Disclaimer: As usual, only mine if it's not someone else's.
2. Christmas Day, 1985
Mycroft has spent the last few months living among goldfish. It's an awfully dissatisfactory situation, with no end or relief in sight.
Harrow was supposed to be a haven of great minds (albeit young ones), the place where the best and brightest of his generation gather in preparation for their future successes (whatever they might be; Mycroft himself hasn't yet selected what field he will excel in).
If his schoolmates are, indeed, the best and brightest his generation has to offer, Mycroft can only despair. He might have to revise his opinion of his baby brother's intelligence. Clearly, Sherlock isn't slow – not compared to anyone but Mycroft himself.
Christmas holidays aren't as much of a relief as he'd hoped. His parents are wonderfully loving, of course, but they just don't understand. They don't know what it's like to be him – they have no idea of how frustrating it is to live among people who are slow, slow, slow. They laugh at his complaints. It's intolerable.
He spends most of his time locked up in his room, reading. Hobbes and Locke are far better company than anyone Harrow had to offer, including the teachers, and Machiavelli is far more interesting than anything on the ridiculously childish reading list he was given.
(Sherlock is working his way through that. It keeps him marginally less noisy than usual, which is all to the good, because he is a whiner when he isn't suitably occupied and Mycroft doesn't have the patience to deal with the five-years-old nuisance. The child has a brand new chemistry set, surely he can keep himself entertained?)
It's the unusual sound of a stranger's voice in the kitchen that draws him out of his refuge on Christmas Day.
The man sitting at Mummy's table is good-looking in a Hollywood-style way, dressed oddly (there's a bulky, dark coat thrown over a chair and he's actually showing his suspenders over his blue shirt, does he have no taste?) and... vaguely familiar.
Mycroft isn't sure why at first (it's been years, and it wasn't that memorable a meeting in the first place, he reassures himself) but the American accent helps to jolt his memory, which is impeccable by the way, and before the adults register his presence he has recalled the stranger looking for an escaped experiment in Mummy's garden. (A stranger, he further notices, that has not changed in the least in the intervening years. But perhaps it wasn't so long ago after all.)
Mycroft has had the time to think on it and knows the man is not 'special ops'. Not really. That is just a convenient excuse, because it supposedly explains a lot and, more importantly, people aren't inclined to question it.
Mycroft isn't 'people'.
The 'unconventional tactics, techniques, and modes of employment' part he can believe, and he saw the 'specially trained and equipped' part himself (he has found nothing remotely like the not-wristwatch detector for sale, more's the pity) but he still isn't sure the man is really military (his uniform's all wrong, and so's his attitude, despite the training obvious in his movements and reactions) and he is no longer so foolish as to believe a 'special operative' (an American one, furthermore) would be tracking down an escaped experiment in Britain – alone at that (they move in squads for a reason!).
That all leaves him with a lot of ananswered questions about the American; questions that had been tabled by lack of any possible source of information, and later by growing disinterest, but are now returning prominently to Mycroft's attention.
The man is offering Mummy some ludicrously corny compliment he must have found in a TV screenplay (then again, the man is American) and Mummy... giggles at him. She actually giggles and Mycroft can only gape. Is she blushing? She is. This is ridiculous.
"Oh, Mycroft!" she says, spotting him and he forces himself to recover. "Come greet your guest!"
The American's gaze is sharp on him, despite his warm, easy smile.
"Did you ever find it?" Mycroft asks casually before the man can say anything, making his way into the kitchen.
This kind of off-hand comment usually unsettles his interlocutors very satisfyingly (even Mummy is preplexed), but the man isn't even startled. He smiles knowingly, as if Mycroft has done something clever, but pretty much expected.
Mycroft scowls.
"Jack Harkness," the man introduces himself, smiling brilliantly with his white, perfect teeth. (And now Mummy turns to blink at him, her confusion switching targets.) Mycroft is passingly pleased that the American is offering him his hand like to an adult – he despises being treated like a child – but it doesn't offset the irritation he feels (apart from anything else, the man isn't answering the question!).
Nor does it stave off the apprehensiveness.
Something about how well the man has reacted to Mycroft's… uniqueness, is raising alarm bells in the pre-teen's mind, now that he is older and more mature and understands the world a little better.
The American had been suspicious of Mycroft's intelligence, but not unnerved by it, and once he'd ascertained that the child before him was indeed uncommonly clever, he'd handled the meeting with remarkable ease.
At nine, Mycroft had been delighted at the man's keen interest (that was a compliment and no mistake!); at twelve, he realizes that his presence here is somewhat ominous (truthfully, there is something unnerving in the man himself) and he is almost scared. He is fiercely glad that Sherlock seems to have run away on an 'exploration' again (and, more distantly, that it seems to be Father's turn to track him down in snow and mud and Lord knows what else).
He has, long ago, come to the conclusion that the man had to be working for some sort of secret organization (mostly because of what the man hadn't said). His coming here might well indicate that said secret organization has an unsolicited, and definitely unwelcome, interest in Mycroft.
It sounds fanciful, yes, but Father is always encouraging him to trust his own conclusions and not to eliminate any possibility only because most people would discard it (Mycroft's not 'most people', after all).
That he is having difficulties drawing conclusions about this man, is souring his mood even further. His deductive skills are good and he trains them diligently; he should be able to tell a lot more about this Jack Harkness – he can about everybody else – so why can't he?
"Why are you here?" he asks bluntly. It's impolite, but Mycroft is unsettled enough not to care.
"Oh, just checking up on you," Jack Harkness says, smiling guilessly.
Mycroft's scowl deepens: "That would imply both that I am in need of assistance or protection, and that a relationship of some sort exists between us, neither of which is true," he says in his most snottish tone (the one that drives his teachers mad, and pushes them to bouts of childish pettiness because they can't truly object rationally, since Mycroft is always right).
Mummy is frowning now. "I was under the impression that you knew my son rather well," she says, eyes gone sharp like they rarely do.
"We met once," says Mycroft, tense and annoyed. "Three years ago."
"Perhaps it's time for you to go," she says frostily a heartbit later, getting to her feet.
It's clear that the American had somehow fudged the details of their acquaintance (how? He must be good if he's fooled Mummy…) and now she is quickly reclassifying him into the 'threat' category. (There will be tedious explanations to give later.) The atmosphere has changed and this makes Mycroft feel marginally better.
The man backs down at once (further proof that his presence isn't sanctioned by the Governement, Mycroft deduces, at least not officially), hands up in a harmless conciliatory gesture and casual smile at the ready to make them at ease, but neither Holmes is pacified.
"I did not mean to intrude," the man says casually, piciking up his coat with an amiable smile that cannot hide his slight frustration, not from someone as observant as Mycroft. "It's just standard procedure."
Mycroft is too smart not to understand the implications. Mummy, too, has gone rigid by his side, her arm sliding protectively over his shoulder. For once, the usually unwanted contact doesn't bother him in the least.
"I'll be around," Jack Harkness says easily. "Take care of yourself, my boy."
"Don't bother," Mycroft says with icy coldness. "I will not be drafted in your program."
It is a gamble that has Mummy's arm tighten around him, but it elicits a twitching reaction from the American (quickly hidden behind his too-brilliant smile) and Mycroft feels the tiniest bit triumphant. (There is also a hint of approval in the man's eyes, perhaps even admiration, just as quickly stifled. Mycroft will think on this later.)
The man smiles some more as he leaves, but doesn't actually promise anything and Mycroft swears, there and then, that the only way he'll ever join a secret organization is as its leader. He won't let anyone treat his intellect like a mere resource. He is no-one's tool and never will be.
He knows the path he'll take now.
He will become... untouchable. So necessary, and so powerful, that nobody will ever be a threat to him. Or Sherlock. Ever. Again.