#reichenpach

okay we’re talking about a guy who

threatens his brother’s new acquaintances into getting into strange cars and going to strange places, using government resources

once at the strange place, threatens the new acquaintance into explaining his new connection to brother

offers to pay new acquaintance to spy on brother – this is actually two-fold. if John had said yes, Mycroft would have done it and certainly wielded that information no problem, but would not have trusted John at all which apparently could have had disastrous consequences for John. but John said no, so Mycroft does trust him a little bit even if he can’t control him.

when his little brother’s flat is threatened in tgg, appears with impeccable timing to give said little brother a case, i.e., the perfect excuse to check in, and also, there’s evidence that the explosion was not a gas leak and if scotland yard knew that you can bet your cute lil panties so did Mycroft. the bruce-partington plans are, I believe, more of an excuse for Mycroft to keep checking in, keep hanging around, possibly pull Sherlock away from the game. if Mycroft desperately needed the plans recovered, MI5 would have been a much quicker way to do it and probably would have had far more appropriate security clearances.

when Sherlock’s royal fan requires that Sherlock investigate Irene Adler, Mycroft is deliberately nasty and rude and ridiculous. he’s more rude and condescending to Sherlock in that scene at buckingham palace than he ever is anytime else, he’s not even that vicious in the end when he’s explaining to Sherlock the consequences of his actions. personal belief: he’s trying to put Sherlock off taking the case. in the end he apologizes for putting him in Irene’s way, even.

communicates with little brother’s flatmate about danger nights and where little brother might hide drugs in their flat. has a code for this and a procedure for this. they have a plan. they have discussed this. clearly Mycroft has approached John and explained to him some of the relevant details and formulated a procedure for handling it.

little brother breaks into a top secret military base using his own identification and instead of arresting him or even giving him a slap on the wrist, Mycroft allows him to leave the base unconfronted and then arranges for him to have a whole 24 hour run of the place.

trf is where things get squishy, because Mycroft feeds Moriarty information about little brother, but I believe this is all part of a larger plan that Sherlock was aware of and consented to.

learns serbian and goes undercover to extract little brother - at this point i believe Sherlock is probably MI6 and officially working with Mycroft, anyone could have been sent to do this legwork but no, it has to be Myc

keeps a dossier on little brother’s flatmate while little brother is away just in case

when said flatmate is pissed off as predicted and refuses to forgive little brother, Mycroft goes over to the flat to keep little brother company. this is all under the guise of the terrorist attack, but I mean, it takes time and effort and everything to set up operation and then play a few rounds. Mycroft is indulging him. Mycroft is basically keeping Sherlock company until Sherlock has settled a bit, then they discuss the terrorist plot.

Mycroft gives Sherlock a tool to remain calm and collected during the best man speech - Redbeard. He verbally spars with Sherlock a bit. this is their brotherly love language. it’s calming to Sherlock. Sherlock has called him because he’s nervous and scared and Mycroft gives him something of an outlet. and then he says Redbeard–basically, use your mind palace and just get through the thing.

goes home for the hols, which he clearly hates, to spend Christmas with brother who is home from hospital and family

“your loss would break my heart”

Mycroft face in the helicopter

putting Sherlock on that plane to Eastern Europe was intended to give Mycroft some time to figure out how to bring him back. six months and the mission would be fatal–so they had six months, maybe less, to figure out how to get Sherlock back to safety. but it’s not Sherlock in prison with possibly hundreds of men he helped put there. it’s a much more immediately safe decision.