Misha William Lecter Graham.
It really was a rather brilliant name, for a rather brilliant boy. He'd been born barely three months after Hannibal and Will's wedding, the surrogate mother a slightly distant relative of Will's. He'd started talking at barely a year, even if only to be able to point to things and name them. However at two years old he could form coherent sentences, read childrens books. He really was smart- though part of that might have been Hannibal's coaching- Hannibal read to him from complicated psychology and history books. He taught him English for a month before he started speaking to him in other languages, insisting to Will it would make him better equipped to learn other languages.
He was quite right. By the time Misha was five and ready to start kindergarden, he knew the alphabet and his numbers in seven languages, and was more or less able to form sentences in all of them. Hannibal was rather pleased with himself.
Will, however, was fairly worried. He knew Misha hadn't gotten his empathy, but whether he had gotten his sociopathic tendencies was yet undecided. He seemed all too similar to Hannibal for that, but Misha hadn't been around other children much for his first five years of his life- he spent all his time in the care of people like Hannibal and Will, Alana Bloom, Team Sassy Science, Bedelia and Jack, which made him brilliant, but not exactly normal.
So this story truly starts when Misha is around five, and ready to start kindergarten.
~
"Misha!" Hannibal called, his voice ringing throughout the house. The young boy raced downstairs, eager to begin school.
"Yes father?" Misha replied, skidding to a stop in front of Hannibal and Will. He looked absolutely adorable- and vaguely like a mini Hannibal. His golden hair was neatly cropped, just barely brushing his pale forehead. His bright hazel eyes scanned his parents- twinkling with a light that would seem almost cunning, were he not five years old. His crisp, collared white shirt was was a stark in appearance to the gray, blue, and black tie he was wearing, encased in a black vest.
"Ready for school?" Will asked as Hannibal picked up Misha to set him on a stool to serve him breakfast. Misha nodded before taking a massive gulp of orange juice. Will grinned and sat down next to his son. "Good. I'll pick you up after- you don't mind coming to work with me, right?"
Misha shook his head. After swallowing a bite of omelette, he replied, "of course not Dad. I love going to to work with you." He had a slight lilt to his voice, a slight, English accent that gave away one of his parents was indeed not from the states.
After finishing his breakfast and packing his backpack, Misha was driven to the elementary school by Hannibal. It was a mere ten minute drive, and soon enough, Hannibal was wishing his son a good first day. "Tell me all about it when I see you tonight," Hannibal said, arching an eyebrow.
Misha nodded enthusastically. "Of course I will father," he promised, leaning over to give Hannibal a hug. "Goodbye father!" he exclaimed before getting out of the car, waving once last time before he turned around and raced into the school.
It wasn't a huge elementary school at all- housed grades 1-4 and kindergartners. Most kids were being brought in by their parents, so Misha simply found his way by following the rest of the herd. By the time he had gotten into the classroom, met the teacher (a Mrs. Patricia Samuels), and signed himself in, Misha found himself having to choose a table. He looked around, glancing at all the children before choosing a seat in the front- no one was yet at this table, and even as the classroom seemed to fill in more, only one boy sat down at the four person table. He didn't seem of any interest to Misha- he didn't seem all too smart or anything of the sort, he just seemed shy. Misha didn't have any time to follow up on that thought since Mrs. Samuels bounded to the front of the room.
"Hello children! So, my name is Mrs. Samuels, I'm 34, my husband's name is Max, and in my free time I like to sing and read. Now I'd like you all to tell me who you are like I just did, starting in the back."
One by one, the kids gave little blurbs of who they were, adding more about their parents and lives as they went along. Misha thought they were all rather idiotic and dull. The boy next to him eventually stood up, introducing himself as Jonathan, and lastly, it was Misha's turn. He stood up, took a deep breath, and started.
"My name is Misha Graham, I'm five years old, and I have eight dogs." There were some gasps at this. "My dad is a criminal profiler, and my father is a psychiatrist. I know seven different languages." At which point he sat down, leaving Mrs. Samuels rather dumbfounded.
Throughout the day (which was only a half day), Mrs. Samuels gave them exercises like reading, writing and math to see where they were. Misha excelled in all of them- Mrs. Samuels even gave him a fourth grade math paper with twenty problems on it, thinking she had stumped him. He finished all of them in less than five minutes- he didn't even have to show his work. After that little display, they were dismissed to lunch (it wasn't really lunch, since it was only 10:00 AM, but they still called it lunch).
After Misha had unpacked his lunch (which had clearly been made by Will because it contained a peanut butter sandwich, a brownie, and some sad looking carrot sticks), Jonathan plopped down next to him, immediately asking, "does your dad catch bad people? You said he profiles criminals."
Misha was surprised the boy could even pronounce half of those words, even if he had seemed smarter than everyone else in the class, other than Misha, of course. "Yes. He's really good at it as well, he teaches classes on it too."
Jonathan clearly thought this was interesting, and they talked about it for the rest of the fifteen minutes of their lunch before they were all herded back into the kindergarten classroom where they were given paintbrushes and told to paint for the hour that they had left.
It turns out another thing Misha had inherited from Hannibal was his artistic talent- he was by no means a Picasso, but he painted a picture of Will- it had proportions and shadows and everything. Mrs. Samuels was, once again, amazed, and hung the painting on her wall.
So all in all, Misha seemed happy when he jumped into Will's car at the end of the day. "Hey Misha, how was school?" he asked as soon as his son buckled his seat belt.
"Rather good. My teacher said I was incredibly smart. Oh, and it turns out I'm good at art," Misha listed off.
Will chuckled lowly. "I'm not surprised. Did you make any friends?" he asked, only a little hopeful. Misha thought about it a moment, before replying, "not really. Everyone else seemed rather, well, unintelligent. They're like animals, dad. I suppose I made one friend."
Will nodded, attempting not to freak out over the fact that Misha was adopting the 'everyone is stupid' attitude so young. "You're sure you don't mind coming to work with me?"
Misha nodded. "I told you dad, I never mind. Can we go to the library first?"
When the two at last arrived at FBI HQ, Misha was rather happily dragging along a bag of books nearly as large as him. Will dropped him off at the lab, making him promise to be good before going off to prepare for the class he was teaching. On a good day, Will would let Misha listen to his lectures- not that it mattered if he didn't. Misha could find his way in anyways. After all, Will had left him in the care of Team Sassy Science. They were all ecstatic to see him, at least.
"Misha!" Brian and Jimmy screeched at the same time, as Beverly said, "what's up, little Lecter?"
"Afternoon," Misha greeted them with a wide grin. Team Sassy Science were always the best- they showed him how to look for clues in crime scenes. After a while though, TSS actually had to do their job (which they apologized profusely to Misha for) and Misha sat, curled up on a chair, reading a psychology book, until around 1:30, when he decided he'd go find the classroom his dad was teaching in. It only took him fifteen minutes (and he almost got caught) but he was able to sneak in and hear the last thirty minutes of his dad's lecture on psychoanalysis before he had to rush back to where he had been.
-
Misha quite easily rushed his way through elementary school. It wasn't until the third grade when Will and Hannibal actually got a bad report of their son.
"Dr. Lecter, Mr. Graham," Mrs. Lancaster, the third grade teacher, greeted them. "Please sit down." It was parent teacher conference night, so it wasn't as if they were expecting bad news- but it was Hannibal and Will- they could usually tell.
Once they had gone through the formalities, Mrs. Lancaster started. "As I'm sure you know, Misha is incredibly brilliant. He excels in everything- he has academic, musical, and artistic brilliance. His gym teacher has informed me he's incredible at soccer, recommends you sign him up for some sort of a summer soccer league. However, Misha seems to get into fights quite a bit. He never starts them, and the damage is never serious, so the principal never saw it fit to call you, however... he seems to have no remorse. Even if he apologizes, it never seems genuine."
-
"Fights?" Will exclaimed on their way home. "I know he doesn't like kids his age, he's too smart to, but fights? Where the hell does he get that from? I never picked fights. I just got beat up. You didn't pick fights, did you?"
Hannibal briefly glanced over at his husband. "He is intelligent. He doesn't find it easy to socialize with others his age, you know that. He could just be lashing out, Will. Let's let it go for now. I'll talk to him about it."
Later that night, Hannibal gave Misha a list of yes or no questions, and Hannibal tallied up the answers.
Misha had an almost perfect childhood psychopathy score.