"Ultra Infirmitatibus Meis"

Prologue

"Just the family dog."

"You locked her up like some kind of animal!"

"How could you do such a thing to your own family?!"

"You lied to us!"

"Made us believe she was dead!"

"You Heartless bastard!"

"Coldblooded Reptile!"

"You limited Idiot Boy!"

Hearing his mother's condescending voice echo in his ears, Mycroft opened his blurry eyes only to discover he's no longer in his favorite seat in the Diogenes Club trying to focus on anything else but the aftermath of previous events, but on the cold floor of his Mind Palace, where all the thoughts he tried not to dwell on are free to assault him.

It seems that even his own brain agrees that no good deed should go unpunished.

Even ones it itself concluded were for the greater good.

Groaning the older Homes brother closed his eyes again, memories of his encounter with his parents flooding his ever-remembering mind.

He remembered it like it was yesterday…

The way they looked at him with pure disgust in their eyes…the way they immediately jumped to Eurus's protection, not even thinking about hearing his side of the story…

The way they seemed to both degrade and disown him with no hesitation…

"Sherlock was always the grown up."

Was what Mummy Holmes said, but Mycroft also heard the part that was left silent but no less insulting.

"And you were never good enough. What in the devil made you think you ever will be?"

A lump grew in his throat and his heart began to hurt.

He tried to tell himself that he was ready for this, that he expected this reaction ever since Uncle Rudi trusted him with his secret, that taking all the blame and hate was always part of the plan.

The 'Ice-man' façade was created and perfected throughout the ages in wait for this very moment.

So that, when they finally learn of his treachery, he'll be able to take their hate no matter how much they threw at him and still look as if they were discussing the weather, even if on the inside he was tearing apart.

He made himself think that the knowledge of everyone else being safe will be worth every harsh glare, every cutting insult…

He lived so long with Sherlock and his gang hating his very existence, only contacting him when absolutely necessary and otherwise treating him like dirt, adapting to his parents not wishing to see him anymore shouldn't be a problem.

His family is safe, that's all that matters.

But…

Those are lies, aren't they?

He wasn't ready for all this, no matter how hard he tried to pretend he was.

He never expected that, after everything he did: making sure his little brother was never in harm's way for all these years, taking on the responsibility that they should have barred from an early age, and generally being the reliable son, they'd just disregard all of that at the drop of the hat the moment they heard of what he did to Eurus.

The Ice-man is just that, a façade. It might work when he's dealing with presidents, queens and other foreign officials but...it always melts away when his family is involved, proving itself to be completely useless when he needs it most.

He wishes he was strong enough to be the monster of the family that's never acknowledged for anything but the mistakes he's made, but he wasn't…

Mycroft may have fooled everyone else, but he never could quite fool himself.

And his heart could barely stand the thought of his little brother despising him, adding the rest of his family to the list would do nothing short of destroying it…

The elder Holmes's face constricted in pain along with the organ that betrayed him most.

What he did was very hurtful and he knew that, he also knew that their anger is very much justified and that he deserved every bit of it…

What he didn't understand however was their complete lack of will to so much as listen to him.

Did they really think he would lock his sibling up in a mental hospital without a solid reason?

Where did all that mistrust come from?

What did he do to deserve it?

He doesn't…doesn't understand…

…

...

...Perhaps he really was limited?

Without even realizing it Mycroft Homes curled into a ball, hugging his knees like a child does after a nightmare, something he hasn't done in literal decades.

He was always too old for that…even when he was seven…

Good Big brothers don't cry, don't get scared…don't get overwhelmed by responsibilities…

...don't lock their mentally unstable little sisters in prisons when nothing else worked…

Good big brothers don't do those thigs…

…yet he did.

And would probably do so again if he had to.

Because someone has to make the hard choices.

And there is literally no-one else.

His parents are incapable of doing so to their own child...

Sherlock can barely take care of himself...

And Uncle Rudi is dead.

"Look at you, the most powerful man in Britain, laying on the floor like a kicked dog." A voice somewhere above the elder Holmes sighted, breaking him out of his ponderings. "Then again, perhaps you are one, considering that absurd amount of underserved loyalty you show towards your masters. No matter how much they abuse you, you always come back for more." The owner of the voice snorted in obvious disgust. "How disgustingly sentimental."

Mycroft closed his eyes and swore quite ferociously under his breath.

"Why," He started, teeth gritted and eyes closed in silent frustration. "out of everyone who took residence in this palace…Why is it always you?"

The man in question shared a disturbing similarity to him, dare he say that he could have passed as a long-lost twin.

He was tall, dressed in an impeccable dark-blue suit, had short auburn colored curls and had the same ice-cold pale-blue eyes Mycroft himself had.

But that's where the similarities ended.

For the man looked like a corpse taken freshly out of the freezer. His clothes and hair covered in a layer of frost, eyes cold and lacking the healthy glow they usually have, his skin white and looking chilling to the touch, his chest sporting a large black hole where his heart should have been.

He was the person who everyone saw Mycroft Holmes as…who he was unable to be.

The dead man that walks.

The Iceman.

Said man with skin colder than the harshest winter and wind, smiled a mirthless smile before replying.

"Why…because you want it to be me, my dear Boy." He then spread his arms as if to show off the space around him. "This is your Palace, Mycroft. I wouldn't be here if you didn't want me to."

"That is precisely my point." Sherlock's older brother sneered from the ground. "I don't want you here, and yet you still grace me with your presence."

The fragment of imagination had the nerve to shrug.

"It is of no consequence, I'm afraid, as my presence seems to be needed." It smiled again, this time showing off pearly-white teeth. "Why do you think I'm still here?"

"Because, like my brother, you have made a habit of ignoring everything I say." Mycroft replied irritated, pushing himself to a kneeing position.

"Once you stop thinking about things that don't deserve your attention, you will discover that, you are the one that continually refused to listen, Mycroft." The icy tone turned from condescending to serious. "I warned you this would happen."

"What you proposed couldn't be done." Sherlock's brother whispered, shaking his fox-colored head.

"Yet had you heeded my warning and did as you were told, all this and more could have been avoided." The Iceman said, his tone knowing as he twirled his frost covered brolly.

"It would never work." Mycroft's voice was barely a whisper. "You know this. We tried countless times. It never lasted."

Suddenly he was forced to his back by a sharp tip of an umbrella pressing on his Adams apple with alarming strength, nearly chocking him.

"People died and were mentally scarred for life because you were a sentimental fool that couldn't put his feelings aside when the situation called for it!" The Iceman didn't scream, yet his voice was harsh enough to have a similar effect. "And yet, even now, after everything that happened, you still refuse to listen to your own advice."

"I don't have the luxury to do so." Mycroft whispered, ignoring the blade pressed to his neck. "I have to keep them safe…"

"And look where your devotion has led you." The Iceman sneered. "Treated like a dispensable dog by those you devoted your life to."

"They don't treat me like a-" Mycroft started to argue but the metal tip of the umbrella pressed down on his vocal cord, preventing any sounds from escaping.

"No?" The colder man asked, his voice icy and devoid of any emotion. "Then tell me if anything I say sounds familiar."

Even if he wanted to, Mycroft couldn't answer, the damned thing still was pressing on his throat.

"Only called upon when needed, tasked with the safety of the younger children, kept at arm's length at all times, ignored when tasks are preformed correctly and punished severely when not."

Mycroft remained quiet, each word stabbing a knife into his already bruised heart.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but all this sounds surprisingly a lot like your present predicament." The Iceman continued, he then lifted the umbrella off of the other man's exposed neck. "Especially the last point."

"They were right to be angry with me." Mycroft whispered as if his throat was blocked by something, his back still pressed to the cold floor. His pale-blue eyes stared emptily at nothing. "I took their child away and locked her up away from sociality."

The Iceman stepped into his field of vision and crouched so that the beaten man's attention was on him.

"You were a child taking on responsibilities that would be hard to bear by people triple your age, so that the people you cared about didn't have to watch their child get sent to hell. Even once that happened, you didn't give up on her. You did everything you could to help Eurus, getting her to the best therapy centers money could find, but, in the end, she proved herself unstable and deadly so you could do nothing but lock her away so that she doesn't hurt anyone else." A hand that was supposed to be sympathetic but really wasn't because of obvious reasons, was placed on his shoulder. "You did your best, there was nothing else you could have done."

"My best wasn't enough." Mycroft wheezed out, heart hurting more with each beat it took. "It's never enough."

The Iceman's eyes darkened again, he squeezed the shoulder he was holding.

"You shouldn't have been condemned for it, not after everything you've sacrificed." He said, voice softer in tone. "Real families don't throw their members away when they make a mistake, they stick together and fight the problems in unison with each other."

"They're doing that now, aren't they?" Came the weak response. "Finding a way to bring Eurus back… together…as a family." Mycroft swallowed the lump that threatened to choke him, the pain in his chest growing. "Without me…"

This time the Iceman stayed silent, having nothing to say.

"Mummy and Daddy have Sherlock to rely on now…" The Shadow behind the United Kingdom continued, eyes bright as if finally freed of a fog that blocked their view. "They don't need me anymore, except to gain access to Sherrinford…" He then covered his face with his hands, his body shaking with unreleased sobs and the normally steady voice breaking. "God…you're right…why are you always right?"

"Because my eyes aren't clouded by sentiment, like yours are." The man covered in frost stated coolly, watching with expressionless eyes as the man before him sobbed quietly into his hands, his heart literally leaking blood onto the suit.

This was too much…Everything…Sherlock's overdoses, Mary's death, Magnussen, Sherrinford…the overbearing guilt, the excruciating pain, the sheer shame…it all piled up and hit him like a tsunami wave, leaving nothing but anguish behind.

He couldn't take this anymore.

So he did something he hadn't done since he was a toddler.

He cried.

After he saw the man on the floor cry his soul out for a good minute, the fragmentation though enough was enough, and reached out his right hand, gently touching Mycroft's chest just over the bleeding organ.

A soft hitch in breath could be heard, along with a small flinch, from the injured man, as the heart began to freeze under his icy touch, and when the Iceman looked towards Mycroft's face he noticed that it wasn't covered by his hands anymore. Instead it stared at nothing, eyes cloudy and tear stains marking his cheeks and eyelids.

"Mycroft" He spoke softly, fully aware that his touch is effectively dulling said man's thinking process. "What you're going through right now is nothing sort of unpleasant, and the knowledge that it is wholly underserved, must be like adding salt to the blistering wounds." The Iceman paused. "We've done this before and you know that simply freezing your heart isn't going to work, as seeing your family again will only melt the ice away." He took a deep breath before continuing. "That is why I have a different proposal. One that will require far more drastic methods than simply cutting off emotions." He then locked his icy-cold eyes with fox-haired man's foggy ones. "However, in order for me to proceed, I need your full permission."

But Mycroft was too far gone to thing straight right now.

He just wanted the pain to end.

"P-Please…" He wheezed out. "Make it…stop."

Hearing this the Iceman nodded.

"As you wish."

He then pushed his hand inside Mycroft's chest completely ignoring fabric flesh and bones, making the laying man gasp, his freezing touch making quick work of the warm pulsing organ, swiftly turning it into a small block of ice.

In normal circumstances, this is where the procedure would end.

But this time…it was only the first phase.

Feeling the heart solidify under his fingertips, the Iceman narrowed his eyes in determination before letting his hand grab it like a ball and then…

Smashed it to bits.

Mycroft's eyes unfocused and became even foggier, while his body shook, this time from the inside cold the heart left behind.

Satisfied, the Iceman pulled his hand out and watched as a black hole not dissimilar to his own formed on the left side of the elder Holmes's broad chest.

Phase two complete. Now for phase three.

This time the icy fragmentation of Mycroft's psyche stood up, leaving the barely conscious Mycroft to rest, and made his way towards the various rooms in the Palace.

Reaching the one he was looking for he opened the large, rusty door.

Inside a baby Mycroft Holmes was being hugged by his mother and cooed at by his father.

It was the day he was born.

Back when everything was simpler and his parents actually loved him.

"You were never part of this family." The Iceman said sternly, waving his hand. "Your real parents were killed in a car crash when you were coming home for the first time." Reacting to the man's voice, the room started changing. "You were found by a doctor from an ambulance that came to treat the wounded in the accident and promptly taken to a hospital."

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were no longer in the room, instead a young doctor was trying to calm down the terrified baby Mycroft, admits a horrifying looking car crash, who was covered in cuts and bruises but was otherwise unharmed.

"After a few days, when no relatives arrived to collect you, you were sent to the nearest orphanage, where the caretakers found a nametag on your wrist and called you Mycroft, to honor your parent's wish. The surname Holmes was a wordplay on the word 'home' by one of the nurses working part-time in the orphanage."

Again the scene changed, this time the tiny Mycroft was being surrounded by concerned looking nurses, some worrying over his injuries while others scattered to prepare a fresh bottle of milk and a pair of new clothes for him.

The Iceman nodded, accepting what he saw and moving on to add the final touches.

The rest of Mycroft's memories will adjust themselves accordingly during the night, he just needs to feed the palace details.

"You stayed in that orphanage till your eighteenth birthday, after which you were recruited to MI6 where you quickly climbed in ranks and became the man known as 'Antarctica'."

Seeing everything fall into place, he turned to the now sleeping Mycroft Holmes and whispered before disappearing.

"No more weaknesses."