Umbrella Academy fic: The Start of the Story (8/16)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
Needless to say, Five feels horrible. He’s not the first one up, but not even a hot breakfast and fresh coffee can do anything to change his mood. He tries to take some comfort in the fact that they’re all on the same schedule.
It’s tepid comfort at best.
After breakfast, when they sit down to plan, it’s plainly obvious that they are not of the same mind.
At all.
All this talk about together, and Five can’t see how it means shit if they can’t decide on anything.
“We can’t risk it,” Luther says, reiterating his point again. They’ve been round and round, breakfast long since over as the clock ticks by the seconds, minutes, hours toward lunch. Toward disaster, more like it. “We still don’t know enough to have any tactical advantage.”
“You’ve heard what Five has said,” Diego argues, because for as many times as Luther has made his point, Diego has countered it every single time. “We won’t have a tactical advantage no matter how long we wait. No, our only chance is the element of surprise. If we can throw them off, play this thing out on the fly, then we’ve got something.”
Five has consumed all the coffee at this point, and it’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.
Luther is pacing back and forth in front of the bar, where he seems to have naturally assumed the point position. “On the fly? That can go either way.”
Diego has leaned himself against the wall, behind the rest of the family, the natural counterpoint. “Which means we have a shot. Your plan leaves us with nothing.”
Allison is crowded onto the couch with Vanya and Klaus while Ben sits on the arm. “If this is our lives at stake, though, we shouldn’t leave it to chance,” Allison says, glancing between Number One and Number Two.
“Though I have to admit, if we are going to die, I’d probably prefer not knowing it’s coming,” Klaus says. He makes a flitting motion with his hand. “Sometimes, and I know you’ll doubt me but hear me out, ignorance is bliss.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Vanya says, being the only voice of reason in the bunch. Ben has taken to being silent. This would be easy to attribute to the fact that he’s a ghost, but Five remembers how little Ben wanted to talk strategy as kids. Vanya, however, has taken to it quite well. “We need to work together. Come up with a plan together.”
They take that for what it is. Luther stops pacing; Diego stops fiddling with his knife. The others exchange glances.
Then, after several moments of contemplative silence, Luther paces again. “We have to do more research.”
“No, we have to move!” Diego says, almost before he finishes.
Five has tolerated the redundancy as a necessary annoyance, but he’s in need of food and caffeine. Also, this is the most tedious discussion he’s ever been in in his whole life and he wishes like hell he had a gun on him right now, if not to kill them, then to kill himself. “Both of your plans are stupid!” he erupts. He’s sitting in the adjacent chair and he throws his hands out. “Your debate is pointless!”
He’s been mostly quiet until this point, providing information only when prompted, mostly delineating minor details about the Commission’s policies and overall strategy. Once or twice, he’s been asked about the odds of something, and he’s provided the probabilities to the best of his abilities. He wouldn’t say he’s exactly being petulant, but he’s given this his best shot already. The point of today is to hear theirs.
He had known it would be woefully insufficient.
But honestly, they’re impressing Five with their complete lack of understanding.
“If this is what you’re hung up on, then our first real mission as the Umbrella Academy is going to be our last,” he says. “You need to start planning with the mindset that someone has to die. Unless you embrace the notion that someone in this group is going to make the sacrifice, then we’re all dead.”
That’s a bit blunter than he intended, but it’s also the truth. Allison takes to studying her hands, and Klaus stares at him like he’s not sure if he’s imagined the outburst. Ben sighs (damn it, how does he do that?), and Vanya looks as if he may have hit her. Diego seems to be poised, caught between chewing Five out and walking away in agreement. It’s Luther who knits his brows together and shakes his head. It’s not quite disapproval; it’s more like disappointment.
“Five,” he says. “You can’t be this negative. It doesn’t help.”
“And this debate does?” Five asks. “You’ve been at this for hours, and you can’t even make the most basic decisions. For all you know, the Commission has gathered outside and is waiting to take us right here and right now.”
“I agree,” Diego says. “That’s why we need to strike.”
“You do that without knowing who is going to make the sacrifice, then you just killed us all,” Five says.
Allison has gathered her composure, and she looks up. “You came back against the odds. You stopped the apocalypse against the odds. Surely, seeing what you’ve done, what we’ve done, you can’t be that negative.”
“It’s not negative,” Five tells her, tells them all. “It’s realistic. It took years of planning and the element of surprise to get here. And last time, the Commission was only trying to stop the apocalypse. This time, we’re not incidental. This time, we’re the cause. There’s someone back at the Commission with a file for the Hargreeves, and its sole purpose is to contain us. Frankly, the fact that I believe that some of us can survive should be called outright optimism.”
“You know, I think you liked you more when I was high,” Klaus says, making a face.
“None of it is helpful,” Luther intercedes, drawing the attention back to himself. “We don’t have time to mess around.”
“But we have time to make plans that will get us all killed?” Five asks caustically. He’s being an asshole, and he’s wholly okay with that.
“Well, what else are we supposed to do?” Diego says.
“Ideally, you should have let me make the deal,” Five says.
“What else are we supposed to do,” Vanya clarifies carefully. “Because unless you have another plan, I don’t see how you’re helping.”
That’s a vexing point.
Five sits back, hemmed in accordingly. His realism is warranted, but to veer into negativity would be counterproductive. This, more than anything else, is why Delores hated it when he drank. Without inhibitions, he was decidedly more than surly.
The problem is that he has no plan they will like.
Which means they need a plan that none of them have thought of, none of them have even conceived.
“We have to think outside the box,” Five ventures finally. “We have to think of something that we haven’t talked about before, something I haven’t calculated, something we haven’t trained for.”
That sounds good, and they seem interested. When he doesn’t follow up with more, however, they grow expectant.
“Like?” Ben prompts.
Five sits back and crosses his arms over his chest with a frump. “I don’t know,” he mutters. “I thought this was a team effort.”
This time, it’s Five who has a point.
And this time, they actually listen.
The odds, it seems, can be defied after all.
-o-
So, it’s not the best plan. But, for what it’s worth, it is actually a plan.
Over lunch, they discuss their own personal strengths and weaknesses, and then talk about how that would look in the field. Luther at point, Diego coming in close and hard at second. Allison would talk the other flank, taking out the early opponents with a few well placed words. Klaus, now sober, is still not well trained in hand to hand, but when he can find a sheltered position (off the ground now, thank you very much), he can unleash Ben to do as much damage as possible. Vanya, though getting better, is still a novice. Her powers should keep her back with Klaus until the right moment. Five can use his spatial jumps to lend support as needed, providing sufficient cover for the others to get their jobs done.
That’s the best plan they have.
After lunch, they turn it on its head.
Ideally, they would lead with Vanya every time for the sheer sake of efficiency, but her training is not advanced enough. She’s unpredictable under pressure, and there’s too high of a risk that she’ll not be able to muster enough emotional clarity to massacre the field. This means she still has to stay back until the appropriate moment.
Klaus, on the other hand, will no longer be held in place as a second wave weapon. Instead, they decide to have him stand as the first line of attack, unleashing Ben’s powers before the Commission can make any headway with a counter.
This is, then, where the others come in. Despite Diego’s strong hand to hand skills, they decide to keep him at a distance, laying cover with as many knives and other sharp objects as they can possibly amass and feasibly. Luther will strong arm his way in during the chaos, easily cleaning up whatever mess is left behind while Allison comes in last. When the field has been reduced, she can use one rumor to subdue the rest.
All while Five puts himself out there as bait.
It’s ironic that’s the part of his origin plan that they go with. They know he can lure the Commission in. And they’re trusting themselves to be able to protect him when he does.
Honestly, it might just work.
Or it might not.
Five doesn’t run the odds for once. He doesn’t do the math.
If they want to do this together, then Five will let the chips fall where they may.
-o-
They bring it down to a vote.
Stage the attack, bring it to them.
Or wait, stage the house and hunker down until the Commission brings it to them.
This time, they vote to attack, straight up and down the line.
“We’re ready; we have a plan,” Luther says. “We do this.”
“Hell, yeah,” Diego says. “I’m ready to takes these bastards.”
“I don’t think we gain anything by waiting,” Allison says. “We should do it.”
“You know, I didn’t think I would, but I think I feel pretty good about this,” Klaus says. “I’m a yes, go, attack!”
“If Klaus is in, then I have to be in,” Ben says. “I think it can work.”
“Of course it can,” Vanya says, and she’s the one smiling. “Because we’ll be doing it together.”
Then, with their votes cast, all eyes land on Five.
What is he supposed to say?
What is he supposed to do?
The way Five figures it, all his best moments have been unscripted. Of course, all his worst ones have been, too. But this isn’t his plan. This isn’t his fate. If all they’ve got is together, then at least that’s better than nothing.
“I’m in,” Five says. “And I think I know how we can lure them in if you guys are ready to do this thing.”
-o-
Five starts with the cat.
With Ben’s help, he captures the cat, and Diego helps him disable it. Allison and Vanya take the cat to the warehouse, where Luther and Klaus wait outside to strike. When an agent shows up to see what’s wrong with the cat, Klaus distracts her while Luther restrains her. Diego plays back up while Allison rumors the woman into contacting and summoning the rest of her crew.
Five oversees the operation with some satisfaction. They are good together, his family.
The question still remains: are they good enough?
It’s time to find out.
-o-
Time, indeed.
Five’s waited for decades. It feels like a lifetime. He wonders if it would have been like this if he’d never skipped ahead to the end. He wonders if they would have stopped it all if he’d stayed. He wonders if time is his ally in the end, or if it’s just another enemy among many.
Five’s gone from having too much time to never enough.
30 years in the apocalypse. 15 more doing the Commission’s bidding.
None of it, not a second, is worth as much as the last few months with his family.
Time is fickle.
Time changes everything.
Mostly, Five knows as they take position in the warehouse, time’s up.
-o-
Five stands alone at the center the warehouse. He’d been here, mere days before, but he lacks the confidence this time around. He’s struck by how alone he feels, despite the fact that he knows his family is in the wings, waiting. It feels oddly like the first time he was 13 and plunged himself into a future where all that was left was their corpses.
That’s ridiculous, he tells himself. This is not the time to indulge in morose vanity.
If this is the end, then he owes it to his family to meet it like a man.
Looking down at his still scrawny teenage body, Five hopes the figurative implication still stands.
He sees Klaus out of the corner of his eye, levitating with Ben in a shaded corner. Five waves him off, deeper into the shadows, and he hears Vanya sneeze.
“Sorry,” she says before Luther shushes her.
It’s not the most encouraging series of events prior to the battle.
At least Five can be sure he’s not alone. That counts for something.
Not enough probably.
But something.
-o-
Then, the door opens.
And the whole warehouse goes silent, like candle snuffed out by the wind.
There’s a split second hesitation, then the first agent steps into the light. The second is on his heels, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. Finally, a seventh and an eighth.
More than Five had calculated. That’s not good, but he does take it as a compliment. The Commission knows to take them seriously. They’re doing something right, then, to scare the Commission as much as they have.
“Is this all of you?” Five asks. “Because I know your agent told you to bring them all.”
“She insisted,” said the first agent, and it’s the checker at the grocery store, the son of a bitch. He’s still wearing his store name tag and he’s carrying a briefcase. “We figured it had to be a trap.”
The agent looked around, peering into the shadows for any sign of life. To his siblings’ credit, they betray nothing.
The agent looks back at Five, a grin spreading over his face as he puts the briefcase down as easy as you like. “We came anyway.”
Five goes for bravado. It comes naturally to him. It has to when you’re ranked five of seven. “You came because you were ready to get your asses kicked?”
“You have one more chance to do this the easy way,” the agent offers. Another agent behind him puts down another briefcase. The rest are empty handed, but that does mean they are unarmed.
Five purses his lips, sets his jaw. “My family doesn’t do things the easy way,” he says, balling up his fist as the adrenaline starts to hum. “We do them together.”
Five blinks out of the circle as the gunfire starts and all hell breaks loose.
-o-
Not all hell, Five reminds himself while he circles around the back of the agents and Klaus emerges. This is the plan, this is the plan, this is the plan.
Ben’s manifested form is brighter and stronger than ever as he unleashes. Within seconds, the gunfire has shifted directions. Two seconds later, two agents are in the air. Without wasting bullets on Ben, the other six agents turn their gunfire toward Klaus, who bobs up and down with concentration. One agent goes down a knife to the chest as Luther comes lumbering out and tackles another. A bullet splinters the wall close to Klaus and he yelps, spiraling toward the ground while Ben’s form dissipates momentarily and the two mangled agents fall to the ground.
Five blinks himself back into the action, and Luther circles round into a defensive position around Klaus. This limits his effectiveness, and Diego lands another knife that deflects off a helmet. These bastards are well fortified.
Three down, and Luther takes out a fourth as Klaus gets back into the air. This is working, Five allows himself to think.
But the gunfire shifts again. There’s a high pitched keening nose, and it reaches a pitch as Five tries to figure out what’s happening. He’s put the clues together a split second too late. He opens his mouth to yell a warning, but Vanya’s scream cuts him off. He hears Allison cry out her name and the whole thing has turned sideways.
It’s falling apart faster than they can compensate. Luther has rallied Klaus, who allows Ben to solidify once more. Diego takes an agent down to his knees but the remaining four have concentrated their fire power on Klaus.
Five’s heart skips a beat; his reaction is emotional, not rational. The plan is to protect each other, so Five pops behind one of the agents and throws him off. He manages to get the man’s gun when he feels another gun pressed to the back of his head.
He blinks, just barely missing the bullet as it discharges from the gun. His ears are ringing badly, and he makes a move to distract them from Klaus. Ben is unleashing once more, but none of Diego’s knives find purchase. They land with a thud on one of the briefcases on the floor. A magnet.
It’s also the source of the noise. Five tries to blink in that direction, to close the case, but there’s no time.
His heart skips a beat. For a moment, he feels 58 again. He can’t do what needs to be done. He can’t save them all.
Luther prowls like an animal, but he’s on defense, not offense. The problem is that he’s guarding the wrong thing. See, no one is actually firing at Klaus anymore.
No, the the moments since the briefcase has opened, they’ve changed their tactics entirely. Now, they’re playing a game of tag with Five.
The others are as safe as they have been all night, but Five knows it can’t last. In his ringing ears, he can still hear the Handler telling him he has a limit. He can see Hazel and Cha Cha bearing down on him with guns in the department store.
Someone is going to die.
Someone could already be dead.
Five flashes, but an agents predicts his jump and is waiting for him. With a grunt, he jumps again, sloppier still. He’s panting, he’s breathless.
Ben manages to pick up another agent, but the remaining three circle in. Five’s heart is pounding now, deafening him, and he feels his throat seizing. He’s trained his skills over the years, and he’s never had a problem in the field. When he’s assigned a case, he’s emotionally detached, and he’s always under control when his logic is in order.
A cold sweat breaks out over his forehead as he manages another jump. On the other side, he’s greeted with gunfire.
When it’s not? When he’s working by emotion?
His performance suffers.
Somewhere Diego yells. Allison is crying. Luther yells and Klaus pleads. He can’t hear Vanya at all. He goes over the calculations in his head and the numbers are still the same, spelling out disaster.
The emotional weight wears him down faster, saps him of his strength. He curls his fists, trying to jump again, but he can feel his concentration splinter. He jumps with a concerted effort but a second too late and a bullet rips into his leg.
The pain cuts across time and space. It grounds him, anchors him, ties him down. In the void, his mind screams and he wishes he could stay there forever. If not for his family, he might.
The weight of the bullets drags him back with a horrid suddenness. He can feel it, cutting jaggedly through the flesh of his leg, and he crashes out of his jump too soon.
It’s a flesh wound, it won’t kill him, but it doesn’t have to. His blood hits the floor before he rematerializes all the way. In his haste, Five hasn’t gone far enough in this last jump, and another agent is down, but the last two close in on Five as his leg gives out and he crashes to the warehouse floor.
Shit, he thinks as the first agent -- still standing, still smirking -- drags Five to his feet. Five stumbles but can’t resist, and he half falls as the store clerk forces him backward. When they stop, Five sags, but the clerk doesn’t let him fall, wrapping his arm securely around Five’s chest. He’s so close that Five smell his hot breath on his cheek, rancid enough to turn his stomach.
The other agent, the woman Allison rumored -- is holding a gun. Her expression is cold as she crosses the floor toward them, but a Five sees a glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes as she closes the gap. When she’s close enough, she raises the gun farther, pressing it forward until it is firmly against Five’s forehead. They’re in the center of the light, and there’s a long, taut moment of silence.
No more than a second has passed, five knows the value of a second. He knows how it can make or break you. He knows how a blink of the eye can destroy you.
It’s a lesson he learned at age 13 and he’s not forgotten it.
It looks like he’s going to relearn it anyway, if this is happening the way Five thinks it is.
The agents, of course, do not need to wonder. By the look on their faces, they know what’s happening; this is their plan, every last bit of it. Five figures it out too late, but his family is even slower on the uptake. It takes a good few seconds before Klaus sinks to the ground and Ben’s coloring goes so translucent that he nearly fades from existence. There are no more knives, and Luther walks slowly into the ring of light.
“Let him go,” he says, but he’s holding no weapons. He has no leverage. Diego follows behind him, but Allison and Vanya are nowhere to be found. Klaus looks horrified, and Ben is hardly there at all. “Please.”
Asking isn’t going to do any good, but there is a reason he’s not dead yet. It’s the same reason why the Commission sent agents willingly into an ambush. It’s the same reason why they look unconcerned after losing six agents. Because the Commission had planned this, a targeted attack to create leverage.
It’s a telling mismatch with devastating consequences. See, the Umbrella Academy had planned to play equal roles, as if they were all equal marks. This spread out their defenses, leaving them all equally protected.
And equally vulnerable.
The vulnerability had not been foreseen, not when they expected to be treated as a group.
It’s clear now. The Commision doesn’t want a group.
No, the Commission comes for a different reason. Five’s offer, the one he made to the Handler, is still on the table.
It’s just the terms that have changed.
To his detriment.
To prove his conclusion, ten more figures emerge from the shadows. One of the dark clad figures is carrying Vanya. Another is prodding Allison to step forward while she glances back murderously. At this, it takes nearly nothing for Diego to lay down his weapons, and Klaus holds his hands up without being prompted at all. Luther is gutted, visibly deflated in his large, muscled for, as the agents herd them together.
“We told her to bring all the agents,” Luther protests, and it sounds feeble, like he’s the one who is still 13 and not Five..
“So we sent new ones,” the first one says, the one that is holding Five against his chest while the dog walker presses the gun so hard against his skin that it threatens to bruise. “And there are more on standby. As many as it takes until each and every one of you is dead.”
“What do you want?” Luther growls, and it would be intimidating were they not so badly defeated right now.
“Nothing from you,” the agent says. “No, nothing from any of you. Just Five.”
“You can’t have him!” Luther says.
“I wasn’t asking for permission,” the agent sneers back. He jostles Five, and Five can’t stop the gasp of pain as his injured leg is jarred. “At least, not from the likes of you.”
“Let them go,” Five finally says, his voice thin and brittle from the pain, from the anger, from the humiliation, from the panic. “I swear to God--”
The agent jerks Five’s head back, easily manhandling him. “You swear what? You think you can blink out of this?”
Five’s breath catches, and his cheeks flush red. He’s trembling -- the emotion, the exertion, all of it -- there’s nothing he can do now. “What do you want?”
“I told your brother: we want you,” the agent says, plain and definitive and wanting.
Five laughs, a hoarse, hollow sound. “Well, I think you got me.”
“We’d prefer you alive, if possible,” he says. “And we’d prefer you to come voluntarily.”
“Leave him alone!” Diego yells.
“Hold on, Five!” Allison calls.
“Shit!” is all Klaus can muster.
“No!” Luther roars.
Their fortitude steels his own. “And if I say no?” he asks, still firmly immobilized.
“Well, that’d be a shame,” the store clerk says. He smiles. “But I think we might change your mind.”
Something hard presses on his injured leg, and a scream is wrenched from his lips as electricity ignites through the hole in is flesh. It sears, vibrating through his synapses with an intensity he can’t quite manage. White hot pain spreads through him. Distantly, he hears his family calling for him, but this time, much to his shame, he cannot oblige them.
The sensation of failure is familiar and overpowering. It chatters through his teeth, rings through his ears, and pulsing in his fingertips. The odds were never in their favor; this was always going to happen, plan or not plan.
And this time, the world is the thing that blinks out on him.
-o-
He comes to with a gasp, and he half chokes before spluttering water. Someone is wrenching his head back, and the checkout clerk sneers above him. “They said you were legendary,” he says, looming over Five from the front now. “I guess we’ll see what that makes me, hm?”
He lets go of Five’s head, but Five manages to keep his chin upright this time. His arms are pulled taut above his head, and Five looks up. A rope has been looped around his wrists, and one end has been slung over the high rafters above. They’ve strung him up so that his tiptoes are just touching the ground, pulling him so long that the crisp white shirt of his Umbrella Academy uniform shows glimpses of his bellybutton.
It’s a little on the nose, Five thinks, but he holds the criticism to himself. He’s still trying to figure out just how bad it is before he starts in with the snarky commentary.
The answer comes to him soon enough.
It’s bad.
For some reason, that just makes him even more of an asshole. “I worked alone,” Five says, struggling to keep his toes beneath him and relieve the pressure on his shoulders and arms. He nods to the fresh contingent of Commission agents that have set up shop in the warehouse. “Let everyone else in this warehouse go, and we’ll see what happens when it’s just you and me.”
It’s brazen, but the clerk will never go for it. Not because he doesn’t think he can pull it off, but because the Commission doesn’t hire free thinkers. At least, they can’t keep them. The clerk chuckles, sliding the taser he used earlier on Five back and forth from the palm of his hand to his fingertips. “Well, you brought backup,” he says. “So you can’t blame me for bringing a few friends to the party, too.”
Five looks around, and he is not surprised to see his family immobilized, just inside the circle of light at the center of the warehouse. They’re bound, arms tight behind their backs, and pressed down on to their knees with a pair of agents at each of their backs. They’re armed, holding guns, and Five knows that if he tries to blink his way out of this, his siblings will be dead before he can do anything.
That is an unacceptable option.
This whole thing is unacceptable.
The agents had to use some kind of reinforced material on Luther, and he has a whole contingent of agents backing up the duo behind him. Diego looks pissed as hell, and he’s the only one still writhing. Allison’s mouth is gagged, and one of the agents keeps a hand on Klaus, as if that will keep him on the ground. Ben is nowhere to be seen.
Vanya is the exception. Still unconscious, she’s splayed on her back. Her hands have be bound and so have her feet, but the agents behind her are not as close.
These choices are both aesthetic and practical. Of course Five’s family needs to be restrained, but there would be far more secure ways to go about it. Undoubtedly, their visual placement is intended to make an impact on Five. It sets the tone, so to speak, for whatever type of negotiation comes next.
Five turns his murderous gaze back to the clerk. The man smirks, and Five knows that he is not considering this a negotiation necessarily. No, this is a coercion.
It’s up to Five to turn it into a negotiation -- his family’s well being depends on his ability to do just that. Five likes to think he’s always up for a challenge, though usually he prefers less personal stakes. His own life has always seemed like fair game. His siblings, however -- well, there’s nothing fair about being in the Umbrella Academy. It will always be the best and worst thing that has happened to any of them.
But to think about that is regret. It’s idle speculation. It’s vanity.
Five can’t indulge in any of that, not if he’s going to salvage this.
“We’re just trying to go about our lives,” Five says, easy as he can, shifting his weight from tiptoe to tiptoe as he does his best to stay immobilized. “No one made you come here.”
“Oh, Five,” the clerk says, and he starts a long arc, pacing in front of Five while keeping in his range of vision. “You started this when you broke your contract. You know what the consequences are for that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, funny how the conditions of your termination are never made explicit until after you accept,” Five quips back.
“Like that would have stopped you,” the clerk says with a little sigh. He’s still pacing, shaking his head. “And if that’s not bad enough, you actually tried to change a set event.”
“No, that’s not true at all,” Five says. He allows himself to smirk. “I didn’t try. I did change a set event despite every best effort from the Commission.”
The clerk’s face darkens, and the contempt in his expression is pronounced. “The point being,” he continues heavily. “You knew we’d never leave you alone the second you broke your contract. You knew it. So don’t blame me for being here. Don’t blame me for what’s happening to them.”
He gestures purposefully at his siblings, and Five’s smirk hardens as the point is made. “Well, then, what are you waiting for?” he asks coldly. “You’ve put in an awful lot of work. Why not just kill us all and be done with it?”
To the lesser trained, it might seem counterproductive to encourage the person holding you hostage to kill you. But Five knows that if this asshole had clearance to pull the trigger, he probably would have by now. The look in his eyes is nothing short of venomous, which means this guy hasn’t got the balls to go off book.
Also, Five’s too old (and too young, as it turns out) to give a shit.
“I told you,” the clerk replies, still stalking back and forth like some kind of restrained predator. “We prefer you alive.”
We is a term that is being liberally used. It’s his way to remind himself that following orders is necessary. It’s a sign that he lacks imagination, and Five finds that nearly pitiable. “We’ll be nothing but trouble if we’re alive.”
On the ground, Luther looks increasingly offended by the moment, as if he can’t conceive why Five is being so reckless as to suggest any harm come to any member of the Academy. When it comes to lack of imagination, Luther and the clerk have a little in common, though Luther is moral to a fault whereas the clerk is a time traveling asshole.
A time traveling asshole who believes the company line. That distinction matters.
Still, this whole approach, it’s called strategy. Five’s the only person in this warehouse making up his own.
“Not if we make a deal,” the clerk says, finally getting to the company line. This is the script he’s been brief on. Predictable and pointless, at least they’re finally making progress.
“Well, I don’t do well with contracts,” Five says. It takes some effort to speak with inflection and keep his body from swaying. When he goes off balance, he can feel the strain in his thin shoulders, and he hates behind reminded of how pathetic he is at age 13. All he can do is speak with the confidence of the 58 year old man he is. “You said it yourself.”
In his long arc, the clerk hesitates. He looks at the other members of the Umbrella Academy, trying to look casual but it’s too perfunctory. “It’s all about the terms and conditions,” the clerk says, and he smiles back at Five. “You just need the right motivation.”
This is playing out like a paint by number drawing. It’s reductive and ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean that the picture isn’t going to look the way it’s supposed to.
“Yeah?” he taunts, because this is no time for weakness. If all Five has is the appearance of control, then he’s got to stick with it. Without it, he’s got nothing. “What did you have in mind?”
The clerk smiles as the tension burns like fire in Five’s shoulders and his feet struggle to stay on steady ground. “I thought you’d never ask.”
-o-
The clerk, who is clearly not a grocery store employee, is not as good at being a time traveling assassin as Five. He’s not as smart, he’s not as clever. He’s got nothing in the way of nuance, and he’s lack insight into the intricacies of time and space. This is a guy with zero management potential. He doesn’t understand the big picture; he doesn’t even care.
Unfortunately, Five concludes rather quickly, this man was not hired by the Commission to be a time traveling assassin.
No, his skill set was otherwise developed and alternatively employed.
Five’s better, all things considered.
You can be better and still lose, however.
That’s a fact about the universe Five hates more than anything else.
It’s also a fact he knows better than anything else, a fact that was made abundantly clear to him when he jumped into the future and got stuck in the first place.
Every time he thinks he’s learned the lesson, here he is again.
And again and again and again.
-o-
The clerk starts with Luther.
Five is debating whether this is an intentional choice, as if to show that even the biggest among them can be taken down, or if it’s simply a matter of practicality and this guy likes starting at the beginning. Such linear thinking seems like a detriment to a job that involves time travel, but when he start in on Luther, Five decides it’s probably not a relevant train of thought at the moment.
Starting with the taser, the clerk finds it only minimally effective. Still bound, Luther barely flinches with the first few volts, and when the clerk jacks it all the way up to the maximum, Luther just looks pissed off. After that, the clerk tries the knife, which at least draws more blood. Although Luther’s hands and feet are not as sensitive as the average human, the clerk does elicit a response when he starts to gouge deep tracks into the vulnerable skin on Luther’s hairy belly.
When Luther finally does cry, Five is in more pain than he is, having lost his footing countless times while he tries to wrench his shoulders free of their sockets.
Before the clerk can take the knife up to Luther’s still-human face, Five swears out loud. “You have to make the offer, you moron!” he says breathless. He’s swaying on the rope as he grimaces. “You have to make your offer or all of this is pointless!”
The clerk looks up, a little curious. He glances back at Luther and with muted disappointment he gets to his feet. This time, he crosses closer to Five, close enough that Five can still see Luther’s blood on the blade of the knife. It glints red in the light and Five feels his loathing rise up so powerfully that he nearly chokes.
“You know what the Commission wants,” the clerks says.
“Yes, but the terms,” Five spits. “What are your terms?”
Regarding him for a moment, the clerk’s lips widen into a sadistic smile. “I don’t think you’re ready yet,” he says, and he turns his back to Five and nods his head. Two of the other operatives sweep down, hauling Luther back to the edge of the circle of light.
Another operative grabs Diego by the back of his uniform and drags him forward. Five growls, kicking out his feet vainly.
The clerk throws the knife aside and it clatters by Five’s feet. When he speaks, he’s practically purring with anticipation. “Not yet.”
-o-
Luther is the strong and silent type.
Diego not so much.
Oh, he’s’ strong all right. And he won’t give this bastard the pleasure of seeing his pain. But that doesn’t mean he’s silent. He’s vitriolic, and for every blow that lands, he volleys back with as many threats, insults and expletives he can find.
There’s a period of time in which Five appreciates the effort. But when the clerk finally puts down the cigarette lighter and exchanges it for bleach, Five feels his own heart start to pound.
“You think that’s going to do it? Really?” Diego seethes. “You’re a coward, asshole! A coward!”
He’s still yelling when the first of the bleach is poured on the raw burns on his arm. Diego’s words start to lose their meaning when more bleach is applied to the open wounds on his chest and abdomen, and it’s Five whose voice finally cuts over the incoherent screams ripped from his brother’s throat.
“If you can’t kill, then you can’t permanently impair either,” Five yells. “You do that, none of your terms, none of your conditions will matter.”
Bleach still in hand, the clerk steps back. At his feet, Diego is still writhing, but his words have been reduced to breathless whimpers.
Five forces his toes to find purchase, and he locks his fingers tight around the rope, barely able to contain the frustration he feels. He’s forcing heavy, angry breaths through his nose as the clerk steps away and saunters toward him. “You don’t get to set the terms,” he says. “You’re in no position--”
Five shakes his head, jaw set. “This is about putting me in the right frame of mind,” he says. “Which means you need to play your part with a bit more finesse. If you cross the line into permanent injury or even serious injury, then there’s no way I will agree to anything.”
“It’s either that or kill them,” the clerk says with a shrug.
But Five shakes his head again, even more insistent. “That’s not the order you’ve been given,” he says. “This, all this, it’s for show. It’s a ploy to show me what you’re capable of. But you need them alive. You need me to feel like I can still save them. And if you hurt them seriously, that’s a line you can’t uncrossed. My position will change from receptive to closed off, just like that.”
The clerk scoffs, and he seems disappointed. He sighs as he puts down the bleach. He turns and rolls his eyes, making a hand gesture for the operative to take Diego back to his place.
“They said you were worth this, all of it,” the clerk says, circling back toward Five. He looks him up and down, less impressed than before. “I have to admit, I’m skeptical.”
Five smirks back. “But you’re still going to follow orders,” he assumes vindictively. “Aren’t you?”
The clerk’s face darkens and he turns back once more. “Bring Number Three!”
Allison yelps as she is pulled forward.
Winning can look like losing.
And losing can look like winning.
Five finds, to his dismay, that the distinction doesn’t matter.
-o-
Five is not sentimental. Five loves his siblings equally. He likes them to varying degrees, but he finds genuinely value in camaraderie with each of them. Seeing Luther and Diego tortured in turn had been equally frustrating.
It’s worse when the stupid store clerk starts in on Allison.
Five likes to think that’s not because he’s sexist -- he knows Allison is legitimately a badass and that she can, unequivocally, take care of herself. It’s not like he believes in some archaic model about protecting the women and children. Yet, when the clerk settles for an old fashioned beating, it’s almost more than Five can bear.
He bites his tongue while it kicks Allison’s midsection. He is practically pulling himself up the rope when he hears one of her ribs break and she’s flipped onto her back, gasping and heaving. He’s all but flailing when the operative breaks out the brass knuckles. The punch to Allison’s gut lands with a dull, meaty thud and Allison screams into her gag. Another operative picks her up by her hair, and the clerk rounds, this time aiming for the face.
“Stop!” Five screams before he can stop himself. It’s a strange noise, young and scratchy. It sounds desperate, is what it sounds like. It sounds like he’s 13. “Just stop!”
The clerk looks, arm still reared back, and he cocks his eyebrows. “Really? She’s the one that made you break? You’ve still got a couple siblings left.”
“It’s redundant,” Five says, and he’s feet are swinging so he tries to get his balance again. “Unnecessary.”
The clerk makes a face, letting his arm drop. “That’s debatable.”
Five is fuming now; it’s worse that the idiot clerk actually looks like it’s a debate he wants to have. “Just make your damn offer,” he says. “Because you’re losing my interest.”
“Oh, man, see, I don’t think so,” the clerk says. And he saunters a little bit in Five’s direction. “You’re just starting to look interested.”
“What your doing is dangerous,” Five warns.
The clerk looks utterly pleased with himself. “Says the little kid I have tied up.”
Five has found his footing, and he’s steadied himself for this. “Don’t underestimate us.”
The clerk is closer now, close enough to reach out a hand and tap Five on the cheek. “It’s an impulse I’ll try to check,” he says mockingly. He pats Five’s cheek again. “If you work on keeping your expectations for you and your own family in check. You’re supposed to be a realist, Five.”
Five lifts his chin. He can’t puff out his chest without losing his footing again, but he doesn’t need to. Condescension comes naturally to him. “The night isn’t over, jackass.”
The clerks steps back. “No,” he agrees brightly as Allison is hauled away and Klaus is dragged forward. “No, it’s really not.”
-o-
For as expressive and verbose as Klaus is under most circumstances, one might expect him to be equally over the top during torture. Klaus, however, has always been full of surprises.
When the store clerk takes to waterboarding, Klaus sputters and gags as necessary. He’s breathless and panting, but there’s no commentary. He does cry or plead. He takes it with a certain fortitude, the kind that can only come from having been through far, far worse.
Five knows what Hazel and Cha-Cha did to Klaus, but somehow that seems a bit too easy of a connection. Five suspects the years of seeing the dead takes an unpredictable toll on someone, and Klaus has had a different edge to him since traveling through time. When you outlive the people that matter, it changes you in a way no other tragedy can.
If Five ever doubted whether or not Klaus loved his time-travel lover, then he has no ability to doubt it now. In fact, it’s not Klaus who breaks, and it’s not until Five can see a shadow of Ben, screaming at Five to do something, to stop this, that he ultimately obliges.
“Oh, give it up,” Five says. His shoulders are starting to ache in that irreparable way now, and there’s not a comfortable position left to him. The strain of it is starting to steal his breath, and it takes more energy than it should to sound confident. “He’s not going to give you the reaction you want.”
Wet cloth in hand, the clerk looks somehow disappointed. “Is that a cue to try harder?”
Klaus, though stoic, locks his eyes on Five. He’s breathing rapidly through his nose, his entire body trembling.
Five pretends he doesn’t notice, even when he has to curl his toes to keep himself from saying something stupider than ever. “Harder would drown him, and you and I both know that’s not going to work,” he says. “Maybe you should consider giving it up. I think you’re losing your touch.”
It’s a petty remark, but it’s telling that it lands as an appropriate barb. The clerk throws the wet cloth to the ground and it lands with a squick. “I know you care that I’m hurting them.”
“What? Because you read it in my file?” Five assumes.
The look on the agents face tells Five that he’s right. He walks closer to Five again, a bit less humor in his expression now. This is still work for him, and it’s starting to show. “The file on you isn’t finished yet,” he says, a bit scornfully now. “It won’t be, not until I’m done with you.”
Five musters up a look of boredom. It’s a reflex, honestly. Maybe not the best one, but it’s satisfying. “Do they put you through cliche training now?” he asks. “Is that a new requirement for Commission recruits?”
Now the clerk looks downright annoyed. He’s nowhere near the consummate professional that Five was during his storied career, and he finds the lack of standards disappointing though unsurprising. “You’re starting to piss me off,” he says flatly.
“Starting?” Five quips like the asshole he is. “Funny, because I never would have guessed you as one with restraint.”
It’s not the most annoying or abrasive thing he’s said all night, but it is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The clerk lashes out, catching him with a backhand across the face that rattles his teeth and makes him see stars. He can taste blood in his mouth, and it’s several long seconds before he’s able to see again. Even then, he can’t get his feet beneath him, and his arms are going to start going numb soon from the nonstop pressure.
“I could kill you now,” the clerk seethes, and the look in his eyes tells just how much he wants to. “I could snap your pathetic little body in half, and I’d be a hero. The people you’ve killed? I’d be the hero.”
Five doesn’t bother to get his feet this time. His head is still spinning, lazy sort of circles like he’s just a little tipsy on Delores’ favorite wine. “But you’re not the hero,” Five taunts. “You’re just a company man, through and through. Following orders until you’re expendable.”
With a snarl, the clerk takes Five’s jaw in his hands, leaning close enough that spittle flicks on to Five’s face. “And you think you’re not?”
It’s disgusting, absolutely disgusting, but Five merely smiles. “I walked away, didn’t I? But your orders aren’t to kill me. So what does that say about me? What does it say about you?”
This time, the clerk lets go and kicks out, catching him in the stomach. The force of it forces the air from his lungs, and he goes swinging like a corpse on the gallows. His body is still arcing through the air when the clerk kicks him again. This kick jars his knee, and another kick threatens to break a rib.
It hurts like hell, that’s the bad news.
The good news is that the clerk hasn’t touch Klaus or the rest of his siblings in three minutes.
The cost benefit analysis works out for once.
-o-
Good things never last, however.
That’s the moral of the story; one of them anyway.
Five’s run out of plans to fix this.
Except one.
Just one.
-o-
He thinks it’s to his credit that his own beating doesn’t break him. There’s no way it would, not when he can still hear the screams of his siblings rattling around in his head. He endures the beating with a tenacity that no 13 year old should ever know, a tenacity that hardened him quickly enough when he got trapped at the end of the world.
Physical pain, you see, doesn’t much bother Five. He never minded how the air burned in his lungs or how his stomach cramped in hunger. He didn’t mind the miles he had to walk on foot, the injuries he never had the ability to treat: the physical pain was nothing.
That’s probably not much of a revelation, and the clerk figures it out about five minutes before he stops. At that point, the blows are not for Five’s account, but just to make the clerk feel better about how shitty this mission is. Five has some marginal sympathy for that; the Commission talks big, but the employees are never given their promised rewards.
When the clerk finally calms himself down, he leaves Five swinging limply from the rope. Mentally, Five has broken, but his physical body isn’t doing so hot. He doesn’t bother to try to get his feet, and the dull ache in his shoulder is no longer distinguishable from any of the other agonies he’s now experience.
Wiping his hands on his pants, the clerk turns his back. Five’s siblings are back in their positions now, watching with pained expression, like they’ve felt every blow for themselves. Five is sorry for this, but there’s nothing to be done for it. Five’s wondering what’s to be done for anything when the clerk nods toward Vanya.
“Bring me that one,” he says, and the exhaustion in his voice is not a good sign.
Two agents bend down to scoop Vanya up; she’s still out cold, and Five feels panic grip in his chest with an unexpected intensity.
He’s been on edge this whole time; he’s hated watching his siblings go through this. He hated to watch them bring Luther so low. He hated watching them challenge Diego’s hard-won pride. He hated the way they teased Allison, and it hadn’t been fair watching them establish another reason for Klaus to have nightmares.
But Vanya.
Vanya.
It’s safe to say, in the aftermath of the no-longer apocalypse, they’re a bit protective of Vanya. She’s new to this whole thing, and they treated her like shit her whole life. She’s rebuilding everything, her psyche, her sense of self, her powers -- and if they didn’t feel guilty about being a part of that, then they should. It’s not even that Vanya’s mental state is a precarious factor that keeps the world spinning in one piece; it’s that she’s their sister, their equal, theirs, and it’s hard knowing how close they came to forfeiting that at the expense of everything.
Also, it’s Vanya.
It’s not a coincidence that Vanya is the first person he looked for in the apocalypse. There’s no casual reason that she’s the first one he told the truth to when he finally made his way back to the present. She had always been his confidante, his best friend. When the others had found him insufferable, she had been supportive. When no one else wanted to listen, she was always so glad that someone wanted to talk.
It’s true, Five had been willing to kill her. Five knows he’d lobbied for showing her no remorse. But only because he knew the stakes. He knew what was coming. Nothing -- not even his own sentimental attachments -- could get in the way.
The stakes have changed.
Five’s not sure if he has or not.
“Just stop,” he calls after the clerk. His breathing quickens as Vanya is dragged forward and dropped limply in the middle of the room. “You don’t need to do this!”
“Do what?” the clerk asks with an overstated shrug. “What do you think I’m doing exactly.”
Vanya is still breathing, and Five thinks maybe he sees her twitch. He wets his lips and raises his voice. “If you won’t do it, then I will,” Five says. “I’m ready to make a deal.”
This isn’t the script the clerk has worked with, and he stands there, looking at Five stupidly for a moment.
Five ignores the possible barbs, and lays out his terms instead. “I’ll go back, work for the Commission, give the Handler the rest of my days,” he says. “In exchange, I will need no compensation, no new body, no retirement plan, no benefits. The only thing I need in exchange is the promise that my family will not be harmed. Not now, not ever, not in any timeline, past, present or future. They will be allowed to live, to prosper, to be happy in a world without the apocalypse, no matter what.”
That’s the plan.
That’s always been the plan, the only possible plan.
“Five, no!” Luther bellows.
“What the hell?” Diego crows.
Klaus is shaking his head while Allison cries muffled curses into her gag.
Five doesn’t look at them. There’s no sense in doing that to them, to himself.
Because Five knows he promised them. He knows he did.
But promises are stupid. Promises are words. Promises are things you can never keep because you don’t know the future and you never understand the past. No, promises are unimportant. It’s actions that matter, and of course the ends justify the means. They always have. Five’s already a murderer, so, when you get right down to it, a few lies isn’t the end of the world.
Those are the rationalizations.
The truth is this: Five already knows what it’s like to outlive his siblings.
All the horrible things he’s experienced, that’s the only thing he can’t relive. He won’t.
He swallows hard and stares the clerk down. “You can trust me to live up to my terms as long as my family is in play. As long as they are alive, the Commission has the ability to terminate them at the first infraction,” he continues. “We both get what we want. The Handler gets my skill set, and I get the knowledge that my family is safe forever.”
“Five, you can’t!”
“Don’t be an idiot!
“You promised!”
The clerk hesitates over their protests, but he holds Five’s gaze as he takes a tentative step closer. “You’d really take those terms?”
“I’d have taken them the second this started, you moron,” Five disparages. “You should understand your marks better. It’d save you some time.”
The clerk is thinking now, thinking about his mission parameters and his objective. He’s thinking about how much work this is and how much he wants to put a bullet between Five’s eyes, orders be damned. He doesn’t have the chutzpah, though.
The clerk is nothing but a poor excuse for a company man. Five hates him all the more or it.
“Five, you lying--”
“No, take me, take us!”
“No, not again!”
On the floor, Vanya twitches again.
The clerk steps closer, and Five can barely breathe for it all. It’s almost over, he promises himself. This is how it ends.
This is how it begins.
It was silly to ever let his siblings convince him otherwise.
“So it’s a deal?” the clerk asks, letting the words stand between them, heavy, certain and inscrutable.
Five doesn’t look at Luther. Not Diego or Allison or Klaus. Not even Vanya, stirring on the concrete floor. If he hurries, she won’t have to see this. He won’t have to look her in the eyes and see her heart break.
“It’s the only plan that works,” Five says. “For both of us.”
The clerk nods and starts to smile. “Well damn,” he says. “So this is what it’s like to be a legend?”
Before he can finish, before he can reach for the briefcase for immediate extraction, the sound of his siblings’ voices reaches a fevered pitch. Vanya’s eyes open, and Five can see her body pulsate with an unexpected energy. She’s honed in on their desperation, and she’s channeling it, and Five opens his mouth to yell, but Vanya has absorbed all the sound in the room.
Five never hears the explosion.
But he recognizes the bright, white light as it consumes him whole.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
-o-
Needless to say, Five feels horrible. He’s not the first one up, but not even a hot breakfast and fresh coffee can do anything to change his mood. He tries to take some comfort in the fact that they’re all on the same schedule.
It’s tepid comfort at best.
After breakfast, when they sit down to plan, it’s plainly obvious that they are not of the same mind.
At all.
All this talk about together, and Five can’t see how it means shit if they can’t decide on anything.
“We can’t risk it,” Luther says, reiterating his point again. They’ve been round and round, breakfast long since over as the clock ticks by the seconds, minutes, hours toward lunch. Toward disaster, more like it. “We still don’t know enough to have any tactical advantage.”
“You’ve heard what Five has said,” Diego argues, because for as many times as Luther has made his point, Diego has countered it every single time. “We won’t have a tactical advantage no matter how long we wait. No, our only chance is the element of surprise. If we can throw them off, play this thing out on the fly, then we’ve got something.”
Five has consumed all the coffee at this point, and it’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough.
Luther is pacing back and forth in front of the bar, where he seems to have naturally assumed the point position. “On the fly? That can go either way.”
Diego has leaned himself against the wall, behind the rest of the family, the natural counterpoint. “Which means we have a shot. Your plan leaves us with nothing.”
Allison is crowded onto the couch with Vanya and Klaus while Ben sits on the arm. “If this is our lives at stake, though, we shouldn’t leave it to chance,” Allison says, glancing between Number One and Number Two.
“Though I have to admit, if we are going to die, I’d probably prefer not knowing it’s coming,” Klaus says. He makes a flitting motion with his hand. “Sometimes, and I know you’ll doubt me but hear me out, ignorance is bliss.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Vanya says, being the only voice of reason in the bunch. Ben has taken to being silent. This would be easy to attribute to the fact that he’s a ghost, but Five remembers how little Ben wanted to talk strategy as kids. Vanya, however, has taken to it quite well. “We need to work together. Come up with a plan together.”
They take that for what it is. Luther stops pacing; Diego stops fiddling with his knife. The others exchange glances.
Then, after several moments of contemplative silence, Luther paces again. “We have to do more research.”
“No, we have to move!” Diego says, almost before he finishes.
Five has tolerated the redundancy as a necessary annoyance, but he’s in need of food and caffeine. Also, this is the most tedious discussion he’s ever been in in his whole life and he wishes like hell he had a gun on him right now, if not to kill them, then to kill himself. “Both of your plans are stupid!” he erupts. He’s sitting in the adjacent chair and he throws his hands out. “Your debate is pointless!”
He’s been mostly quiet until this point, providing information only when prompted, mostly delineating minor details about the Commission’s policies and overall strategy. Once or twice, he’s been asked about the odds of something, and he’s provided the probabilities to the best of his abilities. He wouldn’t say he’s exactly being petulant, but he’s given this his best shot already. The point of today is to hear theirs.
He had known it would be woefully insufficient.
But honestly, they’re impressing Five with their complete lack of understanding.
“If this is what you’re hung up on, then our first real mission as the Umbrella Academy is going to be our last,” he says. “You need to start planning with the mindset that someone has to die. Unless you embrace the notion that someone in this group is going to make the sacrifice, then we’re all dead.”
That’s a bit blunter than he intended, but it’s also the truth. Allison takes to studying her hands, and Klaus stares at him like he’s not sure if he’s imagined the outburst. Ben sighs (damn it, how does he do that?), and Vanya looks as if he may have hit her. Diego seems to be poised, caught between chewing Five out and walking away in agreement. It’s Luther who knits his brows together and shakes his head. It’s not quite disapproval; it’s more like disappointment.
“Five,” he says. “You can’t be this negative. It doesn’t help.”
“And this debate does?” Five asks. “You’ve been at this for hours, and you can’t even make the most basic decisions. For all you know, the Commission has gathered outside and is waiting to take us right here and right now.”
“I agree,” Diego says. “That’s why we need to strike.”
“You do that without knowing who is going to make the sacrifice, then you just killed us all,” Five says.
Allison has gathered her composure, and she looks up. “You came back against the odds. You stopped the apocalypse against the odds. Surely, seeing what you’ve done, what we’ve done, you can’t be that negative.”
“It’s not negative,” Five tells her, tells them all. “It’s realistic. It took years of planning and the element of surprise to get here. And last time, the Commission was only trying to stop the apocalypse. This time, we’re not incidental. This time, we’re the cause. There’s someone back at the Commission with a file for the Hargreeves, and its sole purpose is to contain us. Frankly, the fact that I believe that some of us can survive should be called outright optimism.”
“You know, I think you liked you more when I was high,” Klaus says, making a face.
“None of it is helpful,” Luther intercedes, drawing the attention back to himself. “We don’t have time to mess around.”
“But we have time to make plans that will get us all killed?” Five asks caustically. He’s being an asshole, and he’s wholly okay with that.
“Well, what else are we supposed to do?” Diego says.
“Ideally, you should have let me make the deal,” Five says.
“What else are we supposed to do,” Vanya clarifies carefully. “Because unless you have another plan, I don’t see how you’re helping.”
That’s a vexing point.
Five sits back, hemmed in accordingly. His realism is warranted, but to veer into negativity would be counterproductive. This, more than anything else, is why Delores hated it when he drank. Without inhibitions, he was decidedly more than surly.
The problem is that he has no plan they will like.
Which means they need a plan that none of them have thought of, none of them have even conceived.
“We have to think outside the box,” Five ventures finally. “We have to think of something that we haven’t talked about before, something I haven’t calculated, something we haven’t trained for.”
That sounds good, and they seem interested. When he doesn’t follow up with more, however, they grow expectant.
“Like?” Ben prompts.
Five sits back and crosses his arms over his chest with a frump. “I don’t know,” he mutters. “I thought this was a team effort.”
This time, it’s Five who has a point.
And this time, they actually listen.
The odds, it seems, can be defied after all.
-o-
So, it’s not the best plan. But, for what it’s worth, it is actually a plan.
Over lunch, they discuss their own personal strengths and weaknesses, and then talk about how that would look in the field. Luther at point, Diego coming in close and hard at second. Allison would talk the other flank, taking out the early opponents with a few well placed words. Klaus, now sober, is still not well trained in hand to hand, but when he can find a sheltered position (off the ground now, thank you very much), he can unleash Ben to do as much damage as possible. Vanya, though getting better, is still a novice. Her powers should keep her back with Klaus until the right moment. Five can use his spatial jumps to lend support as needed, providing sufficient cover for the others to get their jobs done.
That’s the best plan they have.
After lunch, they turn it on its head.
Ideally, they would lead with Vanya every time for the sheer sake of efficiency, but her training is not advanced enough. She’s unpredictable under pressure, and there’s too high of a risk that she’ll not be able to muster enough emotional clarity to massacre the field. This means she still has to stay back until the appropriate moment.
Klaus, on the other hand, will no longer be held in place as a second wave weapon. Instead, they decide to have him stand as the first line of attack, unleashing Ben’s powers before the Commission can make any headway with a counter.
This is, then, where the others come in. Despite Diego’s strong hand to hand skills, they decide to keep him at a distance, laying cover with as many knives and other sharp objects as they can possibly amass and feasibly. Luther will strong arm his way in during the chaos, easily cleaning up whatever mess is left behind while Allison comes in last. When the field has been reduced, she can use one rumor to subdue the rest.
All while Five puts himself out there as bait.
It’s ironic that’s the part of his origin plan that they go with. They know he can lure the Commission in. And they’re trusting themselves to be able to protect him when he does.
Honestly, it might just work.
Or it might not.
Five doesn’t run the odds for once. He doesn’t do the math.
If they want to do this together, then Five will let the chips fall where they may.
-o-
They bring it down to a vote.
Stage the attack, bring it to them.
Or wait, stage the house and hunker down until the Commission brings it to them.
This time, they vote to attack, straight up and down the line.
“We’re ready; we have a plan,” Luther says. “We do this.”
“Hell, yeah,” Diego says. “I’m ready to takes these bastards.”
“I don’t think we gain anything by waiting,” Allison says. “We should do it.”
“You know, I didn’t think I would, but I think I feel pretty good about this,” Klaus says. “I’m a yes, go, attack!”
“If Klaus is in, then I have to be in,” Ben says. “I think it can work.”
“Of course it can,” Vanya says, and she’s the one smiling. “Because we’ll be doing it together.”
Then, with their votes cast, all eyes land on Five.
What is he supposed to say?
What is he supposed to do?
The way Five figures it, all his best moments have been unscripted. Of course, all his worst ones have been, too. But this isn’t his plan. This isn’t his fate. If all they’ve got is together, then at least that’s better than nothing.
“I’m in,” Five says. “And I think I know how we can lure them in if you guys are ready to do this thing.”
-o-
Five starts with the cat.
With Ben’s help, he captures the cat, and Diego helps him disable it. Allison and Vanya take the cat to the warehouse, where Luther and Klaus wait outside to strike. When an agent shows up to see what’s wrong with the cat, Klaus distracts her while Luther restrains her. Diego plays back up while Allison rumors the woman into contacting and summoning the rest of her crew.
Five oversees the operation with some satisfaction. They are good together, his family.
The question still remains: are they good enough?
It’s time to find out.
-o-
Time, indeed.
Five’s waited for decades. It feels like a lifetime. He wonders if it would have been like this if he’d never skipped ahead to the end. He wonders if they would have stopped it all if he’d stayed. He wonders if time is his ally in the end, or if it’s just another enemy among many.
Five’s gone from having too much time to never enough.
30 years in the apocalypse. 15 more doing the Commission’s bidding.
None of it, not a second, is worth as much as the last few months with his family.
Time is fickle.
Time changes everything.
Mostly, Five knows as they take position in the warehouse, time’s up.
-o-
Five stands alone at the center the warehouse. He’d been here, mere days before, but he lacks the confidence this time around. He’s struck by how alone he feels, despite the fact that he knows his family is in the wings, waiting. It feels oddly like the first time he was 13 and plunged himself into a future where all that was left was their corpses.
That’s ridiculous, he tells himself. This is not the time to indulge in morose vanity.
If this is the end, then he owes it to his family to meet it like a man.
Looking down at his still scrawny teenage body, Five hopes the figurative implication still stands.
He sees Klaus out of the corner of his eye, levitating with Ben in a shaded corner. Five waves him off, deeper into the shadows, and he hears Vanya sneeze.
“Sorry,” she says before Luther shushes her.
It’s not the most encouraging series of events prior to the battle.
At least Five can be sure he’s not alone. That counts for something.
Not enough probably.
But something.
-o-
Then, the door opens.
And the whole warehouse goes silent, like candle snuffed out by the wind.
There’s a split second hesitation, then the first agent steps into the light. The second is on his heels, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth. Finally, a seventh and an eighth.
More than Five had calculated. That’s not good, but he does take it as a compliment. The Commission knows to take them seriously. They’re doing something right, then, to scare the Commission as much as they have.
“Is this all of you?” Five asks. “Because I know your agent told you to bring them all.”
“She insisted,” said the first agent, and it’s the checker at the grocery store, the son of a bitch. He’s still wearing his store name tag and he’s carrying a briefcase. “We figured it had to be a trap.”
The agent looked around, peering into the shadows for any sign of life. To his siblings’ credit, they betray nothing.
The agent looks back at Five, a grin spreading over his face as he puts the briefcase down as easy as you like. “We came anyway.”
Five goes for bravado. It comes naturally to him. It has to when you’re ranked five of seven. “You came because you were ready to get your asses kicked?”
“You have one more chance to do this the easy way,” the agent offers. Another agent behind him puts down another briefcase. The rest are empty handed, but that does mean they are unarmed.
Five purses his lips, sets his jaw. “My family doesn’t do things the easy way,” he says, balling up his fist as the adrenaline starts to hum. “We do them together.”
Five blinks out of the circle as the gunfire starts and all hell breaks loose.
-o-
Not all hell, Five reminds himself while he circles around the back of the agents and Klaus emerges. This is the plan, this is the plan, this is the plan.
Ben’s manifested form is brighter and stronger than ever as he unleashes. Within seconds, the gunfire has shifted directions. Two seconds later, two agents are in the air. Without wasting bullets on Ben, the other six agents turn their gunfire toward Klaus, who bobs up and down with concentration. One agent goes down a knife to the chest as Luther comes lumbering out and tackles another. A bullet splinters the wall close to Klaus and he yelps, spiraling toward the ground while Ben’s form dissipates momentarily and the two mangled agents fall to the ground.
Five blinks himself back into the action, and Luther circles round into a defensive position around Klaus. This limits his effectiveness, and Diego lands another knife that deflects off a helmet. These bastards are well fortified.
Three down, and Luther takes out a fourth as Klaus gets back into the air. This is working, Five allows himself to think.
But the gunfire shifts again. There’s a high pitched keening nose, and it reaches a pitch as Five tries to figure out what’s happening. He’s put the clues together a split second too late. He opens his mouth to yell a warning, but Vanya’s scream cuts him off. He hears Allison cry out her name and the whole thing has turned sideways.
It’s falling apart faster than they can compensate. Luther has rallied Klaus, who allows Ben to solidify once more. Diego takes an agent down to his knees but the remaining four have concentrated their fire power on Klaus.
Five’s heart skips a beat; his reaction is emotional, not rational. The plan is to protect each other, so Five pops behind one of the agents and throws him off. He manages to get the man’s gun when he feels another gun pressed to the back of his head.
He blinks, just barely missing the bullet as it discharges from the gun. His ears are ringing badly, and he makes a move to distract them from Klaus. Ben is unleashing once more, but none of Diego’s knives find purchase. They land with a thud on one of the briefcases on the floor. A magnet.
It’s also the source of the noise. Five tries to blink in that direction, to close the case, but there’s no time.
His heart skips a beat. For a moment, he feels 58 again. He can’t do what needs to be done. He can’t save them all.
Luther prowls like an animal, but he’s on defense, not offense. The problem is that he’s guarding the wrong thing. See, no one is actually firing at Klaus anymore.
No, the the moments since the briefcase has opened, they’ve changed their tactics entirely. Now, they’re playing a game of tag with Five.
The others are as safe as they have been all night, but Five knows it can’t last. In his ringing ears, he can still hear the Handler telling him he has a limit. He can see Hazel and Cha Cha bearing down on him with guns in the department store.
Someone is going to die.
Someone could already be dead.
Five flashes, but an agents predicts his jump and is waiting for him. With a grunt, he jumps again, sloppier still. He’s panting, he’s breathless.
Ben manages to pick up another agent, but the remaining three circle in. Five’s heart is pounding now, deafening him, and he feels his throat seizing. He’s trained his skills over the years, and he’s never had a problem in the field. When he’s assigned a case, he’s emotionally detached, and he’s always under control when his logic is in order.
A cold sweat breaks out over his forehead as he manages another jump. On the other side, he’s greeted with gunfire.
When it’s not? When he’s working by emotion?
His performance suffers.
Somewhere Diego yells. Allison is crying. Luther yells and Klaus pleads. He can’t hear Vanya at all. He goes over the calculations in his head and the numbers are still the same, spelling out disaster.
The emotional weight wears him down faster, saps him of his strength. He curls his fists, trying to jump again, but he can feel his concentration splinter. He jumps with a concerted effort but a second too late and a bullet rips into his leg.
The pain cuts across time and space. It grounds him, anchors him, ties him down. In the void, his mind screams and he wishes he could stay there forever. If not for his family, he might.
The weight of the bullets drags him back with a horrid suddenness. He can feel it, cutting jaggedly through the flesh of his leg, and he crashes out of his jump too soon.
It’s a flesh wound, it won’t kill him, but it doesn’t have to. His blood hits the floor before he rematerializes all the way. In his haste, Five hasn’t gone far enough in this last jump, and another agent is down, but the last two close in on Five as his leg gives out and he crashes to the warehouse floor.
Shit, he thinks as the first agent -- still standing, still smirking -- drags Five to his feet. Five stumbles but can’t resist, and he half falls as the store clerk forces him backward. When they stop, Five sags, but the clerk doesn’t let him fall, wrapping his arm securely around Five’s chest. He’s so close that Five smell his hot breath on his cheek, rancid enough to turn his stomach.
The other agent, the woman Allison rumored -- is holding a gun. Her expression is cold as she crosses the floor toward them, but a Five sees a glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes as she closes the gap. When she’s close enough, she raises the gun farther, pressing it forward until it is firmly against Five’s forehead. They’re in the center of the light, and there’s a long, taut moment of silence.
No more than a second has passed, five knows the value of a second. He knows how it can make or break you. He knows how a blink of the eye can destroy you.
It’s a lesson he learned at age 13 and he’s not forgotten it.
It looks like he’s going to relearn it anyway, if this is happening the way Five thinks it is.
The agents, of course, do not need to wonder. By the look on their faces, they know what’s happening; this is their plan, every last bit of it. Five figures it out too late, but his family is even slower on the uptake. It takes a good few seconds before Klaus sinks to the ground and Ben’s coloring goes so translucent that he nearly fades from existence. There are no more knives, and Luther walks slowly into the ring of light.
“Let him go,” he says, but he’s holding no weapons. He has no leverage. Diego follows behind him, but Allison and Vanya are nowhere to be found. Klaus looks horrified, and Ben is hardly there at all. “Please.”
Asking isn’t going to do any good, but there is a reason he’s not dead yet. It’s the same reason why the Commission sent agents willingly into an ambush. It’s the same reason why they look unconcerned after losing six agents. Because the Commission had planned this, a targeted attack to create leverage.
It’s a telling mismatch with devastating consequences. See, the Umbrella Academy had planned to play equal roles, as if they were all equal marks. This spread out their defenses, leaving them all equally protected.
And equally vulnerable.
The vulnerability had not been foreseen, not when they expected to be treated as a group.
It’s clear now. The Commision doesn’t want a group.
No, the Commission comes for a different reason. Five’s offer, the one he made to the Handler, is still on the table.
It’s just the terms that have changed.
To his detriment.
To prove his conclusion, ten more figures emerge from the shadows. One of the dark clad figures is carrying Vanya. Another is prodding Allison to step forward while she glances back murderously. At this, it takes nearly nothing for Diego to lay down his weapons, and Klaus holds his hands up without being prompted at all. Luther is gutted, visibly deflated in his large, muscled for, as the agents herd them together.
“We told her to bring all the agents,” Luther protests, and it sounds feeble, like he’s the one who is still 13 and not Five..
“So we sent new ones,” the first one says, the one that is holding Five against his chest while the dog walker presses the gun so hard against his skin that it threatens to bruise. “And there are more on standby. As many as it takes until each and every one of you is dead.”
“What do you want?” Luther growls, and it would be intimidating were they not so badly defeated right now.
“Nothing from you,” the agent says. “No, nothing from any of you. Just Five.”
“You can’t have him!” Luther says.
“I wasn’t asking for permission,” the agent sneers back. He jostles Five, and Five can’t stop the gasp of pain as his injured leg is jarred. “At least, not from the likes of you.”
“Let them go,” Five finally says, his voice thin and brittle from the pain, from the anger, from the humiliation, from the panic. “I swear to God--”
The agent jerks Five’s head back, easily manhandling him. “You swear what? You think you can blink out of this?”
Five’s breath catches, and his cheeks flush red. He’s trembling -- the emotion, the exertion, all of it -- there’s nothing he can do now. “What do you want?”
“I told your brother: we want you,” the agent says, plain and definitive and wanting.
Five laughs, a hoarse, hollow sound. “Well, I think you got me.”
“We’d prefer you alive, if possible,” he says. “And we’d prefer you to come voluntarily.”
“Leave him alone!” Diego yells.
“Hold on, Five!” Allison calls.
“Shit!” is all Klaus can muster.
“No!” Luther roars.
Their fortitude steels his own. “And if I say no?” he asks, still firmly immobilized.
“Well, that’d be a shame,” the store clerk says. He smiles. “But I think we might change your mind.”
Something hard presses on his injured leg, and a scream is wrenched from his lips as electricity ignites through the hole in is flesh. It sears, vibrating through his synapses with an intensity he can’t quite manage. White hot pain spreads through him. Distantly, he hears his family calling for him, but this time, much to his shame, he cannot oblige them.
The sensation of failure is familiar and overpowering. It chatters through his teeth, rings through his ears, and pulsing in his fingertips. The odds were never in their favor; this was always going to happen, plan or not plan.
And this time, the world is the thing that blinks out on him.
-o-
He comes to with a gasp, and he half chokes before spluttering water. Someone is wrenching his head back, and the checkout clerk sneers above him. “They said you were legendary,” he says, looming over Five from the front now. “I guess we’ll see what that makes me, hm?”
He lets go of Five’s head, but Five manages to keep his chin upright this time. His arms are pulled taut above his head, and Five looks up. A rope has been looped around his wrists, and one end has been slung over the high rafters above. They’ve strung him up so that his tiptoes are just touching the ground, pulling him so long that the crisp white shirt of his Umbrella Academy uniform shows glimpses of his bellybutton.
It’s a little on the nose, Five thinks, but he holds the criticism to himself. He’s still trying to figure out just how bad it is before he starts in with the snarky commentary.
The answer comes to him soon enough.
It’s bad.
For some reason, that just makes him even more of an asshole. “I worked alone,” Five says, struggling to keep his toes beneath him and relieve the pressure on his shoulders and arms. He nods to the fresh contingent of Commission agents that have set up shop in the warehouse. “Let everyone else in this warehouse go, and we’ll see what happens when it’s just you and me.”
It’s brazen, but the clerk will never go for it. Not because he doesn’t think he can pull it off, but because the Commission doesn’t hire free thinkers. At least, they can’t keep them. The clerk chuckles, sliding the taser he used earlier on Five back and forth from the palm of his hand to his fingertips. “Well, you brought backup,” he says. “So you can’t blame me for bringing a few friends to the party, too.”
Five looks around, and he is not surprised to see his family immobilized, just inside the circle of light at the center of the warehouse. They’re bound, arms tight behind their backs, and pressed down on to their knees with a pair of agents at each of their backs. They’re armed, holding guns, and Five knows that if he tries to blink his way out of this, his siblings will be dead before he can do anything.
That is an unacceptable option.
This whole thing is unacceptable.
The agents had to use some kind of reinforced material on Luther, and he has a whole contingent of agents backing up the duo behind him. Diego looks pissed as hell, and he’s the only one still writhing. Allison’s mouth is gagged, and one of the agents keeps a hand on Klaus, as if that will keep him on the ground. Ben is nowhere to be seen.
Vanya is the exception. Still unconscious, she’s splayed on her back. Her hands have be bound and so have her feet, but the agents behind her are not as close.
These choices are both aesthetic and practical. Of course Five’s family needs to be restrained, but there would be far more secure ways to go about it. Undoubtedly, their visual placement is intended to make an impact on Five. It sets the tone, so to speak, for whatever type of negotiation comes next.
Five turns his murderous gaze back to the clerk. The man smirks, and Five knows that he is not considering this a negotiation necessarily. No, this is a coercion.
It’s up to Five to turn it into a negotiation -- his family’s well being depends on his ability to do just that. Five likes to think he’s always up for a challenge, though usually he prefers less personal stakes. His own life has always seemed like fair game. His siblings, however -- well, there’s nothing fair about being in the Umbrella Academy. It will always be the best and worst thing that has happened to any of them.
But to think about that is regret. It’s idle speculation. It’s vanity.
Five can’t indulge in any of that, not if he’s going to salvage this.
“We’re just trying to go about our lives,” Five says, easy as he can, shifting his weight from tiptoe to tiptoe as he does his best to stay immobilized. “No one made you come here.”
“Oh, Five,” the clerk says, and he starts a long arc, pacing in front of Five while keeping in his range of vision. “You started this when you broke your contract. You know what the consequences are for that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, funny how the conditions of your termination are never made explicit until after you accept,” Five quips back.
“Like that would have stopped you,” the clerk says with a little sigh. He’s still pacing, shaking his head. “And if that’s not bad enough, you actually tried to change a set event.”
“No, that’s not true at all,” Five says. He allows himself to smirk. “I didn’t try. I did change a set event despite every best effort from the Commission.”
The clerk’s face darkens, and the contempt in his expression is pronounced. “The point being,” he continues heavily. “You knew we’d never leave you alone the second you broke your contract. You knew it. So don’t blame me for being here. Don’t blame me for what’s happening to them.”
He gestures purposefully at his siblings, and Five’s smirk hardens as the point is made. “Well, then, what are you waiting for?” he asks coldly. “You’ve put in an awful lot of work. Why not just kill us all and be done with it?”
To the lesser trained, it might seem counterproductive to encourage the person holding you hostage to kill you. But Five knows that if this asshole had clearance to pull the trigger, he probably would have by now. The look in his eyes is nothing short of venomous, which means this guy hasn’t got the balls to go off book.
Also, Five’s too old (and too young, as it turns out) to give a shit.
“I told you,” the clerk replies, still stalking back and forth like some kind of restrained predator. “We prefer you alive.”
We is a term that is being liberally used. It’s his way to remind himself that following orders is necessary. It’s a sign that he lacks imagination, and Five finds that nearly pitiable. “We’ll be nothing but trouble if we’re alive.”
On the ground, Luther looks increasingly offended by the moment, as if he can’t conceive why Five is being so reckless as to suggest any harm come to any member of the Academy. When it comes to lack of imagination, Luther and the clerk have a little in common, though Luther is moral to a fault whereas the clerk is a time traveling asshole.
A time traveling asshole who believes the company line. That distinction matters.
Still, this whole approach, it’s called strategy. Five’s the only person in this warehouse making up his own.
“Not if we make a deal,” the clerk says, finally getting to the company line. This is the script he’s been brief on. Predictable and pointless, at least they’re finally making progress.
“Well, I don’t do well with contracts,” Five says. It takes some effort to speak with inflection and keep his body from swaying. When he goes off balance, he can feel the strain in his thin shoulders, and he hates behind reminded of how pathetic he is at age 13. All he can do is speak with the confidence of the 58 year old man he is. “You said it yourself.”
In his long arc, the clerk hesitates. He looks at the other members of the Umbrella Academy, trying to look casual but it’s too perfunctory. “It’s all about the terms and conditions,” the clerk says, and he smiles back at Five. “You just need the right motivation.”
This is playing out like a paint by number drawing. It’s reductive and ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean that the picture isn’t going to look the way it’s supposed to.
“Yeah?” he taunts, because this is no time for weakness. If all Five has is the appearance of control, then he’s got to stick with it. Without it, he’s got nothing. “What did you have in mind?”
The clerk smiles as the tension burns like fire in Five’s shoulders and his feet struggle to stay on steady ground. “I thought you’d never ask.”
-o-
The clerk, who is clearly not a grocery store employee, is not as good at being a time traveling assassin as Five. He’s not as smart, he’s not as clever. He’s got nothing in the way of nuance, and he’s lack insight into the intricacies of time and space. This is a guy with zero management potential. He doesn’t understand the big picture; he doesn’t even care.
Unfortunately, Five concludes rather quickly, this man was not hired by the Commission to be a time traveling assassin.
No, his skill set was otherwise developed and alternatively employed.
Five’s better, all things considered.
You can be better and still lose, however.
That’s a fact about the universe Five hates more than anything else.
It’s also a fact he knows better than anything else, a fact that was made abundantly clear to him when he jumped into the future and got stuck in the first place.
Every time he thinks he’s learned the lesson, here he is again.
And again and again and again.
-o-
The clerk starts with Luther.
Five is debating whether this is an intentional choice, as if to show that even the biggest among them can be taken down, or if it’s simply a matter of practicality and this guy likes starting at the beginning. Such linear thinking seems like a detriment to a job that involves time travel, but when he start in on Luther, Five decides it’s probably not a relevant train of thought at the moment.
Starting with the taser, the clerk finds it only minimally effective. Still bound, Luther barely flinches with the first few volts, and when the clerk jacks it all the way up to the maximum, Luther just looks pissed off. After that, the clerk tries the knife, which at least draws more blood. Although Luther’s hands and feet are not as sensitive as the average human, the clerk does elicit a response when he starts to gouge deep tracks into the vulnerable skin on Luther’s hairy belly.
When Luther finally does cry, Five is in more pain than he is, having lost his footing countless times while he tries to wrench his shoulders free of their sockets.
Before the clerk can take the knife up to Luther’s still-human face, Five swears out loud. “You have to make the offer, you moron!” he says breathless. He’s swaying on the rope as he grimaces. “You have to make your offer or all of this is pointless!”
The clerk looks up, a little curious. He glances back at Luther and with muted disappointment he gets to his feet. This time, he crosses closer to Five, close enough that Five can still see Luther’s blood on the blade of the knife. It glints red in the light and Five feels his loathing rise up so powerfully that he nearly chokes.
“You know what the Commission wants,” the clerks says.
“Yes, but the terms,” Five spits. “What are your terms?”
Regarding him for a moment, the clerk’s lips widen into a sadistic smile. “I don’t think you’re ready yet,” he says, and he turns his back to Five and nods his head. Two of the other operatives sweep down, hauling Luther back to the edge of the circle of light.
Another operative grabs Diego by the back of his uniform and drags him forward. Five growls, kicking out his feet vainly.
The clerk throws the knife aside and it clatters by Five’s feet. When he speaks, he’s practically purring with anticipation. “Not yet.”
-o-
Luther is the strong and silent type.
Diego not so much.
Oh, he’s’ strong all right. And he won’t give this bastard the pleasure of seeing his pain. But that doesn’t mean he’s silent. He’s vitriolic, and for every blow that lands, he volleys back with as many threats, insults and expletives he can find.
There’s a period of time in which Five appreciates the effort. But when the clerk finally puts down the cigarette lighter and exchanges it for bleach, Five feels his own heart start to pound.
“You think that’s going to do it? Really?” Diego seethes. “You’re a coward, asshole! A coward!”
He’s still yelling when the first of the bleach is poured on the raw burns on his arm. Diego’s words start to lose their meaning when more bleach is applied to the open wounds on his chest and abdomen, and it’s Five whose voice finally cuts over the incoherent screams ripped from his brother’s throat.
“If you can’t kill, then you can’t permanently impair either,” Five yells. “You do that, none of your terms, none of your conditions will matter.”
Bleach still in hand, the clerk steps back. At his feet, Diego is still writhing, but his words have been reduced to breathless whimpers.
Five forces his toes to find purchase, and he locks his fingers tight around the rope, barely able to contain the frustration he feels. He’s forcing heavy, angry breaths through his nose as the clerk steps away and saunters toward him. “You don’t get to set the terms,” he says. “You’re in no position--”
Five shakes his head, jaw set. “This is about putting me in the right frame of mind,” he says. “Which means you need to play your part with a bit more finesse. If you cross the line into permanent injury or even serious injury, then there’s no way I will agree to anything.”
“It’s either that or kill them,” the clerk says with a shrug.
But Five shakes his head again, even more insistent. “That’s not the order you’ve been given,” he says. “This, all this, it’s for show. It’s a ploy to show me what you’re capable of. But you need them alive. You need me to feel like I can still save them. And if you hurt them seriously, that’s a line you can’t uncrossed. My position will change from receptive to closed off, just like that.”
The clerk scoffs, and he seems disappointed. He sighs as he puts down the bleach. He turns and rolls his eyes, making a hand gesture for the operative to take Diego back to his place.
“They said you were worth this, all of it,” the clerk says, circling back toward Five. He looks him up and down, less impressed than before. “I have to admit, I’m skeptical.”
Five smirks back. “But you’re still going to follow orders,” he assumes vindictively. “Aren’t you?”
The clerk’s face darkens and he turns back once more. “Bring Number Three!”
Allison yelps as she is pulled forward.
Winning can look like losing.
And losing can look like winning.
Five finds, to his dismay, that the distinction doesn’t matter.
-o-
Five is not sentimental. Five loves his siblings equally. He likes them to varying degrees, but he finds genuinely value in camaraderie with each of them. Seeing Luther and Diego tortured in turn had been equally frustrating.
It’s worse when the stupid store clerk starts in on Allison.
Five likes to think that’s not because he’s sexist -- he knows Allison is legitimately a badass and that she can, unequivocally, take care of herself. It’s not like he believes in some archaic model about protecting the women and children. Yet, when the clerk settles for an old fashioned beating, it’s almost more than Five can bear.
He bites his tongue while it kicks Allison’s midsection. He is practically pulling himself up the rope when he hears one of her ribs break and she’s flipped onto her back, gasping and heaving. He’s all but flailing when the operative breaks out the brass knuckles. The punch to Allison’s gut lands with a dull, meaty thud and Allison screams into her gag. Another operative picks her up by her hair, and the clerk rounds, this time aiming for the face.
“Stop!” Five screams before he can stop himself. It’s a strange noise, young and scratchy. It sounds desperate, is what it sounds like. It sounds like he’s 13. “Just stop!”
The clerk looks, arm still reared back, and he cocks his eyebrows. “Really? She’s the one that made you break? You’ve still got a couple siblings left.”
“It’s redundant,” Five says, and he’s feet are swinging so he tries to get his balance again. “Unnecessary.”
The clerk makes a face, letting his arm drop. “That’s debatable.”
Five is fuming now; it’s worse that the idiot clerk actually looks like it’s a debate he wants to have. “Just make your damn offer,” he says. “Because you’re losing my interest.”
“Oh, man, see, I don’t think so,” the clerk says. And he saunters a little bit in Five’s direction. “You’re just starting to look interested.”
“What your doing is dangerous,” Five warns.
The clerk looks utterly pleased with himself. “Says the little kid I have tied up.”
Five has found his footing, and he’s steadied himself for this. “Don’t underestimate us.”
The clerk is closer now, close enough to reach out a hand and tap Five on the cheek. “It’s an impulse I’ll try to check,” he says mockingly. He pats Five’s cheek again. “If you work on keeping your expectations for you and your own family in check. You’re supposed to be a realist, Five.”
Five lifts his chin. He can’t puff out his chest without losing his footing again, but he doesn’t need to. Condescension comes naturally to him. “The night isn’t over, jackass.”
The clerks steps back. “No,” he agrees brightly as Allison is hauled away and Klaus is dragged forward. “No, it’s really not.”
-o-
For as expressive and verbose as Klaus is under most circumstances, one might expect him to be equally over the top during torture. Klaus, however, has always been full of surprises.
When the store clerk takes to waterboarding, Klaus sputters and gags as necessary. He’s breathless and panting, but there’s no commentary. He does cry or plead. He takes it with a certain fortitude, the kind that can only come from having been through far, far worse.
Five knows what Hazel and Cha-Cha did to Klaus, but somehow that seems a bit too easy of a connection. Five suspects the years of seeing the dead takes an unpredictable toll on someone, and Klaus has had a different edge to him since traveling through time. When you outlive the people that matter, it changes you in a way no other tragedy can.
If Five ever doubted whether or not Klaus loved his time-travel lover, then he has no ability to doubt it now. In fact, it’s not Klaus who breaks, and it’s not until Five can see a shadow of Ben, screaming at Five to do something, to stop this, that he ultimately obliges.
“Oh, give it up,” Five says. His shoulders are starting to ache in that irreparable way now, and there’s not a comfortable position left to him. The strain of it is starting to steal his breath, and it takes more energy than it should to sound confident. “He’s not going to give you the reaction you want.”
Wet cloth in hand, the clerk looks somehow disappointed. “Is that a cue to try harder?”
Klaus, though stoic, locks his eyes on Five. He’s breathing rapidly through his nose, his entire body trembling.
Five pretends he doesn’t notice, even when he has to curl his toes to keep himself from saying something stupider than ever. “Harder would drown him, and you and I both know that’s not going to work,” he says. “Maybe you should consider giving it up. I think you’re losing your touch.”
It’s a petty remark, but it’s telling that it lands as an appropriate barb. The clerk throws the wet cloth to the ground and it lands with a squick. “I know you care that I’m hurting them.”
“What? Because you read it in my file?” Five assumes.
The look on the agents face tells Five that he’s right. He walks closer to Five again, a bit less humor in his expression now. This is still work for him, and it’s starting to show. “The file on you isn’t finished yet,” he says, a bit scornfully now. “It won’t be, not until I’m done with you.”
Five musters up a look of boredom. It’s a reflex, honestly. Maybe not the best one, but it’s satisfying. “Do they put you through cliche training now?” he asks. “Is that a new requirement for Commission recruits?”
Now the clerk looks downright annoyed. He’s nowhere near the consummate professional that Five was during his storied career, and he finds the lack of standards disappointing though unsurprising. “You’re starting to piss me off,” he says flatly.
“Starting?” Five quips like the asshole he is. “Funny, because I never would have guessed you as one with restraint.”
It’s not the most annoying or abrasive thing he’s said all night, but it is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The clerk lashes out, catching him with a backhand across the face that rattles his teeth and makes him see stars. He can taste blood in his mouth, and it’s several long seconds before he’s able to see again. Even then, he can’t get his feet beneath him, and his arms are going to start going numb soon from the nonstop pressure.
“I could kill you now,” the clerk seethes, and the look in his eyes tells just how much he wants to. “I could snap your pathetic little body in half, and I’d be a hero. The people you’ve killed? I’d be the hero.”
Five doesn’t bother to get his feet this time. His head is still spinning, lazy sort of circles like he’s just a little tipsy on Delores’ favorite wine. “But you’re not the hero,” Five taunts. “You’re just a company man, through and through. Following orders until you’re expendable.”
With a snarl, the clerk takes Five’s jaw in his hands, leaning close enough that spittle flicks on to Five’s face. “And you think you’re not?”
It’s disgusting, absolutely disgusting, but Five merely smiles. “I walked away, didn’t I? But your orders aren’t to kill me. So what does that say about me? What does it say about you?”
This time, the clerk lets go and kicks out, catching him in the stomach. The force of it forces the air from his lungs, and he goes swinging like a corpse on the gallows. His body is still arcing through the air when the clerk kicks him again. This kick jars his knee, and another kick threatens to break a rib.
It hurts like hell, that’s the bad news.
The good news is that the clerk hasn’t touch Klaus or the rest of his siblings in three minutes.
The cost benefit analysis works out for once.
-o-
Good things never last, however.
That’s the moral of the story; one of them anyway.
Five’s run out of plans to fix this.
Except one.
Just one.
-o-
He thinks it’s to his credit that his own beating doesn’t break him. There’s no way it would, not when he can still hear the screams of his siblings rattling around in his head. He endures the beating with a tenacity that no 13 year old should ever know, a tenacity that hardened him quickly enough when he got trapped at the end of the world.
Physical pain, you see, doesn’t much bother Five. He never minded how the air burned in his lungs or how his stomach cramped in hunger. He didn’t mind the miles he had to walk on foot, the injuries he never had the ability to treat: the physical pain was nothing.
That’s probably not much of a revelation, and the clerk figures it out about five minutes before he stops. At that point, the blows are not for Five’s account, but just to make the clerk feel better about how shitty this mission is. Five has some marginal sympathy for that; the Commission talks big, but the employees are never given their promised rewards.
When the clerk finally calms himself down, he leaves Five swinging limply from the rope. Mentally, Five has broken, but his physical body isn’t doing so hot. He doesn’t bother to try to get his feet, and the dull ache in his shoulder is no longer distinguishable from any of the other agonies he’s now experience.
Wiping his hands on his pants, the clerk turns his back. Five’s siblings are back in their positions now, watching with pained expression, like they’ve felt every blow for themselves. Five is sorry for this, but there’s nothing to be done for it. Five’s wondering what’s to be done for anything when the clerk nods toward Vanya.
“Bring me that one,” he says, and the exhaustion in his voice is not a good sign.
Two agents bend down to scoop Vanya up; she’s still out cold, and Five feels panic grip in his chest with an unexpected intensity.
He’s been on edge this whole time; he’s hated watching his siblings go through this. He hated to watch them bring Luther so low. He hated watching them challenge Diego’s hard-won pride. He hated the way they teased Allison, and it hadn’t been fair watching them establish another reason for Klaus to have nightmares.
But Vanya.
Vanya.
It’s safe to say, in the aftermath of the no-longer apocalypse, they’re a bit protective of Vanya. She’s new to this whole thing, and they treated her like shit her whole life. She’s rebuilding everything, her psyche, her sense of self, her powers -- and if they didn’t feel guilty about being a part of that, then they should. It’s not even that Vanya’s mental state is a precarious factor that keeps the world spinning in one piece; it’s that she’s their sister, their equal, theirs, and it’s hard knowing how close they came to forfeiting that at the expense of everything.
Also, it’s Vanya.
It’s not a coincidence that Vanya is the first person he looked for in the apocalypse. There’s no casual reason that she’s the first one he told the truth to when he finally made his way back to the present. She had always been his confidante, his best friend. When the others had found him insufferable, she had been supportive. When no one else wanted to listen, she was always so glad that someone wanted to talk.
It’s true, Five had been willing to kill her. Five knows he’d lobbied for showing her no remorse. But only because he knew the stakes. He knew what was coming. Nothing -- not even his own sentimental attachments -- could get in the way.
The stakes have changed.
Five’s not sure if he has or not.
“Just stop,” he calls after the clerk. His breathing quickens as Vanya is dragged forward and dropped limply in the middle of the room. “You don’t need to do this!”
“Do what?” the clerk asks with an overstated shrug. “What do you think I’m doing exactly.”
Vanya is still breathing, and Five thinks maybe he sees her twitch. He wets his lips and raises his voice. “If you won’t do it, then I will,” Five says. “I’m ready to make a deal.”
This isn’t the script the clerk has worked with, and he stands there, looking at Five stupidly for a moment.
Five ignores the possible barbs, and lays out his terms instead. “I’ll go back, work for the Commission, give the Handler the rest of my days,” he says. “In exchange, I will need no compensation, no new body, no retirement plan, no benefits. The only thing I need in exchange is the promise that my family will not be harmed. Not now, not ever, not in any timeline, past, present or future. They will be allowed to live, to prosper, to be happy in a world without the apocalypse, no matter what.”
That’s the plan.
That’s always been the plan, the only possible plan.
“Five, no!” Luther bellows.
“What the hell?” Diego crows.
Klaus is shaking his head while Allison cries muffled curses into her gag.
Five doesn’t look at them. There’s no sense in doing that to them, to himself.
Because Five knows he promised them. He knows he did.
But promises are stupid. Promises are words. Promises are things you can never keep because you don’t know the future and you never understand the past. No, promises are unimportant. It’s actions that matter, and of course the ends justify the means. They always have. Five’s already a murderer, so, when you get right down to it, a few lies isn’t the end of the world.
Those are the rationalizations.
The truth is this: Five already knows what it’s like to outlive his siblings.
All the horrible things he’s experienced, that’s the only thing he can’t relive. He won’t.
He swallows hard and stares the clerk down. “You can trust me to live up to my terms as long as my family is in play. As long as they are alive, the Commission has the ability to terminate them at the first infraction,” he continues. “We both get what we want. The Handler gets my skill set, and I get the knowledge that my family is safe forever.”
“Five, you can’t!”
“Don’t be an idiot!
“You promised!”
The clerk hesitates over their protests, but he holds Five’s gaze as he takes a tentative step closer. “You’d really take those terms?”
“I’d have taken them the second this started, you moron,” Five disparages. “You should understand your marks better. It’d save you some time.”
The clerk is thinking now, thinking about his mission parameters and his objective. He’s thinking about how much work this is and how much he wants to put a bullet between Five’s eyes, orders be damned. He doesn’t have the chutzpah, though.
The clerk is nothing but a poor excuse for a company man. Five hates him all the more or it.
“Five, you lying--”
“No, take me, take us!”
“No, not again!”
On the floor, Vanya twitches again.
The clerk steps closer, and Five can barely breathe for it all. It’s almost over, he promises himself. This is how it ends.
This is how it begins.
It was silly to ever let his siblings convince him otherwise.
“So it’s a deal?” the clerk asks, letting the words stand between them, heavy, certain and inscrutable.
Five doesn’t look at Luther. Not Diego or Allison or Klaus. Not even Vanya, stirring on the concrete floor. If he hurries, she won’t have to see this. He won’t have to look her in the eyes and see her heart break.
“It’s the only plan that works,” Five says. “For both of us.”
The clerk nods and starts to smile. “Well damn,” he says. “So this is what it’s like to be a legend?”
Before he can finish, before he can reach for the briefcase for immediate extraction, the sound of his siblings’ voices reaches a fevered pitch. Vanya’s eyes open, and Five can see her body pulsate with an unexpected energy. She’s honed in on their desperation, and she’s channeling it, and Five opens his mouth to yell, but Vanya has absorbed all the sound in the room.
Five never hears the explosion.
But he recognizes the bright, white light as it consumes him whole.