Chapter Text
The sun is warm and gentle on Gregory Handel’s face. He’ll pay for this later, of course, when his skin is puffy and red and his skin is peeling off his body like bark from a tree. That, however, is a problem for his future self. God knows that with his work schedule, it’s going to be a long time before he gets to do anything like this again.
Gregory takes an idle sip of his drink. It’s sweet and fruity—the flavors are just right, pleasant on the palette and not too overpowering. He savors the taste as the pool water laps around gently around his knees, which are currently dangling in the water as he sits at the pool’s edge. The idea of taking another dip is really starting to seem irresistible. Hell, he could stay here forever. It would be a good place to move once he retires. They say the warmth is good for old, tired bones. Chronic pain, too. The world is so quiet here, the people beautiful and polite.
The logistics of it would be tricky, of course, and he’s never been large about visiting somewhere more than once. But wouldn’t that be better than settling down somewhere he’s never been and then hating it? Being recognized would be a risk, but it might be a worthwhile one.
He’s still pondering the particulars of it when an irritatingly familiar whoosh sounds from the pool filter next to him. There’s a clatter and then an unpleasant gurgling noise, like a backed up pipe about to burst.
“Jesus,” says Gregory, though he quite frankly doesn’t have the energy to feel anything other than resignation. The grind never ends. “Really?”
There’s a small circular lid that the staff can lift to clean out coagulated debris, and Gregory sighs heavily. How gross. He sticks his fingers into the little holes and sets the lid off to the side. He pulls the bronze cylinder out from where it’s resting in a dense nest of fallen leaves and dead bees.
Gregory has to dig his nails into the space between the cylinder’s body and its lid in order to pop it open. When the cap finally gives, he drags the hand he’d stuck in the filter hastily across his board shorts to dry them and then sticks it into the vessel, fishing out the paper from within.
Oh. Papers, plural. Well, that’s a surprise. Gregory has received complicated instructions before, though even those are rarely longer than a single page—management has always tended to prefer clarity and efficacy over specificity. So this is…unexpected to say the least.
Gregory fumbles with the tube and its cap as he tries to stuff them back into the filter. After a couple tries, he finally gets it in, where it disappears with a second swoosh. He pays it no mind.
How can he? This is, as far as Gregory remembers, entirely unprecedented. Management hasn’t just sent him a couple pages of instructions—they’ve sent him a manila envelope, stuffed so full that the flimsy metal clasp looks ready to give. There’s a message on the front of it: Attention, Agent Gamma. Mission priority red. Enclosed are your full instructions and a copy of our complete file on your target. Pay will be double, received upon completion.
The script is small and dark. Whoever wrote it was obviously angry. The ‘r’ in ‘target’ looks almost like an ‘n’, as if the author had pressed so hard on the downswoop of the letter that the tip of their pencil had broken.
“Huh,” says Gregory. Double pay? It’s not as common as it used to be. He should really wait until he’s somewhere private that he can read this, but, well…he is alone now. Kind of. He glances idly over his shoulder. No one in sight. Besides, who the hell is going to tell?
Gregory pulls up the metal tabs and pops open the flap, sliding the file out. It feels even heavier now that he can see how many long the damn thing is. Holy shit. It’s a hundred pages at least.
The wonderment only lasts for a moment before irritation takes its place. Seriously? His first day off and they think they can entice him to drop his hard-earned break with some double pay? For the largest assignment he’s ever seen?
Yeah, right. They can fucking choke.
Gregory contemplates stuffing the assignment back into the drain filter. It won’t get sent back, but the Commission would get the message nonetheless when the job continued to go undone and Gregory continued to enjoy his extremely well-earned vacation.
Gregory loves his job—he loves his work in the way that cheesy, inspirational career commercials say that you’re supposed to. But a job is still a job, and Gregory doesn’t believe in letting his work life and his personal life bleed into one another. His bosses can deal with that and wait until he’s on the clock. Besides, it’s not like it matters. They do have all the time in the world.
He flips the file open, idle and bored. Command will be pissed with the delay, but they’ll still forgive him when he comes wandering back. And after they give him a slap on the hand they’ll inevitably send him packing to actually handle the job. So, he supposes, he might as well get a head start on the reading.
Gregory doesn’t just love his job. He’s also very good at it. And this means, appropriately, that he considers himself a tough fellow to surprise.
But absolutely nothing could have prepared him for the contents of the file. He gags on the sip he’d just taken of his piña colada, lurching forward just enough to spit it into the pool and clear his airway.
Gregory stares at the targets name, and then the photo, and then the newly updated photo.
He flips the file shut and sticks it back in the envelope, putting it down on the ground next to him as he picks himself up. After getting back to his feet, he walks over to one of the poolside tables. Sitting there is a wallet and a pair of sunglasses. The shades are a woman’s style, but Gregory can definitely pull them off.
“Hey, Holly!” Gregory calls out. “Do you mind?”
No response.
“Cool,” says Gregory. “I’m taking that as a yes.” He slides them onto his face, dimming the brightness around him. He stares at the wallet thoughtfully. Eh, might as well. He picks it up and opens it. There’s nearly three hundred dollars cash in there. Nice. Gregory tucks the bills in his pocket, flipping the wallet shut and placing it back on the table.
Finally, Gregory makes his way back over to the poolside. He grabs the manila folder off the ground, tucking it under one arm as he holds his drink with his other hand.
He leaves the pool area unseen, sliding back into the interior of the hotel. It’s nearly mid-day and everything is still quiet. There are very few other patrons in sight, a mark of how truly luxurious this place is. It’s the sort of establishment you come to when you want to feel like you’re having an exclusive experience, and that means that you can’t have too many patrons crowding up the place at once.
It is such a shame that he has to leave. Gregory downs the last of his piña colada, closing his eyes and letting the pleasant flavor bloom across his tongue. Well, that’s that.
“Excuse me, miss,” he flags down a passing member of the hotel staff, a young woman in a clean, crisp uniform. Her hair is dark and her naturally brown skin is sun-kissed with golden undertones. She’s gorgeous, and judging by the way that she can’t seem to keep her eyes on his face, the sentiment does not go unreciprocated. Damn, it really is a tragedy of epic proportions to have to go.
“Ah,” she says. She still looks a bit taken aback, gaze flickering from his abs to his face to his abs again before she apparently remembers herself and then straightens up, flushing. “Sorry, what can I do for you?” Her smile is kind and sincere.
“I’m afraid that I’ll be cutting my stay here short,” he says.
“Oh,” the smile turns into a manufactured frown. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Has your stay been unsatisfactory?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Gregory promises, offering her a reassuring smile. “Work calls, I’m afraid. You know how it is.”
Understanding dawns on her face. “Of course,” she says. “It happens all the time. If you can let me know your name, I’d be happy to put the rest of your reservation on hold. You’re free to return and use your remaining days at any time.”
“You do that?”
There’s a knowing edge to her next smile. “Absolutely. We understand that our hotel caters to a sophisticated group of individuals whose schedules are often not as accommodating to vacationing as they might like. Since payment for our services is upfront and nonrefundable, we welcome patrons who are called away prematurely to come back and enjoy the remainder of their time whenever is most convenient for them.”
Maybe this vacation isn’t unsalvageable after all. “My reservation will be under the name Gamma,” he says. “Business name.”
She doesn’t question it, nodding briskly. “I’ll see to it that your premature departure is noted. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Gregory tilts his head thoughtfully to the side. “Yes, actually,” he says. He reaches up to his sunglasses and, piña colada glass still in hand, nudges them further down the bridge of his nose so he can get a better look at her. “You can give me your name?”
One eyebrow shoots straight up. She’s too professional for the expression to verge into the territory of active disdain, but Gregory can read between the lines. She’s attracted, but not interested.
“I’m Christine,” she finally says. There’s a flatness to her voice that tells Gregory that her name is the only thing that she’s interested in sharing with him.
Gregory slides his glasses back into place and offers her another, more measured smile. “I’ll be sure to pass my compliments onto your manager. I appreciate your help.”
She smiles back, face settling back into something more comfortable. “Of course,” she says. “Would you like me to take your glass?”
“That would be lovely, thank you.” Gregory is already a couple steps away when he has to force himself to stop so suddenly that he almost trips. Damn, not a good look on him. “Oh, wait!”
Christine turns back in his direction, head tilting in question. “Yes?”
He smiles. “Your drinks are amazing,” he says, words dripping with saccharine sweetness. “Could you do me a favor and bring one of those,” he nods to the glass his piña colada had been in, “to my friend Holly out in the pool? The one on the overlook. I think she could use the refreshment. She’s a little—mm, how should I put it? She’s a little dead to the world right now. But I think one of these might pep her right up!”
Christine brightens. “Oh, to Mrs. Bismark?”
“The one and only.”
“I’ll do that immediately,” Christine’s back straightens and she sets off again, walking with purpose.
Gregory takes that as his cue to pick up the pace. It’s the right choice—he makes it to the door just in time. He’s just letting himself out when a sharp, ear-splitting scream cuts through the air, audible even from here, halfway across the hotel.
Oh, good! She’d been the one to find the body. She’d seemed pretty soft, unlikely to do anything stupid like try and fish the corpse out of the pool herself, which would have been such a shame. Gregory always prefers it when the papers gets to take pictures of his jobs as he left them.
They’re always prettier that way.
“Klaus! Klaus! Ugh, come on!”
Klaus groans, squeezing his eyes shut against the light as his head pulses. “Shut up, Ben,” he mutters.
“Klaus,” says Ben again. There’s a sad and imploring note to his voice, and fuck Klaus hates it when Ben does that. It never fails to make him feel like the biggest piece of shit to walk the face of the planet. Ben has remained at Klaus’s side even through Klaus’s ugliest and unkindest moments. And Klaus knows, he knows, that he shouldn’t be repaying his brother by getting so high that he’s incognizant. So high that Ben’s only point of connection to the living world is rolling around on the ground giggling hysterically rather than, y’know, actually talking to him.
Ben claims that it’s alright, waves away Klaus’s apologies and regularly pesters him about checking back into rehab, but then sometimes he does that voice. Sometimes he looks and sounds so damn sad and alone that Klaus knows that he’s fucking up. That he’s doing something cruel to one of the only people who has ever really loved him.
It’s in moments like these that Klaus can feel the nausea building, rising up his throat and filling his mouth with something bitter and disgusting. It triggers a thought that he knows passes through all of their heads every once in a while. Why, why, why? Why had it been Ben?
Because the rest of them had been too weak to save him? Because Ben wouldn’t have had it any other way? Because their father was a goddamn rat bastard who couldn’t suffer any goodness in their family to live?
“Klaus!” Ben hisses, more aggressive now. “Klaus, I know you’re conscious. You need to get up right now—you have a concussion.”
That throws Klaus off.
“I’m not high?” he asks quietly, surprised.
Klaus’s eyes are still shut, but Ben’s confusion is palpable. “What?” he says. “No, Klaus, you’ve been sober ever since we stopped the apocalypse. Four months ago.”
“Four mo—shit!” The dam breaks, memories rushing back as the puzzle pieces slot into place. The apocalypse, now averted. The ache in his head, too pointed to be from a drug comedown. Klaus’s eyes snap open. He sits bolt upright, and then winces as the movement jostles his head, sending a hot, unpleasant wave of pain through it. It’s nothing compared to the way his stomach drops when he sees the narrow, metal bars in front of him. “Oh, oh no,” he says, knowing he sounds borderline frantic. “Not again. The others better fucking find me this time.”
They’re working together as a team again. They’re reconnecting as a family, and Klaus thinks they’re doing a pretty good job of it. When he’d been kidnapped by Hazel and Cha-cha, they had all been distant. Orbiting each other nervously, everyone wanting to move in closer but not knowing if the others felt the same. They’d all been running around doing their own things, mindless of what the others were going through.
But things are different now. They see each other nearly every day, except for when Allison is in LA visiting her daughter. And they’re supposed to stay in contact—keep in touch with one another, especially now that the Umbrella Academy is back together and old enemies keep popping out of the woodwork to try and exact their revenge.
So the others will notice this time. They have to. Right?
“Um,” says Ben, “not likely.”
Klaus turns to give Ben a glare as quickly as the pain in his head permits. “What the fuck, Ben? I’m trying to stay positive.”
Ben sighs. He doesn’t bother deigning Klaus with a response, sampling glancing meaningfully over his shoulder.
In the dim light, Klaus almost doesn’t see what Ben is looking at. When he does, he almost wishes that he hadn’t.
“No,” Klaus breathes. “Oh, no, no. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Klaus had known that dropping the drug habit was never going to be easy. But some days are easier than others. Some days the itch is nothing more than a faint tickle, not always present and easily ignored. On other days, the bad days, it roils under his skin with a ferocity that’s almost painful, an agony that is almost impossible to ignore and that begs for the pacification of a needle in the arm or a handful of pills when no one’s looking.
Right now it’s the worst it has been in months. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to do a line right now. Nothing too serious, just enough to take the edge off of this awful, all-consuming terror building in his chest. Klaus ignores it as he stumbles his way over to his unconscious siblings, wincing against the pain that flares in his head as protest against the abrupt movement.
He collapses by Diego’s side first. His heart almost stops when his clammy, shaking fingers struggle to find a pulse. It isn’t until Ben draws close again and says: “Hey, calm down. I already checked while you were unconscious. They’re all breathing,” that Klaus can make himself still enough to confirm it for himself.
“Okay,” Klaus mutters, and then moves on. Ben humors him silently as Klaus goes around to each of his siblings, checking first and foremost for a heartbeat, and then for injuries. Diego and Luther are more or less undamaged. Allison, like him, looks like she got whacked in the head, and there’s a nasty bruise blooming across her right eye.
But Vanya—Vanya is out of reach. Whatever sick bastard kidnapped them stuck her in a different cell. She’s lying on her back on a rickety metal table that looks like it was stolen from a morgue. Next to her there’s a metal pole, a bag of mysterious liquid dangling from it. A bag which is connected to a thin tube that is currently sticking out of Vanya’s arm.
Klaus grits his teeth. Whoever this motherfucker is, they’re screwed. Klaus’s hand-to-hand combat skills have never been (and probably never will be) as good as his siblings want them to be, but he still picked a thing or two up in the war. He can and will beat the ass of the individual who thought it was a good idea to stick a needle into his sister and keep her drugged unconscious.
And Five…Five isn’t here at all.
Klaus doesn’t know what that means. As much as his world is coming back into focus now, the precise memory of being taken is refusing to come back to him. He knows that they must have been taken separately. It’s the only way something like this could have happened. Their cooperation still needs some work, but spending their entire childhoods under their dad’s thumb had some benefits. One of those benefits is the ability to make a damn deadly team, even when they aren’t exactly getting along.
Individually, however, they still have plenty of vulnerabilities.
Five’s spatial jumps make him a slippery bastard, though. And God knows that for the all the family’s promises to keep an eye on one another, Five has proven himself the least cooperative when it comes to sharing his location and activities, making him painfully difficult to find even for them.
That’s good, at least. One less sibling to worry about. Though out of all of them, Five’s powers are the ones that would most easily lend themselves to escape from a situation like this, so Klaus supposes that that’s not super great.
“Oh jeez,” Klaus runs his hands through his hair. “This is bad…”
“It’s going to be okay,” Ben offers. As reassuring as his words are, they seem a little emptier for the way that Ben has his arms crossed over his chest nervously. He looks the way he used to when Klaus was shooting up for the first time after being clean for a little while, or the way he did when Klaus was being reckless with dosages as he relentlessly chased after a better, longer high.
That is to say, Ben looks concerned that Klaus is going to shuffle off the mortal coil at any given moment.
So, yeah. It’s actually not very reassuring at all, on second thought.
“Yeah right,” Klaus says.
Ben sighs, pursing his lips anxiously. “Try and wake up the others,” he suggests. “They can help you more than I can.”
Klaus gives Ben a reproachful glance. “You’re always plenty of help,” he says, even as he makes his way back around to Diego and starts jostling his shoulder, trying to rouse him. “Did you see anything?”
Ben’s eyes narrow. “The guys who took you were in black tactical gear. Knocked you on the back of the head with a machine gun while you were distracted. The others were already here when they tossed you in. It looked like they were just following orders, though. I have no idea who’s really in charge.” Ben’s back straightens, and he tilts his head thoughtfully to the side. “You want me to go scout the place out?”
That would be a good plan. A logical one. But right now, the idea of sending Ben away makes Klaus feel sick and unpleasant, so he gives his head a shake: no.
Ben opens his mouth, but before he can protest Klaus’s refusal Diego finally starts shifting under Klaus’s prodding. His face twitches in his sleep and he lets out a small, frustrated sigh. “Fuck off,” Diego mutters, weakly batting at Klaus’s hand as he tries to turn over onto his other side and away from Klaus’s harassment.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!” Klaus says in sing-song. Diego’s brow furrows in irritation. “Just kidding. There aren’t any eggs. Or bacon, for that matter. Because we’ve been kidnapped. Wake up, dude.”
That, at least, gets Diego’s attention. Diego’s eyes flicker open, and he sits up slowly, rubbing at his temple as he does. “What the hell are you talking about, Klaus?” he starts, and then his eyes go wide as he takes in their location. “Shit.” Diego’s on his feet in half a moment. He’s already reaching for his knives. He curses when his hands close around empty air, though he doesn’t look surprised.
Diego stands there for a moment, still and angry. Finally, he takes a deep breath. Klaus can practically see him physically suppressing his outward, boiling rage into something quieter and more subdued, something that twists quietly and dangerously beneath his skin rather than something uncontrolled and volatile.
Finally, he turns back towards Klaus and outstretches a hand. Klaus accepts it, letting Diego pull him back to his feet.
“You good, man?” says Diego. He gives Klaus’s torso a quick pat and then grabs him by either side of his face, tilting his head this way and that. “Shit,” Diego mutters, when he sees the blood crusted on the back of Klaus’s skull. “Let me see your eyes.”
“Oh, I’m definitely concussed,” Klaus says. “That’s probably not our biggest concern right now, though.”
“It’s a pretty damn big one,” Diego mutters, but he does indeed drop his hands and turns towards his siblings. His eyes go large when they catch on Vanya, contained in her lonesome cage and looking—for all intents and purposes—dead to the world. “Shit, Vanya.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Diego is silent for a long moment, and then he kicks the ground with a sudden, angry yell.
“Diego,” Klaus warns.
“How the fuck did this happen?” says Diego. He doesn’t look any less angry, but his tone drops to an acceptable level of loud, even if it’s still tense and uncomfortable.
“I don’t know,” Klaus says. After a moment’s pause, he puts a hand on Diego’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. We’re gonna get out of this together. You should…go wake Allison. I’ll take Luther.”
Luther, for all that he’s the good soldier of the family, could sleep through a fucking hurricane.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Luther,” Klaus hisses from where he’s crouched by his brother’s head. “I’d slap you if I wasn’t scared you’d whack me in your sleep.” He leans in closer and resumes jabbing his finger into the side of Luther’s face sharply. “Come ooooooon.”
Luther’s still out cold when a tap on the shoulder has Klaus jumping out of his skin.
“Wha—oh, geez, Allison,” Klaus winces. Allison rolls her eyes and then glances at Luther with a pointed expression.
“Yeah, he’s not hurt,” Klaus says. “Just a deep sleeper. I’m fine too, by the way.”
Allison’s face pulls into a frown. She brings a hand, gentle and concerned, to cup the back of Klaus’s head. Fuck. She’s almost better at inducing guilt than Ben. Not quite, but still damn close.
“Okay, yeah, I got it. Don’t touch it,” Klaus brushes her hand away. “I’m judging from the extent of our communication right now that today is…not a good day?”
Allison glances away sharply, staring at the ground. She winces when the sudden movement jostles her own head injury, but she keeps her gaze resolutely averted.
“Klaus,” Ben chides. He doesn’t need to, though, because Klaus is already in the process of walking it back.
“I didn’t mean…Allison, it’s fine,” Klaus says regretfully. “We’ll figure it out even if you can’t rumor us out of here.
Allison looks back in his direction. Sorry, she signs, her gaze still downcast. She looks ashamed.
“Don’t be,” says Klaus, at the same time as Diego says: “It’s not your fault, Allison.”
God, today’s really out to make Klaus feel like a piece of shit. Allison’s injury is one thing that they hadn’t been able to erase when they stopped the apocalypse, and her path to recovery has been rocky. On one hand, there’s quite literally no better doctor on the face of the planet than Grace, whose programming makes her the perfect physician, regardless of your ailment. On the other hand, the damage to Allison’s vocal chords had been extensive and severe. She’s getting better, but the process is slow, and she’ll probably never heal completely. Some days, she can speak a little bit. Quiet, and at a rasp, but she can speak. Other days, the pain of it gets the better of her, or—even worse—she’ll open her mouth and can’t get anything but air to come out, no matter how hard she tries.
It sounds like today is one of the latter. Bad day, she signs, gestures sharp with frustration. I feel useless.
Her signing, like the rest of theirs, is slow and heavily interspersed with fingerspelling for the signs that they either can’t remember or that they haven’t learned yet. It’s only been four months, and they’ve been learning primarily as a family and through online lessons. It’s been fun but slow.
Pogo and Grace are enthusiastic about the possibilities though, even if Allison’s voice never gets any better than it already has.
“If I remember correctly,” Pogo had said, adjusting his glasses thoughtfully, “your power is not in the spoken word, Allison. It’s in the lie. Perhaps, once you get your legs back under you…well, you must not give up hope.”
“You aren’t useless,” Klaus promises. “Not anymore than I am. It’s not like I can use my powers any more consistently than you can.”
Allison smiles at that. It’s still a little half-hearted, but it’s better than nothing and right now, Klaus will take what he can get.
“Okay,” Diego interjects sharply, pushing between Allison and Klaus to lean over Luther’s unconscious form. “Get the fuck up, Luther, you big lug.” And then he does what Klaus had not had the courage to do, and slaps Luther across the face.
Luther grunts, eyes finally flickering open.
“Took you long enough, Luther,” Klaus groans, ignoring Diego’s yelp when Allison balls her hand up into a fist and drives it into the spot under his ribs.
“Where are we?” Luther says as he sits up. His voice is thick and bleary with sleep and he brings a hand up to the side of his face, rubbing the place where Diego had slapped him. “Why does my face hurt?”
“Kidnapped,” Klaus says, at the same time as Allison points accusatorily in Diego’s direction.
“Really, Diego?” says Luther, shooting his Diego a glare. So far he seems to be taking the news of their group kidnapping well, but his eyes are darting around the room evaluatively. Luther on official mission mode is a lot better than team leader Luther, and Klaus is hopeful that he may able to be come up with a plan to get them out of this. “Where’s Five?”
“Not here,” says Diego.
“Any injuries?”
“Meh,” Klaus offers.
“Liar,” says Ben.
“Allison and I got knocked on the head a bit,” he continues, “but we’re alright.”
Luther’s mouth tugs down in a frown. “Are you sure?” When Klaus nods, he turns to Allison for confirmation.
She smiles at him. O-K, she fingerspells.
Luther doesn’t look entirely pacified, but he doesn’t say anything more on the matter, probably aware that this isn’t the time or place.
“Can you bend the bars and get us the hell out of here?” Diego finally says, clearly exasperated by the waiting.
“Right,” says Luther, blinking slowly. He turns his gaze to the bars separating their cell from Vanya’s, appraising them carefully. Klaus watches with bated breath, aware of what’s hanging in the air, unsaid: Luther is currently the only one of them who can use their powers to help in their escape. And if he can’t, then they’re up the creek without a paddle. “It should be doable…is she hurt?”
“Can’t tell,” says Klaus. “Ben? You ditching us, buddy?”
He turns to his brother, who has since wandered through the bars and into Vanya’s cell, where he’s leaning over her unconscious form and examining her closely.
“She’s alive,” Ben confirms. “And she doesn’t look hurt. But…” he looks at the bag attached to the IV drip suspiciously. “God knows what they’re pumping her system with to keep her out of it. And I’m not ditching, but seeing her alone in this cell is…” Ben shudders and then averts his gaze, staring at the floor. “I just don’t feel right leaving her by herself.”
“You and your broken bird syndrome,” Klaus rolls his eyes, and then turns to the rest of his siblings, who are watching with a strange mix bemusement and curiosity. “Well, she’s breathing, at least. But the sooner we can get her out of here, the better.”
“Alright, everybody,” Luther says slowly. He clambers to his feet with a grunt, looking a little less steady under his own weight than he normally does. “Stand back, just in case.”
All of them, even Diego, take a couple steps backward as Luther moves closer to the metal bars separating their cell from Vanya’s. The bars are only about an inch in circumference and situated about three inches apart from one another, but Luther, with his large fingers and clunky leather gloves, struggles for a moment to close his hands around them. He pauses, testing for any sort of reaction
Klaus breathes out a sigh of relief when nothing comes.
After one more moment of evaluation, Luther braces himself against the metal. His arms and back flex as he throws his strength fully into the attempt, and for one incredible moment the sound of metal groaning is audible, and Klaus almost can’t believe that it’s really going to be this easy.
And then the air fills with a sharp crackling noise and Luther falls to his knees with a muffled yell.
“Luther!” Klaus shouts, clapping his hands over his mouth. Next to him, Allison inhales so harshly that Klaus can see her physically flinch from the sudden strain on her throat. She doesn’t pay it any heed though, instead ignoring the way that Luther vaguely, weakly tries to gesture at her to stay back in favor of kneeling by his side.
“Woah, woah, woah!” Even Ben is yelling, departing from his spot next to Vanya and striding right up to the bars. He drops to his knees there, leaning forward until his head is almost passing through the metal as he tries to peer at Luther, who is curled up and tense, body still shuddering from the force of an electric shock that Klaus thinks probably would have flat-out killed any of the rest of them.
There’s an expression of acute distress on Ben’s face. He reaches out, arm passing through the bars as he tries to approximate the act of running his hand comfortingly down Luther’s arm, an act of fraternal comfort that Luther can neither see nor feel. Whatever instinct it is that has Ben reaching out for someone who doesn’t even know he’s there time and time again, it’s damn strong. Ben has done it hundreds of times to Klaus—when he was coming down or in withdrawal or just bemoaning his misfortune and misery in general. He never been met with any more success than he’s finding right now.
Diego, on the other hand, isn’t dealing with this by fretting desperately over Luther like Ben and Allison or staring in stunned horror like Klaus (or laying unconscious on a table like Vanya, though that’s not exactly voluntary on her part).
Instead, Diego whips around, away from Vanya and to the other set of bars that face outwards into the larger room that is containing them. “Hey! You son of a bitch! You goddamn fucking coward! I’m going to fucking gut you.”
Klaus feels the blood leech out of his face. “Diego, no,” he hisses, his brother’s idiocy enough to shake him out of his shock and kick him into action. He grabs at Diego’s shoulder as if he’s capable of physically reeling his brother in.
Diego jerks his arm free. “No,” he spits. “I want to see their face!”
Oh, Jesus. Klaus brings his hands up to his aid and runs them through his hair, tangling his fingers up in the strands and pulling on them. It tugs on his head injury, but the pain of it is so grounding that it’s almost a relief. “Diego,” he says nervously. “We’re all unhappy to be in this shithole, but I don’t really think that this is the time to try and provoke anyone…”
“I don’t mind,” says a new voice, as the thick metal door to the room outside their cell swings open. A man walks in, leaving the door open behind him.
“Well,” Klaus can’t keep himself from saying. “You aren’t what I was expecting.”
Their kidnapper is—and God, Klaus hates that this is the descriptor that pops into his head, but there really isn’t a better way to put it—their kidnapper is really, really hot. He looks young, like he’s in his late twenties or early thirties. There’s a healthy glow to his skin, though his cheeks and nose are flushed a little pink, like he’s just recently gotten too much sun. His hair is a pleasant shade of chestnut brown that has clearly been styled with a painstaking amount of effort. With his slim-fit black pants, white shirt, and pale-wash denim jacket, he looks disorientingly…ordinary. Women’s sunglasses are propped up on his face. He looks like the poster-child for Abercrombie and Fitch. He looks like he got Instagram famous by taking travel photos and cultivating the sort of authentic image that comes from being a man who’s confident enough in their masculinity to do things like wear women’s accessories without a hint of irony.
If it weren’t for the ghosts trailing behind him like some sort of gruesome, nauseating entourage, he’d totally be Klaus’s type.
The man smiles at them, sharp and polite. “I get it,” he says. “But luckily for you, or,” he eyes Diego, who is still radiating fury, “unfortunately, this isn’t about you. It’s about your brother.”
(“He vivisected me,” murmurs one ghost, his torso a bloody, empty cavity, “and left me to die on the ballroom floor. He said I should be grateful to be getting such a cinematic death! How the hell was I supposed to know what that meant? It was 1683!)
Allison tilts her head to the side curiously.
“What?” says Diego.
(“He choked me to death and then hung me from my bedroom window with a scarf that I gave him,” whispers another, blue-faced and bug-eyed. “The gall of it.”)
Their captor shrugs listlessly. “Sorry. I mean it when I say that it really isn’t anything personal, though.” He makes his way over to a desk in the corner of the room, opening one of the drawers and rummaging around inside. He keeps speaking as he does. “Hopefully I can send the five of you on your way soon enough. Though…speaking of, I need someone here to help me send a message to our dear Epsilon. Aha!”
(“He told me he loved me and then he drowned me in the goddamn swimming pool,” says the bikini-clad form of a woman who looks like a twentieth-century Hollywood starlet. She spits.
“Motherfucker.”)
He pulls a pen from the drawer triumphantly and then places it on the table, next to a yellow pad of paper. He reaches into it once more, but this time it doesn’t take him very long to find whatever he’s looking for. He pulls it out, toying with it idly as he turns on his heel and starts stalking closer.
Klaus recognizes the glint of it immediately, his stomach dropping with anticipation and fear. “So,” the man says, his pearl-white smile glistening even in the shadows, still weaving Diego’s blade between his fingers: both a threat and a promise. “Any volunteers?”
An Excerpt from [Target File: Five]
Psychological Profile – Section 2B: Threat level and potential countermeasures
Last updated upon managerial request to finalize promotion: May 5, XX46 T.A. Linear Time
Five (Rank: Currently S, designated call-sign Epsilon)
Threat level: Medium to high
Five, in his short time here, has quickly proven himself to be one of the best trained assassins to have ever worked under the Temps Aeternalis. It is readily apparent that the vast majority of people will fail if given the task of triumphing over him in a contest of pure skill. His intelligence and notorious volatility make him a potential liability. However, he also appears to be keenly aware of the countermeasures that the Commission can and has used against its enemies, strongly decreasing the likeliness that he is a flight risk. Additionally, Five will be difficult to out-plan, but not necessarily to overpower. His time in the apocalypse left him developmentally deficient in ways that even our doctors and scientists were unable to fully reverse; it is unlikely that he is capable of sustaining much in the way of physical damage. If you can manage to get your hands on him, if even for a moment, you may find it possible to clip his wings or, at the very least, minimize the threat posed by his warping. As such, a fundamental aspect of almost all potential countermeasures against him is brute force. A possible (but currently unexplored weakness) is a proclivity towards unusual, but strong, emotional attachments. The Handler reports that he had, during the Apocalypse, acquired (of all things) a mannequin. Reportedly, he spoke to it regularly, and appeared deeply regretful over leaving it behind. He also carries with him a book which he refuses to let anyone else touch, potentially suggesting sentimental value. During our interview with him, he grew irate and temperamental when asked questions about it, threatening to “chop off [our] fingers and feed them to [us].” Whether or not this proclivity may be exploitable is currently unknown.