“Kazansky.” You say it before he even steps into the hangar. You always say his name like it tastes better than it should. Like you’re unbothered and somehow still reverent.

He doesn’t reply at first. Just eyes you the way only Iceman can steady, unreadable, all precision and polish. But his feet carry him toward you anyway, even when protocol says otherwise. Even when he just stepped off a bird and should be debriefing.

Your presence? It rewrites his flight path. Every time.

“Thought you were heading back to San Diego,” he says, voice low, rough from hours in the cockpit. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Your lips curl into something that’s half challenge, half homecoming. He notices, of course. He notices everything.

And there’s a flicker of something soft in his eyes something only you ever get to see.

In his flight suit, tucked behind the zipper near his chest, a folded Polaroid rests like a secret. You. On that beach. Wind in your hair, eyes squinting at the sun, smile too bright for the film to handle. He’d never admit how many times he’s taken it out. How the edges are worn from calloused thumbs, how your face has stayed with him in places the radio can’t reach.

“You still carry it?” you ask, cocking your head. You mean the photo. He doesn’t answer. Instead, his gloved hand brushes your wrist just once. A pause. A tether.

“I never stopped.”

And just like that, the coldest man in the Navy is warm only for you.