions to any belief-based technique—even one that allows a person to swim under ice.

Perhaps the most interesting question is what can people like Hof really tell us about the effect of our mind on our bodies? Scientists already know that Parkinson’s disease, pain, and depression all respond very well to all kinds of beliefs, whether through special breathing, secret pills, or magic crystals. But could that same belief fuel unprecedented feats of athleticism? Beedie says that, especially for elite athletes, there’s a limit to the benefits of both psychological and pharmacological performance enhancers, so why not just use belief in place of drugs?

“We’re trying to educate athletes into the idea that the headroom is there to be filled, and drugs are not necessarily the only way of filling that headroom,” he says. “Confidence is the drug of champions.”

Erik Vance is the author of the new book Suggestible You. Reporting for this project was supported in part by the Pulitzer Center.

Original Article