Chapter Text
Five frowned down at his hand. The hand should be busy doing calculations and sums and probabilities on the paper underneath. But he felt sluggish, and a haze of tiredness was clouding his brain and making his vision wobble. He felt oddly anxious and could feel that his chest tightening with stress. He hated this. These episodes that would ebb and flow like the tide lapping at the shore of his consciousness. These episodes of breathlessness, exhaustion, and anger. Ever since his return to his younger body, they always seemed to come out of nowhere. Maybe the old man was right, that time travel could mess with the mind.
A clatter of crockery from the adjacent room interrupted his thoughts, and it was only then that he realised he’d spent the past half hour staring at the same page of calculations.
“Hey…uhh…Five?” Came a voice, and Elliot poked his head around the doorframe. He had an apron tied around his waist, a blue and white polka-dot one, and was clutching a large serving spoon in his hand. “Do you want anything to eat? Wait, do you even eat?”
Five blinked a little in confusion, and then remembered that he’d heavily implied to the poor unsuspecting man that he was an alien. He opened his mouth to decline until he felt his stomach twist with hunger in protest, followed by a loud growl. “I could eat”
Elliot grinned and vanished back around the doorframe, reappearing only a second later with a bowl of something and thankfully a fresh pot of coffee. Five had the distinct feeling that the man had already prepared something for him in readiness. “I hope you like it, it’s an old family recipe. Do you have jello on your planet?”
Five accepted the bowl, peering inside at the questionable wobbling concoction. It was vaguely green with lumps of unidentifiable vegetables suspended inside, topped with a swirling garnish of mayonnaise and artfully arranged olives. And Elliot was standing there staring at him with anticipation, shuffling anxiously on his feet.
He spooned some into his mouth and chewed hesitantly, it was a bit too savoury for his tastes, but it tasted marginally better than toasted cockroaches for which he was thankful for. And at least it would be enough to stop his stomach from complaining.
“Is it..er…” Elliot waved his hands around, flustered. “Is it good?”
“Yeah” Five nodded, shoving another spoonful into his mouth.
Elliot’s whole face lit up, his body positively vibrating at the praise. “G…Great! I’m glad. You, uhh, need anything else? Any more paper for your…” He trailed off and gestured vaguely at the scraps of paper littering the coffee table, paper that was currently covered with Five’s rambling writing.
“I’m good” Five said, and then added as an afterthought. “Thanks, though. I really appreciate it”
Elliot gave him an awkward thumbs up and started retreating back towards the kitchen. “Just yell if you can’t find anything. And help yourself to more jello if you want too. You remember where the bathroom is, right? Oh, and if you need any clothes, my son’s old stuff is still in the wardrobe-”
Five decided to put the poor man out of his misery. “Thanks, Elliot, I know where the bathroom is”
Elliot gave him one last smile before vanishing through the door. He watched the door click shut behind him, and eventually the rhythmic tap of his footsteps on the floor eased until all that could be heard was the distant rustling of something.
Five sighed and pressed his fingers against his temples, staring down at the notepad in front of him as the words and numbers started blurring into a homogenous inky mass. The coffee table was scattered with the dozens of newspaper clippings and photographs that Elliot had collected over the years. It had been a real punch to the gut to find out that not only had he landed his family in Dallas, for reasons completely unknown to him, but that he’d also scattered them across a three-year period.
His eyes landed on the newspaper clipping of Diego. His brother who had spent a total of a day in the new timeline before he was carted off to the nearest psychiatric hospital due to his insatiable hero complex. He paid him a visit earlier, Diego sprouting nonsense about JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, and slicing Hitler’s throat; and Five couldn’t do anything but entice the nurses to sedate him. He felt bad about it at the time, but he needed Diego to stay where he was for the time being. And besides, he was planning on blinking in and breaking him out later. It was for his own safety.
Everything he did was for his siblings’ safety.
The ache in his head was now pulsing with his heartbeat, the strain tight behind his eyes and clouding his thoughts. He raked his hands over his face and pressed the heels of his palms hard against his eyes, willing that both the headache and the tightening of his chest would ease so he could focus on tracking down the rest of his family.
Coffee. He needed caffeine. That would sort things out.
He reached out and grabbed at the mug Elliot had topped up earlier, the ceramic warm beneath his hands, when something caught his eye. His nails were rough and bitten down to the skin. It was a terrible anxiety-induced habit, one that he’d thought he’d grown out of as a child. The cuticles were equally as bad, the skin cracked and red like the red of dried blood tainting skin that –
He gulped down a mouthful of coffee, breaking that train of thought. The liquid was verging on a touch of being too hot, but the heat of it was oddly comforting and the sting of the temperature on his tongue gave him something else to focus on.
He's okay. He was just stressed. That’s all it was; stress.
Five knew from the very first time he met her that Lila was trouble
He wanted to scream when he found out that Diego escaped. But thankfully his brother is predictable, and he quickly found him sat in a stolen car outside the house of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he interjected himself in the situation before anything could develop further. But then he finds out that his brother is accompanied by a woman who looks far too modern to exist in the 1960s.
His family had always said he was too mistrusting, too cautious, too guarded; but every part of his body is screaming that the woman his brother is currently infatuated with would only cause problems further down at the line. And his suspicions were heightened when she helped him at the Mexican Consulate over his brother. And then realisation hit him when he followed her to the abandoned warehouse a couple of blocks away from Elliot’s house.
“I thought you said that the next time you’d see me, you’d kill me” Lila remarked cockily, a smile playing at her lips.
“Oh, I remember” He said, and then was promptly thumped by her boot as she struck him with a roundhouse kick.
She plays dirty. She doesn’t hesitate. She knows how to hold her own. And if Five is being truthful, there is something quite exhilarating about fighting someone who is nearly his equal. But ultimately he gained the upper hand when she stumbled, and he used the opportunity to swipe her off her feet. She tumbled back against the concrete floor, the wind knocked from her, and he placed a foot down on her neck as both a way of preventing her from moving, and as a warning that he could easily crush her windpipe if he so desired.
And believe him, the temptation was strong.
“You can come out now” He called out to the seemingly empty warehouse. Because he can sniff out Lila’s style from a mile away, all Commission agents are taught to the same rigorous routine that he was subjected to.
He listened to The Handler’s deal while trying to ignore the way his body was protesting at the strain of the fight, his body that is still humming from the growing bruises sustained by the Swede’s punches. She touches him. She always touches him. Her cool hand cupping his cheek and sliding down along his jaw, down lower over his neck and toying with the collar of his shirt. His skin prickles at the action, like her touch was poison, but he doesn’t allow her the pleasure of seeing him uncomfortable.
But it’s okay, after all, she had touched him in worse ways when he was in his older body; when he was too frail and too weak to say no. And powering ahead to save his family is much more important than reopening old wounds.
But why does he feel so sick?
Five is reluctant to admit that when his siblings start pouring into the elevator, he feels a wave of relief wash over his tense body. He hadn’t seen his father in forty-five years when he ran out of the academy full of teenage rebellion and a strong resistance to authority.
But of course, in true Hargreeves fashion, it all goes downhill rather quickly.
Diego punches himself after being rumoured by Allison, Klaus is doing something incredibly baffling opposite him, Vanya blows up the plate of fresh fruit, and Luther rips his shirt open - nearly taking everyone’s eyes out with flying buttons. And at the end of it all, Five feels irritable, thanks to his siblings, and sticky, thanks to the chunks of pineapple stuck to his face and in his hair.
He also feels despondent, because he’s starting to realise that his options for correcting the timeline and getting his family home are incredibly limited. But his father throws him one last lifeline when he requests to talk to him alone. So now he’s sat at the bar with a glass of cognac in his hand, which is thankfully helping to ease the anxiety that’s settled in his mind. Everything is easier with a bit of alcohol in the system, especially when it gets to the point where caffeine does little to take the edge off.
“What do you know about time travel?” He asked. He knows that his father had dabbled in the logistics of it before, he’d seen the paperwork in his office covered with drawings and calculations pertaining to it. As a child, he often wondered how his father had known so much about what was supposed to be his ability – a question he still pondered today.
The other man paused and glanced at him from over the rim of his glass. “In theory?”
“In practice” He corrected.
“I know it’s akin to descending blindly into the depths of freezing waters and reappearing-”
“As an acorn. Yeah” Because he’d heard that line so many times that it was practically etched onto his brain. It was the phrase that haunted him in the apocalypse, when the anger at his father had subsided and left behind a kind of empty sadness at the fact he’d never recognised the significance of that statement.
“So much can change in a matter of seconds. One could overthrow an empire. One could fall in love” He gave him another look, a knowing look. “An acorn doesn’t become an oak overnight, you know”
At the end of the evening, all he feels is confusion and resignation, and the only words that are spiralling around his head are ‘seconds, not decades’. The phrase can’t help but feel mocking; If only he’d attempted to time travel in seconds when he left the dinner table at thirteen. He wondered what sort of man he would have grown up to be if he’d travelled in seconds; if he’d got that craving out of his system before getting stuck.
But then again, he wondered about a lot of things.
The Handler doesn’t look surprised when he turned up at her door. She merely flung the door open with anticipated gravitas, a hint of a smile on her face, and turned to pour two drinks into champagne flutes.
She draped herself across the bed, a cigarette between her ruby lips and a slip of paper dangling from between his fingers. They’d stayed in a room like this before, overly ornate and stuffy – the interior rich with textiles and chintzy patterning, when the woman had whisked him off to 1890’s Paris and rewarded him after his hundredth assassination. Only it hadn’t felt like a reward, and he wasn’t quite sure what it felt like if he was being honest, he only knew that his body felt alien after.
But it’s okay, he knows he still has a grasp on the situation, even if his sanity is quickly slipping from between his fingers. The Handler is hiding something from him, but he knows her well, he knows how she thinks, and he’s certain that she’ll keep her promise on giving him a briefcase.
And really, does he even have a choice at this point?
Her arm was thin and twig-like, and if he detaches himself, he can nearly believe that the crunch of her ulna and radius against the blade of the axe is the snap of a branch. He remembers his training, remembers a stern woman who gave his elderly body a disappointed frown, remembers how she remarked that with a physique like his, he would never make it as a successful agent.
He also remembered the look on her face when she learnt he’d made his first kill.
And while he is loathed to admit it, this new body is quite suited to killing. He doesn’t have to worry about the aches and pains in his joints that come with age, nor the way his eyesight blurred at times; this body is lithe and young and most importantly, flexible. The axe is an extension of himself, of his mind, and it makes easy work of the board who are currently trying to flee from the room. But he’s too quick for them.
He’s always too quick.
The Handler gasped in glee, snatching the plastic bag from his hands and peering down at A.J inside; Five hadn’t realised that it was possible for a fish to look so panicked, but he manages the expression well.
“You know, you’re really starting to fill out those tight little shorts of yours” She quipped, lips quirking up at the corners in amusement. She cocked her head to one side, her gaze sliding smoothly over him, and then plucked a handkerchief from the bust of her dress, wetting the fabric delicately with her mouth. “Why so quiet? I thought you’d be buzzing after this morning’s slaughter”
“All this killing. I’m done with it”
The Handler paused in her ministrations of dabbing his face to give him a knowing smile, her left eyebrow quirked up towards her hairline. He’s convinced that all she’s doing is smearing the blood further across his skin. He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d always commented she liked him in red.
“Am I supposed to take that seriously?” She remarked eventually, lips pursed.
“What I did today, I did for my family” Five hissed, eyes narrowed. “I did it to save the world”
“Spare me your little assassin with the heart of gold routine, will you” She sighed, tapping a finger against his nose. He flinched, and he can tell by the way her smile stretches wider that she noticed. “You know, I rather like you like this”
“Covered in blood?” He rolled his eyes.
“Desperate” She corrected airily, trailing a pointed nail across his cheek and over his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the dried blood flaking off his skin at the action. “It gives me a thrill”
He jerked his head back from her reach and all he can see is red red red
But everything will be okay, because one roomful of people is a mere drop in the ocean of people he’d killed. And what’s one more moment of discomfort from his former employer if it gets him what they need. And if he’s being honest, he’d do it all a thousand times over it if ensured his siblings' safety.
The Handler throws him one last curveball, but he can work with the 90-minute time limit. He can ignore the fact that caffeine, adrenaline, and Elliot’s questionable jello concoctions are the only things keeping him upright at this point. He can ignore that his body is screaming at him to get some well-needed sleep.
He can ignore it all for his siblings.
Five all but stumbled through the doorway of Elliot’s house, hoping that his siblings had stayed together in the time since he’d last seen them. Instead, the phrase ‘OGA FOR OGA’ in foot-high lettering smeared across the floor in fresh blood greeted him. And his heart jumped erratically within his ribcage, his brain briefly short-circuiting.
“Guys?”
No answer, but now that he was making his way up the stairs he could hear the muffled sounds of people talking in agitated tones. The panic in his chest is escalating now, it felt like someone had his heart in their fist, squeezing the muscle to the point where his vision is darkening.
“Guys?!” He called again, louder this time, and stumbled slightly over the last couple of steps, the briefcase clutched tightly in his hand thumping hard against his leg.
Luther and Diego were huddled over a phone and muttering into it in a vaguely threatening tone. But that’s the least of his worries, because he can see that there’s something slumped in Elliot’s old dentist chair, covered in a large white sheet that’s speckled with red. But what makes him feel sick is the large puddle of blood underneath it, almost black in the overhead lighting.
Luther and Diego are safe, and the body is too large for Vanya. That leaves Allison or Klaus. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to them.
And really, he hadn’t been expecting it to be Elliot.
Elliot who was slumped back in the chair, one of his lifeless eyes frozen in pain and staring up at the ceiling, the other was punctured by what looked like a dental pick. The worst was his chest and abdomen, a bloody mess of knives and thickly congealed blood. The air is pungent with the smell of iron and death. He feels sick, his stomach twisting. He swallows thickly and tries to stop the churning of his stomach, gently laying the sheet back over him.
An image of him flashed briefly into his mind. Elliot offering him a pair of his shoes, something better than the bowling shoes he first turned up in. Elliot going out of his way to gather up all the documentation he could find relating to his siblings. Elliot who spent hours making all sorts of strange foods so he didn’t go hungry. Elliot, who was possibly the first person in years that he had viewed as an equal, as a friend.
And now he was dead.
He’d been tortured.
Because of him.
The room around him is swimming.
“-you will be dead by nightfall” Diego hissed.
“Hey” He snapped, striding across the room with purpose, his shoe slipping slightly on splatters of blood. “It’s Oga for Oga idiots, Swedish for an Eye for an Eye. It means the Swedes killed Elliot”
Luther and Diego blinked at him owlishly, and then Diego muttered an overly polite, “Wrong number, have a lovely day!” into the phone, placing it back on the wall. And really, he honestly cannot believe that he just interrupted his two idiot brothers terrorising some poor person.
“I’ve found a way back home” He continued, glancing down at his watch. “We have about eighty minutes to gather everyone up”
“What? How?” Luther piped up, a furrow between his eyebrows.
“No time for questions” He stalked into Elliot’s bedroom and went over to the wardrobe, yanking open the drawer at the bottom where the man said his son’s old clothes were. After some rummaging he managed to find a plain white button-up that was similar to his own, and wasted no time in dashing to the bathroom, yanking off his sweater vest and tie on the way over.
“You have a lot of blood on you” Diego commented, and Luther nodded in agreement. “Yeah, a lot of blood”
“Why do you think I’m in the bathroom you morons” He muttered, rubbing the bar soap between his wet hands to create a lather and using that to scrub some of the bloodstains off his face hastily. His clothes were a lost cause, but thankfully he felt a lot cleaner after pulling on the new shirt, even if it smelt like mothballs and was too big across the shoulders.
“Right. Luther, you get Allison. Diego, you find Klaus. I’ll get Vanya. We’ll meet back in the side alley”
“But-” Diego started, and Five shot him a look to silence him.
“No buts” He shoved a hand in his pockets and retrieved the watches that he’d managed to scrounge together earlier, passing them out between the pair. “Okay, you’ve got to trust me on this. Just get the others and bring them back, no lollygagging”
He barely heard Luther’s mumbled “Lollgagging?” as he blinked out the room and into the car, shoving the key in the ignition.
They don’t make it in time, or rather; Luther and Klaus make it. He wouldn’t ever have admitted it aloud, but they were the two individuals he had the least faith in.
He can’t help but feel a pang of hurt in his chest, like someone had struck a knife in his heart and twisted. He’d tracked down and talked to Vanya earlier; or rather, they’d had a quick impromptu chat in the middle of the road after driving past each other. And although things were tense, he was certain that Vanya would understand the importance of the time limit. She’d always been the one he could depend upon when they were children.
And really, it would have been so easy to travel back without them. But he couldn’t. He can’t leave his siblings stranded across 1963. Thoughts were flying through his head so fast that it left him dizzy. He can’t go back to The Handler. Their father is out of the question. He can’t rely on his powers; not without organising his calculations, and time is too limited for that. He needs a briefcase. But where to get one?
The one in his hands started vibrating in readiness for the jump, and he gave one last longing look at the entrance to the alley – hoping that his siblings would come dashing around the corner, and they’d all join hands and this nightmare would be over. But they don’t. And with a yell, he threw it up into the air. It was swallowed in a familiar flash of blue and the sound of space being torn.
And all that’s left behind are his two siblings in a dingy alley and an emptiness in his heart.
“Are you okay, Five?” Klaus questioned, still sat in that horrendous pile of vomit. Five wrinkled his nose and spun on his heels, storming back to the door of Elliot’s place.
“Of course I’m okay, you asshole!” He yelled over his shoulder.
“Are you really sure this is a good idea?” Luther asked for the hundredth time in the span of thirty minutes. Five shot his brother a look of irritation, hating how he had to crane his neck up so sharply to meet his gaze. “Seriously Luther, just trust me”
“I do” Luther splayed his hands out placatingly, sidestepping off the pavement and onto the road to allow some pedestrians to pass. The couple barely tried to hide the fact they were staring at him, in fact, Five was pretty sure that everyone they walked by did a double-take at the way he was towering over everyone. “Honestly, I do. It’s just – is this really the only option?”
“I’ve thought about every possible option and determined that this is the only one that will have the least amount of impact on the timeline,” He said, “So yes, this is the only option”
“I mean, will he believe you?” Luther questioned. “Will he trust you?”
“Yes and no. He’ll believe me, but he won’t trust me – and rightfully so. But we need to keep an eye on the briefcase, he’ll make sure to keep it by his side at all times”
“Okay,” Luther nodded. “So in exchange for the briefcase, you’ll send him back with the correct calculations?”
Five inhaled, trying to calm his temper. He knew it wasn’t Luther’s fault, he was more of the brawn than the brains, and it was easy to forget that his mind worked so fast that it was difficult for others to follow. Sometimes it was difficult for even himself to follow. “That’s what we’re going to tell him. You see, we need to keep the timeline as intact as possible – and that means he needs to be sent back with the same calculations that I used. So, we tell him that I’ll use the correct calculations, but I’ll open a portal using the old calculations. You get me?”
Luther’s face was pinched in deep thought, and eventually, he managed a rather unconvincing. “I get you”
“Just let me do the talking, and make sure that you don’t reveal any information to him that may impact the timeline. Remember, you’re my spotter – if things get messy I need to know that I can rely on you”
They turned left onto Young Street and Five was immediately hit with a strange sense of deja vu. It was bizarre to think that barely a fortnight ago he was standing in the same location he was now, only hours before he decided to jump back to 2019.
Corktown Irish Pub was a quintessential pub, in that that the building itself was slightly squat and wide, the façade half timber clad and half painted brickwork with windows in a vaguely classical style. Eclecticism, he was pretty sure it was, a mixture of past architectural styles utilised within one building. Bunting was attached haphazardly over the exterior surface in shades of green, orange, and white in celebration of Kennedy. It was heaving, and from their distance away from the building, he could already hear the noise of drunken chatter and light Irish music.
“So” He muttered, shaking his arms out and exhaling to ready himself. “Here we are”
“So your old self is in there?” Luther asked numbly, and Five barely contained the urge to yank his brother down by the jacket and shake some sense into him.
“No, Luther, I thought I’d take us here for a bit of a knees-up while we wait for the end of all life as we know it” He rolled his eyes. “Come on then, let’s get this over with”
There were three things he wasn’t bargaining on with regards to the said plan. The first being the fact that Luther is an absolutely terrible spotter, the second that the symptoms of paradox psychosis might be stronger than he initially realised, and the third and most important one that he is the biggest pain in the ass that he’d ever come across.
And really, he’s not too proud to admit it.
Because while he is many things, stubbornness is definitely his most prominent quality. His father had commented on it. The Handler had commented on it. Everyone he met usually commented on it. And it could either be an advantage or disadvantage depending upon the situation. His unwillingness to give up was what got him through forty-five years of solitude in a barren wasteland, but it was also the reason why his other self was currently hiding in the pub toilet while his brother was attempting to persuade him to agree to their deal.
And honestly, it certainly wasn’t helping that the paradox psychosis was making him particularly pugnacious.
Which lead him to his current situation, standing in a parking lot and staring his younger self down, trying to ignore the way his clothes were sticking to his body with sweat and the way his brain was screaming at him to kill someone. His whole body was thrumming with the overwhelming restlessness and his powers were twitching just at his fingertips.
“Now let’s all take a deep breath” Luther said steadily, doing an exaggerated inhale like some sort of quasi yoga master, and Five does it mostly as a way to humour him. But he can see the hunger for a fight in his doppelganger’s eyes, and really, can he pass up such an opportunity?
The next few minutes passed in a blur of kicking Luther, punching his younger self across the face, and rather oddly, a fire extinguisher. It felt like the start of a bad joke, only it wasn’t a joke, it was his siblings' lives on the line.
The portal closed with a swoop of time and space knitting back together, and behind him, Luther left out a triumphant air punch. Five’s chest heaved as he frantically inhaled oxygen, adrenaline still pumping around his body at a dizzying speed, the slight breeze doing little to ease the stickiness of his body.
“The briefcase you idiot” He ground out when he was finally able to form words, although they still came out slightly breathy.
“What?” Luther squinted, frowning down at the spluttering briefcase, or well, two-thirds of the briefcase. “Oh”
Five dragged a hand through his sweaty hair and glanced up at the sky, wishing that for once he believed in something like divine intervention. Why was his life never simple?
Lila turns out to be the irritating gift that keeps on giving. Not only is she working for The Commission and the adopted daughter of The Handler, but it turned out she was the daughter of the flower merchants he assassinated in the nineties and also one of the 43 superpowered children.
She also throws a cast iron frying pan at him.
And it fucking hurts.
And really, at this point, his whole body is practically screaming at him as a result of the various injuries he’d collected since arriving back home to his siblings. He knew realistically that Luther could have easily survived the wall collapsing on him, but his mind had immediately flashed to Luther under the smouldering rubble, his lifeless face oddly lax and skin waxy, the bloody eyeball clutched in his hand. And he couldn’t, couldn’t, let his brother be trapped under the rubble again. Somehow he manages to survive that with little more than the odd scrape and bruise, but the frying pan really was the cherry on top of the pain cake.
So here he was, wobbling on his feet with his hands clenched into tight fists, ready to throttle Lila if she so much as moved a muscle, and ignoring the ringing in his head and the pain radiating from his temple.
“I know that we can be your family, if you just let us” Diego said earnestly, hands placed on Lila’s shoulders and staring into her eyes with nothing but tenderness. His brother, for all of his brashness and his odd penchant for leather, really had a heart of gold that came from nature rather than nurture. It was nothing short of a miracle given their upbringing.
His head was screaming at him now, and when he idly reached a hand up to touch the swollen area, his fingertips came back slick with blood. Klaus gave him a sideways glance of worry, but Five pointedly ignored him, instead keeping his eyes on the glued scene in front of him. Because he was certain that Lila was going to do something.
Only it wasn’t Lila.
It was The Handler.
And he wants to kick himself because this was the kind of shit she pulled. But he couldn’t do that when he was currently bleeding out on the dusty straw-covered floor of the barn, his abdomen aflame with the intense radiating pain of numerous gunshots. He could taste blood in his mouth, hot and iron-rich. He wanted to vomit.
He tried to lift his head up, but his vision swam and it felt like his skull had been stuffed with cotton wool. But none of that mattered, not when his siblings were currently strewn about the barn like discarded ragdolls, their bodies littered with bullets and speckled with blossoming blooms of blood across their clothes.
He wants to die. He wanted both his physical and mental pain to stop.
He’d thought about it before, back in the apocalypse. He raided the remains of a pharmacy and uncovered three packets of painkillers; it would have been so easy to wash them down with a bottle of wine and slowly let his consciousness fade out into nothing. Another time, when he was thirty-two, he placed the barrel of his gun between his lips, the muzzle pressed hard against the roof of his mouth. Dolores was pleading next to him, crying, and in the end he couldn’t do it.
But now, as he’s staring at The Handler towering over him, he was speculating if dying was such a bad thing. After all, this was the third time he’d seen his siblings die, and he was starting to wonder if the Hargreeves family were destined to be anything other than plant fertiliser.
And then The Handler slumped down beside him in a spectacular spray of blood, and one of the Swedes slunk into the barn, sharp eyes sliding over the bodies on the floor and coming to rest on him.
Seconds, not decades.
He won’t let The Commission win.
Seconds, not decades.
He won’t let his family die.
Seconds, not decades.
He can’t let his family die.
He closed his eyes and forced his mind to calm, forced his brain to focus on the scene only seconds prior. He focused on Diego grasping at Lila’s shoulders, saying that they could be her family. Focuses on his siblings gathered in the centre, their gazes fixated on the scene unfolded. Focuses on the tendrils of time and space around the scene and pulls.
And god, does it hurt.
It felt as if someone had shoved a red-hot poker into his brain, and the sensation of his flesh knitting back together is both bizarre and nauseating, he can feel his stomach churning and he swallows down the bitter taste. Everything is spinning. Everything hurts. And everything is a blur of dizzying technicolour. But none of that matters when he can see his siblings jerking in reverse back to their original positions, their movements slow and deliberate as if they were moving through treacle.
And then he’s abruptly spat out of the other end of the barn, both his body and mind feeling like a jumbled mess.
“I know that we can be your family, if you just let us”
Diego and Lila were standing face-to-face, the others gathered around them anxiously. And that meant that any second now-
He wrenched the gun from The Handler’s hands, hoisting it up and twisting it to face her in one smooth movement, blowing his fringe out of his eyes. The was a brief expression of surprise on her face, but the woman quickly schooled her features back into faintly amused neutrality, placatingly placing her hands up in front of her.
“It’s true, isn’t it? What Five said” Lila sniffed, her eyes glassy and cheeks wet with tears. Her hands were clenched into tense fists by her side, although Five could see that they were trembling. “Answer me! Is it true?”
“Well-” And then The Handler was slumping forward in a trail of blood, reminiscent of her not-death only seconds prior. And behind her stood one-third of the Ikea Mafia. Five couldn’t remember what his name was, Alex or Attel or something, but the main concern was that he had currently had a gun pointed at them and his finger on the trigger.
He swallowed and met the other mans gaze unblinkingly, his finger hovering over the trigger of the gun he ripped from The Hander’s arms. But he can see something in the man’s eyes, a slight hesitation that reminded him acutely of when he spoke to Hazel back at the Academy, when the man told him that he was stepping back from The Commission.
“Enough” He said simply, and without breaking eye contract, dropped the gun at his feet with a clatter. He could hear murmurings of confusion behind him and the shifting of feet on the barn floor, but he didn’t dare look away.
After sweeping his gaze slowly across the others, the Swede dropped his own gun, giving him one last look before retreating out of the barn.
Five released a breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.
“You could come back, you know”
Five startled at the sudden voice and leapt to his feet from where he was bent over a briefcase, wobbling slightly on his jellied limbs.
“Whoa, hey!” Herb shuffled around into his eyeline, giving him a small smile. “Sorry about scaring you there”
“Oh, it’s you” Five hummed, his heartrate finally returning back a semi-normal rate. He raked a hand through his hair and grimaced at the feel of it, he wished he could have some time to freshen up a bit, but he couldn’t rest until his family were safely back in 2019.
“Thanks for the enthusiasm” Herb chuckled in amusement.
“Sorry about that, I think I’m still in flight or fight mode” Five gave him an apologetic smile over his shoulder. He bent down and inspected the nearest briefcase next to him, frowning when he found yet another one with a broken mechanism.
“I think you’ve always been in fight mode” Herb muttered, joining in and adjusting the dial on the briefcase by his feet, which let out a rather pathetic puff of smoke.
Five snorted and reached over the body of an agent to grab another briefcase, wincing at the twinge in his body. “I think I’ve been in fight mode since I was born, that’s what tends to happen when you’re raised by a narcissistic man hell bent on raising his own child army”
“And probably when you grow up in an apocalyptic wasteland” Herb added. Five shrugged, he wouldn’t deny that probably had the most impact on his current personality quirks.
His eyes settled on yet another briefcase, and he dropped to his knees to inspect the top. The casing was horrendously scratched and covered in clumps of mud and grass, but when he adjusted the dial on top he could hear logistics dial up. He grinned and hoisted the briefcase onto his lap, only for it to promptly spew out a cloud of black smoke. He spluttered and fanned the smoke away from his face, discarding the briefcase back on the ground.
“Your sister really did a number on the briefcases, huh” Herb remarked casually.
“I’m just hoping that there’s at least one that works” Five frowned, grabbing at a neighbouring one. “I don’t fancy turning my siblings into children. And honestly, with the state I’m in, I think that would see me off”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find one” Herb reassured, he glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “My offer still stands, you know?”
Five sat back against a pile of briefcases with a groan, stretching his legs out in front of him. His whole body was aching with exhaustion, and if he was being honest, he needed a bit of rest. Just a couple of minutes to catch his breath before continuing. “Offer?”
“To come back” Herb replied, and Five watched as the other man continued to lug briefcases towards him and fiddle with the dials. “You were the best agent The Commission had. And now that I’m in charge…” He paused to give a disbelieving chuckle. “You could come back to work for us without The Hander breathing down your neck. We’d give you free rein to visit your family”
Five inhaled deeply, the air around him thick with the smell of the surrounding farmyard. The leftover snow underneath him was melting uncomfortably through his clothes and the chill of the air on his face was biting, but it felt like the first time in weeks that he’d been able to sit down and relax. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I want to stay with my family for a bit”
Herb glanced up from the briefcase he’d just hauled onto his lap, giving him a knowing smile as if he had anticipated that response. “I understand. But the offer is still there – you want a job; you know where to find me”
“Thanks,” He said, and he really did mean it. He reached out to give the other man a pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be a great chairperson Herb, you deserve the position”
Herb beamed as he shifted anxiously on the spot, and then the briefcase on his lap gave out a familiar dial-up tone as logistics reached 100%. “Well, I think this is your ticket home” Herb exhaled, sliding the briefcase towards him. Five tugged it onto his lap, relief settling into his body as he stared down at the full power bar on top.
He glanced back at the barn to see Klaus and Diego pelting each other with snowballs while Luther shuffled anxiously on the sideline. Vanya had her arms wrapped tightly around Sissy, the two of them speaking in hushed tones. While Allison was crouched in front of Harlan, saying something and laughing lightly. “I think I’ll just give them a couple of minutes to unwind”
“I think you’re just using that as an excuse for a bit of a rest” Herb winked, and Five snorted as he adjusted the dial on top to send to back to 2nd April 2019, a day after the apocalypse.
“Guilty as charged” He mumbled, giving his siblings another sideways glance. Klaus had now managed to persuade Luther in on their snowball fight while Vanya, Sissy, and Allison were laughing amongst themselves, Harlan playing with some sort of toy at their feet. They looked relaxed, and more importantly, relatively unharmed.
“Can I give you some advice?” Herb piped up, and Five glanced back at him, gesturing with a nod of his head to continue.
“You’re very…” Herb trailed off, his face pinched in deep thought.
“Arrogant? Headstrong? Opinionated? Imperious?” Five supplied for him, because he’d heard those so many times that the words just washed over him at this point.
“Sensitive ” Herb settled on. And Five blinked a little in confusion, because he’d never heard that one before. Sensitive was what he would have used to describe Klaus or Vanya, not himself.
“You pretend that you aren’t, but I think that you carry around the baggage of your past decisions and let them guide you. I know that you aren’t particularly happy about your current situation” He gestured vaguely at his torso awkwardly “But you’ve essentially been given a second chance to grow up without your father’s or The Handler’s involvement. Your family love you very much, and it wouldn’t hurt to open up to them a bit more – to let them know more about your past, to help you process things”
Five furrowed his brows in thought. “I’ll consider it. My priorities are my siblings at the moment, they’re good people, they deserve to get settled back into their lives and put this whole ordeal behind them”
“You’re not a bad person” Herb added, his voice uncharacteristically serious as he processed the unsaid words. “Just someone who unfortunately got wound up involved with some unsavoury characters"
Five glanced down at his hands, caked in layers of grime and dried blood.
“Now, I should find Dot and get some arrangements sorted to deal with this” Herb chuckled, glancing around at the agent’s bodies littering the field. “I would say goodbye, but that sounds far too final and I have the distinct feeling that we’ll probably bump into each other again. So, in the meantime, stay well”
“You too,” Five said. And then added a “Good luck, keep in touch”
Herb gave him a smile as he made the journey back towards the barn.
Five isn’t quite sure if he wants to laugh or cry when they safely land back in the 2019 timeline, a day after the apocalypse; instead, he settled for something like an exhale of deep and ingrained exhaustion.
God, he needed a drink. Preferably something incredibly strong. The kind of drink that would give you a terrible hangover, but would be worth it.
“Why is there a painting of Ben over the fireplace?” Diego questioned, interrupting their cheery chatter, and Five glanced up at the offending wall with a frown. The wall where his painting had sat before. Only the subject of this one was a dark-haired male with tan skin and serious eyes. His brain feels like putty and doesn’t fully register the name coming out of Diego’s mouth nor the aching familiarity of the painting’s subject.
“I knew you’d show up eventually” Interrupted a voice, and with a startled noise they all turned to see their father rising from the wingback chair by the fire. He looked exactly the same as he did when they met him at the tiki lounge. Dressed crisply in a tweed suit and his fingers laced together in front of him, lips pressed into a thin line.
Luther and Allison say something, but he can’t hear them over the roaring of his ears and the humming in his head. He’d fucked up. Fucked up majorly. He should have known that it was too good to be true.
“This is the Sparrow Academy” Their father hissed, eyes narrow behind his monocle, and then the tense silence of the room was broken by the thumping of numerous footsteps on the balcony behind them.
“Shit” Klaus hissed. He rubbed his eyes in both shock and confusion. “Shit” He repeated, this time with a hint of hysteria. Vanya reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it comfortingly, although Five could see that his sister was equally as rattled. He couldn't blame her, he was sure they were all equally as shocked.
The figures on the balcony were backlit and he couldn’t quite make out their features, but from their height and the proportions of their bodies they appeared to be the same age as his siblings – presumably a selection of the other 43 children born in 1989. And then another figure came into view, walking in from the side door and coming to stand in front of them.
“Dad, who the hell are these assholes?” He uttered with disgust, eyes narrowing in suspicion. He was of Asian descent, sporting a rather mean-looking scar down the side of his face and the wisps of facial hair on his chin and upper lip; and Five realised that it was the same man that Diego had pointed out in the painting. The uniform he was wearing was similar to his own, only his blazer was burgundy in colour and the crest upon his chest was alarmingly different. But seeing him in person, that feeling unnerving familiarity only heightened.
“Ben?” Klaus whispered, voice watery and hesitant.
Five did a double-take, something cold settling in the pit of his stomach in shock. Ben. Ben. The brother he used to share his physics textbooks with, the brother that used to spend hours cheering him up after a gruelling training session, the brother whose death he learnt of in Vanya’s autobiography.
The brother he couldn’t save.
“Is it really you, Ben?” Klaus smiled, his eyes were glassy in the dim light of the room, and he reached a hand out towards the man. “I’ve missed you so much”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Not-Ben said simply, eyeing Klaus warily. “My name is Number One”
Allison and Vanya sucked in a sharp breath, and Luther looked winded. Diego physically recoiled, gripping the sideboard so hard his knuckles were white. And Five, he wanted nothing more than for the floor to swallow him whole.
“You’re not welcome here” Their father spat. “Go”
“B-but, we’re your children” Diego replied, his voice wobbly and hurt.
“No, you’re not. Now go, before I give you a reason to”
Five hoisted the briefcase up into his hands, there was no way he was letting it out of his sight, and then turned to face his family; their faces twisted with the harsh realisation that while they’d averted the apocalypse, they’d returned to a world painfully different to the one they’d left.
“Come on,” He said, giving them what he hoped was a reassuring look, although the expression felt strange on his face. “Let’s get out of here”
“Five” Luther pleaded thinly, watching as their other siblings linked hands and gathered around him. “We can’t just go; this is our home”
“I recommend you listen to him” Their father said airily. “He is, after all, the only sensible one of the bunch, and that's saying something”
Five clenched his teeth together, suppressing the flare of anger down; nothing good would come of this situation if he acted on impulse. His gaze slid back over to Luther, who looked like a kicked puppy, his eyes wide and hurt. "Dad," He said, voice thick with sadness. "Come on dad, this is our home. You can't kick us out"
Everything happened in a matter of seconds, their father raised a hand in some sort of signal, and the room erupted into abrupt chaos of movement and footsteps as the Sparrow Academy descended towards them. He saw Allison reach a hand out and grip Luther's arm, and after a quick glance across at the others to determine that they were still holding onto each other, he reached for his powers and pulled - the group vanishing in a vivid burst of blue.