Only Genius-level Repeat Offender in the Midwest
Captain Christopher Pike does a double-take when he opens the file matching the genetic information of the young man sprawled out on the bar floor in a mess of blood and shards of glass. There is absolutely no way that this… hooligan, this delinquent, is the son of intergalactic hero George Kirk. There is no way that this country boy's aptitude scores outrank almost everyone at the Academy, and that at age twenty, this youth can speak fourteen languages, pilot a class A vessel, hack into databases with government-level security, reverse-engineer a warp drive, and claim to have survived the massacre of Tarsus IV. But then the kid opens his eyes, and the truth is spelled out for him in their unearthly blue stare. His gaze is that of a fugitive, running from other men's demons. Of a man who has sunk so low that he has nothing left to lose. It is this that prompts Pike to urge Kirk to enlist in Starfleet, to make something of his evidently miserable life.
It doesn't surprise him at all when he is brusquely refused. But as he stands up, leaving behind an old salt shaker that vaguely resembles the Kelvin and the time of departure for the recruiting shuttle, he can't help but notice the faint glimmer of hope lurking beneath the young man's smirk, and can't help but allow a smug grin to cross his face briefly when a familiar blue-eyed gaze meets his across the shipyard the next morning.
If you're half the man your father was, Starfleet could use you.
Yet Pike knows in his heart of hearts that James Tiberius Kirk is much more than just his father's son.
A/N: (3/25/16) Fixed