When Ianto leaves home he is fifteen and still bares the marks of his father's fury, even as the man cools in the ground.
They say he died of the cancer, but only Ianto knows the truth. The cancer wasn't fatal, but the little vials of clear liquid Ianto slipped into his morning coffee was.
When it's cold Ianto's left leg aches (it's been broken twice, of course it does) and he learns to hide his limp so well you could be forgiven for thinking he was perfectly fine, thank you very much.
When Ianto leaves for London – he doesn't know why London, but it feels right, full of hope) (later he will laugh bitterly at that thought) – when Ianto leaves for London he takes his rugby bag full of warm clothes, and he picks the pocket of the rich snob down the corner to pay for the bus fare.
And he's gone.
Rhiannon's eyes follow him as he walks away, and he thinks maybe she knows what he did, but she never says a word. She's got a kid now, a little boy with an upturned nose just like his uncle's, and she's not going to dob Ianto in.
Ianto meets Martin on his second day living rough in London. Martin is older and street smart, sharp faced and light footed, and when he offers Ianto a warm place to sleep for the night Ianto can ignore the stolen good and crack addicts squatting in the old building.
It's not exactly Martin's place to offer to Ianto, but he does offer him food and smokes and good conversation.
Martin has a tattoo of a robin on his wrist. Ianto thinks it's odd, but doesn't comment
(Years later Jack is going to ask about the robin inked onto Ianto's hip and he'll just laugh and smile mysteriously)
Come next morning Martin takes Ianto out for breakfast and takes him around London, and they end up on the London Eye, swapping stories.
They get dirty looks from the posh looking tourists, but neither cares.
Martin steals a kiss at the top of the London Eye and Ianto lets him.
Martin has a sister (Ianto's pretty sure they aren't actually related but just pretend to be) called Lucy, who's thirteen. She's so young for a street kid, and she acts so much older and she frightens Ianto but he'll never tell.
On his fourth day in London Ianto gets in a knife fight.
On his seventh he breaks into a drug dealer's house and gets a hundred dollars' worth of stolen good, and after that the days bleed together and in a month Ianto, Martin and Lucy are inseparable. They live rough, but Ianto has discovered it's not so bad with company.
It's a whirlwind of sex and drugs and money (Martin is to thank for all three) and laughter and a surprising sense of contentment (that's Lucy, the little angel who can smile despite the horrors she's seen).
They get arrested for shoplifting once, and another time Ianto ends up in hospital, a knife wound in his lower back, pale and small with Martin and Lucy keeping a bedside vidual.
The trainee doctor who treats Ianto is called Owen Harper and he covers for them when the cops start asking questions about their family.
("The parents are on a business trip, flying in tomorrow… girl's his sister, the blonde's the boyfriend. Sweet kids. Yes, I'm sure they aren't homeless.")
There is something akin to understanding in his eyes when he looks at their ragtag family, and Ianto decided they are pretty well put together for three random street kids.
When Ianto is discharged Owen Harper watches him go with a nod and Ianto gets the strangest feeling he'll see this man again.
(He thinks that's pretty ok because Lucy had a bit of a crush on him)
X
Ianto goes back to see Rhiannon after four months of being away. He had promised he'd visit sooner but life sort of got away from him.
Rhiannon doesn't like Lucy and Martin, but Ianto doesn't care. He also doesn't miss the way her eyes follow Ianto and Martin's joined hands.
David is at least twice as big as he was before and Ianto doesn't stay long.
At some point they end up in Scotland, but it doesn't last long because they can't understand the accents.
A year goes past and Ianto gets a matching robin on his hip bone and wonders if he's in love.
He decides is when he and Martin hold each other close for hours in the cold night, and when Lucy pushes in between them, shivering.
Lucy is the kind of girl who writes poetry on her skin and dances in the rain. She carries sharpies in her pocket and she smells constantly like ink.
It's a habit she quickly passes on to Ianto, and he decides he's very grateful as Martin traces the words with his tongue.
London is a rainy city, and the trio often find themselves running through the raindrops, hand in hand, laughing.
"I'm glad we adopted you, Ianto Jones," says Lucy one day. They are sitting in Hyde Park, sharing hot chips and fizzy drink. "You're fun, and you stop that idiot picking up random blokes in alleyways."
Ianto laughs, Martin swats Lucy over the head, and later that day they see Owen Harper walking through the park with a pretty blonde woman. Martin wolf whistles and Owen sends him a dirty look, but he's smiling.
That's about when it all goes rotten.
Martin has enemies. Of course he does, he's lied and stole his way around London by now and there are people out for revenge. Ianto learns to fight, and the golden rule that sticks in his mind is something like this: There is no such thing as knife fighting; by the time you see the blade you're already dead. Just make sure he's dead before you even see his blade.
Lucy hates fighting and she grows quiet and sad, and one night she snuggles up to Ianto and tells him her story. She's Welsh, like him, and for some reason he's not surprised, and when she was eleven her father died and her mother married a man who used his fists on little girls because he could, and when Lucy started to get older he would touch her.
Ianto feels ill by the end of it. Lucy ran away, just like Ianto did, and they draw some spooky parallels. Welsh kids, shit father figures, ran off to London, adopted by Martin.
And as for Martin, no one knows his story. Lucy whispers that she thinks he's always been on the streets, always been hard and tough and sneaky.
They both love him in their own ways and they don't have to say it, and Ianto tells Lucy about killing his father (because he can't think its murder, no, that would break him).
The next day Martin has business and he sends Lucy and Ianto out for an hour or two and when they get back police cars are surrounding the building they were squatting in and they arrive just in time to see the cops carry out Martin's still, cold body, and there is a bullet hole in his forehead.
Ianto catches Lucy as she falls to the ground and holds her close as the cops push them back, yammering on about a crime scene and Ianto is vaguely aware he is crying.
They end up at the police station, the cops cold and sympathetic, taking their statements and asking how they knew Martin (whose real name is apparently Robert Wilson) and when they say he adopted them they are unimpressed.
Finally a nice police lady brings them a cup of tea and asks if she can call anyone. Ianto, shell shocked, mutters the name Doctor Owen Harper and ten minutes later the scrawny young doctor bursts into the police office and takes them back to his flat. Owen crashes on the couch and gives them the bed, and Ianto holds Lucy when she cries.
The next day a woman who identifies herself as Lucy's mother shows up on the door and drags Lucy off, yelling about being called by the police, and about her daughter and strange boys involved in murders, and then screamed at Owen Harper for about thirty minutes and dragged Lucy off.
Ianto shared one last glance with her as the door slammed and he was left alone with the young doctor.
"So," said Owen. "What a bitch."
And Ianto laughed because how could be not.
After a shower and a meal Ianto gets on a bus bond for Wales and shows up at Lucy's mother's house. Lucy is locked in her second story bedroom and when Ianto climbs through the window she throws herself into his arms and they cry together, and in between sobs she tells him her stepfather went to prison for the rape of a young woman (and Ianto shivers thinking it could have been Lucy) and her mother is moving her to America, and everything is so messed up Ianto breaks down and cries.
He is sixteen, and so, so lost.
X
It takes Lucy's mother two weeks to move her to America, and in those two weeks they become inseparable.
It doesn't matter that Lucy's mother gets a restraining order out against the boy who keeps climbing through her daughter's bedroom window, but it doesn't stop Ianto.
But after the plane leaves Ianto is lost.
He goes to Rhiannon's, but she's not home, and he doesn't linger.
He's back in London by morning.
X
Ianto bumps into a pretty girl in the street. She smiles and offers to buy him coffee.
Her name is Lisa.
X
On Ianto's first day at Torchwood, Owen Harper is the last person he's expecting to see.
Judging by Owen's careless shrug at the sight of the new guy, he doesn't recognise Ianto. Ianto doesn't say anything; the last thing we wants to do is raise Jack Harkness's suspicions.
So if the name Ianto Jones ever meant anything to Owen, the cranky (when did that happen? The Owen Ianto had known was sarcastic, sure, but not mean) medic doesn't show it.
Ianto doubts Owen even opens the medical records that state Ianto was in a knife fight at age fifteen, and was treated by Owen himself.
It's not until the fairy case, when they are tired and devastated because they lost Jasmine and they are sitting in the hub silently, that Owen asks quietly (but loudly in the heavy silence) "What happened to Lucy, tea-boy?"
Ianto's head snaps up, and the rest of the team share confused looks.
"She moved to America with her mother," Ianto manages to say. "Have you always known it was me?"
"Not until your physical," Owen confesses. "I saw the scar from the knife fight. And the tattoo, the same as Martin's. How come you never said anything?"
And Ianto replied, "My misspent youth is most definitely behind me, thanks very much."
And Owen says, "I reckon Lucy could have been a Chosen One."
"Poems and raindrops," Ianto says softly, smiling. "Yeah, I reckon she could have been."
And he goes to make coffee, and leaves Jack to interrogate Owen about that odd little conversation.
The next day Jack looks at Ianto and says, "I can't image you as a street rat," and wanders off, and Ianto blushes bright red.
X
It's a bit of a surprise when Lucy shows up on Ianto's doorstep.
She's a little older and a little taller, but there is a verse of poetry tattooed on her bare shoulder and she's smiling her raindrop grin, and without a word he pulls her into a hug.
He doesn't care that Jack is in his flat, watching with a bemused expression on his face, because it's Lucy, suntanned from the States, and laughing into his shoulder.
"Hey, Luce," he says when they break apart. "Come have a muffin."
And that's that.
X
Lucy gets a flat in London, and they talk on the phone all the time.
He tells her that he's falling for Jack, and she grins over the phone and says that Jack is very gorgeous, and maybe they could share?
Ianto tells her to back off, missy, because Jack is his.
And he is Jack's.
And that is that.
X
Ianto's misspend youth is behind him.
Except when he tells Jack about Martin and his father and cries into Jack's shoulder.
Jack holds him all night, and they have fantastic morning sex.
Sometimes on a case , Ianto's skills as a thief come in handy.
Sometimes he catches Owen smirking at him.
Sometimes Ianto's past is never behind him, and he's ok with it.